2,748 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2022
    1. Indigenous astronomy focuses on the empirical, scientificlayers of this knowledge, and Traditions refer to the social practices,cultural activities, and methods of transmitting and applying thisknowledge.
    2. Who were the world’s first astronomers? The answer typicallyincludes scientists such as Galileo, Nicolaus Copernicus, or ancientcivilisations that gave birth to what we consider Western science,such as Sumer in Mesopotamia.

      Given the predominantly non-literate civilizations that comprised the ancient Near East, I've been wondering about how they may have actually been closer to Indigenous cultures than they are to more modern, literate Western culture.

      Perhaps he shouldn't dismiss them so readily here, but rather tie them more directly into his broader thesis.

    3. Professor Mātāmua’s 2017 book, Matariki: The star of the year.
    4. Guardianship of starknowledge is also a family affair in Lakota cultures of the northernMidwest of the United States. Arvol Looking Horse, a Lakota Elderand spiritual leader, teaches that sacred star medicine is maintainedby family lineages bearing the name Lúta.

      Star knowledge is guarded by family lineages in the Lakota cultures with the name Lúta.

    5. In the western Torres Strait, an astronomer is called a ZugubauMabaig, which literally translates as ‘star person’.
    6. The stars also give meaning to our existence. The sky is a canvasof sparkling dots that we connect to form familiar patterns, to whichwe assign narratives about their formation and meaning. Across thesky, ancestors, heroic figures, animals, landscapes and fantasticbeasts tell stories of the human experience. They speak of braveryand deceit, war and peace, sex and violence, punishment andreward. It is fascinating to find striking similarities in stories about thestars across vastly different cultures, with even more similarities in theways they are utilised.

      Are these graphic and memorable stories strikingly similar because of the underlying packages of orality and memory used in these cultures?

      This is one of my primary motivations for reading this text.

    7. Indigenous science has long been rejected without consideration,overlooked, or exploited without recognition by powerful Westerninterests. Bio-piracy sees Indigenous Knowledge of plants stolen andpatented for use in the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industrieswith little or no recognition or recompense. Indigenous starknowledge has been ignored, even when that knowledge clearlyexisted long before the ‘discoveries’ of Western science.

      Indigenous knowledge has been broadly ignored, rejected, and even exploited without any recognition by Western colonizers. Examples of appropriation include knowledge of plants patented for use in food, medicine, and cosmetics.

    8. Indigenous sciences are highly interconnected, while Westernscience tends to be divided into different categories by discipline, witheach diverging into ever smaller focus areas.

      Indigenous sciences are highly interconnected while Western sciences tend to be highly sub-divided into ever smaller specializations.


      Are Indigenous sciences naturally interconnected or do they form that way because of the associative memory underlying the cultural orality by which they are formed and transmitted? (I would suspect so, but don't yet have the experience to say definitively. Evidence for this should be collected.)

    9. Western andIndigenous sciences work in different ways, with some crossover
    10. ‘Yes, ofcourse we have science! We’ve been saying that for years, but noone will listen.’

      No one has listened to Indigenous peoples when they say that they have science. The major boundary in hearing in this case is that Indigenous peoples rely on orality where as Western people rely more heavily on literacy. This barrier has obviously been a major gap between these cultures.

    11. A sense ofconnectedness is a unique part of Indigenous science. In Westernscience, knowledge is often considered separate from the people whodiscover it, while Indigenous cultures see knowledge as intricatelyconnected to people.

      A primary difference between Indigenous science and Western science is the first is intimately connected to the practitioners while the second is wholly separate.


      Would Western science be in a healthier space currently if its practice were more tightly bound to the people who need to use it (everyone)? By not being bound to the everyday practice and knowledge of our science, increasingly larger portions of Western society don't believe in science or its value.

    12. Science is something anyone can do, and everyone has done. Theprocess on paper is simple: closely observe the world, test what you learn,and transmit it to future generations. Just because Indigenous cultureshave done this without test tubes doesn’t make them unscientific—justdifferent.

      Perhaps there's a clever dig here that she uses the phrase "on paper" here because most indigenous cultures have done these things orally!

      quote from Dr. Annette S. Lee

    13. As Professor Rangi Mātāmua, a Māoriastronomy scholar, explains:Look at what our ancestors did to navigate here—you don’t do that onmyths and legends, you do that on science. I think there is empiricalscience embedded within traditional Māori knowledge ... but what they didto make it meaningful and have purpose is they encompassed it withincultural narratives and spirituality and belief systems, so it wasn’t just seenas this clinical part of society that was devoid of any other connection toour world, it was included into everything. To me, that cultural elementgives our science a completely new and deep and rich layer of meaning
    1. Exercises

      2.1.b

      Counterexample: \(\to := {(a, c), (b, c)}\)

      2.3

      \(a \to b\) iff \(a\) encodes Turing machine \(M_a\) and \(b\) encodes a valid terminating computation (sequence of states) of \(M_a\).

