The Acceleration of Addictiveness
July 2010 What hard liquor, cigarettes, heroin, and crack have in common is that they're all more concentrated forms of less addictive predecessors. Most if not all the things we describe as addictive are. And the scary thing is, the process that created them is accelerating. We wouldn't want to stop it. No one doubts this process is accelerating, which means increasing numbers of things we like will be transformed into things we like too much. [2] As far as I know there's no word for something we like too much. The world is more addictive than it was 40 years ago. The next 40 years will bring us some wonderful things. Most people won't, unfortunately. These two senses are already quite far apart. Societies eventually develop antibodies to addictive new things. As knowledge spread about the dangers of smoking, customs changed. It took a while though—on the order of 100 years. In fact, even that won't be enough. Most people I know have problems with Internet addiction. Notes
Year in Review: The 15 Best Foreign Films of 2009
Martyrs* (Pascal Laugier, France) This brutal, bloody, and occasionally terrifying movie also made Robert Fure’s Best Horror list, and it most definitely deserves the honor. A young girl is traumatized and grows up thirsty for revenge. But is she targeting the right people? Mother (Bong Joon-ho, South Korea) After the spectacle of his blockbuster monster movie The Host, Joon-ho scales it back and returns to the dark and moody procedural territory of his best film to date, Memories of Murder. Ong Bak 2* (Tony Jaa, Thailand) Film School Rejects called this the greatest martial arts film ever, and while I myself prefer to avoid the hyperbole I will agree that it comes pretty damn close. Pontypool* (Bruce McDonald, Canada) Who would have thought Canada would be the ones to bring an original spin to the zombie genre? A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, France) [Rec]* (Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza, Spain) Revanche* (Gotz Spielmann, Austria) Sin Nombre (Cary Fukunaga, Mexico)
Chris Hedges: Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System - Chris Hedges' Columns
Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System Posted on Apr 11, 2011 By Chris Hedges A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. Passing bubble tests celebrates and rewards a peculiar form of analytical intelligence. Teachers, under assault from every direction, are fleeing the profession. Get truth delivered to your inbox every week. Previous item: The End of Shutdowns Next item: Demanding the Impossible New and Improved Comments If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page.
Small Occupy Movements Across the Country Accumulate Victories | Truthout
In a recent San Francisco Chronicle piece, "Occupy movement must move toward the center," Tony Fels, associate professor of history at the University of San Francisco, writes that the Occupy "movement has reached a tactical dead end." Demonstrators don't have nicely packaged sound bites; there's no go-to spokesperson; Occupy DC is one of the last camps standing. But the movement is far from dead. Here in California, the movement is exploding. According to the study, many of the small and medium-sized towns are active with likes, posts and events on their Facebook pages. "The Occupy Barstow website proclaimed that Barstow is 'about as far from Wall Street as you can get.' And the majority of Occupy cities are not in the Northern, more liberal, part of the state. "The north-south finding is interesting because most people believe that the political culture of Northern California is much more Leftist than that of Southern California," Chase-Dunn and Curran-Strange write. A note on Rep.
5 Insane Ways Words Can Control Your Mind
On some level we already know that language shapes the way we think. We're automatically more afraid to fight a guy named Jack Savage than somebody named Peewee Nipplepuss, even if we've never seen either of them before. It's totally illogical, but you probably run into an example of that every day, and don't notice it. While we tend to think words are just sounds we make to express ideas, science is finding that language is more like a fun house mirror, warping what we see in mind-blowing ways. Speaking English Makes Us More Likely to Blame People Let's say your roommate Steve is jumping on your bed. How will you answer? Keep in mind, Steve pulls this shit all the time. The answer largely depends on what language you speak. Stanford scientists did experiments on this, by having speakers of various languages watch videos featuring, in various situations, people breaking eggs or popping balloons, sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident. "Maybe it's a kid-friendly version of Jackass?"
Watch Documentries Online. | Promote Documentary Films. Promote Consciousness. Promote Humanity | Culture Unplugged Online Film Festival
Spiritual Dimensions of Sustainable Development When we think of development, we usually think first of economic development to meet material needs, measured perhaps through growth in the Gross Nati... Buddhist Economics Originally published online by the New Economics Institute.Right Livelihood is one of the requirements of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. Discovering the Living Universe: Scientific Spirituality for a Global Family The ancient Greek word for science was philosophy -- philos sophias, lover of wisdom. These days everyone seems to be a film-maker.
12 Hot Mobile Medical Apps -- InformationWeek
Mobile medicine is everywhere. There's the iPhone app that lets you cut away images of muscle layers to see what lies beneath, an e-health record system for the iPad, and a smartphone-based blood pressure monitor. Here are a dozen innovative ones. 1 of 12 This free iPhone app shows you extensive views of the muscle systems. You can tap to enlarge, rotate, and "cut away" a layer of muscle and see muscles underneath. More Insights
I See What Occupy Vancouver Did There...And It's Brilliant
The media’s latest attempt to undercut the message of Occupy movements all across the globe is by touting the “cost” of these protests. Many sources are reporting that Occupy movements are costing cities hundreds of thousands of dollars in police overtime because apparently it takes an entire precinct to make sure that 50 people don't sleep through the night. When an internal city memorandum stated that Occupy Vancouver had cost its city nearly a million dollars in taxpayer money, the organizers did something brilliant: they broke down the cost of what they were doing for the city of Vancouver. Citing a recent press release from Occupy Vancouver, member Eric Hamilton-Smith noted, “…over 37,000 meals were served, $672,000 of primary medical care was provided, and 30 people were housed for 37 days at a time when beds at primary shelters were not available.” This is absolutely brilliant, and I suggest that all other Occupy movements take note of this. No. Two points:
