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Tag Archives: The Collapse of Complex Societies
"She was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction." Kurt Vonnegut
It seems certain that human beings need stories to live, and need to share some of these stories in order to coexist with one another. In our postmodern era these shared stories- meta-narratives- are passe, the voluntary suspension of disbelief has become impossible, the wizard behind the curtain has been unmasked. Today's apparent true believers are instead almost cartoonish versions of the adherents of the fanatical belief systems, political ideologies and unquestionable cultural assumptions and prejudices of past eras. Not even their most vocal adherents really believe in them, except, perhaps, for those who put their faith in conspiracy theories, which at the root are little but the panicked to the point of derangement search for answers after realizing the world is a scam.
Yet just because we live in an age when all stories have an aura of fantasy doesn't mean we've stopped making them, or even stopped looking for an overarching story that might explain to us our predicament and provide us with some guidance. The realization that the map is never the territory doesn't imply that maps are useless, only that every map demands interrogation during its use and as a prerequisite to our trust.
I recently had the pleasure of picking up a fresh version of one of these meta-narratives or maps, a book by the astrobiologist Adam Frank called Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth. Frank's viewpoint, I think, is a somewhat common one among secular, environmentally conscious persons. He thinks that we as a species have been going through the equivalent of adolescence, unless we learn to use our newly developed capacities wisely we're doomed to a bad end.
The difference between Frank and others on this score is that he wants us to see this story in a cosmic context. We are, he argues, very unlikely to be the first species in the universe to experience growing up in this sense. Recent discoveries showing the ubiquity of planets, for Frank, puts the odds in favor of life, and even intelligence and technological civilization developing throughout the universe many times before
Using what we already know about earth and the thermodynamic costs of energy use Frank is able to create sophisticated mathematical models that show how technological civilizations can rise only to collapse due to the impact of energy use on their planetary environment, and why any technological civilization that survives will need to have found a way to align its system of energy use with the boundaries of its biosphere.
Frank's is an interesting and certainly humane viewpoint, yet it leads to all sorts of questions. Does the idea of adolescence and maturation even make any sense when applied to our species? If anything, doesn't history shows the development of civilization to be cyclical rather than progressive? To get a real sense of our predicament wouldn't it be better to turn to the actual history of human societies rather than look to the fates of purely imagined alien civilizations?
Indeed, for a book on how our technological civilization can avoid what is an otherwise inevitable collapse Light of the Stars is surprisingly thin on the rise and fall of real human societies over the course of history. To the extent such history plays any role at all in Frank's model it focuses on the kinds of outright collapse seen in places like Easter Island, which have recently become the focus of historians and anthropologists such as Jared Diamond.
By focusing on the binary division between extinction and redemption Frank's is just one more voice urging us to "immanentize the eschaton", but one can ask if what we face is less a sort of juncture between utopian or dystopian outcomes or more something like the rolling apocalypse of William Gibson's "Jackpot". That is, not the "utopia or oblivion" version of alternative futures that probably made sense during the mutually assured destruction madness of the Cold War, but the perhaps permanent end to the golden age climatic, technological and economic conditions of the past as bets on the human future that had been placed long ago draw dead.
Whiggish tales of perpetual progress we're popular a few years ago, but have run into hard times of late, and for good reasons. Instead, we have the return of cyclical narratives, stories of rise and fall. The Age of Trump lends itself to comparison with the fall of Rome– a declining empire with a vain, corrupt, incompetent, and increasingly deranged leadership. Trump is like the love child of Nero and Caligula as someone joked on Twitter, which is both funny and disturbing because it's true.
Personally I'm much more inclined towards these cyclical versions of history than I am linear ones, though admittedly this is some sort of deep seated cognitive bias for I tend to find cyclic cosmologies more intriguing as well. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any alternatives besides a history with a clear beginning, middle, and end and one that circles back upon itself. It may be a limit of culture, or human cognition rather than a true reflection of the world, but how to see beyond it in a way that doesn't deny time and change entirely I cannot fathom.
These days it's hard to mention cyclical history without being confused for a fanboy of Oswald Spengler and getting spammed by Jordan Peterson with invitations to join the Intellectual Dark Web. Nevertheless, there are good (and strange to say), progressive versions of such histories if you know where to find them.
A recent example of these is Bas Van Bavel's The Invisible Hand? How Market Economies Have Emerged and Declined since AD 500. In a kind of modern version of the theory of societies transition from barbarism to decadence and finally back to barbarism by the 14th century Islamic scholar Ibn Khaldun, Bavel traces the way in which prosperous economies have time and time again been undone by elite capture. Every thriving economy eventually gives way to a revolt of the winners who use their wealth to influence politics in their favor in an effort to institutionalize their position. Eventually, this has the effect of undermining the very efficiency that had allowed the economy to prosper in the first place.
Though largely focused on the distant past, Bavel is clearly saying something about our own post-Keynesian era where plutocrats and predators use the state as a means of pursuing their own interest. And like most cyclical versions of history his view of our capacity to break free from this vicious cycle is deeply pessimistic.
"None of the different types of states or government systems in the long run was able to sustain or protect the relatively broad distribution of property and power found in these societies that became dominated by factor markets, for instance by devising redistributive mechanisms. Rather, in all these cases, the state increasingly came under the influence of those who benefited most from the market system and would resist redistribution." (271)
How this elite capture of our politics will intersect with global climate change is anybody's guess, right now it doesn't look good, but as long as a large portion of this elite has its wealth tied up in the carbon economy, or worse, think their wealth somehow gives them an escape hatch from the earth's environmental crisis, the move towards decarbonization will continue to be too little and too late.
One downside to cyclical theories of history, for me at least, is that far too often they become reduced to virtue politics. In a sort of inversion of the way old school liberal like Steven Pinker sees moderns as morally superior to people in the past, old school conservatives who by their nature are in thrall to their ancestors tend to view those who came before as better versions of ourselves.
Though it's becoming increasingly difficult to argue that the time in which we live hasn't produced a greater share of despicable characters than in times past, on reflection that's very unlikely to be the case. What separates us from our ancestors isn't their superior virtue, but the degree of autonomy and interdependence that makes such virtues necessary in the first place. A lack of autonomy along with the fact that each of us is now interchangeable with another of similar skills (of which there are many) is a reflection of our society's complexity, and for this reason it's the stories told about the unsustainability of this complexity that I find the most compelling.
The granddaddy of this view idea that it is unsustainable complexity which makes the fall of societies inevitable was certainly Joseph Tainter and his 1988 book The Collapse of Complex Societies. Tainter thought that societies begin to decline once they reach the point where increasing complexity only results in an ever thinner marginal return. Although, "fall" isn't quite the right word here, rather, Tainter broke from the moralism that had colored prior histories of rise and fall. Instead, he viewed the move towards simplicity we characterize as decline as something natural, even good, just another stage in the life cycle of societies.
More recent works on decline due to complexity are perhaps not as non-judgemental as Tainter's, but have something of his spirit nonetheless. There is James Bridle's excellent book New Dark Age, Samo Burja's idea of the importance of what he calls "intellectual dark matter" and the dangers of its decay. Outside of historians and social scientists, the video game developer Johnathan Blow has done some important work on the need to remove complexity from bloated systems, while the programmer Casey Murtori has been arguing for the need to simplify software.
To return to Adam Frank's book- he's right, the stories we tell ourselves are extremely important in that they serve as a guide to our actions. The dilemma is that we can never be sure if we're telling ourselves the right one. The problem with either/or stories that focus on opposing outcomes- like human extinction/ or technologically enabled harmony with the biosphere- is that they're likely focusing on the tails of the graph, whereas the meat lies in the middle with all the scenarios that exclude the two.
Within that graph on the negative side, though far short of species extinction, lies the possibility that we've reached a point of no return when it comes to climate change, not in terms of the need to decarbonize, but in Roy Scranton's sense of having set in motion feedback loops which we will not be able to stop and that will make human civilization as currently constituted impossible. Also here would be found the possibility that we've reached a plateau of sustainable complexity for a civilization.
These two possibilities might be correlated. The tangled complexity of the carbon economy, including its political aspects, makes addressing climate change extremely difficult. To replace fossil fuels requires not just a new energy system, but new ways to grow our food, produce our chemicals, build our roads. It requires the deconstruction of vast industries that possess a huge amount of political power during precisely the time when wealth has seized control of politics, and the willful surrender of power and wealth by hydrocarbon states, including now, the most powerful country on the planet.
If being faced with a problem of seemingly intractable complexity is the story we tell ourselves, then we should probably start preparing for scenarios in which we fail to crack the code before the bomb goes off. That would mean planning for a humane retreat by simplifying and localizing whatever can be, increasing our capacity to aid one another across borders, including ways to absorb refugees fleeing deteriorating conditions, and making preparations to shorten as much as possible, any period of intellectual and scientific darkness and suffering that would occur in conditions of systemic breakdown.
Perhaps the most important story Frank provides is a way of getting ourselves out of an older one. Almost since the dawn of human space exploration science-fiction writers, and figures influenced by science-fiction such as Elon Musk, have been obsessed with- the Kardashev scale. This idea that technological civilizations can be grouped into types where the lowest tap the full energy of their home planet, the next up the energy of their sun, with the last using all the energy of their galaxy. It's an idea that basically extends the industrial revolution into outer space and Frank will have none of it. A mature civilization, in his view, wouldn't use all the energy of its biosphere because to do so would leave them without a world in which they could live. Instead, what he calls a Class 5 civilization would maximize the efficient use of energy for both itself and the rest of the living world. It's an end state rather than a beginning, but perhaps we might have reached that destination without the painful, and increasingly unlikely, transition we will now need to make in order to do so.
There's an interesting section in Light of the Stars where Frank discusses the possible energy paths to modernization. He doesn't just list fossil fuels, but also hydro, wind, solar and nuclear and possible sources of energy a civilization could tap to become technological. I might have once wondered whether an industrial revolution was even possible had fossil fuels not allowed us to take the first step, but I didn't need to wonder. The answer was yes, a green industrial revolution was at least possible. In fact, it almost happened.
No book has changed my understanding of the industrial revolution more than Andreas Malm's Fossil Capital. There I learned that the early days of industrialization in the United Kingdom consisted of battle over whether water or coal would power the dawning age of machines, a battle water only just barely lost. What mattered in coal's victory over water, according to Malm's story, wasn't so much coal's superiority as a fuel source as it was the political economy of fossil fuels. The distributed nature of river to power water wheels left employers at a disadvantage to labor, whereas coal allowed factories to be concentrated in one place- cities- where labor was easy to find and thus easily dismissed. This is quite the opposite to what happened in the mines themselves where concentration in giving the working class access to vital choke points empowered labor, a situation that eventually led to coal being supplanted by oil, a form of energy impervious to national strikes.
But we probably shouldn't take the idea of a green industrial revolution all that far. Water might have been capable of providing the same amount of energy for stationary machines as steam derived from burning coal, but it would not have had the same potential when it came to generating heat for locomotion or the generation of steel. At least not within the constraints of 19th century technology.
In another one of those strange, and all too common, mountains emerging from mole-hills moments of human history, it may have been a simple case of greed that birthed the industrial revolution. The greed of owners wanting to capture the maximum income from their workers drove them to choose coal as their source of power, a choice which soon birthed a whole, and otherwise unlikely, infrastructure for steel and the world shrinking machines built from it.
In other words, energy transitions are political and moral and have always been so. In a way looking to hypothetical civilizations in the cosmos that may have succeeded or failed in these transitions lends itself to ignoring these questions of values and politics at the core of our dilemma, and thus fails to provide the kind of map to the future Frank was hoping for. He assumes an already politically empowered "we" exists when in fact it is something that needs to be built in light of the very real divisions between countries and classes, the old and the young, humans and non-humans ,and even between those living in the present and those yet to be born.
The outcome of such a conflict isn't really a matter of our species maturing, for history likely has no such telos, no set terminus or promised land to arrive at- only a perpetual rise and fall. Nonetheless, one might consider it to be a story, and there really are villians and heros in the tale. Whether that story will ultimately be deemed to have been a triumph, a tragedy, or more likely something in between, is a matter of which 10 percent all of us among the swayable 80 ultimately side for.
1 Comment Posted in Dystopia Tagged Adam Frank, Andreas Malm, Anthropocene, Bas Van Bavel, Burning Amazon, Carbon bubble, Carbon democracy, Casey Murtori, Climate Change, Coal, Collapse of Civilization, cyclical history, Dark Age, Fossil Capital, Good vs Evil, Green Industrial Revolution, Greta Thunberg, Ibn Khaldun, intellectual dark matter, Jackpot, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, James Bridle, Jared Diamond, Johnathan Blow, Jordan Peterson, Joseph Tainter, Kardashev scale, Kurt Vonnegut, Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth, New Dark Age, Oswald Spengler, Roy Scranton, Samo Burja, The Collapse of Complex Societies, The Invisible Hand? How Market Economies Have Emerged and Declined, William Gibson
Immortal Jellyfish and the Collapse of Civilization
The one rule that seems to hold for everything in our Universe is that all that exists, after a time, must pass away, which for life forms means they will die. From there, however, the bets are off and the definition of the word "time" in the phrase "after a time" comes into play. The Universe itself may exist for as long as 100s of trillions of years to at last disappear into the formless quantum field from whence it came. Galaxies, or more specifically, clusters of galaxies and super-galaxies, may survive for perhaps trillions of years to eventually be pulled in and destroyed by the black holes at their centers.
Stars last for a few billion years and our own sun some 5 or so billion years in the future will die after having expanded and then consumed the last of its nuclear fuel. The earth having lasted around 10 billion years by that point will be consumed in this expansion of the Sun. Life on earth seems unlikely to make it all the way to the Sun's envelopment of it and will likely be destroyed billions of years before the end of the Sun- as solar expansion boils away the atmosphere and oceans of our precious earth.
The lifespan of even the oldest lived individual among us is nothing compared to this kind of deep time. In contrast to deep time we are, all of us, little more than mayflies who live out their entire adult lives in little but a day. Yet, like the mayflies themselves who are one of the earth's oldest existent species: by the very fact that we are the product of a long chain of life stretching backward we have contact with deep time.
Life on earth itself if not quite immortal does at least come within the range of the "lifespan" of other systems in our Universe, such as stars. If life that emerged from earth manages to survive and proves capable of moving beyond the life-cycle of its parent star, perhaps the chain in which we exist can continue in an unbroken line to reach the age of galaxies or even the Universe itself. Here then might lie something like immortality.
The most likely route by which this might happen is through our own species, Homo Sapiens or our descendents. Species do not exist forever, and our is likely to share this fate of demise either through actual extinction or evolution into something else. In terms of the latter, one might ask if our survival is assumed, how far into the future we would need to go where our descendents are no longer recognizably, human? As long as something doesn't kill us, or we don't kill ourselves off first, I think that choice, for at least the foreseeable future will be up to us.
It is often assumed that species have to evolve or they will die. A common refrain I've heard among some transhumanists is "evolve or die!". In one sense, yes, we need to adapt to changing circumstances, in another, no, this is not really what evolution teaches us, or is not the only thing it teaches us. When one looks at the earth's longest extant species what one often sees is that once natural selection comes us with a formula that works that model will be preserved essentially unchanged over very long stretches of time, even for what can be considered deep time. Cyanobacteria are nearly as old as life on earth itself, and the more complex Horseshoe Crab, is essentially the same as its relatives that walked the earth before the dinosaurs. The exact same type of small creatures that our children torture on beach vacations might have been snacks for a baby T-Rex!
That was the question of the longevity of species but what about the longevity of individuals? Anyone interested the should check out the amazing photo study of the subject by the artist Rachel Sussman. You can see Sussman's work here at TED, and over at Long Now. The specimen Sussman brings to light have individuals over 2,000 years old. Almost all are bacteria or plants and clonal- that is they exist as a single organism composed of genetically identical individuals linked together by common root and other systems. Plants and especially trees are perhaps the most interesting because they are so familiar to us and though no plant can compete with the longevity of bacteria, a clonal colony of Quaking Aspen in Utah is an amazing 80,000 years old!
The only animals Sussman deals with are corals, an artistic decision that reflects the fact that animals do not survive for all that long- although one species of animal she does not cover might give the long-lifers in the other kingdoms a run for their money. The "immortal jellyfish" the turritopsis nutricula are thought to be effectively biologically immortal (though none are likely to have survived in the wild for anything even approaching the longevity of the longest lived plants). The way they achieve this feat is a wonder of biological evolution.The turritopsis nutricula, after mating upon sexual maturity, essentially reverses it own development process and reverts back to prior clonal state.
Perhaps we could say that the turritopsis nutricula survives indefinitely by moving between more and less complex types of structures all the while preserving the underlying genes of an individual specimen intact. Some hold out the hope that the turritopsis nutricula holds the keys to biological immortality for individuals, and let's hope they're right, but I, for one, think its lessons likely lie elsewhere.
A jellyfish is a jellyfish, after all, among more complex animals with well developed nervous systems longevity moves much closer to a humanly comprehensible lifespan with the oldest living animal a giant tortoise by the too cute name of "Jonathan" thought to be around 178 years old. This is still a very long time frame in human terms, and perhaps puts the briefness of our own recent history in perspective: it would be another 26 years after Jonathan hatched from his egg till the first shots of the American Civil War were fired. A lot can happen over the life of a "turtle".
Individual plants, however, put all individual animals to shame. The oldest non-clonal plant, The Great Basin Bristlecone Pine, has a specimen believed to be 5,062 years old. In some ways this oldest living non-clonal individual is perfectly illustrative of the (relatively) new way human beings have reoriented themselves to time, and even deep time.When this specimen of pine first emerged from a cone human beings had only just invented a whole set of tools that would make the transmission of cultural rather than genetic information across vast stretches of time possible. During the 31st century B.C.E. we invented monumental architecture such as Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt whose builders still "speak" to us, pose questions to us, from millennia ago. Above all, we invented writing which allowed someone with little more than a clay tablet and a carving utensil to say something to me living 5,000 years in his future.
Humans being the social animals that they are we might ask ourselves about the mortality or potential immortality of groups that survive across many generations, and even for thousands of years. Group that survive for such a long period of time seem to emerge most fully out of the technology of writing which allows both the ability to preserve historical memory and permits a common identity around a core set of ideas. The two major types of human groups based on writing are institutions, and societies which includes not just the state but also the economic, cultural, and intellectual features of a particular group.
Among the biggest mistakes I think those charged with responsibility for an institution or a society can make is to assume that it is naturally immortal, and that such a condition is independent of whatever decisions and actions those in charge of it take. This was part of the charge Augustine laid against the seemingly eternal Roman Empire in his The City of God. The Empire, Augustine pointed out, was a human institution that had grown and thrived from its virtues in the past just as surely as it was in his day dying from its vices. Augustine, however, saw the Church and its message as truly eternal. Empires would come and go but the people of God and their "city" would remain.
It is somewhat ironic, therefore, that the Catholic Church, which chooses a Pope this week, has been so beset by scandal that its very long-term survivability might be thought at stake. Even seemingly eternal institutions, such as the 2,000 year old Church, require from human beings an orientation that might be compared to the way theologians once viewed the relationship of God and nature. Once it was held that constant effort by God was required to keep the Universe from slipping back into the chaos from whence it came. That the action of God was necessary to open every flower. While this idea holds very little for us in terms of our understanding of nature, it is perhaps a good analog for human institutions, states and our own personal relationships which require our constant tending or they give way to mortality.
It is perhaps difficult for us to realize that our own societies are as mortal as the empires of old, and someday my own United States will be no more. America is a very odd country in respect to its' views of time and history. A society seemingly obsessed with the new and the modern, contemporary debates almost always seek reference and legitimacy on the basis of men who lived and thought over 200 years ago. The Founding Fathers were obsessed with the mortality of states and deliberately crafted a form of government that they hoped might make the United States almost immortal.
Much of the structure of American constitutionalism where government is divided into "branches" which would "check and balance" one another was based on a particular reading of long-lived ancient systems of government which had something like this tripart structure, most notably Sparta and Rome. What "killed" a society, in the view of the Founders, was when one element- the democratic, oligarchic-aristocratic, or kingly rose to dominate all others. Constitutionally divided government was meant to keep this from happening and therefore would support the survival of the United States indefinitely.
Again, it is somewhat bitter irony that the very divided nature of American government that was supposed to help the United States survive into the far future seems to be making it impossible for the political class in the US to craft solutions to the country's quite serious long-term problems and therefore might someday threaten the very survival of the country divided government was meant to secure.
Anyone interested in the question of the extended survival of their society, indeed of civilization itself, needs to take into account the work of Joseph A. Tainter and his The Collapse of Complex Societies (1988). Here, the archaeologist Tainter not only provides us with a "science" that explains the mortality of societies, his viewpoint, I think, provides us for ways to think about and gives us insight into seeming intractable social and economic and technological bottlenecks that now confront all developed economies: Japan, the EU/UK and the United States.
Tainter, in his Collapse wanted to move us away from vitalist ideas of the end of civilization seen in thinkers such as Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee. We needed, in his view, to put our finger on the material reality of a society to figure out what conditions most often lead them to dissipate i.e. to move from a more complex and integrated form, such as the Roman Empire, to a more simple and less integrated form, such as the isolated medieval fiefdoms that followed.
Grossly oversimplified, Tainter's answer was a dry two word concept borrowed from economics- marginal utility. The idea is simple if you think about it for a moment. Any society is likely to take advantage of "low-hanging fruit" first. The best land will be the first to be cultivated, the easiest resources to gain access to exploited.
The "fruit", however, quickly becomes harder to pick- problems become harder for a society to solve which leads to a growth in complexity. Romans first tapped tillable land around the city, but by the end of the Empire the city needed a complex international network of trade and political control to pump grain from the distant Nile Valley into the city of Rome.
Yet, as a society deploys more and more complex solutions to problems it becomes institutionally "heavy" (the legacy of all the problems it has solved in the past) just as problems become more and more difficult to solve. The result is, at some point, the shear amount of resources that need to be thrown at a problem to solve it are no longer possible and the only lasting solution becomes to move down the chain of complexity to a simpler form. Roman prosperity and civilization drew in the migration of "barbarian" populations in the north whose pressures would lead to the splitting of the Empire in two and the eventual collapse of its Western half.
It would seem that we have broken through Tainter's problem of marginal utility with the industrial revolution, but we should perhaps not judge so fast. The industrial revolution and all of its derivatives up to our current digital and biological revolutions, replaced a system in which goods were largely produced at a local level and communities were largely self-sufficient, with a sprawling global network of interconnections and coordinated activities requiring vast amounts of specialized knowledge on the part of human beings who, by necessity, must participate in this system to provide for their most basic needs.
Clothes that were once produced in the home of the individual who would wear them, are now produced thousands of miles away by workers connected to a production and transportation system that requires the coordination of millions of persons many of whom are exercising specialized knowledge. Food that was once grown or raised by the family that consumed it now requires vast systems of transportation, processing, the production of fertilizers from fossil fuels and the work of genetic engineers to design both crops and domesticated animals.
This gives us an indication of just how far up the chain of complexity we have moved, and I think leads inevitably to the questions of whether such increasing complexity might at some point stall for us, or even be thrown into reverse?
The idea that, despite all the whiz-bang! of modern digital technology, we have somehow stalled out in terms of innovation is an idea that has recently gained traction. There was the argument made by the technologist and entrepreneur, Peter Thiel, at the 2009 Singularity Summit, that the developed world faced real dangers of the Singularity not happening quickly enough. Thiel's point was that our entire society was built around the expectations of exponential technological growth that showed ominous signs of not happening. I only need to think back to my Social Studies textbooks in the 1980s and their projections of the early 2000s with their glittering orbital and underwater cities, both of which I dreamed of someday living in, to realize our futuristic expectations are far from having been met. More depressingly, Thiel points out how all of our technological wonders have not translated into huge gains in economic growth and especially have not resulted in any increase in median income which has been stagnant since the 1970s.
In addition to Theil, you had the economist, Tyler Cowen, who in his The Great Stagnation (2011) argued compellingly that the real root of America's economic malaise was that the kinds of huge qualitative innovations that were seen in the 19th and early 20th centuries- from indoor toilets, to refrigerators, to the automobile, had largely petered out after the low hanging fruit- the technologies easiest to reach using the new industrial methods- were picked. I may love my iPhone (if I had one), but it sure doesn't beat being able to sanitarily go to the bathroom indoors, or keep my food from rotting, or travel many miles overland on a daily basis in mere minutes or hours rather than days.
One reason why technological change is perhaps not happening as fast as boosters such as singularitarians hope, or our society perhaps needs to be able to continue to function in the way we have organized it, can be seen in the comments of the technologists, social critic and novelist, Ramez Naam. In a recent interview for The Singularity Weblog, Naam points out that one of the things believers in the Singularity or others who hold to ideas regarding the exponential pace of technological growth miss is that the complexity of the problems technology is trying to solve are also growing exponentially, that is problems are becoming exponentially harder to solve. It's for this reason that Naam finds the singularitarians' timeline widely optimistic. We are a long long way from understanding the human brain in such a way that it can be replicated in an AI.
The recent proposal of the Obama Administration to launch an Apollo type project to understand the human brain along with the more circumspect, EU funded, Human Brain Project /Blue Brain Project might be seen as attempts to solve the epistemological problems posed by increasing complexity, and are meant to be responses to two seemingly unrelated technological bottlenecks stemming from complexity and the problem of increasing marginal returns.
On the epistemological front the problem seems to be that we are quite literally drowning in data, but are sorely lacking in models by which we can put the information we are gathering together into working theories that anyone actually understands. As Henry Markham the founder of the Blue Brain Project stated:
So yes, there is no doubt that we are generating a massive amount of data and knowledge about the brain, but this raises a dilemma of what the individual understands. No neuroscientists can even read more than about 200 articles per year and no neuroscientists is even remotely capable of comprehending the current pool of data and knowledge. Neuroscientists will almost certainly drown in data the 21st century. So, actually, the fraction of the known knowledge about the brain that each person has is actually decreasing(!) and will decrease even further until neuroscientists are forced to become informaticians or robot operators.
This epistemological problem, which was brilliantly discussed by Noam Chomsky in an interview late last year is related to the very real bottleneck in Artificial Intelligence- the very technology Peter Thiel thinks is essentially if we are to achieve the rates of economic growth upon which our assumptions of technological and economic progress depend.
We have developed machines with incredible processing power, and the digital revolution is real, with amazing technologies just over the horizon. Still, these machines are nowhere near doing what we would call "thinking". Or, to paraphrase the neuroscientist and novelist David Eagleman- the AI WATSON might have been able to beat the very best human being in the game Jeopardy! What it could not do was answer a question obvious to any two year old like "When Barack Obama enters a room, does his nose go with him?"
Understanding how human beings think, it is hoped, might allow us to overcome this AI bottleneck and produce machines that possess qualities such as our own or better- an obvious tool for solving society's complex problems.
The other bottleneck a large scale research project on the brain is meant to solve is the halted development of psychotropic drugs– a product of the enormous and ever increasing costs for the creation of such products. Itself a product of the complexity of the problem pharmaceutical companies are trying to tackle, namely; how does the human brain work and how can we control its functions and manage its development? This is especially troubling given the predictable rise in neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's. It is my hope that these large scale projects will help to crack the problem of the human brain, and especially as it pertains to devastating neurological disorders, let us pray they succeed.
On the broader front, Tainter has a number of solutions that societies have come up with to the problem of marginal utility two of which are merely temporary and the other long-term. The first is for society to become more complex, integrated, bigger. The old school way to do this was through conquest, but in an age of nuclear weapons and sophisticated insurgencies the big powers seem unlikely to follow that route. Instead what we are seeing is proposals such as the EU-US free trade area and the Trans-Pacific partnership both of which appear to assume that the solution to the problems of globalization is more globalization. The second solution is for a society to find a new source of energy. Many might have hoped this would have come in the form of green-energy rather than in the form it appears to have taken- shale gas, and oil from the tar sands of Canada. In any case, Tainter sees both of these solutions as but temporary respites for the problem of marginal utility.
The only long lasting solution Tainter sees for increasing marginal utility is for a society to become less complex that is less integrated more based on what can be provided locally than on sprawling networks and specialization. Tainter wanted to move us away from seeing the evolution of the Roman Empire into the feudal system as the "death" of a civilization. Rather, he sees the societies human beings have built to be extremely adaptable and resilient. When the problem of increasing complexity becomes impossible to solve societies move towards less complexity. It is a solution that strangely echoes that of the "immortal jellyfish" the turritopsis nutricula, the only path complex entities have discovered that allows them to survive into something that whispers eternity.
Image description: From the National Gallery in London. "The Cave Of Eternity" (1680s) by Luca Giordan."The serpent biting its tail symbolises Eternity. The crowned figure of Janus holds the fleece from which the Three Fates draw out the thread of life. The hooded figure is Demagorgon who receives gifts from Nature, from whose breasts pours forth milk. Seated at the entrance to the cave is the winged figure of Chronos, who represents Time."
15 Comments Posted in Dystopia Tagged Artificial Intelligence, Blue Brain Project, Henry Markham, Immortal Jellyfish, Immortality, J.A. Tainter, Longevity, Noam Chomsky, Obama Brain Project, Peter Thiel, Rachael Sussman, Ramez Naam, Science, The Collapse of Complex Societies, The Great Stagnation, Tyler Cowen, What if the Singularity Doesn't Happen?


