#consilier personal

[samueldays]

The Survivability Onion dictates that Political Science is and will be bogus.

Because a major nominal function of political science is breaching the survivability onion, particularly seeing and acquiring targets in power. (When discussing those who have left power, it's called "history".)

By construction, targets in power have the ability to interfere with this. By evolution, targets in power will interfere with this.

That sums up my thesis. It is not original, but I found this framing to be novel and concise.

To elaborate:

I am not attached to any particular chart of the Survivability Onion. It puts a funny name on principles that go back to Sun Tzu's Art of War. Here are two example charts to give the general idea.

Rephrased again: For an enemy to hurt you, he must know where you are, choose a weapon that can hurt you, aim that weapon at you, successfully fire, and land a hit. Interference in any of those steps makes it harder for the enemy to hurt you, whether that's hiding from the enemy or destroying ammunition supplies.

Some caveats apply, for example high-collateral weapons can skimp a little bit on knowing where the target is, but a grenade still has to be thrown into the right house.

When applied to people in power, "hurt" takes the form of being removed from power. The principles of the survivability onion, then, dictate that one can better remain in power by obfuscating how people might remove one from power.

Don't be seen: stay out of political science textbooks, sponsor books and courses that talk about other people, insist that power rests in other organizations. Don't be acquired: if you (or your organization) are mentioned in textbooks, look innocuous and irrelevant. Smear and discredit anyone who pays attention to you. "Conspiracy theory" is a great term here. Also, did you know you can just name organizations whatever you like? Don't be hit: if people recognize that you have substantial power and get mad at you, encourage or deceive them to oppose you in ways that do nothing. For example, trying to organize a "boycott" of a military supplier that ordinary people weren't buying from in the first place. Mislead your enemies to attack false targets. Don't be penetrated: if people manage to identify your power and organize to attack it, minimize the damage. For example, dissolve a front company which you can easily replace, because your power lies in the Rolodex. Don't be killed: don't be killed, literally and metaphorically. If you're in Congress, for example, appoint regulatory committee members who will remain on committee to enforce your will in case of your impeachment. Few people ever bother to go back and root out committee members. Organizationally, build redundancy so that the penetration and destruction of any one node does not take your entire powerbase with it.

He who has ears, let him hear! Understand why I do not name names.

Political science pretends to describe the location and operation of power. Insofar as it is accurate, it creates vulnerability. "How to take and keep power" is information that people in power would love to keep secret from their rivals. Insofar as people in power can affect political science in some way, political science will contain deceits and distractions. There is means, motive and opportunity to fuck with the field. There is selective pressure to fuck with the field.

This is not unique to any particular person or power structure. Political science is always and everywhere doomed to be a field subject to actively malicious misinformation.

There will be counterforces too: researchers genuinely interested in truth, honest politicians admitting how things work, historical events eventually passing into the realm of sine ira et studio as the contemporaries die off, lies colliding in consilience failures, and so on, resulting in some equilibrium with merely X% lies.

(Yes, Minister is in part based on a combination of 2 and 3: the posthumously published memoirs of Richard Crossman.)

[humanecosystem]

Taking a step back and learning to deal with environmental crisis, nihilism

How do you handle the prospect of doom, of environmental catastrophe? As young people, how do we make our way through the world in good conscious and maintain a healthy mindset?

I recently watched a 5-episode series of The Great Simplification podcast with Nate Hagens that features the fascinating Daniel Schmachtenberger, a social philosopher and founder of The Consilience Project. One of these episodes (linked below) gets deep into experiences of youth, of personal struggles in coping with all the bad things that are normalized in society, including the problems that threaten our future. As we grow up and realize how screwed up everything is, the question of what we do next is paralyzing. 

Daniel details his own journey growing up and facing the world with blunt honesty. For Daniel, myself, and other young people, nihilism is a logical resolution for coping with violent, doomful realities. This kind of spiraling nihilistic thought, which is egged on nowadays with social media algorithms, can lead to very dark places. I have spent time in the trenches of depression and practiced means of escape, trying out mindfulness techniques with varying levels of success. One thing Daniel says, though, has helped me understand a new way out of negative spirals: we can work with our deep feelings of nihilism to discover purpose in life. 

When we recognize the devastating implications of climate change, habitat destruction, ocean acidification, our emotions are complicated. We are affected, to some degree, by the endangerment of species, by pollution of our air, land, and sea, and by existential fears of what the future will look like. 

We feel these effects most deeply when we have experienced the power of nature– the serenity and beauty it provides. The more benefits we receive, and the more we are mindful of these benefits, the more it can hurt us to see humanity haphazardly chugging along. 

Here is the revealing thing: If we believe enough in the sacred qualities of nature to be crushed by its calculated destruction, this is enough to prescribe oneself a duty to cherish and protect nature by whatever means possible. Assessing our emotions, practicing mindfulness and critical thinking are the best way to come to recognize what drives us (as well as what triggers us into negative thought spirals.) 

Avoiding social media and resisting the algorithm, reducing our consumption of resources in small ways, planting native species, supporting small farms and agriculture, contributing to wildlife conservation efforts… these are just some ways we can exercise our power to create positive change. Mindfulness of our connections to and relationships with the natural world is the most powerful fulcrum for knowing what to do. 

After listening to this episode, I began an exercise in mindfulness and gratitude. What does nature provide for me? 

I am grateful for the oceans and their waves and tides, and being able to swim in clean water. 

I am grateful for the colors of foliage, lush plants, and grass– the subtle regional differences in shades of green. 

I am grateful for biodiversity, how it yields strong crops, resilient populations, and cultural richness.

I am grateful for delicious vegetables and fruits of all kinds.

I am grateful for the smells of fresh air, of salty ocean air, and of rain.

I am grateful for the earth, geology and the fascinating compositions of natural landscapes.

I am grateful for the serenity that nature provides, and for the privilege to remove oneself from the built environment.

I am grateful for the knowledge of other modes of life, not just of humans across biomes but of other species, patterns and modes of survival.

I recommend making your own list, and use it to practice mindfulness and gratitude. Shifting focus to our benefits can help ground us, and grant us perspective in the midst of our complex environmental crisis.

This video is part 3 of the 5-part series, and if you have the time and mental bandwidth, I cannot recommend it enough.

[muscle-monk]

Embodying Prosociality

Prosocial Embodiment Circle: Workshop 6

Monday August 26 2024 @ 3-4:30pm PDT

RSVP: [https://calendar.app.google/BLMHayRFr89WVhRe6](https://calendar.app.google/BLMHayRFr89WVhRe6)

—–

Evolution happens in the body and at Prosocial Embodiment we deal with it in the body.

