Overpowered: American domination, democracy and the ethics of energy consumption

The United States has used its overwhelming political and economic power to secure for itself a disproportionate share of the world’s non-renewable energy resources, most of which are located outside of our borders. We therefore produce a disproportionate amount of pollution, some of which affects people and ecosystems outside of our own borders

Online Misinformation: Challenges and Future Directions

Misinformation has become a common part of our digital media environments and it is compromising the ability of our societies to form informed opinions. It generates misperceptions, which have affected the decision making processes in many domains, including economy, health, environment, and elections, among others. Misinformation and its generation, propagation, impact, and management is being studied through a variety of lenses (computer science, social science, journalism, psychology, etc.) since it widely affects multiple aspects of society. In this paper we analyse the phenomenon of misinformation from a technological point of view.We study the current socio-technical advancements towards addressing the problem, identify some of the key limitations of current technologies, and propose some ideas to target such limitations. The goal of this position paper is to reflect on the current state of the art and to stimulate discussions on the future design and development of algorithms, methodologies, and applications

Sample exam questions.

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Thoughts about a General Theory of Influence in a DIME/PMESII/ASCOP/IRC2 Model

The leading question of this paper is: “How would influence warfare (“iWar”) work and how can we simulate it?” The paper discusses foundational aspects of a theory and model of influence warfare by discussing a framework built along the DIME/PMESII/ASCOP dimension forming a prism with three axes. The DIME concept groups the many instruments of power a nation state can muster into four categories: Diplomacy, Information, Military and Economy. PMESII describes the operational environment in six domains: Political, Military, Economic, Social, Information and Infrastructure. ASCOPE is used in counter insurgency (COIN) environments to analyze the cultural and human environment (aka the “human terrain”) and encompasses Areas, Structures, Capabilities, Organization, People and Events. In addition, the model reflects about aspects of information collection requirements (ICR) and information capabilities requirements (ICR) - hence DIME/PMESII/ASCOP/ICR2. This model was developed from an influence wargame that was conducted in October 2018. This paper introduces basic methodical questions around model building in general and puts a special focus on building a framework for the problem space of influence/information/hybrid warfare takes its shape in. The article tries to describe mechanisms and principles in the information/influence space using cross discipline terminology (e.g. physics, chemistry and literature). On a more advanced level this article contributes to the Human, Social, Culture, Behavior (HSCB) models and community. One goal is to establish an academic, multinational and whole of government influence wargamer community. This paper introduces the idea of the perception field understood as a molecule of a story or narrative that influences an observer. This molecule can be drawn as a selection of vectors that can be built inside the DIME/PMESII/ASCOP prism. Each vector can be influenced by a shielding or shaping action. These ideas were explored in this influence wargame

Seeing Shadows: FBI Surveillance, Gender, and Black Women Activists

This project, “Seeing Shadows: The Gendered Surveillance of Black Women,” explores the ways gender and race influenced the FBI’s surveillance of Black women activists. Previous scholarship has covered the role of surveillance in repressing revolutionary movements and neutralizing radical organizations. Male leaders such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Huey Newton have been the overwhelming focus of surveillance research in social movements. However, little scholarly attention has been paid to the ways the FBI monitored the lives of Black women. Historically, within many social movements, Black women have been marginalized, silenced, or reduced to only their gender because of patriarchal leadership. As a result, the persistence of sexism within these Black movements has affected Black women’s visibility within movement organizations. My research asks, how does gendered marginalization impact their surveillance and visibility to the FBI? It seeks to understand the influence of race and gender on the FBI’s surveillance of three women– Louise Thompson Patterson, Betty Shabazz, and Mabel Williams. By examining components of their FBI file—such as the language used to describe them, the content (not) included in each file, and the narrative built by the agents and informants—the project provides a comparative analysis across gender and across time to theorize the dynamics of surveillance, race and gender. Based on a close analysis of their FBI files, I argue that the tension between hyper-visibility of surveillance and invisibility deriving from gendered stereotypes, resulted in two things: First, it created a cover for the women to continue their political activity without the repercussions of extremely suppressive surveillance, and second, it produced a vague understanding of the women’s lives, on the part of the FBI

Seeing Shadows: The Gendered Surveillance of Black Women

From the Washington University Senior Honors Thesis Abstracts (WUSHTA), Spring 2018. Published by the Office of Undergraduate Research. Joy Zalis Kiefer, Director of Undergraduate Research and Associate Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences; Lindsey Paunovich, Editor; Helen Human, Programs Manager and Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences Mentor: Jonathan Fenderso

Miami Tribe of Oklahoma v. United States

The BIA appealed the district court’s affirmation of its final decision on the application of a holder of a fractional interest in allotted land to transfer part of his interest to the Miami Tribe. Despite substantially prevailing in the final order, the BIA declared its discretion was constrained by the district court’s earlier remand order. The Tenth Circuit held that the BIA’s appeal met the jurisdictional requirements of Article III and vacated the earlier remand order of the district court on the grounds that the BIA had not abused its discretion in denying the land transfer application