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Interesting Stuff Thread

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Comments

  • #5602
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    joseph brand wrote: »
    Americans are turning away from organized religion in record numbers.
    As a graphic:

    348758.jpg


  • #5603
    Turtwig
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    Tufte would be most displeased with that graph. Awful display of information. :P


  • #5604
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Turtwig wrote: »
    Tufte would be most displeased with that graph
    Seems clear enough to me.

    I wonder will some Tufte in 200 years be plotting the decline of religion as Tufte did with Napoleon and Moscow?

    Something to look forward to :)


  • #5605
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,504 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    recedite wrote: »
    Its a terrible wiki article, but I suppose it will improve with time and editing.

    If it is to evolve, a selective pressure is required :)

    Scrap the cap!



  • #5606
    obplayer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,190 ✭✭✭obplayer


    I haven't yet done any checking on this but none of the you tube comments dismiss the vaccine claim (I know, you tube comments are from the seventh circle of hell but if any rabid capitalists had found evidence against it they would have said).

    From Huffington Post
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/14/cuba-lung-cancer-vaccine_n_7267518.html

    You Tube


  • #5607
    obplayer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,190 ✭✭✭obplayer


    First American City To Protect Atheists From Discrimination



  • #5608
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Everett Fox is working on a new translation of the bible which takes special care to carry over the internal resonances of the original language:

    http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/tinkering-with-the-word-of-god?mbid=social_facebook


  • #5609
    obplayer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,190 ✭✭✭obplayer


    Scientists Are Teaching an AI to Feel Anger, is this wise?



  • #5610
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Can you forget how to ride a bike? Seems you can:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0


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  • #5611
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    People 'like' bullsh*t more than science:

    http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118093


  • #5612
    Turtwig
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    The Economist made the prediction in January that misinformation would continue to grow in 2015. It's actually wondered if it's a fuel for bigotry and begrudgery in relation towards certain demographics. Thankfully, in Ireland most of the sh1t seems to be nonsense about diet and Irish water. I'll take that. :o


  • #5613
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    Its the bullshít wrapped in a cloak of 'respectability'/'credibility', where the proponents (Very Serious People as Glenn Greenwald would put it) are quick to shut-down/dismiss dissent with various levels of condescension, which you have to watch out for the most - this is the kind of politicized bullshít that even very intelligent people are fooled into believing, on a mass scale.

    The conspiracy theories are easy to root out and spot, but this kind of harder to spot stuff, is the most damaging to society by far.


  • #5614
    Turtwig
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    Any idea that you are not allowed to doubt is a dangerous idea.:)
    - Turtwig,


  • #5615
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    A new direction in complex surface printing:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W8nfNPMmtk


  • #5616
    Shrap
    Registered Users Posts: 3,163 ✭✭✭Shrap


    robindch wrote: »
    A new direction in complex surface printing:

    Damn this technology!! That's me right out of business so. 3d printing/painting had better stay expensive!


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  • #5617
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    An astronomer waxes lyrical about stars and humans:

    https://www.facebook.com/TheAtlantic/videos/10153114940823487/


  • #5618
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    On the weaponization of moral panic:

    https://medium.com/@djamiestanton/witch-hunts-and-the-weaponisation-of-moral-panic-892e6be0c82d


  • #5619
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    Interesting article, chronicling the history of the Humanist movement, how it has been historically based on opposing economic injustice - and how the issue of economic injustice has become watered down in the modern movement, in a way that supports the economic status quo through neglecting the movements roots (it's very long though, so skip past all the bits involved in citing e.g. names of the historical leadership of the movement):
    http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/28/how-the-humanist-movement-fosters-economic-injustice/

    There is also a mention in the article, that the 'New Atheist' movement (I have not read up on the term/movement yet), is similarly 'state and corporate power serving' - presumably by neglecting economic justice/injustice issues.

    I think it's a valid point, that movements that should be motivated to having a ruthless application of critical thinking and skepticism, do seem to have a conspicuous absence of applying these principles to issues of economic injustice - most particularly, completely neglecting applying those principles to analysing the economic system as a whole.

    It's not a problem unique to those movements though - to be honest, I'm kind of baffled by the society-wide lack of interest, in applying skeptical-analysis/critical-thinking, to the overall economic system; it's something that just doesn't seem to be discussed much at all, issues are only ever discussed within the limits of the current economic system, not of how the overall system should be reformed.

    The article also gives an extremely interesting view of religion, and how economic injustice can help to bolster religious belief, and how resolving economic injustice helps make religious belief lose its power.


  • #5620
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,611 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Just about every movement (awaits exceptions) has its roots in economic injustice and loses those roots as it evolves.


