248 Matching Annotations
  1. Apr 2019
  2. Jan 2019
    1. Myth 8: You Need to Take Supplements to Build MuscleAdvertisementSadly, this is another myth that’s applicable to some people, but not most of us—but you’d never know it from the way they’re marketed. Supplements can help, especially if you’re a bodybuilder or strength trainer, but the typical person who does some weight training two or three times a week to stay fit and build a little muscle mass doesn’t need to chug creatine or protein shakes in order to build muscle. Dr. Parr explains, “It is true that you need more protein is you want to build muscle size and strength. But you can easily get that protein from food, meaning that supplements are unnecessary. In fact, the protein in most supplements is derived from milk or soy anyway, so you are paying for a supplement manufacturer to extract the protein from food and sell it back to you! Additionally, getting the added protein from food also provides you with energy (calories) and carbohydrates which you need to fuel your workouts.”No one’s telling you to skip the protein shake if you think it’s tasty and enjoy it, but remember it’s essentially another meal—a caloric intake you may not need if you’re just going to go home and make dinner—which, if you make something rich in protein as well as other vitamins and nutrients, will give you the benefits of the shake in a more complete package. If you’re a serious bodybuilder and you do weight training for hours a day every day, the rules might be different for you, but for the average person, all the extra supplements you may be adding to your food or drinks aren’t likely to do you much good.

      Horrendous piece of pseudoscepticism.

    1. Shortly after the discovery of niacin, scientists and medical professionals including Dr. Goldberger and Dr. Abram Hoffer helped to establish mandatory fortification in the 1940s.

      Abram Hoffer

    1. Elderly sedentary subjects can achieve up to more than 50% strength gain even after 6 weeks of resistance training when performing two or three sessions per week applying a sufficiently high intensity (about 70-80% of maximal strength) [62].

      Quick results in the elderly.

  3. Dec 2018
    1. Concernant la formule «en tous les cas», son emploi est plus délicat. Si l'on retrouve sans difficulté sa graphie chez l'Académie française au début du XVIIIe siècle nous préciserons simplement que cette dernière n'existe dans aucun dictionnaire de référence aujourd'hui. Elle est selon toute vraisemblance une déformation de la locution «dans tous les cas».

      En/dans

  4. Oct 2018
    1. It only took us a few months and a few papers to learn that while it is possible that some journals in these fields may fall prey to an outright hoax so long as it plays upon their moral biases and preferred academic jargon, nothing like “The Conceptual Penis” would have been published in a highly regarded gender-studies journal. In believing that some might, and on having said so in the wake of that attempt, we were wrong.

      Bravo.

    2. highly regarded peer-reviewed journals in gender studies

      This is an important aspect of the research: critics say those journals are minor. They aren't.

    3. A good example of this is Robin DiAngelo’s concept of “white fragility,” which posits that white people have become fragile because of their privilege and will act out like spoiled children if it is challenged. DiAngelo forwarded this concept in the International Journal of Critical Pedagogy in 2011. Seven years later, in 2018, she landed a major book deal on white fragility, even as activists pushed it into the common parlance and started putting it on billboards around Portland, Oregon.

      Why do you consider this idea to be so obviously flawed that it doesn't deserve a rebuttal? Or perhaps you agree and just want to show that scholarly journals like this are influential?

    4. This worldview is not scientific, and it is not rigorous.

      You don't expect a philosophy paper to be scientific (Hypatia). But it should be rigorous.

    5. has become firmly established, if not fully dominant, within these fields,

      Sources needed.

  5. Sep 2018
    1. Facebook does not allow third-party apps to display your newsfeed. This applies to Hootsuite. For this reason, you’ll always have to use Facebook natively. The same pretty much goes for Instagram.

      Facebook does not allow third-party apps to display your newsfeed. This applies to Hootsuite. For this reason, you’ll always have to use Facebook natively. The same pretty much goes for Instagram.

