wirepoints | “As recently as Thursday,” according to WGN, Sarah Chambers “tweeted
to rally special education teachers not to return to work Monday because
it’s unsafe. Just a few hours earlier, Chambers posted a picture on
Instagram that appears to show her pool side in Puerto Rico and talking
about going to Old San Juan for seafood.”
According to WGN, the post also mentions she previously had COVID,
got a negative test result and consulted her doctor before traveling.
Chambers, you may remember, was part of that solidarity mission last year by CTU members to communist Venezuela we wrote about.
At the time, she said on Twitter that “The USA does not want people
to realize that another world is possible with justice and love.”
Chambers also wrote on Twitter that the delegation hadn’t seen a single
homeless person during their trip. No mention that housing might be
plentiful because over three million people have fled – about 10% of the
population.
In 2017, the school district fired her for, as reported by WTTW,
“leaving her own classroom to barge
into classrooms of other teachers and issue her own instructions to
students, interfering with statewide tests, and participating in a
scheme to remove and transport students without any chaperone who had
cleared criminal background checks, without alerting school officials
which students would be missing from class and which students were
unaccounted for….”
However, she claimed she was fired in retaliation for other matters and the CTU got her reinstated, the union says.
Props to Ben Bradley at WGN for catching this story.
gatestoneinstitute |According
to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Over 81,000 drug
overdose deaths occurred in the United States in the 12 months ending in
May 2020, the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a
12-month period..." That is equal to one-third of the total number of
deaths supposedly attributed to the COVID pandemic.
Deaths equal to one-third of the pandemic? From another cause? Where
is the wall-to-wall news reporting on that public health crisis? Why
aren't people marching in the streets demanding action and justice for
that threat to human life? Since Joe Biden was elected president, we
have not heard a peep from Antifa and BLM -- maybe they can take up the
drug overdose cause?
In October, federal law enforcement officials arrested Mexican
General Salvador Cienfuegos as he arrived in Los Angeles for a family
vacation. Cienfuegos was accused of taking bribes and protecting cartel
leaders when he served as defense minister from 2012 to 2018. A month
later, the U.S. dropped charges and returned Cienfuegos to Mexico.
"Foreign policy considerations" was the official lie covering for the
reversal of what might have been an incremental step forward towards
legitimate justice in America's decades-long, losing "War on Drugs."
Every thinking person who has contemplated the drug corruption crisis
confronting America knows that absolutely nothing will happen to
Cienfuegos now that he is back in Mexico. He gets off Scot-free, other
than having to vacation in places other than the United States.
The Wall Street Journal, reporting on the Cienfuegos debacle, noted:
"Gen. Cienfuegos's return puts an uncomfortable spotlight
on Mexico's judicial system. More than nine in 10 crimes are never
reported or punished, according to the country's statistics agency."
Let us look more deeply at the drug crisis we face at the level of
families and communities. We can get lost looking at national overdose
numbers and corrupt foreign generals. Dirty cops are killing Americans,
directly and indirectly. In a border community like El Paso, the Mexican
cartels have an insidious, silent and powerful control that few people
wish to acknowledge or accept -- that includes a largely compliant news
media who usually report what happens, but rarely, if ever, ask "Why?"
or "How can this go on, decade after decade, without accountability or
resolution?"
More than seven years of ongoing investigation by Judicial Watch in
that region has revealed law enforcement corruption that ranges on a
scale from merely turning a blind eye; to marked law enforcement
vehicles being used to move burlap bales of marijuana; all the way up to
senior officials communicating with and tipping-off cartel members
about planned operations. That is what some of the supposedly "good
guys" are doing.
This is a dark, dangerous and threatening side of life in American
communities across the country. The drugs do not just materialize out of
thin air in Dayton, OH, or Rockville Centre, NY, or Whitefish, MT. If a
population is dying from overdoses that is one-third as large as the
COVID pandemic -- and we don't see, don't hear about it, and apparently
don't really care about it -- what does that say about us?
Tens of thousands of law enforcement officers, billions of taxpayer
dollars, nearly fifty years -- and the highest overdose rate in history?
It is terribly unpopular to blame law enforcement, especially when they
are being unfairly attacked by the militant fringe elements like Antifa
and various lunatic municipal officials seeking to defund them -- but
cleaning house within various agencies and increasing police pay would
go a long way towards thwarting our greatest domestic threat.
A year ago, President Donald J. Trump declared he would name Mexican
Cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. He paused his decision, and
then tabled it, based on assurances from Mexican President Andrés Manuel
López Obrador and a reported wave of resistance from his own cabinet.
The incoming Biden administration has the cartels virtually
"high-fiving" each other -- they know a Biden administration will do
nothing to stop cartel dominance and control of the US-Mexico border.
