The wethepeople "Nova 20" BMX Bike - Glossy Raw is a modern equipped entry level BMX complete bike which offers you a solid parts of Salt, SaltPlus and eclat. The version of the wethepeople "Nova 20" BMX Bike - Glossy Raw comes with a super short 12.75" oval chainstay and 26mm offset fork allowing it to not only feel just like the bikes our PRO team ride, but also make it much easier to ride and progress your riding even further. In addition to that it comeswith a sealed and integrated headset so the maintaince effort is reduced compare to normal loose ball bearings. With its 20" top tube length the wethepeople "Nova 20" BMX Bike - Glossy Raw is the ideal allround BMX bike for young starters of the BMX sport and offers you the opportunity to let you check out all disciplines and to learn first tricks.

• Wheel Size: 20"
• BMX Frame: 1020 Hi-Ten, welded U-brake sockets, Mid-BB, integrated headset
  Top Tube (TT): 20.0"
  Chain Stay (CS): 12.75"
  Head Tube (HA): 75°
  Seattube (SA): 71.5°
  BB-Height (BB): 11.75"
  Standover (SO): 8.38"
• BMX Fork: Salt "AM 20", 1020 HiTen, 1-1/8" Ahead with 4130 CrMo steerer tube, 26mm offset
• BMX Bar: Salt "Nova", 1020 Hi-Ten, 2-piece
  Height: 8.85"
  Width: 29"
  Backsweep: 11°
  Upsweep: 2°
• Grips: Salt "EX", 154mm
• Stem: Salt "PRO", frontload, 50mm reach
• Headset: Salt "PRO", integrated headset, sealed bearing
• Gyro: -
• Gyro compatible: Yes
• Brake Lever: Salt "AM", aluminum
• Brake (rear): SaltPlus "Geo XL" U-brake, aluminum
• Seat: wethepeople "Nova" Seat/Seatpost Combo, mid-padded
• Seat Post: Seat/Seatpost Combo, aluminum, 25.4mm
• Seat Clamp: eclat "Pure", aluminum
• Pedals: eclat "Slash", plastic
• Chain: Salt "AM" Z1 type, Standard
• Sprocket: Salt "Gateway", steel, 25T
• Crank: Salt "Rookie", 4130 CrMo, 3-piece, 165mm, 19mm Axle, 8 Spline
• Bottom Bracket: Salt, Mid BB, 19mm, sealed bearing
• Hub (front): Salt "Nova", aluminum, loose ball, 10mm (3/8") axle, 36H
• Hub (rear): Salt "Nova", cassette hub, semi sealed, 14mm axle, 36H
  Driver: 9T RHD, loose ball bearing 510
• Rim (front): Salt "Beam", aluminum, straight single wall, 36H
• Rim (rear): Salt "Beam", aluminum, straight single wall, 36H
• Tire (front): Salt "Tracer" BMX Tire
  Width: 20" x 2.35"
• Tire (rear): Salt "Tracer" BMX Tire
  Width: 20" x 2.35"
• Pegs: -

The wethepeople "Nova 20" BMX Bike - Matt Black is a modern equipped entry level BMX complete bike which offers you a solid parts of Salt, SaltPlus and eclat. The version of the wethepeople "Nova 20" BMX Bike - Matt Black comes with a super short 12.75" oval chainstay and 26mm offset fork allowing it to not only feel just like the bikes our PRO team ride, but also make it much easier to ride and progress your riding even further. In addition to that it comeswith a sealed and integrated headset so the maintaince effort is reduced compare to normal loose ball bearings. With its 20" top tube length the wethepeople "Nova 20" BMX Bike - Matt Black is the ideal allround BMX bike for young starters of the BMX sport and offers you the opportunity to let you check out all disciplines and to learn first tricks.

• Wheel Size: 20"
• BMX Frame: 1020 Hi-Ten, welded U-brake sockets, Mid-BB, integrated headset
  Top Tube (TT): 20.0"
  Chain Stay (CS): 12.75"
  Head Tube (HA): 75°
  Seattube (SA): 71.5°
  BB-Height (BB): 11.75"
  Standover (SO): 8.38"
• BMX Fork: Salt "AM 20", 1020 HiTen, 1-1/8" Ahead with 4130 CrMo steerer tube, 26mm offset
• BMX Bar: Salt "Nova", 1020 Hi-Ten, 2-piece
  Height: 8.85"
  Width: 29"
  Backsweep: 11°
  Upsweep: 2°
• Grips: Salt "EX", 154mm
• Stem: Salt "PRO", frontload, 50mm reach
• Headset: Salt "PRO", integrated headset, sealed bearing
• Gyro: -
• Gyro compatible: Yes
• Brake Lever: Salt "AM", aluminum
• Brake (rear): SaltPlus "Geo XL" U-brake, aluminum
• Seat: wethepeople "Nova" Seat/Seatpost Combo, mid-padded
• Seat Post: Seat/Seatpost Combo, aluminum, 25.4mm
• Seat Clamp: eclat "Pure", aluminum
• Pedals: eclat "Slash", plastic
• Chain: Salt "AM" Z1 type, Standard
• Sprocket: Salt "Gateway", steel, 25T
• Crank: Salt "Rookie", 4130 CrMo, 3-piece, 165mm, 19mm Axle, 8 Spline
• Bottom Bracket: Salt, Mid BB, 19mm, sealed bearing
• Hub (front): Salt "Nova", aluminum, loose ball, 10mm (3/8") axle, 36H
• Hub (rear): Salt "Nova", cassette hub, semi sealed, 14mm axle, 36H
  Driver: 9T RHD, loose ball bearing 510
• Rim (front): Salt "Beam", aluminum, straight single wall, 36H
• Rim (rear): Salt "Beam", aluminum, straight single wall, 36H
• Tire (front): Salt "Tracer" BMX Tire
  Width: 20" x 2.35"
• Tire (rear): Salt "Tracer" BMX Tire
  Width: 20" x 2.35"
• Pegs: -

The wethepeople "Nova 20.5" BMX Bike - Matt Black is a modern equipped entry level BMX complete bike which offers you a solid parts of Salt, SaltPlus and eclat. The version of the wethepeople "Nova 20.5" BMX Bike - Matt Black comes with a super short 12.75" oval chainstay and 26mm offset fork allowing it to not only feel just like the bikes our PRO team ride, but also make it much easier to ride and progress your riding even further. In addition to that it comeswith a sealed and integrated headset so the maintaince effort is reduced compare to normal loose ball bearings. With its 20" top tube length the wethepeople "Nova 20.5" BMX Bike - Matt Black is the ideal allround BMX bike for young starters of the BMX sport and offers you the opportunity to let you check out all disciplines and to learn first tricks.

