Pearl Automation, Founded by Apple Veterans, Shuts Down – The … – New York Times

The company had raised about $50 million from investors, including Venrock, Accel and Shasta Ventures, but it needed several hundred million dollars more to develop the market for its rear-facing camera, as well as a forward-facing camera that was in development. With about 75 employees, about 50 of whom had worked at Apple, the company was burning through cash at a rate that venture investors were unwilling to continue funding without a clear path to a hit product.

It was an ambitious and risky proposition from the beginning, with some great vision to try to revolutionize the automotive aftermarket, said David Pakman, a partner at Venrock who oversaw the Pearl investment. They are extraordinary product people, but none of us understood the market correctly.

Pearls failure was first reported by Axios.

Mr. Gardner said that Pearl held talks with several potential acquirers in the automotive industry but could not reach an agreement. It did find a company, American Road Products, to take over its RearVision backup camera so current customers will not be left in the lurch.

While the company has failed, its employees are already fielding job offers. Brian Latimer, a program manager at Pearl who had previously worked at Apple, said that the employees liked working as a team and that some of them were trying to sell themselves as a package to a new employer.

Were trying to keep the band together, he said. Were incredibly effective.

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Pearl Automation, Founded by Apple Veterans, Shuts Down - The ... - New York Times

Rising Inequality May Be the Real Risk of Automation – Bloomberg

Technological change has had more impact on earnings distribution than on demand for workers, study finds

June 27, 2017, 4:32 AM EDT

If your main worry over automation is losing your job, history suggests youll probably be just fine.

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After all, evena centuryof unprecedented technological advancement in transportation, production and communication hasnt caused labors share of national income to significantly budge.Economists David Autor and Anna Salomons reckon thats because the primary driver of employment has actually been population growth, despite all the emphasis placed in academic circles on howmachines augment human labor as well as why they will ultimately replace us anyway.

The bigger concern, they say, is how technological advances will affect earnings distribution.

Essentially, the argument that the duo puts forth is that as long as there have been humans, there have been jobs a topic Autor, who works at the MIT Department of Economics, previously exploredin a Ted Talk. Theysuggest that labor supply and final demand for goods and services are what actually determine the level of employment, as consuming workers have more and more needs.

Source: David Autor, Anna Salomons

Autors research together with Salomons, who works at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, will be presented Tuesday to central bankers from around the world atthe European Central Banks forum in Sintra, Portugal.

What has changed as a consequence of greater productivity throughtechnological advances is how jobs are remunerated.

Although the raw count of jobs availablein industrialized countries is roughly keeping pace with population growth, the economists write, many of the new jobs generated by an increasingly automated economy do not offer a stable, sustainable standard of living.

Simultaneously, many highly-paid occupations that are strongly complemented by advancing automation are out of reach to workers without a college education.

So if the problem isnt falling aggregate labor demand, but rather an increasingly skewed distribution of employment and ultimately earnings humans may need to re-direct the focus of what technology will mean for the future of work.

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Rising Inequality May Be the Real Risk of Automation - Bloomberg

3 Smart Ways To Win In The Age of AI, Automation and Algorithms – Inc.com

About six weeks ago I received an email from somebody called Amy Ingram. It was a friendly, professional email to schedule a meeting with the CEO of an exciting new start-up I was writing about for my Future Proof column in Inc.

Not Who I Thought She Was.

After a couple of email exchanges the meeting was confirmed and I thanked Amy for her time. When I got to meet with the CEO in person later that week, he looked at me with a glint in his eye and asked, in a rather curious tone, "What did you think of Amy Ingram?" A little confused, I replied that she was very professional and efficient at her job. The CEO smiled again, paused and said that he had a confession to make: Amy was not a human being. She was in fact A.I and the clue was in her initials (Amy Ingram). 'Will you forgive me?" he asked with a grin.

A New Age.

Of course I did, because everywhere around me I am seeing that science fiction is fast becoming science fact. The take-home message is that we've entered a new age of AI, automation and algorithms, where the speed and scale of change create tremendous risk but also tremendous opportunity. I call it 'exponential change' and it's happening now. It took 75 years for the telephone to reach 100 million users, WhatsApp 3 years and the game Pokmon Go just 3 weeks. This new age is the Fourth Industrial revolution, and it's one where data is the new oil and information is the new currency.

Fast Eats Slow.

In this new reality, it's no longer about big or small. It's about fast or slow. According to a recent McKinsey study, 80% of CEOs believe that in this new reality, their current business model is at risk and only 6% are satisfied with their innovation performance. Now more than ever, we need to use brains, guts and an action-oriented growth mindset to ensure our businesses don't become a footnote in corporate history. The twin forces of cloud computing and mobile connectivity are creating massive yet hard-to-predict opportunities, and as ever in business, there will be winners and losers.

Here are three shortcuts for how to not just survive but thrive in the age of AI, automation and algorithms.

1. Intelligent Failure.

Stop worrying about the rate of failure because as long as those failures are cheap, you can afford a lot of them. As the saying goes, "fail fast, fail cheap and move on". To fail intelligently, you need to focus on three simple rules. First, know what success looks like and doesn't look like. I'm always surprised at the lack of focus on a clear outcome. Deciding what not to focus on can also limit any uncertainty. Second, convert assumptions into knowledge and learning. This is a much smarter use of time than trying to prove how right you are. Finally, codify and share what's been learned via a process known as 'After Action Review' (AAR). Pioneered by the military to ensure continuous learning, the AAR process involves asking three key questions.

1. What did you intend to happen?

2. What actually happened?

3. What are the lessons learned?

2. Embrace "Ripple Intelligence".

Can you navigate the myriad different trends, changes, and contexts that can disrupt an industry or business, for better or worse? It may be, that in order to do this well, you need to develop something that entrepreneur Elon Musk possesses in abundance - a quality called ripple intelligence: the ability to see the interactions of business contexts play out like ripples moving across a pond. Musk has a vivid imagination, obsessive focus, and a deep curiosity about the world and business in particular. He is brave not just in his words but also in his actions, and he uses ripple intelligence in a systematic way for moving fast.

One of the best ways to develop this intelligence is to step outside your normal orbit and develop a point of view about not just the ideas, trends and issues that excite you, but also about the ones that that keep you awake at night. Done well, this can help you anticipate hidden opportunities and catch the next big wave before others do. Early adoption will ensure you stay agile and ahead of the pack.

3. Think 10[x], Not 10%.

When was the last time you set a challenge for yourself that pushed you to deliver more than you thought was humanly possible? Most people think about how they can grow by 10% or 20%, not by a factor of 10. 10[x] thinkers are hardwired to think bigger and bolder, whether it's wiping out malaria in the next ten years or making space tourism a reality. They have an eye on the future and can spot an unmet opportunity quickly before others.

You don't have to be a CEO or run a startup to think 10[x]. This is a mindset that involves taking control of your vision rather than having someone else hire you to do theirs. Get started, have a clear destination, fail fast, test ideas lightly and often, and know that those who think 10[x] hold two beliefs: 1. problems can't be solved with yesterday's thinking, and 2. you have the resources to achieve your goals.

The Last Word.

Next time you receive an email, don't assume it's from a human being. The future has already arrived. To lead in this brave new world, you will have to find the courage to upgrade your business model and your mindset multiple times in order to remain viable. The bad news is, you're probably not going to learn this at business school.

As a CEO said to me recently, "if it's not broke, break it."

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3 Smart Ways To Win In The Age of AI, Automation and Algorithms - Inc.com

Government ‘reneging on promise to fund 10,000 extra nursing … – The Guardian

Emily Heron: I would be good at nursing but I feel the government is saying to people like me Im not worthy of the training. Photograph: Luke MacGregor for the Guardian

Universities are warning that the government is quietly reneging on its promise to provide 10,000 new nursing degree places, intended to relieve pressure on the NHS.

Student nurses must spend 50% of their degree working under supervision, usually in a hospital. But universities have told Education Guardian that not a single extra nursing training place has been funded or allocated for the future. It would cost 15m over five years to fund training placements for 10,000 new nurses, according to the Council ofDeans of Health, the body that represents university faculties of nursing.

Applications to study nursing in the new 2017-18 academic year have slumped by 23% compared with last year, after the abolition of bursaries. The government said last year it would free up 800m and pay for an extra 10,000 places by ending bursaries and shifting student nurses to the standard system of 9,000-a-year tuition fees supported by loans. Angry academics now say this was a hollow promise.

Emily Heron, a 22-year-old healthcare assistant who works in a trauma unit in a hospital in Newcastle, says she will have to abandon her dream of becoming a nurse because she cannot afford a degree now. I first realised I was good at caring for people when my dad became terminally ill and I had to leave college to look after him, she says.

I still care for him, and I live on my own with no family to support me. Without a bursary Id have to take out a big loan on top of paying for my house and car. As a student nurse you basically work a full-time job in a hospital and fit your degree work around that, so there is no chance of doing paid work to help support yourself. She adds: I am really committed to nursing and I know Id be good at it. But I feel like the government is saying to people like me that Im not worthy of the training.