      2.9

      Let \(|w|_a := \varphi_a(w)\).

      \(\varphi(w) := 3^{|w|_a} 2^{|w|_b}\)

      Proof

      1. Let \(u \to_1 v\). Then \(\varphi(v) = 3^{|v|_a} 2^{|v|_b} = 3^{|u|_a+1} 2^{|u|_b-2} = 3^{|u|_a} 2^{|u|_b} \frac{3}{4} = \varphi(u) \frac{3}{4} < \varphi(u)\).
      2. Let \(u \to_2 v\). Then \(\varphi(v) = 3^{|v|_a} 2^{|v|_b} = 3^{|u|_a-1} 2^{|u|_b+1} = 3^{|u|_a} 2^{|u|_b} \frac{2}{3} = \varphi(u) \frac{2}{3} < \varphi(u)\).

      2.17

      No.

      Let \(a > b\). Then \([b^n a | n \in [0, 1, \ldots]]\) is an infinite chain according to \(>_{Lex}\).

      Note: This exercise completes the discussion of Lemma 2.4.3.

      4.2

      Let \(s, t\) be terms. Run BFS from \(s\) using \(\leftrightarrow^E\). If \(t\) is encountered, conclude that \(s \approx_E t\). If the BFS finishes enumerating the equivalence class without encountering \(t\), conclude that \(\lnot s \approx_E t\).

      4.4

      Let \(x \in Var(r) \setminus Var(l)\). Let \(p\) be a position of \(x\) in \(r\).

      Infinite chain:

      • \(t_0 = x\)
      • \(t_{i+1} = r[t_i]_p\)

      4.18

      1. a
        • Unifier: \({x \to h(a), y \to h(a)}\)
        • Matcher: \({x \to h(a), y \to x}\)
      2. b
        • Unifier: Unsolvable
        • Matcher: \({x \to h(x), y \to x}\)
      3. c
        • Unifier: \({x \to h(y), z \to b}\)
        • Matcher: Unsolvable
      4. d
        • Unifier: Unsolvable
        • Matcher: Unsolvable

      5.2

      Counterexample TRS \(R\):

      1. \(a \to b\)
      2. \(b \to b\)
    1. The constellations’ positions in the night sky on significant dates, such as solstices and equinoxes, are mirrored in the alignments of the main structures at the compound, he found. Steles were “carefully placed within the temenos to mark the rising, zenith, or setting of the stars over the horizon,” he writes.

      Phoenicians use of steles and local environment in conjunction with their astronomy fits the pattern of other uses of Indigenous orality and memory.

      Link this example to other examples delineated by Lynne Kelly and others I've found in the ancient Near East.

      How does this example potentially fit into the broader framework provided by Lynne Kelly? Are there differences?

      Her thesis fits into a few particular cultural time periods, but what sorts of evidence should we expect to see culturally, socially, and economically when the initial conditions she set forth evolve beyond their original context? What should we expect to see in these cases and how to they relate to examples I've been finding in the ancient Near East?

    2. But crucially, he believes the pool at the center of the complex may have also served as a surface to observe and map the stars. The water surface would have mirrored the sky, as water does – none other than Leonardo da Vinci pointed out the attributes of inert standing water when studying the night sky. For one thing, the stars were adored by the Phoenicians, whether as gods or deceased ancestors; and the position of the constellations was of keen interest to the sailors among them for navigation purposes, Nigro points out.

      Lorenzo Nigro indicates that the "kothon" of Motya in southern Sicily was a pool of Baal whose surface may have been used to observe and map the stars. He also indicates that the Phoenicians adored the stars potentially as gods or deceased ancestors. This is an example of a potentially false assumption often seen in archaeology of Western practitioners misconstruing Indigenous practices based on modern ideas of religion and culture.

      I might posit that this sort of practice is more akin to that of the science of Indigenous peoples who used oral and mnemonic methods in combination with remembering their histories and ancestors.

      Cross reference this with coming reading in The First Astronomers (to come) which may treat this in more depth.


      Leonardo da Vinci documented the attributes of standing water for studying the night sky.

      Where was this and what did it actually entail?

