In-Sight Publishing

2022-04-11

NASA Sent a Twin into Space for Research

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/14

The highly-anticipated recent NASA mission that saw two astronauts sent into space featured something unprecedented: one of the astronauts happens to have a twin brother.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly spent a year in space while Mark Kelly – the non-NASA brother – stayed on Earth. The mission by NASA was part of an attempt to see the affects of space on Earth for the improvement of healthcare interventions.

“While the data are still being studied carefully, NASA recently released some intriguing preliminary findings. Kelly launched aboard the Russian Soyuz Rocket on March 27 2015,” The WEF said, “along with Russian cosmonauts Genaldy Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko (joining Kelly on the one year mission).”

Scott Kelly spent 340 days on the International Space Station. Both Mark and Scott provided large numbers of biological samples for the research prior to the launch of the 340-day mission.

With an examination of the molecular alterations, NASA is hoping to understand how certain proteins and bacteria in the body are influenced by nature or nurture by taking advantage of the extreme environmental differences between living on Earth or in space.

Many space agencies have expressed a “shared goal of taking people to Mars.” This will require a about 3 years away from Earth, and then taking about six months travelling to Mars in microgravity, followed by more than a year on the Martian surface.

Mars has about 1/3 the gravity of Earth. The travellers will need to prepare accordingly because there are effects on the body from the space travel because of the extreme conditions of space environments.

The WEF noted that microgravity has considerable effects on the human body. These include posture, muscle wasting, bone density loss, and reduction in the blood in the body. As well, the heart gets smaller.

One of the findings from the research through the twin study was that Scott’s – the one that went into space – telomeres appeared to shorten, which protect the DNA and become shorter as we age and increases damage to DNA as we age.

One speculation by the WEF author was that the research could increase the human lifespan.

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

2022-04-11

North Korea Pays Homage to Late Leaders and Current Leader

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/14

Yonhap News has reported that the North Korean army is to hold a ceremony to pledge loyalty to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, ahead of this week’s 105th birthday of the late state founder, Kim Il-sung. This is one of the major anniversaries in North Korea.

North Korea’s official Korean Central news agency stated that the army, air and anti-air force, and the navy of North Korea’s Korean People’s Army, has paid tribute to the current and late leaders. These are the late or deceased grandfather and father of the current leader, Kim Jong-un.

Participants at the ceremony included military chief Hwang Pyong-so, widely viewed as the No. 2 man in North Korea and director of the general political bureau of the KPA; Ri Myong-su, the military’s chief of general staff; and Pak Yong-sik, minister of the armed forces.

The Korean People’s Army of North Korea has pledged their allegiance to both the late father, grandfather, and the current leader. The anniversary is known “as the ‘Day of the Sun.’”

Reportedly, North Korea is preparing to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile in addition to carrying out its 6th nuclear test.

In a speech broadcast live by the North’s Korean Central TV, Hwang said the North will “mount a preemptive nuclear attack on South Korea and the United States and wipe them out without traces if they attempt to launch a war of aggression”.

The prior intercontinental ballistic missiles fired into the sea from the east coast. During the Day of the Sun ceremony, the band of the military paid homage to the two late leaders, the father and the grandfather of the current leader, with a 21-gun salute, which took place in front of two statues of the father and grandfather.

All North Korean soldiers and cadets from all levels of military academies took part in the celebration or anniversary.

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2022-04-11

Trade Raises Mean Incomes and Reduces Global Inequality

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/13

The last decade has saw an increase in international trade, which many countries have deemed a boon and benefit because it has raised incomes and cut inequality.

However, the consistent debate about the benefits of trade tied to the integration of the global marketplace at times, the world economic forum states, fails to realise that incomes across the globe have been raised by the reduction of poverty and global inequality dramatically.

Some countries have experienced a rise in inequality, but this is not the result of global trade but rather the result of the need for “stronger safety nets and better social and labour programs, not trade protection.”

“The 2001, US-Vietnam free trade agreement reduced poverty in Vietnam by increasing wage premiums in export sectors, spurring job reallocation from agriculture, forestry and fishing into manufacturing, and stimulating enterprise job growth.”

In the current global market, with countries feeling the need to turn inward, it has been predicted that many countries would turn outward and increase trade and reduce the obstacles to trade for the decrease in global inequality for the reduction of poverty and the general rise of mean incomes around the world.

“A study of 27 industrial and 13 developing countries finds that shutting off trade would deprive the richest 10 percent of 28 percent of their purchasing power,” the WEF said, but the poorest 10 percent would lose 63 percent because they buy relatively more imported goods.”

The share of world GDP based on merchandise trade grew about 30% to 50% from the periods of 1988 to 2013. This has been known as a “period of rapid globalisation, average income grew by 24% globally.” At the same time, the global poverty headcount ratio went down from 35% to 10.7%.

As well, the income of the lowest 40% of the world went up by as much as 50%. In addition, the growth in export is associated or positively correlated with greater gender equality; if a country has lower exports or a reduction in the growth of exports, then, by application, there will be greater gender inequality or a greater gender divide in developing countries.

For example, abandoning existing agreements in the Americas would have particularly large negative welfare effects in countries like Mexico (4 to 9 percent), El Salvador (2 to 5 percent), and Honduras (2 to 5 percent), according to early research at the World Bank.

Of the gains that have been gotten for women, reduction in global integration would reduce the gains seen in developing countries for greater gender equality. With trade and globalisation, there will be winners and losers in terms of the most economic gains.

However, there will be a net increase in the amount of money and funding that the average citizen will have in a country that is more integrated into the global marketplace. The World Economic Forum reports that there has been countries in Latin and South America that have shown wage distribution equalisation, such as Brazil or the reverse such as Mexico.

In India, poverty decreases in the more rural areas of the country when they have greater trade liberalisation. Between the periods of 1990 and 2010, which is noted as earlier as a rapid era of globalisation, the Gini index measuring inequality in the United States went from 43 to 47, and in Denmark from 31 to 26.

“Consider why. US workers concentrated in communities which face high volumes of Chinese imports have experienced fewer jobs and falling wages,” the World Economic Forum said, “And yet, the US Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program falls short of the challenge of helping people get back on their feet.”

With the national economies that “created losers,” the redistribution policies might be “needed” in addition to various policies to better equip workers to benefit from the opportunities offered by trade.

These include more better social protection and safety-net programs and non-trade protectionist policies.

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2022-04-11

An Interview with Robert Ray, President of the Humanists of North Puget Sound

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/13

How did you become a Humanist?

I honestly believe that Humanism is the default human position. We have an ingrained sense of empathy, which I feel is the core of Humanism.

That is not to say, I always knew I was a Humanist. I realised the label fit me best after looking for my place in the world and others who felt the same way I did.

I found a Humanist community near me and instantly knew I had found my “label.” Nearly all the tenets matched my world view, so I started to identify as a Humanist from that point on.

What seems like the main reason for people becoming humanists, in your experience, e.g. arguments, evidence, experience, or disenchantment with traditional religious structures?

I think people find that they are already Humanists when they find out what it is. There isn’t a main reason. As I stated earlier, it seems to be the default human position on morality and ethics.

You don’t even have to be an atheist to be a Humanist. There are many religious forms of humanism. In fact, when you see a religious person doing good despite the doctrine of their stated religion, they are expressing that innate humanism.

I identify as a Secular Humanist, meaning that I have no religious dogma or theistic belief tied to my Humanism. I am in fact an Atheistic Humanist, to put it bluntly.

What makes Humanism seem more natural to you than other sentiments, or ethical and philosophical worldviews?

We have evolved to be social creatures and have some genetic traits that make existing in this type of structure possible.

Empathy, reason, and the ability to learn from experiences are all necessary to work with others.

Religious dogma, on the other hand, was created to control others. It seems to work against our natural inclinations to help others by creating the idea of “others.” Humanism tries to eschew the concept of “others” and look past those walls that separate us.

What is the best argument for Humanism you have ever come across?

That is a little more difficult to pin down. I don’t think one argument can cover it.

But I do think one of my favourite quotes from my favourite orators of all time can cover my sentiment on this.

Justice is the only worship.

Love is the only priest.

Ignorance is the only slavery.

Happiness is the only good.

The time to be happy is now,

The place to be happy is here,

The way to be happy is to make others so.

Wisdom is the science of happiness.
Robert Green Ingersoll, “The Gods” (1876)

You are the president of Humanists of North Puget Sound. What tasks and responsibilities come with the position?

My job is not that much different from any other leader of a non-profit. I set the agendas, the tone, run the meetings, etc.

I am the official spokesperson for the group and I attend a lot of events in the Seattle area representing the group. I love that part. I get to hang out with all the friends I’ve made over the years.

These are the only times I get to see many of them. The Puget Sound is rather long geographically and travelling it can take some time. Our main meeting location for the HNPS is just over an hour outside of Seattle so there isn’t much overlap in our demographics even though we are tied into the same greater metro area.

What have been some of its major bumps and setbacks, and successes, in its foundation and development?

The HNPS has been around since 1991, so quite a bit before my time. But some of the original founders were still attending when I became president, so I learned a bit.

One of the biggest hurdles was location. It seems for a couple of years they rotated meetings in living rooms of the members. It wasn’t until the mid 90’s that they started settling on more regular meeting locations.

Recently, we have had some major set backs in membership. One is related to the age of the members. As I said, we still had founding members in our group as far as 2015. In fact, many members up to that point had been with the group for over a decade. This was great from a legacy standpoint, but posed as a major obstacle when it came to the future longevity of the group.

To put it bluntly, many of the long-term, regular members were just getting too old to keep returning. Some we lost, some had health issues that kept them from showing up. It became an issue when new members were not taking their place, which leads me to our second major hurdle. Obama.

The win of President Obama gave people hope for the future and many felt that an activist group wasn’t something they needed any more, so they weren’t all that involved. When people aren’t involved, less show up and it becomes a self-repeating cycle.

But we kept a small core of members and have persevered. Recently, we have seen some growth and anticipate quite a bit more with the attack on religious freedom from members of the Trump administration.

What are some of the demographics of the organisation? How many members are in it? Who is most likely to join the organisation?

We are relatively a diverse group. We range from folks in their teens to members well into their 80’s. Ethnically, not so much, but a lot of that is due to the demographics of our area.

Currently, we have 15 regular members with about 10 more that are kind of random attendees.

Since we are a Secular Humanist group, we tend to attract the more progressive and politically liberal atheists.

Has the group taken up any activist causes? What were they?

We do have a history of activism, from fighting against Nuclear power in the 90’s to standing up for transgender rights today. We advocated and helped promote a local Camp Quest. We stepped up to lobby for same-sex marriage when it was on the ballot.

What were their outcomes?

One of our greatest recent success was our role in getting Camp Quest Northwest rolling. We offered a challenge grant in 2011 to the group to see if they could raise $10,000 by the end of the year. The next February, I presented them with a check for $10,000. It gave them a huge jump in starting the camp. It was even covered by the Friendly Atheist.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/02/06/atheists-donate-10000-to-camp-quest-northwest/

What is the general status of Humanism in Puget Sound based on public perception?

For the most part, the Puget Sound is inclusive. We generally don’t get a lot of push back from the religious here. I was even allowed to give the opening Invocation to the State House of representatives in 2015.

What are the main impediments to the practice and advocacy of Humanism in the local Puget Sound area?

Membership. We are still small and don’t have a lot of influence here. Our voice is not as big as some other groups, so it harder to be activists.

Who/what are the main threats to Humanism as a movement in general?

Again, size matters. Being big enough to stand as our own movement is difficult at times. We just don’t have the numbers.

Another issue is identification. While as much as 25% of the population will identify as none/non-religious, a very small percentage of them identify as Humanist. Many don’t even know what Humanism is or its tenets.

What is The Original Motto project?

The Original Motto Project is a grassroots organisation that is dedicated to restoring E Pluribus Unum as our motto and opposes the use of “In God We Trust” on any government property.

We do most of our activism on online forums, such as Facebook and Twitter, but did hold a rally last year in Olympia opposite Franklin Grahams “Decision America Tour.”

http://originalmotto.us/

https://www.facebook.com/TheOriginalMotto/

What do you yak about on the Secular Yakking podcast?

Secular Yakking is a weekly show where my wife, Amy, and I take a look at news that isn’t always mainstream and our opinions on it from a Secular Humanist perspective. We focus more on politics, separation of church and state, and social justice issues but sprinkle in science and entertainment as we go along.

Secular Yakking

What is the future of Humanism – 5, 10, 25 years from now? (Broad question, I know.)

I do see hope though, the millennials identify as non-religious in ever-increasing numbers and many of them are socially progressive. They are already expressing Humanist Ideals; they need only to find out that they are doing it.

How can people get involved with Humanists of North Puget Sound?

The best way is to contact us via email info@humanistnps.org or go to our webpage http://humanistnps.org.

Thank you for your time, Robert.

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2022-04-11

Second San Bernardino Shooting in 2 Years

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/12

According to the San Bernardino Sun, the police are investigating the shooting that took place near the elementary school in California. There are 3 dead and a wounded student from the shooting that was a murder-suicide. In that, the shooter shot three people, injuring one, and killed himself.

This is “less than 18 months after San Bernardino was hit by terrorist attack.” It was a cop from the Redlands that had assisted in the take-down of the attackers. The recent attack was on a teacher who was gunned down, with two children critically wounded in the murder-suicide on Monday.

“Redlands Sgt. Andy Capps, who took part in the Dec. 2 shootout that killed the suspects after they fired at him and other pursuing police, said his first reaction was to be glad the school shooting wasn’t any worse than what had then been reported — that two adults were dead and two children injured,” the San Bernardino Sun reported.

One death was a teacher, aged 53, who was fatally shot. Another was a student that was 8-years-old. The teacher who was 53 was Karen Elaine Smith that was murdered by an estranged husband named Cedric Anderson from Riverside, California.

“Both deadly attacks in San Bernardino were shootings. The Dec. 2 attack left 57 survivors, with 22 shot. Martinez and an unidentified 9-year-old boy were critically injured at the school Monday. Martinez was flown to Loma Linda University Medical Center, where he died.”

This was based on the San Bernardino police making an open, public statement in a recent press conference. In the December 2, 2015 attack, there were 14 people killed with police and armed security guards on standby. One survivor from the 2015 attack, after the recent attack, stated that they felt a bit of remorse because some individuals do not seem to learn from terrorist attacks and mass shootings ongoing both “in United States and around the world.”

A San Bernardino County prosecutor said, “For some reason men — and it always seems to be men — can’t let go of a woman that says, ‘No,’” he said. “Sounds like she made the right choice to leave this guy.”

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2022-04-11

Malala Yousafzai Becomes Youngest UN Messenger of Peace

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/12

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has become the youngest “Messenger of Peace.” She is 19-years-old.

Her fellow United Nations messengers of peace include Leonardo DiCaprio and Charlize Theron. Each has been the youngest to win the award before her.

Hailing the Pakistani teenager as ‘the most famous student in the world’ and the symbol of the cause of education for all, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed her on Monday as the “Messenger of Peace for girls’ education.”

In 2012, the Taliban attacked Malala in the Swat Valley of Pakistan because of her campaigning to promote education for women.

“People drawn from the arts, entertainment, sports, science and public service are appointed Messengers of Peace, each with special missions,” the Khaleej Times said.

She defied the edict that had banned the education of girls in addition to the restriction of their right to go to school.

“’You have been going to the most difficult places, where education has more problems in becoming a reality,” said Guterres, who was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from 2005-2015, as he recalled her work in refugee camps and the two schools her foundation has set up in Lebanon’s Beka’a Valley.

Malala, now living in the UK, had her injuries treated in Birmingham.

Other awards for Yousafzai include the Nobel Peace Prize with “Kailash Satyarti, the Indian children’s rights activist,” in 2014.

Yousafzai said, “I have a second life for the purpose of education and I’ll continue working,” as well as, “It wasn’t that I was very intelligent or very clever or I had some special kind of training or something. All I had was a father and a family who said, ‘Yes, you can speak out, it’s your choice’.”

Other awardees include: “Actor Michael Douglas, naturalist Jane Goodall, and Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, wife of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and Chairperson of the International Humanitarian City (IHC).”

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2022-04-11

Rising Tensions with North Korea – USS Carl Vinson Deploying to the Korean Peninsula

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/12

The Financial Times reports that “the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier” has been deployed at or near the Korean Peninsula. This is expected to “raise anxiety in Pyongyang just days after President Donald Trump launched a barrage of missiles against Syria.”

The message sent by the Trump administration based on the strike in Syria has been noted by many countries, even outside of Damascus and its territory. North Korea has openly called the act “unforgivable” with the regards to the aggression. It has considered this an impetus to maintain its nuclear arsenal.

This was in response to the White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, who stated that this “sends a very strong signal not just to Syria but throughout the world.” China got the message too. President Trump has stated that he would act unilaterally against North Korea if China did not place “pressure on Pyongyang,” tying in to the need to abandon the North Korean nuclear program.

The Secretary of State for the Trump Administration, Rex Tillerson, has stated in the first trip to Asia that the “policy of strategic patients has ended” with possibility for all military options on the table. There might be unease in China. Some of the options included the assassination of Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader.

A former top CIA China analyst, Dennis Wilder, said, “It’s very difficult to know the effect of this on Kim Jong Un, but his elites will worry about a more aggressive US policy.” Chinese analysts remain skeptical about the alteration of the Beijing assessment of the situation. China continues in a cautious mentality and approach, or strategy, with North Korea.

“Zhao Tong, a foreign affairs expert at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Centre, said the Syria strike had changed China’s perception of Mr Trump to a certain degree.” Zhao noted that the context of Syria is not directly related to the situation in North Korea.

“The US needs to take the consequences of an attack on North Korea into consideration, such as the safety of its troops in South Korea and Japan, and also its allies,” Zhao said. South Korea and Japan share concerns about the nuclear threat coming from Pyongyang.

A professor at Renmin University, Pang Zhongying, stated the possibility for a strike against North Korea remain low, “very low.” “North Korea is not Syria,” he said. “North Korea is totally different and even a surgical strike could bring disastrous consequences.”

US president Donald Trump talked to both Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and the acting South Korean president, Hwang Kyo-ahn. The talks revolved around the North Korean peninsula and the recent strikes in Syria.

A former CIA officer with experience with North Korean officials, Joe Detrani, said, “His father, Kim Jong Il, literally went into hiding after the first Gulf war when the US used overwhelming air power to destroy Iraq’s military…Kim Jong Un may do the same.”

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2022-04-11

India’s Solar Power Revolution to 2030

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/12

Daniel Muoio from the World Economic Forum and Tech Insider recently reported on the solar power boom that is ongoing in India.

He reported that solar companies and renewable energy are the big bet from India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that he wants to spend about $3.1 billion in state aid “for India’s solar panel manufacturing industry to increase India’s photovoltaic capacity and create an export industry.” This is a quote from Bloomberg News.

SunPower CEO Tom Werner said India is about to become the biggest market for solar energy, primarily because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s interest in growing the sector.

Some plans have not been made public. The government plans are that 4/10ths of the country’s energy will be from renewable energy by 2030. Currently there are 300 million people who aren’t connected to an electrical grid or solar reserves or energy reserves in India.

“‘The market that’s going to boom is India”, Werner told Business Insider. SunPower. The second biggest solar installer in the US, is owned by European oil giant Total.

However, solar energy could provide an affordable way for the self-generation of energy by Indian citizens. In November, 2016, “India built the world’s largest solar plant that can produce enough energy to power roughly 150,000 homes.”

“SunPower has already partnered with Mahindra EPC, a solar subsidiary owned by Indian conglomerate Mahindra Group, to build a 5-megawatt solar plant in Rajasthan, India. The plant generates enough electricity to power 60,000 rural homes.”

According to many environmentalists, a commitment to solar energy is an extremely important thing to both the government and society at large in terms of the long-term capacity building as well as the big growth seen in the near-term.

Werner didn’t disclose whether SunPower has any upcoming projects in India. However, Werner said the market will become increasingly more important in the future.

“SunPower isn’t the only company taking note — Tesla is also eyeing India and could enter the market as early as this summer, CEO Elon Musk tweeted earlier in February. Tesla acquired SolarCity in a deal worth $2.1 billion in November and is continuing to expand its battery division.”

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2022-04-11

Former Aide to South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye Ousted

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/12

Park Geun-hye can be detained up to 20 days during investigation into accusations of bribery and abuse of power that led to impeachment.

According to The Korean Herald, president Park Geun-hye’s former aide was ousted. He recently appeared in court to “fight against the prosecution’s request for his arrest warrant over charges tied to the scandal.”

The former aide and previous prosecutor, Woo Byung-woo, is associated with the scandal that “led to Park’s removal from power and arrest.” Byung-woo was the senior presidential secretary for civil affairs between the 2015 and 2016. He is suspected of meddling in state affairs.

Byung-woo “turned up at the Seoul Central District Court in southern Seoul at 10:05 a.m. to attend the hearing, which will likely continue for several hours. A decision on whether he will be arrested is expected to come near or past midnight.”

His charges total 8: peddling influence to boot “uncooperative” officials in addition to negligence of duty and abuse of authority, and perjury. He is suspected to have lied under oath during a parliamentary inquiry.

External to these charges are allegations “of embezzlement and disruption of a probe into the 2014 sinking of the Sewol ferry are not included. He has been separately investigated for alleged embezzlement involving his family members.”

There have been 50 witnesses who have been inquired as to the situation with Byung-woo. Byung-woo, as an important note, has avoided both indicted and imprisonment in spite of the numerous allegations and charges in his recent career.

“A number of ex-ministers, presidential aides and Samsung Group’s de facto chief Lee Jae-yong are standing trial in connection to the corruption scandal.”

On March 10, president Park Geun-hye was “forced” from office and ‘stripped’ of the immunity typically afforded to presidents from criminal investigations, based on the charges and allegations. On March 31, Geun-hye was arrested with inquiries ongoing while in jail.

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2022-04-11

China Invests in Science Initiatives

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/12

China has invested several billion yuan in science initiatives in 2016 on topics including, “brain science, new materials, advanced manufacturing, quantum communication, robots, and information security,” according to the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

41,184 programmes have been financed in science in 2016 alone in China. The total amounts to approximately 22.7 billion yuan or 3.3 billion US dollars. The programmes can include such esoteric physics and cosmological topics such as gravitational waves.

The NSFC was the funder for these 41,184 programmes. Yang Wei, the head of the NSFC, noted that the foundation has also launched several research projects to deal with, for instance, “cognitive robotics,” as well as, several foundational programmes of science noted at the outset.

These are some of the more important topics to be researching because these influence all areas of science. They work from the bottom level of knowledge. If you can discover something about the lowest level of the scientific topic, then you can use these basic principles that are newly discovered to influence the higher-level aspects of science projects.

Not only this, there are numerous other topics that have been deeply invested in China for their science, which means that China and its associated leaders in these areas of the government understand that the appropriate investment in science is the wave of the future.

Wei also noted that about 91 people and 33 programmes have been punished for misconduct.

The people were punished and the programmes were revoked in 2016.

So, not only is this funding being broadly spent on a variety of topics, it is being enforced in a way to “improve the research integrity system, ensure fairness and promote innovation,” Wei said.

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2022-04-11

Peking University Goes Global with Oxford Campus

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/12

Peking University will begin the enrolment for its Oxford campus starting in June, 2017. This is according to the dean of the HSBC business school of Peking University.

The university officials signed an agreement with Open University in February, 2017, for the purchase of a 15-acre campus for the cost of 8.8 million British pounds. This is the first time a Chinese university used its own finances to manage and set up a school within a foreign country.

Hai Wen, the dean of the HSBC business school, stated that there will be 100 international students enrolled in the school during the opening of August, 2018. This is purposed to occur simultaneously with the elite Beijing university’s 120th founding anniversary.

“The timing is monumental. In 1818, China’s first foreign-founded school, Ying Wa College, was set up by a British missionary. Now 200 years later, a Chinese university will set up its own school in Britain,” Wen said.

Wen also pointed out that many foreign universities over the years have opened schools within China and that Peking University is one of China’s top universities. It will be taking the “leading role” of the Chinese universities going global, he said.

A movement that is a change in the dynamics of internationalisation of Chinese education via its top universities. Peking University will be the first to endeavour to accomplish this effort through the UK-based Oxford campus.

“He said HSBC Business School’s finance, management and economics courses will feature Chinese business cases to help students become better acquainted with the Chinese economy and reforms,” XinhuaNet News reported on some aspects of the campus, “Students will take the first year course in the Oxford campus and the second year at the school’s campus in the city of Shenzhen, southern China.”

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2022-04-11

An Interview with Ron Millar – PAC Coordinator for the Center for Freethought Equality

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/12

What’s your own story? How did you get into the Freethought Equality business? Was there much of a family background?

My family has no history in atheist and humanist politics. I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian church and enjoyed interacting with many of the people there, but their narrow view of reality and restrictive proscriptions on varying lifestyles distanced me from the church. I explored other forms of Christianity and non-Christian religious traditions in search of the “Truth.” The process was much like trying on various hats, and I found that nothing really fit (before ultimately realising that I didn’t like wearing hats – to continue a strained metaphor). In the last semester of my senior year in college, which was in the early 1980s, I came to Washington DC to intern at a Ralph Nader publication, Multinational Monitor, and I left religion and my childhood home behind.

You have done research and conducted interviews with political candidates, and elected officials, looking into the possibility for the endorsement from the Freethought Equality Fund. What is the general narrative there? How do things play out?

The U.S. Constitution prohibits any religious test for public office. However, being an atheist in the electoral arena has been a powerful political taboo in our nation.

The Freethought Equality Fund was founded in 2013 to change this. Our mission is to increase the number of open humanists and atheists in public office at all levels of government. The Freethought Equality Fund is affiliated with the Center for Freethought Equality which is the advocacy and political arm of the American Humanist Association.

When I started this position in February 2016, I was aware of only three open elected officials from our community at the state level (and no one at the federal level). Ernie Chambers, a state senator in Nebraska; Juan Mendez, a state representative in Arizona; and Jamie Raskin, a state representative in Maryland.

The 2016 election cycle was very productive for our community as we quintupled the number of open elected officials from our community. These wins are an important step in removing the negative stigma against atheist and humanist candidates, but since the secular community is nearly a quarter of the population, these wins represent less than 0.25% of state and federal elected offices. So, we need to obtain an additional 1,500-1,600 seat to obtain equal representation.

We have a lot of work to do!

The Center for Freethought Equality has a list of secular elected officials and you can view our endorsed 2016 candidates and their election outcomes on the Freethought Equality Fund’s endorsements page.

How many closet atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers do you think are currently in public office?

This number is hard to determine but there are a lot. As I said before, the negative stigma against atheists has a long tradition in American politics but fortunately, our efforts during this past election cycle shows the paradigm is shifting.

The reason for this change is simple demographics; the number of secular Americans is growing rapidly. The Pew Research Center uses the short hand of “nones” for the religiously unaffiliated, which includes people who identify as either atheist or agnostic and those who say their religion is “nothing in particular.” According to Pew research, “nones” have grown from 16% in 2007 to 23% in 2014, and are the largest “religious group” in the Democratic Party. With a third of Millennials in the “nones” category, the religiously unaffiliated community will continue to grow. If you just consider Americans who self-identify as atheists and agnostics, our community is as large as the Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, Orthodox Christian, Buddhist, Jehovah’s Witness, and Hindu communities combined!

Americans are also becoming more and more open to voting for atheist candidates. Since 1958, Gallop has asked Americans if they would vote for a well-qualified presidential candidate who was an atheist. In the first poll, only 18% of Americans said they would vote for an atheist. In 1999, for the first time, a slim majority said they would vote for an atheist candidate. In Gallop’s 2015 poll, 58% of Americans said they would vote for an atheist presidential candidate. The willingness to vote for an atheist presidential candidate varies greatly by generation: 75% of those 18 to 29 years of age, 63% of those 30 to 49, 50% of those 50 to 64, and 48% of those 65 and over; and by political party: 64% of Democrats, 61% of independents, and 45% of Republicans.

Because of the changes in demographics and the increasing acceptance of atheists by voters, the time has come for atheist, agnostic, humanist, and other nontheistic elected officials to serve openly as secular Americans and for more openly secular candidates to run for office. Our democracy is impoverished and the quality of our political candidates is diminished. If a quarter of the population is effectively removed from the electoral arena, the negative stigma that still exists will only be eliminated when Americans see respected and ethical secular leaders in public office.

You work with the Center for Freethought Equality. You’ve been in the Washington, District of Columbia area for 30 years or more. You’ve worked with nonprofit education, advocacy groups, and so on. How has this work bolstered your work through Center for Freethought Equality?

I’ve worked in a variety of advocacy and education nonprofits in DC, and learning from my prior experiences, both successful and unsuccessful, help me in managing this project. For example, in 1988, I was the campaign manager for an openly gay candidate running for the Council of the District of Columbia. We ran a professional campaign and increased the political visibility and involvement of the LGBTQ community in the electoral arena. We lost that election, but subsequent candidates were able to build on our successes in breaking down barriers against the LGBTQ community and win seats on the DC Council.

Also, you were the associate director of the Secular Coalition for America (2005-2009). What was fulfilling about the work there?

I was the second staff member to be hired by the Secular Coalition for America, where I worked under the wonderful Lori Lipman Brown, our community’s first full-time lobbyist on Capitol Hill. I was not involved in the secular movement prior to this position but was thrilled at the opportunity to promote this cause. During my tenure there, we were able to help Congressman Pete Stark make his announcement that he did not “hold a god belief” – the first member of Congress to ever identify with our community.

I understand you earned a PhD specifically looking at the organisation learning in groups that are litigating church-state cases in the Supreme Court—no less. What was the main research question? What was the main finding?

Earlier research had concluded that organisations litigating cases before the Supreme Court did not change their legal arguments when faced with a change in legal precedent. My finding was that when faced with legal change, litigant groups did analyse the new precedent and the opinion(s) that supported the decision to modify or craft new legal arguments in seeking to win future cases. Looking at church-state education cases was ideal because Agular v. Felton (1985) and Agostini v. Felton (1997) offered essentially the same litigants and same case facts, separated by twelve years of a changing Court. This allowed me to explore the arguments used prior, during, and after these cases to map the evolution of the legal arguments used by church-state separation advocates and why.

Now, back to the Center for Freethought Equality. You are the PAC coordinator for the Center for Freethought Equality. What is PAC? How are you coordinating it? What are the hopes for it?

The Freethought Equality Fund has both a traditional political action committee (PAC) that makes donations directly to candidates and a SuperPAC that makes independent expenditures to promote candidates and campaigns.

In the 2016 election cycle, the Freethought Equal Fund PAC, the traditional PAC, endorsed 61 candidates from 22 states and the District of Columbia. Of the 61 candidates, 32 were running for Congress (6 from our community and 26 allies), 26 were running for state legislatures (23 from our community and 3 allies), and 3 were running for local seats (all from our community).

All but one of our 26 Congressional allies won their seats and one member of our community won his Congressional seat, Jamie Raskin from Maryland. All three allies won re-election to their state legislative seats and 14 members of our community won their state races (6 re-elected and 8 new – two of the new held seats in the House and are now in the Senate). One of the three local candidates won their elections.

The 2016 endorsements were the result of sending questionnaires to over 900 candidates in 38 states in open seats or interesting races. We also sent an additional 700 questionnaires to incumbents in legislatures of the 13 least religious states and the District of Columbia. From these USPO and email solicitations we received over 180 completed candidate questionnaires.

Our efforts were also made possible by local activists. For example, in Arizona, Serah Blain and Evan Clark helped us connect with a great cohort of candidates. Their efforts are a model for the Freethought community in recruiting and campaigning for secular candidates.

My hope is that our successes in 2016 will encourage other members of our community to get involved in the electoral arena and run for office, and for current elected officials who identify with our community to publicly announce their affiliation.

How can people get involved with the PAC or the Center for Freethought Equality, even donate to them?

First, become a member of the Center for Freethought Equality – it’s free! As a member, you will get our emails about our candidates and activities. Only members of the Center for Freethought Equality can donate to the PAC. Also, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Most importantly, I want to stress that elections don’t just happen every four years. Obviously, presidential elections are important, but state and local officials have more control over what happens in your neighbourhood and daily lives than the President does. Be an informed voter and participate in every election. Get to know your state and local elected officials. If they are not working for you, help replace them, and perhaps be the person who replaces them.

We have resource pages on our website to help make your voice heard and to run for office for anyone hoping to make a difference.

Last, and this is very important, since many of the Freethought Equality Fund endorsed candidates and secular elected officials are new to our community, they need to get to know us better. If you are a member of an atheist or humanist group, invite these candidates to speak at one of your events. Also, nonprofit groups can be politically active while retaining their tax exempt status – see our resource page for what nonprofits can and cannot do in the electoral arena.

Any closing thoughts or feelings based on the discussion today?

I urge members of our community to use their time and talents to become politically engaged. Be visible as a secular American in the electoral area and build a political network of friends and allies. Then select an elected or appointed office that seems attainable — and run for that office.

You can also run, even if the seat is unattainable, to promote issues that are important to you and to build the visibility for our community. Please be active and visible – this is the only way we can make our Constitutional protection that no religious test (Article VI, Clause 3) can be imposed for public office a reality.

Thank you for your time, Ron.

Thank you for doing the interview.

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2022-04-11

Antisemitic and Islamist Messages in X-Men Comic Book

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/12

Antisemitic and Islamist references within a popular comic book were recently discovered hidden in an X-Men comic book. Marvel comics claimed to be taking “disciplinary action” on at least one of the artists who had inserted the antisemitic and Islamist references into the X-Men comic book.

Indonesian artist Ardian Syaf says he included in X-Men Gold #1 hidden references to the election of the governor of Indonesia’s capital Jakarta. The vote has been one of Indonesia’s most polarising elections, and is about much more than about choosing the city’s leader.

There was a bitter contestant between the Chinese Christian incumbent named Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama and the rivals who were Muslims. The Muslims rivals won the favour of the “hard-line Islamists.”

This was reported by Time as an increasing split between the choice for pluralism and fundamentalist Islam within the “world’s most populous Muslim nation, where many religious conservatives say a non-Muslim should not hold high office.”

It can be seen within the book that one of the characters has a Quranic verse reference on his t-shirt that, from fundamentalist interpretations of Islam, can be read as recommending the prohibition of “Muslims from electing a Christian or Jewish leader.”

“In another scene, the Jewish character Kitty Pryde is also drawn together with a sign reading ‘Jewellery,’ her head next to the part of the sign that reads ‘Jew.’” Time said.

Marvel Comics made a public statement stating that the insertion was without its prior knowledge and that the references “do not reflect the views of the writer, editors or anyone else and in direct opposition of the inclusiveness of Marvel comics and with the X-men have stood force and the creation.”

The artwork that included the antisemitic and Islamist references will be omitted in digital versions in addition to digital and trade paperback versions.

Social media has criticised Ayaf based on taking part in the demonstration in December. “‘Choosing a non-[Muslim] as a leader is forbidden’ he said, as reported by the Jakarta Post. “’That’s what the [Quaranic verse] says.’”

A fellow Indonesian artist named Anindito stated the work done to the X-Men comic book by Ayaf was “very disrespectful and unprofessional.”

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2022-04-11

Do Not Politicise the Plight of Refugees” – UN Refugee Chief

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/12

The UNHCR, the main UN Refugee Agency, stated an open warning about the use of refugees and their difficulties as a political subject or a political tool. Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, discussed the matter after a landmark four-day visit to Syria where he witnessed first-hand the massive destruction caused by nearly six years of conflict.

“Grandi urges developed countries to show generosity to those fleeing conflict or risk undermining principle of solidarity…[he] met displaced people in Aleppo and witnessed the destruction.”

He met with numerous children in Jibreen, which has a population of 5,000 people. People are living in shelters within warehouses in Jibreen. According to Grandi, the politicisation of the plight of refugees is a risk: “the principle of international solidarity with those fleeing war and persecution…Refugees urged rich countries to show generosity to refugees, rather than regarding them as a threat.”

Grandi noted that the refugees are facing considerable danger: “we have serious concerns, and these are not new concerns, we’ve had them for some time, that the refugee issue in the industrialised world – in Europe, the US, Australia – is very politicised. It shouldn’t be,” Grandi said.

He is the first senior official to visit Syria since Turkey and Russia brokered a nationwide ceasefire. The refugees come from many places, and they need international solidarity, Grandi said. However, actions by the US has weakened that solidarity.

The UNHCR has estimated on the number of refugees at 20,000. They are living in an uncertain environment. The US has a 120-day suspension. “Grandi expressed his hope that the US would resume resettlements following its internal review of the programme,” the UNHCR said.

He made notes to the difficulties of many people to reconstruct their livelihoods in the “ruins of east Aleppo and the old city of Homs.” The UNHCR is in negotiations with the Syrian government for the provision of support to those in need, even in the “hard-to-reach areas.”

“People need to return eventually to Syria, and we all agree that that’s the ideal solution. But we need to be patient,” he said. “More progress needs to be made politically, then economically and infrastructure-wise in order for conditions to be there to have large returns.”

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2022-04-11

St. Petersburg Bomber Suspected Islamist

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/10

According to recent reports, the metro bombing in Russia is suspected to have been done by Akbarzhon Jalilov.

The St. Petersburg bombing suspect is reported to have been an Islamist who developed an interest in Islam and may have “travelled to Syria before” the attack. Former colleagues of the bombing suspect stated that he disappeared after a trip to Turkey.

The St. Petersburg Metro bombing recently resulted in the death of 14 people. Jalilov was 22. He travelled to Turkey in 2015. The movements of the suspected terrorist are unknown at this point in time. In that, he seems to have disappeared between 2015 and 2017.

However, the colleagues are not sure if for sure the terrorist suspect travelled to the war-torn nation of Syria. Radical Islamists have used Turkey as a route for parts of Syria, which are controlled by ISIS.

The terror suspect was born in 1985 and we grew up in Kyrgyzstan. It was a mainly Muslim ex-Soviet Republic in Central Asia that he grew up, which is called Osh. The man is suspected to be the one who exploded himself inside of the St. Petersburg Metro station that killed those 14 people.

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a visit to the St. Petersburg Metro station. There has been no claim to responsibility for the attack by any organisation, terrorist or otherwise, at this point in time.

By implication, this might be a ‘Lone Wolf’ phenomenon rather than an organised targeted terrorist attack from a larger more well-known group. The man worked low paid occupations from 2011 onward.

One of Jalilov’s former colleagues described him as “an even-tempered man who didn’t drink or curse when they worked together.” In that, there did not seem to be signs of extremism of this man, or in his thoughts or behaviour.

In 2014, he did develop an interest in Islam and begin to pray, “going to the mosque, reading the Koran and growing a beard.” It is suspected that his trip to Turkey in November, 2015 was to join his uncle.

However, the uncle stated that the man left in September, 2015 to return to Osh where he grew up. The terror suspect showed up in Osh in February, 2017. He had rented an apartment at the time of the previous week’s attack.

The Russian officials have declined to comment on the travel history of the terrorist suspect.

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2022-04-11

The New Oil Battle Might Be Between Russia and Saudi Arabia

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/10

Business Insider reported that international oil markets could be heading towards a new war, as leading OPEC and non-OPEC producers are “vying for increased stakes”.

There has been an unexpected cooperation between countries with the full support of both Russia and Saudi Arabia for the crude markets, which has happened from the year-and-a-half of stabilisation concomitant with it. The predicted oil crisis, crude oil crisis, was averted by this unexpected cooperation.

“As long as Saudi Arabia, Russia and some other major producers (UAE, Kuwait), are supporting a production cut extension, financials will be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.”

The second shale oil revolution has been “mostly mitigated by a reasonably high compliance of OPEC and non-OPEC members” based on agreements to cuts by the members. The stabilisation associated with the market deals with economics, geopolitics, and the national interests of the OPEC and non-OPEC member states.

“…geopolitical and security issues have prevented Libya, Iraq, Venezuela and Nigeria, from entering with new volumes. Stabilisation in the crude oil market, as always, is not only fundamentals but also geopolitics and national interests.”

There are some growing fears that Saudi Arabia, an OPEC leading producer, might not be happy in the near-future based on the overall effects of the production cuts. However, there are other smaller OPEC members including Iraq and Iran that have predicted an increase in production.

Nonetheless, the main rivals are Saudi Arabia and Russia, who are the big ones of the OPEC and non-OPEC countries. Russia is the biggest non-OPEC country. Saudi Arabia is the biggest OPEC country. With regards to the European oil markets, Russia remains the largest supplier with about 3/10 of the total supply in 2016.

“Even if Moscow is still fully behind the official production cuts, Russian oil companies have been aggressively fighting for additional market share in Saudi Arabia’s main client markets,” Business Insider said, “China, India and even Japan. Iraq and Iran, in contrast to what was expected, have been cutting away share in Europe.”

With regards to the non-European oil markets, Saudi Arabia is the big generator and supplier. This is all to do with the Russian-Saudi oil war, who both “need…stabilisation in the market.” There apparently is a “conflict…brewing, but has not yet come to the surface.”

Europe’s industry is both a stable and a growing crude oil market. The price war could play out in the European oil or crude oil market sphere. Saudi Arabia and Russia are not necessarily willing to risk that price war.

Business Insider said, “Threatened by its own successful agreement, Saudi Arabia is now feeling the heat on all sides. Some analysts are even [proposing] a doomsday scenario, implying that Riyadh has lost its grip on the largest oil markets.”

In addition, Putin is at risk in the next 12 months of maintaining power with elections upcoming in addition to the heavy dependency on the oil market. “Iraq and Iran have been very smart by attempting to sneakily take market share from both sides.” Business Insider called this the “Iran-Iraq axis.”

Saudi Aramco’s first moves to re-enter Europe, however, clearly show that they are not willing to keep picking up the bill for others…Money will talk as additional outlets (refinery projects) were acquired by Aramco last month…Riyadh’s decision to change its European price setting is, however, a clear signal that there is a red line for the Oil Kingdom.”

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2022-04-11

Islamist Culture War on Beauty Industry Worth Several Billion Dollars

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/10

Gatestone Institute’s Shireen Qudosi reported on Islamism’s culture war on the beauty industry worth several billion dollars.

She opened the article with four main points. One of these is that there are western Muslims averse to standard Western values, and that there is a new cultural landscape to be attacked by the Islamist culture – the culture in fashion and beauty.

“In 2016, the élite fashion label Dolce and Gabbana launched an ‘Abaya and Hijab Collection.’ Months later, at New York Fashion Week, a sartorial Mecca, hosted the first catwalk spotlighting models fully donned in hijabs,” Qudosi reports.

Anniesa Hasibuan Brought Hijabs To The New York Fashion Week Catwalk

There have been advertising campaigns meant to be more appealing and friendly to the consumer. So even though the face has shifted in content, the underlying message and purpose remain the same.

Melanie Elturk, CEO of Haute Hijab, said, “…Fashion is one of the outlets in which we can start that cultural shift in today’s society to normalize the hijab in America.”

According to Qudosi, the Islamist beauty industry has “two faces of Islamist thought, one which underscores the myth of peace while privately exiling dissenting voices as ignorant, racist or bigoted.”

With the defeat of Hillary Clinton and the win of Donald Trump for the American presidency, some saw this as a possible resolute victory against Radical Islam.

There was now a transition into the area of culture for possible influence with Islamist ideological stances on fashion, as noted. Fashion and beauty are the linchpins in the domain of culture. Some of the campaigns by CoverGirl, for instance, have been used to portray “diversity.”

Qudosi said, “Later in the year, CoverGirl, a popular affordable makeup line, announced Muslim beauty blogger Nura Afia as its newest ‘brand ambassador.’ A 23-year-old wife and mother, Afia hosts a YouTube channel, with over 200,000 subscribers, for hijab and makeup tutorials.”

Many believe that there appears to be an attempt to homogenise the American values through a “funnel of multiculturalism.” With this attempt to shift the cultural conversation and values in America towards something appearing as, but not being, multiculturalism, the author argues that the mantra of Islamist groups is that they have lost their political ground.

Now, the battleground has been shifted to culture. There appears to be an assumption that if a woman, a Muslim woman, wears an Islamic garment, then non-Muslim men will recognise this and not harass the Muslim women: “…if Muslim women don an outer garment (jil-bab), non-Muslim men will recognise them as such and not harass them,” Qudosi said.

“A handful of Islamic scholars believe the practice of hijab grew out of exclusionary practices designed to draw a distinction between “believing” women (Muslims) and “non-believing” women (non-Muslims).” Qudosi argued.

“Beautiful Nura Afia in an advertising campaign is a far more appealing and consumer-friendly alternative to CAIR’s Nihad Awad,” Qudosi said, “or the political complexities of the Muslim Brotherhood. The face has changed but the message has not.”

Qudosi states that “Islamic culture embraces piety through” the covering of the female body, the Muslim woman’s body, which removes non-Muslim women of their dignity by viewing their bodies as mere property.

“The origin of the hijab tradition in Islam likely pre-dates the Quran, and comes from early Islamic society,” Qudosi said.

It has been argued that the mandatory wearing of the hijab for women does have merit with regards to the Quranic verses, but the “larger point”, according to Qudosi, is that at the same time “slavery was a standard practice. It thrived culturally through acts of social and religious demarcations, such as the hijab, which became to many Muslims a sign of class supremacy, whereas women who were not veiled have been, and continue to be, harassed and attacked.”

This appears to be from earlier slave-owning cultures in Arabia that had the “law of the veil.” So “social and religious demarcations” could be made with such symbols on women as the Hijab. In that, the sign of class supremacy was a Hijab in older times.

That is, the Muslim women would wear it based on the class supremacy and would not be harassed by non-Muslim men.

“It is then a fantastic stretch of the imagination when brands such as CoverGirl try to have consumers associate ‘equality’ and ‘diversity’ with hijabs and make-up. It also does not mirror the ‘Islam of peace’ that many Muslims try to emphasise,” Qudosi said.

Although, the current fashionable opinion is that the wearing of the Hijab is both chic and barrier breaking, it has been used “historically” as a barrier in life.

The concern of the author, one of many, is that “if you are not covered, you are not respectable and therefore not acceptable.”

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2022-04-11

China Protests to India Over Dalai Lama’s Visit

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/10

The Times of India reported on the recent statements by the Dalai Lama. Beijing has repeatedly warned against India having the Dalai Lama visit Arunachal Pradesh. However, the Dalai Lama has not taken these cautionary notes very heavily via Beijing and has decided to make a trip to India without cancellation.

It will be a 13-day trip to the northeast of the country, of India. The Tibetan spiritual leader has remarked that “things are normal” from his point of view.

He appears unfazed by the possibility of the repercussions of the 13-day trip to India. A foreign ministry spokesman from China reported that the visit by the Dalai Lama will “have serious damage on bilateral relations” for India.

He will attend, the Dalai Lama, a festival – the “Namami Brahmaputra festival on Sunday after addressing students at Gauhati University – along with other events. For example, the Dalai Lama will give an address at Dibrugarh University for the students in upper Assam.

After this, he will leave to Lumla – near Tawang – and will consecrate a Buddhist temple that is opening in Lumla.

The Nobel laureate will present a talk entitled “a human approach to world peace” that assisted the Dalai Lama; however, the “Ulfa (I)” appealed the laureate – who is the Dalai lama – to not speak negatively or “against China in public or in private.”

This was seen as a political issue rather than a talk alone. On April 10 and 11th, the Dalai Lama will visit Dirang and Bomdila, respectively, which is a sensitive area because it is where, in 1962, the Chinese army retreated. At that point, the Tibetan spiritual leader will then take a trip to the state capital on April 12.

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2022-04-11

Hawaiian Island to be Powered by Tesla Solar Power

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/09

Danielle Muoio published an article in collaboration with Business Insider and the World Economic Forum reporting on solar energy. In that, it has been reported that the Hawaiian island is instituting about 55,000 solar panels to power itself.

“Tesla officially unveiled the project Wednesday morning in Kauai following opening remarks by CTO JB Straubel and David Ige, governor of Hawaii. Tesla partnered with the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) to launch the project.”

Tesla, the solar power company, will be providing solar panels in addition to “giant battery packs” to a small Hawaiian island called Kauai. This was officially unveiled as a project, recently. The farm is expected to be composed of 54,968 solar panels with a mega wattage capacity of 13 in terms of solar generation capacity.

Tesla installed 272 large commercial batteries called the Powerpack 2 for the storage of the solar energy for use in the night. Fossil fuel use is expected to decrease by as much as 1.6 million gallons per annum based on estimates from Tesla.

“KIUC signed a contract with Tesla to purchase 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity for $.139 over a 20-year time frame,” Muoio said, “Before Tesla acquired SolarCity, the two companies agreed in February, 2016 to use Tesla’s 52 MWh Powerpack to bring 20 years of power to Kaua’i, so this project has been in the works for quite a bit.”

The solar system for the island will come in phases. It should be noted that SolarCity and Tesla were separate companies as of October, 2016, but were merged into one. In that, Tesla acquired solar city in November 2016.

“Tesla is also powering nearly the entire island of Ta’u in American Samoa with solar power and its Powerpacks.”

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2022-04-11

6,000 Flee ‘Terrifying’ Violence in South Sudan

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/09

The UNHCR or the UN Refugee Agency’s Mary Theru Wambui described the situation in the South Sudan difficult. 6,000 refugees have been reported to be fleeing South Sudan and escaping the violence into Uganda.

As well as the fighting near Pajok in Eastern Equatoria, ongoing fighting is also occurring in the districts of Magwi and Oboo near the border with Uganda, now the main host of the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis.

The UNHCR has expressed alarm at the deterioration in the security situation for South Sudan. At the moment, a northern Ugandan district has received over 6,000 South Sudanese Refugees with only 1,500 entering and over 4,500 crowded at the border.

“This spreading of violence signifies a worrying development,” Babar Baloch, UNHCR spokesperson said, “People fleeing the recent incident claimed that the town came under an indiscriminate attack by the South Sudan armed forces.”

The violence continues to be a significant concern for international organisations in addition to the refugee situation. There has been looting and beatings and killings. Children and women have been fleeing as well. Some have reported that bullets have been flying as they are escaping, or as they have been forced to lie on the ground as the bullets fly.

Auma Lucy Yubuan escaped with her kids and said, “I am so happy even though I have nothing to eat and I have lost everything, my children are alive. I was so scared I didn’t know if I would see them again. The bullets were flying everywhere and you couldn’t move, you had to lie on your belly. I am very grateful I am alive.”

In northern Uganda, the UNHCR has been stated to be “helping…desperate women, children, elderly, and the disabled.” These are officially refugees that are “in dire need of immediate humanitarian assistance including food, shelter, water and medical care.”

“Baloch said families fled the attack in Pajok in different directions; the elderly and disabled who could not run were shot dead. Many people are still hiding in the bush trying to find their way to Uganda, while homes and properties were looted and burned.”

The situation in Pajok has been estimated to be terrible, and the population is upwards of 50,000 people. At present, Uganda hosts over 832,000 refugees of South Sudanese dissent with 192,000 arriving in 2017 so far. There have been about 2,000 refugees “fleeing insecurity, violence and famine every day.”

3 out of 5 of the new arrivals of the refugees are children. “Some 1.7 million refugees have fled the world’s youngest country and the continuing brutal conflict. For more details, click here.”

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2022-04-11

Study on Science Denialism Reveals Surprising Results

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/09

Troy Campbell and Lauren Griffin in Scientific American reported that individuals who reject vaccinations and the consensus within the scientific community on climate change or global warming can, and often do, embrace the scientific research and facts from other areas of science.

In April, numerous people will be marching across America in the “March for Science” and will use it as a platform to push against the anti-scientific movements within the country. This is based on the November, 2016 elections in United States to some degree.

The comprehension of science or the appreciation of science at the very least are becoming more, and more, important. It is reported that there are television shows and spokespeople devoted to proper science and the consensus in the scientific community in addition to the proper dissemination of that consensus to the public in a respectful and constructive manner.

However, there are sceptics of climate change. As well, there are anti-vaccination initiatives throughout the US. One misconception pointed out is that people in general distrust scientists. In fact, based on a Pew Research Center poll done in 2015, people respect scientists in healthcare, food, and the environment.

It is the same for vaccinations. In other words, scientists and science have moderate to moderate-high levels of respect in the United States. Another misconception is that people do not use scientific findings and arguments. In fact, people will use scientific findings.

The difference is someone using what they believe to be credible scientific findings that aren’t and others who will use actually credible scientific findings, usually based on the scientific consensus among experts or those that know what they’re talking about.

Another misconception is that the disagreement with the scientific consensus or the scientific research findings are the main motivation or even a motivation for the denialism; whereas, the reality of the matter is that the implied solutions of scientific findings will motivate denial.

So, for instance, Republicans will more likely agree with climate science if within a market solution framework, which means a political ideological stance more appropriate to Republican principles of governance and political life.

One more misconception is that the correctness of facts is the reason for the denial of science by the “anti-science”. The reality is that “people often denying the relevance of facts, not just their correctness.” In other words, the situation is not as clear-cut in terms of denial is as one might think. People have their reasons.

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2022-04-11

South Korea Going Greener with New Charging Stations

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/10

South Korea will be expediting the building of 200 charging stations to continue the ‘greening’ of the country. That is, the charging stations will be for “green cars.”

That means the charging stations and the cars that they charge will be operating on electricity with electric fuel cells and liquefied petroleum gas by 2025. There are ongoing discussions amongst legislators and there is preparation for the revision of bills for this too.

“The Ministry of Land Transport is set to unveil plans to open multipurpose service areas for motorists driving green cars at a roundtable discussion to be held Friday together with the National Assembly and the ministries of environment and commerce.”

The government intends to provide the business opportunities for “private operators for the next 30 years.” This will be the basis for the station development in the beltways and highways throughout South Korea.

Each station will come with a hydrogen charger and another for the upcoming pure electric vehicles, according to an official from the Ministry of Land and Transport. This is part of a South Korean government plan of development of the fuel cells that will reduce the amount of net emissions, or the reduction of fossil fuel use in transports with these fuel cells.

Kang Ho-in, the Transport Minister for South Korea, reported that the other ministries in the relevant areas of the government in addition to legislators will be working together to implement this long-term plan for the future of transport.

It could be the basis for a slew of new job opportunities in the “hydrogen technology” sectors. “Establishing infrastructure such as charging stations and supporting R&D projects on green energy are part of promoting the new technology, officials said.”

In order to deal with the upcoming and ongoing challenges of climate change, this greening of the transportation of the country is something the government of South Korea believes will “help the nation to better deal with climate change as well as micro dust pollution.”

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2022-04-11

“Read the Quran”: Wife of Vice President of India, Salma Ansari, Speaks Out on Triple Talaq

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/09

The Times of India reported that the vice president Hamid Ansari’s wife, Salma Ansari, asserted that she could find no reference to “triple talaq” in the holy scripture.

Salma Ansari’s views on triple talaq come at a time when there is a nationwide debate on the practice and the validity of triple talaq, ‘nikah halala’ and polygamy practices among Muslims challenged in the Supreme Court.

“‘There is nothing like triple talaq in the Quran and women in India are being misguided over the issue,’ Salma said while addressing an event in Aligarh’s Madarsa at Civil Lines here on Saturday. ‘Read the holy scripture to clear your doubts,’ she advised.”

The wife “exhorted women to read the Quran” and further affirmed the fact that within the “holy scripture” there is no practice or justification for the practice within the text. Some of her comments have been “hailed by Muslim women, particularly the educated ones.”

“Zakia Soman, co-founder of the Bhartiya Muslim Morcha Andolan (BMMA), said that Salma Ansari is absolutely correct as the Quran has no mention of triple talaq.”

That is, they want this to be finished and done with and no longer part of the culture. Even further, she did raise doubts about some interpretations of the holy text and that women should not take things in the text for granted, within the Quran.

Furthermore, the issue has been “unnecessarily” fabricated during the developmental periods up to the present of Islam. In response to the question of divorce, Ansari stated that the statement three times of Talaq does not necessarily have any meaning to her.

“She said that women who fall victim to this practice have no option but to live with it, as Maulanas and Qazis support it. She said Salma Ansari should use her position to spread this word and save Muslim women from harassment.”

Dr Shadab Bano, assistant professor in History department, Aligarh Muslim University has stated that the practice is in fact un-Islamic and regrets the fact that the practices have become very common among Muslims and men against women, especially as the men can use this to their advantage over women.

By implication, this can be seen as a form of oppression overtly in the marital sphere against women and for men in this sphere of life, which apparently does not have an existence in the holy Scripture.

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2022-04-11

Two Islamic State Terrorist Attacks Kill At Least 43 in Egypt

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/10

More than 38 people have been killed in today’s blasts in Tanta and Alexandria which have been claimed by ISIS.

Two Islamic State (IS) attacks on Egyptian Coptic Christian churches in the last 24 hours have injured more than 50 and killed at least 43.

Egypt has declared a three-month state of emergency. The first attack occurred in the northern Egyptian city of Tanta, with the second attack on the city of Alexandria.

The Christian Copts are the repeated victims of these terrorist attacks based in Egypt.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for today’s attack which targeted churches in Tanta and Alexandria.

At least 43 people have been killed after two explosions targeting Coptic Christians in Tantra and Alexandria today. IS laid claim to the attacks. There is a known tension between Christians and Muslims within the country. Christians account for about 10% of the population.

The total population for Egypt is about 94 million people. Copts make up 10% of the population.

The tensions appear to be in isolated rural communities. However, the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi stated that the Islamist attacks have been on the Copts. The president has been emphasising that there is a need for continued unity of the religions within the country.

There have been other attacks such as in 2010 and 2011. “In a severe bombing of a church in December, nearly 30 people had been killed. At that time, the terrorism “Islamic State” (IS) confessed to the act.” Süddeutschen Zeitung said.

Süddeutschen Zeitung stated, “As the first Egyptian head of state, Egypt’s President visited the Coptic Christmas festival in January. In 2010, six Copts were killed during an attack by Islamists on a Christmas festival in the Egyptian Naj Hammadi; On New Year’s Day 2011, 23 people died in a bomb attack on a church in Alexandria.”

The end of April will see the visit of the Roman Catholic Pope Francis in Cairo, Egypt. It has been announced officially. He expresses solidarity with the Egyptian Copts.

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2022-04-11

Solar Power Improves Farming and the Lives of Farmers

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/09

Farmer’s lives have been improving with the increase in the efficiency, and even automation, in the domains of agriculture and farming. The World Economic (WEF) reported on the changing trends in the energy systems of the world of farming.

The author of the article, Mehrin Mahbub, described making a trip into the north of Bangladesh: “a young man working in a rice field under the scotching sun caught my attention. Habibur, 28, looked content amidst the wide green vista of fields.”

The life of this 28-year-old farmer was hard due to family and finance struggles. As a rice farmer, a rice cultivator, Habibur purchased a cow and leased land for rice cultivation, which “is a common practice in rural Bangladesh.”

With the rural Bangladeshi farming for Habibur, the irrigation is important for the yield and quality of the crops. However, for the irrigation, Habibur’s family needed diesel generators. Access to these is limited.

And “the diesel price [was] hiked in the local market, and he had to pay more than the government approved rate.” Circa October, 2015, Habibur and his family were able to have solar-powered irrigation, which allowed for solar pumps.

It “covers around 12 hectares of land and provides 500,000 liters of water daily. Habibur and 28 other farmers share the cost of a single irrigation pump that waters their fields. Their irrigation cost has dropped almost by half.”

Solar has less of a negative impact on the environment than diesel as an energy source. The cost in terms of finances and the environmental impact decreased from October, 2015 to the present. These solar pumps have made life easier for the farmers.

Money saved is money earned, and was used to buy more cattle. With the Bangladesh successes, there are solar-powered systems in homes for the provision of electricity in the rural areas of Bangladesh.

The World Bank is supporting this endeavour. It will help install 1,250 solar irrigation pumps by 2018. With the flatter terrain and higher levels of sunlight, the solar energy sources are adequate sources of energy for the farmers.

“The Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Development Project II (RERED II) is piloting solar-powered irrigation solutions using a public-private partnership model.” The WEF said, “The implementing agency, Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL) channels grant and credit funding to the non-government organisations and private investors who install the solar pumps.”

300 pumps are helping 8,000 farmers to date. The pumps need little maintenance and will reduce the emissions of carbon. About $0.9 billion is spent on diesel fuel per annum by Bangladesh for irrigation purposes. This will cost less, assist farmers and improve environmental conditions.

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2022-04-11

British Columbia, Canada Celebrates Centennial for Women’s Right to Vote

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/09

Women were enfranchised on April 5, 1917 in B.C. — the fourth province to allow women to vote after Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. But First Nations people and Asian-Canadians of Japanese, Chinese and South Asian couldn’t vote until the late 1940s. Credit: Sunday Edition.

CBC News made a report on the centennial of women’s right to vote in British Columbia, Canada. It was at that time that British Columbia provided the right for most women to vote.

The enfranchisement of women was April 5, 1917 in British Columbia, which was the fourth province to make voting legal for women. The provinces in Canada that allowed women the right to vote earlier were Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.

That is, Canadian democracy is only about 100 years old by definition. The suffragette movement in British Columbia began over a period of several decades, according to SFU Gender and Women’s Studies professor Lara Campbell, which had its roots in the temperance movement.

“Suffrage didn’t extend to all women at the time. First Nations people and Asian-Canadians of Japanese, Chinese and South Asian descent didn’t get the right to vote until the late 1940s,” the article said.

There were movements such as the women’s Christian Temperance Union that considered alcohol as one main issue for women of the time. Campbell said, “Women bore the brunt of men drinking alcohol particularly at a time when women didn’t have control over their wages and how to spend family income.”

The first groundwork for the movement according to Campbell occurred in the 1870s, almost a century and a half ago, with Susan B. Anthony, the American suffragette who visited Victoria, British Columbia and ‘gave a talk.’

Anthony was “shocked” by the attendance of men at the talk. “Women in B.C. cities were first allowed to vote for school board trustees in 1884, if they owned property,” CBC News reported.

When 1912 came around the corner, the opposition party – the liberals – took women’s rights (women’s suffrage) as one of its causes. “It put enfranchisement to a vote in a referendum during the fall election of 1916 — it was the only Canadian province to do so.”

That passed in addition to the legislation in the following spring. At that time, women aged 21 and older were given the right to vote, and eventually in 1918, federally. “I think that suffragists would have maybe been disappointed that women were still so underrepresented politically,” Campbell stated when speaking on the present state of affairs.

Circa 2013, BC Speaker Linda Reid made the statement that British Columbia provided or had the greatest number of women or proportional women parliamentarians in Canada.

This was at a total of 36% of the MLA’s. Of course, it is important to note that more work is needed at this time.

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2022-04-11

Venezuelan Riots and Protests – Antichavisti

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/09

*Translated from Italian to English for quotes.*

La Repubblica reported on the week of the ‘antichavisti’ recently with the third demonstration in a single week. Now, Venezuela is in the midst of a protest against the current president Maduro, who is both liked and disliked by separate groups of protesters. 17 people have been injured in Caracas in Venezuela from the activities of the protest. The offices of the opposition, Capriles, have been torched.

The police have been brought forth and fired both rubber bullets and tear gas. In other parts of the country, there have been marches and parades as another form of public demonstration. The injuries to 17 people were based on clashes between the opposition and the police.

Both the “Bolivarian” and the National Guard responded to the events of 4,000 protesters in the Campiña district at which point they then fired the rubber bullets and tear gas. The protesters then threw stones at the police. The mayor of the Chacao municipality disclosed the number of the wounded.

“The men of two bodies of security ‘Bolivarian’ (police and National Guard) responded advance of the 4000 protesters in the Campiña district by launching tear gas and rubber bullets.”

Other areas of the country had protests as well outside of the state capital. Others in opposition to the protesting opposition also marched to defend the current presidency of Nicolas Maduro; the opposition has made a public announcement that it will host five novel events. “The protests were held not only in Caracas but also in San Cristobal, Tachira state of the capital and in other cities of the country. In parallel with the opposition march, even the ‘Chavismo’ took to the streets to defend the government of President Nicolas Maduro. The opposition has already announced that in the coming days will hold five new events.”

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2022-04-11

Women’s Rights Fight in the Balkans

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/09

The McGill International Review discussed the Western Balkans, which is a region of Europe that comprises the former Yugoslavia and its neighbours. It changed the status of women throughout the 20^th century into the early 21^st century.

Group of female Yugoslav Partisans in Mount Dinara (near the border of present-day Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia), July 1943.

Before, in the earlier parts of the 20th century rather than the 21st century, women were by and large disenfranchised from the “social, economic, and political spheres.” The path to equality has been bumpy. That bumpiness comes from setbacks in and challenges to gender equality.

These are reported to “persist…to this day.” There is a purity culture with the practice of women having to be “sworn virgins” and that without an heir who is a male, the daughter takes on the role of the son and must live her life as a male. It is seen as reminiscent of the southeastern Europe’s patriarchal traditions.

The practices of “sworn virgins” remains a remnant of medieval practices that were part of some of the “poorest parts of Europe in terms of GDP per capita.” The “staunchly patriarchal societies” that can be found in southern Montenegro and northern Albania have this practice for families that have not birthed any sons.

The sons are typically associated with the transference of wealth and property. One reason for this is that women were not considered to be owners of property “under any circumstances.” The promise of swearing to be virgins and to never marry became the practice of sworn virginity.

The rights were therefore reserved solely for men. The women sworn to virginity would “dress in men’s clothes, smoke, carry weapons, and socialise with other men in male-only spaces.”

Some of these women that were sworn to this saw themselves as honoured and privileged rather than the estranged woman of the house. To this date, this is in some regards a continuing tradition.

Some women might express regret as to not being born male within these circumstances. In addition to the distinction of a patriarchal southeastern European cultural tradition found in the practice of “sworn virgins,” there are divisions of labour that are customary and can be found in the Partisan army. 12% of the combat units are women; 88% are men.

However, the roles given to these women were often as nurses rather than soldiers because nurses were seen to be women’s positions rather than the common soldiers or the common soldiery. After the postwar period, there was a commitment to women’s rights.

This was stated as “state, economic, and sociopolitical affairs” commitment connected to the constitution for the “newly formed Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.” It was after this point that women were given the right to vote, but only after several centuries lacked universal suffrage and general disenfranchisement.

There are some current significant efforts to get rid of the “archaic practices” associated with the sworn virginity practices. An influential women’s organisation spans across the entirety of Yugoslavia today.

One educational initiative is the mass education and literacy courses provided for “400,000 women” for them to learn how to write and read only one year after the conclusion of the war at the beginning of the post-war period.

The period with the advancements of the 20^th century followed the postwar period. Technically, all times after that major war are possible as there were transgressions of human rights as well as women’s rights that “indelibly marked the collective consciousness.”

There were cases seen here as seen in other areas of war such as rape as a weapon of war in addition to genocide. This was during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, mainly executed by the actions of the nationalist Serbian forces.

The international criminal tribunal of the former Yugoslavia had “set a legal precedent clasping rape as a tool of genocide and a form of torture when used in war and proceeded to convict multiple war criminals on charges.”

Some see this as a win for women’s rights; however, it can be seen also as a tragedy for the victims – rape for war purposes is rape. In any case, there have been reports from the European Union stating that there have been advancements as well as challenges to the institution of laws and rights for them.

“While crucial progress has been made, the situation remains significantly less than ideal, even compared to the imperfect status of women’s rights in the West. Much remains to be done, like changing the dismissive attitude many hold towards feminism,” the author of the article said.

Implementing laws and institutions that ensure the promotion and protection of women’s rights, and adequately enforcing the gender equality that so many Balkan states formally espouse. If we ever want to see lasting peace and prosperity in the Balkans, women’s rights must be a priority for all current and future politicians that want to be taken seriously.

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2022-04-11

BREAKING NEWS: 13 Christians Reported Dead in Tanta, Egypt

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/09

At least 13 people have been killed in an explosion St George’s Coptic church in the city of Tanta, north of Cairo., Egypt.

According to various television channels, whilst the cause of the explosion is not yet known, at least 40 people had been injured in the Palm Sunday attack.

Egypt’s Christian minority has often been targeted by Islamist militants in recent years.

25 people died in December of 2016 when a bomb exploded at a Coptic cathedral in Cairo.

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2022-04-11

Science News in Brief – April 8th, 2017

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/08

25th annual Malofiej International Infographics Summit and awards

According to Jen Christiansen in Scientific American, there was a contest with 1300 entries from over 130 media companies and more than 30 countries. Participants in the context submitted written material.

“The 25th annual Malofiej International Infographics Summit—hosted in Pamplona, Spain by the Spanish chapter of the Society for News Design and the School of Communication at the University of Navarra—concluded last week with award announcements.”

Scientific American won a silver medal for the print category in January 2016. Some of the “Best of Show awards were bestowed upon La Lettura (Italy) for “The Journey of Foreign Fighters” (print), and The New York Times (U.S.) for “Olympic Races Social Series” (online).

Research community let down by Budget 2017 in Canada

The Calgary Herald reported that the university research community has not received as much is it would like from the new budget proposed by the federal government. However, there are “notable investments in higher education” for the coming years.

Nevertheless, the universities were in “anticipation mode” for the funding. The current announcements are that the investments added to the previous years’ investments will be $2 billion for various research spaces in addition to infrastructure.

The budget 2017 from the Canadian federal government has also been heavily invested in “research excellence such as artificial intelligence.” An additional $221 million for research internships will be had through the MITACS program, which is a “major investment in young people.”

American hard power as science power, and vice versa

Peter J. Hotez in Scientific American talked about hard power and soft power. The typical phraseology in the international community is soft power and hard power. Science, Hotez argues, or America’s science, is its hard power and, therefore, its greatness.

It is “vital to our homeland security.” With reflection on World War II and the expansion and building of the military in United States, the scientific infrastructure that was built at that time even through the Cold War.

However, the infrastructure in the United States for science are at a point of decay with many people giving second thought to the possibility of embarking on a career in science. The author of the article is an academic dean and stated that we are “losing or may have lost a generation of young scientists.”

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2022-04-11

Politics News in Brief – April 8th, 2017

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/08

The UK is said to need to be ready to ‘vote against EU measures’

According to BBC News, “EU proposals should be considered by the UK both as an EU member state, and in terms of their Brexit implications, the European Scrutiny Committee said. Policies would affect the UK up to, and in some cases after, Brexit, it said.”

Prime Minister Theresa May started the formal proceedings for the Brexit process with the “triggering” of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. That is, without 27 other EU member states and the UK extending the talks deadline, then the Brexit will proceed.

The UK government has stated that it “will continue to negotiate, implement and apply EU legislation” until the time of the completion of the Brexit processes. until Brexit. Officially, the UK will leave the EU on March 29, 2019.

UK F-35 jets in Turkey have become a security concern

BBC News reported on the UK’s F-35 jets that are in Turkey in the moment and have been brought forward as a concern. A security concern because there will be “major servicing work” on those F-35s in Turkey.

George Kereyan, SNP MP, has made a call for an inquiry to the policy surrounding this. The reason being the Turkish attempted coup in addition to the tensions association with the NATO partners.

However, the Ministry of Defence stated that this was an “international project with a global support network.” Kereyan stated that the UK “should” put together contingencies in the light of the possibility of a diplomatic crisis tied to Turkey.

New $10 banknote for Canada

CBC: Politics reported that the Canada 150 celebrations came with the unveiling, by the Bank of Canada, of a new $10 banknote. It features the portraits of 4 Canadian politicians with Canadian landscapes and Inuit art.

On Canada’s sesquicentennial, it was unveiled in Ottawa. This is “only the only the fourth time in Canada’s history that [the Bank of Canada] has created a commemorative banknote.”

“Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz and Ginette Petitpas Taylor, parliamentary secretary to the minister of finance, made the announcement,” and there will be 40 million of the $10 banknotes printed.

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2022-04-11

The Death of Don Rickles

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/08

Numerous outlets have reported on the death of the “insult comedian” Don Rickles, who died at the age of 90 on April 6. Jimmy Kimmel provided a heartfelt and teary-eyed series of personal stories about the late insult comedian. Kimmel was moved in reminiscing about the passing of Don Rickles.

He said that he loved Rickles “very much.” He noted that he went to dinner with Rickles after 17 appearances on his show. He described Don Rickles as a man of great warmth to the audience.

Seth Meyers another comedian in the late-night television show world described how he introduced himself to Don Rickles after a party where he was a member of the Saturday Night Live crew at the time.

Stephen Colbert considered the meeting of Rickles at the Emmys an “incredible honor.” Variety reported that Don Rickles had a career spanning six decades. Rickles was common in the nightclub acts as well as in performances in Las Vegas.

He took part in films such as Toy Story, in which he voiced Mr. Potato Head. Rickles had a career with many “ups and downs” changing with the comedic taste of the culture. The San Diego Chicago-Tribune provided some of his best lines:

“Show business is my life. When I was a kid I sold insurance, but nobody laughed.”
“Is that your wife, sir? … What was it, a train?”
“You are a politician. Black, white, Jew, gentile, we’re all working for one cause: to figure out how you became governor.”
“It’s tough having the last name ‘Rickles.’ Luckily, my kids handled it great.”
“Room service is great if you want to pay $500 for a club sandwich.”
“Struggling is hard because you never know what’s at the end of the tunnel.”
“I’ve got an accountant who’s been with me forty years. If he makes a mistake, he dies.”
“Eddie Fisher married to Elizabeth Taylor is like me trying to wash the Empire State Building with a bar of soap.”
“Clint’s idea of a good time is sitting on a pickup truck watching his dog bark.”
“Who picks your clothes – Stevie Wonder?”

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2022-04-11

Religion News in Brief – April 8th, 2017

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/08

Ireland losing its religion

According to BBC News, there has been a decrease in Irish belief in religion. Those who have identified as having no religion increased by 73.6% from the previous numbers compared to the recent census statistics office report.

“The number of people who stated they had no religion increased from 269,800 to 468,400, the census found. “Some 3,729,100 people identified as Catholic – 78.3% of the population – compared to 84.2% in April 2011.”

The number of Muslims in the country went from 63,400 to 49,200 since 2011. Orthodox Christianity rose 37.5% to 62,400 with Hindus rising by 34.1% from about 10,000 in 2011 to 14,300 now.

Religion and Ethics department loss from BBC

The Church Times reports that the BBC will be losing its Religion and Ethics department, which is Salford, Manchester. This is purportedly on the sole “loss of Songs of Praise to independent producers, earlier this month, it was confirmed last week.”

The remaining television producers – “religious television producers” – have been eliminated. The BBC removed the in-house guarantee for the program. Lisa Opie, director of factor at BBC Studios, had an email leaked about the redundancy of staff.

“Moving forward, we intend to continue to use Salford as a base to make some Religion and Ethics programmes,” Opie said, “These will be on a seasonal basis, staffed mostly by freelancers. We’ll also make some Religion and Ethics programmes in Glasgow.”

American hard power as science power, and vice versa

BBC Culture states the major influence on Western culture has been an obscure and oft unnoticed religion called Zoroastrianism that worships Ahura Mazda and believes the world is in a cosmic battle between good and evil.

“The concepts of Heaven and Hell, Judgment Day and the final revelation of the world, and angels and demons all originated in the teachings of Zarathustra.”

The religion has influenced a variety of thinker such as Freddy Mercury, Nietzsche, and Voltaire as well as popular culture in the modern era such as Star Wars and Game of Thrones.

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2022-04-11

Airstrikes in Syria by the US Causes International Fallout

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/08

Dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from two US Navy ships in the Mediterranean US Navy

The US has launched a missile strike against Syria for the first time since the civil war began, targeting an airbase from which the US said this week’s chemical weapons attack on civilians was launched by Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The attacks have made one of the most damaging wars in recent years even more unstable, raising the spectre of a confrontation between the world’s two most powerful international military powers.

The United Nations yesterday affirmed that any actions in Syria must be in line with international law. Iran and Russia are opposed to the actions by the United States. Britain, Canada, France, and Israel have shown varied degrees of support for those actions.

The United Nations political affairs chief, Jeffrey Feltman, stated that any actions should be “rooted in the principles of the United Nations and international law” and that the actions that are needed immediately should be in line with those as well as protecting the Syrian people.

“There can be no genuine protection if the parties to the conflict, government and opposition alike, are permitted to act with impunity,” Feltman said to the UN Security Council, “and if the Syrian government continues to commit human rights violations against its own citizens.”

The United States cruise missiles on the Syrian airbase have been close to partaking of a clash with the Russian military. The Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev stated that the United States President Donald Trump and his first “foray” into the Syrian Civil War is a potential problem.

The Russian representative to the UN Council, the UN Security Council, has decried the airstrikes by the nine states with the cruise missiles. However, the United States and its allies have shown support for the strikes.

The United States ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley stated that the Trump Administration will be prepared to take more steps in Syria as necessary. She has stated that it is not something they hope will be necessary, but that the United States military is prepared to do more.

Haley said, “The United States will not stand by when chemical weapons are used. It is in our vital national security interest to prevent the spread and use of chemical weapons.”

The airbase in Syria was the Shayrat airbase and actually was home to Russian special forces and military helicopters. It is in part of the Kremlin’s efforts to support the Syrian government’s efforts.

The Kremlin, in a public statement, stated, “President Putin views the U.S. strikes on Syria as aggression against a sovereign state in violation of the norms of international law and on a made-up pretext.”

This is in the Kremlin’s effort to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria or ISIS. This has been reported as a ‘battering’ of United States-Russia relations. Moscow is hoping that Trump will revive the relationship between the United States and Russia.

The main airbase and naval facility of Russia were not hit by airstrikes by the US. The Russian President Vladimir Putin has openly condemned the airstrikes as illegal with a warning that further moves by the Trump Administration could damage the relationship between the two nations.

The ties were reported, by the CBC, to be at post-Cold War lows. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev claimed that the strikes were ‘one step away’ from “causing military clashes with Russia.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that “Canada fully supports the United States’ limited and focused action to degrade the Assad regime’s ability to launch chemical weapons attacks against innocent civilians, including many children.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday Canada was briefed in advance of U.S. missile strikes against the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons capabilities, and ‘fully supports’ the U.S. move.

The Canadian prime minister made further statements about the use of chemical weapons in addition to the crimes of the regime in Syria against its own people.

“President Assad’s use of chemical weapons and the crimes the Syrian regime has committed against its own people cannot be ignored. These gruesome attacks cannot be permitted to continue operating with impunity,” Trudeau said, “This week’s attack in southern Idlib and the suffering of Syrians is a war crime and is unacceptable. Canada condemns all uses of chemical weapons. Canada will continue to support diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in Syria.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that he “fully supports” the actions by the Trump Administration with the airstrikes in Syria. “In both word and action…[Trump]…sent a strong and clear message…the use and spread of chemical weapons will not be tolerated.” Netanyahu said.

Iran has condemned the missile launch and noted that this will “strengthen terrorists.” Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Bahram Ghasemi, said, “Iran … condemns use of chemical weapons … but at the same time believes it is dangerous, destructive and violation of international laws to use it as an excuse to take unilateral actions.”

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2022-04-11

An Interview with Christine M. Shellska – President, Atheist Alliance International

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/08

Christine Shellska is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Communication, Media and Film, Faculty of Arts, at the University of Calgary, Canada. Her research involves studying the rhetorical strategies employed by the Intelligent Design Creationism movement, and her areas of focus include history, philosophy and sociology of science, and rhetoric.

Among other involvement in the secular community, she is the President of Atheist Alliance International, the first Canadian to be elected to the Board of Directors for the American Humanist Association, and a regular co-host on the Calgary-based Legion of Reason podcast.

What is the standard, straightforward definition of atheism?

The most accurate, succinct definition of “atheism” is a lack of a belief in a god or gods. But if you want a slightly longer description, American Atheists has an excellent summary, here.

How did you become an Atheist, e.g. arguments from logic and philosophy, evidence from mainstream science, or experience within traditional religious structures?

I was raised in a non-religious household, and I grew up in a large, ethnically and religiously diverse city in Canada. Most of the religious people I knew growing up were very moderate. There is quite a robust community of new-agers here, who reject organised religion and self-identify as non-believers. Atheism is very normalised here.

In terms of philosophical influences, I was introduced to scepticism at a very young age, when I asked Santa for a toy, despite my parents warning me that it wouldn’t be what I expected. It wasn’t. I learned that I shouldn’t always believe what I see in TV adverts (especially ones targeted at children prior to Christmas).

My Dad was also involved in advertising, and I am by trade a graphic designer with a specialisation in corporate communications, marketing and advertising. I’ve always been fascinated by how language and imagery are used as tools of persuasion, and there is plenty of fodder in advertising to pique the sceptical mind and cultivate a healthy “bullshit detector.”

I went to public schools, and the curriculum was secular; science was understood as factual, but subject to change in light of new discoveries. I don’t remember anybody denying evolution, so I find this Intelligent Design movement very interesting.

I’m studying it from a rhetorical perspective for my PhD dissertation, and that’s how I entered the atheist community, when I attended my first American Humanist Association conference (I’m now on their Board of Directors).

In terms of traditional religious structures, my family rarely attended religious services, except for things like weddings and funerals. While I briefly explored some religions in my youth, and concluded they were mostly nonsense, I’ve never been constrained by the boundaries of traditional religious structures.

What is the best reason you have ever come across for atheism?

I can’t narrow it down to one reason; I’ve heard many compelling stories about why people have left their faiths. Some people have witnessed or suffered cruelty at the hands of their religion; some have come to atheism because they got in an argument, went online to prove their religion was true, and stumbled upon refutations.

I don’t have those experiences; for me, atheism is the default. I’ve never had to leave a religion, which for many atheists is an enormous risk, an act of bravery, and a painful process. One of the best reasons I’ve heard for religion is that it provides comfort, but atheism provides no such comfort. I don’t know if I would say this is the “best” reason for atheism, but I find it the most oft cited and compelling: a commitment to being honest to one’s self.

Is it more probable for atheism it to be accepted among the younger sub-population?

It depends on a number of factors, personal as well as geographical location, culture, access to education, internet access, and so on. But some societies are infested with proselytisers who take advantage of basic human needs; some societies live under oppressive regimes where media is highly censored, religious or political dissent is harshly penalised, and so on.

There are undoubtedly Atheists among those populations, but they might not dare to identify as such. De-stigmatising atheism will be more challenging in these areas, but the internet has facilitated the establishment of groups and on-line Atheist communities who are actively working to normalise atheism, many of whose members are young adults.

There are regions where younger generations are increasingly accepting atheism, and I think that will continue. Campaigns like Richard Dawkins’ “There’s Probably No God” bus signage and the Out Campaign helped normalise atheism to the Western world, and elsewhere. Many prominent academics and celebrities proudly identify as Atheists.

In societies where it is normalised though avenues like social media and popular culture, youth are more likely to accept atheism. Strategies to normalise and cast a positive light on atheism will vary from region to region. In some areas, engaging in activism means risking one’s life.

Being an ‘Atheist’ in some countries can mean being labelled a “terrorist” – such as in Saudi Arabia. What are your thoughts—well, more feelings—on this?

It must be terrifying to live in societies like that, not only for Atheists, but for religious minorities as well. There are a lot of places that I would like to visit at some point, but I’ve crossed some off my list, for awhile anyway. I have a unique last name, and goodness knows what would happen if an unfriendly border guard agent decided to Google it. I’m glad I live in a peaceful country, where I don’t fear anybody. The people I fear are the ones who fear me.

You are the president of Atheist Alliance International. What tasks and responsibilities come with being the president?

I’m responsible for the overall management and operation of AAI. I chair our meetings and oversee the activities of Board members, their teams, and their projects. I act as AAI’s public representative and media spokesperson.

What are the popular activities provided by Atheist Alliance International?

We support a number of educational initiatives, including two yearly scholarships, grants, and fundraising for projects and campaigns launched by our member organisations. Among these are the Kasese Humanist Primary School in Uganda, the Critical Thinking Project in Guatemala, and the Humanist Association for Leadership Equality and Accountability’s (HALEA) “Stand Up for Reason,” campaign, bringing awareness to the plight of children and adults accused of “witchcraft” in Uganda. Our communication outreach includes Secular World magazine, formerly a membership benefit, but now available for free at issuu.com/atheistalliance, and we support, attend, and participate at various conferences worldwide.

In 2013, AAI was granted UN Special Consultative Status. We defend the rights of religious non-believers and others harmed by religion and superstition, and we advocate secular, evidence-based public policy. We attend meetings in New York and Geneva, submit written and deliver oral statements, and collaborate with organisations on issues of mutual interest.

In 2013, we also launched our Asylum Project, to help support Atheists and Secularists known to our member and partner organisations who have received threats or been targets of religious violence. Due to budgetary restraints and the overwhelming number of asylum-seekers seeking our help, our role is primarily limited to offering asylum-seekers information on relocating to safe countries, and endorsing their applications with letters of support.

Occasionally asylum-seekers need immediate assistance with legal fees and short-term living expenses, and we collaborate with several international and national humanitarian organisations to collectively contribute to these expenses.

Sadly, not everybody who seeks our help will qualify for asylum. Many of those who are aware of this harsh reality have asked us to give them a voice, to share their experiences, and to overcome the restrictions that prevent individuals living in closed societies from being able to speak freely without fearing for their lives, and the lives of their families.

Many atheists and secularists live lives of secrecy, forced to deny their basic human rights to freedom of conscience and belief, fearing violence and death, even at the hands of their own families. We also try to lend a voice to Atheists and Secularists living in closed societies by translating and disseminating their works across our communication platforms.

What have been the most emotionally moving experiences in your time as the president?

My interactions with asylum-seekers, and Atheists and moderates living in closed societies have definitely been the most emotionally moving experiences I’ve had. Many of the requests we receive to be included in our asylum project are accompanied by heartbreaking stories, sometimes photos. I’ve developed a few friendships through social media and Skype, people who want to leave their countries because they live in fear, sometimes even in hiding. Some of people have even asked me to personally intervene, and the worst part is telling them I can’t help them, that I have neither the means nor the power to overcome laws and procedures.

Some of the asylum-seekers we’ve helped have been successful with their applications, and those are moments of profound joy, worth celebrating.

Atheist Alliance International is, as per the title, an international atheist collective. That is, it is representative of the global Atheist community. However, even looking at geographic distribution, on one variable, the number of Atheists can differ drastically, even region-to-region (Europe, MENA, etc). What countries and regions have the most Atheist members?

I think that the methods and reporting mechanisms of many studies do not accurately capture global atheism accurately. If self-reporting is involved, some might fear participating in research surveys. Categories of identity like “none of the above,” “agnostic,” and “non-believer” can be contentious and vaguely interpreted. Some countries demand their citizens identify with the dominant religion, and some measure religious affiliation based on, for example, religion recorded at birth, thus studies that rely on census data can be inaccurate.

Due to the challenges of acquiring accurate data, I think there are more Atheists globally than these studies can reflect.

Having said that, the most comprehensive studies I’m aware of are Pew’s Global Religious Landscape, the International Humanist and Ethical Union’s (IHEU) Freedom of Thought Report, and the US Department of State’s annual International Religious Freedom Report.

In terms of AAI’s membership, we have 36 global affiliate and associate member organisations representing six of the seven continents. Of our individual members, 45% are located in the US, 15% in Australia, 10% in Canada, 6% in each of Germany and the UK, and the remainder in various countries throughout the world.

What are some of the demographics of Atheist Alliance International? Who is most likely to join Atheist Alliance International? (Age, sex, sexual orientation, and so on.)

We don’t track our individual members’ social demographics, nor do we have data on the composition of our member organisations. However, AAI hosts the Atheist Census project, a brief survey that queries on country of origin, preferred non-religious identity, religious background, education level, age, and gender identity. Anybody can participate our survey and access our results through an interactive graphical interface located at www.atheistcensus.com. So far, we have nearly 285,000 responses.

We do not purport the Atheist Census to be a scientific study; it is an informal survey that in large part serves as a tool of solidarity to let Atheists in closed societies know they’re not alone. However, our findings on gender imbalance are consistent with other research (see, for example, Phil Zuckerman’s 2009 publication, “Atheism, Secularity, and Well-Being,” originally published in Sociology Compass, hosted by the Secular Policy Institute. At the time of writing, only about 26.3% of our Atheist Census respondents identify as female, compared to 73.1% who identify as male (0.6% identify as “other”).

Last year, we issued a questionnaire to prominent women activists, parliamentarians, academics, journalists, and scientists, to understand their perceptions of male over-representation within Atheist and Secular organisations, and to recommend best-practices to address gender imbalance for our Board of Directors and our member organisations. Our Gender Imbalance Report is located here.

What have been the largest activist and educational initiatives provided by Atheist Alliance International? Out of these, what have been honest failures and successes?

I hope that throughout this interview, I’ve highlighted a few of AAI’s and its member organisations’ recent successful projects and initiatives. We have recently applied for Participatory Status at the Council of Europe, and among other projects, our future plans include launching billboard campaigns focusing on normalising atheism in Uganda and Guatemala.

It is difficult to regard our challenges as “failures,” rather than unsuccessful experiments and lessons-learned. Much of our work is uncharted territory, so we have few empirical measures to evaluate the intangible aspects of our work. Most of our initiatives involve some degree of risk, which we carefully assess on the basis of their potential returns, financial as well as intangible.

Some of our initiatives and projects are not fully realised because of the usual challenges that many non-profit organisations face – lack of financial and human resources (with the exception of one paid employee, we are all volunteers), competing for donor dollars, and so on.

Who/what are the main threats to atheism as a movement?

Islamism and radical extremists seek to not only destroy atheism, but to impose their theocratic agenda worldwide.

There is an element on the political left, among them many atheists, for whom Maajid Nawaz coined the term “regressives” (shared here by The Friendly Atheist:). Nawaz, along with figures like Sam Harris, Bill Maher, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Maryam Namazie, Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, Ali Rizvi, Sarah Haider, Armin Navabi, and many others, draw hatred from both Islamic extremists as well as certain liberals for challenging the claims of Islam.

Even though they explicitly condemn anti-Muslim bigotry, such allegations have, for example, led to cancellations of some of their talks, and landed Nawaz and Hirsi Ali on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “A Journalist’s Manual: Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists,” located here. They are often accused of bigotry, racism, or “Islamophobia,” a made-up word deployed as a rhetorical device to pressure those who speak out against Islam into silence.

Consequently, there has been a breakdown of dialogue among the Atheist movement, a hesitancy to critically and honestly engage in discussions on Islam, and a tendency by some to marginalise the very voices who have experienced Islam first-hand. Some who condemn criticism of Islam have a uniquely and narrow western perspective, advancing Islam as a “feminist religion,” fetishising the hijab, and so on, seemingly oblivious to the plight of their sisters forced to live under Islamic theocracy.

No religion is exempt from sceptical criticism. We need to call out our apologists, and unite around the common cause of advancing secularism and defending the rights of Atheists worldwide.

How can people get involved with Atheist Alliance International, even donate to it?

Our website is located at www.atheistalliance.org. The Support AAI drop-down menu takes you to information on how to become a member, volunteer, or donate to our various projects and campaigns.

If you’d like to donate to our Asylum Project, our GoFundMe is located here: https://www.gofundme.com/2ekrkgrv.

Our social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AtheistAllianceInternational/.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/atheistalliance.

Thank you for your time, Christine.

Thank you, Scott; the pleasure was mine.

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2022-04-11

The Upcoming Era of the Edible Drone

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/07

Magdalena Mis reported through the World Economic Forum (WEF), originally through the World Bank, that there is a new type of drone that is in fact, edible. That’s right, eatable.

These “edible drones” could be used for humanitarian purposes, such as being, “filled with food, water or medicine” for the purposes of humanitarian emergencies. Areas that are difficult to reach by other means could have supplies delivered via drones, which could be a major benefit to humanitarian efforts trying to reach those remote areas.

It should be noted that over 50 kg of food can be stocked inside the edible drones, only costing 150 British pounds. Additionally, the drones could deliver “supplies to feed up to 50 people per day” and the prototype is mostly made of wood. Thus, the edible drone will be the post-prototype version of the drone, by implication.

In the report, there were notes to some of the most dangerous areas of the world today, in terms of war or combat, such as Aleppo and the Islamic State or ISIS. An ex-army catering officer and the founder of Windhorse Aerospace in the UK, Nigel Gifford, said, “Food can be component to build things.”

Gifford continued, “You fly (the drone) and then eat it…In combat zones like we have in Aleppo or Mosul nothing will work except what we have…With parachuted air drops the problem is you can’t guarantee where the loads will land.” Gifford and the team are waiting for the appropriate financing for the full experimentation of the idea of the edible drone. Windhorse Aerospace presented the idea to the aid minister of Britain, Priti Patel, and “initial testing” is expected “in May and should be ready to be deployed on its first mission by the end of the year.”

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2022-04-11

An Interview with Jim G. Helton – President of Tri-State Freethinkers

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/07

So many terms float around the Web, but they’re generally overlapping, such as secular humanist, bright, and so on. For the Tri-State Freethinkers, what is the definition of a freethinker?

Basically, somebody who makes decisions using science, logic, and reason without dogma.

How did you become a freethinker?

It started with my wife. We were getting-married Catholic. And we were going through the process; she knew nothing about religion. The priest was explaining the Eucharist. My wife said, “You want me to drink who and eat what?” She was being serious.

[Laughing]

[Laughing] That started my doubts and got me out of my bubble. It was a 10-year downward spiral from Catholicism to Christianity to Deist to agnostic to atheism over a period of researching the Bible and questioning things. That’s what started my questioning.

Based on conversation with others, and based on reading about the topic extensively, what seems like the main reason for people becoming freethinkers?

It is different for a lot of people. For me, when I started researching the Bible, it wasn’t to disprove it. Being raised Catholic, I thought some of these are truths. Some of these are moral stories. I wanted to find the fact from the fiction. I was horrified when I found out it was pretty much all fiction—like none of it was true. It was eye-opening for me. For some, it is morality.

That was also a part of it. When you start looking at the moral of the story, even though you say it isn’t true historically, people say to look at the moral of the story.

The Internet has been a huge boost for people to have access to information. That’s been huge. For Millennials, it seems to be the anti-equal rights stance the church has taken on issues, e.g. LGBTQ, women’s health care. It has pushed a lot of people away from the church.

What is the best argument for freethinking you’ve ever come across?

The best argument for it. It just makes sense. If you were using common sense and you were using logic and reason with no agenda, you would want to know the truth. It’s not necessarily where religion comes from. Religion starts with the answer and then they do everything they can to prove that it’s true. Science starts with a question & then searches for the truth no matter where it takes us.

If life was lived that way, and politics was that way, the world would be so much of a better place.

Now, you are the president of Tri-State Freethinkers. Did you found it?

Yes, my wife and I founded it 4 years ago.

What bumps and setbacks, and successes, came along with founding it with your wife?

It was an amazing thing. I got back from the Reason Rally and was motivated to do something.

The original Reason Rally; and my wife wanted to do community service projects, but it was all churches proselytising. We founded Tri-State Freethinkers on the foundation of doing activism for myself, and community service for my wife. But we needed a way to bring people in, so we used education as a way to do that by having meetings.

Then we created some social events because we really enjoyed each other’s company. We have 1,900 members in our parent organisation within 4 years. We absorbed 3 other organisations, which gives us about 5,500 members, with some overlap. It has been an amazing journey. We’ve made national and international press based on protests against the Ark Encounter. We changed the public perception of what a freethinker & atheist is. But it has also come with a price. It cost me my original job.

I’ve received death threats. My family and kids have also received threats. That’s the baggage that comes with the territory, but I would say that’s few and far between compared to all of the good that we’re doing. It provides a sense of community for people. I would do it again if I could.

With the 5,500 members based on the absorption of the other organisations, what are some of the demographics? Who is most likely to be a freethinker?

So, age-wise, we’re very mixed. We have kids come to some of our events all the way up to seniors. We are very, very age diverse. We’re also not very heavily male-dominated. 70% of our board are women & about 50% of our members are women. Where we need to get better on diversity is with race. We live in Kentucky, which isn’t very diverse & other races tend to be more religious, it is even harder to break that barrier.

You mentioned the change in perception of the public in the local area of atheism, or freethinking, in general. As well, you noted national and international press for the organisation. What explicit activist causes has Tri-State Freethinkers taken up, what were they, and what were their successes?

We’ve taken on quite a bit. Our first one, we adopted the highway in front of the Creation Museum.

[Laughing]

[Laughing] We also followed up with the highway in front of the Ark Encounter. That got us a lot of press in the atheist and freethought community. In addition, we were doing a community service project. It brought people out to do atheist community service. People will do it. It was a huge turnout. That was the first thing we did. The second thing we did was challenging Gideon Bible distribution in the public schools.

We were successful in removing them from the public schools in Kentucky. Not all of them because they are like whack-a-mole. They pop up everywhere, but we have been successful in stopping it. I get calls from all over the country. I even got a call from Canada asking, “How can you combat the Gideons?” There are ways to stop them. We have become very, very good at it. So, that got us a lot of recognition on our success.

We tackled sex education. There were churches teaching abstinence only sex education in public schools. We have gotten very good at throwing out the churches that teach that. We struggled at getting comprehensive sex education implemented. It is an ongoing process. We have created a little noise there. We’re stilling working on that.

We put an international project together where people from around the world come in from the Ark Encounter. We were on Fox & Friends Live, The New York Times, the Washington Post, and all of the local TV. People from the UK and Sweden. We are in the Bill Nye Film that is coming out. It is a small piece, but we have a cameo in the Bill Nye film. We Believe in Dinosaurs documentary about the Ark Encounter. We have a fairly decent-sized role in that.

We help pass women’s resolution in Cincinnati saying we have to pay them equally, give them health care and services, and so on. We hope to have the ordinance passed this year.

We’ve taken on equal rights issues. We are doing the March for Science. We were behind the Women’s March here in Cincinnati. So, with equal rights, we try to get involved from an activism standpoint to bring out our members.

What is the general perception of freethinking in America?

90% of people don’t know what it is. That’s why David Silverman from American Atheists doesn’t use it because nobody knows what it is. [Laughing] That’s exactly why we chose the name because people don’t know what it is. A lot of people join our group because they agree with our social issues. But if we said we were an atheist organisation, they wouldn’t come to us.

So, we don’t ask what your religion is. We don’t ask if you have any.

With most people, once they get in the social circle and start talking, they realise they have the same values. They’re probably either deist or agnostic. They just didn’t identify as an atheist, just because of the terminology. Personally, I identify as an atheist, but as a group we’re open to beyond atheists. A lot of people that hang around us end up identifying as atheists as well, but we don’t ask and we don’t care.

We do so many things it’s hard to name them all. We’ve taken on the death penalty. We are for dying with dignity. We support Planned Parenthood. We’re there almost every week. We don’t expect everyone to agree with us on every issue to be part of our group.

By my read of the United States in recent history and currently, there are rather extreme religious perspectives—religious fundamentalism. At the same time, the majority of religious individuals are like most non-believing individuals. They live their lives decently and get along with their neighbour. What are some activities that you’re coordinating with religious groups for good causes?

For instance, you were mentioning feeding the homeless. Are there initiatives akin to that where you’re building bridges like that among communities, between communities?

Let me go back a question because it will tie in together. I think when people take action, they worry about offending people or trying to appeal to a wide range of people. When we do something or we do an action, for instance, we protested the Ark Encounter by putting up a billboard and it was on the site for a day. It got everybody’s attention. People were like, “You’re going to piss off the Christians.” We were like, “Don’t care.” “You are only appealing to your base.” “Yes.” “You are only doing this for hardcore atheists.” “Yes, that was my goal.”

We want it because those hardcore people that would come out for that are the ones who are going to run the organisation. They are the ones who are going to work 1-20 hours a week volunteering for free. That’s my appeal. That’s what I wanted. I wasn’t extending an olive branch to my Christian neighbours. They were not my target. I still knew the creationists were going to go. At the same time, our interfaith committee says, “We have a meeting with the church.”

I’m like, “I’ve got a meeting with the mayor next week.” “This is going to make it harder for us.” I’m like, “I agree.” We were feeding the homeless once a year. We need to do it once per month. We need to do more community service. That is our outreach. We are at a church every month feeding homeless people. We’re with Habitat for Humanity who has never met an atheist before.

Then it creates dialogue. We were building a porch with a Christian group. I’m like, “We’re never going to get this porch done.” He’s like, “Jim, you just gotta have faith.” I’m like, “I have no faith, that’s the problem.” Then we both laugh. At the end of the day, the porch got done. He’s like, “See, all you had to have was a little faith.” I’m like, “You call it faith. I call it I convinced 6 more people to help.” But we can argue who gets credit.

[Laughing] But it got done, that’s the point.

It creates dialogue. It breaks down these barriers. When we do that, we do a lot of interfaith outreach. We say, “Do you agree with us on women’s issues?” I went to the state council with a Catholic nun. We’re fighting against the death penalty. A couple of months later, the Catholic church is protesting Planned Parenthood while we’re supporting it. If we find allies on an issue, I don’t care who they are.

We will partner and accept them for that issue, which I think gives us a lot of credibility. We’re going after legislation. We are going after state legislation for sex education. So, we take a multipronged approach from our activism. We are trying to reach our base that people here in the community, nonbelievers, are just like them and that we care about the community as well. We do social events like a movie night. We do a multipronged approach, very targeted, of who we are targeting and why.

We don’t worry about the people who are not targeted. The Ark Encounter, the Christians aren’t happy about it. When we are at a church feeding people, some of the atheists aren’t happy, but they aren’t our target. We do very targeted approaches on how to grow the group and the movements as a whole, and we are not afraid to do so and to reach people we feel need reaching.

How can people get involved with Tri-State Freethinkers?

With the Tri-State Freethinkers, all of our meetings are on Meetup.com. For example, February is 28 days, we had 29 meetups in February. We are probably one of the most active groups in the country. Meetup.com, you type up ‘Tri-State Freethinkers.’ You Google us. There are more pages. We also have, if you’re not close us, http://www.tristatefreethinkers.com/.

There’s a ‘support us’ page, where people can support us financially. Or because what we do is relevant to other states and organisations around the country, you can email me or call us about sex education, Gideons, and women’s rights issues. We share this information freely with other groups. Also, our Facebook page is where we post most of our news stories. On average, we get from 50,000 to 500,000 hits per week depending on what we’re doing at the time.

The news is Facebook. The events are Meetup. The website if you need a resource for some of the previous things.

Thank you for your time, Mr. Helton.

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2022-04-11

Philosophy News in Brief – April 6th, 2017

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/06

Rutgers University world-class philosophy department

According to the Daily Targum, the Rutgers philosophy programme was listed as having one of the best philosophy programmes in the United States. In fact, the department has taken the attention of Tsinghua University in China.

Tsinghua University has produced a “special book series where they publish Western philosophical studies. Their March issue includes a section dedicated to philosophy at Rutgers, and they translated six influential articles from some of the University’s most famous philosophers into Chinese.”

Many philosophers from Rutgers have earned various national and international awards, honours, and fellowships including those from Harvard, Oxford, Princeton, and Stanford.

Yoga good for physical and mental wellness

Quartz has reported that the local yoga class can improve one’s physical flexibility and “serenity.” A philosophy professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Lisa Miracchi, said behaviour, reasoning, and relationships can improve with its practice.

Miracchi notes that it is possible to examine the “emotions and sensations” for life as well as a complex philosophical worldview. Something that is “missing from contemporary Western philosophies, [and] can help make you a better person.”

“These benefits are not a coincidence. Yoga is part of a Hindu philosophy that, alongside a metaphysics and epistemological perspective, teaches yoga as a practical element.”

African Philosophy ‘Ubuntu’ as Students’ David Peace Grant Project

University of Virginia stated, “University of Virginia students will spend their summer in South Africa trying to rekindle a deeper appreciation of “ubuntu,” an African traditional philosophy focused on compassion and community, with a Davis Projects for Peace grant.”

The second-year students included: Jillian Randolph, Naki Kaur, Madeline Curry, and Sophie Binns. They are majoring in global studies. The aim is to develop a youth development centre in Khayelitsha in South Africa.

Randolph said, “We will create sustainable activities for youth through engaging the community in discussions of ubuntu…that emphasizes human commonality, community relations and compassion.”

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2022-04-11

Education News in Brief – April 6th, 2017

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/06

Inspire Maths textbooks series make “inroads” in Britain

According to the Straits Times, the maths style taught in Singapore is being used in the United States in “thousands of schools.” It is beginning to be used in the British schools too. There is a textbook series entitled Inspire Maths.

The textbooks were given a trial run in 70 primary schools in Britain via the Department of Education over the past 2 years. In terms of mastering the subject more, the textbooks appeared to be helpful.

“Now, with another £41 million (S$72 million) from the British government – to fund a network of “mastery specialist teachers” – the Singapore style of teaching maths may reach as many as 8,000 primary schools in Britain over the next few years.”

200,000 might be in poverty due to benefits changes

BBC News states that the changes to the benefits plans could lead to 200,000 being placed in poverty. That is, the payments to a limited number of benefits, will go to the first two children. Families are said to be £3,000 worse off per annum due to this.

That is according to the The Child Poverty Action Group and Institute for Public Policy Research. “Ministers say they are determined to tackle the root causes of disadvantage and make work pay,” the BBC said.

“The changes affect families who claim tax credits and Universal Credit;” a process that is intended to replace tax credits by 2022.

Religious countries less educated

The Independent reported that talented students from poor families earn less than those from richer families that achieve less in education, according to the Education Secretary. Justine Greening called this a “cold, hard, economic imperative.”

Greening, who spoke at a conference on social mobility said, “Children from high-income backgrounds who show signs of low academic ability at age five are 35 per cent more likely to become high earners than their poorer peers who show early signs of high ability.”

This was based on Greening’s “experience growing up in Rotherham” and observing the challenges faced by poorer families.

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2022-04-11

Make Your Life Meaningful

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/06

The Mayo Clinic, in a little ditty in their news network section caught my eye, which was a report or a post, more accurately, on global meaning and personal meaning. It was entitled Something to Think About: Personal and global meaning.

A certain Dr. Amit Sood, a well-qualified professional as the director of research in the Complementary and Integrative Medicine Program on Mayo Clinic’s Rochester campus in Minnesota, wrote the piece.

Being the Mayo Clinic, he knows what he’s talking about. He opens with “It is easier and more useful to make your life more meaningful than to search for the ultimate meaning of life.”

He spoke to the nature of science and the ease with which one can find, at least, some meaning without ultimate meaning. To me, it is like asking, “What can help me build some more meaning?” Rather than, “Why are we here?” Both important questions.

However, one is more doable, and the doable one seems to be the former, for anyone with the will to put in the work, which seems to be the big tip.

“Awareness of the unimaginably large size of our universe (estimated at ninety-one billion light-years) creates a sense of awe—about the vastness of it all,” Dr. Sood said. “Knowledge about the subatomic quantum world with awareness of the power of intentionality is truly fascinating. But the details of physics at both the cosmic and the quantum levels still leave the curious mind dissatisfied.”

I see what he is driving at. I assume you see the same. The driving towards how before why, and sometimes the never-found why can be the big disappointment, where the littler howcan be an infinite source of daily, and moment-to-moment, curiosity.

“I…know how to align my limited mind with what I believe is my primary evolutionary responsibility—to help create a safer, happier, kinder world for our planet’s children,” Dr. Sood said.

Making piecemeal influence, working for the world at large, taking part in the individual pursuit – and responsibility – of the construction of meaning, and being that drop in the proverbial ocean.

“I believe contextual, transient meanings all converge to a global meaning. If I can take hold of my own little meaning and pursue it to the deepest place it can take me, the reflection of the global meaning might reveal itself. That will be enough.” And how about you, is it enough…got meaning?

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2022-04-11

Europe has had a Measles Outbreak

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/05

The United Nations (UN) has made a recent announcement about the outbreak of measles in continental Europe.

It is unexpected. Hundreds of measles cases have been reported in continental Europe where the disease was thought to have been eliminated in full by the United Nations health agency devoted to it.

This elimination was thought to be due to vaccinations for children on the part of families and national authorities. In addition, there were more drastic measures to have transmission stopped at the borders. There were hundreds of cases with most in “France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, and Ukraine,” recently.

The largest outbreaks have been found in Romania. There have been over 3,400 cases since January, so three months at 3,400 cases comes to about 1,130 to 1,140 cases per month – January, February, and March – since the start of 2017.

In addition, there are expected to be 850 cases in Italy in the coming weeks there. The national immunization estimates are assumed to be very good in continental Europe. It is important to bear in mind that “measles is a highly contagious virus that remains endemic in most parts of the world.”

Zsuzsanna Jakab, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Europe, said, “Outbreaks will continue in Europe, as elsewhere, until every country reaches the level of immunization needed to fully protect their populations.”

The “estimated national immunization coverage with the second dose of measles-containing vaccine is believed to be less than the 95 per cent threshold,” the Jakab said.

With the lower than desired immunization rates, the potential for the spread of measles is high.

“I urge all endemic countries to take urgent measures to stop transmission of measles within their borders,” Jakab said, “and all countries that have already achieved this to keep up their guard and sustain high immunization coverage. Together we must make sure that the hard-earned progress made towards regional elimination is not lost.”

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2022-04-11

World Health Organization Meets with Partners at Summit

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/05

The World Health Organization (WHO) met at the South Sudan National Health Summit with its (the WHO’s) various partners with over 500 participants coming to the meeting to discuss, and face, the challenges and opportunities that are potentially there for the “years ahead.”

The Republic of South Sudan’s Ministry of Health is the main partner with the World Health Organization in the subject area of challenges and opportunities for the years ahead. Some of the aims of the meeting will be new strategies and financing mechanisms being tied to political developments for the strengthening of the national health system.

However, there will be resource restrictions for the country and, therefore, for the ministry. The socioeconomic context of the country is fragile. And there are increased risks with the reduction in funding of communicable disease outbreaks in addition to malnutrition.

Also, there has been a famine with over 100,000 people facing starvation and another 1 million on the brink of famine. What is more, the average life expectancy for the country is, circa 2012, 55.

And the means of dying are far-ranging, and relatively common, which makes the importance of this summit even more clear.

These causes of death include: HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, acute respiratory infections, other infectious diseases, maternal, neonatal, nutritional cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, other NCDs, Suicide, homicide and conflict, and unintentional injuries.

The main purpose of the South Sudanese National Health Summit is to “build a resilient health system and obtain greater access to health services,” according to the WHO. The theme for the 5-day event is “Harnessing Strong Partnerships for a Resilient Health System towards attainment of Universal Health Coverage.”

The South Sudan Minister of Health, Dr. Riek Gai Kok, “convened the National Health Summit” in order to “foster understanding on South Sudan’s new National Health Policy (2016-2026).”

The needs of the population in terms of humanitarian assistance have increased in a significant way. So there is impetus behind this.

The WHO representative to South Sudan, Dr. Abdulmumini Usman, said, “We are facing an immediate crisis from famine that requires immediate action by South Sudan’s health sector…However, the National Health Summit also must give a voice to all of the 12 million people in South Sudan because this is a country facing a myriad of health crises from conflict to disasters to disease outbreaks impacting everyone.”

According to the WHO report, there is a predicted Famine Response Strategy agreement amongst the partners and the WHO meeting at the summit. However, the report for the 5-day conference was on March 27, so the agreement should be reached, or not, by now.

Regardless, there are millions who require health services: “5.4 million people are in need of health services, including 1.9 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), 1.4 million refugees…WHO estimates that 12.3 million people in South Sudan are at risk due to disease outbreaks.”

Even with these critical cases in the millions, there have been significant signals as to some of the positive changes that have taken place within South Sudan for the Sudanese population with health risks.

For example, WHO provided support for a “nationwide vaccination campaign against polio for 3 million children under age 5, including in famine-affected areas…[and] a cholera vaccination campaign.”

Much of this includes training and educating practitioners for these campaigns. “Dr Helen Rees, WHO Chairperson for WHO’s Africa Regional Immunisation Technical Advisory Group,” acted as the chair for the National Health Summit.

For further information:

Statement by WHO Representative at the 3rd National Health Summit of South Sudan

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2022-04-11

Stability of Personality Less Certain Over Time

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/05

It has been reported by the World Economic Forum (WEF) that in a study – with implications for the concept of “self” or “personhood” – an individual changes significantly over time to the point that a senior does not even recognise himself/herself very much as a teenager.

This has been called an ‘ongoing psychological and philosophical debate,’ according to research on personality over time. In fact, this is the longest personality study ever published. The study has been published in the journal entitled Psychology and Aging.

The British Psychological Society highlighted the research suggesting that over the course of time the cells in your body, the appearance to yourself, and your personality are significantly changed to the point of non-recognition.

The study involved 14-year-olds from 1950 a survey in Scotland totalling 1,208 people There were six questionnaires to measure core personality traits: “self-confidence, perseverance, stability of moods, conscientiousness, originality, and desire to learn.”

The collected results from the questionnaires where then titled one trait: “dependability.” After 6 decades, the researchers were able to track down a little over half of the participants or the research subjects.

Of those 635, 174 participants consented to a repeat testing from the 1950 survey. In other words, 1,208 14-year-olds in Scotland in 1950 took part in a 6 questionnaire test for the amalgamated “dependability” trait with 635 being tracked down over 60 years later – and of those 635 there were 174 taking part.

The participants were 77-years-old. The findings are reported to have surprised the researchers because over shorter periods of time personality traits appear to be robustly consistent, and the several decades study in regular intervals of life such as “childhood to middle-age, or middle-aged to older age.”

There was also stability, but there does appear to be change in fundamental personality characteristics in the participants of the study. A 63-year gap for the participants, which is much more significant than the age ranges of childhood to middle age, or middle-age to older age.

63 years can probably be considered a range of childhood to post retirement age. The author of the WEF article argues that there is then truth in the Buddhist conception of a non-stability in the sense of the self. That is, it is more or less an illusion. This is a statement of the writer based on increasing neuroscientific research.

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2022-04-11

Lifespan in the US is Behind Other Nations

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/05

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has reported – in coordination with Fortune – that the United States of America is behind other countries in the average lifespan of its citizens. American citizens are living shorter lives than other nations’ members.

WEF noted that the crime rate and the bad provisions for healthcare were the main reasons to blame for the lowered life expectancy for its citizens, Sy Mukherjee wrote in the WEF report. In fact, the gap is projected to grow between 2017 and 2030 on average, based on a new study in the Lancet.

Based on research from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Imperial College London, the average length of lives for the world will increase, but the deal with the United States is that its rate of improvement will be much slower compared to other countries.

For example, women will have an average lifespan of 83.3 while men will have an average lifespan of 79.5 there, by 2030. However, South Korea will fair much better with women living upwards of 91.1 years on average and men living to 84.1 years on average, also by 2030.

The reason for the current and growing discrepancy in the lifespans, apparently, comes down to the healthcare system in the US without a universal coverage policy tied to an attenuated – a weakened – safety new.

Other things include a fat nation, an obese nation. The authors of the study said, “The USA has the highest child and maternal mortality, homicide rate, and body-mass index of any high-income country…”

For the first time in 20 years, according to the projections from the Centers for Disease Control in the United States, the life expectancy could actually drop for the citizenry of America.

“The only top 10 killer of Americans where the survival rate increased that year was for cancer, which has seen a flurry of interest from the biopharma industry.”

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2022-04-11

The Mother of Iranian Feminism – Sediqeh Dowlatabadi

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/05

Based on work by Fuuse called sister-hood, I recently came across someone whom I did not know about before, and will never know in person or in correspondence – to my detriment – named Sediqeh Dowlatabadi, who was born in 1882 in Estafan.

She is described as the founding mother of Iranian feminism and one of the pioneering figures in the Persian women’s movement.

But this does not limit taking in the data with a critical eye and sympathetic heart. And hey, it’s the way to go. Her heritage was an “old and respected family” in the area. While studying in Tehran, she married at age 15, while divorcing shortly after.

Age 35, she created the “first girl’s schools and women’s organisation.” However, the school was attacked – by Conservative clerics – in addition to Sediqeh being beaten by them. 2 years later, so age 37, she founded “The Woman’s Voice” – or Zaban-e Zanan – in Esfahan.

The publication was banned by the authorities in Iran. It only accepted submissions from women and girls. With the closing of the magazine, she worked to fight the British influence on Iranian politics as well as continued the campaign for women’s rights.

Come 1926, she went to Paris’s Sorbonne University and earned a degree in education. In sister-hood it reads, “1926, she served as the representative for Iran at the tenth congress of the International Alliance for Women’s Suffrage.”

She became the supervisor of Women’s Education in 1928, when she returned to it – as well as the director of the Inspectorate of Women’s Schools.

Also, she was crucial to women’s suffrage, according to the profile. That is, Dowlatabadi “persuaded Mohammad Mossadeq to grant women the vote; but due to the British/American sponsored coup, this never came to pass. In 1962, Sediqua died, at 80 years of age.” In her will, it said: “I will never forgive women who visit my grave veiled.”

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2022-04-11

Q&A on Philosophy, with Dr. Stephen Law – Session 1

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/04

Dr. Stephen Law is Reader in Philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London. He is also editor of THINK: Philosophy for Everyone, a journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy (published by Cambridge University Press). Stephen has published numerous books on philosophy, including The Philosophy Gym: 25 Short Adventures in Thinking (on which an Oxford University online course has since been based) and The Philosophy Files (aimed at children 12+). Stephen is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts. He was previously a Junior Research Fellow at The Queen’s College, Oxford, and holds B.Phil. and D.Phil. degrees in Philosophy from the University of Oxford. He has a blog at www.stephenlaw.org. Stephen Law was Provost of CFI UK from July 2008-January 2017 taking on overall responsibility for the organisation, and particular responsibility for putting on talks and other educational events and programmes.

Scott Jacobsen: One of my favourite ideas I have come across from you is the “Going Nuclear” method. When losing an argument, Going Nuclear involves the adoption of a super sceptical position, which blows up the foundation for discussion. What are some examples of this?

Dr. Stephen Law: That’s right. It’s a rhetorical move. When it looks like your intellectual opponent is about to lose the argument, they suddenly get super sceptical. That gives them a great get-out-of-jail-free card. One way they may get super sceptical is to run the following argument:

‘You are using reason in this argument. But how can you justify your use of reason?! Any justification you supply will itself use reason! So it will be a circular justification. And circular justifications are no justifications at all: like trusting a second-hand car salesman because he says he is trustworthy. But if you can’t justify reason, then your entire argument collapses!’

Having detonated this sceptical bomb, your opponent can now insist that it’s ‘faith positions all round’. Your view is really no more reasonable than theirs. I call this ‘Going Nuclear’ because the effect of their bringing in this super sceptical argument is that this lays waste to every position – both yours and theirs – achieving what in the Cold War was called ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’. It looked like you were about to win the intellectual battle, but by Going Nuclear, your opponent has made it all square again. Both your positions now come out as equally (un)reasonable!

This strategy is particularly popular in religious and New Age circles. You might think you have established beyond reasonable doubt that Mary’s wrong to believe there are fairies living at the bottom of her garden, but then Mary Goes Nuclear and says: ‘Ah, you’re using reason. And reason is just another faith position. So your belief that there are no fairies in my garden is just as much a faith positions as my belief that there are!’

Mary became super sceptical about the foundation for debate. In this example, it is equivocation between reason and faith. Although, of course, the use of reason, proper, reduced Mary’s belief in fairies living at the bottom of her garden to rubble. Going Nuclear is also commonly employed by religious folk – including theologians who should know better – when they start losing an argument with an atheist.

What’s bad about ‘Going Nuclear’ is that it’s applied in a selective and partisan way; it only occurs to Mary to get sceptical about reason when she starts losing the argument. It does not happen when Mary’s winning the argument. Up until that point, she was happy to rely on it. In this case, the distinction between faith and reason, which is pretty foundational. Of course, she’s happy to rely it on it, all the time, in other contexts, when trusting the brakes on her car or figuring out how many tiles she needs to tile her bathroom. So Mary is just using the scepticism as a smokescreen device: as a trick to (i) distract attention away from the fact that, by the standards of reason she accepts in every other corner of her life, you’re winning the argument and (ii) get you bogged down in dealing with a thorny – and largely irrelevant – sceptical puzzle.

