Saturday, May 16, 2015
kwestins for these humans...,
By CNu at May 16, 2015 12 comments
Tuesday, January 06, 2015
does believing overseers are constantly under fire serve a productive function for society?
Policing has been getting safer for 20 years. In terms of raw number of deaths, 2013 was the safest year for cops since World War II. If we look at the rate of deaths, 2013 was the safest year for police in well over a century .... You’re more likely to be murdered simply by living in about half of the largest cities in America than you are while working as a police officer.
By CNu at January 06, 2015 0 comments
Labels: Kwestin , quorum sensing? , you used to be the man
Friday, November 07, 2014
why would omidyar sponsor journalism probing global capitalism?
By CNu at November 07, 2014 0 comments
Labels: complications , Kwestin
Saturday, September 13, 2014
why was admiral byrd dispatched to antarctica immediately after WW-II?
- training personnel and testing equipment in frigid conditions;
- consolidating and extending United States sovereignty over the largest practicable area of the Antarctic continent (This was publicly denied as a goal even before the expedition ended);
- determining the feasibility of establishing, maintaining and utilizing bases in the Antarctic and investigating possible base sites;
- developing techniques for establishing, maintaining and utilizing air bases on ice, with particular attention to later applicability of such techniques to operations in interior Greenland, where conditions are comparable to those in the Antarctic;
- amplifying existing stores of knowledge of hydrographic, geographic, geological, meteorological and electromagnetic propagation conditions in the area;
- supplementary objectives of the Nanook expedition. (The Nanook operation was a smaller equivalent conducted off eastern Greenland.)[3]
By CNu at September 13, 2014 0 comments
Labels: high strangeness , Kwestin , Living Memory
why did the nazis make moves on antarctica?
Bender ran an organization called the International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB) a small UFO organization based in Connecticut, USA and he also edited a publication known as the Space Review which was committed to the dissemination of news about UFOs. In truth, the organization had only a small membership and the publication circulated amongst hundreds rather than thousands, but that its members and readers valued it was in little doubt. The publication itself advocated that flying saucers were spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin.
However... in the October 1953 edition of Space Review, there were two major announcements.
A source which the IFSB considers very reliable has informed us that the investigation of the flying saucer mystery and the solution is approaching final stages. This same source to whom we had referred data, which had come into our possession, suggested that it was not the proper method and time to publish the data in 'Space Review'.
The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised in the negative.
We advise those engaged in saucer work to please be very cautious.
Bender might very well have known “what the flying saucers” were, at least a portion of them... but he later revealed in a local newspaper interview that he was keeping his knowledge a secret following a visit by three men who apparently confirmed he was right about his Unidentified Flying Object theory, but put him in sufficient fear to immediately close down his organization and cease publication of the journal.
It has been argued that the story of being visited by three strangers and being warned off was a front to close a publication that was losing money, however the fact that Bender had been “scared to death” and “actually couldn’t eat for a couple of days” was verified by his friends and associates. It is also widely known that such “stories” are often spread by the United States, and other governments to discredit those who might just have the truth, or at least a portion of it.
In 1963, a full decade after his visit from the three strangers, Bender was seemingly prepared to reveal more of his story in a largely unreadable book entitled Flying Saucers and the Three Men in Black. The book was scant on facts, however, it described extraterrestrial spacecraft that had bases in Antarctica.
This was apparently the truth Bender was terrorized into not revealing.
By CNu at September 13, 2014 0 comments
Labels: high strangeness , Kwestin , Living Memory
Thursday, May 08, 2014
chickens wondering about what capitalists want when the rainbow is not enough...,
By CNu at May 08, 2014 34 comments
Labels: as above-so below , Kwestin , reality casualties , truth
Saturday, November 30, 2013
if psychiatric motives were benign, why didn't psychiatry dismantle the war on drugs and fully explore entheogens?
By CNu at November 30, 2013 0 comments
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
how has this been allowed to go on for so long?
By CNu at August 13, 2013 0 comments
Labels: American Original , hegemony , Kwestin
Saturday, April 13, 2013
letting more hot air out of TED...,
By CNu at April 13, 2013 3 comments
Labels: high strangeness , Kwestin
Monday, March 11, 2013
what is a person?
Historically women and slaves have not been considered persons, even in my own country. Others wish to consider animals as persons and wish to grant them moral and legal rights. Science mixes it up with tradition, religion, and law to give us a mind-numbing view of what a ‘person’ is.
When we have an opinion and seek facts to prove it, we are not being honest with truth. Only when we seek facts first and keep an open mind can we seek truth. Let’s examine some facts then consider what we mean when we say ‘person’.
Person
There is no legal definition of person agreed upon by states or nations.
In most societies today adult humans are usually considered persons.
