Burned Out? Stop Reaching For the Unreachable.

by Robert Montenegro

I've read a load of web articles over the past few years about how to recover from an on-the-job burnout. Nearly all of them are written by folks who developed strategies to help themselves bounce back after a burnout of their own. A disproportionate amount of those articles are written by current or former career coaches, which may be neither here nor there.

This one, penned by Next Academy's Carol Ross, adheres to all the above but still stands out because of Ross' keen ability to pinpoint the raw, human maladies that cause overstressed people to break down. She offers a 4-part plan for burnout recovery that begins with an understanding that some goals are too unrealistic to keep reaching for:

"In my head, I equated a failed business with death (literally). I became aware of this assumption when I told a friend about my dad, whose dream of running a Chinese restaurant ended in bankruptcy, and six years later died of cancer. This assumption fueled my fear, which drove me to work harder and faster."

I think there's a rather astute observation within Ross' thinking here. We equate quitting to failure. We then assume failure means an end rather than a new beginning. Even when it's apparent our endeavors are doomed, we fruitlessly persevere because we think not doing so is to condemn ourselves. That's a dire weight to carry and, as Ross writes, it doesn't have to be that way.

Take a look at her full article (linked below) and let us know in the comments whether you agree with her. What are your strategies for stress management? Have you ever burned out? We'd love to hear your take.

Read more at The Huffington Post

Photo credit: Hasloo Group Production Studio / Shutterstock

In the video below, DSN expert Dan Harris explains that one key to stress management is identifying the fact that it's impossible to effectively multitask.

Now Crowdfunding: A "Perfect," No-Odor Travel Shirt

by Robert Montenegro

How often have you had to travel with a lighter wardrobe than you'd have liked? Chances are if you've tried to stretch one shirt over multiple days on the move it's probably ended up looking (and, no doubt, smelling) like the one in the photo above.

The folks at Libertad Apparel believe they have a solution to the stinky travel shirt conundrum, and they're in the process of crowdfunding the capital needed to proceed.

The secret is in the material. Libertad extols Merino Wool as "the all-natural, high-performance fiber," which sounds kind of like a tired marketing cliché because, well, it is. But because of advancements in weaving technology the makers of Libertad were able to take a fabric used most often in blankets and turn it into a shirt that can be worn year-round without resulting in stink. The product is wrinkle-free and stain-resistant, as well as biodegradable, renewable, eco-friendly, and all those other buzzwords that imply it didn't take the burning of a Saudi oil field to make it happen.

Libertad also stresses that its shirt is super stylish and upscale cool, which I suppose I have to take their word for because I'm currently wearing slippers and a t-shirt from high school.

Check out the Libertad Kickstarter for more information on the product. Future retail is $150, which might be more than I value not being stinky, though the early crowdfunding price is a relatively low $87. The key takeaway here is that age-old items such as the humble travel shirt are not exempt from innovation, especially in our rapid tech advancement age. Libertad has all the bells and whistles one would hope for from a product like this, and if you're the type of person who pushes yourself to the limit when out adventuring, this idea is probably for you.

Read more at the Telegraph

Photo credit: ollo / Getty iStock

Here's a Helpful Infographic on the Many Risks of Helicopter Parenting

by Robert Montenegro

Below you'll find a nifty infographic produced by the folks at Yellowbrick detailing the consequences of everyone's favorite irritating childrearing trend: helicopter parenting. We've written a lot about this topic here at DSN; our archives are a veritable smorgasbord of pieces detailing its effects and consequences. Our focus isn't merely because we like to helicopter the helicopter parents, but because shifts in how we raise our kids have resulted in a generation of young adults who lack critical thinking, self-reliance, and coping skills. 

And that sucks not just for said young adults, but also for everyone else who has to deal with their problems.

The image below will shed some light on all these elements, as well as offer a more basic crash course for those still unfamiliar with this troubling trend:

For additional information on and analysis of the items above, check out the Yellowbrick blog.

Some tips for overbearing parents on how to wean themselves off their kids, from author, syndicated columnist, and free-range kids advocate Lenore Skenazy.

Borderline: How ‘Repellent Fence’ Clears Up the Immigration Debate

by Bob Duggan

From “Border Walls” to “Anchor Babies,” the immigration debate heats up every American presidential election. The artist collective Postcommodity’s planned instillation titled Repellent Fence (artist’s rendering shown above) challenges the cruelty of much of that rhetoric and questions the very idea of borders. Stretching for two miles between Douglas, Arizona, and Agua Prieta, Mexico, Repellent Fence will bridge two towns on the U.S.—Mexican border by bisecting the line drawn literally in the desert sand to artificially divide culturally indivisible indigenous peoples. For anyone disagreeing with (or appalled by) Donald Trump’s stated immigration policies (and bullying delivery of them), Repellent Fence offers a thoughtful, humanist, and even humorous rebuttal.

The members of Postcommodity — Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martínez, Kade L. Twist, and Nathan Young — unite to create art that “functions as a shared, indigenous voice to engage manifestations of globalism and the ever-expanding, multinational, multiracial and multiethnic colonizing force that is defining the 21st century through ever-increasing velocities and complex forms of violence.” Where others physically build walls, Postcommodity artistically builds bridges. Connecting by communicating, Postcommodity “works to forge new metaphors capable of rationalizing our shared experiences within this increasingly challenging contemporary environment.” Repellent Fence falls under the category of these “new metaphors” Postcommodity hopes will “promote a constructive discourse that challenges the social, political, and economic processes that are destabilizing communities and geographies; and connect indigenous narratives of cultural self-determination with the broader public.”  Anyone who laughed bitterly at the spot-on irony of the recent meme about Americans descended from Europeans complaining about illegal immigration (one great example, a photo of a Native American with the words, “So you’re against immigration? Splendid! When do you leave?") will nod in agreement with any attempt at “constructive discourse” that ends the cycle of divisive hypocrisy and violence.

This focus on community comes through powerfully in the conception of Repellent Fence. (You can view their project video on YouTube in English or Spanish.) Postcommodity plans to float 26 tethered “scare eye” balloons, each 10 feet in diameter, 50 feet above the desert landscape (example shown above). To work in what they justifiably call “the center point of the largest and most densely fortified militarized zone of the Western Hemisphere,” Postcommodity coordinated with multiple private, community, and governmental entities to ensure that they, the project, and interested viewers would be safe.  Floating giant, symbolically significant “scare eye” balloons is just the beginning of the event, as Postcommodity will ride the wave of interest further by staging educational and public programing promoting a “binational dialogue and the recovery of knowledge.” You’ll come for the big, funny balloons, but you’ll stay for the sober, reasoned lessons, and come away with a new appreciation of the complexity of the immigration issue too often shouted down by simple-minded, election-year bloviating.

But back to the funny balloons, which are intentionally comic. People usually use real-life “scare eye” balloons as an upgrade from scarecrows to frighten away birds. Unfortunately, birds eventually adapt to “scare eye” balloons and they lose their “repellent” power. Repellent Fence uses these comic balloons to mimic the “epic fail” of U.S. immigration policies, which always claim to “keep an eye on the border” in the name of national security, but more often than not simply provide cover for discriminatory policies against Native Americans and Mexicans. Postcommodity provides an additional twist on the balloons by pointing out that commercially available “scare eye” balloons already “utilize iconography and traditional medicinal colors used for thousands of years by indigenous peoples from South America to Canada.” These Duchampian ready-mades colorfully symbolize the cultural debt America owes to its native peoples, whether it wants to admit it or not.

