1,006 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2024
  2. Feb 2024
    1. The man who solved the problem was an American chemist, who alsocontributed to the Dictionary, Thomas Sterry Hunt. In 1857, he had beenteaching at Laval University in Quebec and responded to an appeal by thePresident of the Montreal City Bank who was battling counterfeit notes. Huntcreated a special green ink, using chromium sesquioxide, that was pretty wellindestructible. Numerous experiments showed that you couldn’t remove itfrom the banknote without destroying the paper itself – until one chemistsucceeded in doing so, and the Canadians dropped Hunt’s invention. But theAmericans took it up, especially on the back of their banknotes, hence thecolloquial term ‘greenbacks’ for US dollar bills, which was given its own entryin the OED in 1900 and defined as ‘the popular name for one of the legal-tender notes of the U.S., first issued in 1862 and so called from the devicesprinted in green ink on the back’, alongside something rather topical at thetime but now archaic, Greenback Party, defined as ‘a party in U.S. politics,which advocated that “greenbacks” should be made the sole currency of thecountry’, and its various derivatives Greenbacker and Greenbackism.
    1. we face an American election unlike any other. It will determine not only the course of the American experiment but the path that civilization collectively follows.

      for - quote - Michael Mann - quote - 2024 U.S. elections - future of civilization - quote - existential threat of 2024 Trump win - polycrisis - politics - inequality - climate

      quote - Michael Mann - date: May 11, 2023 - source: The Hill - Op Ed - https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/4290467-trump-2-0-the-climate-cannot-survive-another-trump-term/ - (see below)

      • It is not an overstatement to say, one year out, that
        • we face an American election unlike any other.
      • It will determine
        • not only the course of the American experiment
        • but the path that civilization collectively follows.
          • On the left is democracy and environmental stewardship.
          • On the right is fascism and planetary devastation.
      • Choose wisely.
  3. Jan 2024
    1. “A second Trump term is game over for the climate — really!”

      for - quote - Michael Mann - quote - a Second Trump presidency - polycrisis - politics and climate crisis - climate mitigation strategy - voting in 2024 U.S. election - adjacency - Michael Mann - 2nd Trump presidency - exceeding planetary boundaries - exceeding 1.5 Deg C - Gen Z voting

      adjacency - between - Michael Mann - 2nd Trump presidency - exceeding planetary boundaries - exceeding 1.5 Deg C - Trump's presidency is existential threat to humanity - Gen Z voting - 2024 election - adjacency statement - Michael Mann's quote " A second Trump term is game over for the climate - really" applies to the 2024 election if Trump becomes the Republican nominee. - Trumps dismal environmental record in his 2016 to 2020 term speaks for itself. He would do something similiar in 2025 if he were the president. G - Given there are only 5 years and 172 days before we hit the dangerous threshold of burning through all the carbon budget for humanity, - https://climateclock.world/ - It is questionable whether Biden's government alone can do enough, but certainly if Trump won the 2024 election, his term in office would create a regression severe enough to put the Paris Climate goal of staying within 1.5 Deg C out of reach, and risk triggering major planetary tipping points - A Biden government is evidence-based and believes in anthropogenic climate change and is already taking measures to mitigate it. A Trump government is not evidence-based and is supported by incumbent fossil fuel industry so does not have the interest of the U.S. population nor all of humanity at heart. - Hence, the 2024 U.S. election can really determine the fate of humanity. - Gen Z can play a critical role for humanity by voting against a government that would, in leading climate scientists Michael Mann's words, be game over for a stable climate, and therefore put humanity and unimaginable risk. - Gen Z can swing the vote to a government willing to deal with the climate crisis over one in climate denial so voting activists need to be alerted to this and create the right messaging to reach Gen Z - https://hyp.is/LOud7sBBEe6S0D8itLHw1A/circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/41-million-members-gen-z-will-be-eligible-vote-2024

    1. terinföra möjligheten att utvisa utlänningar av bristande vandel

      Enligt SAOB betyder "vandel":

      sätt att leva sitt liv ur moralisk syn­vinkel

      Med andra ord: du skall kunna utvisas på grund av hur du lever ditt liv ur moralisk synvinkel.

      Detta är alltså vad Moderaterna, Sverigedemokraterna, Liberalerna och Kristdemokraterna står för år 2022.

    1. Eine neue Studie kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass die Haltung zu fünf großen Krisen das Wahlverhalten der Europäer:innen in diesem Jahr bestimmen wird: der Klimakrise, der Migrationskrise, der Wirtschaftskrise und Inflation, dem Ukraine-Krieg und Covid. Klimakrise und Migration hätten, wie schon bei den Wahlen in der Niederlanden, ide größte Kraft Wähler zu mobilisieren. Die Autor:innen sprechen von einem "Clash zweier 'Extinction rebellions'". Als wichtigste Krisen werden im Durchschnitt der europäischen Länder die Klimakrise und dann Covid bewertet.

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/17/crises-have-split-european-voters-into-five-tribes-survey-suggests

      Report: https://ecfr.eu/publication/a-crisis-of-ones-own-the-politics-of-trauma-in-europes-election-year/

    1. 1:10:00 identity politics: the only stable "identity" is personality type, which is inborn and constant for life.<br /> my heresy: i found a hypothesis for the question: how must we connect different personality types to create stable groups?<br /> "the system" likes my work so much, they are threatening to bust my door, steal my stuff, and throw me in jail for five years, as a punishment for publishing my radical answer to the question: who are my friends?<br /> my book: pallas. who are my friends. group composition by personality type

    1. Associated individuals[edit] In a New York Times editorial, Bari Weiss listed individuals associated with the intellectual dark web, including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Sam Harris, Heather Heying, Claire Lehmann, Bill Maher, Douglas Murray, Maajid Nawaz, Camille Paglia, Jordan Peterson, Steven Pinker, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro, Michael Shermer, Christina Hoff Sommers, Bret Weinstein, and Eric Weinstein.

      It's somewhat interesting and potentially non-coincidental that the entirety of this list aside from Sam Harris and Camille Paglia are highlighted as anti-trans (red) by the browser extension Shinigami Eyes.

    2. The intellectual dark web (IDW) is a term used to describe some commentators who oppose identity politics, political correctness, and cancel culture in higher education and the news media within Western countries.
  4. Dec 2023
      • for: James Hansen - 2023 paper, key insight - James Hansen, leverage point - emergence of new 3rd political party, leverage point - youth in politics, climate change - politics, climate crisis - politics

      • Key insight: James Hansen

        • The key insight James Hansen conveys is that
          • the key to rapid system change is
            • WHAT? the rapid emergence of a new, third political party that does not take money from special interest lobbys.
            • WHY? Hit the Achilles heel of the Fossil Fuel industry
            • HOW? widespread citizen / youth campaign to elect new youth leaders across the US and around the globe
            • WHEN? Timing is critical. In the US,
              • Don't spoil the vote for the two party system in 2024 elections. Better to have a democracy than a dictatorship.
              • Realistically, likely have to wait to be a contender in the 2028 election.
      • reference

    1. Washington is a swamp it we throw out one party the other one comes in they take money from special interests and we don't have a government that's serving the interests 01:25:09 of the public that's what I think we have to fix and I don't see how we do that unless we have a party that takes no money from special interests
      • for: key insight- polycrisis - climate crisis - political crisis, climate crisis - requires a new political party, money in politics, climate crisis - fossil fuel lobbyists, climate change - politics, climate crisis - politics, James Hansen - key insight - political action - 3rd party

      • key insight

        • Both democrats and conservatives are captured by fossil fuel lobbyist interests
        • A new third political party that does not take money from special interests is required
        • The nature of the polycrisis is that crisis are entangled . This is a case in point. The climate crisis cannot be solved unless the political crisis of money influencing politics is resolved
        • The system needs to be rapidly reformed to kick money of special interest groups out of politics.
      • question

        • Given the short timescale, the earliest we can achieve this is 2028 in the US Election cycle
        • Meanwhile what can we do in between?
        • How much impact can alternative forms of local governance like https://sonec.org/ have?
        • In particular, could citizens form local alternative forms of governance and implement incentives to drive sustainable behavior?
    2. I 01:22:57 think now what is more important is to affect the political system
      • climate crisis - leverage points - young people - politics

      • comment

        • Hansen considers politics to be the key leverage point for young people now, not protesting and raising awareness
      • for: climate crisis - multiple dimensions, polycrisis - multiple dimensions, climate crisis - good references, polycrisis - good references, polycrisis - comprehensive map, power to the people, climate change - politics, climate crisis - politics