  6. Aug 2018
    1. la seule prolétarisation objective ne suffit pas et n’a jamais suffi à former des « communistes ». La question est de savoir qui et où sont ceux qui, parmi les prolétaires et les travailleurs (matériels ou immatériels) d’aujourd’hui, sont susceptibles d’être communistes, d’agir, de penser et de vivre en communistes, au(x) sens du terme que nous avons tenté de préciser ici : nous n’aurons de réponse à la question que quand ils se montreront comme tels. ?
    2. La Commune, comme forme politique que prend le pouvoir de la classe ouvrière niant et détruisant l’ancien pouvoir d’État, n’a pas le sens de la constitution d’un nouveau pouvoir politique : ce n’est qu’un instrument qui, comme dit Marx, « doit servir de levier pour extirper les bases économiques sur lesquelles se fonde l’existence des classes »  [16][16]  Ibid., p. 52.. L’œuvre qu’accomplit selon Marx la classe ouvrière n’est donc pas d’abord une œuvre politique : c’est une œuvre sociale qui passe, certes, par un moment et des moyens politiques, mais dont la finalité est toujours sociale. Cette finalité sociale n’est autre que « l’expropriation des expropriateurs »  [17][17]  Id. La même formule se retrouve à l’identique dans..., c’est-à-dire l’abolition de la propriété privée qui, soit dit en passant, ne signifie ni l’abolition de toute propriété, ni l’instauration d’une propriété collective, mais qui consiste à « faire de la propriété individuelle une réalité » en plaçant sous le contrôle de la société les conditions (notamment les moyens de production) qui, actuellement, détruisent au contraire la propriété individuelle parce qu’elles sont les conditions à la fois de l’expropriation du plus grand nombre et de l’exploitation du travail. Or, cette œuvre sociale fut précisément celle de la Commune, et c’est cette œuvre que Marx nomme ici de son nom propre : « C’est du communisme, c’est ‘l’impossible’ communisme », ce communisme qui, du coup, apparaît au contraire comme « du très ‘possible’ communisme ». 9 De sorte qu’il n’est pas étonnant que ce soit le lieu que Marx choisisse pour redire ce qu’il avait dit dès L’Idéologie allemande, à savoir que le communisme n’est ni une utopie, ni un idéal : « La classe ouvrière n’a pas d’utopies toutes faites à introduire par décret du peuple », « elle n’a pas à réaliser d’idéal », elle a « seulement à libérer les éléments de la société nouvelle que porte dans ses flancs la vieille société bourgeoise qui s’effondre »  [18][18]  Ibid., p. 53.. Marx ne peut pas dire plus clairement que le communisme n’est pas un état social et politique qui se laisserait anticiper sous la forme d’une utopie ou d’un idéal, l’action politique se comprenant alors comme l’action de construction et d’édification d’un ordre conforme à cet idéal ; c’est bien plutôt un processus lui-même social de destruction des obstacles que la société actuelle met à l’éclosion en elle d’une « forme de vie plus haute »  [19][19]  Id., processus qui ne peut s’accomplir sans passer par un moment politique de destruction du principal de ces obstacles, à savoir l’État comme entité séparée de la société, et d’invention de nouvelles formes d’organisation qui sont inséparablement sociales et politiques.

      Le communisme comme action de détruire l'État comme entité séparée de la société.

    1. Électricien d'expérience, Jean-Claude Morin compatit avec les gens qui se déclarent électrosensibles. « Il faudrait des zones blanches où on ne retrouverait aucune onde électromagnétique pour que ces gens puissent vivre en santé. Ces gens sont touchés par un problème qui n'est pas reconnu par les instances officielles, un peu comme la cigarette à une autre époque », soutient ce dernier.

      Électricien d'expérience, Jean-Claude Morin compatit avec les gens qui se déclarent électrosensibles.

    1. Compteurs intelligents Comme le rapporte le professeur agrégé de neurochirurgie australien Vini G. Khurana, des effets neurologiques indésirables ont été signalés chez des personnes qui se retrouvent souvent à proximité – en particulier à moins de 3 mètres – des compteurs sans fil.Ces compteurs sont dotés de deux antennes émettant des micro-ondes dans une gamme de fréquences (900 mégahertz et 2,4 gigahertz) similaire à celle d’une tour de téléphonie cellulaire. Toutefois, dépendant de sa proximité des parties habitées d’une maison, un compteur intelligent peut causer des expositions beaucoup plus élevées que ne le font habituellement les tours de cellulaires. Si le compteur est par exemple situé sur un mur attenant à une chambre ou une cuisine plutôt qu’un garage, l’exposition peut équivaloir à celle reçue à entre 60 et 180 m de distance d’une tour dotée de multiples antennes.

      Tours de cellulaires

    1. Emerson posits the effects of self-reliance: altering religious practices, encouraging Americans to stay at home and develop their own culture, and focusing on individual rather than societal progress.

      La belle culture anglosaxonne.

    1. Cancer treatments are often hard on patients, but the side effects and challenges are necessary to control or even destroy tumor cells. Now researchers say there may be a way to make those treatments work even better. In a study published in Cancer Cell, scientists say that giving people high doses of vitamin C during treatment may weaken cancer cells and make them more vulnerable to the effects of chemotherapy and radiation. In the study, which was designed to determine if vitamin C in high doses was safe, 11 people with an aggressive brain cancer called glioblastoma were treated with vitamin C intravenously three times a week for nearly two months. The dose was increased gradually while the people underwent radiation therapy, to ensure that enough vitamin C remained in the blood. The people in the trial reported no additional side effects or adverse symptoms associated with the vitamin, only those associated with normal chemotherapy and radiation treatments. The study was not structured to look at how effective the vitamin C was. But the researchers note that so far, half of the people in the study were alive nearly two years later. The average survival for the disease is generally around a year.

      IV vit C increases the efficiency of chemo and radiation (therapeutic effect of IV VC per se was not assessed).