It will be interesting to see the response to Repellent Fence when it finally gets off the ground on October 9th. Immigration’s become such a heated topic in America today that it should strike a nerve, especially on the political right. As Gordon Knox, director of the Arizona State University Art Museum, says on the project website, “This act of reinhabiting historically shared terrain and marking it with contemporary versions of ancient icons reveals the U.S./Mexican border to be what it is: the arbitrary and artificial overlay of power derived through coercion.” To coerce Americans that the border is both arbitrary and cruel in that arbitrariness as enforced for decades now may be a tall order. But Repellent Fence promises not only to bisect that arbitrary line of power, but also to bisect the bipartisan political grandstanding and cut the issue down to a human level — all by making us look up in the sky and think.

[Top image: Google map artist sketch of Repellent Fence intersecting border. Second image: Artist study of balloon installed near the border fence. Images courtesy of Postcommodity.]

[Many thanks to Postcommodity for providing the images above and other press materials related to Repellent Fence, which will be installed and viewable from October 9-12, 2015 between Douglas, Arizona, and Agua Prieta, Mexico.]

[If you would like to contribute to the Repellent Fence Kickstarter campaign, you can do so here.]

[Please follow me on Twitter (@BobDPictureThis) and Facebook (Art Blog By Bob) for more art news and views.]

We'll Be Eating a Lot More Bugs in the Future

by Robert Montenegro

A lot of people around the world eat bugs. Chances are you're not one of them, assuming our analytics are correct. Just the thought of crunching down on a creepy crawler sends shivers through the typical American endoskeleton. Many westerners think of eating bugs a gross third-world custom... or just what Anthony Bourdain does when he's on vacation.

But much of what we think we know about insects resides in the realm of myth. They're not unhealthy. They're often quite tasty. They're loaded with the sort of nutritious good stuff dietary professionals love. And sooner or later we're probably going to have to get over our apprehensions and embrace these remarkably efficient sources of protein.

That's according to hosts Craig Benzine and Matt Weber of The Good Stuff, a new web series produced by PBS Digital Studios:

The main argument in favor of bug cuisine is that it's a practical source of protein compared to the inefficient livestock practices to which westerners are accustomed. As humans populations grow worldwide, there becomes a need to expand agriculture. Expanding agriculture threatens the environment and requires the destruction of wild habitats. Just as it makes sense to seek out energy alternatives to oil, it's vital we seek out efficient ways to rededicate our agricultural resources.

For instance, here are some visual examples of why raising crickets for food makes more rational sense than raising cows:

Benzine and Weber note as well that raising a cow requires a lot of time and land -- 18-22 months & 2 acres -- whereas raising crickets is a relative breeze. Every six weeks you can harvest 55-65 pounds of cricket meat from a 4'x8' pen. That means less pollution and less space needed for agricultural expansion. World population will reach 10 billion near the end of the century; we can't all be eating chicken, beef, and tofu by then. This is what makes bugs so appealing for the long-term.

Yet despite these reasonable arguments it's unlikely you'll find crickets on the menu at T.G.I. Fridays anytime soon. We have culture to thank for that. Where bugs are a staple of many African and Asian diets, Eurocentric cultures prefer to eat other disgusting animals like lobster, "the cockroach of the ocean." That we're okay with eating lobster and not bugs isn't because one is less gross than the other, but mostly because (as unsatisfying as this is for an answer) that's just the way it is.

Sooner or later though it'll be in our best interest to diversify our protein sources, and bugs make a lot of sense.

Check out the full playlist here.

Photo credit: KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images

Below, dietary secrets from around the world from explorer Dan Buettner.

The Map as Persuader

by Frank Jacobs

Paul J. Mode is a longtime collector of 'persuasive cartography'. A collector of what now?

Here's a good definition: “A (persuasive) map should be designed to make some one point clear – and other points be left to other maps. (Students and readers) are befogged by the wealth of detail, all of it emphasized equally, in an ordinary map”. That quote, by English socialist mapmaker James F. Horrabin, can be found at a newly-launched site called the PJ Mode Collection of Persuasive Cartography, hosted by the Cornell University Library.

'Propaganda maps' is another term that has been used to describe the subject of Mr. Mode's collection. But persuasive cartography is a much more inclusive description of the 300-odd maps in the collection so far. Yes, there are war-time propaganda maps (from several wars; and from various sides), but also maps aiming to influence opinions and beliefs on matters as wide-ranging as slavery, suffragism, alcohol, marriage, religion and imperialism. 

The maps span several centuries and multiple continents, using a variety of ways and means to convey their message: satire and allegory, unusual projections and striking graphics. They all share the trait suggested by Mr. Horrabin: their primary aim is to send an ideological message, not convey geographic information. These maps are not here to show you around, but to sell you the house.

Mr. Mode promises to add hundreds more maps to his collection, which is excellent news. Strange Maps has featured a few of the maps in his collection, but most of them we had not seen before. Here are some of examples. 

 

The American Pope

Gone are the days when Catholicism was America's favourite foreign menace. This cartoon therefore won't make much sense today – unless you imagine those robes on an ayatollah instead of a cardinal. Then the sense of outrage this map sought to convey might feel a bit more believable.

The cardinal casting his shadow over America is Francesco Satolli, appointed in 1893 as the first Papal Nuncio to the United States. In certain circles, that appointment raised fears that he would meddle in American domestic affairs, especially concerning education (hence all the 'public school' flags fluttering in Satolli's shadow). 

The editorial on the back of this map said that Satolli's appointment made it “just a little more impossible than ever for a man to be a good Catholic and a good American”.

This cartoon was first published in Puck Magazine on September 5, 1894.

 

China, Cake of Kings

When in doubt, throw in some stereotypes, ethnic and otherwise. The prototypical caricature of a Chinese man is a powerless onlooker while foreign powers carve up China. Great Britain is represented by the old crone, Queen Victoria, in a staring contest with the evil-looking Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. Seated on the right is another fine specimen of 19^th-century European prejudice, a Japanese samurai – contemplating which piece of the pie he will want to slice off with his sword.

Only two persons look like they're nice enough to sit next to on the train: Russia, by way of its Czar Nicolas II, and Marianne, the personification of France. Marianne has her hand on the shoulder of Nicolas, her ally. The message: if China needs to be carved up, then best by France and Russia: they don't look ugly, evil and/or dangerous.

This cartoon first appeared in Le Petit Journal on 16 January 1998.

 

Who are the Plutocrats? 

Popular protests against the one-percenters seldom use the word plutocracy to describe the state of the world today. It has arguably never been more appropriate: it means 'rule by wealth' instead of 'rule by the people' (democracy). But the word was appropriated and poisoned by the Nazis, who liked to hurl it at the British and Americans as more venomous synonyms for their capitalist systems.

This leaflet from 1940 turns the tables on Nazi propaganda. The map shows the sumptuous retreats of fascism's fortunate few: Hitler's at Berchtesgaden, the Goebbels estate at Waldhof am Bogensee, Ribbentrop's castle at Fuschl, and Göring's Karinhall near Berlin, among others.

In early 1940, the Royal Air Force dropped hundreds of thousands of these leaflets over the Ruhr Valley's working-class areas. The back reads: “You are told that you are fighting for German Socialism against the Plutocracies, yet while aggregate worker income in Germany has fallen by 11% and the cost of living has increase 10%, all Nazi leaders are living in elegant castles and country estates”.

This leaflet was produced by the Royal Air Force in 1940.

