One of my guiding theories of the modern media / advertising landscape is that the extensive real time surveillance of consumers by online advertisers and content providers encourages the growth of content about digital cameras (the content about which is easily monetized) at the expense of hard news, especially international news about developing countries like Nigeria.
The following google insightschart of digital camera v. Nigeria searches over time strikes a blow against that theory:
Read the rest of the post here
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From WorldChanging's Ethan Zuckerman
I'm wondering what other pockets of "undesirable" behavior are mappable via this technique. For instance, searches for "keygen", a popular site that offers serial numbers and software keys to enable pirated software shows a heavy concentration the former Warsaw Pact nations, with some strength in Southeast Asia as well.
Originally Posted on: July 17, 2008 10:11 AM, by Mo
In the January 4th, 1961 episode of One Step Beyond, director and presenter John Newland ingests psilocybin under laboratory conditions, to investigate whether or not the hallucinogenic mushroom can enhance his abilities of extra-sensory perception.
The programme was apparently inspired by a 1959 book called The Sacred Mushroom, by parapsychologist Andrija Puharich, who is known for taking the spoon-bending fraudster Uri Geller to the United States for investigation.
In the first part of the programme (embedded below), Newland, Puharich and others travel to Mexico to collect mushroom samples. They then return to Puharich's lab in Palo Alto, where Newland's ESP abilities are tested before and after ingestion of several mushroom stems.
The programme is of historical interest, as it was made some years before the widespread use of LSD led researchers to stop conducting psychedelic research. It therefore includes a brief mention of the potential therapeutic effects of psilocybin for psychiatric patients.
Parts 2 and 3 of the episode are also available on YouTube.
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"And then, oddly enough, the first sound we hear as the chemical in the mushroom takes effect is… laughter."
This video is a lot of fun and introduced me to Andrija Puharich, who wrote The Sacred Mushroom: Key to the Door of Eternity (1959). UCLA research psychologist Barbara Brown (who invented biofeedback), also makes the trip down to Mexico. But it is most fascinating to see the show's host, John Newland in an on-camera lab setting, have his extrasensory perception skills tested under the influence of mushrooms. Really makes me wonder where we might be now if science had continued to have access to these substances.
And then down the rabbit hole! I'm a big fan of a book called 'Myself and I'(1962) by Constance Newland, which is the pen-name of Thelma Moss, who was a parapsychology researcher at UCLA. 'Myself and I' tells the story of her LSD-assisted psychotherapy. She had specific symptoms she was trying to address, and years of traditional psychotherapy had gotten her nowhere. Under LSD she makes profound connections to long-lost childhood experiences which open the way to her cure. I learned a lot about my own mind from reading about her insights. I would highly recommend this book.
But I wonder if Thelma Moss ever met John Newland through Barbara Brown who was also at UCLA. I found one clip on the net that connects Moss and Brown… "In Prague I was warmly and hospitably received by Dr. Rejdak, who is perhaps the most active parapsychologist in Czechoslovakia. In the company of two other Ameri cans, Dr. Thelma Moss and Dr. Barbara Brown, we were shown films of recent experiments in the telepathic trans mission of taste impression on a hypnotic subject. I'm not sure why I'm even curious but somehow it's interesting. Another connection to this whole cast of characters is Uri Geller. As mentioned above, Andrija Puharich was responsible for bringing Uri Geller to the US for experiments. You can easily find Uri connections to Thelma Moss and Barbara Brown.
A free biography of Andrija Puharich by his ex wife H.G.M. Herman, found on Uri Geller's site offers up such gems as… In 1955 he had heard from a Mr. Wasson that a ritualistic mushroom cult had existed in Mexico for hundreds of years, and was still practiced in some remote parts of the country. (Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Wasson wrote a book entitled Mushrooms, Russia and History. It was published in 1957).Anxious to find out for himself, Andrija set out for the village of Juquila in the state of Oaxaca, 200 miles south of Mexico City in June of 1960. The original expedition was made up of nine people, including Paul Jones. When Paul returned after about four weeks saying that all members of the team had become ill, and that Andrija had been crazy to go on alone with an even crazier missionary, I became not only greatly concerned, but furious as well. How the hell did Andrija dare risk his life, being the father of four children and a fifth on the way? I hadn't even known that he was off to a dangerous remote place in Mexico. Besides, he had left me with barely enough money to buy food, and with unpaid bills. We no longer lived in Carmel Valley, but had moved to the chic part of Carmel, called Carmel Meadows. How Andrija had been able to buy the beautiful, spacious patio house, had been "none of my business." This from Chapter 6.
While browsing Uri Geller's site I noticed this in his sidebar: are your eyes attracted to 11.11? But we'll save that for another day.