• Wheel Size: 20"
• BMX Frame: 1020 Hi-Ten, welded U-brake sockets, Mid-BB, integrated headset
  Top Tube (TT): 20.5"
  Chain Stay (CS): 12.75"
  Head Tube (HA): 75°
  Seattube (SA): 71.5°
  BB-Height (BB): 11.75"
  Standover (SO): 8.38"
• BMX Fork: Salt "AM 20", 1020 HiTen, 1-1/8" Ahead with 4130 CrMo steerer tube, 26mm offset
• BMX Bar: Salt "Nova", 1020 Hi-Ten, 2-piece
  Height: 8.85"
  Width: 29"
  Backsweep: 11°
  Upsweep: 2°
• Grips: Salt "EX", 154mm
• Stem: Salt "PRO", frontload, 50mm reach
• Headset: Salt "PRO", integrated headset, sealed bearing
• Gyro: -
• Gyro compatible: Yes
• Brake Lever: Salt "AM", aluminum
• Brake (rear): SaltPlus "Geo XL" U-brake, aluminum
• Seat: wethepeople "Nova" Seat/Seatpost Combo, mid-padded
• Seat Post: Seat/Seatpost Combo, aluminum, 25.4mm
• Seat Clamp: eclat "Pure", aluminum
• Pedals: eclat "Slash", plastic
• Chain: Salt "AM" Z1 type, Standard
• Sprocket: Salt "Gateway", steel, 25T
• Crank: Salt "Rookie", 4130 CrMo, 3-piece, 165mm, 19mm Axle, 8 Spline
• Bottom Bracket: Salt, Mid BB, 19mm, sealed bearing
• Hub (front): Salt "Nova", aluminum, loose ball, 10mm (3/8") axle, 36H
• Hub (rear): Salt "Nova", cassette hub, semi sealed, 14mm axle, 36H
  Driver: 9T RHD, loose ball bearing 510
• Rim (front): Salt "Beam", aluminum, straight single wall, 36H
• Rim (rear): Salt "Beam", aluminum, straight single wall, 36H
• Tire (front): Salt "Tracer" BMX Tire
  Width: 20" x 2.35"
• Tire (rear): Salt "Tracer" BMX Tire
  Width: 20" x 2.35"
• Pegs: -

The wethepeople "CRS FC 20" BMX Bike - Trans Berry Blast | Freecoaster comes as FC Version with a freecoaster rear hub, which will give you a freewheel during fakie riding. The wethepeople "CRS FC 20" BMX Bike - Trans Berry Blast | Freecoaster is a very modern and well equipped entry level BMX complete bike which comes for 2021 with fully sealed front and rear hubs! It offers you a very solid and stable equipment with parts like the famous eclat "Bios" pivotal seat, eclat "Surge" pedals or SaltPlus "Geo XL" U-Brake which will have enough spacer for fat tires. Here you already get a frame with a 4130 CrMo downtube that offers more stability and which has a integrated headset (sealed bearing) and a Mid BB (sealed bearing) which is today's standard on modern BMX frames and which makes installation, adjustment and maintance easy. With its 20.25" top tube length the wethepeople "CRS FC 20" BMX Bike - Trans Berry Blast | Freecoaster is the ideal BMX bike for young starters of the BMX sport and offers you the opportunity to let you check skateparks and BMX Street.

• Wheel Size: 20"
• BMX Frame: 1020 HiTen, 4130 CrMo downtube, integrated headset, welded U-brake sockets, Mid-BB
  Top Tube (TT): 20.25"
  Chain Stay (CS): 12.75"
  Head Tube (HA): 75°
  Seattube (SA): 71.5°
  BB-High (BB): 11.75"
  Standover (SO): 8.4"
• BMX Fork: Salt "AM 20", 1020 HiTen, 1-1/8" Ahead with 4130 CrMo steerer tube, 26mm offset
• BMX Bar: Salt "CRS 20", 1020 HiTen, 2-piece
  Height: 8.8"
  Width: 29"
  Backsweep: 11°
  Upsweep: 2°
  Clamping Diameter: 22.2mm
• Grips: Salt "EX", rubber, 154mm, without flange
• Stem: Salt "PRO", topload, 50mm Offset
• Headset: Salt "PRO", integrated headset, sealed bearing
• Gyro: -
• Gyro compatible: Yes
• Brake Lever: Salt "AM", aluminum
• Brake (rear): SaltPlus "Geo XL" U-brake, aluminum
• Seat: wethepeople "CRS" Pivotal, mid-padded
• Seat Post: Salt "AM", Pivotal, aluminum, 25.4mm
• Seat Clamp: eclat "Pure", aluminum
• Pedals: eclat "Surge", plastic
• Chain: Salt "AM" Z1 type, Standard
• Sprocket: Salt "Gateway", steel, 25T
• Crank: Salt "Rookie", 4130 CrMo, 3-piece, 165mm, 8 spline 19mm spindle
• Bottom Bracket: Salt, Mid BB, 19mm, sealed bearing
• Hub (front): Salt "AM", aluminum, sealed bearing, 10mm (3/8") axle, 36H
• Hub (rear): Salt "PRO", freecoaster hub, sealed bearing, 14mm axle, 36H
  Driver: 9T
• Rim (front): Salt "Fraction", aluminum, straight single wall, 36H
• Rim (rear): Salt "Fraction", aluminum, straight single wall, 36H
• Tire (front): Salt "Tracer" BMX tire
  Width: 20" x 2.35"
• Tire (rear): Salt "Tracer" BMX tire
  Width: 20" x 2.35"
• Pegs: -

The   wethepeople "Audio 22" BMX Fork - 22 Inches   is a high-quality and solid BMX fork made of heat-treated 4130 CrMo. The timeless design of thies forkis based on the BMX disciplines Street, Trails and Bowl. The wethepeople "Audio 22" BMX Fork - 22 Inches is suitable for 22" inch wheel size.

• Wheel Size: 22"
• Material: 4130 CrMo
• Steerer Tube Diameter: 1-1/8" (28.6mm)
• Steerer Tube Length: 166mm
• Top Bolt: M24 x 1.5 thread, 6mm allen key
• Dropouts: Lasercut, 10mm (3/8") axles, 10mm (3/8")
• Offset: 30mm
• Bearing race: Integrated
• Brake Mounts: without
• Recommanded for: Street, Park or Trails
• Extras: CNC machined 1-pc. steerer, tapered forklegs, double butted tubes, designed for 2.45" wide tires

The wethepeople "Chaos Machine 22" BMX Frame - 22 Inch is the signature BMX frame from the Australian BMX Trails legend Tyson Jones-Peni and comes in a 22" inch version for 22" inch wheels. The wethepeople "Chaos Machine 22" BMX Frame - 22 Inch features a long and stable geometry and mounts for a disc brake (and regular U-brake).

• Wheel Size: 20"
• Material: 100% 4130 Japanese CrMo, top tube and down tube gussets, butted tubes, integrated headset, integrated seatclamp, offset thickness dent resistant chainstays and mid bb for grind resistance
• Geometry:
  Top Tube Length (TT): 22.25"
  Chainstay Length (CS): 14" (35.56cm) - 14.75" (37.47cm)
  Head Tube Angle (HA): 74.25°
  Seat Tube Angle (SA): 71°
  Bottom Bracket Height: 12.25"
  Standover Height (SO): 9.75" (24.77cm)
• Seat Clamp: integrated
• Seat Post Diameter: 25.4mm
• Bottom Bracket: Mid BB
• Dropouts: Investment cast, 6mm thick, 14mm slots, CNC machined, 4130 CrMo
• Chain Tensioners: integrated
• Brake Type: U-Brake & Disc Brake
• Brakemounts: without
• Brakemounts included with delivery: No
• Gyro compatible: No
• Features: Tyson Jones-Peni Signature, long trail geometry, disc mount for 120mm - 160mm rotors, 127mm high head tube, strut tube with larger radius, stiffer & stronger back end, larger weld on the head tube, wider dropout for wide 2.4" tires
• Model Year: 2024

The wethepeople "Utopia" BMX Frame is a modern technical BMX flatland frame and thanks to its curved top tube offers more space for tricks like PinkySqueaks and other BMX Flatland tricks.