SJ: Do you think that the religious or the New Age are more problematic in general – not only in the use of techniques of shutting down losing arguments such as the ‘Going Nuclear’ method – but in the promotion by the government and in the educational system? For examples, the 26 Church of England, or C of E, bishops in the House of Lords as well as considerable numbers of faith schools. We do not see explicit requirements for Atheists or Humanists in the House of Lords or the permission for humanistic schools. According to the BBC (2011), there are 7,000 faith schools out of the 20,000 schools in the United Kingdom (UK). 35% of the schools seems like too many.

SL: I am more concerned about mainstream religion than New Age belief because mainstream religion wields considerable political power in the UK. Indeed, they are working hard to gain more. The UK is fairly politically secular, but, as you say, there is state funding of religious schools (not humanist schools) and the C of E automatically gets to put its bishops in the House of Lords where, e.g. they can potentially block legislation.

SJ: How early is it reasonable to teach critical thinking, logic, science, and statistics? How might this change the culture in the UK?

It is an empirical question, “How early are children able to engage productively in these activities?” However, the evidence suggests early. There have been pilot studies with philosophy in the classroom with children as young as 5, where it has been successful. So the evidence suggests these can be taught young.

Of course, not everyone is keen on children being encouraged to think critically about the beliefs they bring with them into the classroom. Particularly when it comes to religious beliefs, while paying lip service to the goodness of free thought, the truth is many religious individuals find excuses to place their own religious belief off-limits.

There is growing evidence that independent and philosophical thinking is good for kids’ emotional, social, and intellectual health. It can be tempting, when faced with the threat of young people being indoctrinated into dangerous belief systems, to try to get our own indoctrination in first. However, the best defence against young people getting radicalised and drawn into dangerous belief systems is not to get our own indoctrination in first, but to make them resistant to indoctrination in the first place – whether religious or otherwise.

That means raising them to have the sense and skills to spot when someone is trying to manipulate them, to spot when bad arguments are being passed off as good, and so on. Raising young people to be good, independent critical thinkers is, I think, our best defence against the kind of moral horrors that marred the 20th century. Sure, you always run a risk when you encourage people to think independently and make their own judgements. What if they end up rejecting the values we’d like them to have?

But the greater risk comes from raising moral sheep. That is, people who may do the right thing, but only because they are told to the right thing. When some more seductive pied-piper comes along, they may then be drawn into walking down some very dark alleys. They will lack the intellectual and emotional defences they’ll need to resist.

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2022-04-11

Family Trees for Our Stars

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/04

Mary Johnson-Groh discussed the methodological cross-over act from biology to cosmology with the attempt, recently, of astronomers to build the family tree of the stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, akin to methodologies found in biology to classify species, and families, orders, and so on.

With the classification in biology as taxonomy, the field of biology has become much more complex with the increase in evidence. However, the ability to catalogue provides a systematised manner in which to find and classify species, whether new or old.

This has been termed the family tree in terms of the tracing of the lineages of organisms. Apparently, astronomers are beginning to borrow from biology to catalogue and organise, in a systematic way, the stars.

In particular, this is being used for the Milky Way Galaxy. In a way, the information encoded into DNA can be used to decipher the lineage of an organism and the relationship of one organism to another, in that tree of life.

The chemical composition of the elements within stars can be used to determine its history. What fuel is it burning? Hydrogen, Helium, Iron? There are proxies as to the composition and age of the stars based on their spectra because some fuels emit different electromagnetic radiation – or light – than others.

Anyway, this can give a tree of the evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy.

The laws governing galactic evolution and stellar evolution, or the evolution of the galaxy and the stars, differ from those of organisms, but the information is passed down in a general way – and in this general passing down can be used in similar way, in an analogous way, with the stars in the galaxy.

Some have termed this “astrocladistics” after cladistics. It is a way to determine the characteristics inherited by stars over time in the galaxy. So astrocladistics deals with the formation and evolution of stars over time, or stellar evolution and formation. For this particular example, the Milky Way Galaxy that we inhabit.

The younger stars are to be found in the central thin desk of the Galaxy with the older stars in the thicker disk. The thickness of the disks differs for the young and the old stars. The thick disk, apparently, is said to be like a “diffuse cloud.”

However, researchers found a third category of stars, or stellar family. This raises questions. What is the origin of the newly found family of stars? As things move through the ‘heavens,’ we can see the trajectory and the age of the stars.

Did they form within the Galaxy or outside of it? The third category appears to be a family of stars termed “late-bloomers” because of their apparent formation from a possible galactic merger or the “collision” of two (or more) galaxies into one.

However, there are difficulties in the appropriate translation of the methodologies found in the biological sciences to the astronomical sciences, but the generalised analogous methodologies are used to suss out the general information about the family of stars in our Galaxy.

In that, the researchers found three classifications: the young and the old from within the original galaxy, and the late-bloomers from the collision of one (or more) galaxies together.

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2022-04-11

According to Research, Negative Emotions Are Vital to Well-Being

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/04

It has been reported, according to the research, negative feelings are in fact part of the process of feeling well and essential for mental health.

The research showed that negative motions were likely important for our very survival.

Over time, species become carved out. Human beings are no different. Therefore, the fact that we have negative emotions as well as positive emotions is important to keep in mind about general well-being. In fact, the suppression of various feelings and thoughts can turn out to be harmful.

As noted by Tori Rodriguez in 2013, “A crucial goal of therapy is to learn to acknowledge and express a full range of emotions, and here was a client apologising for doing just that.”

He takes his psychotherapy practice as a time to help clients deal with some of the most difficult emotions – some of the most extreme negative emotions – in human life such as “extreme anger” or “suicidal thoughts.”

But there is a trend among some to hide those feelings because of a feeling of guilt associated with having the emotions perceived to be or given a blanket negative valuation. Rodrigues attributes this to our culture’s hyper-focus on the positive.

As Richard Pryor instructs us: “All humour is rooted in pain” or “I had some great things and I had some bad things. The best and the worst . . . In other words, I had a life.”

Rodrigues continued, “Although positive emotions are worth cultivating, problems arise when people start believing they must be upbeat all the time. In fact, anger and sadness are an important part of life, and new research shows that experiencing and accepting such emotions are vital to our mental health.”

He goes on to talk about the various ways that the suppression of positive emotions can be a bad thing for the individual affecting even one’s own eating patterns for the worst. It is important to express oneself he stresses.

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2022-04-11

Solar Energy Systems Become More Viable and the Global Energy Chain Changes

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/03

The world’s energy systems are changing at an increasingly rapid rate, which is changing the dynamics of the global energy system. All of this bound by the needs of the public based on growing global population and the increased consumption patterns of the public.

Solar energy is becoming more dominant with each passing year. The World Economic Forum (WEF) reports that Germany reached 41GW by the end of 2016. “In contrast to earlier energy system evolutions, the arena this time is undergoing a truly disruptive transformation,” WEF said.

There is a modern wave, global change, in the energy sector driven by both the customer and the focus. The focus, too, being on the customer. The gird edge technologies pitched by the Paris agreement with distributed batteries and solar energy are important.

The scene is being set for more and more engaged and active customers. The customers will be able to profit from modern technologies in addition to be able to transform the system of energy production and distribution throughout the world.

“So the customer today is not a consumer, but rather a prosumer combining own generation of energy with ever more efficient and increasingly smarter consumption. This is why I believe, the change is not customer centric. The customer is the change itself,” the WEF said.

The WEF related two sides to the issue. One was the production side and the other was the consumption. With production, the services and products will be decentralised. With consumption, billions of assets throughout the world will be more thoroughly integrated than ever before.

This digital enabling of the customer with the energy grid is revolutionising the global energy system. This is part of modern and upcoming, and ongoing, connectivity, which is described in three parts.

The first is the sharing that involves people such as communities and regions. The second will be the transformed energy system based on the customer sharing of energy including the transfer of renewable electricity for heating and mobility. The third part of this energy sharing will be the connection between the aforementioned prosumers – those creating their own energy and using energy – and the regular consumer with energy or assets, e.g. the use of e-vehicles or the sharing of energy generation plants, and so on.

So this sharing will be a platform that will allow those kinds of sharing.

“A platform which provides to the customers on the one hand the efficient and flexible physical exchange of energy just as the indispensable security of supply.” the WFF said. “A better world, where it is only about the customer.”

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2022-04-11

Evolution vs. Creationism: Inside the Controversy

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/03

Scientific American recently published a short e-book, Evolution vs. Creationism: Inside the Controversy. It relates to the perennial social controversy – creationism versus evolution. Where the substantive evidence supports the bottom-up theorisation around evolution rather than the top-down face value plus scriptural assertion from numerous religious sectors within the religious subpopulation, not all, by any stretch, but, many, many religious folks, especially in America and the Muslim-majority countries adhere to creationist or quasi-creationist perspectives on the development and speciation of species.

In the world at large, evolution remains the minority view. Creationism remains dominant. Why? In-built agency detection mechanisms, legacy of fundamentalist-literalist interpretation of holy scripture, indoctrination of youth reliant on inculcation of ignorance to keep congregations at a low cultural level, newness of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, many reasons exist. What’s the solution? It depends on what you want and how you define the problem.

From the experts in biological sciences with full comprehension of evolutionary theory, and who have encountered the counterarguments in continual barrages from minority sects of the religious population that claim to speak for the totality of religious believers, well-funded fundamentalist preachers and literalist doctrines argue for the young Earth and the top-down narrative provided by literalist readings of the Book of Genesis.

Also, time is a big one. If a philosophy exists for a long time, more than others, and more people happen to believe in it, then the truth might have a hard time overcoming the continual message of top-down design. We seem hardwired, or wet-wired, or evolved to perceive patterns without appropriate natural reality to the pattern, outside of the conceptualisation in our mind’s eye.

Back to this book that you should be reading instead of this, the controversy for evolution and creationism, among the majority of qualified professionals in the biological sciences — which can sound like argument from authority, but seems more akin to argument from authoritative authority, those with relevant expertise rather than irrelevant expertise or no expertise — amounts to ‘controversy’ because the unanimous vote is “for,” or “aye,” rather than “against,” or “nay,” regarding evolution.

We evolved. We remain evolved Great African apes from the Great Rift Valley. We can’t not have genetic relation in the beautiful phrase: the “Tree of Life.” It runs along Lebanon to Mozambique, and even makes for a good topic around Christmas and associated cultural celebrations. Evolution is like a random cousin from a faraway country, who barely speaks your language, hardly knows your culture, and stinks, but you come to grips with them because you realise, to them, you barely speak their language, hardly know their culture, and stink.

There’s a distant, yet deep, kinship in an evolutionary framework. It speaks to the commonality of everyone, but without reference to things outside of confirmed natural processes, except in idle speculation for fun. Humanism speaks to the same impulses. It describes, at least in its core values — not everyone agrees to the letter of the law, one common species — not ‘races,’ whatever that means — with common evolved cousins and common ancestors in a massive Tree of Life spanning up to 3.77 billion years ago. Wow. So yea, life is super old and evolved, not young and created all-at-once in an act of creation only a few thousand years ago. (I’m bad at endings.)

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2022-04-11

Tuberculosis Given New Guidelines from the World Health Organization

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/02

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that there are new tuberculosis ethics guidelines launched on March 22, 2017. The WHO aims to “ensure that countries implementing the End TB Strategy” (End Tuberculosis Strategy) continue to hold fast to standards of ethics

End TB Strategy adhere to sound ethical standards to protect the rights of all those affected.

Tuberculosis kills 5,000 people each day. Some of the most affected communities are those that come from socioeconomic disadvantage. For instance, these can include ethnic minorities, miners, refugees, migrants, and many, many others.

These people come at intersections of sanitation, income, nutritional, and housing or home problems. These people come at increased risk of alcohol use and diabetes, HIV and other things. And about one-third of tuberculosis cases go unreported or undiagnosed.

Indeed, this means many individuals with tuberculosis go without any adequate care. That’s why the WHO ethics guidance or guidelines are important. As part of the protection of human rights, the ethics around appropriate tuberculosis treatment is important.

There will be an upcoming conference that will then inform the United Nations General assembly high-level meeting on tuberculosis, which will be held for deliberation in 2018.

The WHO director-general, Dr. Margaret Chan, said, “TB strikes some of the world’s poorest people hardest…WHO is determined to overcome the stigma, discrimination, and other barriers that prevent so many of these people from obtaining the services they so badly need.”

The five key ethical obligations or responsibilities listed for care providers, governments, health workers, researchers, and NGOs are as follows:

provide patients with the social support they need to fulfil their responsibilities
refrain from isolating TB patients before exhausting all options to enable treatment adherence and only under very specific conditions
enable “key populations” to access same standard of care offered to other citizens
ensure all health workers operate in a safe environment
rapidly share evidence from research to inform national and global TB policy updates.

The implementation of these ethical obligations has been said to be difficult by the WHO news release. The current tuberculosis is multidrug-resistant. That is, if one form of tuberculosis is resistant to a specific form of drug, then giving multiple drugs increases the odds of non-resistance.

For example, if the odds of a disease being resistant to one drug is 1 in a 100, and if you want to increase the probability of a cure or immunity with the shot, and if the odds of the same disease being resistant to another drug is 1 in 20, then the odds of the drug being resistant to both used at the same time in the multidrug mix is 1 in 100 times 1 in 20, or 1 in 2,000.

However, the current multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is creating a “crisis and the health security threat.”

“Only when evidence-based, effective interventions are informed by a sound ethical framework, and respect for human rights, will we be successful in reaching our ambitious goals of ending the TB epidemic and achieving universal health coverage,” director of the WHO Global TB Programme, Dr. Mario Raviglione said. He also claimed that, “The SDG aspiration of leaving no one behind is centred on this.”

The conference to be held will be the Global Ministerial Conference in November of this year in Moscow. That will be the basis for informing the high-level UN meeting in 2018.

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2022-04-11

Scientists Edge Closer to Solving Mystery Element of Earth’s Core

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/01

The final puzzle piece in the jigsaw of the Earth’s core was discovered by scientists to complete the image of the contents, regarding elements, of the Earth’s core. The experiments and findings were by scientists from the University of Tohoku, according to the World Economic Forum.

The innermost part of the Earth, or the ‘core’, is made almost entirely of iron at 17 parts in 20. It is 1 part in 10 nickel. However, the remaining 5% – the remaining 1 part in 20 – appears to have been, for some time, a mystery. Based on research by Japanese team, the missing element has been discovered, which is now known to be silicon.

The BBC has reported on this. The solid core of the Earth lies about 3,000 kilometres below the surface with a radius of 1,200 kilometres, or a diameter of 2,400 kilometres (2r=d). It is deep, so deep as to almost be impossible to make direct tests about it.

The deepest mines in the world reach to only about four kilometres. Many of these mines are for gold mining. Many researchers thought that the element must be lighter because of the easy bonding of the metals, which might explain the properties of the mystery element while at the time not knowing its precise label.

So there was a minor model, a miniature model, of the Earth composed of a crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core. Alloys were made from iron and nickel and silicon with the admixture. They put them under tremendous pressure and temperatures upwards of 6,000°C.

The conditions in the experiment matched those from seismic data gathered about the Earth’s core. That seismic data is based on waves that appear to have emanated from the Earth’s core. The team then use this to extrapolate for sufficient evidence – and from the experiment – as to the contents of the core of the Earth as silicon, which was then claimed to be the missing element of the core of the Earth.

The Japanese team presented their research in the Fall meeting in San Francisco of the American Geophysical Union.

Simon Redfern, professor of mineral physics at the University of Cambridge, said:

These difficult experiments are really exciting because they can provide a window into what Earth’s interior was like soon after it first formed, 4.5 billion years ago, when the core first started to separate from the rocky parts of Earth…But other workers have recently suggested that oxygen might also be important in the core.

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2022-04-11

Ancient Particle Accelerator Discovered on Mars (Joke Article)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/01

New images of the surface of Mars taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter probe have revealed the presence of the largest particle accelerator Credit: Daniel Dominguez/ CERN.

European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has reported making a massive, and what some argue is incredible, discovery on the surface of Mars. The news, which came as a surprise to many of the 10,000 scientists involved, was the finding of another super-collider on Mars – CERN reports.

This substantial discovery has, quite ultra-remarkably, fallen on a remarkable day: April 1^st, 2017 – today! That’s right. Today!

According to the ‘reportage’ by Arnaud Marsollier, and posted by Harriet Kim Jarlett today, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter appears to have discovered a large, ancient particle accelerator on the surface of Mars.

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the meaning of which was previously a mystery, seem to corroborate these observations, leading scientists to believe that the pyramids might have served as giant antennae.

With the continual search for Earth-like planets and signs of life, especially intelligent life by SETI (Search for Extra-terrestrial Life), by various scientific groups, with proxies such as water, Mars has been a prime candidate. Could life be just this close?

NASA and CERN scientists believe we may have made an incredible discovery with the interdisciplinary team’s analysis of the archaeological, geological, and particle physics importance of the discovery of an ancient super-collider.

It was found on Olympus Mons. CERN reported that it was “previously thought to be the largest volcanic formation in the solar system,” but, it is “in fact the remains of an ancient particle accelerator thought to have operated several million years ago.”

The circumference of the machine on Mars is thought to be about 75 times the size of CERN at 2,000 kilometres. Not only that, it is thought to be millions of times more powerful.

Amazingly, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs came along with it, too. The pyramids must have served as an important communicator. “The pyramids on Earth might therefore have allowed the accelerator to be controlled remotely,” Marsollier reports.

Head of technical design at CERN, Friedrich Spader, examined the situation and the evidence and came to the probabilistic conclusion, “The accelerator control room was probably under the pyramids.” Remarkable.

This particle accelerator may in fact be a portal from the Solar System to an unknown location. Another solar system, or galaxy, or what might such an advanced civilisation? “The papyrus that was recently deciphered indicates that the powerful magnetic field,” said Fadela Emmerich, who is the lead scientist. He went on to say that “the movement of the particles in the accelerator were such that they would create a portal through space-time.”

The portal would be thought to be used almost 2 million years ago based on the examination of the evidence on hand, according to Eilert O’Neil, who said, “We’re probably talking about forgotten technologies and a highly advanced ancient civilisation.”

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2022-04-11

Namib Desert Recycles Fog and Dew

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/31

Cindy Fox Aisen of the The World Economic Forum (WEF), reported on the phenomena of the ocean not being the “sole source of life-sustaining fog and dew for the Namib Desert’s” flora and fauna.

Ecohydrologist – from ecohydrology, which is the field for studying the interactions of ecosystems and water – Lixin Wang, assistant professor of earth sciences at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, said, “Knowing exactly where the fog and dew come from will help us predict the availability of non-rainfall water in the future…we may be able to determine ways to harvest novel water sources for potential use in water-scarcity situations.”

So, there’s fog from the ocean and fog from soil, or ocean-derived fog and non-ocean-derived fog. According to the WEF, non-ocean-derived fog accounts for half of the fog in Namib, which was based on a one-year study of the phenomena.

There’s soil water and ground water. Soil water is below the surface and groundwater is higher. When rainfall comes, then it seeps into the ground, and the rainfall eventually becomes the fog. Soil water, in other words, “turns out to be an unexpected source of moisture.”

In light of global warming or climate change, which is the increase in temperature of the Earth due to human activity starting with the First Industrial Revolution, many areas of the Earth are becoming drier, and drier, and unable to hold as much water because warm water evaporates.

Warmer land becomes drier land. “With global warming, more areas in the United States and around the world are becoming drier and more desert-like,” the WEF said.

The programme officer for the earth sciences division of the National Science Foundation, Tom Torgerson, said, “In the driest places on the planet, even seemingly minor components of the water cycle, such as fog and dew, become major and are critical to keeping the environment alive and functioning.”

There is a consistency in the ecosystems around the world with their hydrological cycles, The Namib Desert, or Namib in general, is no different. It borders the Atlantic Ocean by precisely 2,000 kilometres with a temperature range of 0°C to 60°C.

It is “almost completely devoid of surface water.” Throughout the entire year, very few days have rain. Some years have no rain, with at most 2 to 3 inches, maybe 4 inches, and the flora and fauna of the area survive because of fog and dew.

Wang described the “long-term goal” as the expansion of the Namib research into the globe.

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2022-04-11

One More Citation for You, Eugene Garfield (1925-2017)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/31

Eugene Garfield (1925-2017) has died. He died on February 26, 2017. He created the foundation for the Science Citation Index or the SCI. To quote Nature quoting Garfield’s friend, Joshua Lederberg, circa 1962, “I think you’re making history, Gene!”

And indeed, he did. The SCI became the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science. Citations are important in science, and other fields. It can mean the difference between tenured professor and instructor.

It is difficult to imagine modern scientific research with metrics of citations, or indexes of scientific utility. That is, if a colleague or a scientist finds a research paper or article useful, or of utility, they then use that article in their research articles and papers. They put it in the references. So they cite it.

Anyway, he enabled an entire field: scientometrics, the quantitative study of science and technology. As well, he not only enabled, but launched, The Scientist, which is magazine for life scientists. So, at least, two major contributions to the unification, academic and professional-social aspects, of the sciences.

Many of the services he constructed were able to summarise, filter, index and classify articles. Also, he wrote, a lot, over 1,000 articles that continue to have utility for many, many people.

He earned a chemistry degree from Columbia University, which is in New York. He wasn’t good as a lab assistant. So he chose to work on information science rather than chemistry.

’51 comes around the bend, and he begins to work at the “Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where almost all information services of the National Library of Medicine were born.”

He noticed the medical literature was pacing beyond the human index system. He made machine ones, automatized methodologies. Another bend to 1953 in the road of Garfield’s life. He was at the “First Symposium on Machine Methods in Scientific Documentation.”

Here was the introduction to the Shepard Citation system, which is a legal indexing system for citations from 1873. William Adair was contacted by Garfield. Adair was an ex-vice president at Shepard’s, which means expertise in the indexing system.

Garfield began to learn about it, and earn a MA in library and information science at Columbia University in 1954 plus a PhD in structural linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1961.

When 1955 had come around, Garfield invented the scientific citation index and “introduced it to readers of the journal Science (E. Garfield Science 122, 108–111; 1955).” It was one of the top articles by citation with a “lukewarm” response, at least at the time.

He went out everywhere to get funding – no good. Until, it was 1957 and the Sputnik launch by the Soviet Union made a panic in the US. High-rankers wanted to know about the efficacy of science.

So Lederberg and Garfield teamed up, and they built an automated citation index across science. The SCI was a net loss for many years, though. After the 1970s, the influence, so power and extent, of the SCI took greater hold.

In 1975, another metric was introduced for journals as a whole, which publish sets of articles as periodicals: Impact Factor. The Impact Factor is a measure of the frequency of citation in a given year within a specific journal.

“Garfield’s enthusiasm was not the bookkeeper’s but the visionary’s. He saw in his creations a better science for society and the ideal of a unified body of knowledge accessible to all,” Nature said.

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2022-04-11

Ranking Happiness – The Happy Planet Index (HPI)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/31

There have been tremendous gains over the last few decades, and over time in general, for the development of both happiness and sustainability with improvements in livelihoods and general health around the world.

It is part of a global agenda to have a happier, healthier, and greener, and more sustainable planet. It is tied into the progress of nations. Countries are progressing if you track them on metrics of citizen well-being and infrastructural development.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) reported with the Happy Planet Index (HPI) on that progress: “There’s wealth, there’s health, there’s basic human freedoms.” Indeed. Those are good factors in a measurement.

In fact, these factors, or “criteria,” are included in a number of rankings: “the Better Life Index to the Sustainable Economic Development Assessment and the World Happiness Report.

With the newest measurement, the HPI, these factors come into the metric with the additional inclusion of sustainability.

The calculation is as follows: “take the well-being and longevity of a population, measure how equally both are distributed, then set the result against each country’s ecological footprint.” That is, the life span, health span, and ecological footprint as a single index.

Ecological footprint as a factor related to sustainability. Sustainable societies produce less of an impact on the environment. The wealthiest countries found in the West and the progressive Nordic nations do not make the top of the list for this particular metric, or index, the HPI.

Nation states in the top 10 tend to be the “Latin American and Asia Pacific countries” with “green and pleasant land.” For the “third time,” Costa Rica is the “happiest and most sustainable country on Earth.”

Life expectancy is 78.5 years, which is older than the US. The health and wealth come to about ¼ of the cost compared to the US. Some reasons include, if all factors for the HPI are taken into account, “99% of the country’s electricity supply is said to come from renewable sources, and the government has pledged to make the country carbon neutral by 2021.” As well, the investment in social programmes: education, health, and no national army since 1949. “Wealthier Western countries tend to score highly when it comes to life expectancy and well-being, but the high environmental cost of their way of life sees their ratings plummet,” the WEF said.

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2022-04-11

An Interview with Anya Overmann, Communications Officer of IHEYO

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/31

*This interview has been mildly edited for clarity and readability.*

Tell us about yourself — family background, culture, first language, and religious/Humanist background.

I was born and raised in St. Louis. My parents were raised Catholic. Independently, they decided Catholicism and Christianity were not for them. They didn’t want to follow that any further. When they had kids, my brother and I, they realised that they did want us to have a religious education, but not necessarily in a Christian context.

We found the Ethical Society in St. Louis. We learned about the different religions and the core values of ethical humanism. That is what had me ‘hooked’ — the core values. I believed in them. I thought they were good principles. As I got older, I became more involved with it. I took on leadership roles at every stage. That’s my background.

My parents are still members. They attend regularly. They have a role at the local ethical society. English is my first and only language. I can speak some Spanish, but that’s from speaking Spanish in school.

When did you find IHEYO?

I found it a couple of years ago. FES, the Future of Ethical Societies, is the group that I was a part of. The connection to IHEYO grew from the national level of FES. At IHEYO, I applied to be the social media manager. Over time, that evolved into communications officer. Now, I am managing the social media and the blog. All outreach for Humanists between the ages of 18 and 35.

Any demographic(s) analyses of Humanist youth?

A lot of our Humanist activity is in Europe. That’s not that surprising.

(Laugh)

Right.

There’s a lot of different organisations there. That’s where the funding comes from. What I found with our social media is a large number of people from Pakistan, India, and Nepal are active in following our page and reading our content, I found that interesting.

Anyone from Bangladesh?

There are quite a few from that region, specifically. Western Asia and the Middle East are becoming more active. They are up and coming.

So, what are some tasks and responsibilities that come along with being the social media person and communications manager?

I try to keep our presence active. It can be difficult. It is a volunteer role. I do what I can with the time that I have each day. I try to make the content diverse. I don’t want too much being posted on specific region of the world too. I know I can get carried away by posting on what is going on here, in the US. There’s a lot to be said now.

(Laugh)

There’s a lot going on in the world. I want that represented on the page because we are an international organisation. Also, I manage our blog, Humanist Voices. I look at the content submitted to us. We have the regional groups submit one piece per month. Then I edit them or somebody on the team edits them. We look over them, have them published, and try to distribute over social media. We’re trying to get our newsletter back. We want to expand our presence online.

Who are some Humanist heroes in history for you?

I always look to Felix Adler, who is the founder of the ethical societies here in the US. He came from Germany. He grew up Jewish. His father was a rabbi. He decided that he wasn’t really feeling being Jewish.

(Laugh)

(Laugh)

He came up with his own thing, ethical humanism. which I find different from classical humanism. People tend to associate atheism and agnosticism with traditional humanism. Ethical humanism is more inclusive, in my opinion. It welcomes people of all backgrounds, religious or not. It focuses more on the principles that we stand for rather than the beliefs and how we got to those principles which I really admire in the motto: deed before creed. That’s something that I believe in.

If you were to take one core argument for humanism, what would it be?

It’s that we have this one life that we know of and we have science to help us understand how life works. That is really the best that we have. I think that we can make the most out of life with this scientific approach and by appreciating this life. Also, the placement of humans first is the main thing that I stand behind. It is human rights as the main principle.

It is like the Bill Nye line: ‘I want to save the planet for me!’

Yea, exactly!

(Laugh)

(Laugh)

It is silly that we prioritise profit. How can we prioritise profit when we don’t have a home to live in later? If we kill the planet, how can we prioritise profit later? With the Dakota Access Pipeline, for example, it blows me away. People can be obtuse about the world and what it offers us. The prioritisation of the transfer of oil over access to clean water blows me away.

From an international vantage, what do you consider the most pressing concern for Humanist youth?

This rise in pushing-back against principles of the classically ‘Left.’ It is threatening the principles held dear by us. It is the result of hatred from both sides. Hatred isn’t doing any favours for us, as Humanists. I know many, especially young Atheists, who maintain the idea that their beliefs and values are superior to those who don’t have those beliefs and values.

It is a grave mistake, I think, to have that attitude. It doesn’t do us any favours. It makes people less inclined to support the movement. They think the movement is supported by an elitist organisation, which creates more of a push-back. We’re up against it. It creates a hateful divide.

Some of us are complicit in it.

We need to reform the way we think about ourselves and our values. We need to take a step back and ask, “What are we doing here?” We say, “We stand for all humans.” But do we, if we act like we’re superior to some humans? We need to do some self-reflection as Humanists. We need to ask, “Are we trying to value all human beings?”

Does that trend, which you’re noticing among younger Atheist-Humanists, of considering their own values superior to others lead to a certain type of self-exaltation that can exacerbate the trend seen in youth in general — possibly across time — of seeing their time as ‘The Time?’

Yes, it is hard not to think of it as that, when everything is coming to the climactic point with things as inevitable. Millennials have always prized themselves. That is not necessarily a bad thing. It has an innate value, but can have its disadvantages. One is thinking this time, this place, these values are the most important thing. If we don’t communicate those values for people to stand behind and with us, then we will create a greater divide. It will get worse. The way we go about standing behind this change is in an inclusive way.

You mentioned the push-back from the Left and the Right. Can you clarify that?

The push-back follows politics and social behaviour, which, I think, follows the laws of physics. For example, we had Obama as president for 8 years, which is a long time. A lot can happen in 8 years. We saw many not liking anything done by Obama because it was Obama. That is some of the push-back seen now.

The whole Donald Trump era is the pendulum swinging back towards the Right. The more swing that this pendulum has, then the more extremism that will result. With this push-back from the Right, and Donald Trump as president, we are seeing this push-back against the Left and the push of the Left against the push-back of the Right. It is getting tense.

There’s a large, swinging pendulum. That’s what I mean by the physics of politics and social behaviour. The more you push in one direction; the more push-back you’ll get in the other direction.

What are some near-future initiatives for IHEYO, communications-wise?

I want to push the outreach more as a resource for people concerned for our future. People are looking for guidance. They are looking for words of encouragement, which inspire hope. I hope IHEYO can jump on it, can provide it. I hope IHEYO can provide this need without furthering the divide.

What are your hopes within your lifetime for the Humanist movement?

I would like to see the youth organisation in a grand, sweeping effort. I think there’s a lot of activity going on around the world. It is so off and away. So, it can be hard for others to notice. I went to the youth section of the BHA, the Young Humanists. My vibe was that there’s a lack of awareness about other humanist organisations. They are unique, but they thought they were one-of-a-kind. I was surprised to hear it. There is a lot of Humanist activity ongoing around the world. If people made more effort to connect around the world in a productive way, we could accomplish great things.

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2022-04-11

Dara Ambriz, Land of Enchantment and Hopeless + Cause Atelier

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/11

I am a writer and executive administrator for Trusted Clothes, which is an ethical and sustainable fashion organization. The following is a series devoted in honor of the work done in collaboration with the Schroeckers and the Trusted Clothes team. Here is part 1.

—

Tell us about yourself – family background, personal story, education, and previous professional capacities.

I am a native New Mexican, born and raised in the Land of Enchantment. I come from a tightly knit family full of artists. Living here you can’t help not be one with the rich landscapes, the diversity of the people, the beautiful sunsets and magically star filled skies. As a girl, I was introduced to the opportunity of fashion design as a career, through the gift of Fashion Plates. This gift set was my creative outlet for design and mixing colors, patterns, and textiles on paper. I spent endless hours designing through this medium. I took the next step into actually creating my own clothing after my parents divorced while I was in the fifth grade. When that life event occurred, I spent countless summers with my maternal grandparents. That’s when my grandmother taught me to sew. It was a wonderful bonding experience and helped me to continue my love for fashion and design. This occurred during my early teenage years, in middle school.

Middle School, I feel, is that awkward time, when you are trying to find your own identity while still trying to fit in with your peers. For girls, acceptance and self-esteem play a huge role in your life at this time and for me without a clothing allowance, creating my own clothing were the way for me to create my own style. As I went on to high school, I was serious about following a path in fashion design. My junior year I signed up for the fashion course and club, only to be disappointed when the class was canceled due to budget cuts and the club disbanded due to lack of interest.

Because I didn’t want to leave the state of New Mexico and the lack of designs schools locally, I followed my second love: studying people through psychology and communications. This led me to work in the field of Human Resources and Community Relations. Through this work, I was able to engage and empower employees to assist them to develop their leadership skills and impact the community through non-profit volunteer work. While I wasn’t working in the fashion sector, it was never too far away for me. This role ended in 2013 and that’s when a ticket to New York Fashion Week brought me back to my first love.

Seeing designers bring their creations to life on the world’s stage inspired me to invest into an independent retailer and learn about the business. I learned that I had a keen eye for fashion, buying, and styling. I bought out of the Los Angeles market, so I began to appreciate slow fashion, lines that used eco-friendly materials and products that were made domestically or through sustainable manufacturing processes. I loved working one-on-one with customers to help them find the right look. It was incredible to see their transformation, feeling confident and empowered with my assistance. I had built a clientele base, helping people with their shopping and styling needs, and one afternoon I had a conversation with someone who asked me, “Why aren’t you designing?” I thought it was an odd question because he didn’t know that this was a childhood dream, so I responded, asking him, “Why do you say that? You’ve never seen anything I’ve created.” He stated matter-of-factly, “You have an eye for it. You’d make a killing.”

A few months later, I started designing and creating for myself. Being in the small business, in order to market the company, I attended many social and networking events (there are countless numbers of them in Albuquerque, NM). Evening wear can get expensive and especially when it’s something you don’t wear over and over again. I started making outfits for these events. It was great because I was truly unique in what I wore and received a number of compliments from friends. However, I was never quite sure if they were being just being kind or truly being honest.

Then shop closed. I was devastated and I wasn’t sure I wanted to move forward in this space. I had a conversation with a friend who challenged me. She said, “I’m not going to let you give up on this dream. I want to commission you to create two outfits for upcoming events.” I did and was with her at one of the events when she was stopped over and over again to be told how gorgeous her dress was. It was the perfect market research. That’s when Hopeless + Cause Atelier was launched. It’s a social wear line with a social conscience.

There are three tenants of the line. I want it to be a transformative experience for the wearer by helping them to feel empowered, confident, comfortable while making an impact on the scene (this comes from my background in psychology and communications and I see fashion through that lens). I want people to know who made their clothes and use sustainable textiles and recycled/upcycled materials in the process. One of the companies, I collaborate with is Batiks for Life. The founder, Sara Corry (who also writes for Trusted Clothes), created this company to provide economic empowerment to women in Ghana, Africa while the sales of the batik medical scrubs support health care access to people in that country. I purchase custom batik from her to create my Caprice line. Finally, giving back is hugely important to me. I believe in the work that nonprofits do to change the world for the better, so 10% of the sales of each piece benefit a nonprofit.

Since its inception, Hopeless + Cause Atelier has grown through word of mouth marketing and it’s moving at the right speed for me. I’ve hosted a couple of runway shows for the local New Mexico market. For the first time this October, the line will be shown outside of New Mexico during FWLA’s (Fashion Week Los Angeles) Spring/Summer 2017 Discovery Session. I’m excited to work with FWLA and out of the Los Angeles market because it will put me closer to more options for domestic manufacturing and sourcing of eco-friendly and sustainable textiles.

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2022-04-11

Stylianee, Fashion Revolution and Being an Ethical Fashion Evangelist

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/10

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Before diving into the main conversation, what’s some of your background – personal, educational, professional, and so on? Tell us about yourself.

I grew up in Greece, studied cinema, theatre and cultural management and lived in England and France until I ended up in Luxembourg. I’ve worked mostly in content creation and film/theatre reviewing, then switched to fashion design; that was the moment I realised how creation is something divine. Literally. You are out in the streets and you bump on a girl wearing a dress you have designed. It’s the best feeling ever. That’s why after some time in corporate administration, and after being haunted by this creative quest, and animating upcycling workshops in Luxembourg, I decided to combine purposefully creation and ethics for my startup WHAT.EVE.WEARS.

You have self-defined as an “ethical fashion evangelist” with a passion for “all things sustainable, ethical and conscious” in addition to “raising awareness and advocating on upcycling, recycling, swapping, [and] mending.” What defines each title and activity?

I always loved the environment; already at school I was part of the environmental group, where we were learning about composting waste and going tree-planting. I believe a certain awareness was always in me, but it took a while to make the connection between Fast Fashion and environment and realise that the fashion industry pollutes the environment to such a degree, only second to the oil industry. Not to mention the unjust work practices involved i.e. child labour and all the rest.

What brings these self-definitions together?

All of the above are one thing in essence: trying to buy less, buy better, produce less waste and be conscious to the whole production chain behind the garments and all the products we buy for that sake. Sustainability is all about that. Making sure that the way we are doing things is the right one and does not replenish resources, whether they are natural or human.

These connect to your brand as well. You founded and developed WHAT.EVE.WEARS. You have a blog by the same name. What was the original inspiration for this brand?

The idea behind, as I said, is to create the alternative to fast fashion collections. My love for natural fibres and sustainability took this idea further, and my need to help my home country, made me decide I would like to produce the collection there. Greece, and especially the area of Thessaloniki has a track record in fashion production, even if due to cheap labour in the Balkan area and due to the economic crisis the fashion industry now is not blooming like before.

What about its name?

I was lucky with the name; many people get it and love it! The Biblical Eve, back in the Garden of Eden before eating the apple, was walking around naked. She had no need for clothes, not even for the fig leaf actually; that’s the painters’ invention. I come and make a hypothesis: if Eve would need to wear some clothes back in the Garden of Eden, what type of clothes would they be? And I’m coming up with an answer: Eve would wear ethical and sustainable fashion, garments that are not harming the environment, the animals or the workers involved in their production. It makes sense, don’t you think?

The Spring/Summer 2016 collection is coming up. What is the theme for this particular collection?

It is a capsule collection, no more than 6 – 7 pieces. The theme was innocence with some vintage elements. I’ve chosen earth colours, romantic lace, which gave some sweet, girly pieces. I also love unisex fashion, so I do have two pieces that I wear most of the time, much more neutral and can be literally worn by girls or boys alike.

You gave a talk entitled Ethical Fashion at Ideas from Europe. What is ethical fashion? What is sustainable fashion?

Ethical and sustainable fashion is what we call Slow Fashion and call it this way because it’s the opposite to Fast Fashion. It encompasses countless elements, but the goal is to create a system, which can be supported indefinitely in terms of human impact on the environment and social responsibility (and yes, that is from Wikipedia). This can be translated in so many ways: produce locally, support artisans, create vegan or cruelty-free, upcycle, reuse and repurpose last season stock, buy vintage clothing, work with no-waste patterns, timeless design, polymorphic clothes and there’s so much room for experiment when it comes to using sustainable textiles. It’s a totally new field and a very exciting one!

What is their importance with salient examples?

The importance of sustainable fashion is quite clear: we are creating a better, more just world of fashion, just for all parties involved. We are aiming for transparency together with the Fashion Revolution movement, because transparency is the only way we can convince corporations to be accountable for their production lines. We encourage customers to ask corporations #WhoMadeMyClothes and we, new designers dedicated to ethical fashion are ready to answer #ImadeYourClothes and show the good working conditions and give every single detail related to ethically sourced materials and the like. The end customer who wears our products can make sure he is not ‘carrying’ the pain of others in his shoulders.

WHAT.EVE.WEARS is on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?

We will launch the full website very soon. We are also ready to deliver corporate wear like aprons or t-shirts, all from organic cotton and produced ethically in Greece. Also, our story is well-documented on Social Media, so whoever is interested in ethical and sustainable fashion would find it useful to follow us.

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2022-04-11

Connie Pillon, Self-definition, Corporate Conscience, and Ethical and Sustainable Fashion

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/09

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You self-define as a life coach, writer, and activist for ethical fashion. In fact, you have some musings, and spoken word and poetry on the website as well. What is the ethical economy?

An ethical economy represents a win for all, including consumers, companies, employees, communities, and the environment.

Why these self-definitions?

My intention is to inspire people to become the highest version of themselves both personally and professionally. I hope to make a meaningful contribution to the world through writing and life coaching. I took an excellent program to learn a coaching style of communication, which I find empowers people to find their own inner truth. The secret lies in asking powerful questions. The coaching process can help take people from where they are now, to where they want to be.

I also have a passion for spoken word, it is an excellent way for people to express themselves, particularly our youth.

You run the Facebook page entitled Corporate Conscience. What is the importance of corporate social responsibility – or a corporate conscience (as they are defined legally as immortal persons, by implication of the law)?

Yes, we have all seen how giving a corporation the rights of “personhood”, while at the same time having no personal liability and accountability, can create a psychopathic ‘entity’. However, a corporation can be created by ethical business leaders, and have a system that is built on integrity.

Consumer influence is vital. Thanks to social media, corporations are frequently challenged by the public now. Recently, there have been stories of CEOs taking pay cuts to raise wages for workers, there is an exciting movement toward conscious capitalism.

What other work are you involved in at this point in time?

By day, I work in accounting and administration to make ends meet, it is a practical way to support my family for now and takes up a great deal of my time. In my own personal journey, it somehow makes sense to work with numbers in order to earn money. I work hard, and it keeps me humble.

It is not part of my spiritual path to make money from spiritual/life coaching, nor from advocating for corporate social responsibility. I would accept donations for life and business coaching under certain circumstances, although it hasn’t happened yet. Money and career success is not the purpose behind it.

What meaning or personal fulfillment does this work bring for you?

All the writing and coaching I have done until now has been voluntary, in the hopes that I am making a positive contribution to the world. This is all I want.

I have worked to plant seeds of empathy and ethics in my everyday life for twenty years now, both personally and professionally. I try to be a living example of the things I write about, and I have made a lot of people irritated in my lifetime as a result. Yet I have also had some very meaningful experiences. I will continue to speak my truth wherever I go, even if it means I am labeled as a trouble-maker once in awhile, for challenging the status quo.

With regard to ethical and sustainable fashion companies, what’s the importance of them to you?

Ethical and sustainable companies can act as role models to business leaders who may later follow in their footsteps. They demonstrate how sustainable business practices are vital for ‘longterm’ success.

Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?

Just want to say thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my story.

I feel fortunate to have been able to make a contribution to the Trusted Clothes blog. It is an amazing organization, that is paving the way for mindful business practices in the fashion industry.

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2022-04-11

Connie Pillon, Background, and Fair Trade

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/09

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Tell us about yourself – family background, personal story, education, and previous professional capacities.

My childhood experiences compelled me to look for deeper meaning in life, starting at a very young age. However, I was fortunate enough to have experienced an authentic kind of love from my mother early on, which gave me a strong foundation to work with. I was always very interested in the spiritual realm, and have had my share of paranormal experiences.

I was strongly influenced by a few books, such as The Prophet, The Road Less Travelled, The Spirits Book, Mastery of Love, and The Power of Now. I found the work of Carl Jung to be very informative as well since I personally believe our highest purpose in life is to heal our own shadow.

When I graduated from high school, I felt a strong calling to choose a career that involved helping others, and I enrolled in nursing at the University of Windsor. Although, nursing was not my true passion at the time, I was more interested in creative writing and visual arts. Unfortunately, I was misguided and believed nursing would be a more meaningful profession since I would be directly helping others. This was a mistake. I would later drop out of nursing after realizing I had made the wrong choice. It wasn’t until much later in life that I realized that I could help others best by following my own passion and purpose, which would have allowed me to tap into an unlimited amount of inspiration.

After dropping out of university, I worked as a housekeeper in the special care section (lock up area) of a nursing home, and then later in a shelter for abused women. I witnessed a lot of death and suffering, and it changed my perspective on life.

I went back to college, although still misguided about what path to pursue. A few life coaching sessions might have been life to change at that point, to help set me in the right direction. However, I ended up eventually graduating from a Business – Accounting program, where I studied economics, accounting, marketing and organizational behavior.

I went on to work in finance and administration at a non-profit organization called Inspire Health, which planted a powerful seed in me about the importance of incorporating the ‘body, mind, spirit’ connection into the workplace.

I left after having a child and later went on to work in public practice for several years. After doing bookkeeping for more than fifty companies, where I had to record every transaction that went in and out of businesses, I gained deep insight into how companies operate. A bookkeeper truly sees all. I suffered a lot of workplace bullying and exploitation. This was hard, as I was already highly sensitive, like a lobster walking around with no shell. Equality and ethical business practices became a strong priority for me, and I recognized the need to spread the word about corporate social responsibility. With so many business leaders operating unconsciously, I decided to set up a Facebook page called Corporate Conscience to help educate people.

While working in payroll and human resources for different companies, my eyes were wide open to the fact that employee wellness = company wellness. Unfortunately, the leadership styles I witnessed were often damaging to employee morale. I took time to study various types of leadership and gained a strong interest in coaching. I enrolled in a coaching program at Coaching Cognition and obtained a life coaching certificate. Coaches are considered to be on the same level as the client, I value the equality in that. They also believe that the client has all the answers within themselves, the coach just has to ask the right questions.

Each of us has a unique set of strengths, I have always been very sensitive to energy, and felt very empathic toward others. I believe intuition is the language of the soul. Life coaching has allowed me to use these gifts to help others.

What is the importance of ethical fashion?

The fashion industry is influencing our youth and setting the standard for body-image and appearance. It is a great responsibility for fashion designers and clothing companies. May their message be one of self-respect.

Clothing is a necessity and can be a creative form of self-expression, but it is hard to feel good about wearing clothes made by children forced into slave labor, in a developing country. These clothes might as well be blood-stained from the suffering endured in sweatshops.

What is the importance of sustainable fashion?

If we can bring environmental sustainability into the fashion industry, we will have solved a major crisis, since fast fashion is the second largest polluter next to big oil. Every company should be measuring its carbon footprint.

Companies who are exhausting people and the planet will only experience short-term profits, and also risk getting a lot of negative publicity on social media. Individuals and other companies are also less likely to invest in businesses with a reputation for having unethical business practices.

What about fair trade?

There are thousands of products that carry the fair trade mark, which ensures that people at the end of the chain, e.g. farmers, are not being exploited.

Consumers can help improve lives in developing countries by purchasing fair trade products. Fairtrade also encourages farmers to use environmentally sustainable practices.

Textile manufacturers are beginning to sign up to the new Fairtrade Textile Standard, which focuses on workers’ rights and working conditions. Factories participating in the program are also offered training on environmental management, social concerns, and health & safety.

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2022-04-11

Kai Jonas Talks About Ethical and Sustainable Fashion

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/09

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Tell us about yourself – family background, personal story, education, and previous professional capacities.

Hello, everyone! My name is Kai Jonas and I am a co-founder of Brighton-based fashion brand, Lite Apparel. We launched just over three weeks ago with our 06.16 Collection and we are very grateful for the amazing welcome into the Fashion world!

I along with other members of the team are University students, I’m personally an International Business student (quite fittingly) though we are made up of an Economics student, Arts, and Media students – so a good mix.

All of us were brought up in Brighton & Hove which is a small town (technically city) on the South Coast of the UK and became friends at a very young age through our love of football.

Our journey into the fashion world perhaps wouldn’t be deemed conventional, in that we weren’t the types to be hand crafting garments, though we all had a gauge on popular or mainstream fashion and appreciated high-quality garments.

What is the importance of ethical fashion?

Ethical Fashion covers a range of issues such as working conditions, exploitation, fair trade, the environment, and animal welfare. Unfortunately, these issues although being addressed more and more are still existent.

To date, 250 million 5-14-year-olds are being exploited in hundreds of thousands of sweat shops around the world.

It’s important to highlight that these sweatshops are not just based in the third world or underdeveloped countries – they can be found much closer to home than you would expect!

I was lucky enough to have some experience with manufacturing and production through a recent internship in China and learned the importance of not cutting corners when it comes to producing products. Along with this, and having exhausted hundreds of pages on Google Search, I have become more aware of the true implications of what would be considered fast fashion and it was one of the main reasons why we decided to launch an Ethical centered brand in Lite Apparel

What is the importance of sustainable fashion?

Sustainable fashion in our view should be, and widely is, considered as important as that of ethical fashion.

This more so involves the physical processes of creating products, and more precisely relating to the effect production has on the environment.

One worrying statistic that I feel could do with some more circulation is that 25% of chemicals produced worldwide is used for textiles. With this, the fashion industry as a whole is widely branded as number 2 in the rankings of the highest polluters of clean water, just after agriculture!

This is an extremely alarming statistic that has been shown to lead to extremely detrimental effects on the environment.

Perhaps more relative to us as buyers – 16 out of 27 luxury fashion products, (59%) tested positive for one or more hazardous chemicals.

It’s crucial to be conscious and take care when purchasing any type of product as you never know what effect it has had on the environment, or eventually the effect it may have on yourself!

What is LiteApparel?

Lite Apparel is a Brighton-based fashion brand trying to raise and share the importance of ethical & sustainable fashion whilst offering some pretty kick-ass high-quality products (well at least we and our customers think so).

We have grown to understand that there is a need for a movement in the Fashion industry and we hope to inspire it.

What makes LiteApparel unique?

So this is a question we needed to and wanted to, raise right at the beginning when formulating the brand.

A lot of new start-ups in Fashion tend to innovate through design, which is awesome! Though none of us really had any experience in fashion design so truthfully we shied away from delving into that approach.

Instead, we wanted to innovate through the processes and procedures that would eventually make up our products.

We were very lucky to discover and partner up with The Fair Wear Foundation who helped significantly with the creation of our 06.16 collection – ensuring that all materials and products were ethically sourced and imperatively personified with award-winning energy efficient sustainable methods of production.

It’s meant to offer innovative, high quality, sustainably manufactured, and environmentally friendly products, and affiliated with fair wear foundation group. What is the importance of the relationship with fair wear foundation group?

Like mentioned in the previous question, partnering up with Fair Wear was essential and largely the reason why we have found success with this initial collection.

Not only did they provide superb resources through the creation process they also offered incredible support that I’m sure all of us will cherish forever.

What other work are you involved in at this point in time?

We all agreed to solely focus on Lite over the Summer and it is seemingly paying off.

We are all pretty keen on sports, particularly football, so most of us are continuing with coaching younger children and communities around Sussex which is very fun & fulfilling.

What meaning or personal fulfillment does this work bring for you?

For us, we are just very honored to be in a position to be able to contribute to the Fashion industry in hopefully a positive way. We all understand and believe that there is a need for a change from both the creator and consumers perspective and we hope to contribute to this as much as we can.

With regard to ethical and sustainable fashion companies, what’s the importance of them to you?

We had the opportunity to meet with members from our absolute inspiration ethical-brands Patagonia and Braintree which was incredible! Both of whom provided unbelievable support and provided, even more, inspiration to keep on going with Lite.

Particularly with Patagonia what is extremely inspiring for us is the fact that they are now becoming extreme heavy-weights in urban streetwear which is really where we hope to position our brand in the future. It just shows that you don’t need to produce cheaply in order to get into the mainstream.

Overall it’s just great to see so many doing so well and it supports that consumers are becoming more conscious and there is a market for Ethical & Sustainable fashion.

Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?

I would just like to remind all the consumers out there, including myself, that we have the power!

Although ethical or sustainably produced products tend to be a little more expensive, the reason generally speaking is because you are paying for a better quality product – and most importantly a wage of which the individual who produced it can, to put it bluntly, survive.

Be conscious people!

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2022-04-11

Kestrel Jenkins on Her Story and Sustainable Fashion

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/09

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Tell us about yourself – family background, personal story, education, and previous professional capacities.

I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin along the Mississippi River. For my family, being outside and enjoying the natural world was huge. Hiking and biking were our most common pastimes whenever we had a break from helping out at my parents’ restaurant and hotel. I spent a lot of days working with my family – serving customers, cleaning rooms, and connecting with travelers on their way through.

At university, I studied Global Studies, Women’s Studies, and International Journalism. Once I learned about the way that products, ideas and people move around the world, supply chains and their intricacies became hugely interesting to me. Post undergraduate studies, I secured an internship with fair trade fashion pioneer People Tree in London. This experience was my turning point – once I had this glimpse of the industry, I was hooked and all in.

I was humbled to receive a Fulbright Scholarship to teach English in Madrid, Spain for a year. Following this experience, I moved to New York City to work with Inhabitat & Ecouterre. From there, I’ve worked with several publications and companies in the space – including the GreenShows, EcoSalon, Fashioning Change and FashionMeGreen. Today, I also serve on the board of the nonprofit 1to1 Movement, which works to help each person find their own way to change the world.

What is the importance of ethical fashion?

Fashion’s impact on people globally is massive. The garment industry employs around 40 million people globally, 85% of them being women. As some of the lowest paid workers in the world, people working along the global garment supply chain regularly face violations of human rights. It’s not a question of the importance of ethical fashion, it’s the question of how we can all support a better fashion industry that respects the people that work to make the clothes we wear.

What is the importance of sustainable fashion?

The waste that’s associated with the textile industry is mind blowing. Today, the average American generates 82 pounds of textile waste per year. The big bummer about it is a lot of that waste could be recycled.

It’s all connected. In today’s world, buying organic food has become a somewhat mainstream concept. When it comes to clothing, we are still disconnected from the stories. What we wear has the potential to also be a reflection of our values. Farming does not only yield food products; fiber comes from the field as well. The more we can understand these overlapping realities, the more we can be connected to not only what we put in our bodies, but also what we put on our bodies.

What is AWEAR World?

AWEAR World is a platform that inspires us to think about where our clothes are made, what they are made of, and who made them. Through features of real people, their stories and the stories behind their clothes, AWEAR World gives us opportunities to learn more, in a community-oriented way, where we can help each other along the journey.

What makes AWEAR World unique?

AWEAR World empowers us to celebrate the positive ways we can all do something to affect the future of our planet and the humans who live here. Little things matter. While the realities of the fashion industry can be overwhelming and disturbing, we each have the ability to make small choices that can gradually, when tackled together, contribute to big change.

What other work are you involved in at this point in time?

I host the podcast Conscious Chatter which has a focus on fashion and the players in the garment supply chain. We trended on iTunes for two+ months and were featured on the iTunes homepage.

Past guests have included TV host Tim Gunn (HEMP), designer Mara Hoffman (MARA HOFFMAN + MINDFULNESS), cofounder of Fashion Revolution Orsola de Castro (FASHION REVOLUTION), winner of Project Runway Season 8 Gretchen Jones (DESIGNER DILEMMA), Founder of Project 333 Courtney Carver (TINY WARDROBE), author Elizabeth Cline (WASTE), Director of Social Consciousness at Eileen Fisher Amy Hall (SUPPLY CHAINS), organic farmer LaRhea Pepper (COTTON) and more.

What meaning or personal fulfillment does this work bring for you?

Being part of the sustainable / ethical fashion conversation is my life. As cliché as it sounds, helping tell stories about the fashion industry and how we can all play a positive role in its future is literally who I am. It’s something that’s become part of my soul and how I find purpose in my life.

With regard to organizations/companies, and so on, like Trusted Clothes and AWEAR World, what’s the importance of them to you?

Knowledge is power. The more access to information we have – in an easily digestible way – the more we all have the opportunity to make positive choices that can influence change in the fashion industry and beyond.

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2022-04-11

Rinsing Dishes for Some Idle, or Maybe not so Much, Insights

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/08

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I had an experience. And I thought it might be relevant to you. It has to do with when I was doing the dishes just this late afternoon. I was doing the dishes and it occurred to me: if I’m putting the hot water into a sink, and then the soap, and then mixing it with the soap and throwing in the dishes and all the other junk, and then washing it away, where’s all this going?

It occurred to me that this is probably a very pervasive feeling and thought for other people. But this can be applied to other areas. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean the fact that individuals that use things will tend to be using them thoughtlessly, and I am no different than most of others, or others that aren’t even in this kind of movement.

I missed the very obvious fact that anything that I use will tend to be used in other areas by other people and they themselves will not necessarily know where it goes, why it’s used, and what happens to it. How mindful are we in using and consuming resources that the planet provides?

So here are ways we can recycle water at home:

1. Use a Shower Bucket

The shower bucket is probably the simplest way to recycle water at home. When you turn on the tap for your shower, the water that comes out takes some time to heat up to a comfortable temperature. Next time you’re warming up the shower, stick a bucket under the running tap until you’re ready to get in. You’ll be surprised at how much water you collect!

2. Install a Rain Barrel

Skip that whole municipal water system for watering your garden and collect rainwater instead. Rain barrel setups can be super simple or more complicated, depending on how much time you can invest and how handy you are. The best collection method that I’ve found is setting up the barrel underneath your gutter’s downspout, so it collects the most water when it rains.

3. Create a Rain Gardenain gardens take advantage of land’s natural water runoff to nourish the plants that live there. Unlike a regular garden that needs watering, a rain garden is constructed so that it reuses water that would otherwise run off into the sewage systems. The bonus is that by diverting that water from the storm drain, you’re giving your city’s overtaxes sewage system a break.

4. Save that Pasta Water

Next time you’re making a pot of pasta, don’t dump all of that precious water down the drain! Instead, set your colander over another large pot to collect all of that precious H2O. Once the water has cooled, you can use it on your garden or to water your house plants.

5. Save Water from Washing Veggies

Just like when you’re boiling pasta, washing veggies uses water that’s totally re-usable. Place your colander over a large pot to collect the water while you’re washing. You can use your collected water on the garden or for flushing the toilet.

6. Install a Gray Water System

Gray water is waste water that doesn’t contain sewage. Think the water that goes down the drain when you wash your hands or do laundry. A gray water system diverts that water, so it doesn’t go to waste. A good example might be diverting water from your shower drain for flushing the toilet. Grey water systems can get pretty complicated, and just like any plumbing setup, they do require maintenance.

7. Collect the Overflow from Watering Plants

When you water your potted plants, have you noticed that extra water usually runs out of those drainage holes at the bottom of the pot? Don’t let that water go to waste! Place your plants in deep trays to collect that water. You can use the runoff from your larger plants to water the smaller ones.

8. Reuse Excess Drinking Water

Got an almost-empty water glass that’s been sitting out too long to drink? Feed it to a thirsty house plant instead! You can also use unsweet tea on your plants. If the drink that’s been sitting is sweetened, you can pour it on plants in the garden, but don’t use it on house plants unless you like ants!

Our consumption patterns relate to one another in very different ways, but the consumption patterns can be unsustainable. So, it was a moment that actually made me pause and stop washing the damn cutting knife (no cuts!), but, even so, this can hopefully be a little bit of a cutting insight.

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2022-04-11

Zimbabwean Fashion and the African Diaspora

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/07

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I want to talk a little bit today about a topic close to the hearts of many people, but with a little bit of background via provision of context. And it is something of interest to me, too, with respect to the African Diaspora. It’s about an individual nation within the African Diaspora. I want to talk about Zimbabwe and its fashion industry. Zimbabwe is a country in Southern Africa that is landlocked. Some notable areas of the country are the Zambezi River and Victoria Falls in addition to the Patoka Gorge.

The capital is Harare, and the current president of Zimbabwe is Robert Mugabe. He runs the country with a population totaling 14.15 million people. In fact, he’s been President since 1980. That’s a long time. The accepted currencies are the US dollar, the Euro, the Botswana Pula, the Pound Sterling, and the South African Rand. The official languages are English, Ndebele, and Shona. Zimbabwe has a rich, and varied history including a Precolonial Era, the Colonial Era, the Unilateral Declaration of Independence and the Civil War, and the Independence Era.

The climate is tropical. Some of the flora and fauna of the region include evergreen and hardwood forests, and extends to over 350 species of mammals that can be found there, and even 500 species of bird and over 130 fish species. In addition to this, there are some international human rights concerns in terms of the organization positions reports such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch examining violations of rights for food, freedom of assembly and movement, shelter, and even protection of the law.

One of the main points of strength in the country relates to the high adult literacy rate of Zimbabwe within the African Diaspora. According to 2013 reports, the literacy rate is the highest in the continent of Africa at about 90.7% for the adult population although, half of Zimbabwe’s children have not progressed beyond primary school. In addition, some of the wealthier members of the population send their children to independent schools as opposed to some of the schools run by the government. So, with that in mind and in terms of providing a context for some of the culture, not necessarily in terms of pluses and minuses, this, rather, gives a context and complement to the presentation of fashion in Zimbabwe.

This is an interesting topic to me. I believe that it might be of interest to others. Sustainability is a challenge for the entire world. Fashion is a core aspect of her culture. To begin with some of the aspects of Zimbabwean fashion and culture, we can look at some of the historic precedents in the long history of the culture for instance, the traditional fashion and culture.

You can also show marital status with a married woman traditionally wearing a blanket over the shoulders with thick beaded hoops of grass, grass that is twisted. This can also include copper rings or brass rings around the neck, legs, or arms. The colors can range from blues, greens, reds, yellows, and browns. It is an important note that the head covering is an external sign of respect for the husbands. Little girls might wear beaded aprons or beaded skirts. Men can also wear animal skin headbands and ankle bands.

Of course, as influence from West and the Western world through colonialization occurred, the current European and Western set of apparels can bleed into the culture and affect the current generations for the future generations with respect to their choice of clothing. This sense of style can then change over time. This, then, changes the future culture. In other words, the more indigenous and more traditional aspects of them in the Zimbabwean culture has been influenced by the European or western culture, especially in regard to some of the context given before about the Colonial Era. Duly noted, there was a separation between the Precolonial Era and the Colonial Era. In addition, you can note the Independence Day is celebrated by the culture.

Now, with respect to the modern fashion culture of Zimbabwe, many of the citizens and individuals in the country wear, apparently, modern and Western-style clothing as the usual outfit. In other words, very few people will wear the traditional clothing on a regular basis within the country. It’s important to keep in mind stereotypes that might be in one’s mind and then contrast that with the reality. Sometimes true, sometimes false, or at times partially or even mostly true; it depends. Of course, there are the major fashion icons within the country that can then therefore produce aspects of the traditional culture within the fashion culture. Of course, this can also come into direct contact with the mixing and matching culture that seems to me like a large part of the international fashion culture. That’s all for now, thanks!

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2022-04-11

Cotton, Cotton Everywhere, Nothin’ But Another Natural Fibre There

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/07

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Back again to talk a little bit about, and in a little bit of a roundabout way for you, natural fibres! Again, natural fibres are much unlike the synthetic fibres. Natural fibres are divided into three categorizations known as minerals fibres, animal fibres, and plant fibres. Mineral fibres come in in only one form as far as I know, and that form is asbestos. Asbestos is used in many cases throughout homes as insulation for a good thing, but, unfortunately, the bad thing is that it is highly correlated as a carcinogenic material, probably and one might argue conclusively, correlated or causing for human beings.

Cotton is a natural fibre, and sustainable, ethical, and by the lights of Trusted Clothes much more fashionable. Ethical is sexy.

There are many kinds of outputs for this particular fibre, but this will be our look into its production and trade, design and manufacturing, and general uses. Cotton is cultivated as a fibre for textile utilization. The average cotton yield is about 800 kilograms per hectare. But it is almost purely cellulose and with a high level of both breathability and softness, which means that it is a popular natural fibre. Its length can be anywhere from 65 to 10 millimeters. Its diameter can be anywhere from 11 to 22 microns. It is highly absorbent of moisture and is a comfortable clothing in hot weather. Given that it has a high tensile strength; it is easy to wash with a variety of soaps. It is such a popular production as a natural fibre throughout the world that 80 countries are cultivating it. There are approximately 10 million small farmers that depend on this cultivation of cotton for their basic income. This means their livelihood.

So, the production and trade of cotton produces approximately 25 million tonnes throughout the world per annum, I think. The major producers are Brazil, China, India, Pakistan, the United States of America, and Uzbekistan, which accounts for approximately four-fifths of the world’s total exports of cotton via its production by the aforementioned 10 million farmers. In terms of raw cotton, China has been the major importer, and takes in approximately three to four million tonnes of cotton – circa estimations from 2006, but the main exporter has and continues to be the United States of America.

In terms of the uses of cotton, about 60% of cotton fibre is used for yarn and thread through a wide variety or range of clothing, which means jeans, t-shirts, and even shirts in general, but this can even include underwear and coats. It is used in home furnishings including bedspreads and window blinds, and even washcloths. As noted with multiple other natural fibres in this series on sustainable fibres, the main benefit of things such as cotton is for clothing and other uses in the daily life, in industrial manufacturing, or the fact that they can decompose and have a natural cycle, which I have turned the natural fibre life cycle. That’s all for now!

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2022-04-10

A 101 Guide to the Fantastic Sustainable Future

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/07

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Let’s take a look today at sustainability tips. Two sustainability tips seem relevant to me. These relate to the overall sustainable and ethical fashion culture, but in your home. You can use different lights. You can wash your clothes more efficiently. These are aspects of keeping one’s carbon output low and pollution low.

Another aspect of keeping things like those low is the home. The ways in which we keep our homes low in energy cost, but still with comfort. I think that some of the aspects of sustainability regarding fashion relate very deeply to one’s home. Aside from one’s clothing, the home is the next most intimate aspect of our own lives. The home is a reflection of self. A home is a reflection of style. Home is also a reflection of conscientiousness. Conscientiousness regarding the environment. Conscientiousness regarding pollution. And conscientiousness regarding environmental concerns over the next few decades for climate change.

What I want to share in this series are some tips for keeping sustainability are your own contributions to the improvement of the environment. The reduction of harm to the environment. Let’s look at two examples. There are lights. Lights in households. There are laundry machines. The lights tend to be incandescent or CFI bulbs – inefficient bulbs.

Laundry machines can be old, outdated, and so inefficient. Efficiency as in the cost per load of laundry for washing and drying based on electrical usage. We live in a very privileged time. Living in a wonderfully privileged society. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But, to me, responsibility comes with some level of a better life, within reason. Better life can imply taking away the quality of life of people that is here now and other places of the world. Or, another set of people not yet born are just coming into this world. All these things matter. All these people matter. Our actions have consequences. Climate change is one example, and lights and laundry are great examples, I think. And they’re easy fixes!

What about deeper? Sure. You can see this extend into the realm of the home and clothing under the rubric of sustainability. If you look at the incandescent and CFL bulbs, they are typically not very sustainable because they are inefficient, and so environmentally irresponsible. If you refit your house with LED lights as opposed to CFL lights, you can have another, and increase efficiency of about 90%. That’s a great, great increase in efficiency. It is also environmentally responsible. No harmful gases, better and more efficient lights, and lights that apparently can live up to or last long as 20 years. That’s a good thing I think.

The second thing that can be done is changing laundry settings. This is closer to the textile and natural fibre industry, and to sustainability. If you need to heat water, you need to input energy into cold water or room temperature water. That would warm the water and imparts energy. When using laundry, a cold wash might be of use for some types of clothing or some loads of clothing. That can be more efficient. That can be environmentally responsible.

Some other options to do with laundry might be less desirable, but can help. For instance, we can wear clothes longer. We can wash clothes by hand. But, personally, I wouldn’t want my clothes washed by hand. Why? I like the 21^st century. Some other aspects can include the use of clothes lines to dry clothes by the sun and wind. That seems a little more reasonable to me, right? It depends on your level of investment. If a heavy effort, you can go full-throttle on throwing clothes on the line and doing a cold wash of laundry. (Depends on the surrounding area’s weather, though.) If light investment, you can do the cold washing of laundry alone and switch some lightbulbs to the LED bulbs. I think that’s enough to get us started.

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2022-04-10

Ghosts and Other Unprovables, and Fashion too!

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/07

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If you look at the popularizations of ghosts, ghost-like phenomena (whatever that means, Scott), and many other things, you can see that most ghosts seemed to have an enjoyment in wearing clothing.

John Keats had a poem called La Belle Dame Sans Merci, which translates by my reading as “The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy,” A few lines as follows:

She took me to her Elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!’
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

Thanks for scaring the crap out of people, Keats.

I don’t know about you, but this seems a little bit suspicious to me. Even though these kinds of stories and narratives based on the subjective experiences of individuals (which likely happen) can bring about lovely poetry and tall tales, these seem rather thin in evidence and content other than the elaborations of the reports and the legends and mythos that surrounds them.

I have a natural philosophical bent, so this means that I have a certain bias towards the general scientific and natural epistemological perspective on the world. In other words, my perspective is biased towards modern science, updated natural philosophy, with testability, predictability, and peer review.

If you look at some of the photographs interspersed throughout this article, you can see the clothing that is reported to be worn by these ghosts. It just seems weird. It just seems weird that people would come back in the clothing that they were wearing at the time of their death. Some might speculate that this is some form of immortal soul. How is this an immortal soul taking their clothing with them? Why clothing? Why that clothing from that period of time?

Most of the research I have done on supernatural ghost sightings seem to have them clothed in some type of Victorian-era clothing. Where are the ones in just jeans and t-shirts?

These so called ghosts in clothes have inspired some eery clothing designs like Dead Castle Project – a Sydney-based label – is well-known for combining a variety of styles in their collections from surf to skate to grunge and its 2012 Spring/Summer collection is no exception. Featuring plenty of black, the models in the graveyards appear disinterested and unperturbed by the fact that they are surrounded by dead bodies inches beneath the surface. This collection by Dead Castle Project is also infused with a slight dose of badass and authority as showcased in the tee-shirt that reads ‘Cool Kids Can’t Die.”

Paranormal investigators seem to have a hard time telling us why ghosts even wear clothing. So, would people that died then begin to wear just that one outfit? That seems sustainable and within the whole concept of buying less and having better. It would also be the first natural fibre never to bio-degrade – really, really degrade completely and utterly. Textiles in the afterlife, who woulda thunk? That’s all for now.

And as with everything written, I could be wrong, incredibly wrong – think for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

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2022-04-10

Poor Old Mineral Fibre, Needed Man Knowledge

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/06

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The how much and the what now? (Yep, me too.)

Okie dokie, it’s another issue of natural fibres, If you aren’t familiar with fibres or fabrics, then see the article below:

Related Article: Sustainable Fabrics- The Good

Man-made fibres are regenerated and synthetic fibres. Synthetic fibres are manufactured synthetically and do not decompose. While regenerated fibres are an admixture of natural fibres and man-made fibres. In that, regenerated fibres are the ones that are originally plant or vegetable fibres with cellulose in them, and through the viscose method of extrusion and precipitation are given a chemical that gets rid of cellulose in the vegetable fibre. And then by another chemical process have those parts filled in with another chemical so that they then become regenerated fibres. Therefore, the regenerated fibres are a combination of original vegetable fibres and then by chemical process becoming man-made fibres are regenerated fibres.

Man-made, synthetic or regenerated fibres do not decompose. Natural fibres – that’s fibres and animal fibres and mineral fibres – do decompose. There are many methods to decompose things by a hot or cold compost, or with wiggler worms.

Related Article: A How-To Composting Your Clothes

So we’re going to be talking a little bit today about mineral fibres. What are they?

They are, or more accurately it is asbestos, which is the only mineral fibre. It is a silicate of many minerals including magnesium, calcium, iron, aluminium, and other minerals. It is, amazingly, rust, flame, and acid proof. And its particles are actually carcinogenic and therefore it has a very restricted use.

What is a silicate? Silicate contains an anionic silicon compound. What is “anionic”? It is a negatively charged ion or any negatively charged atom or group of atoms. That means silicate is simply an anionic silicon compound and a mixture. A mineral fibre from asbestos can be made into something like a mineral wool. They can also be known as a mineral fibre or even a man-made mineral fibre.

Well, isn’t that great? Find out about a new fibre, a good ol’ natural fibre, but it is carcinogenic or cancer contributing or causing. I’m not sure whether if they’re contributing or if they’re causing. And I have to take caution at this point in time about the length of exposure and kind of exposure to the asbestos. However, it might be a little bit like the smoking correlation vs causation argument.

Where the amount of smoke that an individual or population smokes is highly correlated with cancer, which shows that cigarettes are so correlative as to be argued as causative of cancer, maybe the same with these. Although we haven’t found any conclusive evidence or studies to suggest that prolonged exposure to mineral fibres (such as in clothing) can cause cancer, we do absorb toxins through our skin.

That’s an interesting property there’s not much more on these little things. However, I think that it was worth exploring for a little bit. Especially because these are actually used in tremendous amounts of housing insulation, and I think that’s worthwhile as a thing to explore or for yourself. You can simply Google “mineral fibre” and “asbestos” (or Bing or Yahoo, etc, etc) to gain a better idea of this particular natural fibre. That’s all for now thanks for your time!

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2022-04-10

Carolyn Bailey, Treasure Box Kids and Ethical and Sustainable Fashion

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/06

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Tell us a little bit about your background such as education, and some personal and professional experience.

My passion for quality clothing and apparel construction drove me to create the business I now own. Growing up in a rural town across the street from a fabric studio was where I learned quality clothing construction and also where I grew a love for quality fabrics. After gaining a wealth of knowledge and experience in sales, marketing and management as a business woman, this gave me the professional skills to pair with the love I have for quality fabrics and apparel construction to create my company, Treasure Box Kids.

What was the inspiration for Treasure Box Kids – and its title?

The inspiration behind the name “Treasure Box Kids” came from my idea that the clothing my company produces are precious treasures for children. Treasure Box Kids is “Ethically Made, High Quality, Socially Responsible, Children’s Clothing”. My inspiration for the company as a whole is to create quality family heirloom pieces that can be passed down to future generations.

What makes Treasure Box Kids unique?

Our product offering contains styles custom made by Treasure Box Kids in the USA, Independent Designers that make their clothing in the United States and also a new line made in Kenya named Little Maisha, that helps to support women economically. What makes Treasure Box Kids unique is that you cannot walk into any department store or online store and find this exact product mix.

You sell clothing for girls, girls’ dresses, and birthday dresses. Why these products? Where will the product line expand in the future?

Treasure Box Kids began with girls clothing because of my preference visually to girls’ clothing. After learning to perfect that niche, it has sparked my desire to expand our lines. Plans are in development currently to include boys clothing as well as to expand the Kenyan line.

What meaning or personal fulfillment does this work bring for you?

Quality, ethically made apparel is my passion. My fulfillment comes from the affirmation that my customers are getting quality outfits as well as the knowledge that the clothing production is not harming anyone but actually helping the economy, the environment and the people producing the apparel.

With regard to companies like Trusted Clothes and Treasure Box Kids, what’s the importance of them to you?

I see the two companies goals aligned similarly in regard to excellence in apparel construction and the fair treatment of apparel workers. It is very important to educate the consumer on how apparel is made and also how the people who make our apparel are being treated. The consumer will be more aware and ultimately make better purchasing decisions. Education is the foundation for change and growth in a culture and I see that our two companies can invoke that change.

Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?

The impact my company, Treasure Box Kids (a for profit corporation) has on the wider community, is the need for ethically and sustainably manufactured clothing. I plan to be at the forefront of the growing need to help produce clothing that has a positive impact on society.

Thank you for your time, Carolyn.

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2022-04-10

Silk, Queen of the Fabrics and the Silkworm

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/05

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Natural fibres divide into animal and plant fibres. Animal fibres are those that are composed of amino acids called proteins, plant fibres are those made mainly of cellulose. Examples of animal fibres are alpaca, angora, cashmere, mohair, silk, and wool. Plant fibres can be things like in abaca, cotton, flax, hemp, jute.

Natural fibres themselves also differ from man-made artificial and synthetic fibres. These fibres consist of rayon, nylon, acrylic, and polyester. Each of these are unable to decompose.

One such fabric is silk, sometimes called the “queen of the fabrics.” Its original development was in ancient China. Silk is produced from a silkworm. The worm is fed Mulberry leaves, as it matures the worm spins a cocoon.

Once filaments are made of silk, they can have a great strength and can measure from 500 to 1500 m in length, which is quite substantial given the source. The actual form of the woven silk is a triangular structure. Its absorbency is good and it dyes well, and is produced in over 20 countries. These include the major producers, such as Asia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Egypt, and Madagascar. The particular type of industry, in terms of the manufacture of silk from silkworms, is called sericulture.

There are over 1 million workers in China alone with the provision of production for households, and in India, upwards of 700,000, and growing. The production and trade of silk can range from about 100,000 tons to 150,000 tons per annum. Of the producers of silk in the world, China produces 70% of it, with the other more than 20 countries producing 30%.

The price for raw silk is 20 times as much as the raw price for cotton (circa 2008). It does provide a warmth during the cold months and is typically used in fashion such as lingerie and underwear. It is generally used in textiles and upholstery. Silk is diverse and beautiful, lets just try to involve ethics and sustainability when seeking quality!

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2022-04-10

Sisal, Natural Fibre, Textile Material, and Sustainable Fashion

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/05

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Today’s sustainable fibre will be sisal. Sisal is a fibre that is native to Mexico derived from the Agave plant (Yay, tequila!), it is a hardy plant that grows in hot climates. In addition, it is actually able to grow in dry areas that tend to be, for the crops, quite unsuitable. These can be cut or crushed. This is then made into a pulp from the fibres. The average yield is about one tonne per hectare with the yield and the staff of about 2.5 tonnes. I find this to be quite amazing because it is an increase in productivity of about 2.5 times, exactly.

The fibre is illustrious and creamy white according to the Food and Agricultural organization of the United Nations. It can measure up to 1 metre in length, and is very durable as well as having an elasticity component to it. It is not able to absorb moisture easily, but can resist deterioration from salt water. Its main cultivation is in Brazil, China, Cuba, Kenya, Haiti, Madagascar, and Mexico. The global production of sisal is collected in moderately large amounts of around 300,000 tons, with an estimated net value, per annum, of $75 million. 35 to 40% of that 300,000 tons is produced by Brazil at about 120,000 tons. And 5/6 th’s of that produced by Brazil is exported as raw fibre and manufactured goods.

Sisal fibres are made into rope and yarn that is popularly used to make rugs, bags, bath sponges, and even wall coverings. “New products are being developed continuously, such as furniture and wall tiles made of resined sisal. A recent development expanded the range even to car parts for cabin interiors.”

The compatibility and multitude of uses of this natural fibre is simply amazing!

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2022-04-10

The Misquoting of “Great Leaders” as a Persistent Concern

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/05

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I would like to explore something about misquotations, as well as two very interesting fellows. I want to start with a picture I came across with a particular quotation about ‘The’ Albert Einstein. It got me thinking quite a bit, it bothered me enough to want to write something about it. But I had to tie this into textiles or sustainability, one thing about Einstein is that he advocated for vegetarianism. How does that tie in with this global warming era and its consequences?

I know that Einstein was a claimant at one point in time, to saying that people should be vegetarians, or that he was, and so might have not explicitly advocated for others, but described himself: “I have always eaten animal flesh with a somewhat guilty conscience.” That picture-meme quote is more descriptive of an ideal rather than prescriptive based on an ideal. And vegetarianism is in the same line as sustainable fibers and a more sustainable lifestyle. Close enough. In that, it is not simply a fashionable thing to do, but rather, it is something that is low in terms of its carbon footprint and possibly even a negative carbon footprint.

And I came across another quotation by a well-known guru, spiritualist, medical doctor, endocrinologist, and popular author;

His name is Deepak Chopra:

If you look at the actual quotations of Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, two of the most prominent physicist/cosmologists of the 20th century – and one into the early 21st century, you can find quotations that refute any notion of them believing in either a “God” in the case of Stephen Hawking or a “personal God” in the case of Albert Einstein. Neither seems to indicate that perspective very much implied by Deepak Chopra. In other words, he misquoted them. Simple. So, let’s compare this with two quotations from Albert Einstein:

And this one:

He is more noted for the structure and mathematical precision of the universe with the and you can now look at a quotation from Professor Stephen Hawking:

This is a problem. It is a problem in accurate presentation, and it seems to be a common either as a conscious tactic, or unconscious oversight or mistake in automaticity of quotation – or even quoting Chopra in conversation. These things happen, but this seems like a long thought, as a quote. So, that’s something to keep an eye out for not only in the more popular among groups, spiritualists, and like, but also in the world of fashion and claims about the efficacy of certain things. I’ll leave some of the last words to Chopra:

Imagine that you’re looking at an ocean and you see lots of waves today. And tomorrow you see a fewer number of waves. It’s not so turbulent. What you call a person actually is a pattern of behavior of a universal consciousness. There is no such thing as Jeff, because what we call Jeff is a constantly transforming consciousness that appears as a certain personality, a certain mind, a certain ego, a certain body. But, you know, we had a different Jeff when you were a teenager. We had a different Jeff when you were a baby. Which one of you is the real Jeff?

Like. Wow. You know?

As with everything written, I could be wrong, incredibly wrong – think for yourself and come to your own conclusions. I have biases, fallibilities, and quirks – even some funny ones. My words aren’t gold, nor are they a calf. And no bull! Although, I will milk it, if it’s prize goat (or alpaca, or camel, and no can do for cottonmandu). And if gold, I might fleece it, if a winged ram (more the same, more the same).

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2022-04-10

Incan Civilization and the Fabulous Fibres and Fabrics

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/04

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So, we’re back a little more to talk about the history of natural fibres in one context with an ancient civilization. That civilization is the Incan civilization. These peoples had an extraordinary decorative world, and working textile industry that was representative, as with us now, of status and wealth and other things. They did not have paper money.

Nonetheless, they had used textiles both as a tax and as the currency in their culture. That would seem to have a certain psychological effect on what people valued in that culture. In fact, some of the most prized objects were not gold, silver, diamonds, platinum, and so on. Rather, it was very high quality textiles. Think about that.

These were the crown jewel of value in the civilization. When the Spanish invaded, or euphemistically arrived, in the 16th century, they looted, stole, and plundered textiles in greater proportion than metal and mineral, I think, which is a very interesting note to the previous one.

Textiles were the heart of the empire of the Incan civilization. The dry nature of the Andes, and the burial sites around in the highlands in the mountains of that area have stayed in decent condition for archaeologists and others to look at the textile and cultural traditions via the textiles for examples. They were weavers. Men and women were weavers.

We have talked about some of the other main fibres in the world. These were also used by the Incan culture. For instance, llama, alpaca, and wool in the highlands. The capital of the Incan culture was Cuzco. There were state-sponsored workshops in this particular culture. And the subsidized workers were making the clothing, quite naturally, for the army and the nobility, and, as a speculation, the army most likely protected the nobles alone, the royalty.

There were three classifications of cloth in the Incan culture. There was a very rough one used for blankets and the like. The coarse, or common ones, that were for work in daily life or military applications, and finally the finest cloth was also there for possibly greater than decorative use such as religious rights. Weaving was a highly esteemed craft in their culture. The designs of the cloth had a certain kind of dyed strand embroidery; and the embroidery itself and tapestry was done by either hand or wooden stamps.

They had a certain abstract geometric set of designs in addition to checkerboard motif. The actual patterns by some scholars’ speculation were ideograms and may have had specific meanings.

Those specific meanings could relate to many things. One might think religious rights or cultural values. However, I leave that to the experts and scholars that spend their lives researching this topic. Of course, there are also non-geometrical patterns in the clothes, which might include the aforementioned llamas, or snakes, sea creatures, and even plants, which would be common in that area, maybe. You can see the influence of geographic surroundings on the culture and vice versa. Culture becomes human interaction with the environment, even at times to the extent of changing the environment. It depends.

The designs found on the cloth could likely be reflected in the designs on the potteries for the pottery decorations of the Incas. You can see various animals as with many other cultures such as monsters and half-human figures. These are interesting to say the least. What are the functions of these things? I leave that to you.

Many of the men only wear a loincloth or maybe even a simple tunic. In the winter, when things got quite cold actually, you could see them in a poncho or perhaps a cloak. Women wore more of a body wrap with a waist belt or sash. Both men and women wore cloth hats or headbands in this culture. Clothing, as you might be able to tell from the style and design in the textiles – and for the currency and tax, is a great reflection of the status of someone in a society – such as the reflection it will have on purchases. As with most conquered cultures, they had to pay a tax or a tribute to the central state because they were conquered by the Incas. What happens to civilizations that expand too far, though?

It’s just a short note on the Incan culture and civilization in relation to some of their textiles. It seems interesting to me because the text all that was there were a great influence on both the currency and the status. I like the interrelationship of there.

I like the fact that the currency is related to status, even though this is not even distinct. It is not directly related because as with any culture with currency, maybe. The currency is the means through which one makes their own purchases, and these purchases are reflected in one’s own goods such as clothing. And then, we see the status symbol in the clothing selected from the purchase via the currency. Thank you for your time.

And as with everything written, I could be wrong, incredibly wrong – think for yourself and come to your own conclusions. I’m human. I’m a writer. I have biases, fallibilities, and quirks – even some funny ones. My words aren’t gold, nor are they a calf. And no bull! Although, I will milk it.

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2022-04-10

The Promise of Hope and the Burden of Self-Doubt

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/04

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When you think of individual effort and the problems that affect our sense of self, self-doubt can be crippling.

Here at Trusted Clothes, the important part of our mandate is social activism for sustainable, ecologically friendly, and ethical fashion. Don’t despair, don’t be paralyzed by self-doubt, and don’t let your hearts be troubled, is what I say.

Social activism that involves a concentrated effort to increase the consumption of natural fibres in an economy that relies heavily on synthetic/man-made fibres is a tall order to fill. Some of the major global impacts that have to do with climate change and global warming are because of pollution and the consumption of natural resources.

Some estimate that there are over 4.54 trillion pieces of micro plastics in the world’s oceans today. What’s worse is that our current recycling practices cannot keep up with the rate at which these micro plastics pollute the environment and, therefore, our consumption patterns are unsustainable in the long term but they can be sustainable to a limited degree in the short-term. However, this brings forth the question; what kind of world do we want to leave for our children, grandchildren, and even our future selves that are on the road to aging and ill-health? The solution to this issue may come down to the individual.

A Collection of Individuals

As individuals, we make up the larger society that participates in this consuming culture. That means an individual with positive intent may have some measure of self-doubt, a quality that affects most of us. I concluded a previous piece with the question, ‘but what can’t we do?’ I have come up with what I think is a suitable answer; any change in history comes from the dead and forgotten in name and action, but it is seen through their triumph over self-doubt via collective action. Name any movement, it was accomplished using this method, which is to overcome the worst enemy of the self, and help others to do the same.

This question ‘but what can I do’ is a reasonable concern that seems grounded, partly, in some form of self-doubt. If I’m an individual, and I’m attempting to do some good for future generations, the health of the environment, and to also contribute towards a sustainable system for all other living beings, then I have to take into account that I am a single individual and at times, I can feel devastatingly lonely in my endeavours.

But, at the same time, there are reasons to be hopeful and feel less alone making sustainable choices. I think that one of the main reasons to maintain a sense of hopefulness comes from the fact that people around the world are becoming more connected through the internet. As more people have access to devices with internet connectivity, relevant information is becoming more available to people across all social and economic backgrounds enabling them to be able to better educate themselves on issues that are of great importance to their local communities and the world at large. Therefore, community participation, social activism, and economic activism through the use of more environmentally friendly resources like natural fibres/textiles, can be incorporated into the fashion industry and can also be taken into account within the global perspective. This, I think, is a great reason to have hope.

And as with everything written, I could be wrong, incredibly wrong – think for yourself and come up with your own conclusions. I’m human and a writer. I have biases, fallibilities, and quirks – even some funny ones. My words aren’t gold, nor are they a calf.

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2022-04-10

A Country of Overcoming, Haiti and Sisal

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/04

—

It does have a difficult time in growing in very moist or saline, salty, soil. It does show that it is resilient to disease, and it is typically harvested after about 2 years from its original planting and its productive cycle or life cycle can be up to 12 years, in which it can produce up to a total of 180 to 240 leaves for its growth depending on the level of rainfall, the altitude, and the location.

So, this can be of great use to areas such as Haiti in terms of its productive capacity and its capability provide for its own needs with such things as natural fibres. Or by making animal feed. It is interesting to note that the leaves themselves are about 90% moisture and yet still have a rigidity. It seems counterintuitive to me. In terms of its average yield, the dry fibres come to about one ton per hectare. Although, it is reported that East African crop for this fibre can grow up to four tonnes per hectare. That is an astonishing four-fold increase in the amount of fibre that is growing per hectare. What else is Haiti?

It’s a religious nation among many other things with about ¾ as Roman Catholic and 3/20ths Protestant with a sprinkling of Pentecostal, Advent, and the universalist religion of “other.” So, by any reasonable definition, a Christian influenced nation. They have another proverb: “Bondye bon.” Or God is good, sounds familiar? For whatever reason, I don’t know why, but this is bringing to mind Bach’s Cantata 54, BWV 54, for me, which went as follows:

Widerstehe doch der Sünde,
Sonst ergreifet dich ihr Gift.
Laß dich nicht den Satan blenden;
Denn die Gottes Ehre schänden,
Trifft ein Fluch, der tödlich ist.

In Standard English as a translation of the old German, this says:

Stand firm against sin,
otherwise its poison seizes hold of you.
Do not let Satan blind you
for to desecrate the honour of God
meets with a curse, which leads to death.

So, what, Scott? God is good, but Satan is tempting and sin is bad. Well, if it’s this kind of a religious nation, and we have good reason to expect this form of religiosity provide the numbers of the religious or Christian population in its citizenry, then the metanarrative for Roman Catholic and Protestant Christianity incorporate these narratives. Besides, those are damn good proverbs by my reading, and fabulous music by Bach too. It’s like double-bubble.

Sisal is also a major part of agriculture in the north coast region of Haiti. And it is used for rope, wallpaper, rugs, and other daily items of use to citizens of Haiti in various combinations and to different communities. Near the conclusion of sisal’s lifespan, it can grow to upwards of 15 feet in height and can have numerous plants and baby plants linked with it.

In other words, it is an abundant source of fibre for the Haitian people. The waste that is not used for ropes, rugs, and so on, is actually used to make, by a particular process, fertilizer or food for animals.

The process mentioned before is called decortication. Decortication is the crushing and beating of leaves by a rotation wheel with blunt knives. Once only the fibre remains, then the fibre is dried to get a high quality fibre by the removal of the moisture in the fibre prior to that the moisturizing process.

After that point, the fibre product is brushed and after that point it is then ready to be used for a variety of products including rope, rugs, wallpaper, and many other things of daily use in homes and various communities in Haiti.

In terms of sustainability and the ethical use of this particular fibre, it is one of the best around, especially for areas of the world where it is poor. It is one of the grand ironies, and not an original point to me or any one individual, that with climate change and global warming. That is, the advanced industrial nations are the major participants in the industries that pollute the environment, and the undeveloped nations or the poor of the world are not and are actually working to improve it. In addition, the indigenous communities of the world are the ones that are partaking in, not the industry, but the social and environmental activism to help with these global problems relevant to their local level.

There were consequences of the Industrial Revolution. We see them today. We see reactions to their consequences, of dead generations’ sins, today. On that same line of reasoning, that ‘grand irony’ of the modern era relates to one of the poorer areas of the world that are even under tremendous political turmoil and at the verge of a possible civil war, and are able to keep an industry that is both ethical and sustainable within the world.

Back to Haiti, and its fibre, sisal produces less carbon dioxide than it takes in and, therefore, it is a net negative carbon producer. It produces mainly organic wastes. To get to the close of this particular article, it is cultivated in many other areas of the world including Angola, Brazil, China, Cuba, Indonesia, Kenya, Mosinee, South Africa, and so on. And the estimated value of the 300,000 tonnes of output is upwards of 75 million dollars. I do not know the currency. It could be Canadian or American et cetera.

And following that earthquake and its own internal problems, which are, quite granted, numerous, there’s always some good, if you look close enough.

And by the light of Bach, and via the hope of Haiti: Degaje pa peche. To get by is not a sin.

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2022-04-10

Germany Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/25

Good news in light of Pride Month!

Lawmakers in Germany voted on Friday, June 30th to legalize same-sex marriage. Germany is the 14th country in Europe to pass a measure for marriage equality. The 13 other European countries to have passed marriage equality laws are:

Belgium
Denmark
Finland
France
Iceland
Ireland
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom

The Netherlands was the first to pass same-sex marriage equality in 2001. Finland was the last one before Germany to approve same sex marriage or marriage equality. This comes in the wake of a free vote provided by Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was against same-sex marriage.

The vote was 393–226, for-against, which is pretty much a supermajority. The vote was for “marriage for everybody.” Merkel’s Christian Democrat, Jan-Marco Luczak, said, “It would be absurd to try and protect marriage by preventing people to marry.” Germany’s first same-sex marriages are set to be celebrated early this coming fall.

This is a significant development given Germany’s role in the EU and in the world in general. It is both an economic power and a cultural one too. With such a decision, it can be predicted that other European nations will follow suit.

References

The Associated Press. (2017, June 30). Germany votes to legalize same-sex marriage despite Merkel’s thumbs down. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/germany-votes-to-legalize-same-sex-marriage-despite-merkel-s-thumbs-down-1.4185430.

Carrel, P. & Shalal, A. (2017, June 30). German lawmakers approve same-sex marriage in landmark vote. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-gay-marriage-idUSKBN19L0PQ.

Connolly, K. (2017, June 30). German parliament votes to legalise same-sex marriage. Retrieved from

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/30/germany-poised-legalise-same-sex-marriage-bill-law.

Lowder, J.B. (2017, June 30|). Same-Sex Marriage Finally Comes to Germany. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2017/06/30/same_sex_marriage_is_now_legal_in_germany.html.

Vonberg, J. & Smith-Spark, L. (2017, June 30). German lawmakers vote to legalize same-sex marriage; Merkel votes no. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/30/europe/germany-gay-marriage-vote/index.html.

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2022-04-10

Bishop George Kuhn on the Catholic Universalist Church of the Philippines

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/24

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you become a Catholic Universalist?

Bishop George Kuhn: became a Universalist in my early teens having heard a sermon by a Roman Catholic priest I admired a lot. I questioned him about it and he made it clear that eventually all would “go to heaven.” Using the terminology I would understand and what was common (still is). I do not know the full demographics of the community.

Jacobsen: What are they?

Kuhn: Right now we have only one active parish, and that’s the Chapel of St. Mary Magdelene in Talakag, Bukidnon, Mindanao. Those folks are all Filipinos, of all ages. We have a fellowship in Parkersburg, West Virginia, USA, which ministers primarily to the LGBTGQ community, although they do a fair amount of social justice work for other causes, too.

Jacobsen: How did you begin training as a religious leader and subsequently begin moving up the ranks of the church?

Kuhn: I studied to become an Interfaith Minister at One Spirit Interfaith Seminary in New York City. After being ordained as a minister, I did independent study with Bishop Mark Sullivan in New York with the goal of being ordained to the priesthood. That happened November 1, 2008. After several years as a priest, Bishop Mark suggested that I be elevated to become a bishop. That happened on July 20, 2013. As part of my ministry, Bishop Mark and I founded the Catholic Universalist Church at that same ceremony on July 20, 2013. My idea was to reintroduce the concept to Universal Salvation to the Philippines in order to heal some of the religious injury inflicted at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as some of the more fundamentalist Christian denominations.

Jacobsen: What is love to you?

Kuhn: Love has many different meaning. In the religious context, we speak of the “agape” love, or as some call it “big love.” John the Evangelist, in his first epistle, famously writes: “God is love.” And from that Divine Source we have everything that is, was and will be, as well as non-things that are timeless, as is the Divine Source.

Jacobsen: What are life and death you?

Kuhn: We are spiritual beings with eternal existence on that level. There is no spiritual death, and since our primary nature is spiritual, we are eternal beings. For reasons unknown to almost all of us, we inhabit a physical body that exists in time and will eventually cease to exist. The death of that body is undeniable. But our spirit continues. How much of what we experience as humans also continues is question I cannot answer definitively. There has always been much speculation; my personal opinion is that human experience is not lost when the body dies but is retained in the spiritual realm. Maybe it is for review; maybe just because the Divine Source retains everything.

Jacobsen: What are your perspectives on the possibility of an afterlife?

Kuhn: I kind of answered that one in the previous question. I definitely feel that there is spiritual life after bodily death, and I also believe we can reincarnate and “take another ride” on Planet Earth, or maybe another world, if we care to. Or maybe we might need to come back into material form to complete a task left undone.

Jacobsen: How do you help the community build and make the transitions from new life to the finality of the body with physical death?

Kuhn: There’s no escaping the mortality of the body. I don’t hold classes on how to transition. It’s going to happen and it is very often sudden with no conscious preparations. These are things more appropriately discussed with individuals, and each individual would have his/her own needs and questions.

Jacobsen: How do the central ethical precepts of the Catholic Universalist Church of the Philippines translate into individual lives and familial and community activities?

Kuhn: We are a community that gathers to show our gratitude to the Universal Source, the Godhead, the Ground of Being. (Personally, I try to avoid the use of the word “God” as much as possible. That term has some pretty hefty baggage attached depending on who is in on the conversation. I am absolutely not a theist, and the “God word” strongly implies that understanding. So I personally avoid it when possible. So in our communities, we try to change people’s perceptions about “God” from the “old man with the beard sitting on a cloud taking notes on everybody” do the Source of the eternal, infinite love shown to creation and from that love we have our very existence. And our worship services emphasis that love and our gratitude for it. Of course, Roman Catholics have been under pressure from the public because of the scandals around sexual abuse of children, young people, by some of the religious authorities in the Roman Catholic Church.

Jacobsen: How do you think they should have dealt with the situation?

Kuhn: The Roman Catholic hierarchy should have been totally upfront and transparent from the beginning. Instead, they almost without exception did the opposite and protected the criminals from civil justice.

Jacobsen: What have been real successes and honest failures of the Catholic Universalist Church of the Philippines?

Kuhn: The real success has been the flourishing of the Parish in Bukindon and the fellowship in Parkersburg. It is nearly 100% due to the efforts of Rev. Joseph Rholdee Lagumbay in Bukidnon and Rev. Steve Peck in Parkersburg. We “inherited” an existing parish in New York City from another church that could no longer provide a priest. The congregation was shrinking, and nothing we tried seemed to help. We simply could not get people through the door. In New York City there is a lot of competition for people’s attention 24/7 and we, as well as most other churches, have found that organized religion is not a high priority. So having to disband that parish, at the request of the laity on the parish council, was our first real failure.

Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?

Kuhn: I appreciate the opportunity to introduce your readers to the Catholic Universalist Church. I hope I have given some insight into what we are about. We are an offshoot of the Liberal Catholic Church, Theosophy, and Gnosticism, so our theological leanings are very liberal and progressive. We have a very basic website: www.CatholicUniversalistChurch.org, and the Philippines has an active Facebook Page at Catholic Universalist Church of the Philippines, as well as Catholic Universalist Church of Asia Pacific.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Bishop Kuhn.

Kuhn: Thank you for inviting me to talk about our community.

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2022-04-10

Skeptic Meditations Founder on the Reliance on External Authority

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/23

Scott is the Founder of Skeptic Meditations. He speaks from experience in entering and leaving an ashram. Here we talk about the reliance on external authority.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: With regards to the tactics to keep members in a cult-like organization, what seem like the more prominent examples?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: There’s many tactics that cult-like groups, like Self-Realization Fellowship Monastic Order, use to trap followers. First, is the unlivable ideal of renunciation. It’s a trap because its irreconcilable. No human can ever be perfect, though followers idealize stories of their founder, like SRF’s Paramahansa Yogananda.

“I killed Yogananda long ago. No one dwells in this body now but God.” proclaimed Paramahansa Yogananda.

Meditation techniques are often prescribed to followers of Eastern enlightenment. Why? Meditation done right is presumed to still thought, which is a way to kill the ego, to become a Yogananda or God-like being. It’s a psychological trap for followers

Jacobsen: What runs through the mind of a believer to keep them bound to the cult or cult-like organization?

Scott: People trapped in cult-like organizations are in a double bind. There get trapped inside the no-win kind of communication designed to keep followers obeying the authority figure.

Cult-like organizations implicitly or explicitly communicate to their followers such as:

“You are asleep or ignorant. Meditation is the path to awakening or knowledge of God. You are asleep or ignorant, so keep meditating.

You are ego/self-centered. Meditation is the path to ego destruction/self-transcendence. If you are not yet egoless or selfless, keep meditating.

You are racked with desires. Meditation is the path to fulfillment of all desires, therefore becoming desireless. If you are not yet desireless, keep meditating.”

In each of these examples, the cult-like group keeps you psychologically trapped in the double bind. If you are meditating and trying to follow the given techniques for enlightenment but do not get results (i.e., do not still your thoughts or become enlightened), the group says that it’s your fault.

Your ego got in the way and that you just to keep trying to do better. The followers are often filled with doubts about whether they will ever be good enough to “make it”, to attain the highest states of enlightenment.

Jacobsen: How is the inculcation of self-doubt and reliance on an external authority part and parcel of the maintenance of the follower mentality in a cult?

Scott: Mental or psychological control is easy when people doubt themselves.

Cult-like groups and gurus use many methods to to instill self-mistrust in followers. They patronize followers (treat them with kindness while betraying superiority). Or, they assume superiority (know what’s best for others).

Or, they use any method that will instill fear, guilt, or shame. Cult-like groups belittles reason, analytical thinking, and personal experience.

They emphasize the dangers of ego, lower self, self-interest. As I noted above cult-like groups often provides methods such as meditation to overcome self or ego. The group often emphasizes service to guru or authority versus taking care of one’s self-interests, such as family

In cult-like groups, if followers question any abuse they are told that it is spiritual “training” and it is beyond understanding in a rational way. “God works in mysterious ways”. And of course, they assume the leader of the group is attuned or at-one with God.

Once inside the SRF ashrams the environment was very closed. Everything the monks did had to be approved by your counselor or by the ashram superiors. Or, whatever was offered in the ashrams was pre-approved and monks were expected to accept it as coming from Guru, from God.

In this setup the SRF leaders and monastic superiors could do no wrong. Many members endured physical and psychological abuses in the name of “training”. That is, for the spiritual benefit of the members to breakdown their self-centered ego-consciousness.

Clearly, all abuses–physical or psychological–could be justifed as “training”. The sad part was that for the first few years I believed the abuses were for my own good. Of course, eventually–after many years of allowing abuses–I finally say through the control and manipulation, resisted it and eventually was able to leave the ashram

Jacobsen: Even if there aren’t formal methodologies on some levels for the individual follower, how does the follower make excuses for the abuse and bad behavior of some of the leaders of some cults and cult-like organizations?

Scott: On my website I’ve posted the many formal rules and vows of the SRF Order, which I belonged. In addition, the SRF Lessons–which are available to the public when they become SRF members–contain 100s of SRF “official” rules and methods regarding vegetarian diet, sexual abstinence, and a variety of esoteric meditation techniques.

There’s something called the “sunk-cost” fallacy. Where we invest so much time and energy and possibly money into something that even if its a failure we can’t cut our losses and give it up. Investing emotionally also plays a huge role in why followers have a difficult time escaping the traps of abuse in cult-like organizations.

Jacobsen: What is the general marketing that cults or cult-like organizations present to the outside world, i.e. the warning signs and signifiers of a potentially harmful organization?

Scott: With the Eastern, Hindu- and Buddhist-inspired, groups they often use meditation techniques as a way to gain followers. Meditation is the gateway. Meditation is scientized.

That is it is promoted as a practical and scientific method. Meditation practice is supposed to bring the faithful practitioner peace, material success and happiness, and ultimate enlightenment.

Cult-like ideologies also promote that they have all the answers. People who are most vulnerable are those who are going through a challenging life transition. That’s why you often find young, college-age disciples who join cults.

Or, people who are suffering and seek a way to end that suffering, often by escaping into an idealized model of the world as “spiritual training” where suffering is given ultimate meaning.

Also, these groups and leaders of cults claim to have divine dispensations. That is the group has a mandate from God to bring the lost to the Truth. Of course, only this cult group has the answers. Groups like Scientology often charge exorbitant fees to “clear” themselves of evil thetans through a method they call auditing.

I recommend the documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. I believe many of the behaviors and tactics used by Scientology are also used by other cult-like groups. Just in varying degrees, not in kind.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Scott.

Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to share my thoughts and experiences about what I believe is an important topic.

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2022-04-10

Abiodun Sanusi on Being a Freethinker in Nigeria

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/23

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You are 23. How did you come to be a freethinker in a religious family, in a familial setting of 6?

Abiodun Sanusi: Yes, I became a freethinker through rigorous vigorous reading and thinking. Although I was very active in the Anglican church I attended with my family. Up to the stage that, I became an altar boy (an acolyte) and everyone in the hood including my family was happily expecting me to get into the seminary immediately.

I got out of the high school or the university when they discovered I chose to go to the university after high school, in fact, the Anglican church we attended sponsored my tertiary education by providing 70% of my school fee.

Jacobsen: As you became an atheist in your first year of high school, how did you go about making the transition from religious to non-religious?

Sanusi:Like I said earlier, I became an atheist through thinking, reading, debating, and doing a lot of research. I only made my transition known to friends and family through logical explanations and scientific and philosophical methods, which I always implore during conversations and debates and in my everyday activities by rejecting dogmas both local and foreign and by asking for proofs for everything including the Bible and Quran and even African religious creeds.

Jacobsen: You live in Lagos and study in Ogun state. Why did you pick geography and regional planning for tertiary education studies?

Sanusi:Yes. I picked geography and regional planning for so many reasons:

1. I wanted to become an astronaut and visit space to know if all NASA says about space and the universe was true.

2. I wanted to be the first African or black to visit space (I still look up to that though).

3. I opted for geography because I cannot afford the fee to study astronomy and there is no institution in Nigeria where I could study astronomy even if I could afford it except in the US or Russia and I cannot afford that.

4. I want to develop my environment through environmental science as I look forward to venturing into mainstream politics after school.

Jacobsen: As you are against oppression in any form, how do you fight this some activist work in Nigeria?

Sanusi:The first time I stood individually against oppression was during my final year in high school when I stood up to a teacher who was a notorious bully and I came out victorious although with a little price of cutting the grass.

But I was glad I saved the whole 12 (SS3) classes from being flogged severely with the cain and going through severe punishment for days or a week.

Now in the university, I have always stood against oppression since my first year and I sometimes pay for it with my grades (score reductions). Even now, we’re standing up to the school over the issue of stop and search at the school gate, which involves only the students who board the public shuttle.

As those who go in with their cars are never stopped nor searched at the gate, including the staff, a comrade was illegally arrested by the police 2 days ago, but was released yesterday after students went to the police station to plead as we were threatened with expulsion if we ever dare stand up to the school management against oppression.

There is so much I cannot say her,e but I am yet to be affiliated to any human rights organization as I’m yet to find a vibrant one (I’ll be glad if I could, especially an internationally recognized one).

Jacobsen: How can the international community support the atheist community in Nigeria?

Sanusi:The international community can help atheists and the atheist community in Nigeria by helping to sponsor human rights and atheistic campaigns and providing legal backings for freedom of thoughts, sex, gender, and every other thing, which should be personal and doesn’t affect anyone in any sane manner.

The homosexuals especially should be helped by helping activists worldwide including local ones to stand up for gay rights in Nigeria and Africa, and to sponsor and support youths as most of us can’t come out as an atheist because of rejection, especially financially and death threats in places like northern Nigeria.

Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?

Sanusi:I would be very glad if the international community could help promote atheism and human right through media campaigns like billboards and television programmes and radio programmes.

I will voluntarily gladly volunteer to host television programmes in favor of atheism and human rights including gay rights.

Thanks.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Abiodun.

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2022-04-10

An Interview with Amjad Sattar

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/22

Scott Jacobsen: Was there a family background in humanism?

Amjad Sattar: Yes, our great grandparents were secular and pragmatic in nature. They co-existed with multiple faith believers until their children had to leave their ancestral land due to division of Greater Punjab & Bengal on religious grounds by the colonial masters.

Jacobsen: When did humanism become the philosophical and ethical worldview for you?

Sattar: I had been participating in free thinkers’ forums since 2002. My friends, who had more schooling than me, were active in study circles against religious dogmatism in Pakistan. Thousands of innocent citizens have been murdered since 1977, due to state sponsored extremist clergy. Seeing the predicament of innocent dissenting voices in this country, the importance of humanism was a natural development for me.

Jacobsen: What seems like the main reason people become humanists? What is the best argument for it?

Sattar: There are reasonable solutions for existing human problems by using scientific and rational approach. Blind faith on scriptures has spread chaos and bloodshed through the history.

Jacobsen: What is your current work? How does your humanist value set influence this work?

Sattar: Besides my business, I am promoting Humanism, wherever I can for peace and solidarity with fellow human beings.

Jacobsen: What are the main threats to humanism today?

Sattar: Extremely religious and dogmatic stance of terrorists and some nation states, for political gains under any sort of funding or sponsorship is a major threat to Humanism. We got to resist religious narrow mindedness all over the world.

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Amjad.

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2022-04-10

An Interview with Kwaku Adusei Founder – The Common Sense Foundation

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/21

*This interview edited for clarity and readability.*

Scott Jacobsen: How did you first find and become involved in Humanism? What makes it more or less true to you as a worldview?

Kwaku Adusei: It has been a long time. Somewhere in 1999, I was interested in the Bible. I started reading the Bible, trying to understand what is really in that book. The more I read, the more I come across something. I went to read the books of Exodus and Genesis. That was Jews starting choosing. That means that the Gentiles are not part of God’s family. Some of Israelites were ordered to go to Amalek and killed the Amalekites.

They slaughtered them all. I thought, “What kind of God is this?” A God who can kill a mass group of people. A God who can create even with word of mouth. That God cannot kill by himself, but only through others. I thought some propaganda is behind the story. Some political propaganda. They are seeking to achieve a political end, to achieve something by trying to use the Word of God to cover up.

You get my point. It is something used to deceive people. The more I read the Bible, I thought, “This isn’t making sense. Why don’t I go and get other books?” So I started reading the Bhagavad Gita. The holy book of the Hindu people. I read books of logic. I thought, “These books aren’t making sense as far as logic is concerned.” Then I started making the transition from the religious life to the humanistic life.

I realized if there was a supernatural power outside the universe that can give me energy, or any power to do whatever I want on this material world. It would mean that if you have a belief in God, then you can do anything. But in Ghana, this is when I changed so fast. When there are more religious people, you have more poverty. The more people become religious, the more they become poor. So something is missing.

I started reading Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. I read Christ Conspiracy. I read Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ. After reading all of these books, I thought, “This thing we call God is nothing but something designed to deceive or enslave the masses. So that is what took me away from the religious life.” Now, it was not easy for me. The books began to shape me. I became demonized. I said, “Hey, I know what I am doing.”

My family and my loved ones, they all neglected me. I said, “No, I still have to be strong and live my life.” So every day I make sure I read my logic books and anything that has to do with science. Unless, it can be scientifically proven, then I will not believe it. If people say, “If God wills it, it will come to pass.” If I say this, I will not be applying logic and reason. In 2002, I became a full atheist.

That’s where I started moving into atheism. After atheism, I thought, “I need a step forward.” For one, we are humanists. Without human beings, it will not be easy to do whatever you want to do. If you are calling yourself irreligious, how do you work together with them on this particular planet? I started looking for others who are also thinking like me. It was difficult to me. I hide my humanist ideology for more than 5 years.

Maybe, it was 6 years. In 2010, I found 4 people who were also like me. We would get together on a weekly basis to discuss humanist ideas to make sure we make a meaningful life for ourselves without adherence to supernatural forces or higher powers. 2 years ago, I was trying to found humanist groups across the company. I saw on Facebook. I connected with IHEYO. They said they had a group in Accra, in Ghana.

I also got my friends who were humanists in Kumasi, in Ghana. I started to form a humanist group associated to the one in Accra. So we agreed and formed a humanist group in Kumasi here. When I formed the humanist group with Roslyn, I figured, “We cannot hide in the darkness. There are people outside will to hear from us. So why don’t we go outside?” Others can understand that the religious people are not what they are hearing about.

So I joined one of my friends who is a radio presenter. He was preparing something for all atheist people. And then the program features people from Hare Krishna. People from Christianity and Islam. So I joined that program. The outcome was [Laughing], I got a lot of backlash. People tried to even kill me. People, some of them got to understand me. As I talk to you, I have 59 members on my platform, where we interact each and every day on humanist ideas to get more people involved.

SJ: As well, you founded The Common Sense Foundation. What is the target audience, and the purpose of it?

KA: Yes, The Common Sense Foundation, we are an organization of the Humanist Association of Ghana. First of all, it is one part of my plan. I want to make a radio program. I started to realize there are more people who are willing to hear our message. I put my phone number on the radio station. People started calling me and saying they wanted to learn more from me. That’s where I created a WhatsApp platform and then have some direction with them on daily issues.

I thought, “Why don’t we have a platform to spread the news across the country?” If that is what we are proposing, then we can do that. Then we formed the humanist community and The Common Sense Foundation. Our main target is the youth because the youth are more open to information. The youth have now come to realize that religion is killing people. Religion is dehumanizing people.

Religion is making people slaves. The youth have the mindset, but they don’t have the courage to come out of that mess. We have come to give them that boost. We have come to encourage them. So they can be strong, be bold, and can move from religion to the secular world, which is what we seek to do — to build a critical thinking centre. Where we organize a forum to encourage them.

That way, they can realize things without panic or being hypnotized by the religious people. We cannot teach logic to some of the adults because they have already made up their minds. The youth are always looking for new information. The Common Sense Foundation is there to give them the information that they need, to help encourage them to live their lives, and can do whatever they want to do without adhering to any spiritual forces.

We realize they have the doubt, but that they are now free to move to another level. We talk to them. So that is what we are doing now, we go to the radio stations and talk to people. Those that want to talk to us, contact us, and then we put them on the WhatsApp platform to share ideas and have fun. That’s all. It is difficult for us because sometimes we don’t organize very big programs, so that we also invite +people from outside it.

Eminent and experienced humanists come to give lectures, but we are moving in that bigger direction. Especially with the critical thinking centre the work with the young people, it is difficult for us. We are talking to other friends who are humanists in their work. We see if they try and help us. The target, though, is for the youth.

SJ: Thank you very much for your time. It was nice talking to you, Kwaku.

KA: You too.

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2022-04-10

Professor Matt Sheedy on Theories of Secularism and Atheism

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/20

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: As a lecturer at the University of Manitoba and a visiting assistant professor of Canadian Studies at the Universität Bonn, what tasks and responsibilities come along with the positions? What are your favorite courses to teach at the University of Manitoba?

Dr. Matt Sheedy: Having recently completed my PhD in the study of religion, I am currently on the market in search of the elusive tenure track job. I teach part time at the University of Manitoba in the Department of Religion, and have a one-year contract (likely to be renewed for a second year) in Bonn, Germany in the department of North American Studies. My favourite courses to teach at the UofM have been science and religion, and religion and media. Relatedly, I’ve taught and will be teaching classes on media representations of Islam, and Indigenous traditions in North America at the University of Bonn, which has been great since non-tenured scholars rarely get to craft their own courses from scratch.

Jacobsen: You have an expertise in theories of secularism and religion. What are the main bases of these fields? What are the main theories of secularism and religion?

Sheedy: That’s a great question, though a very meaty one … let’s see if I can pull off an “elevator” version here. In the last couple of decades there has been a lot of scholarly work tracing histories and genealogies of the category religion (i.e., definitions and classifications) and how it has been applied in different times and places, especially in relation to non-Christian groups. Although critical analysis of gods, customs, and rituals date back as far as ancient Greece with thinkers like Lucretius, the scientific study of religion only became institutionalized in the late 19^th century in places like Germany, the Netherlands, and especially at Oxford University under the leadership of F. Max Mueller. Crucially, these comparative studies were distinguished from theology (e.g., they did not privilege religious beliefs or supernatural claims) in their methods of analysis. This move toward the social sciences was an important step in the critical study of religions, though it wasn’t until after the Second World War that such departments began to emerge in North America. And so while there is a lot of influential work that we could point to that helped to promote thinking critically about religion—from pioneers like David Hume, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche in philosophy, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim in sociology, Sigmund Freud in psychology, and, of course, Charles Darwin in evolutionary biology—the academic study of religion is a relatively young field that is still confused with theology, much to the humour/chagrin of me and my colleagues.

Turning to the question of secularism: there is a growing awareness that much of the comparative work on religions that was done in the 19^th and 20^th centuries privileged a Protestant Christian perspective by which all societies and cultures were compared. This perspective often included the idea ‘religion’ contained some combination of the following criteria: that it ought to be believed-in on the basis of faith, privately held and not publically displayed, voluntarily chosen and not imposed by state authorities, and managed under (secular) law. In addition, this perspective privileged written scriptures, such as the Qur’an or Bhagavad Gita, over oral traditions. One of the main points of emphasis of more recent studies on religion and secularism has been to draw attention to the fact that many societies did not contain any (or most) of these criteria, and thus were often classified by European scholars as less advanced on a social evolutionary model of historical development (e.g., as primitive). In addition, the individual perspectives and forms of knowledge (i.e., epistemologies) of those being studied were not well understood and, as a consequence, were rarely taken into consideration. Scholars like David Chidester, Talal Asad, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, and Saba Mahood have all drawn connections in their work between European colonialism and the forceful imposition of a Protestant worldview, which is commonly understood to have been the primary basis for Western forms of secularism (esp. in the work of Max Weber). One take away from these studies is that religion should always be thought about in relation to other social forces such as secularism, nationalism, and the power dynamics between competing groups that influence and shape one another in endless combinations. Considering these relational dynamics is why I’ll sometimes put ‘religion’ in scare quotes, to indicate that we’re never just talking about gods, beliefs, rituals, and so on, in isolation from myriad other factors at play. Paying attention to how competing conceptions of religion, secularism, nationalism, culture, and so forth, relate to each other in different times and places is crucial if we’re going to historicize and contextualize these complex ideas rather than simply assume and assert what they mean, once and for all—which is what so many politicians, pundits, and religious leaders do, and is what, imho, good scholarship aims to interrogate and critique.

Jacobsen: What explains the recent popularity and rise in atheism in Western culture? How is this represented in the discourse around it?

Sheedy: Common wisdom surrounding the recent rise in atheism in (Euro-) Western culture is linked to popular responses to 9/11 as represented by so-called ‘new atheist’ authors like Sam Harris (The End of Faith 2004), Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion 2006), and Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great 2007), among others. A more comprehensive genealogy might also look at the impact of Sigmund Freud, the Frankfurt School, and Jean-Paul Sartre throughout the twentieth century, all of whom were influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, along with Bertrand Russell (among many others) in the tradition of Anglo-American philosophy. These scholars and schools of thought provide a theoretical backbone for much contemporary atheist thought. To this list I’d also add Emma Goldman and Ayn Rand as key figures linking atheism with anarchist and libertarian schools of thought respectively. Less commonly acknowledged, but no less influential, would be strands of feminist, queer, and post-colonial theory, including Indigenous and Black liberation movements, that have drawn connections between patriarchal, hetero-normative, and colonial domination with Christianity in particular. These theories and movements have been used to both reform Christianity via theologies of liberation, or have rejected it altogether, thus contributing practical and theoretical depth to critiques of ‘religion’ as a form of domination and control. Asking why these movements have not been strongly connected to popular atheism is an important question, and one that I’ll touch upon in due course.

One could also add to the list the schools of thought that were inspired by German sociologist Max Weber and his theory of secularization, which held that increasing secularization in Euro-Western societies, such as an observable decrease in church attendance and religious affiliation, were a model for how all societies would eventually develop as they underwent ‘modernization’—that is, as they followed a secular, liberal, capitalist trajectory. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, however, scholars have been seriously reconsidering these models and, beginning in the late 1990s, many have turned to theories of ‘post-secularism’ as a way to think about the perseverance of religious identities in nominally secular societies.

More significant then theories, perhaps, would be to look at flash point events such as the Scopes “Monkey” Trail of 1925, concerning the teaching of evolution, the Abington School District vs. Schempp US Supreme Court decision banning Bible reading in public schools in 1963, or the successful cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996. Like 9/11, these events sparked intense public debate that drew-in the general public in ways that scholarship never could. Thomas Dixon’s A Very Short Introduction to Science and Religion (2008) provides a decent overview of some of these public debates, including the role that theories of evolution, legalized abortion, and LGBTQ struggles have played in causing some people to renounce religious affiliation in support of these ideas, issues, and identities. Likewise, the work of Peter Harrison, especially his recent book The Territories of Science and Religion (2015), is a great resource for those interested in these questions.