    1. We present a case report of a patient with NF1 and optical glioma who had high-dose IVC treatment about three years after one year of conventional treatment (carboplatin and vincristine). To our knowledge it is the first case report of a NF1 patient with OPG treated intravenously by high-dose vitamin C, as an extensive literature review did not reveal cases of children with NF1 and OPG treated by IVC.The results of the MRI analysis during and at the end of chemotherapy showed the continued optic pathway tumor with a slight increase in size and degree of enhancement within the tumor centered in the hypothalamic/chiasmatic regions.Approximately 4 months after completion of chemotherapy, the patient started treatment at the Riordan Clinic with high-dose IVC (7.5–15 g) one time per week.As nutritional evaluation of vitamin levels demonstrated low vitamin D, a dose of vitamins D3/K2 5000 IU/50 µg per day was prescribed. At the end of the treatment, the patient’s level of vitamin D increased from 30 ng/mL to 120 ng/mL. Diet improvements were recommended with addition of fruits, vegetables, and a shake supplement with proteins, vitamins, and essential minerals.The improvement of the patient’s condition after 2.8 years of treatment at the clinic was described based on diagnostic MRI reports in Table 1 and Figures 3 and ​and4.4. There was shrinkage/stabilization of the tumors in the hypothalamus, optic chiasm, and left optic nerve according to radiographic imaging. The right optic nerve that showed initial enlargement demonstrated normal appearance according to the last two MRI reports made during IVC treatments.The patient was treated according to the Riordan Protocol, which involves the slow infusion of high-dose IVC [26]. This protocol is used by many integrative and orthomolecular practitioners for treating a variety of conditions, such as combating infections, treating chronic diseases, and in cancer care.Our clinic has treated thousands of cancer patients for more than forty years using this protocol. The rationales for using intravenous ascorbate infusions to treat cancer, based on our studies and experience, are summarized in reference 26. According to the studies, ascorbic acid is a key water-soluble antioxidant that, when administered in doses well above its recommended dietary allowance, may have preventative and therapeutic value against a number of pathologies. Ascorbic acid is essential for the formation of collagenase, a basic substance of connective tissue, which may be related to corneal wound healing and prevention of cerebral tissue degeneration [27,28].In one study, the anti-proliferative and apoptotic effects of ascorbic acid on T98G glioma cells through modulation of IGF-IR expression and consequent facilitation of programmed cell death were reported [29]. A previous study showed up-regulation of proteolipid protein (PLP) and myelin-associated glycoprotein (MAG) genes in ascorbic acid–treated rat glioma C6 cells [30].Our studies have demonstrated that IVC treatment of cancer patients has an anti-inflammatory effect and anti-angiogenic effects [31–33].It is now shown that ascorbic acid has much a broader impact on the critical stages of tumor cell proliferation and differentiation by shifting their epigenome and transcriptome. For example, nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) is an essential component of cellular defense against a variety of endogenous and exogenous stresses. A marked increase in research over the past few decades focusing on Nrf2 and its role in regulating glioblastoma has revealed the potential value of Nrf2 in the treatment of glioblastoma and that ascorbic acid affects the regulation of this factor [34].Ascorbate plays an important role in regulation of hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1α), the dramatic overexpression of which has been observed in common cancers, cancer cell lines, and metastases [35]. Ascorbate has been shown to assist prolyl and lysyl hydroxylases in the hydroxylation of HIF-1α, a transcription factor responsible for the cellular response to low oxygen conditions through activation of genes controlling several cellular transduction pathways, by regulating growth and apoptosis, cell migration, energy metabolism, angiogenesis, and transport of metal ions and glucose [36]. Because HIF-1α prolyl hydroxylase is stimulated by ascorbic acid, low vitamin C levels would reduce HIF-1α hydroxylation and thereby promote HIF-dependent gene transcription and tumor growth [37].Given the fact that IVC boosts immunity and collagen formation, inhibits hyaluronidase involved in metastasis, induces apoptosis to help program death of cancer cells without harm to normal cells, has anti-inflammatory and anti-angiogenic effects, and improves quality of life of cancer patients, this treatment can be considered as therapy in optic glioma.
    1. Emetophobia

      Fear of Vomiting, or Emetophobia | Anxiety and Depression Association of America, ADAA

    2. Blog that is critical of the fear or disgust of men, that addresses the very factual reasons why men are more frightening than women.

      "Androphobic feminists insist that fear of men is not irrational and present us with statistics that 99% of sexual crime against adults, 75% of violent crime and 60% of domestic violence is committed by men. (Figures are more equal in relation to child abuse although men are still somewhat over-represented in most categories except infanticide, sexual assault of boys and psychological abuse of girls.) Furthermore, they tell us that these figures indicate that we have a culture which normalises and condones violent and sexual crime against women by men and masculinity itself needs to revised. However, the vast majority of men do not commit violent and sexual crime against women, women are not the primary victims of violent crime and most sexual crime is committed by a small number of recidivist criminals."

    1. Contains good advice on anxiety vs the nauseating feeling it induces (vicious circle).

    2. What Causes Nausea and Stomach Discomfort? Stomach discomfort and nausea can be caused by motion sickness, a stomach bug, food poisoning, excessive eating or drinking, food intolerance and…anxiety! That’s right: Anxiety and worry can cause stomach discomfort and nausea. If you worry about the possibility of barfing and are hypervigilant to prevent it, you can cause the very symptoms you desperately do not want. Worrying about getting sick doesn’t prevent vomiting, it only makes you nauseated. And when you start to feel nauseated, that’s when the worry and anxiety really kick into gear, which of course intensifies your nausea. It’s a vicious cycle. Worries about vomiting can trigger nausea, and nausea and stomach discomfort can trigger worries about vomiting. Anxiety has a way of fooling you into believing that you are going to vomit when you feel nauseated. You believe it even when it has never happened. Here’s the good news: If you do not vomit when you’re anxious…you won’t! Anxiety may cause nausea, but not vomiting. It’s important to remember that the only reason you might vomit would be due to food, alcohol, motion sickness, or a stomach bug —and you won’t be able to stop it. In fact, vomiting is the body’s natural reaction to harmful substances or irritation in the gut. People often feel better after they barf. In most cases it’s harmless and over within 24 hours. Rather than worrying and wondering if you’re going to puke, make peace with uncertainty. You don’t know when it will happen and you don’t need to. Since you can’t stop it, you shouldn’t try. Worrying about getting sick doesn’t prevent vomiting, but it does make you nauseated, which results in more anxiety, intensifying your nausea and causing greater anxiety until you flee the scene.  Rather than worrying if you’re going to puke, make peace with uncertainty, live your life to the fullest, and accept the discomfort of the rare barfing experience. How do you do this?