• Wheel Size: 20"
• Material: 100% Japanese Seamless 4130 CrMo, butted
• Geometry:
  Top Tube Length (TT): 19.0" or 20.0"
  Chainstay Length (CS): 12.4" (31.5cm) - 13.2" (33.53cm)
  Head Tube Length: 4.6" (11.68cm)
  Head Tube Angle (HA): 75°
  Seat Tube Angle (SA): 71°
  Bottom Bracket Height: 12.0" (30.48cm)
  Standover Height (SO): 6.2" (15.5cm)
• Seat Clamp: integrated
• Seat Post Diameter: 25.4mm
• Bottom Bracket: Spanish BB
• Dropouts: Investment cast, 6.5mm thick, 14mm slots
• Chain Tensioners: integrated
• Brake Type: without (brakeless)
• Brakemounts: without
• Brakemounts included with delivery: not included with delivery
• Gyro compatible: No
• Features:
  - technical street/flatland frame, shorter top tube and lower seat tube for younger riders
  - hydroformed top and down tube for superior strength and stiffness
  - kinked toptube for increased foot clearance
  - frame comes with 14mm slot dropouts
  - extruded top tube with integrated threads for cable guides
  - tapered seat stays and chain stays with bullet tipped ends
  - curved seat stay bridge and chain stay bridge
  - wider rear triangle allows clearance for a 2.3" tire
  - WTP top tube and down tube gusset
  - 6mm seat clamp bolt

The perfect blend between Flatland, Street & Park, the wethepeople "Utopia Hybrid" BMX Frame takes DNA from many of wtp's current frames and blends it into a super tough, responsive and incredibly lightweight do-it-all frame. Just as capable in the streets as it is in the parking lot, the wethepeople "Utopia Hybrid" BMX Frame is also the chance for smaller and younger riders to ride one of the most advanced frames wethepeople have ever produced. Utilizing new super-lightweight hydroformed tubing and a crazy short chainstay, the wethepeople "Utopia Hybrid" BMX Frame is a frame in a league of its own.

• Wheel Size: 20"
• Material: 100% Japanese Seamless 4130 CrMo, butted
• Geometry:
  Top Tube Length (TT): 20.5"
  Chainstay Length (CS): 12.4" (31.5cm) - 13.2" (33.53cm)
  Head Tube Length: 4.6" (11.68cm)
  Head Tube Angle (HA): 75°
  Seat Tube Angle (SA): 71.5°
  Bottom Bracket Height: 11.8" (29.97cm)
  Standover Height (SO): 7.7" (19.56cm)
• Seat Clamp: integrated
• Seat Post Diameter: 25.4mm
• Bottom Bracket: Spanish BB
• Dropouts: Investment cast, 6.5mm thick, 14mm slots
• Chain Tensioners: integrated
• Brake Type: U-Brake
• Brakemounts: with (screwable, M6)
• Brakemounts included with delivery: not included with delivery
• Gyro compatible: Yes
• Features:
  - technical street/flatland frame, shorter top tube and lower seat tube for younger
• riders
  - hydroformed top and down tube for superior strength and stiffness
  - frame comes with 14mm slot dropouts
  - extruded top tube with integrated threads for cable guides
  - tapered seat stays and chain stays with bullet tipped ends
  - curved seat stay bridge and chain stay bridge
  - wider rear triangle allows clearance for a 2.3" tire
  - WTP top tube and down tube gusset
  - 6mm seat clamp bolt

The "Patrol" Range is a whole sub-brand of wethepeople which is heavily influenced from the trails and concrete park riding. The full line features a frame, fork and handlebar as well as stem, sprocket and barends. The wethepeople "Patrol" BMX Frame is designed to be run with a larger 28-9 gearing and with chainstay located brakemounts. The wethepeople "Patrol" BMX Frame pairs up a classic and satble geometry which is optimzed for trails and concret bowl riding.

• Wheel Size: 20"
• Material: 100% 4130 CrMo, top tube and down tube gussets, integrated headset
• Geometry:
  Top Tube (TT): 21.5"
  Chain Stay (CS): 13.6" – 14"
  Head Tube Angle (HA): 74.25°
  Seat Tube Angle (SA): 71°
  BB Height: 11.5"
  Standover Height (SO): 8.9"
• Seat Clamp: integrated
• Seat Post Diameter: 25.4mm
• Bottom Bracket: Mid BB, heat treated, CNC machined
• Dropouts: 6mm thick, 14mm slots, minimal size, not suitable for pegs, heat-treated
• Chain Tensioners: integrated
• Brakemounts: removable, pivot-3 (M6), not included with delivery
• Extras: extended 125mm headtube, wide rear end for fat 2.4" tires
• Model Year: 2021

The wethepeople "Reason FC" BMX Bike - Freecoaster | Matt Translucent Teal Raw Fade has a freecoaster hub which will allow you to ride fakie without pedaling. The wethepeople "Reason FC" BMX Bike - Freecoaster | Matt Translucent Teal Raw Fade is a really great equipped mid-class BMX complete bike with a 20.75" long frame including 100% 4130 CrMo quality with integrated headset and seat clamp, a Mid BB and full removable brake hardware. A high rised 4-piece street style handlebar, fork and the 3-piece crank set are made from 100% 4130 CrMo and build up a stable quality basic. The wheel set includes fully sealed front hub and a SaltPlus "PRO" freecoaster incl. hubguards laced into a double walled rim at the rear. A fat pivotal seat and great quality components like wethepeople "Logic" Pedale, eclat "Talon" U-Brake or wethepeople "Paragon Guard" sprocket made from alloy and nylon guard let the wethepeople "Reason FC" BMX Bike - Freecoaster | Matt Translucent Teal Raw Fade become one of the best mid-class BMX bikes you can get.

Note: The BMX bike comes with preassembled rear brake (U-Brake)

• Wheel Size: 20"
• BMX Frame: 100% 4130 CrMo, tappered top tube and chainstays, removable brakehardware, integrated seatclamp, Mid BB
  Top Tube (TT): 20.75"
  Chain Stay (CS): 12.75"
  Head Tube (HA): 76°
  Seattube (SA): 71°
  BB-High (BB): 11.75"
  Standover (SO): 9"
• BMX Fork: SaltPlus "Reason", 100% 4130 CrMo, 1-piece steerer tube, 15mm offset
• BMX Bar: SaltPlus "HQ", 100% 4130 CrMo, 4-piece
  Height: 9"
  Width: 29.5"
  Backsweep: 11°
  Upsweep: 3°
  Clamping Diameter: 22.2mm
• Grips: wethepeople "Perfect" Grips, flangeless
• Stem: Salt "Zion", topload, 50mm Offset
• Headset: Salt "PRO", integrated headset, sealed bearing
• Gyro: -
• Gyro compatible: Yes
• Brake Lever: Salt "AM", aluminum
• Brake (rear): eclat "Talon" U-brake, aluminum
• Seat: wethepeople "Reason" Pivotal, fat-padded
• Seat Post: Pivotal, aluminum, 200mm, 25.4mm
• Seat Clamp: Integrated
• Pedals: wethepeople "Logic", plastic
• Chain: Salt "AM" Z1 type, standard
• Sprocket: wethepeople "Paragon Guard", 6061-T6 aluminum with nylon guard, CNC, 25T
• Crank: Salt "Revo", 4130 CrMo, 3-piece, square profile, 160mm, 8 Spline 19mm Spindle
• Bottom Bracket: Salt, Mid BB, sealed bearing, 19mm
• Hub (front): Salt "PRO", aluminum, sealed bearing, 10mm (3/8") axle, including 2x SaltPlus "PRO" plastic hubguard, 36H
• Hub (rear): SaltPlus "PRO", Freecoaster, sealed bearing, 14mm axle, including 2x SaltPlus "PRO" plastic hubguard, 36H
  Driver: 9T RHD, sealed bearings
• Rim (front): Salt "Valon", aluminum, single wall, 36H
• Rim (rear): SaltPlus "Summit", aluminum, double wall, 36H
• Tire (front): wethepeople "Activate" BMX tire
  Width: 20" x 2.35"
• Tire (rear): wethepeople "Activate" BMX tire
  Width: 20" x 2.35"
• Pegs: 1 pair x Salt "AM" Peg