Returning to the post-9/11 era, I would suggest that the popularity of the ‘new atheists’ in combination with the rise of social media has helped to spur the growth of atheist ideas and, more importantly, atheist, secularist, and humanist organizations (including atheist churches and the academic study of secularity and non-religion, esp. in the UK) that have both popularized and legitimized these ideas and identities in ways that were unthinkable in earlier generations. The popularity of Bernie Sanders is emblematic of this shift in consciousness, where his secular (Jewish) identity and advocacy for democratic socialism did not prevent him from nearly beating Hilary Clinton as the Democratic nominee for president. The positive reception of someone like Sanders could not have happened in decades past, especially as the link between socialism and “godless communism” was so dominant throughout much of the twentieth century, which created strong associations between atheism and Soviet-style totalitarianism (esp. in the US), and thus contributed to caricatures of atheism (e.g., as immoral, as the enemy of freedom, etc.). Younger generations of today have grown up in a world where these connections no longer hold much sway, which is one of the reasons why atheism has lost some of its stigma, at least in most Euro-Western countries. There are many other variables to consider that I can’t go into here, especially when we look at the rise of the category ‘Nones’ in recent census data, along with various ‘new age’ movements and emerging forms of secular ‘spirituality’ (even Sam Harris is getting in on the action with his 2014 book Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion).

As with the term ‘religion’ or ‘religious,’ however, a lot depends here on how we define ‘atheist’ (i.e., what counts and what is disqualifying?) beyond the most obvious criteria. For example, do some practitioners of yoga or Buddhist style meditation count as atheist or agnostic if their point of reference is devoid of supernatural claims, but still centred around concepts like prana, chi, compassion, and the like? What are the differences between Albert Camus’s existentialist atheism and that of Richard Dawkins (to say nothing of feminist or Black atheisms), what types of politics do they align with, and what theories of the mind, body, society, and culture guide their thinking?

Lastly (and more on this in the next question), rising controversies surrounding freedom of speech and identity politics have also caused a rift in recent years, where popular atheists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali have come under increasing criticism for their over-emphasis on rationalist thought and secular liberalism, along with their dismissal of so-called cultural or identity politics (e.g., feminism and critiques of colonialism and Islamophobia), causing some to shy away from this particular brand of atheism that has not, to date, been replaced by an equally visible movement that calls itself by the same name. For a brief period it appeared that the “Faitheist” idea that Chris Stedman helped to popularize back in 2012, which de-emphasized the link between religion, rationalism, and belief and put emphasis on “shared values” between humanism and religious ideas instead might create a significant sectarian split in atheist ranks, but this has not born out to date.

Jacobsen: What is the rhetoric of Islamophobia in North America? How does this play out in practical terms?

Sheedy: I’ve become increasingly interested in analyzing the rhetoric of Islamophobia in recent years since it brings together so many of my research interests and is a key component, imo, for understanding certain formations of atheism in our current moment. It is fairly well known that the so-called ‘new atheists’ were spurred to write their best-selling books because of the 9/11 attacks. While ostensibly criticizing all ‘religion,’ Islam came in for special treatment by these authors, to say nothing of the scores of politicians and pundits (from Geert Wilders and Marine La Pen in The Netherlands and France, Peter King and Donald Trump in the US, to Fox News and what some have called the “Islamophobia Industry” [see Nathan Lean’s 2012 book of the same name], represented by Daniel Pipes and Pamela Geller) who’ve made a living out of promoting fear of Islam. While the term “Islamophobia’ came into common usage back in 1997 after the British government sponsored a commission on the topic, known as the Runneymede Trust Report, it is only in last decade or so that it has become part of mainstream political debate. Popular atheists like Sam Harris, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Bill Maher have all been called Islamophobic for things that they’ve written and said (e.g., in Harris’s The End of Faith, Hirsi Ali’s Nomad, and on Real Time with Bill Maher), and have responded to these charges in interviews and in print (e.g., Harris’s Islam and the Future of Religious Tolerance: A Dialogue with Maajid Nawaz [2015], and Hirsi Ali’s Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now [2015]).

What interests me most in these debates is how they are typically framed in relation to different theoretical camps or schools of thought. One side tends to measure various cultures/religions by their seeming ability/inability to embrace the values of reason, rationality, and Western-style secular liberalism, which tends to follow some variation of the Protestant model that I outlined above. On the other side are those that prioritize a cultural studies perspective—including studies of gender, sexuality, racism, and colonialism—and tend to foreground these particular issues when questions of Islam arise (e.g., it’s never just about doctrines and beliefs). While I don’t think for a moment that these are mutually exclusive camps, or that it’s even useful to frame these debates in this way, I do find it important to think about the ways in which complex, fluid ideas like Islamophobia become caricatured in relation to what we might call ‘culture wars’ rhetoric. In this sense, the meaning of ‘Islamophobia’ gets transformed once it is caught up in questions of ‘free speech’ (i.e., the blurry lines between critiquing religion vs. being racist and xenophobic), ‘shared values,’ the state of multiculturalism, and so forth. This type of analysis is what some scholars refer to as ‘discourse’ or the discursive study of language and meaning. As many popular atheists within the Euro-West are clearly in the first of these ‘camps,’ I am interested in analyzing the ways in which their responses to the charge of Islamophobia have re-shaped atheist/humanist/secularist identities and, more broadly, the general public’s perception/reception of these new variations (or memes, if you will) that continue to evolve before our eyes.

Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?

Sheedy: Thanks very much for this opportunity to talk about my work on this fascinating topic!

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Sheedy.

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2022-04-10

An Interview with Dr. Leo Igwe — Founder, Nigerian Humanist Movement

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/19

Leo Igwe is the founder of the Nigerian Humanist Movement and former Western and Southern African representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. He holds a Ph.D. from the Bayreuth International School of African Studies at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, having earned a graduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Calabar in Nigeria.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Was there a family background in humanism, secularism, and rationalism?

Leo Igwe: There was no family connection to my embracing humanism. I found humanism, secularism, and rationalism during my education. My grandparents were traditional religionists. My parents were born traditional religionists, but like most persons of their generation, switched religion while growing up.

They became Catholics not really by choice, but due to existential needs and necessities. My father told me that he embraced Christianity because that was the only way he could get formal education.

My father was trained as a teacher and he taught in primary schools until he retired in the late 80s. My mother dropped out when she was in Standard Two. My mother was — and still is — devoutly religious, but my father never took religious seriously.

Today, I describe my father as an agnostic. I served as an altar boy when I was in primary school and later went to the Catholic seminary where I was trained to be a priest. I left the training in 1994, and started the humanist movement in 1996.

It was while in the seminary that I came into contact with the idea of humanism. I found the humanist outlook to be more realistic than religion. Humanism related to me directly, to human beings that I saw and interacted with.

That was unlike religion that focused mainly on gods and spirits, which I could not see or really interact with. I also noticed that religion encouraged people to be dishonest, to claim to be seeing what they are not seeing or to be in communication with somebody when they are in communication with nobody.

Religion encouraged fakery. So, some of these issues led to me embracing humanism.

Jacobsen: What is the state of these world views and movements in Nigeria?

Igwe: Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the socialist movement was very popular in Nigeria but the movement has been less visible and in fact has almost disappeared since the soviet bloc disintegrated.

I also heard about the pan-Africanist movement, which was effective during the anti-colonialism and anti-apartheid struggles. I do not hear so much about it these days. Apart from these ‘worldviews and movements’, the movement prominent in the region is religion, especially the Christian and Islamic movements.

Religious worldviews overshadow other worldviews. Religious movements override other movements. The most prominent movement in the region is religion. We are only beginning to see the emergence of non-religious movements, such as the humanist/atheist movements rear their heads.

However, these worldviews are far from commanding the influence and followership like the faith movement. I hope with the advent of the internet and the spread of information. We will witness a phenomenal growth of humanist, secularist, and rationalist movement in the region.

Jacobsen: Of those prominent irreligious individuals in Nigeria, who has the most impact in changing the policies, the legislation, the culture, and the scientific literacy of the country? Also, outside of individual effort, what about associations, collectives, and organizations?

Igwe: It used to be Tai Solarin but Solarin passed away in the 90s. Now, the most eloquent irreligious individual voice in Nigeria is our first Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka. Soyinka is an eminent literary scholar.

He has consistently argued for tolerance and respect for the humanity of all in the face of religious intolerance and extremism. Soyinka has not minced words in condemning the unconscionable religious gladiators in the region that have often turned the country into a theatre of absurdity and holy wars.

He has been consistent in his condemnation of the jihadists and crusaders who often orchestrate religious bloodletting in their quest to implement Sharia law or to further some self-styled divine mandate.

While I cannot say for sure how impactful his rational appeals are on policies and programs, Soyinka’s statements are sources of hope and light at times of darkness and despair. I can say for certain that on occasions when religious extremists push the nation to the brink.

When religion blinds and people are unable to see or think clearly, when fear and fanaticism loom very large, Soyinka is a voice of rational sanity, thoughtful courage, and moderation.

Apart from the individual voices such as Soyinka, there are no active irreligious associations making impact except the emerging irreligious bodies such as the Nigerian Humanist Movement and its affiliates.

Jacobsen: What research points to the increasing secularization and scientific literacy of the general populace?

Igwe: Gallup polls point to increasing religion and scientific illiteracy. In fact, not too long ago, Nigeria was polled to be the most religious nation on earth. However, one can point to the emergence of active humanist and free thought groups in the country as an indicator of the rise of secularism.

For instance, the Humanist Assembly of Lagos is hosting a conference in Lagos this July. Many irreligious individuals will be in attendance. Irreligious attendees are expected from various parts of the country including Kano and Plateau states in Northern Nigeria.

Recently, such meetings have taken place in Ibadan, Abuja, Calabar, Port Harcourt, Benin and Owerri; although, these are not captured in any poll or research they surely point to a growing secular space in the country!

Jacobsen: What are some of the worst reactions to the non-believing community, from children through to the elderly, in Nigeria?

Igwe: First, it is mainly a family issue. The state gets involved in more extreme cases. But this is rare.

The reactions take covert as well as overt forms. The reactions depend on how liberal or conservative a family is. Worst reactions are expectedly from conservative families. Just to let you have a feeling of what the reactions could be.

A popular Nigerian Muslim woman who was reputed to be a liberal person told me that she would have nothing to do with any of the children who renounced Islam. Under Sharia law, apostasy is a crime punishable by death.

So, reactions to non-belief include ostracization, severance of family support, abandonment, and other forms of maltreatment. In a society where the family is virtually everything in terms of social support and sustenance, family sanction is indeed the worse form of punishment for non-belief.

Jacobsen: Of those children that are abused, what are the statistics on them? How many? What kinds of abuse? What has been one of the most bizarre and tragic cases you’ve read or witnessed of Nigerian children being abused based on superstition?

Igwe: About 15,000 children are branded witches and subsequently abandoned in Southern Nigeria and in the Democratic Republic of Congo, many of the 25,000 homeless children living on the streets of Kinshasha are victims of witchcraft accusation.

I was involved in rescuing children who were accused of witchcraft and I heard very horrific tales. There were cases of children whose family members shackled and starved for several days. Some of children were flogged with sticks and iron and had bruises all over their body.

Others had gasoline poured on them and were set ablaze in the quest to expel the spirit of witchcraft.

Jacobsen: How can religion be liberalized? In America, they had Carl Sagan and have Neil Degrasse Tyson. Is there an equivalent in Nigeria?

Igwe:. We don’t have yet the likes of Carl Sagan and Neil Degrasse Tyson. It is not because there aren’t some scientists who can disseminate scientific ideas and principles.

The science is there. The scientists are there. But the popularizing scientific will is not. This is because scientists are afraid of backlash from religious establishments. Scientists do not want to disseminate scientific ideas in a way that they could be accused of blasphemy.

Religious authorities are still very influential in Nigeria and will go to any length to suppress and neutralize any one promoting science in a way that puts religious claims into question. Science is still within the cocoon and control of religious authorities.

Religion in Nigeria has yet to attain that liberalized state.

Jacobsen: What scientific discipline would have provided the greatest inoculation against the superstitions that most plague Nigeria, e.g. astronomy, biology, chemistry, or physics, and so on? Why?

Igwe: In tackling the disease of superstition, all inoculations are needed because pseudoscience and anti-science manifest in various forms and shapes. Astronomy would be helpful in addressing superstitious beliefs regarding the universe.

Nigerians strongly believe that God, the angels, ancestors and spirits are out there, somewhere in the sky. So, the notion of exploring the planets does not intrigue or command an appeal. Going to the moon or traveling to Mars seems like venturing into the territory of the gods, or embarking on a venture that could elicit the wrath of the divine.

A discipline that sees the ‘heavenly bodies’ as an object of study not of worship will be resourceful in dispelling credulous beliefs. Biology and chemistry will provide the antidote to irrational notions of life and physics will inoculate the people against supernatural beliefs. In Nigeria, belief that human beings can turn into birds, cats, and snakes is pervasive.

This belief is not innocuous because those whom people suspect to traversing these terrains are attacked and killed. A discipline that encourages Nigerians to seek evidence or to base their knowledge or claims on evidence is an asset in the anti superstition campaign.

Jacobsen: Is Creationism an issue there too, as with where I live, Canada? It is a problem here too. Moderate double-digit levels of superstition and Creationism exist — Young Earth Creationism even.

Igwe: Creationism is not just an issue; Creationism is the issue and exists in its both young and older Earth formations. That means in Nigeria people subscribe to the notion that the Earth was created whether it is a few thousand years ago or tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago.

The belief is that Earth came into being through a divine decree. People often show disdain for science because it challenges their creationist ideas.

Jacobsen: What has been a big victory for the humanist community in Nigeria?

Well, the victory is significant but not necessarily big because religions still have so much influence. Religious establishment still dominates public debate and policymaking. The humanist community is only trying to provide a counter weight and indeed there is a growing momentum of humanism and freethought.

I can only explain the growing visibility of humanism by stating as American philosopher and humanist, Corliss Lamont, once wrote that humanism is the next step. Yes, humanism is the next necessary step for Nigeria. Religion has held Nigeria hostage for too long.

Superstition has caused so much confusion, darkness, and deception. Dogma has been used to tyrannize over the lives of the people. So, this is the time for change and of some transformation based on reason, science, critical thinking, and humanity. People are yearning for freedom and emancipation. Humanism is critical in delivering that change and in the realization of social renewal.

Jacobsen: What are the differences in beliefs on important secular topics between the young, the middle aged, and elderly in Nigeria? Why these trends?

Igwe: The young tend to be more curious and critical as they seek to understand life and make sense of their experiences. But as they grow older they start questioning less and try to conform.

The young people tend to hold liberal positions on issues such as abortion or gay sex because they are not in positions of authority and not necessarily interested in the maintenance of law and order.

The youths are not interested in things or in issues as established, but in issues as they think. So, they can afford to challenge existing norms. However, as they grow older and get into positions of authority, the maintenance of law and order becomes paramount — and they become more conservative.

Jacobsen: How respected is freedom of conscience, belief, and speech in Nigeria, especially, in line with the prior questions, regarding critical questions about religion and its role in society — and the status of women?

Igwe: When it comes to critical questions of religion, freedom of conscience, belief and speech is a paper tiger in Nigeria. There is no freedom in religious matters. In fact, religion is presented as inadmissible of criticism, of opposing views and opinions whether it is the status of women, of children, gay, or of non-believers.

Religious positions are cast on stones. Views that are critical of religion easily get framed as blasphemy, which is a crime under Sharia law and is punishable by death or imprisonment.

Freedom of conscience, belief and expression is not respected because the exercise of such freedom ‘provokes’, ‘offends’ or insults the sensibilities of the religious and these are epithets to canonize and legitimize state sanction or mob action.

Jacobsen: What do you think about theological and social arguments for the respect for faith, for religion, and for traditions from faiths and religions?

Igwe: Theological arguments are supposed to provide ‘explanations’ for the existence of God. That means these arguments ought to persuade and make anyone who does not know about God to at least understand that God exists.

But unfortunately, this is not the case. Anyone who takes a critical look at the theological arguments would really wonder what those who advanced these explanations had in mind. For instance, the ontological argument explains God as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.”

The cosmological argument states that God is the First Cause (of things). Whilst the teleological says that God exists as the designer of the universe. Now how have these arguments really provided justifications for the existence of the God of Christianity and Islam, or in fact any God at all? Given that the religions do not really agree on the notion and expression of the divine, which God have these arguments proved? The Biblical that appeared from nowhere, hovered over the void, created everything, and apparently retreated?

Or the Allah god who dictated the Quran to an illiterate in a cave, sent Muhammad, and then escaped back to paradise? Is that the being than which nothing greater can be thought? Surely, I can conceive a being greater than these Christian and Islamic constructs!

This flimsy reasoning applies to the social argument of faith which says that religion has a social value and provides a moral fiber that holds the community together. First, this idea is mistaken. Human beings are social beings with or without religion.

In fact, human beings lived in communities before the invention of religion. Religion only reinforced what has been part of human nature that is community life. In fact, the greatest tragedy is that religion hijacked the human sense of community.

This tragic role is evident in the challenges and difficulties of building communities in a religiously plural nation such as Nigeria. The role of religion in terms of community building is ambivalent.

While religion fosters a sense of family or community on one hand, it causes division and strain on the other because in a multireligious environment there are competing senses of family and community. Catholic community is different from the Protestant community.

Shia social sense is not the same as Sunni version. Faith or religion should not be respected to the extent that they peddle lies and deception, and fuel division, and hatred and intolerance.

Jacobsen: Who is the worst charlatan offender in Nigeria that abuses the positives of religion — societal community building and ordinary citizen activism?

Igwe: A key test of a community is how it treats the vulnerable members of the population. For me, the worst charlatan offenders are the witch hunters and the demon hunters because they ply their trade in ways that hurt and exploit human beings especially women, children, and the disabled.

Given my encounter with her and the church members, I would say that Helen Ukpabio of the Liberty Gospel Church is the worst charlatan and offender in Nigeria because of her vicious campaign against the rights and dignity of children using religion and witchcraft as a cover.

Jacobsen: What happens to those who speak out against religion, or who ask the simplest of critical questions?

Igwe: It depends on where in Nigeria one speaks out against religion and which religion is involved. In Muslim majority states in northern Nigeria, speaking out against Islam is blasphemy and it is punishable by death or imprisonment.

Criticizing Islam is dangerous not just because the state could prosecute, execute or jail the critic, but one could be killed by Islamic mobs.

In fact the chances are that one is more likely to die in the hands of the later than the former.

Unfortunately, killers of real or imagined critics of Islam are never brought to justice. In a high-profile case that recently happened in Kano, the court declared that suspected killers had no case to answer.

Jacobsen: Is prayer a standard and assumed ritual in meetings of political types, as in much of North America as well?

Igwe: Yes, prayer is a standard ritual in meetings and events. However, it is not all religious prayers that are said at all meetings and in all places. In Muslim majority sections, Islamic prayer is the standard.

Christian prayer is the norm in the Christian dominated areas of the country and both Christian and Islamic prayers at national gatherings especially in Abuja. These prayers take place despite the constitutional provision that prohibits the adoption of any religion as state religion.

Saying Christian and Islamic prayers at official meetings attests to the non-neutrality of the state in religious matters and official discrimination on religious grounds.

Jacobsen: How can formal education from the youngest ages to graduate training inculcate critical thinking, statistical principles of thought, scientific literacy, and heuristics of logic and formal reasoning?

Igwe: It is by making the inculcation of critical thinking more than a classroom, examination-passing affair. For now, science, logic, and critical thinking are taught as classroom subjects, as courses which students take with the aim of getting certificates and securing jobs.

Young people are not made to understand sufficiently that these are tools that they need to navigate through life. Heuristics of logic and formal reasoning should be taught as skills that are needed to everyday life.

Jacobsen: Who, in a neighbouring country, gives you hope for the humanistic future?

Igwe: The Humanist Association of Ghana gives me hope; yes, it does. I founded the Nigerian Humanist Movement and worked and campaigned to grow and develop it. For decades, I worked to grow and develop humanist groups in different African countries.

Many of the initiatives have fizzled out or have remained at individual activist or contact levels. So, it gladdens my heart that at last an effective humanist group has taken off in Ghana and is actively involved in coordinating the Humanist Service Corps project in northern Ghana.

A few years ago, such a humanist group sounded like a pipe dream but today it is a reality. I thank Roslyn Mould and her team for diligently delivering on this key humanist promise. I only hope that the humanist association in Ghana grows from strength to strength.

Jacobsen: Do many or some consider you a personal hero? If so, how does this feel, as an exemplar of the community of the irreligious with international reach?

Igwe: I do not think that some people consider me as a hero. I don’t really feel comfortable being placed in that box because I am not done yet. I want to keep doing my work in ways that would allow me to make mistakes and live my own life without being pressured to conform to anyone’s pattern or expectation.

However, I am aware that there are some who have said that they were inspired by what I did or have done. My feeling is this: How I wish I accomplished more and performed better than I did. I have always worked under constraints, with limited resources.

I have not always achieved as much as I would have loved to achieve I still feel that I did not do enough and has not done enough. We still do not have effective humanist, freethought, and skeptics groups in most African countries. That does not make me happy.

It is only when we have active humanist organisations in all African countries that I would feel fulfilled. And as you can imagine we are certainly a long way from reaching that goal.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the time, Leo.

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2022-04-10

Interview with Deo Ssekitooleko — Representative of Center for Inquiry International — Uganda

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/18

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In brief, what is your family story?

Deo Ssekitooleko: I was born in a poor African family. I first saw my biological father when I was ten years old. I am the heir of my late father, Fulgensio Ssekitooleko. He was a very committed catholic, very social, and a committed humanitarian. I grew up with my mother Noelina Nalwada — which was typically a single-parent household (but at other times I had step-fathers).
I am the only child. My father’s children, apart from one, died after getting infected with HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. My mother is an atheist, agnostic or skeptic. When I tried to enter a catholic seminary, she abused me and challenged me whether I had ever seen somebody who has ever seen God or returned from death.

However, one of my last stepfathers who was both a devout catholic and a believer in African traditional religion influenced me to be a very religious person (Catholic) in my early youth. My mother knew how to fight for my (and her) rights, so I never understood issues concerning human rights violations during my youth except when seeing teachers apply corporal punishment to my fellow students.

As I was growing up, I was not aware of the massive human rights abuse by the governments of the day, but, once in a while, I could hear whispers about somebody who has disappeared or killed by the government. Those were regimes of president Iddi Amin Dada, and the second regime of Apollo Milton Obote as he was fighting guerrillas lead by Yoweri Museveni — the current president of Uganda

I am married to Elizabeth, and we have been together for 17 years. We have four children: Sylvia (16 years), Diana (12), Julius (11), and Nicholas (3).

Jacobsen: Are there any others things about your personal story you would like to share?

Ssekitooleko: I grew up striving to succeed in education so that I could escape poverty, ignorance, and unfairness in society. My mother’s relatives were always exploited by witchdoctors who claimed to have healing-powers and thus could cure diseases — including HIV/AIDS. My uncles and aunts gave away their land to witchdoctors in order to get cured from HIV/AIDS, but they later died leaving no property to their offsprings.

In the years to come, the Pentecostal movements emerged promising prosperity on earth, good health and many other opportunities. The two groups, i.e. the traditional religions and the Pentecostals, were undermining the struggle against HIV/AIDS, exploiting poor people. Yet, nobody could talk about them or challenge them.

This was a traumatising experience. I never knew whether this was a human rights issue or mere belief, or ignorance. As the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights defends the right to belief, all governments have gone on to include that article in their constitutions.

This means that ignorant people can be exploited in the name of belief as it is their human right to be exploited as long as they believe. This has been one of my most traumatising struggles in life. I have lost so many relatives out of their ignorance of science concerning health issues. Yet, governments cannot do anything about this because the politicians are also superstitious and the laws protect the charlatans.

In Uganda, almost 80 per cent of FM radio stations spend most of their time promoting the work of faith healers and witchdoctors. Rationalists do not have resources to own a radio station or to buy time on radio and television.

In my struggle to promote rationalism, I founded the Uganda Humanist Association. I became the East African Representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (2007–2012). Now, I am the Ugandan Representative of the Center for Inquiry International.

As advocacy campaigns are difficult, we now engage with local communities to talk about science and superstition in health and community development. Our work is now to invite whoever happens to be involved to discuss these issues openly and inform communities of the dangers of superstition in health and community development.

As of now, I have personally suspended armchair conference-hall humanism. I am in the trenches of community practical humanism. Whatever little I do, I feel proud that at least I am part of the struggle to rationalise African communities.

Jacobsen: What are your religious/irreligious, ethical and political beliefs?

Ssekitooleko: I grew up as a staunch Catholic, and then at university I became a radical secular humanist. Now, having interacted with various so-called humanists and observed their limitations (especially in building harmony, inclusive communities, practical approaches to society problems, and a general lack of openness) I have reviewed my humanism.

I am now a free thinking, liberal, practical humanist. I do not mind other people’s beliefs on the condition that they do not infringe on the rights, happiness, and welfare of other human beings. I can work with Catholics on a health project, but I tell them point blank that the use of condoms should not be undermined and that family planning is essential in our families.

I tell Pentecostals that by preaching miracles such as faith-healing they are committing homicide. However, I enjoy my intellectual philosophical humanism as we debate Darwinism, the Big Bang theory, the environment, and the future of humanity among others. Politically, I am a social welfare democrat. Democracy should not be only about elections, but on how society shares opportunities and resources and how it promotes harmony.

I do not support the winner takes it all type of democracy. I prefer proportional representation in government as a form of democracy, as is the case in many countries which suffered the madness of the second world war.

Jacobsen: How did you become an activist and a sceptic?

Ssekitooleko: When I enrolled in high school, I was still a very confused young man. I had experienced a lot in my childhood. My Biology teacher, the late Mathias Katende, made an explosion in my brain and changed my ideological worldview. He introduced evolutionary biology to us.

The more he taught, the more we became confused. All along, I had prepared myself to go to heaven and meet Mary, the mother of Jesus, and escape worldly problems. However, by the time I entered University to study Botany, Zoology, and Psychology, I had become completely healed from this ideological and philosophical trauma.

At University, we got more lessons on evolution, but the lecturers were not as committed to evolution as my high school teacher. In fact, most students never took evolution seriously. They just wrote their examinations and moved on with life.

At university, by luck, a friend gave me a book on discovering religions. I read about most religions, worldviews, and philosophies. I found Humanism to be more related to my new worldview. I wrote to the British Humanist Association and got a positive response from Matt Cherry who encouraged me to form a humanist organisation. That was the birth of the Uganda Humanist Association.

He connected me to the center for Inquiry International through Norm Allen who was the Director of African Americans for Humanism (AAH). The Free Inquiry Magazines that Norm sent us opened our eyes wider on how humanity sees itself. Later, we were to work with the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) on many secular projects.

Jacobsen: Do you consider yourself a progressive?

Ssekitooleko: I am very progressive. I have always been evolving in my ideological, philosophical, cultural, and political views. I used to be a staunch believer in American democracy, but now I am more rotated towards European Social Parliamentary Democracy. I used to hate China’s politics, but now I see it relevant in order to maintain orderliness and social welfare to a country (that has over one billion people) under one authority. I am a progressive because I am ever open to new challenges, new ideas, and new world views for the good of humanity and the environment at large.

Jacobsen: Does progressivism logically imply other beliefs, or tend to or even not all?

Ssekitooleko: I don’t look at progressivism as a confined ideology or philosophy. If so, then I need more education about it. In my view, progressivism should be open to all aspects of human life including but not limited to culture, beliefs, politics, philosophy, and views about the environment among others.

Jacobsen: How did you come to adopt socially progressive worldview?

Ssekitooleko: As I explained earlier, it is a combination of my childhood experience, my culture, my environment, and possibly my inherited biological genes. I am lucky to have been introduced to evolutionary theory by my high school biology teacher and through reading various related literature including Richard Dawkin’s The Blind Watchmaker. The works of Philosophers such as Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason taught me critical reasoning skills. Studying the American revolution was equally important in my political thought development. I was humbled by the sacrifices of Nelson Mandela and his colleagues to liberate South Africa from apartheid. Julius Nyerere’s trials with community socialism in order to liberate Tanzanians from poverty and to unite them into one nation was a positive human commitment. I can not forget reading the life of Bill Clinton in his voluminous autobiography. It is a story of moving from no where to the top of the mountains of his country.

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Deo Ssekitooleko.

Contacts:
Email: deossekitooleko@rocketmail.com
The website is being worked on.

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2022-04-10

Public Intellectual and Philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/17

Professor Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is a novelist, philosopher, public intellectual, and visiting Professor of Philosophy and English at New York University and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the New College of the Humanities.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is your family story?

Rebeccer Newberger Goldstein: I was brought up in an Orthodox Jewish household. My father was a refugee from Poland, and all the kids in my extended family were named after relatives who had died in the Holocaust.

I’m named after my great-grandmother who died in a cattle car on her way to Auschwitz. I would say that my father never quite adjusted to the New World and carried tremendous sadness within him.

He was a gentle and compassionate man, of great intellectual potential, who had no ambition beyond never again seeing the worst that humanity can do to each other. He was exquisitely sensitive to others’ pain, a great believer in performing secret acts of charity.

He became a cantor in order to support his large family. We were poor. My mother, who was born in the U.S., had more worldly ambitions, but they were all directed toward her one son, my older brother, who is a rabbi.

As a girl I was raised to have no ambitions beyond getting married to an Orthodox Jewish man. I was engaged to my first husband at age eighteen.

Jacobsen: What about your personal story?

Goldstein: Though we couldn’t afford many books, it was a bookish family, which meant that we used the public library religiously. The Sabbath day was spent reading, and my parents’ attitude was that if a book came from the library then it couldn’t be a bad book.

So, for example, when my mother saw me reading, at age thirteen, a book by the philosopher Bertrand Russell called Why I Am Not A Christian, she had no objections — especially since we were Jewish!

She had no idea that the title essay went through each of the major arguments for the existence of God and systematically destroyed them. I was particularly interested in the elegant destruction Russell brought to bear on the so-called moral argument for God’s existence, which tries to argue that God is necessary to provide an objective grounding for ethics.

(Only years later did I discover that Russell had cribbed his elegant counter-argument from Plato. It’s the famous Euthyphro argument.) In any case, after much intense thinking, spurred by Russell’s essay, I became an atheist — a quiet atheist, since I didn’t want to do anything to upset my parents, most especially my father, of whom I was, for obvious reasons, always protective.

Jacobsen: What are your religious/irreligious, ethical, and political beliefs?

Goldstein: I’m a secular humanist and a political progressive. Although I began my career as a philosopher of science, most interested in the foundations of quantum mechanics, I’ve become increasingly interested in moral philosophy, which has — since the time of Plato and Aristotle — been going about the business of grounding morality on purely secular grounds.

One of my books was on the philosopher Spinoza, with whom I feel a strong affinity. Spinoza was the first philosopher of the modern age to try to rigorously ground morality in naturalism. His concept of conatus is essential in his project of naturalising ethics, so I was pleased to see the name of your news organisation! I also sympathised with Spinoza’s personal story.

He, too, had been born into a Jewish family that had been traumatised by murderous bigotry — only in his case it was the Spanish-Portuguese Inquisition. This personal involvement with his story went into my book, Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity.

I’ve always been interested in showing how the whole person, including personal history, is involved in philosophical positions, which is one of the reasons I also write novels. Our individually variable intuitions that are expressed in our philosophical positions are embedded in our philosophical characters and temperaments, shaped both by genetic and environmental factors.

Jacobsen: Your recent publication is Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away. It won the Forkosch Award (2014). An earned award from the Council for Secular Humanism. What was the content and intended message behind the text — or set of themes covered?

Goldstein: I had four interrelated goals. The first was to put forward an original theory as to why the ancient Greeks were responsible for inventing the field of philosophy. Their society was saturated with religious rituals, but when it came to the question of how to live our lives, they didn’t look to their gods but rather to a secular grounding.

This doesn’t mean that they were a culture of philosophers. There never has been a society of philosophers! And, of course, Athens sentenced Socrates to die. But the pre-conditions for philosophy were created in their secular approach to the big questions, and I was interested in exploring this aspect.

The second goal was to explain Plato in the context of the wider Greek culture. The third goal was to demonstrate that progress has been made in philosophy, and to demonstrate this by going back to the inception of Western philosophy and uncovering presuppositions that had been instrumental in getting the whole process of critical reasoning going but which critical reasoning had, in its progress, invalidated.

I was concerned to demonstrate in the book that progress in philosophy tends to be invisible because it penetrates so deeply down into our conceptual frameworks — both epistemological and ethical.

We don’t see it, because we see with it. And the fourth goal was to demonstrate that the kinds of questions Plato introduced, philosophical questions, are still vitally important to us, and to demonstrate this, I interspersed the expository chapters with new Platonic dialogues, injecting Plato into contemporary settings.

The first place I bring him to is the Googleplex in Mountainview CA, the headquarters of Google International, where he gets into a discussion with a software engineer on whether philosophy makes progress. I also have him on a panel of child-rearing experts, including a tiger mum.

Then I bring him to a cable news set, where he’s interviewed by a rabble-rousing blowhard; they discuss the role of reason in the public square. The last dialogue has him getting a brain scan and engaging the neuroscientists on the question of whether neuroscience dissolves the notions of personal identity and moral responsibility.

I’d produced these dialogues as a bit of fun to enliven my points, but it was this aspect of the book that got all of the attention from reviewers.

Jacobsen: You earned other prizes in previous years: MacArthur fellowship (2011), Humanist of the Year, Free-thought Heroine, Richard Dawkins Award (2014), and the National Humanities Medal (2015). What do these public recognitions of professional excellence mean to you?

Goldstein: Since I’ve been very experimental in my writings, using forms of writing that my fellow philosophers don’t recognise as legitimate — for example, novels — these prizes have been encouraging.

I got the MacArthur prize, for example, at rather a low point in my philosophical career, when many of my colleagues had written me off because I’d written some bestsellers. The MacArthur carries a great deal of weight in American academic circles, since it’s popularly known as the genius prize, so this prize did a little bit of work in rehabilitating my reputation.

Jacobsen: What one is most dear to your heart? Why?

Goldstein: Without a doubt, my proudest moment was having President Obama put the National Medal of the Humanities around my neck. And when he had greeted me in private before the ceremony, he had said, “Ah, the philosopher who knows how to write great novels.”

Being in the White House, in the presence of the president who knew something of my work, I couldn’t help being flooded with memories of my father and how displaced he’d always felt in his new country — how displaced he’d felt in the world at large.

And here was a president, putting a medal around my neck, who hadn’t been raised to feel entitled to stride the corridors of power — quite the contrary. I felt proud for all of us who believe that reason can destroy the groundless prejudices that break the human spirit and keep our shared human potential from being realised for the greater good.

I only wished that my father might have been alive to witness the moment, though it might have been too overwhelming for him — as it nearly was for me.

Jacobsen: What responsibilities come with these recognitions?

Goldstein: I wasn’t raised to be a public person, to say the least. The virtue that had been most impressed on me growing up as an Orthodox girl was female modesty, meaning never to attract undue attention to oneself, especially male attention — not to one’s body, not to one’s mind.

So I have to overcome a great deal of inner resistance, even shame, in speaking out in the name of things I believe in. It remains a torment to me to do anything that gets me attention, though over the years I’ve toughened up a bit.

Sometimes, when the criticisms against what I’ve said or written become very personal (and they do), my upbringing kicks in, and I have to fight the sense that this is what I deserve for being so immodest as to make myself heard.

But I do feel that addressing a public audience is my responsibility, as someone who has had the privilege of being able to get myself a first-class education and to use it to think about big issues.

It’s a great privilege to think for one’s living — especially when that is what one most loves to do! But, as with all privilege, this one, too, begets obligations, which is why I’ve ventured beyond the confines of academia.

Jacobsen: You are the visiting professor of philosophy and English at New York University (NYU) in addition to the visiting professor of philosophy at the New College of the Humanities (NCH) in London, England. What tasks and responsibilities come with these positions?

Goldstein: I try to impress on my students what a hard thing knowledge is to achieve and that they ought to take their responsibilities for being accountable for their beliefs — as well as their actions — seriously. No matter what they go on to do in their lives, they can’t leave accountability behind. That’s what I most want to impress upon them.

Jacobsen: What are your favourite courses to teach to students?

Goldstein: Coming to philosophy from a background in physics, my first interest was philosophy of science, and this is still my favourite course to teach. I love it because it requires that one understand both the science and the philosophical issues to which the science gives rise, and it forces me to keep up with what’s going on in science.

In general, I like to teach courses that attract an interdisciplinary mix of students, so that they can learn from the strengths of one another. I also teach philosophy courses that use novels, and these courses also attract an interdisciplinary mix of students.

Jacobsen: Who is the smartest person you have ever met?

Goldstein: There are too many kinds of smartness for me to be able to answer this question. I’ve known mathematical geniuses who are dunces when it comes to the kind of imaginative intelligence that goes into interpreting works of art — or, for that matter, interpreting people.

I’ve met brilliant novelists whose deductive talents aren’t sufficient to get them through an elementary course in symbolic logic. I have an appreciation for sundry forms of smartness, though there are characteristics other than smartness that I value far more in people.

Too many people who are celebrated for their intellectual or artistic talents think that their gifts license them to be jerks. What I call “talentism,” the conviction that those with extraordinary abilities matter more than other people, is as faulty a normative proposition as any other that regards some people as mattering more than others — such as sexism, racism, classism, ableism, lookism, ageism, nationalism, imperialism, and hetero-normativity.

Challenging all of these presumptions is part of the mandate of progressive thinking and progressive activism, at least as I conceive it.

The truth to which progressive movements have always been pointing is this: to the extent that any of us is committed to our own lives mattering — which is, of course, a commitment that forms the infrastructure of our entire emotional life, something that Spinoza had tried to capture with his notion of conatus — then we must be equally committed to all lives mattering and to the exact same extent.

To me, that’s the essence of what drives moral progress forward, and the greatest privilege of my privileged life is to play any role at all, no matter how small, in that progress.

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2022-04-10

An Interview with Chris Worfolk — Founder, Leeds Atheist Society

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/17

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Was there a family background in humanism?

Chris Worfolk: No, my family are open-minded but rational people. So there wasn’t much in the way of religion or belief in our household. My parents just get on with life.

Jacobsen: How did you come to find humanism, or a humanist community?

Worfolk: When I arrived at university, I was greeted by a huge array of religious activity. I’m not sure whether I expected university to be a temple of reason or not, but it definitely wasn’t. The religious societies were huge. They ran loads of events and put week-long marquees outside the student’s union touting their existential wares. I have no problem with this. But it did lead me to ask

Jacobsen: Where do the humanist students go?

Worfolk: The answer was nowhere. So I founded Leeds Atheist Society. I then spent the next few years of my life fielding the question “what is the point of an atheist society?” But evidently many people did see the point because a few years later we were one of the most active societies on campus, running three or four events per week to accommodate all of our members.

Jacobsen: What seems like the main reason for people to come to label themselves as humanists, from your experience?

Worfolk: I think it varies depending on generation. Ten years ago, West Yorkshire Humanists had a predominantly elderly membership base. And many of them were there as a reaction to religion. They had been hurt by it in the past, mostly over LGBT issues, and so came to Humanism as a place of refuge. On contrast, our younger membership base seems to have found Humanism for different reasons. Some are Dawkinites, but I suspect that most are here because they’re looking to fill the hole left by the breakdown of traditional neighbourhood communities in the West. Or because as society continues to become smarter and better educated, we all become more existential, get more depressed, and want a positive answer to the whole life, the universe and everything question without resorting to “a magic man in the sky did it”.

Jacobsen: What was the experience of finding a community of like-minded individuals?

Worfolk: It’s an easy way to find high-quality friends. Typically, anyone who takes horoscopes seriously, or refuses to vaccinate, is filtered out, for example. I also met my wife through LAS, and most human behaviour is probably driven by the desire to propagate our genes.

Jacobsen: You play guitar. How has the development of this skilled improved personal life? What is your favourite kind of music? Any favourite artists?

Worfolk: I’ve had a guitar since I was about 17. But I never learnt to play it. Then, when I reached 27, I decided to take lessons. I think it took me that long to gather enough emotional maturity to say to myself “look, a year of practice misery will give you fifty years of enjoying playing the guitar. And that’s a good deal.” I like to think of myself as a poster child for proving anyone can play an instrument. I have no music aptitude. I couldn’t play anything for the first six months of lessons. Nothing. Then it clicked. Now I play the piano, as well, and sing. I think learning one really hard skill gives you the confidence to go on and learn others. Now I play in the “house band” at Sunday Assembly Leeds. Which is a great way to improve your skills because the good musicians pull you forward. I don’t often discuss my music tastes because it leads me to lose all credibility as an adult. I like Avril Lavigne. Also Smashing Pumpkins, Dire Straits, Sheryl Crow, Lordi, rock music you can sing along to.

Jacobsen: What is the best argument for atheism, and theism, that you have ever come across?

Worfolk: Personally, I used to struggle with morality. I found it difficult to make sense of objective morality without an omniscient rule maker, which led me to adopt subjective morality.

But that never sat well with me either. Sam Harris finally cleared it up for me with The Moral Landscape. He makes an eloquent case for objective morality inside a Humanist framework.

Jacobsen: Who are personal heroes?

Worfolk: Bill & Melinda Gates because they are almost single handily wiping out malaria and polio. Jimmy Wales because he took all human knowledge and made it available to everyone for free.

Also Ray Kroc and Colonel Sanders. Kroc was 55 when he founded McDonald’s, and Sanders was 62 when he founded KFC. Which gives me hope that even if I achieve nothing in the next thirty years of my life, I could still make a valuable contribution to the world before I die.

Jacobsen: What differentiates New Atheism from ‘Old Atheism’?

Worfolk: I’m not sure anything does. I think the “new” represents a new wave of interest. It boomed in the seventies, and again in the naughties when people realised the battle for freedom from religion had not yet been won. But it’s essentially the same merchandise.

Jacobsen: What is the current strategy of the atheist movement to advance its cause?

Worfolk: I think the “movement” is probably too diverse to have a cause or a strategy. We can’t even agree if we’re atheists, agnostics, humanists, secularists, freethinkers, sceptics, etc. So there are many different movements worth commenting on.

In the UK, the National Secular Society changed its constitution so that it no longer affirms atheism. They want to be seen as objective as it is difficult to argue against an organisation campaigning for a level playing field without being able to accuse them of anti-religious bias.

Sunday Assembly is out there trying to create a secular church. It’s a well-trodden route: Auguste Comte’s Religion of Humanity, the ethical societies of the late nineteenth century, Humanist Community, Church of Freethought have all tried it.

But Sanderson Jones is doing a great job of building a new movement. Then you have organisations like Atheists Feeding the Homeless and Humanist Action Group attempting to convert humanist ethical values into positive action. But the efforts are rather fragmented.

Take Atheism Plus, for example. It’s atheism plus social justice. Which is Humanism. But for some reason they wanted their own movement. Which is always likely to be the way when you try to herd free thinkers. Ultimately, what will advance the cause is the slow march of time.

We can rely on the tranquilising drug of gradualism if needed, because the world is only going to get smarter, and better educated, and more caring. The Moral Arc goes up. And that is good news for humanism and bad news for outdated and silly belief systems.

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Chris, I enjoyed that.

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2022-04-10

The Charge of ‘Scientism’, and Philosophy and Science!

Author(s): Dr. Stephen Law and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/16

Some scientists dismiss philosophy. They think science and empirical observation provide the sole window into reality. How can we gain insight into the nature of the world out there by sitting down, closing our eyes, and just thinking about it? How can we find out anything about reality by employing the armchair methods of philosophy?

For example, scientists, like Richard Dawkins, who think science is capable of revealing anything about the supernatural – let alone God – are supposedly guilty of hubris, of pride.

Dawkins and others are told to show some humility and acknowledge there are ‘more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in their scientistic philosophy.’ So, who is right? Is it those charging ‘scientism,’ or those who dismiss anything other than the deliverances of science as, well, bullshit?

On the one hand, Dr. Law is a professional philosopher. So, you may expect him to carve out a special non-scientific territory for philosophers. On the other hand, he supposes that in the hands of some – including many theologians – the ‘scientism!’ charge has become an unjustified and knee-jerk form of dismissal, much like ‘communism!’ in the past.

There do appear to be questions science can’t answer. Moral questions for example. Science is great at revealing facts about what is the case. Morality, however, is concerned not with what is the case, but with what ought to be. As the Enlightenment philosopher David Hume pointed out, observation does not reveal ‘ought facts.’

Hume also draws attention to the is/ought gap: It appears that premises concerning what is the case – certainly, premises of the sort that pure empirical science is capable of establishing – fail rationally to support moral conclusions: conclusions about what one ought or ought not to do. So, it appears science can’t supply answers to our most fundamental moral questions, either by direct observation or by means of an inference from what has been directly observed.

Or take the question: why is there something rather than nothing? Science points to the Big Bang to explain why the universe exists. But why did the Big Bang happen? Whatever science points to explain that will be more, well, something. So, it seems something must always be left unexplained by science.

Here is another question:

Actually, there could. It’s possible to figure that by doing some armchair, conceptual work. No scientific investigation is required or would even be relevant here. So, conceptual puzzles are puzzles that science cannot answer, but armchair methods can.

True enough, scientists might discover everything that’s going on in my brain as I savour the taste of this cheesecake, but surely, my experience couldn’t just be that brain activity, could it?

However, whether or not there is such a conceptual obstacle about something requiring only armchair conceptual investigation to figure out, just as it only took armchair conceptual investigation to reveal there could, appearances to the contrary, be just four people present at that family gathering.

Our view is that philosophical problems are, for the most part, such conceptual problems. As such, they require armchair methods, not the scientific method, to solve them. At the same time, we agree with scientific critics of philosophy who say, “How can you discover anything about reality via armchair philosophical reflection or investigation?” You can’t.

Philosophical reflection can’t discover the basic nature of reality. Pure armchair theorising is an unreliable guide to reality. Science has shown that many of our armchair intuitions about time, space, matter, and so on, are wrong.

Still, while philosophical reflection can’t reveal how nature fundamentally is, it can on occasion reveal how nature isn’t.

So, it seems there is an important role for pure armchair philosophical reflection even in science, contrary to the views of some scientists. However, we agree that armchair philosophical investigation can’t explain how nature is – it can at best reveal that certain descriptions cannot be true of it because they involve contradictions.

Have we conceded that the charges of ‘scientism!’ against Dawkins and others are correct? No. To acknowledge questions and puzzles that science is the inappropriate answer does not mean the supernatural, the gods, or God are off limits to the scientific method.

Yet, we can confirm and refute theories about unobservables via the scientific method. Why? Because existence of electrons and the Earth being older than 6,000 years have observable consequences.

But many claims about God and the supernatural have observable consequences too. Take, for example, the claim about God answering prayers. Two large scale double-blind studies – researchers and participants do not know the control group or the experimental group – have been done on the effect of petitionary prayer on heart patients.

Maybe science cannot in principle answer all questions. Maybe some claims are off-limits. That prayer works is not one of them.

What motivations might be behind the charge of scientism? One seems to be shutting down debate, and immunise religious and supernatural claims against scientific refutation. Bishop James Heiser writes:

“The efforts of scientists to disprove the existence of God is not a pursuit of Science, but Scientism” (Heiser, 2012).

Bishop Heiser seems to have an image of some scientists rubbing their hands menacingly together, cackling, and actively working to disprove the existence of the supernatural or God.

As should now be clear, even if that were the aim of some scientists, efforts to test claims concerning the existence of the supernatural or even God do not necessarily involve an embrace of ‘scientism.’ Perhaps science cannot answer every question.

Still, it may be able to answer various questions about the supernatural, including various questions about God. To believe this is not, in fact, to embrace scientism. And to point out that scientism is false is not to discredit such investigations. In their paper, ‘Has Science Disproved God?’ Ashton and Westacott write:

“It is important to note that science, unlike scientism, should not be a threat to religious belief. Science, to be sure, advocates a ‘naturalistic’ rather than ‘supernaturalistic’ focus, and an empirical method for determining truths about the physical world and the universe. Yet, the proper mandate of science is restricted to the investigation of the natural (physical, empirical dimension) of reality. It is this restriction that scientism has violated…” (Ashton and Westacott, 2006, 16).

Science is, in fact, capable of investigating the supernatural.

When a believer is stung into doubt about the lack of evidence for their belief in, for example, petitionary prayer, they can be lulled back to sleep by repeating over and over, ‘But this is scientism! It is beyond the ability of science to decide!’ The spell is cast, and the faithful return to their slumber.

No doubt some things will forever remain beyond the ability of science, and perhaps even reason, to decide. We’re happy to concede that. Still, there’s plenty within the remit of the scientific method, including many religious, supernatural, New Age, and other claims that are supposedly ‘off limits.’

The mantra has become a convenient factoid that can be wheeled out whenever a scientific threat to belief rears their head. When a believer is momentarily stung into doubt, many will attempt to lull them back to sleep by repeating the mantra over and over.

The faithful murmur back: ‘Ah yes, we forgot – this is beyond the ability of science to decide…. zzzz.’

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2022-04-10

Interview with Theoretical Physicist, Professor Jim Al-Khalili

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/16

Professor Jameel Sadik “Jim” Al-Khalili OBE is a British theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster. He is currently Professor of Theoretical Physics and Chair in the Public Engagement in Science at the University of Surrey.

How did you become an activist and a scientist, and science communicator?

I think it’s fair to say that my career evolved gradually. When I began my academic life it very much followed the traditional route of PhD, postdoctoral research, at University College London then Surrey, then I secured a five-year research fellowship after which I became a full time (tenured) academic lecturer and moved up the academic ranks to professor by teaching and conducting research in my field of theoretical physics. I did all the usual stuff of publishing my research, attending conferences and applying for grants.

But around the mid-90s I also became active in outreach activities and communicating science more widely to the public. I found I enjoyed this as much as I did my other academic activities. I began to get involved as a contributor to radio and TV programmes and wrote my first popular science book, on black holes, in 1999. From then on, one thing led to another. Over the past decade I have been more involved in public life, but always speaking as a representative of the scientific world.

Were parents or siblings an influence on this for you?

Not particularly. They were encouraging and supportive. But it was my wife who really enabled me to do what I do now.

Did you have early partnerships in these activist and scientific pursuits? If so, whom?

Science is a collaborative endeavour, so over the years I have built up a wide range of colleagues and collaborators, whether in my research fields or in the public arena. The academics in the nuclear physics group at Surrey are scientists I have worked with over the years and published many research papers with. Several senior colleagues were also valuable mentors for me, supporting my development in my early career.

How did you come to adopt a socially progressive worldview?

I don’t feel my worldview is particularly different from the vast majority of people I interact with on a daily basis. First and foremost, I am a scientist and so I try to see the world objectively and demand evidence for views, policies and beliefs. I am also liberal and secular in my politics. I served for three years as president of the British Humanist Association and I feel that my humanist values do indeed shape my worldview to a large extent. Last but not least, I come from a mixed culture and heritage background: born in Iraq to a Muslim Arab father and Christian English mother, I feel I can have a broader perspective on the world that is not shaped by just one ideology.

Why do you think that adopting a social progressive outlook is important?

It depends on how one defines ‘socially progressive’, since I suspect that people from a wide cross-section of the political and social spectrum might regard themselves as forward-thinking and progressive. I also feel it is important to stress that being socially progressive is meaningless if we do not learn the lessons from the past. We cannot wipe slates clean and move forward without understanding where we have come from.

Do you consider yourself a progressive?

I hope so. I can say that I am an optimist about the future, despite the many challenges that face the world today.

Does progressivism logically imply other beliefs, or tend to or even not at all?

I think it is one of those terms that can easily be adopted by many ideologies. Maybe it is a quite clearly defined ideology or worldview in its own right. If so, then I need to learn more about what it implies.

What are your religious/irreligious beliefs?

I am not religious. I guess I am defined as an atheist, which is a strange term since it implies there has to be a supernatural being, a god, in the first place for me not to believe in! Essentially ‘atheism’ is for me no more a belief system in itself than not collecting stamps is a hobby.

As a progressive, what do you think is the best socio-political position to adopt in the United Kingdom?

Ideologically, I align myself with the liberal left and the social welfare stance of the traditional Labour movement.

What big obstacles (if at all) do you see social-progressive movements facing at the moment?

In the UK, I think the biggest challenge is the disillusionment of many in society, such as those who voted Brexit, which manifests itself in a craving for elements of the past: a return to some perceived utopia when ‘things were better’. For me this is the opposite of a social-progressive movement.

How important do you think social movements are?

I find this quite difficult to answer because today social movements can grow so quickly that there is often not enough time to consider carefully what they actually stand for. We live in an age of post-truth politics, disillusionment with establishment, vast inequalities in society, and social media that can pick up a meme and spread it faster than a virus. In this environment, social movements can thrive. But that does not necessarily mean that all social movements are for the good.

What is your current work?

I am doing many things. My academic career continues, as does my broadcasting, and I am excited about new developments in scientific research. In recent months I have stepped back from a lot of my public work to focus on writing, not least of which is my first novel, which I hope will come out next year.

Where do you hope your professional work will go into the future?

Well, I hope to continue as it is today. I am very happy doing what I do.

Thank you for your time, Professor Al-Khalili.

Keep up-to-date with Professor Al-Khalili’s work by following his Twitter account: @jimalkhalili

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2022-04-10

An Interview with Ray Zhong — Translator, Amsterdam Declaration

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/16

You live in Taipei, Taiwan and attended the Taipei Municipal Daan Vocational High School. What is the personal background in humanism for you?

I became a humanist because of three things: my father’s religiosity, Isaac Asimov’s writings, and my English. All of them influenced me, one by one, in that order.

My father is a very pious Buddhist who often preaches about reincarnation and reciting Buddha’s name. In his view, those who do not undertake all the Five Precepts (no killing, no stealing, no adultery, no false speech, and no alcohol) will not reincarnate as humans in next life. Instead, they will be reborn as animals, ghosts, and so on. However, there is a way out: reciting Buddha’s name. Do it as often as you can and, after death, you will be led to Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss and freed from karma. Following my father, I bowed to Buddha’s figure and recited Buddha’s name, but I somehow remained unconvinced. This unsubstantiated skepticism followed me into adolescence. Then I met Isaac Asimov, in his works.

Isaac Asimov was an extremely prolific and prescient sci-fi author. He wrote more than 500 books in his lifetime. His most famous work is the Foundation series, which I read in junior high school. Fascinated by his novels, I moved on to reading his nonfiction works, of which there were a great many. In one of his essay collections, I came across a piece titled The “Threat” of Creationism. In that piece, he argued against teaching creationism in public schools by dismantling the creationist arguments, such as the watchmaker analogy. That was my moment of enlightenment. Not only was it the moment I became aware of the threat religion possessed to the society, but it was also the moment I understood the clash between religion and science, or rather religion and reason. Asimov ignited my enthusiasm for science and introduced me to atheism. Then, I started to learn English.

I am a graduate from Department of English in National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology. As a tool, English broadened my scope and granted me access to resources I had no been able to reach. I started from watching Matt Dillahunty debating the callers on his show Atheist Experience, and then I switched to watching the Four Horsemen’s lectures and debates. I was so impressed by Christopher Hitchens’s wit and style that I made Chinese subtitles for some of his videos on YouTube. To gain more views, I posted it on the Facebook pages of a few Taiwan atheist groups (there were very few.) This led to my friendship with Feng Ching-wen, an extremely erudite and resourceful humanist who was the founder and head of Taiwan Humanism Studio. He contacted me and invited me to attend the lectures held by his humanist club at National Sun Yat-sen University. That was when I first learned about humanism. Later that year, Asian Humanist Conference was to be held in Taipei. I had the honor to work as an interpreter at the conference and meet many great humanists, some from other countries. Then, I became a humanist.

Any family interest in it?

My father is still a Buddhist and my sister a Christian. There were some quarrels between them when my father learned about my sister’s religion. I want no quarrels, so I have never told my father how I feel about his religious views. I remain silent whenever he preaches. He knows I do not believe it, but he never gives up trying to convince me.

How do some of the principles play out in real life for you?

I want to talk about a decision I made a few years ago: I may have sent my mother to hell.

It was the summer vacation during my second year in university. My mother had been ill with cancer and suffering for five years. She was bedridden in the palliative care. My father, sister, and I took turns to look after her. One afternoon during my watch, a young lady, no elder than me, entered the ward with a Bible in her hand and wished to save my mother from eternal hell fire. I stopped her and walked her out to the corridor. I thanked her for her kindness and told her that my parents were Buddhists and, maybe out of arrogance, that I was an atheist. She had the audacity to say that Buddha could not save my mother but Jesus could. Provoked by this comment, I retorted, “Then don’t save her at all!” She left, fuming.

The compunction haunted me for the rest of the day. I could almost hear the French mathematician Blaise Pascal whispering in my ear, “what if you’re wrong?” What if my atheism was not the right position and, because of my reckless defiance, my mother, who had already been in agony for years, was condemned to endless suffering in hell? What had I done? Wasn’t it safer for my mother to be a believer? Questions like these filled my mind as fear and doubts took over me. Then, reason kicked in.

The counterargument to Pascal’s wager occurred to me: what if the lady was wrong? What if my father was right? How should I determine who was right? Since neither side was supported by evidence, I figured what mattered here was my mother’s feelings. There was a portrait of Buddha on the curtain around my mother’s bed. My father had put it there to remind my mother of reciting Buddha’s name. What would my mother have thought if I had let the lady talk to her? Hitchens captured this very well in a discussion with Sam Harris and two rabbis:

I mean, If Sam [Harris] and I were to go around religious hospitals — which is what happens in reverse — and say to people who were lying in pain: ‘Sorry, did you say you were a Catholic? Well, you may only have a few days left, but you don’t have to live them as a serf, you know. Just accept that was all bullshit, the priests have been cheating you, and I guarantee you’ll feel better…’ I don’t think that would be very ethical. In fact, I think it would be something of a breach of taste. But if it’s in the name of God it has a social license; well, fuck that, is what I say.

In hindsight, I saved my mother from needless concern, so she could have some peace of mind in her last moments. That was all it mattered, and that was good.

You are a translator for the Amsterdam Declaration. What languages will the declaration have translation into by you — and others if you know?

I cannot take all the credits for the translation, because it was a group work. Half of it was translated by Ted Yang, a very talented translator in our team. Back to the question, I learned Japanese and German at my university, because we had to take at least one second foreign language. But neither is good enough for doing translation yet. I might do a Japanese translation in the remote future. For now, I have to keep on learning.

Is this part of a larger translation effort — of more IHEU and IHEYO, and humanist, relevant documents?

I also help translate some short video clips and quotes about humanism or atheism for Taiwan Humanism Studio. I look forward to working for IHEYO again.

Thank you for your time, Ray.

Thank you for having me.

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2022-04-10

Justine Nelson on the Pipeline Issues

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/15

Justine Nelson is a collaborator and friend on volunteer projects, especially writing (here and here) over more than a year or two now. Collaborations started after a smudging ceremony. Nelson is the Coordinator for the PIPE UP Network, works with a variety of non-profits, and an M.Ed. student studying Education for Sustainability. Here we talk about some updates on pipeline issues.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let’s jump straight to the point of the chat today, what are the big concerns and issues for locals, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, regarding pipelines in the Lower Mainland?

Justine Nelson: Climate change, Indigenous justice, and rights over their territories, oil spills, increased tanker traffic, expansion of the tar sands.

The list of concerns is long but ultimately the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, and as a result of the tar sands, is not in line with the sustainable, just transition to a fossil-free future we envision.

Jacobsen: Regarding the main pipeline of concern, the Kinder Morgan Pipeline, what is its status of construction and progress? How are the current group activists working together?

Nelson: Kinder Morgan is not allowed to start construction of the Trans Mountain expansion on public lands until it meets all the requirements set out by the NEB, which it has not yet done.

At this point the CEO has said they hope to start construction in 2020, we know that is not going to happen. It has, unfortunately, gotten permission from the NEB to bypass Burnaby bylaws and begin the expansion of its tank farm up on Burnaby Mountain.

There is a big resistance to this, and various groups have been challenging the construction. Camp cloud has been up there for months disrupting work, with a group called the Justin Trudeau Brigade.

Last Saturday, March 10, saw the biggest mobilization against Kinder Morgan yet, with up to 10 thousand people coming out to support the Tsleil-wautuths building of a watch house, which is currently being occupied at all times on Burnaby Mountain.

They are exerting their rights to protect the land and water. Groups across the lower mainland, including PIPE UP, are coming together in various capacities to support this work.

Jacobsen: In the case of a spill, which seems relevant right into the present with the Kinder Morgan and other pipelines, what tends to happen to the environment, e.g., the water, the land, the plant and animal life, and the human communities?

Nelson: Historically we have seen that Kinder Morgan is not responsive to spills. In 2012 when there was a spill at the Sumas tank farm in Abbotsford, it took 6 hours to get a Kinder Morgan operator on the scene.

Local schools had to be evacuated because the fumes from the spill were being inhaled by students, some of whom had to make a trip to the emergency room. This stuff is toxic!

If a spill happens in water Diluted Bitumen is known to sink, making clean up essentially impossible.

One of the most frustrating, and darkly humorous, parts of the spill conversation, is that Kinder Morgan owns a majority stake in at least one oil clean up company. Meaning they make money when oil spills happen.

Jacobsen: We have three arguments, at least: moral duties based on compassion, Indigenous rights (UNDRIP), and economic.

Even if someone is not swayed, at least not in full, by moral duties to fellow human beings’ wellbeing with the risks associated with an oil pipeline spill, and even if someone rejects, at least in part, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, what are the short-term, at this point, and long-term economic benefits to rejection of coal, oil, and gas in favour of alternative energy sources?

Nelson: Well, I am certainly not the expert on the economic side. My motivation in this is definitely aligned with Indigenous rights and protecting the earth for future generations.

Projects like Kinder Morgan threaten many employment opportunities in tourism, food production, fisheries, etc. The minimal, and it is minimal, number of jobs created through this project can be found elsewhere if we put more effort into moving towards a clean energy future.

Even Bill Nye pointed out to Trudeau in an interview the other day that it political will that is missing from the transition, not a plan of how to transition. We could do it, the petrostate just doesn’t want to.

With Climate change happening now, the impacts will only continue to get worse, our economy will suffer because of this, and if we don’t start transitioning to a clean energy, resilient community-oriented society, then that impact will only be more exasperated.

Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?

Nelson: I think the only thing I would add is that if you feel called to act, now is the time. Go up to Burnaby mountain, support the Tsleil-waututh and other grassroots people organizing and resisting Kinder Morgan’s blatant disregard for the lack of consent for their bitumen shipping pipeline expansion.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Justine.

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2022-04-10

Interview with Dina Holford on Being an Ex-Jehovah’s Witness

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/15

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you grow up with religion? Was it central or peripheral to your life?

Dina Holford: My mother was baptized as one of Jehovah’s witnesses whilst heavily pregnant with me. She had been a regular recreational drug taker until she had a knock at the door and started a bible study.

My dad, however, although having studied with Jehovah’s witnesses on/off, was more inclined to Wicca and was still taking drugs after I was born before quitting when I was around the age of 7.

My father was initially opposed to my mother raising me as a witness, even having taken her to court over the blood issue, however gradually softened. I went to meetings on/off during my childhood before completely stopping before my teens.

I then underwent a moment of wanting spirituality and decided to have a bible study at the age of 15. I became an active member of the congregation and was baptized just weeks after my 17th birthday.

I would say, from the age of 15, this particular religion was my entire life. I was so absorbed in it, that I now realize my family was pushed out because it had taken over. It was the number one thing in my life.

Jacobsen: When did you first begin to have small doubts about the Jehovah’s Witnesses?

Holford: I always had some niggle in the back of my mind, but I always pushed it aside and pretended it wasn’t there. Occasionally, I would come across what was deemed “apostate” words online, and naturally, I thought, why would there be so much hatred for a religion which was meant to be “the truth”?

Curiosity led me to read some of it, mainly relating to shunning, and you then try not to question why such kind loving people would treat people like they are dead.

Jacobsen: How did you begin to have strong doubts and even misgivings with the Jehovah’s Witnesses?

Holford: the two big things that led to my serious doubts were when my mother was disfellowshipped, and then when I had begun pioneering. My mother was disfellowshipped when I was about 18.

She was an alcoholic, and the elders had met with her a few times, but after she was spotted out drinking and having a sneaky cigarette, they called for a judicial meeting. Instead of offering her any support, suggesting ways to get help, or even offering to go with her, they told her she was being disfellowshipped.

I remember the day clearly as she came home crying badly. At that moment, I hadn’t realized how serious it was. But then the elders came to speak with me (at that time, I was no longer living at home).

They told me that unless there was an emergency situation such as my dad having been rushed to hospital with something life-threatening, I would not be able to have any form of contact with her at all.

At the time, I couldn’t understand it. I was feeling very hurt, and they were pushing the thought into my head that my mother was a bad person who didn’t love “Jehovah” and was on “Satans side”. I became angry and would slam down the phone, not answer the door, or visit my family.

Then one day, my father spoke with me and told me that if I cut my mother off, my family would no longer have any sort of relationship with me. That is when I began to realize what I was doing to my own mother. I felt like suddenly I was thinking for myself.

My bubble burst and I began to realize that shunning isn’t loving and that I had caused more hurt and pain in a few months, than showing love and support which my mother needed. I then resumed my relationship with her secretly. Around this time, I was also pioneering.

This is also where I began to have major doubts. I could see pioneers being put on pedestals and there was this hierarchy I couldn’t understand. I remember a brother calling pioneers and above, “the elite”. It was as though you were better than those you were meant to be equal to.

Behind the scenes, there was so much pressure to be preaching, and to be the best. If you had more bible studies, you were better than the rest…it was this sort of thinking. Getting time in, though was one of the worst pressures.

I fell ill the year before I left, whilst still pioneering, and there was an immense pressure to get the hours in. Realising that I couldn’t do it and was severely depressed and in pain, I had a visit from the elders who decided to take me off pioneering (preaching for 70 hours a month).

I reluctantly agreed because of my health. Once this was announced, it was like they had announced I had leprosy. No one looked at me the same again. I wondered where the love was, and where my support was.

Jacobsen: What do those who leave gain and lose at the same time within the few years after leaving the JWs?

Holford: Unexpectedly for me, I fell in love with someone who wasn’t one of Jehovah’s witnesses and was accused of fornication and was disfellowshipped. I lost my home, I lost my friends, I lost what I thought was everything.

Being one of Jehovah’s witnesses puts you in some sort of untouchable bubble which is your entire life. You are cut off from the outside world. I didn’t know how to work, how to live, how to be happy…It was like being a baby all over again in a world which you had been brought up to believe was very scary and evil.

All of a sudden, you are treated like you have died, and you have to grovel for forgiveness. Then a group of men has to decide whether you are repentant enough! I couldn’t go back. Starting anew made me feel free.

I found love, I gained life skills and found work, rented my first house, had children…Being away from this religion has brought my family together, and made a massive difference to my mental health especially.

Although I still suffer from depression, I am happier than I ever have been. I am under no pressure from any human to please God in the way they dictate or to live up to any HUMAN standards. I have complete control over my own life, and finally feel like I am living and not just surviving.

Jacobsen: If you have any advice for those individuals who are thinking of leaving the religion, what would it be for them? How can they leave safely? Why should be concerned about it? Why should they be happy about it?

Holford: My advice would be to really really think about the basic teachings of this religion. The biggest principle they claim to live by is love. Does shunning really bring people back out of love for God, or out of fear and through guilt tripping? Is shunning really such a loving act?

And is there really enough internal support as they claim? If you have any doubts, then don’t ignore them. You have every right to happiness as the next person. It is definitely not going to be easy, and perhaps the easiest way is to slowly fade as many do, but do not deny yourself the chance to be free from pressure and negativity and man’s ideas of how you should live your life and how worthy you are to be a worshipper of God.

Do not allow your life to be dictated for you by a group of men. Plan ahead, and definitely find support groups…there are many online for ex-witnesses. They are a haven for people who have been through this before and who are still going through the heartache caused by these people.

Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?

Holford: 2 years on, I realize leaving was the best thing that happened to me. I am free. Never deny yourself happiness, never live a lie.

We are only here for a tiny spec of time, and we should enjoy the time we are here. We don’t know what may happen tomorrow, we may not even wake up. So why waste time? Be happy be free.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dina.

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2022-04-10

TWIN with Kevin and Benedict on Their Show

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/14

Kevin and Benedict are colleagues. We have written and worked together. They have a podcast called This Week in News with Kevin and Benedict. I like them. Here’s their story. Kevin grew up in Sacramento California, where he conquered his enemies and saved the city from annihilation multiple times. He currently attends UC Berkeley as a Political Science major. He also worked as a heavy equipment mechanic for 5 years before college. He enjoys cigars, hockey (Go Sharks), politics, and saltwater fish tanks. Benedict is a Brit living in the US. He studied Spanish and Portuguese at Oxford University before moving on to a career in political punditry and journalism.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You two are friends. You run a podcast called TWIN or This Week in News with Kevin and Benedict. What are the things that you two talk about that may be of interest to potential listeners?

Benedict: We try to look at the news. There is a lot of mass hysteria about the news. If you want to get the news, you can get that. We like to talk about the news in a way that makes us feel better. If we do not laugh, we will cry.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Benedict: We will try to rationalize and laugh about them because the world is hopeless and on fire.

Kevin: [Laughing] We are basically a political show. We come at it from our perspective, which is two atheist humanists. Obviously, we have complete editorial control over our content.

Benedict: I have complete control.

Kevin: That is true. It is almost impossible to not talk about the Trump Administration. It is hard to escape the black hole gravitational pull of Trump and the administration. We have t actively look for stories to talk about besides that.

We look at religious overreach into our culture. If we lived in a Trump-free America, we would be able to focus more on the “fun stories” like church-state separation issues. These days, we try to make sense in this nuclear-armed rogue state on your Southern border.

Jacobsen: [Laughing] How does this graduate training in Spanish and Portuguese at Oxford University help with understanding some of the news items of the day? As a friend, I have never heard you speak Portuguese.

Kevin: Give him a chance, he will go at it.

Benedict: [Laughing] I think more than the languages themselves. It is an appreciation of cultural differences that help me with that. Having spent time in four different countries now, I feel that I can come at things from a different angle now.

I can have an empathy for people with cultural differences. That is more useful to me than the languages themselves. It is not often that we talk about the news from Spain and Portugal in particular because there is too much news that happens in our own country, which we get wrapped up in.

Travelling broadens the mind, I hope that has done that for me.

Jacobsen: How has your education at UC Berkeley helped your work in the podcast? It is the third-ranking university in the world, I hear.

Benedict:[Laughing].

Jacobsen: You went to the University of Oxford.

Benedict: It is the #1 university in the world.

Kevin: Go fuck yourself.

Jacobsen: [Laughing] The premier institution in the world. From the United Kingdom premier educational institution in the world perspective, also, Kevin, a highly reputable institution in North America at UC Berkeley in the United States.

These are different cultural experiences, but high-quality educational experiences. This must influence the perspectives that you bring to the podcast.

Kevin: Yes.

Benedict: We are really smart [Laughing].

Kevin: [Laughing].

Jacobsen: This is true.

Kevin: I have direct training in political science. Obviously, I have direct training on these sorts of things that we talk about on the show. I think there is something that we haven’t explicitly talked about. But Benedict and I, in the back of our minds, we are very cognizant of that.

We are the epitome of two elitist coastal liberals.

Benedict: It is part of our brand [Laughing].

Kevin: [Laughing] It is part of our brand. We don’t play down that we are that. But we try to recognize that when we talk about topics because most people don’t have the background that we have. We try to – or at least I do; Benedict, I don’t know about him. He is just an elitist snob.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Kevin: We try and recognize that everyone has had the benefit of all of this training and education when we are talking about this issue. We try to explain this as plainly as possible and with analogies that are more easy to digest.

Benedict: Beyond that, not everyone has the time to think about these things, how lucky are we to be able to think about these things and not worry about where the next meal is going to be coming from?

Jacobsen: Do you notice an undercurrent that may have actually bolstered and is still a bulwark for the Trump Administration of a resentment for the “Hollywood elites” or the “Liberal Establishment”?

Kevin: Oh, definitely.

Benedict: It is a faux one because they voted for a reality TV president. It is just like if Hollywood disagrees with you, which it does a lot of the time. Fox News loves having conservative actors on. They love it!

Kevin: There is this not so hidden disdain for college and education. Not hidden at all! In their movie, on their radio, if you go over to Right Wing Watch, right-wing Evangelicals criticizing the education system in the United States because they believe it creates liberalism.

Education doesn’t make you a liberal.

Benedict: It helps.

Kevin: It helps. The educational process helps you realize the things that you were taught as a far-right fundamentalist aren’t true.

Jacobsen: Reality leans liberal.

Kevin: Yes.

Jacobsen: That leads to a question. What are the things – if we are taking the metaphor of Left-Right as the spectrum – those on the traditional Left get wrong? Within the context of a comedy-political podcast, what things deserve ridicule, humor, and incisive analysis?

Kevin: There are a lot of things that we on the Left do that are goofy and silly. We are prone to our own types of woo. There are a lot of people on the Left who are the natural green mommy who say, “I want to be all natural.”

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Kevin: There are anti-nuclear people on our side. There is a huge difference between the Left and the Right. Our wackos on the Left are far less dangerous than the ones on the Right.

Benedict: The thing is, our wackos don’t run things when they get into power; theirs do. For me, I would go further than Kevin. The things like the technocratic worship on the Left. I think there is a lot of pandering to the centre-right that we still do on the Left.

Jacobsen: Do you mean the technological utopianism?

Benedict: Yes, the way people see Obama, Macron, and Trudeau to an extent run things. That technology will solve all of the problems.

Kevin: Relying heavily on experts is a big feature of technocratic thought.

Benedict: I feel like you are mocking me with that.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Kevin: The reliance on experts is not a bad thing. It is overreliance. It is assuming that your expert has the answer to all problems is the problem with technocrat philosophy.

Benedict: I think you are right, Scott, with the technological utopianism. It is “if we just did this, then all of the problems would be solved.” There is a short-sightedness. What problems will that create?

Kevin: It is a big problem caused by the demographics behind the Left. It is this short-sightedness. The Left has trouble getting people to go out to vote. You have people who aren’t enthusiastic about an election. Literally, that is all it takes. It was 77,000 votes in the right places would have put Hillary Clinton in the White House.

You did not have enough people excited about the election. There are more people on the Left than the Right. There are more people who lean Left that aren’t registered than Republicans. Republicans are old white folks who show up, who vote.

Jacobsen: What do you consider the big split between the news items we see on the conservative and the liberal sides, the Democratic or the Republican sides, or the Left and the Right sides?

Benedict: You can look at the news and predict what the Fox News top stories are going to be. I do not think that you should be able to do that. You can predict the angle they will take. You can do that to an extent with the Huffington Post, but they know their audience 100% and know what will sell with them.

Kevin: The whole Liberal Media, or the Left-leaning media, the flat-out unbiased media, there is no way that there is no bias in media. Sources like the Washington Post and The New York Times. People got pissed at them for publishing a bunch of op-eds from Trump supporters a couple of weeks ago.

People who go out of their way to get the other side of the story. The reason why we often see stories that are uncovered by the conservative media or have such spin that it is so incredible. You see a headline and think, “Wow, this is a whacked out twist on the story.” The reason is there is so much more.

On the Left, you have almost every newspaper in America. The big cable news networks other than Fox News. You have most radio, NPR, and that stuff. It is a matter of choosing what to cover. Whereas, the mainstream media covers every story that they can. They do not omit stories.

The Right has the option of omitting stories because they know they are the only sources that the conservatives will go to and so they can shape the stories the way they want to.

Jacobsen: The end.

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2022-04-10

Diana Bucur on Leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/14

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was it like with the Jehovah’s Witnesses in early life?

Diana Bucur: I was born into the Jehovah’s Witnesses so I didn’t really know any different. My parents made it sound as if I had a much better life compared to the other children. However I didn’t feel comfortable, I could never understand why I couldn’t celebrate birthdays and I wasn’t always comfortable around other children my age.

Jacobsen: What seems like some of the pivotal moments in that early development regarding the Jehovah’s Witnesses?

Bucur: In my mind, I used to question many things but I was inside the community, I couldn’t really talk to anyone about my concerns and I was comfortable within the community so I didn’t examine my faith thoroughly. I remember once I read some articles online, about JWs, written by ExJws. I told my father what I read and it made me think but he said I should never read things like that as it’s forbidden.

Jacobsen: How did you begin to question your personal faith in the Jehovah’s Witnesses?

Bucur: I used to have questions as I was growing older but the turning point was when I researched articles about the JWs Russian trials. The information on JWs website (JW.org) was very biased and different compared to what the other newspapers were saying. That is when I thought we are not presented with the true facts. Afterwards I spoke to my Aunt about what I read and how different jw.org presents the facts and her answer was: well surely the other newspapers are lying. That was a significant point when I started to realise how mind controlled we were.

Jacobsen: What are common signs that one has psychologically and emotionally left the faith?

Bucur: I believe it starts with a feeling of Anger, discovering that one’s been lied and manipulated for so long. Then it is the da disappointment felt when people that you believe are friends and family abandon you suddenly, even if they don’t know why they do it. It’s enough for someone to tell them not to speak to you, they won’t try and look for explanations. That is when you realise that even your parents love has been conditional. There is obviously a loneliness that is very painful.

Jacobsen: What are some peculiar experiences of those once deeply within the Jehovah’s Witnesses who have left them – stories only ex-JWs know?

Bucur: I got in touch with some friends who left the religion few years before me, and got to find out their real story. When they left, the JWs in my local congregation invented so many lies about them (that they burnt the literature in a ritual, that they are actually gay etc). They picture the ones that chose to leave as Mentally ill people, wicked, people they only try to hurt you. And it’s only when you leave and get to speak to them that you realise they are loving and caring.

Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?

Bucur: My main regret is that my husband is still a JW and he refuses to look at the organisation in an objective manner. My marriage has been happy but the problem created by this religion created a huge strain on our marriage.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Diana.

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2022-04-10

An Interview with Nabina Maharjan — Secretary/Youth Advisor, Society for Humanism Nepal

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/14

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Any family background in humanism?

Nabina Maharjan: Most of my family members are Hindu and Buddhist. But at one point, they went beyond religion. I could say they made decisions towards something like humanism. There are lots of non-believer beliefs that family members in my generation ignore.

Jacobsen: What was the moment of humanist awakening for you?

Maharjan: Nepal is also known as religious country. My family also religious and in our community, religious activities teaches from childhood. Whether its worship a concept of God or goddess or believing in it. I was also religious during my childhood days. After my higher education, I started working. During my working time I met many people, I try to being socialize. When I was thinking about life and during social activities, I use my logic. Most of time, I feel awkward and uncomfortable being doing religious work or such unbelief matters. I feel that I am attracting people to show what I am doing, which I do not like. I always try to find an answer behind ‘No’. Which made my family and other irritate, I believe in every No there is an answer.

Later I am involved in Society for Humanism (SOCH) Nepal. I read about humanism, its principles and philosophy. It is very new and hot cake for me at that time. Slowly I realise internally all those feeling that I have is called humanism and somewhere I have humanism. Specially headed in mind the word Human and we all human are equal .Where I don’t have to be a Human Right activist, any humanitarian and any social workers because it’s all in Humanism. If I said about inspired in Humanism, its scientific and critical thinking, its value and philosophies.

Jacobsen: As the secretary/youth advisor for the Society for Humanism Nepal, what tasks and responsibilities come with this position? How do you build a support base?

Maharjan: Since the establishment of SOCH Nepal, I was there and coordinating activities of SOCH. Being involved in SOCH and boosting the SOCH mission, vision and goals, I never realise my designation to work. I feel like it’s my organization, that showed me the way of living and clear my vision. If I really need to talk about being the secretary, my tasks and responsibilities are calling meeting, taking minutes, and updating all of the activities happening in SOCH.

Since the establish time in SOCH, I have lots of familiarity with the activities, and I believe in change and opportunities. As a youth advisor, I guide the youth team in how to work in teams and conduct programs so they can directly become involved in activities and then groom their capacity to performance for the next leader. I, personally, do not interfere in their coordination, but needing supervision then I will be there.

Jacobsen: What is the current state of humanism with Nepal? What is its brief history there too?

Maharjan: The term Humanism is relatively new in Nepal — though many atheists and secular minded people campaigned for secular Nepal. Nepal remained the world’s only one Hindu country for decades. The 2007 constitution of Nepal declared Nepal a secular country. Although, the Nepali constitution clearly mentions provision of preserving old time religion, which is Hinduism. Nepal is the country where Buddha was born. Buddha probably was the first person to speak against superstition and religious dogmas in the East. His idea of secularism has flourished throughout the world. A famous education reformist Mr. Jaya Prithivi Singh promoted the idea of Humanism in Nepal during the 1919s. He has written dozens of books on Humanism and travelled to various countries to spread the idea. There was no organized Humanist movement till the late 1920s. An organization called Humanist Association of Nepal was formed during 1980s. However, it could not survive due to various reasons. Later, the Society for Humanism (SOCH) Nepal was formed in 2005, which became only one leading Humanist organization in Nepal. Thousands of members are associated to SOCH Nepal, which is also the member of IHEU.

Jacobsen: Are youth or elders in the society more involved in humanism? What are the activities, educational initiative, and social and political projects related to humanism available to youth in Nepal?

Maharjan: We do not have any exact record of youths’ or elders’ involvement in humanism, but during the program and discussion when we meet peoples they have the feeling of humanism. Elders have the concept of humanism, and followers too, and belief in the concept of humanism.

If we talk about in more recent times, more youths that I have seen are humanists because they are not ready to have belief in the concept of God, and those unseen things. They use their logic to question and the belief in science as much as we had interacted in colleges and groups. Yes, they have confusion on humanism, but somewhere they are humanists as I realise — and SOCH has made clear to them.

There are no educational initiatives, and social and political projects, related to humanism available to youth in Nepal done by the Government.

Regarding the activities, SOCH is one organization that is working in Nepal to promote humanism, its philosophy and values in society. We are regularly doing our youth discussion/seminars and youth talks on humanism, scientific & critical thinking in different colleges and schools. We are practicing in school to teach scientific and critical thinking, and run one class on humanism too. SOCH targeted to youth because they are change maker and tomorrow’s leaders.

Jacobsen: What are some of the main threats to the free practice of humanism in Nepal?

Maharjan: Although, Nepal is a secular country now, right wing Hindu group are well-organized and practicing extreme radicalism. On other hand, Christians are proselytizing Nepali society getting benefit of secular constitution. Hindu and Christian groups are confronting day by day. Meantime, Humanists have become the enemy of both radicles due to its secular values based on science and atheism.

Radical Hindu are the biggest threat in Nepali society because they are more organized after the declaration of secular state. Humanist activists are threatened and attacked by radical Hindu group many times in Nepal.

Jacobsen: What are your short- and long-term goals for humanism in Nepal?

Maharjan: SOCH Nepal short and long-term goals are to promote a scientific way of life, good governance, democracy and justice with humanist values, to promote humanistic and ethical practices and to raise awareness about individual human obligation.

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Nabina.

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2022-04-10

Adeyemi Ademowo Johnson on Freethought in Nigeria

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/13

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: As an associate professor and affiliate faculty in multiple departments, what is the situation for free thought in Nigeria?

Adeyemi Ademowo Johnson: Freethought is still unpopular in Nigeria; although there are so many youngsters who doubt their beliefs, they have not muster sufficient courage to openly express their admiration for freethought and desire to treat religion with caution.

Jacobsen: Do you have more hope for the younger generations?

Johnson: Yes! I definitely believe that the younger generation will realize that it is foolish to kill in the name of any faith or any God and that all we have are one another as humans.

Jacobsen: While teaching and designing programs for the sociology department at Afe Babalola University, do you incorporate aspects of critical thinking into the curricula?

Johnson: Yes! The University where I teach, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, prioritizes entrepreneurial skills development; this makes it imperative for many of the students to offer courses in critical thinking and creative thinking. I, for instance, developed and teach a course: Sociology of Creativity and Innovation. Critical Thinking is an integral part of the course. There are other courses that encourage critical thinking to satisfy its outlines.

Jacobsen: What do you consider the more pertinent topics in sociological discussion within Nigerian society?

Johnson: There are two of them: religion and active citizenship. In religion, indoctrination of the young ones, Boko Haram recruitment of children/women as suicide bombers and the brazen display of wealth by Pentecostal pastors are issues that have dominated academic discourses. The importance of citizens in democratic governance and their attitudes towards tackling corruption are other issues. These are issues at the heart of sociological discourses from diverse angles.

Jacobsen: Does religion have sway over the political environment of the country?

Johnson: Religion and religious leaders have a place in our political landscape. Aspirants lay claims to being ordained or ‘called’ by God to contest for elections to get favours; they also attend big Pentecostal revivals and crusades to show their loyalty to and believe in religion. Humanists are rarely taken serious and sometimes demonized when they should interest in politics or to contest.

Jacobsen: As you work for the Humanist Association for Peace and Social Tolerance Advancement (HAPSTA) , what are your tasks and responsibilities?

Johnson: Humanist Association for Peace and Social Tolerance Advancement (HAPSTA) is the first Humanist association to be registered formally by the Nigerian Corporate Affairs Commission. I am one of the driving forces that worked relentlessly for this as the President. I later became the Projects Director in charge of HAPSTA life changing projects like ‘Humanist Against WitchKilling in Africa’, Stigmatized Children Rights Project (SCRIP), Omuo Humanist Against WitchKilling and Stigmatization’, Humanist Anti-Indoctrination Project (HApI) and Youth Leadership and Tolerance Training Project. I work to manage and raise funds for these projects which have been funded in the past by HAMU, Norway; Swedish Humanist Aid, Africa Unite Against Child Abuse (AFRUCA, UK). I also coordinate the international links for the organisation. As a member of HAPSTA Board of Trustees, I represent it at fora and work with others to coordinate its activities.

Jacobsen: How does HAPSTA advance the humanist movement in Nigeria?

Johnson: Yes! Through our activities targeted at fulfilling our objectives. Our objectives as an organisation include:

*spreading the ideals of humanism, peace culture, social tolerance and peace education
* fighting against superstition and superstitious beliefs that violate dignity of the human person, indoctrination that promote hate and violence, and policies capable of promoting disunity and social intolerance
* advocating and campaigning for Humanity’s freedom from being persecuted for their opinions, beliefs, sexual orientation and values, to prevent disenchantment that may result in violent conflict.
* promoting the development of ethical, peaceful and social tolerance conscious youths, through the promotion of peace education

Apart from representing and supporting our members and networks, HAPSTA also support human cause through the following projects:

1. SCRIP – Stigmatized Children Rights Project (which campaign against child-witch labeling and killing in many states across Nigeria
2. ARK-C: Anti-Ritual Killing Campaign (which works to dissuade people from thinking that human parts, including those of Albinos, hunchback, etc can be used for charms, money-making, among others)
3. CAJUJ: Campaign Against Jungle Justice (a very common phenomenon in Nigeria and other parts of the world, Jungle Justice is against the tenets of human rights and many innocent people have lost their lives through this miscarriage of justice)
4. SEMSUP: Sexual Minorities Support Project (which support the LGBTI community in Nigeria and around Africa)
5. HASTEP: Humanist and Social Tolerance Education Project
6. SCHCEP: Street Children Care and Empowerment Programme

Jacobsen: Who is a personal hero or exemplary for you regarding the humanist movement?

Johnson: Levi Fragell!

Jacobsen: How can individuals within the country or in neighboring nations of the African Diaspora help out with the humanist and irreligious movement in Nigeria?

Johnson: Support and participate in our activities.

Jacobsen: How can anyone else help regarding donations, remote skills assistance, advertisement and exposure, and so on?

Johnson: Let me start by appreciating the Norwegian Humanist Association and the Swedish Humanists, they have really supported financially and human capital development in the past years. Other well-established groups can get in touch with us for supports: funding of our ‘Anti-Indoctrination’ Campaign handbills; annual social tolerance leadership training for youths, invitation to attend humanist programmes; support for website hosting, etc. We would really appreciate supports that would strengthens the group more.

Jacobsen: Any final feelings or thoughts?

Johnson: Having been a humanist for about 18 years; a university teacher for over a decade and worked with a lots of children and women stigmatized as witches, I am convinced that the world needs humanism and critical thinking. Hence, I would be happy to work with any Humanist Foundation and initiatives that will promote its humanist ideals in Africa and other continents.

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Yemi.

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2022-04-10

Tim Klapproth on the Jehovah’s Witnesses

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/12

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was like with the Jehovah’s Witnesses in early life?

Tim Klapproth: being a third generation witness I knew nothing else so it’s hard to express. The school was tough. I was bullied throughout and was fearful of ‘worldly’ kids. Christmas and birthdays were awful and I was always promised that we would have present days to ‘make up for it’ but this only happened twice. I felt that I was missing out on something that had zero scriptural foundation. The pressure from the family to study, preach and grow spiritually was intense and this led me to lead a double life as I became a teenager. I was insular, intense, and secretive. I married the first girl who smiled at me and was divorced by 30 with three children.

Jacobsen: What seems like some of the pivotal moments in that early development regarding the Jehovah’s Witnesses?

Klapproth: The decision to be baptized when I was 15. I did not have any comprehension of what a dedication is and that it means losing my whole social circle if I ‘lose faith’. My ability to make decisions that were measured and backed by reason was not formed until my thirties.

I also was shaken by the way my congregation friends were treated by their own parents when we were often found breaking the rules. My father as a city overseer and a great and sought-after speaker was very strict with me.

Whereas all my friends’ fathers just shrugged and said boys will be boys. This strict attitude extended as far as requiring me to read the lyrics and almost present my case, should I want to buy an album or CD. My dad rejected most of my choices.

I was also expected to leave school and pioneer. I ‘went along’ with all these things. The power over me was incredible in that it was so controlling yet I was not aware of it. A silent pressure, steering me towards a goal that I’d not wished for myself.

Jacobsen: What were the main parts of the JW faith that made you think, “I cannot believe this. It is illogical, without evidence, and beyond doubt false as a faith”?

Klapproth: The creation account. However, until my late twenties, I was proud of my counter argument against evolution. I’d done my research (within the constraints of Watchtower publications of course) and felt very confident on this topic.

When I later heard Prof Richard Dawkins rail against the mid-quote of the Watchtower and subsequently the ACTUAL explanation of the theory (and what the word theory meant…) a light was flicked on in my brain and in many ways, I had all I needed to leave the cult.

It was based on lies, spread by many well-meaning people and lead mainly by power hungry small minded weak men.

Jacobsen: What are common signs that one has psychologically and emotionally left the faith?

Klapproth: It’s a huge step. You risk losing everyone you’ve known. To take that step is not done lightly however in my case, once I had cut ties; I felt freer than I can express.

In my case, I studied Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, and Harris which reaffirmed that God is a man-made concept and that religion is man’s way of exerting power over the flock. The psychological effect on me was palpable.

Although I did go off the rails a little, trying all the things I’d missed earlier in life, I was happier than I’d ever been. However, when I turned forty things started to change. I became fixated on my past and with disproving to my parents that their faith was based on nonsense.

This was only curbed when I had to counsel in 2017. Since that time though my father has died and I feel that I didn’t finish our conversation.

Jacobsen: What are some peculiar experiences of those once deeply within the Jehovah’s Witnesses who have left them – stories only ex-JWs know?

Klapproth: I’m probably not the only person to share the ridiculous process of ‘only men can lead’. I was leading all of the daily meetings for field service at fifteen, ahead of a whole team of experienced women who had been handling the meetings alone for years.

I had no clue how to lead, how to work the map effectively or how to pray and inspire. I also am surprised to see that friends of mine I grew up with and lead a double life like me are still in the religion.

In many cases they acted and behaved far worse than I. We drank, swore, tried to pick up girls (never successful in my case) and sneaked into nightclubs and concerts that we’d never be allowed to attend.

Threw wild parties, misbehaved and ridiculed the society and elders. Then I hear that they’re now an elder. They didn’t have and unless they have had a road to Damascus experience, still don’t have a spiritual bone in their body!

Finally, the silly process of ‘counting time’. I spent almost two years (of my 12 years) pioneering without knocking on a single door. I worked along with my best friend and we just mimed the door knock.

A total and utter waste of our time. I habitually lie about the time is spent in the ministry. Missing my time target by a country mile each year. One of the triggers that prompted me to ask what I was doing with my life was this very fact.

I was in my late twenties, married to a violent woman who made me miserable (she was a victim of child abuse that was covered up by her parents and ‘left to Jehovah…’ this leads her to be extremely violent and a man hater) I was poor due to part-time work and wasting my life.

Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?

Klapproth: I left the JW’s without being shunned by my family. The circuit overseer I met with said that he could see I did not identify or claim to be a JW and that my only spiritual influence was that of my family.

Retaining my relationship with them might mean that I would be tempted back and so he let me fade. That said, I did lose all my friends and I’m excluded from family weddings etc., but I have retained a relationship of sorts since 2000.

I’m struggling with my conscience now though. I want to challenge my family about the two witness rule regarding child abuse. Not that I want them to leave as such but they live their family.

They are at the heart of the congregation and would be horrified to think what is actually happening. I’d like them to be able to hear the actual truth and then challenge the organization from within.

JW’s are mostly not bad people. They simply follow the lead set and do not think critically.

Jacobsen: Also, your email signature is the following:

“To do is to be” – Nietzsche

“To be is to do” – Kant

“Do be do be do” – Sinatra

Why?

Klapproth: It’s just a funny quote. It’s not good to take things too seriously…

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Tim.

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2022-04-10

Another Call from the World Sikh Organization

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/12

The World Sikh Organization (WSO) of Canada continues its activism with the ongoing smearing of the Sikh community at large.

Note, this does not amount to Sikhophobia. Rather, it comes to anti-Sikh bigotry, individuals with religious beliefs not religion.

There have hundreds of articles in the media over three weeks, or more, tarring an entire community as radicals with rising extremism.

Some have stood to protect their image. The WSO has worked hard to keep a positive image in spite of the accusations against the Canadian Sikh community.

The Sikh community of Canada, much of it, according to the WSO, argues against the human rights violations in India, but protest this in a peaceful manner.

As the WSO said in an email that I received, “We are proud Canadians who believe in the rule of law, freedom of expressions, and upholding freedom of religion.”

Sikhs, fellow Canadians, need a strong, supportive voice in the light of the controversial motion, which does not need too much detailing as it has been in the news.

The motion if advanced in a firm way would greatly harm the image of Sikhs potentially leading to increased hate crimes against individual Sikhs, as happens with those following the Islamic and Jewish faiths in Canada, as shown in high numbers of anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic hate crimes in this country.

Sikhs have been reaching out to their local representatives. We can reach out too.

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2022-04-10

This Week in Religion 2018-03-11

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/11

“VANCOUVER — Jaspreet Bal was eating lunch with friends in rural Ontario when she says a “kind, well-intentioned” white man approached them to chat. He asked about her background, and she replied she was Sikh.

“Oh yeah, Air India,” he said, recognition flashing in his eyes.

Bal was born in 1985, the same year that Sikh militants bombed Air India Flight 182, killing all 329 on board. It was, apparently, the man’s only point of reference for her religion.”

Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/frustrating-sikh-canadians-dismayed-by-extremism-talk-1.3838001.

“Are Canadians embracing religion less than previous generations? Sociologist Reginald Bibby, author of Resilient Gods, would say no.

“Right now, it’s popular to say younger millennials are highly secularized compared to past generations,” he says. “But when you look at the data since the 1980s, while there has been a slight increase in those who don’t value religion, there is stability in the segment of people who do value religion. People variously reject, embrace or take a middle position on religion.”

Bibby has conducted national surveys on religion in Canada every five years since 1975, producing data from thousands of Canadians and tracking trends over time.”

Source: http://ucalgary.ca/utoday/issue/2018-03-12/speaker-asks-how-resilient-are-our-gods.

“CRANBROOK, B.C. — A judge has rejected a challenge of Canada’s polygamy laws that was launched after two men were found guilty of the offence in British Columbia.

Winston Blackmore and James Oler were found guilty in B.C. Supreme Court last July of having multiple wives, but a lawyer for Blackmore argued the law infringes on the charter right to freedom of religion and expression.

Justice Sheri Ann Donegan dismissed all arguments Friday that the charges should be stayed, including a claim that the prosecution was an abuse of process.”

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/03/09/bc-judge-to-deliver-ruling-in-constitutional-challenge-of-canadian-polygamy-laws.html.

“Pakistani Canadian Daood Hamdani is a pioneer in the study of Muslims in Canada. A retired statistician, his most recent publication, “Canadian Muslims: A Statistical Review“, has been used to highlight key statistics about Muslim demographics in Canada, including the ridings with the largest Muslim populations in the lead up to the 2015 Federal Election.

Daood Hamdani was born in Ferozpur, British India in 1939. His family immigrated to the new nation of Pakistan in 1947 where he grew up in the small town of Jhang in the province of Punjab. He grew up surrounded by the religious diversity of the region, attending schools run by Christians, following Islamic Studies from both Shia and Sunni teachers, and having meetings of his debate team at the Ahmadiyya community centre. Hamdani is proud to say he graduated from Jhang Government College, the same college that produced Pakistan’s first Nobel Prize winner – Professor Abdus Salam. After graduating, Hamdani moved to Lahore to attend the Forman Christian College.

His area of study was economics and he moved to the United States on a scholarship from Vanderbilt University. After graduation, he shifted to St. Johns, Newfoundland in 1965 and started work as a research fellow at Memorial University. His area of study had him travel all across Newfoundland to study the geographical and occupational mobility of the labour force. He then shifted to Queens University in Kingston and looked at inter-provincial migration in Canada and its impact on the Canadian economy. Eventually, his career had him travel to the University of Toronto where he worked as a teaching assistant. He jokes that he was responsible for “teaching basic courses that new people are given that senior people don’t want to teach.””

Source: https://muslimlink.ca/community/daood-hamdani-exploring-muslim-canadian-history-and-demographics.

“In an appeal for equality and inclusivity, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) has recently reiterated calls for the Ontario government to abolish the province’s Catholic schools and move toward one secular school system for each official language.

This is what Quebec did in 1997. Make no mistake, though, it isn’t one harmonious system for all. It’s still two separate school systems.

Separating children by religion is deemed by the ETFO to be an anachronism and an assault on inclusivity in Ontario’s diverse 21st century society. Curiously, separating them by language is not.”

Source: https://theconversation.com/why-canada-divides-children-into-separate-schools-92674.

“It’s the day of the Doug.

The Ontario Progressive Conservative Party rejected the options of bland moderation or a famous name, and instead chose in Doug Ford the brother of the most notorious municipal politician in Canadian history, and a man who has turned bluster and hyperbole into art forms. A blowhard he may be, but one would be acutely foolish not to take him very seriously indeed.

One of the probing questions being asked right now is what Ford does with the socially conservative and right-wing Christian support he received during the leadership election. Candidate Tanya Granic Allen was never going to win the race, but her votes were crucial in Ford’s triumph, and when he made his victory speech, there was the anti-sex-ed campaigner standing right behind him. If nothing else, the woman who told us that children failed at school math because they spent all of their time learning about anal sex knew how to milk a media opportunity and get in front of the camera. Witness her bringing out water to journalists during the count, because apparently there was absolutely none available in the entire hotel!”

Source: https://ipolitics.ca/2018/03/11/have-ontarios-socons-found-their-saviour-in-doug-ford/.

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2022-04-10

George Ongere on the Center for Inquiry in Kenya

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/11

Scott Jacobsen: To begin, do you have any prefaces to the conversation today?

George Ongere: When I was growing, my mother believed something was wrong with me. I was the only child in the family who could not succeed in cramming the catechism to graduate and eat the sacrament.

She even made efforts to make the content of the book rhyme with a song to make it easy for me but it did not go well. My young brothers did well and mastered her catechism song and got all the content.

What surprised her is that even though I could not cram the creed, I was a bright student in school! In that way, she failed to understand what was happening to me. I also could not explain, but I think it was the scepticism I had adopted after interacting with my grandfather as you will learn in the interview.

All my family members, including my father who was not fond of the church, graduated to eat the sacrament; I was the only one who dropped out of the session. Along these lines, the question is, did my skepticism start right from my childhood?

As you will find, I was fortunate to have a grandfather who was skeptical of Christian religion, a father who was a Christian but was not a fond of going to church frequently, and a mother who was a staunch Christian who wanted her children to follow the way of God; — that combination provided room for growth of a skeptical young person like me.

There was no pressure to have me full indoctrinated into religion. Even though I grew as catholic child, where I was taken to a Sunday school, then to a primary school where we could worship and pray in the assembly, and finally to an Anglican sponsored high school, I still found my way into humanism.

From my experience, as I demonstrate in the below engagement, reading widely, and having an open mind is the key to rationality and scepticism.

Jacobsen: Do you have a family background in skepticism and secular humanism?

Ongere: My family did not have any person subscribed to Secular humanism or scepticism, but the divergence of religious beliefs within the extended family helped me develop my skepticism at a younger age.

My grandfather was a traditional person and when he witnessed the way Christianity came to Africa and displaced African religious beliefs during his youth, he vowed to remain a pagan. In this context, it meant he did not follow the Christian religion but adhered to selected African traditional beliefs.

As a child, when I asked him why he did not pray, he would tell me about the traditional concepts of African gods leaving me confused at that age. The puzzlement came since my mother was a staunch Christian who made sure we attended the Sunday school, while at the same time, grandfather stole me away and fed me with the traditional concept of god.

It only confused me further and that is how I started getting inkling that not everyone was afraid of the God we were told in the Sunday school could strike dead disobedient people using thunder.

Moreover, even though my mother was a true Catholic believer, my father, though a catholic, was not fond of going to church every Sunday. My mother used to call him in our Luo mother tongue language “Jakafiri”.

Jakafiri can also be interpreted as pagan. Though, in this context, my father believed in the teachings of Christianity but did not adhere to the rules like everyday prayers and going to church regularly.

Every Sunday, as we attended the Sunday mass, my father remained at home pretending to be attending some business functions. The only times I saw him in the church was during Christmas festive season and during Easter.

To sum up, I did not have many pressures from all sides, like most families do, to adhere to religion. In Africa, most children have pressure right from the grandparents, mother and father to adhere to one religion.

I was fortunate since only my mother placed pressures that were absorbed by the traditional grandfather and my father; they did not pressure me to go through the process of eating the sacrament when all the other siblings were doing it.

Jacobsen: When did you have your first inklings of skepticism and secular humanism in personal life?

Ongere: As a young person addicted to reading all types of novels in late primary, high school and college, I met characters in the books who claimed they did not believe in gods, God, and any supernatural entities.

This was strange to me at the time because it was rare in the rural to find a person declaring a disbelief in gods or God; I did not even know the term “Atheism”. Even though my grandfather did not believe in Christianity, he still believed in the supernatural world like the ancestor’s power.

Growing in the interior rural village during my primary and high school years, the only medium that could give me entertainment was the storybooks since there was no electricity to get fun from other mediums like the Television. As such, I could put my hands on any book that promised entertainment. I would go to local libraries and read anything that looked like a novel.

Moreover, I had a cousin who was doing philosophy at the University and at one point when I was still in high school; I stumbled upon his course book on the philosophy of religion. I read about Sigmund Freud and Nietzsche. Their ideas puzzled me and this is where I gained interest in philosophy.

After completing my high school and was in early years at the University, I got engaged with the University of Nairobi Philosophy club. Here, I met the students who attended the first Humanist Conference organized in East Africa in 2004 by Uganda Humanist Association led by Deo Ssessitoleko. I received the first humanist materials.

It is where I got to learn about humanist ideals. Excited with the knowledge I got from the magazines from CFI, IHEU, and other humanists organizations, I declared myself a humanist.

Jacobsen: What was the reaction of friends and family?

Ongere: The first time I told my friends and family members that I was a humanist and an Atheist, they had different reactions.

My family did not take this as a surprise; they had suspected I could end up in something close to that because of my childhood skepticism since I was the only member of the family who avoided taking the sacrament and was not even bothered by it. However, some of my extended relatives related this to devil worshiping.

Since they are not exposed to different ideologies, they only know that anyone who does not believe in a god or God must be a devil worshipper, just the way Nigerian movies give Africans the picture that people who do not adhere to the religion are in affiliation with the devil.

They looked at me with curiosity and spread the rumors in the village. However, my generosities in the village, where I sponsor children to school have puzzled them and the perception is changing.

I had different categories of friends by the time I announced my Atheism. I had religious, skeptics and rational friends. I had the problem with religious friends and to make it worse, I was also dating a religious lady at the time. They did not want to associate with me and they advised my girlfriend to abandon me. She did, but that did not deter me from pursuing my new found life stance.

My skeptic and rational friends praised my steps and they were happy about it. I was the first person to establish a humanist office where Kenyans could get Humanist materials and rational books that were difficult to get in most libraries.

CFI sent me important materials that could be easily read and understood by first timers into humanism and skepticism. A good number of Kenyans who have declared themselves as Atheists and humanist in Kenya got the inspiration from my work with the campus groups and CFI Office in Nairobi.

Jacobsen: You’ve written a number of articles for The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. What is the importance of major skeptical organizations such as The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and the Center for Inquiry?

Ongere: CSI and CFI have supported all my projects in Kenya. By publishing my articles, they have made my activities visible to many people who have continuously supported my endeavors. When I joined CFI in 2007, my dream was to be published in their reputable sites.

I knew that as a young person, still unable to write to the standards of the scholars I read in the sites, I had to go through self-study and read widely. I started writing my skeptical and rational ideas freely and sent them to Norm Allen Jr., who was the director transnational programs at the time, intended to be published in the African American Humanism Newsletter, the AHH Examiner.

When I finally wrote the article How Can the Concept of Humanism Solve Witchcraft belief, Norm informed me that Barry Karr, the Executive Director of CSI, was interested in publishing it. When finally the article appeared on the site, it was my breakthrough and it encouraged me to write further.

Having my article published in the two sites has made many learning institutions to trust my activities and collaborate with me; the reason I am able to mobile University and college students to attend my activities.

Secondly, most people in Africa have no access to humanist and skeptical hard copy literature. Even in most libraries in Africa, finding journals or scholarly resources that promote humanist or Atheist ideas are rare.

CFI and CSI have helped to fill this gap by sending reading materials to most humanists in different parts of Africa. Anytime I need reading materials to send to any group across Africa, I simply request the organization and they respond immediately by sending a package of books and magazines.

Most importantly, ever since I started CFI/ Kenya, the two organizations have supported all the programs financially and that is why we are able to sustain the humanist orphans and the On Campus activities.

Jacobsen: How did you first come across Center for Inquiry in Kenya?

Ongere: I first came across CFI by interacting with the philosophy group at the University of Nairobi. A good number of the members were sponsored by IHEU to attend the first humanist conference in Uganda in the year 2004. Here they met the then Transnational Co-directors, Norm Allen Jr. and Bill Cooke. They came back with reading materials like Skeptical Inquirer and Free Inquiry. I read them and became much interested in the ideology.

The visit of Norm Allen Jr. to Kenya in 2006 also made me get first-hand information about CFI. By then, Boaz Adhengo was the contact person. Adhengo approached me to mobilize University students to meet Norm and after attending the meeting, Norm read some of my collected articles and gave me his contacts.

I started interacting with him and in 2007; he approached me to be the director CFI Kenya to replace Adhengo. That is how I became the CFI director.

Becoming the director of CFI is one of the best opportunities I have ever had. It made me know many influential people in Africa like Leo Igwe of Nigeria, Deo Ssesitoleko and Betty Nassaka of Uganda. I traveled to Uganda through sponsorship of CFI and they also paid travel expenses for Leo, Betty, and Deo to visit my office in Kenya. Without the organization, I would not have got such connections.

Jacobsen: What did you see as the major need for science, skepticism, and secular humanism in Kenya at the time? How did this inspire you to form and run CFI-Kenya as a branch of Center for Inquiry in Kenya?

Ongere: Science, rationalism, and skepticism is needed in Africa more than any part of the world. Irrationality that is prevalent on the continent has led to major human rights crises.

One of the examples in Kenya that featured in the international scene is the burning of old men and women alive, in the rural parts of Kisii in 2009 when they were suspected to be witches. The graphic video of old women and men burnt alive till death still haunts many people. Up to the current moment, old men and women are still targeted in witch hunts.

Moreover, Albinos are still at risk in Kenya and Tanzania because most society believes that their body parts can make their business successful when put within the business premises while fishermen believe that their hair attracts the huge mass of fish. Science and reason needed to respond to such unreason.

In West Africa, like Nigeria and Congo, children have since time immemorial been accused of witchcraft and become abandoned.

Majority of the children are left to roam the street to become street children, some are hacked to death and fed poison. Close scrutinising reveal that parents who are incapable of raising children or look after distant relatives use witchcraft as a scapegoat and run away from responsibility.

The most vulnerable children are orphans whose parents have died, those born with HIV/ AIDS, and those with disabilities. Abandoning children to fake bleak future is gagging the future generation and only through reason that they can be saved.

Moreover, religious institutions are not helping in any way. With many obstacles that African people face due to unreason, religious bodies have not tried to help but to immerse people deep into unreason. Currently, Africa still has a big challenge: HIV/ AIDS. Every year, about millions of people, get infected.

Instead of approaching the issue with logic, churches and other religious wings have advised people to seek religious healings instead of taking the Anti-Retroviral Drugs. The approach has caused many deaths and this leaves you to wonder if an all knowing, all present God celebrates the wiping of mass population of Africans!

The above problem statements made me search for an organization that could respond. Before I got CFI connections, I was a youth volunteer at an organization called Kumekucha. Kumekucha is a Swahili word meaning sunrise. The organization promised to liberate youths from the dogmas of the society.

However, the organization did not give much to the youths. In this direction, when I was introduced to CFI, I believed it was the organization to respond to the problems Africans faced and it had the capabilities to take action to the irrationality in Africa. That is how I started running CFI Kenya!

Jacobsen: What has been the plight of children in Kenya? How has a humanist message improved their and their families’ livelihoods?

Ongere: Currently, it is estimated that there are about 300, 000 street children in Kenya. Increasing poverty and deaths of parents due to HIV/ AIDS are the major causes for the children to scavenge the street to look for ways of survival.

In many cases, fathers who are not able to support their families leave behind mothers in the rural with even more than six children. Staying hungry and unable to go to school, most of the children migrate to the streets to try and find ways of survival.

In my article, The Plight of Children in Africa and our Humanist Efforts, I address the issues that children face in Africa. Even though declaring children as witches are not widely practiced in Kenya, I am afraid that with the current inflation and rise of prices in essential commodities, Kenyans will look for ways of avoiding supporting orphan children whose parents were wiped by HIV/ AIDS.

The only way they can do this is by adopting the Nigeria and Congo style where such children are declared to be witches. Declaring a child to be a witch is the easiest way relatives avoid the burden of protecting vulnerable children who have lost their parents.

Killing children because they are a burden is hurting and that is why the humanist message is important. The spread of HIV/ AIDS in Kenya is rising and soon many children will be left without parents and it means many distant relatives will start using witchcraft as a scapegoat.

CFI Kenya’s program The Humanist Orphans Project is a strong humanist message responding to the plight of children. Demonstrating to the society that orphaned children are harmless members of the society is core and that when given education can become potential members of the society is important.

As such, the dedications of CFI Transnational to help the children is one of the social justice stories that should be told across to inspire other African groups to join hands to save the future generation.

Jacobsen: Reflecting on the 2014 article on the agenda of African humanism, in 2017 now, what is the state of humanism in Africa? What is the agenda, in brief?

Ongere: As I wrote in the article, humanism in Africa has undergone different phases. The first phase, which was explained by reputable scholars in Africa like Es’kia Mphahlele (1919–2008) was a kind of humanism that needed to give Africans hopes by trying to reconstruct their history from that which was given by the western scholarship.

From that phase, came Ubuntu, which even though gave good promises but still had hidden agendas of promoting religion.

With the changes in technology, where people across the world have access to information due to the internet, African humanism is adopting another face.

Whereas the forefathers of African humanism focused on reconstructing the African face in the international world, the current young generation is responding to the irrational beliefs that have held the masses captive. They believe the only way for Africans to be free is to delete the dogmas of religion and embrace, science, critical thinking, and rationalism.

In Kenya for example, the Atheist movement have raised many contentious issues. First, they have demanded religious educations to be removed out of the curriculum since it is one of the avenues children are indoctrinated. They have also challenged faith healers who use tricks to steal from the public.

It demonstrates that African humanist is catching up with the agendas that global humanists’ movements are seeking and this is very important because it gives room for many Atheists and people who are not easily accepted in the society, like gays and Lesbians to come out of the closet.

With such developments, it demonstrates the Atheist movement is making progress in Kenya.

Jacobsen: How can humanism support the least among us?

Ongere: Humanism as a life stance compels many African humanists to work for Social justice. When I went to Uganda in 2009 together with Norm Allen Jnr., I witnessed how Uganda Humanists Effort to save Women (UHESWO) was liberating prostitutes and giving them financial empowerment.

They took them away from the streets and taught them income generating skills like tailoring and salon work. Most of the women eventually left the streets and became employed in salons and others got sewing machines to become tailors.

I also met Deo Ssessitoleko who had a humanist school that was sponsoring vulnerable children. I was inspired by the works of Ugandan humanists and believed humanism in Africa was capable of helping the less fortunate amongst us.

In 2011, I conceived the idea of starting the Humanist Orphans Kenya. I witnessed the plight of children the rural areas during the Anti-Superstitious campaign. Many children lost their parents due to HIV/ AIDS scourge when religious institutions started healing campaigns advising them to abandon taking Anti-Retroviral drugs.

With many children left behind, we believed that our humanists’ endeavors would try to solve the situation. In this way, we selected 11 children who were vulnerable and gave them essentials of life like education, basic needs, and empowerment.

In this way, I believed that if African humanists can embrace social justice, then we will be a good example just the way Ugandan humanists have demonstrated through their projects.

Jacobsen: What are your lifetime hopes for humanism, skepticism, and secularism in Kenya, and Africa?

Ongere: I am happy that the young generation in Kenya today can easily declare their Atheism without fear. This was something I had hoped for. Kenya is not a very much radical country like many African countries where religious fundamentalism is core.

When I started running CFI, I had hoped that a time would come when young people would come out of the closet and declare their unbelief. At the time, the internet was still expensive for the fact that people could not browse through their cell phones but to go to the cyber cafes that charged expensively.

However, when cell phones were introduced, we had a revolution in humanism where youths had access to many reading materials. It became easy to engage the youth and direct them to important sites.

My hopes for humanism are that as youths become radicalized to abandon religion, they should focus on the gaps that humanism can fill in Kenya and Africa. I have always wished that humanism should not be another avenue of colonization just like religion.

In my much engagement with youths who have abandoned religions, a good number of them do not understand the cause; they only think becoming a humanist is linked with intellectualism and fashionable.

To me, being a humanist is to respond to the many unreasons in Africa and trying to help the situation through advocacy and social justice.

Jacobsen: Any closing thoughts or feelings based on the discussion today?

Ongere: Thanks for having me in the interview today. In sub-Saharan Africa, spreading humanism is still an obstacle. Many Africans still feel vulnerable when religion is deleted away from them.

The Bible promises them life after death and they believe they are the children of God because of the obstacles they undergo. They believe they will be rewarded in heaven and hegemonic nations that have conditioned them will be punished in hell.

What African humanists need to do is to empower Africans. Critical thinking is one of the areas that need to be explored. Being that African forefathers were superstitious, it is not inherent to be superstitious in the current global world. There needs to be a change in mind and thinking. Humanism promises this kind of change for Africans to abandon the blind faith and focus on the realities life.

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, George.

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2022-04-10

In Conversation with Melissa Krawczyk – Atheist, Secular Humanist, and Skeptic

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/10

Melissa Krawczyk is an atheist, skeptic, and secular humanist by worldview and science mom, Arabic speaker in training, and author-to-be by professions, and has worked in a variety of domains including materials and engineering science, ergonomics consulting, and skincare. Here we talk about her work, views, and upcoming-unfinished book.

*Note: This interview was conducted on Friday, August 4th, 2017.*

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You grew up in an Evangelical home on the east coast of the United States up to 2000. After 2000, you moved to California. What was life like in an Evangelical “born again” home?

Melissa Krawczyk: Until I was about 15, I grew up outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was a great home. I had a great family. We went to church a lot, but not excessively. Most of my friends were probably from church, and I had friends at school as well. We went to church every week. Sometimes, we had Bible studies. In the Summer we spent at least a week or two at Vacation Bible School. Some of those are my best memories. My parents were very loving and friendly people.

We had restrictions like not listening to music. We described it as only being able to listen to elevator music, so if you’d walk into a major building downtown and you heard it in the elevator, that’s about all we could listen to. So, no pop music. We didn’t get to watch many movies. We did get to watch televistion, but it had to be pretty bland, and generic. Nothing offensive.

I didn’t see a PG-13 movie until I was actually 13. My mom would let me go to dances, but we couldn’t tell my grandparents. It was restrictive, but it didn’t feel that restrictive as a child. There were just things we didn’t do that other friends got to. But I had a lot of friends and we had a lot of fun at church.

I don’t think I really realized that there was anything different from anyone else. It was just the way it was. It was a happy home life. I will say that I became much more fundamentalist and Evangelical myself as I grew older – late in high school and college. More so than my parents. My own views diverged greatly as time went on.

Jacobsen: What were the views of the young earth creationist family members when no one else was watching?

Krawczyk: I don’t think any of us ever, ever thought of ourselves as young earth creationists. It was just the way it was for us. God created the Earth and everything in it in six, literal, 24-hour days, with a day to rest called the Sabbath. Adam and Eve were real people created by God and imbued with souls. They lived in this magical garden where there was no death. Everything was happy.

Dinosaurs, as far as I was aware, lived at the same time as people. There were references in the Bible that I was told referred to dinosaurs as “leviathans” or creatures with legs like Cyprus trees. They were big things. We were told that these were the dinosaurs. They lived alongside people. I never had any concept of how old the Earth was according to modern, real science. A couple thousand years seemed plenty old to me.

There were two original people. When Eve was tempted by Satan in the form of a snake in the Garden of Eden to eat an apple, she shared it with Adam. They were kicked out and everything perfect went bad. Therefore, we had original sin from that day forward. Basically, that mistake cost all of us ever after. When we are born, we are separated from God because of that sin by that first man and woman.

I think the most important features were that God created the Earth and everything in it. He created man and woman as they are today. There was no evolution at all. Everything was created as individual species. There was no change from one thing to another. I remember hearing things like “Well, we’re not descended from monkeys.” I don’t remember talking to my parents too much about it. I remember in school, the few times we started to talk in science about something that might touch on evolution, I remember them saying something like, “Just learn what you need to learn at school, we’ll tell you the real truth at home.”

They didn’t make waves. They went stealth, under the radar. This is the right thing, anyone who teaches you otherwise is deceived. Sometimes people would say that scientists were being used by the Devil. That wasn’t very common, and I can’t say that I heard that from my own parents.

It was literal, 24-hour days. Humans appeared as they are. Even was created from Adams rib to be a helper, which subsequently meant that – I don’t if if the word subservient ever came up, but man was the head of the household. Those things all go together.

Jacobsen: When did the young earth creationist view become untenable for you?