 

That Shrinking Feeling

It's hard to argue with a map, let alone with four of them, which is why this graphic illustration of Palestinians' loss of land from 1946 to 1999 is such a powerful and popular image.

Critics argue that the sequence misrepresents recent history – the 1947 partition plan shown on the second map was accepted by the Jews but rejected by the Arabs; and no mention is made of the return by Israel of Sinai to Egypt. But in so doing, the map merely reflects Mr. Horrabin's point on persuasive cartography – it singles out the point it wants to clarify, leaving out other information that might muddy the waters.

The earliest recorded use of the map in print is in a 2003 book by the Rev. Timothy Biles, who attributes it to the UK-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

 

The Sickness Spreads

The sense of dread generated by this map is the diametrical opposite of the Palestinian map. It's not shrinkage that's upsetting the balance, but expansion – of the Red Menace, to be exact.

In 42 short years, the Socialist/Communist Conspiracy has conquered 1/3 of the World, warns the title above four globes, all centered on the North Pole the better to demonstrate the cancerous growth of communism. From a red dot in Moscow on Map I to the whole of the Russian Empire on Map II, spreading to China and Eastern Europe on Map III.

The menacing arrows on Map IV are aimed at the U.S., and if that isn't clear enough, there's this quote from Nikolai (sic) Lenin: “First we take Eastern Europe. Next the masses of Asia. Then we shall encircle that last bastion of capitalism, the United States. We shall not have to attack. It will fall like an overripe fruit into our hands”. The point of the maps: the Cuban revolution is part of the communist strategy plan to encircle and ultimately subject the U.S.

This map was included in Communist Methodology of Conquest, a 1966 pamphlet by Luis V. Manrara for the Truth About Cuba Committee.

 

All images taken from the PJ Mode Collection of Persuasive Cartography at Cornell University; reproduced under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 License.

_________________

Strange Maps #735

Got a strange map? Send it to strangemaps@gmail.com.

Oliver Sacks (1933 – 2015) on Using Imagination to See

by DSN Editors

Oliver Wolf Sacks (1933 – 2015), a British neurologist and writer, was Professor of Neurology at New York University School of Medicine and professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University. He also held the position of "Columbia Artist," which recognized his contributions to art and science. Sacks was diagnosed with terminal metastatic liver cancer in January 2015. He died on 30 August 2015 in his home in Manhattan at the age of 82 from the disease.

The New York Times said of his passing this morning:

"Describing his patients’ struggles and sometimes uncanny gifts, Dr. Sacks helped introduce syndromes like Tourette’s or Asperger’s to a general audience. But he illuminated their characters as much as their conditions; he humanized and demystified them.

In his emphasis on case histories, Dr. Sacks modeled himself after a questing breed of 19th-century physicians, who well understood how little they and their peers knew about the workings of the human animal and who saw medical science as a vast, largely uncharted wilderness to be tamed."

Dr. Sacks discusses some fascinating case studies of neurological disorders.

The Power (and Danger) of Public Shaming

by Derek Beres

Josh Ostrovsky, aka comedian The Fat Jewish, amassed over five million Instagram followers for his meme-filled feed of celebrity potshots, animals doing humanesque things, and general sarcastic quips about society and pizza. One of the app’s most trusty icons, he was recently denounced by comedians across the board for not crediting the originator of said material. 

The firestorm started when Comedy Central dropped Ostrovsky from a planned series, which, as Internet lore goes, was due to accusations of plagiarism—though in truth he'd been dropped months earlier. Still, social media can’t refuse a karma-worthy connection. A public shaming campaign was launched. His Instagram feed was filled with ‘how dare you’ comments, plenty of sites joined in on the protests.

And then….he apologized. As he told Vulture, 

I’m working to add attribution to every one of my posts, and will continue to do so. My email address is up. I urge people to reach out and say, “That's my thing.” I would love to give credit. I want people to shine on social media, I always have. And I will never again post something that doesn’t have attribution, because I realize now that when the stage is large enough, and the voice is large enough, these things matter.

While comedy podcasts and blogs continue to debate the credibility of his style and approach, one thing is clear: the public shaming campaign worked. And regardless of your feelings on what he does, he acted graciously and respectfully, and now provides citations to everything he posts.

Jennifer Jacquet, NYU assistant professor and author of Is Shame Necessary? New Uses For An Old Tool, would probably argue that this is a great example of the power of public shaming. While she predominantly discusses environmental issues, her book entertains plenty of pop culture examples of why throwing a little shame in proper context is powerful cultural medicine.

Anthropological evidence Jacquet cites shows this to be true: “two-thirds of human conversation is gossip about other people.” Criticism is much more prominent than praise. One researcher, who studied Botswana’s !Kung bushmen, recorded 90% critical conversation to only 10% praise.

While these numbers sound outlandish, it’s part of our neurological make-up. I remember one meeting years ago for Equinox instructors in which the manager asked us to imagine a class of fifty people. Forty-nine are having the fitness experience of their lives, but there’s that one woman in the corner not really into it. It’s easy to let our minds wander to that one. Our brain notices abnormalities in our environment. Those other forty-nine are not the aberration; she is. Our attention, to our detriment, goes there.

Jacquet argues that this attention can lead to powerful change, however. Turns out that while not paying federal taxes can land you in jail, state taxes are not as regulated. To combat this, California set up a website naming the top 500 delinquent citizens. Each taxpayer was notified of their name being published six months in advance. State government estimated an annual collection of $1.6 million. But since the site’s launch in 2007, the state has collected more than $336 million in tax revenue thanks to this campaign.

Jacquet takes time to distinguish between shame and guilt, which are sometimes confused. Shaming is a self-regulating public tool. It doesn’t always work as planned. (She uses the example of Joseph Bruce Ismay, the disgraced owner of the Titanic who, instead of going down with his ship, let women and children drown; he never apologized and lived the rest of his life in disgrace.) But when it does, it should be effective and then forgotten when the supposed crime has been owned up to, a la Ostrovsky above. 

Guilt, she argues, is a more rampant concern in a society that champions the individual over the group. It is a private affair. Shaming might make you feel guilty, but that’s something you experience internally, on your own. If the shame is cleared up, guilt dissolves. For people like Ismay, who never apologize or explain, guilt can destroy a life.

Which leads to my only criticism of her book. In championing shaming, she doesn’t spend enough time distinguishing between successful public shaming techniques and the quick trigger fingers of bloodthirsty social justice warriors, who sometimes seek out targets to create scandals where none exist, or do not wait to find out all the evidence before pressing ‘tweet.’

Journalist Jon Ronson, author of So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, was an advocate for public shaming on Twitter, calling it an important avenue for consumers to call out companies. But his TED talk about shaming reveas the dark side, in the case of disgraced author Jonah Lehrer:

But Jonah was on the floor then, and we were still kicking, and congratulating ourselves for punching up. And it began to feel weird and empty when there wasn’t a powerful person who had misused their privilege that we could get.

Ronson spends most of the talk discussing Justine Sacco, the disgraced IAC communications director who sent out what was perceived to be a racist tweet leaving Heathrow Airport; when reaching Cape Town eleven hours later, she had lost her job and was Twitter Enemy #1.

Ronson interviewed Sacco a few weeks after the event; turns out the tweet was actually a jab at American privilege, not Africans with AIDS. Regardless of the ironic value of the actual tweet (or its lack of humor), nuance is too challenging a mindset for a sect of public shamers. It requires research, contemplation, empathy, patience—all things the instant gratification of social media does not provide for.

