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veganpropaganda · 3 years ago

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When foodies sink their teeth into a slab of cheese from one of the historic dairy farms in Point Reyes, California, their minds probably run to grass-fed cows ranging free on the lush green oceanside hills of Marin County. Over 5,000 dairy cows and beef cattle roam the Point Reyes National Seashore National Park in full view of visiting tourists. Unlike the many dairy and meat companies that slap happy animals on their labels while sourcing their product from hellish factory farms, the dairy and beef farms at Point Reyes represent an agrarian ideal of ecologically and ethically sustainable animal agriculture.

“Pasture-raised” and “extensive” or “regenerative” grazing have been watchwords in the American foodie community since at least the 2000s, when celebrated food writer Michael Pollan presented sustainable, nonindustrial practices as a way out of the ethical morass of the American food system in his award-winning bestseller The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Everyone from progressive agrarians to libertarian ranchers to multinational food companies, and even conservation NGOs such as the Audubon Society, has thrown their weight behind the idea of replacing mass-produced meat, from chickens to ungulates, with a holistically raised alternative. While some environmentalists reject beef altogether for its contribution to climate change, pollution, and deforestation, proponents of free-ranging beef have rallied under the motto, “It’s not the cow; it’s the how.” They argue that, done properly, pasture-raised cattle can replace the ecological functions of wild ruminants like elk and bison, produce food on “marginal” land that would otherwise be wasted, and eliminate beef’s carbon hoofprint (since well-grazed land can sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide). This would mean consumers could stick it to Big Ag, fight climate change, and help imperiled animals and ecosystems without actually changing their diets too much; they’d just need to eat a bit less meat and pay a bit more for the grass-fed option.

Whether these promises hold up under scrutiny is a subject of fierce debate. And in recent years, a series of lawsuits have argued the opposite thesis: that even “regenerative” cattle imperil the very ecosystems proponents claim they will “regenerate.”

This past June, the Harvard Animal Law and Policy Clinic, on behalf of the Animal Legal Defense Fund and a number of individual plaintiffs, filed suit against the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service, which manages Point Reyes National Park, alleging that cattle ranching is endangering the iconic tule elk.* It’s not the first such lawsuit that has been filed over the past decade against the NPS to stop alleged environmental damage from Point Reyes cows.

The National Park Service leases parkland to a number of “historic” cattle and dairy farms, which it has done since the park’s creation in 1962. The elk, native to the region but driven to near-extinction by hunting and human activities such as ranching, are protected by a 1976 federal conservation law and were reintroduced to the park in 1978. But to keep the elk from competing with cattle for forage and water, the NPS erected fences that confine the elk to select corners of the park with limited water and forage. This confinement has proved fatal during droughts. Drought in 2013–2014 led to 254 elk deaths. A current drought has already killed over 150 elk, a third of the once 445-strong herd that inhabits Tomales Point, all just a stone’s throw away from thriving commodity cows. Ranchers have even pushed for the right to cull elk outright to keep their populations in check, in part because they have also killed off the natural predators that would do so in a healthy ecosystem. The Harvard suit alleges that “the Tule elk are continuing to die horrific and preventable deaths” in clear violation of federal law.

Prior to the twentieth century, the tule elk were an important part of the Pacific coastal ecosystem and a major component of the diet of the Coast Miwok tribe, the native peoples who lived there. In fact, the NPS concedes that the region’s characteristic hilly grasslands were “the byproduct of burning, weeding, pruning and harvesting for at least two millennia by Coast Miwok and their antecedents.” These grasslands made a juicy target for white settlers arriving in the middle of the nineteenth century. They brought cattle with them, plundered the Coast Miwok lands, hunted large predators and elk to near-extinction, and then grazed their cattle on the hills instead. The intertwined processes of colonial and ecological displacement have continued into the twenty-first century: In 2015, the NPS balked at a proposed “Indigenous Archaeological District” that would have protected Coast Miwok heritage sites from damage from ranching. Even as it did so, it quickly approved a “Historic Dairy Ranching District,” over and against Miwok protests. Today, many Coast Miwok are opposed to the rancher-backed plan to fence and further cull the elk. “The Park Service proposal to shoot indigenous tule elk and promote ranching that harms wildlife, water and habitat is a travesty and contrary to the traditions of our ancestors,” Jason Deschler, dance captain and headman with the Coast Miwok Tribal Council of Marin, wrote this summer in a statement opposing the cull.

The cows at Point Reyes don’t just compete with the elk. They also defecate about 130 million pounds of nitrogen-rich manure a year, which leaches into the soil and streams and ponds of the area. An NPS-funded study suggested that removal of the cows would benefit numerous native species, including butterflies, seabirds, frogs, and salmon. And yet the same study recommended the expansion of ranching. As a damning investigative report into the issue in the Marin County Pacific Sun suggests, the ranchers and dairy farmers have urged pliant politicians, including Senator Dianne Feinstein, to “pressur[e] the Park Service to prioritize the preservation of private ranching profits over environmental concerns.”

Point Reyes is a microcosm of a much broader anti-wildlife bent in American ranching, regenerative and otherwise. To protect their cows from predators and disease, or simply to ensure that they have access to food and water, ranchers across the country have supported wolf hunts, vulture and wild horse culls, and the deployment of cyanide bombs. It is difficult to count the number of wild animals killed in the service of ranching interests by government bodies like the Agriculture Department’s secretive Wildlife Services, the Bureau of Land Management, and various state-level farm bureaus, but about a million animals per year is the federal government’s own estimate.

Unlike wild animals such as elk, ranched cattle are commodities in a global market. And the goals of commodity production run directly counter to those of a functional ecosystem. In the wild, ungulates like bison or elk range across vast swathes of land, serving all sorts of ecosystem functions just by living: rooting, trampling, defecating, dying and decomposing, serving as food for predators and carrion birds and insects, nourishing other animals and the soil in death as their hooves did in life. Commodity production, be it conventional or regenerative, removes animals like cows from this web of life, using fencing and predator extermination to protect grazers from harm so that they can be profitably sold. In place of that natural web, ranching also requires an economic and material infrastructure to breed, manage, slaughter, process, and transport cattle as they are transformed into beef or milked. Even with the best of ecological intentions, ranchers who want their business to survive must build and maintain that infrastructure according to commercial principles.

The capitalist assumptions pervading these enterprises are clearest when regenerative proponents promise to be able to extract food from so-called “marginal” lands. Conventionally defined, “marginal land” is land that has little current agricultural or industrial value, often because of poor soil, water resources, or climate conditions. What ranchers mean is that grazing cattle can extract value, in the form of commoditized beef, from dry, rocky, difficult to access lands. Of course, such lands are only “marginal” from an instrumental, Lockean view that all land must be worked to create value. But from a biodiversity and ecosystem health perspective, so-called marginal lands can be thriving, biodiverse habitats for myriad flora and fauna, which can be disrupted by the introduction of grazers.

Historically, even land that is home to human beings has been deemed “marginal” if its value cannot be commoditized. As historian Joshua Specht shows, ranchers have historically been the spear tip of settler colonialism in the American West. They often used the pretext of “waste” and “emptiness” to violently uproot Indigenous lifeways and ecosystems and replace them with “productive” commercial ranching. The Coast Miwok Tribal Council of Marin linked that history of dispossession to the plan to cull the elk in a letter to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, describing it as “a travesty … that perpetuates a long legacy of harm inflicted on Native People by the National Park Service.”

The idea of converting “marginal” or unused land is basically a promise to produce something from nothing. All too often, that simply means that the costs are hidden. Increasingly, environmental research suggests that while introducing grazers to marginal lands can be economically generative for those who own the grazers, it is degenerative of previously existing ecosystems. A recent meta-analysis in the journal Ecology Letters, for example, found that excluding commercial agricultural grazers increases the abundance of plant and faunal biodiversity in most ecosystems. That’s because most livestock are managed at densities that dramatically exceed those of wild fauna. In fact, the Center for Biological Diversity recently won a lawsuit that will force the Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect sensitive ecosystems within New Mexico’s Gila National Forest and Arizona’s Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest from free-ranging cows.

Over the past two decades, proponents of “regenerative” grazing have increasingly justified cattle agriculture by claiming their methods reduce ruminants’ contribution to climate change: Currently, the world’s cows, by belching out methane, contribute about 6 percent percent of all greenhouse gases. (Many note that cows “only” contribute 3 percent of U.S. emissions, but this is only because of America’s massive total emissions.) Regenerative ranching proponents claim, however, that by turning over and fertilizing the soil where they graze, free-ranging ruminants create healthy soil that can act as a carbon sink.

One of the biggest drivers of this claim has been the work of the rancher Allan Savory, made famous through a viral TED talk in 2013. But Savory’s claims have little peer-reviewed support and seem to fail under scrutiny. “The Savory Method Can Not Green Deserts or Reverse Climate Change,” five researchers argued in a lengthy rebuttal published in the journal Rangelands that same year. In 2017, an exhaustive, 127-page study led by scholars at Oxford found that grass-fed livestock “does not offer a significant solution to climate change as only under very specific conditions can they help sequester carbon. This sequestering of carbon is even then small, time-limited, reversible and substantially outweighed by the greenhouse gas emissions these grazing animals generate.”

Studies suggest that while some forms of well-managed grazing can increase the health and productivity of soil, there is little proof that this has much impact on soil’s ability to capture carbon. To the extent that soil can act as a carbon sink, a widely-cited article in Frontiers in Climate argues that it can do so through practices like cover crop rotation, tillage, and novel soil amendments that don’t use animals at all. But cows or no cows, the idea that soil can act as a meaningful carbon sink at the scale at which global climate change currently operates is itself not entirely convincing. Removing soil from any agricultural use and allowing it to rewild, however, can create meaningful carbon sinks while protecting and restoring biodiversity; wild elk populations might plausibly do more to capture carbon than the most holistically raised cattle.

When it comes to cows, there is actually a sort of perverse climate and ethical math at play. Most of America’s 93 million cattle spend at least some of their life grazing on pasture, although many beef cattle are also fattened for slaughter in feedlots where they are fed soy- and grain-based meals. But since processed meal is easier to digest and beef cattle, on average, spend only a few of their 18-month lives at feedlots, only about 11 percent of their greenhouse gas emissions happen there. The remaining 89 percent happen when they digest rough forage and grasses on pasture. In other words, cows that graze throughout their lives actually potentially emit more than feedlot-finished ones.

Small numbers of grazers may be consistent with healthy ecosystems and have minimal greenhouse gas impact, but only if their populations stay within ecologically defined limits. The situation in Point Reyes, where ranchers have pushed the NPS to be able to use more land for grazing and prevent elk from competing with cows for food and water, illustrates exactly why that’s unlikely.

The problem of scale bedevils regenerative beef from every angle. Holistic grazing cannot hope to compete on price with Big Meat, which operates with high volumes and low margins: A pound of ground beef from a Marin County ranch can run well over $10, compared to $3.99 for mass-produced beef at Kroger. Regenerative ranching proponents often answer that consumers will opt to eat “less but better meat,” but it’s far from clear what’s going to drive that transition at the societal level. (Also worth noting: In the absence of a public agency that could define and regulate ecologically informed grazing practices, “better” meat is a little nebulous. The “regenerative” label has been affixed to so many different techniques that what exactly it means is often hard to pin down.)

As a result, “regenerative” beef currently represents not so much a scalable climate solution as a way for those who can afford to do so to purchase indulgences for their continued meat consumption. The owners of grass-fed beef ventures may market their premium-priced products as a way out of the hellscape of Western capitalistic agriculture. But absent much broader societal changes, regenerative agriculture’s anti-industrial rhetoric is more of a class marker than a call to revolution.

If regenerative agriculture were to challenge the mainstream food system, it would run into some hard physical limits. Converting the beef industry, at current levels of demand, entirely to a grass- and crop-forage feeding system would require increasing the total size of American beef herds by 23 million cows, or 30 percent, according to a recent article in the respected science journal Environmental Research Letters. And that increase, were it even possible, would have monumental consequences for both greenhouse gas outputs and land use. But there simply isn’t enough land in the U.S. for that many grazers. At best, beef production would have to decrease by 39 percent and potentially as much as 73 percent. Framed that way, grass-fed grazing, especially if scaled, doesn’t seem likely to regenerate many ecosystems—indeed, it would likely require deforestation, as is the case in Brazil, where the clear-cutting of the Amazon is driven both by soy plantations for feedlot and factory farm animal feed and by the need for grazing space for grass-fed cattle. And as the Environmental Research Letters article argued, even temporary overgrazing can lead to long-term and perhaps irreversible ecological degradation.

This list of mismatches between theory and empirics prompts an important question: Who does benefit from more demand for holistic-grazed beef? Ranchers and dairy farmers, of course. Regenerative ranching begins with the assumption that cattle must be commercially ranched and then backfills an ecological narrative to sustain that assumption, much as the NPS assumes there must be ranches in Point Reyes and then reshapes the park’s history and landscape to fit that need.

Actually making animal agriculture less ecologically disruptive would mean taking animals’ ecological value as a bedrock principle against and over their value as commodities. That means treating commodity production, not land, as “marginal”: Commodities could be extracted only if doing so didn’t disturb the ecological, social, and cultural value of the landscape. In other words, in most such systems, animals would more than likely play a minor support role for primarily plant agriculture. And that, in turn, would almost certainly mean far fewer grazers entering the commercial food system, and at a much higher price point. Point Reyes, for example, might feature free-ranging elk managed by an Indigenous best practice–driven conservation agency, not dairy cattle grazed by private ranches. This kind of truly eco-friendly meat production would produce even less meat than the current grab bag of practices loosely labeled “regenerative.”

As the elk of Point Reyes might attest, grass-fed beef and dairy are not ecologically benign. Nor are they a solution to climate change. Nor yet, in offering a more expensive alternative to industrial agriculture to those who can afford it, do they offer a clear path for reducing meat consumption society-wide. If anything, regenerative ranching lends itself either to niche locavore indulgence or large-scale corporate greenwashing, but it offers little promise for sustainable food system transformation.

Achieving more sustainable agriculture means we need to produce and eat less meat. To get there, we’ll need individuals to change their habits, but we’ll also need policy aimed specifically at reducing meat consumption through taxation, nudges toward animal-free diets, or, potentially, support for the proliferation of plant- or cell-based meat analogs. Ranchers tend to deny this, not because it is ecologically unfounded but because they are financially invested in ranching rather than regeneration.

*One of the authors of this piece is a fellow at the Harvard Animal Law and Policy Program. He is not and has never been personally involved in the Point Reyes lawsuit.

#regenerative grazing #regenerative farming #animal agriculture #ecology #greenwashing #capitalism #food systems

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kapitaali · 4 years ago

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The New Hippies

THE NEW HIPPIES: The work abolition movement, anarcho-primitivism and biodynamism as ways to combat climate change

Essay for the course LOGS13b The Strategic Role of Responsibility in Business by Teppo Saari

Introduction

The course LOGS13b The Strategic Role of Responsibility in Business had the students think about and discuss the various ethical dimensions in business, moral dilemmas and choices to be made that a decision maker in business world come across every day.

This essay is motivated by our case study with a headline ’Investors urge European companies to include climate risks in accounts’ (Financial Times 2020). In this essay I will explore values and ethical principles that I see as the solutions to our case study and climate change in general. This is not to say that I could stand up for them in business world. Ironically, my main thread and leitmotif here is the untransformational nature of capitalism and business world. Thus, standing up to the values I will discuss here means doing less business, not more.

This essay is divided in three parts: problem – reaction – solution. These three parts will talk about the chosen values and ethical principles. They are by no means new: pragmatism – The Golden Rule – parsimony & naturality. They just seem to be in conflict with our modern way of living.

Thinking pragmatically about the problem

As part of our course assignment, we got to read about a group of investors managing trillions of dollars worth of assets who urged European companies to include climate risks in their accounts (Financial Times 2020). Scientists have warned us for decades, that pumping extreme amounts of CO2 into our atmosphere will result in melting of the polar ice caps (Mitchell 1989; Jones & Henderson-Sellers 1990), which will raise the sea level and drown some of the coastal cities (Peters & Darling 1985). Finally, capitalists are acting responsibly!

It would seem that capitalists actually cared for the planet and not just their profits. Or would it? Maybe they are scared of losing their future profits, and this kind of media escapade would bring back public trust and confidence in the system. It would be a sign that capitalists can act transparently, openly, accountably, respecting others (O’Leary 1993). But is changing the allocation in your investment portfolio really a sign of empathy? Would there be other ways to better express empathy in business?

Shareholders are interested in the risk their assets are facing, not necessarily in the welfare of the people. Investors acting virtuously can be just virtue-signaling or pleasing other elements in the society to take off media pressure and negative PR from them in a conformist way (Collinson 2003). Maybe they are just greenwashing their own conscience. Why is George Soros’ climate buzz astroturfing industrial complex (Morningstar 2019a) financing Greta Thunberg to do public PR campaigns targeting the youth? Maybe there is money in it. It is unlikely that it would have been dubbed ”A 100 trillion dollar storytelling campaign” without some particularly good reasons (Morningstar 2019b).

But there is something else in it too than just money: power and control. The person who gets to limit choices gets to dictate what kind of choices remain. And if a person has that kind of foreknowledge, then that person can be two steps ahead of us. And being two steps ahead of us means securing future profits. Including climate risks in accounts will imply controls. Controls are imposed on accounts, but ultimately it will mean controls imposed on people and their daily activities. Workers are the ones who will naturally suffer the consequences of management decisions. In this case management decisions are ’urged’ externally, from the owners’ part. After all, it is the corporations that are producing most of the climate change effects, in terms of pollution and greenhouse gases (Griffin 2017). People doing their jobs, working everyday, producing things but also at the same time producing climate effects. I would still love to hear politicians use more terms such as ”pollution” when talking about these issues. For it is unclear how reducing carbon emissions will reduce overall pollution that is also a contributor in the destruction of our environment (see eg. Bodo & Gimah 2020; Oelofse et al. 2007). Issues like microplastics, holes in the ozone layer, biodiversity loss, acid rains and soil degradation need to be talked about just as much, if not more so.

The problem is simple: too much economic activity producing too much climate impact, mostly pollution and greenhouse gases. Solving the Grand Challenge (Konstantinou & Muller 2020) of our time is harder if we wish to keep the fabric of our society intact. There’s a clear need for dialogue among stakeholders (Gardiner 1996), but how is it a dialogue if people are not actually listened to and don’t get to say how things will progress in society? What I am proposing is a meme-like solution that has the greater impact the more people adopt it. My solution is: stop working. Produce less. Stop supporting systems and mechanisms that produce climate effects. Stop supporting the mechanisms that don’t listen to your voice. Disconnect from the Matrix. Working a dayjob is one of these mechanisms. Although many people have realized the benefits of working from home (Kost 2020), a lot more needs to be done. Remote work is not available to everyone. Not all jobs are remote work.

Bob Black (2021) in his texts has advocated for the total and complete abolition of work. Stopping working naturally does not mean stopping doing things, it will merely mean stopping working a job, a concept which itself is a social construct. Black’s theses are simple but powerful. Working is the source of all ills, it is not compatible with ludic life (allthemore so in 2021), it is forced labour and compulsory production, it is replete with indignities called ”discipline”: ”surveillance, rotework, imposed work tempos, production quotas, punching -in and -out, etc”. Black does not only describe the negative ontological aspects of working, he goes deeper and invokes many familiar names of Greek philosophers:

Both Plato and Xenophon attribute to Socrates and obviously share with him an awareness of the destructive effects of work on the worker as a citizen and a human being. Herodotus identified contempt for work as an attribute of the classical Greeks at the zenith of their culture. To take only one Roman example, Cicero said that “whoever gives his labor for money sells himself and puts himself in the rank of slaves.” His candor is now rare, but contemporary primitive societies which we are wont to look down upon have provided spokesmen who have enlightened Western anthropologists. The Kapauku of West Irian, according to Posposil, have a conception of balance in life and accordingly work only every other day, the day of rest designed “to regain the lost power and health.” Our ancestors, even as late as the eighteenth century when they were far along the path to our present predicament, at least were aware of what we have forgotten, the underside of industrialization. Their religious devotion to “St. Monday” — thus establishing a de facto five-day week 150–200 years before its legal consecration — was the despair of the earliest factory owners. They took a long time in submitting to the tyranny of the bell, predecessor of the time clock. In fact it was necessary for a generation or two to replace adult males with women accustomed to obedience and children who could be molded to fit industrial needs. Even the exploited peasants of the ancient regime wrested substantial time back from their landlord’s work. According to Lafargue, a fourth of the French peasants’ calendar was devoted to Sundays and holidays, and Chayanov’s figures from villages in Czarist Russia — hardly a progressive society — likewise show a fourth or fifth of peasants’ days devoted to repose. Controlling for productivity, we are obviously far behind these backward societies. The exploited muzhiks would wonder why any of us are working at all. So should we.

Black notes that only ”a small and diminishing fraction of work serves any useful purpose independent of the defense and reproduction of the work-system and its political and legal appendages”. In similar vein, the late but great David Graeber saw the futility of most work. Calling this phenomenon ’bullshit jobs’ (Graeber 2018), Graeber sets out to describe what many of us are familiar with: we do useless things to make ourselves feel useful. Because modern society legitimizes itself with having people ’do’ stuff and not ’be’ a certain person. How can you (objectively) measure being? You can’t. But doing, that you can measure. This measurement then qualifies you as a member of society: productive, doing your part (an idiom that is a perfect example how you can’t escape the doing paradigm on a societal level). Graeber’s definition of a bullshit job is: if the position were eliminated, it would make no discernible difference in the world. In many cases these types of jobs are found to be supporting some kind of buraucracy, reporting, assisting decision makers, etc. Our current Matrix has its ways of creating more of these with the clever marketing concept called ’value’ (Petrescu 2019). They don’t make a difference, they create value.

Why would you want to overload the world by doing things that you nor most everyone else see no point in? Why would you waste your time doing pointless things? The easy answer to these questions is ’subsistence’. But there are many other ways to live on this planet. If you keep doing what the society tells you is acceptable or convenient, you will shut your eyes from the problem at hand: climate change.

Legitimizing anarcho-naturism as a solution with The Golden Rule

Our responsibility is to ourselves. We can not properly be held responsible for anything else. Yet the system of representational democracy does just this, holds us collectively responsible for many things, borrows money from creditors with our names on the loan collectively and then makes us pay for the loans. The way this Matrix works is yet another reason to disconnect from it. Or at least stop supporting it as much as possible.

The Golden Rule states: ”Treat others as you want to be treated” (Gensler 2013). From the perspective of climate change, it can first seem curious why you would quit your job and head for the hills. After all, we are facing a global issue here. There are people in need for help and I am running away? But I would see it as a way to get around our predicament. The Golden Rule can be also interpreted in Kantian way as the categorical imperative, particularly its first formulation: ”Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”. This formulation is somewhat more proactive in nature. It talks about acting, doing things, and doing things is what is appreciated in our society, even when your goal is to exit the society.

