Bloody Diamonds

       Alcohol is often praised as a recession-proof industry. In times of economic woes, we spend what little money we have to drown our sorrows. In times of great fortune, we celebrate generously with imbibed cheer. Libation, in all its forms, has permeated civilizations for millennia, interlaced in song, dance and feast....so in a very human way, the product's consistency makes sense. There is, however, another industry displaying the same economic invulnerability, and yet offering none of the same rationale: Diamonds!

       Despite what the Tiffany's receipt might suggest, diamonds have no inherent value. They are far more abundant than we are led to believe, and they cannot be resold at even a fraction of their purchase price. For inexplicable reasons, our modern culture continues to celebrate their supposed rarity and glamour. Many men have fallen on the uphill battlefield of questioning this social norm. How did this mineral gain a monopoly on representing love? At what point did romance become synonymous with a stone dug from the earth? The history of the diamond industry is riddled with brutal corruption, brilliant ad campaigns and the slick corporate maneuverings of one of the world's most deplorable cartels. As more of my dear friends commit to loving marriages, I thought I'd offer an uninvited and thoroughly unappreciated look into the blood-spattered lineage behind this industry's success.

       In the mid 1800s, diamonds were an actual rarity mined solely in India and Brazil. The global supply could be measured in a few pounds and they were donned by Monarchs or Aristocrats as frivolous symbols of stature. In 1870, an unimaginably vast bounty of diamonds was discovered in South Africa. Tons of the gems were being pulled out of the ground, signaling a potential flooding of the market and diminishment of the stone's value.

       Sensing the untapped opportunity before them, several mining companies joined into a conglomerate, establishing a virtual monopoly in South Africa called "the De Beers Mining company". By 1888 De Beers controlled all production and distribution of diamonds coming out of South Africa. They created international syndicates, which many other diamond claim holders and distributors soon joined (quickly realizing the profit potential of faking scarcity and fabricating high prices.) By 1902, De Beers controlled over 90% of the world's rough-diamond production and distribution. When Ernest Oppenheimer took over control of the company in 1927, he established exclusive contracts with buyers and suppliers, essentially making it impossible to deal in diamonds outside of De Beers.

       The formula remained the same for much of the 20th century: an auxiliary of De Beers would buy diamonds from various sources, De Beers would then decide how many diamonds they'd like to sell (and at what price), and finally buyers would cultivate the market hubs in cities like New York, London or Antwerp. All the while, De Beers continued to amass a stockpile measuring in the tons, hidden away in their vaults. It was during the 1930s depression, however, that the company utilized their boldest and most successful tactic.

       Wanting to turn America into their next big market, De Beers met with advertising agencies to form a battle strategy. Their aim? To convince consumers that "Diamonds = Love". To romanticize the stone, the campaign sought to change the public's idea of how a man (successfully) courts a woman. They engaged the fledgling film industry, and covered movie idols (the paragons of mass audience romance) in their product. Magazines and select publications were flooded with stories that reinforced the idea of diamonds representing an indestructible devotion. Conspicuous photographs of celebrity's bejeweled fingers splashed across news pages. Fashion designers promoted the "rising trend" of diamonds on the radio. Even the British Royal Family was convinced to wear diamonds over other jewels, under the assertion that it could greatly aid an industry in which Great Britain had a controlling interest in.

       By 1947, the campaign had forged a psychological necessity across several classes and markets, forming a near overnight "tradition". Those who could not afford a ring, chose to defer the purchase rather than forgo it altogether. It became a common notion, that one's devotion was measured by the size of the engagement ring. The now immortal De Beers tag line: "a diamond is forever" was cemented in the common psyche. Diamond sales continued to skyrocket, as De Beers exported the campaign to a number of new countries, creating multi-billion dollar profits.


       Meanwhile, behind the scenes they utilized any and all tactics to ensure control over the flow of stones in the market. If a new discovery of diamonds threatened De Beers' autonomy (like the large Siberian mine of the 1950s) the company simply bought the entire inventory, continuing to channel the world's supply through a restricted funnel. When countries like Israel or Zaire attempted to protest or challenge the monopoly with diamonds of their own, De Beers would flood the market with similar products from its stockpiled inventory and drive down demand. The only threat to their dominance was the potential discovery of a giant new untapped source, outside of their control. To that end, De Beers used their colonial connections to weave discoveries of diamonds in Africa into the fold of their cartel, also bringing Russia into the conglomerate and turning a blind eye to the warlords and slavers who savaged the lands, brutalized their people and fed the company's ever brimming vaults.



       This is the hidden history of the Diamond invention. They are a fabricated fantasy, born of the greed of one tyrannical syndicate which has dictated the price for decades. Consumers have been fooled into perpetuating the idea that these abundant pieces of carbon are somehow unique symbols of esteem...tokens of wealth and romance. De Beers propogated this illusion of scarcity to become one of the most successful cartels in the history of commerce. Almost any other commodity has fluctuated in response to economic conditions, but diamonds have steadily advanced upwards in price since the 1930s. People continue to wear them, or hoard them in safes as "family heirlooms". The most painful irony is, none of them could be sold for even a tenth of their original purchase price. The diamond market relies on consumers never parting with their rings or necklaces or earrings. That way, only the distributors can dictate value. It is a sad, cyclical delusion which costs lives, corrupts nations and materializes our affections.

