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Marc Stiegler's 1989 prediction


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#1 advancedatheist

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Posted 04 May 2005 - 11:59 PM


In 1989 Marc Stiegler published a "fact" article in Analog science fiction magazine titled "Hypermedia and the Singularity." I have not been able to find a copy on the Web, but I recall that Stiegler in this essay anticipated something like the World Wide Web, and he predicted that the emergence of such a multiply cross-linked information system accessible to a few hundred million people would boost humans' effective intelligence and lead to a discontinuous jump in the ability to generate knowledge and solve problems.

Large swaths of the planet still aren't "wired," but at least ten percent of our species has had the Internet, if not the whole Web, at their disposal, some for over a decade now. Assuming you could quantify what Stiegler forecast, has anything of the sort happened? To me, our society still seems as cognitively dysfunctional as it was 20 years ago, and it's certainly not responding rationally to the prospect of Peak Oil, given all the information available about the increasingly distressed oil supply system. Where is the emergent super-intelligent collective behavior we're supposed to see by now?

#2 wraith

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Posted 05 May 2005 - 02:56 PM

Overall, I guess it hasn't happened yet (and might never).

I see some evidence for potential in certain cicumscribed areas. For example, I just discovered the BIND database. I'm impressed.

http://www.bind.ca/

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#3 Jay the Avenger

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Posted 06 May 2005 - 01:00 PM

Recently it was in the news that iq's are rising globally. This rate is not only rising, but also accelerating.

The peak oil doom scenario probably won't happen. Scientists are making huge strides in hydrogen economy enabling technologies. Solar panels are growing exponentially in efficiency. In 2010 they will be able to compete with conventional energy sources.

Many windmill parks are being created. In 2010, Europe plans to have 10% energy out of renewable sources.

From my point of view, we are dealing with this just fine.

#4 advancedatheist

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Posted 06 May 2005 - 09:20 PM

Recently it was in the news that iq's are rising globally. This rate is not only rising, but also accelerating.


Great, if we're attacked by characters from computer games. What about the kinds of intelligence that will matter for our survival, like the ability to plan for the future, anticipate the long-term consequences of current choices and defer gratification? I haven't seen evidence that people are getting better in those areas.

#5 Jay the Avenger

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Posted 06 May 2005 - 11:06 PM

Like I said, the world is doing plenty to switch to clean renewables.

Check out the archives of www.futurehi.net. Paul's got a nice collection of info on what's going on in the world of renewables.

A while ago, I was duking it out with a peak oil pessimist in a thread under one of his posts. I convinced him that there were plenty of ways to get around the peak oil doomsday scenario.

He then collected all those links.

#6 advancedatheist

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Posted 07 May 2005 - 12:02 AM

Like I said, the world is doing plenty to switch to clean renewables.


People who have to run real countries and make sure their populations are adequately supplied with energy aren't buying into the renewables mirage. It's just a matter of time before the U.S. has a military confrontation with China over control of the world's last decent oil deposits, because neither country can possibly scale up energy supplies from renewals to meet their current needs, much less allow for additional exponential economic growth..

#7 Jay the Avenger

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Posted 07 May 2005 - 10:10 AM

Renewables will be revolutionized by nanotechnology.

Even a tiny percentage such as 10% stretches the oil supplies for years and years and years. We will have plenty of time to get those renewables up to a much higher percentage.

#8 Jay the Avenger

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Posted 07 May 2005 - 10:31 AM

Perhaps some reading material that views the peak oil shit from the other side is in order.

It's also very funny to see how Mr Peak Oil himself (Ruppert) loses all his credibility in an email exchange, by giving in to ad hominem attacks.


7th Fire Articles:

http://www.the7thfir...epopulation.htm

http://www.the7thfir...known_fraud.htm

http://www.the7thfir...nd_stringer.htm

http://www.the7thfir...il_responds.htm

http://www.the7thfir...news_briefs.htm

http://www.the7thfir...ure_reports.htm

http://www.the7thfir..._oil_a_myth.htm

http://www.the7thfir...ut_peak_oil.htm


Peak Oil, Zionist Scam:

http://www.vialls.co...ca/peakoil.html


Rebuttal of Hubbert:

http://www.gasresour...t-Deffeyes).htm


Reserve Oil Increases:

http://www.conspirac...fm?ChannelID=63



This peak oil shit looks more and more pathetic, the more research you do.

