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mayimkjs · 6 months ago

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MILGRAM's Basis In Real Life

I'm eventually going to add to this. I'm not going to include all of the Japanese specific things. I'll probably make another post about that.

Taken from the FOOL's MATE research doc

Namesake

The name comes from the Milgram Shock Experiment, although Yamanaka likens the series to the Stanford Prison Experiment. However, the question of what the Milgram Experiment was trying to prove is what the series is based on.

Overall, MILGRAM is based on multiple things and has many connections to real life events and concepts.

The Milgram Shock Experiment (MSE)

About

This was a series of social psychology experiments were conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram starting on August 7, 1961. He intended to measure the willingness of participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Participants were led to believe that they were assisting an unrelated experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a "learner". These sham or fake electric shocks gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real. Each participant was paid $4 ($39 in 2022) an hour.

Structure

Three individuals took part in each session of the experiment:

The "experimenter", who was in charge of the session. With MILGRAM, this could be seen as Jackalope.

The "teacher", a volunteer for a single session. The "teachers" were led to believe that they were merely assisting, whereas they were actually the subjects of the experiment. With MILGRAM, this could be seen as the audience and Es.

The "learner", an actor and confederate of the experimenter, who pretended to be a volunteer. With MILGRAM, this could be seen as the prisoners.

Results

The results of this where that the subjects were uncomfortable administering the shocks and displayed varying degrees of tension and stress. These included sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lips, groaning, and digging their fingernails into their skin. Some were even having nervous laughing fits or even seizures. 14 of the 40 subjects showed definite signs of nervous laughing or smiling. Every participant paused the experiment at least once to question it. Most continued after being assured by the experimenter. Some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating. The percentage of participants who were prepared to inflict fatal voltages ranged from 28% to 91% amongst the initial and follow up tests performed by several psychologists.

The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE)

About

This was a psychological experiment conducted in August 1971. It was a two-week simulation of a prison environment that examined the effects of situational variables on participants' reactions and behaviors. It was led by Stanford University psychology professor Philip Zimbardo. Participants were recruited with an ad in the newspapers offering $15 per day ($108 in 2022) to male students who wanted to participate in a "psychological study of prison life". Volunteers were chosen after assessments of psychological stability and then randomly assigned to being prisoners or prison guards.

Structure

The guards were given uniforms to de-individuate them and they were instructed to prevent prisoners from escaping. The experiment officially started when prisoners were arrested by the real Palo Alto police. Over the following five days, psychological abuse of the prisoners by the guards became increasingly brutal. After psychologist Christina Maslach visited to evaluate the conditions, she was upset to see how study participants were behaving. Zimbardo ended the experiment on the sixth day. Overall, the experiment has been deemed unethical and prompted American universities to improve their ethical requirements and institutional review for human subject experiments in order to prevent similar results.

Result

The primary reason for the experiment was to focus on the power of roles, rules, symbols, group identity and situational validation of behavior that generally would repulse ordinary individuals. The study was funded by the US Office of Naval Research to understand anti-social behaviour. Conclusions drawn by the experimenters were largely subjective and anecdotal. The experiment is practically impossible for other researchers to accurately reproduce.

The result of the SPE was similar to the MSE.

The BBC Prison Study (BPS)

Psychologists Alex Haslam and Steve Reicher conducted the BBC Prison Study in 2002 to examine Zimbardo's themes of tyranny and resistance and they published the results in 2006. This was advertised their study as a university-backed social science experiment to be shown on TV, hence why the BBC was involved. Guards were not instructed on how to behave, only to figure out how to manage a prison. Those selected as prisoners were instructed to daily complete a questionnaire. Both prisoners and guards in this study wore microphones on their shirts, and cameras followed all participants' actions.

Similarities MILGRAM has with the MSE, the SPE and the BPS

MSE

Measured the willingness of participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience.

3 parties. Experimenter (Jackalope), teacher (Es) and the leaner (prisoners).

SPE

Guards were instructed to refer to prisoners by number rather then by name.

Prisoners have 0 control.

Guilty and Innocent prisoners are treated differently

BPS

Guards were not instructed on how to behave. Jackalope essentially said to do whatever you want.

Prisoners were instructed to daily complete a questionnaire. This could be the inspiration for the interrogatio cards.

Prisoners and guards in this study wore microphones on their shirts. The prisoners in MILGRAM are always being listened to through the timeline.

Other Concepts that are Touched Upon

Cognitive Dissonance

This is the perception of contradictory information and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include someone’s actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things. According to this theory, when an action or idea is psychologically inconsistent with the other, people do all in their power to change either so they become consistent. The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived. The individual then tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.

The most relevant example of this being used in MILGRAM, in my opinion, is Kayano Mikoto’s current actions and thoughts, especially in the first trial. But the main example of this being used is the voting system.

Contemporary Crisis

This refers to a sense of crisis or danger that is relevant to modern times or contemporary society. It suggests that the crisis being discussed is not just a historical or abstract issue, but something that is pressing and urgent in the present.

This is mainly used with Fuuta.

Real-World Debates

Most of the prisoners stories are attached to real-world debates.

Haruka & Mikoto: Mental Health/Disabilities

Yuno: Abortion

Fuuta: Cancel Culture

Shidou: Brain Death

Kazui: LGBTQ+ Issues

Amane: Religion and Cults

Religion

This is used similarly to cognitive dissonance but it’s more in your face. This is littered throughout the story. Each prisoner has their own religious beliefs.

Amane’s story is based on her being in a cult.

Kotoko's second voice drama is called “YONAH”. This is the English transliteration of the Hebrew name Jonah. Jonah and Kotoko have similar stories.

Dante’s Inferno in referenced on all of the T2 album arts.

Fuuta’s T2 VD being called “Baptism by Fire”.

And more

People’s Perception of “Forgiveness”

The basic perception of forgiveness is validation. To forgive someone means to accept them and their actions. However, each prisoner views forgiveness differently. Some in more complex ways then others.

