Discovery: Pressing Topics Just Outside Mainstream Media
UAPs, BRICS vs. NATO, first amendment auditors, and the ominous reality of AI - a few fascinating stories to dig into
As a reporter for a small newspaper in my city, I have to cover the necessary topics: the city’s November election ballot initiatives, preparation for the 2028 Olympics, rezoning an area for low-income housing projects, and where you can park in this crowded city.
When I’m done working, I notice that I might be taken in by social media posts and news with intriguing topics outside the norm; that I wouldn’t think of pitching to my newspaper editor. And maybe I want more than just news about the presidential election, international strife, and the latest cute comment from Travis Kelce to Taylor Swift.
I recently read survey findings from Pew Research Center that states the obvious: where we gain access to news coverage has been steadily changing in recent years. In their study, usage of digital devices, especially with more time spent on social media, is taking up more of that news consumption time for Americans. Websites, mobile apps, and podcasts and videos, are also increasing in time spent. Traditional news consumption on TV, newspapers, radio, and magazines has been declining for a long time.
If you want an alternative view of issues shaping America and the world in which we live, spend some time listening to podcasts, watching videos, and viewing what’s being posted up on social media. What are some of the recurring themes and stories, with potential for societal and economic impact — or at least what might be coming up in the near future. Sometimes, these stories will eventually happen; and sometimes I’m listening to or reading commentary from forward-thinking commentators that have some real substance; and if they’re still quite theoretical statements, they’ll be the first to admit it.
Some of the issues to pay attention to
UAPs (aka UFOs) are being taken very seriously: It wasn’t really that long ago that I thought the subject of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), now typically referred to as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), would be something I’d have watched on the ‘The X-Files,’ or associate with somebody wearing an aluminum-foil hat to make sure the Russian microwaves don’t melt his brain. Then I started reading, and listening to, a series of intelligent, sane individuals who present information that appears to be valid and legitimate.
There are a few strong signs that it is for real. U.S. senators Chuck Schumer (D, New York, and senate majority leader) and Marco Rubio (R, Florida, and who ran for president in 2016) are big supporters of open hearings and disclosure on this issue.
Congressional hearings in the House were held in 2022 and 2023 and got a great deal of media attention and discussions on mainstream news channels, YouTube, and in Reddit subgroups and other online forums. It’s reminiscent of past Congressional hearings on the JFK assassination, the Pentagon Papers, the Watergate scandal, and the Iran-Contra Affair in the 1980s.
Another telling turn of events has been the release of the book, Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs not long ago by Luis “Lue” Elizondo. He’s the former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), the secretive Pentagon unit that studied UFOs. For those interested in learning more about the recovered non-human ‘biologics’ from UFO crash sites, and the revolutionary technology found in crashed space ships, look for a video interview with Elizondo; he’s done quite a few of them lately.
BRICS Vs. NATO — Is one side winning?: If you might have wondered why leaders from China and India met with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin after the invasion of Ukraine was well under way more than two years ago, it probably had to do with the international alliance they’ve been part of for several years. They didn’t seem especially supportive of Putin’s actions, but you could tell they were part of an alliance and they would not be arguing with the Russian leader. They were willing to take the stage with Putin and be supportive of his strategic decisions.
In 2006, Brazil, Russia, India and China created the ‘BRIC’ group. South Africa joined in 2010, making it ‘BRICS’. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were invited to become members starting in January 2024. So far, only UAE has joined from this group.
The group was designed to bring together some of the world's most significant developing countries, to challenge the political and economic power of the wealthier nations of North America and Western Europe. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been the outlet western countries have worked through to pressure Russia to end the war. Turkey has been interested in being part of both NATA and BRICS, which has brought up concerns from both sides.