**** Postscript****

       I am not without romance or an appreciation for symbolism. So for those looking for a token of their courtship and affection, please consider one of the many alternative stones, which display the same glittering, enduring beauty... but are free of the inherent blood cost or price fixing trickery. Some options for your convenience listed below, happy holidays:

Evolution by Design

       There's a curious contradiction in the 'evolution versus creationist' debate. One side credits our survival to chaotic circumstances, where chance and fate dictated which traits were "naturally" selected. The other side claims intelligent design played the pivotal role in our supremacy. The truth of the matter is, our species has historically enjoyed a bit of both.

       If you take the deity out of the equation, we have a long history of meeting nature's threats with our own uniquely designed solutions. By paving roads, farming crops, wearing clothes and building cities we've continually reshaped the world around us to cater to our evolving needs. Our ingenuity became the main expression of our natural selection. Complexity and scale aside, there's little difference between us and the ants digging tunnels beneath the soil. Survival of the fittest has become survival of the most adaptive, and the evolution of intelligence is measured in how quickly (or preemptively) we participate in those adaptations. It only makes sense, therefore, that we now seek to fix design flaws within our own bodies.

       Being social creatures in a globalized age, however, also means that our modern innovations tend to change our species as a whole. Airplanes allowed us to traverse the globe in a matter of hours, dramatically accelerating human migration. Medicines fight against viruses and bacteria, keeping our last natural predators at bay. The Internet unifies our collective voices around a common campfire, ensuring the greatest possible wealth of knowledge. Humanity is slowly but surely becoming a collective hive. Progress towards this grand scale unity has thus far been wrought with conflict, and none of these innovations came without painstaking labor, research and failures. Crossing the gulf from the beastly to the divine will often require us to play God, as we messily discover as many dangers as we do solutions.

       So what are some of the life altering technologies being cultivated today? And how might they redefine what it is to be human? The Biotechnology industry regularly pioneers designs that seek to improve the human body's complex mechanisms. There are several companies poised to reach revolutionary milestones as they work to make their products commercially viable:

DNA sequencing has seen drastic improvements in speed and costs. We've gone from the multi-billion dollar Human Genome Project in 2003, to companies that can process DNA at $1,000 per genome. We've mapped thousands of people's hereditary information, opening the door to the possibility of highly personalized medicines replacing the common one-pill-suits-all approach.

Tissue Engineering passed a landmark when Scientists at Wake Forest created a 3D printer capable of making artificial cartilage. The "electrospinning" process creates extremely thin plastic polymer fibers which healthy cartilage cells grow around, allowing for a rejuvenation of elasticity and mechanical function in our joints. As soon as human trials are complete, Arthritics around the world will celebrate a return to mobility. Wake Forest is also pursuing organ printing, including kidneys and hearts customized to each patient's DNA. 

Mind-controlled prosthetics developed by DARPA and John Hopkins allow patients who've lost limbs or suffered spinal injuries to regain their dexterity through complex robotic arms. Patients control the limb via microchips implanted in their brain, capable of decoding neural signals into accurate movements. 

Retinal Implants, a German company, have manufactured a sub-Retina implant that successfully restored vision to some blind patients. One more innovation in an ever increasing array of technologies augmenting and improving our bodily functions. 

       As impressive as these specified solutions may be, they stand to be collectively overshadowed by one particularly significant Bio-medical development...a holy grail once considered science fiction fantasy: Gene Therapy. 

       We currently have the ability to go directly into our DNA and swap genes around. We'll soon know which bad genes can be substituted with good ones, preventing or curing several diseases like cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy - and without the use of drugs or surgery. Being able to turn off or remove certain genes will utterly revolutionize the medical profession. 

       A few steps down the road, and we'll be able to use gene manipulation to pursue 'enhancements' such as increased memory or intelligence. It won't be long before we combine the practice with RNA interference, controlling our internal mechanisms and changing every facet of our body. This will be the most significant paradigm shift of all. Imagine creating customized viruses designed to implant improved RNA made up of our own genes into every cell in within our body. We'll be able to transform back into younger versions of ourselves through natural regeneration. A whole new market of purely aesthetic changes will also undoubtedly emerge: requests for increased height, muscle density, cleavage size, eye color, hair length, etc. We will enter the age of blueprints for dream bodies, modifiable and adaptable to our will. The era of designer babies.

       There is another side to the coin of course. There are those who predict the emergence of a technological class system, separating naturalists from those who can afford enhancements. The potential exists for two or more distinct new species to develop among us, separated by a combination of significant genetic advantages. This also only considers the scope of individual consumer level selections, but what about national programs forcibly instituted by governments? Increased fertility to boost populations? Increased violence in soldiers? Docile obedience in citizens? Control of sexuality? It's easy to imagine what some of history's dictators might have done with this power.

