Godchecker

godchecker.com "Takes a light-hearted but educational look at the literally thousands of Gods that have been worshipped by Earth's people over the past few millennia. You'll find lots of information on popular Immortals from Greek, Roman and Norse religions, as well as on lesser-known Omniscient Observers from ancient African, Chinese and Incan cultures. [via Cool Tricks]

"To be nobody but yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight, and never stop fighting." -- e.e. cummings

Presumption of Injustice

Claiming to be liberal, the anti-liberals are winning. Among economists there are some widely held intuitive ideas where professionals are divided:

• that extending the scope of markets is liable to increase the unpredictability and instability and the insecurity of the people who live and work in them

• that within countries 'unfettered' market processes favor the rich and powerful rather than the poor so that typically their outcopmes are arbitrary and unjust. Trickle-down is unreliable.

• that freedom of international trade and direct investment places poor countries at a disadvantage relatively if not absolutely.

For whole classes of people, for whole nations and countries, prospects for a better life are contingent on collective action either to influence market outcome or to redress effects.

In nations, this responsibility falls to 'society'; for the world as a whole it falls to the 'international community'. These combine to make up new millenium collectivism.

The first of these are NGO's. They stand not for interests but for causes. They are a force on the side of intervention.

The second of these are laws that regulate the outcome for victims.Minimum wages, equal opportunity, anti-discrimination, human rights, affirmative action, maternity leave, overtime, compensation training....

And globalization, swelling the ranks of losers and victims while perceived as an anarchy of multinational powers capable of destroying the earth itself, creates a third collectivism in an alarmist concensus.

And among the greatest players in this new paradigm that disparity is an evil -- requiring regulation for the world as a whole -- are the ever more compliant major global companies.

Attuned to press, media and public relations, major corporations tell us that they are aggressively participating in removing disparity. CEO's parlay their role as sponsors of social benefits of all types. Solving hunger, disease, welfare and pleasure, our larger coporations seem like both the source and the reflection of positive change.

The 20th Century is marked by economic progress that is not fueled by collective visions nor from restraints on markets nor from restraints upon private property. There are different perceptions such as the growth of the output of human effort, advances in knowledge and improved methods of human development, each dependent upon economic freedom, each proven in any country where peace and order and property rights and markets are allowed to improve material welfare at historically high rates.

Seeking to do so in the name of social justice, it turns out that NGO's and CEO's prosper in greater global regulation. This puts an entirely new spin on the popularity of the term 'sustainability'.

New Diamond Age

mahalanobis.twoday.net: "Economists are already scratching their heads over how to rename the Diamond-Water-Paradox. It seems likely in the near future that the old name could fail to convey the central message. Why? The answer lies in what is called man-made, synthetic or cultured diamonds.

Synthetic diamonds were first produced on February 16, 1953 in Stockholm by the QUINTUS project of ASEA, Sweden's major electrical manufacturing company using a bulky apparatus designed by Baltzar von Platen. The discovery was kept secret and in 1955 the General Electric Research Laboratory announced the invention of the first reproducible process for making diamonds. For quite some time there have been rumors around that GE can already produce diamonds that are visually indistinguishable from their mined counterparts but decided not to engage in the jewelry business. Some people say that agents from De Beers with dark sunglasses were seen arriving at and leaving GE's corporate headquarters.

Armed with inexpensive, mass-produced gems, two startups (Gemesis and Apollo Diamond) are launching an assault on the De Beers cartel. Here is the superb story at wired.com."

The Two Things

The csun.edu/~dgw61315 "The Story of the Two Things

A few years ago, I was chatting with a stranger in a bar. When I told him I was an economist, he said, “Ah. So… what are the Two Things about economics?”

“Huh?” I cleverly replied.

“You know, the Two Things. For every subject, there are really only two things you really need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important.”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay, here are the Two Things about economics. One: Incentives matter. Two: There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Ever since that evening, I’ve been playing the Two Things game.

The Two Things about Life:
1. Beauty is truth.
2. Truth is beauty.

Love Deactivates Critical Assessment

futurepundit.com: "University College London have found using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) that love turns down activity in some areas of the brain in part so that we will not see flaws in the object of our affections.

However the key result was that it's not just that certain shared areas of the brain are reliably activated in both romantic and maternal love, but also particular locations are deactivated and it's the deactivation which is perhaps most revealing about love. Among other areas, parts of the pre-frontal cortex – a bit of the brain towards the front and implicated in social judgment – seems to get switched off when we are in love and when we love our children, as do areas linked with the experience of negative emotions such as aggression and fear as well as planning. The parts of the brain deactivated form a network which are implicated in the evaluation of trustworthiness of others and basically critical social assessment. The scientists recruited mothers and used pictures of their children as well as pictures of other people and watched how the women responded to the pictures. The researchers also reanalysed data they had previously collected for previously published research involving women in love.