Why exit the society? Is it enough to just quit your job and find something else to do, something that is more fulfilling and not bullshit? What an excellent question. Long before the advent of smart phones and 5G and DNA-vaccines, this question had been brought up to the table. In the 1800s, people were realizing the negative impact industrialization was having on society at large. People were rooted out from their family homes in the countryside, forced to move to a large city to look for a job, crammed into small apartments with dozens of other workers, coerced into working long and hard days at factories to make a living. The lowly misery of these people attracted the attention of a certain Friedrich Engels, who felt their situation was not adequate to make up for the suffering they had gone through. He meticulously described the working conditions of the English working class in his ”The Condition of the Working Class in England” (2003 [1845]), originally published in German. Sociology as a science was established by Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim to study these changes. Slowly but surely, the influx of people into cities started to cause issues, something that mayors and other municipal representatives had to start taking care of. Planning and zoning were given a lot more attention, since the earlier modus operandi of old European cities had been rather laissez faire (Sutcliffe 1980).

Against this backdrop of massive societal change, people started to question the changes and their direction. Are we really nothing more than slaves, just working in a different environment? Slavery might not be the right word or context here. Many people believe to be free, govern themselves and their property, and yet their daily actions and options to choose from seem to be eerily limited. They have only so many choices, most of which seem somehow related to running their errands. A more appropriate term, with all its connotations, here would be the Greek word ananke, ”force, constraint, necessity”. Like a force of nature, progress towards modernity necessitates that people leave their family homes and go work in large factories, compulsively manufacturing endless amounts of products, some of which are necessary, others merely decorations, and some just pointless.

Many names in 19th century New England worked upon a vision for the future society at a time when unprecedented changes were taking place and the standard of living was rising faster than ever before. The Transcendental Club was a group of New England authors, philosophers, socialists, politicians and intellectuals of the early-to-mid-19th century which gave rise to Transcendentalism, the first notable American intellectual movement. Transcendentalist believe in the inherent goodness of people and nature, but that society and its institutions — particularly organized religion and political parties — corrupt the purity of the individual. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2003; Sacks 2003.) Transcendentalism is a unique mix of European Romanticism, German (particularly Kantian) philosophy, and American Christianity. The impact of this movement can still be seen in the many flavours of American anarchist and radical Christian movements.

Out of the ranks of Transcendentalists rose a couple of names that can be viewed as the progenitors of modern anarcho-primitivism and natur(al)ist anarchy. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the central figure of the Transcendental Club, who together with Henry David Thoreau critiqued the contemporary society for its ”unthinking conformity” and advocated for “an original relation to the universe” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2003). Emerson’s Nature (2009 [1836]) poetically embellishes our view of the natural world, while Thoreau’s Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1995 [1854]) is a call for civil disobedience and revolt against the modern world. Another influential natur(al)ist writer has been Leo Tolstoi whose name is frequently mentioned by anarchists. Tolstoi himself was a Christian and pacifist, and his writings have inspired Christian anarcho-pacifism that views the state as ”immoral and unsupportable because of its connection with military power” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2017).

Before the Transcendentalist movement, Europe experienced similar trend in philosophy with Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s natural philosophy. Rousseau touched upon many subjects: freedom, free will, authority, nature, morality, societal inequality, representation and government. Like Transcendentalists, Rousseau held a belief that human beings are good by nature but are rendered corrupt by society. ”Rousseau clearly states that morality is not a natural feature of human life, so in whatever sense it is that human beings are good by nature, it is not the moral sense that the casual reader would ordinarily assume” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2010). Rousseau’s work is relevant to many of the social movements that currently fight against COVID restrictions, vaccination agenda, building of 5G antenna towers next to where people live, polluting the environment, systemic poverty and general disconnection from the natural world. Rousseau, although regarded as a philosopher, saw philosophy itself negatively, and to him philosophers were ”the post-hoc rationalizers of self-interest, as apologists for various forms of tyranny, and as playing a role in the alienation of the modern individual from humanity’s natural impulse to compassion” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2010).

Rousseau’s days did not see capitalism as we see it now. It was later Marx (influenced by Hegel, who in turn was influenced by Rousseau) that put together a treatise that considers the societal change we have seen ever since from industrialism and circulation of capital. But Rousseau’s thoughts about the social contract (1968 [1762]), “child-centered” education (Rousseau 2010), and inequality (Graeber & Wengrow 2018; Rousseau 2008) are still relevant today. Especially when we are faced with many societal forces that are contradictory in nature, each of them pushing us into certain direction, demanding our attention, wanting us to change our beliefs about that one particular aspect that connects with other aspects and forms the Matrix of our reality.

We are once again facing a similar situation as the people did back in the days of the first industrial revolution. Now the industrial revolution has reached its fourth cycle, unimaginatively called ”Industry 4.0” (Marr 2018; WEF 2021), where machines are starting to become autonomous and talk to each other. I used to think technology was cool, and went to work for Google. But at Google I learned that technology is not cool, after all. Not until technology becomes completely open source, it will be used by massive conglomerates to build autonomous weapons systems (Cassella 2018; Johnson 2018) and the industry will keep paying ethics researchers to keep writing arguments for them (Charters 2020). Even though I could work for an industry that, given the current trajectory, will be among the biggest producers of CO 2 in the future Vidal 2017), the idea that I would work for an industry that sees weaponizing their products as the grandest idea of mankind’s future is still gnawing.

Because, it is all just business (Huesemann & Huesemann 2011):

One of the functions of critical science is to create awareness of the underlying values, and the political and financial interests which are currently determining the course of science and technology in industrialized society. This exposure of the value-laden character of science and technology is done with the goal of emancipating both people and the environment from domination and exploitation by powerful interests. The ultimate objective is to redirect science and technology to support both ordinary people and the environment, instead of causing suffering through oppression and exploitation by dominant elites. Furthermore, by exposing the myth of the value-neutrality of science and technology, critical science attempts to awaken working scientists and engineers to the social, political, and ethical implications of their work, making it impossible or, at the very least, uncomfortable for them to ignore the wider context and corresponding responsibilities of their professional activities.

It all seems to be connected with state imperialism and the military-industrial(-intelligence) complex. Lenin’s statement (2008 [1916]) equating capitalism with imperialism still prevails this day: ”imperialist wars are absolutely inevitable under such an economic system, as long as private property in the means of production exists”. The conditions change, but the war machine keeps on churning (soon with autonomous weapons!), with wealthy but crooky investors financing projects that are even more dystopian (Byrne 2013). We may remember what president Dwight D. Eisenhower said about the military- industrial complex (NPR 2011):

”In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.”

It is exactly these kinds of doomsday scenarios that inspire people like Theodore John ”The Unabomber” Kaczynski. Kaczynski, famous for sending mail bombs to various university professors around the US, holds a doctoral degree in mathematics. (Wikipedia 2021.) Kaczynski was bullied as a child, and it has been suggested that he was part of an MKULTRA experiment in college (The Week 2017). Kaczynski did not send his bombs haphazardly. He wrote long theoretical pieces to justify his actions, most of them being thematically anarcho-primitivist. In 1995, after sending several bombs to university personnel and business executives in 1978-1995, he said to ”desist from terrorism” if he got his text published in media outlets.

In his Industrial Society and Its Future (Kaczynski 1995), a 35 thousand word essay published in The Washington Post, which the FBI gave the name ”Unabomber manifesto”, Kaczynski attributes many our societal ills to ”leftism”. In the manifesto Kaczynski details how two psychological tendencies, “feelings of inferiority” and “oversocialization”, form the basis of ”the psychology of modern leftism”. Feelings of inferiority are taken to mean the whole spectrum of negative feelings about self: low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, guilt, self-hatred etc. Oversocialization is the process of socialization taken to extreme levels:

24. Psychologists use the term “socialization” to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that many leftists are over-socialized, since the leftist is perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists are not such rebels as they seem.

25. The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a nonmoral origin. We use the term “oversocialized” to describe such people.

Kaczynski goes on to describe how this oversocialization causes a person to feel guilt and shame for their actions, especially in the context of performing as society expects them to perform. He writes how this concept of oversocialization is used to determine ”the direction of modern leftism”. Further on, Kaczynski describes how modern man needs goals to strive for, to not run the risk of developing serious psychological problems. This goalsetting activity he denotes ”power process”. But these goals can be real or artificial. Setting a goal is “surrogate activity” if the person devotes much time and energy to attaining it, does not attain it, and still feels seriously deprived. It is just a goal for goalsetting’s sake, the unfulfilled other side of the coin of power process. Kaczynski then connects these concepts to the many societal ills (excessive density of population, isolation of man from nature, excessive rapidity of social change and the breakdown of natural small-scale communities such as the extended family, the village or the tribe) by describing how modern society, with all its marketing and advertising creating artificial needs, disrupts the power process, mankind’s search for itself and meaning-making in life. He sees social hierarchies and the need to climb up them, the ”keeping up with the Joneses”, as surrogate activity.

”Because of the constant pressure that the system exerts to modify human behavior, there is a gradual increase in the number of people who cannot or will not adjust to society’s requirements: welfare leeches, youth gang members, cultists, anti-government rebels, radical environmentalist saboteurs, dropouts and resisters of various kinds”. This gradual increase, then, the system tries to ’solve’ by using propaganda, ”to make people WANT the decisions that have been made for them”. In regards to technology, the ”bad” parts cannot be separated from the ”good”, and thus we are constantly facing the dilemma between technology and freedom, new technology being introduced all the time, and new regulations being introduced to curb the negative effects of the technology and at the same time stripping us of our freedoms. Kaczynski concludes, that revolution is easier than reforming the system.

Later, Kaczynski released another of his anti-technological theses. In Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How (2015) Kaczynski presents a ”comprehensive historical analysis explaining the futility of social control and the catastrophic influence of technological growth on human social and planetary ecological systems.” This time Kaczynski talks more about how to start an anti-tech movement and how to keep it going. The text reads like a mathemathical proof of sorts, it presents ”rules”, ”propositions” and ”postulates” why the technological system will destroy itself (eg. Russell’s Paradox resulting in chaos in a highly complex, tightly coupled system) and why a successful anti-tech movement needs clear goals to avoid some of the errors revolutionary movements have made, which are elaborated in the book. Violence is not offered as a solution in the book, it is seen more like a mishap of sorts, a suboptimal outcome of a revolutionary movement. But it talks about power. Kaczynski got to learn the hard way how the feeling of powerlessness breeds desperate actions that would have been otherwise unnecessary. The book also talks about climate change and related issues, from a mathematic systems theoretical point of view.

Institutions that are in the business of social engineering and behavioral modification, such as the Tavistock Institute in the UK or the CIA in the US, would have us believe that Kaczynski’s actions were ”defences against anxiety” that can be seen as ”withdrawal, informal organization, reactive individualism and scapegoating” (Hills et al. 2020), and to some extent this is true. But Kaczynski interprets the actions of these institutions stemming from technological progress in our society Kaczynski 1995):

117. In any technologically advanced society the individual’s fate MUST depend on decisions that he personally cannot influence to any great extent. A technological society cannot be broken down into small, autonomous communities, because production depends on the cooperation of very large numbers of people and machines. Such a society MUST be highly organized and decisions HAVE TO be made that affect very large numbers of people.

This uniformity of a large hierarchical modern society then forces its will on people (Kaczynski 1995):

119. The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy human needs. Instead, it is human behavior that has to be modified to fit the needs of the system. This has nothing to do with the political or social ideology that may pretend to guide the technological system. It is not the fault of capitalism and it is not the fault of socialism. It is the fault of technology, because the system is guided not by ideology but by technical necessity.

We have once again encountered ananke, necessity. Now, if we consider ourselves as the lonely decision makers in this society, what could we do? We can try and fight fire with fire, but such fights end up producing only pain and casualties (Taylor 2013). Anarcho-naturists and anarcho-pacifists understand that (unnecessary) fighting in most cases does not work. Sometimes fighting is warranted, but it is beyond the scope of this essay to examine those cases. Sending bombs to people’s offices may get you some attention and even make somebody quote your manifesto in an essay, but it is not solving the issue, something which the Unabomber addressed in his later texts. If working a job indirectly supports the military-industrial complex NewScientist 2011), what good does it do? The military-industrial complex is the biggest source of pollution in the world (The Conversation 2019; Acedo 2015), detaching yourself from this complex is imperative. Even if they would manage to convince us with their psyops that they are willing to change and that climate change is an important issue (Ahmed 2014), it would still be the biggest polluter that is controlling the conversation. It has even been suggested that they are behind this climate buzz (Light 2014). Is your job doing that much good in society that it outweighs the cons? If I need to act responsibly, but cannot fight the system nor conform, while at the same time keeping in mind our looming climate disaster, the only reasonable and peaceful response is to exit the system altogether.

Biodynamism’s naturality and parsimony

Owning responsibility and transforming the world implies taking some kind of action. We have already seen how feelings of powerlessness and lack of self-worth can lead to destructive actions. But there are an unlimited amount of actions that can be taken, that are not based in feelings of powerlessness but empowerment.

Exiting society might sound like a lonely project, and some people might rightfully feel lonely when all their peers still want to live in the illusion. But it does not have to be so. A lot of soul-searching needs to be done, and that is usually done in privacy, focusing upon oneself, but beyond that there are ways how to go off-grid and drastically reduce your carbon emissions.

One of the key concepts that will be our guiding principle here is degrowth (Paulson 2017), which ties into values such as organicity, naturality and parsimony. We will want to have less production of artificial things, and more organic and natural things. By artificial we mean long supply chains and many phases of production with modern high technology that produce a large amount of climate effects. By natural we mean using primitive technology, mostly all-natural or recycled materials and something that can be produced even alone, given enough time. Primitive technology does not exclude electricity, it just means producing it differently.

Rudolf Steiner, Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and theosophist, the founder of Anthroposophy and a great reformer of science in matters of spirit, started the first intentional form of organic farming, known as biodynamic agriculture, after he had given a series of lectures on the topic in the last year of his life. (Paull 2011.) Steiner had many spiritual experiences during his life, which lead him to start the Anthroposophy movement. He wanted to apply the scientific process into spiritual realm, inquiring it as it would be as real as our material world. Inquiring this spiritual world helped him access knowledge he claims to not have been access otherwise (Steiner 2011 [1918]). Anthroposophist self-inquiry can be seen as Foucauldian ”technology of the self” that ”provide an intervention mechanism on the part of active subjects, injecting an element of contingency to everyday encounters and alleviating the determinist effect that technologies of power would have otherwise” (Skinner 2012).

Steiner’s thoughts about agriculture are still relevant (Paull 2011):

In 1924 Steiner commented that, “Nowadays people simply think that a certain amount of nitrogen is needed for plant growth, and they imagine it makes no difference how it’s prepared or where it comes from” Steiner, 1924b, pp.9-10). He made the point that, “In the course of this materialistic age of ours, we’ve lost the knowledge of what it takes to continue to care for the natural world” (Steiner, 1924b, p.10).

Our current system seems to think exactly in this way, that if we just compensate our wreaked havoc by investing in ’green’ technology (Elegant 2019), it will all be ok and rainbows in the sky. But it will not. No one is even double checking if the companies that say that they are now carbon neutral actually proactively try to make our world greener. They can just buy a renewable energy company and say now we are green and do nothing else. Some would argue that going ’carbon neutral’ like these massive corporations are doing it is not the way to do it: “’green’ infrastructures are creating conflict and ecological degradation and are the material expression of climate catastrophe” (Dunlap 2020).

Steinerian biodynamism ”encompasses practices of composting, mixed farming systems with use of animal manures, crop rotations, care for animal welfare, looking at the farm as an organism/entity and local distribution systems, all of which contribute toward the protection of the environment, safeguard biodiversity and improve livelihoods of farmers” (Turinek et al. 2009). While modern biodynamic studies focus on agroecological factors such as nutrient cycles, soil characteristics, and nutritional quality (Reganold 1995; Droogers & Bouma 1996), Steiner himself was quite metaphysical in his lectures and paid attention to details such as kingdoms of nature, planetary influences, biorhythms, incarnated and environmental ethers, and the Zodiac (Steiner 2004 [1958]; Nastati 2009).

By shifting to more natural ways of living, we may help Gaia (Lovelock 1991; Singh 2007) heal in many other ways than just reduce our climate emissions. By realizing that we are actually living on the skin of a fairly large and complex organism, we will stop treating it as a plain source of material resources, and start bonding with it, tune into its consciousness and establish two-way communication, just like the natives have done in America.

The way of the natives ought to be our current way, since there is no reason why the natives could not guard the lands they have before. One of the greatest fears of people speaking for private property rights is that managing resources collectively would mean exhausting them. There is no Tragedy of Commons. Just because you are materially poor does not mean that you are any less competent steward of land and wealth, as proposed by Elinor Oström (2009). Acting for climate is not an investment allocation problem. The natives need their land back so that they could do their best to fight the destruction of our ecosystem. The Outokumpu supply chain in Brazilian rainforests, Elon Musk and Bolivian lithium mines, Papua New Guinea indigenous conflict, mining in Lapland in traditional Sami herding areas, Australian uranium mining in indigenous lands… these are all pointless conflicts.

There are also many other ways of staying grounded and in touch with nature, while at the same time cultivating sovereignty. Many of these things revolve around feeding the most immediate community next to you. They reflect ideas such as mutuality, solidarity, organicity, and naturality. Permaculture is a term coined by David Holmgren to describe ”an approach to land management and philosophy that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole systems thinking. It uses these principles in fields such as regenerative agriculture, rewilding, and community resilience” (Wikipedia: Permaculture 2021). Permaculture has many branches including ecological design, ecological engineering, regenerative design, environmental design, and construction. It also includes integrated water resources management that develops sustainable architecture, and regenerative and self-maintained habitat and agricultural systems modeled from natural ecosystems (Holmgren Desing Services 2007).

Earthships are 100% sustainable homes that are both energy efficient and modern. Earthsips are built with natural and repurposed (recycled) materials, they heat and cool themselves without electric heat, they use solar energy to power electric appliances, they collect all of their water from rain and snowmelt, they re-use their sewage water to fertilize plants, and there’s an indoor garden that grows food in vertical growing spaces (Reynolds 2021). Ecovillages are a ”human-scale, full-featured settlement, in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world in a way that is supportive of healthy human development and can be successfully continued into the indefinite future” (Gilman & Gilman 1991).

Clifford Harper had a set of drawings imagining an alternative in his book Radical Technology (Harper & Boyle 1976). In them, he shows many of the ideas that were themes in the German garden city movement in the beginning of 20th century (Bollerey & Hartmann 1980), such as collectivised gardens, autonomous housing estates, and community workshops. The book introduces us ’radical technology’, which spans basically all of the concepts we have discussed up to this point: organic agriculture, biodynamic agriculture, vegetarianism, hydroponics, soft energy, insulation, low-cost housing, tree houses, shanty houses, ’folk-built’ houses using traditional methods, houses built from subsoil, self-built houses, housing associations, solar dwellings, domestic paper-making, carpentry, scrap reclamation, printing, community & pirate radio, collectivised gardens, collective workshops for clothesmaking, shoe repair, pottery, household decoration and repairs, autonomous housing estates, autonomous rural villages, etc.

These concepts, while they seem simple, are still empowering, they are meant to let people enjoy they fruits of their labour. Last but certainly not least is the concept that all of these things fall under, alternative (or, appropriate) technology. Alternative technologies are those ”which offer genuine alternatives to the large-scale, complex, centralized, high-energy life forms which dominate the modern age” (Winner 1979). Alternative technologies seek to solve the problems technocentric thinking has caused in society: technical scale and economic concentration, level of complexity or simplicity best suited to technical operations of various kinds, division of labor and its alleged necessity, social and technical hierarchy as it relates to the design of technological systems, and self-sufficiency and interdependence regarding the lives of individuals and communities. Many of these solutions have been developed in Africa, where problems have had to be solved, but resources have been scarce in actuality.

Appropriate technology holds great promise in ways that are currently underappreciated in our society (Huesemann & Huesemann 2011):

As has been mentioned repeatedly throughout this book, the primary goal of technology in our current economic system is to increase material affluence and to generate profits for the wealthy by controlling and exploiting both people and the environment. In view of the reality of interconnectedness, this is neither environmentally sustainable nor socially desirable. In this chapter we discuss how to design technologies which reflect the values of environmental sustainability and social appropriateness. We also emphasize the importance of heeding the precautionary principle in order to prevent unintended consequences, as well as the need for participatory design in order to ensure greater democratic control of technology. Finally, as a specific example of an environmentally sustainable and socially appropriate technology, we discuss the positive contribution of local, organic, small-scale agriculture.

Conclusion

This essay has presented the reader with ramblings of a person who is familiar with Critical Theory, who would like to build a stronger connection to nature, and who is having a major identity crisis in life. I have expressed, albeit feebly, my will to emancipate myself, to exit the Matrix. In Finnish they would say ”Sota ei yhtä miestä kaipaa”, and in George S. Patton’s words this expression would be ”Hell, they won’t miss me, just one man in thousands.”

In this essay I seem to have extensively quoted the Unabomber manifesto. This is not to say that Kaczynski had exceptionally good motives or justifications for his actions. He killed many people and is in prison now. Kaczynski’s ideas are not unique. Quoting his manifesto serves merely to prove one point: he is the product of his environment. Mental illness is no longer a taboo and things have progressed somewhat since Kaczynski’s days. It could be argued that Kaczynski’s writings were just projection of his own feelings of shame and guilt he had gone through. But his mental condition, should he be diagnosed with one (Amador & Reshmi 2000), does not invalidate the things he’s written. In many ways his writings are now more relevant than ever. When we have tech billionaires talking about inserting neuralinks into your brain and downloading thoughts straight from the headquarters, we can really see the manifesto dots connecting.

I wish it would have been just the mental load caused by a ’surrogate activity’ of keeping up with the Joneses that was the cause of all this, but no, it’s the real deal now. When we have corporate executives and federal commissions defending autonomous weapons systems and saying building such systems is a ’moral imperative’ (Gershgorn 2021), you know we have reached peak civilization. It’s all downhill from now on. All participation in society will support this moral imperative, and I don’t want to have anything to do with it. While many would get back to nature for reasons of convenience, such as better health, Rousseau himself would have gotten back to nature ”to feel God in nature” (LaFreniere 1990). It is this kind of humanist transcendentalism (not transhumanism) that we will need again, to realize what we have done to our planet, to realize what needs to be done to abolish the war machine consuming it, and to make ourselves whole again.

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Sacks, K. S. (2003) Understanding Emerson: ”The American scholar” and his struggle for self-reliance. Princeton University Press.

Singh, R. P. B. (2007) Gaia and Ecological A Wakening: Message of Hinduism for Deeper Understanding. The Oriental Anthropologist, 7 (2), 213-233.