  • #5621
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    Replied on a related Philosophy thread there, which was about Humanism, to avoid derailing this thread too much (maybe better to reply there):
    Ya but if you read the article (even partially), economic injustice was one of the central parts of the early Humanist movement - before being supplanted later on - and the article makes some great points as to why it is central, and why modern Humanism lacks coherence without it.

    I mean, think about it; part of Humanism's general theme is the betterment of human life/values, and having a humane society based on such values - economics is absolutely central to that, because how humane our society is, is determined in large part by poverty, income/wealth inequality, quality of living - especially for the least well off, as well as the unemployed etc. - among more.

    In modern developed societies, it is economic factors that nowadays have the greatest effect on how humane our societies are - especially to the least financially well off; a lot of people are just left to drop off the edge of society in this way, or to otherwise become trapped or be significantly negatively affected by economic circumstances.
    It's very conspicuous, for something so important to drop off the radar of the modern Humanist movement, compared to the earlier movement, given the values they espouse.
    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=95675864#post95675864


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  • #5622
    silverharp
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,676 ✭✭✭✭silverharp


    good talk by ex muslim Sarah Haider. The two groups that cause her the most trouble are Islamic groups and the Left , her support comes from the secular community

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0plC24YuoJk

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer



  • #5623
    Delirium
    Moderators Posts: 51,859 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    Church of England 'one generation away from extinction' after dramatic loss of followers

    The Church of England has lost nearly two million followers in the last two years and is on the brink of "extinction", it has been warned.

    The number of people in the UK who describe their beliefs as being Church of England or Anglican dropped from 21 per cent to 17 per cent between 2012 and 2014- a loss of around 1.7 million followers. The number of Anglicans in Britain is now thought to stand at around 8.6 million.

    The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, has warned that unless urgent action is taken, the organisation is just “one generation away from extinction.”

    The figures have been revealed as part of the NatCen’s British Social Attitudes Survey, the UK’s longest running poll of public opinion.

    Over the same period, the poll found that the number of Muslims in Britain grew by close to a million making it the fastest growing religion in the UK. 4.7 per cent of Britons now describe themselves as Muslim, amounting to 2.4 million.

    If you can read this, you're too close!



  • #5624
    Cabaal
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 28,510 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cabaal


    All hail the Virgin sawfish, a true Virgin....unlike that imposter Mary.

    Clearly the sawfish has been chosen by god to give birth to the new Jesus

    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32958033
    Seven sawfish in Florida have become the first virgin-born animals ever found in the wild from a sexually reproducing species.

    The discovery suggests that such births may be a natural response to dwindling numbers, rather than a freak occurrence largely seen in captivity.

    It was made by ecologists studying genetic diversity in a critically endangered species of ray.

    They say that births of this kind may be more common than previously thought.


  • #5625
    joseph brand
    Registered Users Posts: 4,537 ✭✭✭joseph brand


    Frank Sinatra’s views on organized religion were decades ahead of his time. (Full interview with Playboy magazine)
    Playboy: You haven’t found any answers for yourself in organized religion?

    Sinatra: There are things about organized religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in His name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion and I’ll show you a hundred retrogressions. Remember, they were men of God who destroyed the educational treasures at Alexandria, who perpetrated the Inquisition in Spain, who burned the witches at Salem. Over 25,000 organized religions flourish on this planet, but the followers of each think all the others are miserably misguided and probably evil as well.

    Playboy: Hasn’t religious faith just as often served as a civilizing influence?

    Sinatra: Remember that leering, cursing lynch mob in Little Rock reviling a meek, innocent little 12-year-old Negro girl as she tried to enroll in public school? Weren’t they — or most of them — devout churchgoers? I detest the two-faced who pretend liberality but are practiced bigots in their own mean little spheres. I didn’t tell my daughter whom to marry, but I’d have broken her back if she had had big eyes for a bigot. As I see it, man is a product of his conditioning, and the social forces which mold his morality and conduct — including racial prejudice — are influenced more by material things like food and economic necessities than by the fear and awe and bigotry generated by the high priests of commercialized superstition.

    Playboy: Are you saying that . . .

    Sinatra: No, wait, let me finish. Have you thought of the chance I’m taking by speaking out this way? Can you imagine the deluge of crank letters, curses, threats and obscenities I’ll receive after these remarks gain general circulation? Worse, the boycott of my records, my films, maybe a picket line at my opening at the Sands. Why? Because I’ve dared to say that love and decency are not necessarily concomitants of religious fervor.

    Sinatra could have added assassination to the list. Something I wouldn't put past America's god botherers.

