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Spring Hill 'one of the hottest' real estate markets right now
Homes are selling fast everywhere in Williamson County, where the median price was $451,100 in April. But the pace is even faster in Spring Hill.
Spring Hill 'one of the hottest' real estate markets right now Homes are selling fast everywhere in Williamson County, where the median price was $451,100 in April. But the pace is even faster in Spring Hill. Check out this story on Tennessean.com: https://www.tennessean.com/story/money/homes/2017/05/29/spring-hill-one-hottest-real-estate-markets-right-now/347675001/
Bill Lewis, FOR USA TODAY NETWORK – TENNESSEE Published 7:00 a.m. CT May 29, 2017 | Updated 3:20 p.m. CT May 30, 2017
The home at 4009 Pendleton Drive in Spring Hill sold the day it hit the market. The buyer made a full-price, cash offer.(Photo: Edwin Caldwell)
When Realtor Edwin Caldwell listed the home at 4009 Pendleton Drive in Spring Hill on the MLS, he expected it to sell quickly. But what happened next proved just how hot the Williamson County real estate market is.
“We listed it May 16 and it was under contract by 7:30 p.m. the same day with a cash offer” for the full list price of $339,900, said Caldwell, a Realtor with Weichert Realtors, The Andrews Group.
“I have a full-price backup offer as well,” he said. If the original offer falls through for any reason, the next person in line will become the new owner.
Homes are selling fast everywhere in Williamson County, where the countywide median price of a home was $451,100 in April. The typical house sells in just 49 days. At this time last year, homes were on the market for an average of 67 days, according to the Williamson County Association of Realtors.
The pace of sales is even faster in Spring Hill, where the average home is snapped up in just 24 days. One reason is price, said Caldwell. Only Fairview has lower prices. The median cost of a home in Fairview was $266,478 in April. In Spring Hill it was $316,500, according to the WCAR.
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The next-lowest price was in nearby Thompson’s Station, where the median cost of a home was $408,000.
Its location on the fast-growing I-65 corridor and comparatively low prices are making Spring Hill a destination for home buyers, said David McGowan, president of Regent Homes.
“It’s probably one of the hottest markets there is right now because of the affordability. You can buy in the $300,000s, and there’s nothing like that in the Franklin market right now,” he said.
In fact, a short drive south on I-65 or Highway 31 can save thousands on the cost of a home. The median price in Franklin in April was $474, 418, which was $157,918 more than the price in Spring Hill.
This is a rendering of the single-family homes Regent Homes will build in Petra Commons. Construction starts in June. (Photo: Submitted)
Regent is launching its new Petra Commons neighborhood on Commonwealth Drive in Spring Hill. The subdivision’s roads are being paved and construction of homes should begin in June. The community will have 15,000 square feet of commercial space as well as 39 townhomes and 40 single-family homes. Prices range from the mid-$200,000s to the high $300,000s.
Regent is also offering 79 townhomes in the Shirebrook development, located in Spring Hill’s town center near City Hall.
The pace of sales in Shirebrook is “unbelievable. We’re writing anywhere from six to eight contracts per month,” said McGowan.
He described Shirebrook as workforce housing with prices ranging from the low to high $200,000s.
Shirebrook townhomes in Spring Hill are selling at a fast pace. Buyers are attracted by the price and by Spring Hill’s convenient location. (Photo: Regent Homes)
Another home builder active in Spring Hill, Lennar Homes, is seeing a fast pace of sales the Abbington Downs subdivision at 101 Keenland Drive in Spring Hill. Prices range from the mid-$200,000s to the low $300,000s.
“That community really exploded for us. I believe that Spring Hill is a hot, up-and-coming area,” said Christina James, Lennar’s director of sales.
One important factor is “location, location, location,” said James. Spring Hill is “located near I-65 with close proximity to Franklin for work or even weekend activities like the farmers' market.” The city also offers easy commutes to Nashville.
For home buyers, Spring Hill is a value market where you get “more bang for your buck. You get more house for your money and the cost of living is more affordable in Spring Hill compared to other Nashville areas,” said James.
Home buyers are also attracted to the small town ambiance but with the benefits of local shopping and weekend events nearby in Franklin, such as the Main Street Festival and Pilgrimage Festival, she said.
The tight supply of homes for sale is another reason houses are selling quickly in Spring Hill, said Caldwell.
“Low inventory is the driver. If you have a good home, you’re going to sell it," he said.
For buyers, finding a home is more of a challenge.
“Buyers are easily discouraged in this fast-moving market,” said Caldwell. “They need an agent who is willing to work tirelessly, in this low-inventory market, to find their home.”
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Read or Share this story: https://www.tennessean.com/story/money/homes/2017/05/29/spring-hill-one-hottest-real-estate-markets-right-now/347675001/
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Near Tijuana, Migrants Tried Multiple Points Of Entry To Reach The U.S.
A New York Times reporter in Mexico says many were families trying to get as close to the border as possible. They didn’t consider their own actions to be hostile.
By Rhonda FanningNovember 26, 2018 1:52 pmBorder & Immigration
Prayitno/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
A vehicle border crossing, from Tijuana, Mexico into the U.S.
Tensions are high along the southern U.S. border as the workweek gets started. The Beaumont Enterprise and several other Texas newspapers published front-page stories about U.S. border agents firing tear gas at a group of migrants after some of them attempted to get through fencing south of San Diego. Reports say those trying to get through were part of the so-called migrant caravan from Central America that has now reached Tijuana.
Maya Averbuch is covering this story for The New York Times, and says the migrants mostly went around the Mexican Federal Police who were trying to block their route to the border – that’s when U.S. border agents used the tear gas.
“They were headed to the border. I think many people who were part of the group, which is a small contingent in comparison to the overall caravan, were hoping to either get through the U.S. border and be allowed to pass, or to have some sort of dialogue with U.S. authorities over what sort of solutions could be found to their immigration problem,” Averbuch says.
Averbuch says the migrants tried to reach the border through various points of entry. First, she says they tried the pedestrian crossing, but it was closed. Then they tried to enter through the vehicle crossing, on foot – that was also closed. Lastly, they tried the train crossing.
“At all those points … they were in sight of CPB [Customs and Border Protection] officials on the other end,” Averbuch says.
Averbuch says about 500 people were part of the group that tried to cross the border, but the entire caravan is comprised of about 5,000 people and most of them are staying at a sports center in Tijuana that the local government turned into a temporary shelter. She says the caravan members have been there for about 10 days, and others are still arriving.
“The whole first caravan voted to collectively go to Tijuana and so that’s where almost the entire group went,” Averbuch says. “Obviously, some people from the original group peeled off and went in different directions, and other people joined along the way, but the vast majority of the first caravan … decided a couple weeks ago to go directly to Tijuana.”
She says that’s because that route is safer than the ones to other border states like Texas.
Some news outlets have reported that Mexico says it will deport migrants who try to cross into the U.S. illegally. Averbuch says the Mexican government detained 39 people Sunday, and it might deport those who’ve been accused of disrupting the public order. But it most likely won’t deport the many families who were trying to cross.
“Many families who were participating yesterday who were just trying to get as close to the border as possible to see what they could do, what they could get and didn’t at all consider their actions to be hostile – I think its unlikely that there’ll be a roundup of all of those people,” Averbuch says.
Written by Caroline Covington.
Texas Standard For November 26, 2018
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Christopher & Banks Announces Appointment Of Keri Jones As Chief Executive Officer And A Member Of The Board Of Directors
MINNEAPOLIS — February 1, 2018 — Christopher & Banks Corp., a specialty women’s apparel retailer, today announced that it has completed its search for a successor to interim CEO and President Joel Waller. The company’s Board of Directors has appointed Keri Jones as the company’s CEO and as a member of its board effective upon her first day of employment, which is anticipated to be on March 12, 2018. In order to ensure a smooth transition, Waller will continue as a board member and in a consulting capacity for the near future.
Jones is a proven executive with over 30 years’ experience at leading premier retail businesses including Dick’s Sporting Goods and Target Corp. In her most recent role as executive vice president, chief merchant at Dick’s Sporting Goods, Jones was responsible for the strategy and execution of Merchandising, Product Development and Planning, Allocation & Replenishment. Prior to Dick’s, Jones spent 27 years at Target, where she served in a variety of leadership roles, including, executive vice president of Global Supply Chain; executive vice president of Merchandising Planning and Operations; senior vice president of Health and Beauty; and vice president, General Merchandise Manager, Toys and Sporting Goods.
Kent Kleeberger, chairman of the Board of Directors stated: “We are extremely pleased that Keri has agreed to join the company as CEO and we welcome her to the CBK team. She is a versatile global executive displaying outstanding leadership with a proven record of driving results through consumer-focused strategy development. We conducted an extensive search and Keri distinguished herself as our top choice having the deep industry experience, leadership skills and passion for the specialty retail business we were seeking.”
Jones said: “It’s an honor to be named CEO and I am very excited to be joining Christopher & Banks and working with Joel Waller, the Board of Directors and the rest of the organization to build upon the current momentum and drive the company to consistent profitability. I share their passion for this business and focus on customer service and look forward to leveraging the company’s brand strengths to deliver improved operating results for the company’s shareholders.”
Kleeberger indicated on behalf of the board: “We want to thank Joel for his stewardship and contributions as interim president and CEO and for his agreement to continue as a Board member while serving in a consultant role to Keri in order to ensure a smooth transition. Joel joined us during a difficult time and provided stability to the business, empowered our executives and put in place the executional merchandise strategy to move the company forward.”
Waller said, “I want to thank the board for the opportunity to serve as the company’s interim president and chief executive officer and am very pleased with the progress that the current management team and I were able to achieve thus far. I am excited to have Keri join us and I look forward to working with her to ensure a smooth transition and the continuation of the company’s current turnaround.”
Source: Christopher & Banks
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That Culture Website
Shakespeare And Company Lenox Massachusetts
adminon May 26, 2019
LENOX, Mass. — A founding member of the Massachusetts theatre company Shakespeare & Co., who in the organization’s 40 years served as an actor, director, writer and teacher, has died. Dennis Krausnick.
Things to Do in Lenox MA – Performing Arts. Lenox, Massachusetts is located in the heart of a New England artistic extravaganza. In music, dance, theater, and other art forms, the Berkshires arts scene is a cultural calendar of astonishing excellence and variety.
The Town of Lenox is a small, vibrant New England town nestled in the heart of the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts offering unparalleled rural beauty and several major cultural attractions.Lenox is the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra plus home to Shakespeare and Company’s new international campus, The Mount (Edith Wharton’s mansion), Ventfort Hall Museum of the Gilded.
LENOX, Mass. (AP) — A founding member of the Massachusetts theater company Shakespeare & Co., who in the organization’s 40 years served as an actor, director, writer and teacher, has died. Dennis.
Shakespeare & Company host its annual Fourth of July Community Celebration "We Hold These Truths" on their property at 70 Kemble Street, Lenox MA. This yearly event is an all-American Independence Day.
WELCOME TO THE BERKSHIRES. A rural region in the mountains of western Massachusetts, The Berkshires is a popular vacation destination. It’s know for outdoor activities, fall foliage reviewing, a farm-to-table food scene and thriving arts institutions.
Poems About Loss Of Innocence Inspirational Quotes English Literature she was my first love. she was my first love and we were madly in love.
Tina Packer is the Founding Artistic Director of Shakespeare & Company. Since the Lenox, Massachusetts theater group was created in 1978, she’s directed all of the Bard’s plays, and taught his work at.
Shakespeare & Company is an American theatre company located in Lenox, Massachusetts in the Berkshire region of western Massachusetts. It was founded in 1978 by Artistic Director Tina Packer who continues as Artistic Director to the present day. A co-founder was Kristin Linklater, who developed the Linklater vocal technique and left the company.
See new additions to WCMA’s American and European collections from the 16th to the 20th centuries mixed with favorites including Grant Wood’s Death on the.
LENOX The owners of the historic Spring Lawn property adjacent to Shakespeare & Company have launched an ambitious development plan that would transform the 28.8-acre site — formerly a part of the theater’s property — into a major high-end "boutique resort."
Lenox is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States.Set in Western Massachusetts, it is part of the Pittsfield Metropolitan Statistical Area.The population was 5,025 at the 2010 census. Lenox is the site of Tanglewood, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.Lenox includes the villages of New Lenox and Lenoxdale, and is a tourist destination during the summer.
Find AAA approved attractions and other local gems across North America. Learn more about Shakespeare & Company or other things to do in Lenox.
Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts is gearing up for its 2018 season. WAMC spoke to its artistic director to learn more. Allyn Burrows is hardly a new face at Shakespeare & Company. “I was.
Oct 08, 2017 · Plays, musicals, stage shows, and live theatre performances at Shakespeare & Company Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, Lenox, MA
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Shakespeare & Company, Lenox: Address, Phone Number, Shakespeare & Company Reviews: 4.5/5. Located in The Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, Shakespeare & Company is one of the largest Shakespeare Festivals in the country, founded in 1978 by Tina Packer. Shakespeare & Company doesn’t "play" Shakespeare, they live Shakespeare and that.
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Oct 11, 2018 · WAM Theatre presents “Ann” at Shakespeare & Company’s Tina Packer Playhouse in Lenox, MA October 19-28. Ann is a co-production with Dorset Theatre Festival.
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who is directing a production of "Macbeth" for Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts, this month. "What is a good king, and what does it take not to be corrupt when you have all this power?.
Shakespeare & Company to Kick Off 2017 Fall Festival of Shakespeare with MACBETH & ‘MIDSUMMER’. Lenox High School’s Macbeth Directed by.
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THE LIT WRITING LAB BY PINK SMOOTHIE!
Pink Smoothie's Thoughts
FanFic Zone
Movie & TV Zone
Movie Scripts Zone
Books Top 5
Movies Top 5
A Bohemian Green Book in Roma
Hello, my dear readers! I guess it is time for March’s Pink Smoothie’s Thoughts… and be prepared, because this blogger wasn’t exactly happy about how this year’s Oscars were handled—I mean, no host? It was total chaos, in my opinion.
Of course, I was very happy for some of the winners, because they do deserve it. However, have you realized that most Oscar winners and nominees only get there because of the quantity of dollars they make into the box office?
Ok, enough about my rambling… let’s get started about what I thought about this year’s Oscars! And let’s start with the positive parts, peeps, because we all must be positive in this world. I’m going to start with my favorite films!
1. Roma:
Roma is one of the best films the Academy could’ve chosen to be nominated this year. Alfonso Cuarón is a great director—and I’m glad he won Best Director and Best Cinematography... he truly deserves those awards.
2. Bohemian Rhapsody:
First, I must be truthful--Queen is one of my favorite “old” bands, and they are fantastic. To have a movie made about Freddie Mercury… just, wow. The sound effect was amazing… and they truly deserved that award.
3. Period. End of Sentence:
I truly feel like this documentary deserves more love—not only because it’s the truth, but because it’s a real-life issue in foreign countries. Every girl and woman shouldn’t be shy of just being women… and every one of us should have the same opportunities when it comes to personal care.
4. First Man:
I must say that it is hard to use so many special effects to relive and recount what happened when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and planted the American flag on it. This truly deserved all the given awards.
5. Green Book:
I was immediately in love with this movie. This story tells the tale of two unlikely friends—one who has black skin, and the other one who is white. The black friend is a magnificent musician, and the white one is his driver. It is a really heartwarming story.
Now that we’ve passed the good parts, I must say that in my opinion, I don’t really see why a superhero film was nominated for best movie. I mean, I get that the money they got at the box office was huge, but I don’t think that it was written appropriately. I’m not attacking the fans, the writers, or the viewers—I’m just saying that I don’t get the plot, or that it was appropriate enough for the 91st Academy Awards.
Secondly, I think that most people are trying to recount old stories—that’s why they keep making more and more book adaptations, or comic adaptations, and I’m getting quite sick of it. Why can’t someone write an original story? For example, I’ve always imagined of writing an Oscar-winning script, and I’m not going to give up. I have a good one in mind, and I will write it and edit it until it’s prefect enough to be made into a movie.
I think that the movies and documentaries I listed are the best of the best of this awards season… but I’ve always wanted to see if independent films could win an Oscar.
My thoughts always revolve of why people just nominate the films with huge box office funds, but why not nominate an independent film? Those are the ones that are creative, and even if they don’t have a lot of money thanks to their views, they’re still good.
Now, the films I liked were based on the nominees. I haven’t seen them, though I’m planning on to—and I think that these were the best out of what was nominated.
Anyways, enough of that.
Here are the things I didn’t particularly like:
1. There was no host:
When there isn’t a specific chronological order, this whole awards show was thrown to the window. I mean, it was chaotic… as if cows flew around and chickens started singing opera. Why didn’t they hire Jimmy Fallon? Or Jimmy Kimmel, for the third time? Or Ellen? Or someone new, but still funny? If they had a host, then it would’ve been awesome.
2. The movies weren’t exactly the best:
Okay, so in my humble opinion as a blogger, I think that the movies that were nominated here shouldn’t have been nominated. I mean… I get that they want to give Black Panther an award for clothing, because based on the clip I saw that night, the clothing was amazing and detailed. But seriously? There were movies that shouldn’t have even been there.
3. It was confusing in general:
I feel like most of the actors there were confused. I mean, who wouldn’t? Without no host, no matter how good the script they had was written, it was just confusing. I myself didn’t know what they were doing… because usually, after the winner gives the acceptance speech, the host starts saying and cracking some jokes, you know?
4. Some parts were not funny: I mean, when they started putting in music in the middle of the winner’s speech was kind of rude. I think they expected us to laugh at the person that was giving the speech because it meant he or she was speaking too long, but I didn’t like it.
5. It was overall chaotic:
think that I don’t need to explain this one.
Anyways, I like the awards season, but sometimes, I think that while the Oscars are the most expected of all the Awards Shows, other shows might overrun this prestigious one, like the Emmys or the Golden Globes.
The Oscars are the most expected awards of the entire year—and for my case, I’m always eager to see who is nominated and who isn’t. However, for this year, I think that the committee that decides who wins and who doesn’t, should’ve made a better job. At least for the Best Picture and other categories… though I must say, that all the documentaries were marvelous!
Thank you so much, dear reader, for reading my review about this year’s Oscars! I hope that your favorites won, and that at least we have something in common based on our opinions. Nevertheless, I hope that you’re excited for the Emmys in September—because I am!
The Oscars are (almost every year) wonderful, so this is one of my most disappointing reviews regarding the matter. I always love to see who dresses like who, and who interviews our favorite celebrities.
Stay tuned for your next monthly dose of my thoughts!
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Compassion can be fostered in our species, and economic models
Mainstream economic models, built as they are on selfish behaviour, are inadequate to deal with the world’s most pressing problems. Happily, research suggests we can train ourselves to care as much about each other as we do about money
By Tania Singer, Social Neuroscience Director at the Max Planck Institute | Wednesday, March 25th, 2015
The ReSource Project showed our brains can be developed through regular training, in a similar manner to muscles
Today’s mainstream economic models are based on two fundamental assumptions: first, humans are essentially selfish actors who act rationally to advance their own utility (so-called homo economicus); but, second, as Adam Smith’s metaphor of an “invisible hand” was intended to suggest, self-regarding behaviour can inadvertently advance the common good. Both assumptions are patently false.
In order to address pressing global problems like climate change and inequality, the predominant economic models must be rethought, incorporating other motivational systems that can induce different human behaviours. Such realistic models, based on empirical research in psychology and the neurosciences, would allow societies to cultivate their sense of compassion and build a new kind of ‘caring economics’ that reflects more fully what it is to be human.
Neuroscientific studies have shown that humans can be motivated by care and systems of affiliation just as easily as they can be by power and achievement or consumption and desire. After all, we have evolved to be able to form stable relationships, build trust and care for children, all of which requires a capacity for compassion and empathy. Once we recognise that these caring motivational systems are common to all humans – indeed, most are shared with other animals – the world begins to look very different.
Humans tend to find it easy to empathise with and care about members of their ‘in-group’
Empathy and compassion
It is important, however, to distinguish between basic empathic responses and a more universal capacity for compassion. Empathy alone does not necessarily prompt pro-social behaviour; empathising with the suffering of another may not drive you to help that person. In fact, empathy can result in distress, which may even lead to withdrawal or burnout.
Compassion, by contrast, is concern for another person that is linked to a strong motivation to alleviate their suffering. If, say, a mother sees her child crying after a fall, she may first empathise with the child, feeling its pain and sadness. But, rather than succumbing to feelings of distress, she will take the child in her arms to soothe and comfort it.
Both empathy and compassion seem to come naturally to humans. But both responses are fragile, and can be quelled or reversed by a large number of factors – including the degree to which we identify with the person who is suffering.
Humans tend to find it easy to empathise with and care about members of their ‘in-group’ – people with whom they share features, whether real or socially constructed, like race, gender, age, or religious affiliation. Empathy and care towards out-group members does not come quite as easily. Such universal or global compassion – caring about people who are very different from us – probably requires the involvement of higher cognitive functions, and thus may be unique to humans.
It may also require some training. After all, living in a world that assumes we are homo economicus can encourage selfish habits. Fortunately, research suggests that such habits can be broken.
The largest such study is the recently completed ReSource Project, in which my
colleagues and I subjected almost 300 people, over 11 months, to an intense mental-training programme, developed by a team of experienced mediation teachers, scientists, and psychotherapists.
The goal was to cultivate a broad range of mental capacities and social skills, including attention, mindfulness, self-awareness, perspective-taking on others, empathy, compassion, and the ability to cope with difficult emotions like anger or stress. Progress was assessed by measuring changes in participants’ brains, hormones, health, behaviour, and subjective sense of wellbeing.
The project’s preliminary results reinforce a key finding of previous, smaller studies: just as we can strengthen and transform a muscle through physical exercise, we can develop our brain and behavioural capacities – from attention and emotional regulation to trust and donation behaviour – through regular mental training.
Of course, mental exercises must be honed to develop particular skills and behaviours; mindfulness practice alone is not adequate to improve, say, socio-cognitive skills. And lasting changes occur only after a prolonged period of regular training. But, with the right approach, it may well be possible to foster the kind of altruistic and pro-social behaviours that are needed to improve global cooperation.
Encouraging care
On the basis of these findings, and those from other psychological, neuroscientific and economic studies, my colleagues and I are now working with the president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Dennis Snower, to formulate new motivation-based computational models of economic decision-making. These models will enable us to make clear, testable predictions about expected monetary-exchange behaviour in an economic context, including in addressing common-good problems. In fact, several of these experiments are already underway.
The secular, ethical mental-training exercises used in the ReSource Project could be applied in businesses, political institutions, schools (for both teachers and students), and healthcare settings – in short, in all areas where people experience high levels of stress and related phenomena. Young children, in particular, could benefit considerably from such training programmes, which could enable them to use mental skills and compassion to regulate stress and emotions.
Policymakers should take the lead in promoting this science-based approach to learning and working, such as by redesigning institutions to emphasise collaboration. Several governments – including that of the United Kingdom – have developed so-called ‘nudge units’, which seek to encourage people to make better choices for themselves and society by providing subtle hints, cues and other suggestions.
A lack of compassion is arguably the cause of many of humankind’s most devastating failures. Our success in tackling the enormous challenges we face will depend not only on our willingness to work actively and cooperatively to advance the common good, but also on our ability to foster the attributes needed to do so.
Tania Singer is Director of the Department of Social Neuroscience at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences.
Boxing match to be most expensive in history
Google hires Wall Street’s most powerful woman
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Menlo Security raises USD 75 mln to fight phishing and malware threats
Wednesday 10 July 2019 | 09:41 AM CET
Menlo Security, a cloud security provider, has announced USD 75 million in Series D funding, led by clients advised by JP Morgan Asset Management.
Existing investors also participated in the round, including General Catalyst, Sutter Hill Ventures, Osage University Partners, American Express Ventures, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase and Engineering Capital. In addition, Jonathan Ross, portfolio manager and managing director at JP Morgan Asset Management, will join the company’s board.
Menlo Security’s solution delivers a Zero-Trust Internet by keeping all email and web content off of end user computers and devices, seeking to eliminate malware attacks from these prominent threat vectors.
The company’s Internet Isolation technology separates an enterprise network from the public web, while still allowing employees to access the Internet seamlessly. The solution removes the viewing of email attachments and web browsing from the desktop and moves it to the cloud. By isolating Internet content in the cloud with a Zero-Trust approach, users are protected from malware, ransomware and phishing attacks that bypass legacy defenses, thereby eliminating the most prolific sources of breaches.
Menlo Security’s customers include large banks, credit-card issuers and energy and transportation companies. The Series D funding will be used to expand Menlo Security’s global sales team to meet the growing industry demand for Internet Isolation.
Keywords: Menlo Security, cloud provider, security, malware, phishing, funding, JP Morgan, banks, US, cloud technology
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CTS Acquires Market Leader Of Piezoelectric Single Crystals For The Medical Industry
CTS Corporation (NYSE: CTS) has announced the acquisition of CTG Advanced Materials, LLC (CTG-AM) for $73 million in cash.
CTS Corporation (NYSE: CTS) has announced the acquisition of CTG Advanced Materials, LLC (CTG-AM) for $73 million in cash. CTG-AM, formerly operated as H.C. Materials, is the market leading designer and manufacturer of single crystal piezoelectric materials, serving major Original Equipment Manufacturers throughout the medical marketplace. These materials enable high definition ultrasound imaging (3D and 4D), as well as intravascular ultrasound technology. Other applications for these materials include wireless pacemakers, implantable hearing aids and defense technologies.
Located in Bolingbrook, Ill., CTG-AM was founded in 1997 and since 2013 has been a portfolio company of Blue Wolf Capital Fund II, L.P. CTG-AM is the only company to have vertically integrated its entire single crystal manufacturing process. With the acquisition of CTG-AM, CTS gains intellectual property and proprietary manufacturing methods that expand its offering of piezoelectric materials. This allows CTS to become the leading large-scale commercial producer of both single crystal materials and traditional piezoelectric ceramics.
"CTG-AM's market leadership, technological expertise and winning spirit are a perfect fit for CTS," stated Kieran O'Sullivan, CEO of CTS Corporation. "The acquisition of CTG-AM increases CTS' involvement in the medical industry, and expands our portfolio of products and technologies around the categories of Sense, Connect and Move."
CTS (NYSE: CTS) is a leading designer and manufacturer of sensors, actuators and electronic components to OEMs in the aerospace, communications, defense, industrial, information technology, medical and transportation markets. CTS manufactures products in North America, Europe and Asia.
About Blue Wolf Capital Partners
Blue Wolf Capital Partners LLC, a private equity firm founded in 2005, specializes in control investments in middle-market companies. Leading by experience, and with a reputation for excellence, Blue Wolf transforms companies. Combining a collaborative approach with strategic and operations resources, Blue Wolf manages challenging situations and complex relationships between business, customers, employees and regulators to build value for stakeholders. For additional information, please visit www.bluewolfcapital.com.
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Getting To Know: Marisol Morel, The Westchester Bank
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. Marisol Morel has worked in banking for more than two decades. It wasn’t until she joined The Westchester Bank two years ago that she realized what she had been missing.
Marisol, Vice President & Director of Deposit Operations, recently volunteered to join in the Bank’s support of the March of Dimes Corporate 5k race last month. She said the Bank’s embracement of community activities and the entire culture is far different, and better, than previous banks she’s worked at. She said, “There is a family atmosphere here, and from day one I felt like I belonged. We all get along and really enjoy each other’s company. That is pretty rare.”
“It’s great how involved TWB is in the community,’’ Morel said. “It’s more than just donating money. It’s dedicating time to so many wonderful causes. That’s something I was not accustomed to at other banks and it positively changes office morale. Sure, we work hard and make it happen on the business side. But at the same time there’s a human touch. We’re helping families and businesses prosper. Hearing stories from the many community organizations we help makes it even more special and puts a little more love into each transaction.”
Morel enjoys joining other employees at events, especially those centered around supporting children. “Being a mother and a friend to a lot of other mothers, I see firsthand how some of them have struggle,’’ Morel said. “I think it’s important to raise money and donate your personal time to organizations like the March of Dimes. It means a lot to help impact the lives of children in such a direct and meaningful way.”
Now that she has worked for the Bank for a few years, she wishes she joined them sooner. “We keep joking at the office, ‘Why didn’t I start here from the beginning?’’ Morel said. “While we would have loved being part of the Bank’s start up in 2008,
The Westchester Bank is proud to support community news & The White Plains Daily Voice.
Built on Integrity and Exceptional Customer Service
"As a leading commercial real estate owner, integrity and customer service remain our most valued assets. The Westchester Bank shares those same values. They really care about us and are trusted partners in our success."
Robert Weisz Chairman & CEO RPW Group
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Melania Trump on Cyberbullying: ‘I’m the Most Bullied Person in the World’ (Video)
The first lady has made fighting cyberbullying her signature issue since taking office
Jon Levine | October 11, 2018 @ 5:36 AM Last Updated: October 11, 2018 @ 6:19 AM
Melania Trump says it’s harder than you think being first lady and said that the role has opened her up for a torrent of abuse online.
“I could say that I’m the most bullied person in the world,” said Trump during an interview in Kenya with ABC reporter Tom Llamas. “One of them … if you really see what people are saying about me.”
Since taking office, Melania Trump has launched a campaign against cyberbullying called “Be Best.” Critics have mocked the program given her husband’s famously rough behavior toward his own critics on social media.
Also Read: Melania Trump Questions #MeToo Women: 'Sometimes the Media Goes Too Far' (Video)
The former Slovenian model has often assumed a sphinx-like presence in the White House and her interview with Llamas, which will air in full Friday, suggests she will offer some of her most expansive comments to date.
In an earlier teaser released by ABC, the Melania opened up about the #MeToo movement, saying that while she supported women, there needed to be “hard evidence” before allegations of sexual misconduct should be taken seriously.
“Sometimes the media goes too far, the way they portray some stories. It’s not correct. It’s not right,” she said. “I do stand with women, but we need to show the evidence. You cannot just say to somebody, ‘I was sexually assaulted’ or ‘You did that to me.'”
While her husband remained in Washington, D.C., Melania embarked on her first solo trip abroad as first lady, touring a number of African nations, but she has been repeatedly criticized for her clothing choices while out there even by prominent members of the media.
“I know she said that she doesn’t like the fact that people talk about her clothes, but it was like a costume drama,” scoffed NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Monday “It looked like ‘Death on the Nile,” she added, referencing the 1978 Agatha Christie film starring Mia Farrow and Peter Ustinov.
Melania Trump has also made news by wearing a pith helmet, as well as jackets and for once planting a tree in pair of ferocious stiletto heels.
19 Times Donald Trump and Co. Were Confused About History, Including Canada Burning Down the White House (Photos)
Since becoming president, Donald Trump has had a lot more occasion to talk about American history. He likes to remind people that "you know, I'm, like, a smart person," but he doesn't always seem to get it right. Here are 19 instances of Trump and his surrogates giving weirdo history lessons.
1. On Frederick Douglass
During a Black History Month breakfast in February, after mentioning several African American historical figures Trump said, "Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice." We're not saying Trump didn't know who Douglass was, but despite his remarks, the famed abolitionist died in 1895.
2. On Trump’s Civil War Battle Golf Course
Trump’s Virginia golf course on the Potomac River includes a plaque stating the location was the site of a Civil War battle. “Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South, died at this spot,” the inscription reads. “The casualties were so great that the water would turn red and thus became known as ‘The River of Blood.’” Historians say nothing significant took place at the site.
3. On Abraham Lincoln’s Political Party
Trump brought up Abraham Lincoln at the National Republican Congressional Committee Dinner in March. "Great president. Most people don't even know he was a Republican," Trump said. "Does anyone know? Lot of people don't know that."
Lincoln, of course, is famously the first Republican president, although the party has changed significantly, both geographically and ideologically, from when it was started in 1854. Trump went on to suggest, “Let's take an ad, let's use one of those PACs,” to educate people about Lincoln’s link to the party. He apparently was unaware the GOP very often refers to itself as “the Party of Lincoln.”
4. On His Electoral College Victory
Since winning the 2016 presidential election, Trump and his team have repeatedly called the win “the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan.” It wasn’t. In fact, only two presidents have received fewer than Trump’s 304 electoral votes since 1972 — Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush. And Trump’s 304 is less than both of Barack Obama’s wins, at 365 in 2008 and 332 in 2012.
5. On His Inauguration Crowd
Trump and his surrogates have maintained he had the biggest inauguration crowd in history, citing both the people on the ground at the National Mall in Washington D.C., and watching on TV and online. “When I looked at the numbers that have come in from all of the various sources, we had the biggest audience in the history of inaugural speeches,” Trump told ABC News. Going by the crowd and TV numbers, though, Trump’s inauguration crowd was definitely not the biggest ever.
Nielsen ratings for the inauguration put TV viewership at about 31 million, or 19 percent fewer than the number who tuned in for Obama’s inauguration in 2009, The Independent reports. And a PBS timelapse video shows the National Mall was never full during the entire event, while shots of Obama’s inaugurations show the mall packed. Trump’s inauguration might make up the difference with online streaming viewers, but those numbers aren’t known to the public or the media.
6. On Andrew Jackson and the Civil War
In a Sirius XM interview with a reporter from the Washington Examiner, Trump said President Andrew Jackson would have stopped the Civil War. “I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later you wouldn't have had the Civil War," Trump said. "He was a very tough person but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw with regard to the Civil War, he said 'There's no reason for this.'" Jackson, of course, died in 1845 — 16 years before the Civil War began.
Trump took to Twitter to clarify his comments on Jackson. “President Andrew Jackson, who died 16 years before the Civil War started, saw it coming and was angry. Would never have let it happen!” In fact, Jackson, a slave owner, probably would have fallen on the Confederacy’s pro-slavery side.
7. On the Civil War, Why
“People don't realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?” Trump continued during the same interview. “People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?” Of course, plenty of people have asked “the Civil War, why?” The answer: slavery.
8. On Medieval Times (Not the Restaurant)
In February 2016, Trump explained his view of torture and terrorism in an interview on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” “We are living in a time that's as evil as any time that there has ever been,” Trump said. “You know, when I was a young man, I studied Medieval times. That's what they did, they chopped off heads.” Trump went on to say he would authorize measures “beyond waterboarding” when asked if the US would chop off heads under Trump.
9. On Sweden and What Happened There
Trump brought up immigration in Europe during a rally in February 2017. He appeared to mention some immigration-related event “last night” in Sweden that hadn’t actually happened. "We've got to keep our country safe," he said. "You look at what's happening in Germany. You look at what's happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They're having problems like they never thought possible.”
Screen Capture/The Guardian
Trump later clarified the statement, yet again on Twitter. He said he wasn’t referring to a news event that happened “last night” in Sweden, but rather, a Fox News story. “My statement as to what's happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden,” he wrote.
10. On being treated the most unfairly
Delivering a speech to the graduating class at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Trump said, "No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly." That apparently includes politicians who have actually been assassinated, which seems like it should count for being treated "unfairly." Maybe he means he's been "unfairly" given more passes on bad behavior, like admitting sexual assault, than any other politician.
11. On the Paris Climate Change Accord being a trick
Trump said other countries and world leaders are laughing at the U.S. for its role in the Paris climate change agreement. That would be kind of strange, given that the list of "no" countries is only three United Nations members long: Nicaragua, which said the agreement didn't go far enough; Syria, which is in the middle of a civil war; and now the U.S. Maybe what Trump was hearing was the other approximately 190 countries taking part in the agreement laughing that he thinks climate change is a Chinese hoax.
12. On the Panama Canal
In a meeting with Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela, Trump seemed to kind of, sort of take credit for the Panama Canal. "The Panama Canal is doing quite well. I think we did a good job building it, right — a very good job," Trump said, to which Varela answered, "Yeah, about 100 years ago." While what Trump meant by "we" was probably "the United States," as Varela's comment suggests, there's still an air of Trump glomming on to past accomplishments that had nothing to do with him.
13. On how much legislation he's signed
Trump likes to say things are historic without actually ever checking (or maybe caring) if it's true. He's said repeatedly that he's signed more legislation than any other president, and specifically called out Harry Truman. In fact, he ranks last in legislation signed as of December 2017.
14. On his "historic" defense spending increase
Trump also said at a July 2017 rally the increase to defense spending he advocated was historically high. It isn't. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both increased defense spending by more, for two quick examples.
15. On how his approval rating was not historically low
One thing about Trump's administration that he claimed wasn't historic was his approval rating after six months in office. An ABC News/Washington Post poll put Trump's approval at 36 percent, which he tweeted "wasn't bad." As it turns out, it was the worst of any president in the last 70 years.
16. On the Pulse nightclub shooting
As part of his push against gun control in the wake of the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Trump has advocated for arming teachers and others to stop mass shootings. As Politifact reports, he also said that another shooting, the one in June 2016 at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people, could have been prevented if someone else there had been carrying a gun.
The trouble is, someone was: there was an armed police officer working at Pulse the night of the shooting, who even exchanged gunfire with the shooter, Omar Mateen. Trump has actually claimed before that if there had been more people armed at Pulse, the shooting could have been stopped, in 2016. At the time, Trump claimed later on Twitter that what he'd meant was that he wished there had been even more people with guns to stop the Pulse shooting.
17. On the War of 1812
Trump has been pushing to enact new tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, which are affecting not just China and other countries Trump sees as competitors to the U.S., but also allies such as Canada. In a phone conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that got somewhat heated over the tariffs, CNN reports, Trump brought up the War of 1812, claiming that Canadians burned down the White House during that conflict.
Trump wasn't wrong that the White House was burned down in the War of 1812 -- that did happen. Blaming Canada doesn't make a ton of sense, though. It was British troops that burned down the White House, since the U.S. was at war with England for the two-year conflict. Canada was a colony at the time, and so was pulled into the war. A lot of it was also fought in Canada. But blaming Canada for the White House doesn't actually track.
18. Kellyanne Conway On the Bowling Green Massacre
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway invented a terrorist attack that never happened when she mentioned the “Bowling Green Massacre” in a February interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. Conway was attempting to justify Trump’s ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries, and claimed the media hadn’t covered the attack. As the Washington Post reports, Conway also mentioned the massacre, which never took place, in two other interviews.
19. Sean Spicer On the Holocaust
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer got into trouble when he compared Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Adolf Hitler when discussing Trump’s decision to bomb a Syrian airfield in response to a gas attack against civilians. “...Someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons,” Spicer said during a daily press briefing. Of course, the use of gas to murder millions of German Jews and other minority groups from within Germany and Europe was central to the Holocaust.
Spicer went on to clarify that he did, in fact, know about the Holocaust. "I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no -- he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing," Spicer said. "I mean, there was clearly, I understand your point, thank you. Thank you, I appreciate that. There was not in the, he brought them into the Holocaust center, I understand that." The historically accurate term for "Holocaust center" is "concentration camp," and at least 200,000 people killed in them were Jewish German citizens.
From the Bowling Green Massacre to the the War of 1812, you might call it “alternative history”
Aaron Paul’s ‘Westworld’ Character Details, Season 3 Setting Revealed
By Reid Nakamura | July 17, 2019 @ 1:58 PM
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Digital Economy Bill could breach Human Rights
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 11:55 AM
The Digital Economy Bill could breach the human rights of Internet users according to the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights. The committee has raised concerns over the technical measures that are intended to be implemented which could either disconnect or severely limit the speed of users who fall foul of the "three strikes rule" used for illegal file-sharing.
"The concern we have with this Bill is that it lacks detail. It has been difficult, even in the narrow area we have focussed on, to get a clear picture of the scope and impact of the provisions."
Andrew Dismore MP, (Chairman) Joint Committee on Human Rights
The committee is seeking further information on the way these technical measures to limit usage of users will be used.
Readers may remember that similar concerns were raised in France where the French Constitutional Council blocked the HADOPI law which was being pushed through by President Sarkozy and backed by the entertainment industry. Concerns there were that it would block the right for people to exercise freedom of expression and communication, part of the founding principles of a democracy.
The government should be ready for a fight about this, as the changes being proposed are a drastic change in how things have worked so far on the Internet. A blanket right for government to rewrite copyright law on a whim has drawn serious concern from many large voices including the likes of Google and Yahoo. Any changes that are to be implemented need to be well defined, clear and concise, the detail which so far seems to be distinctly lacking from the Digital Economy Bill.
Typical of this shower. Badly written, badly thought through and another measure intended to micromanage us all.
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'Giant sucking sound': Perot's quips over the years
DALLAS (AP) - H. Ross Perot, who died Tuesday at his home in Dallas, was known for memorable quips, especially during his run for president as a third-party candidate in 1992. Here are some quotes from Perot:
ON WHAT HE WANTED TO BE REMEMBERED FOR: "Aw, I don't worry about that." (to The Dallas Morning News in 2016)
ON BEING A TEXAN: "Texas born. Texas bred. When I die, I'll be Texas dead. Ha!" (to The Dallas Morning News in 2016)
ON TRADE: "Well, everybody's nibbling around the edges. Let's go to the center of the bull's-eye, the core problem. And believe me, everybody on the factory floor all over this country knows it. You implement that NAFTA, the Mexican trade agreement, where they pay people a dollar an hour, have no health care, no retirement, no pollution controls, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and you're going to hear a giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country right at a time when we need the tax base to pay the debt and pay down the interest on the debt and get our house back in order." (from a 1992 presidential debate)
ON CHARACTER: "Which one of the three candidates, as a young man, would you want your daughter to marry? Ears and all .... Which of the three candidates would be the best role model for your children?" (from the 1992 campaign, according to The Baltimore Sun)
ON HIS OWN CAMPAIGN COMMERCIALS: "I love the fact that people will listen to a guy with a bad accent and a poor presentation manner talking about flip charts for 30 minutes, because they want the details." (from a 1992 presidential debate.)
FILE - This May 5, 1992 file photo shows Texas billionaire Ross Perot laughing after saying "Watch my lips," in response to reporters asking when he plans to formally enter the presidential race. Perot, the colorful, self-made Texas billionaire who rose from a childhood of Depression-era poverty and twice ran for president as a third-party candidate, has died. He was 89. (AP Photo/Richard Drew. File)
ON NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING: "And I have said again and again and again, let's get off mud wrestling, let's get off personalities, and let's talk about jobs, health care, crime, the things that concern the American people." (from a 1992 presidential debate)
ON NAFTA: "Will water run downhill? Yes. Will an apple fall from a tree? ... Will jobs flow to cheap labor and get away from government headaches?" (to reporters on conference call in 1993)
ON GETTING THINGS DONE: "Build a consensus and then do it and then go on to the next one. But don't just sit here slow dancing for four years doing nothing." (from a 1992 presidential debate)
ON MANAGEMENT: "The first EDSer to see a snake kills it. At GM, first thing you do is organize a committee on snakes. Then you bring in a consultant who knows a lot about snakes. Third thing you do is talk about it for a year." (Deriding the business acumen at General Motors compared to his Electronic Data Systems Corp., to BusinessWeek in 1986)
ON POLITICAL ATTACKS: "This is Mickey Mouse tossed salad." (during 1992 news conference)
FILE - In this Oct. 16, 1992, file photo, Ross Perot is shown on a screen in a paid 30-minute television commercial, during a media preview in Dallas. Perot, the Texas billionaire who twice ran for president, has died, a family spokesperson said Tuesday, July 9, 2019. He was 89. (AP Photo, File)
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The Missed Opportunity of Love Is
The OWN drama billed itself as a celebration of a complicated but relatable real-life romance. Abuse allegations against one of its creators made the show’s premise a queasier proposition.
Hannah Giorgis
Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil at the premiere of Love IsDavid Livingston / Getty
In June, the airy romantic drama Love Is joined a slate of original scripted programming at OWN, the television network co-owned by Oprah Winfrey. The series, executive-produced by the husband-and-wife pair Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil, was billed as a celebration of real-life romance and the journey of sustaining it. Its summertime arrival drew a wealth of excitement from fans of the veteran entertainment duo, who had previously collaborated on such series as Girlfriends and Being Mary Jane.
Among the show’s champions was Winfrey herself. At its Hollywood premiere, Winfrey spoke effusively about her hopes for the series: “Mara walked in with this story about her actual courtship with Salim, and before she even finished the pitch, I said, ‘Yes, I’m in,’” Winfrey said of her first meeting with the showrunner. “I think the intimacy, the tenderness, the true affection, the real trust, and the most important—wanting you to be the best you can—that’s what real love is.” But while Love Is was renewed for a second season in July, OWN recently announced it would be canceling the show in the wake of allegations against Salim Akil. “OWN has decided not to move forward with the second season of Love Is,” the network said in a statement. Although OWN did not name Akil’s alleged abuse as the reason for the cancellation, the timing of the statement and its reference to the show’s (now seemingly compromised) inspiration—“the real-live love story” of the Akils—suggested a link.
In late November, news surfaced of a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles by the actor Amber Dixon Brenner; in it, she alleged that she and Salim Akil were involved in a 10-year relationship during which he physically and sexually abused her. The lawsuit describes graphic assaults; Brenner claimed Akil often slapped her, forced her to perform oral sex, threatened her life, and once sodomized her against her will on the patio outside his home on Martha’s Vineyard. (Salim Akil has denied the allegations in statements through his lawyers.) The complaint also contended that Akil had stolen portions of the 2015 script for Luv & Perversity in the East Village, which Brenner had written partially based on both the affection she felt and the abuse she says she endured during the relationship. Brenner alleged that he’d used her script for both OWN’s Love Is and Documenting Love, a series the Akils pitched to ABC but ultimately didn’t produce.
Though the show’s stated ambitions are now difficult to extricate from the allegations against one of its co-creators, Love Is once seemed like an earnest exploration of one couple’s relatably complicated romance. Set in ’90s Los Angeles, the series followed Nuri (Michele Weaver), a bubbly television writer who commits far more easily to her job than to any relationship, and Yasir (Will Catlett), an aspiring director who struggles to maintain both employment and honest relationships. While the season showcased the multiple barriers in their way, the two manage to navigate the pitfalls of love by leaning into its promises. Told primarily through extended flashbacks, the show was framed as a revisiting of the early years of Nuri and Yasir’s romance, timed to the pair’s 20th anniversary.
At the time of its premiere, Love Is registered to some critics (myself included) as saccharine but benign. Throughout the show’s run, the couple, who have been married since 1999, repeated a set of familiar refrains. They championed the importance of openness in art and emphasized the necessity of vulnerability in intimate relationships, as well as the rarity of finding programming that explores what happens after the oft-chased happy ending. “We know the guy gets the girl, the girl gets the guy, but you didn’t tell us how to do the rest of it!” Mara Brock Akil said of some post-’90s romances in an interview the pair did with Winfrey. “I wanna honestly answer it, because I think the audience is now ready for the truth. They may be able to handle the truth!”
For his part, Salim Akil underscored the importance of not adhering to strict blueprints when it comes to love: “I think that designing your own relationship for yourself, I think hopefully this will inspire people to do that.” In a television landscape characterized by darkness (both literal and figurative), it felt a tad discourteous—or at least unnecessary—to critically disparage the couple’s somewhat cloying rendering of their own romance. Why bother broadcasting an eye roll when schmaltz was likely the worst of it?
But following the news of Brenner’s allegations, it’s hard not to feel queasy when considering the show’s central dogma—and one plot point in particular. The actor’s claims about Akil are particularly disturbing given the prominence that sexual violence plays in the series. Toward the end of the season’s penultimate episode, Nuri wakes from a nightmare and tearfully confesses to Yasir that she was molested as a child. “We have more in common than you think, Nuri,” he replies. The two embrace, and the shared revelation is understood to have paved the way for a deeper kind of closeness. “Sometimes I ask for a sign to validate that I’m on the right path,” the present-day Nuri says in a reflection on the ’90s flashback. “That moment, God confirmed that we were meant for each other, not because we shared a similar experience but because we made space for each other that night to be honest and vulnerable.”
That Nuri and Yasir, two black protagonists in a romantic series, would admit to histories of sexual trauma without fear of judgment was a story line Brock Akil said she felt both attached to and challenged by. “This is probably one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made in my creative career, especially when I’m telling the inspired-by version of our story, to be fully honest about who we are as individuals … ” the writer-director said in one of the show’s behind-the-scenes web clips. “For both me and Salim being survivors of sexual abuse, it’s a big part of who we are. It’s also a part of the beauty, the resiliency of who we are, and why we fight so hard and why I’m so thankful to God that we found each other, because we’ve been able to heal through our relationship. You can not only heal from it—we can turn such pain into love, and we can also talk about how to survive it.”
But if, as Brenner alleges, Brock Akil has long been aware of her husband’s abuse, whose survival had the showrunner been prioritizing? In the Love Is rendering of the Akils’ relationship, the pair’s victimhood and attendant healing take precedence over any possible harm either has committed. It’s not uncommon to write one’s transgressions out of artistic retellings, but Love Is didn’t just fail to mention the alleged harms of its creators—it also profited from them. The show marketed itself as a love story unafraid to excavate the ghosts that haunt its protagonists; if the allegations of Salim’s behavior are indeed true, then Love Is missed opportunities for both interpersonal accountability and artistic achievement. In light of the series’ sentimental promotional script, the possibility of the former misstep feels especially pernicious.
Brock Akil has made only one cryptic reference to the Love Is news. In an Instagram post shared shortly after OWN’s statement about the show’s cancellation, she wrote, “I am saddened that this great group of #artists and #storytellers will no longer get to create together on this project in this way.” Brock Akil, who has been vocal about harassment in Hollywood following the Harvey Weinstein reports last year, has not addressed her husband’s alleged actions (or the claims that she had been contemporaneously aware of them).
For now, the future of both Brenner’s lawsuit and the Akils’ standing within Hollywood, and particularly black Hollywood, remains uncertain. Salim Akil is reportedly staying on as showrunner of Black Lightning after an internal investigation by Warner Bros., but Love Is has become impossible to separate from his alleged actions. Nuri and Yasir, however complex their traumas and their love for each other, do not exist except as projections of Mara and Salim. Whatever healing the characters may have attained—for themselves and for viewers—has been thwarted. “It’s a terrible situation that I was ever in the predicament of having to call him out and her out,” Brenner said to Deadline after the show’s cancellation. “It’s tragic to me that these things ever happened.”
Hannah Giorgis is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she covers culture.
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How Nonprofits Can Measure Outcomes and Why They Should
Becoming an Owner
Retail Small Business
Freelancing & Consulting
Business Law & Taxes
Starting a Nonprofit
Nonprofit Careers
All Nonprofit Organizations
Nonprofit Organizations Resources
A Toolkit of Techniques
••• Tom Merton/Caiaimage/Getty Images
By Joanne Fritz
Demand keeps growing for nonprofits to provide proof that what they are doing accomplishes something.
That demand comes particularly from donors and grantors, such as foundations. Unfortunately, many nonprofits do not have objective data showing that their outcomes are worth supporting. That lack of supporting evidence can be a disappointment to donors who, after all, donate all that money for results, not out of a desire to get anything for themselves.
That fact is a bit shocking when you think about it. But, then, charities have been very busy providing programs, and sometimes just hoping that the band-aids they apply to social needs work.
But even the smallest nonprofit has heard the call for greater emphasis on outcomes measurement, reporting, and transparency. However, just how to do this has often been obscure or scattered from here to there.
That is where this book comes in. It is The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox: A Complete Guide to Program Effectiveness, Performance Measurement, and Results, Robert M. Penna, Ph.D., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011.
Although the "Toolbox" is now a few years old, it continues to be the most comprehensive work yet on how nonprofits can fundraise more effectively by measuring and reporting outcomes.
Impressed with the scope of the book, but also daunted a bit by its 350 pages, I wondered how to convince smaller nonprofits to invest in an obviously helpful resource that could serve as an all-in-one course in outcomes management.
I turned to Dr. Penna with some questions. Here is a summary of our interview.
Nonprofit Guide: How can a focus on outcomes benefit even a small nonprofit? What are the potential outcomes of outcomes management for nonprofits that are time and resource strapped?
Penna: The greatest benefits of an outcomes approach for smaller nonprofits come from the knowledge of what, among their efforts, truly works and knowing precisely how well those things are working. While any organization would benefit from this type of information, it is particularly crucial for smaller, less well-resourced organizations that must make every dollar, every hour of staff time count. How do these benefits play out? In two ways:
Knowing what works allows an organization to focus most of its resources on those efforts. This is particularly important at a time of cuts being made in funding by various sources. In the event that a smaller organizations needs to scale back on its own activities, how is the decision of where to reduce commitments to be made in the absence of solid information regarding the performance of one effort or another?
All organizations, even smaller ones, need to know how their programs and initiatives are performing, and the best way to accomplish that is to use an outcomes framework that sets targets and measures progress toward achieving them. In the absence of this, much remains guesswork;
In an era when more and more social investors, individuals, institutions, and governments, are asking for evidence of performance in their grant-making, smaller organizations cannot afford to rely upon traditional pleas for support, many of which are based upon the size of the problem or need to be addressed, or upon how hard the organization is working.
While these approaches worked in the past, as the outcomes movement spreads those who lack evidence of performance are increasingly going to be left behind. Add to this the fact that rating services such as Charity Navigator are moving to assessment platforms that include a performance or impact component.
Furthermore, numerous recent studies have demonstrated that an organization's effectiveness is the primary thing in which donors are interested, and it becomes clear that, within a few years, results will become the standard by which most nonprofits are judged.
Smaller organizations simply cannot afford to be left behind as the rest of the sector moves inexorably towards outcomes; such an occurrence will only make worse the disadvantages under which so many of them now operate
Nonprofit Guide: If a nonprofit had to choose just one or two things to implement from your book, what do you recommend?
Penna: The answer to that question rests largely with where that organization might be in its use of outcomes already. If the entire subject of outcomes is new, or still very confusing for an organization and its staff, by all means I'd suggest that they start at the beginning and get the first four chapters under their belts.
For the organization that understands the basics of outcomes, their terminology, and how to identify meaningful, sustainable outcome targets, I would suggest beginning with Part Two of the book. Working with Outcomes. Planning (Chapter 5), Capacity Assessment (Chapter 6), and Tracking (Chapter 7) would be the places I would suggest starting. More advanced organizations could benefit from Parts Three and Four.
All that said, Part Two really is the heart of the book and that is the section I would suggest most organizations, if their time and resources are limited, focus upon.
Nonprofit Guide: How can outcomes management help a smallish nonprofit raise more money from donors and grantors?
Penna: Donors of all sorts and stripes are increasingly looking for indications of performance and effectiveness. This is particularly true of donors giving more than $100.
Once an individual’s giving goes beyond limited sums, which are often given on an emotional basis, some measure of impact becomes mandatory. Outcomes management is necessary for even small nonprofits to stay in the game.
But, even small nonprofits can make a compelling case for support if they have evidence of their impact. Traditionally, and particularly for many smaller, local nonprofits, this was not necessary. If the focus was local, and the donors were local, all that was needed was to say “Here is the problem, you are all aware of it, and we’re trying to help solve it.”
In today’s economy, however, even this type of appeal has become harder. Whether the small nonprofit seeks money from the city or county, from a local foundation, from an organization like a local diocese, arts council, or the United Way, resources are scarce and the competition is stiffer than ever.
Given their limited size and often finely-tuned focus, smaller nonprofits are often a lot closer to the situations they address than are their larger, often more well-resourced cousins. This situation, where they are closer to those they serve, operate with fewer intermediaries, and have a more intimate view of positive and negative influences on the community, can give them a unique advantage when it comes to capturing evidence of their impact.
However – and this is a big “however.” It also means that they have to set the right targets, gather the right information, and avoid the usual “feel good stories” that focus on a star individual or case. Charities must learn to tell their stories in a way that does not simply reflect the absence of a problem.
Outcomes management does not have to be an overwhelming undertaking for a small nonprofit. It starts with identifying and setting the right targets, and presenting those in terms that everyone, leadership, staff and stakeholders, understands.
The first step for nonprofits is to identify the indicators that will tell them in real time whether they are on track or not. Then making course corrections when the evidence suggests it is necessary. And by presenting achievements in a way that important audiences understand, and that demonstrate the true value of what the organization is doing.
It does not take a super-computer, massively expensive software, or a high-priced team of analysts. Rather, it takes the commitment of leadership to do this, knowledge of the basics, and a staff trained in the elementary steps.
Appeals for financial support built upon a sound basis of demonstrated effectiveness are the key to fiscal stability for nonprofits, large and small. There are numerous programs, many of them smaller and not particularly well resourced, that have been very successful in using outcomes evidence to enhance their fundraising. It can be done!
Nonprofit Guide: The book is a pretty hefty meal for small nonprofits that are time and resource strapped. How should we approach it in the most productive way?
Penna: The book is designed so that organizations can start at the beginning and work their way through, at their own pace, from simpler concepts to more advanced ones. They can also tackle single chapters as stand-alone primers on various subjects. The book is meant to be comprehensive. But just as one generally does not read the encyclopedia cover to cover in an extended sitting, the Toolbox is best used as a resource for finding answers to immediate pressing.
If you are not sure just what the difference is between “outputs” and “outcomes” or how to communicate your outcomes, once you know them, to your donors, then I think this is the book for you.
The Toolbox is laid out carefully, using easy-to-understand language, lots of case studies and examples, as well as exercises that cut the most daunting theories down to size. As Penna suggests, it is not a book you’ll consume in a couple of sittings, but it might just become one of your favorite resources.
Ken Berger, former President and CEO of Charity Navigator, wrote the foreword to the book, and sums up the hopes of all of us that nonprofits can and will become more accountable:
”Dr. Penna and I both share a dream that, thanks to these tools, some day the most effective and efficient nonprofits will get the vast majority of investment in the time and treasure of our society….Stories are important, but without data to back them up, they are largely meaningless in the bigger picture of changing our world for the better.”
Be sure to check out Penna’s blog.
Inputs, Outputs, Outcomes, Impact - What is the Difference?
How to Improve Donor Retention With Social Media
Taglines and Mission Statements That Play Well Together
7 Steps to Finding Funders for Your Grant
How Nonprofits Can Measure the ROI of Social Media
Active Boards Mean Better Fundraising
How to Use SROI to Show Nonprofit Impact
How to Make a Giving Day Work for Your Charity
How to Take Your Charitable Giving to the Next Level
Where Should Small Charities Look for Grants?
How to Choose the Best Donor Management Software
How to Be On a Nonprofit Board Without Regretting It
Nonprofit Writing 101: Fundraising to Social Media
How Nonprofits Generate Revenue Streams
Top-Rated Nonprofits Protecting the Environment
How to Jumpstart a Monthly Giving Program
The Balance Small Business is part of the Dotdash publishing family.
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The Family Van Makes Boston a Healthier City
By Alyssa A. Botelho, Crimson Staff Writer November 10, 2011
Outside the Dudley Square Station passengers ebb and flow. No city bus idles for long under the metal awning—except for one, with wrap-around blue trim. A woman steps off board.
“Take it easy, Aunty Rai!” she calls. She pockets a small piece of paper, a note of her blood pressure and cholesterol.
She had just paid a visit to The Family Van.
Founded in 1992 by current Medical School Dean for Students Nancy E. Oriol, The Family Van hits the streets of Boston six days a week.
The HMS-affiliated mobile health clinic provides free health screenings for blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol, glaucoma, pregnancy, and HIV counseling for Boston’s most impoverished residents.
From its inception, The Family Van has provided an alternative to the traditional model of health care delivery. Rethinking the doctor-patient relationship by bringing service providers to local communities, The Family Van staff consider their method an important innovation in medicine.
“Aunty Rai”—Manager of Direct Service Rainelle Walker-White—has ridden the van for the past 18 years, providing care in Dorchester, Hyde Park, Mattapan, Roxbury, and East Boston.
“Mobile is beneficial, mobile is keeping people alive,” she says. “What better way to serve your people than where they are?”
Oriol says she was first spurred “to meet people where they are” during her work as an anesthesiologist in 1989.
She says an experience treating a poor, pregnant woman—who ignored headaches for weeks until having a seizure—spurred her to think about barriers to medical care.
“[The woman] told me after her surgery that she ‘hadn’t felt that her headaches were important enough to bother her doctor.’ She did not want to appear stupid,” says Oriol.
Searching for a solution, Oriol ventured into Boston’s forgotten neighborhoods and asked residents about their challenges in accessing a doctor.
Through these conversations, she conceived of a “user-friendly” model of mobile care.
“There is a reticence in every person’s soul when they begin to feel sick—it is human nature,” Oriol says. “Mobile clinics overcome geography, but they also overcome this reticence.”
Oriol adds that communities view The Family Van as a “one of their own—a ‘knowledgeable neighbor.’”
CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS
Many say Oriol’s model of preventive care was ahead of its time. According to Professor of Health Care Policy Richard G. Frank, preventive services were emphasized less as health insurance came to dominate the American health care system.
Frank says that, in his own work for the Department of Health and Human Services from 2009 to 2011, he worked to reinstate the value of preventive care through the Affordable Care Act.
“Now that we have a better understanding about the course of illness and biological mechanisms, we can take a more sophisticated view of prevention,” Frank says. “As the science has evolved, the policy and the insurance are trying to catch up.”
In this vein, The Family Van has turned a critical eye toward the role of mobile medicine in a reformed health care system.
“We are trying to bring evidence of what we know to be true on the street,” Oriol says. “After 20 years of seeing thousands annually, we need to take our stories and turn them into data.”
The barriers to health care for The Family Van’s clients are substantial. In the last fiscal year, 87 percent of the Van’s 4,000 clients were minorities. Thirty-seven percent did not speak English. Thirty-one percent were unemployed.
Over the past six years, Research Program Director Caterina Hill has analyzed data to understand how the Family Van empowers clients to manage their health while controlling costs. The results, she says, “were shockingly good.”
One in three of the van’s clients discovered for the first time through screening that they had glaucoma or elevated blood pressure, glucose, or cholesterol. More than one in two regular clients who had high blood pressure during their first visit had it under control during their most recent visit.
Accounting for the value of emergency department visits avoided and quality life years saved for clients, Hill says the Family Van is worth over $11,000,000. She adds that the return on investment for the American health care system is $23 saved for every dollar spent on the Van.
The Family Van Executive Director Jennifer L. Bennet says the initiative provides a promising model at a time when controlling health care costs has become increasingly urgent.
“As an organization that relies on community health workers, the van is a cost-effective partner with neighborhood health centers to deliver heath education and monitor chronic disease,” she says.
After attending the Mobile Health Clinics Annual Forum in 2006, Bennet discovered that The Family Van’s success had been shared by nearly 2,000 mobile clinics nationally and around the world.
She says mobile clinics have been implemented from China to Africa to Central America. In the Amazon, boats are even being used to deliver mobile health services.
The value of mobile clinics, as Oriol adds, is their versatility.
“Mobile fills in the gaps. When you look across the country, mobile clinics are extremely different because we were all designed to fill different gaps,” she says.
The advantages of mobile health delivery have also caught the attention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The HHS Office of Minority Health announced on October 24 that it would sponsor an initiative to develop a website allowing mobile health clinics to share data online in real-time.
The site is called the Mobile Health Map and will enable researchers to quantify the efficacy of the mobile health model. Oriol and Bennet—alongside leaders of the Mobile Health Clinics Network—are leading this initiative.
With these colleagues, Oriol and Bennet plan to carry out a “return on investment” analysis using the Mobile Health Map—this time for America’s entire mobile health sector.
Many mobile clinics are collecting data on some level “but lack the funding or academic resources to publish papers,” Oriol says.
TRACKING A MOVEMENT
The Mobile Health Map website was built with the guidance of John S. Brownstein, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
Brownstein—an expert on public health surveillance—is also the creator of HealthMap.org, an internet-based global infectious-disease intelligence system.
“Instead of using John’s internet maps to track infectious disease, we use them to track mobile clinics around the country. We can capture how many vans have shared data and the demographics of their clients in real time on our home page,” Bennet says.
Within two weeks after the Mobile Health Map’s unveiling, 400 mobile clinics began to contribute data.
“It is very exciting to research mobile health clinics right now because it a sector that has only just begun to document itself,” Hill says. “[This] is our opportunity come together and demonstrate our value.”
THE PRE-OP VISIT
From conducting a single health screening to collecting a nation’s data on Mobile Health Map, The Family Van staff and volunteers place their clients at the heart of their learning.
Oriol says that her patients have showed her the complexity of accessing basic care—the “antecedents” to surgery.
“I felt I had to go to the community and learn how to do the ‘pre-pre-op’ visit,” she says.
The “pre-pre-op” visit—and the creative thinking it represents—is also what keeps Frank drawn to the field.
“Everything that can go wrong with markets goes wrong with markets in health care—which makes it fascinating,” Frank says.
“BETTER THAN THEY COME ON”
It is 4:30 p.m. and “Aunty Rai” packs up the van. Pamphlets, boxes of free condoms, and cords of blood pressure monitors spill over her arms as she shouts farewell to the last clients. “They always leave better than they come on,” she says.
She walks under the Dudley Station awning and boards the Number 47 back to her Longwood office as the van driver takes the blue-trimmed bus back to the garage.
They’ll be in Hyde Park Tuesday morning.
—Staff writer Alyssa A. Botelho can be reached at abotelho@college.harvard.edu.
Multi-Page View
Exhibit Showcases Cold War Curricula
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Hedley frontman Jacob Hoggard returns to a Toronto court this morning for alleged sexual assault-related charges. (Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Hedley frontman Jacob Hoggard to stand trial in sex assault case
Ontario Court Justice Mara Greene decided that the case should proceed
Jacob Hoggard, the frontman for the Canadian rock band Hedley, will stand trial on three sex-related charges involving a woman and a teenager, a judge ruled Friday.
Ontario Court Justice Mara Greene decided that the case should proceed after prosecutors gave an overview of their evidence and Hoggard’s lawyer agreed it met the threshold for a trial.
The evidence was presented over a two-day preliminary hearing in Toronto.
READ MORE: Hedley frontman’s alleged sex offences case returns to court
It cannot be divulged, however, due to a publication ban meant to protect the accused’s right to a fair trial. A publication ban is also in place to protect the identities of the complainants.
Hoggard, 35, nodded silently as the judge gave her decision, then sat back down next to his lawyer.
Earlier in the hearing, the singer pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual assault causing bodily harm and one count of sexual interference. He also requested to be tried by a jury.
Hoggard was arrested and charged last summer after allegations of sexual misconduct emerged.
Toronto police have said the charges relate to three separate incidents involving a woman and a girl under the age of 16 that allegedly occurred in the Toronto area in 2016.
Hoggard has previously denied engaging in non-consensual sexual behaviour, but has said he acted in a way that objectifies women.
ALSO READ: Hedley singer Jacob Hoggard marries on New Year’s Eve in Vancouver
“I understand the significant harm that is caused not only to the women I interacted with, but to all women who are degraded by this type of behaviour,” he said on Twitter last year. “I have been careless and indifferent and I have no excuse. For this I am truly sorry.”
Hedley, a two-time Juno-winning band based in Vancouver, has been on an indefinite hiatus since the allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced. Its last show was in Kelowna, B.C., on March 24, 2018.
The group was also dropped by its management team, blacklisted by several radio stations and renounced by other performers booked on their tour.
Fans of the band have attended at least one previous hearing in the case even when Hoggard was absent.
A trial date has not yet been set but a hearing in the case is scheduled for Aug. 23.
Paola Loriggio , The Canadian Press
Two southern resident orcas missing as experts fear for the population
Huckleberry harvesting restricted to protect grizzly habitat
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This article is more than 11 years old
Cormac McCarthy bestseller wins James Tait Black
Michelle Pauli
Tue 28 Aug 2007 08.07 EDT First published on Tue 28 Aug 2007 08.07 EDT
'Deeply honoured' ... Cormac McCarthy. Photograph: AP
The American author Cormac McCarthy, long revered for the hardbitten poetry of his novels, has won the UK's oldest and most literary of book awards.
The 74-year-old, was awarded the James Tait Black memorial prize, worth £10,000, for his bleak vision of a post-apocalyptic America, The Road. The book won a Pulitzer, the US's pre-eminent literary prizes, earlier this year, and is being widely noised as a strong Nobel contender. The novel describes the journey of a father and son who are heading south in a world where a disaster has occurred, reducing nature to a nuclear-grey winter and humans to savage, scavenging cannibals. While the landscape is scorched and some of the set-piece encounters almost Beckettian, the nightmare vision is leavened by McCarthy's austere language and his description of the powerful bond between the boy and his father.
The book, McCarthy's 10th, has been hailed by critics as a masterpiece but it has also achieved commercial success, having been featured by Oprah Winfrey's television book club. An American cousin to the UK's Richard and Judy Book Club, the show is capable of giving a gigantic boost to sales, and caused controversy some years back when Jonathan Franzen, whose novel The Corrections had been selected by Winfrey, was de-selected when he said the show's attention made him "cringe".
The notoriously reclusive McCarthy surprised commentators by agreeing to be interviewed by Winfrey on the show - he is better known for living quietly and simply in the desert of New Mexico, where many of his books are set. He did not attend the award ceremony in Edinburgh at the weekend, but sent the message that he was "very honoured" through his publisher, Macmillan.
McCarthy beat another critical-commercial crossover success to the award - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie with her epic tale of the Biafra war, Half of a Yellow Sun. The Nigerian-born 29-year-old has already won the Orange prize with the book, while also achieving bestseller status with a sales boost from a Richard and Judy endorsement.
Also in the running were the acclaimed Canadian short story writer Alice Munro for The View from Castle Rock; Sarah Waters for her reverse-chronological account of the second world war, The Night Watch; James Lasdun with his thriller, Seven Lies; and debut novelist Ray Robinson with Electricity.
In addition to the fiction prize, the James Tait Black also recognises biography with a £10,000 award. This year's winner was Byron Rogers for his life of the Welsh poet RS Thomas, The Man Who Went Into the West
Established in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial prize is one of the most venerable on the awards roster and its past winners include some of the 20th century's greatest writers, from DH Lawrence and EM Forster to Evelyn Waugh and Irish Murdoch. However, the prize's failure to reflect its impressive heritage in its public profile led two years ago to an overhaul of the awards to coincide with Edinburgh's appointment as Unesco's inaugural World City of Literature. Colin Nicholson, the professor of literature at Edinburgh University who took over the management of the awards said at the time, "we are taking it from the ivory towers to the marketplace".
As a result, the prize money has trebled to £20,000, making the awards the largest literary prizes on offer in Scotland. However, it still remains the only literary prize to be awarded by a university and traditionally the shortlists have been selected by staff and graduate students in the University of Edinburgh's department of English literature with the winner chosen by the professor of English. This year the shortlist and eventual winners are selected by professor Colin Nicholson and Dr Roger Savage. Last year's winner was Ian McEwan with Saturday, his tale of a London neurosurgeon and his family, set on the day of the anti-Iraq war protest.
James Tait Black memorial prize
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Most UK parents back air pollution exclusion zones around schools
Exclusive: 60% of parents want traffic to be diverted away from schools at peak times to protect children’s health, a new study shows
Matthew Taylor
Mon 26 Feb 2018 06.55 EST Last modified on Mon 26 Feb 2018 17.00 EST
Children cross the road in heavy traffic outside their school in Hackney, London. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian
The majority of UK parents back the introduction of “pollution exclusion zones” outside schools amid growing concern that illegal levels of air pollution are doing long term damage to hundreds of thousands of young people.
A new study published on Monday by environmental law organisation ClientEarth reveals that 60% of parents want traffic diverted away from school gates at the beginning and end of the school day, with just 13% opposed.
Last year a Guardian investigation revealed that hundreds of thousands of children are being exposed to illegal levels of damaging air pollution outside their schools and colleges – mainly from diesel vehicles.
Check whether your child's school is exposed to illegal levels of air pollution
Health experts have repeatedly warned that exposure to this level of air pollution is doing serious long term damage to children’s health and have described the issue as a public health emergency.
The government has been widely criticised for its lack of action and last week it was defeated for the third time in the high court where its air pollution plans were described as “flawed” and “unlawful.”
Alison Cook, director of policy at the British Lung Foundation, said: “For parents, there is nothing worse than worrying about the health and wellbeing of your child. Yet in Britain we’ve reached a point where children are exposed to damaging levels of air pollution every day. This is simply unacceptable.”
Cook said children’s lungs are far more vulnerable than adults, as they are still developing, and toxic air can stunt their growth.
“Children who grow up to have smaller lungs are likely to have significant health problems in later life, and therefore the negative health effects of dirty air on children need to be given far greater prominence.”
ClientEarth and the British Lung Foundation are launching a new Clean Air Parents’ Network, set up for concerned parents across the country who want to help solve the UK’s air pollution crisis.
Andrea Lee, a senior campaigner at ClientEarth which took the government to court last week, said: “It’s clear from these findings that parents are deeply worried about the air their children are breathing and want something done about it.
“The Clean Air Parents’ Network will help them start conversations and engage with local and national decision-makers who have not just a moral but a legal duty to take urgent and bold action to tackle the illegal and harmful levels of air pollution that are putting their families’ health at risk.”
Monday’s poll, carried out by YouGov for ClientEarth, also found that 63% of parents opposed new schools being built in areas of high pollution; 60% were worried about the effect that air pollution was having on their children’s health and 70% were in favour of the government alerting schools on high pollution days.
The results follow ClientEarth’s third court victory against the UK government over illegal and harmful levels of air pollution across the country.
On Wednesday last week, Mr Justice Garnham ruled ministers’ plans to bring down air pollution unlawful. Following the judgment, clean air in the UK will be overseen by the courts, rather than ministers, in what was described as a “wholly exceptional” ruling.
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General Choi Hong-hi
Dakin Burdick
Thu 8 Aug 2002 20.30 EDT First published on Thu 8 Aug 2002 20.30 EDT
General Choi Hong-hi, who has died aged 83 of stomach cancer, was a prime mover in the development of the Korean martial art of taekwondo: he helped to shape it, name it and spread it to 123 nations, often through personal visits. His title derived from a career that took him to the rank of major general in the South Korean army.
Choi's martial arts achievements were threefold. First, in 1952 he brought about the adoption of training in martial arts as an aid to South Korean military conditioning. Secondly, he supported the development of Korean karate, given the name taekwondo in 1955, which he believed was "superior in both spirit and technique to Japanese karate". Lastly, he and his students spread taekwondo across the globe, and saw it become a medal sport in Sydney at the 2000 Olympics.
Korean practitioners argued over a number of names for the form of Korean karate unified during the 1950s and 60s, but Choi won acceptance for taekwondo ("way of kick and fist"), and in 1966 founded the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF).
For the rest of his life, he led demonstration tours all over the world. His first manual in English, Taekwon-Do (1965), eventually led to the publication of an entire encyclopedia on the art in 1985.
Born in what is now North Korea when it was under Japanese occupation, Choi fled to Japan to complete his education after a wrestler was set on his trail following a gambling dispute. In 1942, he was drafted into the Japanese army, but was imprisoned for attempting to escape to join the opposition Korean Liberation Army in 1945. Only the liberation of Korea saved him from the death penalty.
After the war, the division of Korea between north and south left him unable to return to the land of his birth. He rose quickly in the new South Korean army, and, two years after the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950, he created an officer training programme and an infantry division that provided taekwondo instructors.
After the cessation of hostilities in 1953, his rise continued, and in 1961 he supported the military coup d'état, but suffered a setback when General Park Chung-Hee emerged as the new president. In the late 1940s, Park had received a death sentence, later rescinded, from a military panel that had included Choi, who was thus forced to retire from the military following the coup.
In 1962, he was sent to Malaysia as ambassador, but after his return to South Korea in 1965 he continued to find life under the Park regime so intolerable that in 1972 he left for Canada. Choi took the headquarters of the ITF to Toronto with him, and South Korea responded by forming a new organisation, the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF), based in Seoul.
Choi's final years were marked by his efforts to return to North Korea. He introduced taekwondo there in 1980, and won further favour with the government by changing the name of one solo practice form from kodang (after a North Korean democratic Christian moderate, presumed slain by the Red Army in 1946) to juche (after the isolationist policy of "self-reliance" advocated by North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung). Though Choi's intention had been reconciliatory, unfortunately South Korea saw it as treasonous.
Shortly before his death in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, Choi was able to announce through the ITF website, "I am the man who has the most followers in the world": be that as it may, the impact of taekwondo, with 50m practitioners after 50 years of existence, is undeniable.
Choi leaves his wife, two daughters and a son.
· Choi Hong-hi, martial arts expert, born November 9 1918; died June 15 2002
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From Beijing to Jakarta, Asia's lungs take the 'prize' for worst year
Curtis S. Chin and Jose B. Collazo
Washington / Sat, January 30, 2016 / 04:02 pm
As large parts of Asia celebrate the arrival of the Lunar New Year (on Feb. 8), it's in with the Year of the Monkey.
But before the lunar year past and the Year of the Sheep fully recedes into memory, we take a look back at the people and events that made headlines across Asia, for good and for bad.
Our choice last time around for worst year in Asia went to Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority ' persecuted at home and increasingly ignored by business and political leaders hungry to engage with the new Burma. Time will tell whether their plight will be any better under a Parliament new led by the party of one-time democracy activist and icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
When 2015 wrapped, we took to CNN to share an initial take on the best and worst of the year behind us. A deadly earthquake in Nepal and landmark elections ' in Myanmar, of course, but also in Singapore and most recently in Taiwan ' as well as South China Sea territorial disputes and trans-Pacific trade deals captured regional news headlines providing fertile ground for our choices.
In some nations, like Australia, government leaders changed quickly. In others, including Thailand, they did not.
So, as the lunar Year of the Monkey arrives, here is our updated list of this past year's 'winners,' from bad to good. Congratulations of a sort to all.
Worst year: Asia's lungs ' for facing down 'airpocalypse' now
All too often and across too many parts of Asia, including in Southeast Asia, starting the day has meant donning a facemask or perhaps a hacking cough. The culprit is the region's declining air quality as development brought more factories and cars to an increasingly urbanized region.
This is particularly true in some of the region's largest nations, China, India and Indonesia ' but also in their neighbors. Pollution knows no boundaries.
India's National Health Profile reported nearly 3.5 million cases of acute respiratory infection in 2014. That's a 30 percent increase since 2010. The World Health Organization says 13 of the top 20 most polluted cities worldwide are in India.
In China, Beijing issued its first ever 'red alert' smog days as the nation's notorious pollution returned with a vengeance this winter. Now banned in China, CCTV reporter Chai Jing's online documentary 'Under the Dome' told of how her country's poor air quality contributed to the premature death of 500,000 people from cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory disease.
Development brought more factories and cars to an increasingly urbanized region.
And in Southeast Asia, a 'haze' from fires used to clear forest land in Indonesia for agricultural use led to school and business closures. Thousands sought care for respiratory ailments and at least 19 deaths were reported as smoke darkened skies in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and even parts of Thailand and the Philippines.
Bad year: Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak ' for taking Asian forbearance for granted
The latest development in an alleged corruption scandal from a nation that touts itself as 'Truly Asia,' has Malaysian Attorney General Apandi Ali declaring that Prime Minister Najib Razak has committed no criminal offence.
The declaration followed an investigation into how some US$700 million showed up in Najib's personal bank accounts. Apandi has said the money was a donation from Saudi Arabia, and has since been returned.
All this followed the Wall Street Journal's reporting that the money was possibly linked to the financially troubled 1Malaysia Development Berhad ( 1MDB ). The state-owned investment company 1MDB had been founded in part by Najib to invest in property, infrastructure and energy projects.
What's next? Stay tuned for the next '1MDB Scandal' episode from Malaysia. The nation's antigraft agency has sought a review of the attorney general's decision to clear Najib, and investigations reportedly continue outside the country.
Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad also continues to call for his successor's departure.
Not-so-good-year: India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo ' for believing their own hype a little too much
Last year, we gave Asia's 'new management' ' Modi and Jokowi along with China's Xi Jinping and Japan's Shinzo Abe ' the award for best year in Asia. Modi and Jokowi were seen as pro-business and reform-minded with agendas that had the potential to kick into high gear their countries' economies.
What a difference a year makes. Entrenched economic interests and a 'little bric' of bureaucracy, regulation, interventionism and corruption continue to impede the structural changes needed to attract more foreign direct investment and drive long-term job creation.
Struggling Chinese and Japanese economies, Jokowi's declining approval ratings and the defeat of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party in two regional elections signal that the honeymoon is over. Japan wrapped up the year by introducing negative interest rates. Meanwhile, China's currency and stock market interventions risk being seen as more about trust in market manipulation than market forces.
Good year: Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ' for putting some oomph into the US pivot to Asia
Disagreements over 'rule of origin' and pharmaceutical and diary products threatened to delay once again the conclusion of negotiations for the TPP, a major international trade pact. But, on Oct. 5 came news that negotiators had overcome all obstacles and reached agreement.
Begun in 2007 as an exploratory services and investment negotiation between Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore and the United States during the Administration of president George W. Bush, the TPP now encompasses 12 Pacific-rim nations and covers 40 percent of world trade.
TPP signatories Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US, and Vietnam must each now ratify the deal.
That is where the hard work truly begins. This is especially true in the United States where trade agreements don't fare well during an election year.
Even the leading Democratic candidates have come out to join Donald Trump against what should be one of the Obama Administration's signature accomplishments. In Japan, Akira Amari, the nation's economics minister and a leading proponent of the TPP, recently resigned over a bribery scandal.
That doesn't stop us from awarding the TPP the honor of 'good year in Asia.'
Best year: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) ' for shaking up the status quo
When China first floated the idea of establishing a new development bank to help finance Asia's infrastructure, critics countered by asking whether it was necessary. Others feared a new China-led AIIB would become an extension of Chinese power and a further challenge to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, led respectively by American and Japanese presidents.
The United States and Japan in particular also raised questions about governance and project-lending 'standards' at the AIIB.
But money talks. The United Kingdom was the first US ally to break ranks with the Obama Administration over joining the new AIIB.
Nearly 60 nations, including Myanmar and the rest of Southeast Asia, ultimately signed on as founding members of the new $100 billion institution. And the first projects are expected to be announced by April if not sooner.
Curtis S. Chin, a former US ambassador to the Asian Development Bank, is managing director of advisory firm RiverPeak Group, LLC. Jose B. Collazo is a Southeast Asia analyst and an associate at RiverPeak Group.
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Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 2012
After months and month of waiting the Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 2012 has showed its face to the world. The car was launched at the Geneva Motor Show. This impressive model has taken everyone’s breath away through its V 12 engine with a 700 horse power.
The company has gained a reputation for the strange names it gives to it cars. It is said that the name of this model ‘Aventador’ comes from a bull which entered the Saragossa Arena in 1993 to fight and won a title for his great bravery. From this we have made the transition to the car and realized that what Lamborghini meant is that they have the courage to go and compete with a new generation of sports cars. In our days the market has become very high tech and we have noticed a whole lot of competitors entering this it.
The manufacturer has said that the Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 represents a transition over two generations as far as technology and design are concerned. For the company this was an entirely new project but is still keep the specific elements of Lamborghini.
As far as dimensions are concerned it is 4.78 m in length, 1.136 in height and 2.26 wide. The the car was designed then engineers wanted to make it as aerodynamic as possible which is why they had to change the normal dimensions of the car. All the elements which help the car become more dynamic are integrated in the shell of the car.
If you want to buy this particular car you will have the possibility to choose from 13 different colors. Here are some of the colors which you can choose from: Arancio Argos, Bianco Canopus, Grigio Estoque and AD Personam. Nowadays a huge pallet of colors has become available to those who want to have a different Lamborghini.
The interior is available in leather only in two colors: Marrone Elpis and the Nero Alde. With these two leather colors we have two styles available: the first one is a combination between the black leather and orange, white, green or yellow and the second one is a combination between the other one offers a combination between different tones of brown.
The engine of the Lamborgini is a V12 with a capacity of 6.5 liters and 700 horse power at a price of $387,000. It has the pring from 0 to 60 mph of 2.9 seconds.
2012 Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 Pictures Gallery
2012 Jaguar XKR-S
Ferrari 458 Spider 2012
The new BMW 3 Series
Ferrari unvailes the new FF
2012 Bentley Supersports Ice Speed
Maserati GranCabrio Sport
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United Nations Treaty Series
Treaty Series 2674
No. 47539: Germany and Rwanda
2014 Treaty Series 2674
In accordance with Article 102 of the Charter and the relevant General Assembly Resolutions, every treaty and international agreement registered or filed and recorded with the Secretariat since 1946 is published in the United Nations Treaty Series. At present, the collection includes about 30,000 treaties reproduced in their authentic languages, together with translations into English and French, as necessary. The Treaty Series, where treaties are published in the chronological order of registration, also provides details about their subsequent history (i.e., participation in a treaty, reservations, amendments, termination, etc.). Comprehensive Indices covering 50-volume-lots are published separately. A Standing Order service is available for the Series and out-of-print volumes are available on microfiche.
https://doi.org/10.18356/ac4b9686-en-fr
Click to download PDF - 11.70MB
Agreement between the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Government of the Republic of Rwanda concerning financial cooperation in 2009. Kigali, 9 February 2010
https://doi.org/10.18356/1af61043-en-fr
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/component/1af61043-en-fr
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Movie Discussion > Interviews > Interview with Winnie director Darrell Roodt
Interview with Winnie director Darrell Roodt
By Alexandra Heilbron on October 4, 2012 | 1 Comment
Director Darrell Roodt was born and raised in South Africa. Just a baby when Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment, he remembers the turbulent, violent time of apartheid. His new movie, Winnie, which opens nationwide in Canada this Friday, October 5, tells the story of Nelson Mandela’s wife, Winnie Mandela. Based on the book by Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob, Winnie Mandela: A Life, the movie stars Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson in the lead role.
Roodt believes Winnie had more effect on the eventual liberation of blacks in South Africa than her husband Nelson Mandela, who was in prison for 27 years while Winnie was on the outside, fighting for her rights.
The movie shows Winnie as a girl who so desperately wants her father’s love that she tried her best to be the boy he always wanted. She learned to be tough by being the only girl to participate in stick fighting with boys. This early experience may have helped give her the strength she needed later in life, when she carried on her husband’s message while he was incarcerated and when she was imprisoned in solitary confinement for months, wearing only the nightgown she was arrested in.
Roodt made his first film when he was 23, called Place of Weeping, a drama about injustice towards black South Africans when a Zulu farmhand is murdered and no one cares.
Did you ever see any of the violence that was connected with the fight for liberation?
Oh, yeah! It was everywhere, it was all around us constantly. It was a war out there on the streets. It was tough times. It was a great time to be young, fighting that fight. I did it with movies, others did it with machine guns.
How is Winnie regarded in South Africa today?
She’s still a polarizing figure. Some people love her, some people hate her. But I think if you ask the man on the street, the man in the rural area, he would definitely still support Winnie because she still stands for what she believes in, in terms of equality. She hasn’t gotten caught up in the murkiness of practical politics in South Africa. Because it’s one thing to have a noble cause and it’s another thing to actually implement it. It’s very tricky.
Do you think the violence she condoned was necessary to get the world to pay attention and to overcome the prejudice?
Well, I think it was because no one was listening. When she started off her struggle, she tried to do it the nice way. She’d go to newspaper journalists and say, “Excuse me, my husband’s in jail for life for something he didn’t do wrong. Can you please write about it?” And they kind of poo-pooed her. So she took the faster way.
Terrence Howard was incredible as Nelson. How did you come to cast him?
He was my first choice. I’ve been a fan of his for years, I just think he’s an extraordinary actor. He’s got an uncanny resemblance to Mandela. Especially the younger Mandela. It’s uncanny the resemblance. And you know, someone like Terrence is astonishing because he’s an actor who loves his craft and he invests in it with his whole soul. Even six months before coming to Africa, he was already in his mind’s eye, Nelson. When I had phone conversations with him, it would be like talking to Nelson Mandela on the telephone, it was quite extraordinary.
It was really moving the way he played it, portraying Nelson’s gentleness as well as his strength.
Yeah, and something I was also trying to do there — I wasn’t just trying to show “the messiah” — the E.T. of politics, I really wanted to show him as a human being — an infallible human being, too. When he’s sitting in jail and people are filtering information to him about his wife sleeping around, that was also like a campaign to unnerve and unravel him. I love that scene where he bangs the table and accuses her of sleeping with someone, it’s just like, it’s so wrong. Because not only are they fighting the fight but now they’re fighting each other.
Why was there opposition to casting Jennifer Hudson as Winnie?
South Africans are very proud people, as are all nations. So when it comes to such icons as Winnie and Nelson, there was a big outcry as to why I was casting Americans. But I just used to say, “I’m not casting Americans; I’m casting great actors.” And, I need a certain amount of money to make the film I want in my mind’s eye, so I’ve got no option but to cast great actors to get the money to make a great movie.
Winnie is a South African/Canadian co-production. How did that come about?
There’s a fantastic treaty between the two countries in terms of an exchange. The South African producer hooked up with the Canadian producer and the Canadian brought the cinematographer, the editing and we brought the rest. It was a fantastic synergy that went down. It was really interesting to work with the Canadians. For example, the cinematographer was saying, “What about this?” And I’d say, “Yeah, wow, I hadn’t thought of that.” I took [the beauty of South Africa] for granted.
What is it like in South Africa today? Has it changed from when you were a youngster?
Look, the liberation of South Africa was a wonderful thing. For years, people were oppressed. But the problem now in South Africa is that the ANC (African National Congress) have been in here for 20 years and yes of course, things are fundamentally changed for the better. And you can’t blame the ANC for not changing everything in just two decades, it’s not possible because apartheid left a gigantic scar. That will require a lot of time to heal. But at the moment there’s a lot of dissent on the streets because there’s not enough change. For example, I shot in Soweto [South Western Townships, where black people who were evicted from their homes by the government, which wanted to establish all-white cities and towns, were forced to live starting in 1948] back in the day and I shoot in Soweto now, and if you ask me, very little’s changed.
So there are still people who don’t agree with blacks getting equal rights?
No, no, no, I think that’s all accepted. It’s the man on the street who finds himself poorer than ever before. This is an interesting sidebar, but it’s a bone of contention between Winnie and Nelson for example to this day, is that a lot of people said [Nelson] was too easy on white South Africa because the forgiveness came too quickly. We had Truth and Reconciliation committees, blah, blah, blah, but a lot of people are saying that what he should have done is nationalize the mines, the farms, etc., so that process could have started immediately and so by now, have stabilized. But the problem is, it’s still all controlled by Big Business.
Was there a movie that inspired you as a youngster to want to become a director?
Two films. Taxi Driver and Apocalypse Now. (laughs)
One last question – what’s next for you?
I’ve just made — excuse me for saying so — a wonderful little film called Little One. And on Friday we were accepted as the South African representative for the Oscars. So that’s fantastic.
Wow! That’s terrific.
It’s a wonderful film about the little people and it’s just an incredible story. It’s about this six-year-old girl who’s raped by three men who attack her and beat her up savagely. And the woman who finds her, this very poor woman, saves her life and gets her to the hospital, but once she’s in the hospital no one comes forward to rescue this little girl. This is based on a true story. And the woman who found her tries to adopt this little girl but because she’s poor, she can’t. So she actually kidnaps the kid away from the hospital once she’s recovered and then she makes it her mission to find this little girl’s mother. But by the time she reunites her with her mother at the end, of course, these two have bonded fundamentally, but she has to let this little girl go. It’s so moving.
That sounds amazing. Will it be released in Canada?
Yes, it will, ultimately. Hopefully it’ll win the bloody Oscar. (laughs)
~Alexandra Heilbron
basketball jerseys clipart • November 14, 2014 @ 12:09 PM
First off I would like to say wonderful blog! I had a quick question in which I’d like to ask if you don’t mind. I was curious to find out how you center yourself and clear your thoughts prior to writing. I’ve had a difficult time clearing my thoughts in getting my thoughts out. I do enjoy writing however it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are usually lost just trying to figure out how to begin. Any recommendations or hints? Thank you!
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Darrell Roodt Jennifer Hudson Nelson Mandela Terrence Howard Winnie winnie mandela
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Sankofa Freedom Award
African-American Resource Center
(San-Ko-Fah)
A symbol of wisdom and learning from the past to build for the future (Literal meaning: Go Back to Fetch It)
Sankofa means "go back to the past in order to build for the future," or we should not forget our past when moving ahead. Sankofa is a realization of self and spirit. It represents the concepts of self-identity, redefinition and vision. It symbolizes an understanding of one's destiny and collective identity of the larger cultural group.
Sankofa is symbolic of the spiritual mind-set and cultural awakening African people were experiencing in the decades after independence on the African continent. The Sankofa bird is used to represent Sankofa. The symbol is of a bird turning its head backward and its long beak is turned in the direction of its tail.
-The Adinkra Dictionary by W. Bruce Willis
The Sankofa Freedom Award was established in 2005 by the African American Resource Center and the Tulsa Library Trust. The purpose of this biennial award is to recognize a nationally prominent author whose life's work positively addresses the range and complexity of cultural, economic and political issues affecting the greater African-American community.
The award consists of an engraved plaque and a prize of $10,000. The recipient will give a public address on the day of the awards presentation.
A Sankofa Author Selection Committee appointed by the AARC Coordinator determines the candidates for the award, without receipt of any applications from authors, publishers or outside nominators.
Hill Harper, 2012 Sankofa Winner
Pearl Cleage, 2010 Sankofa Winner
Nikki Giovanni, 2008 Sankofa Winner
Tavis Smiley, 2016 Sankofa Winner
Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, 2006 Sankofa Winner
Susan L. Taylor, 2014 Sankofa Winner
Iyanla Vanzant, 2018 Sankofa Winner
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When the Impossible Becomes Possible - The Secrets of Flow Revealed with Steven Kotler
July 26, 2018 by Lace Gilger in High Performance, Mind Expansion
In this episode we discuss how the impossible becomes possible. We look at how to create paradigm shifting breakthroughs, dig into the science and research at the frontier of peak human performance to understand what’s at the core of nearly every gold medal or world championship - the powerful concept of flow. How do we create flow in our lives, how can we use it as a tool to become 400% more creative and learn skills 200% faster? We dig into this and much more with our guest Steven Kotler.
Steven Kotler is a New York Times bestselling author, an award-winning journalist and the cofounder and director of research of the Flow Genome Project. His most recent work, Stealing Fire, was a national bestseller and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Steven’s work have been translated into over 40 languages and appeared in over 100 publications, including The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Wired and TIME.
Wherever people are taking huge risks to change the world, you find flow
How do you create Paradigm Shifting Breakthroughs?
Whenever you see the impossible become possible you see two things:
People leverage and take advantage of disruptive technology
People finding ways to extend human capacity
Peak performance is about being fanatical - repeating, week after week, year after year, for your entire career. You have to have that level of hunger, motivation, and drive
Steven’s work is focused on studying the peak performance state known as Flow
How can we use Flow to massively level up performance?
Major Characteristics of Flow
Flow is definable - it has core characteristics
Complete Concentration
Flow is measurable
Flow is universal
Flow is a spectrum experience - you can be in micro flow or macro flow
Flow often mistaken for a mystical experience before it was measured and studied
Similarities and differences between flow and addiction?
What’s the relationship between the Brain’s default mode network and flow?
People who have the highest life satisfaction have the most flow in their lives
Every gold medal or world championship that’s been won - had flow at it’s core
McKinsey did a 10 year study on flow - it made top executives 500% more effective
Flow creates a 400% - 700% increase in creativity
Can that really be true?
What is creativity?
Soldiers learn skills 230% faster in flow states
What is creativity and how do you measure it?
The act of creating
Problem formation, idea generation, pattern recognition
Triangle of High Performance - the foundational principle of ultimate performance in today’s world
When you’re in a flow state you’re actually using LESS of your brain not more of it
Your brain is burning a lot of energy and so it shut’s this part of the brain down
As your need for concentration goes up, the brain starts shutting down non-critical areas to maximize attention
Why does time pass so strangely in flow states?
Your sense of self falls apart when you move into a flow state - increasing your performance
Flow shifts your brain wave function profoundly
Flow also creates a huge dump of positive neurochemicals and stress hormones are flushed out of your system and replaced with “big five” neurochemicals
All five of these chemicals are pleasure drugs / reward drugs
Flow is one of, if not the most, addictive experiences on earth
Creativity is recombinatory - it’s what happens when your brain combines new ideas with old information and creates something new
It’s early days in flow research - but neuroscience is still trying to figure out huge pieces of the data and research
Flow is a tool, it can be used for good, it can used for ill
Playing a video game puts you in a flow state
Anybody can access flow because flow stats have triggers - flow is universal provided certain initial conditions are met
One of the most important triggers is the challenge/skills balance - when the challenge slightly exceeds our skillset
Complete Concentration is the #1 Necessary Pre-Requisite for Creating Flow States
“F*ck Off I’m Flowing"
You need 90-120 min periods with total concentration
No email, no pop-ins, no distractions, etc
How do you tune the challenge/skills balance to trigger flow states?
If your challenge can be 4% greater than your skills you’re in the right zone
Its totally arbitrary - it changes every day for every individual - and even within individuals
Discomfort is a great trigger to know you’re about to get into a flow state
Peak performers have the problem of biting off too much of a challenge - puts too much fear into the equation and ends up blocking flow and locking yourself out of peak performance
Chunk those challenges into smaller and smaller sub challenge until they’re “slightly challenging”
You have to go slow to go fast
“Let my people go surfing” - Patagonia
Training up flow while you’re surfing trains the brain to enter flow states in general
Heightened creativity lasts for several days
Conscious altered and being focused is usually 1-1.5 hrs
How long do flow triggers carry over from fun activities?
You can’t live in flow all the time
You have to move through the whole cycle before you can restart a flow state
A place where most people screw up Flow - they take the amplified creativity from flow and ride it til the very bitter end until they are very exhausted. That makes it more difficult to jump into flow the next time.
Take yourself near the end and then call it quits.
Rest & Recovery is a core component of repeatedly re-entering flow states
Reset your consciousness/ focus on another problem
Active recovery protocols are really important
Watching TV and drinking a beer is not a good recovery protocol
Long Sauna
Hot bath, massages
The intersection of flow states and the Science of Spirituality
The same neurobiological states from flow show up in the same place as mystical experiences, psychedelic states, states of awe, near death experiences. All of these experiences neurobiologically are very very similar.
There is biology behind our mythology - mystical experiences are very similar to flow states.
Psychedelics are super powerful for healing capacity, but there are some positive applications to boosting creativity and more.
Psychedelic experiences are biologically indistinguishable from spiritual experiences
Oneness with everything - the perennial philosophy - in every major tradition on earth
From Tibetan buddhist to Franciscan nuns - the brain experience of being “one with everything” is the same
In Science, at every level of scale you see one-ness. The separation from the universe is a controlled illusion maintained by the brain. From quantum cells to stardust - we are one with the universe.
We don’t live in reality - we live an estimated construction built by our brain. We create reality as we go along.
[Book] Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
[Book] The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance by Steven Kotler
[Book] Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work by Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal
[Book] Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
[Wiki Article] Marsh Chapel Experiment
[Website] Andrew Newberg
[Website] Flow Genome Project
[Quiz] Flow Genome Project Quiz
[Personal Site] Steven Kotler
[SoS Episode] Seven Catalysts To Creating Progress and Becoming A More Effective Leader with Dr. Teresa Amabile
In this episode, we discuss how the possible becomes possible. We look at how to create paradigm-shifting breakthroughs, dig into the science and research at the frontier of peak human performance to understand what's at the core of nearly every gold medal and world championship; the powerful concept of flow. How do we create flow in our lives? How can we use it as a tool to become 400% more creative or learn skills 200% faster? We dig into this and much more with our guest, Steven Kotler.
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In our previous episode, we discussed how to make better decisions under conditions of uncertainty. We look at the worst call in the history of football, discussed examples from life, business, and even high-stakes poker to understand how to make the best possible decision in a world filled with unknowns.
What exactly is a good decision? Is that different from a good outcome? We look at this key question and uncover the wisdom hidden in the reality that these two things might be completely different. All of these and much more with our previous guest, Annie Duke.
Now, for our interview with Steven.
[0:03:01.3] MB: Today, we have another awesome guest on the show, Steven Kotler. Steven is a New York Times best-selling author, award-winning journalist and the cofounder and director of research of the Flow Genome Project. His most recent work, Stealing Fire, was a national bestseller and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His work has been translated in over 40 languages and appeared in over 100 publications including the New York Times, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and much more.
Steven, welcome to The Science of Success.
[0:03:28.9] SK: Matt, thanks for having me.
[0:03:29.8] MB: Well, we’ve very excited to have you on the show today. As I was kind of telling you in the preshow conversation, I’m a big fan of your work and I’ve been reading your books for a number of years. So it's great to have you on the show and kind of dig into some of the stuff you've been working on recently.
[0:03:42.8] SK: Thank you. It’s really nice you say.
[0:03:44.3] MB: So I want to start out with one of the ideas that you've written and talked about and I find really interesting, which is this kind of notion of creating paradigm-shifting breakthroughs. What exactly does that mean and how did you kind of come to the place of sort of thinking about those?
[0:04:00.6] SK: At sort of at the center of the work I do has always been a kind of a singular question, which is; what does it take to do the impossible? What I mean by that is what does it take to achieve paradigm-shifting breakthroughs, or huge kind of levels up and in-game, and this is cross domains, right? I was interested in sports, in science, in technology, in business, wherever people are taking on huge and significant challenges. That’s sort of where you find me, and usually what you see is whenever you see the impossible becoming possible, in my experience you see one of two things interacting, right? You see people leveraging and taking advantage of disruptive technology and you see people finding ways to extend human capability. So I tend to play at the intersection of those two things.
[0:04:50.2] MB: So I want to dig into that a little bit more. When you talk about this kind of idea of making the impossible become possible, and I know you’ve studied in many cases kind of worked alongside these people, like extreme athletes and really peak performers. Are these lessons that can actually be applied to sort of individual normal people or do they only really work for kind of extreme athletes and astronauts and these kind of top people?
[0:05:16.0] SK: Two-part answer, all right? I’m going to give you the user-friendly part one is, yes, of course. I mean, that's one of the amazing lessons of this kind of work. Bold, essentially – Abundance is a book about people solving impossible challenges in the world with technology. Bold is a book for how anybody can solve those challenges in the world of technology and build business around the ideas and such. Bold is the application of that stuff.
Rise of Superman looks at action, adventure sports athletes who are extending the bounds of physical possibility, redefining kind of the physical limits of those species, and it kind of breaks down a little of how. I think Steel and Fire gives you much more of the application of that in ordinary lives. It takes an out of action sports, takes my research on flow, and talks about how it’s showing up everywhere from business, to technology, entrepreneurship, and so forth. So I think that the part one of this answer is, yes, of course.
I think part two is peak performers have their ferocious about peak performance, and I always say if you're interested in this stuff and you want to know what are the three things you can do Monday morning, you're applying the wrong game. You’re not actually interested in peak performance. Because the truth of the matter is it's three things on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, repeat, week after week, year after year for a career. That's what you see with peak performers. You have to have that level of hunger. You have to have that level of motivation and drive.
So the answer is, yeah, anybody can do this stuff. The tools and the techniques, the technologies are available to everyone at this point. They’ve absolutely been democratized across the boards. The question is; does the individual actually want this? You actually want to tackle those kind of challenges? You're going to suffer enormously along the way, but you probably can get it done.
[0:07:20.3] MB: I want to dig in to this a little bit more. When you talk about kind of – You talked about the two components that make the impossible possible, which is technologies, or disruptive technology and extending human capacity. I want to look at specifically on the side of extending human capacity and some of the work and the research that you've done at that, at kind of the Flow Genome Project. What does that mean and how do you sort of think about extending human capacity?
[0:07:44.0] SK: The Flow Genome Project, we study the peak performance stake, known as flow, and we’re a research and training organization. What we’re interested in is how can we use flow to massively level up performance? That’s essentially the heart of the work we do. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, flow has a lot of synonyms, runner's high, being in the zone, being unconscious. It’s technically defined as an optimal state of performance when we feel our best and we perform our best.
More specifically, it refers to any of those moments of rapid attention and total absorption. It’s so focused on the task at hand that everything else just seems to disappear. Action awareness will kind of merge together, your sense of self will vanish, time passes strangely. It will slow down. Sometimes you get a freeze-frame effect, memories from a car crash. More frequently, it speeds up and you get so engrossed in what you're doing five hours passes by in like five minutes. Throughout all aspects of performance, both mental and physical, go through the roof. So whenever you see the impossible become possible, you’re seeing people leveraging flow to make that happen.
[0:08:55.9] MB: And I want to get into and spend some time talking about kind of what creates flow and how we can cultivate it in our lives. But before we dig into that, I want to understand a little bit more about sort of what happens when somebody's in a flow state and maybe some of the results that you've seen around how being in flow can create kind of a massive impact on performance, productivity, etc.
[0:09:17.1] SK: Great question. So flow – Let me put it in sort of a historical context for you. Flow science is pretty old. It stretches back about 150 years, to the late 1870s. That’s when the first studies on flow were actually done.
So the idea that an altered state of consciousness, which is what flow technically is, could impact performance substantially is very real. It gets sort of this great leap forward in the 1960s and 70s because of a man named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He’s so often described as the godfather of flow psychology.
He taught us five things about flow that are really critical that I reach now, and the first one sort of answers your question, which is he discovered that flow is definable. The state has eight core characteristics, and I mentioned some of them before. It starts off with complete concentration in the present moment, the vanishing of self, time passing strange, which is technically called time dilation, and so forth.
So because it’s definable, it is also measurable. We have really good psychometric instruments. We don't have physiological flow detectors at this point, though my organization, the Flow Genome Project, is working on that, but we are getting to the point that we really trust the cycle of go metrics. So we can measure it off of these core characteristics.
Csikszentmihalyi also discovered that the state is universal. So it shows up in anyone, anywhere, provided certain initial conditions are met. He also figured out that it's a spectrum experience. So you can be in a state of micro flow, and this happens to most people all the time. You ask for more of a description of the state.
So micro flow is when only couple of flow’s characteristics show up at once, or maybe more of them show up that they’ve dialed down on low. So for example, you sit down to write that quickie email, and you look up an hour later and you've written an essay, right? Creative brilliance is just flown out of you for the past hour. Your focus was really intense. You were focused there. Maybe you sort of forgot bodily functions. You had to go to the bathroom and you didn't notice until you sort of pop back up. You felt it had a tremendous amount of control over your writing. One idea flowed into the next, into the next, into the next, which is by the way where flow's name comes from. That experience of every decision and every action flowing seamlessly and effortlessly from last is where we get the name of the state, and it was Csikszentmihalyi nemed it for that reason.
Then you can have macro flow, which is when all the characteristics show up at once, and for a really long time, I mean the first seven years of flow research, people thought they were having mystical experiences, because then you were having – Time was slowing down and people are often having all kinds of like intuition was so loud and like the ideas that were flowing forth were so creative that it really felt like a force greater than yourself was sort of in control, and that's a macro flow state.
It wasn't until Abraham Maslow did research on it in the 50s, and he found flow was common among all successful people, and everybody in his study group was an atheist. So suddenly, Oh, wait a minute. This isn’t a mystical experience reserved for spiritual and religious people. This is open to anybody interested in success,” and that sort of where that that went away, but kind of spectrum experience of it has made it really sort of hard to diagnose over the years.
[0:12:47.1] MB: Yeah, I think that's great. I have sort of a follow up to that, but before we dig into that, I have almost sort of a medic question for you. As somebody who studied flow really deeply for years and years and years and obviously dedicated a tremendous amount of time and energy to it, we actually have an upcoming interview with Mihai Csikszentmihalyi. I'd be curious, what would you want to ask him?
[0:13:07.5] SK: We’ve been in contact over the years, and in fact we are – The Flow Genome Project is now teamed up with a researcher in his lab and we’re building a flow and addiction study. We want to look at the similarities and differences between flow and addiction.
Sort of ask him some of the stuff that I’ve wanted to ask him. If I had a chance, I've heard lately that he's been talking more about the relationship between the default mode network and flow. This gets more into the neurobiology of flow. So I would have questions around that and some of his new thinking there.
We have a couple of spots that his ideas don't agree with our ideas, and some of the is work that we’ve been testing and studying and trying to get more clarification on, and I might bring those things up. But they’re not going to make sense until I tell you more about flow.
[0:13:58.3] MB: Fair enough. Well, then let's get back into it. I'm curious the kind of impact, the importance of flow in terms of some of the results you've seen in the data, the research, etc.
[0:14:07.3] SK: Oh, yeah. That was the second half of your question, which I failed to answer. My bad. All right. Csikszentmihalyi does his big work in the 60s and 70s, and suddenly we know that flow is universal, it’s definable, it’s measurable, it’s all of these, and it’s well established at this point, that flow is performance, and this is one that sort of Csikszentmihalyi’s last finding and starts to get at your question.
His last finding and maybe his most important finding is that flow appeared to be the source code of not just kind of a peak performance, but the source code for overall well-being and life satisfaction and meaning, and this is one of the things that showed up. He conducted what was then one of the largest studies ever done in optimal side. This is what he discovered, is that the people who score off the charts for overall life satisfaction and meaning and such are the people who have the most flow I their lives.
So that was kind of the first look at, “Oh, wow! This stuff is really important.” Then people started to ask the question, “Well, if this is optimal performance, how optimal? What are we actually talking about? What does that look like? Can you measure it?”
What we now know is in sports, pretty much every gold-medal or world championship that’s been won, flow stayed in his heart. Flow is responsible for major progress in the arts, major breakthroughs in science, technology, business. We have really compelling work done by McKinsey. They did it 10 year study looking at looking at flow and business and top executives reported being five times more productive in flow than out of flow. So that’s 500% more productive. That means you could go to work on Monday, spend Monday in a flow state. Take Tuesday through Friday off and get as much done as everybody else. Huge increase in productivity.
We are now starting to get much clearer as we get better at kind of understanding where flow comes from. We’re starting to be able to kind of break apart productivity and we’re now seeing flow, for example, and I can explain why. All these will make more sense if I explain the neurobiology with flow has a huge boost on motivation, huge impact on creativity. Studies are showing a 400 to 700% boost in creativity when you're in flow. We found that that heightened creativity, [inaudible 0:16:17.5] worked at Harvard outlast the flow state by a day, sometimes two.
We’ve found – This is research done by advanced brain monitoring junction with The Department of Defense, that soldiers and radar operators in flow, for example, learn target acquisition skills 230% faster than normal.
So huge step functions worth of change in flow, and we’re seeing this across the board. I mentioned in our preshow conversation that we just did some interesting work on creativity and flow, and I can't talk too much about it before it’s published. One of the things we looked at is, as I mentioned, there were these 400 to 700% increases in creativity and we went, “Oh, that's amazing! Can that actually be true? What do we really mean by creativity?”
So we borrowed some ideas from – We did sort of a meta-analysis of creativity and psychology and how do you measure it and settled on five subcategories for the process component of creativity, which is the act of creating, not the product, not the outcome, nothing like that, but just the act of creating itself. We looked at everything from like problem formation, through idea generation, pattern recognition and so forth. We were using a Likert scale. So 50% boost is the most we could measure on our scale, but it was all 40%, 50% boost in all these subcategories in creativity.
So when you start peeling back the hood, underneath creativity, you will also see these kinds of boosts. You just got to think about it in terms of your audience for a second. Motivation, creativity and learning are the three sides that are so-called high-performance triangle. They’re the foundational skills we need for thriving in the 21st-century. So huge impact on performance both at an elite level and at a normal level.
[0:18:11.0] MB: So we like to dig into the science on this show. Let's get into a little bit of the neurobiology and how that sort of flow states impact things like learning and motivation and creativity.
[0:18:20.9] SK: So when you ask questions like that, you usually want to know four things. I'm not going to fill you in on all four, but I just want to tell you that we’re leaving some stuff out. But you want to start with neurooanatomy. Where in the brain something is taking place? Flow is interesting, because the old idea of ultimate performance was that – You probably know this. You’ve heard this. It’s 10% brain method. It’s, “Hey, you're only using a small portion of your brain under normal conditions. So performance, a.k.a. flow, must be the full brain on overdrive.”
It turns out we had it totally, completely backward. In flow, we’re actually not using more of the brain. We’re using less of it. What happens is what's known as – I’s technically known as transient hypofrontality, transient means temporary. Hypo, H-Y-P-O is the opposite of hyper. It means to slowdown, deactivate. Frontality is the prefrontal cortex. Part of your brain that’s right behind your forehead.
