Interesting Stuff Thread

TomSweeney

Whatever you may think of Rowan Croft, these 2 lads have interesting tales to tell about leaving Islam

Hotblack Desiato

Terry Jones has died.

Someone posted this on another thread, seems appropriate

smacl

Very sad news indeed. I enjoyed the following interview re Life of Brian

https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1219979458301628417

robindch

^^^ Sorry about Terry

But - gosh, that could almost be Barry Norman beneath that splendid interviewer hairstyle.

Hotblack Desiato

Andy Batten-Foster, apparently.

Bannasidhe

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Terry Jones has died.

Someone posted this on another thread, seems appropriate

Terry Jones was one of the greatest scholars of the Medieval Period ever - and I say this as a historian.
He changed the narrative as to how the whole era is viewed. Among his achievements was demonstrating that Chaucer was taking the Michael in a big way and that there was rather more casual shagging going on than had previously been acknowledged.

robindch

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Among his achievements was demonstrating that Chaucer was taking the Michael in a big way and that there was rather more casual shagging going on than had previously been acknowledged.

Funny you should mention that - I was only listening to an interview with him and Douglas Adams this morning from 1997 where Jones said as much, with literary evidence, off the top of his head, in the Chaucerian vernacular:

https://www.meyersonstrategy.com/2015/01/douglas-adams-and-terry-jones-one-of-my.html

Enjoy

smacl

Interesting piece in the RTE today suggesting St Patrick was a runaway Roman tax man, https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0317/1123667-was-st-patrick-a-runaway-taxman/

Hotblack Desiato

Trouble at t' condom mill

Global condom shortage looms as coronavirus shuts down production

magicbastarder

can they not just make them smaller?

Hotblack Desiato

Turn 'em inside out and use 'em again

robindch

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Turn 'em inside out and use 'em again

...the only way of using a condom which the RCC supports!

robindch

Harvard academics with plenty of spare time on their hands announce that sarcasm within organizations increases both conflict and creativity.

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=49283

Li Huang, F. Gino, Adam D. Galinsky wrote:

Sarcasm is ubiquitous in organizations. Despite its prevalence, we know surprisingly little about the cognitive experiences of sarcastic expressers and recipients or their behavioral implications. The current research proposes and tests a novel theoretical model in which both the construction and interpretation of sarcasm lead to greater creativity because they activate abstract thinking. Studies 1 and 2 found that both sarcasm expressers and recipients reported more conflict but also demonstrated enhanced creativity following a simulated sarcastic conversation or after recalling a sarcastic exchange. Study 3 demonstrated that sarcasm's effect on creativity for both parties was mediated by abstract thinking and generalizes across different forms of sarcasm. Finally, Study 4 found when participants expressed sarcasm toward or received sarcasm from a trusted other, creativity increased but conflict did not. We discuss sarcasm as a double-edged sword: despite its role in instigating conflict, it can also be a catalyst for creativity.

Hotblack Desiato

robindch wrote: »

Harvard academics with plenty of spare time on their hands announce that sarcasm within organizations increases both conflict and creativity.

Yeah. Right.

smacl

Interesting to see Facebook starting to check and label false content. Saw this one earlier on



Video is published by The Epoch Times who seem to be a rather unusual pro-Trump and far right support group. What's interesting is that "a 2019 report showed it to be the second-largest funder of pro-Trump Facebook advertising after the Trump campaign", which means that Facebook is doing this even though it means significant loss of revenue. More here

Hotblack Desiato

Facepuke is still a sewer though

smacl

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Facepuke is still a sewer though

I only use it to keep in contact with friends and family so don't see too much crap. I see they've changed their policy with regards to misinformation. See following beeb report; Coronavirus: Facebook alters virus policy after damning misinformation report

robindch

The American Atheists have conducted a poll of 34,000 non-religious people in the USA. The results are interesting, especially when it comes to concealment:

Summary from The Friendly Atheist - here.

Full report - here

robindch

The Kansas City Heart Rhythm Institute is taking time out from sciencing to establish, via a 1,000 person trial, whether praying for people with covid is associated with positive care outcomes. Results are expected at the end of August.

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04361838

Summary wrote:

This is a multicenter; double blind randomized controlled study investigating the role of remote intercessory multi-denominational prayer on clinical outcomes in COVID-19 + patients in the intensive care unit. All patients enrolled will be randomized to use of prayer vs. no prayer in a 1:1 ratio. Each patient randomized to the prayer arm will receive a "universal" prayer offered by 5 religious denominations (Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism) in addition to standard of care. Whereas the patients randomized to the control arm will receive standard of care outlined by their medical teams. During ICU stay, patients will have serial assessment of multi-organ function and APACHE-II/SOFA scores serial evaluation performed on a daily basis until discharge. Data assessed include those listed below.

