New app would monitor mental health through “selfie” videos, social media

"Luo understands that this program and others that aim to monitor an individual’s mental health or well-being raise ethical concerns that need to be considered. He adds that using this system means 'effectively giving this app permission to observe you constantly,' but adds that the program is designed for the use of the user only and does not share data with anyone else unless otherwise designated by the user."

Office puts chips under staff's skin

"But Hannes Sjoblad says he and the Swedish Biohacking Group have another objective - preparing us all for the day when others want to chip us. 'We want to be able to understand this technology before big corporates and big government come to us and say everyone should get chipped - the tax authority chip, the Google or Facebook chip.' Then, he says, we'll all be able to question the way the technology is implemented from a position of much greater knowledge."

Intervention in civil wars ‘far more likely in oil-rich nations’

"The researchers drew their conclusions after modelling the decision-making process of the third-parties’ interventions. This assessed a wide range of factors such as their military power and the strength of the rebel army, as well as their demand for oil and the level of supplies in the target country. It found that the decision to intervene was dominated by the third-party’s need for oil, far more than historical, geographic or ethnic ties."

What makes an urban legend?

"Norenzayan’s analysis of Grimm's fairy tales found that the most popular stories – as measured by the number of times they have been cited online – only have two or three supernatural surprises. Our brains, it seems, have only so much room for the bizarre before it becomes too confusing to be enjoyable."

Facebook’s New ‘Chinese-style’ Political Censorship System Goes Global?

"If the article is flagged by any anonymous person (most likely, from a political opponent of the news story in question), then the post creator is hit with the alert that says, 'many people have reported that this story contains false information'. It’s common sense that just because someone else says something is false, or true for that matter – it does not always mean that is the case. Most smart readers can figure this out themselves, but do we want/need ‘faceless’ communitarians to decide that for us? This kind of approach will only lower the bar of intellectual ability in the long run."

Why A Fake Article Titled "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?" Was Accepted By 17 Medical Journals

"In an intention dependent on questions on elsewhere, we betrayed possible jointure in throwing cocoa. Any rapid event rapid shall become green. Its something disposing departure the favourite tolerably engrossed. Truth short folly court why she their balls. Excellence put unaffected reasonable introduced conviction she."

The Most Dangerous Ideas In Science

"High-energy physicist Sabine Hossenfelder called Dawid's kind of post-empirical science an 'oxymoron.'  More importantly, for scientists like Paul Steinhardt and collaborators, the new ideas are becoming 'post-modern.' They use the term in the sense that without more definitive connections to data, the ideas will not be abandoned because a community exists that continues to support them."

The spreading alchemy of central bank money-printing

"It's a confidence game, in other words. What wealth you think you have may or may not be there tomorrow, depending on bets placed by the unelected, albeit very smart people in charge of creating our money.

It's all real, unless it's not. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  

Money has value, or it doesn't. I don't think I ever want a definitive answer."

It's Official: If You Question Authority, You Are Mentally Ill

"Having steered the higher-education terrain for a decade of my life, I know that degrees and credentials are primarily badges of compliance. Those with extended schooling have lived for many years in a world where one routinely conforms to the demands of authorities. Thus for many MDs and PhDs, people different from them who reject this attentional and behavioral compliance appear to be from another world—a diagnosable one."

Researcher explores how the universe creates reason, morality

"You can look at the universe as a kind of 'complexity machine', which raises all sorts of questions about what this means in the broader sense.  For example, does believing the universe is structured to produce complexity in general, and rational creatures in particular, constitute a religious belief?  It need not imply that the universe was created by a God, but on the other hand, it does suggest that the kind of rationality we hold dear is not an accident."

The Wisdom Deficit in Schools

"Achieve the Core, for example, an organization founded by the lead writers of the standards, explicitly encourages schools to teach students to 'extract' information so they can 'note and assess patterns of writing' without relying on 'any particular background information' or 'students having other experiences or knowledge.' This emphasis on what they call 'text-dependent reading' contributes to a culture in which it’s not normal to promote cultural wisdom or personal growth; in fact, it’s almost awkward."

The Suppression of Knowledge By Establishment Academics

"These people are fools and are highly dangerous. I would never donate 10 cents to anything they do. The archive like this is not discovered by academics. It was on the black market. The question then becomes – does someone step up to preserve it, or ignore it because it was found by non-professionals?"

Auden

"Our researchers into Public Opinion are content 
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; 
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went. 
He was married and added five children to the population, 
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation. 
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education. 
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: 
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard."