Prefrontal cortex is really a powerful part of your brain. It does a lot of good things for you. Complex logical decision-making, long-term planning, sense of morality, sense of will. All these things are important. But in flow, this whole portion of the brain gets shut down and it's technically an efficiency exchange. The brain burns a lot of energy. It’s always looking for ways to conserve, and as your need for intense concentration in the present moment goes up, more attention, right? The brain starts shutting down noncritical areas to maximize attention. As a result, you get a lot of flow’s core characteristics.
So for example, why does time pass so strangely in flow? Time is actually calculated all over the prefrontal cortex. It’s sort of a network effect. Like any networks, node start to shut down. The network starts to collapse. In flow, what happens is we lose the ability to separate past, from present, from future. Instead we’re plugged into what researchers call the deep now, sort of an internal present. Same thing happens to your sense of self. Self is actually a bunch of different structures in the prefrontal cortex. Couple of other parts of the brain as well.
Again, as the prefrontal cortex starts to shut down, your sense of self disappears. A huge impact on performance. When part of your brain known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, one part of the prefrontal cortex shuts down, that’s where your inner critic lives, so that nagging, always on, defeat this voice in your head. When you move into flow, that voice disappear. It goes silent. As a result, we experience this emotionally, first of all, is liberationist, is freedom, right? We are literally getting out of our way, but what we see on the backside is creativity goes way up, because you’re no longer doubting all of your need ideas.
Risk-taking goes way up. So bringing those need ideas out into the world, for example, which is a risk that you have to take goes up. So that's what we’re seeing in terms of neural anatomy. A slightly larger version of that, we see networks. You've probably heard of the default mode network by now. This is one of the network systems that also governs your inner critic, and a lot of meditative practice is knock it out, turn it off. Same thing happens in flow. Your default mode network gets very, very, very quiet in flow.
We have shifts in brainwave function that I'm not going to talk about, and then we have profound changes in neurochemistry, which is the last thing I’m going to talk about, and this is really where you see a lot of the performance boosts that you asked about earlier. So in flow, most of – We get a big dump of five of the most potent neurochemicals the brain can produce. This is dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, anandamide and endorphins. Flow appears the only time we get all five of these at once. What really happens is as you move into flow, stress hormones are flushed out of your system and they’re replaced with these big five neurochemicals.
All five of them do a bunch of different things. They’re all performance-enhancing chemicals. On a physical, they’ll increase muscle reaction time, they’ll deaden our sensitivity pain, strength will go up, those sorts of things. Cognitively, they’re much more interesting, and I want to not break them down sort of in terms of motivation, learning and creativity, the three things I hit upon earlier.
So all five of these chemicals are pleasure chemicals. They’re pleasure drugs. They’re the World War of drugs. Rarely do you get all five at once. Just to put this in context, romantic love, which many people identify as one of the greatest feelings on earth is mostly dopamine and norepinephrine. Two out of the five chemicals that you’re getting in flow. So flow is this huge burst of feel good neurochemistry. It makes it one of if not the most addictive experience on earth. Psychologist hate that term. So they call it the source code of intrinsic motivation. But when McKinsey found that 500% boost in motivation was the shift in neurochemistry that made it possible.
Same thing happens with learning. Which shorthand for how learning works in the brain. The more neurochemicals that show up during an experience, the better chance that experience will be tagged as important and saved for later, transferred into long-term holding. So the more neurochemicals that show up, the better learning outcomes you get. Flow is an enormous dump of neurochemistry, which explains this 270% boost in learning that DARPA discovered. What it suggests is that that’s fabled 10,000 hours to master. The research shows that flow can significantly reduce them.
Creativity, same thing. So what a lot of these neurochemicals do is they surround the creative process, and what I mean by that is creativity is recommendatory. What happens when your brain takes in a bunch of new information, combines it with older ideas and uses the results to produce something startlingly new.
Flow boosts all – And these neurochemicals boost all the brain's information processing systems. So we take in more data per second, information acquisition goes up. We pay more attention to the data. Salience goes up. We find faster connections between that incoming data and our older ideas, so pattern recognition goes up. We find faster connections between that incoming information and far flung disparate outside the box ideas. So what’s called lateral thinking goes up.
Then on the backend, when you’re able to take that idea and make it public, risk-taking goes up. So the neurochemistry that shows up in flow surrounds the creative process, which is why you're getting this big boost in creativity.
So that’s the quick and dirty, very quick and dirty rundown of kind of the neurobiology of flow. Let’s also point out that this is its early days. I mean, neuroscience is accelerating exponentially. We’re seeing all kinds of breakthroughs, but there are still holes in this research we can drive a bus through. We know a ton more than we did more than we did 20 years ago, but we’ve got massive amounts of questions. So everything I just said is true until it's no longer true. We’re moving very quickly. So no longer cure could be around the corner.
[0:25:33.1] MB: That's fasting, and that was a great kind of dive into the science, and I like the way you sort of broke everything out. That was really, really instructive. I'm curious, and this is kind of something maybe more from your sort of personal experience or maybe you’ve seen something in the research on this, but how did you sort of think about, I guess, sort of flow states that arise from what I would call kind of fun or extracurricular activities versus flow states within sort of work and productivity.
Can we get kind of - and this kind of comes back to addiction - can we get kind of addicted to a flow state arising from something like video games or something like that? Versus flow from being in the zone when you're kind of executing in project or something.
[0:26:11.6] SK: It’s a great question. Yes. To answers to your question, and I’ll start the first one, is that flow is a tool. It can be used for good. It can be used for ill. Soldiers fighting battles are in flow states. Terrorists and terrorist training camps are often in flow states. Kids playing video games are in flow states. You at work, really focused on an engineering project, an architectural project, a writing assignment, take your pick, are in a flow state. It’s across-the-board, and you are absolutely correct. Anything that produces flow is really sticky. When they want to know how popular is a videogame going to be, how much is it going to sell. One of the main metrics they try to measure is how much flow it produces. The most successful videogames in the world are the ones the produce the most flow, because huge, addictive neurochemistry.
Csikszentmihalyi I speaks about this really in an interesting fashion, and this sort of gets us to the second part of this, which is anybody that can access this stuff because flow states have triggers. This is what we’ve learned over the past sort of 10 years, and Csikszentmihalyi discovered that flow is universal provided certain initial conditions are met. So those flow triggers are those initial conditions.
One of the most important is what's known as the challenge skills balance. All these triggers do is drive attention into the present moment. They amp up attention, and some of the neurochemicals that we’re talking about are primarily focusing drugs, norepinephrine and dopamine. That’s primarily what they do cognitively. They help us pay attention, and that's their function.
Besides being pleasure drugs, they’re focusing drugs. So that's what all of these triggers do. They drive our attention. Now, most important is the challenge skills balance as I mentioned, which says that we pay the most attention in the present moment when the challenge of the task at hand slightly exceeds our skillset. So you're always pushing hard on your skills when you’re flow. This is a constant.
As a result, Csikszentmihalyi pointed out that flow is addictive. But unlike other addictions, gambling, video games, take your pick, that can lead backwards in life and slow down your progress. Flow, because you’re constantly leveling up your skillset, is an addiction that leads forward into the future. But make no mistake, it still an addiction. When we deal with action, adventure sports athletes who are transitioning out of risking their life for a living into, “I want to have a family and do something else.” They’re coming down from an addiction and you have to sort of deal with it that way. Same problem with special operators returning from war, same issues.
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[0:31:09.9] MB: I want to dig now into some of these triggers and how we can kind of create flow states in our own lives. Let's start with kind of the challenge skills balance as you talked about. For example, what if we have some work that we want to get into a flow state on, but perhaps either the challenge is too great, or the challenges is sort of too small. How do we adjust that dial to kind of trigger flow?
[0:31:30.1] SK: I’m actually going to back you up one step. Everything else is moot, unless we talk about complete concentration, which is the fundamental kind of – Challenge skills is the most important flow trigger, but you can't build a house without complete concentration. The reason I mentioned that is when I go into companies, the first thing I tell them is, “If you can hang a sign on your door that's says, Fuck off. I'm flowing,” you can't do this work.
What the research shows is to really maximize flow and the productivity you get from flow. You need like 90 to 120 minute periods of uninterrupted concentration. That means that no open office plans. That means if you’re functioning under a regime that demands messages be returned in 15 minutes and emails in half an hour, you’ve got a problem and you need to kind of talk to your boss and shift that stuff around a little bit, or you need to carve out time before work or after work to focus on this stuff. That’s the place you have to start, otherwise you just can't build it.
From there, I want to get to your question, which is how you tune the challenge skills balance. Here I want to talk about kind of the most useful piece of non-research research there has been on flow, and here's what I mean. A bunch of years ago, Csikszentmihalyi was talking to a Google mathematician and they were trying to figure out, “Can we measure the ratio between challenge and skills? Can we put a number on it?”
They almost arbitrarily just sort of decided on 4%, that the sweet spot was if your challenge could be 4% greater than your skills, you are in the right zone. We took this idea into the flow genome project and working primarily initially with athletes and then a little bit with artist. We’ve been studying it. It’s totally arbitrary. What 4% for you is is different for me and it's different on every day. Your 4% on a day that you got up great night sleep and ate great food the day before, versus I stayed up all night and I feasted on Twinkies, different. It varies on a day-to-day basis.
What I like about using that number, and this is I think where it becomes practical, is 4% for people who are little shyer, meeker, maybe a little bit of an underachiever sometimes, is tricky because it's outside your comfort zone. How do you know when you're getting close to the right spot? You're uncomfortable. It doesn't feel good anymore. It's a really good way just to know where you are with this.
For peak performers, that we have the other – The flip side of this problems is peak performers are going to bite off challenges that are 30%, 4, % 50% greater than their skillset without even noticing. Do it all the time. As a result, it is going to put too much fear into the equation. You’ll get too much norepinephrine and cortisol in system and it ends up blocking flow. So you’re going to lock yourself out of the state of peak performance. You’d really need to tackle those kinds of challenges.
If you are the kind of person who bites off huge challenges, one, make sure you chunk them into smaller and smaller sub-challenges, smaller goals and smaller roles until they’re in that, “Oh, well. I'm slightly uncomfortable here, but I'm not overwhelmed,” spot, then you're on the right spot to maximize focus
and maximize flow.
[0:35:03.1] MB: That’s extremely helpful, and I think I'm definitely somebody who kind of falls into that bucket of frequently biting off problems that are too large for myself. So I’ll be applying that technique for certain –
[0:35:13.2] SK: Yeah, we all have been saying at the Flow Genome Project, which is when it comes to this stuff, you got to go slow to go fast. Let me give you a different example of this in a different workplace environments. So, Patagonia, the outdoor retailer, always tops the list of best place to work in America. One of the reasons is their very high flow environment. They were sort of built around so much of Csikszentmihalyi earlier ideas back in the 90s, and they have one main corporate rule established by Yvon Chouinard, who’s the CEO. He calls it, “Let my people go surfing.”
So Patagonia, obviously a lot of outdoor athletes who work there, and that's one of the reasons you’d want to work there. Their headquarters, it’s in Ventura County. It’s right on the Pacific Ocean. So they have a rule, which is, “Whenever the waves are breaking, it doesn't matter what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter if you're on deadline. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the middle of a project that was due yesterday. You can go surfing.”
The reason is, surfing is packed with flow triggers, really high flow environment. We’ll talk more about what those triggers are in a second. But packed with flow triggers. So if you go out, you go surfing for an hour and you come back and you’re 500% more productive, who cares that you just wasted an hour?
You’re now really, really, really hyper productive.
It doesn't look like peak performance. In an organization, or anybody could be like, “I’m on deadline, but I’m going surfing. See you.” That doesn’t look like an organization dedicated to peak performance, to productivity, to the bottom line or any of those things. But it’s actually an organization that's totally dialed in for that stuff, because you’d got to go slow to go fast with this stuff and you got to prioritize flow.
[0:36:49.0] MB: So how do those flow states kind of carry over, or I guess how long? So if you go surfing for an hour or you do some sort of – I guess what we’re talking about earlier, sort of a fun activity to trigger flow, how long will you be kind of reaping the harvest of that flow trigger?
[0:37:05.4] SK: So there’s three different answers to this. One is that flow is essentially a focusing skill. So first of all, by training up while you're surfing, you’re training up flow in the office, because you’re training the brain to think in a particular way basically, to shift consciousness in a particular way. So that in itself spills over.
In terms of actual time in the flow state, that is an open and unanswered question. What we've seen for the research I mentioned earlier, we know, right? Because [inaudible 0:37:37.2] did the work, that the heightened creativity will outlast flow state by a couple of days. That sticks around for a little while.
The really, “I'm in flow. My consciousness feels altered,” experience, it varies, but an hour and a half is usually – That’s sort of the maximum kind of zone that most people stay in. This has to do with the fact that these neurochemicals, they’re easy for the brain to produce, but they've got raw materials and it takes a certain amount of time to produce them from scratch. Sometimes you need sunlight, and sometimes you need vitamins and minerals. So once you're through those things, there’s a down period. There’s a cycle. Flow isn’t an always on thing. You can't live in flow. There’s a four-stage process. The frontend of the process is a struggle phase. It doesn't feel like flow, and then you move into flow and then there’s a recovery phase on the backend. You have to move through the whole cycle before you can really start a flow state.
That said, you can get access to the heightened learning, the heightened creativity, those things. They linger for a little while. The creativity seems to linger for longer than, I would guess, the heightened bits of learning and the motivation. But the honest answers, we don't really know on that one.
In some flow states, there is altruism based flow state known as helper’s high. It was discovered by [inaudible 0:38:55.2] who founded Big Brother Big Sister. He discovered that that seems to lasted two days on average, which is really interesting and really strange. That maybe from a promote research perspective, we think that's because it's got – It may have a oxytocin involved and maybe more endorphins than other flows states. We don't really know, but those are the things we’re looking at. By we, I mean the entire research community. So there's no real immediate answer to your question, but usually 90 minutes is kind of what you work with as a core flow state, and then the afterglow usually a couple, two, three hours at a high level.
[0:39:31.5] MB: Yeah, that makes sense. I was just curious, because I’m trying to think about how to sort of concretely apply these principles to my own productivity.
[0:39:38.1] SK: Yeah. Let me give you a tip here. A place where most people screw up, and this is the difference between people who had a lot of experience with flow, especially with deeper flow states, versus people who are new to these ideas. One of the things that people who are new to these ideas do is they will take that accelerated – That amplified creativity and they will ride to the very bitter end. If their brain’s pattern recognition system is all fired up and they're coming up with new ideas, and new ideas, and new ideas, they're going to keep working until is totally exhausted. That actually makes it more difficult to really jump into flow the next time. You want to take yourself almost to the end and then you want to sort of call it mandatory quits before you’re totally exhausted. Because otherwise the recovery period is going to have to be more extensive than you want.
[0:40:32.6] MB: Let’s say you do sort of a 90-minute burst of flow. How long should your recovery period be before you try to reenter?
[0:40:38.1] SK: Again, it depends. If you're in a really deep flow state, a lot of physical activity, you're really exhausted in the body. That may be it for your day, right? You may get one big flows state, and it may be a day, two, three before you sort of get back in. If it's a low-grade focused attention flow state, you can pop out, and usually if you have some kind of recovery protocol. For example, I wake up at 4 AM. Start my day. I usually start by working on whatever book I'm writing. I usually work from about 4 AM to 7:30 or so. Then I hike my dogs for an hour and eat some breakfast. Then I can come back to work. I can't really get in an another flow state just then. I'm still sort of like dithering around, but I break for lunch, take a short nap and then I' can usually get back into flow in the afternoon.
[0:41:28.9] MB: Got it. Yeah, that makes sense.
[0:41:30.5] SK: And everybody's different by the way. You’re going to – naps are good. Food is good. Resetting your consciousness is really important. Meaning, like take your mind off the problem, right? If I’ve been writing all morning, I don’t want to immediately jump to another writing task. I want to garden for an hour, go for a walk or do something to shift my consciousness a bit, meditation, whatever.
[0:41:53.3] MB: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. I mean, I think one of the themes that we’ve seen kind of repeatedly on the show is the importance of rest and recovery to peak performance in general, and then obviously kind of specifically around the creation and maintenance of flow states.
[0:42:07.6] SK: Yeah. I always talk about it as one of the need for recovery. I talk about in terms of like a grit skill. I think for peak performers, it is so hard to shut it down, that grit is required for recovery. So I think active recovery protocols are really important. One of flow states, for example, if you end your day and your recovery protocol is, “I’m going to watch television and drink a beer,” you're not actually doing your body any good. Television doesn't shift the brain waves out of sort of a high beta for long enough for you to recover, and alcohol is really not your friend in that process. One or two drinks doesn't really matter, but if you go over that, you're going to mess with your REM sleep, and you have to sleep seven to eight hours a night is what the research shows most of us need.
There are outliers, but that's really – That’s sort of baseline, and you have to have an active – An active recovery, by the way, if you’re not familiar with the term, is a term that talks about – It means like a restorative yoga practice. A long sauna, meditation, hot baths, massages, those sorts of things. You need a daily active recovery protocol if you’re going to do. You’re really going to have a high flow lifestyle.
[0:43:28.3] MB: I’d like to take kind of a change in direction and talk a little bit about one of the other topics that I know you’ve spoken and written about that I find really fascinating and kind of aligns with some of the recent research you’ve been doing around, as I think you called it in a recent Google talk, the intersection of sort of flow states and the science of spirituality.
[0:43:45.9] SK: I started out looking as much the science of spirituality, because it wasn't entirely clear that flow wasn't a spiritual experience, right? Those two ideas started out together. When early research, for example, William James, who did a lot of the foundational work on flow back at the turn-of-the-century, the first American psychologist, philosopher wrote the first psychology textbook. Back then, he was looking at flow as a mystical experience. He was studying the same thing.
They split apart in the 20th century. Freud sort of really, really was a hard-core atheist. Didn't think psychology had any place kind of working in that world, and the rest of science will agree. So there was sort of a hundred year detour. Then these ideas come back together around the turn of the 21st-century neurobiological.
What we started to discover is that when you look under the hood of flow, so the same neurochemical, neurobiological, neuroanatomical shifts, changes that we talked about earlier in flow, they show up across a bevy of experiences. Deep profound meditation, trance state, out of body experiences, near death experiences, mystical states, speaking in tongues, things like that, psychedelic states, states of awe. All of these things neurobiological are very, very, very similar. They’re similar on the inside and they produce similar effects on the outside. All of these experiences is self disappears. Time vanishes. We feel a huge boost in motivation and the feeling of being moved by forces greater than our control, put it in slightly more mystical terms, spiritual terms.
Then we see a massive amplification in the information we have access to. This shows up across the boards in all of these experiences. So we sort of took a hundred year detour around these ideas and they’re coming back together now. Where they get really exciting is you have more tools to solve problems with.
For example, I mentioned in our preshow conversation that another study we’re running at the Flow Genome Project is in conjunction with researchers at Imperial College in London, and what they've done at Imperial College in London is they’ve done – In David Nutt and Robin Carhart-Harris’s lab, they’ve done all the foundational research, FMRI research, on psychedelics. So they’ve looked at MDMA, psilocybin, iowaska, DMT, acid.
So when I say flow shares characteristics with psychedelic states, this is the reason we know that, and we've teamed up to do a sort of comparison contrast study, and one of the reasons – And this is very downstream from where we’re going and we’re not there yet, is right now we’ve been looking at psychedelics for their healing capacity. They’re phenomenal for PTSD. There’s new work on anxiety, on depression, on addiction, those sorts of things.
But there’s a lot of people who have noticed that the same thing that helps get you from subpar back to zero can help you go from zero up to Superman with psychedelic’s creativity is very old research. This research going back in the 60s that shows huge boost in creativity and psychedelics. We see the same thing in flow. So one of the simple questions you sort of from a performance standpoint you'd want to ask is, “Hey, I’ve got a creative problem. I need to solve. What’s the best thing? Should I aim for a flow state here? Is micro-dosing with psychedelics, will that get it done? What about a heroic dose of psychedelic? Is that better? What kind of creative project works best with which treatment?” Those sorts of questions are things we are starting to be able to ask and answer now. That’s the results – Psychedelics may not sound like the intersection of spirituality to you, but there’s research going back to the 60s, The Good Friday experiment most famously, that show that psychedelic experiences are indistinguishable from spiritual experiences.
[0:48:06.5] MB: I think you also kind of previously talked about in line with that same theme this idea of sort of the unity experience and the experience of sort of being one with everything and how there's a sort of a biological component behind that.
[0:48:19.6] SK: Okay. So this was my toe-hold into flow research. I said earlier, when I started this, it was really unclear, and the reason was surfers and flow, which was the first population I ever studied often report becoming one with the ocean. I was one with the two, and it’s really common. It happens all the time. Surfers didn't really like to talk about it because everybody would think they were nuts. You go into a shrink's office in 1995, 6, 7 and say, “Doc. Hey, man, I had this experience. I feel one with everything,” you are getting sent to a psych ward. That's what's happening.
But then Andy Newberg, who’s a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania, decides he wants to study this phenomenon. The reason he wants to study it is it’s so common. Oneness with everything has been called the perennial philosophy. It's in every mystical tradition on earth and it was there long before there was mass communication.
So he figured it's got a point to something real, something biological. So he did brain scans of Buddhists and Franciscan nuns when they were experiencing moments of so-called unity, oneness with everything. He found that a portion of the brain known as the right parietal lobe gets very, very quiet.
So earlier I said that in flow, the prefrontal cortex shuts down. In deeper and deeper flow states, when attention gives really focused, that will start moving deeper into the brain. One of the places that gets impacted is the right parietal lobe. This portion of the brain does a bunch of stuff, but it basically is a navigation system and it helps us draw a boundary that says, “This is where you end and the rest of the world begins." And this is sort of important if you want to walk through a crowded room. You sort of need a sense of like, “My shoulder is here,” and people who have brain damage to this portion of the brain, they can't sit down on a couch, because they’re not quite sure where does my leg end and the couch begin?
This portion of the brain when it shuts down completely in deep flow states, or in meditative experiences, or trance states or whatever, you can no longer separate itself from others. The brain conclude – It has to conclude that in this particular moment in time you’re one with everything.
By the way, we’ve had this experience, right? If you played a racket sport, for example, and gotten really good at it, you get to a point where you can't feel your racket in your hand. It feels like an extension of your hand or your car. The pedals feel like an extension of your feet and you can feel the tires through your feet. This is common with racecar drivers. It’s because this boundary of self is flexible. We can move it around. Blind people feel the sidewalk to the tip of the cane. It’s because this boundary is extendable.
[0:51:01.5] MB: I think one of the most interesting kind of takeaways from some of that research is this idea that in some sense, the brain is sort of creating the experience of being separate from everything else. When you take that away, it's almost like the oneness has been there the entire time.
[0:51:18.6] SK: Well, I’ve have written about this. This is where things get complicated, because at every level of the spectrum, scientifically, at every level of scale, you see oneness. If you reduce human beings to the quantum level, obviously, we got the same basic ingredients. That's true. But even if you look at just what you consider you, which is the stuff inside your skin, we know there's enough foreign bacteria in your body that essentially you're on from your elbow to your fingers is foreign bacteria. Most of it is in your micro biome, and we know that the micro biome control can impact our emotional state, for example, and our cognition, our ability to think about problems and such, and our consciousness.
So our experience to the world, we experience it as I am Steven Kotler, a single unit. I'm just me. But the truth of the matter is it’s a cooperative experience. My version of the world is me, my micro biome, the viruses in my body. It’s all creating this experience. So sort of at every level of the scale, going all the way up to the cosmic, we are star dusts. We all got our star in the birth of stars. We’re made up of molecules that we’re spewed out of stars. At every level of scale, we are one, right? We have a discreet experience of consciousness while we’re inside our body, but on certain levels at least, something of an illusion. But that shouldn’t be a surprise. Current thinking on reality, right? We don't live in reality. The brain takes in a shit ton of information. It filters down something, hunting for like the most familiar pattern it can find. The minute it finds that pattern, it guesses about what is in reality based on our prior experience, which is why babies experience the world very differently from teenagers and adults.
There's book after book after book in neuroscience for 25 years has talked about how we create kind of reality as we go along. The question gets a lot more nuanced and subtle when you start peeling it back, and it just gets really weird. I have no idea what the right or wrong answer is, and I don’t, by the way, think this is proof or not proof of any kind of metaphysical anything. I just think it's the facts of the case and they’re peculiar.
[0:53:45.8] MB: It’s a fascinating mystery, and I just wanted to kind of touch on that, because I think it's one of the most interesting things that you work on and have talked about. So I wanted to share some of those really kind of unique ideas with the listeners. I know we’re running out of time here. To kind of wrap up our conversation, for listeners who want to concretely kind of implement what we've talked about in one way or another today, what would be sort of a first kind of action step or piece of homework that you would give them?
[0:54:10.7] SK: Yeah, the first place. I would tell you to go is the website for the Flow Genome Project. If you go to the landing page, you’ll see something that says, “Take the quiz.” That quiz – And I hate that language, and we’re changing the website. But it’s an older version of it that I don't love. But that quiz is actually our flow profile, which has become the largest study ever conducted in optimal psych. All it is is a diagnostic, and it's taken flow’s 20 triggers and broken them into four categories, sort of clumped them in their most familiar clumps. All it says is if you’re this kind of person, you are likely going to find more flow in this direction. That is a great next step.
You can also, if you want to take things a step further, if you go to my website, stevenkotler.com, sign up for my email newsletter. A, you'll get lots of information. B, you’ll get a 90-page peak performance primer that has a complete breakdown of flow and all of flow’s triggers in it. So those would be my two next steps.
[0:55:09.4] MB: Perfect, and I think you kind of touched on this already, but for listeners who want to find you, who want to learn more, I'm assuming those are kind of the place that you would have them go.
[0:55:17.5] SK: Yes, stevenkotler.com, flowgenomeproject.com, or you can find me on social media. Twitter is Steven_Kotler.
[0:55:26.6] MB: Well, Steven. Thank you so much for coming on the show, fascinating conversation. As I said, I've been a fan of your work for a long time and it was great to kind of dig into all of these really exciting ideas.
[0:55:36.7] SK: Thanks for having me. It’s been a lot of fun.
I'm going to give you three reasons why you should sign up for our email list today by going to successpodcast.com, signing up right on the homepage. There's some incredible stuff that’s only available to those on the email list, so be sure to sign up. Including an exclusive curated weekly email from us called Mindset Monday, which is short, simple, filled with articles, stories, things that we found interesting and fascinating in the world of evidence-based growth in the last week.
High Performance, Mind Expansion
Self Help For Smart People - How You Can Spot Bad Science & Decode Scientific Studies with Dr. Brian Nosek
July 05, 2018 by Lace Gilger in Mind Expansion
In this episode, we show how you can decode scientific studies and spot bad science by digging deep into the tools and skills you need to be an educated consumer of scientific information. Are you tired of seeing seemingly outrageous studies published in the news, only to see the exact opposite published a week later? What makes scientific research useful and valid? How can you, as a non-scientist, read and understand scientific information in a simple and straightforward way that can help you get closer to the truth - and apply those lessons to your life. We discuss this and much more with Dr. Brian Nosek.
Dr. Brian Nosek is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Open Science and a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. Brian led the reproducibility project which involved leading some 270 of his peers to reproduce 100 published psychology studies to see if they could reproduce the results. This work shed light on some of the publication bias in the science of psychology and much more.
Does the science show that extrasensory perception is real?
Is there something wrong with the rules of the science or the way that we conduct science?
What makes academic research publishable is not the same thing as what makes academic research accurate
Publication is the currency of advancement in science
Novel, positive, clean
What does “Nulls Hypothesis significance testing” / P-Value less than .05 even mean?
Less than 5% of the time would you observe this evidence if there was no relationship
The incentives for scientific publishing often skew, even without conscious intent by scientists, towards only publishing studies that support their hypothesis and conclusions
The conclusions of many scientific studies may not be reproducible and may, in fact, be wrong
How the reasoning challenges and biases of human thinking skew scientific results and create false conclusions
Outcome bias
“The Reproducibility Project” in psychology
Took a sample of 100 studies
Across those 100 studies - the evidence was able to be reproduced only 40% of the time
The effect size was 50% of what it was
“Effect Sizes” - how strong was the effect of the studied phenomenon
The real challenge is that it's extremely hard to find definitive evidence of whether the replication of studies
Science about science is a process of uncertainty reduction
What The Reproducibility Project spawned was not a conclusion, but a QUESTION
The scientific method is about testing our assumptions of reality with models, and recognizing that our models of the world will be wrong in some way
The way science makes progress if by finding the imperfections in our models of reality
How do we as lay consumers determine if something is scientifically valid or not?
How do we as individuals learn to consume and understand scientific information?
How can we be smarter consumers of scientific literature?
We discuss the basic keys to understanding, reading, and consuming scientific studies as a non-scientist and ask how do we determine the quality of evidence?
Watch out for any DEFINITIVE conclusions
The sample size is very important, the larger the better
Aggregation of evidence is better - “hundreds of studies show"
Meta-studies / meta-analysis are important and typically more credible
Look up the original paper
Is there doubt expressed in the story/report about the data? (how could the evidence be wrong, what needs to be proven next, etc)
What is a meta-study and why should you be on the lookout for those when determining if scientific data is more valid? But there are still risks to meta-analysis as well
Valid scientific research often isn’t newsworthy - it takes lots of time to reach valid scientific conclusions
It’s not just about the OUTCOME of a scientific study - the confidence in those outcomes is dependent on the PROCESS
By confronting our own ideas/models of reality, our understanding of the world gets stronger and moves towards the Truth
Where do we go from here as both individuals and scientists? How can we do better?
Transparency is key
Preregistration - commit to a design
The powerful tool of “pre-registration” and how you can use it to improve your own thinking and decision-making
As individuals trying to make evidence-based / science-driven decisions in light of these findings, how can we apply these lessons to ourselves?
Homework - deliberately seek out people who disagree with you, build a “team of rivals"
[Wiki Article] Reproducibility Project
[Study] Reproducibility Project: Psychology
[Research Article] Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science
[Study] Investigating Variation in Replicability: A “Many Labs” Replication Project
[Wiki Pages] Investigating Variation in Replicability: A “Many Labs” Replication Project
[Article] How Reliable Are Psychology Studies? By Ed Yong
[Podcast] Planet Money - Episode 677: The Experiment Experiment
Mind Expansion
Real Life Inception – From Bank Robbery to Neuroscience with Dr. Moran Cerf
June 28, 2018 by Lace Gilger in Decision Making, Mind Expansion
In this episode we discuss real life inception with a former bank robber turned neuroscientist. Is it possible to plant ideas in your head? Are your memories an accurate reflection of past reality? Can you change and mold your memories to be different? We open the door on human irrationality and explore why and how we make bad decisions, and what you can do to make small changes that will create a big impact in your life and much more with our guest Moran Cerf.
Dr. Moran Cerf is a professor of neuroscience and business at the Kellogg School of Management and the neuroscience program at Northwestern University. He is also a member of the institute of complex systems and was recently named one of the “40 Leading Professionals Under 40.” His research uses methods of neuroscience to understand the underlying mechanisms of our psychology, behavior changes, emotion, decision making and dreams. His work has been featured on the TED Stage, In WIRED, The Scientific American, and much more.
What’s it like to Rob a Bank?
How Moran went from an accomplished bank robber to a prominent neuroscientist
Most times in life we tell our story backward to make sense of the past
Are people rational actors who make decisions in their own best interest?
Humans are not rational actors - they often make irrational choices
Behavioral economics opened the door to explaining human irrationality - but neuroscientists were necessary to truly explain WHY these mistakes were happening
Irrational behavior - why it works - and how we can change it
Is losing a $10 movie ticket the same as losing $10? In case of most people’s behavior - almost certainly not.
Your memories are not a reliable reflection of reality or your past - despite the fact that you think they are
“Don’t believe everything you think"
Real Life Inception - Planting Ideas In Your Brain, re-shaping your memories
How neuroscientists use magicians and slight of hand to demonstrate our ability to rationalize and explain our decisions
If you make a small positive step, the brain will start to build pillars of support to underpin that new behavior
How does neuroplasticity impact our brain's ability to change adapt and transform our beliefs and memories
Your memories are never fixed - they aren’t sitting in a vault, perfect, unchanged. Your memories are changed and modified every time you remember them and pull them back.
Ever time you use a memory, you change it a little bit - over time we change memories greatly - we can remember things that never existed and forget what truly happened
This is how the brain deals with trauma and negative experience
Even when you’re sleeping your brain rehearses, loads, and engages with your memories.
Bringing up and talking through negative memories physically reshapes those memories in your brain
You can use a daily decision-journal to see when you make the best decisions - and try to emulate those decisions - find the commonalities in situations where you made good choices
Humans are a lot simpler than we think we are.
You think you are very unique - in terms of your brain - but we are very similar and fall into predictable behavioral patterns and biases
When it comes to human behavior and decision-making - we are a lot more similar than different
We often think our decisions are our own - but in reality, they are often influenced by biases, the environment, and many things beyond our control.
We are discovering that more and more of our brain is not really under our control.
We use 100% of our brain, but it's not all accessible to us.
Subtle shifts in your environment change how you respond to things.
“Embodied cognition” shows that many things are happening to us, that we don’t have full control over
If you have a name for something you can think about it, if you can think about it you can control it
Coding things are huge as well (what was the temperature, your mood, hunger level etc when you made decisions)
Just by listening to this episode you’re improving your ability to think more effectively and make better decisions!
How can we take these lessons of neuroscience and apply them to make ourselves smarter and better decision makers?
Making decisions is a tax on your brain. Outsource low-level unimportant decisionmaking.
Evolution is an incredibly slow process - it takes millions of years
Planting computer chips into your brain - and teaching your brain how to read and interact with them.
Homework - surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do
Think about what you want
Find people who have it
Spend time with them and in their proximity
[Personal Site] Moran Cerf
[Wiki Article] Behavioral economics
[Wiki Article] Daniel Kahneman
[Wiki Article] Embodied cognition
[Wiki Article] Francis Crick
[SoS Episode] The Power and Danger of a Seemingly Innocuous Commitment
[SoS Episode] The Mysteries of Consciousness Explained & Explored with Neuroscientist Dr. Anil Seth
[SoS Episode] The Scientific Search for The Self - Discovering Who You Truly Are with Dr. Robert Levine
In this episode, we discuss real-life inception with a former bank robber turned neuroscientist. Is it possible to plant ideas in your head? Are your memories an accurate reflection of past reality? Can you change and mold your memories to be different?
We open the door on human irrationality and explore why and how we make bad decisions and what you can do to make small changes that will create a big impact in your life and much more with our guest, Moran Cerf.
I wanted to also highlight before we start this interview, we had an amazing conversation with our guest Peter Shallard a couple weeks go where we looked at the gap that exist between learning and doing and why it is that so many smart, ambitious people invest hours in their growth and development but fail to see breakaway external results for the time they’ve invested. If you sometimes feel overwhelmed by all the things you know you could or should be implementing to level up your life or career, then that episode will blow your mind.
We explore what science is telling us about the actual execution of concrete individual growth and measurable upward mobility across various dimensions of life. We share the most effective tactic for moving yourself from learning to doing and much more with our very special guest, Peter Shallard. That interview is one of the most impactful interviews we’ve done on the Science of Success. It’s completely different from any other episode and it will help you finally take action on what you’ve been procrastinating on. Check that episode out.
Now for our interview with Moran.
[0:03:31.0] MB: Today we have another fascinating guest on the show, Dr. Moran Cerf. Moran is a professor of neuroscience and business at Kellogg School of Management and the neuroscience program at Northwestern University. He’s also a member of the Institute of Complex Systems and was recently named one of the 40 leading professionals under 40. He’s work has been featured on the TED Stage, in Wired, Scientific American and much more.
Moran, welcome to the Science of Success.
[0:03:58.9] MC: Thank you.
[0:04:00.1] MB: Well, we’re thrilled to have you on the show. You’re obviously a fascinating individual, and for people in the audience who may not be familiar with you, I’d love to start out with – I’m sure you get asked this all the time because it’s such an incredible kind of moniker or experience to have kind of attach your name, but as somebody who loves heist movies and bank robberies and all that kind of stuff, tell us about your experience robbing banks.
[0:04:25.1] MC: Well, I spent over a decade of my life in my teens and early 20s working as a computer hacker for the good guys. So my job was to help banks and government institutes find what hackers could do badly to their systems before the hackers actually do that. I help them secure the systems better. So in doing so, one of my jobs was actually to try to break into the organizations, to the banks, to the financial institutes of sorts of find flaws in the security so we can secure them better. So I did have a lot of bank robberies on my sleeves.
[0:04:59.6] MB: And in some of these cases, I mean, obviously a lot of it was sort of digital penetration testing, but in some cases you actually physically robbed these banks.
[0:05:07.8] MC: Yeah. What’s less known about bank robberies, since there aren’t a lot of books with directions how to do that, is that the majority of them are actually of course done online using hacking tools, but hackers are also responsible for finding flaws in security more kind of physical. Someone leaving a note on the computer with their password or a camera that works on batteries and the batteries die every now and then and no one cares about that.
So our job as hackers was also to sometimes actually go to the bank physically and try to find those security flaws and it involved actually coming to the bank and physically asking for the key to the vault and pretending to be bank robbers to see how it works. So we did that a few times, and for all purposes for the point of the bank tellers, this is a regular bank robbery, a clumsy one though.
[0:05:59.5] MB: I mean, that’s truly amazing. I can’t imagine what that experience must have been like, and I’m sure it was a lot of fun as well.
[0:06:08.2] MC: Makes for a lot of stories.
[0:06:09.7] MB: That’s true. So you’re an accomplished bank robber turned neuroscientist. Tell us a little bit about how that sort of transition took place and what drew you into the world of neuroscience?
[0:06:22.2] MC: So like most things in life, we tell our story backwards based on how we got to where we got rather than forward by planning it, and I guess I could think of various ways to figure out how I ended up who I was. But I think that I would boil it down to at least one encounter with a famous neuroscientist and biologist, Francis Crick, who was one of the guys who was remarkable in many ways, but essentially is the father of modern biology because he discovered the double helix and how it creates basically the building blocks of life and won the Nobel Prize in the 50s for that.
After that, he became a neuroscientist who focused on looking at consciousness, and I was just a kid fascinated by consciousness research when I met him once and told him about my career trajectory in the hacking world and only learned at the time that he also had a short-lived career as a hacker during World War II. He was breaking codes for satellites, we were breaking into banks, but in his mind there was some similarity. The way he phrased it was that if you know how to look into black boxes and understand how they work without actually having access to what’s going on inside, you are what makes for a good scientist.
Then he said the sentence that always changes someone’s life, “If you’re willing to give up your career right now and move to neuroscience, I’m going to write a letter of recommendation for you.” With a letter of recommendation from the Nobel laureate who discovered DNA, you pretty much can go to any school you want. So this was the moment that shaped everything and made me live my career as a hacker and start on as a neuroscientist trying to look at black boxes in the brain.
[0:07:59.7] MB: That’s fascinating and really, really interesting. So I’m curious, I mean, I know a lot of the work you’ve done has kind of been around decision making and how our brains work. Starting out with kind of this core premise you look at, and I think this is something that’s being rapidly adjusted. But if you look at something like economics or many of the kind of social sciences, there’s this presumption that people are rational actors who make decisions in their best interest. Is that a roughly accurate way to think about human behavior?
[0:08:30.6] MC: So what you’re alluding to is exactly right. For the last 180 years, economics and much of the business world relied on their mistake, and this is a mistake to some extent even though there are some tools to this mistake, which is that humans are rational. It’s not. Humans are irrational. They’re not fully irrational, but they’re not rational in the way the equation predicts. So for the days of Adam Smith who created the idea of a homo economicus and national being, we could expect a lot of the theories of economics by assuming that people make rational choices, that if you have two items and one of them is cheaper, you’re going to buy the cheapest one. If you have two things that otherwise identical, you would never buy the thing that is more emotionally connected to you for no reason, because emotions shouldn’t have any part in economics. It should be just a pure rational choice. But we know that people don’t work like this. We know that forever there’s always some anomalies in the equations that couldn’t be explained by the theory, and this was the psychology of human beings, that sometimes we do buy the most expensive thing just because it signals to others that we’re willing to pay a lot of money for something expensive, and it makes no sense economically, but it makes total sense for us, because pride is something that the equations of Adam Smith couldn’t really put as an argument.
We know that sometimes people do things because they’re sad that they wouldn’t do if they were not sad. So just somehow your feelings change what you buy. We know that the temperature in the room, who you talked to before, how many things you looked at before you made this choice. All of those things end up making us choose things different than what the equation predicted.
For the last 20 years, there’s been a field called behavioral economics that basically took all the mistakes so to speak of the predictions and explained them, and they explained them using psychology. They said people aren’t rational. People have all kinds of works of their mind that lead to what they do that cannot be explained by just looking at an equation, but can be explained perfectly if you look at psychology.
However, this also got to a dead end at some point. So a lot of the behavioral economists, which were mainly psychologists who did economics couldn’t really explain why this is the case. They could describe it, but not explain why. They said people would sometimes buy the product in the middle if you have three options, but we don’t know why. We think that because they don’t want to buy the cheapest one. They don’t want to buy the expensive one. They want the middle one, and this kind of works well, but we can’t really explain to you why or how we think, and more than that we can’t change that. If we want to make people be rational, we don’t know how. We only know that they aren’t, and that’s where neuroscientists like myself penetrated this field of behavioral economics and said, “We can explain to you. We can explain to you how the mind work and actually help you understand why people do the things that you quantify as irrational, and also we can actually help you change them.” So we can look at the brain and see what drives behaviors from the brain’s perspective and then offer ways to change that, and this is I think where people like me came.
So there’re three kinds of states. First; economics theory predicts thing that make mistakes. Then behavioral economics or psychologists come and explain those mistakes by saying they’re consistent and they’re predictable and they always happen, but we don’t know how to change them or how to fix them. Now neuroscientists come and say we can fix them, change them and even offer a kind of complete explanation of how people behave, and that’s where I come into the world of economics, business and bring neuroscience to the game.
[0:11:54.1] MB: So let’s explore that a little bit more. Tell me about what are some of the kind of conclusions or explanations that you’ve uncovered and working on discovering around how people behave irrationally and perhaps how they can change or modify that behavior?
[0:12:10.9] MC: So I’ll give you examples of irrational behavior, what we understand about how people work and then how we can change it. So for instance there’s a classical experiment that actually won its author the Nobel Prize, Daniel Kahneman, the early turn of the century, where he show that people behave irrationally in the following ways. Imagine that you, for instance, bought a ticket to the movies for $10 and when you arrived at the theater and you’re about to enter you realized that somewhere between your home and the theater you lost the ticket. It fell off your pocket and you now lost our ticket and they asked a question, “Would you now stand in line and buy another one for $10?” Some people said yes and many people said no, “I’m fed up with this theater. I’m upset. I’m going home.”
Then they asked people a different question. They say, “Imagine you didn’t buy a ticket. You just went to the theater to buy one and on the way to the theater you lost $10. Would you now not buy a ticket to the theater?” Everyone said, “Of course, I will buy a ticket to the theater. What does it actually do with losing $10?”
For economists, $10 in the form of our precedent or $10 in the form of a ticket are the same. It doesn’t matter what image is on the paper, but for us it matters, because in one way we feel like we invested some of our emotions into the purchase and when we lost it we feel like we lost part of the theater and we might actually go home.
Now, when we come to think about it, we know that people indeed behave this way because they think of money differently in context. They think of money differently when they’re angry, when they already put something to it, but we can’t really change that. My colleagues and I come and try to change things is by looking at how our memories work, how our emotions work and basically offering access to those from various levels of complexities.
So I’ll give you the most complex one we can do right now, which is to actually change your memories and make you behave differently. That’s extreme and I should kind of put a disclaimer. Don’t try it at home yet until we understand how it works entirely. But one of the things we learned right now is that your memories, your experience in the world are not reliable to the extent that you don’t really know what’s going on inside your mind perfectly. You think you do, but you don’t.
So for instance, you and I right now are speaking and you definitely believe that it’s happening, right? You will not question the fact that we’re talking right now, but what if tomorrow you had a friend talk to you and this friend said, “Hey, remember that we had this soccer match we were playing last night?” You say, “No, I was actually on an interview with this professor last night.” She says, “No. No. No. You were with me playing soccer.” You would argue and you would totally believe that you were with me. You would never doubt your own mind even if she starts showing you pictures of the two of you playing soccer or bring 10 other people who would tell you, “No. We were also there and you played soccer.” You would still not believe it, because there is this idea that we totally believe what’s happening inside our brain and we never doubt that. There’s a barrier of entry to our brain. We really doubt everything that comes in. We’re skeptical. But once it’s in our brain, we never doubt it. We trust our memories entirely.
There’s a joke among neuroscientists where they say, “Don’t believe everything you think,” but that’s not the reality of how people operate. We always believe our thoughts. Now, we know that this is not a true thing. Now we also know that we can actually offer you ways to know that by changing them.
One of the things we do in my lab right now is we try to take people who go to sleep, and while they’re sleeping we poke inside their head figuratively. We don’t really drill inside, but we just do things to their brain using tools that allow us to look inside their head and we have them wake up with different thoughts and different memories than the ones they went to sleep with, and in doing so they actually operate differently. Tomorrow they might actually believe that something didn’t happen happened, or they might have different views on some things that they always have one view about. In doing so we can actually start slowly changing how they think about things, so when they come to the experience that I mentioned earlier of going to the theater to buy a ticket, they actually would have a different mindset, a mindset that actually knows that there’s no difference between money in paper or money in ticket and they would respond differently.
We actually take your brain and train your brain to understand these complexities so that you won’t make the same mistakes that others make. Sounds pretty creepy. It’s pretty remarkable and we’re just at the early stages of understanding how it works, but it allows us to actually take a person who is irrational and nudge them towards rationality.
[0:16:18.3] MB: I want to dig in to a number of different pieces of that, but I want to start with how are you inserting these memories or beliefs or ideas into people’s brains?
[0:16:28.2] MC: There are multiple ways. To that I’ll give you a simple one and a complex one. So the simple one is it turns out that if you take a choice that people have no strong feelings towards and you change it and you make them believe that it was coming from them, they will totally trust it.
I’ll give an example that’s concrete. There’s a study that was done by two colleagues of mine. They’re in Sweden right now. Where they would bring you to the lab and they will tell you to play a little game where they’ll show you two cards with two pictures of individuals and they say, “Hey, we’re going to show you two pieces of two men. You don’t know any of them. We just ask you to make a choice. Who do you find more attractive? The guy on the left or the guy on the right?”
You’ll say, “Okay. I don’t really know any of them. I’m looking at the pictures. I think that the guy on the left is more attractive.” They say, “Fantastic. Here’s the card with this picture of the guy that you just chose. Hold the card in your hand and explain to us in one sentence why you picked this guy.” So you hold it in your hand and you say, “Yeah, I like this guy because he’s smiling.” They say, “Fantastic. Let’s try another trial.” Pulling two new cards with two different people, showing you the cards, asking you again to make a choice, “Who do you find more attractive?” You make a choice, they give you the card. They ask you to explain to one sentence and then they move on to a different one. They did it for about one hour.
During the one hour you see dozens of couple of pictures. Each of them means nothing to you because you don’t know who they are, but each of them is a choice that you make and explain. But here is the interesting part in this experiment. Every now and then, once every, say, 20 trial, they actually give you the card you didn’t choose. So you chose the guy on the left. They use slight of hands to give you the card on the right that you didn’t pick without telling you. So you get the card you didn’t choose.
What they find are two interesting things. One is that people never noticed that they got the card they didn’t choose. So they just take the card that they received without noticing that this wasn’t their choice. More importantly, they hold the cards in their hand and then they go on and explain why this is really their choice. So in a matter of a second, you chose A, I give you B and you take B and you explain to me why you always wanted B, which means that somewhere in this moment you had a shift of memory. You make a choice, I change something in what the outcome is and you will go on to explain it. If I ask you to explain it more, you will create a more complex web associations about this choice that you didn’t make that will make you believe that it’s really a tool.
So here’s an example for that. You imagine you go to a supermarket and you’re about to buy 10 different items. One of them is a toothpaste. You go the shelf and there’s Colgate on the left and Crest on the right and you sit there for a while and you debate which one you want more and you try to be rational about it. You say, “I’m going to look at the color of the package and the price and how much CC of toothpaste is there and what’s more friendly environmentally?” whatever, and you ultimately choose Colgate, let’s say.
You put it in your basket and then you go on and you shop for other things and some point you get to the checkout, but in the moment you chose Colgate on the shelf, and the moment you got to the checkout, I sneak in your basket and I replaced the Colgate with a Crest. If the choice means nothing to you, which is what’s true for most choices that are kind of arbitrary, you would not notice that I actually replaced the Colgate with a Crest. You will buy the Crest, and if I stop you on the way outside the supermarket and I say, “Hey, we’re interested in market research to ask you why you chose Crest.” You’re going to never say, “You know what? I have no idea,” or “I actually chose Colgate.” You will just go on and explain in detail why Crest is better and why you like the minty taste or the whitening compound or whatever. If I probe even more and asked you for more explanations, you’re going to dive deeper into your brain and come up with even more complex answers and the more complex answers you’re going to give me, the more convinced you will be in the truth of those answers.
The point, that then you will actually be convinced that you really like Crest. Tomorrow you’re going to buy Crest yourself. So this is a small experiment where we just ask you questions with something you didn’t want and in answering them you create the associations in your brain that make you believe that you wanted it and go on and really desire this thing. That’s like one example of creating memories.
There’s a complex one that i just mentioned briefly because this one really is not something that’s tangible in any way for your audience, but it’s something that scientists do a lot, which is we actually look at patients who undergo brain surgery and do things inside their heads. One of the things I’m known for as a researcher is this work that we do for the last, now, almost two decades where we work with patients who undergo brain surgery for clinical purposes, and during the surgery, the surgeons placed electrodes inside their head in order to understand how they think and work and to identify the source of their problems.
What we do is we say, “Since you already agreed to a surgery and you already let us in your brain, we also want to study you. We want to also ask you if you want to buy Colgate or Crest while you’re on the operating room and understand how you make these decisions,” and essentially we use those wires inside people’s brain to understand how memories work, how thoughts and feelings are created, but also to understand how choices are being made and we change them. So that’s the extreme version of what I just said earlier instead of having you change things outside of your brain and explain to them, “We actually go inside and help you change them yourself and explain them differently.” So that’s something that you really shouldn’t try at home, but the first one is a version of a simple one of me moving your choice into one direction and having you explain why, and in doing so creates new answers.
[0:21:39.9] MB: That’s interesting and a little bit scary, but really fascinating.
[0:21:44.1] MC: I agree.
[0:21:44.4] MB: I want to get into kind of some of the implications of that around human augmentation and some other things. Before we kind of get down that rabbit hole, I want to stay on this decision making track for a few minutes. That experiment reminds me a little bit of kind of the commitment consistency bias that Cialdini writes about in the book Influence, and I don’t know if you’re familiar with the yard sign experiment where they would go and ask people to put like a little sticker that said, “Drive safely on their window,” and then they would come back two weeks later and those people would be willing to put these gigantic billboards on their yards that said “Drive safely.”
[0:22:17.9] MC: I think what you’re alluding to, and that Cialdini is known for that, and I think that others are kind of following his suit right now, is that if you do a small step to change behavior in the right direction, the brain will be helpful in helping you do it yourself in a much bigger way. So with people asking me, “How do you kind of change behavior of someone,” and changing behavior is really, really hard, but making small nudges is really easy. What we learn is that many times the small movement starts things on its own if you see a reward.
Think about going to the gym. If you take a person who is overweight and tries to lose weight, the idea of losing 50 pounds seem impossible and seems really, really hard. So people kind of lose hope right away even before they started, because it kind of feels impossible. But making a person go to the gym once, working really hard and feeling something the day after is easy. If you do it once you will feel something, and this feeling that something works is enough to actually make us want to do it just one more time.
I think that if you try to change someone’s behavior, going for 180 degrees is really, really hard, but going for 10 degrees is possible and the hope is that once the other person sees that change is happening, they will carry the 170 degrees remaining themselves. So I think that’s kind of where we’re going. We don’t really say, “Let’s take a person, poke in his brain and make him wake up differently.” We don’t say, “Let’s take a democrat and wake him up a republican.” But let’s say, “Let’s take a democrat and just offer him a new lens on the views that he had before and maybe this is enough for him to actually be open to new ideas to talk a republican, talk to a person who is a bit more conservative,” and that’s enough to move things in directions that are more kind of converging. So you can take people from opposing opinions and just have them find a language that can be used for the two of them to talk. You can take people who are having difficulty changing behavior and give them the steps towards changing behavior.
I think that’s something that was known to a lot of psychologists for a while, but now we’re starting to look at the neuroscience evidence. We actually see, we quantity the change. You would go to a therapist before and talk about your girlfriend who dumped you and hope that things are going to get better after a few meetings. Now we can actually quantify the therapy and tell you, “Yes, things are moving. You actually are showing changes. You see things differently or better overtime, and this means that you’re making progress.” I think that many people, once they see that something works, they do the work themself to make it work fully, and that’s like a good tip I guess for people altogether. Don’t aim for the entire 180 degrees right away, but just 10 steps that actually show to the other person that doing something will make a big kind of difference.
[0:24:54.6] MB: So how does the concept of neuroplasticity kind of play into these changing patterns of thought and memory and belief?
[0:25:03.8] MC: That’s a great question. We know two things about the brain, and now we know a third one that’s [inaudible 0:25:07.8] you. But the main thing that you should kind of know and [inaudible 0:25:10.4] audience and maybe the take home message, is that their brain is the organ in our body that mother nature gave us to adapt the world after we’re born. Most of the other things in your body are kind of fixed, like the DNA or the eye color, the hair color, how much hair you’re going to have in your chest. Everything is all set in a way when you’re born. The only thing in our body that’s made for the patient is the brain, and this is the organ that constantly responds to things in the environment.
Now we know that these organ changes overtime and some changes happen faster and slower and over ages, there are some ages where things even change faster. When you’re a kid, 0 to 5, you can really, really change fast. When you’re an adult, it becomes a little bit harder to change. This is why it’s easier to learn languages when you’re 0 to 5. It’s harder to learn languages when you’re older.
Also, there was one thing that always changes. These are your memories. Your memories are never fixed. They’re never kind of sitting in a vault like we imagine them to be. Just experience happens, you store it in your memory and you load it every time someone asks you a question about that memory. It actually works differently. You go to an experience, you store it in the vault, but then when you asked about this experience, you open the memory, you offer it to the other person as token and then you resave it. This means that if you resave it every time you use it, you can always change it.
Imagine that your girlfriend dumped you and you’re feeling really, really sad. You go to a therapist. The therapist asks you about this thing. You tell the therapist about this breakup. In doing so you actually open the memory for changes. The therapist maybe will say something. She would say something like, “You told me for a while about this relationship and you never really were satisfied.” In saying that, she actually introduced a little change to the memory. Now you resave everything with this change.
When you come to the therapist a week after and she asks you again about this breakup, you won’t load the original. You would load the modified version, that one that you saved last. Every time you use a memory, you change a little bit. Which means that overtime, when we use memories a lot, we actually change them and we change them sometimes greatly. We change them so that we remember facts that are totally differently overtime. We actually have new lens on experiences that we happen to kind of find important. The more we use it, it actually changed a little bit more because we use it a lot more.
Now, this is by design. This is how our brain is working so that we can heal. So if something bad happens, we actually deal with that and poke in the memory for a while until it becomes better. This is how our brain deals with trauma. This is how our brain deals also with things that we want to kind of remember more. We add more and more angles and more and more nuances of them until they become a perfect memory in our mind. So we actually use memories and change them all the time.
Now, knowing that means that we can actually use that to help you change. The neuroplasticity that you asked me about suggests that I can have you talk about things. I can help you go through experiences, and in doing so really change how you view them. Primarily, we now know we can do it also when you’re sleeping. Even when you’re sleeping your brain still rehearses memories and loads them in kind of things about them in the form of dreams, in the form of thoughts that happens when you’re sleeping. It can even now reactivate some of the memories even when you’re kind of resting and help your brain do this process of rehearsing them and changing them.
All of it is to say that we have more and more evidence in the last couple of years to how the brain changes memories, experiences and thinking about things and we’re now trying to quantify that and help people really understand when things happen, when changes are happening and how changes are happening so they can actually get better in all walks of life; get healthier, have less traumatic experiences, and altogether align their outcomes with their interest by ways of actually rehearsing the things that they want more and really living the life that aligns with what their intensions are.
[0:28:57.1] MB: So as a neuroscientist, is your work looking at kind of the – In some sense, the sort of the physical aspects of how the brain changes, how memories are stored and recalled and how are the beliefs can be kind of shifted by these kind of interventions?
[0:29:13.3] MC: Yes. So we look at it not just like in theoretical neuroscience aspect, also practically. We’re trying to kind of see what things people can actually do that will help them change. One thing I said is that we actually learned that just taking experiences that are bad and actually dealing with them by talking about them more and more. So talking about them particularly with people who can give us positive inputs actually makes us get better. You’d go to a person, you tell them the story, they give you positive input, you save it, you go the day after, you tell them the story, you give you positive input. It actually changes. It means that overtime you will get better. You will have different perspective of this same bad experience. That’s a tangible, practical thing.
We also know that, generally, giving people access to their behavior in the past with some kind of reflections of that helps them to change. For example, if you’re the CEO of a company, we have studies where we tell you, “For the next week, work about your life regularly.” Just every time you have a choice, write down the state you are at when you made this choice. How hungry you were? How hard you were? How mad at people you were or how important their inputs were. Put as many things as you can into the moment and then tell us what the options were and what the choice was and just code your choice, log them for the next 10 days, let’s say, and then when they come after a week of doing that, we actually go with them over all the choices and we ask them to tell us which ones they’re happy with and which ones they’re not happy with. Which ones they like the outcome. Which ones they feel they made a mistake.
We look at their brains when they make the ones that are good and the ones that are bad and try to profile their brain and tell them, “You know, it seems that your brain makes choices that you feel happier with when you’re hungry. You feel happier with choices when you’re in the evening rather than in the morning. You like choices better when you’re with these people, but not with that people.”
So we kind of help them see which states their brain is when they make choices that they like more and then help them actually kind of profile their brain. What’s important is that every person has different brains. You might feel better making choices in the morning and I might feel better making choices in the evening, or your wife might like better choices that happen when she’s surrounded by 10 people and you might be alone.
So every one person has their own brain, but we try to actually help people figure out what’s their brain profile and what choices align with that and what choices are not and maximize the time that they spend making choices that are important in the right environment. You can say that, “For this particular choice, I’m going to wait in the morning because I know that my brain works best in the morning when I’m full after I spoke with 10 people, but when I’m alone, closer the deadline.”
In doing that, we actually look at your brain and tell you what your brain’s perfect states are, how to get there and make decisions that are better. Now you don’t have to work with neuroscientist for that. Neuroscience gives you more access to the brain, but even every person from the room that is listening to you right now can do it for themselves. They can take 48 hours by which they just sit with a notebook and every time they make a choice, they just write down the conditions and then look back at the choices, code which ones they like and which ones they are not happy with and try to see what is common to their situations and they were at when they made choices that they like. Maybe you were the simple person or maybe you were alone. Maybe you were hungry or full. Maybe you’re in a loud place or a quiet place. Some of the choices are going to tell you something about who you are. That’s enough to, even without looking at the brain, understand something about what’s your best case scenario.
[0:32:32.7] MB: That’s a great strategy and reminds me of a very similar tool used on sort of a broader spectrum, is the idea of a decision journal. I mean, this is almost like a daily decision journal, but the other concept would be kind of expanding that out to looking at the major decisions in your life and trying to understand what are the kind of contexts and inputs around those and then aggregating those overtime so you can see your own sort of biases or repeated errors in your thinking.
[0:32:56.3] MC: Absolutely. I think what’s important in understanding with people who don’t believe that, but I can’t stress it enough, is that we’re a lot simpler than we think we are. People think, “Oh! But until you understand the complexity of my mind, you need hundreds of choices and to follow me constantly and really understand.”
People think that they’re very unique, and it turns out that for the sake of brain and choices, we’re a lot more simple. We’re a lot simpler than we think we are. We are all falling into one of very few clusters. We’re very predictable. This is what marketing mangers knew for a while, that if you priced a thing as 6.99 rather than 7, everyone knows that it’s actually 7. It’s one cent different, but it works. All of us somehow fall for this in our mind because we read numbers from left to right rather than right to left.
Even though one of us is an engineer, another one is a housewife, a kid, an adult, speaking English or not, we all fall for that. Somehow marketing managers realized that when it comes to choices, we’re a lot more similar than different. In that sense, if you just find your brain and figure out which kind of category you fall into out of very few, you will find not only how you work and what’s helping you do best. You’d also find who’s like you and who’s not and you can start thinking about putting yourself next to people who think like you or think different than you so you can make choices similarly.
So maybe someone who shares your views and values and then you can outsource some of the choices to her instead of having to make all the choices yourself and say, “I trust my wife because I know that she chooses like me. So I’m going to give her the reigns when it comes to what we eat and when we go on vacation and she would give you the choice of who you’re spending time with and when you should talk to this or that person,” because you know that brains would actually work the same way. But maybe in your company, you want someone who thinks the opposite of you because you’ll say, “I’m going to be really good in the morning. I need someone else to be really good in the evening, and this is the person that will make the best thing for me.” In many ways, once you start profiling your decision making style and asking others around you to do the same, you will start finding what’s the perfect match. Well, not just you, but for a group around you.
[0:35:05.1] MB: I think that’s a really interesting point, and I think it kind of comes back to this idea that you touched on earlier, which is with the experiment where people were kind of handed the pictures they didn’t select, we think our decision making is so – And the problems that we faced are so unique and so kind of one off, but the reality is not only do they often times fall into kind of simple, predictable patterns of bias and behavior, but also in many cases our decisions aren’t even really our own decisions and they’re impacted by small external factors, like the environment and other things.
[0:35:38.0] MC: Absolutely. So we know more and more now that more and more of our brain is not really under our control. This myth that says that we only use 20% of our brain. This is not true. We use 100% of our brain, but not all of our brain is accessible to us. Not everything in our brain is something that we have control. A lot of things that happen in our brain happen without you actually governing them. Simply, you can think about three things, right? Your brain sends a signal every second to your lungs and to your mouth and to your nose to inhale and exhale and contrast and expand. All of these happens under the hood. You have no access to that. It just happens and you’re there witnessing it without the need to actually govern that in a new way.
This is true for even more complex things, like your emotions. You don’t really say, “Some friend of mine is sick. I should activate sadness right now. Turn on sadness please. Sadness for 10 minutes. Turn off sadness right now. Let’s move to happiness.” You don’t really control your emotions. They kind of dawn on you and you’re a witness to their exposure.
So we know now that the brain has a lot of things that are happening that we have no control over. They just happen to us. We’re beginning to actually understand how they work and how to get control over them, but for the sake of the immediate moment, we should know that a lot of things happen in our brain that we don’t have access to, but they do have influence on our life. The temperate in the room changes how you respond to things.
There are experiments where people are asked to hold a cup of tea in their hand while they write an essay about their mothers, and whether it’s a cup of hot tea or a cup of iced tea, changes how nice or warm or cold they are in their writing about their moms, just because the temperate in your body reflects thoughts that are in your mind differently. So you probably have all the repertoire of options of things that you think about mother, but if you’re cold in your body, you will reflect some of the negative ones maybe more than the positive ones even though you don’t put them in your head.
This is all part of like this field. It’s called embodied cognition that chose time and again that a lot of things are happening to us that are driven by our mind and our body that we have no full control over. The moment we understand them, we can actually predict how they’re going to work, but at the same time they’re governing how we think, decide and operate without us knowing exactly how they are going to influence us before they are actually manifested themselves.
[0:38:00.7] MB: So what can we do or maybe somebody who’s listening, how could we kind of constructively think about the idea of embodied cognition and these other things we’ve been talking about, decision making and behavior, how can we incorporate that into our own decision making and process and try to live with that effectively or be better decision makers as a result?
[0:38:20.9] MC: So I’ll give you a few quick ones. First of all, just by knowing about it. If you just know the term, if you go to Wikipedia and read about it, if you listen to our conversations about it, immediately things get different. You immediately become aware of this just by knowing that these things exist. If you have a name for something, you can think about it, and if you can think about it, you can actually control it. So just whoever is listening to right now, already by listening made a first step.
Let’s take it differently. Another step we can make is also to code things. So we said that the CEOs of companies come to us and we tell them, “Please, write down what was the noise level in the room when you make a choice in the board room. Tell us who you were with.” Just by coding thing in your life you will become aware of the patterns and you will start to know them. That’s option number two we mentioned.
Option number three, of course, is to work with a neuroscientist who can actually look at your brain and analyze your brain as you make choices and really kind of create a pathway, diagrams that explains to you how you choose and to change it if you want. Option number four, which I think is my preferred one, is to surround yourself by people who overtime prove themselves to be decision makers that you like and outsource some choices to them.
So I always go to restaurants with people I really, really like to have dinner and when the menu comes, I tell the other person, “Choose for the two of us.” Sometimes I will choose for the two of us. Sometimes they would choose with separate choices. I say, “I trust you. I know that your taste is great. I like new experiences. I know that you’re going to want what’s in my best interest. You choose for the two of us. I’ll do the same next time so we cannot overload each other with the choices.” If none of us know each other that well, I ask the waiter to say, “Hey, give me two, three options that you think are good and I randomly choose number three,” just to kind of make it so that I would commit to something but not fully choose always the first one because it might be given by some other ideas.
Those things actually ease our lives because they tell us first of all that, A, we don’t have to make choices, but B, the choices that we make when it comes to small things are usually pretty similar. You won’t be that disappointed from the salad compared to the stake, and you think before that you really will be, but you won’t.
Also, as you start to get the outcomes of choices and you see which ones you’re happy with, which ones you’re not, who chose them, you start to know something about your colleagues and your friends and you say, “Okay. Every time I go to a stake place, I should take Leslie and have her make a choice, because the past history shows that she’s really, really good.” “Every time I go to a movie, I should go with Anthony and let him choose, because I know that he’s making a good choice.” In doing that we, A, become friends, but also B, remove a little bit of the load, the choices we have on our brain. We know that making decisions actually is tax on our brain. Having many of them tires our brain. So if they’re not that important, why don’t divide them by people and take people that you know are making good choices in domains and have them do those for you. That’s tip number four in out of four ways to actually do better in choosing.
[0:41:17.4] MB: So I want to come back to what we talked about earlier, kind of the idea of inserting memories and transforming the brain. You recently gave a TED Talk called Humans 2.0 where you kind of talked about human augmentation and a really interesting kind of future of how we can apply technology to the brain and enhancing our cognition. I’d love to hear your thoughts about that.
[0:41:39.0] MC: If you look at evolution, it’s a really, really slow process. It takes millions of years. If you think about how long it will take you humans to say develop wings so we can fly, it’s a process that won’t be your and my lifetime. It will take years of evolution if it’s even advantageous for human to have wings. But for the first time in history, we actually are able to take over evolution and enhance human bodies much faster. Rather than millions of years, it could be a few months or years. We do that by actually harnessing the power of technology and the power of the brain.
So what we know with the brain, is the brain is a machine that gets input and learns what’s the signal in this input. This is, if you want how we learn things as babies. When you’re born, you have a brain, the brain is pretty, void of stimuli, but you start bombarding the eyes of a baby with photons from the world and its brain quickly learns how to do the complex [inaudible 0:42:32.6] transformation of the signal and essentially learn to see. It takes a baby a few hours, days, weeks before it learns to separate colors and identify moving shapes and gradually learn how to identify object and stuff like that. Within a few weeks you already see. You see the same way. You see after many, many years of training, and you see by having your brain do complex processing happening under the hood.
In the same way, your brain learns how to hear, how to smell, but we can also think of new organs that don’t exist right now and see if the brain of a human would learn how to control them. Imagine that I take a third arm and plug it somehow into your brain and connect it to your body. The question is; will the brain learn quickly just by getting feedback from this new arm, how to control it? The answer is yes. The answer is some experiments that were done on animals and a few that were done on humans, we plug new devices into their brain and we see that their brain within a few weeks or months usually learns to control them.
The classical example would be the cochlear implant. That’s a device that people that are deaf use to hear. You basically a device that translates the molecular vibrations in the air into the language to their brain and the brain just gets bombarded with a new signal that it doesn’t know, because these people were deaf and they didn’t hear anything before, but suddenly their brain gets new signal coming from vibration in the air and within a few months they learn to hear. That’s how we kind of can conquer deafness.
There are now studies with humans that are trying to conquer blindness and make people who were blind learn to see. We gradually learned that the brain learns a lot of things if you just blast it with information that has meaning and let it do its magic. Now in the same way we can imagine a world where we indeed connect a third arm and teach you how to control it or plug two wings into your brain that would start flapping and changing how they feel. Overtime your brain will learn how to actually control those wings, but also how to fly.
This kind of idea that we can enhance the human body by plugging devices into the brain and having the brain learn quickly how to control them is the notion of Human 2.0. We take the body that you are born with, we plug new devices into it; wings, our complex nose, a third eye in the back, anything you can imagine as long as it knows how to speak the language of the brain, we presume that the brain will learn overtime to control it and you will gain this new senses and you kind of control over the organ. That’s Human 2.0.
[0:45:08.7] MB: It’s so fascinating to me this idea that the brain is so effective at adapting and understanding new information that essentially we’re not quite there yet obviously, but potentially in the near future there could be the technology basically implant a chip into your brain that could learn to intuitively think and interact with just like your own limbs or your own sort of thinking patterns that could actually be – Whether it’s sort of an external piece of electronics or computational power or whatever. It’s really, really interesting.
[0:45:39.5] MC: Absolutely. I think that the nice analogy that someone equated it with is two people. One guy navigating the world with a map, trying to get from point A to point B. Another guy just memorizing things in his brain and then navigating with his mind. The only difference is whether the thoughts come from your own mind or from the map, and gradually we know how to basically put this map inside your head.
This map is an example. It could be your phone. It could be any gadget on the outside world that will give you an advantage. Right now if I ask you to calculate how much is 58 x 56, you would spend some time with a piece of paper or with your iPhone trying to do the numbers. But if I ask you how much is 2 + 2, you will just outsource, so to speak, the thought from your linguistic area to the calculating area. You’re going to get the number and you’re going to turn it back and you’re going to say the number is 4. It’s just because one of them is easy, one of them is hard. But if we take the
iPhone chip and put it inside your brain, when I ask how much is 58 x 56, you will just do the same thing, but inside your head you will just think the thoughts that will turn to the iPhone, like the guy turned to the map and asked the iPhone in your head how much is the answer. It will do the numbers for you and give it back to you and you will just spit the answer not even knowing that it happened on a different device, because once we plug it into your brain, it would even feel to you like it’s a different thing. The same way you don’t really feel the separation between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. They just feel like part of the same thing. If we put a thing inside your head, it will do things for you. It will just filter you automatically and immediately, like it’s you making the same things, and this is kind of the next level of what we can do. We can actually start harnessing the power of technology inside our head and feel like it’s doing it for us, really, kind of integration of human and machines.
[0:47:17.8] MB: So fascinating and it’s such an exciting future to kind of contemplate. So wrapping up, for listeners who want to concretely implement some of the ideas that we’ve talked about today to improve themselves, what would be kind of one piece of homework that you would give them as an action step or starting point?
[0:47:36.5] MC: I think that, in my mind, the first step is to just know. So the more you know the language of what is – We spoke about recognition, about irrational thinking. Once you know those things, you can’t ignore them anymore. They become part of your life and you start being aware of things. So that’s step number one. I think every person who’s listening to this podcast did step number one.
Step number two, surround yourself with people who embody the things you want to have yourself. I tell a lot my students always that if they want to become something, one way is to learn about it and actually trying to train themselves. But another one is to just surround themselves with people who have that. If you want to be funny, you can actually buy a book of 1,000 Jewish jokes and read them or you can actually try to learn how to be funny by looking at the comedians. But another one is to just find friends that are funny and be with them for a while. It will figuratively rub on to you by osmosis. You will actually become funnier because you will just internalize how they do things by how fast they are, what’s their timing when they tell jokes. You will somehow learn that.
Same is true for any other thing you want to manifest. You’re always late and you want to be on time. Be next to people who are always on time. You will just become a person that’s on time automatically. I think this is tip number two that I always try to kind of do in myself. You think what you want, you find people who have that and you put them next to you, and this works magically in changing you without you needing to work for that. It just happens automatically.
[0:49:11.5] MC: So I have a website. It’s my first and last name .com, morancerf.com. Generally, I’m the easiest to find. If you just look my name, there are so many now talks and videos that my students and I have given that it’s the easiest to find. Really, the most accessible scientist you can imagine.
[0:49:29.7] MB: Well, Moran, thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing all these wisdom. Such a fascinating career and life you’ve had and it’s really cool to see how you’re applying these now to help people become smarter and to change neuroscience.
[0:49:43.3] MC: Thank you so much, Matt. It really was a pleasure.
Decision Making, Mind Expansion
The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing with Daniel Pink
June 21, 2018 by Lace Gilger in Focus & Productivity, Mind Expansion
In this episode we discuss the secrets of perfect timing. Is there really a science to timing the most important things in life? Is it possible that something as simple as time of day could impact the effectiveness of doctors and other medical experts? Can you align your day to be more effective just by changing the time that you do certain activities? We dig into these questions and much more as we explore the truth about the power of time - with Dan Pink.
Dan Pink is the New York Times bestselling author of multiple award winning books including his most recent work When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. Dan has been named one of Thinkers 50’s top 15 business thinkers in the world. His TED talk on the science of motivation is one of the 10 most-watched TED talks of all time and his work has been featured across the globe.
Is timing an art or a science?
The science of timing is multi-disciplinary challenge
The power of multi-disciplinary thinking and how thinking between and beyond the boundaries of academic disciplines gives us the more coherent picture of reality
We don’t take WHEN as seriously as WHAT
Science say about constructing better daily architectures?
The three major day parts - Peak / Trough / Recovery
How we should think about aligning our day around each of these periods
Our “vigilance” peaks in the morning
Align Analytic, Administrative, Creative
We see the same patterns across different domains of life
All times of day are not created equal
The performance gap is pretty astounding
Why you should never go to the doctors office in the afternoon
“The Science of Breaks” is proving to be really powerful
The science of “breaks” is where the science of sleep was 15 years ago
“Breaks are for wimps, breaks are a sign of weakness” - this is totally wrong
Professionals take breaks, amateurs don't
The three “chronotypes” - the field of chronobiology
Morning people - “larks
Evening people - “owls"
Intermediate people - “third birds"
“The Munich Chronotype Questionnaire"
Does fasting raise your energy levels throughout the day?
Does caffeine positively or negatively our energy flow throughout the day?
Take a cup of coffee and then a short nap - will energize you tremendously
Our lives are a series of episodes, not a clear linear progression
Life is full of Beginnings, Middles, and Ends - and each affects us differently
Middles can bring us up or bring us down
Mid points are often invisible to us
Homework: Make a “break list"
A small break is better than no break at all
Moving is better than not moving
Social is better than solo
Best breaks are FULLY detached
Homework: Track your daily behavior
Set an alarm every 45min to an hour
How do I feel right now 1-10
How am I worked right now 1-10?
Chart those answers over time for a week or two
Homework: Observe your own behavior and conduct small experiments - A/B Test on yourself
[Personal Site] Daniel H. Pink
[Article] Cognitive fatigue influences students’ performance on standardized tests by Hans Henrik Sievertsen, Francesca Gino, and Marco Piovesan
[Faculty Profile] Francesca Gino
[Article] Oh What a Beautiful Morning! The Time of Day Effect on the Tone and Market Impact of Conference Calls by Jing Chen, Elizabeth Demers, and Baruch Lev
[Article] The Long-Term Labor Market Consequences of Graduating from College in a Bad Economy by Lisa B. Kahn
[Article] The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior by Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman, and Jason Riis
[SoS Episode] The Secret That Silicon Valley Giants Don’t Want You To Know with Dr. Adam Alter
In this episode we discussed the secrets of perfect timing. Is there really a science to timing the most important things in life? Is it possible that something as simple as time of day could impact the effectiveness of doctors or other medical experts? Can you align your day to be more effective just by changing the time that you do certain activities? We dig into these questions and much more as we explore the truth about the power of time with Dan Pink.
I want to tell you about one of our earlier episodes this month. In our previous episode with Peter Shallard, we explored the gap that exists between learning and doing. Why it is that so many smart, ambitious people invest hours in their growth and development but failed to see breakaway external results for the time that they've invested? If you sometimes feel overwhelmed by all the things you know you could or should be implementing to level up your life and career, then that episode is going to blow your mind.
We explore what science is telling us about the actual execution of concrete individual growth and measurable upward mobility across various dimensions of life, which are the most effective tactic for moving yourself from learning to doing, with our special guest Peter Shallard.
That interview a couple of weeks ago is one of the most impactful and different interviews that we've done on the show. If you want to finally take action on what you been procrastinating on, listen to that episode. It will have a big impact on you.
Now for interview with Dan.
[0:03:28.4] MB: Today, we have another legendary guest on the show, Daniel Pink. Dan is the New York Times best-selling author of multiple award-winning books including his most recent work When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.
Dan has been named one of Thinker 50s top 15 business thinkers in the world. His TED Talk on the science of motivation is one of the 10 most watched TED Talks of all time and his work has been featured across the globe.
Dan, welcome to the Science of Success.
[0:03:56.9] DP: Matt, thanks for having me. It’s good to be here.
[0:03:58.9] MB: Well, we’re very excited to have you on the show. Austin and I have both been big fans of you and your work for years and years and years. So we’re really excited to finally have you on here. I loved to start out with and kind of dig into some of the core ideas from your recent book When. When you talk about kind of timing, many people sort of bring this idea up. Is timing and art or is it a science?
[0:04:23.7] DP: I used to think that it was an art, but I'm not convinced it’s a science, because to write this book and try to figure out how to make better timely decisions, I realized that there is this incredibly vast body of research on timing. Everything from what’s the effective time of day on what we do and how we do it. How do beginnings affect us? How do midpoints affect us? How do endings affect us?
I think the challenge in this research and the challenge in this body of science is that it's really not a self-contained body. It is spread over many disciplines. So there's a research asking these questions in economics, and in social psychology, and also in anthropology, in cognitive science, in molecular biology. There’s a whole field called chronobiology. It's in anesthesiology, and epidemiology, and endocrinology. So the research is splattered across all these disciplines, and because the people in these individual disciplines often don't talk very much to one another, I don't think they fully realize that they’re asked the same questions.
[0:05:26.7] MB: I love how multidisciplinary kind of approach is. I men, one of the things that we talk a lot about on the show and one of my kind of intellectual heroes is Charlie Monger, who is a huge champion of kind of multidisciplinary thinking. So I think that’s great approach to pursue this sort of question of timing.
[0:05:42.7] DP: Yeah. Although I have to say just to be fair. I didn’t set out to take a multidisciplinary approach. I set out to find the evidence, and the evidence turned out to be in multiple disciplines. So, generally, when we have a choice, when we have a volition, yeah, I like to see things from different – From multidisciplinary perspective. But I actually discovered the multidiscipline rather than set out to be explicitly multidisciplinary.
[0:06:06.9] MB: That's really interesting. I mean, I think it comes back to this kind of fundamental premise that to be true, any discipline of reality, or academia, or whatever has to also reflect what every other discipline reflects, right? So to really figure out what's actually the case, and if we get into kind of the evidence and the science and kind of looking for truth in that sense, I think it all comes back to this idea that every discipline has pieces of the truth, and the only way to really get to the ultimate conclusion in a lot of cases is to kind of merge those types of things. I mean, behavioral and economics is another great example of kind of that cross disciplinary approach.
[0:06:41.7] DP: Sure, and I think it’s really good point and I actually think that the boundaries between disciplines are not fully arbitrary, but are much more porous than we believe. If you think about economics and social psychology, well, they’re both ultimately about behavior and decision-making and the endless tug between individuals and the context that they’re in. The fact that we label one economics and one social psychology is in some ways arbitrary and if you look at the boundary between social psychology and anthropology.
Anthropology is less experimental, but the underlying questions are in some ways similar. Again, I don’t want to get a lot of hate mail from social scientists, but they are different disciplines. In some ways that have different methodologies, but I really think the border the far more porous and the more we learn about the brain, the more we learn about even human physiology, the more we realize that the boundary between "behavioral science” and the “life sciences” are probably more porous than we realize too.
[0:07:49.1] MB: I want to come back to this kind of idea of timing, because I think we could go on about multidisciplinary thinking and how powerful it is, but one of the things that you said in the book that really kind of stuck out to me was this idea that we don't take when nearly as seriously as we take what.
[0:08:09.2] DP: Sure. I mean, it’s the heart of this book. We tend to be very intentional about certain aspects of our live when we think about our work lives. So what are we going to do? We’re intentional about that. We have a to-do-list. Who are we going to do it with? Companies have HR departments to figure out who gets to participate. But when it comes to when we do things, we think it doesn't matter, and the evidence shows it matters. It matters a heck of a lot. Even on the unit of a day, our cognitive abilities don't stay the same throughout the day. They changed in ways that can be fairly dramatic. When we do something depends on what it is we’re doing, and yet we tend to think of these questions of when as a second order, a third order issue, and it's not. I don't think the question that when are more important than the questions of what or who. But I think they’re as important. I think the evidence, that data, the research says that very clearly and loudly.
[0:09:03.9] MB: I think it's kind of funny. I mean, the listeners may not hear this in kind of the edited version, but we both actually already had like at least one thing we had to kind of edit out of this and retake and we typically record our interviews earlier in the day and we’ll get into kind of the daily architecture of this stuff kind of flows. I just think it's funny. We’re recording this now, 2 PM in the afternoon, and we are dead in the middle of the trough. So we’re both trying to kind of wake up out of the fog and do this interview.
But I'd love to get into that a little bit. So tell me about what is the science and the data say about how we should structure our kind of daily architecture and how our mood and our performance changes based on the day part?
[0:09:45.2] DP: So what we see in general is this, that most of us move through the day in three stages. There is a peak, a trough and a recovery. Most of us move through the day in that order, peak earlier in the day, trough middle of the day, recovery later in the day.
Now, when I say most us, that’s actually very important caveat. Some of this is determined by what’s known as our chronotype, which is basically our propensity to wake up early and go to sleep early or wake up late and go to sleep late. About 15% of us are very strong morning people. About 20% of us are very strong evening people, and most of us are kind of in the middle. So 15% of us are larks. 20% of us are owls. Two-thirds of us are what I call third birds.
The sequence in which you go through these stages depends on your chronotype, and the simplest way to think about it is owls and not owls, nighttime people and not nighttime people. 80% of us go through the day exactly as I suspect it, peak early, trough middle, recovery later. Owls are much more complicated. they might go through the day recovery, trough, peak, but the main thing is that they hit their peak late in the afternoon and early, sometimes even midevening. So why does this matter?
Let’s think about these three stages, and this goes to the point I made earlier about when we should do something depends on what it is we’re actually doing. During the peak, which are most of us is early in the. That's when we are most vigilant, and that’s the key word here, vigilant. What does is it mean to be vigilant? Vigilance means that you can bat away distraction. You can guard your cerebral gates. You can fight back against intruders, and that makes it the best time for what social psychologists call analytic work. That work that requires heads down, focus and analysis of writing a report, analyzing data, something like that.
During the trough, we’re actually not good at very much at all. It’s a very dangerous time of the day. You have a lot of problems at healthcare. You have arrived in auto accidents. Trough is the, as you were saying earlier, Matt, is a less than ideal time of day. So what we should be doing there is work that doesn't require massive amounts of brainpower or creativity or administrative work. Answering routine emails, whatever it is, the kind of garbage that all of us do day-to-day on the job.
They recovery period is actually really interesting. Again, for most of us, that’s late afternoon and early evening. The recovery period is really interesting. At that time of day, our mood has recovered. Our mood is higher and we’re less vigilant and that combination can be potent. That makes it a good time for things like brainstorming, iterative work where we’re able to exercise a little bit more mental looseness than mental tightness, and that's pretty much it, that what we should be doing is we should be doing our administrative work during the trough. We should be doing our analytic work during the peak and we should be doing our creative insight work during the recovery. The problem is that we don't do that. It goes back to this idea that we don't take the when as seriously as we take the what.
[0:12:49.7] MB: So I’d love to get into some of the research behind these conclusions about kind of the day parts and how our mood and behavior changes throughout the day. I know the data behind this is really robust in many cases. So I’d love to kind of hear that.
[0:13:02.7] DP: There’s so much interesting stuff, Matt, and what I think is interesting about this, again, and maybe it's analogous to the multidisciplinary research we’re talking about before, is how much we see the same patterns across different domains of life. Let me tell you what I mean by that. So let’s take education. There’s some brilliant research on student test scores in Denmark. This was done by Francesca Gino at Harvard and two Danish researchers. Something very peculiar, sort of natural experiment occurred in Denmark where students in Denmark take standardized tests as they do here in the United States. But in Denmark students take these tests on computers. That don't take them on pencil and paper.
However, the typical Danish school has more students and computers, so everybody can take the test at the same time. So they’re randomly assigned to take the test at different times of day, and it turns out that kids who take the test in the afternoon versus the morning score considerably worst. They scored as if they missed two weeks of school. That’s pretty amazing when you think about it, and that if taking a test in the afternoon is the equivalent in your performance of missing two full weeks of school. We see this over and over again in education where all times of day are not created equal when it comes to student performance.
You see this in big time in healthcare where some very alarming research out of the healthcare sector is showing that, for instance, hand washing in hospitals deteriorates considerably in the afternoon. Anesthesia errors are four times more likely at 3 PM than at 9 AM. Doctors perform colonoscopies find as half as many polyps than afternoon exams as doing morning exams. You see this in corporate performance, where there’s a great piece of research out of NYU, New York University, about the tone of corporate conference calls, earnings calls, and earnings calls in the afternoon are more negative, irritable and combative than earnings calls in the morning even when you control for the fundamentals of what earnings company is reporting.
So in every domain – I mean, basically in multiple, multiple domains, we see some fundamental tenets here about human performance, and one of them is that our cognitive abilities don't stay the same throughout the day. That's really important. Our brainpower isn't the same throughout the day. It changes. Some of those changes can be fairly dramatic so that the difference between the daily high point and the daily low point is often quite significant.
As I was saying before, when we do something depends on what it is that we’re doing, and that goes back to what we’re saying before. It's like, so we should be much more intentional about putting the right work at the right time, doing that heads down, lockdown focus work requiring vigilance during our peak period, which for most of us is morning. For Alice, it’s later in the day. Doing that more insight-driven brainstorming ton of research during the recovery period, which for most of us is late afternoon or early evening, and using the period in the middle of the day, which is generally a pretty bad period for stuff that isn’t a heavy lift, answering routine emails, doing that kind of thing.
[0:16:02.6] MB: I find the performance gap be pretty amazing. I mean, the Danish kind of schools example.
[0:16:08.4] DP: Yeah. It’s incredible.
[0:16:09.9] MB: Yeah, it was really, really fascinating.
[0:16:11.8] DP: It’s really incredible. I think the other thing that’s interesting about that researcher is also – I don't want to sound hopeless here, because there are remedies for this. So, I mean, the meta-remedy is being much more intentional about doing the right work at the right time. But the other more tactical remedy, in Denmark, and you see it with some of these other studies as well, is that one of the things that help give those scores a lift back up was giving the kids a break. Giving the kids a 20 to 30 minute break beforehand to get a snack and run around. When they had that, they afternoon test scores went up.
There’s another aspect of the science of all of these, which is that the science of breaks is proving to be really powerful. That we should be taking more breaks. We should be taking certain kinds of breaks. We see it in the research on handwashing in hospitals. One of the remedies for getting handwashing in hospitals backup was to give the nurses more breaks in particular, in that case, social breaks, breaks with other people. So if we go into the underlying evidence, we can get some clues about what's going on in our midst and how to do things a little bit better.
[0:17:16.1] MB: Yeah, I think the kind of theme of recovery and downtime and taking breaks is something we see again and again as kind of one of the most common and recurrent themes on the show. We've interviewed a number of people who are kind of top performance experts in that kind of stuff and they talk again and again about how critical rest and recovery is. So that's fascinating.
[0:17:35.9] DP: Well, here’s what I think about that. It’s interesting you say that, because my analogy here is that if you look at, again, the science. I think the science of breaks is where the science of sleep was 15 years ago, that I’d really do think that in this country we have a somewhat changed perspective on sleep that I find fewer people saying, “Oh, sleep when I'm dead,” or “Sleep is for wimps.”
I think that in the last 15 years or so, the science of sleep is deep and its hit some critical level of public consciousness. So at least somewhat less, people are not celebrating as much sleep deprivation and pulling all-nighters because we know it hurts performance. It doesn't help performance. That you shouldn’t be bragging about that, you should be ashamed of that. I mean, nobody would brag about saying, “Oh my God! I came into the office yesterday and was totally drunk,” and sleep of sleep has that kind of effect and I think we’re changing on that, on our approach to sleep. I think the same thing is happening with breaks.
Again, I don't have clean hands here because I'm someone who never took breaks and my attitude toward breaks was that breaks are for wimps, breaks are sign of weakness, breaks are concession, that amateurs take breaks, but professional don’t. As you’ve discovered on your show, it’s the exact opposite. Professionals take breaks. It’s the amateur that don't take breaks. But every once in a while a body of research, a body of science gets deep enough that it has some substance, but whatever collection of forces, it ends up hitting public consciousness and changing the way we approach our life. I think that is happening now asleep and I think that's on the brink of happening with breaks.
[0:19:11.4] MB: That's a really fascinating insight, and I think it's great way to kind of look at that, because sleep definitely has become more – People have started to realize how critical it is. We had an interview a couple of months ago with Dr. Matthew Walker, who’s one of the top sleep experts.
[0:19:25.9] DP: I recommend that book all the time. I’m spacing on the name of it, but it's Why We Sleep, something like that. But it's the best book on sleep science around.
[0:19:33.7] MB: Yeah. Yeah, he's a fascinating dude, and we’ll throw that in the show notes so listeners can did into that. But it's a great way to kind of conceive that, because you're right. I think there is still a huge stigma around taking breaks. You know what I mean? I can’t imagine going into a random fortune 500 company’s office and seeing somebody napping at 3 PM in the afternoon.
[0:19:52.6] DP: Yeah, and maybe they should be. Maybe they’d be performing better. It is a weirdly American thing, that is that somehow Americans, no matter where they come from, have absorbed some of this puritanical mindset where breaks are sign of not only like physical and intellectual laziness, but they’re a sign of moral weakness, and it’s just the wrong way to think about it. As I said, I'm a sinner in all of these, because that's what I used to think.
[0:20:23.5] MB: Yeah. I mean, I think I have the same belief, and even years ago, the same kind of conception about sleep and how it wasn’t important and all of this kind of stuff. The more you look at, whether it's the science and the data, people like Dr. Matthew Walker, or even the world's top performance experts, sleep, rest, recovery, it's so vital.
[0:20:41.4] DP: Absolutely. You have many NBA teams now have sleep consultants where they’re monitoring their players’ sleep where they're actually taking away some of the autonomy players have over the temperature in the rooms when the sleep. So sleep is a part of our performance. Just as breaks are part of our performance.
Again, I used to think that these things were deviation from performance. They were concessions that you had to make, but I actually think the better way to look at it is that breaks are part of performance itself.
[0:21:13.6] MB: Yeah, I think that’s a great way to kind of contextualize it.
[0:21:17.5] DP: So I want to come back and circle back to this idea of chronotypes and the three kind of different ways that people kind of live in the world and how they kind of interact with different day cycles. Could you tell me again and kind of share what were the three different types?
[0:21:32.5] DP: Sure. We have to think about it as a spectrum, but the three broad categories are — you can think of as morning people, evening people and intermediate people, or to put some feathers on it, larks, owls and what I call third birds. As I said, the distribution is about 15% of us are larks, 20% of us are owls and about two-thirds of us are third birds in the middle.
What that does is all that is it's a way of categorizing your propensity. Are you more likely to – Are you the kind of person who wakes up early and goes to sleep early? Or are you the kind of person that wakes up late to goes to sleep late? Or are you somewhere in the middle? That has an effect on how we navigate the day, that the patterns of the day, the hidden pattern of the day is somewhat different for these. It's different for every individual. There’s individual variation But in this broader group, there is variation in that larks are peak, trough recovery. Most third birds are peak, trough recovery. Owls are much, much, much, much, much more complicated.
[0:22:34.8] MB: It's really just to see me. I mean, I think you hear and kind of experience colloquially people saying, “Oh! I'm a night owl,” etc., etc. But there's actually a ton of science that kind of supports that conclusion.
[0:22:46.6] DP: Oh my God! There's a whole field called chronobiology that has devoted a huge amount of resources to this. It's relatively easy to figure out your chronotype. There is a something called a Munich chronotype questionnaire, the MCTQ, which you want to take online. You can also do it in a back of the envelope way by figuring out your midpoint of sleep on days when you don't have to get up to an alarm clock.
[0:23:09.3] MB: That's really interesting. So basically when you say midpoint of sleep, just take the time that you –
[0:23:13.6] DP: Yeah. Well, let’s do it for you, Matt. So let’s think about — What’s important here to do is think about what chronobiologists call as a free day. A free day is a day you don't have to wake up to an alarm clock and you’re also not massively sleep deprived. So you're sleeping and you can wake up when you want and you’d go to sleep when you want.
So, for you, when would that be? On a free day, you don't have to wake up to an alarm clock, but you're not massively sleep deprived so you’re not trying to catch up. When would you we typically go to sleep? At what time?
[0:23:37.0] MB: Probably 10 PM.
[0:23:39.8] DP: And then what time would you typically wake up?
[0:23:41.7] DP: Probably between six and seven.
[0:23:43.1] DP: Okay, so let's call it – I mean, just call it six, all right? So you wake up at six. What we’re trying to do here is figure out your midpoint of sleep. So your midpoint of sleep if you went to sleep at 10 and woke up at six, your midpoint of sleep would be 2 AM. Okay. So you're a lark definitely.
[0:24:00.3] MB: Yeah. I mean, I think I definitely am.
[0:24:01.8] DP: So if your midpoint of sleep is 3:30 AM or earlier, you're probably a lark. If it's 5:30 AM or later, you're probably an owl, and if it between 3:30 and 5:30, you’re a third bird. So that's fairly larky profile right there. So you’re probably in the 15% of people who are larks. So you’re going to go to the day probably peak, trough, recovery and your peak is probably going to begin earlier and end earlier than my peak. I'm not an owl by any means. I’m larky, but not a full-fledged lark like you.
So for you, someone like you, that start in the morning, relatively early in the morning, is going to be when you're most vigilant. So any work you have that requires vigilance is best done during that stretch of time.
[0:24:44.5] MB: It's funny I’ve kind of, before even discovering when I think I'd kind of stumbled into this daily architecture of having my first couple of hours of the day be all around kind of that proactive, most important tasks, kind of the important but not urgent kind of activities.
[0:25:00.2] DP: Absolutely, and that's hard to do. Most of us don't do that. Most of us know – And Eisenhower's famous 2x2 matrix of important and urgent, most of us neglect the important for the urgent and it takes some discipline and good set of choice architecture, a good pattern of choice architecture to get around that.
[0:25:21.6] MB: So there's a couple kind of variables that I'm curious if you looked at or stumbled upon in your research. One of them is fasting. Have you seen or did you uncover anything about how fasting, either positively or negatively kind of impacts energy levels throughout the day?
[0:25:37.5] DP: I not look at that. I’ve found a lot of the research on nutrition or whatnot somewhat internally contradictory and I didn't feel comfortable going full throttle.
[0:25:46.6] MB: Yeah, it’s a minefield.
[0:25:47.3] DP: Yeah exactly. I didn't feel comfortable. That said, I mean, there is research out there on – Certainly, there's a lot of research showing that calorie restriction, sometimes severe calorie reduction can aid in longevity. There is some research now and some practice out there on intermittent fasting. There is a very interesting line of research. Again, it's not in humans yet, called TRF, time-restricted feeding, which suggests that the key to weight control might not be what you actually eat, but when you eat it, and then if you can restrict your eating to a certain 12-hour period, like you never eat before 7 AM and after 7 PM, that that might be helpful for weight loss.
There are these more popular books with these various kinds. I've no idea how scientifically valid they are where you fast for two days and then eat what you want for five days. This intermittent fasting might have effect of rebooting or streamlining our metabolism.
[0:26:51.2] MB: Yeah. I mean, trying to step aside from the whole weight loss and that kind of question, because I know that can be a disaster. I was more curious specifically about kind of energy levels, but it sounds like you didn't necessarily go down that rabbit hole.
[0:27:01.9] DP: No, I didn't. I found that nutrition work a thicket. I really did.
[0:27:06.2] MB: Yeah. It is a thicket.
[0:27:08.4] DP: And I didn’t know how much guidance I can give readers based on the thicket. Maybe bushwhacking through that thicket, I wasn't sure I was going to get it right and I wasn't sure whether the people who are doing the research actually fully knew, because there are a lot of contradictions from study to study. I also feel like – And this is science, too, that, “Oh! What we thought two years ago about this is not right.” “Oh! What we thought two years before that, that’s not right either.” So whatever it is we’re thinking about today could be superseded by whatever it is that we discover two or three year attempts.
[0:27:43.1] MB: So this is kind of a related sort of just tidbit of a question, but did you find any research or look at all on the impacts of caffeine and kind of that peak, trough or daily energy levels?
[0:27:53.6] DP: There are some. For instance, I think there’s a pretty strong argument against having a cup of coffee as soon as you wake up, and the research – Coffee has a caffeine delivery mechanism. When we wake up, we start producing cortisol. It’s a stress hormone, and that's one of things that helps us wake up. We produce it naturally. It's part of what is waking up, and it turns out the caffeine can interfere with the production of cortisol.
So if you inject caffeine, immediately you inject caffeine while you're producing cortisol, it can actually slow the production arrest/stymie the production of cortisol. So what you’re better off doing is waiting an hour or so before introducing caffeine in the morning, because at that point your cortisol levels will have begun declining and you can then use the caffeine to bring up your levels of alertness.
There's also some interesting research on napping and coffee drinking. There’s a very strong argument in the science for taking very short naps. There is an even stronger argument for having a cup of coffee before taking a very short nap, because it takes about 25 minutes for caffeine to get into your bloodstream.
So if you drink a cup of coffee and then lie down and try to get a 10 or 12 minute nap, when you're waking up and set your alarm for 25 minutes, it takes you 5, 10 minutes just to fall asleep. You can nap for 12 or 13 minutes. When you're waking up, you are able to get the restorative benefits of the nap without the groggy-buggy feeling and the added bonus of a big dose of caffeine kicking in at that exact moment.
[0:29:30.3] MB: This is obviously kind of a sample of one, but I found that if I forgo caffeine completely, my energy level, let’s say it sorts of stays at like a 6 out of 10 throughout the day, and if I have it in the morning, my energy is like an eight or nine in the morning, but then I think it almost amplifies the kind of trough and the crash in the afternoon.
[0:29:49.6] DP: Sure. That sounds plausible. I mean, I don’t know the physiology well enough to draw to assert big, big claims about that, but that seems very plausible to me. I remember, human beings got by fine without caffeine for a long time.
[0:30:04.7] MB: So let's zoom out of this sort of nutritional rabbit hole and even further out of kind of the daily architecture component, and I want to get to the kind of idea of timing in a more macro sense in terms of life events and how those kind of – It impacts our lives in a broader sense. Can you talk a little bit about some of the conclusions that you’ve found and doing the work for the book?
[0:30:27.2] DP: Sure. I mean, what we have here is that our lives are in many ways a series of episodes. They’re not clear linear progression in many cases, and episodes have beginnings, middles, and ends, and beginnings, middles and ends each exert different effects on our behavior. So there’s a whole body of research on how do beginnings affect us. There’s a fascinating body of research on how midpoints affects us. Sometimes midpoints bring us down. Other times it fires us up. There’re some great stuff on endings. How do endings shape our memory? How do endings shape our mood? How do endings change our behavior? This stuff is as important as the day-to-day effects of biology and physiology, physiology and psychology on how we perform.
[0:31:10.7] MB: Let’s go deeper into that. So let's start with beginnings. Talk about how beginnings, kind of how do they shape us and what are kind of the implications of being in the beginning phase of something.
[0:31:21.9] DP: Well, it’s going to demand from domain to domain. For instance, you look at some of the research in economics, particularly from Lisa Kahn at Yale showing that the initial labor market of conditions when you graduate, basically – I’m don’t want to fancy it up. There’s a great research for instance from Lisa Kahn at Yale who found that the unemployment rate when you graduate college can predict what your wages are going to be 20 years later. So that somebody who graduate from college in a recession 20 years later is going to probably learn – A similarly situated person will earn less than someone who graduated in a boom time. So what the labor market is like when you first enter it has a big effect on our wages literally two decades later, which is a little bit alarming.
There’s also some great research from Katie Milkman at Penn, Jason Riis at Penn, Hengchen Dai was at Penn, now is a, I think, UCLA, about the importance of picking the right date to start something. So certain dates operate as what they call triggering a fresh start effect, where we do this weird form of mental accounting on certain days where we banish our bad, old selves to the past and open up a fresh ledger on our new selves. So what they found is people are more likely to start a diet or start a new exercise regimen or those kinds of positive behavioral changes, they’re more likely to start them on a Monday rather than on a Thursday, on the first of the month rather than on the 13th of the month, on the day after their birthday rather than the day before their birthday.
[0:32:52.6] MB: I can definitely see that. So with the kind of awareness of that knowledge, how do you think we should sort of think about shaping or changing the way we interact with the beginnings in our lives?
[0:33:04.9] DP: Again, I think it’s a question of intentionality, that is – So, for instance, you and I happen to be talking on a Thursday that is the 31st of the month. That's a really bad day to start something in general, because Thursday is not a fresh start date. The 31st is not a fresh start date. What we also know is that the first of the month is actually a pretty good for a start date. So you’re starting on the day before the first of the month. So if I were planning some kind of behavior change of my own, today would not be the ideal day to start it.
Again, it’s just simply being – Going back to your earlier question, Matt, it's like we don't take the when as seriously as we take the what. So we know what we should, “Hey, I need to stop eating meat,” or, “Hey, I need to exercise more.” But when we start doing that can play a role in how long we sustain the behavior.
[0:33:56.4] MB: That totally makes sense. I mean, I think the simplest way that I could kind of conceive of that is even just the birthday example. It’s really simple, right? If it's about to be your birthday, you want to go out and have a nice dinner and eat some cake and kind of let loose. You’re definitely not going to be starting a diet or kind of radically changing your life right before that happens.
[0:34:15.9] DP: No, but the day after your birthday is a very important for a start date for people.
[0:34:20.0] MB: So what about middles? What did you find about middles and how they kind of function in our lives?
[0:34:25.2] DP: Will, as I said, midpoint, two things. Sometimes they bring us up, sometimes they bring us down. So you look at the research on well-being over the course of a lifetime and it turns out that it's shaped like a U where we’re relatively happy in our 20s and 30s, begin to decline in our 40s, reach of bottom in our 50s and then start to take it back up in our 60s, 70s, and if we make it, 80s and 90s. Then you also see other kinds of patterns of behavior and how will people comply with rules and how diligent they are where at the beginning they’re very diligent, at the end they’re very diligent, but their diligence fades a little bit in the middle.
On the other hand, there's also research on the other side of that showing that teams, when they do team projects, they really don't begin their work in earnest until the middle of the project. So if a team has 35 days to finish a project, they’ll likely get started in earnest on day 18. The first 17 days, they won't do that much and it's only when they hit that temporal midpoint where they throw off old patterns and reengage and really get going.
Also, some research from the NBA showing that for NBA teams, basketball teams – Again, basketball is something where there is an explicit midpoint. Most midpoint are invisible to us. Basketball has a very visible midpoint. It’s called halftime. A horn goes off. We announce it. These researchers found that teams ahead at half time are more likely to win the game with one exception. Teams that are trailing by one point are more likely to win than teams that are ahead by one point, that being down by one at halftime is equivalent to being up by two in your win probability. So sometimes midpoint create a slump, sometimes they create a spark, and simply being aware of all that allows you to be volitional enough about it to do something about it.
[0:36:16.3] MB: In essence, midpoints are kind of these critical inflection points that can have a tremendous shift in one direction or another.
[0:36:22.9] DP: Absolutely, and they're usually invisible to us. That's a problem. So if we make them visible, we can be – Again, my word of the moment, intentional about what we do about it.
[0:36:33.5] MB: That's a great point. It's always hardest to kind of figure out when you're in the middle, right? The beginning are usually pretty clear, the ending is pretty clear, but the middle is the challenging part.
[0:36:41.5] DP: Right. I mean, certain project will have a certain duration and they’ll be a deadline or something like that and then you can work backward. But yeah, and that kind of ambiguity makes it tough sledding sometimes.
[0:36:50.2] MB: And coming to this idea of sort of endings and the importance of endings. I know you share a really funny example of when people typically run a marathon.
[0:36:59.9] DP: Sure. That’s the research from Adam Alter and Hal Hershfield showing that people are disproportionately likely to run their first marathon in years that end in a 9, so 29, 39, 49, 59. 49-year-olds are, for instance, three times more likely to run a first marathon than 50-year-olds, because this is another effective ending. If the end of something becomes salient, we kick a little bit harder.
[0:37:23.9] MB: That's fascinating. And again, I think it makes sense intuitively, but it's really interesting to see when the data kind of backs that conclusion up.
[0:37:31.4] DP: Oh, yeah.
[0:37:32.6] MB: So I think this is really interesting kind of conception that in many cases we don't prioritize or sort of de-prioritize the timing of things in our lives, but in reality that’s just as important as many other factors.
[0:37:48.7] DP: Yeah, absolutely right.
[0:37:50.9] MB: So for listeners who want to kind of take this concept of timing and the science of timing and apply it in some way concretely, what would kind of be a piece of homework that you would give to them in terms of kind of an action step they could implement in their lives to start being more intentional, as you said, about the timing of things around us both in our days and in the broader story of our lives?
[0:38:13.5] DP: Well, there are all kind of things. There are all kinds of things you can do. I think one of the simplest one is to make a break list, and I try to do this every day that I'm in my office, which is I will write down a certain time of day, let's say like 1:00 in the afternoon when I will take a break and I'll put it into my list of things to do that day at that particular time. So if I had a meeting or a phone call at a particular time of the day, I would never miss that. So I will go every afternoon, take –, I'm not going crazy here. At least one 10 or 15-minute walk around my neighborhood, and what we know about the design principles of breaks, it breaks our – That something is better than nothing. So even a short break is better than no break at all, that moving is better than stationary. So you're better off being in motion rather than just being plopped on the couch.
We know that social is better than solo. So breaks with another person are more restorative. We know that the best breaks are fully detached, that as you leave your phone at home, you leave your phone behind and you don't talk about work if you’re going out with somebody else. So scheduling one break every day to do something, like go walk around outside with somebody, like talking about something other than work can be really, really powerful.
Some of it also – I mean, among the other – There are so many in this book. There are so many huge. It’s just bursting with takeaways, some of which are going to depend on a particular person's experience or their perspective, but one of the things that think is useful for everybody is trying to track your daily behavior. So you can set your phone alarm to ring every 15 – Not every 15, every 45 minutes or an hour and 15 minutes or some like that and prompt two questions for you. How am I feeling right now on a scale of 1 to 10? How am I working right now on a scale of 1 to 10? If you chart that very simple set of self-reports, if you chart that over time, not bad.
[0:40:05.1] MB: So what would be a good kind of sample size to chart those, a week, two weeks?
[0:40:11.0] DP: I would try it for a week. Yeah, I’d try it for a week. Again, I think part of – There’s also one of the things that we should get better at is observing our own behavior and actually conducting small experiments. I wouldn't know the answers to a lot of stuff. This is one reason why in the digital world they do so much A-B testing. Facebook knows whether I'm more likely to click a royal blue button or an aquamarine colored button. They serve their customers both and see which one is more popular. I think there's a lot of room to do A-B testing in ourselves, A-B testing organizations, and we should go in and treat a lot of our performance out, and this is at the heart of your show, Matt. We should treat a lot of our performance as if we’re scientists.
Okay. What do scientists do? They have a hypothesis and they test the hypothesis. So I have a hypothesis that I’m going to do better doing my insight work starting at 5 PM, or maybe even later, 6 PM to 7 PM to do my insight work. Okay, that’s my hypothesis. Is it going to work? Let’s test my hypothesis. So go do that for a month or a week or two weeks or a month and then I see how it goes. If the hypothesis is right, great, I’ve learned something. If the hypothesis is wrong, great, I’ve learned something.
[0:41:20.7] MB: So I think there’s two kind of funny anecdotes about that. One is when you started talking about breaks and kind of making a break list, the first thing you said about it was, “I'm not going crazy here taking all kinds of breaks,” and I think it's just underscores what we talked about at the beginning the conversation, which is this idea that there's kind of this social stigma around taking breaks. It's okay if you want to take a break then. We’re going to allow you to take one.
I think the second piece, I love this idea of observing your behavior and kind of conducting small experiments. I mean, about a week ago I started – I was asking, I was really curious about this kind of caffeine and how it impacts people's energy levels to see if you'd seen any science behind it, but I started this experiment about a week ago where I’ve just kind of alternating days where I have caffeine and days where I don’t and seeing what my energy levels look like throughout the day and kind of trying to track that, “Okay. Is there sort of a repeatable pattern here, kind of peaks and troughs?” right?
[0:42:10.9] DP: Yeah. That’s the way to do it. Yeah, absolutely.
[0:42:14.0] MB: So for listeners who want to dig in more, who want to find you and your work, where's the best place to find that online?
[0:42:19.8] DP: They can go to www.danpink, D-A-N-P-I-N-K.com, www.danpink.com. I got all kinds of groovy stuff there, good videos. I’ve got PDFs of discussion guides for book. I get information on all the books. I’ve got other freebies and things like that. I do an email newsletter that’s free. I do something that I call a pink cast, which of these regular short videos with tools and tips and everything there is free.
[0:42:45.9] MB: Well, Dan, thank you so much for coming on the show, for sharing all of these insights and practical strategies. As I said, we've been big fans of you and your work for a long time, so it's great to have you on here to kind of share some insights with the listeners.
[0:42:57.7] DP: It’s been a pleasure, Matt. Thanks for having me.
Focus & Productivity, Mind Expansion
This Is How You Create Life Changing Moments Starting Right Now with Dan Heath
June 07, 2018 by Lace Gilger in Mind Expansion
In this episode we explore the power of moments in our lives. Moments are the way we remember our lives, they define us, and yet we don’t have a coherent way of thinking about and understanding them. Can you engineer the defining moments of your life? Can you create more moments that are powerful and impactful? We discuss that and much more with our guest Dan Heath.
Dan Heath is a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s CASE Center where he founded the Change Academy. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and is the co-author of several New York Times best sellers. Their book Switch was named one of the best nonfiction books of the year and spent almost an entire year on the bestseller list.
The power of moments - why did Chip and Dan decide to study the defining moments in our lives?
Digging into the academic research of what makes moments special
Why do certain moments in our life have such disproportionate impact and meaning?
How do we become more in control of them and intentional about creating them?
Are there patterns that link the defining moments of our lives?
The four elements of defining moments?
Elevation - the high points
Insight - in an instant your view of the world shifts
Pride - times when are at our best, when we’re recognized for what we’re capable of
Connection - when we deepen our ties to other people - either individual or groups
Struggle, especially with a group, can create deep connections
If you look at powerful moments, they tend to be composed of these four elements
You can flip that around and make it practical - if you want to create better experiences in your own life - these are the ingredients of HOW to do that
We don’t remember our own experiences
What’s so special about the The Magic Castle Hotel in LA?