#9 advancedatheist

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Posted 07 May 2005 - 02:52 PM

It's also very funny to see how Mr Peak Oil himself (Ruppert) loses all his credibility in an email exchange, by giving in to ad hominem attacks.


I don't know why you think a fringe figure like Ruppert represents "Peak Oil." Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, who has made a lot of money being right about oil, has been sounding the alarm about it for several years now. T. Boone Pickens, another really rich man who has gotten a lot of things about oil right in his life, reportedly said we're at peak on CNBC's "Closing Bell" program the other day, though I haven't seen it and I'm looking for a transcript.

#10 Mind

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Posted 08 May 2005 - 02:13 PM

T. Boone Pickens, another really rich man who has gotten a lot of things about oil right in his life, reportedly said we're at peak on CNBC's "Closing Bell" program the other day, though I haven't seen it and I'm looking for a transcript.


You are right Mark, Pickens has been on CNBC a few times talking about diminishing oil supplies.

My view is that people will adapt to higher energy prices by coming up with new solutions. Renewables, conservation, new technology, etc...

As far as Stiegler's prediction goes, I think technological change has accelerated, but humans have not changed enough to take advantage of it. Our brains can only process a limited amount of information. We are still bound to our evolutionary design. We have to eat and sleep just like thousands of years ago. I think the tools for radical (singularity-type) change have arrived, its just that we haven't used them to their full extent yet.

#11 advancedatheist

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Posted 08 May 2005 - 02:39 PM

My view is that people will adapt to higher energy prices by coming up with new solutions. Renewables, conservation, new technology, etc...


Which in practice will mean shifting the Wealth Revolution into reverse. Fractional reserve banking requires an exponentially growable supply of net energy so that debtors can create wealth to earn the money needed to pay interest to their creditors. When the energy supply stops growing, people can't pay their debts and the financial system collapses.

Despite the "Austrian" propaganda to the contrary, we had to abandon gold as a medium of exchange several generations back precisely because the fossil fuels energy subsidy was artifiicially growing the economy so fast that the gold supply couldn't keep up. Gold as money was perfectly compatible with the zero-growth economy with the occasional Malthusian famines we had before the Brits started to use coal as a supplement to current solar energy income. People living after Peak Oil (the survivors of the Dieoff, that is) might have to return to gold as a medium of exchange, but they won't become "wealthy" by current standards no matter how much shiny metal they can accumulate because they won't have current levels of energy at their disposal.

#12 Jay the Avenger

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Posted 09 May 2005 - 11:42 AM

I don't know why you think a fringe figure like Ruppert represents "Peak Oil." Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, who has made a lot of money being right about oil, has been sounding the alarm about it for several years now. T. Boone Pickens, another really rich man who has gotten a lot of things about oil right in his life, reportedly said we're at peak on CNBC's "Closing Bell" program the other day, though I haven't seen it and I'm looking for a transcript.


Major issue-dodge.

I also posted many a link in my post, ya know.


Why do I think Ruppert represents peak oil? He's right up there with the rest of the peak oil bigshots.

http://www.endofsuburbia.com/cast.htm

See? He's in the main cast of the peak oil soap.

Edited by Jay the Avenger, 09 May 2005 - 12:05 PM.


#13 Jay the Avenger

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Posted 09 May 2005 - 12:20 PM

From http://www.911-strike.com/peakoil.htm

Ruppert modus operandi

Ruppert's energy editor, Dale Pfeiffer,  promptly posted my information to the EnergyResources Yahoo group, moderated by Tom Robertson.  This was a breach of etiquette in terms of the policies of the 911truthalliance mailing list (moderated by Lori Price of CLG), and when I complained to the list about this, I received the following response from Mike Ruppert:

    Listen, let's take the passive-aggressive gloves off here you asshole.

    You have already lost the bet and I have more than enough information to
    prove you wrong. What I haven't done yet is write it up or finish
    reading the Russian piece thoroughly to see if I can learn something.


(more Ruppert-nonsense at the link)

This is how one of the main peak oil fellas is taking on everybody with a different opinion than his own. He has done the same to the guy from the7thfire.com.

Not only does Ruppert insult you ad hominem, he also challenges you to bets. And if you don't accept, you're a wussy.

How pathetic is that?

Everything about Ruppert's demeanor says he is delusional. Because that is what you are when you believe something very strongly even though there is no evidence to support it. In this case, there is even plenty of evidence against it. The abiotic oil-claims outnumber the fossil fuel-claims by quite a factor (source: 7thfire.com).

And this person is somebody that other people take seriously?