Shaming will not be going anywhere anytime soon. I agree with Jacquet that that’s a good thing. It forces public accountancy or, as in the case of an organization like Sea World, a PR campaign so ridiculous and transparent that it only serves to prove the instigator’s point. I would only temper the enthusiasm of shaming with a dose of critical thinking. We live in an age in which, as Ronson suggests, a tweet can ruin a life. Shaming with knowledge and foresight is powerful medicine, but shaming without empathy can kill, as evidenced in suicides over the Ashley Madison dump. No one deserves such a fate as that.

Image: Jim Spellman

Democracy is Pointless Without Education

by DSN Editors

Today's words of wisdom come from American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), who we're going to assume you've probably heard of. The quote below makes clear that democracy cannot succeed on its own. It's only one piece of a larger puzzle.

There are those in America who treat the U.S. Constitution as if it were a sacred document, a sort of divine cookbook recipe for the perfect free society. The truth is that a democratic society is fragile and ripe for exploitation. A successful democracy relies heavily on the abilities and intelligence of the populace. 

But what if the populace lacks in ability? What if the world continues on a slow, meticulous de-evolution into superficial idiocracy? What if -- and this might not be a difficult hypothetical for you to conceptualize -- the voters are nothing but a bunch of misinformed morons?

Well, then it all falls apart.

This is why education is so important. It's also why powerful people make it a priority to try and wield as much control over education as possible, though that's a different topic altogether. Democracy cannot succeed without a culture of learning, introspection, and critical thinking. FDR knew that then; we ought to know it now.

Words of wisdom from FDR: "Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education."

Scientist Lawrence Krauss expresses a similar view in the video below. A robust education system is in America's best interest. It's in the world's best interest. Yet time and time again we fail ourselves and our society by bastardizing "the safeguard of democracy":

Truth Is Good, But Knowing Too Much Truth Is Harmful

by Orion Jones

The truth is a bitter pill to swallow, they say. Yet much of today's information economy is built on the premise that knowing more is better. Take the company 23andMe for example. Created in California in 2006, it's the world's first personalized genetic testing company.

For $100 and a saliva sample, the company will analyze your genetic code and deliver intimate information about your ancestry and genetic predisposition toward certain diseases. What could go wrong by knowing more about yourself? Plenty, according to Jess Whittlestone, a student of behavioural science at the Warwick Business School.

There are costs and benefits to knowing the truth. One son who gave his parents the gift a genetic test learned he had a half-brother, i.e. one of his parents had been unfaithful. Likewise anyone who knows of or suspects infidelity must tread lightly. Blurting out the truth for truth's sake is potentially very damaging. 

Yet generally, we say we strongly prefer the truth to being deceived, even if deception is pleasant. Whittlestone discusses the so-called Experience Machine, a thought experiment created by a Harvard philosophy professor before The Matrix had everyone pondering the same question.

Candor is something you can't do without. Candor is authentic truth.

It's red pill versus blue pill. Difficult reality or a beautiful fiction: which do you choose to live in? Most people recoil at the idea of living a lie, even if it is a pleasant one. Yes, the truth may sometimes hurt, but rarely do we learn something that we ultimately wish we could unlearn.

Wittlestone explores our fascinating cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias, that keep us from learning new things while believing we are discovering the truth. It's a very fascinating discussion. 

Ultimately, Wittlestone claims that it's better to know the truth than not. That doesn't mean asking everyone what they like least about you, but as a general rule, it's better to know things than not know them.

That sounds obviously, but it takes some heavy lifting to get there. And it means defending our access to knowledge: to government information, to the Internet, to personal and professional relationships that are open and honest — though perhaps not too honest.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

If You Want to Delay Aging, Run

by Natalie Shoemaker

Walking in your old age has many benefits, according to researchers—improving memory, preventing illness, and so on. But the real ticket to staving-off old age and maintaining a better quality of life may lie in running.

Gretchen Reynolds of the New York Times highlights a small study out of Boulder, Colorado that's telling seniors to run, not walk. Researchers at the University of Colorado in Boulder and Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, noticed that aging walkers tend to decline over time. Is time's decay really inescapable, or is there something else at work here, they wondered.

The researchers put out a call to older running and walking groups to participate in a study--30 men and women aged 60 to 70answered the call. The group was split into two, half of the group was tasked with walking for 30 minutes three times a week, while the other half was told to run for the same amount of time. The research team then measured their oxygen intake and biomechanics while both groups walked on a treadmill at the study's conclusion.

They found that the running group walked far more efficiently than the walking group. While the walking group expelled as much energy as someone who was sedentary seven days out of the week. The researchers speculate that the difference lies within the muscle cells and the amount of mitochondria produced.

Mitochondria provide energy, which allows people to move longer with less effort. What's more, runners possess better muscle coordination than their walking counterparts, which means the runners are able to go longer without consuming as much energy. 

The good news is, it's not too late to start. Justus Ortega, an Associate Professor of Kinesiology at Humboldt University, who led the study stated:

“Quite a few of our volunteers hadn’t take up running until they were in their 60s.”

Read more at New York Times

Photo Credit: Maxwell GS/Flickr

Calm and Confidence Will Slay the Toxic People in Your Life

by Robert Montenegro

According to psychologist Margarita Tartakovsky, the best way to overcome the toxic influence of overly critical people is to disassociate with them. Of course, this isn't always a possibility; these folks tend to be in positions we can't simply avoid. They're our bosses, parents, co-workers, family, etc. That's why Tartakovsky (with help from family therapist Ashley Thorn) outlines several strategies for dealing with these people on an everyday basis. Let's look at those strategies and determine how they can be implemented.

There are two things to remember when communicating your gripes to an overly critical observer. First, you're not going to change them, so don't try. Second, being silent sends a tacit message that their criticisms are working, thus encouraging them to criticize you more. That's definitely not where you want to go.

Instead, you have to find the happy medium in which firmness is wrapped is kindness:

"Thorn likened it to dealing with young kids: To set a limit with a 3-year-old, you don’t yell or belittle them. Instead, you’re clear and direct, and you can always end with mentioning what they mean to you."

That's a fun image, isn't it? Talking to your nosy co-worker like they're wearing Thomas the Tank Engine pajamas. Thorn says to allow your behavior and body language reflect this new firm approach in which you effectively train your critic to be more cognizant of what is acceptable. All throughout, it's vital to maintain your own sense of self-worth — remember that you're worth sticking up for. And then keep sticking up for yourself. 

Take a look at the full piece (linked below) for more on the assertive method to overcoming critical people.

Read more at Psych Central.

Photo credit: Ollyy / Shutterstock

CULTURE THEORY/COLOR THEORY (feat. Tina Roth Eisenberg AKA @swissmiss)

by Jason Gots

 

   

 

How do colors affect us psychologically? Will a less hierarchical, more collaborative society lead inevitably to robot wars? 

In this week's episode of DSN's Think Again podcast, host Jason Gots is joined by Tina Roth Eisenberg (AKA @swissmiss), Swiss-born designer and entrepreneur who runs the popular SwissMiss blog and the Creative Mornings lecture series. Interview clips from Adam Alter and Chris Fussell launch a lively discussion of design, entrepreneurship, and the purpose-driven life. 

Listen to THINK AGAIN, EPISODE 11 –CULTURE THEORY/COLOR THEORY (feat. Tina Roth Eisenberg AKA @swissmiss) 

Other ways to listen: 

HELP! I have no idea what a podcast is or how to get one.

[with extra special thanks to SERIAL podcast for these excellent instructions]

Think of a podcast as a radio show you can get on the internet, so you can listen any time you want. You have two options: you can listen through a website (this is called streaming). Or, you can download a podcast, which means you're saving it on your phone, or tablet, or computer, and you can listen to it anytime, even without an internet connection.