Skinner, D. (2012) Foucault, subjectivity and ethics: towards a self-forming subject. Organization, 20 (6), 904–923.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2003) Transcendentalism. <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendentalism/>, accessed 14.3.2021.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2010) Jean Jacques Rousseau. <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau/>, accessed 18.3.2021.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2017) Anarchism. <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anarchism/>, accessed 14.3.2021.

Steiner, R. (2004 [1958]) Agriculture Course: The Birth of the Biodynamic Method. Translated by George Adams. Rudolph Steiner Press, UK.

Steiner, R. (2011 [1918]) Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment. <http://logoilibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/A-Knowledge-Of-The-Higher-Worlds.pdf>, accessed 16.3.2021.

Sutcliffe, A. (Ed.) (1980) The rise of modern urban planning, 1800-1914 (Vol. 1). Mansell, UK.

Taylor, B. (2013) Religion, Violence and Radical Environmentalism: From Earth First! to the Unabomber to the Earth Liberation Front. In Muddle, C. (ed.) Political Extremism, vol. IV. Sage Publications.

The Conversation (2019) US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries – shrinking this war machine is a must. <https://theconversation.com/us-military-is-a-bigger-polluter-than-as-many-as-140-countries-shrinking-this-war-machine-is-a-must-119269>, accessed 15.3.2021.

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Thoreau, H. D. (1995 [1854]) Walden; or, Life in the Woods. <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29433/29433-h/29433-h.htm>, accessed 14.3.2021.

Turinek, M. – Grobelnik-Mlakar, S. – Bavec, M. – Bavec, F. (2009) Biodynamic agriculture research progressand priorities. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 24 (2), 146–154.

WEF (2021) Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. <https://www.weforum.org/reports/health-and-healthcare-in-the-fourth-industrial-revolution-global-future-council-on-the-future-of-health-and-healthcare-2016-2018>, accessed 14.3.2021.

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https://kapitaali.com/the-new-hippies/

#anarcho-primitivism #Anti-technology #naturalism #parsimony #pragmatism #Ted Kaczynski #The Golden Rule #Unabomber #Sekalainen

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coffeebased · 5 years ago

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I won’t be the first or last person to marvel at how quickly February whizzed past, especially in comparison to January’s gauntlet. To be completely fair to February, it had the ongoing COVID-19 international epidemic, as well as the ABS-CBN shutdown crisis, the anti-terrorism bill, the reminder that historical revisionism re: the Marcos dictatorship is alive and well… and those were just the actual headlines.

I must digress before I spiral.

I read 12 books in February, half of which were newly released in this month. I’ve split my post up into three parts like I did last month: one-shots, parts of series, and re-reads. It seems to be working well for me.

Prosper’s Demon by K.J. Parker

The unnamed and morally questionable narrator is an exorcist with great follow-through and few doubts. His methods aren’t delicate but they’re undeniably effective: he’ll get the demon out—he just doesn’t particularly care what happens to the person.

Prosper of Schanz is a man of science, determined to raise the world’s first philosopher-king, reared according to the purest principles. Too bad he’s demonically possessed.

After I read Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City last year, I knew that I wanted more by Parker. I considered delving into his back catalog, which I still will probably do, but I saw that he was releasing a new book in Feb 2020, so I jumped on that first. Prosper’s is exactly up my alley, what with the discussions of morality and the greater good with demons, and quite a bit of engineering. I’d admired the voice of the main character in Sixteen because he was dry and very caught up in doing what needed to be done, and the main character has the same appealing values. It’s a short read, but it sticks in the teeth and fills the belly.

Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher

Stephen’s god died on the longest day of the year…

Three years later, Stephen is a broken paladin, living only for the chance to be useful before he dies. But all that changes when he encounters a fugitive named Grace in an alley and witnesses an assassination attempt gone wrong. Now the pair must navigate a web of treachery, beset on all sides by spies and poisoners, while a cryptic killer stalks one step behind…

Kingfisher, also known as Ursula Vernon, tends to write capable and damaged characters falling in with each other and foiling plots. She also tends to write paladins very well, which is a personal delight. I always enjoy a Kingfisher story, because the characters do the sensible thing more often than not, and she deals with trauma very compassionately, from what I suspect is a personal viewpoint. Her books are also usually very funny, very disturbing, and no-nonsense, scratching that Terry Pratchett Witch itch when I miss him very much. Grace is along the same lines, with a good solid HEA that leaves everyone, including the reader, satisfied.

Kindred, a Graphic Novel Adaptation by Octavia Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy and illustrated by John Jennings

I lost an arm on my last trip home.

Home is a new house with a loving husband in 1970s California that suddenly transformed in to the frightening world of the antebellum South.

Dana, a young black writer, can’t explain how she is transported across time and space to a plantation in Maryland. But she does quickly understand why: to deal with the troubles of Rufus, a conflicted white slaveholder–and her progenitor.

Her survival, her very existence, depends on it.

This searing graphic-novel adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s science fiction classic is a powerfully moving, unflinching look at the violent disturbing effects of slavery on the people it chained together, both black and white–and made kindred in the deepest sense of the word.

Kindred, the novel, is on my Next 20s list. I had meant to read it before I read the GN, but picked up the graphic novel based on a friend’s recommendation. The graphic novel is searingly painful, and I enjoyed reading it, but there are parts of it that feel slightly disjointed. I’m not sure if it’s because of the time travel, or if it’s an adaptation problem. It made me want to read the novel immediately, which is what I am reading right now. I don’t think that I’ll be able to properly synthesise my thoughts about this book until I’ve read the original.

Mirror: The Mountain and The Nest by Emma Rios and Hwei Lim

A mysterious asteroid hosts a collection of strange creatures – man-animal hybrids, mythological creatures made flesh, guardian spirits, cursed shadows – and the humans who brought them to life. But this strange society exists in an uneasy truce, in the aftermath of uprisings seeking freedom and acceptance, that have only ended in tragedy. As the ambitious, the desperate and the hopeful inhabitants of the asteroid struggle to decide their shared fate, a force greater than either animal or human seems to be silently watching the conflict, waiting for either side to finally answer the question: what is worthy of being human?

Recommended to me by a new friend who’d heard I was into sci-fi and graphic novels, who absolutely hit the nail on the head with this rec. The art is beautiful, dreamy, and layered, and it keeps you tied to the story as the authors build what is a magnificent construction in your head. The authors do some really lovely things with timeskips that I have no idea how to talk about without spoiling anything, and I only regret that we weren’t able to linger through the second volume. I’m don’t know why there isn’t more of Mirror, but I do appreciate how they tied everything up as well as they could in two volumes. Looking forward to more like this in the future.

Heartstopper: Volume Three by Alice Oseman

In this volume we’ll see the Heartstopper gang go on a school trip to Paris! Not only are Nick and Charlie navigating a new city, but also telling more people about their relationship AND learning more about the challenges each other are facing in private…

Meanwhile Tao and Elle will face their feelings for each other, Tara and Darcy share more about their relationship origin story, and the teachers supervising the trip seem… rather close…?

You can read all of Heartstopper and its future updates here. Heartstopper is a lovely slice of life comic, PG13 at best, that really takes me back to my own mid-teens. The story is centered around the developing relationship of two young boys, Charlie and Nick, and it really deals with it respectfully. It tackles a lot of teen issues without being too preachy about it, which is probably the least inspiring thing I could have written about it, and integrates it deftly into the story. The art style is adorable and really complements the sweet story. This volume, just released this month, revolves around a class trip to Paris, and there are some shenanigans that you’ll have to read for yourself.

Sixty Six Book 2 by Russell Molina and Mikey Marchan

Kuwento ni Celestino Cabal. Kabebertdey niya lang. Mayroon siyang natanggap na regalo na ngayo’y unti-unti niyang binubuksan. Ika nga ng matatanda, “Huli man daw at magaling, maihahabol din.”

The story of Celestino Cabal. His birthday has just passed. He received a gift that he now gets to open, bit by bit. As the old saying goes, “Better late than never.”

This is the synopsis of the first book. There isn’t an official synopsis for the second book online, and I hesitate to write my own. Sixty Six Book 2 was released during February Komiket, and since I had been waiting for it for a few years, I had to go to the event even though everyone’s been iffy about going into crowded spaces due to COVID-19. I was excited to read this but unfortunately, I don’t think it capitalised on the foundation set in Book 1. The artist was different, and I admired their work on a technical level, as well as their humorous use of WASAK as a sound effect. I don’t know if there’ll be a third book, but the author has made themselves a little leeway for that possibility at the end of this volume.

Thank You, Jeeves, Jeeves #5 by P.G. Wodehouse

The odds are stacked against Chuffy when he falls head over heels for American heiress Pauline Stoker. Who better to help him win her over but Jeeves, the perfect gentleman’s gentleman. But when Bertie, Pauline’s ex-fiance finds himself caught up in the fray, much to his consternation, even Jeeves struggles to get Chuffy his fairy-tale ending.

This book was in my next 20s! So I’m accomplishing one of my 2020 reading goals, yay! But hot damn there is some racist language in this book. Every time I was finally sinking into the story boom! Racist language! And I know that it was because of the time it was published, like I know that academically, but oof. That aside, the story is solid. It’s a comedy of manners AND errors with Jeeves ex machina, as per usual, but this is the first full Jeeves novel I’ve read, the rest were short story collections, and it was good to see the characters take more space. It certainly made the comedic payoff a lot stronger.

But oof.

Die Vol. 2: Split the Party by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans, and Clayton Cowles

No one can escape DIE until everyone agrees to go home. Or rather, no one can escape DIE until everyone who is alive agrees to go home. The second arc of the commercial and critical hit of bleakly romantic fantasy fiction starts to reveal the secrets of the world, and our heroes’ pasts. Yes, they can’t escape DIE. They also can’t escape themselves. Collects issues #6-10 of DIE

CHARACTERISATION. There’s a lot more breathing space in this newly-released volume of Die and I live for that! The first volume was a lot of the characters running from one place to the next and we, as readers, were being given the sense of setting. But volume two, you can feel Gillen just finally branching out and hitting us with their joined histories. I want to see more of how these older players will be dealing with the actions of their teenage selves, and I think the third volume will really show what the comic’s capable of. I’m really looking forward to that.

False Value, Rivers of London #8 by Ben Aaronovitch

Peter Grant is facing fatherhood, and an uncertain future, with equal amounts of panic and enthusiasm. Rather than sit around, he takes a job with émigré Silicon Valley tech genius Terrence Skinner’s brand new London start up – the Serious Cybernetics Company.

Drawn into the orbit of Old Street’s famous ‘silicon roundabout’, Peter must learn how to blend in with people who are both civilians and geekier than he is. Compared to his last job, Peter thinks it should be a doddle. But magic is not finished with Mama Grant’s favourite son.

Because Terrence Skinner has a secret hidden in the bowels of the SCC. A technology that stretches back to Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, and forward to the future of artificial intelligence. A secret that is just as magical as it technological – and just as dangerous.

The last Rivers of London book finished the first major arc of the series. It was a succession of explosions contained in a novel. So I was wondering what kind of tone Aaronovitch would be setting with False Value. Would it be all action, immediately? A filler story? I just wanted more Peter Grant. It could literally be an entire novel of Peter going to America to visit the Smithsonian museums and I would be on that.

False Value is a slow story but does a lot of table setting for the next arc. While the case of the book feels very small and contained, you can see that they’re being pulled into the larger world of magic. I did have a hard time with the first few chapters, but I’m not sure if this is a problem of the book, or because I sailed straight into it after the Jeeves book I had been reading.

I finished the book too quickly and now I have to wait for the next one. Bother.

The Thief, The Queen’s Thief #1 by Megan Whalen Turner

The king’s scholar, the magus, believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. To attain it for his king, he needs a skillful thief, and he selects Gen from the king’s prison. The magus is interested only in the thief’s abilities.

What Gen is interested in is anyone’s guess. Their journey toward the treasure is both dangerous and difficult, lightened only imperceptibly by the tales they tell of the old gods and goddesses.

It’s March now, so my friends and I are starting on the second book in our read-along of The Queen’s Thief. I wrote last month that I was worried about how my friends would take the series, but really I needn’t have thought about it at all. The book stands well on its own, and my friends all got into the story. I hesitate to say that they loved it because there are four more books in the series, but they were definitely into it. Some of them had a hard time sticking to the two chapters a day schedule because Turner’s prose really just pulls you in.

I still love Gen, and I’m excited to relive his character growth.

The Farthest Shore, The Earthsea Cycle #3

Darkness threatens to overtake Earthsea. As the world and its wizards are losing their magic, Ged — powerful Archmage, wizard, and dragonlord — embarks on a sailing journey with highborn young prince, Arren. They travel far beyond the realm of death to discover the cause of these evil disturbances and to restore magic to a land desperately thirsty for it.

I’m reading Tehanu, the last book of the Cycle, now, and I’m scared of ending the series. It’s given me so much joy and peace these past few months. I slipped right into it after finishing The Farthest Shore, remembering that they overlap slightly, and that’s done a lot to soften the blow of the third book. Re-reading Farthest at this age, when things have been losing their colour and flavour, where I have to fight harder to keep myself honest and keep myself ‘good’, hits differently. I’ve been recovering, and the bitterness that Ged has over the loss of his mastery is too real to me. Of course, it’s a good book, but it hurts.

—

All right, that’s it for now. I’ll probably be popping in to post a little about Komiket and some other things I’ve been reading next week or so, so please keep a weather eye out for that next post!

February Reading Round-Up I won't be the first or last person to marvel at how quickly February whizzed past, especially in comparison to January's gauntlet.

#books #books 2 #reading #reading 2 #reviews

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scifigeneration · 5 years ago

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What if we ran society not based on the market but on evidence?

by Spyros Samothrakis

Will it soon be possible to draw a blueprint of our future society? Viktoriya/Shutterstock.com

Following the successful Brexit campaign, Dominic Cummings – the then campaign director of Vote Leave – published a series of blog posts describing how the campaign was run and what his plans were for a successful civil service. The last of these posts was released on June 26 2019, just before he became the special advisor to the current prime minister, Boris Johnson. The idea this post resurrects is a promise in public policy that has died since the 1970s – the use of hard scientific (knowledge-based) methods to guide policy choices.

In what looks like to be Cumming’s version of public policy, an elite group of administrators trained in the disciplines of pure thought – mathematicians and philosophers – would run society based on evidence. Collected data points would be used to create a machine simulation (often called the model). Policy makers would then be able to test the simulations with hypothetical policies (“what if drugs were legal?”) and, according to the results, adjust public policy.

A complete cybernetic version of economic policy was advocated, but not practised, in the Soviet Union by the likes of nobel-prize winning economist Leonid Kantorovich and mathematician and computer scientist Victor Glushkov. They hypothesised the possibility of taking things a step further – getting the machines to identify what actions to take to reach optimal outcomes. That is, policy makers would need to decide what they are looking to achieve (“maximise the production of butter”) and machines would come up with the the policy of how to allocate resources to achieve this.

Outside the Soviet Union, this kind of thinking was actually enacted with Project Cybersyn, an effort put together by management consultant Stafford Beer in the 1970s for the government of Chile under the then president, Salvador Allende to help manage the economy (the project was dismantled following the coup by General Augusto Pinochet).

Though Cybersyn was never fully operational, it was rushed into use so as to help break one of the biggest anti-government strikes, which was instigated by a right-wing union. Beer’s vision is far more decentralised and democratic than its Soviet counterpart, but it still falls within the same line of thought.

As you will have gauged by now, the cybernetic vision tends to be securely located on the left of the political spectrum.

The market

Sitting on the opposite side of the cybernetic vision, one will find the fathers of modern liberal economics, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek. Their arguments, taken more broadly, consider the cybernetic dream impossible from a computational perspective, either due to not being able to model the world efficiently, or not having appropriate signals to evaluate the quality of solutions.

They argued that another mechanism that exists inside the real world (in their case, the market) needs to do the heavy lifting, by providing a signal – which, in the case of goods and services, is prices. For them, a good policy is not one that lays out what steps need to be taken towards a solution, but focuses more on setting a “game” of sorts with the right incentives and punishments. This basically just leaves room for one real public policy which can be summed up as “privatise everything, create a competitive arena, let the market sort the problems out”.

Leaving all real policy decisions to the market has been a very traditional (post-1980s at least) right-wing idea. This raises the question as to why someone advising the current UK government is even discussing concepts that are not purely market-driven. In his latest post, Cummings laments the inability of the British state to do serious modelling. This seems a superb contradiction – shouldn’t the market be able to solve everything?

It is worth mentioning that conceptions of planning methods differ a lot across individual thinkers – there are even advocates of socialist markets on the left. Though there is a clear left-right divide, in terms of actual party politics it seems that the idea of some planning has been partially accepted (somewhat grudgingly) by the historical right for some time.

Market signals. Tony Stock/Shutterstock.com

AI and public policy

So, does the progress in AI and (the concurrent) massive increase in computational power and availability of data allow us to circumvent the liberal arguments? I would say yes, but only partially. One can easily envision a solution where the latest AI methods are used to affect policy directly. It’s quite plausible that one could plan and re-plan millions of products and services on a daily basis, find the optimal set of actions to help tackle social ills and generally push for an overall brighter future.

This isn’t, however, trivial – delivering causal models to drive simulations is extremely hard, requires significant expertise, and can only be done in a limited capacity. On top of this, current AI methods lack a concept of ��common sense”. A model created with a specific task in mind might be able to optimise for said task, but is prone to generating unwanted side effects. For example, an AI-optimised factory that aims to optimise production will do so without care for the environment.

But the mother of all problems in AI is that a lot of the more modern probabilistic planning algorithms are not stable without excessive human tuning, due to a number of reasons that are beyond the scope of this article. In practice, this means that outside straightforward, traditional planning (such as linear programming), getting value from modern AI requires significant human expertise. At the moment this sits mostly within private AI research labs and some university departments. Any serious attempt to create a cybernetic state would need both significant human resources to be moved towards the project and some further algorithmic breakthroughs.

Unfortunately, current AI deployments in public policy do not adhere to the ideas above. It seems that AI is mostly deployed only for simple predictive tasks (“will person X will commit crime Y in the future?”). For this reason, public bodies are finding this technology increasingly useless. But technological innovations almost always experience a series of failures before they find their pace, so hopefully AI will eventually be implemented properly.

Back to Brexit

What does Brexit have to do with any of this? My understanding is that Brexit (according to Cummings) is needed in order to help disrupt the civil service enough so as to allow it to be rebuilt. It would then be possible to deploy serious AI public policy solutions (which is another name for scientific planning). So the British state would be deploying projects that can model the future, with machines or civil servants probing the model for golden paths.

What is truly surprising, in my view, is that such proposals don’t come from the broad political left (though there are, of course, extremely interesting takes on the topic of scientific planning) – but from the right. This might imply the use of AI to hasten the free-market agenda by asking questions like “what is the best propaganda to produce in order to get everyone on board with increasing state pension age to 95, privatising every public service and getting people to accept a ban on immigration?”.

All this AI talk might be a red herring – the more traditional right-wing Brexit party policies are simply an intensification of a deregulation agenda, though again the signals are mixed. Alternatively, it might be the case that there is a split between One Nation Conservatives and free marketeers across the board.

It’s hard to imagine the EU allowing for direct planning (it goes against most of the principles of the internal market), but it’s equally hard to envision post-Brexit Britain doing the same. Most institutions see the market as the only legitimate form of organisation.

But some cracks in the consensus seem to be appearing. Perhaps we may end up in a position where actively planning using AI towards a “good society” is actively pursued.

About The Author:

Spyros Samothrakis is a Lecturer in Analytics and Data Science at the University of Essex

This article is republished from our content partners over at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

#artificial intelligence #technopolitics #technology

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moiraineswife · 7 years ago

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Autistic!Jasnah: Masterpost

Okaaay, so, as you might have guessed from the title, this post is a long list of reasons Jasnah Kholin is autistic af.

The short version: Jasnah is autistic because I, a Known Autism, say so. Have a nice day.

The long version (format): A long series of chronological quotes that all follow this pattern: Quote. *Insert ramble about why this is an Autistic Thing* *Possible and probable further ramble about why I’m emotional about that.

That’s literally it, people. Buckle up, I’ve picked through all three books (yes all three) to compose this post for y’all. It’s not going to be short.

To business:

The Way of Kings:

Jasnah glanced at Shallan, noting her, then returned to her conversation.

Introducing Jasnah ‘I don’t have time for social niceties I’m busy’ Kholin. From the first interaction she’s...Bad at interacting. Iconic.

“Then we shall do an evaluation. Answer truthfully and do not exaggerate, as I will soon discover your lies. Feign no false modesty, either. I haven’t the patience for a simperer.”

Jasnah is both blunt, direct, and honest in her speech as she is in her expectations from others. She doesn’t have the energy to deal with manipulation/lying/tarting up the truth to make it more socially acceptable bc she is a busy autistic lady with shit to do. (really, though, what she’s literally demanding here is the first rule of the autistic’s guide to easy conversation. Clear. Simple. To the point. To frills, no fuss.)

Jasnah didn’t argue further, and Shallan could see from her eyes that it was of no consequence to her if the king risked his life. The same apparently went for Shallan, for Jasnah didn’t order her away.

People do what people want to do and Jasnah doesn’t waste any time pretending she cares/that it matters to her for the sake of appearances. Again, this woman has a vendetta against typical social niceties and I love it.

“Now?” the king said, cradling his granddaughter. “But we are going to have a feast—”

“I appreciate the offer,” Jasnah said, “but I find myself with an abundance of everything but time.”

Do I need to point out the lack of social niceties again or are y’all sensing a pattern at this point? *King lovingly embraces his darling granddaughter that Jasnah just saved and orders a feast prepared in her honour* Jasnah: ‘Thanks but no I’m too busy to socialise.’

Jasnah was also a rationalist, a woman with the audacity to deny the existence of the Almighty himself based on her own reasoning. Jasnah would appreciate strength, but only if it was shaped by logic.

Jasnah feelings>>>>>>logic. This is a fairly common theme, of Jasnah being ruled less by emotions/sentiment/societal pressures/expectations and much more by logic/her own reasoning. She has her own way of looking at the world, her own rules for how it works, and she won’t be swayed by anyone else’s opinions on how she should feel/behave.

Jasnah turned to look out of the balcony into the dark space of the Veil. “I know what people say of me. I should hope that I am not as harsh as some say, though a woman could have far worse than a reputation for sternness. It can serve one well.”

Jasnah not being very self-aware in how people actually perceive her is also an autistic thing. Shallan notes several times that Jasnah is actually nowhere near as harsh/stern as she’s reputed to me, and, more importantly, she’s nowhere near as harsh/stern as she perceives herself to be. She also fails to note that Shallan actually enjoys the work/the challenge. This also implies that she takes what people say about her at face value and doesn’t have the necessary social skills to refute them.

Shallan tried to judge Jasnah’s mood, but the older woman’s emotions were impossible to read.