Longtime posters might remember a similar, larger scale, 2006 study into the efficacy of praying for patients recovering from a certain kind of heart surgery (CABG) which concluded that "Intercessory prayer itself had no effect on complication-free recovery from CABG, but certainty of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with a higher incidence of complications."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16569567

Odhinn

Stoners, which may explain a lot

Ancient Israelites burned cannabis as part of their religious rituals, an archaeological study has found.
A well-preserved substance found in a 2,700-year-old temple in Tel Arad has been identified as cannabis, including its psychoactive compound THC.
Researchers concluded that cannabis may have been burned in order to induce a high among worshippers.
This is the first evidence of psychotropic drugs being used in early Jewish worship, Israeli media report.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-52847175

robindch

St Paul’s Catholic School in Leicester has apologized after a religious studies teacher asked a class of 12/13 year to plan their funerals during lockdown. Items which the religious studies teacher wanted the kids to think about included the name of a favourite piece of music or hymn, the flowers they'd like, a style of coffin, whether burial or cremation, whom they'd like to be present at the event and so on.

The school has announced that the homework was "sent out in error":

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/5721768/children-homework-plan-school
https://www.irishpost.com/news/catholic-school-funeral-homework-187273

robindch

Wondering about how geographically segregated societies can come about? Wonder no longer!

This (very simple) simulator allows you to see what happens over time when two groups of individuals have varying levels of desire to live near to, or far away from, members of their own group. One can certainly pick holes in the simulation easily enough, but it's certainly interesting to see how the overall distribution of individuals changes over time.

https://ncase.me/polygons/

Peregrinus

Wonder a lot harder. The simulation assumes the the driver of segregation is people's preferences - sorry, polygons' preferences - for who they live near. But isn't that kind of assuming the conclusion?

Here in real polygon world, where polygons live is largely determined by other factors, such as what they can afford, what jobs are open to them (you can't put a square peg in a round hole ) and where those jobs are located. These social and economic determinants produce physical segregation, and that segregation drives group identity and group preferences, more than the other way around.

robindch

Peregrinus wrote: »

Wonder a lot harder.

Indeed - the simulation assumes a bunch of improbables - an homogeneous society, that people's preferences for neighbors are the only drivers for when and where they move, that there really are people who move away from somewhere because their neighbours are too "samey" anybody ever heard of this happening?)

However, despite the assumptions, I don't see how that assuming these improbables, one also assumes the conclusion - which is the arising of ghettos in places which didn't have them. BTW, is there a neutral word which describes areas where one phenotype tends to dominate?

The starting condition of homogeneity seems improbable though I don't believe it matters to the simulation. As you say, other drivers include availability of work, transport, schools, housing cost, earning power - in addition to neighbor preference. But are these other drivers larger than group identity to start with? Perhaps there's a distinction to be drawn between racial grouping which is phenotypical and social-class grouping which is economic - and where the two overlap, then you'd get ghettos as above. Or, do socioeconomic groupings self-assemble in the same way? Seems very possible indeed.

Hotblack Desiato

All mathematical models work off assumptions. The interesting thing is to let them run and see how they reflect (or not) reality, adjust assumptions and go again.

Robindch your simulation reminds me of a program that came on the "Horizons" demo tape for the ZX Spectrum, Fox and Geese I think it was called

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizons:_Software_Starter_Pack

Actually it was called Evolution

Life was interesting, too.

You can download this legally for free and play it on the excellent FUSE emulator, ahh memories (very small 16K or 48K ones )

robindch

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

your simulation reminds me of a program that came on the "Horizons" demo tape for the ZX Spectrum, Fox and Geese I think it was called

Ah, yes, the old Speccy - 48k's worth of happy coding space and a graphic addressing scheme which was dreamed up by Satan himself. My first Speccy game was - blushing slightly here, since I was 15/16 when I wrote it - called Spermatroids, a game in which you played a hapless sperm wending your way up the scented heaven of a fallopian tube, a process made slightly the more difficult by the uneven walls of the tube - dead if you touched them - and by the constant flow of 8x8 UDG's in the form of tiny condoms, IUD's, pills and diaphragms - again, game over if one of them hit. The successful player would navigate sufficiently far up the tube, find the egg, dive the sperm into it, at which point a 32x32 graphic of a little baby would appear and a small ditty would play. Thankfully, 3D games were still some way off at the time.

robindch

"‘Embarrassing’ system of oaths and affirmations to be abolished"

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/embarrassing-system-of-oaths-and-affirmations-to-be-abolished-1.4310299

Irish Times wrote:

Witnesses will no longer be required to swear before God or make an affirmation when filing affidavits under proposals agreed by Cabinet on Tuesday.