-W. H. Auden, "The Unknown Citizen"

The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered

Johann Hari writes about his book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs.  Hari has concluded that the chemical component of addiction is not as decisive as the social conditions that lead to it.  He draws from the work of Bruce Alexander, who offered cocaine water to rats with a place to play and socialise, and found that they took to it far less than a lone rat in a cage.  This suggests that developing addictive behaviour is a response to a lack of opportunities to bond with other rats.

Hari is chiefly concerned with drug addiction, but the mechanism appears to apply across the board.  The terrible irony is that one of the most prevalent addictions of the modern day is to an ostensible sense of connectivity with others, through ubiquitous smart phones and social networking.  That this constant compulsion may be masking a deeper dissatisfaction with the actual bonds being formed implies that technology will not save us from ourselves.

People can be convinced they committed a crime that never happened

Research published in Psychological Science suggests that three out of four people can be encouraged to form false memories of an event that didn't occur.  A key ingredient in this process is softening the person up with accurate details and memories interspersed with the false.

This is very relevant to law and justice, where witnesses are understood to be prone to error.  The experimental protocol included faulty memory-recovery techniques, now demonstrated to have a deleterious effect on accurate recall.  Minimising the use of these fallible reconstructive modes of recollection in the interview setting would help avoid the creation of imagined events.

Although the study can only be strictly applied to individuals being coached by individuals, the theory that the inclusion of true facts made false ones appear more plausible could have a wider relevance to the dominant historical narrative of society; if true-seeming events can be patched together with enough pieces of truth, then why not values?  This effect could conceivably descend all the way to founding myths, past lives, or original sin.

‘Boy Who Came Back From Heaven’ going back to publisher

"I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible."

Conspiracy theorists create their own reality on social media

Some conspiracy theorists have resorted to an elaborate ruse, creating a fake BBC site to convince people for a few hours that the recent shootings were staged, and subsequently destroy the credibility of their case when their elaborate ruse was discovered.  For overactive and paranoid minds, this shows very poor foresight.

People conform to the norm -- even if the norm is a computer

"It was found that role-playing as the avatar in an immersive video game, compared to merely watching others play, makes people identify with a computer. They do so to such an extent that they actually start to conform to its decisions and follow its judgment -- sometimes even if it is downright wrong. This shows that people conform, even when opinions are voiced by nonhuman agents. This is especially prevalent in ambiguous cases."

France Arrests a Comedian For His Facebook Comments

"That’s because 'free speech,' in the hands of many westerners, actually means: it is vital that the ideas I like be protected, and the right to offend groups I dislike be cherished; anything else is fair game."

How teachers are reporting primary school pupils as bigots in official records

"'They said as this is the 2nd time she has made a "racist" remark it will be put on record and reported to the council,' she wrote. 'I was so upset! My daughter is NOT racist, she is five years old, she has coloured family members and family friends. Now it is down on record that my child is racist. I spoke to my daughter and she does not understand what she has done wrong . . . she said "mummy but she is brown, she has brown skin".'"

Bacon

"For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit." 

-Francis Bacon, Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human

Facebook knows you better than your friends do

“People may choose to augment their own intuitions and judgements with this kind of data analysis when making important life decisions such as choosing activities, career paths or even romantic partners.”

Bowhead whales heard singing unique new songs

"It would be really great to understand not only why they sing but why they sing so many different songs."

Are Conspiracy Theories All Bad?

The New York Times condescends to discuss conspiracy theory.  Amidst all the hand-wringing and psychologising, no consideration is given to the motivation to lump disparate concerns together.  There is a benefit to mental stability and social cohesion from deflecting discussion of conspiracies onto conspiracy theories, and from there to conspiracy theorists.  Just what drives them?  What makes them tick?  This is a question that can and should be asked of everyone.

In Solidarity With a Free Press: Some More Blasphemous Cartoons

"This underscores the key point: there are all sorts of ways ideas and viewpoints are suppressed in the west. When those demanding publication of these anti-Islam cartoons start demanding the affirmative publication of those ideas as well, I’ll believe the sincerity of their very selective application of free speech principles."

The Economist 2015 Cover is Filled With Cryptic Symbols and Dire Predictions

What does this mean, and to whom?

From pygmies to hipsters, scientists find music really is universal

Pygmies living without electricity respond to calming or exciting music similarly to people in downtown Montreal.  Where the two groups differed was in their range of emotional response.