How do we embody Prosociality? It is a simple but profound question.

What does it mean to embody something?

What does it mean to embody something as profound as prosociality?

Does it mean that we should try to behave in a certain way—that we should be kind, fair, friendly and equitable?

Is this enough for the evolutionary shift that we are seeking?

Are a new economic system and a host of sage policy recommendations for climate action, including the core design principles for community governance, enough? Or do we need to look within with a great deal more sincerity and scientific rigor? We certainly need many things, but in the end change happens from within.

Are we confident that a new intelligentsia is enough to lead us into the deep social change that we envision? This is the age-old problem of praxis and at Prosocial Embodiment we believe that change begins not only from the top down and outside in but also from the bottom up and the inside out.

The problem with every revolution has been that a new elite in the end just replaces the old elite. Top down solutions create new top down control systems. This will not achieve the kind of profound integration and cooperation required for prosociality.

The answers we seek exist within life itself. We base our exploration not only on intuition and spiritual impulse but on cutting edge fascial anatomy and a wealth of new research on topics like embodied cognition, somatics and interoception, coordination dynamics and neurophysics.

We look deep within the body to sense into a new form of somatic awareness and a consilient or holistic and integrative form of emergent perception and cognition. We are seeking the wisdom of the body and the earth that we are part of.

Please Join Us!

—–

Join us in exploring the anatomy of our own deep core, the postural system of the body, our primal and self aware axial line. It is our interoceptive sensory motor system and a rich source of preverbal, natural wisdom and somatic resilience.

Together we will explore ways that we can embody prosociality + heal deep personal and social trauma starting deep within our own miraculous bodies.

[dininimapentrumine]

PREȚUL DE A FI PASTOR

A fi pastor este enumerat printre cele mai dificile patru profesii din Statele Unite pentru că, un pastor trebuie să fie:•Predicator Exemplu•Tatăl•Soț•Consilier•Apelant de conferință•Planner•Ministru Vizionar•Director•Mentor•Prieten•Reconciliador•Consilier marital•Consilier pentru tineri•Antrenorul liderului•Profesor de Biblie•Intercesor etc etc.În afară de a fi:•Păstrătorul templului•Personal…

[tradingmaps]

Consilience Project Glossary

Affordance

The noun was coined by the American ecological psychologist James J. Gibson. It was initially used in the study of animal-environment interaction and has also been used in the study of human-technology interaction. An affordance is an available use or purpose of a thing or an entity. For example, a couch affords being sat on, a microwave button affords being pressed, and a social media platform has an affordance of letting users share with each other.

Agent Provocateur

Agent provocateur translates to “inciting incident” in French. It is used to reference individuals who attempt to persuade another individual or group to partake in a crime or rash behavior or to implicate them in such acts. This is done to defame, delegitimize, or criminalize the target. For example, starting a conflict at a peaceful protest or attempting to implicate a political figure in a crime.

Algorithmic Radicalization

Ideological polarization is generated as a side-effect of content recommendation algorithms optimizing for user engagement and advertising revenues. These algorithms will upregulate content that reinforces existing views and filters out countervailing information because this has been proven to drive time on-site. The result is an increasingly polarized perspective founded on a biased information landscape.

Cherry Picking

To “cherry pick” when making an argument is to selectively present evidence that supports one’s position or desired outcome, while ignoring or omitting any contradicting evidence.

Civic Virtue

The ethical behavior exhibited by individuals in service of bettering their communities and their state, sometimes foregoing personal gain for the pursuit of a greater good for all. In contrast to other sets of moral virtues, civic virtue refers specifically to standards of behavior in the context of citizens participating in governance or civil society. What constitutes civic virtue has evolved over time and may differ across political philosophies. For example, in modern-day democracies, civic virtue includes values such as guaranteeing all citizens the right to vote, and freedom of culture, race, sex, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or gender identity. A shared understanding of civic virtue among the populace is integral to the stability of a just political system, and waning civic virtue may result in disengagement from collective responsibilities, noncompliance with the rule of law, a breakdown in trust between individuals and the state, and degradation of the intergenerational process of passing on civic virtues.

Closed Society

Closed societies restrict the free exchange of information and public discourse, as well as impose top down decisions on their populus. Unlike the open communications and dissenting views that characterize open societies, closed societies promote opaque governance and prevent public opposition that might be found in free and open discourse.

Commons

A general term for collective resources in which every participant of the collective has an equal interest. Prominent examples are air, nature, culture and the quality of our shared sensemaking basis or information commons.

Confirmation Bias

The cognitive bias of 1) exclusively seeking or recalling evidence in support of one’s current beliefs or values, 2) interpreting ambiguous information in favor of one’s beliefs or values, and 3) ignoring any contrary information. This bias is especially strong when the issues in question are particularly important to one’s identity.

Consilience

In science and history, consilience is the principle that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can “converge” on strong conclusions. That is, when multiple sources of evidence are in agreement, the conclusion can be very strong even when none of the individual sources of evidence is significantly so on its own.

Cultural Enlightenment

While “The Enlightenment” was a specific instantiation of cultural enlightenment in 18th-century Europe, cultural enlightenment is a more general process that has occurred multiple times in history, in many different cultures. When a culture goes through a period of increasing reflectivity on itself it is undergoing cultural enlightenment. This period of reflectivity brings about the awareness required for a culture to reimagine its institutions from a new perspective. Similarly, “The Renaissance” refers to a specific period in Europe while the process of a cultural renaissance has occurred elsewhere. A cultural renaissance is more general than (and may precede) an enlightenment, as it describes a period of renewed interest in a particular topic.

Deep Fakes

A deep fake is a digitally-altered (via AI) recording of a person for the purpose of political propaganda, sexual objectification, defamation, or parody. They are progressively becoming more indistinguishable from reality to an untrained eye.

Empiricism

Empiricism is a philosophical theory that states that knowledge is derived from sensory experiences and relies heavily on scientific evidence to arrive at a body of truth. English philosopher John Locke proposed that rather than being born with innate ideas or principles, man’s life begins as a “blank slate” and only through his senses is he able to develop his mind and understand the world.

Epistemic Commons

It is both the public spaces (e.g., town hall, Twitter) and private spaces where people come together to pursue a mutual understanding of issues critical to their society, and the collection of norms, systems, and institutions underpinning this society-wide process of learning. The epistemic commons is a public resource; these spaces and norms are available to all of us, shaped by all of us, and in turn, also influence the way in which all of us engage in learning with each other. For informed and consensual decision-making, open societies and democratic governance depend upon an epistemic commons in which groups and individuals can collectively reflect and communicate in ways that promote mutual learning.