Krawczyk: I never really ran into anyone who questioned that until I was in college. Even then not a whole lot, because most of my friends were Christian from the Rensselaer Christian Association. I do remember, probably towards my senior year or even my first year in grad school, reading some books that were trying to reconcile the age of the Earth according to science with some of the creationist accounts in the Bible. I don’t remember finding anything convincing, but I do remember reading a few books. I am surprised I found anything at the time, because they would have been in the Christian bookstore. We didn’t really have the Internet resources yet, so it was a bit hard to find information. It was still tenable to me, even though I got to a point by the time I graduated as an undergrad where I didn’t think it was a big deal if another Christian thought an old earth was possible. As long as they believed that God created everything or had a significant hand in moving it along, I wasn’t so attached to the age of the Earth. It wasn’t not a core belief.

It wasn’t until a couple years after I graduated, that I was really encouraged to question things by my boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband. He would point something out as we were walking: “Look at that spider. Isn’t it amazing that spiders evolved to do these amazing webs.” He would tell me some scientific information and I would say, “It is an amazing example of God’s beautiful design work.” [Laughing] He would look at me. He couldn’t believe that I really thought those things and he would ask me questions. We would argue back and forth about it. Eventually it got to the point when I realized that I didn’t really understand enough of what evolutionary theory was to combat it. So I decided to start reading. [Laughing] You know what happens when you read… You learn things, [Laughing]!

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Krawczyk: Let me go back a bit, I think this was my year of grad school at RPI. The church I was involved in there was a Baptist church and they were the most strict, and most fundamentalist church I had ever been to and I was really involved with that church my whole time at school. They had an outreach program, where they would reach out to the new engineering students at RPI. They would suck us in, bring us to church, take care of us, feed us, love us. They were wonderful people. They were loving people, who were really happy to make us feel like we had a home away from home. One of the things that I do remember is going to an intensive course in young Earth creationist science. I think the guy whose material we used was Kent Hovind. Looking back now, there were some very fantabulous ideas about how the great flood came about, with a canopy of water over the Earth, how they fed all of the animals on the ark, etc.

I had gotten a full indoctrination on some of these theories of “creation science.” I felt confident that this was really what happened. My pastor was telling me, and he’d studied, so clearly this was it. I don’t think I ever thought to question anything or look at any source materials.

It wasn’t until a few years after I graduated when my boyfriend was questioning me. I got frustrated that I couldn’t win the argument, so I started reading more books, and I started learning about what evolutionary theory was. I realized I didn’t know anything about it. The little snippets I got growing up were that we are not descended from monkeys. Well, no! That is not what evolutionary theory says. It doesn’t say we’re descended from monkeys. I learned about natural selection and about common ancestry and things I had never heard before. It was until I found a book called Finding Darwin’s God by Kenneth Miller who I believe was either a microbiologist, or a cell biologist, but also a practicing Catholic, which, by that point I had decided did fall into the realm of Christianity.

Reading his book – and I read it twice, though I couldn’t recall much of it right now – but he gave me permission to allow myself to think about the science as potentially true and yet not have to discard my belief in God. It had been framed as a choice like that to me for years. You either believe it all, or you’re not a real Christian.

Jacobsen: I believe there is a term for that called False Dichotomy.

Krawczyk: Yes! Reading his book was a big turning point for me. It allowed me to look at the science and learn. I still believed in God. Miller gave something that was a potentially plausible way for both to be true – for me to continue believing and not have to turn my back on everything, but still advance with science.

I was an engineer. I was in materials science and engineering. I wanted to be an astronaut. I was not anti-science. I just had this big section of things that I was not allowed to touch. I didn’t let myself analyze it. You are not encouraged to question these ideas as a child. It just is. It just is the way it is. I’d say about 15 years ago was when I really accepted evolution, but I was still a believer.

Jacobsen: What were your rationalizations for being a good Christian?

Krawczyk: We were taught from a very young age to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your soul.” God is the person you love above all other people.

We were created to worship Him and to love Him. So, my rationalization for trying to be a good Christian was to show God that I loved Him. I wanted to do what was right. God was right. Anything that he said was right. Whatever commandments were in the Bible – those were right.

Showing your love for God was obedience to his commands. The Bible was literally true. I wanted to please him. I wanted to show that I was a good person. I wanted to go to Heaven.

Even though we were told that once you accept Jesus Christ into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior, and have a relationship with Him, that you were saved, and that you’d be together with God in Heaven, there was also definitely fear. Fear that I wasn’t really good enough. Fear that I wasn’t really saved, that I hadn’t done it right. I’ve met a lot of other Christians who came from similar backgrounds who always worried that when they asked Jesus into their heart to save them from their sins, to wash away their sins. That we didn’t do it right. That quite a few of us found ourselves doing it again. That saying the sinner’s prayer – Lord forgive me, I accept Jesus into my heart – still left fear in the background.

Mostly, I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do. I believed there was an omniscient, omnipotent Creator who was up up there watching everything I did and I wanted to please Him. He was our Father; our Father in heaven. You want approval from your parents.

There was one other thing that made me want to try to be a good Christian. In high school, I wasn’t terribly good. I fell away from the things that we were supposed to doing, like most teenagers, you get involved with relationships and I was a bit promiscuous, that sort of thing. When I got to college, that was my chance to really get it right. I was going to do everything right. That became a strong driver for me. That is when I became really, really rigid and much more fundamentalist than I was growing up.

Jacobsen: When did you fall in love after graduate school? And how, was the time simply ripe?

Krawczyk: It was shortly after I had mutually broken off an engagement with a guy in Scotland. I was determined to date no one, but I met Tom through a mutual friend. He was a great guy and I really liked him. He called me and wanted to take me out after we met at a party. The biggest problem was that he was not a Christian, not a believer. That was a huge problem, even though I liked him. That was unacceptable. You are taught not to be yoked with non-believers, because you will pull in different directions and you’ll go in the wrong direction. You are only supposed to marry another believer, and really only be close friends with other believers. He had grown up without any religion at all.

His parents left Catholicism when they were teenagers. He was sort of a blank slate. He was willing to come to church with me. He came to Bible studies, he came to youth group meetings. He did all of these things. I figured that he was very interested and that if he was not a believer then, that he probably would be soon, so it was probably okay to date him. Once I told myself that, it was very fast. I just met the right guy. He was a great guy. It was pretty quick. It was a problem, though.

Jacobsen: Is that a common theme in interbelief partnerships or potential partnerships?

Krawczyk: I think it is a problem for a lot of people. It is a difficulty at least. It depends on how rigid your own beliefs are, how strong your own beliefs are, what type of background you came up in. There’s a lot of negotiation. For Tom and I, it wasn’t very difficult. He came to church but didn’t believe any of the stuff. As long as I didn’t try to make him believe anything, he was fine, he was supportive. He didn’t try to change my mind on anything. In this case, it was an overall easy situation. I was by far the most devout person he had ever met in his life. But I think it becomes more of an issue for a lot of people when you end up having children. We have two. Once we had our first child, it became more difficult because we had to navigate what things we would be teaching to our child.

Jacobsen: On the day after Christmas in 2010, you bought the book by Dan Barker entitled Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists. Did this trigger a transformation for you?

Krawczyk: Absolutely. I have no idea how I heard about his book. Absolutely none. I don’t know if I heard about it on a radio show or heard it being bashed or promoted. I have no idea. This is a plug for e-readers, because if I did not have a way to anonymously purchase that book, I would have never bought it. Kindle was a win. I had already had a number of friends encouraging me over the last 5 or 6 years, or even longer, to consider reading books and writing by people who did not believe, just to expand my understanding of other people. One of my friends was an atheist, but she didn’t really call herself an atheist. Her family background was Hindu, but she did not believe in God. However I heard of this book, I think it intrigued me that he was an ex-Evangelical preacher and songwriter. It completely stunned me that someone could claim that they had left and become an atheist.

I read that book. As I read it, he went through the arguments, stages in faith, various small crises as he was going through faith. I identified so much with them, because I’d heard all of the same arguments and questions and answers. I call them “Sunday school answers.”

By the end of it, I remember putting it down and sitting there quietly and saying out loud, “Everything I have ever believed is a lie.” It was crushing and dark. It had systematically destroyed every argument that I had to support my faith. I did not know what to do. I didn’t tell anybody that I read that book. I didn’t tell my husband. It was a depressing Christmas vacation.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Krawczyk: [Laughing] It was about celebrating the birth of Jesus and I was thinking, “All of it might be wrong.” It was really, very stressful. I don’t remember how long after, but not long after I thought, “Well, this is one person’s experience. I need to do some research.

I have to figure out if this is actually true or just one person?” So, I got online. Fortunately, we did have the internet at that point. I found a blogger named Rachel Held Evans who had written a book called Evolving in Monkey Town. She had grown up in an environment similar to mine in terms of the teaching that she’d received. She is pretty liberal. She had a blog that had all sorts of people and had things like “Ask A Lutheran,” “Ask A Jehovah’s Witness,” “Ask A Mormon,” and so on. I do not know if she did those particular groups, but at one point, she had “Ask An Atheist.” I thought that was interesting. It was the first time I realized it was okay to ask questions. Other people asked questions and I was not the only one asking questions about what I believed.

It was shocking to see the variety and depth of what people in the world believed. I had been exposed to other religions from friends – Buddhism and Hinduism – but vaguely. This was the first time I realized how many different types of Christians there are and beliefs.

Dan’s book started me on a path of reading and trying to understand, and learning, and asking questions a looking outside my own head for the first time ever. That was seven years ago or so. But I still believed for probably another four years.

Jacobsen: What is a positive of religion to you?

Krawczyk: Community. That is the one thing I remember from my childhood – always having people around who would care about you. It was like a big extended family. People you would probably get along with. If someone said they were a Christian, you knew they are probably very moral and good people [Laughing]. Those seemed like positives to me. Now I realize it’s a little more complex than that. But definitely community. Belief gave me a sense of strength. With God, I felt I always had a friend, I always had someone to talk to, I had someone to help me through hard times. I had someone to help me be a better person. I found a lot of strength in that for many years.

Jacobsen: Within what is called the atheist movement now, of course, it is a number of sub-movements. Some of which do not even talk to each other.

Krawczyk: [Laughing] That’s true.

Jacobsen: What are points of critique if you were taking a neutral outsider’s view that the movements, plural, should take into account to become more effective? Also, what should be the next step for them?

Krawczyk: I like to think of it as the atheist community rather than a movement. I know there are various movements within it. Some of them really seem to be at odds. A critique from the outside – I have come from the outside very recently – it has only been about ten months since I discovered that there was an atheist movement or an atheist community.

So coming from the outside – it looks like we eat our own [Laughing]. There seems to be such a drive to make everybody the same. That reminds me of religion, sometimes. We are trying to be consistent in our aims, what we do, what we should do, what we should work towards, how we should do it, how we should think about different things.

But the only thing we necessarily have in common with another atheist is not believing in a God. Aside from that, you know nothing about someone else until you ask them. What are your values, what are your interests, what are your aims, your goals. My friend Armin Navabi, of Atheist Republic and I have talked about this before and I believe we agree pretty well in this area. There is room for everybody. There is room for all sorts of different aims within the atheist community or movement. I would like to encourage – and I’m working toward this – is not to build bridges that stand over time between different groups, but maybe build temporary bridges like those little military bridges that you put in when the river washes them out.

Jacobsen: Engineers build bridges. That is true.

Krawczyk: [Laughing] But build relationships, that allow people – who may disagree within the atheist community, that may disagree strongly on approaches or how to do something, or what we should be working for – that would allow us to work together to solve common problems, make common goals.

From the outside, there seems to be a lot of bickering and fighting. I don’t think it appeals to a lot of people, even to some of us within it. I would like us to band together when necessary and do our own thing when not necessary. Does that make sense?

Jacobsen: Were you truly afraid of being seen as an “evil atheist, an apostate, a blasphemer, someone without morals”?

Krawczyk: Yes, I absolutely was. I am not sure I ever heard the term atheist when I was growing up. But I knew the one thing that could send you to Hell, was to turn your back on and deny the existence of God. Even when I realized I didn’t believe in God anymore, I realized that my friends and my family and anyone else who believed that, would think that I was doing the most horrible thing and that I was an awful person for it.

So, that is where the blasphemy comes in. As far as having no morals, my mom said, recently, that she never taught me this. She never taught me that people who weren’t believers had no morals. A lot of Christians believe that every person has the capacity to be good, but that is a gift from God. But a lot of others, including myself, believed that if you had not accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour, if you didn’t have God in your life, that you had no ability to be moral morals and you had no moral compass. Your morals come from the Bible and indwelling of the Holy Spirit and being born again.

The idea that I would tell my family and my friends that I didn’t believe and didn’t have this. They would think that I was potentially an evil person. I would say that the most common question I have gotten since I publicly began telling people that I am an atheist is “Well, where do your moral come from?”

Sometimes people are curious and really asking but cannot comprehend how it can be possible. And you can sense that other people are saying it as “I’ve gotcha here! You are really not moral. You only think you are.” I was afraid. I was definitely afraid. The other biggest aspect that kept me from telling people at first is that I didn’t want to make my family sad. One of the things about being a Christian is that you believe that once you are saved and you’re connected with God and your sins are forgiven, that once you die, you will go to heaven all of your family will be there. Everybody you love. All of the other believers will be there.

To tell my family that I do not believe, to them, is me committing blasphemy, which means I will be in Hell. That’s a really big amount of pain to put on someone else. That kept me from talking about it for a long time.

Jacobsen: How should people come out? When should they be quiet and strategic?

Krawczyk: That is a tough question because there are so many situations people can be in and so many types of religions and so many family situations, family dynamics, social dynamics, and so on. I do not think there is a single answer to that question.

I’ll start with when you should you be quieter, and more cautious – if you are coming out of Islam. I have developed quite a few friendships with ex-Muslims. Some of my friends have been physically threatened with death or actually injured for leaving Islam because the social penalty, in many places especially in Muslim-majority countries, can be death. There are 13 countries where you can receive the death penalty for being an apostate, which is renouncing Islam. You can imagine that there are places where even if it is not illegal that you can have vigilante “justice” in a way, where people can be in real danger. That is not as common in the US, or Canada, or the UK, but it definitely happens and more in the UK. That is an extreme situation, where you have to be very cautious. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have safe place to go, and protection and your own financial resources.

If you are in a place like I am – I’m in Southern California, pretty liberal place. I have lots of friends and support. It’s not unsafe for me to come out. I don’t know. It is a hard question. You have to be ready to be yourself and be able to defend your decision to not be quiet about it.

One of my family members asked me, “If you knew this was going to hurt your family. Why didn’t you just keep it a secret?” I thought, “Why should I?” I asked, “Why should I keep this a secret when it is so important and affects the way I think about most things? Why should I have to hide this?”

If you are ready to deal with some flack in order to be yourself, that is when you should come out. That’s why you come out. The more people who come out and are open and honest about being secular, being atheist, and ot having a belief in God, the easier it is for everybody else.

Right now, there is a perception that we are bad people. Really, there are a lot more of us than people think. A lot of us are uncomfortable; some people don’t want to bother talking about it. Others don’t think it’s important to talk about. Others are just fearful of consequences, like I was. A little under two and half years, I was afraid of losing friends. I was afraid of losing business. You are immediately afraid of being tarred as an amoral person right off the bat – you can’t possibly be good person. That is a big burden to carry.

Jacobsen: Does this speak to a tacit theocratic tendency in America?

Krawczyk: I think so. [Laughing] I’m not even sure it’s tacit.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Krawczyk: It’s very common. Religious people are better than non-religious people in the common thinking, at least among believers – even of various faiths. I often think it would have been easier on family and friends if I had switched faiths rather than left completely because then I would still believe in God.

Now, I have crossed that line. It’s much harder for people to accept. We hear about America being a Christian nation – the U.S. being a Christian nation – and thinking our laws should reflect Christianity. So, there is a tendency for some people to want the U.S. to be a theocracy, for sure.

Jacobsen: You began to be known as your real self online. Was this scary?

Krawczyk: It was terrifying. It was only ten months ago. I became an atheist three years ago, but aside from telling a few people as I met them – as I met new friends I tested the waters by telling people. I did not post anything online that indicated I wasn’t a believer.

Maybe, things that made me look like a much more liberal Christian than I had ever been before. In the end of October 2016, my husband and I attended CSICon. It was for the Center for Skeptical Inquiry, which is a branch of the Center for Inquiry. It was a conference for scientific skepticism. There is a high crossover between that community and the atheist community.

When we walked in, there was a photo booth for an organization called Openly Secular. Their aim is to promote people being open about being secular, non-religious, or atheist so that it becomes normalized, to reduce discrimination.

I took a deep breath and I dragged my husband over and we took a picture of ourselves in that frame and then one just of myself. I posted it on Instagram before lost my nerve. I was terrified. That was the first time I was ever going to say anything online that said I was not a believer. I was posted it and I kept checking it and I didn’t get a bunch of nasty comments. I got a bunch of likes. That was a big relief.

A couple of weeks later, it was Openly Secular Day. I changed that to my profile picture. I was shaking like a leaf to put that as my profile picture, on Facebook, to have my hundreds of friends and family members see that I was saying that I was openly secular.

It was absolutely terrifying. But I started getting likes. I saw a number of friends I already had were also secular. It was amazing. But, it was scary. I also started getting messages from people I hadn’t talked to in years, and some family members, asking me to consider Pascal’s Wager and sharing Bible verses that I have known very well my whole life.

They were worried about me and wanting to bring me back. It opened me up to a lot of criticism. It was very scary.

Jacobsen: Dr. Dawkins encouraged you to write a book about your transition and experiences. What was the result?

Krawczyk: I met Richard at that same conference – CSICon 2016. We started talking after I introduced myself and he was intrigued by the fact that I had been a young Earth creationist – that I had absolutely despised him and had been taught to despise him. Not by my parents. I don’t remember anything from them, but through various apologetics and defending your faith classes that I’d been too.

For most of my life, since I’d heard of him, he was an awful, evil figure. He was just a horrible man. An arrogant, horrible person who was trying to destroy everything I believed in, so by the time I actually read his book, The God Delusion… [Laughing]

Jacobsen: [Laughing] We have all experienced that bullying of either being told that some famous person who doesn’t believe is as such, or if they don’t target the famous person, they target you.

Krawczyk: Exactly. So, I had thought he was a horrible, horrible person. But I’d actually booked tickets to that conference to thank him for writing The God Delusion. Because when I read that, about 4 years after I read Dan Barker’s book, I got about two thirds of the way through that and realized that I was an atheist. I had already left those other beliefs behind and had gotten to the point where pretty much everything he said totally made sense. I had still, just prior to that, thought he was an arrogant jerk. [Laughing]. My husband reminds me of that now. My husband had said, “Why don’t you read something he wrote rather than basing your opinions on stuff you’ve heard over the years? Just read something.” So, I picked The God Delusion and that changed my life. Suddenly it gave me a name. I knew what I was. I knew what category I fell into and I wasn’t the only one.

We kept in touch after the conference. I was in the process of telling family members that I was an atheist. He wanted to know how that went. We were corresponding and I was letting him know how it went with each person. At one point, a cousin on my husband’s side completely cut me off on Facebook. He said he absolutely could not be friends, or in touch with me at all. He wasn’t going to interact with me, or my family anymore, because he couldn’t respect anyone who didn’t believe in God. I was just devastated. I knew this was a possible risk, but I had known him for 18 years. I thought, “How can someone’s opinion change so suddenly when they know me. They know who I am?” I was really upset. I wrote to Richard and told him what happened. I got a response back, which I sadly, can’t find anymore, but basically said he was filled with fury about how religion can poison families. Then, shortly after, I got a message that said that I needed to write a book. I thought, “No. I’m not writing a book” But my husband said, “Richard Dawkins just suggested that you write a book. I think you should look into this.” [laughing]

I talked to Richard about it. He encouraged me to write my own story – it was unusual to come out of being a young Earth creationist and rather fundamentalist – and to tell the stories of other people. What has come out of that so far, is that I’m working on a book. The working title is Losing Your Life to Save It, and the idea is based on a Bible verse. That people have to sometimes lose everything that they care about in their lives – even risking their lives – to just be themselves, to be who you are and open about it, and to just be.

Richard said from the start that he would write the forward to the book and wanted to help by advising me. That is where it is now. I am gathering stories and will soon be putting out a survey to gather many more. I have at least 1,300 people waiting to fill out my next survey to talk about their experiences in various types of relationships and what life has been like, living as an atheist in the US and UK specifically. That is where we are at the moment. I’m writing a book!

Jacobsen: You have been involved with the publicizing and latter-planning for the LogiCal-LA conference, which is for the support of scientific skepticism. What is it? Any highlights that you would like to point out about it?

Krawczyk: Yes, it’s a new conference. It started last year in January. Bruce Gleason of the Orange County Freethought Alliance is the organizer. He runs the conference. Last year, we had a nice group. We had Sean Carroll, the physicist, as the keynote speaker. We had a lot of different great scientists from around the country and local in California. We are trying to support critical thinking, science education, and rational thought.

Los Angeles is a popular area where people live and visit, but we don’t really have anything that happens right there in that area. We are trying to gather some great minds and people who are interested in science and learning and thinking. We are trying to promote rational thought and critical thinking in the country. We really think it is lacking at this point and could use a boost.

Jacobsen: What are your next steps after the organizing and book?

Krawczyk: The book will probably take another year or two. I would like to continue helping with LogiCal-LA. I want to learn… I attended the International Conference for Freedom of Expression. Maryam Namazie’s conference in London – in July. I have been learning about the plight of ex-Muslims around the world. I’ve studied Arabic on and off for about 12 years and I have a BA in Arabic Language and Culture. I am particularly interested in people leaving Islam. I am interested in Arabic cultures and have a lot of Muslim friends.

I’m not sure exactly where I want to go, but I want to support secularism and the separation of church and state in this country. I want to help in any way that I can in normalizing atheism to the point where no one has to be afraid I like I was. No one had to be afraid to come out and say what they believe. I want people to understand, whether religious or non-religious, that families don’t have to be torn apart because of differences in belief.

We all can get along. We can all be. I’m not sure as to what the efforts will be, they are all going to be in support of those ideals. A lot of the work for the next couple of years will be going into this book. Like I said before, I’m in a position where I’m unlikely to have any real problem being out – out loud and proud about being an atheist. But a lot of people in the world are not in that situation I really want people to know that there is discrimination and it is very hard for people, even in the United States, Canada, and the UK, and it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t have to be this way.

Jacobsen: Thank you for very much for your time, Melissa.

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2022-04-10

Anouar Majid Talks About Islam and the West

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/09

Anouar Majid is the Founder and Editor for Tingis Magazine. Majid has authored several books on Islam and the West, and has been on Bill Moyers Journal and Al Jazeera television. He is the Founding Director of the Center for Global Humanities. Here we talk about Islam and the West.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We have done an interview for Canadian Atheist. We have one, forthcoming in Conatus News as well. We talked about another series focused on the “grand theme” of Islam and the West, which is, of course, an area you have published a great deal in.

I would hope for this to remain conversational, as a dialogue, where I aim to learn from you. To begin, what demographics can provide an image of Islam around the world and the United States?

Anouar Majid: The number of Muslims around the world is fast approaching the 2 billion mark. (I think it is now above 1.8 billion.) Like Christianity, Islam is everywhere, on all continents, and in most countries.

Jacobsen: What core beliefs define a Muslim and a non-Muslim? What core do beliefs define someone from the West, a westerner?

Majid: Muslims believe in one God (called Allah in Arabic) who created everything and to whom we are accountable after death. To be good in the eyes of Allah, one must have absolute faith in him and his prophet Mohammed, pray at least five times a day, fast at least one month a year, give at least 10 percent of one’s wealth to charity, and go on pilgrimage to Mecca, at least once in a lifetime, if possible.

There is another sub-set of obligations, but the aforementioned are known as the pillars of the religion. A Westerner, in this sense, is not the opposite of a Muslim, since she can be secular or religious. In fact, millions of Muslims are Westerners, in the sense that they live and are citizens of Western nations.

Generally speaking, though, we use the term in the sense that it includes a set of ideas that originated in Western Europe, including belief in secular government, human rights, rule of law, democracy, freedom of speech, and other traits.

Jacobsen: Where do these belief sets tend to conflict?

Majid: In Islam, all power belongs to Allah, and the role of Muslims is to execute Allah’s wishes. Muslims are servants of Allah and, as such, cannot legislate on their own. Everything, according to devout Muslims, has been prescribed in the Koran and the Hadith (compilations of sayings and deeds attributed to the prophet Mohammed).

In principle, notions like “democracy” or “republic” do not exist in Islamic political thought. Sovereignty belongs to Allah only, not to nations or individuals. Nowadays, Muslims use the concept known as “shura” (advisors or consultants) as an example of how Islam makes room for democracy, but being an advisor to a caliph is not quite like voting for candidates running for office on a socialist platform, for instance.

Also, nations like Saudi Arabia do not believe in a human-made constitution, believing, as most Muslims do, that the Koran is sufficient in that regard.

Jacobsen: How does this conflict, in general terms and keeping in mind the demographic question at the outset, play out in American culture? Sometimes, as described in “Muslims in the West: Chronicle of a Crisis Foretold,” this can lead to lethal outcomes based on internal conflicts, in the individual.

Majid: I am glad you mention that article. The clash of cultures, if not of civilizations, is quite real, although it is not fashionable to say this in polite circles. People who grow up as devout Muslims in Muslim-majority nations have a hard time assimilating into Western secular societies, even though most Muslims covet the West’s education, products, and even freedoms.

From a strictly cultural point of view, though, there is no doubt that a real conflict exists between Islam and the West. There are other aggravating (or attenuating) factors, but this is not our focus here.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Anouar.

References

Jacobsen, S.D. (2017, December 28). Interview with Anouar Majid – Founding Director, Center for Global Humanities. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/12/majid/.

Majid, A. (2016, January 10). Muslims in the West: Chronicle of a Crisis Foretold. Retrieved from http://www.tingismagazine.com/opinion/muslims_in_the_west_chronicle_of_a_crisis_foretold.html.

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2022-04-10

In Conversation with Scott – Founder, Skeptic Meditations

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/09

Scott is the Founder of Skeptic Meditations. He speaks from experience in entering and leaving Self-Realization Monastic Order, a hindu-inspired ashram headquartered in Los Angeles and founded by famous Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda. Here we talk about meditation beliefs, and Westerners who are Post-Christian and consider themselves atheist or spiritual but not religious.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You were part of a community with many cult-like aspects devoted to meditative techniques and a monk lifestyle. What was it? How did you become wrapped up in it?

Scott from SkepticMeditations.com: I was an ordained monk for 14 years in Self-Realization Fellowship Order, founded in 1920 by famous Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda. It is essentially a Hindu-inspired religion with heavy blend of Christianity.

I got involved while in college I considered myself a mystical musician. Basically, I saw myself as a creative-music type, played guitar, sang, wrote music, and played in punk rock bands, sang in Choirs.

I was looking for ways to be more creative, more intuitive. To tap into the hidden, unknown creative powers within myself. At a party, when the band took a break I spoke to my buddies Uncle who was a Yoga Meditator. He recommended I read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.

Long story short: I read the Autobiography and had a “come to Yogananda” experience. At the time I felt that everything I wanted–mystical union with my soul, God, and Creative Cosmic Om–was to be found in following Yogananda’s teachings, which were articulated by his organization Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF).

Within 12 to 18 months I gave up everything–college, business/job, friends, family–not involved with the SRF and ran away from home to live at SRF Hidden Valley Ashram. My aim was to see if I could dedicate my life as an SRF monk. I intended to be a monk for the rest of my life.

I worked my way up the spiritual-monastic food chain of SRF Order. For 18 months, I was a postulant (bootcamp for new monks) at Encinitas Ashram north of San Diego, California. Then I transferred to the SRF Mother Center, the International Headquarters, on top of Mt. Washington, in Northeast Los Angeles between Glendale and Pasadena, California.

At the SRF Mother Center ashram within two years I took Novitiate vows and three years later took Brahmachari vows. Each vow tier was meant to dedicate the monk’s life more fully to loyalty, obedience, celibacy, and simplicity to God, guru, and the SRF. Looking back it all seems like a bad dream. It turned out after several years it was a nightmare to be a monk.

Jacobsen: How did you get out of it, following from the previous question?

Scott: As life gets, it was complicated. After a decade and a half of struggling to make the monk life work I realized the monastery wasn’t the right place for me. What I needed was to grow, try new things.

In secret I would “sneak” out of the ashram under some pretense to buy and read books on escaping religious cults, to visit a life coach and talk over my challenges with a certified psychologist.

Over a period of 1-2 years I gradually got up the courage to leave the Order, the ashram. But how? I needed money, a place to stay, car, job, virtually everything. I renounced everything to be a monk and now I had to find a way to survive in the world outside.

(Incidentally, fear of making it out in the world is extreme in the SRF Order as it is in all high-control groups. The longer members stay the harder it is to leave on practical grounds. Where will you go? What kind of work can you get? How will people see you since you’ve lived under a rock, in a closed Hindu-meditation cult. These and more wild thoughts raced through the heads of monks who entertained escaping the clutches of the ashram Order.)

Fortunately for me, I cobbled together enough cash to buy myself a car, to rent an apartment in nearby Glendale, and to cover my basic living expenses for several months so I could get a toehold out in the world on my own.

Also, I had moral and psychological support from my family and key friends. (SRF treated former monastics as pariahs, as traitors, or so couldn’t rely on SRF…]

Jacobsen: Now, with this foundation, the “I have been there” framework for this series. I want to delve into a variety of topics. For a first one, which was your idea in correspondence, the idea of post-Christian spirituality. What is it? Why is it a relevant, timely, and intriguing topic to you?

Scott: What I mean my post-Christian spirituality I’m referring to the underlying puritan ideals of the West: purity of mind and heart which turns to stilling thought, emptying mind, or no thought as somehow special or sacred.

In the process of secularization, prayer, contemplation, or meditation turns from religious to mind cure. Meditation is somehow secular form of magical “healing”. Meditation is supposed to be beneficial to everyone, to be enlightening, to free practitioners from suffering.

Thinking God’s thoughts becomes thinking “right” thoughts, enlightened thoughts, or no thoughts. That is stilling the mind. Mastering thought. Meditation is actually a subtle version of religion, with a system of enlightenment and an elite with authority.

The system of enlightenment is based on a subtle form of religious thinking. This is why I called it post-Christian or Western secular spirituality.

Good question. Post-Western Christianity is probably not the best way to say what I meant. I’m talking about Westerner’s interest in Eastern spirituality and meditation. Those who are in PEW surveys when people are asked their religion they call themselves “Nones” or spiritual but not religious.

The spiritual but not religious and even many people who identify as atheists who cringe at the term “spiritual” sometimes harbor magical beliefs in things like meditation practices. So this magical thinking about meditation practices, like Buddhist-inspired mindfulness, creeps in.

It goes like this: There’s something deep, magical, and mystical behind the darkness of closed eyes. The Yogis and Eastern Enlightened Masters were onto something. “Science” is proving that meditation cures depression which is not actually the case when we carefully examine the studies of meditation we find that at best meditation practice has a moderate benefit if any compared to other methods of relaxation, exercise, or drugs.

My blog, skepticmeditations, rants about what I call these hidden sides of meditation, regardless whether we call meditation practice secular or not.

Jacobsen: These explorations post-Western Christianity can lead to many areas including meditation, yoga, Buddhism/Hinduism, the New Age philosophy, and Eastern cosmology. What are some cognitive-behavioural traps from the post-Western Christianity explorer’s side?

Scott: Haha. Lots of booby traps. We will never escape them all. But we can gradually, hopefully avoid falling into them endlessly. Each person has to untangle the cognitive traps themselves. It’s a lifelong process of discovery and exploration.

Some may overcome of the obvious traps of Christianity, the Catholic or Protestant doctrines and rituals. Realize that the communion wafer is not the body of Christ but is a cracker and so on.

That probably there is no God, at least not the kind of Divine Intelligence that culturally we are led to believe. But underlying our cultural indoctrination is a system, a framework for Protestant puritan ideals or enlightened masters or authorities and so on. We are products of the culture of the West.

Calling ourselves atheist or secular means we might be post-Christian but still have much of the subtle Christian-Western puritan worldviews. Even simple notions like “Work hard and you will succeed”. “Control your thoughts and control your destiny”, and so on. These are sublter versions of God beliefs or based in religious worldviews.

Jacobsen: What are some of the traps from those who wish to bring those post-Western Christianity explorers into their particular fold?

Scott:The scientific research into the benefits of meditation are inconclusive. We don’t yet have enough good data. Yet, many people scan and read only the headline that says meditation is beneficial for everybody.

So this kind of surface exploration of claims, like we’ve seen now with so-called fake news, should cause us to pause. It takes time and effort to dive deep into a topic like religion, meditation, or atheism.

Whatever, these are just labels. I think we should not take headlines and labels too seriously without first doing our homework and diving deep into the underlying premises and assumptions.

Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?

Scott: Well, I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you today. I enjoyed your questions and grappling with how to respond. I really like your conversational and interview style. I think back and forth dialogue is one of the best ways to try to understand ourselves and others. Thanks.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Scott.

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2022-04-10

International Women’s Day in Canada

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/08

Canada seems poised for a proper celebratory day, today March 8, for International Women’s Day. Of course, this allies with two other days: Women’s Equality Day, and Women’s History Month.

These mark important celebrations for women throughout the world with a recognized day. Canada remains an important proponent of the rights of women in the legal context and privileges in the socio-cultural environment.

There appear a number of women of prominence or modest achievement in the world – “Hypatia of Alexandria, Elizabeth Anscombe, Hannah Arendt, Margaret Atwood, Simone de Beauvoir, Hildegard von Bingen, Marie Curie, Lady Anne Conway, Sarah Margaret Fuller… and innumerable others” and many of whom I do not know the full biographies – and, indeed, in Canada (Jacobsen, 2018).

In recognition of Canadian women’s achievements, often overlooked, we find the 2018 recognition from the substantive to the trivial. On the ledger of the more substantive, we find the boost in pro-women initiatives at the level of the federal government (O’Malley, 2018).

Also, the symbolic importance of a change in the ten dollar bill image with a printing of Viola Desmond, which is signal a representation of a woman of achievement in Canadian history on a Bank of Canada note (Bank of Canada, 2018).

Finance Minister Bill Morneau stated, “Two years ago today—on International Women’s Day—Prime Minister Trudeau and I announced that the time had come for a Canadian woman to be represented on Canada’s bank notes. Since then, thanks in large part through her sister Wanda, more and more Canadians have come to know Viola Desmond’s remarkable personal story of courage and dignity. Her story serves as inspiration to all Canadians and acts as a powerful reminder of how one person’s actions can help trigger change across generations” (Ibid.).

On the moderate, middle-part of the ledge, we find a change to the Barbie line of products (Batha & Taylor, 2018). Also, the hashtag #MyFeminism is a decent symbolic gesture in more modern media, social media, too (Status of Women Canada, 2018). Then into the trivial side, as Abedi hints at in the title and so on, we have the upside-down McDonald’s “M” into a “W” standing for “Women” instead of “McDonald’s” (Abedi, 2018).

Overall, it seems okay as a celebration of the day for women around the world in Canada, but, as the cliché goes, there is (always) more to be done.

References

Abedi, M. (2018, March 8). McDonald’s flips arches to honour International Women’s Day — but it backfires. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/4070137/mcdonalds-international-womens-day-flipped-arches/.

Bank of Canada. (2018, March 8). New $10 bank note featuring Viola Desmond unveiled on International Women’s Day. Retrieved from https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2018/03/new-10-bank-note-featuring-viola-desmond-unveiled/.

Batha, E. & Taylor, L. (2018, March 8). How the world is celebrating International Women’s Day. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/barbie-flashmob-womens-day-1.4567692.

Jacobsen, S. D. (2018, March 8). Rick G. Rosner: Giga Society, Member; Mega Society, Member & ex-Editor (1991-97); and Writer (Part Ten). Retrieved from https://in-sightjournal.com/2014/12/15/ick-g-rosner-giga-society-member-mega-society-member-ex-editor-1990-96-and-writer-part-ten/.

O’Malley, K. (2018, March 8). Team Trudeau to mark International Women’s Day by boosting pro-woman budget initiatives. Retrieved from https://ipolitics.ca/2018/03/08/team-trudeau-mark-international-womens-day-boosting-pro-woman-budget-initiatives/.

Status of Women Canada. (2018, March 8). Government of Canada celebrates International Women’s Day 2018 – #MyFeminism. Retrieved from https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/government-of-canada-celebrates-international-womens-day-2018—myfeminism-676251983.html.

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2022-04-10

Interview with Damon Conlan – Writer and Magician

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/08

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was early development life for you – geography, culture, language, and religion if any?

Damon Conlan: I grew up in England, in the West Midlands. I was lucky in that no one was particularly religious in my immediate family, other than to be culturally Christian; the only time they would end up in a church was usually for a wedding, a christening, or a funeral.

Even Santa Claus was not thrust upon me with too much gusto, and I was left to my own devices to figure out whether or not all these myths had any validity.

The primary school I attended (when I was 5 until 11), in the last few years I was there, rebranded as a Church of England school; I think my initial objection to the new name was based primarily on its linguistic aesthetics.

Alongside the occasional sermon at assembly when the vicar turned up, the mandatory collective worship that took the form of a prayer, and hymns decrying how great God was, that was my first exposure to the concept of religious imposition into an otherwise secular space.

Jacobsen: As a magician, how does this inform your own view on our ability to be easily deceived – as James Randi says, “You too can be fooled!?”

Conlan: I have always found magic to be a fine bedfellow of skepticism, science, and reason. In its purest form, it presents a paradox: a coin cannot vanish from within a closed fist, and yet the magician’s hand is now empty. To be convinced of a lie whilst being fully aware you are being lied to is an incredibly useful learning tool. The inherent irony of magic provides us with a constant reminder that we can be misled.

Whenever I perform, that is always the subtext in my head. The easiest path to deception is to assume that you cannot be deceived; once you cease to question something, you censor yourself from discovering new truths.

As James Randi would say, magicians are honest liars, and I like to think that they serve to inoculate the populace from contracting faith by reminding them that they too can be fooled.

Jacobsen: What is your own view on religion and the progressive politics, i.e., their relationship and compatibility?

Conlan: I do not think it is any great revelation that the less someone takes a religious tome seriously, the less likely they are to abide by its rules and ideas. And there are plenty of them, from the beguilingly benign to the acutely wicked. Faith, the willing suspension of critical thinking, ultimately poisons the well.

Apply that to anything outside of religion and you can end up being convinced of anything, confine it to religion and you can be made to do anything; it is hard to talk someone out of something that they think God wants them to do.

To quote Steven Weinberg, “With or without [religion] you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”

If a religion insists on not having its ideas scrutinised, which often betrays much, then it follows the traditional pattern of being dragged, kicking, and screaming, into the future. Questioning, open discourse, the battle of ideas: these are the things that should be at the forefront if we want any kind of societal progress, and religion has always been the antithesis of those things.

Jacobsen: Safe spaces, trigger warnings, and so on, are new phenomena. How do these conflict with the ideals of an academic environment?

Conlan: A university, a place exactly designed for the battle of ideas, should not be a place than overprotects or infantilizes. You only short-change students if you seek to inoculate them from the ideas that might offend.

Ideas need to be readily and freely discussed because free speech, in actuality, is the way in which we unshackle ourselves of bad ideas, maintain plurality, and protect the minority voice.

How do you know if an idea stands up to scrutiny unless it has been scrutinised? Why wouldn’t we want students to develop good arguments for the ideas they hold, and develop effective critical thinking?

I am always reminded of the “be careful what you wish for” trope; the perils of the literal genie. A benign request for something positive, when carried out thoughtlessly, can wreak havoc on the wisher. What we see more and more of, and not just on campuses, is the pursuit of a kind of puritanism. This new religion demands you to think and behave according to a strict set of dogmas not just in the present, but also in the past and the future, lest you be ostracised from the in-group.

The Christian notion of being “created sick and commanded to be well,” to quote Christopher Hitchens paraphrasing Fulke Greville, finds a pseudo-religious home. This is not the pursuit of amelioration, but a totalitarian exercise in creating a utopic society.

The intolerance towards anyone who does not comply with the in-group is a symptom of our tribalistic human nature, and one which we must out-grow. This is why free speech is so important, as true progress is only achieved if we properly confront the ideas we dislike, and fully scrutinise our own.

Jacobsen: What do you recommend for those interested in either magic or writing about the issues around free speech if those are topics that interest you?

Conlan: For those interested in magic, I would probably start by recommending a visit to your local (or virtual) magic shop or joining a local magic club. If you are interested in free speech, I would start typing immediately.

Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?

Conlan: It is been a pleasure to have been interviewed for Canadian Atheist.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Damon.

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2022-04-10

“Is Christianity or Secular Humanism a better foundation for human rights?”

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/08

There was a recent conversation entitled “Is Christianity or Secular Humanism a better foundation for human rights?: A conversation Between a Christian and a Secular Humanist.”

Steve Kim was the moderator of the conversation. Kim earned “a diploma in Worship Arts and a BA in Biblical Studies from Columbia Bible College in Abbotsford, BC. He has completed a master’s degree in Christian Apologetics through Biola University.”

Dr. Andy Bannister was the Christian side of the conversation. Bannister is the “Director of the Solas Centre for Public Christianity and an Adjunct Speaker for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries” and holds a “PhD in Islamic studies.”

Ian Bushfield was the Secular Humanist side of the conversation. Bushfield is the “Executive Director of the British Columbia Humanist Association” and “also the co-host of the PolitiCoast podcast.”

The dialogue covered a wide variety of subject matter including human rights, ontology, the Third Reich, the Silver Rule and the Golden Rule, varieties of societies around the world and across time, the source of morality, the binding nature of human rights, Down Syndrome, Canadian culture and Western civilization, reflections on Friedrich Nietzsche, good and evil in relation to human rights, metaphysical beliefs around morality, empowering people as part of ethics, relativism, rational discussions, and many others, especially entertaining and enjoyable because it was framed as and turned out as a “conversation” rather adversarial as a debate – and was covered in a humorous and respectful light. Kudos to Kim, Bannister, and Bushfield! Take a peak:

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2022-04-10

Interview with EJ Hill – Former Reformed Evangelical Christian Minister

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/07

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You are a former missionary an church planter. What were moments for the crisis of faith or something akin to it? Were these singular momentous deluges or slow drips of doubt upon which you built an ocean to sail your non-religious boat?

EJ Hill: I was a very dedicated believer, until the moment I realized that there were errors in the Bible, that no-one denied. What these folks seem to miss, however, is that the God of the Bible promised to protect His Word against corruption, meaning that he either lied or failed. That, along with the fact that we do not have an original copy of the ‘original Bible’ led to a ‘singular momentous deluge of doubt’ that left me devastated and depressed for months.

Jacobsen: How does the religious and skeptical environment compare in North America and South Africa (your place of residence)?

Hill: Well, I have never had the opportunity to travel to North America, but I do have a couple of online friends and follow a number of atheistic websites from there. It would seem like non-believers in North America has way more support in the sense of support groups, magazines, fraternities, and a number of celebrity intellectuals to champion their cause – Neil deGrasse Tyson, James Randi, Penn Jillette, and until recently Christopher Hitchens. While, here in sunny South Africa we have very little of that. But we are working on it, and we also benefitting from what is happening in North America.

Jacobsen: If you could take some of the big preacher names such as the late Billy Graham, Rick Warren, T.D. Jakes, Matt Chandler, Mark Driscoll, Francis Chan, Tim Keller, Dr. Ed Young, Sr., Craig Groeschel, Chris Hodges, Joel Osteen, and others, what tends to describe their approach in bringing people into their fold?

Hill: As a former Reformed Evangelical Christian Minister I had very little time for most of these guys, including Benny Hinn, Jesse duPlantis, Jerry Savelle, Kenneth Copeland, and Kenneth Hagin.

As far as I was concerned, Billy Graham was an ecumenical hypocrite, who watered down the gospel to accommodate as many people as he could via an appeal to emotion. Rick Warren promised God’s “blessings” to everyone, and that based on a flawed interpretation of the prayer of Jabez. T.D. Jakes is a typical prosperity preacher who fleeces his simple-minded flock with promises of wealth and prosperity. I initially liked Mark Driscoll, because of the somewhat reformed evangelical nature of his ministry, but I did not approve of his arrogant leadership style. He seems to be employing the “cowboy approach” to bringing men, in particular, into the fold with gimmicks like mixed martial arts, sex talks, etc. Joel Osteen is yet another prosperity preacher, promising his flock wealth and prosperity for a quick buck. I know too little about Matt Chandler, Francis Chan, Tim Keller, Dr. Ed Young, Sr., Craig Groeschel, or Chris Hodges, to comment on them.

Jacobsen: What seems like the 10-year future of the ex-pastor community in terms of becoming public, telling their stories, and becoming accepted members of mainstream society rather than fringe?

Hill: By “ex-pastor community” I assume you referring to The Clergy Project, which will have a bright future, if they could manage to work out some organizational technicalities. If not, they will become nothing more than a mailing list, most of the members being swallowed by local atheistic groupings, where they will provide invaluable consultation.

Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?

Hill: To my atheistic friend. Please double-check what you say. If you do not know what you are talking about – consult. But, whatever you do, do not spread misinformation. Most of those “bible contradictions” I see thrown around the Internet, are not contradictions by a long shot. The only reason why you think they are, is because you lack understanding. These types of flawed attacks on Christianity only serves to strengthen believers in their belief, that the Bible is inerrant, and atheists do not know what they are talking about. Do everyone a favour, and do not speak on a subject, until you earned the right to do so, having done your research. And, no, reading a single article or book does NOT constitute research.

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2022-04-10

Off the Lazy Path — If You Cannot Find the Community, Then Make One

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/06

Out of the long history of the rejection of the traditional religious moral frameworks, practices, rituals, and beliefs about the fundamental constituents of the world, humanism bubbled to the surface in pockets in the world’s history, whether schools associated with Charvaka or Lokayata materialist school in India and Mengzi or Mencius in China, or thinkers of the Greco-Roman orientation (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica; Stefon et al, 2016; Humanists UK, 2018).

Even with these formations in various parts of the world with different histories and peoples, humanism arises as a tendency in human thought across time more than a formal school of thought, with exceptions to some uncommon instances in the ancient world.

Of course, these “tendencies of thought” arose as rich and accepted, and flourishing, formal schools of thought in the Rennaissance Era, with approximations of their modern form, during the 13th and 14th centuries in Northern Italy with a geographic transition into England and continental Europe (Grudin, 2017).

Given its assertions about the nature of the world — an emphasis on empirical investigation for imprecise, but ever-improving, reels of the material world, the focus on the natural world discovered by natural means or naturalism, reason and compassion allied with scientific investigation for decision-making with relevance to human beings and their happiness, and so on and so forth, these tend towards opposition with the dominant schools of thought seen in mainstream faiths across the world because of perpendicular, in content and purpose, assertions about the universe (Papineau, 2016; American Humanist Association, 2003; Harvard Divinity School, 2018).

The emphasis on, though not exclusionary utilization of, faith or “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see,” the discovery and comprehension of the world through revelation in order to prepare for the hereafter in some form, and care, compassion, and often good works (if not by grace) geared to the wellbeing of immaterial souls (The Bible, 2018; The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, 2017).

Granted, Encyclopedia Britannica orients humanism within the religion palette, but with an addendum about its own emphasis on human community and the natural world and not on the sacred and a potential afterlife.

In short, another form of religious belief focused on the here-and-now rather than the unforeseen and hoped-for there-and-then (The Bible, 2018). Formal religious practices tend to require assiduous effort, especially if of the self-flagellate kinds.

Given current trends within Canada, and by these standards, most Canadians with religious traditions, heritage, and practice do not meet this criteria for formal religious practitioners: religious by title (Press, 2013; Clark, 2003; Slater et al, 2015).

However, if the belief and epistemology, in its standard representation of trust in a higher power than oneself, then it amounts to hazy-lazy as a life trail.

To investigate, to prod and probe, to question, to doubt about everything, this takes time, effort, and another path in life less fuzzy and with fewer lazy moments than its traditional and dominant counterpart.

To construct a community in this manner brings about the common wisdom, which contain some modicum of truth values in its fundamental presuppositions, the unbelievers and infidel types, to play on the conceptual maps of the formal religious, in the construction efforts towards a communal environment of some form can feel as if “herding cats.”

How almost completely true, how pitiable, yet how hopeful and triumphal, the assumption amounts to at least two or more people trying in spite of the common pessimism and tiresome intellectual meanderings around the creation of said community.

That community of human beings in search of meaning, relationships, a common language and culture, music and art, and some place to build a foundational sense of family and sense of mutual respect and individual dignity in the pursuit of one’s livelihood: humanists.

In a Christian country, in Canada, via interpretation of the numbers throughout its history right into the present, many of the individuals with rejection of God with a formal atheism, often in the Abrahamic tradition, will move into the religiously unaffiliated categorization, but this amounts to a rejection of God or gods and the affirmation of their non-existence as well, in general (Press, 2013; Clark, 2003; Slater et al, 2015).

One of these groups of people equate to the humanists. Not only the standard denial found in atheism or the standard position of unknowing known as agnosticism; not only those related but distinct positions, humanism provides an affirmation of life values with an implied axiological status or set of values about life, epistemology or means through which to know the world, ontology or considerations about the foundational nature of being, ethic or how we should behave in accordance with and to one another, even a young aesthetic with the slow development of an art and culture with some writings and music and visual presentations meant to evoke emotions or strike thoughts.

Many in Canada grow without a faith or transition into none, the Nones, and then find a secular religion in its benign interpretation in humanism. It may seem like a big switch, but probably does not amount to much for many. In other words, to get a new lease on life, all you need to do is change your point of view a bit; and we are never too old for that. Plus, it comes with a community, but it remains acknowledged as a hard road to earn it.

References

American Humanist Association. (2003). Humanism and Its Aspirations: Humanist Manifesto III, a Successor to the Humanist Manifesto of 1933. Retrieved from https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/manifesto3/.

Clark, W. (2003). Pockets of Belief: Religious attendance patterns in Canada. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2002004/article/6493-eng.pdf?contentType=application%2Fpdf.

Grudin, R. (2017, November 22). Humanism. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/humanism.

Harvard Divinity School. (2018). Humanist Manifestos. Retrieved from https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/humanism/humanist-manifestos.

Humanists UK. (2018). The Ancient World. Retrieved from https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/the-humanist-tradition/the-ancient-world/.

Papineau, D. (2016). Naturalism. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/naturalism/.

Press, J. (2013, May 8). Religion in Canada, a breakdown. Retrieved from http://www.canada.com/life/Religion+Canada+breakdown/8354112/story.html.

Slater, P., Coward, H., Chagnon, R., & Baird, D. (2015, March 5). Religion. Retrieved from http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/religion/.

Statistics Canada. (2008, November 21). Canadians attend weekly religious services less than 20 years ago. Retrieved from https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-630-x/2008001/article/10650-eng.htm.

Stefon, M., et al. (2016, July 6). Mencius. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mencius-Chinese-philosopher.

The Bible (NIV). (2018). Hebrews 11:1. Retrieved from https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+11%3A1&version=NIV.

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2017, June 16). Charvaka. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Charvaka.

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2017, April 28). Religion. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/religion.

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2022-04-10

Triumph and Tribulation, Haiti Agriculture and Culture, and Sisal

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/03

—

I want to talk about some natural fibres in one particular part of the world that is unique, that part of the world is Haiti, which is under a great amount of duress at the moment following some tribulations and trials (or ‘trials and tribulations’ in the early part of 2016) in the country.

But first, I want to discuss or point out some of the basic information around natural fibres in the world, and then that part of the world. Natural fibres are composed of mineral, plant, and animal fibres. They can decompose. Mineral fibres only have one kind as far as I have discovered/learned, which is asbestos. Plant fibres are made of cellulose primarily and come from plants, of course. Animal fibres are composed of amino acids linked together in chains or proteins. Animal fibres come from a variety of fauna including camels, alpacas, and others.

Synthetic fibres and man-made fibres differ from natural fibres in that they do not decompose and are prominently seen in such things as polyester. Polyester being made primarily in mainland China based on consumer demand from Europe and North America, I assume.

With respect to Haiti, they have a proverb that says, ‘Bèf pa di savann mèsi.” The ox does not thank the field. That’s probably true. Or “Bèl cheve pa lajan.” Good hair is not money. For a poor country, which often lacks for the basics of life, then this makes perfect sense. You wear clothes for livelihood or to just have clothing, not as a frivolous garment. What is Haiti?

Haiti is a Caribbean country in or sharing the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is to East. In 2010, it had a terrible earthquake. That earthquake devastated much of the country, and the country has upwards of 10 million people in it. In Canada, we have approximately 36 to 37 million people. It’s teeny little place with a tremendous number of human beings. The capital is Port-au-Prince. And its official language is Haitian Creole French or French. Recently, a deadly attack was conducted on a Haitian police headquarter as tensions arose in February. The tensions arose and individuals in military fatigues attacked at night in the coastal city of Les Cayes.

Gunmen stormed police headquarters on Monday and killed 6 people in an apparent shootout at a police station. Could the country be close to a civil war? One of the problems with the possibility for the civil war at the present moment is in light of the fact that the country was unable to sign in a new president because it missed a deadline to do so.

The individuals that committed the crime seized automatic weapons. Some of these murderous activities stem from February in terms of a political disagreement for the Caribbean nation. It failed to hold a runoff election. In other words, both deadlines were missed.

How does this relate to the natural fibres? Look at the people, look at the frustration, look at the clothes, it’s all intertwined. One giant interconnected web. Sisal, itself, has actually been used in terms of content materials for furniture and construction in addition to cars and plastics and paper products. The plant is quite hardy and can grow year round in hot climates and even in arid or dry regions that are typically unsuitable for other crops.

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2022-04-10

The Cycle of Natural Fibres

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/03

—

Cycles are loopy, ideally. Not crazy. It’s a system that feeds back into itself. Pick a circular metaphor, that’s it. It’s not necessarily the most efficient in the short-term. But the bet is on the long term. Sustainable for generations to come, and ethical, super ethical because, this loop provides decent conditions for future generations. I introduce the natural fiber lifecycle, not a new idea – far from it. So, it’s not mine, and I have no idea where the concept (not the title, though,) started out.

Synthetic or man-made fibers might have more productive methodologies in the short-term. But there’s basically a one-way line from production to consumption to waste. I mean, look at the landfills and oceans, global catastrophe case in point. The landfills are stocked with synthetic garbage. The oceans have 4.54 trillion pieces of super-small plastics alone. Our recycling isn’t keeping with the level of intake-outtake. And the waste that falls through the massive gap is non-biodegradable, which means it will be around forever. So we are left with a mess. A big one. Like that proverbial chocolate on the white dress shirt or wedding gown. It ain’t comin’ out, except by drastic measure.

Demand in the fashion industry has caused the production for synthetics to increase. Alas, alternatives exist! Natural fibers, on the other hand, are natural thus involving a cycle! Which includes the input, the processing, and the output. Input, involves growing the plant fibers by proper fertilization and watering. For the animal fibers, there’s getting the right food like grain or grass, and water sources, and even the occasional need for open fields for that grazing.

Then comes the processing which involves harvest for the plant fibers and a shearing or de-hairing for the animals’ fibers. It’s a very different set of processes, the outcome, sustainable product which allows cycles to continue! Then comes the fun part! The fashion guru’s get to make some hip, even beautiful, products that are sustainable and have the environment in mind. I’m no pro, but there are many options. And they are pretty fantastic work. I would be fumbling to make these things with my clubs for hands, but take a short look at some of the other bloggers’ stuff from very recent.

And then comes the last part of this cycle, which includes many, many parts. There’s the cutting and composting route with red wiggle worms (Real name!) and a hot composting to help out. This makes fashion bio-degradable. And then there’s the waiting…stage…that…comes…next.

Fertilizer: that’s the final product that’s used in the soil for plant fibers to grow (with some water) and to feed the grazing grounds that grows the grass that the animals eat – camels, alpacas, stuff like that. And that’s the natural fiber life cycle(s)! Which makes fashion for the conscious minded individual more enjoyable!

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2022-04-10

Boxer Shorts, Boxer Briefs, Trunks, Briefs, Jockstraps, Bikinis, Thongs, and G-Strings

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/02

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You know what they say about a man’s underwear: he wears them. He doesn’t wear them to wear them alone, though. In that, he might have other purposes. What do you think? I think he wears them for health, if he’s conscious and conscientious about these things.

Comfort matters, undergarments matter, but so does health such as reproductive health. In my experience, there are some things men rarely talk about. Nonetheless, the men do at times in Canada – or, at least, maybe, in your county or township. And there’s more than the basic idea of “underwear.” Men have lots of kinds of undergarments; boxer shorts, boxer briefs, trunks, briefs, jockstraps, bikinis, thongs, and G-strings.

That’s a basic visual crash-course in the underwear meant for males. If you scroll or look back up the kinds of underwear for them among the 8 that I know of online – others might exist but I do not know for sure, what’s the problem there? There’s something off about most of them and we’ll get to that in a tiny bit. But what are the testicles, really, and what do they do – in brief?

Testicles are part of the male sex anatomy and sometimes called the testes or gonads. They are two glands that are a main part of the male genitalia. They are housed in a skin pouch and produce one set of gamete cells and one hormone; the male sex cells for reproduction, sperm, and the testosterone, the ‘male’ hormone. Sperm development is best with temperature slightly below that of the rest of the body.

What is the process for semen? According to the experts, the process takes about a total of 7 weeks. That’s something amazing to me. It takes 7 weeks in total. If you look at the seminiferous tubules or the sertoli cells on the diagram above, the germ cells create the sperm. Once gone from there, they move and are stored in the epididymis for maturation for a few weeks, after which time they proceed into and up the vas deferens for admixing with the prostate and the seminal vesicles; That then becomes semen.

What about testosterone? That leaves the leydig cells that are throughout the testicle and the core creator of testosterone for the body. Typical male characteristics that come from the heavy production of testosterone are facial hair, low voice, wide shoulders, and without this the man can suffer from depression, fatigue, hot flashes (men get them too!), and even osteoporosis. You can find out more here.

So what are the health issues? One issue has to do with the innate aspect of the male sex from biology. As with many other mammal and primate species, the innate male sex organ is complicated and prone to problems like most organs and, of course, this includes the testicles. The testicles are outside of the body in human males, and this is the reason why they need to be about a degree cooler, less hot, in comparison to the temperature of the body. Tight underwear can make them to close to the body and even keep too much heat in for that 7-week developmental cycle of sperm and, that means, health sperm or male gamete cell development. Oh, man!

Another issue deals with an intuitive sense of the constriction to the blood flow to the testicles. Tight underwear can cause problems for the testicles themselves by this constriction. Apparently, the loss or reduction of regular circulation in the testicles of men, such as myself, can lead to some major reproductive issues. What does this do? According to the experts that spend their time writing the medical textbooks and websites, it reduces the sperm count of the man that happens to wear these tight garments. Like this:

That’s tight. That’s constricting and it can reduce sperm count, which for many, many men that, likely, want children can be a health issue and reproductive concern. I think it’s a probability issue. If you wish to increase chances of fertilization as a man, then this is something that you need to take into account for the future, especially with the modern reproductive health services – the numerous ones around – that can assist with family planning. Women have their own concerns and issues with respect to reproductive health. Men have their own too; myself included, because I would want to increase the chances of fertility with appropriate family planning for my partner and I (not dating at the moment, single as a lost sock). Most of the time, people want families, and so this seems like a reasonable concern to bear in mind, I feel.

Even further, there’s another issue with a higher surface area for bacterial growth on synthetic materials, which can cause…issues…odor problems. Bacterial growth can cause that, and it is more likely with synthetic materials. And if you have an intimate partner, or consider general genital health, then this can be an even more serious issue. Because I would want to keep my partner included on health things. Why? Well, if married or together with someone, my health, especially sexual health, could have impacts on my partner. And so, continuing with elementary moral truisms such as ‘the Golden Rule’ , I would expect the same of them, and so I expect the same of me.

Finally, and one particular point brought to my attention by Shannon, cotton is one of the least moisture absorbing fabrics, and this can cause irritation to the skin, which is also an issue for the health of male genitalia, and ties into the rest of the points. Thanks for your attention…

By the way, please feel free to disagree with any of this. I’m not a deity or anything like that, I did some research, and presented some information and opinions. Does this make me an underwear connoisseur now? Doubt it.

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2022-04-10

Decomposition, Natural Fibres, Networks, Blogging, and Climate Change

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/01

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We’re back again once more with a very short discussion on natural fibres! Another important discussion around the foundations of sustainable and ethical and healthy fashion. We here at Trusted Clothes work on these issues and consider them of the utmost importance.

Natural fibres are more important than many other things. They incorporate networks of people and ideas in blogs and fashion clothing lines. Idea’s to do with global warming and climate change, sustainability, pollution of the environment, plastics, synthetic fibre industries including especially polyester, and many things that are not necessarily on the forefront of concern, and possibly those not even discovered to date.

The basic distinction in natural fibres is between plant and animal fibres. Plant fibres have cellulose and can decompose. Animal fibres have amino acids for proteins and can decompose. One of the best ways to decompose is hot composting. However, one of the other ways to decompose, a standard way, is through cold composting. Composting is dumping stuff into a pile with other rotting things like fruit and vegetable peels and the stuff will, in general, if not synthetic, decompose and can make for a pretty good fertilizer.

There can be some additional help for the decomposition with a general purpose red wiggler worms. They’ve helped for millions of years. Why not some more now? Synthetic fibres or man-made fibres cannot decompose and they are in fact the problem for the environment, for climate change and global warming. Their lifecycle is only a one-way arrow and not an actual cycle. Not even that little critter can help. Sorry little buddy!

So I want to talk a little bit about what the nature of the problem is. The problem is that healthy and sustainable ethical fashion does require a focus on the natural fibres. Natural fibres are pretty much the only way that we do have and know about in terms of creating the cycle of the Earth’s fibres.

Fibres that can be taken from the earth, manufactured and made into fashion, and then put back into the earth – or what is put back into the earth becomes the fertilizer based on the decomposition of the original biological material

The fibres can then be utilized for further growth of crops that can be used for fibres. The nature of the problem is many, many fold. It is a multi-headed beast, but we can work our way through it. So, what can we do?

We can change our consumption patterns. We can change the things that we grow. We can change the things that we wear. We can change the things we consider fashionable. We can adapt our current consumption patterns to a more sustainable cycle. We can coordinate with indigenous cultures that happen to use natural fibres rather than larger conglomerates and corporations that happen to use the synthetic or man-made fibres that do not decompose and pollute the environment, that contributes to one of the most devastating environmental challenges overtime for the 21st-century known as climate change/global warming.

This is noted by the international community, many national communities and societies, groups and associations and organizations, and individuals with equal perspective and concern not only for themselves, but also for the subsequent generations coming before our children and our children’s children. If we do want an sustainable future, and to keep ethical bounds of with respect to our life-support system known as the environment, then we will need to have a radical shift in terms of how it relates to the environment as a whole.

As with everything written, I could be wrong, incredibly wrong – think for yourself and come to your own conclusions. I’m human. I’m a writer. I have biases, fallibilities, and quirks – even some funny ones. My words aren’t gold, nor are they a calf.

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2022-04-10

Andrea Sanabria, Something Personal, and La Petite Mort

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/01

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It sounds to me like something personal in that way. As an aside, you would know better than I would, have you looked at the amount of carbon footprint from synthetic fibres compared to natural fibres?

Right, I think at the end I do take it personally because of what I have seen. What pushed me is that Latin America produces a lot of raw material that is high quality. I think the first article I wrote for Trusted Clothes was about farming in Latin America because we are changing our ways to become better.

What I think is silly is that we produce high quality coffee, food, and textiles, and it all goes abroad. All of the footprint you’re reducing by changing your ways of production, it needs to be transported to the other side of the world. All your savings went out, again! Actually, we aren’t producing it for us. We’re producing it for them (developed countries). You hardly find those in the local market. Then we get really low quality products imported from Asia, and so on, we follow trends. We follow the American look.

Low quality products from these far away countries coming all the way to Peru… In my logic, this doesn’t make any sense. You’re making high quality fibres and not even using them. You’re sending them far, far away. So, though my idea, initially, was to produce high quality clothing to sell in Europe where people actually care about manufacture… seeing the situation in my country. I figured this was impossible, something had to be done.

In my eyes, we have full potential. We’re just not seeing it. At the end, it’s a matter of misinformation. It’s not a matter of money. The price is not even that high.

You founded La Petite Mort, organic streetwear company, where “la petite mort” is translated as “little death” or as a popular reference to a sexual orgasm. How do these two relate to one another?

The inspiration for the company is, first, to develop an alternative to streetwear, common streetwear, that we wear every day… but in organic cotton. Farther than organic, I’ve chosen to work with Pima cotton. You have several types of cotton. The pima one is the cotton that has a longer fiber. So, when you do the textiles, it’s going to be softer. You notice that immediately when touching a t-shirt. I really want people to relate the brand to the substance. I decided to work with the best that I could find to make these pieces. If you look at the brand, it’s not really about statement pieces. It’s a regular t-shirt, so it better be a good one! I also try to make it very approachable.

The second is also that it’s environmentally friendly. I wanted to develop the brand with a lower impact, of course.

Then, the inspiration for the name brand… la petite mort is, of course, the orgasm. It is actually the moment of the orgasm that lasts maybe half a second. As if you were dead for an instant. It goes farther than orgasm itself. It is the feeling of emptiness – total, ultimate freedom, it is what people look for when they do yoga or meditation, or reach nirvana. It’s just another way to put it.

I chose it because when I learned the meaning of it. I thought, “Wow! This is so true, we all look for this” Even before I had the brand, I had this concept in my mind, back of my mind. So, I decided that when the time came to grab it. I am having trouble with it because the new generations of French do not really understand or make the connection with la petite mort. It’s kind of sad as a name.

Once they get it, they connect to it, some of them. (Laughs) And once you do, it’s hard to forget, right? I don’t do the whole la petite mort when working in Latin America, because French is hard! In Spanish I use the short La P.M. standing for la puta madre, which means something super cool. It’s slang, urban slang.

To me, La Petite Mort, is the ultimate nirvana. There’s no other name to call it. I don’t want to use a yogi name! (Laughs)

Any concluding feelings or thoughts about sustainable fashion?

I’m going to say it is a lot of work. Sometimes, I feel like the brand, if I didn’t mention “sustainable,” it would run even better because when you take this approach people immediately back away. I think there is a lot of clichés around it. That’s why when I try to communicate I try to be very soft, very positive, and not to make people feel guilty. To this point, I think fashion has been sold in the wrong way.

I wish there was more of this movement in Latin America. I know there are organizations working on it over there, but the road is still long. So, I take it personally to help raise consciousness. It’s crazy. We are the ones that get affected the most in the developing countries. That’s all that.

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2022-04-10

Andrea Sanabria, Fashion, Lima, and Peruvian Fashion

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/09/01

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Would you tell us a little about your familial and personal background, as well as provide some educational background?

I spent most of my life in Peru, but I finished my high school in the U.S. I lived in Minnesota for a year and went back several times after that and I did all of my university in Lima because after high school, I went back to Peru. Though I am not originally from Lima, I’ve lived there for, maybe, 10 years. Finally, I stayed working there in advertising and marketing. After a few years of work, I felt the need to change industries because fashion was actually moving in Peru. Before, the industry wasn’t much in terms of creative fashion – it relied more on manufacture and production. I wouldn’t have really called it a fashion industry, more like industry-suppliers. But at that time, the creative industry was already moving, though in a slow pace.

So, I decided to travel to see what the fashion industry was actually like around the world because I knew we were in a very early phase. I decided to move to France to do my Masters in fashion management, with thoughts of moving back to Peru right afterwards to help develop the industry there and build a bridge between the Peruvian industry with the rest of the industry abroad. While I was here in France, I discovered sustainable fashion – which in Peru we didn’t know about.

Now, there is a little bit of it. In Latin America in general, there is a little bit of sustainable knowledge, but people talk about it and don’t really know about it. Here, even though French people consider it not that important or developed, to me, it was like, “Wow!” It’s been eye-opening. So, I decided to stay here to learn more about it.

You are a freelance writer and activist for better practices in the fashion business. How does this play out in personal and professional life at the present?

To be honest, until maybe, two years ago, I was really the regular professional person. When I was in Peru, I would work for several companies in marketing. On the side, I would always do freelance design just for the fun of it. When I moved to France, after school I started working for fashion companies. I was on the regular path I guess. But ever since I decided to fully commit to sustainable fashion and the promotion of sustainable fashion in Latin America, starting my own company of course, I quit any possibilities of a full-time job and have been doing freelance ever since. I have been freelancing for fashion showrooms, for sales, and everything that has to do with writing. Everything that aligns with fashion and sustainable fashion. I do that nowadays. I am an entrepreneur and freelancer. It’s a mess sometimes (laughs).

You have experience in the international market and a specialty for Latin America, and you are a featured author for Trusted Clothes. How does your expertise influence chosen article topics?

I’ve been checking a lot of blogs and writers that are contributing. They write about their own personal experience, which I think is important to start. I also started to write what it is like to start your own business, and I think it is the first step because you are connecting people that are thinking, “Maybe, I should be more interested in this, than that.” But in the articles that I’ve been doing afterwards, I’ve been trying to look at it more from a commercial point of view. At how sustainable fashion and practices is something that you can make profit off. Little businesses, and major brands, are looking into it and developing. I cannot not see that with my background.

I’ve studied marketing strategies, green-washing cases, and successful online startups. So when I see it happening, I immediately do a little research and write about it. The last article, which I wrote for Trusted Clothes, and hasn’t been published yet, is about the shared economy and how it applies to fashion, because it’s a big thing right now.

It has taken longer for fashion. So, I wrote a little bit about my thoughts on it, and at the end I always end up mentioning, based on personal observations on the international scene – why it’s happening or not happening in Latin America – how it applies there. Because being from Latin America, and going there once a year, I get to see how the market changes, and then I get to compare it with the rest of the world because I want to say the US and Europe are somewhat aligned. However, I feel Latin America is behind. And I try to state why it is we’re behind or in different states.

I mix my professional background with my cultural background every day (laughs).

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2022-04-10

But What Can I Do?

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/08/31

am a writer and executive administrator for Trusted Clothes, which is an ethical and sustainable fashion organization. The following is a series devoted in honor of the work done in collaboration with the Schroeckers and the Trusted Clothes team.

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I felt like writing a less thinking piece. And more of a reflective or opinion piece, based on a feeling, not so uncommon, and not so profound, but worth its weight in meaning.

Something ‘struck’ me. And it’s the idea of reach. Personal reach, emotional reach, the reach of physical work, the reach into the lives and minds of others, and hopefully (if super lucky) hearts of others, and so on and so forth. How far can I possibly go?

Like, if in this endeavour with such a limited capacity in my own life, what could I do? I’m just a person, like most people. There’s small contributions: getting informed, knowing a bit, reflection on these things talking, writing, et cetera, etc. There’s doing composting – hot or cold – to reduce my personal impact on the environment and eventually on the climate.

And I know I’m already bad at that. I know that. So I feel as though, at times, it’s like, “but what could I do?” Well, a good first step is to learn about these things. Good.

What then? Well, I’ve done some of the taking in of neat stuff, and then there’s writing. Writing?

Yup, it’s the productive phase past learning about things. I can do some kind of mini-outreach to others through this. I can reference. I can footnote or end note. I can think more, and re-reference (and footnote or end note), and on and on. That’s a great tool to learn, kind of.

But does that matter to folks? I don’t know, quite frankly. I have an intuition that there’s some reach there, but is that good enough? For me: no. What then?

There’s reading other peoples’ work. Other articles. Other interviews, even chapters or whole books. But that takes a lot of time. And time is short with lots of things going on. Many folks have kids, have work – have lives. Or, in other words, have resources being spent, resources which are likely quite short, like time, money, emotions and energy, or other, more personally immediate, things. Even after those things, there’s reflection on all of this together, talking straight about the issues, staying positive, and, maybe, keeping persistent.

Persistent writing, persistence reading, persistent thinking, persistent work in general. That’s a good start, and it skips a lot of the issues around particularities and funky little details.

Is this all too much waving of hands, and wishing the wishes? I don’t know, but can see why it might seem like it.

Even with that, it would seem wrong to me in that, even though there’s the “but what can I do?”, there’s also the little voice of “but what can’t we do?” ‘cause it’s an organizational message, a collective and communal effort, a group plan, and a unified network of principles.

So I don’t know for sure, and could be wrong, but I think the voice of doubt alone can be replaced by a voice of assurance together.

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2022-04-10

A Brief Note on Natural Fibres and Climate Change, or Always a Polar Bear

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/08/31

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Natural fibres split into animal fibres and plant fibres with the animal fibres composed of proteins and the plant fibres of cellulose.[i]^{,[ii],[iii],[iv],[v]}

These, together, constitute a large set of industries with millions of workers including the textile industry, and they have competition from the synthetic or man-made fibre industry.[vi]^,[vii] One of these is compostable or bio-degradable, and the other is not.

Plant and animal fibres are bio-degradable such as in a cold or hot compost, and synthetic or man-made fibres are not.[viii]^{,[ix],[x],[xi],[xii]} The one’s that do not biodegrade will tend to end in landfills and the ocean, and will become broke down cubes such as microplastics.[xiii]^{,[xiv],[xv],[xvi],[xvii]}

The lifecycle of synthetic or man-made fibres are different than the natural fibres because the natural fibre lifecycle is shaped like a loop. And the synthetic or man-made fibre lifecycle is basically a straight line with some looping via recycling.

And with this taken in its full implications comes around to one of the major issues of our time, global warming or climate change.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations via Jan van Dam, the connection between environmental sustainability, climate change, and natural fibres is not necessarily a complicated one. How so?

The promotion of the use of natural fibres as CO2 neutral resource is believed to contribute to a greener planet… The transition towards a bio-based economy and sustainable developments as a consequence of the Kyoto protocols on greenhouse gas reduction and CO2 neutral production offers high perspectives for natural fibre markets… On ecological grounds products should then be preferred that are based on photosynthetic CO2 fixation… Growing of crops results in the fixation in biomass of atmospheric CO2 through photosynthesis and has therefore in principle a positive effect on the CO2 balance.[xviii]

There we go again. A green planet, accordance with the Kyoto Protocol (and likely numerous other agreements), carbon capture, an actual lifecycle for feeding back into its own future generations of growth and product via natural fibres, and even a reduction in the net CO2 in the medium- to long-term. What’s not to like – and there’s plenty more where that came from.

It can be a complex representation of the information. However, the fundamental principles need little thought. Synthetic fibres do not decompose. Natural fibres decompose. What follows? The former become various direct and indirect pollutants and is, therefore, unsustainable and increases the ongoing climactic warming; the latter amounts to a self-sustaining cycle and is, therefore, sustainable and reduces the ongoing climactic warming.

[i] New World Encyclopedia. (2014, December 23). Natural Fiber.[ii] natural fibre. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica.[iii] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2009). Natural Fibres.[iv] Government of Canada: Canadian Conservation Institute. (2015, November 23). Natural Fibres – Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) Notes 13/11.[v] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2009). Why Natural Fibres?.[vi] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2009). Natural Fibres.[vii] man-made fibre. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica.[viii] Wild Fibres. (2016, February 15). Animal Fibres.[ix] Wild Fibres. (2016, February 15). Plant Fibres.[x] Almanac. (2016). How to Compost: Hot and Cold Methods.[xi] Vegetable Gardener. (2009, February 10). Composting Hot or Cold.[xii]Kitchen Gardeners International. (n.d.). Which is better: hot or cold composting?.[xiii]New World Encyclopedia. (2016). Natural Fiber.[xiv] United Nations Environment Programme. (2013). Microplastics.[xv] Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. (2016). Microplastics and microbeads.[xvi] WorldWatch Institute. (2015, January 28). Global Plastic Production Rises, Recycling Lags.[xvii] [National Geographic]. (2015, October27). Are Microplastics in Our Water Becoming a Macroproblem?.[xviii] Van Dam, J.E.G.. (n.d.). Environmental benefits of natural fibre production and use.

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2022-04-10

Abena Sara, “Batiks,” Batiks for Life, and Ghana

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/08/31

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Batiks for life has come a long way, what does “Batiks” mean and where did the name of the company originate from?

Batik is a process of creating a print on cotton fabric, by applying wax to form a design, then dyeing the cloth, then removing the wax. It’s a traditional way of making beautiful fabrics in many parts of the world and in Ghana, there’s a particular way of making batik that’s been handed down from generation to generation that’s specific to this country. One way of making batik in Ghana involves using stamps with symbols known as “Adinkra” – it’s a centuries-old system of symbology with meanings attached to each symbol, kind of like a proverb in a way. So, for instance, you could tell a story through the Adinkra symbols stamped on your batik! I love these symbols, which tell the story of life in all its nuances. The name “Batiks for Life” is partly about the Adinkra symbols used in batik, but also about the intention that sales of our products will support life – from the people in Ghana who make the products, to the customer. Our batik medical scrubs are one of a kind, and bring colour and liveliness into often depressing environments. We have several repeat customers who remark on how their patients enjoy the batik scrubs they’re wearing! Additionally, our mission is to use a portion of our income to support life-giving medical projects here in Ghana. This has been a goal of mine since the beginning of the business, but I never expected to be able to realize this dream so soon. I’ll say more about this below.

The process of batik requires several steps. Wax is applied to the white cotton fabric, either as a stamped pattern, or painted on in a free form design. The fabric is dyed; only the parts free of wax take the dye. After drying, the wax is boiled off.

What kinds of things does Batiks for Life offer, and what is the overall purpose, to you, of the organization?

We started out with medical scrubs, but pretty soon people who don’t wear scrubs were asking for other batik products. They wanted to support our mission, but the product wasn’t appealing to them. So we’re in the process of adding new products that our supporters asked for, like different sizes of bags, yardage of batik fabric, and wrap skirts. Right now our batik artistes are working on some batik wall hangings that I’m excited to put up on the website! I think one of the things that makes our products desirable (in addition to being beautiful of course!) is that customers know that people in this developing country are being supported through their production, and that a portion of income goes right back to the community in the form of healthcare initiatives.

What is the difference between fair trade products and other products?

First off, I want to be clear that Batiks for Life products have not yet been certified as Fair Trade – this is a lengthy process which we will undertake once we are more established. But we do incorporate fair trade business practices – meaning the people who create our products are paid a living wage and work in safe conditions. Actually, they set their own prices and work out of their own small businesses. So there is no concern that they’re being exploited or forced to work in unsafe factories like often happens when sewn products are mass produced in China or other countries.

You contribute to a website on wildlife conservation in the continent of Africa. What is its importance as a website or resource, and the salience of larger efforts to preserve wildlife in Africa?

The website is www.safaritalk.net and is a community of people who support wildlife conservation efforts in Africa. Some people own safari lodges, others are visitors to Africa, and some live on the continent. There’s always interesting discussion about wildlife topics, amazing photography, and reports on places all over Africa. One of the issues that continually comes up is that most of the problems facing wildlife here are economy-driven. When people don’t have another source of income, they will be more likely to poach wildlife. We all know about the plight of rhinos and elephants, but it continues down to the smallest of animals. Poaching here in Ghana is a huge problem because people love bushmeat. Bushmeat can be anything from grasscutter (a large rodent that lives in sugar cane fields), to antelope, to monkey, etc. Anything that moves can be consumed, pretty much. Combined with habitat loss, this has decimated the local wildlife. But, if people have a reason to keep the animals alive, by and large they’ll protect them. Again, it’s economy-driven. So some communities have started wildlife sanctuaries which are tourist destinations and bring money into the community. Ghana isn’t known for wildlife as are East and South Africa, so through my writing for Safaritalk, I hope that more people will see that we too have wildlife (you just have to know where to look!), which will bring in more tourism, and keep these local wildlife sanctuaries, preserves, and national parks alive.

What is the importance of the companies and organizations such as Trusted Clothes and Batiks for Life to you?

I think that people are in a conundrum when it comes to their clothing. We all know that most of what we get at the department store is produced by people who work in a form of slavery – these clothing companies make a huge profit on the backs of impoverished people in the “third world”. Yet while someone may feel bad about supporting these businesses through their buying choices, they don’t know their options. We’re here to show them the options, and to convince people that it’s worth a little extra money to buy something unique and lasting. I value my connection with Trusted Clothes because it reminds me that on top of all the other reasons I’m here in Ghana pursuing this crazy idea of mine, I’m also contributing to a healthier world through promoting sustainable clothing options. Kind of like the cherry on top!

Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?

I wanted to back up and say a bit more about the healthcare initiative I mentioned above. Godfried is from a little village in the southeastern corner of Ghana. I interviewed the two nurses who run the clinic – I also write for a nursing website, HireNurses.com – and I’m doing a series on healthcare in Ghana. In doing this interview it became clear that they’re doing the best they can, but are really hampered in their ability to provide healthcare for the village for a lot of reasons. I saw the opportunity to do something to help. It was an initial goal of mine that Batiks for Life would give back to the community through giving a portion of income to health related projects, but I never expected it to happen so soon in the life of the business. For Godfried, it’s also a dream come true because his great-great-grandfather founded the village and so he’s in the lineage of chiefs and very concerned about the welfare of the village. He’s also had an idea in his mind for a long time about leading medical mission trips throughout the country. Well, almost immediately we started getting offers of help that were most unexpected! We’re pursuing these offers and trying to wrap our heads around the possibilities! It’s really exciting and we hope to make our ambitions to help under served communities with their healthcare a reality.

10% of income from sales of products will go toward this little village’s health center. Sara will be posting an article about the health center and the challenges they face in providing health care in a remote village soon. They will also be accepting donations of over the counter meds and other supplies, as well as monetary donations toward a building fund to help the clinic expand.

Click here to read more of Sara’s posts from Africa and Batiks for Life.

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2022-04-10

Sarah Mills, Writing Methodology, Tone and Pace, and Tips for Budding Writers

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/08/30

Sarah Mills is a Writer and Editor at Conatus News, as well as a personal friend with whom I have written some articles. Here is a short interview with her.

—

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is your methodology for writing?

Sarah Mills: Each writer has a different approach to writing. Some like to take an organic approach, which involves sitting down and allowing the story to develop while writing. Others, myself included, prefer to outline the direction of the story and have all the elements in place before beginning to write. This includes any research and character development.

Jacobsen: How do you take into account tone and pace in your writing? How has your previous writing affected your current writing? What makes for a better piece?

Mills: I like to think that, in my writing, form and content are inextricably linked. For example, a piece packed with action might call for shorter sentences and paragraphs, which make for a faster pace. If a piece is more introspective, on the other hand, perhaps a discursive style might be more appropriate. A writer might also choose to play with reader expectation and deliberately deviate from this. I like to experiment.

I hope that my current writing is always an improvement on my previous writing. A successful piece will most always bring an original perspective to the table. If a writer, either through innovative use of language or a unique set of life experiences, can cause a shift in the reader’s mind so that he/she views a concept in an unconventional light or even comes to a profound conclusion about humanity, I think this is an achievement. But it is an equally commendable achievement if the reader is simply entertained or allowed to escape the stresses of life for a little while!

Jacobsen: What are some of your more enjoyable topics to write on? Can you link to some examples?

Mills: It depends what you mean by ‘enjoyable.’ Most of what I write is not light-hearted, but I do enjoy, if we define that term loosely, writing about socially and politically relevant topics. Art can be edifying when it draws upon reality and holds up a mirror to society. I believe that it can be an instrument for change in this way. So while writing about something like genocide, for example, is never going to be enjoyable- as in pleasurable – I am gratified if it is illuminating and leads readers to appreciate our common humanity. Having said that, I do dabble in short stories that, I like to think, are witty or humorous, albeit in a dark way. Here’s a link to a short story that was recently published. It’s called ‘Hayfever’ and it deals with conversion therapy, hive mentality, consumerism, the pharmaceutical and food industries, and the environment- all under 4,000 words!

Jacobsen: What are some tips budding writers can use to make their writing more effective?

Mills: Read. Before a writer is a writer, he/she must be an avid reader. Read classics. Read experimental work. Read pieces that shifted the paradigms of the literary world. Follow the rules before you break them. Get a strong grip on grammar. Don’t be pretentious and haughty and think you’re too cool for school. Many artists fall into this trap. The artist is not a persona. The artist is simply a person who acutely perceives and relays. Write about your passions and write well.

Jacobsen: What is next for you? How do you hope to develop your craft? Any books coming down the pipe?

Mills: I try to never sit on my laurels. As soon as I’ve had something published, I’m on to the next article, short story, or poem. I hope to have more of my works published; I do see this as a sort of positive feedback, a confirmation that my writing appeals to people other than myself. So that is definitely a goal. I am currently developing a novel that I’m quite passionate about. It’s in its nascent stage and is going to require a lot of research.

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2022-04-10

Abena Sara, Trusted Clothes, Ghana, and Ethical and Sustainable Fashion

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/08/30

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Abena Sara is a regular contributor and featured author here at Trusted Clothes. Read more about her below through this one-on-one interview with Scott.

Your name is Sara Corry, but you have the name Abena Sara, too. How did this come about for you?

In Ghana, everyone has a ‘day name’ that corresponds to the day they were born. I was born on a Tuesday, so my day name is Abena. When saying it, the stress is on the first A so it’s like AH-beh-nuh – not aBEEnah like most people outside of Ghana pronounce it.

You have a passion for travel, and you’re living in eastern Ghana near its capital of Accra at the moment. How’d you get there? Tell us your story.

That’s a long story, but I’ll try to keep it brief. I was involved with African drumming in Albuquerque, New Mexico where I’m from, for many years. One of my teachers is from Ghana, which piqued my interest in Ghana in the first place. Then, a friend from a drum circle introduced me to a Ghanaian friend who was visiting NM – this was back in 2010. His friend, Godfried, and I hit it off and kept in contact after he went back to Ghana. In 2011 he invited me to come to Ghana and see some of the country, and I went for 16 days. The trip was amazing. I’d never been to a “third world” country and I saw so many things that touched my heart and soul. I fell in love with Ghana, and with Godfried. Then lots of “life” happened for both of us and I didn’t return until 2014, for a month this time. When planning the trip, I started brainstorming ways I could spend more time in Ghana, and the idea to form a business that would allow me to be here more often came to mind. One thing led to another and I realized that my passion is with humanitarian causes and a desire to give a hand up to people who are in desperate situations. In February, 2015 I returned and ultimately spent nine months in Ghana, working on business development – and I’m still here! I’m working on getting residency so that Godfried and I can be together and continue work we’ve started on a project to improve medical care in villages, and of course to develop Batiks for Life

Your posts always have great photographs of Ghana. What personal fulfillment comes from it?

Yes, I love photography, although I’m really an amateur. I love nature photography most, but I’ve managed to get some nice shots of people here in Ghana. Ghana in general is a very colourful and photogenic country! For me, photography can be a spiritual thing. It’s soul-nourishing to slow down and see my surroundings through the camera lens.

And you’ve lived in the desert for over 30 years. How did this come about for you?

I moved to Albuquerque, NM (high desert in North Central NM) in 1988 (after spending a couple of years there previously). New Mexico’s state slogan is “the Land of Enchantment” and it’s a joke that we say it’s the “Land of Entrapment”! Or like Hotel California, you can check in any time you like, but you can never leave! The land does seem to hold onto people! I do love New Mexico and my family is there, so I’ll be back to visit at some point. Ghana feels like home now though.

What’s a normal day in Ghana like for you?

It’s a rather “chop wood, carry water” kind of life – in some ways a little like camping. I don’t have a huge income so I can’t afford the high rise apartments or fancy gated communities in downtown Accra. Actually I wouldn’t want to live like that anyhow, surrounded by mostly ex-pats and apart from everyday people. So I live in a small town in a small house, draw water from a well every morning, wash my clothes by hand, shower from a bucket of cold water, shop for food at the markets and food stalls, and cook over a little gas canister, just like most people here. One challenge is that I’m continually singled out because of my skin colour, which gets kind of embarrassing at times. But whereas a Black person in a predominately white area of the US might be negatively singled out, here “obrunis” are looked upon as an asset to the community. Sometimes this becomes another kind of challenge, when children come to me asking for money for instance, or when the market ladies overcharge me. Even Godfried has said he gets charged more at the market when I’m with him. To be looked upon as a source of easy money is uncomfortable, and creates a kind of entitlement which is exactly the opposite of what I’m trying to do through my work.

Click here to read more of Sara’s posts from Africa and Batiks for Life.

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2022-04-10

A Brief History of Natural Fibres

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/08/30

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Natural fibres have been around for a long time and will continue to be around for much longer. As described by the Encylopedia Britannica, Natural Fibres are “any hairlike raw material directly obtainable from an animal, vegetable, or mineral source and convertible into nonwoven fabrics”[i]

It’s out of the textile industry, or the industry devoted to fibres, filaments, and yarns capable of being crafted into cloth or fabric for the production of material.[ii] That’s a huge industry, international in fact, which is connected to the local economies of many, many developing nations.

And these same developing nations have consumers throughout the world – and our concern is for the sustainable and ethical working conditions. With the strong emphasis on natural fibres production because of their variety and their ability to decompose and not simply accumulate in landfills.

Natural fibres, as utilized in small-scale and rather ancient textile industries, dates back to before the era of recording history.[iii] Flax and wool appear to be the most prominent sources in those times of ‘pre-history,’ which have been found at various Swiss excavation sites dating to the 7^th and 6^th centuries BC; and this coincides with multiple vegetable fibres utilized in a similar manner by ancient peoples.[iv]

Some would claim that the oldest are “flax (10000BC) cotton (5000 BC) and silk (2700 BC), but even jute and coir have been cultivated since antiquity.”[v] The more detailed histories appear to exist with hemp natural fibre, at least as a cultivated fibre plant emerging out of Southeast Asia, which “spread to China” around 4500 BC.[vi]

After this, along came the introduction, or the development/invention of spinning and weaving linen around 3400 – at least, and likely before that time in Egypt based on the archaeological record, and so flax was developed before that time too.[vii] There were even developments around that time in India with cotton (3,000 BC).[viii]

Lastly, we come to China and silk from this ancient era. The manufacture, and one can reasonably suppose distribution, of silk and its associated products came from them. According to Encyclpedia Britannica, it was “highly developed” at around 2640 BC with the “invention and development of sericulture – a sort of silkworm cultivation to get raw silk, wow![ix]

Phew, that’s a lot of information. Part II, we’ll cover some of the more recent history of natural fibres, and how they came to be – stay tuned!

[i] natural fibre. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica.[ii] textile. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica.[iii] natural fibre. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica.[iv] Ibid.[v] Bcomp Technologies. (n.d.). Natural Fibre Specialists. Retrieved from BCOMP.[vi] natural fibre. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica.[vii] Ibid.[viii] Ibid.[ix] Ibid.

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2022-04-10

Sustainable Fibres – Camel Hair, Humps, and Fashion

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/08/29

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It’s that time again! First, a quick recap from part one Sustainable Fibres: What is Abaca. There, I said

Natural fibres, as opposed to synthetic or man-made fibres, have a long history, and come in many types.[i]^,[ii]Typically, these include animal fibres or plant fibres.[iii]^,[iv]
Animal fibres can be things like alpaca wool, angora wool, camel hair, cashmere, mohair, silk, and wool. Animal fibres come from hair, secretions, or wool.[v] Plant fibres can be things like abaca, coir, cotton, flax, hemp, jute, ramie, and sisal. Plant fibres are come from seed hairs, stem or bast fibres, leaf fibres, and husk fibres.[vi]

Now, the other fun stuff!

Let’s take a look at an animal fibre this time, specifically camel hair. First things first, what is it in general? According to Encyclopedia Britannica, it is as follows:

Camel hair, [is] animal fibre obtained from the camel and belonging to the group called specialty hair fibres. The most satisfactory textile fibre is gathered from camels of the Bactrian type. Such camels have protective outer coats of coarse fibre that may grow as long as 15 inches (40 cm). The fine, shorter fibre of the insulating undercoat, 1.5–5 inches (4–13 cm) long, is the product generally called camel hair, or camel hair wool.[vii]

Who supplies it?

According to the Cashmere and Camel Hair Manufacturers Institute (CCHMI), there are many, MANY sources that supplying the hair including China, Mongolia, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, New Zealand, Tibet and Australia.[ix] Those aren’t necessarily a tremendous amount of places, but an enormous land area coverage if taken as a whole especially with a whole continent (Australia) and the largest country in the world (Russia).\

How much is gathered and produced?

Yields can vary, but there’s a common range. For these kinds of specialty animal hair fibres, natural fibres, the gathering or the collecting of the hairs occurs in the molting season or the season when animals tend to shed their hair.[x] For camels, that means late spring to early summer. This hair can fall off in clumps for collection by standard collection methods.[xi]

Following this, the “coarse hairs and down hairs of the…camel are separated by a mechanical process known as dehairing,” which in turn brings a yield per camel between about 8 to 10 kilograms.

What is its utility, look, and feel?

Camel’s hair is lightweight and naturally warm, it’s a tan colour, but and can be changed to various colours through dyeing – and, in fact, takes in the dye about as well as wool does.[xii]

What about the small stuff like the end product and recyclability?

If you check out this website, there’s a wonderful layout of some of the finer points such as garment care, end uses, virgin fiber, and recycled fiber.[xiii] Garment care is basically the means by which garments can be properly cared for, so “dry clean wovens; knit goods may be hand washed.”[xiv]

End uses are the finalized textile uses such as “]m]en’s and women’s coats, jackets and blazers, skirts, hosiery, sweaters, gloves, scarves, mufflers, caps, and robes.”[xv] Not bad, a decent selection with a certain appeal in its ability to be re-colored. Hosiery is the one that surprised me, personally. Hosiery is a virgin fibre or non-processed fibre and it’s capable of being recycled. As with many of the lovely variety of natural fibres, the forms and uses provide plenty of reason for consideration of the general consideration about, what I might call, the lifecycle of fibres.[xvi]

Closing thoughts?

Synthetic or man-made fibres can end up in landfills or the ocean and are not biodegradable, but natural fibres, granted with a little effort, can be sent back from whence they came after they’ve spent or expired their fashionable quotient – sometimes in a season, and other times after a decade of cycled fashion trends (you never know).[xvii]^,[xviii] Come back for part three for the next fibre profile!

[i] natural fibre. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/topic/natural-fiber [ii] man-made fibre. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/technology/man-made-fiber.[iii] Wild Fibres. (2016, February 15). Animal Fibres.[iv] Wild Fibres. (2016, February 15). Plant Fibres.[v] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2009). Natural Fibres. Retrieved from Natural Fibres.[vi] Ibid.[vii] camel hair. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica.[viii] Bactria. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica.[ix] Cashmere and Camel Hair Manufacturers Institute. (2013). Cashmere and Camel Hair Fact Sheet.[x] Ibid.[xi] Ibid.[xii] Ibid.[xiii] Ibid.[xiv] Ibid.[xv]Ibid.[xvi] Ibid.[xvii] man-made fibre. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica.[xviii] natural fibre. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica

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2022-04-10

They’re Called Microplastics, Bro

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/08/29

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We talk about the natural fibres and the man-made fibres, but do not take into account as much the water aspects of these fibres. As natural fibres come from plant and animal fibres, by definition, their contents come out of the earth and extract and use water in the midst of their production, whether cellulose or proteins composed of amino acids (of course).[i]

But what about the possibility of problems with water in connection with the synthetic fibres? Take, for instance, the issue of microplastics in wastewater. Microplastics are part of the larger categorization of marine litter – gross – and can be defined “as particles of less than 5mm in size.”[ii]^{,[iii],[iv],[v]}

These small bits of plastics can tend to come in the form of pellets.[vi] However, the source of them are separate processes. According to GreenFacts, those are:

deterioration of larger plastic fragments, cordage and films over time, with or without assistance from UVradiation, mechanical forces in the seas (e.g. wave action, grinding on high energy shorelines), or through biological activity (e.g. boring, shredding and grinding by marine organisms);
direct release of micro particles (e.g. scrubs and abrasives in household and personal care products, shot-blasting ship hulls and industrial cleaning products respectively, grinding or milling waste) into waterways and via urban wastewater treatment;
accidental loss of industrial raw materials (e.g. prefabricated plastics in the form of pellets or powders used to make plastic articles), during transport or trans- shipment, at sea or into surface waterways;
discharge of macerated wastes, e.g.sewage sludge[vii]

The per annum increase in the consumption of plastics will not by necessity change overnight, but these can continue unabated in the, at least, near future because of the continued increase in the global consumption of plastics.[viii] That is, circa 2013, 299 million tons of plastic was produced, about 4 percent more than 2012, and collection and recycling of these materials does not suffice to keep up with the pace of these developments, even only a couple years ago, and these plastics complete their journey in landfills and oceans.[ix]

There are about “10–20 million tons of plastic that end up in the oceans each year. A recent study conservatively estimated that 5.25 trillion plastic particles weighing a total of 268,940 tons are currently floating in the world’s oceans.”[x]

This comes back to the industries of natural fibres, biodegradable, and synthetic or man-made fibres, non-biodegradable in the textile and other economic juggernauts.[xi] According to O’Connor’s report (2014), “In fact, 85% of the human-made material found on the shoreline were microfibers, and matched the types of material, such as nylon and acrylic, used in clothing,” she continued, “It is not news that microplastic – which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration defines as plastic fragments 5mm or smaller – is ubiquitous in all five major ocean gyres. And numerous studies have shown that small organisms readily ingest microplastics, introducing toxic pollutants to the food chain.”[xii]

Many organisms eat these materials and thereby poison the food supply with pollutants. And it’s ubiquitous, that is, it’s everywhere and that means the global food supply chain is being completely filled with trillions of bits of plastic particulate matter less than 5mm small and finding its way into the food chain, which moves up into us.

National Geographic in Are Microplastics in Our Water Becoming a Macroproblem? (2015) provides a good overview of the subject matter at hand with the connection between the manufacture, distribution, and lack of recycling measures, and then the consumption by lower-end animals in the food chain and how this moves into our own food supply chain – bigger things eat on the smaller things.[xiii] It’s an issue for the environment and a major concern for us.

So are these micro plastics accumulating in our bodies?

We don’t know, but there is reason to believe that it is very much likely. And even if it doesnt accumulate in our bodies, do you want this in you? I think, and feel, as with many of you that I firmly do not.

[i] New World Encyclopedia. (2016). Natural Fiber. Retrieved from New World Encyclopedia.[ii] GreenFacts. (2016). Marine Litter[iii] Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation. (n.d.). Global Microplastics Initiative. Retrieved from Adventure science.[iv] United Nations Environment Programme. (2013). Microplastics. Retrieved from UNEP.[v] Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. (2016). Microplastics and microbeads. Retrieved from[vi] Ibid.[vii] Ibid.[viii] WorldWatch Institute. (2015, January 28). Global Plastic Production Rises, Recycling Lags. Retrieved from World Watch.[ix] Ibid.[x] Ibid.[xi] O’Connor, M.C. (2014, October 27). Inside the lonely fight against the biggest environmental problem you’ve never heard of. Retrieved from The Guardian. [xii] Ibid.[xiii] [National Geographic]. (2015, October27). Are Microplastics in Our Water Becoming a Macroproblem?. Retrieved from Nat Geo.[xiv] [gedwoods]. (2010, May 11). Polar fleece. Retrieved from Fabrics Int’l.

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2022-04-10

Sustainable Fibres – Abaca as an Introductory Fibre

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/08/28

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Natural fibres, as opposed to synthetic or man-made fibres, have a long history, and come in many types.[i]^,[ii]Typically, these include animal fibres or plant fibres.[iii]^,[iv]

Animal fibres can be things like alpaca wool, angora wool, camel hair, cashmere, mohair, silk, and wool. Animal fibres come from hair, secretions, or wool.[v] Plant fibres can be things like abaca, coir, cotton, flax, hemp, jute, ramie, and sisal. Plant fibres are come from seed hairs, stem or bast fibres, leaf fibres, and husk fibres.[vi]

Let’s zoom in a little on one of them, say a plant natural fibre like Abaca.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, it is this:

Abaca(Musa textilis), plant of the family Musaceae, and its fibre, which is second in importance among the leaf fibregroup. Abaca fibre, unlike most other leaf fibres, is obtained from the plant leaf stalks (petioles). Although sometimes known as Manila hemp, Cebu hemp, or Davao hemp, the abaca plant is not related to true hemp.[vii]

So it’s a leaf fibre, a kind of hemp without being real hemp. I like that definition by association. Where did it come from?

It’s native to the Philippines since at least the 19^th century, and around 1925 there was cultivation by the Dutch in Sumatra.[viii]^,[ix]Following this, the United States of America’s Department of Agriculture began to establish plantations in Central America along with the smaller operations, commercial ones, in British-run North Borneo, which is now Sabah or a part of modern Malaysia.[x]

What does it look like?

It’s a bit like a banana. Its rootstock produces about 25 fleshy, fibreless stalks in a circular cluster.[xi] Even cooler, every “stalk is about 5 cm (2 inches) in diameter and produces about 12 to 25 leaves with overlapping leaf stalks, or petioles, sheathing the plant stalk to form an herbaceous (nonwoody) false trunk about 30 to 40 cm in diameter.”[xii]

Where do they grow?

They grow in puffy, open, and “loamy soils” with decent ability to drain. Mature rootstock planted in the earliest moments of the rainy season constitute its common means of growth. It takes a 1.5 to 2 years for its plant stalk from each mat to be harvested, and the cut on the plant for the separation for that further growing is at the or to the ground of it – “at the time of blossoming.”[xiii] They’re replaced within 10 years as well.

Finally, what are its uses, and benefits?

For one, it’s environmentally friendly. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Abaca can be utilized for “[e]rosion control and biodiversity rehabilitation” for things such as “by intercropping abaca in former monoculture plantations and rainforest areas” in addition to “minimize erosion and sedimentation problems in coastal areas.”[xiv]

Erosion control is important because without it crop yields can be reduced because of the soil loss due to the water erosion.[xv] Monocultures can have benefits, but necessarily at every given instant of agricultural production and harvesting, and even in most cases there could be downsides.[xvi] So, in general, the facilitation of biodiversity is a net good, and abaca helps with it. Good stuff!

Biodiversity is the opposite of monoculture; it’s lots of cultures, that is, a plethora of biological plant life, for instance; or it “encompasses all living species on Earth and their relationships to each other. This includes the differences in genes, species and ecosystems.”[xvii]

Biodiversity rehabilitation relates to monocultures and the assistive properties of planned agricultural activities through abaca, which means it, according to the Convention on Biological Diversity, can be used towards the purpose of “rehabilitate and restore degraded ecosystems and promote the recovery of threatened species through the development and implementation of plans or other management strategies.”

So it can even help with saving the lives of endangered species, or those animals on the brink of extinction, gasp!

Secondly, it’s used for a vast number of things within or associated with the textile industry including Cordage products – e.g. ropes, twines, marine cordage, binders, cord, Pulp and paper manufactures – e.g. tea bags, filter paper, mimeograph stencil, Handmade paper – e.g. paper sheets, stationeries, all-purpose cards, lamp shades, balls, dividers, placemats, bags, photo frames and albums, flowers, table clock, even fibercrafts, handwoven fabrics, and furniture.[xviii] And even with all of these uses, he darn things are being beat out by synthetic fabrics in cordage products, for example.[xix]

And now? The Philippines continues to dominate the cultivation of Abaca to this day.[xx] And its’ widely used as a fertilizer. That’s all for now, folks!

[i] natural fibre. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica [ii]man-made fibre. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica.[iii]Wild Fibres. (2016, February 15). Animal Fibres.[iv] Wild Fibres. (2016, February 15). Plant Fibres.[v] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2009). Natural Fibres. Retrieved from Natural Fibres.[vi] Ibid.[vii] abaca. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica.[viii] Philippines. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica.[ix] Sumatra. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica. [x] abaca. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica.[xi] Ibid.[xii] Ibid.[xiii] Ibid.[xiv]Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2016). Future Fibres: Abaca.[xv] Government of Alberta: Agriculture and Forestry. (2016). An Introduction to Water Erosion Control.[xvi] agricultural technology. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica. [xvii] Biodiv Canada. (2014, July 3). What is Biodiversity?.[xviii] Textile Learner. (2014). Abaca Fiber (Manila Hemp) | Uses/Application of Abaca Fiber.[xix] Ibid.[xx] abaca. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from Britannica.

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2022-04-10

So, What is the Deal With Natural Fibres?

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/08/27

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What’s the deal with natural fibres? Why are they important?

Organic Cotton, Jute, Hemp, Alpaca, Cashmere, Flax, Silk & Wool. Oh My!

So, what’s the deal with natural fibres? Natural fibres are “elongated substances produced by plants and animals that can be spun into filaments, thread or rope. Woven, knitted, matted or bonded, they form fabrics that are essential to society.”[i]^,[ii]

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, they are “any hairlike raw material directly obtainable from an animal, vegetable, or mineral source and convertible into non-woven fabrics such as felt or paper or, after spinning into yarns, into woven cloth. A natural fibre may be further defined as an agglomeration of cells in which the diameter is negligible in comparison with the length.”[iii]

Read more about sustainable natural fabrics here.

Natural Fibres:

Plant fibres include: abaca, coir, cotton, flax, hemp, jute, ramie, and sisal. Plant fibres are come from seed hairs, stem or bast fibres, leaf fibres, and husk fibres.

Animal fibres include alpaca wool, angora wool, camel hair, cashmere, mohair, silk, and wool. Animal fibres come from hair, secretions, or wool.

The Government of Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) provides information on four specific examples: cotton and flax for plant fibres, and silk and wool for animal fibres. [v] Cotton and flax are made of cellulose and vegetable fibres. Silk and wool are protein fibres made of a variety of amino acids from animals.

There are some geographic considerations and plant/animal specific information such as the fact that cotton and wool represent the most pervasively utilized natural fibres in North America. Further, since silk and wool come from animals, they are subject to affects from the ageing of the animal.[vi]

Why are Natural Fibres Important?

It’s actually pretty straightforward. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations argues from five “choices”: healthy choice, responsible choice, sustainable choice, high-tech choice, and fashionable choice.[vii]

As The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations stated in 2009, [e]ach year, farmers harvest around 35 million tonnes of natural fibres from a wide range of plants and animals…[and] [t]hose fibres form fabrics, ropes and twines that have been fundamental to society since the dawn of civilization.” [viii]

Throughout the last 50 years, synthetic, or man-made fibres, began to dominate the landscape previously carved out by natural fibres in “clothing, household furnishings, industries and agriculture.”[ix]

Natural fibres, as a means for production and, thus, a predominant aspect of the livelihoods of millions of people, are adversely effected by global economic downturn and the increased and ubiquitous competition from synthetic materials. In fact, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations declared 2009 as the International Year of Natural Fibres to attests to natural fibres’ importance to the millions of producers and their consumers, too.[x

Natural fibres are also the healthy choice. There is natural ventilation from natural fibres. Wool can be an insulator in cool and warm weather. Coconut fibre has a natural resistance against fungi and mites. Hemp fibre appears to show various antibacterial properties as well. What’s not to love?

Natural Fibres: The Responsible, Sustainable Choice.

Natural fibres remain the source of economic vibrancy for millions of people including small-scale processors and farmers. That means “10 million people in the cotton sector in West and Central Africa, 4 million small-scale jute farmers in Bangladesh and India, one million silk industry workers in China, and 120 000 alpaca herding families in the Andes.”[xi]

Further, they are the sustainable choice for the future. Emergent technologies in the coming decades will increasingly be the ‘alternative’ energies such as wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and others. The focus is shifting to the oncoming and ongoing green economy. So that means “energy efficiency, renewable feed stocks,” and “industrial processes that reduce carbon emissions and recyclable materials…Natural fibres are a renewable resource,” and natural fibres are, as noted in A How-To On Composting Your Clothes, are capable of decomposition compared to synthetic materials.[xii]

These fibres are also used in high technology given their mehanical strength, low weight, and low cost. As such, they are attractive to the automotive industry.[xiii] Take, for instance, the European example with their car manufacturers utilizing an approximate 8,000 tonnes of natural fibres per year for the reinforcement of thermoplastic panels, which, as with all of the aforementioned information from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, comes from 2009.[xiv]

Finally, natural fibres exist as a fashionable choice, too. There’s a whole new area of eco-fashion, focused on things like sustainable clothing produced for people of all ages and representing all styles. These items are much more environmentally friendly as they are some of the only clothing items able to naturally decompose. The cycle of natural fibre.

That’s the brief what and the why.

[i] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2009). Natural Fibres.

[ii] New World Encyclopedia. (2014, December 23). Natural Fiber.

[iii] natural fibre. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica.

[iv] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2009). Natural Fibres.

[v] Government of Canada: Canadian Conservation Institute. (2015, November 23). Natural Fibres – Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) Notes 13/11. Retrieved from

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2009). Why Natural Fibres?

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] Ibid.

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2022-04-10

Reducing Man’s Impact on the Environment: A How-To on Composting Your Wool Clothes

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/08/27

Now that we know that we can compost our clothes and with the separation between natural fibres and synthetic fibres, and the multiple kinds of natural fibres on offer are numerous, and these natural fibres come with the benefit of being able to be composted, which does include wool.[i] This one will be about wool, and with some important information as ‘food for thought,’ consider:

Every year, Americans, alone, throw away 11,000,000 million tonnes of fabric and clothing.[ii] And 99% of textiles remain recyclable.[iii] Traditionally, wool has been used for fertilizer in the district of west Yorkshire.[iv] The issue with wool is that it takes a heck-of-a-long time compost. That’s a concern, and a valid one if time is an issue for your projects.

And that waste is not only of the fibre themselves, but of water, and in an increase of pollution as well.[v] But, and to start, there are some general things that can be done to speed up the process for wool, and in fact other natural fibres.

You can chop up your clothes, especially for big harder-to-compost natural fibres like wool.[vi] Apparently, it’s important according to the Texas Office of Agriculture. If you visualize it, that means the tough material can have more surface area on net, with each and every piece taken into account, for the environment to working on degrading the wool.

If you’re super keen and diligent about biodegradation of the wool, you can, and should, remove the non-biodegradable materials such as the synthetic fibres to permit the complete composting of the compost pile. Synthetic or man-made materials cannot be composted – so any that you do not remove will not go away. You’ll have your compost as compost+ or, maybe, compost- with the additional bits of non-wool in it.

Some more involved things include the creation of a hot compost, the addition of earth worms, and recycling the things that cannot compost.

Hot composts – real quick – these can help with the time management concerns of composting that darn wool! Hot composts contrast with cold composts or regular composts. The kind where you simply throw a pile of bio-degradable materials together and wait – that’s cold composting.

Hot composting “produces compost in a much shorter time. It has the benefits of killing weed seeds and pathogens (diseases), and breaking down the material into very fine compost.”[vii] (Wow!) You can also check out other resources as well.[viii]^,[ix],[x]

Earth worms can, to no surprise, can help with the compost process.[xi] Worms have been hard at work throughout evolutionary history breaking down materials and returning to the earth once the material came.

Feng and Hewitt said, “Worms eat food scraps, which become compost as they pass through the worm’s body. Compost exits the worm through its’ tail end. This compost can then be used to grow plants. To understand why vermicompost is good for plants, remember that the worms are eating nutrient-rich fruit and vegetable scraps, and turning them into nutrient-rich compost.”[xii] Reason enough? Good, because even if it isn’t, with the other reasons it should be, I think.

So consider a combination of chopped wool bits from the clothing, hot composted, and with earth worms to boot. You’ll have that wool composted in no time! And it’ll be ready for fertilizing, too, very likely nutrient-rich. And if any questions, check out the endnotes!

[i] alderandash. (2012, July 11). Composting Woo.

[ii] Mind Your Waste. (2012, March).

[iii] Fisk, U. (2011, November 7). Is Fabric Compostable?.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Hearts. (n.d.). Surprisingly Compostable Textiles.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Deep Green Permaculture. (n.d.). Hot Composting – Composting in 18 Days.

[viii] Bement, L. (n.d.). Hot Composting vs. Cold Composting. Retrieved from Fine gardening

[ix] Government of New Brunswick. (2016). Building A Hot Compost.

[x] Savonen, C. (2003, February 19). How to encourage a hot compost pile. Retrieved from Oregon State

[xi] Fong, J. & Hewitt, P. (1996). Worm Composting Basics.

[xii] Ibid.

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2022-04-10

International Women’s Rights, Farming, and Natural Fibres

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/08/27

International Women’s Rights are, not-so surprisingly, knitted together, intimately, with natural fibers in terms of harvesting and general farming. How is this so?

Well, this, as well, needs a little background with respect to the international community because women’s rights are not limited by national boundaries. It’s international after all. And natural fibers were important enough to devote an entire year too, through a United Nations Organ, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.[i]

How does the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations self-define?

Our three main goals are: the eradication of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition; the elimination of poverty and the driving forward of economic and social progress for all; and, the sustainable management and utilization of natural resources, including land, water, air, climate and genetic resources for the benefit of present and future generations.[ii]

Right there, you have an alignment with Trusted Clothes: ethical and sustainable. A part of this connects to the component relevant to us, and our mission – clothing, especially natural fiber-based clothing.

Take into account, we do not exist in a vacuum. Our lovely, and wonderful, writers, more formal, (bloggers, more informal,) come from all over the world, and that reflects the international character of the explicit calls for provisions for women and for the desire for natural fiber materials for clothing and other productions.

For instance, every year “farmers harvest around35 million tonnes of natural fibres from a wide range of plants and animals – from sheep, rabbits, goats, camels, and alpacas, from cotton bolls, abaca and sisal leaves and coconut husks, and from the stalks of jute, hemp, flax and ramie plants.”[iii] That’s a lot of natural fiber, and many, many sources for its harvest.

How does this tie into the United Nations? It’s Charter. Chapter I, Article 1 of the Charter of the United Nations states:

To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion [iv]

And some of the economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian items of interest relate to things like manufacture and production of materials for clothes and other things. That includes synthetic fibres, and natural fibres. How much?

There are “10 million people in the cotton sector in West and Central Africa, 4 million small-scale jute farmers in Bangladesh and India, one million silk industry workers in China, and 120 000 alpaca herding families in the Andes.”[v] Okay, so we have a major organization, our organization, the UN, and statistics on the number of workers, so what?

Many of these workers are women and, in fact, are as efficient as the men, but do not achieve the same yield rate for the output. That sounds like a paradox, or something contradictory. As it turns out, the reason is not innate or anything like that; rather, it is a number of resources given to the women in these contexts that limit their yield.[vi] And this connects to international women’s rights how?

International women’s rights become relevant here because no major discernible difference in farming ability from biology, but from the provision for production based on sex. In short, environment, not biology. That’s the fundamental character of “in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character.”[vii] So, we have to work together, directly or indirectly, for the solution to this inequity.

Even further, Men and women in Agriculture: Closing the gap states:

The most thorough studies also attempt to assess whether these differences are caused by difference in input use, such as improved seeds, fertilizers and tools, or other factors such as access to extension services and education. And the vast majority of this literature confirms that women are just as efficient as men. They simply do not have access to the same inputs, productive resources and services.[viii]

Furthermore, and according to the same authoritative source, women can comprise as much as 70% of agriculture, in Southeast Asia, to as little as 20%, in Latin America, with an average of 43% of the total agricultural workforce in developing countries.[ix]

So we have the United Nations Charter, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Trusted Clothes, millions of workers and so millions of consumers, natural fibers, and women as productive as men but with less yield and lower employment rates. Take at once, this means something quite simple. Women aren’t being included as equally as they could be included in this economic and productivity area, and we’re bound internationally to help out. And there’s a huge industry, and therefore demand, for natural fibers; and that means the concomitant labor as well.

[i] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2009). Natural Fibre. Retrieved from natural fibers.

[ii] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2016). About FAO. Retrieved from fao.org/about/en

[iii] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2009). . Retrieved from natural fibers.

[iv] United Nations. (n.d.). Chapter I. Retrieved from UN.org

[v] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2009). Why Natural Fibres?. Retrieved from natural fibres.

[vi] The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2009). Why Natural Fibers?: A Responsible Choice. Retrieved from natural fibers.

[vii] United Nations. (n.d.). Chapter I. Retrieved from UN.org

[viii] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (n.d.). Men and women in agriculture: closing the gap. Retrieved from fao.org

[ix] Ibid.

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2022-04-10

A How-To On Composting Your Clothes

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/08/26

Can you compost your old clothes? It turns out that you can do it, but it takes a little work and the right kind of materials. And it depends on your degree of fussiness as well. It needs some background, though.

For example, the EPA showed that, in 2012, 14.3 million tons of textiles were produced by the United States. 2.3 million of that 14.3 million were recovered (a difference of 12 million tons!) and not all of the recovered textiles were reused. So what’s the major division?

There’s two major divisions in material: synthetic and natural fibre. Synthetic will not decompose. Natural fibres will decompose.

The synthetic fibres include acrylic yarn, microfiber fleeces, and polyester/nylon fabrics. These will bog down the compost heap without decomposition. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of natural fibre options.

For example, cotton, hemp, linen, pure wool, ramie, or silk will compost over a sufficient amount of time. The reason being that they aren’t some easily broken down toilet paper. They have a durability, which makes them good clothes. It will take time, but they do decompose. In fact, any combination of them will decompose, too.

Some exceptions are cotton t-shirts or jeans. They claim 100% natural fibre material, but this might not be true. It could be, for instance, polyester cotton, which does not break down as easily. You could have the compost heap, plus some not-so decomposed strings.

You can speed up the process by giving more points of contact, that is, ripping them to shreds and then waiting for them to decompose. What about admixtures? That’s a good question. It’s about ratios and kinds of materials.

If more synthetic than natural fibre, then it’s not going to decompose as much. If more natural fibre than synthetic, then it’s going to decompose more than if the ratio was reversed. It’ll depend on how finicky you are, basically.

There’s other consideration to do with not composting stained clothes, depending on what was used to stain it. Don’t compost clothes stained with paint or engine oil, do you want those in your compost heap? Nope.

Next consideration, what about the eventual compost material used for vegetables, growing them. Dry cleaned natural fibres might be an issue and heavy prints, there could be some contamination there.

This extends to slogans, designs, aspects of weaves, fabrics that have been soaked. PVC ink could be printed on them too. PVC plastics will not break down. A further note dependent on the individual level of fussiness about these parts of the decomposing planning stage, and eventual process.

Something that can also help with the breakdown of the natural fibres, because you wouldn’t use synthetics, are adding vegetable or fruit peelings, cuts from the garden, and other wet and more easily compostable items. And keep the natural fibre content to ¼ of the pile, and no more!

And while we’re on the subject of composting and sustainability, try reusing your old clothes, or give them to others to borrow (or even have!). Charities are always in need, and the recipients of the clothes would be absolutely grateful. You can do crafts with it. But, of course, you can always, as in line with some of the information given above, compost the clothes.

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 150 – Breadth of Search

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/16

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Yea, strongly! That doll-truck difference probably came out of the 70s and 80s with the self-esteem movement.

Rick Rosner: There was the no-fun granola lifestyle. The free to be you and me. The public television, there was a certain egalitarianism that had a joylessness attached to it. It was kind of like moving into a clean, equal future that is like the Star Wars future because it is underpopulated with foolishness and sleaziness. It’s why Blade Runner looks like a more fun world to live in than the Star Trek clean plazas of the 25^th or 23^rd century.

SDJ: This came from – what some would consider a scourge of – theories devoid of empiricism.

RR: One more thing before we move onto the future. This has to do with another topic: breadth of search or width of search. Peoples’ are higher now because we search more among people for potential partners as opposed to if you’re living in 1922 Brooklyn.

SDJ: [Laughing].

RR: There’s more settling then. There’s an algorithm there. If you want a piece of fish to cook for dinner, and if you only want an 8 ounce piece of fish, and if you’re looking in the pre-packaged fish in the grocery store, and most of the packages have run about 12 ounces, your search strategy is that you pick up a couple packages and see that they’re mostly running 12 ounces and find one that is 10 ½ ounces.

You hold onto that one until you find one that is less than that. You take the second one that sets a new record for smallness and then you settle on that because any further search is a waste of time. You will not get significant improvement. You search once. You find 10 ½ ounces. You search another half dozen and find one that is – I don’t know – 9.8 ounces. Even though, it is not the 8 ounces you were looking for. It was close enough and any further search among the fish is a waste of time.