Academics are warning that the government must train more nurses as there is no longer a reliable recruitment pipeline from the EU after the Brexit vote. The number of EU nurses registering to practise in the UK has fallen by 96% in less than a year. Only 46 EU nurses came to work in the UK in April compared with 1,304 last July, according to new statistics from the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

David Green, vice-chancellor of Worcester University, one of the leading institutions for nursing, says: I dont believe the policy intention with scrapping bursaries was to expand places; I think it was just to save money. The fact the training placements havent increased shows there was no plan to increase numbers.

He explains: We can give student nurses all the theory, but they need to actually work on a ward. Theres no money for training and we cant take people on with a false prospectus. Thats the story across the country.

Prof Steve West, vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England, which also has high-ranking nursing courses, agrees: At the moment it is not clear how the 10,000 new places for nurses could happen. No new money has been announced so it isnt clear how you fund an increase in what we currently have. Universities are already struggling to protect hospital placements for existing students, he says. Asproviders are squeezed their number one priority has to be giving care, and education slips down the agenda, he says.

Nursing degrees have traditionally attracted relatively high numbers of mature female students, often with their own families to support and often from disadvantaged backgrounds. But universities are reporting that these are the candidates who are being frightened off by high fees and loans.

At Worcester, for the first time, nearly half the people selected for interview to study nursing or midwifery this autumn have either not turned up or explained they do not want to proceed because of the new financial arrangements.

They all say: Im really sorry but I dont know how I can manage with this level of debt, Green says. Because we are right at the top of the hierarchy for nursing, we will be able to fill our places: we have about 10 applicants per place, generally. But there will be no expansion. And watch what happens elsewhere. Other places will definitely have a drop. There are nowhere near enough students to meet the shortfall. And the NHS urgently needs this workforce to expand significantly.

Green is angry that the government now treats nurses and midwives as standard students who should fund their own degrees, when they work 2,100 hours for the NHS free as part of their course, with no promise of a high salary at the end. They work night shifts, weekends and a 45-week year. They are not ordinary students and everyone knows that, he says.

Midwives have to deliver 40 babies as part of their qualification. My wife became a midwife nine years ago. She had one week during her course when she delivered 10 babies in four shifts, all night shifts with no doctor on duty. There is nothing standard about this. Its really unfair to pretend there is.

Kevin Crimmons, head of the department of adult nursing at Birmingham City University, agrees: The environment we are asking our students to go into is unprecedented in terms of the challenges they will face and the pressure the NHS is under. They will be expected to present in a hospital at 7am and face some very physical and emotional challenges. Nurses arent likemost other students. We hold them to a much higher account.

He adds: Our applications from mature students and we take a lot of mature students are markedly down when compared to last year. We are now doing outreach work, going out to FE colleges and talking to students about studying nursing to ensure they are making a decision based on the full facts.

West argues that many student nurseswill have access to more funding under the new system, butadds: They dont tend to see that: what they see is the 9,000 fees. Either they worry that they have to pay it upfront or they worry about taking on the debt. The government has been lax in engaging with the sector on how to communicate a positive single message.

The switch to fees and loans has alsogot caught up in the negative coverage about morale in the NHS, hesays. We are haemorrhaging staff quite significantly. Put the two things together and Im not surprised applications to study nursing from certain groups are lower.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said the planned changes would create up to 10,000 more training places for nurses and allied health professionals by the end of this parliament, adding that there was likely to be a bounceback on applications next year. She said that even with a 23% drop in applications the NHS would still be able to fill the required 20,000 student nursing places this year.

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Government 'reneging on promise to fund 10,000 extra nursing ... - The Guardian

Driverless car technology is being thwarted by kangaroos – The Week Magazine

Roughly 3.3 million years after ancient humanoids invented the earliest known tools, mankind is on the cusp of perfecting sophisticated self-driving technology that has the potential to revolutionize transportation as we know it.

There is only one problem: kangaroos.

Volvo's new self-driving technology uses a "large animal detection" system to prevent its S90 and XC90 car models from plowing into deer or moose while on the go, the BBC reports. But during tests in Australia, researchers realized the technology is completely befuddled by the hops of kangaroos.

"We've noticed with the kangaroo being in mid-flight when it's in the air, it actually looks like it's further away, then it lands and it looks closer," Volvo Australia's technical manager, David Pickett, told ABC.

To fix the problem, Volvo first needs to "start identifying the roo," Pickett explained. That would make sense, seeing as the company initially developed its large animal detection software by dodging moose in Sweden.

Determined, Volvo has spent the past 18 months in Australia teaching its software not to hit kangaroos. The company needs to get it exactly right, after all, as there are more than 16,000 roo collisions a year in the country, NRMA Insurance reports.

"We identify what a human looks like by how a human walks, because it's not only the one type of human you've got short people, tall people, people wearing coats," Pickett explained. "The same applies to a roo." Jeva Lange

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Driverless car technology is being thwarted by kangaroos - The Week Magazine

BlackRock makes technology deal in cash management business – Reuters

BlackRock (BLK.N), the world's biggest asset manager, on Tuesday said it would buy a software company that helps businesses invest their cash, marking its second investment in a technology firm this month.

The investment giant with oversight of $5.4 trillion in assets will buy Denver-based Cachematrix Holdings LLC in a deal slated to close next quarter, according to a statement by both companies. Terms were not disclosed.

Cachematrix builds a software tool that banks can provide to corporate treasurers managing the cash and short-term debt they hold. Investments can be made in money-market funds provided by BlackRock and rival money managers, such as Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and Charles Schwab Corp (SCHW.N).

Just last week, BlackRock said it would take a stake in Scalable Capital, a European digital investment manager.

The deals come two months after BlackRock Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink told Reuters he was considering up to four small acquisitions to shore up the New York-based company's technology and investment expertise.

Fink has placed an unusual emphasis on technology for a company in his industry, including through the company's Aladdin operating system for investment management, which it licenses to rivals.

The latest deal gives BlackRock a new stable of bank clients and pushes Aladdin further into the business of advising companies on how to invest their cash. In a statement, BlackRock said it plans to combine some of Cachematrix's features with Aladdin.

On its website, Cachematrix lists Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and HSBC (HSBA.L) among its clients and reports assisting with $200 billion of client assets.

Banks trying to meet strict requirements intended to prevent another financial crisis have been looking to shed deposits that would require them to hold more capital. Businesses have been eager to find places to put cash as ultra-easy monetary policy has pushed yields on debt to historic lows.

BlackRock in 2015 expanded its reach in the business of managing large institutions' cash and short-term investments when it acquired the money-market fund business run by Bank of America. BlackRock's cash business included nearly $400 billion in assets at the end of March.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt)

LONDON The rise of fintech does not pose any compelling risks to financial stability, according to a review by global regulators, but this may change as the sector grows.

The world of financial technology - also known as "fintech" involves lots of buzzwords, jargon and often obscure terminology.

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BlackRock makes technology deal in cash management business - Reuters

Progress on the road to autonomy – Automotive News (subscription) (blog)

A Ford Fusion navigates an autonomous testing site in Ann Arbor, Mich. Photo credit: FORD

ANN ARBOR -- Codrin Cionca's left hand grasps the roof-mounted grab handle while his right hand rests on his leg. Cionca, a Ford engineer working on the company's autonomous vehicles, puts the Fusion's transmission into L, which powers up the car's self-driving electronics. Then he moves his feet off the pedals.

We're ready to roll.

Mcity, located on the campus of the University of Michigan, is a test course for autonomous light vehicles with many of the traffic features of urban driving. There are roundabouts, traffic lights and stop signs, pedestrian crosswalks and other types of infrastructure that self-driving cars will someday have to interact with.

Of course, Ford wouldn't have invited reporters to ride along as observers if its fleet of autonomous Fusions couldn't flawlessly pilot themselves around Mcity. So, while I was not surprised the cars didn't swerve off the road, hit a pedestrian crossing the street or veer into the bicyclist ahead of us, I was impressed with how smoothly the car worked and how quickly it sensed and adjusted to its surroundings.

Engineers have long known they could build self-driving cars -- even before cars had cameras and computers and other high-tech gear.

They've been installing the building blocks for modern autonomous vehicles since the 1980s, starting with antilock brakes, traction control, electric power steering, drive-by-wire, adaptive cruise control, cameras, etc.

Now, as engineers tie these components together, along with lidar, radar and high-definition mapping, the car is basically becoming a thinking machine that is aware of its place in the world.

The Fusion test drive, for me at least, conveyed that the mechanical bits won't be the hard part. It'll be the computers and software that gets all the components to play nicely together that will be the toughest hurdle to overcome. Think of it this way: Imagine you are at a dinner table where everyone speaks a different language. That's what engineers are facing as they try to make dozens of different technologies work as a system.

When you consider the billions of dollars automakers and suppliers are investing in automated driving technology, you expect to see the fast progress that is being made.

I tested a Land Rover recently that basically drove itself short distances off the road using a technology called "platooning," where the vehicle communicates with the one ahead of it. So, even if the lines in the road are not clearly visible and vehicles don't communicate with buildings and traffic lights, self-driving cars, using high-definition mapping and other technologies, can still function safely in certain situations.

I believe it's going to be many years, decades perhaps, until self-driving cars integrate safely onto the nation's roads and transport passengers 100 percent safely 100 percent of the time. It's not because the technology won't be ready. It's already here, and it works today in places like Mcity

As we approach a roundabout, the Fusion slows itself smoothly, then enters and executes the turn, remaining in its lane, and then exits. No easy feat. But a roundabout is a perfect example of the difficulty engineers face as they develop self-driving technology.