        Finally, what about the philosophical component? The derisive dispute between Evolutionists and Creationists is not merely a disagreement over our origins. These conflicting factions will most likely form the groups who are either ready to venture into the technological age, or too resistant to change to adopt it. The component of human character we call 'faith' is a fascination with the unknown, a desire for the mystical quality of the undiscovered. Science is a balanced discipline of control, seeking to understand and shape the world around us. The marriage of these two qualities is at the core of human curiosity, we yearn to understand while always looking to new frontiers. It's worth asking whether the human spirit will burn as brightly when our emotions are regulated through refined drugs and our bodies maintained through complex machinery? Will we one day yearn for the unpredictable frailty of our former chaos?

       The gleaming civilization we stand on today was forcibly imported onto a land once home to natives. They were slaughtered so that a new way of life could be built. The advent of industry offered new comforts, but at what cost? No sooner have we accepted a new paradigm than another arrives to render it obsolete, and we often lose good along with the bad – safety and security at the cost of wisdom; information at the cost of wonder. It is a great accomplishment to master our internal mechanisms, but every time we've pursued a technological advancement it's become a change that is rarely undone. We must ask ourselves, what are we giving away to gain this new advantage? Is this path a way to abandon our true selves? Or become our true selves?


       In this age of accelerating transformation, technology advances almost faster than we can understand it. Ideally we can keep the flame of our ambition burning, while being vigilant in how we shape it. It seems surreal to imagine our future might look like what's been described above, but none of these technologies are theoretical...they're already here. We are the co-creators of our fate, and we can no longer afford to idly wait for the next wave of change to decide what survives. Let us ensure the next great human leap isn't built on a foundation of broken ideals.

The Truce on Drugs: ending decades of failed policy

       Colorado and Washington state recently decriminalized marijuana, once again giving voice to the national divide over our contentious drug enforcement policies. While various groups continue to debate the legal, medical, social and economic factors, one industry has managed to steadily flourish: private prisons.

       The United States currently has the highest incarceration rate of any nation on Earth. We put more of our citizens in jail than any of the religious theocracies, despotic tyrannies or war ravaged military states we decry in our media. No society in history has imprisoned more of its citizens. It seems there is a criminal epidemic in the land of the free…or perhaps we’re not as diligent in safeguarding our liberty as we’d like to believe. 

       By now, most have heard the statistic: “America comprises 5% of the world population, but has 25% of the world’s prisoners.” But why is that the case? Which group of ‘offenders’ is most responsible for this soaring increase? The commonly credited cause tends to be the ongoing “war on drugs”. While other crimes may only have one lawbreaker, the drug trade provides targets for arrest on both the consumer and provider side. Moreover, crimes such as theft, assault and even murder can usually be tied back to the drugs. It’s interesting to note, however, that violent crime rates in America have significantly dropped over the years. Moreover, most people in the American prison system are serving terms for non-violent crimes. Before we can fully understand the nature of our current penal system, we must first take a deviation into the history of our drug enforcement policy.

       The truth is, the priorities and implementation of the war on drugs have shifted with each passing decade, leaving a complex state of conflicting interests in its wake. Nixon first introduced the program as a social welfare campaign, where most of the funds were primarily dedicated to rehabilitation and medical services. During the 1980s competing cartels turned Miami into a war zone, and policy focus was shifted to law enforcement accordingly. The nation was suffering a recession, but the Floridian party-capital was thriving under the influx of cash dealers were bringing in. They had a hand in almost every aspect of the city’s economy, sudden urbanization, land development and skyscraper construction. But this prosperity came at the cost of constant graphic violence that the city was ill equipped to police (leaving a murder count in Miami that was almost higher than the rest of the nation combined.) It was only after Reagan utilized the military to attack the cartels in their South American bases that crime in America returned to normal. But why was the program allowed to continue in this new direction after the threat was dealt with?

       Well for one thing, those agencies which had flourished under increased funding were reluctant to relinquish their newfound power. Just like Homeland Security must justify its bloated budget as it strives to “prevent another 911”, the Drug Enforcement Agency saw a potentially continuous source of profit in globally targeting the trade. Recent Rico laws have allowed local police and federal agents to keep the money they seize from drug busts, incentivizing them with a financial motivation over a moral one. Police officers working on murders or white collar fraud can take months to build a case, while their drug focused colleagues rack in daily busts and gain promotional advantage. This creates a culture of prioritizing drug related targets over any other form of crime. Furthermore, pharmaceutical companies and alcohol lobbies have been very eager to villainize the “drug menace” and keep another competitor out of their market. Leaving the final link in the chain to grow unchecked: the prison industrial complex.

       Many predicted that the war on drugs would fail, most notably Milton Friedman (President Nixon’s former election advisor, free market economist and Nobel Laureate.) Friedman was an avid scholar of the prohibition era of the 20s and 30s, and wrote a letter to Nixon at the onset of the war on drugs. Herein he described a likely pattern of events that would emerge, mimicking the chaos of the failed prohibition policies. 