Instead they will be able to make what will be known as a “statement of truth” and will face a maximum one year prison term for breaking it.

The proposals will put an end to the “embarrassing” practice of a witness having to indicate their religious faith when making an affidavit, the Law Society said.

[...]

Hotblack Desiato

But this is just for affidavits - in court, jurors, witnesses and accused will still have to choose to either swear on a specific holy book or affirm. Outing yourself as a Jew, Muslim or atheist isn't always the best move.

Robindch - it's never too late to release your creation into the public domain so we can all play it

robindch

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

But this is just for affidavits

Baby steps.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

it's never too late to release your creation into the public domain so we can all play it

Mercifully, all my Speccy tapes from those years departed many years ago. Feel free to take up the idea though - the good people over at GTA would be thrilled to hear about it.

robindch

https://twitter.com/LettersOfNote/status/1286953846841974784

Hotblack Desiato

Well, that's theism told off good and proper as for deism, as Franklin suggested, we need care no more for the possibility of a creator outside of our time, space and universe than that supposed creator might care for us, i.e. not at all.

I do admire the courage of atheists who very much went against the flow of their time - especially before evolution and the Big Bang theory explained the outstanding 'god gaps'. We now no longer need any supernatural explanation for a single thing which happened since the first microsecond after the Big Bang. That's good enough for me. As for "why do we exist" etc., I regard these as stupid questions. The fact that we exist is wondrous enough, why do we need a why? We know that we are all only here because one out of millions of sperm happened to be in the right place at the right time to form a zygote, which we believe about 25% implant, and a substantial number of those never make it to the second trimester never mind a healthy childhood. From the individual's point of view, we all only exist by the faintest chance. Yet from the point of view of the species, our propagation is inevitable. Let's not ruin the wonder of it by trying to find an explanation for that which no explanation can exist.

Odhinn

Shinto, wrestling - whats there not to like -



https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/sumo/

robindch

In Walkinstown, Ireland's first Hindu temple, or the Vedic Hindu Cultural Centre of Ireland to give it its full title, opens:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/ireland-s-first-hindu-temple-opens-its-doors-in-walkinstown-1.4336767

More details at http://www.hindu.ie

Hotblack Desiato

Well this is starting to look prescient

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRguZr0xCOc

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2020/0914/1165121-politics-dying-dignity-bill/

Assisted dying bill to be introduced to the Dail tomorrow. Private member's bill so it'll probably go nowhere unless the government decide to support it.

Hotblack Desiato

Cork boy 55 wrote: »

Deep in Siberia's Taiga forest is Vissarion, a cult leader who looks like Jesus and claims to be the voice of God. He's known as "the Teacher" to his 4,000 followers, who initially seem surprisingly normal. Over time, however, their unflinching belief in UFOs and the Earth's imminent demise made this group start to look more and more like some sort of strange cult.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2Cv5hZfOmk

The authorities have caught up with him...

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/cult-leader-who-claims-to-be-reincarnation-of-jesus-is-arrested-in-russia-1.4362755

Russian authorities mounted a special operation to arrest a former traffic police officer who claims to be the reincarnation of Jesus and has run a cult based in the depths of Siberia for the past three decades.

Helicopters and armed officers stormed communities run by Sergei Torop, known to his followers as Vissarion, and arrested him and two of his aides. Russia’s investigative committee said it would charge him with organising an illegal religious organisation, alleging that the cult extorted money from followers and subjected them to emotional abuse.

Like telling people they'll go to hell unless they do what the man says, then sticking a collection plate in front of them?

Anyway, he'll be hoping it's "Welease Wissawion" rather than "Crucifixtion? One cross each, first door on the left."

pauldla

Scientific American on 'The Denialist Playbook'. Should be familiar to many reader of this forum...


