"The polling company Gallup has, since the 1960s, measured the frequency of mystical experiences in the United States. In 1960, only 20 per cent of the population said they’d had one or more. Now, it’s around 50 per cent. In a survey I did in 2016, 84 per cent of respondents said they’d had an experience where they went beyond their ordinary self, and felt connected to something greater than them. But 75 per cent agreed there was a taboo around such experiences." Aeon
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"Subjects under the influence of power, he found in studies spanning two decades, acted as if they had suffered a traumatic brain injury—becoming more impulsive, less risk-aware, and, crucially, less adept at seeing things from other people’s point of view." Atlantic
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Really want to read this book...
"What made cool cool, Dinerstein argues, is the braiding together of jazz, film noir and existential literature; the first as an African American mask of cool (poise, virtuosity and “a blank facial wall, suggesting both a resistance to white social norms and an inner complexity”); the second, a delayed working-class response to the Great Depression (gritty but righteous loners in an unjust world); the third, an ethical expression of “rebellion-for-others” in 1945, “year zero” Europe after collaboration, genocide and atomic destruction. Cool contains and enacts “truths we don’t know we know”."
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Just enjoyed this tidbit. I've had a similar experience of London
"in just about any test that's ever been run in New York City, the bicycle outperforms all other modes of transportation at peak periods" The Verge
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"A 2014 review of 53 trials that compared elective surgical procedures to placebos found that sham surgeries provided some benefit in 74 percent of the trials and worked as well as the real deal in about half." fivethirtyeight
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Labour leadership are currently enjoying the benefits of being very ambiguous on this question. The principle of free movement is unarguable though - if you're on the left, the freedom of *people* should in fact be far more important to you than the freedom of goods, services or capital.
“A system of free movement is the best way to protect and advance the interests of all workers, by giving everyone the right to work legally, join a union and stand up to their boss without fear of deportation or destitution. Curtailing those rights, or limiting migrants’ access to public services and benefits, will make it easier for unscrupulous employers to hyper-exploit migrant labour, which in turn undermines the rights and conditions of all workers.”
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"How do you maintain an interest in poetry or science or philosophy without the foundational belief that it's all for revenge?"
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Yikes! :( :( :(
"... finally, facebook decided to take action. What did they do? Did they suspend any of the people who threatened me? No. Did they take down Twitchy’s post that was sending hundreds of hate-filled commenters my way? No. They suspended me for three days for posting screenshots of the abuse they have refused to do anything about."
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I've had occasion to think about this more than I'd like recently - how a movement supposed to be defined by "critical thinking" has ended up as a breeding ground for far-right politics. Interested to hear thoughts on causation here. Is it just when you get together enough white men who like debating on the internet, and no moderating influence, the inevitable result is fascism? (I joke, but only partially)
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Is there anything sweeter than the hypocrisy of one's enemies? :D
(In this case, the fact that a major architect of the USAID anti-prostitution pledge was in fact a client)
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Very interesting. The same divide-and-conquer politics happens with regard to housing in London. Middle and upper class property owners are able to block new construction of all kinds, essentially forcing private developers and proponents for affordable housing to fight over the scraps that remain. And then private developers inevitably win *that* struggle, leading to gentrifcation and social cleansing.
Might be worth remembering that both developers and people who want affordable housing are united by the demand for *more construction*, in opposition to incumbent property owners, and could be organising along those lines.
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"So why don’t our teeth fit properly in the jaw? The short answer is not that our teeth are too large, but that our jaws are too small to fit them in... our ancestors didn’t feed their children the kind of mush we feed ours today. Our teeth don’t fit because they evolved instead to match the longer jaw that would develop in a more challenging strain environment. Ours are too short because we don’t give them the workout nature expects us to." Sapiens
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Finally, some integrity!
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I'm working very hard to challenge my own conditioned conflict avoidance at the moment!
"Why does middle class conditioning include conflict aversion? The economic purpose of middle class people’s socialization is to prepare them for middle class jobs. Do you know a management or teaching job where the way to get ahead is to have a fair amount of turbulence going on among the people you supervise or within your classroom? Middle class jobs emphasize smoothness, rationality, calming the waters, linear progress, appearing “in charge.” That’s the goal of owning class socialization, too. So how can people brought up that way really appreciate — let alone participate in — a good fight?" Waging Non-Violence
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