       Milton explained that during Al Capone’s reign over Chicago, American’s desire to drink was not extinguished by the new laws. Instead, they were forced to find illegitimate sellers and suffer the harms of products created under reduced quality controls. Buyers were motivated to stray away from soft drinks like wine and beer, and explore quicker extremes in hard liquor (which profited the bootleggers as well.) Those criminals providing consumers with alcohol cared little for their safety, well being or budgets. A now unreasonably expensive habit caused increases in crime to pay for it.

       But Friedman saw new dangers in the criminalization of drugs as well. He predicted that an impressionable youth would find the “forbidden fruit” of drugs more seductive. He knew that competing dealers would be incentivized to brand themselves by creating the most potent products on the market. He knew that if drugs were no longer classified under the canopy of a health issue, users would feel like criminals and be far more reluctant to seek help. Friedman explained that the duality of consumption and alienation from the law, would cause citizens to have decreased respect for the other laws of society. The overnight portion of society that were suddenly labeled criminals, would require police forces to move away from other crimes to deal with them. Furthermore, criminals with large profits would more effectively bribe police and judges, reducing the legitimacy of the legal system.

It is a sad state of affairs, that we so wholly embody a forty year old prediction…

       There is no doubt that drugs can harm the individual, families and even communities. But it is important to distinguish the harm caused by the substance, and the harm caused by the prohibition. The misguided laws created for this “cure” only add to the misery. Those very same dangers we were warned against: unknown substances, from unknown sources, with unknown effects are a direct result of laws not the substances themselves. Decriminalization can lead to regulation, quality control, researched medical advice and treatment. Instead, the chaos created by these laws is used as justification to defend them. It’s a vicious self-repeating cycle that has gone on for far too long. So why hasn’t it stopped?

       That brings us back to one of the most deplorable industries profiting from this public misery:  Private Prisons. 

       Before we examine the mechanics and distinctions of private prisons, let us come to grips with the relevant statistics. In 2008 approximately one in every 31 adults (7.3 million) in the United States was behind bars, or being monitored (probation and parole). The breakdown for adults under correctional control was as follows:

- 1 out of 18 men
- 1 in 89 women
- 1 in 11 African-Americans (9.2%)
- 1 in 27 Latinos (3.7%)
- 1 in 45 Caucasians (2.2%)

       Private Prisons, and the various businesses that supply them, have been advocating for ever increasing control over the national prison population, under the guise of offering a more “efficient” alternative to state run facilities. Construction firms, surveillance companies, guard unions and several other businesses have aligned themselves with this ever growing industry. On top of being paid by the states to house each criminal, private prisons are also permitted to transform their prisoners into a work force. Aside from construction, field work and other physical labor, prisoners in America produce all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet proof vests and ID tags. They account for 98% of the total market for equipment assembly services. They make 36% of home appliances, 21% of office furniture and 30% of all microphones, headphones and speakers.

       For the corporate owners of these private prisons, this is like winning the lottery. They own a labor force which the government pays them to house, making money on both ends. America has strict laws that prohibit the importation of products made by slave labor abroad. Meanwhile, we’ve essentially reinvented slave labor at home. Prisoners can of course refuse to work, but they face solitary confinement as punishment.

       Prison Industry-funded studies have concluded that states save money by using private prisons. However, state-funded studies found that private prisons keep only low-cost inmates, sending the rest back to state-run institutions. Evidence has shown that private prisons are neither discernibly more cost-effective, nor more efficient. Our antiquated and ineffective war on drugs, has become a war on the poor. It feeds those who cannot plea or pay their way out of harmless drug possession charges into a forced labor machine.

“In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education. In 2011, California spent $9.6 billion on prisons, versus $5.7 billion on higher education….. The state spends $8,667 per student per year. It spends about $50,000 per inmate per year. Why is this happening? Prisons are a big business. Most are privately run. They have powerful lobbyists and they have bought most state politicians. Meanwhile, we are bankrupting out states and creating a vast underclass of prisoners who will never be equipped for productive lives.”

— Fareed Zakaria, CNN, March 30, 2012

       The success of these prisons is a reflection of the failures in our campaign against drugs. The Amsterdam model is often utilized as an example of functioning drug policy. A less known success case is Portugal, where over ten years ago all known drugs were decriminalized. They have since reported dramatic drops in their crime rates and drug related health problems. The World Health Organization and United Nations have both advocated Portugal’s example. South American countries have begun to follow suite, most notably in Guatemala where President Molina has called for legalization.

       What may have begun as a campaign against the specters of addiction, crime and destruction, has since grown into a creature that feeds itself on the vulnerabilities of the impoverished. The war on drugs is a terrible injustice and should have ended 20 years ago. Our methods have been proven utterly ineffective. Industries have grown on the backs of citizens who have been torn from their families and communities. Despite all this, the demand for drugs has only increased. There are a surplus of solutions available to explore, the only certainty is that our current policy is no longer tolerable. 

The Hidden Web: A New Digital Frontier

       There’s a generation entering their adulthood, who can’t remember a world without the internet! Those of us born in the obnoxiously colorful ‘80s can still fondly recall the last days of landline telephones, paper maps and monthly shopping catalogs. We watched music videos on music television, bought all of our goods from stores, waited several frustrating days for our holiday pictures to be developed and still considered newspapers a relevant source of information. 