So you settle for one that is 9.8 ounces because you may never find one that is 8 ounces, which may not be among the packaged fish. Also, is it worth searching through another 20 packages of fish to find one that is 9.6 ounces? Probably not, there’s your settling strategy. To some extent, because the world have 7 ½ billion people in it, you’re going to settle at some point if you’re going to settle down with a partner.

You’re not searching through 3 ¾ billion people in the world of the opposite sex. You’re not even searching the entire population of the city because it would be a huge pain in the ass, but the point at which you settle can be further along. Instead of having to pick up each package of fish, if there were an app that just listed the weights of all packages of fish and showed you th one with the more ideal weight, you’d go with it.

Now, we have technology that widens the scope of search and that means that on average who you settle for is selected from a larger population using more criteria and might be expected to have less settling in it. Less horrible than the 3 guys that you had to choose from in Brooklyn in 1922.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 149 – Biology Trumps Social Constructivism

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/15

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: People use Tinder sometimes for romantic purposes. Not just for a fuck buddy at 11:30 at night. Grindr is totally thought of as for finding fuck buddies, but even Grindr – I just saw online that they are bringing out an online magazine.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: [Laughing].

RR: A lifestyle magazine because they are hoping tode-emphasize that it is something that you simply use to have sex with people. There are ones that are not explicitly for sex like Match.com, Plenty of Fish, Christian Mingle. There are dozens of them. They let you to some extent fine tune your criteria. They have done a lot of the criteria for you. You don’t have to figure out what might be important for you.

SDJ: There has been a huge social experiment in Western countries, Nordic countries especially. So some of the wealthiest, freest countries on Earth by measures that are internationally well-respected: measuring democracy (measures of freedom in other words) and measures of wealth (so you can do what you want with your life, build your own life)—because when you’re arguing for biology being in charge, then you’re arguing against a social constructivist view, basically.

Those are the two main categories. The one big piece of evidence that supports you, highly, is that the more free, in terms of the rights that are granted to people, as well as the money to do what you want that an individual citizen has or a general citizenry have, men and women, if you categorize them by sex, the greater the divide becomes between them. And so what you would think would be genetic actually exemplifies itself more. The social constructivist would say—

RR: Hold on, say in simple terms what you’re trying to say here.

SDJ: Sure! It’s your environment or it’s your genetics. If you have more freedom in a society, you would expect that the sexes would, on a social constructivist view, go closer together in terms of their preferences and what they do with their lives and how they build their lives. What happens is the opposite, which is the biological view, which is what you’re saying.

RR: Which is what—you’re saying that when you look at free societies, men and women’s behaviours remain kind of differentiated.

SDJ: Not only remain differentiated, but even more so.

RR: They become even more. Guys become even more playas and horndogs, and women become—

SDJ: That’s the face value. That’s the simple view of men and women. Full-breadth men and full-breadth women of what would be considered men and women by most views, women become more feminine and men become more masculine. I do not mean more ‘macho.’

RR: They have more signifiers. Guys lift more weights, drive pickup trucks. Women may dress girlishly.

SDJ: Maybe not “girlishly,” but maybe adultly feminine.

RR: Heels, skirts.

SDJ: So what I was more pointing out was two views, it is either more environment or it is more biology. Biology is what you’re saying and I am agreeing there. You had a whole continent that was a big experiment. By many, many metrics, well-regarded, freer, wealthier societies – Western, Nordic, Scandinavian countries, men and women’s differences don’t attenuate. Men and women do not become more alike. They become more different. So biology is in charge. Biology is really in charge.

RR: Yea, what gives people girl boners and boy boners.

SDJ: [Laughing] Sure.

RR: Yea, which goes against the idea that if you try to raise ungendered children, if you let boys play with dolls and girls play with army men or trucks, everybody will—that’s the way everything is a social construct and gender roles are a social construct and girls will be as happy with toy trucks and boys will be as happy with dolls, but when they actually set up experiments. Boys still like trucks and girls still like dolls.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 148 – Computers & Mating

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/14

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: I had a not very awesome sexual career. Now, I believe people’s sexual numbers are lower than my 16. But now given the decreasing importance of sex, the wanting to do a lot of experimentation with a lot of people to find out what you want is a less of a priority. So the idea that you could find somebody compatible via computer matching makes that more feasible. I mean, you can use apps to find a lot of people to have sex with.

But you still have to go out and have sex with, but this computer matching thing is probably more for people who part of a generation where sex isn’t the number one thing.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Also, our explicit categories that we then crystallize online: age, sex, sexual orientation, eye color, hair color, height, intelligence, occupation, hobbies, interests, likes of music. Since there are computers now, and they’re going through dumb AIs, basically, but functional ones, computers are kind of in semi-charge of human mating to some degree now.

It is actually the future generations.

RR: Information is more in charge.

SDJ: Yea, it is a system that filters information rather than our intuitive processing.

RR: When you go on an app, when you use an app that helps you look for a partner, to some extent, as you’re indicating, you’re acquiescing to the system to decide what is important.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 147 – The Amy Webb Model

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/13

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Anyways, the Amy Webb model leaves out or seems—I am a child of the 60s and 70s, and a model like that I find scary because it leaves out sex and romance. But if you look at the history of everything, in the 1960 the pill comes onto the market, it takes about a decade to saturate most of the population. Before the 60s, sex was very secret and I’m sure a fair percentage of the female population had sex and much lower than now.

It was hush-hush. There was a lot of prostitution for men. The Hippies are having sex in a more relaxed way. By the 70s, the sexual revolution is hitting all of society. Most people are having pre-marital sex.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: And people are having less sex now.

RR: In the 70s, everything sucked but sex. TV, food, décor…

SDJ: [Laughing].

RR: …No video games. Everything stank. People in the 70s were towards the skinny side. There was less porn. Soif people are having less sex, things are awesome. TV is awesome. Food is awesome. Social media is awesome, but a big time suck. We’re bigger too. Our bodies are stuffed with food and our heads are stuffed with porn. So sex with other people is less of a priority instead of a being the #1 thing as it was in the 70s.

It is among the, say, top 4 things. So in the 70s, somebody might want to – before settling down – hook up with 10 or 20 people to try things out. I managed to hook up with 16 different women.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 146 – Women’s Rights, Selection, & Society

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/12

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: I have a buddy, Ted, who was rabid for fake IDs. He went on to have different adventures in life. He didn’t stay a bouncer for life. He caught many, many IDs, but well below me because he didn’t treat it as this pursuit that occupied a 1/3^rd of his life.

[End of recorded material]

[Beginning of recorded material]

RR: You and I talk about the future and the way it will change things in the next century or two, but we don’t talk about when it will get her. There’s a big futurist named Amy Webb who said that you should not worry about the future and then should focus on the near future. You were, off-tape, talking about her – ba-ba-ba—say what you said.

SDJ: She would identify as a women’s rights campaigner, defender, and so a feminist—

RR: No! I thought we were taping and you said did a TED talk.Say what you said.

SDJ: Yea! So I don’t think she would be going through a rabbi for dating. So she made her own formula with some math. She found her best match. Her end message was that ‘when women that their standards are too high that her standards were not high enough.’

RR: You said that she said that women should be selective as possible.

SDJ: Selective in this sense, women should be as selective as possible because women are often told that they are too selective. Her message was women were not selective enough.

RR: She developed a candidate population somehow according to her criteria and then went with the guy who best fit those criteria.

SDJ: Then you transitioned into the pill, which was Margaret Sanger in 1960.

RR: That makes sense in terms of now in that we’re a mobile and information-rich society. We can find out a lot of information about a lot of potential partners. If you look at historical statistics, the average distance—most people in Brooklyn in the 1920s or in London married within a few blocks of each other. They married in a very close radius and made do with whomever was available within their radii of accessibility and information.

A lot of people on hooking up in Brooklyn found people married people from the same block or building – 80, 90, 100 years ago – because people didn’t have much wherewithal to reach further. Also, they died earlier. They had to marry faster because they lived shorter lives, then they had to divorce if the partnerships weren’t ideal. People had to put up with more limited expectations.

But now it makes more sense to access a lot of people, but that model of coming up with a list of boxes to be checked harkens back to an older model of marriage that has it being an economic unit or a business partnership. A union that addresses all of the various tasks of adulthood including having kids.

SDJ: People needed more kids! Their lives were shorter. They married earlier. The chances their kids would survive were lower.

RR: Yea! Mortality was higher. So family sizes were bigger. People needed to start earlier. What that leaves out, the Amy Webb model, assuming that she or we—

SDJ: You were saying biology is in charge, not us.

RR: Well, you talked about a study that about a third of men and women say marriage is one of their life goals. I assume this is people who aren’t married.

SDJ: Yea, I think with ‘marriage as one of the most important goals in my life.’ Very important.

RR: So this has to be among people who aren’t yet married.

SDJ: [Laughing].

RR: That sounds like a lot of younger people, saying, “Yea, I may or may not get married.” If you look at them 10 or 15 years later, most are married or in long-term relationships. Where those young people think they’re in charge, but evolution is in charge, it wants you to hook up and reproduce. One that happens during your life is you’ll probably end up hooking up.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 145 – Wrestling Trans and Fake IDs

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/11

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: There are four factors that other people are lucky to have one of. The Zipf-Pareto represent the luck of getting the trifecta, quadfecta of circumstances.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Also, it can have an individual choice. A top player in one curve distribution can jump into another. One case, which was interesting, was a man who became a trans-woman and was a wrestler, and began dominating [Laughing] women’s wrestling.

RR: There was a kid in Texas that went 159 and 0 because she was born a girl, but is trans, and is undergoing treatment, and was a good wrestler anyway. Now is living in Texas, but Texas being Texas, they won’t let her wrestle as a boy. So she as a boy is going to wrestle a bunch of girls to wrestle, and she unbeatable. He’s unbeatable. He’s a boy now, but being forced to wrestle as a girl.

It is also colonizing—there can be the “Colonizer Effect,” which is the first organism to open a niche will be super productive if it is a new niche. I opened a sport where I am the all-time champion because I am the only contestant. Fake IDs, in bars, I caught 6,000 of them. I am the only participant in the sport. Others may temporarily partake in the sport. Someone may come to LA and work at a bar while they try to make it as an actor.

Somebody who is a bouncer for 3 months in between other stuff may catch 2 dozen ideas. I was rapid for IDs. I caught 6,000 of them. I caught another 6,000 people inside of bars. People in bars that sneaked in, in side doors, and found them and booted them out. I was the king of fake IDs

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 144 – Zipf’s Law-Pareto Distributions

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/10

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Anyway, Zipf’s Law.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Yea, Zipf’s Law, Pareto Distribution, apparently, this dominates any official formal mainstream form of competition: sports, science, arts, humanities. Picasso was massively productive. Most artists aren’t. Poets: Shakespeare, Ezra Pound. These people produced large volumes, very popular, lots of sales – J.K. Rowling.

RR: Basically, what you’re calling a Pareto Distribution or can be called Zipf’s Law, it is likely in any field that that field, whether human endeavour or something else like the population of nations, you have a biggest one and a much less second biggest one, and a much smaller third biggest one. You have one or two giants dominating fields and a bunch of also-rans well below.

SDJ: Yea, these are the people we talked about before. These are the people that lose themselves to the sport watching the sport.

RR: Like frickin’ Yukon women’s basketball team has made it to 25 consecutive sweet 16s, they dominate. You have among the countries of the world. You have China with a population of like 1.5 billion and India at 1.3 billion, then it drops way down. Are we in 3^rd place? I don’t know. The US with 330 or so million. It keeps dropping. Brazil with 250, maybe, million. Eventually, you get down into dozens of countries with under 10 million.

SDJ: Yea! Music: Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. The three most commonly referenced.

RR: State populations. California, 35 million. Texas, probably 25 million. New York, probably 20 million. Then you’ve got 30 states with populations under 10 million.

SDJ: Yea, and if your human endeavour is to kill a lot of people that you don’t like, you can have a simple model in mind, “Get rid of all people that disagree with me or that I don’t like. So I can have only people around me that I like or who agree with me.” In a dark analytic way, you can take Zipf’s Law or Pareto Distributions into the world of mass killings.

RR: Hold on, hold on. What Zipf’s Law reflects, or Pareto, a perfect storm of circumstances, a rare confluence, a rare conjunction, of the conditions necessary for super mass murder. Germany was a super special set of circumstances. This country was pissed off by what it felt was being mistreated after WWI, a charismatic leader, a rich minority that you could drum up a lot of hate. Same with China.

Huge population in place. Charismatic leader. A change in government as the communists took over after WWII. Stalin, a charismatic leader taking over after a fairly recent revolution. Just looks like there are necessary circumstances. And they don’t arise that often. India would be a place that could have been potentially a site of 20^th century—it has the population to support mass murder. Other circumstances, fortunately, were in place.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 143 – Pareto Distribution of Killings

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/09

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Had he just been content to do that, he wanted a 1,000-year Reich. He would’ve not gotten that, but he would’ve been able to hold onto an expanded Germany that was prosperous. He could’ve been talked out of some of his terrible ideas, which included killing 11 million people he did not like. But nobody under dictatorships—there’s no mechanism for that kind of re-evaluation.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Of the people that won out in the all-time murder sweepstakes, killing sweepstakes…

RR: Yea.

SDJ: …[Laughing] This—I don’t think this has been applied to it. So I think this is a first thought, possibly. I believe you could very strongly apply a Pareto Distribution to killings. Where you have a few people at the head of directives and ideologies that drive all of this stuff, it is probably a dozen, and they dominate the landscape as if they are the Dirac, and Einstein, and Bohr, and so on, of physics, but of murder.

RR: Are you talking about the Zipf Distribution?

SDJ: Yea! So these are—for instance, Einstein, Newton, Nohr, Dirac, Feynman, Edward Witten, who are some other big people? Stephen Hawking, Stephen Weinberg, others – because I can’t think of others off the top. Some of these people are some of the most cited physicists, at least, if not scientists, ever. So they have made tremendous contributions, but the citation levels for most academics is not much. It’s probably below double-digits.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 142 – Hitler, then Mao & Stalin

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/08

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: You can call that racism or antisemitism if you want. But anybody he thought sucked or was evil or an exploiter, they were thrown into a hopper – gays, communists, the retarded. People he didn’t like; groups he didn’t like. Also, you can view Nazism as a specific criminal enterprise where Jews had a lot of shit to steal. So it is a good way to get all of their shit by first squeezing them and then killing them.

It’s not that he just hated Jews. He wanted their shit.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The other big 2, China’s Cultural Revolution and the attempt to have a unified country. In the interim of that or during that, killing millions and millions of people, Stalin as far as I know was a communist God-complex figure killing millions of people. I am trying to get at an ideological foundation for a lot of this war—well, not even war, just mass killings based on ideology.

RR: The idea is if you get rid of everybody who is against, then who is left is people who are not against you. You can keep finding more and more people against you. Once you set up the mechanisms by which you can kill people, and the bureaucracies by which you can kill a lot of people, it becomes easy to kill people. Nobody ran or did any kind of analysis under Stalin or Mao, or Hitler, as to possible or positive consequences to not killing a shitload of people.

Hitler could’ve put himself in a super great position had he stopped really early in WWII. He was winning the crap out of WWII until he decided to invade Russia, and then that ended and the war was lost as early as 1942, when he marched and tried to take Leningrad. But until then, he was just easily sweeping through countries. He took France, Czechoslovakia, and Poland.

[End of recorded material]

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Ask A Genius 141 – The Brontës and Austen, and War

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/07

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Women, particularly, lived constrained lives in the domestic sphere, largely. The Brontës and Jane Austen, the Brontës first published using male pen names.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: [Laughing] Something else you mentioned, or was implied by what you said. You mentioned body count with Hitler as number 3, and Mao and Stalin as number 2 and 1.

RR: All of the deaths attributed to Hitler. He killed 11 million in the camps, of who 6 million were famous for being Jews. Then there were the deaths by the horrible conditions of war. You can assign him 30 million deaths. Then Mao via his various social revolutions, then may 40 or 50 million. Between Mao and Stalin, one has 50 million to him and other has 40 million. Given thatthose were acts of mass slaughter under repressive regimes, you’re not going to get accurate body counts anyway. Go ahead.

SDJ: Each of those cases. Hitler with racist and specific an anti-religious ideology, against Jews as a people and a tradition. Mao with communism and the attempts to unify China’s provinces into a single country.

RR: Hitler wasn’t anti-religious. Hitler had or promoted a certain mysticism, if not exactly—

SDJ: Oh! That’s where I clarified before. It was racist and specific anti-religion: Jewish tradition.

[End of recorded material]

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Ask A Genius 140 – Computational Power

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/06

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: If you want to add processors, you might have to run the cable up through your neck, which seems like it is probably not the best way to do it. So I think if you’re going to start laying in extra computational power. You gotta do it on the inside of the skull. That, maybe, the fanciest supped up brains in the future will maybe have an added layer of computational capacity that wallpapers the inside of your skull.

Or sits as an added layer that wraps around your brain, that can over time, perhaps, drop tendrils into your brain in the way your brain links up more thoroughly with itself by sending out a zillion other dendrites. Also, if you wanted to get sneaky about it, you could probably “alienize” the back of your head. You don’t want to give yourself one of those Mars Attacks giant veiny skulls.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I was thinking about war again [Laughing]. War is like a drug for nations as a whole – sufficiently enough people with sufficiently enough fervor to pursue wide scale murder on either side, or maybe one side. But in hindsight, like decades hence, people look at it with horror, and then with a quaint, “What the hell were they thinking?”

RR: Hold on! It wouldn’t be “what the hell are they thinking?” I think the future will look at our history full of war and other bad behaviours. It will be seen as consequences of their limited and evolved nature. You know, when we see like 2 bucks with full sets of antlers battling it out, we don’t look at it with horror. We think this is their evolved behaviour and that this we are primates and have these in-built behaviours.

That when populations grew large, these are the consequences of those large behaviours. War in the future will still happen, but in different terms. We are seeing all sorts of war by proxy in the Mid-East with drone-based warfare and robot-based warfare and we’ve seen with Stuxnet that was deployed by the US plus Israel – a worm virus that got into the centrifuges in Iraq until they spun out of control and then fizzed out Iraq’s initiative to build nuclear bombs.

So we have war by proxy. Future war will probably be more concerning because we have been at war with Russia for a year without knowing it. Russia was fighting with us in our election and wrecking it via hacking. Whatever their term is for destructive propaganda, fake news, now, Russia has infected several tens of millions of Americans with complete distrust of news that was trusted for straightforward journalism that has been trusted for centuries.

That’s war. Yea, they may look back at wholesale slaughter with horror. Hitler might be in the 3rd place for people he caused to die compared to Mao or Stalin, but the loss of information processing entities in the future may be as horrible but played out in less flesh-based ways.

SDJ: I think about the importance about image. I might be remembering something vaguely from Errol Morris when he was talking about the power of image, or the frame of an image, or what is an image leaving out, or does it have color, is it black-and-white or not, what is its title and description, what is its era, what is left out of the standard rectangle or square frames, or is it high fidelity or not.

RR: You’re talking about Errol Morris’s presentation or thesis that any kind of photography leaves out more information than it captures, right?

SDJ: Yea. I also relate it to what sparked this part of the conversation, which was seeing an image of a Sherman tank, but an old one – still driving around, worn out, and crushing a car. I thought about wars that, to your example. The bucks, they clang heads, and they clash. We think, “That’s part of their genetic heritage in bucks competing with one another for dominance.”

We consider that part of the end of result or near end result of their reproductive life cycle based on the genes in tandem with the environment, but that’s us looking at a whole other species. Maybe, people in the middle future. They are still us or have elements of us because they come from that for the most part. I think there still will be a sense of horror, or of quaintness or vague pity. [Laughing] A high definition consciousness pity.

RR: It’s not dissimilar. I’ve offered a couple analogies that you’ve—like the buck, you said it wasn’t that on point, but when we look back at a costume drama set in 1810. We feel sorry for the people. These were people who had to shit in chamber pots. They’d be lucky to live into their 50s or 60s. A lot of that stuff is hidden from the viewer, but we are supposed to enjoy the picturesqueness and the idyllicness of it.

But these people, you have to feel for those people given the limitations of their lives. My kid does a lot of work and research on people of that era, like the Brontë sisters. There were 5 sisters and a brother. Only one lived past 30, Charlotte, who was gone by 39. Jane Austen, I think she was gone by 41. They died like crazy. And they had limited means of expression.

[End of recorded material]

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Ask A Genius 139 – Inexpensive Big Brains

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/05

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: I feel weird eating octopuses because I read too much about how smart they are, but then I read that they only live for 2 years because they are trash animals. They are high-predation animals. They are animals that generally due to their lifestyle get eaten at a high rate, like possums, where possums only live for 2 years. Octopuses only live for 2 years on average because they don’t have a lifestyle where they aren’t eaten. They get taken out.

But possums are crappy and stupid while octopuses are really smart. They fall apart after 2 years, which seems tragic for a really smart, curious, and sometimes friendly animal. It just shows that cognition, in some instances, can be super cheap. It is not that expensive to grow a big brain, and a certainly as synthetic brains become cheaper and cheaper in the future. It is going to lead to a re-evaluation of the kind of consciousness that we have.

The entities that come after us will be like, “Yea, you guys are not overly interesting products of the natural world.”

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Where does that lead dignity? I am not arguing this from my position, but I am taking the perspective, as with many of my questions, of others that might have a question about this. So I am asking on their behalf, as “as if.”

RR: Okay. Yea, then let’s talk about dignity, we used to be holy creatures. We used to have a touch of God in us. We used to have the magical presence of consciousness and a soul, and man a little lower than the angels.

SDJ: Or think about Aristotle even, it was about men. Men were ascendant in many of these traditions as well…still!

RR: Regardless of whether it is just men or grant this divinity to men too, and to minorities, and—we were exalted. Awareness of ugly bodily functions was generally sequestered. There’s always been a literature of the scatological. There was writer from 2,200 years ago named, I think, Simplicissimus who may have written about filthy trickster characters. There have always been profane writers.

But they have been hidden away. But there has been exalted literature—nobody in A Tale of Two Cities, the action doesn’t stop so somebody can take a shit. Nobody jerks off in Dickens that I know of, or in Plato.

[Break in recording]

RR: TV, for the first 30 years of TV, didn’t talk about pee and doody, and butt sex. All of those boundaries have been erased and we are thoroughly biological creatures in everybody’s understanding now. You can look at the wave of zombie stuff as a manifestation of the decay of degradation of humanity. Zombies are like a hyper-aware version of our biological basis. I don’t watch The Walking Dead at all.

But what I think what happens on that show, I think this is season 5, or 6, or 7. Most of the zombies on that show. I don’t know how long the world of The Walking Dead has been going on, but it is probably a couple of years since the zombie plague. So most of the zombies are 2-years-old at least. That means they are extra nasty, extra rotten, because these are people who have been scrambling along the ground or standing in a corner for a long time.

Which is a metaphor for our awareness of our own groundedness in biology, so yea, our best hope for immortality is to hope to live long enough to defy our natural circumstances and hope for technological glorification, technological exaltation, by becoming part of some information processing entities or entity that goes beyond human, which will start happening in the next few decades.

Which isn’t the happiest thing, but the idea of legacy has always been an iffy proposition. 59:00

[End of recorded material]

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Ask A Genius 138 – Coming Online

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/04

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: They zapped her brain and she went out with a blank stare into space, then they did it again and she came online. They could do this…

[Fingers snapping by Scott Jacobsen]

…in a snap. Then they had, I remember the number, 171 cases of veterans of war, combat veterans, that came out with, I guess, damage of varying degrees to this. So big sample size, relevant damage, to the relevant parts of the brain, and they found that the level of damage and the level of problems of their consciousness was associated with the level of damage to their claustrum. So there.

Rick Rosner: That reminds me of some kinds of anesthesia don’t block pain as much as the memory of pain. I’ve had 2 colonoscopies. They give you this stuff, and I don’t think – I forget if you’re out or not—I guess you’re out. Regardless of whether you’re out or not, you don’t remember the colonoscopy. I think you’re awake-ish, and they can talk to you. But you lose the memory when they try to talk to you.

So obviously, there’s stuff that can knock out memory of what’s going on. So if the claustrum is a consciousness facilitator, that doesn’t necessarily make it the seat of consciousness. It being a consciousness helper. I think it would be easy to become confused about what it signifies.

SDJ: It seems like a relay. If you zap it, and it’s off, I guess, you lose the memory because when she woke up she had no memory of being out. So it seems to be a relay of relationships with being online, being conscious, and recording – or not recording.

RR: Yea, a lot of stuff goes offline when you’re asleep. You can be thinkingabout physical movement and most of the time that doesn’t cause you to have physical movement. Everyone has the deal where a signal gets through and you jerk your leg. Sometimes it wakes you up. Sometimes, you talk in your sleep. But mostly that’s shut down because it’s convenient or helpful for the brain to not having everything online.

But because there’s something controlling something online doesn’t mean that’s the seat of consciousness. It just means that it has the ability to regulate everything it needs to do to be fully conscious. It’s the cop who says whether you can put on your show rather than the group of players in the show, possibly. Though it may not just be the cop. It might be the time keeper. The guy on the Roman ship who beats the drum that keeps everyone rowing to a rhythm.

So we could talk about how it might work or what it might suppress to make you not conscious because the idea that consciousness is just cross-chatter among all of the different subsystems in the brain, then the idea that one gatekeeper can shut down all of the chatter seems overly ambitious for just one part of the brain.

SDJ: I agree with that, but I think in the context of legacy – a legacy of which you’re alive and processing in some manner matters only if the lights are on, if you’re conscious. I am trying to tie that back into what we were talking about for about 20 minutes. That was one big thing that I was thinking about, talking about legacy again. Sorry [Laughing].

RR: Well, one thing that will happen in the future as information processing entities become moresophisticated and powerful is that the quality of human consciousness will appear relatively trivial. So the way we can look at a dog and what a dog wants and think, “Okay, you’re a dog and want three things mostly, and are dumb and confused by most things in your life as a dog.” Then you can look at a guinea pig and get more frustrated along those lines.

Because guinea pigs are cute and can be affectionate. They mostly want food and to nest, and rabbits are slightly cuddly. I guess they’ll come to you because they associate you with food. Then you can get to iguanas. I have never had one. They just don’t seem to be balls of fire to any great extent. They want stuff, but they don’t appear to be the highest wattage things in the world.

SDJ: Some of these animals are more genetically complicated than us. So relative, within their…

RR: …but their brains aren’t, their behaviors aren’t…

SDJ: …but in their species frame, they might seem more individuated in the same way we do. So what you’re saying is what the AIs or future people will see our internal-to-species bell curve will not really seem like one at all.

RR: Yea, I mean you can have genius animals, but a genius rabbit is still a rabbit. Octopuses, I think Gwyneth Paltrow doesn’t even eat them anymore.

[End of recorded material]

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Ask A Genius 137 – The Claustrum Zap

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/03

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Hope to hold off long enough for the immortality stuff for the big thought cloud that is coming.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Two things, the big neuron, the other two that are with it are attached to the claustrum. They did an experiment on a lady. When they zapped the claustrum, she stared blankly.

RR: This is a rat?

SDJ: This is a lady.

RR: Wait, what? Wait a second, hold on, they zapped a person-person…

SDJ: Yup.

RR: …in a certain brain area that is associated with consciousness in rats.

SDJ: The claustrum.

RR: Okay, the claustrum.But the human claustrum does not have these big ass neurons?

SDJ: I do not know if they have checked. But the claustrum has been associated with consciousness and the reason that they thought three neurons, especially this big one that went around the circumference, was because they emanated from the claustrum in the rat.

[End of recorded material]

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Ask A Genius 136 – Crowd Psychology

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/02

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I wonder if crowd psychology relates to that hierarchy of competition. So men create a system, build a hierarchy, compete within that, very few men will make it to the top. And it will get more exaggerated the bigger the population. Maybe, with crowd psychology, there’s something where the more men not necessarily consciously realizing that they’re lower on that system’s hierarchical layering.

They de-individuate. They become more group minded. They lose themselves in it – watching sports would be one example.

Rick Rosner: I’m sure tribes of gorillas wouldn’t—there’s that number like 150, which is the number of friends and acquaintances you can have in mind, at most. We can’t have that many people in mind. Somebody hypothesized that is the maximum number of primate troops before history. But now, we live in aggregations and cities with populations in the millions. And yea, that means, we have to find sub-groups that provide the satisfaction of hierarchies.

Where we don’t have to rank ourselves among the millions, we can either rank ourselves as part of a group. If you follow an NFL team, one of 32 groups. If you follow an NBA team, there are 30 NBA teams, maybe. If pro baseball, there are 30 MLB teams. Then you have narratives, each around those teams. And so yea, you have to either—people join amateur sports leagues. There’s a process through which—when you go to school, people take themselves out of contention when it becomes apparent to them that they’re not going to win in this particular area.

A lot of people go into science, I assume, because they want to be an Einstein or a Newton. They either dropout or pick a specialty where they can excel. There aren’t that many cosmologists or general relativists, or people trying to unify gravitation and quantum mechanics. There are probably thousands of people working on that. But there are millions, or even tens of millions, of people working in physics.

SDJ: I suspect 1 in a 1,000 or 1 in 4,000 can take on those most difficult fields, have the general ability to do it. Even among those that would dare to do it, they may not have the general ability to do it.

RR: There are two manifestations of that. One is people taking themselves out of the field. Another is crackpots who being inexperienced in the field decide that they can take in on. It is apparently a super common thing. That everybody who is a credentialed physicist working at a university. Anyone who has a public presence as a physicist gets hit very frequently – I don’t know how frequently, probably not every day. It could be every month.

But they get hit with a unified theory of everything, or a new field theory. I am one of those crackpots. But I know better than to try to talk about my stuff to credentialed physicists because I don’t want to be disappointed. I keep thinking that if I keep working I will have a defendable theory. But until then, I don’t dare. There have been a couple times, when I talked to my teacher in Group Theory a CSUN about meta-primes.

She blew me off savagely. At which point, I thought, “Fuck it!”, so I dropped the class. It is not the right way to approach someone as a dumb shit after class that is only vaguely related to what you’re teaching. Of course, she had her own shit to worry about. Anyhow, to circle back to what this thing started about, which is legacy, I guess the best chance at having any kind of legacy that survives into the future is for you yourself to survive into the future.

SDJ: [Laughing] The best immortality is to keep living.

RR: Yea! Where Newton made a lot of contributions as a younger man, but I am sure it didn’t hurt to live to88 at a time when almost nobody or some tiny fraction of everybody lived that long. Even though, the great revolutionary scientists are stereotypically known to do their best work as young people. It helps if you can live for another 40 or 50 years after you come up with your great theories to defend them, and to just be a continuing symbol of what you came up with.

When people think of Einstein, they don’t think of the young Einstein with black hair. The guy had black hair for a normal length of time. he didn’t have the crazy poof when he was 30. That kicked in in his 50s. He managed to stay around until he was 76 or 75. He had about 30 years of scientific celebrity. Alright, he becomes the world’s greatest scientific celebrity shortly after General relativity is proven.

He came up with it in 1915. They proved it with evidence from an eclipse, after the world war, which makes it 1919. He lives until 1955. So 1919 to 1955, so 36 years to be th world’s most famous scientist. So anyway, he hung around. That helped his immortality. So yea, if you want to have a shot at immortality, eat right, exercise, take metformin, keep looking around, take aspirin, floss your teeth, maybe get a long-term partner or part, or both, and masturbate.

[End of recorded material]

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Ask A Genius 135 – Sports & Consciousness

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/04/01

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: You look at sports or being a sports fan. A team often has nothing to do with you. Yet, your happiness depends on the happiness of the team.Particularly in times when other things suck.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: It is genetic too. This stuff, this culture, attracts men more than women.

RR: We look for things to make significant to keep our interest going. In the early 80s, I was having one of my first big boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. But I knew this was during the age of Wayne Gretzky, and also before the Internet. When you wanted to know what Gretzky did that night, you had to wait for the newspaper the next day. I knew that even if I had a shitty night with my girlfriend that Wayne Gretzky would deliver me some juicy statistics.

Some possibly record-breaking numbers. I would look forward to that. Similarly, like right now, I look forward to the Yukon Women’s Basketball team, if they can extend their 110 game streak to the end of the season and into the subsequent season. I am looking at Russell Westbrook to see if he can tie or break the record for triple doubles in a season. These people have nothing to do with me, but their performance makes me happy.

SDJ: We can relate this back to evolution and survival. Men as a strong statistical tendency in primates build a system, create a hierarchy, compete in the hierarchy. Women select men in that hierarchy. I think the sports-attraction, which seems obviously overwhelmingly men in most or all sports comes from that same drive. It is a system with hierarchy and men competing, or men identifying with that hierarchy and that competition if they watching.

So this is deep, deep in us.

RR: There is also the attraction of narrative. Where we are paying attention to a story…

SDJ: That’s a good point.

RR: …the division between us and the participants in the story tends to go away. We are watching a movie or reading a book. We identify with people to the extent that we forget that we’re not the people, which is both computationally efficient—because if you’re immersed in a book or a movie, it does you no good to be constantly reminded that you’re not part of the book or the movie. People get annoyed when something takes them out of a book or a movie like a jarring thing, like a continuity error or something from the past that you find out of place.

Something like from the 60s. You want the pure experience of being immersed in that world. I just watched Hidden Figures, which is set in 1961. There’s a lot of action that takes place in parking lots. One thing that took me out was that the parking lots were full 1957 Chevys. The ’57 Chevy was the most beautiful car of its era. It is a very familiar looking car. That was the era of tailfins and elaborate break lights.

The ’57 Chevy pulled off the fins in a subtle beautiful way that the other cars messed up. When they wanted to make the movie, they needed cars from that era. So they got a shitload of ’57 Chevys because those are the cars that survived for years. Other cars haven’t made it that long. So they put out a call for cars and got a bunch of Chevys. I noticed that. It took me out of the movie.

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 134 – Christof Koch & Consciousness

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/31

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You say that phrase: “The future is going to kick our asses” – a lot. It is face value descriptive when I think about it more. It is less descriptive when you take into account the various combinations of new people that will arise. New people relative to us now. I mean much more than – as you’ve noted in previous discussions – with the 3 million people, or 1 million people, with insulin pumps in their bodies, or pacemakers, or Parkinson’s pacemakers.

Rick Rosner: 1% of the US population, say, has some kind of circuitry in ‘em. Most of them pacemakers. Some of them are cochlear implants. Some of them are insulin pumps. You’ve got the in-brain pacemakers for people with Parkinson’s. Probably a zillion experimental ones like visual arrays in the back of your eyes for blind people.

SDJ: Also for augmented consciousness, if you want to take a flight—there was a recent rat study, they looked at its brain. They hadn’t seen it before. It was a neuron that went around the circumference of its brain. Proportioned to us, it is huge. We have large structures that are wired deeply like the corpus callosum.

RR: What does that neuron do?

SDJ: They think it might be key to consciousness. There’s a researcher named Christof Koch. So he and his team did the research, looked at the rat, and found two other neurons, less big, coming out of, as it turns out, a single area. They emanated from the single source called the claustrum. It has been associated with consciousness. By which they mean, the experience of you being you, and the observation of you being you, and so on.

RR: Let’s talk about that for a bit. We believe – you and I – that consciousness is an or goes along with, or emerges from the chatter of the, subsystems of the brain. Every part of the brain chats with every other part of the brain. So every conscious part of the brain knows what is going on in—the conscious parts of the brain that are evolved in being involved in conscious awareness are roughly aware of everything that’s going on consciously along with some stuff that’s just being reported to consciousness from processors that are themselves not entirely part of consciousness.

That is, you have the chatterers, the expert systems, that are fairly transparent in sharing what they’re doing. Then you have other things that we’re less conscious of, but still aware of, like walking and breathing. We’re aware that we’re doing those things without most of the time very consciously very controlling them. But we get status reports. Like right now, I have a semi-bummed knee. I am aware of it.

It makes me slightly more aware of what I am doing while I am walking, but still walking is still not something that we are usually 100% conscious of. That was a lot of babble for not much. But anyway! It seems reasonable that consciousness would be helped by synchronizers or rhythm keepers like music. Some kind of rhythmic stimulation, which helps some people focus. It just kind of keeps every or all expert subsystems rooted in the now.

Maybe, it can prevent you from spacing out. It lets you focus. Some other stuff that lets you focus depending on what your personality is, is some minimally, not painful, but minimal physical stimulation like chewing gum or biting your nails. Sometimes, I bit my nails. I pick at myself when I get tired. There are places on my body where I tend to look for zits or little ingrown hairs.

The stimulation from attacking myself like that helps me focus when I am sleepy. So this giant rat neuron that wraps around the rat’s brain. If it is sending some synchronizing signals, it would be a way for the rat – it doesn’t cause the rat’s consciousness – to maintain focus, more aware than it would be otherwise. And we can assume that we have some kind of stimulating system in our own brains that helps us stay focused.

That stimulation can be itself either conscious or unconscious. A conscious system is something that amps up our excitement and stuff that in any kind of objective reality would not be that exciting, like for guys seeing anything vaguely girl-shaped.

SDJ: [Laughing].

RR: It revs up our libido-based attention. My dad who just turned 86, but when he was younger was notorious for being fantastically distracted by any woman who gave off any hint of any attractiveness. It was ridiculous. It wouldn’t matter that the woman was attractive or not. If she made any kind of gesture in the direction of gender-based attraction, like wearing a skirt, or wearing high heels, or any kind of tight top, it didn’t matter how the woman actually looked.

My dad, his jaw would drop and his eyes would the Tex Avery thing – ‘awooga!’.

SDJ: There’s another layer to what you’re saying. So there’s the time-keeper. Assuming all of the premises that you’ve laid out, let’s assume that the big ol’ circumference spanning neuron, the next level is the attention to what, and the attention is to reproduction or anything “girl-shaped” …

RR: …That particular thing is based on sex drive. But just about anything that happens to us is important to us way out of proportion to any kind of objective significance.

SDJ: The world from natural science remains the non-important world. You do not find values in the world. You find values in organisms making evaluations in relation to a world.

RR: Yea.

SDJ: You don’t find meaning in the world as a statement in and of itself as a descriptor.

RR: The world itself does not contain meaning, but we provide the meaning.

SDJ: In a way, so rather than meaning in the world, you derive meaning from the world, but that “from the world” implies an information processor – in IC language.

RR: You have to construct meaning.

SDJ: Yea, same with values, but those values are evolutionarily, or biologically, or information processing constrained.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 133 – Gene Tweaks

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/30

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: With objective criteria, that you can count, say genes on a genome.

Rick Rosner: You that if you tweak a gene that influences the HGH (Human growth Hormone) someone makes during adolescence, say. Parents who want a big athletic kid might be able to tweak the HGH regulator andget a kid who’s 6’4”/6’5” when otherwise that kid would’ve been 6’1”. There’s a genetic error that shows up in humans and other animals. It is the muscle suppressor gene.

That is sometimes absent. Then you get these super animals and babies. That have something like twice the normal amount of muscle because the suppressor gene is absent. You can Google like “double muscle animals” to see these crazy dogs, and crazy cows, and there’s an Olympic athlete that has this condition. I haven’t Googled it. Anyway, they have double the muscle of a regular person due to genetic error.

That would be fun for a lot of people and for a lot of ambitious parents to have a muscle baby that grows up to have a career in something athletic. Similarly, we may find out tweaks that may regulate the speed at which your brain shoots out dendrites for mental flexibility.

SDJ: There was a study a while ago about rats. I am probably misremembering this. They found a gene that codes for cortex size, complexity, and so on. I believe the gene also coded for the kidneys. They tweaked it. The question was, “How smart was it?” However, they [Laughing] couldn’t find out. Do you know why?

RR: They died early.

SDJ: [Laughing] It exploded. It exploded [Laughing].

RR: [Laughing].

SDJ: [Laughing] By the way, it also coded for the gonads. So I could imagine rats walking around with their testicles in wheelbarrows like Stan Marsh’s dad in South Park when he microwaved his testicles, put them in a wheelbarrow, and started walking around. So these multivariate – to use the term that they use – effects come for single changes. So the evolved complexes are staggering.

But if you can know relative probabilities that are relatively safe, then why not? It seems reasonable.

RR: Yea. And eventually – by “eventually,” I mean the next 20 years, we will figure out most of the helpful gene tweaks, and anybody who has the wherewithal to grab some of the tweaks will. So if you’re reproducing now, and have any kind of—the idea that, I don’t know. People don’t think about the idea of genes surviving when they’re having kids. Somewhere encoded in us is the idea of our kids carrying something of us.

That is under the new era of gene tweaking. It’s not something that most people worry about, probably. It is part of that or kind of that whole deal where the future will kick our asses more than in the past.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 132 – Racists and Social Advantage

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/29

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Racists don’t really seriously entertain the idea – well, I don’t know. A lot of them are deluded and proud advocates of their Viking forebears that want to pass on their genes.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: [Laughing].

RR: They just want to exercise social advantage. If they can convince other people to give white people privileges, then that’s fine regardless of whether they’re actually superior or not.

SDJ: [Laughing] I am reminded of cults, where the leaders the followers that all of the followers are gods within the cult framework of seeing the world, and the cult leaders just happen to be at the top of that hierarchy. It is an arbitrary, non-empirical basis.

RR: It is like Amway.You do a good job and move up the pyramid of godhood.

SDJ: Yes.

RR: So, anyway, you see them on Twitter posting really good looking white people pictures.They say, “All of these people will go away if white supremacy or if isolated white populations aren’t defended, if white nations aren’t defended.” It ignores are the superhot mixed people.

SDJ: Also, it is icky and based on old disproven theories in outmoded biology, in pseudoscience biology.

RR: For the most part, year. But we’re about to enter an era of effective gene tweaking.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 131 – The Era of Mortality (Part 2)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/28

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: From the point of view of future people, “They wrote stories about people contending with natural human drives, generally the reproductive drive.” Everything to them that we’ve produced will seem pedestrian and unremarkable. We’re about to enter an era of say slightly less creepy eugenics. The first era where people tried to practice eugenics. Eugenics is the idea that if you let superior people reproduce and inferior people not reproduce, then you’ll improve the human stock.

It is a garbage idea for a couple of reasons. One is the people in charge of deciding who is superior have generally always been racist assholes. Reason two is that seeds of greatness aren’t exclusively contained in having supposedly superior parents. Humans’ reactions to their own genes and those genes themselves are more flexible and less determined by parental lineage. Great people can rise from a great variety of genetic background and circumstances.

And when you have a bunch of racist numb nuts…

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: [Laughing].

RR: …trying to determine what those lineages and circumstances might be—when you look at the white supremacists, they are almost never the people that you would consider starting the human race from – a lot of them look like they were delivered with forceps. It’s not that white supremacists think they’re better than everyone else. They just want to be put in a superior position from everyone else.

They claim that they are better, but really all they want is an advantage based on their race.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 130 – The Era of Mortality (Part 1)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/27

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: In the era of mortality – that is, in the era in which every single person dies, which we’re drawing towards the end of, one way to be overcome your mortality is to leave some sort of legacy. Either through having kids or making a contribution to culture, but the odds of so successfully are – culturally – super miniscule. There have been 107 billion people on Earth, roughly.

A fraction of those are recognizable as historical figures. It’s one in 200,000, depending on how widely you want to throw your net. Most people are super, super forgotten by history. Genetically, things aren’t so great either. The idea that your offspring will proliferate and multiply. It helps if you were Genghis Khan and had hundreds and hundreds of offspring. Where some crazy percentage of people in the world now have genes that have descended from Genghis Khan.

Things are about to get even more depressing. In that, the products of unaugmented humans re going to become less impressive in the view of what comes after unaugmented humans, which will be technologically augmented humans in combination with various forms of AI and entities that will increasingly be sophisticated and unrecognizable to us – information processing entities – with their tremendous power will make stuff that is a lot better than the stuff that we make.

And who will tend to look at the stuff that we made as the natural products of the organisms that we were – kind of the same way, not quite as bad—we don’t give much artistic significance to wasps’ nests and birds’ nests. It is what birds and wasps instinctually make. But there’s going to be more than a hint of that in future people looking at our stuff. Yea, it’s what they made, images of the world around them, and they wrote stuff trying to figure out how people work.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 129 – 10^70th

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/26

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: There are a bunch of ways to tap dance around some of the problems, but it is taking ignorant stabs in the dark. One way of dealing with it is that there is such a thing as a world that can be self-contained. A world of information that doesn’t need hardware for it to exist. That seems unlikely to me, but maybe it is possible. There could be fluke worlds which are worlds that have arisen by pure happenstance rather than having evolved over time.

If you imagine it as a string rather than a ladder, you can imagine that maybe the string has an end, and then you have to speculate about what the end is, and one possible end is the self-generating or self-containing information world, which seems unlikely. Possibly more likely is the information world that arose by chance. Instead of being one moment in a string of moments that evolve from simplicity to vas complexity.

A moment of vast complexity spontaneously arose, which you could do via the quantum laws of chance that will arise and then in the moment coming up vanish. One thing that might solve this infinite chain of increasingly gigantic universes containing each other. Another awkward thing is that each successive world is bigger than the world below it. Our brains are almost 10^11^th neurons.

We can assume that each of the neurons has, on average, how many dendrites?

SDJ: 1,000 to 10,000, something like that.

RR: Okay, a gazillion. A bunch of them. 10^11^th neurons time 10^3^rd or 4^th dendrites that form a framework for our mental world. And if you would use the universe analogy, then our mental world might consist of 10^15^th particles. That if it is an exact analogy that our mental universe’s work just like the universe at large, so that the information in our minds can be seen as consisting of protons and neutrons and electrons and all of that stuff.

Then maybe we have 10^15^th of those that form our awareness, or maybe a little less, but who knows? Maybe, a little less, then the universe has 10^80^th or 10^85^th particles in it, so that’s a step up from 10^15^th to 10^85^th. So it is a jump of 65 or 70 orders of magnitude larger than our mental worlds. The information in the universe contains something like 10^70^th times more information.

And if that is an average step up, and who knows if it is, and it is not unreasonable, then if you take a step up from the universe – then you’re multiplying the containing world instead of having 10^80^th particles instead 10^150^th, and instead of 10^150^th then 10^220^th. It doesn’t seem like Occam’s Razor is operating very well because you need this whole stack of this bigger and bigger universe to support these dinkier and dinkier universes.

Maybe, there’s a way around that. Maybe not every containing universe has to be 10^70^th or 10^65^th times bigger than th mind it contains. Maybe, universes aren’t simply connected along a string of magnitudes. Maybe, there’s feedback among the, or maybe there are more intricate and complicated forms of feedback among various information worlds. That somehow at some scale there are complicated forms of containment and feedback among the various information worlds.

That somehow our scales are somewhat self-contained and can avoid the infinity of containers. Maybe, there’s no way to tell what the container beyond the container beyond the container is, and that is lost in uncertainty and being lost in uncertainty is somehow an allowable not quite infinity because the uncertainty somehow erases the necessary infinity. None of these are particularly good solutions.

But if IC is a thing, if matter being made of information is a thing, then that’ll remain a thing and will be one of the problems to explore, which is, “Does the information need a container? If so does the container stack? And if so, do they stack forever?”

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 128 – Infinities, Infinities, Everywhere

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/25

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So in IC, we have termed something the “Tower of Minds” or the “Ladder of Minds.” It is the idea that information spaces contain one another like Russian dolls, like a Matrioshka situation.

Rick Rosner: Or like ‘turtles all the way down,’ but it is mind spaces all the way up.

SDJ: Exactly, so it’s an infinite up, and a finite down, or a functionally infinite up, and a definite finite down.

RR: That whole thing seems problematics. In our experience of the world in a reasonable stance towards the world,the world can’t contain infinities. In every aspect of our world, everything is finite. The universe appears to have a finite age – though under IC we’d claim that to be much older than the apparent age of the universe, but the universe is finite in space, finite in the particles it has, and finite in the interactions among these particles.

There are no actual infinites in the world as far as we know. There are theoretical infinities that you can use in various ways to do math and physics, but those infinities help you get a solution to your equation, but not perfectly something infinite in the world itself. So when you have this structure under IC, call it the “Subject World”; that is, a thing perceiving a wider world. We each have a Subject Worlds in our heads.

Information worlds that function to perceive the greater outer world. So you have a Subject World and the Object World. A thing that is perceiving, our consciousnesses, and the information processing in our brains that can abstracted as a mind space, as an information space, and that this mind space or Subject World reflets or analyzes an Object World external to the Subject World.

To extend it further, the Object World consists of matter, which is itself information that is part of a Subject World that implies yet another Object World and that Object World can be assumed to be made out of information that is a Subject World looking at yet another Object World. So that each Object World is actually a Subject World looking at yet another probably vastly larger Object World.

Our minds are supported by our brains. Our conscious experience wouldn’t be possible if we didn’t have the hardware, which is our brains, and the world that surrounds our brains. Our conscious world would not be possible without that hardware, which is the world and the universe. And then we further extrapolate the universe as made up of the same stuff that our mind space is made of, and that stuff wouldn’t be possible without an exterior world that has the hardware that contains that information world.

So we’re left with infinite chains of worlds being contained in each other. And that’s a really troublesome infinite. That we can’t exist, and the that the universe can’t exist, without an infinite chain of further universes containing each bigger universe and each bigger universe containing the one below. It seems unwieldy and reflecting of an insufficiently developed understanding of what things might be that we need this infinite just get the existence of our minds and the universe that contains them.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 127 – Grape Soda, Watermelon, and Fried Chicken

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/24

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: I’ve worked in the entertainment industry. Most of the places I’ve worked at had other Jewish people because there are a lot of Jewish people in entertainment, and it’s dumb to hate those people because the people I’ve worked with in entertainment, whether they are Jewish or not, have been great because they’re smart, funny, and you get to laugh all day when you’re working on stuff.

And for the most part, these are people you’d want to hang out with because they are fully human. You can’t write good stuff or make good entertainment unless you’re fairly well-plugged into the human condition. I don’t want to say they’re more human than other people. But they have access to their humanity and they’re not—you’ve seen the drawing. They’ve popped up since Trump has run.

You’ve seen the old Nazi drawings of Jews popping up all over social media again. Hooked nose and hunched nose Jew, receding hairline, rubbing his hands together over a chance to screw innocent blonde people out of their money, that’s not obviously the Jews in the entertainment industry. There are some Jewish people. There are a lot of other non-Jewish people who have gotten rich in entertainment.

But they’re a tiny sliver of people who have gotten famous. Not because they’re part of a cabal, and everyone else is working for a living and has mortgages and nobody is your—there are no more hunched over whiny Jews than hunched over whiny other people in entertainment. And most people I know – Jewish or not – in entertainment are badasses. People you’d want to hang out with, even if you’re from the Heartland.

Guys can turn a warehouse space into a living space. And by the way, we’ve talked about this before. The positive stereotypes are ridiculous. Why make fun of black people? They are stereotyped for liking foods like grape soda, watermelon, and fired chicken. [Laughing] It has always struck me as a crazy thing to make fun of lack people for, “Oooh, they really like this stuff. This delicious stuff.” [Laughing]

Yea! Why are you making fun of people for their good taste in what tastes good?! One more thing, after the Trump election, California and I were, we were, pissed off. But there’s nobody to get into an argument in with in LA. LA is fairly uniform. There are not a lot of triumphant Trump dickheads to get in an argument with. My wife and I were at the local taco place and a guy walked in and started talking about Israel.

I got up and was ready to throw down with him, but he turned out to be a crazy guy who gave the cashier a handwritten note saying he note was worth $100,000. So he wandered out. I know anti-Semites are out there. I get into pointless skirmishes on Twitter. I post stuff on Twitter that would annoy them. But looking at my tweets, that’s all my stuff – pissy anti-Trump stuff. That’s enough of that.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 126 – Trump Administration Possibility Two

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/23

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Another possibility is that jerk conservatives manage to keep getting elected, and reinforce each other, and it doesn’t get better. There’s another possibility, which is that the future will happen to everybody and will tend to swamp the current shitty antisemitism with a whole other set of challenges. My conservative buddy is worried about the US being swamped by Muslim refugees, and that they will become 10% of the population.

Right now, we are at less than 1% Muslim. He listens to all of this stuff about the countries that do have a percentage of the population pushing – European countries – 10% of Muslims. He hears the lectures about life being Hell in those countries. But if you go to other sources that aren’t conservative or manipulative in that way, other sources say, “No, they’re not that bad. People acclimate.”

Regardless of whether that 10% level is terrible for the country or not, I tend to think it is not that terrible. Before the population of Muslims in this country reaches 10%, we will have hundreds of billions of AI running around in the country or plugged into stuff in the country. You will have your robot girlfriends, and your Cortanas, and Siris, and sidewalks with chips, and refrigerators that ask if you want more yogurt.

It will be a very woke up world. People’s concerns – racist people’s concerns for the most part – about issues surrounding Muslims will be dwarfed by the issues associated with AI.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 125 – Trump Administration Possibility One

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/22

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Alright, so now we have this rise in antisemitism as part of the reign dumbassery that goes along with Trump, as what I hope is the culmination of 30, 40 years of tenderizing dumb conservatives’ thinking via easy manipulation and the dumbing down of media targeting conservatives, you have proudly ignorant—tens of millions of proudly ignorant—conservatives feeling pride and strength.

63 million people voted for Trump. Not all of them are these belligerently ignorant jerkwads. When Hillary talked about “deplorables,” she said half of them are jerkwads. Maybe, somebody can do a survey sometime and can do the breakdown sometime. I know people who voted for Trump who are decent people, but voted and are holding their nose because of economic reasons and some of the attacks policies.

I’m sure that more than 10 million of the people who voted for Trump really dislike Trump and feel really sad every day when sad stuff happens. But those people aside, principles Trump votes, non-jerk Trump voters, leave them out, you have 30 or 40 million jokes, and they reinforce each other on social media, and everybody who is not these people—not everybody—feel that Trump or hope that people who voted for Trump have overreached and will collapse.

The racism and the antisemitism will burnout and collapse under human decency before things get worse. And it might because Trump is doing surprisingly worse at his job than almost anybody anticipated. Trump collapses, if, we can hope that it will mean a flywheel of nationalism and intolerance that is energizing 20-40 million jerks will slow down.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 124 – The Never Again Jew

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/21

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: There has been a phenomenon since WWII of the tough Jew. The “Never Again Jew,” there is a feeling post-Holocaust that—there’s a little bit of blaming the victim or sometimes a lot of blaming the victim about the Jews and the Holocaust, saying, “They got easily played. That they were complacent because they were such a part of German society that they didn’t adequately feel the threat. That they weren’t tough.”

“That they weren’t skeptical to the years or provocation with aggression of their own. They just stood by and let themselves get swept into the camps.” Which isn’t a fair characterization, but yea! People could’ve done better. The Germans were sophisticated about tricking people. It obviously wasn’t a simple situation. A lot of people saw what was going on and got out. A lot of people were straight out lied to or coerced.

A lot of people who were in Holland. They thought they were safe. Their government was a Nazi puppet government. They thought they were going to be left alone for the duration of the war. That the Jews were going to be left alone. At some points, the Nazis decided, “Hey, let’s kill the Jews in Holland too.” The Nazis were crazy. In that, long after the war was lost, they kept working and working to kill more and more Jews.

I think most of the Jews killed in the Holocaust were killed in the 2 to 3 years after it was clear Germany was not going to win the war. You could make a case for killing Jews as part of a theft ring, as part of a crime syndicate, which the Nazis were, and to steal their wealth to propel this war machine. But after 1942, after Hitler got his ass kicked in Russia and it was clear that the Nazis were not going to win, they kept killing more and more Jews for no good strategic reason.

So a lot of or a certain percentage of Jews were sucked into the Holocaust because they couldn’t believe the Nazis could be as crazily genocidal as they were. So after the Holocaust, you have the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, which is founded in belligerence and like, “Fuck you! We are not going to be screwed over again.” And now, you have the stereotype, which is based on fact, of the tough, aggressive Israeli Jew – who is not wimpy at all and knows how to use a machine gun.

If you hire an, for some reason many of the moving companies in New York City, is Israeli, and those guys are fuckers, they will do the job the way they want to do…and they don’t take any shit. [Laughing]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: [Laughing].

RR: They’re all pretty tough guys, and tough women. Like, what’s that Sandler movie? You Don’t Mess with the Zohan.

SDJ: Okay.

RR: And it is a comedy about a super tough Israeli Jew, and conversely a bunch of pretty tough Arabs. Everyone has been toughened by all of the crap since, not just WWII, but for hundreds of years before that. I caught a little of that bug. I didn’t entirely catch it from the Nazis. Some of the wanting to be tough came from taking a bunch of shit in junior high from a bunch of kids and some gym teachers, and one asshole gym teacher in particular.

It helped give me that “fuck you” attitude and help me want to start lifting weights, and eventually become a bouncer. I’ve got that same ridiculous Rambo feeling that if stuff went down in a variety of situations I could wade into it and do okay. I at least have the excuse that in 1928 I won a Rambo lookalike contest. So there’s that.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 123 – Antisemitism, Old is New

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/20

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Antisemitism is increasing, apparently. There are some hoaxes, but, in general, there are things like, for instance, bomb threats directed at Jewish centres or federations. I have noticed this in British Columbia, Canada. You have noted it across America.

Rick Rosner: Okay, well, I have, as a Jew, and not just a Jew, but a Jewy-looking Jew.

SDJ: [Laughing]

RR: I have a stake in antisemitism. I have experienced very little of it. I have experienced very little overt antisemitism. The worst I’ve been called is Jew-boy on Twitter. I think being Jewy and nerdy in Boulder, Colorado, which is like 98% super Caucasian. When all of my friends were 6’1” blonde ski instructors, that wasn’t—being Jewy wasn’t helpful in trying to get a girlfriend.

I think if I grew up in New York or Los Angeles—cities with larger Jewish populations—I may have found more of peeps to hang out with and mac on. I was born in 1960. So 15 years after the end of WWII. So it has always been – the potential for antisemitism and the Holocaust – a part of my awareness than people who are younger than me. Antisemitism, much antisemitism and particularly American antisemitism, strikes me as—most racism is stupid.

But antisemitism strikes me as particularly stupid because most people don’t have much contact with Jews. I think there are about 6 million Jews in American in a population of about 300 million people, so just under 2%, with Jewish people being concentrated in bigger cities. I grew up in Boulder, which had a population of 20,000 to eventually 100,000, and Albuquerque. My parents got divorced, so I had two families.

There were not many Jews in each city enough to sustain 1 or 2 synagogues. All of the Jews knew all of the other Jews because there weren’t that many of them. The Jews in Albuquerque knew the Jews in Boulder and Denver, at least the ones who live there for 4 or 5 generations because you did business across those networks in addition to across other networks. Anyway, not a lot of Jews across most of America.

So I always have to ask, “What is there to be anti-Semitic about?” You can ask this about other small minority members of the population. Most obviously right now: Muslims. I think in the 60s there were like 60,000 Muslims in the whole country. Now, I have a conservative buddy who is freaking out because there are 3 million Muslims in the country, but still less than 1% – which means most people don’t have much contact with Jews or Muslims in their daily lives.

I don’t know. It is a dumb stance for me to have, but “if you’re going to be racist, at least base your racism on personal experience, it is bullshit that you’re basing your racism on people you’ve never met and know nothing about.” That opinion itself is stupid because it expects racism to make sense or to somehow be justified.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 122 – Alonzo, Kim, Daniel

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/19

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: To go back to the dreams and schizophrenia stuff, we can look at autism. Where some people like to say, and people like to say a lot of stuff because autism has a history of people saying wrong stuff about it, people present it as a problem in processing sensory input. But autism, like schizophrenia, comes in different flavors, where on the Asperger range of autism, it’s not pure chaos.

It can be a different distribution of mental resources. So a kid can be bad at social cues, but awesome at math or visual arts. Like Alonzo Clemens, I am probably slightly messing up his name. The guy lives in Boulder. From memory, he can do, from images, or knock out a horse that is anatomically accurate with clay, or any other animal. But he’s in a group home or was in a group home in the past for people.

[Break in recording]

RR: Alonzo Clemens has a hard time. He’s a really nice guy. He can’t function on his own in society. He’s gotten better over time. But missing a lot of social coping skills. Photographic visual and dextral-finger memory or animal anatomy. Then you have, Kim Peek is it who is autistic with all sorts of numerical processing skills?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Memory in General.

RR: “Rain Man,” the guy Rain Man was based off of.

SDJ: Daniel Tammet too.

RR: So these people, something is—you can look at it.

SDJ: You have also argued for yourself on that spectrum.

RR: Yea, but just a little bit.

SDJ: This is no formal diagnosis, but just self-diagnosis.

RR: I was nerdy. Asperger’s, it was less so now. But it has been de-emphasized from autism. Like 10 years ago, it was one of the biggest self-diagnosed mental problems out there. A super model could say, “Oh yea, I was really awkward in junior high. I probably have Asperger’s.” It’s like, “No, everybody’s awkward in junior high – 6’1” super model who is dating Orlando Bloom.”

SDJ: [Laughing]

RR: My guess is that you can look at various disorders or phenomena in the brain as whether they are disruptive at the smallest—you can look at the size in the brain of the disruption. Taking LSD is like sand-blasting a jigsaw puzzle, so the image becomes less legible as opposed to some forms of schizophrenia, and autism, where it is more a problem with pieces are missing or tabs between pieces are missing. So they can’t be connected properly.

But the problem exists among systems on a larger scale. So I think I’ve said a lot of twaddle here. But I guess the one idea that might stand up is that you can look at consciousness, and phenomena, and disorders of consciousness as whether consciousness is disrupted on the tiniest possible scale – LSD or other possible drugs that make it hard for the cell-to-cell mechanisms to function properly – versus disorders on a larger scale that disrupt communication more among large clusters of cells that are arranged in expert subsystems. Or maybe, it is all twaddle. I don’t know.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 121 – Maternity Certainty & Paternity Uncertainty

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/18

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: That explains part of it. I can explain it with, maybe, a metaphor, or an image, or a model.

Rick Rosner: Okay.

SDJ: Two concentric circles [Laughing], if I understand the idea right, and then an infinite expansion out. In the innermost circle, that will represent daily life and activities, and information processing—emotional, cognitive, otherwise—

RR: Yea.

SDJ: Just around that, the comfortable, but semi-fuzzy, areas of life. Where maybe weekly, monthly, yearly, these activities are engaged in that expand an individual. You’re learning how to paint. You’re learning how to play an instrument. You’re learning how to write a joke. You’re learning how to do better on the SAT. Things of this nature.

RR: Okay.

SDJ: Outside of that circle are things completely outside of your frame of reference, the inner circle and the one circle just outside of that. That expanse has infinite aspects, functionally speaking. So at some point, the models—if one is going through a mental illness given information or through circumstance in life comes across information, or is impacted in such a way, that their frame of reference for daily life, and even for the other weekly, monthly, yearly circle, then it is completely outside of the frameworks.

That person is left in a crisis. So what does that person do? How does an organism handle that? So that leads to two questions, and I’ll make it quick. First question, how does this increase survivability? Because an organism in this state, obviously—just by observation—is more susceptible to predators in a survival-based ancestral environment. As well, it might make them less desirable as a partner or a mate.

So they may be less likely to pass on their genes. So not only, how does this affect survivability in an ancestral environment? But also, what mechanisms would then come online through selective pressures to be able to guide an organism functionally, quickly back into a functional state in ancestral, survival environments?

RR: Okay, there’s a thing in evolution. I just read about it. Some characteristics, or some evolved abilities,are highly adaptive in high probability situations and useless in low probability situations, relatively useless. So let’s assume that if you’re in such danger that your life flashes before your eyes, then it’s not likely that an information dump is going to save you at that point. That out of all of that stuff that your brain has dumped on you.

That somehow you’re going to pick out the right things and save yourself, from the sabre tooth tiger or some other Flintstones creature on the savanna.

SDJ: I would add one thing there too. Think about mating partner, statistically speaking, and based on surveys; if you ask a woman, ‘what is more critical as a harm to you?’ I am paraphrasing. Is it emotional infidelity or physical, sexual, infidelity? For women, it tends to be emotional. For men, it tends to be physical, sexual. So the values are flipped by the sexes.

RR: In any case, there’s the unlikely survival in a low probability or low probability of survival in that situation does not have to affect the heritability of a characteristic. That that characteristic, that your brain throws information at you when you’re in danger has been shaped by higher probability of survival situations.

Situations that arise more frequently anyway. The whole information dump, you might get in times of extreme danger is just a side effect of helpful behaviors, brain behaviors, with regard to information in less dire and more probable life situations. It’s the situations that come up over and over and over, and that are survivable that shape how your brain deals with information when you’re in danger compared to the few seconds people might have before their heads sliced off.

So weird information behavior in extreme danger may be less a survival mechanism than a side effect of a survival mechanism that works more reasonably in more reasonable situations. With the emotional versus physical violations, you can probably make sociobiological arguments. Where a lot of sociobiology as applied to humans and other species is whether a male can trust a female to have offspring that are his, then on the other side, whether a female can trust a male to provide a support for the offspring; so that probably helps to determine some of that stuff.

SDJ: There’s a term for it too, in evo-psych. Maternity certainty and paternity uncertainty because [Laughing] a woman knows if it’s her child. A man ain’t so sure.

RR: Yea. So there are behavioral and societal structures in place to reduce that uncertainty.

SDJ: Maybe, as we’ve discussed in previous conversations, it explains the socio-cultural, or religious, restrictions and taboos around sexuality for women.

RR: Well, yea! Some of the sociobiological behaviors we’ve adapted—some of them benefit both men and women. Both men’s genes and women’s genes, say. Since they’re driving a lot of this, almost all of it. Some things oppress one sex more than the other. But those behaviors wouldn’t be in place if they didn’t benefit one gender or another.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 120 – Existential Crises and Coping

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/17

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So this leads to a question, which we discussed off tape a few days ago. Which is on the nature of the brain’s, not only functionality but the, contingency plans through trial-and-error in evolution have been selected for and in-built. So some critical moments for some organisms—existential crisis of the organism, whether an ant, [Laughing] questionably, or a human, in some cases more obviously, the brain appears to have mechanisms to cope with this extreme inability to handle new information and, if here is such a thing, repressed information or crises of the organism-as-a-whole based on the processing.

Rick Rosner: What you’re talking about is when you’re in extreme perceived danger, for one thing, things seem to slow down because you’re extremely focused on what’s happening to you. You’re trying to take in as much information as you can, and the normal chatter shuts down. So you have a very clear picture of the situation—sometimes in slow-wo, and for some people in some situations, you get a massive information dump.

Where that life flashing before your eyes thing, which is probably some extreme version of the brain trying to help out with relevant information under stress, that if—that, I assume that, extreme stress triggers extreme focus on associations. Any possible association; when you’re focused just on what is happening directly in front of you, then your entire associative structure of landscape switches to cater to that situation.

So you pull up a lot of stuff. I assume that if you crank it to 11. You pull up just about everything, so much stuff that it seems as if your life is flashing before your eyes.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 119 – Dysfunctionality, Functionality, and Epilepsy

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/16

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Also, from the interpretation—from my perspective—on the statements there, the neuron-to-neuron, not necessarily dysfunctional firing but, dysfunctional wiring can be sussed out in functionality for the person-as-a-whole, for the organism-as-a-whole. However, if you take expert subsystems-—and please correct me if I am wrong and if I misheard you—expert subsystem-to-expert subsystem has dysfunctional wiring, so the functionality of that community that is then played out in thought and behavior for that organism in its relevant environment, then it becomes a major issue.

Someone might hear voices or have visual hallucinations, which, in some extreme cases, can be cripplingly dysfunctional for them.

Rick Rosner: Yea.

SDJ: Others can be fine.

RR: Yea. I mean, like, who was it? One of the Russian authors used to have migraines and used to love it when they kicked in—no, they had epilepsy, and he looked forward to the fits because before the fits kicked in reality took on this aura of holiness. That he found extremely satisfying. He knew it was connected to the epilepsy. It might have been Tolstoy or Chekhov. For him, I think, the feeling of being exalted was worth the seizure he was about to have, and he was highly functional.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-10

Ask A Genius 118 – Dreams, LSD, Cats, and Art

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/15

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: A lot of stuff happens during sleep, and it doesn’t freak us out. We lose contact with the world. We lose contact with our bodies. We have dreams where all sorts of weird stuff happen. If any of this stuff happened while we were awakened, we’d be panicked, but thanks to hundreds of millions of years of evolution we have systems in our brains in place that make it so sleep phenomena don’t freak us out.

Everybody, for most people I think once in a while, gets a signal through from the sleeping/dreaming brain to your leg because you need to in your brain. That happens to people every few months at most, unless something is wrong. But I a guessing that the shutdown systems aside that the structure of dreams can give information about the structure of consciousness.

In that, all sorts of things—things happen in dream, but they are not totally chaotic.

[Break in recording]

RR: Dreams have a narrative. They have a rough flow. You can describe what happens in a dream as if you’re telling a story, but don’t because nobody likes to hear other people’s dreams. But anyway, there’s a narrative flow. This happens then this happens. Often, the things that happens from one moment to another are related to one another. There’s continuity. There’s a world that feels normal within the dream.

It takes a lot to happen in a dream and for you to realize, “Bullshit, this is a dream. It can’t possibly be happening.” Which, to me, says that a lot of the information structures in the brain are intact and linked to brain architecture, kind of the way you’d expect The brain is not getting any sensory input. So it’s self-stimulating. And I don’t know why, and I’m not sure it matters to this discussion.

But when self-created inputs run through the brain, they create recognizable aspects of life. You don’t just get crazy noise as compared to, like, when you take LSD. So it’s as if I think in dreams you’re processing modules—your expert subsystems in the brain—are largely intact in terms of being able to process signals. And you get worlds that aren’t pure chaos in your dreams. It’s—Dreams are almost what you’ve forgotten you can’t do because you have incomplete information.

Like, in a dream, you forge you can’t fly. So maybe you fly as opposed to complete chaos, like on LSD, which breaks down—it gives your perceptual systems and your thinking a hard time, and people end up looking lizardy or weird in a whole bunch of different ways because the expert subsystems that normally process sensory information about people’s faces into useable information have been messed up, and you’re getting incomplete and crappy results.

So you might see wire-frame-ish faces that look like they’re made out of polygons. Your perception of faces is crappy and incomplete because your expert subsystems have been hampered at the neuron level, and they’re just—when you’re drunk, your perceptions are—unless you are blackout of pass out drunk—your perceptions are largely intact, but just slower and you’re more confused.

It seems like it affects neuron-to-neuron processing and breaks down what should be self-contained information processing. Dreams also leave those information processing systems intact. You run thoughts or electricity through expert parts of your brain through dreaming. You still get decent imagery, recognizable imagery, recognizable situations. Ditto with a brain surgeon poking your brain with electrodes and runs electricity through your brain that way.

People don’t get chaos. They get sights and smells, besides the smell of burning brain. In schizophrenia, I don’t that much about it, but it seems as if schizophrenia can encompass a range of scales of disruption. That schizophrenics hear voices or have other types of hallucinations. That’s closer to disruption among or between expert subsystems, where you are still seeing recognizable visual images.

You’re still processing, and still getting recognizable stuff. You are just confused where it is coming from, which is your own head. I assume there are other varieties schizophrenia, where things are messed up more on the neuron-to-neuron levels, and you suffer perceptual difficulties similar to the ones you get if you took LSD. Like the—I dunno—famous set of drawings by the cat artist at the turn of the 20^th century, that anybody who was a kid in the 70s had Time Life books.

This guy was a famous drawer and painter of cats. Then he started losing it…

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: [Laughing]

RR: …and being institutionalized. He kept drawing cats and he went crazier…

SDJ: [Laughing]

RR: …and crazier while the cats got spikier and spikier.

SDJ: [Laughing]

RR: Until they looked like sunbursts, they’re kind of awesome. They’re pretty as hell. They reflect some kind of perceptual difficulty.

SDJ: They probably came from drawing cats. [Laughing]

RR: It probably did come from drawing cats! Because cats carry toxoplasmosis—researchers suspect that people who catch toxoplasmosis from their cats are more subject to schizophrenia. So he probably [Laughing]…

SDJ: [Laughing]

RR: …caught it from the cats themselves.

SDJ: [Laughing]

RR: Anyway, creams, schizophrenia, LSD, kind of represent a range of derangement from neuron-to-neuron to expert subsystem-to-expert subsystem.

[End of recorded material]

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Ask A Genius 117 – Natural Creatures from Natural Processes

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/14

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Even though, we’re natural creatures arising from natural processes. Nobody wants to live in a wasteland where the average lifespan in 40 years. So via evolution, each person is invested in himself or herself from what we’ve learned about ourselves in our lives about our continued existence. We get to decide whether we continue to live. We can assume the same about other people. There’s your Golden Rule.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Also, you don’t need consciousness for the valuation of persistence. Macromolecules—

RR: Some people could argue consciousness is an emergent thing that is a ride along.

SDJ: Oh no, I would argue something else. Macromolecules like DNA persist over long periods of time through minor variations and self-replication. Same with species. They value persistence for the survival of the species. So in a way, the Golden Rule is implied by survival, in a loose way. So it almost becomes a tautology.

RR: Yea. For the last three minutes of this talk, at least, we’ve been reasoning sloppily.

SDJ: [Laughing]

RR: But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there.

SDJ: There is a there there.

RR: Yea, a world of plants and unconscious microbes and mostly brainless bugs is valuable for its order. In some ways, you could argue, though—this is stuff we haven’t worked out entirely, but we can wrap up by saying it is possible to build ethical systems even in worlds that, and beings that, arise via evolution without some overseer or director, or divine power, driving things.

SDJ: What does this mean for most people, speaking globally, who interpret—

RR: Most people just want to live their lives from moment-to-moment. Most people—regardless of whether people have some metaphysical or religious framework to help structure their beliefs, to help give them beliefs. Regardless of whether they have that or flavor of that they have, or whether they don’t have that, they specifically try to move away from that. The way some aggressively atheistic people do. People still want to live.

And life as lived is more about experienced moments. What’s happening around you from moment-to-moment, what you think about that stuff, and the pleasure and pain you get from each of your experiences, contextual experiences, experiences within the context of what’s going on right now, and what you think about it, and what it makes you remember rather than – “contextual experiences” is a bad term.

SDJ: Can I bring it down to earth?

RR: Sensory experience plus thought as opposed to everything filtered through some overarching religious or metaphysical framework. And yea, bring it down to earth.

SDJ: You mentioned “metaphysical” or “religious” twice.

RR: Yea.

SDJ: For me, I see that as half-truth or third-truth because—but true for most people. So metaphysical or religious frameworks for interpretation of the world come from religious texts, for instance in the Abrahamic traditions at least half of the planet. If you take the metaphysical-religious standpoints, the religious, by implication, tends to imply a metaphysical framework, but progressive, humanists, even atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, brights—whatever the myriad terms you want to take on it—make reference, including feminists, to human rights, children’s rights, or, in the case of feminists of others, women’s rights.

These aren’t in the world. They are how people relate to the world, or relate to the world based on documentation, which is typically international such as the UN Charter. So these themselves are metaphysical. So I would extend the statement “metaphysical or religious” to “metaphysical, religious, secular, or otherwise.”

RR: Well, yea, I agree with you. Even atheists are embracing a quasi-religious belief system, no matter how much you try to tap dance away from it. You believe in something. And not believing in something aggressively, or even half-assedly believing in something is a stance in belief space and belief world. You have beliefs. However hard you try not to have beliefs.

SDJ: But a consistency exists among them, like the Golden Rule in most religious traditions, even in semi-/demi-/hemi-cults like Scientology or more modern religions such as Mormonism or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. You find the Golden Rule—Confucianism, and so on. You also find in the Hippocratic Oath: “do no harm.” Between “do no harm” and “do as you would be done by,” you have two general principles that can help provide a firm foundation for a shifting higher-order landscape of ethics.

The small world of ethics.

RR: Across every ethical system, there’s the idea that “just don’t wreck stuff.”

SDJ: You have stated this as “respect complexity.”

RR: Yea. That there’s good in the existence of the world and in our existence and wrecking it for no reason, wrecking those things for no reason, is bad. You don’t need a religious framework to argue it. You can argue it—I don’t know. You can argue it from a scientific sense of wonder and awe. That still seems like 1980s science TV specials. I’d rather argue it from the point of view of information.

That we’re made of information. The universe is made of information, and the way we live, which is across time. How could you live otherwise? That information and the order that supports it is a good thing, and shouldn’t be effed with unnecessarily. You might have to blow up the bridge to stop the Nazis from coming across the bridge, but that’s in the service of a higher good.

[End of recorded material]

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Ask A Genius 116 – Laurence Fishburne, Pain, and Pornos

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/13

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Okay, we were talking off-tape. It came up that we noticed that Larry Fishburne’s, Laurence Fishburne the actor’s, daughter at some point made a porno. I’m sure it was painful for Laurence Fishburne. It is not unheard of for people to do porn the way it would’ve been unheard of 50 years ago. It I not entirely unqualifying. This is already probably 20 years ago. Jeff Koons did a series of porno ceramics with his wife Cicciolina, which was transgressive.

But it was not disqualifying. He is still among the more prominent artists of our time. He made Kitschy porcelain sculptures showing sex between him and his wife. The trend is it takes more and more to transgress as time moves on, where posing in Playboy in the 60s may have qualifying from a legit acting career. Though, even then, Marilyn Monroe’s early nude shots made it into Playboy.

Even so, what is considered transgressively pornographic keeps getting more extreme, and I think there are two reasons for that beyond the fact that guys are pervs and need more and more extreme stuff to look at. In terms of the role of what’s transgressive or not in society, you mean have BJ ad butt sex jokes in NBC Prime Time sitcoms. Yea, they’re trying to be edgy and to catch a youngier edgier demographic, but still you couldn’t say pregnant on I Love Lucy.

So two main reasons, information wants to be free if I am using that right and I don’t know if I am. So our quest for information is going to go into more and more areas that were previously taboo because we want to explore all aspects of life, even the raunchy ones. My wife loves The Brady Bunch, and so do a lot of people, but it always annoyed me because it was so circumscribed.

It was so limited in what it could address and so fakey in how it addressed things. I mentioned it before, but even the grass in their backyard as fake before it was a thing. It was lazy 70s TV. That show barely ever went any place that wasn’t super safe. Neither did most TV at the time. Now TV and other forms of entertainment can go just about anywhere, which is good for trying to understand the world.

Although, of course, a lot of entertainment is schlock and doesn’t even try to understand the world. It throws in crap to try to capture viewers. So thing one, information, eve the nasty stuff, even especially the nasty stuff. Thing two is we are less and less exalted creatures, special and separate from the world. The more science explains who we are, the less we are divine beings, and if we’re just natural products of the world along with everything else.

Then everything is fair game to be discussed among the phenomena of the world, and nothing should be taboo because the exaltation, the exalted position, that we thought we were in with regard to God has been eroded. That’s about it for all of that. Oh, no, then there’s the next deal, which is, well, if everything we do—good, bad, raunchy, ugly—is a natural consequence of the world and us being a part of the natural world. How do you do ethics?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: If we love information, and if we remain less exalted, especially now, then we need simple, general ethics.

RR: If you look at the Holocaust, and if you look at genocides, it seems to be something humans do given the right circumstances.

SDJ: Does this make genocide right?

RR: It’s not right. But how do you come up with ethical systems that continue to be powerful and help people not do evil in a world where anything can be seen as natural.

SDJ: Does the Golden Rule plus the Hippocratic Oath suffice as components?

RR: Maybe. One argument to be made is just because something is natural, just because we evolved from apes who bash each other’s heads in with bones or rocks, or eat each other’s faces off, or kill babies from fathers who aren’t theirs, or whatever violent apes do—just because something is natural means it is acceptable or allowable. The 20^th century view of science is—the 20^th century scientific view of the world was random in charge of everything.

No value, really, just random action and that’s not exactly it. Randomness isn’t in charge of the world. Persistence and order, emerging order, is in charge of the world. Information is order and information is in charge of the world. We live in an information-processing universe. We are information processing beings, and for information to exist there has to be order, and there has to be persistence.

Things have to be able to exist across time. From there, you can come up with a bunch of ethical rules that say that some things are better than others. We’re not just left with randomness.

SDJ: So the laws of physics, or the principles of existence, imply order and derives persistence and that persistence will bring further order by implication and that order for any conscious being in that system will be a greater value because persistence is what will keep the beings in that system going.

[End of recorded material]

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Ask A Genius 115 – Sex as Tragedy

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/12

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Sex as tragedy, I was thinking about how sex makes a lot of people dicks, mostly guys. That took me back to a few years ago when I read a science fiction story that took me back to a couple years ago when I read a science fiction story that presents a humanoid species, but somewhat different than humans because childhood is a time of innocent joy. But then when you enter puberty or adulthood, everything sucks.

You get dumber, body hurts, sex is brutal, and adulthood is a bummer and unavoidable. All of the adults walk around under this cloud of life sucking because of their horrible biology. Then I was thinking of how this relates to humans, and I was thinking of how sex is a tragedy. When you’re a child, you’re relatively free of sex drive. Sex drives for the most part. Though in today’s culture, you can’t really avoid it.

I was early seeing porn and everything, but I didn’t see a boner, probably, until, at least, nowhere other than myself—took until 7^th or 8^th grade. I couldn’t imagine being a kid today and not seeing one on the Internet by accident. Anyway, let’s imagine childhood is an innocent time of joy, but then when puberty hit and sex starts. You’re working for the sex man. It’s not a good deal. Sex makes people into douches.

It doesn’t make people into douches, but it encourages a lot of people’s douchery to come out.

S: You opened this with men as guiltier of ‘douchebagginess’ or ‘dickiness’ than women.

R: Yea, because, I mean, it goes back to sociobiology: sperm cheap, eggs expensive. Guys can spray their schplooky every place, and can be reasonably happy; whereas, women have a different psychology. Under, I don’t know, stereotypical conditions, but, I mean, women are subject to sex and gender-related and romantic related horriblenesses of their own. Sad relationships stuff. It is mostly not dickishness in women. It is maybe stereotypically romantic delusion.

In any case, both men and women, when puberty hits, you’re working for the sex man and the sex woman. It’s a miserable job. It makes some people into turds. It makes a lot of people miserable. That it in itself is tragic. We have to work for peepee and vagina stuff because that’s what drives us because of evolution, and having to reproduce to carry on the species.

S: If I may interject, do these cultural values—that emerge from the same sociobiology, but played out in groups, that are tied to individual men and individual women that have these proclivities that are based in evolutionary pressures and genetic makeup—reinforce what some would see as stereotypes of men as aggressors and women as victims?

R: Yea, it is hard to separate cultural norms from biological drives. So yea, what we’ve been talking about is to some extent stereotypical, and so making me a little bit of a douche myself for stereotyping men and women, it’s not like I’m talking entirely out of my butt. I’m not the first person to notice sex differences, gender differences, in approaches to sex.

S: What would you say to those who say that’s not true?

R: Come on, I would say, “Come on.” If you’re going to do—there was a thing at my old university that was the human—this room of thousands of studies of comparative human behavior across all of the various cultures in the world. I forget the name of the room. If you do statistical studies of how people are, I’m sure you could find various loan cultures where you could probably find a matriarchy where women are the sexual aggressors and are closer to, or have what we think of, guy-like behavior.

If you do the statistical deal, I’m sure that you’ll find that, on a statistical basis, men are more rapey than women. The feminist analysis of sociobiology would probably—I don’t know—say, I am guessing, sociobiology is justifying male aggression by putting it in a pseudo-biological frame. Maybe, that is true to some extent, but it doesn’t avoid the deal that it crosses more cultures than any other way around men are more rapey.

S: Does this then beg the question when someone says, “The social and cultural pressures on men or women to behave in certain ways makes them behave in certain ways as a statistical tendency, if they were to use the same level analysis that you’re pointing out.”

[Break in the recording]

R: Sex isn’t that much of a tragedy. Most of the people who—I suspect many and probably most of the people who turn into horrible people once their sex drive kicks in were probably already horrible people.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 114 – Frippery and Foolishness

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/11

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: We’ve talked for 20 minutes trying to select a topic. We settled on entertainment. I’m going to be 57 in a couple of months. And I remember the 60s. There was a generation gap, which was largely between the young, people under 30, and everybody else. It was an entertainment gap. Younger people had their own entertainment, and there was a political gap. Younger people were pissed off about the Vietnam War and the stiff boringness of standard society.

Then older people, many of them, were the silent majority. Nixon voters. People got dressed up in a suit and tie with short hair and went to work every day. Of course, those were extreme characterizations. There were plenty of people who were older who loathed Nixon. And in the 70s, especially as the 70s moved on, there were people older than 30 enjoying the sexual revolution.

My mom’s been married twice. My first stepmom was married three times. My dad was married three times. I have four siblings or ex-siblings. Basically, nobody has the same two parents. Things got loosened in the 70s. The silent majority did not dominate for the entire decade. Anyway, you had this gap at the end of the 60s and early 70s, where there was the standard world of entertainment, which was much smaller than it is now in terms of options and in terms of what there was to know. You only had 3 broadcast channels, not including the local PBS.

You had no Internet or social media, and no video games. So people were pretty much familiar with the standard entertainment, but because there was no Internet for people to inform themselves. You needed to be young. You need young friends to be well versed in Hippy entertainment and entertainment on the other side of the era gap. Every era until the current era has had divisions in society that we reinforced by a scarcity of information.

That includes the generation gap of the 60s. Now, everybody can have access to whatever they want whenever they want, and there’s a lot to have access to, and the world of entertainment is super fragmented. Dozens and dozens of TV channels and a few other hundred that are not-so

popular. Thousands of streaming TV shows and movies, and a whole world of video games, and all sorts of bubbling topics of the moment on social media.

So everything has been blasted apart. At the same time, people could more fully inform themselves about what’s going on because the information is more readily available. So nobody under 80 doesn’t know who Justin Bieber is to some extent. So the world of entertainment—I haven’t seen statistics, but I would bet we spend more of our time being entertained in one way or another than any other group and at any other time in human history.

We can look at what entertainment does for us. I think it does three things. Entertainment informs, represents, and empowers; good stories, compelling stories, tell us how the world is and people are. So there’s information there. We, as generalists, as general exploiters in the world, which is what humans have evolved to be, we love information, especially the tough, nasty, semi-taboo information. It is not multiplication tables. It is “who is secretly gay?”

[Laughing]

That’s more 10 years ago, when gayness was less accepted—10, 20, and 25 years ago. It is that kind of secret stuff that is juicier. And then entertainment empowers via wish fulfillment, and entertainment represents; in that, you pick who and what you are a fan of, and you empower through your shared connoisseurship with your tribe. You find other people who are into what you’re into via social media and sometimes in real life.

You band together to support the entertainment providers who speak to you, and it’s mutually empowering for both the entertainment people and for the entertained. And we can talk about one more thing about entertainment. Entertainment is important. It is, of course, frivolous bullshit, but at th same time it is important. In that, when you look at bad versions of the future as seen from the past, they were sterile and uninteresting.

They were sterile and unentertaining and not filled with the entertaining ephemera that our world is filled with, which is unlike the Star Trek world that is pretty blank. The worlds of Minority Report, Blade Runner, Idiocracy, where every square inch of your visual space is filled with advertising or something trying to grab your attention, which is closer to the way we’re finding the world than the way Star Trek presented the future.

The world is never going to grow up and give up entertainment as our technology becomes powerful, then our frippery and foolishness and entertainment will also grow more powerful and sophisticated, and it performs a function. It informs us in a nice way, in a way that we enjoy. We know stuff via entertainment without having to have gone through the formal learning process, which means the formal learning process is in trouble because it is less fun than learning via crap.

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 113 – Human Error and Views of Themselves

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/10

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Human errors in understanding the world will lead us and have led us, pretty much forever, in repeating the same mistakes. I mean on one superficial level: if we don’t understand history, we will repeat it. But another one, I think, is not accepting fundamental and well-substantiated theories in science.

Rick Rosner: Well, hold on, because, the majority of people—the vast majority of people—can hold wrong ideas about the world and the world can still make progress. Let’s just assume, for the sake of this discussion, that science is right. Well, people have only understood the world scientifically for a few hundred years. If you really want to get down to big picture things like the shape of the universe and the large-scale of the universe, that is less than 100 years old.

Before that, you had everybody believing in a variety of mythological and some religious pictures of the world that are pretty much inconsistent with science and what we understand to be scientific reality. Yet the world still made progress, and the progress is often made at not the big picture level, but at the little—people figuring out things to sell things, how to make things, small-scale ideas that through trial-and-error and growing understanding are consistent with the world.

Generally, throughout history, you have a people who know a bunch of small-scale things that are consistent with actual experience and they also know a bunch of mega-scale world-scale, universe-scale, things that have nothing to do with experience and are wrong. So you have to distinguish between beliefs that can be wrong—in that, they reflect a lack of, well, they reflect a lack of actual experience of the big picture of the world, but don’t impinge on everyday life.

I guess there are other ideas that a majority of people can be wrong and can impinge on everyday life. And to the horse I keep beating, that idea that Republican ideas as reflected by what

Republican government is doing is protecting the middle class, everyday people, is an idea that 10s of millions of Americans have and that idea has proven to be fairly wrong over the past few decades.

The Republican Party isn’t functioning for everyday people, even though it claims to be. And people who keep voting for Republicans keep voting against their interests. Things I thought were economic truths, like when you go into a recession or a depression, you spend your way out of it via the idea of Keynesian economics. That if economic systems—if people are going broke and the whole country is going broke, and people are freaking out in a financial crisis, then create liquidity, which is what they did during the Depression and what Obama did with some degree of success during the Great Recession.

I thought that was settled economic policy. Republicans keep arguing against it. But now that there’s a Republican for president, they might remove the purse strings a bit and spend more on infrastructure. Spending that was denied Obama because he wasn’t their party of their race.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 112 – Corporations, Multinationals, and Government

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/09

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The nature of the system was developed without modern corporations and multinationals. Modern corporations have enormous wealth.

Rick Rosner: I agree with you, but I would extend that further. The system, the American system, was developed without any modernity. It was the most modern thing in the world when it was being developed, but that was 240 years ago. And, I mean, you’ve got gun technology, which is insanely more sophisticated than the guns of the 1770s—which had to be loaded manually one bullet at a time.

And the electoral college, which everybody or many people are upset about, was designed to keep—well, to make sure we had a union to start the country was to make concessions to lower population agricultural slave states. There are, if I had more time to think, more aspects of modernity, which make it harder for the system to function in somewhat, not intangible but, hard to analyze terms.

Modern forms of media have made it possible to mobilize dopes in a way that is unhelpful for the country. In that, 63 million people voted for Trump. Of those, maybe 40 to 50 million are true Republican believers, that believe that Republican values and the Republican party serves traditional values in America that will help the middle class succeed, and of those 40 to 50 million, maybe half are dopes who are voting against their own best interests.

They have been softened up. Reagan got rid of the equal time clause or law, where before Reagan there were rules to not hammering a particular political point of view endlessly in the media. That there had to be balance. That lead to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. People on that side have had their thinking—I consider it like—tenderized, dumbized, by 30 years of sophisticated Republican branding and rhetoric that’s designed to dumb down arguments and make them more powerful in their dumbness.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 111 – Governance and Leadership

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/08

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Historically, there have been issues with systems of governance and leadership. No system of governance is full proof. We also deal with problems of incompetence in leadership. I would argue, historically, that there are more ways to be an incompetent leader than a competent leader.

Rick Rosner: When we were talking earlier, you mentioned that Rome had like 5 consecutive competent leaders.

S: It was around the Pax Romana and cap-stoned with Marcus Aurelius.

R: Okay, so I haven’t read that much about Rome, but the Roman system had a bunch of falseness and hypocrisy built in that what was really going on what wasn’t what was said to be going on or what was said to be valued. There were Roman ideals, but those ideals weren’t followed to a great extent. Instead, you had a bunch of corruption, self-serving, and power struggles.

The Roman system of conquering the world and bringing the world into the Roman system of commerce. Even though that was presented as a triumphal thing, it was presented an economic thing, an economic thing or for trade. The Roman system was a mess. It functioned for a few hundred years pretty well and it did some good things along with some horrible things, but much of the horribleness was facilitated by the lack of alignment between what was said was being done, what was publicly supported, and what was actually being done and supported.

I think the strength of America up until recently was that there was a reasonably strong alignment between democracy as valued and liberty and economic opportunity as valued and what actually happened. Certain people have always had huge advantages based on connections

or wealth, but, in the past, politics was better able to serve the stated aims of the American system: all men are created equal, the American Dream. More recently, you have a political system that seems kinds of intractable or hard to root out, which doesn’t serve democracy or equality.

More people vote democratic than vote Republican. Yet, Republicans own the house, the Senate, and the presidency, and are about—as soon as they appoint the next Supreme Court justice—to own the Supreme Court. So all of the major branches of government. This extends to state governments too, where Republicans have done some gerrymandering hocus pocus and manipulations of the system to hold power out of proportion to the level people want them to hold power.

And no one is governing as a centrist. One could’ve hoped that trump having lost the popular vote by 2.8 million votes would make efforts to try to be a centrist, but he is not; he’s being— he’s entirely line up with the Republican agenda, and the Republican agenda, while it pays lip service to things like reducing the deficit, is really about servicing its clientele and its major financial supporters, which as rich people.

Republicans talk about making American life better for regular people, but Republican policy fucks regular people and leads to rich people continuing to reap most of the gains to be gotten from gains in the economy, growth in the economy where middle class wages stayed stagnant for decades now and all of the real improvements in wealth have gone to the upper 1 or 2% of everybody in America in terms of wealth and income.

So there’s a big misalignment between what is said right now in politics and what’s actually happening.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 110 – Word, Sunsets, and Fucking

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/07

*This session has been edited for clarity and readability.*

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Words represent a lot of conceptual work that has already been done. The word “sunset” represents all of the important stuff that we’ve already thought of about sunsets. It carries that with it as opposed to something that doesn’t really have a name like when concrete gets in my neck, and gets dirty and sweaty, and is not quite a zit, but is concrete dust and sweat encrustations that I can find the next day or the day off and then can scrape them off and flick them across the room.

There’s no word for that yet—little concrete encrustations. It took a lot of work to describe what I am talking about and to establish of what I am talking about. It’s not compact the way a word is compact. If there were a word for it, everyone would know the word for it, especially in the concrete pouring industry. Somebody would say, “Jimbo, you’d got a lub on your neck.” Jimbo reaches over and goes, “Oh, yea.” Then flicks it off.

Words represent a lot of work and compactification that’s already been done. If you need to delve more, if you’re reading a Scientific American, into whether there really is a green flash just as the sun dips below the horizon, you can kind of open up your mental picture of what sunsets mean. You can do some work on that. So those are the main three things, and a couple other things.

They are—you can imagine if you’re looking at an information landscape, and if words are important enough, you can see nodes in that landscape, where sunset is represented by a little mini-galaxy of information. We know the word sunset carries with it a bunch of the most needed information about sunsets, just enough to communicate that to every other part of the brain, which means that there is probably local and redundant encoding of information throughout information.

Where we have locally encoded and redundant information in our own space, if someone tells you to picture of a sunset, you don’t have to find an actual sunset. You can go to the Internet and find a representation of a sunset. You can find pictures of a sunset. There are available representations of sunsets in lots of places. You can go to an encyclopedia. You can go to an art store.

You can find sunsets all over the place. Local and redundant encoding of stuff. So I would guess that our own, in the interest of efficiency, information spaces have stuff tend to come up not infrequently multiply encoded—coded representations of those things in more than one place because it’s handy. One last thing is when you think sunset. Something happens with the sensory input. Your idea of sunset can be disturbed or not.

Probably, for the most part, not, where you know what it is, it is the Sun setting. The Earth is turning and the Sun is apparently dropping in the sky—ba-ba-ba. You know, the sky gets all pink and so that idea of sunset isn’t disturbed generally when you think of sunset. You’ve got the information node devoted to sunset in the information space. There must be ways to light up the galaxy that signals sunset to the rest of your awareness and says, “That’s what you’re thinking of,” without disturbing that node greatly or by disrupting it greatly.

So you know what a sunset looks like, and you’re online on a science fiction site that includes three pictures of suns, and so your idea of “Sun” is disturbed because you’ve got three images of suns in your mind. That represents a general idea or a number of concepts that tee up that word in your brain because they’re relevant. But you can imagine having an experience or seeing something online that alters, significantly, what you picture as fucking.

That means that information node, that galaxy, has to be rearranged, which could mean a bunch of energy flows into that via photons, particles, and radiation, extending the metaphor, and blows up a lot of stuff in that galaxy, or something releases or causes the black hole at the center of the galaxy to spew out a lot of stuff. It takes a long time. A lot of stuff is spewed out and coalesces into stars, the stars boil down, and the galaxy has been rearranged. It’s been lit up in a way that’s disruptive, but you can also light up the galaxy that hasn’t been disruptive. So anyway, that’s what I’ve been thinking about.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 109 – Sunsets and Fucking

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/06

*This session has been edited for clarity and readability.*

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Now, to language and to why it’s so effective, one is it is compact. I was thinking of two things described by language, just as examples, that are more compact than thinking about the thing itself. The two examples were sunsets and fucking. You can say, “Sunset,” and the word sunset is more compact than actually picturing a sunset, especially the mechanics of a sunset—the sun at a position in space, so it is just over the horizon, and an intervening atmosphere, and a beach, an ocean, and the reflective effects, and all of that.

Actually having to think about a sunset is much more informationally weighty than to simply say, “Sunset.” It is a compact representation, like fucking—and sorry to use a bad word, the word is so small compared to the conceptual wad of stuff that went into that word. That it is much more compact. So thing one is compactness. Thing two is universally understood within your awareness.

When people developed money, it made commerce simpler because you didn’t have to do outright barter. Money become the universal bartering tool. When you have a universal abstract tool that holds value, you can do any transaction, and don’t have to worry if someone specifically wants your sheep before you can trade your sheep for adobe bricks or something. You can sell sheep, buy bricks, and don’t have to do transactions with people who have bricks to sell and want to buy sheep.

Words are better. They are short and more easily understood by different parts of the brain. They communicate meaning easily among the different parts of the brain.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 108 – Language and Technology

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/05

*This session has been edited for clarity and readability.*

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Language is troublesome. It occupies a lot of thought—evolution has been part of popular debate for the last 160 years, and language has been one of the more troublesome areas of trying to get a handle on how everything that we are came to be via evolution and whatever other cultural forces made us the way we are now because language is something humans have to a degree that is far beyond anything that any other animal has.

It is tough to come up with how it originated and it’s come up with a history of the development of language. In that, it is fairly nontangible. You can’t trace the development of language ability in the brain or no one has yet. Anyway, it is hard to chart our history as a species, and I was thinking about that. Also, language is super powerful. It is somehow part of the set of tools that have allowed us to develop technology.

To take apart the world and put it together based on our preferences, other animals are at the mercy of the world to a great extent; we can manipulate the world to a great extent—talk about the little different ingredients. The walking upright, which frees our hands, and lets us manipulate things with our fingers, and then language lets us think more effectively and pass on what we know to other people.

I was thinking about what exactly language does, especially with regard to information-space because you and I believe that any being who is a sufficiently developed information processor has an information-space that can be rendered mathematically once the mathematics exists, and how language might fit in an information space.

Thing one is, for 100s of years, for 1,000s of years, philosophers and scientists have argued that consciousness requires something in the being that is being tested as to whether it is conscious.

Among the candidates for that are language, self-awareness—which, at the simplest level, is if you show a being a mirror they understand it is them looking at them in the mirror, and other qualifying characteristics; that if you have that thing, then you’re conscious, and if not, then you’re not conscious—has been used for a long time to say humans are conscious and the other animals are a bundle of reflexes.

I would go against that with the following argument. You can describe the contents of a being’s awareness from moment-to-moment with a set of sentences. You can name what that being is thinking about. My dog, if I am eating, is thinking about what I am eating. There are sentences that can describe that. The dog is thinking about the noodles I am eating. The dog is less focused about its physical space in the world.

If I get up, the dog will try to get up and eat the noodles off the table. You can describe what the dog is thinking, I’m thinking, the situation with the food and table using sentences. The more complicated awareness, the more complicated the set of sentences you need. You could describe everything in a human awareness as any given moment with a set of sentences. It may 1,000 sentences or 2,000 sentences because we’re aware of a lot of stuff at any given time.

But what we’re aware off is describable in a set of sentences, whether it is a self-conscious thought—like, “I am me in the world,” or “I am getting old,” or “My toes are gross,” or “I feel a thing and that awareness I am feeling is consciousness,” “I have a zit on my butt and it is bothering me—all are sentences describing my state and awareness. That, to me, makes me think there are no special sentences there.

They are all in the way I am listing them. They are all sentences describing moment-to-moment aspects of consciousness. They are all descriptive sentences. You can take away a chunk of those sentences and you still have awareness. You can take away all of the sentences in my current awareness that refer to my awareness of myself, or all of the sentences that refer to language. The package of sentences that describe my state at any time.

You take away those sentences. You still have sentences that describe my current awareness. No particular flavor of awareness within the arena of conscious awareness is the requisite for consciousness. The dog is conscious. The dog has a conscious arena. The dog is coordinating things in its awareness—noodles, table, chair, me, the dog’s ability to run and leap. The dog doesn’t have words for it.

But it is in its awareness. So there are no special sentences that I have that the dog doesn’t have that make me conscious and the dog not conscious. The list of sentences in my consciousness at any given moment is much greater than the dog’s list. But we’re both conscious but, if you want, to different degrees because my list is longer than the dog’s list. And it is not because I have a special list and the dog does not. Boom! There.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 107 – The Headless Chicken and Reward (Part 3)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/04

*This sesssion has been edited for clarity and readability.*

[Beginning of recorded material]

S: This plays out throughout evolutionary history. It plays out throughout modern dating dynamics. Not in every case, but if you look at the large scale trends, the trends are obvious. And if you don’t know, then you probably haven’t looked at the data.

R: And you can take it all the back to—I know there are problems with sociobiology, but there’s a lot right about sociobiology, E.O. Wilson’s deal. E.O. Wilson is a guy who studied a lot of insects, and based on his study of insects extended his idea to how biology influences humans as well as animal behaviour. One of the big truths of sociobiology is eggs are expensive and sperm is cheap.

A woman has to be more selective in sex partners because she’s the one who is going to get pregnant, and be the one who will be raising the kid and wants a male who doesn’t flake. The male wants to flake. He wants to impregnate as many women as he possibly can. Well, depending, that’s not like—there are different strategies, but the male strategy tends to reward flaky behaviour more than the female strategy.

There are strategies where the male sticks around and he’s sure the offspring are his own, which is a big deal in terms of passing on your genes. Though still, if he is raising kids who he knows are his own, if he can sneak off and impregnate other people, and have those kids raised by other people, that’s not unheard of.

S: Some thoughts come to mind. The first thought that comes to mind. I can see some branches of some feminist critiques of sociobiology or evolutionary psychology from the fact that the pill came in, I guess, 1960?

R: Yup.

S: So that can attenuate the cultural pressure. The genetics and the developmental structure also interacts with the surrounding culture, so the input is reinforced. So there will be attenuation, but not elimination, of these capacities, like we were talking about the XX-XY cognitive packages we get from genetics, which probably keep a lot of human thinking, conscious or unconscious—non-conscious—on a tight leash.

R: I’ve known a couple of guys who were really good at hooking up with a bunch of women. I’ve read some books on how to do that just because I think it is an interesting, if creepy, subject. One of the major principles of being that guy is letting women know that it is not going to be a problem. You talked about the pill, which over time has the idea of female contraception. Now, it is widely spread and easily available and takes many forms.

After 50 years, it has, kind of, to some extent become a part of society and along with that, in terms of selling yourself, as a guy, if you’re going to be a pickup artist, you have to sell, “This is going to be fun and I’m not going to be a problem.” We’re going to fool around. You’re going to like it, and I’m not going to create any life problems for you, which overcomes—on the other hand, a woman who wanted to be a pickup artist doesn’t have to do that kind of thing to any great extent.

A woman can say, “We’re going to have sex.” A lot of guys, once they get over their initial shock and fear, will be like, “Oh, okay.” “And by the way, I’m crazy.” Guys would be like, “Well, uh, how crazy?”

[Laughing]

But women need—the sociobiological basis you could argue—to be soothed, but that’s patronizing; women need to be assured that this sexual encounter is going to be worthwhile. Where guys don’t really need that assurance, so even with the pill, even with contraception, it doesn’t overcome the basic—and there are other reasons for that. Generally, the on average greater strength and aggression of guys versus women.

A woman who is 128 pounds is like, “Yea, let’s have sex,” and the guy who is 188 pounds is like, “Yea, okay.” A lot of guys would not imagine the woman has a switch blade packed away and will go stab-stab-stab-stab during the sex. Guys don’t tend to think of being in danger during a casual sexual encounter; whereas, I would think many women take the potential danger into account—sociobiology aside. So you said you had another thing. You had two thoughts.

S: The second thought is, there will be cognitive aspects, of choice. Some men will choose, in ancestral environments, to impregnate as many women and possible. So quantity over quality. Other men will choose to invest in one partner and set of offspring for better chances. Both have their advantages and disadvantages in terms of the survival of that particular person’s genes. One, you create high quality children with lots of nurturing. The other, you create many, many children who will have less chances of passing on the genes in ancestral environments per child, but over all—just summing them up—you might have equivalent or better chances than investing in one partner and family. So that’s the other thought.

R: Women don’t have—those strategies aren’t as available to women. A woman is stuck with carrying a kid for 40 weeks and, you know, during that time a guy could knock up any number of women. Also, she’s going to be that kid’s food supply for many months and, whether she likes it or not, she’s more invested and more constrained in terms of her investment in the kid. Biologically, it is up to her to carry the kid.

It is likely she’ll be the one nursing the kid. It is likely she’ll be taking care of the kid’s needs during the first few years of the kid’s life.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 106 – The Headless Chicken and Reward (Part 2)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/03

*This sesssion has been edited for clarity and readability.*

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Jacobsen: By the way, the research seems to pan out for this being a much bigger issue (educational issue) for boys, and these boys that become young men.

Rick Rosner: That makes sense because it is much more easy to operate male genitals than female genitals.

S: Yea, but this is cognitive, this is cognitive.

R: Yea, okay. You’ve got the corpus callosum. Stereotypically, and I don’t know for sure, the corpus callosum is thicker for women compared to men.

S: On average.

R: On average, yes, and stereotypically…

S: By women and men, you mean the difference between XX-XY rather than the self perception of social role.

R: Let’s not get into that. Let’s just say XX-XY.

S: I’m just thinking about the genetic package that you come with that influences your cognitive package.

R: Yea, and speaking of packages.

[Laughing]

R: It is easier for men to have orgasms. Men can have orgasms under more circumstances than women. I would guess.

S: Yea, yea, absolutely, I think that’s a perennial truth.

R: I would think women would need to feel, on average, a number of things. Not just physical sensation, there needs to be some kind of connection. Maybe, some sense of safety, even in scenarios where the—anyway, it makes sense guys are easier to—guys’ thinking tends to be less global than women’s thinking.

S: Yea, this shows up in surveys. If you ask men and women, ‘What do you look for in a mate?’ Short-term mates, men and women do not differ much. They look for someone relatively healthy, good looking, and who looks like they would have a decent time with, on average. If you ask long-term, the differences are stark. The men do not change much on average. The women add, maybe, two dozen distinct variables such as ability to provide— so job, job prospects, education, a job with the ability to move up, or simply income, or status, things of this nature.

R: You can see it in strip joints.

[Laughing]

Guys go in and see hot young women. That’s all they need to see. But if they can imagine it further, it is known that skilled female strippers can groom clients, making clients think that they’re the stripper’s special friend. That they’re the preferred client. This allows the clients—the guys who are folding the 20s in half and tucking them in the G-strings—to imagine some rudimentary fantasy being with the stripper all of the time because she is having a terrible home life.

Or there’s the stripper in college myth: ‘Oh, I’ll pay for her way in college.’ Women go to strippers and might see [Laughing] guys with good bodies…

[Laughing]

…but do not have their shit together. One of the most skilled strippers that I’ve ever worked with at PT Show Club in Denver is Todd the Bod in the 80s.

[Laughing]

Todd was tall. He was tanned. He knew how to move. He had good muscle definition, but I think Todd had 4 kids by 4 different women. [Laughing] It’s harder for women to imagine taking Todd the Bod home for more than the night. It is hard to build a fantasy life around Todd the Bod because he’s not friggin’ Bruce Wayne. Billionaire by day and guy who is weeny wagging by night. Although, that would be a great character.

It is a bunch of guys working at carpentry at Colorado Coal Company. Boulder’s less good strip club in the 80s. The other strippers and I—I was this mess and the other strippers were carpenters during the day—only had one stripper costume, which was the Carpenter. [Laughing] They’d get out there—this is 1981, 82, 83—stripping down there to their tool belt and the knee socks that people wore in the 1980s.

That’s not as take-home-able as a 19-year-old messed up girl. Anyway.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 105 – The Headless Chicken and Reward (Part 1)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/02

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: Just to mention other forms of not quite consciousness. In the 1940s, I believe, there was — and I want to call him “Sam the Headless Chicken,” but I don’t think that’s what his name was. But there was a headless chicken that was popular for a few months. This guy was trying to chop off this chicken’s head for dinner, but he missed and only chopped off the top of the chicken’s head. Leaving almost none of its brain and just its lower beak. The chicken still worked. The chicken walked around and did all sorts of chicken behavior.

There was enough of a nub-brain that it could perform some basic chicken functions. He had to feed it with an eye dropper in the chicken hole. He travelled around showing people the headless chicken. Obviously, that chicken has very little conscious processing, but the chicken still worked using the remaining processing that wasn’t centralized.

Scott Jacobsen: If you had the 100-node processor, and if you had the 85 nodes for administrative stuff, the 5 for relaying, and the 10 for conscious manipulation of information, it would be as if you cut off the 5 and the 10.

R: Yea, something like that. That is kinda a horror theme. I mean, zombies there’s some kinda possibly deep fear of losing the executive function, the conscious operator. Losing our identity, but still walking around.

S: People have prepared meals while they sleep walk. People do all sorts of things while they sleepwalk. Automated behaviors, they will then wake up without any memory of it, and they’ll have a freshly made meal ready to go. [Laughing]

R: Yea. [Laughing] People find that — People like to say that we’re hardwired to be afraid of snakes. I think there’s some deep disquiet about — I doubt it’s a hardwired thing — but, if you were going to make a list of things that make for good horror movies, loss of executive function is one of them. Stepford Wives, they’re still walking around, but have been hollowed out. There’s no there there. Anyway, you can probably make lists of dozens of horror movies that scare you by showing people taken: Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

S: We have real life cases of this by way. En masse, apparently, we have good research on the impacts of certain technologies on executive function. Executive function is an emergent property as a characteristic of people based on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. There’s another part of their brain called the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens is part of the reward center. So, typically, if you have a real-life task or goal that you want to achieve and you struggle for, you have a context surrounding it and a narrative leading up to it, and then when you achieve that goal — you get a 1585 on the SAT, you get a high score on a test, you climb Mount Everest, you ace a dance recital, and so on — then you have a very strong reward, but it is based within context. The issue is for education across most or all developed nations that are using technologies for certain things, such as pornography and video games, to excess that the typical — they checked in blood flows too — the blood flows that go from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — that is for self-control, morality, saying the right thing rather than the impulsive thing, conscientiousness — these behaviors come from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the blood flows there when you’re engaging in these activities. But when you’re engaging in excess pornography and video games…

R: You’re over-rewarded.

S: …it drains from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the term is “engorges” the nucleus accumbens. The problem: you get reward without real-life context. So people lose a lot of track of time. People have issues with this new form of addiction called arousal addictions, where you want more of different rather than more of the same with traditional drugs such as cocaine. So people, in a way, if they’re losing their executive function through these things, are enacting in such a way, not completely but to a degree, like these hypothetical zombies and Frankenstein, and all of those things.

R: You’re making a bunch of babies because you’re making them over rewarded and too easily rewarded. It sounds like Idiocracy.

S: It’s got electrolytes.

R: [Laughing] Brawndo.

S: [Laughing].

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 104 – ‘There’s Just Something About Octopi’

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/01

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: The big brain has to some extent trust the arm brains to run their arms. So an octopus’s consciousness is going to be different a little bit from ours. In that, the octopus’s brain is, to some extent, along for the ride of what the arms are doing. We’re usually not aware of the mechanics of walking and they talk about baseball pitchers and other athletes getting really screwed up if they become overly aware of the mechanics of the actions they made hardwired into themselves. If you practice your sport for 12 years, and you’re highly skilled, and if these highly synchronized motions involved with pitching the ball are second nature to you, then you start thinking about them, it can ruin the hardwired elegance and effectiveness of your motions.

There moments of greatest focus and athletic excellence that their consciousness — they become mindless, which might mean so much of their mental and cognitive resources are being devoted to super-precise actions in the moment that a lot of the normal chatter goes away.

That’s just for us with our skeletal-based bodies, with limited possibilities for motion. Imagine being an octopus that is trying to run itself while it’s eight arm are doing eight super-crazy, sophisticated things. Octopi can take forms. There was one on the sea floor. They watched it mimic the shape of 8 different sea creatures by reconfiguring itself into what it thought would be best in terms of camouflage. It is sophisticated stuff that the main brain may not always be aware of. It is similar to what you were saying in a 100-bit cognitive system (off tape). Some of those bits may be subconscious and performing sophisticated, semi-sophisticated, functions in some central arena that is watching what is going on. An Octopus is kinda somewhere between human consciousness and, say, ant consciousness. Where an individual ant has ‘meh’ consciousness, it’s going to be in the vague fog of perception that comes from having limited perceptual and cognitive apparatus.

Then you can imagine that ants working together form some kind of greater consciousness, which is really not the way it is. But you can imagine some creature with some kind of swarm consciousness, where the creature is all functioning together — but no one creature is in charge, like bees. Although, bees don’t work like that either. Basically, you’ve got a creature with a thousand separate bodies communicating with each other.

Say a flock of starlings, but starlings don’t work that way either, you can imagine some alien creature, where it’s got a bunch of mini-brains in its thousand bodies and the bodies are connected by some biological wireless server, so the thousand mini-brains in concert form an aggregate consciousness, and the octopus would be somewhere between us with our largely centralized consciousness and — my syntax fell apart. Anyway, we’ve got central consciousness, where we like to think everything we know we know consciously, which is not entirely true — but is more true for us than for octopi. They do a bunch of stuff, but the central brain is not fully conscious of it.

Scott Jacobsen: Marvin Minsky has an idea. He wrote a book. The book was called Society of Mind. I have talked to Sven about this at length. He mentioned that book a lot. [Laughing]

R: Yes.

S: Marvin Minsky’s book remains, in basic principles, akin to the idea of a 100-bit — not as in information bits, but as nodes — described before with a certain amount of administrative work, relays, and actual consciousness arena of manipulation of information in addition to the description you’ve provided of octopi.

R: Yes, I agree with the society of mind thing. I think there’s a mathematics of geometry that can picture the various mind-spaces, or cognitive spaces. Ones that are centralized. Ones that are less centralized. If you cut off an octopus’s arm, that octopus can still do a lot of stuff. You can imagine that you can sedate an octopus’s main brain, or damage it, and the octopus can still function just by — via — the limited awareness and abilities of the arm cognition.

We’ve been talking about how a cognitive space or a conscious space — a representation of that information — might look like a universe. In a highly centralized conscious information space, you’d have a highly populated central part of the universe with lots of galaxies going on. You can imagine an octopus’s information space that has a less populated active center and a bunch of more self-contained black hole-ish galaxies that only share a limited amount of information that is being shared with the central information space.

A lot of the information never making it out of the arm processing, the fine information being confined to a closed off, semi-closed off, information structure like a black hole galaxy that only gives you a trickle, or only least a trickle, of information that is being processed within the arm. Anyway, to sum up, there’s a math for that, for octopi consciousness, for human consciousness, and some kind of crazy swarm consciousness.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 103 – More on Octopi

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/28

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: This book, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith, talks about sentience and consciousness, which, I guess, sentience is a not quite conscious level of ability to think and perceive — but not as high as other animals. You can divide things up like that. Then he talks about a researcher who thinks that at the very threshold of consciousness or sentience, you would perceive the world as almost nothing.

That would be perceive as white noise, which is a good, but not, great analogy because when somebody says, “White noise,” I think of looking at an old TV screen. An old TV from the 70s goes off and you only see snow, which implies a perceptual framework that is well-enough developed to perceive static or snow as static or snow, but that’s not what they’re saying. They’re saying that not only are you experiencing white noise.

Your perceptual framework is so non-existent that you can’t even perceive white noise as white noise. You perceive almost nothing. It is like a vague blur, except that it is not a vague blur within some framework that allows you to perceive something as vague. Your framework is not that big or that precise. Off tape, you talked about a system that is able to perceive a white pixel or a black pixel as a base level of perception.

That runs into the same problem as white noise. In that, when I picture a pixel, I picture a white square or a black square. And if your system is only able to perceive one of two state, those states are so blurry — it’s bootstrapped chaos. Not only are you perceiving almost nothing, but you can’t perceive anything beyond almost nothing because you don’t have the perceptual or cognitive equipment.

There’s only vagueness, but you don’t know it’s vagueness because that would imply more perception and cognition. So just lights are not even on — I mean, anyway, the book also talks about how — You mentioned how in a really low-level perceptual system, say one that has cognitive capacity of 100 bits. How 85 of those bits might be administrative and only 5 or 10 would be the picture of the world that you have, that reminded me of something that is talked about in this octopi book, which is that octopi neural layout, structure, is much less centralized than ours. Almost all of our cognition takes place in our brains.

It takes less to run our bodies. It takes less cognition to run our bodies than an octopus because we have bones, which limits the range of configurations our limbs can take because everything is locked into place — planes of motion. We’re solid and octopi almost entirely soft and mush. There’s very little that gives them a definite, Erector Set, Tinker Toy — [Laughing] I am mentioning all of these toys that nobody knows anymore — Legos kind of structure.

But you can’t evolve that because those things, as far as we know, aren’t physically possible. But eyes are physically possible, and are helpful. Every step from light sensitive spots on your skin all the way to fully developed eyes are helpful. There’s a nice path of helpfulness, and it’s physically possible to evolve those things, then it seems those things will evolve often in more than one organism.

You have to find a place that has been floating away from clefts in the tectonic plates for a long, long time. And life as we know it originated closed out opportunities for other life to arise once it took hold and started changing the Earth’s physical environment and spitting out oxygen, and proliferating all over the place. Other possible forms of life just kind of — that opportunity was lost, though we do kinda know life went from single cellular to multicellular more than once.

You have plants. You have animals. You have a few other kingdoms, which, I think, reflect a couple other times when life went from single to multicellular. If you want to go to the Drake Equation or a Drake type of thinking, the Drake Equation is this deal that combines all of the probabilities for all of the necessary ingredients for life originated someplace else and combines them into one equation.

One thing you need are planets in places where you can get enough chemical activity for life to evolve. You don’t get good chemistry in a Mercury-type orbit too close to the Sun. You don’t get it too, too far away from the Sun. But in the last 5, 10, years, we’ve seen that part of the Drake Equation. Whatever he originally calculated has been blown away because it looks like the number of planets in the universe might be equal to the number of stars.

There seems to be at least one planet per star, which means that there’s close to that number of planets, in terms of the exponent you hang on it, in temperate regions — in that zone that permits life. The Earth orbit, perhaps Mars orbit, that distance from a star. So you can have things are warm enough for chemical activity, but not too warm. So that part of the Drake Equation is richly satisfying. Looking at how often the various steps in life have originated on Earth, it makes a good argument that if life originates at all. It has a fair chance of getting fairly fancy because of the treasures of existence. That the advantages to be had by taking the next steps in evolution, even though those steps aren’t designed, are permitted because they have given an advantage. There’s advantage in perception, in mobility.

