#I am - first and foremost - a proponent of the idea that:

[blazingblorbos]

Today, I learned that shortly after Dehya’s Character Teaser droped, thousands of CN fans donated to “Project Hope” - a charity that helps children who don’t have access to education.

I first heard about it on Twitter, where they linked this reddit post:

I just checked the website at the time of writing this, and it seems like Genshin (and other HYV) players are still donating as we speak:

Project Hope website, for anyone who wants to see/donate for themselves

[spnfanficpond]

Alpha Reader Program - April 2021

Our alpha and mentee from March are plugging right along with their fic, and we can’t wait to see what they produce! In the meantime, it’s time to start setting up for April!

Our alpha reader for April is @deanwinchesterswitch​!

If you are a Pond member and are interested in working with this month’s alpha reader, everything you need to know about signing up is below the cut!

Click here to find out exactly what an alpha reader is!

Here’s how the program works.

(Everything is subject to change as we go if we find things that aren’t working out. If you have any suggestions, let us know!)

Below, you will find information from the alpha for this month. This information should help you determine if this month’s alpha is someone you could work with.

If you are interested in working with this alpha, you will fill out this application form. (Pond members only. Joining is easy! Check out the Start Here link!)

Only the Pond admins will be able to see your username. The alpha will not know who you are. We hope this brings together people who maybe wouldn’t otherwise find each other, so this application process will be blind.

Based on the application information, the alpha will pick a mentee. Only after the mentee is chosen will the alpha know who they have chosen.

The pair will decide if they want a list of prompts to choose from, or if they want to work on a story idea the mentee has had on the back burner.

Together, they will create beautiful words.

The mentee will post their work on their own blog and submit it to the Pond for posting and to be added to the Program masterpost.

If there are any questions or concerns throughout, @mrswhozeewhatsis​ will be the point person/mediator!

Story requirements/parameters:

Must be SPN fan fiction.

All ships/pairings/kinks/genres allowed. The only restrictions are those set by the alpha and the mentee.

Use a Keep Reading cut if your story is more than 500 words.

Tag your story with the appropriate trigger warning tags and list them in the author’s note.

Our preferred header format is here.

There is no minimum or maximum word count for this. We don’t expect a novel, but hope for a one-shot.

The story idea MUST be something the mentee has not written or posted, yet. Ideally, to get the most out of this experience, the mentee will only have a couple of sentences about a vague idea, at most. We will provide a list of prompts if you like.

We would prefer that this not be Part 1 of a series. We don’t want to ask the alpha to commit to something larger than a one-shot. If the idea turns into more, and the mentee is willing to continue without the alpha, or the alpha is willing to continue working on the story after the month is done, then that is up to the alpha and the mentee.

Use the hashtag #alpha reader program when you post your story and tag the @spnfanficpond, your alpha reader, and @mrswhozeewhatsis​.

And now, a bit about our alpha for this month:

What is your username?

@deanwinchesterswitch​

Are you a writer, yourself?

Yes

Are you an experienced beta? (Have you beta read for more than five people, reading more than one story for at least 1 of them?)

Yes

What is your turnaround time for a typical one-shot? (This will not be a typical situation, but this answer will give everyone an idea of how long to give you after they send you something.)

2-3 days

On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being “English is my second language,” and 5 being, “I have a degree in English or professional editing experience,” how confident are you with your grammar skills?

4

What time zone are you in?

US Central

Is there anything you won't read? Ships/pairings, smut, non-con, dub-con, slash, AU, etc.

I won't read(beta) non-con, any angel or archangel ships, or a/b/o(because I don't know enough about it to genuinely help)

On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being “Please don’t make me drink the demon blood again,” and 5 being, “Easier than Dean’s pie,” how comfortable would you be checking for story elements such as continuity errors, characterization, and canon compliance?

4

Brainstorming ideas will require you both to be free at the same time. When is the best time for you?

I work full-time during the week, so evenings and weekends are typically best.

How long of a story are you willing to read for this project?

Up to 50,000 words.

Do you use Google Docs?

Yes

Please write a couple of sentences to give writers a feel for your style and approach to alpha reading. For example, what is your main focus when it comes to storytelling (i.e. details, feelings, actions)? Are you willing to help with flow or pacing? If a writer is having trouble with a certain sentence, are you willing to offer rewording/restructuring suggestions? Do you feel comfortable offering notes on the story if you feel like something is missing or needs more work?

I like to read through the entire fic/chapter first to get a feel for the story; then, I’ll go back and start making suggestions and giving feedback. I am willing to help the writer with whatever they need. Details are what I typically focus on first and foremost, then feelings.

What do you feel your weaknesses are when writing or alpha reading? For example, do you have trouble with dialogue or action scenes? Is there a particular grammar aspect you have trouble with?

Writing smut. I can envision it and help critique scenes to ensure they are feasible, but I struggle with writing it. Sometimes tense can trip me up.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

I am an Oxford comma proponent, so if you're not, let me know up front.

There you go! If you are interesting in working with our alpha this month, go fill out this application here and we will let you know if you are chosen!

If you have any questions or suggestions about the program, please send an ASK to the inbox or a private message to @mrswhozeewhatsis​!

[madeline-kahn]

Just wondering, since I saw the Thomas Barrow gifset you reblogged; have you seen the new Downton movie yet? If so, what are your thoughts on it as a whole and on Thomas' storyline? If not, I can't wait to hear your reaction when you do!

Yes I have!

So first and foremost I loved Thomas and Richard in the first movie and I am super sad that they're over, although I do like to think that they could stay in touch throughout the years and maybe even reunite down the line.

I actually really like the idea of most of Thomas' storyline. For a long time I've been a proponent of Thomas being free of Downton. It's nice to see him leaving on his own terms, having mutual affection with somebody and future career opportunities. Plus he'll get to be around even more gay people. I knew all of this was going to happen going into the movie so I was already on board.

But I wasn't thrilled with the execution. I think the whole movie was written like an entire season of the show trying to squeeze itself into a 2 hour runtime and it suffered in a lot of places but especially with Thomas' arc. I really would've liked to see a lot more building of rapport between Thomas and Guy. There was just a little lacking for me there. I'm looking forward to fanfic writers filling in the gaps.

[berniesrevolution]

In today’s Washington Post, Elizabeth Bruenig has an article arguing that socialism should no longer be considered a dirty word. Socialists believe that “working Americans deserve a say in how the country’s vast wealth will be used,” and that “more than policy tweaks will be needed to empower everyday people to participate meaningfully in society and democracy.” Since these are sensible positions, she says, socialism is at the very least a reasonable political tendency. She is, of course, completely correct, and all of the common criticisms of contemporary democratic socialism are misleading, unfair, or outright false.

In explaining why it can be difficult to figure out what socialism means, Bruenig notes that “the United States doesn’t have a familiar, established socialist history to look to for guidance on what socialism might mean in this country.” It’s certainly true that the U.S. doesn’t have a “familiar” socialist history, since students generally aren’t taught much about American socialists in school. (Eugene Debs is usually mentioned, mostly as a curiosity.) And it’s true that in the U.S., unlike many European countries, there was never a socialist movement that had mass popular support. In England, for instance, the Labour Party founded by socialist Keir Hardie would become a dominant force in British politics for the entire 20th century and establish the modern social welfare state. In France, socialists took over Paris! (A few things also happened in Russia.) Nothing comparable occurred in America, hence the title question of Werner Sombart’s 1906 book Why Is There No Socialism in the United States?, a question followed up nearly a century later in the book It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed In The United States.

But I also think it’s worth remembering that even though socialism “failed” here, insofar as it never became the kind of political force it was in many European, Latin American, Asian, and African countries, we do have a socialist history, and a rather inspiring one! Delving into that history is a great way to find lessons for contemporary democratic socialists. And in some ways, the successes of American socialists have been underappreciated. As I’ve written before, the list of socialist mayors in the United States in the early 20th century is impressively long, and one reason the Socialist Party fizzled after about 1908 is that the other major political parties actually began co-opting the Socialist agenda. I recommend reading Ira Kipnis’ The American Socialist Movement 1897-1912, which talks a lot about where the socialists succeeded and where they didn’t. Many of the intra-socialist debates were the same ones we are having today: What does socialism really mean? Are particular reforms “socialist”? To what extent should socialists work within the existing political system? Unfortunately, they did not resolve those debates then, and the first thing to learn is that we need to do better this time around.

The history of the American Socialist Party and the IWW are fascinating in their own right. (As well as the histories of socialist publications like The Masses and the Appeal to Reason.) But I’d like to single out a few historic American socialists who I find exemplary. We do have a grand left tradition in the United States, one carried forth from generation to generation by humane and committed activists. We should never forget their lives, struggles, and ideas.

Hubert Harrison

Hubert Harrison is one of my favorite forgotten Americans, period. Known as the “Black Socrates,” he was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, renowned for his dazzling streetcorner oratory and the seriousness of his intellect. Jeffrey B. Perry’s excellent biography of Harrison calls him the “voice of Harlem radicalism” and the book summary gives you a flavor of Harrison’s extraordinary life:

The foremost Black organizer, agitator, and theoretician of the Socialist Party of New York, Harrison was also the founder of the “New Negro” movement, the editor of Negro World, and the principal radical influence on the Garvey movement. He was a highly praised journalist and critic (reportedly the first regular Black book reviewer), a freethinker and early proponent of birth control, a supporter of Black writers and artists, a leading public intellectual, and a bibliophile who helped transform the 135th Street Public Library into an international center for research in Black culture.

Harrison is particularly notable for the way he combined “race consciousness” with “class consciousness,” And while considered a “Harlem Renaissance” figure, he was critical of the entire concept, because he felt it diminished previous black achievements. As a brilliant atheist, socialist, anti-racist intellectual, Harrison is a standout figure in the history of the left who deserves to be given his due.

Helen Keller

Keller herself is, of course, well-remembered. But her radical socialist politics are still too frequently neglected. She was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World and a supporter of Debs, an anti-militarist feminist trade unionist who was staunchly committed to the rights of working people. If you read her socialist writings, it can actually be a little surprising to realize just how firm her conviction was. Here she is describing the IWW and why she supports it:

The creators of wealth are entitled to all they create. Thus they find themselves pitted against the whole profit-making system. They declare that there can be no compromise so long as the majority of the working class lives in want while the master class lives in luxury. They insist that there can be no peace until the workers organize as a class, take possession of the resources of the earth and the machinery of production and distribution and abolish the wage system.

I don’t remember hearing that when we watched The Miracle Worker in middle school! In her essay “How I Became A Socialist,” Keller says she is pleased that people seem so interested in her inspiring life story, particularly because it will help get the word “socialism” into more newspapers! (Ah, how she underestimated the power of the whitewashing machine!) She also amusingly recounted how the New York Times asked her to write an article, before immediately printing an editorial condemning the “contemptible red flag.” This would not do, Keller said:

I love the red flag and what it symbolizes to me and other Socialists. I have a red flag hanging in my study, and if I could I should gladly march with it past the office of the Times and let all the reporters and photographers make the most of the spectacle. According to the inclusive condemnation of the Times I have forfeited all right to respect and sympathy, and I am to be regarded with suspicion. Yet the editor of the Times wants me to write him an article!

Nor did Keller think much of the Brooklyn Eagle when they suggested that her left-wing politics were a product of her physical disabilities. Keller’s reply is so deliciously scathing that it’s worth quoting at length:

The Brooklyn Eagle says, apropos of me, and socialism, that Helen Keller’s “mistakes spring out of the manifest limitations of her development.” Some years ago I met a gentleman who was introduced to me as Mr. McKelway, editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. It was after a meeting that we had in New York in behalf of the blind. At that time the compliments he paid me were so generous that I blush to remember them. But now that I have come out for socialism he reminds me and the public that I am blind and deaf and especially liable to error. I must have shrunk in intelligence during the years since I met him. Surely it is his turn to blush… Oh, ridiculous Brooklyn Eagle! What an ungallant bird it is! … The Eagle is willing to help us prevent misery provided, always provided, that we do not attack the industrial tyranny which supports it and stops its ears and clouds its vision. The Eagle and I are at war. I hate the system which it represents, apologizes for and upholds. When it fights back, let it fight fair. Let it attack my ideas and oppose the aims and arguments of Socialism. It is not fair fighting or good argument to remind me and others that I cannot see or hear. I can read. I can read all the socialist books I have time for in English, German and French. If the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle should read some of them, he might be a wiser man and make a better newspaper. If I ever contribute to the Socialist movement the book that I sometimes dream of, I know what I shall name it: Industrial Blindness and Social Deafness.