What law enforcement officer is going to put his life on the line for a
Biden administration policy? None. Unless there is an unforeseen and
dramatic positive change in law enforcement at the federal, state and
municipal levels, expect more of our dirtiest little secret for years to
come and a continuation of the United States' longest war.
NYTimes | While traffickershave
also continued to try to push drugs through ports of entry, the
American authorities have detected at least one particularly dramatic
shift in tactics in the profile of smugglers caught at those border
crossings.
Before the pandemic, the
cartels would frequently hire foreign-born smugglers who would cross the
border from Mexico into the United States under the pretense of tourism
or a shopping trip.
But because the
pandemic-related border restrictions have blocked entry to many foreign
visitors, the trafficking groups have been recruiting a greater number
of American citizens and Green Card holders, who are not bound by the
restrictions, to smuggle drugs into the United States, American
officials said. These smugglers are most often discovered with the
narcotics hidden inside their bodies, officials said.
Guadalupe
Ramírez Jr., director of field operations for Customs and Border
Protection in Arizona, recalled that when he was director of the ports
of entry in Nogales from 2009 to 2016, “internal carriers,” as such
smugglers are known by border officials, were rare.
“Now
it seems like almost on a daily basis we’re getting internal carriers,”
and most are American citizens or permanent residents, Mr. Ramírez
said.
The challenges of getting drugs
into the United States also appears to have spurred the development of
clandestine laboratories in the United States for the production of
synthetic drugs, said Celina Realuyo, professor at the William J. Perry
Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the National Defense
University in Washington.
And law
enforcement agencies around the world have also detected an acceleration
in the use of cryptocurrency and the so-called dark web for drug
transactions and money laundering during the pandemic, she said.
“They’re
adjusting,” Ms. Realuyo said of the drug trafficking groups. “They
already had kind of a wherewithal, and what they’re doing is they’re
just adapting quicker to their context.”
Mayor John Cooper called the blast on Second Avenue
an attack on infrastructure. The effects of that attack are sure to
ripple through the region for weeks, as the telecom giant scrambles to
restore services while maintaining the integrity of an active
investigation site teeming with federal agents.
State
and local officials and experts say the fact that a multistate region
could be brought to its knees by a single bombing is a "wake-up call,"
exposing vulnerabilities many didn't know existed and predicting it
would lead to intense conversations about the future.
The
bombing and the damage to the AT&T office was a "single-point of
failure," said Douglas Schmidt, the Cornelius Vanderbilt professor of
computer science at Vanderbilt University.
NYPost | Thousands of residents in Aspen, Colorado were left without heat
during near-zero degree weather after vandals — possibly green activists
from an environmental group — attacked the city’s gas system,
authorities said Monday.
The vandals apparently attacked three separate Black Hills Energy gas
lines, one in Aspen and two in Pitkin County, leaving around 3,500
residents shivering in their homes Saturday night, The Aspen Times reported.
The Aspen Police Department said the words “Earth first!” were
written on one pipe near Aspen. It’s unclear if the environmental group
“Earth First!” was behind the vandalism.
Aspen assistant police chief Bill Linn believes the vandals would
have to be familiar with the gas system to pull off the scheme.
“They tampered with flow lines,” Linn said. “They turned off gas lines.”
Police scrambled to distribute thousands of space heaters to
residents while Black Hill Energy continued working Tuesday to restore
the gas.
FT | Baysean statistical models, (so-called AI) inherently amplify bias of whatever data
set they have been modeled on. Moreover, this amplification is exponential,
meaning the more you use AI, the more biased it will get via self
learning. Since it is impossible to eliminate bias completely in a
training dataset, any AI system will eventually become extremely biased.
Self correcting mechanisms suffer from the same problem since they
too are AI based, you end up with a system that is unstable and will always
eventually become extremely biased based on even minute impossible to
eradicate biases in its initial data set.
“F*** the algorithm!” became one of the catchphrases of 2020, encapsulating the fear that humanity is being subordinated to technology. Whether it was British school students complaining about their A level grades or Stanford Medical Centre staff highlighting the unfairness of vaccination priorities, people understandably rail against the idea of faceless machines stripping humans of agency.
This is an issue that will only grow in prominence as artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous in the computer systems that power our modern world.
To some extent, these fears are based on a misconception. Humans are still the ones who exercise judgment and algorithms do exactly what they are designed to do: discriminate. Whether they do so in a positive or a negative way depends on the humans who write these algorithms and interpret and act upon their output.
It may on occasion be convenient for a government official or an executive to blame some “rogue” algorithm for their mistakes. But we should not be fooled by this rhetoric. We should hold those who deploy AI systems legally and morally accountable for the outcomes they produce.
Artificial intelligence is no more than a technological tool, like any other. It is a powerful general purpose technology, akin to electricity, that enables other technologies to work more effectively. But it is not a property in its own right and has no agency. AI would sound a lot less frightening if we were to relabel it as computational statistics.