For those working closely with the development of new medicines for FDA approval, it can be informative respecting the future to look back at recent activity and take note of any potential changes from years past. Now, with no more … Continue reading →

Last week FDA’s Office of Prescription Drug Promotion issued its first regulatory action letter of the year. This was an Untitled Letter – a/k/a Notice of Violation Letter (NOV) – sent by the agency to Novartis in relation to promotional … Continue reading →

Less is more? Every so often is it worthwhile to look back at FDA to see what they had to say in a given year, and in addition, how they said it. One might not think that a large agency … Continue reading →

It weakened from a Category 2 hurricane to a tropical depression as it moved northeastward over central Mississippi

From New York to Pennsylvania, solemn ceremonies mark the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks

Pirate streaming site Braflix burst onto the scene last year, offering a vast library of movies and TV shows via a user-friendly interface. With millions of monthly visits the site was destined to profit from the demise of several large competitors. The opposite happened. Facing legal pressure, Braflix has decided to throw in the towel instead.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

After 15+ years of blackholing IP addresses and making the Domain Name System tell more lies than Pinocchio, some may wonder whether site-blocking is harming prospects of a future open internet. Confirmation that piracy blocking tests are now being conducted at the internet's core routers isn't a surprise. It's only the internet's spinal column, so what could possibly go wrong?

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

The Pirate Bay made its debut as a TV series on the Swedish streaming platform SVT Play earlier today. International viewers are left waiting until other services pick it up. In the meantime, some may be tempted to explore unofficial channels for pirated copies of the show. But finding a pirated copy is proving surprisingly difficult.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

The Pirate Bay TV series is the entertainment industry's depiction of the torrent site's turbulent history. The creators don't take sides but mostly focus on the legal battle that only represents part of the story. According to Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde and Piratbyrån's Rasmus Fleischer, living though it all was a completely different experience.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'Deadpool & Wolverine' tops the chart, followed by 'Joker: Folie à Deux'. 'The Substance' completes the top three.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

While technology is key for digital transformation in healthcare, the human element is equally, if not more, important

Our leaders have failed to show their unwavering commitment to two of the most pressing challenges facing our nation.

By eschewing this emblem of entitlement, the PM is articulating a compelling narrative about modesty, egalitarianism.

Extensive research highlights the anxiety and stress working mothers face while balancing their work and family life.

I published these immediately after writing this:

Several months ago I drew some Mimi & Eunice cartoons about modern transactivism. As you might guess, these will be very offensive to some people. I have and have long had trans friends, but modern transactivism is no more representative of them, than Zionism is of Jews, . . . → Read More: The Jenndra Identitty Comics

"I was [one of the best lightweights in the world] before, now it’s our brother Islam, and Usman is next."

Pamela Anderson slays in classic style at ‘The Last Showgirl' screening

Pamela Anderson exuded elegance in New York City, as she attended the special screening of The Last Showgirl.

As reported by MailOnline, 57-year-old actress who attended the star-studded event at...

Kate Middleton, Prince William issue statement as they make special announcement

Kate Middleton and Prince William issued a statement to make an exciting announcement after confirming that the Princess of Wales will host her fourth Together at Christmas Carol Service.

The Prince...

Prince William marks the start of something new with Kate Middleton

Prince William’s shift into a new era of his life has just been brought to light.

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The report further showed that the additional SHO had been previously found guilty of framing a man in a fake case

Shehbaz expresses optimism that interest rate cut will boost investor confidence and increase investments in Pakistan

Privacy: Our parents were taking liberties for granted in their analog world, liberties that are not passed down to our children in the transition to digital — such as the simple right to send an anonymous letter.

Sometimes when speaking, I ask the audience how many would be okay with sites like The Pirate Bay, even if it means that artists are losing money from their operation. (Do note that this assertion is disputed: I’m asking the question on the basis of what-if the assertion is true.) Some people raise their hands, the proportion varying with audience and venue.

The copyright industry asserts that the offline laws don’t apply on the Internet when they want to sue and prosecute people sharing knowledge and culture. They’re right, but not in the way they think. They’re right that copyright law does apply online as well. But privacy laws don’t, and they should.

In the offline world, an analog letter was given a certain level of protection. This was not intended to cover just the physical letter as such, but correspondence in general; it was just that the letter was the only form of such correspondence when these liberties were drafted.

First, the letter was anonymous. It was your prerogative entirely whether you identified yourself as sender of the letter on the outside of the envelope, on the inside of the letter (so not even the postal service knew who sent it, only the recipient), or not at all.

Further, the letter was untracked in transit. The only governments tracking people’s correspondence were those we looked down on with enormous contempt.

Third, the letter was secret. The envelope would never we broken in transit.

Fourth, the carrier was never responsible for the contents, of nothing else for the simple reason they were not allowed to examine the content in the first place. But even if they could, like with a envelopeless postcard, they were never liable for executing their courier duties — this principle, the courier immunity or messenger immunity, is a principle that dates as far back as the Roman Empire.

These principles, the liberties of correspondence, should apply to offline correspondence (the letter) just as it should to online correspondence. But it doesn’t. You don’t have the right to send anything you like to anybody you like online, because it might be a copyright infringement — even though our parents had exactly this right in their offline world.

So the copyright industry is right – sending a copied drawing in a letter is a copyright infringement, and sending a copied piece of music over the net is the same kind of copyright infringement. But offline, there are checks and balances to these laws – even though it’s a copyright infringement, nobody is allowed to open the letter in transit just to see if it violates the law, because the secrecy of private correspondence is considered more important than discovering copyright infringements. This is key. This set of checks and balances has not been carried over into the digital environment.

The only time a letter is opened and prevented is when somebody is under individual and prior suspicion of a serious crime. The words “individual” and “prior” are important here — opening letters just to see if they contain a non-serious crime in progress, like copyright infringement, is simply not permitted in the slightest.

There is no reason for the offline liberties of our parents to not be carried over into the same online liberties for our children, regardless of whether that means somebody doesn’t know how to run a business anymore.

After highlighting these points, I repeat the question whether the audience would be okay with sites like The Pirate Bay, even if it means an artist is losing income. And after making these points, basically everybody raises their hand to say they would be fine with it; they would be fine with our children having the same liberty as our parents, and the checks and balances of the offline world to also apply online.