We are fools for love because love disables our critical social assessment."

Nerve Stimulator for Depression

betterhumans.com " An implanted device that stimulates nerves has been approved for use by millions of people in the US suffering from major depression. The device, made by Cyberonics of Houston, Texas, received approval in a five-to-two vote by the US Food and Drug Administration's Medical Devices Advisory Committee. According to the Committee's decision, the device will now be available to millions "as an adjunctive long-term treatment of chronic or recurrent depression for patients over the age of 18 who are experiencing a major depressive episode that has not had an adequate response to four or more adequate antidepressant treatments. Major Depressive Disorder affects nearly 19 million Americans over the age of 18 and is considered the second most disabling condition in the US. When it doesn't respond to two or more adequate antidepressant treatments, it's considered treatment-resistant, a condition that affects 20% of depressed Americans—about four million people. "

Rock & Rap Confidential

rockrap.com "Just why do we need the music industry...? In the past 12 months, the music industry has been forced to give back $70 million to the consumers who were gouged by CD prices AND $50 million in artist royalties that they didn't pay because they claimed they didn't know where to send the checks. And they call file-sharers thieves?" subscribe here and review The Hidden History of Rock and Rap.

ScienceMatters@Berkeley

via boingboing.net: "UC Berkeley Engineering has launched a new publication to focus on the sciences at the university. ScienceMatters@Berkeley reports on mind-bending research in physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics.

In the premier issue:
* Crystallizing Nanoscience
* Hunting the Achilles' Heel of Hepatitis
* The Mysterious Matter of Dark Matter

Feel free to subscribe or RSS ScienceMatters "

JOHO - June 15, 2004

hyperorg.com: "So, I am no longer a pacifist if that means I pledge never to use violence no matter what the situation, real or hypothetical. But I would like to reclaim the term: I am a pacifist because I want us to go to extremes to avoid using violence. Why? Because violence is the ultimate over-simplification."

"What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." (Epictetus)

Top 200 corporations

Of the world's 100 largest economic entities, 51 are now corporations and 49 are countries. How the system works...

Put up a parking lot

If you made a giant jigsaw out of all the highways, streets, buildings, parking lots and other solid structures in the contiguous states, it would cover 43,480 sq miles... an area nearly the size of Ohio... [from oxytocin]

Workers from several universities and agencies have put together the first ever map of the US, which shows "impervious surface areas" The concrete and asphalt of the contiguous states is already slightly larger than that of its wetlands, which cover 98,460 sq km (38,020 sq miles). Every year, one million new family homes are built and 20,000 km (10,000 miles) of roads are laid. [from the BBC]

Classic madness blog...

h13.com: "I sometimes forget I was ever mad at all. It's usually when I'm in the middle of doing something, talking with people, normal activities of the everyday, spent quite casually. It's as if I've always been sane, that all that darkness was just some nightmare, however long, one that should not be brought to heart nor mind any longer, now that dawn has come, and the day goes forth. But no, the feeling is always brief, and in truth, when I am forgetting the madness, it is me forgetting myself entirely for those moments. Preoccupied with this or that, not self-aware to any real extent. Give me a chance to think, and I am starkly aware that I am damaged goods. My past is no nightmare that washes away in the light; the pain, the frustration, the fear: I felt them the more since I was mad, quite unlike the ether of a dream. To a large extent, my madness made me.

I will always look out these eyes and know that I do not look at the world in the way that most of you out there do. I know, no one does, to a certain extent, see the world like anyone else does, but you know what I mean. I approach life as one who has feared for the existence of his soul; I approach religion as one who has spoken with angels; I approach love as one who once knew the deeper mysteries of the universe. I have climbed out of my pit, but I will always smell of it. But let me not say that this is any worse of a life for it. It is merely... different. As if I were from some other planet, immigrated to Earth, never quite getting accustomed to all the little things that make humans human. And I know there are others out there, too, fellow aliens who look at things with two strange eyes, staring at the world and wondering how it always was thus, so curious."

receiver magazine

receiver: "Welcome to Vodafone's receiver magazine! This is a neutral space where pioneer thinkers challenge you to discuss exciting and future-oriented aspects of communications technologies. Started three years ago, receiver is now established as one of the industry's key idea generators.

The slogan of the 'Information Society' was born in the nineties, when Internet technology finally acquired mass appeal. There was more information available than ever before, and all in real time -- the sheer mass of it overwhelmed us. Now, as we have cut the wires, the concept of the Information Society has to be mobilized. And where is that going to lead us? "