© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Author: Greg Ray

This author has written 564 articles

Plausible future scenarios

Now, with the financial and military dominance of the West coming to an end, not to mention global economic growth in general, all previously democratic nations have started to behave like their authoritarian counterparts. No wonder: they’re running a race against the clock to install as many surveillance cameras, software backdoors and data centers as possible to store and analyze all citizen’s personal data before the AI-bubble pops and the financial system breaks down… Causing the last remains of the social contract to go up in smoke. With this mass surveillance, combined with a rapid development…

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Read more about the article Trading on our insecurities

Trading on our insecurities

Feeling lonely? Insecure? Don't like your body? Losing your hair? Never fear, somebody somewhere has a solution. Just send money. Profiting from people's insecurities didn't start with the internet or social media, as anybody who rummages through old magazines can tell you. Last week I was searching for some articles in Adam, a 1960s Australian magazine that was targeted at men. One thing that struck me was the way these pulp mags and their advertisers zeroed in on the weaknesses, fears and insecurities of their readers. That led to me noticing that these ads were really…

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Read more about the article The Co-operative Colliery, Plattsburg. Part 2

The Co-operative Colliery, Plattsburg. Part 2

My late friend Dulcie Hartley wrote about the Co-operative Colliery at Plattsburg as a follow-up to her work on the life and career of "The Miners' Advocate": James Fletcher. I've transcribed her unpublished typescript. Chapter 2 follows here: After purchasing Thomas Ireland’s share, William G. Laidley became the sole owner of the Co-operative Colliery, and he and his heirs continued as proprietors for more than half a century. Laidley, a man of wealth and integrity, was soon highly regarded by the miners. This was probably his first venture into coal mining but he later purchased land…

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