This person is somebody you would trust to tell you where the world is heading?

The whole thing is laughable. Peak oil is a scam in order to allow for more environment destructing drills. Peak oil comes from conservative republicans who oppose electronic voting because that would make elections honest. And if there's something republicans can't stand, it's honesty.

Peak oilers have been consistently wrong over the past decades. The only reason that they are having any success at all is because today we have the means to reach many people.

#14 Lazarus Long

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Posted 09 May 2005 - 12:36 PM

Jay just because the Chicken yelling the sky is falling has a vested interest doesn't automatically discredit their claims. There are a lot of good reasons that have nothing to do with one select interest or another. Ruppert didn't invent Peak oil and the pundits haven't been wrong for decades they have been arguing for a transition that is still not in place and their efforts to make the changes have contributed greatly to why the worst effects of Peak Oil have been delayed..

Much of the flattening of market demand was specifically due to intentional policy by the Carter Administration that greatly contributed to conservation through efficiency standards that worked to flatten consumption while new development technique were able to come online and extract oil from harder to obtain sources but those sources have been drying up and now the pressure is on to go after more environmentally sensitive areas like ANWR but the consumer is just as guilty as the guys at the top if they want to buy into the idea that this isn't a Zero/Sum game.

Can technology change the rules again?

Of course but the larger the socioeconomic vested interest in sustaining a status quo becomes the harder the transition becomes. Also we still don't have a real technological alternative in place yet.

#15 Jay the Avenger

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Posted 09 May 2005 - 01:19 PM

Lazarus,

The chicken is basing his arguments on false data. If that's not discrediting, I don't know what is.

Many people have been wrong about impending peak oil doom in the past few decades. Consistently even.

The problem with peak oilers is that the only thing they can see growing exponentially, is the economy. Well guess what, fuel cell efficiency is also growing exponentially. And by the frequency of hydrogen production-articles in the news, I'd say the same is true for that one. Everything is growing exponentially. When you take that into account, the overall picture changes.

They keep hammering on the fact that the technology isn't ready yet, conveniently forgetting that it's improving exponentially.

We can and will have technology in place in time.

#16 Lazarus Long

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Posted 09 May 2005 - 01:27 PM

Hydrogen is still not ready for prime time and the distribution network alone required for it would take even more than the problems of the economics of retooling. I am not against the hydrogen switch but I also see it as a red herring tot he larger issues.

I also think you are far too sanguine about the future and far too dismissive of the reasons why the worst (not all) of the impacts of Peak Oil have been held at bay. But let's be frank the Oil Wars have already begun, what the hell do you think we are doing in Iraq?

It isn't just about secure supply it is about controlling global supply. What makes a war effort such as this both profitable and desirable to both specific interests and more importantly the American people that are now footing the multi hundred billion dollar bill for it and eventually what is presumed to go into trillions of dollars?

If one doesn't think we are already experiencing some of the impact of Peak Oil now then they are probably wearing rose colored glasses and have a very selective attention.

#17 th3hegem0n

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Posted 09 May 2005 - 01:49 PM

and he predicted that the emergence of such a multiply cross-linked information system accessible to a few hundred million people would boost humans' effective intelligence and lead to a discontinuous jump in the ability to generate knowledge and solve problems.


I think this is definitely true, because as I see it, never in history has humanity had the capability to access and store this much information. Clearly lack of information is a prime difficulty in problem solving in general, but if you have access to the internet you can find practically any information that humanity has.

for those humans who choose to utilize it, I would say there is absolutely a boost in effective intelligence, and a discontinuous jump between their abilities having the internet than without.

#18 Jay the Avenger

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Posted 09 May 2005 - 01:55 PM

Laz,

The hydro economy doesn't need to arrive all at once. A gradual replacement will do just fine. Don't even try and tell me slow transitions are impossible all of a sudden.

What the BFEE is doing in Iraq? Killing 100.000 civilians and making loads of money from stolen oil. You are right about that. Is this one of the reasons peak oil has been kept at bay? Pardon me if I don't praise Bush for his approach.

I wish I could also respond to:

It isn't just about secure supply it is about controlling global supply. What makes a war effort such as this both profitable and desirable to both specific interests and more importantly the American people that are now footing the multi hundred billion dollar bill for it and eventually what is presumed to go into trillions of dollars?


But I just don't get that last sentence man. It really happens a lot that you write stuff that costs too much effort for me to comprehend.


My selective attention has observed that there are more people claiming oil is abiotic, which means we've got oil for at least enough years to get alternatives in place.

