Tag Archives: data

Authoritarians thrive on data

Only this morning did I realize that the book of Götz Aly has also been published in English with  a preview at Google books

“Nazi Census” documents the origins of the census in modern Germany, along with the parallel development of machines that helped first collect data on Germans. Or read IBM and the Holocaust which has more details on IBM’s conscious co-planning and co-organizing of the Holocaust for the Nazis.

Why should you read that?  Not because of Nazis but because authoritarians thrive on data. Here are todays news

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US plans to merge all government data. A large-scale effort, led by Elon Musk’s team, aims to link federal databases — raising serious concerns among privacy and security experts.

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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services begin screening immigrants’ social media accounts as grounds to deny visa and green-card applications.

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Here is an article from the Dean of the UC Berkeley Law School Erwin Chemerinsky and the emeritus Harvard constitutional law professor Lawrence Tribe about the consequences: “We should all be very, very afraid”.

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https://newrepublic.com/post/194245/rfk-jr-disease-registry-track-autistic-people

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https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/25/politics/doge-building-master-database-immigration/index.html
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Hass muss man sich verdienen, Mitleid gibt es geschenkt

Ein sehr schönes Interview im LJ mit Katharina Schüller(Mitautorin der „Unstatistik“), das mit vielen anderen Stimmen [1,2,3,4] mal wieder zeigt, wie schlecht unsere COVID-19 Datenlage in Deutschland ist und dabei auch meine Forderung vom März 2020 nach repräsentativen Daten wiederholt. Was es mit dem Titel auf sich hat? Es ist die Antwort in dem Interview auf die Frage

Macht Ihnen Ihre „Unstatistik“, speziell in Verbindung mit Corona, eigentlich viel Ärger?

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Any free DNA kits by 23andme? No, bioprospecting

The Atlantic knows

23andMe is best known for selling DNA test kits, but the company’s real value lies in the data of its 5 million customers. The bigger its genetic database, the more insights 23andMe can glean from DNA. That, in turn, means the more it can tell customers about their ancestry and health and the more valuable the data it shares with academic scientists and sells to pharmaceutical companies for research. About 80 percent of 23andMe customers choose to participate in such research.

Bioprospecting are

companies pressured by legal uncertainties and unrealistic expectations of benefit-sharing are exploring alternative technologies rather than using natural products for drug R&D

which is a bit different from a welcome framework for Africa

In human genomics, there has been a push to ensure that research on samples collected in developing countries — particularly in Africa — is anchored in local science and community engagement. One example of this is the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) initiative, which is funded by the US National Institutes of Health and the London-based Wellcome Trust. Since 2012, it has funded genomics projects whose principal investigators are African, with several of the projects being managed locally from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

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Der Ramstetter Faktor 10,0613083

Jahrelang mussten sich das die ADAC Motorwelt Leser antun, jeden Monat neu, 15 Jahre lang, den einseitigen Autolobbyismus des Michael Ramstetter. Und jetzt ist sie auch quasi amtlich

die Zahl, mit der der mittlerweile ausgeschiedene ADAC-Pressechef Ramstetter die tatsächlich abgegebenen Stimmen bei der ADAC-Wahl zum “Gelben Engel” aufgepimpt hat

Der Spiegel hat wohl etwas gerundet in seinem Artikel, Continue reading Der Ramstetter Faktor 10,0613083

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