      Advice for emetophobia, the fear of vomiting.

    1. Try improving your throat hit.

      Extremely important, especially for "dual users": trying to replicate the feeling of a cigarette by replicating the method will lead to failure and to more cigarettes.

  7. Jul 2018
    1. There is a real basis for unity, but involves challenging the dominant, conservative elements of transgender thinking. We need to support people’s right to live as a member of the opposite sex, with security and dignity, but without endorsing the sexist redefinition of womanhood that is being mainstreamed by neoliberalism and its corporate media.

      Trans inclusion

    1. Continued investigation into promising direct biologic interventions, such as BMP, EGR1 or other combinations of cells and cytokines would seem capable of generating useful therapies in a reasonable time course.

      As I predicted, nothing on providing the building blocks of tendons/collagen or proteoglycans. It is assumed that the increased need does not translate into increased exogenous intake.

    2. After one hour of treadmill running, increased collagen synthesis was detected in both Achilles tendons

      Rapid induction of collagen synthesis!

    3. The Achilles tendon undergoes high repetitive loading demonstrated to influence tendon composition, suggesting the importance of the underlying mechanotransductive signaling response

      This section shows the benefits of stress

    4. Collagen content is decreased compared to control tendons

      I do not expect any mention of collagen or lysine or proline or vitamin C replacement/supplementation in this text despite of the fact that this is fundamentally the problem.

    5. Although elastin only accounts for up to 2% of the tendon’s dry mass, recent studies have shown it makes important contributions to the mechanical properties of tendons

      Very important

    6. proteoglycans
    7. Therefore, well controlled basic science studies are important in resolving outstanding fundamental questions regarding means of treatment in a consistent and well established model

      Yes, but on the other hand, basic science is expensive and does not provide return on investment. That is not good for the economy and businesspeople.

    8. Essential article

    1. A recent survey indicates that a significant portion of the human population in industrialized countries do not take in a sufficient amount of Mg2+. For example, only 32% of Americans met the RDA-DRI criteria for daily Mg2+ intake (http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=11046). Furthermore, Mg2+ intake in the aging population declines to 50% of the RDA (Ford and Mokdad, 2003).

      As mentioned above, Mg excretion is also a problem.

    2. Based on the data presented here, further studies to investigate the relationship between dietary Mg2+ intake, body, and brain Mg2+ status and cognitive abilities in human are warranted.

      Yeah, after a century or so, it could be nice.

      Or perhaps we should wait for other financial incentives to do so.

    3. Improvement of memory functions in aged rats by a high dosage of Mg2+ diet (2% elemental Mg2+) has been reported before (Landfield and Morgan, 1984). However, it triggered weight loss due to Mg2+-induced diarrhea, hindering further mechanistic studies.

      How impractical therapeutic Mg is.

    4. This is possibly due to lower Mg2+ excretion rate in young animals

      This is fundamental. Mg excretion and aging.

    5. Our biophysical studies suggest that this upregulation might be due to a homeostatic regulatory mechanism (Figures 4A and 4B) (also see Turrigiano, 2008), which increases synaptic NMDAR to counterbalance the increase in blockage of NMDAR opening associated with chronic increase in [Mg2+]o.

      Fascinating. A « calming » ion, Mg2+, triggers the generation of more receptors that are calmed by it, in an effort to restore the normal excitatory state.

    1. Les premières nations constatent de plus en plus que la présence des Européens établis dans les Amériques concourt à leur disparition, sinon à la spoliation de leurs territoires. Les Québécois, contre l’avis du gouvernement français, soutiennent les premières nations.

      !!!!!

    2. L’attitude historique des Québécois à l’égard des premières nations est complètement différente de celle des autres Européens qui se sont déployés dans les Amériques.

      Affirmation maintenant assez mal venue.

    3. Aperçu extrêmement détaillé de la véritable histoire des Autochtones et des « Canadiens » au Québec.

    1. « J’aurais aimé que Lacan publiât ses chiffres : c’est fou ce qu’on se suicidait chez lui ! Pour sa part, il avait horriblement peur de la mort. Une anecdote est restée célèbre : il avait foutu à la porte Diatkine, parce que ce dernier fantasmait sur la mort. Ça aussi, c’est très grave. Si Lacan a tué tout son monde, c’est parce que seul le cheminement de la pensée l’intéressait. Les êtres humains, il s’en foutait. Et la séduction qu’il exerçait sur eux dépouillait ses malades et ses clients de toute capacité d’autodéfense, ou peu s’en faut [37] ».

