Clipmarks | pascual's clips

the illiterate society

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 23:44:20 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: scam

“The increasingly blatant nature of the nonsense uttered with impunity in public discourse is chilling. Our democratic society is imperiled as much by this as any other single threat, regardless of whether the origins of the nonsense are religious fanaticism, simple ignorance or personal gain.”

Tags: science, society

time? only now exist

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:36:19 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: discover

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

Every possible configuration of the universe, past, present, and future, exists separately and eternally. We don't live in a single universe that passes through time. Instead, we— or many slightly different versions of ourselves— simultaneously inhabit a multitude of static, everlasting tableaux that include everything in the universe at any given moment. Barbour calls each of these possible still-life configurations a "Now." Every Now is a complete, self-contained, timeless, unchanging universe. We mistakenly perceive the Nows as fleeting, when in fact each one persists forever. Because the word universe seems too small to encompass all possible Nows, Barbour coined a new word for it: Platonia. The name honors the ancient Greek philosopher who argued that reality is composed of eternal and changeless forms, even though the physical world we perceive through our senses appears to be in constant flux.

Tags: science, cosmology, physics

dual constituency

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:45:21 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: bostonreview

Clip Source: bostonreview.net

Many economists call the years that followed, until the 1970s, the “golden age of capitalism.”

The “golden age” saw not only unprecedented and relatively egalitarian growth, but also the introduction of welfare-state measures. As Keynes and White were aware, free capital movement and speculation inhibit those options. To quote from the professional literature, free flow of capital creates a “virtual senate” of lenders and investors who carry out a “moment-by-moment referendum” on government policies, and if they find them irrational—that is, designed to help people, not profits—they vote against them by capital flight, attacks on currency, and other means. Democratic governments therefore have a “dual constituency”: the population, and the virtual senate, who typically prevail.

Tags: economy, society

the history deniers

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:48:20 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: times

Clip Source: entertainment.timesonline.co.uk

I shall be using the name “historydeniers” for those people who deny evolution: who believe the world’s age is measured in thousands of years rather than thousands of millions of years, and who believe humans walked with dinosaurs.

To repeat, they constitute more than 40 per cent of the American population. The equivalent figure is higher in some countries, lower in others, but 40 per cent is a good average and I shall from time to time refer to the history-deniers as the “40percenters”.

Tags: society, evolution, science

brain-computer interface

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:25:23 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: spiegel

Clip Source: www.spiegel.de

The goal of BCI is to enable the user to use thoughts -- instead of a keyboard, mouse or touch screen -- to control a computer's actions. But what sounds like telepathy is, in fact, quite banal. First the user puts on a device that looks like a bathing cap. Then an electrically conductive gel is squeezed through small holes in the cap onto the scalp. Finally, eight electrodes are plugged into the cap, and a colorful array of dreadlock-resembling cables are attached to the electrodes. The cables are then connected to the computer through a signal amplifying interface. So much for the hardware.

Then the "wetware" -- the term IT researchers sometimes use to refer to the brain -- takes over.

Tags: technology

what is your water footprint?

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:12:49 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: spiegel

Clip Source: www.spiegel.de

His equation is actually just a couple of numbers used to describe the amount of water that is used -- or polluted -- during the manufacture of various products. Anyone can calculate their water footprint by looking at the amount of water they use directly and then by looking at the amount of "virtual water" they use -- that is, how much water is used in the production of any goods they consume. The global average for an individual's water footprint is 1,243 cubic meters of water per year. In the US, this goes up to 2,483 cubic meters per year; in Germany it's 1,545 and in China, 702.

Tags: economy, society, environment

slow internet movement

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 23:38:04 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: wsj

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

The boundlessness of the Internet always runs into the hard fact of our animal nature, our physical limits, the dimensions of our cognitive present, the overheated capacity of our minds. "My friend has just had his PC wired for broadband," writes the poet Don Paterson. "I meet him in the café; he looks terrible—his face puffy and pale, his eyes bloodshot. . . . He tells me he is now detained, night and day, in downloading every album he ever owned, lost, desired, or was casually intrigued by; he has now stopped even listening to them, and spends his time sleeplessly monitoring a progress bar. . . . He says it's like all my birthdays have come at once, by which I can see he means, precisely, that he feels he is going to die."

