Resist Trump and Fascism
The Joy of Trump
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Friday, May 24, 2019
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Neuroscience might explain Trump's followers who seem to ignore the facts of Trump's policy failures
‘Once you build up a perception of the world, you will ignore any information to the contrary’ which might explain Trump's followers who seem to ignore the facts of Trump's policy failures and his reprehensible behavior.
Neuroscientist Dr Hannah Critchlow:
‘Changing the way that you think is cognitively costly’
In her new book, the scientist examines the role of fate in our lives, how our politics are formed and sniffing out Mr Right
Ian Tucker
Sat 11 May 2019
Hannah Critchlow: ‘Once you build up a perception of the world, you will ignore any information to the contrary.’ Photograph: Martin Pope/The Guardian
Dr Hannah Critchlow is a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge. Her debut book, The Science of Fate, examines how much of our life is predetermined at birth and to what extent we are in control of our destiny.
How has the slow march of scientific research affected our concept of fate?
On one hand, we know more about how genetics drives our lives, yet we also have more good evidence for things that we can do to shape our own outcomes.
This concept of fate and destiny has around since the Greeks – it threads through different cultures and is deeply rooted in the way that we speak today; for instance, we often say that babies are born destined for greatness.
It’s a seductive idea. If outcomes are predetermined, that absolves us of blame when things go wrong.
Yeah, in some ways it’s a really nice idea, it’s a get-out-of-jail card: we are who we are, so we can just rest on our laurels. It’s quite reassuring.
As a parent, I find it quite comforting for my child, because there are a millions of decisions that I have to make for him and it’s quite nice to think a lot of the work has been done now.
The genes, the basic neural circuitry that acts as foundation for his life is already there.
If you ask long-term couples to think about their partner, their brain will react in the same way as a drug addict’s
But as your book explains, our brains are quite plastic…
In 2000, a landmark study demonstrated how the brains of London black-cab drivers changed as they took the Knowledge.
The hippocampus, which is involved in navigation, learning and memory, enlarged in cabbies who passed the test.
This study got a lot of attention and informed the idea that we can hone our brains in the same way as muscle and therefore change our ingrained habits, even become super humans if we just train our brains in the right way.
But now there’s a lot of information coming out of the genomics revolution, particularly studying how neural circuits are laid down under the direction of DNA in babies at just 20 weeks’ gestation and we’re seeing a lot of behaviours are ingrained or coded from very early on.
For example, anxiety, obesity, depression and addictive behaviour have all been revealed to have a quite high hereditary basis.
But of course, all these behaviours may be amplified and reinforced by the decisions of our parents.
Dr Hannah Critchlow is a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge. Her debut book, The Science of Fate, examines how much of our life is predetermined at birth and to what extent we are in control of our destiny.
How has the slow march of scientific research affected our concept of fate?
On one hand, we know more about how genetics drives our lives, yet we also have more good evidence for things that we can do to shape our own outcomes.
This concept of fate and destiny has around since the Greeks – it threads through different cultures and is deeply rooted in the way that we speak today; for instance, we often say that babies are born destined for greatness.
It’s a seductive idea. If outcomes are predetermined, that absolves us of blame when things go wrong.
Yeah, in some ways it’s a really nice idea, it’s a get-out-of-jail card: we are who we are, so we can just rest on our laurels. It’s quite reassuring.
As a parent, I find it quite comforting for my child, because there are a millions of decisions that I have to make for him and it’s quite nice to think a lot of the work has been done now.
The genes, the basic neural circuitry that acts as foundation for his life is already there.
If you ask long-term couples to think about their partner, their brain will react in the same way as a drug addict’s
But as your book explains, our brains are quite plastic…
In 2000, a landmark study demonstrated how the brains of London black-cab drivers changed as they took the Knowledge.
The hippocampus, which is involved in navigation, learning and memory, enlarged in cabbies who passed the test.
This study got a lot of attention and informed the idea that we can hone our brains in the same way as muscle and therefore change our ingrained habits, even become super humans if we just train our brains in the right way.
But now there’s a lot of information coming out of the genomics revolution, particularly studying how neural circuits are laid down under the direction of DNA in babies at just 20 weeks’ gestation and we’re seeing a lot of behaviours are ingrained or coded from very early on.
For example, anxiety, obesity, depression and addictive behaviour have all been revealed to have a quite high hereditary basis.
But of course, all these behaviours may be amplified and reinforced by the decisions of our parents.
The concept of fate is often used in the context of love and choosing a partner.
In your book, you talk about a study that give a scientific explanation for the idea that “opposites attract”.