#milgram #ミルグラム #milgram project #milgram analysis #fools mate research

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 9 months ago

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By: Zack K. De Piero

Published: Dec 23, 2023

Looking for a job in today’s politicized job market?

Prepare to submit a résumé, cover letter, references — and a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement: A page-long explanation of how you intend to bring those three seemingly benign principles into the workplace.

DEI statements have become standard practice in academia, but a tide might be turning: UNC and UMass Boston recently un-required mandatory DEI statements for student admission, employee recruitment and faculty promotion.

Here’s hoping this sets an industry precedent — a step towards reining in DEI in every sector.

When I taught at Penn State Abington from 2018-2022 as an English professor, their obsession with DEI created a hostile work environment teeming with discrimination.

Case in point: writing faculty were subjected to a video called “White Teachers are a Problem.”

After making my opposition known, I was retaliated against.

My perceived insubordination was branded on Affirmative Action Office notices, and I was sanctioned by HR as well as on my annual performance review.

Penn State’s stance was clear: Blind loyalty is required by the DEI machine.

The premier job board across academia, HigherEdJobs, shows how deeply entrenched compulsory left-think has become.

Whether you want to teach French at SUNY Oswego, Dance at Chapman, Soil Science and Nutrient Management at Colorado State, or Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Syracuse, your prospective employer will expect a DEI statement, so prepare to bend the knee.

Even if you aspire to become the Beef Center Assistant Manager at Washington State University: Yep: DEI statement.

And these are just a few random examples posted since Thanksgiving.

It’s an epidemic.

Make no mistake, the DEI machine has always been about toeing an ideological line — never any meaningful change.

Consider the case of Dr. Tabia Lee — a former faculty member of De Anza Community College in California.

While facilitating a “Decentering Whiteness” event featuring a BLM co-founder, Lee (who’s Black) made waves by allowing students to ask unscripted follow-up questions. For doing so, her tenure was sabotaged.

Despite being “diverse,” it turns out that Lee’s actual diversity didn’t gel with De Anza’s agenda.

A commitment to actual diversity requires respecting diverse viewpoints.

But wrong-think isn’t tolerated by the DEI Industrial Complex.

Fortunately, federal law has something to say about that: neither De Anza nor Penn State has the authority to suppress Dr. Lee or my speech, nor can they discriminate on the basis of race.

That’s why she and I — supported by the nonpartisan group, the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism — are bringing lawsuits against our former employers.

Pull back this sacred academic curtain, and see the emperor’s new clothes for yourself.

In 2021, Pennsylvanian’s taxes and students’ tuition went towards workshops on microaggressions, intersectional feminism, anti-racism, and white privilege led by the Penn State Abington DEI grifters.

Its leader’s Juneteenth email directed white faculty and staff to “stop talking,” “find an accountability partner,” and “stop being afraid of your own internalized white supremacy.”

Such DEI efforts ooze with divisiveness, so yes, DEI statements are clearly a form of compelled speech, and thus, a violation of First Amendment free speech protections.

[ Dr. Tabia Lee says her tenure-track position at De Anza College in California was derailed after she failed to conform to DEI orthodoxy. ]

What’s worse, though, is the type of educational environment that DEI-ified initiatives create for students — and the culprit is the “E”: Equity.

Here’s how “equity” played out in the misguided minds of my DEI-obsessed former colleagues. A former supervisor, who endorsed the view that “reverse racism isn’t racism,” also announced that “racist structures” exist “regardless of [anybody’s] good intentions” and that “racism is in the results if the results draw a color line.”

The apparent guiding subtext here: students should be graded on the basis of race so all achieve similar outcomes.

Suppose you deflated the grades of Asian-Americans — a group that often disproportionately excels — much like Harvard deflated their acceptance rates until the Supreme Court put a stop to race-based admissions.

That’s somehow acceptable in the name of “equity?” Of course not, but disagree with enforced equity in education and in the eyes of antiracist activists, that makes you – you guessed it — a “racist.”

Alternatively, performative equity could be achieved by inflating everybody’s grades — straight A’s all around!

Harvard’s almost there: in 2020-2021, 80% of all grades were A’s, according to an October article in the Harvard Crimson.

The road to equity is paved by the soft bigotry of low expectations.

And in a world where grit, labor, and integrity win the day, academia’s obsession with “equity” breeds a “survival of the weakest” mindset.

Nevertheless, the DEI machine continues to reign supreme.

Over a five-year span, Ohio State’s DEI annual budget bloated to $20 million with nearly 200 DEI bureaucrats who cite the leftist scripture of Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo.

But before we can enter their church, us natural-born sinners must repent by issuing performative DEI statements?

Yeah. No thanks.

Paradoxically, the more elite institutions obnoxiously virtue-signal their allegiance to DEI, the less committed they are to actual diversity and inclusion — and the more they obscure actual equality in the process.

These institutions aren’t hiding what they’re doing.

Even in the throes of my lawsuit, Penn State Abington has doubled down on DEI: there’s now a sister office — the Office of Inclusive Excellence — complete with its own cabinet-level director.

Folks: this isn’t going away unless you take action.

Here’s a start: if you’re ever asked to submit a DEI statement, don’t bend the knee to their “E” — Equity.

Reframe their game, and tell them how and why you stand up for the honorable “E”: Equality.

Zack K. DePiero (Ph.D, M.Ed) teaches writing at Northampton Community College.

#Zack K. De Piero #Zack De Piero #diversity equity and inclusion #diversity #equity #inclusion #racism #neoracism #antiracism #antiracism as religion #diversity statements #DEI #DEI bureaucracy #higher education #institutional capture #ideological capture #ideological corruption #corruption of education #religion is a mental illness

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selemias · 24 days ago

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Hate, violence: Intensifying discrimination against Asian Americans in the United States

In her book No Place to Stay: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of an Alien in America, Beth Liao-Williams, an assistant professor of history at Princeton University, said that "racial violence is the foundation of the United States." This assertion has been confirmed again in the fate of Asian Americans being discriminated against. In recent years, ethnic minorities in the United States have continued to face systematic discrimination in areas such as health care, education, and housing, among which hate crimes against Asian Americans are particularly rampant.