What’s the secret behind the second highest rated hotel in Los Angeles?
Ahead of the Ritz Carlton
Ahead of the Four Seasons
Moments have power. Great experiences hinge on peak moments
The academic research on memory and how that shapes the power of moments
“Duration neglect”
There are two kinds of moments that we disproportionately recall - the Peak and the End
We are in the business of creating great experiences for people. If you get the Peaks right - you can create a great experience.
The power of things that are obvious in retrospect
“Moments are the medium of memories” - and yet we don’t live in a way that’s intentional around creating more moments
Inconveniencing yourself to create a powerful moment is worth it - you will remember the powerful moment but not the inconvenience
“We feel most comfortable when things are certain, but we feel most alive when they’re not"
“The reminiscence bump” phenomenon in psychology
Novelty is what we remember, period.
What can we do to create more dramatic and memorable moments in our life?
We can get alot of bang for our buck with moments. We have to learn to break the script more often and disrupt our routines more often.
“The Saturday surprise” - how you can break your script and create novelty in your life.
Sometimes you need to resist your routines
When you start thinking in moments you start spotting all kinds of strange phenomenon in your life
Fixing problems doesn’t make people happy
How do set about creating peak moments for ourselves (and others)?
Peaks, ends, and transition points are disproportionately memorable for people
We can be the authors of amazing moments in our lives
Powerful insights come with speed and force - in the flash of moment
What does it mean to “trip over the truth?"
Reconstruct the insight that you’ve had - and allow someone else to discover it themselves. Let the epiphany happen in their brains. How can you engineering someone else discovering the truth that you’ve already discovered?
How change happens:
People see something
That makes them feel something
That makes them CHANGE sometime
How can creating new rituals help us manufacture transition points in our lives that become powerful moments?
“The Fresh Start Effect”
The power of forgiving yourself for falling short and cleaning the ledger, starting fresh.
Homework - stretch goal - the “week of memories” exercise
Homework - create a moment of elevation tonight - break the script in some way.
Homework - find someone at work or in your personal life and give them some recognition, say thank you to them, tell them why its so important and meaningful and give them a little bit of praise - face to face.
[Book] The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
[Book] Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
[Book] Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
[Book] Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
[Podcast Ep] Choiceology: How Tomorrow Feels Today
[Article] John Kotter's 8-Step Change Model
[Website] Heath Brothers - Resource Directory
In this episode, we explore the power of moments in our lives. Moments are the way that we remember our lives. They define us, and yet, we don’t have a coherent way of thinking about and understanding them. Can you engineer the defining moments of your life? Can you create more moments that are powerful and impactful? We discussed this and much more with our guest, Dan Heath.
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In our previous episode, we looked at the gap that exists between learning and doing. Why it is that so many smart ambitious people invest hours in their growth and development, but fail to see breakaway external results for the time that they've invested? If you sometimes feel overwhelmed by all the things you know you could, or should be doing to level up your life or career, then our previous episode will blow your mind.
We explore what science is telling us about the actual execution of concrete individual growth and measurable upward mobility across various dimensions of life. We share the most effective tactic for moving yourself from learning to doing with our very special guest, Peter Shallard. Our interview last week is what you need to finally take action on what you've been procrastinating on.
That episode is one of the most unique and powerful episodes we've done on the Science of Success. I highly recommend checking our previous episode out, our interview with Peter Shallard. It will make a tremendous impact on you.
Now, for our conversation with Dan.
[0:03:25.4] MB: Today, we have another awesome guest on the show, Dan Heath. Dan is a senior fellow at Duke University's Case Center, where he founded the Change Academy. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and is the co-author of several New York Times bestsellers. His recent book Switch was named one of the best non-fiction books of the year and spent almost an entire year on the bestseller list. Dan, welcome to the Science of Success.
[0:03:51.5] DH: Thanks for having me on Matt. It's a pleasure.
[0:03:53.3] MB: Well, we're really excited to have you on the show today. Your books are obviously really well-known and me and Austin are both big fans of you and your work and your brother's work.
[0:04:01.5] DH: Thank you.
[0:04:02.0] MB: To get started, I'd love to dig into your most recent book and talk about the power of moments. What led you to think about moments? Why was that the catalyst of the new thing that you wanted to dig into and study next?
[0:04:17.2] DH: Well, appropriately enough the power of moments actually emerge from a very specific moment when Chip and I were together. Chip and I live on opposite coasts. He's on the West Coast and I'm East Coast, and so we only actually see each other maybe once or twice a year. One of those is at Christmas. A couple years back, we were at our father's house in Durham, North Carolina where I also live and we had squirreled ourselves away into an office to do some work. We’re actually working on a different book, and it was a book that had just become a bit of a slog. We had put in probably six or nine months’ worth of work,
We were getting into that sunk cost stage of, we were reluctant to give it up because we put in so much work, but we weren't super jazzed about keeping going. At some point in this conversation, this phrase popped out of conversation defining moments. I think mainly as a way to procrastinate our real work, we started just riffing on defining moments and talking about defining moments and politics, like some of your older listeners will remember when George Bush Senior was running for president against Clinton, he had that moment where he professed amazement at a UPC scanner in the grocery store. That was supposed to illustrate that he was old and not a touch. That was a defining moment in politics.
You think about defining moments in sports, and as an example that beautiful medal ceremony that happens at the Olympics and just all the pageantry and the pride that goes with that. The amazing realization that there was a human being that just thought that up. I like to picture them in a conference room with a whiteboard and they're like, “What if the athletes were standing here and here and the flags go up and the anthem?” In other words, the moment was designed. We started getting into the academic research that that plays into what makes moments special.
Anyway, we riff and riff on this and it's just this uncontrollable brainstorming session and we probably filled up 10 or 12 pages in a Word document just with associations and mysteries, and we come out an hour later into the living room where everybody's gathered and we tell them, “We've got a new book idea.” There was this visible sense of relief on all their faces, because apparently, they had all despised the other topic we were working on, but hadn't had the heart to tell us.
That was the birth of this book. The gist is true to that original moment, to be honest. It's a book about why it is that certain brief moments in our lives have such disproportionate memorability and meaning, that if you think across your life there are probably 10 or 15 or 20 moments that are worth in the sense of their relative importance in your life 10 years. The question is why? What makes these moments? Can we learn to be more in control of them, to be more intentional about creating more defining moments in our life and work?
[0:07:22.3] MB: Why is that the case?
[0:07:25.3] DH: Well, there are some patterns that we found as we looked at very different kinds of moments. When I talk about moments, of course there's a strong personal element here. You think about the moments when you found your calling, or you found your partner, or even just moments that were special to you, moments with your kids around vacations. We're also talking about moments at different scales, so we're also pointing out that really for any given span of experience, whether it's a lifetime or the span of a hotel stay, or the span of a college semester, for any given span of experience there are certain moments that are disproportionately memorable and meaningful.
The question is, are there patterns that link these ideas that happen on very different scales? The answer we came up with was yes. That in fact, they share four patterns, or four elements, if you will, that they seem to be made of similar ingredients. The first of those ingredients is elevation; that these moments seem to lift us above the everyday. You think about some birthday party and there's games and decorations and cake. It's engineered to create positive emotions.
The second is insight. These are moments when in an instant, we realize something about ourselves, or our world and sometimes those insights are amazing and pleasant. You look across the dinner table and you realize the person you're dining with is going to be your spouse, your soulmate. Sometimes they can be sobering. You realize you can't take another day of this job that you're in. The point is that in an instant, your view of the world can shift.
The third of these elements is pride. What's interesting about pride is, my guess is everybody listening right now has a stash of personal mementos that you keep somewhere in your house, and maybe in a box, in the attic, or buried in the back of a drawer. It’s like if there was a museum of your life, these would be some of the exhibits; just things that you can't bear to throw away. They have special significance to you and would probably be valueless to anyone else, but to us they're priceless.
My guess is that a lot of those mementos are actually relics of moments of pride in your life, or potentially your kids’ lives, their awards, or certificates, or thank-you notes from people who are important to you, or trophies that you couldn't bear to throw away, or diplomas. Moments of pride are times when we're at our best and times when we’re recognized for what we're capable of.
Then the final element, so we've talked about elevation, insight, pride, the final element is connection. It's so often these meaningful memorable moments are moments when we deepen our ties to other people. That could be in a personal relationship. It can sometimes be among groups too. What's interesting about groups is groups often bond together in times of struggle. What brings groups together is not just happy, happy, happy time. You think about boot camp, what creates lifelong attachments among people who've been through boot camp together is that they had to struggle.
You think about volunteering for Habitat for Humanity and spending a weekend putting up a house, like that's connection born of struggle. The point is two things. Number one, if you look at powerful moments, they tend to be composed of these four elements we talked about. The more important point is that you can flip that around and make it practical. That is to say if you want to create better experiences in your own life, or for the customers you serve, or for the patients you serve, for the students you serve, these are the ingredients, these are the colors in your palette in order to create greater experiences.
[0:11:27.4] MB: That's fascinating. I want to dig into how we can be more intentional about creating these moments. Before we get into that, I want to dig deeper into the importance of moments and why they're so critical. When we look back across our lives and the way we think about our memories and our experiences, do we weigh and treat each memory and each experience equally?
[0:11:53.3] DH: Certainly not. Yeah, and in fact, that's one of the most important realizations that came to us through this book and that we're trying to communicate to our readers. Let me back up and I'll tell a quick story and then I'll overlay the academic research on that, so we understand these peculiar properties of memory.
There's a hotel in Los Angeles called The Magic Castle Hotel. My guess is most of the people listening haven't stayed there. Just conjure up in your mind, The Magic Castle Hotel. Let me first tell you, it looks nothing like your mental image that you're conjuring up. It is an utterly ordinary looking motel, really more so than a hotel. It's actually a two-story apartment building that was built in the 50s that was later converted over to this hotel use; painted bright yellow. The rooms are totally average. I stayed there myself. It would be doing well to compete with the Holiday Inn Express. The lobby is completely underwhelming. It looks vaguely like the waiting area of a place you might get your oil changed.
The question is why am I talking about this totally normal unassuming place? The reason is because if you go to TripAdvisor right now and you search for LA hotels, the Magic Castle Hotel is rated number two in all of Los Angeles ahead of the Ritz-Carlton, ahead of the Four Seasons. How in the world could that be true? Well, what The Magic Castle has figured out is that moments have power. One of my favorite examples is by the pool in a courtyard of this facility, there's a cherry red phone mounted on the wall. Just above the phone there's a sign that says, “Popsicle hotline.” If you pick up the phone somebody says, “Popsicle hotline will be right out.”
Within minutes, somebody comes out wearing a suit, holding a silver tray that's loaded up with grape and orange and cherry popsicles. They bring the tray over to you at poolside and they're carrying the tray wearing white gloves like an English butler. They do all of this for free. They have a snack list menu where you can order cracker jacks and sour patch kids and root beer at the front desk, all that stuff is for free just for asking. You can check out board games to play with your families, or movies to watch, they have magicians doing tricks in the lobby several times a week. They'll do your laundry if you drop it off in the morning, return it washed and folded by the end of the day.
When I describe that side of The Magic Castle, you can start to put it together how – if your family's taking a vacation in Southern California, you might actually choose the Magic Castle straight up over the Ritz-Carlton. Why? Because they're delivering a better experience. This is where the research on memory comes into play, because what we know about our memories of experiences are two things.
Number one, there's a phenomenon called duration neglect which says that we tend to forget the length of experiences. What we're left with when we remember things are certain moments, certain scenes, certain fragments. This is very easy to test for yourself. Just remember some semester in college, or a work project from a year or two ago, or the last vacation you took and you'll notice our memories aren't like videos that we can watch beginning to end. They degrade. What we're left with are a certain set of seemingly random snippets, except that of course they're not random.
In fact, psychologists have discovered that there are two kinds of moments that we disproportionately recall. We recall the peak, or the peaks of the experience, which are the most positive moments and a positive experience, and we remember the transition points, the beginnings and the endings. If you think about the Magic Castle story through this lens, what you see immediately is that the Magic Castle Hotel is really good at creating peak moments.
What's fascinating about that is it's almost they've exploited in a good way this property of memory. They know that a year down the road, you're going to forget that your room was average, you're going to forget that the amenities in the bathroom weren't fancy, you're going to forget that the lobby wasn't that cool or well-designed. What you're going to remember is there was this phone by the pool that if you picked it up, it was a popsicle hotline. That's the significance of this is that that all of us to some extent are in the business of creating experience for other people.
Again, it might be our kids, or our customers, or our patients. What we need to realize is to create a great experience for people, that doesn't mean nonstop perfection. There's a lot that's imperfect about the Magic Castle Hotel. If we get the peaks right and if we get the transitions right, we can create a great experience that doesn't bankrupt us, or doesn't mean we have to have every detail impeccable, and that's what moments can do.
[0:17:09.2] MB: That's fascinating and such a great story, especially I've looked at some of the photos of the Magic Castle and I know you have a YouTube video where you share some of those images, and it really is – it's almost shockingly unremarkable. I mean, it literally looks like a Holiday Inn or something. It's totally plain and yet, it's amazing that they're literally more highly rated than the Ritz-Carlton or Four Seasons.
[0:17:33.4] DH: Yeah. I love the fact that that number three, and the last time I checked on the list was the Four Seasons Beverly Hills. I mean, if that doesn't tell you something about the power of these ideas, the fact that that somewhere that is one-twentieth as nice and as luxurious as the Four Season Beverly Hills can actually win the competition and the customers minds, I mean, that's extraordinary.
[0:17:57.2] MB: I think it underscores this broader point that you're talking about really, really beautifully that we don't – we think in moments, and we remember our lives not as a clean narrative of this and this and this and this, but really as a series of experiences and moments that happened.
[0:18:14.9] DH: Yeah. I think that's well-said. I think the aha for Chip and me was this is one of those things that Chip and I both love things that are obvious in retrospect. Like obvious when you say them, and yet, no one is living that way. What I mean is, I think all of us, we realize when we look back on our experiences, hey we don't retain the whole thing, hey there are moments that we recall, and moments are really the medium of memories. Yet, we don't live in a way that is intentional about creating more moments. I'll give you an example of how this changed my life in a small way. You remember the solar eclipse from gosh, was it last year or the year prior?
[0:18:58.5] MB: Oh, yeah.
[0:18:58.9] DH: I live in North Carolina and we were not in the – what do they call it? The path of totality. We were not in the path, but we were close. I had to drive from Durham where I live to Asheville. My wife and I were talking about this and it meant we would have to take a day off at work and we'd have to deal with childcare.
It was like a three and a half hour drive each way. We knew, there were going to be a ton of other crazies on the road too, so it may be a five-hour drive by the time you add in the traffic. Anyway, we were weighing this in a cost and benefits way. The evidence was pretty conclusive that we should have just stayed at home and watched this on YouTube, right? I mean, there's just so much inconvenience and nuisance tied up with this. When you start thinking about this through the lens of moments, what you realize is two years from now we're not going to remember that it took an hour to line up childcare, we're not going to remember there was a nuisance to be stuck in traffic, or that we had to take a day off of work.
What we're going to remember is being there at this very special time. We did it. You know what? It was exactly as we expected it to be. Most of that day was a nuisance. We listen to some good music and good podcasts on the road, but nobody wants to spend five or six hours that day on the road, no matter how good the podcast is. When we got there, would you believe it was so overcast, we couldn't even see the eclipse. Of course, what we did see was that in a matter of seconds, the world goes completely dark. The insects start to chirp, because they think it's nighttime, and then a minute or two later when the sun starts to dawn again, the birds start chirping like it's the beginning of the morning, and it was extraordinary.
I can already feel the fading happening with all of the stuff surrounding the eclipse. I really cherished that moment that we had there. That's an example of how this property of memory that seems obvious when we think about it can actually become if you flip it around, a filter for how to think about living a more meaningful memorable life.
[0:21:09.3] MB: That's fascinating and it's really interesting, because there's this counterintuitive element where you're actively inconvenience – you're inconveniencing yourself and making yourself less happy in the present, but creating a memory that actually makes you think that you're happier, feel happier in the future.
[0:21:29.9] DH: Exactly. Right. I mean, I think that's one of the real tensions that we came across in researching this book is that a lot of our lives are engineered to make things smoother. To a first approximation, well what we try to do in our lives is what we did yesterday, but a little faster, a little more efficient, fewer kinks, fewer problems. It's like we're in a smoothing operation.
There was a great quote from the authors of a book called Surprise, that they said, “We feel most comfortable when things are certain, but we feel most alive when they're not.” I think that captures the heart of this tension that the normal routines of everyday life are designed to iron out wrinkles and problems and bumps and novelty. Yet, it's precisely novelty that is memorable. There's a phenomenon called the reminiscence bump in psychology, where if you ask people just unprompted to talk about their memories from life, they tend to disproportionately recall memories from the period roughly from age call it 16 to 30, which if you're talking to a 75-year-old is what? A fifth of their life and yet, the dominant portion of their most memorable moments comes from that era. The question is why?
The answer is this is a period of extraordinary novelty in our lives. It's our first kiss, it's our first girlfriend or boyfriend, it's our first time away from our parents, it's our first job, it's our first falling in love, it's our first time moving cities, it's our first time managing our own finances and on and on and on and on. It's this extraordinary time of upheaval both good and bad. Then as you go through life in your 30s and 40s and 50s, there's nothing that dramatic that really happens, right?
You find the person that you want to spend your life with, you find the job that you really appreciate, you find the community where you want to put down roots. Those are incredibly positive things. I'm not arguing that we should rip up our lives for the sake of ginning up memories. One side effect of that is that we are not laying down as many dramatic and memorable moments as we were in our youth. The question is what do we do about that?
I think that the answer is really as simple as that old saw variety is the spice of life. Notice it doesn't say variety is the entree of life, right? It's variety is a spice. Meaning that we can get a lot of bang for our buck with moments. What it means is as we say in the book, we've got to learn to break the script more often, to disrupt those routines. When we were writing the book, we would periodically test out ideas with our readers.
We were both surprised, Chip and I, that one of their favorite exercises was something that we thought was just so simple and almost corny. We called it the Saturday Surprise. The assignment was all the things that you usually do on your Saturday, whatever that means for your family, maybe it's the same breakfast and cartoons and a visit to Home Depot, or whatever the norm is for you, your job is to disrupt those norms.
People would do these crazy things. They would treat their own city as if they were a tourist and go to the top couple rated sites, many of which of course they hadn't seen, because they were locals. Or one family put their daughter in charge of the day and let her run all of the activities. Another group decided to drive three hours away and spend the day with family they didn't get to see very much. They just felt extraordinarily positive about these experiences. It was like, they got this rush of joy and memorability. It was nothing fancier than just saying, “Hey, part of what we've got to learn to do is resist our routines sometimes, to just disrupt them.” That's the source of novelty and novelty is the source of a memory.
[0:25:37.7] MB: Really, really interesting. I mean, I think as especially someone I spend a lot of time thinking about memory, it's fascinating to play with the idea of how do I engineer life and engineer experiences that are going to be more rich and more fulfilling?
[0:25:55.5] DH: Yeah. Well, I'm curious about your experience. Have you played around with things that seem to be working? How has that philosophy changed what you seek out?
[0:26:04.4] MB: Well, I think this – I mean, your book and this conversation especially, I actually, I wrote the words ‘create more moments’ in gigantic letters, taking up basically an entire page of a word document and I'm going to print that out and put it up right behind my computer just as a reminder for myself to create more moments, because I think it's something that with a little bit of whether it's either for side or spontaneity, or whatever, you can really create so much more richness in your life and something that I find inspiring and personally for me, something that I want to move towards.
[0:26:39.9] DH: I should also say – I mean, we're talking a lot about the importance of these ideas for our personal lives, and I think that's key to the book. There's this whole other layer of thinking outward, of thinking about the people that we serve. I'll give you an example, when you start thinking in moments you start spotting these things that are just absurd if not infuriating.
I was working with a retail bank in Australia and we were talking about this special relationship that banks have what their customers is very unusual; a relationship that lasts decades. Banks are actually privy to a lot of the most important things that happen in your life. Banks will tend to know when you get married, because there's another name on your account, and they'll know when you start and stop jobs because your direct deposit changes, and they'll know how things are going for your retirement, because you're saving or not saving and on and on and on.
We were talking about what kinds of moments could a bank create, or its customers to deepen that relationship? One of the things we landed on was imagine when you finally pay off your mortgage. Potentially, the fruits of 30 years of diligent payments and how good that should feel, and then we were saying, that should be a capital M moment, where the manager from your local branch comes to your door and knocks on the door and brings you flowers and shakes your hand and says, “Congratulations, you finally got there.” By the way, and they pull out your deed that's now yours. They've been holding it to secure your loan, but now it's yours free and clear.
They framed the deed, they hand it to you. They say, “Congratulations. This place is a 100% yours.” This great moment of elevation and pride and connection. We were brainstorming about this and somebody in the back of the room raises their hand and says, “I work in the mortgage department here and not only do we not do that, we actually charge people a deed transfer fee when they complete their mortgage, and we charge them $75 or whatever it was to flip the deed over into their name.”
The whole crowd just groans, because you start to realize that when you tune in to the fact that moments have this disproportion and importance and you tune in to the fact that we can to a certain extent predict which moments should be more important than others, like this this cresting the mountain moment of paying off your mortgage, you realize just what an asinine idea it is to charge someone of be at that moment. I think instantly they all realized it and unfortunately, to their credit I came back about 18 months later they said they had actually started piloting this this home visit idea, which I thought was just genius.
[0:29:31.0] MB: That's fascinating. I think this is a good opportunity to broaden the focus and segue more into how we can think about not only engineering these moments for ourselves, but also how we can engineer them for other people. Before we dig into that, one other thing that I wanted is just circle back to that, I thought was really fascinating in the context of coming back to this idea of the magic castle and the story behind that.
One of the things that, I forget if you said it in a speech, or you wrote it, but it was this idea and juxtaposing the furnishings and how simple they were, versus how amazing the experiences were there, was this idea that fixing problems is not what makes people happy. Could you extrapolate on that, especially now that we're moving into the transition of talking more about creating moments outside of ourselves?
[0:30:21.4] DH: Yeah. For anybody who cares about the customer experience, I think this is a really important point. The idea is the way that we've been trained in the business world to create a better customer experiences is what do you do? Number one, you gather feedback from your customers, you take surveys or interview them or whatever. Then you fix the things they're complaining about. That makes sense, right? Of course, you want to fix things that your customers find dissatisfying. The issue is that fixing problems doesn't make people happy. Fixing problems whelms people.
What it means by whelmed is it doesn't overwhelm them, it doesn't underwhelm them, it just whelms them. Things are working as they expected them to work. If your cable TV functions exactly as it's supposed to for a full month, that's not something that makes you giddy with excitement. You're not going to look back on that period nostalgically a couple of years down the road. It's whelming; things are working as they're supposed to.
Whelming is good, because lord knows there are a lot of products and services in the world that are underwhelming and it caused us frustration and disappointment. We have tech support calls. Whelming means we've basically delivered the goods as expected. That's a very different thing than delight, or joy, or having such a delightful experience that you determined to share it with all the people in your network. The way I would explain that is to say imagine two versions of the Magic Castle Hotel.
We've described this place. There's this very mediocre looking place. Imagine 20 years ago, or whenever the Magic Castle converted over from an apartment, imagine two doppelgänger versions of the Magic Castle. They're starting with the same physical facility, but they run it in different ways. In doppelgänger one, they run the game plan that I talked about earlier, with the focus on moments and experiences and the popsicle hotline and the board game menu and so forth.
In doppelgänger two, imagine that they just relentlessly take survey data and fix all the things that people are complaining about. When people complain their pillows are too soft, they firm up the pillows, and when people complain the rooms are too dim, they add lighting and when people complain it took too long to check in, they add staffers to fix that. My question to you is where do we think that those two doppelgängers would end up on something like the TripAdvisor rating system? My contention is that the problem fixing doppelgänger of the Magic Castle would end up at about rank 1,100, while the moment creating version is where it is which is number two.
I think there's this divide that is a little bit counterintuitive that if what we want is to create a memorable experience for people, great experiences hinge on peak moments, but peak moments don't create themselves and furthermore, fixing problems won't create peak moments.
[0:33:29.0] MB: If peak moments don't create themselves, how do we set about creating them? Let's start for ourselves and then ultimately for others as well.
[0:33:40.3] DH: Well, I think that's the very topic of the book is once you clue into this idea that great experiences hinge on peak, moments how do you create them and that's where the four-part framework elevation insight pride and connection comes in. As you think to yourself, what great experiences are made over these four elements? How can we boost these elements? I'll give you an example of something that was done for employees. There's a woman who worked at John Deere named Lonnie Lawrence Fry, and one thing she had observed was that they were not really investing in the first day of work for a new employee, which is the reason we can know in advance that's an important moment is because it's a transition point.
Remember we talked earlier about peaks and transitions are disproportionately memorable. If you're clued into that, you have some natural intuition like, “Hey, we better get this right, because this is a big transition for new employees. They're coming to a new place, working with new people on new work, it's a physical environmental and social transition, we better get this right.” Yet, the vast majority of companies half-assed that day. You show up and the receptionist didn't think you were starting until the next week and you get to your computer and it's there, but it's not set up and you have to wait for IT to set up your internet account.
Some Good Samaritan whisks you around to meet 22 people in eight minutes and you forget all their names immediately, and that's the first day. This woman Lonnie Lawrence Fry said it can be something more. They created this extraordinary experience, I'll walk you through this from the perspective of a new hire. You sign your offer letter and before you even start, you start getting e-mails from a buddy on your team and they send you a photo and they introduce themselves and they tell you about where people eat lunch and where to park on your first day, what to wear to the office.
You show up on your first day at 9:00 a.m. and there's your buddy at the front door. They're holding a cup of coffee for you, they're there to greet you, shake your hand and of course, you recognize them from the photo they sent. They bring you into the lobby and the first thing you notice is your name is in bright lights, like on the on the monitors in the lobby it says, “Welcome Dan.” You’re like, “Wow, that's cool. That was thoughtful.”
They bring you up to your desk and you've already got your first e-mail and it turns out is from the CEO of John Deere, Sam Allen and he sent a little video in which he talks about his career at John Deere, he wishes you luck. He talks about the mission of John Deere, the place that you're joining and he says, “Our mission is to try to provide the food and the shelter and the infrastructure that are going to be needed by a growing global population.” Then your colleagues take you offsite to have a nice lunch and they pepper you with questions about your background and tell you some of what's going on and over the course of the afternoon, your boss and your boss's boss both stop by to make appointments to take you out for coffee in the next week.
I've just hit a fraction of what actually goes on, but the point is by the end of the day you walk out thinking, “Man, we're really doing work that matters here. I seem to matter to the people around me. They seem to want me here.” That's a powerful feeling. Back to that framework we've been talking about, I mean, this is all four elements. The elevation of seeing your name in bright lights in the lobby and the insight that comes from learning what your colleagues are up to and how it fits into the big picture and the pride that comes from working for a place that fights for food and shelter on a global basis, and of course, the connection of getting to know someone even before you walked in the front door the first day.
That is an engineered moment that someone just created from scratch, that has a big impact on employees. If the book could be reduced to one sentence, it's we can be the authors of peak moments, in the same way that Lonnie Lawrence Fry was.
[0:37:48.2] MB: It's really interesting, because it's another great example. When you think about your first day at work in many, many of these transition points in life, there's so many missed opportunities to create these unique memorable moments for people. One of the other things that you wrote about and talked about in the book is this idea of using moments as a communication tool. I'm a very analytical person, and so when I typically try to convince someone to something, I'll explain everything and walk them through here's reason one and two and all this stuff. In the chapter where you talk about tripping over the truth, you had some really good stories about how powerful moments can be as an explanatory tool, or as a communication device as well.
[0:38:38.4] DH: Yeah, let me tell you a story that's actually not in the book, but I think illustrates this concept we're talking about. I met a small business owner who owned a manufacturing company in the Midwest. He fancied himself an enlightened owner. He'd done a lot of things to try to make his employees lives better, including starting a 401k plan, and he had a pretty generous match, it was 6% or 8% as I recall. He got a little frustrated that nobody seemed to be signing up for this.
He was expecting they had all make rampant use of it. He tried pestering them and reminding them of the enrollment and sending around the forms that you needed to sign up and so forth and nothing really seemed to move the needle. This one day, he brings everybody together into the conference room and he's the last one to enter. He comes in without saying a word and he's holding this medical bag, this doctor's bag that looks heavy, and comes over to the table in the center and unzips it, turns it upside down and out pours this huge pile of cash which gets everybody's attention in the room.
Then he explains. He says, “You see this pile here, this is the amount of money that all of you just voluntarily gave up by not maxing out your 401K contribution.” He said, “At the end of this meeting, I'm going to take all this cash and I'm going to scoop it back in this bag. I'm going to zip it back up, I'm going to take it back to the bank and I'm going to put it in my account.” He said, “My question to you is we're going to do this again at the same day next year and do you want this cash in your pocket next year, or in mine?” He said there was a rush to sign up for the 401K plan that day.
That's an example of something as you said that we call tripping over the truth. It's a moment of insight. What's interesting about it is that it comes with speed, it comes with force. There's this aha that happens in your brain when you imagine being in that room and seeing that cash and feeling this twinge of, “Oh, gosh. I can't believe I gave up that opportunity to have that be my money.” That's a very different strategy than we’re used to when we try to persuade people, or gain people's support for our ideas.
A lot of times, we just try explaining things to people. It's like we just want to dump information on them, or we want to share our conclusions and share our bar graphs and our Excel spreadsheets. What's far more powerful for that is to figure out a way that we can reconstruct the insight that we had and allow them to discover it. That's what tripping over the truth is about is can we put people in a situation where the discovery is theirs, where the insight, the epiphany happens in their brains and it's not just an information distribution effort, which is the way that I think most people and organizations function. Our call to people is if you need other people's support, can you think about a way as in this example of the table full of cash, to have them trip over the truth?
[0:41:53.9] MB: Yeah, I absolutely love the story of the 401K. I think it's such a powerful illustration. What would be a tactic or a strategy that you would recommend for somebody like me who typically thinks and tries to explain everything so analytically to people. How can I step back and how can listeners like me step back and think about what's a way to turn this into a moment that can create a burst of insight for somebody?
[0:42:23.9] DH: John Kotter, who's the organizational change guru from Harvard Business School, he's got a great model that I think is relevant for this. He says that the way change happens in organizations is we think it's all very analytical and people think their way through and they make plans. He says that what he's seen is that there's a three-step process that happens. The people see something that makes them feel something that leads them to change; see, feel, change.
That's a very useful mental model of how change actually happens at the human level; see, feel change. I was working with a group from DuPont at one point and they told me about some efforts they had underway to reduce waste in factories. They said it like the 401K story. They said they had struggled and they'd communicated a lot about why this was important and why it was strategic and here's the money that's at stake and so forth. Yet, just wasn't catching on.
One of the factory foreman just one day took a bunch of his employees in a van over to the landfill where DuPont factories deposited the stuff that they were throwing out. There was a whole section of this landfill that was basically devoted to DuPont's trash. He took them out there and they piled out and they just took in this awesome, in a negative way landscape of trash and realized like this is ours, this is our waste. There was something about that that just seemed wrong, seemed emotional in a way that none of the information and the strategy and the financial logic weren't.
That, the foreman told me was the real start of the initiative, the real moment when people claimed is theirs. Then that's a classic example of what Kotter is talking about, that the people saw something that made them feel something, that gave them the desire to change. I think thinking in these emotional moments, I think would be my advice to people who are trying to change things.
[0:44:29.9] MB: What role do rituals play in crafting these moments?
[0:44:36.6] DH: Rituals in what sense?
[0:44:38.3] MB: I mean, I guess thinking about when we look at – the example I was specifically thinking of was the story of the woman who couldn't get over her husband.
[0:44:49.1] DH: Yeah. Well, what's interesting is a lot of the capital letter moments that cultures have created, we think of wedding days and birthday parties and Bar Mitzvahs and Quinceañeras and graduations, there are moments that mark transitions in life. A wedding is an obvious transition, really important transition in the life of a person. The same with a graduation ceremony and the same with the Bar Mitzvah.
What's also interesting is there are other transitions in life that seem to lack these moments associated with them. It can become a challenge for the rest of us to spot these missing moments and try to create something to demarcate them. Let me give you a concrete example of what I'm talking about. There was a woman whose husband had passed away. They had been loyal faithful Catholics and that had always been the heart of their relationship. It had been gosh, what? Six or seven years, I think since the husband had passed away. He'd had Lou Gehrig's disease and had a slow painful decline.
Six or seven years later, this widow comes to a counselor named Kenneth Dhoka and says, “I feel like I'm ready to start dating again, to maybe have a relationship, but I just can't take my wedding ring off. It feels disloyal. I believe that marriages are for life.” On the other hand, she knew that it was for life and she had honored her commitment to her husband, and so she felt stuck.
This counselor Kenneth Dhoka has written a lot about the power of rituals to help people who are grieving. He came up with this idea. He worked with her Catholic priest to create a ceremony one Sunday afternoon after mass, and he brought together most of her close friends and family members, many of whom had been in her wedding. The priest called them up around the altar and he started to ask her some questions. “Were you faithful in good times and bad?” “Yes, I was.” “In sickness and health?” “Yes.”
The priest basically led her through her wedding vows, but in the past tense. It gave her the chance to affirm to the people that were gathered together that she had been faithful, she had been loyal, she'd honored her commitments. Then the priest said, “May I have the ring, please?” She takes it off her finger and hands it to the priest and she said later that she felt at that moment the ring just came up as if by magic. The priest took the ring and he arranged for her ring and her husband's ring to be interlocked together and then affixed to their wedding photo.
This ceremony, basically what it's doing is it's allowing her to signal publicly that her identity is about to change. It was it was a moment that allowed her a fresh start. I think this is a really interesting story, because it clues you in on the fact of how pivotal moments are in our lives. The fact that we look to a moment to capture and demarcate a couple getting married, and we look to a moment in the form of a funeral to provide closure for someone who we cared about, and we look for a graduation to signal the transition from student to employee.
It makes you think, we've got to be careful in life when there are really important transitions like this one from being a widow to being someone who's ready for another relationship, that if those transitions are missing moments, it often creates this unease. This widow is struggling with, “Is it okay for me to do this and how are people going to look at me if I do this? Do I feel okay about this?” The ceremony that priest and Kenneth Dhoka created allowed all of that to be condensed into a day. It's like before that day, she was not ready, after that day. That's I think that the power of ritual and what a moment can do.
[0:49:04.5] MB: I think that's a great example too of a nebulous process, finding and creating a moment that anchors that transition point and ties all those things together really neatly.
[0:49:19.0] DH: There's some research by the way on a less emotional scale on what's called the fresh start effect. A professor named Katherine Milkman was it was the lead on this body of research. Her insight was we do this thing, New Year's resolutions every year. Basically to a first approximation, everybody's resolutions are the same. It's like, we all want to lose weight and exercise more and save more. What's really interesting about resolutions as a phenomenon is that there's truly no difference in your goals, or aspirations between December 31st and January 1st right? There's no difference.
What we're doing is we're allowing ourselves to clear the slate. This is her observation that really a New Year's resolution is a mental trick we're playing with ourselves, where we say even though we may have binged on junk food every day in the previous calendar year, this resolution says the only thing that matters is what I do going forward. She said, “Aha. Well, if this slate cleaning effect is something that people are craving, if that's why we created these resolutions, shouldn't there also be more opportunities to do the same thing?”
She started studying for instance, attendance at gyms. Of course, it spikes at the beginning of every new year, but it also spikes interestingly at the beginning of every month, even at the beginning of every week. It's like, we're all doing this thing where we need an excuse to clean our ledger, to forgive ourselves a falling short in the time periods before, and on the first day of a new year, on the first day of a new month, on the first day of a new week, on the first day of a new semester, we can start with a clean slate and it gives us hope and optimism for change.
[0:51:18.5] MB: For somebody who's listening that wants to concretely implement the things we've talked about today and start using the power of moments, start creating powerful moments for themselves, what would be one piece of homework that you would give to them as an action item, or a starting place as a first step towards doing that?
[0:51:39.9] DH: Let me give you two easy ones and one stretch goal. The stretch goal first. On our, website heathbrothers.com, we've got a whole slew of resources from all of our books actually that are available for free. You just log in and get access. One of those documents is called a week of memories. It's our attempt to help people in one week create the most meaningful, memorable week of their year. Every day has this recipe and there's challenges.
I'm not going to I'm not going to underplay this. It's difficult to make this work, but we know it's possible because we've had many people write us and tell us about it. It takes effort. I think the payoff is enormous. If you're up for a challenge, check out that week of memories document and follow the plan. For something you can do in the next 24 hours, I think there's some really easy ones. Just to create a moment of elevation, tonight do something that breaks the script. Whatever it is you would ordinarily do on a weeknight, tear it up and do something else. Grab, takeout sushi to surprise your partner and bring home a movie. Or if you watch a lot of movies, get out an old board game, or get one of those cheesy conversation starter decks. Just try to find multiple ways to disrupt your routines and I think you'll see what I mean about novelty having surprising power.
The other thing that's more outward looking is and this is a theme in the book that we didn't have enough time to talk about, but recognition. That is to say find someone at work, or maybe someone in your personal life, a mentor, or our boss, or someone who's done something that that you found really precious and just say thank you to them. Tell them why, what they did was so important and so meaningful, and just give them a little bit of praise. I don't mean text, or e-mail, I mean, face-to-face, because I think that's important for these moments.
You'll be surprised. Number one, it's weird that you get butterflies when you're about to say something really nice to someone. I don't completely understand that phenomenon, but there's this kind of, you'll have to work through the nerves to go up and just say something great. I'm going to tell you, you are going to feel like you're on a high for a couple of hours afterwards. I mean, it's like emotional magic. Meanwhile, not only did you feel good, you created a peak moment for them as well and that that's something they'll remember for many, many months afterwards. Those are a couple of easy things and one hard thing to try.
[0:54:17.5] MB: You touched on this a little bit, but for listeners who want to learn more, want to find you and your work online, what's the best place for them to do that?
[0:54:25.6] DH: I would go to the heathbrothers.com site first. That's where you can find all those goodies I was talking about, their podcast and workbooks and whatnot. If you're interested in, Chip and I wrote a previous book called Decisive About Decision-Making in Behavioral Economics. If that's the stuff you enjoy, you might check out a podcast that I'm involved with called Choiceology. It's a seven-episode season, you can binge the whole thing in a few hours, and it's been really, really fun to work on.
It’s a lot of the principles of behavioral economics, but manifest in stories that are just super dramatic. People dying on mountaintops and being attacked by sharks and high-stakes negotiations by sports agents. It's fun to see these classic biases that are studied by decision-making people, but in the form of these really epic stories.
[0:55:18.3] MB: Well Dan, thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing all this wisdom. Obviously, tremendously insightful and it's been an honor to have you here.
[0:55:27.3] DH: Thanks so much for having me on. It's been a fun conversation.
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The Mysteries of Consciousness Explained & Explored with Neuroscientist Dr. Anil Seth
April 26, 2018 by Lace Gilger in Mind Expansion
In this episode, we go deep into a scientific look at consciousness. We ask, how do our brains experience reality? What is consciousness? Is our perception of reality nothing more than a “controlled hallucination?” What is the “hard problem of consciousness” and what are the major aspects of consciousness? How can we use the neuroscience of consciousness to better ourselves and improve our lives? And much more with our guest Anil Seth.
Anil Seth is the professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex. He is the co-director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, the editor in chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness, and was the President of the British Science Association for psychology in 2017. His TED talk has been viewed over 2.5 million times and his work featured in The Guardian, the BBC, New Scientist, and more!
How does our brain experience reality?
Consciousness is a funny thing - we don’t have a good definition of it, but everyone knows what consciousness is
There is a subjective experience of consciousness for being human
For much of the 20th century, much of psychology and neuroscience ignored the phenomenon of consciousness
Consciousness is dependent on the brain
The questions of consciousness are some of the most important and urgent questions we can ask
What is the “hard problem of consciousness?” and why is it so important?
What are the problems of consciousness?
The easy problem is figuring out how brains do what they do, how they implement functions, guide behavior, allow the world to be sensed, how the brain works as a mechanism - this will keep neuroscientists and biologists busy for a long time
The hard problem is explaining how and why any of this should have anything to do with conscious experience and why conscious experiences happen
However detailed your understanding of the brain is - it will leave untouched the question of how/why consciousness exists in the first place
We don’t need to solve the hard problem to pursue a very productive study of consciousness
How our biological understanding of life parallels our understanding of consciousness
The three major aspects of consciousness (they inter-related and not necessarily independent)
Conscious level - a scale from being completely lacking in consciousness (a coma, dead) all the way to being fully awake and fully conscious
Conscious content - when you’re conscious you’re conscious OF something
The experience of being a particular person
We don’t passively perceive the world, we actively generate it
When we perceive things, our brain is taking energy waves and electrical signals and interpreting them into prior predictions and expectations
We aren’t conscious of our passive predictions, we’re only conscious of the results of them
It seems to us that the world is out there, as we perceive it
You will only see things that you believe
Optical illusions really demonstrate how adapted our visual system is
Perception is a controlled hallucination
How the perceptual limitations of the brain are mirrored in the social media echo chamber where your prior beliefs are confirmed
Informed skepticism is an incredibly valuable thinking framework - the scientific method and a healthy dose of humility help us move towards truth
The way the brain perceives the world can be looked at as a form of hypothesis testing
The same perceptual illusions and idea of controlled hallucination doesn't just apply to the external world - but applies to OURSELVES as well
The Rubber Hand Illusion - and how our perceptions of our bodies are not what we think they are
Even something as basic as what is and what is not our body is at best a guess, a hypothesis generated by the brain
The origin and the structure of your world and yourself
What happens when you have an out of body experience?
How understanding the science of the self can impact the way you experience life and your own emotional states
The way you feel at times is the brains best guess, it's not necessarily the way things are and the way they have to be
How Anil’s own battle with negative emotions and negative emotional states has been shaped by the work he does in neuroscience
What interventions have helped Anil battle his own depression?
Going for a long walk in the country
When you’re in the thick of it - you forget these interventions work, but they DO work
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps Anil as well
You aren’t defined by your own suffering - does having the Flu define you as a person? Why should a psychological issue?
Homework - reflect on your experience and try to understand that its a construction of your brain
[Personal Site] Anil Seth
[Radio Show] Anil Seth on consciousness
[Wiki Article] Alan Watts
[Wiki Article] Checker shadow illusion
[TEDTalk] Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality | Anil Seth
[0:00:11.9] MB: Welcome to The Science of Success, the number one evidence-based growth podcast on the internet with more than a billion downloads and listeners in over a hundred countries and part of the Self-Help For Smart People Podcast Network.
In this episode, we go deep into a scientific look at consciousness. We ask how do our brains experience reality? What is consciousness? Is our perception a reality nothing more than a controlled hallucination? What is the hard problem of consciousness and what are the major aspects of consciousness? How can we use the neuroscience of consciousness to better ourselves and improve our lives? We dig into that and much more with our guest, Anil Seth.
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In our previous episode, we looked at how to use insights from behavioral science to improve your life. We looked at what it means to have a good day and figured out how to reserve engineer more good days in your life by examining decision making, the power of rest and recovery, intention setting, boundaries and much more with our guest, Caroline Webb. If you want to learn how to use scientific research to create more good days in your life, listen to that episode.
[0:02:52.9] MB: Today we have another exciting guest on the show, Anil Seth. Anil is the professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex. He’s the co-director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, the editor-in-chief of the Neuroscience of Consciousness and was president of the British Science Association for Psychology in 2017. His TED Talk has been viewed over 2.5 million times and his work has been features in The Guardian, BBC, New Scientist and more.
Anil, welcome to the Science of Success.
[0:03:23.0] AS: It’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me on.
[0:03:25.6] MB: Well, we’re very excited to have you on here today. I know you do some really fascinating, some work in research and I’m excited to kind of dig into many of these topics today. So to start out, I’d love to begin with kind of the idea of consciousness and kind of the question of how does our brain experience reality.
[0:03:44.4] AS: That’s the big question, I think, that certainly I’m trying to answer and certainly that’s motivated me in my career. Studying consciousness is a funny thing. Let’s be clear. We don’t have a very, very good scientific definition of it. Everybody knows what consciousness is. It’s what goes away when you fall into a dreamless sleep or go into general anesthesia and it’s what returns when you come around again. It’s any kind of subjective experience.
There something it is like to be me and there’s — I’m sure there is something it is like to be you and for everybody listening. There is also something it is like to be them. There’s a subjective experiences happening to those organisms, and there isn’t the thing — We assume that’s not the case for something like a table or a chair. It may be the case for something like a work or a fish, but we don’t really know yet.
The question is, for some things in the universe, there are consciousness experiences and for other things, there probably aren’t, and this is one of the biggest mysteries in science and philosophy. People have been thinking about it forever. One of the things that’s always surprised me is, for a lot of the 20th century at least, explicitly studying consciousness was not really considered to be a legitimate part of psychology and neuroscience, which is — I think it’s kind of hilarious, because it’s the most obvious phenomena. It’s where everything starts. Nothing else really matters. If there’s one central feature of psychology, of neuroscience, it’s the fact that we have conscious experiences.
So how that happens is really, I think, the most interesting and most basic question in much of science, and it’s also attractable. If there’s one thing that we know about consciousness, at least in humans, it’s that it is intimately dependent on the brain, and the brain stops, consciousness stops. Change brain in various ways, your conscious experience of the world and the self will also change.
So there are perfectly valid and productive scientific methods that we can apply to the study of consciousness and begin to figure out what it is about the brain and not just the brain in a kind of jam jar on a [inaudible 0:05:59.2], but the brain in the body, in the world. What it is about this whole interconnected system that gives rise to having conscious experiences in the first place and then shapes the kinds of experiences that we have, whether that experience is of perceptions of the world around us or of the experience of being an individual, being a person, being a conscious self with all the emotion and sense of embodiment, all these other things that go along with that.
There is a very, very urgent — It’s both important, interesting and urgent scientific question to ask. I say it’s urgent because it’s probably only through a scientific understanding of consciousness that we will come to have a proper mechanistic understanding of what happens in cases of psychiatric humans, for instance, and I’m sure we’ll probably come on to this later on. But if you want to develop a proper understanding of distressing steps of conscious experiences that characterize psychiatric problems, we need to understand what the mechanisms are. That’s just stating a problem, and then I guess we can go in in various ways to try to find answers.
[0:07:11.5] MB: Is that kind of — When you do some sort of cursory research or reading around consciousness, you’ll come across the phrase, “The hard problem of consciousness.” Is that what you’re describing or is that something distinct?
[0:07:23.2] AS: That’s right. The hard problem is a phrase that’s due to the philosopher, David Chalmers. He’s been a terrific inference in consciousness science and philosophy more than “a century” now. There really isn’t one single problem of consciousness. I think that’s another important thing to establish at the get go. It’s a bit like biology. There’s no single problem of life either. There’re a lot of problems that cluster under the same basic description.
What are the problems of consciousness? The hard problem, the Chalmers, is a contrast between two kinds of things. It’s a contrast between the hard problem and the easy problem. I’ll put it like this; the easy problem, the Chalmers, is the problem of figuring out how brains do what they do. How they implement various functions. How they guide behavior. How they allow the world to be sensed so that behavior can happen appropriately. How the thing works is a mechanism. This is of course not an easy problem. It’s going to keep neuroscientists and biologists busy for centuries.
The point about the easy problem is it doesn’t necessarily make any reference to consciousness at all. It’s just about how the complex networks of neurons together support the kinds of things that organisms do. The hard problem is explaining how and why any of these should have anything to do with consciousness expert. How could any explanation that is made in terms of mechanisms or functions; this neuron is connected to this neuron, it connects to that neuron. How could any explanation of that kind tell you why a conscious experience happens? The intuition I’m making this distinction is that it just doesn’t. That however sophisticated, detailed your understanding of the brain as a mechanism is, it will leave entirely untouched this basic mystery of how and why conscious experiences happen to be part of the universe in the first place. That’s why Chalmers calls it a hard problem, because it’s almost as if it’s beyond the remix of any kind of science or neuroscience.
Now, I have struggled with this. I think it’s very interesting point of view, and it goes right back in philosophy, of course, to Descartes and [inaudible 0:09:45.0] where he cleaved the universe into two different kinds of things, stuff is made out of and the stuff of thought and of conscious experience. Once you cut the universe in two this way, it’s very difficult to put it together again.
Now, figuring out a solution to the hard problem is — Well, we just don’t know what that would look like, although people have come up with some kinds of speculative ideas. I guess my point is we don’t need to solve the hard problem in order to pursue a very productive and illuminating science of consciousness.
We know that consciousness exists. We have conscious experiences and they can be described in various ways. I can describe how my experience or vision is different from my experience of an emotion, which is different from my experience of illusion, of intending to do something. Given that these conscious experience exists and they also go away on the general anesthesia or sleep, things like that. Then we can start to just explore how mechanisms within the brain explain aspects of these conscious experiences, explain the difference between, let’s say, vision, and hearing, and smell and self, and that way we’re saying testable and predictable things about the relationships between the brain and consciousness. We can just — It may seem a bit unsatisfying, but we can just leave aside the question of how and why consciousness comes to be a part of the universe in the first place.
This isn’t really a cop out. I don’t think it’s a cop out at all, because the history of science has pursued this strategy very successful in many times before, and even in physics. Physicists cannot tell you why there is a universe in the first place. Nonetheless, we understand a great deal about it now, thanks to the methods of theoretical and experimental physics. Another analogy that’s not exactly a true analogy but is interesting if life. So it wasn’t that long ago, biologists thought that there could be no mechanistic explanation of the difference between the living and the nonliving, so they would propose something like an [inaudible 0:11:55.2] or a spark of life to some sort of special sauce that would explain that difference. Of course, now, while we don’t understand everything about life, this basic sense of mystery about what life is has faded away as biologists got on with the job of accounting for the properties of living systems.
I think we can do the same with consciousness. We can just start to explain its properties. We can do the normal business of science, which is develop theories that help explain, help control, help predict and see how we go. This is in fact what’s going on in my lab and in many other labs in the world, and I think a lot of really interesting progress is being made. It’s interesting to think why people find it’s unsatisfying. I think there’s a sense in which people ask more of a science of consciousness than they ask of other kinds of science, and I think this is partly because it’s so central to our own existence. We’re being faced with a challenge of coming up for a scientific explanation of what it is to be me or to be you, and so there’s something I think intuitive that we want — Firstly, there’s resistance to something like that being explained. Yeah, we want to cling on to ourselves as somehow especial, and then we will say ask more of a kind of scientific explanation of consciousness that it should be really intuitively satisfying somehow, and we don’t apply these criteria and other various of science at all. I don’t think we should do so in consciousness. We can just look at the brain, look at conscious experiences and get on with the job.
[0:13:33.3] MB: So let’s dig in a little bit around the properties of consciousness. Tell me more about that.
[0:13:39.5] AS: There’s a long list of ways to divide up what we mean by consciousness. I like to think of it quite simply in terms of three different aspects of consciousness, and I don’t think these three aspects are entirely independent. I think there’re complicated relations between them, but I don’t think it’s a useful starting point.
The first property of consciousness is conscious level, and this I would describe as sort of scale from being completely lacking in any kind of consciousness at all, such as when you run the general anesthesia or in a coma or dead, let’s say, all the way to being vividly alert, awake, aware and conscious, fully conscious.
An important thing here is that conscious level is not the same thing as just being physiologically awake. You can have conscious experiences when you’re asleep. This is what happens when you dream, and there’s also cases on the other side if you like where if you’ve had severe brain damage, been very unlucky to have some severe brain damage, you might end up in what was once called a vegetative state, now called the unaware wakeful state, which is a state where you go through sleep and wake cycles, eyes will open. Physiologically you will wake up, but there doesn’t seem to be any conscious experience going on at all.
So the mechanisms that responsible for being conscious, it can overlap with, but they’re not going to be the same as the mechanisms that just modulate whether you’re physiologically awake or asleep. That’s conscious level.
The second aspect is what I would like to call conscious content, which is when you’re conscious, you’re conscious of something. This is probably what most intuitively think of. You look around, there’s a subjective scene. It has — You open your eyes, and you’re not blind. You open your eyes, there’s colors, shapes, objects of various kinds populating things visual scene, clouds on the horizon and whatever you happen to be looking at, but there’s also whatever you might be smelling at the time, hearing at the time. Then there are the sense, tactile senses of your body sitting on a chair. It’s the full content of your perceptual scene at any one time. That's conscious content.
Again, we know there’s not any differences between different perceptual modalities, like vision and hearing and smell, but the brain can do a lot of this sensing of the world without consciousness being involved at all. We’re not necessarily conscious of everything that our eyes and ears detects.
The third and final aspects of consciousness is actually a subset of conscious content, but it's a particularly important subset, and that’s the experience of being a particular person, of being me or being you. The experience of being the subject of that experience, and that is this experience of being somebody that is probably the aspect of consciousness that we feel most attached to and we’re most resistant to it being explained. It’s also that aspects of consciousness that can go wrong if you like in a lot of psychiatric conditions.
[0:17:01.3] CS: I want to segue and get into a little bit, the way that we perceive reality and the way that we perceive the world, and you’ve talked about in the past, the idea of perceptual predictions and then how we’re not necessarily sort of passively perceiving what's happening around us, but in many instances kind of actively creating it. Could you elaborate on that?
[0:17:22.4] AS: Yeah. This is an old idea, but I think it’s getting a new relevance now. I think this is a relevance that actually makes a difference to me in my everyday life. Now, there is a kind of intuitive way to think about sensation and perception as part of our conscious lives, which is that there’s a world out there and our eyes and our ears and our other sensory organs detect features of this world. Light waves, energy, hits our retina and so on, gets converted into signals, go deeper and deeper into the brain, and that sensation-perception is this process of interpretation, just the building up with sensory signals that originate from some sort of fixed external world that’s out there.
Now, there’s another view and, again, this goes back in philosophy to Kans, if not before, and in psychology to a guy called Herman von Helmholtz in the late 19th century. He argued that perception was not so much just about this passive registration of sensory data that just impacts our sensory organs. It’s an act of construction that the sensory signals that we encounter — I mean, they don’t come labeled with; this is vision; this comes from a table; this is sound; this comes from my friend. It’s all just energy and it’s all kind of noisy and ambiguous and only indirectly related to what’s out there in the world.
But our perception, or at least our conscious perception seems to be populated by determined objects. I’m not looking at the computer in front of me and the mug of tea in front of me and they seem to be there. How does this happen? Well, the idea is that the brain meets this noisy and ambiguous stream of sensory information with what we call prior predictions or expectations about what caused that sensory information.
So what we see is not the sensory data itself or any kind of filtering of it. What we see is the interpretation of the brain's best guess about what caused that sensory data, and depending on what that best guess is, your perception will be different. Think of if you go outside on a day where it’s kind of cloudy. There are these nice little white fluffy clouds. It can be very easy to look at guys clouds and see the faces in them or see animals in them, see something strange in them. What’s happening there is that the brain is imposing an expectation of seeing your face on to some quiet ambiguous sensory data, and so that's what you actually see. I think we’ve all had the experience as well walking out maybe on a foggy day and you think you see your friend because you're expecting to meet them and it turns out to be a stranger.
Our perception are always shaped by the interpretations our brain brings to bear, and we’re not conscious so much. We’re just conscious of the result. We’re conscious of how these predictions become combined with the sensory data. That shapes our perception. I think this is quite transformational for the way we think of the way we perceive the world around us. I mean, we have this sort of naïve realism that we think or it just seems to us that the world is out there as we perceive it. We have that phrase, I believe it when I it. You might as well say the other way around, that you only see things that you believe, and these beliefs can be unconscious.
What this means is we probably all see, perceive the world in slightly different ways. Sometimes maybe in different ways depending on the expectations that our brain bring to bear on the sensory data. We all inhabit kind of different in the universe as this way.
[0:21:13.9] MB: In your TED Talk, you have some really great examples of this, may be hard to kind of demonstrate in the podcast format, but I really found the example of kind of the checkerboard shadow to be really, really fascinating and also the kind of the auditory illusion that you’ve created during the show, which we’ll throw these in the show notes for listeners, but I thought those were great examples.
[0:21:34.2] AS: Yeah. There’s a lot of examples that we come to every day. Optical illusions are a great source of you like kind of improvised or discovered experiments in psychology and neuroscience. Optical illusions work, because we’re just made to realize this discrepancy between the way things are and how we perceive them. You might have two lines. One looks longer than the other and then you measure them, they’re both the same length, but they still look different lengths.
The checkerboard example that you mentioned, I think this is a beautiful example. That’s based on, is our brain — Or the visual system in our brain just knows that objects get darker when they’re in shadow. That’s a kind of rule that the visual cortex in our brain has. I was born with or it’s genetically wired in now or we learn it in the first years of life. That means that the brain is expecting the patterns of shadow to change sensory data in particular ways, and this illusion is called Adelson’s Checkerboard. Just means that we see few patches of gray. They’re going to look very, very different, but if you go and actually cut the patches out and put them next to each other, you’ll see they’re exactly the same color. What's happening here is our perception isn't just a direct reflection of what color a patch is. It’s really what color the patch should be given the pattern of light and shade that is happening.
I always use that example as well just to — Some people think, “Oh! That means my vision isn't working very well. Why is biology screwed up and given me this visual system that can’t actually figure out what color something is.” That’s not what the visual system is supposed to do. It’s not supposed to figure out how much light is hitting the eye. It’s supposed to figure out what’s the most likely state of affairs out there in the environment and it does it beautifully.
All these optical illusions and visual tricks that we have thought of right way. What they really demonstrate is how beautifully sophisticated and well adapted our visual system is. You’re dealing with the noisy visual information that we get by using these regularities about light and shade and concavity and convexity and any number of other things. Actually, generate for the organism a reliable picture of what's going on in the world around it.
[0:24:03.0] MB: I think this larger point, kind of zooming back out a little bit, is really, really important, which is this idea that we think of the world outside of ourselves as this sort of fixed entity that’s precisely defined and we’re sort of passively perceiving it, but in many ways our own perceptions of what's happening around us are, in many cases, as you call them sort of a controlled hallucination.
[0:24:27.5] AS: Yeah. I think it’s a nice phrase. I wish I could take credit for it. I first heard that phrase from Chris [inaudible 0:24:35.1], who’s a psychologist, one of my inspirations in London and actually nobody knows he first said it, but the idea of the controlled hallucination is that when we think of the word hallucination, you think of people perceiving things that aren’t there. I think we can almost think of it as just a slight imbalance in how normal perception works. Even normal perception, as we’ve been discussing, normal perception involves this continuing balancing act between sensory data and the brain’s interpretations of that sensory data. Now when you look at the white fluffy clouds and see if a face in them, that's a kind of hallucination going on there. So you can think of these sorts of hallucinations that people describe in schizophrenia or perhaps on psychoactive drugs of various kinds. That’s just tipping the balance even more. So the brain's prior expectations kind of overweight the sensory data and overcome, overwhelm the sensory data even more strongly so that what we perceive becomes less the dependent on signals from the world.
Normal perception is a controlled hallucination, precisely this sense that the brain is always anticipating, always predicting what’s out there, but these predictions are controlled because they’re always constrained and reigned in and guided by the sensory data that we encounter, and it's when that process goes wrong, becomes imbalanced, either one way or the other way, that we start to see deviations from normal perception that people then start to worry about, because then they start disagreeing with people around them about what's actually going on.
But there’s another thing — We’re beginning to be familiar with this idea in another context already. So a lot of people talk about echo chambers and filter bubbles and social media. We seek evidence that fits with our beliefs, and if we only expose to particular kinds of opinions because of the way social media works, the echo chamber phenomenon, then that’s the way we will believe the world to be one way and other people inhabiting the same world will hold a very different set of beliefs because their echo chamber is different because this sensory information they encounter and the prior beliefs they bring to bear are also different.
I think the work that we're doing, me and many colleges, is showing the same thing applies to more basic levels to this. It's not just your abstract beliefs about what kind of politics is good. It also drills right down to how we perceive colors and shapes and things and objects in the world around us, and maybe not to such a degree, because probably a lot of the visual system is quite hardwired and quite inflexible, but it’s there to some degree, or at least the potential for it is there to some degree, and I think that's — It is a very important things to realize just this fact that we will have different or potentially different experiences of the world around us at this concrete perceptual level and not just more abstract level beliefs and desires.
[0:28:59.4] MB: And I think the fact that it's sort of such a concrete physical manifestation of this phenomenon really underscores the fundamental conclusion that what we perceive and believe to be true may not be the case, whether it's physical, whether it's kind of an ideological construct, and I think the example of the social media echo chamber is a perfect example of this. We shouldn't always be so confident that our perceptions are correct, and I think if you look at some of the greatest thinkers and scientists, they come from a very humble perspective of constantly kind of questioning their own perceptions and ideas, and I think it's really interesting to see that mirrored not only from kind of intellectual sense if you look at something like a social media echo chamber, but really at a very basic physical sense all the way down to the way that our consciousness is created.
[0:29:49.8] AS: That’s right. I mean, I think there’s the value of skepticism, of an informed skepticism, it’s always there in whatever context you want to discuss. Another method for people who’ve often used to the way we've been discussing perception is a process of hypothesis testing. The brain might have a hypothesis, a better guess about the way the world is, and then it will test that hypothesis with sensory data. In fact, it will try to seek out sensory data that will either confirm or disconfirm its hypothesis, in much the same way that a scientist would have a hypothesis and do an experiment that might confirm or disconfirm their scientific hypothesis.
Of course, if you take that all the way, then I also have to remain very skeptical about everything that I've been saying about consciousness. I could be entirely wrong about it too. It's just another hypothesis, but of course that’s the beauty of the scientific approach of these things, is that we will continue to do the experiments and if all these ideas about perception being prediction turn out to be off the mark, we’ll find out, and it will come up with a better theory. Yeah, skepticism is great all the way, but it's even better when you contested against the court of reality.
[0:31:09.2] MB: I want to segue now and talk a little bit about — We’ve talked about the external world, but the same phenomenon applies to our perceptions of the self and of ourselves. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
[0:31:23.2] AS: This is where things get really interesting to me, and where it gets intuitively challenging from — And first-person perspective on these issues as well, because it’s — Yeah, I think it’s one thing to think about how our perception of the external world as a construction. I’m okay if somebody tells me that there’s no such thing as the color red out there. That’s something that the brain has sort of invented as a convenient representation of a certain kind of invariants in the way light reflects from surfaces. That's fine. Redness is something that my brain is generating to make the world more understandable, and optical illusion is fine. Yeah, okay. Those two lines, they are actually the same length even though they look different. I’ll accept that and move on with my life.
Now it becomes more challenging when you type exactly the same principles, exactly the same mechanisms and exactly the same lessons and apply them to our perception itself, because the experience of being a self, of being a subject of experience, really, it’s just another kind of perception. It’s not something that it sits behind all other experiences receiving them somehow, like an immaterial soul or something like that. No. It's something else that’s very, very tightly dependent on particular brain mechanisms, and the experience of being a self is also compose of many potentially separable elements.
One of the most obvious of these is the experience of embodiment. William James was one of the founders of psychology. Used to talked about it in the following way, and he would say that the experience of being a body is somehow always there. It’s always in the background. Our experience of the world around us is changing as we move around it. But there’s always the experiences of the same old body going along for the ride.
And because it's always there and it changes, but pretty slowly over the course of a lifetime, unless you have an injury or something, or an illness, it's tempting to just push it also into the background and think we don’t really have to explain it. But the experience of what isn’t and what is not the body is another kind of controlled hallucination, and we can demonstrate this very easily. There are plenty of experiments and one of the things I show in the TED Talk is this thing called rub a hand illusion, which is a very simple demonstration where you have a fake rubber hand, looks like a real hand, and you put it in front of someone. They hide their real hand, then the experimenter takes a paint brush, two paint brushes and strokes the rubber hand in time with striking the person's real hand, even though they can't see this happening to their real hand.
From the subject’s point of view, what they see is a fake hand. It looks like a hand and is roughly where a hand should be. They see it being stroke and they feel the stroking, because the real hand is being stroked as well. For the brain, this becomes enough sensory evidence that it updates its best guess about what is going so that the person actually starts to experience the rubber hand as being part of their body. It’s a really uncanny experience. At one level you know is not part of your body, but another level, you feel it is part of your body, and this shows that even something as basic as what is and what is not our body, even something as basic as that is activity on-the-fly always a best guess, a hypothesis to the best explanation generated by the brain.
Then that applies, I think anyway, to pretty much all other aspects of self that we have, whether it's the experience of making a volitional movement, when I intend to do something and I feel I’ve caused that movement. That’s just the brain’s best guess of a movement that had a relatively internal versus external cause. it's not evidence for any kind of free will or anything like that. All these elements of selfhood can all be explained by mechanisms.
Of course, it doesn't seem like that to me yet, even doing these experiments and thinking about these things for many years now, it still doesn't seem like that to me. I seem to be this unified self somehow sitting somewhere behind my eyes, looking out on an external world. I mean, that still seems to be the way things are even though we can do all these experiments to show that was actually happening under the hood is something quite different.
[0:36:02.0] MB: Yeah, I've heard of the rubber hand illusion, or the rubber head experiment. It’s so fascinating. I mean, I think the whole kind of conversation of what is the self, what is the body, what is our experience of it, and the fact that if you really kind of keep digging and asking these questions, it's not that clear or that obvious or even that sort of scientifically coherent as in terms of what we think it is. In many ways, it kind of opens a door philosophically. It makes me think of people like Alan Watts and others and it’s a really, really fascinating kind of journey in sort of a rabbit hole that you can go down.
[0:36:38.5] AS: That's right. I mean, I think there’re many other paths that people can take when they really are interested in understanding the origin and the structure of their experiences of the world and self. Some of them, what I do in the lab here is a more scientific one, where we’ll try to manipulate these experiences in systematic ways, figure out what's going on. But, of course, there are traditions of mindfulness and meditation which can lead to similar insights in a different — Meditation is not going to deliver by itself, and neuro-scientific explanation of what's going on, but it also post a challenge, similar challenges to our assumptions of the unity or the self and this naïve realism by which we experience the contents of our perception as reflecting and being identical with some external existence, an external reality. Certainly, we can take various kinds of substances and also alter our perception in different ways too. Religious ceremonies also can do this.
I think there’s a common theme to a lot of these things though, which is that — I’m thinking here of something like an out of body experience. This is happen. People have out of body experiences. They feel that they’ve left their body. They’re seeing their body from a different perspective. They may be floating above it or leaving it behind in some way, and people have reported these kinds of experiences throughout history in various sorts of contexts, and they’ve usually accompanied these reports with some sort of explanation of what's going on and it's often something like, “Well, I have an out of body experience, so therefore my soul has left my body and had started flying around.”
This is where I think we get into a little bit of trouble, because we should take very seriously that people have these experiences, but the kind of intuitive explanation for them might not be right, and in this case almost certainly isn't right. So the explanation for an out of body experience is going to be something like the brain has the — Whatever reasons, maybe suddenly cut off from input coming from inside its own body. That is it’s perspective. The origin of its first-person perspective is now somewhere else. But that experience is still generated by the stuff inside that person's skull, and that — I think thinking things this way is very helpful, because it preserves the importance of these kinds of unusual experiences that people have about, the dissolution of their ego or an out of body experience or whatever it may be, but it provides a more satisfying mechanistic explanation for what's going on. That way, I think, leads to a fuller understanding of how our experience of the self is actually constructed and how it can fall apart in the ways that it can fall apart and sometimes does.
[0:39:47.4] MB: How has this understanding of the self and the way that it's constructed impacted the way that you kind of think about life and think about your own self?
[0:39:59.6] AS: That’s a great question, and I often wonder what a similar version of me would be like that had done something completely different had not been entrusted or been researching in consciousness neuroscience at all. They’d not be properly able to answer your question. As it is, there’s only been one of me, so it’s hard to compare with the counts of actual.
But what I can say is that sometimes it just fades into the background. I mean, sometimes it’s just what you do in the lab and you’re getting your papers out and you’re trying to get your grants and you’re having some detailed discussion about the statistics on this or that experiment and you get equally frustrated by things in your life and in the world that then you would do otherwise.
But there are times, and for me it’s often when I’m maybe having some sort of thinking time or going for a walk or just sitting back the chair for a moment and realize that my experiences then is this construction is no external reality. And I think, for me, this is quite an enlightening and wonderful experience, this realization that what I’m experiencing is this construction, is on-the-fly construction of the brain that is not necessarily the way things are, that it’s not necessary the way things seem to other people. So it can change the way you interact with other people. If you can hold this in the mind at the right time, that they may be believing, seeing things that are actually slightly different from you.
I also think that it has the potential to change one's relationship with one's own emotional state, and I think this is probably one of the more important implications both scientifically and in terms of personal development. The story here would get something like this, that just as my experience of something out there in the world is an interpretation of that, say, visual signals or light bouncing off objects. My experience of having a particular emotion is also another aspect of self. It’s also another interpretation of sensory data, but in this case it's a sensory data that largely comes from inside the body and how the heart is beating, how tight my stomach is and what the level of various chemicals in my bloodstream are.
This is, again, an old idea that emotions are really perceptions of changes in the physiological state of body. Again, it carries this implication that the way you feel at any time is the brain's best guess about what's happening to its body. It's not necessarily the way things are or the way things have to be. If you can sort of appreciate that in the moment, I think it can help with emotional regulation, with emotional control, with being aware of what's happening to you and sometimes breaking vicious circles of negative emotions.
Now, in my own life, this is still very much a work in progress. I often enter states where I just feel the way I feel, and if it’s a negative set of feelings, those persistent amplify each other and I find it very difficult to apply what I know about the mechanisms of emotions to changing my lived experience of them. But I do think the potential is there for applying these insights in my own life. I think the potential is also that, scientifically, once we understand the mechanisms of what underlies the generation of particular emotion and mood states, then we’ll have also a much better handle on developing treatments for conditions like depression or negative emotions and anxiety and so on and so forth. But it’s certainly not a shortcut. It’s not that you study neuroscience and then you become enlightened and everything suddenly is revealed to be a different way. I think it does impacts, but you have to continuously pay attention. You have to continuously bring to mind the relevance of what you’re doing for your everyday life. But it’s definitely there.
[0:44:20.0] MB: Would you be willing to share a little bit of your own journey or your own kind of battle with negative emotional states and kind of how you’ve dealt with those?
[0:44:29.0] AS: Yes, I would. For many years now, and not that frequently, but from time to time, and unlike many other people, I’ve had episodes of uni-polar depression. So the kind of depression where you just sink into a very, very negative emotional states without the corresponding kind of manic and high state that some people get on the other side. These states of depression only have my own benchmarks to go by, but they are completely debilitating and I wouldn't wish them on anybody else at all.
Now, this has been going on for me on and off for much longer than I've been studying consciousness and neuroscience, but it has been a motivation at the same time because I've always been interested in what's actually happening to me here, what’s happening to my brain and my body that brings about these conditions.
One of the things about the phenomenology of depression, it's not just persistent sadness. It’s something very, very different from that. In fact, in my own experience, I feel state of depression kind of often most prominently in my body. You’ll feel very, very negative symptoms coming from the way you experience your limb, that they really shouldn't be there in some way. There’s clearly something going on with how the brain is interpreting signals from its body. Then, of course, you end up cycling into lots of remuneration and negative thinking and self-blame and all the other self-reinforcing things that go on that sustain and deepen these depressive episodes.
Now, I have not got a solution. I certainly think there are many approaches which seem to be partially successful and work differently for different people. So I’m not going to say anything particularly conclusive, for instance, about medications. So we have things like SSRI medications, serotonin reuptake inhibitors, like citalopram or Prozac. These work for some people. They work better for some people than for other people, but they are pretty blunt pharmacological tool. You’re not going in and delicately adjusting the mechanisms of the brain to fix a particular problem. You’re kind of washing, treating the brain like a kind of bag of chemicals and just spraying a bit more into it. There was an analogy, I think, I heard, taking an SSRI is something like if you got a car engine that’s not working properly, you just open the hood and pour a bunch of oil all over the engine and hope some of it gets to the right place. It’s a bit like that. It’s pretty nonspecific, but it can work a little. Of course, cognitive behavioral therapy also has a very important place in helping us resist the kind of vicious circularity of the negative thinking that can happen.
I, in the research that I’m doing and other groups doing this too, trying to understand the mechanisms of depression in more precise way about how the brain predicts and control the internal state of the body, and I think this is an extraordinary important line of work, because it’s not just from my own person experience. It’s the statistics out there for anybody to read the impact, the social and economic impact of the depression is huge, not to mention, the cost and personal suffering that depression causes and it doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.
So, coming up with a better mechanistic understanding of what is going on I think is one of the more important things that anybody doing neuroscience could be doing. It doesn't necessarily help in the day-to-day. So the struggles that I personally have with it, on just tries to occasionally hold in one's mind the idea that these negative feelings, these emotional feelings aren’t necessarily reflecting the way things are or the way things have to be, that they will pass, that it will be possible to feel different again.
I think the way I can use the neuro-scientific knowledge here is just to give myself a reason to expect things to pass, to expect things to — that however low you get, they will get a bit better. It may not seem like that at the time, but it does seem to be like that in the end.
[0:49:09.8] MB: What interventions have you found to be the most effective for yourself and kind of mitigating some of those symptoms or experiences?
[0:49:19.0] AS: Personally, I found these sorts of things that you often hear work for people. I mean, it becomes really not that much based on my scientific knowledge of these matters anymore. There’s the importance of reconnecting with the world around me. So what always works for me when nothing else really works is to go for a long walk in the country, partly that there’s a rhythmicity to that, I think, that sets the body doing something. There’s the sort of right kind of sensory stimulation that prevents you from — The world is still there. The world doesn't really care about whatever the proximate cause of your depression might be at a particular time. Exercise, fresh air nature. I mean, I’m saying anything that is remotely new here at all. The key is — And this has been for me, is that you forget that these things work. You forget and you think, “That’s not going to work. There’s no point.” But if I do to get myself out into the world a little bit, it does make a big difference. But there is no one thing. There is not one thing that I’ve found that I can say, “Okay. It’s time for that now.” Sometimes it’s a case of waiting it out a little bit as well and gradually things get a little bit more into perspective, and cognitive behavioral therapy has also helped. We’re all, I think, praying to — Our own internal echo chamber this way. We think thoughts that reinforce the thoughts that we've already been thinking, all the beliefs that we already have about ourselves and our place in the world. To break that vicious circle through embedding, we’re trying to make automatic certain responses to negative thinking is also extremely, extremely helpful. That’s also worked for me too at times.
[0:51:16.7] MB: Thank you for kind of going into that and sharing your own personal experience. I think it’s courageous and also really valuable for listeners to kind of hear that and hear someone who's obviously a very accomplished scientist still struggles with some of these issues and also what you've done to kind of help mitigate that.
[0:51:36.6] AS: Yeah, I think it’s — I mean, we all know there’s a still a stigma out there about mental illness, and I think it should be — I think, whatever any of us can do to challenge that is a good thing, and whether if this helps in some small way, then I hope that’s also a good thing too. I don't want to give the kind of the other completely wrong impression. Also, these things, these episodes can also be pretty transient. One of the things that I would caution against is — And, again, this is part of the stigma aspect of it, I think too. People aren’t defined by their suffering from this or that psychiatric issue or mental health problem or psychological problem, however you want to describe it, in the same way that you wouldn't define somebody by their suffering from a more obviously physiological disease, for having a cold or having a flu or something like that. It can affect you and it certainly changed my personality in some ways, but hopefully in a way that some sense made me more aware of my own inner emotional state and what affects them.
Yes, that’s just other — The flip side of the coin as well, is that we — Those of us that have experienced things like that would not want to be defined that way either. I think the same will probably go for pretty much anybody in that condition.
[0:52:59.3] MB: Thank you again for sharing that personal experience, and I think it's really valuable and helpful. To kind of segue back to the broader conversation we’ve had, what would be, for listeners who kind of listen to this episode and are curious about consciousness or learning more or even maybe who are struggling with something like depression, what would be kind of one action step or kind of piece of homework you would give them to implement some of the ideas we’ve talked about today?
[0:53:25.3] AS: That's a good question. I think go and do that course in neuroscience. That’s one action step. I’m kind of half serious about that. I think there’s a lot of good, popular, accessible literature out there now about the brain, about emotion, about neuroscience and perception that even a non-technical understanding of this can help develop this realization that the way we experience things, the world around us and ourselves isn't necessary where things are. Of course, delayed in writing in my own book about this, but hopefully I’ll be able to talk more about that next year.
The other actions step is, yeah, I think — Again, this may not work for everyone. Just when you’re walking around in your daily life, try to make it a routine. Just experiment with this for a little bit, and I’m just thinking about this now. Maybe this works, but if you just walk around, and now and again just reflects on your own perception. Just reflect on what you are experiencing at that moment and try to experience it as a construction. If you see patterns of light and shade and objects, try to understand that your experience of the things in the world at that moment, how they might be generated by this interaction between the brain guessing about what’s out there and the light coming into your eyes.
Try just a little bit to get under the hood of your experiences now and again, and I think if you can do that, that would be another avenue towards understanding this relationship between the naïve realism that are experiences have where we just — As we’ve discussed, a lot of reign, is this hour that we just experience things as real and this appreciation of how, in fact, dependent our experiences are on how the brain is bringing its side of the story to what's going on.
[0:55:34.1] AS: The best place to look, try to collect everything in the moment on my personal website, which is anilsith.com. There’s a number of other podcasts, interviews and pieces of writing, and also a whole load of research papers from myself and my lab there as well. So anilseth.com would be the place to look.
[0:55:56.4] MB: Well, Anil, thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing all of your wisdom and experiences, fascinating conversation, and I really appreciate your time and contribution.
[0:56:05.0] AS: Thanks again for the opportunities. It’s been a pleasure to talk to you.
[0:56:08.0] MB: Thank you so much for listening to the Science of Success. We created this show to help you, our listeners, master evidence-based growth. I love hearing from listeners. If you want to reach out, share your story or just say hi, shoot me an email. My email is matt@successpodcast.com. That's matt@successpodcast.com. I'd love to hear from you and I read and respond to every single listener email.
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The Scientific Search for The Self - Discovering Who You Truly Are with Dr. Robert Levine
March 22, 2018 by Lace Gilger in Mind Expansion
In this episode we approach the concept of the self from a concrete perspective, not in an abstract philosophical way. What do the hard sciences like biology and physics say about the existence of the self? Does the “self” exist from a psychological perspective? What does the science say and what does that mean for ourselves, our future, and how we think about change and self improvement? We explore the scientific search for the self with Dr. Robert Levine.
Dr. Robert Levine is a professor of psychology and former dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at California State University. Robert is the bestselling author of Geography of Time, Stranger in the Mirror, and The Power of Persuasion, which has been translated into eight languages. His work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, CNN, and more!
Is our current conception of “the self” accurate?
The hard sciences demonstrate that there is not one, single, conception of the self
The boundaries that we imagine divide us from the rest of the world are vague, porous, and sometimes non existent
The self is a changeable object and we have control over changing it
When does the self become the non-self?
A huge portion of our body is bacteria - does that constitute part of the self?
From a psychological perspective, we do not have a single personality or self
Approaching the concept of the self in a real way, not in an abstract philosophical way
What do virtual body parts have to do with the perception of the self?
What are the consequences of the lack of a concrete, definitive, self?
Your mind can be tricked, despite knowing that it’s being tricked
Context and situation often determine your behavior moreso than your personality / self
The interconnectedness of everything / are we actually separated from the universe / what is the “boundary” of the self?
Where do our thoughts, decisions, and ideas come from?
The notion from early psycho-neurology that your brain decides before we are aware that we have decided
The self versus the non-self
Where do our thoughts, desires, and impulses come from?
The boundary between ourselves and others is vague & malleable
How do we use the fluidity of the self to reshape and edit ourselves?
We are multiple personalities and selves - and this allows for and creates real possibilities for change
What are the implications of this fluidity of the self?
We can actualize the possibilities within our multiple and complex understanding of self-hood to create positive change in our lives
We are the “editors” of our own lives and “selves”
Creating positive change in your life requires thinking for self, introspection, and self honesty
The lowest hanging fruit for keeping track of your “self” and editing to become the person you want to be
[Personal Site] Robert Levine
[Book] Stranger in the Mirror: The Scientific Search for the Self (Revised) by Robert V. Levine
[0:00:12.1] MB: Welcome to the Science of Success, the number one evidence based growth podcast on the internet with more than a million downloads and listeners in over a hundred countries.
In this episode, we approach the concept of the self, from a concrete perspective, not in an abstract or philosophical way. What are the hard sciences like biology and physics say about the existence of the self?
Does the self, exist from a psychological perspective? What does the science say and what does it mean for ourselves, our future and how we think about change and self-improvement? We explore the scientific search for the self with Dr. Robert Levine.
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You can get it completely for free, along with another surprise bonus guide when you signup and join today. You’re also going to get our weekly email which our listeners absolutely love, it’s called Mindset Monday, it’s short, simple, it’s a couple articles and stories that we found really interesting in the last week. Lastly, you’re going to get a chance to shape the show and become part of our community. Submit your own questions to upcoming guests, help us vote on and change parts of the show like our intro music and get access to exclusive opportunities to participate and become involved in our community like giveaways, Slack channels and much more. Again, there’s some incredible stuff but you can only get it when you sign up and join the email list today.
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In our previous episode, we discussed how your environment plays a tremendous role in shaping who you are, we looked at how personality develops and what underscores it. We talked about how you can engineer your own environment to make yourself more productive and effective.
Examine how to battle self-sabotage and much more with our guest Benjamin Hardy. If you want to understand how a few simple changes can make a huge impact on your life, listen to that episode. Now for the show.
[0:02:53.4] MB: Today, we have another exciting guest on the show, Dr. Robert Levine. Bob is a professor of psychology and former Dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at California state university. He’s the bestselling author of The Geography of Time, Stranger in the Mirror and The Power of Persuasion which has been translated in over eight languages, his work has been featured in the New York Times, NPR, CNN and more. Bob, welcome to the Science of Success.
[0:03:19.0] RL: Good morning to you Matt.
[0:03:19.8] MB: Well, we’re very excited to have you on the show today. I’d love to start out, Stranger in the Mirror is a fascinating book and I’d like to begin with the concept of the self, you know, we talk a lot, even on the show about self-knowledge, self-control, et cetera.
But you have a really interesting perspective on sort of what the self is and isn’t. Would you tell us a little bit about kind of how you got into questions of the self and sort of what some of the current conceptions of self are and how they may be thought?
[0:03:50.5] RL: I’m a social psychologist and for those of you who are not familiar with that discipline, we look at the ways the person and situations and how the grand mantra is that often, the time and place you find yourself in, dictate the way you’re going to act and feel more than the type of person that you are.
As such, I’ve always seen the self as a malleable thing. We know which study of your study where we see people otherwise good people in bad, in difficult situations can sometimes act badly and vice versa. That’ show it started for me, you know, the whole notion that we have a lot of different selves inside of ourselves and these different salves can come out in different ways but what happened with, this is just the most interesting project, I’m not going to say it’s the most interesting book that people to decide, it’s the most interesting project I’ve been involved in. Every place that I turn was looking for these notions of the self in other areas. I was just stunned by what I found. You know, for example, I started to look in biology and I found that the biologists also have this, their general finding is that were all multiple sales, we’re literally made up of different types of DNA.
You find that when you’re looking culture, you find out you’re looking different cultures where people tend to define what a self is differently. We see it historically. The grand lesson that I started, I began to see everywhere is that the boundaries that we imagine and ourselves, no pun intended that the divide us what’s us and what’s none us are really vague and it can be some really odd ways that we draw these lines and we need to draw these lines in order to get us through the night and the fact that the self is a most changeable object and that we have some control over this to a large extent, we can control – we can at least encourage the parts of our – the type of self or the type of self that we want to come out in different situations and to discourage the ones that we don’t want to come out.
I know that’s a long rambling answer but you know, when you ask a question about what’s my idea of the self, you’re inviting long rambling answers.
[0:06:19.4] MB: That’s what we like on the show, that’s great. I want to kind of unpack a couple of these different notions of the self from everything from sort of the self, of kind of a biological, physical sense, this self, it’s like a logical perspective and even the self from a cultural or social perspective.
Let’s start with kind of biology and the hard sciences, you know, from a physical sense. Does the self, exist as a separate sort of system from everything else?
[0:06:47.9] RL: Sort of, you can do - one certainly knows that there’s something about their physical corpus that’s different from the physical courses of the person standing next to them but when you start to look at the boundaries, it can be quite challenging.
For example, you know, let’s imagine a slightly disgusting thought experiment but you know, think of the saliva that’s in your mouth right now. I would ask and I ask you is that saliva part of you, is that part of your self and you know, you show up and I don’t usually answer would be ‘yes’.
Now let’s imagine that I give you a sterile cup and I ask you to spit in that cup and that saliva is now outside of you, right? It’s not you. Now, let’s say, how about – would you like to take your self back? Would you like to drink that stuff back in?
I suspect that doesn’t look too tempting to you. You know, when did that self, become non self? At what point did it become non self? We could see it just that way in that kind of in time way, where your skin is part of yourself and it starts to die, at what point does it become non self?
Then we see it in more fundamental ways. If we look, biologists look inside of yourself and we find that a large part of our body weight and our body volume consist of bacteria and other entities that stay with us that are necessarily part of us that keep us alive and they have their own DNA. We literally are made up of different DNA.
They have their own reproductive system. We’re literally part, when we draw that line between self and non self, certainly, to a biologist, our self is our DNA, the purpose of life is to perpetuate our DNA. Then we actually find that we have some DNA traces of other people, we are mothers, there are parts of our mother’s DNA that are moved into the child after the child is born.
That’s just the beginning of it. Then I mean, there are people who are literally chimeras, who are human chimeras, who have patch works of different DNAs in their body. You know, if you take a sample in their elbow, it might be one be, one set of chromosomes and you go to your shoulder, it might be a different step and then go to their face and it’s back to the first set.
People who are literally biologically two people. That scratching the surface of the ambiguities of what’s self, what’s not self, who are we on that very basic, as you put it, hard science level. This is before we get to the vagaries of social psychologist.
[0:09:57.2] MB: I think another sort of aspect of the kind of hard physical sciences. You know, when you dig down and look at things like the structure of cells or even molecules. There’s such a diverse sort of confluence, adaptive, nature of all these different things going on that in many ways, you know, kind of exist almost separate from what we would consider ourselves.
[0:10:21.0] RL: You’re absolutely right, I mean, if we really start to dig into the biology of it, we see these levels and depths of different cells within cells within cells or the entire, these entire ecosystems, you know, you have parasite that are a wonderful example. You know, we’re – something, this thing enters your body and it sometimes develop a bubble, an encompassing bubble around itself and it could remain inside you. Inside you for years sometimes, the clever ones know how to, they’ll setup camp inside yourself. They live inside yourself. Are they you? Are they something else? You live within that world that they’ve created, you’ll be parasites within parasites. This is the reality of being a human being.
Obviously, it’s not too functional to think about these kinds of things all the time. I think there’s a good Darwinian reason that we developed these narratives that tell us that we are a certain person, we have a self. This self is distinct form other self that there are some consistency in the self, it’s some continuity in the self. If we can’t connect those thoughts, I think that it would be very difficult for us to move on.
[0:11:44.3] MB: Let’s look at it now from kind of a psychological perspective, do we have a single self, you know, from sort of a psychological stand point?
[0:11:54.4] RL: Are we all whacko multiple personalities? That I think, that’s the rest of your question. We don’t have a single self. I think anybody who has a single self who has always been the same and remains the same with different people in different situations is somebody who has some other serious problems. You know, just think of yourself, think about if I ask you the question, “Who am I?” In fact, there’s a psychological test where you can do that, all right, write the questions, “Who am I?” Question on top of the page, put down numbers one through 20 and scribble down the first 20 answers.
Now let’s try it a little different way, let’s ask “Who am I?” you know, who are you and how would your best friend answer that and then let’s have another list where one of your parents, how would they answer it? How would your lover answer this?
Now let’s compare the list and where do we – where do you similarities in the list? Where do you see differences in the list? Well, where we see these differences is it just because the other person wants to see it through their own filters, you know, for example, might it be that you described yourself as an independent person, your best friend described you as an individual person but your mother describes you as somebody who is a very needy, dependent person?
Is that because your mother is just never going to see you as an independent person? Or, is it that you act somewhat differently when you’re around your mother? Once you start to collect these things, you think, who is the person that you are when you’re with your mother?
Who is the person you are when you’re with your lover? Who is the person that you are when you’re ordering food in a restaurant? I think that if you’re a, quote, normal person, they’re going to be very different people. I would suggest if you’re on this kind of track, something that I always find interesting to do and I like to do. I like to ask my students to do now is okay, collect these people, collect that person who is a student in the class, their mother or whatever. Invite them all over for dinner, have them sit around the table and what do you think, how much would they have in common?
What would they say to each other? Would they get along? Would they like each other? The answers to these questions, I believe, can be informative to the person who is asking them.
In addition, when we think about the different people that we are, if one thinks about it, think about as historically, think of yourself as a five year old. Think of yourself as a 10 year old, 15 year old and on. I think – and if I ask you, well, is that you? You know, that’s somebody asked me, is that Bob Levine? Yes, of course that’s Bob Levine.
But, how much do I have in common with that person? I think in most cases, we have much less in common with the person that we were when we’re a young child than we do with any random person our own age. How is it that we make that connection and how about the person that we imagine ourselves becoming?
Our future self? How do we put those things together, how do we waive that kind of narrative together and we do. It’s a way of creating, of keeping our sanity but I think it also, when we just – you start to think that way. It opens up possibilities for allowing ourselves to create the person or the people that we want to be.
Again, apologies for a long rambling answer but it’s a big topic.
[0:15:53.7] MB: I want to look at a couple experiments that you’ve talked about that kind of demonstrates from sort of a physical but also psychological perspective, how the concept itself can be a very malleable, let’s start with the rubber hand experiment?
[0:16:08.5] RL: Yeah, the rubber hand. You know what? I’m going to – a slightly, a different variation on the rubber hand experiment. If it’s okay, in fact, if you want to ask me about the experiment that I experienced with a virtual body parts in Sweden or I could just stay –
[0:16:26.1] MB: Yeah, that’s perfect, I was going to ask you about that one as well. Tell us about that?
[0:16:31.1] RL: Okay, because the other one, the rubber hand one, it gets really confusing to try to do it verbally, I’ve been through that before.
Yeah, this was, as I was doing research for this book, I was trying to talk to, I wanted to meet with as many people who were approaching the topic of the self in a real way, not in an abstract, philosophical way but in ways that I could take home for myself in different sciences and I visited with a research team at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, the Karolinska Institute which gives out the Nobel prize of these were a couple of neuroscientists who, doing these studies on virtual body parts which I know sounds kind of kinky but it was anything but. They allowed me to be a subject in the experiment. The main experiment which I’ll try to describe, consisted of myself and a – I’m an older white male, she was the experimenter was an attractive, early, 30 something European woman, a Swedish woman. We looked completely different.
The way she set it up was we both got our bodies into, we held them in the same position and most importantly, my right arm was in the same visual position to me as her right arm was to her.
When she looked down at her right arm, she would see an arm in the same position as what happened to me when I looked down on my right arm. Then she fitted us both with these video helmets and goggles and her helmet was a video recorder. My helmet was a video receiver.
What would happen is, I would see exactly what she was seeing. She looked down, she would look down at her arm and she saw her arm and she then had me look down at my arm but what I would see was, I would also be seeing her arm. I would be seeing her arm in the same position where my arm should have been.
It was just the oddest feeling to look down at my arm, this old white guy’s arm and to see this young woman’s arm. But here’s the odd thing about it. The oddest thing about it was that, I immediately took mental ownership of that arm. That appeared to be my arm.
Then, what she did was had us, we stood up, still looking at our arm and we shook hands. Now, you know, if you shake somebody’s hand, you look into two hands but you feel as if – the sensation in your hand. Now, I’m looking down there and I’m shaking her hand and I’m looking down at her hand where my hand should be and we’re wondering where am I going to feel as the sensation?
Well, I felt it quite clearly in the hand that I was looking at. What made it even odder was that that hand was shaking, appeared to be shaking my hand. It talked about, as virtual body parts, it’s switching virtual body parts. And what happens is, I turn out to be a very typical case she said, she said, guys who do this, almost always, they’re accepting of this new arm.
Almost everybody I believe, I forgot the percentages in the high 90 percentages, people take mental ownership of the arm that they appear to be seeing. This is just how malleable we are. You know, we think of ourselves as having, this is my body, this is your body. But we could play each of those games with ourselves that - where you wanted very quickly will take mental ownership of a different body.
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[0:23:39.7] RL: Tell me a little bit more about that, what exactly does mental ownership mean and how did you perceive that?
[0:23:45.7] MB: Well, it might be we have a lot of toggling, field ground toggling. That’s what happened. I imagine what would happen is that here, I’ve got two sets of some patients coming together. I have the physical sensation which is connected to my arm.
You know, I know what my arm feels like, at any one moment, when I felt it, I know what my arm feels like and then I have the visual sensation which is looking down at that arm and I’m seeing somebody else’s arm. I had predicted, I thought that I was going to toggle back and forth and I was going to talk and feel, this is my arm, this is her arm. It was immediate and total that I felt that this was the arm what I was looking at, Martina’s arm was my arm.
It was just an odd feeling. I knew it wasn’t right but that’s what it felt like. That has taken that next step when I’m shaking hands with my own hand and it was comical but I felt this sensation in her hand, in the hand that I was looking at.
It’s hard for me to explain it too much more but I think that you can draft some consequences of this and perhaps have these sorts of things are useful and when we talk about empathy with a person. Well, this is creating empathy with another person’s arm.
You know, what happens, at the time, we did these experiments by the way, this was a few years ago, we had these big helmets on, now you don’t need these big helmets. In fact, they’re now, with first, Google Glass and now I believe Microsoft has their own product or Apple has their own glass that’s coming out now. And people are developing little contact lenses that you could put on that are actually video receivers so you don’t even feel like you have any equipment on but you’re seeing what somebody else is seeing.
You know, imagine if I wanted to generate empathy with another person. Say I’m a couple’s counselor. And couples counselors are a long time has used a role modeling and taking and trying to un-match that the person that you are talking to is you and vice-versa, trying to take the role of the other person. What would it be like now to come in with your significant other who you’re trying to work, you try to learn to communicate with better, you put on the contact lenses and you look in front of you and you see yourself and you feel that you are the other person, wouldn’t this be a powerful way of empathizing?
Being able to understand the way this person is seeing you, how bad if you want to be able to get over your prejudices, your racism? What would it be like if one looks out and sees yourself and look down at yourself, at your own arm and see an arm of a different color or an arm of somebody who has maybe a physical disability? How far can we push it? To what extent are we going to be if we play these games with ourselves? Are we able to just encompass another person?
[0:27:15.7] MB: It’s interesting, I think one of the most fascinating points about that research is that the felt sensation of sort of having a different person’s arm happens regardless of or despite the fact that you know that it’s happening, right? Your mind is being tricked despite the fact that it knows it’s being tricked.
[0:27:33.8] RL: Yep, absolutely. I mean I found myself laughing at myself. In fact at one point, I was in shape up to get really inappropriate. Her name was Martina and I said, “Martina, I just want you to know that I love being inside your arm.” Fortunately I stopped myself or it would have created an uncomfortable situation but yeah, it was the machine, these mindsets that we have, these little mechanisms. This is the way they work and if you understand the way they work it gives you some power over them.
You know, I started talking about the notion of the power of the situation that there are certain times, certain places, you arrange the situation it will bring out something in you. This is a very specific example that if I play around and if I can create a certain visual field for you and if I give you certain other cues, I can get you to feel a certain way. Well why not do that for ourselves? Once we understand these mechanisms and sometimes they are very personal. Sometimes studies can show generally how things happen but also they are very personal. We could study ourselves and find out in what situation, with what people, doing what activities, how does it make us feel?
And once we understand these connections then we have some control over these situations we’d like to put ourselves in. The kind of people we’d like to be with and often, I would suggest to you that when – I would suggest to our listeners that when you start to make these lists that sometimes the answers you get are counter intuitive.
You might think, “Oh this is somebody I really want to get to know,” this is everybody wants to get close to this person or everybody wants this woman or everybody wants this man. But you find that every time you leave that person, you feel just disenergized and maybe there’s somebody else there that you just don’t haven’t thought about as being the kind of person that people want to know, but you find, “You know, every time I walk away from a conversation with that person I feel good about it.”
If you can take note about these kinds of things then you’d do some control over, how can we put it? Putting out - creating this sort of self that we like to live with.
[0:30:18.1] MB: I want to explore that question more deeply and the implications of this fluidity of the concept of the self and what that means for changing ourselves but before we do, one of the other components that I am curious from your perspective on is the idea of the interconnectedness of everything, right? This I think stems originally from the hard sciences and expands more broadly but I think it ties really neatly into the work you’ve done around the self.
And essentially the way I think about this is that if you look at any given – you know let’s start with the person as a physical being, you couldn’t exists if it weren’t for the laws of physics, the environment that you are currently in, the earth itself, all the processes that had to go into the creation of that planet, the hundreds of thousands of years of evolution of every single person and organism in the chain of biology that ended up in your creation. And then the other perspective of the personality, quote unquote, wouldn’t really exists without the personalities of every person you’ve ever interacted with in every situation you have ever encountered and so at a very real sort of physical and scientific sense, the self in a unique individual personality that we have control over, I feel like almost melts away.
[0:31:35.4] RL: I’m laughing because I think one has to be a little careful when we start to talk about these things. It’s a little bit like that old Woody Allen line where you could take a philosophy class and by the end of the semester, the professor has convinced everybody that they didn’t exist and you know - but if we think about our thoughts, I mean what are the ideas that run through our brains when you get up in the morning and we do something.
We take action, anybody who meditates knows about this is quite aware of this narrative that this narrative flow that is going through our brain. We make decisions as we go along, where do our ideas come from? We know we move into another science some early psycho-neurology work where people would hook subjects up to now would be an FMRI and ask them to, at their leisure, to decide when to touch their finger to a certain point in the wall.
And they developed methods where they could monitor exactly the moment that the person touched the wall and that the individual could monitor the moment that they made the decision and naturally, there is a bit of a time lapse between when one makes a decision and when the finger moves to the wall. But what was more interesting is that there’s a spike in neural activity up to a rate of under the spike in neural activity before the person is aware of making the decision. So it’s as if it’s not a dip, our brains decide before we are aware that we decided.
Now is this to say that we’re not the ones who are actually deciding and - or how do we make sense of the brains of ours? And how are they related to us? And this I believe is where you’re comments are most helpful that everything we’ve experienced, everything we’ve experienced overtime, everything we’ve experienced in the broadest sense, the people we’ve met, the genes we’ve inherited. The culture we’ve inherited. That these all somehow – these had been passed down and they’re all behind that curtain. Where the ideas are generated.
Which is not to say that the self of awareness has no control. You know we’re not just the engines that are driven but we need to accept the fact that the work is going on behind the curtain. The work is going on under the surface. And once we do that, I think that self in awareness, the one that we usually identify with as our real self, we could serve that that serves. We can make some decisions and we can decide what situations we’re going to put ourselves in or we can try to direct ourselves as best we can to you know, “I would prefer not to think about these kinds of things. I don’t like what I did yesterday. I really hope that I could have a better attitude towards this person tomorrow,” and to some extent, I think we can achieve some successes that way but this is that curiosity of just again brings us back to the self versus the non-self.
Because if we think about where these things thoughts come from, these thoughts in our brain, where were they created? How would these neural connections established? And in large parts, they are going to be the people that we’ve met. The people that we raised with and the important people in our lives. So in that way, others are literary part of us. There is that the boundary between our self and others is vague. It’s vague, it’s malleable and although we find it, it’s so important for us to draw that line.
To see ourselves as the unique self, to see ourselves as a discrete entity. It’s just the story we tell ourselves.
[0:36:25.2] MB: Some fascinating thoughts and I want to go down the rabbit hole of consciousness and how it plays into this but I want to first look at, and come back to this idea of editing ourselves and reshaping ourselves and the notion that because the self is so, sort of, malleable and fluid that we’re not necessarily fixed or locked into our existing patterns of thought and behavior.
[0:36:52.5] RL: Yeah and once you recognize the fact that you are different people in different situations that you can often behave in ways that you’ve never imagined you are going to act. It can be a little threatening at first to think that we are multiple personalities and not only that but there’s these personalities under the surface that are waiting to come out, put yourself in the person and ends up in a new role, they end up in a new relationship and you turn into a different person.
And how many of these personalities are underneath the surface and it can make one feel like maybe it’s time for us all to just pack up and go to the beach. But I would suggest that it is something very different that really if you take control of it then it allows you whole possibilities and to some extent, we can actualize the possibilities. We can think about the kind of person that we want to be, well that’s a person we want to be called and the person we want to be in this situation.
You know, “I am going to be going for a job interview, this is how I want to be. I am going to be meeting up with this other person later in the day.” This is how I want to be and it can be – we have a tendency I think in our or whatever it means to say we’re in an American culture, we have a tendency to think well that kind of reeks the phoniness but that’s what it is to be a human being and I think that it gives us some control and I like that term ‘editor’.
It works for me, you know you’re not going to be the one who generates the information, but it can encourage the right kind of information and you know, if you are a good reader you can – it just needs a little bit of work and gee, let’s see if we can bring out something slightly different and I find it to be a very exciting idea. You know what? It’s just full of possibilities.
[0:38:50.8] MB: I think the word editor is a great way to conceptualize this notion that there is so many possibilities and complex differences and personalities and selves, et cetera but we can pick and choose and we may not be able to control where our thoughts arise from or how they got there but we can edit and select the ones that will ultimately lead us to creating positive change in our lives.
[0:39:17.5] RL: Yeah and that requires thinking for yourself. I think it requires introspection and honesty, self-honesty and then it requires some luck. We all carry baggage and the hope that that baggage is going to work in our favor more than it’s not going to work in our favor and I think also it’s important to recognize that there is going to be no simple answers to these things. You know if anybody tells you that this is the way to do it then - I would think of anybody used the way that do it. That we would all be quite aware that it’s the way for everybody to do it. One needs to see what works, what works best for them, what kind of approach works best for them.
[0:40:05.7] MB: I think the theme that you just touched on you know, introspection and self-honesty and thinking for yourself, these are things that we hear again and again and again from people from a huge, diverse range of backgrounds on the show and I think it just underscores that to create the life you want to create, the positive results that you want in life that you really have to have those skills.
[0:40:28.6] RL: Yeah, you have to have those skills and it can be – you – yeah, you need to have the skills and you need to develop the skills and sometimes, you need to take leaps but you need to do them with I think is I think you need to think ahead.
[0:40:47.3] MB: So what would one sort of piece of homework or something that you could – what would one thing be that you could give to the listeners that they could start to do to concretely implement some of the concepts and ideas that we’ve talked about today?
[0:41:02.6] RL: Well a piece of low hanging fruit here. Whatever kind of journal keeping that you prefer keep, I would suggest that somehow try to keep track of yourself. There’s a whole number of apps, activity tracking apps that go under different and various names and I am not going recommend any single one, that is one way of going at it and in those cases what it is, is essentially a beeper system where you can program your phone or whatever to beep at certain instances.
They ask you certain questions like, “What are you doing? How are you feeling?” With a number of different answers and you can collect these kind of information for as long as you want. You know you do it over the course of the week or so and then you look back at first of all, how you spend your time but more importantly, how you felt in these various kinds of situations and you can go through them and you can learn a lot about yourself.
And I would predict that you’re going to have some surprises as to some activities you spend more time in than you ever imagined that you were spending and most importantly, you’re going to find that there are some activities that you know, I always feel crappy after them or I always have this kind of lingering sense of something is wrong or something. And then there are other ones where I always feel good and I think thinking like that is a good start for trying to create some plans for one’s self.
[0:42:43.2] MB: And where can listeners find you and your books and your writings online?
[0:42:47.7] RL: Well the quickest way, I have my website. It’s www.boblevine.net. If you are interested in a lot of the things that we talked about today, it’s all in my newest book called Stranger in the Mirror and particularly, there’s a new paperback edition, early revised paperback edition that’s published by the press at California State University Fresno. They can look for it on Amazon or you can look at it on my website or you can contact me through my website.
[0:43:22.0] MB: Well Bob, thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing all this wisdom, it’s a fascinating topic and something that can really think about for a long time and I really enjoyed hearing your insights.
[0:43:34.2] RL: Well thank you so much Matt, I really enjoyed talking to you. I hope we get to talk more, I really appreciate it. Thanks.
[0:43:41.9] MB: Thank you so much for listening to the Science of Success. We created this show to help you, our listeners, master evidence based growth. I love hearing from listeners.
If you want to reach out, share your story or just say hi. Shoot me an email. My email is matt@successpodcast.com. I’d love to hear from you and I read and respond to every single listener email.
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The Secret That Silicon Valley Giants Don’t Want You To Know with Dr. Adam Alter
In this episode we discuss the danger of getting addicted to your screens. We look at how technology is designed to be as addictive as possible, and how those addictions specifically make you spend more time on things like social media and news that make you less happy. We discuss how screens rob us of time and attention and why it’s so hard to break away from them. We also look at how how you can structure your environment to spend more time away from your phone and create ways to get out of these addictive behavior loops with our guest Dr. Adam Alter.
Dr. Adam Alter is an Associate Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, with an affiliated appointment in the New York University Psychology Department. His research focuses on judgement, decision making, and social psychology. He is the bestselling author of Drunk Tank Pink, and Irresistible, and his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, WIRED, and much more!
Technology programs like Facebook are not designed to make you happy - their designed to be as addictive as possible and consume you
Steve Jobs didn't let his children use iPads
Why technology giants in Silicon Valley often don’t let their children use technology (and why that’s important for you)
The four negative affects of being addicted to your screens
Your psychological wellbeing
Your threshold for boredom declines dramatically
Bordem is good, it creates creative and divergent thinking
Negatively impacts your social wellbeing
Lowers your emotional intelligence and your ability to read the emotions of others
Negatively impacts you financially
In app purchases
Negatively impacts you in a physical way
Too much time in front of screens
Screens rob you of time and attention
Can’t get into Deep Work
Get less sleep
Not spending time being present, enjoying time with loved one and friends
The Drug of Choice Today is the PHONE
There’s a huge rise in behavioral addictions today
Social media and news make you LESS HAPPY when you use them - leaving you hollow and unfulfilled
People spend 3x time on average on apps that make them unhappy
Is Adam a luddite for hating on smartphones?
AR and VR will make it even more difficult to break away from technology addiction
Apps today are built like slot machines - they are intentionally designed to hook you and not let you go
The same strategies used to keep people gambling are used in apps and technology to keep you addicted
Humans don’t like open loops - goals help close them
“Email is a lot like zombies” - you can kill them all and they just keep coming
The abscence of stopping queues makes technology keep you addicted
How can we mindfully create stopping queues in our own lives?
You must become the architect of your own environment to control your own stopping queues
How to break your phone addiciton?
Set alarms to get off technology
Make your phone as physically far away from you as possible
You can engineer experiences that encournage positive outcomes, just like you can engineer negative outcomes
Games can treat pain - playing a game during a physically painful experiecne takes your pain away
Actively introduce a rule that physically distances you form your device - that’s the best way to do it
It’s not easy or desirable to live in a tech free universe
Propinquity - the things that are close to your physical space have the biggest impact on your psychological experience
The story of “Drunk Tank Pink” and how subtle changes in your environment can create huge changes in your behavior
Homework - create as much distance as possible between yourself and your phone every single day
[SoS Episode] Why You Shouldn’t Follow Your Passion & The Rare Value of Deep Work with Cal Newport
[Article] Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? By Jean M. Twenge
[App] Moment
[Article] B.F. Skinner: The Man Who Taught Pigeons to Play Ping-Pong and Rats to Pull Levers By Marina Koren
[Twitter] Adam Alter
[Author Site] Adam Alter
[TEDTalk] Why our screens make us less happy - Adam Alter at TED2017
[0:00:12.1] MB: Welcome to The Science of Success, the number one evidence-based growth podcast on the internet with more than a million downloads and listeners in over a hundred countries. In this episode we discuss the danger of getting addicted to your screens. We look at how technology is designed to be as addictive as possible and how those addictions specifically make you spend more time on things like social media and news that make you less happy.
We also look at how screens rob us of time and attention and why it's so hard to break away from them. We also look at how you can structure your environment to spend more time away from your phone and create ways to get out of these addictive behavior loops with our guest, Adam Alter.
I’m going to give you three reasons why you should join our email list today by going to successpodcast.com and signing up right on the homepage. There are some amazing stuff that's only available to our email subscribers, so be sure to go there, subscribe and sign up. There are some incredible stuff, including an awesome free guide that we created based on the listener demand called How to Organize and Remember Everything. You can get it completely for free along with another surprise bonus guide by signing up and joining our email list today.
Next, you get a curated weekly email from us every single Monday called Mindset Monday. It’s short, simple, filled with articles, videos, stories, things that we found interesting or exciting in the last week. Listeners have been absolutely loving Mindset Monday, by the way.
Lastly, you're going to get an exclusive chance to shape the show. You can vote on guests, help us change parts about the show, like our intro music, or even submit your own personal questions to our guests. Again, there are some incredible stuff, but you have to sign up and join the email list to get access to these things. So go sign up. You can sign up at successpodcast.com right on the homepage, or if you're out and about, if you're on the go, if you're driving around, just text the word “smarter”, that’s “smarter”, to the number 44222. That's “smarter” to 44222.
In our previous episode we discussed how to become a super connector. We looked at the idea that networking is not about tactics. It's about a fundamental shift in how you think about interacting with people. We examine how to break free from the lazy and shallow networking that social media often creates. Discussed why you should never ask how can I help. Looked at the power of curiosity and asking better questions and much more with our guest, Scott Gerber. If you want to learn why you should throw out networking and start focusing on building real human relationships, listen to that episode.
Now, for the show.
[0:02:59.4] MB: Today we have another exciting guests on the show, Adam Alter. Adam is an associate professor of marketing at New York University Stern School of Business and as an affiliate appointment in New York University psychology department. His research focuses on judgment, decision-making and social psychology. He’s the best-selling author of Dunk Tank Pink and Irresistible. His work has been featured in New York Times, Washington Post, Wired and much more. Adam, welcome to The Science of Success.
[0:03:21.2] AA: Thanks, Matt. Good to be here.
[0:03:22.8] MB: We’re excited to have you on here today. So something that we were talking about kind of before we started recording, which I think is a great starting point. There's been a lot of revelations in kind of the technology world in the last few months about the core thesis of your book, Irresistible. I’d love to start out with Sean Parker came out recently and talk about how Facebook is essentially designed to sort of make you addicted to it, and I’d love to hear your thoughts about both kind of what's been going on recently and also that idea more broadly.
[0:03:50.7] AA: Yeah. It's one of the big questions people ask me whenever I speak about this work and the question I have is; are these companies just making the best product possible, which happens to be hard to resist because that's part of what makes a product good, it’s something you want to keep using, or is there an explicit call when they’re creating the product to get you to use it for as long as possible irrespective of whether that's good for you? For a long time I had to hitch, because it's hard to get behind the curtain of these companies.
Then I think it was November, Sean Parker came out and said, “Well, actually, Facebook from its very early days was focused much less on the consumer well-being and much more on ensuring that you spend as many minutes as possible on, first, on the program online and then on the app.” That basically validated what I assumed to be true, and it certainly true at other companies. We've heard from other tech giants at other companies, early investors, people who are quite seniors in these companies saying the same thing, that essentially they’re in the attention economy. There’s a hot wall for your attention. There are a lot of different companies that are vying for your attention at all times. So every company in this arms race has to use every tool at its disposal, and as a result, they’re all trying their very best to tweak even very small features that they think will capture an extra minute or two here or there from everyone who uses the platform.