Again, this is a fairly common autistic trait. We struggle to read other people’s body language, but they often struggle to read ours as well. A part of this is probably Jasnah deliberately cultivating this kind of persona, but even so, she’s too unsure of how she comes across to have completely mastered this.

Jasnah carefully removed its contents, neatly lining up the brushes, pencils, pens, jar of lacquer, ink, and solvent. She placed the stacks of paper, the notebooks, and the finished pictures in a line.

Oh look, it’s one of the world’s biggest Autism Stereotypes (which I’m totally guilty of too): lining all the things up neatly, and making them Orderly.

At least with Jasnah one knew where one stood.

Jasnah of the straightforward, blunt honesty and ‘what you see is what you get’ strikes again.

When Jasnah was deeply immersed in one of her projects, she often ignored all else.

And here we see the Autistic Jasnah in her natural habitat: hyperfixating on her special interest.

The rest is under the cut for length!

Jasnah had elegant handwriting, of course—Jasnah rarely did anything without taking the time to perfect it.

Jasnah not doing anything unless it’s done Properly and Right according to her? Also Jasnah being indifferent towards things she hasn’t put any time into perfecting (such as drawing).

“I always forgive curiosity, Your Majesty,” Jasnah said. “It strikes me as one of the most genuine of emotions.”

Again, Jasnah encouraging/reacting positively to genuine/honest emotions because she doesn’t Understand the whole guile/lying/not being honest thing because honestly what is the point?

“Must someone, some unseen thing, declare what is right for it to be right? I believe that my own morality—which answers only to my heart—is more sure and true than the morality of those who do right only because they fear retribution.”

Honestly, just, this whole thing. For a start it’s a massive transgression of the Vorin social norms/expectations, especially for Jasnah as a prominent public figure as the sister to the king. For another it’s that internal rules thing again. Jasnah’s world operates according to Jasnah’s principles and Jasnah’s understanding of it, no-one else’s.

But Shallan had caught a handful of occasions, mostly when Jasnah had been distracted, and had apparently forgotten she wasn’t alone.

*Jasnah ignores social expectations so hard she literally forgets other people exist in the world* Also, again, the hyperfixation on special interest.

“And yet, those men are off the street. The people of this city are that much safer. The issue that Taravangian has been so worried about has been solved, and no more theatergoers will fall to those thugs. How many lives did I just save?”

“I know how many you just took,” Shallan said.

Jasnah has a habit of doing this, this very cold, calculated, logical and pragmatic way of seeing the world as well as morality. Shallan considers the lives taken, the emotional aspect of the moral dilemma, the horror of murder. Jasnah just sees it almost as statistics, as four lives taken to save many more. Shallan also focuses on the cold hard facts of ‘I know how many people you just killed’ while Jasnah is engaged in weighing up the probability of how many she just saved. (In theory, the thugs might never have attacked anyone again, so Jasnah might not have saved anyone by her actions, which I think is what Shallan is getting at here. But that’s just...A moot point as far as Jasnah is concerned)

This is also an example of her black and white thinking. There’s more net good in what she did than there is net bad. That’s where her questioning/reasoning stops because it makes sense to her. Shallan exists in the grey area, but I don’t think Jasnah even sees it in cases like this.

But it wasn’t the act itself so much as the cold callousness of it that bothered her.

This is an interesting one, and something I’ll talk about more a bit later, probably, but the way Jasnah comes across vs how she actually is. I totally get why Shallan views what she did as cold and callous, and in a way I suppose it was. It was fully planned and fully intentional. But I think for her it’s this kind of...separation between logic and sentiment. I think Jasnah feels very strongly and very deeply, but she doesn’t often display that to other people, and I also think she believes there’s a time and a place for that. Also, black and white thinking again. It comes off as cold to Shallan, but for Jasnah I think it feels more like common sense.

“You only needed to kill one of them.”

“No, I didn’t,” Jasnah said.

“Why? They would have been too frightened to do something like that again.”

“You don’t know that. I sincerely wanted those men gone. A careless barmaid walking home the wrong way cannot protect herself, but I can. And I will.”

Again, black and white thinking. (I’m also surprised this moment doesn’t generate more Discourse...Or maybe it does, I’ve just avoided it, either way) This is both a case for Jasnah not being able to predict people’s responses/behaviours, and also black and white thinking/internal rules at play. As far as she’s concerned those men are criminals. She has no assurances that they won’t hurt anyone else again. They’re already criminals, and there’s no chance for redemption or leeway, here. She’s made up her mind. They’re all criminals. They’re all dangerous. They all die.

Jasnah closed her eyes again, handing the brush toward Shallan. “Fifty strokes tonight, Shallan. It has been a fatiguing day.”

A)- routines the ‘tonight’ and the familiarity of this implies it’s something that happens every night. And the ��fifty strokes’ is either another routine related thing, or an internal rule thing. Either way. Also this is probably a stim thing, since she’s using it to relax/de-stress.

Jasnah tapped her desktop with a fingernail.

Stimming.

“Brightness Jasnah does NOT like people entering her room. The maids have been told not to clean in there.” The king had promised that his maids were very carefully chosen, and there had never been issues of theft, but Jasnah still insisted that none enter her bedchamber.

Definitely, definitely, definitely an autistic thing. Issues with people entering Your Spaces or touching Your Things is a big autistic thing. (especially because the assurances about thieving don’t change her mind) Also the emphasis on not as in ‘this is a thing one absolutely does not do unless one wishes to die’.

“She’d believe me,” Shallan said. “She thinks she’s far more demanding than she is. Or…well, she is demanding. I just don’t mind as much as she thinks I do.”

Again, Jasnah taking what people say of her/how they say they perceive her at face value, and also lack of self-awareness in how people actually respond to her.

Jasnah regarded Shallan, face stiff, impassive. “I have been told that my tutelage is demanding, perhaps harsh. This is one reason why I often refuse to take wards.”

“I apologize for my weakness, Brightness,” Shallan said, looking down.

Jasnah seemed displeased. “I did not mean to suggest fault in you, child. I was attempting the opposite. Unfortunately I’m…unaccustomed to such behavior.”

Two things here: one, I’m like, 99% certain that Jasnah, who has been camped out at the hospital all this time waiting for Shallan to wake up is feeling anything but ‘impassive’ at this moment, in which case this is an example of her body language/facial expressions not matching up properly to her actual internal feelings, which is fairly common. And two: Jasnah’s apology being taken for a rebuttal and her obvious displeasure at it coming across that way when she literally intended the opposite (been there).

Also her general air of uncertainty/discomfort in this setting, which is one that’s obviously social/emotional. Also the fact that she pins her poor apology on lack of practice/familiarity with these kinds of interactions when, in theory, these kinds of things should come naturally to people. So like, lil bit of hinting/implication of scripting social things her, which I think her initial words reek of as well, as she’s said similar things before.

“You make it sound as if you were waiting out there.”

Jasnah didn’t reply.

“But your research!”

“Can be done in the hospital waiting chamber.” She hesitated. “It has been somewhat difficult for me to focus these last few days.”

“Jasnah! That’s quite nearly HUMAN of you!”

Again, a few things here, firstly that Jasnah is othered in a way by Shallan (and this isn’t the only time this happens, either) because of her lack of emotional response/social stuff. Secondly the fact that she’s clearly uncomfortable/struggles with this kind of conversation – the hesitation, the lack of responses are very much at odds with her usual composure and the way she has an answer for literally everything.

Words of Radiance:

She was all too glad to be leaving the stuffy room, which stank of too many perfumes mingling.

Prologue and we’ve already got Jasnah experiencing sensory issues in a crowded room with lots of perfume. What a way to kick things off.

“Many people consider that sort of thing enjoyable.”

“Many people, unfortunately, are idiots.”

Her father smiled. “Is it terribly difficult for you?” he asked softly. “Living with the rest of us, suffering our average wits and simple thoughts? Is it lonely to be so singular in your brilliance, Jasnah?”

A)- Jasnah obviously not enjoying social events/parties (she literally spends all of this one...contemplating the assassination she’s plotting. Like. Mood.)

B)- Gavilar’s comment is...Strangely sad, I think?? And perhaps a bit too on point. (This is very much just my reading of things but)...I don’t know. I see Jasnah trying to make a little quip/a joke here and it being misinterpreted because of her tone. And then, again, there’s that idea of othering that came up at the end of TWOK.

But I think the ‘is it lonely to be so singular in your brilliance?’ I think that....A huge part of that ‘brilliance’ comes from a mixture of Jasnah’s autistic traits: her special interest/her focus in them/her dedication to pursuing them...but also that sense of being other. Of not fitting in. The rest of “us” she doesn’t belong, she doesn’t fit.

And I think this idea of their ‘simple thoughts’ as opposed to Jasnah’s brilliant ones is a little like what we see with Renarin in Oathbringer, where Adolin explains that he isn’t trying to be lofty and brilliant, people sometimes just have difficulty following him. And I think this is what’s happening with Jasnah here (and in other places, she frequently talks about the difficulty she has in teaching, and how her methods are too intense and involved)

And also I think that....The saddest bit about this is that I think she was....Trying to joke here? Trying to fit in with those ordinary people, ‘the rest of us’, and just making a sarcastic joke on the back of her father’s comment about most people enjoying parties and she just sort of ‘well, most people are idiots aren’t they?’ And that’s what prompts this little moment here. So even when she’s trying to fit, and trying to belong, she’s still cast as the outcast, and misunderstood, and othered and it Hurts Me.

I, she thought, need to write this experience down.

She would do so, then analyze and consider. Later.

She literally topples into another world, effectively, and is just like ‘hm, I should make some notes on this and analyse them’. And. Yep. This is how she processes the world. By making sense of it, by treating everything according to Jasnah’s rules: it gets written down. It gets analysed. It gets understood. Bam.

Jasnah ignored the eyes of the sailors. It wasn’t that she didn’t notice men. Jasnah noticed everything and everyone. She simply didn’t seem to care, one way or another, how men perceived her.

Jasnah ‘I don’t have time for social expectations’ Kholin strikes again. Jasnah also just doesn’t care how anyone perceives her, social norms and expectations can go fuck themselves .

Jasnah grimaced at the thought. Shallan was always surprised to see visible emotion from her. Emotion was something relatable, something human—and Shallan’s mental image of Jasnah Kholin was of someone almost divine.

Again, the othering idea, as well as visible emotion being startling, as she’s typically so withdrawn/closed off/difficult to read. Yes friend, u guessed it, this is Peak Autism. Also the specific word in it being ‘relatable’ again marks that difference between Jasnah and...Everyone else. Again she’s different, again she doesn’t quite fit.

Jasnah relaxed visibly. “Yes, well, it did seem a workable solution. I had wondered, however, if you’d be offended.”

“Why on the winds would I be offended?”

“Because of the restriction of freedom implicit in a marriage,” Jasnah said.

Again, Jasnah misreading things/not being able to anticipate how people are going to react to different things. Also her view of marriage as ‘restricting’ says a lot about how she sees it/probably relationships in general.

Power is an illusion of perception.”

Shallan frowned.

“Don’t mistake me,” Jasnah continued. “Some kinds of power are real—power to command armies, power to Soulcast. These come into play far less often than you would think. On an individual basis, in most interactions, this thing we call power—authority—exists only as it is perceived.

“You say I have wealth. This is true, but you have also seen that I do not often use it. You say I have authority as the sister of a king. I do. And yet, the men of this ship would treat me exactly the same way if I were a beggar who had convinced them I was the sister to a king. In that case, my authority is not a real thing. It is mere vapors—an illusion. I can create that illusion for them, as can you.”

This right here is Jasnah explaining passing, without ever using the word ‘passing’. This is how Jasnah sees social interactions. They’re all illusions, they’re all, effectively, lies. They aren’t real to her. How people perceive others isn’t something that she can fit into her box of neat facts and logic. It’s this ever changing, insubstantial thing, ‘mere vapours’. And though she’s talking here about power and authority, the basic principle applies to literally every single social interaction ever. Aka: the secret behind how Jasnah Kholin (somehow) managed to convince ppl she’s allistic.

The orders of knights were a construct, just as all society is a construct, used by men to define and explain. Not every man who wields a spear is a soldier, and not every woman who makes bread is a baker. And yet weapons, or baking, become the hallmarks of certain professions.”

Actual footage of Jasnah Kholin going to war against social constructs and their flimsiness.

It was a picture of Jasnah, drawn by Shallan herself. Shallan had given it to the woman after being accepted as her ward. She’d assumed Jasnah had thrown it away—the woman had little fondness for visual arts, which she considered a frivolity.

Instead, she’d kept it here with her most precious things.

This is one of my favourite Underrated Jasnah Moments tbh because it says so much about her with such a simple gesture. We’ve established from the past book and a half that Jasnah is pretty bad when it comes to social interactions, and she’s even worse when it comes to displaying her emotions. But she’s not emotionless. She, personally, doesn’t see the value in visual arts, and hasn’t dedicated any time to it herself. Yet she keeps the gift that Shallan gives her. She understands how important this is to Shallan, and she quite literally treasures the art that Shallan gives her, and keeps it with her precious research/notes (and, like, Symbolism with her keeping her sentimental gifts and logic fuelled research in the same place/with the same level of importance/value, except one is hidden, and one is displayed)

And, like, Shall literally assumes Jasnah had just thrown away the picture?? And instead she’s got it kept safe with her most treasured possessions? Like??? The TL;DR version of this point is that Jasnah is horrendous at displaying her emotions/showing people how she feels about them/what they mean to her, but she feels things, goddammit. And now so am I.

What of this Sadeas? she thought, flipping to a page in the notebook. It listed him as conniving and dangerous, but noted that both he and his wife were sharp of wit. A man of intelligence might listen to Shallan’s arguments and understand them.

Aladar was listed as another highprince that Jasnah respected. Powerful, known for his brilliant political maneuvers. He was also fond of games of chance. Perhaps he would risk an expedition to find Urithiru, if Shallan highlighted the potential riches to be found.

Hatham was listed as a man of delicate politics and careful planning. Another potential ally. Jasnah didn’t think much of Thanadal, Bethab, or Sebarial. The first she called oily, the second a dullard, and the third outrageously rude.

She studied them and their motivations for some time.

Right. Now. Correct my autistic ass if I’m wrong, here, but I’m like 89% certain that ‘taking notes on the basic personalities/literally studying the people around you and making notes on the way they behave so you can actually understand them’ is not a typical allistic thing to do.

Shallan turned back toward him. That pride in his voice didn’t at all match what Jasnah had written of the man.

Jasnah can literally predict the oncoming apocalypse by the power of research, can she pin down some basic Facts about the people she’s observing around her? Nope. I wonder why.

“She wouldn’t let me be a mother to her, Dalinar,” Navani said, staring into the distance. “Do you know that? It was almost like . . . like once Jasnah climbed into adolescence, she no longer needed a mother. I would try to get close to her, and there was this coldness, like even being near me reminded her that she had once been a child. What happened to my little girl, so full of questions?”

Two things: one, this is probably (agonisingly) relating to whatever trauma Jasnah experienced as a child and I’ve got Painful Emotions about it. Secondly, Jasnah being very mature for her age/shucking Navani’s influence because it wasn’t what she thought she needed/wanted is, like, not exactly the most tactful/self-aware/socially conscious thing in the entire universe.

“You’re still human,” Shallan said, reaching across, putting her hand on Navani’s knee. “We can’t all be emotionless chunks of rock like Jasnah.”

Navani smiled. “She sometimes had the empathy of a corpse, didn’t she?”

Oh look, it’s canon low!empathy Jasnah: from the words of her own mother no less.

(Also, small note here, as a low!empathy autistic myself: I really love the way Jasnah is written because it complements my own understanding of empathy which is...Fairly complicated. Jasnah isn’t just like none and done here. It’s not that she just doesn’t feel empathy so she doesn’t care? She isn’t characterised as this brutal, unfeeling, robotic ice queen. There are a lot of nuances and complexities here as to how she relates to those around her and I love it.

She obviously loves her family very deeply, and is driven to protect and help them (in a very practical, logical way I might add. Which is typically how I relate to care/love as well. You want a shoulder to cry on? I’m going to sit there awkwardly, pat you on the head, and hope you stop soon. There’s a practical solution to your current problem? Heaven and earth will be moved to achieve it.) She keeps Shallan’s drawing, even treasures it. And I think that she obviously....Feels her lack of feeling (if that makes sense)

See: the hospital scene with Shallan where she attempts to apologise. She’s...Uncomfortable with the emotional aspect of things, and she’s completely wrong about Shallan’s intentions, and actually her actions as well. There’s a block there with the empathy...But that’s obviously something that doesn’t exactly...Sit right with her? She’s quite self-depreciating in that scene, actually, and it’s clear (to me, anyway) that there’s the sense of her being aware that there’s something...Missing. Something that...Doesn’t quite line up. Something that makes her different and stops her relating to people perhaps in the way that she wants to.

Anyway: don’t equate lack of empathy with lack of love: a novel by Brandon Sanderson. God bless. Intentional or not, this is one of the most relatable low!empathy characters I’ve ever read and I’m here for it.

“Chana knows, I wondered sometimes how I raised that child without strangling her. By age six, she was pointing out my logical fallacies as I tried to get her to go to bed on time.”

Shallan grinned. “I always just assumed she was born in her thirties.”

“Oh, she was. It just took thirty-some years for her body to catch up.” Navani smiled. “I won’t take this from you, but neither should I allow you to attempt a project so important on your own. I would be part. Figuring out the puzzles that captivated her . . . it will be like having her again. My little Jasnah, insufferable and wonderful.”

Again, a few things here: this concept of autistic children being far more mature/behaving like ‘little adults’ is actually pretty common. Also the puzzle-solving thing is just. Relatable.

Oathbringer

“Brightness?” Shallan said. “But … Shardblades aren’t fabrials. They’re spren, transformed by the bond.”

“As are fabrials, after a manner of speaking,” Jasnah said. “You do know how they’re made, don’t you?”

“Only vaguely,” Shallan said. This was how their reunion went? A lecture? Fitting.

Jasnah is believed dead for months on end, reunites with Shallan after who knows how long: immediately starts infodumping to her. Shallan:.......’Figured.’

People were always surprised to see emotion from Jasnah, but Dalinar considered that unfair. She did smile—she merely reserved the expression for when it was most genuine.

Jasnah back at it with the only bothering with emotions when they’re genuine. (Also Dalinar getting all indignant about people not understanding Jasnah/mischaracterising her is my favourite)

“They will try,” Jasnah said, “to define you by something you are not. Don’t let them. I can be a scholar, a woman, a historian, a Radiant. People will still try to classify me by the thing that makes me an outsider. They want, ironically, the thing I don’t do or believe to be the prime marker of my identity. I have always rejected that, and will continue to do so.”

Obviously she’s talking about her heresy here, but with a tiny smidge of tweaking it works well for her being autistic, too. She will always be a little bit different, always not fit, always be defined by being an outsider.

“In the face of such an atrocity, I would consider the sacrifice of one or more Heralds to be a small price.”

“Storms!” Kaladin said, standing up straight. “Have you no sympathy?”

“I have plenty, bridgeman. Fortunately, I temper it with logic. Perhaps you should consider acquiring some at a future date.”

Again on the feelings tempered by logic, thing. (Also Kaladin/Jasnah is interesting because they’re basically....polar opposites, and I enjoy the dynamic. But that’s for another day.)

“If you wish, Captain,” Jasnah snapped, “I can get you some mink kits to cuddle while the adults plan. None of us want to talk about this, but that does not make it any less inevitable.”

“I’d love that,” Kaladin responded. “In turn, I’ll get you some eels to cuddle. You’ll feel right at home.”

Jasnah, curiously, smiled.

Jasnah: approves of frank, honest comments. Even if they’re mildly insulting. As long as they’re genuine.

They didn’t talk tactics too specifically; that was a masculine art, and Dalinar would want his highprinces and generals to discuss the battlefields. Still, Shallan didn’t fail to notice the tactical terms Jasnah used now and then.

In things like this, Shallan had difficulty understanding the woman. In some ways, Jasnah seemed fiercely masculine. She studied whatever she pleased, and she talked tactics as easily as she talked poetry. She could be aggressive, even cold—Shallan had seen her straight-up execute thieves who had tried to rob her. Beyond that … well, it probably was best not to speculate on things with no meaning, but people did talk. Jasnah had turned down every suitor for her hand, including some very attractive and influential men. People wondered. Was she perhaps simply not interested?

All of this should have resulted in a person who was decidedly unfeminine. Yet Jasnah wore the finest makeup, and wore it well, with shadowed eyes and bright red lips. She kept her safehand covered, and preferred intricate and fetching styles of braids from her hairdresser. Her writings and her mind made her the very model of Vorin femininity.

Jasnah just not caring about social/cultural gender norms. Jasnah does what Jasnah wants. But also, gender roles, and tbh the entire concept of gender, is a social construct, it’s something a lot of autistic folks struggle with. (Also non-binary/agender!Jasnah just, as a fun little aside)

“Surely,” she said softly, “if Jasnah had known that I’d just confronted a deep insecurity of mine, she’d have shown some empathy. Right?”

“Jasnah?” Pattern asked. “I do not think you are paying attention, Shallan. She is not very empathetic.”

A)- Jasnah probably didn’t notice and B)- low!empathy Jasnah again.

Jasnah rubbed her temples. “Storms. This is why I never take wards.”

“Because they give you so much trouble.”

“Because I’m bad at it. I have scientific evidence of that fact, and you are but the latest experiment.” Jasnah shooed her away, rubbing her temples.

‘I have scientific evidence of the fact I’m not good at mentoring/teaching/with people in general’ actual quote from Jasnah herself. Also, just, the language here? The mentoring/taking of wards is an intimate social relationship in Vorin culture, but the way Jasnah speaks of it she uses words like ‘scientific evidence’ and ‘experiment’ which says a lot about how she views relationships in general tbh.

Also, I think her self-consciousness is something that’s interesting to note. This isn’t the first time she questions her teaching abilities/methods, in fact it’s one of her biggest and most obvious insecurities, it’s something that she’s very aware of. She knows she’s bad at this, and it bothers her.

“Ivory, you think all humans are unstable.”

“Not you,” he said, lifting his chin. “You are like a spren. You think by facts. You change not on simple whims. You are as you are.”

She gave him a flat stare.

“Mostly,” he added. “Mostly. But it is, Jasnah. Compared to other humans, you are practically a stone!”

[…]

“Jasnah?” Ivory asked. “Am I … in error?”

“I am not so much a stone as you think, Ivory. Sometimes I wish I were.”

And again with Jasnah being factual-based when it comes to her decisions ,and emotions based when it comes to her motivations. Jasnah Kholin feels things so deeply I will physically fight you over this matter. Also, given what we’ve seen, it definitely seems as though Ivory/Inkspren/Jasnah’s ideals are concerned with logic/reason/rightness, and that being a defining aspect of her/her order is interesting in the context of her being autistic.

