Monday, July 11, 2011
Syntagma, ground-zero of the global resistance movement
Excerpt from the article by Jérôme E. Roos in Reflections On A Revolution ROAR Hundreds of volunteers are engaged in the most wide-ranging daily chores, from making food to translating extensive transcripts — and they carry all of it out with a degree of love and conviction I’ve never encountered anywhere else before. Indeed, on Syntagma, the only lazy Greeks seem to be the stray dogs that have made the square their home over the past couple of weeks. Something extremely exciting is happening here tonight. My new friends at the square have set up a live video link with the indignants in Paris, Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon. Tonight, some of Europe’s main squares will join each other in a pan-European debate on the future of our crisis-ridden continent. It’s yet another confirmation of the fact that our revolution knows no borders. What we’re witnessing here tonight is a grand social experiment in creating a new democracy — from the grassroots up to the global level. It’s absolutely exhilarating to be a part of this and to see that even in the harshest of circumstances (or perhaps only in the harshest of circumstances) humanity manages to unfold its purest and most beautiful essence before the world. ~ more... ~ Excellent slide show of Syntagma on Flickr.
My Summer at an Indian Call Center
Andrew Marantz writes in Mother Jones:
Lessons learned: Americans are hotheads, Australians are drunks—and never say where you're calling from.
[ ... ]
Next is "culture training," in which trainees memorize colloquialisms and state capitals, study clips of Seinfeld and photos of Walmarts, and eat in cafeterias serving paneer burgers and pizza topped with lamb pepperoni. Trainers aim to impart something they call "international culture"—which is, of course, no culture at all, but a garbled hybrid of Indian and Western signifiers designed to be recognizable to everyone and familiar to no one.
Next is "culture training," in which trainees memorize colloquialisms and state capitals, study clips of Seinfeld and photos of Walmarts, and eat in cafeterias serving paneer burgers and pizza topped with lamb pepperoni. Trainers aim to impart something they call "international culture"—which is, of course, no culture at all, but a garbled hybrid of Indian and Western signifiers designed to be recognizable to everyone and familiar to no one.
Livnat 'shifting official archaeology bodies to the right'
Senior archaeologists are up in arms over an amendment to the Antiquities Authority Law proposed by Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat that they say will change the make-up of the Israel Antiquities Authority's board of directors.
Critics say Livnat has proposed the legislation to prevent the appointment of Prof. Yoram Tsafrir as chairman of the board of directors of the authority and to allow her to instead appoint archaeologists identified with the political right. Opponents of the bill also say Livnat has also been changing the makeup of the country's senior archaeological body, the Archaeological Council, which advises the director of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the minister who oversees the Israel Antiquities Authority.
"People are being elected according to what they have on their head as opposed to in their head," an opponent of the bill who declined to be named said, referring to religious head coverings.
Niall Ferguson: Empires on the Edge of Chaos: Complexity Theory
Part 4 of a series
Niall Ferguson Complexity Theory Excellent video of Niall Ferguson, Harvard University Professor.
~ ~ ~
1.3 Definition of Complexity Theory
The main current scientific theory related to self-organization is Complexity Theory, which states:
Critically interacting components self-organize to form potentially evolving structures exhibiting a hierarchy of emergent system properties.
[ ... ]
3. Edge of Chaos
The main current scientific theory related to self-organization is Complexity Theory, which states:
Critically interacting components self-organize to form potentially evolving structures exhibiting a hierarchy of emergent system properties.
[ ... ]
3. Edge of Chaos
3.1 What is criticality ?
A point at which system properties change suddenly, e.g. where a matrix goes from non-percolating (disconnected) to percolating (connected) or vice versa. This is often regarded as a phase change, thus in critically interacting systems we expect step changes in properties.
A point at which system properties change suddenly, e.g. where a matrix goes from non-percolating (disconnected) to percolating (connected) or vice versa. This is often regarded as a phase change, thus in critically interacting systems we expect step changes in properties.
3.2 What is self-organized criticality (SOC) ?
The ability of a system to evolve in such a way as to approach a critical point and then maintain itself at that point. If we assume that a system can mutate, then that mutation may take it either towards a more static configuration or towards a more changeable one (a smaller or larger volume of state space, a new attractor). If a particular dynamic structure is optimum for the system, and the current configuration is too static, then the more changeable configuration will be more successful. If the system is currently too changeable then the more static mutation will be selected. Thus the system can adapt in both directions to converge on the optimum dynamic characteristics.
