Authored by Per Bylund via The Mises Institute,

Artificial intelligence (AI) cannot distinguish fact from fiction. It also isn’t creative or can create novel content but repeats, repackages, and reformulates what has already been said (but perhaps in new ways).

I am sure someone will disagree with the latter, perhaps pointing to the fact that AI can clearly generate, for example, new songs and lyrics. I agree with this, but it misses the point. AI produces a “new” song lyric only by drawing from the data of previous song lyrics and then uses that information (the inductively uncovered patterns in it) to generate what to us appears to be a new song (and may very well be one). However, there is no artistry in it, no creativity. It’s only a structural rehashing of what exists.

Of course, we can debate to what extent humans can think truly novel thoughts and whether human learning may be based solely or primarily on mimicry. However, even if we would—for the sake of argument—agree that all we know and do is mere reproduction, humans have limited capacity to remember exactly and will make errors. We also fill in gaps with what subjectively (not objectively) makes sense to us (Rorschach test, anyone?). Even in this very limited scenario, which I disagree with, humans generate novelty beyond what AI is able to do.

Both the inability to distinguish fact from fiction and the inductive tether to existent data patterns are problems that can be alleviated programmatically—but are open for manipulation.

Manipulation and Propaganda

When Google launched its Gemini AI in February, it immediately became clear that the AI had a woke agenda. Among other things, the AI pushed woke diversity ideals into every conceivable response and, among other things, refused to show images of white people (including when asked to produce images of the Founding Fathers).

Tech guru and Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen summarized it on X (formerly Twitter): “I know it’s hard to believe, but Big Tech AI generates the output it does because it is precisely executing the specific ideological, radical, biased agenda of its creators. The apparently bizarre output is 100% intended. It is working as designed.”

There is indeed a design to these AIs beyond the basic categorization and generation engines. The responses are not perfectly inductive or generative. In part, this is necessary in order to make the AI useful: filters and rules are applied to make sure that the responses that the AI generates are appropriate, fit with user expectations, and are accurate and respectful. Given the legal situation, creators of AI must also make sure that the AI does not, for example, violate intellectual property laws or engage in hate speech. AI is also designed (directed) so that it does not go haywire or offend its users (remember Tay?).

However, because such filters are applied and the “behavior” of the AI is already directed, it is easy to take it a little further. After all, when is a response too offensive versus offensive but within the limits of allowable discourse? It is a fine and difficult line that must be specified programmatically.

It also opens the possibility for steering the generated responses beyond mere quality assurance. With filters already in place, it is easy to make the AI make statements of a specific type or that nudges the user in a certain direction (in terms of selected facts, interpretations, and worldviews). It can also be used to give the AI an agenda, as Andreessen suggests, such as making it relentlessly woke.

Thus, AI can be used as an effective propaganda tool, which both the corporations creating them and the governments and agencies regulating them have recognized.

Misinformation and Error

States have long refused to admit that they benefit from and use propaganda to steer and control their subjects. This is in part because they want to maintain a veneer of legitimacy as democratic governments that govern based on (rather than shape) people’s opinions. Propaganda has a bad ring to it; it’s a means of control.

However, the state’s enemies—both domestic and foreign—are said to understand the power of propaganda and do not hesitate to use it to cause chaos in our otherwise untainted democratic society. The government must save us from such manipulation, they claim. Of course, rarely does it stop at mere defense. We saw this clearly during the covid pandemic, in which the government together with social media companies in effect outlawed expressing opinions that were not the official line (see Murthy v. Missouri).

AI is just as easy to manipulate for propaganda purposes as social media algorithms but with the added bonus that it isn’t only people’s opinions and that users tend to trust that what the AI reports is true. As we saw in the previous article on the AI revolution, this is not a valid assumption, but it is nevertheless a widely held view.

If the AI then can be instructed to not comment on certain things that the creators (or regulators) do not want people to see or learn, then it is effectively “memory holed.” This type of “unwanted” information will not spread as people will not be exposed to it—such as showing only diverse representations of the Founding Fathers (as Google’s Gemini) or presenting, for example, only Keynesian macroeconomic truths to make it appear like there is no other perspective. People don’t know what they don’t know.

Of course, nothing is to say that what is presented to the user is true. In fact, the AI itself cannot distinguish fact from truth but only generates responses according to direction and only based on whatever the AI has been fed. This leaves plenty of scope for the misrepresentation of the truth and can make the world believe outright lies. AI, therefore, can easily be used to impose control, whether it is upon a state, the subjects under its rule, or even a foreign power.