      • comment / summary

        • The content on this website may be what some call "doomers" that support a narrative of unavoidable catastrophe and civilization collapse
        • The author does an excellent job of drawing together many scientifically validated research papers and news media stories on various crisis and integrates them together to support his narrative.
        • As the author states, it is still incomplete but it is comprehensive and detailed enough to use as a starting foundation to build a complex polycrisis map upon. becaues it shows the complexities of the interwoven nexus of problems we face and the massive network of feedbacks between them that makes solving any one of them alone in isolation an impossibility
        • The Cascade Institute focuses on social tipping points, complexity and polycrisis. We could synthesis a number of tools to map out and reveal effective mitigation strategies including:
          • Cascade Institute tools
          • Social tipping point tools
          • SRG mapping tool along with Indyweb / Indranet
          • Culture hacking tools
          • SIMPOL strategy
          • Downscaled Earth System Boundary tools
          • SRG Deep Humanity BEing journey tools
          • James Hansen's recommendation that the biggest leverage point is new form of governance
            • We need to rapidly emerge a new global third political party that does not take money from special interest groups
          • Progressive International comes to the same conclusion as James Hansen, that the key leverage point for rapid whole system change is radically new governance that puts power back to the hands of the people - power to the people
          • SONEC's
          • Indyweb's people-centered, interpersonal methodology is a perfect match for SONEC circle-within-circles fractal structure
            • mention to @Gyuri
            • I've seen this circle-within-circle fractal, holonic group idea with Tim's software as well as Roberto's
        • Feebate from local governance groups (from another Doomer site - Arctic Emergency)
        • What the author's narrative shows is
          • how precarious our situation is
          • how many trends are getting far worse in the immediate future
          • how we are already undercapacitated to deal with existing crisis so how will we deal with new ones that are exponentially worse?
          • all these crisis will impact our supply chains. Why are these important? Our reliance on technology is dangerous and makes us very vulnerable
          • Think of your laptop, cellphone or other electronic device that relies on a vast, complex and globally operational internet. Imagine that tidal surges wipes out the globally critical data centers located in New York. Or imagine electronic factories in China and Taiwan are wiped out due to extreme weather. How will you get or fix a broken piece of electronic equipment? We rely on each millions of specialized jobs all working smoothly in order for our laptop to continue working and communicating with each other.
      • epiphany

      • recommendation for new Indyweb / Indranet tools
        • independent time and date stamp tool for every online, virtual sentence we write so we recognize in a long composition when we inserted a new idea
        • ability to trace rapid trains of thought to reveal how new insights emerge from within our consciousness
      • While writing this, I just recalled that we should have a way to time and date stamp every single virtual online action, like in this annotation because recall happens so nonlinearly and we won't have a hope to trace and trailmark without it. Hypothesis doesn't have time and date stamps of every sentence available to the user. So we don't know what nonlinear memory recall led to a specific sentence in an annotation. We need some independent Indyweb / Indranet tool that will do this universally. Trains of thoughts are so fragile we can forget the quick cascades very easily.
    1. They don't want their intimate convic-tions turned over and examined, and itis unfortunate that the emphasis put

      upon minor differences by men of science and belief in their strenuous search for the completest truth and the exactest expression sometimes gives color to this sort of misunderstanding.

      This emphasis on minor differences is exactly what many anti-science critics have done. See examples with respect to evolution and climate science denial.

    2. It is science and not men of sciencethat we want to enlighten and animateour politics and rule the world.
    3. Can scientific knowledge and specializedthought be brought into more effectiverelation to general affairs?
    4. Na-ture, from being specialist, has becomeworld-conscious, so that now it is almosthaunted week by week by the question:"What are we to do, before it is too late,to make what we know and our way ofthinking effective in world affairs?"
  5. Nov 2023
    1. Maybe the PPP aligns itself with the Petty Bourgeoisie because they were the working class people that the PPP "championed" in the past. That would be classic corruption, viewed over time.

    1. haha, china and russia and friends are shitting all over your "scientific models".<br /> the ONLY problem is "too many humans", aka overpopulation, caused by pacifism.<br /> these "save the world" policies are collective suicide for the 95% useless eaters. byee!

  6. Oct 2023
    1. They were so set in their categories that they couldn’t make a distinction between the Palestinian people and a genocidal cult that claimed to speak in that people’s name

      this.

  7. Sep 2023
    1. a useful way to answer such questions is to look at when it has been used on Fox News. Analysis of closed-captioning collected by the Internet Archive shows that use of “Chinese Communist Party” or “CCP” has been far more common on Fox News and Fox Business than on CNN and MSNBC.

      One can query the text in closed-captioning from the Internet Archive to track trends, and particularly politics, on television news.

  8. Aug 2023
    1. when you when you sort of take a step back and look at that part of the distraction and the 00:14:47 chaos that Trump and these GOP trolls deliver it's it's a wonderful Boon for the oil and gas industry and the Koch brothers and the guys that fund these campaigns and the federal Federalist 00:14:59 Society you know that's owning the Supreme Court they want to keep doing business as usual and the easiest way to do that is to have this big chaotic GOP that ignores climate change and to play 00:15:11 into what they want is the mainstream media not focusing more on climate change let alone making those two connections and a lot of mainstream media is scared to make that connection because oil companies are paying the bills 00:15:23 and CNN and every other network
      • for: polycrisis, Trumpism, Chaos, distraction, climate crisis, climate communication, complexity, adjacency climate change fossil fuel industry, adjacency climate change big oil, adjacency climate change politics big oil, quote adjacency climate change fossil fuel industry, quote adjacency climate change big oil
      • key insight
        • claim
          • One big reason that big oil is funding GOP to keep the chaotic Trump story as the main headline is to foster distraction from climate change impacts
          • big news story in the US is Donald Trump and the election, climate change impacts of extreme weather is minimized
          • the distraction of politics from a chaotic GOP is perfect distraction for the masses to ignore climate change and for big oil to continue BAU
      • paraphrase
      • quote
        • when you take a step back and look at that part of the distraction and the chaos that Trump and these GOP trolls deliver
        • it's it's a wonderful Boon for the oil and gas industry and the Koch brothers and the guys that fund these campaigns and the federal Federalist Society that's owning the Supreme Court
        • they want to keep doing business as usual and the easiest way to do that is
          • to have this big chaotic GOP that ignores climate change and
          • to play into what they want
            • the mainstream media not focusing more on climate change let alone making those two connections
          • a lot of mainstream media is scared to make that connection because oil companies are paying the bills of CNN and every other network
      • author
        • Noel Casler
  9. Jul 2023
    1. at third act where we organize old people like me over the age 00:05:36 of 60. we're concentrating on democracy and on climate they seem uh they seem the twin crises that we face
      • for: polycrisis, dual crisis, climate change and political polarization

      • key insight

        • we have to deal with climate crisis AND political polarization simultaneously
        • unless we solve the political polarization problem, we will be stuck in policy gridlock
    1. Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you’re on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it’s like stabbing your soldiers in the back—providing aid and comfort to the enemy.

      This is a great discription of how ideologies work. You pick a side and you have to deffend and adopt all the points that the ideology stands for without second guess it.

    1. Das Umweltbundesamt hat festgestellt, dass Österreich seine Klimaziele bis 2030 um 13% vor fehlen wird, wenn die bis einschließlich 2021 geschlossenen Gesetze umgesetzt werden. Auch wenn die Gesetze umgesetzt werden die 20 22 noch beschlossen oder vorbereitet wurden, werden die Emissionen 2030 über 35 Millionen Tonnen CO2 äquivalente betragen. Die Zahlen sind Bestandteile des aktualisierten nationalen Energie und klimaplans, den Österreich der EU-Kommission vorlegen muss. https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000177366/neue-zahlen-oesterreichs-klimapolitik-fehlen-noch-13-prozent

    1. Der britische Minister für internationale Umweltangelegenheiten ist zurückgetreten. In seinem Rücktrittsschreiben wirft er Premierminister Sunak vor, an Umweltfragen uninteressiert zu sein und die internationale Führungsposition Großbritanniens in der Umwelt- und Naturschutzpolitik aufgegeben zu haben.

      https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/30/zac-goldsmith-resignation-letter-in-full

  10. Jun 2023
    1. In Frankreich wird sich Marie Toussaint um die Spitzenkandidatur auf der Liste der Grünen bei den Europawahlen bewerben. In einem Interview mit der Libération spricht sie sich für eine Politik gegen das "ökozidäre Kapital" aus. Es gehe jetzt um eine Auseinandersetzung mit den Kräften, die keine schärferen ökologischen Bestimmungen wollen, und denen, die den Green Deal der EU verteidigen und ausweiten wollen. Andere Linksparteien würden immer noch von einer Hierarchie zwischen der sozialen Problematik und den dieser untergeordneten ökologischen Problemen ausgehen. https://www.liberation.fr/politique/marie-toussaint-jai-lhonneur-detre-candidate-a-porter-les-propositions-ecologistes-aux-europeennes-de-2024-20230607_5GY6SWTV45DMPJUFXDFMIYTB2U/

  11. Apr 2023
    1. The last time two major world powers tried to manage a relationship of economic interdependence and rising geopolitical rivalry was Britain and Germany in the period from the 1880s to 1914.
    2. The United States and China have embarked on one of the most hair-raising experiments in international history. Both sides are now locked in a steady, escalating, geopolitical competition. And yet both are deeply economically intertwined.
    1. the best predictor of whether we agree with the science is simply where we fall on the political spectrum.

      Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist at Texas Tech University

      the referent "the science" is "the [climate] science" in this context

  12. Mar 2023
    1. Yglesias argues that the progressive politics of the 2010s encouraged progressives to think of everything in catastrophic terms, making them less happy.
    1. Consider how rhetorical analysis applies to alt-right political arguments. Alt-right arguments fail miserably under rhetorical analysis. Rhetorical analysis is a tool of academia. Therefore academia is inimical to the alt-right. Therefore, the alt-right will seek to weaken and impune academia. And this is in fact what they do.

    1. Techies will complain that trivial problems of life in the Bay Area are hard because they involve politics. But they should involve politics. Politics is the thing we do to keep ourselves from murdering each other. In a world where everyone uses computers and software, we need to exercise democratic control over that software.

      Politics defy modeling, but that makes its reality so important

  13. Feb 2023
    1. Auseinandersetzungen in Frankreich über die "Zonen mit schwachen Emissionen": Verbotszonen für Dieselfahrzeuge, die dabei nach Emissionsmenge klassifiziert werden. Die Rechten fordern den Verzicht auf diese Zonen, die Linken soziale Begleitmaßnahmen - wobei aber die Rhetorik teilweise ähnlich ist

  14. Jan 2023
    1. to dabbling in the then-current neoliberal thought which Foucault encountered while teaching in California in the 1970s. He liked the idea of busting down the welfare state, which he believed had created dependent, docile subjects. He heretically supported both the conservative French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and the Iranian revolution, while denouncing the dirigisme of the French communist and socialist parties. He had more in common with Thatcher and Reagan than Mitterrand.

      .

    1. Ziemkiewicz has a picture in his office of himself and Senator Joe Manchin, who has expressed support of his program. “Recycling provides a tremendous opportunity to avoid outsourcing the raw supply of critical minerals we need while creating new economic opportunities right here at home,” Manchin said, at a congressional hearing in the spring. Ziemkiewicz keeps his politics to himself. In the past, he has called himself “a Trotskyite,” but he believes that the success of his past three decades of work, reclaiming thousands of miles of rivers and streams in Appalachia, is based on sharing knowledge across a wide array of communities

      Wow, he got Manchin on board?

    1. Environmentalists say bulldozing the village to expand the Garzweiler mine would result in huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. The government and utility company RWE argue the coal is needed to ensure Germany's energy security.Police officers use water cannons on protesters in Luetzerath on Saturday. (Thilo Schmuelgen/Reuters)The regional and national governments, both of which include the environmentalist Green party, reached a deal with RWE last year allowing it to destroy the abandoned village in return for ending coal use by 2030, rather than 2038.Some speakers at Saturday's demonstration assailed the Greens, whose leaders argue that the deal fulfils many of the environmentalists' demands and saved five other villages from demolition.What on Earth?Why the reversal of a decades-old coal policy sparked controversy in Alberta"It's very weird to see the German government, including the Green party, make deals and compromise with companies like RWE, with fossil fuel companies, when they should rather be held accountable for all the damage and destruction they have caused," Thunberg said."My message to the German government is that they should stop what's happening here immediately, stop the destruction, and ensure climate justice for everyone."

      Assuming the facts are correct and complete here, it's surprisingly naive of Thunberg to take this view. One unknown is whether the displaced villagers were suitably compensated for being evicted. Still, taking 8 years off the deadline to end coal use - that's a pretty massive win and could set the stage for even more in the future.

  15. Dec 2022
    1. Protestant Paranoia: The American Protective Association Oath

      In 1887, Henry F. Bowers founded the nativist American Protective Association (APA) in Clinton, Iowa. Bowers was a Mason, and he drew from its fraternal ritual—elaborate regalia, initiation ceremonies, and a secret oath—in organizing the APA. He also drew many Masons, an organization that barred Catholics. The organization quickly acquired an anti-union cast. Among other things, the APA claimed that the Catholic leader of the Knights, Terence V. Powderly, was part of a larger conspiracy against American institutions. Even so, the APA successfully recruited significant numbers of disaffected trade unionists in an era of economic hard times and the collapse of the Knights of Labor. This secret oath taken by members of the American Protective Association in the 1890s revealed the depth of Protestant distrust and fear of Catholics holding public office.

      I do most solemnly promise and swear that I will always, to the utmost of my ability, labor, plead and wage a continuous warfare against ignorance and fanaticism; that I will use my utmost power to strike the shackles and chains of blind obedience to the Roman Catholic church from the hampered and bound consciences of a priest-ridden and church-oppressed people; that I will never allow any one, a member of the Roman Catholic church, to become a member of this order, I knowing him to be such; that I will use my influence to promote the interest of all Protestants everywhere in the world that I may be; that I will not employ a Roman Catholic in any capacity if I can procure the services of a Protestant.

      I furthermore promise and swear that I will not aid in building or maintaining, by my resources, any Roman Catholic church or institution of their sect or creed whatsoever, but will do all in my power to retard and break down the power of the Pope, in this country or any other; that I will not enter into any controversy with a Roman Catholic upon the subject of this order, nor will I enter into any agreement with a Roman Catholic to strike or create a disturbance whereby the Catholic employes may undermine and substitute their Protestant co-workers; that in all grievances I will seek only Protestants and counsel with them to the exclusion of all Roman Catholics, and will not make known to them anything of any nature matured at such conferences.

      I furthermore promise and swear that I will not countenance the nomination, in any caucus or convention, of a Roman Catholic for any office in the gift of the American people, and that I will not vote for, or counsel others to vote for, any Roman Catholic, but will vote only for a Protestant, so far as may lie in my power. Should there be two Roman Catholics on opposite tickets, I will erase the name on the ticket I vote; that I will at all times endeavor to place the political positions of this government in the hands of Protestants, to the entire exclusion of the Roman Catholic church, of the members thereof, and the mandate of the Pope.

      To all of which I do most solemnly promise and swear, so help me God. Amen.

      Source: "The Secret Oath of the American Protective Association, October 31, 1893," in Michael Williams, The Shadow of the Pope (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1932), 103–104. Reprinted in John Tracy Ellis, ed., Documents of American Catholic History (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1956), 500–501.

    1. nalyze the content of 69,907 headlines pro-duced by four major global media corporations duringa minimum of eight consecutive months in 2014. In or-der to discover strategies that could be used to attractclicks, we extracted features from the text of the newsheadlines related to the sentiment polarity of the head-line. We discovered that the sentiment of the headline isstrongly related to the popularity of the news and alsowith the dynamics of the posted comments on that par-ticular news
    1. Q-associated influencers strategically center the U.S. military in their narratives. This appearance of analliance with the military enhances their credibility and attracts followers, including veterans. Thesuggestion of an alliance also creates a cadre of committed adherents.
    1. On the one hand, conspiracy theorists seem to disregard accuracy; they tend to endorse mutually incompatible conspiracies, think intuitively, use heuristics, and hold other irrational beliefs. But by definition, conspiracy theorists reject the mainstream explanation for an event, often in favor of a more complex account. They exhibit a general distrust of others and expend considerable effort to find ‘evidence’ supporting their beliefs. In searching for answers, conspiracy theorists likely expose themselves to misleading information online and overestimate their own knowledge. Understanding when elaboration and cognitive effort might backfire is crucial, as conspiracy beliefs lead to political disengagement, environmental inaction, prejudice, and support for violence.
    1. . We also find evidence of “falsehood echo chambers”, where users that are more often exposed to misinformation are more likely to follow a similar set of accounts and share from a similar set of domains. These results are interesting in the context of evidence that political echo chambers are not prevalent, as typically imagined
    2. And finally, at the individual level, we found that estimated ideological extremity was more strongly associated with following elites who made more false or inaccurate statements among users estimated to be conservatives compared to users estimated to be liberals. These results on political asymmetries are aligned with prior work on news-based misinformation sharing

      This suggests the misinformation sharing elites may influence whether followers become more extreme. There is little incentive not to stoke outrage as it improves engagement.