Next in the series, we’re going to look at a related topic – public anonymous announcements and the important role the city square soapbox filled in shaping liberty.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

Privacy: In the analog world of our parents, as an ordinary citizen and not under surveillance because of being a suspect of a crime, it was taken for granted that you could walk around a city without authorities tracking you at the footstep level. Our children don’t have this right anymore in their digital world.

Not even the dystopias of the 1950s — Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World, Colossus, and so on, managed to dream up the horrors of this element: the fact that every citizen is now carrying a governmental tracking device. They’re not just carrying one, they even bought it themselves. Not even Brave New World could have imagined this horror.

It started out innocently, of course. It always does. With the new “portable phones” — which, at this point, meant something like “not chained to the floor” — authorities discovered that people would still call the Emergency Services number (112, 911, et cetera) from their mobile phones, but not always be capable of giving their location themselves, something that the phone network was now capable of doing. So authorities mandated that the phone networks be technically capable of always giving a subscriber’s location, just in case they would call Emergency Services. In the United States, this was known as the E911 regulation (“Enhanced 9-1-1”).

This was in 2005. Things went bad very quickly from there. Imagine that just 12 years ago, we still had the right to roam around freely without authorities being capable of tracking our every footstep – this was no more than just over a decade ago!

Before this point, governments supplied you with services so that you would be able to know your location, as had been the tradition since the naval lighthouse, but not so that they would be able to know your location. There’s a crucial difference here. And as always, the first breach was one of providing citizen services — in this case, emergency medical services — that only the most prescient dystopians would oppose.

What’s happened since?

Entire cities are using wi-fi passive tracking to track people at the individual, realtime, and sub-footstep level in the entire city center.

Train stations and airports, which used to be safe havens of anonymity in the analog world of our parents, have signs saying they employ realtime passive wi-fi and bluetooth tracking of everybody even coming close, and are connecting their tracking to personal identifying data. Correction: they have signs about it in the best case but do it regardless.

People’s location are tracked in at least three different… not ways, but categories of ways:

Active: You carry a sensor of your location (GPS sensor, Glonass receiver, cell tower triangulator, or even visual identifier through the camera). You use the sensors to find your location, at one point in time or continuously. The government takes itself the right to read the contents of your active sensors.

Passive: You take no action, but are still transmitting your location to the government continuously through a third party. In this category, we find cell tower triangulation as well as passive wi-fi and bluetooth tracking that require no action on behalf of a user’s phone other than being on.

Hybrid: The government finds your location in occasional pings through active dragnets and ongoing technical fishing expeditions. This would not only include cellphone-related techniques, but also face recognition connected to urban CCTV networks.

Privacy of location is one of the Seven Privacies, and we can calmly say that without active countermeasures, it’s been completely lost in the transition from analog to digital. Our parents had privacy of location, especially in busy places like airports and train stations. Our children don’t have privacy of location, not in general, and particularly not in places like airports and train stations that were the safest havens of our analog parents.

How do we reinstate Privacy of Location today? It was taken for granted just 12 years ago.

Privacy: “Everything you say or do can and will be used against you, at any point in the far future when the context and agreeableness of what you said or did has changed dramatically.” With the analog surveillance of our parents, everything was caught in the context of its time. The digital surveillance of our children saves everything for later use against them.

It’s a reality for our digital children so horrible, that not even Nineteen Eighty-Four managed to think of it. In the analog surveillance world, where people are put under surveillance only after they’ve been identified as suspects of a crime, everything we said and did was transient. If Winston’s telescreen missed him doing something bad, then it had missed the moment and Winston was safe.

The analog surveillance was transient for two reasons: one, it was assumed that all surveillance was people watching other people, and two, that nobody would have the capacity of instantly finding keywords in the past twenty years of somebody’s conversations. In the analog world of our parents, that would mean somebody would need to actually listen to twenty years’ worth of tape recordings, which would in turn take sixty years (as we only work 8 out of 24 hours). In the digital world of our children, surveillance agencies type a few words to get automatic transcripts of the saved-forever surveillance-of-everybody up on screen in realtime as they type the keywords – not just from one person’s conversation, but from everybody’s. (This isn’t even exaggerating; this was reality in or about 2010 with the GCHQ-NSA XKEYSCORE program.)

In the world of our analog parents, surveillance was only a thing at the specific time it was active, which was when you were under individual and concrete suspicion of a specific, already-committed, and serious crime.

In the world of our digital children, surveillance can be retroactively activated for any reason or no reason, with the net effect that everybody is under surveillance for everything they have ever done or said.

We should tell people as it has become instead; “anything you say or do can be used against you, for any reason or no reason, at any point in the future”.

The current generation has utterly failed to preserve the presumption of innocence, as it applies to surveillance, in the shift from our analog parents to our digital children.

This subtle addition – that everything is recorded for later use against you – amplifies the horrors of the previous aspects of surveillance by orders of magnitude.

Consider somebody asking you where you were on the evening of March 13, 1992. You would, at best, have a vague idea of what you did that year. (“Let’s see… I remember my military service started on March 3 of that year… and the first week was a tough boot camp in freezing winter forest… so I was probably… back at barracks after the first week, having the first military theory class of something? Or maybe that date was a Saturday or Sunday, in which case I’d be on weekend leave?” That’s about the maximum precision your memory can produce for twenty-five years past.)

However, when confronted with hard data on what you did, the people confronting you will have an utter and complete upper hand, because you simply can’t refute it. “You were in this room and said these words, according to our data transcript. These other people were also in the same room. We have to assume what you said was communicated with the intention for them to hear. What do you have to say for yourself?”

It doesn’t have to be 25 years ago. A few months back would be sufficient for most memories to be not very detailed anymore.

To illustrate further: consider that the NSA is known to store copies even of all encrypted correspondence today, on the assumption that even if it’s not breakable today, it will probably be so in the future. Consider what you’re communicating encrypted today — in text, voice, or video — can be used against you in twenty years. You probably don’t even know half of it, because the window of acceptable behavior will have shifted in ways we cannot predict, as it always does. In the 1950s, it was completely socially acceptable to drop disparaging remarks about some minorities in society, which would socially ostracize you today. Other minorities are still okay to disparage, but might not be in the future.

When you’re listening to somebody talking from fifty years ago, they were talking in the context of their time, maybe even with the best of intentions by today’s standards. Yet, we could judge them harshly for their words interpreted by today’s context — today’s completely different context.

Our digital children will face exactly this scenario, because everything they do and say can and will be used against them, at any point in the future. It should not be this way. They should have every right to enjoy Analog Equivalent Privacy Rights.

Privacy: Our analog parents had the ability to read news anonymously, however they wanted, wherever they wanted, and whenever they wanted. For our digital children, a government agent might as well be looking over their shoulder: the government knows what news sources they read, what articles, for how long, and in what order.

For our analog parents, reading the news was an affair the government had no part of, or indeed had any business being part of. Our analog parents bought a morning newspaper with a few coins on the street corner, brought it somewhere quiet where they had a few minutes to spare, and started reading without anybody interfering.

When our digital children read the news, the government doesn’t just know what news source they choose to read, but also what specific articles they read from that news source, in what order, and for how long. So do several commercial actors. There are at least three grave issues with this.

The first is that since the government has this data, it will attempt to use this data. More specifically, it will attempt to use the data against the individual concerned, possibly in some sort of pre-crime scheme. We know this that since all data collected by a government will eventually be used against the people concerned, with mathematical certainty.

