the return of intimate killing...,

theatlantic |  “We must make this battle very violent,” wrote the Islamist strategist Abu Bakr Naji in his 2004 book The Management of Savagery. Naji—whose thinking paralleled that of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the deceased leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has since morphed into ISIS—argued that merciless violence was necessary for the creation of a “pure” Sunni caliphate. Softness, he warned, spelled failure, citing the example of the Companions of the Prophet, who “burned [people] with fire, even though it is odious, because they knew the effect of rough violence in times of need.”

The conventional wisdom holds that ISIS’s savagery will be its undoing—that it will alienate ordinary Muslims, and that without their support the group cannot succeed. But what this view overlooks is that ISIS’s jihad, as its progenitor Zarqawi well understood, isn’t about winning hearts and minds. It is about breaking hearts and minds. ISIS doesn’t want to convince its detractors and enemies. It wants to command them, if not destroy them altogether. And its strategy for achieving this goal seems to be based on destroying their will through intimate killing. This, in part, is what the group’s staged beheadings are about: They subliminally communicate ISIS’s proficiency in the art of the intimate kill. And this terrifies many people, because they sense just how hard it is to do.

The beheadings also serve as a dramatic counterpoint to al-Qaeda’s use of remote improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in attacks, and to Western shock-and-awe-style military campaigns. The subtext of the videos appears to be: You—America and your allies—kill with drones and missiles. We—the true Muslims—kill with our bare hands. You hide behind your military hardware and lack the courage to fight. We stand here tall, holding aloft our swords and the Quran. We will conquer you because our will is greater than yours, because there is nothing we will not do in defense of our just and holy cause.

 

One could argue that there is precedent in Islamic theology and history for this kind of ruthlessness. But the approach also has echoes in the Western world. Consider the logic behind the Allied shock-and-awe “area bombings” of German cities during the Second World War, where thousands of innocent civilians were murdered for the purpose of ending the war and stopping the advance of fascism in Europe. Or the logic behind the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “The policy of attacking the civilian population in order to induce an enemy to surrender or to damage his morale,” wrote the American philosopher Thomas Nagel, “seems to have been widely accepted in the civilized world.”

a nugget obscured by a muddled puddle of shyte...,

Forbes |  In her now classic book, Animals in Translation, Colorado State University professor of animal science Temple Grandin argues that most mammals seem incapable of feeling fear and curiosity at the same time—meaning the presence of one inhibits the other.

Something similar also shows up in the research around flow. It appears that flow (that is, optimal performance) is the exact opposite of fight-or-flight—something I explain in Rise of Superman:

The fight-or-flight response—a.k.a. the adrenaline rush—cocktails adrenaline, cortisol (the stress hormone), and norepinephrine. It’s an extreme stress response. The brain switches to reactive survival autopilot. Options are limited to three: fight, flee, or freeze. Flow is the opposite: a creative problem-solving state, options wide open.

Yet there are reasons for the confusion. The two highs are linked. Risk heightens focus and flow follows focus. This means that the fight-or-flight response primes the body—chemically and psychologically—for the flow state. Athletes report moving through one to get to the other. [Skateboard legend] Danny Way, for example, has a phrase he uses to remind himself of the importance of this transition. “Never a glitch on takeoff,” he says. He means that when you’re teetering between flow and fight-or-flight, all it takes is one errant thought to send you in the wrong direction. When Way pushes off onto the megaramp, he has seconds to flip this switch. If he can follow his focus into flow he lives to ride another day. But if panic swamps the circuitry? “The greatest slams of my life took place when that happened,” he says. “Almost every time, I’ve ended up in the hospital.”

Of course, it’s early days for these sorts of ideas, but what the science is suggesting is evolution has overlaid instinctive, anti-social fear-based traits—things that narrow our options and responses—with more pro-social traits that widen options and responses. This may mean that  we can make radical improvements in ourselves, our organizations and our society by training up skills like flow, curiosity and empathy as a way of training down violence, prejudice, and fear.

In other words, peace on earth is now moving out of the field of dreams and into the laboratory and, honestly, not a moment to lose.

*For more access to similar ideas, sign up for Flow Hacker Nation, the email newsletter for the Flow Genome Project.

the science behind the one-inch punch

popularmechanics |  Forget all those broken boards and crumbled concrete slabs. No feat of martial arts is more impressive than Bruce Lee’s famous strike, the one-inch punch. From a single inch away, Lee was able to muster an explosive blow that could knock opponents clean off the ground. Lee mastered it, fans worldwide adored it, and Kill Bill "borrowed" it. But if you’re like us, you want to know how it works.

While the biomechanics behind the powerful blow certainly aren’t trivial, the punch owes far more to brain structure than to raw strength.

Biomechanical Breakdown
To understand why the one-inch punch is more about mind than muscle, you first have to understand how Bruce Lee delivers the blow. Although Lee’s fist travels a tiny distance in mere milliseconds, the punch is an intricate full-body movement. According to Jessica Rose, a Stanford University biomechanical researcher, Lee’s lightning-quick jab actually starts with his legs.

"When watching the one-inch punch, you can see that his leading and trailing legs straighten with a rapid, explosive knee extension," Rose says. The sudden jerk of his legs increases the twisting speed of Lee’s hips—which, in turn, lurches the shoulder of his thrusting arm forward.

As Lee’s shoulder bolts ahead, his arm gets to work. The swift and simultaneous extension of his elbow drives his fist forward. For a final flourish, Rose says, "flicking his wrist just prior to impact may further increase the fist velocity." Once the punch lands on target, Lee pulls back almost immediately. Rose explains that this shortens the impact time of his blow, which compresses the force and makes it all the more powerful. 

any given hieroglyphic symbol became a synthesis of polarities of particular oppositions of forces, held in balance by the glyph - the information - itself...,

The n.h.zed struggle - Work

artima |  For those following my blog, you know that my academic experience resulted in a degree in Physics. 