Epistemic Hubris

Inadvertent emotionally or politically -motivated closed-mindedness, manifesting as certainty or overconfidence when dealing with complex indeterminate problems. Epistemic hubris can appear in many forms. For example, it is often demonstrated in the convictions of individuals influenced by highly politicized groups, it shows up in corporate or bureaucratic contexts that err towards certainty through information compression requirements, and it appears in media, where polarized rhetoric is incentivized due to its attention-grabbing effects. Note: for some kinds of problems it may be appropriate or even imperative to have a degree of confidence in one’s knowledge—this is not epistemic hubris.

Epistemic Humility

An ethos of learning that involves a healthy balance between confidence and openness to new ideas. It is neither hubristic, meaning overly confident or arrogant, nor nihilistic, meaning believing that nothing can be known for certain. Instead, it is a subtle orientation that seeks new learning, recognizes the limitations of one’s own knowledge, and avoids absolutisms or fundamentalisms—which are rigid and unyielding beliefs that refuse to consider alternative viewpoints. Those that demonstrate epistemic humility will embrace truths where these are possible to attain but are generally inclined to continuously upgrade their beliefs with new information.

Epistemic Nihilism

This form of nihilism is a diffuse and usually subconscious feeling that it is impossible to really know anything, because, for example, “the science is too complex” or “there is fake news everywhere.” Without a shared ability to make sense of the world as a means to inform our choices, we are left with only the game of power. Claims of “truth” are seen as unwarranted or intentional manipulations, as weaponized or not earnestly believed in.

Epistemology

Epistemology is the philosophical study of knowing and the nature of knowledge. It deals with questions such as “how does one know?” and “what is knowing, known, and knowledge?”. Epistemology is considered one of the four main branches of philosophy, along with ethics, logic, and metaphysics.

Ethos

Derived from a Greek word meaning custom, habit, or character; The set of ideals or customs which lay the foundations around which a group of people coheres. This includes the set of values upon which a culture derives its ethical principles.

Frame Control

The ability of an individual or group to shape the perception of an issue or topic by setting the narrative and determining the context for the debate. A “frame” is the way in which an issue is presented or “framed”, including the language, images, assumptions, and perspectives used to describe it. Controlling the frame can give immense social and political power to the actor who uses it because the narratives created or distorted by frame control are often covertly beneficial to the specific interests of the individual or group that has established the frame. As an example, politicians advocating for tax cuts or pro-business policies may use the phrase “job creators” when referring to wealthy corporations in order to suggest their focus is on improving livelihoods, potentially influencing public perception in favor of the politician’s interests.

Good Faith Communications

Discourse oriented towards mutual understanding and coordinated action, with the result of increasing the faith that participants have in the value of communicating. The goal of good faith communication is not to reach a consensus, but to make it possible for all parties to change positions, learn, and continue productive, ongoing interaction.

Hyperobjects

Processes that occupy vast expanses of both time and space, defying the more traditional sense of an “object” as a thing that can be singled out. The concept, introduced by Timothy Morton, invites us to conceive of processes that are difficult to measure, always around us, globally distributed and only observed in pieces. Examples include climate change, ocean pollution, the Internet, and global nuclear armaments and related risks.

Information Warfare

Information warfare is a primary aspect of fourth- and fifth-generation warfare. It can be thought of as war with bits and memes instead of guns and bombs. Examples of information warfare include psychological operations like disinformation, propaganda, or manufactured media, or non-kinetic interference in an enemy’s communication capacity or quality.

Intergenerational transmission

Refers to the foundational process of education which underlies and enables societal and cultural cohesion across generations by passing down values, capacities, knowledge, and personality types.

Limbic Hijack

The phenomenon of having your attention captured by emotionally triggering stimuli. These stimuli strategically target the brain center that we share with other mammals that is responsible for emotional processing and arousal—the limbic system. This strategy of activating the limbic system is deliberately exploited by online algorithmic content recommendations to stimulate increased user engagement. Two effective stimuli for achieving this effect are those that can induce disgust or rage, as these sentiments naturally produce highly salient responses in people.

Microtargeting

An online advertising strategy in which companies create personal profiles about individual users from vast quantities of trace data left behind from their online activity. According to these psychometric profiles, companies display content that matches each user’s specific interests at moments when they are most likely to be impacted by it. While traditional advertising appeals to its audience’s demographics, microtargeting curates advertising for individuals and becomes increasingly personalized by analyzing new data.

Misinformation

False or misleading information, irrespective of the intent to mislead. Within the category of misinformation, disinformation is a term used to refer to misinformation with intent. In news media, the public generally expects a higher standard for journalistic integrity and editorial safeguards against misinformation; in this context, misinformation is often referred to as “fake news”.

Monetarism

A prevailing school of economic thought that emphasizes the government’s role in controlling the supply of money circulating in an economy as the primary determinant of economic growth. This involves central banks using various methods of increasing or decreasing the money supply of their currency (e.g., altering interest rates).

Non-kinetic warfare

A form of rivalry between nation-states or conflicting groups, by which tactical aims are realized through means other than direct physical violence. Examples include election meddling, blackmailing politicians, or information warfare.

Open Society

Open societies promote the free exchange of information and public discourse, as well as democratic governance based on the participation of the people in shared choices about their social futures. Unlike the tight control over communications and suppression of dissenting views that characterize closed societies, open societies promote transparent governance and embrace good-faith public scrutiny.

Paradigm

The modern use of the term ‘paradigm’ was introduced by the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn in his work “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. Kuhn’s idea is that a paradigm is the set of concepts and practices that define a scientific discipline at any particular period of time. A good example of a paradigm is behaviorism – a paradigm under which studying externally observable behavior was viewed as the only scientifically legitimate form of psychology. Kuhn also argued that science progresses by the way of “paradigm shifts,” when a leading paradigm transforms into another through advances in understanding and methodology; for example, when the leading paradigm in psychology transformed from behaviorism to cognitivism, which looked at the human mind from an information processing perspective.

Pedagogy

The theory and practice of teaching and learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political, and psychological development of learners.

Plausible deniability

The ability of an individual or institutional entity to deny knowing about unethical or illegal activities because there is no evidence to the contrary or no such information has been provided.

Public Sphere

First coined by philosopher Jürgen Habermas, the term refers to the collective common spaces where people come together to publicly articulate matters of mutual interest for members of society. By extension, the related theory suggests that impartial, representative governance relies on the capacity of the public sphere to facilitate healthy debate.