In an attention economy, data about what we pay attention to, how much, and for how long, are absolutely crucial predictive behaviors. And in the hands of a government which makes the crucial mistake of using it to predict pre-crime, the results can be disastrous for the individual and plain wrong for the government.

Of course, the instant the government uses this data in any way imaginable, positive or negative, it will become Heisenberg Metrics — the act of using the data will shape the data itself. For example, if somebody in government decides that reading about frugality probably is an indicator of poverty, and so makes people more eligible for government handouts, then such a policy will immediately shape people’s behavior to read more about frugality. Heisenberg Metrics is when a metric can’t be measured without making it invalid in the process.

(The phenomenon is named after the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which is traditionally confused with the Observer Effect, which states you can’t measure some things without changing them in the process. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is actually something else entirely; it states that you can’t measure precise momentum and position of a subatomic particle at the same time, and does not apply at all to Heisenberg Metrics.)

The second issue is that not only government, but also other commercial actors, will seek to act on these metrics, Heisenberg Metrics as they may be. Maybe somebody thinks that reading fanzines about motorcycle acrobatics should have an effect on your health and traffic insurance premiums?

The third issue is subtle and devious, but far more grave: the government doesn’t just know what articles you read and in what order, but as a corollary to that, knows what the last article you read was, and what you did right after reading it. In other words, it knows very precisely what piece of information leads you to stop reading and instead take a specific action. This is far more dangerous information than being aware of your general information feed patterns and preferences.

Being able to predict somebody’s actions with a high degree of certainty is a far more dangerous ability than being vaguely aware of somebody’s entertainment preferences.

Our analog parents had the privacy right of choosing their information source anonymously with nobody permitted (or able) to say what articles they read, in what order, or for what reason. It’s not unreasonable that our digital children should have the same privacy right, the analog equivalent privacy right.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

Privacy: In the last article, we focused on how people are tracked today when using credit cards instead of cash. But few pay attention to the fact that we’re tracked when using cash today, too.

Few people pay attention to the little sign on the revolving door on Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It says that wi-fi and bluetooth tracking of every single individual is taking place in the airport.

What sets Schiphol Airport apart isn’t that they track individual people’s movements to the sub-footstep level in a commercial area. (It’s for commercial purposes, not security purposes.) No, what sets Schiphol apart is that they bother to tell people about it. (The Netherlands tend to take privacy seriously, as does Germany, and for the same reason.)

Locator beacons are practically a standard in bigger commercial areas now. They ping your phone using wi-fi and bluetooth, and using signal strength triangulation, a grid of locator beacons is able to show how every single individual is moving in realtime at the sub-footstep level. This is used to “optimize marketing” — in other words, find ways to trick people’s brains to spend resources they otherwise wouldn’t have. Our own loss of privacy is being turned against us, as it always is.

Where do people stop for a while, what catches their attention, what doesn’t catch their attention, what’s a roadblock for more sales?

These are legitimate questions. However, taking away people’s privacy in order to answer those questions is not a legitimate method to answer them.

This kind of mass individual tracking has even been deployed at city levels, which happened in complete silence until the Privacy Oversight Board of a remote government sounded the alarms. The city of Västerås got the green light to continue tracking once some formal criteria were met.

Yes, this kind of people tracking is documented to have been already rolled out citywide in at least one small city in a remote part of the world (Västerås, Sweden). With the government’s Privacy Oversight Board having shrugged and said “fine, whatever”, don’t expect this to stay in the small town of Västerås. Correction, wrong tense: don’t expect it to have stayed in just Västerås, where it was greenlit three years ago.

Our analog parents had the ability to walk around untracked in the city and street of their choice, without it being used or held against them. It’s not unreasonable that our digital children should have the same ability.

There’s one other way to buy things with cash which avoids this kind of tracking, and that’s paying cash-on-delivery when ordering something online or over the phone to your door — in which case your purchase is also logged and recorded, just in another type of system.

This isn’t only used against the ordinary citizen for marketing purposes, of course. It’s used against the ordinary citizen for every conceivable purpose. But we’ll be returning to that in a later article in the series.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

Privacy: We’ve seen how our digital children’s privacy is violated in everything they buy with cash or credit, in a way our analog parents would have balked at. But even worse: our digital children’s privacy is also violated by tracking what they don’t buy — either actively decline or just plain walk away from.

Amazon just opened its first “Amazon Go” store, where you just pick things into a bag and leave, without ever going through a checkout process. As part of the introduction of this concept, Amazon points out that you can pick something off the shelves, at which point it’ll register in your purchase — and change your mind and put it back, at which point you’ll be registered and logged as having not purchased the item.

Sure, you’re not paying for something you changed your mind about, which is the point of the video presentation. But it’s not just about the deduction from your total amount to pay: Amazon also knows you considered buying it and eventually didn’t, and will be using that data.

Our digital children are tracked this way on a daily basis, if not an hourly basis. Our analog parents never were.

When we’re shopping for anything online, there are even simple plugins for the most common merchant solutions with the business terms “funnel analysis” — where in the so-called “purchase funnel” our digital children choose to leave the process of purchasing something — or “cart abandonment analysis”.

We can’t even simply walk away from something anymore without it being recorded, logged, and cataloged for later use against us.

But so-called “cart abandonment” is only one part of the bigger issue of tracking what we’re interested in in the age of our digital children, but didn’t buy. There is no shortage of people today who would swear they were just discussing a very specific type of product with their phone present (say, “black leather skirts”) and all of a sudden, advertising for that very specific type of product would pop up all over Facebook and/or Amazon ads. Is this really due to some company listening for keywords through the phone? Maybe, maybe not. All we know since Snowden is that if it’s technically possible to invade privacy, it is already happening.

(We have to assume here these people still need to learn how to install a simple adblocker. But still.)

At the worst ad-dense places, like (but not limited to) airports, there are eyeball trackers to find out which ads you look at. They don’t yet change to match your interests, as per Minority Report, but that’s already present on your phone and on your desktop, and so wouldn’t be foreign to see in public soon, either.

In the world of our analog parents, we weren’t registered and tracked when we bought something.

In the world of our digital children, we’re registered and tracked even when we don’t buy something.

Privacy: For our analog parents, a diary or a personal letter could rarely be touched by authorities, not even by law enforcement searching for evidence of a crime. Objects such as these had protection over and above the constitutional privacy safeguards. For our digital children, however, the equivalent diaries and letters aren’t even considered worthy of basic constitutional privacy.

In most jurisdictions, there is a constitutional right to privacy. Law enforcement in such countries can’t just walk in and read somebody’s mail, wiretap their phonecalls, or track their IP addresses. They need a prior court order to do so, which in turn is based on a concrete suspicion of a serious crime: the general case is that you have a right to privacy, and violations of this rule are the exception, not the norm.

However, there’s usually a layer of protection over and above this: even if and when law enforcement gets permission from a judge to violate somebody’s privacy in the form of a search warrant of their home, there are certain things that may not be touched unless specific and additional permissions are granted by the same type of judge. This class of items includes the most private of the personal: private letters, diaries, and so on.

Of course, this is only true in the analog world of our parents. Even though the letter of the law is the same, this protection doesn’t apply at all to the digital world of our children, to their diaries and letters.