       The commercial internet has transformed several facets of our social experience, by becoming an integral, instant and essential component of everyday life. I use the distinction “commercial”, as there is a significant part of the internet few have ever heard of: The Hidden Web. This is the undetected, unregistered and immeasurably larger portion of the web that hides a wide array of global secrets and activities. The Hidden (or Deep) Web is presumed to be several times larger than the commonly defined internet. An extensive range of military, scientific, technological, private and even criminal endeavors occur daily across this under-net, which has been described as an online Wild West frontier, where anything and everything is possible. Most internet users, however, remain blissfully unaware of the lake’s dark undersurface, murkily hiding a world of life under their paddling feet. 

       To understand the magnitude and nature of the hidden web, we must first come to terms with how our everyday internet experience in compiled. The term “Google” has become synonymous with the starting off point from which we all begin our online journeys and daily discoveries. But all search engines operate on the same principle as Google, in that they use Crawlers to sift through the data of registered sites, thereby increasing the efficiency of our search results. The catch here, however, is that this process only works for sites which want to be found.

       The Hidden Web is therefore defined as all the anonymous activity which occurs across several private forums and sites, not designed for commercial consumption. It might surprise people to know, that this accounts for most of the content online. 

  

       On servers all across the world, various groups of people share massive quantities of data off the record and conduct an eclectic array of activities. Researching scientists exchanging information, hackers creating viral codes, drug dealers brokering online sales, revolutionaries organizing protests, government officials communicating in secrecy, police and federal agents hunting targets, terrorists plotting attacks and data miners stealing private information are but a few of the examples. There is an extensive moral spectrum of behavior occurring under the everyday amazon purchases and facebook status updates which occupy the average internet surfer.

       Mike Bergman, founder of BrightPlanet, famously compared searching the commercial internet today to dragging a net across the surface of the ocean: “A great deal may be caught in the net, but there is a wealth of information that is too deep and often missed.” So how do we access this hidden portion of our web? For those of us who’ve watched hackers in a movie, furiously typing away at a screen of indistinguishable nonsense, the true nature of coding has always seemed like an alien language. However, an increased interest in the subject (most recently thanks to the Wikileaks exposure of military abuses) has rallied software developers to create broader access to the Hidden Web, and encourage people to take a plunge into the depths below.

 

       A free software named TOR has recently become popular, by allowing people to browse the full internet anonymously, hiding their identity and permitting admittance to sites not accessible by Google indexes. Those using the TOR client have their internet traffic routed through a volunteer network of servers, stirring everyone’s identity into a massive common pool and eluding any monitoring of their activity. These early day adventures returned from their explorations of the Hidden Web with a maelstrom of wild rumors and reports, illustrating the kind of communities and black markets seemingly formed in the shadows of utter secrecy:

- Financial tipping and insider trading exchanges.
- Computer security and hacking groups.
- Banned movies and literature.
- Murder-for-hire assassin markets.
- Sports betting forums.
- Prostitution directories.
- Child pornography rings.
- Underground gladiatorial tournaments (where millionaires pay to watch men fight to the death – one surreal report claiming men fighting against large animals.)

       To most, this bizarre and atrocious list of deterring behavior would sound like a warning bell to stay away. Who would want to expose their computer, and their personal safety, to the mindsets of criminals, hackers and federal agents? But much in the way that the ‘war on drugs’ campaign entombed harmless marijuana smokers under the same social pariah label as hardened murders, there is a richer and more complex truth to the reality of the Hidden Web. Airline flight information, for instance, originally only available on the deep web, was incorporated into businesses such as Expedia and Priceline once search functionality evolved enough to aggregate them. In a more recent example, the Arab Spring revolts would not have been possible, if vast numbers of organizers hadn’t been able to meet online and away from the watchful gaze of their respective regimes.

       Like carrier pigeons and passing notes in a classroom, we’ve always needed a way to communicate with each other that evaded the scrutiny of those who presume to lead us. The anonymity of the Hidden Web is a natural and necessary evolution to a world in which our every tweet, purchase and movement is collated and recorded. Yet, there’s no point in simply stating that two sides of the story exist, without a concrete example. So let’s take one of the most famous communities on the Hidden Web: The Silk Road. 

       To the uninitiated, the Silk Road is an online black market for purchasing illegal narcotics, prescription drugs and a wide variety of other illicit goods. Visitors must create an account, and use BitCoins (a digital currency discussed below) to complete their purchases. The Silk Road has a reputation as one of the darkest, most deplorable and dangerous areas of the hidden web: a place where drug dealers and addicts conduct their seedy transactions, and a perilous playground to the naive wanderer.