To Stream: Go to a website, like http://ift.tt/1Iqpn12, and click the play button.

To Download: Get it delivered to your phone or tablet each week using an app.

For iPhones and iPads, use the Podcasts app. You get it from the App Store (it actually comes installed on newer devices). In the Podcasts app you search for Think Again and then hit subscribe.

For Android phones and tablets, try the Stitcher app. Get that from Google Play. In Stitcher, search for Think Again and click the plus sign (+), to add it to your Favorites List. Now go to the Favorites List. Tell it to download new episodes by clicking the gear in the upper right corner.

Have fun!

--

About Think Again - A DSN Podcast: If you've got 10 minutes with Einstein, what do you talk about? Black holes? Time travel? Why not gambling? The Art of War? Contemporary parenting? Some of the best conversations happen when we're pushed outside of our comfort zones. Each week on Think Again, we surprise smart people you've probably heard of with handpicked gems from DSN's interview archives on every imaginable subject. These conversations could, and do, go just about anywhere.

Is Market Love Blind?

by Jag Bhalla

Many market lovers are so bewitched they’re blind to their beloved’s faults. Worse, they hate what their love needs to work. Seen clearly, “invisible hand” logic is incomplete and cuts both ways.

1. Adam Smith wasn’t market smitten: “he who intends only his own gain… is… led by an invisible hand …[and] frequently promotes” society’s interests.” That’s “frequently promotes,” not always ensures.

2. The “invisible hand” metaphor predates Smith (he got it from Shakespeare, Augustine used it). Economists mostly ignored it until Samuelson’s 1948 textbook preached to millions that it ensured “the best good of all.”

3. If selfishness in markets has unintended benefits, aren’t unintended harms logically possible? Perhaps inevitable?

4. Markets, as complex wholes, risk “fallacies of composition”: the properties of parts needn’t apply to wholes—silly example: All atoms in an apple are invisible; therefore, the apple is invisible. Likewise markets composed of voluntary, desirable, and locally “rational” transactions don’t always combine for rational and desirable outcomes overall—unsilly example: few buy products intending to pollute; yet producers pollute.

5. Pollution shows why free markets have built-in incentives to obstruct voluntary fixes. Manufacturers gain by avoiding cleanup costs, buyers by the resulting lower prices. What’s collectively bad “benefits” voluntary sellers and buyers.

6. Such “costs that people impose on others… yet have no individual incentive to” fix are called  “negative externalities.” They’re not always safely ignorable or small (e.g. $200 burger). Markets, without accurate prices, are like doctors without reliable tests. They can’t dependably decide what’s best.

7. Two cures are known: Either regulate, or tax to adjust incentives. Yet many market-lovers resist both, often for non-market ideological reasons (believing governments are unavoidably bad).

8. Markets could collectively optimize if prudently avoiding collective harm reliably trumped profit, or if prices perfectly included full costs (no externalities). But neither condition applies in any real market.

9. Only a non-market entity can police and manage real markets. Otherwise markets coordinate mindlessly (see “Markets Dumb as Trees”).

10. Stiglitz says the “invisible hand often seems invisible” because “it is not there." Better to say it’s not reliably benign. The claimed automatic alchemy of solo greed becoming social good is love-struck, logically incomplete, and impractical. Real lovers of real markets must deal with their real disorders. Without the medicine of regulation and taxation, however bitter, our beloved markets can’t thrive. Let’s be market realists.  

Illustration by Julia Suits, The New Yorker Cartoonist & author of The Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions.

 

 

 

The Brain is the Most Powerful Sex Organ

by Robert Montenegro

When we think of sexual organs our minds tend to veer down to the naughty parts between our legs. Where our minds should be veering is... well... our minds. The real catalyst for sexual activity resides in the brain, not in any form of genitalia. That's why sexually-driven language and communication -- dirty talk -- is such an effective means of arousal. When partners talk dirty, they're in effect stroking the right organs.

Over at Medical Daily, Lizette Borreli does a great job summarizing a wealth of scientific research on the subject, as well as on the larger topic of the brain's role in sexual activity. For example, sex drive has been found to originate in the hypothalamus, where hormones like testosterone are produced. That men have larger hypothalami explains why their sex drives tend to exceed those of their women peers. Sexual partners who prefer to be submissive in bed do so because it stimulates the amygdala, one of the brain's fear centers. 

Dirty talk, as with the previous examples, achieves arousal because it's fine-tuned to stimulate the right parts of the brain. It feeds both our need for intimate human conversation and our lust for sexual activity. Thus, it provides a multi-layered sexual experience that extends further than just physical touch. Dirty talk works because it's sex through suggestion, and to brains that love implication, suggestion can be just as powerful as full-on execution.

Read more at Medical Daily

Below, psychotherapist Esther Perel draws the line between sexuality and eroticism:

Image credit: alvarez / Getty iStock

Why aren't More Women Involved in Tech?

by Natalie Shoemaker

It's a question many people are wondering. In Silicon Valley, at most big tech companies, fewer than one in five technical employees are women. It's a wonder, Vivek Wadhwa says, “How can you have the most innovative land on this planet not have women? How can you be leaving out the most productive part of our population?”

While much attention has been given to the discrimination happening within Silicon Valley, the female population The problem starts in school where, as of 2012, the National Science Foundation reported only 18 percent of computer science degrees were obtained by women. Compare this number to the graduating class of 1984 where 37 percent of computer science degrees were awarded to women. But that was the last year of an upward trend—every year after women in computer science dwindled.

Before 1984, women were seen as naturals for the field. It may have had something to do with their typing abilities, so it seemed like a good fit. Somewhere along the way computers became something masculine.

However, some institutions have been able to bring women back into the fold and bring those graduate rates up to 38 percent. But these numbers aren't coming from schools, writes Sarah Kessler of FastCo., they're coming from coding bootcamps. A major draw of these programs is their no required previous experience—pay your $11,000 fee for a 10-week dive into how to code.

In these programs, most people don't have the same prior experience with computers as someone who may be a CS major in college, which is what makes coding bootcamps so attractive to women. Intimidation is a big barrier to entry, which some schools are turning around.

Manoush Zomorodi, host of Note to Self, reported on the case of Harvey Mudd College. The institution went from 10 percent of its females graduating with a degree in CS to 40 percent. How did they do it? Educators started with a better lead, changing the title of an intro course to “Creative Approaches to Problem-Solving in Science and Engineering Using Python.”

Next they organized classes to minimize intimidation by splitting up students into two courses. This helped reduce the “macho effect”--students who already know how to program and dominate class discussion, derailing the class. But she explains “it's a nuanced game to cut down on the macho without cutting out the well-meaning enthusiasm that causes it.” So, teachers end up pulling exceptional students aside, praising their enthusiasm, but being honest, letting them know their knowledge could be intimidating for other members of the class.

It's an interesting approach, the only thing left to solve are the problems facing women after graduation.

Read more at Fast Co. and WNYC.

Photo Credit: Matt Cardy / Stringer/ Getty

Don't Be Afraid to Cross Societal Borders

by DSN Editors

Sherman Alexie (b. 1966) is an American writer and poet who has been one of the leading voices in the Native American arts community the better part of two decades. Author of books such as The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Reservation Blues, and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Alexie draws from his experience growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern Washington state. Alexie's works often explore themes of despair, poverty, violence and alcoholism among the lives of Native American people, both on and off the reservation.