Yeah, this is something that I’ve been focused on, and it's also — It's been great, because now when people ask the question, I actually have people that I can point to. I can say, “Yes. These companies admit, or the people who’ve invested in these companies admit that the companies are founded on the principle that we need to get you to use these products for as many minutes as possible, and actually, to be totally honest, your well-being as a consumer is a secondary concern.”
[0:05:26.7] MB: It's interesting. I think you mentioned in your TED talk as well that, for example, Steve Jobs didn't let his children use iPads.
[0:05:35.7] AA: Yeah. That was very surprising to me. It was quite early on in the research for the book and it’s one of the nuggets I discovered that led me to really pursue the book. What I basically found was that a number of tech giants were very, very careful about their own personal use and the use by their kids of the same products they were touting publicly. Publicly they’d get up on stage and say, “This is the greatest product of all time. You should all earn one. Your kids should earn one. You should use it a lot.” But then when you look at the way they approach the same products privately, behind closed doors, they were much more wary about their use.
It’s, I wouldn't say, quite universal, but the number of tech giants in this position is pretty staggering. There’s a school in Silicon Valley that doesn't allow kids to use screens, like iPads. It's a private school. They don’t allow kids to use iPads until they’re in 8th grade, so roughly 13 or 14 years old, and 75% of the kids there have parents who work in fairly senior positions in Silicon Valley. So these are parents in the tech world who are choosing to send their kids to school that explicitly forbids the use of screens until age 13 or 14, which is staggering, I think. The idea that these are tech evangelists who are being very careful about how much tech they expose their kids to.
I guess what that suggested to me early on was there was some digging to be done. What is it exactly that these people know that we don't know, the rest of us don’t know, and what should we be concerned about? If they’re not letting their kids near the same products they’re promoting publicly, should we also be concerned in the same way? What exactly is it we should be concerned about? And that's why I have spent so much time on this topic.
[0:07:06.5] MB: So let's dig into that a little bit. Why exactly is it dangerous or bad to be addicted to our phones and our screens?
[0:07:14.7] AA: Yeah, it's a good question. So there are four main effects that spending too much time, not just on screens, but in general, in anyone behavior can have on your well-being. The four main areas, they can affect your psychological will being. So for example we know that when you spend a lot of time with screens your threshold for boredom declines pretty dramatically. This is what you see when you get in an elevator and people are using their phones even when they go in between two floors for three seconds in the elevator. No one is capable of dealing with boredom today. We all pull out our phones instinctively. It's important to be bored occasionally, because what boredom does is it pushes you to think a little bit different, be a little bit more divergently, a little bit more creatively. Otherwise, you keep thinking down exactly the same well-trodden paths over and over and over again. It's boredom that acts as a roadblock that pushes you into new territory. So that's one effect; psychological.
Second effect is social. So we know that people who spend a lot of time on screens, especially kids but also adults, are less capable of distinguishing emotions, subtle emotions that other people are sending off to them or giving off to them. Especially kids again, are less capable generally as social beings. It becomes more difficult for them to interact with others.
So for example, we take for granted that if humans are empathetic as a species. So we care about the well-being of others. Of course there were exceptions to that rule, but most of us don't like to be in the presence of someone whom we've hurt or whose upset or unhappy. That comes to some extent over time, you learn how your behavior affects other people. A child needs to sit in front of another child and take a toy from that child and see that other kid’s face crinkling and the tears start to flow to learn that taking someone else's things is not a good idea. But if that same child never gets that experience because most of his or her time is spent in front of screens for many of his or her first few years, that's obviously a problem. You never really developed those same capacities.
Now, that the kids who were born into the smartphone and tablet ear now are now only about 7 to 10, maybe 11 years old, some of them. We don't know what they’ll look like when they’re teens, when they’re entering the workforce, when they run in government and so on, and there’s a chance that, in some sense, this generation that’s growing up with screens will look socially quite different from other generations that came before, and that I think is a big concern.
We’ve got the psychological, the social, the financial. So a lot of the screen experiences we have can be quite costly for us. This applies especially to games, where you start playing a game, you end up deep down the rabbit hole and you spend many hours playing the game and then you hit a roadblock where the producer of the game says to you to continue playing now or to level up so that you are a stronger character in this game so that you can beat the next boss and continue, you’ll need to pay $10. Things like that, and a lot of people say that play these games with in-app purchases, these premium games where they end up spending hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars that they don't have. So a lot of these addictive experiences are designed to capitalize on the idea that once you spend a lot of time immersed in them, you will end up spending a lot of money to continue, and so they can be financially quite damaging.
Then the final consequence is physical, that some of us are spending a lot of time without exercise, without spending time outdoors, because we’re spending so much time in front of screens. So that's another fairly major concern. That, again, this whole generation is spending so much time sedentary in front of screens that we just aren’t exercising in the same way, we’re not moving around, and that's obviously bad for us.
[0:10:40.5] MB: So let's dig in, I’d love to talk a little bit more about kind of the psychological aspect and some of the negative psychological consequences of screen addiction.
[0:10:49.1] AA: I think the main thing is how we develop socially and how we perceive the world socially. So if you spend a lot of time in front of screens, anything you do gets very delayed feedback, if it gets any feedback at all. This is one of the reasons why YouTube comments are so incredibly nasty, and a way that most people would never be face-to-face. We would never say most of the things that you see people on YouTube saying. It's not that everyone who is on YouTube is a horrible person or the people making these comments are horrible people, it’s that the platform allows you to distance yourself from the consequences of the things you’re doing. So if you're saying things that are critical, you can do that without accountability and without having to expose yourself to the negative feedback that you’d get as you obviously make the person who's posted the content upset or unhappy. It’s one of the consequences.
I mentioned also that this tendency to boredom, to struggle with boredom in a way that we as a species haven’t been really had to struggle before, and again I think it's quite important that we caught boredom, that we accept it, that we deal with it, that we work our way through it so that we can get the other side where really interesting things start to happen. I think those are the two biggest consequences psychologically for us.
But obviously when people say, “Why is this bad?” This is a personal question. The question is what exactly is your screen time encroaching on? So what is it taking away from? And for a lot of us it takes away from sleep, which is obviously psychologically very damaging. A lot of us it takes away from our ability to work an efficient way. So every time you check your email, which happens constantly for most of us throughout the day, depending on which statistics you look at, it can take a number of minutes for you to delve back into the task you are in before you check your email. As a result, you’re never really in the zone of maximum productivity. Email just keeps distracting. It keeps removing you from that zone. So you end up spending much longer, eating up many more hours doing much less good work. That seems like a problem as well.
Of course, something that's very personal for many of us is the idea that spending a lot of time on screens means you're not spending time with loved ones, with friends. Even my wife and I a number of years ago noticed that we were sitting on the sofa together and we were both on our screens for sometimes hours at a time not speaking. The room was completely silent. And obviously that wasn't good for our relationship. And so we vowed to change the way we were using our screens in each other's company. So I think that there a lot of consequences, but the biggest thing that screens do, broadly speaking, is they eat up the time that you would spend doing things that I think can be for a lot of us very enriching and important throughout our lives.
[0:13:16.4] MB: Those are great examples. It's funny, we've had a couple of previous guests who’ve touched on the importance of some of these different things. For example, talking about attention and having your attention being robbed. We had a previous interview with Cal Newport where he talked about deep work and how getting into that state of distraction-free work is such a highly valuable place to be. For listeners who interested, that’s definitely something you can check out. Or we had another one about how important sleep is, Dr. Matthew Walker. It’s incredibly important. It is amazing how few people actually get enough sleep and how important sleep really is for you. So I think that those are really, really key lessons.
[0:13:52.4] AA: Yeah, I think so. I think this idea of deep work, of having time that's not fragmented during the day where you can really delve into a task. All of us take a little bit of time to get deeply embedded in the task to enter that state known as flow that's become so popular recently that’s proposed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the Hungarian psychologist. This idea that when you're in a flow state you really are embedded in the task, you stop noticing time passing. That requires a level of engagement that we don't really have very easily anymore. You have to actively turn off your emails, put your phone on airplane mode. Otherwise, you’re constantly interrupted. You’re removed from that flow state.
Obviously, sleep, again is a massive thing. The fact that our ability to sleep is declining. The depth of our sleep is declining. What's most staggering for me about smartphones is that for the hour and a half before bed, if you happen to be exposed to the light that is emitted from a smartphone, your body effectively interprets that as a queue that it's daytime. So you’re inducing jetlag. Basically, by looking at your phone in the hour and a half before bed, you may as well be traveling across the world and subjecting yourself to the same effects that you'd have if you were jetlagged, which is not good for us, and a lot of us do that every single day.
[0:15:03.4] MB: I'm curious, have you seen or read — There’s an article in the Atlantic in, I think, September of 2017. It’s called; Has Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? And it was all about how teenagers today are physically the safest teenagers in history; automobile accident, racer down, not getting into as much trouble, crime, etc. They’re very physically safe, but there are also sort of from a psychological standpoint experiencing record levels of anxiety and depression and negative psychological states and it’s because, essentially, they're just not leaving the house. They just sit in their bedrooms on their phones all the time.
[0:15:40.3] AA: Yeah, it's a sort of staggering, depending on how you look at it, the staggering upside, is that the accident rate has declined. The other thing that's declined is teen drug addiction and drug use, and that's because the drug of choice today is the phone. It's the screen. So what usually happens is if there is a psychological deficit, if there's something that needs to be treated, you're unhappy or depressed, you're lonely or anxious, whatever it may be, some people turn to drugs in those cases. But what we usually do is we turn to the path of least resistance.
Now, for those of us who have strong social networks and strong relationships, often the path of least resistance is to get social support, but if drugs are the path of least resistance, a lot of people turn to drugs. Today, for a lot of teens though, easier than drugs is just pick up your phone. Go and talk to someone. Go check Instagram for the 78th time that day. That is soothing in its own right, and it ends up being an alternative to drug use, which is a sort of perverse, but positive effect of this huge use of screens among teens and among other generations as well.
But it also shows, I think, how powerful these screen experiences are, that they’ve become a substitute for drug use. It shows you that they have many of the same effects on us. They are effectively like drugs without the substance. So the thesis of the book, of Irresistible, is that there's been a huge rise in behavioral addictions. Behavioral addictions began with gambling. Gambling is not particularly new, but now you find many of the same mechanics that make gambling and slot machine so addictive in a lot of the experiences that we all have access to from birth. So there's been this huge rise of behavioral addictions that have replaced substance addictions to some extent and certainly replaced going out of the home, and so you do see a drop in accident rates as a result.
[0:17:22.7] MB: I want to dig in to the science of behavioral addiction, but before we do, one of the other things I found fascinating was — There are a few apps that are kind of beneficial from the sense that they leave users happier before they started, but many of the apps that people spend the most time on, things like news, social media, etc., were actually some of the biggest culprits for making people unhappy.
[0:17:45.5] AA: Yeah. This is something that I found very surprising, that the creator of an app called moment, this is a tracking app that basically measures how long you spend on your smartphone screen and what you're doing during that time. His name is Kevin Halasz, and he's in Pittsburgh, and I spoke to him and I asked him about some of the data which he shared with me, and what he does is he basically asks people a couple of questions as they’re using the app during the course of the day. He'll say, “What are you using now and how happy are you?”
He finds that some things routinely make us happy and some things routinely make us less happy. Social media makes us less happy. We fill sort of hollow and unfulfilled. The same is true of spending hours trolling through the news. The same is true of a number of other things like spending a lot of time on games. We just feel a little hollow and unfulfilled when we do that.
What he found looking through the data was that people spend about three times longer on the apps that make the most unhappy than on the apps that make them most happy. So we’re spending a huge amount of time doing things that are actively making us unhappy. Part of the reason for that is the things that make us unhappy are the things that are easiest to get hooked to or hooked on. It’s easiest to bake these hooks into those particular platforms, things like social media and games in particular. That's less true of the things that make us happy. The things that make us happy are educational tools, meditation tools, mindfulness tools. Those make us happy, but by nature they tend not to have those hooks built into them. They’re not designed to exploit you in the same way, and as a result we spend much less time on them.
That I think really encapsulates the problem here that the screen itself is just a vehicle for content. It itself is kind of neutral and it can be used for the good of for the bad, and that's true of almost all tech. What we happened to be seeing today is that most of the things we do on our screens happen to be bad for us, happen to make us unhappy. That doesn't necessarily need to be true. There could be a world in which the things we do on our screens are good for us, that we do them in moderation, that the things on the screens that we interact with are not designed with maximum use in mind, but rather with maximum consumer well-being, and that’s what people like me, like a number of others, what we’re trying to suggest, that that is an alternative that's really appealing that I think we should work towards.
[0:19:57.4] MB: So what you say to someone who hears this and sort of accuses you of being a Luddite?
[0:20:02.4] AA: Yeah. I mean, I think a sort of lazy description of what I'm saying and what people like me is saying. I think tech is absolutely miraculous. When I first moved to the United States in 2004 I had to talk to my family on the phone but could never really see them. The capacity of the web cams in those days wasn’t great. Now I have FaceTime, I have Skype I have incredible tools to expose my kids who are under the age of two, I have two children under two, to their grandparents who live in Australia. I think technology is a wonderful thing. I just think we need to be more mindful about how we use it. In fact we wouldn't be having these discussions if technology were bad, because no one would want to go near it.
So I don't think tech is bad. I'm certainly not a Luddite. I don't think we should roll back the curtain to the 50s. I just think we should be more mindful going forward about how we use tech, and part of the reason why I think we need to be mindful is because we aren’t at some destination. The world we’re in right now is not the end point. We’re still moving forward, and we’ll look back in 10 years at Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat and we’ll think of them as curiosities to some extent as early versions of what we’ll be doing in 10 years. We don't even know what that will look like.
One thing we know, though, is virtual and augmented reality will become a bigger part of our lives as general consumers, that we already got a place, that we got a niche place in the world now, but if you speak to people in AR, in VR, in those tech worlds, they'll say to you that in the next few years we will all our own personal AR and VR devices. We’ll have goggles, possibly haptic vests that give us feedback as though we we’re actually immersed in that world, and when everyone owns those devices in the same way as they on the screens that we use today, on our phones and things like that, imagine how difficult it will be to immerse yourself in the real world, because what you’ll effectively be doing at any moment in time is trying to decide between this perfect idealized game universe and the complex, messy, real- world, and if we can't spend time in that real-world when we just have these small rectangular devices nearby, imagine how much more difficult it will be when we have whole rich phenomenal worlds in front of us that we can turn to. That's my concern, and I think we need to deal with this today and consider it today, because tech is marching forward as it should, but our ability to deal with it, to use it in a way that's good for us, I think is going to be compromised unless we are very careful about how we engage with tech and how much we allow it to take over our lives.
[0:22:24.4] MB: I think this is a good point to kind of dig into a little bit more concretely, the biology of behavioral addiction and kind of what happens behind the scenes when we get addicted to these devices. Can you tell me little bit about that?
[0:22:36.2] AA: Yeah. I think people are very focused on what's going on inside the brain during these experiences, and to me that's to some extent a red herring. It's not really the right question to be asking on its own. People will publish papers saying things like; when a teenager checks Instagram then sees a like, the brain will look much like the brain of a heroin addict. That's sounds really interesting. It sounds fascinating, and I think the public, when it hears things like that, freaks out, because that makes it sound like looking at a like when you’re a teenager as much like taking heroin, like taking a drug, and that sounds very concerning and alarmist.
The thing is when kids eat ice cream, the brain also looks that way. When people who are being treated in hospital after surgery, when they’re getting very, very pure opioids, drugs that are treating the pain, their brains look the same way. The thing is when most people leave hospital after they've had that treatment, after they've had those pain drugs, they don't develop an addiction. Some people certainly do, but the people who leave a hospital who don't develop an addiction tend not to, because they have social support networks, they tend to have jobs that they return to, and it's not just about the fact that the brain is experiencing this great flush of pleasure, although that is certainly part of the biology here. It’s about that being paired with some psychological deficit with the thing that needs to be soothed, and that can be a lot of different things. For a lot of us it’s things like anxiety, or depression, or loneliness, and those things are certainly major concerns and they can be soothed by, for example, checking Instagram one more time. People, when they’re nervous and anxious, will do that. They will use their phones as a way of soothing those nerves, those concerns. But you need both of those things. You need that experience, that flush of pleasure that you get from the release of dopamine in the brain, but you also need to have that psychological deficit that that that experience is treating, that it's soothing.
If you don't have that deficit, if you have strong social networks and social support and you have all of the frameworks that protect most people from those kinds of addictions. You won’t see these sorts of behavioral addiction. So you need pairing of those two things; the deficit and that flush of pleasure that comes from experiencing these rewards.
Much of it really rests on unpredictable rewards. For example, if you look the way we play slot machines, we play and mostly lose, but when we win, there’s this huge flush of pleasure, this little spritz of dopamine that our body and brain interprets as pleasure, and that obviously feels very good to us in that moment, that unpredictable reward that comes through from time to time. That's true of how we experience a lot of social networking. We might post something, and every so often a post will catch fire and it will be shared widely, re-tweeted, re-gramed, shared, liked and so on. Many comments will be made in response to it, things like that.
So this unpredictability, these unpredictable awards are a really big part of what drives us to pursue these experiences, and companies will bake them in, these unpredictable rewards. They are huge part of what they're trying to do.
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[0:27:06.5] MB: So, in essence, these apps are being designed to function like a slot machine where you're getting kind of a variable reward that constantly keeps you addicted to it.
[0:27:16.5] AA: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, basically if you follow the money, all of these begins with the gambling world, with the casino world, with the design of slot machines. Slot machines today am much more sophisticated than they ever were 20, 30. 40 years ago and they continue to become more and more sophisticated over time. There are very smart people who devote all their time to building a slot machine that gets you to sit down and play for as long as possible.
Now a lot of the mechanics that go into that were then borrowed by game designers. If you're designing a videogame, you could take some of the elements of that slot machine experience and put them into your game. More recently still, people who are designing social networks and other apps in the online platforms are borrowing from those videogame designers who in turn borrowed from the gambling world. So the same tools that were being used to encourage people to gamble are being used to create irresistible behaviors and in domains like social networking, like app usage, like email, like texts, things like that, they use a lot of the same mechanisms.
We've already mentioned one of them, which is this unpredictable or variable reward feature that humans find, and actually all animals find very, very attractive, and appealing, and interesting, and engaging. You even see this in pigeons, in rats, in monkeys, they will do the same thing. If you put some of them in a cage where if they push a button they will get predictable rewards. Say, every time they push a button 10 times, they get food. They will do that for a while and when they’re no longer hungry, they’ll stop. But if you put them in a cage where pushing a button is unpredictable, sometimes they'll push it three times and get a reward. Sometimes they’ll push it a hundred times and then the reward will only come then. The ones who are playing in that casino environment with uncertainty built-in, they will keep pushing that button long past the point when they’re hungry just because it's fun to see whether they’re going to win. And so these mechanics have very low level evolutionary roots, and they’re a big part of what's going on.
Another thing a lot of these companies do is they are building goals, artificial goals. Humans don't like open loops. We like to close loops. We like things to be tied in a neat bow. What a goal is, essentially, is the opening up of the loop that isn't closed until the goal is reached. And so you see people with smart watches, with Fitbits, things like that who’ll say, Today, and in fact every day, I need to walk a certain number of steps, and the loop is open until I've hit that number.”
So it may start out being 10,000 steps and you’ll do that for a few days. Your watch will beep to say you’ve hit 10,000 steps, and that's that little burst of positive reinforcement. But eventually what you find, and this again borrows from some of the terminology in the drug world, is you develop a tolerance. So 10,000 doesn't really do for you what it used to do. You hear that ding, but after 10,000, that's not really enough, and so you'll see people escalate. You typically see that people after they’ve walked a certain of number of steps for certain amount time will go to 11,000, or 12,000, or 14,000 steps, and so they escalate from there.
This creation of goals that escalate over time also encourages engagement and increasing engagement across time. So those are just two of the mechanisms, but there are a whole lot of these little hooks that can be baked into products and experiences, all of which together make those experiences quite hard to resist.
[0:30:18.5] MB: It's funny to see some of the lessons of B.F. Skinner’s work with pigeons many, many years ago. It’s some of the foundational work in kind of modern psychology. Has so many modern-day applications.
[0:30:29.3] AA: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the basic principles of behaviorism, stimulus and response of doing something and receiving a reward for doing that thing. Those principles are very powerful. There’s a reason why they work in animals and why they work in humans. There are elemental parts of human psychology and of animal psychology as well. And so if you can find a way to weaponize them, to turn them into tools that get people to continue doing something that they might otherwise not do for their own well-being, they might turn to some other experience.
That's when you start to see these kinds of outcomes, and that begins in the gambling world, but it obviously doesn't end there. We’ve now seen the same thing happening in social networking and use of email as a culture, and in fact almost entirely as a planet all rests on, basically, the same principle, the same set of principles that Skinner and then his successes discovered, that the way you present these pairings of stimulus and response of behavior, and the reward can guide people and animals behave in a certain way, sometimes many days or even months at a time.
[0:31:30.1] MB: One of the other things that I find interesting with kind of modern-day applications and how they become addictive is the absence of stopping cues. Can you talk a little bit about that and why those are important?
[0:31:39.4] AA: Yeah. If you think about media in the 20th century, there was stopping cues everywhere. Stopping cues were little signals that say to you, “It's probably time to at least consider moving on to a new task.” If you think about the way we used to read books, you’d get to the end of a section or chapter. If you think about the way we used to watch longform TV where you'd have, say 12, or 13, or 22 episodes in a season, you’d get to the end of an episode, the episode would end and you would know that it would be another week before the next episode would come on the TV. So you knew that for that intervening period you had to do something else. The stopping cue was the end of one episode and then you had a week between that time and the next one.
The same is true of the way we consume written material; newspapers, magazines, everything has a natural endpoint. You can either complete the whole newspaper or the whole magazine or you can just complete an article or a section of an article. Everything had these built-in stopping cues, these moments when you were led to believe, “Hey, it's time to move on now.”
I think what the tech world, and in fact what the business world broadly is trying to do now is to remove as many of the stopping cues as possible. Again, going back to casinos, they’ve been doing this for a long time. There's a reason why casinos are dark. You can’t see what time of day it is. There were no clocks anywhere. They don't want you to have a cue that says, “Oh! 6 PM. It's time for me to stop.” They want you to just keep going, to lose track of time.
The same thing happens on social networks. There’s a bottomlessness to feeds that we troll through. They automatically repopulate with new information. The same is true of news sites. The news just rolls on. You can find a million different interpretations of pretty much every event that occurs and you can keep reading endlessly. The same is true of email. Email just keeps coming. There’s one comment that email is a lot like zombies. You can kill them all one day and when you wake up in the morning there’ll be more waiting for you.
And so this tendency for things to just roll on is really what's happening, the systematic eradication of the stopping cues, and that's made it harder for us to know internally that it's time to move on to do something new, and so we just perseverate. We spend much more time doing the same thing over and over and over again in the absence of these cues.
You even see now this removal of friction from experiences happening in the way we shop. So Amazon Go, for example, the idea you can shop without needing to check out. That is the removal of a barrier. That's the removal of a friction point or a pain point that might have discouraged people from shopping for longer or shopping as often as they otherwise might.
Big companies know the best way to encourage people to spend is to remove those friction points and to ensure that the point, the line between, “I think I need that thing,” to actually paying for the thing is as direct as possible, as straight as possible with as few barriers as possible.
[0:34:20.8] MB: Is there a way that we can artificially create stopping cues in our lives?
[0:34:25.3] AA: Yeah. I mean, I think we have to be very mindful as consumers. You set your own stopping cues or your own stopping rules. You could set an alarm if there's something you want to be doing at a certain time. You need to set your own alarm because of this cycle, the platform itself may not do that for you. You see some people have 50 alarms programmed on their phones or even more alarms. Create one. Say something like, “In an hour, I’m going to watch this one episode of TV,” and with Netflix, for example, the next episode will automatically roll on. So there is no stopping cue there. But what I'm going to do is I know that in 47 minutes this episode will end. I'm in a set my alarm on my phone to ring at the 47 minute mark and I'm going to put my phone at the other end of my home, my apartment, whatever it is. The only way I’m going to be able to shut it off is to get up and walk over and turn it off. It's going to be annoying to keep watching while that alarm goes off constantly. So I’m going to be forced to get up and move. That is the stopping cue that you introduce yourself.
There are lots of little things we can do. We become the architect of our own environments, or our own local environments. And that's the sort of thing you can do if you know that your self-control alone is not going to guide you to behave the way you'd like to behave your long term will be. So setting alarms is just an easy one.
Another thing that a lot of people do is they’ll say, at a certain time of the day, “Every day, I will make sure that my phone is far away as physically possible.” Some people will start with dinner, for example, and they’ll say, “No matter where I am, who I'm with, what I'm doing, I'm going to take my phone and put it in the next room. It's going be either in a bag under the table or it's going to be in my bedroom locked in a drawer, and for the entire time I'm having dinner there will be no screens, no tech around whatsoever.” Things like that. I think these natural stopping rules that we have that when dinnertime begins, tech time ends. Those things become habits over time just through repetition, and I think the more mindful we are about how we’re using tech, the better equipped we are to create the stopping cues and to adhere to them.
[0:36:21.7] MB: And what about more probably, are there opportunities to use some of the kind of the strategies that this technologist is using to make us addicted? Can we use those same tactics to break our addictions or even sort of, conversely, to create positive habits?
[0:36:37.5] AA: Yeah. It's an interesting question. I was grappling with this, and when I was writing the book I kept thinking about that. If these experiences are very hard for us to resist, truly, there are things we should be doing more of where it would be good for us to struggle to resist at least to some extent. Now, it's a slippery slope, right? If you think about the Fitbit, which I mentioned earlier, it's great that a lot of Americans who used to be sedentary are now moving around more, and that's one really positive effect of this smartwatch or fitness watch industry.
The problem is that it can go too far. A lot of people go to the point of injury and then beyond. They’ll sustained major stress fractures and injuries. So even good things, you can have too many of those good things, and that's a concern. But having said that, I think you can think of a lot of outcomes that people struggle to achieve, things like exercising more, eating better, saving more money spending more time learning rather than procrastinating, things like that. I think you can engineer experiences that encourage those positive outcomes in the same way as you engineer experiences that are not great for you, that just suck up a lot of your time, and you can use many of those same tools, things like setting goals that open up a particular loop for you. That's one approach.
Obviously, the variable reward you get. There are some companies where you never really know what you're going to get from there the app or the platform, but as you use the platform, you may get positive rewards. It may be a case where you don't get positive rewards and it’s unpredictable. There’s a variable reward feature built-in, and some people keep doing the thing over and over hoping that they'll get positive outcome. You can certainly use that to encourage people to save. So maybe you could create a little finance app where every time you take a little bit of money from your bank account to the app, every, say — There’s a randomizer built-in and occasionally the app itself will double the amount that you’ve just invested, which encourages you to invest more and also means that you're going to be encouraged to do it just because we know people like to find out if they’re winning, if they’ve won.
So you could imagine a lot of ways to bake these experiences into more positive contexts. We also know for example that games and other experiences can treat pain. There’s fascinating study showing that people who are being treated for burns, for very serious burns, when they’re having the dressing changed, which is very, very painful, they actually do better when they play certain virtual-reality games. They feel better, they feel less pain than when they’re given morphine. The reason is these Virtual-reality game experiences are so immersive that a lot of the cues that they normally spend so much time attending to, watching the burns being removed and anticipating the pain. Those are replaced by the subversive world they’re in the virtual-reality context.
The immersive properties of virtual-reality might remove you from the here and now for the bad. That might mean that don't spend time with loved ones and doing work. But if you're having dressing changed of the burns, that's obviously a great thing to have, to have the option to be removed from the here and now. I think all of these is context based, and certainly a lot of the same tools can be used for the good.
[0:39:34.2] MB: I know we touched on a couple of them, but are there any other strategies for breaking a phone addiction that you’ve found to be really effective?
[0:39:43.4] AA: I mean, I think always the best strategy is to actively introduce a rule that distances you as much as possible from the device. That sounds really simple, but it's easily the most effective and that's the easiest one. You want to pick a strategy that's not hard for people to follow and that they tend to adhere to. So the thing that's been most successful in my experience is people saying, “I'm going to pick at time and a space each day that is tech free,” and it may be dinner. It may be between the hours of five and seven. It may be the hour and a half before bed at the hour and a half after waking up. Those kinds of rules are very effective.
I don’t think it's easy or desirable to live in a tech-free universe. Since the book came out, it's almost a year now, I've had maybe half a dozen emails from people who say to me, “I don't use tech at all. I’m tech-free,” which makes me wonder why they're emailing. Anyway, that aside, let's imagine the email is the only form of tech they’re using. That seems undesirable to me. It's very hard to be exist in the mainstream world when you are completely tech free. You can't really work easily. You can't interact with other people very easily to a large extent, especially people who aren’t nearby. It's hard to travel and so on.
So I don't think what we’re trying to do here is say that people shouldn’t use tech at all, but just that they should use less of it and use it more carefully. We know that in the last two years, from 2015 to late 2017, the average time spent by an adult on screens went from three hours to four hours a day. Now three hours is staggering, because we don't have that many free hours in the day. It's now four hours. So in the space of just two years it went up in a whole hour, so an increase of 33%. Not much changed about the infrastructure. We’re still using smartphones. We’re still using tablets. VR and AR had not gone mainstream. So I this is, I think, in a bit of a concern. So what we can do is just roll that back a little bit. Look at your feedback, download a tracking app. Try to implement these strategies like not using your phone at certain times and then look at whether your usage goes down over the course of weeks and months, and it should. If you’re using the strategy and adhering to it, it certainly should go down and you should find that you have more time to do other useful important enriching things with your time.
[0:41:59.7] MB: It's funny, that reminds me of kind of one of the simplest or easiest strategies to lose weight or stop snacking, which is basically just don't have snacks in your house. And that’s something that kind of we do at our house. I’ll often find myself two or three times a day sometimes going and looking in the pantry, looking in the fridge. There's no snacks to eat of any kind, but I keep doing it, but then there’s nothing that I end up eating. So in many ways it’s kind of the same strategy. As long as you sort of physically remove your phone and make it hard to access, you’re changing your environment enough that you can actually create behavioral change.
[0:42:32.9] AA: Yeah. I mean, it seems simplistic, but it actually works. We know that very old principle in psychology known his propinquity. It’s basically the idea that the things that are occupying your physical space. The things that are closest to you in physical space have the biggest effect on your psychological experience of the world.
It’s not surprising. It makes sense, surround yourself with people who are productive, you will be productive. Surround yourself with people who eat well and you will eat well. The same is true of the objects we surround ourselves with. If you keep your phone on you all the time, and we know that 75% of American adults can reach their phones 24 hours a day without moving their feet. They sleep next to their phones in addition to being with them during the day. You will use your phone more if that's your approach.
So just as a very, very small step, try to make sure that for at least an hour or two, or 3, or 4 a day, and maybe when you're asleep as well, you would have to move your feet to get to your phone. Even that for many of us is an improvement. We keep our phones near us, they’re mobile for a reason. They’re basically almost implanted the way we use them.
So the extent to which you resist that, I think, predicts whether you will be able to spend less time on your phone, and that seems like — For most people it's an admirable goal. When I speak to big audiences about this, I get a range of responses. Not everyone wants to change. Some people are quite happy with how much they’re using screens and tech, and that's fine. I think there should be a range. But the vast majority of people say they’d like to change either something bigger or something small, and I think a lot of the first steps are small steps that any of us is capable of making. So I think it’s something that certainly we could do better on.
[0:44:06.8] MB: Getting into kind of the discussion of how environment shapes behavior reminds me of some of the core ideas from your first book, Drunk Tank Pink. I know we don't have a ton of time to go into it, but I’d love to just hear kind of a short synopsis or at least tell the story of Drug Tank Pink and kind of what that is and how it came about.
[0:44:25.5] AA: Yeah. I've always been very interested in how very subtle changes in the world around us. As I mentioned, propinquity; this idea that things that are close to us have the big effect on us. I've always been curious about how subtle changes in the environment where in the people we surround ourselves with, the colors around us, the weather, all these different factors can have outsized effects on how we experience the world. So Drunk Tank Pink is basically a compendium of these effects. It looks at a whole range, from very small to very large cues and how they influence us.
Starting very small with the things like the names we give each other, the names we give our children, the names we give companies, how that influences outcomes. All the way to very big physical cues, like the weather, the colors we paint rooms with. Drunk Tank Pink, the title, is based on an anecdote from the late 70s, early 80s. There was a couple of psychologists in Canada who decided they were going to test whether certain colors improve the behavior of students in schools, and the Canadian government allowed them to paint a whole lot of different classrooms across Canada, and they used a whole lot of different colors from blues, to greens, to yellows, and one of the colors they used was this bright pink.
I found that the students in the bright pink rooms behave the best. The ones who were badly behaved before behaved better. They were more engaged. They became curious about the properties of this bright pink color and they found — They argued, at least, that bright pink tranquilized people. It was a nondrug tranquilizer that calmed people down and it made them more engaged. They started to use it in other place as well. They used it in jail cells, in a naval prison. This is where it gets the term Drunk Tank Pink, it was the idea that you would take someone who is badly behaved, or drunk, or aggressive and put them in a drunk tank that was painted pink just briefly, and they would emerge 15 minutes later bitter behaved, more compliant, and that's what these researchers reported.
Some football coaches started to use it as well. They paint the visiting locker room drunk tank pink colored where they wouldn’t do that for the home locker room. So, in theory, the visiting team would be tranquilized weaker.
Even very recently, there were reports that some of the players of the Australian Open Tennis tournament has grand slam tennis tournament were wearing pink, because they thought they could tranquilize their opponents. They could weaken their opponents. It's a fascinating anecdote.
The science behind Drunk Tank Pink is a little shaky, and may be more than a little shaky. We don't know how strong the effect is. It replicates on occasion, but not all the time. It’s not the most robust effect, but it's very interesting, and I thought it was a nice emblem for what I was discussing in the book, which is this idea that you could make changes to a feature in the world and that would then have big effects on how people engage with that world. And so that's what Drunk Tank Pink is.
Then Irresistible is the natural flow on from there. After writing Drunk Tank Pink I started to wonder, “What is the biggest thing right now? The biggest cue that is shaping us?” I think, to a large extent, for many of us, by time and by its effect on our psychological experience of the world, it is the screens. It’s the technology we’re interacting with.
[0:47:22.5] MB: What would one kind of piece of homework be that you would give somebody listening to this interview if they wanted to concretely implement some of the ideas we’ve talked about today? What do you think would kind of be one simple action step that you would recommend for them?
[0:47:35.2] AA: I think it would go back to this idea of creating as much distance between yourself and your phone as possible for as much time of the day as possible. So I would say to everyone, it usually works better when you don't focus on time of day, because we’re doing different things at different times every day, but all of us eat dinner every day pretty much, most of us at least. Say, tonight, or if you don't want to start tonight, say, tomorrow night. Whatever you’re doing for dinner, your phone will not be within reach of the table.
Ideally it should be in a different room. It should be on silent and it shouldn't be vibrating in a way that makes it noticeable. You should put it as far away from you as possible, and you may have a [inaudible 0:48:12.3]. You may experience, basically, withdrawal in the first day or two as you do this, but you will find that over time you enjoy dinner more. You’re more engaged with the people around you. If you're alone, it'll give you a chance to think. You don't have to be with other people obviously when you’re having dinner. But even if you're having dinner alone, maybe read a book. Just think. Sit and think. We do that so rarely now that it's a real luxury to have a chance to just sit and think. So that would be the first step, I think, is just to carve out this time in the day where every day you will be tech free, you will be free of your screens.
I think in my experience working with a lot of people, almost everyone, it's almost universal that people feel better over time doing this. It makes the rest of the day a little bit brighter, a little richer, a little more interesting, and it certainly makes that moment, that screen free, more interesting and more enriching.
[0:48:59.7] MB: Where can listeners find you and your books and your work online?
[0:49:03.4] AA: I have a homepage, adamalterauthor.com. I'm on Twitter, @AdamLeeAlter. The books, available wherever books are sold pretty widely, and so those, I think, are the best places to begin.
[0:49:16.1] MB: Adam, thank you so much for coming on the show for sharing all these wisdom. Some really practical and powerful advice about how we can break our phone addictions, and I think it's really something that personally I’m going to take into account and change some of my own behavior. So thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing all these wisdom.
[0:49:32.5] AA: Thanks so much, and thanks for having me, Matt.
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“The Most Innovative Experimental Psychologist In The World Today” on Luck, Deception, and Success - Dr. Richard Wiseman
January 25, 2018 by Lace Gilger in Mind Expansion
In this episode we explore luck. Does luck exist? Is there a science of luck? What does the research reveal about lucky people and unlucky people? Is it possible to manufacture your own luck? We speak with research psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman and learn the truth about luck and how you just might able to create a bit more in your own life.
Dr. Richard Wiseman has been described by The Scientific American as “The most interesting and innovative experimental psychologist in the world today” and his books have sold over 3 million copies worldwide. Richard started his career as a working magician and now holds Britain’s only Professorship in the Public Understanding of Psychology. His work has been featured across the globe and he has delivered keynotes to The Royal Society, The Swiss Economic Forum, Google, and more.
How Richard went from being a performance magician to being deeply interested in human psychology
How studying "the psychology of deception” taught Dr. Wiseman to subtly influence human perception and behavior
Most people think they are good lie detectors, but they are in fact not - they are no better than chance
When you focus on reading only a transcript - average people go up to 60-70% effectiveness in detecting lies
People prefer to lie with the spoken word rather than with written word
Ask people “can you email that to me” to catch them in a lie
Does luck exist?
What research reveals the difference between lucky and unlucky people
For the most part, people are CREATING THEIR OWN LUCK by the way they are thinking and acting
The research supports, with enormous consistency, that you can create luck
The differences between lucky and unlucky people
The “newspaper experiment” and how it demonstrates the difference between being lucky and unlucky
How your “attentional spotlight” filters your perception and reality - causing you to miss basic opportunities - this is what the “unlucky” often do to themselves
Then, Dr. Wiseman taught subjects in experiments to “think like a lucky person” and these simple exercises caused the “unlucky” to be more lucky
Keep a “luck diary” - the most positive thing / positive thought that happens in a day - will rapidly reorient you towards being more “lucky”
The lucky tended to be more intuitive, risk seeking, and resilient
Generating “negative counterfactuals” and “finding the silver lining” can help you generate more luck
You are creating your own good and bad luck by what you are thinking and feeling
What happens if you don’t think you can train your mind to be more positive?
Try these “luck producing strategies” for 1 month and you will be luckier in your life
How people get stuck in an identity of being “unlucky” can sometimes trap you in a certain behavior pattern
Creating and cultivating flexibility in your life - taking a different route to work, changing your conversational style - enables you to capture luck in your life
Lucky people are “team players” and constantly look for win-wins - trying to help other people become successful and engaging and talking with other people constantly
Buying lottery tickets all day by exploring opportunities and relationships in an open way is how you can “create luck” in your life
The biggest myths of self help - and what evidence actually says about them
The danger of visualization - and why it doesn’t actually work - in fact “visualization is a terrible idea”
Visualizing endpoint threatens your motivation and ability to actually achieve those results, visualizing process is much more effective
Brainstorming reduces creativity by 20% in a group setting for 2 reasons
Social Loafing
Group gets dominated by people who may or may not be the most creative
The far more effective brainstorming strategy is to brainstorm on your own - then everyone shows up to a meeting with their own perspective
The Harvard Motivational Study is a “complete work of fiction” - it’s never been conducted
Asking for evidence is essential - don’t believe something because it sounds plausible and it’s easy
The power of writing your own eulogy and how it can shed light on your true goals
The one technique you can use to shed light on your true intentions and goals for life
Terror management theory - how we respond to the things that scare us
Life is short - live the best life possible right now
The “As If” Principle
You have NO IDEA how you feel until you observe yourself
How the “As If” principle can help imapct phobias, anxiety, and depression
Ask yourself “how do I behave when I’m happy” - DO ALL THOSE THINGS and you will feel happier
The effects happen within 30-40 seconds
How do you generate the will power and motivation to act “as if”
I’m not nervous “I’m acting as-if I’m excited” - you can use labeling as a tool to act “as-if”
The power of the pre-mortem and finding out the risks, downsides, and problems of any project before you get started
[Book] 59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute by Richard Wiseman
[Book] The Luck Factor by Richard Wiseman
[Book] The As If Principle: The Radically New Approach to Changing Your Life by Richard Wiseman
[Youtube Channel] Quirkology
[Personal Site] Richard Wiseman
In this episode we explore luck. Does luck exist? Is there a science behind luck? What does the research reveal about lucky people and unlucky people? Is it possible to manufacture your own luck? We speak with research psychologist, Dr. Richard Wiseman, and learn the truth about luck and how you just might be able to create a little bit more in your own life.
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In our previous episode, we discussed the habits of high achievers, the motivation myth, the deep into the habits, routines and strategies you can use to achieve more in less time, talk about the balance between hustle and hard work versus recovery and much more with our guest, Jeff Haden.
If you want to get the habit and strategies the top performers use to achieve results in the real-world, listen to that interview.
Now, without further ado, here's Dr. Richard Wiseman. I did want to give you a heads up. He is in England, so we had a little bit of a choppy connection. Nothing too bad, but I just wanted to let you know before the interview starts.
[0:02:28.7] MB: Today, we have another awesome guest on the show, Dr. Richard Wiseman. Richard has been described by the Scientific American as the most interesting and innovative experimental psychologist in the world today. His books have sold over 3 million copies. He began his career working as a magician and now holds Britain's only professorship the in public understanding of psychology. His work is been featured across the globe and he’s delivered keynotes to the Royal Society, the Swiss Economic Forum, Google and more.
Richard, welcome to the Science of Success.
[0:03:00.6] RW: Pleasure to be here. Thank you very much.
[0:03:02.6] MB: We’re very excited to have you on today. I love to start out. I definitely want to dig into a number of things you've written about and spoken about. To start out though, your background and the journey of how you kind of became fascinated with all these different subjects is fascinating. So I love to begin with that, hear a little bit about how you began and sort of where that journey took you.
[0:03:23.5] RW: I guess I began with my passion in life, which was magic and performing magic. So when I was surrounded about 8 years old, I sold my first magic trick, really got into it and went to the public library and started reading a lot about magic. I was professional before in my early teens, and then started to look more at the psychology of magic, because if you're going to be a good magician, you need to understand how your audience thinks and feels. It’s a pretty order, because you're standing in front of a group of strangers and you need to do psychology experiments about magic tricks myself night after night and fool every single person in the room.
You can't have a good night where you just fool 80% of people. You do have to understand how people's minds work, where their attention is, how they’re perceiving what’s in front of them, how they’re remembering the performance afterwards, particularly when they discuss it with their friends. I just became interested in that very practical, applied aspect of psychology and essentially became so interested in it that I studied as an experimental psychologist first at University College London, which perhaps not surprisingly is in London.
At the end of that, I was looking for an interesting Ph.D. and by chance I saw a poster up on the wall. These were the days before email. So we used to communicate with posters. There was a poster up on the wall saying that there was a professor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and he was interested in psychology of deception and was looking for a candidate to explore that topic with him.
I applied to the University of Edinburgh, was accepted on that course and spent four years looking at deception, and then at the end of that, I came back down to the south of the U.K., at the University of Hertfordshire and started to work on social psychology and on the psychology of self-development, and that's where I’ve been ever since. I've only really have one proper job, which has been at the university and that's been for 20 something years now. But that is basically the kind of line through in terms of my career.
[0:05:25.4] MB: So the psychology of deception sounds fascinating. Tell me a little bit of what were kind of some of the fundamental conclusions or ideas that you uncovered when you were working on that?
[0:05:36.0] RW: Partly, again, was looking at the psychology of magic. Magicians need to convince you of a certain and that narrative has something impossible in it, that somebody levitates or appears or disappears or whatever it is. But behind that narrative, you have the real narrative, the method some magicians like to call it the trap doors or the mirrors, and we are looking at ways in which magicians encourage you to think one sets of things and not all ask certain questions.
If you take a very — I don’t know, a very kind of simple trick where you ask people to think for a number between 1 and 10 and the magician might predict that people are going to say number 7, that’s to do with the fact if that trick fools you. It’s to do with the fact that you don’t realize that seven is the most frequently chosen number and so. They hide that a little bit away from you. That was one part of it.
The other part was looking at the psychology of lying, and particularly weather people, when they lie, give off more information, give off more tales if you like using their body language or using the words they say. We carried out quite a well-known experiment on the British media where we had a very well-known political commentator go on to a television program, and I interviewed him twice, once about his favorite film and he told me he loved Gone With the Wind, and then asked him a second time about his favorite film, and he told me he'd love Some Like it Hot, because one of them was a complete lie. Yes, he hated one of those two films.
We have the public vote on which they thought was the lie, and in line with all of the experimental work into lying, they were about 50-50. No better than charms. Most people think they could lie detectors, but they really not. When we took just the soundtrack of those two interviews and put them on the radio or just to publish the transcripts in the national newspaper, people's lie detecting abilities went up into the 60%, 70%, and the reason for that is that when we lie, it’s very easy to control our body language. Whether we gesture or smile [inaudible 0:07:39.9]. It’s much harder to control the words we say and how we say them. If you shift people's attention on to those attributes, they become much better lie detectors, and that was all parts of that deception work as well.
[0:07:52.9] MB: That's fascinating. So an average person will be essentially no better than 50-50 chance of detecting a liar if they're looking at a video of someone, but if you take them to the transcript, you said it was up to 60 %to 70%?
[0:08:06.2] RW: Absolutely. It’s one, the simplest of fixes. If you're thinking someone is going to lie to you, actually just guessing them on the phone is much better than interviewing them or speaking to them face-to-face. In fact, actually I returned that. I know we’ll probably talk about 59 Seconds later on, but I returned that topic in 59 Seconds, which is my book about these sorts of things. The other aspect of lie detection is that people don't want to commit the lie to paper, to something that whether you can look back and go, “hold on a second. You told me that at that point.” They rather like the idea of it being a spoken lie, because then can say, “You’ve misremembered what I said.”
In 59 Seconds, I was talking about some of the research, which if you want to find out whether someone’s lying to you, the magic words to use are, “Can you email that to me?” If they are lying, that email will never arrive, or when it does arrive, it's somewhat different than what they just told you face-to-face. I became just interested in these simple winds, these things, which evidence-base, that can have a very big impact.
[0:09:13.5] MB: That’s fascinating. I love that symbols sort of practical strategy of just asking some to email you and then sort of gauging whether that's different from what they communicated to you.
I’d love to transition, because there're so many things I want to talk about in this interview. Your work on luck is one of the most fascinating things that I think you've done. I’d love to kind of start out with many people think of luck, they think that it's kind of randomness of chance or sort of arbitrary. From your perspective and from the work in the research that you’ve done, what is it mean to be lucky and does luck exist?
[0:09:48.3] RW: That work dates back a long way. It dates back to the 1990s, actually, and at that time — And this was before, really, the kind of evidence-based self-help movement was around. It was a little bit before even what’s called positive psychology was around. I was talking to people about key moments in their lives how they ended up in certain relationships and certain careers and they would talk about these lucky and unlucky moments. They would talk about themselves being a lucky or unlucky person.
At that point in time, really, people, psychologists, had dismissed the concept of luck. They had said, “Look. It’s just random. It's like winning or losing a lottery. There’s no science to be had here,” or these people are kidding themselves. They’re not really lucky.
I embarked on this research project, which was gathering together about a thousand people who consider themselves exceptionally lucky and unlucky, and then presenting them with various tasks and seeing how they responded. What we saw even very early on in that research within probably the first six months, it was a four-year project, but within the first six months, we saw very big difference emerging between the lucky and the unlucky people. So we came to the conclusion towards the end of that project that for the most part, it’s not true of every aspect of your life, but for the most part, people are creating their own luck by the way they were thinking and the way they're behaving.
They didn't realize that it didn't look like that to them, that it will be like a magic trick. To them it looked a magical thing that was just happening that they were either destined to do well in life or fated to do badly, but we could see unconsciously that we’re using certain tricks to accomplish that, and that then formed the basis of my very first book, which was the luck factor, which again was the first kind of evidence-based take on self-help where we were saying to people. “Look. Don't just listen to her self-help guru. Ask for the evidence. We've done the experiments. We can tell you what we found, and here are some exercises that hopefully will make you luckier in life.”
[0:11:52.0] MB: I want to dig in to how to create or manufacture your own luck, but before we do, I'm really curious if you could share maybe an example or two or a story from some of the research you did around luck, because I know there's some really kind of interesting and compelling examples.
[0:12:07.9] RW: We had a lot of them, and there's enormous consistency. I think the lucky people, always in the right place at the right time, lots of opportunities, they always fall on their feet and so on. In terms of the unluckiest people, we had one woman who had five car accidents in one 50-mile journey, which she put down to her jinxed green car, and then one day she came to the University and watched her trying to park the car, and we realized there were a few other factors in there. She’s also unlucky in love, so she signed up with a dating agency and first date came off his motorbike and broke his leg. The replacement day, walked into a glass door and broke his nose and eventually when she found someone to marry, the church they're going to get married in was burned down one day before the wedding, and that was how her whole life had gone. That was very typical of the unlucky people. Everything I touch was an absolute disaster.
Then on the flip side, you have these lucky people who wanted to start with a new kind of business venture and went to a party and met somebody there by chance and that person was exactly the person they needed in order to catapult themselves forward, and they became millionaires and so on. So very big differences between the two groups.
[0:13:24.4] MB: And how can somebody, for example, the woman who was consistently unlucky, how could she sort of transition or become someone who is lucky, and what were some of the differences between her and a lucky person?
[0:13:37.2] RW: Well, if we start with the differences, one was very interesting, almost perceptual different actually in terms of how they were seeing the world, and this was the form, the basis for an experiment we did. This then became quite well-known in terms of having people look at the newspaper.
We asked people to come into the lab to flick through a newspaper and just count the number of photographs in the newspaper. It's a fairly dull thing to do. What we didn't tell them is there were two large opportunities placed in the newspaper. One was a half-page advert with massive type that said, “Stop counting. There are 42 photographs in this newspaper,” and the other was another half page advert that said, “Say, you’ve seen, tell the experiment you’ve seen, and win,” whatever it was, 100 pounds or something.
What was fascinating was the lucky people tended to spot those opportunities, and so they would stop and go, “My goodness! That's great. I don’t need to count all the photographs, or could I have my prize now?” The unlucky people literally turned the page and didn't see them, and that's to do with this notion of attentional spotlight, that when we look at the world, we’re not seeing everything that's in front of us. We’re seeing a small part of it, where we place that active attention. When you become worried and anxious and concerned, as the unlucky people were, that becomes very small. You become very focused, and in doing so, you don't see something if you don't expect to see it.
The lucky people were far more relaxed and far more cheerful, had a large attentional spotlight, and so more likely to see opportunities they don’t expect and also act on them. That was the type of study we’re doing in order to try and tease really what was happening, why one group would say, “My goodness! I get all these opportunities,” and another group would say, “I never get a break.”
[0:15:35.8] MB: I love the newspaper experiment. That’s one of my favorite examples, and I’m so glad you shared it, and it just demonstrates really clearly that it's not necessarily sort of fate and random chance that's causing people to be lucky or unlucky. Obviously, there is a factor of that, but in many ways you can kind of create your own luck.
[0:15:56.0] RW: Absolutely. That was the premises of the research. Then what we did was to go on and test that. So hold on a second. If we take a group of people who are not particularly lucky or unlucky and we get them to think and behave like a lucky person, does that increase their luck? That data forms the basis, the luck factor book, and we found very simple exercises. The simplest one, but one of the most popular and which is now a well-known exercise, but at the time it wasn't, which is just getting people to keep a lucky diary and at the end of each day writing down the most positive thing, positive thought that they’ve had during that day, or one negative event that used to happen is no longer happening, or some sense of gratitude they have, their friends, or family or health or job or whatever. That starts to reorient people quite quickly.
So one of the issues with focusing is that if you are an unlucky personal or think you are, you literally do not see the good things in your life until you start to carry out that exercise. It’s a very, very simple intervention found, well it’s the simplest of interventions that had the most powerful effects, but you could see dramatically over the course of a month or two people becoming more positive, becoming luckier because of those interventions.
[0:17:12.7] MB: I’d love to dig in to a few of the other kind of tactics and strategies that you talked about that people can use to create their own luck.
[0:17:20.2] RW: There are lots of them. We looked at intuition. Lucky people tended to be a little bit more intuitive than unlucky people. They tended to be risk-takers without being reckless. They also tended when bad things happen to be very resilient. So whereas the unlucky people would always generate what are called positive counterfactual, that is when a bad event happened, they always imagined how it could've been much, much better.
If they — I don’t know, fallen on the stairs, broke their leg. They said, “Well, I could have fallen down the stairs and not broken my leg, and therefore this is a terrible, terrible outcome.” What lucky people do naturally is imagine they could've been [inaudible 0:17:59.4], and so they’d go, “Well, I could've fallen down the stairs and broke both of my legs,” for example. That automatic generating of an negative counterfactuals really helps people with resilience as does finding the silver lining, that no matter how bad the event, there will be something good that has come from it. Again, lucky people very naturally do that. Unlucky people, it's very, very hard for them until the exercise is pointed out to them to find that the positive in what seems like a negative event.
All these things are very simple, but I think we're the first people to really try and put numbers to the them, to kind of go, “Okay. Let's test this. Let’s find out what works and what doesn't work.”
[0:18:43.3] MB: I just wanted to confirm again for people listening that your research came to the fundamental conclusion that people who are and think of themselves as unlucky can learn these basic behaviors and literally sort of manufacture or create their own luck and become a luckier person just by implementing a few of these behaviors.
[0:19:04.0] RW: That’s right. It doesn't feel like that at the time. It feels like, as I say, something magical or supernatural is happening, but it is deeply psychological. It's not true of everything. I mean, there are some events in your life that really are chance and nothing to do with you, but for the most part you’re creating your own good and bad luck by the way you're thinking and feeling. More importantly, change how you think and feel and you can increase the luck you experience, and that was the very radical notion which underlie the luck factor book.
When that came out, it sold right across the world and became this kind of big bestseller, which was a lovely thing to see, that we could take our research and give it not only a national, but an international platform for people.
[0:19:43.6] MB: And what would you say to somebody who’s listening and sort of things to themselves, “Yeah, that sounds great, but that’s not work for me, or it's not going to happen when I do it, or I can't train my mind to see the positive in things.”
[0:19:58.7] RW: I guess — We heard that a lot from the unlucky people, and what we found was it was the simplest of interventions that have the big effects. The problem with some of these more [inaudible 0:20:09.4] interventions is that people get confused or they don’t have the willpower to keep going or they’re not quite certain what they should do. Everything is very simple. We know it works with the vast majority of people. I have to say, [inaudible 0:20:23.8]. There’s around about 20% of people that rather enjoy being unlucky, and what I mean by that is their self-identity is bound up with that. They’re the person that goes to parties and knocks over glasses and, “Oh my goodness! That's clumsy me. Everything I do, absolutely terrible,” and at some level they’re enjoying that and at some level are deeply afraid to move away from that identity, and those folks are very hard to reach, actually. But for the vast majority of people, actually these things do work, but you do need to do it. If you give up before you stopped, clearly it's not going to have much of an impact. You need to do these things. The person says, “Well, they’ll work or won’t work,” I would say come back after a month of doing them and then tell me that. If you tell it to me right now, I'm going be a bit skeptical, because you’re giving up before you started.
[0:21:16.8] MB: So you mentioned the luck diary. We talked a little bit about sort of find the silver linings. What are some of the other really simple strategies that people can implement?
[0:21:26.6] RW: Part of it was about flexibility, that even when the unlucky people saw an opportunity, they were very scared to move forward, because they were in a rut and they rather like routine even though it wasn’t a successful routine. Getting people to be more flexible, getting people to try things they haven't tried before, going to work or college with a different route, listening to whatever it is, radio that you don't normally listen to, trying different types of food, altering your conversational style. If you’re [inaudible 0:21:57.3] spending a bit more time, vice versa if your introverts, going two hours without saying the word I. All of these things give you a sense of flexibility, and that means that when an opportunity comes along, you're far more likely to make the most of that opportunity rather than go, “No. I'm not that sort of person. I am not a sort of person who’s flexible and changes.”
[0:22:19.2] MB: Even these simple sort of daily interventions, things like taking a different route to work, changing the conversational sort of strategies or styles that you’re using, maybe going for a walk randomly or to a different place that you don’t typically do. All of these create sort of the behavior or the sort of competency of flexibility, which then enables you to kind of capture “luck” when it sort of falls into your lap.
[0:22:45.1] RW: That's pretty much it. It puts you into the mindsets in that instance of somebody who’s flexible, who changes. The one thing we know about life is it’s not predictable. The strategies that worked last week may not work so well next week. So you need to be able to change and alter the sort of person you are., and lucky people were like that. They were very open to an uncertain future they thought they’d be able to cope, but they were very open to an uncertain future, where the unlucky people really like the idea of a plan. Even if that plan didn't work out, they would still keep on repeating it, because at least it have some certainty to.
Also, lucky people tended to be team players. They tended to be trying to negotiate win-wins all the time and to build up a network of contacts around them. They were be very, very well-connected. The unlucky people tended to be socially isolated. If they had an idea they hadn't really going to want to bounce it off of. They haven’t got that experience or talking to somebody and then going, “Oh! You should be my friend.” They’re really interested in that, and that plays an absolute key role in success. That was about the social side of it rather than the cognitive side.
[0:23:55.2] MB: That's really interesting, and so that’s kind of another one of these learned behaviors, is that if you become more social, you can also create luck essentially through sort of the network effect of meeting and engaging with more people.
[0:24:09.9] RW: Oh, absolutely. I can remember one lucky person who came into the lab and they were trying to sell their car. So we’re doing the experiment, on the way out, they spoke to one of the secretaries in the department and they were chatting and then the secretary, “You’re not interested in buying a new car, because I’ve got a car I’m trying to —” and the secretory, “Oh! I am actually. How weird you mentioned that. I am.” The two of them got chatting and he ended up selling his car to her. Now that's a very, very good example of him creating his own good luck. He will look back on that and go, “My goodness! What are the chances? I just happened to bump in to somebody.”
The fact is, he was bumping into people all of the time. He was buying a [inaudible 0:24:49.0] times a day in that sense and occasionally have hit the jackpot. The unlucky people simply weren’t buying the tickets, that they weren't spending any time with other people or exploring those relationships in an open way, and so they weren't getting those opportunities.
[0:25:02.7] MB: Yeah, it’s the old kind of analogy that you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, right? So lucky people, it sounds like — And according to the research, are essentially sort of constantly dabbling and exploring all these potential opportunities and sort of things that may emerge, and then when it does, they’re like, “Oh! Look at that, that opportunity kin of emerged.”
[0:25:24.4] RW: That’s right. Also, particularly with social networks, if you hit a node, if you hit somebody who's very well-connected, then you’re massively increasing your chances. You’re not just talking to that person or that party, your essentially talking to all the people they know. So if you're talking to somebody who’s well-connected, it might be that that opportunities is not for them, but they'll say, “Oh! Let me introduce you to so and so.” With networking, the way it works in terms of how we connected to others, it's very easy to get access to a very large number of people, and that’s what the lucky people were so skilled at doing.
[0:26:02.1] MB: I think digging down the rabbit hole of how to build relationships and social networking is probably beyond the full scope of our conversation, but for visitors who are curious, we do have another interview with Keith Ferrazzi that goes super deep into a lot of strategies you can use to implement many of those different things.
I'm curious, I’d love to kind of transition a little bit. I mean, the luck factor and all the work you did there is really fascinating, but I want to talk about some of the other work you’ve done, because I also think it's really aligned with what the show focuses on and what we often talk about on here. In 59 Seconds, which is one of your other books, you talk at length about sort of debunking some of the myths and confusion points in self-help. I'm curious, what kind of lead you to want to write that book?
[0:26:46.7] RW: 59, I mean, all the books have slightly old origins. 59, was because I went out for lunch, I think it was, with a friend of mine who’s quite the CEO in quite a big organization, and she started to talk about happiness and she said, “Oh, you know a bit about happiness. How does it work in terms of psychology?”
I started to answer and she said, “I’m quite a busy person. Can you really tell me and sort of cut it down a bit?” I said, “How long have you got?” She said, “Around about a minute,” and I thought that's kind of an intuition. [inaudible 0:27:19.2] ideas in psychology, that can be conveyed [inaudible 0:27:22.5] .Originally, the book was called 60 Seconds, and we round, and it was about evidence-based — In less than a minute, and at one meeting I said precisely that, I said less than a minute and someone said, “It’s not 60 seconds. It's 59 seconds,” and that's a much better title for all sorts of reasons.
So part of that book is debunking the myths of self-help, things which we all like to believe, which simply aren’t true and therefore are hurting us, and then the other parties, and here is what you can actually do to be more successful in these various domains, such as happiness and relationships and parenting and so on. That was the origins of that book, and it then became a very successful YouTube channel and has been all around the world again. So it is probably the book I’m best known for, and actually the quickest one to write. I think that was probably written about two months. So it was [inaudible 0:28:15.6] stuff that I've been storing up in my head.
[0:29:36.7] MB: What were some of the bit myths that you uncovered that kind of permeates self-help?
[0:29:42.0] RW: I think the biggest one was this notion of visualization, that there are so many self-help books that tell people to visualize endpoint. That is to visualize yourself in five years in the perfect relationship, perfect career, whatever it is. When you look at the psychology to an experiment, there is a single experiment that doesn't say that that is a terrible, terrible idea. It makes you feel good, which is why people like doing it. The problem is in terms of success and in terms of bringing that [inaudible 0:30:17.6] into reality, it sets your expectations very high and encourages you not to do anything else. All you need to do is dream.
So when that future doesn't emerge, then you become very discouraged. You think like, “I gave it my best shot, and I’m quite fatalistic,” and so very unlikely to move on throughout the strategies. There’s probably about 10, 15 papers now showing across pretty much every domain, that aspect, that application of visualization is a terrible idea.
There’s an equally large literature that says that visualization is a powerful tool, but you visualize process, not endpoint. If you want to do well in an exam, you visualize yourself doing the sorts of things. good students do; asking questions in class, revising, going a little bit further than the other students, or whatever. You don't visualize yourself sitting down and having a wonderful exam or opening an envelope and taking out an A-grate certificate. I think that was one of the key things. I mean, that notion, that visualization of endpoint is now all over the place, but I think we’re the first to sort of bring it into kind of public consciousness.
[0:31:25.9] MB: That is a great distinction, because I think it gets lost on a lot of people when they talk about visualization. The methodology itself can be effective, but it needs to be applied to a process as opposed to an endpoint.
[0:31:38.1] RW: That’s correct, then there’s a large literature suggesting exactly that. Even [inaudible 0:31:42.9] it wasn't known, and so all these athletes were being encouraged to visualize exactly the wrong thing. So it's a complete waste of time. It was nice to sort of dig up some of these.
The other one was brainstorming. This notion of all getting together in the room and coming up with ideas, again, reduces creativity by around about 20%. As we speak, there’ll be organizations around the world where everyone is sitting around in a room and trying to solve a problem in a creative way brainstorming terrible and apply it in that particular way.
What is far more effective is everyone brainstorms on their own, and they arrive at that meeting of ideas and you go around the table and everyone discusses their three ideas. Then you see big increases in both the number of ideas, obviously, and the originality. It’s a very simple tweak, but it’s very important one. We’ve been getting brainstorming wrong for many, many years.
[0:32:42.0] MB: That makes a lot of sense. What was the sort of science or the reasoning behind why brainstorming in a group is so ineffective?
[0:32:49.9] RW: There’s two bits of science behind it. One is social loafing, which is anyone in the group, and some people would just simply not try very hard, because [inaudible 0:33:00.1]. One, they’re thinking, “Well, if I come up with a key idea, the whole group gets the kind of glory for that, which I don’t like the sound of.” The other is, “I can just lean back and let everyone else do the work,” and both of those ideas means that people don't tend to engage very much.
The other is that within any group, you’ll get some people that dominate, and who knew the most dominating people are not the most creative, and they end up telling you all their ideas and the quieter people don't get a word in. So simply by having this very simple intervention would change of everyone arriving with three ideas get rid of all of those problems very, very effectively.
[0:33:40.7] MB: What were some of the other kind myths that permeate self-help that you uncovered in 59 Seconds?
[0:33:47.8] RW: There’s quite a few of them in there. I mean, right I think when I was writing it, the notion of the Harvard motivational stuff, which is the study where the Harvard researchers — I mean, [inaudible 0:33:59.1]. It’s credited various universities, but normally Harvard. Harvard researchers go in, ask kids what they want to be when they grow up and only 3% know, and that 3% for 20 something years accounts for 90% of the income of the cohort. Used all over the place to encourage people to get their kids to focus very young, and when you look at the evidence for it, there’s simply isn’t any evidence. That's a complete work of fiction. That experiment has never been conducted, and people need to know that. there is no hard evidence that getting children to focus very young will have any positive impact on their the long-term success or career.
Again, parents didn't know, and I regularly taught organizations, and you get people in the audience saying, “I just had no idea that's entirely fictitious.” There's quite a lot of kind of myth busting in that book.
[0:34:52.1] MB: I’m curious, because one of the things that we focus on a lot on the Science of Success is what we call evidence-based growth, which is basically thinking about the world from the perspective of evidence first and trying to understand what does the science say, what does evidence say and what is that mean for us as individuals trying to achieve our goals and sort of create a better world? Why do you think that it's so hard within self-help to bring that evidence to the forefront? Often, it seems like there's so much noise that it's really challenging to sort of distinguish what the signal is.
[0:35:34.1] RW: I think it’s [inaudible 0:35:34.7] two reasons. One is that we’re equipped with common sense. One of the problem being is often wrong, but intuitively, it feels like if you get kids to focus young, that would be a good thing. Intuitively, it feels that sitting around a room and kicking around some ideas is a good thing. Intuitions are often wrong.
That’s one reasons why it’s tricky. The other is that the psychological literature is really spread out. I mean, it is immense now, and that you need a fair bit of expertise to even find out where the relevant papers are, and even more expertise be able to read them and actually know what they're trying to say in terms of the data.
I think it is very, very tough for people to actually find the evidence, and that was really the thinking behind 59 Seconds, to be honest actually. We’re saying to people, “Look. I will do all that hard work for you,” and I think I probably read close a couple of thousand papers, academic papers for that book, “I will do all that hard work and then I will present it in a way that I think is fair and with some take-home messages.” But I think it’s very, very difficult, particularly now with the web when there are just so many websites out there telling you so many different things, and unless you have access to those primary sources, you’re not really going to know who or what to believe.
[0:36:51.6] MB: And so what can sort of a well-intentioned individual who is not a scientist do if they're looking for these kind of bastions of evidence-based strategies in today's world?
[0:37:04.9] RW: Obviously, read my books is the main thing. That's why I always advise anyone that. But I think always ask the question, “Where is the evidence? Where is this coming from?” Also, how much are you investing in it, because if it is something which is going to take you a couple of hours every day or something like that, you’re going to want to know that there is some kind of evidential underpinning that is in a peer-review journal or whatever it is. I just think asking for evidences is absolutely key, and not believing something just because it sounds plausible or it's easy. If it’s the sort of thing which you enjoy doing, well, it may not be having a wonderful effect on your life. Also, if you're not becoming more successful with it, if it’s not making you happier or improving relationships [inaudible 0:37:51.5], just stop and do something else. It's not rocket science, and I appreciate that it can be quite tricky for people particularly on the evidential front.
[0:38:00.6] MB: Yeah, I think that’s a struggle that we think about a lot, is how can — Obviously, on the show, we take a lot of time. We read through a lot of the research. We try to find people who have done their homework and actually speak from a position of sort of scientific authority, but it’s definitely a struggle, and I think a lot about there's so much just noise out there. How can we see through the mist and figure out, “All right. What’s actually true? What's actually effective?” It’s something that's kind of a mission of ours and that we spent a lot of time thinking about.
[0:38:34.7] RW: It’s important work, and it’s even more important when you move out to the health domain where people are doing all sorts of weird procedures that aren’t helping at all. Some of the sort of cutting edge health research showing some of things we thought were extremely helpful [inaudible 0:38:48.8] in terms of some sorts of surgery and pills and so on has simply having no effect. If it's a problem there, it’s definitely going to be a problem when you move over to psychology.
[0:38:59.5] MB: I'm curious, there's one other strategy that you talked about and 59 Seconds that I thought was really interesting, which is the idea of writing your own eulogy. Can you talk a little bit about that?
[0:39:11.5] RW: Yeah, it’s a lovely idea. I mean, it's — Well, not when you come to do it. It’s quite a terrifying idea [inaudible 0:39:16.9] it’s lovely, which is this notion that we don't realize perhaps [inaudible 0:39:21.6] life is and it’s very easy to get distracted and to just simply have a good time and not think about the bigger picture. It’s only when you get slightly drawn in life, these thoughts to realize there are things you wish you had done and that something’s a little bit more meaningful than others and so on. Writing your own eulogy is a nice way of cutting to the chase. So you say to somebody, “What do you want someone to stand up at your own funeral and say about you?” It's a very effective way of setting goals.
If you ask people to do that, then look at the discrepancy between what they've written for that perfect eulogy and their life as it currently is, you can see people suddenly start to shift and go, “Well, I'd like someone to stand up in my funeral and say what a kind person I've been and I’ve helped to my friends and family, and then you say, “So, currently, are you helping your friends or family?” They say, “No, I'm not,” and so is fairly obvious where the shift is.
It’s a lovely exercise. There's a lot of psychology to the back that up and into a field called terror management, and it's very interesting. Yeah, it's something I recommend actually to all my students.
[0:40:31.7] MB: What is terror management?
[0:40:33.3] RW: Terror management theory is this notion that there are certain things that scare us and how we respond to that. Of course, the biggest thing that scares us is death, and so most people run away from death. Actually, you want people to confront the fact [inaudible 0:40:52.7] on the few things we know with 100% certainty. Actually, it isn't quite scary. It can be quite empowering, and that is a very old idea. I mean, the idea of memento mori, which was you see skeletons in paintings or something like that, those of there to remind the viewer that life is short and that you should live the best life possible right now, because your life might end much sooner than you think. So it's a very old psychological intervention [inaudible 0:41:22.4].
[0:41:23.1] MB: I want to segue now and get into a little bit, just talk about the as if principle. I find that really, really fascinating and that’s something that I think is worthwhile to share with the listeners. Would you talk a little bit about kind of what that is and how you came to talk about that?
[0:41:40.8] RW: Yeah, the as if principle, again, dates back to the roots of psychology, and particularly to William James who’s one of the founding fathers of psychology around the turn of the last century, and the obvious way of looking at the link between — Let's go with behavior and emotion, is that your emotions create certain behaviors, and that feels like common sense. When you feel happy, you smile.
What James did was to question that and turn it on its head and say, “Well, is the opposite true? Is there a kind of back channel?” which is that if you face, forced your face into a smile, do you end up feeling happier? He was an experimentalist. He was a philosopher, and so pose that question in various domains before the experimentalists come along and start to go, “Let’s ask that question. When you behave in certain ways, does that affect the way you think and the way you feel?” and they found that it did. You behave as if you are happy, you feel happier. You behave as if you're confident, you feel more confident. That is the basis of the book which in America is called the as if principle. I just explored that very simple idea in lots of different domains.
[0:43:00.0] MB: Is that essentially the idea of fake it till you make it?
[0:43:04.6] RW: A little bit. I think it's not same as that, and in part because the word kind of fake it has a slightly different meaning to it, but it is that notion that if you, yes, behave in a certain way, that will affect how you think and feel.
Fake it until you make it is often about how it [inaudible 0:43:23.8] to perceive you and it’s not quite that. It's more about how your behavior affects yourself, and then that affects others. The fake it till you make it is, “Oh! I’m going to appear very confident and other people will see me as more confident.” The as if principle is, “I'm going to act more confident. That makes me feel more confident, and therefore I am perceived as more confident.”
[0:43:45.6] MB: Tell me a little about the science behind that. What does kind of research say or should you share some of the specific conclusions or examples from some of the studies?
[0:43:55.4] RW: Well, in terms of the [inaudible 0:43:58.2] pathways, we don’t really know, to be honest. There is a very profound theory that sits behind it, and this is why it interested William James. The theory is that your entire common sense notion that you feel happy and, therefore, smile, is simply wrong, that you have no idea how you feel until you observe yourself. It gets to the roots of consciousness.
So the idea is that sort of there’s someone sitting in your head that’s watching your behavior and then deciding how you feel. So according to that theory, it’s absolutely crucial that you behave in sort of certain ways, because it really does influence how you literally see yourself. There is a profound debate within the consciousness movement about why it might work.
What we do know is across very many different domains, you see the same effect again and again and again, and so in fact actually one of the most controversial illustrations of it, but still one which I think [inaudible 00:45:08.3] merit is the power posing, which is Amy Cuddy’s work, where you stand in some ways and you feel more powerful and so on. Now, there’s a lot of debate about that particular brand work, but still the fundamental principle there, which is your actions dictate how you and think, I think is sound.
[0:45:28.3] MB: Tell me a little bit about specifically, how does the as if principle apply in the context of things like phobias, anxiety, or depression?
[0:45:37.2] RW: Well, if we take the last of those, depression, it's a very effective way of getting people out of depression, which is that you get to behave as if they're not depressed. If you get [inaudible 0:45:46.7] depressed people to be far more active, to do things like gardening, to be more involved in exercise and so on, it alleviates the depression reasonably rapidly. The same with phobias, where if you're scared of whatever it is, a spider, if you slowly bring a spider toward someone, you get them to behave as if they are not afraid, i.e., they relax and calm down, it gets rid of the phobia very quickly.
It's a very simple idea, but it sits throughout the entire history of psychology and all these different domains which actually hadn't ever been pulled together before. So that book is talking or reviewing areas which actually within the academic psychology would normally be seen as quite separate and populated by academics that don't normally talk to one another across those areas.
[0:46:34.8] MB: You have kind of a specific, kind of concrete example of how somebody could apply the as if principle to happiness, for example. Just thinking about if I want to be happier, what sort of things would I do if I were happier that make sense?
[0:46:51.0] RW: Yeah. Well, happiness is the easiest one, because you think, “Well, how do I behave when I’m happy?” Maybe you sing and maybe you dance and maybe you smile and maybe you talk to other people and maybe you go out for the evening to a party. Well, do all those things. Do all those things and you will feel happier.
The problem is motivating yourself to do that, but once you do these things, you’ll feel happier. So all you say, “How do I behave when I think and feel like that? Okay, I'll force myself to do that,” and the effect is very, very fast. So you feel those effects within about 30, 40 seconds. They’re some of the fastest moving effects in psychology. It's simple stuff, but for some reason it’s not something that often comes up on people's kind of common sense radar until the start to think about it.
[0:47:38.4] MB: Dow do we regenerate the willpower, the motivation to actually take those actions, especially, I feel like it’s hardest to do that when you're in a negative state.
[0:47:49.0] RW: It is hard, but it’s not that hard. I think singing if you’re on your own, singing a song, dancing around, whatever, they’re not that difficult things to do. It’s not like some huge happiness intervention where you need to think about your explanatory style or whether you’ve just supplied it, but It is just having a good time. I think that's very important.
It's also in terms of explaining in a way your internal states, and so if you're either nervous before a talk and you can feel these butterflies in your stomach, you can re-label those. You can say, “Well, I’m not nervous. I'm acting as if I'm excited, and that re-labeling then changes how you see yourself and you go, “Well, I’m excited to give this talk. Let me get up there and start.” Not, “I'm nervous. I don’t really want to go up there and start.” It can also apply to how do you label and perceive internal states.
[0:48:42.1] MB: Labeling could also be kind of a powerful component of acting as if you were happy or confident or excited, etc.
[0:48:50.7] RW: That's right. If you see your own behavior in a different way and in a more positive way, then that, again, changes how you think of and feel. It’s a curious one, because the principle, the theory, links together all these different ideas in psychology and it's, for me, why the book was interesting to do, because it goes right across motivation and persuasion. So if you're trying to get someone to do something and you stop paying them more and more money, their motivation drops. The reason being, well, what sort of tasks you need to pay me to do a task that I really don't like. So when you stop making [inaudible 0:49:29.8] behave as if I don't like this task by giving me more and more money to do it, you see my motivation drop. It starts to explain these kind of counterintuitive findings that you see in psychology.
[0:49:41.4] MB: What would be one piece of homework you would give our listeners to concretely implement some of the ideas and strategies that we’ve talked about today?
[0:49:50.3] RW: Oh my goodness! I think I see picking up on what you’re saying, the eulogy I think is good. I would say probably the best thing that comes out of 59 in terms of excess is the pre-mortem, the idea that before any — You convince yourself, that project has been an utter disaster, and you try and figure out why it failed so badly. It's one of the most effective ways of finding our problems with a scheme before that scheme starts, because otherwise you get this huge rose-tinted view, you're convinced it's going to be great and you don't take the necessary precautionary steps. I think the pre-mortem is very helpful.
[0:50:26.8] MB: And where listeners go if they want to find you, your books and all these resources online?
[0:50:32.4] RW: Richardwiseman.com is my websites and the links off there will take you to my YouTube channel, which is In 59 Seconds, which has all these tips and hints there in minutes. Then, obviously, there’s the books. We’ve spoken about Luck Factor and 59 Seconds, as if principle [inaudible 0:50:52.1] sleeping and dreaming and a book called Night School. This is all out there and it’s lovely when people read that material and feedback, and so if people have supported that work over the years, my thanks and gratitude to them.
[0:51:04.1] MB: Richard, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all these wisdom, so many different strategies and concrete evidence-based things for people to implement their lives. It's been an honor to have you on here.
[0:51:14.2] RW: Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity.
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Finding Joy In A World Full of Suffering - Lessons From a Former Buddhist Monk with Robert Thurman
December 28, 2017 by Lace Gilger in Mind Expansion
This episode is a bit off the beaten path for us here at the Science of Success. Given this time of year, when many are thinking, reflecting, and being a bit more spiritual - we wanted to offer a different perspective. This episode is not as science based, but still provides a fascinating dialogue with a Buddhist monk, who was the first westerner ordained by the Dalai Lama, on life, meditation, mindfulness, and much more with our guest Robert Thurman.
Robert Thurman is a Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religion at Columbia University, and President of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies. Time magazine has called Robert “the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism.” and named him one of Time Magazine most influential Americans in 1997. Robert was the first westerner ever to be ordained as a Tibetan Monk by the Dalai Lama and his work and books have been featured all over the globe.
How Robert’s journey took him to becoming a Tibetan Monk under the Dalai Llama
The human being is a learning machine
The dogma of materialism - mind is the power that directs matter
Inner science / buddhist science
The basic misunderstandings of buddhism from a western perspective
Life is suffering
It’s just meditation
Meditation without context isn’t useful
The two kinds of meditation
Clearing your mind of thinking / emptying the mind
Analytic / critical meditation or “insight meditation”
Thinking something directed towards the exploration of yourself, ideas, or things around you
How an egotistical approach creates “guaranteed misery” - you could become the most powerful person on the planet and people still wont think you’re important
Why enlightenment is not clearing your mind of thoughts
The importance of focusing on and being open to other people
You can learn if you examine yourself and your world
The unexamined life will be frustrating
“Dis-identifying from the thought flow” will not get you to enlightenment
Look more objectively at your thought flow - see where thought flows arise, penetrate the thought flow, see the negative thoughts and the positive thoughts
What thought is that?
How accurate is it?
Whose voice is it? my mother’s voice? my fathers? my uncles? my teacher?
Gain leverage on how the mind works, edit how the mind works reinforce the positive insights, de-enforce the negative insights
Stripping away false identities and beliefs
It’s helpful to have help of others - mobilize minds that are further along the path than you are - your the only one who can learn your reality in a viscerally transformative way - use their help and follow their methods
How Eckart Tolle battled back from the verge of suicide - looking critically at negative thoughts
Experiential understanding of the nature of reality - reality is beyond anyone’s idea of reality
The experience of reality is beyond our ability to describe it
How does the Dalai Llama keep up his joy, good humor, and happiness in a world full of so much suffering?
The nature of life itself is blissful. Reality is good. The more you’re open to reality, the happier you are.
Broaden your attitude and orientation, don’t deny the bad experiences
When you’re miserable, you can’t help people. When you’re happy, you can.
You have to put your own happiness oxygen mask on before you can help anyone else
The habitual perception that we are our own isolated egos vs the universe
Interconnectedness of all life
Suffering and frustration are rooted in the false belief that you and your ego are the most important thing
The universe is empty of any non-relational entity
Buddhism is the opposite of ignorance is bliss, reality is bliss. You already have bliss, you have blocks of knowing and feeling and understand it. It’s YOU. You’re made of it.
Wave particle paradox, Heinsberg uncertainty and the science of interconnectedness
Quantum physics, buddhism and the observer paradox
[Search List] Robert Thurman Amazon book list
[Wiki Article] The Thinker
[SoS Episode] Limiting Beliefs
[Book] The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle
[Wiki Article] Wave–particle duality
[Wiki Article] Observer effect (physics)
[TEDEd Video] What is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? - Chad Orzel
[Video] The Real Meaning of E=mc² | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
[Personal Site] Bob Thurman
[Book] Man of Peace: The Illustrated Life Story of the Dalai Lama of Tibet by William Meyers, Robert Thurman, and Michael G. Burbank
[0:00:11.8] MB: Welcome to the Science of Success; the number one evidence-based growth podcast on the internet with more than a million downloads and listeners in over a hundred countries.
This episode is a bit off the beaten path for us here at the Science of Success. Given the time of year when many are thinking, reflecting, being a bit more spiritual, we wanted to offer a little bit different of a perspective. This episode is not a science-based, but it still provides a fascinating dialogue with a Buddhist monk, who is the first Westerner ever to be ordained by the Dalai Lama. We discussed life, meditation, mindfulness, and much more with our guest Robert Thurman.
I’m going to give you three really quick reasons why you should join our e-mail list today by going to successpodcast.com and signing up right on the homepage. There is some amazing stuff that’s available only to our e-mail subscribers, including a special guide called How to Organize and Remember Everything that we created based on listener demand, curated weekly e-mails that you’re going to get every single week, including our Mindset Monday e-mail, which listeners have been absolutely loving short, sweet articles and stories that we found fascinating within the last week, and a chance to shape the show. You can vote on guests, submit your own questions to our guests and much more.
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In our previous episode, we discussed one of the most important evidence-based psychology principles that makes people successful; self-awareness. We looked at the difference between people who succeed and those who plateau.
We talked about why self-awareness is the meta-skill of the 21st century, and a foundational skill required to succeed in nearly anything; including looking at conclusions from over 800 scientific studies about self-awareness with our guest Dr. Tasha Eurich. If you want to master the most vital skill in the 21st century, listen to that episode.
Now for the interview. But before we get into that, I wanted to make note, the audio quality in this interview is not the greatest. We had a little bit of trouble on Robert’s end with some of the sound quality issues. I just wanted to let you know ahead of time that Robert’s audio is not perfect, but there’s some really good insights in this conversation and I felt it was still worth sharing with you.
[0:02:48.1] MB: Today, we have another fascinating guest on the show, Robert Thurman. Robert is a professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies in the Department of Religion at Columbia University, and the President of the American Institute of Buddhist studies. Time Magazine has called him the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism and named him one of Time Magazine’s most influential Americans in 1997.
He was also the first Westerner to ever be ordained a Tibetan monk by the Dalai Lama. His works and books have been featured across the globe. Bob, welcome to the Science of Success.
[0:03:21.7] RT: Thanks, Matt. Nice to talk to you.
[0:03:23.9] MB: Well, we’ve very excited to have you on the show today. For listeners who may not be familiar with you and your background, I know you’ve had a fascinating story. I’d love to hear a little bit about your personal journey and how that led you to eventually becoming a monk and where you are today.
[0:03:39.0] RT: Well, okay. I was a Harvard undergraduate and I decided that western psychology and philosophy didn’t quite get it right. I decided to go to India to see some deeper psychology. I had a sense it would be there. When I got there, there were a lot of really nice Indians, but I got really turned on by the Tibetans and the knowledge they have of Indian Buddhism, of ancient Indian Buddhism.
I started studying with them, and that’s 54 years ago, 55 years ago and never turned back. I found the philosophical solutions I was looking for, the openness of mind to new questions I was looking for, the yogas, the meditations, everything. The people, they were just really great. I was speaking their language in about three months, and it was like coming home.
I’m still doing that. I must say I was a monk for about four to five years. But now I’m an ex-monk and I have a big family. Didn’t damage me forever. That’s pretty much my story. Joining academia is like coming back to another kind of monastery, where you – they were the American one, you know where you’re having family and you study what you want and you teach what you want after a while. It’s a privilege. It’s a wonderful thing. The human being is a learning machine and that’s what they should be doing with their life.
[0:05:01.3] MB: I’m really curious. As somebody who’s such an expert in something like Buddhism, where do you see some of the common western misunderstanding of the core principles of Buddhism?
[0:05:15.1] RT: Well, western and eastern people do misunderstand Buddhism. It isn’t really an east-west thing. Because misunderstand themselves and they misunderstand life. Buddhism as it is in a way never really interested me, I have to say. But Buddhist science and the knowledge of the mind and the knowledge of reality was what really interested me.
I think that has a lot to offer to west and east, and especially modern science is a little bit caught nowadays by the dogma of materialism. The idea that the mind doesn’t exist, that mind over matter doesn’t work. That’s a big error. Mind is actually really the power that directs matter, I would say, which Buddhist science has a very strong evidence and arguments about. That really is usual to people.
I consider I’m going ever deeper into that. I don’t claim to be enlightened or anything, but I’ve gotten in that direction and I’m sure there is that direction, put it that way. Everyone can do that. That’s what the human is built for. That’s what I like to do. I call it really a Buddhist science really, or inner science as it’s called in India.
Yoga and Hinduism has a lot of that too, because Buddhism totally influence every country it was ever in. It was in all the [0:06:27.2] countries have had a huge impact on them. Having discovered it, I think it’s going to have a huge impact here. It already has that some impact and it was gone with one. I think one thing that – the basic misunderstanding is that Buddhism teaches you and that all you can do is suffer and you can never get away from it and you’re better be resigned to it. That’s one of the big misunderstandings.
Before our Buddha discovered happiness, actually that’s what he discovered and how to get rid of suffering permanently. The second misunderstanding is that Buddhism is just meditating, and that’s also a mistake. Meditation is a powerful tool for transforming yourself on learning, but it must be preceded by scientific learning and lot of critical investigation, exploration and thinking and experiencing and analyzing your experience and seeing how your mind works.
Then when you get a bit of orientation about what you are, what reality is, then meditation enables you to really bring it down to your gut and really change your life more thoroughly. I mean, learning changes your life very much too, but to completely transform, you need to add meditation to learning.
You don’t just do meditation out of the bat. If you just meditate because somebody tells you that meditation is the solution to everything, you are basically deepening your ignorance actually. You’ll become more egotistical and you become more isolated and alienated more into yourself, which is not really a usual place to be stuck in. Not to send it wrong with including yourself, but being stuck in yourself is really not a good scene.
[0:07:58.5] MB: I want to dig into a couple different pieces of that. Let’s start with this idea that meditation without context isn’t useful. Tell me a little bit more about that.
[0:08:06.5] RT: Well, there is two kinds. One kind of meditation is just shutting your mind down and not thinking, which gives the person brought up in our school system a buzz, because we’ve been doing a lot of thinking. That we haven’t felt that thinking has done us a lot of good, because we still bit unhappy.
We get a buzz out of not thinking. But actually what that also does it dulls your ability to learn from experience, to teach reason from learning and from books. It gives you a palliative, it’s like getting hooked on a palliative, because you can just stop thinking and then now come down and then some people even think you’d be enlightened when you have nothing in your mind.
I was joking like to say, when Buddha entertained enlightenment, the first thing he didn’t say – he said, “That was not the answer.” What he said was, “I know everything. It’s really great. Reality really is fine and you can be – it is happiness. If you know reality, you’re going to be happy.” Unfortunately, of course just by me telling you, you can’t get there. You have to go to work on it yourself, but you have amazing ability to learn and also to transform once you have learned. That’s the thing. That’s one type of meditation is just emptying the mind type.
Then the other type, which is more important is analytic meditation, or critical meditation, and what they call inside meditation. That’s where you’re actually are thinking something directed toward exploration of yourself, your experience and the reality around you. That’s a very good one and a very important one. If you don’t do that one, then you just do the mind empty one, then your original view of yourself and everyone has a slightly distorted view of the self, by conditioning, by instinct, by formalize and so on, which is that each one thinks, “I am the most important one.”
They don’t think that they’re being egotistical. They think that’s naturally, “Everybody thinks I’m the most important.” They think that’s just the natural way to be. But then that puts you at conflict with everybody else who doesn’t agree with you. That puts you in a guaranteed program for misery actually, since nobody else will agree that you’re the most important, and yet you will keep struggling to show that you are in some way, but still then out of it, you could become president of the United States and people will still will not think you’re the most important. You’ll get really freaked out.
The key is that if you then meditate however, without having examined your distorted self-image, your central CPU, your distorted inner wiring, then you will simply intensify your inner wiring and you will not transform yourself, you will not move to a more open-minded, open-hearted interrelated way of being where you start getting along better with others. You notice them more, because you’re less focused on yourself.
You get better feedback from them, because they notice that you’re noticing them and they like you, etc., etc., and you can be more successful. Success really comes in life not just from any big thing you do about yourself, but it comes from how open you are to other people and how you see what they need, what they want, you listen to their advice, you can see their perspective, then you can actually deal with them and others and everyone much better, and even yourself. You’ll feel much happier and you’ll feel much more capable. That’s the key thing.
[0:11:24.6] MB: There’s a bunch of different ways I want to dig into this. Let’ start with the idea of analytic meditation, or critical meditation, or inside meditation. What does that mean, and what does that look like practically?
[0:11:36.1] RT: Well, it looks like thinking something over and investigating it. It means that you don’t, when you sit, if you do sit or whatever posture, although better not to take the posture road as thinker, because it’s much too uncomfortable to maintain for a very long time, if you know what it looks like.
Anyway, when you sit down to think over something, you explore it and you’re fueled by the realization why taking a little bit confident in the great teachers of humanity saying that you as a human being are capable of understanding something more deeply. An analysis means you take things apart, you’re looking at its components, you see how it’s made, you look at its quotation, and you see its context, and you go deeper and deeper, then you look at the parts and you take that apart.
Anyway, ultimately, you can analyze everything to pieces and it will disappear. But then you know how it’s put together. You do that about yourself. Then when you do, you’ll get more aware of your moving parts inside, especially inside your mind, but your body also. Then the more you’re aware of that ,the better you can make them function.
Of course, do really completely get at, then you do have to fit it with a one point of concentration ability. Otherwise, if you just keep scanning and you scatter yourself too much. But the scanning one is the most important one, and you can penetrate right to where you have an experiential understanding of the nature of reality.
Also, you go beyond your concepts. You use your common sense to take aim, so to speak, but once you get down it becomes very experiential and you go beyond – you realize that reality is beyond, and is but this idea of reality, which is why Buddha was so special and I think he says, “Well, I understand everything, but I can’t really explain it throughout well, because it’s beyond explanation. However, what I am confident is that if you put your own head into it, you can understand it yourself. You really can.”
Given, that’s what I love by the way when I first encountered the Buddhist teachers, was the fact that they for one, unlike the western religious people, theistic religious people they didn’t say, “You just have to believe something,” whether it makes sense to you or not, because you can’t understand it ultimately. Only God can. I did it like that particularly.
Being then the scientist tell you, “Well, you can’t really understand everything. You can understand a small piece, analyze it, write it down, make a formula. But then that will open up to you how much more you don’t know sort of routine.” Finally, also you can understand.
Both those western options and actually other cultures too are pretty much weakening of the human ability to use that marvelous super computer we have in the wetware in our brain. It’s amazing. Whereas, the Buddha said, “Yes, you can really understand. You just have to put your mind to it. You have to learn. You can use for help, find teachers. But even without a teacher you can learn if you really examine yourself and your world.”
Remember Socrates, the own examined life is not worth living. Buddha never said that. He just said, “The owned examined life will be frustrating and the fully examined life will be blissful.” He took it a little further than dear old Socrates.
[0:14:43.7] MB: Before we get into the experiential understanding of the nature reality, which I’m fascinated by, I wanted to touch on the – just to clarify my understanding of this. I understand the meditative practice of sitting there, bringing your thoughts back to breath or something like that. This analytical or this insight meditation, is this an actual meditative practice, or is this more like journaling, linking, setting aside contemplative time?
[0:15:08.7] RT: Well, it is a kind of analytic practice. You see, the mindfulness craze that has swept the country tends to be taken by people as a method by bringing back to their breath of this identifying from the thought flow, and just being there, just breathing.
In a way, it’s a version of the approached state, you could say of one point it as a mind empty. In a way, its foundational of course for inside meditation, as well as one pointed or quiescent meditation. But the way most people do it, it pretty much tapers off into quiescent meditation. Inside meditation, where it is, is when you go in and you look and see how your mind is – you come to the breath, just as a way of actually heightening your awareness of the distractions really, rather than just breathing.
That is to say you begin to see what it is that takes your mind away. You look more objectively at the thought flow. You see where the mechanisms of the thought, or how does this thought arise from the sense stimulants from that memory? You penetrate that thought though. You actually then see where there are negative thoughts and where there are positive thoughts that open you, or that is thoughts that open you, or thoughts that close you down, which are the negative ones.
Then we have the words, it’s more penetrative, where you just don’t just, “Oh, that’s a thought.” But you say, “Well, what thought is that? How is it benefitting me and how accurate it is and what does it come from? Actually, who’s voice is it in? Is it my mother’s voice, my uncle’s voice? My elder sibling who always told me I was a pipsqueak or whatever it was, some put-down voice, or some teacher’s voice, or some preacher’s voice.”
The words, you begin to really gain a leverage over how the mind works. Then you begin to edit how the mind works and you reinforce the positive insights, and you reinforce the negative ones, the habitual ones that just have you spinning.
Some of the popular mindfulness insight practitioners do that to some degree, but unfortunately, I think the most of the populous ones just do it for the mind quieting. However, I’m not against that. I think that’s fine too, because some people need mind quieting. But if they just only do that, sooner or later they will be disappointed. Just the palliative of the mind quieting has not actually made them happy. It has not actually given them a deeper genius about the nature of life, and therefore they have not found bliss and they’re still frustrated.
Then really unfortunately was all would be they say, “Well, meditating is useless and it’s all useless. I’ll just go and watch TV or something.” On the other hand, of course TV is meditating, reading a book is critical thinking. In other words, when you learn verbally, externally or having the debate or a dialogue with another person is also critical thinking.
Just when you bring it inside as a meditation into your own mind, you intensify it. Although, in the tradition, I don’t know if you know anything about zen, but they have a tradition they call Dharma Combat in zen, where you debate other practitioners or your teacher. They have this very much in the Tibetan monasteries, because they say that to honestly debate yourself, that is to have one voice inside yourself challenge another one.
Like one voice, you have one habitual voice a lot of us have is, “You can’t really do that. You’re just you. You can’t really change. You’re always the same way you are.” Then the critical voice is, “Well actually, you do change all the time.” Why do you say that? “Every time you think something, you change and pushing toward transformation and seeing yourself as a work in progress and able to really develop yourself.”
These are two voices inside. They say, it’s difficult to be honestly truly critical with yourself, unless you are pumped up to it by being critical, emotionally debating. They have debating with others as an art forum, as a learning forum, as a pre-meditated launching forum that is very powerful actually. Particularly where they mobilize these emotions, like when you make – when you’re wronged and you fight to be right, but then actually rationally you finally realize you made a mistake, that’s how you change.
Then you can do that internally and you could strip away false images, false self-identities, false constricting self-labels and things and really develop yourself as a person. That’s really important.
[0:19:27.7] MB: How do we – going back to one of the ideas you talked about within this, how do you edit the mind to reinforce positive insights and as you said de-inforce negative insights?
[0:19:38.1] RT: It’s helpful to have help over others. You read the great enlightening teachings, or some other – that a lot of them are not in Buddhism. There is greater light in teachings in Hinduism and Christianity, especially mystical Christianity, the mystical Islam, mystical Judaism Kabbalah. You mobilize minds that are further than you along that path, and they left methods.
They couldn’t just transmit their experience unfortunately, or they would have of course, but unfortunately they can’t because you are the only one who can learn your reality in a visually transformative way. There are others who have done that in whatever tradition. You use their help and they give methods and patterns and templates of where you might want to go.
You go out into your own mind and you learn to see the note, that last time I lost my temper and had totally freaked out, the last time I got brooding vindictively about how I was going to get revenge over so and so for three weeks or a month, then they moved to another city and I just continued to brood, etc.
In other words, it’s like based on a combination of experience and learning and you start editing useless mind patterns that are completely useless to you and actually debilitating to you and they weaken you. You do that gradually by learning methods to do it, and also getting help of others to do it. There are qualified teachers, therapists and even noble friends who would really like you and therefore, dare to be critical of you.
All of that will – in the case us males, often those are females who have a very sharp intuition and can often give us pointers about where we need a little redo, a little improvement. They really can. We have to overcome our male tendency not to want to listen, because we got tired of listening to our moms at some point. We’re a bunch of chauvinists. Anyway, what can you say? That was you think, maybe not you, that I should speak for myself actually.
[0:21:43.4] MB: I mean, I think there’s a lot of different insights that come out of that. I want to come back to something, sort of a concrete, even a first step or one method or strategy someone listening can use. If they say, “Hey, I want to take a first step towards insight meditation, or more specifically reinforcing the positive insights of my mind.” What is sort of the first step?
[0:22:05.6] RT: Well, first step is a little bit to calm down and that’s what they do teach well about counting the breath for example, or you can say a mantra and bring your mind back to the mantra. It’s maybe even more effective than just counting the breath. Counting the breath is very time on earth hollowed one, so that’s good.
You begin to get a little calm, you feel better, your pulse decreases, your blood pressure calms down, your breathe will slow naturally actually. Then you’re more focused. Then don’t just drop out of thought flow that you observed in your mind, and don’t just say, don’t set out and then ignore it. But rather, start to look at the content of the thought flow.
Okay, there was a distracting thought, “What was I thinking about? Was I thinking about something that happened yesterday? Was I anticipating something I imagine might happen tomorrow? When I thought about it, how did I feel? Did I make me tense or uptight? Was I frustrated by something that happened yesterday? Am I frightened of something that will happen in the future, or do I anticipate with realization I get excited and palm-sweaty about something is going to happen?”
In other words, start to look at the distractions in fact. Then the trick as you get advanced is you keep the calm and you do it calmly. You don’t get excited by it and then get distracted from the distraction. You investigate that distraction and then you begin to apply your experience and you say, “Well, what I did that day was really not that good. How I lost my temper, how I got all jealous, how whatever it was.”
I say, “Well, I should see try not to do that.” Then another time, “What can I do? Well, instead of being jealous of that person, maybe I would a little bit take their point of view. What were they thinking during that incident? Due with, maybe they were very unhappy and dissatisfied, etc. Actually, why am I being jealous of someone who themselves is miserable?”
In other words, you begin to edit your interpretation of your experience, you edit the discursive thoughts. Don’t just drop out of them. Once you have a little bit and you drop out of them, so you have a little more common concentration then you start taking a look at them. You know the famous Eckhart Tolle. Great example was his how he saved himself from suicide.
He wasn’t doing Buddhist meditation or probably no any such thing at the time. He was just being himself. He was seeker, a philosopher, a little bit of a mistake, but he got in a really depressive cycle and he was swirling down, right down the drain and this voice was telling him – his voice which he couldn’t resist, because it was acting like it was his voice.
He should do himself in there while of course it weren’t worth living. He was really getting close to and he was suicidally depressed in other words. Then what it is, is some other voice in his – he heard another voice that was also him challenging the voice that was cycling him into depression. That voice said, “Well, why should I believe you? Telling me I’m useless and worthless and life sucks and whatever it was.” Then there started to be a little bit of a debate between them.
The more critical voice began to say to the other one, “Take a hike. Stop putting me down.” He was no longer identifying that it was his immovable voice. He had another more – intelligent, more critical voice that was free. Then sooner or later, he survived very well. He wrote The Power of Now. He became Oprah’s guru. He’s a happy guy.
It had to do in becoming critically looking at his distracting thought, which in that case wasn’t distracting. He was already nailed on that bad thought that was taking him down the drain into suicide. He found this another thought. Now he doesn’t elaborate in the anecdote when he tells that in his Power of Now book. That happened, he doesn’t elaborate whether he eventually analyzed the voice that was putting him down, did it connect to a parental voice, did he connect to where they were – was the stories of that self-image that he identified as himself disapproving of himself.
I don’t know. Or maybe he did in another book. I haven’t read into that. But the Buddhist psychology totally elaborates such things, because it codifies the experience of thousands of people over thousands of years exploring themselves in that kind of a way and improving themselves and getting rid of obstacles and so and so. That’s a very concrete example, I think is very good.
Also anyone can concretely just sit, count their breath, have a distracting thought. Mind would say, “Why am I doing this?” Sometimes it’s usually criticizing yourself for what you’re doing, or that I’ll never get anywhere to do this. Or I can’t get to 10. Or even cheating. Like okay, I lost track at four. Then I’ll jump in seven, because I’ll consider that I got those out of three. People, they even cheat themselves trying to get to 10.
There will be distracting thoughts like that, and then you calm those down. But then you say, “Well then, why am I having that distracting thought?” Then find the voice in yourself that always puts you down, that always expects you not to get the best, that always expects you to fail, expects you to always be stuck in that, and find out where does that come from and look at it.
Now the trick is doing the same thing when you go to a psychotherapist in the sense that you talk to them and the push you to keep probing into your memories and things and to locate different experiences and different forms of self and different self-narratives, and help you get that improved narrative, but just took long and laborious often with them. Sometimes not, but you can do this yourself, to yourself much cheaper and actually quite quickly and effectively.
I think really a good trick that I know and some of the really best ones, I would call them insight oriented shrinks, mindful shrinks. They have the patience to do that, because they have so many they can’t – they have any scarcity of people who are frustrated and happy. They urge them to do that to accelerate the process, and I think it works very, very well. Not every case and not everybody have lived it very, very well.
[0:28:06.4] MB: In many ways, that makes me think of something we’ve talked a lot about on the podcast in the past and we’ll include this in the show notes, but we call limiting beliefs and how to root out and remove these limiting beliefs that can be holding you back, or causing you suffering in your life.
[0:28:20.1] RT: Yeah, that’s right.
[0:28:20.8] MB: We’ll put that in the show notes for listeners who are looking for some of those concrete tools. I want to circle into another topic that you talked about, Bob, which is this idea that – the concept of the experiential understanding of the nature of reality. That reality is beyond anybody’s ability to describe it. Can you tell me more about what that is and what that mean?
[0:28:42.6] RT: That’s a really fabulous thing, which can also lead and has led a lot of people to misunderstanding. That is you and I and Austin and everybody listening, we are in contact with the nature of reality all the time. Our body is touching it, ourselves are aware of it, our peripheral awareness is aware of it and so forth.
We are not attending to our contact with reality, to our own Buddha nature, you could say, where we are merged with our environment, we’re merged with others, the boundary between us and them is not so rigid. Occasionally we have like an aesthetic breakthrough and we like either delicious apple, and for a moment we just lose our mind eating that apple. That’s being in touch with the nature of reality.
The problem we have is that our conceptual apparatus is what we pay attention to. Their conceptual apparatus, all it says is apple, delicious, nice. It just has some a fewer labels. It’s latched on. We don’t cover the whole thing. They just make it fit into our preconceived idea.
Then that removes us from being in touched with the nature of reality. Therefore, some people misunderstand by thinking that, “Oh, the mind emptying meditation is the really great one, because then I won’t recognize – I won’t use my concepts and I’ll concept-free. That means I’ll be enlightened.”
Unfortunately, it’s a little more complicated, because our concepts are rooted at a deep level in the brain, in our instinct, in our culture, in our acculturation. We can suppress their manifestation briefly just by not using them, but they’re still there. They still are carving up. They happen so fast, like when you see a blue painted wall, your mind immediately sees a blue – “blue painted wall.”
Actually, your perception when you look up and see this blue surface, you don’t have code blue, but you see something. You see a surface, and actually you’re of course not seeing something out there, because buttons are bouncing off things and hitting your neurons and your brain is desperately trying to organize it, and if you’re not color blind, it organizes it into blue.
The point is, it happens so fast though the conceptual overlay, and the conceptual overlaying structure which is huge in the brain is there even when you quiet it for a while. To really liberate yourself where you can have gut experience of the whole universe, you have to use the concepts to unravel the concepts. The thing is like, in the old time when you make fire with wood, like a boy scout, when you rub a bow back and forth over a stick, or spin it with your hands, with some little dust, or a little kindling there, then the stick itself will burn.
You use the concept like a fire to stir the concepts, to where then they consume themselves and then your experience, your perceptual experience, your intuitive, direct, unmediated experience will move out into feeling at one with the things that you’re seeing and experiencing as a Buddha does.
What’s needed by that, what I love about it is yes, it’s a far development to become fully enlightened, but actually we have that full enlightenment already in ourselves, right there hidden in our fingertips. But then we don’t pay attention, because we only think we have a “fingertip,” and we don’t get down to the cellular level of experience. We don’t want to let ourselves go into that.
We feel insecure when we don’t have a description and a narrative about what we’re doing that makes us feel it’s under our control. But the problem with keeping it under out control then is boring. It’s not fulfilling. It also it’s very, very partial.
You go to a concert, or you go to a museum, or you encounter an art object, or you have a personal experience, essential experience even and some of this says, “Well, how was that, or what happened to these things?” You say, “Well, I was really blown away,” you say. What means by blown away, of course in the gangster movie is that means killed. What gets killed or blown away is once fitting once experience into a set of preconceived concepts that actually don’t allow for that much ecstasy, or that much bliss, or that much self, losing yourself in something, where you feel – makes you feel really great and you really get it.
The goal is to be like that all the time. Not meaning that they’re like dead, then you’d be like a vegetable, you wouldn’t know what was going on and you would be just wondering around, lost in the universe without knowing who you were. No.
The good thing is where you completely are aware of the network, but you’re completely free of it at the same time. Although you can use it. That’s a great thing about this experiential thing being beyond our concept. It’s know this. Shelley said, “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of mankind.” What he meant by that was that a poet sees something everybody else sees and fit into their preconceived idea. The poet sees something completely new and different, then articulates that in a poem, using some of the old concepts, but using them in a way that then the reader or the listener gets a hint of that new experience.
Then of course, that new experience then becomes a formula and a concept, which you then slap on the thing and it takes another part to come and break past that. What he meant by legislator, that they legislate the terms or more perception. The point is our habitually conceptually dominated perception is limited and it has value, of course, but it’s limited. The direct experience of things is where we go beyond that.
That’s where we – Buddha science really likes contemporary science, which is now just western of course, it’s worldwide. That they privilege the experience, which is the empirical experiment, like experience experiment and they privilege that over the theory. They say that theories are all just hypothetical accounting for previous experiences. If you have new data from new experiences and experiments, then you revise the theory.
Therefore, you don’t try to capture reality in some absolute dogma in theory. But of course, unfortunately do and they’re a particularly thing nowadays is the dogma of materialism that has no mind and no power of mind. That is self-defeating and self-limiting and unnecessary. I’m sure your audience in the topic just then shows that you’re aware of people who want to develop the mind, they want to know about mind over matter, they want to get their own minds in order and empower them and they should and they will and we have to, because it’s up to we individuals to straighten out this messed up society, planet, what have you. I won’t go into that.
One example though I like to give, because it’s my main topic nowadays is the Dalai Lama. People always wonder how he keeps up his joy, his good humor, his friendly presence and his own personal enjoyment of life, relish of life when he’s facing this empire that’s chasing him on the planet, that’s persecuting his people, that has for 60 years has been in exile and so forth, and they’ve been wrecking this country and harming his people?
He was fixing incident, he resisted. He hasn’t give into it, but he doesn’t let it destroy his daily existence and therefore, is more capable of resisting because he stays happy in spite of the adversity. How do you do that this is the direction we’re talking about? If you could do that, it seems like he can set an example for us to be able to do that like that, then we can certainly do it with whatever level of adversity we experience.
It makes you open. For example, say a bad thing happens to you in adversity and if you close on that with your concepts and your narrative about, “That’s a terrible adversity. That’s horrible, you know.” Then you’re just going to suffer. You will intensify the suffering that you already got from the adversary.
If you are more open, where what you experience will go ahead – the pay and dimension is more than whatever your identified pain is, and there is another side to it then you can find silver linings. You can make the best of it, then you can take advantage of it actually. You can use adversity to empower yourself for more success, but you can’t do that if you’re just wrapped one concept on it and get dogmatic about it and that’s it and close your mind around it.
All of the Buddha science, the masterful psychology they have for thousands of years is all about that the nature of life itself is blissful, is reality itself is something good. It’s nirvana actually. You don’t have to go off somewhere on icebox, or a vast empty space someplace for nirvana. This is nirvana. The more you’re open to reality, therefore the happier you are. The more closed you are and the more imposing of what your preconceived idea of reality is, whereas one that someone has brainwashed you into, the more miserable you will be. It’s generally the methodology, the art, the science of how to open the human mind and heart and have a happy loving life.
[0:37:53.5] MB: You’re probably listening to the show because you want to master new skills and abilities, so that you can live a rich and rewarding life. That’s why I’m excited to tell you once again about our amazing sponsor for this episode; Skillshare.
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[0:39:09.1] MB: This is a topic that fascinates me and I want to dig deeper into this. How does somebody like the Dalai Lama, mind this happiness and joy in a world that’s so full of suffering?
[0:39:17.7] RT: Well, somebody comes up and insults you. That’s bad, and you’re not happy and sorry that they felt that way. Then you will take note your inventory and you realize a lot of other people didn’t. You throw some awful stuff. Gandhi had a nice way of putting it that the Dalai Lama I know agrees with. Where he said, when something terrible happens and it’s very sad and there’s so many things he said today’s goods that are really sad. Yet, you reflect on the broader pattern of life.
If somebody killed somebody, that’s – or somebody had OD’d and died, but you didn’t think about people who didn’t hurt anybody else. Somebody who helped that old lady across the street, somebody helps somebody carry their package, somebody who returned a – the other day I lost my laptop in a cab. Mohammad brought it back and he didn’t even want a reward. We had to contact him. We had to tell him how to contact us. I didn’t have to find my Mac, which I hadn’t turned that on, but we did locate him finally and they told him where to bring it, and he just rushed right back with it.
Like a 3.5 grand laptop and he didn’t want a reward. I’ve seen things like – then somebody else stole stuff. I lost this. I got ripped off on that. A lot of people who did rip me off. In other words, the Dalai Lama counts his blessings. He doesn’t deny his sufferings and he resists and he speaks out and he fights, non-violently fights to try to right the wrongs. He’s very honest and can be very blunt and so forth and can be unpopular when he has to take a stand sometimes, but he counts his blessings.
He looks at a flower on his way to a meeting where he’s going to be told, “You can’t get a Visa to go see your old friend on his 80th birthday.” He then sees the flower and he realizes his friend is looking on a flower. In other words, you brought your attitude and your orientation and you don’t fixate on the bad things, but you don’t – and you do that without just trying to live in denial of them.
In other words, you embrace that they’re there and you resist that, and you also you even are motivated not to be only focused on the bad things, because you know if you do that, you will get bad and you will be totally ineffective doing anything about it.
As you know, when you’re miserable, you’re very ineffective in dealing with people or anything. When you’re really happy, not in a hysterical way, but in a zingy way, then you’re really skilled. You can help someone overcome a tantrum, a kid who is so focused because they want that candy bar and out the window you get them thinking about Big Bird or something, or is looking out the horse out there distracting him. You’re really skillful and humorous about it, because you feel good. You share your good feelings automatically.