"Roundabouts are considered to be very challenging for automated vehicle technology," says Helen Kourous, a Ford engineer. "They are very unstructured. No two are alike. You can find many different configurations. Human drivers can sometimes get confused in them," she says.

In geofenced areas, such as the parking lot at Walt Disney World, a gated community, or a college campus, Level 5 self-driving vehicles make perfect sense, and they will work. I can see Level 3 vehicles in a few years where vehicles can drive themselves on highways but must hand off to the human driver if they can't figure out a situation. And that's about really all we can expect in the next 25 years.

I don't expect in my lifetime to ever ride on a public road in a Level 5 car, you know, sitting in the back seat reading Automotive News as the vehicle whisks me to work.

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Progress on the road to autonomy - Automotive News (subscription) (blog)

House GOP skeptical of Senate progress on healthcare this week – Washington Examiner

House Republican lawmakers are skeptical that their GOP colleagues across the Capitol can pass a healthcare bill this week, and say there are no immediate plans to stick around and rubber stamp the Senate bill, even if they do manage to find the votes.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., did not warn lawmakers in a Tuesday meeting that they might be asked to consider the Senate bill this week, and he did not give any indication whether Republicans would simply approve the Senate version or go to conference, where the two sides would try to cut a compromise deal.

As of Tuesday, the House is scheduled to leave for a week-long recess on Friday.

"They have not even finished their bill, so we haven't made any decisions," Ryan said Tuesday after a closed-door meeting with GOP lawmakers.

Others said it wouldn't be easy for the Senate to simply tack on a few amendments and get the bill across the finish line.

"There's a lot more work to be done," said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa. "I don't like to make predictions, but I don't think it will pass out of the Senate this week."

While some Republican lawmakers predicted the House GOP will ultimately pass whatever the Senate manages to complete, others said it would take time, consideration and negotiations with the Senate. The House worked for weeks to come up with a consensus on their own legislation and many are not prepared to simply approve of the Senate version.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who heads the House Freedom Caucus, the GOP's most conservative faction, said the House should consider remaining in session to take up the Senate bill if they can pass it this week, depending on what is in it.

"Really at this point, if the amendments are enough to bring over conservatives and moderates then yes, we should stay," Meadows said. "If not, then we need to go to conference and figure out how to find consensus."

But other House Republicans said a more realistic timeline is the end of July, before lawmakers leave for the five-week August recess.

"I think it has a long ways to go before anyone can draw a conclusion," Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., a conservative, told the Washington Examiner. "I think there are going to be a lot of changes between now and then. They can make it very easy, they can make it more conservative, but then they would lose some moderates."

Conservatives in the House are ready to pick apart whatever the Senate is able to do.

"I don't think we can give the Senate a pass," Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, told the Washington Examiner. "We have to take a look at this legislation."

One top GOP lawmaker predicted the House would rubber stamp the Senate bill because members have come to realize that the legislation has been negotiated to the point where there is no more room for change.

"If it passes in the Senate, the House will take it up and pass it," the lawmaker predicted.

Senate Republicans are engaged in behind-the-scenes negotiations with GOP holdouts and are trying to lure in both political ends of their conference with changes to the bill.

Senate GOP leaders have not scheduled a vote to proceed to the legislation due to opposition from both conservatives and centrists.

Some of the proposed changes they hope will draw support include additional money to aid states battling the opioid addiction epidemic, which could attract centrists. Another change would expand health savings accounts, a conservative priority.

Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said Senate passage would pressure the House GOP to act.

"Without a doubt, if it passed over in the Senate there would be the energy over here to get it done, to get it finalized," Walker said.

House Republicans steered clear of discussing the Senate legislation during an hour-long private meeting in the Capitol basement Tuesday morning. Instead, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price addressed the group briefly about administrative moves on healthcare reform, and the rest of the time was dedicated to this week's House floor schedule, which includes a lawsuit reform measure and bills addressing illegal immigration and sanctuary cities.

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House GOP skeptical of Senate progress on healthcare this week - Washington Examiner

Some Progress against the Evils of Civil Asset Forfeiture – National Review

Kevin Williamson nailed the truth in his recent essay civil asset-forfeiture laws are indeed the death of due process. Justice Thomas sees that clearly and perhaps a majority will be persuaded the next time a case involving those laws reaches the Supreme Court.

However, the widespread opposition to allowing police to seize an innocent persons property simply on suspicion that it was somehow involved in or resulted from a crime is having an impact at the state level. In Colorado, Connecticut, and Illinois, bills have either been signed or have reached the governors desk that make their laws less amenable to abuse by police who want to engage in some legal plunder. And in Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court has ruled in an ugly case (a 72-year-old woman was going to lose her house because her son sold some drugs in it) that the Eighth Amendments prohibition against excessive fines applies to such forfeitures. That decision will cut into the profitability of civil asset forfeiture.

I discuss those advances in my latest Forbes article.

Sadly, Congress is sitting on its hands. A bill that would defang this viper as practiced by the federal government, the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act, is stuck in its respective Senate and House committees. Yes, Congress is busy, but in the past there has been heavy support from Democrats and Republicans for the legislation. Getting the FAIR Act passed shouldnt be terribly hard. Months ago, President Trump (after meeting with some sheriffs in Texas) indicated his opposition to reforming civil asset forfeiture, but it might be possible to get him to see that signing a reform bill into law would be most popular in lower-income and minority communities. If he wants to increase his support there, that would be a good move. In any case, repairing the damage civil asset forfeiture does to due process of law should need no political calculus.

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Some Progress against the Evils of Civil Asset Forfeiture - National Review

Despite progress over controversial Mexico fan chant, bigger tests remain – ESPN FC (blog)

John Sutcliffe says there's plenty of lineup decisions to be made with Mexico's depleted squad as they prepare to face Germany. Jonathan Dos Santos explains Mexico's need for squad rotation, and their optimistically pragmatic approach vs. Germany.

SOCHI, Russia -- When you think of Mexico national team fans, what should spring to mind is color and passion. And, sure enough, at each stop so far at the Confederations Cup, curious Russians have lined up to take photos with El Tri supporters dressed as El Chapulin Colorado, mariachis, luchadores or with Jorge Campos replica shirts.

But that undoubtedly positive aspect of fandom has been overshadowed by that goalkeeper chant. Mexico fans chant "puto" in unison as the opposition goalkeeper runs up to take goal kicks. It's common in Liga MX matches and in those involving the national team.

The Mexican federationargues the term is not an anti-gay slurwhen it is chanted en masse inside stadiums, FIFA disagrees. It has been ruled anti-gay by the world governing body, which has fined and warned the FMF on multiple occasions since November 2015. There have also been fears that home games would have to be moved away from Estadio Azteca.

The controversy first garnered global attention at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, when FIFA received a complaint from anti-discrimination group Fare. The disciplinary committee ruled then that the chant was "not considered insulting in this specific context" and dismissed charges against the Mexican federation.

Since then, the FMF has launched campaigns to end the chant but there have been numerous incidents, including several during World Cup qualifiers. Last October, FIFA issued a fine of 85,000 Swiss francs ($85,000) against the Mexican federation and an appeal is currently being adjudicated upon by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

In Russia, FIFA issued another warning"in relation to insulting and discriminatory chants" after the opening 2-2 draw against Portugal in Kazan, stressing that "additional measures" could be taken.

With new rules in place for the Confederations Cup giving referees the power to abandon games if there is discrimination from the stands, the fear within the Mexican federation was a match being suspended and / or some of the 2,000-strong El Tri supporters in Russia being escorted out of stadiums.

The response from the FMF has been unequivocal, with general secretary Guillermo Cantu telling ESPN that the aim is to eradicate the chant in games "all over the world" and hoping that "fans will be more educated over time." Mexico captain Andres Guardado reinforced the message.

So far, the message seems to be getting through. The chant was not heard in Mexico's last two group games and reports that two fans were escorted out of the stadium in Sochi were proved to be incorrect; FIFA told ESPN FC the stories were "without base" and they had no knowledge of the incident happening.

Speaking to a multiple Mexico fans in Russia over the past week, the feeling is that it is time to stop the chant. Outside Fisht Stadium in Sochi before the match against New Zealand, fans held up a banner asking others to refrain from chanting, while pamphlets were also handed out.

"We won't be shouting it," Mexico City native Sandra Brinones told ESPN FC. "It's been communicated and I think we Mexicans have to show that we have culture and respect for other countries and for ourselves."

"Why create a problem if we can be kicked out of the stadium, the federation can be fined or the national team punished with the suspension of a game," questioned "Caramelo," who can be seen at every Mexico game with his "Chihuahua" flag. "We're trying to make this a turning point to ask people to stop."

However, despite his desire to see an end to the chant, "Caramelo," as well as Mexico coach Juan Carlos Osorio, Guardado, Cantu and many fans, still don't think it is offensive.

"When it is screamed in the stadiums, it has this double entendre," Juan Jacobo Hernandez, founder of Mexican gay rights organization Colectivo Sol, told ESPN FC in an interview. "There's the festive interpretation saying that the others are imbeciles, clumsy and don't know how to score. But it's also sexist."