George Lakoff is well known as a cognitive linguist who looks at how language affects culture, specifically how much the metaphors we use impact the way we think. During the last presidential election, he grabbed a lot of attention with his book Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, about how Republicans are masters at "framing" debates to their benefit. His new book, The Political Mind, explores the same territory but in the context of cognitive science. The New York Times reviewed The Political Mind yesterday and it sounds fascinating. From the NYT:
Lakoff blames "neoliberals" and their "Old Enlightenment" mentality for the Democratic Party's weakness. They think they can win elections by citing facts and offering programs that serve voters' interests. When they lose, they conclude that they need to move farther to the right, where the voters are.
This is all wrong, Lakoff explains. Neuroscience shows that pure facts are a myth and that self-interest is a conservative idea. In a "New Enlightenment," progressives will exploit these discoveries. They'll present frames instead of raw facts. They'll train the public to think less about self-interest and more about serving others. It's not the platform that needs to be changed. It's the voters.
The basis of Lakoff's theory is simple: the mind is the brain. Any connection that forms between your thoughts also forms between your neurons. As you internalize a metaphor, a circuit in your brain "physically constitutes the metaphor." This parallel development continues as mental complexity increases. "Narratives are brain structures," he proposes.
Link to NYT review, Link to buy The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain
Previously on BoingBoing:
"¢ George Lakoff on how to argue with conservatives Link
"¢ George Lakoff on why the conservatives seem to be winning Link
RIP Danny. Thank you for your insights and stories. I'm glad of the opportunity to know your work. You made a difference.
[Update 9/8/2010 A paper Danny co-authored, "Income's Influence on Happiness" has just been released.]
… the bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? Daniel Kahneman KNOWS that the first thought that entered your head was $.10–even if you're a Computer Science major at MIT. But that's the wrong answer.
Daniel Gilbert's "Stumbling On Happiness" led me to Nicholas Taleb's "Fooled By Randomness". Both books cite the work of Danny Kahneman. I blogged a bit about him here. I have been rummaging around the internet looking for whatever I can find on Danny and his work and have come up with some excellent content. But let me give you a taste of the sort of fascinating facts you'll hear in Danny's lectures first.
In a study Danny (I don't know him personally but after listening to all these lectures, I feel as though I do. He could no doubt name the cognitive bias this suggests) mentions in one of his talks, people are asked how much pleasure they derive from their car. They are then asked enough questions about the car to determine its blue book (resale) value. It turns out that there IS a correlation between the amount of pleasure the subject reported and the dollar value of the car. i.e. Yes, that late model BMW in the garage DOES give you more pleasure than my 20 year old Honda would. BUT! They then go on to ask the subject if they find their commute to work pleasurable, and guess what?– nobody does!. It turns out that the ONLY time people derive pleasure from their car is when they are THINKING about it.
From Wikipedia:
With Amos Tversky (Kahneman's longtime research partner, with whom he would have shared the Nobel prize had Tversky not died in 1996) and others, Kahneman established a cognitive basis for common human errors using heuristics and biases (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973, Kahneman, Slovic & Tversky, 1982), and developed Prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). He was awarded the 2002 the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in Prospect theory.
Major Contributions:
anchoring and adjustment -describes the common human tendency to rely too heavily, or "anchor," on one trait or piece of information when making decisions.
availability heuristic -where people base their prediction of the frequency of an event or the proportion within a population based on how easily an example can be brought to mind.
conjunction fallacy -when it is assumed that specific conditions are more probable than a general condition that contains the specific condition. (i.e. You think you're MORE likely to die in an air disaster brought on by a terrorist event, than you are to die in ANY kind of air disaster).
framing (economics) -reversals of preference when the same problem is presented in different ways. (10% fat vs. 90% fat-free!)
loss aversion -the tendency for people strongly to prefer avoiding losses than acquiring gains. (Why New Yorkers stay in New York for the culture, and Angelenos stay in LA for the weather!!).
peak-end rule – we judge our past experiences almost entirely on how they were at their peak (pleasant or unpleasant) and how they ended.
prospect theory -how people make choices in situations where they have to decide between alternatives that involve risk.
reference class forecasting -predicts the outcome of a planned action based on actual outcomes in a reference class of similar actions.
simulation heuristic – people determine the likelihood of an event based on how easy it is to picture mentally. (Why we buy lottery tickets.)
status quo bias -in other words, people like things to stay relatively the same.
Media – Most of these lectures have a fairly long-winded intro. Skip ahead if you don't need the background info.
If you want to be a dentist, it's rational to assume that if you go to school, get your degree, and set up a dental practice, you will be able to attain a comfortable standard of living. You may be able to project your probable income range with some degree of accuracy.