BRICS member countries are also very interested in breaking the power of the ‘petrodollar,’ which began in the early 1970s with the U.S. dollar becoming the price standard for barrels of oil — and gave the U.S. a number of advantages in financial markets. Brazil's president has called on BRICS nations to create a common currency for trade and investment between each other, as a means of reducing their vulnerability to dollar exchange rate fluctuations. One source, formerly a U.S. military officer who spoke recently in a podcast, has said that BRICS is trying to throw the U.S. currency off the world stage by pulling the dollar and going to the Chinese yuan — or to go with a cryptocurrency of their own making. They’re tired of the tariffs, and burned out on what he described as the “weaponization of the U.S. dollar.” If the world reserve currency went to the Chinese yuan or a new cryptocurrency, that would destroy the U.S. economy, he said.
Your next audit might be for violating first amendment rights: If you see someone, probably a young man, holding up a video camera or smartphone and walking into a library, a city hall, a police station, or a security guard office, pay attention to what happens. You will probably hear him recite legal jargon and an interpretation of his first amendment rights to film in public spaces. These people usually call themselves first amendment auditors.
They often go to government buildings, employees, or events, and their goal is to provoke a reaction. They capture it on video then run it on YouTube, their website, and social media. One lively event took place confronting a security guard in Long Island, New York. Another episode getting a lot of buzz was when one of the prominent figures appeared on The Dr. Phil Show to challenge the host for criticizing these audits as being fake and fluffed up.
Free speech has been the narrative theme for Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk when he battled Twitter management and then bought the company out in October 2022 for $44 billion; and soon converted the company name over to X. He and his staff have taken a lot of pressure and critique from deciding when to back comments, links, and videos posted by X users and when to remove them. Musk is known for making these debates even more heated, and for continuing to post his own pointed comments daily.
AI will be a lot more than miraculous technology innovation: I think we all know that trying to get a handle on the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on all areas of life ever since the ChatGPT launch on November 30, 2022 is impossible at this time. These generative AI chatbots — and observations on what else AI is being tested and developed to do — became the primary focus of media content over the next two years, bigger than the election, climate change, and social upheaval. There’s always been an ominous, potentially overwhelming layer to all of it.
Of course, the economic result is expected to be enormous. Management consulting firm McKinsey estimates that generative AI alone will unleash $2.6 to $4.4 trillion in annual economic impact.
Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, two of the three co-founders of Center for Humane Technology, have been talking about these ominous concerns and issues since The Social Dilemma documentary came out in 2020, at least visibly with more notoriety. They’d actually been taking on these questions for a few years before the film as social media executives. As veterans of the tech industry, they warn about the psychological impact of social media and AI applications. They’ve observed that social media has negatively impacted childhood and adolescence, contributed to widespread disinformation, and interfered with free and fair elections. They warn about the potential of AI taking over more duties and wreaking havoc through bot-manipulated democracies, massive unemployment, and a severe difficulty we’ll have in discerned synthetic media from reality.
Harris and Raskin also encourage us to look at what the tech giants are doing to lead in the market. Amazon, Alphabet/Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta/Facebook are leading the charge. One of them always has to win, they warn, and the implications can be unexpected and staggering. Center for Humane Technology, watchdog NPOs, and government agencies will have to work together to make sure we can all get through this safely.
But wait, there’s more!
Here’s two more topics you can place on a search to find some heated responses on YouTube and chat groups.
The real Jeffrey Epstein: Is more information coming out on controversial deceased financier and child sex trafficking offender Jeffrey Epstein — even though he committed suicide or was murdered in a New York jail over five years ago? There’s speculation about why Epstein had previously been investigated by federal agents looking at his questionable investment activity since the 1980s and law enforcement investigating his sex trafficking — and then suddenly having these investigations dropped on several occasions. What and who did Epstein know?
Bitcoin is the future: Whitney Webb, an independent investigative journalist and Mark Goodwin, author of The Bitcoin Dollar, have taken on the campaign of educating the public about the enormous economic and financial market impact the Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) with giant investment firm BlackRock will have. BlackRock and other large financial institutions will be in line to reap huge benefits and dominate financial markets by their maneuvers, they say.
Don’t forget to leave any comments or questions you might have. I look forward to reading what’s on your mind.