    I had no idea about this side to Sinatra. The interviewer should have asked him, what was his favourite way to cook a baby.


  • #5626
    sbsquarepants
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,812 ✭✭✭✭sbsquarepants


    Jesus - I for one had absolutely no idea that Frank Sinatra was so eloquent!
    For some reason I had this picture in my head of some kind of low level gangster who just happened to have a really good singing voice.


  • #5627
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,504 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    SW wrote: »
    Church of England 'one generation away from extinction' after dramatic loss of followers

    Another interesting bit:
    When asked about their religious belief, the survey found that the most common response was having no religion. 49 per cent of people do not describe themselves has[sic] having any belief.

    Scrap the cap!



  • #5628
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    The New Yorker takes on the poetry of ISIS:

    http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/08/battle-lines-jihad-creswell-and-haykel


  • #5629
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Google are experimenting with new classes of user interface:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0


  • #5630
    recedite
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    I could see that evolving into a kind of sign language which people will learn so they can interact better with electronic devices. Instead of touchscreens. Similar to the signing that deaf people use (but more basic).


  • #5631
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    Cross-posting from another thread:
    Good article here, on how our brains are pretty much hardwired to react to immediate threats to survival, and ignore 'long-term-threats' to survival - such as climate change - which are more abstract and hard to see as a definite or immediate threat, yet which are still among the biggest dangers we face in the near future:
    http://motherboard.vice.com/read/apocalypse-neuro-why-our-brain-cant-process-the-planets-gravest-threats

    Makes a lot of sense, especially when applied to the topic of economics - which is largely abstract enough, that the vast majority of people don't seem to have an interest in or be willing to develop the knowledge required, to see what is wrong with economic practice or what needs reform - opting for simplistic/wrong economic reasoning, based around moralizing that justifies the present system staying in place, despite readily available alternatives (which is especially relevant, as this type of reform is key/critical to fighting climate change).
    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=95853867#post95853867


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  • #5632
    recedite
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    Speaking of brains.... Surgeon plans head transplant for 2017
    Has been honing his technique by practicing on bananas.


  • #5633
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    Cross-posting again:
    Another really good article, this time on political propaganda and getting the public to turn against protesters - touching on some key things that I see on a regular basis online (on Boards for instance), such as the GamerGate stuff and how advantaged groups who support discrimination against a less powerful group, try to make the advantaged group look like they are the victims instead:
    http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-powerful-people-trick-you-into-hating-underdogs/

    You see this a lot in debates on Boards, whenever posters start talking about 'political correctness' (and a lot of mens rights posters use this tactic as well - to defend attacks on feminism) - e.g:
    1: Make a bigoted comment towards a group.
    2: Someone calls you out on the bigoted comment.
    3: Cry foul and accuse people of political correctness and censorship, to try and make yourself look like the victim instead - make a big fuss about free speech and oppression.


  • #5634
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    KomradeBishop wrote: »
    [...] make the advantaged group look like they are the victims instead [...]
    It's called "reverse asymmetrical warfare":

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP_8m30MgR8


  • #5635
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Things not looking good for organized religion in the USA - confidence in it is continuing its long, slow downward slide:

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/183593/confidence-institutions-below-historical-norms.aspx

    352409.png


  • #5636
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,504 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    <obligatory trollish 'yeah but 71% identify as christians and who are we to say they're not' post>

    Scrap the cap!



  • #5637
    looksee
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,786 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    What happened in 2002?


  • #5638
    Turtwig
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    looksee wrote: »
    What happened in 2002?

    Call me petty but I think it's 9/11 and America no longer felt as 'safe'.


  • #5639
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,504 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    looksee wrote: »
    What happened in 2002?

    I (on the basis of zero internet research whatsoever) would suspect a series of catholic abuse revelations?

    But, there again, I might be biased :p

    Scrap the cap!



  • #5640
    obplayer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,190 ✭✭✭obplayer


    Relentlessly Gay!

    http://www.queerty.com/widow-receives-nasty-note-over-her-relentlessly-gay-rainbow-yard-lights-20150618?utm_source=bb82&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=relentlesslygay&ts_pid=2
    When Julie Baker, a widow and mother of four from Baltimore, recently stepped out onto her front porch, she found an anonymous note taped to her door.
    “Your yard is becoming Relentlessly Gay!” the note read. “Myself and others in the neighborhood ask that you Tone It Down. This is a Christian area and there are Children. Keep it up and I will be Forced to call the Police on you! Your kind need to have Respect for GOD.”