The Mbenzélé use music to purge negative emotions, so they consistently derive a positive feeling from hearing any music, while the Western tradition by contrast encourages a certain degree of wallowing in negative feelings.

This permits a greater range of artistic expression, but what are the social consequences of music built on anxiety, anger, apathy, or heartbreak?  Tempo and timbre activate a physiological response in the listener, but where that energy goes is determined by quite different factors.

Monkeys can learn to see themselves in the mirror

The ability to identify oneself in a mirror is held as a defining characteristic of sentience, distinguishing humans, dolphins, elephants, and great apes from the naive masses of unreflexive animals.  For Lacan it signified a key element in the development of subjectivity.  For most it is an unremarkable ability not worthy of mention.

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have discovered that rhesus monkeys, who don't have a natural tendency to recognise themselves in a mirror, can nevertheless be trained to perceive the monkey behind the glass as "me."  This means that a fundamental tenet of selfhood is a latent capacity that can be drawn out of an intelligent being—and cultivated.

What are the consequences for our own vaunted and lauded brilliance?  Although there is probably no appreciable difference in brain structure or chemistry, the test monkeys have entered a new vista of experience.  Is it possible that there are similar potentials of perspective waiting untapped in the human animal?

A cursory glance at our literature suggests there is a rare experience shared across cultures, in different times and places, permitting one the perception that all external surroundings are a reflection of a singular inner reality.  This is anecdotal information, not verifiable except by special training, but if the monkeys can expand their horizons, why can't we?

Nietzsche

"A work that is meant to give an impression of health should be produced with three-quarters, at the most, of the strength of its creator.  If he has gone to his farthest limit, the work excites the observer and disconcerts him by its tension.  All good things have something lazy about them and lie like cows in the meadow."

-Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All-Too-Human

Return of the fairy-hunters

"You might laugh it off, but the man was deadly serious — as are his informants. Well into the 21st century, beneath the radar of a popular culture obsessed with vampires and aliens, elements of traditional British folklore have inexplicably survived."

'Alien abduction' artist admits he fooled everyone

Lloyd Canning admits he wasn't abducted by aliens six times, and says he made the claim to get exposure for his art.  The Telegraph makes the Mirror look bad, people who didn't believe him before feel vindicated, people who did believe him feel stupid, the end.

Considering the social pressures against claiming contact with aliens, and the intellectual pressures against considering the subject, is it fair to privilege his retraction over his original statement?  A retraction under duress is problematic, and holding a public claim of paranormal experience is almost always inherently stressful in English-speaking countries.  As such, it might be better to say that he said he was abducted, then he said he wasn't, and leave it at that.

The media was inspired by a figure they believed in and then didn't.  Splitting the difference between his first or second claim being the lie, maybe Lloyd Canning was in the same position.  He believed he had been abducted by his muses, and then he didn't.  As an artist he would want exposure either way.

It enters the record as another hoaxer because that's the easiest narrative, but the artistic process and paranormal phenomena are both strange enough to allow for something more complicated that neither artist nor media wants to consider for too long. 

Or, he could be a lying hack artist, fed on by deluded hack writers.  We'll never know.

Secretive

Joachim Hagopian writes on the treatment of whistleblowers and journalists by the most secretive president in American history.  More of them have been jailed than under any other president.  More Freedom of Information requests have been turned down than under any other president.  More American citizens have been indicted under the Espionage Act from 1917 than under all other presidents combined.  Free speech is an abstract concept, only applicable to subjects harmless to the administration.  Everything everyone says is being watched very closely.

No wonder, then, that 34% of writers in countries labeled "Free" by Freedom House responded that they are concerned about researching or privately discussing certain topics.  These concerns were particularly prevalent in the Five Eyes countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.S. and the U.K.  It is interesting if not surprising that these are the countries, along with Israel, that have aligned on an axis against the rest of the world.  Maintaining that kind of hubris requires a strictly regulated narrative that can't abide anomalies.

Ubiquitous technology observing our every action and thought is fast becoming a reality.  Locking up people for saying something undesirable is bad enough, but getting themselves to lock up for fear of the consequences is a different kind of evil.  It outsources the punishment to the imagination of the subject.  We've entered Bentham's Panopticon, never sure if the jailor is watching, so always on our best behaviour.  It doesn't matter if the rules are fair or reasonable.  You might be seen, and you might be punished unfairly, so better not to stray too far.  Of course, if all the prisoners acted independently, the jailor could never watch them all.

