Meme - Gia Macool @GiaMMacool: "Men don't have commitment issues. They maintain the same friends, barber shop, football team, clothes, and preferences from their youth. It's just you they have a problem with."
Video | Facebook - "My childhood before there were smartphones ❤️ *killing time doing silly things like plucking leaves from bushes & selectively skipping from pavement stone to pavement stone*"
TED talks are lying to you - "The writer had a problem. Books he read and people he knew had been warning him that the nation and maybe mankind itself had wandered into a sort of creativity doldrums... And yet the troubled writer also knew that there had been, over these same years, fantastic growth in our creativity promoting sector. There were TED talks on how to be a creative person... If you listened to certain people, creativity was the story of our time, from the halls of MIT to the incubators of Silicon Valley. The literature on the subject was vast... He had heard these things before. Each story seemed to develop in an entirely predictable fashion... Those who urge us to “think different,” in other words, almost never do so themselves. Year after year, new installments in this unchanging genre are produced and consumed. Creativity, they all tell us, is too important to be left to the creative. Our prosperity depends on it. And by dint of careful study and the hardest science — by, say, sliding a jazz pianist’s head into an MRI machine — we can crack the code of creativity and unleash its moneymaking power. That was the ultimate lesson. That’s where the music, the theology, the physics and the ethereal water lilies were meant to direct us. Our correspondent could think of no books that tried to work the equation the other way around — holding up the invention of air conditioning or Velcro as a model for a jazz trumpeter trying to work out his solo... we’re talking about the literature of creativity, for Pete’s sake. If there is a non-fiction genre from which you have a right to expect clever prose and uncanny insight, it should be this one. So why is it so utterly consumed by formula and repetition? What our correspondent realized, in that flash of bathtub-generated insight, was that this literature isn’t about creativity in the first place... his creative friends, when considered as a group, were obviously on their way down, not up. The institutions that made their lives possible — chiefly newspapers, magazines, universities and record labels — were then entering a period of disastrous decline. The creative world as he knew it was not flowering, but dying. When he considered his creative friends as individuals, the literature of creativity began to seem even worse — more like a straight-up insult. Our writer-to-be was old enough to know that, for all its reverential talk about the rebel and the box breaker, society had no interest in new ideas at all unless they reinforced favorite theories or could be monetized in some obvious way. The method of every triumphant intellectual movement had been to quash dissent and cordon off truly inventive voices. This was simply how debate was conducted... The literature of creativity was something completely different. Everything he had noticed so far was a clue: the banality, the familiar examples, the failure to appreciate what was actually happening to creative people in the present time. This was not science, despite the technological gloss applied by writers like Jonah Lehrer. It was a literature of superstition, in which everything always worked out and the good guys always triumphed and the right inventions always came along in the nick of time. In Steven Johnson’s "Where Good Ideas Come From" (2010), the creative epiphany itself becomes a kind of heroic character, helping out clueless humanity wherever necessary... Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi acknowledges that, far from being an act of individual inspiration, what we call creativity is simply an expression of professional consensus. Using Vincent van Gogh as an example, the author declares that the artist’s “creativity came into being when a sufficient number of art experts felt that his paintings had something important to contribute to the domain of art.”... What determines “creativity,” in other words, is the very faction it’s supposedly rebelling against: established expertise... What your correspondent realized, relaxing there in his tub one day, was that the real subject of this literature was the professional-managerial audience itself, whose members hear clear, sweet reason when they listen to NPR and think they’re in the presence of something profound when they watch some billionaire give a TED talk. And what this complacent literature purrs into their ears is that creativity is their property, their competitive advantage, their class virtue. Creativity is what they bring to the national economic effort, these books reassure them — and it’s also the benevolent doctrine under which they rightly rule the world."