The ability of a system to evolve in such a way as to approach a critical point and then maintain itself at that point. If we assume that a system can mutate, then that mutation may take it either towards a more static configuration or towards a more changeable one (a smaller or larger volume of state space, a new attractor). If a particular dynamic structure is optimum for the system, and the current configuration is too static, then the more changeable configuration will be more successful. If the system is currently too changeable then the more static mutation will be selected. Thus the system can adapt in both directions to converge on the optimum dynamic characteristics.
3.3 What is the Edge of Chaos (EOC) ?
This is the name given to the critical point of the system, where a small change can either push the system into chaotic behaviour or lock the system into a fixed behaviour. It is regarded as a phase change. It is at this point where all the really interesting behaviour occurs in a 'complex' system, and it is where systems tend to gravitate give the chance to do so. Hence most ALife systems are assumed to operate within this regime.
This is the name given to the critical point of the system, where a small change can either push the system into chaotic behaviour or lock the system into a fixed behaviour. It is regarded as a phase change. It is at this point where all the really interesting behaviour occurs in a 'complex' system, and it is where systems tend to gravitate give the chance to do so. Hence most ALife systems are assumed to operate within this regime.
At this boundary a system has a correlation length (connection between distant parts) that just spans the entire system, with a power law distribution of shorter lengths. Transient perturbations (disturbances) can last for very long times (infinity in the limit) and/or cover the entire system, yet more frequently effects will be local or short lived - the system is dynamically unstable to some perturbations, yet stable to others.
CIA Mind Control Techniques: MK-ULTRA Program Brainwashing Experiments Documentary (1979)
Mind control (also known as brainwashing, coercive persuasion, mind abuse, thought control, or thought reform) refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator(s), often to the detriment of the person being manipulated." The term has been applied to any tactic, psychological or otherwise, which can be seen as subverting an individual's sense of control over their own thinking, behavior, emotions or decision making.
Theories of brainwashing and of mind control were originally developed to explain how totalitarian regimes appeared to succeed in systematically indoctrinating prisoners of war through propaganda and torture techniques. These theories were later expanded and modified, by psychologists including Margaret Singer, to explain a wider range of phenomena, especially conversions to new religious movements (NRMs). A third-generation theory proposed by Ben Zablocki focused on the utilization of mind control to retain members of NRMs and cults to convert them to a new religion. The suggestion that NRMs use mind control techniques has resulted in scientific and legal controversy. Neither the American Psychological Association nor the American Sociological Association have found any scientific merit in such theories.
Project MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human research program, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official U.S. government program began in the early 1950s, continuing at least through the late 1960s, and it used U.S. and Canadian citizens as its test subjects.
Donald Ewen Cameron (24 December 1901--8 September 1967) was a twentieth-century Scottish-American psychiatrist. Cameron was involved in Project MKULTRA, United States Central Intelligence Agency's research on torture and mind control.
Cameron lived and worked in Albany, New York, and was involved in experiments in Canada for Project MKULTRA, a United States based CIA-directed mind control program which eventually led to the publication of the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation manual. He is unrelated to another CIA psychiatrist Alan Cameron, who helped pioneer psychological profiling of world leaders during the 1970s.
Naomi Klein states in her book The Shock Doctrine that Cameron's research and his contribution to the MKUltra project was actually not about mind control and brainwashing, but about designing "a scientifically based system for extracting information from 'resistant sources.' In other words, torture...Stripped of its bizarre excesses, Dr. Cameron's experiments, building upon Donald O. Hebb's earlier breakthrough, laid the scientific foundation for the CIA's two-stage psychological torture method."