The main bottleneck to being fairly convinced of life elsewhere is that first step of life originating at all. Once you get life, and looking at the history of life on Earth, it’s not unreasonable to imagine that life will evolve to take advantage of increased complexity over, and over, again throughout the universe.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 102 – Other Minds and Octopi

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/27

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Jacobsen: You were describing a book a little bit off tape.

Rick Rosner: It is called Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith. This guy has spent a lot of time thinking about consciousness and observing octopi, which are pretty smart. They have 500 million neurons compared to our 100 billion neurons. Quite a few less, but still enough to have fairly sophisticated behavior.

I quite eating octopi because they seemed too smart to eat, which is dumb because pigs are smart too and I’ll eat them. The thing I think is interesting is Octopuses became really smart independent of us, not as part of our line of evolution because our last common ancestor with octopuses was hundreds of millions of years ago. Our last common ancestor was some little worm that was a few millimeters long and couldn’t be thought of as doing much thinking at all.

It was a dumb little worm. Then our evolutionary track, we got really smart over the next half of a billion years, so did octopuses, but independently from us. Which means that brains — octopuses, there are all of these stories that if they don’t like you then they’ll squirt a jet of water at the back of your neck. They know how to unscrew jars. They know how to squirt water at light bulbs because they don’t like bright lights.

Some are nice. Some are dick-ish. They, maybe, do a kind of art, but they like arranging things on the sea floor in pleasing patterns. Stuff that indicates smart-ish behavior. It grew, not as part of a ladder to us, as a separate ladder than us. You can say intelligence developed at least twice. Two separate instances, you might be able to say birds. I don’t know if birds are smarter than dinosaurs or birds are smart because dinosaurs were smart.

Maybe, birds became smart in their own line. I argue the more times a thing independent evolves on Earth, then the more likely that thing will evolve in organisms on other planets, like eyes. Eyes seem to originate a lot. There’s a thing they call a teleological gradient, which is deceptive because teleology says something is designing us. You could call it the riches of existence. Basically, the world is a place where there are bread crumbs scattered around.

Like a video game, there are pieces of treasure around. With these pieces of treasure, you can earn these pieces of treasure by evolving to certain levels of sophistication or skill at existing in an environment. Though that involves a certain teleology, but saying it is random bread crumbs spread around. Things will evolve if there is a pathway for things to evolve. If there are physical structures that are possible, that can exist. For instance, it would be helpful to evolve the ability to time travel or have anti-gravity.

Means of locomotion, various means of locomotion have evolved numerous times. The one thing that it is hard to know whether it evolved more than once is life itself, whether life originated on Earth more than once. It is hard to know because life originated billions of years ago, and it originated in forms that don’t leave evidence behind. Even if this junk did leave fossils, not much got left because that’s enough time for the Earth’s surface to be recycled a bunch of times. You have to find a place that has been floating away from clefts in the tectonic plates for a long, long time. And life as we know it originated closed out opportunities for other life to arise once it took hold and started changing the Earth’s physical environment and spitting out oxygen, and proliferating all over the place. Other possible forms of life just kind of — that opportunity was lost, though we do kinda know life went from single cellular to multicellular more than once. You have plants. You have animals. You have a few other kingdoms, which, I think, reflect a couple other times when life went from single to multicellular. If you want to go to the Drake Equation or a Drake type of thinking, the Drake Equation is this deal that combines all of the probabilities for all of the necessary ingredients for life originated someplace else and combines them into one equation.

[End of recorded material]

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 101 – Life and Death (Part 16)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/26

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Jacobsen: We talked about the depressing aspects of life and death. Death in its rather bleak aspects as well as life in its gross aspects—sex, bodily functions. Another aspect that religion seems to have an upper hand on a lot of secular culture is reverence around life and death, e.g. the rituals, the pageantry, the music that arouses the “passions” for people, which, apart from the truth claims about things, do perform an important function for dealing with death, dealing with grief, death of others, and acceptance of one’s own finality at some point (Religious Movements, 2017).

Secular culture is only recently coming to terms with this, e.g. atheist churches. Let’s dig into this (Gibbons, n.d.).

Rick Rosner: To start out, you have to attempt to separate the positives aspects of death from the rationalizations for death, which is probably really hard to do in the same way you can’t see a face as anything else other than a face. Your brain sees faces as faces—to see them as anything else is super tough. Death is so a part of our biological existence and culture. It is hard to separate what might be the positive aspects from things that make us feel better about death.

But with that being said, one thing is it puts a frame on your life. It’s got a beginning and an end. You can grade yourself on what you did within the frame. That seems like half-rationalization at least. Another aspect is it seems impossible to live for infinity time, for an infinite time. it’s unlikely. Anything short of infinite time equals some kind of death. It is unlikely that the universe itself will exist for an infinite amount of time.

There’s the information processing aspect of death. Heinlein talked about this (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2015a). Where if you live long enough with a finite brain, you’re going to run out of storage. You can only store so many years of experience. Unless, you can find more and more compact ways of storing information. But even so, you’re going to run into a limit. Your hoped-for infinite life is going to be finite because your brain can only hold a finite amount of information

To live for infinite time, your brain would have to be infinite big, or you would have to reconcile yourself—even though, you may be living forever. You may not be remembering forever. But it’s not really a relevant discussion because we’re so far from infinite time. We’re so far from having lifespans that really deal with the storage capacity problem. A rationalization for being okay with death is that your body wears out.

That is more and more of a rationalization because we’re on the verge of all sorts of techniques and technology that make much of your body as replaceable as a carburetor in a 1958 Chevy. A semi-rationalization is that instead of your body wearing out. Your worldview wears out. The things you believe anchor you to a particular era. Time moves on and you become obsolete—well, we all encounter aspects of that.

To some extent, we’re all the grandma who can’t figure out how to operate the DVR because things are changing pretty fast. The solution isn’t to just die, or to keep up, or to put yourself in an informed enough position to know what to keep up with. A big argument, which will become more prevalent over the next century and a half, is that we just don’t matter that much as humans or as individuals.

The same way it is hard to feel that much sympathy for an aphid, which is a tiny little almost invisible bug that sucks juices out of plants. If you killed an almost invisible bug, most people would not feel sympathy for that entity’s loss of whatever brain space it had. Entities will come along who are merged people or are people plus AI, or AI constructs. Whatever comes after us, as those things dwarf us in terms of information processing and perceiving capacity, they’ll become—easier isn’t the right word, it’ll make the feelings of one primitive human not matter that much.

The counter to that is some Golden Rule thing. We are humans. We know how it feels to be us, and to us it matters. Another argument is that once we really enter the thought-sharing economy or information world, or planet-spanning neural net glob of merged brains and AI. That if you can spit out enough of your thoughts into the world blob. That’ll have the thinking processing capabilities of trillions of individual brains.

Once you add your flow of thoughts to that world blob for enough years, pretty much, you become a part of that. Your thoughts are integrated into it. You acquire a kind of immortality where you lose your individual body and brain may not be seen as tragic as it would be now. The world blob may act as a weird technical afterlife. And leading to some kind of fifth argument, which is death is an okay thing if it’s not a for real death.

If we can replicate our consciousnesses beyond the body, then the death of the body is no big deal. Given the right conditions, nobody wants to end up—there’s a Philip K. Dick from nearly 60 years ago called UBIK, which gives people technical afterlives (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2015b). But they’re very constrained and filled with fear. Everybody is kind of plugged into a not very good simulation of the world after a fatal accident that wipes out a rocket ship full of people.

But if you can move into either the real world or into a combination of the real world and cyber worlds with your replicated consciousness, and the cyber worlds aren’t sucky, physical death might be fine and economical and it might be the right thing for the world. I assume that at some point in the next 200 years, when it becomes possible to live indefinitely and to remove consciousness from the biological body, the steady increase in human population will level out because there will be a number of less expensive ways to continue your consciousness.

In the same way, people in the next 50 years will each less and less naturally raised meat because of how much energy it takes to grow a cow. More and more people 150 years from now may choose to live non-biologically because it is cheaper both for the individual and for the planet.

[End of recorded material]

[1] Four format points for the session article:

Bold text following and including “Scott Jacobsen:” or “S:” is Scott & non-bold text following and including “Rick Rosner:” or “R:” is Rick.
Session article conducted, transcribed, edited, formatted, and published by Scott.
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For further information on the formatting guidelines incorporated into this document, please see the following documents:

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References

Encyclopædia Britannica. (2015b, December 29). Philip K. Dick. Retrieved from

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Philip-K-Dick.

Encyclopædia Britannica. (2015a, December 29). Robert A. Heinlein. Retrieved from

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-A-Heinlein.

Gibbons, K. (n.d.). Dealing with Death in the Secular Family. Retrieved from

Click to access DealingWithDeath.pdf

Religious Movement. (2017). Religious Rituals as an Aid to Cope with Death. Retrieved from

http://www.religiousmovements.org/religious-rituals-as-an-aid-to-cope-with-death/.

References

Adkins, A.W.H. &pollard, J.R.T. (2010, April 20). Greek religion. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Greek-religion.

Ahl, A.E. & Steinvorth, D. (2006, October 20). Sex and Taboos in the Islamic World. Retrieved from http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/love-lust-and-passion-sex-and taboos-in-the-islamic-world-a-443678.html.

Barclay, C. (2014, May 14). 10 Most Bizarre Sexual Cultures and Practices. Retrieved from http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/most-shocking/10-most-bizarre-sexual-cultures-and-practices/.

Creach, J.F.D. (2016, July). Violence in the Old Testament. Retrieved from http://religion.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-154.

Encyclopædia Britannica. (2016, April 1). Pre-Socratics. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/pre-Socratics.

IMDb. (2017a). Star Trek. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060028/.

IMDb. (2017b). Blade Runner. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/.

Moran, L. (2006). What Is Evolution?. Retrieved from http://bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca/Evolution_by_Accident/What_Is_Evolution.html.

Rifkin, L. (2013, March 24). Is the Meaning of Your Life to Make Babies?. Retrieved from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/is-the-meaning-of-your-life-to-make-babies/.

Sonny, J. (2012). The Most Bizarre Sexual Traditions From Around The World. Retrieved from http://elitedaily.com/dating/sex/bizarre-sexual-traditions-world/.

Taylor, T. (2017). Iliac Crest. Retrieved from http://www.innerbody.com/image_skelfov/skel18_new.html.

Footnotes

[1] Four format points for the session article:

Bold text following and including “Scott Jacobsen:” or “S:” is Scott & non-bold text following and including “Rick Rosner:” or “R:” is Rick.
Session article conducted, transcribed, edited, formatted, and published by Scott.
Footnotes & in-text citations in the interview & references after the interview.
This session article has been edited for clarity and readability.

For further information on the formatting guidelines incorporated into this document, please see the following documents:

American Psychological Association. (2010). Citation Guide: APA. Retrieved from http://www.lib.sfu.ca/system/files/28281/APA6CitationGuideSFUv3.pdf.
Humble, A. (n.d.). Guide to Transcribing. Retrieved from http://www.msvu.ca/site/media/msvu/Transcription%20Guide.pdf.

[2] Violence in the Old Testament (2016) states:

“Violence in the Old Testament” may refer generally to the Old Testament’s descriptions of God or human beings killing, destroying, and doing physical harm. As part of the activity of God, violence may include the results of divine judgment, such as God’s destruction of “all flesh” in the flood story (Gen. 6:13) or God raining fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:24–25). The expression may also include God’s prescription for and approval of wars such as the conquest of Canaan (Josh. 1–12). Some passages seem to suggest that God is harsh and vindictive and especially belligerent toward non-Israelites (see Exod. 12:29–32; Nahum and Obadiah), though the Old Testament also reports God lashing out against rebellious Israelites as well (Exod. 32:25–29, 35; Josh. 7).

Christians have wrestled with divine violence in the Old Testament at least since the 2nd century ce, when Marcion led a movement to reject the Old Testament and the Old Testament God. The movement was substantial enough that key church leaders such as Irenaeus and Tertullian worked to suppress it. In the modern era interpreters have taken up the problem with new vigor and have treated it from fresh perspectives. Some attribute the Old Testament’s accounts of God destroying and killing to the brutality of the society that produced it, but they believe modern people are able to see the matter more clearly. They find support for this view in the apparent acceptance of cruel practices of war by Old Testament authors (Num. 21:1–3; Judg. 1:4–7; 1 Sam. 15). Within this way of reading is also a feminist critique that sees in the Old Testament a general disregard for women, illustrated by some passages that present sexual abuse as well as general subordination of women to men with no explicit judgment on such atrocities (Judg. 19; Ezek. 16, 23).

Creach, J.F.D. (2016, July). Violence in the Old Testament. Retrieved from http://religion.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-154.

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 100 – Life and Death (Part 15)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/25

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Jacobsen: To the beginning of the conversation, the kind of the religious and modern secular taboos around sexual relations, and the way that bodily functions are all haphazard—boogers, eye crust, ear wax—as you were saying—poop and pee—all of these things (Ahl and Steinvorth, 2017; Barclay, 2014; Sonny, 2012). Everything functions sufficiently well-enough to get the genes passed on (Moran, 2006; Rifkin, 2013).

Rick Rosner: We’re okay with our bodily functions. We’re okay with everything that we do on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment, basis. We’re okay with our functions.

S: Yeah.

R: Because we wouldn’t be productive otherwise. You can become philosophical and cynical and be bummed that we’re just dumb animals with limited capabilities, but most people don’t go around feeling that way and it wouldn’t be productive if we did. The everyday pleasures of life are such that—unless you’re a depressive person—they make up for the grossness of life. But sex is where our drives get weirdly perverse.

It’s largely because sex drives want us to do things that are against our best interests as individuals. So stuff that is sexy has to be really sexy. It’s deeply, deeply wired in. Where it’s crazy that people can be aroused by cartoons.

S: [Laughing] People can be aroused by pixels on a screen.

R: It’s crazy that super hardwired, super-forceful reactions to rounded shapes—to boobs and butts—at different points in our history, what has been exciting—it’s always been ridiculous but sometimes it’s extra ridiculous—like 100 years ago or 120 years ago seeing a chick’s ankle was sexy because you normally never see them, because everyone was wearing floor length skirts and getting a glimpse up somebody’s skirt to the point you can see their lower leg, somebody’s lower leg, that was bonerific.

[Laughing]

R: When I was growing up, seeing panties in certain circumstances—sometimes you felt sorry for them that they didn’t know their panties were on display—

[Laughing]

R: But generally, if you saw a cute woman’s undapants, that was the most, that was the best, most exciting deal!

[Laughing]

R: There’s an entire set of sexy calendar art from the 60s. They are these drawings of a cute woman who is bending over, where she is facing us. She’s dropped her stuff, or a dog has wrapped its leash around her legs, and she’s bent over trying to deal with what I going on. You can see that her underpants are around her ankle, just fallen down, and the wind is blowing, and her skirt is blowing up, but we can’t see what is up her skirt.

But there’s a guy behind her who is seeing the back side of her, and has a super excited look on his face. That’s such a specialized and crazy for of bonerificness, that is shows how crazily hardwired we are to be sexually oriented. You look at fashion. One aspect of fashion is to, as it changes from trend to trend and decade to decade, find what new parts of the body can be exposed.

Starting in the late 70s and moving through the 90s, it was the leg holes on underwear—women’s underwear—and leotards, and swimsuits, got higher and higher to exposing more and more of the upper thigh, toward the iliac crest, to the culminating in thong-type underwear and swimsuits, and all of that (Taylor, 2017). And then, in the 2000s, there was an opposite trend, instead of things moving up, waistlines moved down, and down, and down, until, on guys, the just above the pubis became an exposed erogenous zone or erotically exciting zone.

Where you’ve got the lower ab muscles right above the pubic hair, unless the guy’s manscaped, and also where the abs connect, there’s a triangle shape where the abs stop and the leg muscles come up underneath. In dorm posters of the 80s through now, I guess, under-boob is very exciting. Shirts that are too short that stop just below the nipple, but you can see the underside of the boobs.

Side boob became a thing. And then, in the past 8 years, butts have exploded. In the 70s, the skinny tone Jane Fonda body was popular and in the 70s and the 80s, the jacked Schwarzenegger muscly male body was considered the thing. Now, fat asses are the thing.

[Break in the recording]

R: Sex feels like you’re getting away with something. It is an even more perverse example of the counterproductive aspect of sex. It is something that you shouldn’t be doing and it’s thrilling that you shouldn’t be doing it. But it’s confusing how that has to be the mechanism. There’s a whole set of aspects of non-exalted human behavior. It is kind of necessary to fully portray humans—like the vision of the future in Star Trek I find troubling because it has no foolishness (IMDb, 2017a).

It is deeply serious with not a lot of foolishness. Blade Runner world is full of crap, crappy advertising, and a lot of shoddy stuff (IMDb, 2017b). That feels more real than the Star Trek future, where everyone is walking through futuristic plazas and everyone is clean. There’s a whole bunch of foolishness in the human endeavour. I’m not saying human endeavour is doomed to fail and therefore foolish.

I’m saying no matter how technically adept and sophisticated we become there’ll always be a bunch of ridiculousness going on.

S: Even our archetypes are like this, the ancient Greeks and the pre-Socratics, even the Romans, (Adkins & Pollard, 2010; Encyclopædia Britannica, 2016) their forms that they had set up for the gods were involved in all sorts of crazy stuff, but they were crystallized aspects anthropomorphized.

R: The gods were assholes. Every culture has the trickster character who is an asshole. So, yea.

S: Largely, our evolutionary—people like to use the word— ‘baggage’ is inevitably popping up in all sorts of ways—in culture, in religious forms – the Greek gods, the Abrahamic God in the Old Testament, even in the ways we conduct ourselves now in ‘civilized society’ you note the 8-year trend in fascination with rounded body parts, which is part and parcel of being human. It’s part and parcel of our baggage (Creach, 2016).[2]

R: We become less foolish as life becomes more precious. Where, say in the 1930s, I don’t think car seats had seat belts at all. They had metal dashboards. People would get in horrifying car wrecks. People weren’t overly concerned about that. “That’s what happens,” but the average lifespan in the 30s was in the 60s. Now, the average lifespan pushes into the 90s. Now, life is more precious and we have more technology to avid risk.

So we can talk about if it is a trend for people to behave less foolishly into the future as existence becomes more valuable.

[End of recorded material]

References

Adkins, A.W.H. &pollard, J.R.T. (2010, April 20). Greek religion. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Greek-religion.

Barclay, C. (2014, May 14). 10 Most Bizarre Sexual Cultures and Practices. Retrieved from http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/most-shocking/10-most-bizarre-sexual-cultures-and-practices/.

Creach, J.F.D. (2016, July). Violence in the Old Testament. Retrieved from http://religion.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-154.

Encyclopædia Britannica. (2016, April 1). Pre-Socratics. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/pre-Socratics.

IMDb. (2017a). Star Trek. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060028/.

IMDb. (2017b). Blade Runner. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/.

Moran, L. (2006). What Is Evolution?. Retrieved from http://bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca/Evolution_by_Accident/What_Is_Evolution.html.

Rifkin, L. (2013, March 24). Is the Meaning of Your Life to Make Babies?. Retrieved from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/is-the-meaning-of-your-life-to-make-babies/.

Sonny, J. (2012). The Most Bizarre Sexual Traditions From Around The World. Retrieved from http://elitedaily.com/dating/sex/bizarre-sexual-traditions-world/.

Taylor, T. (2017). Iliac Crest. Retrieved from http://www.innerbody.com/image_skelfov/skel18_new.html.

Footnotes

[1] Four format points for the session article:

Bold text following and including “Scott Jacobsen:” or “S:” is Scott & non-bold text following and including “Rick Rosner:” or “R:” is Rick.
Session article conducted, transcribed, edited, formatted, and published by Scott.
Footnotes & in-text citations in the interview & references after the interview.
This session article has been edited for clarity and readability.

For further information on the formatting guidelines incorporated into this document, please see the following documents:

American Psychological Association. (2010). Citation Guide: APA. Retrieved from http://www.lib.sfu.ca/system/files/28281/APA6CitationGuideSFUv3.pdf.
Humble, A. (n.d.). Guide to Transcribing. Retrieved from http://www.msvu.ca/site/media/msvu/Transcription%20Guide.pdf.

[2] Violence in the Old Testament (2016) states:

Creach, J.F.D. (2016, July). Violence in the Old Testament. Retrieved from http://religion.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-154.

License

Copyright

2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 99 – Life and Death (Part 14)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/24

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Jacobsen: Society has many taboos around sex and sexual conduct, especially for the young and women (Sonny, 2012). These can be religiously based traditionally, but even in larger secular culture they develop their own strange mores (Ibid.). Let’s talk about that a bit.

Rick Rosner: Before we get to that, we have to talk about how as civilized beings we have large investments in denying the grossness of our bodily functions. For most of civilized human history, for most of the past 1,000 years, we’ve considered ourselves more exalted than animals and have tried to sequester our biological functions away from polite consideration and discourse.

Anything to do with our genital areas is awkward to talk about in public. The grossest thing we do in public is probably eat and we have a weird separation of focus between how good tastes and what is actually happening in our mouths. It is being mushed and mixed with spit and eventually turned to shit. 60 years ago, Philip K. Dick wrote a book called Counter-Clock World (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2016). It is like an entire Benjamin Button world.

Dead old people come alive, dig themselves out of their graves, and then age in reverse, and people go to the grocery store and buy different flavors of shit all wrapped up and then they jam it up their asses, and then 24 hours later it comes out of their mouths as food, which is taboo for people to let other people unchew the food and it turning into the food products. Those are wrapped up and disposed of.

The whole process from beginning to end is grossly biological. We have tried to avoid addressing it for most of our history with things changing only in the last—there have always been people who have violated the taboos by talking about gross stuff, but only in the past, in the TV era, say, the recent TV era. All biological functions have become fair game for jokes and discussion, which is—the whole thing is—we live in a lot of forms of denial, and our denial of the gross biological nature of our daily lives is one of the biggest areas.

We think of ourselves as civilized, thinking, talking, creating beings. Yet we probably spend more of our time doing mandatory biological functions than we do doing the functions that we think make us human. Sleeping isn’t gross, but it is a mandatory biological function, that takes up at least a mandatory 25% of our lives. That’s 25% there. Then there’s everything else that we do.

Eating doesn’t take up that much time. Anyway, we—

S: Another bodily function is sex and birth.

R: Sex is the most perverse bodily function. For every other bodily function, our evolutionary imperative lines up with our individual imperative. By that I mean, every other bodily function we do is directly or indirectly related to continuing to live. We breathe to live. We eat to live. We drink to live. We pee and poop to live. They’re either things that we have no choice about doing—peeing, pooping, sleeping—or they are things where we have a choice but they are done in the pursuit of continued life.

Because we’re evolved creatures who have evolved to want to keep living in order to reproduce and create the next generations. So evolutionary forces have made us want to do 2 things: keep living and reproduce. And reproduction goes against the principles of wanting to keep living. In that, reproduction diverts resources from the individual that the individual could use for a better life, say. You’re creating entire other people, who are going to drain your resources and put you at risk. And who will eventually make you obsolete.

S: From the gene view, it is an absolute necessity (RationalWiki, 2015). From the individual organism view, it can be wasteful. Is that what you’re saying?

R: Yea, yea. We’re imperfectly designed. We’re not designed. We evolved. But the characteristics we evolved contain unavoidable contradictions. We want to keep living, but we have to make copies of ourselves through sex – which goes against our evolved drive to keep living. I would assume that’s an unavoidable consequence.

Wherever life has evolved, I would assume there’s that kind of contradiction because—we’ve talked about this a bit—evolution doesn’t particularly care, care about anything. It is a force. But it is a force that doesn’t place any premium…

[Break in the recording]

R: Anyway, There’s little evolutionary force behind us not getting our feelings hurt because we’re eventually all going to die.

S: Also, our emotions in reaction to the environment—environment broadly construed – kin, resources, and predators—are akin to bodily functions. Although, the emotions are a product of bodily, mental, functions.

R: Do you mean our innate, hardwired seeming reactions—like it seems we have an innate fear of snakes, bugs, and everyone thinks poop smells terrible, and dead people smell terrible?

S: It ties into it to a degree. However, instincts are important. Emotions are important. They are very deeply ingrained in this very ancient brain of ours.

R: We tend not to examine that stuff, question that stuff. We take the way we innately feel about things at face value and tend not to overly evaluate them. I’ve never smelled a rotting dead—I haven’t smelled a corpse, say, but I know from what I’ve read that it’s a smell that will make you puke, and it’s a hard smell to get out of your nose. It’s just the worst smell ever. There’s nothing inherently offensive about the smell.

Some part of us is making a judgment about how horrible that smell is. That’s hardwired in because corpses are, I assume it’s hardwired in, a health hazard. You want to stay away from them. You want to bury them, get away from them.

S: Have you heard of the lancet fluke (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2008)?

R: Nope.

S: It is a parasite that gets into a stomach of a cow or a sheep, drives into the brain of an ant, hijacks it, makes the ant go to the high part of a blade of grass, clamp down on it at night…

R: …where it’ll get captured by a bird.

S: Not quite, possibly others, but not this one, it will clamp to a higher plateau—branch, leaf— and then be grazed by a cow back into a cow stomach to lay eggs and continue its lifecycle.

R: Nasty, there are probably dozens if not hundreds of brain hijacking parasites. I read about a threadworm that takes over grasshopper brains and makes them go drown themselves, which facilitates part of the worm’s lifecycle. There’s toxoplasmosis, which makes mice and rats find cat urine sexually arousing, so that they get caught and infect the cat with the toxoplasmosis (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2013). They’re all nasty. They’re all the stuff of horror movies.

[End of recorded material]

References

Encyclopædia Britannica. (2008, November 7). Fluke. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/animal/fluke-flatworm.

Encyclopædia Britannica. (2016). Philip K. Dick. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Philip-K-Dick.

Encyclopædia Britannica. (2013). Toxoplasmosis. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/science/toxoplasmosis.

RationalWiki. (2015, March 19). Gene-centered view of evolution. Retrieved from http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gene-centered_view_of_evolution.

Sonny, J. (2012). The Most Bizarre Sexual Traditions From Around The World. Retrieved from http://elitedaily.com/dating/sex/bizarre-sexual-traditions-world/.

License

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 98 – Life and Death (Part 13)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/23

[Beginning of recorded material]

Rick Rosner: We’ve been talking about death. We’ve been talking about evolution (Moran, 2006).[2] We should tie those things together. One, death is kind of tied into evolution (Kucharski, 2013). Evolution only pushes towards things that work in terms of helping the species reproduce (Rifkin, 2013). In other words, evolutionary forces tend to preserve and promote reproduction (Ibid.). That’s the whole key to evolution. You have to make the next generation and the generation after that to survive as a species.

Past reproductive age, there is less and less evolutionary force in favor of living (Croft et al, 2015). There’s some evolutionary force, especially for sophisticated animals as ourselves because you need adults around to help raise the young (Thomas, 2013). But beyond that, there’s no reason evolutionarily for people to keep living, except for some added years because evolution also isn’t particularly interested in engineering—there’s no particular evolutionary force in having people keel over after some arbitrary childrearing age is over (Organ et al, 2008).

The pieces of people keep going and people keep tottering on into and pushing a century (Magalhães, 2013).[3] But there is an evolutionary force in people not living for a century. But there is an evolutionary force in people not living forever. It is probably not very big because people die anyway as a result of things breaking down as a result of people reaching childrearing age. But hypothetically, if there were some mechanism for people to live indefinitely, it would kinda be counter to the forces of evolution because those people—the super, super old—would be taking away resources from those animals, those people, who are still of reproductive and childrearing age.

Second, evolution doesn’t care that dying makes us sad (Hutson, 2017). Again, to go back to the basic principle of evolution, which is that it favors things which help members of a species reproduce, there’s very little evolutionary force behind us not feeling bad that we’re going to die. There might be a little force behind it. That you can’t—that a species that is depressed all of the time is a species that is probably going to be less successful than a species where the members of that species are more or less, not content but, not miserable all of the time (Ibid.).

There’s nothing in evolution that would force people of advanced age to feel any kind of euphoria about being dead soon. It is hard to breed things into people that don’t directly affect their reproductive health.

Scott Jacobsen: There’s also arguments for particular worldviews as overarching motivations to perpetuate that even further, to exacerbate or exaggerate, that tendency throughout nature in a particular species. By which I mean…

R: …You’re talking about religion?

S: Comprehensive worldviews such as religion (Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 2016). So those that enshrine extraordinary controls over the reproductive lives of the young, in particular women, and enshrine the “be fruitful and multiply” theology, for instance (Gallagher, 2012; Berkowitz, 2012; Davis, n.d.; Hall, 2013). I think this makes sense in what I’ve seen if you take the conversions from one religious faith to another— or out of—it is actually low in proportion to the total population of that worldview or religion (Libresco, 2015; Pew Research Center, 2015a).

If you look at simple birth rates, those belief systems tend to perpetuate themselves mostly on the rate of birth and the inculcation of those beliefs into the young (Ibid.; Pew Research Center, 2015b). Some call this indoctrination. However, I am simply giving an analysis rather than a judgment.

R: Who called religion the ‘opiate of the people’ (McKinnon, 2005)? Marx (McLellan & Feuer, 2016)?

S: Yes.

R: Okay. Religion is a success product, not least because it provides feelings of hope without overpromising. Religion can say, “You’re going to live forever if you buy this religion. We can’t show you living forever on earth, but there’s a place you go after you die where you live forever and everything is great.” That doesn’t over-promise because it doesn’t run contrary to evidence. Evidence is everybody dies, but there’s no evidence what happens after – so religion can promise what it can. People want that. People want hope and salvation, so religion sells.

S: So what happens after life, and what comprises life, become very important in those frameworks of the world, right?

R: Well, yea, because we have evolved drives to want to keep living and evolution has done nothing, or does nothing, to provide us with comfort that we’re not going to keep living, evolutionary forces have made us so we can’t get what we want, which is to not die. So we turn to human made products, which are religion. And, more recently, medicines—there have always been medicines that claimed to help you live longer or procedures that claimed to help you live longer.

The Egyptians wrapped their people to make them successfully resurrectable according to their whole religious system. There are people who have always sold snake oil kinda medicine. Medicines that have claimed to help you live for decades longer. That’s what I got.

[End of recorded material]

References

American Psychological Association. (2010). Citation Guide: APA. Retrieved from http://www.lib.sfu.ca/system/files/28281/APA6CitationGuideSFUv3.pdf.
Berkowitz, E. (2012, May 29). How Frightened Patriarchal Men Have Tried to Repress Women’s Sexuality Through History. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/story/155645/how_frightened_patriarchal_men_have_tried_to_repress_women’s_sexuality_through_history.
Croft, D.P., Brent, L.J.N., Franks, D.W., & Cant, M.A. (2015, May 14). The evolution of prolonged life after reproductive lifespan. Retrieved from http://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(15)00104-4.
Davis, A. (n.d.). Is Religion Afraid of Women?. Retrieved from http://urbanette.com/catholic-vatican-afraid-of-women/
Gallagher, B.J. (2012, February 22). Women’s Sexuality and Men’s Fear. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bj-gallagher/womens-sexuality-and-mens_b_1289564.html.
Hall, D.S. (2013, February 22). Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality. Retrieved from http://www.woodhullfoundation.org/2013/sex-and-politics/sex-god-how-religion-distorts-sexuality/.
Humble, A. (n.d.). Guide to Transcribing. Retrieved from http://www.msvu.ca/site/media/msvu/Transcription%20Guide.pdf.
Hutson, M. (2017, February 9). Does Depression Have an Evolutionary Purpose?. Retrieved from http://nautil.us/issue/45/power/does-depression-have-an-evolutionary-purpose.
Kucharski, A. (2013, July 11). What is the evolutionary advantage of death?. Retrieved from http://io9.gizmodo.com/what-is-the-evolutionary-advantage-of-death-743044300.
Libresco, L. (2015, May 19). Running the (Terrible for Catholics) Numbers on Conversion. Retrieved from http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/2015/05/running-the-terrible-for-catholics-numbers-on-conversion.html.
Magalhães, J.P. (2013). What Is Aging?. Retrieved from http://www.senescence.info/aging_definition.html.
McKinnon, A.M. (2005). Opium as Dialectics of Religion: Metaphor, Expression and Protest. Retrieved from http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/2164/3074/marx_religion_and_opium_final_author_version.pdf;jsessionid=A5642E6EC868842175E1CD3A770F9A41?sequence=1.
McLellan, D.T. & Feuer, L.S. (2016, March 14). Karl Marx. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Karl-Marx.
Moran, L. (2006). What Is Evolution?. Retrieved from http://bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca/Evolution_by_Accident/What_Is_Evolution.html.
Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. (2016, January 31). Definitions of the word “religion”. Retrieved from http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_defn1.htm.
Organ, C.L., M.H. Schweitzer, W. Zheng, L.M. Freimark, L.C. Cantley, and J.M. Asara. 2008.
Molecular phylogenetics of mastodon and Tyrannosaurus rex. Science 320(5875):499. DOI:10.1126/science.1154284
Pew Research Center. (2015a, May 13). America’s Chaning Religious Landscape. Retrieved from http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/.
Pew Research Center. (2015b, April 2). The Future of World Religions: Population Growth
Projections, 2010-2050. Retrieved from http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/.
Rifkin, L. (2013, March 24). Is the Meaning of Your Life to Make Babies?. Retrieved from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/is-the-meaning-of-your-life-to-make-babies/.
Thomas, P. (2013, January 1). The Post-Reproductive Lifespan: Evolutionary Perspectives. Retrieved from http://biologie.ens-lyon.fr/ressources/bibliographies/m1-11-12-biosci-reviews-thomas-p-1c-m.xml.

Footnotes

[1] Four format points for the session article:

Bold text following and including “Scott Jacobsen:” or “S:” is Scott & non-bold text following and including “Rick Rosner:” or “R:” is Rick.
Session article conducted, transcribed, edited, formatted, and published by Scott.
Footnotes & in-text citations in the interview & references after the interview.
This session article has been edited for clarity and readability.
Date listed is YYYY/MM/DD.

For further information on the formatting guidelines incorporated into this document, please see the following documents:

American Psychological Association. (2010). Citation Guide: APA. Retrieved from http://www.lib.sfu.ca/system/files/28281/APA6CitationGuideSFUv3.pdf.
Humble, A. (n.d.). Guide to Transcribing. Retrieved from http://www.msvu.ca/site/media/msvu/Transcription%20Guide.pdf.

[2] What Is Evolution? (2006) states:

It’s important to distinguish between the existence of evolution and various theories about the mechanism of evolution. For the time being, I’m not interested in describing evolutionary theory because that’s not something that requires a “definition.” However, when we refer to the existence of biological evolution we must know what we’re talking about. When biologists say that they have observed evolution or that humans and chimps have evolved from a common ancestor they have in mind a scientific definition of evolution. What it it?

One of the most respected evolutionary biologists has recently defined biological evolution as follows:

Biological (or organic) evolution is change in the properties of populations of organisms or groups of such populations, over the course of generations. The development, or ontogeny, of an individual organism is not considered evolution: individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are ‘heritable’ via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportions of different forms of a gene within a population, such as the alleles that determine the different human blood types, to the alterations that led from the earliest organisms to dinosaurs, bees, snapdragons, and humans.

Douglas J. Futuyma (1998) Evolutionary Biology 3rd ed.,
Sinauer Associates Inc. Sunderland MA p.4

Moran, L. (2006). What Is Evolution?. Retrieved from http://bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca/Evolution_by_Accident/What_Is_Evolution.html.

[3] What Is Aging? (2013) states:

To sum it up, aging is a complex process composed of several features: 1) an exponential increase in mortality with age; 2) physiological changes that typically lead to a functional decline with age; 3) increased susceptibility to certain diseases with age. So, I define aging as a progressive deterioration of physiological function, an intrinsic age-related process of loss of viability and increase in vulnerability.

Gerontology is the branch of biomedical sciences that studies aging. In senescence.info, gerontology normally refers to the study of the biological process of aging, not its medical consequences. Generally, I use geriatrics to refer specifically to the medical study of diseases and problems of the elderly. Technically, gerontology includes both the biological and the medical branches of the study of aging, but since senescence.info is written in the context of the biology of aging, gerontology usually refers to the study of the biological aspects of aging, unless otherwise specified. Biogerontology refers specifically to the biological study of aging and is also used, usually interchangeably, with gerontology.

Life expectancy is how long, on average, an organism can be expected to live. Longevity is the period of time an organism is expected to live under ideal circumstances. Lifespan is defined as the period of time in which the life events of a species or sub-species (e.g., a strain or population) typically occur. Lifespan and longevity can sometimes be used interchangeably, though they have slightly different meanings. For humans, lifespan and longevity are about the same in industrial nations, but when studying species in the wild, one can expect that lifespan will be lower than longevity since feral conditions are certainly not ideal for assessing longevity. For most purposes, life expectancy, average longevity, and average lifespan have the same meaning. Maximum longevity and maximum lifespan are the maximum amount of time animals of a given species or sub-species can live–typically, the record longevity for that species. The maximum longevity of humans is 122 years, recorded by the late Jeanne Calment (Allard et al., 1998).

Magalhães, J.P. (2013). What Is Aging?. Retrieved from http://www.senescence.info/aging_definition.html.

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 97 – Life and Death (12)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/22

Scott: As a systems and institutional analysis, and in my experience in the academic system, and I know it pretty well, if you look at the way that the professorial system is set up and some research by Jonathan Haidt and others, the ratio of liberal-to-conservative thinkers in the departments are 12-to-1 to 18-to-1 (Richardson, 2016; Thorne, 2011; Gross, 2016; Letzter, 2016, Abrams, 2016; Kristof, 2016, Konnikova, 2014; Kay, 2016; Leo, 2016; Smith, 2012; Bunch 2016; Honeycutt, 2016; Chen, 2015; Haidt, 2014; MacDonald, 2015; Smith, 2016; Bouck, 2015). It’s cozy with lifetime jobs for the most part (National Education Association, 2015; Enders, 2015; Ginsberg, 2012). You have tenure (Yamada, 2011).[2] You are around people that believe the same things as you. So in two ways, it’s very good. One, you are around people who believe the same things as you. So it becomes akin to seminary, where there might be the occasional Baptist where the rest of the attendees are some form of Catholic or Protestant, or some major branch of Christianity (The Association of Theological Schools, 2017). The second one is if students are going to be coming to you to do an honors project for undergraduate, or bachelor, degrees, or to do a master’s or doctoral thesis with you, then they will have juicier bait if they kowtow and pick a topic that is more aligned with something you’re more interested in and something that you’re going to be more interested in is going to be politically to the Left (Carleton University, 2017; The University of British Columbia, 2017).[3]^,[4] I’m not saying better or worse, necessarily, but I am saying bias – as this is a systems and institutional analysis (Rothman et al, 2005; Tobin, & Weinberg, 2006; Hudson, 2010: McArdle, 2017; Chisholm-Burns, 2016; Riley, 2014; Gobry, 2014). So there’s very much something to what you’re saying about the British ‘posh’ system that Darwin and Wallace had there in terms of who gets a say in what and who gets to claim ownership (Desmond, 2016; Camerini, 2007).[5]^,[6]

Rick: It’s also the deal with Everett (Everett, 2015). He was an evangelist. He didn’t start as an evangelist. He started as a white trash street kid, who was kind of—he met a hot young woman who was an evangelist, married her, and became one himself. The deal is that if you want to evangelize part of the world that doesn’t speak English then you have to at least make an attempt to learn their language. Anyway—so, he had a white trash, trailer trash, background and then a weirdly religious background. So he didn’t have great academic credentials. The situation recreated itself. There’s a whole other factor of the clustering of beliefs. If all of the best people are on one side, or have been recruited to one point of view, then they’re going to have better arguments and it will make it easier for them to recruit more good people. In the Middle Ages, there were a lot of good arguments—all of the best people were in the religion business. They were either religious people or their work were sponsored by religious communities. So there were a lot of persuasive arguments for religion. Now, all of the most persuasive arguments are made by science.

It’s not to say the religion and science are equally true. One reason the best arguments are made by science is because science reflects external reality. It certainly doesn’t help religious arguments that most of the smartest people are going to be more attracted to science than religion. In this country, we’ve fallen into the deal where Republicans were encouraged, have been encouraged, to pander to dumb people for about 30 years or more, since before Reagan, because dumb people are more manipulable. This has led to people who don’t like dumb arguments being more attracted to non-Republicans and systems. You have more smart people on the Democrat side than the Republican side, which leads to better arguments made by the Democrats and dumber arguments made by the Republicans. It leads to this situation we have now. Where it has pissed off smart people on the Liberal side and pissed off people on the Republican side, with the relatively few smart conservatives, their voices are lost in piles and piles dumbshittery. It is not a good situation.

S: This goes back to the similar phenomenon in the Wolfe and Chomsky case (Kirsch, 2016; Siegfried, 2016).

R: Yeah—well, yes and no. Orthodoxy does serve a purpose besides maintaining the status quo. There are non-cultural reasons. There empirical reasons why some orthodoxies dominate. For instance, believing in both flavors of Einstein’s Relativity is an orthodoxy, believing in Quantum Mechanics is an orthodoxy, before that, 120 years ago, believing in Newtonian Mechanics as the pinnacle of physics was the orthodoxy and it wasn’t because of the cozy clubs of physicists (Moring, 2001). It was because these orthodoxies were supported by a bunch of scientific success. Theories that turned out to be closely matched to the real world. And the lack of theories that weren’t as good at that point than the existing orthodox theories. Orthodoxies tend to be too hide-bound and a little too resistant to new theories. At the same time, they do keep out a lot of crap theories. There are obvious pluses and minuses to the natural orthodoxies that form, which is all laid out pretty much in Kuhn structure of scientific revolution (Kuhn, 1970)?

S: That’s correct.

R: Which itself has been kind of—that thing is old now. It itself used to be revolutionary. Now, it has been subject to revised analysis. Anyway. You hear a saying in Liberal circles a lot lately that “reality has a Liberal bias.” That anytime the dumb Right runs into facts it doesn’t like. Now, they yell, “Fake news!” That’s phenomenon is only about 6 months old. I am hoping that it goes away, personally. That’s it.

References

Abrams, S. (2016, January 9). Professors moved left since 1990s, rest of country did not. Retrieved from http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/01/09/professors-moved-left-but-country-did-not/.
Bouck, D. (2015, November 18). The Revenge of the Coddled: An Interview with Jonathan Haidt. Retrieved from https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/11/the-revenge-of-the-coddled-an-interview-with-jonathan-haidt.
Bunch, S. (2016, September 1). The conservative critics the BBC left out of its best movies poll. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2016/09/01/the-conservative-critics-the-bbc-left-out-of-its-best-movies-poll/?utm_term=.19f74639a420.
Camerini, J.R. (2007, November 13). Alfred Russel Wallace. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Russel-Wallace.
Carleton University. (2017). Honours Thesis vs. Honours Project. Retrieved from https://carleton.ca/psychology/undergraduate/current-students/thesis-vs-project/.
Chen, A. (2015, October 5). Is a Liberal Bias Hurting Social Psychology?. Retrieved from https://psmag.com/is-a-liberal-bias-hurting-social-psychology-957dab1d7c2e#.4dalaukl0.
Chisholm-Burns, M. (2016). Untold Stories and Difficult Truths about Bias in Academia. Retrieved from https://www.aaup.org/article/untold-stories-and-difficult-truths-about-bias-academia#.WK31x_krKM9.
Desmond, A.J. (2016, June 10). Charles Darwin. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/CharlesDarwin.
Enders, J. (2015, June 29). Explainer: how Europe does academic tenure. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-europe-does-academic-tenure-43362.
Everett, D. (2015). Background. Retrieved from https://daneverettbooks.com/about-dan/.
Ginsberg, B. (2012, May). Gross, N. (2016, May 20). Professors are overwhelmingly liberal. Do universities need to change hiring practices?. Retrieved from http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-gross-academia-conservatives-hiring-20160520-snap-story.html.
Gobry, P.E. (2014, December 17). How academia’s liberal bias is killing social science. Retrieved from http://theweek.com/articles/441474/how-academias-liberal-bias-killing-social-science.
Haidt, J. (2014, July 24). Post-Partisan Social Psychology. Retrieved from http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/postpartisan.html.
Honeycutt, N. (2016, November 21). Political Intolerance Among University Faculty Highlights Need For Viewpoint Diversity. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/11/21/political-intolerance-among-university-faculty-highlights-need-for-viewpoint-diversity/#38a2fe824f1d.
Hudson, K. (2010). Why are there so Few Conservatives in Academia? Testing the Self-Selection Hypothesis. Retrieved from http://www.xavier.edu/xjop/documents/Hudson.pdf.
Kay, J. (2016, February 2). Political groupthink is bad for our universities. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/e305dd56-c900-11e5-a8ef-ea66e967dd44.
Kirsch, A. (2016, September 22). Tom Wolfe, boldly going where no man has gone before. Retrieved from http://www.afr.com/lifestyle/arts-and-entertainment/books/tom-wolfe-boldlygoing-where-no-man-has-gone-before-20160919-grjgo3#ixzz4ZKvQxuzx.
Konnikova, M. (2014, October 30). Is Social Psychology Biased Against Republicans?. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/social-psychology-biased-republicans.
Kristof, N. (2016, May 7). A Confession of Liberal Intolerance. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html?_r=0.
Kuhn, T. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Retrieved from http://projektintegracija.pravo.hr/_download/repository/Kuhn_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions.pdf.
Leo, K. (2016, February 3). A Conversation with Jonathan Haidt. Retrieved from http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2016/02/a-conversation-with-jonathan-haidt/.
Letzter, R. (2016, August 26). A college professor wrote a biting explanation for why so many professors are Democrats. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/why-are-so -many-scientists-democrats-2016-8.
MacDonald, K. (2015, October 18). Liberal Bias in Academia: Will Being Self-Conscious About It Help?. Retrieved from http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2015/10/liberal-bias-in-academia-will-being-self-conscious-about-it-help/.
McArdle, M. (2017, February 22). How Not to Address Liberal Bias in Academia. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-22/how-not-to-address-liberal-bias-in-academia.
Moring, G.F. (2001). Theories of the Universe. Retrieved from http://www.infoplease.com/cig/theories-universe/quantum-mechanics-vs-general-relativity.html.
National Education Association. (2015). The Truth About Tenure in Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/home/33067.htm.
Richardson, B. (2016, October 6). Retrieved from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/6/liberal-professors-outnumber-conservatives-12-1/.
Riley, N.S. (2014, October 12). Liberal bias in academia is destroying the integrity of research. Retrieved from http://nypost.com/2014/10/12/liberal-bias-in-academia-is-destroying-the-integrity-of-research/.
Rothman, S., Lichter, S.R., & Nevitte, N. (2005). Politics and Professional Advancement Among College Faculty. Retrieved from http://www.conservativecriminology.com/uploads/5/6/1/7/56173731/rothman_et_al.pdf.
Siegfried, T. 2016, October 19). Tom Wolfe’s denial of language evolution stumbles over his own words. Retrieved from https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/tom-wolfe-deniallanguage-evolution-stumbles-over-his-own-words.
Smith, E.E. (2012, August 1). Survey shocker: Liberal profs admit they’d discriminate against conservatives in hiring, advancement. Retrieved from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal-majority-on-campus-yes-were-biased/.
Smith, K. (2016, April 17). Conservative professors must fake being liberal or be punished on campus. Retrieved from http://nypost.com/2016/04/17/conservative-professors-must-fake-being-liberal-or-be-punished-on-campus/.
Tapson, M. (2016, October 7). Study: Liberal Professors Outnumber Conservatives 12 to 1. Retrieved from http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/study-liberal-professors-outnumber-conservatives-12-1.
The Association of Theological Schools. (2017). Denominational List. Retrieved from http://www.ats.edu/member-schools/denominational-search.
The University of British Columbia. (2017). The Graduate Thesis. Retrieved from https://www.grad.ubc.ca/handbook-graduate-supervision/graduate-thesis.
Thorne, A. (2011, March 23). Why Are Most College Professors Liberal? New Studies Investigate.
Tobin, G.A. & Weinberg, A.K. (2006). A Profile of American College Faculty: Volume I: Political Beliefs and Behavior. Retrieved from http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=3526.
Yamada, D. (2011, August 22). What is Academic Tenure?. Retrieved from https://newworkplace.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/what-is-academic-tenure/.

Footnotes

[1] Four considerations for the session article:

Bold text following and including “Scott:” or “S:” is Scott & non-bold text following and including “Rick” or “R” is Rick.
Session article conducted, transcribed, edited, formatted, and prepared by Scott.
Footnotes & in-text citations in the interview & references after the interview.
This session article has been edited for clarity and readability.

[2] What is Academic Tenure? (2011) states:

Tenure is pretty much unique to educational settings. Attaining tenured status as a professor usually means two things:

First, it conveys an enhanced level of protection for academic freedom, grounded in the conviction that knowledge creation and expression of ideas should be free from intimidation or retaliation.

Second, it provides significantly elevated levels of job security. Generally speaking, tenured professors can be dismissed only for failure to perform essential job responsibilities, serious misconduct, or severe economic necessity. In the United States, only unionized employees with strong collective bargaining agreements enjoy similar job protections.

Tenure is conferred by a single institution; thus, it is not automatically transferable. A tenured professor who wants to move elsewhere typically must negotiate with another institution to be appointed with tenure, or perhaps do what’s called a “look see” year as a visiting professor to determine whether a lateral hiring with tenure is a good match.

Ideally, the transition to tenured status transforms the employment relationship from one of contract to that of covenant. In other words, tenure should create a special bond, a mutual investment, between the institution and the professor. Umm, it doesn’t always work that way, as the academic workplace can be as full of ups and downs as any other. Nevertheless, most tenured professors take their responsibilities seriously and appreciate the benefits conferred by this status.

Yamada, D. (2011, August 22). What is Academic Tenure?. Retrieved from https://newworkplace.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/what-is-academic-tenure/.

[3] Honours Thesis vs. Honours Project (2017) states:

What are the differences between the Project and the Thesis?

Honours Thesis

The Thesis involves conducting research under the direct supervision of a faculty member. It typically involves:

literature review
data collection and analysis
preparation of a substantial document…

Honours Project

The Project is a regularly scheduled class (1.0 credit) during which students participate in a variety of active learning exercises.

Students will work closely with each other via writing groups, peer-editing exercises, and other elements consistent with a supportive writing community in order to enhance their:

writing
critical reading
presentation skills.

Carleton University. (2017). Honours Thesis vs. Honours Project. Retrieved from https://carleton.ca/psychology/undergraduate/current-students/thesis-vs-project/.

[4] The Graduate Thesis (2017) states:

Your thesis will be the final product of your time in graduate school. You should be planning your thesis from the very beginning of your degree program.

A thesis is a substantial piece of scholarly writing that reflects the writer’s ability to:

conduct research
communicate the research
critically analyze the literature
present a detailed methodology and accurate results
verify knowledge claims and sources meticulously
link the topic of the thesis with the broader field

A thesis at the doctoral level is called a dissertation, but dissertations and theses are usually referred to collectively as theses. There are some differences between a master’s and a doctoral thesis:

A master’s thesis must demonstrate that the student knows the background and principal works of the research area, and can produce significant scholarly work. It should contain some original contribution whenever possible.
A doctoral thesis must contain a substantial contribution of new knowledge to the field of study. It presents the results and an analysis of original research, and should be significant enough to be published.

The University of British Columbia. (2017). The Graduate Thesis. Retrieved from https://www.grad.ubc.ca/handbook-graduate-supervision/graduate-thesis.

[5] Charles Darwin (2016) states:

Charles Darwin, in full Charles Robert Darwin (born February 12, 1809, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England—died April 19, 1882, Downe, Kent), English naturalist whose scientific theory of evolution by natural selection became the foundation of modern evolutionary studies. An affable country gentleman, Darwin at first shocked religious Victorian society by suggesting that animals and humans shared a common ancestry. However, his nonreligious biology appealed to the rising class of professional scientists, and by the time of his death evolutionary imagery had spread through all of science, literature, and politics. Darwin, himself an agnostic, was accorded the ultimate British accolade of burial in Westminster Abbey, London.

Desmond, A.J. (2016, June 10). Charles Darwin. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/CharlesDarwin.

[6] Alfred Russel Wallace (2007) states:

Alfred Russel Wallace, byname A.R. Wallace (born Jan. 8, 1823, Usk, Monmouthshire, Wales—died Nov. 7, 1913, Broadstone, Dorset, Eng.), British humanist, naturalist, geographer, and social critic. He became a public figure in England during the second half of the 19th century, known for his courageous views on scientific, social, and spiritualist subjects. His formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection, which predated Charles Darwin’s published contributions, is his most outstanding legacy, but it was just one of many controversial issues he studied and wrote about during his lifetime. Wallace’s wide-ranging interests—from socialism to spiritualism, from island biogeography to life on Mars, from evolution to land nationalization—stemmed from his profound concern with the moral, social, and political values of human life.

Camerini, J.R. (2007, November 13). Alfred Russel Wallace. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Russel-Wallace.

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 96 – Life and Death (11)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/21

*Footnotes & in-text citations in the interview & references after the interview.*

*This session edited for clarity and readability.*

Rick: This book I am reading I great, and only 170 pages or so, because 1) he’s a great writer and b) you want to read a book by him and that’s not 800 pages (Amazon, 2017). It’s got a lot of great gossip and dissing of Darwin (Desmond, 2016).[1] It’s got a whole big chapter of how Darwin kind of stole credit for the theory of evolution from Wallace because Darwin was a gentleman and belonged to the upper class of England. He was able to steal credit away from Wallace (Camerini, 2007; Wyhe, 2013; Thornhill, 2012; Coyne, 2011; Garner, 2016; Kirsch, 2016; Siegfried, 2016).[2] They each independently developed theories of evolution, but Wallace tried to turn his in first. But Darwin was able to slide his in beside it so that he got credit as co-discoverer, but we call it Darwinism (Lennox, 2015). Wolfe talks about how England’s social structure facilitated that whole sleight of hand that lead to Darwin getting more credit. Also, he’s kind of mean to Noam Chomsky (McGilvray, 2009). It is fun to read. It is interesting because it is arguing about language as a cultural artifact and, at the same time, is telling these kind of gossipy stories about how people who are trying to decide how their own theories and stuff rose to prominence.

Darwin rode into prominence on a cultural tide. Chomsky rode to prominence on kind of a similar forceful personality and cult of personality, and academic gamesmanship, whether it was intentional or not. And then there’s a guy that tries to take down Chomsky based on his experience (McCrum, 2012). He goes to live as an evangelist with his evangelist wife in the Brazilian rainforest. He tries to be an evangelist to the people with the least developed language structure on Earth. They only have present tense. They have no idea of numbers. The guy spends 30 years in dire circumstances, in the most horrible circumstances, and comes back with evidence that there’s no evolutionary basis for language based on what he discovered among these people who barely had language or civilization, and were perhaps living the way that humans lived on the cusp between zero civilization and the very beginnings of it.

They don’t have permanent structures. They throw up a bunch of palm fronds and leaves, and when the wind comes and tears up their temporary structures they build another one. It makes me think about an aspect of evolution that I take for granted—two aspects. Humans evolved from other primates and that language is an evolved characteristic, but I had never been forced to examine the—it is a huge leap! And we’ve grown up under it. Evolution is 150 years old, but it wasn’t at all apparent to the first popularizers of evolution, Darwin (Than, 2015). Darwin was very cautious about suggesting humans evolved from other primates, and we’re so different from other primates that we take it for granted. Most technically minded, technologically minded, people, most people who believe in evolution, don’t take it as a whole separate question as to whether humans evolved from other animals. It’s part of our contemporary package, but it wasn’t at the very beginnings of the theory.

At least, it was something that took more arguing to make the case for because of religious and cultural factors, on the one hand, and that we’re so different in the way we live than other animals and the way we’re built. I’ve never thought of language as ot being an evolved thing. This book sets out a convincing case that language, while it’s the basis for civilization, makes so many things easier. It is hard to imagine civilization without it. It is the linchpin of civilization. It might involve having evolved structures to facilitate language. That language may just ride along with the brain’s general ability, the human brain’s general ability, to be flexible and efficiently process information, which is a lot for a tiny little book. 170 pages and only 300 words per page. It’s only 50,000 words. A kind of a fun book.

References

(2017). The Kingdom of Speech. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.ca/Kingdom-Speech-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0316404624.
Camerini, J.R. (2007, November 13). Alfred Russel Wallace. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Russel-Wallace.
Coyne, J. (2011, December 20). Did Darwin Plagiarize Wallace?. Retrieved from https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/did-darwin-plagiarize-wallace/.
Desmond, A.J. (2016, June 10). Charles Darwin. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Darwin.
Garner, D. (2016, August 30). Tom Wolfe’s ‘The Kingdom of Speech’ Takes Aim at Darwin and Chomsky. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/31/books/tom-wolfes-kingdom-of-speech-takes-aim-at-darwin-and-chomsky.html?_r=0.
Kirsch, A. (2016, September 22). Tom Wolfe, boldly going where no man has gone before. Retrieved from http://www.afr.com/lifestyle/arts-and-entertainment/books/tom-wolfe-boldly-going-where-no-man-has-gone-before-20160919-grjgo3#ixzz4ZKvQxuzx.
Lennox, J. (2015, May 26). Darwinism. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/darwinism/.
McCrum, R. (2012, March 25). Daniel Everett: ‘There is no such thing as universal grammar’. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/mar/25/daniel-everett-human-language-piraha.
McGilvray, J.A. (2009, September 10). Noam Chomsky. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Noam-Chomsky.
Siegfried, T. 2016, October 19). Tom Wolfe’s denial of language evolution stumbles over his own words. Retrieved from https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/tom-wolfe-denial-language-evolution-stumbles-over-his-own-words.
Than, K. (2015, May 13). What is Darwin’s Theory of Evolution?. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/474-controversy-evolution-works.html.
Thornhill, T. (2012, March 9). Better late than never! Charles Darwin cleared of stealing ideas for theory of evolution… 40 years after historians first accused him. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2112773/Charles-Darwin-finally-cleared-stealing-ideas-theory-evolution–40-years-historians-accused-him.html#ixzz4ZKdzQerM.
Wyhe, J.V. (2013, August 9). Darwin did not cheat Wallace out of his rightful place in history. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/aug/09/charles-darwin-alfred-russel-wallace.

Footnotes

[1] Charles Darwin (2016) states:

Charles Darwin, in full Charles Robert Darwin (born February 12, 1809, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England—died April 19, 1882, Downe, Kent), English naturalist whose scientific theory of evolution by natural selection became the foundation of modern evolutionary studies. An affable country gentleman, Darwin at first shocked religious Victorian society by suggesting that animals and humans shared a common ancestry. However, his nonreligious biology appealed to the rising class of professional scientists, and by the time of his death evolutionary imagery had spread through all of science, literature, and politics. Darwin, himself an agnostic, was accorded the ultimate British accolade of burial in Westminster Abbey, London.

Desmond, A.J. (2016, June 10). Charles Darwin. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Darwin.

[2] Alfred Russel Wallace (2007) states:

Alfred Russel Wallace, byname A.R. Wallace (born Jan. 8, 1823, Usk, Monmouthshire, Wales—died Nov. 7, 1913, Broadstone, Dorset, Eng.), British humanist, naturalist, geographer, and social critic. He became a public figure in England during the second half of the 19th century, known for his courageous views on scientific, social, and spiritualist subjects. His formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection, which predated Charles Darwin’s published contributions, is his most outstanding legacy, but it was just one of many controversial issues he studied and wrote about during his lifetime. Wallace’s wide-ranging interests—from socialism to spiritualism, from island biogeography to life on Mars, from evolution to land nationalization—stemmed from his profound concern with the moral, social, and political values of human life.

Camerini, J.R. (2007, November 13). Alfred Russel Wallace. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Russel-Wallace.

License

Copyright

2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 95 – Life and Death (10)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/20

*Footnotes & in-text citations in the interview & references after the interview.*

*This session edited for clarity and readability.*

Rick: The last time we spoke, I had begun to read a book by Thomas Wolfe called The Kingdom of Speech (Wolfe, 2017; Amazon, 2017).[1] It is about the origin of speech in humans and how difficult it is to figure out when and why it originated (King, 2013; University of New England, 2014; Balter, 2015; Morelle, 2013; Lieberman, 2007; Polychroniou & Chomsky, 2016).[2] I said some things that were circular reasoning. I forgot what, or most of it. Before I get to any reasoning or even if I get to any reasoning, I want to set the crime scene. We are trying to figure out how speech originated, but you can’t even do that or how humans became—for most of the history of humanity, humans considered themselves separate from the animal kingdom (Choi, 2016; Wolchover, 2011; Hogenboom, 2015; University of Adelaide, 2013; Suddendorf, 2013; Stix, 2014). It is an easy conclusion to reach when you look at how different our lives are from animal lives and how different we are in abilities and physiology. We’ve got giant brains. We’ve got speech. We invent stuff. We transformed the world and pretty much taken over the world.

Before you can talk about how that happened via evolution, we kinda have to set up the pattern of facts to see what you can pull out of it. So fact one as much as I understand it is that humans have been genetically pretty much the same for the past 100,000 years. And for a couple million years before that, there were Neanderthals and a bunch of other near-human types of hominids that also had pretty big brains. I think the Neanderthal brains were even bigger than human brains. So that there were hominids with near-human capabilities. There were humans for 100,000 years. There were near-humans for a couple million years at least before that. We’ve been around for a long time. Fact two would be that as a species we have become extremely successful in the past, say, 10,000 years, which is as far back as history really reaches. There might be cave paintings that reach back. I don’t know. How far back? 30,000, 40,000, years?

Scott: Places like France, ~30,000 years ago. Other areas like Indonesia, maybe, 35,000 or 40,000 years ago.

R: We’ve never discovered animals that do representational painting. That is a mark of human near-civilization, say. It only goes back 20,000 years or so, maybe 30,000 or 40,000. Fact three is we have enormous brains compared to other animals. We have speech. We have the ability for extreme flexibility and ingenuity, and inventiveness and toolmaking. All of that stuff. So, that pretty much sets the scene. And then this book, this Tom Wolfe, The Kingdom of Speech, book talks about Noam Chomsky saying there’s a speech organ (McGill University, n.d.; McGilvray, 2009).

That somehow there’s a specialized organ in the brain, or it’s a neighborhood. I haven’t read Chomsky enough or at all. Some part of the brain evolved into specialized speech (Barsky, 2016).3 Then some other people have come along more recently that dispute that, but, in any case, speech remains – accounting for when it originated and how it evolved – a problem. 3 Universal grammar (2016) states: Universal grammar, theory proposing that humans possess innate faculties related to the acquisition of language. The definition of universal grammar has evolved considerably since first it was postulated and, moreover, since the 1940s, when it became a specific object of modern linguistic research. It is associated with work in generative grammar, and it is based on the idea that certain aspects of syntactic structure are universal. Universal grammar consists of a set of atomic grammatical categories and relations that are the building blocks of the particular grammars of all human languages, over which syntactic structures and constraints on those structures are defined. A universal grammar would suggest that all languages possess the same set of categories and relations and that in order to communicate through language, speakers make infinite use of finite means, an idea that Wilhelm von Humboldt suggested in the 1830s. From this perspective, a grammar must contain a finite system of rules that generates infinitely many deep and surface structures, appropriately related. It must also contain rules that relate these abstract structures to certain representations of sound and meaning—representations that, presumably, are constituted of elements that belong to universal phonetics and universal semantics, respectively. Barsky, R.F. (2016, September 6). Universal grammar. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/universalgrammar.

The deal is that we been really successful. Humans have been really successful beginning 10,000 years ago. The human population really started increasing steadily from world population of a few thousand to like a quarter billion at the time of Christ to half a of a billion in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance to 7.3 billion people now (Annenberg Foundation, 2016; World Population History, 2016). For most of the history of humans on earth, we were successful enough to survive, but we weren’t that wildly successful compared to the last 10,000 years.

So, you have to ask, “What were humans doing for the first 80% or 90% of their history on Earth?” Once you hit a certain level of civilization, it looks like things start going really fast. We went from no civilization to the first vestiges or the first traces of civilization going from hunting and gathering to farming 10,000 years ago. And then for the past 10,000 years, it’s been a steady almost inevitable-looking increase in technical ability and in human population.

Yet, we were successful enough to survive as a species for 80,000 or 90,000 years before that. And millions of years before that if you count closely related hominids as almost human enough to be humans, so I speculate that we were successful enough to survive for hundreds of thousands of years. But not so super successful because we were living like fancy apes. I would guess that humans with their super big brains used their brains as their predecessors did, but just better and more cleverly. But still having more or less the same behaviors and life strategies as apes, really clever ones; better hunters, better gatherers, maybe better at finding shelter, maybe starting to use tools, but using them for the same stuff apes did for hunting, we were super successful apes.

It took many tens of thousands of years for culture to start building up to the point where our lifestyles could sufficiently diverge from ape lifestyles and towards early human lifestyles that we eventually, 10,000 years ago, got on this accelerated ramp up to technical proficiency we have now. So, it was a slow build-up of skills until those skills, and the flexibility in behaviour, all sufficiently reinforced themselves that entirely new ways of life could be lived by the humans of 20,000 to 10,000 years ago, including language.

This book I just read discusses whether language is an artifact, which is something manufactured by humans like stone tools or bows and arrows rather than something that is innate to us because we evolved. Anyway, to go back to scene setting, we evolved big brains, didn’t build them. Probably, we evolved big brains in the context of still living like apes. By the time we began living like humans, our brains were already set at our current large size. So, the big brains came first and the human lifestyle came later, and there must’ve been – even for living as apes – evolutionary advantages sufficient to build the brains big. Brains came first and let us live successfully as apes.

Then as we built up culture, eventually, it let us diverge from ape behaviour, which doesn’t answer the question posed in this book whether language ability is an evolved trait that can be found within specific structures in the brain or whether language is a cultural artifact that takes advantage of the brain’s in-built flexibility. I can’t answer that question, but I can propose a question which reflects on that. Which is, we can assume our brain size and brain flexibility – the way our brains continuously rewire themselves via sending out a zillion dendrites found more and more ways to do things depending on patterns in the flow of thought and information – came from pressure of living as apes (Spencer, 2013). The question is “would there be any evolutionary pressure to acquire specific language capabilities?”

In other words, would being good at language provide enough of an evolutionary advantage that it’s likely that specific language abilities are hardwires into our brains or does our ability to have language rest entirely on – or close to entirely – the evolutionary advantages provided by general increases in brain size and flexibility? I think that’s where the main—we can look at brain structure and try to find specific language facilitating structures. But short of doing that, the central question of whether language is an evolved ability or a cultural artifact rests on that question. Whether language facility had its own evolutionary momentum separate from the momentum provided by increases in brain size and flexibility.

References

Amazon. (2017). The Kingdom of Speech. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.ca/Kingdom-Speech-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0316404624.
Annenberg Foundation. (2016). Unit 5: Human Population Dynamics // Section 4: World Population Growth Through History. Retrieved from https://learner.org/courses/envsci/unit/text.php?unit=5&secNum=4.
Balter, M. (2015, January 13). Human language may have evolved to help our ancestors make tools. Retrieved from http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/01/human-language-may-have-evolved-help-our-ancestors-make-tools.
Blaxland, B. (2016, February 5). Hominid & Hominin – What’s the Difference?. Retrieved from https://australianmuseum.net.au/hominid-and-hominin-whats-the-difference.
Bradshaw Foundation. (n.d.). 10,000 – 8,000 Years Ago. Retrieved from https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/agriculture2.html.
Bradshaw Foundation. (2016, September 12). The Cave Paintings of the Lascaux Cave. Retrieved from https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=7IirWL8vrc_yB83cvtgE&gws_rd=ssl#q=cave+paintings+in+france.
Choi, C.Q. (2016, March 25). Top 10 Things that Make Humans Special. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/15689-evolution-human-special-species.html.
Descartes, R. (1649). Animals are Machines. Retrieved from http://journalofcocom/Consciousness136.html.
Dowden, B. (n.d.). Fallacies. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/.
Hogenboom, M. (2015, July 6). The traits that make human beings unique. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150706-the-small-list-of-things-that-make-humans-unique.
King, B.J. (2013, September 5). When Did Human Speech Evolve?. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/09/05/219236801/when-did-human-speech-evolve.
Letzter, R. (2016, September 16). This is the most important difference between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/difference-humans-neanderthals-homo-sapiens-2016-9.
Lieberman, P. (2007, February). The Evolution of Human Speech Its Anatomical and Neural Bases. Retrieved from http://www.cog.brown.edu/people/lieberman/pdfFiles/Lieberman%20P.%202007.%20The%20evolution%20of%20human%20speech,%20Its%20anatom.pdf.
McGill University. (n.d.). Tool Module: Chomsky’s Universal Grammar. Retrieved from http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/capsules/outil_rouge06.html.
McGilvray, J.A. (2009, September 10). Noam Chomsky. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Noam-Chomsky.
Morelle, R. (2013, April 8). Primate call gives clues to human speech o Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-22067192.
New World Encyclopedia. (2008, April 2). Hominid. Retrieved from http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Hominid.
Polychroniou, C.J. & Chomsky, N. (2016, September 24). On the Evolution of Language: A Biolinguistic Perspective. Retrieved from https://chomsky.info/on-the-evolution-of-language-a-biolinguistic-perspective/.
(2017, January 17). Circular Reasoning. Retrieved from http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning.
Rousseeuw, P.J. & Leroy, A.M. (1987) Robust Regression and Outlier Detection. Wiley, p. 57. Retrieved from http://mste.illinois.edu/malcz/DATA/BIOLOGY/Animals.html.
Rips, L.J. (2002, July 10). Circular Reasoning. Retrieved from http://www.psychology.northwestern.edu/documents/rips-circular-reasoning.pdf.
Rogers, N. (2015, May 21). Alzheimer’s origins tied to the rise in human intelligence. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/are-we-still-evolving.html.
Smithsonian Institution. (2017a, February 20). Human family Tree. Retrieved from http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-family-tree.
Smithsonian Institution. (2017b, February 20). Neanderthals: larger eyes and smaller brains. Retrieved from http://humanorigins.si.edu/research/whats-hot-human-origins/neanderthals-larger-eyes-and-smaller-brains.
Smith, S.L. (2013). Evidence that dendrites actively process information in the brain. Retrieved from http://www.kurzweilai.net/evidence-that-dendrites-actively-process-information-in-the-brain.
Stix, G. (2014, September). What Makes Humans Different Than Any Other Species. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-makes-humans-different-than-any-other-species/.
Stromberg, J. (2013, March 12). Science Shows Why You’re Smarter Than A Neander Retrieved from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-shows-why-youre-smarter-than-a-neanderthal-1885827/.
Suddendorf, T. (2013, September 21). Are we really different from animals?. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/21/health/animals-humans-gap/.
Tuttle, R.H. (2015, October 16). Human evolution. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/science/human-evolution.
Tyson, P. (2009, December 14). Are We Still Evolving?. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/are-we-still-evolving.html.
University of Adelaide. (2013, December 4). Humans not smarter than animals, just different, experts say. Retrieved from https://phys.org/news/2013-12-humans-smarter-animals-experts.html.
University of New England. (2014, March 2). Talking Neanderthals challenge the origins of speech. Retrieved from sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140302185241.htm.
University of Oxford. (2013, March 19). Neanderthal brains focused on vision and movement leaving less room for social networking. Retrieved from sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130319093639.htm.
Wilford, J.N. (2014, October 8). Cave paintings in Indonesia May Be Among Oldest Known. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/science/ancient-indonesian-find-may-rival-oldest-known-cave-art.html?_r=0.
Wolchover, N. (2011, July 3). What Distinguishes Humans From Other Animals?. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/33376-humans-other-animals-distinguishing-mental-abilities.html.
Wolfe, T. (2017). About Thomas Wolfe. Retrieved from http://www.tomwolfe.com/bio.html.
World Population History. (n.d.). World Population History. Retrieved from http://worldpopulationhistory.org/map/1/mercator/1/0/25/#.

Footnotes

[1] About Thomas Wolfe (2017) states:

Tom Wolfe was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. He was educated at Washington and Lee (B.A., 1951) and Yale (Ph.D., American Studies, 1957) universities. In December 1956, he took a job as a reporter on the Springfield (Massachusetts) Union. This was the beginning of a ten-year newspaper career, most of it spent as a general assignment reporter. For six months in 1960 he served as The Washington Post’s Latin American correspondent and won the Washington Newspaper Guild’s foreign news prize for his coverage of Cuba.

In 1962 he became a reporter for the New York Herald-Tribune and, in addition, one of the two staff writers (Jimmy Breslin was the other) of New York magazine, which began as the Herald-Tribune’s Sunday supplement. While still a daily reporter for the Herald-Tribune, he completed his first book, a collection of articles about the flamboyant Sixties written for New York and Esquire and published in 1965 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux as The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. The book became a bestseller and established Wolfe as a leading figure in the literary experiments in nonfiction that became known as New Journalism.

Wolfe, T. (2017). About Thomas Wolfe. Retrieved from http://www.tomwolfe.com/bio.html.

[2] Human language may have evolved to help our ancestors make tools (2015) states:

If there’s one thing that distinguishes humans from other animals, it’s our ability to use language. But when and why did this trait evolve? A new study concludes that the art of conversation may have arisen early in human evolution, because it made it easier for our ancestors to teach each other how to make stone tools—a skill that was crucial for the spectacular success of our lineage.

Researchers have long debated when humans starting talking to each other. Estimates range wildly, from as late as 50,000 years ago to as early as the beginning of the human genus more than 2 million years ago. But words leave no traces in the archaeological record. So researchers have used proxy indicators for symbolic abilities, such as early art or sophisticated toolmaking skills. Yet these indirect approaches have failed to resolve arguments about language origins.

Balter, M. (2015, January 13). Human language may have evolved to help our ancestors make tools. Retrieved from http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/01/human-language-may-have-evolved-help-our-ancestors-make-tools.

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 94 – Life and Death (9)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/19

*Footnotes in the interview & references after the interview.*

*This session edited for clarity and readability.*

Scott: What if these fundamental premises of the arguments we’re making about the future are not taken on hand by anyone or are discounted? They can be posed by anyone, but they can be opposed by everyone.

Rick: There’s a tendency of the Golden Rule to win over time (Puka, n.d.; Robinson, 2016; The Christopher Newsletter, 2009). A major trend in history is for more and more people to be granted consideration as fully human. Where white guys, white landowners, the most privileged people granted themselves the most rights, but the trend is for other people to agitate for their rights and to say, “I am the same as you. We have the same bodies and brains. Skin color doesn’t matter. Gender doesn’t matter. Sexual orientation doesn’t matter. We are biologically the same. Even if we weren’t, we as thinking beings have the same consciousnesses. Even if they’re not, there’s some base deal. If you feel, if you process information, you deserve as much consideration as somebody who comes in a more familiar and social status filled package” (Rowen, 2017; Crews, 2007; Independence Hall Association of Philadelphia, 2016). So you have women fighting for rights (Imbornini, 2017; Office of the Historian, n.d.; ACLU, 2017; Eisenborg & Ruthsdotter, 1998; National Women’s History Museum, 2007). You have gay people fighting for rights (Infoplease, 2017). You have minority people fighting for rights (Yarbrough, n.d.; Thomson Reuters, 2017). More recently, the neurodiverse fighting for rights (Robison, 2013). As a general rule, it is an extension of the Golden Rule to encompass all forms of humanity, e.g. autistic people (Hiker, n.d.; jeffreylube241, 2007; Singer, 2011; Shea, n.d.; Neuhaus, 1999).[1]

When people talk about neurodiverse people, they talk about the first push with autistic people, which was to see if you could get them to be non-autistic. Now, there’s a push among some members, the Aspergery people, of the autistic community to say, “We’re okay the way we are. We can do science. We can do all sorts of amazing stuff. Maybe, we’re socially awkward, but fuck you! We’re socially awkward and at home with the way we are” (ASPEN (asperger Autism SPectrum Education Network, 2017).[2] It is like deaf people. Some deaf people get pissed when people get cochlear implants (Canadian Academy of Audiology, 2017). It is like saying, “F- you,” to the deaf lifestyle and the deaf community. I am probably saying this in an insensitive and inappropriate way, but that is the general feeling. People are fighting for the right to be accepted as they are rather than being conformed to some supposed biological norm.

S: Well, any species will create a norm.

R: Yes, but this is one more instance of the umbrella of the Golden Rule being extended over more and more types of people, and groups of people, and individuals. Similarly, information wins over time. The more sophisticated means of presenting and absorbing, and processing, information will tend to prevail against any kind of societal prohibitions. We really haven’t moved into the era of full-on freaking out over information processing because we haven’t had the capability to mess with our information processing abilities until now and into the near and mid-future. Though you can look at different forms of information causing people to freak out and say it’s kind of the end of the world, where visual media — where TV, radio, and such, are bemoaned because it means the end of the print media.

[Laughing]

R: But it doesn’t really. People freaking out over different genres. Rap music, people freak out over rap music because of the subject matter, but besides that people are probably, to some extent, also disturbed about the way it’s presenting – without realizing what they’re freaking out about -information in a ratatat form – super-fast – without melody in some cases or really rudimentary melody and the cadence and the words being the most important thing. But people will call it “thug music” or “not even music,” but, to some extent, rap is a disquieting presentation of more concentrated and varied information being presented musically.

S: I can see where you’re coming from, and I agree with most of it. Two points, one is general biological and the other is a specific instance of proper resistance to that, to neurodiversity and the Golden Rule. To the first point, the biological one, in any species, we get lots of diversity. So we’ll have various types of functionality and dysfunctionality, and lack of ability or having ability. The range along the IQ scale as well as having hearing versus not having hearing. Another one, though, in terms of neurodiversity, whether it’s Asperger’s and other conditions. I think that the Golden Rule implies the capacity for the Golden Rule. If an individual does not have the innate capacity for it, then they will not necessarily be able to have it. Common examples are sociopaths or psychopaths (Weller, 2014; Grohol, 2016; Mallett. 2015). People who don’t have empathy (MacLachlan, 2007). That’s a reasonable resistance.

R: You don’t see people arguing for psychopaths. There’s no psychopath organization arguing that psychopaths belong to the neurodiverse family.

[Laughing]

S: Right, it’s hard for the anti-social to become social, form groups, and advocate.

R: There was a guy who used to have a radio show called Phil Hendrie, who would have fake guests on (Hendrie, 2017).

[Laughing]

S: Okay.

R: People with issues. He had an issues-based talk radio program. He would have guests on. Guests would have a gripe about neighbourhood issues. Over the first half of the show, first 20 minutes of the show, you would find out that the guests’ issues turned out to be monstrous. The rest of the show [Laughing] would be people who were fooled by the fake guests calling into the radio show. [Laughing]

[Laughing]

R: It was a fantastic radio program. He’s really good. Somebody who represents psychopath rights. That would be a great fake organization. Somebody who says, “We were born this way. We deserve the right to do horrible things in society because that’s just the way we are.”

[Laughing]

[Laughing]

R: But yea, the Golden Rule does imply the ability to feel.

S: Not only feel, but feel what others feel, it is empathy, not just feeling.

R: To feel something, I would say towards the edge—towards the newest edge, even feeling different ways as long as you have feels those feels should be respected as long as they don’t impinge on other people. That includes embracing animals and what they feel, and including some Aspergery people who have feelings for patterns in nature as opposed to human interaction (PETA, 2017; Wise, 2016; Friends of Animals, 2017). Those feelings, because they are felt in the brain with the same power and immediacy as other feelings, deserve the same consideration.

S: Right, I think of Mandelbrot (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2014). I think of Gould (The Glenn Gould Foundation, 2015). Both people had issues as far as I recall. Mandelbrot, it was patterns in nature. Gould, it was point-counterpoint with Bach (Smith, n.d.). Both could do things few others could. I absolutely agree with you on that point with those two examples that come to mind, who made great contributions.

R: This is slightly off the deal, but there’s this story, on NPR, that’s been on a zillion times about the autistic kid who learned how to communicate with people via Disney movies (Suskind, 2014).

S: Get outta here.

[Laughing]

R: This kid loses his verbal abilities to a great extent. He is freaking out about the world the way some autistic people do. There’s just a lot of sensory information and it bugs them. It’s too much. The thing that keeps this kid soothed is sitting this down in front of a bunch of Disney movies. That seems to keep him satisfied, even though he’s quiet and divorced from the world. At one point, the kid is 9 or 10 and the brother is celebrating a birthday. The autistic kid who is non-verbal walks into the room and says something crazily sophisticated. [Laughing] I’m mangling the story. But the kid says, ‘It’s like Peter Pan. You don’t want the other son to grow up.’ He says this crazily sophisticated thing in the context of a Disney kind of framework and the family finds out. They have Disney time in the basement. The dad impersonates Disney characters and is able to talk to the kid by being Disney characters.

[Laughing]

[Laughing]

R: The kid has an entire model of the world via Disney. The real story is better than I told it and makes more sense.

S: But there are people like that. Kim Peek was the basis for Rain Man (Wisconsin Medical Society, 2017). He had this incredible memory. This incredible associative gift, but he lacked a corpus callosum. But the brain matter that was made of that was present, and I think they did a special on him, and the corpus callosum looked like a hand grenade had blown it up. It was connected from one thing to the other to the other. In a neurodiverse culture, one that accepts that. It could be of great benefit.

R: For the past 100 years, we’ve had the nerd stereotype. The dweeby-awkward sciencey guy, and girl. That is probably somewhat rooted in neurodiversity and is more accepted now than in the 60 and 70s. As I’ve said, being a nerd in the 60s and 70s was brutal, I’m not saying now it is a picnic, but there are more resources available, well for anybody. Nobody is no longer isolated in their school and family anymore as long as they have access to the internet and reasonable ability to search for stuff.

References

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Canadian Academy of Audiology. (2017). Cochlear Implants. Retrieved from https://canadianaudiology.ca/for-the-public/hearing-aids-and-implants/.
Crews, E. (2007). Voting in Early America. Retrieved from https://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Spring07/elections.cfm. Gensler, H.J. (n.d.). Golden Rule Chronology. Retrieved from http://www.harryhiker.com/chronology.htm.
Encyclopædia Britannica. (2014, December 23). Benoit Mandelbrot. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benoit-Mandelbrot.
Eisenborg, B. & Ruthsdotter, M. (1998). History of the Women’s Rights Movement. Retrieved from http://www.nwhp.org/resources/womens-rights-movement/history-of-the-womens-rights-movement/.
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Hendrie, P. (2017). Phil Hendrie. Retrieved from http://www.philhendrieshow.com/.
Hiker, H. (n.d.). Golden Rule Chronology. Retrieved from http://www.harryhiker.com/chronology.htm.
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Robinson, B.A. (2016). Shared belief in the “Golden Rule” (a/k.a. Ethics of Reciprocity). Retrieved from http://www.religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm.
Robison, J.E. (2013, October 4). What is Neurodiversity?. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/my-life-aspergers/201310/what-is-neurodiversity.
Rowen, B. (2017). U.S. Voting Rights. Retrieved from http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/voting.html.
Shea, M. (n.d.). Is There Such A Thing as Moral Progress?. Retrieved from http://strangenotions.com/moral-progress/.
Singer, P. (2011). The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress. Retrieved from http://www.stafforini.com/txt/Singer%20-%20The%20expanding%20circle.pdf.
Smith, T. (n.d.). The Point of Bach’s Goldberg Variations (and their counterpoint). Retrieved from http://bach.nau.edu/goldberg/prose/Point.pdf.
Suskind, R. (2014, March 7). Reaching My Autistic Son Through Disney. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/magazine/reaching-my-autistic-son-through-disney.html?_r=0.
Syracuse University. (2014). What is Neurodiversity?. Retrieved from https://neurodiversitysymposium.wordpress.com/what-is-neurodiversity/.
The Christopher Newsletter. (2009). The Universality of the Golden Rule in World Religions. Retrieved from http://www.teachingvalues.com/goldenrule.html.
The Glenn Gould Foundation. (2015). About Glenn Gould. Retrieved from http://www.glenngould.ca/about-glenn-gould/.
Thomson Reuters. (2017). Civil Rights: Law and History. Retrieved from http://civilrights.findlaw.com/civil-rights-overview/civil-rights-law-and-history.html.
Weller, C. (2014, March 6). What’s The Difference Between A Sociopath And A Psychopath? (Not Much, But One Might Kill You). Retrieved from http://www.medicaldaily.com/whats-difference-between-sociopath-and-psychopath-not-much-one-might-kill-you-270694.
Wisconsin Medical Society. (2017). Kim Peek – The Real Rain Man. Retrieved from https://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/professional/savant-syndrome/profiles-and-videos/profiles/kim-peek-the-real-rain-man/.
Wise, S. (2016, August 18). Animal rights. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/animal-rights.
Yarbrough, T (n.d.). Protecting Minority Rights. Retrieved from https://www.ait.org.tw/infousa/zhtw/DOCS/Demopaper/dmpaper11.html.

Footnotes

[1] What is Neurodiversity? (2014) states:

Neurodiversity is a concept where neurological differences are to be recognized and respected as any other human variation. These differences can include those labeled with Dyspraxia, Dyslexia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Dyscalculia, Autistic Spectrum, Tourette Syndrome, and others.

For many autistic people, neurodiversity is viewed is a concept and social movement that advocates for viewing autism as a variation of human wiring, rather than a disease. As such, neurodiversity activists reject the idea that autism should be cured, advocating instead for celebrating autistic forms of communication and self-expression, and for promoting support systems that allow autistic people to live as autistic people.

Syracuse University. (2014). What is Neurodiversity?. Retrieved from https://neurodiversitysymposium.wordpress.com/what-is-neurodiversity/.

[2] What is Asperger Syndrome? (2017) states:

Each person is different. An individual might have all or only some of the described behaviors to have a diagnosis of AS.

These behaviors include the following:

Marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as: eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gestures to regulate social interaction.
Extreme difficulty in developing age-appropriate peer relationships. (e.g. AS children may be more comfortable with adults than with other children).
Inflexible adherence to routines and perseveration.
Fascination with maps, globes, and routes.
Superior rote memory.
Preoccupation with a particular subject to the exclusion of all others. Amasses many related facts.
Difficulty judging personal space, motor clumsiness.
Sensitivity to the environment, loud noises, clothing and food textures, and odors.
Speech and language skills impaired in the area of semantics, pragmatics, and prosody (volume, intonation, inflection, and rhythm).
Difficulty understanding others’ feelings.
Pedantic, formal style of speaking; often called “little professor,” verbose.
Extreme difficulty reading and/or interpreting social cues.
Socially and emotionally inappropriate responses.
Literal interpretation of language; difficulty comprehending implied meanings.
Extensive vocabulary. Reading commences at an early age (hyperlexia).
Stereotyped or repetitive motor mannerisms.
Difficulty with “give and take” of conversation.

ASPEN (asperger Autism SPectrum Education Network. (2017). What Is Asperger Syndrome?. Retrieved from http://aspennj.org/what-is-asperger-syndrome.

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 93 – Life and Death (8)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/18

*Footnotes in the interview & references after the interview.*

*This session edited for clarity and readability.*

Scott: Two things come to mind there – well, three actually. One, all of evolution builds on previous structures and functions. So any prior structure with an implied function will develop its future possible paths, or imply a narrow set of future possible paths, in future organisms that will be its future successful descendants.

Rick: Okay, in other words, you’re working from a library of available apps.

S: Absolutely! I love it when you make things more concrete. Thank you for that. Another one is the rapid increase follows that, I think. Where there must be a specific set of paths, that brain volume increase, interconnectivity, complexity, and just raw brain cell number increase follow a certain path along that (Robson, 2011; Tuttle, 2015; Garrett, 2014; Cairό, 2011; Gilbert et al, 2005; The University of Chicago News Office, 2006; Hawks, n.d.; Smithsonian Institution, 2016; University of Colorado Denver, 2012; McAuliffe, 2011; Hofman, 2014).[1]^,[2],[3] Once you get that going, it just starts going. Another one that goes along that might be language, and you’ve talked about this before. You start with grunting, then start developing language, and then that starts developing with cultural aspects like writing (Bryant, 2017).[4]

R: If you could think about things via tags, which are words, that stand for things and manipulate them in your consciousness and hold them in your consciousness are more compact than having to think about the thing itself. It is probably super-efficient in holding things in consciousness. So that language – I hate slippery slope stuff – offers advantages that are so powerful that it pushes the development to a fairly sophisticated full language. It is like the colonists landing on the East coast of America (Hoffman et al, 2016; Pringle, 2012). Europe is already fairly highly developed. There are a quarter of a billion or a half of a billion people in Europe at the time of the colonists, but the US is fairly sparsely populated (U.S. Department of State, n.d.). It’s got all of these resources. Ka-boom! Within a couple hundred years, the colonists have spread across 4.5 or 5 million square miles of undeveloped country and just sloppily cut down forests, throw down railroad tracks, throw up a zillion towns, because it is easy to develop here. I guess brain and language development are similarly a treasure trove of benefits versus costs. When you have all of the pieces in place for this brain explosion to happen, it will happen super-fast evolutionarily to the point where it looks hard to explain.

S: You talked about religion at the outset of this.

R: Yea, yea, I got diverted.

S: I think there’s something important there, though, that can tie back in. If someone takes the Mysterian view, and if they’re applying it within a traditional religious view such as the Abrahamic ones, and what they deem, conveniently, essential mysteries are proof of a divine hand, are they right or are they wrong?

R: Back to this book I am reading, I knew Nietzsche said, “God is dead” (Amazon, 2017; Magnus, 2015; Philosophy Index, 2017; Blount, 2016; Wicks, 2016).[5] I didn’t know he said it at the same time evolutionary theory hit and was prompted by that. That once you buy the theory of evolution then it is much harder to buy the idea of divine creation, and the theory of evolution was a major part of what some other major author calls disenchantment that happened in the mid-19^th century because the magic was taken away from everything because there were scientific explanations available. So it is only 150 years later and there are still plenty of people, perhaps most of the people in the world, who still buy religious explanations for certain aspects of existence above technical and scientific explanations. Those beliefs will, for the next couple centuries, continue to tangle with technical changes in how we live and how we fight off death. Divine conceptions of people will generally be conservative. The same way conservatives are marriage is between a man and a woman (Conservapedia, 2016; Blackburn, 2011; Bible Study Tools, 2017).[6] They will argue a human is deserving of the most respect legally and culturally among all creatures, natural or artificial. That’s somebody with one brain and one bod.

S: What about humanists claiming the same?

R: Okay. There will be religious arguments. There will non-religious, but traditionalist or conservative, arguments. I can imagine “one brain in one body” in the same way people say, “Marriage is between a man and a woman.” That’ll have to be fought over in courts and legislatures and by people who are willing to show they are as deserving and dignity as traditional humans, even though they’re living in weird social and information-processing relationships.

References

(2017). The Kingdom of Speech. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.ca/Kingdom-Speech-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0316404624.
Bible Study Tools. (2017). Marriage Bible Verses. Retrieved from http://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/marriage-bible-verses/.
Blackburn, J. (2011, August 4). Where in the Bible does it say that marriage is between a man and a woman?. Retrieved from https://www.catholic.com/qa/where-in-the-bible-does-it-say-that-marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman.
Blount, D. (2016, July 25). What Nietzsche Meant When He Said ‘God Is Dead’. Retrieved from https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/what-nietzsche-meant-when-he-said-god-is-dead.
Bryant, C.W. (2017). How did language evolve?. Retrieved from http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/evolution/language-evolve.htm.
Cairό, O. (2011, October 4). External Measures of Cognition. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3207484/.
(2016, July 21). Marriage. Retrieved from http://www.conservapedia.com/Marriage.
Garrett, M.D. (2014, February 25). Complexity of Our Brain. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/iage/201402/complexity-our-brain.
Hawks, J. (n.d.). How Has the Human Brain Evolved?. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-has-human-brain-evolved/.
Hofman, M.A. (2014, March 27). Evolution of the human brain: When bigger is better. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3973910/.
Hoffman, P.F., Zelinsky, W., et al. (2016, September 27). North America. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/place/North-America.
Magnus, B. (2015, August 19). Friedrich Nietzsche. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Friedrich-Nietzsche.
McAuliffe, K. (2011, January 20). If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking?. Retrieved from http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking.
Philosophy Index. (2017). God is Dead. Retrieved from http://www.philosophy-index.com/nietzsche/god-is-dead/.
Pringle, H. (2012, November). Vikings and Native Americans. Retrieved from http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/11/vikings-and-indians/pringle-text.
Robson, D. (2011, September 21). A brief history of the brain. Retrieved from https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128311.800-a-brief-history-of-the-brain/.
Smithsonian Institution. (2016, February 6). Bigger Brains: Complex Brains for a Complex World. Retrieved from http://humanorigins.si.edu/human-characteristics/brains.
The University of Chicago News Office. (2006, December 24). Complexity constrains evolution of human brain genes. Retrieved from http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/06/061226.brain.shtml.
Tuttle, R.H. (2015, October 16). Increasing brain size. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/science/human-evolution/Increasing-brain-size.
University of Colorado Denver. (2012, August 16). Evolutionary increase in size of the human brain explained: Part of a protein linked to rapid change in cognitive ability. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120816141537.htm.
S. Department of State. (n.d.). Settlement Patterns. Retrieved from http://countrystudies.us/united-states/geography-7.htm.
Wicks, R. (2016, June 7). Friedrich Nietzsche. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/.

Footnotes

[1] Complexity of Our Brain (2014) states:

In the past we took a different attitude to studying the brain. Most of the scientific writing on the brain was focused on establishing the superiority of human intelligence. But there is not one single factor that we can apply to distinguish our brains from those of other animals. We cannot just use size, because some mammals (eg whales) have bigger brains. Perhaps it is the size of the brain in proportion to the body.

When we try that by measuring the Encephalization Quotient (EQ) ratio, small birds beat us. Perhaps it is size, EQ and something else. The correct question is to ask what aspects of the world are we, as humans, trying to represent in our brain? And how complex is the brain really?

In 2009, the Brazilian scientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel performed a review of what we know about the physical structure of the brain. The adult human male brain has 86 billion neurons–more than any other primate. Each neuron has between 1,000 to 10,000 synapses that result in 125 trillion synapses in the cerebral cortex alone. That is at least 1,000 times the number of stars in our galaxy. Stephen Smith from Stanford University reported that one synapse might contain some 1,000 molecular-scale switches. That is over 125,000 trillion switches in a single human brain.

Garrett, M.D. (2014, February 25). Complexity of Our Brain. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/iage/201402/complexity-our-brain.

[2] We can consider the encephalization quotient as well. Genetic links between brain development and brain evolution (2005) states:

EQ is calculated by one of two allometric scaling equations: EQ = E/P0.28 and EQ = E/P0.59, where E is brain weight and P is body weight. Although exponents of 0.67 (Ref. 1) and 0.75 (Refs. 102,103) have been postulated for mammals, these high values are only suitable for comparisons at broad taxonomic levels and are not appropriate for closely related species36, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108. For related species, much lower exponents have been proposed, ranging from 0.28 (Refs. 36,104) to 0.59 (Ref. 105). Given the uncertainty in the exponent and the debate over the relevance of EQ in gauging an animal’s brain capacity (see Ref. 109 and accompanying commentaries), two sets of EQ values are presented, one calculated from the lower-bound exponent of 0.28, the other from the upper-bound value of 0.59. a | EQ values for species residing along the primate lineage leading to Homo sapiens.

Gilbert, S.L., Dobyns, W.B., & Lahn, B.T. (2005, July). Genetic links between brain development and brain evolution. Retrieved from http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v6/n7/fig_tab/nrg1634_F1.html.

[3] Bigger Brains: Complex Brains for a Complex World (2016) states:

Brain size increases slowly

From 6–2 million years ago

During this time period, early humans began to walk upright and make simple tools. Brain size increased, but only slightly.

Brain and body size increase

From 2 million–800,000 years ago

During this time period early humans spread around the globe, encountering many new environments on different continents. These challenges, along with an increase in body size, led to an increase in brain size.

Brain size increases rapidly

From 800,000–200,000 years ago

Human brain size evolved most rapidly during a time of dramatic climate change. Larger, more complex brains enabled early humans of this time period to interact with each other and with their surroundings in new and different ways. As the environment became more unpredictable, bigger brains helped our ancestors survive.

Smithsonian Institution. (2016, February 6). Bigger Brains: Complex Brains for a Complex World. Retrieved from http://humanorigins.si.edu/human-characteristics/brains.

[4] How did language evolve? (2017) states:

Primates have an advanced system of communication that includes vocalization, hand gestures and body language. But even primates stop short of what man has been able to achieve — spoken language. Our ability to form a limitless number of thoughts into spoken word is one of the things that separates us from our less evolved cousins. While we know that language first appeared among Homo sapiens somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 years ago, the secret to how language evolved is still unknown…

Bryant, C.W. (2017). How did language evolve?. Retrieved from http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/evolution/language-evolve.htm.

[5] Friedrich Nietzsche (2015) states:

Friedrich Nietzsche, (born October 15, 1844, Röcken, Saxony, Prussia [Germany]—died August 25, 1900, Weimar, Thuringian States), German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most-influential of all modern thinkers. His attempts to unmask the motives that underlie traditional Western religion, morality, and philosophy deeply affected generations of theologians, philosophers, psychologists, poets, novelists, and playwrights. He thought through the consequences of the triumph of the Enlightenment’s secularism, expressed in his observation that “God is dead,” in a way that determined the agenda for many of Europe’s most-celebrated intellectuals after his death. Although he was an ardent foe of nationalism, anti-Semitism, and power politics, his name was later invoked by fascists to advance the very things he loathed.

Magnus, B. (2015, August 19). Friedrich Nietzsche. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Friedrich-Nietzsche.

[6] Marriage (2016) states:

Marriage is the divinely ordained covenant between one man and one woman, and is intended to be for life. (Genesis 2:24) This is recognized by the majority of churches.

The unity between a man and a woman in marriage is an expression of the spiritual relationship that God desires His creation to realize with Him. The first marriage occurred nearly 6,000 years ago in the Garden of Eden, in the area of the world that we now know as the Middle East. The first couple was Adam and Eve, and the Lord Jesus specified that it was male and female that God joined together in marriage for life. (Matthew 19:4-6)

Conservapedia. (2016, July 21). Marriage. Retrieved from http://www.conservapedia.com/Marriage.

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 92 – Life and Death (7)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/17

*Footnotes in the interview & bibliography after the interview.*

*This session edited for clarity and readability.*

Rick: The people who might have the greatest intuitive understanding of the legal aspects of this stuff are the people who watch David E. Kelly shows (IMDb, 2017a).[1] Boston Legal, which hasn’t been on in a few years, or The Good Wife, which is not a David E. Kelly show (IMDb, 2017b; IMDb, 2017c). The Good Wife, and some of these other shows, have controversial cases of the week with shorter story arcs than the normal long ones. They have new, controversial issues. It is a great way to present the controversies to people. Law & Order does that with controversial murder cases (IMDb, 2017d). It is not unreasonable to think that these issues of technically avoided brain death will, in some of their aspects, be played out legally. Again, that underscores that we’ll need a mathematical model of consciousness to figure out what is or isn’t legitimate brain life, or official brain life.

Scott: Some super-controversial far future problems will come when culture and legality clash. When we can replicate someone sufficiently completely, digitally, and that person’s flesh-body is doing okay, and they’re trying to update their will after 20 or 30 years, where they’re 110, who writes the will? [Laughing]

Who decides – the digital them or the flesh them? By culture, people will default to the flesh person – what you call the “meat brain,” but the digital person is, technically, the same, in a way.

R: Assuming the technology exists, and it might, people might want to put their meat body on cryonic suspension for 10 years and may only want to exist as a digital entity plus living in portable or rentable bodies as needed. All of this stuff is 80 years away, but not infinitely away. There are some aspects of science fiction that will never come to be. You’re fighting too much physics, e.g. time travel. However, there will be plenty of virtual time travel such as a Westworld, where you can travel to any time (IMDb, 2017e). It will be possible to simulate possible futures to decide on possible courses of action. Anyway, all of this stuff with regard to mental computation, I think, within the next 80 to 120 years will be sussed out and, more or less, completely solved, which will give the augmented people and post-people a great deal of flexibility in how they want to live their physical and mental lives.

As people become more and more at home with that flexibility, the ways people want to live will be weirder and weirder, where you’ll have people wanting to think in tandem. Two people wanting to do a literal marriage of the minds. If you read any science fiction, or think in any science fictioney way, all of this becomes something that you can become fairly well-versed in imagining. All of the flavors people might want to be conscious. Ownership of self and other assets will have to be figured out. Religion impinges on it. I am reading a book by Tom Wolfe (Wolfe, 2017; Ritchie, 2016; Collison, 2016; McWhorter, 2016).[2] In the book, it talks about the 19^th century and evolution (Amazon, 2017; King, 2016). Tom Wolfe has a book talking about the history of the trouble people have with integrating language into theories of evolution (Wolfe, 2016; Coyne, 2016; Poole, 2016). Human language is so great in its sophistication and so different in its abilities from animals that it is hard to come up with a convincing argument for it as an evolved ability (Kirby, 2005). In other words, if you wanted to continue to debunk evolution, language would be one place where you might want to stake your flag, plant your flag.

S: Have you heard of the Mysterians or the New Mysterians (Lamb, 2013)?[3]

R: No, they sound like a 1960s rock group.

[Laughing]

Wait! Question Mark and the Mysterians is the name (Question Mark and the Mysterians, n.d.). It was a 1960s rock group.

S: These folks comprise a set of high-ranking academics with good reputations. Some controversial; some not. They don’t take an irreducible lane. It is a mystery. There are problems that are in our purview to understand in some near or far future. There’s another class that are essential mysteries. Things that by their nature disallow us to comprehend their true nature. So we cannot come up with adequate explanations for them. In that sense, we come ill-equipped to perceive of things and conceive of things such as language in terms of how they came to be and that that will be some essentialist thing. They are Mysterians. These are absolute mysteries. They will be unknown into the indefinite future.

R: I disagree with that. Some things may be that, but I disagree language is that. I’m not through the book yet, but I would guess the explosion in the size of our brains and at the same time the development of language (Robson, 2011; Tuttle, 2015). Darwin had these principles like no sophisticated structure can evolve unless it has been propelled along that evolutionary path by utility, e.g. eyes (Desmond, 2016; Natural History Museum, n.d.; Phys.org, 2016).

S: The immune system (Humphrey & Purdue, 2016).[4]

R: They need to be propelled step-wise by showing an advantage at every step of development, or at every significant step. You can have little mutations that prove to be helpful a little later, but you can’t have teleology (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2015; Colin, 2009).[5] Where we’re going to evolve this stuff because once we get to the end-stage, it will be really helpful.

S: This is in the popular media, too, by the way.

R: How so?

S: People who don’t have the background or the training, but have an interest. So I don’t know how much they’ve read on it. People like Ridley Scott (IMDb, 2017f). He seems to be taking a teleological view within religious context (Roach, 2017; O’Connell, 2012).[6]^,[7] He seems to be taking that stance with recent movies like Prometheus and Alien: Covenant (IMDb, 2017g; IMDb, 2017h). I should clarify. Mysterianism or New Mysterianism in general, as far as I know, is about general mysteries, but has been more often associated with the hard problem of consciousness. It just can’t be resolved by us.

R: Well, I disagree. Evolution exerts a force. Evolution tends to take a lot of different paths. Any advantageous path it’ll exploit. If there’s a way for animals to survive, even if it is a half-assed way for an advantage to be had, organisms will often find it without regard to set principles. There are some general principles, but there are some weird, specific situations that may be perverse with regard to general principles. I would bet that big brain-ism and language – the economics of that – somehow genetically is cheap enough or advantageous enough that the rudiment. People pretty much argue that the size of infant brains reached a limit. Brains in babies can only be so big without killing the mom during childbirth. You can’t have a giant head coming out of the vagina. I guess childbirth for humans is more dangerous for humans compared to other animals.

S: It was the size of the birth canal and flexibility co-evolving with brain size.

R: That’s the limiting factor. I’m sure there are other limiting factors for the size of the mature brain because the brain eats a lot of energy. You can’t have a brain that is twice the size in diameter and eight times the volume because you can’t eat enough to keep up with it. Plus, you can’t keep your head up because of the weight people would be breaking their necks.

[Laughing]

I’m sure the benefits of a larger mental arena are so significant that it is relatively cheap just to make bigger and bigger brains up to those hard limits.

References

(2017). The Kingdom of Speech. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.ca/Kingdom-Speech-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0316404624.
Collison, R. (2016, September 4). Talking about the origins of speech. Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2016/09/04/talking-about-the-origins-of-speech.html.
Coyne, J.A. (2016, August 31). His white suit unsullied by research, Tom Wolfe tries to take down Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/his-white-suit-unsullied-by-research-tom-wolfe-tries-to-take-down-charles-darwin/2016/08/31/8ee6d4ee-4936-11e6-90a8-fb84201e0645_story.html?utm_term=.ec07b25598ce.
Desmond, A.J. (2016, June 10). Charles Darwin. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Darwin.
Encyclopædia Britannica. (2015, April 20). Teleology. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/teleology.
(2017a). David E. Kelly. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005082/.
(2017b). Boston Legal. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402711/?ref_=nm_knf_i2.
(2017c). The Good Wife. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1442462/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1.
(2017d). Law & Order. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/find?ref_=nv_sr_fn&q=Law+%26+Order&s=all.
(2017e). Westworld. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475784/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1.
(2017f). Ridley Scott. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000631/.
(2017g). Prometheus. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/?ref_=nm_knf_t4.
(2017h). Alien: Covenant. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2316204/?ref_=nm_flmg_prd_3.
Humphrey & Purdue. (2016, October 28). Evolution of the Immune System. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/science/immune-system/Evolution-of-the-immune-system.
King, B.J. (2016, September 8). Evolution Uproar: What To Do When A Famous Author Dismisses Darwin. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/09/08/493072035/evolution-uproar-what-to-do-when-a-famous-author-dismisses-darwin.
Kirby, S. (2005). The Evolution of Language. Retrieved from http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~simon/papers/The%20Evolution%20of%20Language.pdf.
McWhorter, J. (2016, September 14). The bonfire of Noam Chomsky: journalist Tom Wolfe targets the acclaimed linguist. Retrieved from http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/9/14/12910180/noam-chomsky-tom-wolfe-linguist.
Natural History Museum. (n.d.). Eyes on the prize: the evolution of vision. Retrieved from http://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/eyes-on-the-prize-evolution-of-vision.html.
org. (2016, February 20). Shedding light on the evolution of whale vision. Retrieved from https://phys.org/news/2016-02-evolution-whale-vision.html.
Poole, S. (2016, September 8). The Kingdom of Speech by Tom Wolfe – a bonfire of facts, reeking of vanity. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/08/the-kingdom-of-speech-by-tom-wolfe-review.
Question Mark and the Mysterians. (n.d.). Question Mark and the Mysterians. Retrieved from http://96tears.net/.
Ritchie, H. (2016, August 27). Aged 85, Tom Wolfe discovers the key to human progress. Retrieved from http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/08/aged-85-tom-wolfe-discovers-the-key-to-human-progress/.
Robson, D. (2011, September 21). A brief history of the brain. Retrieved from https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128311.800-a-brief-history-of-the-brain/.
Tuttle, R.H. (2015, October 16). Increasing brain size. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/science/human-evolution/Increasing-brain-size.
Wolfe, T. (2017). About Tom Wolfe. Retrieved from http://www.tomwolfe.com/bio.html.
Wolfe, T. (2016, August). The Origins of Speech: In the beginning was Chomsky. Retrieved from https://daneverettbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/HarpersMagazine-2016-08-0086105.pdf.

Footnotes

[1] David E. Kelly (2017) states:

David Kelley might be described as living the American Dream, 1990s’ style: write a screenplay, move to Hollywood, make millions and marry a movie star. A former Boston lawyer, in the last decade, he switched careers to become a successful television producer whose shows are recognized for their quality as well as receiving top ratings. David Kelley was born in 1956 and is originally from Maine. He attended Princeton University and Boston University Law School. He married actress Michelle Pfeiffer in November 1993. They have two children: Claudia Rose Kelley, born in March 1993, who was adopted by Ms. Pfeiffer eight months before their marriage, and John Henry, born in August 1994.

IMDb. (2017a). David E. Kelly. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005082/.

[2] About Tom Wolfe (2017) states:

Wolfe, T. (2017). About Tom Wolfe. Retrieved from http://www.tomwolfe.com/bio.html.

[3] New Mysterianism and the Riddle of Consciousness (n.d.) states:

Let’s refresh. You have an organic brain, which neuroscientist Christof Koch calls the most complex object in the known universe. That brain manifests what we call the mind. We study the brain. We study the mind. And then we struggle to comprehend the psycho-physical nexus. And this is where we get the mind body problem.

Neuroscientists, psychologists, philosophers and theologians all struggle to understand consciousness within their respective disciplines. They work toward an answer, but the New Mysterian philosophers argue we might simply be incapable of solving the riddle.

The most prominent of the New Mysteirans is Colin McGinn, who recently outlined this philosophy in an excellent panel (watch it here) at the 2013 World Science Festival. The brain itself cannot conceive the natural coexistence of mind and brain. It’s not that we’re dumb, but we only evolved to carry out certain cognitive feats: navigating a changing world, hunting, surviving within a society, etc. What’s the evolutionary advantage of understanding the nature of consciousness?

This all involves some of the same concepts as Cognitive Closure: the philosophic idea that humans can only hope to understand certain aspects of universe and simply lack the brains to understand everything.

The exception to this, of course, is the steady accumulation and preservation of scientific data over the course of human history. So we kind of cheat a bit with science, this god-of-ideas that stands outside of us.

Yet all of this external accumulation can’t overcome inner cognitive limits.

Lamb, B. (2013, July 2). New Mysterianism and the Riddle of Consciousness. Retrieved from http://www.stufftoblowyourmind.com/blogs/mysterianism-riddle-consciousness.htm.

[4] The immune system (2016) states:

Virtually all organisms have at least one form of defense that helps repel disease-causing organisms. Advanced vertebrate animals, a group that includes humans, defend themselves against such microorganisms by means of a complex group of defense responses collectively called the immune system. This protective system evolved from simpler defense mechanisms, but the evolutionary twists and turns that led to its development are not entirely clear. To unravel the path that the vertebrate immune system followed in its evolution, investigators have studied the defense responses of various living organisms. They also have examined the genes of immune system proteins for clues to the genetic origins of immunity.

Humphrey & Purdue. (2016, October 28). Evolution of the Immune System. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/science/immune-system/Evolution-of-the-immune-system.

[5] Teleological Notions in Biology (2009) states

Teleological terms such as “function” and “design” appear frequently in the biological sciences. Examples of teleological claims include:

A (biological) function of stotting by antelopes is to communicate to predators that they have been detected.
Eagles’ wings are (naturally) designed for soaring.

Teleological notions were commonly associated with the pre-Darwinian view that the biological realm provides evidence of conscious design by a supernatural creator. Even after creationist viewpoints were rejected by most biologists there remained various grounds for concern about the role of teleology in biology, including whether such terms are:

vitalistic (positing some special “life-force”);
requiring backwards causation (because future outcomes explain present traits);
incompatible with mechanistic explanation (because of 1 and 2);
mentalistic (attributing the action of mind where there is none);
empirically untestable (for all the above reasons).

Opinions divide over whether Darwin’s theory of evolution provides a means of eliminating teleology from biology, or whether it provides a naturalistic account of the role of teleological notions in the science.

Teleological Notions in Biology. (2009). Teleological Notions in Biology. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2009/entries/teleology-biology/.

[6] Interview: Ridley Scott on revisiting the Alien franchise with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant (2017) states:

Scott wanted to go back and really explore the origins of the xenomorphs, adding that, “We did Prometheus – that heaved it off the ground, and Covenant is a follow-through to Prometheus. We now know who created this, and why, and the next one’s a joining up of the storyline.” Scott told us that the story of Alien: Covenant “touches on mortality, immortality and the real question of who created us and why.”

Scott then went on to reveal that both Prometheus and Covenant are inspired by his personal beliefs about where we came from: “We’re not just a random biological accident, For you and I to be sitting here right now [by accident] would take trillions of correct decisions made randomly by nature, which of course is ridiculous. I think there’s some kind of decision being made. I believe in a higher force – if we want to call it God, then it’s God.”

Roach, T. (2017, January 3). Interview: Ridley Scott on revisiting the Alien franchise with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Retrieved from https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2017/01/interview-ridley-scott-on-expanding-the-alien-franchise-with-prometheus-and-alien-covenant/.

[7] INTERVIEW: SIR RIDLEY SCOTT EXPLAINS ‘PROMETHEUS,’ EXPLORES OUR PAST, AND TEASES FUTURE ‘ALIEN’ STORIES (2012) states:

RS: Well, from the very beginning, I was working from a premise that lent itself to a sequel. I really don’t want to meet God in the first one. I want to leave it open to [Noomi Rapace’s character, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw] saying, “I don’t want to go back to where I came from. I want to go where they came from.”

Fandango: So that was always going to be the natural ending for this film?

RS: Totally. And because they’re such aggressive f**kers … and who wouldn’t describe them that way, considering their brilliance in making dreadful devices and weapons that would make our chemical warfare look ridiculous? So I always had it in there that the God-like creature that you will see actually is not so nice, and is certainly not God. As she says, “This is not what I thought it was going to be, and I think we should get the Hell out of here or there won’t be any place to go back to.”

…Fandango: We’re not going to get a slow build in this second film, then. These guys are volatile from the start?

RS: In a funny kind of way, if you look at the Engineers, they’re tall and elegant … they are dark angels. If you look at [John Milton’s] Paradise Lost, the guys who have the best time in the story are the dark angels, not God. He goes to all the best nightclubs, he’s better looking, and he gets all of the birds. [Laughs]

Fandango: So Milton was one of your influences for the Engineers?

RS: That’s sounds incredibly pretentiously intellectual. But in a funny sort of way, yes. I started off with a title called Paradise. Either rightly or wrongly, we thought that was telling the audience too much. But then with Prometheus – which I thought was bloody well intellectual – that wasn’t my idea. It was Fox’s notion, It came from Tom Rothman, who’s a smart fellow. The more I thought about it, the more I thought it was a good idea. This is about someone who dares and is horribly punished. And besides, do you know something? A little bit of an education at the cinema isn’t such a bad thing.

Fandango: Do you worry that you’ve lost the element of surprise that worked to your advantage with the original Alien? By now, we’ve seen numerous movies in the Alien universe, and like it or not, audiences are coming in with an expectation that deflates tension and suspense. Did you feel the need to pull the audience in to the story in a different fashion this time?

RS: I was hoping I had with the fact that you have a sequence at the beginning of the film that is fundamentally creation. It’s a donation, in the sense that the weight and the construction of the DNA of those aliens is way beyond what we can possibly imagine …

Fandango: That is our planet, right?

RS: No, it doesn’t have to be. That could be anywhere. That could be a planet anywhere. All he’s doing is acting as a gardener in space. And the plant life, in fact, is the disintegration of himself.

If you parallel that idea with other sacrificial elements in history – which are clearly illustrated with the Mayans and the Incas – he would live for one year as a prince, and at the end of that year, he would be taken and donated to the gods in hopes of improving what might happen next year, be it with crops or weather, etcetera.

I always think about how often we attribute what has happened to either our invention or memory. A lot of ideas evolve from past histories, but when you look so far back, you wonder, Really? Is there really a connection there?”

Then when I jump back, and you put yourself in a situation of a cave painting, you see that someone 32,000 years ago is showing me a little man sitting in the darkness, using a candle light that is fat from a creature he killed and ate. And in the darkness are two or three other family members whose body heat is warming the cave. But he has discovered that from a piece of this black, burnt stick, he has discovered that he can draw pictures on the wall.

In essence, you have the first level of emotion and a demonstration of entertainment, right? Because he’s drawing brilliantly on the God damn wall. Now, you put yourself into that context, it’s 100-times bigger than Edison. And people don’t go back to the basics and ask, “Holy shit, what gave him that knowledge, that jolt to not scribble on the wall but draw on it brilliantly?”

If you go back and look, a completely underrated film is Quest for Fire. That was one of the most genius, simplistic but incredibly sophisticated notion of what it was. The evolution of that was just fantastic. And that got me sitting back on my ass thinking, “Damn! What a fundamentally massive idea.”

Fandango: You throw religion and spirituality into the equation for Prometheus, though, and it almost acts as a hand grenade. We had heard it was scripted that the Engineers were targeting our planet for destruction because we had crucified one of their representatives, and that Jesus Christ might have been an alien. Was that ever considered?

RS: We definitely did, and then we thought it was a little too on the nose. But if you look at it as an “our children are misbehaving down there” scenario, there are moments where it looks like we’ve gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, “Lets’ send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it. Guess what? They crucified him.

O’Connell, S. (2012, June 5). INTERVIEW: SIR RIDLEY SCOTT EXPLAINS ‘PROMETHEUS,’ EXPLORES OUR PAST, AND TEASES FUTURE ‘ALIEN’ STORIES. Retrieved from http://www.fandango.com/movie-news/interview-sir-ridley-scott-explains-prometheus-explores-our-past-and-teases-future-alien-stories-716238.

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 91 – Life and Death (6)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/16

*Footnotes in & after the interview, & bibliography after the interview.*

*This session edited for clarity and readability.*

Rick: The legal aspects of death will change along with all of the controversies to come about whether artificial or augmented or transplanted intelligence has rights. Some social changes happen easily. For instance, interracial couples are now completely acceptable, except among some fringe white supremacist lunatics. That change happened without a lot of political wrangling. It just kind of happened over a period of 10 or 15 years, where interracial couples moved into the media as a brand of coolness. There’s a movie out about an interracial couple fighting for the right to marry in the 50s. That whole thing has gone away.

I’m sure if you’re an interracial couple that it has, not entirely but, gone away to a significant degree. There might be some micro-aggressions, but it is lesser than some American controversies (University of Minnesota, n.d.; DeAngelis, 2009; University of California, n.d.). One big ongoing American controversy is abortion, which is about the beginning of life rather than the end of life. It remains a completely divisive subject, but a change that has happened with much less controversy is that most people believe that measure of whether or not you’re alive is whether or not your brain can still function. About 12 years ago, there was the Terry Schiavo down in Florida controversy.

Where this woman fell into a persistent vegetative state, the husband wanted to pull the plug because it was pointless. She had no chance of recovery. Then religious conservatives including those in the government, e.g. Jeb Bush, took the other side and it turned into a whole years-long legal wrangle. That stood out from a bunch of other situations. Besides exceptional situations like that, you don’t get a lot of people arguing that it’s anything but your brain that defines whether you can go on living. There may be aspects of life and death connected to future technical capabilities we have to artificially extend the life of the brain.

Some of those issues might be resolved without abortion-level reactions. Others will make people go nuts on either side. We’ve talked about the ways in which the life of the brain can be extended. You can have add-on technology that rides on inside or outside it. Few people are going to freak out and say, “You’re playing God,” if there are parts of your body you can replace with either circuitry of bio-circuitry, or specially grown cells. What’s the gland that helps determine whether or not you have Parkinson’s (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2015a; Parkinson Canada, n.d.; Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, 2017)?[1] It’s not the pituitary, is it (The Pituitary Foundation, 2017)?

Scott: No, that’s for growth hormone (Ibid.). It might be the substantia nigra because it produces dopamine (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2017; Parkinson Canada, n.d.). The cells of that die relatively fast. Say 40% of them die (or get damaged), you’re left with 6/10ths of a substantia nigra, then you start getting Parkinson’s. Horrible disease.

Rick: People like Michael J. Fox have some kind of surgery. Have they put in some kind of pacemaker? Often with Parkinson’s, you have trouble with initiating movement. Once you’re walking, you’re walking, and you’re okay. But starting walking can be a struggle.

Scott: The main problem is mid- to late-stage. You lose the precise ability to move and coordinate motor functions, I think.