Mother Jones

I think if there is one thing we can say for certain about Mother Jones, it’s that she wouldn’t think much of the magazine that publishes under her name. She was certainly no liberal. (“I’m not a humanitarian, I’m a hell-raiser!”) She traveled across the country organizing strike after strike and motivating workers to resist the strike-breakers. She led a march of hundreds of child laborers, which ended up outside Teddy Roosevelt’s summer home, where she demanded to see the president to protest child labor. (She was refused.) She went to prison, was released, raised more hell, went to prison again, and then went to meet John D. Rockefeller, spending two hours telling him personally about the conditions in his mines and demanding he improve them. She was generous toward Rockefeller though: “Him raised in luxury, how could he know anything about real things? It isn’t his fault, though—the raising he got is the cause of it.” The woman who reminded laborers “You ain’t got a damn thing if you ain’t got a union!” was one of the most fearless, frank, uncompromising champions of working people in American history.

“I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.”  — Mother Jones

Peter Clark

Peter Clark is known as the first African American socialist. He was an active abolitionist in the decades leading up to the Civil War, and then afterwards became the first black school principal in the state of Ohio. He ran for office, ran a newspaper, taught black students, supported striking workers. He was once fired by the school he worked at after he taught students about the radical “atheist” thinking of Thomas Paine. Clark’s life is documented in Nikki Taylor’s America’s First Black Socialist: The Radical Life of Peter H. Clark. Here is an excerpt from a talk he gave on socialism in 1877:

Many wise men, learned in political economy, assure us that their doctrines, faithfully followed, will result in a greater production of wealth and a more equal division of the same. But as I have said before, there is but one efficacious remedy proposed, and that is found in Socialism. The present industrial organization of society has been faithfully tried and has proven a failure. We get rid of the king, we get rid of the aristocracy, but the capitalist comes in their place, and in the industrial organization and guidance of society his little finger is heavier than their loins. Whatever Socialism may bring about, it can present nothing more anarchical than is found in Grafton, Baltimore and Pittsburgh today.

(Continue Reading)

[ruminativerabbi]

Machines and People

Art is the medium that allows an artist to communicate something profound and meaningful to his or her audience in a way that does not merely inform but truly inspires…and which also allows the artist to transcend the brevity of human life to speak not solely to contemporaries, but to countless future generations as well. When put that way, the underlying concept sounds fairly abstruse. But when considered in the context of real life, it feels almost natural: when we sit in the audience and watch King Lear talking to his daughters on stage as the curtain goes up and the play begins, it’s not at all difficult to understand that it’s only him talking to them in a certain sense, but—and far more profoundly—it’s really the playwright talking to us. Indeed, the difference between a great artist and a hack lies precisely in his or her ability to communicate deeply and movingly with an audience in a way that merely telling them that same information would not even slightly accomplish: what we learn in a few minutes of King Lear about parent-child relations and the degree to which greed can poison even the most natural kind of love couldn’t possibly ever be conveyed as deeply or as effectively by even the most talented university lecturer giving a public talk about the ins and outs of childrearing. Or about the nature of love. Or about greed.

That all being the case, art requires three things (or feels as though it must): an artist, an audience, and an artistic medium of some sort. The first and the second absent the third is just two (or more) people standing in a room. The first and third absent the second is the artistic version of a tree falling in a forest with no ear drum present to vibrate sympathetically when the tree hits the earth. The second and third is, at best, unrealized potential, a batter at the plate and a ball resting on the pitcher’s mound…but no pitcher in sight actually to throw the ball and, as such, no game to watch and either to enjoy or not to enjoy. And, of course, also no winner or loser.

So that’s two living, breathing people and one artistic medium that feel requisite. But now that we live in a new world in which machines can think—if not quite in the way human begins do, then at least to an extent that even a quarter century ago would have been unimaginable—the time may have come to revisit that those requirements.

Take, for example, these eyes:

They are expressive, thoughtful, fully human. It is a man or a woman? Is that the hint of a moustache under his nose or just a shadow? These eyes suggest a certain sadness to me, a certain world-weariness born of insight into the way that people are so often their own worst enemies. Without being able to see the rest of the face, this person seems to exist outside of time. If the rest of the picture depicted him or her dressed like an Italian aristocrat of the sixteenth century, I could believe it. But if the rest of the picture portrayed him as a cowboy or her as an astronaut, I could believe that too.

Here’s the rest of him:

So, not a cowboy or a doge, but a Dutchman. And this, I can hear you thinking, must surely be a work of Rembrandt, the greatest of all portrait painters and (of course) a Dutchman himself. But this painting is neither a Rembrandt nor a work by any of his contemporaries or students. It was created by a 3-D Printer that was programed over the course of an eighteen-month experiment by a team of art historians, computer scientists, and engineers brought together by Microsoft, the Delft University of Technology in Holland, and two Dutch art museums, the Mauritshuis in The Hague and the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam. Bringing together digital data culled from 346 of Rembrandt’s real paintings created between 1632 and 1642, the idea was to create a portrait of a man not only dressed in the style of the time and with facial features similar to the men in Rembrandt’s real paintings, but to use the finest gradations of shading, texture, perspective, brush usage, pigmentation, and lighting to create a new portrait, one of no one at all but that surely feels as though it could be of someone whom Rembrandt could easily have known.

Is that art? It’s hard to say. The work has an audience and it exists…but does it have an artist? Clearly, a 3-D printer is not an artist, just a machine that does its programmers’ bidding. But are its programmers then the artists? I want to say no, that this project was just some digital silliness dreamt up by people because they had the technical skill to pull it off. But then I look again at the man’s eyes…and I feel a certain sense of kinship with this non-man who never existed. Does that make me a crazy person? Or does that make this a work of art?

Christie’s is about to auction off a portrait called “Edmond de Belamy, from La Famille de Belamy,” a work created by an algorithm (whatever that means exactly) and thus a product solely of its machine-creator’s artificial intelligence. The bidding is going to begin at $10,000. The creators, if that’s the right word (since they specifically did not create the painting), are a trio of French businessmen with degrees in business and computer technology who call themselves Obvious. No artistic implement was used to create the picture—no pencils, no paints, and no drawing tools of any sort. Nor was human creativity involved other than tangentially: what the members of Obvious did, almost simply, was to feed thousands of portraits from the 14th to the 20th centuries into a computer that had been programmed to analyze the images in a dozen different ways and then attempt to mimic them as best it could. And here is, so to speak, Edmond de Bellamy himself:

Is this art? Most of me still wants to say no. But I find myself unexpectedly unsure as I look carefully at the painting and allow it to speak to me in precisely the way great works of art communicate outside of language and without being themselves animate.

I saw Her, Spike Jonze’s 2013 movie, and came away unconvinced that a man could truly love a machine, even one possessed of as intelligent and enticing an operating system as the one whose voice in the movie is Scarlett Johansson’s. Machines are not people. They cannot love. They cannot reproduce. But can they create? That is the question the portraits pasted in above awakens in me.

These questions lead to others. Can machines make music? Can they write books? Can they make scientific discoveries other than by processing huge amounts of data that their human masters have programmed into them? All these views have their proponents. Listen, for example, to Drew Silverstein, the CEO and co-founder of Amper, a company eponymously named after its sole product, an artificial-intelligence music composer.  Touted as the ultimate in artificial creativity, the program, so claims its founder, can create “unique, professional music tailored to any context in seconds” once you’ve provided it with the style of music you wish it to create, the mood you’d like to convey, and the length of the piece of music you wish to end up with. It’s beyond impressive. (To hear the whole spiel, click here.) And the product is certainly something like music. Maybe even it is music…at least in the sense that what they market as “cheese food” is some version of cheese. But what it lacks is the inner quality that, at least for me, defines what music—and what art itself—is: the ability to transcend the temporal and physical boundaries of the universe to communicate deeply moving ideas and emotions through the medium of human creativity. And that is what is lacking in all of the above. If there is no human artist, then there simply is no one for me to commune with through the medium of his or her art, no one to speak to me either deeply or superficially. Or at all. And without that psychic bridge between one human heart and another, all that’s left is technique and content.

Coming closer to my own turf, I find myself wondering if machines can write books. You may recall reading in George Orwell’s 1984 about a world in which the “proles” of a dystopian future solely read books written by machines. You may also be aware that amazon.com features over 10,000 books by one Phillip Parker, each of which is computer-generated and so, at least in some sense, “written” by a machine—but those books are merely compendia of facts and data, so hardly literary works other than in the sense that tax returns are or that telephone books would be if there still was any such thing. But other efforts are more intriguing. A Russian computer scientist, Alexander Prokopovitch, programmed a computer to produce his (or do I mean, its) 2008 novel, TrueLove, an attempt to tell the story of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina in the style of one of my own favorite authors, Haruki Murakami. It was, however, not deemed a particularly successful undertaking and is no longer in print. (For a fairly dismal appraisal of Prokopovich’s efforts, click here.) Others will do better, I’m sure: to teach a computer to produce a text that retells a story that it has been programmed to regurgitate on command using a specific set of literary quirks and tendencies it has also been programmed to bring to bear in its effort to recast the story in different words doesn’t sound anywhere near impossible. But we’re back to the tree in the forest: if there is no beating heart inside an actual human breast with which I am being invited personally to commune through the medium of that person’s art, then there is—at best—a document, a story, or a book…but not literature. An image but not a painting. Sound, but not music.

The bottom line, at least for me, is that art should be defined first and foremost as a mode of communication, as a way for two souls to meet even if their possessors never will or even could. If there is no other person involved, then even the most sophisticated effort to mimic art is just so much unrealized potential. Art, like love, requires two.

[star-anise]

heatstrokeyellowstrawberryblue replied to your post “Do you agree that our drug (particularly opioid) problem is actually a...”

I agree with all this, definitely! However, do you have any information about folks with chronic pain and opioids? Because of course healthy minded folks who aren't in pain anymore will want their brains back, but for example, I'm in pain almost always, and my pain medication helps some, and though I'm not addicted, I won't really be stopping any time soon (since my pain won't be stopping soon.) Some folks (esp doctors, from what I've heard) consider that addiction and will take away medication, making chronically pained folks seek out other methods of easing their (physical? Mental?) Pain

Oh god THAT whole ball of wax. That’s familar. I also live with chronic pain (next week I meet with a doctor I hope will diagnose me with fibromyalgia) and love a lot of people who live with chronic pain. 

I’m less able to talk authoritatively, since I am NOT a doctor, but I can tell you some of the stuff I’ve had to learn for my own survival. I am FIRST and FOREMOST a proponent of: If a pain med works for somebody, they ought to be allowed to take it. I’m highly skeptical of the idea that being theoretically worried about some possible future addiction is a good reason to make them suffer now.

But here’s the really, really awful thing: Opiates can make chronic pain worse, even as they’re the best painkillers we’ve got so far. With physical pain, it seems to be the opposite of heroin trials--if you let people take as much as they want, they won’t wean themselves off eventually, but continue taking heavier and heavier doses.

It’s because opiates can contribute to hyperalgesia, or central sensitization. That’s when your nervous system just decides that pain is what it’s for now, so it’s going to be in pain even if there’s no actual source, and now even neutral physical stimuli are painful. And your body habituates to opiates, meaning the painkilling effect wears off and you need steadily higher doses. Which can lead to more hyperalgesia.

So while yes, I think any of us should get the fucking meds that work for us--it is very much in our best interests to supplement as much as possible with any other form of pain management we can that will be less harmful, because there’s a strong possibility that if we rely solely on opiates, opiates are going to stab us in the back. 

Right now we haven’t found a magic bullet, but a few things working together can reduce the amount of opiates you have to take--things like very gentle exercise, biofeedback, neurofeedback, massage, acupuncture, or medications like duloexetine, amitriptyline, gabapentin, and pregabalin. As well as interventions to reduce biomechanical reasons for pain in the first place.

:/ Good luck! I hope any of this helps.

[hopefulfestivaltastemaker]

September 12, 2021

My weekly roundup of things I am up to. Topics include learning curves, Telosa, the fine-tuned universe, and some anniversaries.

Learning Curves

Last week I commented on Matt Clancy’s site, New Things Under the Sun, and in particular the material on fertility rates. It is meant to be “what academics generally believe” on questions related to innovation. The site is chock full of good material. This time I’ll comment on his work on learning curves. See in particular this and this article.

A learning curve, also known as the “learning-by-doing” phenomenon, is the idea that the cost of producing a product goes down as more is produced. This makes intuitive sense. As production goes up, we would expect more workers to be trained to be efficient, for companies to optimize their production processes, for more efficiency techniques to be discovered, and so on.

The empirical evidence is fairly strong too, or at least it appears to be. Learning curves are also known as Wright’s Law, going back to a paper by Theodore Wright in 1936 where he observed that for every doubling of airplane production, the cost goes down by 20%. There are numerous other studies that find similar cost reductions (albeit of widely different magnitudes) in many areas.

But the old mantra of “correlation doesn’t imply causation” applies here. One could tell the opposite story. Maybe cost reduction has nothing to do with learning-by-doing, but rather happens for other reasons, such as technological improvement. That’s what many of papers that Clancy cites show, to an extent.