I'd say anybody who still thinks hydrogen isn't the right way to go is wearing glasses of some sort of unknown color, and has a very selective attention.

You are not being sanguine enough about the future, exponential growth, and its implications.

But that is just my opinion ofcourse.

#19 Jay the Avenger

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Posted 09 May 2005 - 04:54 PM

And why the hell is nobody worried about the fact that it looks like robots are going to take over plenty of jobs, which can lead to economic downfall?

http://www.marshallb...otic-nation.htm

There is no reason why robotic nation has less value than any peak oil doom scenario.


These days, you can't back out of your driveway without somebody starting about peak oil. Everybody talks about it in every thread on every forum on the whole net. Why is nobody obsessed with robotic nation?

#20 jaydfox

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Posted 09 May 2005 - 08:17 PM

I'd say anybody who still thinks hydrogen isn't the right way to go is wearing glasses of some sort of unknown color, and has a very selective attention.

Yes, hydrogen is important. But it's not ready. Yes, we can start transitioning into it, and replace certain small (well, pathetically tiny) segments of the economy (e.g. municipal transit) with hydrogen. But the entire transition will be a multi-decades process. We can't replace the oil economy in 10 years. We can't even put a 10% dent in the oil economy in ten years, not without tens of billions of dollars in subsidies (matching tens or hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of infrastructure).

That's the whole point of forecasting doom. If people thought the only reason not to get a gas guzzler was because the gas guzzler costs a little more to operate, then we'd be burning way more oil than we do now. Many people consciously make an effort to buy a clean car, either for the environment, or less often, because of concern for peak oil.

Yes, most doomsayers have turned out to be wrong. But it seems like people always conveniently forget that a lot of the time, the doomsayers are wrong because people listened and did something about the problem. A passenger in your car yelling that you're about to hit a pothole isn't "wrong" in hindsight just because you swerved.

The long switch to hydrogen will probably prevent the worst aspects of the peak oil scenarios, but it won't prevent all the aspects. We will see more brownouts, spiking oil prices, depressed economies, etc. Will we collapse back into the stone age? No. But not because peak oil didn't exist. It'll be because we'll heed the warnings and plan in advance around the problems. Perhaps not several decades in advance, as we should have, but years at least, staving off the worst problems.

#21 advancedatheist

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Posted 09 May 2005 - 10:12 PM

Yes, most doomsayers have turned out to be wrong.


M. King Hubbert wasn't wrong in the 1950's when he forecast that American oil extraction would reach a maximum around 1970. His methology, checked against other ways of forecasting oil supplies, suggests that we'd be getting into trouble with the world supply right about now.

But it seems like people always conveniently forget that a lot of the time, the doomsayers are wrong because people listened and did something about the problem.


What did the U.S. government do about a completely foreseeable crisis after the oil shocks in the 1970's? It didn't solve the problem, but rather postponed it about three decades by moving the oil depletion frontier to other parts of a finite planet. We are living in "the future" the people who ran things in the 1970's and 1980's chose to discount.

#22 jaydfox

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Posted 09 May 2005 - 10:17 PM

What did the U.S. government do about a completely foreseeable crisis after the oil shocks in the 1970's? It didn't solve the problem, but rather postponed it about three decades by moving the oil depletion frontier to other parts of a finite planet. We are living in "the future" the people who ran things in the 1970's and 1980's chose to discount.

Hey, postponing it is better than nothing. That moved us a decade or two closer to being able to shift to a hydrogen economy (with the other decade or two being wasted because we discounted the future and didn't make hydrogen a priority. Sure, we didn't make 30 years' worth of progress, but we made some progress!).

And while I don't doubt that an oil crisis will strike if society doesn't wake up soon, we should keep in mind that forecasting two or three decades into the future is quite a bit easier than forecasting five or six or eight decades into the future.

#23 advancedatheist

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Posted 10 May 2005 - 02:24 AM

And while I don't doubt that an oil crisis will strike if society doesn't wake up soon, we should keep in mind that forecasting two or three decades into the future is quite a bit easier than forecasting five or six or eight decades into the future.


Superlongevity would seem to require that we get a lot better at forecasting the long term than we do now. Many of our problems result from our ability to pick up metaphorical hot skillets now with impunity because the burns won't happen for decades, and then they hurt the hands of people who weren't even born at the time.