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text:
Tag: Lisa Lohmann
Lisa Lohmann
24Feb 2021 by DS News Team
Daily Skier At Oberstdorf Meet Stars Of Tomorrow
We all want to look into the future. When it comes to the future of skiing - it's already here, in Oberstdorf. No secret that elite athlete's training changed a lot in the last decade. Back in 2011 a picture of a female skier doing a set of pull-ups with weights chained to her legs would baffle, perhaps horrify any coach - now it's a routine. Champions become stronger, more coordinated - and younger. It's not like young talents never made it to the World Championships: a 18 year old Yelena Vyalbe came to the one held in 1987 (also in Oberstdorf) and a 18 year old Therese Johaug even won a medal at her debut. The difference is, back then teenagers were expected to grow and mature through the…
Young Blood' Marketing Power Heavily Underestimated
Money & Finance, Newsfeed
Junior/ U23 World Ski Championships is one of the most underrated sporting shows on Earth. If you are a gear or apparel manufacturer you want to sell. If you are a specialized sporting goods shop you want to attract customers. If you offer services of whatever kind - you want exposure & right buzz. When 500 extremely fit young women and men gather to race against fairytale backdrop of the Finnish wonderland you've got a stage you want your products to be put into. So "people lose track of their wallets" as the classic description of good marketing goes. Who do you reckon shall affect shopping choices of a 15 year girl who's purchasing power is only limited by that wallet of her parents ( and virtually unlimited in case…