    3. Estimated ideological extremity is associated with higher elite misinformation-exposure scores for estimated conservatives more so than estimated liberals.

      Political ideology is estimated using accounts followed10. b Political ideology is estimated using domains shared30 (Red: conservative, blue: liberal). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

      Estimated ideological extremity is associated with higher language toxicity and moral outrage scores for estimated conservatives more so than estimated liberals.

      The relationship between estimated political ideology and (a) language toxicity and (b) expressions of moral outrage. Extreme values are winsorized by 95% quantile for visualization purposes. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

    4. In the co-share network, a cluster of websites shared more by conservatives is also shared more by users with higher misinformation exposure scores.

      Nodes represent website domains shared by at least 20 users in our dataset and edges are weighted based on common users who shared them. a Separate colors represent different clusters of websites determined using community-detection algorithms29. b The intensity of the color of each node shows the average misinformation-exposure score of users who shared the website domain (darker = higher PolitiFact score). c Nodes’ color represents the average estimated ideology of the users who shared the website domain (red: conservative, blue: liberal). d The intensity of the color of each node shows the average use of language toxicity by users who shared the website domain (darker = higher use of toxic language). e The intensity of the color of each node shows the average expression of moral outrage by users who shared the website domain (darker = higher expression of moral outrage). Nodes are positioned using directed-force layout on the weighted network.

    5. Exposure to elite misinformation is associated with the use of toxic language and moral outrage.

      Shown is the relationship between users’ misinformation-exposure scores and (a) the toxicity of the language used in their tweets, measured using the Google Jigsaw Perspective API27, and (b) the extent to which their tweets involved expressions of moral outrage, measured using the algorithm from ref. 28. Extreme values are winsorized by 95% quantile for visualization purposes. Small dots in the background show individual observations; large dots show the average value across bins of size 0.1, with size of dots proportional to the number of observations in each bin. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

    6. We found that misinformation-exposure scores are significantly positively related to language toxicity (Fig. 3a; b = 0.129, 95% CI = [0.098, 0.159], SE = 0.015, t (4121) = 8.323, p < 0.001; b = 0.319, 95% CI = [0.274, 0.365], SE = 0.023, t (4106) = 13.747, p < 0.001 when controlling for estimated ideology) and expressions of moral outrage (Fig. 3b; b = 0.107, 95% CI = [0.076, 0.137], SE = 0.015, t (4143) = 14.243, p < 0.001; b = 0.329, 95% CI = [0.283,0.374], SE = 0.023, t (4128) = 14.243, p < 0.001 when controlling for estimated ideology). See Supplementary Tables 1, 2 for full regression tables and Supplementary Tables 3–6 for the robustness of our results.
    7. Aligned with prior work finding that people who identify as conservative consume15, believe24, and share more misinformation8,14,25, we also found a positive correlation between users’ misinformation-exposure scores and the extent to which they are estimated to be conservative ideologically (Fig. 2c; b = 0.747, 95% CI = [0.727,0.767] SE = 0.010, t (4332) = 73.855, p < 0.001), such that users estimated to be more conservative are more likely to follow the Twitter accounts of elites with higher fact-checking falsity scores. Critically, the relationship between misinformation-exposure score and quality of content shared is robust controlling for estimated ideology
    1. Exposure to elite misinformation is associated with sharing news from lower-quality outlets and with conservative estimated ideology.

      Shown is the relationship between users’ misinformation-exposure scores and (a) the quality of the news outlets they shared content from, as rated by professional fact-checkers21, (b) the quality of the news outlets they shared content from, as rated by layperson crowds21, and (c) estimated political ideology, based on the ideology of the accounts they follow10. Small dots in the background show individual observations; large dots show the average value across bins of size 0.1, with size of dots proportional to the number of observations in each bin.

    1. Notice that Twitter’s account purge significantly impacted misinformation spread worldwide: the proportion of low-credible domains in URLs retweeted from U.S. dropped from 14% to 7%. Finally, despite not having a list of low-credible domains in Russian, Russia is central in exporting potential misinformation in the vax rollout period, especially to Latin American countries. In these countries, the proportion of low-credible URLs coming from Russia increased from 1% in vax development to 18% in vax rollout periods (see Figure 8 (b), Appendix).

    1. Our results show that Fox News is reducing COVID-19 vaccination uptake in the United States, with no evidence of the other major networks having any effect. We first show that there is an association between areas with higher Fox News viewership and lower vaccinations, then provide an instrumental variable analysis to account for endogeneity, and help pin down the magnitude of the local average treatment effect.
    1. I am uncertain whether such a shift towards participatory governance is possible. A useful analogy is that of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, which are undergoing a significant “phase shift”, from the culture defined by the community of early contributors, to a broader and more inclusive culture– one centered not just on encyclopedic prowess, but also institutional organizing. This example suggests that such a shift is possible, but hard. It requires both significant resources, which have been invested in the case of Wikimedia, but also strong leadership that is in dialogue with the community and can negotiate together the changes (this has happened to a lesser extent). 

      I'm surprised that the underlying assumption (and tone) not just here but in most tech discussion of this type, is still that 'everything' around a tech tool should be done through that tech tool. Of course you need to organise around it, and professionalise that in the face of growth or becoming more central to some group's functioning. Obviously you need to leverage other types of governance and decision making than what went into creating a tech at first. Institutionalising is a time proven way to sustain an effort. Technology = politics. You need to be a politician in your own technology space. A politican in the artisanal and as a practice / behaviour sense, not in the occupation sense. Vgl [[Mijn werk is politiek 20190921114750]] which mostly implies thinking at different levels of abstraction about your situation simultaneously (Vgl [[Triz denken in systeemniveaus 20200826114731]] but then socially as well as tech)

    1. Perceptions of failure don’t always lead to shared ideas of how to learn from these lessons.
    2. A lot has changed about our news media ecosystem since 2007. In the United States, it’s hard to overstate how the media is entangled with contemporary partisan politics and ideology. This means that information tends not to flow across partisan divides in coherent ways that enable debate.

      Our media and social media systems have been structured along with the people who use them such that debate is stifled because information doesn't flow coherently across the political partisan divide.

  16. Nov 2022
    1. In broad terms, when I read this highly abbreviated account of a very complex matter, I cannot help buy see a reflection of what's going on in the US - where Lenin is in the role of Trump.

      Most significantly, it seems that in both cases, a madman got the poor and uneducated to throw out one form of power structure for another, in both cases of which the poor and uneducated gained nothing.

    1. This is a good example of how undesirable social facts (i.e., that some people will homeless) can undermine the overall health of the society. I added a comment to the article to explain in more detail the systems-level effects.

    1. The final thing I will say is, we have the 2016 model in our mind that, if there's a normie Republican, they get crushed by Donald Trump. Why should a Mike DeWine, not that he's going to run, but why — normie Republicans did way better than the performative Republicans.

      https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/brooks-and-capehart-on-the-midterm-results-and-what-it-means-trumps-role-in-the-gop#transcript

      video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8Km_Vyhvww

      David Brooks here (coins?) uses the phrase "normie Republican" to describe Republicans who tend to center rather than to the far right, Christian right, or who are Trump Republicans. Some of those people might describe these normie Republicans as Rhinos (Republicans in name only.)

      Typically I've only seen "normie" used by those who identify as ADHD, Aspergers, or otherwise on the (neurodiverse) spectrum to describe average people who don't display those behaviors.


      Judy Woodruff: So, I just want to be clear. We're using the word normie, as in — this is a David Brooks word, right? (LAUGHTER)

      David Brooks: No, this — I did not invent this. I think two generations below me invented that word. (LAUGHTER)

      Brooks admits he learned the word from others, but he's also using it with a different meaning and context than the original "normie" unadorned.

    1. until quite recently, having Ukraine in NATO was a prospect that struck even many American foreign policy thinkers as a bad idea.

      These arguments might be valid but they are all from authority

    2. There are reasons why the U.S. might want to project power into the Black Sea region.

      Unfortunately he doesn't describe any such reasons.