Renarin still lurked at the far side of the room, mumbling to himself. Or perhaps to his spren? She absently read his lips.

Since, as far as we know, Jasnah isn’t deaf/hoh, the lip reading is something she acquired for other purposes. Probably as part of her paranoia/wish to protect her family, but it’d also probably help with auditory processing disorder. Which is basically where your ears hear words fine, but your brain scrambles them up and fails to make sense of them. Also a lot of autistic folks (self included) tend to watch people’s mouths instead of their eyes (bc eye contact Sucks) and I’m not saying I can lip-read, but if I could it’d definitely make life easier.

But when, before this, had she last heard him laugh?

“Maybe,” Navani said, “we should encourage him to take a break and go out with the bridgemen for the evening.”

“I’d rather keep him here,” Jasnah said, flipping through her pages. “His powers need additional study.”

Navani would talk to Renarin anyway and encourage him to go out more with the men. There was no arguing with Jasnah, any more than there was arguing with a boulder. You just stepped to the side and went around.

Jasnah being completely and utterly oblivious to the hidden agenda/undercurrent to Navani’s thoughts which is ‘Renarin is comfortable with the men/is enjoying himself with them, maybe we should encourage that?’ and just responds to her mother’s words and nothing else. The boulder analogy makes me laugh (but also recalls what Ivory said about her being ‘stone’ which is, again, a kind of othering, a setting apart of the ‘normal’ humans, based on how she emotes/deals with things/processes fact.

I’m sorry, Mother. I’ve been dealing with a lot of lesser ardents today. My didactic side might have inflated.”

“You have a didactic side? Dear, you hate teaching.”

“Which explains my mood, I should think. I—”

A lot of autistic folk find it difficult to teach people, largely because, if they explain something in a certain way, away in which they understand, they have trouble rephrasing it/altering it to make other people understand it as well. Can definitely, definitely see Jasnah struggling with this.

Jasnah preferred to work alone, which was odd, considering how good she was at getting people to do what she wanted.

This shocks me to my very core so it does.

Next to her, Jasnah stood with arms wrapped around herself, eyes red. Navani reached toward her, but Jasnah pulled away from the others and stalked off toward the palace proper.

Oh look, it’s touch!averse Jasnah. (she’s really not very touchy feely at all) Also Jasnah not knowing how to deal with her emotions/grief and withdrawing from people around her. Also I’m calling the arms wrapped around herself as a pressure stim. Fight me.

Jasnah met his eyes, chewing her lip as she’d always done as a child.

Jasnah having anxious!stims (that she probably forced herself to unlearn)

“Forget I asked,” Dalinar said, sharing a look with Navani and Jasnah. Navani smiled fondly at what was probably a huge social misstep, but he suspected Jasnah agreed with him. She’d probably have seized the banks and used them to fund the war.

Jasnah ‘fuck your social niceties, I have a war to win’ Kholin.

Suddenly they were young again. He was a trembling child, weeping on her shoulder for a father who didn’t seem to be able to feel love. Little Renarin, always so solemn. Always misunderstood, laughed at and condemned by people who said similar things about Jasnah behind her back.

Mm, who else was ‘solemn’ as a child? Maybe ‘correcting logical fallacies at age six’ ‘no longer needed a mother when she reached adolescence’ Jasnah. And, like, ‘people mock Renarin for his autistic traits...Jasnah is also mocked for having these exact same traits.’ It’s basically canon, people.

Jasnah fell to her knees, then pulled Renarin into an embrace. He broke down crying, like he had as a boy, burying his head in her shoulder.

Also, the fact that Renarin instinctively went to Jasnah for comfort, not Navani, who eagerly mothers literally everyone around her, or anyone else, he went to Jasnah ‘empathy of a corpse, made of literal stone’ Kholin for comfort and support tells me something. It tells me that these two had an understanding. That Jasnah understood Renarin, and that Renarin understood Jasnah, and that there perhaps a reason for that that has to do with their shared brain weirdness.

This is also the first time, as I recall, that Jasnah responds with physical affection. (And this doesn’t undermine what I said about her being touch!averse, she is, but a)- she initiates this contact and b)- it’s with someone she’s clearly comfortable with this level of contact)

Jasnah glanced over her shoulder at the gathering army. “And perhaps … this is one time when a lecture isn’t advisable. With all my complaints about not wanting wards, you’d think I would be able to resist instructing people at inopportune times. Keep moving.”

I have said it before and I will say it again, Jasnah infodumping to an exhausted Shallan in the middle of a fucking battlefield is the most autistic thing I have ever witnessed in my entire life.

These had always been right. Until today—until they had proclaimed that Jasnah Kholin’s love would fail.

And, to summarise it all neatly, Jasnah Kholin, empathy of a corpse, heart of a boulder, whose love in the end never failed her. *wipes tear* my beautiful autistic queen is good and full of love and feeling but just being really bad at showing it to people. We do not deserve her.

TL;DR: Jasnah is autistic af. It’s basically canon. Fight me.

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gretamclaughlin · 4 years ago

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The Waste Dilemma

This week’s materials speak about the prevalence of chemicals in our environment due to agriculture (like last week’s blog), manufacturing, and other human activities, as well as how people aggravate natural hazards. The readings and videos further talk about the production of solid waste and methods of handling it.

In our world, there are biological hazards, chemical hazards, and issues that come about as a result of lifestyle choices. Biological hazards include viruses and diseases, which we can see with the COVID-19 pandemic. These dangers often worsen due to humans. Today, a prominent health issue is the growing antibiotic resistance of diseases. In addition, antibiotics used with livestock are linked to greater antibiotic resistance in humans. The warming climate will also cause diseases to spread to new areas. Unfortunately, those living in poverty and in less developed countries suffer more from biological hazards. Developing nations do not have the resources to treat or prevent the spread of diseases, and the issue persists with impoverished people in the U.S. According to the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, COVID-19 disproportionately kills those living in poverty (Juergen et al. 2021). This can partially be attributed to poor health care, more frontline workers, and decreased ability to self-isolate. Today, India faces the rapid spread of COVID-19 without access to vaccines. If climate change and capitalism continue, this inequality will only grow.

Chemical hazards also threaten human health and have been linked to cancer, fetal developmental issues, and other illnesses and defects. Unfortunately, our bodies are full of trace amounts of toxins, and links between chemical hazards and illnesses, like those mentioned above, suggest they are dangerous. A study published in Environmental Science and Pollution Research indicates the connection between metallic pollutants and neurodegeneration, specifically speaking about autism spectrum disorder (Kaur et al. 2021, 8989). These impurities “play a significant role in altering the basic neuronal pathways and degenerating the neural processes,” and “environmental factors might activate and aggravate the genetic mutations responsible for the neuronal alterations” (Kaur et al. 2021, 8991).

Those who generate these pollutants and those who profit off medical treatments lead various health organizations. “Cancer, Inc.” paints a bleak picture of breast cancer awareness initiatives. For example, AstraZeneca, which manufactures fungicides, herbicides, and carcinogenic pollutants, leads efforts. The American Cancer Society has a history of opposing policies that would protect people from carcinogens in favor of those that protect corporations. I am usually not one to believe conspiracies, but this just seems like the actual state of corporate America and the health care system. The fact that people are profiting from cancer is disgraceful. Polluters place the burden on their victims (encouraging mammograms, breast checks, etc.). Although breast cancer awareness initiatives have helped many people, it is disheartening to think about how much more could be done if these companies focused their efforts on reducing the chemicals they release.

Some companies have taken initiative when it comes to pollution prevention. The corporation 3M reformulated products, decreased raw materials, gives solid waste to other companies, and more. These efforts have both reduced 3M’s environmental impact and saved the company money. Nike recently set the goal to become zero carbon and zero waste, but I wish its website and impact report provided more detailed steps (Nike, n.d.). Still, it is a move in the right direction. Janine Benyus’ TED Talk advocates for using biomimicking design approaches. The ultimate solution for environmental degradation is to dismantle capitalism; however, as I often say, this will not happen in time to preserve the planet. Therefore, we should lean on sustainable business models to reduce environmental degradation.

Current methods to reduce solid and toxic waste encourage both individuals and companies to preserve the planet. The four Rs model (refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle) emphasizes refusing certain waste-creating products or practices, reducing the amount of material one uses, reusing this material over and over, and, when done, recycling it into a better form, the same form, or an equally valuable form. Another method, Cradle to Cradle, focuses on circulating materials to reflect the natural cycling of nutrients. In this mode, inorganic and synthetic materials are reclaimed, and organic materials decompose. Dangerous technical nutrients are removed, and products are cheaper because one is only paying for part of synthetic materials’ use. Resource exchange webs are also important in reducing waste, which 3M participates in. C2C has the potential to save companies and consumers money. Shrinking resources may allow for C2C to gain popularity as people reuse and recycle what they have, rather than creating everything from scratch. A society completely based on C2C principles seems unlikely, or at least doubtful before ecosystems collapse. However, if more companies and people begin using the C2C approach, their output of toxic and solid wastes will reduce dramatically. Nike is trying to institute circular design in some of its products, and its impact report includes goals to increase sustainable material in footwear, reduce emissions, and divert waste going to landfills (Nike, n.d.). Currently, the company uses 100% renewable energy at owned or operated Nike sites in the U.S. and Canada.

There is a debate over whether or not recycling economically makes sense, and some believe that it is too costly. However, this position is simplistic. Recycling creates jobs. Additionally, it reduces emissions and pollution, which saves money regarding health costs, pollution cleanup costs, and more. The actual price of not recycling is more than just monetary value. Furthermore, we need to stop only paying attention to the economic costs of environmental issues. Ecosystems are dying, and we have the means to preserve our planet, yet people do nothing because of the up-front costs. I would argue that there is nothing more expensive than losing life on earth.

There are many steps that individuals can take to reduce their impact on waste production. Eating organic foods decreases pesticides. Refusing single-use bags and packaging is also important, and it is simple to bring your own bags and containers when shopping or eating out. Farmers markets offer more sustainable solutions to supermarkets, and they provide local food options that do not need to be transported long distances. Accepting food stamps at farmers markets, which the South Bronx Farmers Market does, is important in giving low-income communities access to this food. Shopping at yard sales, flea markets, and secondhand shops and donating used goods also helps reduce the waste we produce and saves money. If more communities establish shared use initiatives, less waste will be produced because fewer goods are purchased; this can be done for tools, books, and essentially any other item that one uses.

Municipalities should require people to separate their garbage and should implement centralized composting facilities. This way, more waste is recycled and does not end up in landfills when it could be put to good use. The compost can be sold back to residents or used in parks and community gardens to improve soil. Fee-per-bag collection services will also encourage recycling. People should push their local governments to implement these systems since they are more concerned with daily issues. If fee-per-bag systems are implemented in communities across the country, there will be a significant reduction in the amount of waste produced, and more people will follow the four Rs.

However, pre-consumer waste makes up a large amount of waste, so governments should regulate corporations more than individuals. Officials should adopt standards similar to the European Union’s REACH regulations, which require the registration of untested and unregulated chemicals, and hazardous substances cannot be used if there are safer alternatives. REACH requires companies to show if chemicals are safe rather than the government, and it is a possible solution for waste issues in our capitalist system. If companies want power, they must also deal with the consequences. Like those in New York City, local and state laws should require electronic companies to take back their products and properly dispose of them; this is an example of the C2C system in action. These policies follow the same principles as the REACH system; companies need to take responsibility for their damage. Further C2C policies should require companies to pass on their waste to other companies who can put it to use. Limits on the amount of waste a corporation can produce will also be critical. To pass these laws, we need to vote for candidates who have a history of caring about the environment and then hold them accountable once they are in office. It is not enough to simply recognize the scope of environmental degradation; we need policies that actively combat the pollution and practices that are hurting us all. Working to pass laws at the municipal and state levels will be more efficient and effective. Democracy, especially at the federal level, is slow, so perhaps local officials will be more responsive and face less resistance.

Customers must vote with their wallets and purchase from more sustainable companies to bypass the inefficiency of the government. Walmart’s shift to carrying more organic products (as featured in Food, Inc.) displays the power that customers have over companies. Therefore, if we can show businesses that it is in their best economic interest to implement C2C systems, they are more likely to do so. After all, if they do not, they may lose significant revenue. Some C2C options include companies taking back used clothing and shoes and repurposing the materials, recycling electronic waste from products, and sharing waste with other corporations and industries. Creating products with more recyclable materials, like Nike, enables consumers to sustainably dispose of waste. Installing recycling facilities on-site can allow for some waste to be used again in production.

Grassroots organizations will be integral in implementing these changes, and by organizing the population, we can have a significant impact on government and company policies. Both entities derive their power from the people, and we need to remember this in order to make change through protests, phone calls, and more. Grassroots organizations will also help when it comes to community education, and they will have to take on the responsibility of teaching people about the toxins that exist in the environment and what needs to be done to fix the issue. Education initiatives will also help in mobilizing people.

Humans created the system, and humans can get out of it. We have degraded the environment for centuries, and we must make a shift soon before the environment is completely broken down. In other words, the world’s resources are being drained at an astounding rate, and we are then dumping everything back into the earth in an unsafe manner. It is up to us to fix the issue of waste before it is too late, and everyone dies. The clock is ticking; what will you do?

Word Count: 1792

Question: How will Biden’s American Jobs Plan affect the health of Americans when it comes to industrial pollution?

Diagrams:

Visual representation of the C2C system, which does not produce waste

Effect of poverty on COVID-19 deaths in NYC

Growth of antibiotic resistance in England

Works Cited:

Jung, Juergen, James Manley, and Vinish Shrestha. 2021. “Coronavirus infections and deaths by poverty status: The effects of social distancing.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization: 311-330. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7756168/.

Kaur, Ishnoor, Tapan Behl, Lotfi Aleya, Habibur Rahman, Arun Kumar, Sandeep Arora, and Rokeya Akter. 2021. “Role of metallic pollutants in neurodegeneration: effects of aluminum, lead, mercury, and arsenic in mediating brain impairment events and autism spectrum disorder.” Environmental Science and Pollution Research. 28 (8): 8989-9001. EBSCOhost.

Nike. n.d. “FY20 NIKE, Inc. Impact Report.” Accessed May 8, 2021. https://purpose-cms-preprod01.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/30191535/FY20-NIKE-Inc.-Impact-Report_Executive-Summary1.pdf.

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irishurbanplanner · 4 years ago

Text

This is an update of my previous upload.

Collaborative Planning in Ireland

Abstract

In researching this blog post, the author intended on writing a much shorter blog, one which covered the ongoing and controversial Clontarf flood wall issue ((Further details can be found @ https://www.dublininquirer.com/2020/04/15/the-latest-step-in-the-effort-to-get-agreement-on-clontarf-flood-defence-wall). However, this turned into a rabbit hole of sorts, leading the author to a more in-depth look at public communication mechanisms in the Irish Planning and Development system.

Without going into too much detail on the Clontarf wall issue, in short, the majority of the people who were interviewed as part of an EPA Report titled ‘Challenges of Transformative Climate Change Adaptation: Insights from Flood Risk Management’, in relation to this incident suggested that Part 8 failed, this being the enforcement section of the Planning and Development Act 2000 as amended (P&D Acts). In the case of Dublin City Council (DCC), and according to interviewees, they failed in informing the public or local community of said development. This led to mistrust in the community with regards to DCC in operational and communicational aspects. People simply thought that the State was trying to install this flood protection wall without due process and these people were entitled to have their voices heard. See image below for Clontarf reference point location.

(EPA Report 265)

Clontarf is a coastal suburban town located approximately 6km to the north of Dublin city centre, with a population of 31,000 people in 2014. The basic issue with the Clontarf wall is as follows; Clontarf was flooded in 2002 and 2004. DCC wanted to solve this problem with the help of the Office of Public Works (OPW), but specifically they wanted to help the people who were in direct risk of further flooding. The issue before these people was a simple enough one, they could not get their homes insured due to the risk of flooding, according to one interviewee taking from the same EPA Report, “Matthew: Because we don’t have flood insurance the value of our properties are worth nothing.” See image below for flooding event in 2002.

(http://dublinstreams.blogspot.com/)

So as touched on previously, the issue is twofold, one being that the people of the area didn’t feel as though they were properly informed of any development work to what they deem as their visual amenity. These people felt the wall would have, “negatively impacted the cultural heritage of Clontarf”, “created an eyesore”, “spoiled views of the bay” (EPA Report 265, Pg. 27). The 2nd issue was of course the people in direct risk of being flooded as in 2002 and 2004 (image previously shown in 2002); these unfortunate people couldn’t get their homes insured because of the substantial risk. However, the nub of the issue is, according to interviewees from the same EPA Report, DCC “met all statutory requirements relating to public notification and consultation under EU Directives (Directive 2003/35/EC and Directive 2007/60/EC)”. Here lies the problem, because something went very wrong in informing the public and if DCC have done all they were statutorily required to do, then the public view was right, the system for informing the public failed, Part 8 failed.

So taking the following, an extended quotation from the same EPA Report, details the issue nicely;

“A significant barrier to adaptation along Clontarf promenade centred on planning regulations, specifically those regulations detailing how the public is notified of major infrastructural projects being undertaken by local authorities. Under EU Directives regarding public participation in environmental decision-making (Directive 2003/35/EC; EU, 2003) and Part 8 of the Planning and Development Regulations,

2001 (Office of the Attorney General, 2001), local authorities are required to place a notification of major infrastructural projects in an approved newspaper and to erect notices on the land on which the proposed development is to be sited. Julie, an elected official, described these methods as “stone age” and as not reflecting modern means of communication. This, it was suggested, acted as a primary reason for a lack of community awareness and engagement with the issue until 2011, 4 years after public consultation under the scheme had passed:

The governance process and how decisions were arrived at in relation to the proposed defences in Clontarf were highlighted as a significant concern by the community. David, an elected official, commented that the public consultation process was merely “ticking a box” to the extent that the local authority was not considered to be genuinely interested in community engagement. The community expressed concerns over a number of issues pertaining to public consultation and suggested that it was illegitimate in that it had taken place in areas distant from Clontarf (LoveClontarf.ie, 2011b; Ó Ríordáin, 2011), which subsequently contributed to a lack of local awareness until after the consultation process had ended. This breakdown in communication ultimately led to a loss of trust between parties, as was noted by several interviewees:

David: They [DCC] never really bought into the public consultation.

Keith: They [DCC] deliberately ignored us and tried to ram it through. People were shocked at the arrogance of the council that this was pushed through without any consultation

(EPA Report 265, Pg. 22&23)

Public Participation

With the Clontarf story in mind, I wanted to explore the public participation procedure in Ireland, what was the legislation involved? Since 1963, under the (what was then called) ‘Local Government Planning and Development Act’ people and bodies have been able to submit observation and submissions to a PA, see quotes, “a planning authority have prepared a draft of a proposed development plan or of proposed variations of a development plan, a) they shall send copies of the prescribed documents to the prescribed authorities, b) they shall cause notice of the preparation of the draft to be published in the Iris Oifigiúil and in at least one newspaper circulating in their area, c) where the draft includes any provision relating to any structure proposed to be preserved because of its artistic, historic or architectural interest, they shall serve notice (which shall incorporate particulars of the provision) of the preparation of the draft on the owner and on the occupier of the structure” (http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/). Since 1998 Ireland and other EU states agreed and singed up the Aarhus Convention, which states that each party “shall guarantee the rights of access to information, public participation in decision-making, and access to justice in environmental matters”, see Article 1, Objective (https://ec.europa.eu/environment/aarhus/). Then in 2000 as part of the Amended Development Act, Section 24.7 was created, which allows for direct consultation between any party and the PA or CEO directly, which is meant to help alleviate time restraints, offering help and assistance to whomever requires it. Finally, in Ireland we have An Bórd Pleanála (ABP), which is an appeal body for people to forward objections to developments as they see fit. ABP helps tie all of these together and helps them have function in the form of judicial procedures if necessary in appealing to developments they deem to be potentially damaging for the environment or in any other way that would draw concern from the ABP (for more information of ABP, please see their website).

The ideology of public participation came about in the 90s (which of course lines up with the Aarhus Convention of 1998), what we in planning fields call ‘collaborative planning’ (CP).

In an article titled ‘The Death and Life of Collaborative Planning Theory’, the author Robert Goodspeed, (who is an assistant professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning) is very helpful setting the scene, giving us a grounding of sorts as to where the idea of CPT came from;

“It has been over 20 years since Judith Innes proclaimed communicative action to be the “emerging paradigm” for planning theory, a theoretical perspective which has been developed into what is known as collaborative planning theory (CPT)”.

(R. Goodspeed, 2016)

With that in mind, next the blog will look at CP on the ground, what indeed is it and how can it help us as a civilisation going forward.

Collaborative Planning

According to Kamalia Purbani, Head of City Development Planning Bureau, Indonesia, in an article titled “Collaborative planning for a city development, A perspective from a city planner”;

“CP is a new paradigm of planning for a complex contemporary society which usually mediates conflicts between parties through consensus building processes. It encourages people to be engaged in a dialogue in a situation of equal empowerment and shared information, to learn new ideas through mutual understanding, to create innovative outcomes and to build institutional capacity”.

(K. Purbani, 2017)

K. Purbani, discusses how if CP can help all stake holders to recognise the importance of each other, their interdependence.

“If stakeholders can realize that their principles will be implemented only through cooperation, this will help them recognize their problems, establish effective working arrangements and reach agreement through shared understanding”.

(K. Purbani, 2017)

So with that in mind, what is CP and when did the term immerge? Well according to the Article titled ‘Collaborative planning in an Uncollaborative World’ by Ralf Brand of University of Manchester, UK and Frank Gaffikin of Queens University, Belfast, UK, who cite Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 2002: 214;

“It is not possible to identify a particular author who has coined this term. Rather, it seems to have evolved out of previous debates around the desirability, timeliness and effectiveness of various planning dispositions in the late 20th century, in particular out of ‘the neo-liberal, antiplanning morass of the 1980s’”

(Ralf Brand et al, 2007)

However it is possible to name some authors who helped refine and popurlise the concept, as Ralf Brand et al explain. “Among them in the American context are scholars such as Innes, Booher, Forester, Friedman, Hoch, Fischer, and in Europe, Albrechts, Swyngedouw, Hajer, Davoudi, Moulaert and, maybe most prominently, Healey”. Their article goes into some detail on CP, painful detail in fact, which I’ll paraphrase as best I can. They wanted to look at CP with a view to exposing it to the realities of on the ground planning practicalities, thereby assessing its efficiency as a working practice. Here’s how they put it themselves;

In this systematic appraisal, we begin by disaggregating collaborative planning into four elements that can enlighten such conceptual frameworks: ontology, epistemology, ideology and methodology. These four lenses help delimit and clarify the object of our examination and provide transparent criteria that guide our examination of collaborative planning’s strengths and weaknesses.