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The OBCD project has state-of-the-art facilities for skeletal imaging and analysis, together with world-leading sequencing and bioinformatics capability.
Digital X-ray images are used to determine skeletal morphology, anthropomorphic measurements and bone mineral content. Grey scale images are pseudo-coloured to illustrate bone mineral content.
Light microscopy is used for imaging whole mount specimens, histological sections and primary bone cell cultures.
Confocal microscopy is used for imaging dynamic histomorphometry, analysis of osteoclast function and fluorescence immunohistochemistry.
The load frame is used to determine biomechanical parameters in long bones (destructive 3-point bend testing) and vertebrae (compression testing) and evaluate bone strength and toughness.
MicroCT analysis is used to obtain 3D images of bones and joints. High-resolution data are used to determine trabecular and cortical bone structural variables and mineralisation, together with joint parameters. Lower resolution data are used for 3D statistical shape modelling studies. The microCT 50 system allows automated high-throughput imaging in addition to sub-micron resolution capability.
BSE-SEM is used for imaging bone and joint microarchitecture, determining trabecular and cortical boen and calcified cartilage micro-mineralisation densities, and quantifying osteoclastic resoption suraces and osteocyte paratmeters. Micro-mineralisation density is quantiried at a sub-micron voxel resolution scale.
The HiSeq is a high-throughput sequencing system which allows rapid and accurate analysis of genetic material.