Even though I professionally engage in programming, I would prefer to play in the world of physics. Not long after graduating, a friend pointed me to "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig. It was a very mind-opening read, but, to cut to the chase, it got me to thinking about the nature of the universe. I've been particularly stumped with current physics thinking about particle/wave duality. There is something about it all that just "bugs" me. My brain just can't accept the human tendency to completely break ideas down into component parts. My brain just keeps taking me back to where we need to be able to hold both concepts in our mind AT THE SAME TIME. The reason why physics has been stuck with this for the last 100 years is because these really smart people haven't done it, both, at the same time...

Ok, so particle/wave is one thing... not sure exactly what that means, but it's a starting point. In a simplified essence that my brain can hold, that duality is probably more easily stated as matter/energy. I'm not sure why, but the first thought that jumped into my head was space/time. Is it the same thing as matter/energy... hmmm, yes - and no! What about other levels of organization in the universe... molecule/reaction, social groups/communication, and so on? It seems that at different levels of organization, this same pattern emerges. No matter how I conceptually zoom in on the universe, there it is. A self-similar system - a fractal. Dual natures encompassing a single phenomenon.

This fractal duality concept extends through the universe at many levels of complexity. The static aspect captures stable states, the dynamic aspect disrupts and moves between stable states within the duality's realm of influence and each aspect of the duality can morph from one aspect to the other.

Another feature I recognized is that, amazingly, the higher order complexity fractal duality "behaviors" are intertwingled with and driven by the lower order fractal duality behaviors. Viruses interact in social populations, photons interact with cellular organisms, and so on, all of these intertwinglings creating diverse new kinds of fractals!

Interestingly, the higher order dualities rarely appear to intertwingle in the lower order dualities and when they do, it is only in a limited fashion. Organization at the higher orders need to have 'knowledge' of the lower orders to effect them. The greater the knowledge (sustainable fractal pattern), the more adept the manipulation of the lower order duality.

As for knowledge, it also seems that the lower order sustainable fractal patterns are 'unaware of' the higher order fractal patterns even though they are a necessary component. Is this a "can't see the forest for the trees" effect?

Hmmm...,  Dale.

on veterans day....,

Locker rooms all across the NFL sound similar to the one in Miami, and every team in the league has an Incognito on its roster.  To be a fly-on-the-wall in any NFL program would expose us to language and culture harshly redolent with racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and any other sort of inflammatory language you can imagine hearing. Despite laws to the contrary and a buttload of lawsuits to show for them, how many of our workplaces are completely absent of any and all behaviors that, if made general public knowledge, could be seen as a breach of etiquette, ethics, and law? Is the chattering class serious that we must respect Jonathan Martin's feelings and needs and make our assessments of Incognito and the Dolphins exclusively on that basis? 

Where men are required to depend on one another, the spoken word doesn't even come from the same psychological spigot as it does among a bunch of food-powered, make-work sissies dressed up in suits and acting important. Soldiers within a unit can say and do whatever they want with each other, because what appears as hostility in the slack-jawed world appears to the soldiers as a means of alleviating tension and building interpersonal rapport. At a very fundamental and objectively real level, the language doesn't matter, because at the end of the day, actions speak louder than words. The derogatory nature of the language loses its offensiveness when seemingly antagonistic soldiers are literally putting their lives in each others hands when engaging the enemy. It doesn't matter what color or ethnicity or religion the man next to them is, because, once the bullets start flying, everyone's lives are in the hands of the "other."

Now the NFL locker room isn't a barracks, and despite all the militaristic language we use when describing the gridiron, the line of scrimmage will never be the same as a killing field.  That said, have we reached a point where the perception of society's rules is entirely defined by society's weakest link(s)? The Miami Dolphins players are majority black. Of those players, only one has voiced offense regarding Incognito's behavior.  Accusing all these other players of speaking the way they do to keep their employers happy, labelling them sellouts and uncle Toms, and pretending that the extremely odd man out in that context is the bellweather for truth - is.a.priori.ridiculous.  The logic of fellow Dolphins in defending Incognito has been similar to that found at a military squad level. Epithets lose their meaning, because for many teammates, they know that Incognito is going to back them up and support them on the field, in the bar room, and every place else their collective dirt gets done.

Blacks and whites who are all dressed up but with nothing useful to do would of course never dream of using the "n-word". These same dressed-up, spineless, slack-jawed saducees will scurry across the street with a quickness to avoid encountering an unfamiliar black adolescent in a hoodie. These very same "diversity" and "difference" respecting judges and jurors of "the rules of the rest of society" never use a racial epithet while engaged in their food-powered make-work, but when you get right down to it, their stuck-up and craven response to an unfamiliar adolescent in a hoodie is vastly more offensive than the unvarnished barracks-room/locker-room trash talk coming from men of action.

Wherever sausage is made, wherever wheels meet the road, wherever teams are gelled and stuff actually gets done, all manner of "politically incorrect" stuff gets said as a matter of course. Team members embarked on missions of destruction are not, however, the only people who let their hair down with one another. The process of creating involves paring back all the dampers and baffles that keep a stick permanently up the butts of those firmly ensconced in the land of do-nothing, pretend respectibility and constant, reflexive lying.

Toxic masculinity emanating from the barracks has done more over the course of the past 70 years to foster, promote and defend diversity than all the slack-jawed and perpetually aggrieved academics, scandal-chasing lawyers, and lying politicians combined.

glenn greenwald demolishes some gubmint proxies on bbc newsnight..,

the fourth is very strong in this one...,