Image by neonow, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.
Although this is several days late due to my being out of town, Happy Belated Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up a couple links for you to think about:
1. It turns out that AT&T created a product for spying on all of its customers and made millions selling it to warrantless cops. The secret "Hempisphere" product is a database of calls and call-records on all of AT&T's customers that is able to track their location, movements, and interactions. The data was sold to American police forces on the condition that the program's existence was never revealed. Regular readers of Think Wilder may remember a post from August 2015 that shed light on the fact that AT&T helped the NSA spy on Internet traffic and was the most enthusiastic and top surveillance provider for the agency. It looks like not much has changed on AT&T's side...
2. Scientists have made progress in the development of male birth control that is capable of rendering sperm temporarily incapable of swimming. At this point, scientists have tested bovine and human sperm, and live animal tests are expected to begin within three years. However, there has been a backlash in the online male community, with worries about side effects from the medication being cited by many dudes on social media. As this article asserts, women have been dealing with birth control side effects for decades, without much controversy from men. Still, it seems that a form of male birth control may be closer than we think, for better or for worse.
That's all for last week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until later this week, keep thinking wilder.