We need to talk about TED - "In our culture, talking about the future is sometimes a polite way of saying things about the present that would otherwise be rude or risky. But have you ever wondered why so little of the future promised in TED talks actually happens? So much potential and enthusiasm, and so little actual change. Are the ideas wrong? Or is the idea about what ideas can do all by themselves wrong?... The first reason is over-simplification... "you know what, I'm gonna pass because I just don't feel inspired ...you should be more like Malcolm Gladwell." At this point I kind of lost it. Can you imagine? Think about it: an actual scientist who produces actual knowledge should be more like a journalist who recycles fake insights! This is beyond popularisation. This is taking something with value and substance and coring it out so that it can be swallowed without chewing. This is not the solution to our most frightening problems – rather this is one of our most frightening problems. So I ask the question: does TED epitomize a situation where if a scientist's work (or an artist's or philosopher's or activist's or whoever) is told that their work is not worthy of support, because the public doesn't feel good listening to them? I submit that astrophysics run on the model of American Idol is a recipe for civilizational disaster... TED of course stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and I'll talk a bit about all three. I Think TED actually stands for: middlebrow megachurch infotainment. The key rhetorical device for TED talks is a combination of epiphany and personal testimony (an "epiphimony" if you like ) through which the speaker shares a personal journey of insight and realisation, its triumphs and tribulations. What is it that the TED audience hopes to get from this? A vicarious insight, a fleeting moment of wonder, an inkling that maybe it's all going to work out after all? A spiritual buzz? I'm sorry but this fails to meet the challenges that we are supposedly here to confront. These are complicated and difficult and are not given to tidy just-so solutions. They don't care about anyone's experience of optimism. Given the stakes, making our best and brightest waste their time – and the audience's time – dancing like infomercial hosts is too high a price. It is cynical. Also, it just doesn't work... the corollaries of placebo science and placebo medicine are placebo politics and placebo innovation. On this point, TED has a long way to go. Perhaps the pinnacle of placebo politics and innovation was featured at TEDx San Diego in 2011. You're familiar I assume with Kony2012, the social media campaign to stop war crimes in central Africa? So what happened here? Evangelical surfer bro goes to help kids in Africa. He makes a campy video explaining genocide to the cast of Glee. The world finds his public epiphany to be shallow to the point of self-delusion. The complex geopolitics of central Africa are left undisturbed. Kony's still there. The end. You see, when inspiration becomes manipulation, inspiration becomes obfuscation. If you are not cynical you should be sceptical. You should be as sceptical of placebo politics as you are placebo medicine... We hear that not only is change accelerating but that the pace of change is accelerating as well. While this is true of computational carrying-capacity at a planetary level, at the same time – and in fact the two are connected – we are also in a moment of cultural de-acceleration. We invest our energy in futuristic information technologies, including our cars, but drive them home to kitsch architecture copied from the 18th century. The future on offer is one in which everything changes, so long as everything stays the same. We'll have Google Glass, but still also business casual. This timidity is our path to the future? No, this is incredibly conservative, and there is no reason to think that more gigaflops will inoculate us. Because, if a problem is in fact endemic to a system, then the exponential effects of Moore's law also serve to amplify what's broken. It is more computation along the wrong curve, and I doubt this is necessarily a triumph of reason. Part of my work explores deep technocultural shifts, from post-humanism to the post-anthropocene, but TED's version has too much faith in technology, and not nearly enough commitment to technology. It is placebo technoradicalism, toying with risk so as to reaffirm the comfortable. So our machines get smarter and we get stupider. But it doesn't have to be like that. Both can be much more intelligent. Another futurism is possible... Worse is when economics is debated like metaphysics, as if the reality of a system is merely a bad example of the ideal. Communism in theory is an egalitarian utopia. Actually existing communism meant ecological devastation, government spying, crappy cars and gulags... Our options for change range from basically what we have plus a little more Hayek, to what we have plus a little more Keynes. Why?... At a societal level, the bottom line is if we invest in things that make us feel good but which don't work, and don't invest in things that don't make us feel good but which may solve problems, then our fate is that it will just get harder to feel good about not solving problems. In this case the placebo is worse than ineffective, it's harmful. It's diverts your interest, enthusiasm and outrage until it's absorbed into this black hole of affectation. Keep calm and carry on "innovating" ... is that the real message of TED? To me that's not inspirational, it's cynical."
The Titan's designers thought of a whole new paradigm. And...
‘Thought Leader’ gives talk that will inspire your thoughts | CBC Radio (Comedy/Satire Skit) - YouTube - "Let's look at a picture of the planet for no reason. What happens if I put some words over it? How about a number? By doing this, I've now made you think that I know what I'm talking about."
Low-flying helicopter sparks massive crocodile orgy in Australia - "A large-scale saltwater crocodile mating frenzy was recently triggered by an unlikely suspect in Australia — a low-flying Chinook helicopter. Ranchers from the Koorana Crocodile Farm in Queensland, which is home to over 3,000 crocodiles, said their scaly residents became aroused after the flyby and "mated like mad."... One reason may be tied to helicopters simulating many of the warning signs of an incoming thunderstorm. Heavy rains are known to have an aphrodisiac effect on many species of crocodilians. And saltwater crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) appear to time mating so new hatchlings do not drown in flood water after heavy rains and storms, O'shea said. They mate during thunderstorms so offspring are more likely to hatch in more moderate conditions... The sound of a Chinook's powerful rotors may resemble the sound of competing crocodilian males, such as the low bellowing sounds of males looking for a mate, or the sound of males slapping the water with their jaws — another territorial and courting behavior."