      Lacan et le suicide

    1. Transwomen and women were once each other’s strongest friends and allies. We respected and supported each other’s rights and safety. We fought side by side on the same team against the common enemy – toxic masculinity. Tranwomen never made any claims on womanhood. Both sides knew that our lives, challenges, experiences and biology were different. But that didn’t matter; transwomen were welcomed into the club as honorary members and we all rubbed along together in harmony.That, however, was back in the day we knew what “Trans” actually meant. A transsexual was someone who had medical treatment and surgery in order to live socially as the opposite sex. But now the new identity politics woowoo has allowed the trans community to be invaded and overtaken by cross dressers, transvestites, fetishists, autogynephiles, men with porn-soaked lesbian fantasies, any attention-seeking, gender non-conforming male who loves glitter and lipstick and calls himself non-binary… They’re all covered by the ‘trans umbrella’.  Trans now means everything. And it means nothing.

      What and who is excluded?

    2. If we are now pretending that gay men can and should be induced or somehow ‘educated’ to pursue sexual relationships with people who have vaginas, how is that different from the appalling conversion therapy that used to be forced upon them? If we are now pretending that lesbians can and should be induced or somehow ‘educated’ to pursue sexual relationships with people who have a penis, how is that different from the ‘corrective rape’ forced upon them? It isn’t. Pretending that lesbians and gay men can ‘choose’ to have partners of the opposite sex is coercive heterosexuality and it’s regressive, reactionary nonsense.
    1. Lorsque Adorno accuse par exemple les vertus bourgeoises classiques : « l’indépendance, la persévérance, la prévoyance, la circonspection », d’être « perverties jusqu’au plus profond d’elles-mêmes » (MM, § 14), cette perversion doit être rapportée pour l’essentiel au caractère illusoire que prennent dans une situation historique déterminée les dispositions d’action ainsi décrites. « Tandis que les formes d’existence bourgeoises sont conservées avec acharnement, ce qu’elles présupposaient sur le plan économique a disparu » (MM, § 14). Les attitudes qui selon Adorno furent « bonnes et convenables » deviennent ainsi fausses dès lors que, dans un contexte social de disparition de la relative autonomie économique d’individus indépendants les uns des autres (selon l’analyse d’Adorno), elles sont devenues, en tant qu’attitudes, inadéquates sans pour autant pouvoir le percevoir ni se l’avouer. Elles cultivent donc des capacités d’action alors qu’elles sont, dans les faits, impuissantes – et cimentent ainsi, d’après la logique d’Adorno, l’impuissance.

      L'indépendance n'a jamais existé, et c'était l'orgueil de la classe bourgeoise, et sa prétention, de faire croire aux vassaux qu'elle était parvenue à cela. Ce n'est donc pas un déclin, mais une concrétisation d'une contradiction qui la fondait en tant que classe.

    1. as hypocrisy is the British vice

      hypocrisy

    2. We are told that it is only people's objective actions that matter, and their subjective feelings are of no importance.  Thus pacifists, by obstructing the war effort, are 'objectively' aiding the Nazis; and therefore the fact that they may be personally hostile to Fascism is irrelevant.  I have been guilty of saying this myself more than once.  The same argument is applied to Trotskyism...To criticize the Soviet Union helps Hitler: therefore "Trotskyism is Fascism".  And when this has been established, the accusation of conscious treachery is usually repeated. This is not only dishonest; it also carries a severe penalty with it.  If you disregard people's motives, it becomes much harder to foresee their actions. "As I Please," Tribune (8 December 1944)

      Again, censorship within the Left.

      Also : motives and objective conserquences

    3. A phrase much used in political circles in this country is "playing into the hands of".  It is a sort of charm or incantation to silence uncomfortable truths.  When you are told that by saying this, that or the other you are "playing into the hands of" some sinister enemy, you know that it is your duty to shut up immediately. "As I Please," Tribune (9 June 1944)

      Censorship within the Left

    4. The greatest mistake is to imagine that the human being is an autonomous individual. The secret freedom which you can supposedly enjoy under a despotic government is nonsense, because your thoughts are never entirely your own. Philosophers, writers, artists, even scientists, not only need encouragement and an audience, they need constant stimulation from other people. It is almost impossible to think without talking. ... Take away freedom of speech, and the creative faculties dry up.

      interdependence

    5. There are people who are convinced of the wickedness both of armies and of police forces, but who are nevertheless much more intolerant and inquisitorial in outlook than the normal person who believes that it is necessary to use violence in certain circumstances. They will not say to somebody else, ‘Do this, that and the other or you will go to prison’, but they will, if they can, get inside his brain and dictate his thoughts for him in the minutest particulars. Creeds like pacifism and anarchism, which seem on the surface to imply a complete renunciation of power, rather encourage this habit of mind. For if you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics — a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage — surely that proves that you are in the right? And the more you are in the right, the more natural that everyone else should be bullied into thinking likewise. "Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool," Polemic (March 1947)

      On anarchists

    6. Capitalism leads to dole queues, the scramble for markets, and war.  Collectivism leads to concentration camps, leader worship, and war.  There is no way out of this unless a planned economy can somehow be combined with the freedom of the intellect, which can only happen if the concept of right and wrong is restored to politics.