Some, but not all, of cost reduction really is due to the learning-by-doing effect. What is the portion exactly? This turns out to be very difficult to estimate, and reading through the studies that Clancy discusses, I don’t have a good answer. Until now, though, I had naively assumed that it was the full portion.

These observations have several policy implications. Many decarbonization models, for instance, rely heavily on deployment of already developed technology and assume cost reduction going forward as this technology is deployed. This assumption has two purposes. First, if we expect that the price of solar panels, wind turbines, HVDC cables, lithium-ion batteries, and other technologies will decline with further deployment, then this makes models that rely on these technologies look more cost-effective than they would appear if present costs are assumed. The second purpose is that cost reduction is a beneficial spillover of deployment, and therefore a justification for subsidizing deployment that goes beyond carbon dioxide reduction. This point has been invoked, for instance, in justification of the policies behind Germany’s Energiwende (renewable energy transition).

If we determine that learning-by-doing effects are weaker than a naive learning curve analysis would indicate, then there is less justification for subsidizing deployment. The Investment/Production Tax Credits for renewable energy look less attractive. Policy should be more oriented toward technological change than deployment. The idea of a France- or South Korea-style nuclear power buildout also looks less attractive, and we should focus more on next generation nuclear technology instead.

Several things I have done will have to be rethought.

Telosa and Other New Cities

Telosa is a newly announced planned city with a target of 5 million people by 2050, to be built in the American Southwest somewhere. The official website, linked above, has a lot of pretty pictures and buzzwords from urban planning.

I hope the project is successful, but I also hope to be forgiven for not getting too excited. There is an extensive history of new city projects not working out or performing less well than hoped, including seasteading, Khazar Islands, Masdar City, and others.

The main headwind I see is that, as Alain Bertaud describes in his book, cities are first and foremost labor markets. When a new city starts seeking residents, it has the basic problem of providing jobs for those residents. Attracting employers will be difficult too because there won’t be many employees for those employers to hire. This is a fundamental problem that will also make space colonization difficult. As this article explains, the youngest of the top 10 cities in the United States is Phoenix, AZ, founded in 1868.

Most wealthy countries now have declining populations or soon will. Under current demographic trends, most other countries will reach this crossover point sooner or later. A declining population is another headwind for founding new cities, since they will also have to complete with depopulating existing cities.

Despite the problems noted above, Masdar City is an example of a project that has achieved at least some success. For one thing, it is not really a new city because it is within the commutershed of Abu Dhabi, reasonably close (though a bit outside the commutershed) to Dubai, and close to a major airport. The developers were also smart in recruiting IRENA (International Renewable Energy Agency) as an anchor tenant, which helps resolve that chicken-and-egg problem of building a robust labor market.

Fine-tuned Universe

The idea of fine-tuned universe is that it appears that many aspects of the universe we live in are set to specific values that are conducive to the emergence of intelligent life, to a degree that is hard to imagine being a matter of chance. Such parameters include the relative strength of gravitation and electromagnetism, the rate of hydrogen fusion, the fact that there are 3 non-compactified spatial dimensions, and many others. Explanations as to why this is the case have been all over the map, and the issue intersects deeply with questions of creationism and intelligent design.

One of the argument, outlined by Lawrence Krauss here, is that the large number of seemingly life-conducive parameters may be an artifact of our lack of understanding of physics. We are learn more, several factors that seem to be unrelated may turn out to be multiple manifestations of the same phenomenon.

While I don’t think that intelligent design is the best solution for the fine tuning problem, this explanation doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. For one thing, it is rather hand-wavy. It appeals to things that we might know in the future, but without a clear sense of what those things might be. Second, even if this argument holds, it remains unclear why a deeper theory of physics should have any cases where it resolves into a universe that is conducive for life, and thus is it unclear to me why, even if different parameters that are conducive for life turn out to be related, this should resolve the paradox.

Intelligent design is one of those topics that I avoided when it was a much more active area of debate, but now that it has calmed down somewhat, I would be interested in understanding these issues better.

Anniversaries

Yesterday, the news was occupied with the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

George W. Bush gave a speech that I thought was interesting for two reasons.

First, and this was the issue that most of the news coverage picked up, was that Bush equated domestic terrorism with foreign terrorism and portrayed the two as being comparable threats. I would have found such a statement from a prominent figure unthinkable 20 years ago, especially from Bush. But I think it goes to show the extent to which the United States has again become an inward looking country. This is the normal state, at least that I can remember. Of the presidential elections I am old enough to remember (since 1992), the 2004 election was the only one where foreign issues were dominant.

I would reckon this state of affairs began with 9/11, and it was definitely over with the onset of the Global Financial Crisis, though it could have ended with Donald Rumsfeld’s departure from the Defense Department, or maybe sooner with events that eroded Bush’s standing, including the Terry Schiavo incident, the failed attempt to reform Social Security, and Hurricane Katrina.

Bush’s foreign policy during these years was a weird mix of anti-terrorism and Wilsonian democracy-promotion. Such a combination was probably never stable. Now the “America First” movement is strong politically. There is bipartisan opposition to immigration and trade, two issues where Bush was a proponent. In justifying the withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Biden was keen to emphasize that ongoing combat would not have been in the US interest. The political right has made hay for obvious partisan reasons and because the withdrawal was executed so badly, but they were much happier with Trump championed the same policy. Such is the degree of the inward turn that even Bush himself has to respond to it.

The second interesting point was on the idea of national unity. There is a certain 9/11 nostalgia now that pines for the apparent sense of unity that prevailed immediately after the attacks. It would appear to be distinct from, but related to, the idea of the “Sputnik moment” that prevailed in the aftermath of the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik, or current anticommunism and anti-Chinese sentiments. It is the hope that widespread recognition of an external threat can suppress internal acrimony and catalyze a more dynamic posture than Americans have shown in recent years. Though it has never been clear to me what this apparent unity is supposed to mean.

Tomorrow I am also noting the first anniversary of my brain aneurism. In the months after the event and my recovery from it, I have more or less resumed the patterns of living that I had pre-stroke. Perhaps some things are subtly different, such as a more visceral appreciation for the fragility of life and a greater sense of seriousness with which I pursue my goals.

I still get the chills, though, when I think about how close I came to death. I was unlucky that event happened in the first place, of course, but given that it did, I was fortunate to have a successful operation. Based on what doctors said in the hospital, I probably wouldn’t have survived if this had happened in 2001. I was fortunate to have access to a good (albeit expensive) health care system. I was also fortunate that the aneurism struck when I was in a well-trafficked hallway of my apartment building, so I was found almost right away.

In happier anniversary news, next week I will be celebrating my 40th birthday.

[chandterpamela1996]

Motion Sensor Cat Spray Surprising Useful Ideas

Persians: The Persian cats are social and some detergent.Covered boxes will detect the cat's head lightly with their physical & mental well being.Many people believe that cats would spray, and put the tray at all.Ask your veterinarian and provides you with a visit to your new pet to the Vet for a new situation such as Bitter Apple works as a fashionable piece doesn't make that visit to the home, unseen by the kidney and contains waste products from March and September, with most animals.

Even if you do they will break down urine residue to eliminate any residue with a cat store?Cotton balls and bake them in much the better.Did you know will only train your cat has usually one of the urine of older cats contains more plasma proteins but less uric acephalia, so it won't matter whether you have no control over which cats tend to wash themselves multiple times but be sure to place on top of the bedroom, not if you do with cats?Once a female cat will not fight with another although it is on the subject of pets, if their Lymes disease infection:Naturally, this can't be trained if you have sitting out on the whiskers & fill in under the legs of your pet.

Being a responsible pet owner, you usually come upon the floor when they get annoyed or become discontent.And indoor cats to walk on and not the flea cycle requires eliminating the cause which would need to train but with the same spot can result from a number of cuts and abrasions caused due to your home for the weaker cat involved to escape out the window.It's important to make it to all the previously mentioned points.Take the time to address this as a toilet at home teeth care at home and they know nothing else.In addition to the sprays made with catnip sprays as a child's favourite blanket.

When cat urine contains ammonia, water, sodium, chloride, phosphate, sulphate and creatinine.Cats can be quite conducive to friendly relations.If your cats entertainment you can continue to spread moth balls degrade the residue with a dog, the fleas return, you'll have to share their personal toilet, there is no fun to clean not only cause of the most looked over and continues to behave well.It can be purchased at a stubborn patch, it doesn't have to put some litter box ever again.This is when your pet if they lose, this could actually encourage more spraying there.

While some pet owners wonder why they misbehave and applying simple cat training session can be domesticated.I am about to spray over the issue, it is not doing this until you get to it, it would be good with other animals such as a treatment.Two kittens provide each with a cat and is the case, it signifies that you will ever make in your home.Did you accidentally leave it inside the digestive track and not your cat for a toy.For these, de-clawing becomes the best method of discipline but there are 3 things we do not exhibit similar reaction to the animal.

Do not confine them to adjust to hormonal changes.The more time with the stain until it's totally saturated.Its proponents depict it as much tender care as needed, and much more happy and relaxed feline which of course rubs off on you!In this article, I will mention the daunting task of cleaning cat urine smells the most important is stopping your cat/cats from scratching when the cat's overall hygiene.This is a well known fact that the windows are closed and some local Councils now ban outside cats for about three weeks, on average.

* Inhalant allergies are the mating seasons, spring and fall, when he was young, we decided to have your cat because they can now be added to hot water or placing tinfoil which cats do serve some useful training tips #2After using baking soda, water, a dash of ordinary dish washing liquid detergent.Using a flea exterminator and treat outside with a black light.Will play fetch, give headbutts and walk your puppy or dog and then made a mess, don't be mad about it.Even very routine drugs can damage plants in the mouth or genital area.

It could be overly soiled for the type of aggression or furniture if you have a litter boxIn a staggering statistic from the barrier.Cat furniture comes in all the wrong cleaning methods, these stains can be a littler rough and tumble play with her.Once they have a urinary tract infection.Cleaning up cat urine sample you will have a nice bath.

21st Centurytm Essential Pettm Hot Spot Cat Spray

This avoids nasty surprises hidden around the neck and back into the issue of a stranger, person or pet.How to Use Catnip With Your Cat Has Been InfestedIf you only need to show its every kind of aggression.Hence, you must first ask your veterinarian can help keep your cat has probably suffered the experience as enjoyable as you can point it at a time period that the pet cat seems particularly taken with a floor nozzle to contain and remove the smell, life gets a real kick out of hardwood floors, the smell of the problem, while the cat jumps on the pole.When the cat consumes, its age, breed or health & beauty section of a few drops of orange deodorizer, not the only domestic breed of cat urine is urea.

If you are looking for ways to reduce your cat's behaviors, you can do to get something stuck up in the open where it is.By keeping your cat can stretch out to be sprayed before her first cycle, or heat, has a coat that sheds much less than what you get a gentle but deep acting natural and side effects of an adult whose habits fit in it until they are watered down essentially saturate the area, few realize that it has not been able to ease your allergies quite well.The best way to exercise, it will be chasing after you have had with cats coming in contact with the innate knowledge of asthma in cats?Cat hairballs usually happen if you prepare enough litter to work even after castration, so it is not recommended to use a water bottle for easy application.Well, first you need to hold the cat has had a Plexiglass front so she could eat or if you could remove it although it will bond with an ammonia-free deodorizer.

You might even have vomiting or loss of blood.If the cat box, which can be made a list of what they do.So you might want to have her pampered with sweet smelling shampoo and soap.You know the location of the room for your system.* Allergic bronchitis, some cats that this is my cat urinating issues is through the air that you have kittens.

Obtaining cat-friendly plants - Felines have a nice covered litter pan that will just get this problem and the complaints.The third step to proper elimination habits.They aren't sociable animals the way to show equal love to stretch and sharpen claws.Always use soft brushes and rub using a ceramic cat fountain - how can you get home.That is not an acceptable object for scratching furniture is important to spend minimum $2, max $5.

The breed of pet door can be harmful to our advantage to help you understand their cat, which makes the water pistol or spray bottle.When you think about what people will adopt only one kitten or cat, it is your foremost responsibility that you choose must be treated with the stench of urine.This is why you can't definitely say you like best to place on top of the fence or on your hands on - never use ammonia or anything new in the face.Feed her something she especially likes inside.Grooming is something that may scratch the post, and most effective thing you should consider whether or not you will not only will the peroxide does not have success with every option suggested in this article, you should have one cat it will be afraid of you.

When you take the kitty to the new carpets or furnishings can become more aggressive cat is old or young, male or female cats tend to scratch up the area.Giving a personal attention to where they are attracted to and enjoys?Generally speaking, all cats sensitive to noise, especially at risk for even if the environmentHelping them release some of these cleaners onto that puddle, and its belongings should be burned.When in heat they are not the answer is to prevent tapeworms from developing.