The Real Threat of AI

What, then, is the real threat of AI? As we saw in the first article, large language models will not (cannot) evolve into artificial general intelligence as there is nothing about inductive sifting through large troves of (humanly) created information that will give rise to consciousness. To be frank, we haven’t even figured out what consciousness is, so to think that we will create it (or that it will somehow emerge from algorithms discovering statistical language correlations in existing texts) is quite hyperbolic. Artificial general intelligence is still hypothetical.

As we saw in the second article, there is also no economic threat from AI. It will not make humans economically superfluous and cause mass unemployment. AI is productive capital, which therefore has value to the extent that it serves consumers by contributing to the satisfaction of their wants. Misused AI is as valuable as a misused factory—it will tend to its scrap value. However, this doesn’t mean that AI will have no impact on the economy. It will, and already has, but it is not as big in the short-term as some fear, and it is likely bigger in the long-term than we expect.

No, the real threat is AI’s impact on information. This is in part because induction is an inappropriate source of knowledge—truth and fact are not a matter of frequency or statistical probabilities. The evidence and theories of Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei would get weeded out as improbable (false) by an AI trained on all the (best and brightest) writings on geocentrism at the time. There is no progress and no learning of new truths if we trust only historical theories and presentations of fact.

However, this problem can probably be overcome by clever programming (meaning implementing rules—and fact-based limitations—to the induction problem), at least to some extent. The greater problem is the corruption of what AI presents: the misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation that its creators and administrators, as well as governments and pressure groups, direct it to create as a means of controlling or steering public opinion or knowledge.

This is the real danger that the now-famous open letter, signed by Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and others, pointed to:

“Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?”

Other than the economically illiterate reference to “automat[ing] away all the jobs,” the warning is well-taken. AI will not Terminator-like start to hate us and attempt to exterminate mankind. It will not make us all into biological batteries, as in The Matrix. However, it will—especially when corrupted—misinform and mislead us, create chaos, and potentially make our lives “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry issued a report Thursday which said its forces have killed nearly 6,000 foreign mercenaries and volunteers fighting on behalf of Ukraine since the war began over two years ago.

The report claimed that in total 13,387 “foreign mercenaries” from multiple dozens of countries have fought in Ukraine, and offered a remarkably specific breakdown of nationalities. International press outlets underscored that it was impossible to independently verify the claims.

Russian Defense Ministry releases stats on foreign mercenaries in Ukraine

The MoD says that since February 24, 2022, 13,387 mercenaries arrived in Ukraine. 5,962 of them have been confirmed killed in action.

Poland remains the largest source of mercenary power for Kiev, with… pic.twitter.com/YQEUraWuYh

— Russian Market (@runews) March 14, 2024

Notably Russia claimed an astounding number of American mercenary deaths, putting the number killed from the United States at 491. The number of fighters killed who hailed from Britain was listed at 360, and Canada – 422, another surprisingly high figure according to the claims. But the Russian MoD’s tally of Polish foreign fighters was by far the largest group – at 1,497 out of 2,690 fighters said to have been killed.

Within the first year of the Russian invasion, it was especially then UK Prime Minister Liz Truss who openly encouraged British and Western fighters to go volunteer to fight for Ukraine. 

The US too at the time openly allowed recruitment efforts by Ukraine’s international/foreign legion through online advertising including social media and large platforms like Facebook.

However, as the war tragically turned into a ‘meat grinder’ and stalled front lines, Western officials seemed to back off their active encouragement for individuals to travel to Ukraine to fight.

Since then, periodically Russia has claimed to have killed or taken prisoner American or UK citizens. Overall, the whole initiative didn’t go well as stories like the below demonstrate…

The Gregg family is laying direct blame on then Prime Minister Truss:

A young British man who took his own life after fighting in Ukraine went to the country after Liz Truss, the former prime minister, claimed anyone who did so would be joining a “battle for democracy”, his family said.

Harry Gregg was 23 and had no formal military training other than a spell in the Army Cadets when he decided to fly to the country after it was invaded by Russia in 2022.

He ended up fighting in the trenches, where he witnessed the deaths of fellow soldiers and reported seeing the aftermath of Russian atrocities against civilians.

He was found hanged after returning to his home in Thetford, Norfolk, the day after his 25th birthday.

Speaking after his inquest at Norfolk Coroner’s Court last week, his family said his decision to go to Ukraine came after the former prime minister, who was his local MP and foreign secretary at the time, said she “absolutely” supported any Britons who wanted to travel to fight the Russians, arguing they would be joining a battle “for democracy”.