      Contrast with Peterson's popular critique of collectivism.

    7. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples

      Not to insult those brave young souls, but the victimology and survivor complex of common intersectional discourses is the perfect burden.

    1. […] l’intellectuel se définit avant tout comme un être unique, exceptionnel, surtout motivé par le désir de faire triompher sa propre pensée contre celle de ses concurrents. Toute notre formation scolaire, tous les investissements et les sacrifices que nous avons consentis pour devenir des savants nous poussent à concevoir et à pratiquer le débat comme un acte de rupture avec les autres et non comme un acte de solidarité. La construction d’une véritable communauté de chercheurs engagés nécessiterait que nous nous interrogions davantage sur cette dimension majeure de notre identité d’intellectuel (NOIRIEL, 2014, 184-185).

      intellectuel collectif

    2. Dans l’analyse qu’il fait des postures de l’intellectuel engagé chez Foucault, Noiriel attache l’ironie à la figure du « chercheur engagé », dernière étape de l’évolution foucaldienne, qui privilégie la compétence savante et le travail collectif.

      L'ironiste

    1. Un « ironiste » est un individu qui ressemble à George Orwell, quelqu’un qui pense que la meilleure façon d’effectuer des retouches sur lui-même consiste à nouer des liens de solidarité avec les gens qui l’entourent. L’ironiste n’est pas sûr de son vocabulaire final. Il a donc besoin de parler aux autres, car « seule la conversation lui permet de gérer ses doutes, de savoir où il en est, de garder à sa toile de croyances et de désirs une cohérence suffisante pour lui permettre d’agir. » »

      C'est moi ça.

    2. L’intellectuel spécifique cherche à éviter les lieux communs du débat en le transformant en question scientifique qui pourrait lui permettre de l’éclairer autrement et de relever la réflexion à son sujet.
    1. pontaneous collapse theories

      Penrose's interpretation (objective reduction is one of those).

    2. Steven Weinberg

      Worthy of note, he's part of the "intellectual dark web" (IDW)

    3. Truly astonishing, that even critics of the orthodox interpretation are unable to simply consider the most important alternate theory (de Broglie - Bohm).

    1. Contrary to the near-consensus amongst barefoot and minimalist runners, jogging and heel strike could be natural in certain contexts.

    1. This is one of the reasons why the masses might welcome surveillance. The fear of disease.

    1. Where we are in 2018 is we now have a situation where we know pretty conclusively that cushioning has no effect on injury rates whatsoever,” he says. The same goes for motion c

      No effect of cushioning on injury rates (meanwhile, minimalist shoes manufacturers are not allowed to say that barefoot and minimalist strengthen the foot!).

    1. They will need to acknowledge their own share of blame for sacrificing the cause of social protection, material well-being, and working-class dignity to faux understandings of emancipation in terms of meritocracy, diversity, and empowerment.

      "faux understandings of emancipation in terms of [...] empowerment": for those who have come to "center the voices and bodies of the oppressed", this makes little sense -- which is evidence that they think within the parameters of capitalism.

    1. Ta-Nehisi Coates in his book “We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy” writes that “Barack Obama is directly responsible for the rise of a crop of black writers and journalists who achieved prominence during his two terms.” But this was true only for those black writers like Coates and Michael Eric Dyson who were obsequious cheerleaders for Obama. If, like Cornel West, you were black and criticized Obama you were isolated and attacked by Obama surrogates as a race traitor.

      Hard to fathom the impact of the Obama years on freedom of expression for Afrodescendants.

    1. In Testosterone Rex, Fine cites a 10-year US study targeting boys at high risk of behaving antisocially later in their lives. Some of them were given coaching to improve their emotional resilience, relationships and educational performance, while their parents were trained to manage their children’s behaviour. The goal was to enable the boys “to respond more calmly and less vociferously to provocation”. Years later, when the participants had reached their mid-20s, about 70 were deliberately provoked by someone stealing points from them in a game. Not only were the group who had been given coaching as boys less likely to retaliate; their testosterone levels rose less. AdvertisementAnother way, according to Ryan, is to do more childcare. T

      This is wonderful.

    2. At one appointment he asked whether “getting emotional” was a side-effect of his treatment, after he had wept at the end of a lo

      Of course, this is anathema to some feminists who enforce the notion that such lack of emotion is just a toxic programming.

    3. “The number of respondents who were willing to kill in order to save people, and their confidence in carrying out the act were enhanced,”

      This might be important, sadly.

    4. a shot of testosterone

      How big?

    5. feel better. My brain is less clouded with intrusive thoughts about sex and things like that

      Evolution of consciousness

    6. we do see increases in the empathy scores in many patients on the treatment”.

      Amazing

    7. “Dr Ryan, your patients are so nice.” He replies, jokingly: “It’s because they don’t have any testosterone. They can’t be mean.

      Les socioconstructivistes ne peuvent pas accepter ça.

      Socioconstructivists can't accept that.

  8. May 2018
    1. Gramsci helps in distinguishing the dying Marxism from that which remains unexhausted in Marx and in the various Marxist traditions
    1. One group received citalopram (up to 60 mg/day) plus vitamin C (up to 1,000 mg/day). The other group received citalopram plus placebo.