Altitude Tips - Musical Adventure Trekking Pvt. Ltd.
Altitude is height above mean sea level. If the sea level in a certain place is 100 feet and you are 250 feet above the ground, your altitude above sea level would be 350 feet, and your altitude above ground level would be 250 feet. We all enjoy the tremendous view from a high summit, but there are risks in going to high altitude, and it's important to understand these risks. Given time, your body can adapt to the decrease in oxygen molecules at a specific altitude. This process is known as acclimatization and generally takes 1-3 days at that altitude.
Altitude sickness often known as acute mountain sickness (A.M.S.) in general may occur when people ascend too quickly normally in altitudes of over 3000 meter. We ensure minimal risk by building in rest days into our trekking itineraries. Most people will feel some affect of altitude, shortness of breath and possibly light headed, which is fairly common. Acute mountain sickness is very different and normally involves a severe headache, sickness and loss of awareness. In almost every possible case there are enough warning signs to take appropriate action.
Our experienced and well trained guides will advise you about any health issues and also altitude sickness while you are on trekking, so you should not worry about it. Before leaving for the trip we suggest to consult with your Medical Doctor and get advice. The following information gives you an idea about high altitude sickness and how to minimize the effects.
Periods of sleeplessness Need more sleep than normal.
Vivid, wild dreams especially at around 2500-3800 meters in altitude.
The need to rest/catch your breath frequently while trekking, especially above 3500 meters.
Increasing urination while moving to/at higher altitudes (a good sign).
Many trekkers in the high valleys of the Himalaya get mild AMS, admit or acknowledge that you are having symptoms. You need have only one of the following symptoms to be getting altitude sickness.
If symptoms develop in the evening, take 125-250mg Diamox and drink plenty of fluids again.
If symptoms partially go away but are still annoying it is safe to take another 250mg Diamox 6-8 hours later.
If mild symptoms continue getting worse try descending for a few hours which may be more beneficial than staying at the same altitude.
Going higher will definitely make it worse. You're here to enjoy trekking not to feel sick.
This is a build-up of fluid around the brain. It In most cases the first five symptoms on the mild and severe lists previously. Coma from HACE can lead to unconsciousness are death within 12 hours from the onset of symptoms, but normally takes 1-2 days to develop. At the first sign of ataxia begin treatment with medication, oxygen and descent. Usually 4 to 8mg of dexamethasone is given as a first does, then 4mg every six hours, Diamox every 12 hours and 2-4 litres /minute oxygen. Descent is necessary but a PAC (portable altitude chamber) bag will often be used first if available.
Prevention of altitude illnesses falls into two categories, proper acclimatization and preventive medications. Below are a few basic guidelines for proper acclimatization.If possible, don't fly or drive to high altitude. Start below 10,000 feet (3,048 meters) and walk up.
If you go above 10,000 feet (3,048 meters), only increase your altitude by 1,640 feet (500 meters) per day and for every 3,280 feet (1000 meters) of elevation gained, take a rest day.
"Climb high and sleep low." This is the maxim used by climbers. You can climb more than 1,640 feet (500 meters) in a day as long as you come back down and sleep at a lower altitude.
Stay properly hydrated and acclimatization is often accompanied by fluid loss, so you need to drink lots of fluids to remain properly hydrated (at least 3-4 quarts per day). Urine output should be copious and clear.
Take it easy; don't over-exert yourself when you first get up to altitude. Light activity during the day is better than sleeping because respiration decreases during sleep, exacerbating the symptoms. Avoid tobacco and alcohol and other depressant drugs including, barbiturates, tranquilizers, and sleeping pills. These depressants further decrease the respiratory drive during sleep resulting in a worsening of the symptoms. Eat a high carbohydrate diet (more than 70% of your calories from carbohydrates) while at altitude.
Diamox (Acetazolamide) allows you to breathe faster so that you metabolize more oxygen, thereby minimizing the symptoms caused by poor oxygenation. This is especially helpful at night when respiratory drive is decreased. Since it takes a while for Diamox to have an effect, it is advisable to start taking it 24 hours before you go to altitude and continue for at least five days at higher altitude. The recommendation of the Himalayan Rescue Association Medical Clinic is 125 mg. twice a day (morning and night). (The standard dose was 250 mg., but their research showed no difference for most people with the lower dose, although some individuals may need 250 mg.) Possible side effects include tingling of the lips and finger tips, blurring of vision, and alteration of taste. These side effects may be reduced with the 125 mg. dose. Side effects subside when the drug is stopped. Contact your physician for a prescription. Since Diamox is a sulfonamide drug, people who are allergic to sulfa drugs should not take Diamox. Diamox has also been known to cause severe allergic reactions to people with no previous history of Diamox or sulfa allergies. Frank Hubbell of SOLO recommends a trial course of the drug before going to a remote location where a severe allergic reaction could prove difficult to treat.
Please Note: Our guide will also carry the first aid kit bag during the trek. However, we still recommend you to bring your personal first aid kit as well.