Alexie is the source of today's Words of Wisdom. The following quote demonstrates his advocacy for societal exploration. Not everyone is made to go out and be adventurous but it certainly worked for him:

"I don't know what any individual should do about crossing her own borders. I only know that I live a happier, more adventurous life, by crossing borders."

Alexie is also one of our many DSN experts, having participated in several DSN interviews in 2009. Here's one of our favorites, in which he explains that he doesn't have favorite authors, only favorite ideas: 

Should We Give Up Control and Let Our Cars Drive Us?

by Natalie Shoemaker

Driverless cars require trust, trust in the programmer's efforts to write-in a number of situations, allowing the car to adapt. This requires us to give up control, says Jerry Kaplan, a Fellow at The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, which many of us aren't readily willing to hand over. Kaplan asks us to consider the number of social interactions and ethical scenarios we're handing over to a self-driving car, proposing the “Trolley Problem” as one of his main concerns:



Brad Templeton is well aware of the proposed “Trolley Problem,” and asks people to consider real life. “In reality, such choices are extremely rare,” he writes in his blog. “How often have you had to make such a decision, or heard of somebody making one? Ideal handling of such situations is difficult to decide, but there are many other issues to decide as well.”

This ethical dilemma seems small when pitted up against the overwhelming amount of good autonomous vehicles could do. More efficient driving means lower carbon emissions. It could also prevent many accidents, as causes leading up to a crash are mostly attributed to human error. In a 2008 report, the National Highway and Traffic Association found “the critical reason for the critical pre-crash event was attributed to the driver in a large proportion of the crashes. Many of these critical reasons included a failure to correctly recognize the situation (recognition errors), poor driving decisions (decision errors), or driver performance errors.”

Engineers are aware of the scenarios and have been working on solving a multitude of them for decades, Templeton assures.

“It’s extremely rare for a newcomer to come up with a scenario they have not thought of,” he wrote in another post. “In addition, developers are putting cars on the road, with over a million miles in Google’s case, to find the situations that they didn’t think of just by thinking and driving themselves.”

But even knowing all this people still dwell on the scenarios computers won't be able to figure out—we still vie for the option of control. The proposed solution is the car handing over control to a human when it encounters unknowns. Jack Stewart from the BBC met with Dr. Anuj K. Pradhan at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute to see how this hand over would work in a simulation.

Pradhan explained the simulation is meant to test two things: seeing how people react to being inside an autonomous car and how well they respond when a situation does elevate to a point beyond what the vehicle can understand.

Stewart writes “when a computer voice shouts 'autonomous mode disengaged' and you look up to see the back of a truck that you are hurtling towards at high speed. Maybe you will be able to respond quickly enough, but maybe not. You are at a disadvantage. From BBC Future's experience in the simulator, and in other experimental autonomous vehicles such as Google’s cars, it is pretty easy to become relatively relaxed.”

Photo Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Staff

Your Sleep Disorder is Analogous to a Dangerous Eating Disorder

by Robert Montenegro

Not that any of us really need another reason to worry about our health, but here's NPR's Jon Hamilton with a doozy:

"More than 50 million adults in the U.S. have a disorder such as insomnia, restless leg syndrome or sleep apnea, according to an Institute of Medicine report. And it's now clear that a lack of sleep "not only increases the risk of errors and accidents, it also has adverse effects on the body and brain," according to Charles Czeisler, chief of the division of sleep and circadian disorders at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Research in the past couple of decades has shown that a lack of sleep increases a person's risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, infections and maybe even Alzheimer's disease. Yet most sleep disorders go untreated."

Here's what I find particularly interesting. Eating disorder awareness is at an all-time high right now and for good reason. How many times have you seen someone on the street who was obviously way too thin? We're all cognizant of the danger and risks that come with malnutrition and understand food to be one of five essential needs for human survival. Shelter is another; we're also aware of the cautions bundled with homelessness. The requirement to take in oxygen and water is self-explanatory.

So we've run through four of the five basic human survival needs: food, water, oxygen, and shelter. We're primed to acknowledge them and be aware when other people are at risk because they or someone else are depriving themselves.

I'm sure you can guess what the mystery fifth need is. Sleep is as essential to human survival as food or shelter. When someone starves themselves we can see the physiological effects affecting their performance, productivity, and quality of life. But are we as prepared to combat the effects of sleeplessness? Sleep deprivation, sleeping disorders, insomnia, etc. -- these are troublesome dilemmas that hurt one's quality of life.

Yet for many of the underslept among us, it's become a perfectly acceptable norm to harm ourselves by sleeping 3-5 hours a night, or pull consecutive all-nighters, or wave off insomnia as a minor inconvenience.

As you return to the NPR piece (linked again below, I highly recommend the read), keep in the forefront of your mind this idea that depriving yourself of sleep is like depriving yourself of food. And while it's relatively simple to stage an intervention for your friend with an eating disorder who weighs 85 pounds, think of the ways one can or cannot do the same with a sleep deprived peer. We as a society need to start valuing our slumber and stop allowing outside forces to goad us into sacrificing our essential rest.

Read more at NPR

Slight segue here... Did you know you can practice creativity while sleeping? Hire wire artist Philippe Petit explains the unconscious incubation of ideas via good sleep:

 

Photo credit: tab1962 / iStock

Study: Brains of Selfish People Immediately Seek to Exploit Others

by Lori Chandler

Everyone wants to get ahead but how we do that and to what extent says a lot about us. A recent study by the University of Pécs in Hungary shows the neuroscience behind people who are opportunistic, exploitative, and suspicious. Called “Machiavellians” by psychologists and “politicians” by most, this personality type is naturally bad at playing with others. Like Reese Witherspoon in the move Election, these people will do anything to get ahead and have a callous disregard for other people’s feelings. The study shows in startling detail the inner workings of Machiavellians brains.

In the study, a group of people both low and high on the Machiavellian scale played a game with, unbeknownst to them, a computer. The computer sometimes played fairly and sometimes did not, but when it was playing fairly the Machiavellian brain lit up in key areas. Researchers say as soon as someone demonstrates fairness—in this case, a confederate computer—Machiavellians start finding ways to exploit it.

Machiavellians, however, tend to see the worst in people, presuming that everyone acts purely out of self-interest. What is interesting, then, is that when you show calculating people what they expect — that you are ready to exploit their vulnerabilities for self-gain — there is no sign of surprise. When you respond to their selfish behavior with kindness, their brains immediately start planning how to best take advantage of you. They are, in fact, selfish jerks.

While personality types such as these are certainly disturbing, perhaps with greater research we can begin to understand the why and also how to help Machiavellians be more humane. Either that, or they will end up alone in a mansion mummering “rosebud” ala Citizen Kane.

PHOTO CREDIT: iStock

If You Can't Stop Procrastinating Just Procrastinate Better

by Robert Montenegro

Procrastination is often unfairly regarded as productivity's evil twin, writes Donné Torr over at Hootsuite. Sure, procrastinators can be slow and unreliable, but there exists research to suggest not all people who put things off are unproductive. Whether it's the sort of "research" that's not worth the paper it's printed on, I'll leave for you to decide.

A few years ago DSN's Maria Konnikova covered psychologist John Perry, who is notable for proposing a theory of Structured Procrastination:

"Perry proposes the following strategy for the effective procrastinator. Create a list of tasks that you need to accomplish. Order them from most important to least important. Now, procrastinate doing something that is higher on the list by doing something lower on the list, instead of something random that doesn’t appear at all. That way, you’ll be doing something that needs doing while not doing something that’s even more pressing and important, thus satisfying your procrastinating tendencies. As a result, you’re still a procrastinator par excellence, avoiding important deadlines and responsibilities, but in addition, you’ve suddenly become productive as well."