The origins of the chant are not 100 percent certain, but the most often-cited explanationsuggests that it is a relatively recent phenomenon, as opposed to a long-standing tradition in Mexican football.

It was first heard in 2003 when Atlas fans shouted it toward their former goalkeeper Oswaldo Sanchez, who had left the club for America seven years earlier and then moved on to Chivas in 1999. The trigger four years after that, it is claimed, was statements Sanchez made before the game about his heart belonging to Chivas.

But while fans in Russia have largely towed the line, it remains to be seen what will happen when Mexico plays in front of bigger crowds at the Gold Cup in the United States next month, or when World Cup qualifying resumes in September. A recent ESPN Mexico pollrevealed 69 percent of fans will continue to shout it, despite efforts to curb it and potential repercussions.

And so the future is uncertain, although it helps that supporters' groups like Ola Verde and Pancho Villa's Army are active in attempts to end the controversy. "PVA is going to work with fans throughout the Gold Cup to stop the chant," said founder Sergio Tristan. "We will be focusing on education, passing out pamphlets and doing videos, and then creating something new for the opposing goal kick."

With Mexico part of the 2026 World Cup bid along with the United States and Canada, this would be an opportune moment for the chant to disappear. The signs in Russia so far have been positive but time will tell whether this is the beginning of its end. There are bigger tests to come.

Tom Marshall covers Liga MX and the Mexican national team for ESPN FC. Twitter: @MexicoWorldCup.

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Despite progress over controversial Mexico fan chant, bigger tests remain - ESPN FC (blog)

Q&A: Running a company in an era of crazy technological progress – MIT News

How do ongoing advances in technology affect business management? Thats the question the prolific writing duo of Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee pose in their new book, Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing our Digital Future, being published on June 27 by W.W. Norton. Brynjolfsson, the Schussel Family Professor of Management Science at the MIT Sloan School of Management and director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and McAfee, co-director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and a principal research scientist at MIT Sloan, also collaborated in 2014 on The Second Machine Age, another exploration of the changes digital innovation is bringing to the workplace. McAfee recently talked to MIT News about Machine, Platform, Crowd.

Q: What is your new book about?

A: Machine, Platform, Crowd is the answer to a question: How should I think differently about running my organization in this era of crazy technological progress? We need to rethink the balance between the work that we ask human minds to do in organizations, and the work we give to machines. We need to rethink whether you have a product orientation or a platform orientation. And we need to rethink the core of an organization, if there are literally these hundreds of millions of strangers out there across the internet who you can tap into.

Q: Whats different now compared to past moments of technological change?

A: Within the past five years, 10 years easily, at least two really fundamental things have happened. First of all, artifical intelligence started meeting its expectations and even exceeding them. We werent expecting that, and its pretty remarkable. The machines are much more capable. The second thing is, in the era of the smartphone, we have gone from a globe that was pretty disconnected, to having that same human population for the first time deeply interconnected through powerful devices, which are each about as powerful as all the computers collectively on campus when I was an undergraduate at MIT in the 80s. Those are both legitimately new things.

Q: I know youve mentioned the rise of machines that can win at the game of Go as one instance of these advances. What are some of your favorite examples of machines, platforms, and crowds at work now?

A: Go is my favorite example of the power of machines, because it was so unanticipated that we would have a digital Go champion in 2016 or 2017. The insiders thought if that ever happened it would happen much, much farther out in the future.

In our section on products and platforms, we talk about companies like ClassPass, which is trying to build a purely digital platform; they dont own any assets, but theyre trying to provide a virtual, very broad gym membership, or exercise membership [by offering rates for an array of memberships]. So theyre putting a platform over the industry of spinning, yoga, pilates, kickboxing, things like that. And if you had asked me just a little while ago for an industry that would not be greatly affected by the digital transformation, I might have said group exercise: You get in the gym with other people and sweat and have a workout. But after working on the book, I think that the exercise industry is going to be changed a lot by platforms.

Finally, we came across a very interesting company called Quantopia that is trying to be essentially a crowdsourced quantitative trading hedge fund. That may sound ludicrous, except, as the founder of the company has said, it is extremely unlikely that all the worlds top algorithmic traders are employed by the [relative] handful of companies that have dominated this industry. So to test that theory, theyve been holding contests for algorithmic trading. It turns out, lo and behold, most of the people who win those contests are not insiders in the finance industry and have never even worked in finance. It tells me that if you can tap into the crowd and find the right brains, all over the world, and get them involved in what youre doing, the results are potentially tremendous.

Q: Whats the reaction to these ideas when you give talks about them?

A: The reception to these ideas is all over the map. It goes from outright skepticism to something a little more subtle, which is, This is great and interesting, but it doesnt apply to me. Ive come across a lot of that.

Q: Do you get pushback about your interpretation of the pace of innovation itself?

A: Yeah, its super-interesting. Inside the academic community and among economists there is a huge debate about how much innovation were actually seeing. The skeptics say, Where is the productivity growth, if theres so much innovation going on? Or they say, We had amazing periods of innovation in the past. Are we sure this one measures up? And those are important debates to have. But in every other community I try to be part of, and that includes investors, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and executives in mainstream incumbent companies, I dont hear any of that debate, or very little. What I hear instead is: Theres a lot coming at us, and we need to get on top of it and make it work for us.

When people say theres nothing new under the sun, I find that really valuable, because if all you do is talk to technologists, you just get caught up in the hype. Its almost inevitable. So I really value those discussions. But when I talk to almost anybody else, its something close to a foregone conclusion that were living in this remarkable era, and I happen to believe that as well. Not only can we sequence the genome, we can edit it with precision. If thats not a big deal, then I dont [know what is]. We only mention CRISPR briefly in the book, but the period that were in is one to me of monumental progress and innovation.

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Q&A: Running a company in an era of crazy technological progress - MIT News

‘It Comes at Night’ a Spellbinding Tale of Family and Survival – Shepherd Express

Grandfather caught the sickness with labored breathing, skin broken into welts and blood flowing from his mouth. His family had no choice: In the opening, heart-tearing scene from It Comes at Night, son-in-law Paul (Joel Edgerton) and grandson Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), wearing masks and gloves, lead the old man to a clearing outside the house. They cover his face, shoot him in the head, set his body on fire and trudge sadly away as smoke from the pyre reaches the treetops of the dark forest.

It Comes at Night

Joel Edgerton

Kelvin Harrison Jr.

Directed by Trey Edward Shults

Rated R

The why? is finally explained many minutes into the film, but a visual clue appears early on in the form of a print hung on the wall of the familys house: A Bruegel image of the Plague with bodies and skulls heaped against a lurid sky. An unexplained pandemic has swept across civilization, apparently leaving only scattered bands of survivors vulnerable to contagion by air or touch. The interracial family at the heart of It Comes at Night occupies a rambling house in the woods, windows boarded up with only one tightly bolted entrancea red door.

Written and directed by Trey Edward Shults, It Comes at Night is a gripping end-time drama steeped in the conventions of horror. The spooky tracking shots, slowly inching down the dark corridors, suggest a ghoulish apparition is imminent. But the clanging that erupts from the nocturnal darkness comes from living hands. Will (Christopher Abbott) is merely a stranger in search of water. Paul beats Will and ties him to a tree until assured that the stranger is healthy and means no harm. Soon enough, Wills wife Kim (Riley Keough) and their little boy come to live in the big forest house, contributing chickens, goats and canned goods to the larder. The two families seem to bond around common meals but distrust lingers.

The small cast is perfectly in pitch. Edgerton plays Paul with a hard face and eyes continually scanning for danger. Although he says he was a history teacher, his reflexes are those of a Special Forces officer commanding a vulnerable outpost. His wife, Sarah (Carmen Ejogo), is no less determined but softens his deadly survivalism with a touch of empathy. Their son Travis, 17, sensitive and artistic, suffers from nightmares that tend to come true. Will, a mechanic before the sickness came, brings another set of practical hands; Kims presence inadvertently adds sexual tension to Travis already bulging kitbag of burdens.

Ebbing and flowing between unease and high anxiety, the emotional strain of It Comes at Night never ceases. Suspense and suspicion are palpable in the face of an implacable specter: the microbes of a sickness without a cure. The plague might enter the house with any stranger that knocks on the red door.

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'It Comes at Night' a Spellbinding Tale of Family and Survival - Shepherd Express

Modern Satanism | Prometheism.net – Part 7

Prior to LaVey forming the Church of Satan, LaVey in the early to mid sixties would hold Midnight Masses at his Victorian home in San Franciscos Richmond District. It would attract many high profile figures from the San Francisco area, which made LaVey somewhat of a local legend. This is what caused LaVey to start the Satanic Church later renamed the Church of Satan (often referred to CoS for short).

In 1969 LaVey wrote the Satanic Bible, which would prove to be the bedrock for modern Satanism. To date it has sold nearly 1,000,000 copies worldwide and has been translated into several languages.

The Church of Satan thrived vigorously in the late sixties and early seventies attracting many celebrities including Sammy Davis Jr., and Jayne Mansfield to name a couple.

In 1975 many changes occurred within the CoS, LaVey had done away with the Grotto system. A network of sub-churches setup across the country. Some structural re-organization had also been done.