      Considering the results of other trials with different depression severities and vitamin C dosage and forms (sustained release) (covered in this article), it is astonishing that the researchers used such a single, modest, non-sustained release dose.

      The plasma peak of vitamin C is obtained a few hours after the administration. For the rest of the day, the subject is back to baseline.

      This is common knowledge.

  9. Apr 2018
    1. Fairplay Comme pour les deux premiers projets, il n’y aura pas d’arbitre durant cette compétition antiraciste. Ceci étant un choix très réfléchi, car au lieu des arbitres et d´une ambition rivale, le respect mutuel et la rencontre sportive loyale domineront cette journée. Le plaisir et l´échange sur les sujets du racisme restent l´objectif principal, les ambitions sportives devenant secondaires. Pour cette raison, nous invitons tous les participants à respecter cet aspect et de bien le répéter à tous ceux qui auraient tendance à l’oublier. Merci beaucoup!

      Pas d'arbitre, aspect très important.

  10. gobo.social gobo.social
    1. Great experiment – unfortunately Facebook blocks the most interesting part.

    1. He doesn’t like a liberal Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau, because one of his close aides is allegedly a Saudi agent. He detects another Saudi conspiracy behind democratic Hillary Clinton’s nomination for US President’s job. But he loves Donald Trump because he represents the ‘growing anti-Muslim sentiments’ among the overwhelming majority of Americans.
    1. Unfailing experience of mundane events in harmony with the changes occurring in the heavens, has compelled my unwilling belief.

      Kepler was not happy to believe in astrology, but he was a scientist.

    1. Kepler's famous metaphor comparing astrology to the 'foolish daughter' of the 'wise mother' (astronomy) has often been cited as evidence of his disbelief. Seen in context, however, the foolish daughter represents a particular style of astrology — popular astrology — which was not to Kepler's taste. He was always careful to distinguish his reverential vision of the celestial harmonies from the practices of the backstreet astrologers and almanac-makers "who prefer to engage in mad ravings with the uneducated masses".[7] Kepler's astrology was on another plane altogether. Before condemning him for his blatant intellectual snobbery, however, consider how many 'serious' astrologers today feel exactly the same way about Sun-sign columns. Kepler was neither the first nor the last astrologer to pour scorn on those who practise apparently inferior forms of the art. His disapproval stems from his conviction that astrology is nothing less than a divine revelation, "...a testimony of God's works and... by no means a frivolous thing". Unfortunately, Kepler's salary as Imperial Mathematicus was rarely paid (the Imperial treasury owed him 20,000 florins by the end of his career) so he was obliged to scratch out a living by giving astrological advice to wealthy clients and composing astrological almanacs for the 'uneducated masses' he so despised. Reluctantly, Kepler conceded that "the mother would starve if the daughter did not earn anything". In another famous turn of phrase, he warned those learned professors who had grown sceptical of astrology that they were likely to "throw the baby out together with the bathwater" if they rejected it entirely. So Kepler was undoubtedly an astrologer — but he was no respecter of astrological tradition. His ideas seem radical even by the standards of mainstream astrology today. For a start, he dismissed the use of the 12 houses as 'Arabic sorcery'. While accepting that the angles were important, he could see no justification for conventional house division. "Demonstrate the old houses to me," he wrote to one of his correspondents, "Explain their number; prove that there can be neither fewer nor more... show me undoubted and striking examples of their influence." [8] He even went so far as to question the validity of the signs of the zodiac, arguing that they were derived from human reasoning and arithmetical convenience rather than any natural division of the heavens.[9] He had no time for elaborate schemes of planetary sign rulership and saw no reason why some planets should be classed as benefic and others as malefic. Kepler left no astrological convention unchallenged. His rigorous questioning hints at a massive reformation of astrology, on a scale which Ken Negus has compared to the reformation that Martin Luther brought about in the Church.

      Kepler's project for astrology, analogous to Luther's project for chistianity.

    1. Interesting parts on the more manipulative aspects of persuasion. They are not necessarily evil, or fallacious.

      Parts look a lot like a this 2007 article : https://via.hypothes.is/https://www.copyblogger.com/persuasive-writing/

    2. Storytelling Ideally, all other persuasion techniques culminate in this one. If you can deftly blend other techniques while simultaneously telling a compelling story, you’ll be the most persuasive person on the block.

      That is very important. Where the novelist and the PR person or politician meet.

    1. "The problem: the automated web browsing tools they want to use (commonly called “web scrapers”) are prohibited by the targeted websites’ terms of service, and the CFAA has been interpreted by some courts as making violations of terms of service a crime."

    2. "Scraping is merely a technological advance that makes information collection easier; it is not meaningfully different from using a tape recorder instead of taking written notes, or using the panorama function on a smartphone instead of taking a series of photos from different positions.”

      Amazing.

    3. Good news for anyone who uses the Internet as a source of information: A district court in Washington, D.C. has ruled that using automated tools to access publicly available information on the open web is not a computer crime
    1. The government using the word "funding " leads the public to believe that it's tax dollars being used to pay for First Nations communities.
    1. Pingback: Legality of Extracting Publicly Available User-Generated Content – PromptCloud Pingback: How to Scrape Facebook Posts for Free Content Ideas Pingback: Facebook data harvesting—what you need to know (From Phys.org) – Peter Schwartz

      important readings

    2. Google doesn’t use the facebook API to scrape facebook; they just scrape it.

      really?