Because the modern diary is kept on a computer. If not on a desktop computer, then certainly on a mobile handheld one — what we’d call a “phone” for historical reasons, but what’s really a handheld computer.

And a computer is a work tool in the analog world of our parents. There are loads of precedent cases that establish any form of electronic device as a work tool, dating back well into the analog world, and law enforcement is falling back on all of them with vigor, even now that our digital devices are holding our diaries, personal letters, and other items far more private than an analog diary was ever capable of.

That’s right: whereas your parents’ diaries were extremely protected under the law of the land, your children’s diaries — no less private to them, than those of your parents were to your parents — are as protected from search and seizure as an ordinary steel wrench in a random workshop.

So the question is how we got from point A to point B here? Why are the Police, who know that they can’t touch an analog diary during a house search, instantly grabbing mobile phones which serve the same purpose for our children?

“Because they can”, is the short answer. “Also because nobody put their foot down” for advanced points on the civics course. It’s because some people saw short term political points in being “tough on crime” and completely erasing hard-won rights in the process.

Encrypt everything.

Privacy: In a series of posts on this blog, we have shown how practically everything our parents took for granted with regards to privacy has been completely eliminated for our children, just because they use digital tools instead of analog, and the people interpreting the laws are saying that privacy only applies to the old, analog environment of our parents.

Once you agree with the observation that privacy seems to simply not apply for our children, merely for living in a digitally-powered environment instead of our parents’ analog-powered one, surprise turns to shock turns to anger, and it’s easy to want to assign blame to someone for essentially erasing five generations’ fight for civil liberties while people were looking the other way.

So whose fault is it, then?

It’s more than one actor at work here, but part of the blame must be assigned to the illusion that that nothing has changed, just because our digital children can use old-fashioned and obsolete technology to obtain the rights they should always have by law and constitution, regardless of which method they use to talk to friends and exercise their privacy rights.

We’ve all heard these excuses.

“You still have privacy of correspondence, just use the old analog letter”. As if the Internet generation would. You might as well tell our analog parents that they would need to send a wired telegram to enjoy some basic rights.

“You can still use a library freely.” Well, only an analog one, not a digital one like The Pirate Bay, which differs from an analog library only in efficiency, and not in anything else.

“You can still discuss anything you like.” Yes, but only in the analog streets and squares, not in the digital streets and squares.

“You can still date someone without the government knowing your dating preferences.” Only if I prefer to date like our parents did, in the unsafe analog world, as opposed to the safe digital environment where predators vanish at the click of a “block” button, an option our analog parents didn’t have in shady bars.

The laws aren’t different for the analog and the digital. The law doesn’t make a difference between analog and digital. But no law is above the people who interpret it in the courts, and the way people interpret those laws means the privacy rights always apply to the analog world, but never to the digital world.

It’s not rocket science to demand the same laws to apply offline and online. This includes copyright law, as well as the fact that privacy of correspondence takes precedence over copyright law (in other words, you’re not allowed to open and examine private correspondence for infringements in the analog world, not without prior and individual warrants — our law books are full of these checks and balances; they should apply in the digital too, but don’t today).

Going back to blame, that’s one actor right there: the copyright industry. They have successfully argued that their monopoly laws should apply online just as it does offline, and in doing so, has completely ignored all the checks and balances that apply to the copyright monopoly laws in the analog world. And since copying movies and music has now moved into the same communications channels as we use for private correspondence, the copyright monopoly as such has become fundamentally incompatible with private correspondence at the conceptual level.

The copyright industry has been aware of this conflict and has been continuously pushing for eroded and eliminated privacy to prop up their crumbling and obsolete monopolies, such as pushing for the hated (and now court-axed) Data Retention Directive in Europe. They would use this federal law (or European equivalent thereof) to literally get more powers than the Police themselves in pursuing individual people who were simply sharing music and movies, sharing in the way everybody does.

There are two other major factors at work. The second factor is marketing. The reason we’re tracked at the sub-footstep level in airports and other busy commercial centers is simply to sell us more crap we don’t need. This comes at the expense of privacy that our analog parents took for granted. Don’t even get started on Facebook and Google.

Last but not least are the surveillance hawks — the politicians who want to look “Tough on Crime”, or “Tough on Terrorism”, or whatever the word of choice is this week. These were the ones who pushed the Data Retention Directive into law. The copyright industry were the ones who basically wrote it for them.

These three factors have working together, and they’ve been very busy.

It’s going to be a long uphill battle to win back the liberties that were slowly won by our ancestors over about six generations, and which have been all but abolished in a decade.

Our children are right to demand Analog Equivalent Privacy Rights — the civil liberties our parents not just enjoyed, but took for granted.

I fear the failure to pass on the civil liberties from our parents to our children is going to be seen as the greatest failure of this particular current generation, regardless of all the good we also accomplish. Surveillance societies can be erected in just ten years, but can take centuries to roll back.

Privacy remains your own responsibility today. We all need to take it back merely by exercising our privacy rights, with whatever tools are at our disposal.

Image from the movie “Nineteen-Eighty Four”; used under fair use for political commentary.

Bitcoin: As the dust settles after the November 15 bitcoin upgrade, the roadmaps have been updated with the new state of the protocol and people are starting to looking ahead to the next set of features. I thought I’d take the opportunity to give my view on it.

The new set of features ahead has been published on bitcoincash.org, which is for the most part spearheaded by the Bitcoin ABC implementation, but where Bitcoin Unlimited also deserves significant credit for research and development.

This is the current “you are here” map as of end-2018:

I like this roadmap for two reasons. Or rather, for two levels of reasons.

The first is that I see bitcoin as the path to a world currency. In order to be so, it will need to carry an insanely heavier load, and because of the typical velocity of money, each bitcoin must be valued far higher than it is today — to a point where single satoshis are no longer a small unit, but represent maybe a few cents. That quanta (smallest possible discrete value) is not small enough to provide frictionless automated microtrade, which is why I’m looking forward to — and have been discreetly applauding — the fractional satoshis on the roadmap. The bigger footprint a network gets, the more inertia it takes to change something, so getting these two items in with reasonable speed is something I regard as key.

The third key item is extensibility — the ability to extend the protocol without asking permission, akin to how early browsers started supporting random new HTML markup tags left and right. This drove the standards forward and allowed for rapid feedback cycles with the user community, and something similar will be needed for permissionless innovation on top of bitcoin to really take off.

These three taken together happen to represent the final phase of the three tracks that the roadmap lists. I have some understanding that each of them have necessary prerequisites that are being filled in some sort of logical order.

This brings me to the Law of Two Feet.

You see, it doesn’t really matter what I think of a feature, whether I like it or not. I am a diehard proponent of the Law of Two Feet: It simply means that if you don’t like something, then it is your responsibility — both toward yourself and the community you don’t like — to walk to a place you do like.

(Just to be clear, the Law of Two Feet is inclusive. It also applies to people who don’t have two actual feet.)

This is what I worded as the Freedom of Initiative and the Freedom to Follow, and it is absolutely key for permissionless innovation. You don’t get that the moment somebody is trying to give somebody else permission on what road they may choose.

Each of us have the freedom to take any initiative we want.

Each of us also have the freedom to follow any initiative we like.

But no one of us may tell another what they must or may not do.

I happen to very much approve of the above roadmap from where I’m sitting. But even if I didn’t, the freedom of initiative and freedom to follow are far more important than my opinion on this particular initiative.