A panel of men was asked to wear a T-shirt for several nights and days and they weren’t allowed to wear deodorant or eat anything too smelly.
The T-shirts were presented to an array of women who were asked to sniff then and rate them in terms of attractiveness based purely on smell.
It turns out that the females rated the males as more attractive if their MHC [major histo-compatibility complex] systems were different from their own, because then their offspring would have a stronger immune system, a better range of armoury against potential infections.
So women were kind of sniffing out Mr Right.
What else does neuroscience tell us about a successful relationship?
If you image the brains of the couples who have been together for a long, long time and ask them to think about their partner, their brain will react in the same way as a drug addict’s. You can almost say this couple are addicted to each other.
You say “affection is a neuro-chemical event” – that’s not very romantic.
Valentine’s Day with me is a lot of fun!
You devote a chapter to the formation of belief – how our genes, traits and experiences shape our views. Does this mean genes play a role in our political views, say whether we’re a leaver or a remainer?
There have definitely been studies that have looked at different brain profiles associated with ideology. People who are very conservative seem to have a much larger volume and a much more sensitive amygdala – the area of the brain that is involved in perceptions of fear. People who are more liberal seem to have a greater weighting on the region of the brain that is engaged in future planning and more collaborative partnerships. They don’t seem sensitive to immediate threats; instead, they are looking to the future. What we see in propaganda through the centuries is that if you heighten someone’s fear response using environmental manipulation, you are more likely to make them vote in a right-wing way.
So what does neuroscience tell us about how you might go about changing someone’s mind or winning an argument?
Once you have built up a perception of the world, you will ignore any information to the contrary.
Your brain is already taking up about 20% of your energy, so changing the way that you think is going to be quite cognitively costly. And it might be quite socially costly too.
Are you concerned that the more we know about how DNA determines outcomes, there will be increasing interest in screening embryos and gene-editing, with the aim of avoiding traits which are deemed undesirable or increasing the probability of traits which are thought advantageous?
There has been a huge growth in technologies that are allowing us to understand the brain, understand what gives rise to our complex behaviours, coupled with technologies that allow us to sequence our DNA and then edit our DNA, and also changes in IVF techniques and practices.
It’s very timely we have this discussion about destiny and fate and where we want to go as a species. Some companies are going to start commercialising this even though the science isn’t quite there yet.
As we learn more about how our brains give rise to the staggering breadth of different behaviours, we see how each of us has a unique cartography of the mind, like a roadway that maps our choices and our strengths.
The more we can appreciate that we are each different and that actually that’s a good thing for the species as a whole, we should understand that this neurodiversity shouldn’t be wiped out.
The subtitle of your book is “Why your future is more predictable than you think”; ultimately, you argue that there is no such thing as free will?
We are just processing information within a cartography of our mind that gives rise mechanistically to our behaviour.
So the decisions that we think we are consciously deciding on and making, actually it’s all just an illusion that can be reduced to what our brain is telling us to do.
• The Science of Fate: Why Your Future is More Predictable Than You Think by Hannah Critchlow is published by Hodder and Stoughton (£20)
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
CBS SportsMonday, May 20, 2019
Protesters burn spinning swastika with Trump's face on it | New York Post
Protesters burn spinning swastika with Trump's face on it | New York Post
Demonstrators in the Philippines burned an elaborate effigy of President Trump to protest his visit to the country. The US president met with President Rodrigo Duterte, who has been accused of violating human rights with his extreme tactics during the Philippines' war on drugs.
Saturday, May 18, 2019
SERENITY PRAYER ADAPTED FOR ADD by Dr. Edward Hallowell
SERENITY PRAYER ADAPTED FOR ADD
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
The insight to prioritize wisely what I want to change;
The patience to resist trying to control everything I could, had I the energy and time;
The courage and skill to change the things I have chosen to change;
And the wisdom to know the differences among all these.
- Dr. Edward Hallowell
The powers legally available to a corrupt president
Laurence TribeVerified account @tribelaw
“The powers legally available to a corrupt president and a party that has turned a blind eye to his violations of governing norms may be more terrifying than anybody has considered.” Add those ILLEGALLY available and you get quite an arsenal. . .
President Trump pardons Conrad Black, the author of a flattering political biography
http://bit.ly/2JngD84#dbefc37b-4e92-4140-8812-1b596eb2e34a?utm_source=twitter.com
Congress Must Stop Trump From Blundering Into America’s Most Dangerous War in Decades
"The United States, led by an erratic chief executive who is frequently ignored even by his closest advisers, may find itself stumbling into its worst war in more than a generation" writes @DavidAFrench
Thursday, May 16, 2019
Martin Luther King Quotes
Deep down in our non-violent creed is the conviction there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they're worth dying for. And if a man happens to be 36-years-old, as I happen to be, some great truth stands before the door of his life--some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right.