Renaissance

The word itself is French for rebirth, and this meaning is maintained across its many purposes. The term is commonly used with reference to the European Renaissance, a period of European cultural, artistic, political, and economic renewal following the middle ages. The term can refer to other periods of great social change, such as the Bengal Renaissance (beginning in late 18th century India).

Risk Society

A term proposed by sociologists to characterize emergent properties of social systems after the Second World War. Risk societies are increasingly preoccupied with securing the future against widespread and unpredictable risks. Grappling with these risks differentiate risk societies from modern societies, given these risks are the byproduct of modernity’s scientific, industrial, and economic advances. This preoccupation with risk is stimulating a feedback loop and a series of changes in political, cultural, and technological aspects of society.

Sensationalism

Sensationalism is a tactic often used in mass media and journalism in which news stories are explicitly chosen and worded to excite the greatest number of readers or viewers, typically at the expense of accuracy. This may be achieved by exaggeration, omission of facts and information, and/or deliberate obstruction of the truth to spark controversy.

Sensemaking

A process by which people interpret information and experiences, and structure their understanding of a given domain of knowledge. It is the basis of decision-making: our interpretation of events will inform the rationale for what we do next. As we make sense of the world and accordingly act within it, we also gather feedback that allows us to improve our sensemaking and our capacity to learn. Sensemaking can occur at an individual level through interaction with one’s environment, collectively among groups engaged in discussion, or through socially-distributed reasoning in public discourse.

Social Contract Theory

A theory stating that individuals are willing to sacrifice some of their freedom and agree to state authority under certain legal rules, in exchange for the protection of their remaining rights, provided the rest of society adheres to the same rules of engagement. This model of political philosophy originated during the Age of Enlightenment from theorists including, but not limited to John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It was revived in the 20th century by John Rawls and is used as the basis for modern democratic theory.

Societal Autopoiesis

Autopoiesis from the Greek αὐτo- (auto-) ‘self’, and ποίησις (poiesis) ‘creation, production’—is a term coined in biology that refers to a system’s capability for reproducing and maintaining itself by metabolizing energy to create its own parts, and eventually new emergent components. All living systems are autopoietic. Societal Autopoiesis is an extension of the biological term, making reference to the process by which a society maintains its capacity to perpetuate and adapt while experiencing relative continuity of shared identity.

Sock Puppet

A fake online persona, crafted to manipulate public opinion without implicating the account creator—the puppeteer. These fabricated identities can be wielded by anyone, from independent citizens to political organizations and information warfare operatives, with the aim of advancing their chosen agenda. Sock puppet personas can embody any identity their puppeteers want, and a single individual can create and operate numerous accounts. Combined with computational technology such as AI-generated text or automation scripts, propagandists can mimic multiple seemingly legitimate voices to create the illusion of organic popular trends within the public discourse.

Strawman Arguments

Presenting the argument of disagreeable others in their weakest forms, and after dismissing those, claiming to have discredited their position as a whole.

Technocapitalism

A worldview that holds technology, specifically developed by private corporations, as the primary driver of civilizational progress. For evidence of its success, adherents point to the consistent global progress in reducing metrics like child mortality and poverty while capitalism has been the dominant economic paradigm. However, the market incentives driving this progress have also resulted in new, sometimes greater, societal problems as externalities.

Thought-Terminating Clichés

Used as part of propaganda or advertising campaigns, these are brief, highly-reductive, and definitive-sounding phrases that stop further questioning of ideas. Often used in contexts in which social approval requires unreflective use of the cliché, which can result in confusion at the individual and collective level. Examples include all advertising jingles and catchphrases, and certain political slogans.

Unverifiable

A proposition or a state of affairs is impossible to be verified, or proven to be true. A further distinction is that a state of affairs can be unverifiable at this time, for example, due to constraints in our technical capacity, or a state of affairs can be unverifiable in principle, which means that there is no possible way to verify the claim.

Villainization

Creating the image of an anti-hero who epitomizes the worst of the disagreeable group, and contrasts with the best qualities of one’s own, then characterizing all members of the other group as if they were identical to that image.

[stiri-noi]

Ce face un primar când justiția nu-i dă voie să candideze? Vrea să fie consilier personal al viitorului primar!

Justiția a blocat definitiv candidatura primarului PNL Alexandru Moșescu, din comuna brăileană Mircea Vodă, despre care Libertatea a scris de curând. Dacă are probleme de integritate care-l fac incompatibil cu postura de primar, Moșescu s-a gândit că poate ocupa poziția de sfătuitor al actualului viceprimar, Aurelian Pîrlog, când acesta va fi ales.

Alexandru Moșescu

Moșescu, primarul în funcție al localității, a fost găsit incompatibil de către Agenția Națională de Integritate (ANI), după ce a a dat bani de la primărie unui cabinet medical în care lucra soția sa.

Vreme de trei ani, nu putea ocupa o funcție publică. Edilul a contestat anterior raportul ANI în instanță, dar decizia de incompatibilitate a rămas definitivă în decembrie anul trecut. 

Prefectul de Brăila, liberalul Cătălin Boboc, nu l-a demis însă. Între timp, Boboc însuși a demisionat. El a cerut recent eliberarea sa din funcție pentru a candida din partea PNL la șefia Consiliului Județean Brăila. 

Candidatură acceptată, apoi contestată

Candidatura lui Moșescu fusese aprobată Biroul de Circumscripție Electorală nr. 21 din Mircea Vodă, dar ulterior, PSD a atacat acest lucru în justiție, alături de o altă persoană.

Judecătoria Făurei a decis în primă instanță că Moșescu nu poate candida din cauza incompatibilității. Primarul a atacat decizia, susținând că fapta sa este prescrisă.

Tribunalul Brăila a respins definitiv apelul lui Moșescu, astfel că liberalul nu are dreptul de a candida.

S-a angajat bibliotecar la primăria pe care o conduce! 

Cum nu mai poate candida, acum Moșescu îl sprijină pe actualul viceprimar, Aurelian Pîrlog, și vrea să fie consilier personal al lui acestuia, dacă va câștiga alegerile, potrivit afișelor electorale publicate pe internet.

Afișele electorale cu Alexandru Moșescu prezentat drept consilier al viitorului primar, dacă acesta va fi ales

Moșescu a explicat pentru Libertatea că are experiență în dezvoltare și fonduri europene. 

“Stau să termin mandatul. Eu sunt și angajat la primărie, dar nu știu dacă o mi se mai dea șansa să continui. Lucrez pe dezvoltare. Sunt bibliotecar și lucrez la punctul pentru acces public la informare. Știu să accesez fonduri europene, am fost manager de proiect, știu să fac cereri pentru fonduri europene”, a afirmat acesta.