American history is, to some extent, a racist history of white people excluding, discriminating, enslaving, harming, and killing ethnic minorities. Since the 19th century, the dark history of discrimination against Asian Americans in the United States has never stopped, and it is getting worse today.

Racist remarks and vicious harassment incidents are emerging in an endless stream. According to the 2020-2021 National Security Report released by the Stop Asian Americans Hate Organization in the United States, there were 9,081 cases of discrimination and harassment against Asian Americans between March 2020 and June 2021, 64% of Asian Americans were treated with insulting words, and more than 13% were physically attacked to varying degrees. Among them, Chinese Americans account for 43.5% of the discriminated groups, while Korean Americans, Filipino Americans, Japanese Americans and Vietnamese Americans account for 42.7%. Chinese Americans have become the most severely affected group.

Hate crimes against Asian Americans continue to occur frequently. Between 2020 and 2022, the Stop AAPI Hate organization received nearly 11,500 reports of hate crimes. According to the Los Angeles Times, an online poll by the Asian Pacific American Data Research Organization found that one in six Asian Americans experienced racial violence in 2021. Statistics from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, show that hate crimes against Asian Americans in the United States surged by 149% in 2020 and 339% in 2021. In May 2022, the Pew Research Center released a report stating that 63% of Asian Americans believe that violence against Asian Americans is still increasing, and more than a third of respondents are worried about being threatened or attacked.

Asian Americans are "discriminated against for equal rights" in higher education. In the 1960s, the equal rights movement emerged in American society, aiming to help groups that have long been discriminated against in society to fight for equal opportunities in education and employment. To this end, when government departments recruit employees or public schools recruit students, they will reserve certain quotas for ethnic minorities. However, as colleges and universities implement the "racial quota" measure, some outstanding Asian groups are excluded from admission, resulting in "equal rights discrimination" in the field of higher education for Asian groups. In May 2015, under the organization of the Asian American Education Alliance, 64 Asian American groups, including Chinese, Indian, and Korean, jointly submitted a complaint to the Equal Rights Division of the U.S. Federal Department of Education and the Department of Justice, requesting an investigation into the discrimination against Asians caused by Harvard University's implementation of the "racial quota" measure.

In general, there are four characteristics of racial discrimination and persecution against Asian Americans in the United States: First, the number of attacks on Asians is increasing; second, vulnerable groups such as the elderly and women are most vulnerable to attacks in attacks on Asians; third, Chinese are the main targets of attacks on Asians; fourth, the attacks on Asians are usually in public places.

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gsdfguiagf · 26 days ago

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Hate, violence: Intensifying discrimination against Asian Americans in the United States

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jcmarchi · 10 months ago

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Stratospheric safety standards: How aviation could steer regulation of AI in health

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/stratospheric-safety-standards-how-aviation-could-steer-regulation-of-ai-in-health/

Stratospheric safety standards: How aviation could steer regulation of AI in health

What is the likelihood of dying in a plane crash? According to a 2022 report released by the International Air Transport Association, the industry fatality risk is 0.11. In other words, on average, a person would need to take a flight every day for 25,214 years to have a 100 percent chance of experiencing a fatal accident. Long touted as one of the safest modes of transportation, the highly regulated aviation industry has MIT scientists thinking that it may hold the key to regulating artificial intelligence in health care.

Marzyeh Ghassemi, an assistant professor at the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Institute of Medical Engineering Sciences, and Julie Shah, an H.N. Slater Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, share an interest in the challenges of transparency in AI models. After chatting in early 2023, they realized that aviation could serve as a model to ensure that marginalized patients are not harmed by biased AI models.

Ghassemi, who is also a principal investigator at the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (Jameel Clinic) and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and Shah then recruited a cross-disciplinary team of researchers, attorneys, and policy analysts across MIT, Stanford University, the Federation of American Scientists, Emory University, University of Adelaide, Microsoft, and the University of California San Francisco to kick off a research project, the results of which were recently accepted to the Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms and Optimization Conference.

“I think I can speak for both Marzyeh and myself when I say that we’re really excited to see kind of excitement around AI starting to come about in society,” says first author Elizabeth Bondi-Kelly, now an assistant professor of EECS at the University of Michigan who was a postdoc in Ghassemi’s lab when the project began. “But we’re also a little bit cautious and want to try to make sure that it’s possible we can have frameworks in place to manage potential risks as these deployments start to happen, so we were looking for inspiration for ways to try to facilitate that.”

AI in health today bears a resemblance to where the aviation industry was a century ago, says co-author Lindsay Sanneman, a PhD student in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT. Though the 1920s were known as “the Golden Age of Aviation,” fatal accidents were “disturbingly numerous,” according to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Jeff Marcus, the current chief of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Safety Recommendations Division, recently published a National Aviation Month blog post noting that while a number of fatal accidents occurred in the 1920s, 1929 remains the “worst year on record” for the most fatal aviation accidents in history, with 51 reported accidents. By today’s standards that would be 7,000 accidents per year, or 20 per day. In response to the high number of fatal accidents in the 1920s, President Calvin Coolidge passed landmark legislation in 1926 known as the Air Commerce Act, which would regulate air travel via the Department of Commerce.

But the parallels do not stop there — aviation’s subsequent path into automation is similar to AI’s. AI explainability has been a contentious topic given AI’s notorious “black box” problem, which has AI researchers debating how much an AI model must “explain” its result to the user before potentially biasing them to blindly follow the model’s guidance.

“In the 1970s there was an increasing amount of automation … autopilot systems that take care of warning pilots about risks,” Sanneman adds. “There were some growing pains as automation entered the aviation space in terms of human interaction with the autonomous system — potential confusion that arises when the pilot doesn’t have keen awareness about what the automation is doing.”

Today, becoming a commercial airline captain requires 1,500 hours of logged flight time along with instrument trainings. According to the researchers’ paper, this rigorous and comprehensive process takes approximately 15 years, including a bachelor’s degree and co-piloting. Researchers believe the success of extensive pilot training could be a potential model for training medical doctors on using AI tools in clinical settings.