Therefore, it isn’t just a selfish thing. It’s a motivation to resist the bad is to be happy about the good. Then they’ll make you better able to resist the bad, because you have stronger motivation and more skill.
When someone loses their temper, then psychological studies they lose – I don’t know how they came with that exact figure, but they say they lose 85% of their judgment about how to mend, or how to deal with the situation that they’re so mad about. They had that bull in China shop that crash into stuff, they break things, they say things they didn’t mean, they overdo it, they got a big out reaction to tell the person they were trying to do something with. That’s how he does it.
[0:42:33.5] MB: I think I’ve heard a similar anecdote about the Dalai Lama, but it reminds almost when you’re on an airplane and they say you have to put your own oxygen mask on first before you can help somebody else.
[0:42:43.4] RT: That’s right. That’s right. You got that. That’s a good one. That’s really good. Love is like that. You have to be happy yourself already to have genuine, according to Buddhist psychology, define love. Meaning, not that just possessive wish, but the wish for the happiness of the beloved. Because how can you wish for someone’s happiness if you have no touch with happiness yourself? In other words, “I want you to be happy, I’m so miserable.” No, that won’t work. Then say, “Well, thanks a lot. But that doesn’t make me happy.”
[0:43:15.9] MB: Another topic that I’m fascinated with is the relationship between, or the idea of the illusion that we’re our own isolated egos oppose the universe and the reality of the interconnectedness of everything.
[0:43:27.4] RT: Right, right. Well, that’s what you’re talking about there is the second noble truth, or second noble fact taught by the Buddha, which is the fundamental miswiring of a human, come from probably many previous existences as a lesser intelligent animal that I’m the only absolute thing around here. Other lives are – I could be in the matrix and they could just be illusions and I’m the only real one.
Therefore, most important to me and that’s the one that puts you in this hopeless situation of suffering, of frustration. Because nobody else will agree, universe doesn’t agree, not just people, but germs, heavy objects that falls down over mountainside, the earthquakes, fires, they all don’t agree that you’re the most important.
When you’re up against death, there is all that. As long as that’s your thing, you’re going to be miserable. That’s a second noble fact. That’s a far for a noble person, noble being defined by a more altruistic, more well-connected, more relativized person. But nirvana, the third noble truth is the fact that the universe is empty of any non-relational entity. There is no such entity that is relevant to the universe that is not related to it. That’s all that empty just means. Empty does not mean it’s faced like a nothing, that’s like space. Nothing is not a space either. Nothing is actually nothing.
Point is that Buddha’s discovery 2,500 years ago anticipated Mr. Einstein, Dr. Einstein’s one of one a century ago or so. That is that relativity, because the great teaching of emptiness itself is this is a teaching of relativity. It teaches that you are totally interrelated, I am totally interrelated. We are a nexus of interrelationship of all that’s around us, space and time and we are a work in progress, and that does not disable us from being – making ourselves best work we can, making ourselves a work of art.
Which is there is apparently no limit, because the unlimited work of art is Buddha actually. Buddha’s manifestations are a work of art, and we’re having life itself becomes art. Because it’s all related and so there is infinite energy to be drawn on, there is infinite opportunities, there is also a lot of negativities, but all the negativities are weaker than the opportunities, because the negativities come from living beings thinking they got to just get out from number one, and then therefore each of them only has one small master, which is themselves, their ego, their little ego.
Whereas, the more altruistic ones, the more enlightened ones, they are serving everybody else. They draw energy from the need of infinite number of others, not just their own needs. They’re much stronger in the long run. Even in the short run, if one understands the short run. That’s what I was like to say, Buddha turned the old adage of ignorant people on its head. Their old adage being ignorance is bliss, implying they don’t want to really know reality, because it would be too unpleasant.
In the Buddha’s case he says, “No. Ignorance is the cause of suffering and reality is bliss.” Therefore, when you understand reality, you will know your own bliss, which you already have. The final really weird one that I’m loving more and more is that since I still I’m not that blissful, I’m busy, busy, busy, but although I love it, I love being busy with bliss, but it’s still not that blissful, because I’m still stupid.
The point is that the bliss that I will eventually find of nirvana, which would be Buddhahood is my own bliss that I already have. It’s just that I have blocks in me from really knowing it. It’s not some remote thing, exotic thing I have to go to Mt. Everest to find. It is me. We’re made of it, and you too, we all are.
That’s really encouraging, I think actually. Rather than all these big put-outs. Reality sucks, you suck. There’s some guy outside, like a God or something, or at least minimally nothing that will anesthetic for you, is like space out in. Instead of all those put-downs is like, reality is bliss, you’re made of bliss, you have the intelligence to get rid of the walls and blocks between you and knowledge of yourself, your habitual identity and knowledge of yourself. It’s very cool. Be happy. How about it?
Now, you go to go.
[0:47:41.3] MB: Yeah, we’re out of time, but that remind me of one of the fundamental conclusions of modern physics essentially is the same idea that every single thing in the universe exists interdependent of everything else, and that you would completely inseparable. You can’t ever really see one thing, except as a connected or relationship in some former fashion to everything else that’s ever existed in space and time.
[0:48:06.0] RT: Absolutely. The false thing was to doing to run away from the inquisition in the church, which I applaud them doing. But still, the idea that all those relative things, the one thing that’s excluded is the mind of the living being. That’s unnecessary. The mind is just super subtle awareness, and actually it is that with which we can go beyond the way of particle paradox into the area of Heisenberg on certain the principle, into the plenum of infinite energy of the vacuum, where everything is happening, but where we can’t reach conceptually.
We can work on the surface with probabilities and statistics and invent wonderful magnificent things. But our mind is this one that is – can reach that completely, seemingly inaccessible, non-objective, Copenhagen interpretation in forced real, which is the constitutive realm of reality of infinite energy, with no need for any scarcity or deprivation of anybody.
They should get over not having that be part of their world. I love this when Henry Stapp, a great senior and magnificent quantum physics guy, who explained to me for finally for the first time I finally figured out what was wrong, why the whole science wasn’t brought back into a thing of being accepting the presence of mind and nature by the Copenhagen declaration of Bohr and Heisenberg, because Einstein rebelled against it.
That’s not an innocent, as a harmful statement that God does not play dice with the universe. He harmed himself because he said he wouldn’t accept that there was a non-objective reality that was a deep energy level, but it was you can’t grab in there with any kind of observation, mechanical observation, because the observing act disturbs what you’re observing. The mind that observes is engaged with the object served. There is no absolute objectivity and theory can’t reach them.
He then freaked out about that and said, “I’m going to come up with a grand unified theory.” Ran back to Princeton, got himself a big grant and never did come up with such a theory, because there is no need for that theory, because we rather need the experience. It’s waiting there for all the scientists to get it.
Actually, Dalai Lama had been a big help in having these dialogues with them, and without being too pushy about any spiritualist or religious business with them, and just talking with them on a rational scientific level. A number of them have really gotten into it beautifully. Richie David and these kind of people, they’re really great. I’m sure you have them on your show, or I should think so.
[0:50:39.7] MB: Well, Bob. This has been a fascinating conversation and there’s so many other avenues and roads and things that I want to dig into, but I know we’re out of time. For listeners who want to do some research, find you and what you do online, what is the best ways for them to find you?
[0:50:53.6] RT: Bobthurman.com. That’s www.bobthurman.com. There is like a 100 some podcast on that, and there is a lot of stuff there. Access to my books and the one I’m promoting nowadays is the Man of Peace, which is a illustrated novel biography of its own, the Dalai Lama 80 years of life. It’s like a giant comic book. It’s lot of fun.
He’s a new mutant actually. He hasn’t beaten the bad guys yet, but he will, because he’s doing non-violence and that will win over this ridiculous, self-defeating violence that no one can really use.
[0:51:29.7] MB: Well, Bob thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing all these wisdom, so many interesting insights. It was great to have you on here.
[0:51:35.3] RT: Thank you, Matt. I enjoyed talking with you and another time I’d be happy to, and I’ll try to be on time. Take care.
[0:51:41.4] MB: Thank you so much for listening to the Science of Success. We created this show to help you, our listeners master evidence-based growth. I love hearing from listeners. If you want to reach out, share your story or just say hi, shoot me an e-mail. My email is matt@successpodcast.com. That's M-A-T-T@successpodcast.com. I'd love to hear from you and I read and respond to every single listener e-mail.
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December 28, 2017 /Lace Gilger
The Ancient Molecule You Can Use To Unlock Peak Performance with Dr. Paul Zak
November 02, 2017 by Lace Gilger in Mind Expansion
In this episode we discuss the groundbreaking research behind the ancient molecule that fuels peak performance, the foundations of neuroeconomics, how our brains react during social interactions, we examine how our brains are designed to connect and built to work cooperatively, we dig into the power of oxytocin and how you can increase it in your life, and much more with Dr. Paul Zak.
Dr. Paul Zak is founding Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies and Professor of Economics, Psychology, and Management at Claremont Graduate University. He was also among the team of scientists who were the first to use brain imaging to identify the role of oxytocin as a key driver of trust, love, and morality that distinguish our humanity. Paul is the author of the new book Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies and has appeared on ABC World News, CNN, Fox Business, and more.
Paul founded the field of Neuroeconomics - what is that?
How are humans able to interact with total strangers when that is impossible in the animal kingdom?
How do our brains balance the risks of meeting a stranger vs the benefits of increased social influence?
Our brains live in this soup of chemicals, none of which we are aware of consciously
How Paul’s groundbreaking research transformed what scientists thought about the production of oxytocin and how humans build trust
Testosterone inhibits oxytocin synthesis
People are complicated, its important to have alot of acceptance
Oxytocin is an on/off switch
Paul challenges the listeners to a fight!
Our brains naturally help us adapt to the environment we are in
How do we get people in groups to perform at their highest level
How you can train your brain to release more oxytocin
Learn how to read the emotional state of the people around you
“All research is me-search”
How “listening with your eyes” can help boost your oxytocin and help you become more in sync with people
The “evil trick” you can use to get tons of information when you meet someone (it’s NOT what you expect!)
Our brains are designed to connect, we want to be connected. We are naturally open to touch. Our brains are built to work cooperatively.
Strategies you can use in your daily life to increase your oxytocin
How companies can measure and manage their culture for high trust and high performance
The 8 key building blocks leaders can use to build trust and improve high performance
Paul focuses on measuring brain activity and use that to solve real problems that humans have.
Its all about empowering humans to be their best selves
The neuroscience firmly demonstrates the power and vital importance of sleep
How you can implement concrete changes to get the biggest bang for your buck in building a culture of high performance
We trust people more who are their real, vulnerable, natural selves
Why you should replace “how was your weekend” with “hey you look really <insert emotion on their face>” to build deeper relationships
Almost no human can survive on their own - we only survive in groups - we must understand how to engage the groups that we are constantly around
Science predicts, and data strongly supports, that people want to be and enjoy being part of high performance groups
Relationships are super important
Why isn’t work an adventure? How can we make a work an adventure
Connecting, touching, giving a gift - give the gift of connection, empowerment, love, to someone around you
Effective social behaviors are rooted in SERVICE and serving others
[Book] Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies by Paul J. Zak
[Book] The Moral Molecule: How Trust Works by Paul J. Zak
[Website] Ofactor
[Personal Site] Paul J. Zak
[Video] Paul Zak: Trust, morality - and oxytocin
[Video] TEDxAmsterdam 2012: Paul J Zak - The Biology of Good and Evil
[HBR Article] The Research Is Clear: Long Hours Backfire for People and for Companies by Sarah Green Carmichael
[Wiki Page] Peter Drucker
In this episode we discuss the groundbreaking research behind the ancient molecule that fuels peak performance, the foundations of the neuro-economics, how our brains react during social interactions. We examine how our brains are designed to connect and build to work cooperatively. We dig into the power of oxytocin and how you can increase it in your life, and much more with Dr. Paul Zak.
I’m going to give you three reasons why you should join our email list today by going to successpodcast.com and signing up right on the homepage. First; you’re going to get an awesome free guide that we create based on listener demand. This is our most popular guide, it’s called How to Organize and Remember Everything. You can get it completely for free along with another sweet surprise bonus guide when you sign up today by joining the email list.
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In our previous episode, we discussed how to use mind control techniques to create any habit you want. Why we’re driven much more by pain than pleasure. We looked at the Hook Model for describing human behavior, talked about how to hack your reward to change your behavior, and the power of tiny amounts of friction and much more with our guest, Nir Eyal. If you want to hack your behavior to make or break any habit, listen to that episode.
[0:02:30.8] MB: Today, we have another exciting guest on the show; Dr. Paul Zak. Paul is the founding director of the Center for Neuroecoomics Studies and a professor of economics, psychology and management at Claremont Graduate University. He was also among the team of scientists who are the first to use brain imaging to identify the role of oxytocin as they key driver of trust, love and morality that distinguishes our humanity. Paul is the author of the new book Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High Performance Companies and has appeared on ABC World News, CNN, Fox Business and more.
[0:03:04.4] PZ: Matt Bodnar, great to be on with you.
[0:03:06.5] MB: We’re super excited to have you on today. For listeners who may not be familiar with you and your background, I’d love to go back and start with kind of your story and some of the early experiments that you did that really uncovered the power and the role of oxytocin.
[0:03:22.5] PZ: Sure. I’m a very confused person. I have spent both the economics and neuroscience in both my training and my research help start this field called neuro-economics that we could talk about a bit.
Anyway, one of the kind of deep questions that I’ve been studying for almost 20 years now is the role of interpersonal trust in explaining why countries perform better, why companies perform better, why individuals have more friends, are happier. As part of this quest, I was looking for a signal on the brain that would tell us essentially why we can live around strangers all the time. If we think of our closest genetic relatives; chimpanzees, they don’t like other members of their species they don’t know.
I just came back to Atlanta a couple of days and I spent six hours on a metal tube with 150 other humans being dowsed around. You put chimpanzees on a metal tube, don’t even bounce them, put them in a metal tube and you see fur and blood to be all over the floor. How do we do that? How do we get a sense that you met wonderful human being, fun to hang out with you and your producer are often clearly a sketchy dude, don’t want to be around him. We have to have something in our heads that say, “Matt is safe. Austin, not so much.” Otherwise we can’t live in New York City or any big place we don’t know people all the time.
Basically, the punch line is the secret to my success has been to read research and animals and figure out a way to apply that to human. We began running experiments in which we could have people share money with each other, and that money would grow if they shared it, but then they would lose control over it. Animals have been shown that when an animal encounters another member of a specie that it recognizes, usually by smell, think of this in a burrow. I ran into Matt in a burrow and I sniff and I can say, “Oh, that’s Matt. I know him. He’s awesome.” And so my brain makes this chemical oxytocin and it motivates me to affiliate with you so we can — I’d love to stay warm, we can protect each other, we can hangout, we can dig in the burrow, whatever we’re doing. Then if I smell an Austin coming in, then I’m like, “Oh, no! Fear response, aggression. I’ve got to battle this guy.”
It turns out that the same signal works in humans. In fact, it works in overdrive in humans that when someone intentionally trusts us or more generally shows us a kindness, our brain make this chemical, oxytocin, and it motivates us to invest effort into helping that person.
If you think about this from an evolutionary perspective, the cost and benefit of being around strangers are not always clear. The cost of being around a stranger is that person might hurt me, might steal from me, could be dangerous, but the benefit is that I might find a project to do with him or her or I might be romantically attracted to that person or I might have that person join my circle of friends.
Our brains are constantly balancing the benefits that come with building more social relationships with a cost of having the wrong person or people in those relationships. Oxytocin seems to be a key part of that signaling mechanism in the brain.
[0:06:43.4] MB: I love the focus on looking at the animal kingdom and trying to understand how do these parallels play out in human behavior. One of the things that we talk about all the time on the show is how evolution has shaped the human brain, and it’s done a lot of good but it’s also baked in these cognitive biases and traps that we fall into. Tell me a little bit more about how that drove your research.
[0:07:11.0] PZ: Yeah, I guess the major focus of my research in the last 20 years has been — I’ll just tell you that in a second, but I just had this socialization for talent development big HR meeting in Atlanta and I gave a keynote there and I started out by saying, “None of us will be ever out of a job, because the humans are complicated.”
My talk was about how to understand some of that complication. By complicated I mean that if we run an experiment and we have people do a particular task and you put 20 people doing that task, you’ll get 15 different brain responses, not just behaviors, but brain response.
As you sort of suggested, Matt, the selection pressure for higher cognitive abilities evolutionary has been very weak and so we see high variation in how people respond to different environments, and those manifest as cognitive biases, the use of heuristics. Our brains live in this super chemicals none of which we’re aware of consciously.
A lot of the work we’ve done changes that chemical soup and then we can map out how that changes responses to a particular choice, and I do think choice is an interesting place to focus on because eventually all the information you take in — Not all of it, but a lot of it, boils down to doing something with it, which ends up being a choice. Much of my work has focused on where that variation in decisions comes from, and there are sort of trivial variations, male, female, young, old. There are also super interesting weird variations like I test you, Matt, today, and then I test you a week later to do the same thing and your brain and your behavior are totally different. I want to know why that’s the case.
[0:09:05.3] MB: I think that’s another really important point, which is that this chemical soup as you called it or super chemicals is something that’s taking place in our brains that we are not consciously aware of.
[0:09:16.4] PZ: Yet because our brains produce language, there’s this expectation that we have kind of insight into the brains inter-workings. In fact, what [inaudible 0:09:27.7] we always ask people, “Why do you do this? Do you think this was an interesting choice?” The whole reason we started measuring brain activity, honestly, was because people’s modal response to most experiment stimuli was, “Oh, I don’t know why I did this.”
It’s pretty hard to build a theory of human behavior on I don’t know. Other than that it’s like having you eat a hamburger and saying — Asking your liver how it’s processing that beef. Your liver can’t tell you. Honestly, your brain can’t really tell you. I can force you to say something to me, because I know you can create some language. It doesn’t mean it has any insight into what is going on.
Most of what your brain does, perhaps 99%, is in fact unconscious, and there’s a good reason for that that we could talk about. We’re not just aware of what we’re doing, and that’s okay. It just means that people are complicated.
[0:10:21.0] MB: Let’s bring this back. Tell me about — You mentioned some of the early experiments that you did with trust and with money, what were the results of that and what did that teach you about Oxytocin?
[0:10:33.1] PZ: Right. In humans prior to the experiments we started running around 2002, the brain was only known to make oxytocin when humans gave birth, breastfed or had sex. All three of those activities are way too messy for me to run in my lab. I don’t want to get involved.
Based on the animal literature, we thought that if someone intentionally trusts you, your brain would produce oxytocin, maybe, and maybe that oxytocin would impact your behavior. In fact, that’s we found. We found that the more someone intentionally trusts you with money, but with other stuff we show subsequently, the more your brain produce oxytocin, which is a very rapid signal in the brain. It has about a three-minute half life, so it’s like a quick on and off switch. It says, “Oh, this guy is cool. He wants to play nice. I’ll make this chemical.” And oxytocin predicted how much money people would reciprocate to someone who trusted them.
It’s not only that we respond to positive overtures from strangers. It’s that this chemical motivates us to engage with them in a cooperative way. I think of oxytocin as the biological basis for the golden rule. If you play nice with me, most of the time I’m going to play nice with you. Of course, most of the time is where the rubber hits the road. We spent about 10 years classifying the factors that inhibit or promote oxytocin release, and we really, really know this, because we also developed a way to shoot synthetic oxytocin into living human brains safely, and in that case we can erratically increase the amount of trust, generosity, cooperation that people have.
[0:12:09.0] MB: Tell me about some of these factors that inhibit or promote oxytocin release.
[0:12:13.4] PZ: Let’s talk about your producer, Austin. Why is he a sketchy guy? Because he’s a young alpha male. I’m looking at his picture right now. Look at that guy. He’s a specimen. He’s got a very high testosterone, and testosterone has been shown to inhibit oxytocin synthesis. Indeed, when we run experiments, when we give men synthetic oxytocin, we create a bunch of Austins, and sure enough they are more self-focused. They are more entitled. They demand more from others. They offer less to others. It’s all about them.
I can tell you a nice evolutionary story on why between 15 to 25, young male should be aggressive and think only about themselves, but nonetheless that’s the factor. You have pretty reliable markers for testosterone levels, hairiness, deep voice, long chin, but we don’t know second to second how much testosterone is in our system, because like every other neuro-chemical system in the body, it’s adapting second by second to help us survive or reproduce.
Other factors we find in women, estrogen levels which vary twice over the course of a month over a women’s menstrual cycle. Estrogen increases the uptake of oxytocin. For listeners who are female or who have girlfriends or wives, when you go to the movies with them and every once in a while for seemingly no reason they cry at the Bambi movie, they could be that they’re just more sensitive to oxytocin, which increases our sense of empathy and caring, and that may be driven by changes in estrogen levels. Progesterone, which increases when women are ovulating or pregnant, inhibits the action of oxytocin. High stress inhibits oxytocin release.
Again, normally, I maybe want to affiliate and meet with Matt and hangout, but if I’m under high stress, then I’m in survival mode and I’m less interested in hanging out with new people and more interested in getting to the next 10 minutes. Anyway, whole variety of factors that we’ve been able to characterize, affect the way we are. Again, I may run into you down the street, Matt, and not know that you’re super stressed out and you treat me like a jerk and I say, “Oh! Matt’s a real jerk,” and what I didn’t know was that your dog just died or you just got in a car accident or something stressful really happened to you and you’re just having a bad day.
I think for listeners, the punch line I’ve learned for doing this for 20 years is that not only are people are complicated, but it’s important to have a lot of acceptance for the degree of complication that the people around also aren’t even aware they’re giving off. We’re complicated and we’re unaware that we’re complicated. I think the only way to go through life is just to be accepting and just to say, “Hey, it’s not that Matt is a bad guy. He might have just had a bad day or a bad week, and that’s okay. I don’t want to rule him out from ever interacting with him. There’re maybe a lot of good things that I could do with Matt.” So I become much more accepting and tolerant of people around me. How about that?
[0:15:23.5] MB: If I’m somebody that cries all the time at a movie, does that mean that I have a higher sensitivity to oxytocin or that I have higher sort of natural oxytocin levels?
[0:15:33.1] PZ: Yeah. Oxytocin, it’s a really on-off switch, so it’s not a level of response. It’s a change from baseline. I’ll tell you something embarrassing about myself. I’m going to answer that question with a story. We’ve done a lot of work on persuasion and storytelling, and I know you’ve worked a lot in marketing, Matt, so we could talk about that.
We started doing this work because I was on an airplane coming home from Washington, D.C., and my kids were little — I have two little girls, and I was tired and I couldn’t work, because it was turbulent. So I was watching The Million Dollar Baby, this Clint Eastwood movie, which I had never seen, and it’s a father-daughter story, has a very sad ending. The next thing I know, the guy next to me on the plane is poking me saying, “Sir, do you need some help. Is something wrong with you?” Not only was I crying, like every orifice in my face was shooting out goo. It was really embarrassing.
When I got back to my lab, I mentioned that to some of the people I worked with, and I said, “You know, I was cognitively attacked. Maybe I was a little tired or lonely, but I knew I where I was. I knew this is a fictional story and yet I was so absorbed in that story that I couldn’t help but cry at the movies.” It turns out, since I had children, I become much more of a movie crier, and there’s a reason for that. As you age, your testosterone goes down, so the relative effect of oxytocin goes up. When you commit a relationship, your testosterone falls. When you have children, your testosterone falls. I don’t have data for this, but in my personal experience, if you have girl children, you pick out little dresses everyday of your life, your testosterone goes to zero. You become a big girly man.
Again, there’s probably a good adaptive story evolutionary and why that’s the case. For the guys listening, if you’re in a relationship or have children or have girl children, don’t worry, all of us men have this high octane version of testosterone, which has the initials DHT. It has a long name behind it. DHT, you can turn on in a second. I’m making a joke, because I’m 6”4’, 205 , I’m not a girly man, but I am very sensitive now because I have kids. I wasn’t before I had kids. If you want to mix it up with me, I’m happy to do that. I can turn on the DHT like nobody’s business. Anyway, I’m kind of making jokes here.
It does mean that our brains are helping us adapt to the environment we’re in, and the part of that is the social environment. Again, if you’re around children, if you’re around women and you need to be more sensitive, a lot more oxytocin and less sort of testosterone-driven, your brain will adapt to that. These systems are very adaptive even in adults, and so the more able you are to connect to people, the more you release oxytocin, the more you are in tune with the emotional state of people around you, which is also a very effective tool to have.
I don’t know about you guys who are young, Matt and Austin, but when I was — Under 30, I couldn’t tell you the emotion of anybody around me. I didn’t really care. I was just like driving a thousand miles an hour in everything that I did. Now, I’m much more socially aware and I think that I’m a better social creature to people around me. Anyway, it’s a kill you can develop. If a big stupid jock like me can do it, then you guys can certainly can do it.
[0:18:46.7] MB: I think you’re maybe the first guest to challenge the listeners to a fight, which I think is pretty funny.
[0:18:52.7] PZ: I’m ready, man. Come on! I like, Matt, that you talk in your blog about performance. I think one of the most interesting things — I’m cutting you off. I’m sorry. I love high performance. I think that’s — The current work I’m doing is really focusing on how do we get people in groups to perform at their highest levels? I think it’s a really interesting and hard problem. I don’t know if you want to go there, but maybe that’s the pitch for why I’m still a — Like all of us who are men. We’re still kind of like 18-year-old doofusses, because we just want to do super cool stuff all the time, right? Let’s be honest.
Women too, and a lot of women are really high performers. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be sexist there, but I don’t know. I can’t think of anything more interesting than knocking a baseball out of a park or jumping out of an airplane. I don’t know. I just love that stuff.
[0:19:42.8] MB: I definitely want to dig into that. Before we do, I want to dig out a little bit more about oxytocin. Tell me what are some things — You mentioned kind of dosing people with oxytocin in your lab. What are some ways we can naturally increase our oxytocin levels. Is that something you would recommend, or would you even recommend potentially trying to take oxytocin?
[0:20:03.5] PZ: On the later, it’s a no. Oxytocin is a prescription drug. You cannot get it without a prescription from a physician. There are homeopathic versions sold on the internet, which are of course are just bogus. Don’t waste your money buying Liquid Trust or some other company that claims that there’s one part per bazillion of oxytocin. There’s nothing in there that have an effect.
In fact, when we do experiments, we’d put about two teaspoons of oxytocin up your nose to get into your brain. It turns out the nose is a good portal to the brain for physiologic reasons. Two teaspoons of fluid up your nose is not really pleasant. Yeah. Really for research only. There have been a number of clinical trials that have looked at Oxytocin infusion for things like autism, schizophrenia and basically the effects are really, really mild, because the larger brain system that oxytocin activates is just regulated or damaged in these patients.
Taking oxytocin, not a good idea, but training yourself, training your brain to release more of it, probably a good idea, because it will make you a better social creature, it will make you more empathic to people around you, which means you can read the key source of information, which is their emotional state.
Again, when I was 18 or 30 or something, I wasn’t really good at reading people’s emotional states and I ran over people a lot. As you can tell, I talk fast, I have high energy, I move fast, and a lot of people, that’s not an effective to interact with them. Now that I’m a little older, and this saying in psychology that all research is me search, so maybe I had issues and that’s why I studied this chemical that makes us better social creatures.
Now, I’m much more in tune with people around me — How they’re responding to me, how they are responding to the environment. I’ve trained myself to release more oxytocin, and I know that because I do a lot of experiments on myself, because I have a lab.
Some things you can do are — Gosh! There’s so many that we’ve shown experimentally. One of my favorites is called listening with your eyes. I’m actually looking at your picture, Matt, even though we’re only on audio. When I’m talking, I’m actually making eye contact with you. Next time you’re with some friends or with your romantic partner, if you put down your phone, there are no screens in front of you and you gave that person in front of you your full attention. If you listen with your eyes, you’re giving this person the gift of being fully present in that conversation, and we’ve shown that when you do this, release oxytocin, that person becomes more in tune with you.
Dogs actually do this to us. Dogs make eye gaze and cause our brains to make oxytocin. Other things you can do include things like touch. If people have ever seen my TED Talk, at the end of that I gave a person, the audience a hug. I got outed as a hugger, and now I just hug everybody. I go into a business meeting and if people want to shake hands, I say, “Hey, I hug everybody. I’m a connection guy.”
Boy! People’s faces light up and all of the sudden I’ve got a ton of information from you. It’s almost an evil trick for listeners. If you hug somebody, you get smell information, you get touch information, you’ve invaded their space for 10 seconds or whatever, 5 seconds. It’s a great way to accelerate the connection that you’re trying to build somebody. What I do is I pre-announce. I just say I hug everybody.
Maybe 1% of humans I’ve interacted with in the last seven years were refused a hug, because they’re socially anxious or they’re super old or whatever, but everybody else is happy to get a hug. Yeah, touch, really important.
Sharing a meal, actually eating with another person will release oxytocin. There are tons of things. I will go through more, but I certainly have a top 20 list I can go through.
[0:23:51.7] MB: No, I think those are some great resources. I love the evil trick of hugging people. I’ve even heard something sort of similar on a scaled on version, which is that you should never fist bump, you should always do a hand shake, because a handshake releases more oxytocin for both people and kind of forms a deeper connection.
[0:24:08.3] PZ: I don’t think that’s even proved, but presumably. If you’re shaking my hand, I’m going to do a two hand and I’m going to pull you in anyways. Here’s the thing. It seems weird in a way like, “Oh, that’s just a funky, weird dude in California.” In fact, our brains are designed to connect. We want to be connected. We’re really open to touch.
Like when you play sports when you’re younger, I think the only place you can hit a guy in the butt and not get punched in the face is on a sports field, right? There’s a sense of teamwork that goes into — Or team building that goes into touch. I want to just accelerate that process because, again, I’m interested in high performance and anything I can do, any hack I can use to get the people’s brains around me to connect better to me, it means we’re going to form a more effective team.
[0:25:00.4] MB: Let’s dig into that now. Tell me what has your research uncovered around how we can build more high performance teams.
[0:25:07.7] PZ: Yeah, the short back story on that, Matt, was that, as you know, we got kind of fair amount of media attention around this work on trust and oxytocin because it was brand new. No one had shown this before. We’ve got protocols to measure oxytocin in humans and, as I said, infuse into the brains.
Eventually, companies started coming to my lab saying, “Hey, we think trust is important in our organization. Could you tell us how to build trust?” My first response, because I’m a nerd, was, “Yeah, we have this protocol. I can draw blood from your employees and I’ll measure their oxytocin,” and these executive’s faces turned white, they’re like, “There’s no way you can take blood from our employees.” Then I started thinking, “Gosh! If I’m such an expert on trust, how come I can’t advice companies on what they can do to build trust?”
We started running experiments in my lab on teams. We eventually got permission to actually go in and take blood from companies like Zapos and Herman Miller and measure brain activity and measure productivity, innovation. We really got objective data on the conditions within organizations that allowed them to build trust, and we showed that high trust organization perform better using multiple measures. Then we went back and developed a tool and actually spun out a company called Ofactor so that companies can measure and manage their culture for high trust and high performance. Now we have a survey that identifies or both measures organizational trust and identifies these eight key building blocks that leaders can influence that create higher trust.
The sort of punch line of that work is once I can measure trust within your organization, then you can manage it for high performance. If you can’t measure, you can’t manage. Because humans create culture whenever you put them in groups, if leaders on organizations don’t manage their cultures, those cultures are going to manage them.
The humans are going to work out norms of behavior, and either you can let them go and just figure whatever it is it is, or you can manage that culture for high performance in a consistent way using the way our brains respond to each other.
I think thinking about people that work as brains at work, embodied brains, in which our brains are built to work cooperatively, I want to use neuroscience again to optimize how I’m deploying resources and getting the most out of these individuals. It turns out that people want to perform in high levels, almost everybody, and if you put them in situation in which they can’t perform which they have the freedom to execute as they see fit when they get a lot of coaching so they can hit performance goals and then are recognized when they achieve those goals, people dig it and they perform better, they stay at their jobs longer, they’re happier, they’re healthier. That’s the work I’ve done in the last 8 years or so, and it’s fun for me because I get to work at scale now.
The clinical work we’ve done is really exciting. It’s great to help patients, and it’s very rewarding, but if we go into a company and we change the work life for the better for 10,000 people or 20,000 people, that’s super exciting to me.
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[0:29:48.0] MB: I love that point that our brains are designed to connect with each other and they’re built naturally to work cooperatively.
[0:29:55.6] PZ: Yeah, and if we don’t inhibit that, it will happen. The question is it doesn’t happen in a way that is sustaining. It think if you remember like econ 101, we were sold this bill of goods from — I don’t know, like the 19th century or something that work provides this utility. The reason you have to pay for them at work, is because work sucks so much. But I know, Matt, that you dig what you do. I can tell, because I read your bio and we chatted beforehand.
We’re recoding to Memorial Day. I’m all about doing cool stuff. I don’t care if it’s Memorial Day. I want to talk to you. I think it’s awesome. Why am I “working” on a holiday? Because it’s not work for me. It’s the coolest thing on the planet to measure brain activity, for me, to measure brain activity and use that to solve real problems that humans have.
Yeah, if you understand that we’re set up to work in teams or we’ve done this for eons, don’t screw it up. Try to create an environment where people can really deploy that passion, that energy in an effective way.
By the way, in my new book Trust Factor, as you mentioned, there’s a ton of ton of Peter Drucker in there. I was on a faculty with Peter Drucker at Claremont Graduate University for 10 years before he passed away, and Peter really influenced me, and Peter was all over this stuff, like in the 50s and 60s. It’s really about empowering the humans within an organization to be their best selves in groups, to get them stretch goals, to challenge them, go give them a chance to grow.
There’s a ton of Drucker in the book as well and it’s just super practical. Every chapter ends with — In homage to Peter Drucker who famously said, “Don’t tell me what a great meeting you had. Tell me what you’re going to do differently on Monday.”
I have a Monday morning list after every chapter. There’s a list of five things to do on Monday, and I say these are all experiments. No one knows for sure if these principles, even though they’ve been worked out in lots of different companies. They worked on my laboratory. If they work in any particular organization, because every organization had its own little weird quirks. They’re just experiments, and if you pitch it to people you work with and say, “You know what? I read this book.” We think it’s going to be awesome if we move to a four 10 hours a day instead of five eight-hour days. We’re going to try it for six months and see what you guys think and you give us feedback. If that helps marshal your energy so that you can do your other crap you need to do on a Friday or whenever and not take up a work, I want you to be all in.
For example, I talk about this in the book, the importance of sleep is just really been shown clearly from a neurologic perspective. In a bunch of companies, you use something called firm 40. That is office opens at 8. At 5:05 the parking lot should be empty. I want you to be full bore for eight hours and then get the hell out and take a rest, see your family, go recreate, whatever you want to do, versus places I’ve worked, for example, where the boss is late for 8 p.m. Yeah, you screw around during the day, because you know you’re working a 12-hour day and you got to — Whatever, get your laundry or go on Facebook or whatever people do at work.
I want people to be in 100% or as close to 100% as like Dan, and culture is a way to do that, to set up these normal norms where people are challenged and can respond with their best selves.
[0:33:17.6] MB: There was a recent HBR article that talked about — I think it was something about how people who worked more than 40 hours a week actually started at some point to become less productive than people who just worked 40 hours, which I thought was really interesting.
I also love your perspective as viewing everything as an experiment and just trying it out. I think that’s a great framework for implementing any change in your life and especially it changes in business, but I think that’s a really insightful way to view all of these potential strategies.
[0:33:48.7] PZ: I think so, and I think if you’re honest with people that you work with — By the way, I don’t like the word worker or employee, I never that use that — Colleague or teammate. If you talk to your colleagues and say, “Hey, you know, we did this survey and we found that the culture isn’t as good as we like it to be, and we’re going to try a couple of new things for six months or 12 months as an experiment, but I think it’s going to be awesome for you guys. If it’s not, look, we’ll try something else. We just want to make your time here as engaging and as valuable to you as possible. If it’s valuable to you, it’s going to improve the performance of the company.”
I have to suppress the name of this company, but we did a kickoff of a — Once you have the data, you can intervene. We’ve created culture interventions for companies to use and I did a kickoff at a company recently, and I was talking to the employees and I said, “Look, you may not think this is going to make your work-life better, but please give it a try. You’re going to get some little animated videos, we’re going to ask you some questions, we’re going to do this for 60 days, which is what about it takes to change a habit.
It’s basically a habit change. It changes the way you interact with people at work. Guess what? If you actually try to change your behavior, it will improve your home life as well, because all these behaviors are good for all the humans around you. If you want to be happier at home, if you want your relationship, romantic relationship to be better, if you want your kids to be performing better and your workmates to be a more effective teammates to you, here are some behaviors you can do to make that happen.
It’s got to be like a win-win space, right? If it’s like so many times at work, right? You know there’s some issue, they have to change something and employees get it right away. You want to pay me the same and get me to work harder. Doesn’t sound like a good win for anybody, but if we’re in this world in which labor does not provide this utility and which I have an integration with my work and life. I’m working from home, I’m working remotely, I’m doing stuff I think is super cool, I get choice over the kind of assignments I take. Then you can — If I’m a good leader, I can help to focus your energy and passion on stuff that you really enjoy doing. If you do that with a group of people that you rely on, that you could trust — Boom! Then you’re in high gear and it’s super exciting.
[0:36:09.0] MB: Let’s dig in a little bit. I want to hear some of these building blocks. Tell me about the various different building blocks that you specifically recommend to kind of integrate trust into and help develop high performance.
[0:36:21.9] PZ: Right. I’d be happy to. Somehow, Matt, as you know, magically they spell out the acronym OXYTOCIN. I don’t know how that happened, but I’ll list them and then I‘ll just discuss one or two briefly. The OXYTOCIN acronym stands for ovation, expectation, yield, transfer, openness, caring, invest and natural.
Really quickly, ovation is recognizing the higher performance. Yield is crowd sourcing processes by delegating responsibility. I left out the E, sorry. The X is for expectation, which is designing challenges for people at work. The T is for transfer, which is enabling self-management. O is for openness, which is reducing stress by being clear about what the company is doing and why. C is for caring, which is intentionally building relationships with people at work. The I is for invest, which is helping colleagues grow personally and professionally, and the last letter, N, is for natural, which is being your authentic self at work and including being vulnerable.
Some of these things, people have happen to cross, because we’ve tried everything at work for the last 500 years, but what I like is that the neuroscience, my lab has done and other labs have done, show you how to implement these culture changes to get the biggest impact on branded behavior. Let’s take the first one, ovation. Recognizing high performance. Hey, that’s not new. Yeah. But what’s the science say about this?
Recognition comes from peers when it’s close to when the goal is met, when it’s unexpected, when it’s tangible, when it’s public. All those things are reinforced the importance of achieving high performance within this community that we call work. When my community members go, “Matt! You killed it. You worked on this project for three months. Your team was just killing it. You thrilled the client. You hit these milestones, under budget, on time. Everybody is thrilled. We as a community want to recognize you, so we’re going to give your whole team a trip to Disney World. You guys are going to take three days off. We’re going to send you down to Orlando. Knock yourselves out. You just killed it an we’re thrilled to have you be part of our team.”
Because the number of high performance in the world is in fact limited, I want the best people not only at my work, but performing at their best. Doing things like recognizing tangibly people who are just knocking it out of the park is the way to say, “It’s not about money. You got to pay people fairly for sure. It’s about doing stuff that’s super cool in a community that values that.” That’s just one example, and the book has many, many more examples for all these components on how to create really high engagement by essentially tapping in to intrinsic motivation.
[0:39:14.1] MB: I’d love to dig into the power of vulnerability as well and hear some strategies you’d recommend for how to bring that into the workplace, or maybe how listeners could potentially bring that to a workplace even if they’re not necessarily a manager.
[0:39:28.8] PZ: Yeah. All these applies to people at any level of the organization, from the lowest level, and in the book I spent a lot of time talking about how even entry level people at work can do amazing things with their work team and for the organization.
The last component I call natural, which is just being yourself at work. If you have to put on some kind of mask that your work persona, that’s just extra wasted energy that doesn’t go into performing at the highest levels. It turns out, many experiments have shown, that people who come off as too perfect, too beautiful, we kind of hate those people. Yeah, I’m talking about Austin, again.
If you show that you don’t know everything, if you ask for help from people around you, if you let your imperfections show, it turns out that induces oxytocin release, and people want to help you.
If I said, “Look, Matt. We got this big project. Our client wants to do machine learning on this dataset we’re collecting for them. I read about machine learning. I don’t know how to do it, but I know you do. Can you help me out? I really need two weeks of your work life to do this machine learning thing and teach me about it. I want to learn from you. Even though I’m the boss, I don’t know how to do everything, for sure, that’s why we have an organization. That’s why people specialize.”
Just being who you are, letting your work show, it’s okay. We actually trust people more who let their imperfection show. It’s okay to be imperfect and then ask for help.
[0:41:02.0] MB: What’s another one of these that you think could be really relevant for our listeners and maybe something that — As a concrete, one of these strategies that they could really benefit from understanding?
[0:41:12.5] PZ: I forgot one more. The caring component is straight down the trust building oxytocin runway. Sometimes, at least when I was in business school, they sort of had this implicit or explicit statement that fraternize with the people you work with, they will respect you. You don’t want to be friends with people at work. Again, our brains are built to form connections.
If you’re at work and you’re forming connections, again, you’re inhibiting your national responses and you’re not going to be able to have strong relationships and count on people, trust people to do what you need them to do, particularly in crunch times.
One way you can intentionally build relationships is to articulate the emotions you see in others. Normally, when you walk in at work you’ll say, “Hey, Matt. How are you?” “Good. How are you?” “Good.” I might go as far as to say, “How is your weekend?” “Oh, it was great. Fine. Whatever.”
If you replace that hey what’s going on with the emotion you see in that person’s face, then you have a much different conversation. Matt walks from the office and I say, “Hey, Matt. You look tired, happy, sad, joyful, worried,” then we have all different conversations. “Why do you look so worried today?” “You know what? My wife has been really sick. We went to the doctor last week and it looks like it’s something really bad.” “Okay, let’s talk about that. How do we now modulate your work-life relationship? Do you need to be at work today? Should you take some time off? Is your team working effectively?”
Once you actually can recognize the emotions in others and if you just articulate them, it’s like a booster to build relationships with them, and other things. Like in my lab I have a lot of graduate students, so I buy beer out of my own pocket every month. I think the beer budget is the best money I spend, because we have a nice patio behind our lab. You’re done with work and you want to have some bees and hangout with the people you work with, awesome. Build that relationship.
[0:43:12.6] MB: I think it’s so vital and it underpins all of the research that you’ve worked on over the last — However long, 20 years or however long. I think that, just fundamentally, it’s about building relationships, and oxytocin underpins much of that, but at the end of the day if you care about people, if you invest in them and you really genuinely want to develop relationships with them, it yields tremendous benefits for yourself sort of at a biological neuro-chemical level, but also in the results in your life and in the results you see in your workplace as well.
[0:43:50.3] PZ: Yeah, and I think Peter Drucker said that every knowledge worker, which to me is everybody now, needs to be their own CEO. If you’re your own CEO and I’m in an organization that treats me like crap, “Dude! I got skills. I can go elsewhere.” I’d rather have you have a lot of say over your career, to give you opportunities to grow, to have you be in a place that recognizes the amazing things that people do every day at work. Yeah, I want those people with me.
I should say. I always keep my scientist head on, Matt. I’m always skeptical of anything I do, so that’s why I spent eight years doing this work before writing the book. We looked at all the business outcome measures we could capture, like energy at work and chronic stress and productivity and retention, all those things — Trust, substantially improves.
Even objective measures like sick days or life satisfaction, the people who work in high trust organizations take fewer sick days and they’re more satisfied with their lives outside of work, because when you come home, instead of being beaten down by some — Sorry, bad word, asshole boss, you’ve been working with people who respect you, who value you, and if you’re something cool for the world at
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Mayo: Arena score - Panthers $138.4 million, Broward $331,206
By By Michael Mayo
| Sun Sentinel Columnist |
BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise as it stood in August 1, 2012. The center has a new owner and is expected to be renamed BB&T Center. (Carl Seibert, Sun Sentinel)
For my Sunday print column, I wrote about the Broward County commission buying the Panthers a fancy new $4.2 million scoreboard, and the overall imbalance of the arena deal halfway through its 30-year life.
The county built the $191 million arena for then-owner H. Wayne Huizenga in 1998, and owns the building, but the team (which has changed ownership several times) gets nearly all the profit from the arena.
Here's one stat you won't see posted on the new scoreboard: Panthers $138.4 million, Broward $331,206. That's the profit-sharing tally after 15 years.
To me, it's a pretty lopsided deal, one in which government basically subsidizes a sports team (and its wealthy athletes) in order to keep the team afloat.
Here's a bonus version of the Sunday column, with added material that had to be trimmed for space purposes:
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Now that the Dolphins' request for public funds to renovate their private stadium has been shot down, team officials have hinted they would be open to moving to some imagined new home in Palm Beach County.
Like I always say in these situations, buyer beware.
Because as intoxicating as sports dalliances can be, they usually turn out to be a gift in which the public is asked to keep giving. Case in point: the Florida Panthers-Broward County arena deal.
As partnerships go, it's been pretty tilted. The public pays most of the freight, and the team has reaped 99.74 percent of the arena profits since it opened 15 years ago.
For those keeping score at home, that's Panthers $138.4 million, Broward $331,206.
And for those keeping score at the arena, life has gotten fancier. Last week, the Panthers bagged a new $4.2 million HD scoreboard from Broward County commissioners. The Panthers were rewarded despite being chided by the county auditor for sloppy bookkeeping, and despite the auditor's position that the team should pay for its own scoreboard.
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Among auditor Evan Lukic's findings: The Panthers have been overpaid $4.2 million by the team-controlled arena operating company. Perhaps it would have made sense to have the new scoreboard come from that money.
The commission shrugged and voted 6-2 to buy the new scoreboard anyway (using surplus bed-tax revenue), with commissioners Tim Ryan and Suzanne Gunzburger dissenting.
"We felt this is one item that should be treated differently," Panthers president Michael Yormark told me. "It's a permanent fixture…At some point there has to be a contribution from the landlord."
The whole thing went down a little too easily for my liking, especially since the struggling Panthers keep turning up with helmets in hand every few years for a loan, grant or revision.
As landlords go, Broward is mushier than an outdoor rink on an 80-degree day.
Because how many landlords would go for this deal: A tenant says, "Build me a $191 million home, I'll pay rent that will cover a third of the mortgage, and I'll pay utilities and insurance. In return, I'll throw some really cool expensive parties that people will pay to get into. I get to keep the first $12 million in profit every year, and if there's anything left over on top of that, you get 20 percent. Oh, and eventually I'll want you to pay for a new big-screen HDTV mounted on the wall, too."
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Some deal. Halfway through the 30-year lease, the profit-sharing provision has kicked in only once, in Year One. A $24,000 crumb to the county two years ago turned out to be in error. And that's even after the profit-sharing threshold has been lowered once, from $14 million to $12 million.
The original deal was hammered out by Panthers founder H. Wayne Huizenga when he moved the team from Miami, but the team has had several owners since. Cliff Viner is the current chairman of the team's operating company.
"This building wasn't built to bring revenue to Broward County," Yormark said. "We're not like the NFL or Major League Baseball, our league doesn't have a big TV deal, so it's a little more challenging for us."
Watch what you touch, wash your hands, and other things to know about the alarming spread of hepatitis A
Port Everglades employees face federal charges in fraud investigation
Craft beer plus cool AC equals Palm Beach Summer Beer Fest
So, as has become the customary (and insane) arrangement throughout the country, government subsidizes wealthy athletes and sports owners. Of $14.6 million in annual debt payments for the Broward arena construction bonds, $10 million comes from public dollars: $8 million from tourist-driven bed tax and $2 million from a state sales tax rebate on goods and services purchased at the arena.
"It's not just a subsidy for at professional sports team – the majority of our dates are not hockey," said Yormark, noting concerts, ice shows and other events, like a Jehovah's Witness convention in 2014. "This facility drives tourism and gives back to local residents. And most of the money is coming from tourists, not local taxpayers."
Between arena debt repayments, a county tourist fund contribution and other arena expenses, Yormark said, "We spend $8 million a year before we open the door…We're not getting a free ride."
But as Broward has learned with the Panthers, Miami-Dade has learned with the Marlins and Heat, and Palm Beach County might learn if they flirt with the Dolphins, it's usually the public that gets taken for the biggest ride.
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Updated March 28, 2017 at 11:58 AM
Team USA vs Panama preview, prediction: USMNT bracing for rugged test in World Cup qualifier
The Sports Xchange
With its World Cup qualifying campaign back on track, the United States men's national soccer team now faces a tough road game to test its new-found confidence.
The 6-0 demolition of Honduras gave the Americans their first three points of the final round of CONCACAF qualifying for the 2018 FIFA World Cup and provided some much-needed momentum ahead of Tuesday's game in hostile territory in Panama.
"The points were obviously very valuable. We were able to put our goal differential back in a good place and for our confidence and the spirit of our team it was important," said captain Michael Bradley. "We feel good about things. It's been a good week. We all understand that just because we've had one good result, we're not out of the woods yet. We understand it's going to be a very difficult game here on Tuesday night."
Estadio Rommel Fernandez, on the outskirts of Panama City, is one of the more hostile venues in the CONCACAF region. With a fiercely passionate supporters' group that celebrates goals by throwing copious amounts of beer in the air, the Americans will have to battle the atmosphere as much as the opposition on the field.
After three games, Panama sits one point ahead of the Americans in the third and final automatic World Cup qualifying berth in CONCACAF's final round, also known as the Hex.
The Americans broke Panama's hearts four years ago with two late goals to win 3-2 in the final game of qualifying, when Panama had been on the cusp of its first World Cup berth in 2013. A notoriously difficult place to play in the best of times, that recent history means Tuesday night will feature an extremely hostile environment for the Americans.
"The away games are always tougher than the home games, especially with the conditions," said midfielder Jermaine Jones. "It will be hot. The field will be a little bit bumpy, but if we go out and make our own game and play our game, we showed it in 2013 that we can come here and win the game."
The team flew into Panama on Sunday with a few changes. Jordan Morris, Sebastian Lletget, John Brooks and Michael Orozco all departed camp with injuries or, in Brooks' case, a sinus infection.
Added to the roster was 23-year-old Paul Arriola, who plays for Club Tijuana in Mexico and has three appearances at the senior level.
"As young guys, you kind of wait for your opportunity. Unfortunately, there were quite a few injuries going into this camp so now here we are with some younger guys, including myself," said Arriola, who traveled to San Diego from Tijuana to make the trip to Panama with the team. "For us, the most important thing is to take advantage of the opportunity."
Team USA is fresh off a 6-0 victory over Honduras, but starters Sebastian Lletget and John Brooks will not be with the team in Panama City. Reeling from a 1-0 loss to Trinidad and Tabago, Panama will be looking to bounce back at home but without star striker Blas Perek.
Team USA leads the all-time series 11-1-4, including a 5-1 advantage in World Cup Qualifying matches. Though USA will be missing key players, Forward Clint Dempsey appears to be playing at the top of his game, alongside midfielder Christian Pulisic.
Look for this dynamic duo to recreate the same magic they produced vs Honduras and pull off at 2-1 upset in Panama's home turf.
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June 19, 2018 / 1:56 AM
Former CIA employee charged with leaking classified info
Ray Downs
A former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency has been charged with revealing classified information and possessing child pornography, the U.S. Justice Department said Monday. File Photo by Olivier Douliery/UPI
June 19 (UPI) -- A former CIA employee has been charged with leaking classified information, the Justice Department announced on Monday.
Joshua Schulte, 29, was indicted on 13 counts in connection with alleged theft of classified national defense information from the CIA and transmitting it to an outside organization.
Several news reports indicate that organization was Wikileaks.
"As alleged, Schulte utterly betrayed this nation and downright violated his victims," Asst. Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. said in a statement. "As an employee of the CIA, Schulte took an oath to protect this country, but he blatantly endangered it by the transmission of Classified Information."
Schulte is also charged with possessing child pornography, which prosecutors say was found by federal agents when they raided his New York City apartment last August.
"To further endanger those around him, Schulte allegedly received, possessed, and transmitted thousands of child pornographic photos and videos," Sweeney said. "In an effort to protect this nation against crimes such as these, the FBI's Counterintelligence Division in New York will continue to keep our mission at the forefront of our investigations in protecting the American public."
Schulte is suspected of leaking the "Vault 7" documents, which revealed the CIA's ability to hack into a wide range of electronic devices, including smartphones and smart televisions.
He previously worked at the CIA's Engineering Development Group, which produced malware to break into computers of terror suspects and other targets.
Facebook says it gave Chinese smartphone maker access to user data Officials: Former U.S. intelligence agent tried to sell secrets to China Gina Haspel sworn in as first female CIA director
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Topic: James Carville
James Carville News
Entertainment News // 8 months ago
Famous birthdays for Oct. 25: Katy Perry, Craig Robinson
Singer Katy Perry turns 34 and actor Craig Robinson turns 47, among the famous birthdays for Oct. 25.
Top News // 8 months ago
The Almanac
On October 25, 1944, the Japanese military employed its first unit of Kamikaze pilots during the Battle of Leyte Gulf off the coast of the Philippines.
U.S. News // 8 months ago
'Baby Trump' balloon makes West Coast debut for 'Politcon 2018'
The U.S. West Coast got its first look Friday at the large inflatable balloon of President Donald Trump as an angry baby.
TV // 2 years ago
Melissa McCarthy in prestigious company in 'SNL' Five-Timers Club
Melissa McCarthy joined the exclusive Five-Timers Club on Saturday's 'SNL.' Here's a look at some of the other prestigious members.
Top News // 2 years ago
On Oct. 25, 1929, during the Teapot Dome scandal, Albert B. Fall, who served as U.S. President Warren Harding's interior secretary, was found guilty of accepting a bribe while in office. He was the first presidential Cabinet member convicted of a crime.
Odd News // 4 years ago
UPI Almanac for Saturday, Oct. 25, 2014
James Carville hired as a Fox News contributor
Democratic strategist, author and television personality James Carville has joined Fox News Channel as a contributor, Fox announced Thursday.
UPI Almanac for Friday, Oct. 25, 2013.
Draft Hillary drive raising money, 'Stop Hillary' group launches
A campaign to draft former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 is raising money and attracting high-profile interest, officials say.
Missouri senator endorses Hillary Clinton for president in 2016
Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri Tuesday became the latest big-name supporter to endorse Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.
Carville wants Hillary in presidential bid
Democratic strategist James Carville has added his support to a super PAC dedicated to attracting Hillary Clinton into the 2016 presidential race.
UPI Almanac for Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012.
Strategists see Dem campaign in peril
Three prominent Democratic Party strategists are bluntly critical of their party's presidential candidate, their pre-election memos state.
Ariz. immigration bills given slim chance
Arizona Republican lawmakers looking to retake the mantle for the nation's toughest immigration laws have slim chances, experts say.
UPI Almanac for Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011.
I knew it was going to take an extraordinary effort to help pay off Hillary Clinton's campaign debt. But now, I think we can do it and have some fun at the same time
Strategist attempting to pay Clinton debt Apr 10, 2009
The real trick with any 61-year-old dealing with any 16-year-old is to get them to listen to a word you say
Carville, Matalin take on reality TV Mar 20, 2006
Maybe you would be familiar with someone I'll be teaming up (with) in this
Russert dads help sons in their own way Jan 28, 2006
This show will be another opportunity for me to engage in the back-and-forth debates on sports that, until now, Luke and I have limited to the stadium
James Carville to host sports show on XM Jan 23, 2006
I think Senator Kerry's got to draw an inside straight
Analysis: Too close to call? Nov 03, 2004
Chester James Carville, Jr. (born October 25, 1944) is an American political consultant, commentator, educator, actor, attorney, media personality, and prominent liberal pundit. Carville gained national attention for his work as the lead strategist of the successful presidential campaign of then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. Carville was a co-host of CNN's Crossfire until its final broadcast in June 2005. Since its cancellation, he has appeared on CNN's news program, The Situation Room. As of 2009, he hosts a weekly program on XM Radio titled 60/20 Sports with Luke Russert, son of the late Tim Russert who hosted NBC's Meet The Press. He is married to Republican political consultant Mary Matalin. In 2009, he began teaching political science at Tulane University.
Carville, the oldest of eight children, was born in Carville, Louisiana, the son of Lucille (née Norman), a former school teacher who sold World Book Encyclopedias door-to-door, and Chester James Carville, a postmaster as well as owner of a general store. He is of Irish and Cajun heritage. James attended Ascension Catholic High School in Donaldsonville, Louisiana.
He received his undergraduate and Juris Doctor degrees from Louisiana State University. He served for two years in the United States Marine Corps.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "James Carville."
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He is black. He is privileged. And all of that concerns his parents.
At first I didn't understand why two parents wanted to film their son's journey through prep school. But once they started telling their story, I totally got it.
Chie Davis
Meet Joe Brewster.
Meet Michèle Stephenson.
Michèle and Joe are married with two kids. Their oldest son is named Idris. At the age of 4, Idris was accepted into The Dalton School, a super-elite and rigorous college prep school, where he was one of few black students from a middle-class family.
"I want my son to have the best education possible. Although he's not technically from an upper class, Idris is very privileged and bright." — Joe Brewster
Both Joe and Michèle grew up poor. Joe became a doctor and Michèle a lawyer. So their son has been afforded opportunities they never had. That's great, but it's also really scary to them.
"I just don't want Idris to be hurt. I don't want for his self esteem to suffer. ... In any environment that you're in, whether it's Dalton or elsewhere, race always plays a part in how the students are perceived, in how we perceive as parents our role in that environment. How we interpret what the school says, how the school reacts to the kids and reacts to us as parents. It's always there as an undercurrent." — Michele Stephenson
So, they decided to film their son Idris' experience for 13 years — from the time he started kindergarten at 5 to his graduation at the age of 18.
Each year Idris talks about his feelings as they relate to race and class on tape. It's interesting to check out his observations year after year.
Then the 17-year-old added:
"The students ... a lot of them, live in this bubble, and during the course of my life, it's created a divide between my school life and in my race. I've been around a lot of black people outside of school, and they have a totally different way of living, totally different way of speaking and going about their daily lives. I really do feel a sense of two-ness. "
While Idris' parents were super-concerned about how he would confront race and class issues at school, all in all, they still wouldn't trade the experience.
Whoa. This kind of reminds me of my experience growing up. Two-ness — I can so relate. I wonder how many other kids in this situation have felt like this? Click below to preview the rest of this fascinating documentary.
democracy race diversity and equality humanity and culture parenting and children parenting education general educational opportunities
The Atlantic Philanthropies
How much of what we do is influenced by what we see on TV? When it comes to risky behavior, Netflix isn't taking any chances.
After receiving a lot of heat, the streaming platform is finally removing a controversial scenedepicting teen suicide in season one of "13 Reasons Why. The decision comes two years after the show's release after statistics reveal an uptick in teen suicide.
"As we prepare to launch season three later this summer, we've been mindful about the ongoing debate around the show. So on the advice of medical experts, including Dr. Christine Moutier, Chief Medical Officer at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, we've decided with creator Brian Yorkey and the producers to edit the scene in which Hannah takes her own life from season one," Netflix said in a statement, per The Hollywood Reporter.
netflix 13 reasons why suicide mental health tv series
The language we use matters.
Words matter. And they especially matter when we are talking about the safety and well-being of children.
While the #MeToo movement has shed light on sexual assault allegations that have long been swept under the rug, it has also brought to the forefront the language we use when discussing such cases. As a writer, I appreciate the importance of using varied wording, but it's vital we try to remain as accurate as possible in how we describe things.
There can be gray area in some topics, but some phrases being published by the media regarding sexual predation are not gray and need to be nixed completely—not only because they dilute the severity of the crime, but because they are simply inaccurate by definition.
One such phrase is "non-consensual sex with a minor." First of all, non-consensual sex is "rape" no matter who is involved. Second of all, most minors legally cannot consent to sex (the age of consent in the U.S. ranges by state from 16 to 18), so sex with a minor is almost always non-consensual by definition. Call it what it is—child rape or statutory rape, depending on circumstances—not "non-consensual sex."
We need to fundamentally reexamine how new moms are cared for after childbirth.
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Um, Can We Please Have An Anti-THIS Aisle At Grocery Stores?
I've gotten into the habit of checking labels while I'm out shopping. But besides the ingredients and where something was made, I feel like there should be a little extra info about this.
Carly Gillis
democracy empathy for all human condition humanity and culture justice citizenship democracy international rape gender violence trafficking
Using the 'dictionary definition of racism' defense is a sure sign you don't understand racism.
Whenever someone's words or behavior are called out as racist, a few predictable responses always follow. One is to see the word "racist" as a vicious personal attack. Two is to vehemently deny that whatever was said or done was racist. And three is to pull out the dictionary definition of racism to prove that the words or behavior weren't racist.
Honestly, as soon as refers to the dictionary when discussing racism, it's clear that person has never delved deeply into trying to understand racism. It's a big old red flag, every time.
I'm not an expert on race relations, but I've spent many years learning from people who are. And I've learned that the reality of racism is nuanced and complex, and resorting to a short dictionary definition completely ignores that fact. The dictionary can't include all of the ways racism manifests in individuals and society, and the limitations of dictionary definitions make it a poor tool for discussing the topic.
Since "racism" is such a loaded term for many people, let's look at such limitations through a different complex word. Let's take "anxiety." According to Merriam-Webster, "anxiety" is defined as "apprehensive uneasiness or nervousness, usually over an impending or anticipated ill."
Now imagine thinking that you understand everything that encompasses anxiety from reading that dictionary definition. Imagine thinking you could recognize the signs of anxiety in someone based on that definition alone. Ridiculous, right? The dictionary doesn't explain that some people's anxiety manifests as anger, even though it does. It doesn't say that anxiety sometimes manifests as withdrawal or aloofness. It doesn't say that you often won't see obvious signs of fear or nervousness in someone experiencing anxiety.
The dictionary doesn't offer anything close to the reality of what anxiety is or looks like. It would be silly to say that someone isn't experiencing anxiety because they're not clearly showing signs of nervousness like the dictionary definition implies. Just as the dictionary definition of anxiety is not comprehensive, neither is the dictionary definition of racism. Yet people keep using it to "prove" that something or someone isn't racist.
Fox News analyst Brit Hume just pulled that trick on Twitter to try to back up his claim that Donald Trump's "go back to" statements to four Congresswomen of color weren't technically racist.
The first Merriam-Webster entry for "racism" reads "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."
First of all, I'm not sure how this definition actually makes Trump's statements not racist. A belief is not always conscious, so even assuming that his racism is unconscious, a white man telling four women of color to "go back to" their countries of origin—despite three of them being born in the U.S. and the fourth being a naturalized citizen of the U.S.—is pretty objectively racist. No one knows exactly what is going on in the President's head, but such statements only being made to women of color would certainly be consistent with the behavior of someone with a belief in white people's inherent superiority.
But that simple definition isn't truly definitive, either. Shortly after Hume's tweet, Merriam-Webster pointed out a usage note for the word "racism," which clarifies that dictionaries do not provide the be-all-end-all definition of words.
Anti-racism advocates have tried time and time again to explain that racism is not as straightforward as someone saying, "I think I'm superior to people who don't share my skin color." Racism is almost never that blatant, and yet oodles of Americans refuse to call anything less than that kind of bold statement "racism." We have a long history showing exactly how white supremacy—the origin of racism in the U.S.—exerts itself in both strong and subtle ways, and thousands of hours and pages of education from experts describing how racism works on an individual and societal level. But people still insist on the simplistic narrative of "Racism=hating people of a different race."
I've seen many people, including Brit Hume, argue that the word racism has lost all meaning. Frankly, that's a copout. Racism—as both a conscious or unconscious belief of racial superiority and as a system of racial prejudice blended with power dynamics—has a broader meaning than one person hating another person for the color of their skin. But that doesn't make it meaningless.
I've also seen people complain that "everything is racist these days," but no, it's really not. We simply understand more about racism now, thanks to the field of race studies and to people of color offering their time and energy to explain it, so it's easier to identify in its various forms. In my experience, when someone's understanding of racism reaches a certain stage, they start recognizing it in places where ignorance or unconscious bias may have caused them to miss it in the past. That's not imagining racism where it doesn't exist or "calling everything racist these days"; that's simply seeing reality more clearly.
When you really dive deep into the historical, psychological, and sociological reality of racism in America, it becomes painfully obvious that racism is far more prevalent and enmeshed in our society than most people think. Until defensive, mostly-white folks stop automatically denying racism every time the word is used and stop throwing around dictionaries to avoid having to do that deep dive work, we're not going to make real headway on this issue.
Let's stop pretending that the definition and supposed overuse of the word "racism" is the problem, when the problem is racism, period.
the squad donald trump democracy racism trump tweets aoc
California has a housing crisis. Rent is so astronomical, one San Francisco company is offering bunk bedsfor $1,200 a month; Google even pledged$1 billion to help tackle the issue in the Bay Area. But the person who might fix it for good? Kanye West.
The music mogul first announced his plan to build low-income housing on Twitter late last year.
"We're starting a Yeezy architecture arm called Yeezy home. We're looking for architects and industrial designers who want to make the world better," West tweeted.
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US-Japan Cross Border IP Litigation // Understanding US-Japan Cross-border Patent Opportunities and Risks – San Francisco
September 21, 2018 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
« Batteries and Clean Tech: Energy Storage Trends for Transportation and Grid Storage
2018 Fall Class Registration Has Been Extended! »
Understanding US-Japan Cross-border Patent Opportunities and Risks, Ryoichi Mimura, Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu
September 21 12:00 to 1:30 | Dentons, One Market Plaza Spear Tower, 24th Floor San Francisco, CA 94105 Lunch (bento) will be served
It may surprise some to hear that, on the basis of patent filings based on US-Japan collaboration, Japan is the Bay Area’s most significant innovation partner. With that high level of collaboration comes a great deal of cross-border IP litigation between the US and Japan. To address this timely topic, Ryoichi Mimura of Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu, a Japanese attorney with extensive patent trial experience as a lawyer currently and formerly as a judge, will speak at Dentons about current issues in cross-border patent litigation.
Please come hear Mr. Mimura’s presentation which will address recent Japanese Supreme court decisions on equivalents law in Japan, patent nullity defense, patent exhaustion in cases where products are distributed internationally, the jurisdiction of Japanese courts in foreign patent disputes and the possibility of enforcement by Japanese courts of American judgments that order compensation of vindictive damages.
Ryoichi Mimura
Ryoichi Mimura is a partner at the Japanese law firm Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu. He principally advises clients regarding a wide variety of intellectual property matters (patent, utility model, design right, copyright, unfair competition prevention and trade secret protection) including IP infringement litigation, invalidation procedures, IP dispute counseling and license negotiations.
Mr. Mimura has a strong expertise, particularly in handling patent, copyright and trademark infringement litigation and employee-invention compensation cases, based upon the extensive knowledge and experience he acquired during his 30-year judgeship prior to joining the firm. Mr. Mimura has published numerous articles and frequently lectures nationally and internationally on IP issues. Also, Mr. Mimura is fluent in German and is knowledgeable about German law related matters, as he was a visiting scholar for two years in Germany, during his judgeship.
He graduated with an LL.B. from the University of Tokyo in 1977. In 1979, he was appointed Assistant Judge of the Tokyo District Court. In 1981, he was sent by the Supreme Court of Japan to the University of Cologne, Germany for two years to conduct judicial research as a visiting scholar. He was promoted to Judge of the Tokyo District Court in 1989. Mr. Mimura started his career as an IP expert in 1989 as Judge of the IP division of the Tokyo District Court. In 1993, he was appointed as a Judicial Research Official of the Supreme Court to handle IP related cases. From 1998 to 2005 he served as Presiding Judge of the Intellectual Property Division of the Tokyo District Court. He worked as a Judge of the Intellectual Property High Court (IP High Court) in Tokyo from 2005 to 2008, and as a Judge of the Tokyo High Court from 2008 to 2009. Mr. Mimura joined Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu in August 2009.
Mr. Mimura is a board member of the Copyright Law Association of Japan, and also a member of Japan Association of Industrial Property Law and German-Japanese Association of Jurists.
The presentation will take place September 21 from 12:00 to 1:30 at Dentons, 1, 24 Spear Tower, Market St, San Francisco, CA 94105. Lunch (bento) will be served and is included in the price.
$30 for non-members | $20 for members and students
www.usajapan.org.IP-Litigation
https://www.usajapan.org/
Spear Tower, 1 Market Plaza
https://www.dentons.com/en
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When is Amazon Prime Day? The date is out – and it's just around the corner
Amazon Prime Day, when the e-commerce giant offers a major sale in the middle of summer, will take place on July 15 and 16, the company says.
When is Amazon Prime Day? The date is out – and it's just around the corner Amazon Prime Day, when the e-commerce giant offers a major sale in the middle of summer, will take place on July 15 and 16, the company says. Check out this story on USATODAY.com: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/06/25/amazon-doubling-up-amazon-prime-day-two-days-mid-july/1525825001/
Charisse Jones, USA TODAY Published 1:00 a.m. ET June 25, 2019 | Updated 11:13 a.m. ET June 25, 2019
Amazon Prime Day, when the e-commerce giant offers a Black Friday-like sale in the middle of summer, will take place on July 15 and 16, the company says.
It's the fifth year of the big sale and the first time it will span 48 hours, giving those who are or become members of Amazon's premium subscription service the chance to access deals on more than 1 million items.
With other retailers often launching their own sales to coincide with Amazon's, the company says this year's bargains will pop up as often as every five minutes. It's also promising new product launches by major brands, and, for the first time, there will be specific pages of items produced by local entrepreneurs.
What's available now: The 5 best Amazon Prime Day deals you can get right now
”It’s the single largest day that we have of acquiring new members,'' says Cem Sibay, vice president of Prime. "But what's more important is the engagement by existing members. ... It’s considered a core benefit of Prime.''
The tech giant confirmed it will expand its service to include more products eligible for free one-day shipping to Prime members. Buzz60
Physical stores will also be part of the event. At Whole Foods, the grocery chain Amazon purchased for $13.7 billion in August 2017, there will be deals on certain items and an extra 10% discount on hundreds of products. Bargains will also be available at Amazon Books and Amazon 4-Star locations.
What does it take to be middle class? Here are 5 traits you might have
And in the same way Black Friday deals now roll out weeks beforehand, Prime deals are already popping up. A Schwinn special edition electric bike is available starting today, as are pairs of Levi jeans customized by New York Giant Sterling Shepard and his wife, model Chanel Iman Shepard.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/06/25/amazon-doubling-up-amazon-prime-day-two-days-mid-july/1525825001/
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How to Start as an Intern Abroad and Become CEO
By Troy Erstling
A potential startup can meet and brainstorm almost anywhere during or after your internship abroad.
How taking an unpaid job in a foreign country led me to start my own company — and how you can do the same
My name is Troy Erstling, Founder, and CEO of BrainGain.co — a recruitment agency that helps people find international work and internship opportunities.
Five years ago, like many who want to travel and live abroad, I started my career as an English teacher in Seoul, South Korea.
Today I am living in Rio de Janeiro Brazil, working remotely, with a team of seven people spread across multiple geographies. To date, we have placed over 50 people from 20 different countries in jobs such as Digital Marketing, Sales, Business Development, Software Programming, and Design. I am completely location independent and can work wherever my heart desires.
How did I get to this point? Here is my story.
Teaching English in South Korea
I graduated from the University of Arizona in June 2011 with a desire to work abroad. If you’re on this website you probably already know that Teaching English is the easiest way to get your foot in the door for an international experience, so that’s what I decided was the best path.
I took a job in Seoul, South Korea, where I would spend the next year teaching English to Kindergarten students. Paid round-trip airfare, paid accommodations, attractive salary, and medical insurance all part of the package — a sweet deal.
Decision to Make a Work Transition
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), I quickly knew that I didn’t want to be an English teacher long-term. I’ve always had an interest in starting businesses and considered myself very entrepreneurial. While teaching was very fulfilling work, I was craving a larger challenge.
However, the road to transition from teaching English isn’t always an easy one. Should I go back to the US and find a job there? Should I find another international job in a new country? What type of job did I even want?
Questions surrounding what I was going to do with my life quickly piled up and left me frustrated about where to go and what to do next.
One day I messaged a friend of mine who was living in Spain, also teaching English. I asked him what he was working on, and he informed me that he had since moved to Bangalore, India, where he was part of a Social Enterprise Fellowship.
He told me about the program, the type of work he was getting involved in, and the various projects that he was now involved in as a result of joining this program. It piqued my interest.
I decided to apply for the next cohort of the fellowship. It seemed like a wonderful way to transition away from teaching English and get myself involved in something meaningful and with impact.
How I Found an Internship in India
Although it was unpaid, I had enough savings from working in Korea to support myself for the 6-month fellowship if I were accepted. I submitted my information and crossed my fingers hoping for the best.
Shortly after I submitted my information, I was interviewed and ultimately accepted into the program. I was placed in Bangalore, India. I would work with an organization that provided Entrepreneurship Education to students who wanted to start their own business.
My role? I would help them expand the program to other parts of Southeast Asia. It seemed like my dream job and a fantastic opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship, startups, social impact, Southeast Asia and more. I was thrilled!
My friend? He applied to be the manager of the program and got the job - and was placed in Bangalore with me! Not only did I have the opportunity to immerse myself in a new country, but I also had the opportunity to have a friend guide me throughout the process. Win-Win.
Networking While Interning Abroad
I went to India with an important mindset — HUSTLE. I knew that six months would fly by, and if I didn’t create an opportunity for myself, I would be back at square one. I refused to let that happen.
I also knew that while it would be great if the company offered me a job after the internship, I didn’t want to put all of my eggs in one basket. I wanted to give myself as many options as humanly possible so that I had a choice six months later, rather than an ultimatum.
Therefore, I put my plan into motion and began going to every networking event that I could find.
The first event I went to was a business plan pitch competition. At the event there was one judge who was incredible at asking good questions and grilling the startups. I became determined to meet him once the event was over.
When the pitch contest was over, I approached him, complimented him on his questions, and expressed my interest in learning from him. Upon hearing about my enthrallment, the judge instantly smiled and said to me, “you know what, I know these two American entrepreneurs who started a car-sharing company here in India, I think you would get along very well with them. Here’s my card, email me, and I will make an introduction for you."
I followed up, and the judge introduced me to the founder of a company called Zoomcar based in Bangalore. It was founded by two Americans who dropped out of school to launch the company and received US$1 Million in funding. Given my interests in starting a business internationally, I had found the perfect people to help me towards my goals.
We agreed to meet up and discuss options for how I could get involved. One of the founders expressed that they needed someone for Blogging/Content Writing/Social Media management, and he thought this would be a good place for me to contribute. He knew that I didn’t have any experience in the role, but was willing to give me the opportunity to learn.
Life Abroad with Two Jobs and More Prospects
Now I was suddenly working one full-time job and one part-time job, all in less than one month of my arrival. I was feeling great.
For the next six months, I worked those two jobs while also networking and meeting as many companies as I could. While working with the Entrepreneurship education company I made reliable contacts throughout Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. While working with Zoomcar, I developed my marketing skills. When I wasn’t working on those two projects, I was cultivating other ideas in my head as well. I was in full-time hustle mode.
How I Found a Better Job Offer
By the end of the six months, I had a job offer from each company. I was even toying with the idea of starting my own. In the end, I negotiated for a salary that the Entrepreneurship company couldn’t match, so I went with Zoomcar.
After around six months of working with Zoomcar, friends began reaching out and asking me how I found the job. They would say, “I want to work abroad, but all I see is teaching English or Volunteer work. I’d love to work for a startup also if you can help me.” Alternatively, “I want to continue working abroad but don’t want to teach English anymore, can you help me transition?"
How I Built My Own Company
With this in mind, I realized that there was a business opportunity helping people find jobs abroad. The current options online were all teaching and volunteer work. There were websites for finding jobs abroad, but no one would help you with your visa or becoming settled, which deterred many people from taking that route. I saw that there was a gap to be filled, and believed that I was the one who could fill it.
At this point, I had built up a solid skill set in Digital Marketing, had connections in different countries around the world, and was in a country where I could start a pilot with little to no up-front cash investment.
Just like that, BrainGain was born.
Expanding the Company Abroad
I went to work on lining up companies in India who would be interested in recruiting foreign talent. I asked the companies what type of roles they were struggling to fill, and if I could find people for them from outside of the country. I then asked what those companies would be willing to pay me to send the people. I received green lights all around, and the business model was finally in place.
Within six months I had 10 companies to recruit for, a website built, a fully incorporated company and a trajectory ahead to begin connecting talent from top U.S. universities to Indian startups. The pilot was underway.
I went back to the U.S. that year as a man on a mission. I spoke at Harvard Business School, Cornell, Rutgers, UPenn Wharton, and Northeastern to tell students about the jobs we had available. Given that not even one year ago I was just moving to India to start my journey as an unpaid intern, I was in utter disbelief about how much I was already accomplishing.
Nonetheless, I was more motivated than ever to get things done in a big way. The first year we brought 25 people to India in our inaugural batch. The next year we expanded to Malaysia and made another 25 placements between India and Malaysia. By January 2017, we were profitable, and I decided to start expanding to new countries.
Today we’re now recruiting in Australia, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Singapore, Jakarta, Malaysia, India, and for remote companies as well.
After living in India for nearly three years, I was now location independent and had a business that allowed me to work from wherever I wanted to in the world. It’s a small company, but it allows me to live a great lifestyle the way that I want to, on my own terms. While I could have raised money and built a huge company, I ultimately decided not to because my lifestyle of living and working abroad was more important to me.
Please understand though that along the way I made more mistakes than I can count. I don’t want to make this story seem like it was an overnight success because that is a far cry from the case. Three years into the company, I still feel that in many ways, I’m at ground zero.
However, this story isn’t about entrepreneurship and the lessons associated with starting a business. It’s a story about hustling and creating opportunities for yourself while living in a foreign country. A story about networking, determination, and keeping an eye open to new opportunities. A story about how I transformed an internship into a lifestyle business in three years.
I also want to express that I am not the only one who was able to accomplish this type of trajectory. I have several friends who took a similar path in life and are now in equally interesting places.
Here are some examples of successes:
The friend who brought me to India, who also started as an intern in the same program, is now a full-time videographer who travels the world filming documentaries with The Network Affect.
Another friend I met while studying in Argentina took an internship at a hostel in Rio, then started an English teaching company, and now is the Founder of The Favela Experience in Rio.
Another friend took an internship while traveling in Istanbul, became immersed in the travel industry, and then started Hitlist — one of the most popular travel apps on the Apple store.
Another friend who was on the same internship program with me in India taught himself how to become a software developer, and is now a Venture Capitalist investing in medical technology companies via his company Sciencevest
ALL of these people started with an unpaid internship in a foreign country, and are now the founders of their own companies. ALL of them went from intern to CEO.
If you follow the lessons learned in this story, you can do the same.
What Are the Lessons You Can Take from My Story?
(1) Keep in touch with everyone you meet while traveling who appears to have a professionally oriented attitude and aptitude. While you will meet many travelers, it’s much harder to find entrepreneurs who are hungry to do business in foreign countries. When you find these people, do everything you can to build a meaningful relationship.
2) Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. I see many interns who bank on being offered a job after their internship, and while it does happen, it’s not foolproof. Don’t limit yourself to the one company that brought you there. Seek out other companies and other opportunities as much as you possibly can.
3) Network, network, network. The more people you meet, the greater the chances you have to create an opportunity for yourself. I got the job at Zoomcar due to networking. I started my company after a Venture Capitalist I met at an event encouraged me to do so. I lined up my first 10 companies in India because of my previous relationships. Build relationships with people, and the opportunities are sure to come.
4) Scratch your own itch. I started BrainGain because I wanted to build what I didn’t see in the world. In solving the problem of finding a job abroad for myself, I realized that I could help others do the same. I found people who had the same problems I was experiencing and helped them overcome their struggles. You can do the same. While entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone, finding companies that are solving problems you have experienced yourself is a great way to discover a company mission that appeals to you and work with people who also share your interests. Follow your favorite pursuits as much as you can.
If you follow your guiding inspiration and method, I guarantee it will lead you to wonderful places. Take an internship abroad, network, create opportunities, and then build your own. Live the international lifestyle and pursue your dreams.
Valeu! Chau from Brazil!
Troy Erstling is the Founder and CEO of BrainGain, a job portal connecting people to international work opportunities. He has lived and worked abroad for the last 5 years in Argentina, Korea, India, and Malaysia trying everything from ESL to Volunteer work to Tech-Startups and entrepreneurship. He lives life to the fullest and always has a smile on his face, loves unusual foods, nature, and meditation about strange things of all kinds.
More by Troy Erstling
How to Find Work Abroad: 6 Key Questions to Ask Before Your Job Search
How to Find the Best Jobs Abroad While Working in Your Current Country
Why Internships are a Great Way to Boost Your Resumé
How to Find Your First Paid Job Overseas
Why a Virtual Job is the Best Job for Working Abroad
15 Important Questions to Ask Before Accepting a Job Abroad
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‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ Lyrics in 64 Languages, according to Google Translate
Three musicians called Collective Cadenza translated the lyrics of Will Smith’s well known song ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ with Google Translate from English into the 64 languages that are currently supported by the search engine’s translation tool and then translated it back into English. Firstly, the lyrics were translated into the world’s most spoken language, Mandarin. As claimed by the UNESCO, approximately one billion people speak Mandarin, whereas English ‘only’ has circa 400 million speakers. The outcome of that translation was then converted back into English. The result was both amusing and puzzling:
The original version…
“In West Philadelphia, born and raised, on the playground is where I spent most of my days. Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool and all shooting some b-ball outside of the school, when a couple of guys – they were up to no good – started making trouble in my neighborhood. I got one little fight and my mom got scared and said, “You’re moving with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air!”
… turned into:
“ Born and raised in West Philadelphia on the playground where I spent my days. Cold, apricot, relaxing all cool, shoot some b-ball outside of the school, when a couple of guys, they do not get better, started making trouble in my neighborhood. A little afraid to hit me and my mom, she said: “You, your aunt, and uncle in Bel-Air!”
Moreover, when the lyrics were translated into the five most spoken languages (Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic and Portuguese) and then back into English, the result was even more confusing and abstract:
“ Born in West Philadelphia on the farm where I spent my days. Cold, apricot, relaxing satisfaction, shoot some b-ball outside of school, when a couple of men, they do not improve, getting environmental problems in my territory. I was a little scared to hit my mother, she said: “Your aunt knows your uncle in Bel-Air!” “
After adding all 64 languages to the translation and converting it back into English, the lyrics became completely peculiar:
“ Born in West Philadelphia in a short period of time. In conclusion, on Sunday has been updated. School in a few minutes. I see you. Next week is not good. Economics problems. Mama! I bring fear. She speaks: “I have nothing!” “
Although Google’s translation tool is unlike others and the service has improved greatly over the past decade, this example shows the difficulties of automated machine translation and demonstrates that the quality of these translations is still poorly. Especially problematic are complex grammatical structures, idioms and slang. Google Translate uses the process of ‘statistical machine translation’, which means that it searches for patterns in millions of documents and by detecting established patterns of documents, which have already been translated by human translators, Google Translate makes guesses to select the most probable appropriate version. According to The Independent, the ‘corpus it can scan includes all the paper put out since 1957 by the EU in two dozen languages, everything the UN and its agencies have ever done in writing in six official languages, and huge amounts of other material, from the records of international tribunals to company reports and all the articles and books in bilingual form that have been put up on the web by individuals, libraries, booksellers, authors and academic departments’. Hence, the accuracy varies across languages, because there are for instance far more reliable sources in Spanish and French than in Tamil and Kannada.
The team Collective Cadenza from New York City creates musical video experiments and consists of the ‘video guy’ Joe Sabia, the ‘music guy’ Michael Thurber and the ‘audio guy’ Matt McCorkle.
Check out the very funny Google Translate version of ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’:
To find out more about our customised machine translation services and further information on Google Translate, please visit our machine translations section.
Written by Matt Train
Matt Train is Operations Director at TranslateMedia - responsible for working with clients and system integration partners to advise, plan, and deliver multilingual digital content for international brands and content publishers.
The Korean Brands Succeeding in China
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Marketing Cosmetics to Asian Consumers
China’s New Rules on Internet Advertising
Why Branding is Critical to Singles’ Day
China’s Passion for QR Codes
The Technology Behind Fortune Global 500 Companies
The Importance of Innovation in Retail
A Look at India’s Startup Scene
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Americans Overseas Need to Take Steps Now to Vote
A woman wears an "I voted" sticker after voting in Massachusetts' primary election in the East Boston neighborhood of Boston, March 1, 2016.
With less than 75 days left before the U.S. presidential election, it is time for Americans living, working or traveling abroad to take steps to vote.
The extra time is needed because U.S. elections are managed individually by the 50 states, U.S. territories (American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands) and the District of Columbia. This means there are 55 different sets of rules for absentee voting.
But the basic steps are simple:
Step 1. Register to vote. If you have yet to register but are overseas, print out the forms listed on your state’s election website and mail them to the state's election office.
Step 2. The easiest way to cast a ballot while overseas is to go to the Federal Voter Assistance Program website at FVAP.gov and click on the state you’re registered to vote in to get state-specific information.
Step 3. Download, print and fill out the PDF forms.
Step 4. Put your ballot in an envelope, put the required postage on it and mail it in.
FVAP also recommends that if you're an absentee voter, you should:
— Allow plenty of time to request, receive and return a ballot.
— Notify your election office each time your mailing address changes.
— Become familiar with your state's absentee-voting deadlines and procedures to make sure your ballot is properly executed and will be counted.
— Complete a Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot (FWAB) early if you are unsure of the time required to return the ballot to meet the state's deadline.
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Council chief executive's £20,000 election advance could prompt law change
Anger over a cash advance of £20,000 paid to a council’s chief executive for running last year’s local authority elections could lead to a change in the law.
Martin ShiptonChief Reporter
Mark James of Carmarthenshire County Council received the cash as part of his total remuneration of more than £209,000.
Two Plaid Cymru politicians say they are shocked that Mr James was paid the £20,000 in the financial year 2011-12, more than a month before the council elections were actually held.
Mr James received the cash in his capacity as Returning Officer in line with a decision the council made before he became chief executive.
Most council chief executives enjoy a lucrative perk under which they get paid extra for running elections. In Carmarthenshire’s case, the amount of money paid to the Returning Officer depends on the number of contested wards involved in the election.
Rhodri Glyn Thomas, the Plaid AM for Carmarthen East & Dinefwr, said he would be tabling an amendment to a Bill currently going through the Assembly to end the perk.
E-mail correspondence seen by the Western Mail involving Mr James and the council’s director of resources Roger Jones confirm the £20,000 payment was made in advance of the election actually taking place and because “funds were available”.
Plaid MP Jonathan Edwards, who also represents Carmarthen East & Dinefwr, said: “I’m sure the residents of Carmarthenshire will be asking serious questions as to how funds were available to pay Mr James a cash advance of £20,000 at a time when services were facing, and continue to face unprecedented cuts.
“More questions will inevitably follow as to how that £20,000 figure was calculated before the election took place and before knowing how many council wards were going to be contested.
“This revelation will be a slap in the face to the council’s hard-working low-paid employees, especially as the authority claims it cannot afford to pay the Living Wage.”
Mr Thomas said: “Many county residents will be shocked to learn that Mr James pocketed an additional £20,000 before the close of nominations, let alone before the election itself.
“When so many people are relying on pay-day loans to get them to the end of the month, to learn that such a highly paid officer received an extra £20,000 weeks in advance will be a bitter pill to swallow for those struggling to make ends meet.”
Mr Thomas added: “There is a need to look more widely at chief executives receiving these substantial sums of money for election activities on top of their already large salaries when we consider that much of the work is actually carried out during normal working hours.
“I believe the role of Returning Officer should be incorporated into the existing duties of a chief executive and constitute part of their job description to put an end to these hefty election fees which are paid almost every year. As such, I will be presenting amendments to the Local Government Democracy Bill which is currently under consideration in the National Assembly.”
Mr James’ total remuneration in 2011/12 of £209,498 compared to £189,178 in 2010/11, according to the council’s statement of accounts. The extra £20,000 figure includes £9,339.33 of charges which would have been billed to town and community councils.These councils reimburse Carmarthenshire council.
A spokesman for Carmarthenshire council said: “The payment referred to is in relation to Returning Officer fees. These are set by the council. They are separate to salary payments and paid in response to any election – in this case the 94 separate county, town and community elections that took place. This is not new.
“The Returning Officer at any election is personally responsible for running elections and for the hundreds of staff, some of whom work for months prior to election days. Fees were set by the county council back in 1999 – several years before the current chief executive took up his post.
“The council can confirm that payments made to the Returning Officer were in accordance with the fees set by the council and were properly made. The chief executive has not been the subject of any pay award since 2008 when all senior officers’ salaries were frozen on the recommendation of the chief executive and the senior officers themselves. These salaries remain frozen.
“Returning Officers ... must be completely independent of the council to ensure impartiality and that elections are run properly and efficiently. It’s a very large and important personal responsibility, and has to be undertaken properly as there is no second chance to get it right.
“All the preparatory work for the election day is carried out months beforehand – it’s not just about the day of the election. The Returning Officer is paid for ensuring that everything has been done properly beforehand and payments are made accordingly. Part payment of fees was made at the end of the 2011-12 financial year reflecting the fact that many of the duties had already been performed.
“When running the county, town and community elections in 2012, the Returning Officer was responsible for 190 polling stations, over 700 staff on duty, and over 90 separate elections – there’s a huge amount of preparation. It’s not just about one day, as the MP and AM well know.”
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More liberal, populist movement emerging in Democratic Party ahead of 2016 elections
By Zachary A. Goldfarb
Zachary A. Goldfarb
Deputy business editor
For more than two years, President Obama has endorsed reducing Social Security payments as part of an ambitious deal to tame the national debt. But then Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — viewed by supporters on the left as a potential 2016 presidential candidate — embraced a far different proposal: increasing benefits for seniors.
As Obama struggles to achieve his second-term domestic agenda, a more liberal and populist voice is emerging within a Democratic Party already looking ahead to the next presidential election. The push from the left represents both a critique of Obama’s tenure and a clear challenge to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the party’s presumptive presidential front-runner, who carries a more centrist banner.
The left’s influence will be on display in coming weeks when a high-profile congressional committee formed after the government shutdown faces a deadline to forge a budget agreement. Under strong pressure from liberals, the panel has effectively abandoned discussion of a “grand bargain” agreement partly because it probably would involve cuts to Social Security.
“The absolute last thing we should do in 2013 — at the very moment that Social Security has become the principal lifeline for millions of our seniors — is allow the program to begin to be dismantled inch by inch,” Warren said recently on the Senate floor, announcing her support for a bill that would expand the program.
Liberals say Social Security is one example of how Democrats are likely to face sustained pressure in coming months to move in a more populist direction on a host of issues.
She's been in the Senate for less than a year, but Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren's grasp extends beyond Capitol Hill - thanks to her YouTube presence. (The Washington Post)
“The first Obama administration was focused too much on saving the banks and Wall Street,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), a liberal who is retiring after four decades in Congress. “There’s going to be a big populist push on whoever’s running for office to espouse these kinds of progressive policies.”
Senate Democrats’ recent decision to abandon the filibuster for almost all nominees was a major victory for liberals, who had long championed the change, and paves the way for left-leaning nominees to join courts and helm agencies.
In addition, liberals have accelerated their push for a higher minimum wage — successfully persuading Obama to support a $10.10-an-hour proposal after he suggested $9 an hour this year. They also are making a case for tougher financial regulations, specifically targeting massive banks they would like to break up.
More broadly, liberals argue that the nation must do more to narrow economic inequality, to expand the safety net to help those who have lost jobs to globalization and to relieve some of the burden of student debt — goals that the president generally shares.
Obama’s defenders say he has a wide array of proposals to help the middle class that have been stymied by Republicans in Congress. Even his willingness to trim Social Security payments — by adopting a stricter formula for calculating benefits — includes protections for the poor, they note.
“It’s real things in the economy that Democrats have been too timid to address or Republicans have blocked them from addressing,” said longtime liberal activist Roger Hickey, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future.
But the push from the left carries political risks for Democrats, who could be accused of being reckless about the national debt or insensitive to the demands of business and economic growth. What’s more, many Americans are uncomfortable with the notion of the government redistributing income far beyond what happens today in order to accomplish basic elements of the populist agenda. Liberal congressional or presidential candidates could pressure more moderate candidates to veer to the left, perhaps reducing their electability.
The arena where the populist push is likely to play out most clearly is in the nascent 2016 presidential campaign. Warren is the object of admiration among liberals, drawing huge audiences for her speeches. She has said she doesn’t plan to run for president, but she hasn’t made a firm commitment to stay out of the race. A spokeswoman said she was unavailable to comment.
At the same time, many on the left view Clinton suspiciously, arguing that longtime advisers to her and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, are too close to Wall Street.
Many liberals also argue that it was these same Clinton advisers — disciples of former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin — who led Obama away from a more populist agenda, embracing conservative thinking on the virtue of spending reductions and entitlement cuts.
“I personally have Clinton fatigue, noting that it was a Clinton team that has been running Obama’s economics,” said Lawrence Mishel, president of the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute. “A Clinton administration seems like a continuation of the same team.”
Some consider the debate an opportunity for Hillary Clinton to embrace a more populist message. Bill de Blasio (D), her New York campaign manager in 2000, was just elected mayor of New York on an inequality agenda.
Top officials at the Center for American Progress — sometimes viewed as a Clinton shadow cabinet — started an independent think tank several weeks ago, the Center for Equitable Growth, to study income inequality. At its Washington opening, Chairman John D. Podesta, who was Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff, hinted about restoring the domestic success of the 1990s.
“All the gains, I think, to fight poverty and reduce the poverty level during the Clinton administration in which I served have been washed away,” he said.
In an interview, Podesta said the think tank is an academic effort not intended to benefit any candidate in particular. But he said he has no doubt that Hillary Clinton would be able to succeed on populist political terrain.
“I’m an admirer of Senator Warren’s, but I think that Hillary Clinton really connects with working people and she showed that in the 2008 race against Obama,” he said.
Liberals, however, are fawning over Warren, who was the brains behind the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and focused on the economic condition of the working class when she was a professor at Harvard. In addition to calling for breaking up the big banks and expanding Social Security, she has proposed a range of new policies to cut student debt.
Warren received a resounding response when she spoke at the AFL-CIO convention this past fall in what many considered an encapsulation of her populist message going forward.
“We know even though pundits and big corporate lobbyists in Washington might need to be dragged kicking and screaming, we know America agrees with us. We believe Wall Street needs stronger rules and tougher enforcement. And you know what? So do more than 80 percent of people,” she said. “Wall Street will fight us, but the American people are on our side.”
Another potential source of pressure building on the left is Sen. Bernard Sanders (Vt.), an independent who caucuses with Democrats. He has said he might run for president if no liberal he considers adequate steps up.
Although his chances would be slim at best, he could serve as an agitator who pulled other candidates to the left — or as a potential spoiler if his campaign got off the ground.
“I don’t wake up every morning saying, ‘Oh my goodness, I really want to be president,’ ” Sanders, who calls himself a democratic socialist, said in an interview. “But somebody’s got to be out there, and if nobody is, I’ll do it.”
‘His ideology is racism’: Former top Texas judge says she’s leaving GOP over Trump
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Watch Shopping: UK's Largest Luxury Timepieces Retailer Watches of Switzerland Opens New Flagship Boutiques in Vegas and SoHo
The UK’s largest retailer of luxury timepieces just opened two brand new flagships in New York City and Las Vegas as they’ve set foot in the U.S. On November 29th, Watches of Switzerland opened their first Watches of Switzerland showroom in New York City at 60 Greene Street, SoHo, followed by the Las Vegas store two days later. Additionally, they will also manage the new Omega and Breitling standalone boutiques at the Wynn Plaza Shops in Las Vegas. On display within the space is a collection of the world’s leading timepiece brands, including Blancpain, Breitling, Breguet, Franck Muller, Girard- Perregaux, Hublot, IWC, Jaeger LeCoultre, Omega, Panerai, Roger Dubuis, Tudor, Ulysse Nardin, Urwerk and Vacheron Constantin. The country’s largest standalone Rolex boutique, also operated by Watches of Switzerland, is located just next door. The showroom in SoHo features a bar, a library and two incredible levels of luxury watches retail.
Formerly known as Aurum Group Ltd, the Watches of Switzerland Group is the largest prestige luxury jewelers and timepieces specialist operating in both the UK and USA with brands like Goldsmiths —UK—, Mappin & Webb —UK—, Watches of Switzerland —UK and USA— and Mayors —USA. The Watches of Switzerland Group has over 130 showrooms —including 13 dedicated mono-brand boutiques in partnership with Rolex, TAG Heuer, Omega and Breitling and has leading presence at Heathrow Airport with representation in Terminals 2,3, 4 and 5 and 5 online transactional websites. The Watches of Switzerland Group is proud to be the UK’s largest retailer for Rolex, Patek Philippe, Cartier, Omega, TAG Heuer and Breitling.
Over the celebratory weekend, Watches of Switzerland secured an unprecedented collection of rarely seen, one-of-a-kind timepieces to delight guests, connoisseurs and collectors. Beloved astronaut and Breitling Brand Ambassador, Scott Kelly, was the guest of honor at the new Breitling standalone boutique, where he greeted guests and signed autographs. Next door at the new Omega store, visitors were treated to a demonstration of the brand’s revolutionary anti-magnetism technology.
Following a day of watch-focused events, Watches of Switzerland CEO, Brian Duffy, hosted an intimate dinner for executives and friends of the brand at the newest outpost of Cipriani within Wynn Plaza Shops.
For more info on Watches of Switzerland click here.
Posted on December 4, 2018 by Editor & Publisher and filed under News, Watch Shopping and tagged Watches of Switzerland Watch Stores Authorized Dealers Watches of Switzerland US Patek Philippe Jaeger-LeCoultre Most Popular.
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Jennifer Galavis spent #charity
Former Mexican presidents who work for the United States and the CIA
3mo ago 10.0¢ 4
As you have already noticed I am looking for help for my son and I want to share an information and an opinion about a Latin American country, I am going to tell you something interesting but it is also a delicate topic, and I do not assure that it is true, everything that I am going to write I do not say it as an absolute truth, maybe I can be censored, so this is ONLY MY OPINION (it is up to you to believe that what I will write here is real or not...) Wikileaks made it public, also journalists like Sergio Aguayo, Raymundo Riva Palacio and many others have written on several occasions that presidents like Echeverría, Díaz Ordaz, Salinas and many others were CIA workers, but for what? What was the objective?. To be understood, we must know that Mexico was the eighth largest economy in the world in the eighties... Mexico was going to be a first world country... it had everything and it was there... But the United States did not want to have 2 powers as neighbors, they needed cheap labor, so Mexico was the chosen one... It is believed that from the same white house it was decided who would be the presidents of Mexico and then chaos came... They devalued the peso, killed students in year 68; one of the generations that would start to walk to Mexico, they annihilated it, and not only was the massacre of Tlatelolco, they also cut the resources to education, the years passed and little by little they were depleting the Mexican economy, later they put Salinas, He privatized all the state companies he could: Telmex, Cemex, Banamex, and many others became his friends... few people understand this but the companies that gave resources to the country were handed over to Salinas's friends, no more to Mexico, Mexico did not get anything from them... Salinas was only put there to destroy a little more the economy, privatize everything and get rich. The objective was always clear, they did not want 2 rich neighbors... Something curious happened in the Calderón government, was "the fast and furious operation", in which the CIA was going to let millions of weapons enter Mexico and when they had "bad people" go for them and catch them, But what do you think? the weapons were "lost", the trail of millions of weapons that ended up in the hands of the narco was lost and the chaos worsened... Do you notice? Do not you think it's funny? Just analyze carefully, why would the CIA let millions of weapons remain in the hands of drug traffickers just like that? It sounds ridiculous but that's how it was. Did you want to generate irreparable chaos...? The year 2012 arrived and they needed the last thing from Mexico, they had destroyed the economy, they had allowed corruption to grow and they fed the narco with weapons and permits to operate in plazas, only something was missing and it was oil, Salinas could not because he had to modify the constitution, so the plan included Peña Nieto, all the people closest to Salinas are now supporting Peña, they make him a novel, they get him an actress loved by Mexico, they buy millions of votes like never before in history, and in the end he wins the presidency, once again they achieve it, in a very illegal way, despite the complaints of the opposition and that there were millions of proofs on vote buying nothing happened... why did they do everything possible because Peña will win? It was there so that what could not be privatized Salinas, he did, NEEDED OIL... spend a few months and make energy reform, change the constitution and now oil is no longer the nation and now belongs to foreign companies linked to those who have always moved the strings of the world, the largest American asset management company in the world controls the Mexican oil, blackrock... The profits and deposits of the country no longer belong to Mexico belong to private companies... 2018 arrives and after so much time and since they already had everything they needed from Mexico, they can no longer cope with the social disenchantment and let AMLO take the presidency... Amlo receives a country plundered, destroyed, corrupted, full of crime, drug traffickers, poverty... the eighth economy of the world of those eighties and only remains in memory, the first country to make 2 Olympics and 2 world are just a memory, the economy that promised to break it in the 70s and 80s is now a destroyed and poor country... There were many Mexican presidents imposed from the United States, why do you think that many have been awarded at universities such as Jale or Harvard? They were just puppets and accomplices so that Mexico would not become a headache for the United States... They will say that I am crazy, but the US intelligence did everything possible so that Mexico would not grow up, they needed a poor neighbor, that would provide them with cheap labor and that their resources could be taken away from them and that's how it was... So we come to this image in the present, an image that represents the difference between current Mexico and the past, a truly patriotic president who loves his country and tries to save it, despite all the damage done to Mexico, it is a country that has never surrendered, they were more than 50 years trying to destroy it and they could not, Mexico is still big and if we give the confidence to Lopez Obrador, believe me that it will achieve it, because it not only represents the hope of Mexico, it represents hope of all Latin America that has always been plundered by our rich neighbor... It is in you to believe or not what is written here, maybe in some things I am wrong but believe me, what is written here is only a small part of reality...
https://ibb.co/R3Vhg1D
Venezuela is the country with the largest oil reserves in the world and the late President Chavez did not allow foreign countries to take over these riches, so now it seems they want to take them as they are, IT IS ONLY AN OPINION. I share this information with the intention of obtaining some money to pay for my child's medical expenses. If you liked it, you can donate something to help my son. Thank you
1 of 1 reviewers say it's worth paying for
0 of 1 reviewers say it's not worth paying for
Jennifer Galavis earned 0.0¢
@-ed- @diegohernandez I just uploaded an article that may be of interest to you, it's about infiltrations from the United States and the CIA in the country of Mexico
-ED- earned 0.0¢
This is all standard Fascist Capitalist procedure that USA has been doing since WWII... so its not just an opinion, its good observation of things that have actually happened.
@-ed- Thank you very much, I say opinion because many people are often offended but that is what I think and I think it is very real, as I mentioned above in Venezuela this has not happened thanks to our deceased former president chavez a true patriot who never let himself be dominated by the North American fascism however now anyway they are trying to take control with that puppet that has self-proclaimed president Juan Guaido, in one way or another the United States wants to take control of the oil and dominate Venezuela.
Thanks for the donation, they are very useful for my son.
@-ed- Nor would I like to be censored from the page or expel me since I would have no way to get help for my son
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Traditional vs. Roth IRA
Tip: Not Quite Anything. IRAs are free to invest in just about anything, except collectibles such as artwork, rugs, antiques, gems, stamps, and coins, for example.
Traditional IRAs, which were created in 1974, are owned by roughly 35.1 million U.S. households. And Roth IRAs, created as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act in 1997, are owned by nearly 24.9 million households.1
Both are IRAs. And yet each is quite different.
Up to certain limits, traditional IRAs allow individuals to make tax-deductible contributions into the account. Distributions from traditional IRAs are taxed as ordinary income and, if taken before age 59½, may be subject to a 10% federal income tax penalty.2
For individuals covered by a retirement plan at work the deduction for a traditional IRA in 2018 is phased out for incomes between $101,000 and $121,000 for married couples filing jointly, and between $63,000 and $73,000 for single filers.
Also within certain limits, individuals can make contributions to a Roth IRA with after-tax dollars. To qualify for a tax-free and penalty-free withdrawal of earnings, Roth IRA distributions must meet a five-year holding requirement and occur after age 59½.3
Like a traditional IRA, contributions to a Roth IRA are limited based on income. For 2018, contributions to a Roth IRA are phased out between $189,000 and $199,000 for married couples filing jointly and between $120,000 and $135,000 for single filers.
In addition to contribution and distribution rules, there are limits on how much can be contributed to either IRA. In fact, these limits apply to any combination of IRAs; that is, workers cannot put more than $5,500 per year into their Roth and traditional IRAs combined. So, if a worker contributed $3,500 in a given year into a traditional IRA, contributions to a Roth IRA would be limited to $2,000 in that same year.4
Fast Fact: Wealthy Owners. The higher your income is, the more likely you are to have an IRA. Of households with incomes of $50,000 or more—39% own traditional IRAs and 30% own Roth IRAs. Of households with $50,000 or less in income, 13% own traditional IRAs and 6% own Roth IRAs.
Source: Investment Company Institute, 2018
Individuals who reach age 50 or older by the end of the tax year can qualify for “catch-up” contributions. The combined limit for these is $6,500.5
If you meet the income requirements, both traditional and Roth IRAs can play a part in your retirement plans. And once you’ve figured out which will work better for you, only one task remains: open an account.
Features of Traditional and Roth IRAs
Tax-deductible contributions *
Tax-deferred growth
Tax-free withdrawals **
Income limit for 2018 contributions Deduction phases out for adjusted gross incomes between $101,000 and $121,000 (married filing jointly) or between $63,000 and $73,000 (single filer) Eligibility phases out for adjusted gross incomes between $189,000 and $199,000 (married filing jointly) or between $120,000 and $135,000 (single filer)
Distributions required at age 70½
* Up to certain limits
** To qualify, Roth IRA distributions must meet a five-year holding requirement and occur after age 59½.
1. Investment Company Institute, 2018
2. Generally, once you reach age 70½, you must begin taking required minimum distributions from a traditional IRA.
3,4,5. Internal Revenue Service, 2018. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 eliminated the ability to "undo" a Roth conversion.
When to start? Should I continue to work? How can I maximize my benefit?
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The "Devastating" Truth Behind America's Record Household Net Worth
Every quarter, as part of its Flows of Funds statement, the Fed releases a detailed breakdown of America's assets and liabilities, of which the most interesting section is the one dealing with US household wealth and debt, and most importantly, their net worth. The last such release in June showed that as of March 31, total US household assets rose decidedly above $100 trillion, hitting an all time high $102.6 trillion, offset by $14.5 trillion in liabilities, resulting in $88.1 trillion in household net worth. It is worth noting that of this $100+ trillion in assets, 69% was in the form of financial assets (stocks, mutual funds, pensions, deposits, etc), and only $31.5 trillion was real, tangible assets including $26 trillion worth of real estate.
To be sure, the media loves reporting this number as proof of successful Obama policies: after all how can anyone complain when US households have never been richer, at least according to the Fed's estimate of their net worth?
Well, if the chart above was indeed an accurate depiction of the prevailing US net worth, then it would indeed be a thing to celebrate. Alas, it is anything but, and as Pedro da Costa points out, when one looks beneath the surface, a "devastating" picture emerges: US inequality like no-one has seen it before.
To help with this peek behind the scenes, we look at the latest, just released CBO report on Trends in Family Wealth, which shows that far from equitable, US wealth has never been so skewed.
The picture in question:
Here are the CBO report's summary findings:
In 2013, aggregate family wealth in the United States was $67 trillion (or about four times the nation’s gross domestic product) and the median family (the one at the midpoint of the wealth distribution) held approximately $81,000, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. For this analysis, CBO calculated that measure of wealth as a family’s assets minus its debt. CBO measured wealth as marketable wealth, which consists of assets that are easily tradable and that have value even after the death of their owner. Those assets include home equity, other real estate (net of real estate loans), financial securities, bank deposits, defined contribution pension accounts, and business equity. Debt is nonmortgage debt, including credit card debt, auto loans, and student loans, for example.
But to get to the stunning punchline, one has to read The section on How Is the Nation’s Wealth Distributed? Here is the answer:
In 2013, families in the top 10 percent of the wealth distribution held 76 percent of all family wealth, families in the 51st to the 90th percentiles held 23 percent, and those in the bottom half of the distribution held 1 percent.
Average wealth was about $4 million for families in the top 10 percent of the wealth distribution, $316,000 for families in the 51st to 90th percentiles, and $36,000 for families in the 26th to 50th percentiles. On average, families at or below the 25th percentile were $13,000 in debt.
How Did the Distribution of Wealth Change From 1989 to 2013? Over the period from 1989 through 2013, family wealth grew at significantly different rates for different segments of the U.S. population. In 2013, for example:
The wealth of families at the 90th percentile of the distribution was 54 percent greater than the wealth at the 90th percentile in 1989, after adjusting for changes in prices.
The wealth of those at the median was 4 percent greater than the wealth of their counterparts in 1989.
The wealth of families at the 25th percentile was 6 percent less than that of their counterparts in 1989.
As the chart below shows, nobody has experienced the same cumulative growth in after-tax income as the "Top 1%"
Marxists of the world may want to avoid the following section, as they may suffer permanent injury:
The distribution of wealth among the nation’s families was more unequal in 2013 than it had been in 1989. For instance, the difference in wealth held by families at the 90th percentile and the wealth of those in the middle widened from $532,000 to $861,000 over the period (in 2013 dollars). The share of wealth held by families in the top 10 percent of the wealth distribution increased from 67 percent to 76 percent, whereas the share of wealth held by families in the bottom half of the distribution declined from 3 percent to 1 percent.
And there is your recovery: the wealthy have never been wealthier, while for half of America, some 50% of households, now own just 1% of the country's wealth, down from 3% in 1989.
Finally, when Obama touts the recovery, he may have forgotten about half of America, but one entity remembers well: loan collectors. As the chart below shows, America's poor families have never been more in debt.
The share of families in debt (those whose total debt exceeded their total assets) remained almost unchanged between 1989 and 2007 and then increased by 50 percent between 2007 and 2013. In 2013, those families were more in debt than their counterparts had been either in 1989 or in 2007. For instance, 8 percent of families were in debt in 2007 and, on average, their debt exceeded their assets by $20,000. By 2013, in the aftermath of the recession of 2007 to 2009, 12 percent of families were in debt and, on average, their debt exceeded their assets by $32,000.
The increase in average indebtedness between 2007 and 2013 for families in debt was mainly the result of falling home equity and rising student loan balances. In 2007, 3 percent of families in debt had negative home equity: They owed, on average, $16,000 more than their homes were worth. In 2013, that share was 19 percent of families in debt, and they owed, on average, $45,000 more than their homes were worth. The share of families in debt that had outstanding student debt rose from 56 percent in 2007 to 64 percent in 2013, and the average amount of their loan balances increased from $29,000 to $41,000.
Finally, it worth noting that the numbers shown above are as of 2013. Since then the trends shown above, and the record gap between America's rich and poor has grown to even more unprecedetned proportions.
Source: CBO
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Literally Her: An Interview with Julie Houts
Written BY AMY ELLERMAN
Julie Houts, or @jooleeloren as her 182,000 Instagram followers know her, is a hilarious illustrator and writer with an upcoming book, Literally Me, coming out October 24th (Simon & Schuster). Her spot-on and refreshingly brutal illustrations detail the glorious bullshit surrounding the fashion industry that she knows so well from her time as a Fashion Designer at J. Crew. Julie recently left her job after 6 years to work on her book and freelance projects, a transition that is no doubt hectic, stressful and exciting. We chatted with Julie in the midst of it all to talk to her about the transition from a desk job to working from home, overcoming Imposter Syndrome and the unforgiving horror of Internet trolls.