It was at this time that Michael Aquino, member of the Church of Satan, broke away from the Church and formed his Temple of Set. Aquino maintained that LaVey had changed his stance from believing in an actual Satan to referring to it as more of a relative term. LaVey claimed that he had always referred to Satan as a Dark force of Nature rather than an actual deity.

Between 1970 and 1992 LaVey had written three other books. The Compleat Witch (Re-released as The Satanic Witch), The Satanic Rituals, and The Devils Notebook.

During this period in the 80s there was a wave of Satanic panic as many talk shows, news media, and various papers across the country began reporting on Satanic Serial Killers, and Groups of Satanists that were opening day care centers, molesting, and sacrificing children. This sparked an FBI investigation, which concluded that there was no such activity taking place.

Just after the release of the Devils Notebook in 1992 LaVey made a film entitled Speak of the Devil It was a documentary about the Anton LaVey, the history of Satanism, and the Church of Satan. It seemed to revive the Satanic movement a little but not nearly as much as would be seen in 1996.

A musician by the name of Marilyn Manson release an album entitled Antichrist Superstar which fueled a pop-culture trend of Goth teenagers proclaiming to be Satanists. Many of these children were nothing more than alienated teens that were simply rebelling against religion, and their parents.

This created a surge of attention for LaVey and the Church of Satan. A revitalized church had sky rocketing membership applications and a renewed interest in Satanism. Ironically in the midst of the Goth culture phenomenon LaVey would die of heart failure in his home on the night of Oct. 27, 1997.

The Aftermath of LaVeys Death

Not surprisingly the death of LaVey created a frenzy in and outside of the Satanic community. Detractors came out from rocks to demystify, or debunk nearly all parts of LaVeys personal and private life, and of course the Church of Satan itself.

Karla LaVey (Antons eldest daughter) and Blanche Barton (LaVeys Biographer, and mother of his Son) had agreed to run the Church together as co-High Priestesss. It was just after this agreement that Blanche produced a handwritten will and claimed that the Church, LaVeys personal property, and all rights to LaVeys writings were the sole property of Blanche, and LaVeys youngest Son Xerxes.

Karla had contested the will citing a Doctors statement that LaVey was heavily medicated and had just come out of a death experience when he was coerced to write the Will. The Will was later invalidated and an agreement was made.

Feeling that her fathers personal items were more important than the organization itself Karla agreed to let Blanche have the Organization known as Church of Satan in return LaVeys three children (Karla, Zeena, and Xerxes) were to equally divide his personal belongings, and the rights to his works.

During this time Blanche and clergy of the Church had begun a vicious campaign against Karla claiming she was not qualified to run the Church, had not contributed to the Church, and went through long periods of not speaking to her father.

In reality Karla LaVey had gone on numerous lecture tours at Universitys regarding Satanism. Appeared on countless television talk shows and radio interviews, promoting the Church, her fathers work, and the philosophy itself. She was even featured on the Cover of Brazils most popular magazine giving an interview on the Satanism, and the Occult.

Karla then decided to form the First Satanic Church in 1999, an identical organization to her fathers old Church in order to carry on the family tradition. Her church is operating out of San Francisco just as her father had run the Church of Satan.

Blanche currently resides in San Diego, California and has no longer handles CoS administration. The Church of Satan is now run mostly online, based out of New York where memberships are processed, while still maintaining the P.O. Box in San Francisco for personal correspondence to Blanche.

A large number of new Satanic Churches have popped up since the death of LaVey in 1997. Most of them Internet based and lacking any real substance. That just seems to be par for the course these days.

A Word about Satanism Today

Satanism has always been about being an individual; it therefore makes sense that regardless of organizational politics the primary focus should be on the individual. It has become a bit clich yet it still holds true that you do not have to join any organization to be a Satanist. Only you can determine where you want to go in life.

In closing I would like to say that Satanism is the Bedrock philosophy of human existence. It is the philosophy that is your primer paint before you put several layers of other paints on the wall. It is the first stepping-stone in lifes journey for infinite knowledge. In the long run its really what keeps you grounded and your head out of the clouds.

I would encourage you to do your own research and studying on the subjects of Satanism & the Occult Sciences. Click below to learn a few basic tennets of Satanism.

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An Introduction to Modern Satanism ahftu.net

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Modern Satanism | Prometheism.net - Part 7

Satanism Making Comeback Through Witchcraft and Atheism: Rabbi – Breaking Israel News

For these nations, that thou art to dispossess, hearken unto soothsayers, and unto diviners; but as for thee, Hashem thy God hath not suffered thee so to do. Deuteronomy 18:14 (The Israel Bible)

(Shutterstock)

At the stroke of midnight on Wednesday, some 13,000 people will connect via internet in yet another attempt to cast a curse on President Donald Trump, this time on the summer solstice. Though spell-casting may seem too absurd to be taken seriously, a rabbinic authority maintains that the witches are tapping into Satanism, a disturbing theology making a strong comeback today in the guise of atheism.

The witches are a motley collection with a mixed bag of rituals and beliefs, incorporating the arcane and the religious. The solstice curse calls for colored candles, Tarot cards, and chanting, but also allows for using Cheetos and religious amulets. As irreverent as this may seem, Rabbi Daniel Asore, who investigates the threat Satanism poses today as a member of the nascent Sanhedrin, believes the connection between witchcraft and politics is more relevant and dangerous than ever.

Witchcraft, or its real name, Satanism, is explicitly a power struggle, which is why it is so readily dragged into politics. Satanism, in its essence, pits the adversary against God, Rabbi Asore explained to Breaking Israel News. Though this power struggle has been brewing all through history, today, when we are so close to Moshiach (Messiah), the role it is playing in politics could not be more clear.

The politicians who believe that man can control all aspects of the world are coming from a belief system based in Satanism, whether knowingly or not.

Rabbi Asore explained how arcane Satanism and modern materialist atheism are surprisingly similar. In both belief systems, nature, not a deity, is the supreme power. There is no God who created or stands above nature, and with no divine spark, man is simply another animal.

Atheists, like all Satanists, see themselves as the ultimate authority, independent of any higher rule, so morality becomes entirely subjective, he told Breaking Israel News. Since the self is the center of the universe, they are anarchists, believe in limiting the world population through war, abortion, and non-productive relationships. Nature has usurped Gods eternal aspect, so the individual is the all.

The conflict between Satanism and religion over the eternal has an end-of-days implication. Satanists reject the possibility of Messiah and do not believe in a future redemption. Rather, they believe nature itself is infinite, and as such, there was no creation and there will be no Messiah.

A quick glance at the website of the Satanic Temple confirms the rabbis claim. The stated mission of the Satanic Temple is to reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will.

Rabbi Asore noted that the rejection of the Bible is common to both atheists and Satanists as a basic tenet, though atheistic Satanism does not believe that Satan actually exists, and they do not worship him. Atheistic Satanism believes each person is his or her own God, and that people should worship themselves. To them, Satan is a symbol of rebellion rather than a literal figure.

Satanists believe that the Jews created the Bible as a conspiracy to control the consciousness of society, the rabbi concluded. Any religion that accepts the Bible as divine, as God teaching man the way the world should be according to the divine will, as a way to transcend nature, is pitted against Satanists and atheists.

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Satanism Making Comeback Through Witchcraft and Atheism: Rabbi - Breaking Israel News

A Reply to Rod Dreher on Worldview – Patheos (blog)

Writing at The American Conservative, Rod Dreher raises some concerns with evangelical use of the concept of Christian worldview. Working as I do ata Christian worldview ministry, and having recently met Rod at the Colson Centers Wilberforce Weekend conference, I found the piece especially relevant. He makes a number of suggestions and statements with which I disagree, but two in particular stood out.

First, Rod suspectsthat teaching students to break down the world in terms of worldviews creates a kind of intellectual arrogance and dismissiveness:

The problem with worldview education[]is that it closes off the possibility of wonder by providing a rigid ideological measuring stick for texts. Gibbs said it gives students unearned authority over a book. Hand them The Communist Manifesto, they open it up, say, Marxist!, then cast it aside. Hand them Thus Spake Zarathustra, they open it up, see Nietzsches name, say, Nihilist! and cast it aside.

Better, suggests Rod, to encounter a work on its own terms, without any preconceived notions about the validity or consequences of the philosophy it teaches. Oddly, though, he seems to see the problem with this approach.

Worldview instruction involves giving students spoilers as it were about communism or nihilism or Islam or atheism. Christian parents and teachers explain the gist of a worldview, and why it ultimately cant account for reality or meet the needs of the human soul like Christianity can. But if, in place of worldview instruction, we allowed students to encounter these worldviews more organically (one might say experience them as their original adherents did), we run into a big problem. Far from gaining intellectual humility, young readers are notoriously prone to an even worse sort of intellectual arrogancethe kind that so often attends undergraduate apostasies. Rod writes:

I remember encountering Nietzsche in a college philosophy course, one in which I had first been introduced to Kierkegaard. Meeting Kierkegaard was an important step on the road to my own religious conversion, but one of my classmates caught afire with the gospel of Nietzsche. He found God is dead to be liberating. Once that semester, he stood on a bench at Free Speech Alley, the weekly campus forum, held high his marked-up copy ofThe Portable Nietzschefrom our class, and proclaimed to the crowd: God is dead!