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package sprouts.exceptions;

import java.lang.reflect.Modifier;

/***
 * This exception is thrown by injector when trying instantiate interface or abstract class.
 */
public class SproutsInvalidClassType extends RuntimeException {
    public SproutsInvalidClassType(Class clazz) {
        super(new BuildInfo().getErrorMsg(clazz));
    }

    private static class BuildInfo {
        private String getErrorMsg(Class clazz) {
            String type = "";

            if (Modifier.isAbstract(clazz.getModifiers()))
                type = "abstract";
            if (Modifier.isInterface(clazz.getModifiers()))
                type = "interface";

            return String.format("Unable to build object from class %s because this class is %s.", clazz.getCanonicalName(), type);
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
El temple d'Afrodita Urània (en grec antic Βωμός Αφροδίτης Ουρανίας) es va descobrir el 1981 a la part nord-oest de l'àgora d'Atenes, a l'altra banda de la via de les Panatenees.

Les excavacions han permès datar l'edifici en una època propera al 500 aC. S'ha identificat un altar per la forma del monument, i per les cendres trobades dels sacrificis. Pausànias diu que al temple hi havia una estàtua de marbre de Paros, d'Afrodita feta per Fídies.

Referències

Vegeu també
 Àgora d'Atenes

Afrodita Urania
Àgora d'Atenes
Afrodita

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


JoAnn Perkins, left, and Sherry Wachtler, members of the bereavement ministry team at St. Gerald Parish in Ralston, view memorial crosses on a "memory wall" at the back of the church in honor of parishioners who have died since last November. Photo by Mike May/Staff.
Remembering loved ones who have passed away is a special focus in November with All Saints and All Souls days – but many parishes go beyond those celebrations to honor the dead.
Holy Ghost and St. John Vianney in Omaha, St. Gerald in Ralston, St. Joseph in Pierce and St. Paul in Plainview are among parishes that pray in a special way for the deceased at Masses. Other traditions include lighting honorary candles, creating commemorative crosses and offering books for parishioners to record the names of deceased loved ones.
"It's good for the parish as a whole to remember, and to let the families know that the parish is there for them and the community mourns their loss along with them," said Brian Corey, pastoral and music minister at St. John Vianney.
Parishioners who have died since last November will be remembered at a memorial Mass Nov. 8 at St. John Vianney, and their families are given a personal invitation to attend and possibly take part in the liturgy as gift bearers or lectors, he said.
Throughout November, candles, each with a deceased's name attached, burn continuously in the sanctuary, and families are invited to take the candles home at the end of the month.
Also, a book of remembrance is placed in the church through November, he said, where people can write the names of deceased loved ones to be prayed for at Masses during the month.
Father Marc Lim, pastor of St. Joseph and St. Paul parishes, said the purpose of such remembrances is two-fold.
"We remember the deceased in prayer, bearing in mind the hope Christ gave us through his resurrection, and we pray for them, remembering how they supported their families while they were living."
He said both parishes include the names of those whose funerals were held at the parishes since last November in the prayers of the faithful. Parishioners also will light candles during Masses in their memory the Sunday before All Souls Day, this year Oct. 30.
St. Joseph and St. Paul parishes also provide books of remembrance, where the names of any deceased loved ones can be recorded to be prayed for at Masses during November, he said.
At St. Gerald Parish, remembering the deceased is a year-round focus, said Sherry Wachtler, a member of the parish's bereavement ministry team.
Wooden crosses are placed on a memory wall at the back of the church, she said, each with the name, date of birth and date of death of a parishioner who has died.
The crosses are placed on the wall at the time of the funeral and remain there for a year, after which families may take the crosses home.
The parish also celebrates an evening Mass on All Souls Day, and families at the Mass are invited to light a candle in the loved one's memory.
The candles, with the names of the deceased, are displayed near the altar and lit during Masses throughout November, Wachtler said, and families are invited to take the candles home at the end of the month.
At Holy Ghost Parish, people whose funerals were held at the parish in the past year will be remembered by name and prayed for at all weekend Masses Nov. 5-6, said Father William Sanderson, pastor.
The parish also lights candles, which are placed on the sills of all the windows around the church along with name cards of the deceased, he said. The candles are lit during each weekend Mass throughout November.
"Although the pain of loss lingers, it's very comforting for the families to know that the parish is remembering them in this special way," Father Sanderson said.
The Catholic Church honors the faithful departed in prayer at every Mass – and in particular during two November celebrations.
All Saints Day, Nov. 1, is a holy day of obligation honoring all the saints in heaven, known and unknown. All Souls Day, Nov. 2, is a commemoration of all the faithful departed, including those in purgatory waiting to enter heaven.
Both celebrate the communion of saints, as the faithful pray for the intercession of saints and for the souls in purgatory.


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Buy Books Online > Robotics > Developmental Robotics: From Babies to Robots
Developmental Robotics: From Babies to Robots
By: Angelo Cangelosi
ISBN: 9780262028011 Publisher: MIT Press Ltd Year of publishing: 2015 Format: Hardback No of Pages: 432 Language: English
Developmental robotics is a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to robotics that is directly inspired by the developmental principles and mechanisms observed in children's cognitive development....Read more
Developmental robotics is a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to robotics that is directly inspired by the developmental principles and mechanisms observed in children's cognitive development. It builds on the idea that the robot, using a set of intrinsic developmental principles regulating the real-time interaction of its body, brain, and environment, can autonomously acquire an increasingly complex set of sensorimotor and mental capabilities. This volume, drawing on insights from psychology, computer science, linguistics, neuroscience, and robotics, offers the first comprehensive overview of a rapidly growing field. After providing some essential background information on robotics and developmental psychology, the book looks in detail at how developmental robotics models and experiments have attempted to realize a range of behavioral and cognitive capabilities. The examples in these chapters were chosen because of their direct correspondence with specific issues in child psychology research; each chapter begins with a concise and accessible overview of relevant empirical and theoretical findings in developmental psychology.
The chapters cover intrinsic motivation and curiosity; motor development, examining both manipulation and locomotion; perceptual development, including face recognition and perception of space; social learning, emphasizing such phenomena as joint attention and cooperation; language, from phonetic babbling to syntactic processing; and abstract knowledge, including models of number learning and reasoning strategies. Boxed text offers technical and methodological details for both psychology and robotics experiments.
About the author: Angelo Cangelosi
Angelo Cangelosi is Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Cognition at the Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems at the University... Read more
Angelo Cangelosi is Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Cognition at the Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems at the University of Plymouth, U.K. Matthew Schlesinger is Associate Professor of Psychology and Adjunct Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Southern Illinois University. Linda B. Smith is a Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Indiana University.
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Yogendra Ji is my favorite client.. not because he pays fees on time 🙂 but I think I have personally learned a lot about "Life" from him.
As this section on wiseNRI is more about life than finance, so I requested him to be my guest in the 1st Interview.
Listen to it here. I am sure you will enjoy the conversation. Must drop a line in the comment section.
Here is a summary of the discussion by Vidya.
Mr. Yogendra Sharma was an NRI. He lived and worked in Singapore for a few years. He then returned to India primarily due to the fact that his parents were getting old and he wanted to be with his near and dear ones. Hemant spoke to him about different aspects of life apart from the financial aspects.
Hemant started life section remembering the shloka – 'Asto ma sadgamaya, Tamso ma jyotirgamaya' means 'Lead me to truth from ignorance and lead me to light from darkness'. This is the pivot of his life.
Mr Yogendra feels that happiness depends on age. In the 20s and 30s, he got his happiness from travel and a dream job. But in the 40s, happiness for him is more of living with his family, have good health and be spiritually awakened.
He thinks there is not much financial literacy among Indians. When he was in Singapore, he got opportunities to invest in any instrument across the world and he was excited and enamored by this.
He invested in many expensive & complex products from companies like Zurich. But he realised that he did not get the expected returns that would fund his retirement as the cost of investment was very high.
When he got out of the funds, he had to pay up to 30%-35% of his investment as charges for the exit.
NRIs should be very cautious and think of all aspects before getting into complex products.
He has one son. His son was clear about his future. He wanted to become a diplomat, join the UN or be involved in Foreign Policy research.
He was also interested in studying abroad & money was not an issue.
So he has joined the Jindal University where he is doing a course in Global Affairs. They are very happy with this decision as the course is good and the quality of faculty is top notch.
When he went to Singapore, real estate prices were very high. But the financial crisis lead prices to fall by almost 40%.
Loans were available at 0.85% interest. So he purchased a house.
But he planned his exit from the country well. So as soon as he decided to return to India, he put up the house for sale and went back to living on rent. This made the transaction smooth.
He went through the blogs and testimonials and then contacted Hemant. He was impressed with the quality of questions on the financial data sheet that he had sent and the quality of advice given.
He also feels comfortable during discussions with Hemant. He is with Hemant for five years and he still feels the high quality is present.
He does not feel that products are being pushed. He feels the advice is independent and in his best interest.
His grandfather was a priest and his family was quite spiritual. He read books on India and Hindu culture. He felt Indian scriptures are scientific too.
He realised he needed to have the right Guru for enlightenment and spiritual awakening. He had a great experience in the session with his Guru.
He understood concepts like Sthul sharir, kaaran sharir, suksham sharir.
In the session, he was the only one with no home loan, car loan and credit cards among 70 people. They said that this happens when masculine energy and feminine energy are balanced. This balance is achieved when spouses are in agreement with their lifestyle. Meditation, kind of food, kind of thoughts and kind of people around you are important for balance in one's energy.
Though this is an Indian concept, unfortunately it is alien to us Indians.
Mr Yogendra shares, no one teaches us how to treat our money well. Financial literacy is an important part of our life. It is crucial that we learn to manage finances and invest in a good financial planner.
Hope this discussion helps NRIs make wise decisions and increase their happiness quotient. Please share your view in the comment section.
Loved your interview & experience that you shared, I can totally relate to this.
I was also pushed to buy expensive investment related policy from PRUDENTIAL in DUBAI.


