The Economist on open-source intelligence: “New sensors, from humdrum dashboard cameras to satellites that can see across the electromagnetic spectrum, are examining the planet and its people as never before. The information they collect is becoming cheaper. Satellite images cost several thousand dollars 20 years ago, today they are often provided free and are of incomparably higher quality. A photograph of any spot on Earth, of a stricken tanker or the routes taken by joggers in a city is available with a few clicks. And online communities and collaborative tools, like Slack, enable hobbyists and experts to use this cornucopia of information to solve riddles and unearth misdeeds with astonishing speed.” More: “Academics, activists and amateurs are making imaginative use of powerful tools.”
Amartya Lahiri: “State should do its duty towards citizens, not interfere in their economic lives…State’s response to its own failure to deliver public services on schooling or health is to mandate the private sector to provide them under threat of penalties and accept the resultant expense as the cost of doing business in India…It is time for the Indian voter to demand the Indian state and its babus retreat from their economic lives. Labour, land and financial sector reforms along with public sector divestment have to become essential demands. These are fiscally cheap and a much more promising wish list than the expectation of deliverance by a mythical superhero. The state is part of the problem, not the solution.”
Who Gets To Decide the Truth? by Jonathan Rauch. “Because all people have eyes and ears and minds, and because we must check and consult with each other to find truth, the many, not just the few, are entitled to assert their own beliefs and contest others’. Epistemic rights, like political rights, belong to all of us; empiricism is the duty of all of us. No exceptions for priests, princes, or partisans.”