Rick: There’s some procedure that they can do that I think puts them in some electronic device that helps with that (National Parkinson Foundation, 2017; Mayo Clinic Staff, 2015b).[2] There’s cochlear implants that replace the hair in your ears with computerized equivalents (National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, 2016). That works well. There’s crappy ones for your eyes (The Artificial Retina Project, 2013). You can always find some lunatic to object to anything, but nobody is complaining about implants to Parkinson’s, deafness, and blindness.

I assume implants, whether organic or not, are not going to make people freak out as more of those things can address problems. Alzheimer’s is a global brain dysfunction, but you have things like frontal lobe dementia (Alzheimer’s Association, 2017a; Alzheimer’s Association, 2017b). Where there might be a local fix that buys you another year or two of decent function by giving a boost to your failing frontal lobe, people with frontal lobe dementia are, some of them, pretty interesting. They lose some functions for inhibition.

There was a guy named Phineas Gage who had the steel rod through his skull (Twomey, 2010). It messed up his frontal lobe. He became a rougher guy. A Jekyll/Hyde deal to a certain extent. It’s the same with some aspects of frontal lobe dementia. They found that if you run some current – you don’t have to go internal – by earing some helmet deal that facilitates electrical fields that you get amplified brain function. On NPR, there was an autistic lady who had trouble interpreting social cues. She a doctor. She’s always pissing people off because she doesn’t understand sarcasm or subtlety.

They stimulated her brain for an hour. After that, she could understand social cues. It was like seeing in color after only seeing in black and white. Some of this stuff will naturally pass muster as acceptable medicine and a way to keep functioning, keep living. There will be other aspects of technologically extending function that will freak some people out, especially when you start moving the brain out of its natural enclosure or thought out of its natural enclosure – our skulls – and moving it elsewhere.

References

Alzheimer’s Association. (2017a). What Is Alzheimer’s?. Retrieved from http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_what_is_alzheimers.asp.
Alzheimer’s Association. (2017a). Frontotemporal dementia. Retrieved from http://www.alz.org/dementia/fronto-temporal-dementia-ftd-symptoms.asp.
DeAngelis, T. (2009). Unmasking ‘racial microaggressions’. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/02/microaggression.aspx.
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2015b, November 11). Deep brain stimulation. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/deep-brain-stimulation/home/ovc-20156088.
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2015a, July 7). Parkinson’s Disease. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/parkinsons-disease/basics/definition/con-20028488.
National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). (2016, May 3). Cochlear Implants. Retrieved from https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/cochlear-implants.
National Parkinson Foundation. (2017). Deep Brain Stimulation: What are the facts?. Retrieved from http://www.parkinson.org/understanding-parkinsons/treatment/surgery-treatment-options/Deep-Brain-Stimulation.
Parkinson Canada. (n.d.). What is Parkinson’s?. Retrieved from http://www.parkinson.ca/site/c.kgLNIWODKpF/b.5184077/k.CDD1/What_is_Parkinsons.htm.
Parkinson’s Disease Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.pdf.org/about_pd.
The Artificial Retina Project. (2013, February 7). Overview of the Artificial Retina Project. Retrieved from http://artificialretina.energy.gov/about.shtml.
The Pituitary Foundation. (2017). What is the pituitary gland?. Retrieved from https://www.pituitary.org.uk/information/what-is-the-pituitary-gland/.
Twomey, S. (2010, January). Phineas Gage: Neuroscience’s Most Famous Patient. Retrieved from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/phineas-gage-neurosciences-most-famous-patient-11390067/.
University of California. (n.d.). Tool: Recognizing Microaggressions and the Messages They Send. Retrieved from http://academicaffairs.ucsc.edu/events/documents/Microaggressions_Examples_Arial_2014_11_12.pdf.
University of Minnesota. (n.d.). Examples of Racial Microaggressions. Retrieved from http://sph.umn.edu/site/docs/hewg/microaggressions.pdf.
S. National Library of Medicine. (2017, February 7). Substantia nigra and Parkinson disease. Retrieved from https://medlineplus.gov/ency/imagepages/19515.htm

Footnotes

[1] Parkinson’s Disease (2015) states:

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive disorder of the nervous system that affects movement. It develops gradually, sometimes starting with a barely noticeable tremor in just one hand. But while a tremor may be the most well-known sign of Parkinson’s disease, the disorder also commonly causes stiffness or slowing of movement.

In the early stages of Parkinson’s disease, your face may show little or no expression, or your arms may not swing when you walk. Your speech may become soft or slurred. Parkinson’s disease symptoms worsen as your condition progresses over time.

Although Parkinson’s disease can’t be cured, medications may markedly improve your symptoms. In occasional cases, your doctor may suggest surgery to regulate certain regions of your brain and improve your symptoms.

Mayo Clinic Staff. (2015, July 7). Parkinson’s Disease. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/parkinsons-disease/basics/definition/con-20028488.

[2] Deep brain stimulation (2015b) states:

Deep brain stimulation involves implanting electrodes within certain areas of your brain. These electrodes produce electrical impulses that regulate abnormal impulses. Or, the electrical impulses can affect certain cells and chemicals within the brain.

The amount of stimulation in deep brain stimulation is controlled by a pacemaker-like device placed under the skin in your upper chest. A wire that travels under your skin connects this device to the electrodes in your brain.

Deep brain stimulation is used to treat a number of neurological conditions, such as:

Essential tremor
Parkinson’s disease
Dystonia
Epilepsy
Tourette syndrome
Chronic pain
Obsessive compulsive disorder

Deep brain stimulation is also being studied as an experimental treatment for major depression, stroke recovery, addiction and dementia. Clinical trials may be available to candidates for deep brain stimulation.

Mayo Clinic Staff. (2015b, November 11). Deep brain stimulation. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/deep-brain-stimulation/home/ovc-20156088. .

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 90 – Life and Death (5)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/15

*Footnotes in & after the interview, & bibliography after the interview.*

*This session edited for clarity and readability.*

Scott: We have talked about medicine, technology, the devaluation of people, and the Golden Rule. Other aspects are legal, rites of passage, and so on. By the time people meet the rites of passage by 20-35, they’re done (Alexander & Norbeck, 2009). Our average ages at death can range from about 50-90 dependent on the country (WHO, 2016; CIA, 2016; The World Bank, 2016; OECD, 2016).

Rick: One reason the rites of passage are done early on are because early on is when we have the most power to acquire comfortable positions in society. A comfortable position might be getting the best reproductive partner, the best spouse. Your powers of doing that are strongest in your 20s and 30s, when you’re most reproductively fit.

Then you trade youth, or reproductive fitness, for wealth, ideally, and wisdom, ideally. So, you can still be quite valuable or still can have some reproductive leverage or spouse-getting leverage into your 40s and 50s. After that, unless you’re in a special position, you lose that power. You lose value as an employee. The watershed moments in peoples’ lives are associated with their years of greatest power.

Scott: Also, we have been talking about the frontier. The Europeans first discovering for themselves the West, excluding the Vikings, for instance (Hoffman et al, 2016; Pringle, 2012). As an analogy, this technical landscape as we move into the future will be that.

There’s going to be Luddites (Conniff, 2011; Encyclopædia Britannica, 2004). There’s going to be Luddites, not only technically but, medically, who will be found in pockets of the world doing what humans have always been doing.

Rick: Yes. People like to pick one person from history and say, “That person was the last person in history to understand all human knowledge.”

Scott: Goethe?

Rick: I’m thinking Goethe, yea. In the sense that none of us are Goethe, and it’s 200 years after him, we all are to some extent Luddites. None of us or some small fraction of 1% of us really try to stay abreast of the complete technical frontier.

Only the very earliest and most avid of adapters are fully non-Luddite. Everybody else is making compromises that fall short of full appreciation of and embrace of technology. We can’t be bothered.

Scott: You’re talking about two different things at the same time, though. The one side is technical know-how, just knowing things about the world. The other one is actual use of technology.

I typically understand Luddite as none use of both of those. So, the Goethe example is only relevant to technical know-how. People, in general, use toilets, use the Internet, use lights. So, most people aren’t technology Luddites, but are technical Luddites.

Rick: If you took a list of the most widely used and the newest and hottest forms of social media, very few people would be a presence on the top 10 of all of those, or the top 20. People already pick and choose the technology, and the level of technology, that they want to embrace.

So, while there will be pockets of explicit Luddites, of determined Luddites, there will also be tides of technical embrace. Everybody is going to be muddling along like now, but worse – striking compromises between being hopelessly out of touch and out of date and being sucked into too much tech.

Those reasons can be traditional Luddite reasons or there are a bunch of modern reasons. It is a lot of new tech, which is clunky and doesn’t work well – or if it doesn’t work well it is a time suck and gets in the way of doing other things that we value.

So, there will be pockets of Luddites, but there will be every little community, family, and individual – each entity – will have its own index of receptivity to technology. Communities will form with like or complimentary indices, with indices that function well with each other.

If you look at a business community like that, you have a community of people with different technical indices with the older higher-ranking people having the lowest technical indices and then younger people, because they’re better able or more willing to embrace tech, having higher indices and the highest indices being the IT people whose job it is know this stuff – and who move into these jobs because they like knowing what’s going on.

Various indices coming together to form a community, an effective working community. Within families, the old people giving less of a crap about new tech and young people embracing new tech to at least be partially like the old people. So, you can draw a heat map across cities or across people – however you want to group them – that shows different levels of technical embrace.

Somebody who throws a javelin will work different muscles than a marathon runner. So, even people with the same indices of embracing tech will have different tech signatures, it’s more than just Luddites is what I’m saying.

References

Alexander, B.C. & Norbeck, E. (2009, August 17). Rites of passage. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/rite-of-passage.
(2016). Country Comparison :: Life Expectancy at Birth. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/PUBLICATIONS/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html.
Encyclopædia Britannica. (2004, March 4). Luddite. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/event/Luddite.
Hoffman, P.F., Zelinsky, W., et al. (2016, September 27). North America. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/place/North-America.
(2016). Life expectancy at birth. Retrieved from https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm.
Pringle, H. (2012, November). Vikings and Native Americans. Retrieved from http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/11/vikings-and-indians/pringle-text.
The World Bank. (2016). Life expectancy at birth, total (years). Retrieved from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN.
(2016). Life expectancy at birth (years), 2000-2015. Retrieved from http://gamapserver.who.int/gho/interactive_charts/mbd/life_expectancy/atlas.html.

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 89 – Life and Death (4)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/14

*This session has been edited for clarity and readability.*

Rick: If everybody is given a fair chance under democratic American values, we embrace those values because we consider ourselves everybody. One way that the American system has been gltchy lately is more and more people don’t consider themselves anybody or everybody as a group member who needs collective protection, but only as an individual who can survive on their own without government.

So, you have these more selfish politicians being elected. People are looking at themselves and deciding that they don’t need support group action because they can survive just fine on their own. Everything is based on evolved human preferences, values, characteristics. Humans are limited.

As we build more sophisticated ways of processing information, of experiencing the world, of being in groups, old school basic unaugmented human existence will – once a significant segment of the population is living under different cultural standards based on being unaugmented or on more powerful ways of processing information and experiencing information – be seen as old school, primitive, clunky, and the world will no longer be primarily catering to them.

The idea of preserving island-like human existence, which is the idea of individual human existence locked into their skulls without augmentation or intimate networking will seem like keeping a Model T running. There will become a certain amount of prejudice against the grainy, clunky type of information processing done in unaugmented human brains.

Everything that is made is made with human interests in mind, but once we become more powerful in processing and experiencing things then the augmented human market will shrink or be neglected. It will be like radio versus TV versus the Internet. Radio used to be the greatest thing. In the 20s and 30s, people would gather around the radio.

There’d be super popular shows. Jack Armstrong, Super Boy, The Shadow with production value as great as could be imagined. All of the most talented people were there such as Jack Benny and Milton Berle, not always considered the most talented. The best comedians were on the radio. The best singers were on the radio. All of the best because it was considered a sophisticated medium.

Now, it isn’t. Broadcast radio is full of garbage and packed with ads and yammering morons who aren’t talented enough to make it in other media. The same thing will happen with information processing. Unaugmented human information processing will no longer be the ultimate in existence. The entities that are more powerful than us will look at our unaugmented human was of being and will think, “I can see how they experience, perceive, and think about things, but their way of being is not as powerfully existent as my way of existing, my friends, and the people I’m linked to.”

The yardstick, man will never be the measure of all things. The yardstick will be the dominant, most powerful means of experiencing and analyzing the world. It won’t be absolute. It won’t be like homo sapiens driving Neanderthals out of existence. The coming AI plus built-ins, the coming means of existence will be somewhat tolerant of all means of existence.

There’ll be a whole bunch of ways of experiencing the world with fungible consciousness, which is consciousness that can traded around, budded around, cut into pieces, and merged. There will have to be some tolerance for all ways of processing information because we’ll be in a Star Wars cantina of consciousness and of AI.

There will be a zillion different ways of using computing power and consciousness, and information processing. Those different ways will have to not always be at each others’ throats because there will still be a lot of cooperation. There will still be the Golden Rule. So, there will be tolerance for old school humans.

But there will also be looking down on old school humans in the way we don’t let a giraffe be president. You can’t do it! A giraffe can’t handle the task. A giraffe can’t drive a school busy. If it came down to – there’s that ethical dilemma problem – if you’re driving a car and the breaks don’t work, do you hit the giraffe or hit the kid? You’re going to hit the giraffe.

So, even as we acquire the means to make consciousness replicatable, those same means will make human consciousness less precious. Also, the way we group together via social media will become more powerful and probably won’t be called social media. The way that we share thoughts, we primarily share thoughts via words.

Eventually, we’ll come up with more powerful means of sharing existence with each other. We share video and still pictures with each other. Eventually, we’ll be able to share emotional or conscious frameworks that include the information of experience more directly. We’ll be able to share experience more directly.

Being able to experience more directly and being able to link consciousnesses, maybe not completely all of the time but, more intimately than now may devalue the need to continue to exist as an individual consciousness.

If this is the year 2130, and you’ve been alive for 140 years, and you’ve been sharing your thoughts via whatever the thought sharing social media of the time is, if you’ve been sharing thoughts since 2060, for half of your life, for 70 years, maybe, there are enough of your thoughts out there in the world and, maybe, you’re used to sharing thinking functions with the people you’re intimately, and whatever else, linked with.

So, you don’t feel a desperation to keep existing in your 70-year-old body. You share experiences and philosophies. They’ve been out there for 70 years. Maybe, there’s enough of you out there linked with other people that it doesn’t matter too much to the one of you that is part of this worldwide net of consciousness.

The net of consciousness may have enough of you via what you’ve shared for decades, so that not that much of you is lost as your individual human experience ceases. There’s the idea that if you’re linked up with enough other brains for long enough, then the loss of one brain doesn’t matter because what was once confined to one brain is now distributed among a bunch of other information processing systems.

You can imagine, to further confuse things, say, it’s 2080. You’re born in 1990. You’re 90-years-old. Your body is no longer as fun to live in as it used to be, and you’re looking at resurrection packages.

Maybe, your brain isn’t as functional. You’re in some show room, where you’re meeting with a salesperson to find out how much existence you want to preserve – as your brain is replaced, as you move into cyberspace.

You’re looking at various means of replication and replacement of consciousness. A salesperson says, “Full duplication of every single one of your memories as near as we can do it runs from $3.8 million. Or, you can go for the economy preservation at $1.8 million. We will preserve the most important memories.”

We replace some of the stuff that you don’t access much with generic memories. You’re 90-years-old. The salesman says, “How much do you really need to remember about high school back in 2005-2008? We can preserve some high school memories vaguely. The rest, we can fill in with generic high school experiences based on people of your type. How unique was your time in high school? And how much do you really use? How much do you remember in detail? We can give you generic memories for a lot cheaper, rather than having to tease them out of your brain, and just happen to be synthetic.”

To save 2 million bucks for a snazzier replacement body, you go with a loss of accuracy of memory, which can be seen as a loss of humanity – but can also be seen as pretty human because we lose the accuracy of memory over time anyway.

But people, and what comes after people – which will still be people, but will be different in a lot of ways from us, will face choices, not that exact choice maybe, about what they want to do with their consciousness. How much they want to preserve and for how long, that means questioning the value of certain things that we would consider part of being human.

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 88 – Life and Death (3)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/13

*This session has been edited for clarity and readability.*

Rick: My eye is sore. I only have one contact in, so I am working with ¾ of a brain. So, excuse any nonsense. We were talking about death and overcoming death. I believe that we will have the technology to continue human consciousness indefinitely because I am an informationist (Zahedi, 2015; Jürgen, n.d.; Giridharadas, 2010; n.a., n.d.).[1]

I believe the brain is an information processor. Consciousness is made out of information as it’s being processed (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2015; Gennaro, n.d.; Van Gulick, 2016). It is a finite amount of information. There’s nothing magic about it. Eventually, we will be able to replicate the processes that go into information processing in the brain and the consciousness associated with that information processing.

However, our technical mastery of thought and information processing within consciousness will eventually mean that we can do better than the human and that unaugmented humans won’t be the pinnacle of existence.

Human consciousness will eventually be seen as more trivial than it is now. It will become increasingly fashionable to not give too much of a crap about human consciousness. So, the same forces of improving information analysis and processing that will help us understand processing in the brain will eventually surpass human thought.

What humans want and how humans are, at the very least, will be seen as old school, there’s lots of precedent for that. We put pets to sleep. We slaughter meat animals. Even though, most people believe that pets and meat animals have consciousness.

But not consciousness that is so important that we do every possible thing to keep pets alive and to make meat animals’ lives pleasant. In terms of human consciousness, our best model for our priorities is the Golden Rule (Encyclopædia Britannica, 1998; Puka, n.d.).

We know we like being conscious and alive. Under the Golden Rule, we extend that to other people, but, in a way, it applies to ourselves. Hidden within the Golden Rule, kinda, is – with the Golden Rule as treat others as you like to be treated and, maybe with the ¾ of a brain I am veering off into nonsense – that we look to our own experience to know what we like and by extension what other humans would like.

Which is being treated with decency and being able to do stuff, hidden deep behind that is existence, based on our individual experience, offers the potential to be pleasurable. Even miserable people keep going with the idea that there are things to keep persisting for, most people aren’t miserable all of the time.

Most people find existence pleasurable, which is as it should be for evolved creatures. You can’t have creatures that survive to reproduce if its existence is miserable. Once we’ve reproduced, basically, nature gives less of a crap about the quality of our existence.

Old peoples’ existences are not as pleasurable as people who are of reproductive age.

Scott: So, you’re speaking to a hoped-for future, which can be seen in a hoped-for life here and now, or in a hoped-for afterlife in the sense that these are beliefs that are held in conscious creatures. That if things are bad now, they will become good on net later on.

Rick: Yes, I don’t want to get deep into if the average person’s average level of experience if miserable or not. It’s not. Most peoples’ experience is pretty good. What I am trying to say, in the twaddle that I’ve been saying, is the yardstick for quality of existence is human consciousness, it’s the yardstick behind the Golden Rule.

What we like, we can assume other people like, e.g. basic principles of decency, treating other people fairly, and allowing them to continue to exist, is based on the pleasure we feel in existing. We are the yardstick. ‘The measure of man is man,’ someone said, I think.

Scott: Man is the measure of all things (Dictionary.com, 2017; Encyclopædia Britannica, 2012).

Rick: Okay, there you go. I am going to blame my one contact lens and partially shutdown half of my brain based on lack of input.

Scott: There’s another level to that, if I can add to that.

Rick: Okay.

Scott: You’re speaking to individual experience. There’s also group awareness. So, if “man is the measure of all things,” if people are the yardstick for the Golden Rule, then the Golden Rule implies human consciousness, so human consciousness implies concepts of others and relationships. So, this the Golden Rule implies groups too.

Rick: We support or approve humans in groups because groups of humans over history have helped individual humans live decent lives. Right now, in America, we are annoyed at humans in groups because humans in groups elected our most clownish and dangerous president.

Politicians we also elected are doing nothing to represent us in our displeasure with this dangerous guy and a lot of the things he stands for. We’re not finding groups very helpful, but, in general, groups are helpful.

However, unfortunately, groups of humans are made up of humans, and we’re still the same groups of dumbshits as 100,000 years ago. We have managed to come up with systems as groups of humans that generally work for the benefit of people.

But since we’re just humans with our limited capabilities, sometimes, you get glitches like Trump.

Scott: Is it a glitch or is it old school emotional baggage that’s also evolved along with our feelings around the Golden Rule – selfishness, self-interest, xenophobia, hatred?

Rick: Yes, when you talk about the Golden Rule, it is not just all about the pleasure of being human. All sorts of cultural values sneak in. All sorts of cultural values are taken into account.

Scott: Where do those cultural values come from? They come from the human brain. They come from ancient evolved capacities.

Rick: They come from evolution. Evolution doesn’t want anything. Evolution is a force. The way evolution keeps score is the animals that are more successful at reproducing reproduce and pass on their genes.

So, evolution rewards behaviours and characteristics that contribute to survival across time, for persistence. Behaviors that contribute to persistence, to living long enough to reproduce. Our values are, more or less, rooted in those same behaviours.

Stable societies allow more people to survive long enough to reproduce. All of our values go back to evolutionary principles.

References

1) Dictionary.com (2017). man is the measure of all things. Retrieved from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/man-is-the-measure-of-all-things.  

2) Encyclopædia Britannica. (2015, February 6). Consciousness. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/consciousness.

3) Encyclopædia Britannica. (1998, July 20). Golden Rule. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Golden-Rule 

4) Encyclopædia Britannica. (2012, February 10). Protagoras. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Protagoras-Greek-philosopher.  

5) Gennaro, R.J. (n.d.). Consciousness. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/consciou/.  6) Giridharadas, A. (2010, July 2). In Search of a Digital Philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/world/europe/03iht-currents.html.  

7) Jürgen, S. (n.d.). Computable Universes &

Algorithmic Theory of Everything: The Computational Multiverse. Retrieved from http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/computeruniverse.html.

8) n.a. (n.d.). What Is Digital Philosophy?. Retrieved from

https://web.archive.org/web/20140928110805/http://www.digitalphilosophy.org/?page_id=2. 9) Puka, B. (n.d.). The Golden Rule. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/goldrule/.  10) Van Gulick, R. (2016). Consciousness. Retrieved from

https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/consciousness.

11) Zahedi, R. (2015, January 7). On Discrete Physics: a Perfect Deterministic Structure for Reality – And “A (Direct) Logical Derivation of the Laws Governing the Fundamental Forces of Nature”. Retrieved from https://inspirehep.net/record/1387680.

[1]What is Digital Philosophy? (n.d.) states:

Digital Philosophy (DP) is a new way of thinking about the fundamental workings of processes in nature. DP is an atomic theory carried to a logical extreme where all quantities in nature are finite and discrete. This means that, theoretically, any quantity can be represented exactly by an integer. Further, DP implies

that nature harbors no infinities, infinitesimals, continuities, or locally determined random variables. This paper explores Digital Philosophy by examining the consequences of these premises.

At the most fundamental levels of physics, DP implies a totally discrete process called Digital Mechanics. Digital Mechanics[1] (DM) must be a substrate for Quantum Mechanics. Digital Philosophy makes sense with regard to any system if the following assumptions are true:

All the fundamental quantities that represent the state information of the system are ultimately discrete. In principle, an integer can always be an exact representation of every such quantity. For example, there is always an integral number of neutrons in a particular atom. Therefore, configurations of bits, like the binary digits in a computer, can correspond exactly to the most microscopic representation of that kind of state information.

In principle, the temporal evolution of the state information (numbers and kinds of particles) of such a system can be exactly modeled by a digital informational process similar to what goes on in a computer. Such models are straightforward in the case where we are keeping track only of the numbers and kinds of particles. For example, if an oracle announces that a neutron decayed into a proton, an electron, and a neutrino, it’s easy to see how a computer could exactly keep track of the changes to the numbers and kinds of particles in the system. Subtract 1 from the number of neutrons, and add 1 to each of the numbers of protons, electrons, and neutrinos.

n.a. (n.d.). What Is Digital Philosophy?. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20140928110805/http://www.digitalphilosophy.org/?page_id=2.

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 87 – Life and Death (2)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/12

*This session has been edited for clarity and readability.*

Scott: Things continue to ramp up, though (Investopedia, 2017; Encyclopædia Britannica, 2015). There’s a sense in which the natural development of technology and medicine through better, and better, science makes for a less predictable future, but one in line with the current trend lines of great gains in health span and lifespan (infoplease, 2017; National Institutes of Health: National Institute of Aging, 2015; EBioMedicine, 2015).

Rick: We are on the verge of going from significant, but not readily noticeable, gains in health to really jarring improvements in health and lifespan, where even the World Economic Forum – which is a pretty conservative in its predictions – says the average lifespan in developed nations will rise to 100 (Gratton, 2017).

It is difficult to talk about extended lifespans because the Boomers, which I am one, live most of their lives under not the best medicine, but Boomers were born from 1945 to about 1965 – which means they spent most of their lives in the 20^thcentury with 20^thcentury health patterns (PEW Research Center, 2015).

So, you can talk about lifespans going to 120, but most Boomers aren’t going to get to 120 because the technology hasn’t been there for them. (Ibid.; The Conversation, 2013; Clark, 2009). But if you talk about a Millennial living until 190, that takes them to the year 2110, by which time science may be able to offer people lifespans of 300.

Scott: The older you are, the less likely you are able to take advantage of the medical and biotechnology waves that will increase health span and lifespan in the future.

Rick: Yes, it’s weird. After a certain point, it is weird to talk about specific extended lifespans. Right now, it still makes sense. We’re going to have more people living until 100. Some people making it past 120.

It seems to be, if you asked well-informed doctors and scientists, the absolute limit, even with current technology and medicine. But then you ask science fictioney thinking like Aubrey de Grey and Ray Kurzweil, and futurist people, they think there’s no reason that we can’t break through that barrier and keep going (SENS Research Foundation, 2017; Kurzweil Technologies, 2017).

So, that’s the main substitute for life, which is more life, in good condition. You can look at other hypothetical substitutes for life. Like, if you could live forever, but every 50 years you’re going to be reset back to age 20, so you get to live from 20-70 – but once you reach 70, then you have no memory of life of 20-70, most people would take that deal.

It would be a frustrating deal. So, you could get some reluctance. Or a hypothetical deal, where you can live forever but can only remember the last 20 years of your life, I think most people would take that deal.

There are all sorts of deals that people can be offered in fantasy movies. There haven’t been that many resurrection movies, but many have been popular such as Heaven Can Wait being made 3 times, I think.

It is about a guy plucked from heaven based on an administrative error. He files a beef with the divine bureaucracy and gets sent back into other bodies because his body is dead or cremated, or whatever. There are resurrection fantasy movies.

It’s easy to explore the landscape of what we value in terms of life and life experience by imagining different hypothetical situations that offer versions of extended life subject to different rules.

You ask people, “Would you like to be resurrected without knowledge of any previous life?” Many people would say, “Yes.” Then you have to ask them, “What is exactly being resurrected if you have no knowledge of what came before?” Then they say, “My soul.”

So, you have the hypothetical resurrection explorations, which provide a rough indication of what we value about life such as ongoing daily experience. We like being able to remember things we’ve experienced. We like the things we’ve accumulated such as wealth, relationships.

These make ongoing daily experience at least have the potential to be pleasurable. We don’t like the loss of all experience, all memory, all consciousness, forever. Given that, we can imagine that near and middle future technology will be able to an increasing extent offer substitutes for life.

You can call it extended life, substitutes for life. I think we talked about this in another context, where how much fidelity a reproduction of your mental landscape would have to have for it to be acceptable as a substitute for life or for it to be considered a continuation of your conscious being.

Anyway, we’ve talked about all of that before. First, crappy ones, then reasonable and acceptable ones, are coming, which goes against the scientific point of view that there is no afterlife because it is not unreasonable to think that there will be technical afterlife.

Maybe, even for people who have died before the era of technical resurrection, they may have left enough information behind for somewhat acceptable simulations of themselves to be created. So, even in a technical universe without divine afterlife, there may be afterlife.

If you left enough of an impact on the world around you, when I think about technical afterlife about people who lived before our era, I think of Jane Austen and Abe Lincoln. They’re my go to examples.

Eventually, you could reproduce those people with greater than 80% fidelity to who they were. Although, you need to define fidelity. You need to reconstruct their genes from their descendants, though the genome isn’t that helpful – I estimate it at 5-10% helpful – as well as the verbal record that they left.

You’re looking for a deal to be made. If you build a version of Abe Lincoln that experts estimate has 82% fidelity to whatever the real Abe Lincoln was like, his mental landscape was like, if you ask the resurrected or reconstructed thing if this is acceptable, he’d say, “Yes, more or less, I enjoy being alive in the world. I have reservations that I’m actually Abe Lincoln.”

Then if you could travel back in time and ask Abe Lincoln, “Do you find that if 200 years in the future that we’d be able to do this deal and be able to reconstruct you with a reasonably high degree of fidelity? Is that something you’d want?”

In an enabling way, he’d say, “That’s not entirely sucky, and it’s better than nothing.” For people who are alive during the era of technical resurrection, who will be able to be offered 80% and then 90% accuracy, even over 98% fidelity once these things become actualized, a level of fidelity which is like as we live and go through life and gain thought and experience, and lose thought and experience as things continue.

References

1) Clark, J. (2009, May 11). Will the Hayflick limit keep us from living forever?. Retrieved from http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/genetic/hayflick-limit.htm.  

2) EBioMedicine. (2015, November 2). Increasing Healthspan: prosper and Live Long. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4740330/.  3) Encyclopædia Britannica. (2015, November 17). Moore’s law. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Moores-law.  

4) Gratton, L. (2017, January 30). What happens when we all live to be 100?. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/what-happens-when-we-all-live-to-be-100/.  5) infoplease. (2017). Medical Advances Timeline. Retrieved from

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0932661.html.  

6) Investopedia. (2017). Moore’s Law. Retrieved from

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/circuitbreaker.asp. 

7) Kurzweil Technologies. (2017). A Brief Career Summary of Ray Kurzweil. Retrieved from http://www.kurzweiltech.com/aboutray.html.  

8) National Institutes of Health: National Institute of Aging. (2015, January 22). Living Longer. Retrieved from https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/publication/global-health-and aging/living-longer.

9) PEW Research Center. (2015, May 11). Generations Defined. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/11/millennials-surpass-gen-xers-as-the largest-generation-in-u-s-labor-force/ft_15-05-11_millennialsdefined/. 10) SENS Research Foundation. (2017). Executive Team. Retrieved from http://www.sens.org/about/leadership/executive-team.

11) The Conversation. (2013, June 3). Lust for life: breaking the 120-year barrier in human ageing. Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/lust-for-life-breaking-the-120- year-barrier-in-human-ageing-14911.

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2022-04-09

Ask A Genius 86 – Life and Death (1)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/11

*This session has been edited for clarity and readability.*

Scott: Death is a profound topic. It raises profound feelings, and questions (Markman, 2008; Murphy, 2015; Alper, 2015). It raises exceptional circumstances for people, especially their own ending.

Rick: To talk about death, we have to talk about life.

Scott: Okay, let’s talk about life and death.

Rick: One reason death is so scary is that if you don’t believe in an afterlife then you lose everything when you die because conscious being is the frame in which you hold everything. There’s no you to remember after death.

That’s summed up with the saying, “You can’t take it with you.” If there’s no framework for you to experience what you own or any other aspect of life, then you’ve lost everything. To take a step back, we can talk about some reasonable substitutes for life.

Some substitutes for life are enduring fame. That you create a work of art that lives on after you. That you create descendants that live after you. That you ascribe to values that live on after you. That you lived a full life and accomplished what people, or at least you, acknowledge to be a life well-spent.

None of those are very satisfying in the minds of most people compared to losing everything, but they are among the few things that you get to keep if you don’t believe in an afterlife. You don’t really get to keep them, but you’ve been keeping score as to whether you’ve been living a good life or not.

That’s part of your framework as to why it is a good thing to die or not, but it’s not very satisfying in most people’s minds. I don’t know about animals. Salmon swim upstream to their deaths after spawning (Reference, 2017). Are they okay with that? Who knows? Evolution is not respectful of our feelings once our feelings don’t increase the likelihood that we’ll reproduce.

Evolution doesn’t care what we think unless what we think influences our reproductive capabilities. Evolution doesn’t care. Say there’s no afterlife, but a few tens of billions of people have earnestly believed in an afterlife, an evolutionary universe doesn’t particularly care that so many people have been so cruelly deceived (Palermo, 2015; PEW Research Center, 2012).¹

In fact, evolution cannot approve or disapprove anything, but there might be an evolutionary advantage in people wrongfully believing in an afterlife if that belief helps people to live long enough to make babies.

But if you believe in evolution, and if you believe in the current scientific framework, then just because billions of people have believed in an afterlife does not obligate the universe to conform to that belief.

So, we are on the cusp of more satisfying substitutes for life. What we want most of all with regard to life is more life, most people, or a lot of people, with bravado say, “I don’t want to live past 100.”

In that, there’s the idea that at 100 then you’re pretty fucked up physically and mentally. You wouldn’t want to live that way anyway. But you can say, “What if you could live with the body and the brain of a 35-year-old?”

A lot of people will say with a certain amount of bravado, “Yea, I still wouldn’t want that!” There’s a little bit of not wanting what you can’t have. There’s ingrained social structures in that. But if you really pressed, especially as we move into the future, “If you could live indefinitely or for 200 years in the body of a 35-year-old or a 50-year-old, would you want at least another 200 years?”

Most people without thinking about it will still say, “No, there’s a place and time for everybody. My time will be over after 100 years.” But more and more people want extended life if that life can be good.

Medicine and technology are increasingly able to give us little bits of that. 100 years ago, people on average, which is weird when you talk about people who lived 100 years ago because infant and maternal mortality were really high and dragged average lifespan into the 40s, might expect to live into their 40s, 50s, and 60s.

I would suspect in the 1910s and 1920s people in their 60s were not anywhere near as healthy as anyone in their 60s now. People don’t tend to think in those terms, so people don’t realize medicine and technology have been giving us increased longevity. It is not something people think about a lot.

References

1) Alper, B.A. (2015, November 23). Millennials are less religious than older Americans, but just as spiritual. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact 

tank/2015/11/23/millennials-are-less-religious-than-older-americans-but-just-as-spiritual/. 2) Markman, A. (2008, July 29). Death and Other Anxieties. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/200807/death-and-other anxieties

3) Murphy, C. (2015, November 10). Most Americans believe in heaven…and hell. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/10/most-americans-believe-in heaven-and-hell/.

4) http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/10/most-americans-believe-in-heaven and-hell/

5) Palermo, E. (2015, October 5). The Origins of Religion. How Supernatural Beliefs Evolved. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/52364-origins-supernatural-relgious beliefs.html.

6) PEW Research Center. (2012, December 18). The Global Religious Landscape. Retrieved from http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/. 

7) Reference. (2017). Why do salmon swim upstream?. Retrieved from https://www.reference.com/pets-animals/salmon-swim-upstream-d555480847e93dcc#.

¹The Origins of Religion. How Supernatural Beliefs Evolved (2015) states:

There are many theories as to how religious thought originated. But two of the most widely cited ideas have to do with how early humans interacted with their natural environment…

Picture this: You’re a human being living many thousands of years ago. You’re out on the plains of the Serengeti, sitting around, waiting for an antelope to walk by so you can kill it for dinner. All of a sudden, you see the grasses in front of you rustling. What do you do? Do you stop and think about what might be causing the rustling (the wind or a lion, for example), or do you immediately take some kind of action?

…Humans who survived to procreate were those who had developed what evolutionary scientists call a hypersensitive agency-detecting device, or HADD, he said.

In short, HADD is the mechanism that lets humans perceive that many things have “agency,” or the ability to act of their own accord. This understanding of how the world worked facilitated the rapid decision making process that humans had to go through when they heard a rustling in the grass. (Lions act of their own accord. Better run.)

…HADD may have planted the seeds for religious thought. In addition to attributing agency to lions, for example, humans started attributing agency to things that really didn’t have agency at all…

…Acting for a purpose is the basis for what evolutionary scientists call the Theory of Mind (ToM) — another idea that’s often cited in discussions about the origins of religion. By attributing intention or purpose to the actions of beings that did have agency, like other people, humans stopped simply reacting as quickly as possible to the world around them — they started anticipating what other beings’ actions might be and planning their own actions accordingly. (Being able to sort of get into the mind of another purposeful being is what Theory of Mind is all about.)

ToM was very helpful to early humans. It enabled them to discern other people’s positive and negative intentions (e.g., “Does that person want to mate with me or kill me and steal my food?”), thereby increasing their own chances of survival.

But when people started attributing purpose to the actions of nonactors, like raindrops, ToM took a turn toward the supernatural…

…This tendency to explain the natural world through the existence of beings with supernatural powers — things like gods, ancestral spirits, goblins and fairies — formed the basis for religious beliefs, according to many cognitive scientists. Collectively, some scientists refer to HADD and ToM as the “god faculty,”…

Palermo, E. (2015, October 5). The Origins of Religion. How Supernatural Beliefs Evolved. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/52364-origins-supernatural-relgious-beliefs.html.

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2022-04-08

Ask A Genius 85 – Connectome and Genome (2)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/10

*This session has been edited for clarity and readability.*

Scott: You mentioned the digital trace someone leaves. So, if you take the current popular social medial like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, people might be able to somehow backtrack how people process the type of information necessary for that, and then be able to get a rough map of how people’s brains might be laid out over time.

Rick: If you limit your second-level Turing Test to just tweets, you might be able to do a human-mediated imposter of somebody’s tweets (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2016). Hundreds of people are doing that with Trump’s tweets. Every time he tweets. People make parody tweets of whatever he says on Twitter.

If you could human-mediate somebody’s tweets, then you could build software that is not as good as humans at some parts, but better than humans are other parts. In the same way, you can do computer-based textual analysis to find trends that people weren’t previously aware of.

Trends in what kinds of verbs and nouns he used. Things people were only vaguely aware of. But you still have to you run it by people are this point because computers can’t run decent tweets. Even Watson is held up by teams of dozens of people who are making use of the statistical patterns, that have to be interpreted by people (TechTarget, 2017).

You can run a computer analysis of Trump’s tweets. You could find things that people who write fake Trump tweets are only vaguely aware of, but once it’s made clear it would make the fake Trump tweeters more effective at their job, or fake tweeting.

There was an episode of Black Mirror, where a woman’s boyfriend dies. She orders a simulation of him based on his social media presence. Since it is a science fiction program, the program is eerily accurate. That’s where the creepiness of the episode comes in.

Along with higher and higher degrees of fidelity of replication somebody’s behaviour and then eventually their inner life, there will be numerical indicators of how accurate that replication might be.

We know that we’re okay with less than 100% replication because we change from day-to-day. Nobody wants to live the same day over. Even in Groundhog’s Day, the same day happens over and over, but the main Bill Murray character accumulates information.

We are okay with forgetting information. It doesn’t bug us. All of the things that we’ve forgotten. Some of the things that we thought we’d always remember and don’t remember. We are okay with the degree of fidelity with which we reproduce ourselves from day-to-day.

Since beggars can’t be choosers, we’ll probably be okay with not great levels of technical resurrection when those are the only means of resurrection. From day-to-day, we have better than 99.9% fidelity.

Anything we liked about ourselves yesterday, we can find in ourselves today to 99.9%+ accuracy. Somebody said, “Don’t you wish you had the innocence and wonder you had at 8-years-old?” We can’t do that.

We can sit, think, and remember. Maybe, we can replicate the feeling of us as 8-year-olds to about 60% fidelity. Although, that leads to us needing to figure out what we mean by fidelity because most of the experiences for the 8-year-old are in there, but the brain architecture has changed too much.

So, you need things that trigger memory. It is not like you are remembering things from when you were 8-years-old, when circumstances prompted it. We need to learn more about brain architecture and consciousness. I assume that replication will become acceptable to people in big enough segments of the population to be commercially viable when replication offers 70-80% fidelity.

However, I don’t know how far the deal is, or how far along we are, to know what 70-80% fidelity would look like. We will figure it out. Eventually, we will be able to replicate people’s consciousness that is only a few degrees worse than our daily fidelity.

However, we decide to define. It will eventually become good enough to be in the high 90s. Where if somebody is dying and doesn’t want to, they will be able to come back with 96% accuracy. There will be a bunch of stuff that is lost.

More stuff will be not lost than lost. They’ll still have some version of themselves or something they can accept as a version of themselves, which is not too far from the person they used to be. There are processes associated with illness and aging that reduce our fidelity. Alzheimer’s is a disastrous destruction of fidelity. I’ve heard of something called ‘Pump Head’ (Fogoros, 2017).[1] That’s not the technical term for it.

When someone is stuff on a heart and lung machine for 8 or 10 hours during cardiac bypass or some other surgical procedure, they need to shut down the heart. The mechanical pump doesn’t have as smooth an action as your own heart, and it beats up your blood cells.

The battered blood cells tend to clump together and make little clots or blockages. A lot of people who are coming out heart surgery within the few weeks after that lose a lot of their identity because they’ve had a lot of little teeny strokes from the beat up blood cells making lots of little blockages in the brain.

It reduces the fidelity of or the definition, or the sharpness, of moment-to-moment awareness. It sucks the joy out of people because it is like being wrapped in gauze at all different kinds of levels. My step-dad had cardiac bypass. It blunted his emotions.

Not that he was ever super emotional, but I was talking with my mom today, the doctor said, “Yea, people lose a feeling for things because their brains get beaten up.” Eventually, most people who get Pump Head are able to have their brain establish new pathways to work around some of the damage.

People come back to themselves over a period of months, even years. Plus, people get used to the new and reduced definition of moment-to-moment awareness. So, you already see different levels fidelity.

We will see more mechanically aided fidelity. Now, to go off on a tangent, you and I and other people have talked about how the different subsystems of the brain have to understand each other for consciousness to exist and for the brain to process information efficiently.

Every specialist subsystem in the brain needs to have a rough understanding of the work product of every other specialist subsystem, which, at first thought, makes you think that each part of the brain needs to have developed this language of understanding.

Some kind of translation mode that lets it understand what every other part of the brain is telling it, which seems like a big pain in the ass technically, biologically. It seems like a huge burden that every little part of the brain has to understand every other part.

But if you look at the information in consciousness as a universe, it’s own space and time. It may be that the language of understanding is tacitly built-in because the different clumps of information in the brain have shared histories with each other.

They developed along with each other. If you’re looking at information as the universe, the information looks like it came from a Big Bang with a shared history being generated as matter clumps up and emits gravitationally derived energy that travels throughout the rest of the universe, which makes the universe more and more defined (Wollack, 2014).[2]

It is the apparent expansion of space. You start with a hot undefined and small universe. Then you end up an apparent few billion years later with objects in space being fairly precisely defined relative to the overall size of the universe. Maybe, that shared history builds in its own tacit understanding.

So, you have these clumps of information that can be seen as galaxies if you’re considering the analogy to extend to our actual universe. You can ask, “How does one galaxy of information understand what’s going on in another galaxy of information?”

The answer is they were once very close, spatially, and as they’ve grown apart have been continually exchanging or beaming energy past each other with the energy being absorbed into the scale and shape of space, making it apparently expand, and, maybe, that constant flooding of every galaxy with every other galaxy with energy, or flooding the universe which contains all of these other galaxies with photons that lose energy, with the lost energy being tacit information which is shared with space and the objects that space contains.

Maybe, you get that understanding, not for free but, without going to any lengths beyond the natural processes of the universe with those natural processes being seen as informational, as information acting according to the rules of information.

Of course, we’re limited by only seeing a momentary slice of the universe’s understanding of itself, which is proportional to the apparent age of the universe. We can only observe the universe.

We’ve only been astronomically observing the universe for a tiny slice of the universe’s understanding of itself, temporally. If it takes 30 billion years for the universe to have a thought, then we’re only going to have a 300-year slice of that information. So, we don’t understand anything, but we have a different way of understanding it visually.

Where the universe doesn’t understand its own information as a universe, it understands it as what the information means as a model of the world that the universe is getting information from.

References

Encyclopædia Britannica. (2016, March 14). Turing test. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/technology/Turing-test.
Fogoros, R.N. (2017, January 7). Pump Head – Cognitive Impairment After Bypass Surgery. Retrieved from https://www.verywell.com/pump-head-cognitive-impairment-after-bypass-surgery-1745241.
TechTarget. (2017). IBM Watson supercomputer. Retrieved from http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/IBM-Watson-supercomputer.
Wollack, E.J. (2014, January 24). Foundations of Big Bang Cosmology. Retrieved from https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_concepts.html.

[1] Pump Head – Cognitive Impairment After Bypass Surgery (2017) states:

A study from Duke University, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in February, 2001, confirms what many doctors have suspected, but have been reluctant to discuss with their patients: A substantial proportion of patients after coronary artery bypass surgery experience measurable impairment in their mental capabilities.

In the surgeons’ locker room, this phenomenon (not publicized for obvious reasons) has been referred to as “pump head.”

In the Duke study, 261 patients having bypass surgery were tested for their cognitive capacity (i.e. mental ability) at four different times: before surgery, six weeks, six months, and five years after bypass surgery. Patients were deemed to have significant impairment if they had a 20% decrease in test scores.

This study had three major findings

Cognitive impairment does indeed occur after bypass surgery. This study should move the existence of this phenomenon from the realm of locker room speculation to the realm of fact.
The incidence of cognitive impairment was greater than most doctors would have predicted. In this study, 42% of patients had at least a 20% drop in test scores after surgery.
The impairment was not temporary, as many doctors have claimed (or at least hoped).

The decrease in cognitive capacity persisted for 5 years.

Fogoros, R.N. (2017, January 7). Pump Head – Cognitive Impairment After Bypass Surgery. Retrieved from https://www.verywell.com/pump-head-cognitive-impairment-after-bypass-surgery-1745241.

[2] Foundations of Big Bang Cosmology (2014) states:

The Big Bang model of cosmology rests on two key ideas that date back to the early 20th century: General Relativity and the Cosmological Principle. By assuming that the matter in the universe is distributed uniformly on the largest scales, one can use General Relativity to compute the corresponding gravitational effects of that matter. Since gravity is a property of space-time in General Relativity, this is equivalent to computing the dynamics of space-time itself. The story unfolds as follows:

Given the assumption that the matter in the universe is homogeneous and isotropic (The Cosmological Principle) it can be shown that the corresponding distortion of space-time (due to the gravitational effects of this matter) can only have one of three forms, as shown schematically in the picture at left. It can be “positively” curved like the surface of a ball and finite in extent; it can be “negatively” curved like a saddle and infinite in extent; or it can be “flat” and infinite in extent – our “ordinary” conception of space. A key limitation of the picture shown here is that we can only portray the curvature of a 2-dimensional plane of an actual 3-dimensional space! Note that in a closed universe you could start a journey off in one direction and, if allowed enough time, ultimately return to your starting point; in an infinite universe, you would never return.

Before we discuss which of these three pictures describe our universe (if any) we must make a few disclaimers:

Because the universe has a finite age (~13.77 billion years) we can only see a finite distance out into space: ~13.77 billion light years. This is our so-called horizon. The Big Bang Model does not attempt to describe that region of space significantly beyond our horizon – space-time could well be quite different out there.
It is possible that the universe has a more complicated global topology than that which is portrayed here, while still having the same local curvature. For example it could have the shape of a torus (doughnut). There may be some ways to test this idea, but most of the following discussion is unaffected.

Matter plays a central role in cosmology. It turns out that the average density of matter uniquely determines the geometry of the universe (up to the limitations noted above). If the density of matter is less than the so-called critical density, the universe is open and infinite. If the density is greater than the critical density the universe is closed and finite. If the density just equals the critical density, the universe is flat, but still presumably infinite. The value of the critical density is very small: it corresponds to roughly 6 hydrogen atoms per cubic meter, an astonishingly good vacuum by terrestrial standards! One of the key scientific questions in cosmology today is: what is the average density of matter in our universe? While the answer is not yet known for certain, it appears to be tantalizingly close to the critical density.

Wollack, E.J. (2014, January 24). Foundations of Big Bang Cosmology. Retrieved from https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_concepts.html.

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2022-04-08

Ask A Genius 84 – Connectome and Genome (1)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/09

*This session has been edited for clarity and readability.*

Scott: There’s the idea of the connectome, which is a structural-functional mapping of the brain. It is supposed to be used in connection with the genome for people to be able to draw a highly accurate map of an individual and their consciousness (Griffiths, 2016; USC, n.d.).

Rick: The most fun or science fictioney thing is to be able to technically resurrect people based on the information that you have about them. The most direct way to technically resurrect people is to use their actual brain.

If people are cryonically preserved, you bring them back, then they still use their same brain. Or you send in a bunch of Nanobots to trace every single dendritic connection in the brain, which seems crazily overly ambitious, or some scan that replicates the brain molecule-by-molecule.

The more ambitious stuff is super science fictioney, but people are still going to try to resurrect people. There are projects right now that try to program a computer to write like Shakespeare. They are crappy right now.

It seems reasonable to think that 50 years from now that resurrecting people with various degrees of fidelity will be a project that people will take on. There’s an arms race between resurrecting people and human existence being trivialized and debunked by future forms of existence – to the point that people or future beings that are almost people aren’t as heavily invested in our resurrection.

In the next years, technical resurrection will be pretty big. You mentioned the genome. The genes that go into making an individual’s body. Then you mentioned the connectome, which is a fairly detailed map of what regions in an individual connect to other regions in the brain of the individual.

It looks like one of those old airline maps in the 60s through the 90s, maybe even now. It shows all of the cities connected by an airline with all of these curved lines. A connectome looks like a big circle with hundreds of curved lines crisscrossing and showing which parts of the brain are most directly connected to each other via neural pathways.

It’s not unreasonable to think, given the genome, you would get some information out of it. With the connectome, right now, if you are going to map somebody’s brain, you need to do this non-invasively. We don’t have Nanobots to trace dendrites.

You have to refer to the record people leave, the words they say, the words typed in social media, PET scans, CT scans, maybe injecting a dye and taking pictures of that (Canadian Cancer Society, 2017; Mayo Clinic Staff, 2015).[1]^,[2] I think the genome will be much more useful in the future than it is now.

We can estimate percentages. If you were going to build somebody now, if you were going to replicate or build a replica of somebody that would pass something like a Turing test, where a computer would not only sound human but like the person you’re trying to replicate, what usefulness would various information sources be (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2016)?

You’ve got the genome. It’s probably only worth 5 or 10% because the brain is super fluid, super plastic. It is always rebuilding itself by sending out new patterns of dendrites. So, the blueprint for the architecture of the brain in the genome is mostly useless because the brain is always being remodeled.

The records of words people use given the modern state of technology can probably account for half of the information out there that you can exploit to create a replica of what somebody might sound like, the person you’re trying to replicate.

The words that people have already said give you a template for generating more words that that person might say in the form by which they’re going to be evaluated, whether they are the real thing or not.

The Turing Test was presented something taking place via typed messages. You couldn’t see what’s sending it to you because you’re in a room, but it was slipped into the room where you are via teletype or something.

The second-level Turing Test where you’re trying to convince people your machine is a specific person. So, the words somebody has already said is a major information source. Then you have whatever you can discern based on brain architecture, whatever you know, and use whatever you can find out via PET scans and CT scans.

But it’s still a really incomplete picture. The future, say 80 years from now, when it is possible to replicate people with a high degree of fidelity – maybe, not their exact consciousness – to what they might say. I still don’t think the genome is going to be that much more important.

It will be all of the new technology that will let you explore the individual layouts of people’s brains, whether it is Nanobots or fast PET scans with super precise imaging.

References

Canadian Cancer Society. (2017). Positron emission tomography (PET) scan. Retrieved from http://www.cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/diagnosis-and-treatment/tests-and-procedures/positron-emission-tomography-pet-scan/?region=sk.
Encyclopædia Britannica. (2016, March 14). Turing test. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/technology/Turing-test.
Griffiths, A.J.F. (2016, July 22). Genomics. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/science/genomics.
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2015, March 25). CT Scan. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/ct-scan/basics/definition/prc-20014610.
USC. (n.d.). Human Connectome Project. Retrieved from http://www.humanconnectomeproject.org/.

[1] Positron emission tomography (PET) scan (2017) states:

A PET scan is a nuclear medicine imaging test that uses a form of radioactive sugar to create images of body function and metabolism. PET imaging can be used to evaluate normal and abnormal biological function of cells and organs.

PET uses a radiopharmaceutical made up of a radioactive isotope attached to a natural body compound, usually glucose. The radiopharmaceutical concentrates in certain areas of the body and is detected by the PET scanner.

The PET scanner is made up of a circular arrangement of detectors. These detectors pick up the pattern of radioactivity from the radiopharmaceutical in the body. A computer analyzes the patterns and creates 3-dimensional colour images of the area being scanned. Different colours or degrees of brightness on a PET image represent different levels of tissue or organ function.

Canadian Cancer Society. (2017). Positron emission tomography (PET) scan. Retrieved from http://www.cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/diagnosis-and-treatment/tests-and-procedures/positron-emission-tomography-pet-scan/?region=sk.

[2] CT Scan (2015) states:

A computerized tomography (CT) scan combines a series of X-ray images taken from different angles and uses computer processing to create cross-sectional images, or slices, of the bones, blood vessels and soft tissues inside your body. CT scan images provide more detailed information than plain X-rays do.

A CT scan has many uses, but is particularly well-suited to quickly examine people who may have internal injuries from car accidents or other types of trauma. A CT scan can be used to visualize nearly all parts of the body and is used to diagnose disease or injury as well as to plan medical, surgical or radiation treatment.

Mayo Clinic Staff. (2015, March 25). CT Scan. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/ct-scan/basics/definition/prc-20014610.

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2022-04-08

Ask A Genius 83 – Chaos and Order (2)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/08

*This session has been edited for clarity and readability.*

Scott: What else would “flavors” of order and chaos imply (Pippard, 2015)?

Rick: There’s the idea that if you step all of the way back that our world is an epiphenomenon of information processing within a vast information processor and that the information processing tends to be an order producing process (Robinson, 2015).

That we are the consequence of the increase in order within a vast information processor. That we are more ordered with all of our agents and feedback systems than hot lava on the surface of primitive Earth or bunch of flying hydrogen and helium 300,000 years after the purported Big Bang (Mastin, 2009; Shu, 2016).[1]

We were the product of billions of years of evolution and are highly ordered. Not in an order that is the universe as an information processor that particularly cares about things the way an omniscient God would care about his or her creatures.

But that we’re an epiphenomenon of the universe with its perhaps consciousness, which isn’t even aware of us because the universe is aware of the universe we’re made out of as its own model of its own world.

We and our Super Bowl, and our human bodies, are not a model of anything in the mental world of the information processor that is the universe. Everybody is going to have to straighten out all of this stuff philosophically before we have a complete picture of how the world, meaning everything, works, but it seems doable.

Until 100 years ago, we didn’t have any idea of the structure of the universe. Everything was a wild guess. Now, we have a decent picture of the type of matter clumping and the spatial scale of that clumping of all the visible matter in the universe.

Not all of it, but most of it. From that, we have assumed a temporal structure, an explanation, for the distribution of that matter, which is the Big Bang. I happen to think that the Big Bang is not right and that the spatial distribution of matter is due to the nature of information with the necessary appearance of something that is Big Bangy.

But 100 years ago, we didn’t have any of that. We didn’t have any idea of the spatial distribution of matter or of the possible dynamics of the matter characterized by the Hubble Constant, which makes it look like we live in an expanding universe.

Where the farther a galaxy is from our galaxy, the faster it seems to be moving from us, whether it actually is or it is an informational thing rather than a Big Bangy thing. We didn’t have anything like that. Now, we do.

That can give us some optimism that we can eventually come up with a logically, metaphysically satisfying first stab at an overall understanding of existence and the universe, which would be a frickin’ lucky thing.

That there’s a logical, philosophical underpinning that it’s even possible. It may not be. It may be that such an underpinning may have holes in it. That are so powerful as to render any overall understanding impossible. But maybe not!

If things exist because they can’t not exist, because things that don’t contradict the rules or the principles of non-contradiction must unavoidably exist, then maybe that whole structure of things existing via not violating principles of contradiction, maybe, there’s a thing there.

An overall understanding, or maybe that’s hopelessly naïve, or maybe it is something in the middle. Where we get something pretty satisfying logically, that once you dig down into the foundation of it, then there are giant disturbing holes.

The only people well-versed in the giant disturbing holes are PhDs in the meta-meta-metaness of everything. There might be some satisfaction in understanding why things are. It is a little bit more satisfying than the current scientific paradigm of everything from randomness and randomness in charge.

I think information is in charge, rather than randomness, and there might be solace in that, and understanding. One more thing, there’s the Feynman talk about 55 years ago in the early 60s. He talked about the 3 paths of possible science (The Nobel Prize Foundation, 2017).

Science could explain everything within a reasonable amount of time. We reach a fairly thorough understanding of how everything works. Science hits an impregnable wall. It turns out you can only understand so much of the universe. There are no answers or no easy answers beyond a reasonable point.

Science chugs along finding out more and more about the universe bit-by-bit without acquisition of any thorough understanding. Those are the 3 paths of science according to Feynman: hitting a wall, understanding close to everything, and chugging along understanding more and more without coming to complete understanding.

That’s equivalent to what we might find once we bring philosophy and metaphysics back into science. You may end up with some philosophically and logically very satisfying understandings of the universe or we may hit a wall.

We may go chugging along and come to something that feels incomplete, but still gathers and accumulates more and more understanding like a snowball. That’s a lot.

References

Shu, F. H. (2016, April 29). Cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/cosmic-microwave-background.
Mastin, L. (2009). Cosmic microwave Background Radiation. Retrieved from http://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_bigbang_background.html.
Pippard, A.B. (2015, December 3). Principles of Physical Science: Chaos. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/science/principles-of-physical-science/Conservation-laws-and-extremal-principles#toc14875.
Robinson, W. (2015). Epiphenomenalism. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/epiphenomenalism/.
The Nobel Prize Foundation. (2017). Richard P. Feynman: Biographical. Retrieved from http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-bio.html.

[1] Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (2009) states:

This radiation was emitted approximately 300,000 years after the Big Bang, before which time space was so hot that protons and electrons existed only as free ions, making the universe opaque to radiation. It should be visible today because, after this time, when temperatures fell to below about 3,000°K, ionized hydrogen and helium atoms were able to capture electrons, thus neutralizing their electric charge (known as “recombination”), and the universe finally became transparent to light.

Mastin, L. (2009). Cosmic microwave Background Radiation. Retrieved from http://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_bigbang_background.html.

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2022-04-08

Ask A Genius 82 – Chaos and Order (1)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/07

Scott: So, there’s a little argument to be made that you can get chaos in pockets of an ordered system, but, I would argue, you would probably need a, not a nothingness chaos but, bubbly-inconsistency chaos as your foundation to get any real type of order. From that order, you can get standard chaos.

Rick: Three forms of chaos come to mind. One is non-existent chaos, which is that with total chaos you have no information, and so no space and no time. Thus, no existence, so things are sufficiently undefined across your entire system that you don’t have a system. You have nothingness.

Scott: Is it a bit like the Empty Set (Weisstein, 2017)?

Rick: Yes, it is not an existent nothingness. There’s no space and no time. It’s null. It is not something that you can experience or that contains anything. It is a zero information deal. It is just not there.

Then you can imagine as you come out of chaos, as you impose a timeline upon any ordered system, you can probably imagine or see that system arising from chaos that goes from nebulousness that contains no information, no space and no time, to this chaos that is gauzy, hot, messy and contains a little information to something that contains more causality as information bootstraps itself out of chaos, but the chaos it comes out of is this non-existent chaos that has nothing.

Another flavor or form of chaos is chaos within an ordered system. It is an ordered system that is so large that it can afford to have big pockets of random fluctuations across space and time that are either 1) this true randomness or 2) what looks like randomness but you don’t have the right informational framework to contextualize what looks random to you.

That could be two flavors of randomness. Some true randomness within an ordered system that has the wherewithal to set up arenas or pockets of chaos or chaos that is chaos because you can’t decode it. So, 2 ½ or 3 flavors of chaos.

Scott: The last one half or one whole provides the basis for chaos within order, technically, and that’s what we see.

Rick: Yes, we see a lot of processes. The universe can be understood thermodynamically. You have large aggregations of random fluctuations that create statistical stability, like all of the air in a room being roughly the same temperature and all of the molecules being roughly evenly distributed.

That all of the molecules don’t go over to the other side of the room and you suffocate because there’s no air where you are. That doesn’t happen because of statistical action. Also, that all of the heat in the room doesn’t collect in a single point and burn your ear. That doesn’t happen. The stability of temperature and the even distribution of stuff is statistical for the stability we see.

Based on the averaging out of the behavior of large numbers of individual, randomly acting things in the universe, some kind of deep randomness is behind a lot of the stability that we enjoy.

But! If the universe is a semi-closed, self-consistent, information processing system, then every one of those random blips in the room full of air actually contains information and isn’t random at all, but is a read-out to the overall framework of the universe that’s interpreting the information of a vast and timeline-traversing tapestry of information.

Information that is flowing in – like the biggest most HD TV ever. What we see as randomness is pretty much because we’re not watching the TV, we’re part of the TV, but if we could understand everything within context, then that randomness would be the unfolding of information within the sensory-perceptual information-processing system that is the entire universe.

Thus, not random, random, but only random in the sense that the unfolding of time is incompletely determined. Where what happens as we travel through time, we don’t have enough information to tell what the future is exactly going to be.

You have to pump in more and more information as you traverse time to tell you what is happening moment-to-moment. That moment-to-moment unfolding in time is a moment-to-moment hosing down of the universe and of your perceptual system with information.

Before the Super Bowl, we can’t exactly tell how the Super Bowl is going to turn out. That’s new information unfolding or being piped into the universe, which is different than randomness. It is information being piped in.

Scott: All of this requires agents, perceptual entities.

Rick: It requires a lot of stuff. To be an information processing system, there has to be a hidden armature. There has to be hardware that is probably not visible to the information processing system. The information processing system processes the information that is piped into it. That information may or may not contain a model of the armature. You need an armature. You need a hardware framework. We can argue as to how much of that framework is visible to the information processing structure. It doesn’t have to be visible at all, or it can be very visible, depending on how much information about the armature is being piped into the information processor.

That at a metaphysical level you need a physics of the interaction of information, which is how information sets up its own space and time that is dependent on the rules of information and on the hardware that contains the information.

But there’s a metaphysics of it, and then, more precisely, there’s a physics of information within an information processing system, which looks to us – if you’re informationist – like information as matter following the rules of physics. We’re made of matter. Anyway, it requires a lot of stuff.

Scott: The stuff about the 3 or 2 ½ types of chaos, and the example of the Super Bowl with the unfolding of the information of the universe where the universe is having new information “piped into” itself through the unfolding of time. In a way, that requires agents. It requires information sub-processors in the universe to identify that. The idea of the Super Bowl requires a lot of components and a lot of interrelationships perceived within some sub-set of sub-systems within the universe.

There’s some integral part of that to be played by sub-processors. However, looking at the scale of things, the scale of the brain and the scale of the universe, the difference is so vast. Even if you take all the minds on the planet, it doesn’t come to anything extraordinary in terms of its importance – or even integral – to the information processing of the universe. Unless, you take the style of information processing as integral. Something like that.

Rick: So, are you saying on the scale of the universe the Super Bowl is inconsequential? Or is human cognition inconsequential because the amount of information contained in the Super Bowl or in a human brain is so negligible compared to all of the information being processed across the entire universe with these as tiny little motes? Is that what you’re saying?

Scott: To get the Super Bowl, you need a lot of things out in the outside world. You need processors too. Both to make it a more or less a real thing.

Rick: There are agents at various scales.

Scott: No people, no Super Bowl.

Rick: Yes, a single human person with his or her physiology consists of a number of agents at all different scales from atomic processes that are arranged in such a way that they form chemical functions that are arranged in such a way that they perform biological functions that are often packaged in organs performing specific functions that feed back with each other in ways that involved the entire body. You have different feedback loops. You have the basic physics of electron exchange all the way up to the way your brain regulates hormones. You’ve got a bunch of agency going on there. The Super Bowl, you’ve got the various agents associated with having a society. A society that wants humans to come together to develop football skills, play a football game, and where people benefit from more than 100 million people paying attention to the game. There are all sorts of civilizational and cultural, and historic, agents that make the Super Bowl possible. So, there are agents at all sorts of different levels.

References

Weisstein, Eric W. (2017, February 3). “Empty Set.” From MathWorld–A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/EmptySet.html

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2022-04-08

Ask A Genius 81 – Other Arms Races

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/06

Scott: We’ve talked, off tape, about overlapping arms races. Let’s label and describe some.

Rick: The biological arms race is one. It is considered weird to be living as long as possible outside of the normal realm: “I can exercise and eat well to live well into my 90s, if I’m lucky.” People consider that cool for the most part.

Anybody that talked about wanting to buy pig organs, take 100 pills a day, or get stuff built into their brain so they can live to 120 or 150, or indefinitely into the future, were considered creepy and weird. Only now, this is coming out of the closet.

The only celebrity that says he wants to be cryonically preserved upon death to see if he can be resurrected later is Simon Cowell, who is widely know for being a dick who doesn’t care what anybody thinks about him or what he says.

It is considered less and less creepy. If you want to live more than 100 years, it will be more and more acceptable. These little baby industries that will be fighting for, not exactly dominance but, the same goals, and once any one of them cleanly achieves the goal of helping people live indefinitely, the others will atrophy.

One possible means is cryonic freezing. You turn people into frozen pieces of class. It is called vitrification, which is different than freezing. You put them in 200 degrees below 0 temperatures. You can put them there for as long as you want, then resurrect them when medicine is able to cure them of whatever was going to kill them.

Another technology is keeping your body going as long as possible with supplements, gene therapy, and growing organs in pigs. It’s like we’re cars in Cuba. Everyone has a 1954 Chevy. We have to keep the cars going for 60 years because there’s no replacement with the car as us.

The parts wear out. We need to replace the parts. The third technology, which is not even conceivable by a lot of people, is figuring out consciousness and learning how to move the information and the structure of thought in your brain out of your brain.

The way to digitize and replicate it elsewhere. Once that technology takes over, the whole body-centric civilization that we’ve lived in for millions of years begins to erode. If you can move yourself out of your body into cyberspace or into another body, or into a partner body, so many different foundational elements of civilization fall under attack.

Once you’re able to move consciousness easily out of the body, easily and cheaply, and not just rich people, and preserving the body at all costs becomes less of a deal, you can build replacement bodies and put your consciousness in them.

Ditto for cryonics. Why try to freeze the one body you have if the one body you have isn’t the one body you have anymore? There will be an arms race in these three areas of life extension technology. Another area of future arms races that are barely starting now is in transportation.

Where making transportation faster is a little bit boutiquey at this point, every place is like a day away from any other place on Earth, except crazily out-of-the-way places like Antarctica. The greatest distance between two places on Earth is about 12,500 miles, which is about a day away.

Unless, you have connecting flights. From any point on the Earth, you can travel to the most distant point from that point in a day or a day and half. The idea that you need to shave another 10 hours off of that or an hour and a half off of the 5 or 6 hours it takes to go from coast to coast in the US via some rocket that shoots you into low orbit, then comes back down.

So, you can do LA to New York in 2 hours rather than 5 hours. Who is that for? It is for rich pricks. They can’t bother with 3 hours on the plane. Ditto with the Hyperloop. Somehow, you need to get from LA to San Francisco in 2 hours because you don’t want to do it via plane.

Or, maybe, somebody builds rapid transit from LA to Vegas. You either fly or drive. Anyway, the idea that we need to go faster to transport people around Earth is a little goofy. We’ve done as fast as we need to go. We just need to figure out how to make existing transportation systems suck less.

Yes, it would be great if we could build competing transportation systems with flying that avoids the sucky aspects of flying, but transporting people places is an actively developing industry. However, a competing industry that will kill the further development of transportation or make it atrophy is when telepresence becomes completely satisfying.

When people don’t need to actually travel to do business, or to do other things in life, when the sensory input is satisfying enough that you can strap on VR junk and you get 94% of what you get by travelling 8 hours to meet some other person. Telepresence since the 90s, in terms of what in-person stuff gives you, has been becoming better than the things transportation gives you.

Transportation needs to constantly improve. It is the same way TV killed radio. Radio is a suck ass wasteland because TV is so much more satisfying. Those are two technological arms races that will play out over the next 100 years.

There’s been a long unending arms race between science and religion. Where religion offers deep solace and satisfaction in areas that are most frightening or painful to us, death, ultimate justice, suffering and being compensated for it, then explaining stuff that we desperately want to have explained.

Science has been taking over some of those functions. Science is good at explaining stuff, but terrible at offering solace. Under science, under the cold, randomly originating universe, once you’re dead, you’re dead. So, religion beats science in that area.

There’s no ultimate justice under science. Everything is random. However, science, I believe, will get better at offering some of the things that are benefits traditionally offered by religion. Life after life, e.g. technical resurrection.

If technology can offer unlimited wish fulfillment in some kind of cyberspace and some afterlife, or current life, then science will.

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2022-04-08

Ask A Genius 80 – The Soul and Consciousness (3)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/05

Scott: Polarization is another issue.

Rick: There could be belligerent yahoo-ism to the point where violence and riots break out among the Trump-ish states and the Liberal states. You could imagine something like that happening. It is more likely in our currently polarized environment.

Obama was president for 8 years and widely loathed by many tens of millions of Americans, but we heard of no attempts on his life. Maybe, we’re not told about every possible attempt, but a couple of attempts were made on President Ford within a couple of months.

He’s one of our most innocuous presidents, but we knew all about it. I think nobody making an attempt on Obama’s life indicates that, even though we’re belligerent on social media, day-to-day belligerence leading to actual violence between or among Americans is still not a significant threat.

If violence were to break out in a number of cities among thousands of people across the country, it could be seen as a beginning of peaceful era in America or the beginning of a violent era in America. We had at least 3 million women’s march marchers across America with zero arrests.

We’re going to have a science march on Earth Day. There will be a similar thing on Tax Day to urge Trump to release his taxes. Nobody is expecting, except for yelly assholes on conspiracy-oriented Right-wing talk radio, these to erupt into violence.

Scott: A lot of the problems have technological sources. However, most of the solutions, aside from going back to the Dark Ages, are technological themselves.

Rick: That’s a good point.

Scott: With America on possible technical decline, how will that have an impact? Also, what are some thoughts on America’s technological dominance?

Rick: Before we get to America’s technological dominance and possible decline, let’s get to the Four Horseman of potential modern disasters: war, disease, ecological collapse, and technical decline. There are fixes to most of these things that will roll out over the next decades.

There are tech fixes for this stuff. America is screwed with regard to guns. We’re not entirely screwed. We lose as many people to guns as we do to cars, about 35,000 people dying due to guns including a significant number of people who use guns for suicide.

There about 375 million guns for 325 million American. It doesn’t mean everyone has a gun. It means the guns are mostly in about 1/3 of American households. The average gun owner owns like 8 guns. Guns are concentrated among gun lovers. You are never going to make guns go away in America.

It is unlikely we’ll have an Australian solution, where we legislate against guns and knock them down and reduce the number of mass killings. There are science fictioney solutions to this, which is to make people bullet proof.

If you can’t get rid of guns, make people bullet proof. The way you make people bullet, disaster, and disease proof is to make consciousness transferable out of the body. So, you make it so that you can record and duplicate consciousness and download it into something else, and that makes people, to some extent, immortal.

If you get killed, and if you downloaded your consciousness in the morning before you got run over or shot, you can be started over from the version of you at 8 in the morning. It is like a hundred years away, but it’s not a million years away or time travel, which is unlikely, or anti-gravity, which is unlikely.

It is the technology to take the information and the way we process that information in our heads then record it, duplicate it, and make it transferable. Once we’re not locked into the body we were exclusively born into, accidents like guns are less expensive.

But there will be other things like computer hacking and the risks of a hundred years or a hundred and fifty years will be magnified versions of some of the informational problems now like viruses and technological failure.

Also, the disruption of normal societal behavior by new technology, but, even though it presents a whole new set of dangers, many of the solutions to our most frightening and intractable problems lie in super-advanced technology.

Although, it is in ways that will pretty much rejigger society in ways that would make us very disturbed if we saw them – if we were shown life a century from now.

Scott: On the other hand, as you know as well as I do, there are movements, which are global Luddite movements. They want to move back to pre-Industrial eras, if not tribal and hunter-gatherer levels, as retribution for colonization, but also as a stance of self-esteem.

Rick: I’m sure little Luddite movements will form and will go after advanced technology, but they are ultimately doomed to be swamped by the wave of delicious technology that will crash onto us.

Technology is fun, entertaining, and helpful. It means technology wins. We evolved as information-exploiting creatures. As a species, we are the most information-exploiting creatures who have ever lived on the planet. We look for exploitable patterns everywhere.

We are omnivorous in our appetite for information. Dogs like dead things and sniffing butts. Dogs are specialized. Same with most other creatures. We are not. We made the breakthrough from being specialists in survival tightly adapted to certain behaviours to being completely flexible in where we look and what we do to survive.

It means that we have to be receptive to information. We love information. A trend in entertainment across all of history is the medium that delivers the most information wins! It was a slow thing.

You go from grunting and waving your hands 10,000 years ago to language, which contains more information. Language wins. Nobody grunts! There’s a lot less grunting than 10,000 years ago because spoken words contain more information and written words are even more efficient at transmitting and preserving information.

All of the different mediums too. Each type and each genre under each medium. Everything shows a general bias towards showing more information and faster – and more dense data. Rap music is super fast. More words per second than any other music. Superhero movies contain more visual information than any other kind of movie.

We’re going to continue to be drawn into it. You can’t fight delicious information. Technology will offer more and more entertaining ways to absorb information. We will continue to love and embrace it, even as that technology completely re-engineers what we are.

We’re going to become the Borg, except fun Borg. We’ll become fun Borg. I didn’t watch much Star Trek, but the Borg seemed like assholes of the universe. They seemed to not have a lot of fun. We’re going to be all tied together with devices all around us, on us, and in us. We’ll still be using that stuff to still be transmitting entertaining non-sense.

It is the sugar-coating on the pill of transformation. That’s one reason I don’t like Star Trek because there’s no fun in Star Trek. Occasionally, Spock will crack a joke at the end of an episode, but there’s no non-sense. There’s no crap. There’s no ridiculousness.

When they show a future city, it is all clean. It’s not polluted with all sorts of signage and advertising blimps. Compare the Los Angeles of 2019 in Blade Runner to the future on Star Trek, the Blade Runner future is all craped out. There’s shitty advertisement in neon and funky dominatrix clothes all over the place.

Or Minority Report, which is semi-crappy and semi-cluttered with non-sense and junk, compare that to the occasional future US city you see in Star Trek, which is all clean and people walking around like healthy, well-adjusted people in plazas wearing asymmetrical clothing.

It is bullshit. That’s not what the future will be. The future will be awesome and filled with crappy non-sense, as is everything all of the time.

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2022-04-08

Ask A Genius 79 – Present-Day America (2)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/04

Scott: That’s the political system with some commentary on the economic and technological impacts of the declining attractiveness of America for the talented.

Rick: Oliver Stone has a series on Netflix, where he talks about the secret history of the US. I have been thinking this is the most bullshit election since Rutherford B. Hays around 1880s or 1890s. If you believe the Oliver Stone deal, the election of 1944 was bullshit.

In that, people knew that Roosevelt may not live through his fourth term as president, and who became vice president would become president. There was chicanery at the Democratic National Convention to elect a completely unqualified Harry Truman to be VP.

That led to him being the one who decided to drop the bomb, and also belligerently escalate our relationship with former ally Russia into a Cold War that would determine the course of our world for the next 40 years or more.

The previous VP would have maybe been able to handle relations that wouldn’t have put the world into a state of war for the next 4 decades. The Trump election is the most bullshit election in at least 72 years.

Much more so than we thought was the most bullshit election in our lives, which was Bush v. Gore, and that looks like a happy picnic compared to the present. Right now, 2 weeks into Trump, the national politics is a mess. I like to trace everything back to the BJs that Bill Clinton got in the Oval Office.

He wasn’t a bad president, or he was a lucky president. We didn’t have that many serious things going on and things were largely good in the country, and he got BJs. Gore gets pissed that Clinton has sullied the office of the presidency. Gore doesn’t get elected.

So, Bush and Cheney take us into this unnecessary war in Iraq. Anyway, things have been crap since then. Yes, Obama was great, but Obama was not aggressive enough. He believes the best about people and was not aggressive enough with the Republicans, at the least the ones who hold national office.

So, he didn’t get as much done as he would have liked. So, it has been a pretty solid 16 years of terrible national politics. But! In the meantime, we continue to excel in technology. The future continues to arrive in ways that are pretty great, even as we’re wringing our hands about our awful president and the dominance of a bunch of Republican yahoos.

People talk – I’m on Twitter a lot – the end of America, or the world. Most of the jokes are facetious, but there’s a real fear behind the comments. We can talk about the ways in which we might have things that might be considered disasters.

Trump likes to talk about the world and the US as a disaster, but he’s basing that on terrorism, ISIS in the Mid-East trying to build a Caliphate (which they can’t) or at least cause terror in the US and the West.

The deal is, when you look at terrorism statistically, our current situation is preferable to being in a war, at least a giant world conflict. We are still in war in Afghanistan and in the Mid-East, but these are low-level conflicts, at least in terms of what we have to do compared to what we had to do in WWII to do our part in the fight against ISIS, the Taliban, and associated warlords.

In the past 1,000 days or 3 years, the US has flown 13,000 or 14,00 sorties or bombing runs against ISIS and knocked down their territory by about 50%. That’s really expensive to drop those bombs on ISIS every day, but it doesn’t kill that many of our troops. Also, it is well-away from most Americans’ attention. Most could not tell you that we’ve run so many sorties. If you listen to the Republican politicians, they make it sound like Obama did nothing.

It is a small war against tens of thousands of fundamentalist Islamic assholes, who use their ethnic and religious background to commit tremendous acts of aggression and cruelty, but there are only about 30,000 of these soldiers over there.

It’s not like WWII, counting everybody up, where we lost easily 100 million people in the various aspects of it. Hitler kills 11 million in the camps. 30 million, at least, Russians died. At the end, it comes out to about 100 million. It is reasonable to view WWII as a world disaster.

It caused suffering that persisted for decades. The terrorism we have, which kills 100s of people a year and some suffering, does not compare to WWII by a factor of a few hundred thousand to one. Things could be worse.

We could move from these small-scale rolling wars in Syria and Northern Iraq with us vs. ISIS, and our action in Afghanistan, into hotter conflicts with Iran and North Korea. It doesn’t mean the rest of the world is fine. Syrians are suffering and getting killed by the hundreds of thousands.

There are the African rolling genocides that kill hundreds of thousands. We’re still not in a World War. It is unlikely Trump will get us into a conflict that will get us into a World War, but it is more possible with him than it would be with an experienced politician like Clinton. That’s one way it could be the end of America.

We get into more belligerent conflicts or the terrorism ramps up. Any nuclear weapon being detonated in the US, and to a lesser extent anywhere, where a clean fission bomb with a nuclear reaction or a dirty bomb that spreads radioactive materials all over a city center.

It is still the end of something. The reactions to any kind nuclear bomb, whether it actually fissions or not would be the end of a peaceful, safe era in the US. Of course, the exchange of more than one nuclear weapon anyplace in the world – any nuclear exchange – would be the end of a safe era.

Other things that can be seen as the end of America via catastrophic struggle are ecological disaster. Where any ecological disaster that we have will not reduce the world to a wasteland that Denzel Washington walks through in a black leather trench coat. There’s no Mad Max deal.

That’s just laziness on the part of writers and movie makers. There are countries that have experienced ecological disasters. Some of the Eastern Bloc countries that didn’t put a lid on pollution for 30 years.

You don’t get the whole world dying, or living in grossly polluted areas and lifespans and quality of life being reduced because people are being poisoned or otherwise harmed by their environment.

So, as far as global warming and pollution go, we might see gradual reductions in our quality of life because we haven’t put adequate controls on pollution and climate change. Even under a different president, the controls wouldn’t be adequate. We’re still going to see the consequences of climate change and the other consequences of the pollution we’ve caused.

Although, the benefits may continue to outweigh the consequences, but it is more likely that we’ll see fewer positive consequences an developments of less stupid and less polluting technologies under Trump than under a different administration.

The consequences will be different for America than for the rest of the world because we have more ways of dancing away from the consequences. In other areas of the world, you might see wars over climate change. Some of the ways ongoing now are probably exacerbated, to some not great extent, by climate change.

That will continue to increase. Other problems might be new diseases or new forms of old diseases becoming more virulent and causing more deaths and problems. If Ebola is able to be transmitted through the air, then you could lose tens of millions of people around the world.

That could be see as not the end of the world or the end of America, but the beginning of an era of a new type of massively killing diseases. It probably won’t happen. I don’t know if the chances of that happening will change under Trump, but, of course, Trump is running an anti-science administration.

Where the science is fine, but we’re not going to pay for that kind of frippery, Republicans don’t like paying for that stuff as much.

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2022-04-08

Ask A Genius 78 – Present-Day America (1)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/03

Scott: What’s the general picture of America now?

Rick: Let’s preface this. We’re talking about the end of the America, whether we’re seeing it and what it might be. There was a duology, a pair of books, in the late 60s by John Brunner called Stand on Zanzibar and The Sheep Look Up. At the end of one of them, it’s been set in America the whole time. At the end, there’s a chapter set in England. Somebody smells something and asks somebody on the street. The person on the street says, “That’s America burning.”

(Laugh)

It is the most dire picture of the end of America, but we should pin it down. There are various flavors. One involves the end of civilization, where we have some World War that includes nukes and other stuff that leaves the world a wasteland. That is seen as more likely under Trump than somebody else. Then there are other ends of America. The end of democracy, or functioning democracy, where politics in America may never be representative of the people again and politics will be stupid from now on, with stupid people being elected. It would be a kakistocracy or rule by the worst people.

A lot of people thought that Hillary Clinton getting elected would, maybe, start getting normal politics back. Of course, that didn’t happen. The next really terrible Republican politicians dominated. They haven’t always been, and aren’t always, but are particularly right now. Gerrymandering is a problem. Based on the 2010 census and sophisticated political trickery with the Democrats not paying attention, the Republicans took over a lot of state houses that favored Republicans. So, Republicans are overrepresented relative to how many people voted for Republicans thanks to gerrymandering.

And thanks to primarying, which is a consequence of gerrymandering, where the most extreme candidates win the primaries, we have a lot of assholes in office with most being Republican. It is probably the worst time for someone actually serving in national offices such as congress people, senators, and presidential administrations.

Scott: What traits do you see in them? What are in their policies?

Rick: Not wanting to compromise because compromise doesn’t serve any purpose in the gerrymandered and primaried system, you win by going extreme because if you don’t go extreme then some more extreme person will come along to draw in the extreme voters. There are charts based on voting patterns that show this is possibly the least compromising era in American politics. Also, what comes along with it is not caring about what most people think, it is a cavalier attitude about approval among the general population.

Win-at-all costs gamesmanship, McConnell is the best example of that. Where they decide they are not going to give Obama his last Supreme Court nominee using a bullshit argument, an unprecedented argument with a basis in nothing, and the running around and saying, “The Democrats may do the same thing with this same nominee, and so are being obstructionist.”

Scott: Does politics in the United States tend to attract worse people?

Rick: It depends on the era. Right now, it does. We see old school politicians quitting because they hate being politicians. There have been other times in American history where it hasn’t been as bad to be a politician and better people have run. If you look at the conditions of the job to see what people are going to be attracted to it, politician isn’t an attractive position. Same with teaching. Teaching isn’t as attractive as a profession. If you look at GRE scores, GRE scores are lower for teaching than for any other profession.

If teaching paid a quarter of a million dollars per year, and if teachers were looked at as skilled professionals as doctors are, then it might attract better people. In Russia, medicine and doctors are not as highly valued, so that has allowed more women to enter into the field. It is a chicken and egg thing. You have more female doctors who have been shown by studies to do better than male doctors. In Russia, it is seen as women’s work, so not as highly valuable.

Politics has gotten much more miserable. It has gotten much more miserable to be a national-level politician than it was 30, 40, 50 years ago. So, it attracts more dickheads. So, we’ve talked about two set ups for the end of America. The end of America having reasonable politics. The end of America with international conflagration. Then there’s the end of America culturally and technologically. All three of those things have good and bad implications for America and the world.

Probably, the least serious one for people individually throughout the world is America losing its place culturally, technologically, and economically. It will still be a rich and sophisticated country, even as or if we lose our place as number one country in the world by China and even India at some point. Americans will still have a decent standard of living. We’ll still have access to all sorts of cultural and technological and economic opportunity, and products.

We’ll be like England, which once had an empire greater than anything else at the time. Now, it is a sophisticated country that is mostly nice to live in, but doesn’t dominate the world. Ditto for Italy. Less so for Greece, it has a lot of miserable conditions. 2,200, 2,400, years ago, it dominated certain aspects of the world. Ditto for Spain. Now, these are empires reduced to being just countries. There are plenty of pressures that could work to have that happen independent of Trump.

Trump makes it more likely by reinforcing the idea of America as a dumb and self-satisfied country that’s not going to work hard to maintain its dominance. You could argue Trump, by setting business free, will lead to an American resurgence, but his idea is reducing taxes and regulations. Some analysis will show those shouldn’t be the priorities if you’re looking to maintain dominance. There should be an emphasis on education, hard work, innovation, government support of science and research rather than a willfully anti-science and ignorant stance.

Citizens should be challenged on their stupid beliefs. Instead, we have politicians who encourage Americans to be comfortable in their stupidity, which threatens our dominance. Also, the immigration stuff, we have been able to cherry pick and attract the best and most talented people from the other 95% of the world. If we’re going to become an outwardly racist and nationalist, and separatist, country, we’re going to lose those most talented people to other countries such as China, which was seen, even 10 or 20 years ago, as a super repressive place to live. Now, it is a pretty great place to live if you’re a captain of industry and live in an industrial Chinese city as decadently and indulgently as much as you want in America with hot and cold running sexy ladies, gourmet meals, penthouse apartments, and $200,000 cars. China will set that up for you if you’re a good business person in China.

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2022-04-08

Ask A Genius 77 – American Education Now

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/02

Scott: At the moment, there are some issues in the American educational system. What parts of it are important? What parts of it are not very important? What will be some of the public reaction to what’s ongoing in the United States?

Rick: The biggest threat to American education is if Betsy DeVos becomes the Education Secretary. She is super terrible. She’s helped wreck the schools in Michigan, or knock them down to the bottom third or bottom quarter of schools on average among all of the states. She favors school vouchers, private schools, and religious-based education.

She’s never had anything to do with the public schools. She’s never attended public schools. Same with her kids. She has never taught. She is a lady who has donated $9.5 million, not sure directly to Trump, but to creepy Right-wingy political organization stuff. She may become narrowly confirmed because there are more Republicans in the Senate than Democrats. She is a dolt. She has a horrible agenda. Public schools don’t need another kick in the butt like this.

It leads to public schools being screwed, I think, informationally, because public schools were some of the most informationally rich areas you could go. America was an agricultural nation at the beginning of the 20th century. Schools were set up around the farming era. That’s why schools in America were off for 3 months in the summer, so kids could help with farming in the summer.

We went from a 90% of people being employed in agriculture to now less than 2%. What that meant 200 years ago is school was information-rich, so you were more likely to love it because it is better than walking behind a cow pulling a plow. Now, schools are often the least information-rich parts of students’ days because everybody has a personalized information feed going all of the time. Not feeding more in-school information, but feeding you delicious personal information such as YouTube clips, Netflix, porn, and sexting if you want it, then you have to turn off your device and sit in class for 40 more minutes and learn how to factor polynomials.

Schools have a huge handicap to overcome in terms of just holding people’s attention. There are other problems with schools, at least in America, where there are plenty of great and dedicated teachers, but teaching doesn’t pay that great. It is not valued as a profession. Statistically, teachers are some of the least able people on average among all of the professions that require advanced education. You have a National Teacher’s Union. Teachers need protection, but the National Teacher’s Union maybe protects incompetence in a lot of instances. It is hard to shake crappy teachers and administrators out of the system.

I’m sure some systems are better than others. LA schools are notorious for not getting bad people out. It is called the Dance of the Lemons. Parents can have trouble getting them out of one school. Once they are out, they are moved to a school where they are harder to get out. Maybe, it is in a school where English isn’t main language and the community isn’t as well-off such as a worse neighborhood. Nobody has figured out how to make education keep up with the current structure of information. There are some other problems with education like getting into college in America right now.

It is super ridiculous, where computerized applicants encourage people to apply to 10, 12, and 16 colleges. It means that the number of apps gong to each college has doubled over the last 15 years, which means their acceptance rates have dropped by 50% because so many people are applying to every college. The spending is huge for most people that want to go to a selective college. We have immigration issues that are going to mess things up.

America has 5% of the world’s population, but because we have excellent colleges and technology. It means we’re able to attract the most attractive among the remaining 95% of the world. But if we’re going to start making it tough for those people to come over here, then we’re going to lose our technical advantage because people will find other places to use their talent.

There are some encouraging trends, but they are still kind of hokey. The whole area of online learning is at this point haphazard, where there are good online systems. I finally graduated college by testing out via a distance learning system. That, in itself, is rinky-dinky. I took GRE subject tests after studying on my own. I tested out of everything. That is not for most people. More and more people will get into online learning.

They will take more advantage of it. I don’t know how it stands in the US. I don’t what percentage of college students or non-college students are taking advantage of online learning opportunities. it is still in its infancy. The collegiate class of Americans continue to want to attend college in person to be in dorms and have campus life. Many people spend $60-70,000 per year to attend an elite college. Another challenge to American learning is the general slovenliness.

With online learning, it is hard to tell whether the “yeehah!” anti-elitism, anti-Trumpism right now is an anti-studying and keeping up with the rest of the world technologically with education. The image us being fat video game players who believe in angels, are skeptical about evolution and global warming, doesn’t help us. To the extent that it reflects our actual attitudes, which is hard to tell, it will hinder us from being a technologically superior nation. People who play an ass-ton of video games are better at certain tasks – send those people to war zones or to fly drones because they’ve been in simulated situations for years.

Eventually, we can hope that education can take advantage of the ways people like to use and use information and absorb information. The schools haven’t kept up. Eventually, things will kind of catch up. We live in an interesting time. It appears the Senate is divided 50-50 on whether to make Betsy DeVos Education Secretary. I think she’s the least qualified of all of Trump’s nominees for any Cabinet position. She would be in charge of public schools and to some extent college debt. She and her family have never gone to public schools because she married into the Amway fortune.

She and her family donated $9.5 million to Republican schools and causes. She believes in school vouchers, which is a way for people to be given money instead of going to the public schools to be given money, or the money equivalent, by the government to spend on schools of their choice, which are charter schools. It is basically a way to strangle public schools. Her method, because she has been active in Michigan schools, has brought the Michigan schools down to the bottom 1/3 of schools nationwide. She doesn’t know anything. She did the worst of any Cabinet nominee in Senate hearings. Public education has been one of the shining areas of American excellence for the past more than 100 years.

Scott: What about the University of California system too?

Rick: California, where I live, has an excellent junior college system that feeds into our really good university system. We have the Cal State system and the UC system. For a long time, they have provided super high quality education for almost nothing. Now, some of them are fairly pricey. A semester at UCLA might cost $12,000. It will be a sad time for education if DeVos is confirmed. To get her confirmed, it looks like the Vice President will have to break the tie in the Senate if no more Republicans defect.

Whether Betsy DeVos is a Secretary or not does not effect the long-term prognosis for education in general, education will have to change to address how people use information now. In the past, future education was presented often as a pill you’d take and then you know French, or you have something jacked into your head and then your head fills with knowledge. Obviously, those are hacky ways of acquiring knowledge, but sitting in class and being talked to for 40 min. times 7 periods a day might not be the most currently effective way for people to learn.

It is going to take some sorting out because right now the way that people absorb information from their devices is that it is all candy, all junk, and almost no stuff that takes serious effort to absorb. You can go to your favorite information sources and go to ones that have been formed to your cultural niche and biases that has been knocked down into 800-word articles. You can just read the photo captions because the market place only rewards stuff that people click on. We’re stuffed with informational candy.

It is not clear year how we’re going to get people to absorb via those same few ways and how we’re going to get the education system to adjust to new ways of absorbing information that includes non-delicious information. Whether you’re sitting in a classroom or doing homework or trying to absorb lessons in partial differential equations online, it still takes effort. We’re at risk that people in less developed and less rich countries have more incentive to be more disciplined to not click on crap and study.

I have fallen into the rut of doing very little work over the past 4 months. It is almost all delicious information. I generate tweets, which are simple and, thus, delicious to generate. I read my niche sources. I get worked up over the political situation and get very little work done. I am more current case of modern information disease. We need to find ways to harness America’s ability to be educated.

Otherwise, we’re screwed.

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2022-04-08

Ask A Genius 76 – The Dark Side of Smarts

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/02/01

Scott: Something a little darker, unfortunately, but necessary in the context of all the things we’ve been talking about is smart people going awry. One drastic story, for me, was a suicide by Nathan Rockwell Haselbauer of the International High IQ Society.

In the sessions with Marco, I brought up the Unabomber, too. As well, it’s not bad because smart, or bad only comes with smarts, but only an emphasis on the smart gone bad while knowing bad comes with or without smarts. Any other cases?

Rick: A couple things, one thing is IQ is not necessarily intelligence. People who single themselves out for IQ may not have a lot of other things going for them. To some extent, I have that. The need to be recognized independent of having done anything worth being recognized for.

So, you probably get a higher number of misfits in high IQ societies than the general population, which means misfitty people may be less able to handle the normal tasks of life. Stereotypically, smart people may be more lacking in social skills.

Although, that may be more stereotype than truth. The stereotype may be closer to the fact that high IQ people are more like everybody else. Another thing is brains are more alike than they are different. The range of intelligence, a super smart person is not that much smarter than an average person.

In the same way the person with the best heart or lungs does not have a heart or lungs that much better than the average person, we don’t have a tallest person as 8 ft. taller than the average person. The taller people are like 20% taller than the average person.

We are pretty genetically constrained. There’s not that much variation. The tasks of life exist across a range of difficulty. Some things are really difficult. A very smart person who may only be not even twice as smart as an average person, but still has to confront all of the tasks of life.

They still run afoul of washing up on the rocks of difficulty. Smartness isn’t magic. There have been studies. You have to distrust studies in general about things like intelligence because so much nebulousness creeps in. You have to figure out who is intelligent and what is intelligence.

Things are messy. There seems to be an optimal level of IQ or smartness, if you want to equate them, for succeeding at life tasks. That is not at the very highest level of IQ. It is not that the smarter you are in terms of IQ then the smarter you’ll be.

There’s a level below the very smartest, say when you’re going to do IQ – like the 140s. There you’ll find the most successful people. There are things that distract smart people or that make them less effective at some life tasks like not giving a crap about being a multimillionaire, social awkwardness, finding out that your intelligence takes you down a bunch of rabbit holes or cul-de-sacs that doesn’t help you succeed in life according to normal terms.

With smart people being more like regular people than not, bad things happen to regular people. Similarly, bad things will happen to smart people. Smartness isn’t a vaccination to life.

You have to distinguish between actually gone awry and – it’s a nice theme for a news story – schadenfreude news stories. They find a genius who is weird, then go, “Look how weird and miserable this guy is, aren’t you glad you’re not him?” It isn’t fair.

There are some semi-spectacular cases of smart people messing up or doing creepy stuff. There’s a guy named Keith Raniere, who has gotten in trouble over the years for running a cult. He is a super-high IQ guy.

Some of the exploits including financial exploitation of people such as Ponzi schemes, even sexual exploitation of people. He’s been accused of having followers then banging the followers.

Scott: He exploited the Bronfman sisters too.

Rick: The heiresses to the Bronfman fortune?

Scott: Yea!

Rick: Then he is smart guy. He goes for heiresses.

Scott: He got millions of dollars from them. Then he gave himself the name NXIVM.

Rick: NXIVM? I guess he did it before the antacid drug. Brains don’t work that great even among people with great brains. He may believe his own bullshit. It is possible to get sucked into it. If you take an IQ test, do well on it, and it says you’re one-in-a-million, some people may become grandiose as if they have special powers.

In my most deluded moments, I will tend to want to think that, then all of the stupid shit in my life will bring me back down to semi-Earth. If you look at how many times I’ve tweeted, like 20,000, it takes someone with a certain amount of grandiosity to pollute the online airwaves with tweets. It is filled with things I somehow think people want to hear from me.

That’s 3 or 4 thick books worth of twaddle coming from my Twitter feed. It is an ego explosion. At the same time, it my strategy to get enough followers to interest a publisher in giving me a book deal.

That’s me being grandiose enough to think I have something people would be interested in as a book. I can use my track record as a comedy writer to say that I’m good, but not great. Is good but not great among the comedy writers good enough?

Among NBA teams, I’d be the 7^th man on the team. I’d get pulled into the game mid-game into the second quarter. I’d do okay. I might average like 8.3 points a game with 2.9 assists. I’d be fine. Does that make me a super star that’s worth being listened to?

Maybe, if I find a product in making the book that is tailored enough to my supposed strengths, the book could work. Anyway, a certain amount of grandiosity there. “Here’s 20 tweets a day for 3 years everybody,” that’s a certain amount obnoxiousness associated with that.

Scott: What are some things smart people should keep in mind to buffer against high levels of egotism, narcissism, and grandiosity?

Rick: History is always helpful. If you look at people through history, people have limited competence. Even the most competent of super smart people don’t live spotless lives, Einstein had peccadilloes of various types including sexual.

Feynman was notorious for trying to put his penis in everybody. He seemed to be pretty good at it. Still, he left a certain amount of sexual chaos around him. William Shockley, a Nobel Prize winner, invented the transistor, changed our world, and crazy ass racist – just an asshole.

Including LA in the 70s, they tried to open a Nobel Prize sperm bank. If you wanted to make a baby with a Nobel Prize winner or a really smart person, you could go to the Nobel Prize sperm bank.

He was the only Nobel Prize guy to think highly enough of his sperm to donate to the bank. If you read a bunch of biographies about super smart people, super smartness is no substitute for modesty and decency. That we’re all flawed creatures.

Everything that has evolved has limitations because you’re only as good as evolution needs you to be plus some extra for some wiggle room. So, you take humans. You push them beyond their average abilities in any direction and you’re going to find failure.

Scott: What about things we see as flaws in our nature that aren’t?

Rick: Starting with we only evolved to be good enough plus a little more, the operative definition includes that we’re pretty good at a lot of everyday tasks because we’re the product of billions of years of evolution and have a number of resources to address everyday life.

Evolution is the boss of us. It is an absent boss. It is like Charlie from Charlie’s Angels. You never see him, but can get him on the answering machine. Evolution doesn’t have any goals. It is not teleological. It is sloppy. You let it go on long enough and you end up with well-adapted organisms, but organisms that are adapted to the boss’s goals and not necessarily our individual goals.

As a species, we are good at reproducing. There are 7.3 billion of us. We dominate the planet to the detriment of the planet in many instances, but that doesn’t mean that we as individuals get to all be as successful as we want to be.

Evolution needs everybody to be perfectly successful. Society doesn’t work like that. Evolution just needs us to have more sex and make more people. Things that are flaws for individuals that lead to us not getting what we want out of life aren’t so much flaws in terms of the species.

Also, there are life goals that are mutually contradictory. Financial success and being a nice person aren’t perfectly correlated. I live in LA and sometimes drive through Beverly Hills, where you drive through a street that is 70 feet wide. It is a residential street, but wide as hell because it’s Beverly Hills. You’re flanked by multi-million dollar houses.

You can drive by them, but can figure, as I do, that there are moral compromises to those that live in those houses living in those houses. There’s a saying, “Behind every great fortune, there’s a great crime.” It isn’t 100% or even 70% true. There are plenty of nice people who succeed.

However, even if people don’t succeed greatly, everybody gets dirtied up through the processes of life. So, yea, there are things that can be seen as failures in one framework, which measures success.

Somebody active in their church and lives a decent life in Bemidji, Minnesota. They go out and does a bunch of charity work, is a decent an tolerant person, and hasn’t made more than $38,000 per year. That person be seen, in some frameworks, as more successful than the person with a 7- to 8-bedroom house in Beverly Hills on Roxbury Drive.

In one sense, all of us fail. If living a good, healthy, long life is the criterion for success, then we all fail because we all eventually become so unhealthy that we become dead. We are limited creatures. We are driven by drives that aren’t entirely our own.

That are imposed by our evolutionary history. Even when they are our own, when we appropriate the evolutionary drives, we are still driven by arbitrary drives. There are no ultimate rules. You can attempt to derive some rules for success based on the idea that orderly structures are preferable to chaos and destruction.

But that’s still having to build an entire philosophy out of not nothing, but there’s no 100% solid foundation for moral judgments or judgments of success, which means citing what is a good quality or a flaw is not 100% thing.

When you look at the lives of great people, people who can serve as examples of success. We like those people to have flaws. It makes for a more interesting narrative. The people themselves, I’m sure, don’t want to have to have had to struggle with their flaws, but we as society like to see great people have flaws and struggle.

Schadenfreude should not be the criterion for evaluating the success of someone’s life. The idea that they might have something in their life that makes us glad that we’re not them. It can serve as a moral lesson. There’s a good side of schadenfreude.

Instead of gloating that you’re not this person, that it can teach you that we’re all flawed, struggle with ourselves and with sad, and bad, things in our lives, and should be tolerant of other people and ourselves.

Scott: It forms a two-dimensional spectrum too. You can infer or derive the opposite valuation just by putting it up to a mirror. If you look at an individual, like a Nelson Mandela, you can see someone living a good life.

You need merely place that to the proverbial mirror to see what would comprise, not in all but, in many respects a bad life.

Rick: Yes, but whether a good life or a bad life, with the same drives for the most part, you strip away everyone’s individual quirks and even the weirdest people are responding to the same drives as everyone else, which have been hardwired into us.

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2022-04-08

An Interview with Marieme Helie Lucas – Activist & Founder of Secularism is a Women’s Issue

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/31

Marieme Helie Lucas is an Algerian sociologist, activist, founder of ‘Secularism is a Women’s Issue,’ and founder and former International Coordinator of ‘Women Living Under Muslim Laws.’

What was the moment of political awakening for you?

Being born and raised in a colonised country and having lived through a very bloody liberation struggle from French colonialism… there is no way to ignore politics and their consequences on individuals. Moreover, I was born and raised into a family of strong feminists for several generations; let’s say that I fell into the pot from childhood…

When did your personal and professional attention turn to activism, religious fundamentalism, and women’s rights?

Well, prepared by the colonial situation and by my family’s political awareness, I was an activist – as well as a feminist one – since an early teenager, under various forms, depending on the period of time (pre-independence struggle, during the struggle for liberation, after independence, when women’s rights were curtailed by the new family code, under armed fundamentalists’ attempts to impose a theocracy in Algeria in the 90s, etc…). I became a full-time activist in the early eighties, when I left research and teaching in university, and founded the WLUML (Women Living Under Muslim Laws) network. I remained a full-time activist since then. But my academic research was already focused on people’s rights and women’s rights.

WLUML was a non-confessional network of women whose lives were shaped and governed by laws said to be Islamic, regardless of their personal faith. Our research (1) on laws affecting women in many countries – in North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, West Africa – show that these man-made laws (rather than of divine inspiration) borrow not just from very different interpretations of Islam, but mostly from local traditions, cultural practices, and even colonial laws, when it suits both patriarchy and religious fundamentalism. Over the past decades, we could monitor the progressive eradication of progressive laws and Muslim fundamentalists’ dedication to exhuming, picking and choosing the most backwards and reactionary practices and passing them off as Islamic. (2)

Interestingly, many journalists and human rights organisations failed to understand our sociological and political approach. They focused on the ‘religious’ flavour in our name, thus attempting to force us into a religious identity we never claimed. For instance, they often renamed us as women ‘under the Muslim Law’ (in the singular!) or even ‘under the Islamic Law.’ This recurrent ideological ‘mistake’ speaks volumes about their urgent need to put us ‘under religious/cultural arrest’ and deny us universal rights and our common humanity.

You founded ‘Secularism is a Women’s Issue.’ Of course, the title provides the general idea. What is the more formal argument to derive the connection between secularism and women’s issues?

Secularism is the legal/administrative provision that separates state from organised religions. It was defined during the French Revolution and later codified in the 1905-1906 laws on separation. Article 1 of the law guarantees freedom of belief and practice to individuals; article 2 stipulates that the Secular Republic does not recognise, therefore dialogue with or fund religions, their representatives and their institutions. The secular Republic only knows equal citizens with equal rights under the law.

The concept of separation at that time successfully challenged the political power of the Vatican and the Catholic Church in the French kingdom. (So much for those ignorant writers and preachers who now pretend secular laws in France were designed against Muslims, since there was NO significant Muslim emigration to France at the time of the French revolution).

In the UK, as the King/Queen is both the Head of State and the Head of the Anglican Church, the concept of separation was hard to swallow. This is why they developed a very misleading re-definition of secularism as equal tolerance by the state towards all religions – which indeed involves and ties together the State and organised religions.

This distortion of the original revolutionary concept spread across European countries where Churches had a strong base. In the present context in Europe, we witness an increasing trend to grant in the name of rights – what a perversion of the very idea of rights! – to separate laws to different religious ‘communities.’ This breeds communalism and creates inequalities between citizens, especially women. For instance, some UK citizens may have rights that other UK citizens will not have access to, if they are, let’s say, Muslims. Sharia courts do not grant equal rights to women in the family. All the recent attempts by Muslim fundamentalists in the UK to promote gender segregation in universities or sharia-compliant wills point in the same political direction. Governments are so keen to trade hard-won women’s rights to appease the religious extreme-right!

This is also the situation in the former British Empire. For instance, in South Asia, where the definition of secularism that prevails is not separation, but equal to tolerance by the state. We deplore that even the Left is hardly aware of this unholy colonial legacy…

It should not be necessary to explain here that, within all religions, reactionary forces generally prevailed that justified women’s oppression by god’s will. It is certainly the dominant political trend today, especially but not exclusively among Muslims.

Moreover, when laws are designed as representing god’s intentions on earth, they become un-changeable, a-historical. Theocracy is the antithesis of democracy where laws are voted by the people and can be changed according to the will of the people.

Women always have a hard time in getting patriarchal laws changed according to international standards of human rights, but it is obviously more so when they can be accused of hurting religious sentiments by doing so, or worse, of apostasy or blasphemy – crimes that are punished by death penalty in Muslim contexts.

In Europe today, xenophobic extreme right movements are attempting to co-opt and manipulate the concept of secularism and to use it against citizens of migrant descent, especially those deemed to be Muslims. This certainly does not make the struggle of secular opponents to Muslim fundamentalism any easier. We need to walk the fine line, challenging at the same time both the new religious extreme rights which condemn secularism and atheism, and ‘traditional’ xenophobic extreme rights which are hijacking the concept of secularism to justify their claim to white Christian superiority. Unfortunately, the European Left and Far-Left, that should have our natural allies, have not yet understood that they should not throw themselves in the arms of Muslim fundamentalists in order to counter the traditional extreme right parties… thus choosing to support one extreme right against the other. Instead, they should support us, who confronted Muslim fundamentalists in our countries of origin and now have to do it all over again in Europe.

As an Algerian sociologist, i.e. as an individual with an expert opinion in sociology, what is the situation for women living under Muslim laws throughout the world?

As varied as one can imagine in one’s wildest guess. It ranges from being able to become an elected head of state, to being closeted between four walls with no education and no rights, and all the intermediary shades in between these extremes. There exists absolutely no homogeneous ‘Muslim world.’

However, I must add a few caveat:

Although very progressive provisions for women existed in different periods of history and in different locations around the world, in predominantly Muslim contexts, we witness everywhere today the rise of fundamentalism, i. e. a political extreme-right which camouflages its power greed behind religion.
Everywhere and at all times (3), women in Muslim contexts fought for their rights, using different strategies, just as we do today: demanding right to education, political rights, freedom of movement, financial autonomy, equal rights in marriage, etc…Religious interpretation was only one of the many strategies they used. The struggle still goes on now, in these very difficult times.
An important new dimension of the struggle now takes place in the countries of immigration. Every right we lose in Europe or North America to the mermaids of cultural relativism heavily impacts the situation in our countries of origin. Conversely, being able to bypass the smokescreen of the ‘main enemy’ to convey to our comrades and sisters back home the reality of Muslim fundamentalism having opened a new front in Europe and North America is part and parcel of building our common struggle beyond national borders. (4)

What is the general status for international women’s rights, empowerment, and advocacy in these contexts?

One cannot look at it in terms of ‘countries’ or cultures. For instance, one can find places where the promotion of economic rights improves women’s autonomy, while FGM is tolerated or repudiation legal, or countries where women enjoyed a notable degree of legal autonomy which is suddenly reduced in practice by the coming to power of extreme right fundamentalists.

One must abandon the idea that there exists a homogeneous ‘Muslim world’ where everything would function under the banner of religion. I believe this idea of a Muslim world, highly promoted by fundamentalists, is derived from that of ‘Umma,’ i.e. the assembly of believers, which exists also in the Catholic Church as ‘Ecclesia.’ In reality, we all know that countries are the location of various political forces and classes which fight for political representation or domination. This is in no way different in Muslim contexts, and religion per se has little to do there – except, as a generally right-wing form of political organisation.

You are the founder and former international coordinator for ‘Women Living Under Muslim Laws.’ What tasks and responsibilities came with this position?

It has been a very inspiring and rewarding time in my life, even if one had to work around the clock while raising small kids and living in poverty – a formative time, too. I came to realise that women’s struggles already existed everywhere in Muslim contexts but that they fought in isolation. Women needed to know about each other’s projects and be inspired by each other’s strategies, and eventually that they could come together on specific actions and/or support collectively the local struggles or initiatives.

The idea was timely and everyone grabbed it across Africa and Asia, quickly gathering together the very best of smart committed women activists.

This network was not a pyramidal organisation, it had no membership, it was a fluid network in which women and groups could step in and take responsibility for specific projects depending on their local needs.

It gathered together in mutual solidarity women who were religious believers, human rights advocates, secularists and atheists.

The tasks of the coordination office were that of a clearing house of information, of a publishing house, of a coordination secretariat for research programmes and for collective projects, of an urgent response/ emergency rescue organisation, of a board – lodging – therapeutic safe place for endangered or burnt out activists, etc… Now that most revolutionary women’s networks of the nineties have been tamed and ‘professionalised,’ my heart goes out to the Women In Black–Belgrade, whose humble coordination still performs so many of these exhausting and exhilarating tasks, under very difficult political circumstances. I salute these great resisters to NGOs normalisation!

Needless to say that, with the growing success of our network, funders were eager to ‘own’ it. There were growing pressures on me to come to my senses and conform to the corporate sector’s norms of organisation, believed – despite the evidence provided by the enormous success and achievements of our very network – to be the only efficient ones. A membership organisation with a classic top to bottom pyramidal structure, ‘professionalised’ activists appointed to specific tasks and responsibilities with afferent titles and fat salaries, and a well-paid ‘director’ (myself), with a clear religious identification, etc…

If you look at funding organisations’ NGOs normalisation plans during the nineties, you will see clearly exposed what I am talking about… I managed to keep them at bay and to protect the revolutionary spirit of the network for 18 years, till I left it.

As an organisation, the network WLUML circulated information on a regular basis; published a very good journal that mixed together sophisticated academic analysis and on the ground information on struggles and strategies of local women’s groups; produced knowledge that was needed to enhance women’s struggles through coordination of collective research; organised cross-cultural exchange of women from one predominantly Muslim area to another, culturally different Muslim areas so that participants could deconstruct the idea of a homogeneous Muslim world by living a very different reality; organised collective support for local actions; organised rescue; etc…

What have been the observed, if possible, measured impacts of ‘Secularism is a Women’s Issue’ and ‘Women Living Under Muslim Laws?’

WLUML definitely was instrumental in putting on the agenda, worldwide, the issue of women’s rights in Muslim contexts. It projected not the usual image of the ‘poor oppressed Muslim woman’ (which was instrumental in justifying military occupations and wars), but that of universalist (believers as well as secularists) women human rights defenders.

As for SIAWI, it performs very similar tasks in a new political context where secularists and atheists are more and more endangered while they become more and more vocal especially among the youth. SIAWI takes part in the circulation of information on the struggles of secularists and atheists in Muslim contexts and in the diasporas by maintaining a website (siawi.org). It gives visibility to the new forces for secularism in Muslim contexts and in the diasporas; it supports struggles and endangered individuals; it produces analyses on secularism in the times of rising armed fundamentalism; it participates in secular gathering and conferences; it challenges cultural relativism in Europe and North America and supports women’s local secular demands.

What are the historical, and ongoing, problems with religious fundamentalism?

There always were reactionary forces aiming at governing in the name of god. Secularism, understood as separation, is the best way to keep them at bay, away from directly exercising political power. Historically, progressive religious interpreters and liberation theologians have been defeated within their own religions.

Who is your favorite philosopher or scientist?

The one who will enlighten us tomorrow.

We must not forget that all philosophers and scientists are grounded into their times. The French revolution failed to grant equal rights to women and executed Olympe de Gouges who drafted a constitution that incorporated women’s rights to the social revolution. So did Darwin. Many otherwise progressive thinkers did not see any problem with colonial exploitation of Africans and slavery. We do not need to throw the baby with the bath water but we definitely have to look for thinkers for our times and our future.

What about activist?

What is the question?

Any recommended reading?

I suggested some books and articles in the foot notes. To those who read French, I could suggest, Bas les Voiles by Chaadortt Djavan, any book by Mohamed Sifaoui, Marianne et le Prophète by Soheib Bencheikh, articles and books explaining the concept of secularism by Henri Pena Ruiz.

English-speaking people need to access original literature that makes the difference between separation and equal tolerance by the state… such a source of confusion in any discussion on secularism… Fight for translations into English!

Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion about our discussion today?

Secularism – understood as separation between state and religions – is today’s best response to growing communalism in Europe and North America, as well as to the murderous armed Muslim organisations that want to impose theocracies and eradicate democracies. As imperfect as democracies are in Europe today, we need to fight for their survival in wake of the growing danger of seeing them replaced by theocracies, in the name of religious rights, cultural rights, minority rights, etc…Confront the erroneous idea of a ‘Muslim world.’ It exists no more than ‘the Christian world’ or ‘the Crusaders’ that Daesh pretends to destroy…

References

1. Knowing Our Rights: Women, family, laws and customs in the Muslim …

http://www.wluml.org/node/588

2 Dossier 23-24: What is your tribe? Women’s struggles and the …

http://www.wluml.org/fr/node/343

3 Great Ancestors: Women Claiming Rights in Muslim Contexts | Women …

http://www.wluml.org/…/great-ancestors-women-claiming-rights-muslim…

4 Dossier 30-31 The struggle for secularism in europe and North America

Click to access WLUML-dossier-30-31-v2.pdf

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2022-04-08

Bad Luck is a Major Factor in Cancer Development

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/31

Bad Luck is a Major Factor in Cancer Development

Scientific American, which had an original appearance in STAT, reports that the main reason for most cancers is not mostly genetics or heredity. It’s bad luck.

The luck of the draw plays the bigger role in most cancer cases compared to the environment or one’s parents. There was a study that came out which “launched hundreds of scientific rebuttals, insinuations that the authors had been paid off by the chemical industry…”

So the idea that genetics and environment were less of an impact cancer risk than general poor luck was found to be controversial. For example, the stoppage of smoking and the cleanliness in the local environment were lesser factors than bad chances.

Recently, the authors of the research published a new study in Science with a “double down on their original finding but also labour mightily to correct widespread misinterpretations of it.”

The researchers used health records from 69 nations with evidence of cancer mutations coming from simple bad luck with the regular division of a cell. That is, there is a copying error in the DNA with the attempts at normal replication.

However, this does not mean the 66% of the cancers are not preventable. However, the errors occur.

It was noted that this should comfort many patients by Dr. Bert Vogelstein at Johns Hopkins University and the “senior author” of the first study. Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society, described this as a “significant improvement” on the original paper.

It was noted that the in other research “roughly 42 percent of cancers are preventable by, for instance, not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, and not being exposed to cancer-causing pollutants.”

Others seemed less impressed with the research such as Dr. Yusuf Hannun, who is the director of the Stony Brook Cancer Center. Dr. Hannun’s research paper in 2015 showed that external or extrinsic factors rather than random DNA copying were greater risk factors.

Not all critics of the first paper were swayed, however. “I am not very impressed with the overall conclusion,” said Dr. Yusuf Hannun.

Some nuances were found in the research. For example, the large intestine’s cells divide more frequently than other cells. Only 5% of patients develop cancer there. The small intestine cells divide with less frequency, and “only 0.2 percent of people develop cancer there.”

Each division gives the chance for a copying error in the DNA. So, the more divisions there are the more cancers there will be. This as the argument put forward by the Johns Hopkins research team. 2/3rds of the difference in the cancer rates depend on the copying rate.

This was a consistent finding for 17 cancer classifications or “types” and in the 69 nations examined.

So the 66% difference comes from the differential rate of division in cell types, e.g. large intestine cells versus small intestine cells. The new analysis of the Johns Hopkins team is based on research in the United Kingdom cancer-causing mutations sources database.

Three categories are looked into in it: “the environment, heredity, or those random DNA-copying mistakes.” It is a first for examination of the “proportions of mutations in cancer and assigned them,” Cristian Tomasetti said, who is a Johns Hopkins mathematician.

After examination, it was found that 66% of the mutations occur in virtue of random copying errors during DNA replication, with 29% due to environment and then 5 percent based on heredity.

So different cancers have difference occurrences, and can “differ significantly.” For instance, 60% of the mutations that can cause skin or lung cancer come from the environment, with 15%, or less, for “prostate, bone, brain, and breast cancers.”

The Johns Hopkins researchers had a prior argument that the bad luck meant that smoking or bad diet, or genetic predisposition, played little role in the acquisition of the various cancers. But this new research takes a different line of approach.

But the other scientists – “cancer experts” – noted that several mutations cause cancer. It takes multiple pathways to get to the goal of cancer with cancer mutations. Single mutations happen, but multiple mutations then can cause the cancer.

“Therefore, if two out of three required mutations arise from copying mistakes, but the third comes from an environmental carcinogen, then avoiding that carcinogen prevents the cancer,” and the John Hopkins research group agrees.

So the new research differentiates “between” the preventability of a cancer and the cancer-causing mutations. “For instance, 65 percent of mutations in lung cancers arose randomly but 89 percent of those cancers are preventable by avoiding smoking,” Tomasetti said.

The environment can play a large role in the development of cancer with more leverage for prevention by implication. For example, the insulin, inflammation, and obesity levels.

“Environmental exposures can influence cancer risk in many ways,” Ross Prentice, cancer biostatistician at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center said.

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2022-04-08

An Interview with David Niose – Attorney, Author and Activist

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/31

David Niose is an attorney who has served as president of two Washington-based humanist advocacy groups, the American Humanist Association (AHA) and the Secular Coalition for America. He is author of Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of Secular Americans and Fighting Back the Right: Reclaiming America from the Attack on Reason. He currently serves as legal director of the AHA.

How did you become involved in humanism? Was there a family background?

No, there was no family background in humanism. I come from a Catholic family who were Italian and Irish. There were some family members who were not very religious, but none who were openly atheist or secular humanist. I’ve been nonreligious my entire adult life, but I didn’t get involved in organised humanism until shortly after George W. Bush was elected in 2000. At that point, I realised that the religious right was not going away, and I saw organised humanism as a means of fighting back.

You are the legal director for the Appignani Humanist Legal Center of the American Humanist Association. What tasks and responsibilities come with being the legal director?

I oversee the AHLC’s activities, from its litigation efforts to its complaint letters and other activities. Our legal centre is contacted daily by people who feel that constitutional violations are occurring in their communities. We answer their questions and give them the help they need. We have about a dozen cases in suit right now in courts around the country, at various stages of litigation. Some cases that are at the appellate level, some that are fairly new and going through the discovery process, and others that are nearing trial.

