If it bleeds, it misleads: on violence and misery the Cassandras are wrong
- Published on Wednesday, 02 November 2011
You would think that the disappearance of the gravest threat in the history of humanity would bring a sigh of relief among commentators on world affairs, writes Steven Pinker in The Guardian . Contrary to numerous expert predictions, there was no invasion of western Europe by Soviet tanks, no escalation of a crisis in Cuba or Berlin or the Middle East into a nuclear holocaust. The cities of the world were not vaporised; the atmosphere was not poisoned by radioactive fallout or choked with debris that blacked out the sun and sent Homo sapiens the way of the dinosaurs. ...
Not only that, but (again, contrary to expert predictions) a reunified Germany did not turn into a Fourth Reich, democracy did not go the way of monarchy, and the great powers did not fall into a third world war but rather a "long peace", which keeps getting longer. Surely the experts have been acknowledging the improvements in the world's fortunes from a few decades ago.
But no – the pundits are glummer than ever. ...
Why the gloom? Partly it's the result of market forces in the punditry business, which favour the Cassandras over the Pollyannas. But mainly, I think, it comes from the innumeracy of our journalistic and intellectual culture. If we don't keep an eye on the numbers, the programming policy "If it bleeds, it leads" will feed the cognitive short cut "The more memorable, the more frequent", and we will end up with what has been called a false sense of insecurity.
Drug hallucinations look real in the brain
- Published on Saturday, 29 October 2011
From New Scientist:
The visions induced by an Amazonian brew used by shamans may be as real as anything the eyes actually see, according to brain scans of frequent users of the drug.
Draulio de Araujo of the Brain Institute at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in Natal, Brazil, and colleagues recruited 10 frequent users of the brew – called ayahuasca. They asked the volunteers to look at images of people or animals while their brains were scanned using functional MRI, then asked the volunteers to close their eyes and imagine they were still viewing the image. Unsurprisingly, the researchers found that neural activity in the primary visual cortex dropped off when volunteers imagined seeing the image rather than actually viewing it.
But when the team then gave the volunteers a dose of ayahuasca and repeated the experiment, they found that the level of activity in the primary visual cortex was virtually indistinguishable when the volunteers were really viewing an image and when they were imagining it. This means visions seen have a real, neurological basis, says de Araujo – they are not made up or imagined.
Want to invest ethically? Look to your own backyard
- Published on Sunday, 23 October 2011
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| The Butchers Arms in Cumbria was saved by ethical investors |
Putting money into a community project gives ethical investors the chance to do everything from cutting carbon emissions to buying a stake in the village pub.
That's not to say they don't want a return on their cash but they'd rather it came from this kind of venture than traditional stocks and shares.
Colin Mather is a 67-year-old retired civil engineer. He's put £1,000 towards a 50kw hydroelectric turbine shortly to be installed on the River Esk, near Whitby. He wants his money to help cut carbon emissions, produce renewable energy and fund green energy education programmes.
We may be living in the most peaceful era in our species' existence, says Steven Pinker
- Published on Monday, 17 October 2011
'Believe it or not, violence has been in decline for long stretches of time, and we may be living in the most peaceful era in our species' existence,' says the renowned experimental psychologist Steven Pinker in The Guardian.
'The decline has not been steady; it has not brought violence down to zero; and it is not guaranteed to continue. But it is a persistent historical development, visible on scales from millennia to years, from world wars and genocides to the spanking of children and the treatment of animals.'
In his latest book,The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and its Causes, he challenges one of modern society's deepest assumptions, that the view that current and recent times have been the most violent in human history is actually radically mistaken.
Unvaccinated children far less prone to allergies and disease than vaccinated children
- Published on Friday, 14 October 2011
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| DeesIllustration.com |
German homeopathic practitioner Andreas Bachmair compiled health data on more than 8,000 unvaccinated children from at least 15 different countries, and compared it to health data compiled on more than 17,400 vaccinated children involved in a German study known as KiGGS - The German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents. ...
In every single health category evaluated as part of both studies, the overall health of unvaccinated children was leaps and bounds ahead of the vaccinated children. The allergy rate among vaccinated children, for instance, was more than double the allergy rate among unvaccinated children. And worse, vaccinated children were found to be nearly eight times more prone to developing asthma or chronic Bronchitis than were unvaccinated children.
Another significant difference between the two groups was observed in the category of autoimmune disorders. While less than half of one percent of unvaccinated children were found to have developed an autoimmune disease, roughly seven percent of vaccinated children developed one -- and according to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), nearly 25 percent of Americans today suffer from at least one autoimmune disorder.
'War on drugs' is grotesque abuse of human rights, says Graham Hancock
- Published on Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Fingerprints of the Gods author Graham Hancock has slammed the decades long 'War on Drugs' prevalent in Western societies.
'[W]hen the state sends us to prison for essentially exploring our own consciousness, this is a grotesque abuse of human rights,' he said in an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
'If I as an adult am not sovereign over my own consciousness then I am absolutely not sovereign over anything. I can't claim any kind of freedom at all.
'What’s happened … under the disguise of the war on drugs is that we have been persuaded to hand over the keys of our consciousness to the state. The most precious, the most intimate, the most sapient part of ourselves - the state now has the keys. And, furthermore, they have persuaded us that that is in our interest.'
Hancock also talked at length about the hallucinogenic Amazonian brew, ayahuasca, positing that it is 'an emissary' from an embattled rainforest, evidence that cave art was inspired by psychedelic experience, the brain as a transceiver rather than a creator of consciousness, the BBC's attack on his reputation, and the transhumanist possibility of one day being able to upload consciousness to machines.
Pirate politician: We want open, online government
- Published on Thursday, 06 October 2011
From New Scientist:
How do you explain your success in Germany?
Berlin is the biggest city in Germany and a very young city. Most of our votes came from 18 to 35-year-olds. The established parties browse the internet but we work with it. The internet is not an end in itself, but a tool. Established parties haven't realised this but younger people who started life with the internet do. They want politics to change - to Politics 3.0 if you like - so politicians talk with them, not about them. ...
What changes does your party want to see?
Long term, we want to run Berlin on an open-government model. We want all bureaucratic paperwork, publicly financed creative works and the products of publicly funded research not hidden away but freely accessible online. And we want a free wireless network infrastructure.