    1. gravitational míreming woh* This text was recognized by the built-in Ocrad engine. A better transcription may be attained by right clicking on the selection and changing the OCR engine to "Tesseract" (under the "Language" menu). This message can be removed in the future by unchecking "OCR Disclaimer" (under the Options menu). More info: http://projectnaptha.com/ocrad

      Gravitational microlensing

      • gravitational wave approaching the earth is interrupted by blackhole, signal gets modified
  2. Feb 2022
    1. 9/8g Hinter der Zettelkastentechnik steht dieErfahrung: Ohne zu schreiben kann mannicht denken – jedenfalls nicht in anspruchsvollen,selektiven Zugriff aufs Gedächtnis voraussehendenZusammenhängen. Das heißt auch: ohne Differenzen einzukerben,kann man nicht denken.

      Google translation:

      9/8g The Zettelkasten technique is based on experience: You can't think without writing—at least not in contexts that require selective access to memory.

      That also means: you can't think without notching differences.

      There's something interesting about the translation here of "notching" occurring on an index card about ideas which can be linked to the early computer science version of edge-notched cards. Could this have been a subtle and tangential reference to just this sort of computing?

      The idea isn't new to me, but in the last phrase Luhmann tangentially highlights the value of the zettelkasten for more easily and directly comparing and contrasting the ideas on two different cards which might be either linked or juxtaposed.


      Link to:

      • Graeber and Wengrow ideas of storytelling
      • Shield of Achilles and ekphrasis thesis

      • https://hypothes.is/a/I-VY-HyfEeyjIC_pm7NF7Q With the further context of the full quote including "with selective access to memory" Luhmann seemed to at least to make space (if not give a tacit nod?) to oral traditions which had methods for access to memories in ways that modern literates don't typically give any credit at all. Johannes F.K .Schmidt certainly didn't and actively erased it in Niklas Luhmann’s Card Index: The Fabrication of Serendipity.

    1. Ali Ellebedy. (2021, December 30). We need those who are adept at #SciComm to explain that “Omicron” is sufficiently different from the original strain that was used to make the vaccine. Therefore, the definition of “fully vaccinated” will have to be updated, but that does not mean that the vaccines have failed. [Tweet]. @TheBcellArtist. https://twitter.com/TheBcellArtist/status/1476649138691444740

    1. "Context" manipulation is one of big topic and there are many related terminologies (academic, language/implementation specific, promotion terminologies). In fact, there is confusing. In few minutes I remember the following related words and it is good CS exam to describe each :p Thread (Ruby) Green thread (CS terminology) Native thread (CS terminology) Non-preemptive thread (CS terminology) Preemptive thread (CS terminology) Fiber (Ruby/using resume/yield) Fiber (Ruby/using transfer) Fiber (Win32API) Generator (Python/JavaScript) Generator (Ruby) Continuation (CS terminology/Ruby, Scheme, ...) Partial continuation (CS terminology/ functional lang.) Exception handling (many languages) Coroutine (CS terminology/ALGOL) Semi-coroutine (CS terminology) Process (Unix/Ruby) Process (Erlang/Elixir) setjmp/longjmp (C) makecontext/swapcontext (POSIX) Task (...)
    1. To satisfy the architecture of a modern process, a space sepa-rate from the usual library business is furnished, a catalog room or working memory for a central bibliographic unit. In this CBU, the program pro-cesses data contributed by various paths.

      Note here how the author creates the acronym CBU out of central bibliographic unit as a means of creating a connection to computer jargon like CPU (central processing unit). I suspect that CBU was not an acronym used at the time.

      bacrkonym?

    Tags

    Annotators

    1. Ulrich Elling. (2022, January 12). While #Omicron BA.1 leads the race, the little sister BA.2 is catching up in numbers. They are rather different with likely functional implications. BA.2 might be more immune evasive in RBD, less in NTD. And due to reduced mutation load in NTD maybe different fusion properties? Https://t.co/kEACjzQDs3 [Tweet]. @EllingUlrich. https://twitter.com/EllingUlrich/status/1481214901997682692

    1. Dr Emma Hodcroft. (2022, January 28). Just to clarify some confusion about what “Omicron” is. “Omicron” has always applied to the whole family (BA.1-3—We’ve known about them all since late-Nov/early-Dec). But the prevalence of BA.1 meant that it got shorthanded as ’Omicron’—That’s causing some confusion now!🥴 https://t.co/M4FwzGbluo [Tweet]. @firefoxx66. https://twitter.com/firefoxx66/status/1486999566725656576