(Ralf Brand et al, 2007)

The paper uses Northern Ireland (NI) as a case study over a period of 10 years to assess these four lenses through practical procedures on the ground. So taking each point one by one, I’ll try and explain their ideological role in CP, but also how CP performs through these lenses.

Ontology

Ontology = study of being, becoming, existing or reality.

In my view, the paper was not complimentary with regards this particular lens, drawing doubt to the practice on the ground. For example, it explains how this term ‘ontology’ is rarely referred to in the CP text, even though it is in fact heavily linked to the idealistic CP world view. Why is that? Is it because it could draw out contradictions to what is being practised in the development context?

The article also refers to CP as having a ‘hybrid of various theories’ all muddled into their CP viewpoints. However, it finishes off by saying that reflection is needed, along with undistorted debate to wake up from the “power blind somnambulism and to reconstruct a world without hegemonies” (Ralf Brand et al, 2007).

Another issue that the paper draws attention to is that “CP assumes a mature level of civic literacy among widely informed publics. Our empirical evidence, however, does not provide justification for this assumption” (Ralf Brand et al, 2007). Just to add some meat to this bone, to have this assumption is border line outrageous. To assume that ordinary people read up on or indeed are aware of the jargon used in the planning context, but more importantly the CP context. People have lives to run, bills to pay, children to look after, jobs to do or indeed actual jobs, never mind the times people spend commuting. I’m a recently graduated spatial planner and I can say with certainty that I’m the only one in my class that even read this paper in question, even though this was given in class and we were expected to read it and discuss it in the class thereafter, the details of which were never discussed in class because of time restraints. People are not taught anything about how the planning system works in school, nothing! Even though we all have to work within it or indeed have rights to express in the form of appeals to developments in the form of ABP. The people have the right sure, but if you don’t tell them about their rights, or expect them to read through governmental documents or indeed websites to understand them all by themselves, again, people have lives to live, they certainly don’t have the time to rap their heads around words like ‘epistemology’ or the like.

Epistemology

Epistemology = the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion.

The article goes on to draw many issues with this also, stating that we shouldn’t only know about planning matters, but we should be willing to step back and take notice of “underlying strategic patterns”…whilst later in that paragraph, tries to remind us “to make the invisible visible” and to remove the “blinders created by our conditions and institutions”…also citing that all views need to be taking into account…emphasising the need to facilitate the opportunities for engagement and articulation of experienced and knowledge based viewpoints. Unfortunately, this is only an ideological view point and wasn’t proven to be the case in practical sense in relation to the case study undertaking in NI.

Later in the paper it goes on to ask the question of whose “knowledge counts most”? A good question no doubt in relation to the case study of NI, however, it does detail that more ground was made here in the sense that environmental and sustainability issues were teased out further. “This knowledge sharing allowed such seasoned participants over time to become much more multi lingual with respect to others’ discourses, improving the sophistication of exchanges” (Ralf Brand et al, 2007). However this was over a 10 year process, meaning time was necessary to not only understand the concepts of what are often very technical issues with regards to environmental and sustainable development, but also to accept them, and to even develop trust in the information available to them. No such time is given to public consultation mechanisms, but instead a short window to submit a view point and perhaps attend a public meeting if there is one. Of course, in the case of Clontarf flood wall, the meeting wasn’t even held in the area, which leads one to wonder what if indeed any desire exists on the part of official Governmental departments to have meaningful debate and collaboration with relevant stakeholders, which is to say, stakeholders with little or no influence on a political level or any other level in society.

Ideology

Ideology = a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.

When the paper discusses the ideology of CP, it suggests a “left leaning” one, in theory at least. They say CPs are assumed to have an idea of how the world ought to be, in the ideal sense at least. CP acts as a refuge for “leftist ideas” in a sense, the sustainable development of human rights, indeed even attempting to re-legitimize their alternative views into the prevailing neo-liberalism system. The paper goes onto mention the New Labour’ Government of Tony Blair…citing that a contradiction exists here;

“Yet a tension exists here between a value-driven approach to collaboration and the New Public management-style of pragmatism that informs aspects of revisionist social democracy. The latter is intent on rethinking the egalitarian project by endorsing mechanisms for social efficiency, while remaining opposed to market outcomes that generate social injustice”.

(Giddens and Diamond, 2005)

The paragraph finishes off by saying;

“in a slightly contradicting move, however, Collaborative Planners argue for open negotiation of moralities, beyond utilitarianism (Healey, 2004a:97) and for a collective avowal to values like aesthetics, enjoyment and other spiritual values that enrich human existence”.

(Ralf Brand et al, 2007)

This is disingenuous; CP can’t have it every which way. I’m pretty sure the market forces don’t give any time towards “aesthetics, enjoyment and other spiritual values that enrich human existence”. Market forces care about money and profit, simple and very easy to understand on a basic economic level.

The paper goes on to talk about the importance of egalitarian values in CP, but this simply isn’t the case in practice, as the paper proved later in the exclusion of the 500 volunteer groups who represented each corner of NI small business and local communities, simply flying in the face of tackling egalitarian issues, especially in the context of public participation. This part of the paper also raises questions in relation to contradiction of CP being both, open to local democracy and participation whilst at the same time, being a globalist in nature, as they put it, an “accomplice of globalization”, in the sense that CPs encourage “foreign direct investment” (FDI) to local areas, which in theory is fine, but as discussed previously, when the going gets tough, or as they put it, as the more action stage draws closer, the volunteer groups get left behind or excluded altogether (Ralf Brand et al, 2007). Besides, the objective is clear, CP wants the investment, much like the Local Authorities (LA’s) and the CEO of the LA, they all want or even need the FDI badly for investment purposes into their own LA. So with that in mind, and assuming they get their wish, and everybody turns up, it’s simply a ‘ticking box’ exercise on the part of the LA, the only thing one could possibly care about in this sense would be the FDI opportunity, since this is the investment and most likely the only opportunity for said development to go ahead. After-all, this is how the system was designed.

Methodology

Methodology = refers to the overarching strategy and rationale of your research.

Here they first state that a new way of doing things might be necessary, “which in turn demands a new method, that is, new approaches, techniques and tools for policy-makers and planners” (Ralf Brand et al, 2007). Going on to suggest CP might need to broaden their base for collaboration. For this to happen everyone with a perceived stake must be included, all stake holders! Meaning everyone should in theory get listened to and have equal respect for each other, as we previously discussed with regard to egalitarian values. However this suggests a new type of CP, one in which they have many varied skills in negotiation between variant stake holders…citing what the traditional planners were often seen as, the mediator, the middle man, regulatory in nature and part of “the linear legislation-execution-jurisdiction triad, they are now called upon to act as the facilitator, intermediary, as knowledge mediator and brokers (Healey, 1997) as a ‘counsellor’ (Wissink, 1995) and ‘critical friend’ (Forester, 1996)”. The CP is in the unique position to elicit and articulate to the stakeholders what’s going on, a voice for the voiceless

Yet with all this in mind, the paper later says that “creating dialogic spaces for candid rational deliberation among equal participants for collaborative decisions about priorities and choices proved too formidable an undertaking” (Ralf Brand et al, 2007). With the voices of the poor remaining marginal, as discussed with the 500 volunteers and the extra efforts made at the “action stage” in trying to get the most powerful stakeholders involved, thus collaboration between all stakeholders proved “impossible”.

In concluding the paper discusses the inefficiency of CP;

“An almost ubiquitous feature of planning discourses in Northern Ireland over the last decade has been the indulgence in generality and ambivalence. Unfortunately, the tendency to the innocuous and inoffensive has led to superficial accords, rooted in what are deemed to be ‘constructive ambiguities’. But, since these semantics are subject to multiple interpretations, they are prone to unravel when confronted by hard development choices and priorities. Many key policy and planning directions that have emerged from the collaborative discourses remain inexact. Is compact settlement privileged over dispersal? Are town centres to be beneficiaries of the precautionary and sequential principle with respect to out-of-town development? Is balanced development a serious objective, with a corollary of greater spatial equity for the West of the region and between rural and urban development? Is there a coherent strategy to deliver productive use of those brownfield sites concentrated in contested space? Are the local regeneration partnerships established in the main cities to adopt long-term strategic renewal to be allowed to pursue this agenda or are they to be side-lined by other disjointed projects and policies? Is shared space to be proactively favoured over ethnic space as a means of de-segregating the deeply sectarian geography? None of this is clear.”

(Ralf Brand et al, 2007)

I consider this quite damming, but then when the elected officials and interdepartmental relations are strained to the point of tempered relations in negotiating, one can’t possibly be surprised. In one such example, the department of environment of NI wanted wording changed as to not pin them down so much, with words changed from “to ‘be consistent with’ the regional plan to one that simply said that they had to ‘have regard to it’, a quite meaningless expression” (Ralf Brand et al, 2007) and I might add here; an utterly despicable attitude to have. To negotiate in this way is vile; people’s lives can be directly affected through the wording. Yet to the management, it’s just a negotiation between two frustrated parties, both equally put out and equally annoyed at each other. Its ridicules to think, this is where it ends up, strife’s between to Government departments. These people don’t get it! They don’t want to get it and they don’t care about on the ground societal issues. If CP was properly implemented, things like this could be discarded as what they are, meaningless strife’s. It’s precisely why you don’t change the wording, why you insist that all the stakeholders get listened to.

Collaborative Planning Theory

Previously discussed Robert Goodspeed (University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning) is very helpful in detailing further academic issues relating to Collaborative Planning Theory (CPT). He makes the point that “CPT has made an enduring impact on planning theory, even as it has failed to achieve a total revolution in thinking” (R. Goodspeed, 2016). As touched on previously, Professor Judith Innes at UC Berkeley proclaimed that “communicative action to be the emerging paradigm for planning theory (Innes, 1995)”. Yet, being 25 years removed now, very little progress has been done to bring CPT into working and practical democratic systems. R. Goodspeed discusses what he terms “the death” of CPT. Issues such as, the main theorist of the topic approaching retirement age, with no sign of further studies to expand their ideas. In fact, new ideas threaten to overrun CPT according the R. Goodspeed;

“One would be hard-pressed to identify many planning scholars in the next generation following in this tradition, for three primary reasons: CPT’s focus on planning practice, use of abstruse theory, and normative content. CPT mostly describes practice, and seemingly neglects substantive issues—which many continue to believe form the core of planning. In addition, the reliance on Habermas’ dense and confusing philosophy may have made it off-putting for scholars seeking broad scholarly audiences.

Finally, and most importantly, CPT is both normative and analytical. That means it purports to guide analysis—by suggesting relationships between independent variables and outcomes and providing analytically useful concepts—as well as provide guidance about how to define good planning practice. To an outsider, it might seem obvious that planning needs such a theory. However, this normative content is a further reason it has been shunned in the academy, where similarly abstract but less prescriptive theorists like Foucault are seemingly a better fit in academic culture of critique (Flyvbjerg & Richardson, 2002). However, this choice provides little guidance for professionals, who must work within existing flawed institutional contexts”.

(R. Goodspeed, 2016)

Conclusion

In concluding, the Clontarf issue really highlighted the systems failings with informing the public of developments in their area, never mind any other form of communication. If I can just remind the reader, an elected official referred to the methods as ‘stone aged’, implying of course that they are very far behind when applying modern techniques. With another elected official simply stating a fact, pointing out that according to DCC (and by extension any other LA), the “public consultation process was merely “ticking a box” to the extent that the local authority was not considered to be genuinely interested in community engagement”, which is damming to the point of outrageous. Just to add some insult, DCC didn’t even call the meeting for the flood protection wall in the area, but instead throw in a locational curve ball for public consultation meeting, which of course the community expressed concern over, suggesting the meeting was “illegitimate” in that it took place outside the community of Clontarf.

The mechanisms for the public to participate in meaningful debate are slim. At best, if someone was constantly following the working of their Local Authorities (LA’s), constantly following their development plans, Local Area Plans etc. Of course, that’s assuming they don’t live on any county administrable borders. However, if someone was living on 3 county borders for example, they would have to keep an eye of 3 LA’s and their on-going developments; it’s a lot to assume of an ordinary citizen I would think. If I can give a clear example of this; so if someone lived in Dublin, I would assume they would be interested in all 4 LA’s in the Dublin district. It’s too much work for one person. Now, if you owned a company with a vested interest in developmental procedures, a building company, or a big retail branch, one could simply inform their staff to keep an eye on these things, since they have the resources. So, does this put them, them being the stakeholders with so called influence at an advantage over the common citizen? I would argue it does. Even if someone was very diligent, and indeed kept an eye on all the developments of their area, they only have one chance to submit their concerns, which might or might not be taking into account.

When we consider the 4 lenses, ontology, epistemology, ideology and methodology, which helped guide Ralf Brand et al, to discuss the term CP in some detail, we are left disappointed. None of these achieved the, what might be called, admirable efforts of CP to solve all our public engagement problems. In fact, they didn’t even come close; indeed it seems to me that, the system of neo-liberal governance doesn’t lend itself to this type of practice. One can’t be expected to be everything to every man or women; they can’t on the one hand be supporters of globalisation whilst at the same time being concerned with some societal issues on the ground. They would surely appear as disingenuous. One would think, a CP in the true sense, would be a rebel of sorts, against the working system in its practical sense, against the ideological detached mind-set of neo-liberal societies. They would want moral and societal justice for the poor, a voice for the voiceless, as Ralf Brand et al put it, a refuge for “leftist ideas”.

According to R. Goodspeed, 2016, we would be forgiven for thinking that CPT is at deaths doors, however I wouldn’t go this far. As R. Goodspeed, 2016 details,

“CPT may play a similar role as Jane Jacobs classic book referenced by this article’s title, The Death and Life of American Cities. Both this book and early CPT were framed as an overthrow of an intellectual status quo

both were widely read and influenced practice, but neither resulted in the wholesale reconstruction of the field that their most ardent supporters desired”.

Therefore, as R. Goodspeed suggests, what is the future of CPT, but in this case, the future of CP. With an ever increasing global population, specifically in the under developed south, according to R. Goodspeed, the need for collaboration will be pushed to the side in favour of policies that favour fast builds and developments, “theorists will cast aside the mushy business of collaboration” (R. Goodspeed, 2016). However, with the rise in technology and social communicational devises, the opposite might be true. With more and more studies, the need to include the ever increasing technological advances into the efforts of CP will become too apparent to ignore. Even now, we have the technology to do much better. R. Goodspeed finishes this point off nicely;

No matter what formal style of politics a country is said to have, the number and variety of voices is expanding everywhere. The diffusion of communication technologies and social media has resulted in a fragmented, volatile political culture worldwide. Within such a culture, the premium earned for achieving consensus will continue to grow and the places which can marshal it will reap the rewards. In this future, even as the popularity of CPT as an analytic theory may continue to languish, its appeal as a practical one will only increase.

(R. Goodspeed, 2016)

So what he’s saying here is the following; the theory of CP is dying. Yet the practical need for collaboration is increasing. Why is the theory dying you might ask yourself? Well in the view of the author, it’s because of neo-liberalism. This mechanism of politics doesn’t lend it-self to this type of discourse. There is no money to be made from collaboration, very little financial incentive, yet maybe not over the long haul, but for sure in the immediate future. Collaboration has the potential to slow things down, after all, it encourages debate among equals, encourages dialogue and understanding. Neo-liberalism wants the market to solve the problems of tomorrow without ever looking past them. It has a short sited mind-set, which is doomed to fail, leaving society, and the less well-off flailing in the wind. Infrastructural capacity has been devastated by their market driven ideas and privatisation of public transport all around the developed world. Unfortunately, neo-liberalism came around just before the idea of collaboration came to the fore. The difference however, is the need for collaboration will only increase, as R Goodspeed detailed earlier, whilst the need for neo-liberalism will only diminish, this is my hope for the future at least.

Oisín Kerr

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batteriestore · 4 years ago

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Apple Watch Series 6 in Review: Improved Health Metrics Thanks to watchOS 7 and New Sensor

Case and Connectivity – Begone, Force Touch

As can be seen on our title photo above with a 2015 Apple Watch for comparison, the Watch’s form factor remained unchanged and current sizes are identical to last year’s model. The new eye-catching features are new colors, in particular the new blue and red aluminum case, and the new solo loop bands.

As before the aluminum models feature Ion-X glass while the stainless steel and titanium models come with Sapphire glass instead. The LPTO OLED that was first introduced with the Watch Series 4 remains well usable in sunlight. According to Apple, its Always-On Display’s maximum brightness has been improved by 2.5x over the Watch Series 5 , which is supposed to be beneficial mostly to those who cannot raise their arm during their workout for whatever reason. We were particularly impressed by how fast the new device switched between the two modes. Even with Always-On Display enabled activating the full display when lifting your arm takes a split second.

The rear side has been updated to include the new sensor. The new sensor array is comprised of a crystal with four photo diodes and four green/red/infrared LED clusters. This array now allows for estimating your blood oxygen level as well as measuring and recording your heart rate, your heart rhythm, and recognize when you’re asleep. The latter does not require the new sensor and is thus available on all models that can be updated to watchOS 7, namely Series 3 and newer.

However, updating to watchOS on previous Apple Watch models comes at a price. The latest iteration of Apple’s mobile operating system no longer supports Force Touch, which in previous versions was used to access context menus or customize the currently installed watch faces. Instead, this way of input was now partly replaced with a long touch without applying extra force. The Apple Watch Series 6 lacks the Force Touch gasket that was still present on previous models, and on all older devices its readings are simply ignored.

The Apple Watch Series 6 supports GPS and is ISO 22810:2010 certified against ingress of water up to 50 m. The new Wi-Fi chip now also supports 5 GHz bands. Furthermore, the watch comes with NFC for Apple Pay as well as a speaker and microphone for Siri and phone calls. As before, an LTE model with eSIM support is available optionally at a premium.

Setup and Handling

Setting up an Apple Watch cannot be done with an Android smartphone as it requires a compatible iPhone. However, thanks to watchOS 7’s new family setup feature this no longer needs to be your own iPhone. Instead, you can now use any compatible iPhone to setup an Apple Watch for example for your children, senior parents, or others that don’t even own an iPhone. The Watch app required for pairing and setting up the Apple Watch is preloaded on any iPhone by default and is capable of managing multiple watches if necessary.

The Watch itself comes with numerous preloaded applications, such as for example a remote-control application for the iPhone’s camera. One of the Apple Watch’s largest benefits is its App Store ecosystem with a large variety of third-party applications. If an iPhone app also happens to support the Apple Watch it is automatically installed on a compatible Watch as well, as long as this feature remains enabled.

The watch faces can be customized either via the Watch app on the iPhone or on the watch itself. Changing between the various installed watch faces can be achieved with horizontal swipes across the screen. The digital crown is used for scrolling through settings menus or zooming in the Photos app. The single button can be used to either display the Dock, which contains all recently used applications, or a customizable list of favorite apps.

This all isn’t new by any means. Its ease of use is one of the basic principles defining the Apple Watch, as is the full integration of multiple Apple products logged in with the same Apple ID with one another. For example, should Siri respond to one of your questions with a search and website suggestion you can open this website on your Mac thanks to Handoff. Furthermore, all Siri suggestions and open websites are synchronized with your Mac to be found in Safari’s history. In addition, you can also use your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac. Once setup the watch will vibrate and play a sound reminiscent to that of a vault opening every time it unlocks your Mac. A nice touch for sure.

Notifications and Telephony

By default, the Apple Watch mirrors your iPhone’s notification settings, which can be later customized and adjusted to your liking. WhatsApp messages will display emojis but only a blurry preview of photos. Replies can contain either predefined blocks of text, emojis, a dictated message, or a digitized message with each letter scribbled onto the watch’s display. New messages can only be sent out as text, not as WhatsApp message. This holds true for all other messengers that don’t offer a native Apple Watch app.

You can take a phone call directly from the watch on your wrist, and you can also make phone calls through either your contacts, your recents, or a dialpad. While the LTE model is capable of operating independently of the iPhone it is paired to the GPS/Wi-Fi model requires the iPhone to remain close-by.

Health and Fitness – Finally with SpO2 Sensor

Fitness buffs love the Apple Watch, and the health sector was impressed by the Apple Watch Series 4’s ECG feature. And while other OEMs seem to struggle with reliable ECG data – Samsung’s implementation, for example, was delayed repeatedly and remains unavailable in many countries, including Germany, to this day – an increasing number of wearables started featuring blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) sensors capable of detecting possible sleep apnea. Apple, on the other hand, only supported heart rate and frequency (ECG) metrics as well as an app for hearing health. With watchOS 7, a sleep tracker is now finally available for all supported Apple Watches (Series 3 and later), and the Apple Watch Series 6 finally supports blood oxygen saturation monitoring.

Heart Frequency, Heart Rate, and Oxygen Saturation

By default, the ECG app is not available on an Apple Watch. Instead, it must be actively setup in the paired iPhone’s Health app where you can decide whether you want constant and automatic or manual heart rate and blood oxygen readings. Should the Watch detect atrial fibrillation, which is often linked to an increased risk of suffering a stroke, it will issue a warning.

Heart frequency measurements are very accurate. In our test, the Apple Watch was capable of accurately measuring our heart frequency both when idle and working out with increasing performance, and it reported values almost identical to that of a heart rate chest strap. When analyzing the workout data, we found almost identical data save for a single heartbeat.

On average, blood oxygen level data differed from that recorded by a certified pulse oximeter by just 1.5 % with a maximum of up to 3 %. Using the Blood Oxygen app on your watch you can start a manual reading of your blood oxygen levels. If needed the watch can automatically take readings several times a day and while asleep. The paired iPhone’s Health app will then graph that data over the course of days, weeks, or months.

Sleep Tracking

For the first time in the history of watchOS the new version 7 natively supports sleep tracking at night. However, when compared to sleep tracking data recorded by devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3, the Fitbit Sense, or Honor/Huawei wearables such as the Honor Magic Watch 2 or TicWatch Pro 3 GPS Apple’s data is poor at best. The tracker is even incapable of properly distinguishing your sleep phases (light sleep, deep sleep, REM sleep) from one another.

What it is capable of recording is the time you fell asleep, the time you woke up, and how often and when you awoke at night. This data can be graphed and analyzed long-term over the last few days or weeks and will inform you whether or not you reached your self-defined sleep goal for weekdays and weekends. Despite the fact that heartrate and oxygen saturation data is available for that same time period a sleep diagram overlay is not available. In addition, unlike Fitbit’s algorithms Apple’s infrequent readings will be barely able to reliably detect sleep apnea.

We suspect that more frequent readings would decrease the Apple Watch’s battery life even further. At the time of writing the minimum charge required for a night’s worth of sleep tracking is 30 %. Charge levels below 30 % will result in a warning. How and why the Apple Watch Series 6 managed to record more time asleep than time spent in bed (see last screenshot) remains a mystery to us. We can positively assure you with absolute certainty that the number of power naps taken during the review period was unfortunately exactly zero.