    1. Other countries do things differently.Canada has undertaken steady changes to improve its election system. In 1920, the country put federal elections under the control of an independent official who does not report to any government or politicians and who has the power to punish rule breakers. Responsibility for setting electoral boundaries was turned over to 10 similarly independent commissions, one for every province, in 1964.Taiwan and more than a dozen countries have also established independent bodies to draw voting districts and ensure that votes are cast and counted uniformly and fairly.The approach is not foolproof. Nigeria, Pakistan and Jordan all have independent election commissions. Many of their elections have still failed to be free and trusted.But in the places where studies show that turnout and satisfaction with the process are highest, elections are run by national bodies designed to be apolitical and inclusive. More than 100 countries have some form of compulsory or automatic voter registration; in general, democracies have been making it easier to vote in recent years, not more difficult.

      Notice the structural-solutionism. Structure is important but what ails the US is cultural (ontological) - though structure may exacerbate it.

      As evidenced by the exceptions they then list. See Putnam on Italy.

  17. Oct 2022
    1. November 7, 1916: "I expect to vote for Woodrow Wilson

      I wonder if others use the sense making features of a note card system to think through their voting decisions? This seems an interesting and useful exercise which Paxson has done.

    1. The synthetic party, a Danish political party with an AI generated program from all Danish fringe party programs since the 70s. Aimed at the 20% non-voting Danes. 'Leder Lars' is leading the party, which is a chatbot residing on a Discord server where you can interact with it. An art project.

    1. Today, the people in politics who most often invoke the name of Jesus for their political causes tend to be the most merciless and judgmental, the most consumed by rage and fear and vengeance. They hate their enemies, and they seem to want to make more of them. They claim allegiance to the truth and yet they have embraced, even unwittingly, lies. They have inverted biblical ethics in the name of biblical ethics.
  18. heathercoxrichardson.substack.com heathercoxrichardson.substack.com
    1. The real danger of this widening schism…lies in this creating the conditions for a future that looks more like present-day Russia or Iran.

      Or like The Handmaid's Tale.... SF accurately predicts the future yet again.

    1. this course considers at the very end the question of the essence of thereligion: Through all this change, does anything remain constant?

      Religion co-evolves with the people, places, and times in which it exists. Much like human genes, it works at the level of the individual, the local group, the larger groups and communities (of both the religion itself as well as the polities around it), and when applicable at the scale of all people on the planet.

      The Selfish Religion: How far might we take this religion/gene analogy with respect to Richard Dawkins' thesis (1976). Does religion act more like a gene that is part of the particular person or is it more like a virus which inserts itself? The latter may be closer as one can pick and choose a religion rather than it being a core part of their genetic identity.

      (highlight: anchor only)

    1. What’s more amazing is that the NRO has multiple more capable telescopes in orbit as we speak and we’re celebrating that NASA doesn’t have to spend money to keep that old piece of hardware useful for a few more years. Which isn’t bad, don’t get me wrong, but it just feels odd that priorities are shifted so much towards black projects.

      .

  19. Sep 2022
    1. It turns out that a much more accurate picture is that povertyspells tend to be short but frequent.

      Is it possible that the general American need to always be keeping up appearances confounds the facts that most poverty spells are short?

      This is the second time I've noted a possible link to this effect. Is there a way to help unbundle it both perceptually and politically to better allow people to face their problems and fix the broader societal problem here?

    2. One reason for this is that poverty is not something that people wish to ac-knowledge or draw attention to. Rather, it is something that individuals andfamilies would like to go away. As a result, many Americans attempt to concealtheir economic difficulties as much as possible.22 This often involves keeping upappearances and trying to maintain a “normal” lifestyle. Such poverty downthe block may at first appear invisible. Nevertheless, the reach of poverty iswidespread, touching nearly all communities across America.

      Middle Americans, and particularly those in suburbia and rural parts of America that account for the majority of poverty in the country, tend to make their poverty invisible because of the toxic effects of extreme capitalism and keeping up appearances.

      Has this effect risen with the rise of social media platforms like Instagram and the idea of "living one's best life"? How about the social effects of television with shows like "Keeping up with the Kardashians" which encourage conspicuous consumption?


      More interesting is the fact that most of these suburban and rural poverty stricken portions of the country are in predominantly Republican held strongholds.

      Is there a feedback mechanism that is not only hollowing these areas out, but keeping them in poverty?

    3. Could the maintenance of these mythsactually be useful for particularly powerful constituencies? Does the contin-uation of these myths serve a purpose or function for other segments of theAmerican population? If so, who and what might that be?
    1. Con un’affluenza al 64%, di dieci punti percentuali inferiore rispetto al 2018, sono state le elezioni politiche meno partecipate nella storia repubblicana.

      Questa è la vera, massima, più allarmante sconfitta.

    1. Unable to process all this material, we let our cognitive biases decide what we should pay attention to.

      In a society consumed with information overload, it is easier for our brains to allow our well evolved cognitive biases to decide not only what to pay attention to, but what to believe.

  20. www.justine-haupt.com www.justine-haupt.com
    1. Both US political parties have become radicalized

      Political parties are racketeering organizations.

      https://britannica.com/dictionary/racketeering

      The idea of moderate non-radical racketeering organizations is kind of silly.

    1. Renewable energy critics argue that wind and solar are not reliable sources because of their variability. Others argue that wind farms encroach on pristine environment and destroy a country’s natural habitat, as is the case with the installation of thousands of wind turbines on scores of Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. How would you respond to such concerns, and are there ways around them?
    1. Leftists, who won more than two-thirds of the seats, took full control of the process; they did not need a single vote from conservative convention members to approve additions to the proposal.

      Wow, how did the electoral process allow that?

      And how did the "leftists" think that was going to work out?

    1. Nedan visas de topp tio viktigaste politiska frågorna enligt svenska folket.

      The ten most important political matters according to the Swedish people (according to a Novus survey from August 2022).

    1. But do ESG ratings really deliver on the promise? Are highly-ranked ESG businesses really more caring of the environment, more selective of the societies in which they operate, and more focused on countries with good corporate governance? In short, is ESG really good? The answer is no.

      black box

      opaque score

    1. The False Promise of Liberal Order: Nostalgia, Delusion and the Rise of ...The False Promise of Liberal Order exposes the flaws in this nostalgic vision. The world shaped by America came about as a result of coercion and, sometimes brutal, compromise. Liberal projects - to spread capitalist democracy - led inadvertently to illiberal results. To make peace, America made bargains with authoritarian forces.
    2. The False Promise | The Project for a New American GovernmentThe false promise of freedom from consequences is baiting into hazard as ignoring consequences must necessarily result in destruction."—Andrew M Gilmour —"Marxism is the tooth fairy of political beliefs. You can't make a credible claim to being an adult and still believe in that nonsense."-Noah J Revoy
  21. Aug 2022
    1. Krause, P. R., Fleming, T. R., Peto, R., Longini, I. M., Figueroa, J. P., Sterne, J. A. C., Cravioto, A., Rees, H., Higgins, J. P. T., Boutron, I., Pan, H., Gruber, M. F., Arora, N., Kazi, F., Gaspar, R., Swaminathan, S., Ryan, M. J., & Henao-Restrepo, A.-M. (2021). Considerations in boosting COVID-19 vaccine immune responses. The Lancet, 4. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02046-8

    1. 2014 stod de så pass nära att Ulf Hansen var en av gästerna på en privat maskeradfest hemma hos Jimmie Åkesson och Louise Erixon. Alltså bara ett drygt år efter att Hansen visat sitt stöd för Hells Angels. Efter det kom Ulf Hansen allt närmare partiet. Hans bakgrund verkade inte vara ett problem. Inte heller den rasism han spred på nätet.  I mars 2015 postade Ulf Hansen ett inlägg med en länk till vit makt-filmen The End Game – Full White Genocide documentary. Konspirationsteorin om att det pågår ett folkmord på vita är central i vit makt-miljön och populariserades av den amerikanska terroristen David Lane. I anslutning till klippet som Ulf Hansen spred länkades till flera rasideologiska och antisemitiska sajter.
    1. Kesler was especially devoted to theorizing about what he saw as the menace of progressivism. As he wrote in his 2021 book, “Crisis of the Two Constitutions,” the takeover of the country by the “administrative state” marked a fundamental change in the understanding of the purposes of government and was “based on a new view of the nature of man.” The figure who “prepared this revolution” was Woodrow Wilson, who served as president from 1913 to 1921. Though the framers had constructed a government “to display the laws of nature,” Wilson argued that the laws of nature were antithetical to human freedom. Because history is progressive, each new generation might find that the definitions of liberty and happiness, and therefore the appropriate forms of government, would change as well. In Kesler’s reading of Wilson, the Declaration of Independence could “therefore have no teaching concerning the best regime or even ranking legitimate regimes,” putting the country into a chaotic and potentially disastrous tangle of relativism.