    1. Jonathan Li on Twitter: “There’s a lineage of Omicron that’s gained the R346K mutation (BA.1.1). This one could spell some trouble for the AZ mAb (tixagevimab/cilgavimab, Evusheld) that’s being used for pre-exposure prophylaxis. If you want to learn about tix/cil vs Omicron, read on 1/7” / Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved February 6, 2022, from https://twitter.com/DrJLi/status/1487479972293853188

    1. Deepti Gurdasani. (2022, January 29). Going to say this again because it’s important. Case-control studies to determine prevalence of long COVID are completely flawed science, but are often presented as being scientifically robust. This is not how we can define clinical syndromes or their prevalence! A thread. [Tweet]. @dgurdasani1. https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1487366920508694529

  3. Jan 2022
    1. Zimmerman, M. I., Porter, J. R., Ward, M. D., Singh, S., Vithani, N., Meller, A., Mallimadugula, U. L., Kuhn, C. E., Borowsky, J. H., Wiewiora, R. P., Hurley, M. F. D., Harbison, A. M., Fogarty, C. A., Coffland, J. E., Fadda, E., Voelz, V. A., Chodera, J. D., & Bowman, G. R. (2021). SARS-CoV-2 simulations go exascale to predict dramatic spike opening and cryptic pockets across the proteome. Nature Chemistry, 13(7), 651–659. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-021-00707-0

    1. Budak, C., Soroka, S., Singh, L., Bailey, M., Bode, L., Chawla, N., Davis-Kean, P., Choudhury, M. D., Veaux, R. D., Hahn, U., Jensen, B., Ladd, J., Mneimneh, Z., Pasek, J., Raghunathan, T., Ryan, R., Smith, N. A., Stohr, K., & Traugott, M. (2021). Modeling Considerations for Quantitative Social Science Research Using Social Media Data. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/3e2ux

    1. https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-01-14/a-spanish-data-scientists-strategy-to-win-99-of-the-time-at-wordle.html

      Story of a scientist trying to optimize for solutions of Wordle.

      Nothing brilliant here. Depressing that the story creates a mythology around algorithms as the solution rather than delving in a bit into the math and science of information theory to explain why this solution is the correct one.

      Desperately missing from the discussion are second and third order words that would make useful guesses to further reduce the solution space for actual readers.

    1. ReconfigBehSci. (2022, January 9). Just a thought on this and the general vaccine mandate debate. As a behavioural scientist currently stuck in Germany where this is a live debate, it strikes me that the thoughts below address only part of the population: Those not currently vaccinated. But what about ... 1/2 [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1480213148032450565

    1. Dr Satoshi Akima. (2022, January 8). I’ve had people mention rising case numbers in Japan and South Korea. But let’s really put that rise into perspective. Nations that have early accepted that #COVIDisAirborne simply fair better https://t.co/KaoE26gQ0N [Tweet]. @ToshiAkima. https://twitter.com/ToshiAkima/status/1479724180840988673

    1. In an era where funding for good projects can be hard to come by, or is even endangered, we must affirmatively make the case for the study of how to improve human well-being. This possibility is a fundamental reason why the American public is interested in supporting the pursuit of knowledge, and rightly so.

      Keep in mind that they're asking this in an anti-science and post-fact political climate. Is progress studies the real end goal, or do we need political solutions? Better communication solutions? Better education solutions? Instead? First?

      Are they addressing the correct question/problem here?

    2. Along these lines, the world would benefit from an organized effort to understand how we should identify and train brilliant young people, how the most effective small groups exchange and share ideas, which incentives should exist for all sorts of participants in innovative ecosystems (including scientists, entrepreneurs, managers, and engineers), how much different organizations differ in productivity (and the drivers of those differences), how scientists should be selected and funded, and many other related issues besides.

      These are usually incredibly political questions that aren't always done logically.

      See for example Malcolm Gladwell's podcast episode My Little Hundred Million.

    1. Here, the card index func-tions as a ‘thinking machine’,67 and becomes the best communication partner for learned men.68

      From a computer science perspective, isn't the index card functioning like an external memory, albeit one with somewhat pre-arranged linked paths? It's the movement through the machine's various paths that is doing the "thinking". Or the user's (active) choices that create the paths creates the impression of thinking.

      Perhaps it's the pre-arranged links where the thinking has already happened (based on "work" put into the system) and then traversing the paths gives the appearance of "new" thinking?

      How does this relate to other systems which can be thought of as thinking from a complexity perspective? Bacteria perhaps? Groups of cells acting in concert? Groups of people acting in concert? Cells seeing out food using random walks? etc?