That said, companies, researchers and regulators should pay particular attention to the feedstock used in these AI systems: data. Researchers have shown that partial data sets used to power modern AI systems can bake in societal inequities and racial and sexual prejudices. This issue has been highlighted at Google following the departure of Timnit Gebru, an ethical researcher, who claimed she was dismissed after warning of the dangers of large-scale language generation systems that rely on historic data taken from the internet.
theverge | It’s not the first time Boston Dynamics has shown off its robots’ dancing skills:
the company showcased a video of its Spot robot doing the Running Man
to “Uptown Funk” in 2018. but the new video takes things to another
level, with the Atlas robot tearing it up on the dance floor: smoothly
running, jumping, shuffling, and twirling through different moves.
Things get even more incredible as more robots file out,
prancing around in the kind of coordinated dance routine that puts my
own, admittedly awful human dancing to shame. Compared to the jerky
movements of the 2016 iteration of Atlas, the new model almost looks like a CGI creation.
Boston Dynamics was recently purchased by Hyundai,
which bought the robotics firm from SoftBank in a $1.1 billion deal.
The company was originally founded in 1992 as a spin-off from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where it became known for its
dog-like quadrupedal robots (most notably, the DARPA-funded BigDog, a
precursor to the company’s first commercial robot, Spot.) It was bought
by Alphabet’s X division in 2013, and then by Softbank in 2017.
While the Atlas and Handle robots featured here are still
just research prototypes, Boston Dynamics has recently started selling
the Spot model to any company for the considerable price of $74,500. But can you really put a price on creating your own personal legion of boogieing robot minions?
EMG can be used to show the degree to which one is subvocalizing[5] or to train subvocalization suppression.[9]
EMG is used to record the electrical activity produced by the
articulatory muscles involved in subvocalization. Greater electrical
activity suggests a stronger use of subvocalization.[5][9]
In the case of suppression training, the trainee is shown their own EMG
recordings while attempting to decrease the movement of the
articulatory muscles.[9] The EMG recordings allows one to monitor and ideally reduce subvocalization.[9]
In concurrent speaking tasks, participants of a study are asked
to complete an activity specific to the experiment while simultaneously
repeating an irrelevant word.[6] For example, one may be asked to read a paragraph while reciting the word "cola" over and over again.[8] Speaking the repeated irrelevant word is thought to preoccupy the articulators used in subvocalization.[6]
Subvocalization, therefore, cannot be used in the mental processing of
the activity being studied. Participants who had undergone the
concurrent speaking task are often compared to other participants of the
study who had completed the same activity without subvocalization
interference. If performance on the activity is significantly less for
those in the concurrent speaking task group than for those in the
non-interference group, subvocalization is believed to play a role in
the mental processing of that activity.[6][7][8][9]
The participants in the non-interference comparison group usually also
complete a different, yet equally distracting task that does not involve
the articulator muscles [7][9](i.e.
tapping). This ensures that the difference in performance between the
two groups is in fact due to subvocalization disturbances and not due to
considerations such as task difficulty or a divide in attention.[7][9]
Shadowing is conceptually similar to concurrent speaking tasks.
Instead of repeating an irrelevant word, shadowing requires participants
to listen to a list of words and to repeat those words as fast as
possible while completing a separate task being studied by
experimenters.[6]
Techniques for subvocalization interference may also include counting,[7][8] chewing [10] or locking one's jaw while placing the tongue on the roof of one's mouth.[10]
feldenkraisresourcesformusicians | This description is marvelous because it captures the effect of integration through listening.61 Trough listening, something happens that Ephram does not ‘know’. He is given a taste of the pre-symbolic Real for a moment. He does not speak, but instead acknowledges this internal, placeless ‘fnding’ (between visible activity) with chirruping laughter; this giddy delight and uncertainty refect the trauma of the Real and the way in which the senses are unifed in this domain. Nancy attempts to come to grips with the way in which laughter mediates the senses.