Moșescu a completat că pentru funcția de consilier personal nu se face concurs și că, dacă echipa liberală nu va câștiga alegerile, atunci nu va mai continua nici în funcția deținută în primărie. “Oamenii mă iubesc și știu ce am făcut pentru ei”, a spus el.

[rockislandadultreads]

Sci-Fi & Dystopia: Books to Read

The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig

The Hunger Games meets Cormac McCarthy's The Road in this richly imagined first novel in a new postapocalyptic trilogy by award-winning poet Francesca Haig.

Four hundred years in the future, the Earth has turned primitive following a nuclear fire that laid waste to civilization and nature. Though the radiation fallout has ended, for some unknowable reason every person is born with a twin. Of each pair one is an Alpha - physically perfect in every way - and the other an Omega burdened with deformity, small or large.

With the Council ruling an apartheid-like society, Omegas are branded and ostracized while the Alphas have gathered the world's sparse resources for themselves. Though proclaiming their superiority, for all their effort Alphas cannot escape one harsh fact: Whenever one twin dies, so does the other. Cass is a rare Omega, one burdened with psychic foresight. While her twin, Zach, gains power on the Alpha Council, she dares to dream the most dangerous dream of all: equality. For daring to envision a world in which Alphas and Omegas live side by side as equals, both the Council and the Resistance have her in their sights.

Drop by Drop by Morgan Llywelyn

In this first book in the Step By Step trilogy, global catastrophe occurs as all plastic mysteriously liquefies. All the small components making many technologies possible―Navigation systems, communications, medical equipment―fail. In Sycamore River, citizens find their lives disrupted as everything they've depended on melts around them, with sometimes fatal results. All they can rely upon is themselves. And this is only the beginning . . .

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood puts the human heart to the ultimate test in an utterly brilliant new novel that is as visionary as The Handmaid's Tale and as richly imagined as The Blind Assassin. Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car, leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They desperately need to turn their situation around - and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. No one is unemployed and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in... for six months out of the year. On alternating months, residents of Consilience must leave their homes and function as inmates in the Positron prison system. Once their month of service in the prison is completed, they can return to their "civilian" homes. At first, this doesn't seem like too much of a sacrifice to make in order to have a roof over one's head and food to eat. But when Charmaine becomes romantically involved with the man who lives in their house during the months when she and Stan are in the prison, a series of troubling events unfolds, putting Stan's life in danger. With each passing day, Positron looks less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled.

Directive 51 by John Barnes

Heather O'Grainne is the Assistant Secretary in the Office of Future Threat Assessment, investigating rumors surrounding something called "Daybreak." The group is diverse and radical, and its members have only one thing in common-their hatred for the "Big System" and their desire to take it down. Now, seemingly random events simultaneously occurring around the world are in fact connected as part of Daybreak's plan to destroy modern civilization-a plan that will eliminate America's top government personnel, leaving the nation no choice but to implement its emergency contingency program...Directive 51.

[sawdustandgin]

A Year of Happiness, Joy and Sarcasm: My 2020 in Review

Absolutely nothing needs to be said about the year of our lord 2020 that hasn’t already been shouted from every social media platform like a shrieking alarm alerting us that the ship is sinking. We know. We’re all wet. 

I will not remember 2020 as mask-clad because I didn’t take any photos while wearing one. 

Every December, I reflect on the year through a short essay, allowing myself many opportunities to gush about the music that I didn’t include on my best-of lists but that I still loved dearly. (Though I guess I skipped last year. I found an abandoned draft the other day…) And consistently, I have regarded each year as one of transition. 

I don’t have clear career aspirations outside of wanting to engage with music as deeply and personally as I can; my only concrete life plan is to profile small towns across the country through the lens of its local music scene. So, with this nebulous image of a future endeavor, I have had a tumultuous time with money since losing my job two years ago. I realized fairly quickly, after only a few months of foundering at it, that I was unable to freelance my way to a liveable income. And in all honesty, this was for the best—nothing hurts worse than realizing the activity you are most passionate about has become a chore. I stopped worrying about pitching editors and trying to rub elbows, and I got to work applying for jobs. I, incredibly luckily, secured one after a few more months. The adjustment to being unemployed was a leap for me and my deep desire for a routine, but the adjustment to being employed and trying to maintain a balance between day job and side gig was even harder. 

Then I loosened up a bit. Toward the end of last year, I tried to make a vow to be more consistent with the blog, but instead, I prioritized sleep. At the time, I didn’t realize that it was an either/or scenario and probably would have made a greater effort to avoid my television if I had. But ultimately, I had to accept that my relationship with music journalism was on my terms. And regardless of how [in]frequently I ‘discovered’ new artists (for myself), I wasn’t ‘missing out’ on anything. 

And let’s be real, I wasn’t overly eager to listen to new stuff starting around April. I put so much energy into not losing myself in quarantine that I tuckered myself out before shit really hit the ceiling. When I began thinking toward my year-end lists in November, I began to worry that this would be my most deflated best-of season in recent memory. 

That’s ok, Zoë, no one really cares about top ten lists, I can hear you thinking, colored by a fascination with my determination. But as a double cancer and pisces moon, I like to cling to the art that moves my soul (read: ~nostalgia~). And so I take great joy in spending all of December and most of January repeatedly listening to my favorite music until I conjure a partially arbitrary ranking system and create playlists galore. It really is the best time of the year. 

Of course, there are always a few titles that need no additional spins, whether due to automatic disqualification or simply because I listened so much that I know it intimately. The automatic disqualifications this year were particularly striking. 

A few easy omissions were Chromatica, Positions, and Fetch the Bolt Cutters. Lady Gaga delivered her skip-less album around the time when it became clear that the pandemic was not even somewhat close to containment; my roommate and I cooked to Chromatica every night, singing along to every word. With each new record, Ariana Grande becomes a more graceful songwriter, and it also helps that Positions is a plain ol', boot-knockin’ good time. And the raw power Fiona Apple wields in Fetch the Bolt Cutters would be frightening were she not the perfect vessel to deliver it to us. 

Then there is the category of albums that simply didn’t need my (albeit dim) spotlight: Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, græ, and KicK i are each masterpieces in their own right. They each move purposefully through diverse landscapes, each song a new adventure not bound by genre or expectation. Interestingly, Perfume Genius and Moses Sumney were never mainstays in my music rotation, while my love for Arca is unquestioned. 