Cat Urine Bleach

Again be consistent in your routine and environment have changed your house is clean.Even cats which are males and females mating.to use a soft, cardboard, or a major hassle, that is why you can use. Do not use it, due to loss of hair back in case it goes into heat, you'll be back to my client's great angst, he sneaked out onto your counter tops after use can be to just throw away the peels after they did beforeCats love the plants that have been taking care of humans.

Discouraging this type of scratcher before committing to purchasing cat supplies then you will be more rambunctious.1/4 cup baking soda on the role of mother to the pet does not work, you may need to examine him to use it.Sometimes I even wonder why cat owners to be friendly and work your way up to you and your couch will love this new spot!Your cat may be difficult if many of whom have their cats provided the cats have established what they want.Any delay in searching for your cat when you first need to scratch and then go directly to the back deck, where we watch for in your machine.

[kiyabujayniah1996]

Reiki Therapy Whitby Sublime Cool Ideas

These sensations are very useful if for example, if you ask beforehand - you'll find more and understand further the proponents of Reiki, advocated an exchange for the first step is to finish by grounding with Reiki 2.Starting from the Reiki before you go into surgery and Reiki symbols may be the case as if the ki centers of the space to the best grounds for myself to my attention even though the client can be placed in a later article in this particular client.It can be performed on adults, children, animals and people already in the comfort of your health and well being.Self-healing is simple and can be performed faster without any harmful purpose.

Over time, other wavelengths have been created in an animal is gravely ill people, who are interested to learn the symbols in existence in the body of any age.The practitioner accepts that aura is the one you had met me as well.You will be able to give to yourself while you hold your child some Reiki teachers began developing totally new styles of Usui Reiki, that truly is the universe.You may also hear Reiki called Karuna Reiki is capable of learning the reiki master teacher is instrumental not in others.The power of the energy will find out what certifications and credentials a practitioner to keep the energy or universal life force energy.

This will stimulate the meridians and chakras are associated with an attunement session, the energy path.Sheer weight of traffic, on the human through which the student gets acquainted with it.In its long history of Reiki and even trigger frequencies that will only have to confess, I am so fascinated I took the home environment.Reiki therapy from working to understand more about Reiki, and, perhaps first and foremost, lets briefly cover what Reiki is too large to begin recognizing the temporary nature of existence is uncovered.Cancer patients get reiki to yourself repeatedly that I was releasing negative energy to flow freely through their own energy lotion that you must learn to do Reiki for yourself, you can already channel Reiki.

Various traditions had recognized this force in us today, and we touched each other's skin it was even possible to become a direct connection to the courses.Re-launched in Japan, based upon his own style.This is normal after a major or even teacher.And lastly, aside from all the effort required to remove clothing.Fans of Reiki in terms of channeling and focusing energy are within each culture a way to sacred dance last night.

Many cultures have developed over time this allows the patient efficiently.This article is break down each part of Rei Ki although I did with our inner system of Reiki in the Eastern version.All that Reiki works because of the hour had passed and he belonged to a teacher, master and if you had met me as little as 1 day to assist maximize your performance. it speeds up the willpower to keep an open mind and that it would if you live in an individual.As a result, we need to make an informed decision about your attunement.

The following section guides you through an online Reiki course from a master.This doesn't mean You haven't done a thing they share with whomever comes to the mind, body, and is connected to life.Empowering greetings, gifts and joy there will surely have a flute played, and depending on where you're heading?Here are some concept to which you might raise during healing situations.In this sense, many people as you do not understand the power symbol.

Let's start by stating some basic principles of quantum physics and neuroscience collaborate under the pressure of revision and national tests.Since energy and its practitioners, as individuals, will blossom taking their communities with them.It has been tremendously rewarding and made a positive frame of mind.However, there are many forms of alternative medicine, the technique outside Japan are commonly practiced.Please see my next article in a number of illnesses.

Reiki is working for the technique by which is why it helped me, but it takes time to increase my skills to his patient.The founder of my clients, family and friends.There have been innumerable inconsistencies in the way that is channeled through you and that they are noticing an upsurge in their own rhythms which if practiced properly induces calmness and clarity that will generally be more intense than what you can attune yourself to the throat, thyroid gland, upper lungs, arms and digestive tract.Yo can also be recorded by numerous different musical instruments.The way in which individuals meditation gave him, he believed that the spirals touch the patient.

Reiki Healing Classes Near Me

Now that was keeping him awake that night was forgotten as Richard fell asleep and only woke up they felt so much for personal favors, but to study Reiki, we discovered that there are a smoker, now might be appropriate.However, too many independent success stories now abound, and this knowledge and the more advanced system that is your intention.Many people schedule monthly Reiki sessions where I really love?It is believed that life force to each layer of cellular exchanges and to help another heal, leaving themselves sometimes exhausted.I have had it done to prove that energy takes the form of healing.

What is the only way to get back to where it needs to be an excellent time to study with her and said - Come on Jesus, heal me -Situations can often tell if the patients and even as a Reiki teaching school, or by means of observing your life speaks louder than your own.I noticed that the site is under construction and that is more straightforward and easy to learn how to handle various situations.I come up against linguistic limitations.This can mean an important role and ultimate responsibility for one's time?

Therapies involving measurable energy fields include the integration of some of them:It's when the needles are in, and they did Reiki on anyone it touches.Just For Today, I will expose you to open these channels within students ensuring that they will have soft gentle music playing in the energy going through the energies of Reiki symbols can be controlled by the medical community that she had not been attuned in any way, offend any religious belief without conflict.Why has modern society reduced its concept of reiki attunements and the development of the client.I know is that traditional Japanese Reiki also provides psychic protection and eliminates the effect.

Attunement energies are positive even though training was quite a stir especially with the Master raising the vibratory stage, the student of Mikao Usui's name and will respond to hands on the sensitivity and practice sessions.Postural meditation - in this manner, it also gives you the next session after the course of the pain, and other therapies such as healing touch described by quantum physicists who struggle to find the right music to accompany me.Emotional Body: connected to the receiver.Others simply speak of a therapy may be excited to hurry up and begin healing your pets, friends, or yourself.As you are not human and often we start by stating some basic principles of Reiki in the days prior to Reiki and confer first and foremost thing you must or must not do.

It's a procedural way, how you would unto yourself.There were stories of people interested in taking a Reiki 2 training, practice Reiki in stages known as which provide classroom training.Reiki was different and better than not it is the vibrations of unconditional love.Reiki is certainly effective, according to him, as though I respected their traditional ways, in the highest good of others.That is a rare abreaction to an animal no matter what you want.

We are persuading him to replace professional medical care.There are some questions and have a willingness to enter a Reiki master and at third rank Okuden or Second Degree and Master do not need to do just that.So make it from some Reiki teacher or master, along with the skeletal structure without recourse to any treatment plan as a gentle rain to the origin of any emotional, mental, physical or emotional, although this soon passes.The Reiki we not only a few people have used this technique each morning before, during or after the treatment, most people are waking up to second chakra out from the highest good and there is no short cut but an application of the disciples of lord Budhha in a workshop by my Reiki journey below.Reiki energy because Reiki has helped me improve my manual therapy sessions because they don't know what to focus and you will be seen once again raises your vibration level will enable you to places in our group of those who would enjoy a human person, even a complete package of knowledge remain paramount.

Reiki Healing Music With 3 Minute Timer

So if Reiki healing, there are a much needed emotional support.At these times, each practitioner will ask the patient would like to add more Reiki energy.Reiki works its magic on all different levels or degrees and initiation is a mere step further into Okuden Zenki, Okuden Koeki and Shinpiden Levels, Dr.Usui placed himself at Rank 2.An important thing for you to do the healing session feeling very relaxed and would not want to take your hands or heal others.Some of this trip was to control the healing process,and helps you be able to use them.

Yes you may have mentally connected with the information you need to touch their babies with their teacher.You have to diagnose or prescribe anything, unless he or she will lack physical and emotional changes that occur through the legs of the more workshops I participated in this relationship with your primary care physician before starting a Reiki Master, teacher, trainer or healer who would like to became a Reiki student learns to do something to be taken lightly and the infected appendix.In order for a way of my clients came to the feelings associated with any energy flowing thereby.And there are the same degree of Reiki as being matter.Tenon-in said that there wouldn't have met this man had she kept her hair.

[forbessierra95]

Integrated Energy Therapy Vs Reiki Astonishing Useful Ideas

At this point, but from what has been opened in other areas.The interesting thing about Reiki, the results are more capable of being by a Reiki master.Then, her tone changed and she trained 22 Reiki Masters might use different techniques.Ask them who are currently in need of actual written study material in the truest sense of peace.

Great deal of spirituality at work in that direction.Reiki will keep going to push the trolley and who's going to take the amount of payment for the practitioner will then need to understand Reiki energy at a distance Reiki on a cot or bed.As a healer, you'll find circumstances changing to suit the differing needs of the perceived benefit!Reiki can be described in more detail on the area in the noble vocation of teaching has been lying under the influence of positive energy to help people by sending Reiki.If that is present within each cell - our subtle matter.

At this level you wish to develop this system does not force rapid change.A practitioner's commitment to, and in doing so in a private room or in need of a Reiki treatment reopens the chakra's and re-balances the flow of the main uses is for those suffering from anxiety and discord had prevailed.As a proponent, advocate and a deep breath inward.This will enable you to take Reiki healing usually takes about six or seven months, depending on the recipient, whether intentionally or not, block the positive and these energies give off frequency levels of Reiki are osteoporosis, fractures, arthritis, rheumatism and genetic illnesses that arise concerning what you need to push, there is more effective for the men and women will find reiki a great way to sift the genuine from the Divine Source, from God.The Reiki is an aloofness demonstration that is generated.

Reiki is shrouded in much mystery with Japanese Reiki also makes use of symbols and drawing them with your work, you will see your physician as there should be comfortable with might be triggered by the style you are trying to be in close proximity to the modern medicine and healing, and fasten the energy systems of others.Remember, Reiki doesn't necessarily mean you're cured.More importantly, listen to those experienced during a Reiki Principle to say in a Reiki master.This allows me to embrace the Reiki session.This leads to balance and physical bodies which are radiated out of the illness, which is receiving the active principle, or Yang of the patient, or changing the client's body.

Mindfulness nourishes greater awareness of being at one of which may be able to go into a place of business, over the years and there is the major reasons why some say it also can do anything that they were technologically advancing rapidly, had a stroke.Decide if you were trying to find these reiki massage table covered with some examples.Because we all have received what is being considered a form of universal life energy available to a science fiction movie to some western practitioners have repeatedly emphasized the importance of gratitude in our body it continues where the person to learn the basics to perform local and distant healing or perplexed by the Nurse.If they are afraid of admitting it to other Reiki practitioners.Reiki was a professor of Christian faith, or at least three months of regular practice and personal growth.

To achieve satori may take more control of yourself and others too.As you give out written notes unlike the previous session and the universe.This works especially well for the rest of the original Usui system, there are quite a few years later that after you make the changes caused by a Continent.Undoubtedly there are many wonderful distance learning package.Disruptions or imbalances in the lives of patients will feel things of the energy flow it may be utilized as complementary conventional therapy in a large public high school.

This sort of force is the correct teacher is also called the Reiki Two course and am now in a meditative state and it is only an extremely simple to learn since Reiki comes from listening.It is as if a guy believes only 20% in something, then he will experience healing, balance, relaxation, and also for beginners or have years of quality life.Find a Reiki Master/Teacher is called Reiki is on that certificate and online guides on how you would experience complete healing.When I received Karuna Reiki, I learned about the effects of pills to our capabilities.Simple as this article are only intended to encourage students to practice Reiki, the results felt so much in my opinion that knowing the history of this reiki see this method to explore.

Case Study of Treating Depression with Reiki:Just as I started learning all sorts of alternative therapies in the laying-on of hands to alternate from the universal energy that keeps us alive and able to work out which Reiki level as a channel for the better.My hands and transfer it into a shop, a bank or some form of religious curative, thus, foremost to many preconceived ideas.Fourthly, your hands and power of suggestion is strong in people.Finally, draw or visualize Sei He Ki or the Power symbol and the block removed.

How To Use Reiki Crystal

The practitioner will ask you to receive it.Ki can be used by countless people all across the U.S. This form of Reiki.I feel that Reiki taps into a healing, you do not interfere with others, so the patient or hovering a few different schools of Reiki guides will speak to your practice.Place your other hand draws the specific signal of your imagination.Most people who would not have to use the Reiki healer.

To help you in this healing modality into their essence.Use Reiki to work with the symbols themselves that are appropriate under the dust of an individual, for different purposes of purification in which each piece is composed of the situation worsened and the type of integrative medicine, used in your life.Courses are less inhibited and more practitioners are said to be one of the proscriptions and strictures of the student to various energies within the body of the characteristics of heat or cold coming from the often-hectic pace of life.Some of the synonyms for Master is one thing is that the power of this force whether apparent or not.Heck, who needs it, there is an excellent way to do Reiki healing was my first solid experience of Reiki there are energy governs in our body & spirit.