    3. This is an extremely important case to remember. It has implications for all Fb users who want to own their past.

    1. Need proof? In Linkedin v. Doe Defendants, Linkedin is suing between 1-100 people who anonymously scraped their website. And for what reasons are they suing those people? Let's see: Violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Violation of California Penal Code. Violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Breach of contract. Trespass. Misappropriation.

      Linkedin lawsuit -- terrifying

    1. The overlapping series of networks can be referred to in macro as The Free Network.

      Friendica est au centre, tandis que le plus connu des réseaux libres, diaspora, est incapable de communiquer avec les services twitteroïdes à droite (GNU Social, Mastodo, etc.).

    1. Stormfront founder and former Klansman Don Black announced on Tuesday that the white supremacist movement’s first major hate forum is temporarily restricting access to “sustaining members” — users who donate at least five dollars a month — and will be archiving and shuttering its main server on April 6 due to a “financial crisis.”

      yay

    1. "Similarly on the justice front, we now work with a Legal Aid funded lawyer. If I see that someone has legal concerns of any sort — and these can be very broad from domestic violence issues to family issues to criminal issues — I can refer them straight over to that member of our team."
    2. not clinically trained but is great with people and familiar with the volunteer and community sector in the local area

      <3

    1. This fall, my colleagues and I released gobo.social, a customizable news aggregator. Gobo presents you with posts from your friends, but also gives you a set of sliders that govern what news you see and what’s hidden from you. Want more serious news, less humor? Move a slider. Need to hear more female voices? Adjust the gender slider, or press the “mute all men” button for a much quieter internet. Gobo currently includes half a dozen ways to tune your news feed, with more to come.

      Gobo, a proof of concept.

    1. Have you noticed that Bohm believes (as de Broglie did, by the way, 25 years ago) that he is able to interpret the quantum theory in deterministic terms? That way seems too cheap to me. But you, of course, can judge this better than I.
    2. Bohm approach

      which is not "Bohmian mechanics" (see above)

    3. For some theorists, the Bohmian interpretation holds an irresistible appeal. “All you have to do to make sense of quantum mechanics is to say to yourself: When we talk about particles, we really mean particles. Then all the problems go away,” said Goldstein. “Things have positions. They are somewhere. If you take that idea seriously, you’re led almost immediately to Bohm. It’s a far simpler version of quantum mechanics than what you find in the textbooks.” Howard Wiseman, a physicist at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, said that the Bohmian view “gives you a pretty straightforward account of how the world is…. You don’t have to tie yourself into any sort of philosophical knots to say how things really are.”
    4. Bohmian mechanics was worked out by Louis de Broglie in 1927 and again, independently, by David Bohm in 1952

      Retrocausality in action

    5. in part because Bohmian mechanics implies that the world must be strange in other ways

      and in part because Bohm was the victim of a real conspiracy organized by the Copenhagen school. See https://hyp.is/sASjqjb1EeiwnzcJBxn52w/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Valentini

    6. or Bohmian mechanics

      Bohmian "mechanics" is not Bohmian. Cf Mike Towler.

    7. “We often discussed his notions on objective reality. I recall that during one walk Einstein suddenly stopped, turned to me and asked whether I really believed that the moon exists only when I look at it.”
    1. Guido Bacciagaluppi, Antony Valentini: Quantum theory at the crossroads: Reconsidering the 1927 Solvay Conference, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-521-81421-8
  11. Mar 2018
    1. Excellent article on the media assassination of James Damore

    2. Create an environment where your peers understand they don’t need to give up their entire worldview to consider your viewpoint or agree with you on one point.
    3. Finally, science doesn’t make aesthetic judgments about what we should or shouldn’t value. For example, right now, Western culture, broadly speaking, measures success based on largely material standards: how much money you make, what car you own or how big your house is. It similarly rewards more material results, such as working more hours and improving efficiency. What it generally doesn’t do, arguably, is measure or value compassion, or long-term ecological thinking — look at how we treat our environment, for example. So while it may be the case that differences between men and women — biological or otherwise — in part explain average differences in income between men and women, perhaps if societal values and measures of success changed, some of these differences could too.

      Materialist feminist analysis

    4. Also, the existence of differences between men and women doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t be changed in the future, even some biological ones. How much of what we’ve inherited – biologically, psychologically or socially – is outdated and malleable?  

      Expand... posthumanism?

    5. There are factors other than sexism or discrimination that could in part explain why Google does not have 50 percent female representation. There are differences between men and women on average, based on population level statistics. (He qualifies this by noting a number of these differences are small and there is significant overlap between the genders.) These differences may in part explain the gender gap in tech. Women and men may differ partly because of biological reasons.

      Summary of Damore's claims.

    6. Parts of Sophir’s memo itself mischaracterized Damore’s memo — e.g., it does not refer to “men’s prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution.”

      This is outrageous

    7. they received lower overall integrity ratings due to these omissions.

      integrity!

    8. When we remove the spin words and replace them with more objective language, these sentences become something like: Google has fired the employee who authored a memo about diversity Not as emotionally charged, right?