    It was signed, “A Concerned Home Owner.”
    Related: Restaurant Owner Receives Creepy Phone Calls and Letters After Flying Rainbow Flag
    The note referred to a set of rainbow-colored solar yard lamps Baker had set up in her garden. For the record, they aren’t illegal, so we’re not sure what this concerned home owner expects police to do about it.
    Rather than get angry, Baker took a page from Memories Pizza’s playbook and launched a GoFundMe page to fight back.
    “I need more rainbows,” she writes. “Many, many more rainbows. So I am starting this fundraiser so I can work to make my home even more ‘relentlessly gay.'”
    Baker says she wants to combat her neighbor’s homophobia “with whimsy and beauty and laughter and love, wrapped around my home, yard and family!”
    “If we go high enough,” she says, “I will see if I can get a rainbow roof! Because my invisible relentlessly gay rainbow dragon should live up there in style!”
    She set a fundraising goal of $5,000. So far, she’s raised more than $10,000 $15,000 $20,000 and counting. That’s gonna buy a ****-ton of rainbows.


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  • #5641
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,504 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    True what they said though, the urge to burst into song with 'Smalltown Boy' is almost irrestistible in the post-gaypocalypse era.

    Scrap the cap!



  • #5642
    obplayer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,190 ✭✭✭obplayer


    Pink Poison, the Surprising New Trend That’s Saving Rhinos

    http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/04/10/pink-poison-rhino-horn-stop-ivory-trade


  • #5643
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    The mysterious power of an itch:

    http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/30/the-itch

    *scratches self*


  • #5644
    Autonomous Cowherd
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,100 ✭✭✭Autonomous Cowherd


    The idea that the world is more peaceful now and less likely to be brutal is often put about; particularly it is used to quell concerns from people who make claims that geopolitics may be setting us on a collision course for catastrophe (the idea is hush, hush now, conspiracy nut, we have never had it better. We are all very grown up etc.)

    This idea about diminishing violent warfare is contested here.
    https://medium.com/bull-market/violent-warfare-is-on-the-wane-right-99223faa45e6


  • #5645
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    Google is experimenting with neural networks in order to perform image recognition - and when such a network is asked to splice into images, what it recognizes within them, it comes out with some extreme psychadelic pictures - see if you can count all of the animals it renders into the image of the knight, for example; utterly mental:
    http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/18/google-image-recognition-neural-network-androids-dream-electric-sheep


  • #5646
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,611 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Hard to take anything seriously when it includes this:
    For nearly more than 50 years
    :P

    Ah well, lies, damned lies and statistics. It's easy to find what one wants when one gets to choose the samples, especially going back a few thousand years with sketchy records.


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  • #5647
    Autonomous Cowherd
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,100 ✭✭✭Autonomous Cowherd


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Hard to take anything seriously when it includes this:

    :P

    Ah well, lies, damned lies and statistics. It's easy to find what one wants when one gets to choose the samples, especially going back a few thousand years with sketchy records.

    Well, the copywriter on Medium.com may not have the best language skills, but the original author Nassim Taleb seems like he might be the cleverest guy in most rooms.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb

    I put it in here because I find it is interesting.


  • #5648
    Brian Shanahan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,232 ✭✭✭Brian Shanahan


    Autonomous Cowherd wrote: »
    Well, the copywriter on Medium.com may not have the best language skills, but the original author Nassim Taleb seems like he might be the cleverest guy in most rooms.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb

    I put it in here because I find it is interesting.

    Most self conceited maybe, cleverest is very much up for contention.

    Having bought and slogged through two of his books I'm frankly not all that impressed with Taleb's intelligence nor insight.


  • #5649
    Autonomous Cowherd
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,100 ✭✭✭Autonomous Cowherd


    Brian Shanahan wrote: »
    Most self conceited maybe, cleverest is very much up for contention.

    Having bought and slogged through two of his books I'm frankly not all that impressed with Taleb's intelligence nor insight.

    Thanks. That's interesting and I accept your opinion of him. I have not read his books so you have the inside track on him that way :) Quite likely he is pompous - so very many intellectuals turn out to be.
    I put the summary of his article in because that old chestnut about constant improvement is also formulated by anonymous statisticians somewhere, who may not only be conceited too, but perhaps wrong ?

    I don't know who is correct. I just thought it was interesting.


  • #5650
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,504 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Autonomous Cowherd wrote: »
    I put the summary of his article in because that old chestnut about constant improvement is also formulated by anonymous statisticians somewhere, who may not only be conceited too, but perhaps wrong ?

    Two words kill off the 'everything is getting worser and worser' argument :

    Life expectancy.

    Scrap the cap!



  • #5651
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Obama checks out religion:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWpAQDx1iVQ


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