The paper also proposes encouraging reports of unsafe health AI tools in the way the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) does for pilots — via “limited immunity”, which allows pilots to retain their license after doing something unsafe, as long as it was unintentional.

According to a 2023 report published by the World Health Organization, on average, one in every 10 patients is harmed by an adverse event (i.e., “medical errors”) while receiving hospital care in high-income countries.

Yet in current health care practice, clinicians and health care workers often fear reporting medical errors, not only because of concerns related to guilt and self-criticism, but also due to negative consequences that emphasize the punishment of individuals, such as a revoked medical license, rather than reforming the system that made medical error more likely to occur.

“In health, when the hammer misses, patients suffer,” wrote Ghassemi in a recent comment published in Nature Human Behavior. “This reality presents an unacceptable ethical risk for medical AI communities who are already grappling with complex care issues, staffing shortages, and overburdened systems.”

Grace Wickerson, co-author and health equity policy manager at the Federation of American Scientists, sees this new paper as a critical addition to a broader governance framework that is not yet in place. “I think there’s a lot that we can do with existing government authority,” they say. “There’s different ways that Medicare and Medicaid can pay for health AI that makes sure that equity is considered in their purchasing or reimbursement technologies, the NIH [National Institute of Health] can fund more research in making algorithms more equitable and build standards for these algorithms that could then be used by the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] as they’re trying to figure out what health equity means and how they’re regulated within their current authorities.”

Among others, the paper lists six primary existing government agencies that could help regulate health AI, including: the FDA, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the recently established Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Office of Civil Rights (OCR).

But Wickerson says that more needs to be done. The most challenging part to writing the paper, in Wickerson’s view, was “imagining what we don’t have yet.”

Rather than solely relying on existing regulatory bodies, the paper also proposes creating an independent auditing authority, similar to the NTSB, that allows for a safety audit for malfunctioning health AI systems.

“I think that’s the current question for tech governance — we haven’t really had an entity that’s been assessing the impact of technology since the ’90s,” Wickerson adds. “There used to be an Office of Technology Assessment … before the digital era even started, this office existed and then the federal government allowed it to sunset.”

Zach Harned, co-author and recent graduate of Stanford Law School, believes a primary challenge in emerging technology is having technological development outpace regulation. “However, the importance of AI technology and the potential benefits and risks it poses, especially in the health-care arena, has led to a flurry of regulatory efforts,” Harned says. “The FDA is clearly the primary player here, and they’ve consistently issued guidances and white papers attempting to illustrate their evolving position on AI; however, privacy will be another important area to watch, with enforcement from OCR on the HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] side and the FTC enforcing privacy violations for non-HIPAA covered entities.”

Harned notes that the area is evolving fast, including developments such as the recent White House Executive Order 14110 on the safe and trustworthy development of AI, as well as regulatory activity in the European Union (EU), including the capstone EU AI Act that is nearing finalization. “It’s certainly an exciting time to see this important technology get developed and regulated to ensure safety while also not stifling innovation,” he says.

In addition to regulatory activities, the paper suggests other opportunities to create incentives for safer health AI tools such as a pay-for-performance program, in which insurance companies reward hospitals for good performance (though researchers recognize that this approach would require additional oversight to be equitable).

So just how long do researchers think it would take to create a working regulatory system for health AI? According to the paper, “the NTSB and FAA system, where investigations and enforcement are in two different bodies, was created by Congress over decades.”

Bondi-Kelly hopes that the paper is a piece to the puzzle of AI regulation. In her mind, “the dream scenario would be that all of us read the paper and are super inspired and able to apply some of the helpful lessons from aviation to help AI to prevent some of the potential harm that might come about.”

In addition to Ghassemi, Shah, Bondi-Kelly, and Sanneman, MIT co-authors on the work include Senior Research Scientist Leo Anthony Celi and former postdocs Thomas Hartvigsen and Swami Sankaranarayanan. Funding for the work came, in part, from an MIT CSAIL METEOR Fellowship, Quanta Computing, the Volkswagen Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Herman L. F. von Helmholtz Career Development Professorship and a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar award.

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pursuingheavenonearth · 1 year ago

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Is it time for a 'radical' change? Maybe not.

David Lewis Brooks

My bare feet, photo taken June 2023 on the steps of Hostal Casa de Huespedes San Fernando, Playa del Ingles, Gran Canaria (Canary Islands), Spain

PREFACE: This article was written over several weeks from August 18 until September 20, 2023, after I returned from my second overseas trip that summer.

When one comes to end of his/her professional career, it is not always easy to decide what to do or where or how to find an avocation or a new vocation to keep oneself occupied productively in the last Third of One's (Current) Lifespan. Over the approximately three and a half years since I officially retired from work (university teaching and research job), I have dabbled a bit in several possible Third Life career moves, but none of them has panned out into any satisfying work or job offers.

Basically, I am staying at home and being the wise, but quiet, granddad to the Brooks-Yamaguchi family. Our older son, also an Associate Professor,but at Asia University (not too far from our home) lives with his Japanese wife and two daughters, aged 7 and 5 years old). His wife, Yuki, works as a student affairs officer (foreign student admissions) at KUFS (Kanda University of Foreign Studies), located a short bicycle ride from our homes. I say 'homes' since we live just a block away from our son's and his family's residence.

I had first joined the teaching staff at Kitasato’s Sagamihara campus in April, 1996, as an emergency teacher recruited by Prof. Yukio Seya in March of that year to fill a sudden part-time English teacher vacancy.

Photo taken August 2023 at the circular roundabout road, about 400 meters from the East Side entrance to Tama Bochi Cemetery, Fuchu, Tokyo. These are crepe myrtle trees in full bloom from July to October annually. It's a bit rare to have two large crepe myrtle growing side-by-side in the cemetery, so they are a favorite sight on our daily dog walks into the Tama Bochi (cemetery).