      Ontological politics strikes again. "based on a new view of the nature of man"

    1. Whatever the reason for the contradiction, there can be no doubt that there is a contradiction. To simultaneously hold conservative cultural, economic, and political beliefs—to insist that our liberal-left present reality and future direction is incompatible with human nature and must undermine society—and yet also believe that things can go on more or less the way they are going, ideally but not necessarily with some conservative tinkering here and there, is logically impossible.

      See the ontological politics there:

      to insist that our liberal-left present reality and future direction is incompatible with human nature and must undermine society

      What is the assumed "human nature" that liberal left approaches are incompatible with? That is a fascinating question and key to much of this discussion.

      It is perfect evidence of the central but hidden role of "ontology"[^1] to politics.

      [^1]: i.e. beliefs about human nature.

  22. Jul 2022
    1. People get strangely protective of memes, and become much more defensive when challenged than if an op-ed they’ve shared is disputed. Longer form communications seem to be open to rigorous but respectful debate in ways that memes are not. It doesn’t appear to matter whether one attempts to debate the content of the meme itself, or the practice of sharing memes—criticizing a meme can feel tantamount to insulting someone’s child.
    2. Most academics who study memes agree that they are poisonous to healthy public discourse (“toxic” is a word that crops up a lot, even in the scholarly literature). One scholar bluntly called them “one of the main vehicles for misinformation,” and they tend to distort reality in several ways. By their very nature, they leave no room for nuance or complexity, and so they are frequently misleading; they tend to lean heavily on scornful condescension and moral sanctimony (usually, the intended takeaway is that anyone who agrees with the point of view being—inaccurately—mocked is an imbecile); they make copious use of ad hominem attacks, straw man fallacies, and motte-and-bailey arguments; they intentionally catastrophize, generalize, personalize, and encourage dichotomous thinking; and they are aggressive and sometimes dehumanizing. They are, in other words, methods of Internet communication that display all the symptoms of a borderline personality type of mental disorder. Of course, it’s possible to construct a meme that is short yet still thoughtful and sophisticated, but these are few and far between.
    1. Gone, for now, are the big rallies, with their open calls for violence and ostentatious displays of military-style kit, and many of those who organized them. Gone, too, are most of the election audits and other inquiries into the results convened by Republican-controlled state legislatures and local governments, investigations that failed to produce evidence of meaningful fraud. What is left in their place is an insistence — a belief, a lie or an act of motivated reasoning, depending on whom you’re talking to — that the election was stolen, which has fed a new wave of post-Trump activism on the right.
    1. My team worked like a lab. We focused on (2) to design new services and (4) to create staff and manager resources to improve internal and external services. Every lab should focus on (4) as this drives everything.Labs should be a beacon of insight and knowledge. Prehn was blunt in saying that staff should “climb down from the ivory tower and avoid the tendency of labs to define themselves in opposition to the rest of the organization,” adding, “Please, lose the arrogant attitude.” That’s sound advice.

      "Labs should be a beacon of insight and knowledge". And: a(ny) "normal" team can work like a lab.

  23. Jun 2022
    1. He showed his famous sense of humor in a 2006 commentary for NPR's "This I Believe" series, writing: "I admire enormously the candidate able to face defeat with humor and grace. Nobody ever conceded defeat better than Dick Tuck who, upon losing a California state senate primary, said simply, 'The people have spoken ... the bastards.' "
    1. Some of his happiest moments, he said, were when he worked on political campaigns: “You think you are going to make a difference that’s going to be better for the country, and especially for widows and orphans and people who don’t even know your name and never will know your name. Boy, that’s probably as good as it gets.”
    1. It’s the story of millions of American Christians who, after a lifetime spent considering their political affiliations in the context of their faith, are now considering their faith affiliations in the context of their politics.

      an interesting twist to American cultural life

    1. why is the moment you ask someone is a woman as electable as a man how come the moment you ask that everything changes yeah this is this was one of those really remarkable we didn't do this 00:21:01 research so i can brag about it right right it's regina bateson this is really fantastic research looking at gender bias in politics right because it's unbelievable 00:21:14 like women are so underrepresented in intellectual politics it's just you can't it's but like here's the thing like it's important to understand what's driving that and and for sure let's just be clear just straight up sexism 00:21:27 certainly is involved sometimes like that that's certainly the case but what what uh dr bateson found what i think was really fascinating is that given our winner-take-all um like sort of two-party system 00:21:41 so much is dependent on what the gatekeepers think who who because now like if we were doing something like ranked choice voting it doesn't really matter i don't have to care what i think anybody else thinks right but in a winner-take-all system i 00:21:54 have to do a little bit of guessing about who do i think most people are going to vote for right because otherwise my vote is quote unquote wasted right if i take a flyer on that so what was interesting is if you look at how women perform when they are 00:22:08 nominated in general elections women win at the same rate as white men it's just so i suggest obviously it's not a general election problem and what what she found was that it was like 00:22:20 party leaders especially donors right they're like well wait a minute i'm not sexist but i think most people in the party are so i don't think you're going to be able to win and so they don't get the support they don't get the the 00:22:32 resources and it becomes self-fulfilling it's so clear when you put it that way how that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy but there there is so much pressure within certain groups to say this the the dominant ideology and just 00:22:44 like don't like if you can't it's like a cult right because like the second you question maybe you're like what does the evidence actually show they're like you're out you're not being loyal um wow 00:22:57 yeah so that's it's actually um in the book i i was looking at what i call these conformity traps like these these three kinds of situations where you are likely to slip into blind conformity and you are quite likely to do that 00:23:10 under an illusion to begin with and you know this this sort of identity trap where you've got these groups that matter so much to who you are right and and especially when it's just one group that group has cult-like power 00:23:23 over you

      In summary, women don't do well in politics (and probably business) due to a collective illusion effect of the gatekeepers who believe everyone else thinks that they are rocking the boat.

      Groups can influence a cult like power on individual group members.

  24. May 2022
    1. Here's a link to the penultimate draft (not for citation): https://www.academia.edu/46814693/The_Signaling_Function_of_Sharing_Fake_Stories

      This broad thesis sounds to me like something I've read before, perhaps in George Lakoff about people signaling group membership or perhaps people with respect to their voting tendencies. The question isn't who should I vote for specifically, but who would someone like me (ie. who would my group, my tribe) vote for?

      This sort of phenomena is likely easier to see/show in sports fans who will tell blatant untruths or delude themselves about the teams of which they are fans.The team winning at all costs will cause them to put on blinders.

      A particular recent example of something like this with relation to what might otherwise be a logical business decision is seen in incoming Amazon CEO Andy Jassy nixing the idea of building in Philadelphia due to his own NFL fandom https://www.phillyvoice.com/amazon-hq2-philly-eagles-giants-rivalry-andy-jassy-jeff-bezos-amazon-unbound/

      Why would someone make a potential multi-million dollar decision over their sports preference?

  25. Apr 2022
    1. Member States

      Perhaps this should be addressed not just to Members States, but, more explicitly to educational stakeholders. In many cases, for example the UK (2022), the "Member State" does not really have the means or the disposition to take seriously any of these recommendations. It is down to institutions and professionals within the territory of the Member State to take the lead, and therefore they are the ones to whom this recommendation should be addressed to.

    1. True meritocracy came closest to realization with the rise of standardized tests in the 1950s

      Interesting, I'm ready to buy that the post-WWII period had the biggest opening to education in the USA — tho far from truly open or meritocratic and definitely unevenly distributed in many ways, including between K12 and higher ed — but I'm not sure I'd put standardized tests first in a list of reasons for the opening. I'd want to hear more about that.

    1. the Institute of Medicine had released a landmark report on patientsafety, To Err Is Human. The report found that as many as 98,000 Americanswere dying each year as a result of preventable medical errors occurring inhospitals—more people than succumbed to car accidents, workplace injuries, orbreast cancer. And some significant portion of these deaths involved mistakes inthe dispensing of drugs.

      Some might see the 98,000 preventable medical error deaths reported by the Institute of Medicine in To Err is Human (1999) now and laugh at the farcical number of deaths due to coronavirus since 2020, a large proportion of which could have been prevented due to better communication and coordination?