      From this perspective, how can we break out the constituent parts of thought and thinking? Consciousness? With enough nodes and edges and choices of paths between them (or a "correct" subset of paths) could anything look like thinking or computing?

    1. Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH. (2021, October 8). Huge honor to be back @inthebubblepod with @ASlavitt We talked about engaging people with whom we disagree Why disdain for unvaccinated folks is counter-productive And why kindness and understanding (with a side of mandates) will keep our nation in good stead for the long run [Tweet]. @ashishkjha. https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1446507539345125379

    1. In the Bubble. (2021, October 6). .@ASlavitt and @ashishkjha discuss the danger of covering COVID like a political horse race, why he appears on Newsmax so frequently, and how he deals with #COVID skeptics in his own extended family. Listen at http://ow.ly/8jcL50GmwLh https://t.co/f5xGD8wefx [Tweet]. @inthebubblepod. https://twitter.com/inthebubblepod/status/1445720677873500161

    1. moviepilot.de 5,8/10 IMDB 5,8/10 · 33K · Metascore: 77 Parents Guide

      In den Tiefen des Weltalls, weit entfernt von unserem Sonnensystem, leben Monte (Robert Pattinson) und seine kleine Tochter Willow (Jessie Ross) gemeinsam auf einem ramponierten Raumschiff, dessen Besatzung vor einiger Zeit noch aus vielen verurteilten Schwerverbrechern bestand, die sich mit einer gefährlichen Mission von ihren Strafen freikauften. Mit Experimenten wurden sie von der wahnsinnigen Reproduktionswissenschaftlerin Dibs (Juliette Binoche) gequält, bei denen bis auf Monte und Willow alle ums Leben kamen. Monte ist ein stiller Mann, der sich eine harte Selbstdisziplin auferlegt hat. Doch wenn er mit seiner Tochter zusammen ist, wird aus ihm ein zärtlicher Versorger. Nun sind die beiden die letzten Überlebenden der Crew und nähern sich in völliger Isolation ihrem letzten unausweichlichen Ziel: einem schwarzen Loch und damit auch dem Ende von Zeit und Raum. filmstarts.de

      „High Life“ ist ein schmerzhafter Film, doch es lohnt sich, die Expedition ins Nichts zu begleiten. Wer ein klassisches Weltraum-Epos erleben will, der bleibt besser auf dem Boden. Claire Denis‘ Vision ist kompromisslos und radikal. Ein einzigartiges, schwarzes Juwel. filmstarts.de 4,5/5

      In „High Life“ nimmt uns die französische Arthouse-Regisseurin Claire Denis mit ins Weltall. Von Zivilisation ist da oben aber nichts zu spüren. Stattdessen gibt es eine zwischen Wahnsinn und Klaustrophobie schwankende Stimmung, die nach und nach zwischenmenschliche Abgründe freilegt, während das Publikum vergebens auf Erlösung, Hoffnung oder eine tatsächliche Handlung wartet. Oliver Armknecht 8/10

      An Bord eines Raumschiffes werden übergriffige Experimente durchgeführt, die die Überlebenden vor komplizierte Fragen stellen und dem Publikum schwer zu denken geben. Claire Denis erobert mit ihrem ungewöhnlichen Vertreter eines traditionsreichen Genres reizvolles Neuland. epdFilm ?/10

    1. Carreño, J. M., Alshammary, H., Tcheou, J., Singh, G., Raskin, A., Kawabata, H., Sominsky, L., Clark, J., Adelsberg, D. C., Bielak, D., Gonzalez-Reiche, A. S., Dambrauskas, N., Vigdorovich, V., Group, P. S., Srivastava, K., Sather, D. N., Sordillo, E. M., Bajic, G., van Bakel, H., … Krammer, F. (2021). Activity of convalescent and vaccine serum against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-03846-z

    1. TMDB (74%) JustWatch (81%) filmstarts.de (–/5) moviepilot.de (6,6/10) IMDB (6,8/10 · 5,4K)

      In naher Zukunft: Cameron (Mahershala Ali) ist todkrank. Dem fürsorglichen Ehemann und Vater wird von seiner Ärztin (Glenn Close) ein Weg aufgezeigt, wie er seine Familie vor dem bevorstehenden Leid bewahrt: Er soll sich durch einen Klon ersetzen lassen, der wie eine Abbild seiner selbst aussieht. Während Cameron mit der Frage konfrontiert wird, ob er das Schicksal seiner Familie ändern soll oder nicht, lernt er immer mehr Wahrheiten über das Leben, den Verlust und die Liebe, als er sich jemals vorgestellt hätte. Cameron erkennt daraufhin immer mehr, was bedeutet, Opfer zu bringen und wie weit ein Mensch in der Lage ist zu gehen, um seinen Liebsten ein glücklicheres, besseres Leben zu ermöglichen... filmstarts.de