What differentiates legal cases and issues for the Appignani Humanist Legal Center of the American Humanist Association community and representatives from the more standard general American public legal cases—themes, media attention, individuals and organisations involved in them, and so on?

Our cases are mostly Establishment Clause cases – litigation suing governmental entities for violating church-state separation principles. Sometimes other issues are also present, such as equal protection and free speech, but the vast majority of our work is Establishment Clause. We have had cases against legislative bodies, school districts, county commissioners, the federal government—all kinds of governmental entities that have violated the wall of separation.

What are some of the main campaigns and initiatives of the Appignani Humanist Legal Center of the American Humanist Association?

We’ve had many high-profile legal disputes. We successfully persuaded the Air Force to allow an airman to re-enlist without including “so help me God” in his oath, reversing its policy requiring that wording. We’ve also successfully sued the federal government on behalf of a Humanist inmate who was not allowed to form a Humanist group in his prison. We’ve challenged “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance in a couple of different jurisdictions, using an equal protection approach instead of the Establishment Clause. And of course, we’ve successfully challenged various religious activities in schools all over the country.

Also, what is the Pledge Boycott?

The Pledge Boycott is an effort to encourage people, especially public school students, to opt out of the Pledge of Allegiance in protest of the inclusion of the words “under God.” Those two words were added in 1954, and since then the pledge has defined patriotism in theistic terms for several generations of schoolchildren. Many people don’t even know that the pledge was once secular, that only lobbying by religious groups changed the wording. The boycott is a way of raising awareness and calling attention to the discriminatory, anti-atheist wording.

What is the Secular Legal Society? How does this society help bring everyone together under one banner and unify legal efforts on behalf of the American Humanist Association?

The SLS is our group of cooperating lawyers from all over the country who make themselves available as a resource to help the Appignani Humanist Legal Center. We currently have over 180 lawyers on our SLS list, from all different kinds of legal specialities. These people are available to help us to the extent they can. Some serve as local counsel when we litigate cases around the country. Others offer casual advice when we reach out with questions about issues that are outside our usual scope of practice – immigration law, for example, or intellectual property. The SLS is a valuable resource, and it’s a great way for lawyers who care about the AHA and secularism to lend a hand.

In general, what are the perennial legal threats to the advocacy and practice of humanism in the United States?

Well, almost all the activities of the Christian right in America threaten humanist values in one way or another. Whether its reproductive rights, social justice, prayer in schools—the list goes on and on—all of these issues run contrary to the direction we want to see this country take. It’s disheartening that, in 2017, we have school districts that won’t teach evolution, we have parts of the country where women can’t get safe and affordable reproductive health care because religious activists are in control.

What is the scope and scale of the of the Appignani Humanist Legal Center? Who are some of its most unexpected allies?

As far as scope goes, we are ready to advocate anywhere in the country, thanks to our SLS attorneys and our nationwide network of AHA members and chapters. We have eyes and ears all over the country.

With the current Trump Administration, do you see new threats to the fundamental rights and dignity of humanist American citizens?

Sure. It’s no secret that Trump panders to the Christian right. We’ll probably see many conservative judges appointed, jurists who disagree with our interpretation of the Establishment Clause. Very difficult days could be ahead for church-state separation.

What have been the largest activist and educational initiatives provided by Appignani Humanist Legal Center, if any—if that’s part of its work at all? Out of these, what have been honest failures and successes?

Well, I would categorise all our activities, including our litigation, as activism. The Pledge Boycott, which is an AHA initiative supported by the AHLC, has been a big success. And we’ve had many church-state victories, in courts and via complaint letters. If I had to point to a disappointment, I would say it would be the aforementioned equal protection pledge litigation.

We brought an innovative and valid legal theory before courts in two fairly liberal states, Massachusetts and New Jersey, but neither court would accept our argument.

How can people get involved with the Appignani Humanist Legal Center of the American Humanist Association, even donate to them?

We are not hard to find. The AHA’s web site is www.americanhumanist.org. The AHA also has over 600,000 Facebook followers, and you can connect with us there as well. The AHLC’s web site is www.humanistlegalcenter.org. Many of the AHLC’s activities are posted on the AHA’s Facebook page as well. Donations can be made via those links also.

Any closing thoughts or feelings based on the discussion today?

I’d just want to encourage anyone who thinks a church-state violation is occurring in their community to contact us. It can be a lonely feeling to be a secular person or family in a religious town in the Bible belt, but oftentimes those who speak out discover that they are not alone. And the AHA is your link to the community of reason, no matter where you live.

Thank you for your time, David.

Thank you.

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2022-04-08

Philosophy, Science, and the Charge of ‘Scientism!’

Author(s): Dr. Stephen Law and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/30

Simultaneously, some philosophers and many religious people think such scientists are guilty of ‘scientism.’ That is, the arrogant assertion that all legitimate questions can only be answered by scientific methodologies. For example, scientists, like Richard Dawkins, who think science is capable of revealing anything about the supernatural – let alone God – are supposedly guilty of hubris, of pride. Dawkins and others are told to show some humility and acknowledge there are ‘more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in their scientistic philosophy.’ So, who is right? Is it those charging ‘scientism,’ or those who dismiss anything other than the deliverances of science as, well, bullshit?

So, it appears science can’t supply answers to our most fundamental moral questions, either by direct observation or by means of an inference from what has been directly observed.

Here is another question:

At a family get-together, the following relations held directly between those present: Son, Daughter, Mother, Father, Aunt, Uncle, Niece, Nephew, and Cousin. Could there have been only four people present at that gathering? Actually, there could. It’s possible to figure that by doing some armchair, conceptual work. No scientific investigation is required or would even be relevant here. So, conceptual puzzles are puzzles that science cannot answer, but armchair methods can.

Now, philosophical puzzles also seem to have this conceptual character. Take the mind-body problem. Just how could the activities in our brains give rise to a rich inner world of subjective experience? True enough, scientists might discover everything that’s going on in my brain as I savour the taste of this cheesecake, but surely, my experience couldn’t just be that brain activity, could it?

Isn’t there some sort of conceptual obstacle to identifying minds with brains? Many think there is: we can know, they think, from the comfort of our armchairs, that minds just couldn’t be brains. However, whether or not there is such a conceptual obstacle about something requiring only armchair conceptual investigation to figure out, just as it only took armchair conceptual investigation to reveal there could, appearances to the contrary, be just four people present at that family gathering.

Still, while philosophical reflection can’t reveal how nature fundamentally is, it can on occasion reveal how nature isn’t.

Galileo ran a thought experiment to show Aristotle’s theory that a lighter and heavier ball will fall at different speeds cannot be correct. Galileo showed through philosophical investigation that Aristotle’s theory generates a contradiction: if the two balls are chained together, they will fall faster because their weight is now combined; they will also fall slower because the lighter ball will act as a drag on the heavier ball. So, it seems there is an important role for pure armchair philosophical reflection even in science, contrary to the views of some scientists. However, we agree that armchair philosophical investigation can’t explain how nature is – it can at best reveal that certain descriptions cannot be true of it because they involve contradictions.

God and the supernatural are normally unobservable. However, the unobservable is not off limits to science. Electrons are not directly observable. Same with the distant past of this planet (unless, of course, a time machine is invented). Yet, we can confirm and refute theories about unobservables via the scientific method. Why? Because existence of electrons and the Earth being older than 6,000 years have observable consequences.

Both revealed prayer had no effect. There was an absence of evidence for prayer working. But there was not just an absence of evidence for the efficacy of prayer, there was also evidence of absence – evidence that prayer does not work in that way. Maybe science cannot in principle answer all questions. Maybe some claims are off-limits. That prayer works is not one of them.

“The efforts of scientists to disprove the existence of God is not a pursuit of Science, butScientism” (Heiser, 2012).

Bishop Heiser seems to have an image of some scientists rubbing their hands menacingly together, cackling, and actively working to disprove the existence of the supernatural or God. As should now be clear, even if that were the aim of some scientists, efforts to test claims concerning the existence of the supernatural or even God do not necessarily involve an embrace of ‘scientism.’ Perhaps science cannot answer every question. Still, it may be able to answer various questions about the supernatural, including various questions about God. To believe this is not, in fact, to embrace scientism. And to point out that scientism is false is not to discredit such investigations. In their paper, ‘Has Science Disproved God?’ Ashton and Westacott write:

Science is, in fact, capable of investigating the supernatural.

However, because the mantra, ‘But this is beyond the ability of science to decide’ has been repeated so often with respect to that sort of subject matter, it is now heavily woven into our cultural zeitgeist. People simply assume it is true for all sorts of claims for which it is not, in fact, true. The mantra has become a convenient factoid that can be wheeled out whenever a scientific threat to belief rears their head. When a believer is momentarily stung into doubt, many will attempt to lull them back to sleep by repeating the mantra over and over.

The faithful murmur back: ‘Ah yes, we forgot – this is beyond the ability of science to decide…. zzzz.’

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2022-04-08

Can You Be a Humanist Without Being a Feminist?

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Anya Overmann

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/30

This question is one of the most controversial within the humanist and feminist community:

Can you be a humanist without being a feminist?

Our short answer: No. If you are a humanist, then you are a feminist.

Humanism, broadly or expansively construed, is an ethical and philosophical worldview including religious and irreligious perspectives. Some definitions will exclude the religious because of assertion of the religious as only focused on the theistic and the supernatural.

For example, it could be seen, like in IHEU’s official definition, as a democratic and ethical life stance that affirms the worth of every human being and advocates for building a more humane society without a need for religious systems, and instead based on ethics and reasoning through human capabilities.

We disagree. Religion is practices and values, and so is culture and heritage, too. Humanism in a general definitional context incorporates these considerations such as, say, humanistic Judaism. As well, humanism remains theoretical; that is, humanism remains ethical and philosophical in nature. Its practice implies other terminology too.

For example, the development of a more humane society based on reason and free inquiry — and equality in fundamental human rights among and between human beings — posits a tacit egalitarianism.

What is egalitarianism, exactly?

Egalitarianism is a socio-political philosophy that advocates for the equality of all humans and equal entitlement to resources. Humanism, as a theory incorporative of equality for all, implies egalitarianism — as it advocates for and works towards full equality for all. In this, humanism implies egalitarianism. But there’s different forms of equality, e.g. ethnic, educational, gender, and so on.

Equal access to quality education. Equal treatment regardless of ethnicity. As well, of course, the equal treatment in legal and social life regardless of gender. Mainstream feminism accounts for gender equality. For instance, the right to vote incorporates the legal equality of women, and the advocacy for social equality between women and men.

Feminism is the advocacy for gender equality based on the belief that women do not have equal rights to men.

Thus, if you are a feminist, then you are an egalitarian, and if you are an egalitarian, then you are for gender equality, and if you are for gender equality, then you are a feminist. Therefore, if you are a humanist, then you are a feminist, but not vice versa.

One can be a believer in God and be a supernaturalist, but also engage in feminist activities and believe in gender equality. Hence, you can be a feminist and gender equalist without being a humanist, by some definitions. As well, you can be for equal rights in all relevant respects or egalitarian — so education, gender, ethnicity, and so on, and a believer in God and supernaturalism.

Hence, you can be an egalitarian — which implicates gender equality and feminism — and not a humanist, by some definitions.

So, can you be a humanist without being a feminist?

We say no. If you are a humanist, then you must be a feminist. However, by our definitions, you can be a feminist without being a humanist.

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2022-04-08

Practice What You Preach: Moral Reflection on ‘The Global Gag.’

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Julia Julstrom-Agoyo

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/28

Of all perennial ethical precepts in the world, the Golden Rule stands ‘head and shoulders’ above the others in terms of durability and consistency across time and culture, respectively.

Religious institutions, formal or informal, preach the ethic. Secular ethical frameworks advocate for it too. Right into the present, it is presented as an ideal. Maybe it is unattainable, but the ethics hold sway in religious and secular moral universes.

The Golden Rule in the modern context remains consistent with the proclaimed ideal of the religious ethical worldviews and the international equivalent with human rights. Human rights are not equivalent to, but overlap significantly with, women’s rights: do as you would be done by. So if one were a woman, and required appropriate medical attention for reproductive health, and the technology was available and funded, then the moral act would be to provide the access to the medical services because another would want the same. This is consistent with ‘middle-of-the-road’ human rights organisations as well.

“(E)quitable access to safe abortion services is first and foremost a human right.” Human Rights Watch has affirmed, “Where abortion is safe and legal, no-one is forced to have one. Where abortion is illegal and unsafe, women are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term or suffer serious health consequences and even death.” Research shows that many pregnant women, desperate in their situation and without access to safe abortion, will undergo dangerous procedures, risking harm unto themselves.

The Golden Rule should compel us to act in accordance with our better natures and provide the “equitable access to safe abortion” for women. Governments pressured by religious groups, whose leadership are made up primarily of men, like the Trump Administration, have posed a direct threat to this affirmation. Take, for instance, the Executive Order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on his very first day in office, notably surrounded by a group of men.

The “Global Gag Rule” as it is commonly referred to prohibits NGOs from providing abortions or even providing information or services (eg counselling, referrals) about abortions if they want to receive funding from the U.S. for family planning. The U.S. has an undisputed powerful global influence, and with this executive order, countless women around the world will undoubtedly be negatively affected.

According to Forbes, “The U.S. hasn’t allowed use of federal funds for abortion since the 1973 Helms Amendment, [applied] internationally as well as domestically. In fact, gag rules that harm women are already widespread in the U.S. under the guise of ‘religious freedom.’”

“There is no evidence that the global gag rule reduces abortion, according to Wendy Turnbull, PAI [Unparalleled Leadership and Impact] senior adviser.” Forbes said, “Instead, loss of funding from this punitive regulation eliminates access to contraceptives for more than 225 million women globally, greatly increasing the need for abortion. It also increases pregnancy-related deaths by about 289,000. How is that ‘pro-life?’”

Exactly whose life is valued and to what extent? Why must the compassion for an unborn fetus ring louder than that for the child that is born into poverty and for the mother and the state who are forced to shoulder that burden?

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2022-04-08

Open Access Venture Incoming from the Gates Foundation

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/28

Open access continues to gain ground with advocacy from Bill and Melinda Gates’s Gates Foundation. Nature reported on the global health charity’s move to self-fund it own publishing channel. In addition, the European Commission will be deliberating on the same possibility.

The Gates Foundation, also known as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, will launch the “open-access publishing venture” in late 2017.

It will be called Gates Open Research, modelled on another system developed by Wellcome Trust. The basic idea is to increase the rate of the publication of articles and data from research, which will be funded by the charity.

What is the Gates Open Research platform? According to the website, it states:

Gates Open Research is a scholarly publishing platform that makes research funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation available quickly and in a format supporting research integrity, reproducibility and transparency. Its open access model enables immediate publication followed by open, invited peer review, combined with an open data policy.

The European Commission will spend €80-billion (US$86-billion) on its own programme, its Horizon 2020 research programme. F1000Research has been contracted by both the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust charity.

It is an “open-access platform that rapidly publishes papers and data sets after an initial sanity check by its in-house editors. Papers are peer-reviewed after publication, and the reviews and the names of their authors are published alongside.”

There will be zero oversight in terms of editorship by the Gates Open Research foundation, according to Bryan Callahan as reported by Nature. He noted that the Gates Open Research foundation will help the masses of researchers in developing countries, as well as helping to “avoid predatory publishers.”

The Wellcome Open Research has been able to publish peer reviewed papers within one week after submission. This is a relatively rapid turnaround for the submissions-to-publications (or rejections) process compared to the average.

In addition to this, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations will provide the funding for the production of about 2,000-2,500 research papers per annum with “one of the most stringent open-access policies of any research funder.”

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2022-04-08

2030’s Planet 50–50 Gender Equality Plan

Author(s): Anya Overmann and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/28

March is Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day is March 8, 2017. It is a day where every “person — women, men and non-binary people — can play a part in helping drive better outcomes for women.” The other is a month devoted to the catalogue, display, and public representation of women’s accomplishments in history. Why is this an important day for reflection? It is important because, according to the World Economic Forum(WEF), the overall gender gap based on the index called the Gender Gap Report published each year will not close until 2186.

That’s a super long time. Even with that dire report, United Nations Women (UN Women) has themed this International Women’s Day, which is less than a week away. The theme is “Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50–50 by 2030.” Maybe, not the political, educational, or health outcome areas, but, rather, the world of work, which continues to be an area of major concern. Even if 2186 is the fate of eventual total equality, then the piece-by-piece fitting of the equality puzzle can start with the world of work. But there are difficulties for women here too. Hardships related to the ongoing revolutions before us.

Globalisation and the digital revolution are changing the way we work, bringing big opportunities for all, but continue to present issues within the context of women’s economic empowerment. According to the UN, the gender pay gap stands at 24 cents globally, with many of these gaps appearing in leadership and entrepreneurship roles. Not to mention, the glaring gender deficit in care and domestic work.

The UN is calling for all economic policies to be gender-responsive and address job creation, poverty reduction, and growth in a sustainable and inclusive manner. It’s also pertinent, with the way human work is changing due to technology, for women to have better access to innovative technologies and practices that are good for mother nature and protect women against violence in the workplace.

International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month are important moments — a singular highlight day and an entire month — to reflect, celebrate, and declare the inherent equality of women based on human rights and women’s rights. We’ve got a long road ahead. And if you do not feel like waiting for the year 2186 to come around in your lifetime, you can always travel to Iceland. It’ll be just like time travel!

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2022-04-08

Musings on Belief, Ezra Pound style

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/28

This morning, I reflected on belief in Canada over coffee. In particular, belief in the ‘other worldly’. Where, in John von Neumann’s (Poundstone, 2015) terms, propositions, as these describe the world, about material things or abstract objects, come in three states — yes, no, or maybe — based on the question, for instance, “Does X exist?” Yes, X exists; no, X does not exist; or, maybe, X might exist. Where the other worldly exists, does not exist, or might exist, most seem contained in the lattermost categorization.

So, “Does Apollo (or Cthulhu, or Ahura Mazda) exist?” The technical categorization remains: possible, or “maybe.” For all intents and purposes, most humanists will choose, “No.” The former as a technical, logical selection; the latter as a functional, utilitarian selection. Both work in context. In surveys of belief, Canadians, a little under half at 47%, believe in ghosts (Ipsos Reid, 2006).

If reduced to 30,000,000 for the total Canadian population, that means ~15,000,000 Canadians believe in ghosts, in the other worldly, in the supernatural. Many small towns will host ghost, haunted house, and cemetery tours with scant, or no, evidence for the claims. At the same time, the revenue from these tourist activities might prevent, whether passive or active, appropriate investigation into the evidentiary basis of the claims to the ghosts, the hauntings of the house, or the spirit-wanderings of the cemeteries. Some might think, “Why ruin business?” Indeed.

If the percentage of the Canadian population from the survey, and other surveys and other beliefs parallel this finding about ghosts, then many Canadians, in spite of functional living in numerous areas of life — work, school, paying taxes, raising kids, being neighbourly, and so on, live in a world of other worldliness, of the supernatural, of the magical-mystical. Many Canadians aren’t living in the natural world, in their minds’ eyes. They live in a world of magic.

Maybe, it feels cozier.

But what about the serious implications for the reality of death? To return to the libretto, the belief in ghosts seems, at first evaluation, in denial of death. Death as, not necessarily but “for all intents and purposes,” final. The dead are gone, and aren’t coming back — as most humanists would, likely, say, “…for all intents and purposes.” I am reminded of Ezra Pound (Stock, 2017). Who in his Cantos, when speaking of the “Gods,” stated:

“The Gods have not returned. ‘They have never left us.’

They have not returned.” (Pound, n.d.)

For all intents and purposes…’The dead have not returned. ‘They have never left us.’ They have not returned.’

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2022-04-08

Religion News in Brief March 28th 2017

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/28

The Most and Least Religious Least Afraid of Death

According to the Daily Mail, the most extreme in religiosity and ‘irreligiosity’ are the least scared of death. That is, researchers found evidence that showed that the most religious and atheists are the least scared of death.

Those that believe in the social and emotional benefits of religion are “most afraid.” Those that have a motivation based on true belief are the least afraid of dying. As well, many atheists are not scared of it, and they do not seek out a religion.

So, the atheists and the most religious take the most comfort in death, but for, obviously, different reasons.

Sikh Charity Caught in Fraud

According to the Hindustan Times, the British regulator charities conducted an investigation into the one Sikh group claiming to want to advance Sikhism. Apparently, the group turned out to be a “conduit for immigration fraud to bring Indian nationals to the country.”

It was called the Khalsa Missionary Society on the Charity Commission, but has been permanently barred from the Charity Commission now. Khalsa Missionary Society was listed as Trustee A in the report from the investigation.

The Khalsa Missionary Society stated its objective as: “To advance the Sikh religion in the UK for the benefit of the public through holding prayer meetings, lectures, public celebration of religious festivals, producing and/or distributing literature on Sikhism.”

Religious Countries Less Educated

The Independent reports that, “Students in religious countries are likely to perform worse in science and maths than their more agnostic or atheist counterparts, new research has found.” The more religious the country, the lower the educational score.

Professor Gijsbert Stoet, the co-author of the research study, said, “Countries that are more religious score lower in educational performance…governments that might be able to raise educational standards and so standards of living by keeping religion out of schools and out of educational policy-making.”

It was a collective effort of academics at Leeds Beckett University and the psychology professor is based there. The University of Missouri was part of it. There was a strong negative correlation between overall educational performance and time spent on religious education in second schools.

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2022-04-08

Canada Will Legalise Marijuana by Canada Day 2018

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/28

According to the reportage coming out of the national Canadian news source, Toronto Star, the Canadian federal government intends to legalise marijuana, or cannabis, on Canada Day in 2018. The Liberal Federal Government of Canada is intending this as a fulfilment of a promise.

Currently, the Liberal Prime Minister of Canada is Justin Trudeau, who is the son of the deceased Pierre Trudeau. The legalisation will occur on July 1, 2018. The Canadian Broadcasting Company, or the CBC, presented the report on the “flagship TV show, The National.”

In Canada, April 20^th or ‘4/20,’ is a symbolic date around marijuana, mostly for cannabis users. Cannabis tends to be a favourable term used by the community of users. Marijuana tends to be an unfavourable term used to describe the substance from outside the community.

And this has been, as The Globe and Mail states, part of a rush pre-April 20^th to draft a bill.

One “senior official” is claimed to have said that the preparation for the legislation exposes division “on key issues between the Health, Justice and Public Safety departments, requiring federal lawyers to work overtime to find the appropriate legal language to express the government’s final intentions.”

Ottawa, Canada “will secure the country’s marijuana supply and license producers. The national age limit to purchase the drug will be set at 18, but provinces will be able to set it higher.

Provinces will also control price, along with how marijuana is bought and sold.”

As the preliminary work for this date setting, there was deliberation through the creation of a federal task force. In December, 2016, there was the creation of the report for consideration. It had 80 recommendations.

The former Toronto police chief, and Liberal MP, Bill Blair, was the briefer for the Liberal caucus. However, until the point of legalisation on Canada Day, 2018, marijuana continues to be illegal, as the Toronto Star reports.

CBC News in its politics section reported that the limit for plants per household will be 4 plants. The Canada Day 2018 promise will be the fulfilment of a campaign promise from PM Trudeau.

But, there have been raids on marijuana dispensaries in cities across the country as the substance remains illegal, CBC reports, and this includes marijuana advocates Jodie and Marc Emery.

British Columbia MP, Peter Julian, has been skeptical about the claim, in a debate, saying, “I do not believe Justin Trudeau is going to bring in the legalisation of marijuana and as proof that … we are still seeing, particularly young, Canadians being criminalised by simple possession of marijuana.”

PM Trudeau has noted, succinctly, that the laws have not changed and legalisation has not taken place. “Yes, we got a clear mandate to do that. We’ve said we will,” Trudeau said. “We’ve said we’re going to do it to protect our kids and to keep the money out of the pockets of criminals.”

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2022-04-08

Over 2 Million People Every Year Die Due to Working Conditions

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/27

Death by work: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, even hourly. Globally, over 2 million people, roughly speaking, die every year due to their working conditions and their environment. The ILO, the International Labour Organization, says more than that. 2.3 million workers die due to “occupational accidents or work-related diseases.”

Actually, it is about 4 per minute if you count the number of seconds in a year and then do the math with that 2 million per year dead. A 5-minute article read comes out to about 20 deaths by work. But then again, over 150,000 people die every day.

So only about 5,500 out of the total 150,000 dead witnessed each day, or about 2.3 million out of the 131 million dead per annum. Only 167,000 people die each year due to conflict. As the World Economic Forum (WEF) reports, “167,000 people died in armed conflicts in 2015, according to the latest edition of the IISS Armed Conflict Survey.”

To top out the staggering number of deaths, there inefficiencies with not only having fewer workers, but workers need to take leaves of absence based on work. There are ~313 million accidents each year on the job that result in those absences.

Why does this matter? Two reasons.

One, it is costing human lives. I suspect most of the most dangerous jobs are taken by men, and so the costs in the injuries and livelihood, and lives – outright, will be young men and men.

Two, it is costing countries and the global economy. WEF said, “The ILO estimates that the annual cost to the global economy from accidents and work-related diseases alone is a staggering $3 trillion.”

So it matters on the two main points of contact for people – morals and money, or ethics and economics. Not only this, a few billion workers in the world – 3.2 – are “increasingly unwell” and facing “economic insecurity.”

¾ are in the vulnerable sector, the precariat, which means part-time, temporary, and unpaid work. These are the lowest half of the world’s workforce, for the most part. What’s more, our ageing world population is making some things untenable such as ½ of the working population being fat or “obese.”

Productivity relates to wellbeing and the health of the workforce, but the health and wellbeing of the workforce relate to the eventual medical costs – especially for the old. An old, less healthy, less well-off workforce loses net productivity.

Who pays? At the end analysis, everyone.

Klaus Schwab, a respected and prominent contributor, and founder and executive chairman of the WEF, presented the Workplace Alliance Report. In the introduction or the presentation of the report, he made some key notes.

First, employers have a responsibility for the wellbeing of their employees without which the country can lose “competitiveness, productivity and well-being.” Second, ½ or more of the working population, so the labour force, spend their time at work – most of their time.

Third, there is the need – and this is an indication of the reason for the respect, it can be assume – for the incentivising of workers to engage in healthier lifestyles and for the employers to provide healthier families and communities.

Fourth, employees have a duty to self-respect through healthy lifestyles. But also, employers have the responsibility to provide healthier working conditions too.

The majority of the cases here are based on the construction industry, where 1/6 fatal workplace accidents take place in the construction sector. I worked in the construction sector for years, from adolescence onwards, and sucked at it. But there you go.

In the case of men, many incidence occur because of the “intrinsically hazardous nature of this work, the challenging locations of construction sites, changing work environments and high rates of staff turnover. There are also health problems associated with building activities, such as musculoskeletal disorders and exposure to hazardous substances, such as asbestos.”

Construction remains dangerous for the aforementioned reasons. But there have been significant improvements in safety.

And it doesn’t come without a cost. Contractors and owners “commit the time, budget and management to focus on the well-being of the construction workforce.”

There standards of safety performance. There is the need to implement programmes to prove sufficient efficacy. The goals spoken of now are “zero incidents.”

There were 6 areas listed by the WEF for the arenas of worker health, safety, and wellness:

Creating an organisational leadership structure that fosters a culture passionate about health, safety and wellness
Establishing governance, engagement and dialogue for health, safety and wellness awareness
Well-being through social stability and security
Well-being through advanced technology
Well-being through professional development
Specific actions for ensuring mental and emotional well-being

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2022-04-08

My Recent Correspondence with ‘Ayaz Nizami’ – #FreeAyazNizami

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/27

In early March, I sent an email to a Pakistani blogger, ex-Muslim, and atheist, and vice president of the Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan. One week ago, he replied to me. The original email was for an interview for this Progressive online news platform, Conatus News.

The Pakistani blogger is Ayaz Nizami (an alias name). I sent a questionnaire five days ago. I did not receive a response. Usually, people have lives, roles and responsibilities, needs for random vacations, and time with family and friends, and for recreation. More on this in a bit, but…

Who is Ayaz, though? He is a religious scholar and ex-Muslim. He pursued religious training after standard, mainstream education. He was admitted to an Islamic studies school. He began to doubt the authenticity of the claims of his faith at the time.

I suspect that not being an easy thing to undergo or endure, especially being part of an orthodox religious family. Even with the doubts, he accomplished accreditation in the Islamic studies. He was not only a religious scholar in general, but an Islamic scholar in particular.

As described by the Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan, Mr. Nizami has expertise, based on the Islamic training, in “Tafseer, Principles of Tafseer, Hadith, Principles of Hdith, Fiqh.

Principles of fiqh, Arabic language (grammar, vocabulary, and literature), philosophy & logic.”

It is the breadth of a philosophical and theological education with an emphasis on Islamic theology. He claims that the study of Islam, at near the highest level one can safely assume, in addition to the other Abrahamic faiths, led to an interesting conclusion.

That they are not divine, “a mere creation of the human brain and are a bi-product of culture and civilisations in the world especially the Middle East,” Mr. Nizami said.

Upon this realisation, he set out to “educate and enlighten his fellow countrymen and share his findings with them” with a mission to further truth and knowledge without reward. 2012 was an important year for him. He assisted in founding the Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan.

…So I thought little of the delay. Earlier yesterday morning, in Pacific Standard Time, I saw an update via social media about an Ayaz Nizami, a blogger, or writer, jailed for blasphemy and placed into custody in an anti-terrorism cell. What is the criminal charge? Did Mr. Nizami murder someone? Did Mr. Nizami rape someone?

It seemed suspicious. The common knowledge in the educated secular community is bloggers with critiques of religion or religious patriarchs, or practices, can be killed, given lashings, or stigmatised and ostracised in their communities.

So the answer to the latter two questions: no, and no. Answer to the former query: as far as I can tell, he existed as a non-believer, especially an ex-Muslim, with self-confidence rather than acculturated diffidence and spoke out on religion and Islam, and with highly educated, scholarly authority in the relevant subject matter. It was taken as terrorism and blasphemy.

Whether or not the statements are true or not, and whether or not you’re religious or not – and especially if you’re religious take the parable of the hypocrite and the Golden Rule into account, ask, “Should someone be imprisoned on blasphemy or terrorism charges – even threatened with a hashtag hanging campaign (#HangAyazNizami) based on belief, in particular non-belief, in the public arena?”

At root, some subset of Pakistani Muslims are offended, and some non-Muslims. But does this justify the sentiments and the very real consequences on the life of Mr. Nizami? No, and take the footnote about the hypocrite and the Golden Rule into account, I get it.

But if in his situation, if something you did was that offensive, would others be justified in imprisoning or threatening to hang you? I feel offence at the offence around Mr. Nizami. Does this justify blasphemy charges and imprisonment, and public threats of hanging? No, and I would not condone it, as I do not condone the same for the offence – which from that perspective, I can feel sympathy for – felt by some Pakistani Muslims, and others.

All I can say further is what has been expressed before: #FreeAyazNizami – and let us finish that darn interview.

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2022-04-08

(Video) NASA Satellite Catches Star’s Death by Black Hole

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/26

Elizabeth Howell, in Scientific American, described how a NASA satellite captured the last moments of life for a black hole. The star’s last bit of life was not a supernovae or novae.

The star was engulfed by the black hole. And it was all charted by the NASA satellite.

The black hole is a 3-million-solar-mass black hole. Really unprecedented according to the standard metric of mass in astronomy – the study of the celestial stuff like its objects and processes.

It is used to measure the mass – not weight – of stars and nebulae and galaxies, and clusters and groups of galaxies and so on. Therefore, as NASA scientists were quick to point out, it’s an enormous mass completely out of regular experience of physics for us.

And this black hole weighed 3 million of these units. There were “cosmic fireworks” that revealed a lot about the black hole and the star’s descent into death and darkness. Fireworks mean observables, which means evidence.

That evidence can be dissected and provide insight into stellar and black hole dynamics, at least in terms of the pull and absorption of the star into the black hole. It was about 290 million years ago.

The original observation was back in 2014, and various wavelengths of light were emitted, which is just energy – visible energy was emitted detectable by our technology: “optical, ultraviolet and X-ray light.”

“Fresh observations of this radiation by NASA’s Swift telescope have yielded more details about where these different wavelengths were generated in the event, which is called ASASSN-14li, a new study reports.”

Dheeraj Pasham, the lead author – the person who is the principle writer and researcher behind the article – and an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , said, “We discovered brightness changes in X-rays that occurred about a month after similar changes were observed in visible and UV light.”

The hypothesis of Pasham and others – or et al – is that the emissions, the ultraviolet and optical electromagnetic or light emissions, were far from the black hole. Matter was orbiting – in elliptical, not ovular or circular.

Imagine an egg, turn the egg right-side up so it looks like a balance with the fat end on the bottom and the thin end on the top. Now cut the top half of the egg off, make a copy of that top half, flip it 180 degrees around, then stick it to the bottom of the original top.

That’s basically an elliptical orbit – like an egg.

Planetary orbits are like that. So it means, for instance, that the distance from the Sun changes upon where the orbit of the Earth is.

So imagine stuff crashing around the outskirts of the orbit of the black hole and emit electromagnetic energy – optical and UV. The star that was to die, actually, had the same mass as our Sun, our star.

So the image can be a bit more graspable. The forces from the black hole overwhelmed those of the star – 3 million or so more. The star began to be ripped apart and was funnelled into the black hole.

It began to form a stream of stellar, or star, matter that began to be pulled into the black hole, which is a 3-dimensional hole.

“Next, the debris from this star formed a spinning accretion disk, with the matter compressing and heating before falling into the black hole,” Howell said. So why was some of this matter on the outskirts hurtling around at incredible speeds so that when they impacted one another they emitted optical and ultraviolet rays, electromagnetic rays?

Bradley, Cenko, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said, “Returning clumps of debris strike the incoming stream, which results in shock waves that emit visible and ultraviolet light…As these clumps fall down to the black hole, they also modulate the X-ray emission there.”

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2022-04-08

Huge Neuron Hints at Consciousness

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/25

There was a recent ScienceAlert article reported on a huge neuron, which wraps itself around the circumference of the brain. It’s been likened to a big winding tape worm.

It is the “first time” that researchers found a neuron wrapping around the whole circumference of a mouse brain. Usually, our images of a brain come from TV shows, Netflix, movies. And they’re shown as a big piece of cauliflower, with some distinct structures, but nothing innervating the entirety of the structure, the brain.

It was reported that this was “so densely connected across both hemispheres, it could finally explain the origins of consciousness.” Basically, the assertion here is the feeling that makes you feel like you to you is consciousness.

That consciousness is this feeling of unified experience of the world, able to attend to bits and pieces of.

A digital reconstruction of a neuron that encircles the mouse brain.

information, and do something with that attention at any one given time. So what would solve the problem?

Apparently, the idea of a singular structure other than the brain itself that wraps around the brain…itself. That being an individual neuron, which, for a rat, is very large. It connects between two hemispheres.

There is another structure, which is like the telephone lines between the hemispheres, called the corpus callosum. This important structure does not get into the depths of either hemisphere as much as the big neuron.

The neuron was detected as “emanating from one of the best-connected regions in the brain,” BBC News reports. This may imply coordination of information transfer from disparate areas of the brain, for conscious thought.

That conscious thought coming into experience as the consciously deliberated information. So it’s like asking, “Of this arena of passively processed information and experienced on the periphery of my awareness, what is taking up my conscious thought?”

And then thinking some more, asking, “What structures in the brain correspond to the conscious thought?” These are called, usually and academically non-descriptively, “Neural Correlates of Consciousness.”

This recent finding is part of a grand, and so far, challenging, series of attempts to map consciousness to the brain. Attempts made but with no definitive conclusion. And it’s not the only one.

There’s 3. This isn’t in a human brain, or a primate brain, which seems like a weakness. It’s in a mammal brain, though, which is closer, evolutionary and historically speaking.

These brain parts may have been “undetected in our own brains for centuries.” So how close to solving consciousness? According to the reports, it depends on the definition of consciousness. It depends on the criteria for scientific processes. It depends on the empirical data sets taken into account.

It depends on the level of taking into account of the well-accepted, well-attested-to, broadly empirically supported standard theories. New theories, frameworks to explain sets of facts–fact 1, fact 2, fact 3, fit into such a hypothesis and the predictions from this are born out.

“At a recent meeting of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies initiative in Maryland, a team from the Allen Institute for Brain Science described how all three neurons stretch across both hemispheres of the brain, but the largest one wraps around the organ’s circumference like a “crown of thorns’.”

Christof Koch, a respected and renowned researcher, and the president and chief science officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, told Nature’s Sara Reardon that this is a first. Indeed, the extent of the neuron is vast relative to the brain. And to boot, all 3 Super Size Me neurons come from that same area, “emanate” from that same locale.

It’s apparently called the claustrum and appears to be, based on modern evidence, the single greatest interconnected brain portion.

Plus, its connections, the claustrum’s emanations, link to “higher cognitive functions such as language, long-term planning, and advanced sensory tasks such as seeing and hearing.” So brain structures devoted to this.

In 2014, Koch wrote for Scientific American, “Advanced brain-imaging techniques that look at the white matter fibres coursing to and from the claustrum reveal that it is a neural Grand Central Station…[almost] every region of the cortex sends fibres to the claustrum.”

Like an “orchestra” conductor, the claustrum (plus these emanations) conducts consciousness. So that mass of passive information processing permits the possibility for the selection for conscious thought, and the orchestra follows the conductor.

It’s one of the most important connections, one documented by many case studies, individual medical profiles over time, diagnoses, and reportage. One such case includes:

A 54-year-old woman checked into the George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates in Washington, DC, for epilepsy treatment.

This involved gently probing various regions of her brain with electrodes to narrow down the potential source of her epileptic seizures, but when the team started stimulating the woman’s claustrum, they found they could effectively ‘switch’ her consciousness off and on again.

This on-off switch for consciousness, for awareness, the feeling of you being you, and observing you feeling you be you, appears to be a significant discovery for neuroscience. With electrical impulses, the woman would stare blankly into ‘space’ – not sure if they were outside, but presumably the room where the procedure was taking place.

She suddenly zapped back into consciousness – no memory. Two days of experiments reconfirmed the proceedings. So scientists believed this case was not anomalous.

And this has been documented in other cases of sub-populations that are unappreciated or almost completely neglected. It was 171 individuals in the experiment in total, including war veterans. Those 171 combat veterans had correlates, neural correlates of consciousness in a way, of the “duration, but not frequency, of loss of consciousness.”

This is not proof, but continual hints or suggestions as to the central correlate of consciousness, the claustrum, which includes these 3 huge emanations or neurons innervating other areas of the brain.

Does this prove the Koch theory of consciousness? According to the evidence, not necessarily. Rather, what it does appear to give is context and more evidence. Therefore, neuroscience appears to be 3 Super Size Me neurons closer to proving the Koch theory of consciousness.

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2022-04-08

Politics News in Brief March 24th 2017

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/24

Chinese textbooks translated for UK

According to BBC News, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is seeing an increased solidarity in Scotland for the people in the UK after the terror attack on Wednesday. It has been reported that 5 people died.

The 5 died when a car was driven at pedestrians in the UK parliament. The driver leapt from the car, but was stabbed by a police officer. There was an independence referendum at the time of the attack.

The Scottish parliament “suspended” the debate. Sturgeon said, “My thoughts, as I’m sure the thoughts of everybody in Scotland tonight, are with people caught up in this dreadful event…My condolences in particular go to those who’ve lost loved ones.”

Northern Ireland stability responsibility of the UK

The Belfast Telegraph states that Prime Minister Theresa May “ruled out” direct rule of Northern Ireland – according to Enda Kenny. Downing Street ‘insists’ that the political instability of Northern Ireland remains as the responsibility of the UK Government.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny and May mutually agreed that there would not be a need to return to direct rule of Northern Ireland with “this month’s snap assembly election.” One UK spokesperson responded to Kenny.

“Political stability in Northern Ireland is the responsibility of the UK Government…We remain firmly focused on securing the resumption of devolved government and the formation of an Executive within the statutory time-frame of 27 March,” the spokesperson said.

Fathers feel afraid to ask for flexible working hours

BBC News states that “Dads who want to be more involved in the care of their children fear that asking for more flexible hours might damage their careers, the chairwoman of a new probe into the issue says.”

The Conservative MP Maria Miller stated that many employers can question the commitment of the employees when they make these requests. “44% of dads have lied about family-related responsibilities” in reports.

Working dads juggle their responsibilities. “The inquiry comes in the wake of the 2017 Modern Families Index, authored by employment campaign group Working Families, which suggested that while family was the highest priority for fathers, half of those interviewed felt their work-life balance was increasingly a source of stress.”

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2022-04-08

Women’s Empowerment in Qatar

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/23

Often—well, at least sometimes- I reflect on reasons why powerful international state actors, multinational corporations, major global religious denominations, and other super powerful sectors strive for women’s empowerment.

Is it moral, ethical, or some efficiency deal? I don’t know. But women’s empowerment, according to the people that spend a lot of time on this stuff – the experts, is crucial. It’s core to the development of developing societies, and to the maintenance of developed ones.

Qatar recently made an important statement about the need to provide “empowerment of women in all fields and backing all regional and international efforts in that regard.”

The Commission on the Status of Women, the 61^st session, (CSW61) was a recent important event. At the CSW61, Najat Daham Al Abdullah, the director of family affairs at the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour, and Social Affairs, was the reader for the statement on behalf of the Qatari government.

The statement at CSW61 was in the context of the vision in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations at 2030. The empowerment of women is seen as an important thing. Aspects of the SDGs make specific stipulations about gender equality. Others make them more indirectly.

The 5^th and the 8^th goals were the emphasised goals by Al Abdullah at CSW61. Gender equality and inclusive growth were the points of emphasis. There was mention about the Human Development Index (HDI) as an important metric.

It is a measurement to show development of the country relative to others, and, in fact, the nation of Qatar is doing really well in it. It is “to emphasise that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone.”

Qatar, by the HDI, describes the situation for the country as among the top 20% of the world:

Qatar’s HDI value for 2015 is 0.856— which put the country in the very high human development category— positioning it at 33 out of 188 countries and territories. The rank is shared with Cyprus and Malta

That’s excellent, and a healthy sign of development on economic and other factors provided by the HDI. Al Abdullah noted that the growth is intended to be equitable between sexes. Akin to other statements about international equality by 2030, Qatar has one.

It is the Qatar National Vision 2030: developmental vision for social, economic, human, and environmental areas of Qatari society. The website states:

During the reign of His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Father Emir, May God Protect Him, Qatar National Vision 2030 has been launched to serve as a clear road map for Qatar’s future. It aims to propel Qatar forward by balancing the accomplishments that achieve economic growth with the human and natural resources. This vision constitutes a beacon that guides economic, social, human and environmental development of the country in the coming decades, so that it is inclusive and helpful for the citizens and residents of Qatar in various aspects of their lives.

The emphasis is the empowerment of women as well as the protection of women socially. This is all fabulous for the equality of women and men. Al Abdullah, on behalf of Qatar, re-affirmed the in the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

“Qatari women worked as ministers, ambassadors, and directors of public and private institutions. Qatari women also became the region’s first judges and prosecutors, Al Abdullah added.”

Other stipulations, affirmations, or open statements of obligations and positive rhetoric, from the Qatari statement described the ensuring of women’s right to lead balanced family and work lives and to take on earned work as they see fit – whether “diplomacy, medicine, academia and police.”

There was also discussion on issues outside of Qatar. To give assistance to the areas of the world where there are high levels of poverty and violence amongst women was considered. There was emphasis on the difficulties for Palestinian women in the occupied territories, especially in the Gaza Strip.

Where the statement “called on intensifying efforts in order to improve the situation of women in Palestine and support all her human rights, starting with the right to establish and independent Palestine states in line with international resolutions.”

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2022-04-08

Atheistic Humanism and Media Stereotypes

Author(s): Phoebe Davies-Owen and Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/21

Humanism encompasses a range of beliefs including the theistic, such as Humanistic Judaism or Unitarian Universalism, and the non-theistic, such as atheism, agnosticism, even deism or apatheism. More than a specific set of precepts, humanism is a lifestyle incorporating a worldview. It is an ethical and philosophical stance for guidance in one’s life, relations with others, and perception and conception of the nature of the world.

Unfortunately, this seems less understood by the wider public, but it is not their fault, necessarily. There are simply fewer Humanists, so fewer spokespeople and representatives; and less impetus socially and culturally, even politically, to openly advocate and promote it in the public arena to a wide audience.

Indeed, the mass media, news, and the public relations industry have enormous sway over the general public’s mind and perception of social issues and others’ views on the world. This extends, unfortunately, to the point of stereotyping others, e.g. atheistic humanists. Strict nonbelievers in God, gods, or the supernatural are given a negative portrayal in the popular media.

Sometimes, non-believers can have virtues such as intelligence. At other times, they can be demonised, quite literally. More often than not, the Humanist sub-population who are atheists are not represented in the media at all. So even if, or (rarely) when, an Atheist is represented in the media, they might have a virtue, but come with numerous obvious vices.

What kinds of tired tropes are there? Common, tiresome tropes assigned to atheist characters are anti-sociality, cynicism, depression, drug addiction, and narcissism. These can be seen in some characters that you may be familiar with: Brian Griffin from ‘Family Guy,’ Sheldon Cooper from ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and Dr. Gregory House in ‘House.’

Brian Griffin is demonised by society for being an atheist, and is critical of religion without much thought or care for the beliefs of those he lives with. Sheldon Cooper, while possessing genius intelligence, is reliant on the faith in science and has complete disregard towards religion, stemming from his growing up in a deeply religious environment. Cooper is surrounded by friends who do believe he is often insulting and self-righteous. Also, he is initially antisocial and doesn’t conform to social norms. Dr. Gregory House is, again, written and presented as a deeply intelligent but egotistical misanthrope unable and unwilling to effectively engage with the world socially, or emotionally.

House, Sheldon — but not Brian Griffin — are the leading characters of their shows, and as a result they carry it through season after season. The problem when these lead characters portrayed as Atheists/Humanists are narcissists, cynics, anti-socials is that they create stereotypes. The problem with stereotypes is that they create an image of a certain person — Atheists are conceited, highly intelligent and unfriendly — and soon we begin to view all Atheists/Has the same. This, of course, isn’t true!

There may be people who fit that description outside of the TV screen, but otherwise Atheists and Humanists are a diverse group of people, encompassing people from different countries and backgrounds. While the characters we see on the TV representing the Atheist/Humanist community are interesting and amusing to watch, they don’t represent the wider community and as a result Atheists/Humanists are very dramatic caricatures. Most of us who are Atheists/Humanists don’t even think about it; we just go about our lives without the belief in a supernatural creator and don’t tend to make a fuss about it. We should be fighting for real representation of the community, normal everyday working families who raise their children as sceptics and who are well behaved and charitable just because you can be, without any other motivation.

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2022-04-08

An Interview with James Avery Fuchs – Program Director at Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/21

James, you are the program director for the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix (HSGP). When was the moment of ethical, political awakening for becoming a Humanist?

I’ve always believed in the importance of doing the right thing, even if it’s not the easiest thing, and I’ve been an atheist since about the beginning of my teenage years. However, I didn’t have community as an atheist, and struggled with maintaining a sense of greater purpose and dealing with the eventuality of death, so during a few rough patches in my childhood and young adulthood, I delved back into religion as an escape from the realities of life. Those explorations lasted a year at most, though, as the more familiar I became with various religious texts, the less comfortable I was with accepting the tenets, especially since any faith in a god or gods I had was tenuous at best.

It wasn’t until the last few years that I learned of humanism, and the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix, but as I delved further into both the organisation and the tenets of the American Humanist Association (AHA) and the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) (HSGP is an official chapter of these organisations, among others), I felt like I had finally found a community and philosophy that spoke to me.

What is humanism to you? How does this inform professional work?

To me, humanism in its most simple form is defined as “Atheists and agnostics dedicated to doing good.” Humanism is a secular application of the drive to make a positive difference in people’s lives and the world as a whole, and that drive and passion for positive change and action is at the heart of nearly all my choices, professional and otherwise.

As a trans educator, I am seeking to create a better, safer world for others. When I give workshops and speeches on consent, boundaries, and toxic relationships, I have the same goal.

With my podcast, “A Queer Was Here,” I seek that same positive future through providing approachable education on various LGBT+ topics. As a spoken word poet and author, my drive for positive change is the same. As Program Director of HSGP, I also seek to improve the world. And as a human being, I seek to be as ethical and moral as I can be, guided by my sense of right and wrong and my openness to changing my perception of situations and topics with the introduction of new knowledge or perspectives.

I try to live my life as a whole with the same singular goal and purpose that humanism highlights in its tenets.

What tasks and responsibilities come with being the program director for the HSGP?

My main responsibility is booking and introducing the Sunday speakers we have twice a month (except for December, which only has one), but I also vote on board decisions and try to help out wherever I can with other events and tasks.

As well, you are in a unique position as not only an author, but a public speaker and spoken word poet. Some of the topics relate to being trans. How do you engage audiences, whether through books, speaking in public, or poetry, on trans topics?

Most of the speeches I give on trans topics are educational ones, and many of them are directed at non-trans audiences. As the public has become more aware of trans folks, they’ve been looking for sources willing to educate, so speeches that I book on trans topics generally have fairly large audiences. I’ve found being approachable and calm makes people a lot more willing to listen and change their minds on trans topics, though I of course understand that education is not the responsibility of trans individuals. However, it’s something I enjoy being able to offer.

When it comes to poetry, I find that it helps to emphasise the emotions various situations evoke rather than the situations themselves, like I do in the poem “The Sound of Home,” in which I write about how it felt to discover the word “transgender,” or address broader situations using trans topics as examples, as I do in my poem “Stage Fright,” in which I talk about coming out on stage and learning to associate fear with success.

Also, what are common misconceptions, or common questions from audiences about being trans?

A lot of people unfamiliar with trans identities will conflate them with sexual orientation, thinking an individual assigned female at birth who is interested in men, for instance, will then become interested in women instead after transitioning, which is not usually the case.

Also, many people don’t understand what transitioning means. It’s not just some one arbitrary surgery. Trans individuals undergo a variety of surgical and hormonal and legal changes in their transition, and some only choose to take hormones, or have one of the many possible surgeries, or do none of the above, with reasons as varied as the individuals themselves. These procedures are often life-saving when individuals do elect to have them, however. The trans population has a suicide attempt rate of nearly nine times that of the general populace.

People also often confuse gender expression with gender identity, when in many cases, they do not interrelate at all. Gender identity is a person’s internal sense of where they fall in or out of the gender spectrum. Gender expression refers to how your outward behaviours and appearance fit within societal gender norms, whether they match with your gender or sex or not. Just like there are cis women who are mechanics (a mostly male-dominated career in the US) or who prefer pants over skirts, or cis men who are stay-at-home dads (a mostly female-dominated position in the US) or wear make-up, there are also trans women and trans men who fit these categories, and those things do not invalidate their identities.

You write, a lot (available on Lulu and Amazon). You’ve written about seven books since January, 2014. Aside from life as a trans individual and humanism, what are other common themes of the texts?

Some common themes include love and heartbreak, mental health, politics, science as metaphor, and introspection, as well as grief and friendship.

Also, how do you keep up the writing pace?

Dedication, a prompts list I constantly add to, and a consistently engaged mind. I also just really love writing, and no longer allow the abstract concept of “writer’s block” to stop my attempts to piece words together effectively.

As well, with the spoken word poetry and writing to have various platforms to express yourself, and the HSGP community of humanists, whether religious or irreligious, what is the importance of community in pursuit of artistic interests?

I think community is always incredibly important. I went through a lot of trauma as a young adult, and one of the biggest things that allowed me to heal and grow and speak was the friendships I developed among the music crowd. Having that sense of community and support, and the push to keep improving, had a tremendous effect on my future.

Does it necessarily have to be an artistic community, or simply an appreciative audience that can include artists?

Some of the people who most affected my drive to keep growing as a poet were not artists of any kind themselves. They were the people who came up to me after a performance and told me how my words had affected them, and urged me to continue. They were the people who bought my books because they wanted to show their support. They were the people who asked if they could share one of my poems in their class or support group, because I said something they hadn’t been able to find the words to. They were the ones who walked up to me after a series of hard-hitting poems and wordlessly offered a hug. When listeners, or viewers, of an art form express the ways the artist’s work affects them, they provide something precious.

Thank you for your time, James.

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2022-04-08

Earth’s Origin: New Discovery Suggests Age of Earth is 4.3 Billion Years

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/21

Scientists believe they have discovered a piece of that very early crust on the Earth’s surface, dating back some 4.3 billion years. Image: New Zealand Herald.

The New Zealand Herald reported on the age of the Earth, and a recent scientific discovery going back a few billion years. With the Earth aged at around 4.54 billion years ago for its origin, this means the finding was very close, geologically speaking, to the origins of the Earth.

When the Solar System was beginning to form, the Earth was definitely not the more human-friendly, comparatively speaking, place that it is experienced today, especially if you can take advantage of the fruits of modern science and technology.

The discovery has placed the age of the Earth at around 4.3 billion-years-old. That’s super old. The discovery is a piece of the early Earth’s crust. Some have reported this at 4.2 billion-years-old – a hundred million years as a margin of difference is fantastical. Modern anatomical humans have, probably, been around between only 200,000 to 100,000 years.

There’s something called the Canadian Shield. Its contents are estimated, the continental crust, to be about 2.7 billion years old. That this is true, many deem remarkable.

There is supposed to be an elusive, probably extrapolated from expert analysis, set of contents in the Canadian Shield that run to the earliest formations of the Earth. A lot of stuff, various rock materials and crust contents, are difficult to date and provide an accurate dissecting for the geological historical record because of things like continental drift.

Continents, move, and churn, and shift, and crash and crush up against one another – and they undergo subduction. Continents slide one underneath another and on top of each other. The stuffing down back into the Earth is where the materials get recycled. So new stuff is made from the recycled parts.

So what then? It essentially would restart the clock, I guess, for any reasonable dating of the materials.

There should not be that many original, unrecycled pieces, understandably. In the “eastern shore of the Hudson Bay in Northwestern Quebec, in Canada,” some professional geologists found this “sliver.”

This sliver is a piece of earliest Earth rock. Jonathan O’Neil, an assistant professor of geology at the University of Ottawa, and others published the findings in the prestigious and well-regarded journal, Science.

“I think that it’s a piece of the original crust. It was cooked, but I think it’s still very close to what it used to be,” O’Neil said. And it’s a substantial uptick in the reports of the recorded dates in prior pieces of rock. The earliest have been only 2.7 billion-years-old. Not much, comparatively.

As the old core of North America, the continent, the rock was discovered in a huge patch of granite. The sliver is apparently basalt, or volcanic rock. It can be found, at some point or other, beneath the oceans.

Using new dating methods, the date of the rock, likely, came as a surprise. It is expected to provide insight to the early Earth’s geodynamics. O’Neil said, “If we understand early processes that shape our planet, we can maybe understand other planets: Why are they different? Or are they similar and where in their life they drift apart in terms of geology?”

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2022-04-08

Education News in Brief March 21st 2017

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/21

Chinese textbooks translated for UK

According to The Guardian, there has been a “historic” agreement, or “deal,” between HarperCollins and one Shanghai publishing house for the translation of books to be used in schools in the United Kingdom.

Shanghai and Beijing are two of the wealthiest cities in China in addition to producing some of the best math students in the world, which contrasts with British students, in general, who rank far behind their Asian cohort.

The agreement was signed with the education division of HarperCollins. The deal is for a series of maths textbooks. Managing director of Collins Learning, Colin Hughes, was quoted as saying, “To my knowledge this has never happened in history before – that textbooks created for students in China will be translated exactly as they have been developed, and sold for use in British schools.”

UK Education Expo for Omanis

Muscat Daily reports that “Ahlam Higher Education’s latest edition of the UK Education Expo officially began at the Grand Millenium Hotel on Monday. The two-day expo was inaugurated by H E Sayyid Salim bin Musallam al Busaidi, Undersecretary for Administrative Affairs in the Ministry of Civil Service in the presence of Russ Dixon, Deputy Ambassador, British Embassy, Muscat.”

H E Sayyid Busaidi made a particular note to the importance of higher education for Omani students because of the growth and diversification of the Omani economy will require students and parents “informed about a wide variety of programmes available.

The managing director and student adviser of Al Ahlam Higher Education Services, Kate Clarke, described the importance of education for “consistent, inclusive and equitable economic growth.” That is, the growth that typifies the standard sustainable development of a nation.

Sandbach education protests

BBC News states that 100s “of parents have taken part in a protest march against what they claim are “unfair” school funding plans.” There is a new national formula. The formula is an attempt to address the “inconsistent” funding.

There was a protest or march at Sandbach School over this funding issue. Laura Smith, the organiser, described the march as an opportunity for the parents of Cheshire to express the anger for their children being left worse off.

For Cheshire east, the national funding formula would reduce the amount of the funding per student by “£4,200, which is among the lowest in the country.” That contrasts with the Westminster schools that will receive about £6,000 per student.

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2022-04-08

Feminism and “Constructive Impatience”: The Mood for Change, for a Change

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/20

International Women’s Day is done and gone for the year. But Women’s History Month marches forward into its twilight days until the 2018 version comes around, one of further change, but the issues, concerns, and obligations arise year-round. Also, here’s a bad segue:

‘What a Wonderful World’ was a great song by Louis Armstrong – 26,000,000+ views, wow. Anyway, this song – lyrics and tune – were running through my mind when I came across a phrase recently by the executive director of United Nations Women (UN Women). I thought, “What a wonderful saying.”

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is the UN Women under-secretary-general and the executive director of UN Women. She made a statement at the 61^st Commission on the Status of Women (CSW61). I loved it. Mlambo-Ngcuka called this “constructive impatience.” I’ll explain in a bit. But I loved it because I hadn’t thought about that before. Maybe not “thought about that before,” but ‘thought about in that way before.’

It was about a week ago on March 13. Mlambo-Ngcuka spoke in front of group of distinguished internationals. She noted that the Commission included a series of reviews on the progress made for women and girls.

These are ‘barometers’ “of the change – of the progress – we are making on achieving a world that is free of gender discrimination and inequality,” she said,”…a world that leaves no-one behind. It will help us measure achievement of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”

2030, as far as I know it, is the date set for the 50-50 world agenda set by the United Nations (UN). It seems ambitious, and doable, but, gosh, that’s a lot of work. Just take the World Economic Forum (WEF), with its Gender Gap Report, these are annual reports on the equality of women.

I suggest even a skim of them. It is rather remarkable. It’s not a total equality metric, though. Why’s that? Because if women surpass men by more than 50% in a given domain, this is taken as equality, even if the domain is dominated by women at 95%, say.

But given the massively tipped scales against women on numerous metrics, then the analysis from the WEF in the Gender Gap Reports can provide comprehensive, relatively fair, representation of the situation for women, and by implication men.

And by the WEF estimation, the gender gap will not close until 2186. Not much for to do then, so two options: pick up the pace, or make this a legacy project (or both). I like the third tacit option. We need to hand the torch at some point, but can do much, much better than now.

According to the Secretary-General report on the CSW61 session, the “priority theme” was “Women’s Economic Empowerment in the Changing World of Work”. That means economies inclusive of women in ways that can break the cycles of poverty. Women appear to be a linchpin in the inclusive, and I would add sustainable, economies.

In the statement, she continued, “Currently, in the gender equality agenda, we see progress in some areas, but we also see an erosion of gains. The much-needed positive developments are not happening fast enough. We also need to work together to make sure we reach a tipping point in the numbers of lives changed.” How many, and how quickly? That’s her emphasis.

I am paying attention, and in a Canadian context – work with what you know, and try to set an example here-ish and now-ish to give legitimate grounds for changing the world the better outside of my maple syrup wonderland.

Mlambo-Ngcuka talked about the Sustainable Development Goals for a wider vision and renewal of that image for those, especially at the bottom of the global strata. And as you know from a second’s reflection are mostly women and girls.

Young women affected by violence around gender, even sexual harassment in the workplace. And with the recent “Global Gag Rule,” we can be sure the restriction of what Human Rights Watch calls “first and foremost a human right.” So there are examples of the restricted equitable access, which isn’t equitable at all, to abortion and reproductive health services.

“Intersection” is an overused term, almost stripped of meaning and left bereft of substance. But it seems popular, so why change? I’ll use it for sake of ease. The intersection of the sexual harassment, workplace discrimination, varying degrees of inequality seen in the provision of abortion and reproductive health services, and the extrapolation of 2186 as the year for equality by the WEF Gender Gap Report lead to the consistent, if not conclusions then, themes.

She spoke to the additional, specified concerns of other minorities within minorities based on “sexual orientation, disability, older age, race, or being part of an indigenous community.”

These various intersections, even intersections of these intersections – see, fancy and academic – as statistical tendencies might be grounds for more often real rather than perceived mild to major discrimination in these arenas of professional and public life.

Now, what was the phrase in context? Here:

We need swift and decisive action that can be brought about by the world of work so that we do not leave women even further behind.

Excellencies, let us agree to constructive impatience.

The Sustainable Development Goals give us a framework to work for far-reaching changes. In this session of the Commission we will be able to bring renewed focus to the needs of those who are currently being left behind and those who are currently furthest behind. [Emphasis added.]

The Commission was organised around the needs of women. CSW61 was a high-level international event through the UN with specific emphasis on UN Women. Mlambo-Ngcuka said, “Constructive impatience,” because of the continual denial of human rights to women.

Of course, these rights are newer than, say, the divine right of kings. But how long is reasonable to wait? Millions of women’s lives are adversely affected, so girls and children and families, each day. Change needs to happen. And outside moral, and health and wellbeing, arguments, we can reflect on the economic benefits, which Mlambo-Ngcuka covered in her statement.

Much of the information I’ve learned, or reviewed, in the process of researching and writing this article come from the comprehensive statements by her.

“Investment into the care economy of 2 per cent of GDP in just seven countries could create over 21 million jobs. That would provide child care, elderly care and many other needed services.” Mlambo-Ngcuka said.

Women are left behind economically. When women are deprived of the equal access to the jobs market, or the training for the jobs market, and I mean this emphatically, societies lose. Maybe, that’s another tacit takeaway, or even explicit, from the extensive statement by Mlambo-Ngcuka.

A modern problem without a single solution, which needs a multipronged approach. The relatively developed and the undeveloped, and outright failed, states in the early to middle 21^st century might be the ones, most else considered, that provide the implementation of women’s rights through advocacy followed by empowerment. It feels good.

It sounds easy, but, quite frankly, it will very much be a difficult road ahead of us. How do we move ahead and change the situation? How do we forge a new path into a world worth preserving? Identifying the problems – somewhat done, and staking out evolving ideals seems reasonable – more or less accomplished. Solutions, anyone?

I see predictive statements tied to a bunch of “ought to” or “should.” ‘Such, and such, a series of measurements in national performances correlate positively with the health of a nation and the empowerment of women’ – but then I think about it. What does this actually mean? And I kind of know.

These measurements are the basis for confidence in furtherance of women’s rights through these means without specification on the exact means in each case – cultures differ, histories differ, economies differ, and educational and literacy levels differ.

So within the statements by Mlambo-Ngcuka, I feel as though this means the specific solutions within ‘such, and such’ a set of boundaries will improve the economic performance of nations, which happen to, at the same time, improve the implementation of women’s rights. It’s moral if you want moral reasons. It’s economic if you want economic reasons.

But the trend lines are clear.

“More than half of all women workers around the world—and up to 90 per cent in some countries—are informally employed. We cannot ignore them. This sector is just too big to fail.” Mlambo-Ngcuka said, “…Lessons from countries already making change are important to share.

For this Commission, 35 countries have provided input on the review theme of how lessons from the Millennium Development Goals are being reflected in national processes and policies.”

That’s an incredible wealth of information and is sincere reason for hope for finding specific general solutions to pervasive problems surrounding women’s rights within the international community.

“At the same time, over the last two years, a resounding global gender equality compact has been accumulated, through the Beijing+20 Review, Agenda 2030 itself, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the New Urban Agenda and the New York Declaration on Migrants and Refugees.”

It’s not only an outstanding reason for hope; it’s an outstanding achievement in motion towards equality by the stated 2030 goal, if not the comprehensive by 2186. And the right attitude can always be good start. So how? Well: “constructive impatience.”

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2022-04-08

A Call For the Reclamation of Music

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/19

Steve Martin produced one of the first hymns for the atheist crowd in, well, probably ever, which he termed the “the entire atheist hymnal”. And its actually very good, not only because he’s a talented musician and an extremely gifted comedian — among the best ever by a reasonable IMDb peer review measurement -, but because a) there’s nothing to compare it to so the hymn remains both the best in music and the worst of its kind by definition internally and b) I have sung in a university choir and find the song ‘pleasing to the ear’.

Martin sings the hymn with a quartet of male singers in the performance, which has, likely, become the first staple of the atheist hymnal genre — hopefully more to come — and goes against the expected stereotype from two angles. Angle one, those looking at the rather thin, tawdry, and rather small set of texts — simply Hume and Voltaire for starters — devoted to atheism as compared to those — such as Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas — oozing with praise to the Heavens, and God the Almighty Father, and with tacit, nay explicit, statement of how “so absolutely huge” or simply big is the Theity reflect the musical world. Religion, or worship and communal rituals, dominates the historical, and so the present, landscape.

Take, for example, Herz Und Mund Und Tat Und Leben, or “Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life,” a beautiful piece of work by Johann Sebastian Bach and one of the more memorable pieces of music in the older Western canon, which brings mist to my eyes, sometimes. Or one closer to home, by Bach once more, played with a dead, reasonably famous, Canadian pianist named Glenn Gould and accompanied by another artist, a singer, named Russell Oberlin, it was entitled Bach Cantata 54. It is another moving piece with a sentiment for the transcendent; something outside and other, even infinitely mysterious — lovely piece. So angle one is the communal and social, and well-established, music is seen as religious. Many people coming to think of the ways in which the religious music is in congregations as, in some way, akin to these pieces of music.

Angle two, the music typically associated with irreligious individuals does not tend to associate with the communal or the social, but, rather, with the a-social, antisocial, or the deviant. There seems to me a negative valuation of some music, which then becomes associated with irreligiosity, even Satanism, including the rock n’ roll and head bangin’ band movements. Those two angles, of many, seem to influence the perception, and so the motivation, for the development of an irreligious genre of music, even hymns — until now.

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2022-04-08

Religion News in Brief March 19th 2017

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/19

Religion and work a ‘hot topic’

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the relationship between religion and work continues to be a complex one. It’s a ‘hot topic’ – so to speak – now. There are notes to the Jewish community centres being vandalised.

Such vandal is worryingly accompanied by bomb threats. This is in a time of restricted immigration by President Trump as well. It does not go unnoticed by attorneys and others.

Jonathan A. Segal, an attorney with Duane Morris in Philadelphia and New York City, said, “What happens out there [in public] … can affect our workplaces…This is a hot topic and getting hotter every day.”

LGBT talk about religion

The Maroon states that, “Sex, politics and religion are three topics people are never supposed to discuss in polite company, but for some members of the Loyola community, they’re a major part of life.” Does this need to be the case?

A biology sophomore in the LGBT community within Loyola University, Kayla Noto, said, “When I was younger, trying to fit into the Catholic community as well as come into my own as a member of the LGBT community was very difficult and ultimately became impossible.”

She described being raised in the Catholic environment and a traditional home as a result. There appeared to be “tension” with the sexual orientation as a member of the LGBT community and the particular brand of religious upbringing.

Jehovah’s Witnesses protesting Russian authorities

Newsweek reports that the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia are protesting being labelled an extremist religion, by the Russian justice ministry, which, apparently, handles these affairs on behalf of the Russian people.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses are protesting the Russian authorities because of the recent move. But from the view of the Russian authorities, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are viewed “with suspicion.”

“In a statement, the Jehovah’s Witnesses press office wrote that the Russian Supreme Court had revealed a suit had been filed on behalf of Moscow’s justice ministry seeking the ‘liquidation and prohibition’ of the faith and its activities.”

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2022-04-08

UN Secretary General Speaks Out on Decline in Women’s Empowerment – Men and Women Must Unite

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/19

United Nations (UN) secretary-general, António Guterres, made an open statement about the decline of global women’s rights. There was a 2-week conference on the fight for gender equality at the UN headquarters in New York City, New York.

In reaction to the recent “global gag rule” from the Trump Administration of the US, women’s rights and empowerment became an important international issue. The global gag rule cut US funding to groups that offered abortion services.

Around the same time, Putin’s Russia, known for its flouting of women’s rights, removed the punishment for domestic violence. These ‘cast a long shadow on the annul gathering of the Commission on the Status of Women’. Guterres considered this a generalised attack on the rights of women—their equality and empowerment.

“Globally, women are suffering new assaults on their safety and dignity,” Guterres said, “Some governments are enacting laws that curtail women’s freedoms. Others are rolling back legal protections against domestic violence.”

Guterres reaffirmed the aphorism that women’s rights remain human rights. In the important speech, he made note of the ongoing difficulties for women around the world, but without specific mention of a particular place.

Some have speculated that the direction of the commentary was towards the Islamic State, according to Conservative Review. Nicole Russell, in the Conservative Review article, said, “Guterres couldn’t be more right in saying women around the world face incredible discrimination, violence, and other atrocities just for their gender.”

While Trump himself, and the administration by decision and political maneuvers—and economic ones too, have openly made their anti-abortion views known, the curtailment of the funding for abortion and reproductive health services will likely have more women, and so girls and children in general, suffering because of the known benefits for women and children that have access to these vital services.

There are nuances to the discrimination. For example, in the other prominent nation case of Russian, the Russian President Vladimir Putin, in signing the Bill, reduces the penalties for the jail term, “if the assault is a first offence and does not cause serious injury,” Daily Nation reports.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the UN Women executive director, said the need to come together around the sexual and reproductive health rights of women was more important than ever. If protections are waning, then they need to be more protected.

By 2030, the UN made the ambitious goal of have gender parity or equality.

Will this happen? I do not know. Is it reasonable? Yes, and no. Just from a mildly informed level, not an internal-to-UN perspective, yes, for the most part, it seems as if doable.

At another level, no, because too many nations violate them, some states with power to change the international situation for women act irresponsibly based on ignorant, non-scientific positions. I don’t despair here, but there will be hardships.

And make no mistake, many women who would otherwise not die in childbirth or in getting an unsafe abortion, where previously a safe one was available, will either be seriously injured or even die based on the “global gag rule.” It is an ominous rule title to me.

But these are the main, current concerns for women – the domestic abuse Bill and the global gag rule. The ILO, the International Labour Organisation, said, at the current pace, it will take about 70 years to close the gender wage gap.

So there’s the perennial issues of work – “perennial” relative to the Millennial generation – and economic empowerment. Mlambo-Ngcuka, relatively accurately with a hint of hyperbole, describes this as “daylight robbery,” or a loss of security and income into the future.

Guterres continued that men need to become involved in women’s advocacy, empowerment, and rights. I agree with him.

As a man, and (obviously) so not a woman, and taking part in advanced industrial society and its fruits, I am given a life, likely in the top 1/10^th of 1% in the world. Some questions arise. Do privileges emerge? I think so. Do responsibilities arise? Possibly. That raises more questions. Do responsibilities, or obligations, that are necessarily attached to it come about in a free society? Yes, and no; yes, the responsibilities or obligation necessarily attach to them; no, individual citizens should not, or can not, be coerced or forced into enacting them in a free society, because it’s a free society. That means the freedom to do wrong by doing nothing; that also means the freedom to do right by doing something, and even sometimes nothing.

If someone lives a good life – with good health and well being, then responsibilities or obligations exist with it, to some degree, to one’s fellow human beings within reason, one is surely responsible to one’s fellow human beings? Put another way, if a free society provides for an individual—and if an individual in a free society should not or can not be coerced, or forced, to think or act in specific ways, then the living of a good life – with good health and well-being, it implies responsibilities or obligations, to some degree, to one’s fellow human beings within reason without coercion or force to think or act in specific ways. So the obligations are there, but the freedom to act rightly or wrongly is there too. These are perilous times for women’s advocacy, empowerment, and rights. And men have a role, as per Guterres; that is, necessary obligations, but still have the freedom to choose wrong over right, as some leaders and administrations have apparently done.

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2022-04-08

US Regressing on Human Rights – CFI

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/18

A United States (US) organisation, based and mainly operating in—though the United Kingdom does have one too run by Dr. Stephen Law entitled CFI-UK—has reported on the recent decline in the human rights status of the US. The organisation is Center for Inquiry (CFI).

CFI is, more or less, a mix of different views, organisations, and themes such as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science.

One of their organisational representatives, Michael de Dora, who is the central representation to the United Nations (UN) of CFI and president of the United Nations NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief, described the current situation for human rights in the US to the UN.

As CFI is devoted to the advancement of “reason, science, and secular humanism,” the work at the UN is important for the US and its constituency within it.

The work is important for the scientific and technological flagship status that America earned through smart immigration policy, post-secondary and professional training, and the prioritisation of big projects and initiatives to create a culture steeped in science.

At the UN Human Rights Council within Geneva, de Dora noted the declining human rights defender status of the US because of its rather regressive policies surrounding human rights for its citizens, and for its influence on human rights abroad.

In the speech, de Dora made mention of the Trump Administration’s “appeals to xenophobia, its hostility to a free press, and the rescinding of protections for transgender individuals.” CFI is devoted to human rights and dignity for everyone “at home and abroad.”

“We have been disturbed by the recent rise in baseless, xenophobic rhetoric and actions by political leaders, and heightened social hostilities, in many states…” he said, “…there has also been a wave of proposals to criminalise protests, and an increase in threats and attacks — some deadly — on religious minorities.”

He urged the government to serve as a force for good, to choose to do so too. With special consultative status to the UN, de Dora is able to advocate for humanist values in addition to freedom of expression around the world.

This includes one prominent case, who you may have heard about, in the dissident Raif Badawi, who is a Saudi and is currently imprisoned and has been for some time. He is a focal point in a larger fight to protect the freedom of thought and speech of bloggers – for example, those Bangladeshi bloggers who have been murdered by Islamists.

In the full statement by de Dora, he noted that worldwide human rights crises require immediate solutions. However, the expediting of these actions can be dampened because of the regressive acts and decisions of powerful international state actors.

“We also urge states to engage with the U.S. to ensure the protection of human rights there, and around the world,” de Dora said.

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2022-04-08

An Interview with Rob Boston – Communications Director, Americans United

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/17

How did you become involved in the separation of church and state, personally?

I would say there are two reasons why I got so interested in separation of church and state. One is that as a child, I attend a Catholic school for eight years. We were required to pray three times a day. This was a private school, so they had the right to do that, but I found it off-putting. The prayers took on the air of a by-rote ritual, the sort of thing you did just to get through it. These mandated prayers certainly didn’t feel very spiritual. In ninth grade, I switched to a public school. Of course, there were no mandated prayers there, and I much preferred that situation. I became a very big opponent of coercive, mandated forms of religion and concluded that faith has to be voluntary, or it doesn’t mean anything. This led me to support the separation of church and state.

The second reason is my reading of history. I’ve always enjoyed the study of history, and my reading in this area has made it abundantly clear to me that combinations of religion and government simply do not work. They are bad for both church and state. You end up with one of two things: a nightmarish theocracy, such as we saw with Christianity in the Middle Ages and still see today in some hard-line Muslim nations, or a devitalised state church, which we see in some European countries.

You are the director of communications of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. What tasks and responsibilities come with being the director of communications?

Americans United publishes a monthly magazine of news and analysis of church-state issues called Church & State, which I edit. I write for that magazine and other publications as well. I’m also responsible for AU’s outreach to the media. AU’s Executive Director, Barry W. Lynn, is often quoted in the media and has done a lot of cable news programs, which we coordinate. We try to get the word out to the average American through the media – both traditional and new media – as much as possible. Our website, www.au.org, “Wall of Separation” blog and various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are vitally important outreach tools. We try to reach people in many different ways. Some people really enjoy social media, so we are active there. But I also believe that traditional forms of communication are still important, so I give about eight to ten public speeches per year.

In general, what are the perennial threats to church and state separation in the United States? There are too many to cover in the interview here, but there are more resources on the website.

There are certain issues that just keep popping up. The role of religion in public education is huge; that is a perennial issue in this country, and it includes things like prayer in schools, teaching about religion objectively, creationism, etc. The question of taxpayer support for religion is also big. Here we deal with things like school vouchers and “faith-based” initiatives (AU’s view, of course, is that all religious enterprises should be funded with private dollars, never tax money). A third issue deals with religion’s role in the public square. By this I mean the battles over Ten Commandments displays at courthouses and disputes over nativity scenes on government property in December. AU has been involved in many of those cases, arguing that sectarian symbols are fine for houses of worship, but they don’t belong on government property since the state has an obligation to represent us all.

I would single out two more issues: One is the proper role of religion in politics. Religious groups have the right to speak out on issues, but under U.S. law they are prohibited from intervening in elections by endorsing or opposing candidates. It has been a challenge to get some houses of worship to respect that law. The final issue is the meaning of religious freedom. At Americans United, we believe religious freedom gives you the right to worship, or not, as you see fit. But it gives you no right to harm others or take away their rights. Lately, we’ve been hearing arguments that owners of businesses or even government employees, such as county clerks, should not have to serve certain people (mainly members of the LGBTQ community) if those people somehow “offend” the religious beliefs of the business owner or the government employee. AU believes this is a perversion of the concept of religious freedom, and we have an entire project, Protect Thy Neighbor, that works to counter it.

How does Americans United for Separation of Church and State work to keep these boundaries fixed rather than fluid?

We do this in several ways. Members of our Legal Department work in and out of court to protect separation of church and state. Over the years, we’ve won several notable courtroom victories. Our Legislative Department works to stop dangerous bills in Congress and in state legislatures. It is always better to block a bad bill if you can rather than have to fight it in court. AU’s Field Department organises people locally and gives them the tools they need to stand up for separation in their towns and states. This is important because lawmakers would rather hear from constituents than a group based in Washington, D.C. We also educate people. We give them information about what church-state separation means and why it is important. This is crucial because Religious Right groups have launched an aggressive campaign to turn the American people away from church-state separation. We must counter that.

What are some of the more egregious cases of violation of church and state separation in American history?

Many public schools sponsored daily prayer and Bible reading until the Supreme Court put a stop to it in 1962 and ’63. Non-Christian students and even some who were Christian but disagreed with the content of the prayers were forced to take part. This was a grotesque violation of the fundamental right of conscience. In a related issue, we had to struggle in this country to win the right to teach evolution in public schools. Some states had laws banning it, and we fought to overturn those. Even today, bills that would promote the teaching of creationism or water-down instruction about evolution surface in state legislatures every year.

There are other examples: Powerful religious groups for many years made the sale of birth control illegal (even for married couples), and religiously based censorship of books, magazines, movies and art exhibits was once common. And of course we know how right-wing religious groups suppressed the rights of the LGBTQ community. We had to fight in the courts and through the culture to change these things, and today there are still forces working to drag us back to the 1950s.

Who are the unexpected allies in the maintenance of secular values in American culture?

The support of the religious community has been absolutely essential. Most U.S. religious leaders understand the need for secular government; they appreciate it, and they help us protect it. Americans United was founded in 1947 largely by religious leaders, so we know how important their voice is. Today, religious and non-religious people work together through Americans United to ensure that freedom for all remains the law of the land. That coalition must be kept intact to keep the church-state wall high and firm.

Is there ever a valid, even sound, justification for temporary freezing of the standard separation of church and state?

I can’t think of any. In fact, when this happens, it usually results in something negative. For example, political leaders may invoke “God and country” rhetoric to pursue certain policy goals that may not be in the best interests of the people. Generally speaking, when I hear political leaders spouting off constantly about religion, I get suspicious. What are they trying to get us to do? I speak here not of sincerely devout leaders but of those cynical people who seek to use appeals to faith as a tool to control others. Remember, sincerely religious people don’t have to wear their faith on their sleeves or wave it around like a flag in a parade – only hypocrites do that.

With the current Trump Administration, does Americans United for Separation of Church and State see new threats to the separation of church and state?

To be blunt, the Trump administration has been a disaster for the separation of church and state. During the campaign, Trump courted right-wing evangelicals, and they turned out for him in record numbers. Now he’s paying them back. Trump has vowed to repeal the federal law that bars non-profit groups, including houses of worship, from intervening in elections by endorsing or opposing candidates for public office. He wants to spend $20 billion in taxpayer dollars on a reckless school voucher plan. He believes fundamentalist Christian business owners should have the right to deny services to members of the LGBTQ community. He seems to have a limited understanding of science. No doubt, we’re going to have our hands full for the next four years.

What are the more frequent, daily/weekly/monthly issues dealt with by Americans United for Separation of Church and State?

I’ve mentioned religion in public schools a few times already. That issue really is a constant. Our attorneys strive to resolve matters outside of court, and they receive a steady stream of complaints about violations in this area. It has been more than 50 years since the Supreme Court handed down the school prayer rulings, yet we continue to see these problems. I think most people who work in public education understand that pushing religion isn’t their job, but it only takes a few bad actors to create problems.

What have been the largest activist and educational initiatives provided by Americans United for Separation of Church and State? Out of these, what have been honest failures and successes?

I think we’ve done a great job educating people about the historical and legal foundations of church-state separation in America. Some people may not like what our history says, but the information is out there for anyone who wants to objectively examine it. We’ve effectively countered and debunked Religious Right lies about church-state separation.

We’ve also done a very good job, both in and out of court, of defending the religious neutrality of the public education system. I’m very proud of the role AU played in a 2005 lawsuit that removed intelligent design creationism from public schools in Dover, Pa. That decision served as a warning to other schools and has helped put the brakes on similar proposals to teach the Bible as science in our public schools. Our efforts to educate people about the law prohibiting houses of worship from endorsing or opposing candidates have been in-depth and persuasive. Polls show that a large majority of Americans agree with us on that issue. We’ve also done important work highlighting the dangers of “faith-based” initiatives and government funding for religion generally. I’m also proud of our work defending the rights of the LGBTQ and non-theistic communities, which has really escalated in recent years.

One area where we’ve lost ground is tax funding for sectarian schools, specifically through voucher plans. We put up a good fight, but the Supreme Court upheld Ohio’s voucher plan in 2002. Since then, we’ve not been able to fight voucher programs in federal courts. We’ve had some success fending them off in state courts, but the loss at the federal level was a blow. I should note that we lost ground over that issue mainly due to politics. During the terms of Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush, some very conservative judges were put on the Supreme Court. They simply did not support church-state separation. You see the result. I always remind people that there is a strong connection between the candidates they support for president and Senate and the type of justices we end up with on the Supreme Court.

How can people get involved with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, even donate to it?

The best thing to do is go to our website, www.au.org. There, people can learn about the work we do, join and donate. At the site, you can also find out if there is a local AU chapter in your area. If local activism is your thing, you’ll want to get plugged into a chapter. And remember, if you join Americans United, you’ll start receiving Church & State magazine. Our members find that to be an interesting and informative resource.

Thank you for your time, Rob.

My pleasure.

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2022-04-08

Politics News in Brief March 16th 2017

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/16

Big data transforms politics

According to Vox, through an analysis and summary of a column by NBC’s Chuck Todd and Carrie Dann, it was found that big data plays a massive force for the transformation of politics in the United States, and likely elsewhere.

“Politics “broke” because the system is paralysed by polarisation, and it’s paralysed by polarisation because technology and demographic data have made it easier (and less risky) for campaigns to target their base instead of appealing to a broad swath of voters.”

The information about and on voters provided by the digital revolution has given political folks the ability to have precise information about their constituencies, about the general public. With big data, huge computation, and largesse in finance and information, politics has been changed. Voters can be mobilised like never before.

How BJP secured pole position: To remain central pillar of Indian politics, it must ensure opponents don’t gang up

The Times of India reports that the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, based on the electoral results from throughout 5 states, “have secured pole position in Indian politics.” It is an echo of the huge win from 2014 before.

Between 1999 and 2004, the Times of India noted that the leadership of PM Vajpayee felt as if a post-Congress era. There was a long 25-year period of coalition governments, but “very few thought a Congress revival likely.”

For 10 years, Congress revived and ran the country. According to the article author, Congress seems unable to accomplish the task, to do it again – or revive and run India for 10 years. That is, it is “apolitical, out of touch and wrong instincts at its highest levels.”

UK fate sealed

The Guardian reports that, “Nicola Sturgeon has accused Theresa May of sealing the fate of the United Kingdom after the prime minister rejected her demand for a second Scottish independence referendum before the Brexit talks conclude.”

It was noted by the first minister that the stance taken by May is both unacceptable and outrageous. This was made after the insistence on the immediate present being the time for the referendum by the prime minister. Sturgeon described directly that this amounts to an argument for independence because “Westminster thinks it has got the right to block the democratically elected mandate of the Scottish government and the majority in the Scottish parliament. History may look back on today and see it as the day the fate of the union was sealed.”

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2022-04-08

Sophie Gregoire Trudeau Teams Up With Global Women’s Development

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/16

Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, who is the wife of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is an advocate for both gender equality and women’s empowerment. Jeff Lagerquist, reporting from CTVNews, described how Trudeau will be joining forces with “Women Deliver, Deliver for Good campaign” (Deliver for Good).

Mrs. Trudeau is an advocate for the global education of girls. Through this campaign, there will be an emphasis on climate change, education, human rights, and sexual health. That is, the pressing international concerns at the moment.

The campaign, heralded by many as much needed, is essentially a development campaign for women. It’s multidimensional, comprehensive and international. During the United Nations’ 61^st Commission on the Status of Women, Trudeau was listed as 1 out of 5 of the main “influencers” for the initiative.

Others included “Princess Mary of Denmark; José Alberto “Pepe” Mujica Cordano, the former President of Uruguay, Dr. Alaa Murabit, the UN high-level commissioner on health employment and economic growth, and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women.”

Each appointed influencer will have specified roles with associated responsibilities. Trudeau will look at the ways in which women can increase development and progress for societies. That means globally, too. She will be the fulcrum of the 5 on that discussion.

The means will be speaking engagements and other activities via Trudeau. No extra travel is needed; she will engage in this role while in her regular speaking engagements.

She, in a media release, stated, “Our societies have taken profound steps towards a more gender equal world, but at current rates, gender equality might not be achieved in our lifetimes…We must all work as one, including having men being part of the solution.”

PM Justin Trudeau, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau’s husband and prime minister of Canada, sent a group to New York, including “federal and provincial cabinet ministers, parliamentarians and non-governmental organisations.

At the meeting in New York with the UN Commission, the group presented the Canadian a 650 million CAD 3-year commitment for reproductive and sexual health initiatives around the world

UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, will assist Grégoire Trudeau in the role for the work for Deliver for Good. The UN Under-Secretary General noted the celebration in the shift within Canada – a celebratory remark reflecting a reality within the UN over Canada’s recent work and affirmations.

Those statements from PM Trudeau were highlighted as rare, and obviously welcome, by Mlambo-Ngcuka. Leaders of nations do not speak like this, according to Mlambo-Ngcuka.

There is a growing concern over the conservatism that can, and is, dampening the socially—internationally speaking—progressive steps made for the advancement of women and girls regarding their rights, and so health and wellbeing.

“By denying women and girls their fundamental rights, we are preventing societies from reaching their full potential,” Grégoire Trudeau said.

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2022-04-08

Education News in Brief March 14th 2017

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/15

Myanmar-UK cooperation on education

Myanmar Times reports that “research conducted for Universities UK by Oxford Economics in March 2017, international students studying in the UK generate more than £25 billion for the British economy and provide a significant boost to regional jobs and local businesses.”

The education sector will be travelling in March to Myanmar. The aim is to create a fruitful partnership with institutions and professionals between the two countries with the “#InspireMeFestival Myanmar.”

Project officer at the UK Department for International Trade, Nay Shine, said, “As Myanmar continues to show great promise and open itself up to the world, building capacity in the education sector has become more important than ever.”

Aims to increase productivity and efficiency for UK through technical education

According to The Guardian, there will be a new T-Level system for the ways in which technical education takes place in the UK. The courses are intended to be put on the same grounds as academic work.

Britain is behind the US and Germany. The plans will increase student’s training hours by 50% and decrease 13,000 qualifications to 15. I assume to simplify and expedite the system. According to the UK government, it will cost about £500m per year for the new program.

Philip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said, “There is still a lingering doubt about the parity of esteem attaching to technical education.” There is good regard for academic education, but the document notes more needs to be done with technical education’s esteem.

Educational legacy and Indonesia

The Jakarta Post reports that “British ambassador to Indonesia, ASEAN” named Timor-Leste Moazzam Malik stated that “currently there are approximately 3,500 Indonesian students pursuing university degrees – from bachelor’s to doctoral – in the UK, making the country one of the most sought after higher education destinations among Indonesians.”

Indonesia’s Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) sends students abroad. About 1/3 of the entire set of students sent abroad go to the UK. It is one of Indonesia’s most prestigious scholarship programs.

There is expected to be more students in the coming years. Technology appears to be the greatest attraction, the highest preference, of Indonesian students coming to the UK, which is “followed by natural sciences and social and political sciences.”

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2022-04-08

The Death of Margaret Mitchell

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/15

Margaret Mitchell died. I live in the province of British Columbia (BC) in Canada, which is a mild place. Often known for the young ‘hipster’ crowd, still not sure what the term means, though. Lots of high quality living and typically socially active, conscious, and progressive politics. I believe the newer made-up word, the neologism, is “woke.” BC is woke. Margaret Mitchell was vital to it. She was born in 1925, died, of course, 2017—March 8.

She was a Vancouver member of Parliament and a women’s rights advocate. She died at the age of 92, which is, even by Canadian standards, a long life. And a life of utility to self and others, obviously. She devoted herself to others. She fulfilled potential, which was inherent in her acts for equality. I assume she would identify with the principles of feminism, which amount to social and legal equality between the sexes.

She was a Member of Parliament for the New Democratic Party, or the NDP, for Vancouver East in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada (1979-1993). It’s an important job. It has responsibilities, and privileges, but things took off in 1982. That’s when she garnered the national eye some more. Why?

I’ll tell you why. She made a statement on the regular, deplorable beating of wives by husbands. Therein we find the issue around equality of the sexes, or more or less mainstream feminism. Many distinct women’s movements ongoing to this day. It was received with laughter. She noted it was 1 in 10 women. She was surprised by the reaction. But perhaps not.

What you and I can take for granted can be taken for profound knowledge, or so outside of the relevant frame of knowledge and experience of the other person as to be laughable, which is a reaction of dismissal. It is so absurd as to be funny, from that point of view. Mitchell won out. The House made an apology to her, and especially to the women of Canada as a whole. That’s 1982.

Vancouver-Kensington NDP MLA, Maple Elmore, said, “I think it was really a turning point, a watershed moment, certainly in Canadian history in terms of the issue of understanding and taking a stand against violence against women and really leading that campaign.” She didn’t stop there. She worked hard in her life and career to have abortion decriminalised and the provision of a childcare program at the national level.

And for a national change in one of the foundational documents of the country, she helped advocate for Section 28 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

Rights guaranteed equally to both sexes

28. Notwithstanding anything in this Charter, the rights and freedoms referred to in it are guaranteed equally to male and female persons

An obvious one, it is aligned with her life’s work. It was not driven by monetary reward, by the way. She voted against an increase in MP pensions. And she took that money and then reinvested in the community, in her community, in east side of Vancouver. It was entitled the Margaret Mitchell Fund for Women. There might be a little self-showiness through titling the fund after herself. But still, how can we ultimately tell? Is it really worth discussion? Maybe, a little.

But! The money has been reinvested for a good cause, regardless. The fund continues to work for social justice in addition to economic justice for women in the Vancouver area.

Her legacy awards: in 2000, she earned the Order of British Columbia; in 2016, she earned Vancouver’s Freedom of the City.

There’s a mythology of the cycle of birth, growth, maturation, degeneration, and death. You can see it plants. You observe it in animals. A natural development in and from life to death, or, more accurately, birth to death. That mythology ties to the renewal of culture, of society, as well. The ‘Shoulder of Giants’ statement often attributed to Newton when in consideration of Universal gravitation links to this.

We do. Sometimes, we even teeter on the tops of the heads one foot tippy-toed of past giants. Each generation, to sustain society, to maintain culture, has to take the torch and renew the culture or society. The matured take the torch of the dead and carry it forward. In turn, we die. Others take the fire. Then our children take that from us. Mitchell is gone now. But we have her civilising fire. Her work as a social activist civilised Canadian society. Now, it’s our turn.

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2022-04-08

An Interview with Mikey Weinstein – Founder & President, Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/13

*This interview has been edited for clarity and readability.*

To begin, for those that don’t know, what is the brief statement of what the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is, and why was it founded in the first place?

We are a civil rights organisation. We have one specific purpose; that is to protect the constitutionally protected separation between religion and state, or church and state, in the most lethal organisation (technologically speaking) ever created by our species, which is the US military. We represent in excess of 50,100 active duty members in the US military. These are sailors, soldiers, marines and airmen, as well as National Guard and reservists, and veterans, and we started in early December of 2005.

We are technically in our 12^th year now. 96% of our clients are actually practising Protestants or Roman Catholics themselves who are oppressed for not being “Christian enough.” We also represent veterans. Currently, 954 members of the LGBTQ community in the military are MRFF clients. We also represent about 18% of all Muslim-Americans in the US military.

As well, organisations such as Campus Crusade for Christ. They have a central message for evangelising the US military, which breaches separation of church and state. But they have, apparently, been very successful in their attempts. Are there underhanded methodologies that they use when they go about doing this?

Let’s be clear, we don’t really care about anyone’s religious belief or lack thereof. What we care about is the time, and the place, and the manner, Scott, in which they feel they must deploy their faith. Now, it is called Cru Military, Campus Crusade for Christ Military Ministry. We’ve been fighting them for a very long time because they completely and totally disregard—they and those associated with the military fail to recognise—any constraints that have come down from the US Supreme Court directly interpreting our Constitution.

By that, I mean the First Amendment separation of church and state as well as Clause 3 Article 6 in the body of the Constitution, which states we will never have a religious test. They often ignore the Constitution. They often ignore the federal and state caselaw of the Constitution and often wilfully ignore and flout the Department of Defense which has directives, instructions, and regulations directly on point. They are one of, probably, 3 dozen fundamentalist Christian ministries that run rampant through the US military with people turning a blind eye to others in command promoting their pernicious, fundamentalist Christian agenda of “join us or we will destroy you.”

I understand that there are some colleges that have actually banned them from showing up on campus, even in a civilian perspective, because they target freshman who are still very innocent and naive coming straight out of high school, so it’s another source. But that’s not what we focus on. We focus on things of tremendous financial heft, power, and prestige in the military as a force multiplier for their fundamentalist Christian doctrine that it is very much about one thing, which is “bend your knee and confess our version of Jesus Christ as your only Lord and Saviour, or you will not only be destroyed in this life. You will be set on fire and burn forever in hell after you die.”

So “our way or the highway.” If they wanted to preach their particular faith position in a time, place, and manner that supports the Constitution and the military regs, we’d have no issue with that, but, oftentimes, they do not and that’s why we get involved. I think we sent you a video we have of the Cru organisation from a number of years ago at the Air Force Academy showing the leader with that little look of superiority and arrogance on his face.

They made it clear that when cadets leave the Air Force Academy—which is, incidentally, my alma mater and the alma mater of four of my kids – that the government is paying for missionaries for Jesus Christ. Really? We don’t think so. That’s why we went to war with them and the other parachurch organisations out there.

Also, you did document in the text, With God on Our Side, the single-handed battle against Evangelicals’ “utter disregard for the separation of church and state.” So this has been an ongoing battle, which you have documented. You are, pretty much, the main starter of the fight against it. Who have been some of the best, and some of the unexpected, allies, in this fight?

Thank you for that position. My wife and I, when we started MRFF, we saw Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ, or as we called it, The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre, or, Freddy versus Jesus.

[Laughing]

When that came out on February 4, 2004, Scott, we knew that there was a problem when our kids who went to the Air Force Academy were essentially being forced and inundated from their officer and cadet command chains to go see that movie. For nearly 2 years, we thought about the foundation until we reached out to the Anti-Defamation League, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the ACLU.

These are all good organisations in their own way, but they don’t focus with laser-like precision where all of the weapons, and weapons of mass destruction, and the drones, and laser-guided weapons are, which is the US military. It is incredibly, culturally tribal, adversarial, communal, and ritualistic. It’s not their mission to do that. Our family has a very strong military background in it. So it kind of made sense for us to lead this fight.

Our allies have clearly been the Southern Poverty Law Center and, in a very major way, Americans United. In the last couple of weeks, the ACLU in San Diego. We’ve worked with the National Organization for Women. Again, all of these organisations are wonderful in their own way, but when it comes to protecting the civil rights of religious choice or no choice, in the US military, trying to tell your military superior, even if you’re being gently evangelised, Scott, “To get the hell out of my face sir or ma’am” is not an option for you, so they come to us at MRFF.

We are very militant and aggressive in the support we provide our clients, which is AARP:

Anonymity, Action, Results, and Protection. If you’ve ever had a cat or a dog and ever cared about the rights of their animal rights, every town has a humane society. They do great things. The have bake sales and cookie sales. They’re on the far Left. They’re wonderful. Everyone loves them. On the far Right, you have PETA. We’re PETA.

That requires an aggressive and militant methodology and MO. You can get this job done. We get this job done a lot. We are proud of it. We have over 330 people who work here. Many of them are part-time or full-time volunteers, which is common for civil rights organisations. It is the only way we can fight back, like getting in the media such as we’re doing right now, or getting into federal or state court.

Also, you wrote No Snow Flake in an Avalanche. It is a deeper updated look at religious extremism – both in the military and in the US political infrastructure. So what were some of the main questions that went into writing that book as well as what came out of it—some of the answers?

I wrote two books. The first was With God on Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military. It is no longer one man’s war, like I said. We’ve gotten pretty large. I probably should have been more precise because we have plenty of Evangelicals on staff. Evangelicals become bad, like any individual, when they become fundamentalists. As soon as we find a fundamentalist Atheist, Jewish, Agnostic, Native American spiritualist, Muslim or Hindu we will let everyone know, but, right now, it almost always comes from one source, which is Evangelical Christians who demand to follow the Great Commission, Mark 16:15 and Matthew 28:19, completely irrespective of time, place and manner restrictions as prescribed by law.

The Great Commission is one of the last things Jesus is supposed to have said to his disciples is ‘go and make disciples of all nations.’ If they believe they can do that with no restrictions, then they are constitutional outlaws and violating these civil rights. They’re rights. Everybody gets them. They aren’t just civil privileges. Even if you’re an asshole, you get civil rights. The second book I wrote was No Snow Flake in an Avalanche. The title for this book is taken from the phrase, “No snow flake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”

To answer your question about my books, the purpose was to educate. There’s a great quote from HG Wells, Scott, it says that “civilisation is a constant race between education and catastrophe.” We’re trying to educate. The best way to do that is to be very upfront and to expose, both in the media and, if necessary, through litigation, what it is that needs to be accomplished to make sure we don’t create a Christian version of ISIS in our own military.

It is extraordinarily serious and rampant. It was terrible under Bush. It didn’t get much better under Obama. It is literally off the scale under the idiot Trump.

As well, Muslim-Americans, who are entering to train to become soldiers or who are already soldiers, will experience anti-Muslim prejudice, some or most, and, as well, they will hear anti-Muslim rhetoric. What have been some notable cases that come to mind for you? And what are some of the major concerns that arise for you?

If you go to our website, we have submitted Congressional testimony for our Muslim-American clients. Islamophobia is out of control in the US military. There’s no question about that. There are too many cases to discuss in the time here for the interview. Recently, there was a story about the 7th infantry Division at Joint Base Lewis McChord in the Tacoma/Seattle area that the new Head Chaplain will be an Imam, which is terrific. We tremendously support that. I have been in contact with this new Lieutenant Colonel Khallid Shabazz and he sounds terrific!

Unfortunately, many in the military who are a part of the Islamic community feel that they have to walk on eggshells. We understand that. We took some of our Islamic clients on the TV show Nightline. Also, a lot of what we do is behind the scenes. We don’t want to go to the media and have them threatened to go to court. We want to have people understand that in this country that we don’t judge the value of a human being—their honour, integrity, character, intelligence, honourability—based on what religious faith they have or lack thereof.

Now, if your faith tells you that you must force your faith on others irrespective of their rights, and irrespective of time, place, and manner constraints, then you are the problem. You are the enemy. If you are a member of the military or a member of the chaplaincy and believe being gay is a choice, that’s great. That’s fine. You have 3 choices. You can hold your tongue. You can change your attitude.

And if you can’t do either of those, you need to fold your uniform and get the hell out of the military. That’s where we are in the US military in the year 2017. We will not have people suffer the indignities of this Christian, fascistic tidal wave that is out there. So we have to fight and fight very hard. When you do that, you get a lot of support and concomitantly make a lot of enemies, which is why we have to live with a ton of security to include body guards and German shepherd, working dogs.

We carry a lot of weapons and utilize protective cameras et al. I’m not going to reveal all that we do for security obviously. I do a lot of speaking around the country, but it doesn’t always work out because it requires extremely specialised security for protection. Sometimes, it is exorbitant when they are asking me to speak, but I am not going to go somewhere unless we have the appropriate security intact.

Last question, how can people get involved? What is the single greatest concern for 2017 with regards to religious freedom in the military and separation of church and state?

First of all, I appreciate that. The best thing to do is to donate to us. We are a 501(c)3, IRS approved, charitable organisation. So any donation is a 100% tax deduction/write off. We already have the machine in place. So help us out, we don’t run on chocolate sauce. If you are in the military or have family or friends in the military, let them know we’re here, so they have a place to go if their religious rights are being trampled on, or their right to be non-religious.

The biggest issue was that we, very simply, have to prevent an unconstitutional alloy from forming between fundamentalist Christianity and our weapons of mass destruction—our nuclear arsenal. I am extremely concerned that this particular Commander-in-Chief on his best day appears to be an entitled, privileged, cretin and a megalomaniac. When you realise that the 3 most dangerous leaders in the world appear to be Duterte in the Philippines, Kim Jong-Un in North Korea, and this shameful sad sack that we’ve got in Washington, Trump, it is just totally terrifying. And which one of those 3 controls the world’s largest nuclear arsenal?

It is terrifying that he is technically the Commander-in-Chief. While he himself is not a fundamentalist, he and his staff have brought so many in. They’ve littered the government. They’re everywhere. They are omnipresent and it’s wretchedly concerning. It is an absolute fact that you will see a marriage between our weapons of mass destruction and the extremely dangerous theology of fundamentalist, unbridled, Christianity, which is trying to end this world as fast as possible to get us to the End Times.

Where among other things, this fundamentalist or “Dominionist” version of Christianity promises its followers a 200-mile long river, 4.5 feet deep, filled with nothing but the human blood of those that they have crushed at the Battle of Armageddon. That is a pretty horrifying graphic there. That’s what we have to fight. As Machiavelli said, “When you aim at the prince, you better kill the prince.” Not half in, not three quarters in, this is a task that requires and demands being ALL in!

I think it was Frederick Douglass who said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” So our job here at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is to be the demanders of the commanders. You can go to https://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/ and go from there.

Thank you for your time.

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2022-04-08

Iceland, the Place of Firsts

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/13

Human rights are a new invention. Same with women’s rights. Have you heard the phrase? ‘Women’s rights are human rights,’ it’s a darn good phrase, I feel—wish I’d thought of it.

There’s more details, but those come from more knowledgeable, experienced people than me —like ‘women’s rights are a subset of, and partially distinct from, human rights.’ Anyway, that’s a tiresome, boring, and over-precise slogan, right? I agree.

The UN Charter was signed on June 26, 1945, so was instantiated only 71 years ago. It’s young. So both modern human rights and women’s rights are young. Many citizens of the world come from times without the charter, the imagined landscape of, by simply being human, deservedness—of rights, for humanity, and its women and children.

Imagine that: a world without rights. Well, we live in one naturally, but socially, culturally, even societally. Heck, they’re pretty darn important. Human’s, children’s, and women’s rights help enforce decency.

Those times without the charter and similar documentation do have a response, I suppose. With validity and bumpy consistency, which can be applied to some sectors of some nations and some whole countries today, places without them, knowledge or implementation. Scary.

Women earned the right to vote in the US in 1920. Pretty good. In Canada, 1919, depending on the province, little better; in the UK, 1918, even better, and so on, Saudi Arabia only in 2015. Technically, our democracies are young.

Lots of societies deny children and women rights. Children and women, even some men, in sections of a society without rights, or other citizens as second-class citizens, non-persons, simply persona non grata—an unwelcome person.

“Why are you here? And while you’re here, you will not have the rights and privileges of us. Got it, buster!” Not fun. But there are other cases. Societies as exemplars with some outstanding standards and people. Bars are set by them. Precedents are made by them. Iceland is one of them.

It’s a land of firsts, I feel.

As described by Kirstie Brewer from Reykjavik, in 2015, about 40 years ago—as delineated at the time—women in Iceland went on strike. That wasn’t the first strike ever; however, it was a preliminary salvo.

When November, 1980, swung around the corner, Vigdis Finnbogadottir (“dottir” as in daughter, of “Finnboga” back in the day, I assume) won the presidency in Iceland. To boot, and to break taboos, Finnbogadottir, or more properly Vigdis, was a single mother. Not bad; so that was a first, and an unlikely first because single mothers tend to be near the bottom of the social strata.

Not only for the region, but for the world, Vigdis was a first for democratic elections. She was the first female or woman democratically elected as a head of state.

There’s a common sense saying about a woman leader then influencing girls with the assumption of all girls. I doubt that, but think some, even most, girls saw president Vigdis as an representation of possibilities. It’s a good thing, but not an all-encompassing inspirational deal.

Many women and girls do succeed without the need for prior representatives, but, for others, helps give a beacon. Different strategies for different women and girls for women’s and girls’ empowerment.

And Iceland, not only is a place of firsts, it is #1. The World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Gender Gap Index 2016 states the nation is first in the world for the gender gap as well.

The Guardian has reported on it, too. They say, “The Icelandic government has pledged to close the gender pay gap by 2022.” Also, a first, as far as I know, and the short list here likely extrapolates to other unlisted aspects of Iceland, the place of firsts.

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2022-04-08

Science News in Brief March 12th 2017

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/12

NASA science head interviewed

According to Science (AAAS), in an interview with NASA Head, Thomas Zurbuchen, focused on the Trump Administration and the importance of the return-on-investment of payments into science.

Zorbuchen, in October, 2016, left the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, to “take the reins of NASA’s science directorate, was raised in a deeply religious family, where he says he was comfortable asking hard questions.”

In the interview, there’s more discussion on NASA, Europe, and China intending to have rovers on Mars by 2020 and the relevance of immigration for science, and his own reasons for coming to America.

The beginning of the future of concrete neurolaw, maybe

According to The Guardian, neuroscientists have begun work on spotting the differences in the brains between criminals and non-criminals. The purpose of the research will be to separate on-purpose crimes and reckless behaviour crimes.

Each has distinct cognitive processes behind them. “It is the first time that people’s intentions, or otherwise, to perform criminal acts have been decoded in a brain scanner.”

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers said, “In most cases, when someone is committing a crime they are not doing so while inside a scanner.”

UK researchers prepare for the big shift from hard Brexit

Science (AAAS) reports that for “months after the United Kingdom voted last June to leave the European Union, many British scientists clung to hopes of a ‘soft Brexit,’ which would not cut them off from EU funding and collaborators.”

However, this might not be the case. Why? PM Theresa May will trigger a 2-year process for leaving the EU. That’s “sharp,” not soft. Researchers in the UK are faced with a tremendous challenge now.

James Wilsdon, science policy expert at the University of Sheffield in the UK, said, “People are bracing themselves for a bumpier and more abrupt landing.”

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2022-04-08

An Interview with Shari Allwood – Executive Director of SMART Recovery

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Conatus News/Uncommon Ground Media Inc.

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/03/11

What’s your own story? How did you get into the recovery business?

To be honest, in 1994, it started out as simply a part-time job. I had a full-time job, but my former boss was hired by SMART Recovery as SMART’s Executive Director, and I would work about 4-6 hours/week trying to help get the organisation off the ground. It wasn’t long before we learned there weren’t ample funds to pay his salary, so he departed. I thought SMART was a great organisation, so I stayed on. I transitioned to full-time and accepted the role of Executive Director in 2005. And here I am 22+ years later.

SMART Recovery (Self-Management and Recovery Training), is based on self-empowerment and science-based processes to assist with addiction coping and recovery. What are the main steps to this system of recovery?

As you correctly note, SMART is a self-empowering, science-based program. As opposed to steps, SMART Recovery uses a 4-Point Program^®:

Point 1: Building and Maintaining Motivation

Point 2: Coping with Urges

Point 3: Managing Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviours

Point 4: Living a Balanced Life

Each of the 4-Points has tools and techniques that our participants use to overcome their addictive behaviour(s). The tools are terrific – they’re great for recovery, but many of them are truly life skills that can be used time and again through life even once someone has overcome their addiction.

As well, it caters to believers and non-believers alike, and does not require belief in a higher power. How does this differ from some other programs?

You’re exactly right – SMART Recovery doesn’t require a belief in a higher power. That’s not to say people who are believers can’t combine their faith with the SMART program – we have people who have success with SMART and do just that. But our meetings and program don’t have a spiritual component. I think everyone reading this interview is familiar with AA and other 12-step programs, which rely on a belief in a higher power. Such programs work for them, and the same can be said for people using SMART Recovery, LifeRing, Women for Sobriety and others that have been offered for many years. We all offer proven programs, but they won’t all appeal to every individual seeking recovery. There are many pathways to recovery, SMART being a great choice for many. We believe that it’s important for people seeking a recovery program to learn about all of the available pathways, and one (or, in some cases, a combination) that works for them.

What is the main line of evidence in support of the SMART Recovery program?

SMART is based on six principles that underlie proven and effective treatment programs:

Self-empowerment – people take control of their recovery and assume responsibility for its success.

Mutual support – recovery works best when the challenges and successes are shared with others, typically at meetings. People learn that recovery is possible by observing and following the example of others in the group.

Motivation – building and maintaining motivation is the first point in SMART’s 4-Point Program^®. The program uses methods from Motivational Interviewing, a standard practice in more than 90 percent of addiction treatment programs today.

Coping with urges – the second point in the program helps people identify all the triggers to use and how to resist them. Over a short time, they learn that urges grow less intense and occur less often.

Managing thoughts, feelings and behaviours – point three teaches how to calm extreme anxiety and avoid relapses by growing aware of the beliefs that control feelings and acts. This concept is drawn from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, also used by more than 90 percent of treatment programs.

Leading a balanced life – the fourth point helps secure recovery through the creation of a new lifestyle to replace the one associated with addiction.

The truest measure of effectiveness is its widespread and growing use since the program was founded in 1994. SMART currently hosts 2,200 weekly meetings in 19 countries, including 30 online gatherings that people anywhere in the world with an internet link can attend.

In addition, numerous recovery professionals are incorporating SMART into their practices and launching meetings. In 2016, professionals comprised 61 percent of the 2,500 people who signed up for SMART’s facilitator training course.

Leading medical and government authorities worldwide endorse SMART for recovery support in best practice and quality care guidelines for people seeking to overcome addictions.

How does the program differ in the outcomes for its treated recovering addict sub-population from the general untreated recovering addict (control) sub-population?

As much as this question is debated, the honest answer is that it is difficult to scientifically measure outcomes for people using mutual support models such as SMART Recovery and 12-step programs. Addiction scientists have tried but meta-analyses of the research on both programs have been inconclusive. These are not treatment programs in which attendance can be easily measured and tracked. Attendance is anonymous. Large numbers of participants are coerced to attend meetings, especially 12-step programs. As a result, it is extremely difficult to conduct randomised controlled trials measuring the effectiveness of such programs.

How is this more effective than other forms of recovery? Also, what are the other kinds of—ineffective—addiction recovery programs/systems?

There are numerous potential pathways to recovery, including ones that use no treatment or recovery support program at all. I don’t feel comfortable suggesting that SMART is more effective than other forms. That’s why part of SMART’s mission statement reads “To support the availability of choices in recovery”.

I’ve had the privilege of witnessing many people’s lives change when using the SMART program. I also know that it won’t appeal to all people seeking a recovery support group. The same is true for AA, Women for Sobriety, LifeRing, etc. We are all going to attract and help people, but we’ll have the most success when people know their options and select the one that best meets their beliefs and needs. Some people will benefit by combining SMART Recovery and inpatient or outpatient therapy. Others find combining mutual-support meetings helpful.

Some find becoming involved with art or yoga/meditation helpful. Recovery can take on many forms and we feel individuals should determine a program that will be most helpful to them.

Now, you are the executive director of the SMART Recovery. What tasks and responsibilities come with being the executive director?

That’s an interesting question. I have a heart for people – I love to see people succeed, and I love being in communication with our volunteers and the people who come to SMART Recovery for help. I’ll admit that, as the organisation has grown, there are duties and responsibilities that now require more of my time – fiscal responsibilities, organisational development responsibilities, helping to ensure the organisation stays vibrant and continues to grow and keep up with technology, etc. We have a small staff because we rely so much on volunteers, so it’s challenging to keep all of the plates spinning. But we have amazing volunteers and staff, which makes my job both challenging and rewarding!

If I were a recovery addict, and if I came to SMART Recovery, how would I be introduced to SMART Recovery?

Our 2016 survey concludes that nearly 50% of our participants find SMART Recovery via an online search. Over 20% were introduced to SMART while in a treatment program, and nearly 20% were referred by a counsellor or therapist. Interestingly, more than 10% found SMART when it was recommended by a friend or family member. Once they find us, we encourage them to attend a face-to-face meeting (if there’s one in their area) or to become involved in our online community, which has 30 online meetings per week, highly active message board forums and a 24/7 chat room.

What would be my typical struggles on the path to recovery? What would be the chances of recovery?

I believe that the typical struggles encountered by anyone in recovery are covered within our 4-Point Program®:

Building and Maintaining Motivation – Nobody will change based on someone else wanting them to change. Each individual needs to identify motivating factors that will help see them through their recovery process. (SMART tool examples include: Cost/Benefit Analysis and Hierarchy of Values.)

Coping with urges – You won’t give up an addictive behaviour without experiencing urges, so having coping mechanisms in place is key to one’s recovery. (Tool examples include: Urge log and ABCs of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy.)

Managing thoughts, feelings and behaviours – As someone is going through recovery, there are all sorts of opportunities to reflect on one’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and to assess which are helpful, unhelpful and need to be changed. (Tool examples include: ABCs of REBT for emotional upsets and Role-playing.)

Leading a balanced life – So often the drug or behaviour has really taken over an individual’s life. Everything had revolved around time spent planning for or involved in the addictive behaviour. Returning to a balanced life can be a challenge. (Tool examples include: Lifestyle Balance Pie Chart and Vital Absorbing Creative Interests – finding helpful activities to replace the former unhealthy/unhelpful activities.)

As far as chances of recovery, I’m sure that there are statistics out there somewhere regarding the number of people who succeed in recovery. From my perspective, if people are truly motivated, and are able to achieve the 4-point program noted above, the likelihood of success is great. And a reminder that people’s personal recovery journeys vary, so for some, combining SMART Recovery and other groups or activities may increase the chances of achieving recovery for that individual.

Are there appropriate supports for the recovering addicts as they transition back into normal life and as they have entered into a new non-addicted lifestyle?

We choose not to use the term “addict” or apply labels to participants. We help people who are struggling with addictive behaviours. We offer meetings and online support for as long as the individual deems them to be useful. As far as other supports, i.e., job-skills, transitional housing, etc., we leave that to other organisations and agencies. Our goal and mission is to provide mutual support meetings that encourage cross-talk, allow people to learn the SMART tools and techniques, and allow participants to learn from one another’s experiences – both success and failures.

What are some of the main social and communal services of the SMART Recovery, if any?

Social activities vary from meeting to meeting. Some meetings allow for a half-hour social gathering at the end of the meeting. Others have some planned activities – a bowling night, a recovery walk during Recovery Month, etc. I’ve always found it interesting how much of a community spirit there is within our online activities. We have people participating from all over the world, and most have never met the others with whom they’re in online meetings, posting on the message boards, or chatting within the chat room. But they really are a cohesive group that find inspiration and help from one another.

What is the scope and scale of the SMART Recovery? Who are some of its most unexpected allies?

Growth and awareness of SMART Recovery continues to increase with more than 1,000 new meetings launched in the past three years. (I’ll share a growth chart which makes it easier to grasp, if you’d like to include it.) And our international expansion is also continuing, even to the point of us creating a new SMART Recovery International organisation, with what was known as Alcohol & Drug Abuse Self-Help Network, Inc., d.b.a. SMART Recovery, soon to become SMART Recovery USA. And, of course, online activities know no boundaries and our online registrations continue to grow each year.

I, of course, believe everyone should be an ally of SMART, with none being unexpected (laughs). We have volunteers who are peers, professionals, and a growing number of non-peer/non-professionals. Mums and Dads who have children who have struggled with an addiction and they feel a need to provide choice in mutual support meetings, so they train and start meetings.

We have a nice partnership with other non-12-step groups including Women for Sobriety (WFS) and LifeRing. We have a growing number of treatment centres that are ensuring that SMART Recovery meetings are available to their clients. SMART was recognised by President Obama and Michael Botticelli during our 20^th anniversary celebration and conference in 2014. I think even some of the “hard core” 12-step people are beginning to realise that there truly are multiple pathways to recovery, and the importance of people having choice. This isn’t a competition – there are plenty of people in need with different backgrounds and beliefs and they need choices like AA, WFS, LifeRing and SMART Recovery.

With the current Trump Administration, do you see new threats to the practice of science-based and self-empowering recovery programs?

It’s not yet clear to me if or how the new administration will impact addiction in the US. SMART Recovery will carry on with our message and program regardless of the level of support from the administration.

What have been the largest activist and educational initiatives provided by SMART Recovery?

All of SMART’s activism and education has been devoted to creating the best possible recovery support program, including meetings and educational materials, for the millions of people worldwide who need help overcoming additions. We have focused intensely on educating the volunteers who facilitate our meetings, developing a rigorous 30-plus hour training program. We are now training 2,500 people a year. Our facilitators are hosting well over than 100,000 meetings a year in countries from Australia to Canada to the UK and Uzbekistan, including more than 1,200 in the US alone.

SMART hosts meetings in correctional institutions and Veterans Administration medical centres. Since 2010, we’ve held meetings for the family members and friends of people with loved ones suffering from addiction. Our Family & Friends program is based on the highly effective model known as Community Reinforcement and Family Training or CRAFT.

As much as we’d like to engage in activism in the conventional sense of term, our time and energy is best spent focusing on our mission.

How can people get involved with the SMART Recovery, even donate to them?

I’d suggest a wander through our extensive website at www.smartrecovery.org. (Our new site will debut soon!) If you’d benefit from using the program, there’s lots of information about the program and tools, as well as a meeting list, access to our online activities, etc. If you want to serve your community by starting a SMART meeting, you can visit our training page. If you’d like to donate to SMART, you can

visit https://secure.processdonation.org/smartrecovery/. (Note, that link will likely change with our new site, but a visit to www.smartrecovery.org will connect you to a donation button.)

Any closing thoughts or feelings based on the discussion today?

We’re always so grateful for the opportunity to help acquaint people with our 4-Point Program and tools, and I want to thank you for providing us with this opportunity to do so. I want to encourage anyone who is struggling with an addiction to visit www.smartrecovery.org and see what SMART can offer you. If you have a loved one struggling, our Family & Friends program is an amazing resource. If you’re involved in serving people with addictions in a treatment setting, or court, or government agency, I encourage you to become familiar with SMART Recovery to recommend it to your clients and constituents.

Thank you for your time, Shari.

Thank you again for this opportunity!

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So here are ways we can recycle water at home:

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The how much and the what now? (Yep, me too.)

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