The only guide to Gamergate you will ever need to read Anita Sarkeesian, the feminist writer and media critic who has been attacked in “Gamergate.” (Feminist Frequency/Flickr) Gamergate, the freewheeling catastrophe/social movement/misdirected lynchmob that has, since August, trapped wide swaths of the Internet in its clutches, has still — inexplicably! — not burned itself out. Late last week, when many of us thought we’d seen its end, the mob drove yet another woman from her home: This one, Brianna Wu, because she dared to tweet some jokes about the ongoing drama. Here at the Intersect, we have ignored Gamergate for as long as humanly possible — in large part because it’s been covered in enormous, impressive depth elsewhere, and in smaller part because we’re exhausted by the senseless, never-ending onslaught of Internet misogyny, which really can’t be explained in a blog post — or, frankly, anywhere else. What is Gamergate? Whatever Gamergate may have started as, it is now an Internet culture war. Why should I care about this?
Three Minute Philosophy THREE MINUTE PHILOSOPHY is an animated web series designed to explain philosophical ideas in a way that even your Mum can understand them. Each video will explore the ideas of one or two philosophers and their impact on the tradition of thought in approximately three minutes. We're working chronologically here so if you're still holding out for Nietzsche then it's probably wise to defer your degree and take a holiday in Scotland or somewhere. Heraclitus and Parmenides Two guys who butted heads in really ancient Greece about the nature of time and physical reality. Heraclitus thought that everything was fluid and in constant flux while Parmenides thought the universe was really just a big block of unchanging stuff. Plato Pretty much the most influential philosopher of all time. Empedocles Certifiable nutcase, wannabe cult leader, and unknowingly the precursor to the entire history of science until pretty much this day.
City ends reserved soccer at Mission Playground after Dropbox flap The San Francisco Recreation and Park Department has decided to end reserved adult play at Mission Playground — the site of a video-recorded confrontation between tech workers and locals that went viral — after meeting with a group of neighborhood kids on Wednesday, according to department director Phil Ginsburg. Ginsburg said park officials met with a combination of kids and youth soccer advocates and came to the conclusion that, in this instance, the need for unstructured play on weekday evenings outweighed the desire to accommodate adults. “The most compelling suggestions came from the kids who said, ‘This is a safe place we can come and play and we feel like we need more time,’” said Ginsburg. “Our first priority is kids. Youth teams will continue to be able to reserve the field after school until 7 p.m. While Dropbox apologized for the incident, the employees in question had gone through the proper channels to reserve the field.
Eastern Philosophy Explained with Three Animated Videos by Alain de Botton's School of Life “Among the founders of religions,” writes Walpola Rahula in his book What the Buddha Taught, “the Buddha…was the only teacher who did not claim to be other than a human being, pure and simple. […] He attributed all his realization, attainment and achievements to human endeavor and human intelligence.” Rahula’s interpretation of Buddhism is only one of a great many, of course. In some traditions, the Buddha is miraculous and more or less divine. But this quote sums up why the generally non-theistic system of Eastern thought is often called a psychology or philosophy rather than a religion. With the video above, Alain de Botton—whose School of Life has recently brought us a survey of Western philosophers—begins his introduction to Eastern thought with Buddhism. The Buddha’s story, de Botton says, “is a story about confronting suffering.” Most of what de Botton does in his introduction to the Buddha will be familiar to anyone who has taken a comparative religions class. Related Content:
Addicting Info – Rich Guys Try To Kick Poor Kids Off Their Own Playing Field, Get A Life Lesson Instead (VIDEO) This is what happened when a group of wealthy, white tech workers in San Francisco attempted to kick a group of local kids off their playing field — they got a life lesson they’ll never forget. The Mission Playing Field, enjoyed for decades as a shared public space, is being privatized by San Francisco Parks & Recreation in collusion with the private City Fields Foundation. Without community approval, the private foundation decided to issue costly permits to use the small traditional pick-up soccer field. So, the inevitable happens and the entitled show up and try to kick the neighborhood kids off of the field at prime time without even showing their “permit.” One of them is even heard off-camera crying: “Who cares about the community?!” The kids hold their ground and explain that they’ve been playing this field for years and the rules are: you take your turn or you do not get one. In fact, even Dropbox issued an apology over the matter to SFGate:
A History of Ideas: Animated Videos Explain Theories of Simone de Beauvoir, Edmund Burke & Other Philosophers The UK’s Open University has become a dependable source of very short, online video introductions to all sorts of things, from weighty subjects like religion, economics, and literary theory to lighter, but no less interesting fare like the art and science of bike design. With breezy tone and serious intent, their animated “60-Second Adventures” make seemingly arcane academic ideas accessible to laypeople with no prior background. Now they’ve teamed up with writer and BBC broadcaster Melvyn Bragg of In Our Time fame for a series of video shorts that run just a little over 60 seconds each, with animations by Andrew Park of Cogni+ive, and narration by comedic actor Harry Shearer from Spinal Tap, The Simpsons, and, most recently, Nixon’s the One. Drawn from Bragg’s BBC 4 radio program “A History of Ideas,” the shorts introduce exactly that—each one a précis of a longstanding philosophical problem like Free Will vs. Related Content: 120+ Free Online Philosophy Courses
Whites riot over pumpkins in NH and Twitter turns it into epic lesson about Ferguson Police were forced to descend on Keene, New Hampshire Saturday night after students and outside agitators turned the city’s 24th annual Pumpkin Festival into “a destination for destructive and raucous behavior.” Those words — spoken by Keene State College President Anne Huot to CNN — only begin to describe the scene, which led to dozens of arrests and hospitalizations. One rioter, Steven French, told the Keene Sentinel that he traveled from Haverhill, Massachusetts to attend the festival because he knew it would be “f*cking wicked.” “It’s just like a rush. You’re revolting from the cops,” he continued. “It’s a blast to do things that you’re not supposed to do.” The police viewed the behavior of French and his cohorts less favorably, barricading streets and firing tear gas into crowds in an effort to disperse them. Meanwhile, on Twitter, users marveled at how different the police response to these unruly young adults was to another recent event: Of course, some good could come from this:
BBC Blogs - The Radio 4 Blog - Philosophy Animated The Transformation of Justin Bieber From a White Youth to a Black Man | Darron T. Smith, Ph.D. In what took Usher most of his 20-year music career to accomplish, it took Justin Bieber just a short five years to reap similar financial success and actually surpass his mentor. Usher Raymond IV was an R&B phenom who started his career much like Bieber as a young teen and is among America's top selling artists. He saw something special in the young star during their initial meetings. But that does not explain the rate in which Bieber shot to fame compared to his current counterparts such as Jason Derulo, Trey Songz and even Chris Brown. This is something W.E.B. Black men and boys are "onstage" every day. Because blacks have little to no control over their social condition in life, cool pose then is a source of empowerment. People are stereotypically drawn to cool black males because they represent vitality, making them instantly marketable. Even still, whites have a long history of appropriating coolness, not caring to know its pathogenic origins, particularly in music.