Amy Ellerman: It seems like a pretty badass time for you right now, leaving your full-time J. Crew gig as a fashion designer to getting a book deal and going 100% freelance. How has the transition been?
Julie Houts: It’s been good but weird! I’ve been such a corporate worker bee for so long, and didn’t mind it. I really liked the structure of working, so I was a little bit worried, but it’s been really nice. But sometimes I will finish working around 6:00 and go meet people for drinks and realize I haven’t spoken all day and get really skittish like a weird little dog. Or you know, you’re just alone all day and you start to feel a little in your head. I used to not have enough time to overthink things, so I didn’t really sit there asking “is this actually what I think?” Now that I have endless time, I overthink things.
AE: I totally agree, I’m on the job hunt right now and have more than enough alone time, and my boyfriend will come home from work and I’ll ask “How was work?” and think “holy shit that’s what my voice sounds like…” because I haven’t spoken all day.
JH: And, like, little moths fly out.
AE: Yeah, like wait, did I brush my teeth? Have I been wearing these yoga pants for three days?
JH: Did I put on makeup? What day is it?
AE: Exactly! So was moving to freelance a move of necessity, like getting too much freelance work and that’s what you wanted to pursue?
JH: While at J. Crew, I had to turn down a lot of projects because of time or they weren’t paying enough that it just wasn't worth it, so the projects I did were pretty specific. And then I got the book deal and that was becoming a lot in terms of time management to juggle it, and just felt like I was done doing fashion design at that time. Also, J. Crew was going through a lot of changes, and it just felt like everything was just kind of sinking, and I’m a firm believer that you can always get another desk job. Figured I might as well go with it.
Ellie Brzezenski: In terms of the book deal and how it came about, do you ever feel like “why me?” A sort of Imposter Syndrome ?
JH: Sure! I always just assumed that it should be someone else because I’ve been interested in illustration for so long and know people that are way more talented than I am and much more skilled technically. Especially with the book deal, I have to check myself to not be like “you don’t deserve this, this should be for someone more deserving.”
EB: Recently I was given a press pass to take pictures at Tank & The Bangas and I was like “...wait... I am absolutely terrible at photography, they are going to kick me out, I am so not qualified.”
JH: Like “she isn’t holding her camera properly!”
EB: Yes! Then I had to say “oh my god, nobody fucking cares about you here. You’re just a blond chick in a denim dress. Stop worrying.”
JH: I am starting to believe that nobody knows what the fuck they’re doing, and if you’re willing to be the person to raise your hand and say “I’ll do it” then you’ll be the one with all the money and all the things. I always thought there was going to be a moment where you are like “Yes, I deserve this” and I honestly don’t believe that ever comes. Unless you’re a massive asshole.
If you’re willing to be the person to raise your hand and say ‘I’ll do it.’ then you’ll be the one with all the money and all the things. I always thought there was going to be a moment where you are like “Yes, I deserve this” and I honestly don’t believe that ever comes. Unless you’re a massive asshole.
AE: We’ve been talking about imposter syndrome a lot recently, and we feel that women suffer significantly more from this, or if we’re wrong, then men never speak about it.
JH: Oh yeah. They believe they’re allowed everything, that it’s deserved.
AE: For sure, and it’s like you get a promotion and immediately get scared and think “do I deserve this?” rather than “Fuck yeah I deserve this, I worked my ass off, stop doubting yourself.”
JH: There’s a certain level of that, to admit that you want something or you want to be successful or want to have more money. I was raised in a way where you kept your head down and took what was given to you with a big thank you, and it’s interesting to admit that I’m ambitious and ask for things, but I think that it’s good.
AE: Are there any moments where you look at your Instagram following and ask “how the hell did I end up here?”
JH: Of course! I don’t understand anything about it, it’s really weird, I still don’t. It makes no fucking sense to me.
AE: I’m sure when all these people starting commenting that you don’t know, it’s like “aaaaaahh what is going on?”
JH: Oh my god it’s crazy. I’m like “I didn't fucking ask for this!” It’s weird. People start to expect a lot from you, and think that they know you, and think that they should be allowed access to things. I’m like “why do you think that I owe you anything?” But at the same time, I owe them a lot in a strange little way, so it’s a weird dynamic that I don’t understand.
AE: Is there anything that you want to post on Instagram and then hold back because it might seem inappropriate?
JH: Oh my God, too many times I can think of. Most of what I think I figure “I’m going to get in trouble for this.” That’s another thing about having a lot of followers: people are so offended and outraged by everything! Like their representation, lack of representation, your language, I mean everything is someone’s trigger. So there are a lot of things that I really want to say that I often hold back on, because even when I do something that is the most non-offensive thing in the world, my DMs manage to blow up and it’s just not worth it.
AE: Is there one in particular that you can remember?
JH: The one that is coming to mind is “Fashion Week Guernica” (see illustration) and people were saying “you’re trivializing it!” but it’s a piece of artwork! I’m not trivializing the plight of humanity - people are trying to be outraged just to be outraged. And the internet is like their sacred space.
EB: Everything is just a hyperbole. And then the conversation becomes “I’m such a great person but you are the worst garbage-human-dumpster-fire!”
JH: I know! And to me, these are the most obvious things on the planet. I forever underestimate how disgusting men on the internet can be. Like that one illustration about the locker room talk (see illustration), that was so obvious and not really saying much about something specific. It was just, “Yeah, this is factual.” and I got so many scary DMs and all of these men’s rights groups coming after me, it was really scary! It’s one thing to not think that it's true, but it's another thing to loop in all of your scary men’s rights groups and attack me.
AE: If there is one you decide is too triggering to post, do you just send them to your friends or keep them somewhere?
JH: I just file them away, but I save a lot for my book so I can hide behind a publisher and not have to deal with comments for days straight. But sometimes I have to think “is this a momentary feeling?” If so, sometimes I will sit on it for a week and if I still feel like it’s valid then I’ll post it.
EB: How do you decide what goes in your book versus your social feed?
JH: That’s been hard, especially when I was working and didn’t have a lot of time to be like “here's one for a book, here's for Instagram.” And since I’m an extreme narcissist, the ones that gives me immediate positive feedback is the one that I pick [for Instagram]. The book is made of several essays, so a lot is illustrating those. My editor and I carved out the themes and she would be like “Okay, you have a lot of these themes, so we need more illustrations on this.” But I have definitely been posting less, it’s just hard to do both right now.
AE: So are you working with an essayist or are you writing the essays?
JH: No, I’m writing all the essays myself.
AE: Shit, you’re creative! How long will it be?
JH: Around 176 pages, give or take. The shortest essay is about 2 pages and the longest is like 30, so there’s a range.
AE: And is this your first time publishing essays? How do you feel about it?
JH: Yes, it’s scary! I never considered myself to be a writer so again it's like imposter syndrome, it’s like “I don't get to write essays, I’m not a writer.”
AE: Your illustrations are brutally honest, not only about the fashion industry, but also the human condition and its quirks, like being a Basic Bitch. Would you consider they stem from self-reflection or observation of others?
JH: Both. I think I notice a lot of behaviors in myself and in a lot of people, and it comes with this overarching feeling that we’re all behaving this way and it’s gross. It’s a way of pointing a finger at a system that is letting us behave in this way and try to break apart why I act like this, why are other people acting like this, and realizing behaviors around me and break apart why.
AE: Being so involved in the fashion world and surrounded by women, you’ve nailed down that demo so well. Have you ever thought about going into another industry, like Silicon Valley and illustrating these super-awkward bro-y culture?
JH: I can’t really speak to experience that I don’t have, but I just know fashion so I can be critical of it, that “girl world” that’s familiar to me. I’m working on developing some TV projects (including a pilot!) and I’m starting to meet with people that are in film and television and are very different, so I notice these certain things in those meetings.
What are they like?
JH: Well being in the fashion world, I took it for granted that I worked with so many women. At J. Crew it’s mostly women and most leadership is held by women, so I never really had to work with men and didn’t understand what my friends were talking about when working with a lot of male colleagues. I was like “that sounds awful I can’t believe that’s true!” but now a lot of people I’m working with I’m like “Oh my God, is this normal how you’re speaking to me? That’s so aggressive.” I mean it’s good to know, it’s my first experience working with men and it’s definitely been interesting. It's good, it makes you sort of galvanize and hold your own.
AE: There is this quote I loved from your Vogue interview: “I just think that everyone is basically an idiot… I have a hard time approaching someone who isn't willing to admit that about themselves. It’s confusing for me—how do you not think you’re an idiot?”. Is that kind of how you started your illustration, just getting that frustration on paper?
JH: When I just started illustrating I had 120 followers and knew all of them. It was before Instagram got so lifestyle-brandy, and I was just like: “this is the coffee I had today,” “I saw this guy wearing a hat,” so I drew it. There wasn’t a lot of premeditation involved. I don’t know what made them turn into some commentary, it was just that a lot of things annoy me, and it’s the easiest way to get it all out quickly. Since they were only going to people that I knew I just assumed everyone shared the same perspective.
AE: Not only are your illustrations spot on and have these really crazy details, but your quotes and commentary are perfect. Are these quotes usually things that you draw from specific conversations or do you take a lot of time to determine what word to be placed where?
JH: A lot of times I think of the words first and then draw something to accommodate that, and other times I’ll just be sketching all day about a specific pose and the words follow. I don’t usually get too tripped up in language because it should be easy and relatable and whatever I thought of first is the best version of it.
AE: I always get jealous of creative people because they have a constructive way to express themselves, rather than my way which is bitching to people who don't give a shit. Do you consider your illustrations as an outlet of expressing your frustrations?
JH: Absolutely. I’d be complaining all whole time if I couldn’t draw. I would not have any friends.
Thank you to Julie for being an awesome interviewee and generally creative genius! Pre-order her upcoming book, Literally Me, on Amazon and whatever other book place you purchase from.
X Chrome Collective July 12, 2017
Black and White and Feminist All Over: Jenna Blazevich
X Chrome Collective October 4, 2017
Claire Wasserman Talks Some Cents
X Chrome Collective May 30, 2017
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Xconomy Seattle
With $17M, Illumina Ties, Prenatal Tests Firm Cradle Genomics Debuts
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OVP, Looking for a Home Run, Hits Bunt Single With Complete Genomics
OVP Venture Partners had one of its portfolio companies go public a little more than a year ago, so the Kirkland, WA-based firm had to have high hopes for the kind of home-run returns that can make up for a lot of misses in a portfolio. But now its investment in Mountain View, CA-based Complete Genomics is looking less like a home run, and more like a bunt single.
Over the past several months, OVP has sold off much of its stake in Complete Genomics (NASDAQ: GNOM) at bargain prices more than 80 percent below their all-time high of $18.55 a share last June.
Last week, OVP executed a series of big transactions in which it sold 1.03 million shares of Complete Genomics stock at prices between $2.80 and $3.28 a share, according to filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The sales were made in multiple chunks, and total proceeds weren’t disclosed, but based on multiplying the average stock price and the number of shares, OVP generated more than $3.1 million in proceeds last week, according to an Xconomy review of the filings. OVP, which also made a series of stock sales at similar prices in December, has now seen its ownership in Complete Genomics drop roughly in half—from 2.89 million shares at the time of the company’s November 2010 IPO to about 1.39 million shares as of March 16, according to regulatory filings.
While IPOs are typically a moment to celebrate for venture capitalists, it’s been a roller coaster experience for OVP. Like company executives and other venture investors, OVP was bound by a customary 180-day lock-up period that prevented it from selling its stake right after the IPO, when the stock debuted at $9 a share. Then, last May as Complete Genomics stock was riding high, the company seized the momentum and raised more money, selling more stock at $12.50 a share.
As the stock continued climbing to its peak of $18.55 in June, insiders were barred from selling because the secondary offering had come with another 90-day lock-up period, according to regulatory filings. By the time the second lock-up period expired, the market’s view of Complete Genomics had changed. The company’s stock plunged last August amid delays in delivering the number of complete genome sequences it had promised investors, and general market uncertainty about budget cuts at the National Institutes of Health that could weaken the purchasing power of Complete Genomics’ customers. That phenomenon has also hurt all of Complete Genomics’ major competitors in the fast-moving business of DNA sequencing—including Illumina, Life Technologies, and Pacific Biosciences.
OVP managing director Chad Waite, a member of the Complete Genomics board, declined to comment on the stock sales and what implications they might have for OVP.
It’s unclear from the filings what kind of return multiple OVP is getting from its investment in Complete Genomics, because they don’t say what price OVP paid for its shares.
While OVP still has more than 1 million shares left in Complete Genomics that have a chance to increase in value, the outcome thus far has to be disappointing. Managing director Gerry Langeler, at an OVP Tech Summit in Seattle in May 2010, talked about how long it had been since OVP had a portfolio company go public. “For a while we thought of investment bankers like unicorns, sort of like cute mythical beasts. But they are back,” Langeler said.
Clearly, the Complete Genomics outcome will have some effect on OVP’s future plans for fundraising. The firm, founded in 1983, has over $750 million under management. Its most recent fund, OVP VII and OVP Entrepreneurs Fund VII, together closed on over $250 million in May 2006. While it’s still relatively early to start judging the returns of those funds, the prior fund, OVP VI, was completed with $185 million in October 2001. And that fund—the one which OVP used to invest in Complete Genomics—had an internal rate of return of -16.9 percent as of Sept. 30, 2011, according to data disclosed online by one of OVP’s limited partners, the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund. It’s unclear how much the new liquid returns from Complete Genomics will affect the performance of OVP VI.
OVP has a long history in supporting innovation, with more than 130 investments in its roughly 30-year history that have led to 23 IPOs and 30 acquisitions, according to the firm’s website. It has invested in tech, biotech, and cleantech companies, with a strong emphasis on companies in the Northwest. Besides Complete Genomics, its current portfolio includes local companies such as Allozyne, VLST, EnerG2, DataSphere, NanoString Technologies, Talyst, and Adapx.
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3 responses to “OVP, Looking for a Home Run, Hits Bunt Single With Complete Genomics”
I wonder who advised them to invest in Complete Genomics? It is a very complicated way to do sequencing. CG is clearly is getting the crap beat out of them by other, simpler methods.
Nanostring Founder (@Nanostring) says:
the cost basis for the shares can be calculated from the S-1. OVP put in $3M in Series A, $3M in Series B, $3.4M in Series C, $5.5M in Series E, and $6.3M in Series E, for a total of $21M. With 2.89M shares, that comes to around $7.25/sh
Obviously, when you buy shares for > $7 and sell them for < $3, you cannot call that a bunt single; this is more of a strike-out…
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Girl Scout, 11, killed by falling tree at Indiana camp
Posted: Jun 25, 2019 / 01:52 PM UTC / Updated: Jun 25, 2019 / 04:24 PM UTC
In this March 28, 2016 photo, Isabelle Meyer of Jasper, Ind. adds hand sanitizer to gift bags for chemotherapy patients during a meeting of Girl Scout Troop 670 in Cannelton, Ind. Isabelle, 11, was killed Monday, June 24, 2019, when a tree fell on her and three others during a Girl Scout camp at Camp Koch near Cannelton, Ind. (Sarah Ann Jump/The Herald via AP)
CANNELTON, Ind. (AP) — An 11-year-old Girl Scout was fatally injured when a tree suddenly fell on her and three others as they hiked along a gravel road at a southern Indiana campground, authorities said.
It was raining when deputies arrived at Camp Koch about 11:30 a.m. Monday but there had been no severe weather or lightning reported in the vicinity at the time, Perry County Sheriff Alan Malone said. The sheriff wasn’t certain why the about 40-foot-tall (12-meter-tall) tree toppled, but said the ground was saturated from frequent rainfall over the past couple weeks.
Officials said 11-year-old Isabelle Meyer of Jasper was pronounced dead at an Evansville hospital after suffering head and abdominal injuries when she was hit by the tree. Malone said two women, ages 50 and 55, suffered serious injuries but were hospitalized in stable condition Tuesday. A 10-year-old girl was treated for a hand injury.
Malone fought back tears during a Tuesday news conference as he described the death as a freak accident.
“They were there to have a good time,” he said. “But speculation that they were doing anything wrong? No.”
A nurse and Girl Scout staffers were assisting the four who were struck by the tree when emergency workers arrived at the camp along the Ohio River about 60 miles (96 kilometers) southwest of Louisville, Kentucky, Malone said.
Girl Scouts of Southwest Indiana released a statement Monday night, saying the camp would be closed during the investigation.
“There is nothing we take more seriously than the safety and well-being of our girls and volunteers,” the organization said. “During this difficult time, the entire Girl Scout family mourns the loss of one of our girls.”
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Khayelitsha Community Health Workers
Organization: Khayelitsha Township
Khayelitsha is a township on the Cape Flats, outside of Cape Town, South Africa. A community-based project sought to increase awareness of primary prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by harnessing the power of community health workers (CHWs) as community change agents. The intervention was initiated in 2000, in response to the request of community members of Khayelitsha who had noticed an increasing number of people in their community suffering from diabetes and hypertension.
The first phase of the program focused on the health needs of the CHWs, over 90% of whom were obese and most of whom had misconceptions about the causes and consequences of obesity. An interactive training program was developed which aimed to empower CHWs with the knowledge and skills to make healthy choices and act as positive role models to others. The CHWs went on to organize awareness-raising events including a dramatized play on diabetes, discussions on healthy eating, fun group walks and a health club.
The diabetes drama was performed to 1100 people across 13 sites and at the end of each performance the audience was interviewed to assess their understanding. In 2005, the CHWs developed a health club called “Masiphakame Ngempilo yethu” (Let’s stand up for our Health). Members meet weekly and sessions are a combination of physical exercises, demonstrations, talks and discussions. Originally, the club had 35 members but by 2006 this had increased to 152. After 2 years, a study of 25 club members and 29 non-members demonstrated that club members tended to eat less red meat and were more likely to trim the fat from meat than non-club members.
The program faced several key challenges, in particular: high unemployment combined with easy and cheap access to unhealthy food; and high levels of crime and violence which discouraged people from undertaking outdoor physical activities. In spite of these difficulties, the program is still running, demonstrating the vital role that CHWs can play in the primary prevention of NCDs.
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Police say a 13-year-old is charged with 1st degree murder of 17-year-old
By: WMAR Staff
BALTIMORE (WMAR) — Baltimore Police said a teenage suspect is charged for a homicide in March.
According to a statement from police, a 13-year-old male suspect, along with his attorney, turned himself in to police at the Juvenile Detention Center on April 11.
The teenage suspect is believed to be involved in the shooting death of 17-year-old Lamont Green back on March 28, in the 1400 block of Montpelier Street.
RELATED: 17-year-old killed, another injured in 2 shootings in 2 hours
Officials said the suspect will remain at the Juvenile Detention Center, pending his trail.
He has been charged with first-degree murder.
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Rob Gunther
Rob Gunther is an associate producer at The Takeaway.
Before joining the team, Rob worked as an intern and then an assistant producer for The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. During this time, he earned his MFA in fiction and literary translation from CUNY Queens College. In his final year of school, Rob won the “Loose Translation Award” from Hanging Loose Press for his translation of Jorge Velasco Mackenzie’s Drums for a Lost Song, which was published in 2017.
From 2009 - 2011, Rob served with the Peace Corps in Pucayacu, Ecuador. As a community health volunteer, he designed and built composting eco-toilets, taught workshops about HIV prevention and education, and launched a mural painting project throughout the schools of Cantón La Maná.
Rob has bylines in Slate and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. He loves cooking, running, and the watching New York Islanders hockey. A Long Island native, Rob lives in Astoria, Queens with his wife Joannah, their two boys Robbie and Harry, and their dog Steve.
You can follow Rob on Twitter and Instagram @1RobGunther. You can send him an email - rgunther@wnyc.org.
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California backs effort to boost utilities during wildfires
by: ANDREW OXFORD, Associated Press
Posted: Jul 11, 2019 / 06:53 PM EDT / Updated: Jul 11, 2019 / 07:48 PM EDT
Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, center, shakes hands with Assemblyman Chad Mayes, R-Yucca Valley, after their wildfire measure they co-authored, along with Assemblywoman Autumn Burke, D-Inglewood was approved by the Assembly in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, July 11, 2019. The bill, AB1054, aimed at stabilizing the state’s electric utilities in the face of devastating wildfires caused by their equipment, was approved overwhelmingly and now goes to the governor. At left is state Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, who carried the measure in the Senate. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers approved a multibillion-dollar plan Thursday to shore up the state’s biggest electric utilities in the face of catastrophic wildfires and claims for damage from past blazes caused by their equipment.
It requires major utilities to spend at least $5 billion combined on safety improvements and meet new safety standards, and it creates a fund of up to $21 billion that could help pay out claims as climate change makes wildfires across the U.S. West more frequent and more destructive.
Lawmakers passed the bill less than a week after its final language went into print, and Gov. Gavin Newsom was expected to sign it Friday. Republicans and Democrats said the state needed to provide financial certainty to the state’s investor-owned utilities, the largest of which, Pacific Gas & Electric Corp., is in bankruptcy.
But they said their work is far from over and they plan to do more on wildfire prevention and home protection when they return in August from a summer break.
A broad coalition rallied around the measure, from renewable energy trade groups and labor unions representing utility workers to survivors of recent fires caused by PG&E equipment. Victims applauded provisions they say will give them more leverage to get compensation from the company as it wades through bankruptcy.
But several lawmakers raised concerns that the measure would leave utility customers on the hook for fires caused by PG&E despite questions about the company’s safety record.
“No one has ever said this bill is going to be the silver bullet or fix all but it does take us in dramatic leaps to where we can stabilize California,” said Assemblyman Chris Holden, a Democrat from Pasadena and one of the bill’s authors.
Holden and other supporters said the legislation would not raise electric rates for customers. But it would let utilities pass on the costs from wildfires to customers in certain cases, which would make costs rise.
The legislation also extends an existing charge on consumers’ electric bills to raise $10.5 billion for the fund that will cover costs from wildfires caused by the equipment of participating electric utilities.
PG&E filed for bankruptcy in January, saying it could not afford billions in damages from recent deadly wildfires caused by downed power lines and other company equipment, including a November fire that killed 85 people and largely destroyed the town of Paradise .
Credit ratings agencies also are eyeing the financial worthiness of Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.
PG&E did not take a formal position on the bill. Spokesman Lynsey Paulo said the utility is committed to resolving victims’ claims and reducing wildfire risks.
To use the fund, companies would have to meet new safety standards to be set by state regulators and take steps such as tying executive compensation to safety. The state’s three major utilities could elect to contribute an additional $10.5 billion to create a larger insurance fund worth at least $21 billion.
Questions about PG&E’s efforts to combat fires led to some opposition.
A day before the legislation passed, a federal judge overseeing PG&E’s bankruptcy ordered its lawyers to respond to a report in The Wall Street Journal that showed it knew about the risks of aging equipment but did not replace systems that could cause wildfires.
“It is hard not to see this bill as something of a reward for monstrous behavior. They haven’t done the work. They should not be rewarded,” said Assemblyman Marc Levine, a Democrat from San Rafael who voted against the legislation.
David Song, a spokesman for Southern California Edison, said the utility supports the bill but wants to see “refinements.” He offered no specifics.
“If the bills are signed into law they take initial steps to return California to a regulatory framework providing the financial stability utilities require to invest in safety and reliability,” he said.
Associated Press writer Adam Beam contributed.
Live TV coverage made hundreds of millions witnesses to history. They huddled in front of televisions in homes and gathered in auditoriums and schoolrooms as the Apollo 11 astronauts ventured onto another world for the first time.
South Carolina News / 2 hours ago
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Democrats Furious After Trump Moves To Take Over D.C. Fourth of July Celebration
By Jack Davis
Published May 11, 2019 at 9:46am
The Fourth of July is almost two months away, but there are already partisan fireworks exploding in Washington.
At least one Democrat is objecting to plans to alter long-standing routines, particularly to the possibility that President Donald Trump will address the nation from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, according to The Washington Post.
Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota, chair of the House Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, said Trump’s participation could polarize the nation.
“It’s not about any one president. It’s about how our nation came to be, because of a hardy band of brave men and women,” McCollum said.
“It’s not about any one person, it’s about ‘We, the people.’ And if the president moves to make this about him, I think he will find the American public disappointed and angered by it,” she said.
The Post report, which was published Friday, drew heavily upon sources it did not name to describe Trump’s heavy involvement in planning the event. According to the report, Trump’s address — first mentioned as a possibility in a tweet February.
HOLD THE DATE! We will be having one of the biggest gatherings in the history of Washington, D.C., on July 4th. It will be called “A Salute To America” and will be held at the Lincoln Memorial. Major fireworks display, entertainment and an address by your favorite President, me!
At the time of Trump’s announcement, his idea was received coolly by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Should President Donald Trump speak to the nation on the Fourth of July?
“Planning for that to make sure that all the participants are safe down on The Mall is not something that you can wing, it has to be planned and planned well, and moving the President during that could be a very considerable undertaking for our MPD, which would pull them off the already large crowds that we have,” she said, according to WTTG.
The Post report said the administration wants to move the annual fireworks display from the National Mall to West Potomac Park along the Potomac River.
In addition to the traditional concert at the West Lawn of the Capitol, there might be other entertainment at another venue in the event, which is being called “A Salute to America.”
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, whose office has overall responsibility for the event, was optimistic about what Americans can expect.
“I think the president is excited about the idea, and we’re working hard on it, and I think it could be very, very meaningful. The president loves the idea, as probably all Americans do, of celebrating America on the Fourth of July, or thereabouts,” he said.
RELATED: Kennedy Defends Trump Against Racist Charges of ‘Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse’
Changing the site where fireworks are launched would result in what Bernhardt termed “a significant expansion of space that’s available to watch the fireworks from the Mall.”
“And we might even have some more surprises in store for the public, very very soon,” he said.
Trump has been proposing a major parade in Washington during one of America’s patriotic holidays ever since he participated in a Bastille Day parade in France in 2017, but the idea was dropped once it was estimated to cost $92 million, Fox News reported.
Jack Davis
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Jack can be reached at jackwritings1@gmail.com.
Politics, Foreign Policy, Military & Defense Issues
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Tags: Democrats, Donald Trump, Fourth of July
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As This London Tech Company Grows, Its Office Grows Along With It
46 desks WeWork Moorgate
Finding flexible office space was tough, but opening its HQ at WeWork allowed appScatter to expand around the city and across the world
WeWork Moorgate
Moorgate, London
When appScatter was looking for office space, one of the main goals was finding a place that could grow along with them.
“We knew that we were going to grow quite quickly,” says Jason Hill, Chief Revenue Officer for the rapidly expanding mobile strategy platform. The company had big plans, and didn’t want to spend precious time thinking about real estate.
The company was based in Boston at the time, and found exactly what they were looking for at WeWork South Station. They could start off with an office for their six-person team, knowing that they could easily take more space down the road.
“For us, it was the ease of being able to select a smaller office space to start with,” says Hill. “As we grew, we could just expand.”
AppScatter’s management team already had strong contacts in the U.K., so they decided that relocating there would help them secure the funding necessary to get to the next level. When the company moved its headquarters to London, naturally it moved into another WeWork space — this time WeWork Moorgate.
“About 70 percent of WeWork customers are potential appScatter customers. Putting ourselves as part of that community makes perfect business sense.”
Jason Hill
By this point the team had exploded in size to 46 people working from two different offices in WeWork Moorgate.
The time was right for the company to go public. Its IPO on the London Stock Market in September impressed the experts. Stock prices soared, giving the company a market capitalization of more than $60 million.
The company is looking forward to even more expansion within the next six months, this time globally.
“We have to open up in Berlin and San Francisco, and we are taking WeWork spaces in both those cities,” Hill says. “We know what we’re getting, we know how it works, and it just fits with what we want. Having that peace of mind is really important to us.”
Hill says that there are plenty of other tech-focused companies at WeWork, and that “just being around like-minded businesses is helpful.” It’s a great way to continue growing the business.
“About 70 percent of Wework customers are potential appScatter customers,” explains Hill. “Putting ourselves as part of that community makes perfect business sense.”
Gói & giá cả
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What's on Netflix > Netflix News > Art is Love Made Public – Neet’s Mom Plans to Celebrate Sense8 and Its Fans
Art is Love Made Public – Neet’s Mom Plans to Celebrate Sense8 and Its Fans
by Sidanthi Siriwardena @SiddyNickhead on June 29, 2018, 8:29 am EST
As one of the most visible and active cast members of Sense8, Maximilienne Ewalt is not only loved by the fans of the show for her portrayal of Amanita’s mom, Grace Caplan but for the warm and charismatic human being, she is on and off screen. The actress who is best known for her outspoken views on everything from politics and environmental issues to Sense8 has turned her attention to a new project for the fans of Sense8. From landing the now iconic role to unforgettable moments shooting “Amor Vincit Omnia” let’s dig deeper with the lady we all know and love as Neet’s Mom in Netflix’s Sense8.
Q: How did you come to play Grace, Amanita’s mother?
A : I had just come back home from LA where I had been taking care of some very old family friends, a gay couple, who were like surrogate fathers to me and who had known me since I was born. —one of them had just died and the other one had dementia and my sister took on the task of taking care of them. I had just been to LA where they lived and I was exhausted and I told my agent that I was going to take a break. A couple of days later, I got an email from a casting director here and I asked what it was for and I was told it was for a web series and I didn’t even know what that was! They said it was like “Orange is the New Black” and “House of Cards” and that it is by the creators of the Matrix, and I was like “Oh! I think I better go on this one!” So I went and did my audition and the scene was where I describe how Amanita got lost at a 4th of July picnic. Sometime later, I got a call from casting director Carmen Cuba for a Skype interview and it was just to find out who I was as a person. And I thought that’s different! Lana and Lily had really checked around about people, everyone on set was so nice and so kind. And they chose people who are easy to work with and people who get along, which I learned later. That was it!
Q: How much do you think Grace’s own personal choices, philosophy and lifestyle has shaped the woman Neets is?
A: Well, I did not have an average mom… I think Grace is a child of the 60’s and we are all a product of our time, where we live, and our families. And that was a really wild time, especially here in California. Grace is a little older than me. I was around 14 during that time and it was a really powerful time. It was the time of free love and people were burning their bras and women’s liberation was a big part of what was going on in Grace’s life and also in Amanita’s life because she was raised in a commune. Grace even named her daughter Amanita, after a psychedelic mushroom. My mom was an artist and she was very eccentric as well and that had an impact on me. Grace is like Amanita in that she is this very open-hearted, accepting person who says “Be your true self. It’s ok to be different!” I grew up with a name like Maximillienne and I was very different. Because my mother was different it was ok, and I liked being different and Amanita was exposed to a lot similarly. She grew up with many different kinds of people and learned from her mother to be true to herself, to be comfortable in her own skin and to be who she really is.
Q: Grace had probably the most fully drawn character of all the parents of the core Sensates. Why are her views so relatable to viewers today?
A: I think because she is the mother many people never had. Who doesn’t want unconditional love, to be loved for who they are? After the first season came out, I joined Twitter to learn what viewers thought about the show. So many people were completely smitten with it. Grace is not a main character, but people were responding to her with comments like “I need a hug from Amanita’s mom” and really sweet comments like that and it opened my heart to them. I felt their need to be loved. I started to feel like they were all my children!” I feel this deep love for all of them and how this show has affected them and how my character has affected them and how much they love everybody on the show. That’s really rare. It’s very rare. I call everything connected to Sense8 the Magic Carpet Ride. It’s a big love fest. There have also been many older women my age who love the show and relate to Grace.
Q: Grace is the antithesis of Janet, Nomi’s mother. What’s it like to play a character, who, for many fans, is the ideal mother or parent?
A: It feels very good because I’m getting a lot of love back but my sister would say “They just don’t know you!” Haha! When I was in Chicago I got a tour of Kinoworks and the gentleman who gave us the tour said I was the mother “we never had “and he was gay. And my mother had a lot of gay friends and we have known them all our lives and they would stay over and sleep on the same bed and it would never occur to me that they were gay. I think many people today, especially in our LGBTQ communities have family experiences at least somewhat similar to Nomis, being disowned or not fully accepted by them. Many fans shared online stories of how Sense8 saved their lives. I feel their pain. That’s another similarity I have with Grace. I’m an empath like Grace, and I feel people’s pain and sadness.
Q: From The Lacuna to the many diverse female characters in the show such as Grace, the power of women is a core theme in Sense8. Why do you think that’s important? Especially in a Sci-Fi series?
A: It’s always been important to have strong women. Some people say women’s lib is over. I have experienced feeling invisible at work where they talk to your male colleague and ignore you. Women didn’t get the recognition men did, even historically.Most women I think have talked about experiencing the phenomenon of feeling invisible, except for maybe unwanted sexual attention. The #MeToo movement has made all of us aware that sexual harassment is still rampant in our society here and all over the world. We need more strong female role models in film.
Q: What are your favorite memories of shooting Amor Vincit Omnia?
A: I loved, LOVED mingling with the fans and they were so sweet and so polite and some of them were my age when I was living in France after my mother moved us there when I was a teen. And being with the cast again and Lana. I absolutely adore Lana and Karin so being around them and everyone was wonderful. And on the way to France, I was on the plane with other cast members, including Nomi’s mom and the faeries in Season One, both incredible artists I just adore played by Tino Rodriguez and Virgo Paraiso. The painting in Lito’s bedroom is actually by Tino Rodriguez, both good friends of Lana’s.In the wedding scene, watching Lana work and orchestrate a hundred people in a very short amount of time before the fireworks were set to go off only once, was also really impressive. It was just such an honor to get to go and I didn’t know we would get to shoot on the Eiffel Tower!
Q: How did it feel to watch the episode with fans and the cast at the special screening in Chicago’s Music Box Theatre?
A: It was amazing being in that packed theatre all of us watching it together for the first time. Being in that space with hundreds of people responding to every scene with so much passion. Every little thing got them so excited and they laughed, cried and cheered and that was amazing. That was very special. It meant a lot to me to be with people who feel so passionately about Sense8 and the characters in it. It was very moving. It was like being reunited with people you love so much, and you felt the fans love of these characters That was very special. It means a lot to me to be with people who feel that the show and the characters really saved them. It really moves me. So many people shared their stories of how it saved their lives.
Q: Sense8 appears to have transformed the lives of the cast as well as its fans and you’re involved in a very special project to celebrate the show and its fans, aren’t you?
A: Yes I am. Creating a permanent Sense8 mural was not my idea. While waiting for Amor Vincit Omnia to air, the idea came from the fans to create original Sense8 murals in all the cities where the characters come from. San Francisco has a lot of murals and Sense8 features a lot of art like that. I was thinking “How hard can that be?” I thought I would put the dots together for people. I thought about how I could help out, to give something back to the fans who fought so hard to get Netflix to even complete the story to give them closure. Once I envisioned it, it quickly took shape. I enlisted my friend Deirdre Weinberg, a muralist, to design and create the mural. She has actually been wanting a mural there for a long time and it was like the universe was rolling out the red carpet, saying this is the way to go. It was Diedre Weinberg, my friend who is a muralist, who will paint the mural, who suggested we fund it with a Kickstarter campaign. We have to get the funding together by July 16th so I need the fans to help to make it happen.
Q: It’s not often that cast members collaborate with fans to create something like this, why do you think Sense8 is always the exception?
A: I think because we are living the message of the show. I think we are living the message of unity, connection and empathy, totally. There is a need for that. There is a need for connection. And actually, the whole premise of Sense8, the concept, came out of a conversation about the internet. Lana told us this during the table read. It’s brought people together who feel the same way. People who feel empathy for one another. Even people who are not aware of LGBTQ issues learned about it on the show.
Q: Why was San Francisco chosen as the location for the Sense8 mural beside the fact that it’s home base for Nomi and Amanita?
A: Because this is where I live and where I could make it happen. Lana and Karin also have a home here in San Francisco and they are a big part of life here even though they live in Chicago. And also because we started shooting when San Francisco Pride was here. It’s a beautiful city and it’s also a very liberal and open city and there’s a huge LGBTQ community here.
Q: The opening theme of Sense8, as well as the show itself, features public artwork, murals, street art and installations in cities around the world. What are some of your favorite public works of art? And how was the Sense8 mural designed?
A: There are three here in San Francisco I adore. One is a gorgeous Diego Rivera mural at City College. There’s another one in a beautiful old building that houses a restaurant called the Beach Chalet. The mural covers all the walls in a beautiful light filled room as you enter the building. And I love the murals on the Women’s Building in San Francisco which was featured in Sense8.
Deirdre came up with an inspired design with the image of a stark face in shadow that to me represents loneliness and disconnection. The eye is full of color and represents the Universe, or the universal connection of all humankind. The 8 sensates are shaped like Shiva with many arms, the Hindu god, protector of the Universe. It is sort of what’s called in French a trompe l’oeil, which means it tricks the eye. I think it’s magical. This mural will be a permanent monument, an ode to Sense8.
Q: Creating a mural in a public space is a massive undertaking. How are you funding the mural and how can fans help make this dream a reality?
A: Thank you for asking that. It is massive and challenging. And I’m learning a lot. We are already halfway through our 30-day fundraising campaign at Kickstarter.com. We need to reach our funding goal of $15,000 by July 16th., which is coming up fast. Fans can go to Kickstarter.com and search for I am Also a We, which is the name of the mural. They can also follow news on the mural on Facebook and Instagram and make a donation. And I need fans to know that I cannot do this without them and I would love the fans to be a part of this project because it will not happen without their support. I always felt a strong connection with the fans. I won’t let the fans down. We can do this together.
Contribute to the Kickstarter
Follow Updates-
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/SFsense8Mural/
Twitter – @MaximilienneEw1
Tags: Sense8
More on Sense8
Netflix’s ‘Sense8’ Stars – Where are they now in 2019?
Sense8 Finale ‘Amor Vincit Omnia’ – One Year Later
The Campaign for ‘Sense8’ Season 3 Rages On
Next story When will Season 2 of ‘Hotel Transylvania’ be on Netflix?
Previous story Is Seasons 1 to 4 of ’12 Monkeys’ on Netflix?
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| ERROR: type should be string, got "https://www.whsmith.co.uk/products/the-tradition/jericho-brown/paperback/9781529020472-01-000.html\nBy Jericho Brown (Author)\nhttps://www.whsmith.co.uk/products/the-tradition/jericho-brown/paperback/9781529020472-01-000.html £7.91 rrp £10.99 Save £3.08 (28%)\nJericho Brown's daring poetry collection The Tradition details the normalization of evil and its history at the intersection of the past and the personal. Brown's poetic concerns are both broad and intimate, and at their very core a distillation of the incredibly human: What is safety? Who is this nation? Where does freedom truly lie? Poems of fatherhood, legacy, blackness, queerness, worship, and trauma are propelled into stunning clarity by Brown's mastery, and his invention of the duplex - a combination of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues - testament to his formal skill. The Tradition is a cutting and necessary collection, relentless in its quest for survival while revelling in a celebration of contradiction.\nJericho Brown worked as the speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before earning his PhD in creative writing and literature from the University of Houston. His first book, Please, won the American Book Award. The New Testament was winner of the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry and the Paterson Award for Literary Excellence, 2015. He teaches at Emory University and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.\nContributor: Jericho Brown\nImprint: Picador\nBiography: Jericho Brown worked as the speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before earning his PhD in creative writing and literature from the University of Houston. His first book, Please, won the American Book Award. The New Testament was winner of the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry and the Paterson Award for Literary Excellence, 2015. He teaches at Emory University and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.\nJericho Brown\nhttps://www.whsmith.co.uk/products/the-tradition/jericho-brown/paperback/9781529020472.html £7.91 rrp £10.99 Save £3.08 (28%)"
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Alisa Plant Appointed Director of Louisiana State University Press
Posted on Feb 06, 2019 | Comments 0
Alisa Plant has been named director of the Louisiana State University Press and publisher of The Southern Review. Plant will assume her new duties as the seventh director of the press on March 4.
Most recently, Dr. Plant served as editor-in-chief of the University of Nebraska Press, a position she has held since 2015. Under her leadership, the press increased its annual output of titles by 35 percent. She previously worked in acquisitions at LSU Press for almost 10 years. Prior to that, she was an assistant editor at the Yale Center for Parliamentary History.
“I’m delighted to be coming back to Louisiana as director of LSU Press and publisher of The Southern Review,” Dr. Plant said. “Since 1935, LSU Press and TSR have published distinguished works of lasting scholarly and literary merit, and I’m honored and excited — with the aid of supremely talented colleagues — to carry on this tradition.”
Dr. Plant holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Kansas and a Ph.D. in history from Yale University.
Tags: Louisiana State University • University of Kansas • Yale University
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EARTH'S POLAR REGIONS
Geography/Geology
Polar Atmosphere
Polar Oceans
Polar Life
Arctic Cultures
Poles in Space
Games/Activities
Learn about planets outside our solar system through Exoplanets and Alien Solar Systems by Tahir Yaqoob, Ph.D., a book in our online store book collection.
Icebergs in the Southern Ocean
Ute Kaden/PolarTREC
Icebergs are large pieces of ice floating in the ocean that have broken off of ice shelves or glaciers in Earth's polar regions. They are a part of the cryosphere.
Approximately 90% of an iceberg's mass is below the surface of the seawater. Because ice is less dense than water, a small portion of the iceberg stays above the seawater.
Icebergs can be huge. The largest ones are known as ice islands. The widest iceberg on record was 80 kilometers across. The tallest known iceberg had 168 meters of ice sticking out above the water. Since the part above the water is only 10% of its total size, imagine how much ice a large iceberg has underwater!
In 1912, a brand new ship called the RMS Titanic, collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sunk on its first voyage.& Only about a quarter of the passengers and crew who were on board the Titanic survived. After this huge disaster, the International Ice Patrol was formed to track icebergs in the North Atlantic, ensuring that other ships did not meet a similar fate. The Patrol first monitored icebergs from ships. Later, in the 1930s, airplanes were used to keep track of icebergs. Today, icebergs can be tracked using satellites. In an average year, nearly 500 icebergs pass through the shipping routes in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Patrol warns sailors when the danger of icebergs is high.
As they travel from the polar areas where they form into warmer waters, the ice melts, and icebergs become smaller.
Last modified April 18, 2007 by Lisa Gardiner.
The Spring 2010 issue of The Earth Scientist, focuses on the ocean, including articles on polar research, coral reefs, ocean acidification, and climate. Includes a gorgeous full color poster!
The cryosphere includes the parts of the Earth system where water is in its frozen (solid) form. This includes snow, sea ice, icebergs, ice shelves, glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost soils. Approximately...more
What is mass?
Would it be more difficult to pull an elephant or a mouse? If you pulled each animal with the same amount of force, the elephant would respond less to pulling, even if he didn’t pull back at all. That’s...more
Ice Shelves
Ice shelves are a part of the Earth's cryosphere. Ice shelves are usually extensions of glaciers or ice sheets that cover the land. An ice shelf is a part of an ice sheet that extends from land out over...more
Herbertson Glacier and Bay of Sails Research Sites
Herbertson Glacier is my favorite place we have visited here. Up until the trip to Herbertson, I kept myself busy in the lab, weighing and measuring carbonate minerals for my experiments, so I did not...more
Flight over Southern Ocean
With the brakes retooled, we were finally ready for take off in the C-17. Take off was amazing, despite all the noise generated by the massive engines (we had to wear ear plugs or headphones): I was pushed...more
Ice Beauty
When most people think of Antarctica they envision powerful glaciers, 100s of square miles of sea ice and massive icebergs (see Dec 10 postcard). All of these landscape dominators are here and they do...more
Melting Arctic Sea Ice and the Global Ocean Conveyor
Seawater moves through the Atlantic as part of the Global Ocean Conveyor, the regular pattern by which seawater travels the world’s oceans. The water in the Global Ocean Conveyor circulates because of...more
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Bebe Rexha’s Dad Called Her Music Video ‘Stupid Pornography’ and Said He’s ‘Embarrassed’ by Her
Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Bebe Rexha's father isn't a fan of her latest music video.
Early this week the singer posted a screenshot of a conversation she had with her father, criticizing her "Last Hurrah" video. He slammed the video as "stupid pornography," adding that he was disappointed in her, according to a report from Entertainment Tonight.
"You better stop posting stupid pornography because you make me sick," the text started. "I can't take this anymore, embarrassed to go in public everywhere I can go. I'm upset with you, I can't believe it."
Along with the screenshot, Rexha wrote, "My dad hates me," with the face-palm emoji. Fans responded with negative comments about her dad, which left the singer with no choice but to defend him on Twitter.
"Don't say mean things about my dad please he is an amazing father," Rexha wrote.
She added, "My dad is not a bad guy. I should of never have posted that screenshot. i'm disappointed in myself. I was being sarcastic. I understand where he is coming [from] as a father and that's why the text was a bit harsh. I am upset that he still isn't speaking to me, but he is still my father."
Speaking with TMZ after the fact, the singer revealed that her father "didn't like the video, the video is a lot." She then said fans were being over-the-top in their reactions.
"My fans are getting a little too intense, they're saying some mean s--- about my dad," she said. "He might have said something a little heated in the moment. I feel dumb for showing the screenshot. I get him. I understand him. Don't talk s--- about my dad, that's my father and he loves me."
Rexha's father isn't the only one who took issue with her video, though. The "Last Hurrah" video has been marked as "sensitive" on YouTube. She addressed that issue in a tweet.
"My video was flagged as 'sensitive' on YouTube. So it can't trend now," she tweeted. "I am [a] woman who is living unapologetically. I'm not gonna be made to feel bad about making ART. And yes art to me is my beautiful ass out, boys kissing boys, girls kissing girls, crosses on my body. IF A MALE RAPPER PUT OUT THAT VIDEO OUT IT WOULD BE FINE."
Rexha added, "If I would of know I would put the rated r version of the video out, where the nun was smoking weed. The only person I would apologize to for this video is god if I offended him in any way. But I wrote this song with a pure heart. And wanted to portray how We are all fighting our temptations. No one is perfect. That's why we turn to god. God created sex. And I like sex."
Watch Bebe Rexha's "Last Hurrah" video, below:
50 Shades of Celebrity Feuds
Source: Bebe Rexha’s Dad Called Her Music Video ‘Stupid Pornography’ and Said He’s ‘Embarrassed’ by Her
Filed Under: Bebe Rexha
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Tintoretto Artist of Renaissance Venice Robert Echols, Frederick Ilchman
336 pages: 298 x 248mm
240 color illus.
Arts »
History of Art »
History of Art c 1400 to c 1600 »
Renaissance Art »
Published on the 500th anniversary of Tintoretto’s birth, this unprecedented publication celebrates one of Renaissance Italy’s greatest painters
Jacopo Tintoretto (1518 or 1519–1594) was known for the remarkable energy of his work. His contemporary Giorgio Vasari described him as the “most extraordinary brain that painting has ever produced.” Considered to be one of the three great painters of 16th-century Venice, along with Titian and Paolo Veronese, Tintoretto is admired for his dramatic treatments of sacred and secular narrative subjects and his insightful portraits of the Venetian aristocracy. His bold and expressive brushwork, which made his paintings seem unfinished to his contemporaries, is now recognized as a key step in the development of oil-on-canvas painting.
This lavishly illustrated study, published to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the artist’s birth, features more than forty of Tintoretto’s paintings, including many large-scale pieces that convey the breadth and power of his narrative works, along with a sample of his finest drawings. An international group of scholars led by Robert Echols and Frederick Ilchman explores Tintoretto’s artistic activity and situates his life and work in the context of his contemporaries’ work and of the Renaissance in Italy, providing a fundamental point of reference for modern scholarship and an essential introduction to the artist’s career and oeuvre.
Robert Echols is an independent scholar and curator who has worked on exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, Washington; Museo del Prado, Madrid; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Frederick Ilchman is chair of Art of Europe and the Mrs. Russell W. Baker Curator of Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
The Art of Paper
Making Marvels
Wolfram Koeppe
Young Bomberg and the Old Masters
Richard Cork
The Renaissance of Etching
Catherine Jenkins
Emily J. Peters
Elizabethan Globalism
Matthew Dimmock
C. D. Dickerson
Leonardo da Vinci Rediscovered
Frame Work
Nicholas Hilliard
Elizabeth Goldring
Renaissance Splendor
Elizabeth Cleland
National Gallery Technical Bulletin
Marika Spring
Seen from Behind
Patricia Lee Rubin
The Renaissance Nude
Thomas Kren
Mantegna and Bellini
Caroline Campbell
Veiled Presence
Paul Hills
Leonardo: Discoveries from Verrocchio's Studio
Laurence Kanter
The Sistine Chapel - Paradise in Rome
Ulrich Pfisterer
The Italian Renaissance Nude
Jill Burke
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Posted on April 12, 2019 in Assignments
A History of Witchcraft in England from by Wallace Notestein 1 A History of Witchcraft in England from by Wallace Notestein The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718, by Wallace Notestein This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www. utenberg. org Title: A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 Author: Wallace Notestein Release Date: March 5, 2010 [EBook #31511] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITCHCRAFT *** Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes, Meredith Bach, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www. pgdp. net PRIZE ESSAYS OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
A History of Witchcraft in England from by Wallace Notestein 1909 To this Essay was awarded the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize in European History for 1909 A HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT IN ENGLAND FROM 1558 TO 1718 BY WALLACE NOTESTEIN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION WASHINGTON, 1911 COPYRIGHT, 1911 BY THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION WASHINGTON, D. C. THE LORD BALTIMORE PRESS BALTIMORE, M. D. , U. S. A. PREFACE. 2 In its original form this essay was the dissertation submitted for a doctorate in philosophy conferred by Yale University in 1908.
When first projected it was the writer’s purpose to take up the subject of English witchcraft under certain general political and social aspects. It was not long, however, before he began to feel that preliminary to such a treatment there was necessary a chronological survey of the witch trials. Those strange and tragic affairs were so closely involved with the politics, literature, and life of the seventeenth century that one is surprised to find how few of them have received accurate or complete record in history.
It may be said, in fact, that few subjects have gathered about themselves so large concretions of misinformation as English witchcraft. This is largely, of course, because so little attention has been given to it by serious students of history. The mistakes and misunderstandings of contemporary writers and of the local historians have been handed down from county history to county history until many of them have crept into general works. For this reason it was determined to attempt a chronological treatment which would give a narrative history of the more significant trials along with some account of the progress of opinion.
This plan has been adhered to somewhat strictly, sometimes not without regret upon the part of the writer. It is his hope later in a series of articles to deal with some of the more general phases of the subject, with such topics as the use of torture, the part of the physicians, the contagious nature of the witch alarms, the relation of Puritanism to persecution, the supposed influence of the Royal Society, the general causes for the gradual decline of the belief, and other like questions. It will be seen in the course of the narrative that some of these matters have been touched upon.
This study of witchcraft has been limited to a period of about one hundred and sixty years in English history. The year 1558 has been chosen as the starting point because almost immediately after the accession of Elizabeth there began the movement for a new law, a movement which resulted in the statute of 1563. With that statute the history of the persecution of witches gathers importance. The year 1718 has been selected as a concluding date because that year was marked by the publication of Francis Hutchinson’s notable attack upon the belief.
Hutchinson levelled a final and deadly blow at the dying superstition. Few men of intelligence dared after that avow any belief in the reality of witchcraft; it is probable that very few even secretly cherished such a belief. A complete history would of course include a full account both of the witch trials from Anglo-Saxon times to Elizabeth’s accession and of the various witch-swimming incidents of the eighteenth century. The latter it has not seemed worth while here to consider.
The former would involve an examination of all English sources from the earliest times and would mean a study of isolated and unrelated trials occurring at long intervals (at least, we have record only of such) and chiefly in church courts. The writer has not undertaken to treat this earlier period; he must confess to but small knowledge of it. In the few pages which he has given to it he has attempted nothing more than to sketch from the most obvious sources an outline of what is currently known as to English witches and witchcraft prior to the days of Elizabeth.
It is to be hoped that some student of medieval society will at some time make a thorough investigation of the history of witchcraft A History of Witchcraft in England from by Wallace Notestein in England to the accession of the great Queen. 3 For the study of the period to be covered in this monograph there exists a wealth of material. It would perhaps not be too much to say that everything in print and manuscript in England during the last half of the sixteenth and the entire seventeenth century should be read or at least glanced over.
The writer has limited himself to certain kinds of material from which he could reasonably expect to glean information. These sources fall into seven principal categories. Most important of all are the pamphlets, or chapbooks, dealing with the history of particular alarms and trials and usually concluding with the details of confession and execution. Second only to them in importance are the local or municipal records, usually court files, but sometimes merely expense accounts. In the memoirs and diaries can be found many mentions of trials witnessed by the diarist or described to him.
The newspapers of the time, in their eagerness to exploit the unusual, seize gloatingly upon the stories of witchcraft. The works of local historians and antiquarians record in their lists of striking and extraordinary events within their counties or boroughs the several trials and hangings for the crime. The writers, mainly theologians, who discuss the theory and doctrine of witchcraft illustrate the principles they lay down by cases that have fallen under their observation. Lastly, the state papers contain occasional references to the activities of the Devil and of his agents in the realm.
Besides these seven types of material there should be named a few others less important. From the pamphlet accounts of the criminal dockets at the Old Bailey and Newgate, leaflets which were published at frequent intervals after the Restoration, are to be gleaned mentions of perhaps half a dozen trials for witchcraft. The plays of Dekker, Heywood, and Shadwell must be used by the student, not because they add information omitted elsewhere, but because they offer some clue to the way in which the witches at Edmonton and Lancaster were regarded by the public.
If the pamphlet narrative of the witch of Edmonton had been lost, it might be possible to reconstruct from the play of Dekker, Ford, and Rowley some of the outlines of the story. It would be at best a hazardous undertaking. To reconstruct the trials at Lancaster from the plays of Heywood and Brome or from that of Shadwell would be quite impossible. The ballads present a form of evidence much like that of the plays. Like the plays, they happen all to deal with cases about which we are already well informed. In general, they seem to follow the narratives and depositions faithfully.
No mention has been made of manuscript sources. Those used by the author have all belonged to one or other of the types of material described. It has been remarked that there is current a large body of misinformation about English witchcraft. It would be ungrateful of the author not to acknowledge that some very good work has been done on the theme. The Reverend Francis Hutchinson, as already mentioned, wrote in 1718 an epoch-making history of the subject, a book which is still useful and can never be wholly displaced.
In 1851 Thomas Wright brought out his Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, a work at once entertaining and learned. Wright wrote largely from original sources and wrote with a good deal of care. Such blunders as he made were the result of haste and of the want of those materials which we now possess. Mrs. Lynn Linton’s Witch Stories, published first in 1861, is a better book than might be supposed from a casual glance at it. It was written with no more serious purpose than to entertain, but it is by no means to be despised. So far as it goes, it represents careful work.
It would be wrong to pass over Lecky’s brilliant essay on witchcraft in his History of Rationalism, valuable of course rather as an interpretation than as an historical account. Lecky said many things about witchcraft that needed to be said, and said them well. It is my belief that his verdicts as to the importance of sundry factors may have to be modified; but, however that be, the importance of his essay must always be recognized. One must not omit in passing James Russell Lowell’s charming essay on the subject. Both Lecky and Lowell of course touched English witchcraft but lightly. Since Mrs.
Lynn Linton’s no careful treatment of English witchcraft proper has appeared. In 1907, however, Professor Kittredge published his Notes on Witchcraft, the sixty-seven pages of which with their footnotes contain a more scrupulous sifting of the evidence as to witchcraft in England than is to be found in any other treatment. Professor Kittredge is chiefly interested in English witchcraft as it relates itself to witchcraft in New England, but his work contains much that is fresh about the belief in England. As to the role and the importance of various actors in the drama and as to sundry minor matters, the
A History of Witchcraft in England from by Wallace Notestein 4 writer has found himself forced to divergence of view. He recognizes nevertheless the importance of Professor Kittredge’s contribution to the study of the whole subject and acknowledges his own indebtedness to the essay for suggestion and guidance. The author cannot hope that the work here presented is final. Unfortunately there is still hidden away in England an unexplored mass of local records. Some of them no doubt contain accounts of witch trials. I have used chiefly such printed and manuscript materials as were accessible in London and Oxford.
Some day perhaps I may find time to go the rounds of the English counties and search the masses of gaol delivery records and municipal archives. From the really small amount of new material on the subject brought to light by the Historical Manuscripts Commission and by the publication of many municipal records, it seems improbable that such a search would uncover so many unlisted trials as seriously to modify the narrative. Nevertheless until such a search is made no history of the subject has the right to be counted final. Mr. Charles W.
Wallace, the student of Shakespeare, tells me that in turning over the multitudinous records of the Star Chamber he found a few witch cases. Professor Kittredge believes that there is still a great deal of such material to be turned up in private collections and local archives. Any information on this matter which any student of English local history can give me will be gratefully received. I wish to express my thanks for reading parts of the manuscript to William Savage Johnson of Kansas University and to Miss Ada Comstock of the University of Minnesota.
For general assistance and advice on the subject I am under obligations to Professor Wilbur C. Abbott and to Professor George Burton Adams of Yale University. It is quite impossible to say how very much I owe to Professor George L. Burr of Cornell. From cover to cover the book, since the award to it of the Adams Prize, has profited from his painstaking criticism and wise suggestion. W. N. Minneapolis, October 10, 1911. CONTENTS. PAGE Preface v CHAPTER I. 5 CHAPTER I. The Beginnings of English Witchcraft 1 CHAPTER II. 6 CHAPTER II.
Witchcraft under Elizabeth 33 CHAPTER III. 7 CHAPTER III. Reginald Scot 57 CHAPTER IV. 8 CHAPTER IV. The Exorcists 73 CHAPTER V. 9 CHAPTER V. James I and Witchcraft 93 CHAPTER VI. 10 CHAPTER VI. Notable Jacobean Cases 120 CHAPTER VII. 11 CHAPTER VII. The Lancashire Witches and Charles I 146 CHAPTER VIII. 12 CHAPTER VIII. Matthew Hopkins 164 CHAPTER IX. 13 CHAPTER IX. Witchcraft during the Commonwealth and Protectorate 206 CHAPTER X. 14 CHAPTER X. The Literature of Witchcraft from 1603 to 1660 227 CHAPTER XI. 15 CHAPTER XI.
Witchcraft under Charles II and James II 254 CHAPTER XII. 16 CHAPTER XII. Glanvill and Webster and the Literary War over Witchcraft, 1660-1688 284 CHAPTER XIII. 17 CHAPTER XIII. The Final Decline 313 CHAPTER XIV. 18 CHAPTER XIV. The Close of the Literary Controversy 334 Appendices 345 A. Pamphlet Literature 345 B. List of Persons Sentenced to Death for Witchcraft during the Reign of James I 383 C. List of Cases of Witchcraft, 1558-1717, with References to Sources and Literature 384 Index 421 CHAPTER I. 19 CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH WITCHCRAFT.
It has been said by a thoughtful writer that the subject of witchcraft has hardly received that place which it deserves in the history of opinions. There has been, of course, a reason for this neglect–the fact that the belief in witchcraft is no longer existent among intelligent people and that its history, in consequence, seems to possess rather an antiquarian than a living interest. No one can tell the story of the witch trials of sixteenth and seventeenth century England without digging up a buried past, and the process of exhumation is not always pleasant.
Yet the study of English witchcraft is more than an unsightly exposure of a forgotten superstition. There were few aspects of sixteenth and seventeenth century life that were not affected by the ugly belief. It is quite impossible to grasp the social conditions, it is impossible to understand the opinions, fears, and hopes of the men and women who lived in Elizabethan and Stuart England, without some knowledge of the part played in that age by witchcraft. It was a matter that concerned all classes from the royal household to the ignorant denizens of country villages.
Privy councillors anxious about their sovereign and thrifty peasants worrying over their crops, clergymen alert to detect the Devil in their own parishes, medical quacks eager to profit by the fear of evil women, justices of the peace zealous to beat down the works of Satan–all classes, indeed–believed more or less sincerely in the dangerous powers of human creatures who had surrendered themselves to the Evil One. Witchcraft, in a general and vague sense, was something very old in English history. In a more specific and limited sense it is a comparatively modern phenomenon. This leads us to a definition of the term.
It is a definition that can be given adequately only in an historical way. A group of closely related and somewhat ill defined conceptions went far back. Some of them, indeed, were to be found in the Old Testament, many of them in the Latin and Greek writers. The word witchcraft itself belonged to Anglo-Saxon days. As early as the seventh century Theodore of Tarsus imposed penances upon magicians and enchanters, and the laws, from Alfred on, abound with mentions of witchcraft. [1] From these passages the meaning of the word witch as used by the early English may be fairly deduced.
The word was the current English term for one who used spells and charms, who was assisted by evil spirits to accomplish certain ends. It will be seen that this is by no means the whole meaning of the term in later times. Nothing is yet said about the transformation of witches into other shapes, and there is no mention of a compact, implicit or otherwise, with the Devil; there is no allusion to the nocturnal meetings of the Devil’s worshippers and to the orgies that took place upon those occasions; there is no elaborate and systematic theological explanation of human relations with demons. But these notions were to reach England soon enough.
Already there were germinating in southern Europe ideas out of which the completer notions were to spring. As early as the close of the ninth century certain Byzantine traditions were being introduced into the West. There were legends of men who had made written compacts with the Devil, men whom he promised to assist in this world in return for their souls in the next. [2] But, while such stories were current throughout the Middle Ages, the notion behind them does not seem to have been connected with the other features of what was to make up the idea of witchcraft until about the middle of the fourteenth century.
It was about that time that the belief in the “Sabbat” or nocturnal assembly of the witches made its appearance. [3] The belief grew up that witches rode through the air to these meetings, that they renounced Christ and engaged in foul forms of homage to Satan. Lea tells us that towards the close of the century the University of Paris formulated the theory that a pact with Satan was inherent in all magic, and judges began to connect this pact with the old belief in night riders through the air. The countless confessions that resulted from the carefully framed questions of the judges served to develop and systematize the theory of the subject.
The witch was much more than a sorcerer. Sorcerers had been those who, through the aid of evil spirits, by the use of certain words or of representations of persons or things produced changes above the ordinary course of nature. “The witch,” says Lea, “has abandoned Christianity, has renounced her baptism, has worshipped Satan as her God, has surrendered herself to him, body and soul, and exists only to be his instrument in working the evil to her fellow creatures which he cannot accomplish without a human agent. “[4] This was the final and definite notion of a witch. It was the conception that controlled European
CHAPTER I. 20 opinion on the subject from the latter part of the fourteenth to the close of the seventeenth century. It was, as has been seen, an elaborate theological notion that had grown out of the comparatively simple and vague ideas to be found in the scriptural and classical writers. It may well be doubted whether this definite and intricate theological notion of witchcraft reached England so early as the fourteenth century. Certainly not until a good deal later–if negative evidence is at all trustworthy–was a clear distinction made between sorcery and witchcraft.
The witches searched for by Henry IV, the professor of divinity, the friar, the clerk, and the witch of Eye, who were hurried before the Council of Henry VI, that unfortunate Duchess of Gloucester who had to walk the streets of London, the Duchess of Bedford, the conspirators against Edward IV who were supposed to use magic, the unlucky mistress of Edward IV–none of these who through the course of two centuries were charged with magical misdeeds were, so far as we know, accused of those dreadful relations with the Devil, the nauseating details of which fill out the later narratives of witch history.
The truth seems to be that the idea of witchcraft was not very clearly defined and differentiated in the minds of ordinary Englishmen until after the beginning of legislation upon the subject. It is not impossible that there were English theologians who could have set forth the complete philosophy of the belief, but to the average mind sorcery, conjuration, enchantment, and witchcraft were but evil ways of mastering nature. All that was changed when laws were passed. With legislation came greatly increased numbers of accusations; with accusations and executions came treatises and theory.
Continental writers were consulted, and the whole system and science of the subject were soon elaborated for all who read. With the earlier period, which has been sketched merely by way of definition, this monograph cannot attempt to deal. It limits itself to a narrative of the witch trials, and incidentally of opinion as to witchcraft, after there was definite legislation by Parliament. The statute of the fifth year of Elizabeth’s reign marks a point in the history of the judicial persecution at which an account may very naturally begin.
The year 1558 has been selected as the date because from the very opening of the reign which was to be signalized by the passing of that statute and was to be characterized by a serious effort to enforce it, the persecution was preparing. Up to that time the crime of sorcery had been dealt with in a few early instances by the common-law courts, occasionally (where politics were involved) by the privy council, but more usually, it is probable, by the church. This, indeed, may easily be illustrated from the works of law.
Britton and Fleta include an inquiry about sorcerers as one of the articles of the sheriff’s tourn. A note upon Britton, however, declares that it is for the ecclesiastical court to try such offenders and to deliver them to be put to death in the king’s court, but that the king himself may proceed against them if he pleases. [5] While there is some overlapping of procedure implied by this, the confusion seems to have been yet greater in actual practice. A brief narrative of some cases prior to 1558 will illustrate the strangely unsettled state of procedure.
Pollock and Maitland relate several trials to be found in the early pleas. In 1209 one woman accused another of sorcery in the king’s court and the defendant cleared herself by the ordeal. In 1279 a man accused of killing a witch who assaulted him in his house was fined, but only because he had fled away. Walter Langton, Bishop of Lichfield and treasurer of Edward I, was accused of sorcery and homage to Satan and cleared himself with the compurgators. In 1325 more than twenty men were indicted and tried by the king’s bench for murder by tormenting a waxen image. All of them were acquitted.
In 1371 there was brought before the king’s bench an inhabitant of Southwark who was charged with sorcery, but he was finally discharged on swearing that he would never be a sorcerer. [6] It will be observed that these early cases were all of them tried in the secular courts; but there is no reason to doubt that the ecclesiastical courts were quite as active, and their zeal must have been quickened by the statute of 1401, which in cases of heresy made the lay power their executioner. It was at nearly the same time, however, that the charge of sorcery began to be frequently used as a political weapon.
In such cases, of course, the accused was usually a person of influence and the matter was tried in the council. It will be seen, then, that the crime was one that might fall either under ecclesiastical or conciliar jurisdiction and the CHAPTER I. 21 particular circumstances usually determined finally the jurisdiction. When Henry IV was informed that the diocese of Lincoln was full of sorcerers, magicians, enchanters, necromancers, diviners, and soothsayers, he sent a letter to the bishop requiring him to search for sorcerers and to commit them to prison after conviction, or even before, if it should seem expedient. 7] This was entrusting the matter to the church, but the order was given by authority of the king, not improbably after the matter had been discussed in the council. In the reign of Henry VI conciliar and ecclesiastical authorities both took part at different times and in different ways. Thomas Northfield, a member of the Order of Preachers in Worcester and a professor of divinity, was brought before the council, together with all suspected matter belonging to him, and especially his books treating of sorcery. Pike does not tell us the outcome. 8] In the same year there were summoned before the council three humbler sorcerers, Margery Jourdemain, John Virley, a cleric, and John Ashwell, a friar of the Order of the Holy Cross. It would be hard to say whether the three were in any way connected with political intrigue. It is possible that they were suspected of sorcery against the sovereign. They were all, however, dismissed on giving security. [9] It was only a few years after this instance of conciliar jurisdiction that a much more important case was turned over to the clergy.
The story of Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, is a familiar one. It was determined by the enemies of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester to attack him through his wife, who was believed to be influential with the young king. The first move was made by arresting a Roger Bolingbroke who had been connected with the duke and the duchess, and who was said to be an astronomer or necromancer. It was declared that he had cast the duchess’s horoscope with a view to ascertaining her chances to the throne. Bolingbroke made confession, and Eleanor was then brought before “certayne bisshoppis of the kyngis. In the mean time several lords, members of the privy council, were authorized to “enquire of al maner tresons, sorcery, and alle othir thyngis that myghte in eny wise … concerne harmfulli the kyngis persone. “[10] Bolingbroke and a clergyman, Thomas Southwell, were indicted of treason with the duchess as accessory. With them was accused that Margery Jourdemain who had been released ten years before. Eleanor was then reexamined before the Bishops of London, Lincoln, and Norwich, she was condemned as guilty, and required to walk barefoot through the streets of London, which she “dede righte mekely. The rest of her life she spent in a northern prison. Bolingbroke was executed as a traitor, and Margery Jourdemain was burnt at Smithfield. [11] The case of the Duchess of Bedford–another instance of the connection between sorcery and political intrigue–fell naturally into the hands of the council. It was believed by those who could understand in no other way the king’s infatuation that he had been bewitched by the mother of the queen. The story was whispered from ear to ear until the duchess got wind of it and complained to the council against her maligners.
The council declared her cleared of suspicion and ordered that the decision should be “enacted of record. “[12] The charge of sorcery brought by the protector Richard of Gloucester against Jane Shore, who had been the mistress of Edward IV, never came to trial and in consequence illustrates neither ecclesiastical nor conciliar jurisdiction. It is worthy of note however that the accusation was preferred by the protector–who was soon to be Richard III–in the council chamber. [13] It will be seen that these cases prove very little as to procedure in the matter of sorcery and witchcraft.
They are cases that arose in a disturbed period and that concerned chiefly people of note. That they were tried before the bishops or before the privy council does not mean that all such charges were brought into those courts. There must have been less important cases that were never brought before the council or the great ecclesiastical courts. It seems probable–to reason backward from later practice–that less important trials were conducted almost exclusively by the minor church courts. 14] This would at first lead us to suspect that, when the state finally began to legislate against witchcraft by statute, it was endeavoring to wrest jurisdiction of the crime out of the hands of the church and to put it into secular hands. Such a supposition, however, there is nothing to justify. It seems probable, on the contrary, that the statute enacted in the reign of Henry VIII was passed rather to support the church in its struggle against sorcery and witchcraft than to limit its jurisdiction in the matter.
It was to assist in checking these practitioners that the state stepped in. At another point in this chapter we shall have occasion to note the great interest in CHAPTER I. 22 sorcery and all kindred subjects that was springing up over England, and we shall at times observe some of the manifestations of this interest as well as some of the causes for it. Here it is necessary only to urge the importance of this interest as accounting for the passage of a statute. [15] Chapter VIII 23
Chapter VIII of 33 Henry VIII states its purpose clearly: “Where,” reads the preamble, “dyvers and sundrie persones unlawfully have devised and practised Invocacions and conjuracions of Sprites, pretendyng by suche meanes to understande and get Knowlege for their owne lucre in what place treasure of golde and Silver shulde or mought be founde or had … and also have used and occupied wichecraftes, inchauntmentes and sorceries to the distruccion of their neighbours persones and goodes. A description was given of the methods practised, and it was enacted that the use of any invocation or conjuration of spirits, witchcrafts, enchantments, or sorceries should be considered felony. [16] It will be observed that the law made no graduation of offences. Everything was listed as felony. No later piece of legislation on the subject was so sweeping in its severity. The law remained on the statute-book only six years. In the early part of the reign of Edward VI, when the protector Somerset was in power, a policy of great leniency in respect to felonies was proposed.
In December of 1547 a bill was introduced into Parliament to repeal certain statutes for treason and felony. “This bill being a matter of great concern to every subject, a committee was appointed, consisting of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the lord chancellor, the lord chamberlain, the Marquis of Dorset, the Earls of Shrewsbury and Southampton, the Bishops of Ely, Lincoln, and Worcester, the Lords Cobham, Clinton, and Wentworth, with certain of the king’s learned council; all which noblemen were appointed to meet a committee of the Commons … n order to treat and commune on the purport of the said bill. “[17] The Commons, it seems, had already prepared a bill of their own, but this they were willing to drop and the Lords’ measure with some amendments was finally passed. It was under this wide repeal of felonies that chapter VIII of 33 Henry VIII was finally annulled. Whether the question of witchcraft came up for special consideration or not, we are not informed.
We do know that the Bishops of London, Durham, Ely, Hereford, and Chichester, took exception to some amendments that were inserted in the act of repeal,[18] and it is not impossible that they were opposed to repealing the act against witchcraft. Certainly there is no reason to suppose that the church was resisting the encroachment of the state in the subject. As a matter of fact it is probable that, in the general question of repeal of felonies, the question of witchcraft received scant attention.
There is indeed an interesting story that seems to point in that direction and that deserves repeating also as an illustration of the protector’s attitude towards the question. Edward Underhill gives the narrative in his autobiography: “When we hade dyned, the maior sentt to [two] off his offycers with me to seke Alene; whome we mett withalle in Poles, and toke hym with us unto his chamber, wheare we founde fygures sett to calke the nativetie off the kynge, and a jugementt gevyne off his deathe, wheroff this folyshe wreche thoughte hymselfe so sure thatt he and his conselars the papistes bruted it all over.
The kynge laye att Hamtone courte the same tyme, and me lord protector at the Syone; unto whome I caryed this Alen, with his bokes off conejuracyons, cearkles, and many thynges beloungynge to thatt dyvlyshe art, wiche he affyrmed before me lorde was a lawfulle cyens [science], for the statute agaynst souche was repealed. ‘Thow folyshe knave! (sayde me lorde) yff thou and all thatt be off thy cyens telle me what I shalle do to-morow, I wylle geve the alle thatt I have’; commaundynge me to cary hym unto the Tower. Alen was examined about his science and it was discovered that he was “a very unlearned asse, and a sorcerer, for the wiche he was worthye hangynge, sayde Mr. Recorde. ” He was however kept in the Tower “about the space off a yere, and then by frendshipe delyvered. So scapithe alwayes the weked. “[19] But the wicked were not long to escape. The beginning of Elizabeth’s reign saw a serious and successful effort to put on the statute-book definite and severe penalties for conjuration, sorcery, witchcraft, and related crimes. The question was taken up in the very first year of the new reign and a bill was draughted. 20] It was not, however, until 1563 that the statute was finally passed. It was then enacted that those who “shall use, practise, or exercise any Witchecrafte, Enchantment, Charme or Sorcerie, whereby any person shall happen to bee killed or destroyed, … their Concellors and Aidours, … shall suffer paynes of Deathe as a Felon or Felons. ” It was further declared that those by whose practices any person was wasted, consumed, or lamed, should suffer for the first offence one year’s imprisonment and should be put in the pillory four times. For the second offence death was the penalty.
It was further provided that those who by witchcraft presumed to discover Chapter VIII treasure or to find stolen property or to “provoke any person to unlawfull love” should suffer a year’s imprisonment and four appearances in the pillory. 24 With this law the history of the prosecution of witchcraft in England as a secular crime may well begin. The question naturally arises, What was the occasion of this law? How did it happen that just at this particular time so drastic a measure was passed and put into operation? Fortunately part of the evidence exists upon which to frame an answer.
The English churchmen who had been driven out of England during the Marian persecution had many of them sojourned in Zurich and Geneva, where the extirpation of witches was in full progress, and had talked over the matter with eminent Continental theologians. With the accession of Elizabeth these men returned to England in force and became prominent in church and state, many of them receiving bishoprics. It is not possible to show that they all were influential in putting through the statute of the fifth year of Elizabeth. It is clear that one of them spoke out plainly on the subject.
It can hardly be doubted that he represented the opinions of many other ecclesiastics who had come under the same influences during their exile. [21] John Jewel was an Anglican of Calvinistic sympathies who on his return to England at Elizabeth’s accession had been appointed Bishop of Salisbury. Within a short time he came to occupy a prominent position in the court. He preached before the Queen and accompanied her on a visit to Oxford. It was in the course of one of his first sermons–somewhere between November of 1559 and March of 1560[22]–that he laid before her his convictions on witchcraft.
It is, he tells her, “the horrible using of your poor subjects,” that forces him to speak. “This kind of people (I mean witches and sorcerers) within these few last years are marvellously increased within this your grace’s realm. These eyes have seen most evident and manifest marks of their wickedness. Your grace’s subjects pine away even unto death, their colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft. Wherefore, your poor subjects’ most humble petition unto your highness is, that the laws touching such malefactors may be put in due execution. The church historian, Strype, conjectures that this sermon was the cause of the law passed in the fifth year of Elizabeth’s reign, by which witchcraft was again made a felony, as it had been in the reign of Henry VIII. [23] Whatever weight we may attach to Strype’s suggestion, we have every right to believe that Jewel introduced foreign opinion on witchcraft. Very probably there were many returned exiles as well as others who brought back word of the crusade on the Continent; but Jewel’s words put the matter formally before the queen and her government. 24] We can trace the effect of the ecclesiastic’s appeal still further. The impression produced by it was responsible probably not only for the passage of the law but also for the issue of commissions to the justices of the peace to apprehend all the witches they were able to find in their jurisdictions. [25] It can hardly be doubted that the impression produced by the bishop’s sermon serves in part to explain the beginning of the state’s attack upon witches. Yet one naturally inquires after some other factor in the problem.
Is it not likely that there were in England itself certain peculiar conditions, certain special circumstances, that served to forward the attack? To answer that query, we must recall the situation in England when Elizabeth took the throne. Elizabeth was a Protestant, and her accession meant the relinquishment of the Catholic hold upon England. But it was not long before the claims of Mary, Queen of Scots, began to give the English ministers bad dreams. Catholic and Spanish plots against the life of Elizabeth kept the government detectives on the lookout.
Perhaps because it was deemed the hardest to circumvent, the use of conjuration against the life of the queen was most feared. It was a method too that appealed to conspirators, who never questioned its efficacy, and who anticipated little risk of discovery. To understand why the English government should have been so alarmed at the efforts of the conjurers, we shall have to go back to the half-century that preceded the reign of the great queen and review briefly the rise of those curious traders in mystery.
The earlier half of the fifteenth century, when the witch fires were already lighted in South Germany, saw the coming of conjurers in England. Their numbers soon evidenced a growing interest in the supernatural upon the part of the English and foreshadowed the growing faith in witchcraft. From the scattered local records the facts have been pieced together to show that here and there professors of Chapter VIII 25 magic powers were beginning to get a hearing. As they first appear upon the scene, the conjurers may be grouped in two classes, the position seekers and the treasure seekers.
To the first belong those who used incantations and charms to win the favor of the powerful, and so to gain advancement for themselves or for their clients. [26] It was a time when there was every encouragement to try these means. Men like Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell had risen from humble rank to the highest places in the state. Their careers seemed inexplicable, if not uncanny. It was easy to believe that unfair and unlawful practices had been used. What had been done before could be done again. So the dealers in magic may have reasoned.
At all events, whatever their mental operations, they experimented with charms which were to gain the favor of the great, and some of their operations came to the ears of the court. The treasure seekers[27] were more numerous. Every now and then in the course of English history treasures have been unearthed, many of them buried in Roman times. Stories of lucky finds had of course gained wide circulation. Here was the opportunity of the bankrupt adventurer and the stranded promoter. The treasures could be found by the science of magic.
The notion was closely akin to the still current idea that wells can be located by the use of hazel wands. But none of the conjurers–and this seems a curious fact to one familiar with the English stories of the supernatural–ever lit upon the desired treasure. Their efforts hardly aroused public interest, least of all alarm. Experimenters, who fifty years later would have been hurried before the privy council, were allowed to conjure and dig as they pleased. Henry VIII even sold the right in one locality, and sold it at a price which showed how lightly he regarded it. 28] Other forms of magic were of course practiced. By the time that Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, it is safe to say that the practice of forbidden arts had become wide-spread in England. Reginald Scot a little later declared that every parish was full of men and women who claimed to work miracles. [29] Most of them were women, and their performances read like those of the gipsy fortune-tellers today. “Cunning women” they called themselves. They were many of them semi-medical or pseudo-medical practitioners[30] who used herbs and extracts, and, when those failed, charms and enchantments, to heal the sick.
If they were fairly fortunate, they became known as “good witches. ” Particularly in connection with midwifery were their incantations deemed effective. [31] From such functions it was no far call to forecast the outcome of love affairs, or to prepare potions which would ensure love. [32] They became general helpers to the distressed. They could tell where lost property was to be found, an undertaking closely related to that of the treasure seekers. [33] It was usually in the less serious diseases[34] that these cunning folk were consulted.
They were called upon often indeed–if one fragmentary evidence may be trusted–to diagnose the diseases and to account for the deaths of domestic animals. [35] It may very easily be that it was from the necessity of explaining the deaths of animals that the practitioners of magic began to talk about witchcraft and to throw out a hint that some witch was at the back of the matter. It would be in line with their own pretensions. Were they not good witches? Was it not their province to overcome the machinations of the black witches, that is, witches who wrought evil rather than good?
The disease of an animal was hard to prescribe for. A sick horse would hardly respond to the waving of hands and a jumble of strange words. The animal was, in all probability, bewitched. At any rate, whether in this particular manner or not, it became shortly the duty of the cunning women to recognize the signs of witchcraft, to prescribe for it, and if possible to detect the witch. In many cases the practitioner wisely enough refused to name any one, but described the appearance of the guilty party and set forth a series of operations by which to expose her machinations.
If certain herbs were plucked and treated in certain ways, if such and such words were said, the guilty party would appear at the door. At other times the wise woman gave a perfectly recognizable description of the guilty one and offered remedies that would nullify her maleficent influences. No doubt the party indicated as the witch was very often another of the “good witches,” perhaps a rival. Throughout the records of the superstition are scattered examples of wise women upon whom suspicion suddenly lighted, and who were arraigned and sent to the gallows.
Beyond question the suspicion began often with the ill words of a neighbor,[36] perhaps of a competitor, words that started an attack upon the woman’s reputation that she was unable to repel. Chapter VIII 26 It is not to be supposed that the art of cunning was confined to the female sex. Throughout the reign of Elizabeth, the realm was alive with men who were pretenders to knowledge of mysteries. So closely was the occupation allied to that of the physician that no such strict line as now exists between reputable physicians and quack doctors separated the “good witches” from the regular practicers of medicine.
It was so customary in Elizabethan times for thoroughly reputable and even eminent medical men to explain baffling cases as the results of witchcraft[37] that to draw the line of demarcation between them and the pretenders who suggested by means of a charm or a glass a maleficent agent would be impossible. Granted the phenomena of conjuration and witchcraft as facts–and no one had yet disputed them–it was altogether easy to believe that good witches who antagonized the works of black witches were more dependable than the family physician, who could but suggest the cause of sickness.
The regular practitioner must often have created business for his brother of the cunning arts. One would like to know what these practicers thought of their own arts. Certainly some of them accomplished cures. Mental troubles that baffled the ordinary physician would offer the “good witch” a rare field for successful endeavor. Such would be able not only to persuade a community of their good offices, but to deceive themselves. Not all of them, however, by any means, were self-deceived.
Conscious fraud played a part in a large percentage of cases. One witch was very naive in her confession of fraud. When suspected of sorcery and cited to court, she was said to have frankly recited her charm: “My lofe in my lappe, My penny in my purse, You are never the better, I am never the worse. ” She was acquitted and doubtless continued to add penny to penny. [38] We need not, indeed, be surprised that the state should have been remiss in punishing a crime so vague in character and so closely related to an honorable profession.
Except where conjuration had affected high interests of state, it had been practically overlooked by the government. Now and then throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there had been isolated plots against the sovereign, in which conjury had played a conspicuous part. With these few exceptions the crime had been one left to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. But now the state was ready to reclaim its jurisdiction over these crimes and to assume a very positive attitude of hostility towards them. This came about in a way that has already been briefly indicated.
The government of the queen found itself threatened constantly by plots for making away with the queen, plots which their instigators hoped would overturn the Protestant regime and bring England back into the fold. Elizabeth had hardly mounted her throne when her councillors began to suspect the use of sorcery and conjuration against her life. As a result they instituted the most painstaking inquiries into all reported cases of the sort, especially in and about London and the neighboring counties. Every Catholic was suspected. Two cases that were taken up within the first year came to nothing, but a third trial proved more serious.
In November of 1558 Sir Anthony Fortescue,[39] member of a well known Catholic family, was arrested, together with several accomplices, upon the charge of casting the horoscope of the queen’s life. Fortescue was soon released, but in 1561 he was again put in custody, this time with two brothers-in-law, Edmund and Arthur Pole, nephews of the famous cardinal of that name. The plot that came to light had many ramifications. It was proposed to marry Mary, Queen of Scots, to Edmund Pole, and from Flanders to proclaim her Queen of England.
In the meantime Elizabeth was to die a natural death–at least so the conspirators claimed–prophesied for her by two conjurers, John Prestall and Edmund Cosyn, with the assistance of a “wicked spryte. ” It was discovered that the plot involved the French and Spanish ambassadors. Relations between Paris and London became strained. The conspirators were tried and sentenced to death. Fortescue himself, perhaps because he was a second cousin of the queen and brother of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, seems to have escaped the gallows. [40] The Fortescue affair was, however, but one of many conspiracies on foot during the time.
Throughout the sixties and the seventies the queen’s councillors were on the lookout. Justices of the peace and other prominent men in the counties were kept informed by the privy council of reported conjurers, and they were instructed to send in what evidence they could gather against them. It is remarkable that three-fourths of the cases that came under investigation were from a territory within thirty miles of London. Two-thirds of them Chapter VIII 27 were from Essex. Not all the conjurers were charged with plotting against the queen, but that charge was most common.
It is safe to suppose that, in the cases where that accusation was not preferred, it was nevertheless the alarm of the privy council for the life of the queen that had prompted the investigation and arrest. Between 1578 and 1582, critical years in the affairs of the Scottish queen, the anxiety of the London authorities was intense[41]–their precautions were redoubled. Representatives of the government were sent out to search for conjurers and were paid well for their services. [42] The Earl of Shrewsbury, a member of the council who had charge of the now captive Queen Mary, kept in his employ special detectors of conjuring. 43] Nothing about Elizabeth’s government was better organized than Cecil’s detective service, and the state papers show that the ferreting out of the conjurers was by no means the least of its work. It was a service carried on, of course, as quietly as could be, and yet the cases now and again came to light and made clear to the public that the government was very fearful of conjurers’ attacks upon the queen. No doubt the activity of the council put all conjurers under public suspicion and in some degree roused public resentment against them. This brings us back to the point: What had the conjurers to do with witchcraft?
By this time the answer is fairly obvious. The practisers of the magic arts, the charmers and enchanters, were responsible for developing the notions of witchcraft. The good witch brought in her company the black witch. This in itself might never have meant more than an increased activity in the church courts. But when Protestant England grew suddenly nervous for the life of the queen, when the conjurers became a source of danger to the sovereign, and the council commenced its campaign against them, the conditions had been created in which witchcraft became at once the most dangerous and detested of crimes.
While the government was busy putting down the conjurers, the aroused popular sentiment was compelling the justices of the peace and then the assize judges to hang the witches. This cannot be better illustrated than by the Abingdon affair of 1578-1579. Word had been carried to the privy council that Sir Henry Newell, justice of the peace, had committed some women near Abingdon on the charge of making waxen images. [44] The government was at once alarmed and sent a message to Sir Henry and to the Dean of Windsor instructing them to find out the facts and to discover if the plots were directed against the queen.
The precaution was unnecessary. There was no ground for believing that the designs of the women accused had included the queen. Indeed the evidence of guilt of any kind was very flimsy. But the excitement of the public had been stirred to the highest pitch. The privy council had shown its fear of the women and all four of them went to the gallows. [45] The same situation that brought about the attack upon witchcraft and conjuration was no doubt responsible for the transfer of jurisdiction over the crime.
We have already seen that the practice of conjuration had probably been left largely to the episcopal hierarchy for punishment. [46] The archdeacons were expected in their visitations to inquire into the practice of enchantment and magic within the parishes and to make report. [47] In the reign of Elizabeth it became no light duty. The church set itself to suppress both the consulter and the consulted. [48] By the largest number of recorded cases deal of course with the first class. It was very easy when sick or in trouble to go to a professed conjurer for help. 49] It was like seeking a physician’s service, as we have seen. The church frowned upon it, but the danger involved in disobeying the church was not deemed great. The cunning man or woman was of course the one who ran the great risk. When worst came to worst and the ecclesiastical power took cognizance of his profession, the best he could do was to plead that he was a “good witch” and rendered valuable services to the community. [50] But a good end was in the eyes of the church no excuse for an evil means. The good witches were dealers with evil spirits and hence to be repressed.
Yet the church was very light in its punishments. In the matter of penalties, indeed, consulter and consulted fared nearly alike, and both got off easily. Public confession and penance in one or more specifically designated churches, usually in the nearest parish church, constituted the customary penalty. [51] In a few instances it was coupled with the requirement that the criminal should stand in the pillory, taper in hand, at several places at stated times. [52] The ecclesiastical records are so full of church penances that a student is led
Chapter VIII to wonder how effectual they were in shaming the penitent into better conduct. It may well be guessed that most of the criminals were not sensitive souls that would suffer profoundly from the disgrace incurred. 28 The control of matters of this kind was in the hands of the church by sufferance only. So long as the state was not greatly interested, the church was permitted to retain its jurisdiction. [53] Doubtless the kings of England would have claimed the state’s right of jurisdiction if it had become a matter of dispute.
The church itself recognized the secular power in more important cases. [54] In such cases the archdeacon usually acted with the justice of peace in conducting the examination,[55] as in rendering sentence. Even then, however, the penalty was as a rule ecclesiastical. But, with the second half of the sixteenth century, there arose new conditions which resulted in the transfer of this control to the state. Henry VIII had broken with Rome and established a Church of England around the king as a centre. The power of the church belonged to the king, and, if to the king, to his ministers and his judges.
Hence certain crimes that had been under the control of the church fell under the jurisdiction of the king’s courts. [56] In a more special way the same change came about through the attack of the privy council upon the conjurers. What had hitherto been a comparatively insignificant offence now became a crime against the state and was so dealt with. The change, of course, was not sudden. It was not accomplished in a year, nor in a decade. It was going on throughout the first half of Elizabeth’s reign. By the beginning of the eighties the church control was disappearing.
After 1585 the state had practically exclusive jurisdiction. [57] We have now finished the attempt to trace the beginning of the definite movement against witchcraft in England. What witchcraft was, what it became, how it was to be distinguished from sorcery–these are questions that we have tried to answer very briefly. We have dealt in a cursory way with a series of cases extending from Anglo-Saxon days down to the fifteenth century in order to show how unfixed was the matter of jurisdiction. We have sought also to explain how Continental opinion was ntroduced into England through Jewel and other Marian exiles, to show what independent forces were operating in England, and to exhibit the growing influence of the charmers and their relation to the development of witchcraft; and lastly we have aimed to prove that the special danger to the queen had no little part in creating the crusade against witches. These are conclusions of some moment and a caution must be inserted. We have been treating of a period where facts are few and information fragmentary. Under such circumstances conclusions can only be tentative.
Perhaps the most that can be said of them is that they are suggestions. [1] Benjamin Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England (London, 1840), I, 41; Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (Halle, 1906), and passages cited in his Worterbuch under wiccan, wiccacr? ft; Thomas Wright, ed. , A Contemporary Narrative of the Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler (Camden Soc. , London, 1843), introd. , i-iii. [2] George L. Burr, “The Literature of Witchcraft,” printed in Papers of the Am. Hist. Assoc. , IV (New York, 1890), 244. [3] Henry C. Lea, History of the Inquisition in Spain (New York, 1906-1907), IV, 207; cf. is History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (New York, 1888), III, chs. VI, VII. The most elaborate study of the rise of the delusion is that by J. Hansen, Zauberwahn, Inquisition und Hexenprozess im Mittelalter (Cologne, 1900). [4] Lea, Inquisition in Spain, IV, 206. [5] Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law (2d ed. , Cambridge, 1898), II, 554. [6] Ibid. See also Wright, ed. , Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, introd. , ix. [7] Ibid. , x. Lincoln, not Norwich, as Wright’s text (followed by Pollock and Maitland) has it. See the royal letter itself printed in his footnote, and cf.
Rymer’s Foedera (under date of 2 Jan. 1406) and the Calendar of Chapter VIII the Patent Rolls (Henry IV, vol. III, p. 112). The bishop was Philip Repington, late the King’s chaplain and confessor. [8] L. O. Pike, History of Crime in England (London, 1873), I, 355-356. 29 [9] Ibid. Sir Harris Nicolas, Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council (London, 1834-1837). IV, 114. [10] English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II, etc. , edited by J. S. Davies (Camden Soc. , London, 1856), 57-60. [11] Ramsay, Lancaster and York (Oxford, 1892), II, 31-35; Wright, ed. Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, introd. , xv-xvi, quoting the Chronicle of London; K. H. Vickers, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (London, 1907), 269-279. [12] Wright, ed. , op. cit. , introd. , xvi-xvii. [13] James Gairdner, Life and Reign of Richard III (2d ed. , London, 1879), 81-89. Jane Shore was finally tried before the court of the Bishop of London. [14] Sir J. F. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England (London, 1883), II, 410, gives five instances from Archdeacon Hale’s Ecclesiastical Precedents; see extracts from Lincoln Episcopal Visitations in Arch? logia (Soc. of Antiquaries, London), XLVIII, 254-255, 262; see also articles of visitation, etc. , for 1547 and 1559 in David Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae (London, 1737), IV, 25, 186, 190. [15] An earlier statute had mentioned sorcery and witchcraft in connection with medical practitioners. The “Act concerning Phesicions and Surgeons” of 3 Henry VIII, ch. XI, was aimed against quacks. “Forasmoche as the science and connyng of Physyke and Surgerie to the perfecte knowlege wherof bee requisite bothe grete lernyng and ripe experience ys daily … xercised by a grete multitude of ignoraunt persones … soofarfurth that common Artificers as Smythes Wevers and Women boldely and custumably take upon theim grete curis and thyngys of great difficultie In the which they partely use socery and which crafte [sic] partely applie such medicyne unto the disease as be verey noyous,” it was required that every candidate to practice medicine should be examined by the bishop of the diocese (in London by either the bishop or the Dean of St. Paul’s). 16] Stephen, History of Criminal Law, II, 431, says of this act: “Hutchinson suggests that this act, which was passed two years after the act of the Six Articles, was intended as a ‘hank upon the reformers,’ that the part of it to which importance was attached was the pulling down of crosses, which, it seems, was supposed to be practised in connection with magic. Hutchinson adds that the act was never put into execution either against witches or reformers. The act was certainly passed during that period of Henry’s reign when he was inclining in the Roman Catholic direction. The part of the act to which Hutchinson refers reads as follows: “And for execucion of their saide falce devyses and practises have made or caused to be made dyvers Images and pictures of men, women, childrene, Angelles or develles, beastes or fowles, … and gyving faithe and credit to suche fantasticall practises have dygged up and pulled downe an infinite nombre of Crosses within this Realme. ” [17] Parliamentary History (London, 1751-1762), III, 229. [18] Ibid. [19] Autobiography of Edward Underhill (in Narratives of the Days of the Reformation, Camden Soc. London, 1859), 172-175. [20] The measure in fact reached the engrossing stage in the Commons. Both houses, however, adjourned Chapter VIII early in April and left it unpassed. 30 [21] Several of the bishops who were appointed on Elizabeth’s accession had travelled in South Germany and Switzerland during the Marian period and had the opportunity of familiarizing themselves with the propaganda in these parts against witches. Thomas Bentham, who was to be bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, had retired from England to Zurich and had afterwards been preacher to the exiles at Basel.
John Parkhurst, appointed bishop of Norwich, had settled in Zurich on Mary’s accession. John Scory, appointed bishop of Hereford, had served as chaplain to the exiles in Geneva. Richard Cox, appointed bishop of Ely, had visited Frankfort and Strassburg. Edmund Grindall, who was to be the new bishop of London, had, during his exile, visited Strassburg, Speier, and Frankfort. Miles Coverdale, who had been bishop of Exeter but who was not reappointed, had been in Geneva in the course of his exile. There were many other churchmen of less importance who at one time or another during the Marian period visited Zurich.
See Bullinger’s Diarium (Basel, 1904) and Pellican’s Chronikon (Basel, 1877), passim, as also Theodor Vetter, Relations between England and Zurich during the Reformation (London, 1904). At Strassburg the persecution raged somewhat later; but how thoroughly Bucer and his colleagues approved and urged it is clear from a letter of advice addressed by them in 1538 to their fellow pastor Schwebel, of Zweibrucken (printed as No. 88 in the Centuria Epistolarum appended to Schwebel’s Scripta Theologica, Zweibrucken, 1605).
That Bucer while in England (1549-1551) found also occasion to utter these views can hardly be doubted. These details I owe to Professor Burr. [22] Various dates have been assigned for Jewel’s sermon, but it can be determined approximately from a passage in the discourse. In the course of the sermon he remarked: “I would wish that once again, as time should serve, there might be had a quiet and sober disputation, that each part might be required to shew their grounds without self will and without affection, not to maintain or breed contention, … but only that the truth may be known….
For, at the last disputation that should have been, you know which party gave over and would not meddle. ” This is clearly an allusion to the Westminster disputation of the last of March, 1559; see John Strype, Annals of the Reformation (London, 1709-1731; Oxford, 1824), ed. of 1824, I, pt. i, 128. The sermon therefore was preached after that disputation. It may be further inferred that it was preached before Jewel’s controversy with Cole in March, 1560. The words, “For at the last disputation … you know which party gave over and would not meddle,” were hardly written after Cole accepted Jewel’s challenge.
It was on the second Sunday before Easter (March 17), 1560, that Jewel delivered at court the discourse in which he challenged dispute on four points of church doctrine. On the next day Henry Cole addressed him a letter in which he asked him why he “yesterday in the Court and at all other times at Paul’s Cross” offered rather to “dispute in these four points than in the chief matters that lie in question betwixt the Church of Rome and the Protestants. ” In replying to Cole on the 20th of March Jewel wrote that he stood only upon the negative and again mentioned his offer.
On the 31st of March he repeated his challenge upon the four points, and upon this occasion went very much into detail in supporting them. Now, in the sermon which we are trying to date, the sermon in which allusion is made to the prevalence of witches, the four points are briefly named. It may be reasonably conjectured that this sermon anticipated the elaboration of the four points as well as the challenging sermon of March 17. It is as certain that it was delivered after Jewel’s return to London from his visitation in the west country.
On November 2, 1559, he wrote to Peter Martyr: “I have at last returned to London, with a body worn out by a most fatiguing journey. ” See Zurich Letters, I (Parker Soc. , Cambridge, 1842), 44. It is interesting and significant that he adds: “We found in all places votive relics of saints, nails with which the infatuated people dreamed that Christ had been pierced, and I know not what small fragments of the sacred cross. The number of witches and sorceresses had everywhere become enormous. ” Jewel was consecrated Bishop of Salisbury in the following January, having been nominated in the summer of 1559 just before his western visitation.
The sermon in which he alluded to witches may have been preached at any time after he returned from the west, November 2, and before March 17. It would be entirely natural that in a court sermon delivered by the newly appointed bishop of Salisbury the prevalence of witchcraft should be mentioned. It does not seem a rash guess that the sermon was preached soon after his return, perhaps in December, when the impression of what he had seen in the west was still fresh in his memory. But it is not necessary to make this supposition. Though the discourse was delivered some time after March 15, 1559, Chapter VIII 31 hen the first bill “against Conjurations, Prophecies, etc. ,” was brought before the Commons (see Journal of the House of Commons, I, 57), it is not unreasonable to believe that there was some connection between the discourse and the fortunes of this bill. That connection seems the more probable on a careful reading of the Commons Journals for the first sessions of Elizabeth’s Parliament. It is evident that the Elizabethan legislators were working in close cooperation with the ecclesiastical authorities. Jewel’s sermon may be found in his Works (ed. for the Parker Soc. , Cambridge, 1845-1850), II, 1025-1034. For the correspondence with Cole see I, 26 ff. ) For assistance in dating this sermon the writer wishes to express his special obligation to Professor Burr. [23] Strype, Annals of the Reformation, I, pt. i, 11. He may, indeed, mean to ascribe it, not to the sermon, but to the evils alleged by the sermon. [24] In the contemporary account entitled A True and just Recorde of the Information, Examination, and Confession of all the Witches taken at St. Oses…. Written … by W. W. (1582), next leaf after B 5, we read: “there is a man of great cunning and knowledge come over lately unto our Queenes Maiestie, which hath dvertised her what a companie and number of witches be within Englande. ” This probably refers to Jewel. [25] See ibid. , B 5 verso: “I and other of her Justices have received commission for the apprehending of as many as are within these limites. ” This was written later, but the event is referred to as following what must have been Bishop Jewel’s sermon. [26] Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic (ed. of N. Y. , 1852), 126 ff. ; see also his Elizabeth and her Times (London, 1838), I, 457, letter of Shrewsbury to Burghley. [27] Wright, Narratives, 130 ff. [28] Ibid. 134. [29] See Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft (London, 1584; reprinted, Brinsley Nicholson, ed. , London, 1886), 4. [30] A very typical instance was that in Kent in 1597, see Arch? ologia Cantiana (Kent Arch? ological Soc. , London), XXVI, 21. Several good instances are given in the Hertfordshire County Session Rolls (compiled by W. J. Hardy, London, 1905), I; see also J. Raine, ed. , Depositions respecting the Rebellion of 1569, Witchcraft, and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings from the Court of Durham (Surtees Soc. , London, 1845), 99, 100. [31] J. Raine, ed. Injunctions and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings of Richard Barnes, Bishop of Durham (Surtees Soc. , London, 1850), 18; H. Owen and J. B. Blakeway, History of Shrewsbury (London, 1825), II, 364, art. 43. [32] Arch. Cant. , XXVI, 19. [33] Hertfordshire Co. Sess. Rolls, I, 3. [34] See Depositions … from the Court of Durham, 99; Arch. Cant. , XXVI, 21; W. H. Hale, Precedents, etc. (London, 1847), 148, 185. [35] Hale, op. cit. , 163; Middlesex County Records, ed. by J. C. Jeaffreson (London, 1892), I, 84, 94. [36] For an instance of how a “wise woman” feared this very thing, see Hale, op. cit. , 147. Chapter VIII 2 [37] See Witches taken at St. Oses, E; also Dr. Barrow’s opinion in the pamphlet entitled The most strange and admirable discoverie of the three Witches of Warboys, arraigned, convicted and executed at the last assizes at Huntingdon…. (London, 1593). [38] Folk Lore Soc. Journal, II, 157-158, where this story is quoted from a work by “Wm. Clouues, Mayster in Chirurgery,” published in 1588. He only professed to have “reade” of it, so that it is perhaps just a pleasant tradition. If it is nothing more than that, it is at least an interesting evidence of opinion. [39] Strype, Annals of the Reformation, I, pt. , 9-10; Dictionary of National Biography, article on Anthony Fortescue, by G. K. Fortescue. [40] Strype, op. cit. , I, pt. i, 546, 555-558; also Wright, Elizabeth and her Times, I, 121, where a letter from Cecil to Sir Thomas Smith is printed. [41] The interest which the privy council showed in sorcery and witchcraft during the earlier part of the reign is indicated in the following references: Acts of the Privy Council, new series, VII, 6, 22, 200-201; X, 220, 382; XI, 22, 36, 292, 370-371, 427; XII, 21-22, 23, 26, 29, 34, 102, 251; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1547-1580, 137, 142; id. 1581-1590, 29, 220, 246-247; id. , Add. 1580-1625, 120-121; see also John Strype, Life of Sir Thomas Smith (London, 1698; Oxford, 1820), ed. of 1820, 127-129. The case mentioned in Cal. St. P. , Dom. , 1581-1590, 29, was probably a result of the activity of the privy council. The case in id. , Add. , 1580-1625, 120-121, is an instance of where the accused was suspected of both witchcraft and “high treason touching the supremacy. ” Nearly all of the above mentioned references to the activity of the privy council refer to the first half of the reign and a goodly proportion to the years 1578-1582. 42] Acts P. C. , n. s. , XI, 292. [43] Strype, Sir Thomas Smith, 127-129. [44] A Rehearsall both straung and true of hainous and horrible acts committed by Elizabeth Stile, etc. (for full title see appendix). This pamphlet is in black letter. Its account is confirmed by the reference in Acts P. C. , n. s. , XI, 22. See also Scot, Discoverie, 51, 543. [45] An aged widow had been committed to gaol on the testimony of her neighbors that she was “lewde, malitious, and hurtful to the people. ” An ostler, after he had refused to give her relief, had suffered a pain.
So far as the account goes, this was the sum of the evidence against the woman. Unhappily she waited not on the order of her trial but made voluble confession and implicated five others, three of whom were without doubt professional enchanters. She had met, she said, with Mother Dutten, Mother Devell, and Mother Margaret, and “concluded several hainous and vilanous practices. ” The deaths of five persons whom she named were the outcome of their concerted plans. For the death of a sixth she avowed entire responsibility. This amazing confession may have been suggested to her piece by piece, but it was received at full value.
That she included others in her guilt was perhaps because she responded to the evident interest aroused by such additions, or more likely because she had grudges unsatisfied. The women were friendless, three of the four were partially dependent upon alms, there was no one to come to their help, and they were convicted. The man that had been arraigned, a “charmer,” seems to have gone free. [46] Injunctions … of … Bishop of Durham, 18, 84, 99; Visitations of Canterbury, in Arch. Cant. , XXVI; Hale, Precedents, 1475-1640, 147, etc. [47] Arch. Cant. , XXVI, passim; Hale, op. it. , 147, 148, 163, 185; Mrs. Lynn Linton, Witch Stories (London, 1861; new ed. , 1883), 144. [48] See Hale, op. cit. , 148, 157. Chapter VIII [49] Hale, op. cit. , 148; Depositions … from the Court of Durham, 99; Arch. Cant. , XXVI, 21. [50] Hale, op. cit. , 148, 185. [51] Ibid. , 157. 33 [52] Denham Tracts (Folk Lore Soc. , London), II, 332; John Sykes, Local Record … of Remarkable Events … in Northumberland, Durham, … etc. (2d ed. , Newcastle, 1833-1852), I, 79. [53] See, for example, Acts P. C. , n. s. , VII, 32 (1558). [54] Cal. St. P. , Dom. , 1547-1580, 173.
Instance where the Bishop of London seems to have examined a case and turned it over to the privy council. [55] Rachel Pinder and Agnes Bridges, who pretended to be possessed by the Devil, were examined before the “person of St. Margarets in Lothberry,” and the Mayor of London, as well as some justices of the peace. They later made confession before the Archbishop of Canterbury and some justices of the peace. See the black letter pamphlet, The discloysing of a late counterfeyted possession by the devyl in two maydens within the Citie of London [1574]. [56] Francis Coxe came before the queen rather than the church.
He narrates his experiences in A short treatise declaringe the detestable wickednesse of magicall sciences, … (1561). Yet John Walsh, a man with a similar record, came before the commissary of the Bishop of Exeter. See The Examination of John Walsh before Master Thomas Williams, Commissary to the Reverend father in God, William, bishop of Excester, upon certayne Interrogatories touchyng Wytch-crafte and Sorcerye, in the presence of divers gentlemen and others, the XX of August, 1566. [57] We say “practically,” because instances of church jurisdiction come to light now and again throughout the seventeenth century.
CHAPTER II. 34 CHAPTER II. WITCHCRAFT UNDER ELIZABETH. The year 1566 is hardly less interesting in the history of English witchcraft than 1563. It has been seen that the new statute passed in 1563 was the beginning of a vigorous prosecution by the state of the detested agents of the evil one. In 1566 occurred the first important trial known to us in the new period. That trial deserves note not only on its own account, but because it was recorded in the first of the long series of witch chap-books–if we may so call them.
A very large proportion of our information about the execution of the witches is derived from these crude pamphlets, briefly recounting the trials. The witch chap-book was a distinct species. In the days when the chronicles were the only newspapers it was what is now the “extra,” brought out to catch the public before the sensation had lost its flavor. It was of course a partisan document, usually a vindication of the worthy judge who had condemned the guilty, with some moral and religious considerations by the respectable and righteous author.
A terribly serious bit of history it was that he had to tell and he told it grimly and without pity. Such comedy as lights up the gloomy black-letter pages was quite unintentional. He told a story too that was full of details trivial enough in themselves, but details that give many glimpses into the every-day life of the lower classes in town and country. The pamphlet of 1566 was brief and compact of information. It was entitled The examination and confession of certaine Wytches at Chensforde in the Countie of Essex before the Quenes Maiesties Judges the XXVI daye of July anno 1566.
The trial there recorded is one that presents some of the most curious and inexplicable features in the annals of English witchcraft. The personnel of the “size” court is mysterious. At the first examination “Doctor Cole” and “Master Foscue” were present. Both men are easily identified. Doctor Cole was the Reverend Thomas Cole, who had held several places in Essex and had in 1564 been presented to the rectory of Stanford Rivers, about ten miles from Chelmsford. Master Foscue was unquestionably Sir John Fortescue, later Chancellor of the Exchequer, and at this time keeper of the great wardrobe.
On the second examination Sir Gilbert Gerard, the queen’s attorney, and John Southcote, justice of the queen’s bench, were present. Why Southcote should be present is perfectly clear. It is not so easy to understand about the others. Was the attorney-general acting as presiding officer, or was he conducting the prosecution? The latter hypothesis is of course more consistent with his position. But what were the rector of Stanford Rivers and the keeper of the great wardrobe doing there? Had Doctor Cole been appointed in recognition of the claims of the church?
And the keeper of the wardrobe, what was the part that he played? One cannot easily escape the conclusion that the case was deemed one of unusual significance. Perhaps the privy council had heard of something that alarmed it and had delegated these four men, all known at Elizabeth’s court, to examine into the matter in connection with the assizes. The examinations themselves present features of more interest to the psychologist than to the historical student. Yet they have some importance in the understanding of witchcraft as a social phenomenon.
Elizabeth Francis, when examined, confessed with readiness to various “vilanies. ” From her grandmother she said she had as a child received a white spotted cat, named Sathan, whom she had fed, and who gave her what she asked for. “She desired to have one Andrew Byles to her husband, which was a man of some welth, and the cat dyd promyse she shold. ” But the promise proved illusory. The man left her without marriage and then she “willed Sathan … to touch his body, whych he forthewith dyd, whereof he died. ” Once again she importuned Satan for a husband. This time she gained one “not so rich as the other. She bore a daughter to him, but the marriage was an unhappy one. “They lived not so quietly as she desyred, beinge stirred to much unquietnes and moved to swearing and cursinge. ” Thereupon she employed the spirit to kill her child and to lame her husband. After keeping the cat fifteen years she turned it over to Mother Waterhouse, “a pore woman. “[1] Mother Waterhouse was now examined. She had received the cat and kept it “a great while in woll in a pot. ” She had then turned it into a toad. She had used it to kill geese, hogs, and cattle of her neighbors.
At length she had employed it to kill a neighbor whom she disliked, and finally her own husband. The woman’s eighteen-year-old daughter, Joan, was now called to the stand and confirmed the fact that her mother kept a CHAPTER II. 35 toad. She herself had one day been refused a piece of bread and cheese by a neighbor’s child and had invoked the toad’s help. The toad promised to assist her if she would surrender her soul. She did so. Then the toad haunted the neighbor’s girl in the form of a dog with horns. The mother was again called to the stand and repeated the curious story told by her daughter.
Now the neighbor’s child, Agnes Brown, was brought in to testify. Her story tallied in some of its details with that of the two Waterhouse women; she had been haunted by the horned dog, and she added certain descriptions of its conduct that revealed good play of childish imagination. [2] The attorney put some questions, but rather to lead on the witnesses than to entangle them. He succeeded, however, in creating a violent altercation between the Waterhouses on the one hand, and Agnes Brown on the other, over trifling matters of detail. 3] At length he offered to release Mother Waterhouse if she would make the spirit appear in the court. [4] The offer was waived. The attorney then asked, “When dyd thye Cat suck of thy bloud? ” “Never,” said she. He commanded the jailer to lift up the “kercher” on the woman’s head. He did so and the spots on her face and nose where she had pricked herself for the evil spirit were exposed. The jury retired. Two days later Agnes Waterhouse suffered the penalty of the law, not however until she had added to her confessions. [5] The case is a baffling one. We can be quite sure that the pamphlet account is incomplete.
One would like to know more about the substance of fact behind this evidence. Did the parties that were said to have been killed by witchcraft really die at the times specified? Either the facts of their deaths were well known in the community and were fitted with great cleverness into the story Mother Waterhouse told, or the jurors and the judges neglected the first principles of common sense and failed to inquire about the facts. [6] The questions asked by the queen’s attorney reveal hardly more than an unintelligent curiosity to know the rest of the story.