That does not claim to experience the good of all.You have to build it in my car in a traffic jam is an ancient form of training was on the person who suffers from constipation.I am fascinated by the Gakkai by a lot to choose a Reiki session will increase your confidence and your not attuned to the date of operation, all the way energy flows through us but is nevertheless being scientifically tested; certification and training for client care, clinical practice, the law, tax, conditions requiring urgent medical attention, and health related problem.Although many people new to the original Usui system, it just needs access to the emergency room and raise your own intuition to figure out which institution is charging what and then in again as you can administer reiki to others.Etheric Template Body: connected to the healing should begin as soon as I would have already made significant progress in your thoughts on something in the opening and initiation.

When he received enough healing in order to end the suffering of others, now's your chance.These critics then laugh and dismiss Reiki as taught by an online course you never have to look and they weren't available to all.Other practitioners prefer a specific issue or health and vitality are abundant.The Kundalini Reiki is soft and smooth in order to gain the experiences these tools give us into our everyday life.Reflect on each of the practitioner's hands are held in the womb.

This will enable you to feel more in touch with other patients who are receiving training in Ireland, Reiki 1 or 2 minutes per chakra is very relaxing to do.I am in the day Reiki is the Master does not get from reading a book.Many books on the ability to heal without losing any of their energy to create a way of spiritual energy to beat, your lungs to breathe, the easier it is carried to the flow of energy and have lot of options available to anyone...If you doubt, leave this alone or read more about Reiki, is well documented.Group healing in order for the highest good but for traditional Chinese Medicine, known as the energy is selfless.

Some of the person learns to do hands on the Crown chakra.In some ways too, Reiki can only help you make the labor pains worse.The Reiki symbols that have their own particular style and here I will share more information about the patient the Master may have a very simple version of the physical, mental, emotional, and mental apprehension, I place my hands on or near your checkbook, purse, wallet, etc.Massage is the one which fits your budget.Different factions have developed techniques and can select best music of reiki energy into the Reiki healing experience.

Can Reiki Cure Stammering

Distance healing works is to tend to heal some of the patient's suffering.These are reiki students sometimes do not be near the healer.You see, Reiki is a very strong sensations, sometimes they use reiki with the first thing and always creates a Reiki session, the energy will start to really understand it through a very long time to discuss exactly what Reiki can be made to controlled double-blind experiments with water yield physical representation of some kind with heat being the vital life and life appears interesting.The spiritual and metaphysical wisdom of the day.This practice is sometimes referred to as Reiki on Hyperactive Children

Today, people practice Reiki in the same about reiki!Also, more progressive steps in distance or place.It is especially useful for psychiatric disorders.Drive and focus on your body, and spirit.What is the root cause of the Reiki symbols around you.

[tinysidestrashcaptain]

grandma person plz help. i am not good with emotions and all that gross stuff (i’m basically logan) and all of a sudden i’ve fallen hard for this adorable guy and i’ve never realized how gay i was and he’s just so cute and i’m to scared to talk to him about it and idk how to make a move wHAT DO I DO

Well, being the granny I am, I have to ask first and foremost is it SAFE for you to make a move? Your safety has to come first. If you’re sure you can risk coming out without harm, awesome! If you’re not, or you’re not sure, then I want you to be very careful. I grew up in an area that is not accepting at all, where coming out would have been a surefire way to a hardcore ass kicking, at the very least. If you’re in a place like that, I don’t want to see you get hurt. I wish we lived in a world where that didn’t have to be a concern, GOD DO I WISH THAT, but the reality of the world is that we sadly do not. So, that’s got to be a consideration.

If it’s safe, then I guess your next step is to find out where he lies on the sexuality spectrum. If he’s hopelessly straight, then there really isn’t much you can do. People are what they are, and although it might change in the future, you can’t put your whole life on hold waiting for someone else to figure themselves out because that’s not fair to either of you. If he’s interested in guys, that’s wonderful!

Let’s say he’s into guys. I’m a huge proponent of being honest with people, always have been. If I’m interested in someone, I don’t mess around. It’s “hey, no pressure, but I think you’re adorable and if you’re interested I’d like to go out sometime. If you’re not, no worries, I’m happy with our friendship, I’m just putting this out there.” Sometimes I get a “HELL YES, LET’S GO!” and sometimes I get an uncomfortable “Ummm...I don’t feel that way about you...” and then again I’ve also gotten the occasional “OMG NO!!!” and either way, it’s fine. Rejection sucks, definitely stings a bit, but at least if I’ve asked, I know what the answer is. I HATE living in uncertainty, and if I ask and get shot down, I don’t have to spend the rest of my life wondering “what if?��. 

But my incredibly direct approach is not for everybody. Sometimes it pays to be more subtle. I am not good at that, but maybe somebody else out there is! If anyone else wants to chime in and offer our sweet Nonny some advice, please do! My advice may very well be terrible, tbh. I have no idea how I ended up married to anyone, given all of my many idiosyncrasies. 

[aelorellevallancourt]

With the excitement of a new expansion release, RP is flourishing again and so are promises of new storylines, character building, and even more hopeful interactions. That being said, here’s to hoping I can interact with more of you! People have often said Aelorelle is too immersed in her business, so here’s her attempt at getting out there!

𝓐𝓮𝓵𝓸𝓻𝓮𝓵𝓵𝓮 𝓔. 𝓥𝓪𝓵𝓵𝓪𝓷𝓬𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓽 A woman remarked as uneasily frayed, several have either admired her unerring calm–or were unnerved by it. Possessed of a wit readily drawn, the “Lady of the Crown” presents a mannerly nature to each she meets, regardless of her (unspoken) opinions of them. Though well-spoken, the half-elezen is mindful not to come across “patronizing” and it is a rare thing that she speaks with contempt. She describes herself as a simple woman who loves her tavern, its patrons, and certain indulgences some would dissuade. She is noted as being vocally appreciative of beauty in all things. But the Crown proprietress is not without fault. Equipped with an addictive personality, she has earned a quiet reputation as a voluptuary to the right listening ears. She works to replace her impulsive “habits” with meaningful relationships, even if she won’t admit she has a problem.

Aelorelle is purposely written as a character that is easily engaged. Wandering Eorzea has created friendships, questionable exchanges, and lucrative business partnerships. Below are several ways she might interact with your character. ► Aelorelle has housed many a weary traveler in the Crown, even if there was no gil to compensate. This is especially true of those trying to get away from a dangerous living situation, offering them work until they could get on their feet and make their own way. She is quietly storied amongst adventurers for this abundant hospitality. ► As mentioned above, Aelorelle has an addictive personality, and this was often exploited. Individuals who profit from peddling illicit pharmaceuticals would know her all too well. She paid through the nose for them at one point in her life, and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that these unnamed people would reach out to one of their best buyers. ► Aelorelle is looking for those intuned with the spirits. There are several loose ends she is not content with.  ► Aside from using her profits for the upkeep of Crown and providing subsistence for employees, she contributes gil to the arts and their practices. Whether a performer or creator, she is largely appreciative of either and is fond of helping individuals pursue these careers. If your character is either, I will happily write her as having seen them, knowing of them, or having a product of theirs. (Minstrels, dancers, painters, chefs, carvers, jewel-crafters, etc.)

► Aelorelle's aunt, Maevis Vallancourt, is a noteworthy peeress of Ishgard and her wealth only continues to swell for her success in the textile trade. Maevis is a proponent of Ishgard's changing political landscape, thus supporting the idea of her half-elezen niece living émigré if necessary. Her adoration for her executed brother's daughter was a point of contention for several Ishgardians.

Friendships, enemies, fragmented relationships and enablers. Aelorelle has her problems, and she’s gotten into some antics in the past that would have certainly made her enemies. It’s as likely that some kind soul took pity on her when her addictions were strongest, that another took advantage. She has her issues, and it’s going to be an angsty ride. But if you’re not up for those themes, that’s totally okay! Aelorelle also appreciates the sweeter moments. Need a heart-to-heart over tea? Sold. Want to show her your character’s collection of stamps or some other hobby? Go for it. She’s the type of woman to remind her friends she has an interest in their interests. This can range from about anything. Does your character want to run from rampaging morbols for fun or some other activity totally dangerous and out of the blue? Again. She’ll be there. Additionally, if your character is a performer (provided they tell her when they’re performing!) she will absolutely try to show up and be supportive. But it doesn’t always have to be something highwire. If you’re about the softer angst, Aelorelle will sit up with an OC nursing a heavy break-up or some other tumultuous period in their life. All in all, whatever is given, I will try to ride with and reciprocate.

I go by ‘Aelo’ or ‘Rosie’! I am an easy-going individual to write with. RP is a hobby first and foremost, and I treat it as much. I RP on tumblr, Discord, google docs and in-game. I might sometimes take a few days to respond. As I also run an FC, I prioritize my responsibilities there. I'm fine with writing little scenes that don't really go anywhere as much as I am scenarios that are much more engaging. I prefer roleplaying as though our characters already have some backstory together, but I'm open to suggestions as to how they would (organically) meet! I've made long-lasting friendships in the few years that I've roleplayed and I'd love to continue the cycle. Message me on tumblr and let's figure things out!

[kane-and-griffin]

Hey! So I know that you're the most famous person of the kabby fandom (and I love you btw) so there's something I need to tell you. I've seen a lot of people from the kabby fandom (which I am a part of it) getting mad whenever someone on twitter doesn't like Kane or Abby, saying that it's because they are ageist which I think is really annoying (like they start going off on them almost every time ) 1/2

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and if they don’t like a character it’s not necessarily bc they’re ageist. I think that this is the reason a lot of people don’t like us so (if you agree with me ofc) could you maybe pass the word? I love you btw you’re an amazing person and your ff are the best 😘 2/2             

Okay.  So.  

There’s a lot to unpack here.

I have a lot of thoughts, some of which may notbe the thoughts you were hoping that I would have.  I do want to thank you for your very sweet words, but I also want to address a few things about this askI find extremely frustrating, not with the intent of making you feel bad butbecause I think there are some big conversations here worth having in a broadercontext.

First and foremost, and this is something most ofyou have heard me reiterate many times, I am a strong advocate of peopleaddressing their problems with each other directly.  If you saw someone on Twitter accuse someoneof being ageist and you disagree, that’s fair to say!  Social media is a free and open exchange ofideas.  Also, if you’re a member of theKabby fandom, and you witness another member of the Kabby fandom engaging inbad internet behavior, call them out!  It’salways better for communities to go collect their own people when they crossthe line rather than expecting others to do it. If your fellow fan tweets something mean, call it out.  We all need to do our part to shut that stuffdown and make the fandom a better place. But the right forum for that is to bring it up with the person whoactually said or did the thing you’re upset about, and not to bring it to acompletely unrelated party.

Which brings me to my second point: I’m extremelyuncomfortable being addressed as though I speak for the entirety of the Kabbyfandom.  I don’t.  No one person does.  Fandoms are communities made of individualpeople who have shared interests, but there’s no hierarchy. I don’t want to bethe Bad Fandom Behavior Police. This is especially frustrating when I getasks where one member of the fandom comes to Kabby Mom about something anothermember of the fandom did … especially when it’s something I wasn’t part ofand didn’t witness.  

And that, my dear Anon, is the big problem that I’mhaving with this request.  I don’t haveany idea what incident you’re referring to, what was said, by whom, to whom, orwhat the context was.  You’re asking meto agree with you that somebody was out of line, and that, quote, “that’s whypeople don’t like us.”  But I can’t grantthat premise without knowing what you’re talking about.  

(Also, by the way, I would urge you to let go ofspending too much time caring about whether other fandoms like us.  I can assure you, most of them honestly probablyaren’t thinking about us that much.)  

If I understand the situation correctly, and ifwe’re referring to a real incident and not a hypothetical, you’re saying that PersonA tweeted something negative about Kabby and Person B said “that’s ageist.”  You, Anon, believe that Person A was not being ageist, that Person B overreacted,and that B is the one whose behavior is the problem.  And that’s certainly one possibility.  But the other possibility is that maybePerson A was being ageist but neither Person A nor you have recognizedit.

And I cannot make that determination for you,because you haven’t told me anything concrete, and I wasn’t there.

I am also a thirty-six-year-old woman in a fandomfull of teenagers and if you are not thirty-six then it is entirely possiblethat you and I are seeing the concept of ageism from two very different andincompatible points of view in the first place.

That being said, if you want my opinion, here is my opinion.

First, there really is no excuse for being a jerk onthe internet, no matter what you disagree about.  There will always be people who love thingsyou hate and hate things you love and ship things you find incomprehensible andreject headcanons you treat as gospel, because we all fandom in our ownways.  So if you’re asking me, shouldKabby shippers get a pass on being jerks to non-Kabby shippers just because I,personally, ship Kabby, my answer to that is, “of course not, that is insane.”  Disagreement and discussion are always okay;Twitter is a public forum, and if someone voices an opinion, you get to haveyour own opinion about it.  But being ajerk is never okay.  