      What if a more pragmatic anthropological viewpoint could be given to the current fractured state of American politics? If anthropologists are taught not to make value judgements on the way other cultures have come to live their lives, but simply to appreciate and report on them accurately, then perhaps we should leave those on the far right who believe in top down, patriarchal rule to their devices?

      What if we nudged (forced) them all to actually live by their own rules by enforcing them to the nth degree? Republican politicians can only get away with badmouthing abortion or homophobic viewpoints because their feet are not held to the fire when those issues impinge upon their own families or even themselves. They have the wealth and the power to flout the laws and not face the direct consequences personally. Would their tunes change if forced by their own top down patriarchal perspectives applying to them?

    1. Peter Navarro. (2021, August 23). This is what caving to political pressure looks like. Pfizer vaccine is leady and non-durable and risks are mounting. If we had tried to pulled this kind of sh**T in the Trump White...fill in blank. F.D.A. Grants Full Approval https://t.co/6r10euQPus [Tweet]. @RealPNavarro. https://twitter.com/RealPNavarro/status/1429833643808145408

  26. Mar 2022
    1. As a result, members who pursue their own individual interests will also pursue the interests of the organization, as if guided by an invisible hand.  Cooperation pays.  Members capture the benefits of anything they can do to assist the organization.  Within the group, they therefore treat the other as self. 

      Within the group, they therefore treat each other as self.

      But what about when they don't - when people "free-ride". That's a key question. I agree that should we really treat others as ourselves suddenly completely new levels of cooperation would become possible and become easy. However, I think that needs quite a profound ontological shift and that isn't easy.

    1. Each highlighted statement expresses political talking points aligned to induce trump-like support.

      Trump introduced new marketing and strategy, formulated using concepts and metrics mastered by Reality TV and Hollywood and then paired with advertising propaganda and "selling" techniques to create a "Brand". This is after-all Donald Trump, this is what he does, has done and is the only way he has found to make money. Trump built the "brand" (just barely) while teetering on self destruction.

      His charismatic persona became "the glue" that allowed creative narratives to stick to certain types of people in-spite of risk. Trump learned OTJ how to capture a specific type of audience.

      The mistake people make about Trump is assuming his audience to be "Joe Six-Pack", redneck's with limited education! This assumption does not have merit on its own.<br /> * There is a common "follower" theme among his audience that is exploited by those who: * Bought the "licensing rights" to the master-class Trump "how-to" course.

  27. Feb 2022
    1. Eric Feigl-Ding. (2022, January 17). Pandemic leadership matters. #COVID19 mortality per capita by state. 📍Public health is policy, policy is politics. 📍Human behavior is often driven by misinformation. 📍Misinformation is often driven by politics. 📍Politics can be changed by voting—Unless voters can’t. Https://t.co/pFkndQZrfr [Tweet]. @DrEricDing. https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1483181226815012867

    1. Also, we shouldn’t underestimate the advantages of writing. In oralpresentations, we easily get away with unfounded claims. We candistract from argumentative gaps with confident gestures or drop acasual “you know what I mean” irrespective of whether we knowwhat we meant. In writing, these manoeuvres are a little too obvious.It is easy to check a statement like: “But that is what I said!” Themost important advantage of writing is that it helps us to confrontourselves when we do not understand something as well as wewould like to believe.

      In modern literate contexts, it is easier to establish doubletalk in oral contexts than it is in written contexts as the written is more easily reviewed for clarity and concreteness. Verbal ticks like "you know what I mean", "it's easy to see/show", and other versions of similar hand-waving arguments that indicate gaps in thinking and arguments are far easier to identify in writing than they are in speech where social pressure may cause the audience to agree without actually following the thread of the argument. Writing certainly allows for timeshiting, but it explicitly also expands time frames for grasping and understanding a full argument in a way not commonly seen in oral settings.

      Note that this may not be the case in primarily oral cultures which may take specific steps to mitigate these patterns.

      Link this to the anthropology example from Scott M. Lacy of the (Malian?) tribe that made group decisions by repeating a statement from the lowest to the highest and back again to ensure understanding and agreement.


      This difference in communication between oral and literate is one which leaders can take advantage of in leading their followers astray. An example is Donald Trump who actively eschewed written communication or even reading in general in favor of oral and highly emotional speech. This generally freed him from the need to make coherent and useful arguments.

    2. We also know that theaverage length of TV soundbites has steadily declined over the lastseveral decades (Fehrmann, 2011). During the U.S. presidentialelection in 1968, the average soundbite — that is, any footage of acandidate speaking uninterrupted — was still a little more than 40seconds, but that had fallen to less than 10 seconds at the end of the80s (Hallin 1994) and 7.8 seconds in 2000 (Lichter, 2001). The lastelection has certainly not reversed the trend. Whether that meansthat the media adjust to our decreasing attention span or is causingthe trend is not easy to say.[17]

      Ryfe and Kemmelmeier not only show that this development goes much further back into the past and first appeared in newspapers (the quotes of politicians got almost halved between 1892 and 1968), but also posed the question if this can maybe also be seen as a form of increased professionalism of the media as they do not just let politicians talk as they wish (Ryfe and Kemmelmeier 2011). Craig Fehrman also pointed out the irony in the reception of this rather nuanced study – it was itself reduced to a soundbite in the media (Fehrman 2011).


      Soundbites have decreased in length over time.

      What effects are driving this? What are the knock on effects? What effect does this have on the ability for doubletalk to take hold? Is it easier for doubletalk and additional meanings to attach to soundbites when they're shorter? (It would seem so.) At what point to they hit a minimum?

      What is the effect of potential memes which hold additional meaning of driving this soundbite culture?

      Example: "Lock her up" as a soundbite with memetic meaning from the Trump 2016 campaign in reference to Hilary Clinton.

    1. Moralistic political culture evolved out of New England and is characterized by an emphasis of community and civic virtue over individualism. Individualistic political culture arose from Dutch influence in the Mid-Atlantic region; it regards multiculturalism as a practicality and government as a utilitarian necessity. Traditionalistic political culture arose in the South, which elevates social order and family structure to a prominent role. It accepts a natural hierarchy in society and where necessary to protect society, authoritarian leadership in the political and religious realms

      main political cultures in the traditional early US

    1. In , power is the governing principle as rooted in of private ownership. Private ownership is wholly and only an act of institutionalized , and institutionalized exclusion is a matter of organized power

      capitalism as system of organized power

    1. ow [Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 [...] and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.

      South was won with explicit racism, but it doesn't have to use racism explicitly to keep the south

    2. Journalists reporting about the demonstrations against the Vietnam War often featured young people engaging in violence or burning draft cards and American flags.[47] Conservatives were also dismayed about the many young adults engaged in the drug culture and "free love" (sexual promiscuity), in what was called the "hippie" counter-culture. These actions scandalized many Americans and created a concern about law and order.

      Journalism and propaganda associating the progressives with "violent" "chaotic" "anti-order", especially by depicting Black people and hippies in this way

    3. If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.— Lyndon Johnson

      important quote during this time - this is literally what the republicans were doing in the South

    4. Democrat George Wallace was elected as Governor of Alabama, he emphasized the connection between states' rights and segregation, both in speeches and by creating crises to provoke federal intervention. He opposed integration at the University of Alabama and collaborated with the Ku Klux Klan in 1963 in disrupting court-ordered integration of public schools in Birmingham

      use of idea of "state's rights" to support explicit racism and working with the KKK

    5. The main plank of the States' Rights Democratic Party was maintaining segregation and Jim Crow in the South.

      southern strategy was not hidden - party literally ran on platform of racism

    6. Republicans regularly supported anti-lynching bills, but these were filibustered by Southern Democrats in the Senate.

      filibuster was literally used to protect lynching Black people

    7. Although the Fourteenth Amendment has a provision to reduce the Congressional representation of states that denied votes to their adult male citizens, this provision was never enforced

      even when the Constitution is against racism, it was not enforced to protect black voters

    8. From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats

      basically, he's saying republicans can get more white votes by promoting black voting rights, which will polarize whites to the right? what?

    1. Nursing professionals are facing with severe sleep problems during the covid 19 pandemic time. Nurses were asked to work in an environment that had a more increased level of risk than ever before. Depression and anxiety from the workplace could affect the confidence of healthcare workers in themselves as well as general trust in the healthcare system. This will lead to their turnover intention which may undermine the efforts of the governments to control the COVID-19 pandemic. The rising concern may change the working schedules of healthcare workers, offering more occupational healthcare support.