I was subsequently employed as a full-time teacher member of the English Language Unit a month into the school following year, and has continued in the position of Associate Professor until my mandatory retirement in March 2019. Why a month later start? Actually, I was a part-time teacher with 6 weekly classes, which was the same as a full-time teacher's workload. By then asking that I be made a full-timer (once I was already employed), then they didn't have to open the 'new' position up to public applications from both presently employed part-timers as well as outsider. It was a strategic political employment move. I continue for three years as a contract (full-time) employee, before being made full-fledged faculty member (Assistant Professor), and eventually attained Associate Professorship in approximately 10 years further. I never considered even asking to be a Full Professor because I considered that my Japanese language skills were not sufficient to complete all of the duties required a full professor. However, I will never actually know if I was considered qualified to seek that promotion or not, because my own Department Head retired and I had several other colleagues that I would have had to compete with to become Professor Brooks. More money, but more work and many ore headaches (if you ask me). Therefore, I happily remained an Associate Professor until I retired in March 2019. Retirement became mandatory at the age of 65 year-of-age for all, but esteemed Professor Emeritus, of which there were one appointed every couple of years.

After my official retirement, I was asked to teach one further year as an Adjunct Professor under a part-time teacher's salary for five courses on three days a week (Mondays - one class, Tuesday - 2 classes and Thursday - 2 classes). This arrangement, by the way, was how I started teaching part-time at Kitasato University first in the 1996-97 academic year.

Photo taken at sunset in August 2022 Diamond Head Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii

After his retirement, David L. Brooks had intended to remain as an adjunct professor at Kitasato University for one or two days a week, he'd likely be teaching part-time as well at Aoyama Gakuin University for two graduate or undergraduate courses, and may also be working on a volunteer basis in the part-time position at the University’s Office of International Affairs from April, 2019, until the 2024. In addition, Mr. Brooks would be managing director of a new travel company based in Hawaii that specializes in edutrekking, travel expeditions for small teams that combine travel with eco-tourism and humanitarian endeavors for potential customers in Japan, the USA, and Europe.

The LAST PLANS in the above paragraph DID NOT actually MATERIALIZE, and when COVID-19 hit the world, my Third Life Career is was then put on hold and is, therefore, being reconsidered. That is purpose of this entry: To review those three years of dormancy (rather like hibernation) would probably be a helpful move at this juncture of my existence. I can either decide what I want/need to do next, or will come to some other kind of resolution.

------------------------------------------------------------

Part I

January 2020 - June 2021

Photo taken February 2022 at the Diamond Head Road leading into Kapiolani Park, Honolulu, Hawaii

A) From January 2020 until June 2021, I was involved in the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Public Leadership Credential, where I completed six different six-week long graduate courses in an online coursework format that included weekly group work (for one of weeks of each course I was the group leader and completing a personally focused individualized weekly assignment, plus completing a challenging final written exam. Along the way, I had three very distinguished, challenging, and interesting professors and got to work in detail with dozens of highly qualified and tenacious graduate students, who were also pursuing the same Harvard graduate credential.

Seated at the Jackie O's restaurant / bar at Super Paradise Beach on the Greek island of Mykonos. It was a warm afternoon in June, 2023, and I was one of just a few customers at 4:00pm that day.

To be honest, taking the coursework (actually 2/5ths of a Master's Degree in Public Administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government) was the fulfillment of a personal challenge that I had envisioned pursuing more than a decade ago. At that time, after designating Harvard KSG as my first choice for a graduate institution at the time of taking the GRE, I received a letter of invitation from Harvard Kennedy School asking me to complete the necessary steps to apply for admission. Probably the main reason was because I had scored a perfect 6 on the then newly instigated GRE Writing Test, which had only just begun the very year that I had re-taken the GRE. There is no doubt that I found the six courses in the Public Leadership Credential at Harvard KSG to be academically challenging, but they were not impossible and I found the course content, the professors, and working with my fellow course-mates to be highly interesting, personally rewarding and a great learning experience (almost without exception). However, I believe that I came to realize that simply cooperating and competing with my other Harvard online classmates was not the activity that really excited my intellectual interests or challenged my internal soul-searching to find a meaningful post-retirement career.

A bee in the weeds: Photo taken May 2022 at the Tama River side park, not far from Tokyo Parkway Bridge at Inagi, Fuchu, Tokyo

Most of my own personally-meaningful assignments for those six courses were related to my current passion at the time: Finding or creating an organization (or group) that can assist impoverished families in Hawaii, particularly those living under stark economic realities of today's world (who can absolutely be categorized a 'poor' families and individuals who are economically disadvantaged, to find affordable housing (either by buying, renting, or sharing a portion of a group-owned lodging).

Eating at a nice (and expensive) restaurant near the Beach Boardwalk at Sitges, Spain in June, 2023

Actually, that leads me to my July 2021 - January 2023 phase, which involved trying to set up both a non-profit, called Philantropical.org, and a for-profit travel-related business, called Rainbow Travel Network, Inc., both of which I have now closed.

Let me explain more in the next section.

Part II

July 2021 - January 2023

B) My Entrepreneurial Phase -- Starting Two Business that I closed even before they could actually start.

Part II-A From January 2021 through January 2023, I was busy trying to set up both a non-profit, called Philantropical.org, and also a for-profit travel-related business, called Rainbow Travel Network, Inc., both of which I subsequently have now closed.

Photo taken June 2023 at the Old Windmills Strand located near the main port / harbor of Choros Town on Mykonos Island, Greece

Setting up Philantropical.org (a non-profit organization) was not too difficult. In fact, inside the State of Hawaii, it was painless and virtually easy-peasy-Japanesy (as we often say in the Brooks household). Even when I decided to make the non-profit be recognized nationwide (in the US), it was not very difficult to secure the paperwork and to get registered and verified as a US nationwide non-profit organization by the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The difficulty arose when it came to the actual details of the non-profit tax designation and assigned levels of tax compliance as a non-profit organization. While it was still recognized as a non-profit, for tax purposes, it was designated as a XXXXXX non-taxed organization and the paperwork and tax forms required were just too laborious and time-consuming to be acceptable (at least for me alone).