If you look-up dictionary definitions of human and person they are circular. A human is a person and person is a human.
To many a ‘person’ can include non-human entities such as animals, artificial intelligence, or extraterrestrial life.
There are even legal definitions that include entities such as corporations, nations, or even estates in probate as ‘persons’. In some legal definitions those with extreme mental impairment or lack of brain function have been declassified as ‘persons”.
Religious fundamentalists want to push the definition of person to the moment of conception.
Meanwhile science is struggling to find a clear definition of what constitutes a human.
Some lawyers and politicians maintain that corporations are legally persons.
By CNu at March 11, 2013 2 comments
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
do you remember?
By CNu at December 18, 2012 10 comments
Thursday, March 29, 2012
chicken/egg?
Can you give me a very quick summary of the essential claim of this book?
There are two claims, the first is that universal grammar doesn't seem to work, there doesn't seem to be much evidence for that. And what can we put in its place? A complex interplay of factors, of which culture, the values human beings share, plays a major role in structuring the way that we talk and the things that we talk about.
From your experience in the Amazon, and generally, what is it that makes language possible?
Language is possible due to a number of cognitive and physical characteristics that are unique to humans but none of which that are unique to language. Coming together they make language possible. But the fundamental building block of language is community. Humans are a social species more than any other, and in order to build a community, which for some reason humans have to do in order to live, we have to solve the communication problem. Language is the tool that was invented to solve that problem.
You studied the Pirahã community in the central Amazon. Is there something especially interesting about Pirahã language?
I was assigned there to translate the Bible for them because no one could figure out the language – it's not related to any other known living language. All languages have unique characteristics, but the Pirahã just seems to have so many unique characteristics. Things that we didn't expect. I mean the absence of numbers, the absence of counting and colours, the absence of creation myths, and the refusal to talk about the distant past or the distant future. A number of things like this, including, the special characteristic of recursion, the ability to keep a process going in the syntax forever. This constellation of features really cried out for an explanation and, it took me about 20 years to realise that there might be a unifying explanation for all of these things. My experience with the Pirahã was absolutely fundamental in shaping my ideas about human language.
By CNu at March 29, 2012 2 comments
Labels: Kwestin , monkey see - monkey do , paradigm
Friday, November 18, 2011
OWS preliminary ideological results...,
But even accepting that the label accurately describes some participants in the movement, what does being anti-capitalist actually mean?
Many Americans, for example, consider countries like France and Sweden to be socialist or anti-capitalist – yet, were their 19th-century ancestors able to time-travel to today, they would almost certainly have called today's US socialist. They would have been shocked to find that their beloved country had decided to punish industry and enterprise with a progressive income tax. To their horror, they would also see that children had been deprived of the freedom to work and adults "the liberty of working as long as [they] wished", as the US supreme court put it in 1905 when ruling unconstitutional a New York state act limiting the working hours of bakers to 10 hours a day. What is capitalist, and thus anti-capitalist, it seems, depends on who you are.
Many institutions that most of us regard as the foundation stones of capitalism were not introduced until the mid-19th century, because they had been seen as undermining capitalism. Adam Smith opposed limited liability companies and Herbert Spencer objected to the central bank, both on the grounds that these institutions dulled market incentives by putting upper limits to investment risk. The same argument was made against the bankruptcy law.
Since the mid-19th century, many measures that were widely regarded as anti-capitalist when first introduced – such as the progressive income tax, the welfare state, child labour regulation and the eight-hour day – have become integral parts of capitalism today.
Capitalism has also evolved in very different ways across countries. They may all be capitalist in that they are predominantly run on the basis of private property and profit motives, but beyond that they are organised very differently.
By CNu at November 18, 2011 15 comments
Sunday, October 23, 2011
who's not a salesman?
Video - Salesman by Albert Maysles
Sales IS the epitome of the psychopathology of American Capitalism. Salesmen capitalize on weaknesses due to human cognitive errors to dishonorably extract consumer's creative value (their hard-earned money). Bosses capitalize on salesmen by using same manipulative techniques on employees to extract most of their time and creativity. Sales bosses do absolutely nothing creative and yet extract most of the productive value of consumers and their employees. Dale. | Why do you impart (negative) morality to sales? I see sales itself, as inherently amoral. Surely you are not against consciously influencing the decisions of other people? Or consciously influencing yourself? MLK, Gandhi, Steve Jobs --and of course Hitler, David Duke, Bill Gates :). Whether I'm selling crack or a fitness regime, myself as a social success, a palatable worldview and coping strategy, or really killer solar panels, the goal is always to influence the behavior or worldview of others. DD. |
By CNu at October 23, 2011 41 comments
Labels: Kwestin
Friday, September 23, 2011
can anyone help me understand this in a non-conspiratorial light?