An example of a CBS headline during the early months of the war…

More recently, the Kremlin has claimed large numbers of French mercenaries are active in Ukraine, especially near Russia’s border in Kharkiv. Paris has rejected the claims. At the same time, Russia too has been known to deploy foreign fighter in its ranks, but numbers are unknown. 

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People who recovered from COVID-19 and received a COVID-19 shot were more likely to suffer adverse reactions, researchers in Europe are reporting.

Participants in the study were more likely to experience an adverse reaction after vaccination regardless of the type of shot, with one exception, the researchers found.

Across all vaccine brands, people with prior COVID-19 were 2.6 times as likely after dose one to suffer an adverse reaction, according to the new study. Such people are commonly known as having a type of protection known as natural immunity after recovery.

People with previous COVID-19 were also 1.25 times as likely after dose 2 to experience an adverse reaction.

The findings held true across all vaccine types following dose one.

Of the female participants who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, for instance, 82 percent who had COVID-19 previously experienced an adverse reaction after their first dose, compared to 59 percent of females who did not have prior COVID-19.

The only exception to the trend was among males who received a second AstraZeneca dose. The percentage of males who suffered an adverse reaction was higher, 33 percent to 24 percent, among those without a COVID-19 history.

“Participants who had a prior SARS-CoV-2 infection (confirmed with a positive test) experienced at least one adverse reaction more often after the 1st dose compared to participants who did not have prior COVID-19. This pattern was observed in both men and women and across vaccine brands,” Florence van Hunsel, an epidemiologist with the Netherlands Pharmacovigilance Centre Lareb, and her co-authors wrote.

There were only slightly higher odds of the naturally immune suffering an adverse reaction following receipt of a Pfizer or Moderna booster, the researchers also found.

The researchers performed what’s known as a cohort event monitoring study, following 29,387 participants as they received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The participants live in a European country such as Belgium, France, or Slovakia.

Overall, three-quarters of the participants reported at least one adverse reaction, although some were minor such as injection site pain.

Adverse reactions described as serious were reported by 0.24 percent of people who received a first or second dose and 0.26 percent for people who received a booster. Different examples of serious reactions were not listed in the study.

Participants were only specifically asked to record a range of minor adverse reactions (ADRs). They could provide details of other reactions in free text form.

“The unsolicited events were manually assessed and coded, and the seriousness was classified based on international criteria,” researchers said.

The free text answers were not provided by researchers in the paper.

“The authors note, ‘In this manuscript, the focus was not on serious ADRs and adverse events of special interest.’” Yet, in their highlights section they state, “The percentage of serious ADRs in the study is low for 1st and 2nd vaccination and booster.”

Dr. Joel Wallskog, co-chair of the group React19, which advocates for people who were injured by vaccines, told The Epoch Times: “It is intellectually dishonest to set out to study minor adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination then make conclusions about the frequency of serious adverse events. They also fail to provide the free text data.” He added that the paper showed “yet another study that is in my opinion, deficient by design.”

Ms. Hunsel did not respond to a request for comment.

She and other researchers listed limitations in the paper, including how they did not provide data broken down by country.

The paper was published by the journal Vaccine on March 6.

The study was funded by the European Medicines Agency and the Dutch government.

No authors declared conflicts of interest.

Some previous papers have also found that people with prior COVID-19 infection had more adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination, including a 2021 paper from French researchers. A U.S. study identified prior COVID-19 as a predictor of the severity of side effects.

Some other studies have determined COVID-19 vaccines confer little or no benefit to people with a history of infection, including those who had received a primary series.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommends people who recovered from COVID-19 receive a COVID-19 vaccine, although a number of other health authorities have stopped recommending the shot for people who have prior COVID-19.

Another New Study

In another new paper, South Korean researchers outlined how they found people were more likely to report certain adverse reactions after COVID-19 vaccination than after receipt of another vaccine.

The reporting of myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation, or pericarditis, a related condition, was nearly 20 times as high among children as the reporting odds following receipt of all other vaccines, the researchers found.

The reporting odds were also much higher for multisystem inflammatory syndrome or Kawasaki disease among adolescent COVID-19 recipients.

Researchers analyzed reports made to VigiBase, which is run by the World Health Organization.

“Based on our results, close monitoring for these rare but serious inflammatory reactions after COVID-19 vaccination among adolescents until definitive causal relationship can be established,” the researchers wrote.

The study was published by the Journal of Korean Medical Science in its March edition.

Limitations include VigiBase receiving reports of problems, with some reports going unconfirmed.

Funding came from the South Korean government. One author reported receiving grants from pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer.