       Despite the ominous brand, I found the idea of an online shopping market for narcotics absurd enough to merit exploration. When I heard some describe it as the “eBay of drugs” where dealers are ranked by the quality of their product and user reviews, I knew there was more to the story. Before examining the Silk Road, it’s worthwhile to fully consider the current social standing of drugs in our culture:

          Even when simply discussing scientific reports or potential health benefits, the average drug enthusiast rarely gets beyond the negative stigmas associated with the topic. To divorce the subject from its ingrained criminal element, is to shun the decency of society. Gone are the days of flower child experimentation and scientific research. As a result, anyone who wishes to smoke a joint or try LSD must now subject themselves to the unreliability of dealers, the risks of arrest, permanent stains on their record and more importantly the dangers of ingesting unregulated materials.

       So how is the Silk Road any different? Well, by creating a marketplace which only the motivated and tech savvy consumer can find, and by forcing dealers to endure an assortment of accountability standards and user reviews, they’ve actually managed to create a safe, discreet and reliable marketplace. 

       In the screenshot below, you can see how the site is organized into categories of substances. Each product has an image, price and unique listed seller. Filters such as “Best selling” and “Seller rank” can help you find the sources with the best reputation and most customer satisfaction. Thorough descriptions and discussion groups inform customers about what to expect from their experience and the inherent dangers associated with each substance. Most of all, honesty is valued as the highest commodity; with users who delay payments or dealers who receive too many complaints quickly being excommunicated from the site. Sellers of goods on sites like Amazon similarly value their online reputations, which has recently resulted in many accusations of fake customer reviews being generated by the larger stores to boost their standing. Due to the complexity of creating an account on the Silk road, however, as well as the process of transferring BitCoins into an account and the cost of initially setting up a “shop”, it is nearly impossible to generate a fake review promoting a poor product.

       As absurd as it may seem, this black market is one of the most honest places you’ll find on the internet. Rather than a shadowed alley way, where desperate people conduct dirty deeds, the Silk Road offers a professional, organized, accountable and courteous community. This isn’t a speakeasy serving moonshine liquor during prohibition, it’s a network of dedicated sellers and cautious buyers policing themselves so society doesn’t have to. The autonomy and success of the Silk Road is just one example of how rallying forces can use an open and free forum to create the ideal standards governments have failed to enact. One of the most powerful and universal examples of this, is the digital currency mentioned earlier: BitCoins. 

       Bitcoins are the 2008 brainchild of a mysterious man named Satoshi Nakamoto. His creation solved a puzzle that had stumped cryptographers for decades: how to create a convenient and untraceable digital currency, free from the oversight of governments and banks? One of the most important issues Nakamoto managed to address is the “double-spending” dilemma: if digital dollars are just information (unattached to paper or metal) how do we prevent people copying the data and spending it as many times as they please? Rather than use a traditional trusted third party, to keep a real-time ledger of all transactions and prevent fraud, Nakamoto publicly distributed the ledger: allowing volunteer users sharing their CPU power to run a special software to form a “block-chain” network collectively.

       A group of code-breakers running the software compete to solve cryptographic puzzles of ever increasing size and difficulty. As more users join, the amount of bitcoins released in each round diminishes and the difficulty of the problems increase. This tier of competing users comprise the top of a pyramid which trickles bitcoins down into the rest of the online communities which trade, purchase and horde the currency, therby creating the markets which give it its power. 

       Nakamoto’s project came out in 2008, during the financial collapse. Citizen’s trust in their government and bank’s ability to manage the economy was at an all time low. The Federal Reserve was either throwing mountains of cash at failing banks and car companies, or wildly printing money to ‘stimulate the economy’. Bitcoin required no faith in the very politicians or bankers who wrecked the economy…there was only the algorithm. The public ledger system Nakamoto created seemingly protected against fraud, and the predetermined release increments of the currency kept the money supply growing at a predictable rate (a way to avoid hyperinflation and sporadic printing of extra “cash”.) 

       As BitCoin’s popularity grew, real exchanges began to take place, trading fiat national currencies for the digital alternative, and buying online goods with them. Wild speculation began to surface about the creator, and who he really was. Some rumors suggested Satoshi Nakamoto was the creation of four prominent tech companies: SAmsung, TOSHIba, NAKAmichi and MOTOrola. Others suggested this was a Google concept, or maybe even a National Security Agency pet project. As the currency gained viral traction in 2010, rising demand for the limited supply caused the price jump. In November, it surged to 36 cents. In February 2011, it achieved “dollar parity” hitting $1.06 before settling back down to 87 cents. When Forbes wrote a “crypto currency” story about BitCoins in the spring, the price exploded. That summer, the going rate for 1 bitcoin leaped from 86 cents, to$8.89. When Gawker published their story in June, naming Bitcoins as the currency of choice for drug dealers, it tripled in value to $27.00! The market value of all the bitcoins in circulation approached $130 million. One early-days collector in Tennessee, known as KnightMB, who had held onto to 371,000 bitcoins, became worth over $10 million in the span of a few months. 