#24 jaydfox

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Posted 10 May 2005 - 12:24 PM

Superlongevity would seem to require that we get a lot better at forecasting the long term than we do now. Many of our problems result from our ability to pick up metaphorical hot skillets now with impunity because the burns won't happen for decades, and then they hurt the hands of people who weren't even born at the time.

Ironically, with the approaching Singularity, I suspect forecasting is going to get worse. Not because we're not better at predicting the future, but because the timescales over which the exponential changes in society approximate linear changes are so much shorter now.

#25 Mind

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Posted 10 May 2005 - 02:41 PM

Despite the "Austrian" propaganda to the contrary, we had to abandon gold as a medium of exchange several generations back precisely because the fossil fuels energy subsidy was artifiicially growing the economy so fast that the gold supply couldn't keep up. Gold as money was perfectly compatible with the zero-growth economy with the occasional Malthusian famines we had before the Brits started to use coal as a supplement to current solar energy income.


Energy has been "the currency" over the last 100 or so years. I would have to agree. The one thing that is changing in the present is that information and intelligence is playing a bigger part than in the past. It is becoming the new currency of economic growth. I can think of one example off the top of my head. Agriculture. Agriculture used to be purely driven by energy. If you wanted more production you needed more energy. Pesticides, fertilizers, irrigation, tilling, and harvesting, all used to take energy. I say "used to" because we are now using more intelligence to raise crops than in the past. Genetic modification has made our grain, fruit, and vegetable crops disease, bug, and drought resistant. What we have done is injected some intelligence into our crops. While this hasn't completely removed the need for energy input, it has reduced it, and the trend should continue into the future. It think this is part of the reason the U.S. had record yields in all grain varieties last year while at the same time tilling the fewest acres since reliable records have been kept. (another part of the reason was good weather)

#26 arrogantatheist

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Posted 12 May 2005 - 10:28 AM

Hey, postponing it is better than nothing. That moved us a decade or two closer to being able to shift to a hydrogen economy (with the other decade or two being wasted because we discounted the future and didn't make hydrogen a priority. Sure, we didn't make 30 years' worth of progress, but we made some progress!).


Absolutely we aren't far off now from being able to do the hydrogen economy now.

What will happen if oil does become in short supply, at least the easy to get oil.. is the price will begin to rise sustainably. And that will open the door to alternatives, and is the logical time to switch anyway. At that point the only way to stop the change will be when our governments step in to protect jobs and their favorite businesses..

However in our globalized economy whether one nation rejects a technology is irrelevant.

#27 arrogantatheist

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Posted 12 May 2005 - 10:34 AM

And why the hell is nobody worried about the fact that it looks like robots are going to take over plenty of jobs, which can lead to economic downfall?


Most people in the west are worried about robots too.. but most people in the west are worried about EVERYTHING. They really would if they had the power stop robots from doing work, dooming countless people to continue to toil every day.

#28 Jay the Avenger

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Posted 14 May 2005 - 08:55 AM

The 40 hour workweek is drudgery. We're missing out on all sorts of social relationships that would enrich our lives.

For the love of all that is holy, somebody invent those robots to replace us.

#29 advancedatheist

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Posted 14 May 2005 - 05:22 PM

The 40 hour workweek is drudgery. We're missing out on all sorts of social relationships that would enrich our lives.

For the love of all that is holy, somebody invent those robots to replace us.


You might like Bob Black's essays:

"The Abolition of Work"

and,

"The Libertarian as Conservative"

Also listen to James Hughes's interview with Black from 2001.

Black expresses skepticism towards technological solutions to the work system. Technology has more than doubled our productivity since the Second World War, yet Americans are working more hours than ever, often for no good reason. (Do we really need all those people wasting their lives in non- or counter-productive "service" jobs?) Because more per capita income doesn't seem to buy us more leisure, Black argues that an effective reduction in the nuisance work will require a social-political restructuring instead of more technology.

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#30 Jay the Avenger

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Posted 14 May 2005 - 06:24 PM

Black argues that an effective reduction in the nuisance work will require a social-political restructuring instead of  more technology.


I would agree. Automation may make us more productive, but the economy is still enslaving us. I'm all for the system that Marshall Brain proposes in his writings about robotic nation.

This situation is rediculous. We invented the economy ourselves. We invented money. IT is supposed to serve US. Not the other way around.

Our current economy makes it so that there are plenty of people living in poverty. Our current economy is a self-destructive bullshit system. It has never worked. And it never will.

It needs to be transformed to something better.

Thanks for the links. I've got some reading to do. In the meantime, you might enjoy reading www.whywork.org.




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