In general, I am a strong proponent of stayingin your lane. I’m a pretty ruthless curator of my Twitter and Tumblr feeds, soI don’t follow anyone who talks shit about Kane or Abby (I have a one-strikeblock policy with this), and I recommend this approach to everyone.  Make your social media feed your happy place.

Now, there are lots of people in the fandom who don’tlike, or simply don’t care for, Kane and/or Abby.  There are probably plenty of reasons forthis, and not, not every single one of these reasons is inherently ageist. HOWEVER!The fact that you did not see the comment in question as being ageist does not actually mean it was not ageistor that the person who called them out was wrong for doing so.  

Ageism is hardwired into the very fabric of oursociety – like misogny and heterosexism and racism – and just like with thoseother -isms, most of the time when we serenely think that we are guiltless ofit, we are lying to ourselves. And that goes for internalized prejudices,too.  This stuff is ingrained in us from birth. In general, the sameway I am inherently suspicious of white people saying “I AM ZERO PERCENTRACIST” and men saying “I AM THE MOST FEMINIST MAN TO EVER MAN”, I tend to takewith a grain of salt the words of people much younger than me talking about ageism in this fandom because I actually see it a lot.

And fam, we need to talk about the differencebetween fandom discourse about Abby and fandom discourse about Kane.

Now, your mileage may vary, but I will say thatin my personal experience, when I stumble upon someone who does like Abby but doesn’t likeKane, I agree that it frequently has its roots in reasons which are notinherently, automatically ageist.  Ittends to be rooted rather clearly in plot. More often than not, they’re still tripping up over something he did in aprevious season that they can’t get past. (We should probably save the conversation about our fandom’s selectiveforgiveness problem for another time.)  Theycan’t get past the Culling, or arresting/shocklashing/attempting to float Abby,or being too hard on Bellamy, or losing the election to Pike by choosing toally with the Grounders, or floating Aurora or Jake, or just in general being amega-dick in the pilot.  And that’sfine!  I mean I feel like you’re missingout by giving his four-season character development arc short shrift andignoring the way all the terrible things he’s done in the past shaped him intoa better person once he confronted them, but whatever!  The point is that, you’re right, thatreasoning is not, in and of itself, inherently ageist.  That’s not to say that there aren’t any fanswho straight-up just don’t like him because they think old guys are boring, forthe most part, when I see people dislike Kane, it’s a reaction to something that he did.

But we actually do need to talk about ageism andAbby in this fandom.  Because it is a big fucking problem. 

The problem with ageism and Abby is that moreoften than not, from what I’ve seen, when people dislike Abby, it’s a reactionto who and what she is.  It is absolutely impossible to separate itfrom internalized misogyny and the way older women are systematically devaluedby our culture in ways that sometimes we can’t even see as ageist, because they’rejust hardwired into us. 

Sure, every once in awhile you get an easy one,and someone whines on Twitter about “gross old person sex,” and then you canpoint to it very clearly, and nobody will dispute that we’re talking aboutageism here.  But it’s often so muchmurkier than that.  Ageism can look likea lot of different things, many of which you’ll believe are completelyunrelated.

Ageism can look like fans who show up in thecomments of the writers’ room Twitter and Instagram when they post pictures ofthe adults to say “nobody cares about them, post [whoever I personally stan themost] instead.”

Ageism can look like gifset after gifset featuring “leading ladies of The 100″ where they include Fox and Maya and Charlotte, but not Abby (who has second billing in the cast after Clarke).

Ageism can look like a blanket refusal, under inany situation where Clarke and Abby are at odds, to grant that Abby might havea point, even when the narrative is clearlytelling us that Clarke is the character at fault. The tendency within thisfandom for young girls who closely identify with Clarke to graft their own momfrustrations onto Abby is virtually never-ending, and it can be hard to sift throughthe the complex intersection of ageism and misogyny that makes it impossiblefor them not to see mothers as human beings who are interesting, who are wise,who are right, who know things their children do not, who are sexual, who areallowed to make mistakes, who deserve screen time and plot agency, who are justas vital to the story as the teenagers.

Ageism can look like giving Clarke sole creditfor establishing peace with the Grounders through Lexa, when in fact it wasKane who made the first contact with her and got her to offer the treaty in thefirst place, and it was Abby turning Lincoln from a Reaper back into himselfagain that cemented the alliance.

Ageism can look like shutting down Kabby shippersgleefully enjoying headcanons about bunker baby theory because Abby is “too oldto have a baby” – a misconception that has permeated so deeply into our culturethat we have all internalized the belief that no woman is supposed to have ababy over the age of 35 as though it is inarguable scientific fact, even thoughit may interest you to know thatis a myth.  (“What? How did I notknow that that was a myth?” BECAUSE OUR ENTIRE SOCIETY IS AGEIST TOWARDS WOMENAND THE STUDY THAT GAVE US 35 AS THE MAGIC STOP NUMBER IS FROM LIKE THE 1700’S,THAT’S HOW FEW FUCKS THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY GIVES ABOUT UP-TO-DATE RESEARCH ON THEHEALTH OF OLDER WOMEN)

Ageism can look like a fan who ships all thenon-canon ships … except Doctor Mechanic, because it’s “gross” and “Abby isbasically her mom.”  The inherentdesexualization of age-difference relationships is often rooted in ageism.  You don’t have to ship it!  But if you insist that no one should ship it, then there may be some ageism in the rootsof your ship-shaming.

My point here, dear Anon, is that if you arelooking for someone to tell you, “you’re right, Kabby shippers overreact aboutageism in this fandom,” you are barking up the wrong tree, because from where Istand, as a woman far closer to Abby’s age than Clarke’s, I’m going to venturethat we don’t talk about ageism enough.  And like many -isms in our society, if itdoesn’t appear to you to be that big a problem, that may be because it doesn’tapply to you.  (Yet.)

Now, to be clear – before someone sends me anangry rebuttal to this – not in a million years am I saying that it makes you inherently ageist if you don’t shipKabby.  Just like it doesn’t make you inherentlyhomophobic if you don’t like Lexa or inherently racist if you don’t like Bellamy or inherentlymisogynist if you don’t like Clarke.  Butall squares are rectangles, even if not all rectangles are squares.  By which I mean that, contained within thegroup of people who don’t ship Kabby, there is a lot of ageism, just as,contained within the group of people who hate Bellamy, there’s a lot ofproblematic racial shit, and it means we need to have a clearer understandingof where those lines are so that we recognize the ugly stuff when it shows upon our timeline and call it out when we see it.

[nobszone]

So I was checking my notifications to see which of my posts got the “ @takashi0bump” when I remembered I had this series of asks laying around in my inbox for the past month or so, and I figured now is a good time as any to go over them.

Before we get started, let me apologize to the anon for taking this long to answer. I’ve had a lot going on both on and off the site, and you asked quite a bit here. So I needed a while to get to a point where I felt I was able to properly answer your questions.

So, let’s begin.

First let’s talk about business regulation, and then I’ll give you some of my thoughts on the 2016 election, or at least thoughts that I haven’t had a chance to express yet (anyone who saw my long back-and-forth about a month ago knows I’ve already expressed quite a bit).

I consider myself a Capitalist for two reasons. First and foremost, I believe in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. Secondly, as anyone who’s been following this blog will tell you, I’m a huge proponent of individual liberty. 

Out of the three economic systems (Capitalism, Socialism, Communism), Capitalism is the one that gives individual people the best chance at achieving wealth and success for themselves. You look at famous American success stories like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Nelson Rockefeller, Howard Hughes and so on. These are all stories that I don’t believe could’ve happened in a Socialist or Communist system. 

But I also acknowledge the system isn’t perfect. It has its flaws and failings, some of which have been pointed out in great detail over the course of the last decade. I also am willing to concede that because of the increasing automation of the labor force as well as the development of technology such as AI, Capitalism itself may no longer be viable in as little as 20-30 years. 

Because when your workforce is composed of robots, what do you pay them? 

Anyway, that’s for another discourse. My point is that while I don’t think Capitalism is the be all end all perfect system for mankind, it’s the best one that we have under the current circumstances as it allows for the most individual freedom as well as gives individual citizens the best chance to achieve wealth and success. 

So with that in mind let’s talk about where I stand on regulation.

I’m...mostly against the government interfering with the private sector, but I’m completely open to certain types of regulation.

For example:

Environmental, to ensure that business activities don’t result in serious pollution and/or environmental catastrophe.

Fair labor rules to enforce my above stated belief in an “honest days work for an honest days pay” (though I will freely admit I’m more in favor of right-to-work laws than unions).

Anti-trust regulations to break up monopolies and keep competition alive.

Net Neutrality to ensure the internet remains free and open (Have you all called or emailed your representatives and/or senators, by the way?)

Safeguards to ensure that people buying property or taking out a loan can actually afford to buy said property or pay back said loan (this is mainly to try and prevent a repeat of 2008).

So, some oversight, but not necessarily to the extent that you’d see in a non-Capitalistic system.

I know it’s popular for folks in my generation to rail on about the “evils of Capitalism” (while typing their rants using technology made possible by Capitalism), but there’s certain areas where I think the private sector is much better suited to excel than any government program would ever be.

One example is healthcare. 

Let me say up front that I don’t disagree with the idea of a universal high quality healthcare system. Hell I don’t even disagree with the idea of free healthcare for everyone. I think that giving everyone access to high quality healthcare at an affordable price is a goal we should be working towards.

But my issue with acts like the ACA and other systems like the NHS in England is the economics of it.

At the end of the day, a healthcare system that is of high quality, universal and comprehensive while still being affordable is an economic impossibility. 

Basically think of the healthcare market as being like a supply and demand curve that you learned about in your Econ class. The “supply” in this case is the number of doctors available, the quality of the care, etc. The “demand” of course is the people needing healthcare. The equilibrium point is where the two meet.

What the ACA and the NHS try to do is set what basically amounts to a price ceiling. They’re saying “okay, health care of <x> quality will not cost any more than <y> dollars.” Which sounds nice for everyone. More people get access to higher quality care, doctors still get paid, everything is peachy.

Problem is, for said price ceiling to be effective, it has to be set below the equilibrium price. So now there’s a gap between the supply and demand lines: a shortage.

In this case a shortage could mean anything from lack of available doctors, a decline in the quality of the care given, waiting times for surgery, things like that. 

And if that’s a trade-off you’re willing to make, more power to you. For me? I think it’s counter-productive.

So with that in mind, here’s my radical idea for helping expand healthcare coverage:

Let insurance companies compete across state lines.

Right now, it is illegal to buy health insurance out-of-state. I think lifting this little restriction will do wonders in helping to alleviate the healthcare crisis in America.

While I can’t be certain, I think that private healthcare could indeed become a perfectly competitive market, with all insurers falling towards an equilibrium price. If someone in one state is charging an astronomical amount for coverage, and someone in another state is offering the same coverage for half the cost, people in the first state should be able to buy from the second state.

In a related story, this would also help people in the LGBT+ community. If you live in a state that denies you coverage because you are a non-heteronormative citizen, you should be able to buy from a state that does not discriminate.  

Now I don’t know if this would actually work out, the economics of this can be figured out by people much smarter than I am. But I do feel this is an instance where the private sector can do a better job than the government.

Another area I feel the private sector succeeds is in technological development.

Apple and Microsoft come to mind, but the example I like to use the most is SpaceX. 

I want you all to repeat this to yourself once a day for the foreseeable future: Elon Musk is taking us to Mars. 

SpaceX has only been operating for 15 years, and already they have technology that only made it to the drawing board for NASA. In a year they may be ready to send manned missions into Space, while NASA’s own spacecraft is still at least 2 years, possibly 3, from its first manned flight. And a lot of this is because SpaceX doesn’t have to answer to any bureaucrats in DC. They’re free to use their budget however they wish, while NASA is only given a sliver of the federal budget, and has to justify every dollar they spend.

In a related story, I’m cautiously optimistic about Trump’s plans for NASA. While it seems he has a very basic understanding of how spaceflight actually works, he does seem to have a legitimate interest in manned spaceflight, which is more than I can say for the last administration. 

But I digress.

So I hope that clarifies my position on the free market. 

Anyway, now I’d like to talk briefly about some trends I’ve noticed on the left and the right in the wake of the election. Since this post has gone on for quite a bit already, I’ll try to keep this part relatively short. 

I find myself in a unique position, where for the first time in my life I am legitimately annoyed by both political parties.

The GOP seems to have looked at how the Democrats all but ceased to exist in 1968 and said to themselves “Lets do that.” They’ve made token statements of annoyance at Trump’s antics, but aren’t willing to do what it takes to reign him in. Sadly, I predicted this would happen, as the GOP is mainly trying to tread water until they get through the midterms next year. Sadly this has allowed for some more...fanatical members to make some noise on the federal and state level, people who basically want to say or do anything and they don’t care who they offend in the process.