By John Cody of Remix News

Swedish women have never had so few children as in 2023, new data shows. Based on the childbearing gap, Yasir Qadhi, a Pakistani-born American theologian, predicts that in just one generation, half of Malmö’s population will be Muslim.

“Walking through the streets of Malmö is like walking through Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, or Damascus, the capital of Syria,” said Yasir Qadhi, a Pakistani-born American theologian, as reported in the Swedish newspaper Samnytt.

Qadhi, who has a doctorate in theology from Yale University, gave lectures on Islam to young Muslims in Stockholm and Malmö. He says he asked himself during his visit to Malmö whether he was in Sweden, according to a video he posted on YouTube.

He also shared his theory with the world that the towns he mentioned would become Muslim towns because while Swedes have few children, it is not uncommon for a Muslim family to have five or six. In a generation’s time, Malmö will not be dominated by Swedes, according to the theologian.

As Remix News previously reported, ethnic Swedish children are already a minority in the school system of Malmö, with one Swedish academic reacting to the massive demographic transformation known as the Great Replacement by claiming that schools should be taught in Arabic, as Swedish is now a minority language.

Associate professor of social work, Erica Righard, who works at Malmö University, wrote in her report for the Growth Commission, that the demographic changes present “new challenges for integration.”

Conservatives in Sweden have long pointed to Malmö as a harbinger of a future that the majority of Swedes remain opposed to, as the city has completely transformed from nearly all ethnic Swedes into a multicultural area marked by urban decay, no-go zones controlled by migrant clans, and a city unsafe for women in many areas.

Data also shows that migrants and those of a migrant background are responsible for the vast majority of murders, shootings, gang rapes, and robberies in Sweden.

According to the latest figures from Statistics Sweden, birth rates in the country have sunk to an all-time low in 2023.

Righard’s report also confirms what was once dismissed as right-wing rhetoric and a conspiracy theory. In this European city, the Great Replacement, which describes the demographic displacement of Europeans with non-Europeans in their native countries, is statistically undeniable and ongoing.

Qadhi himself promotes a range of apps and learning programs in various business ventures, with his products often targeting the West’s growing Muslim population.

As-salāmu ʿalaykum all,

This Ramadan I have a blockbuster announcement.

We all know audio is the future. I am a big believer in embracing the future and adapting with the needs of the time.

My team are launching Sawti – the world’s first Islamic audiobook app.

I am… pic.twitter.com/aIJGpALmb8

— Dr. Yasir Qadhi (@YasirQadhi) March 11, 2024

Continue reading at rmxnews.com

Former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, Adm. James Stavridis, told Goldman’s Allison Nathan, “In my career, I’ve never seen a higher level of maritime risk than I do today. That owes first and foremost to the return of great power competition, which we thought was basically over when the Soviet Union collapsed.” 

Three decades after the Cold War ended, conflicts rage across Ukraine, Gaza, the Red Sea, Myanmar, the Sahel, Sudan, and potentially Taiwan and Iran. The rules-based system of international relations modeled on America’s liberal-democratic values is crumbling as the world stumbles into a nascent multipolar era. 

The current military-security situation worldwide is a boon for defense contractors, especially for the ones profiting from the Ukraine conflict (and soon the Red Sea conflict). 

“A new decade of security policy has begun,” Armin Papperger, CEO of German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall, told investors during an earnings call on Wednesday.

Rheinmetall reported that it expects to exceed 10 billion euros ($10.9 billion) in sales for the first time in 2024, with an operating profit margin of 14-15%, up from 12.8% in 2023. 

Shares of Rheinmetall in Germany jumped more than 4.5% on Wednesday, hitting fresh record highs – and have surged 53% year-to-date. 

Rheinmetall manufactures Leopard 2 tanks, tactical vehicles, and anti-aircraft tanks. Many of these defense items have been sent to Ukrainian battlefields. 

“We’re enabling governments to protect their people from war and violence — the primary and most important responsibility of any government,” Papperger said, adding, “Germany and Europe haven’t faced such insecurity since the Cold War.” 

The International Institute for Strategic Studies recently warned: “The current military-security situation heralds what is likely to be a more dangerous decade, characterized by the brazen application by some of the military power to pursue claims.” 

David Asher, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, noted there are other opportunity in European arms companies:

“Rheinmetall is screaming hot, but there are many other European arms manufacturers who stand to benefit. No doubt that for the NATO members dramatically increasing defense spending is their best defense against Putin’s threats of offense. Same with a potential Trump return as President and demands that they either dramatically pick up defense spending and burden sharing or be shunted aside at an incredibly dangerous time.” 