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Sheila Jackson Lee Defends Obamacare on House Floor, GOP Congressman Calls Her 'Hysterical'
Monique Judge
Doug Collins
Thursday morning, while we were all preparing to lose our health insurance, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) stood on the House floor and gave the kind of speech that would have you nodding your head and saying "Amen" if you were in church. When she was done, Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) called her "hysterical."
Lee walked up to the podium and stood next to a photo of a woman in a hospital bed. She asked the House to look and keep their eyes "on who will feel the Trumpcare's mother of all bombs of health care dropped on the American people."
"God have mercy on your soul," she said.
"I am a person living with a pre-existing disease," Lee continued. " I am a breast-cancer survivor. And this heartless and callous bill, with 24 million-plus people being thrown off of their health care, and reverse Robin Hood of stealing from the poor and the seniors laying in their bed where you're doing an age tax that is five times more than any other young person has to pay, is disgraceful. And the pittance you've giving for pre-existing conditions — $8 billion — they say you need $25 billion."
Lee said, "I stand with the people ... and I want to say this: I don't want the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, to steal bread from the market because they can't get any health insurance. God have mercy on your souls."
She was a bit over her time, but she got her point across.
As Collins took the mic, he sneered and snidely said, "If I had to defend Obamacare, I'd go into hysterics, too."
First of all, let's take a look at the historical implications of calling a woman "hysterical" as written in Vogue:
We should understand that diagnosing people with hysteria has a long, complicated, and dark history. It's the history of authoritative men pitting a woman against her own mysterious, unruly body, a body that disqualified her from positions of power and a general sense of autonomy. If we understand this, we can start to understand why calling someone crazy is so particularly dangerous: It transforms what was once a dialogue or debate into an attack on the legitimacy a person needs to form opinions.
Second, how disrespectful and condescending was that? He made that statement, then he and his colleague laughed.
Remember, a woman was just convicted for laughing during a confirmation hearing for Jeff Sessions. They said she disrupted Congress. She chuckled, and a witness said it was no more than a light cough.
This man stood at the podium, ridiculed Lee's entire speech in the most dismissive manner possible, then laughed, and his little friend did, too.
Is the general public held to a different standard of politeness in congressional meetings than our government representatives are?
Remember, this is a game of follow the leader. If the sitting president can get away with being disrespectful to black women multiple times, then it probably goes without saying that his little minions are going to follow suit.
Let's rejoice in the fact that Ms. Sheila got up there and read these jackasses for filth, and your boy felt some type of way about it. Silver linings?
News Editor for The Root. I said what I said. Period.
Recent from Monique Judge
Whodunit? As Feds Scan DMV Records Using Facial Recognition Software and More Cities Use the Technology, Racial Bias Could Be a…
Cyntoia Brown Documentary in the Works at Netflix
Study Shows Adults Who Can Legally Obtain Cannabis Use It as Substitute for Opioids and Other Prescription Drugs


We're Excited. You Should Be Too.
Our Campus Pastors will do the majority of the speaking at their respective campus and Rob Chambers will be speaking as often as he can at both campuses.
It is important to know that the Elders (Operating as the Acting Lead Pastor during this time of transition.) and Leadership Staff (full-time and part-time) are united and have worked collectively throughout this transition. We have spent countless days discussing and praying for wisdom to navigate this vitally important process of searching for who God wants as Origins' next Lead Pastor. We are all committed to this process and we desire for two things to come out of this; that Jesus' name be paramount and that the vision and culture of Origins Church will continue.


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Gateway Community & Technical College>News Archive>News Archive>Gateway Opens Veteran Support Center in First Partnership with Cincinnati State Technical and Community College
Gateway Opens Veteran Support Center in First Partnership with Cincinnati State Technical and Community College
Gateway Community & Technical College today opened a Veteran Support Center at its Edgewood Campus to provide academic, career and other services to veterans seeking to continue their education.
In Gateway's first-ever partnership with Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, the center will provide services under the Veterans Upward Bound program, which is made possible under a federal Trio grant to Cincinnati State.
This partnership between the regions two public community and technical colleges is just the beginning of what I hope will be a very close working relationship that bridges the river and serves the region. This first partnership to provide services to those men and women who have selflessly served our country, is a great example of the powerful impact of regional cooperation, said Dr. G. Edward Hughes, Gateway president/CEO.
The Veterans Upward Bound program has proven its value at Cincinnati State, and were excited about the opportunity to work with Gateway to extend these services to veterans in Northern Kentucky, said Dr. John Henderson, interim president of Cincinnati State.
The Veterans Upward bound program offers refresher courses, basic skill development, career advising, assistance with applying for financial aid, a variety of academic services, college life adjustment workshops and referrals to other essential veteran and community services. The Cincinnati VA Medical Center will provide access to healthcare referral services.
Patricia A. Goodman, Gateway dean of institutional research, planning and effectiveness and a U.S. Army veteran, spearheaded the project to create the center. Her husband recently returned from service in Afghanistan.
Our experiences taught us what returning veterans need to continue their education and make a successful transition to civilian life, Goodman said. Having a Veteran Support Center has been a Gateway goal for some time. The Veterans Upward Bound program available through the partnership with Cincinnati State was key to getting the center off the ground. The proximity and involvement of the Cincinnati VA Medical Center also enables us to offer a very broad range of services in one spot.
Veterans Upward Bound representatives will staff the center on Mondays from 8:30 a.m. to noon and Fridays from noon to 4 p.m. VA Medical Center personnel will be available every other Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The center will be open for additional hours soon, because we've just added John Beiting of Fort Thomas as an assistant through our work-study program, Goodman said. John is a Gateway nursing student and a U.S. Army veteran himself.
For more information on the center, contact Goodman at (859) 442-1173 or patricia.goodman@kctcs.edu.


But now it is causing a problem since it reads beyond the terminating NULL.
You can bet the farm that it isn't - unless doing is part of its defined behaviour.
I know, but then what is causing the crashes ? anyway time will tell.
I don't know either, but pfaffing about with strtok() would just be a waste of time. It's what I call the "scatter gun" approach to debugging - "do something - ANYTHING"
I thought there were totally acceptable solutions presented earlier (Adding a separator after reception of the terminator '>') and on top of that nobody has given any explanation for the strtok(NULL,NULL) not working properly. Now the solution seems to be "Trail for a long time and wait for Error"
on top of that nobody has given any explanation for the strtok(NULL,NULL) not working properly.
My thinking has been that either the strtok implementation in the esp8266 core has a problem, or, more likely in my opinion, that the NULL is somehow missing. Perhaps because the total received chars overruns the 32 character boundary.
I think that the idea to print the ascii value of everything received as it arrives is a good debugging idea.
To prevent any fog clouding the issue at hand: my post #34 contains the bare-bones program with all essentials related to reception and parsing available. No interrupts are disabled anywhere, not in the original, not in the current bare-bones program.
parse data() actual: 4 6 . 9 5 , 2 0 . 7 5 , 9 . 4 9 , 1 , 7 , B . .
parseData() actual : 4 6 . 9 6 , 2 0 . 7 5 , 9 . 5 7 , 0 , 4 7 , B . .
1. more often than not there are missing dot and even though it is not missing, a dot is being added by the RX program, as written on lines 52 to 56.
Now this is the program using "missing dot detection" so this is the one that crashes a lot.
When removing he "missing dot program section" (lines 52 to 56) these crashes become very rare.
parseData() actual : 4 3 . 3 1 , 2 1 . 0 0 , 9 . 5 7 , 2 0 , 5 7 , D .
No double dots at the end of the actual message.
Note: the first float is a duty cycle reading, the second float is a temperature reading, the third float is a battery voltage reading, the next is an integer for the minute when the TX took place, the next integer is the second when the TX took place and the last is the TX identifier.
I would let this run for 24 hours and report the monitor results if/when crashes occured.
Are the transmitted values always that length, or can the number of digits in the floats or integers change?
If the length is constant, and I count correctly, tempchars should be the letter, tempchars should be the final separator(',' or '.'), and tempchars should be '\0'.
I forgot that Robin2's routine strip both the start and end markers from the message.
Thank you cattledog, I will test again tomorrow, after this 24h run.
actual message content: 4 0 . 8 2 , 2 4 . 2 5 , 7 . 6 5 , 4 1 , 2 , A .
In subsequent messages the identifier keeps being correct: both in the full actual message as in the parsed message. BUT in the actual message content the trailing 41 and 1 keep being present.
In message x+1 in the second float there suddenly appears a < within this number.
In the serial monitor the positioning of this 41 and 1 are always exacty identical, meaning they do appear in the same exact position too in the received message?
I think that these time values can be either one or two digits, and the character array length can vary. You may want to sent the values with a leading 0 so they are always 2 digits, or else determine the actual length of what is received.
I think you will now be back go the situation where you have the rare crashes. I'm sure we can figure out what is going on, now that the walk in the swamp due to my incorrect debug suggestion is over.
You might very well have hit the nail on its ugly head!
Are you certain that with your accelerated testing you are not sending a message before the previous one is processed? You may be getting two message strings mixed together.
Are you certain that with your accelerated testing you are sending a message before the previous one is processed? You may be getting two message strings mixed together.
Yes, I can clearly see on the monitor the progress of the RX and parsing, and the timing between the 3 transmitters is exactly 5 seconds (the RTC's are calibrated down to the second).
The strange thing is that message x+1 indeed shows up on a transition from second 57 to second 2, but in previous messages this transition did occur already and then no issue showed up with this.