Australians are selling valuable old CorningWare casserole dishes for thousands on Ebay - "CorningWare dishes were all the rage in cookware the 70s but fell out of fashion for being 'daggy' and 'outdated'. However in recent years the brand has become highly sought after by collectors and home chefs for its high-quality glass, durability and nostalgic value... The white casserole dishes with a clear lid come in a range of patterns and designs with the most unpopular at the time fetching up to $15,000 on Ebay... 'I just found out the other day that most modern CorningWare is just fairly ordinary glass, the original was some super heat-resistant stuff but when Corning was taken over the new owners went for cheap,' one woman wrote in a Reddit thread. 'The original CorningWare material was a by-product of research for the US military, for shielding ballistic missiles on re-entry into earth's atmosphere. Strong stuff,' another wrote. Stanley Donald Stookey, a glass chemist, is hailed for 'forever changing cookware' after he accidentally created the super-strong glass the original CorningWare dishes are made of during a botched experiment in the 50s. The material was used as nose cones in guided missiles in the American military before it was made into an 'indestructible' line of cookware that can withstand extreme heat and is immune to chips and breakages."
Transgender monkeys and $8K lobster tanks: Gov't spending grievances aired in 'Festivus Report' - "In the most wonderful time of the year for Washington budget hawks, Sen. Rand Paul released his annual airing of spending grievances Friday in honor of the “Seinfeld”-immortalized holiday “Festivus.” From science experiments on transgender monkeys to $38 million in COVID payments to dead people, Paul’s report detailed what he called “a whopping $9 billion of waste” of taxpayer funds... In lieu of actual employee IDs, some fraudsters uploaded headshots of Barbie dolls to the AI system – which apparently accepted that the obviously plastic faces as “proof of identity” and OK’d sending checks off to the scammers behind the scheme."
Of course, if relief had been too slow to send off, people would've slammed the government for inefficiency
Meme - *Parking lot symbol - pregnant woman with stroller*
*Fat man with BBQ*
Meme - Emmanuel Macron: Authoritarian Left: "I'm maoist. A good program is a program that works"
"Neoliberalism and financial capitalism is coming to an end"
"Make our planet great again"
"It's not the citizen who will pay, but the multinationals."
"I am a yellow vest."
"We are the real populists."
"Something doesn't work any more in this capitalism that increasingly benefits the few."
"My advice to young people: go read Karl Marx."
"Yes, I'm a socialist."
Authoritarian Right: "My goal is to kick out all illegals who don't belong in France."
"Africa has Civilisational Problems."
"Petain was a great soldier"
"I include myself in the Gaulish resistance."
"What's missing in French politics is a king."
"Valeurs Actuelles is a very good newspaper"
"Honesty forces me to tell you that I'm not a socialist."
"As soon as something goes wrong it's blamed on the State."
"We have humiliated the France of the Manif Pour Tous."
Libertarian Left: "Colonization is a crime against humanity."
"Merkel saved our common dignity by welcoming refugees"
"Liberalism is a leftist value"
"White privilege is a fact."
"You see the rise of populism, like leprosy in Europe."
"Gauls are resistant to change."
"There is no French culture."
"Our values recognize the free rational individual as being above everything."
"I'm not going to ban Uber and the VFH, that would sending them back to selling drugs."
Libertarian Right:
"I take responsibility of being a liberal."
"We put a crazy amount ot money in the social minima and people don't make it"
"The Brits were lucky to have Thatcher."
"I want France to to be a start-up nation."
"I don't believe in the Amish system."
"The best way to afford a suit is to work."
"Young French people have to want to become billionaires."
"All you have to do to cross the road to find a job"
"In the train stations we meet those who have succeeded and those who are nothing..."
Up to 7 years’ jail for sex crime accused who refuse to undergo forensic exam under new framework | The Straits Times - "It may soon be an offence if an accused person in a sexual assault case refuses to take part in a forensic medical examination as part of investigations. Under the Criminal Procedure (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill introduced in Parliament on Jan 10, such accused individuals who are required to do so but refuse without a reasonable excuse can be jailed for up to seven years, fined or both. Forensic medical examinations consist of physical medical examinations, collection of samples from any body part as well as taking of photographs, casts and impressions of body parts, which may include intimate parts."