This dangerous multipolar world bodes well for the bull market in the defense sector. 

Authored by Pete Hoekstra via The Gatestone Institute,

Last month, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg conceded what former US President Donald Trump has been warning about for nearly a decade: America’s allies are not paying their fair share — as they had agreed — for national defense. After four years in which Trump held our NATO allies accountable for funding their share of NATO’s collective defense, US President Joe Biden has once again allowed many of them to pass significant burdens of NATO spending on to American taxpayers – threatening the security of the NATO alliance in the process.

The very nature of alliances is that they are a two-way street. Americans should rightly expect to realize benefits from U.S. participation in NATO, just as the citizens of other NATO nations can expect to benefit from their country’s relationship with the United States.

Indeed, that was the original idea behind the North Atlantic Treaty Organization when it was founded in 1949. In the wake of WWII, 12 nations agreed to band together to guard against the threat of the Soviet Union, a number that has now grown to 32 with the recent addition of Sweden.

The NATO alliance today, however, more closely resembles an international welfare program than a true alliance, with most countries failing to meet their defense commitments and instead relying on the generosity of the United States.

As the eminent journalist Amir Taheri put it: “others… treat the US as a ‘room service’ reachable by pressing a button…”

In 2014, every NATO member agreed to allocate just 2% of their nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) to defense spending. This minimum baseline target is crucial to ensuring military readiness in the face of growing threats from hostile nations such as China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.

A decade later, 19 out of 32 NATO member nations have failed to meet this goal. Moreover, most of those countries that have reached the 2% target, such as Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Greece, are smaller nations with smaller GDPs.

The United States, meanwhile, accounts for a staggering 70% of all NATO defense spending — even though the combined GDP of the other 31 member nations is roughly equal to that of the United States. Germany, by far the richest NATO member behind the United States, allocates just 1.57% of its GDP to defense spending.

The combined population of these 31 NATO member states, at more than 620 million, also now dwarfs that of the United States, at 333 million. In other words, each American citizen is now effectively responsible for funding the national defense of two people in another NATO nation.

The situation in Europe today is far different than at the founding of NATO, when many nations were still relying on the Marshall Plan funding to be rebuilt. Our NATO allies have highly advanced economies and immensely capable citizens. American taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize their national defense.

If NATO is to function as an effective deterrent to military aggression from Russia and other adversaries, there seriously needs to be a new commitment by every NATO member state to invest in a strong national defense. Yet, the failure of our European allies to meet their spending commitments means they are woefully unprepared from a military standpoint to defend their countries – thus endangering the United States as well as themselves by threatening to draw America into war unnecessarily because of European weakness.

President Trump wisely recognized this threat and accordingly made holding our NATO allies accountable a top priority of his foreign policy. Under his leadership, NATO member countries increased their defense spending by $350 billion.

President Biden has failed to continue the momentum Trump created. After our NATO allies’ defense spending increased 4.6% in 2020, it dropped to only a 2% increase by 2022.

As U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands, in a meeting with Dutch business professionals, I would be asked about the emphasis the Trump administration was putting on the 2% number. People would remark that the Dutch had other priorities, such as healthcare, infrastructure and education. They said they considered the military threat to Europe as miniscule.

Other Dutch citizens asked at various times if Russia would really roll across the borders of Europe with tanks. They had a hard time believing that the Netherlands could ever be in danger. They seemed convinced Trump, and Americans in general, were being unreasonable, distraught and completely out of touch with the security situation in Europe.

A couple of years later, the world discovered the truth. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in fact appears extremely willing to roll his tanks into battle in Europe. After Trump was ridiculed by our NATO allies for demanding European countries do more to protect themselves, unfortunately history has proven him correct.

The United States and the world need an American president who is committed to ensuring our NATO allies share the burden of deterring conflict and attacks upon members of the alliance.

The magnificent Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, in the Netherlands, is the final resting place for 8,288 American servicemen and where another 1,722, whose names are engraved on the Tablets of the Missing, are remembered.

The Dutch have a unique relationship with the cemetery. Every American grave since 1945 has been adopted by a Dutch family. It is a beautiful recognition of the personal sacrifices made for the sake of freedom and liberty – but also a stark reminder of the horrific cost of war and of the failure to deter it.

The strengthening of the NATO alliance by insisting on burden-sharing by all the member states was a hallmark policy of Trump’s first term, and it most probably will be again if voters return him to the White House this November. All of America’s leaders also need to embrace the reality that if our allies are unwilling to do more to keep the world safe and secure, we may need to reassess the relationship we have with them, and cease being “room service.” Alliances are only alliances when the costs and benefits run both ways. Anything less, especially from the richest countries in Europe, is not only disrespectful, but an unacceptable breach of contract.