I am nomanating Helen Keller.She helped a lot of blind and deaf-blind people.She started the Helen Keller Endowment Fund. During World War II she helped all of the blind soldiers. She got a lot of awards of great distinction. They included the Chevalier's Ribbon and Alumni Achievement Award. her books were translated into more than 50 languages. That's why I'm nominating Helen Keller.


text:
Q: Integrate $f(x,y)=\begin{cases}(x-1/2)^{-3} &\text{if}, 0
$f(x,y)=\begin{cases}(x-1/2)^{-3} &\text{if}, 0<y<|x-1/2| \\ 0 &\text{else}  \end{cases}$
I have to integrate it over $E=[0,1]\times[0,1]$
I can integrate the inner integral with respect to $dy$ then $dx$ but how can I do it the other way around (first $dx$ then $dy$); I have problem with the limits
First;
$y<\begin{cases}\frac12-x &\text{if}, x\le\frac12 \\ x-\frac{1}{2} &\text{if}, x >\frac12 \end{cases}$
$\displaystyle\int\int f\ dydx=\int_0^{1/2}\int_0^{1/2-x}(1/2-x)^{-3}dydx+\int_{1/2}^{1}\int_0^{x-1/2}(1/2-x)^{-3}dydx=\int_{0}^{1/2}(1/2-x)^{-2}dx-\int_{1/2}^{1}(1/2-x)^{-2}dx=\infty-\infty$
$\displaystyle\int\int f\ dxdy=?$

A: Maybe this is an occasion to recall that rigorous notations help. Here the function $f:E\to\mathbb R$ is defined by
$$
f(x,y)=(x-a)^{-3}\,\mathbf 1_{0\lt y\lt|x-a|}\,\mathbf 1_{0\lt x\lt 1},
$$
where $a=\frac12$, hence the integral of $|f|$ (which exists, as an extended nonnegative real number) is
$$
\iint_E|f|=\int_0^1|x-a|^{-3}\int_0^{|x-a|}\mathrm dy\mathrm dx=\int_0^1|x-a|^{-2}\mathrm dx=+\infty.
$$
A consequence is that a formula such as
$$
\iint_Ef(x,y)\mathrm dx\mathrm dy
$$
is undefined.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


FRANKFURT (Reuters) -- Germany's transport ministry said it would send a fact-finding committee to Volkswagen this week after the carmaker admitted to rigging U.S. vehicle emissions tests.
The committee will speak with executives at Volkswagen's headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, and request access to documents, the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
"Our committee will examine whether the vehicles in question were built and tested according to German and European rules, and whether that was done in accordance with vehicle registrations," Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt said in the statement.
The investigators will procure documents and interview company executives, he said. There are no indications that other automakers engaged in similar wrongdoing, Dobrindt told reporters.
The German government opened an investigation into VW after revelations that it cheated on emissions rules in the U.S.. The government said on Monday that automakers will be expected to pass on relevant information to the Federal Motor Transport Authority so that it can assess whether emissions data may have been falsified in Germany and other European countries.
Allegations that VW hoodwinked U.S. regulators prompted a cross-party outcry over the potential damage to Europe's largest economy and the reputation of German products. The carmaker said Tuesday that 11 million vehicles were equipped with the diesel engines in question in the U.S.
"I find what we're currently seeing at Volkswagen shocking," Thomas Oppermann, the parliamentary caucus leader for Germany's Social Democrats in the lower house, told reporters. "The auto industry is the standard bearer for German exports and we can't allow it to be harmed," said Oppermann, whose constituency is in VW's home state of Lower Saxony.
Cars are the backbone of Germany's export prowess, with autos produced by companies such as Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW accounting for almost 18 percent of exports last year. Volkswagen, which means "people's car," is one of the icons of German industrial might since World War II.
That concern may be overblown, Michael Fuchs, a deputy caucus leader of Merkel's Christian Democratic bloc, said in an interview on Phoenix television.
Meanwhile, other European countries have stepped up their scrutiny of emissions testing in the wake of disclosures about VW in the U.S.
France launched a probe on Tuesday into whether Volkswagen had also used software that deceived U.S. regulators in some of its diesel cars in France. Environment Minister Segolene Royal said she had asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for further information about the fraud committed by Volkswagen. She also asked French automakers to ensure that similar practices had not taken place in their companies.
Italy too has asked VW to prove that the vehicles the carmaker is selling in the country do not contain the same devices discovered in the U.S. "I ask you [VW] to provide me with objective evidence that the cars marketed in Italy do not contain technical devices that alter results in emissions tests," Environment Minister Gian Luca Galletti said in a statement on Tuesday. If necessary, the minister also asked the carmaker to stop selling its vehicles in Italy and recall those already sold.
The UK on Tuesday asked the European Union to investigate emission testing in the region. "It's vital that the public has confidence in vehicle emissions tests and I am calling for the European Commission to investigate this issue as a matter of urgency," Transport Secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, said in a statement.