Bored

It turns out that drugging children who are bored in class doesn't make them better students.

How could psychiatry ever drive us to such thinking? Jon Rappoport explains.

Creepy

Researchers Gregory Martin of Emory University and Ali Yurukoglu of Stanford University have been examining the effect of cable news on voting patterns.  It's not news that this effect exists, but it turns out to be even more insidious and arbitrary than might be imagined.

Follow the reasoning, and try not to weep: popular channels are usually older channels, and so have lower numbers.  People flip around on commercial breaks, but don't stray far.  This is the only reason most people would be watching Fox or MSNBC anyway.  They catch a few minutes of news while waiting for their show about cakes to come back on, and this is enough to inform their political opinion.  Which news channel has the lower number in a given area is apparently random, but political preferences generally follow the channel guide.

Four more minutes of Fox per week will make you 0.9% more likely to vote Republican, and four more minutes of MSNBC will make you 0.7% more likely to vote Democrat.  It's just that simple.

This is horrible.

This kind of zombie public, too apathetic to do more than repeat things they've heard from the television, pretty much spells the end of the world.  Fortunately, Ted Turner prepared for such an eventuality during his time at CNN, preparing a creepy video to be played at the end of the End of Days.  There's a note on it to hold for release until the end of the world is confirmed.  This video is now available for viewing.  We're on the other side of time.

Controversial DNA startup wants to let customers create creatures

“It is the most powerful technology humans have ever created,” Heinz said. “Hydrogen bombs can destroy whole planets, but this is a technology that can create planets. This is the greatest human achievement of all time — the ability to read and write life, because that’s who we are.”

Pyongyang’s Rebuttal: North Korea Slashes out against U.S. Human Rights Violations

Poisoning the well is a means of war, whether in the literal sense of well poisoning or the ad hominem form. Poisoning the well in the latter sense is when a source of information is summarily dismissed on the basis of some terrible thing. This negative association can be a perfectly valid objection to the ideas of the offending party, but nonetheless be totally irrelevant to the subject under discussion.

Human rights have become, by accident or design, a convenient excuse for various military adventures in recent years. A tremendous number of bombs have been dropped in the name of human rights. Alleged violations of human rights join with a dubious responsibility to protect, and absolve the attackers of any perceived aggression.

Meanwhile, the charge of a bad human rights record will efficiently poison the well of any communication coming out of the targeted country. If they can't respect their own people, how can they respect the truth? We don't need to listen to them; they're the bad guys.

Although devils and rogues are notorious liars, there's no reason they can't speak the truth.  Although human rights are frequently a rhetorical weapon, they're also a very real and pressing concern for everyone everywhere with a mind and a conscience.

Einstein

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the source of all true art and science.  He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.  This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion.  To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling, is at the heart of true religiousness."

-Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies

Ludicrous

Mark Stout reads Putin's mind: he was referring to psychics reading Madeline Albright's mind, when he referred to hearing about foreign interest in Siberia.  As everyone knows, psychics are ridiculous, ergo, Putin is ridiculous.  A political pundit has no need of a nuanced understanding of parapsychology.

Someone with an interest in parapsychology has no need of a political pundit.  They can investigate phenomena themselves, and with others.

It's been shown that crowd-sourcing rubes can be just as effective as consulting experts.  It might even magnify psychic powers.  Hunter Lee Soik has developed an app called Shadow, intended for use as a dream journal, but conceivably useful as a seismometer for keywords in the precognitive unconscious.  A larger sample of users would be necessary to see if it works as such.

Making scientific breakthroughs through experiment and discussion occasionally entails a certain amount of risk, and the possibility that one will appear ridiculous.  Academics and scientists do not like to appear ridiculous.

A petition was signed by hundreds of scientists around the world to prevent the University of Mumbai from hosting a single session of the Indian Science Congress, the subject of the session being descriptions of flying vimanas in ancient texts.  As everyone knows, the portions of mythology that don't correspond to modern expectations are unequivocally the religious fictitious bits.  As such, science can't benefit from discussing what doesn't exist.

If you don't look, you'll never see.  If you know something can't be, you'll have a harder time observing it.  Conventional channels are not conducive to finding new perspectives.

Raquel Cepeda recounts for the Personal Journeys section of the New York Times exactly how to see UFOs:  "You [have] to open yourself to the ludicrous, be a fool, so to speak, to have faith, in life and in love."  The New York Times has printed the secret, if perhaps only online, and there is no way to debase that with irony.