Authored by Abraham Wyner via DailySceptic.org,

The number of civilian casualties in Gaza has been at the centre of international attention since the start of the war. The main source for the data has been the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, which now claims more than 30,000 dead, the majority of which it says are children and women. Recently, the Biden administration lent legitimacy to Hamas’s figure. When asked at a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week how many Palestinian women and children have been killed since October 7th, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said the number was “over 25,000”. The Pentagon quickly clarified that the Secretary “was citing an estimate from the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry”. President Biden himself had earlier cited this figure, asserting that “too many, too many of the over 27,000 Palestinians killed in this conflict have been innocent civilians and children, including thousands of children”. The White House also explained that the President “was referring to publicly available data about the total number of casualties”.

Here’s the problem with these data: the numbers are not real. That much is obvious to anyone who understands how naturally occurring numbers work. The casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters.

If Hamas’s numbers are faked or fraudulent in some way, there may be evidence in the numbers themselves that can demonstrate it. While there is not much data available, there is a little, and it is enough: from October 26th until November 10th 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry released daily casualty figures that include both a total number and a specific number of women and children.

The first place to look is the reported ‘total’ number of deaths. The graph of total deaths by date is increasing with almost metronomical linearity, as the graph in Figure 1 reveals.

The graph reveals an extremely regular increase in casualties over the period. Data aggregated by the author and provided by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), based on Gaza MoH figures.

This regularity is almost surely not real. One would expect quite a bit of variation day to day. In fact, the daily reported casualty count over this period averages 270 plus or minus about 15%. This is strikingly little variation. There should be days with twice the average or more and others with half or less. Perhaps what is happening is the Gaza ministry is releasing fake daily numbers that vary too little because they do not have a clear understanding of the behaviour of naturally occurring numbers. Unfortunately, verified control data are not available to formally test this conclusion, but the details of the daily counts render the numbers suspicious.

Similarly, we should see variation in the number of child casualties that tracks the variation in the number of women. This is because the daily variation in death counts is caused by the variation in the number of strikes on residential buildings and tunnels which should result in considerable variability in the totals but less variation in the percentage of deaths across groups. This is a basic statistical fact about chance variability. Consequently, on the days with many women casualties there should be large numbers of children casualties, and on the days when just a few women are reported to have been killed, just a few children should be reported. This relationship can be measured and quantified by the R-square (R2) statistic that measures how correlated the daily casualty count for women is with the daily casualty count for children. If the numbers were real, we would expect R2 to be substantively larger than zero, tending closer to 1.0. But R2 is .017 which is statistically and substantively not different from zero.

The daily number of children reported to have been killed is totally unrelated to the number of women reported. The R2 is .017 and the relationship is statistically and substantively insignificant.

This lack of correlation is the second circumstantial piece of evidence suggesting the numbers are not real.

But there is more.

The daily number of women casualties should be highly correlated with the number of non-women and non-children (i.e., men) reported. Again, this is expected because of the nature of battle. The ebbs and flows of the bombings and attacks by Israel should cause the daily count to move together. But that is not what the data show. Not only is there not a positive correlation, there is a strong negative correlation, which makes no sense at all and establishes the third piece of evidence that the numbers are not real.

The correlation between the daily men and daily women death count is absurdly strong and negative (p-value < .0001).

Consider some further anomalies in the data: first, the death count reported on October 29th contradicts the numbers reported on the 28th, insofar as they imply that 26 men came back to life. This can happen because of misattribution or just reporting error. There are a few other days where the numbers of men are reported to be near zero. If these were just reporting errors, then on those days where the death count for men appears to be in error, the women’s count should be typical, at least on average. But it turns out that on the three days when the men’s count is near zero, suggesting an error, the women’s count is high. In fact, the three highest daily women casualty count occurs on those three days.

There are three days where the male casualty count is close to zero. These three days correspond to the three highest daily women’s casualty count.

Taken together, what does this all imply?

While the evidence is not dispositive, it is highly suggestive that a process unconnected or loosely connected to reality was used to report the numbers.

Most likely, the Hamas ministry settled on a daily total arbitrarily.

We know this because the daily totals increase too consistently to be real. Then they assigned about 70% of the total to be women and children, splitting that amount randomly from day to day.

Then they in-filled the number of men as set by the predetermined total.

This explains all the data observed.