Perry features prominently in Torr's article for his ideas on how "effective dawdling" can lead to creativity and innovative solutions. Inspired, Torr suggests tailoring your time-management habits to the needs of your job. I suppose a good example would be for a humble blogger tasked with writing about big ideas to spend his lazy online time visiting sites that promote knowledge. Not that I know anybody who fits that profile...

The key takeaway here? Torr stresses that, in a counterintuitive twist, active and structured procrastinators might very well be just as productive as their go-getter counterparts.

Do I buy it? Eh, not really. Procrastination is, in the words of the great David McRaney, "fueled by weakness in the face of impulse and a failure to think about thinking." If we could condition ourselves to not procrastinate we'd all likely be happier people. But since we apparently can't all do that, I suppose the Perry method is a fair Plan B. 

Read more at Hootsuite

For those of you who read the above, but still want to kick your procrastinative tendencies, let the video below featuring author and journalist Charles Duhigg start you on the right path:

Photo credit: Sergey Paranchuk / Shutterstock

Solving the Mystery of the Dying Honey Bees

by Natalie Shoemaker

Honey bee populations are crashing for a number of reasons. Scientists have attributed the decline of the honey bees to a rise in the use of pesticides, disease, and loss of habitat. But there are factors still unaccounted for, leaving researchers concerned.

"We just don't understand the combination of stressors that affect honey bees, and we don't know why bee numbers are declining around the world. They might go through extinction; we just don't know," Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Science Leader Professor Paulo de Souza said in an interview with the BBC.

Researchers from Australia's CSIRO have developed micro-sensors, weighing just 5.4 milligrams, and attached them to the backs of 10,000 healthy honey bees. The sensor will record each bee's schedule: how far it flies from the colony, what kinds of pesticides it encounters, what it eats, and what other conditions it encounters. This data will allow researchers to get a better idea of the frequency in which colony collapse happens and its causes.

While investigations continue, countries have been working (in varying efforts) to help they honey bees. Private companies in Norway's capital, Oslo, have taken the initiative, working together to create a bee highway to help hives move across an otherwise barren city-scape. The United States Department of Agriculture, last year stated that it would invest $8 million to expand honey bee habitats. A few million is just a drop in the bucket when compared to the labor costs the honey bees provide to us free of charge.

"Honey bee pollination alone adds more than $15 billion in value to agricultural crops each year in the United States," the White House said.

We're already starting to see what a world without honey bees would look like. Many countries, including the United States and China, have become desperate, having to resort to manual methods to induce pollination. A method I had the pleasure of learning just this summer. To “induce pollination” you need to identify the male flowers, pluck them, and rub them up against the female flowers before they closed up. The zucchini flowers I grew in my garden would close up by 8am, allowing just a small window of time. Just imagine doing this with an entire field.

If the bees do fall into extinction, their absence will create quite a few job openings.

Read more at BBC.

Photo Credit: ROUF BHAT / Stringer/ Getty

Bricks to Blocks: a Lego New York

by Frank Jacobs

New York is famous for the grid pattern of its city blocks. Lego is famous for the interlocking bricks that are the foundation stones of its worldwide toy empire. The two were destined to meet, as they do in the art of J.R. Schmidt. 

In 2012, the 3D artist and motion designer computer-generated this psychedelic interpretation of Manhattan and surrounding boroughs, using Lego-like bricks to give his map the look and feel of a 'real' scale model. It helps that Lego, probably Denmark's most successful single export product, is the real-world equivalent of the pixels that make up a computer graphic.

Schmidt based his work on various maps and satellite images depicting the elevation level in NYC. He translated that data into the height, color and opacity of his bricks – which therefore don't correspond with individual buildings, but represent an abstract, statistical average of the city's topography.

Many thanks to J.R. Schmidt for allowing me to use his work. Grab a wallpaper version of the image here on Dribble. For more exclusive delectation, buy a print here on Curioos.

 

Strange Maps #734

Found a weird map? Let me know at strangemaps@gmail.com. 

 

 

In Defence of Dismaland: The Value of Banksy's Dystopian Nightmare

by Simon Oxenham

Banksy’s dystopian theme park hasn’t even been open a week, and already the critics have been out in force, pulling no punches, but missing the point in the process. Business Insider described it as “art about nothing”. According to The Evening Standard’s description, “it’s mostly selfie-friendly stuff” - which is only true if your idea of a good selfie is of yourself next to a graphic representation of human suffering. In fact I barely found a single exhibit in the entire site that I felt realistically suitable to take a lighthearted selfie next to without immediately feeling like a despicable human being. Even the Guardian chimed in: "In reality the crazy fairgrounds and dance tents at rock festivals are far more subversive". The case against Dismaland was even made right here at DSN where “outrage culture” received a slating.

None of this was in tune with the impression I walked away with, after exiting through the gift shop. A single overwhelming theme rang on in my mind on the ride home, and on into the night as I lay in bed, eyes shut, but wide awake, considering the imagery fused in my mind. Dismaland is a wasteland, a graphic and abrupt visual depiction of what we are already doing to our planet, and what might happen if we don’t collectively change our behaviour. You might think that there are better ways to go about this than shock and awe. I did once, after reviewing the research I’m no longer so sure.

Changing attitudes is a wiked problem that is not synonymous with correcting ignorance. Providing parents with information debunking vaccine myths can make them less likely to vaccinate their children. 97% of scientists agree on the truth of global warming and this is “old news”, yet the size of the general population that refuses to believe in global warming is massive and pervades the political right.

A comfortable life and an insular social group with strong shared beliefs, is a tough match for cold hard evidence. Facts just aren't as seductive as a gas guzzling four by four, year-round air conditioning and not having to worry about constraining your consumption and recycling your detritus.

The Guardian critique misses the point spectacularly, complaining about “a painting of a mother and child about to be overwhelmed by a tsunami”. According to The Guardian’s dismal analysis, "we are – apparently – meant to think it’s funny that the wave is about to kill these beachgoers". Their quote, not mine. No, of course you're not supposed to find it funny. You're supposed to finally recognise that if we don't respect this planet that we all share, our world will rapidly become unliveable for our children.

Dispite warning after warning from scientists, we continue to ignore the threat of climate change and the damage we are otherwise doing to our planet. The UK where the Dismaland exhibit is located, has been particularly regressive over the past year, since the recent election the British Goverment has scrapped over half a dozen green polices. It is clear that evidence alone isn’t working to convince people, perhaps immersive evidence inspired art will encourage minds to change, where evidence alone has failed.

Dismaland does not neglect facts, look hard enough, such as on a bus where the ominous destination is simply "Cruel" and you will find damning real life quotes, graphs, diagrams, timelines, statistics and artefacts, which you can consider as you wander on past the more metaphorical exhibits. You can even visit a library where you flick through the books that no doubt provided Banksy's inspiration.

The major criticism of the attraction has been that it breeds apathy and disengagement. On the contrary, I haven’t walked away from Dismaland feeling helpless and despondant. I’ve been left with a visceral rejection of apathy, the realisation that Dismaland isn’t a world I want to live in and that I need to do what I can to avoid this vision of the future. Look a little closer at the image below. In a stroke of what can only be described as artistic genius, Banksy has made every single employee of Dismaland a part of the art, no, the art itself. You don't want to be like one of these poor apathetic soles.