  28. Jan 2022
    1. These find-ings demonstrate the important function of musicians in diplomaticrelations.

      This isn't something I really considered, but Pietrobono himself is a sort of political tool

    Tags

    Annotators

  29. canvas.ucsc.edu canvas.ucsc.edu
    1. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin

      1. Benjamin is part of the Frankfurt School at Institute of Social Studies in Germany.
      2. They are trying to examine the failure of Marxist revolutionary social change.
      3. The idea is that ideology disseminated through mass media are making it very difficult for Marx's prognotication are making it very difficult for social change to occur.
      4. 19th century modernity: mass transportation, factory work, dissemination of capitalism, movement to cities and experience of urban life

       These convergent endeavors made predictable a situation which Paul Valéry pointed up in this sentence: “Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign.” (op. cit., p. 226) Around 1900 technical reproduction had reached a standard that not only permitted it to reproduce all transmitted works of art and thus to cause the most profound change in their impact upon the public; it also had captured a place of its own among the artistic processes. For the study of this standard nothing is more revealing than the nature of the repercussions that these two different manifestations—the reproduction of works of art and the art of the film—have had on art in its traditional form.

      Q: Why does it matter that film minimizes the aura?

      At the time, art reacted with the doctrine of l’art pour l’art, that is, with a theology of art. This gave rise to what might be called a negative theology in the form of the idea of ‘pure’ art, which not only denied any social function of art but also any categorizing by subject matter. (In poetry, Mallarmé was the first to take this position.) An analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction must do justice to these relationships, for they lead us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility.7 From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the ‘authentic’ print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice—politics.<br> Ritual: pre-modern timesPolitics: Despite the political painting the art piece will be associated with the aura of original piece of art.

      • Film is not auratic because in film: 1) spaces and times are constructed 2) actors performance is stitched together 3) actors do not share space with spectators 4) multiple points of view 5) appeals to a MASS AUDIENCE and a COLLECTIVE AUDIENCE 6) reveals new aspects of the thing reproduced (time alpse, slow motion).

      How do institutions put the aura back into film?

      In photography, exhibition value begins to displace cult value all along the line. But cult value does not give way without resistance. It retires into an ultimate retrenchment: the human countenance.

      The superstar is a way to put the aura back into film

      The film responds to the shriveling of the aura with an artificial build-up of the “personality” outside the studio. The cult of the movie star, fostered by the money of the film industry, preserves not the unique aura of the person but the “spell of the personality,” the phony spell of a commodity. So long as the movie-makers’ capital sets the fashion, as a rule no other revolutionary merit can be accredited to today’s film than the promotion of a revolutionary criticism of traditional concepts of art. We do not deny that in some cases today’s films can also promote revolutionary criticism of social conditions, even of the distribution of property. However, our present study is no more specifically concerned with this than is the film production of Western Europe.

      *Marx says capitalism produces the seeds of its demise. We can think of that as a guiding principle in which capitalism produces the neorosis that leads Chaplins character into a destructive set of behaviors that stops the Fordist capitalist production in a factory.

      Feelings of belongoing and togetherness and being overhwemed by a mass you want to be a part of , but for Benjamin this is a trynanny where people feel they are in control but they are not really in control. Thus communism replies by politicizing art. Art for art's sake is harmful when put in the service of a facist regime. Art for political progress.

      The growing proletarianization of modern man and the increasing formation of masses are two aspects of the same process. Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves.21 The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life. The violation of the masses, whom Fascism, with its Führer cult, forces to their knees, has its counterpart in the violation of an apparatus which is pressed into the production of ritual values.

      Film is not merely a translation of an in-person thetaer performance. Rather film is performing for future audiences and for the director and for cinematrography. This supports the idea that film is a collabroative creation that brings an object into the world.

      One film can be playing multiple times around the world and so this can be distributed on mass scale.

      Film is not merely a recording of reality. Film reproduced new aspects of the things reproduced through slow motion and it brings to light entirely new aspects of matter but discloses quite aspects within them. If Benjamin merely interested in the epistemological possibility of the film to expand our limited perceptual appartus, yes but think about how this reinforces his claim that film moves us away from the aura,...that if we can see unknown aspects by recording it then we can't rely on film to reproduce an original we have to keep in mind that the image is qualitatively distinct from our perceptual access to the thing. So film is not merely a copy of the thing that it records.

      Benjamin flips things and says that maybe film isn't art the way we see an art and this will get us away from the trappings.

      What is Benjamin's definition of art which he is defining with the aura, the transcendence of individual of ritual.

      1. substructure or base: factors that produce commodities and economic relations that result from these concrete aspects
      2. superstructure: culture, law, media that for a Marxist thinker emerges in the way that the economic structure functions; the more media/education/political cosumption that you do the less you are going to understand the conditions of your exploitation and the more you are going to think change is possible.
      3. What role does cinema play in the move from cult and aura to mechanical reproduction? See snapshots.
    1. In an era where funding for good projects can be hard to come by, or is even endangered, we must affirmatively make the case for the study of how to improve human well-being. This possibility is a fundamental reason why the American public is interested in supporting the pursuit of knowledge, and rightly so.

      Keep in mind that they're asking this in an anti-science and post-fact political climate. Is progress studies the real end goal, or do we need political solutions? Better communication solutions? Better education solutions? Instead? First?

      Are they addressing the correct question/problem here?

    1. It was largely the speakers of Iroquoian languages such as theWendat, or the five Haudenosaunee nations to their south, whoappear to have placed such weight on reasoned debate – evenfinding it a form of pleasurable entertainment in own right. This factalone had major historical repercussions. Because it appears tohave been exactly this form of debate – rational, sceptical, empirical,conversational in tone – which before long came to be identified withthe European Enlightenment as well. And, just like the Jesuits,Enlightenment thinkers and democratic revolutionaries saw it asintrinsically connected with the rejection of arbitrary authority,particularly that which had long been assumed by the clergy.

      The forms of rational, skeptical, empirical and conversational forms of debate popularized by the Enlightenment which saw the rejection of arbitrary authority were influenced by the Haudenosaunee nations of Americans.


      Interesting to see the reflexive political fallout of this reoccurring with the political right in America beginning in the early 2000s through the 2020s. It's almost as if the Republican party and religious right never experienced the Enlightenment and are still living in the 1700s.


      Curious that in modern culture I think of the Jesuits as the embodiment of rationalist, skeptical argumentation and thought now. Apparently they were dramatically transformed since that time.

    1. We’re not a place—it’s very difficult to come to Xbox Live and say, ‘Okay, I want to go create a political party on the platform’. You could kind of twist the tools and try to get there, but it’s just not set up for general-purpose conversations or community.

      My Xbox 360 display picture is a Libertarian Party one created by the Xbox team for a past election cycle. They had them for GOP and Dem as well.

      There are also a few groups centered around politics for coordinating gameplay together premised on a common interest - so it seems that to that extent he doesn't know his own system?

      I don't know that Xbox as a social platform would be favorable for "creating a political party" whatever that means. Government's control what political parties are created - they only allow the ones they approve of to exist anyway.

    1. Ms. Trajano, whom the president referred to as a “socialist.”Later that day, when Ms. Trajano was asked about the president’s remark, she said she didn’t find the label offensive.“I think social inequality must be confronted,” she said. “If that’s being a socialist, then I’m a socialist.”
  30. Dec 2021
    1. We live under governments that are too captured by the near-term priorities of capitalism to seriously address the threat of climate change

      Inability of politics to go beyond sort-term objectives

    1. My interest in psychology intensified, I came across Stanislaw Grof and Ken Wilber. Grof's book 'Realms of the Human Unconscious' opened many doors for me, and Wilber's 'Up from Eden' meant a decisive turning-point in the development of my fundamental worldview. Wilber offered a much more encompassing vision of the evolutionary dynamics of the society than the left. He also provided an alternative utopic vision, focussed on consciousness development rather than on social reforms.
  31. Nov 2021
    1. The root of the discord lies in the fact that many Christians have embraced the worst aspects of our culture and our politics. When the Christian faith is politicized, churches become repositories not of grace but of grievances, places where tribal identities are reinforced, where fears are nurtured, and where aggression and nastiness are sacralized. The result is not only wounding the nation; it’s having a devastating impact on the Christian faith.

      This would seem to indicate that culture and politics are taking precedence over the religion and faith portions of these churches.

    1. he wanted a school board focused on the basics of education, not the abstract notions of social change some progressives say are at least as important as those basics
    2. On two highly divisive cultural issues — public safety and public education — even voters in this exceedingly progressive city have bluntly told their elected leaders that high-minded rhetoric is not enough.