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text:
Reading Greece: Fotini Tsalikoglou on Migration, the Psychology of the Crisis and Literature as an Act of Defiance
Fotini Tsalikoglou studied psychology at the University of Geneva and is currently a professor of psychology at Panteion University in Athens. She is the author of many celebrated novels published in Greece, including The Daughter of Anthi Alkaiou, Eros Pharmakopoios, I, Martha Freud, I Dreamed I Was Well, Bertha's Gift [shortlisted for Readers' Award of the National Book Center of Greece in 2011], All the 'Yeses' of the World, The Happy Island and 'What if?' (with Margarita Karapanou). The Secret Sister – her English Language debut – was included in World Literature Today's list of '75 Notable Translations' for 2015.
Fotini Tsalikoglou spoke to reading Greece* about how immigration has intermingled with Greece's history over the years, how the words 'Greece' and 'Greeks' evoke conflicting images and associations, Greek society's long history of contradictions and complexities, and the way her books attempt to 'probe into the inevitable transmutations of the sense of belonging that is so deeply ingrained in the Greek psyche'.
She also comments on the current socio-economic and existential crisis, where 'what is lost is the illusion of safety; what has hopefully been gained is the recognition that safety itself can ultimately be scary' and how defying the crisis can constitute a revolutionary act. 'Literature is a form of action, offering us not the hope of an elusive 'idea' but the only thing that truly matters: Cavafy's hope that the voyage to Ithaca is a long one'.
The Secret Sister – your English language debut – is an exploration of the spaces between the past and the future through an intimate glimpse at the lives of immigrants both leaving and returning to their homeland. How has migration intermingled with our country's history over the years?
Migration and Greece represent the two faces of Janus. We cannot conceive the history of Greece without taking into consideration the role that migration played in the struggle for a better future, a struggle suspended precariously between hope and despair. In their plurality and complexity, the wounds of migration are the wounds of Greece.
Mary Kitroeff's translation of the book was included in World Literature Today's list of '75 Notable Translations' for 2015. Do you consider that the current crisis has rekindled the interest in Greek literature abroad?
It may very well have done so—an antidote to the negative national stereotypes that have emerged in the international media. Ironically, such stereotypes manage to survive in the midst of enduring visions of the ancient Greek ideal. It should not be surprising, therefore, that the words 'Greece' and 'Greeks' evoke conflicting images and associations, as aggression turns out to be the dark side of idealization.
On the other hand, Greek society has its own long history of contradictions and complexities. I believe that it is through art and literature that these problems can be brought on the surface with a renewed relevance and urgency. It is somehow true that 'literature turns blood into ink'. My book attempts to probe into the inevitable transmutations of the sense of belonging that is so deeply ingrained in the Greek psyche, and to show how difficult it is, especially in times of economic crisis, to distinguish between nostalgia and hope.
One of the recurrent themes in your books is the mother-daughter relationship. As you have said, in this relationship, 'there is played a game between life and death'. Would you like to tell us more?
'Mother' is the very first object of love in one's life. In Winnicot's words, 'There is no such thing as a baby': it is through the relationship with the mother or her substitute that an infant exists, fed not only with milk but also with a sense of warmth, of belonging, of safety. Τhis is the paradise of non-differentiation, the bliss of unification that lasts only a few months, yielding eventually to feelings of frustration, disappointment, sorrow, and betrayal.
Mother is now another person, unable to fulfill all our desires: alterity hurts. Yet without this anxiety of separation, without the recognition that the pleasure principle has its own limits, we would remain infants in search of a lost paradise. Without this incessant interplay between Eros and Thanatos, between life and death, there would be no life.
In your recent series of lectures at 'Stoa tou Vivliou', you urged people to get over our 'national mourning'. How can we defend our right to life and creativity when loss, violence and depression loom around us?
In the Seminar Hall of the Athens Free University at 'Stoa tou Vivliou' I had the opportunity, with a large audience of different age and background, to share what it is like to live in the midst not only of an economic crisis but also of a psychological and existential one. Loss aims at reparation, mobilizing imagination and nurturing creativity along the way.
Loss makes us painfully aware of our vulnerability, but it is this awareness—manifested especially through art and literature—that protects us from the hubris of perfection and omnipotence. As Emily Dickinson reminds us, 'I like a look of Agony, / Because I know it's true'. It is this 'look of Agony' that makes me write novels.
'Eventually you realize that the life-jackets we were travelling with in a supposedly undisturbed sea are full of holes and that the sea is actually a rough, inhospitable sea […]. You are all grown up. You don't need life-jackets to float […] This is what motivates me in recent years to refer to the 'hidden gifts of loss''. In what ways has the socio-economic crisis disrupted the relationship we maintain with ourselves and others? Is there a way out?
A crisis may be disruptive, but at the same time it offers the opportunity to re-invent our inner selves, allowing for a healthy distance from circumstances that we once took for granted and regarded as self-evident. What is lost is the illusion of safety; what has hopefully been gained is the recognition that safety itself can ultimately be scary.
In your most recent book Happy Island, the concluding message is that 'everything is possible'. Does defying the existing order of things constitute a revolutionary act? Is there hope for Greece to become a 'happy' country?
Defying crisis does indeed constitute a revolutionary act. In that sense, it is not enough to understand how the economic crisis works its way into the fabric of society; we must also take the necessary steps to translate theories into action. And even if it s true that 'between the idea and the act falls the shadow' literature is a form of action, offering us not the hope of an elusive 'idea' but the only thing that truly matters: Cavafy's hope that the voyage to Ithaca is a long one.
Concerning your question if there is hope for Greece to become a 'happy' country I will ask affirmatively by paraphrasing Pascal s wager: 'Although we cannot prove the existence of God we have all reasons to bet on his existence. If he exists we win everything. If he does not exist we have lost nothing'. In that sense I would say 'Yes, there is a Hope for Greece to become a happy country' whatever this elusive and fictional word 'happy' means….
*Interview by Athina Rossoglou


text:
Austin Butler Remembers His Late Mom In Heartfelt Golden Globes Acceptance Speech
Austin Butler had a big night at the 2023 Golden Globe Awards! The 31-year-old actor took home the prize for Best Actor for his portrayal of Elvis Presley in "Elvis." But even in a room full or A-listers, Austin still gets starstruck. At the start of his speech, he gave a shoutout to Brad Pitt, who he also gave a hug to on his way to accept the award. But Austin's speech had some sentimental moments too. The "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood" star also remembered his mom who Lori, who died in 2014.
Priscilla Presley Challenges Lisa Marie Presley's Trust Amendment


Over the last 18 months Rinova has been working with a network of organisations from eleven countries to develop the European Cultural Learning Network (ECLN).
The ECLN project arises directly from the fact that, as a sector, 'Cultural Learning' is largely un-defined and un-mapped, and that professional or vocational educational pathways are equally ill-defined and unrecognised by public and external authorities.
Richard Parkes of Rinova said that "When we designed the application to the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission, we wanted to build on previous work we had done with our partners and highlight the needs of this hidden but critical network of practitioners. It is increasingly recognised now that the Creative Industries are a major European employment sector - as can be seen through the new Creative Europe programme - but what is perhaps less well understood is the way that artists, as 'Cultural Learning Practitioners' are vital to the success of the wider creative industries - through their inspiring, supporting and developing others across Europe's talent pool."
Facilitated by the lead organisation, Collage Arts and VIA University College from Denmark, ECLN has undertaken an extensive research and needs analysis programme across the countries in the Network, as the first stage in pulling together a 'knowledge base' that will help to inform and design a response to the training and vocational issues faced by this diverse range of practitioners, and the organisations and contexts in which they work.
As the work of the Network has progressed, the partners are also actively promoting and disseminating its work. As well as the website and news blog, ECLN has a specific Twitter feed, Facebook page and a portal for enquiries, details for which can be found here and a publicity brochure about ECLN has also been produced and disseminated in the languages of the partners. The English language version can be downloaded here.
ECLN was also the feature of a conference in Rijeka, Croatia, which coincided with the the mid-point of the three-year project. The conference was featured in and filmed by Croatian media, which can be seen here (Dr, Denise Stanley of Collage Arts speaks about ECLN in English from 1m 35 seconds).
Pictured right: Dr Denise Stanley speaks about the findings from the ECLN research programme to the conference held at Filodrammatica, Rijeka, Croatia, on the 21st March hosted by Association Prostor Plus. Over time, the ECLN aspires to extend the reach of the Network to incorporate all of those interested in the professional development needs of everyone involved in cultural learning, aiming to become a new co-operation in lifelong learning through arts and culture at the European level.
Pictured left: Richard Parkes of Rinova summarises the main findings from Rinova's evaluation of ECLN to date. More pictures from the ECLN Gallery can be viewed here.


Discussion in 'General Royal Marines Joining Chit Chat' started by J18, Jan 31, 2019.
You don't need to go to a specialist unless directed to, or what you have is not clear cut. Best to gather all the evidence you have, do a sports diary and explain what happened. A letter from a specialist saying you are fit to join is worthless, what is more important is clear detail about what has happened, what caused it and how things affect you and clear timelines from you your GP and whoever was treating you at the time. Let the RN then decide if you are fit to join the RM.
I just got back from the doctors 10 minutes ago and he told me my last case of back problems was in 2015. I had four cases close together but nothing since. He is going to write me a letter confirming this and provide the discharge letter from Sheffield children's hospital. I am also getting signed letters from my gym which I have been going to for the last 4 years as I have completed and won a strength competition for my age category and hit some impressive pr's from a young age. I am also getting a signed letter from my last job which was putting marquees up ( a lot of carrying heavy stuff) it was 8-12 hour days and sometimes 6 days a week but again no back problems. Hopefully this is a strong enough case.
It's most likely due to multiple injuries in the same place I had lower back issues and was allowed straight through no problems but i had issues later and went private thankfully because I knew the situation with getting in with a lot of injuries in the same place. Your best chance is to follow ninjas advice. Best thing to actually help your issues as well is see a physio, I went to a chiropractor had acupuncture and done all the stretches going for it tried long rest and training through it amongst a multitude of other things but the thing that worked best for me was repeated stretching (as guided by a physio) and things like swimming and low impact phys strongly advise you to see a professional if it's been 4 times it's maybe the way you train/run or could be something obscure like a shortening or the calf (that's what happened to me) that's linked to the issue a good physio will help mate.


They have selected a qualified person to conduct the assessment of installed fire safety measures on their premises.
That the established fire safety measures and fire equipment at their premises are being maintained and inspected according to the required safety measures.
The annual report should be dated for a limited period of validity of 12 months.
The Annual Fire Safety report is not a statement of compliance nor is it a document that details faults, incorrect or non-compliant installation of a fire safety measure. It is a maintenance statement, not a compliance statement.
Who is responsible for the submission of the annual report?
The building owner or qualified audit provider is responsible for the submission of the report either by signing the statement themselves or installing a representative to do so on their behalf.
A copy of the annual report together with the relevant fire safety schedule must be displayed prominently in the building, usually in the main foyer or office entry in a position where it can be easily accessible.
A fire safety schedule is a complete list of the essential fire safety measures with the standards of performance, i.e. Australian Installation Standards and Relevant Building Codes and Ordinances.
Contact us to know more how we can help in making your business premise safer and fire proof.


text:
New research centre Waharoa ki te Toi officially opens in Far North
The Waharoa ki te Toi Health Research Centre at Kaitaia Hospital, a partnership between The Moko Foundation and the Maurice Wilkins Centre, opened on Friday 17 August.
Te Rangawairua o Paratene Ngata Research Centre opens on East Coast
The Te Rangawairua o Paratene Ngata Research Centre, led by Ngāti Porou Hauora in partnership with the Maurice Wilkins Centre, was officially opened on Thursday 2 August at Te Puia Springs Hospital on New Zealand's East Coast.