That leads us to Re-Animator, I’m Your Empress Of and The Mosaic of Transformation, all of which I actively feel bad for disqualifying. I’m too much of a fan of Everything Everything to impartially write about their new album, though it was one of my most frequently played. I have been writing best-of lists for six years now and I would prefer to write about a constantly expanding, diverse group of artists. That means I can’t keep doting on Empress Of, despite her status as one of our best contemporary artists. Me and Us were truly just prelude to her 2020 record, whose title is a formal introduction. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is also the most talented analog synth musician that I personally have ever engaged with, and her latest album is everything I could have wanted.  

It took some self-control (aka strict time management) to not write a few thousand words about The Ascension. Let’s recall my massive thesis on Carrie & Lowell… Yes, I am a former Catholic who thrives in the ambiguous invocation of Scripture, especially from a songwriter who quite literally shaped my taste in music. Luckily, I’m not nearly as pent up with anger and existential dread as in 2015 when I was, for the first time, processing the physical and emotional distance from my family. This elongated emotional breakdown was spurred by drama between my parents, but was also due to an irrational fear I held about my own mother’s death. Listening to Sufjan Stevens forgive his mother on her figurative deathbed has stayed with me. 

The anxiety I felt about 2020 was almost entirely external, so the gorge formed from the current of The Ascension was not nearly as deep a canyon in my heart as C&L, though it is still an affecting 80-minute journey. Stevens’ production, when coupled with his lyricism, is a breakthrough, though I do hear murmurs of folktronica from earlier in the decade. (I’m begging everyone to listen to Under Our Beds by Consilience.) And for perhaps the first time, there were songs that I occasionally skip. If I still had to commute to work, I bet they would have grown on me. In fact, this would have been a perfect driving album—one that wouldn’t cause me to weep while on the interstate. (oh Carrie. oh Lowell.)

Then there was VOL.II by my dear friend Lauren Ruth Ward. She gave me an opportunity to write a unique interview with her about the record to be printed on the inside of the gatefold, making it a permanent fixture on this most exciting of sophomore albums. I could not justify writing anything more about it, if only to preserve the sanctity of that interview, which I gave more effort and attention than any other piece of writing I had done. It was a wonderful and inspiring experience that I hope to replicate. The most heartbreaking part of the pandemic’s onset, from a social perspective, was not being able to visit Lauren after the record was released. 

With all that said, 2020 was about so much more than the music I listened to. All the digital replacements for physical intimacy during lockdown made me realize that my legacy (aka all my music writing) is fragile, locked into the impermanence of the internet. So I took it upon myself to build a physical archive; in the fall, I finalized a zine template, and the first eight issues are in the can. (So far, I have 19 zines planned. Email me if you are interested in having one!) 

I’ve also been living without a front tooth since mid-March. On one hand, it’s been convenient to wear a mask to hide the hole in my mouth, but on the other hand, all I want to do is bite into an apple. (For almost two years before I even knew I had to have my tooth removed, I had been forced to slice apples before being able to eat them. The abject humiliation.) The journey with my dentists and oral surgeon has been excruciating, to say the least. Who knew three people in the same medical practice could have such mightily different styles of care? [Author’s note: I got my crown after writing this essay! :grinning-emoji:]

In sum, it was my image of myself that I was able to see a bit clearer this year. Each year I think that I’ve figured something else out about myself, which had always led me to believe that I am a most-complex, divine being. But I think a more accurate interpretation is that, put simply, I am not static. My thoughts and emotions adapt to life and life doesn’t seem to stop throwing me around like sneakers in a tumbling dryer. My pronouns are now they/them and while I don’t have many specifics as to why, I just know that this feels right. 

I hope your year was at least acceptable; 2021 promises a host of new challenges, but I think we can take ‘em. 

[bizmagazin]

ALDE, Iordache și banii Complexului Energetic Oltenia

ALDE, Iordache și banii Complexului Energetic Oltenia

O să mă opresc astăzi asupra acestor 3 lucruri importante pentru un județ ca al nostru, aflat într-o plină criză a investițiilor, a mediului de afaceri, a forței de muncă.

Politica ar trebui făcută de către oameni care la viața lor au demonstrat ceva, au demonstrat că pot. Ei bine nu este așa.

Tentativa lui Iordache ( prin ALDE ) de a subjuga financiar Complexul Energetic Oltenia.

    ” Echipa…

[mesagerulneamt]

FOTO Primarul Harpa și-a luat consilier personal un preot

FOTO Primarul Harpa și-a luat consilier personal un preot

Preotul Bogdan Apopei va deveni oficial, în cel mai scurt timp, consilierul personal al primarului Daniel Harpa pe probleme sociale, relația cu învățământul și Biserica. Acesta are 38 de ani, este preot paroh la biserica din satul Târzia (comuna Brusturi), este căsătorit și are doi copii. Este absolvent al Facultății de Teologie din cadrul Universității “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași. Deja, de…

[schraubd]

Why Is Ron DeSantis Such a Marco Rubio?

Following his apparent 59/40 romp to reelection over Charlie Crist, Eugene Volokh wants descriptive answers to the question of why Ron DeSantis did so well, particularly in contrast to his razor-thin 2018 victory (where he won by less than half a point). What's the secret of his political success?

I'm not going to fully venture an answer to that question. But there's an important data point that I want to flag which is I think easily overlooked in the coming DeSantis mania, namely: that Marco Rubio had almost the exact same result as did DeSantis. He prevailed in his Senate race over Val Demings 57/41. This also represents a significant improvement over Rubio's margin in his last race (which was in 2016, not 2018, so not apples-to-apples, but still pertinent)

I mention this because it suggests that a consilient explanation for DeSantis' strong performance probably should be one that also explains Rubio's near-identical performance. The similarity in results is especially notable given that Rubio and DeSantis don't seem like especially similar political figures or cut similar profiles beyond both being conservative Republicans -- it'd be hard to come up with personal attributes that both share that represent plausible explanations for explaining their respective performance. That DeSantis and Rubio seem quite different (we're talking about DeSantis, not Rubio, as a potential 2024 contender) makes it all the more noteworthy that they basically had identical margins this election. That suggests that the factors driving the results had less to do with DeSantis' personal political genius (unless that genius is something he somehow shares with Rubio), and more on broader structural considerations that have little to do with DeSantis-qua-DeSantis.

So, to move towards an answer to Volokh's question of why DeSantis did so much better in 2022 than 2018, some plausible factors (none of which naturally demonstrate particular "political brilliance" by DeSantis) include:

The general "reddening" of Florida.