      „Schwanengesang“ handelt von Klonen todkranker Menschen, welche den Platz ihrer Originale einnehmen sollen, damit die ahnungslose Familie nicht leiden muss. Das überwiegend ruhig erzählte und schön bebilderte Science-Fiction-Drama stellt existenzielle Fragen zu Identität, aber auch moralische, welchen Preis das Glück haben darf. Das richtet sich vor allem an ein Publikum, das gerne nachdenkt, bietet aber ebenfalls emotionale Momente, die auf das Konto von Mahershala Ali gehen. Oliver Armknecht 7,5/10

  4. Dec 2021
    1. Timothy Caulfield. (2021, December 30). #RobertMalone suspended by #twitter today. Reaction: 1) Great news. He has been spreading harmful #misinformation. (He has NOT contributed to meaningful/constructive scientific debate. His views demonstrably wrong & polarizing.) 2) What took so long? #ScienceUpFirst [Tweet]. @CaulfieldTim. https://twitter.com/CaulfieldTim/status/1476346919890796545

    1. For Europeanaudiences, the indigenous critique would come as a shock to thesystem, revealing possibilities for human emancipation that, oncedisclosed, could hardly be ignored.

      Indigenous peoples of the Americas critiqued European institutions for their structures and lack of freedom. In turn, while some Europeans listened, they created an evolutionary political spectrum of increasing human complexity to combat this indigenous critique.

    2. Hobbes and Rousseau told their contemporaries things that werestartling, profound and opened new doors of the imagination. Nowtheir ideas are just tired common sense. There’s nothing in them thatjustifies the continued simplification of human affairs. If socialscientists today continue to reduce past generations to simplistic,two-dimensional caricatures, it is not so much to show us anythingoriginal, but just because they feel that’s what social scientists areexpected to do so as to appear ‘scientific’. The actual result is toimpoverish history – and as a consequence, to impoverish our senseof possibility.

      The simplification required to make models and study systems can be a useful tool, but one constantly needs to go back to the actual system to make sure that future predictions and work actually fit the real world system.

      Too often social theorists make assumptions which aren't supported in real life and this can be a painfully dangerous practice, especially when those assumptions are built upon in ways that put those theories out on a proverbial creaking limb.


      This idea is related to the bias that Charles Mathewes points out about how we treat writers as still living or as if they never lived. see: https://hypothes.is/a/VTU2lFvZEeyiJ2tN76i4sA

    1. Peruvian letters which was supposedly the letters home by a captured Inca princess who's trapped in France and they're commenting on French society and this is later remembered it 00:50:03 comes out in his late 1740s um it's later remembered as the first book which suggested the idea of the welfare state

      The 1747 book Letters of a Peruvian Woman by the prominent saloniste Madame de Graffigny, which viewed French society through the eyes of an imaginary kidnapped Inca princess, is remembered as the first book to suggest the idea of the welfare state.

    2. sort of classic banned tribe chief state hierarchy that 00:26:00 archeologists anthropologists still apply

      Traditional hierarchy used by many archaeologists and anthropologists:

      • band
      • tribe
      • chiefdom
      • state
    3. there's a great literature in 00:21:37 anthropology about the way that hunter-gatherer societies and many other societies action flip and alternate between very different kinds of political 00:21:49 arrangements depending partly on the time of year so one will have periods of great economic abundance let's say when the Bison or the deer or the woolly mammoth if we're in the Pleistocene 00:22:03 europe are coming through the valleys and you'll have extremely elaborate social measures put in place to make sure that hunting is successfully completed and during those periods you 00:22:17 might have a very authoritarian kind of political organization but once it's all over the society changes shape Marcel Mauss actually used the term social morphology I think to describe this 00:22:30 society moves and transforms

      Marcel Mauss defines social morphology as a way that societies flip or alternate between social structures depending on the seasons based on availability of food and potentially other factors.