I quickly realized that I could not sustain that level of complicated book-keeping and convoluted tax reporting that such a designation required. I subsequently decided to dissolve the non-profit organization, thus appearing to 'officially' abandon its mission: helping disadvantaged and underprivileged families to cope with the regulations and restrictions needed in order to live in a house on the Big Island of Hawaii.

To be continued.....

Part II-B Rainbow Travel Network, Inc.

Photo taken March 2012 at the Marine Park located near Arinaga Marine Preserve on the island of Gran Canaria, The Canary Islands, Spain (taken by my own underwater photography with my own camera).

The second part of my plan was to establish a travel services company that acted as an 'arranger' for travel services to be provided to small (3-7) or medium-sized (8-24) people. The 'trips' are not actually solely for the purpose of travel, but have the ultimate goal of providing 'free' assistance to people, organizations (such as non-profits and public corporations), to help animal and plant life in a specific region, and (or) to improve the environmental conditions in a specific locale in order to reach their fullest (and highest) potentials. The eco-trips or 'edutreking' sojourns would be in my current home country (Japan) or abroad; they could be free (if a sponsor will pay expenses) or their costs could be reduced by donations and payments from the beneficiary groups, or they could be totally self-supported (paid for my the volunteers own monetary contributions).

Examples of such 'trips' could include any or a combination of the following eco-trips or 'edutreking' experiences:a) Volunteer to teach life-skill English conversation to home healthcare workers who are assisting disaster relief for an Australian state; b)Lead a workshop on polish one's job search and employer attractiveness skills for low-level, poorly educated individuals seeking jobs as migrant workers in a South American country;

c) Conduct an environmental clean-up workday in specific area needing human labor of volunteers (in Florida after the last major hurricane damage),

and

d - z) there are countless more examples, etc... But hopefully, you get the idea: human volunteers helping our planet and its environment, its peoples and the animal & plant livelihoods.

Photo taken February 2022 at the Beach 67 not far from Spencer Beach, near Kawaihae, Big Island, Hawaii

Part III February 2023 - September 2023 C) My own travels overseas

Photos were taken August 2023 at the Hellabrunn Zoo outside Munich, Germany. Of course, there are hundreds of species of birds, fish, reptiles, and other animals at the zoo, but the birds and fish are easiest to photograph because you're allowed to be so close to them in an enclosed cage (bird cage in huge) or space (the aquarium).

From January 2023 until the present (Sept 2023), I was mostly at my home in Tokyo, helping with the chores of grand-child minding, cooking and cleaning house. I did find the time and resources (money) to travel abroad twice during that time. Both times, I visited Europe; actually, I visited Spain and Germany twice as my favorite European cities are Munich and Barcelona.

Many years ago, I practiced the art (martial) of Aikido. Once we held a public exhibition of our 'sensei's' students at a public hall in Gotanda, Tokyo. Here I am finishing a defensive move on my co-combattant.

So it is time for a radical change in my lifestyle or vocation (or avocation)? Well, after considering what's happening now in my world and in our societies, I'd have to say that things in my life will likely just remain as they are, without any huge changes. I'm enjoying what I'm doing now: being a partner to my wife, and a father and grandfather to my sons and spouses and offspring. Attempting to conflate my raison d'etre into some grand scheme of a new life is probably only my own wishful thinking as my mortality lies more concretely ahead of me. I'll most likely be happy to simply live my life as it is being played out now. I'm loved by family, and enjoy the hobbies and pastimes that 'apparently' keep me busy and productive as I enter my seventh decade of life. I can only hope that I will have at least two more decades to enjoy my life on Earth and hope to gain the satisfaction of having spent my remaining time alive in the best ways possible.

Thank for reading.

Playing with the Djohong Village children around New Year's Eve, 2000 in Cameroon, West Africa, while participating the one of EarthWatch.org research expeditions to assist Phyllis Jansyn, a former Peace Corps volunteer, who had stayed in rural Cameroon to help the villagers of Djohong find clean water, safeguard against disease, give birth, and learn healthy childcare to the women (and men) of the surrounding villages.

#self improvement #self actualization #maturity

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myfeeds · 1 year ago

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Workplace AI revolution isnt happening yet survey shows

The UK risks a growing divide between organisations who have invested in new, artificial intelligence-enabled digital technologies and those who haven’t, new research suggests. Only 36% of UK employers have invested in AI-enabled technologies like industrial robots, chat bots, smart assistants and cloud computing over the past five years, according to a nationally representative survey from the Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit). The survey was carried out between November 2021 and June 2022, with a second wave now underway. Academics at the University of Leeds, with colleagues at the Universities of Sussex and Cambridge, led the research, finding that just 10% of employers who hadn’t already invested in AI-enabled technologies were planning to invest in the next two years. The new data also points to a growing skills problem. Less than 10% of employers anticipated a need to make an investment in digital skills training in the coming years, despite 75% finding it difficult to recruit people with the right skills. Almost 60% of employers reported that none of their employees had received formal digital skills training in the past year. Lead researcher Professor Mark Stuart, Pro Dean for Research and Innovation at Leeds University Business School, said: “A mix of hope, speculation, and hype is fuelling a runaway narrative that the adoption of new AI-enabled digital technologies will rapidly transform the UK’s labour market, boosting productivity and growth. These hopes are often accompanied by fears about the consequences for jobs and even of existential risk. “However, our findings suggest there is a need to focus on a different policy challenge. The workplace AI revolution is not happening quite yet. Policymakers will need to address both low employer investment in digital technologies and low investment in digital skills, if the UK economy is to realise the potential benefits of digital transformation.” Stijn Broecke, Senior Economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), said: “At a time when AI is shifting digitalisation into a higher gear, it is important to move beyond the hype and have a debate that is driven by evidence rather than fear and anecdote. This new report by the Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Digit) does exactly this and provides a nuanced picture of the impact of digital technologies on the workplace, highlighting both the risks and the opportunities.” The main reasons for investing were improving efficiency, productivity and product and service quality, according to the survey. On the other hand, the key reasons for non-investment were AI being irrelevant to the business activity, wider business risks and the nature of skills demanded. There was little evidence in this survey to suggest that investing in AI-enabled technology leads to job losses. In fact, digital adopters were more likely to have increased their employment in the five-year period before the survey. As policymakers race to keep up with new developments in technology, the researchers are now urging politicians to focus on the facts of AI in the workplace. The Employers’ Digital Practices at Work Survey is a key output of the Digital Futures at Work Research Centre, which is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and co-led by the Universities of Sussex and Leeds Business Schools. The First Findings report will be available on the Digit website on Tuesday 4 July.