Video - 80's commercial for Primatene Mist
- See a health care professional soon to get another medicine. Primatene Mist may be harder to find on store shelves even before Dec. 31, 2011.
- Ask your health care professional to show you how to use your new inhaler or other medicine to make sure you are using it correctly and getting the right dose.
- Follow the directions for using and cleaning your new inhaler or other medicine to make sure you get relief of your asthma symptoms.
- If you haven’t used up your Primatene Mist by Dec. 31, it’s safe to continue using it as long as it hasn’t expired. Check the expiration date, which can be found on the product and its packaging.
By CNu at September 23, 2011 6 comments
Labels: Kwestin
Monday, August 22, 2011
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
who was jesus?
JohnAllegro.org | John Marco Allegro (born in London 17 February 1923, died 17 February 1988) was a freethinker who challenged orthodox views on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Bible and the history of religion.
After service in the Royal Navy during World War II, Allegro started to train for the Methodist ministry but transferred to a degree in Oriental Studies at the University of Manchester. In 1953 he was invited to become the first British representative on the international team working on the recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls in Jordan. The following year he was appointed assistant lecturer in Comparative Semitic Philology at Manchester, and held a succession of lectureships there until he resigned in 1970 to become a full-time writer. In 1961 he was made Honorary Adviser on the Dead Sea scrolls to the Jordanian government.
Allegro’s thirteen books include The Dead Sea Scrolls (1956), The Treasure of the Copper Scroll (1960), The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) and The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (1979) as well as Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan vol. V (1968) and numerous articles in academic journals such as the Journal of Biblical Literature, Palestine Exploration Quarterly and Journal of Semitic Studies, and in the popular press.
Four main issues brought Allegro into contention with other scholars:
Access to the scrolls
The Copper Scroll
What the scrolls reveal about the origin of Christianity
Controversial ideas about language, religion and mythology.
ACCESS
John Allegro understood from the start that the job of the editing team was to make the Dead Sea scroll texts available to scholars everywhere, and he believed their message mattered to everyone.
The scrolls had been written around or shortly before the time of Jesus. They give insight into the religious life and thought of a Jewish sect based at Qumran by the Dead Sea and usually identified as Essenes. Allegro believed the scrolls could help us understand the common origin of three religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He hoped they might be able to bring together scholars of each tradition in studying their common heritage without the barriers of religious prejudice.
This would mean making the texts accessible to all. Allegro had published the sections of text allotted to him in academic journals as soon as he had prepared them, and his volume (number five) in the official series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan was ready for the press by the early 1960s. He continually campaigned for the publication of all scroll texts. However, his colleagues took a different approach, and little else appeared until 1991.
Allegro saw himself as a publicist for the scrolls. His books, talks and broadcasts promoted public interest in the scrolls and their significance. At first, the rest of the team encouraged his efforts, which after all were intended to help fund their research. But they thought he went too far in raising questions about the parallels between Essenism and Christianity, and doing so in public. He was accused of stirring up controversy at the expense of scholarship.
THE COPPER SCROLL
The controversy over the Copper Scroll deepened the rift between Allegro and the team. At the request of the authorities, Allegro had arranged for the scroll to be cut open in Manchester over the winter of 1955/56. He supervised the opening and made a preliminary transcription and translation of the contents. He found it to be a list of Temple treasure hidden at various locations around Qumran and Jerusalem, most probably after the sack of Jerusalem in AD 70. Initial excitement turned to poison when the team falsely accused Allegro of leaking information to the Press and later of pre-empting the official translation by publishing his own version first. In fact the team had already issued a preliminary translation, and Allegro held his book back to let the official version take precedence. But he could not in honesty support the official interpretation of the Copper Scroll as a work of fiction, and later scholars have endorsed his view that the treasure was real.
CHRISTIAN ORIGINS
John Allegro believed that Essenism was the matrix of Christianity. There were so many correspondences between the scroll texts and the New Testament – words and phrases, beliefs and practices, Messianic leadership, a teacher who was persecuted and possibly crucified – that he thought the derivation obvious. This brought him into conflict with the Catholic priests on the editing team, and with most church spokesmen, who maintained the orthodox assumption that the arrival of Jesus was the unique, historical, god-given event described in the Gospels. Allegro suggested it might be less unique and miraculous than they said. He also started to look in more depth at the way the New Testament appeared to weave together a mix of folklore, myth, incantation and history, and to ask why.