       Since then, Bitcoins have suffered some backfires, security risks, “robberies” of online trading floors and a number of other events that have caused people to question their faith in the currency (most notably, the disappearance of the currency’s creator, Nakamoto.) Unlike fiat money, Bitcoins are not yet backed by legal mechanisms or institutions, which do help sustain the fabric of societal trust. However, just like cash and gold, it is our willingness to attach value which gives these ideas their power.  The momentary success of Bitcoins remains a prime example of the social upheaval that can be achieved by the internet. Wikileaks, the Arab Spring, a new digital currency…if we are truly connected in an instant and open community of ideas, rapidly addressing any real world issue seems more and more possible. 

       However, if power is being democratized through the internet, what does that mean for the traditional roles of governance? What will the significance of national borders be, as the world wide web continues to grow and ensnare us all? We often hear about governments like China and Iran censoring their citizens access to online content, but last year’s coordinated blackout by Google, Wikipedia and a number of other sites brought to light the ambitious grab for power that the U.S. government sought with their SOPA law. Unfortunately, amid the clamor of our other economical woes, they have since then managed to discreetly pass a modified version called CISPA (drastically increasing their ability to monitor and shut down web activities at their whim.)

       With each progression of technology, comes the often cyclical debate as to whether we are hindering or helping our best interests. Film, for instance, served not only to entertain us, but evolve the manner of our record keeping and surveillance. The Holocaust wasn’t the first grotesque atrocity committed by a sovereign nation, but seeing actual footage of the concentration camps certainly helped create a new standard of accountability to a world audience. This is why most governments will continue to seek control over the free flow of information, and why the internet will continue to be the definitive battleground which shapes our future. 

       The Hidden Web remains the uncontrolled, wild frontier where anyone with a connection can exchange unlimited ideas with humans across the globe. As more and more of that world is brought to light, and absorbed into the commercial web, we will continue to see conflicts and tensions shape our social dynamics. It has been said that a Government is a group of people who themselves are not governed…and the Internet is the first truly open platform for Democracy. It seems that only one of those two models is likely to survive in the future.

The King of Ideas

How one man’s company is buying up vast quantities of intellectual property, and what that could mean to a wide array of industries.

       Many people haven't heard of Nathan Myhrvold, but they’d be hard pressed to find a more interesting or accomplished individual. To read Myhrvold’s resume, one would think there are few men better suited to play a comical Bond villain (though there are currently no signs of doomsday devices in the works.)

       Myhrvold was born in Seattle and began attending university at the tender age of 14. Like most absurd geniuses, he studied mathematics, geophysics and astrophysics at UCLA, quickly following that with a master’s degree in mathematical economics and a PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics at Princeton. Not satisfied with that academic mouthful, he also held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge, where he worked under a somewhat notable Physicist named Stephen Hawking. Here he studied cosmology, quantum field theory in curved space time, and quantum theories of gravitation. In the 1980s, he co-found a computer startup in Oakland, Dynamical Systems Research, which was quickly purchased by Microsoft. Climbing the ranks within Bill Gates’ enterprise, Myhrvold founded the Research arm at Microsoft, and eventually left his role as Chief Technology Officer in the late ‘90s. 

       In his free time, Myhrvold has utilized his untold fortunes to live out a sci-fi nerd’s wet dream. The modernist marble mansion he built on the shores of Lake Washington has approximately sixty aperiodic patterns (tile sequences that never repeat) built into the walls, floors and ceilings. His front garden is filled with vegetation from the Mesozoic era, which would be a great source of nutrition if Dinosaurs ever came back. Coincidentally, this is a possibility that Myrhvold believes in, were he to have access to enough chicken embryos and the black goo occasionally found inside dinosaur bones. And he should know, as he has discovered more T-Rex bones than anyone in the world (there’s a fully formed Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton encased within a glass solarium in his home.)

       But when he’s not digging up pre-historic creatures, dabbling in Formula One, bungee jumping, spelunking or innovating the world of cuisine with his inventions, Myrhvold devotes himself to a company he founded in 2000, humbly named:  Intellectual Ventures. 

       The main goal of this 27,500 square foot research laboratory in Bellevue, Washington is to “solve difficult problems in science and technology.” This mission statement has manifested in a number of philanthropic endeavors, including the company TerraPower which will produce a “travelling-wave nuclear reactor” utilizing non-weaponizable uranium and functioning for 50-100 years without refueling. Another venture is the mosquito killing “photonic fence” which could greatly aid in the battle against Malaria. Myhrvold has even discussed the application of his patented idea to eliminate global warming using geo-engineering: the project involves helium balloons placed at the north and south pole, 16 miles above the Earth, with hoses that emit sulfur dioxide (scattering light and dimming the sun by 1%)

       But there is something else Intellectual Ventures has been doing over the years, which bears a potentially ominous forecast for a wide variety of industries. Rather than use their research to manufacture and market new products, I.V. has been trying to create a capital market for inventions by buying up “Oceans of Intellectual Property.” Myrhvold’s company has bought thousands upon thousands of patents from outside inventors, which it can then choose to license to technology firms who create and market products. 

       Though this may seem harmless enough, the behavior is often known as “patent trolling” or “trojan funding”. By hording vast quantities of patents, and then charging others to use the ideas, Myrhvold can essentially decide which products get made, which industries suffer a strangle hold on innovation and which inventions receive a green light. 

