58,961 research outputs found
Prosecuting Dark Net Drug Marketplace Operators Under the Federal Crack House Statute
Over 70,000 Americans died as the result of a drug overdose in 2017, a record year following a record year. Amidst this crisis, the popularity of drug marketplaces on what has been called the âdark netâ has exploded. Illicit substances are sold freely on such marketplaces, and the anonymity these marketplaces provide has proved troublesome for law enforcement. Law enforcement has responded by taking down several of these marketplaces and prosecuting their creators, such as Ross Ulbricht of the former Silk Road. Prosecutors have typically leveled conspiracy charges against the operators of these marketplacesâin Ulbrichtâs case, alleging a single drug conspiracy comprising Ulbricht and the thousands of vendors on the Silk Road. This Note argues that the conspiracy to distribute narcotics charge is a poor conceptual fit for the behavior of operators of typical dark net drug marketplaces, and that the federal âcrack houseâ statute provides a better charge. Though charging these operators under the crack house statute would be a novel approach, justice is best served when the crime accurately describes the behavior, as the crack house statute does in proscribing what dark net drug marketplace operators like Ulbricht do
Conspiratorial beliefs observed through entropy principles
We propose a novel approach framed in terms of information theory and entropy
to tackle the issue of conspiracy theories propagation. We start with the
report of an event (such as 9/11 terroristic attack) represented as a series of
individual strings of information denoted respectively by two-state variable
Ei=+/-1, i=1,..., N. Assigning Ei value to all strings, the initial order
parameter and entropy are determined. Conspiracy theorists comment on the
report, focusing repeatedly on several strings Ek and changing their meaning
(from -1 to +1). The reading of the event is turned fuzzy with an increased
entropy value. Beyond some threshold value of entropy, chosen by simplicity to
its maximum value, meaning N/2 variables with Ei=1, doubt prevails in the
reading of the event and the chance is created that an alternative theory might
prevail. Therefore, the evolution of the associated entropy is a way to measure
the degree of penetration of a conspiracy theory. Our general framework relies
on online content made voluntarily available by crowds of people, in response
to some news or blog articles published by official news agencies. We apply
different aggregation levels (comment, person, discussion thread) and discuss
the associated patterns of entropy change.Comment: 21 page, 14 figure
Climates of suspicion: 'chemtrail' conspiracy narratives and the international politics of geoengineering
Concurrent with growing academic and policy interest in âgeoengineeringâ the global climate in response to climate change, a more marginal discourse postulating the existence of a climate control conspiracy is also proliferating on the Internet. Here, the term âchemtrailsâ is used interchangeably with the term geoengineering to describe the belief that the persistent contrails left by aeroplanes provide evidence that a secret programme of large scale weather and climate modification is on-going. Despite recent calls for greater appreciation of the diverse ways in which people conceive of and relate to ideas of climate control, and widespread acknowledgement of the importance of democratic public engagement in governance of geoengineering, the chemtrail conspiracy narrative has received very little attention in academic work to date. This paper builds on work highlighting the instability of the distinction between âparanoidâ and ânormalâ views, and examines the chemtrail conspiracy narrative as a discourse rather than a pathology (either psychological or sociological). The analysis finds that while some elements of the chemtrail narrative do not lend themselves to democratic processes of deliberation, and potential for engagement with more mainstream discourse appears to be low, nevertheless certain elements of the discourse (such as the moral outrage at the idea of powerful elites controlling the climate, or the importance of emotional and spiritual connections to weather and climate) highlight concerns of relevance to mainstream geoengineering debates. Furthermore, the pervasive suspicion that characterises the narrative and its reminder of the key role that trust plays in knowledge creation and the justification of beliefs, signals what is likely to be a perennial issue in the emerging international politics of geoengineering
Conspiratorial cosmology - the case against the Universe
Based on the cosmological results of the Planck Mission, we show that all
parameters describing our Universe within the \Lambda CDM model can be
constructed from a small set of numbers known from conspiracy theory. Our
finding is confirmed by recent data from high energy particle physics. This
clearly demonstrates that our Universe is a plot initiated by an unknown
interest group or lodge. We analyse possible scenarios for this conspiracy, and
conclude that the belief in the existence of our Universe is an illusion, as
previously assumed by ancient philosophers, 20th century science fiction
authors and contemporary film makers.Comment: 4 page
Silencers: A Threat to Public Safety
A push by the firearms industry and gun lobby to make it far easier for private citizens to buy and possess firearm silencers will only place the police and public at increased risk warns a new and expanded edition of the Violence Policy Center's (VPC) study Silencers: A Threat to Public Safety. In detailing this marketing push, the study also documents examples of lethal attacks and criminal activity involving silencers
Bell inequalities for random fields
The assumptions required for the derivation of Bell inequalities are not
usually satisfied for random fields in which there are any thermal or quantum
fluctuations, in contrast to the general satisfaction of the assumptions for
classical two point particle models. Classical random field models that
explicitly include the effects of quantum fluctuations on measurement are
possible for experiments that violate Bell inequalities.Comment: 18 pages; 1 figure; v4: Essentially the published version; extensive
improvements. v3: Better description of the relationship between classical
random fields and quantum fields; better description of random field models.
More extensive references. v2: Abstract and introduction clarifie
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