In short:

Doubt the Science
Question Scientists’ Motives and Integrity
Magnify Disagreements among Scientists and Cite Gadflies as Authorities
Exaggerate Potential Harm
Appeal to Personal Freedom
Reject Whatever Would Repudiate A Key Philosophy


https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-denialist-playbook/

robindch

Douglas Adams would shed a tear at this moment - the first electric monk:

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/9/20851753/ai-religion-robot-priest-mindar-buddhism-christianity

Hotblack Desiato

Interesting clip here with Terry Gilliam's thoughts on Kubrick and Spielberg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAKS3rdYTpI

Basically Kubrick = Reality.
Spielberg = Pablum. Like religion, pat answers wrapped up in a neat digestible package.

robindch

https://humanism.org.uk/2021/04/01/henry-marsh-announces-advanced-cancer-joins-56-mps-and-peers-in-calling-for-assisted-dying-inquiry/

Henry Marsh, neurosurgeon and author of the excellent autobiography "Do No Harm", has announced that he's suffering from stage 3/4 cancer and is actively promoting a change in UK law to allow for assisted dying:

Henry Marsh wrote:

Having spent a lifetime operating on people with cancer, the prospect of dying slowly from it myself fills me with dread. Despite the best efforts of palliative medicine, I know that dying from cancer can still be a very horrible business – for both patient and family, despite what the opponents of assisted dying claim.

I fiercely believe that if people in my situation knew they had the ability to choose how, when, and where they would die, it would greatly reduce their suffering. Knowing that I had this choice, if life became unbearable, would certainly give me much greater confidence now in facing whatever the future might hold for me. But as the law stands, I am not allowed this comfort, and the law insists instead that I must suffer. Many politicians have shown a striking lack of compassion by ducking this issue for too long, and are inadvertently guilty of great cruelty. Irrespective of your view on assisted dying, I would hope everyone could agree that our laws should be based on evidence and informed decisions, not alarmist, unfounded opposition that flies in the face of all the evidence from countries where assisted dying has been legalised. It’s time for all MPs to start taking this issue seriously and I urgently call upon them to undertake an inquiry into the law.

Peregrinus

Trouble at t'mill.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Trouble at t'mill.

Schism!

oscarBravo

Schist to t'mill?

Bannasidhe

smacl wrote: »

Schism!

Ohhh, I do love it when the Germans start a schism.

Hotblack Desiato

Germany has a church tax and a very large population so no doubt the Vatican will need to do its sums very carefully here.

robindch

Douglas Adams - gone twenty years today

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams

ohnonotgmail

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Ohhh, I do love it when the Germans start a schism.

Wake me up when they start nailing treatises to church doors.

robindch

On bullshit:

Bullshitting, communication characterised by an intent to be convincing or impressive without concern for truth, is ubiquitous within human societies. [...] We find that bullshit ability is associated with an individual’s intelligence and individuals capable of producing more satisfying bullshit are judged by second-hand observers to be more intelligent. [...] The ability to produce satisfying bullshit may serve to assist individuals in negotiating their social world, both as an energetically efficient strategy for impressing others and as an honest signal of intelligence [...] we find that one’s ability to produce satisfying bullshit is independent of one’s willingness to produce bullshit.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14747049211000317

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/lord-mayor-of-dublin-invites-atheists-for-mansion-house-meeting-1.4649532

For the first time ever members of Atheist Ireland have been invited to meet a Lord Mayor of Dublin as part of the usual round of meetings that take place when a new occupant assumes the office.

Labour Cllr Alison Gilliland, who became Lord Mayor last June, met Atheist Ireland chairman Michael Nugent and its Human Rights Officer Jane Donnelly at the Mansion House this on Tuesday afternoon.

It is customary for a new Lord Mayor of Dublin to meet the President, Taoiseach, Dublin’s two Archbishops, an Imam and Rabbi but this year she requested a meeting with Atheist Ireland also.

Mr Nugent noted how “we are often described as people of ‘no belief’ or as ‘nones’, which is not true. We have positive beliefs,” he said.

They were “very pleased” at the meeting, where discussion centred on “the importance of recognising atheism and other non religious philosophical convictions as having the same positive status as religious beliefs” he said.

They also discussed “our alliance with the Ahmadiyya Muslim community and the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland regarding secular education, human rights and separation of church and State”.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117773127#Comment_117773127

Each to their own, but the statement that atheists have positive beliefs and describing atheism as a non-religious philosophical conviction pretty much sums up why I've never joined Atheist Ireland and most likely never will. Throwing their lot in with the Ahmadiyya Muslim community and the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland to promote secularism doesn't sit well with me either. Personally, being an atheist says exactly nothing about my philosophical leanings (as opposed to being a secularist). I applaud Michael and Atheist Ireland for much of the hard work they've in promoting a secular agenda but at the same time don't feel in any sense represented by them.