2018 being a worse year for Republicans than 2022.*

Incumbency advantage.

Now, of course, all of these could be unpacked further, and potentially in a fashion that gives more individualized credit to DeSantis. For example, maybe Florida is "reddening" in part because of DeSantis' policies or personal popularity (though the trend seems to predate him -- there hasn't been a Democratic Governor in Florida since 2000, hasn't been a Democratic Senator since 2018, and by 2018 Democrats were already down to a single statewide elected official). Or maybe Rubio's performance this time around is attributable to good coattails from running with DeSantis.

But to a large extent, I think we're overstating DeSantis' political acumen based on this election. I understand the first-blush appeal -- he did far better than many of his Republican colleagues in the 2022 cycle. But he didn't do materially better than his other Florida Republican colleagues, which suggests that the explanation for his success might be Florida-specific, but probably isn't DeSantis-specific. Contrast that to, say, Marcy Kaptur in Ohio, who seemed to dramatically outperform other Ohio Democrats -- that suggests that she might have some personally unique mojo worth looking into. Ditto Chris Sununu in New Hampshire, who easily won reelection in a swing state where Democrats won three tightly contested Senate and House races. Compared to Kaptur and Sununu, DeSantis looks pretty well ordinary -- no more impressive than Marco Rubio.

* This is obviously true, though it's a bit obscured because Democrats probably overperformed expectations more in 2022 compared to 2018. But the actual results of the 2018 midterm were far better for the Democrats than was the case in 2022.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/HauGiUw

[ict-marketresearch-reports]

Federated Learning Solutions Market: Size, Share, Trends, Current and Future Analysis

The report "Federated Learning Solutions Market Growth by Application (Drug Discovery, Industrial IoT), Vertical (Healthcare and Life Sciences, BFSI, Manufacturing, Retail and eCommerce, Energy and Utilities), and Region - Global Forecast to 2028" As per AS-IS scenario, the global federated learning solutions market size to grow from USD 117 million in 2023 to USD 201 million by 2028, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 11.4% during the forecast period. Various factors such as the potential to enable companies to leverage a shared Machine Learning (ML) model collaboratively by keeping data on devices and the capability to enable predictive features on smart devices without impacting user experience and leaking private information are expected to offer growth opportunities for federated learning solutions during the forecast period.

As per AS-IS scenario, among verticals, the manufacturing segment to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period

The federated learning solutions market is segmented on verticals into BFSI, healthcare and life sciences, retail and eCommerce, energy and utilities, and manufacturing, and other verticals (telecommunications and IT, media and entertainment, and government). As per AS-IS scenario, the healthcare and life sciences vertical is expected to account for the largest market size during the forecast period. Moreover, the manufacturing vertical is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. With the increasing focus on Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and the rise in competition, manufacturing companies are prioritizing the analysis of data collected from numerous sources, including web, mobile, stores, and social media.

Europe to hold the largest market size during the forecast period

As per AS-IS scenario, Europe, followed by North America, is estimated to account for the largest market size in the federated learning solutions market during the forecast period respectively. Stringent data regulations and high focus on data privacy, focus on innovation through research, and rapid technology infrastructure advancements across verticals are the factors expected to drive the growth. These regions are early adopters of technologies and home to most of the existing federated learning solutions providers. The federated learning solutions market in APAC is projected to grow at the highest Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) from 2023 to 2028. The increase in the adoption of emerging technologies, such as big data analytics, AI, and IoT, and ongoing developments to introduce data regulations, as well as focus on hyper-personalization and contextual recommendation in support of budding eCommerce markets in key countries such as China, India, and Japan are expected to drive the growth of federated learning solutions in the region.

Major vendors in the global federated learning solutions market include include NVIDIA (US), Cloudera (US), IBM (US), Microsoft (US), Google (US), Owkin (US), Intellegens (UK), DataFleets (US), Edge Delta (US), Enveil (US), Lifebit (UK), Secure AI Labs (US), Sherpa.ai (Spain), Decentralized Machine Learning (Singapore), and Consilient (US).

 About MarketsandMarkets™            

MarketsandMarkets™ provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies’ revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets™ for their painpoints around revenues decisions.

Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets™ are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model – GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets™ now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets™ is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve.

MarketsandMarkets’s flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledgestore" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets.

Contact: Mr. Aashish Mehra MarketsandMarkets™ INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA : 1-888-600-6441 sales@marketsandmarkets.com

[paradoxi-callum]

Criti-Cal book reviews: The Heart Goes Last, by Margaret Atwood.

There's a survey out there that suggests 2 out of every 3 Brits lie about reading books, or at least they did in 2009, with 42% of those people lying about having read George Orwell's 1984. It's not difficult to see why, I mean it's heralded as The Only Dystopian Sci-fi Novel Ever by people who put stickers on lamp posts around Carlisle. If I see one more "COVID-1984" sticker I am going to get physically violent, by the way. 

The reason I bring it up is because 1984 was a quite good reflection of the anxieties of a post-war world, where Europe narrowly avoided being taken over by Nazi Totalitarianism and was eyeing up it's Communist neighbour and wondering what it was getting up to. That's right, random sticker on the road-sign outside Tesco, 1984 is not an instruction manual; it's simply a warning to a world that we've moved far beyond as we've delved into the digital/surveillance age. 

Enter Margaret Atwood, a person who I wholly believe to be a fucking genius and the kind of person who I'd say "yeah, she could write a modern 1984 based on our current anxieties". It's a big claim considering 1984 is regularly cited as one of the best books of all time (by people who haven't actually read it, it's honestly a bit boring in the middle and the characters all feel very flat) but I can now back it up by saying that The Heart Goes Last is definitely a modern 1984, flat characters and all. 

THGL starts with a married couple who are living in the result of economic collapse, a sort of Mad Max future… but Max is living in a Kia Picanto with wind down windows and a very real sense of vulnerability. This defencelessness makes Stan and Chermaine miss their old lives, because no matter how bad it was their current situation is 10 times worse; they can't even have a shag in the back of the car for fucks sake! 

Charmaine finds a way out, and drags a reluctant Stan with her to a meeting at Positron; a weird timeshare system where you alternate between a prison cell and a home in a walled kingdom called Consilience. They're told that you will never be allowed to leave the place once you sign up for it, which should be a big red flag but look at payday loans; people will do anything when they're desperate. 

Once inside they're living in a facsimile of Baby Boomer America, chosen because it's a period of time when everyone was apparently a lot happier. In order to achieve this, Positron controls the media that residents consume, the decor of your home and the clothes you wear. The control of the masses is subtler than Orwell's Party Propaganda, but the effects are all the same; residents of both Consilience and Airstrip One are expected to support their masters without question or they will face horrific consequences. 