He states that, Laughter bursts at the multiple limits of the senses and of language, uncertain of the sense to which it is ofered […] Laughter is the joy of the senses, and of sense, at their limit. In this joy, the senses touch each other and touch language, the tongue in the mouth.62
Ephram’s laughter is like a cloudburst. Feldenkrais touches something deeper than just Ephram’s sensorium through touch and listening, and Ephram responds with laughter: he touches Ephram’s uniqueness.63 Feldenkrais states: ‘You know what that laughter is worth? Tat is Eureka!’ Later, when Ephram laughs again, he observes: ‘You see that laughter is priceless; you can’t buy it for all the money that you have in the world.’ Feldenkrais tacitly acknowledges that in this release, Ephram as a listening being has also withdrawn from him.64 Nancy might say that essential to listening is a ‘withdrawal and turning inward’.65 Laughter provides evidence of an essential independence that signals and derives from integration.66
Trough Ephram’s laughter, the external listeners assembled are exposed to a moment when Ephram is on a fulcrum of listening. It is not just that in Nancy’s terms he has become present to (him)self, but that he registers the trauma of the Real; Ephram’s laughter registers the possibility of change in his self-image. In Nancy’s terms this is the ‘reference’ (renvoi) of sound, ‘from a sign to a thing’.69
But what is this ‘thing’? Te making of ‘sense’ within Ephram’s sensorium is the jouissance of precisely that which does not make sense to him, a new self-image which cannot be immediately rationalized or assimilated.70 So when Nancy states that ‘a self is nothing other than a form or function of referral, a self is made of a relationship to self, or of a presence to self’, this can be considered only part of the story.71
One of the functions of FI is to bring the subject into an encounter with what is unknown, moving from the self that is known, founded in gravity and their own body image in the world, to a new image of the self.72 Ephram’s laughter bubbles up; it escapes what is presented to the world as a disabled boy. It is the resonance of an encounter with another self. His listening is an ongoing process of (re-)formation in the irreducible, intimate and non-linear temporal paradigm of ‘making the impossible possible’, as Feldenkrais has stated,73 and it is precisely this which is inscribed in the Lacanian Real.74
His outburst of laughter creates a symbolic cut in the Real that through its diferentiation signals the Real: it is like the tip of an iceberg that appears above the water, but in doing so it also signifes that below the water (apart from the rest of the iceberg, which is already integrated with the symbolic register) is the ocean’s void.75 In Nancy’s terms, Ephram is a paradigm of a ‘subject of listening [that] is always still yet to come’.76 With regard to Feldenkrais’s ‘listening for his next breath’, Nancy’s question is germane here: ‘What does it mean for a being to be immersed entirely in listening, formed by listening or in listening, listening with all its being?’ – and one might add here: ‘listening to all his being’.77 In this spirit of enquiry we might listen with Feldenkrais and ask: ‘Is it indeed possible (or desirable) to listen to all of another person’s being?’
This is a crucial question, and one fundamental to FI, because listening for Feldenkrais is a sensing through his hands of where someone else is stuck; where, through habit or injury, for example, the mind/body entity is momentarily incapable of utilizing a deeper intelligence to improve a function or action. Helping a person to fnd this intelligence within themselves is one of the primary functions of instrumental lessons and indeed of the Feldenkrais Method. Listening, then, as is shown in Feldenkrais’s work with Ephram, is an enactivist engagement with intelligence and awareness, not just with presence to the world or the self (pace Nancy).
Feldenkrais’s ideal of listening is intimately connected to overcoming ‘resistance’, a term borrowed from Freud. In their book The Language of Psychoanalysis, Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis defne this concept: ‘In psycho-analytic treatment the name “resistance” is given to everything in the words and actions of the analysis and that obstructs his gaining access to his un-conscious.’78
Laplanche and Pontalis point out that while Freud first discovered that resistance was ‘an obstacle to the elucidation of the symptoms and to the progress of the treatment’, he realized that ‘resistance was itself a means of reaching the repressed and unveiling the secret of neurosis’ and that ‘the interpretation of resistance, along with that of the transference, constituted the specifc characteristics of his technique’ that was part and parcel of the possibility of a cure.79 Feldenkrais extends this in profound ways elaborated through the examples given in this study.
Resistance is understood not merely as that which obstructs the change in the self-image; Feldenkrais ‘interprets’ this resistance as an active means of gaining access to Ephram’s motor cortex, rather than the psychoanalytic ‘un-conscious’.
princeton | I turned to Feldenkrais because a friend I respected a lot suggested it
as a solution to my hand and arm pain (RSI). I went to ATM classes and
took FI
lessons
from a local teacher in Princeton NJ. Though these whetted my
curiosity, they did not solve my RSI problems.
I found an excellent teacher, Angel DiBenedetto,
during a 5-month stay in
Seattle. She learned from Moshe Feldenkrais, and is herself a trainer
of other Feldenkrais teachers. Eight lessons from her
(over a 3-month period) completely changed my view of my body. My
hand was much better but still not 100%. Also, I sensed the tremendous
potential of this method and wanted to go further. So I took 8-9
Feldenkrais
lessons with
another amazing teacher, Anat Krivine,
during a subsequent 4-month stay
in Israel. Anat is also a trainer of Feldenkrais teachers. It was very
useful for me to learn from multiple teachers, since no two
teachers have
the same perspective. One important thing that Anat finally made me
realize and give up was my
tendency to ask for "the best way to do X"
which I think was limiting my learning. Furthermore, unknown to me, she
had a special interest in scoliosis (sideways curve of the spine) which
turned out to be relevant to my problems. By the end, my hand problems
were completely gone and my scoliosis (which the medical profession
thinks of as a skeletal problem, with no cure) much reduced. (See the
links below for an explanation of scoliosis and the Feldenkrais
approach to it.)