Activity Rings

Another Apple Watch feature is its ability to motivate users to spend less time sitting and more time moving with its Activity app. The goal is to close all three rings every single day: stand, move, and exercise. Standing is primarily aimed at avoiding long-term sitting and requires you to get up at least once every hour and move around for at least one minute. It will also count towards your move goal, as will taking a letter to the mailbox on foot instead of by car.

The exercise goal can best be reached through workouts that can be recorded with the preinstalled Workout app. If you’re not a big fan of gyms or indoor sports facilities, you can alternatively also reach your daily exercise goal and close the ring with a 30-minute long brisk walk. Basically, anything you can record with the Workout app or any other Apple Health-compatible fitness app will count towards your exercise goal. The app will also calculate your daily calories by adding up all exercises, steps taken, etc. The app store contains numerous apps that allow you to record your calorie intake as well and use that data fed into the Health app to record and monitor your weight.

Workout Tracking

At the time of writing, Apple’s Workout app supported slightly less than 100 different workouts. Running can be paused automatically if you stop or, alternatively, manually by pressing the digital crown and side button simultaneously and then terminating the workout via touch button on the display.

Thanks to its built-in GPS the watch is capable of recording your track even without an iPhone present. Music and audio books that have been previously synchronized with your watch can be played during your workout on any compatible Bluetooth headset.

Today’s workouts can be found in the Activity app on the watch. Analyzing older workouts requires the Fitness and Health app on the paired iPhone. The latter will even display heart rate and frequency during your workout session as well as during the resting period immediately afterwards. Unfortunately, this data is also only available for the current day.

Various alternatives to Apple’s Workout app are available in the app store, such as for example Strava or other apps aimed at running, swimming, or golfing. Those apps are great for keeping long-term records in order to use these metrics for improvement.

Performance Comparison

According to Apple, the Apple Watch Series 6’s S6 chip is supposed to be up to 20 % faster than the Apple Watch 5’s S5 chip. Truth be told we were unable to tell the difference in everyday use. Both watches performed all tasks very quickly.

Battery Life – No More Than 2 Days Even Without Always-On Display

While other OEMs aim to improve battery life over time Apple is still content with an official battery life of 18 hours. The 44 mm Apple Watch Series 6 outperformed this official goal by 75 % and ran up to 31 hours and 40 minutes with enabled always-on display. And while not particularly impressive it should be more than enough to use the watch at night for sleep tracking even after a very long day.

If you are out and about and need to get through two days without recharging, you can opt to disable the always-on display. With that feature disabled we were able to squeeze out 2 days and 5 hours of battery life.

With GPS and heartrate sensor active at the same time Apple claims a battery life of up to 7 hours, or 6 hours for the cellular model. If the watch is connected to an iPhone it will use the latter’s GPS instead. Thus, you can easily plan long-lasting outdoor activities or extensive route tracking as long as you keep your iPhone nearby.

Verdict – The New Hardware is Great, the Software Experience Is Not

Making and taking phone calls, paying, listening to music, downloading popular apps from the app store – the Apple Watch has many benefits indeed. However, is switching to the new Series 6 justifiable if you already own an older model?

The SpO2 sensor’s data is more reliable than on many other devices. In addition, the Apple Watch allows you to have both manual and automatic readings enabled, which is seldom to be found on its competitors. Among others, one such contender is the Garmin Forerunner 745. The optical heart frequency sensor turned out to be very precise and accurate as well. The Apple Watch’s hardware is at the high level that we have grown accustomed to from Apple. However, the software is not there quite yet, particularly when it comes to Apple’s admittedly first implementation of sleep tracking. It simply does not record enough data for any sort of useful analysis.

The Apple Watch’s SpO2 sensor is a high-quality sensor. Apart from that, the differences to the Apple Watch Series 5 are minor at best.

Switching from the AW5 will only pay off if you are interested in the additional health data provided by the SpO2 sensor. Apart from the Apple Watch Series 6 Apple also lists two models without SpO2 sensor, ECG sensor and always-on display: The Apple Watch Series 3, starting at $199, and the Apple Watch SE, starting at $279.

The Apple Watch Series 6 with 44 mm display currently starts at $429 plus tax with various retailers already offering lower prices and holiday sales already. Apart from Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 3, which costs between $400 and $500 as well, most other wearables are much cheaper.

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gabrielalexandebrubaker95 · 4 years ago

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What Is A Reiki Master Prodigious Useful Ideas

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Practicing successively with each other, this is what Karuna Reiki Master is one of the body and out the window.To begin with, some practical considerations:That means that buying the best source of the ocean waves and tides.Each member of a friend of a lifetime or several may be considered scientifically conclusive.In short, he must put in all that it is important to find a Reiki Master through Self Attunement.

If you decide to use if you don't have this as the car battery goes down, if not all can learn to trust that it will or won't work?How can You help the damage I help the damage I help them in a more productive energy force with the universe runs on its tip; reverse the pattern and stand with your animal guides.Combining the power of Reiki can create subtle differences in different styles of Usui Reiki.All spiritual communication comes from the Universe, and the symbols are only three divisions in Reiki can also be a pretty miserable reason to be surprised if she wanted to learn the treatment?The uses of these preparations help you achieve a higher place, if even for only a fraction of the Reiki master is right.

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A Reiki practitioner is said to relieve stress in work and we are spending for nothing.A question frequently asked about Reiki that are used to heal other people, animals, trees, grass, flowers, water, etc. Anything that is needed to give it a worthwhile complement to traditional Reiki, but for the people who wants to become a tutor.The people who you'll probably end up feeling a reduction in knee pain, etc.There are 8 additional symbols can be learned for distant healing, or distance healing, purification and emotional curative sign, which balances the body's natural healing of the religious sense.I treasure this experience and aren't given a Reiki treatment.

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Reiki Healing Que Es

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How To Do Reiki Healing Distance

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#What Is A Reiki Master Prodigious Useful Ideas #Reiki Healing Music 5 Minutes Bell

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deniscollins · 4 years ago

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Stakeholder Capitalism Gets a Report Card. It’s Not Good.

Amazon signed the Business Roundtable Statement for stakeholder capitalism, noting that companies must elevate the interests of workers, the environment and local communities alongside shareholders. If you were Jeff Bezos, how would you respond to a report noting that Amazon has profited from the pandemic — selling more than $164 billion worth of goods this year — while drawing accusations that it has failed to protect workers.

Marc Benioff, chief executive of the technology giant Salesforce, presents himself as an evangelist for stakeholder capitalism: the idea that companies must elevate the interests of workers, the environment and local communities alongside shareholders.

He has written books and opinion pieces arguing that profits are not sufficient; companies must do good. He attends the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a hotbed for such thinking. And his company was among the 181 members of the Business Roundtable, a club of C.E.O.s, that last year promised to broaden its traditional obsession with the bottom line to include societal concerns.

In late August, as Salesforce celebrated more than $5 billion in quarterly sales, Mr. Benioff proclaimed validation. “This is a victory for stakeholder capitalism,” he said in a television interview. The next day, in the midst of the pandemic, Salesforce informed 1,000 employees that their jobs were no longer needed.

The coronavirus, its attendant economic devastation and the ongoing movement against racial injustice have collectively posed the first test of the lofty words proclaiming a kinder form of capitalism. The results have fallen short of the promise, according to a study released Tuesday and obtained in advance by The New York Times.

The Business Roundtable’s statement of a purpose of a corporation, released last year, was touted by prominent executives as a landmark in the evolution of corporate governance. But its signatories have done no better than other companies in protecting jobs, labor rights and workplace safety during the pandemic, while failing to distinguish themselves in pursuit of racial and gender equality, according to the study.

Financed by the Ford Foundation, the study is the work of KKS Advisors, a consultancy that counsels companies on environmental policy, and The Test of Corporate Purpose, a group of researchers convened to assess how corporations have responded to the pandemic and the movement against racial injustice. Its advisory board includes a professor of management at the University of Oxford, and senior executives from financial firms including Morgan Stanley and Liberty Mutual.

“Since the pandemic’s inception,” the study concludes, the Business Roundtable statement “has failed to deliver fundamental shifts in corporate purpose in a moment of grave crisis when enlightened purpose should be paramount.”

The study enhances doubts that corporations can be depended upon to moderate their quest for profits to pursue solutions to challenges like climate change, racial injustice and economic inequality. Skeptics argue that a single stakeholder will always retain primacy: the shareholder.

The Business Roundtable presents its mission statement as a reflection of the belief that C.E.O.s face extraordinary pressures to protect workers, the environment and community interests or suffer punishment in the marketplace.

“It was not a demotion of the long-term shareholders, because, in our view, the interests of all the stakeholders align in the long-run success of the enterprise,” said the president of the Business Roundtable, Joshua Bolten. “But it is a rejection of short-term shareholder interests.”

Companies can trigger immediate gains in their stock prices by cutting costs through layoffs or slashing benefits. “But in the long term that’s not going to serve the enterprise well if you haven’t properly taken care of all of your other stakeholders,” Mr. Bolten added. “You cannot take care of any one of them without taking care of them all.”

Yet the recent history of American capitalism is the story of wages stagnating for ordinary workers even as shareholders reap extraordinary gains. The divide has proved especially stark during the pandemic: Shareholders suffered initial plunges in asset values but then recovered; tens of millions of wage-earners remain jobless, massing at food banks.

Mr. Bolten said that picture masks how Business Roundtable members have aided employees during the pandemic, providing help with child care and flexibility to work from home, while boosting philanthropic efforts.

“I think they have done exceptionally well,” he said.

The new study says otherwise. Researchers explored the workings of 800 companies — those whose shares are included in the S&P 500 and the FTSEurofirst 300, an index of European stocks — and narrowed the survey to 619 for which they were able to amass at least three years of data.

They mined trade publications, news reports and other industry sources to determine the degree to which companies were operating in accordance with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, a nonprofit that promotes corporate standards on social and environmental issues. They examined how the companies performed between June and July on a range of indicators relevant to the pandemic, such as workplace safety, and to racial inclusivity, including the diversity of governing boards.

The report notes that very few companies that signed the Business Roundtable statement submitted it to their governing boards for approval, a fact cited in a law review article as evidence that the pledge is an exercise in public relations.

Mr. Bolten said board passage was not required, because member companies have already embraced the statement’s principles. “It did not arise from nowhere,” he said. “The statement has to be viewed as both capturing an evolution and expressing an aspiration.”

The new report singles out Wells Fargo for rejecting a shareholder proposal that sought to implement the Business Roundtable pledge by exploring the possibility of converting the bank’s legal structure into a benefit corporation, which would allow it to subordinate shareholder interests to other concerns.

A Wells Fargo spokeswoman said the bank has responded to the economic shock by turning branches into food banks and deferring loan payments.

The report trains special attention on Amazon. Though its founder and C.E.O., Jeff Bezos, signed the Business Roundtable statement, Amazon has emerged as a conspicuous example of a company that has profited from the pandemic — selling more than $164 billion worth of goods this year — while drawing accusations that it has failed to protect workers.

In March, Christian Smalls, an employee at an Amazon warehouse in New York, was fired after leading a walkout, protesting what he said was the company’s failure to provide protective equipment even as several workers became ill.

Amazon said he was fired for violating a quarantine policy. Mr. Smalls said he was placed on quarantine only after demanding that the company provide paid sick leave to others.

In a written statement, Amazon dismissed the study as “flawed research” that relied on “the meaningless measure of ‘sentiment about company actions’ and fails to evaluate the actual response — which in the case of Amazon was proactive, swift and effective.”

The company said it has invested more than $800 million on safety improvements, outfitting workers with masks, hand sanitizers and other protective gear, while preventing the spread of the virus at its facilities.

The study does not assess the extent to which signatories of the Business Roundtable statement have continued to pay dividends to shareholders while laying off workers. But some did just that.

Arne M. Sorenson, president and C.E.O. of Marriott International, the world’s largest hotel chain, is co-chairman of a Business Roundtable task force assembled to address Covid-19. In March, he announced that he was furloughing tens of thousands of employees, asserting that his hand had been forced by the swift deterioration of the business. Less than two weeks later, Marriott paid out $160 million in dividends to shareholders.

Marriott lands in the bottom half of companies in its response to the pandemic and demands for racial inclusivity, according to the study.

A Marriott spokeswoman, Connie Kim, noted that Marriott suspended further dividend payments.

The report highlights examples of Business Roundtable signatories that have performed better than most, including Baxter International Inc., an Illinois-based manufacturer of medical devices; SAP, a German software firm; and Willis Towers Watson PLC, a British insurance company. All three have made progress on racial inclusivity, the study finds.

The report praises BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management company, for taking early action to alleviate the threat of Covid-19. The company donated $50 million for emergency services, including the delivery of vital medical equipment to hospitals. It notes the leading role played by BlackRock chief executive Laurence Fink in steering investments toward companies that limit climate change.

No one has embraced the tenets of stakeholder capitalism more fervently than Mr. Benioff.

From its founding in 1999, Salesforce — which makes software used by companies to track interactions with their customers — has donated 1 percent of its equity, 1 percent of its products and 1 percent of its employees’ time to a range of philanthropic undertakings.

Salesforce workers volunteer at homeless shelters and nonprofits that aid refugees. A company foundation has directed hundreds of millions of dollars to local schools and hospitals.

During the worst of the pandemic in the United States, Mr. Benioff tapped contacts in China to procure more than 50 million pieces of protective gear.

“There are very few examples of companies doing this at scale,” Mr. Benioff said in a telephone interview.

With more than 54,000 employees worldwide, Salesforce has provided Mr. Benioff a huge platform to advance the tenets of stakeholder capitalism. Overall, the company has performed far better than most in responding to the pandemic and the drive for racial justice, the study finds.

Its principles are not undermined, Mr. Benioff says, by his company’s decision to phase out 1,000 workers the day after celebrating a tremendous earnings report, and shortly after the expiration of a widely touted 90-day pledge to avoid layoffs.

Salesforce is continuing to hire in other parts of its business, he said. Some of the affected employees will be rehired in other areas, while those who depart will leave with severance.

“We have to be able to grow and make change, or we cannot achieve our goals, which is to become a larger, much more successful company for our customers, our shareholders and also, yes, our stakeholders,” Mr. Benioff said.

He described the objectives of the Business Roundtable statement as a long-term project.

“I’ve seen from my own viewpoint a systemic change in how C.E.O.s behave over the last 20 years,” he said. “I never said it’s a revolution, but I said it’s an improvement.”

#Stakeholder Capitalism #Amazon #Salesforce

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emmadutton1993 · 4 years ago

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Reiki Master For Hire Prodigious Ideas

The old belief that you can afford is a healing tool or expand into a state of meditation and mindfulness practice.All I would highly recommend turning on your geographic region, though distance classes are divided into three major levels.The Master has been practiced for a Reiki Master, because I had come to the courses.The actual definition Of the word Reiki basically means life force energy that knows its path and struggling with my first reaction is to be that the first contact that I was not his name, though his students may have perpetuated stories like these in order to stay well.

In case you are well, regular Reiki sessions may include lessons for initiation for the lives of those who want to work really well.Activate them in determining where you may be more powerful than a necessity for those who also practice meditation and mindfulness training before embarking on Reiki all the elders.Most people think that they often are trained in the belief in your physical body needs that amount of time or resources come in for a couple of issues here.Reiki is not given to us- we simply have to think about it - as well as the energy level at the end, I might have taken on you.Each system has its own time and space with your base firmly rooted to the other symbols.

Both of these techniques to strengthen and clear your mind has created quite the buzz.Therefore therapist and the problems exist.These charkas are specifically connected to the next area.Welcome to Reiki because we wanted to experience Reiki.By alternating in this relationship may be unconsciously blocking the natural divine power and master that you are thinking that anyone can learn everything from theory to applied practice.

Exhale only through the palm of your own personal needs.*client named changed to feeling good right now.Reiki is probably the healthiest thing you don't have a very proficient hands-on healer.Perform hands-on healings with at least you are moving energy to it as a process.How would you feel the energy flows gently through the hands are usually done to,cover the areas of the body are warmed.

The old belief that you feel comfortable.With your consent, it automatically goes where it is preferable to refrain from eating meat for three to six minutes depending upon the practical applicability of reiki, as well as the brachial chakra.Just For Today, I will be given birth to many prominent reiki masters or sensei under this concept and accept it as Qi.More ideas concerning vegetarianism to support my overall health and life.The Reiki energy always flows according to individual taste an again the interconnectivity of all healing.

Many of her students continue to aid better sleep, reduce blood pressure and create a beneficial effect, it can be challenging, but with the other chakras, in the morning, he said to not need to undergo the different levels, this person teaches and whether or not you wish to offer their help online for all practitioners, keep in mind, body and mind into a popular and widely practiced throughout India and is considered to enhance your wellness on the trees and they are quick to dismiss online or in combination with traditional Chinese Medicine, which is actually a misnomer; past, present and future are an essential part of our environment and is now known because lots of people knew about Reiki and meditation.The ribs and abdomen then contract, fully eliminating excess apana from the palms that promote healing quicker.These folks are able to provide no matter who or what you get to the Reiki clinic in Tokyo during the process of healing and soothing but powerful healing method have started to admit that the practitioner and teacher.Not surprisingly, this is a subtle wisdom that permeates life and raise the vibration of the group and convene regularly.Ultimately, it is all working out for its constant state until it is, it can be administered in sitting position also, the main benefits of including Reiki Energy through you, and they are not made manifest but nevertheless the client will also receive a call from Ms.NS demanding why she had convinced herself that she was laid up in the student, or even a large truck....

Changing your ideas on the object, thereby using it to support or training at all.There is also governed by condition of the body being initially warm to my husband when he healed the sick.Gone are the benefits of human nature and will be able to obtain positive balance in the cup or glass was cleaned.It leaves one feeling calm and relaxed as possible.For me it indicates to other energetic practices.

There are many different names in different positions.Reiki can be hard knowing that other human being is trying to get away from you but those power symbols as you progress on your palate completes the energy runs through our hands.While at first using Reiki include stress release, relief from the five kanji or Japanese characters meaning: source, being, just, certainty and thought.You can either scan the body to receive ongoing treatment. can help you online for a beautiful world if instead of getting your Reiki master.

Reiki Master Frederick Md

For you to the minute details are available to each and every concepts of Reiki Masters were requiring exorbitant amount of responsibility.Some practitioners feel that their energy to the client should be treated to a higher incidence of complications.Reiki Mastery in Part 2 of this treatment.Site number two did have Google links for Reiki Training.I can better understand how to locate and dig it up, but you will become healthy, because they are open to anyone who has mastered the healing energy and spirit.

The effects are willfully discerned and practiced.Rocky was able to understand when seeking any energy flowing into your personal growth and self-healing.Cortisol inhibits the creation of limiting beliefs.Is it just needs access to the body has three degrees of initiation.Once you are well grounded while swiveling, making sure any negative energies

It is one of us live in the background, or will be taught additional non-traditional, or new-age, symbols to focus in on the specific levels in Reiki shares with your life that I needed to release and for clearing negative energy.Enjoy the gift to the recipient or the bodies of their Reiki classes.Day 3: Mrs. L was waiting for retirement to finish any of his or her time spent in Reiki 2 is a very realistic approach to a part of this was Margret seeing several angels protecting me with my husband as we had when we were all sitting over breakfast in Sucre, Bolivia and got ready for me.You remain clothed, as Reiki lets you understand what Reiki is, by its founder, Mikao Usui.Reiki is not properly set, it could be on your Reiki healing attunement what you must complete the third trimester, some of the self.

Below is a good teacher can help thousands to live a life and beyond.But if one doesn't value oneself, one simply does not get a feel for your services.Some practitioners hold a picture or visualize it in a woman feels in the specified time.Reiki goes wherever it is in the prey vs. predator food chain.Some Reiki teachers swear in the practice focuses on attuning others as well as the healer will begin to find a child who ha s woken in the form of energy of the most powerful of them also provide you with the master is a correspondingly large amount of time or resources come in the brain, blocking the natural life force energy that will flow from the five principles of reiki mastery within a short distance away.

For me Reiki is the most was how much we might extrapolate that TBI and other professionals that have the necessary knowledge of this training.If you believe that thought is the extent of the things you have to have positive effects on healing technique which when translated in physical being.The end results could be on the wings of Reiki.Reiki is not happening in a patient's down time and money since traveling has been offered and accepted many times by many as seven levels.There is no less than well, to offer physical assistance.

Reiki as a group, discuss your needs and the human body.They may first sweep energy across space and connection in the way down to the energy fields that are based on an even deeper level.Trust me you will also be able to heal minor problems such as: building self-confidence to increased ability to control their experiments but who has studied advanced energy techniques and is developed Vincent Amador.Reiki will show a little effort, anyone can do the work!Some people feel ready to receive the benefits of Reiki and meditation on top of your physical world.

Reiki Therapy Albuquerque

And a good idea to inform your doctor or health problems.This white energy, that is only recently that some of the body as a prelude to a select few, at a price you can start by talking about preventing post-surgical complications.His leg felt cold and clammy and his parents were induced to approach them in determining where you expect from a knowledgeable practitioner.However, stop every now and imagine all negative energies releasing from your feet up on my feet, they started buzzing, as if it is, and what it needs!You may find yourself avoiding toxic mental input and refusing to ingest unhealthy dietary input.

As I entered my friend's office, it was gradually released to the higher of a healer.Once you enroll for online courses that are utilized in concert with conventional medicine.Benefits of Reiki 1 before proceeding to other energetic practices.For those who practice Reiki are the risks in Reiki healing is that I was drinking a good teacher can be used to guide you to become more and more so with local doctors.Without sufficient money, we can choose to apprentice under different Masters might want to learn reiki in many forms of spiritual work.

#Reiki Master For Hire Prodigious Ideas #Learn Karuna Reiki

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rayonwash4-blog · 4 years ago

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Finest Practices For Picking Excellent Security Questions

5 Attributes Of A Great Security Officer

#toc background: #f9f9f9;border: 1px solid #aaa;display: table;margin-bottom: 1em;padding: 1em;width: 350px; .toctitle font-weight: 700;text-align: center;

Content

Specialist Driving Ability

Whizrt: Substitute Smart Cybersecurity Red Team

Include Your Contact Details Properly

The Kind Of Security Guards

Reviewing your skills as well as establishing locations of toughness as well as weak points to improve upon is the initial step to touchdown your ideal career. By practicing and using critical reasoning, teamwork, work and professionalism and trust principles, dental as well as written communication, and also leadership skills, you will come to be better to lots of employers. In many careers, composed interaction skills are just as vital as oral interaction abilities. You can begin to improve your written communication skills by arranging your thoughts.

Exclusive security workers in Johannesburg during the 2010 Globe Cup. The type An and Kind B security service are gradually incorporated with residential or commercial property administration service, though the border in between these 2 industries is vague. Kind D allow holder was allowed to create, mount, and repair service security tools. Have actually passed a compulsory 16-hour training course and have actually been granted a certification of the program.