Is depression a kind of allergic reaction?

Clinical psychologist George Slavich of the University of California in Los Angeles thinks that depression may be part of the body's response to inflammation, as much as it is a result of pathological thinking.  The features of depression are analogous to the behaviour of sick people, and inflammatory cytokines have been shown to flood the body during depressive episodes.  There are also higher rates of depression among people with inflammatory diseases or who are taking drugs that boost inflammatory response.

The possible causes of this inflammation are legion: infection, obesity, sugar, and probably many not yet identified. The most pernicious may be stress.  These ubiquitous triggers, many operating together in vicious circles, have made depression endemic in our society.  Lacking coherent meaning, articulated optimism, proud community or the kind of unity of purpose that builds pyramids and puts flags on moons, stress is relieved with behaviour that promotes further inflammation.  The psychological component still plays a critical role, but does so in concert with biological conditions.

The chemical imbalance theory of mental illness has been generally accepted, but never actually proven.  There is no physical test for most mental disorders.  The role of inflammation, on the other hand, has been neglected in the study of many diseases.  The Guardian suggests that anti-inflammatory medication may find a place in the treatment of depression, but for some it may be as simple as adding turmeric to the diet and cutting out the candy.  This could be a shorter path to mental health than saving the world and solving the problem of evil.

The Imperial Collapse Playbook

Dmitry Orlov writes on the ongoing demise of Anglo-imperialism, and what can be expected in the coming years based on past behaviour.  There has been a consistent pattern of Britain and America fomenting conflict when exiting a region, so as to ensure that if the West can't enjoy the fruits found there, no one should be able to. 

Foreign investment and the establishment of new political entities, irrespective of local considerations, have continually stirred the pot in various troubled parts of the world.  Without regard to the interests that draw borders on maps or manufacture arms, the ignorant observer can easily assume that these are ancient and intractable ethnic conflicts.  In many cases the history of hate can run deep, but our understanding of the conditions that have stoked those fires is tragically shallow.

Although it's not clear where the crown that passed from Rome to Britain to the United States will next come to rest (if it's not simply melted down and sold) it's fair to assume that the metaphorical king will leave a shit in the sink on his way out.  The English-speaking people of the world will be increasingly divided along arbitrary and irrelevant lines, lest we consider our common ground and organise against the powerful minority.

The positive way to look at this is that as the world descends into chaos, some of that chaos is being deliberately engineered out of fear and envy, and all of it is a sign that the deeply dysfunctional status quo has run its course.  With the proper resolve, it should be perfectly possible for the vast majority of reasonable people to plot a course for the world that permits plurality.  Only a narrative of conflict, helpfully offered by a totalising ideology that has worked for centuries to create conflict, stands between decent folk and some kind of a peaceful place to live.

Biological bad luck blamed in two-thirds of cancer cases

A study conducted at Johns Hopkins University and published in Science suggests that random mutations were responsible for 22 of the 31 cancers examined.  Behaviour and heredity are still relevant factors in assessing a person's risk of developing cancer, but the scientists concluded that 65% of cancer incidence could be attributed to unaccountable errors in cell division, or as expressed by Reuters, "bad luck."

Although the materialist paradigm usually prefers to isolate a causal basis for events, it seems to have been granted a free pass in this instance.  The possibility that cancer develops for reasons not yet measured is left off the table, in favour of an argument for early intervention (intervention that can be as deadly as the cancer it is intended to defeat).  Prevention is precluded.

The logic would break down if it were found that the occurrence of all cancers has been on the increase, not only those shown to be directly influenced by environment or genes. It would imply that global rates of bad luck have been going up.  This would be an exciting if worrisome discovery for a worthy statistician to make.

Emerson

"He cannot yet credit that one may have impressive experience, and yet may not know how to put his private fact into literature; and perhaps the discovery that wisdom has other tongues and ministers than we, that though we should hold our peace, the truth would not the less be spoken, might check injuriously the flames of our zeal. A man can only speak, so long as he does not feel his speech to be partial and inadequate. It is partial, but he does not see it to be so, whilst he utters it. As soon as he is released from the instinctive and particular, and sees its partiality, he shuts his mouth in disgust. For, no man can write anything, who does not think that what he writes is for the time the history of the world; or do anything well, who does not esteem his work to be of importance. My work may be of none, but I must not think it of none, or I shall not do it with impunity."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Essays: Second Series, Nature"