{"id":273706,"date":"2023-09-26T06:30:10","date_gmt":"2023-09-26T06:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=273706"},"modified":"2023-09-28T06:05:51","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T06:05:51","slug":"this-week-in-the-new-normal-73","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=273706","title":{"rendered":"This Week in the New Normal #73"},"content":{"rendered":"

Off-Guardian \u2013 off-guardian.org Sept 24, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Our successor to This Week in the Guardian<\/em>, This Week in the New Normal<\/a><\/em> is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.<\/p>\n

1. New York\u2019s robot policemen<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The NYPD is unleashing a robot police officer on wheels to patrol the Times Square subway<\/a>, according to the NYT:<\/p>\n

The K5, described as a \u201cfully autonomous\u201d security robot, is part of a push by the mayor for more law-enforcement technology\u2026<\/p>\n

As much as it\u2019s called a \u201crobot police officer\u201d, in essence, it\u2019s a mobile surveillance unit. A bunch of security cameras on wheels.<\/p>\n

This roll-out (see what we did there?) follows New York Mayor Ernie Adams\u2019 trip to Israel where he witnessed how the world\u2019s most democratic police state uses drones to monitor its system of racial apartheid.<\/p>\n

Adams has used drones himself in the past, most recently to monitor crowds during the West Indian American parade events.<\/p>\n

Right now it\u2019s just an autistic Dalek, blundering about a subway station waiting to crash on the tracks or knock passengers down, but the automation of any kind of surveillance or law enforcement is a bad sign.<\/p>\n

2. Zero meat and Rationing air travel to save the world<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This is actually over a week old, but noteworthy enough to break the rules.<\/p>\n

The C40 \u2013 a coalition of 40 of the largest urban centres in the world \u2013 released a report last week, \u201cThe Future of Urban Consumption in a 1.5\u00b0C World\u201d<\/a><\/em>, which makes several recommendations on how to save the planet.<\/p>\n

They list \u201crealistic\u201d and \u201cambitious\u201d targets for each category.<\/p>\n

\u201cRealistically\u201d they want to limit meat and dairy to 16 and 90 kg per person per year, \u201cambitiously\u201d they want to take that down to zero<\/strong> by 2030.<\/p>\n

They also want to eliminate private vehicles completely and limit everyone to just three new clothes items per year (I don\u2019t know if socks count as two, but for the sake of comedy I hope so.)<\/p>\n

Their \u201cambitious target\u201d for air travel is limiting everyone to one short return flight per person every three years<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This has been floating around the idea sphere for a long time<\/a>, with very little coverage of what it really would mean.<\/p>\n

For starters, of course, there would be exceptions: Private jets, diplomatic flights, military flights, sports teams, celebrities\u2026you get the idea.<\/p>\n

Secondly, they would make it so you can sell your \u201cair coupons\u201d (or whatever they call them), meaning poor people don\u2019t fly at all and sell their flights to the wealthy. They\u2019ll almost certainly include a \u201ccarbon neutral\u201d clause too, meaning if you invest in solar power or plant trees you can \u201cearn\u201d more flights.<\/p>\n

You can read the whole report here.<\/a><\/p>\n

3. The missing F35<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Sometime this week an American F-35 jet just disappeared.<\/p>\n

Rumours have swirled, with some saying it was brought down by small arms fire from militia groups (unlikely) and others that it exploded in midair.<\/p>\n

The F35 has been in production for years, has cost almost two TRILLION<\/strong> dollars <\/a>and has never worked properly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After days of speculation, the US authorities claimed the plane had crashed but the (as yet unnamed) pilot ejected and parachuted to safety<\/a>, They even released audio of a 911 call the pilot made afterwards, using a local\u2019s phone.<\/p>\n