Rods description is dead-on. I have met these kids. Oh, have I met them. And there is something palpably ridiculous about the freshman philosophy student who reads the seminal texts of nihilism or Marxism or transcendentalism or utilitarianism, and thinks he has received a revelation from Mount Olympus that no Christian has ever encountered, and which will upend the simple worldviews of everyone back home. Voddie Baucham describes this problem well:

There ought to be a rule: You should not be able to talk aboutphilosophy unless youve had more than a semester ofphilosophy. If you havent had any, thats fine. Talk away! But if youve had a semester, you are messed up. Youd be better off just not taking it at all.

Contra Rod, what I find most often gives students a sense of unearned authority isnt instruction about other worldviews (at least not if its done right), but the unshakable and nave belief that they are the first Christian young person to ever read Nietzsche (or more often Peter Enns or Bart Ehrman) and that there are no good answers to these mens attacks on their parents and neighbors faith. Indeed, very often, these students are precisely those who havenot received worldview instruction, have not seriously interacted with the claims of non-Christian thinkers, and have come to believe as a result thatnoChristian has seriously interacted with such claims.

One thing worldview instruction at its best does is create in middle and high school students an awareness that theyre not the first Christians to encounter alternative worldviews and challenges to their own, and that there are good answers to these claims. In other words, it fosters a kind of intellectual humility, and keeps freshmen from coming home for Christmas to beat their grandparents over the heads with class warfare or intersectionality or JEDP theory.

Yes, we should be willing to read the seminal texts of alternative worldviews deeply and carefully, understanding what makes them tick, and not fall prey to caricatures of those faiths and philosophies (which is what worldview instruction at its worst looks like). But to learn about a worldview is necessarily to form some kind of preconception about it, and specifically (when it comes to the worldviews behind some of the worst mass-murdering regimes of the last century) a kind of prejudice against them. Theres nothing at all wrong with that.

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A Reply to Rod Dreher on Worldview - Patheos (blog)

Plato Would Have Laughed at Our Era’s Faith In Rationalism – Big Think

1. History will puzzle over our eras ruling faith in rationalism. Behavioral economics is shaking that faith but as Nick Romeonotes, Plato described cognitive biases ~24 centuries ago.

2. And Plato is far from alone. Hasnt every realistic writer described humanitys everywhere-evident cognitive foibles? Except some math-obsessedeconomists?

3. Doesnt history, and the arts, and daily experience, testify against those hyper-rational individualists of econo-models?

4. For instance, here's Shakespeare on confirmation bias: Trifles light as air / Are to the jealous confirmations strong / As proofs...

5. The gist of many cognitive biases shouldnt surprise non-economists (a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush = loss aversion).

6. Daniel Kahnemans cognitive-bias-cataloging Nobel involved studying grandmotherly wisdom (every psychologist knows were neither fully rational, nor completely selfish).

7. Beyond the fun of footnoting philosophy-founding dialogues with cognitive biases, Plato would have laughed at econo-rationalism.

8. And Plato saw money-lust as enslavement to irrational impulses (now driving mindless market priorities).

9. He knew were irrationally persuadable. He hated sophists for teaching how to sell seductive surfaces over substance (marketing over product). Marketing, obviously, has always used cognitive biases (under-theorized).

10. Even as many economists declare that were rational optimizers, businesses operate on the profitable principle that theres an easily manipulable fool born every minute.

11. But Plato abetted modern rationalisms rise by popularizing math-lust. 2,000 years later falling in love with geometry was an Enlightenment occupational hazard. And today similar math-worship (for algebra + stats) drives economists to irrational math-oholic fantasies.

12. Largely unnoticed is how Platos dialogues dramatize the shortcomings of cognitive individualism.

13. Social cognition research shows that individual knowledge is always remarkably shallow>we never think alone.

14. Isnt it self-evident that we evolved to reason socially? Thinking, like every other significant aspect of human nature, evolved collectively and tribally (not econo-individualistically).

15. Intriguingly, while confirmation bias worsens solo thinking, it can improve group reasoning (other cognitive perspectives countering your biases>dont think alone, or with cognitive clones).

16. Countering cognitive individualism is how science succeeds (bias-balancing processes).

17. That famed-science-institution motto "take no man's word for it," also applies to your own word. Feeling sure that youre right often isnt a reliable intuition. We fall in love with ideas and methods and become blind to our beloveds faults.

18. Math-method-loving economists strengthen faith in rationalism by routinely excluding "obvious empirical facts if theyre not equation friendly. This equation filtering begets theory-induced blindness (field-wide method-level bias).

19. This math-fashioned folly must misrepresent us for its beloved math model-making to work. Arguing that models, like maps, must exclude details, fails because here were ignoring known roadblocks. Theres no efficient-allocation market nirvana without rationally optimizing masses.

20. Beyond the matho-pathology of unbehavioral economics, misplaced faith in rationalism enabled Donald Trumps presidency. He grasps empirical psychology better than many rationalists. Every salesperson knows persuasion isnt factual or logical, but unavoidably emotional, and trust-dependent (see Aristotle on ethos, pathos, logos).

21. Ways of life that deny our deeply limited, deeply flawed, deeply social nature are doomed to historys dustbin.

IllustrationbyJulia Suits,The New Yorkercartoonist & author ofThe Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions

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Plato Would Have Laughed at Our Era's Faith In Rationalism - Big Think

Why You Can Expect Increased Violence When The Left Is Out Of Power – The Federalist

As Jon Ossoff left the stage in defeat for the sixth congressional district runoff race last Tuesday, he said, Darkness has crept across this planet. Call it metaphor or call it spiritual, its not the scientific secularism the Left claims to represent. In fact, it represents a resurgent spiritual posture with distinct articles of theology. One of the loci theologici of this theology is its initiation sacrament, its baptism of blood if you will: political violence.

It begins, as we see in Ossoffs words, with the view that world as it exists in its totality is under the rule of dark powers. This is classic Gnosticism. The esoteric language of the historic Gnostic myth sounds arcane to the modern ear, but the psycho-spiritual mechanisms going on are resurgent, and until we grasp Gnosticisms various traits and characteristics (which you can get a fuller reading of here), we will not fully understand our era.

Note, for instance, the Manichaeism (an ancient Gnostic variant) of the leftist imagination. The world of the past is a realm of darkness and ignorance, generating systems and institutions like marriage, gender constructs, bordered nations, rationalism, individualism, federalism, capitalism, language, and so on. Stooges of this dark world order are the un-woke.

Meantime, for the woke (a truly Gnostic term) they envision a place of purity and light, where borders, gender distinctions, marriage definitions, distinctions between personal property, and rational meanings in language all dissolve. (The discerning will note its the darkness that blurs distinctions and the light which exposes them.)

When they win, the Left becomes Hermetical. Hermeticism, which was popular in the Renaissance after a Neoplatonism revival, was optimistic Gnosticism, proposing man can take the reins of the worlds dark overlord and run the world for good. This is the long march through the institutions approach, and with the actual success of this approach since the 1960s. the Left was content to sit back while History did its thing.

Now that the Left has lost, and keeps losing, another dynamic is taking over. Its not one of surfing History into the future, but of lashing out at phantom threats under the delusion that its self-defense. Its logical within the Gnostic framework: I do violence to defend myself against the oppression of the current system and its supporters. The obvious example of this is the recent shooting in Alexandria, Virginia. But consider some other high-profile examples and pay attention to the language.

After the University of California-Berkeley erupted in leftist violence, the Daily Californian ran five editorials under the banner of Violence as self-defense. Nisa Dang wrote, To people with platforms who decide when a protest should and should not be violent: You speak from a place of immense privilege. As I recently wrote in a tirade against this brand of idiocy, asking people to maintain peaceful dialogue with those who legitimately do not think their lives matter is a violent act.

Then theres Kathy Griffin and her odd justification for mock-beheading President Trump: Ive dealt with older white guys trying to keep me down my whole life, my whole career.

Now we hear from Huffposts La Sha on the death of Otto Warmbier at the hands of North Korean torturers: The hopeless fear Warmbier is now experiencing is my daily reality living in a country where white men like him are willfully oblivious to my suffering even as they are complicit in maintaining the power structures which ensure their supremacy at my expense.

Or consider the mocking reaction you get from leftists on the rising suicide rate among middle-aged white males. Bill Maher is typical: Its hard out there for a wimp, and thats why tonight Id like to remind white people of something very important they may have forgotten, youre white, cheer the f-ck up.

In each of these examples, the author or speaker has lost touch with basic human decency, caught up in a psycho-spiritual drama where the world is imprisoned by dark forces operating through entities, including people, deserving of destruction. Why? Because the salvation of humanity requires it.

This all reminded me of my favorite quote I discovered while researching for my book, Gnostic America, where Donna Minkowitz claims she had sadistic lesbian sex (even calling such sex a gnosis) as a rebellion against marriage norms. On these terms we get insight into the Lefts regard of abortion as a sacred act: its a bloody political revolution against traditional systems of oppression created by reproductive biology in cahoots with traditional culture.