Tags: society

americans moving no more

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 22:55:35 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: ft

Clip Source: www.ft.com

In his 2004 book Restless Nation, academic James M Jasper argued that what really sets Americans apart from other nations is that they are perennially on the move. In a typical year, according to the International Handbook on Internal Migration, about 20 per cent of US citizens move house (two-thirds of whom are homeowners). This compares with just 4 per cent in Germany and the Netherlands, 8 per cent in France and 9 per cent in the UK.

Tags: society

outsourcing prayers

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:56:42 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: telegraph

Clip Source: www.telegraphindia.com

Even a year ago, Americans, Canadians and Europeans used to flood churches in India, especially those in Kerala, with requests to hold special Masses for them. Now Indian church bodies say there has been a sharp fall in outsourced “Mass intentions” coinciding with the downturn.

Tags: globalization, economy

Can't sit down and read

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:57:02 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: lat

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

So what happened? It isn't a failure of desire so much as one of will. Or not will, exactly, but focus: the ability to still my mind long enough to inhabit someone else's world, and to let that someone else inhabit mine. Reading is an act of contemplation, perhaps the only act in which we allow ourselves to merge with the consciousness of another human being. We possess the books we read, animating the waiting stillness of their language, but they possess us also, filling us with thoughts and observations, asking us to make them part of ourselves. This is what Conroy was hinting at in his account of adolescence, the way books enlarge us by giving direct access to experiences not our own. In order for this to work, however, we need a certain type of silence, an ability to filter out the noise.

Tags: society

Debtonation anniversary

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:52:57 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: opendemocracy

Clip Source: www.opendemocracy.net

9 August 2007, will go down in history as ‘debtonation day' - the beginning of the end of the deregulation and privatisation of finance that marks the era of globalisation." I wrote these words on 13 August 2007, in anticipation that the great stock-market collapse of four days earlier presaged the end of the era of neo-liberal globalisation

Tags: economy

Africa: the alpha country

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:07:29 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: spiegel

Clip Source: www.spiegel.de

Food is becoming the new oil. Worldwide grain reserves dropped to a historic low at the beginning of 2008, and the ensuing price explosion marked a turning point, just as the oil crisis did in the 1970s. There were bread riots around the world, and 25 countries, including some of the biggest grain exporters, imposed restrictions on food exports.

Then came the second crisis of 2008, the economic crisis. Two fears -- the fear of hunger and the fear of uncertainty -- converged, triggering what some are already calling a second generation of colonialism.

Tags: economy

2030: the new Middle Ages

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:02:11 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: spiegel

Clip Source: www.spiegel.de

First let us take a step back and see how the global landscape has already come to resemble a crucial period of European history, namely the Middle Ages. It was a long and uncertain period, and thus an ideal metaphor for our times. It was an age of plagues and progress, commercial revolutions, expanding empires, crusades, city-states, merchants, and universities. The new middle ages -- synonymous with our postmodern globalization age -- have already begun.

Particularly the city-state, the most prominent medieval political unit, will continue its resurrection. Today's list of "global cities" -- New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Sao Paulo, London, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo -- will also include Alexandria, Karachi, Istanbul, and others. Then as now, city-states are commercial hubs all but divorced from their national anchor

Tags: society, politics

2030: from imperial expansion to autarchic inclusion

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:01:52 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: spiegel

Clip Source: www.spiegel.de

Instead of a globalized world economy that crosses continental barriers with ease, we will see continental autarchic zones being formed that will be shaped by the military defense of the basic resources available in each zone. We will thus see the logic of imperial expansion replaced by an aspiration to autarchic inclusion (already the EU strategy). The internal market of each zone will reassume economic primacy. This process does not have to end in war. It could well take an ordered course and lead to a multipolar equilibrium, the stability of which -- like that of the Cold War -- is guaranteed by an awareness of what military options are not available.

Tags: society, politics

suicide tourists

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:56:21 GMT

clipped by: pascual
clipper's remarks: eco

Clip Source: www.economist.com

Legal fudge is never desirable, and in this case it is unnecessary. It is perfectly possible to frame a law that allows suffering people who are close to death to die quickly and peacefully, if they wish, without declaring open season on old folk. The suicide-seeker declares he is not being pressured to kill himself; two doctors agree, and testify that he is terminally ill and of sound mind. A waiting period before lethal drugs are dispensed ensures that the desire for death is a settled one. Apart from Switzerland, those places that allow assisted suicide have similar safeguards. Such systems do not seem to lead to the normalisation of unnatural death, and thus a steadily rising number of suicides; rather, after an initial surge, the number seeking help to die drops and then stays steady.

Tags: society