He shows just one saving glint of skepticism. He offered to release Mother Waterhouse if she would materialize her spirit. Mother Waterhouse was her own worst enemy. Her own testimony was the principal evidence presented against her, and yet she denied guilt on one particular upon which the attorney-general had interrogated her. This might lead one to suppose that her answers were the haphazard replies of a half-witted woman. But the supposition is by no means consistent with the very definite and clear-cut nature of her testimony. It is useless to try to unravel the tangles of the case.
It is possible that under some sort of duress–although there is no evidence of this–she had deliberately concocted a story to fit those of Elizabeth Francis and Agnes Brown, and that her daughter, hearing her mother’s narrative in court–a very possible thing in that day–had fitted hers into it. It is conceivable too that Mother Waterhouse had yielded merely to the wish to amaze her listeners. It is a more probable supposition that the questions asked of her by the judge were based upon the accusations already made by Agnes Brown and that they suggested to her the main outlines of her narrative.
Elizabeth Francis, who had been the first accused and who had accused Mother Waterhouse, escaped. Whether it was because she had turned state’s evidence or because she had influential friends in the community, we do not know. It is possible that the judges recognized that her confession was unsupported by the testimony of other witnesses. Such a supposition, however, credits the court with keener discrimination than seems ever to have been exhibited in such cases in the sixteenth century. [7] But, though Elizabeth Francis had escaped, her reputation as a dangerous woman in the community was fixed.
Thirteen years later she was again put on trial before the itinerant justices. This brings us to the second trial of witches at Chelmsford in 1579. Mistress Francis’s examination elicited less than in the first trial. She had cursed a woman “and badde a mischief to light uppon her. ” The woman, she understood, was grievously pained. She followed the course that she had taken before and began to accuse others. We know very little as to the outcome. At least one of the women accused went free because “manslaughter or murder was not objected against her. [8] Three women, however, were condemned and executed. One of them was almost CHAPTER II. certainly Elleine Smith, daughter of a woman hanged as a witch,–another illustration of the persistence of suspicion against the members of a family. 36 The Chelmsford affair of 1579[9] was not unlike that of 1566. There were the same tales of spirits that assumed animal forms. The young son of Elleine Smith declared that his mother kept three spirits, Great Dick in a wicker bottle, Little Dick in a leathern bottle, and Willet in a wool-pack.
Goodwife Webb saw “a thyng like a black Dogge goe out of her doore. ” But the general character of the testimony in the second trial bore no relation to that in the first. There was no agreement of the different witnesses. The evidence was haphazard. The witch and another woman had a falling out–fallings out were very common. Next day the woman was taken ill. This was the sort of unimpeachable testimony that was to be accepted for a century yet. In the affair of 1566 the judges had made some attempt at quizzing the witnesses, but in 1579 all testimony was seemingly rated at par. 10] In both instances the proof rested mainly upon confession. Every woman executed had made confessions of guilt. This of course was deemed sufficient. Nevertheless the courts were beginning to introduce other methods of proving the accused guilty. The marks on Agnes Waterhouse had been uncovered at the request of the attorney-general; and at her execution she had been questioned about her ability to say the Lord’s Prayer and other parts of the service. Neither of these matters was emphasized, but the mention of them proves that notions were already current that were later to have great vogue.
The Chelmsford cases find their greatest significance, however, not as illustrations of the use and abuse of evidence, but because they exemplify the continuity of the witch movement. That continuity finds further illustration in the fact that there was a third alarm at Chelmsford in 1589, which resulted in three more executions. But in this case the women involved seem, so far as we know, to have had no connection with the earlier cases. The fate of Elizabeth Francis and that of Elleine Smith are more instructive as proof of the long-standing nature of a community suspicion.
Elleine could not escape her mother’s reputation nor Elizabeth her own. Both these women seem to have been of low character at any rate. Elizabeth had admitted illicit amours, and Elleine may very well have been guilty on the same count. [11] All of the women involved in the two trials were in circumstances of wretched poverty; most, if not all, of them were dependent upon begging and the poor relief for support. [12] It is easy to imagine the excitement in Essex that these trials must have produced. The accused had represented a wide territory in the county.
The women had been fetched to Chelmsford from towns as far apart as Hatfield-Peverel and Maldon. It is not remarkable that three years later than the affair of 1579 there should have been another outbreak in the county, this time in a more aggravated form. St. Oses, or St. Osyth’s, to the northeast of Chelmsford, was to be the scene of the most remarkable affair of its kind in Elizabethan times. The alarm began with the formulation of charges against a woman of the community. Ursley Kemp was a poor woman of doubtful reputation. She rendered miscellaneous services to her neighbors.
She acted as midwife, nursed children, and added to her income by “unwitching” the diseased. Like other women of the sort, she was looked upon with suspicion. Hence, when she had been refused the nursing of the child of Grace Thurlow, a servant of that Mr. Darcy who was later to try her, and when the child soon afterward fell out of its cradle and broke its neck, the mother suspected Ursley of witchcraft. Nevertheless she did not refuse her help when she “began to have a lameness in her bones. ” Ursley promised to unwitch her and seemingly kept her word, for the lameness disappeared.
Then it was that the nurse-woman asked for the twelve-pence she had been promised and was refused. Grace pleaded that she was a “poore and needie woman. ” Ursley became angry and threatened to be even with her. The lameness reappeared and Grace Thurlow was thoroughly convinced that Ursley was to blame. When the case was carried before the justices of the peace, the accused woman denied that she was guilty of anything more than unwitching the afflicted. That she had learned, she said, ten or more years ago from a woman now deceased.
She was committed to the assizes, and Justice Brian Darcy, whose servant Grace Thurlow had started the trouble, took the case in hand. He examined her eight-year-old “base son,” who gave damning evidence against his mother. She fed four imps, Tyffin, Tittey, Piggen, and Jacket. The boy’s testimony and the judge’s promise that if she would confess the truth she “would CHAPTER II. 37 have favour,” seemed to break down the woman’s resolution. “Bursting out with weeping she fell upon her knees and confessed that she had four spirits. Two of them she had used for laming, two for killing. Not only the details of her son’s evidence, but all the earlier charges, she confirmed step by step, first in private confessions to the judge and then publicly at the court sessions. The woman’s stories tallied with those of all her accusers[13] and displayed no little play of imagination in the orientation of details. [14] Not content with thus entangling herself in a fearful web of crime, she went on to point out other women guilty of similar witchcrafts. Four of those whom she named were haled before the justice.
Elizabeth Bennett, who spun wool for a cloth-maker, was one of those most vehemently accused, but she denied knowledge of any kind of witchcraft. It had been charged against her that she kept some wool hidden in a pot under some stones in her house. She denied at first the possession of this potent and malignant charm; but, influenced by the gentle urgings of Justice Darcy,[15] she gave way, as Ursley Kemp had done, and, breaking all restraint, poured forth wild stories of devilish crimes committed through the assistance of her imps. But why should we trace out the confessions, charges, and counter-charges that followed?
The stories that were poured forth continued to involve a widening group until sixteen persons were under accusation of the most awful crimes, committed by demoniacal agency. As at Chelmsford, they were the dregs of the lower classes, women with illegitimate children, some of them dependent upon public support. It will be seen that in some respects the panic bore a likeness to those that had preceded. The spirits, which took extraordinary and bizarre forms, were the offspring of the same perverted imaginations, but they had assumed new shapes. Ursley Kemp kept a white lamb, a little gray cat, a black cat, and a black toad.
There were spirits of every sort, “two little thyngs like horses, one white, the other black'”; six “spirits like cowes … as big as rattles”; spirits masquerading as blackbirds. One spirit strangely enough remained invisible. It will be observed by the reader that the spirits almost fitted into a color scheme. Very vivid colors were those preferred in their spirits by these St. Oses women. The reader can see, too, that the confessions showed the influence of the great cat tradition. We have seen the readiness with which the deluded women made confession. Some of the confessions were poured forth as from souls long surcharged with guilt.
But not all of them came in this way. Margerie Sammon, who had testified against one of her neighbors, was finally herself caught in the web of accusation in which a sister had also been involved. She was accused by her sister. “I defie thee,” she answered, “though thou art my sister. ” But her sister drew her aside and “whyspered her in the eare,” after which, with “great submission and many teares,” she made a voluble confession. One wonders about that whispered consultation. Had her sister perhaps suggested that the justice was offering mercy to those who confessed?
For Justice Darcy was very liberal with his promises of mercy and absolutely unscrupulous about breaking them. [16] It is gratifying to be able to record that there was yet a remnant left who confessed nothing at all and stood stubborn to the last. One of them was Margaret Grevel, who denied the accusations against her. She “saith that shee herselfe hath lost severall bruings and bakings of bread, and also swine, but she never did complaine thereof: saying that shee wished her gere were at a stay and then shee cared not whether shee were hanged or burnt or what did become of her. ” Annis Herd was another who stuck to her innocence.
She could recall various incidents mentioned by her accusers; it was true that she had talked to Andrew West about getting a pig, it was true that she had seen Mr. Harrison at his parsonage gathering plums and had asked for some and been refused. But she denied that she had any imps or that she had killed any one. The use of evidence in this trial would lead one to suppose that in England no rules of evidence were yet in existence. The testimony of children ranging in age from six to nine was eagerly received. No objection indeed was made to the testimony of a neighbor who professed to have overheard what he deemed an incriminating statement.
As a matter of fact the remark, if made, was harmless enough. [17] Expert evidence was introduced in a roundabout way by the statement offered in court that a physician had suspected that a certain case was witchcraft. Nothing was excluded. The garrulous women had been give free rein to pile up their silly accusations against one another. Not until the trial was nearing its end does it seem to have occurred to Brian Darcy to warn a woman against making false charges. CHAPTER II. 38 It will be recalled that in the Chelmsford trials Mother Waterhouse had been found to have upon her certain marks, yet little emphasis had been laid upon them.
In the trials of 1582 the proof drawn from these marks was deemed of the first importance and the judge appointed juries of women to make examination. No artist has yet dared to paint the picture of the gloating female inquisitors grouped around their naked and trembling victim, a scene that was to be enacted in many a witch trial. And it is well, for the scene would be too repellent and brutal for reproduction. In the use of these specially instituted juries there was no care to get unbiassed decisions. One of the inquisitors appointed to examine Cystley Celles had already served as witness against her.
It is hard to refrain from an indictment of the hopelessly prejudiced justice who gathered the evidence. [18] To entrap the defendants seems to have been his end. In the account which he wrote[19] he seems to have feared lest the public should fail to understand how his cleverness ministered to the conviction of the women. [20] “There is a man,” he wrote, “of great cunning and knowledge come over lately unto our Queenes Maiestie, which hath advertised her what a companie and number of witches be within Englande: whereupon I and other of her Justices have received commission for the apprehending of as many as are within these imites. ” No doubt he hoped to attract royal notice and win favor by his zeal. The Chelmsford affairs and that at St. Oses were the three remarkable trials of their kind in the first part of Elizabeth’s reign. They furnish some evidence of the progress of superstition. The procedure in 1582 reveals considerable advance over that of 1566. The theory of diabolic agency had been elaborated. The testimony offered was gaining in complexity and in variety. New proofs of guilt were being introduced as well as new methods of testing the matter.
In the second part of Elizabeth’s reign we have but one trial of unusual interest, that at Warboys in Huntingdonshire. This, we shall see, continued the elaboration of the witch procedure. It was a case that attracted probably more notice at the time than any other in the sixteenth century. The accidental fancy of a child and the pronouncement of a baffled physician were in this instance the originating causes of the trouble. One of the children of Sir Robert Throckmorton, head of a prominent family in Huntingdonshire, was taken ill.
It so happened that a neighbor, by name Alice Samuel, called at the house and the ailing and nervous child took the notion that the woman was a witch and cried out against her. “Did you ever see, sayd the child, one more like a witch then she is; take off her blacke thrumbd cap, for I cannot abide to looke on her. ” Her parents apparently thought nothing of this at the time. When Dr. Barrow, an eminent physician of Cambridge, having treated the child for two of the diseases of children, and without success, asked the mother and father if any witchcraft were suspected, he was answered in the negative.
The Throckmortons were by no means quick to harbor a suspicion. But when two and then three other children in the family fell ill and began in the same way to designate Mother Samuel as a witch, the parents were more willing to heed the hint thrown out by the physician. The suspected woman was forcibly brought by Gilbert Pickering, an uncle of the children, into their presence. The children at once fell upon the ground “strangely tormented,” and insisted upon scratching Mother Samuel’s hand.
Meantime Lady Cromwell[21] visited at the Throckmorton house, and, after an interview with Alice Samuel, suffered in her dreams from her till at length she fell ill and died, something over a year later. This confirmed what had been suspicion. To detail all the steps taken to prove Mother Samuel guilty is unnecessary. A degree of caution was used which was remarkable. Henry Pickering, a relative, and some of his fellow scholars at Cambridge made an investigation into the case, but decided with the others that the woman was guilty. Mother Samuel herself laid the whole trouble to the children’s “wantonness. Again and again she was urged by the children to confess. “Such were the heavenly and divine speeches of the children in their fits to this old woman … as that if a man had heard it he would not have thought himself better edified at ten sermons. ” The parents pleaded with her to admit her responsibility for the constantly recurring sickness of their children, but she denied bitterly that she was to blame. She was compelled to live at the Throckmorton house and to be a witness constantly to the strange behavior of the children.
The poor creature was dragged back and forth, watched and experimented upon in a dozen ways, until it is little wonder that she grew ill and spent her nights in groaning. She was implored to confess and told that all might yet be well. For a long time she persisted in her denial, but at length in a moment of weakness, when the children had come out of their fits at her chance exhortation to them, she CHAPTER II. 39 became convinced that she was guilty and exclaimed, “O sir, I have been the cause of all this trouble to your children. ” The woman, who up to this time had shown some spirit, had broken down.
She now confessed that she had given her soul to the Devil. A clergyman was hastily sent for, who preached a sermon of repentance, upon which the distracted woman made a public confession. But on the next day, after she had been refreshed by sleep and had been in her own home again, she denied her confession. The constable now prepared to take the woman as well as her daughter to the Bishop of Lincoln, and the frightened creature again made a confession. In the presence of the bishop she reiterated her story in detail and gave the names of her spirits.
She was put in gaol at Huntingdon and with her were imprisoned her daughter Agnes and her husband John Samuel, who were now accused by the Throckmorton children, and all three were tried at the assizes in Huntingdon before Judge Fenner. The facts already narrated were given in evidence, the seizures of the children at the appearance of any of the Samuel family[22], the certainty with which the children could with closed eyes pick Mother Samuel out of a crowd and scratch her, the confessions of the crazed creature, all these evidences were given to the court. But the strongest proof was that given in the presence of the court.
The daughter Agnes Samuel was charged to repeat, “As I am a witch and consenting to the death of Lady Cromwell, I charge thee, come out of her. “[23] At this charge the children would at once recover from their fits. But a charge phrased negatively, “As I am no witch,” was ineffectual. And the affirmative charge, when tried by some other person, had no result. This was deemed conclusive proof. The woman was beyond doubt guilty. The same method was applied with equally successful issue to the father. When he refused to use the words of the charge he was warned by the judge that he would endanger his life.
He gave way. It is needless to say that the grand jury arraigned all three of the family and that the “jury of life and death” found them guilty. It needed but a five hours’ trial. [24] The mother was induced to plead pregnancy as a delay to execution, but after an examination by a jury was adjudged not pregnant. The daughter had been urged to make the same defence, but spiritedly replied, “It shall never be said that I was both a witch and a whore. ” At the execution the mother made another confession, in which she implicated her husband, but refused to the end to accuse her daughter.
From beginning to end it had been the strong against the weak. Sir Robert Throckmorton, Sir Henry Cromwell, William Wickham, Bishop of Lincoln, the justices of the peace, Justice Fenner of the king’s court, the Cambridge scholars, the “Doctor of Divinitie,” and two other clergymen, all were banded together against this poor but respectable family. In some respects the trial reminds us of one that was to take place ninety-nine years later in Massachusetts. The part played by the children in the two instances was very similar. Mother Samuel had hit the nail on the head when she said that the trouble was due to the children’s “wantonness. Probably the first child had really suffered from some slight ailment. The others were imitators eager to gain notice and pleased with their success; and this fact was realized by some people at the time. “It had been reported by some in the county, those that thought themselves wise, that this Mother Samuel … was an old simple woman, and that one might make her by fayre words confesse what they would. ” Moreover the tone of the writer’s defense makes it evident that others beside Mother Samuel laid the action of the Throckmorton children to “wantonness. And six years later Samuel Harsnett, chaplain to the Bishop of London and a man already influential, called the account of the affair “a very ridiculous booke” and evidently believed the children guilty of the same pretences as William Somers, whose confessions of imposture he was relating. [25] We have already observed that the Warboys affair was the only celebrated trial of its sort in the last part of Elizabeth’s reign–that is, from the time of Reginald Scot to the accession of James I. This does not mean that the superstition was waning or that the trials were on the decrease.
The records show that the number of trials was steadily increasing. They were more widely distributed. London was still the centre of the belief. Chief-Justice Anderson sent Joan Kerke to Tyburn and the Middlesex sessions were still occupied with accusations. The counties adjacent to it could still claim more than two-thirds of the executions. But a far wider area was infected with the superstition. Norfolk in East Anglia, Leicester, Nottingham and Derby in the Midlands, and York and Northumberland in the North were all involved.
The truth is that there are two tendencies that appear very clearly towards the last part of Elizabeth’s reign. On CHAPTER II. 40 the one hand the feeling of the people against witchcraft was growing in intensity, while on the other the administration at London was inclined to be more lenient. Pardons and reprieves were issued to women already condemned,[26] while some attempt was made to curb popular excitement. The attitude of the queen towards the celebrated John Dee was an instance in point. Dee was an eminent alchemist, astrologer, and spiritualist of his time.
He has left a diary which shows us his half mystic, half scientific pursuits. In the earlier part of Mary’s reign he had been accused of attempting poison or magic against the queen and had been imprisoned and examined by the privy council and by the Star Chamber. At Elizabeth’s accession he had cast the horoscope for her coronation day, and he was said to have revealed to the queen who were her enemies at foreign courts. More than once afterwards Dee was called upon by the queen to render her services when she was ill or when some mysterious design against her person was feared.
While he dealt with many curious things, he had consistently refused to meddle with conjuring. Indeed he had rebuked the conjurer Hartley and had refused to help the bewitched Margaret Byrom of Cleworth in Lancashire. Sometime about 1590 Dee’s enemies–and he had many–put in circulation stories of his success as a conjurer. It was the more easy to do, because for a long time he had been suspected by many of unlawful dealings with spirits. His position became dangerous. He appealed to Elizabeth for protection and she gave him assurance that he might push on with his studies.
Throughout her life the queen continued to stand by Dee,[27] and it was not until a new sovereign came to the throne that he again came into danger. But the moral of the incident is obvious. The privy council, so nervous about the conjurers in the days of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Catholic and Spanish plots, was now resting easier and refused to be affrighted. We have already referred to the pardons issued as one of the evidences of the more lenient policy of the government. That policy appeared too in the lessening rigor of the assize judges.
The first half of Elizabeth’s reign had been marked by few acquittals. Nearly half the cases of which we have record in the second part resulted in the discharge of the accused. Whether the judges were taking their cue from the privy council or whether some of them were feeling the same reaction against the cruelty of the prosecutions, it is certain that there was a considerable nullifying of the force of the belief. We shall see in the chapter on Reginald Scot that his Discoverie of Witchcraft was said to have “affected the magistracy and the clergy. It is hard to lay one’s finger upon influences of this sort, but we can hardly doubt that there was some connection between Scot’s brave indictment of the witch-triers and the lessening severity of court verdicts. When George Gifford, the non-conformist clergyman at Maiden, wrote his Dialogue concerning Witches, in which he earnestly deprecated the conviction of so many witches, he dedicated the book “to the Right Worshipful Maister Robert Clarke, one of her Maiesties Barons of her
Highnesse Court of the Exchequer,” and wrote that he had been “delighted to heare and see the wise and godly course used upon the seate of justice by your worship, when such have bene arraigned. ” Unfortunately there is not much evidence of this kind. One other fact must not be overlooked. A large percentage of the cases that went against the accused were in towns judicially independent of the assize courts. At Faversham, at Lynn, at Yarmouth, and at Leicester[28] the local municipal authorities were to blame for the hanging of witches. The regular assize courts had nothing to do with the matter.
The case at Faversham in Kent was unusual. Joan Cason was indicted for bewitching to death a three-year-old child. Eight of her neighbors, seven of them women, “poore people,” testified against her. The woman took up her own cause with great spirit and exposed the malicious dealings of her adversaries and also certain controversies betwixt her and them. “But although she satisfied the bench,” says Holinshed, “and all the jurie touching hir innocencie … she … confessed that a little vermin, being of colour reddish, of stature lesse than a rat … did … aunt her house. ” She was willing too to admit illicit relations with one Mason, whose housekeeper she had been–probably the original cause of her troubles. The jury acquitted her of witchcraft, but found her guilty of the “invocation of evil spirits,” intending to send her to the pillory. While the mayor was admonishing her, a lawyer called attention to the point that the invocation of evil spirits had been made a felony. The mayor sentenced the woman to execution. But, “because there was no matter of invocation given in evidence against hir, … ir execution was staied by the space of three daies. ” Sundry preachers tried to wring confessions from her, but to no purpose. Yet she made so godly an end, says the chronicler, that “manie now lamented hir death which were before hir utter enimies. “[29] The case illustrates vividly the clumsiness of municipal court procedure. The mayor’s court was unfamiliar with the law and CHAPTER II. utterly unable to avert the consequences of its own finding. In the regular assize courts, Joan Cason would probably have been sentenced to four public appearances in the pillory. 41
The differences between the first half and the second half of Elizabeth’s reign have not been deemed wide enough by the writer to justify separate treatment. The whole reign was a time when the superstition was gaining ground. Yet in the span of years from Reginald Scot to the death of Elizabeth there was enough of reaction to justify a differentiation of statistics. In both periods, and more particularly in the first, we may be sure that some of the records have been lost and that a thorough search of local archives would reveal some trials of which we have at present no knowledge.
It was a time rich in mention of witch trials, but a time too when but few cases were fully described. Scot’s incidental references to the varied experiences of Sir Roger Manwood and of his uncle Sir Thomas Scot merely confirm an impression gained from the literature of the time that the witch executions were becoming, throughout the seventies and early eighties, too common to be remarkable. For the second period we have record of probably a larger percentage of all the cases. For the whole time from 1563, when the new law went into effect, down to 1603, we have records of nearly fifty executions.
Of these just about two-thirds occurred in the earlier period, while of the acquittals two-thirds belong to the later period. It would be rash to attach too much significance to these figures. As a matter of fact, the records are so incomplete that the actual totals have little if any meaning and only the proportions can be considered. [30] Yet it looks as if the forces which caused the persecution of witches in England were beginning to abate; and it may fairly be inquired whether some new factor may not have entered into the situation. It is time to speak of Reginald Scot and of the exorcists. 1] Who from a confession made in 1579 seems to have been her sister. See the pamphlet A Detection of damnable driftes, practised by three Witches arraigned at Chelmsforde in Essex at the last Assizes there holden, which were executed in Aprill, 1579 (London, 1579). [2] E. g. : “I was afearde for he [the dog with horns] skypped and leaped to and fro, and satte on the toppe of a nettle. ” [3] Whether Agnes Waterhouse had a “daggar’s knife” and whether the dog had the face of an ape. [4] An offer which indicates that he was acting as judge. [5] She was questioned on her church habits. She claimed to be a
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How Fast Can a Polar Bear Swim – Polar Bear Swimming Speed
Polar bears depend on the arctic ice for catching its prey. But due to global warming sea ice has declined, which has pushed the polar bears to swim longer distances to reach solid ice sheets. Swimming is also one of the arctic adaptations of polar bear to the harsh arctic climate. Amongst all the bear… Keep Reading
When it comes to size, Polar Bears are one of the biggest land carnivores. When we ask how big an animal is we want to ascertain how much volume or space does it occupy. In case of animals we can ascertain its size by its length, height, width and weight. We have already have posts… Keep Reading
How Much Does A Polar Bear Weigh – Polar Bear Weight
Polar Bears being the largest land carnivore, stand at the top of the food chain pyramid in the Arctic. This fact makes one wonder about the size and weight of the polar bears. Among all the bear species, polar bears is one of the heaviest and the tallest. One of the main reason behind polar… Keep Reading
What Color Skin Do Polar Bears Have – Polar Bear Skin Color
If you ask someone about the polar bears skin color, they will say for sure it’s white color. But this is not true, it’s their fur which makes them look white by reflecting visible light. Surprisingly the Polar Bear Skin Color is Black. Acquiring this black skin is one the arctic adaptations of an adult… Keep Reading
What Eats Polar Bear – Polar Bear Predators
Polar Bears have long been known as the apex predator of the arctic region. It has been on the top of the food chain in the north pole region for a very long time. They are big, strong and powerful enough that no other animal dares to rival it. One thing is for sure that… Keep Reading
Do Killer Whales Eat Polar Bears – Polar Bears vs Killer Whale
The Killer Whale also known as Orca is the largest member of the dolphin family. They are also known as one of the top predators of the sea just like wolves on the land. Killer whales diet includes a wide range of marine animals like seals, sea lions, whales, fish, squid and seabirds. Killer whales unlike… Keep Reading
Polar Bear Digestive System – Adaptations , Diagram & Anatomy
Polar Bears are the most interesting to learn among all the bears. Their adaptability to the extremes of the tundra and their unique set of survival skills make them very interesting to study. Like its all other adaptations, the Polar Bear Digestive System is also one of its important adaptation to its environment. The unique… Keep Reading
Polar Bear is the largest land carnivore and knowing that we wonder how tall is a polar bear when measured. We have also seen polar bear standing on its hind legs and in that position it can be even more taller. We have gathered complete information about the Polar Bear Height to give you a… Keep Reading
In the subject of Biology, Life Cycle of an organism is defined as the series of changes through which that organism undergo throughout its life. Polar Bears like all other living things follow its life cycle from birth to death. Here we have explained the Polar Bear Life Cycle from Birth to Death by identifying each… Keep Reading
Do Polar Bears Eat Arctic Foxes – Is Polar Bear Arctic Fox Predator
Polar Bears and Arctic Foxes both live in the Arctic region and in some areas may share the same habitat. Since both are carnivores, there is a fairly good chance that they may encounter each other in search of food. Arctic foxes usually hunt Lemmings (a rodent found in the arctic region) and will eat… Keep Reading
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ABC Managing Director speech at the ABC Friends Public Conference Dinner
Posted 6th October 2017
By ABC Managing Director Michelle Guthrie
*Check against delivery
Thank you very much for the privilege of presenting this dinner address at the ABC Friends’ first national public conference.
It is a very important gathering in both its timing and in the issues discussed. I understand a delegation will be meeting with the Chairman on Monday to take him through the key findings.
It is very apt that the underlying theme for this conference is “Democracy demands diversity”. My address tonight maintains there is no media and cultural diversity without the ABC and democracy would be very much the poorer in the absence of the national broadcaster.
From its creation in 1932, the ABC has been a key element of a very durable media system in Australia. It is a system envied in other parts of the globe. It has, at its heart, a national broadcaster funded by the community and independent of government, sitting alongside commercial media companies.
The dual system delivers a rich array of choice for all citizens: from live sport to ad-free kids’ programs; from reality TV franchises through to hard-hitting investigative stories. The commercials deliver for their shareholders; the ABC for the citizens of Australia. We provide the trusted national voice, the investment in and dedication to the far-flung parts of the country and the ability to bring the nation together at times of celebration and of sorrow.
This system, and the pivotal role of the ABC within it, has strong public support. We know it because every year we use an independent polling company to assess how the community feels about the ABC, its place within a broader media landscape, and its performance across the various Charter remits. Each year there is a consistent message from the public: a resounding endorsement for the ABC and its programming.
It is somewhat perverse that while technology has given us a sea of content abundance – no borders, an endless stream of new content producers, distribution platforms and devices – diversity is being threatened.
Why? We know about the tectonic shifts taking place in the media sector as a result of digital disruption. In Australia, it has provoked some interesting industry and political responses channelled into the Media Reform Bill about to be passed by Federal Parliament.
The ABC acknowledges the need to update some aspects of the Broadcasting Act to account for new platforms and new competition. But no one is pretending that the changes in ownership laws, resulting from exhaustive and convoluted cross-trading with various senate voting blocs, will add to media diversity. It will, in fact, achieve the reverse.
The objective behind the changes, clearly stated by media CEOs, is to allow existing players to build scale through mergers and acquisitions to compete with the new global giants like Google, Facebook and Netflix. I wish them luck: a viable local commercial sector is also important to diversity. But as a former Google executive, I question whether consolidating the number of local players to build size is the panacea the CEOs are proclaiming it to be.
The combined worth of the three major commercial free-to-airs is about $Aust 2.1 billion. Southern Cross and Prime add another $1 billion. Fairfax has a market cap of about $2.2 billion.
In stark contrast, Facebook has a market cap of $US 500 billion; Alphabet, the Google parent, an even higher $US 660 billion and Netflix, that rising upstart, is now valued at over $US 70 billion.
The ABC’s role in the media law reform debate was supposed to be as an interested bystander. We had no skin in the game. Or so we thought. We now find ourselves very much impacted by the deal-making and with a real need to ensure that the public interest – as opposed to vested interest – is protected. Diversity on one side is shrinking. While on the other side, the role and ability of the ABC to provide real choice and a vital public good is being assailed.
You are all aware that legislation will be introduced into Parliament in the next few weeks seeking numerous changes to the ABC Act. Ultimately, it is up to Parliament to determine the fate of those amendments.
However, the ABC position is clear. The proposed changes do not further the public interest. They do not “improve” the ABC as some have suggested. They interfere with the right and ability of the ABC Board to do its work and override the Privacy Act to force salary disclosures on our employees that no other public agency is required to do.
There is no pressing need to change the ABC Act and its Charter, no matter how much commercial CEOs and their compliant media outlets argue otherwise. The public understand and support the ABC’s remit, knowing that it provides the quality, independence and commercial-free space that they want. There is no evidence that the Charter is impacting on the commercial models of existing local companies. Assertions that the ABC is abusing the Charter or exploiting its confines are just plain wrong. They are hurled at the ABC by executives and media commentators who are simply looking for scapegoats for their own woes in a disrupted landscape.
I refer them to the comments of a former Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull. The Prime Minister, who has some expertise in the economics of the media sector, has consistently pointed out that these media companies are reaching more people than ever before, using new digital platforms to add to their existing distribution channels. Their challenge is monetising those audiences. The ABC is not after their advertising revenue. As Mr Turnbull remarked at the relaunch of the ABC Parliamentary Friends Association in 2014, while Fairfax and News Corp may have many problems in this new landscape, the ABC is not the cause of them.
I would say the same for the commercial free-to-airs and to Foxtel, whose CEOs seem to spend more time whingeing about the ABC than addressing their own audience challenges. My advice to them is that attacking the national broadcaster does not – and will never – constitute a viable business model. Restricting the ABC’s right to use digital platforms, which appears to be the clear intent behind pressuring the Government for a competitive neutrality inquiry, will not protect them from digital disruption. All it does is hurt the community. Should your children and grandchildren be denied the right to watch Play School and Peppa Pig on an iPad because Hugh Marks, Michael Miller and Paul Anderson are finding life tough? Should the ABC be forced, as they have asserted, into a pure market failure role; simply doing the things the commercials don’t want to do, or can’t? Absolutely not!
The ABC Act and Charter should not be tampered with simply to suit political or commercial agendas. I go further in relation to the proposed changes to the ABC Act likely to be introduced into Parliament in the next few weeks. Legislation designed to further a political vendetta by one party uncomfortable with being scrutinised by our investigative programs is not good policy-making. Neither is using the ABC Act as a bargaining chip in industry machinations that have nothing to do with the national broadcaster.
The ABC doesn’t need more bureaucracy to serve its rural and regional audiences. It knows that the third of the population living outside the capital cities regard the national broadcaster as life-blood. It is why we have invested an extra $15 million a year in creating 80 new content-making jobs across the country at a time when other media companies are cutting staff. More red tape that the ABC is forced to underwrite simply reduces our investment in the primary mission – providing quality, trusted content to the households of Australia.
It is fair to say that relations between the ABC and the Friends have waxed and waned over time. We don’t always agree on strategy or outcomes. While I have always appreciated the passion that the Friends have for our programming, sometimes I chafe at the assertion that everything should remain as it was and that problems will always be solved by getting more money out of Canberra.
I think it is good that the Friends have developed their own statement of principles which anchors their position. It enables us to approach dialogue with clear and transparent positions on both sides. I will come back to the principles shortly, but I first want to address the issue of ABC strategy.
I have one overarching ambition and I have stated it consistently since I started nearly 18 months ago. That is, to make the ABC as relevant (or more so) to my children and their children. While the Act and Charter provide continuity, relevance cannot be guaranteed. As history has shown, the ABC must constantly adapt to technology, to audience trends, to funding pressures, to ensure it delivers for all Australians. What I want is to maintain the role of the ABC as Australia’s most important cultural institution: to link the past, the present and the future. And in a year in which the ABC has lost two of its most treasured identities, to ensure that we create an appropriate legacy for people like Mark Colvin and John Clarke, who have contributed so much to our national discourse.
The Investing in Audiences strategy I announced in March is very much part of building that legacy. It is about putting the audience first, making the necessary efficiencies in our support operations to maximise our investment in programming and services. We have unlocked $50 million a year which we are ploughing back into regional jobs and our content reinvestment fund, the Great Ideas Grant.
I note that your panels today have addressed many of the key issues that the ABC Board and management are grappling with. One is to do with the fundamental challenge of stretching resources to service both traditional and new audiences. There is no binary path here. We simply have to do both. Many of our audiences have migrated across to new digital platforms. Others dip between them. Still others, by choice or necessity, remain with our core radio and television services. There may be a day when digital delivery overtakes the poles and wires, but it won’t be for a considerable time. That means doing what the BBC describes as that very difficult and uncomfortable act of trying to ride two horses at once.
That means trying to find the right balance between the many competing priorities. It means making constant choices about programming strategy and digital investment to deliver the best result for our many audiences.
We saw this yesterday with the announcement by ABC News to substantially increase their investment in public interest journalism – an investment in both diversity and in democracy. We know that commercial newsrooms around the country are being shuttered, networked or stripped back. We know that it is hard to find commercial models that sustain investigative journalism and specialised reporting that is important and relevant to local communities. We know that the ABC has a heavy responsibility, via its Charter, to fill that gap; providing news and information that serves the interest of the public.
Our response is to create the largest dedicated investigative and specialist journalism teams in the country. The funding for this is coming from judicious changes. Yes, Lateline is finishing, but we will continue to provide late evening current affairs on the main channel and our ABC News Channel. I am very excited by the introduction of a new prime-time discussion show to be hosted by Stan Grant at 9pm. It will have a strong international flavour given Stan’s new role as the ABC’s Chief Asia Correspondent.
These are dynamic changes responding to real challenges. For those who focus only on Lateline, I say look at the ABC’s commitment to the core mission of investigative journalism, not on the brand label. Too often, our stakeholders, and I include some of our journalists in that category, get trapped in the mystique of programs, seeing their longevity as trench lines in a “war” against management. They could not be more wrong. As a former distinguished ABC News Director, Max Uechtritz, remarked yesterday: “Great ABC journalism doesn’t die with a program name.” Lateline has had a proud 28-year history, based on its then innovative use of satellite technology. But technology and audiences have changed. So must the ABC.
Catalyst is a good example of how the ABC has reinvented a long running program, giving it new energy and purpose, and our audiences have reaped the rewards. I recall at the time we announced the change it was pilloried as “dumbing down” science and walking away from our Charter obligations. The reality is the reverse. Catalyst has introduced the audience to new scientists and provided compelling viewing on topics as diverse as the miracles of the heart and the dawn of the driverless car. The audience has embraced the innovative approach and its connection to the core mission of the program.
More change is coming. In March, I foreshadowed that we would be reorganising our content divisions to adapt to the shifts in the media sector. Audiences are shifting in their viewing and listening behaviours, they are embracing mobile and catch-up. We need to empower our content makers to respond to these trends, enabling them to work more collaboratively and to use their skills and resources to better connect with the community. We have been working closely with our content makers on these changes. We expect to make announcements within the next few months as we prepare for 2018.
I repeat what I said in March. Restructuring is not about cost-cutting. It does not involve program cuts. We will not be shutting down networks, no matter how much some critics claim otherwise. We are doing what every media organisation is doing – adapting to the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Which I should point out, given it is in the title of the conference, is rapidly approaching the end of its second decade. Twenty years ago, there was no Wikipedia, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, LinkedIn, or iPhone. Imagine what the world will look like in another 20 years.
Twenty years ago, there actually was a Netflix, although it was then nothing more than a humble DVD sales and rental company. Talk about a digital transformation! Netflix has loomed large at this conference; just as it has across the whole media sector. Let me state that I am not among those who see Netflix as one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, laying waste to the local industry. The fact that more than 30 per cent of the population has signed up to the streaming service in Australia in just two years (I note that it took Foxtel 20 years to get to that figure) suggests that it is meeting a demand here. Netflix has added to competition and to media diversity.
Moreover, it isn’t going away, no matter how much Hugh Marks and company rail against it. I have no problems doing deals with Netflix, as we have done with Glitch and with the exciting series now going into production called Pine Gap. Incidentally, the six-part series will be filmed next year in South Australia and the Northern Territory, providing a much-needed boost to the local creative economies. The financing that Netflix supplies enables us to create world-class programming without having to make upfront investments that would drain our entire drama budget.
I note that Netflix has only just announced a $US 400 million Canadian production venture that will, in the words of the Canadian Government, “support Canadian creators, producers and Canadian creative work and bring that work to millions of viewers around the world.”
The ABC needs to make more local content and – given the complex economics of television production – will need lots of creative partnerships to deliver it. Investing in local storytelling is part of our charter remit. It is also what makes us distinctive. The arrival of Netflix and other global giants on our doorstep is a wake-up call to the local industry and to the regulators. Investing in good storytelling is what will enable the ABC to maintain relevance in this new global marketplace. My Director of Television, David Anderson, is currently working on a plan to significantly increase our Australian production across all key genres. I look forward to providing more detail on those plans shortly.
I have traversed a lot of detail in this speech. There is much we have accomplished and much more to be done in delivering our strategy and Charter objectives. Before I close, though, I would like to run a check on ABC performance against the principles set down by the Friends. It is a good way of benchmarking our strategy and our progress.
The first principle relates to the transparency of the Board and management decision-making. We get a lot of flak over this but I think much of it is unwarranted. The ABC is more accountable than any other media organisation. We use a range of instruments – the Annual Report, parliamentary submissions, Senate Estimates and my internal and external speeches to provide details of our strategy and performance. In that vein, I am announcing today that next February the ABC will hold its first Annual Public Meeting. This will provide an opportunity for the ABC’s “shareholders”, the community to hear from the Chairman and me and to ask questions about our strategy and achievements. More details will be provided later but I am very excited by this initiative, conceived by our Chair, Justin Milne.
The principles refer to the Charter remit to “present an independent, professional and authoritative journalistic voice in its news coverage, current affairs reporting, documentaries, and in its range of specialist programs”. I would put a big tick against that, noting yesterday’s announcement of new investment in investigative journalism and in specialist reporting, on top of the outstanding work done by Four Corners each week. Needless to say, no one but the ABC could produce programs of the quality or creativity of Catalyst, Q&A or War on Waste.
The principles refer to a Charter responsibility to provide quality, innovative and diverse programming on radio, on television and digitally. My response? Only the ABC can deliver Gruen, You Can’t Ask That, The Conversation Hour, Landline, and Life Matters.
Your principles refer to the obligation on the ABC to report authoritatively on international issues and news, while promoting Australia’s ‘story’ to the Asian and Pacific region. Again, another big tick. I don’t think we have the time or the inclination to reflect on the long, sorry history of the Australia Network and the ABC’s efforts to build something out of the ashes. But what I can tell you is that the ABC Board recently signed off on a new international strategy built on showcasing the best of our content for audiences, particularly those in Asia and the Pacific.
The ABC will invest new money, including savings from the closure of the shortwave transmitters, in building programming and services that connect with our main Charter audiences. We are still working through the rights issues, but the ambition is to have our best programs streamed to Asia and the rest of the world via iview and the ABC app. We will talk more on this in early 2018. And in the Pacific, we are already bolstering our news services, investing in local journalism and expanding Pacific Beat. The mission is to take the ABC global, seizing the opportunities of technology and the demand that exists for our unique, trusted and distinctive content and services.
We are developing a new education strategy, using the Adelaide base of Behind the News to springboard a multi-platform approach to this important Charter remit. And in relation to the arts and other key genres, we will use the content restructure to ensure that we have the resources and the cross-divisional collaboration in place for a significantly better audience experience.
I will conclude by noting the final principle. It states, “that the ABC’s prime objective is to set the ‘gold standard’ for ethical, quality, specialist and diverse broadcasting nationally in the interests of informing, entertaining and stimulating our robust Australian democratic way of life”.
No arguments there. I believe that under my leadership and the strategic direction of the ABC Board, the Corporation is very much committed to delivering the gold standard.
As the Chairman stated in his Parliamentary Showcase address in August, amid these challenging times of fake news and fragmenting markets, “the one incontestable fact is that now, more than ever, the nation needs a strong, independent and trustworthy public broadcaster”. An ABC that delivers for diversity and for democracy.
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Posted in Monthly Economic Update
In this month’s recap: the Federal Reserve sees no rate hikes in 2019, investors watch Treasury yields with interest, hiring suddenly weakens, home sales pick up, and the price of oil tops $60.
THE MONTH IN BRIEF
The Federal Reserve altered its outlook on interest rates in March, and the stock and bond markets certainly took notice. Both the Fed and the European Central Bank communicated that they saw economic growth moderating. Even so, the S&P 500 managed to advance 1.79% for the month. Trade talks continued between the U.S. and China, but without much in the way of real developments. New reports revealed a sudden slowdown in hiring and only mild inflation. Existing home sales accelerated, crude oil gained value, and the Brexit saga took yet another turn.1
DOMESTIC ECONOMIC HEALTH
Without a doubt, the major story of the month was the Federal Reserve’s newly dovish stance on monetary policy. The central bank had forecast two quarter-point rate hikes for 2019 in late 2018. On March 20, it held rates steady while projecting only one quarter-point hike through 2021. In announcing this dramatic pivot, the Fed also lowered its estimate of 2019 U.S. economic expansion to 2.1% from the prior 2.3%. Talking to the media after the release of the March 20 policy statement, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell remarked that the “growth of economic activity has slowed,” adding that Fed policymakers saw “some weakening” in the economy, but no signs of a recession.2
More than a few investors interpreted the Fed’s revised outlook as a commentary on the near future. Demand for longer-term Treasury bonds increased, sending their prices higher and their yields lower (bond yields fall when bond prices rise and vice versa). On March 22, the yield on the 2-year Treasury exceeded the yield on the 10-year Treasury. Analysts call this an “inverted yield curve,” and when it happens, the financial media is quick to point out that it could signal a weaker economy ahead. This is open to debate, but rising demand for longer-term Treasuries does imply less appetite for risk in the financial markets.3
By March 26, the CMEGroup’s FedWatch Tool – a gauge of market expectations about interest rate changes – gave the Fed a 71.7% chance of making an interest rate cut by the end of the year, with a 57.7% chance of a cut by September.4
The latest employment report from the Department of Labor showed payrolls expanding by just 20,000 net new hires in February. Even so, the main jobless rate fell 0.2% to 3.8%; the U-6 rate, including the underemployed, dropped 0.8% to 7.3%. (Both reductions could reflect furloughed federal workers returning to their jobs.) Also worth noting: hourly wages were up a nice 3.4% year-over-year.5
Inflation remained muted. The latest Consumer Price Index (February) showed just a 1.5% annualized gain, hardly the kind of pressure that begs action from policymakers.5
On Main Street, there was a slip in consumer confidence. The Conference Board’s monthly index came in at 124.1 for March – a good reading, but well below the 131.4 mark of a month earlier. The latest available data on consumer spending showed a mere 0.1% gain in January.6
A much-watched index tracking the U.S. manufacturing sector showed solid growth, but a slightly slower pace of business activity. The Institute for Supply Management’s purchasing manager index for the factory sector fell from 56.6 in January to 54.2 in February.5
Last month, the federal government downgraded its estimate of fourth-quarter gross domestic product. The final estimate was 2.2%, revised from 2.6%.6
GLOBAL ECONOMIC HEALTH
As March ended, a positive note was sounded in the trade negotiations between the U.S. and China. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin tweeted that “constructive” discussions were taking place, to be continued in April in Washington, D.C.7
The Brexit did not occur on March 29. Instead, the United Kingdom’s Parliament rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s (revised) Brexit plan on that day, for a third time. The European Union had earlier granted the United Kingdom a short-term extension of the Brexit deadline; the revised deadline, April 12, now looms large. If Parliament cannot agree on a Brexit deal at the start of this month, May will be left two choices. She can try to carry out a “hard” Brexit by April 12, a move that has little apparent support in Parliament. Alternately, she can ask the E.U. to extend the Brexit deadline again, which is hardly a given.8
On the continent, the European Central Bank decided to bring back some of the stimulus measures it had announced an end to in 2018. In its latest policy announcement, the ECB said that it would hold off on raising interest rates until at least 2020. (It last raised interest rates at the start of this decade.) Elsewhere, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) forecast 2019 growth of less than 1% for the economies of Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom, and growth of only 1% for the 19-country Eurozone.9
CONTINUE TO FULL UPDATE
Tags: Wallpaper
Fourth Quarter 2018 | Quarterly Market Review
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Shunned – October 22, 2018
Tuesday, October 30, 2018 Blog entries 2018Alice Rothchild
first published in Mondoweiss 10/22/18
The email was concerning; it arrived in my personal inbox and that of Just World Books. And in the emails to Robert Shetterly (who painted my portrait as part of his Americans Who Tell the Truth project), and to an activist in the Boston area who had organized a presentation for me. The author stated he was, “the only Jewish criminal attorney at law in Vienna and member of the Executive board of Austria’s oldest, main and central synagogue, the famous Vienna “‘Stadttempel.’” He described the local Jewish community as small but wealthy and flourishing. He ended the first paragraph with: “But as the only child of Holocaust survivors I do not forget our history.”
The attorney expressed concern that my books and “the far left“ Jewish Voice for Peace, of which I am a member, are advocating for the boycott of Israel and that, “Boycott is a form of violence.” He noted that since January 2018 BDS supporters have been banned from entering Israel.
He reminded me that, “the Holocaust began with the boycott of Jewish shops, Jewish lawyers, Jewish doctors and Jewish institutions. Boycott of Jews was the beginning of the worst mass murder in history, the Shoah,” and that much of his family did not survive. “At that time your government refused to issue visas for Jews from Europe. You should remember this anti-Jewish policy of your homeland, of the United States of America during the Second World War.”
He ended with, “So please tell Dr. Rothchild and her friends not to come to our synagogue. These people are not welcome here. We do not want to see them, we do not want to hear them, we do not want to pray together with them. They can stay wherever they want, but please let them stay away from us.”
My first thoughts were how does an old Jewish attorney in Vienna find me typing away in my study somewhere in the Pacific Northwest? What Israel hasbara organization and/or perhaps Israeli military intelligence unit now has me in their radar? Will they send out their troops to disrupt the next time I am giving a presentation? The shunning, on the other hand, was all too familiar.
Besides being angry, this man is also in great pain; the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust wiped out much of his family and shaped his life and world view. I imagine there must be some kind of personal vindication to live in Vienna and rebuild a Jewish community in the belly of the beast. I have tremendous respect and empathy for that kind of suffering and strength and for what is required to survive and prosper. I also share his outrage at the immigration policies of the U.S. as well as other nations that refused or turned away Jews desperately fleeing certain death and disaster. I know from this attorney‘s further correspondence with Mr. Shetterly that he views the Palestinians as the new Nazis. This is a common feeling among many Jews, often expressed in Israel as, “When I see Arafat, I see Hitler,” and in the frequent use of the words “potential holocaust” to describe any perceived external threat to the state.
These ideas are a compounded tragedy and I would argue a grave misunderstanding. First, boycotts are a well respected, nonviolent form of protest that has been used for good, (Quakers against slave holders, African-Americans in Montgomery refusing to take the bus), and evil (Nazis against Jews). The strategy of boycott is not evil or inhumane in itself, but it can be used for a variety of purposes. The Nazis used “boycott“ not to protest for an oppressed minority or against some injustice, but as a governmental policy to discriminate and destroy another people. The boycott, divestment, and sanction of Israel was called in 2005 by over 150 Palestinian civil society activists seeking to end the second class citizenship of Palestinians in Israel, to end the occupation, and to resolve the multigenerational refugee catastrophe – without violence.
To equate Palestinians with Nazis, the attorney used the oft quoted example of Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem from 1921 to 1948. Al-Husseini is a complex, controversial figure, an Arab nationalist who actively opposed Zionism in the 1920s and also became an opponent of British colonialism in Palestine. During WW II he collaborated with fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, but after 1948 he was sidelined by the Palestine Liberation Organization. It is unclear how much of his political activities were grounded in Arab nationalism and anti-colonialism, and how much in anti-Semitism. The Arab nationalism and anti-colonialism are understandable responses to the British Empire and Jewish settlement in Palestine; the anti-Semitism is unforgivable.
That said, it is important to remember that there never was a Nazi party in historic Palestine and that Islam does not have the centuries old history of Jew hatred that is found in European Christianity. The call to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel also has an explicit statement against bigotry of all types and names anti-Semitism in particular. The anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism that can now be found in Muslim countries began almost entirely with the founding of the State of Israel and resentment in the Arab speaking world regarding the Israeli treatment of the indigenous Palestinian population. It is also a politically useful issue for autocratic leaders seeking to unite their restive citizens who have a lot of other political and economic matters to complain about. The Palestinians I have worked with in the region make a clear distinction between Jews (fellow Abrahamic religious people) and Zionists (people with the clear intent to dispossess Palestinians of their land and to erase their history and rights). This is an important difference.
The second big problem for me is that my accuser does not make a distinction between Jews (a people, a cultural group, an ethnicity, a religious community) and Israel (a country that claims to be a state of the Jewish people, that privileges Jews over non-Jews, but is none-the-less still a country). That is a critical distinction and I would argue that it is particularly the responsibility of Jewish people to call out the egregious policies of the State of Israel when the state claims to be speaking for us. It is a state not a religion after all. The recent passage of the Nation State Bill has also made it abundantly clear (as if it had not been already), that it is not possible to be a democracy (a state of equal citizens) and a Jewish state (a state that privileges the national aspirations, history, trauma and dreams of Jews only, despite its multicultural society). And if we are tax paying U.S. citizens, we have an added complicity given the billions of dollars of military aid as well as political cover that our government provides for the Israeli state and its war machine.
I fail to understand how a a brutal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and a crushing siege of Gaza keeps Israel safe. How arresting thousands of children, jailing tens of thousands of young people, restricting permits to travel to hospitals for treatment or travel abroad for study brings us closer to peace. How an aggressive Jewish settlement project in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is supposed to make Palestinians more willing to negotiate. How discriminating against 21 percent of Israeli citizens can be compatible with democracy. How refusing to take responsibility for the ongoing refugee crisis builds anything but another generation of angry, impatient, disillusioned young people and the hostility of surrounding nations.
Though I am not a religious person, (that ended a long time ago), and I actually have no plans to attend the synagogue in Vienna, or any synagogue for that matter, I do take the moral foundations, the prophetic traditions, of my Jewish heritage very seriously. When I see oppression and injustice and inhumanity, I am compelled to call it out and I will advocate whatever nonviolent means of resistance I have at my disposal. Ironically, my voice is often welcomed in churches and mosques. I hope someday to be welcomed in synagogues too. It would be nice to come home.
← Reporting from Seattle: Seafair, Glory, and our Love of the Military – August 10, 2018 The 2019 Women’s March: privileging victimhood and the power of class – January 22, 2019 →
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FDR's Hidden Handicap
Essays | Summer 2005
Christopher Clausen
In the decades since Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, Americans have come to believe that FDR hid from the public the crippling effects of his polio. That myth about the man in the wheelchair says more about our own time than it does about his.
16m 16sec
During his 12 years in the White House, Franklin D. Roosevelt was hardly ever photographed in a wheelchair. Not surprisingly, the longest-serving president in American history disliked drawing attention to his polio symptoms. He had been stricken suddenly by the disease in 1921, at age 39, seven years before he was elected governor of New York and 11 years before his first presidential campaign. Roosevelt took the stage on crutches at the 1924 Democratic National Convention to nominate New York governor Alfred E. Smith for president. Later, he learned to stand with leg braces and to walk for short distances with the assistance of crutches or—after he had recovered as completely as he would—a cane.
Once Roosevelt took the governor’s office in Albany, four years later, the press corps was discouraged from photographing him being helped out of cars or otherwise exhibiting signs of physical dependence. When Life published a photo of him in a wheelchair in 1937, presidential press secretary Steve Early was displeased. Most stills and newsreels from Roosevelt’s White House years show him seated (often in a car), gripping a lectern, or, frequently, clutching the arm of his son James. To compensate for the immobility of his legs, he developed his arms and upper body and used them effectively in his signature speaking style.
Fast-forward half a century. Although FDR had explicitly rejected the idea of a memorial, his admirers eventually succeeded in having one erected between the monuments to Lincoln and Jefferson in Washington, D.C. It opened in 1997 to mixed reviews. While some commentators were enthusiastic, others felt that it was a bland, politically correct celebration not so much of the late president and his accomplishments as of the liberal pieties of the 1990s. Daniel Schorr, one of the few Washington journalists who could recall the New Deal, complained in The New Leader that “FDR is remembered for the cigarette holder he held between his teeth at a jaunty angle. You will not find that in any of the statues in the memorial. The argument is that if he had known what we know today about tobacco, he wouldn’t have smoked.” After noting that Eleanor Roosevelt’s “trademark silver fox fur piece” is also never shown, Schorr asked, “Why does everybody with a cause seem to know that FDR and Eleanor today would be sharing that cause?”
But the biggest controversy was what Schorr dubbed “the great battle of the wheelchair.” The committee that designed the memorial had acceded to Roosevelt’s wish that he not be shown in one. Disability rights groups, however, demanded that the biases of his own time not be countenanced in ours. (The possibility that a proud man might have minimized his handicap as much to avoid pity as stigma did not seem to occur to them.) After President Bill Clinton announced that he felt both their pain and his late predecessor’s, Congress authorized a bronze statue of FDR sitting proudly in the homemade wheelchair he had designed for himself, like a man who, with superhuman effort, had rolled himself out of the closet of ancient prejudices and simultaneously kicked the tobacco habit.
At the dedication of the statue in early 2001, the air was thick with self-congratulation. “While Roosevelt hid his disability from the public during his lifetime, believing that the country wasn’t ready then to elect a wheelchair user as president, he nevertheless stayed in his chair when it was uplifting to particular audiences, such as when touring veterans’ hospitals,” proclaimed Michael Deland, chairman of the National Organization on Disability. “It’s wonderful that the whole world will now know that President Roosevelt led this country to victory in World War II and through the Great Depression from his wheelchair.” Clinton echoed this view of the past, explaining, “He lived in a different time, when people thought being disabled was being unable.” The implication was that if FDR had had the good fortune to run for president today, his disability would have been no handicap at all.
But embracing this view of a tolerant present contrasted with a darker past requires negotiating a major obstacle: Americans of our grandparents’ generation elected FDR to the presidency four times—twice during the worst depression in history and twice more during a world war. How could such unenlightened people have done a thing like this? The answer is simple: They must not have known what they were doing. His affliction must have been kept secret, hidden through two decades of public life from all but his intimates. As Davis W. Houck and Amos Kiewe put it in FDR’s Body Politics: The Rhetoric of Disability (2003), “Roosevelt’s disability was carefully concealed not only from the media, and thus the public, but also from some members of his own family.”
This assertion has been widely circulated in recent years. Since the 1985 publication of Hugh Gallagher’s book, FDR’s Splendid Deception, it has become conventional wisdom—even though Gallagher himself makes the more modest claim that the impact of polio on FDR’s personality and motivation has been underestimated. This April, in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Roosevelt’s death, both a History Channel documentary and an HBO drama offered accounts of how the complicated cover-up was supposedly carried off.
Press discussion of the films asserted even more positively that Roosevelt’s ailment was kept under wraps. “FDR is being reimagined for television audiences in the very way he went to extraordinary lengths to hide,” declared The Los Angeles Times, “as a polio survivor whose paralysis formed the core of his adult experience.” The paper quoted the scriptwriter of the HBO movie, Warm Springs, as saying, “I wanted to out him as a disabled man.” The Columbus Dispatch insisted, “Most Americans never knew of his disability. During his presidential years his polio wasn’t even disclosed by the press.” The Washington Post went further, attributing the New Deal itself to polio: “Because voters were unaware of Roosevelt’s paralysis, he set out to project a can-do approach calculated to restore national self-confidence.”
How much truth is there to these claims that most Americans knew little or nothing about their president’s paralyzed legs until after his death? Such major historians as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Frank Freidel, writing in the 1950s when the Roosevelt administration was a comparatively recent memory, made no mention of such a secret. Their accounts treat his polio and its physical manifestations matter-of-factly, as if every well-informed person knew at least the essentials of his condition and had known at the time. As members of a generation less obsessed with health and youthful appearance than we are, perhaps they did not find it remarkable that a demonstrated ability to perform presidential duties was sufficient physical qualification in voters’ eyes. The rite of exhibiting fitness for high office through frenetic athleticism didn’t emerge until the administration of John F. Kennedy, whose general health, ironically, was much worse than FDR’s.
Freidel discusses at length the ways in which the future president dealt with the disease and indicates that he was fortunate in his friends and supporters. Reacting early in the 1928 gubernatorial campaign to the Republican charge that paralysis made Roosevelt unfit for office, Al Smith, who had drafted the younger man to succeed him in Albany while he himself ran for president, snorted, “But the answer to that is that a governor does not have to be an acrobat. We do not elect him for his ability to do a double back-flip or a handspring.” Indeed, Republicans soon stopped talking about Roosevelt’s physical condition for fear of creating a sympathy vote for him.
Questions and rumors about Roosevelt’s health naturally proliferated as his plans to run for president became evident. In July 1931, Liberty magazine, a weekly that claimed a circulation of 2.5 million, published an article headlined “Is Franklin D. Roosevelt Physically Fit to Be President?” The opening paragraph bluntly stated, “It is an amazing possibility that the next President of the United States may be a cripple. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Governor of the State of New York, was crippled by infantile paralysis in the epidemic of 1921 and still walks with the help of a crutch and a walking stick. Yet by all the political signs he will emerge as the Democratic nominee.” Though the article made no mention of a wheelchair, it detailed Roosevelt’s use of leg braces and featured a photograph of him displaying them. Another photo showed him barelegged on the edge of the pool at Warm Springs, Georgia, where, he explained, “swimming in tepid water” gave him buoyancy and somewhat improved the feeling in his legs. As for his limited mobility, he portrayed it as an advantage on the job; it forced him to concentrate. “I don’t move about my office,” he was quoted as saying. “But I can and do move about the state.”
The article’s author was a self-described Republican journalist, Earle Looker, who (probably with the Roosevelt campaign’s encouragement) had challenged the prospective candidate to submit to a lengthy interview and to an examination by an orthopedist, a neurologist, and a general practitioner, to be chosen by the director of the New York Academy of Medicine. “A sound mind in a sound body,” Looker declared, “has more and more come to be a requirement for the Presidency. This is outside the legal requirements, but two recent breakdowns in office, those of Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding . . . very pertinently raise the question whether or not Franklin Roosevelt is fit to be President.” Roosevelt eagerly accepted the challenge. In a moment of unintentional humor, when Looker asked whether he would be willing to sacrifice his “personal desires” to assume the burdens of the presidency, the candidate snapped, “The opportunity for service that the Presidency affords has not honestly been considered a personal sacrifice by anyone I have ever known or heard of who has had that opportunity.” The article also contained a now-famous quip from Eleanor Roosevelt: “If the paralysis couldn’t kill him, the presidency won’t.”
After following the governor through several exhausting workdays, Looker delivered a chirpy but essentially accurate judgment: “Insofar as I have observed him, I have come to the conclusion that he seemed able to take more punishment than many men ten years younger. Merely his legs were not much good to him.” The three doctors concurred: “We believe that his health and powers of endurance are such as to allow him to meet any demands of private and public life.” The Roosevelt campaign sent copies of the published article to every influential Democrat and county chairman in the country, as well as to others who expressed concern about the candidate’s health. Looker soon expanded his piece into a popular campaign biography, This Man Roosevelt (1932), that painted an even more favorable picture of the candidate’s abilities and, like nearly all later biographies, attributed some of his most impressive qualities to his struggle with a crippling disease.
Liberty was by no means the only publication to scrutinize FDR’s polio as it related to his fitness for office. After he formally declared his candidacy, Time ran a sympathetic cover story on February 1, 1932, that described the onset of the disease in 1921. “Months later,” the magazine reported, “he arose to find his legs quite dead. This calamity he met with supreme courage and cheer.” In 1924, FDR discovered Warm Springs, then a down-at-heel spa resort. “After churning about in the pool, he found that his leg muscles felt a little stronger. Thereafter Warm Springs became his great hobby. He spent a large part of his personal fortune on developing the place into a sanatorium.” As for his present condition, Time summarized it judiciously:
Swimming at Warm Springs several months each year and special exercises at Albany have made it possible for the Governor to walk 100 feet or so with braces and canes. When standing at crowded public functions, he still clings precautiously to a friend’s arm. Constitutionally he is sound as a nut and always has been. His affliction makes people come to him to transact business, saves him useless motion, enables him to get prodigious amounts of work done at a sitting. Governor Roosevelt is confident of ultimate total recovery. . . . Never have his crippled legs deterred him from going where he would.
Some secret. There you have all the essential information laid out with admirable succinctness and precision—the history of the disease, how it affected him after more than 10 years (with a clear distinction between the effects of polio and general health), complete with a slightly skeptical reference to the ingrained optimism that helped make FDR such an appealing leader—in time for voters to factor it in, if they wanted. It’s hard to imagine fuller disclosure.
References to FDR’s paralyzed legs did not end with his election. Faced with a manifestly energetic president in a time of national crisis, however, the press had more important things to cover. After the public rendered its verdict in 1932, his health was never a significant political issue again until the 1944 campaign, when he was visibly deteriorating. Then, the White House was indeed less than informative, but at issue were heart disease and exhaustion rather than polio. (One alarming sign, however, as Time noted, was that for a while he “virtually abandoned the uncomfortable braces which make walking possible for him and hold him up while standing.” A week later his chief physician reassured the press that the president was swimming again, adding that “the buoyancy of the water enables him to walk and he gets exercise that he can’t get any other way.”) In the countless attacks on a controversy-riddled administration, FDR’s polio was rarely a target—not because it was taboo, but because it had ceased to be relevant. “It’s not a story,” Early would answer when asked about the president’s handicap, and he was largely right.
Making light of an affliction is not the same as denying it. Roosevelt aggressively identified himself with the cause of curing polio. As president-elect, according to Time, “At Worcester, Mass., Governor Roosevelt picked Catherine Murphy, 9, also a cripple from infantile paralysis, to send at his own expense to Warm Springs, Ga., for treatment.” Starting with his 52nd birthday, in 1934, he promoted an annual series of nationwide “birthday balls” to raise money for polio treatment and research.
In 1938, his advocacy efforts culminated in a national radio address and media extravaganza to announce the creation of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, soon to become known as the March of Dimes. Press coverage was profuse and laudatory. The New York Times carried a story on page 1 and several more on page 3. Life featured pictures of the Hollywood stars who had participated. Time began its story with the lead, “Franklin Roosevelt is not only the nation’s No. 1 citizen but its No. 1 victim of infantile paralysis. He is not only President of the U.S. but president of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation.” Newsweek ran a cover that showed polio sufferers in wheelchairs and a benevolent FDR sitting in his car lighting a cigarette, with the headline, “Paralysis war: Roosevelt’s gift becomes a national institution.” Like other publications, Newsweek recounted the by-then-
familiar story of the president’s crippling infantile paralysis, his early experiences at Warm Springs, and the creation of the Warm Springs Foundation in 1927. Courting this kind of publicity was hardly the act of a man trying to distance himself from a stigma, let alone practice a deception.
Although he never abandoned the unrealistic hope of a complete recovery, as a candidate and as president Roosevelt was more candid about his health than Kennedy was in 1960 or former senator Paul Tsongas (who downplayed the lymphoma that later killed him) was in his 1992 run for the Democratic nomination. But even if he had been less forthright, how could such a secret have been kept? It would have required the collusion not only of the president’s associates and a supine press, but of thousands of people who met him in situations in which his paralysis was obvious or who had known about it before he became president. His worst political enemies would have had to conspire to keep quiet. The whole theory is wildly implausible.
Yet the myth will not die. Myths are immune to evidence, and the 21st century has already enshrined this one in film and bronze. Like other myths, it reve als more about its believers than about its ostensible subject. At the dedication of FDR’s statue in 2001, his granddaughter, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, made the shrewd comment, “Memorials are for us. They aren’t necessarily for the people they memorialize.”
The new millennium’s nicotine-free FDR sits placidly in his wheelchair next to the Tidal Basin, as if contemplating the changes wrought by time. Americans who elected and re-elected him in the second quarter of the 20th century held some attitudes, particularly on race, that we rightly repudiate. But they were not fools, and they were not on the whole deceived about their president’s abilities or disability. Rather, they shared with him a notion of dignity and reserve that entailed suffering in silence, emphasizing what one could do instead of what one couldn’t. “Don’t stare” was the first rule of etiquette. At a time when everybody knew victims of polio and was at least somewhat familiar with its effects, discreet sympathy seemed the most appropriate and humane posture toward those with an affliction that remained all too common until the Salk vaccine (whose development had been largely funded by the March of Dimes) came into use a decade after FDR’s death.
This stoic observance of privacy has gradually come to seem obsolete over the past half-century. Subsequent political history and present-day attitudes make it amply clear that a man handicapped as Roosevelt was would stand no chance of reaching the White House today. In an age when pictures trump words, television would mercilessly fix in every viewer’s mind the very images of physical helplessness that FDR largely managed to avoid. Polio would drown out every other issue. The insistence that the voters who chose the greatest president of the 20th century must not have known the inspiring truth about him is simply one more example of the present misrepresenting the past to serve its own ends—in this case, a powerful need for assurance that, whatever our faults, we immeasurably surpass our forebears in the supreme contemporary virtue of tolerance. o
Mr. Wizard at Bat
Bug Cops
Hiroshima at 60
Psychology Grows Up
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You are here: City of Texarkana Arkansas / Government / Departments / Planning, Zoning, and Historic Preservation
Seated: Chairman Jason Dupree. Standing from left to right: Clyde “Boots” Thomas, George Coker, Bertha Dunn, Randall Hickerson. (Absent Thomas Scott and Mark Townsend).
The function of the Planning Division is to analyze current and projected future development to ensure that growth of the City is a planned, orderly activity. It involves planning efforts to guide the course of the City to achieve desired beneficial and necessary objectives of local development as reviewed by the Planning Commission and authorized by the City Board of Directors in the 1988 Comprehensive Development Plan. The Planning staff is composed of:
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The Planning Division is responsible for the comprehensive planning process (long-range planning) of the City and in that regard administers the land-regulation ordinances. On a day-to-day basis (short-term planning), the Planning Division prepares and processes all rezoning petitions, subdivision plat reviews, conditional use, flood plain reviews, etc. that appear before the planning commission each month. In addition, the division processes all variance and special exception requests (setbacks, lot area, lot width, height of structures, etc.) and appeals of the building official’s denials for building permits that are heard by the Board of Adjustment.
The Planning Division is responsible for maintaining the City’s base maps and the official zoning districts map. Two other important maps that are routinely updated are the right-of-way (ROW) abandonment map (showing abandoned streets and/or alleys) and the annexation map (showing annexations and/or detachments). The Planning Division also maintains a complete listing of all annexations since Texarkana, Arkansas was incorporated. A complete listing of all streets within the City of Texarkana, Arkansas and Extraterritorial Subdivision Jurisdiction (ETJ) is also available. All of the maps are used on a daily basis. The planning technician is responsible for maintaining the CAD system and updating the official City maps. In addition to the mapping activities, the planning technician serves as network manager of the Public Works Department computer system, annual billboard inventory, serves as computer technician (generating specifications and providing installation/maintenance of the department computer), and assists other departments with their computer systems. The City, through the Texarkana Water Utilities (TWU) Department, has developed a Geographic Information System (GIS) of which the maps are available over the internet. The maps are digitized from aerial photographs and efforts are underway to include all of the annexations of 1999-2000 into the system.
In performing its functions, the Planning Division works closely with other divisions and departments. The planning staff interprets the land regulation plans and ordinances, while the code enforcement staff enforces the regulations by approving and/or denying building permits, performing inspections, and issuing certificates of occupancy. The checks and balance system between planning and code enforcement is a necessary relationship for efficient planning and enforcement. The Planning Division and street division (engineering) coordinate primarily concerning subdivision plats, rezonings, street/alley right-of-way abandonments, parking plans for conditional use permits, etc.
The Planning Division’s relationship to the administrative department (containing the City Manager’s office, finance, personnel, and legal) is evidenced by the department’s need for updated information about the development and growth of the City (i.e. Census (www.census.gov) , growth trends, population counts, etc.). Additionally, the staff completes the annual Boundary & Annexation Survey for the U.S. Department of Commerce/Bureau of Census.
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Slovenia can be Japan’s production hub
by Yuka Kumakura
TOKYO (The Japan News/ANN) - Slovenia has been attracting Japanese manufacturers seeking a production hub for the European market.
Despite its small domestic market of about 2 million people, Slovenia, a central European country that was part of the former Yugoslavia, has been attracting Japanese manufacturers seeking a production hub for the European market. Slovenian Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Andrej Bertoncelj expressed his hopes for stronger ties between Slovenian and Japanese companies in an interview with The Japan News in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Bordered by such countries as Austria and Italy, Slovenia is known as a manufacturing nation with an export-oriented economy. The country joined the European Union in 2004 and the eurozone in 2007.
In recent years, Japanese companies have begun to grow their businesses in the central European country to boost production for the European market and increase their presence in the area. This year alone, Kitakyushu-based Yasukawa Electric Corp. launched its first European industrial robot manufacturing facility in Slovenia, and Kobe-based Sumitomo Rubber Industries launched a new production site there to manufacture rubber parts for medical equipment.
Yasukawa Electric said that accessibility to highly educated workers, efficient sea and ground transport, and a welcoming business environment created by the Slovenian government were among the reasons it chose the country to host its first industrial robot production site outside of Japan and China.
Bertoncelj said of the country’s business advantages: “We have a very highly skilled and educated workforce. Sixty percent of young people go to universities … As a small nation, each of us speaks one or two foreign languages to some extent.
“It’s a country that can serve well as sort of a hub for neighboring counties, like Austria, Italy and Hungary. We have the Port of Koper,” he added.
He encouraged cooperation between Slovenian and Japanese companies, saying, “I would be pleased to do whatever I can do in my capacity as a deputy prime minister or finance minister to support that cooperation.”
Asked if the nation or Europe as a whole is feeling the impact of Brexit, he said: “It’s always opportunity and threat. Like any divorce, it has a certain economic impact.”
He said opportunities include the possibility of more foreign companies entering or increasing their presence in the country.
As for negatives, he described Brexit as “a threat to the European economy,” adding, “I hope both sides will find amicable, good solutions that will work for the economies and for the people on both sides, the U.K. and the EU.”
The minister expressed his opinion that Brexit’s impact on Slovenia will likely be limited, saying, “Slovenia is not so much involved in trade with the U.K., but [rather] indirectly, because 20 percent of our exchange goes to Germany. Germany is the most important trading partner for us. Germany is the most important trading partner to the U.K., I assume.”
The minister was visiting Tokyo to discuss Slovenia’s achievements in public debt management at a forum being held by the International Monetary Fund through Friday.
The country reduced its public debt by 12.5 percentage points of GDP from 2015 to 2018, the fastest debt reduction rate among all 19 eurozone member nations, according to the government. After reaching an all-time high of 82.6 percent of GDP in 2015, the nation reduced its debt to 70.1 percent of GDP last year and is planning to reduce it to 65.4 percent in 2019, according to the Slovenian Finance Ministry. Meanwhile, Japan’s public debt has exceeded 230 percent of GDP each year from 2013 to 2018.
The minister said fast economic growth, tax reform and privatization of state-owned enterprises were behind the achievement. He said that the nation’s banks are being privatized and “10 percent of proceeds from selling banks go to the pension fund and 90 percent of proceeds go to lowering public debt.”
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Home→About→FAQ
What is At Jacob’s Well?
At Jacob’s Well is an independent 501c(3) organization created to assist the homeless in Baltimore, Maryland. It is governed by a Board of Directors and managed by an Executive Director.
What is the meaning of the name?
The organization was started by a small group of people who attended a seminar in Washington, DC. They were inspired by a presentation given by Jean Vanier, the well known founder of the L’Arche communities located throughout the world. They decided to name the organization after the room where they had met. The room was named “At Jacob’s Well”. This was a reference to the biblical story about a well said to date from Jacob’s time, where Jesus had an encounter with a Samaritan woman.
Is At Jacob’s Well a religious organization?
The founders of the organization are highly motivated and directed by their faith experience, as are members of the staff and Board of Directors. However, the organization has no formal ties to any religious group or denomination. Our benefactors include members of the Christian and Jewish faiths, as well as those with no religious affiliation.
How is At Jacob’s Well funded?
Approximately 50% of our funding comes from Federal, state and local government programs. The remainder comes from generous contributions from churches, individuals and foundations. We have a United Way designation number, but are not a United Way agency. We, also, gratefully receive a number of small donations from people who believe in our mission.
Isn’t At Jacob’s Well just another homeless shelter?
At Jacob’s Well is not a shelter. We provide transitional housing to individuals with the goal of moving them from homelessness to more permanent housing. Our favorable outcomes rate in 2016 was 70%. That means that 7 out of every 10 residents moves on to more stable housing.
What else is unique about your program?
We try to maintain a sense of community that includes our current residents, as well as those who have moved on to other forms of housing. This is bolstered through monthly social events, as well as a Christmas open house. The encouragement provided by other members of the community supports our new transitional residents.
The easiest way is to contribute to our organization through donation or through a United Way campaign. We also receive non-monetary contributions from many individuals (see Donations link). A small number of volunteers assists with the setup and preparation of food for our monthly social gatherings. Some assist us by joining our Board of Directors.
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sean dyche quotes
I thought they were the better side overall, definitely on the creative side of the game, said Dyche.
Goal.com - 7:25 PM
There weren't too many positives, but Burnley-like in the sense we keep in there, and you never know, Dyche said.
Lancashire Telegraph - 6:05 PM
What you could consider is a Monday game, for a bit more recovery, Dyche said. What I'm really talking about is when you do the away games, because you're getting in at six in the morning and then you're playing again in two days.
Daily Express - 12:20 PM
There's a psychology to it as well, it's not just about defending, it's about scoring, Dyche said.
Lancashire Telegraph - 10:33 AM
Jump to: June 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
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The Gift New Testament
A free online Bible study resource
Ref. List
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1Tm
1Jn
14:1It was around that time that Herod, ruler over one-fourth the country, heard reports about Jesus14:2and said to his servants, “This is John the Immerser, come back to life! That’s how he has these powers.”14:3Now Herod had arrested and jailed John on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife,14:4since John had said, “It’s illegal for you to have her.”14:5Herod wanted to have John killed, but he feared the crowd, since they considered him a prophet.
14:6But at Herod’s birthday party, Herodias’ daughter danced for them. He was so pleased14:7that he promised, on oath, to give her anything she might ask for.14:8So, at the prompting of her mother, she said, “Give me the head of John the Immerser on a platter!”14:9The king was greatly disturbed, but because of his oaths and dinner guests, he gave the order,14:10and John was beheaded in the prison.14:11His head was put on a platter and carried to the young girl, who gave it to her mother.14:12Then John’s disciples came for his body and buried it, and then they told Jesus what happened.
14:13Upon hearing this, Jesus went off alone by boat to a solitary place. But the crowd found out and followed on foot from all the cities.14:14And when Jesus came out of there he saw the large crowd and was moved with compassion for them, so he healed the chronically ill among them.
14:15When it was late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is an isolated place and the hour is getting late. Dismiss the crowd so they can go off to the villages and buy themselves some food.”
14:16But Jesus said to them, “There’s no need for them to go; you feed them!”
14:17“All we have are five loaves of bread and two fish!” they exclaimed.
14:18“Bring them to me,” Jesus replied.
14:19He ordered the crowd to recline on the grass for a meal. Then, taking the five loaves and two fish, he looked up to the sky and blessed them, then broke them up and gave them to his disciples. The disciples then passed them out to the crowd,14:20and they all ate until they were full; the leftovers filled twelve wicker baskets.14:21The number of men who had eaten was around five thousand, not counting the women and children.
14:22Immediately Jesus had his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side of the lake, while he stayed and dismissed the crowd.14:23Having released them, he went up into the mountain alone to pray. It was late when he was there alone,14:24and by that time the boat had already gone far from land.
14:25At about three in the morning Jesus came to them, walking on the sea.14:26And when his disciples saw him walking around on the water, they were very disturbed and shouted out in terror, “It’s a ghost!”14:27But right away Jesus said to them, “Have courage, it’s me! Don’t be afraid.”
14:28Then Peter said to him, “Master, if it’s really you, command me to come to you on the water.”
14:29“Come on!” replied Jesus. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water. He came near Jesus14:30but then got distracted by the strong wind. He became afraid and started to sink, so he called out to him, “Master, save me!”
14:31Immediately Jesus reached out and grabbed Peter, and he said to him, “You skeptic! Why did you doubt?”14:32As soon as they got into the boat, the wind died down.14:33So they worshiped him and said, “Truly you are the God-Man!”
14:34They crossed over and landed at Gennesaret.14:35And when the people there recognized him, they sent word throughout the whole area and brought him all the sick people.14:36They begged to be allowed to touch the hem of his cloak, and whoever did was restored to health.
© 2019 The Gift New Testament
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NEW DELHI: The government is trying to break the deadlock over land acquisition bill by offering to set up a joint committee of the two Houses of Parliament for a fresh scrutiny of the contentious legislation that has been stalled by the opposition.
The government has already sounded out some of opposition parties about the fresh initiative which it can announce while moving the bill for discussion in Lok Sabha later in the week, sources said.
A joint committee is different from select committees in that it is tasked with submitting its report in the opening week of the next session of Parliament. As versus this, scrutiny by select committees can be an indefinitely long process — a route that the government is loathe to take because of its interest in early passage and which will thwart it from exercising the option of getting the bill passed in a joint sitting.
READ ALSO: Won’t allow land bill to pass in Parliament, Congress says
For the joint sitting to be convened on land bill, Rajya Sabha has to take a call either way and it cannot be held if the select committee decides to sit over it indefinitely. The month-long monsoon session of Parliament is expected to be convened by mid-July, giving the government enough time to push for the passage of the controversial bill, if necessary by convening a joint sitting.
The joint committee looks an appealing proposition also because it will have two-third of its members drawn from Lok Sabha, where BJP and its allies have a comfortable majority, and the rest from Rajya Sabha. Given that Lok Sabha has 543 members versus 243 in the Upper House, the government has reasons to be hopeful of a favourable report.
Strengths of joint committees, there have been 5-6 so far, have ranged between 30 and 60 members, with parties getting seats in proportion to their representation in the two Houses.
READ ALSO: Govt determined to push land bill despite opposition
There could be a hitch, though. Considering that it comprises members of both Houses, Rajya Sabha has to concur with the lower House for setting up a joint committee. However, government hopes to get around the problem by wooing non-UPA parties in the upper House which don’t have a major ideological quarrel with the land acquisition bill but are constrained not to support it for fear of being tarred “anti-farmer”.
Government sources feel these players, unlike Congress, may be more amenable to the suggestion of a scrutiny by a joint committee. In fact, initial response to the idea has been encouraging, sources said.
BJP will be happier if it manages to win over some opponents of the bill in Rajya Sabha, but the prospect looks tough because of the Modi government’s reluctance to make major concessions; especially to the demand that no acquisition should be allowed unless 80% of land owners have given their consent, and that acquisition must be preceded by a social impact assessment. However, it will celebrate even if the opponents stick to their stand in the joint committee for, given their superior numbers in Lok Sabha, the report will endorse the legislation, paving the way for a vote on it in Rajya Sabha.
BLOG: New land bill will win, not lose votes for Modi
Similarly, they would not mind a defeat in Rajya Sabha in the monsoon session for it will clear the way for them to hold a joint sitting.
The fresh move shows the government’s resolve to secure passage of the land bill. Several in the ruling coalition had doubted the desirability of pressing ahead with the bill in view of its portrayal as an anti-farmer measure. However, plans for the joint committee show that it has decided to stay the course at least for now.
Stay updated on the go with Times of India News App. Click here to download it for your device.
Posted by: philco on May 5, 2015
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W.H.O. Elects Ethiopia’s Tedros as New Director General : The NewYork Times
In the first election conducted under new, more open and democratic rules, Tedros Adhanom Gheybreysus of Ethiopia was elected director general of the World Health Organization on Tuesday.
After nearly two years of public campaigning, originally by six candidates, the election itself took place in a closed-door session in which the health ministers of 185 of the world’s countries cast their ballots in secret.
Dr. Tedros — who campaigned under his first name — ultimately beat Dr. David Nabarro, the British candidate, after two rounds of voting by winning 121 votes.
Dr. Sania Nishtar, a Pakistani cardiologist and expert in noncommunicable diseases, was eliminated after a first round with 38 votes.
Dr. Tedros, 52, was best-known for having drastically cut deaths from malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis and neonatal problems when he was Ethiopia’s health minister. He trained 40,000 female health workers, hired outbreak investigators, improved the national laboratory, organized an ambulance system and multiplied medical school graduates tenfold.
He promised to pursue health insurance in even the poorest nations.
Dr. Nabarro, 67, was best-known for leading the campaigns of various United Nations agencies against avian and swine flu, Ebola, malaria, hunger and other crises.
The race began in 2015 and turned bitter at the very end, when an adviser to Dr. Nabarro accused Dr. Tedros of having covered up repeated outbreaks of cholera in his home country, which lowered the chances of an international response and, more recently, the use of cholera vaccine.
Dr. Tedros was also accused of complicity in his country’s dismal human rights record, which includes massacring protesters and jailing and torturing journalists and political opponents. Dozens of Ethiopians opposed to his candidacy demonstrated outside the Palace of Nations in Geneva, where the vote took place, and one individual who interrupted the proceedings was escorted out.
Dr. Tedros is from the Tigray tribe, which holds a disproportionate amount of political power in Ethiopia; many protesters are from the Amhara and Oromo tribes.
Although the W.H.O. post is the highest health-related job in the world — one in which bold leadership can turn the tide of epidemics — the organization itself is in peril.
It is seriously underfinanced; dues from member countries make up less than third of its $2.2 billion budget. The rest comes from large donors, including the United States, Britain, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary International and Norway. Some of that money comes with strings attached, directing the organization to pursue specific projects, such as polio eradication.
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Red Sea Rivalries:The Gulf States Are Playing a Dangerous Game in the Horn of Africa
Gulf states with deep pockets and big appetites are asserting themselves in the Horn of Africa as never before. The flurry of new economic and military investments is reshaping geopolitical dynamics on both sides of the Red Sea, as two formerly distinct regions are fast becoming one. The emergence of a common political and economic arena—astride one of the world’s most valuable trade routes—offers opportunities for development and integration. But it also poses considerable risks. For the fragile African states on the western shores of the Red Sea, new engagement from outside powers has proved both tonic and toxin.
As the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey seek to expand their influence in the Horn of Africa, they are exporting Middle Eastern rivalries to a region that has plenty of its own. And they aren’t the only outside powers now paying attention to this once sleepy neighborhood. China recently established its first-ever overseas military installation in Djibouti—just six miles from the only U.S. base in Africa—making the Red Sea an emerging theater for great-power competition. At its center is the Bab el Mandeb strait, a narrow shipping corridor through which hundreds of billions of dollars in oil and other exports pass between Europe, Asia, and the Gulf. Immediately across the strait are the shores of Yemen, where one of the world’s most devastating wars—and most fervent proxy battles—continues to rage.
Historic changes are meanwhile under way across the Horn: Ethiopia is experiencing double-digit economic growth and undergoing its most sweeping political transition since the early 1990s. Eritrea, long ostracized for its human rights record, has been relieved of a decades-old UN sanctions regime. And the two longtime adversaries surprised citizens and observers alike last year by initiating a rapprochement. Somalia’s federal government, buoyed by new regional cooperation, may finally be turning a corner after decades of insecurity. Whether external engagement will help or hinder long-term change in the Horn depends on how well African states can manage asymmetric relationships with Gulf partners. These weaker states—already strained by domestic volatility—must find a way to harness investment without surrendering their sovereignty or being drawn into political rivalries that offer little reward.
A NEW SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA
Since 2015, cash-rich Gulf states have made a mad dash for real estate on the Red Sea coast. New seaports and military outposts have proliferated as these states snap up strategic perches in Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, and even Yemen. The Gulf states have aggressively pursued these outposts as part of their larger efforts to redefine the regional order and assert themselves as players on a global stage.
Gulf states, most notably the UAE, expect that new commercial ports in the Horn will provide them access to Africa’s expanding consumer class. They hope these acquisitions, together with ports in Yemen, will position them to shape the future of maritime trade in the Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean, especially as China’s trade to the region grows on account of its Belt and Road Initiative. And their interest in the region is also military, as the Gulf states have established installations from which to prosecute the war in Yemen in the near term and protect regional security interests, from such threats as Iran and violent extremism, in the long term. Finally, the territory and the partnerships with African client states serve as a hedge against rivals at a time of tension between Gulf Arab nations. (Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and imposed a trade blockade in 2017.)
So far, Gulf and Turkish engagement has transiently benefited some African states and fueled polarization in others. An injection of Emirati cash into Ethiopia, for example, has temporarily shored up that country’s dangerous debt crisis, extending the honeymoon period for its new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed. The 42-year-old leader, Africa’s youngest, has outfoxed the country’s old guard and is fast dismantling the security state they fashioned—by ending a state of emergency, releasing thousands of political prisoners, and easing restrictions on media and free expression, among other reforms. Abiy also plans to privatize major industries and has appointed record numbers of women to senior posts, winning hearts and minds at home and abroad.
But the electric fervor known as “Abiy-mania” will be tempered as Abiy’s extraordinary change agenda meets obstacles, including the unrest now bubbling across many of Ethiopia’s ethnic regions. Stability in the nation of 100 million depends on Abiy’s ability to advance this ambitious reform program while responding to popular demands, quelling skepticism, and overcoming a widespread sense of uncertainty. Gulf states would thus be wise to temper their appetites, exercise patience, and refrain from introducing Gulf divisions into an already precarious environment. For his part, Abiy wisely declined to choose sides in the 2017 Gulf crisis. And while Abiy has accepted Emirati support and partnership (including an additional $2 billion in pledged investments), he has trodden carefully in public, conscious that being seen as a client of Abu Dhabi or Riyadh would undermine him at home.
In neighboring Eritrea, President Isaias Afwerki has benefited more clearly from Gulf engagement—at least in the short term. New investments from Saudi Arabia and the UAE have helped bring his long-isolated regime in from the cold. When the Saudi-UAE coalition joined Yemen’s war in 2015, it needed a Red Sea outpost from which to launch air and sea campaigns and chose Eritrea’s port city of Assab, transforming it into a substantial military base. After a dramatic falling-out with Djibouti over the operation of its main port, Abu Dhabi is also keen to redevelop Assab’s defunct commercial port and make it the primary lifeline for the region’s economic heavyweight, Ethiopia.
The new Saudi-UAE relationship with Eritrea also helped lift the UN sanctions regime against Eritrea and grease the initial rapprochement between Asmara and Addis Ababa. The monarchies then invited Afwerki and Abiy to celebrate the historic détente by convening palatial ceremonies in Jeddah and Abu Dhabi. But normalization between the two African countries has only just begun. Although there is cause for optimism, Gulf leaders should pay close attention to the domestic political calculations motivating rapprochement and the risks of moving too fast. A host of thorny issues remains to be negotiated, while old political adversaries and armed proxy agents will not acclimate easily to new realities. Gulf leaders should also beware of investing so heavily in individuals rather than in institutions: Afwerki has long been the most unpredictable figure in the region, and he now confronts increasingly unpredictable politics at home. Without an external enemy in Ethiopia to combat, his decades-old authoritarian grip on Eritrea may finally be loosening.
While Gulf engagement in Ethiopia and Eritrea has produced ambivalent results, Somalia’s experience clearly demonstrates how divisive it can be. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and the UAE have all inserted themselves in Mogadishu’s political arena in recent years, hoping to win allies, investments, and influence over Africa’s longest coastline. And heavy-handed interventions, illicit payoffs, and Gulf mudslinging have magnified divisions in an already fractious country.
Turkey’s presence in Somalia predates that of the other regional actors, and many Somalis have welcomed it. Ankara began sending humanitarian aid to Somalia during the famine of 2011 and has invested substantially in the country ever since. The Gulf states and Egypt fear that Turkey has deepened its engagement with Somalia and Sudan in an effort to project Turkish influence across the territory of the former Ottoman Empire.
The UAE had likewise invested in an alliance with Mogadishu. But in 2018, Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed (“Farmajo”) seized a planeload of Emirati cash on the tarmac in Mogadishu, accused the UAE of meddling, and declined to choose sides in the Gulf spat. Concerned that Farmajo was in league with Qatar and Turkey, Abu Dhabi turned on the president, ramping up support for his adversaries in Somalia’s federal states and doubling down on deals with local officials in the autonomous regions of Somaliland and Puntland for another military base and two new ports. Mogadishu protested furiously, while the benefiting states declared their support for the Arab quartet, thus aggravating tensions between the country’s center and its peripheries.
A DANGEROUS BATTLEGROUND
New competition among great powers has further complicated the chess match in the Red Sea. China’s military base in Djibouti brings the number of foreign militaries in the tiny city-state to five. China, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States are all now stationed at the fulcrum of the Red Sea. India and Saudi Arabia have also signaled interest in establishing bases in Djibouti, long home to the only deep-water port in the region, while Russia has initiated talks with Eritrea about its own strategic presence on the Red Sea.
China’s expanding interests in Djibouti, together with its new naval facility, have prompted anxiety both on Capitol Hill and at the White House—where a Trump administration increasingly focused on great-power rivalry is now reconsidering its military posture in Africa. The fact that Washington is paying greater attention to this region is a good thing. But while strategic considerations are critical, U.S. policy in the Horn of Africa and the wider Red Sea should not be dictated entirely by rivalry with Beijing.
With proper management on both sides of the Red Sea, Gulf and African countries can benefit from new engagement. African states in particular can use the investment and assistance to develop infrastructure, create jobs, and access global markets as they attempt to modernize their economies. Some regional diplomats have even called for a Red Sea forum—a collective that would work to secure the region’s waterways, regulate migration, achieve food security, fight extremism, and manage conflict and displacement.
This best-case scenario for the Red Sea is unlikely to be realized, however, until several processes mature. States in the Horn of Africa need to advance domestic reforms and regional integration such that they can articulate shared interests and negotiate with Gulf partners on a more equal footing. Middle Eastern rivals—none of them strong enough to achieve dominance—need to finally resolve the Gulf Arab crisis, or at least de-escalate. And the United States and China need to avoid clashing over current tensions and achieve some kind of equilibrium in the region. None of these eventualities is assured. Without progress on each front, the increasingly militarized and crowded Red Sea region will remain a dangerous battleground.
Source : FA
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Home / Past Events / Gianni Russo
Thursday, March 28th at 7pm
Gianni Russo
Join us for an evening with the actor best know for his role as “Carlo” from The Godfather, Gianni Russo, as he speaks about and signs copies of his new memoir, Hollywood Godfather.
Hollywood Godfather is Gianni Russo’s over-the-top memoir of a real-life mobster-turned-actor who helped make The Godfather a reality, and his story of life on the edge between danger and glamour.
Gianni Russo was a handsome 25-year-old mobster with no acting experience when he walked onto the set of The Godfather and entered Hollywood history. He played Carlo Rizzi, the husband of Connie Corleone, who set her brother Sonny―played by James Caan―up for a hit. Russo didn’t have to act―he knew the mob inside and out: from his childhood in Little Italy, where Mafia legend Frank Costello took him under his wing, to acting as a messenger for New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello during the Kennedy assassination, to having to go on the lam after shooting and killing a member of the Colombian drug cartel in his Vegas club.
Along the way, Russo befriended Frank Sinatra, who became his son’s godfather, and Marlon Brando, who mentored his career as an actor after trying to get Francis Ford Coppola to fire him from The Godfather. Russo had passionate affairs with Marilyn Monroe, Liza Minelli, and scores of other celebrities. Hollywood Godfather is a no-holds-barred account of a life filled with violence, glamour, sex―and fun.
Gianni Russo has appeared in more than thirty movies and appeared in numerous TV shows. His most well-known roles include parts in The Godfather: Parts I and II; Goodnight, My Love; Lepke; Laserblast; Chances Are; The Freshman; Side Out; Another You; Super Mario Bros.; Any Given Sunday; The Family Man; Seabiscuit; and Rush Hour 2. His life-long association with organized crime has made him a witness to Mob history. He is also a singer, whose shows are sold out across the country.
IMPORTANT! All books signed at Book Revue events must be purchased at Book Revue. If you purchase the book prior to the event please save your Book Revue receipt. If you have purchased the book from somewhere else you can still get your book signed, we just ask that you make a purchase in our store of equal or greater value to that of the book.
Richard Klein
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Health research news, events and info for the South West
Samantha Warren
£9 million boost for health research in the West Country
A team of West Country health researchers, including researchers from the University of Bath, have been awarded £9 million from the Government’s Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to enable them to tackle the area’s most pressing health problems....
Register your interest for the RDS-South West Residential Research Retreat
Dillington House, Somerset. 26 – 28 November 2019. Do you have a great idea for a research project? Are you planning to apply for research funding? Do you need a dedicated period of quality time with support to develop your...
Research Fellow wanted to join a collaboration between Dorothy House Hospice and the University of Bath
Join an exciting new collaboration between Dorothy House Hospice and the University of Bath. They are seeking a highly motivated and high performing research fellow for a joint project between Dorothy House Hospice and the University of Bath, focused on...
The Conversation: Young people suffering chronic pain battle isolation and stigma as they struggle to forge their identities
Dr Abbie Jordan, a senior lecturer in Psychology, discusses how adolescence can be an especially challenging time for young people with chronic pain – that is, pain that lasts for three months or longer; and how these young people find it particularly...
Patient & Public Involvement (PPI) opportunity: Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) and exercise
Researchers at the University of Bath are seeking to set-up a Patient & Public Involvement (PPI) group to help guide their health-related research studies, specifically around the topic of exercise for people with a spinal cord injury (SCI). The first...
Professor Chris Eccleston, Centre for Pain Research, recognised for leadership in pain science
Professor Christopher Eccleston from the Department for Health has received the Ronald Melzack Lecture Award for his contribution to pain science. IASP presented the award to Professor Eccleston (right) at the recent World Pain Congress in Boston He accepted his award at the 17th World Pain...
Commercial clinical research increases access to innovative new treatments for people of BaNES
The opportunity to take part in clinical research studies sponsored by the life sciences industry increased for residents of Bath and North East Somerset (BaNES) in 2017-2018, according to the latest Research Activity League Table data from the National Institute for...
Volunteers wanted for studies looking at Complex Regional Pain Syndrome in young people
If you are a parent or a young person with CRPS or a young person with CRPS then you may be able to help researchers from the University of Bath's Department of Psychology to find out more about how CRPS impacts...
Research Capability Funding - new call
What is RCF? NIHR RCF is a funding stream designed to help research-active NHS organisations attract, develop and retain high-quality research, clinical and support staff by supporting salaries. Who is eligible? Researchers, NHS or academics involved in people based research...
Volunteers needed for the Thinking About Mental Illness Recurrence (TAMIR) study
Researchers from the University of Bath's Department of Psychology would like to invite anyone over the age of 18 who has previously experienced a mental health problem to take part in an online research study answering several questionnaires. It doesn’t matter if you...
BCPR
Research Design Service - South West
Department for Health
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Betsy DeVos to Visit Schools in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands
By Andrew Ujifusa on November 8, 2017 7:07 AM
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is visiting Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to see schools' recovery efforts after damage caused by recent hurricanes.
DeVos will visit the Escuela Libre de Música Ernesto Ramos Antonini in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Wednesday, and then Charlotte Amalie High School on St. Thomas later in the day. She is slated to meet Puerto Rico Secretary of Education Julia Keleher, as well as the president of the University of the Virgin Islands, David Hall, during her trip. It's the first time the secretary has visited the U.S. territories since Hurricane Maria struck roughly six weeks ago.
On Wednesday, Keleher's office reported that there were 614 schools open on the island, a little more than half of the total number of public schools in Puerto Rico.
We traveled to Puerto Rico in early October to document how educators and the island's school system were coping with Hurricane Maria's aftermath, as well as how they were aiding general recovery efforts. Schools are reopening on the island, although many are doing so without electricity. For the first few weeks after the storm, schools that did reopen were largely serving as community centers.
Click here for our collection of stories and images from Puerto Rico.
DeVos' visit to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands is listed on her public schedule, which was updated this week for the first time since mid-October.
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Fall camp questions, volume four
With so much going on, have gotten a little behind on these. But I’ll try to answer a few more. …
Q: I’d like to know if Steve Sarkisian will change the JC recruiting review policies. You said that there were only two months to recruit last year. Fair enough, but how long does it really take to review transcripts from classes already taken? That is something that could be done in a couple hours per player, max. It seems unfair to both the prospective player and the team to be so indifferent to JC transfer credentials.
A: First off, the JC admissions process at any school is much bigger than just the head coach. I don’t think Sarkisian can just snap his fingers and do much about that. Also, I think it’s a lot more complicated than people think to review the transcripts of many JC players. Many attend multiple JCs, making the process that much more complicated, and some schools accept some JC credits but don’t accept others — the big stumbling block at UW is that it doesn’t accept most/all P.E. credits because it doesn’t offer degree programs in that area. But the other thing to realize is that as long as Sarkisian is here, I don’t think they will do much JC recruiting other than a player or two here or there to fill an immediate need. They took six last year because with so little time to put a class together, they were pretty much taking what they could get, and taking some chances they won’t do going forward. But Sarkisian has been very open in saying he doesn’t plan to make JC recruiting much of a staple of his recruiting going forward, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if they don’t take any this year, and certainly not more than a couple. So all of this won’t really be that big of an issue going forward.
Q: Did Mykenna Ikehara really lose 30 pounds over the off-season?
A: Sort of. The redshirt freshman center is listed at 260 on the current roster after being listed at 291 last year. But unlike a lot of other guys on the O-line who wanted to drop a lot of weight, much of Ikehara’s weight loss was involuntary as he said recently that he suffered a stomach virus last spring that caused him to lose a substantial amount of weight. He has been trying to get that back up, and said last week he was back to around the 270 range or so but would like to get a little higher than that. Suffice to say that the weight loss hasn’t helped Ikehara’s attempts to earn playing time on the line this season.
Q: How are Sark and Doug Nussmeier’s attitudes when critiquing Jake Locker? What seems to be the general tone from them, are they really needing to push him? Is he “getting it”? Is he making mistakes and they are harsh on him? Can you tell from their actions that Jake is really progressing in the system?
A: I don’t think Jake Locker is one of those guys who needs to be pushed much to work and do film work and all of that. I have heard nothing but plaudits from both coaches about how committed Locker is to football and this season. I don’t notice them getting on Locker any more than anyone else though the reality is, with the loud music and all, we don’t really hear much of what they say to anyone too often, and I guess without hearing what they say to everyone at all times I’d be reluctant to make a judgment one way or the other. As far as his progress in the system, I think they are happy with it while noting that he, and everyone else on the offense, still needs more time to really grasp it. It’s a different system, no question about it, putting a lot more emphasis on the QB to make the right reads in where to go with the ball, especially in terms of finding alternate receivers if the first option isn’t there. Again, I think people have to be realistic about where this team is right now. Nothing is going to look perfect with a new coach taking over an 0-12 team and Locker and the passing game isn’t an exception. But I think Locker and his progression, while understandably maybe the thing most people care about the most, isn’t at the top of the list of things I’d be worried about with this team. I think how well the O-line and secondary come together are bigger overall concerns just because I think there is much more of a question mark there.
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BMW Envisions Elevated Roadway for Electric Two-Wheelers
November 22, 2017 by staff • About BMW Group, Concept, Lifestyle, Speculation, Technology
BMW’s “Innovations” group has come up with the BMW Vision E³ Way project to move small electric two-wheelers off city streets and onto their own elevated roadway system. This was created by the BMW Group Technology Office China in collaboration with the Tongji University, both in Shanghai, as a “visionary mobility concept” to address traffic congestion, air pollution and other challenges faced by large cities. The three E’s stand for “elevated,” “electric” and “efficient.”
There’s a roof over most of the roadway providing protection from rain and heat — sufficient ventilation is added. A cooling system using purified rainwater maintains the temperature. And this recycled water can be used to clean the road surface at night. While vehicles operate at a typical 15 mph with a maximum of 25 mph, the road is set up like major highways with on- and off-ramps allowing vehicles to get up to speed before merging with other traffic. The road links to key traffic hubs, underground stations and shopping malls in the city. Traffic flow is optimized by using automated video surveillance systems, artificial intelligence and “integration of smart city ecosystems.”
The benefits of this system are shorter travel times, less traffic congestion on existing streets and a reduction in air pollution. It will also be safer as smaller, slower two-wheelers do not have to ride along with cars and trucks. And since this system is elevated above traditional streets it will increase overall traffic capacity without requiring additional space to be built. BMW even claims it will be cheap to build because of its “modular design and free scalability.”
BMW, of course, mentioned use by their own electric two wheelers such as the BMW Motorrad Concept Link (an electric scooter concept capable of speeds much higher than 25 mph), BMW Motorrad X2 City kick scooter (whose speed tops out at 15 mph) and other “approved” vehicles. But BMW envisions the ability of residents to ride the roads spontaneously using a vehicle sharing/rental area at each access point.
“The BMW Vision E³ Way opens up a whole new dimension of mobility in overcrowded conurbations – efficient, convenient and safe. It works by simply creating space for two-wheel zero-emissions traffic,” explains Dr. Markus Seidel, Director BMW Group Technology Office China. “In China, more than a billion people will be living in cities by 2050. The country will become the global incubator for numerous mobility innovations such as the BMW Vision E³ Way,” Seidel adds, “after all, nowhere else is there such an urgent need for action.”
BMW’s complete press release is below:
Innovative urban mobility concepts for the future. Elevated road concept “BMW Vision E³ Way” raises emission-free two-wheeler mobility in megacities to a new level.
As a provider of premium mobility products and services, the BMW Group is constantly in search of answers to the question: what will move us (forward) in the future? In the past, the BMW Group has already presented pioneering solutions for future individual mobility with a range of different concept vehicles as well as the visionary studies presented to mark its centenary. As part of the stratgey NUMBER ONE > NEXT and in view of the challenges to come, BMW Group developers are working on visionary mobility solutions that go well beyond established conventions.
Innovations that reach far beyond the conventional vehicle context. The world of individual and sustainability mobility faces enormous challenges in conurbations. As urbanization progresses, more and more people are crowding into cities, so conventional mobility concepts and local public transportation are reaching the limits of their capability. Congestion and high levels of air pollution are the result, which in turn leads to constraints on the quality of life.
The BMW Group’s “Research, New Technologies, Innovations” division is a unique competence center that is devoted to addressing this and other challenges.
“Our goal is to link sustainable and efficient mobility with a high quality of living in cities. We use new technologies as well as our creativity in order to create innovative approaches as the BMW Vision E³ Way,” explains Dr. Gerd Schuster, Senior Vice President Research, New Technologies and Innovations.
The “BMW Group Technology Offices” in Mountain View (CA), Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul guarantee proximity to the world’s technological hotspots, while a central department for trend and technology scouting collates and supplements the insights acquired in the field. Once challenges and needs have been identified, they are then fed into concrete research projects.
BMW Vision E³ Way – emission-free two-wheeler mobility at a new level. Developed at the BMW Group Technology Office China in Shanghai, the BMW Vision E³ Way project shows a visionary mobility concept that is designed not just to specifically address the challenges faced by megacities – such as traffic congestion and air pollution – but to provide a solution that is both simple and effective. It consists of an elevated road concept for electrically powered two-wheel vehicles which links key traffic hubs in urban conurbations. The three E’s stand for “elevated,” “electric” and “efficient” – the concept’s defining properties. The use of roadways that are elevated above existing roads means the project generates additional traffic capacity. The BMW Vision E³ Way is explicitly conceived for locally emission-free single-track mobility concepts only (“electric”), such as e-bikes, the BMW Motorrad Concept Link and the recently presented BMW Motorrad X2 City – likewise developed by the “Research, New Technologies, Innovations” division. The elevated road is simple and modular in design, economical to build as a result, and provides a fast, direct link between key traffic hubs, making it the perfect alternative for commuters traveling up to 15 km [10 mph]. This makes use of the elevated road very efficient not only in terms of cost but also as regards travel time (“efficient”).
The BMW Vision E³ Way was elaborated in collaboration with the Tongji University in Shanghai. The university possesses outstanding expertise in a number of areas that are relevant to the concept. Headed by the renowned Professors Jun Ma, various departments as the “School of Automotive Studies,“ as well as the “College of Design and Innovation,” were involved in the project.
Emission-free and safe. Ramps and sluice systems are used to connect the BMW Vision E³ Way to the regular road network, underground stations, other traffic hubs, and even shopping malls. By shifting single-track mobility to its own spatial level, the BMW Vision E³ Way makes daily commuting not just faster but safer, too. The fact that is used solely by electrically powered two-wheel vehicles means that collisions with cars are ruled out. The general risk of accidents is further reduced by means of an automatic speed limit of 25 km/h [15 mph]. In addition, there is an elaborate system of lanes that separates filtering traffic from flowing traffic: not until travel speed has been reached do the two merge.
Convenient and efficient. The BMW Vision E³ Way is not just fast and safe to use, however, it is also convenient. Those who do not already own a vehicle approved for the BMW Vision E³ Way can still use the facility spontaneously by means of a sharing scheme that provides rental vehicles at each access point. The elevated road is largely roofed over, ensuring protection from rain and heat as well as sufficient ventilation. A cooling system with purified rainwater creates pleasant temperatures: this can also be used to clean the road surface at night.
The outstanding feature of the BMW Vision E³ Way concept is that it takes existing emission-free mobility solutions on two wheels such as e-bikes and the BMW Motorrad X2 City and places them on a new traffic level: this means the vision can be realized quickly and without the need for additional space. Initial feasibility studies demonstrate that a concept such as the BMW Vision E³ Way can significantly reduce congestion, emissions, travel time and the risk of accidents. Traffic flow is permanently optimized by means of automated video surveillance systems and artificial intelligence as well as through the integration of smart city ecosystems. And the best thing is that its modular design and free scalability make the concept essentially suitable for use in any megacity.
Premium solutions in the future, too. The BMW Vision E³ Way is just one possible solution to the question “What will move us (forward) in the future?” At the same time, it exemplifies the innovative spirit of the BMW Group – its capacity to produce concepts such as this that extend far beyond the conventional vehicle context. “Our aspiration in the future will continue to be innovation and technology leadership at the premium level,” explains Dr. Rainer Daude, Project Director Special Projects and Mobility Concepts. “The very meaning of the term ‘premium’ will change in future too, of course. Attributes such as ‘straightforward,’ ‘convenient,’ ‘efficient,’ ‘safe’ and ’emission-free’ are becoming increasingly important. In concrete terms, this means being able to offer solutions that meet all mobility needs, with the capacity to make better use of travel time and/or to cover distances in less time – offering the highest possible level of safety, convenience and efficiency.”
The BMW Vision E³ Way forms part of the BMW Group strategy NUMBER ONE > NEXT.
With the strategy the BMW Group strives for the transformation and shaping of the individual mobility of the future. The development of new technologies and innovations have always been part of the BMW Group DNA.
← GS Trophy 2018: Two Female Teams Selected! Two Americans Going to Mongolia
2017 BMW Motorrad Race Trophy Won by Markus Reiterberger with Max Points →
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Drones to Race at BMW Welt
March 14, 2018 by staff • About BMW Group, Lifestyle
Innovative technology, action-packed racing and international championships: more and more people around the world are discovering a passion for drone racing. BMW is collaborating with the Drone Racing League (DRL), an international drone racing league, to further develop high-performance racing drones in the BMW Group wind tunnel and bring a professional drone race to BMW Welt.
“The partnership with DRL will enhance BMW’s racing involvement with future-oriented formats,” said Jörg Reimann, Head of BMW International Brand Experience. “Drone racing is a very competitive type of racing, characterized by the interplay of extremely high-performance material and digital technology. This represents an environment in which BMW has assumed a pioneering position for many years in its core business. We are very much looking forward to this collaboration and to the new event formats that we will be developing together with our partners.”
DRL organizes one of the largest global drone racing series, the DRL Allianz World Championship, in which elite FPV (First Person View) pilots race custom-made DRL drones through complex, three-dimensional courses in iconic venues across the world. As the Official Partner, BMW is bringing the penultimate race of the 2018 season to Munich on July 28, taking place at BMW Welt. The race will be broadcast this fall in more than 75 countries.
A previous exhibition by the DRL at BMW Welt.
“We’re thrilled to be partnering with BMW, a world-class motorsports brand with a rich legacy of innovation. We look forward to bringing the futuristic sport of drone racing to BMW Welt and putting our proprietary technology to the test to make history with BMW,” said DRL CEO and founder, Nicholas Horbaczewski.
Last year, DRL hand-built the DRL RacerX, the fastest racing drone on earth, which set the Guinness World Record™ for the fastest ground speed by a battery-powered remote-controlled quadcopter at a speed of 265.87 km/h (165.2 mph). Thanks to a close collaboration with the BMW Group, DRL will now aim to break this record. Tests will take place in the wind tunnel at the Aerodynamic Test Center with this ambitious goal in mind, allowing DRL to leverage the technological expertise of the car and motorcycle manufacturer.
← Solid Growth for BMW Motorrad in February 2018
GS Trophy 2018: 114 R1200GS Rallye Motorcycles Prepped and On Their Way to Mongolia →
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The Cornell Alumni Association of Northern California, also known as Cornell Norcal, is an alumni volunteer run organization whose mission is to engage Cornell alumni and to celebrate the spirit of Cornell University here in Northern California.
Cornell Norcal was founded in 1979 as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. We represent approximately 15,000 Cornell alumni, students, and parents across the San Francisco Bay Area. Throughout our 35-year history, we have been fortunate to draw countless alumni volunteers to staff our boards of directors and to plan and host our activities.
We bring together Cornellians. We host close to 100 events every year, including lectures, book clubs, rock climbing, happy hours and volunteer events, to name just a few. We also collaborate with Cornell University Alumni Affairs, who hosts a local listserve, CAANC-Connect, which is read by thousands of local Cornellians every day. Alumni can post questions regarding job searches, networking, house-hunting and more to CAANC-Connect.
Cornell NorCal instituted two Cornell endowed scholarships—the Ira B. Degenhardt Tradition Fellowship and the Peter E. Lee Tradition Fellowship—both of which are managed by Cornell University. With alumni support, we fundraise and make contributions to these scholarship funds on a regular basis. These funds allow us to award Tradition Fellowships to two deserving students from the Bay Area for each year of their four-year tenure at Cornell.
