[extropy-chat] RFID: Spychips hits the bookshelves -- and the bestseller lists!

[David Lubkin]

Adrian wrote:

>The promotional tactics make me far more suspicious of the book's
>contents than of the RFID industry.  Not saying that there isn't a lot
>of hoodwinkery going on with RFIDs, but exaggerations are not useful -
>indeed, they often backfire if they do anything - in exposing this kind
>of thing.  "Question Authority" also applies to the authority of the
>one who would get others to disbelieve the perceived authority.

I found Bruce Sterling's trumpeting of the authors as successors to 
Rachel Carson ironic, given how many millions of third-world malaria 
deaths can be laid at her feet. I can't think of anyone else in US 
history who exceeds her in death-responsibility (# of deaths x % 
blame), although of course she's a piker by world standards.


-- David Lubkin.