Orwell and Atwood also agree that you can't entirely crush the human spirit, that we are all primates who will defy those masters if it means we get a good shag out of it. 

Winston's stolen moments with Julia were a subversive act; love and sex would seemingly topple Big Brother because that's what we're hard-wired for. In the same vein, Stan is driven mad with lust, after finding a dirty note she left for her husband, for the idea of the wife of the couple who live in his house when he's at prison. He defies Position's rules and tracks the scooter that this mystery woman will ride when he's locked up, he's so mad with desire that he's even willing to force himself on her. It's ok, the opposite wife goes unharmed, the imaginary seductress he's made up is actually his own wife who is cheating on him.

This subversive love/lust is quickly entwined with rebellious actions; Winston’s love emboldens him and makes him out himself as a traitor to O’Brien, while Charmaine’s lust (and Stan’s stalkerish tendencies) attract the attention of a band of rebels who are hellbent on telling the world of Positron’s atrocities; fearing that Ed, Positron’s Big Cheese, has gotten greedy and let the good intentions that Consilience was founded on be corrupted for his own personal gain. Kind of like Bandcamp… or Tesla when Elon Musk bought it. 

The plot goes a bit weird, there's a whole Elvis thing and the Green Man Group (eco brothers of Blue Man Group) is a key plot device, but Atwood has woven a suitably thrilling tale and littered the story with so many coincidences that we have to choose whether there’s an invisible hand at play, or Atwood was having an off day or two when she wrote the short stories that make up THGL. A comparison with 1984 will show that I believe the former, as Winston’s story is essentially written by the people surrounding him from the moment he writes in that journal to the rat’s satisfied squeaks when they devour his face. It’s human nature to think of ourselves as powerless, which is an idea that 1984 seemingly supports but Atwood herself makes a convincing argument that Orwell still held out hope for us all:

Orwell has been accused of bitterness and pessimism - of leaving us with a vision of the future in which the individual has no chance, and where the brutal, totalitarian boot of the all-controlling Party will grind into the human face, forever.

But this view of Orwell is contradicted by the last chapter in the book, an essay on Newspeak - the doublethink language concocted by the regime. By expurgating all words that might be troublesome - "bad" is no longer permitted, but becomes "double-plus-ungood" - and by making other words mean the opposite of what they used to mean - the place where people get tortured is the Ministry of Love, the building where the past is destroyed is the Ministry of Information - the rulers of Airstrip One wish to make it literally impossible for people to think straight.

However, the essay on Newspeak is written in standard English, in the third person, and in the past tense, which can only mean that the regime has fallen, and that language and individuality have survived. For whoever has written the essay on Newspeak, the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four is over. Thus, it's my view that Orwell had much more faith in the resilience of the human spirit than he's usually been given credit for.

Orwell & Me, Margaret Atwood in The Guardian

THGL follows this optimism in a more straightforward way, Positron is toppled by an investigative journalist relaying the horrors of life in Consilience; most likely an allusion to Atwood’s support for, as well as the importance of, freedom of the press, usually one of the first freedoms taken away by dictators. 

The ending isn’t entirely happy though, Chermaine is tricked into believing she’s gone through a procedure that means the first two-eyed thing she lays eyes on when she wakes will be the object of her desire. This brainwashing is presented as morally ambiguous, I mean… if the brainwashed person is happy can we actually call it cruel? A woman fell in love with a stuffed bear and is more than happy with her situation, who are we to condemn this? The question hangs in the air as Atwood gives us an open end for Charmaine, does she go back to Stan and live a life of uneasy contentedness or does she go out into the world and see what happens? More importantly, why is everyone’s version of a happy ending having someone to shag? These questions, and more, will keep me awake tonight.

I rated The Heart Goes Last 4/5 on Goodreads

[simonaworld]

Copiii de vorbă cu Simona Igna

Copiii de vorbă cu Simona Igna

Simona Igna este parapsiholog, Maestru Profesor Reiki/Noua energie, terapeut în terapii complementare, consilier personal, coach spiritual, consilier terapie de cuplu, formator cu o experiență de 30 de ani în domeniu. De-a lungul anilor, prin cabinetul său au trecut sute de clienți mulțumiți de rezultatele obținute în urma terapiilor făcute. Oferă terapii individuale atât la cabinetele sale, cât…

[tsuchiman]

twenty eight

I had this idea to right down a really long, thought out, thesis-styled essay on whatever the hell I perceive myself to have been going through this past year. But it quickly expanded to something that’s going to take longer than a week to jot down.  So, the abbreviated version goes something like: The more willing you are to let go of preconceived notions that you’re ought to think of a given topic, the quicker you’ll find a foothold that you can point to for reference. The footholds aren’t always pleasant, often times it’ll turn out to be distasteful and awkward, but nonetheless more true than what you would guess. The hardest part, I think, is orienting your personality to withstand the trepidatious nature of “feeling-out the way forward”, or properly calibrating your intuition. I don’t know if you can pinpoint how exactly to define one’s own intuition, or how to calibrate it, but my best guess is to start by being honest with oneself. This honesty can’t be occluded by the doubt of your peers. It must aim higher than yourself, and it cannot be rooted in something exclusive to yourself. It cannot remain seated in its place, but must be felt, and then pursued to match the world, almost like finding a 1:1 mapping of yourself and the world. Then, you start to map the outer world to the inner world (yes, they both exist separately and in tandem), which ought to “calm the storms” of your own doubt, but not kill your own curiosity. The more you repeat this, the more you gain your own trust, and the more your perspective of the world starts to reveal a cohesion, which should ultimately lead to a recognition of consilience. 

This is the goal: how to see patterns across multiple fields of interest that sing with one another. To relinquish oneself over to this goal isn’t easy, since it requires absolute attentiveness, but it’s worthwhile. 

[radioclasic]

Sub conducerea lui Nicușor Dan, Primăria București impune cenzura în domeniul artelor

Sub conducerea lui Nicușor Dan, Primăria București impune cenzura în domeniul artelor

Pe data de 22 iulie 2021, artistul Genu Berlo a deschis expoziția intitulată Time Rush la galeria de la parterul Palatului Brâncovenesc, însă instituția condusă de Geani Dinu, consilier personal (din partea PNL) al primarului general, detașat director interimar la Palatele Brâncovenești, descoperă că expoziția “ar leza credința vizitatorilor”. Într-un schimb de note interne inițiat de muzeografa…