So what can you expect when you get Feldenkrais lessons from a good
teacher? The immediate sensation is one of calm that you
have never known. You may realize that you have lived in a background
of muscular tension that you had never noticed until it went away.
(Kind of like the change in background noise level you might notice if
you moved from Manhattan to Montana.) This
can be a powerful, even emotional experience. It is a good idea
to savor this calm right after the lesson, and to take a
nap. You may feel great, but avoid the temptation to go out and do
something strenuous. (Skip your usual exercise routine for a day or
two.) The calm may dissipate over the next few hours and days, but in
future sessions it will last longer and longer, until it becomes part
of your everyday state.
The FI's implant new ideas into your body, and over the next few days
and weeks it will slowly imbibe them and change. Do not be surprised if
you find yourself doing things differently.
Another thought that might occur to you is that much of what you have
known
about pain
is wrong. You will learn that often pain is caused by faulty movement
patterns,
not any
kind of damage to the body. Thus pain can be produced and
taken away at will, using simple change in movements. This knowledge is
extremely empowering for people who have suffered from chronic pain.
(Update Aug 2008): During the
year since I first wrote my page, I have continued to do ATMs every
week, and felt continuous
and noticeable improvement. However, I also slowly became more and more
aware of the asymmetries still left over from my scoliosis. These were
interfering with my enjoyment of activities I had newly started (Capoeira,
rollerskating, and running). In
Summer 2008 I got a few lessons from another excellent teacher, Reuven
(Robbie) Ofir, in Manhattan. (I heard of him from a friend.) Robbie is
also a Feldenkrais trainer and a
former head of
physical therapy at a leading NYC hospital. Robbie helped me work
out some deep
asymmetries and tensions in my body. Robbie also taught me do
ATMs at an even slower and gentler pace that I used to, which has taken
my learning to a higher level. I feel truly great now. But Robbie
has helped me appreciate that there is no end to the process of
improvement with the Feldenkrais method. (Encouraged by this, I also
took my aged parents to Robbie for a few
lesson, which helped them a lot. They are from
India and Feldenkrais is unlike anything they have experienced.)
I plan to
get an
occasional FI or two in future years to continue this learning. In
particular I plan to explore the use of the method in voice and music.
wikipedia |Social credit is an interdisciplinary and distributive philosophy developed by C. H. Douglas. It encompasses economics, political science, history, and accounting.
Its policies are designed, according to Douglas, to disperse economic
and political power to individuals. Douglas wrote, "Systems were made
for men, and not men for systems, and the interest of man which is self-development, is above all systems, whether theological, political or economic."[1] Douglas said that Social Crediters want to build a new civilization based upon "absolute economic security" for the individual, where "they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid."[2][3] In his words, "what we really demand of existence is not that we shall be put into somebody else's Utopia, but we shall be put in a position to construct a Utopia of our own."[4]
It was while he was reorganising the work at Farnborough, during
World War I, that Douglas noticed that the weekly total costs of goods
produced was greater than the sums paid to individuals for wages, salaries and dividends. This seemed to contradict the theory of classic Ricardian economics, that all costs are distributed simultaneously as purchasing power.
Troubled by the seeming difference between the way money flowed and the
objectives of industry ("delivery of goods and services", in his
opinion), Douglas decided to apply engineering methods to the economic system.
Douglas collected data from more than a hundred large British
businesses and found that in nearly every case, except that of companies
becoming bankrupt,
the sums paid out in salaries, wages and dividends were always less
than the total costs of goods and services produced each week: consumers
did not have enough income to buy back what they had made. He
published his observations and conclusions in an article in the magazine
The English Review,
where he suggested: "That we are living under a system of accountancy
which renders the delivery of the nation's goods and services to itself a
technical impossibility."[5]
He later formalized this observation in his A+B theorem. Douglas
proposed to eliminate this difference between total prices and total
incomes by augmenting consumers' purchasing power through a National Dividend and a Compensated Price Mechanism.
According to Douglas, the true purpose of production is consumption,
and production must serve the genuine, freely expressed interests of
consumers. In order to accomplish this objective, he believed that each
citizen should have a beneficial, not direct, inheritance in the
communal capital conferred by complete access to consumer goods assured by the National Dividend and Compensated Price.[6]:4:108 Douglas thought that consumers, fully provided with adequate purchasing power, will establish the policy of production through exercise of their monetary vote.[6]:89–91 In this view, the term economic democracy does not mean worker control of industry, but democratic control of credit.[6]:4–9 Removing the policy of production from banking institutions, government, and industry, social credit envisages an "aristocracy of producers, serving and accredited by a democracy of consumers".[6]:95
The policy proposals of social credit attracted widespread
interest in the decades between the world wars of the twentieth century
because of their relevance to economic conditions of the time. Douglas
called attention to the excess of production capacity over consumer
purchasing power, an observation that was also made by John Maynard Keynes in his book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, although he rejected the A+B theorem. [7]
While Douglas shared some of Keynes' criticisms of classical
economics, his unique remedies were disputed and even rejected by most
economists and bankers of the time. Remnants of social credit still
exist within social credit parties throughout the world, but not in the purest form originally advanced by Douglas.