The fact that Minkowitz made her reflections on rough sex after attending a religious right charismatic eventand seeing a similar spirit there as she saw in the gay rights movementonly underscores the total permeation of a certain, iconoclastic spirit in the American soul. And that spirit is Gnostic.

Gnosticisms iconoclastic streak throughout history is apropos. Iconoclasm literally means to break images. Images, in their original Greek progeny, are phantasmic, as in, they are something mentally or psychologically induced taking projected form. Of course, for the Gnostic, what is mentally or psychologically induced is the only sort of reality that matters.

Heres the kicker. As I become woke to my imprisonment in the external, dark world order, reality transfers from the outside to the inside. My engagement with reality evolves from a posture of reception to a posture of projection. Where before I might see a particular human being as a unique, independent entity sharing a humanity with meChristians call that my neighbornow I project onto him my newly woke imaging. Everything outside of me now becomes a projection of internal phantasms, characters, and symbols in my own psycho-drama.

The bottom line is that, once woke, you see the world in symbolic, iconic idioms, icons deserving destruction. Thus iconoclasm. A simple shop in an inner city becomes a symbol of the system of capitalistic oppression, deserving of riotous destruction. A police officer becomes a symbol of white privilege, justly murdered in an effort to break free from oppression.

A soldier becomes a symbol of American colonialism, rightly spit upon. Donald Trump symbolizes the patriarchy keeping women down. Republicans become symbols of all that is evil, the archons ruling the world, who will keep us all in chains unless destroyed. Language must be deconstructed, by violent legal fiat if need be. As icons of a hopelessly corrupt world oppressing me, it all must be iconoclastically broken. Violence is salvific.

So long as we are a media-saturated culture, its not likely things are going to get better. Media by its very nature works in the realm of the phantasmic, manipulating archetypes and narratives. Every story has to have a hero and a villain, and in the gnostic psycho-drama, representatives of traditions and long-standing systems or institutionslike capitalism, republicanism, federalism, the rule of law, individualism, marriage, family, and faithare the villains keeping the hero from his journey of authentic self-realization.

The Left is no longer dealing with passive Christians, but with a new, irreligious rightist element that will fight back.

Exhibit A: just about every movie ever made. Exhibit B: the mainstream medias framing of news and events. Its the gnostic psycho-drama that haunts the American soul, a truly American religion.

Until we pass through this gnostic moment, and begin seeing each other as our flesh and blood neighbors with names and not through the phantasmic and archetypical lenses of Facebook, the mainstream media, pop music, and any number of other media, the violence will only heighten. This is true on the Left as well as on the Right. The Left should know that theyre no longer dealing with right-wing, passive Christians, but with a new, irreligious rightist element that will fight back. Have fun with that.

Over the last several decades our society has made the wager that we can disconnect from a religion whose central message is that God traversed the gulf between spirit and flesh, becoming our flesh-and-blood neighbor, making our neighbor an object of love, and miraculously creating a community of human beings transcending race and nationality.

But as that same religion has warned us, madness lies the way of that disconnect. Madness, and also violence.

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Why You Can Expect Increased Violence When The Left Is Out Of Power - The Federalist

‘What Would You Do?’ Author Wants To Stop Sensationalizing The Donner Party – NPR

Author Michael Wallis says there are modern lessons to learn from the Donner Party primarily about the fatal combination of ignorance and arrogance. Above, an undated drawing of the pioneers, looking to make their way West. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images hide caption

Author Michael Wallis says there are modern lessons to learn from the Donner Party primarily about the fatal combination of ignorance and arrogance. Above, an undated drawing of the pioneers, looking to make their way West.

Tales from the American West are marked by heroism, romance and plenty of cruelty. Among those stories, the saga of the Donner Party stands alone a band of pioneers set out in covered wagons for California, and eventually, stranded, snowbound and starving, resorted to cannibalism.

Author Michael Wallis says the story of Donner Party has been sensationalized over the years. His new book chronicles the journey from its beginning, illuminating the challenges the families faced, and the fatal error that set them on a tragic course accepting bad advice that an uncharted shortcut would ease their passage to California. About half of the party survived.

Without the cannibalism, Wallis suspects the ill-fated pioneers would have become a "footnote" in history. Instead, "the focus continues to be on the cannibalism itself," he says, "when in fact there's so much more. That's why I wanted to tell the back story."

His new book is called The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny.

On the Donner-Reed Party

The three principle leaders of what came to be commonly called the Donner-Reed Party were the two Donner brothers, George and Jacob Donner, and James Reed, an Irish immigrant who struck it rich in the lead mines of Illinois. All three of them hooked up in Springfield, Ill. ... Reed became friends, at least good strong acquaintances of the Donner brothers, and those were the three that forged this plan to take their families, to take their livestock, to take their belongings, and to move West to follow the California trail to the so-called "land of milk and honey."

On what they packed for their journey

Both the Donner brothers and James Reed did their research, and they were actually quite well prepared when they embarked on this long journey across the rest of the continent. They knew that ... as many as four to six oxen, were necessary to pull those wagons loaded with all of their belongings that they wanted to bring with them to start these new lives. They brought with them cattle and spare horses, saddle horses.

They brought essentials that they thought that they would need along the way, and once they got to California, including items that they could use to trade and win the good graces of people they might encounter along the way. ... They brought books, they brought bottles of fine wine.

In James Reed's case he brought such a fine wagon that years later it came to be called "the prairie palace." He equipped it with a big feather bed for his infirm mother-in-law to rest in on the journey. He put a cook stove in it. ... It was quite a sight on the road. And most of this material, of course, never made it to the Sierras. It eventually had to be discarded along the way.

On the ill-fated Hastings Cutoff, an alternate route proposed by Lansford Hastings

[Explorer James Clyman, a friend of James Reed, made] a visit to Illinois ... and sat down over beverages that evening around a fire with members of the Donner-Reed Party and focused on James Reed and said, "Don't take this shortcut! Lansford Hastings doesn't know what he's talking about. He, in fact, has never taken this cut-off himself. I advise you strongly, don't take it. Stick to the known California trail. Don't take this shortcut that's going to save you time, because it won't." And unfortunately James Reed didn't heed his old friend's advice.

On crossing the Great Salt Lake Desert

They needed to trim down the physical size of their caravan, and that meant leaving behind any non-essentials like big feather beds and iron cook stoves, and sadly some of the animals that couldn't make the journey. Some things were cached, buried in the desert sands, always hopeful that they'd come back and get them. Alas, that never really happened.

But they pressed on, facing this horrific heat and agony of the salt desert, and at night, the freezing temperatures. It just took toll, after toll, after toll on these people and on their animals. They begin to break up a little bit physically. People move ahead and so forth. This happened throughout the whole journey.

On the group starting to break up

There were some deaths. There was the death of a young infant. There was a death of a sick man they had picked up along the way. They lost a lot of their animals. They had to leave behind certain wagons belonging to the different families and groups. They had to consolidate. They had to ... learn to work together, something that proved to be very difficult.

There was already a force at work undermining what should've been a cohesive group. Part of that is, I think, just human nature. It was starting to be survival of the fittest and families pulling themselves into themselves and being concerned mostly with their immediate family as opposed to the whole group.

On the atrocities the pioneers committed against Native Americans

I don't think people realize that California, what became the state of California, was particularly brutal. [For] many California tribes it was total genocide. There are stories of Anglos going out and literally having target practice by shooting Indians. That was part of that whole Manifest Destiny thing "we" could possess the continent because there were no people out there. There were Mexicans, yes, a lot of it belonged to Mexico and there were all these Plains Indians, but they in fact weren't people, they weren't human beings, so it's "ours" for the taking.

On the winter coming earlier than expected

By October it became evident that winter was setting much earlier than expected, and in fact it did. That, of course, was another big problem, another big reason for this tragedy. They made it up to what's called Truckee Meadows, right around where Reno now is, and were looking towards the Sierras. ... They got to these meadows. ... They rested a bit too long. They ended up literally stopped by these winter storms. They could go no further, so they set up camp ... and there they stayed from October throughout the winter of 1846-1847, just trying to survive.

On their failed attempts to get over the Sierra mountains

They didn't get into these camps and just give up and sit down, there were forays out. ... They'd get up as far as they could go and then they'd be repelled by this incredibly deep snow we're talking about snow 20- and 25-feet deep, just impossible to get through. They would even fashion snow shoes and they tried all kinds of ways to get through the snow and couldn't.

Michael Wallis has written several books about the American West. He's also a voice actor who plays the sheriff in the animated Cars films. Shellee Graham/Liveright hide caption

Michael Wallis has written several books about the American West. He's also a voice actor who plays the sheriff in the animated Cars films.

On turning to cannibalism to survive

They ate literally everything before they had to turn to human flesh. They of course killed the great oxen, the horses, everything, and ate that meat. They boiled the hides, they picked out the bone marrow, they made this gelatinous, awful goo from the hides and it had very little, if any, nutritional value.

They ate field mice they caught in their cabins and camps. They finally got to the point where they had to kill all of their beloved dogs, very sadly, and ate all of them. Then they were chewing on pine cones and ponderosa pine bark. They're starving and they're freezing to death, they're becoming delirious, they had to chew on something, so they chewed on anything they could find.