Mind control in popular culture: * The communal brainwashing of an entire model community via subliminal messages is a central theme in the 2009 novel Candor by Pam Bachorz. * In the novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, the protagonist undergoes a scientific re-education process called the "Ludovico technique" in an attempt to remove his violent tendencies. * In his 1999 science fictin novel A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge introduces the themes of "mindrot" and controlled "Focus" later eplored in his 2006 novel. * In the novel Night of the Hawk by Dale Brown, the Soviets capture and brainwash U.S. Air Force Lieutenant David Luger, transforming him into the Russian scientist Ivan Ozerov. * In George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949 before the popularization of the term "brainwashing"), the fictional totalitarian government of Oceania uses brainwashing-style techniques to erase nonconformist thought and rebellious personalities. * Vernor Vinge speculates on the application of technology to achieve brainwashing in his 2006 science fiction novel, Rainbows End (ISBN 0-312-85684-9), portraying separately the dangers of JITT (Just-in-time training) and the specter of YGBM (You gotta believe me).
Brainwashing became a common trope of films, television and games in the late twentieth century. It was a convenient means of introducing changes in the behavior of characters and a device for raising tension and audience uncertainty in the climate of Cold War and outbreaks of terrorism. * The film Brazil, depicts a fascist government similar to that in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The government controls a totalitarian society subconsciously by manipulation, intending to remain in control of the population. * Derren Brown: Mind Control (1999-2000), a television show on Channel 4.
Theories of brainwashing and of mind control were originally developed to explain how totalitarian regimes appeared to succeed in systematically indoctrinating prisoners of war through propaganda and torture techniques. These theories were later expanded and modified, by psychologists including Margaret Singer, to explain a wider range of phenomena, especially conversions to new religious movements (NRMs). A third-generation theory proposed by Ben Zablocki focused on the utilization of mind control to retain members of NRMs and cults to convert them to a new religion. The suggestion that NRMs use mind control techniques has resulted in scientific and legal controversy. Neither the American Psychological Association nor the American Sociological Association have found any scientific merit in such theories.
Project MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human research program, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official U.S. government program began in the early 1950s, continuing at least through the late 1960s, and it used U.S. and Canadian citizens as its test subjects.
Donald Ewen Cameron (24 December 1901--8 September 1967) was a twentieth-century Scottish-American psychiatrist. Cameron was involved in Project MKULTRA, United States Central Intelligence Agency's research on torture and mind control.
Cameron lived and worked in Albany, New York, and was involved in experiments in Canada for Project MKULTRA, a United States based CIA-directed mind control program which eventually led to the publication of the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation manual. He is unrelated to another CIA psychiatrist Alan Cameron, who helped pioneer psychological profiling of world leaders during the 1970s.
Naomi Klein states in her book The Shock Doctrine that Cameron's research and his contribution to the MKUltra project was actually not about mind control and brainwashing, but about designing "a scientifically based system for extracting information from 'resistant sources.' In other words, torture...Stripped of its bizarre excesses, Dr. Cameron's experiments, building upon Donald O. Hebb's earlier breakthrough, laid the scientific foundation for the CIA's two-stage psychological torture method."
Mind control in popular culture: * The communal brainwashing of an entire model community via subliminal messages is a central theme in the 2009 novel Candor by Pam Bachorz. * In the novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, the protagonist undergoes a scientific re-education process called the "Ludovico technique" in an attempt to remove his violent tendencies. * In his 1999 science fictin novel A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge introduces the themes of "mindrot" and controlled "Focus" later eplored in his 2006 novel. * In the novel Night of the Hawk by Dale Brown, the Soviets capture and brainwash U.S. Air Force Lieutenant David Luger, transforming him into the Russian scientist Ivan Ozerov. * In George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949 before the popularization of the term "brainwashing"), the fictional totalitarian government of Oceania uses brainwashing-style techniques to erase nonconformist thought and rebellious personalities. * Vernor Vinge speculates on the application of technology to achieve brainwashing in his 2006 science fiction novel, Rainbows End (ISBN 0-312-85684-9), portraying separately the dangers of JITT (Just-in-time training) and the specter of YGBM (You gotta believe me).
Brainwashing became a common trope of films, television and games in the late twentieth century. It was a convenient means of introducing changes in the behavior of characters and a device for raising tension and audience uncertainty in the climate of Cold War and outbreaks of terrorism. * The film Brazil, depicts a fascist government similar to that in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The government controls a totalitarian society subconsciously by manipulation, intending to remain in control of the population. * Derren Brown: Mind Control (1999-2000), a television show on Channel 4.
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