This is basically state assault
‘Haram’ to sleep with teddy bears, dolls, says popular preacher - "popular preacher Ustaz Azhar Idrus has warned that sleeping with such toys is considered haram (forbidden). According to Kosmo, he reminded parents and guardians not to allow their children to sleep with toys or dolls, such as teddy bears. “These days, many young girls sleep with such toys, and this is forbidden and not permissible. These toys are only for children to play with,” he said in a video of a recent lecture session. “Why do even our young women, aged 18 to 20, sleep with teddy bears or dolls on their heads? It is because they see celebrities doing it. Fathers, when you look into your daughter’s room, if there are such toys, it is considered forbidden,” he added. He also said that angels would not visit homes with such toys. He said these toys were only allowed for children who have not reached puberty. “Only young children are allowed to play with these toys. Also, hanging toy figures in cars, such as monkey or spider figures, are not allowed. Only place them on the seat for young children to play with so they do not disturb us while driving”"
Parents of teenage daughters are more likely to divorce than those with sons, study finds - "parents who had daughters first are 5 per cent more likely to split... A fist-born child's gender does not change the likelihood of divorce until the child hits 12 years old. The difference increases when the child is 15, as almost 10 per cent more couples with girls as their oldest split up than those with boys. Parents with daughters as their second-born or subsequent children had a similar pattern... There is no different between the genders at the age of 19, the study published in the Economic Journal reported. However, the increased risk of divorced was non-existent if the father was brought up with a sister - and it applied to both married and cohabiting couples... It did not highlight a causal link between having girls and getting a divorce - but a survey found 'parents of teenage daughters report more disagreements over child rearing, fathers of teenage daughters report worse family relationships and mothers of teenage daughters report more favourable attitudes towards divorce and lower life satisfaction'. The University of Melbourne's Jan Kabatek - one of the study's authors - suggested that parents may argue more over how to bring up teen girls than teen boys"
Woman scammed 10 people of S$880,000 including lover who cheated parents of life savings for her - "A married woman managed to get three different men to fall in love with her and transfer her large sums of money, with one of them cheating his parents into handing over their life savings. In total, she cheated 10 people of more than S$880,000 (US$646,000). Even when she was charged and her trial was pending, 49-year-old Joceyln Kwek Sok Koon managed to cheat her husband's ex-colleague of S$338,600, lying to him that she could help him obtain permanent residency in Singapore... The court heard that Kwek got to know her lover and co-accused Lai Sze Yin in July 2016, when the 24-year-old man delivered a parcel to her home. Even though Kwek was married and had two children, she began dating Lai. To conceal her real identity from Lai's family, she created a persona she assumed - a young woman named Rachel Lam Xin Yi who was studying in the National University of Singapore. She never met Lai's family but would talk to his parents over the phone, gaining their trust that way and buying them gifts. She managed to get Lai to trick his parents and younger sister into handing over a total of S$150,000 on the guise of investments or a car loan... To keep up the charade, she sent photos to the victim that she passed off as hers. The victim did a reverse Google image search and realised the pictures were of a Korean blogger. Despite confronting Kwek and arguing over it, the victim continued his relationship with her... After learning that the victim wanted to apply for permanent residency for himself and his family, Kwek lied to him that she could help act as his sponsor to fund the application. She did so to buy herself more time to repay the money that she already owed him. She instructed him not to contact the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) or Manpower Ministry or else he would be immediately deported. In January 2021, the victim lost his job at the bank and his employment pass was cancelled. He was supposed to fly back to the United Kingdom but stayed in Singapore after Kwek assured him that his PR application had been approved. She told him not to take up any other job offer and again warned him against contacting ICA or MOM. When the victim asked for proof of her claims, Kwek forged documents from ICA. No restitution was made to this victim, who fell into debt as a result of Kwek's actions and whose mental health deteriorated. He also faced investigations by ICA for overstaying... Kwek portrayed herself as a wealthy person, showing the victim pictures of "her property". As she bought expensive abalone from the victim's friend in bulk, the victim believed that she was rich. Kwek sent a photo of another person to the victim, claiming it was her. The victim realised this was a photo of another person, because Kwek accidentally sent him the full screenshot of the profile. Despite this, the victim continued his romantic relationship with Kwek that had begun in May 2021."
