The Underground — Issue #130
Everything you need to know about in this weekly series: BBC’s documentary on the dark web black market network known as the Silk Road, Elon Musk debuts his new SpaceX spacesuit, a fantastic American history book you need to buy, and how to recognize and master your emotional intelligence.
At Social Underground we go beyond the mainstream stuff and see what’s underneath the surface. What should we get into, listen to, read, eat or watch? If there is something in our culture that needs attention that’s our job: Show you the underground things that you need to know about: Books, music, television, movies, comedians, art, and whatever else we can find to get you into something you never knew about. That’s The Underground.
1. BBC’s documentary about the rise and fall of the Dark Web Silk Road. I know of the dark web and the black market for the crazy stuff that people are willing to pay for using Tor — a browser that bounces your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers to hide who and where you are — but I don’t want to read too much into it because of the high illegality of stuff involved. We’re talking child porn, murder for hire, sex trafficking, and some other sick crap people like.
What I knew of Silk Road was that it was Amazon for drugs. You could have access to any drug imaginable and have it delivered to you. It started as a peaceful way to fight the stupidity that is America’s War on Drugs. It was meant to bypass the violence that comes with drug running. If you’ve seen just about every gangster or cartel movie, someone always gets murdered is gruesome ways. This was meant to change that, well, it tried to.
The doc below shows how the Silk Road was created, what it did for crime, and how it eventually fell because it because what it didn’t want to be. It’s a fascinating look into how the black market works underneath all of our noses.
2. A first look at the SpaceX spacesuit. Elon Musk has been pushing SpaceX to be the goto space agency of the future. Musk plans on going to Mars, build hyperloop trains underground, build a highway underground, power the entire world, and then become Iron Man and form a league of superheroes… probably
On the space front, all of this talk about going into space is going to need something to keep the people up there alive. That would be a spacesuit if you hadn’t already known by the title of this. This is no artist’s impression of what the suit might look like, no, this is the suit: “Already tested to double vacuum pressure. Was incredibly hard to balance esthetics and function. Easy to do either separately.”
The suit already looks 10x better than the suits we’re used to seeing on the International Space Station. We’re not sure whether the suit can be used outside of a ship like NASA’s, but we’re betting that Musk has already thought of that. Why make a spacesuit that can only function inside of a spaceship. There are always possible emergencies where an astronaut has to leave the ship to make repairs.
Have a look at the spacesuit below. We’ll keep you up to date when more info is dropped about the suit.
3. Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned (Don’t Know Much About Series) is a book you need, especially now.
It has been increasingly obvious in the past 2 years that people in the United States have their history wrong. Do you ever hear politicians say that the Republican Party is the party of Lincoln? Or that The Democratic Party voted against freeing slaves? These are technically true, but you never hear that during the turn of the 20th century, especially around FDR being President, the parties all but switched what they were.
When McCarthyism hit in the 1950’s, the GOP had become all but unrecognizable to the party of Lincoln. It’s the type of stuff I never really learned in high school, but I did in college. Does that make me an elitist intellectual who thinks he’s better than others? No! That’s why you need to get this book. You will learn about everything in American history. You’ll even learn why being a jock is more celebrated than being a scientist. There are reasons for everything, but what we think we know is always clouded will BS to change our opinions.
You can buy Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned (Don’t Know Much About Series) on Amazon for cheap right now.
4. What you know and don’t know about Emotional Intelligence. Recognizing your emotional intelligence is a giant step to understanding yourself and others. Recognizing when someone is doing one this, but acting another way is a big sign you’re an empath.
The easiest example is that of a bully in elementary school. The bully is acting out and picking on people. You may see them as a huge A-hole who is being a jerk just to be a jerk, but what really might be happening is he’s projecting his sadness onto others because they don’t know what to do or don’t want to look weak. The people most need of help are the ones who show barely any signs of it. When you hear of someone committing suicide, you probably always hear someone say something like “Oh, I didn’t even know anything was wrong.”
Mastering your emotional intelligence is just as important as mastering your technological or financial intelligence. The video below explains this all in detail, and it also gives you some information on classes and help if you need it.
Follow Jeff Sorensen on TWITTER
Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post, UPROXX, BGR and by just looking up his name.
Contact: jeff@socialunderground.com