But ultimately, they turned to the protein that was the human the dead companions, friends, family, that they had storehoused that had already died from starvation and from hypothermia in the snow banks. They did that totally to survive, but it was very much the last resort. ...

They tried their best not to consume flesh of family members, they were so careful.

On putting himself in their situation

When people say to me, "This cannibalism, how awful!" I always just turn it right around on them and say, "What would you do? What would you do if you were starving to death, freezing to death, and your children were around you, and you saw them, and they were dying, and you knew that this store of protein was there? What would you do?" I know what I would do. ...

Out of all those parties that did [survive], two entire families survived, two large families [including the Reed family.] ... But it was just the Reed family alone that never partook of a piece of human flesh, they were somehow able to avoid that due to the diligence and the care of the mother, Margaret Reed.

On members of the Donner Party murdering two Native Americans who came to their aid

These two Miwoks were with the Forlorn Hope Party, and after cannibalism in the Forlorn Party began, the two Indians refused to eat human flesh. They were growing weaker and weaker and ultimately the rationalism was, once again, "Well, these are Indians, so they're fair game." So they were shot, field dressed, and eaten. ... Ironically, a few days later there were Miwok Indians who came to the aid of the Forlorn Hope and made sure they got down to safety.

On what can be learned from the Donner Party today

I think it tells us not only about the American West but really about the whole nation. ... So many people find that really the idea of Manifest Destiny still exists in this country, this whole idea of American exceptionalism. ...

Those of us who do not learn our history are doomed to repeat it the sins of the past and that's certainly the case with the Donner Party. The words that ring out to me continually are two words that combined can be very fatal, then as now, and those words are: ignorance and arrogance.

On a sentence from a letter Patty Reed wrote to a cousin after she was rescued

I think [this] serves as ... a fitting benediction to this whole story this is what she wrote: "We have left everything, but I don't care for that. We have got through with our lives. Don't let this letter dishearten anybody. Remember: Never take no cut-offs, and hurry along as fast as you can."

Sam Briger and Thea Chaloner produced and edited the audio of this interview. Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the Web.

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'What Would You Do?' Author Wants To Stop Sensationalizing The Donner Party - NPR

A world where the truth matters not – Mathrubhumi English

Populists pandering to parochial identities, polarising multi-ethnic societies, posing extravagant claims but backtracking without any blushes after securing their objective (while the public doesn't seem to care), reversing rationalism, demonising dissent and blaming the other/outsiders for all ills. Welcome to the "Post-Truth" world where the truth is no longer an obstacle - and its very concept is contested.

But Donald Trump, the Brexiters, the climate change deniers, the anti-vaccination or anti-immigration crowd, even our own infallible leaders, and the like proliferating all around are consequences, not causes of the "Post-Truth" phenomenon.

And it is not only rooted to these people or issues, contends British political journalist Matthew D'Ancona, noting that even Trump's eventual departure from office will not mean its end since the phenomenon is not only a mere contest between two competing ideologies of the political spectrum.

Therefore it is necessary to know why it this different from politics so far, how did we get to such a state of affairs, and why should we care.

It is a new strain of politics, shows D'Ancona in this book, one which goes beyond the usual tactics of less than the full truth, exaggeration and hyperbole or spin seen so far but is far more worrying because of its unwholesome underpinnings, response of particularly credulous public and reach and impact of digital technology and social media which facilitate it.

"We have entered a new phase of political and intellectual combat, in which democratic orthodoxies and institutions are being shaken to their foundations by a wave of ugly populism. Rationality is threatened by emotion, diversity by nativism, liberty by a drift towards autocracy. More than ever, the practice of politics is perceived as a zero-sum game, rather than a contest between ideas. Science is treated with suspicion, and sometimes, open contempt."

And "at the heart of this global trend is a crash in the value of truth", with honesty and accuracy no longer prized in such politics.

D'Ancona notes Trump figures quite a bit but clarifies his book is not about him or the the far right or any other ideology, but seeks to explore truth's "declining value" for society and its implications.

"If indeed we live in a Post-Truth era, where do its roots lie? What are its principal symptoms? And what can we do about it?" he asks and seeks to go to some quite unexpected areas to find the answers.

For its roots, he, tracing warnings from George Orwell in the age of totalitarianism, seeks to lay some culpability on Dr Sigmund Freud and his system of therapy giving primacy to emotions to the post-modernists and their attack on the notion of any objective reality.

But D'Ancona also shows how blame also lay in eroding trust in institutions spanning the governments, parliaments, big business (especially banks in 2008), media and experts of all stripes, which led to to "an uprising against the established order and a demand for ill-defined change".

And there was no shortage of politicians, to use this trust deficit- not only out of unscrupulousness but also of zealotry (sometimes closely linked to bigotry too) and the conviction they are right.

The symptoms of this phenomenon are too well known for anyone who follow the revolt against the status quo, seen most in the Brexit campaign and Trump's rise. D'Ancona is particularly scathing on the latter, terming him "a soiled Gatsby" or an entertainer with a talent for emotional narrative who has successfully "recast the presidency as the most desirable role in show business" and pointing how erroneous his statements are.

D'Ancona not only describes this "pernicious trend" of Post-Truth and its dangers but also calls on anyone who is worried about it not to sit passively for it to dispel but fight to defend respect for the truth, and rational, scientific thinking against its practitioners' "plutocratic, political and algorithmic firepower". He also offers a selection of strategies, ranging from vigilance to verification, and even satire, to confront it.

Ultimately it is up to us to determine if we want to think independently or allow someone's prejudices to determine our choices and future. IANS

Title: Post-Truth - The New War on Truth and How to Fight Back; Author: Matthew D'Ancona; Publisher: Ebury Press/Penguin Random House UK; Pages: 164; Price: Rs 399

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A world where the truth matters not - Mathrubhumi English

Humans reach for godhood and leave their humanity behind – Washington Post

Much analysis of Yuval Noah Hararis brilliant new book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, focuses on the harrowing dystopia he anticipates. In this vision, a small, geeky elite gains the ability to use biological and cyborg engineering to become something beyond human. It may upgrade itself step by step, merging with robots and computers in the process, until our descendants will look back and realize that they are no longer the kind of animal that wrote the Bible [or] built the Great Wall of China. This would necessarily involve the concentration of data, wealth and power, creating unprecedented social inequality.

In the early 21st century, argues Harari, the train of progress is again pulling out of the station and this will probably be the last train ever to leave the station called Homo sapiens.

Few of us Homo sapiens are eager to take such a trip, apart from some dataists who pant for the apocalypse. But, as Harari repeatedly insists, the prophets job is really an impossible one. Someone living in the 12th century would know most of what the 13th century might have to offer. Given the pace of change in our time, the 22nd century is almost unimaginable.

Yet the predictions are not the most interesting bits of the book. It is important primarily for what it says about the present. For the past few hundred years, in Hararis telling, there has been a successful alliance between scientific thought and humanism a philosophy placing human feelings, happiness and choice at the center of the ethical universe. With the death of God and the denial of transcendent rules, some predicted social chaos and collapse. Instead, science and humanism (with an assist from capitalism) delivered unprecedented health and comfort. And now they promise immortality and bliss.

This progress has involved an implicit agreement, In exchange for power, says Harari, the modern deal expects us to give up meaning. Many (at least in the West) have been willing to choose antibiotics and flat-screen TVs over the mysticism and morality behind door No. 2.

It is Hararis thesis, however, that the alliance of science and humanism is breaking down, with the former consuming the latter. The reason is reductionism in various forms. Science, argues Harari, revealed humans as animals on the mental spectrum, then as biochemical processes and now as outdated organic algorithms. We have opened up the Sapiens black box and discovered there neither soul, nor free will, nor self but only genes, hormones and neurons.

This rather depressing argument is well presented, with a few caveats. Hararis breezy style is sometimes in tension with his utter nihilism. Here is a moral rule: You can either be cheery or you can describe the universe as an empty, echoing void where human beings have no inherent value. But you cant do both.

And Hararis treatment of religion is, charitably put, superficial. He seems to think that the absence of an immortal soul can be proved by dissection. Scientists have looked into every nook in our hearts and every cranny in our brains. But they have so far discovered no magic spark. For future reference, religious believers dont generally view the liver or the pineal gland as the seat of the soul. And when Harari claims that religion is no longer a source of creativity and makes little difference, it is tempting to shout Martin Luther King Jr. at your e-reader.

But Harari has one great virtue: intellectual honesty. Unlike some of the new atheists, he recognizes that science is incapable of providing values, including the humanistic values of Locke, Rousseau and Jefferson. Even Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and the other champions of the new scientific worldview refuse to abandon liberalism, Harari observes. After dedicating hundreds of erudite pages to deconstructing the self and the freedom of will, they perform breathtaking intellectual somersaults that miraculously land them back in the 18th century.

Harari relentlessly follows the logic of reductionism as it sweeps away individualism, equality, justice, democracy and human rights even human imagination. Yes, God is a product of the human imagination, but human imagination in turn is the product of biochemical algorithms.

This is the paradox and trial of modernity. As humans reach for godhood, they are devaluing what is human. Omnipotence is in front of us, almost within our reach, Harari says, but below us yawns the abyss of complete nothingness. A humane future will require someone to offer a bridge across the chasm.

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Humans reach for godhood and leave their humanity behind - Washington Post