Activism: In the ever-evolving landscape of politics, we often find ourselves confined to the traditional left-right spectrum. This binary view, with its emphasis on economic and social policies, sometimes obscures deeper motivations driving voter behavior and political trends. As a result, we might miss crucial insights that could enhance our understanding of why people vote the way they do, why political movements gain momentum, and why some ideas resonate while others falter. I have found an alternative framework to be far more helpful: the Maslow Pyramid.

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, typically illustrated as a pyramid, categorizes human needs into five levels: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Maslow famously hypothesized, that a lower-level need must be satisfied before we start attempting to fulfill the needs of the next level — as an example, while we’re starving and live in fear of being robbed (level one), we’re not so much concerned with having the respect of the community (level four). By examining political trends through this lens, we can gain a richer, more nuanced perspective on what drives societal shifts and voter preferences.

Physiological Needs and the Politics of Survival

At the base of Maslow’s pyramid are physiological needs: food, water, warmth, and rest — as well as immediate physical safety. In times of economic crisis, political discourse often gravitates towards these fundamental concerns. Populist movements frequently gain traction by promising to address the immediate needs of the people. For instance, during the Great Recession, there was a surge in support for policies focused on job creation, healthcare access, and basic economic security. Politicians who can convincingly address these basic needs often see significant support from constituencies facing hardship just getting from one day to the next without getting beaten, robbed, or starved. Fear of getting to this state (fear of getting robbed on your way to/from work, school, etc.) will also suffice to place oneself at this level.

However, if established parties fail to address these concerns, voters will inevitably turn to whomever offers a solution, even if it’s an atrocious one. It’s like choosing Comcast for your Internet connection when no other provider is available—you know the service is subpar, but having some connection is better than none. Similarly, in politics, when mainstream parties neglect the foundational needs of the populace, fringe or extremist parties can gain support by simply acknowledging and addressing these unmet needs — and that is regardless of how flawed their solutions to said problems may be.

Safety Needs and the Demand for Stability

Moving up the pyramid, once the physical needs are met, then safety needs encompass longer-term personal security, employment, and health. Political rhetoric around law and order, immigration control, and national security taps into these safety concerns. When people feel their safety is threatened, whether by crime, terrorism, or economic instability, they are more likely to support policies and leaders who promise to restore stability and protect them from perceived threats. The post-9/11 era (just after 2001), with its heightened focus on national security, is a prime example of how safety needs can dominate the political agenda.

Yet again, if traditional parties fail to provide a sense of security, voters may gravitate towards any party that promises to deliver it, even if their methods are draconian and/or frankly ridiculous.

Love and Belonging: The Politics of Identity

The middle tier of the pyramid addresses social needs: relationships, friendships, and a sense of belonging. Identity politics, which includes movements advocating for the rights of specific social groups based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and more, finds its roots here. Political movements that foster a sense of community and belonging can galvanize supporters by addressing these intrinsic needs. The LGBPQRST+ rights movement, for instance, not only fights for legal rights but also seeks to create a supportive community for its members.

When mainstream parties overlook these social needs, people will seek out any group or party that offers them a sense of belonging, even if that party’s overall agenda is problematic. It’s a matter of seeking connection where it’s available.

Esteem: The Quest for Recognition

Esteem needs encompass respect, self-esteem, status, and recognition. Political leaders who can validate the contributions and worth of their supporters often build strong, loyal followings. This is evident in political campaigns that emphasize the dignity of work, the importance of patriotism, and the recognition of personal achievements. Policies aimed at rewarding hard work and providing opportunities for personal advancement resonate deeply with voters seeking validation and respect.

Self-Actualization: The Pursuit of Fulfillment

At the peak of the pyramid is self-actualization — the realization of one’s potential and the pursuit of personal growth and fulfillment. Politics at this level involves visionary thinking and appeals to higher ideals. Environmental movements with or without solutions based in reality, space exploration initiatives, and educational reforms often engage this need. Leaders who inspire through their vision of a better future, who challenge citizens to think beyond their immediate concerns and contribute to something greater than themselves, tap into this highest level of human motivation.

It’s rather telling that the biggest telltale sign for voters (and media), who are personally at this level of human needs, is that they often and happily paint the political parties and movements answering to level-one and level-two human needs as brutish, uneducated, simpleton and backwards — when in reality, what such name-calling voters who pretend to hold themselves to some sort of higher standard are really doing, is disacknowledging that other people’s most basic needs are simply not being met. Talk about being overprivileged in ivory towers! “Let them eat cake”, anyone?

If mainstream political parties neglect to engage voters at this level, people will align with any party that inspires them, even if the broader agenda is not entirely sound. It can be somewhat like signing up for a self-help seminar led by a guy who lives in his mom’s basement because he speaks so passionately about “unlocking your potential.”

A Holistic Approach to Political Analysis

By applying the Maslow Pyramid to our understanding of political trends, we gain a multi-dimensional view that goes beyond the simplicity of left versus right. This approach allows us to see how different policies and political messages resonate with various segments of the population based on their current needs and aspirations.

For instance, a comprehensive healthcare reform policy can address physiological needs by ensuring access to medical care, safety needs by providing financial security, love and belonging by reducing social disparities, esteem by recognizing healthcare as a right, and self-actualization by promoting a healthier society capable of achieving its full potential.

It’s further important to realize that an individual voter would vote for completely different parties, even at opposite ends of the traditional spectrum, depending on where they feel the most urgency in their personal needs at the moment, and that this is not a contradiction or uncertainty on policies.

In conclusion, the Maslow Pyramid provides a valuable framework for understanding the complex and dynamic nature of political trends. It reminds us that politics is fundamentally about people and their needs. By considering these needs in our political analysis, we can develop more empathetic, effective, and inclusive strategies that resonate deeply with the human condition. And crucially, we must remember that when these needs are ignored, voters will turn to any party that promises to meet them, even if it means accepting a deeply flawed solution. After all, in the absence of better options, you might just end up with Comcast.

As the last years we are proud to anounce we will have a huge booth at the BMX CGN Conest formaly known as BMX Worlds this year again (18th - 20th of July 2014). At the kunstform?! booth you can get nearly everything a BMX rider could imagine. Come and visit us on over 125sqm to shop the best bmx parts and check out some specials and goodies.

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wethepeople Autumn Session 2015 - Zuppermarkt - Trier

WETHEPEOPLE X kunstform BMX Shop - Get in the Van Tour 2015

wethepeople Foundation BMX Video Premiere - Stuttgart

BMX STREET kunstform photoshoot 2017 - Behind the scenes

Our bros Miguel Smajlji , Robin Kachfi , Sven Avemaria and André Bodlin Went out a few weeks ago with photographer Julien Fincker on the streets of Stuttgart for a new kunstform project. Check it out!

Video: Robin Kachfi

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Felix Prangenberg Wethepeople Endstate Part

Felix Prangenberg has produced a lot for his WTP "Endstate" part during his Cali trip, in which each clip is just sick! enjoy the video! Best regards, your kunstform BMX Shop

Video: Grant C.

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Felix Prangenberg Wethepeople Endstate Part

Felix Prangenberg has produced a lot for his WTP "Endstate" part during his Cali trip, in which each clip is just sick! enjoy the video! Best regards, your kunstform BMX Shop

Video: Grant C.

Subscribe our youtube channel: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/kunstformbmxshop