The government of modern China has maintained systems of paper records on individuals and households such as the dàng'àn (档案) and hùkǒu (户口)
systems which officials might refer to, but did not provide the same
degree and rapidity of feedback and consequences for Chinese citizens as
the integrated electronic system because of the much greater difficulty
of aggregating paper records for rapid, robust analysis. [18]
The Social Credit System also originated from grid-style social management, a policing strategy first implemented in select locations from 2001 and 2002 (during the rule of paramount leaderJiang Zemin) in specific locations across mainland China.
In its first phase, grid-style policing was a system for more effective
communication between public security bureaus. Within a few years, the
grid system was adapted for use in distributing social services. Grid
management provided the authorities not only with greater situational
awareness on the group level, but also enhanced the tracking and
monitoring of individuals.[63][64] In 2018, sociologist Zhang Lifan explained that Chinese society today is still deficient in trust. People often expect to be cheated or to get in trouble even if they are innocent. He believes that it is due to the Cultural Revolution,
where friends and family members were deliberately pitted against each
other and millions of Chinese were killed. The stated purpose of the
social credit system is to help Chinese people trust each other again.[64]
The Social Credit System is an example of China's "top-level design" (顶层设计) approach. It is coordinated by the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms.[11]
It is unclear whether the system will work as envisioned by 2020, but
the Chinese government has fast-tracked the implementation of the
system, resulting in the publication of numerous policy documents and
plans since the main plan was issued in 2013. If the Social Credit
System is implemented as envisioned, it will constitute a new way of
controlling both the behavior of individuals and of businesses.[11]
Gurdjieff offers us a theory of laughter, independent of any state of amusement (= humor), that nevertheless distinguishes between laughter as a physiological response and the organismic cause of it, which he also calls “laughter.” This organismic variable (O), though not necessarily the same as humor, is shown to be a complex structure that is radically different from the visible laughter that results from it. Since his conception of O, though outlined in a most rudimentary and concise form, provides us the basis of the most viable theory of humor that we have been able to elaborate and immediately brings into relief some of the most conspicuous features of this humor-theory, we find it both convenient and opportune to begin with his succinct formulation of the structure of the organismic variable responsible for both humor and laughter. The passage on laughter is reproduced below in full and much of this thesis may be considered to be a systematic interpretation of his theory of laughter, its integration into a general theory of humor, and a sustained exploration of its consequences in various domains. We shall ignore his references to other aspects of his system such as his theory of yawning, of accumulators, centers, and so on, except insofar as they are relevant to our proper understanding of humor.
The framed web presentation is very cumbersome, but the analysis is on point and is the likes of which you will never encounter in the ordinary literature....,Gurdjieff’s Theory of Laughter1. Though only a theory of laughter, and not of humor, it distinguishes between the binary-structured organismic variable (O) and its physiological resolution (R). O provides the basis of the most viable theory of humor even while preserving its link with laughter (R).2. R is the discarding of superfluous energy due to O: an unstable structural opposition between two sharply contrasting simultaneous impressions, positive and negative, of a single stimulus (S). It is not the particular contents—cognitive, affective or motor—but the binary structure of the mutual neutralization that determines O.3. R is pleasurable due to relief from tension and not due to amusement (as in humor); O may nevertheless have a painful element.4. Though the convulsion O may be unerringly registered by the subject, the constituents and even structure of O may remain unspecifiable.5. This laughter mechanism releases possibly pre-existing negative emotions through the negative component of O. Thus, culturally it is a ‘luxury reflex,’ simultaneously valorized for the relative freedom from fundamental biological instincts it provides and also devalorized for its necessary dependence on the same. Marks the ambivalent threshold between nature and culture.6. Laughter being infectious, R in another can act independently of S for one’s own laughter (parastha-hâsa). Similarly, another’s laughter induces one to perceive the real S in terms of O.7. The possibility and frequency of O’s occurrence is doubly determined: both by the effectiveness of the stimulus (S) and the subjective state of the individual (also his psychic constitution).8. [61] Gurdjieff’s ‘behaviorizing’ theory of the psychology of the ordinary modern man is perfectly compatible with the traditional ‘psychology’ underlying brahmanical philosophy; just as the reversal of the ‘behavioral circuit,’ the finality of his system, is the counterpart of the ‘autonomy’ (svâtantrya) of the Trika ‘metapsychology.’ It is within this combined theoretical framework that humor-and-laughter, hâsa-and-hâsya, will be investigated in their universality.9. Hâsa classified as a pleasant emotion despite the neutral character of O, because the resulting laughter (R) is pleasant.10. Reduction of Freud’s ‘comic of movement’ to Gurdjieff’s ‘laughter in the moving-instinctive center.’
telegraph | Our animal ancestors, and most of their
descendants, laughed simply because they were enjoying themselves,
according to a new study.