Even if the exhibition convinces just a few people to respect their planet and take a critical eye to the world around them, it will be worth its weight in gold. But perhaps Dismaland has the power to do more than that. Perhaps it will inspire people to alter their goals in life to actually change the world around them.

In a world where our top science graduates are regularly creamed off from our top universities to play the roulette wheel of high finance, the battle for hearts and minds to take ethical career paths lies with the next generation, who are certainly not left out at Dismaland. Kids can play crazy golf on a course of discarded oil drums and negotiate with pocket money loan sharks.

As for Business Insider's argument that the show is simply "bad". Where else can you experience the illusion of zero gravity in a revolving caravan, before wandering beneath a giant oil tanker contorted high into the sky?

Often in life, it is experiences rather than words on a page or images on a screen that make us change our minds. I for one, hope this experience has an impact. Sometimes we humans need to reach rock bottom before we change our ways. Dismaland is rock bottom. 

Follow Neurobonkers on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, RSS, or join the mailing list. Photos by Simon Oxenham. 

Should a 10-Year-Old Rape Victim Be Forced to Bear the Child?

by Steven Mazie

On August 14th, an 11-year-old Paraguayan girl gave birth to a baby girl. She had been impregnated after being raped by her stepfather; the pregnancy only became evident when she was 22 weeks along. Paraguayan law permits abortion when the woman’s life is at stake, but otherwise there are no exceptions. Pregnancies resulting from incest or rape, or which merely threaten the health of the expectant mother, must go to term.

An international outcry erupted against Paraguay’s insistence that the 75-pound girl bear her rapist’s child. It had no effect. Citing a United Nations study showing that 70,000 adolescent girls die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth complications each year, Amnesty International argued that the girl was at risk and the family’s request for an abortion should be granted. Paraguay did not budge. “We are not, from any point of view, in favor of the termination of the pregnancy," a government spokesman said.

Mike Huckabee, a Republican running for his party’s presidential nomination, told CNN that he agreed with Paraguay’s refusal to allow the girl to have an abortion. “I wouldn’t pretend it’s anything other than a terrible tragedy, but let’s not compound the tragedy by taking yet another life,” he said. Watch his interview here:

Huckabee’s position is not mainstream, even for conservatives. Most Republicans running for president and most pro-life Americans believe an exception should be carved out for rape and incest victims.

But this more moderate position carries a difficult burden of justification. To say that women who have been raped are eligible for abortion is to admit that there are some circumstances in which a woman’s right to control her body supersedes the fetus’s right to life. Once that proposition is granted, the abortion debate puts the fetus and the expectant mother on a balance: each has value, each deserves respect. The question is how to weigh each party’s claim.

The tragic episode of the Paraguayan girl’s pregnancy reminds me of a famous defense of abortion offered by philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson in 1971. The unusual, bold premise of her article, “A Defense of Abortion,” is that pro-lifers lose even on their own terms. Thomson begins by granting, for the sake of argument, the abortion opponents’ most compelling claim: that the embryo is a person, and has rights, from the moment of conception. There is a philosophically coherent, even compelling, argument that women should still have a right to abort their fetuses even assuming that fetuses have a right to life.

The argument builds on a series of thought experiments, leading with one that resonates well with the Paraguayan case:

You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, "Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you--we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you." Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says. "Tough luck. I agree. but now you've got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him."

Is it just to require you to provide for the violinist’s bodily needs for nine months? “I imagine,” Thomson wrote, “you would regard this as outrageous.” So it may be similarly outrageous to ask a pregnant woman—whether a fully grown adult or a child—to commit herself to a long, uncomfortable and potentially dangerous symbiotic relationship with another organism.

That might sound like a rather crass way to describe the relationship between a mother and a child, and I suppose it is. It would be very nice for you to keep the violinist attached to your back for nine months, and it is arguably even more generous to play host to a fetus, your fetus, with whom you have an intimate biological connection. But the question is whether the government should have the power to require you to engage in this act of generosity whenever a fetus begins developing in your womb—even if you are a child yourself who has already suffered a brutal act of sexual violence.

Image credit: shutterstock.com

Thought Experiment: What If the U.S. Had 100% Open Borders?

by Robert Montenegro

Economist Nathan Smith has long been a supporter of the U.S. opening its borders. He's argued that the American polity would "endure and flourish" if it elected to lay out 2,000 miles of welcome mats rather than building a Trumpian wall. He's claimed that unencumbered movement of peoples from land to land would result in worldwide GDP doubling, though not without some serious social destabilization. Still, he predicted the U.S. could handle an influx of 150-200 million immigrants over a span of several decades.

Smith wrote again on the topic of open borders a couple weeks ago in a piece that plays out like a giant thought experiment. Smith's hypothetical situation: If all borders were opened and 1 billion people immigrated to the United States over the course of fifty years, could the country maintain its "political character and structure?" Smith thinks not. He spends the length of the piece exploring in-depth situations in which constitutional democracy would likely erode if the U.S. were tasked with governing tons of new people. Likening this hypothetical bloated America to the empires of Rome and the UK, Smith argues that the eventual form of government would straddle the line between the authoritarianism of the former and the improvisational approach of the latter.

Law enforcement, public schooling, higher education: All these things would struggle beneath the weight of a suddenly larger populace. As groups of people would likely self-segregate within this new America, organized government would probably empower sects of each community to maintain law and order. Certain ideas and values we perceive to be chiefly American (one person, one vote, as an example) would likely be abandoned: 

"Certain American ideals would die of their own increasing impracticality, e.g., “equality of opportunity,” the social safety net, one person, one vote, or non-discrimination in employment. Americans might continue to feel that these ideals were right long after they had ceased to be practiced, as the Romans seemed to feel that Rome ought to be governed by its Senate long after real governance had passed to the emperors...

If open borders included open voting, US political institutions would be overhauled very quickly as political parties reinvented themselves to appeal to the vast immigrant masses, but I’ll assume the vote would be extended gradually so that native-born Americans (including many second-generation immigrants) would always comprise a majority of the electorate. This would put an end to majority rule, for a large fraction, likely a majority, of the resident population would lack votes."

Smith's piece (linked again below) is well worth a read simply because it's so darned interesting to run the simulation in your mind of how American society would react to such an extreme situation. What's most interesting is how Smith conjures a scenario out of which American constitutional democracy becomes so destabilized that it collapses beneath its own weight. We'd be looking at a new world order and an American polity unrecognizable compared to the present. For many people, that might sound like a reason to scrap a 100% open border policy. Smith is not one of those people. He's got a bone to scrap with American politics and wouldn't mind it turning into collateral damage amidst the rush of a brave new society:

"Modern constitutional law is a lot like the Catholic Church’s theology of indulgences in the 15th and early 16th centuries. It makes very little sense, and every critical thinker more or less feels that it’s a disgraceful travesty, but people are afraid to challenge it as aggressively as reason demands, because it underpins the order of society. Reams and libraries are dedicated to rationalizing it, precisely because it’s rationally indefensible, yet is a crucial currency of power. And yes, I’d like to see modern constitutional law immolated in a kind of Lutheran Reformation, and would gladly pay a high price in chaos to see the dragon slain."

Read more at Open Borders

A segue: One of the key social problems with an open border policy -- simplified into common terms -- is that humans are dumb people who believe dumb things. Rather than being accepting of people and things that are different, we latch on to feelings of tribalism and nativism enforced by facile conclusions built upon stereotypes. George Takei brings up a good example of this in the video below:

Photo credit: cscredon / iStock