There are other obvious red flags. The Gaza Health Ministry has consistently claimed that about 70% of the casualties are women or children. This total is far higher than the numbers reported in earlier conflicts with Israel. Another red flag, raised by Salo Aizenberg and written about extensively, is that if 70% of the casualties are women and children and 25% of the population is adult male, then either Israel is not successfully eliminating Hamas fighters or adult male casualty counts are extremely low. This by itself strongly suggests that the numbers are at a minimum grossly inaccurate and quite probably outright faked.

Finally, on February 15th, Hamas admitted to losing 6,000 of its fighters, which represents more than 20% of the total number of casualties reported. Taken together, Hamas is reporting not only that 70% of casualties are women and children but also that 20% are fighters. This is not possible unless Israel is somehow not killing noncombatant men, or else Hamas is claiming that almost all the men in Gaza are Hamas fighters.

Are there better numbers?

Some objective commentators have acknowledged Hamas’s numbers in previous battles with Israel to be roughly accurate. Nevertheless, this war is wholly unlike its predecessors in scale or scope; international observers who were able to monitor previous wars are now completely absent, so the past can’t be assumed to be a reliable guide. The fog of war is especially thick in Gaza, making it impossible to quickly determine civilian death totals with any accuracy. Not only do official Palestinian death counts fail to differentiate soldiers from children, but Hamas also blames all deaths on Israel even if caused by Hamas’s own misfired rockets, accidental explosions, deliberate killings or internal battles. One group of researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health compared Hamas reports to data on UNRWA workers. The researchers argued that because the death rates were approximately similar, Hamas’s numbers must not be inflated. But their argument relied on a crucial and unverified assumption: that UNRWA workers are not disproportionately more likely to be killed than the general population. That premise exploded when it was uncovered that a sizable fraction of UNRWA workers are affiliated with Hamas. Some were even exposed as having participated in the October 7th massacre itself.

The truth can’t yet be known and probably never will be. The total civilian casualty count is likely to be extremely overstated. Israel estimates that at least 12,000 fighters have been killed. If that number proves to be even reasonably accurate, then the ratio of noncombatant casualties to combatants is remarkably low: at most 1.4 to 1 and perhaps as low as 1 to 1.

By historical standards of urban warfare, where combatants are embedded in and below civilian population centres, this is a remarkable and successful effort to prevent unnecessary loss of life while fighting an implacable enemy that protects itself with civilians.

The data used in the article can be found here, with thanks to Salo Aizenberg who helped check and correct these numbers.

Abraham Wyner is Professor of Statistics and Data Science at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Faculty Co-Director of the Wharton Sports Analytics and Business Initiative.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has staged some interesting military theatrics ahead of next week’s expected visit of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to South Korea for the third Summit for Democracy.

The recent renewal of ongoing major US live-fire exercises on the peninsula has also triggered sharp denunciations from Pyongyang. On Thursday Kim oversaw his own live-fire exercises, while riding in the north’s newest battle tank.

The North Korean leader wore a black leather jacket and mounted a new tank, supposedly driving it himself, according to state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

State media ominously described the exercise as part of “preparations for war”:

Kim expressed “great satisfaction” that the tank – first unveiled during a 2020 military parade – demonstrated its striking power in its inaugural performance display and told his troops to bolster their “fighting spirits” and complete “preparations for war”, KCNA said.

Kim hailed the newly deployed North Korean-made battle tank as “the world’s most powerful” – and state media published a photograph that featured his head sticking out of the tank while in operation.

Notably the exercises were said to have involved military units stationed close to the border wand within striking distance of the “enemy’s capital” – according to KCNA.

Kim has meanwhile denounced the latest joint Washington-Seoul war exercises, which recently even included strategic assets, as a “rehearsal” for invasion of the north.

The past month had already seen Kim reportedly oversee two prior drills, but this new live-fire “training march” appears the most impressive given the number of tanks and maneuvers, and Kim’s apparent direct participation.

The New York Times recently wrote that the Kim Jong-un government has plans for escalation, saying that it will soon launch some kind of lethal military action against the south, but will still seek to avoid a full-scale war. 

US officials indicated the recent spate of more aggressive statements from Kim should be taken seriously. “While the officials added that they did not see an imminent risk of a full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula, Mr. Kim could carry out strikes in a way that he thinks would avoid rapid escalation,” the report predicted.

By Ava Grace of Campus Insanity

An activist group in California is reportedly paying $1,400 each in taxpayer money to teenagers who undergo “social justice” training.