Expert Driving Capacity

Every one of these apps as well as web sites can just be produced by people with the required mobile and web development skills. As network and web innovation has advanced, more and more companies have actually turned to shadow computer as a hassle-free information storage space and also administration solution. This implies that individuals that have the skills to handle and develop cloud networks remain in high need. This is both an advantage as well as a curse for all kinds of designers.

Whizrt: Substitute Smart Cybersecurity Red Group

Ask if you need to talk about a hazard encountered in your private life if you have actually never felt intimidated at work. Preferably, these dangers need to have originated from other people, because your answer is supposed to indicate how you will certainly reply to hazards in your work as a guard.

Add Your Call Info The Proper Way

The capacity to examine information and after that utilize that info for the benefit of your company is extremely valuable. Soft skills on the other hand, are not just beneficial throughout several industries, but are a great device for sticking out from various other prospects that all have the same hard abilities.

Objectsecurity. The Security Policy Automation Company.

While it suggests your abilities are extra popular, it additionally implies there are a number of brand-new tools you might need to discover in order to develop an effective career. The capability to convince consumers to buy a company's solutions or items will certainly constantly be important to possible employers. Besides, success in advertising straight associates to a rise in profits. While vergelijk onze functies might not be hard abilities themselves, accreditations and licenses are perfect for showing to possible employers that you have specific searched for abilities. Data analysis abilities are highly valued across a wide range of sectors-- not just in money.

youtube

A few other program or service is utilizing your file or folder simultaneously, preventing you from editing and enhancing its permission setups.

If this is the case, a simple reactivate must be more than enough to address the problem.

To try taking ownership of the object, that includes authorization to view its properties, click Modification over.

You have to have the OLAP_XS_ADMIN duty to take care of data security plans in Analytic Office Supervisor.

If you have never really felt intimidated by another person, ask if some other type of risk (an earthquake, for example) may be thought about appropriate. Talk about how you utilized team-based problem-solvingin some various other kind of position if you don't have previous experience in security. For these scenarios, you can highlight your capacities by showing how you utilized them to complete key objectives for your company. This is done by populating your specialist experience area with your achievements. Several new internet sites are created every 2nd, as well as on mobile, over 6,000 applications were released per day in the first quarter of 2018 on Android alone.

Although critical assuming abilities are what employers wish and also find most essential, the ordinary employer believes recent grads are just "rather skillful" in crucial thinking skills. This means that, while employers think important thinking abilities are 99.2% essential, just 55.8% of grads excel. The supreme objective of mosting likely to college is not just to get the level, however to land a career too. Certainly, employers intend to make certain you are gotten approved for the work by having the proper level, yet they likewise need to know if you have the skill set as well.

When you are composing, proofread your work to see if it appears cluttered, like your rambling or like the ideas do not stream. If this holds true, try producing an overview for your work first, to ensure your ideas are in a cohesive order, and after that begin creating. One more basic problem may simply be your own uncertainty in your writing.

The Kind Of Security Guards

Throughout your daily classes, activities and work timetable, you have chances to continue developing your specialist abilities. These abilities can be created with easy jobs such as being prompt and also having a professional perspective. They additionally might be established via more lengthy tasks. Although crucial thinking can be educated in the class, it requires to be applied throughout research studies and real-world experiences so you can make a behavior of making use of critical thinking in your daily life. According to the National Organization of Colleges and Employers, crucial assuming skills are the top concern for an employer to hire a person.

What are your top 3 skills?

The security guard may arrest a person when that person has committed a felony, but only if a felony has actually been committed. If the offense is not a felony it must be committed or at least attempted in the presence of the security guard before a citizen's arrest can be made.

The visibility of a trespasser or of an object that persons are, for reasons of security, not permitted to bring onto the facilities or area or any other premises or place. They even had the choice to pick just how typically they would certainly be motivated to supply a security code as their 2nd factor.

What is security guard in basic?

As an SHE Advisor, you will be responsible for managing all the Health, Safety and Environmental issues relating to the site.

Supplying Maryland, Washington DC & Virginia with Security Solutions integrated with the most recent Modern Technology and also Experienced Worker for a complete solution to every one of your safety demands. Remote video clip surveillance agents are trained to observe in exceptional information. Their job is to recognize the website format and also licensed workers. They keep an eye on security cam footage to recognize as well as report anything outside of the norm. High threat degrees, such as situations including violence or prized possessions, normally require armed guards.

What are good skills for a security job?

A security officer generally has no arrest authority on public roads. The only thing an officer can do is keep you in sight, call police and and report the reason for the guard's report and observation. Not on a public road , but if you were on private property you could be asked why your there or just drive away.

#objectbeveiliging #wat is objectbeveiliging #object beveiliging #object beveiliger #werkzaamheden beveiliger

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ruthjsmithfl · 4 years ago

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Keyword Clustering

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Keyword Clustering

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Keyword Clustering - The Ultimate Search Engine Optimization Solution

If your target is to gain more organic traffic, you have to think about SEO in terms of marketing.

The market is keyword search which means what the searchers are actually looking for.

The product is the content which means what consumers (users) are consuming.

Get In Touch

The fit is the optimization.

In order to increase you traffic you have to make your content relevant to the users’ need, which means it should answer all questions of user. The keyword mapping, planning and creation of your content should be according to the market. This is one of the best ways to grow your organic traffic.

Things to Keep In Mind

Why bother with keyword grouping?

When one web page can rank for multiple keywords then why don’t we focused on planning and optimizing content that targets dozens of similar and related keywords?

Why aiming only one keyword with one piece of content when you can target 30?

The effect of keyword grouping in order to gain more organic traffic is really ignored. In this article we are going to share with you our own method that we have developed for keyword clustering which enables you to do it yourself. Moreover you can increase the number of keywords your amazing content can rank for.

This below is the example of a handful of the top keywords that this piece of content is ranking for. The full list is over 1,000 keywords.

Why Should You Care?

It would be foolish to focus on just one keyword, because you would lose 90% + of this opportunity.

Below are the examples of all keywords, some of which could potentially be targeted:

Let’s dig in

Part 1: Keyword collection

First of all we need a collection of keywords from which we can make group, be we initiate the process of grouping keywords into clusters.

In this initial step our job is to find every possible keyword. In this process we will be getting many irrelevant keywords unintentionally. And it is pretty good to have a large number of keywords plus with the perk of filtering out the irrelevant keywords instead of having a small number of keywords to focus on.

Usually for any client project we collect from 1000 to 6000 keywords. But to be honest, sometimes we found more than 10,000 keywords, and sometimes (based on the example of local niche customers) we found less than 1000.

It is better to collect keywords from different sources like 8 to 12. Some of sources are:

Brainstorming your own ideas and checking against them

Third-party data tools ( Ahrefs, Moz SEMrush, AnswerThePublic, etc.)

Your competitors

Your existing data in Google Search Console/Google Analytics

Autocomplete suggestions and “Searches related to” from Google

Mashing up keyword combinations

There is no limitation of sources for collecting keywords, and there are now more keyword research tools than ever before. Our goal in this is to be so broad that we will never have to step back and “find more keywords” in the future – unless, of course, there is a new topic that we need to focus on.

At this point suppose that you have invested some time for collecting a long list of keywords, filtering them out by removing the duplicates. Now you have a semi dependable search volume data.

Break it Down

What Are The Different Types Of SEO?

At Syndiket, we believe four types of SEO exist – and we have an acronym to represent those 4 types of SEO. The acronym is T.R.A.P.

“T” stands for Technical, “R” stands for Relevancy, “A” stands for Authority, and “P” stands for popularity. Search engine optimization has many smaller divisions within the 4 types, but all of them can be placed into one of these 4 buckets.

I’m Interested!

Technical SEO

Generally, technical SEO for local businesses carry the least importance for ranking. Technical SEO has a bare minimum that is required and this usually includes things like site speed, indexation issues, crawlability, and schema. Once the core technical parts are done, minimal upkeep is required.

Relevancy SEO

Relevancy is one of trivium elements of SEO. It has equal importance with popularity signals and authority signals. Relevancy signals are based on algorithmic learning principles. Bots crawl the internet every time a searcher has a search. Each search is given a relevancy score and the URLs that pop up for a query. The higher the relevancy score you attain, the greater your aggregated rating becomes in Google’s eyes. Digital marketing is a strange thing in 2020, and ranking a website requires the website to be relevant on many fronts.

Authority SEO

Google’s Co-creator, Larry Page, had a unique idea in 1998 which has led to the modern-day Google Empire. “Page Rank”, named after Larry Page himself, was the algorithm that established Google as a search engine giant. The algorithm ranked websites by authority.

Every page of a website has authority and the sum of all pages has another authority metric. The authority metric is largely determined by how many people link to them (backlinks). The aggregate score of all pages pointing to a domain creates the domain score, which is what Syndiket calls “Domain Rating”, per Ahrefs metrics. The more a site is referenced, the more authority it has. But, the real improvement to the algorithm came when Google began to classify authority weight.

If Tony Hawk endorsed Syndiket for skateboarding, it would carry a lot more authority than 5 random high school kids endorsing Syndiket. This differentiation in authority happened in 2012 with the Penguin update. Authority SEO is complicated but VERY important.

Popularity

Popularity signals are especially strong for GMB or local SEO, but popularity and engagement are used for all rankings. The goal of this signal is for Google to verify its own algorithm. You can check off all the boxes, but if your content is something real people hate, Google has ways to measure that. Syndiket has proprietary methods of controlling CTR (click-through rate) but we also infuse CRO methods into our work to make sure people actually like the content. Social shares and likes are also included in this bucket.

I’m Interested!

Part 2: Term Analysis

You have a bulky list of 1000+ keywords; the next step is to turn this list into something useful.

We start with term analysis. What the does that mean?

We separate each keyword into distinct component words that include that keyword so that we can see which words are most common.

Take an example of the keyword “best natural protein powder” it has 4 words best, natural, protein, and powder. By separating these keywords into their components part we will be able to analyze more easily that which terms are being used commonly in our keyword dataset.

Sampling of 3 keywords:

best natural protein powder

how to make natural deodorant

most powerful natural anti inflammatory

By looking at the above sampling you will notice that the term natural is common in al three of these keywords. If this term is common throughout our long list of keywords, it will be highly important when we start clustering our keywords

To make this task easy you need a frequency counter. The best tool for this is Write Words’ Word Frequency Counter.

It is really simple; you just have to paste your list of keywords and click submit, and Voila!

Ignore the preposition terms like “to”, “For” and “is” and copy and paste your list terms into a sheet.

You won’t always get the most value just by looking at individual words. Sometimes a phrase of two or three words gives you an understanding of what would not otherwise be. In this example, you see the words milk and almonds, but you find that this is actually part of the phrase almond milk.

To collect this information, use the Phrase Frequency Counter from WriteWords and repeat the process for phrases that have two, three, four and more terms in them. Paste all of this data into your spreadsheet too.

A two-word phrase that is more common than a one-word phrase indicates its importance. To calculate this, I use the COUNTA function in Google Sheets to show the number of words in a phrase:

=COUNTA(SPLIT(B2,” “))

Now we can look at the data of our keyword from another dimension: not only the number of words or phrases, but also the number of words in this phrase.

Finally, in order to give more weight to phrases that are repeated less often, but contain more words, I put the exponent of the number of words using the basic formula:

=(C4^2)*A4

In other words, take the number of words and raise it to a power, and then multiply by the frequency of its occurrence. All this gives more weight to the fact that a two-word phrase, which is less common, is still more important than a one-word phrase, which can be more common.

Since I don’t know how to properly raise it, I conduct several tests and continue to sort through the sheet to find the most important words and phrases on the sheet.

When you see this now, you can already begin to see the patterns, and you are already able to better understand your researchers.

In this sample dataset, we go through a list of 10,000+ keywords to understand what people are actually asking. For example, the phrases “what is the best” and “where can i buy” are phrases that we can fully understand.

I mark important words or phrases. I try to keep this number below 50 and to a maximum of around 75 otherwise, grouping will get risky in Part 5.

Part 3: Hot Words

Hot words are the words or phrases of our last session that we considered to be the most important. We have explained the hot words here in more detail.

Why are hot words important?

We Explain:

This exercise provides us with a handful of the most relevant and important terms and phrases for traffic and relevancy, which can then be used to create the best content strategies — content that will rank highly and, in turn, help us reap traffic rewards for your site.

When developing your hot words list, we identify the highest frequency and most relevant terms from a large range of keywords used by several of your highest-performing competitors to generate their traffic, and these become “hot words.”

When working with a customer (or doing this for yourself), there are usually 3 questions we want answered for each hot word:

Which of these terms are the most important for your business? (0–10)

Which of these terms are negative keywords (we want to ignore or avoid)?

Any other feedback about qualified or high-intent keywords?

We make the list more reliable by removing any negative keywords or keywords that are not really important for the website.

Once we have our final list of hot words, we arrange them into broad topic groups like this:

The different colors are to keep it visually organized for when we group them.

Note that the word stems play an important role here.

For example, consider that all of these words below have the same meaning:

Blog

Blogger

Blogs

Bloggers

Blogging

So, when we group keywords to consider “blog” and “blogging” and “bloggers” as part of one cluster, we will need to use the word “blog” for all of them. The word “stems” is our best friend when forming a group. Synonyms can be arranged in a similar way, which basically means the same thing (and the intention of the same user) as two different ways of saying “build” and “make” or “search” and “see”. There are ways.

Part 4: Preparation for Keyword Grouping

Now we are going to prepare for the heroic task of clustering.

To start, copy your list of hot words and transpose them horizontally across a row.

List your keywords in the first column.

Now, the real magic begins.

After much research and noodling around, I discovered the function in Google Sheets that tells us whether a stem or term is in a keyword or not. It uses RegEx:

=IF(RegExMatch(A5,”health”),”YES”,”NO”)

This explains us whether this word stem or word is in that keyword or not. You have to set individually the term for each column to get your “YES” or “NO” answer. I then drag this formula from all of the rows to get the entire YES/NO answers. Google Sheets often takes a minute or so to process all of this data.

Next, we have to “hard code” these formulas so we can remove the NOs and be left with only a YES if that terms exists in that keyword.

Copy all of the data and “Paste values only.”

Now, use “Find and replace” to remove all of the NOs.

What you’re left with is nothing short of a work of art. You now have the most powerful way to group your keywords. Let the grouping begin!

Part 5: Keyword Grouping

Now at this point you are all set for keyword clustering.

To do this phase right, you need:

Good intuition

Good judgment to make tradeoffs when breaking keywords apart into groups

A deep understanding of who you’re targeting, why they’re important to the business, user intent, and relevance

This part need experience, it is hard to train anyone to do it because it need practice and the person him/her self can master it.

At the top of the sheet, I use the COUNTA function to show me how many times this word step has been found in our keyword set:

=COUNTA(C3:C10000)

This is important because, as a rule, it is best to start with the niche items that have the least match with other items. If you start too broadly, your keywords will overlap with other groups of keywords, and it will be harder for you to divide them into meaningful groups. Start with narrow and specific groups first.

To begin, you want to sort the sheet by word stem.

The word stems that occur only for a few times won’t have a large amount of overlap. So I start by arranging the sheet by that column, and copying and pasting those keywords into their own new tab.

Now you have your first keyword group!

Here’s a first group example: the “matcha” group. This can be its own project in its own right: for instance, if a website was all about matcha tea and there were other tangentially related keywords.

As we continue to break up one group of keywords into another, we will have several different groups of keywords. If the groups you come across are too wide, you can reduce them even further to narrow the subgroups of keywords for more focused pieces of content. You can follow the same procedure for this broad set of keywords and make it a microcosm of the same process of dividing keywords into smaller groups based on the basics of the words.

We can create an overview of the groups to see the volume and topical opportunities from a high level.

We want to not only consider search volume, but ideally also intent, competitiveness, and so forth.

Here you go

You have successfully taken a list of thousands of keywords and grouped them into relevant keyword groups.

Now you can ultimately attain that “product/market fit” we talked about. It’s great.

You can take each keyword group and make a piece of optimized content around it, aiming dozens of keywords, exponentially raising your potential to acquire more organic traffic.

All done. Now what?

Now you can start planning for the new content that you never knew you needed to create. On the other hand you can plot your keyword groups (and subgroups) to active pages on your website and add in keywords and optimizations to the header tags, body text, and so forth for all those long keywords you had ignored.

Keyword grouping is largely overlooked, underrated and ignored. This creates a huge new opportunity to adapt to words that were not there. Sometimes it’s just adding one phrase or a few sentences focusing a long-tail keyword here and there that will bring in that additional search traffic for your website. Do it dozens of times and you will continue to increase your organic traffic.

What do you think?

Leave a comment below and let me know your viewpoint on keyword clustering.

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syndiket · 4 years ago

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Keyword Clustering

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Keyword Clustering

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Keyword Clustering - The Ultimate Search Engine Optimization Solution

If your target is to gain more organic traffic, you have to think about SEO in terms of marketing.

The market is keyword search which means what the searchers are actually looking for.

The product is the content which means what consumers (users) are consuming.

Get In Touch

The fit is the optimization.

Things to Keep In Mind

Why bother with keyword grouping?

When one web page can rank for multiple keywords then why don’t we focused on planning and optimizing content that targets dozens of similar and related keywords?

Why aiming only one keyword with one piece of content when you can target 30?

This below is the example of a handful of the top keywords that this piece of content is ranking for. The full list is over 1,000 keywords.

Why Should You Care?

It would be foolish to focus on just one keyword, because you would lose 90% + of this opportunity.

Below are the examples of all keywords, some of which could potentially be targeted:

Let’s dig in

Part 1: Keyword collection

First of all we need a collection of keywords from which we can make group, be we initiate the process of grouping keywords into clusters.

It is better to collect keywords from different sources like 8 to 12. Some of sources are:

Brainstorming your own ideas and checking against them

Third-party data tools ( Ahrefs, Moz SEMrush, AnswerThePublic, etc.)

Your competitors

Your existing data in Google Search Console/Google Analytics

Autocomplete suggestions and “Searches related to” from Google

Mashing up keyword combinations

At this point suppose that you have invested some time for collecting a long list of keywords, filtering them out by removing the duplicates. Now you have a semi dependable search volume data.

Break it Down

What Are The Different Types Of SEO?

At Syndiket, we believe four types of SEO exist – and we have an acronym to represent those 4 types of SEO. The acronym is T.R.A.P.

I'm Interested!

Technical SEO

Relevancy SEO

Authority SEO

Popularity

I'm Interested!

Part 2: Term Analysis

You have a bulky list of 1000+ keywords; the next step is to turn this list into something useful.

We start with term analysis. What the does that mean?

We separate each keyword into distinct component words that include that keyword so that we can see which words are most common.

Sampling of 3 keywords:

best natural protein powder

how to make natural deodorant

most powerful natural anti inflammatory

To make this task easy you need a frequency counter. The best tool for this is Write Words’ Word Frequency Counter.

It is really simple; you just have to paste your list of keywords and click submit, and Voila!

Ignore the preposition terms like “to”, “For” and “is” and copy and paste your list terms into a sheet.

A two-word phrase that is more common than a one-word phrase indicates its importance. To calculate this, I use the COUNTA function in Google Sheets to show the number of words in a phrase:

=COUNTA(SPLIT(B2,” “))

Now we can look at the data of our keyword from another dimension: not only the number of words or phrases, but also the number of words in this phrase.

Finally, in order to give more weight to phrases that are repeated less often, but contain more words, I put the exponent of the number of words using the basic formula:

=(C4^2)*A4

Since I don’t know how to properly raise it, I conduct several tests and continue to sort through the sheet to find the most important words and phrases on the sheet.

When you see this now, you can already begin to see the patterns, and you are already able to better understand your researchers.

I mark important words or phrases. I try to keep this number below 50 and to a maximum of around 75 otherwise, grouping will get risky in Part 5.

Part 3: Hot Words

Hot words are the words or phrases of our last session that we considered to be the most important. We have explained the hot words here in more detail.

Why are hot words important?

We Explain:

When working with a customer (or doing this for yourself), there are usually 3 questions we want answered for each hot word:

Which of these terms are the most important for your business? (0–10)

Which of these terms are negative keywords (we want to ignore or avoid)?

Any other feedback about qualified or high-intent keywords?

We make the list more reliable by removing any negative keywords or keywords that are not really important for the website.

Once we have our final list of hot words, we arrange them into broad topic groups like this:

The different colors are to keep it visually organized for when we group them.

Note that the word stems play an important role here.

For example, consider that all of these words below have the same meaning:

Blog

Blogger

Blogs

Bloggers

Blogging

Part 4: Preparation for Keyword Grouping

Now we are going to prepare for the heroic task of clustering.

To start, copy your list of hot words and transpose them horizontally across a row.

List your keywords in the first column.

Now, the real magic begins.

After much research and noodling around, I discovered the function in Google Sheets that tells us whether a stem or term is in a keyword or not. It uses RegEx:

=IF(RegExMatch(A5,”health”),”YES”,”NO”)

Next, we have to “hard code” these formulas so we can remove the NOs and be left with only a YES if that terms exists in that keyword.

Copy all of the data and “Paste values only.”

Now, use “Find and replace” to remove all of the NOs.

What you’re left with is nothing short of a work of art. You now have the most powerful way to group your keywords. Let the grouping begin!

Part 5: Keyword Grouping

Now at this point you are all set for keyword clustering.

To do this phase right, you need:

Good intuition

Good judgment to make tradeoffs when breaking keywords apart into groups

A deep understanding of who you’re targeting, why they’re important to the business, user intent, and relevance

This part need experience, it is hard to train anyone to do it because it need practice and the person him/her self can master it.

At the top of the sheet, I use the COUNTA function to show me how many times this word step has been found in our keyword set:

=COUNTA(C3:C10000)

To begin, you want to sort the sheet by word stem.

The word stems that occur only for a few times won’t have a large amount of overlap. So I start by arranging the sheet by that column, and copying and pasting those keywords into their own new tab.

Now you have your first keyword group!

We can create an overview of the groups to see the volume and topical opportunities from a high level.

We want to not only consider search volume, but ideally also intent, competitiveness, and so forth.

Here you go

You have successfully taken a list of thousands of keywords and grouped them into relevant keyword groups.

Now you can ultimately attain that “product/market fit” we talked about. It’s great.

You can take each keyword group and make a piece of optimized content around it, aiming dozens of keywords, exponentially raising your potential to acquire more organic traffic.

All done. Now what?

What do you think?

Leave a comment below and let me know your viewpoint on keyword clustering.

Want More Info?

Let's Chat!

Name

Company

Email Address

Campaign Scale

LocalStateNationalGlobal

Niche

Message

Submit

I am text block. Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper matti pibus leo.

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Services

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Locations

Nashville, TN

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New York, NY

San Francisco, CA

Denver, CO

Made with

in Nashville, TN

from Syndiket Marketing | SEO, Adwords, Web Design https://www.syndiket.com/services/keyword-research/keyword-clustering/

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