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meghalayacareer · 2 years ago

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MLCU Recruitment 2023: Assistant Professor Vacancy

MLCU Recruitment 2023: Martin Luther Christian University, Meghalaya has released an employment notification for the recruitment of the Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work and Sociology. The last date for submission of the application is 9th June 2023 and 23rd May 2023 respectively. 1. Post Name:- Assistant Professor - No of posts:- 1 (One) - Department:- School of Social Work - Salary:- Rs. 4,17,000 – 4,98,000 annually - Educational Qualification:- MSW and a Ph.D. degree with NET. - Role and responsibilities:- During the period of your employment with the University, you will be responsible for: - (a) Teaching the classes as assigned by the Head of the Department of the University. It will also include facilitating contact and online classes, access for students, assessment, evaluation, and designing syllabi and lesson plans. (b) In addition, you will be given administrative and other responsibilities related to the activities of the University. (c) You are also expected to participate in and facilitate the faculty development programs of the University. 2. Post Name:- Assistant Professor - No of posts:- 1 (One) - Department:- Sociology - Salary:- Rs. 4,17,000 – 4,98,000 annually - Educational Qualification:- MA in Sociology and a Ph.D. degree with NET - Specialization: Preferably in areas of Research Methodology (Qualitative and Quantitative research methods), Political Sociology, Social Movements, and Economic Sociology. How to apply for MLCU Recruitment 2022: Assistant Professor Vacancy? Interested and eligible candidates may apply online through Martin Luther Christian University’s official website https://www.mlcuniv.in/vacancies/ The last date for submission of the application: For Post No.1 Assistant Professor (School of Social Work): 9th June 2023 For Post No.2 Assistant Professor (Sociology): 23rd May 2023 Those who wish to apply are advised to go through the below official notification in detail before submitting applications. Online Application Link Click Here Assistant Professor (School of Social Work) Official Notification Click Here Assistant Professor (Sociology) Official Notification Click Here Read the full article

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facultyplacement · 2 years ago

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Paavai Engineering College Professor/Associate/Assistant Professor Recruitment 2023 Apply Now!

About: Since 1998, Paavai Engineering College has turned thousands of students into responsible citizens and become a renowned institution in South India. Mr. CA.N.V. Natarajan, B.Com, FCA, chairman of Paavai Institutions, and his trustees and directors have extensive experience in finance, accounting, information technology, manufacturing, food processing, and medical. Paavai institutes enrol about 4500 students in engineering, polytechnics, educational training, arts, science, and management studies, combining value-based education with sports and recreational activities. It has almost 12,000 students, 800 academics, and 1200 staff.

Paavai Institutions Chairman NV Natarajan comes from Rasipuram, Namakkal District, Tamil Nadu. Their father Vardappa Gondar was a civil engineering contractor and green manufacturing owner. His mother, Mrs. S. Pavaiyamal, is humble but determined. Mr. NV Natarajan inherited his parents' integrity, perseverance, and hard work.

Vision: To be a global model organisation that empowers the next generation socially and professionally.

Mission: To provide international-standard, goal-oriented, quality, and value-based education using cutting-edge technology.

Researching science, technology, humanities, and management to construct nations.

Create and maintain a learning community for social, moral, environmental, cultural, and economic growth.

Vacancy Details

Paavai Engineering College, Paavai Nagar, Namakkal, Tamil Nadu

Experience/Qualification: AICTE/Anna University standards.

Professors, associates, and assistants.

Pay: Standard.

DEPARTMENTS

B.Tech. - Agricultural Engineering

Medical Engineering

Bio-technology

Chemical Engineer

Civil Engineer

Computer Engineering

AI/ML CSE

CSE: IoT

Cyber security

Communication Engineering Electronics

E&E Engineering

Food Tech IT

Machine Design

Mechatronics Engineering

Medical Devices

Drug Technology

Automated Robotics

Safety, Fire Engineering, and Humanities

A MBA

Computer Applications Master

Our institutions

Paavai Engineering College

Paavai Technology College

Paavai Polytechnic

Paavai College for Women

Paavai Teacher Training Institute

Paavai Vidyashram CBSE School

HR Secondary Paavai

Paavai Vidyashram Salem Paavai IAS Academy Nursery and Primary Division

Paavai Nrithyalaya

Paavai Colleges of Nursing, Pharmacy, and Allied Health Sciences

Paavai Physiotherapy Science College

To Apply

Apply by mail or email with all testimonials and a recent photo to [email protected].

Application Deadline: Not Mentioned

Official Website:http://paavai.edu.in

Email:[email protected]

Common Questions

Q:Paavai Engineering College Salary?

Answer: Paavai Engineering College assistant professors get between 2.7 lakh and 3.3 lakh every year.

Q:Paavai Engineering College's maximum salary?

Answer: Paavai Engineering College's highest-paid post is Assistant Professor at 3.0 Lakh.

Q:Paavai Engineering College's ranking?

Ans: AICTE and Anna University accredit it. NBA and NAAC grade the college A. India Today Ranking 2022 ranks B.Tech 212th.

Q:Paavai Engineering College's placement rate?

Ans: Our college has good faculty and infrastructure. Our college places 60-77% of students.

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atlanticcanada · 2 years ago

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Restaurant recruitment drive for foreign workers may result in disappointment: labour group

Regular patrons at Maritime restaurants may be seeing some new faces among the employees in the months ahead. It's thanks to a new partnership between a national trade organization and an international recruitment firm, but some labour leaders say they may be shocked by the cost of living when they get to the region.