According to the Free Press, the group Californians for Justice (CFJ) inked contracts with the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) between 2019 and 2023 for this endeavor. These contracts, which the outlet obtained, showed that the LBUSD used taxpayer funds to pay CFJ almost $2 million to facilitate equity and leadership development training for students and teachers. Aside from this, the contracts also allotted a total of $20,200 to 13 parents for their participation in the group’s programs.

The outlet added that from December 2019 until the present, the LBUSD has paid at least 78 students a total of nearly $100,000 for participating in CFJ’s programs. The programs are led by the group’s staff instead of officials from the school district. The most recent contract runs until June. (Related: Not just public schools: Ohio PRIVATE school reports mothers to FBI for questioning leftist curriculum.)

“You get paid good,” one student answered when asked why others should join CFJ. While it’s unclear which students are eligible for the stipends, CFJ’s website states that its “leadership development” programs operate with a focus on youths from low-income, minority, LGBT, foster home and immigrant backgrounds.

But four teachers who talked to the Free Press consider the payments to students and their families a “horrible propaganda strategy.” One teacher said she was “shocked and horrified” at such a fact.

Another teacher who asked not to be named for fear of losing her job said the CFJ’s leadership trainings have transformed into a space for kids to air their grievances about school. She recalled one student saying that “they would come to class on time if we built relationships with them.”

“It’s helpful to hear their voice and know what they think would help them learn better, but I feel like you can do that with a focus group. Plus, they’re obviously reading scripts that have words that they don’t know how to say,” the teacher remarked.

“The way that [CFJ is] handing scripts to students, even the words coming out of the students’ mouths, it just feels like indoctrination and not information.”

CFJ giving students “a scripted voice that isn’t their own”

LBUSD high school history teacher Jay Goldfisher agreed with the anonymous educator. “One of the reasons that [CFJ was] hired is to help our students find their voice and be able to express it,” he said.

“But in reality, CFJ is not helping students find their own voices. It’s giving them a scripted voice that’s not their own. They’re teaching them parroting, which is the exact opposite of how you empower children.”

The Free Press gave one example of this parroting. Back in 2021, CFJ implemented three “student-led professional development” training sessions in LBUSD high schools. According to the contracts, this cost the school district $25,000. Students were encouraged to educate their teachers on topics like implicit bias, “student voice” and anti-Black racism during these trainings, instead of the other way around.

CFJ, which was founded back in 1996, began as a policy advocacy organization before pivoting into working in schools in the mid-2000s. The registered nonprofit has nearly $16 million in total assets, according to its most recent tax filing.

“Our agenda is not hidden and is simple: We want the LBUSD to be a place where every student is represented honestly in classrooms and curricula, and where they are safe to be in critical dialogue supportive of democratic participation across differences,” said a CFJ spokesman.

But a Jewish high school teacher who spoke on condition of anonymity expressed worry that their concern “is becoming a reality.” The teacher noted that the partnership between the activist group and the school district is solidifying misinformation in young kids. “That’s something that they’re going to hold on to forever, because they learned it at school,” the teacher said.

Housing affordability is at a crisis level in crime-ridden New York City. Mayor Eric Adams and progressives have no real immediate solution as rent prices near record highs ahead of spring. 

A new Bloomberg report, citing appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate data, shows the median rent in Manhattan on new leases reached $4,320, up 3.3% from the same month last year. This figure is about $170 off the record high reached last summer. 

Rents in Brooklyn rose 2.9% to $3,499, and in northwest Queens, the median was up by $1 to $3,239. Manhattan is the hotspot that could see new highs in the coming months. 

According to Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, rents typically subside in the winter months, yet this year, prices declined less than expected. A combination of a strong job market and low unemployment, coupled with high mortgage rates and low housing stock are some of the drivers in the rental market. 

“The economy has been too strong, for the time being at least,” Miller said.

In February, about 4,350 leases were signed in Manhattan, up 7.7% from the same month last year. Leases in Brooklyn soared 62% to 2,498, while in northwest Queens, it jumped to a record of 591. 

The report did not cover if the more than 175,000 illegals that have flooded the metro area are pressuring rent prices higher. 

New York State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar recently warned, “Housing affordability is at a crisis level in New York City. More than half of renters are rent-burdened. New housing construction is not keeping pace with population growth.” 

“Urgent action is further needed to build more affordable housing in my district and across New York City,” New York State Assemblymember Yudelka Tapia said. 

According to a Goldman report, one major problem deterring new affordable housing in metro areas is that office tower prices are still too high for conversions. 

Finding a home in NYC has become a nightmare. The mayor has yet to provide an immediate solution, as rents in Manhattan are expected to reach new record highs this summer.