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.
So we're going to stand up amid horses. We're going to stand up right here in Alabama, amid the billy-clubs. We're going to stand up right here in Alabama amid police dogs, if they have them. We're going to stand up amid tear gas!
"We're going to stand up amid anything they can muster up, letting the world know that we are determined to be free!"
-- Martin Luther King
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Tax Cheats
When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income. - Plato
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Cable News Is Engrossing
Doctors recommend a balanced media diet.
Cable News Is Engrossing*
*absorbing all one's attention or interest.
"the most engrossing parts of the book"
Tips for Journalists that Never Go Out of Style
By Jezzamine Andaquig on October 10, 2017
1. Always get the name of the dog.
2. Better to get it right than get it first.
3. Trust is our most important asset.
4. Endure the awkward silences in interviews.
5. Avoid clichés.
6. Pick up the damn phone.
7. And get out of the damn office.
8. Only quote when paraphrasing doesn’t do a better job.
9. With multimedia: complement, don’t repeat.
10. Know your equipment before you hit the field.
11. Give credit and thanks for user submissions.
12. Follow the money.
13. Ask open-ended questions.
14. Keep asking yourself: what is the story REALLY about?
15. Get good natural sound.
16. Experiment and take risks.
17. Capture more b-roll than you think you need.
18. When the eye and the ear compete, the eye wins.
19. Better to coach writers than fix broken stories.
20. Reports are about information; stories are about experience.
21. Arrive early, stay late.
22. Don’t let the powerful answer in the passive voice: “Mistakes were made.”
23. The best quote often comes after the reporter closes the notebook.
24. Journalism is a discipline of verification, not assertion.
25. Good writing is not magic, it’s a process.
26. Great journalism comes at the intersection of craft and opportunity.
27. Take responsibility for what readers know and understand.
28. Each reader brings an autobiography with them to a story.
29. In a nut graph, it’s not the graph that’s important, but the nut.
30. Place the emphatic word in a sentence at the end.
31. The antidote to procrastination is rehearsal.
32. Show AND tell.
33. Get a good quote high in the story.
34. Express your most important idea in the shortest sentence.
35. The most powerful form of punctuation is white space.
36. Write early to learn what you still need to learn.
37. Tell the audience what you know—and how you know it.
38. Don’t just interview the boss, talk to the mechanic.
39. To find stories, take a different route home.
40. If your mother says she loves you, check it out.
Source: https://www.poynter.org/40-time-tested-tips-journalists-never-go-out-style
1. Always get the name of the dog.
2. Better to get it right than get it first.
3. Trust is our most important asset.
4. Endure the awkward silences in interviews.
5. Avoid clichés.
6. Pick up the damn phone.
7. And get out of the damn office.
8. Only quote when paraphrasing doesn’t do a better job.
9. With multimedia: complement, don’t repeat.
10. Know your equipment before you hit the field.
11. Give credit and thanks for user submissions.
12. Follow the money.
13. Ask open-ended questions.
14. Keep asking yourself: what is the story REALLY about?
15. Get good natural sound.
16. Experiment and take risks.
17. Capture more b-roll than you think you need.
18. When the eye and the ear compete, the eye wins.
19. Better to coach writers than fix broken stories.
20. Reports are about information; stories are about experience.
21. Arrive early, stay late.
22. Don’t let the powerful answer in the passive voice: “Mistakes were made.”
23. The best quote often comes after the reporter closes the notebook.
24. Journalism is a discipline of verification, not assertion.
25. Good writing is not magic, it’s a process.
26. Great journalism comes at the intersection of craft and opportunity.
27. Take responsibility for what readers know and understand.
28. Each reader brings an autobiography with them to a story.
29. In a nut graph, it’s not the graph that’s important, but the nut.
30. Place the emphatic word in a sentence at the end.
31. The antidote to procrastination is rehearsal.
32. Show AND tell.
33. Get a good quote high in the story.
34. Express your most important idea in the shortest sentence.
35. The most powerful form of punctuation is white space.
36. Write early to learn what you still need to learn.
37. Tell the audience what you know—and how you know it.
38. Don’t just interview the boss, talk to the mechanic.
39. To find stories, take a different route home.
40. If your mother says she loves you, check it out.
Source: https://www.poynter.org/40-time-tested-tips-journalists-never-go-out-style
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