LANGUAGE, MYTH AND RELIGION
As a philologist, Allegro analysed the derivations of language. He traced biblical words and phrases back to their roots in Sumerian, and showed how Sumerian phonemes recur in varying but related contexts in many Semitic, classical and other Indo-European languages. Although meanings changed to some extent, Allegro found some basic religious ideas passing on through the genealogy of words. His book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross relates the development of language on our continent to the development of myths, religions and cultic practices in many cultures. Allegro believed he could prove through etymology that the roots of Christianity, as of many other religions, lay in fertility cults; and that cultic practices, such as ingesting hallucinogenic drugs to perceive the mind of god, persisted into Christian times.
The reaction to The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross ruined Allegro’s career. The church found his theory so shocking that the book received instant condemnation instead of scholarly appraisal.
Allegro went on to write several other books exploring the roots of religion; notably The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth, which relates Christian theology to Gnostic writings, classical mythology and Egyptian sun-worship in the common quest for divine light.
To sum up, John Allegro believed the Dead Sea Scrolls raised issues that concerned everyone. It wasn’t just a matter of dusty manuscripts and disputed translations – the story of the scrolls raised questions about freedom of access to evidence, freedom of speech, and freedom to challenge orthodox religious views. He believed that through understanding the origins of religion people could be freed from its bonds to think for themselves and take responsibility for their own judgements.
[Sourced from: John Marco Allegro, the Maverick of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Judith Anne Brown; pb. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, 2005.]
By CNu at May 31, 2011 3 comments
Labels: Kwestin
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
how do we fix math education?
There is a solution, but it needs a fundamental change to the school subject we call math. It needs to be clearly articulated and decisively acted upon. That's why Conrad Wolfram has founded computerbasedmath.org. He and many others see a growing chasm between math in education and math outside, between the increasingly irrelevant school math curriculum that contrasts with the critical and growing importance of math and its uses in the real world. They've observed how many of those involved in school math fail to appreciate the total transformation and fundamental change that computers have brought to this ancient subject in recent decades.
computerbasedmath.org is initially supported by Wolfram Research. For over 20 years Wolfram Research has had a unique position at the epicenter of math and its uses: using high-powered math to develop the latest algorithms for Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha software, mathematicians, and other STEM specialists, supplying technology to the world's community of math users, and interacting with leading experts from all technical fields. That's not to mention its involvement with thousands of universities, schools, and courses worldwide. Wolfram Research really is the "Math Company".
Key ideas behind this computer-based math approach have been forming for more than a decade, but computerbasedmath.org is only just starting. Over the coming months, we will be looking for think-tank members from among the many enthusiastic, leading supporters who have voiced interest in the project.
If you see the great opportunity and empowerment for the future of computer-based math and are interested in joining computerbasedmath.org in any capacity—from sponsoring organization to board member—please contact us.
By CNu at December 14, 2010 0 comments
Monday, September 20, 2010
children's future requests for computers and the internet
Kids Solve Problems
Children are naturally more fluent with ideas than adults, unfettered by the “necessity” and experience of applying their underlying thinking ability to knowledge areas in conditioned ways, within the boundaries of what is practical and possible. (Rote learning is an extreme example of the thinking “refinement” we undergo on the way to adulthood.)
A child’s knowledge and experience are limited and so the problem solutions are often impractical. But what matters is the way the child’s mind uses the limited material at its disposal.
When children were given the “political” problem of stopping a cat and a dog from fighting, their ideas went far beyond the approaches used by politicians.
Edward de Bono, Children Solve Problems
In a 2006 Developmental Psychology study by Zheng Yan, children between the ages of 9 and 13 were asked to represent pictorially what the Internet looks like. Some of the drawings (c & d below), convey a complex understanding of a system that even most adults struggle to comprehend.
The Merlin Factor: Putting Kids’ Solutions to Practical Use
It takes some insight and patience (the more you look, the more you find) for an adult to appreciate the creativity in children’s responses because they are often unconventional or “impossible.” Thus, questions posed to children should be targeted and thoughtful–a structured problem-solving objective should exist–to elicit solutions that manifest the power of children’s undamped creativity.
For example, asking children: “If you wanted to build a house more quickly, how would you do it?” ultimately requires children to generate solutions for how to make an existing process faster and more efficient. (Example from Edward de Bono’s, Children Solve Problems).
Latitude 42: Children’s “Future Requests” for Computers & the Internet
As part of its 42s: An Innovation Series, Latitude is launching a generative thought study around Web technology–with the help of children ages 12 and under.
What would be really interesting or fun to do on your computer/the Internet that your computer can’t do right now? Please draw a picture of what this activity looks like.
Additionally, the study will explore: how children use and understand Web technology, which environmental factors contribute to these understandings, and the extent to which children can think “innovatively” (beyond the bounds of their known environment).
We expect to be impressed. We also expect to learn a few things from our participants. Fist tap Dale.
By CNu at September 20, 2010 0 comments
Labels: Kwestin , paradigm , Possibilities
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