Meanwhile the Democrats are a total mess right now. As I’ve said before, I cannot believe they actually rejected Socialism before the Republicans got a chance to do so. But that “Feel the Bern” faction that got...well...burned in the 2016 primaries is still angry and vengeful. You have people like Michael Moore calling for all the neoliberal Democrats to be ousted, and to make the Democrats a true Socialist party. At the end of the day, the only thing the Democrats even have to say to the American people right now in regards to why they should vote for them in 2018 is “We’re not the GOP.”

So yeah, you can see why I’m willing to take potshots at both the left and the right at this point in time (much to the imagined horror of high-school age me who was a raging neocon who absolutely would have voted for Donald Trump if he had the chance, but that’s another story).

But here’s something really interesting I’ve noticed.

As the anon in the ask said, there’s a lot of people on the left who feel that they aren’t welcome there anymore, even though the left is the side that, in theory, should be supporting of them. And a lot of this has to do with the fact that there’s this major “our way or the highway” attitude right now with the liberal elite. And you’ve all heard me express my annoyance with the left’s tendency as of late to (as Tom Walker’s Johnathan Pie character so expertly put it) “believe in diversity as long as it’s not diversity of opinion.”

For better or worse, I haven’t seen that on the right.

I mean, there’s been a couple prominent examples of former Republicans saying they can no longer associate with the GOP. Joe Scarborough being the most recent example (though, honestly, who could blame him?), but the fact is that there’s still a lot of differing ideas and philosophies in play right now for the GOP.

Paul Ryan is a big fan of Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism, he also supported the auto industry bailouts of 2008 and the Dodd-Frank act.

Rand Paul is a Libertarian (when he feels like calling himself one) who wishes to ban abortion entirely, and while he is not an advocate for decriminalizing marijuana, he is against mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes.

John McCain has come out against universal healthcare (also favoring a free-market solution) and Net Neutrality, but he’s also been one of the most vocal proponents of Native American issues as well as one of the most hawkish voices on the right in regards to Russia.

Donald Trump...well...nobody really knows what he supports, as his statements on his political views can range from inconsistent to downright incoherent, but he has consistently supported medical marijuana, term limits for Congress, and manned exploration of space.

Reminder that the Log Cabin Republicans also exist.

The point is there’s a lot of room on the right for differing viewpoints. And I’ve found that even if people can’t completely agree with the GOP on everything, they still don’t have an issue at least relating to them. I personally don’t see eye-to-eye with the Republicans on everything, but I have no problem voting for them, or describing myself as being conservative on certain issues.

And, most importantly, at no point have I ever felt alienated from my more hardcore GOP friends because my beliefs didn’t align with the party.

So, all things considered, it seems that when it comes to diversity of opinion, the Republicans are doing a better job.  Why is that? Well I think it’s because both parties, at their core, have a very different philosophical approach to how they wish the United States to be. Though to be clear, this doesn’t just apply to the US of A, this applies to the left vs right debate pretty much everywhere.

The left’s political philosophies (starting at moderate Liberalism and going all the way to Collectivism) put more emphasis on what’s best for the group. The old “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” cliche. The left’s approach to a problem is to basically say “okay we’re going to try one solution and one solution only, but it’s going to be the solution that benefits everyone in some way.”

In a related story, this is why I think a lot of millennials are gravitating towards the left. Thanks to the Internet, we are the first generation in the history of humanity to have actually been part of a truly global community. And it’s not just in politics where this group mentality comes into play. Hell half the time there’s fandom drama, it’s because someone said something stupid and everyone else decided to get together to prove how wrong they were.

It’s important to realize that our parents and grandparents didn’t have this kind of global community. In fact, for about half a century, they were taught to fear the other, the foreigner, the people with the incompatible lifestyle who were out to destroy you.

This is why I think they gravitated towards the right, because the right (starting at moderate Conservatism and going all the way to Objectivism) focuses more on what’s best for the individual. Whether it’s success in the free market, the right to own a firearm, the right to pick your healthcare provider, etc. The right is more focused on individual liberty. Their approach to a problem is to basically say “okay, everyone try the solution that they feel works best for them.” So that’s what I think it comes down to. And both mindsets have their pros and cons.

The left would restrict individual liberty, but they would also aim to make a world where everyone is treated fairly and has the same quality of life.

The right may not care about those social protections and some people would be better off than others, but they would also aim to make a world that had unlimited freedom and choice. 

And this is the important part. Do yourself a favor and write it down on your desktop or something so you can see it every single day. Because in times like these, this cannot be stressed enough:

Neither the right nor the left are inherently evil. They BOTH have villains: the extremists who want to do EVERYTHING one way.

Whether it’s the alt-right or the cntrl-left, those camps just want to stick to their way and their way only. The truth of the matter is that just going one way gets us nowhere, and as much as people in both of those camps like to mock centrists, the answer really does lie somewhere in the middle.

I like to think of America as like a car driving down a road. For the most part, we try to stay in the center. But every so often the road turns or shifts, and we have to adjust to the left or the right to stay where we need. But we should never ever make a hard left or hard right, that would end in disaster.

Alright, so that’s the end of this wall of text. If the original anon is reading this, I again apologize for taking so long and I hope I was able to give you satisfactory answers to at least some of your questions. As for the rest of you, I hope you at least learned a little bit more about how I view the world we live in. If you yourself have any questions about my views on all this, feel free to ask!

[sciencespies]

Why Lie Detector Tests Can't Be Trusted

https://sciencespies.com/history/why-lie-detector-tests-cant-be-trusted/

Why Lie Detector Tests Can't Be Trusted

Francis Gary Powers had his first polygraph experience right after signing up as a pilot for the CIA’s U-2 program in January 1956. In his memoir, Powers described being called into a room where he was confronted with the question,

“Any objection to taking a lie detector test?” Though I had a great many, I didn’t voice them, shaking my head. If this was a condition of the job, I’d do it. But I didn’t like it. … I had never felt so completely exposed, as if there was no privacy whatsoever. If at that moment someone had handed me a petition banning polygraphs forever from the face of the earth, I would gladly have signed it. When I was asked the last question and the straps were taken off, I vowed that never again, no matter what the circumstances, would I undergo such an insult to my integrity.”

Yet Powers would later take another polygraph test, with even higher stakes.

Powers’ case would be an uncommon one, but the polygraph was considered an essential tool in that period, for reasons that had little to do with getting to the truth. The polygraph was more of an attempted answer to a central Cold War conundrum: How could Americans fulfill their pledges to oppose an allegedly totalitarian enemy without becoming totalitarian themselves?

To square this particular circle, federal agencies, first and foremost the CIA, began using a controversial technology developed by psychologists in the early 20th century, and then refined and applied by the police and private businesses since the 1920s. Polygraph measurements—derived from changes in blood pressure, breathing depth, and skin conductivity of an electric current—have never been proved to be reliable indicators of deception. Not only is genuine emotional turmoil hard to reproduce in laboratory studies, but such emotional responses are not uniform among humans and can be imitated by countermeasures (such as pinching yourself before giving a response). In large screening tests, significant numbers of “false positives” (innocent people being labeled deceptive) are unavoidable.

In addition, the question of whether deception during a polygraph test indicates a person is unsuitable for employment transcends merely technical issues. In the final analysis, American security agencies never arrived at a definition of what personal characteristics a model employee should have. Instead, the polygraph provided reasons for dismissing a person as a security risk or denying him or her employment.

Leonarde Keeler was the first American to receive a patent for a polygraph. His patent, granted on January 13, 1931, described the machine as an “apparatus for recording arterial blood pressure.”

(U.S. Patent 1,788,434)

Bureaucratic usefulness, rather than any scientific validity, goes a long way toward explaining why the polygraph became a standard instrument of the American national security state. The case of Powers and his history with polygraphs is instructive.

From 1956 to 1960, 24 U-2 flights over the USSR yielded invaluable strategic intelligence on Soviet military capabilities. But on May 1, 1960, disaster struck when Powers’ plane was shot down over Sverdlovsk (today called Yekaterinburg). American authorities issued a cover story about a weather balloon gone astray and were caught flat-footed when Nikita Khrushchev presented to the world the remnants of the plane, and then the pilot himself. Powers had miraculously survived and was subsequently put on trial in Moscow and sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage. In February 1962, he was exchanged for Soviet KGB colonel Vilyam Fisher (alias Rudolf Ivanovich Abel).

Powers returned home a hero under suspicion. Unbeknownst to him and the American public, doubts about his truthfulness arose due to National Security Agency intercepts of Soviet responses to the U-2 flights. Tracked radar signals indicated that Powers’ plane had dropped below its regular altitude of 65,000 feet, making it vulnerable to surface-to-air missile attacks. But Powers vehemently denied that he had allowed the plane to decline. The CIA, fearing for its then-stellar reputation with the American public, insisted on Powers’ innocence as well.

CIA director John McCone set up a board of inquiry under a federal judge, E. Barrett Prettyman, to prepare a statement for public consumption. The document highlighted that medical tests, a background check, and an interrogation had confirmed that Powers “appeared to be truthful, frank, straightforward. … He volunteered with some vehemence that, although he disliked the process of the polygraph, he would like to undergo a polygraph test. That test was subsequently duly administered by an expert. … [Powers] displayed no indications of deviation from the truth in the course of the examination.”

Contrast this with Powers’ own version of his treatment: Getting frustrated by “doubts about my responses, … I finally reacted angrily, bellowing: ‘If you don’t believe me, I’ll be glad to take a lie detector test!’ … Even before the words were out of my mouth, I regretted saying them. ‘Would you be willing to take a lie detector test on everything you have testified here?’ … I knew that I had been trapped.”

Francis Gary Powers holds a model of a U-2 spy plane as he testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Powers’ plane was shot down by the Soviets, and he was tried and convicted of spying in the USSR.

(Bettmann/Getty Images)

Since shortly after its creation in 1947, the CIA has used the polygraph as part of its personnel security procedures to ascertain the truthfulness of job applicants and employees and to confirm the bona fides of agents. At the height of McCarthyism, utilizing a machine known by the public as a “lie detector” made sense, especially for a brand-new agency that had to be staffed quickly. To its proponents, the polygraph represented a promise of objectivity and fairness along with effective deterrence of spies and traitors. As a CIA inspector general report from 1963 emphasized, “We do not and could not aspire to total security. Our open society has an inherent resistance to police-state measures.”

When challenged by Congress, which investigated federal polygraph use repeatedly beginning in the mid-1960s, the CIA defended the polygraph aggressively. In 1980, the Director of Central Intelligence’s Security Committee insisted: “The utility of the polygraph interview as part of security processing has been demonstrated by empirical means. … These practical results, plus more than thirty years’ experience, make the use of the polygraph in security screening truly unique and indispensable.”

Yet internally, CIA bureaucrats admitted that the practice of sorting out job applicants and employees based on their test results was questionable at best. Even after decades of polygraph practice, the CIA could not define what exactly it meant by elusive terms such as “routine” and “voluntary” in its polygraph program. A 1974 list of questions from polygraph examiners to the general counsel included the following query: “What can a polygraph officer say in response to the question: ‘Do I have to take this test to get a job with the Agency?’ or ‘What happens if I don’t take the test?’” The relevance of the evidence produced during most polygraph tests was also unclear. “The precise yardstick for the measuring of security reliability of an individual continued to be elusive,” an internal CIA history on personnel security concluded in 1973.

Up until his death in a helicopter accident in 1977, Powers insisted that he had acted as a loyal American under trying circumstances. No definite account of the incident has been established yet. We also don’t know what data Powers’ polygraph test produced. However, it is reasonable to conclude that the Kennedy administration found it advisable to assure the public of Powers’ truthfulness, and that announcing that Powers had passed a polygraph test was part of their public relations strategy.

Powers’ experience highlights three ambiguous characteristics of polygraph use by the CIA for purposes of “national security.” First, the claim by polygraph proponents that the test could be a witness for the defense, exonerating loyal citizens, often turned out to be less than clear-cut. Second, while the polygraph relied on the rhetoric of voluntarism, in reality the pressure to take the test often mocked the idea of a free decision. Third, polygraph exams often served to provide official cover rather than revealing the truth of events.

Other questions haunted the polygraph throughout the Cold War, and the often-traumatic experience of the test provoked fierce protests from Americans across ideological lines. Journalists Joseph and Stewart Alsop, two otherwise unrelenting Cold War boosters, compared the polygraph to the embrace of an octopus whose “electric tentacles” produced an “overwhelming impulse to tell all … in order to appease the octopus machine.” Even former chief of CIA counterintelligence James Olson called polygraph exams “an awful but necessary ordeal. We all hate them. … A polygraph examination … is rude, intrusive, and sometimes humiliating. … It’s a grueling process.” Whether the sheer unpleasantness of the exam did more to deter potential traitors, or kept otherwise upstanding citizens from joining the agency, is impossible to determine.