Is the west talking itself into decline? - "The industrial revolution was one of the most important events in human history. Over a handful of decades, technological breakthroughs kicked economic output off its centuries-long low plateau and sent populations, living standards and life expectancy soaring. Yet for all its vital importance, there is still disagreement over why all this took off when and where it did. One of the most compelling arguments comes from US economic historian Robert Allen, who argues that Britain’s successes in commerce in the 16th and 17th centuries pushed wages up and energy costs down, creating strong incentives to substitute energy and capital for labour and to mechanise manufacturing processes. Others place greater emphasis on the role of UK institutions, while some argue that innovative ideas emerged as a result of increasing interactions among growing and densifying populations. Another interesting theory is that of economic historian Joel Mokyr, who argues in his 2016 book A Culture of Growth that it was broader cultural change that laid the groundwork for the industrial revolution. Prominent British thinkers including Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton championed a progress-oriented view of the world, centred on the idea that science and experimentation were key to increasing human wellbeing. While persuasive, Mokyr’s theory has until recently been only that: a theory. But a fascinating paper published last month by a quartet of economists puts some evidence behind the argument. The researchers analysed the contents of 173,031 books printed in England between 1500 and 1900, tracking how the frequency of different terms changed over time, which they use as a proxy for the cultural themes of the day. They found a marked increase in the use of terms related to progress and innovation starting in the early 17th century. This supports the idea that “a cultural evolution in the attitudes towards the potential of science accounts in some part for the British industrial revolution and its economic take-off”. To explore whether this holds for other countries, I have adapted and extended their analysis to include Spain, which was economically competitive with Britain well into the 17th century, but then fell behind. Using data from millions of books digitised as part of the Google Ngram project, I have found that the upsurge in discussions of progress in British books occurs about two centuries before the same uptick in Spain, mirroring trends in the countries’ economic development. And it’s not just that people talk more about progress when their country is moving forward. In both, culture evolved before growth accelerated. The finding that language and culture can play important roles in triggering economic development has major implications for the west today. Extending the same analysis to the present, a striking picture emerges: over the past 60 years the west has begun to shift away from the culture of progress, and towards one of caution, worry and risk-aversion, with economic growth slowing over the same period. The frequency of terms related to progress, improvement and the future has dropped by about 25 per cent since the 1960s, while those related to threats, risks and worries have become several times more common. That simultaneous rise in language associated with caution could well be not a coincidence but an equal and opposite force acting against growth and progress. Ruxandra Teslo, one of a growing community of progress-focused writers at the nexus of science, economics and policy, argues that the growing scepticism around technology and the rise in zero-sum thinking in modern society is one of the defining ideological challenges of our time. Some may counter that a rebalancing of priorities from perpetual advancement to caution is a good thing, but this could be a catastrophic mistake. As well as economic growth, the drive for progress brought us modern medicine, significantly longer and healthier lives, plentiful food supplies, dramatic reductions in poverty, and ever more and ever cheaper renewable energy. The challenges facing the modern world will be solved by more focus on progress, not less. The pre-industrial world was one of mass conflict, exploitation and suffering. If we are to avoid backsliding, advocates for innovation, growth and abundance must defeat the doomers."
When a culture loses confidence in itself. Of course, the de-growth and neo-Malthusians will be happy
Two centuries of vibecessions - "Economic sentiment positively predicts growth (and the signal is getting stronger) while non-economic sentiment predicts it negatively (and is getting weaker)... But to Alphaville’s eyes the most interesting aspect is how both economic and non-economic sentiment has collapsed over the past 50 years, despite far fewer economic setbacks... eyeballing the chart above, it seems like the falling frequency of recessions might have meant that the sentiment impact of each economic downturn is actually far sharper, and is slower to recover afterwards. Or in other words, when recessions were just part of the weather, people shrugged them off more easily, but nowadays every one is cause for existential national angst. Perhaps we’ve all just become economic snowflakes?"
Meme - Disney Devil: "Wanna hear about my new movie, Wish? There's this powerful wizard that builds a utopian city and grants people wishes as their king. He only requires their worship. But he won't grant wishes that would have "cOnSeqUenCeS". Anyway, he's the bad guy. And there's this good guy named Sata- uhh, I mean a harmless little girl. She wants the wishing powers to herself so that she can grant wishes that don't even make sense. But the selfish wizard won't give away his powers! So she has to go on a journey to defeat the wizard and..."
'Good Samaritan's nightmare': Renowned Niagara winemaker's killer found not criminally responsible - "A Hamilton man has been found not criminally responsible for stabbing and killing a stranger — renowned Niagara winemaker Paul Pender — who tried to help him in early 2022. Court documents from the trial state when Bradley House stabbed the 54-year-old head winemaker for Tawse Wine and Spirits outside Pender's cottage in Selkirk, Ont., House was "incapable" of rational thought and knowing what he did was morally wrong. House, who pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, used drugs before the stabbing and had a history of mental health issues. Crown attorney Gabe Settimi had argued the stabbing was drug induced while House's lawyers, Beth Bromberg and Kristian Ferreira, argued the stabbing was caused by his mental health issues and delusions."
Of course, if you don't want to help people in need, you are a heartless monster