But over millions of years humans have perfected how to use the sound to wound as well. Great apes which roamed the earth 16 million years ago are thought to be the first who developed the ability to laugh.
Modern-day Orangutans, the only species of Asian great ape, laugh when
they are having fun, while African great apes, which include gorillas
and chimpanzees, have learned that the sound can be used to influence
others, but still only use laughter while playing.
However, human have gone much further, using laughter for a range of negative emotions, including to ridicule or sneer.
SA | For instance, how can the sometimes opposite functions of humor, such
as promoting social bonding and excluding others with derision, be
reconciled? And when laughter enhances feelings of social connectedness,
is that effect a fundamental function of the laughter or a mere
by-product of some other primary role (much as eating with people has
undeniable social value even though eating is primarily motivated by the
need for nourishment)?
There is much evidence for a fundamental function. Robert Provine of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, showed in Current Directions in Psychological Science,
for example, that individuals laugh 30 times more in the company of
others than they do alone. In his research, he and his students
surreptitiously observed spontaneous laughter as people went about their
business in settings ranging from the student union to shopping malls.
Forabosco notes that there is also some confusion about the relation
between humor and laughter: “Laughter is a more social phenomenon, and
it occurs for reasons other than humor, including unpleasant ones.
Moreover, humor does not always make us laugh.” He notes the cases where
a person is denigrated or where an observation seems amusing but does
not lead to laughter.
A further lingering area of debate concerns humor’s role in sexual
attraction and thus reproductive success. In one view, knowing how to be
funny is a sign of a healthy brain and of good genes, and consequently
it attracts partners. Researchers have found that men are more likely to
be funny and women are more likely to appreciate a good sense of humor,
which is to say that men compete for attention and women do the
choosing. But views, of course, differ on this point.
Even the validity of seeking a unified theory of humor is debated.
“It is presumptuous to think about cracking the secret of humor with a
unified theory,” Forabosco says. “We understand many aspects of it, and
now the neurosciences are helping to clarify important issues. But as
for its essence, it’s like saying, ‘Let’s define the essence of love.’
We can study it from many different angles; we can measure the effect of
the sight of the beloved on a lover’s heart rate. But that doesn’t
explain love. It’s the same with humor. In fact, I always refer to it by
describing it, never by defining it.”
Still, certain commonalities are now accepted by almost all scholars
who study humor. One, Forabosco notes, is a cognitive element:
perception of incongruity. “That’s necessary but not sufficient,” he
says, “because there are incongruities that aren’t funny.” So we have to
see what other elements are involved. To my mind, for example, the
incongruity needs to be relieved without being totally resolved; it must
remain ambiguous, something strange that is never fully explained.”
Other cognitive and psychological elements can also provide some
punch. These, Forabosco says, include features such as aggression,
sexuality, sadism and cynicism. They don’t have to be there, but the
funniest jokes are those in which they are. Similarly, people tend to
see the most humor in jokes that are “very intelligent and very wicked.”
“What is humor? Maybe in 40 years we’ll know,” Forabosco says. And
perhaps in 40 years we’ll be able to explain why he laughs as he says
it.
TNR | The Buddha recommends practicing greater
mindfulness throughout our waking day. The ultimate insight, however, is
that when we peer within and try to gauge or pin down the elusive ego,
there is nothing there. As Zen master D. T. Suzuki put it, the fruit of
concerted and disciplined meditation is to see the “I” flapping like a
loose door in the wind, coming off its hinges with each breath.
Halo,
by contrast, promises to deliver only narcissism and self-obsession.
The device doesn’t offer real insight into your inner states but reports
on how you seem to other people. As Amazon’s medical officer Maulik
Majmudar explains,
“People are relatively unaware of how they sound to others and the
impact that may have on their personal and professional relationships.”
If you sound irritated, angry, restrained, or overbearing, you can
adjust your tone and delivery to seem otherwise.
Doesn’t this
invite you to second-guess every utterance and interaction and fret over
how you look in the eyes of judging peers? This is the least helpful
kind of self-knowledge since it is wholly insecure, constantly shifting,
eternally uncertain. I can and never will know how others assess
me—this is beyond my control. Trying to grasp this, or influence it with
any consistency or certainty, is a futile chase and a recipe for
madness. It evokes the anxiety that therapists attribute to social media
use.
But if Halo is of little use to me, who is it principally for? Amazon has vowed
that it will not pillage the data collected; Halo spies only for you.