       Though Myrhvold is by no means the only player in this game, the sheer quantity of IP that he’s buying makes him singularly positioned to influence more businesses than anyone else. By indiscriminately spending millions of dollars purchasing any and all available patents, Myrhvold can file infringement lawsuits against several companies in a wide variety of industries. The recent $1,000,000,000 ruling in the Mac vs Samsung IP battle is a prime example of how our tricky patent laws can cause devastating results, control competitors' innovation and decelerate development. 

       To put it simply, Myrhvold wants to own new ideas. With that power, comes the ability to charge rates on innovation and decide which players can survive in any given field. It wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to assume that the magnitude of Intellectual Venture’s undertaking requires Wall Street bankers to help assess the value of these patents. The only problem with this filtration process is that bankers are motivated by profit, not research and development, innovation or the public good. If Myrhvold wants to cash out of IP, he has to accept that the self-appointed financial experts he hires will always choose the route that returns most profit…even if that means stifling others through litigation, rather than manufacturing an actual product.

       Due to the sheer quantity being purchased, it's hard to know if these patents would be better off not being owned by one incredibly accomplished genius. Without access to data specifying what Myhrvold has done with them it's impossible to know what might have happened had he not taken over. The beauty of a diverse patent market, is that there is usually a variety of interests supporting each one...creating a monopoly ownership across several fields forces various industries to adhere to one mindset. 

       Myrhvold himself is frustrated with the trolling accusations, and for all intents and purposes his aims might very well be to support innovation and technological development. But whether satisfying his personal passions, or seeking to profit off of boundless enterprises, it seems perfectly reasonable to keep a concerned eye on his activities. 

       For a man who was so present throughout the development of personal computing and the internet, one would think that another obvious solution was available to Myrhvold: Crowd-Sourcing. Why not create a website where consumers can vote on, and perhaps even invest in, the products they believe in. You would have a proven consumer base waiting for the product’s release, and could avoid the shark infested waters of financial middle men entirely. This might be a wishy-washy, ill-informed suggestion, though it still seems more appealing than sitting on a giant library of ideas hidden away in someone's vaults. 

       The 2008 economic collapse brought to light the way in which capital is managed in vast pools, and all the evidence needed to see that this isn't necessarily a good thing. A corporation of ideas, which doesn't concentrate on one market or innovate one product, but rather places a finger in everyone else’s pie, can’t be dismissed as the eccentric endeavor of one ambitious genius. The potential hazards across a massive array of industries are simply too great. 

       When discussing intellectual property, Thomas Jefferson famously argued for an ideal balance between an individual's right to profit from their idea, while still allowing for the communal imitation and social absorption that naturally occurs. Will Myrhvold, or those who manage his many ideas, have the care to strike this balance? The sheer quantity of purchases he’s making raise doubts to that end. Of all the ideas swimming within his net, I’m sure the day will come when only the prized fish are plucked…but for now he’s happy owning the whole ocean.

The Flying Bears of Democracy

Though the days of running over trench lines to punch a Nazi in the face are long behind us, some nations are still finding innovative ways to promote democracy.

Last week, Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko expelled the Swedish ambassador from his country, and shut down the Swedish Embassy. Such actions are usually reserved for massive diplomatic offenses, or perhaps declarations of war.

What was the grave sin in this case?  A Swedish advertising agency air-dropped hundreds of teddy bears (with parachutes) wearing pro-democracy messages onto Belarusian soil.

Lukashenko, often called ‘Europe’s last dictator’, reacted as would be expected, by ejecting the Swedish diplomatic offices and arresting several Belarusians who had contact with the advertising firm. 

In 2010 Lukashenko cheated himself into yet another election victory. Since then, he’s proceeded to jail, harass and beat opposition leaders, while also banning demonstrations.

The Belarusian government has a notorious disregard for freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and freedom from torture. It also has hardly any independent media and no independent judicial system.

The country’s reputation has been a singular and tragic shame within Europe’s otherwise broad democratic virtues. There have been several stories of Belarusians attempting to rebel against their oppressive leadership, often with eyebrow raising results. Last year for instance, a one-armed man was among several hundred people arrested for taking part in a clapping protest!

More recently, Belarusian activist Paval Vinahradau was detained for staging a toy protest in Minsk. This inspired Swedish Advertising agency, Studio Total, to concoct the Teddy-drop stunt.  

Comedy is a rare commodity within the bleak worlds of dictatorships, and certainly an effective publicity weapon against rulers who rely on an image of severity and authority. How can a dictator survive laughter?

Per Cromwell, Studio Total’s chief executive, explained his tactic “You can’t really win a fight against a teddy bear because if you don’t do anything you will look ridiculous, or if you start fighting back, you will look ridiculous.”

Though the effectiveness of military, diplomatic and clandestine tactics will never be in doubt, I believe many would like to see this kind of warfare promoted by flourishing democracies: ideas that reach out to oppressed populations using education, innovation and when appropriate…humor.

That is how you win the hearts and minds of a population all too familiar with brutality and subjugation.

- Roy Klabin