The title of a new documentary showing how the big social media companies use psychology for surveillance to manipulate users to unconsciously accept programming and buy products. It’s an important topic but fails in that the makers did not use any of the persuasive techniques the social media companies use to get their own points across. It’s just dry, boring fact after fact that lost my interest a third of the way through. At one point they did try a…
I recently appreciated this Facecrook comment on the topic, copied below for those not on the crooked media platform: “Purity, as an idea, as a practice, is inherently violent. Nature isn’t pure. Beings are born amid blood and piss and shit, and when we die, our bodies rot and feed the lives of countless souls. Dirt is dirty and its what we’re born from and what we become. Pick up a handful of dirt and you are holding, literally, your…
This article fortuitously popped up in my email this morning, as we discussed this topic in our online discussion yesterday. An excerpt from the introduction will explain its relevance. “Emancipation is very much about reducing what Bhaskar calls the demi-real–beliefs and conceptions that do not correspond well with reality. […] It is not enough to point out the demi-real or systemic biases in reason. Ameliorating demi-reality involves identifying its sources, i.e. the causal and structural mechanisms that produce it. […]…
A public town hall with Riane Eisler. You can register here.
link.medium.com/YRFzoB3Xr5 This article is relevant to our recent discussions and Zak Stein’s (see Edward’s recent post) suggestion that great destabilizing events open gaps in which new structures can supplant older, disintegrating systems–with the inherent risks and opportunities.
By George Lakoff. A copy can be found at academia.edu here. An excerpt: “One can see in scripts the link between frames and narratives.Narratives are frames that tell a story. They have semantic roles,properties of the role, relations among roles, and scenarios. Whatmakes it a narrative-a story-and not just a mere frame? A narrativehas a point to it, a moral. It is about how you should liveyour life-or how you shouldn’t. It has emotional content: eventsthat make you sad or…
What is humanity’s situation with respect to surviving long-term with a good quality of life? (Frame the core opportunities and obstacles.) What attributes of our evolved, experientially programmed brains contribute to this situation? (What are the potential leverage points for positive change within our body-brain-mind system?) What courses of research and action (including currently available systems, tools, and practices and current and possible lines of R&D) have the potential to improve our (and the planetary life system’s) near- and long-term…
Continuing this previous post: I’m looking at the section “conclusion and critique” of Haidt starting on p. 31. Gibbs appreciates that we should account for our earlier human history and more primitive brain centers in describing morality. But to limit it to these structures and history at the expense of later brain structures and evolutionary development is another thing. “The negative skew in Haidt’s descriptive work discourages study in moral psychology of higher reaches of morality such as rational moral…
Good essay by an astrophysicist, theoretical physicist and philosopher on the nature of human experience and its relationship to science. Some excerpts: “This brings us back to the Blind Spot. When we look at the objects of scientific knowledge, we don’t tend to see the experiences that underpin them. We do not see how experience makes their presence to us possible. Because we lose sight of the necessity of experience, we erect a false idol of science as something that…
Another one of those studies comparing political identification. The study is about extreme attachment to a Party. What about those who strongly identify with humanity with high cognitive complexity and flexibility who don’t identify with a Party? Are their nuanced arguments that account for numerous factors and their interplay ‘extreme?’ Is the Green New Deal extreme? If a living wage extreme? Is corporations paying their fair share extreme? Is addressing the climate crisis extreme? Is transitioning from fossil fuels to…