For now. But it establishes an important precedent and inures us to
constant surveillance. Thus, it opens the door for hungry marketers.
Surveillance is at the heart of the digital economy; it’s what makes, or
promises to make, digital services superior. The more we divulge, the
more precisely, efficiently, and effectively these services help us.
They can tell you what you want before you know you want it. On the
promise of personalized service and greater convenience, we invariably
comply.
Why might marketers want to know about your
emotional states? How are they benefited by knowing you are sad for 1.6
seconds at 12:30 p.m.? Marketers can take advantage of you in such
moments and pitch products and services that you are susceptible to. As
media scholar Zeynep Tufekci argues,
it’s but a short step from identifying your vulnerabilities to creating
them. If Amazon determines you are depressed, for example, it may know
exactly what movies you will indulge in, what snack foods you will load
up on—what “retail therapy” soothes you at that moment.
They call me the Back Door Santa
I make my runs about the break of day
They call me the Back Door Santa
I make my runs about the break of day
I make all the little girls happy
While the boys are out to play
I ain't like the old Saint Nick
He don't come but once a year
I ain't like the old Saint Nick
He don't come but once a year
I come runnin' with my presents
Every time they call me dear
I keep some change in my pocket, in case the children are
Home
I give 'em a few pennies so that we can be alone
I leave the back door open so if anybody smells a mouse
And wouldn't old Santa be in trouble if there ain't no
Chimney in the house
They call me the Back Door Santa
I make my runs about the break of day
I make all the little girls happy
While all the boys are out to play
They call me the Back Door Santa
Yeah, that's what they call me
They call me the Back Door Santa
Yeah, that's what they call me
A man who is able to do all
that is demanded of a Christian, both with his mind and his essence, is called a
Christian without quotation marks. A man who, in his mind, wishes to do all that
is demanded of a Christian, but can do so only with his mind and not with his
essence, is called pre-Christian. And a man who can do nothing, even with his
mind, is called a non- Christian.”
G.I.Gurdjieff /Views from the
Real World / Separation of Oneself from oneself
"If instead of religion in general we take
Christianity, then again there exists a
“Christianity number one,
that is to say, paganism in the guise of Christianity. Christianity number two
is an emotional religion, sometimes very pure but without force, sometimes full
of bloodshed and horror leading to the Inquisition, to religious wars. Christianity number
three, instances of which are afforded by various forms of Protestantism, is
based upon dialectic, argument, theories, and so forth. Then there is
Christianity number four, of which men number one, number two, and number three
have no conception whatever. "In actual fact Christianity number one, number
two, and number three is simply external imitation. Only man number four
strives to be a Christian and only man number five can actually be a Christian.
For to be a Christian means to have the being of a Christian, that is, to live
in accordance with Christ's precepts. "Man number one, number two, and number
three cannot live in accordance with Christ's precepts because with them
everything 'happens.' Today it is one thing and tomorrow it is quite another
thing. Today they are ready to give away their last shirt and tomorrow to tear
a man to pieces because he refuses to give up his shirt to them. They are
swayed by every chance event. They are not masters of themselves and therefore
they cannot decide to be Christians and really be Christians.”
G.I.Gurdjieff/
In search for the Miraculous / Chapter 4
"First of all it is
necessary to understand that a Christian is not a man who calls himself a
Christian or whom others call a Christian. A Christian is one who lives in
accordance with Christ's precepts. Such as we are we cannot be Christians. In
order to be Christians we must be able 'to do.' We cannot do; with us everything
'happens.' Christ says: 'Love your enemies,' but how can we love our enemies
when we cannot even love our friends? Sometimes 'it loves' and sometimes 'it
does not love.' Such as we are we cannot even really desire to be Christians
because, again, sometimes 'it desires' and sometimes 'it does not desire.' And
one and the same thing cannot be desired for long, because suddenly, instead of
desiring to be a Christian, a man remembers a very good but very expensive
carpet that he has seen in a shop. And instead of wishing to be a Christian he
begins to think how he can manage to buy this carpet, forgetting all about
Christianity. Or if somebody else does not believe what a wonderful Christian he
is, he will be ready to eat him alive or to roast him on hot coals. In order to
be a good Christian one must be. To be means to be master of oneself. If a man
is not his own master he has nothing and can have nothing. And he cannot be a
Christian. He is simply a machine, an automaton. A machine cannot be a
Christian. Think for yourselves, is it possible for a motorcar or a typewriter
or a gramophone to be Christian? They are simply things which are controlled by
chance. They are not responsible. They are machines. To be a Christian means to
be responsible. Responsibility comes later when a man even partially ceases to
be a machine, and begins in fact, and not only in words, to desire to be a
Christian."
G.I.Gurdjieff/
In search for the Miraculous / Chapter 6
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