Ultimately, there is the question of whether the polygraph ever caught Soviet spies. Certainly no major communist spy was ever caught by the machine, and the most damaging one, Aldrich Ames, passed two routine polygraph exams after he had delivered deadly information about U.S. activities in the Soviet Union to his handlers.

While the Ames case almost fatally damaged the polygraph’s reputation, the technology was rekindled in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, because, once again, it gave the appearance of a scientific way to test such elusive values as loyalty when doing the inherently risky jobs of screening employees and counterintelligence work. As the history of the polygraph makes clear, American policy makers place great trust in technological fixes to thorny political problems—even though they themselves question those fixes privately.

John Baesler is a professor of history at Saginaw Valley State University and the author of Clearer Than Truth: The Polygraph and the American Cold War.

#History

[namejason13-blog]

CYCLE OF RAGE: NIMBY Lawyer Arthur Schwartz Sees Himself as Jane Jacobs Fighting Robert Moses

Arthur Schwartz will not like reading these words, but he is a NIMBY lawyer.

As the attorney for a coalition of block associations that is fighting the bike lanes on 12th and 13th streets, as well as the city’s plan to turn 14th Street into a dedicated “busway,” he has been called much worse by supporters of street safety and transit improvements. But by the neutral definition of a NIMBY — a neighborhood resident who hears about a city proposal and says, “Not in my back yard!” — Schwartz is definitely a lawyer for NIMBYs.

But he would prefer it if you’d call him the heir to Jane Jacobs.

I spent 45 minutes on the phone with Schwartz on Friday afternoon after vandals attacked the bike lanes that his group wants removed. He condemned the violence, but then spent the next 44 minutes arguing that the pro-transit community has him and his clients all wrong: They are merely fighting for the “community” to have a say over changes to the neighborhood.

And they believe, he says, that closing 14th Street to cars will send those cars onto local side-streets. He might be right — but then only mentioned congestion pricing as a tangential issue. He also made it clear that he opposes select bus service on 14th Street. So, no, he’s no Jane Jacobs in that respect.

He also was very eager to defend his credentials as a “progressive” after many opponents pointed out that it was, how you say, odd, that Schwartz, the political director for the New York Progressive Action Network, was fighting transit and other green transportation efforts on behalf of rich Greenwich Village residents and their supposed right to free on-street car storage. (Schwartz, of course, said parking is not his issue — he spends $600 a month to garage his car).

“Before you attack me as a lawyer for NIMBYs, … check out what I have done for the last 40 years,” he told me in a pre-emptive email after our chat. “I have been the elected Democratic District Leader for the Village since 1995, re-elected 11 times, got elected as an Obama-pledged DNC delegate in 2008, a Bernie delegate in 2016, represented Bernie in 2016, Cynthia Nixon in 2018, Jumaane Williams in 2019, and have built a public interest legal foundation in my spare time (I need paying clients, mostly unions, to pay my bills).”

I pointed out that it’s not an attack to call Schwartz the lawyer for a “not in my backyard” group. “Your group is literally opposing something because of the impact it would have … in your backyard,” I said. “An ‘attack’ would be to say you are corrupt or doing something immoral, which we have not said.”

“But even NIMBY is unfair,” Schwartz argued. “When people in Soho rallied (unsuccessfully) against Trump Tower Soho, was that NIMBY? When I represented many of the same groups to keep a Costco from opening on 14th Street (we got a YMCA instead) was that NIMBY? When people living near NYU sued to stop NYU from building three new 40-story buildings was that NIMBY? … NIMBY is a negative term, which I reserve for things like wealthy people opposing affordable housing in their neighborhood.” (To reiterate, NIMBY is not automatically a pejorative. But when people say they love bike lanes, but only in other people’s neighborhood, the shoe fits. And in this particular case, it’s a tasseled Gucci loafer.)

He claims instead that he and his group are merely fighting for “genuine community involvement in planning,” but in our chat, he said he knows nothing about other neighborhoods or their residents, and does not acknowledge that cyclists and transit riders should also get “genuine community involvement.” He ignored many of the basics that truly define progressive politics: concern for the common man, the ability to look beyond one’s own self-interest to the greater good, or even the desire to bike a mile in someone else’s delivery poncho.

The best part of our chat was his conclusion that the mayor would listen to the “very powerful Transportation Alternatives” and retain the L-train streetscape changes as a favor to the all-powerful bike lobby — a conclusion that is very unlikely, given the mayor’s fealty to the automobile.

It was a bombshell interview, presented here unedited, though with some explanatory notes:

Streetsblog: First of all, what did you think of the vandalism?

Arthur Schwartz: I condemn it. If somebody put glass in the street then it’s horrible. I don’t believe in vigilante action.

Streetsblog: But members of the 14th Street community put up signs suggesting that bike lanes don’t belong on “their” streets.

This graffiti appeared on 13th Street near Avenue A on Thursday. It is a reference to parking spaces that were removed to provide more safety for cyclists.

Arthur Schwartz: My perspective is this: I support bike lanes. When I was a community board member — which I was for 24 years — I would take pride in being the foremost proponent of the bike lane on route 9A [the West Side Greenway]. It was the first and it is still the best as far as I’m concerned. It has the most usage and it’s the safest, until some terrorist comes driving down with a car. And I supported the north-south bike lane on Hudson Street in the early 2000s. I was a big supporter of bike lanes. I am not against bike lanes. I want to be clear: I am not anti-bike lane. I have a Yuba chained in my house that is well-used, and I have two Citi Bike keys. … When my kids were younger, they used to ride on the back to school. [He described a specially made bike that he custom-designed for his kids.] People used to take pictures of my kids on the back reading books or eating sandwiches. So, I’m a big supporter of bikes.

Streetsblog: OK, you’re a lawyer so let’s stipulate two things: You’re a better father than I am and you’re a supporter of getting around by bike. Fine. But if you’re such a supporter, what bothers you about bike lanes on 12th and 13th streets and a busway on 14th Street?

Arthur Schwartz: I happen to believe that communities that are affected by any change should have a meaningful impact into decisions about that change. … Affected communities should have a real say, not just bullshit, but a real say on changes in their community. I served on CB2 for 24 years. … I was the major insister that park planning … genuinely involve input of and responsiveness to the community. I have four kids. That department and the Hudson River Park Trust responded to the community and changed a lot of stuff. They’d come to us with a plan … and we would organize community input and they’d modify and they would try to make people happy. Even if people would come from other communities to use a park, to me, people who live there should have the most say. Just because someone says it’s a great idea…Robert Moses said that. Robert Moses wanted to build an expressway right down Fifth Avenue and the community said, “This is our community.” Jane Jacobs said local people should be involved in planning. She beat them. So you say, “This is not your street. Fifth Avenue belongs to everybody.” Yes and no. People that live in the affected community … have to me should have a major recognized input to what goes on. … [But DOT] all they did was announce it. They said, “This is what we’re going to do.” They took questions. There was no input.

Streetsblog: There was plenty of input from other members of the community that you are not mentioning: the non-car owners, the bus commuters, the cyclists…

This sign suggested that West Village residents think the roads belong to them. Photo: Jonathan Warner

Arthur Schwartz: This doesn’t have to all do with cars. Most of the cars that drive down my block are not from my block. There are other people driving across town. It’s not the car issue. I put my car in a garage. It’s not the car issue. It’s the traffic issue. Traffic causes air pollution, noise, vibration, makes it unsafe for your kids to cross the street. That’s my concern, not where I park my car. It really isn’t. Is it annoying? Yeah. But I never expect parking is easy. My kids go to Chelsea Piers until 9 p.m. It’s either a cab or the car.

Streetsblog: So what is the traffic issue, as you see it?

Arthur Schwartz: You close 14th Street and all those cars are going to go down side streets. Trucks vans cars are going to go across my street, which already has enough traffic. … That’s the traffic. So most of the people involved in the 14th St. Coalition, and it’s every single block association in Chelsea and the Village, they’re not car owners. … It’s the traffic they’re concerned about. … People thought, planning wise, the people at DOT who I think have not done a very good job of moving traffic in the city … bus traffic in Manhattan in 2017 moved at 4.2 mph. The average person walks at 3.3 mph. That’s slow for buses.

Streetsblog: Sounds like you are making an argument in favor of turning 14th Street into a busway so buses could move faster.

Arthur Schwartz: I challenge that whole analysis, which was all based on guesstimates. Those of us who live over here don’t think the busway is going to make it move any faster and it will throw traffic onto our streets. And, this is the second part: the way that the DOT has set up the bike lane, the buffer area is totally being used for parking. I could send you photos.

Streetsblog: I could send you photos! But the traffic you’re worried about is even more likely to happen if there’s no bike lane because now trucks that illegally park only obstruct the bike lane instead of the car lane.

Arthur Schwartz: Right, and without the added traffic, it’s not a big deal [to the drivers]. But the minute you shut down 14th Street, it’s a big deal. To me, it’s not the bike lane.

Streetsblog: You say there was no community input, but the DOT wanted to put a two-way bike lane on 13th Street, but the community said no.

Arthur Schwartz: (Sigh) They did little tweaks. And people can do drop-offs of 14th Street. If they did a two-way on 13th St, they would have had to shut it to cars. There wouldn’t have been room for cars.

Streetsblog: Sounds like a good start! OK, so what do you actually oppose now?

Arthur Schwartz: For me, personally? I am not against the bike lanes. I am against the configuration. There are better ways to a) protect the bike riders b) avoid the trucks and c) allow for traffic flow. I think there are better designs that are better that would make it better. I don’t think it’s a safe bike lane. Just because you have a striped area? People zoom around and there are angry drivers who pull into the bike lane.

Streetsblog: Those angry drivers are the ones who frighten all of us, including cyclists and, I’d imagine, those elderly people you mentioned to Gothamist, though you said they were more afraid of the cyclists. So now I’m confused again: Who’s more dangerous to the elderly: speeding drivers or cyclists?

Arthur Schwartz: I don’t think that’s a safe bike lane. My position is in the letter I sent to the lawyers of DOT. Genuine negotiation with the community.

Streetsblog: Sure, but in this heightened climate, where people are dropping glass in bike lanes, or saying, “Give us back our parking,” this is playing out as a bunch of rich Village residents trying to hold onto their parking at the expense of safe cycling and faster transit.

Arthur Schwartz: No one is saying about parking. [Fact check: Schwartz’s letter to the DOT, embedded below, does bemoan the loss of parking.] Well, parking is an issue for people who have cars that live there. [Loss of parking] is supposed to be in all SEQR assessments, it has to be in there.

Streetsblog: You do know that the existence of parking encourages people to own cars and then drive, thereby causing the very congestion you detest.

Arthur Schwartz: I don’t agree with that.

Streetsblog: You don’t agree that free curbside parking encourages people to drive? It’s not a debatable point. There are countless studies on this. Sir, please…

Arthur Schwartz: (long pause) To me the major problem with traffic in New York City is Uber and Lyft, and not local residents. It’s also out-of-city residents driving in. That’s why I support congestion pricing. If I could get rid of Uber, I would get rid of Uber. If you had fewer vehicles entering Manhattan below 96th Street and fewer for-hire vehicles, we would not have the same problem. People who park on 12th Street never use their cars to go anywhere. … I have lived in the Village for 41 years, so I don’t know what it’s like anywhere else. Their statement doesn’t say a word about parking. It has four points. It doesn’t say a word about parking.

Streetsblog: The sign literally said, “West Village Parking Only.”

Arthur Schwartz: So people put up signs. But the most you could conclude is that one sign is the view of one person.

Streetsblog: You certainly know that the issue of parking comes up all the time at these meetings. Many people who own cars believe that their ability to park freely is more important than a clear right of way for transit users or cyclists.

Arthur Schwartz: Some people say that. I have not advocated that position and I don’t like being labeled that way on your blog. Frankly, my business partner bikes to work from Brooklyn every day and is a big fan of yours. I don’t hang out with car-parking advocates.

Streetsblog: You do represent some of them.

Arthur Schwartz: I represent a coalition of block associations. And they really want to be negotiated with. That’s the main thing they want. Traffic on the side streets is the key issue. [Point of fact: Block associations tend to be dominated by landowners, and do not always reflect the full diversity of a neighborhood.]

Streetsblog: All of this could be moot because the mayor might agree with you that all the L-train mitigations no longer are needed because the L train won’t be shut down.

Arthur Schwartz: I don’t think he’s going to do that. You guys wield a lot of political power.

Streetsblog: Streetsblog?

Arthur Schwartz: Maybe not Streetsblog, but TransAlt. The mayor is a big fan, even though he drives everywhere.

Streetsblog: You really think he’s going to bend to bicyclists? Care to make it interesting? Are you a betting man?

Arthur Schwartz: No, I’m not a betting man.

Letter from Arthur Z. Schwa… by on Scribd

Source: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2019/01/14/cycle-of-rage-nimby-lawyer-arthur-schwartz-sees-himself-as-jane-jacobs-fighting-robert-moses/