      Perhaps to be found in Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo: A Study in Social Morphology #

    4. evolutionary theorists like Christopher berm whose book hierarchy in the forest he's a primatologist is quite explicit about 00:11:27 this and says well this is precisely what makes human politics different from the politics of say chimpanzees or bonobos or orangutangs is what he calls our actuarial intelligence which I 00:11:39 believe what he means by this is the fact that we can in fact imagine what another kind of society might be like

      Primatologist [[Christopher Boehm]] argues in his book Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior that humans are different from our primate ancestors because homo sapiens possess actuarial intelligence, or the ability to imagine what other kinds of society might look like.

    1. ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 18). One thing I keep coming back to in my thoughts is the formerly respected scientists who completely lost their way in this pandemic. Is there something we could be teaching young researchers that would help minimise this in future? Are there norms of science we could strengthen? [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1472172123829456897

    1. Алексей Буров 4 ноября 2021 г., 07:43 Эпоха экспертов Как обозначить эпоху, которой мы принадлежим? Общепринятый ответ — эпоха научно-технического прогресса, НТП. Возьмем его за отправную точку, ибо как тут спорить? Размах науки достиг 45 порядков величин, от видимой Вселенной до Хиггс-бозона и топ-кварка. Технический прогресс преобразил цивилизацию, создал «вторую природу», создает «второй интеллект». Удивительно, что этот космический рывок человечества произошёл на глазах всего лишь нескольких поколений. У его истока стояла очень малая группа интеллектуалов, вдохновляемых верой в то, что природа структурирована божественными математическими формами, постижимыми для человека. Их «пифагорейская вера», как я ее называю, оказалась пророческой; порожденная ею математическая физика явилась как фантастически успешное предприятие человечества. Начиная с открытия радиоволн, технические инновации были уже напрямую зависимы от открытий фундаментальной физики и пошли как из рога изобилия. Вместо сравнительно узкой группы ученых и изобретателей появились целые армии экспертов в быстро множащихся областях науки и техники. Эпоха НТП — время экспертов. Сделать карьеру, подняться по социальному статусу, стало возможным на путях экспертного образования. В высокотехнологическом мире, с его необозримым числом затребованных специальностей, такой путь открылся для многих. Отвечая этому запросу, университеты, бывшие когда-то школами целостного универсального мышления, превратились по преимуществу в кузницы экспертного знания. Техническая специализация затребована и хорошо оплачивается, но как же быть с целостным знанием? Популярный ответ на этот вопрос — забыть эту архаичную идею, отброшенную самой бурнокипящей жизнью. Кому оно нужно вообще, целостное знание? Никому, кроме редких чудаков. Да оно и невозможно — никто не обнимет необъятного. А то и похуже: химеры целостного знания производят тоталитарные системы, поэтому их следует избегать, а лучше — противодействовать им всеми способами. Всё бы ничего, но у такого решения есть один недостаток: оно самоубийственно. Система, теряющая целостность, уходит в небытие — будь то социум, организм, повесть, научная теория или личность. Недаром Платон обозначал высший уровень бытия как Единое Всеблагое, а его великий последователь Плотин сократил это обозначение до одного слова — Единое. Отцы церкви учили о предвечном Боге как Едином в трех Лицах. Любое общественное объединение возможно лишь на основе действенного согласия людей относительно главных принципов этого объединения. Социум может успешно функционировать и развиваться к лучшему лишь на основе согласия граждан относительно базовых идей справедливости, права и управления, и общий им всем корень «прав» тут не случаен. Без разделяемой гражданами некой высшей общей правды возможно лишь тотальное бесправие, царство лжи и насилия. Эта высшая правда может быть действенной лишь как высшая ценность, высший смысл — иначе она была бы лишь пустой декларацией и прикрытием для реализации особых страстей, желаний и выгод. Но что же может, а что не может быть этой «высшей правдой», и как её знать? Для этого есть, по-видимому, только один путь: по плодам их узнаете их. История человечества, цивилизации, народа, предков и моя личная — все это вместе составляет данные опыта, требующие осмысления в плане плодов тех или иных учений. Игнорирование уроков прошлого или неадекватное их осмысление неизбежно приводит к новым бедствиям: преодоление грехов и заблуждений предков возможно лишь через усилия понимания и связанных с ним очищения и восхождения. Только таким образом зрелый свободный человек и может улучшать свое представление об общем благе или высшей правде. Когда мы спрашиваем о смысле чего бы то ни было, мы спрашиваем о ценности более