But if you want to be a rock star, it's irrational to assume that if you go to rock school, get good at guitar, and start a band, you will become rich and famous.
According to Nassim Nicholas Taleb's way of thinking, the dentist and the wannabe rock star fall into two distinct categories with drastically different risk characteristics. The dentist falls into the domain he calls 'Mediocristan', and the rock star, 'Extremistan'. Extremistan is dominated by 'fat tails', or rare but profoundly significant events. Problems arise when we think we're operating in Mediocristan but in fact are operating in Extremistan."Karl Marx wanted to turn knowledge into action, what I want to do is turn our lack of knowledge into action". Taleb suggests that by becoming aware of our own ignorance, we can stop taking action where our action is irrational.
I'm on my second reading of Fooled By Randomness and am very much looking forward to The Black Swan. In the meantime I've been hunting down all the audio I can find on Taleb because his talks are extremely interesting and he is a very engaging speaker. He has a bit of attitude when addressing an audience, in part no doubt because much of what he has to say offends of lot of people, especially anyone whose expertise is related to forecasting. He has obvious disdain for financial forecasters in particular, probably because he sees the impact these 'guys in suits riding around in limousines' have on the lives of 'people taking the subway to work everyday' (i.e.pensions).
What Taleb has to say has resonated with me at a very deep level. Much of the facts and studies he brings to light confirm my long lingering suspicion that something about the way the world sees itself is profoundly inaccurate and weirdly irrational.
I've listened to each of these talks at least a half dozen times and every time I do I take away another profound insight. Be sure to check out Taleb's Home Page as well. Taleb on EconTalk.org April 30, 2007 LongNow Lecture-The Future Has Always Been Crazier Than We Thought Feb. 4, 2007
And from PopTech 2005:
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is not afraid to say "I don't know." In fact, he's proud of his ignorance. A mathematician, philosopher and hedge-fund manager all in one iconoclastic package, Taleb demonstrates the wisdom in admitting the limitations of our knowledge.
A lot of noise on the internet today around a recently published article in a new journal called Time and Mind by cognitive psychology professor Benny Shanon on the subject of Moses and Entheogens.
Abstract:
A speculative hypothesis is presented according to which the ancient Israelite religion was associated with the use of entheogens (mind-altering plants used in sacramental contexts). The hypothesis is based on a new look at texts of the Old Testament pertaining to the life of Moses. The ideas entertained here were primarily based on the fact that in the arid areas of the Sinai peninsula and Southern Israel there grow two plants containing the same psychoactive molecules found in the plants from which the powerful Amazonian hallucinogenic brew Ayahuasca is prepared. The two plants are species of Acacia tree and the bush Peganum harmala. The hypothesis is corroborated by comparative experiential-phenomenological observations, linguistic considerations, exegesis of old Jewish texts and other ancient Mideastern traditions, anthropological lore, and ethnobotanical data.
The entire 25 page article can be downloaded for free from here (scroll down to bottom of page, if the pdf link stops working let me know in the comments, I have a copy.)
Fun, Bob-meets-Discordia web magazine Anxiety Culture. Great graphics too.
The cliché, "never put off until tomorrow..", can be reversed for people who worry about problems. It's always better to postpone worrying. An effective postponement device is the "˜worry sheet', which is a piece of paper for writing down your problem/worry as it occurs – so you can forget it now, and deal with it at some later date. Minor worries can be postponed indefinitely.
Rather than putting off life's pleasures until after you've solved all your problems (ie after you're dead), you postpone all the worrying until after you've finished having a good time.
Mind Hacks is a collection of probes into the moment-by-moment workings of our brain with a view to understanding ourselves a little better and learning a little more, in a very real sense, about what makes us tick. It's by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb, and published by O'Reilly.
And from the Mind Hacks Blog: In 1997, BBC science programme Horizon broadcast a legendary edition on the use of psychedelic drugs in medicine. Luckily, it's been uploaded to Google Video and you can now watch the whole thing online. Read more…
TV Ontario produces a lecture format show featuring heavy thinkers. You can subscribe here. I'm posting links to a particular show I found especially illuminating on the subject of micro-financing and a new book, 'A Billion Bootstraps' by Eric Thurman. Here's the mp3 lecture but check out TVO's Big Ideas Past Episodes page – hundreds of hours of pro audio lectures from the likes of Deepak Chopra,and Naomi Klein, as well as many you've not heard of before.
The Women's Visionary Congress is a gathering of healers, activists, researchers and artists who are redefining the use of entheogens in contemporary society. This Congress will address the traditional uses of these substances and investigations into their therapeutic applications. Read more…
TV Ontario produces a lecture format show featuring heavy thinkers. You can subscribe 