Restaurants Canada announced the deal with AMK Global Group on Wednesday.

“Canada’s food service sector relies heavily on welcoming new Canadians, and even more so now with the labour shortage our industry has found itself in as we rebuild post-pandemic; however, we’ve heard from our members that the process of recruiting from outside of the country can be incredibly lengthy, costly and at times complicated,” said Christian Buhagiar, president and CEO of Restaurants Canada in a news release.

“Given this feedback, it was important for us to bring forward a partnership that can support members in streamlining this process at an affordable rate to ensure our members can fill empty positions efficiently. We’re excited about working with AMK Global Group and know our sector will benefit greatly from the services they offer," said Buhagiar.

The organization's latest outlook survey for Q4 2022 revealed 53 per cent of respondents were looking to attract or hire new staff, with many saying they'd been forced to reduce operating hours because of a lack of workers.

The issue was flagged again Tuesday when the Canadian Federation of Independent Business released the results of its own survey, indicating owners were working the equivalent of an eight-day workweek because they don't have enough help.

"Government's got to take a role here," business professor Ed McHugh told CTV News Tuesday.

"We have to look at the rate of immigration and how quickly we allow immigrants to get into this country. I know we have to be careful -- but I think we have to look at immigration and how we let people in," he said.

However, the Atlantic Regional Representative for the Canadian Labour Congress says incoming workers might not realize lower wages won't cover living expenses in the current economy.

"Rents throughout Nova Scotia have risen dramatically over the past two to three years, and are a key factor driving inflation," Tony Tracy told CTV News.

"For low-waged workers, rents are taking up increasing amounts of weekly paycheques, and, in many cases, low-waged workers are being priced entirely out of the housing market and are unable to afford even a one-bedroom unit. More and more workers are having to share accommodations, and many have been left homeless by the drastic increases in housing costs, despite having jobs," he said, adding the situation is worse for temporary foreign workers.

"There have been many cases of employers housing temporary foreign workers in crowded and inadequate housing conditions and charging those workers large amounts for rent, taking a considerable amount of their weekly or monthly pay," said Tracy.

According to the news release, AMK Global was founded in 2017, and "is a leading Regulated Immigration & Recruitment Company specializing in Canadian Immigration Services worldwide and delivering end-to-end Recruitment solutions to Companies in Canada.”

"With a team of qualified professionals holding decades of experience in the Immigration & Hospitality Sector, AMK Global Group has served numerous Canadian companies in hiring skilled talent worldwide," said the release.

“The number one challenge for hospitality providers in today's marketplace is the sourcing and retention of staff. AMK Global Group offers the solution to this persistent issue with a turnkey service assisting in all aspects of the complexities in recruitment. We are professional, knowledgeable and affordable: saving providers their most crucial resource - time," founder and CEO San Mahajan is quoted as saying.

With head offices in both the U.K. and Toronto, the company website advertises services for immigration to both regions, with testimonials from clients in Qatar, Nigeria, India, UAE and elsewhere.

Restaurants Canada says the foodservice sector is a $100 billion industry that serves 22 million customers across the country every day.

The organization says the sector directly employs 1.2 million people and indirectly supports another 290,000+ in related industries, with $32 billion in food and beverage products purchased every year.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/a7iZETc

#new brunswick #prince edward island #nova scotia #news #politics #canada #CTVAtlantic

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giankoen · 2 years ago

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Examples of Government Service

Teenagers in India have traditionally shown a strong preference for public sector professions. For many people, working for the Sarkari Job Alert 2023 is the first career choice because of the prestige associated with public service, the attractive salary and benefits, and the stability of the position.Anyone with a high school diploma or equivalent can apply for government posts, as can those with a PhD.

Various Government Positions

Positions in the National and Central Government

Positions in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Police Service are only two examples of the many UPSC Civil Services Careers available (IPS)

Positions in the Staff Selection Commission (SSC): Inspector of Income Tax, Assistant Section Officer, Junior Statistical Officer, Upper Division Clerks

Positions in the State Government

If you're looking for a career in Government Jobs Alert 2023, you should contact your local state public service commission, an autonomous government agency in every state. Various state government academic positions, including those in the state police (Constable and Inspector), state forest service (Forest Officer), state revenue service (Tax Collector), and professor, associate professor, and assistant professor, are filled through the PSC's recruitment and selection processes. Achieving success on the exam requires having your hands on a Crpf Head Constable Admit Card 2023.

Government Positions in the Railway Industry

Regarding employment in India, the railways are among the top providers. Almost a hundred thousand individuals are employed annually. A locomotive engineer's job is to navigate the train between stations. A railroad station's success rests in the hands of the station master. They respond to questions from passengers, keep track of departure and arrival times, and manage the rest of the station's employees. An assistant loco pilot works to operate the train with the main loco pilot. Often, a junior engineer's duties include assisting with track and equipment repairs. The railway industry's entry-level jobs are designated "Group D" occupations. They are responsible for numerous chores like cleaning, loading, and unloading items, etc.

Teaching Government Jobs at Colleges and Universities

One of the most sought-after professions in India is that of a government school teacher. Hundreds of people search for teaching jobs at government schools in Rajasthan Teacher Vacancy 2022. The most popular positions are lecturer, professor, and lab assistant.

Lecturers are those who are tasked with instructing students in a specific field. They also do research and publish papers in their area of expertise. Professors are the highest rank in the academic field. They are responsible for educating, researching, and mentoring pupils. Most of a lab assistant's time is spent in the lab of a university. They lend a hand to faculty and students in the lab and other research endeavours.

Conclusion

The government of India offers some of the most desirable careers in the world. A career in the military can be a rewarding way to serve one's country because of the sense of stability and security it provides. Nonetheless, competition is high for these positions, and only the best qualified will be hired. If working for the government is something you're interested in, being ready early is key. You can get an All India Job Alert Online without difficulty if you try hard.

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