высокого ранга, чем то, смысл чего мы ищем. Вопросы о смысле влекут вверх по дереву ценностей, приводя к вопросу о смысле моей жизни, смысле человечества и Вселенной. Эти вопросы требуют ответов, и любой мой ответ или отказ от ответа влечет глубокие следствия для моей, и не только моей, жизни. Эти вопросы составляют полюс ценностей; чреватые трудными поворотами и жертвами, они пугают и напрягают, ответы на них порождают конфликты и войны. Многим хотелось бы от них отделаться: отвернуться, забыть об их существовании, заболтать, объявить бессмысленными, заклеймить их как неприличные, заблокировать глухими стенами табу или навязать всем и каждому одну и ту же правильную схему, сомнение в которой было бы наказуемо. Все эти виды бегства от высших вопросов тождественны бегству от свободы (Фромм), забвению себя в том или ином дурмане, тождественны тому или иному виду самоослепления, самоубийства, прямого или косвенного. Сказанное проливает дополнительный свет на фигуру эксперта, ученого или инженера, специалиста по «второй природе», технике, или «второму интеллекту», искусственному. Настоящая экспертиза требует образования и изобретательности, энергичной умственной деятельности определенного рода, увлекательной и хорошо оплачиваемой. Именно поэтому научно-техническая экспертиза предоставляет уникальные возможности для бегства от высших вопросов, бегства от свободы. Дело даже не только в том очевидном обстоятельстве, что овладение специальностью и совершенствование квалификации требует столь значительных усилий, что на прочее не остается времени. Дело еще и в том, что редукция мышления до экспертного оказывается весьма удобным, уважаемым и незаметным способом избавиться от высших вопросов. В 1950 году Эрвин Шредингер (1887-1961) прочел серию лекций, вышедших в следующем году в виде брошюры «Наука и гуманизм», где он затронул проблему экспертного знания, усмотрев в фигуре эксперта «массового человека» Ортеги-и-Гассета, обозначенного в «Восстании масс», книге 1930 года. Ниже следует комментарий Шредингера к этому наблюдению Ортеги, с обширной внутренней цитатой из «Восстания масс»: "…я бы хотел поговорить о главе La barbarie del especialismo, варварство специализации. На первый взгляд это кажется парадоксом и может шокировать. Он осмеливается [! АБ] представить специализирующегося ученого как типичного представителя грубой невежественной толпы — hombre masa (массового человека), — который угрожает выживанию истинной цивилизации. Я могу привести лишь несколько фрагментов из его восхитительного описания этого ‘типа ученого, не имеющего прецедентов в истории’. «Это человек, который из всего, что по-настоящему образованная личность должна знать, знаком только с одной конкретной наукой, более того, лишь с той ее малой частью, исследованиями в области которой он сам занимается. Он достиг точки, в которой он объявляет достоинством [! АБ] не обращать внимания на все, что находится за пределами узкой области, которую он сам культивирует, и обвиняет в дилетантстве любопытство, стремящееся к синтезу всего знания. Происходит так, что он, будучи зажатым в узких рамках своего поля зрения, действительно открывает новые факты и продвигает свою науку (которую он вряд ли знает), продвигая вместе с ней и интегрированную человеческую мысль, которую он решительно игнорирует. Как такое оказалось возможным, и каким образом это остается возможным? Ибо мы должны сильно подчеркнуть неординарность следующего неопровержимого факта: экспериментальная наука была в большой степени продвинута работой невероятно заурядных и даже более чем заурядных людей.»" (Наука и гуманизм, 1951) На мой взгляд, «варварство специалистов», отмеченное Ортегой почти век назад и подчеркнутое Шредингером двадцать лет спустя, не только не ослабло, но, оставаясь по сути тем же самым, захватило еще большие круги человечества. Дезинтеграция картины мира, сведение ее к бессмысленному калейдоскопу частных экспертных представлений и моделей, оборачивается распадом человека и социума, доминированием «последнего человека» Ницше. Спасение может прийти лишь на путях осознания беды и усилий к ее преодолению. Каким может быть смысл жизни, неуничтожимый даже гибелью Вселенной? — такой вопрос должен быть осознан и рассмотрен как предельно актуальный. Когда и если это начнет происходить, эпоха экспертов станет вытесняться временем нового цельного знания.
    1. Eric Topol. (2020, November 28). This will go down in history as one of science and medical research’s greatest achievements. Perhaps the most impressive. I put together a preliminary timeline of some key milestones to show how several years of work were compressed into months. Https://t.co/BPcaZwDFkl [Tweet]. @EricTopol. https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1332771238771630080

    1. OK, maybe the road was longer and more tortuous than the traditional narrative suggests, but didn’t all humans end up embracing agriculture, and a form of social life characterised by hierarchy and inequality with it, eventually?

      Another good question to look for clues in the text.