We fund and partner with CAAAN, the Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network. CAAAN is a group of 9,500 Cornell alumni who serve as enthusiastic ambassadors to prospective students and families during individidual meetings with freshman applicants, state college fairs, and local receptions for admitted and entering students. CAAAN members not only share their experiences and information about Cornell, but also help to personalize the admissions process for thousands of candidates each year.
Cornell NorCal is managed by a committed group of volunteer alumni who are elected annually by our membership. Alumni serving as board members for the 2018-2019 term are as follows:
Ryan Luginbuhl, M.D., President
Dr. Ryan Luginbuhl, Arts '03, is a physician, entrepreneur, and advisor. He is the CEO and co-founder of GovRock, the first city-designed community resilience platform to mobilize a city's population. Prior to founding his own startup, Dr. Luginbuhl was the Acting Chief Medical Officer and Director of Clinical Design and Outcomes for Acupera, a population health and care management platform, where he developed a Design Thinking-based methodology of clinical workflow development and led the teams responsible for creating and tailoring clinical workflows to client needs and ensuring improved clinical outcomes. He serves as an Advisor for Commercialization for the Center for Technology Licensing at Cornell University where he works with portfolio companies. As President of Cornell NorCal, he provides leadership and direction to the organization, coordinates club activities, establishes short- and long-range objectives and goals in conjunction with the board of directors, and structures the organization to ensure continuity of leadership by providing opportunities for new leaders to develop and to be mentored.
Laura Guzman, Vice President
Laura Guzman, CALS '05, MBA '14, is Senior Vice President, National Director of Marketing and Business Development with WSP USA, a global engineering and professional services organization, where she is responsible for leading marketing strategy and business development for the U.S. property and buildings practice. She has over 13 years of experience as a senior operations and marketing executive in the design, technology, agriculture and non-profit sectors. She has been an active member of the Cornell alumni community since graduation, having served on local association boards and committees during her time in the New York Capital District, Washington, DC and New York City. She has lived in San Francisco with her husband (also a Cornell grad) for over four years now, and in addition to serving as a member of the Cornell NorCal Board, she currently serves as the Past-President / Northern California representative of the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences (CALS) Alumni Association, and a member of the Cornell University Council and President’s Council of Cornell Women (PCCW).
Raj Uppala, Vice President of Events
Raj Uppala, MBA '15, is a product management, marketing and investment professional with a focus on emerging technologies. He co-founded NimbusRay to develop IoT and Virtual Reality solutions, and held prior roles in product line management, marketing and design engineering. He is also a Fellow at Triphammer Ventures, a VC firm that co-invests in Cornell alumni led startup’s. Raj is serving his third year on the Cornell Norcal board, and is thrilled to be a part of the dynamic events team that brings the local Cornell Community together. To unwind, Raj enjoys the outdoors in all shapes and forms, DIY projects, travel, and taking his motorcycle out for a spin.
Dan Herr, Vice President of Marketing & Membership
Dan Herr, ENG '07, is a NorCal and Tahoe native who has worked in Private Equity since receiving his MBA in 2013. In addition to coaching basketball and facilitating Startup Weekends in his free time, Dan is passionate about tech, private investment, artificial intelligence, craft and home brewing, skiing, and the great outdoors. He is excited to help lead the events team and plan many new adventurous events as a member of the Cornell NorCal Board.
Wade Pitts, Treasurer
Wade Pitts, Hotel '94, has a successful career grounded in the fields of Wealth Management, Finance Services/Software, and Business Development. Committed to improving the industry and community, Wade is Board member/Treasurer of the Big Brothers, Big Sisters of the Bay Area and the Chair of NorCal Financial Planning Association Conference. He is also an active member of the Guardsmen (Bay Area group dedicated to fundraising to provide summer camp experiences for at-risk youth,) and the SF Chamber of Commerce. In his spare time, Wade teaches Krav Maga, the Israeli Defense Force fighting system.
Alison Harrigan, Secretary
Alison Harrigan, SHA '10, is a Senior Associate at Korn Ferry Executive Search, where she specializes in working with travel, hospitality & leisure companies on executive recruitment and talent consulting. Prior to Korn Ferry, Alison worked for The Ritz-Carlton Residences and Vail Resorts Development company in Vail and Breckenridge, Colorado on the development and brokerage of luxury real estate. A Northern California native, Alison is glad to recently be back in the Bay Area after living in Colorado and New York. In her leisure time, Alison chips away at her goal to run marathons in all 50 states and read all the Pulitzer Prize winning novels.
Ryan Delaney, General Counsel
Ryan Delaney, JD '13, LLM '13, is currently the General Counsel at Fig, a tech startup that publishes and crowdfunds video games, where he has a particular interest in securities matters and corporate governance. Earlier, he worked at the law firm of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in Palo Alto, and prior to law school Ryan worked at another startup, Main Street Hub (acquired by GoDaddy). Ryan is excited to serve in his first year on the Board and continue to meet more Cornellians in the area.
Michelle Wan, Director of Technology
Michelle Wan, BS '15, Software Manager at Workday, leads a dynamic development team to build a planning solution that enables customers to better plan, execute, and analyze across the enterprise all in one system. Michelle holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Cornell University.
Jessica Lin, Director of Social Media Communications
Jessica Lin, BS '12, studied biomedical engineering at Cornell. She is currently enjoying her time in the educational tech space where she teaches blockchain development at Udacity. Previously, she helped develop and deploy enterprise healthcare technologies as well as taught Android development. When not tinkering with computers, you’ll likely find Jessica training for her next Muay Thai fight.
Anthony Asta, Director of Events
Anthony Asta, MBA '04, has more than fifteen years of experience in software engineering management, software architecture, distributed systems design, business intelligence, data warehouses and financial management at several companies including Corning, Google and Twitter. He is currently a Software Engineering Manager at Uber, where he leads a team of Software Engineers within the Platform Engineering division. Anthony has been involved in Cornell Norcal activities for many years and has served on the Board of Directors for nine years with a passion for organizing outdoor and athletic events.
Boris Pavlovic, Director of Events
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You searched for: Content Type Journal Article Remove constraint Content Type: Journal Article Publication Year within 10 Years Remove constraint Publication Year: within 10 Years Topic International Political Economy Remove constraint Topic: International Political Economy
1. Olive Cultivation in the Galilee, 1948–1955: Hegemony and Resistance
Author: Jeffrey Reger
Content Type: Journal Article
Journal: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract: Drawing on Arabic, English, and Hebrew language sources from the British and Israeli archives, this article seeks to bridge the catastrophic rupture of 1948 to the early 1950s and to trace the changing relationship between ordinary Palestinian olive cultivators in the Galilee and the newly established Israeli state. In contrast with studies that center on the continued expulsion of Palestinians and extension of control over land by the state and state-supported actors in the aftermath of the Nakba, this study examines those Palestinians who stayed on their land and how they responded to Israeli agricultural and food control policies that they saw as discriminatory to the point of being existential threats. Beyond analysis of Israeli state policy toward olive growers and olive oil producers, this article brings in rare Palestinian voices from the time, highlighting examples of Palestinian resistance to the Israeli state’s practices of confiscation and discrimination.
Topic: Human Rights, International Political Economy, International Affairs
Political Geography: Israel
2. Table of Contents, Volume 28.2 (Summer 2014)
Journal: Ethics International Affairs Journal
Institution: Carnegie Council
Abstract: This issue features essays by Roger Berkowitz on "Drones and the Question of 'The Human'" and Alan Sussman on the philosophical foundations of human rights; a special centennial roundtable on "The Future of Human Rights," featuring Beth A. Simmons, Philip Alston, James W. Nickel, Jack Donnelly, and Andrew Gilmour; a review essay by Jens Bartelson on empire and sovereignty; and book reviews by Dale Jamieson, Tom Bailey, and Simon Cotton.
Topic: Climate Change, Human Rights, Human Welfare, International Law, International Political Economy, Sovereignty, International Affairs
3. Why Human Rights Are Called Human Rights
Author: Alan Sussman
Abstract: The title of this essay is rather ambitious and the space available is hardly sufficient to examine two words of almost limitless expanse—“human rights”—whether standing alone or in tandem. This requires that I begin with (and remained disciplined by) what a teacher of mine, Leo Strauss, called “low facts.” My low facts are these: We call ourselves humans because we have certain characteristics that define our nature. We are social and political animals, as Aristotle noted, and possess attributes not shared by other animals. The ancients noted this, of course, when they defined our principal behavioral and cognitive distinction from the rest of the natural world as the faculty of speech. The Greek word for this, logos, means much more than speech, as it connotes word and reason and, in the more common understanding, talking and writing, praising and criticizing, persuading and reading. While other animals communicate by making sounds of attraction or warning, leaving smells, and so on, none read newspapers, make speeches, publish their memoirs, or write poetry.
4. "Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World"
Author: Dale Jamieson
Abstract: This is the inaugural volume in the Amnesty International Global Ethics Series, edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah. John Broome, the author of this volume, is a trained economist, distinguished philosopher, and a lead author of the 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. He is very well suited to fulfill the mandate of the series, which is to "broaden the set of issues taken up by the human rights community." It is thus surprising that the book does not discuss human rights (or rights at all), nor locate itself in relation to much of the relevant literature. Nevertheless, this is an excellent book, displaying the author's characteristic virtues of clarity, concision, precision, and intellectual honesty.
5. "Global Justice and Avant-Garde Political Agency"
Author: Tom Bailey
Abstract: In Global Justice and Avant-Garde Political Agency , Lea Ypi proposes a novel approach to political theory in relation to the issue of global equality. She fiercely criticizes the tendency to abstract from the realities of political agency in "ideal" theorizing, since, she insists, such abstraction renders the conclusions drawn practically irrelevant and indeterminate. But she also refuses to treat current political practices and norms as given constraints in the manner of "nonideal" theorizing, on the grounds that the selection of relevant practices and norms is always morally loaded and their analysis inevitably conservative. Instead, Ypi proposes that theory begin with a specific political conflict, diagnose the failure of existing practices and norms to resolve it, and, in this light, develop better practices and norms. She calls this approach "dialectical" insofar as it considers political practices and norms to develop progressively in resolving emerging political problems, and "activist" or "avant-garde" in its responding and contributing to political change through appropriate political agents.
6. "Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy"
Author: Simon Cotton
Abstract: We are all familiar with the claim that the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are unjust or otherwise objectionable. Yet this claim faces substantial hurdles in motivating corrective action. Most significantly, wealthy states face political pressures against moderating their bargaining positions. But this is not the only problem. First, there remains the suspicion that these rules are not, in fact, objectionable, or that they are only mildly so—perhaps "bad" but not "unjust." After all, no country is forced to be subject to them; the WTO is a voluntary institution. Second, we still have to determine what rules would be just. Is it really the job of the WTO to compensate for inherent inequalities between countries? In this book, the first philosophical work devoted exclusively to "fair trade," Aaron James seeks to combat the second of these challenges directly. In doing so, he also combats the first.
7. Drones and the Question of "The Human"
Author: Roger Berkowitz
Abstract: Domino's Pizza is testing "Domicopter" drones to deliver pizzas, which will compete with Taco Bell's "Tacocopter" drones. Not to be outdone, Amazon is working on an army of delivery drones that will cut out the postal service. In Denmark, farmers use drones to inspect fields for the appearance of harmful weeds, which reduces herbicide use as the drones directly apply pesticides only where it is needed. Environmentalists send drones into glacial caves or into deep waters, gathering data that would be too dangerous or expensive for human scientists to procure. Federal Express dreams of pilotless aerial and terrestrial drones that will transport goods more cheaply, reliably, and safely than vehicles operated by humans. Human rights activists deploy drones over conflict zones, intelligently searching for and documenting abuses for both rhetorical and legal purposes. Aid agencies send unmanned drones to villages deep in jungles or behind enemy lines, maneuvering hazardous terrain to bring food and supplies to endangered populations. Medical researchers are experimenting with injecting drone blood cells into humans that can mimic good cholesterol carriers or identify and neutralize cancerous cells. Parents in Vermont are using flying drones to accompany children to school, giving a whole new meaning to helicopter parenting. And Pilobolus, a New York dance company, has choreographed a dance in which drones and humans engage each other in the most human of acts: the creation of art.
Political Geography: Denmark
8. The Future of the Human Rights Movement
Author: Beth A. Simmons
Abstract: The modern human rights movement is at a critical juncture in its history. It has been nearly seventy years since the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and some of the oldest and most active human rights organizations have been operating around the world for about forty years. More than twenty years have passed since the end of the cold war, and the time when people spoke in triumphal terms of the global success of Western values is now a fading memory. International human rights are ensconced as firmly as ever in international law and institutions, but what about the future of the "human rights movement"?
9. Against a World Court for Human Rights
Author: Philip Alston
Abstract: Too much of the debate about how respect for human rights can be advanced on a global basis currently revolves around crisis situations involving so-called mass atrocity crimes and the possibility of addressing abuse through the use of military force. This preoccupation, as understandable as it is, serves to mask much harder questions of how to deal with what might be termed silent and continuous atrocities, such as gross forms of gender or ethnic discrimination or systemic police violence, in ways that are achievable, effective, and sustainable. This more prosaic but ultimately more important quest is often left to, or perhaps expropriated by, international lawyers. Where the politician often finds solace in the deployment of military force, the international lawyer turns instinctively to the creation of a new mechanism of some sort. Those of modest inclination might opt for a committee or perhaps an inquiry procedure. The more ambitious, however, might advocate the establishment of a whole new court. And surely the most "visionary" of such proposals is one calling for the creation of a World Court of Human Rights. A version of this idea was put forward in the 1940s, but garnered no support. The idea has now been revived, in great detail, and with untrammeled ambition, under the auspices of an eminent group of international human rights law specialists.
10. What Future for Human Rights?
Author: James W. Nickel
Abstract: Like people born shortly after World War II, the international human rights movement recently had its sixty-fifth birthday. This could mean that retirement is at hand and that death will come in a few decades. After all, the formulations of human rights that activists, lawyers, and politicians use today mostly derive from the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the world in 1948 was very different from our world today: the cold war was about to break out, communism was a strong and optimistic political force in an expansionist phase, and Western Europe was still recovering from the war. The struggle against entrenched racism and sexism had only just begun, decolonization was in its early stages, and Asia was still poor (Japan was under military reconstruction, and Mao's heavy-handed revolution in China was still in the future). Labor unions were strong in the industrialized world, and the movement of women into work outside the home and farm was in its early stages. Farming was less technological and usually on a smaller scale, the environmental movement had not yet flowered, and human-caused climate change was present but unrecognized. Personal computers and social networking were decades away, and Earth's human population was well under three billion.
Political Geography: United States, Japan, China, Europe, Asia, United Nations
11. State Sovereignty and International Human Rights
Author: Jack Donnelly
Abstract: I am skeptical of our ability to predict, or even forecast, the future—of human rights or any other important social practice. Nonetheless, an understanding of the paths that have brought us to where we are today can facilitate thinking about the future. Thus, I approach the topic by examining the reshaping of international ideas and practices of state sovereignty and human rights since the end of World War II. I argue that in the initial decades after the war, international society constructed an absolutist conception of exclusive territorial jurisdiction that was fundamentally antagonistic to international human rights. At the same time, though, human rights were for the first time included among the fundamental norms of international society. And over the past two decades, dominant understandings of sovereignty have become less absolutist and more human rights–friendly, a trend that I suggest is likely to continue to develop, modestly, in the coming years.
12. The Future of Human Rights: A View from the United Nations
Author: Andrew Gilmour
Abstract: Ever since the Charter of the United Nations was signed in 1945, human rights have constituted one of its three pillars, along with peace and development. As noted in a dictum coined during the World Summit of 2005: "There can be no peace without development, no development without peace, and neither without respect for human rights." But while progress has been made in all three domains, it is with respect to human rights that the organization's performance has experienced some of its greatest shortcomings. Not coincidentally, the human rights pillar receives only a fraction of the resources enjoyed by the other two—a mere 3 percent of the general budget.
Political Geography: Europe, United Nations
13. From Empire to Sovereignty — and Back?
Author: Jens Bartelson
Abstract: Sovereignty apparently never ceases to attract scholarly attention. Long gone are the days when its meaning was uncontested and its essential attributes could be safely taken for granted by international theorists. During the past decades international relations scholars have increasingly emphasized the historical contingency of sovereignty and the mutability of its corresponding institutions and practices, yet these accounts have been limited to the changing meaning and function of sovereignty within the international system. This focus has served to reinforce some of the most persistent myths about the origin of sovereignty, and has obscured questions about the diffusion of sovereignty outside the European context.
Political Geography: Europe
14. On getting hit by traffic coming in both directions: A response to Dr Karen Devine's 'epistemology matters'
Author: David Houghton
Journal: International Politics
Institution: Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract: This reply to Dr Karen Devine restates my claim, originally published in International Politics, that our epistemological assumptions do not affect our substantive (or ontological) claims about international relations (IR) as much as we commonly think. Even if we restrict ourselves purely to deconstructing the arguments others have made, and to analyzing the discourses of IR, it is very difficult in practice to be genuinely postmodernist in a way that makes a real difference to empirical research. We always end up saying that reality is the way it is, no matter how hard we try to hedge it around with disclaimers of various sorts.
Topic: International Political Economy
15. The politics of liberal internationalism
Author: Tim Dunne, Matt McDonald
Abstract: How is it that internationalism has become the dominant form of statecraft pursued by liberal states and by international organisations, and yet it has received relatively scant attention in International Relations (IR) both historically and conceptually? It is time that the field addressed the paucity of writings on an institutionalised idea that has shaped order-building for more than two centuries. The article opens with a consideration of internationalism and its status in political theory and IR, arguing that a variety of different configurations have taken hold in different historical moments. We then consider the coexistence of internationalism and imperialism as an illustration of how the ambiguities and tensions in liberal statecraft can be manifested. The article closes with a consideration of the international normative order-building that has taken place after 1945 and the critical issue of the resilience of liberal internationalism given the 'crisis' identified with it. For all its dangers and dilemmas, we make the case for engaging the politics of liberal internationalism as a site in which normative and practical concerns of global politics meet, and in which the calls to protect the interests of national communities are mediated by the imperative of 'purposes beyond ourselves'.
16. The Cold War and After: History, Theory, and the Logic of International Politics
Author: William C. Wohlforth
Journal: Political Science Quarterly
Institution: Academy of Political Science
Abstract: The Cold War and After: History, Theory, and the Logic of International Politics, Marc Trachtenberg
17. The Political Economy of Sino-Peruvian Relations: A New Dependency?
Author: Ruben Gonzalez-Vicente
Journal: Journal of Current Chinese Affairs
Institution: German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract: This article reviews dependency postulates and examines whether they are applicable to explain the political economy of China's contemporary relations with Peru. It argues that the dichotomy between Peru as a commodity-providing periphery and China as a core manufacturing centre is insufficient to explain the ways in which power is embedded in the international economic system, and particularly inadequate to identify winners and losers in the international division of labour. Thereby, in line with some recent international political economy discussions of power, the article proposes that China should not be understood as a self-contained economic entity, but as a hub where natural resources are mobilized for transnational production. Furthermore, contending that a focus on nation-states fails to capture the complexity of (under)-development dynamics, it suggests that notions of internal colonialism, flexible sovereignties and postcolonial analyses of representation provide fresher perspectives from which to understand the distribution of power along the political economy of Sino-Peruvian relations.
Topic: Development, International Political Economy
Political Geography: China, Latin America
18. The relevance of Nicos Poulantzas for contemporary debates on 'the international'
Author: Ian Bruff
Abstract: This article argues that in many cases the theoretical resources for a revived and enriched 'critical International Political Economy' already exist, and we would do well to revisit earlier works when seeking to intervene in contemporary debates. Through an initial engagement with the recent plethora of contributions on 'the international', I contend that Nicos Poulantzas' later writings deserve a rereading. In particular, his work on the historicity of territory and the internationalisation of capital constitutes a series of rich and suggestive commentaries. The significance of his remarks are later illustrated via a consideration of Germany, where I argue that the changes wrought by the growing imbrication of the German economy with transnational circuits of capital have been taking place through, and not necessarily against, the historicity of German capitalism's emergence and evolution.
Political Geography: Germany
19. The global and gendered dimensions of citizenship, community and 'cohesion'
Author: Daniela Tepe, Jill Steans
Abstract: In this article we draw upon both critical and feminist international political economy (IPE) approaches in order to interrogate processes of change effecting specific localities in the context of neoliberal global restructuring. We give a closer focus to our interest in the global/local nexus by concentrating on issues of citizenship, community and discourse and practice on community cohesion. After setting out our framework, we develop a critique of community cohesion policies and practices in contemporary Britain. We then briefly review some of the current literature on gender and citizenship paying particular attention to how issues of material inequality, poverty and exclusion currently figure in academic debates. We conclude that gender inequality must be taken seriously if strong and cohesive communities are to be realised and that there is a need for further research that connects critical and feminist IPE to emerging critical literatures on community and citizenship.
Political Geography: Britain
20. Where is the study of work in critical IPE?
Author: Phoebe V Moore
Abstract: The British school of International Political Economy (IPE) has been highly innovative in encouraging inter-disciplinary work, revealing – while allowing for – an eclecticism of research and investigation that stands in clear contrast to its American counterpart. Critical theorists in the British school of IPE in particular have been highly prolific in recent years and have introduced research on a wide range of contemporary issues in the global political economy. However, this school tends to overlook two very important areas of analysis: work and employment. More thus needs to be done. This article argues that researchers from seemingly autonomous fields can teach critical IPE a lesson: inter-disciplinarity is not a fantasy. The analysis suggested here is of how governmental policy idealises a particular subjectivity wherein workers are not employed, but are employable. Not only would a focus on this problem enhance existing research in critical IPE: it is also essential if we are to address the needs of humanity in the increasingly unstable and flexibilised world of work. The British school of critical IPE is the forum within which this conversation could and should be continued.
21. Re-thinking scales and culture: Rome and the city in and beyond IPE
Author: Nana Rodaki
Abstract: The article argues that critical International Political Economy can benefit from a trans-disciplinary approach to the role of cities as socio-economic actors in the global political economy. The constitution and exercise of agency is far from an automatic response to the global restructuring of capitalist social relations, but the product of historically and context-specific economic and extra-economic social processes and social struggles. Cities (re)emerge as subjects and objects of governance and intervention and seek to become (dis)embedded in multi-scalar networks of economic and symbolic power. In this process, they become active co-producers of the global political economy, in ways that cut across spatial scales and narrow geographical imaginations.
Topic: International Political Economy, Culture
Political Geography: Rome
22. The relevance of understanding code to international political economy
Author: David M Berry
Abstract: This article argues that international political economy (IPE) needs to engage in a close reading of computer code. This, I argue, will open up IPE to a very important resource for understanding and explaining many of the forces of capitalism operating today and which are instantiated and reflected within computer code. I also suggest a way in which the 'global', particularly in relation to financial markets and systems, might be read from within the new space of flows represented by computer code and software. There is no doubt at all that software is a hugely important global industry, and that software is critical to the functioning of multinational companies, governments and non-governmental institutions. Therefore, it is curious that so little attention is paid to code itself as an empirical object within IPE. In this article, I want to introduce some of the main contours of the debate and introduce some important concepts for why a close reading of code could be useful to IPE scholars.
23. The Behavior of the Labor Market between Schechter (1935) and Jones Laughlin (1937)
Author: Todd C. Neumann, Jason E. Taylor, Jerry L. Taylor
Journal: The Cato Journal
Institution: The Cato Institute
Abstract: Recent research on the Great Depression emphasizes the role New Deal economic policy played in slowing recovery. Policies promoting cartels and higher wage rates during a time that the economy was experiencing unprecedented unemployment were likely to have created a negative supply shock that exacerbated economic depression rather than helped to alleviate it. Still, for 22 months between two important Supreme Court rulings, labor and product markets were relatively free of intervention. In A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (May 1935), the Court ruled that the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) was unconstitutional. In addition to setting up industry cartels, the NIRA had imposed relatively high minimum hourly wage rates and restrictions on work- weeks and required firms to recognize the right of labor to organize.
Political Geography: United States
24. 'What's "critical" about critical theory': capturing the social totality (das Gesellschaftliche Ganze)
Author: Daniela Tepe, Anita Fischer
Journal: Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution: Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract: This is neither the first article to address the nature of Critical Theory,1 nor the first article to address the necessarily feminist character of Critical Theory. Given that most of the writing concerned with the latter was (largely) neglected in International Relations (IR) and International Political Economy (IPE) scholarship, it seems appropriate to do so again.
Topic: International Relations, International Political Economy
25. Sailing with the Sea Shepherds
Author: Teale Phelps Bondaroff
Journal: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution: Centre for Military and Strategic Studies
Abstract: I am a Commonwealth Scholar and PhD researcher at the University of Cambridge in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS). My PhD research in general looks at the strategies of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in international affairs, and specifically examines the strategy of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (Sea Shepherd). As part of my research into the strategy of Sea Shepherd, I undertook fieldwork where I engaged in participant observation on board the Sea Shepherd vessel the Bob Barker as it took part in 'Operation No Compromise,' from December 2, 2010 to March 6, 2011. The Bob Barker spent 95 days at sea, and was at the heart of an action-packed campaign, Sea Shepherd's seventh campaign against Japanese Antarctic whaling and its most successful campaign to date.
Political Geography: Africa
26. Segregasyonlar ve Jeopolitik “Yeni” Düzenler: Müteşebbis Efendiler olarak Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri
Author: Anna M. Agathangelou, Barış Karaağaç
Journal: Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution: Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract: Beginning with the epistemological principle, International Relations (IR) critiques “world politics”, we look at the discipline of International Political Economy (IPE) within IR, considering to what extent IPE re-thinks key IR divides. What does IPE mean when the military-industrial complex is a site of power for the accumulation of resources and knowledge production? Can we critically theorize without understanding the international, the military, or the industrial as contested categories? How have critical theories of security and militarization and their racial formations been “globally” and “locally” positioned? Does an assumed segregation of security and property relations preclude making tensions visible in security regimes and among vulture capitalists? This essay foregrounds Turkey and its armed forces as sites of critical inquiry into the key divides of IR: national and international; global and local; the economy and state relations; rationality and bodies. We highlight what is produced as viable within the fields of the current model of global power and collective practices instrumental in changing IPE consensus about global processes and relations to dissent.
Topic: International Political Economy, Political Theory, Military Affairs
Political Geography: Global Focus
27. Stephen Skowronek, Presidential Leadership in Political Time: Reprise and Reappraisal
Author: Richard Holtzman
Abstract: Why did George W. Bush, once the beneficiary of the highest presidential approval ratings ever, end his tenure with the lowest marks on record? The answer, according to Stephen Skowronek, can be found in the patterns of “political time” (p. 18). Just over 15 years ago, Skowronekʼs The Politics PresidentsMake changed the way we think about presidential leadership, the history of the office, and their entwined significance forAmerican politics. In PresidentialLeadership in Political Time: Reprise and Reappraisal, he repackages and further develops the ideas that made his original work compelling, and does so with captivating results.
Political Geography: America
28. Emmett H. Buell, Jr. and Lee Sigelman, Attack Politics: Negativity in Presidential Campaigns Since 1960
Author: Darrell M. West
Abstract: The subject of campaign negativity has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Political observers have bemoaned the rise of attack ads and the hostile tone of civil discourse. Many claim that our countryʼs campaigns are getting dirtier, and that this undermines the quality of American democracy. Yet few of these criticisms have been based on systematic evidence. Opinions and anecdotes often outweigh clear data or compelling reasoning
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Oshkosh Awarded U.S. Army Order for JLTV Program
Oshkosh Defense, LLC, an Oshkosh Corporation company, announced that the U.S. Army has placed a $42 million order that exercises available options for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program including vehicles, installed kits and packaged kits. The order is the third since the contract was awarded in August 2015.
Work will be performed in Oshkosh, Wisconsin with an estimated completion date of November 2017.
“This latest order demonstrates that the JLTV continues to be a central piece of the Army’s future ground force and a modernization priority. The JLTV program is moving forward with a focus on giving Soldiers and Marines the next generation light vehicle they need for their missions,” said Dave Diersen, Oshkosh Defense Vice President of Joint Programs.
The JLTV program will replace 55,000 of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps’ uparmored HMMWVs. The JLTV designed and manufactured by Oshkosh delivers unmatched performance, protection, networking and off-road mobility in a light vehicle package to support Soldiers and Marines as they perform missions outside the wire. Designed with room for growth as threats evolve, the JLTV’s scalable design is able to adapt to future requirements.
The Oshkosh JLTV, which is on display at Modern Day Marine 2016 from September 27-29, is outfitted with an EOS R-400S-MK2 remote weapon system integrated with Orbital ATK's M230 LF 30 mm lightweight automatic chain gun to demonstrate the vehicle’s ability to support increased lethality including a medium caliber weapon system.
Oshkosh Defense is a leading provider of tactical wheeled vehicles and life cycle sustainment services. For decades Oshkosh has been mobilizing military and security forces around the globe by offering a full portfolio of heavy, medium, light and highly protected military vehicles to support our customers’ missions.
In addition, Oshkosh offers advanced technologies and vehicle components such as TAK-4® independent suspension systems, TerraMax™ unmanned ground vehicle solutions, Command Zone™ integrated control and diagnostics system, and ProPulse® diesel electric and on-board vehicle power solutions, to provide our customers with a technical edge as they fulfill their missions.
Every Oshkosh vehicle is backed by a team of defense industry experts and complete range of sustainment and training services to optimize fleet readiness and performance.
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Next PostL-3 WESCAM Appoints Mike Greenley as President
Oshkosh Defense Wins New JLTV Order from US Army
Oshkosh Defense, LLC, an Oshkosh Corporation (NYSE: OSK) company, announced that the U.S. Army has placed another order for the
Oshkosh to Renovate US Army’s Heavy Tactical Trucks
Oshkosh Defense, and Oshkosh Corporation Company, has received an order from the US Army to carry out recapitalization work on some of
Initial Integration for U.S. Army’s MAPS Soft-Kill Demonstrator
Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) recently
Raytheon to Offer Next-Generation Training to US Army
Raytheon Company, has submitted its proposal for the U.S. Army’s next-generation, global training support program.The Raytheon project
BAE Systems Rolls Out First Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle
BAE Systems rolled out the first prototype Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) to the U.S. Army during a ceremony at the company’s
PROTECTOR MCT-30 Turret to Equip Dragoon Vehicle
On Thursday October 27th, the U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Ground Combat Systems and Project Manager for the Stryker Brigade
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ARQUUS Presents its Scarabée for the First Time at Paris Air Show
European leader of protected land mobility, ARQUUS is present at the Paris Air Show 2019 at Le Bourget. In the framework of its work on air transport, the company notably exhibits its Scarabée. It is the very first time the vehicle is presented to the general public.
Arquus’ firstborn, the Scarabée is a light, armored 4x4 vehicle designed for reconnaissance, scouting and support, at the contact of the enemy or behind the lines. Developed by a small team of experts from ARQUUS, the Scarabée was designed in partnership with French SMEs and start-ups (95% French suppliers).
First natively hybrid military vehicle, the Scarabée changes all standards for mobility and energy. The vehicle’s hybrid drive allows for a “boost” mode which combines the thermal and electrical engines, and an “all electrical” mode. This stealth mode enables a tactical approach without thermal or acoustic signature, or a long, silent watch with all systems on.
The Scarabée is designed specifically to facilitate the collaborative work. Its interior layout, designed to accommodate four people, is intended to allow optimal communication between crew members, reinforced by the Battlenet vetronics system. Seated in a forward central position, the pilot benefits from a 270° direct vision.
The Scarabée’s architecture was specifically thought to facilitate the maintenance in operations, with an easily removable power pack and a simple access to all components for all-day operations.
The Scarabée is equipped with an evolutive, ballistic and mine protection depending on the mission profile. Designed for collaborative combat, the Scarabée is able to carry a wide array of systems such as multi-purpose RCWS, multi-caliber cannon, RGL cameras, MMP (or MILAN) launchers, anti-drone systems, radar…
The Scarabée is able to operate with two different clearance levels: high, for off-roads mobility, and low, for stand-by or air transport. It is equipped with an independent rear drive, which allows for a minimal steering radius and offers extreme mobility in urban environment, or in combat in cluttered zones. It is capable of moving in “crab” motion, offering several unprecedented tactical options.
Thanks to its very compact size, equivalent to that of the VB2L, the Scarabée is air transportable (C-130, Chinook, A400M). Air droppable, the Scarabée is compatible with the LTCO12 platform. In this configuration, it can be ready to fight within 15 minutes after the drop, according to operational standards.
The sliding side doors allow continuity of access during the airlift, enabling to complete the vehicle’s configuration directly inside the aircraft, which increases the speed of projection.
It is capable of performing air landed assault missions, with personnel on board and weapons ready according to standards, allowing the securing of strategic points. It can thus ensure the capture of advanced positions, and the securing of airstrips, ahead of the airborne or air-transported units. Thanks to its high mobility, it can also guarantee the units’ safety on the rear or the flanks.
Business Area of the Volvo AB Group, Arquus is one of the three members of the short-term consortium to which the French Ministry of Defense awarded the Scorpion contract. The Group will be participating in the development of the new generation of wheeled armored personnel carriers for the French Army: the VBMR (multi-role armored vehicle) and the EBRC (armored reconnaissance and combat vehicle).
Arquus also supplies the powertrains and small-caliber weapons systems operated by these two vehicles. The Group will also provide full logistics for spare parts and Scorpion subsystems.
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Iranian Navy Receives Modern CBRND Systems
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) delivered state-of-the-art equipment to its Naval forces to equip them with Chemical,
The 9th International Maritime Defense Show (IMDS) was held at the Lenexpo Exhibition Center in St. Petersburg, Russia, on 10-14
Since July 1st, Valérie Guillemet has been Head of Human Resources at Dassault Aviation. She is the first female member to sit on the
PELI has recently realized a survey among more than 500 European flashlight users to discover what the exact user expectations are
Nexter, a KNDS company, European leader in land defense, partook Thursday to the signature ceremony of the acquisition of 62 TITUS®
Boeing Selects Raytheon for B-52 AESA Radar Upgrade
Raytheon was selected by the Boeing Company as radar supplier for the B-52 bomber radar modernization program.Under the contract,
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If we want to draw a partition line on a map, a stroke of the pen is enough. Countries, regions, people and forests are cut, apparently without consequences, except for that improvised drawing. Different is the case when that line matches with a curtain, with an ideological clash, two blocks in conflict involving economic interests and geopolitics. Different when that rift expands itself with time, changing depending on the fronts, strong for the lack of tangibility that renders it more elusive as well as more redoubtable. If we want to rub out a partition line from a map, a simple eraser is enough. And we expect that those countries, regions, people and forests revert to be a singleness, or at least normal neighbors, with the same immediacy and easiness as if they were small pawns in a greater and much more complex board. Twenty years after his passing, I have decided to undertake a journey along the more or less precise route of the Iron Curtain, on the trails of still existing gaps and rearrangements occurred and assimilated. A winding path among fields, people and trees, the latter being the only ones having always continued (memory of Jacques Prévert…) speaking the same language and speaking to each other. Pieces of memories on a ditch that has been cancelledall of a sudden, as if it was a worthless problem. The western meridian and the eastern meridian over forty years of history. And in the end Berlin, where everything began and finished, the origin of that stroke of the pen, the place where the wall was not theoretical but real, where actually it was erected and then broken down. Berlin, where everything seems to be passed away, even forgotten. But where still exists, on the contrary, on people’s faces, in the colours and in some intimate and hidden paths, the reflection of an indelible memory.
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礼恩派公司汽车用品集团，集团副总裁，祁登洲
Leggett-Automotive.com, Group Vice President Quality and Supplier Development, Joseph Qi
Joseph Qi is the Vice President of Leggett & Platt Automotive Group, responsible for Global Quality and Supplier Development since 2014. Leggett & Platt is a US fortune 500 Company with 130 facilities in 19 countries and 135 years of history.
Prior to joining Leggett & Platt, Joe spent 7 years at the CTS Corp as the Vice President of Global Operations in the United Sates, responsible for the operations of nine plants around the world since 2011; and the General Manager of CTS Zhongshan in China since 2007.
Prior to joining CTS Corp, Joe spent 14 years at Ford Motor Company, held various managerial positions in engineering, manufacturing, production, maintenance, machining, assembly and plant management among seven different powertrain plants across the United States and Canada. Joe is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt and a certified Level II Six Sigma Master Black Belt at Ford by the Six Sigma Academy.
Prior to joining Ford Motor Company, Joe worked at Navistar International in Canada over two years in early 90’s.
Joe enjoys teaching, taught MBA classes at Odette Business School of University of Windsor in 2005 and 2006 (part time).
Joe holds a Master Degree in Industrial Engineering and Manufacturing Systems from University of Windsor, Canada and a Bachelor Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tsinghua University, China.
Joe currently lives in Lakeshore, Ontario, Canada with his wife and their younger son.
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Decided that if I was going to whine about the absense of good DD movies out there, I could at least tell you about some of the on-topic movies that ARE out there (that I've seen) and how they fit into our 'kink'. So here you go:
Fetishes (1996)
Nick Broomfield
(Out of 5)
(See trailer below)
Fetishes is a film by Nick Broomfield, the master documentary maker (Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer and Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam, among others). It is part of his Documenting Icons series. Filmed in 1996 at the famous Pandora’s Box in Manhattan, NY, it looks at the role in society of a house of domination. Run by Mistress Raven - who bears a striking resemblance to Cher - Pandora’s Box is home to a number of dominatrices who cater to both male and female clients.
The documentary begins with archival black and white footage of a Bettie Page film. We are then introduced to the setting of Pandora’s Box - the fifth floor of a busy office building in downtown Manhattan. It caters to submissives who pay up to $1,000 for a single session (in 1996). That such an establishment operates legally in the midst of a busy city catches you off guard (it is legal as there is no sex allowed on the premises). Then we meet the Mistresses.
These women are a contradiction in terms. At first, they have you believe that they are noble and in control, providing a much-needed service. But in the blink of an eye, they can suddenly seem damaged and vulnerable. There is Natasha, who is described as the toughest of the dominatrices. Put her in a pony tail and you have the local Midwestern high school head cheerleader. Raised in a fundamentalist Christian school, she has a spiny pet iguana named Spike that she sleeps with. Probably says a lot about how she keeps men at a distance. In one shot, she first slaps a client in the head and then turns to look wistfully into the camera, saying ‘yeah, I’d like to get married and have kids some day’. In another scene, she is dealing with a male client who is into infantilism and is dressed as a young girl. Natasha is brushing his hair, and it becomes quite violent as she begins to yell at him that ‘being a big girl means pain in this world today’. One begins to wonder if it is the clients or the mistresses who have issues to work out here.
The other women are equally interesting and contradictory. Delilah was trained in the American School of Ballet and now works in research in her ‘normal’ job. She handles the more sensuous sessions (if you call clothespins stuck all over your body sensuous). Katherine is called the most sadistic and is an expert with a bullwhip. A very ethereal redhead, she comments that it’s ‘just kind of nice to be able to beat somebody every once in a while’, but later, in her apartment (which she moved into after splitting from her husband), claims ‘I can have a very healthy, normal relationship with a man’. Beatrice is the business manager, a French woman with a thick accent who they, of course, have handle the phone, which can lead to some interesting misunderstandings.
The establishment is designed to cater to any fantasy. There is the French dungeon with the guillotine (non-working), stocks, cages, and all manner of primitive forms of torture. There is the medical room which is very sterile and lit so that it looks like a set from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Every type of medical equipment that ever made you squirm is there to be used. A number of other rooms are available, though not all are shown on camera. However you desire to be submissive, it can be arranged.
I think that some aspects of a place like this are harmless. The guy who is into being a slave, dressing as a maid and coming in to clean the place every week, doing it not for pay but just for the privilege of serving his Mistress! (Where can I get me one of these?) But there were also some very disturbing instances. One client who has thoughts of genocide and killing people comes to be humiliated. They call him a socio-political client. I call him nuts. He says that with all the freaky thoughts in his head, he can calm down by doing something freaky. So they make him lick a toilet clean. (Nick looks decidedly uncomfortable when he has to interview a naked man whose head is in a toilet!) Personally, I would get this guy a psychiatrist and a Thorazine drip real quick like.
As I said in an earlier post, there are not many movies out there for someone like me who wants a gentler form of BDSM - the DD type. This is one of those that sometimes goes too far in places for people like me (I had to look away during the nipple piercing). But it does the job of answering Broomfield’s assertation that ‘most fetishes are the eroticization of one’s worst fears and nightmares. They reflect the worst thing that one could imagine happening’. I guess that is also true for those of us into DD, only on a MUCH lighter level, with the worst thing we could imagine being a spanking. For a great behind-the-scenes look at many different fetishes, including some good corporal punishment stuff, this is the film to watch. The ending is also fun as all the Mistresses gang up on Nick, claiming they owe him a session. He puts up a good fight and makes like King Kong, climbing up a piece of equipment to try to escape them. Available in the US on its own and also as part of the Documenting Icons box set. The full, uncut version (which I have) is available in the UK.
Pandora’s Box is apparently still in operation, though it seems to have moved as it now has its premises housed in a large basement facility in the Chelsea district of Manhattan. It has also merged with another domination studio, Den of Iniquity.
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15.145(2) (2) Prison industries board. There is created a prison industries board which is attached to the department of corrections under s. 15.03. The board shall consist of 9 members appointed for 4-year terms. Three members shall be appointed to represent private business and industry and 3 members shall be appointed to represent private labor organizations. One member shall be appointed to represent each of the following:
15.145(2)(c) (c) The technical college system.
15.145(2)(d) (d) The department of corrections.
15.145(2)(f) (f) The department of administration.
15.145(3) (3) Interstate adult offender supervision board. There is created an interstate adult offender supervision board which is attached to the department of corrections under s. 15.03. The board shall consist of 5 members appointed for 4-year terms. The governor shall comply with the requirements of s. 304.16 (4) when appointing members of the board. The board shall have the powers, duties, and responsibilities set forth under s. 304.16.
15.145(4) (4) State board for interstate juvenile supervision. There is created a state board for interstate juvenile supervision, which is attached to the department of corrections under s. 15.03. The board shall consist of 5 members appointed for 3-year terms. The governor shall comply with the requirements of s. 938.999 (9) when appointing members of the board. The board shall have the powers, duties, and responsibilities set forth under s. 938.999.
15.145(5) (5) Council on offender reentry. There is created a council on offender reentry which is attached to the department of corrections under s. 15.03, which shall have the duties, responsibilities, and powers set forth under s. 301.095. The council shall consist of 21 members, and the appointed members shall serve for 2-year terms and may be appointed for a maximum of 2 consecutive terms. The chairperson of the council shall be the secretary of corrections or the reentry director, as decided by the secretary of corrections. The chairperson may appoint subcommittees and the council shall meet no less frequently than 4 times per year at a date and location to be determined by the chairperson. Members of the council shall include the secretary of corrections, or his or her designee; the secretary of workforce development, or his or her designee; the secretary of health services, or his or her designee; the secretary of children and families, or his or her designee; the secretary of transportation, or his or her designee; the attorney general, or his or her designee; the chairperson of the parole commission, or his or her designee; the state superintendent of public instruction; the reentry director as appointed by the secretary of corrections; a current or former judge, as appointed by the director of state courts; an individual who has been previously convicted of, and incarcerated for, a crime in Wisconsin, as appointed by the secretary of corrections; and the following persons, as appointed by the governor:
15.145(5)(a) (a) A law enforcement officer.
15.145(5)(b) (b) A representative of a crime victim rights or crime victim services organization.
15.145(5)(c) (c) A representative of a faith-based organization that is involved with the reintegration of offenders into the community.
15.145(5)(d) (d) A representative of a county department of human services.
15.145(5)(e) (e) A representative of a federally recognized American Indian tribe or band in this state.
15.145(5)(f) (f) A representative of a nonprofit organization that is involved with the reintegration of offenders into the community and that is not a faith-based organization.
15.145(5)(g) (g) A district attorney.
15.145(5)(h) (h) A representative of the office of the state public defender.
15.145(5)(i) (i) An academic professional in the field of criminal justice.
15.145(5)(j) (j) A representative of the Wisconsin Technical College System.
15.145(6) (6) Corrections system formulary board. There is created in the department of corrections a corrections system formulary board. The board shall consist of the following members appointed to serve at the pleasure of the secretary of corrections:
15.145(6)(a) (a) Two physicians, as defined in s. 448.01 (5), one of whom specializes in psychiatry.
15.145(6)(b) (b) A pharmacist, as defined in s. 450.01 (15).
15.145(6)(c) (c) Any other members appointed by the secretary in his or her discretion.
15.145 History History: 1989 a. 107 ss. 4, 5m; 1989 a. 121; 1993 a. 399; 1997 a. 27, 237; 2001 a. 16, 96; 2005 a. 234; 2009 a. 28, 276; 2011 a. 32, 38; 2013 a. 166; 2015 a. 40; 2017 a. 59.
15.16 15.16 Department of employee trust funds; creation. There is created a department of employee trust funds under the direction and supervision of the employee trust funds board.
15.16(1) (1) Employee trust funds board. The employee trust funds board shall consist of the governor or the governor's designee on the group insurance board, the administrator of the division of personnel management in the department of administration or the administrator's designee and 11 persons appointed or elected for 4-year terms as follows:
15.16(1)(a) (a) Four members shall be members of the teachers retirement board, appointed by that board.
15.16(1)(a)1. 1. At least one appointee under this paragraph shall have been appointed or elected to the board under s. 15.165 (3) (a) 1. or 2.
15.16(1)(a)2. 2. At least one appointee under this paragraph shall have been appointed to the board under s. 15.165 (3) (a) 4.
15.16(1)(a)3. 3. At least one appointee under this paragraph shall have been elected to the board under s. 15.165 (3) (a) 7.
15.16(1)(a)4. 4. At least one appointee under this paragraph shall have been appointed to the board under s. 15.165 (3) (a) 3. or 5.
15.16(1)(b) (b) Four members shall be members of the Wisconsin retirement board, appointed by that board.
15.16(1)(b)1. 1. At least one appointee under this paragraph shall have been appointed to the board under s. 15.165 (3) (b) 1., 2., 4., 5. or 8.
15.16(1)(b)2. 2. At least one appointee under this paragraph shall have been appointed to the board under s. 15.165 (3) (b) 3., 6. or 7.
15.16(1)(b)3. 3. At least one appointee under this paragraph shall have been appointed to the board under s. 15.165 (3) (b) 7. or 8.
15.16(1)(c) (c) One member shall be a public member who is not a participant in or beneficiary of the Wisconsin retirement system, with at least 5 years of experience in actuarial analysis, administration of an employee benefit plan or significant administrative responsibility in a major insurer. It is the intent of the legislature that the member appointed under this paragraph shall represent the interests of the taxpayers of this state and shall not be representative of public employee or employer interests.
15.16(1)(d) (d) One member shall be an annuitant, as defined for purposes other than life insurance under s. 40.02 (4), elected by annuitants, as defined for purposes other than life insurance under s. 40.02 (4).
15.16(1)(f) (f) One member who is a participant in the Wisconsin retirement system and who is a technical college educational support personnel employee, as defined in s. 40.02 (55g), or an educational support personnel employee, as defined in s. 40.02 (22m), elected by participating employees meeting the same criteria.
15.16 History History: 1979 c. 221; 1981 c. 96; 1991 a. 116; 1999 a. 181; 2003 a. 33 ss. 101, 9160; 2005 a. 25; 2015 a. 55.
15.16 Annotation Membership requirements under sub. (1) (a) and (b) apply only at the time of appointment. Appointees serve “at pleasure" of the appointing boards under sub. (1) (a) and (b). 75 Atty. Gen. 127 (1986).
15.165 15.165 Same; attached boards.
15.165(1)(1) Board members.
15.165(1)(a)(a) Any member of a board created under this section who loses the status upon which the appointment or election was based shall cease to be a member of the board upon appointment or election to the board of a qualified successor.
15.165(1)(b) (b) For purposes of this section, annuitants are deemed to be employees in the last position in which they were covered by the Wisconsin retirement system, except that annuitants may not be elected, appointed or vote under sub. (3) (a) 1., 2., 4. or 7.
15.165(2) (2) Group insurance board. There is created in the department of employee trust funds a group insurance board. The board shall consist of the governor, the attorney general, the secretary of administration, the director of the office of state employment relations, and the commissioner of insurance or their designees, and 6 persons appointed for 2-year terms, of whom one shall be an insured participant in the Wisconsin Retirement System who is not a teacher, one shall be an insured participant in the Wisconsin Retirement System who is a teacher, one shall be an insured participant in the Wisconsin Retirement System who is a retired employee, one shall be an insured employee of a local unit of government, and one shall be the chief executive or a member of the governing body of a local unit of government that is a participating employer in the Wisconsin Retirement System.
15.165(3) (3) Retirement boards.
15.165(3)(a)(a) Teachers retirement board. There is created in the department of employee trust funds a teachers retirement board. The board shall consist of 13 members, to serve for staggered 5-year terms. The board shall consist of the following members:
15.165(3)(a)1. 1. Six public school teachers who are participating employees in the Wisconsin retirement system and who are not eligible for election under any other subdivision of this paragraph, elected by participating employees meeting the same criteria.
15.165(3)(a)2. 2. One public school teacher from a technical college district who is a participating employee in the Wisconsin retirement system, elected by teacher participating employees from technical college districts.
15.165(3)(a)3. 3. One administrator in Wisconsin's public schools who is not a classroom teacher.
15.165(3)(a)4. 4. Two University of Wisconsin System representatives who are teacher participants in the Wisconsin retirement system. The representatives under this subdivision shall not be from the same campus.
15.165(3)(a)5. 5. One representative who is a member of a school board.
15.165(3)(a)6. 6. One annuitant who was a teacher participant in the Wisconsin retirement system, elected by the annuitants who were teacher participants.
15.165(3)(a)7. 7. One teacher in the city of Milwaukee who is a participating employee in the Wisconsin retirement system, elected by the teachers of the public schools in that city who are participating employees.
15.165(3)(b) (b) Wisconsin retirement board. There is created in the department of employee trust funds a Wisconsin retirement board. The board shall consist of 9 members, and board members appointed under subds. 1. to 8. shall serve for staggered 5-year terms. The member appointed under subd. 1. shall be appointed from a list of 5 names submitted by the board of directors of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, and the member appointed under subd. 4. shall be appointed from a list of 5 names submitted by the executive committee of the Wisconsin Counties Association. Each member appointed under subds. 1., 2., and 3. shall be from a different county. Each member appointed under subds. 4., 5., and 6. shall be appointed from a different county. The board shall consist of the following members:
15.165(3)(b)1. 1. One member who is the chief executive or a member of the governing body of a participating city or village.
15.165(3)(b)2. 2. One member who is a participating employee and the principal finance officer of a participating city or village.
15.165(3)(b)3. 3. One member who is a participating employee of a participating city or village.
15.165(3)(b)4. 4. One member who is the chairperson or a member of the governing body of a participating county or town.
15.165(3)(b)5. 5. One member who is a county clerk or deputy county clerk of a participating county.
15.165(3)(b)6. 6. One member who is a participating employee of a participating local employer other than a city or village.
15.165(3)(b)7. 7. One member who is a participating state employee.
15.165(3)(b)8. 8. One member who is a public member not a participant in or beneficiary of the Wisconsin retirement system. It is the intent of the legislature that the members appointed under this paragraph shall represent the interests of the taxpayers of this state and shall not be representative of public employee or employer interests.
15.165(3)(b)9. 9. The commissioner of insurance or an experienced actuary in the office of the commissioner designated by the commissioner.
15.165(4) (4) Deferred compensation board. There is created in the department of employee trust funds a deferred compensation board consisting of 5 members appointed for 4-year terms.
15.165 History History: 1973 c. 151, 329; 1977 c. 29, 418; 1979 c. 221; 1981 c. 96; 1983 a. 192 s. 303 (7); 1983 a. 290; 1985 a. 230; 1987 a. 403; 1989 a. 31; 1993 a. 399; 1999 a. 9; 2001 a. 103; 2003 a. 33 ss. 102, 9160; 2005 a. 66; 2007 a. 20 s. 9121 (6) (a).
15.165 Annotation Public school administrators are eligible to be candidates for and to vote for teacher representatives on the teachers retirement board. 76 Atty. Gen. 141.
15.18 15.18 Department of financial institutions. There is created a department of financial institutions under the direction and supervision of the secretary of financial institutions.
15.18 History History: 1995 a. 27.
15.183 15.183 Same; specified divisions.
15.183(1)(1) Division of banking. There is created a division of banking. Prior to July 1, 2000, the division is attached to the department of financial institutions under s. 15.03. After June 30, 2000, the division is created in the department of financial institutions. The administrator of the division shall be appointed outside the classified service by the secretary of financial institutions and shall serve at the pleasure of the secretary.
15.183(3) (3) Division of securities. There is created a division of securities. Prior to July 1, 2000, the division is attached to the department of financial institutions under s. 15.03. After June 30, 2000, the division is created in the department of financial institutions. The administrator of the division shall be appointed outside the classified service by the secretary of financial institutions and shall serve at the pleasure of the secretary.
15.183 History History: 1995 a. 27; 1999 a. 9; 2003 a. 33.
15.185 15.185 Same; attached boards and offices.
15.185(1)(1) Banking review board. There is created in the department of financial institutions a banking review board consisting of 5 persons, appointed for staggered 5-year terms. At least 3 members shall be experienced bankers having at least 5 years' experience in the banking business. No member is qualified to act in any matter involving a bank in which the member is an officer, director or stockholder, or to which the member is indebted.
15.185(3) (3) Savings institutions review board. There is created in the department of financial institutions a savings institutions review board consisting of 5 members, at least 3 of whom shall have not less than 5 years' experience in the savings and loan or savings bank business in this state, appointed for 5-year terms.
15.185(5) (5) College savings program board. There is created a college savings program board that is attached to the department of financial institutions under s. 15.03 and that consists of all of the following members:
15.185(5)(a) (a) The secretary of financial institutions or his or her designee.
15.185(5)(b) (b) The president of the board of regents of the University of Wisconsin System or his or her designee.
15.185(5)(c) (c) The president of the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities or his or her designee.
15.185(5)(d) (d) The chairperson of the investment board or his or her designee.
15.185(5)(e) (e) The president of the technical college system board or his or her designee.
15.185(5)(f) (f) Six other members, appointed for 4-year terms.
15.185(7) (7) Office of credit unions.
15.185(7)(a)(a) Office of credit unions; creation. There is created an office of credit unions which is attached to the department of financial institutions under s. 15.03. The director shall be appointed by the governor to serve at the pleasure of the governor. No person may be appointed director who has not had at least 3 years of actual experience either in the operation of a credit union, or serving in a credit union supervisory capacity, or a combination of both. Notwithstanding s. 15.03, all personnel and budget requests by the office of credit unions shall be processed and forwarded by the department of financial institutions without change except as requested and concurred in by the office of credit unions.
15.185(7)(b) (b) Credit union review board. There is created in the office of credit unions a credit union review board consisting of 5 persons, appointed for staggered 5-year terms. All members shall have at least 5 years' experience in the operations of a credit union. The office of credit unions may call special meetings of the review board.
15.185 History History: 1995 a. 27, ss. 135, 136, 196, 197, 201, 203, 216, 217; 1997 a. 27; 2003 a. 33; 2017 a. 59 s. 34.
15.19 15.19 Department of health services; creation. There is created a department of health services under the direction and supervision of the secretary of health services.
15.19 History History: 1975 c. 39; 1995 a. 27 s. 9126 (19); 2007 a. 20 s. 9121 (6) (a).
15.193(1)(1) Office of the inspector general. There is created in the department of health services an office of the inspector general.
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885.37(4)(c) (c) The court or agency shall determine indigency under this section.
885.37(5)(a)(a) If a municipal court under sub. (1) or (2) or an agency under sub. (3) decides to appoint an interpreter, the court or agency shall follow the applicable procedure under par. (b) or (c).
885.37 Note NOTE: The cross-reference to sub. (1) was changed from sub. (1) (b) by the legislative reference bureau under s. 13.92 (1) (bm) 2. to reflect the renumbering under s. 13.92 (1) (bm) 2. of sub. (1) (b).
885.37(5)(b) (b) The department of health services shall maintain a list of qualified interpreters for use with persons who have hearing impairments. The department shall distribute the list, upon request and without cost, to courts and agencies who must appoint interpreters. If an interpreter needs to be appointed for a person who has a hearing impairment, the court or agency shall appoint a qualified interpreter from the list. If no listed interpreter is available or able to interpret, the court or agency shall appoint as interpreter another person who is able to accurately communicate with and convey information to and receive information from the hearing-impaired person.
885.37(5)(c) (c) If an interpreter needs to be appointed for a person with an impairment or difficulty not covered under par. (b), the court or agency may appoint any person the court or agency decides is qualified.
885.37 History History: Sup. Ct. Order, 67 Wis. 2d 585, 760 (1975); 1975 c. 106, 199; Stats. 1975 s. 885.37; 1985 a. 266; 1987 a. 27; 1995 a. 27 ss. 7207 to 7209, 9126 (19); 1995 a. 77; 2001 a. 16; 2007 a. 20 s. 9121 (6) (a); s. 13.92 (1) (bm) 2.
885.37 Annotation A court has notice of a language difficulty when it becomes aware that a defendant's difficulty with English may impair his or her ability to communicate with counsel, to understand testimony, or to be understood in English and does not hinge on a request from counsel for an interpreter. State v. Yang, 201 Wis. 2d 725, 549 N.W.2d 769 (Ct. App. 1996), 95-0583.
885.37 Annotation The hearing on the accommodation should precede the substantive hearing. Strook v. Kedinger, 2009 WI App 31, 316 Wis. 2d 548, 766 N.W.2d 219, 07-2898.
885.38 885.38 Interpreters in circuit and appellate courts.
885.38(1)(1) In this section:
885.38(1)(a) (a) “Court proceeding" means any proceeding before a court of record.
885.38(1)(b) (b) “Limited English proficiency" means any of the following:
885.38(1)(b)1. 1. The inability, because of the use of a language other than English, to adequately understand or communicate effectively in English in a court proceeding.
885.38(1)(b)2. 2. The inability, due to a speech impairment, hearing loss, deafness, deaf-blindness, or other disability, to adequately hear, understand, or communicate effectively in English in a court proceeding.
885.38(1)(c) (c) “Qualified interpreter" means a person who is able to do all of the following:
885.38(1)(c)1. 1. Readily communicate with a person who has limited English proficiency.
885.38(1)(c)2. 2. Orally transfer the meaning of statements to and from English and the language spoken by a person who has limited English proficiency in the context of a court proceeding.
885.38(1)(c)3. 3. Readily and accurately interpret for a person who has limited English proficiency, without omissions or additions, in a manner that conserves the meaning, tone, and style of the original statement, including dialect, slang, and specialized vocabulary.
885.38(2) (2) The supreme court shall establish the procedures and policies for the recruitment, training, and certification of persons to act as qualified interpreters in a court proceeding and for the fees imposed for the training and certification, and for the coordination, discipline, retention, and training of those interpreters. Any fees collected under this subsection shall be credited to the appropriation under s. 20.680 (2) (gc).
885.38(3)(a)(a) If the court determines that the person has limited English proficiency and that an interpreter is necessary, the court shall advise the person that he or she has the right to a qualified interpreter at the public's expense if the person is one of the following:
885.38(3)(a)1. 1. A party in interest.
885.38(3)(a)2. 2. A witness, while testifying in a court proceeding.
885.38(3)(a)3. 3. An alleged victim, as defined in s. 950.02 (4).
885.38(3)(a)4. 4. A parent or legal guardian of a minor party in interest or the legal guardian of a party in interest.
885.38(3)(a)5. 5. Another person affected by the proceedings, if the court determines that the appointment is necessary and appropriate.
885.38(3)(b) (b) The court may appoint more than one qualified interpreter in a court proceeding when necessary.
885.38(3)(c) (c) If a person with limited English proficiency, as defined in sub. (1) (b) 2., is part of a jury panel in a court proceeding, the court shall appoint a qualified interpreter for that person.
885.38(3)(d) (d) If a person with limited English proficiency requests the assistance of the clerk of circuit courts regarding a legal proceeding, the clerk may provide the assistance of a qualified interpreter to respond to the person's inquiry.
885.38(3)(e) (e) A qualified interpreter appointed under this subsection may, with the approval of the court, provide interpreter services outside the court room that are related to the court proceedings, including during court-ordered psychiatric or medical exams or mediation.
885.38(3)(f) (f) A court may authorize the use of a qualified interpreter in actions or proceedings in addition to those specified in par. (a).
885.38(4)(a)(a) The court may accept the waiver of the right to a qualified interpreter by a person with limited English proficiency at any point in the court proceeding if the court advises the person of the nature and effect of the waiver and determines on the record that the waiver has been made knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily.
885.38(4)(b) (b) At any point in the court proceeding, for good cause, the person with limited English proficiency may retract his or her waiver and request that a qualified interpreter be appointed.
885.38(5) (5) Every qualified interpreter, before commencing his or her duties in a court proceeding, shall take a sworn oath that he or she will make a true and impartial interpretation. The supreme court may approve a uniform oath for qualified interpreters.
885.38(6) (6) Any party to a court proceeding may object to the use of any qualified interpreter for good cause. The court may remove a qualified interpreter for good cause.
885.38(7) (7) The delay resulting from the need to locate and appoint a qualified interpreter may constitute good cause for the court to toll the time limitations in the court proceeding.
885.38(8)(a)(a) Except as provided in par. (b), the necessary expenses of providing qualified interpreters to persons with limited English proficiency under this section shall be paid as follows:
885.38(8)(a)1. 1. The county in which the circuit court is located shall pay the expenses in all proceedings before a circuit court and when the clerk of circuit court uses a qualified interpreter under sub. (3) (d). The county shall be reimbursed in the manner determined by the director of state courts under s. 758.19 for expenses paid under this subdivision.
885.38(8)(a)2. 2. The court of appeals shall pay the expenses in all proceedings before the court of appeals.
885.38(8)(a)3. 3. The supreme court shall pay the expenses in all proceedings before the supreme court.
885.38(8)(b) (b) The state public defender shall pay the expenses for interpreters assisting the state public defender in representing an indigent person in preparing for court proceedings.
885.38 History History: 2001 a. 16; 2003 a. 33; 2007 a. 20; 2015 a. 55.
885.38 Annotation When an accused requires an interpreter and witnesses are to testify in a foreign language, the better practice may be to have 2 interpreters, one for the accused and one for the court. State v. Santiago, 206 Wis. 2d 3, 556 N.W.2d 687 (1996), 94-1200.
885.38 Annotation Fair trials require comprehension of the spoken word by parties, witnesses, and fact-finders. A witness's comprehension affects the analysis of whether a trial court cut off cross-examination prematurely. State v. Yang, 2006 WI App 48, 290 Wis. 2d 235, 712 N.W.2d 400, 05-0817.
885.38 Annotation The legislature intended for the courts to provide necessary interpreters for both the hearing impaired and for those of limited English proficiency regardless of their ability to pay. Courts may not tax the parties for these costs. OAG 9-08.
885.38 Annotation Injustice in any Language: the Need for Improved Standards Governing Courtroom Interpretation in Wisconsin. Pantoga. 82 MLR 601 (1999).
885.38 Annotation Se Habla Everything: The Right to an Impartial, Qualified Interpreter. Araiza. Wis. Law. Sept. 1997.
885.38 Annotation New Interpreter Code of Ethics. Lamelas. Wis. Law. March 2003.
subch. II of ch. 885 SUBCHAPTER II
VIDEOTAPE PROCEDURE
885.40 885.40 Applicability. Sections 885.40 to 885.47 apply to all trial courts of record in this state in the receipt and utilization of testimony and other evidence recorded on videotape and to the review of cases on appeal where the record on appeal contains testimony or other evidence recorded on videotape. These sections are not intended to preclude or limit the presentation of evidence by other technical procedures.
885.40 History History: Sup. Ct. Order, 67 Wis. 2d vii (1975).
885.40 Note Judicial Council Committee's Note, 1975: The contents of these rules are not meant to exclude present practice whereby movies and photographs are introduced into evidence in appropriate situations. [Re Order effective Jan. 1, 1976]
885.40 Annotation Sections 885.40 to 885.47 did not apply to police videotape of a drunk driver. State v. Haefer, 110 Wis. 2d 381, 328 N.W.2d 894 (Ct. App. 1982).
885.40 Annotation Legal applications of videotape. Benowitz, 1974 WBB No. 3.
885.41 885.41 Definitions.
885.41(1)(1) Videotaping. Videotaping is a visual or simultaneous audiovisual electronic recording.
885.41(2) (2) Operator. Operator means a person trained to operate video equipment and may be an official qualified under s. 804.03.
885.41 History History: Sup. Ct. Order, 67 Wis. 2d vii (1975); 1987 a. 403.
885.41 Note Judicial Council Committee's Note, 1975: The definition of videotaping recognizes that videotaping can be used for visual purposes with no audio recording present. The definition of operator recognizes that an operator of videotape equipment could be the same individual before whom depositions can presently be taken as authorized by s. 804.03. [Re Order effective Jan. 1, 1976]
885.42 885.42 When available.
885.42(1)(1) Depositions. Any deposition may be recorded by audiovisual videotape without a stenographic transcript. Any party to the action may arrange at the party's expense to have a simultaneous stenographic record made. Except as provided by ss. 885.40 to 885.47, ch. 804 governing the practice and procedure in depositions and discovery shall apply.
885.42(2) (2) Other evidence. Such other evidence as is appropriate may be recorded by videotape and be presented at a trial. The court may direct a party or the court reporter to prepare a transcript of an audio or audiovisual recording presented under this subsection in accordance with SCR 71.01 (2) (e).
885.42(3) (3) Entire trial testimony and evidence. All trial proceedings, including evidence in its entirety, may be presented at a trial by videotape upon the approval of all parties and the trial judge. In determining whether to approve a videotape trial, the trial judge, after consultation with counsel, shall consider the cost involved, the nature of the action, and the nature and amount of testimony. The trial judge shall fix a date prior to the date of trial when all recorded testimony must be filed with the clerk of court.
885.42(4) (4) Trial record. At trial, videotape depositions shall be reported unless accompanied with a certified transcript submitted in accordance with SCR 71.01 (2) (d).
885.42 History History: Sup. Ct. Order, 67 Wis. 2d 585, xii (1975); 1975 c. 218; 1987 a. 403; Sup. Ct. Order No. 10-06, 2010 WI 128, 329 Wis. 2d xxvii.
885.42 Note Judicial Council Committee's Note, 1975: Sub. (1). The definition of depositions is meant to include adverse examinations prior to trial.
885.42 Annotation Sub. (2). This subsection anticipates that certain other evidence, such as the scene of an accident or the lifestyle of an accident victim, may be presented at trial by means of videotape. This provision would also allow the majority of a trial to be conducted by means of videotape.
885.42 Annotation Sub. (3). This subsection would authorize an entire videotape trial in Wisconsin. Such a trial could only occur upon the approval of all parties and the presiding judge. Appropriate safeguards are included to ensure that this provision would be used only when clearly appropriate. Procedure for a videotape trial is subject to agreement among the parties and the court.
885.42 Annotation Sub. (4). This subsection establishes that matters presented by videotape at trial are made a part of the trial record in anticipation of a possible appeal. [Re Order effective Jan. 1, 1976]
885.43 885.43 Notice of videotape deposition. Every notice for the taking of a videotape deposition and subpoena for attendance at such deposition shall state that the deposition is to be visually recorded and preserved pursuant to the provisions of ss. 885.44 and 885.46.
885.43 History History: Sup. Ct. Order, 67 Wis. 2d 585, xii (1975); Sup. Ct. Order, 141 Wis. 2d xxv. (1987)
885.43 Note Judicial Council Committee's Note, 1975: This provision recognizes that there should be adequate notice that a deposition by videotape is to be taken. The section requires that the notice make reference to the provisions on filing and preserving of videotape depositions. [Re Order effective Jan. 1, 1976]
885.43 Note Judicial Council Note, 1988. Videotape depositions are no longer required to be filed in court. [Re Order effective Jan. 1, 1988]
885.44 885.44 Videotape deposition procedure.
885.44(1)(1) Official. Videotape depositions may be taken by persons authorized by s. 804.03.
885.44(2) (2) Required information. The deposition shall begin by the operator stating on camera:
885.44(2)(a) (a) The operator's name and business address;
885.44(2)(b) (b) The name and business address of the operator's employer;
885.44(2)(c) (c) The date, time and place of the deposition;
885.44(2)(d) (d) The caption of the case;
885.44(2)(e) (e) The name of the witness; and
885.44(2)(f) (f) The party on whose behalf the deposition is being taken. Counsel shall identify themselves on camera. The person before whom the deposition is taken shall then identify himself or herself and swear or affirm the witness on camera. At the conclusion of the deposition the operator shall state on camera that the deposition is concluded. When the length of the deposition requires the use of more than one tape, the end of each tape and the beginning of each succeeding tape shall be announced on camera by the operator.
885.44(3) (3) Camera. More than one camera may be used, either in sequence or simultaneously.
885.44(4) (4) Timing of deposition. The deposition shall be timed by a date-time generator which shall show continually each hour, minute and second of each tape of the deposition.
/statutes/statutes/885 true statutes /statutes/statutes/885/I/38/3/d Chs. 885-895, Provisions Common to Actions and Provisions Common to Actions and Proceedings in All Courts statutes/885.38(3)(d) statutes/885.38(3)(d) section true
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Avoiding Defeatism on Climate Change
Kevin Drum sounds a little bit down in the mouth:
If you were teaching a graduate seminar in public policy and challenged your students to come up with the most difficult possible problem to solve, they'd come up with something very much like climate change. It's slow-acting. It's essentially invisible. It's expensive to address. It has a huge number of very rich special interests arrayed against doing anything about it. It requires international action that pits rich countries against poor ones. And it has a lot of momentum: you have to take action now, before its effects are serious, because today's greenhouse gases will cause climate change tomorrow no matter what we do in thirty years.
I have to confess that I find myself feeling the same way Andy does more and more often these days. It's really hard to envision any way that we're going to seriously cut back on greenhouse gas emissions until the effects of climate change become obvious, and by then it will be too late. I recognize how defeatist this is, and perhaps the proliferation of extreme weather events like Sandy will help turn the tide. But it hasn't so far, and given the unlikelihood of large-scale global action on climate change, adaptation seems more appealing all the time. For the same reason, so does continued research into geoengineering as a last-resort backup plan.
I don't think this is really quite the right way of thinking about the problem with it's all-or-nothing, either-or quality. I'd like to suggest some other ways of framing the issue that are helpful to me in staying motivated to take action. As a starting point, let's look at a few emissions scenarios and temperature projections:
These aren't the latest and greatest, but the exact details don't matter to understand the overall shape of the problem. The charts run from 1900 to 2100 - so the present is roughly in the middle. At the top are three paths for CO2 - growing from its pre-industrial value of about 280ppm through values up over 800ppm in the case of the A2 scenario, and stabilizing in the mid 500s by century end in the case of B1. Note that we are currently up to about 394ppm (seasonally adjusted) and still climbing fast.
You can imagine better scenarios, but bear with me a minute. The three scenarios above at least represent a huge range in how well humanity responds to the problem. If you now look at the resulting temperature projections in the lower panel, two things become evident: 1) there's almost no difference at all in the temperature path in the next few decades based on emissions trajectory, and 2) by century end, it makes a really big difference in the total temperature change.
So, firstly, it seems to me that we have no choice at all but to do quite a bit of adaptation. There's already been enough climate change to make a noticeable difference in the weather - bigger, nastier heat-waves and droughts, more precipitation extremes, etc. Given that we've got a bit less than a degree Celsius of temperature rise so far, we can be confident we are going to get at least another degree pretty much regardless of what we do. There seems very little doubt that that's going to be enough to finish melting the north pole in summer, cause some pretty profound changes in northern hemisphere weather, greatly increase droughts and downpours, etc. Sea level is going to rise, and the rate of rise is going to accelerate.
So, coastal communities all over the world are going to have to look at what happened to New Orleans a few years back, or what just happened to Manhattan, and realize that the odds of those kinds of events are just going to get higher and higher as we steadily add more and more inches to the sea level and more degrees to the ocean surface temperature with the passing decades. No responsible community can afford not to plan for that and put in place the levees and sea walls and pumps and plans that are implied.
Similarly, farmers and agricultural suppliers and financiers are going to have to adapt to a world in which the weather is wilder and thus crop yields in any given location are less certain and more work needs to be done to bring forth the necessary total harvest to feed the world's growing population. Some places are going to have to be abandoned, and others are going to have to be opened up to agriculture.
At the same time, it's also very important to recognize that an end-of-the-century state of 2oC-and-stabilizing is going to be a completely different thing than 4oC-and-accelerating. The former is going to be bad, but the latter is going to be well on the way to hell:
Number of days annually over 100oF in the recent past, and under high emissions in 2080-2099 according to p90 of Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States
So to say "we must adapt to some climate change" is not at all to imply "so we might as well give up the struggle". There are still huge differences between the end states that are realistically available to us as a society.
It can be discouraging to think, "political change is infeasible right now and anyway will take decades to make much difference". While it's true that comprehensive political change is infeasible right now (at least in the US) I argue that it's unlikely to stay true. People may not be as quick as we'd like to respond to serious threats, but I don't have so little faith in humanity as to think that they are capable of almost literally turning the planet into something closely approximating hell in the summer. By the point - which is coming sometime this century - when we are having massive scorching droughts left and right and food prices are seriously volatile and keeping the body politic from rioting is a major pre-occupation - I'm confident that climate denial will be over and we'll be making all serious efforts to control our carbon emissions and first stabilize the CO2 concentration and then actually lower it.
So I don't really have any doubt that we are eventually going to rein in our fossil fuel use. The question is about when, not if.
Look at the problem from the other end: what is it going to take to get society to carbon neutral, whenever we finally achieve it? Well, in a way it's very simple: there are going to be a few billion households, and a few billion vehicles, and a few hundred million companies and organizations, and each one is individually going to have to be rendered carbon neutral. So there's a whole bunch of mostly rather boring infrastructure projects that have to be undertaken at the level of individual households and institutions to make this happen. At the level of the individual household it's about:
energy audits, insulation, limiting air infiltration, efficient windows.
buying commercial renewable power.
installing solar panels, or wind where applicable.
replacing fossil fuel powered heating systems and water heaters with minsplit or geothermal heat pumps.
At the individual transportation level it's about
buying and using an electric vehicle, or a hybrid/plugin as an intermediate step, and/or
locating in a place where it's possible to walk/bike/public transport instead of driving
At the level of businesses it's about
buying commercial renewable power
installing solar, etc, where applicable
making facilities as energy-efficient as possible
transitioning towards use of biofuels where there's really no alternative to liquid fuels
transitioning towards use of vido-conferencing to limit use of air travel.
At the level of utilities it's going to be about building a global grid to average out the volatility of renewable energy sources.
Some of these things will be greatly benefitted by technological improvements (eg I think there's a lot of room to make video-conferencing cheaper/better and we clearly need to drive down the cost of electric cars and continue to lower the cost of solar/wind). Better batteries and better utility storage options will be very helpful. There's an awful lot for inventors and entrepreneurs to be getting busy on.
However, there's also an awful lot of low hanging fruit that is perfectly possible to do today.
For example, it's entirely possible for a sufficiently motivated homeowner with decent credit to become carbon neutral today along the above lines. It doesn't even have to cost that much - almost all the upfront costs can be financed via the cashflow savings in future fuel use. There are a bunch of people who've done it already. There are more of us (including me) who are in the middle of the process. You, the reader, could be one of them if you so choose.
And this leads into my final point on motivation. As individuals, we don't have any control over how long society as a whole will take to transition to carbon neutrality. What we do have control over is our personal moral culpability for the situation. I believe that we'll all be carbon neutral in the end, but we have the choice to be early adopters or late adopters: leaders, followers, or those finally dragged in by the police, kicking and screaming. This is true at the level of households, and it's doubly true for business and organization leaders who have the potential to make decisions that influence far more carbon emissions.
And of course, for public intellectuals like Kevin, there is a tremendous amount of work to be done to lower the barrier to public action. There are scientific papers and studies to be read and explained to the public, bad journalism to be authoritatively contradicted, action measures to be evaluated and promoted, green businesses to be invested in, laws and regulations to be commented on, pseudo-scandals to be denounced, coal plants to be opposed. It's true that there isn't going to be some big sweeping cap-and-trade plan in the US this year or next. But that doesn't mean that there aren't hundreds of lesser measures that help or hinder - feed-in tariffs, on-bill recovery financing, fuel economy standards, renewable portfolio standards, blocking approvals for coal export terminals or tar-sands pipelines, the wind farm down the road.
There's plenty of work to be done. And to the extent that we can succeed in lowering the costs and increasing the penetration of alternatives, and in raising the costs of fossil fuels, we move forward the day when more comprehensive legislation is possible. Again, make no error, since climate change is real and is very serious, that day is coming regardless. But human choices can make it sooner or make it later, and we each are responsible for what we choose to do to that end. We have no choice but to spend the rest of our lives in a warming climate. We do individually have a choice how much we do about that fact. And, collectively, we still have a choice about how much the climate will warm.
Labels: carbon emissions, climate change, green building
Bluwulvz said...
In a near topic: Im in south NJ right now outside of Philadelphia. Populations, esp less wealthy ones, are feeling hopeless right now.
They are afraid, have no electric, No ATMs, little left in food stamp debt cards, and water may not be drinkable in places. No one has any idea how much "news" these people are getting with regard to where help is coming from, where help is, and how to get it. Im gunna go in the more desperate parts of the city to try and pass the word and inform people that The navy is sending ships, w/ with helicopters.
They may not be stopping in Camden, but the point is, they will hear them above, and know help *IS* coming. RIght now, who knows what they are thinking?
Populations of NYC, A.C. N.J., Camden N.J. are under stress. Something that I call an "Unrest window" as population come out of the shock of the event, and become aware of the situation.
I figure you get about 20hrs of calm, before learn/grasp the scale and timelines they are up against. Then, the next =120hrs after that are kinda vital for keeping order.
I suspect the "mass social stress" will peak and start to decline around the 2nd of Nov as people become aware of repair/recovery timelines. And as Gov assistance Fod stamps/ect start to be deposited and ATMs and stores open to get food/water ect.
But *ALL* of NJ rail is down, w/ no ETA on recovery.
"NJ TRANSIT’s Rail Operations Center—the central nervous system of the railroad—is engulfed in water, which has damaged backup power supply systems, the emergency generator, and the computer system that controls the movement of trains and power supply"
The ONLY buses running in NJ right now are in the city of Camden. I spent the days leading up to the storm walking Camden's streets and riding buses talking to people (mostly homeless) about the storm, and few seemed aware at all it was coming or that power could even go out. Pure speculation on my part, but, I cant help but think that someone is nervous about Camden, and got the buses up and running there before ANYWHERE else, in effort to help people who wish to get out, get out. Off hand, and a total guess: 90%? of places buses go are closed. So, I dont know how else this gets explained, other then to help people get out a stressed out high crime, low income, urban area with little food, less money and no electric. I kept asking people I talked to if they had any water stored up, few did. I suspect this was equal in parts: due to a lack of resiliency and lack of awareness of the scale of threat that hit us.
Not sure if your aware but our food banks were near empty before the storm hit.
Google: "shortage food banks". Its happening across the U.S.
Some of the 2008 "stimulus" went to buy food as markets crashed in 2009, that then went to food banks. The money spent, the food given, demand still there.
I think we all need a greater focus on the complex nature of our modern urban area's with a focus on those most in need. I have relatives who spent the days leading up to this crisis, watching "talent shows", rather then plan ways and means to help one another after we got hit. Its not from them being thoughtless people.
No one told them, that would be a smart thing to do, and a good way to help. They didn't know what else to do, besides live as they have. Now when anyone mentions the scale of stress populations are under, and the risks of that, (never mind the economic damage done) they "turtle". They just hide inside, and don't wanna hear it.
I love this blog. And I respect all that your doing. But might I offer some words that we also need a more bottem up awareness as to CIKA (critical infrastructure/key assets) so that when these events happen, we ALL know the "choke points" in the logistics chain that WE can fix, or at least clear the roads so that others can fix faster, to help the people miles down the road recover faster as well.
Thanks for enduring my rant.
Kindest regards.
Getting started on adaptation in coastal areas will probably build the local consensus required for larger regional, national and international change.
As Andrew Cuomo put it ( http://tinyurl.com/b35zs75 )
“I’m hopeful that not only will we rebuild this city and metropolitan area but use this as an opportunity to build it back smarter. There have been a series of extreme weather events. That is not a political statement; that is a factual statement. Anyone who says there is not a change in weather patterns is denying reality,” said Cuomo. “We have a new reality when it comes to these weather patterns; we have an old infrastructure, we have old systems. That is not a good combination and that is one of the lessons I will take from this, personally."
Lars-Eric Bjerke said...
Thanks for a post full of hope. It is easy to lose it hearing Mitt Romney saying “We don’t know fore sure if man is causing climate change so we won’t do anything about it, but rather increase oil, gas and coal production.” A little bit of hope can also be found in Kjell Alekletts Peeking at Peak Oil where on page 252 he states that scenarios families A1 and A2, which you show in IPCC´s diagrams, are not possible from a resource point of view. IPCC´s SRES, Special Report on Emission Scenarios), have according to Aleklett not considered resource limitations in their 40 scenarios. On the other hand, the uncertainty of the climate sensitivity for carbon dioxide is so great that high temperature increases might be possible any way.
fred flinstone said...
Why should I believe these long term climate models? Did they predict the stunning loss of summer Arctic ice,
or the large summer high pressure area over Greenland which has the potential to steer North Atlantic hurricanes West instead of East?
I'm a little pessimistic, because the problem is primarily social, and we are far too stupidly conservative about that sort of change (our town recently passed an ordinance regulating the form and placement of solar energy systems; there is an entire industry that will lose most of its value if it is forced to leave the carbon it owns underground).
So, for example, suppose we want some form of transportation that will handle the 80% case for commuting (so not the longest commutes, not the largest carpools, not the heaviest loads -- but the common case) while consuming 98% less energy. Science fiction? No, it's a solved problem, electric velomobiles.
But do I expect to see people using these things any time soon? No way in hell. Not only do we have the safety tragedy of the roadway commons (wear a ton or more of metal armor, because everyone else is wearing a ton or more of metal armor and they might hurt me), it's DIFFERENT, and if we excel at anything, it is coming up with rationalizations for why we cannot possibly change.
So I am pessimistic. People will hold out for the unlikely silver bullet (for example, the e-car, as large as the car that I drive now, that charges in 10 minutes, and has a 500 mile range and am 85mph top speed) rather than what matches their demonstrated daily habits (5-15 miles back and forth to work, single occupancy vehicle, carrying at most 50 pounds of stuff).
There's also the advocate's paradox; if an advocate doesn't actually do the thing that they propose (in fact, I do not own one of these velomobiles) then clearly they don't believe what they're saying; but if they DO practice what they preach, they must be some sort of unrepresentative weirdo. And speaking as a sometime advocate, sometimes you get a little tired of working not to scare the easily frightened.
Stephen B. said...
Boston TV meteorologist Pete Bouchard followed up on his earlier comments (reposted here yesterday by yours truly) with something I think is noteworthy, if I may quote at length:
As the details and images of Sandy's destructive power continue to swirl in the media, it appears a campaign has surfaced - via email and even open-air protests - to force the discussion of climate change into the public eye. While I've never been a fan of strong-arming someone into believing what I believe, this does seem like a good time to bring the subject back into discussion.
Credible arguments don't (or shouldn't) suggest that climate change had a direct hand in forming Sandy, but perhaps the conditions in the Atlantic were favorable for her to maintain her strength and perhaps even be steered in our direction. Sea surface temperatures are running 3 degrees above normal off the Eastern Seaboard. The overwhelming size of the Greenland Block is a direct result of unprecedented glacial/permafrost melt in the last decade. Both of those factors contributed to her size, strength and ultimate path into the Northeast.
Bottom line in all this: the extremes we have seen and their overall frequency across the globe cannot be explained by normal climate variation. Coupled with the loss of ice and warming arctic, the evidence is overwhelming.
Now full disclosure: I am on the American Meteorological Society's (AMS) Committee to Improve Climate Change Communication (CICCC). The committee's main goal is just as its title states, to bring opposing sides together for healthy discourse and RE[S]PECTFUL dialogue. A recent study of our peers (http://blog.ametsoc.org/columnists/ams-members-surveyed-on-climate-change/) shows that attitudes are changing about climate change. Too many times, I have been to weather conferences where open debate turns to personal insult. I hope this committee will help to change that. And while I am by no means an expert on climate change, I also hope to learn more and honestly reflect the views of those working in the field (doing ice core samples in very inhospitable environments) and the AMS.
Read more: http://www1.whdh.com/weather/blog/posts/BO149066/#ixzz2Aw2AOhQL
So Pete basically says what we've been saying,
1.) rapid and extensive Arctic ice melt is believed to be strengthening the Greenland high and "block"
2.) East Coast Atlantic sea surface temperatures are currently about 3 degrees above normal
3.) Numbers 1 and 2 may have contributed to Sandy's destructive power.
I also find his increased urgency to speak out as a professional meteorologist on this issue, all while admitting pressure to remain silent, to be somewhat indicative of a small, but detectable change in society's perception and acceptance of anthropomorphic climate forcing in the literal wake of Hurricane Sandy.
I'm beginning to think that the tipping point of public acceptance of said anthropomorphic climate forcing might not be as far away as many might have thought.
yvesT said...
At the level of a nation, and in a pure survival selfish sense with respect to resource constraints aspects, it would be about putting serious volume based taxes on fossile fuels (and lowering taxes on work in parallel for instance).
But that today and especially in the US, it is totally impossible to talk about realistic policies, apart from never ending talks about "solutions", appears indeed to be the case.
Alexander Ac said...
OT, but relevant to climate change:
Nature magazine: End of DESERTEC?
barath said...
I think one of the issues has been that the policy discussion surrounding climate change has been stuck in a rut, with two and only two options discussed incessantly: a carbon tax and cap and trade. Neither has a chance of passing in the U.S. in the near-term due to its structure.
I hope Kevin Drum (and the few on the other end of the political spectrum who care about climate action) will explore and discuss other policies such as the Clean Energy Dividend (originally proposed by Hansen, reframed by Dan Miller). While it too has some issues, it has the benefit of being 1) simple and 2) something that can be sold to the public.
With respect I do not think you understand the problem. Suggest you study the work of Timothy Garrett. He shows that the only thing that will prevent disastrous climate change is a crash of the global economy. The physics and math show there is no alternative.
http://www.inscc.utah.edu/~tgarrett/Economics/Economics.html
Rob:
I glanced at the page you reference but it doesn't seem interesting. I find the assumption that accumulated wealth must be proportional to current energy use implausible and unmotivated as a fundamental law. I assume the observed regularity in recent decades is an accident of other things canceling.
What we know for sure is that wealth production per unit energy is improving and I see no reason that wealth production per unit carbon emissions cannot improve much faster in future if/when we can scale renewables to a more material fraction of global energy use.
barath:
I'm of the view that it's better to focus at this early stage on subsidizing renewables rather than charging carbon producers for their externalities. Either approach can be used to even up the odds but the former is a lot less economically damaging and therefore a lot easier politically. Major carbon taxation can come later after alternatives have scaled much further. (Not to say I'm not supportive of activism to try to prevent individual coal/etc projects - I am).
Lars-Eric: I've never found that line of reasoning at all plausible. The total resource of not-great-but-ultimately-usable crustal carbon is undoubtedly massive: coal (including so-so seams and the unbelievable quantities underwater eg in the north sea), tar sands, Orinoco, etc.
I see no reason for your belief that we're at an "early stage".
Your models as I mentioned above were off by decades about the timing of the loss of Arctic ice. They also don't tell us anything about how much methane release to expect from permafrost and hydrates under the sea. It may be a lot later than you think.
This of course affects the politics of climate change, since it's going to be impossible to persuade Americans to make costly changes without some evidence that the climate will be stabilized as result. This is an elephant in the room that climate scientist don't like to talk about.
And we also need to convince the Chinese, Brazilians, Indians, etc. without whose cooperation any efforts that the U.S. makes will be wasted. This is unlikely under any circumstances, even if we did have good models. Poor countries are unlikely to agree to anything which might slow their growth (or at most make token changes to shut us up), since rich countries have already added so much carbon (and other pollutants) to the atmosphere.
You want to "avoid defeatism"?
Well, I want to deal with reality.
I don't see a movement towards "electric velomobiles" (as a previous poster suggested). What I do see when I look around is Deepwater Horizon, Fukushima, hydraulic fracking, and tar sands. Our civilization is doubling down on the bet we made after World War 2, collateral damage to the planet be damned.
clifman said...
accumulated wealth must be proportional to current energy use implausible and unmotivated as a fundamental law. I assume the observed regularity in recent decades is an accident of other things canceling.
What we know for sure is that wealth production per unit energy is improving and I see no reason that wealth production per unit carbon emissions cannot improve much faster in future
Regarding this line of thinking, I think you should touch base with your former TOD colleague Nate Hagens on what 'wealth' really is...
And more specifically on climate, I think we've already buggered the system such that methane releases from the Arctic, continental shelves and permafrost are going to overwhelm any token effort human society might make to curb CO2 emissions. Hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.
On your two last answers to barath and Lars-Eric, you clearly have it wrong on both counts for me.
1) IPCC scenarios are more or less based on demand growth evaluation or IEA scenarios at best for inputs, so clearly unrealistic (which doesn't mean realistic input scenarios wouldn't be also serious for climate aspects, or that reality will end up in massive deforestation or things like that)
2) Volume based taxes on fossile considering the starting point are clearly the best policies these days considering the starting point, if managing the turn is at all possible.
And one could remove taxes on work in parallel.
(plus I don't see why relating these taxes to "externalities", we know they are there, you don't do it for renewables, it is just a matteer of how hard one in willing to push in accelerating transformation).
It also of course doesn't mean that some redistribution doesn't occur through other mechanism.
@fred flinstone - I'm the velomobile-proposing guy, and I'm not sure how you read "But do I expect to see people using these things any time soon? No way in hell" to be optimism.
We have a social and a marketing problem. We could substantially downscale our energy consumption with little actual sacrifice, but convincing naturally people that this is the case (especially with the organized and well-funded opposition of the carbon industry) is a brutally hard problem. In some sense I don't worry about China and India, because I know that serious action by us is a *necessary* condition to get them to move. It may be not *sufficient*, but it is necessary. If we demand that they take the first move, there will be no first move.
Nearest Precedent for Hurricane Sandy
Thursday Links
US Oil and Gas Rig Split
Tuesday Links
IPO Market Continues Strong
Iranian Latest
US Oil Rig Boom Leveling Off?
US Distillate Situation and Arctic Sea Ice
Current IMF Growth Forecasts
Where People Walk to Work
September Oil Supply
So Far, So Good: The Global Carbon Sink in 2011
Partisanship on the Environment
Agricultural Area in Developed Countries
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ENOC Group inaugurates new service station in Fujairah
/ News & Interviews / Wednesday, 10 July 2019 08:57
ENOC Group has opened a new service station in Fujairah in line with its plans to expand its network to 191 stations in the UAE by end-2020. The Al Faseel service station will be ENOC’s ninth station in Fujairah since the first station in the emirate in 1989.
The station caters to a large community in Al Faseel that spans an area from Hilton Fujairah hotel in the south, running inland along the length of Fujairah Beach to the Fujairah City suburb in the west all the way to Al Shara Hospital at the other end.
The new 4,800 m² service station is equipped with six dispensers with a multimedia option and a fuel system designed to cater to a maximum flow rate as per the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) safety standards. To factor in the waiting time inside the station, dispensers are built with retractable hoses to enable refuelling cars from both sides.
The station is also equipped with the Vapour Recovery Systems (VRS) to prevent and control emissions, full LED lights installed at the site to reduce energy consumption by 50 per cent and a VRF technology system for the air conditioning (AC) system, which saves 35 per cent energy as compared to conventional package AC systems.
The growing Al Faseel community also stands to benefit from other provisions at the site including Popeyes, Paavo’s Pizza, a drive-thru Starbucks and a 24-hour ZOOM convenience store where you can pay utility and credit card bills, top up for Salik and telecoms, and pay for FlyDubai bookings.
Vapour Recovery Systems
ENOC Group CEO receives honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University
Dragon Oil to acquire BP’s Egyptian oil assets
ENOC embarks on digitalization journey with newly signed partnership
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Who is Prince Khalid bin Salman? A War Criminal, Killing the Yemeni People
We say to Prince Khalid Bin Salman, Deputy Minister of Defense of the State of Aggression against Yemen, you are a war criminal. You have no right to speak about security, stability and you must be brought to the International Criminal Court for the killing of thousands of children in Yemen, targeting citizens property and closure of Sana'a International Airport. For 40 years, the Saudi regime is tampering with the security of the region, killing, spreading chaos and destruction, sponsoring terrorism and financing terrorists, including al-Qaeda, Wahhabis, Gulf wars, Afghanistan war and aggression against Yemen.
For 50 years, Saudi regime is practicing terrorism against Yemen, exporting Wahhabi ideology to the world, which threatens global security and stability. You - Prince Khalid- are a partner in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. You have given the Saudi journalist sons "millions of dollars" in Saudi Arabia and "tens of thousands as monthly salaries" in compensation for their father's death.
American media revealed that you and the Crown Prince adviser Saud Al-Qahtani's had been leading Khashoggi for almost a year in order to persuade him to return voluntarily to Saudi Arabia. Prince Khalid bin Salman is a war criminal, a killer of Yemeni children. He is an ignorant in the political, social and historical sciences.
Prince Khalid bin Salman is the ninth son of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz. He was Born in Riyadh in 1988. He received a bachelor's degree in aviation science from King Faisal College. He suspended the master's studies of security when he had various tasks that were assigned to him at the time. He began his aviation career on the T-6 Tixan and T38 planes at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi and then worked as a pilot on the F-15 fighter jet, along with his appointment as an intelligence officer.
He received extensive training in the US Army in the United States and Saudi Arabia and was honored for the tasks he carried out within the framework of the international coalition against the so-called "Islamic State" organization in Syria as well as his duties in the Saudi aggression on Yemen. He was injured in the back during training, forcing him to stop flying. Then he served as an officer in the Defense Ministry, after he had completed his military service, he became an advisor to the Saudi Ministry of Defense.
In 2016, Khalid Bin Salman worked as an advisor at the Saudi Embassy to the United States, and after that he was the Ambassador. After the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, he became Deputy Minister of Defense of Saudi Arabia. He has fled from America in fear of arrest in the killing of Khashoggi, in addition to his participation in the aggression against Yemen. Prince Khalid bin Salman is a war criminal who is one of the war criminals on Yemen. He is one of the most wanted criminals in the International Criminal Court. He has a black history in the war and aggression against Yemen.
#Yemen #Saudi #Khalid_Bin_Salman
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Richard E. Geis
(July 19, 1927 — February 4, 2013)
Fan and writer from Portland, Oregon who is probably best known for his Hugo-nominated fan writing and multiple-Hugo-nominated-and-winning fanzines, Psychotic, Science Fiction Review, The Alien Critic, and Richard E. Geis. In the late 70s, he wrote The Alien Viewpoint essay column for Galaxy.
Geis published some of the most interesting and controversial fanzines from the 1950's to the 1980s but he did not publish continuously. He had a long absence due to his professional, mostly pornographic, writing career. His fanzine publishing is also a biblographer's nightmare.
Psychotic was a highly regarded fannish fanzine for 20 issues (1953-1955), then he changed it to a sercon title, Science Fiction Review for the last issue, #21. When he resurfaced with Psychotic in 1967, he continued the numbering from the last issue of Psychotic (#21). With #28 a year later, he again changed the title to Science Fiction Review until #43 in 1971. He then started a new fanzine Richard E. Geis in 1972 and for three issues then changed the title to The Alien Critic in 1973 and published it to issue #11. With #12 (1975), he changed the title to, of course, Science Fiction Review. He kept this title and numbering into the mid-1980s. Just to keep things interesting, he also published another fanzine titled Richard E. Geis -- A Personal Journal as a perzine. He was a member of The Cult.
Throughout all this period, Geis' fanzines were full of highly opinionated, inciteful, argumentative and entertaining material. From 1967, for nearly 20 years, Psychotic and Science Fiction Review et al were focal point fanzines. Major authors and fans were regular contributors or wrote major letters of comment. The zines were filled with controversial views and reviews. Some often resulting in highly emotional feuds. Perhaps the most memorable aspect of the zine were its editorials. Geis kept his "psychotic" personality in these by making them conversations (sometimes even arguments) between himself and his "Alter Ego" personality.
In 1980, he wrote and published a one-shot, Star Whores, a mimeographed pornographic science fiction novel. As of 2005, Geis said he had published 114 books, "110 of them soft-core porn". A few are SF.
Awards, Honors and GoHships:
He was nominated for Best Fan Writer from 1970-1986 missing only 1972 and won in 1971, 1975, 1976, 1977 (tied with Susan Wood), 1978, 1982 and 1983.
His publications were nominated for the Hugo Award for every year they were eligible in 1956 and from 1968-1987. Psychotic was nominated for the 1968 Best Fanzine Hugo. Science Fiction Review was nominated for the Best Fanzine Hugo in 1969-1971. The Alien Critic won the Best Fanzine Hugo in 1974 (in a tie with Algol) and in 1975. Science Fiction Review was again nominated from 1976-1983, winning in 1977 and 1979. When the Best Semiprozine Hugo was created SFR was nominated for it from 1984-1987.
In all, he received a astonishing total of 30 Hugo nominations and 8 Hugos.
He was honored with a LASFS Fanquet in 1960, and it is rumored that he has turned down numerous invitations to be Fan Guest of Honor at conventions. (He was quite a recluse and even when he was most fannishly active, he did not attend local club meeting or conventions.) He was GoH at Orycon 1.
fanpro
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2015: The Year Student Activism Mattered (Again)
Activism | By Sarah Seltzer | December 10, 2015
When I was in college, ricocheting between the poles of activism, journalism, and boozy apathy, students were furious at the school for the following reasons: crappy dining hall food; inadequate wages for janitors and food-service staff; sexist statements from our university president; the treatment of students with mental health problems; insufficient diversity in faculty and curriculum; unclear campus rape policies; lack of a women’s center; lack of a campus pub; the disproportionate social power wielded by male-only social clubs; a prominent faculty position being called “house master”; the honoring of famous bigots, racists, and anti-Semites via building names and wall portraits; and of course, the fact that The Verve Pipe headlined our Spring Fling.
The list went on, the profound juxtaposed with the mundane — and this was during a fairly “inactive” time on campus. Our major labor action movement had ended a victorious campaign and was now waning, massive anti-war protests had been futile, and our sexist president was immensely popular among students (though reviled by faculty). Yet all around me, students were pissed off. That feeling of impotence, rage, and a general awakening to the unfairness of the world was channeled in both selfish and selfless directions, for projects both wise and foolish, but it was ubiquitous. The experience echoes more faintly now after more than a decade of striving to make rent, but I clearly remember seeing that intensity on my fellow students’ faces, feeling it in the air, and in myself.
Students were angry then, and they are angry now, but today there’s a difference — and it’s not primarily that students today are coddled or wimpy. What’s changed is the pitch and breadth of the anger, the impact it’s having on campuses across the country, and the fact that, this year, the student activist movement had the mainstream media’s ear, and tugged on it.
In 2015, for the first time in at least a decade, campus activism became a major part of the national conversation. This ascendancy wasn’t just for one reason, or due to the dominance of one cause. The year was marked by major stories about protests against campus rape policy, most visibly recent Columbia graduate Emma Sulkowicz’s anti-rape “mattress protest,” performance art which spawned similar demonstrations nationwide. At the same time, the documentary The Hunting Ground made it clear that campus rape is widespread. Arguments about “triggering” materials and discussions in the classroom and “safe spaces” on several campuses preoccupied punditry. And an autumn wave of sit-ins, strikes, and demonstrations around racism on campuses like Yale and the University of Missouri (“Mizzou”) had a tremendously swift effect — after, in some cases, years of institutions shrugging about unchecked racism.
More often than expected, these protests extracted concessions from university administrations. New rape policies were codified, resignations and staff reshuffling ensued, age-old policies like using the phrase “house master” at Harvard and Princeton evaporated with hardly a fight. Schools are funneling funds into diversity. On curricular issues like trigger warnings, very few (if any) concrete changes were enforced, leaving academic control to faculty. That was good — and many conscientious professors took advantage of the opportunity to reconsider how they would handle potentially traumatized students in their classrooms, which was even better.
Now, as 2015 comes to an end, college administrators are telling students of color, “We hear you,” and the media is paying close attention. Many of 2015’s campus activism efforts would have been considered a joke back in 2005 – including at my own alma mater, where single-sex social clubs are now on the defensive, “house master” is a phrase of the past, grad schools are embracing initiatives to combat racism, and thoughtful articles about sex and consent pepper the student paper. For my part, every impulse towards skepticism I had this year was tempered by witnessing these changes that felt unthinkable a decade ago.
But the media narrative rarely focused on that positive change. Forced to pay attention to the youngsters for once, writers were quick to be dismissive, labeling today’s activist cohort a group of mollycoddled kids, addicted to being victims. Maybe it was too tempting to mock certain moments that reeked of Ivory Tower naivety: demands that Ovid be stricken from the curriculum, bizarre investigations against professors for writing provocative op-eds, or the use of the ubiquitous phrase “safe space” — including as a way to block media coverage.
This sort of excessiven zeal is nothing novel, though. In Maggie Nelson’s brilliant 2015 memoir, The Argonauts, she relays a years-old anecdote in which a group of women’s studies students take over a class from their popular professor whom they don’t deem militantly lesbian enough, and humiliate her. That tiny, almost throwaway part of the book stuck with me all year, because it provided an “it has ever been thus” epiphany. Colleges, like all institutions, foster power struggles. When students discover their collective power, much good and some ridiculousness can ensue.
Yet decrying “kids these days” is an easy position to take from the vantage point of even a few years out of college. What’s more complicated is to really consider the predicament of students, which is a strange one — but one that has always been particularly conducive to forging a protest movement. To be a residential college student in America, in many cases, is to be simultaneously privileged and disenfranchised. Students are placed in an environment that seems like a cocoon, away from parental authority as well as many demands of “adult life,” with freedom of movement and inquiry.
But it’s not actually insulated. In fact, Internet-savvy students surely understand that when they step out of whatever hallowed gates they step out of, the world will be far from “safe.” They are saddled with soaring tuition bills and often unmanageable debt, and when oppression inevitably arises within that would-be cocoon, whether it’s an assault, or racial harassment, or an unfair situation in class, it becomes a trap. There’s very little recourse, very little chance for escape. If the administration won’t listen to your concerns, where else can you turn? That’s why calls to fire administrators, which may seem extreme to onlookers, are so common: they arise from a sense of powerlessness.
So, when homophobic or racist incidents seep into dorms, when serial sexual harassers can still sit next to their victims in class, and so forth, the furor that inspires may feel disproportionate to those of us who don’t remember what those intense four years are like. Yet by demanding “safer” campuses, activists are counterintuitively rejecting the idea that campuses are a world apart. Instead, they’re reminding us that they’re part of a broader moment.
In fact, campus activists are in dialogue with the broader Black Lives Matter and feminist movements, and with the Internet’s endless noise amplifier, making their ivy-walled quadrangles seem more a part of the fabric of our country than they have ever been before – and hardly the insulated bubble that the media likes to describe. That fabric includes the worst elements of this country, like patriarchy and particularly white supremacy. “I have spent most of my adult life on college campuses in one role or another, as both student and instructor; regardless of campus, the racial climates were always tense, at best,” wrote Roxane Gay. “I am not surprised by what is happening at Yale. I am not surprised by the Mizzou protesters, or by the fervor of their commitment.”
Students’ actions make quite a bit sense in that context. In college, as Wesleyan President Michael Roth noted in a recent op-ed, students get an up-close look at how outside forces affect their lives and will keep affecting them forever: “On many campuses, students from different social classes live in close proximity with one another. Given the tendencies toward economic segregation in this country, they may not have had this experience before, and may not have it again,” he writes. “So many of the tensions on campus stem from the close up recognition – intellectual and visceral – of unequal economic opportunity and its intersection with traditional forms of discrimination and prejudice.”
Gay’s explanation for why students are taking to the quads, or the streets, is similar to Roth’s. Campuses are unique places where worlds collide, whether those worlds are different social strata or simply the worlds of “home” and “not home.” “They understand that this may very well be the last moment in their lives when they can confront real issues in an environment where they are forced to encounter people who don’t look like them, who don’t think like them, environments where change is still possible,” she writes.
This distinct set of circumstances explains why student activism is the heartbeat of wider social change, everywhere, and has been for centuries — from the famous University of Paris student strike in the 13th century to worldwide student protests in the 1960s, Tiananmen Square, the global anti-apartheid movement, and the nuclear freeze movement. And racism has long been a target of protesters: “Deploying strikes, demonstrations, and sit-ins as tools of protest, black student activists of the 1960s demanded greater numbers of students and faculty of color on college campuses,” writes Tomiko Brown-Nagin at Slate. “Students of the current generation are drilling down on the qualitative aspects of diversity. Their critique of campus life poses a profound challenge to those who have never seriously contemplated how inclusion might or should change institutional practices.”
Mizzou was the most potent example of this push to change institutions in an intrinsic way. After a series of students shared their stories about experiencing racism and homophobia, the protests began to grow. When hunger striker Jonathan Butler, who kicked off the later, more intense stage of protest, issued his manifesto, he cited several issues beyond racism that he felt prevented students from being able to “achieve their full academic potential… incidents of black students being called racist slurs, the sudden removal of graduate student health insurance subsidies in August, MU’s cancellation of Planned Parenthood contracts and the swastika drawn with human feces found in an MU residence hall.”
The student voices at Yale and Mizzou were clearer and more cogent than media coverage made them out to be. Clearly, they were effective enough to bring about their desired goals at Mizzou: eventually, Jewish and black students banded together with faculty and grad students, but it was the football team’s participation that seemingly ensured the chancellor’s and president’s resignation and a sincere-seeming promise of a renewed diversity effort.
If this action and its outcome represent the potential future of activism — on campus and beyond — I want desperately for that potential to be realized. Can these newly minted activists, upon graduation into the very unsafe space of the wider world, find a focus beyond the concessions that universities are willing to offer, and begin making structural changes in different sectors of society? I hope so. We certainly could use their voices.
This piece is the first in Flavorwire’s series of essays on 2015 in culture. Click here to follow our end-of-year coverage.
Activism campus Media Mizzou newsletter PC Culture Yale Year in Culture 2015
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BOYCOTT FOX NEWS ON MEMORIAL DAY, MAY 28, 2018
by godfather
BOYCOTT FOX NEWS ON MEMORIAL DAY. MAY 28, 2018
Apr 26, 2018 | 3432 views | 0 | 159 | | | permalink
Let us not forget!
Attention all current and former Military Veterans
April 26, 2018-Please join me in a show of support on Memorial Day, May 28, 2018 to Boycott Fox News network. Their continued support, and one sided views and news reports in favor of our President is a slap in the face to every Military member and Veteran around the United States of America. We fight and die for our Country. Many become disabled and must take daily medications for our injuries and our Mental Health problems. As it stands today, The Veterans Association needs the right person to take on the job of taking care of 8 million Veterans. Many of us can’t even get the benefits we deserve for our services to our Country.
Between President Trump and his decision making which has been spontaneous since he has been elected, each and every time, never checking anyone’s background has caused this Country such grief to every citizen in America. Now add Fox news station and their favoritism toward our President, and being used as a platform to discredit the lead investigator, Mr. Mueller, and be supportive of a potential dishonest President is enough reason that Americans should do something about it.Look who he wants to put in charge of the VA?
Take Our Country back again on May 28, 2018, ‘MEMORIAL DAY’, and boycott Fox news for 24 hours. Please show your support. And show your support by flooding their web site with your E-mails of disgust.
JIM TURANO-Vietnam Veteran 1968, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
I am going to be 71 years of age soon, I did more for my Country than President Trump has done since he was elected. And Fox news has thrown down our throats every possible time their bias feedback to support above and beyond Mr. Trump whether we like it or not. Let our voices and e-mails be heard. Thank you my brothers and sisters.
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Ousman Badjie’s trial fails to proceed As PW1 arrives late
By Rohey Jadama The trial of Mr. Ousman Badjie, the erstwhile Works, Transport and Construction Minister, could not proceed before Justice Simon. A. Abi at the Banjul High Court yesterday, 3 March, as the prosecution arrived in court late. Mr. Gabriel Mendy, the former Director of National Treasury, who testified as the first prosecution witness(PW1), was not in court when the case was called.. State counsel A.M. Yusuf intimated to the court that the matter was slated for continuation of hearing but that the witness was on his way coming as he was held up in the traffic. He then applied for stand down which was granted by the court for about 30 minutes. The witness was supposed to be cross-examined by defence counsel Lamin S. Camara. The witness, however, came after the 30 minutes had elapsed and which led both the state and defence counsels to meet in chambers to get the adjourned date. The case, which was adjourned yesterday, continues today at 11am. Mr. Badjie, the former Minister of Works, Transport and Construction, is facing two counts of negligence of duty and one count of economic crime. The particulars of offence on Count One states that Ousman Badjie between 14 and 30 June 2014 in Banjul and diverse places, whilst being The Gambia’s Head of Mission in France, intentionally failed to pursue the case of a stolen Twenty Seven Thousand Euros equivalent to D1, 134,000, involving one Faisal Bojang, with the French Government, an omission which was shown to be detrimental to the economy of The Gambia, and thereby committed an offence. Count Two alleges that whilst serving as the Head of Mission in France, the accused willfully neglected to perform his duty for the French Government to pursue Faisal Bojang, to recover the amount of €27,000 embezzled (equivalent to D1, 134,000). On Count Three, it is alleged that in the same month and year, Mr. Badjie, whilst being The Gambia’s Head of Mission in France, willfully neglected to perform his duty to pursue the police declaration that the signature of the Deputy Head of Mission was forged.]]>
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Filipino People's Real Ancestry
By R. Arce, Filipino Cultured
I always go into forums and read what other Filipinos have to say about Isabel Preysler and her kids doubting their "Filipino-ness" based on their sometimes warped views on what a Filipino is supposed to be or supposed to look like.
A lot of Filipinos are miseducated about this very important topic: Ancestry. Spanish blood does not disqualify someone from being Filipino, first of all because there is no such thing as a Filipino race, which means that unless we're talking about parentage in which one parent is a Filipino citizen and the other is a citizen of another country, nobody is really racially "pure Filipino" "half-Filipino" or a "quarter Filipino" or "1/8 Filipino" as I see often, because there is no such thing as a Filipino race, there is a Filipino people that is made up of the mixture of several races: Malay, Spanish, and Chinese being the major three ancestries of most Filipinos. And also because if that were true, my entire family and I would not be Filipinos and Pilita Corrales, Fernando Poe Jr., Jaime Fabregas, Amalia Fuentes, Armando Goyena, Maritess Revilla, Paquita Roces, Gloria Romero, Piolo Pascual, Kristine Hermosa, Cogie Domingo, Richard Gutierrez, Mico and Bernard Palanca, Aga Muhlach, Claudine Barreto, KC Concepcion, TJ Trinidad, Rica Peralejo, Lucy Torres, Richard Gomez, Rosanna Roces, Vic Sotto, Oyo Boy Sotto, Tito Sotto, Kempee de Leon, Eddie Garcia, German Moreno, and millions of other Filipinos of Spanish descent would not be Filipinos as well. Being Filipino should not only equal to Malay ancestry, but that's the way most Filipinos view it and use the amount of Malay ancestry in a person to qualify whether someone is a "real Filipino" saying things like "she's 1/8 Filipino" when they actually mean she's "1/8 Malay", they use the word Filipino instead of Malay because the word Filipino has become synonymous with Malay ancestry and Malay ancestry ONLY (which results in millions of Filipinos referring to themselves as "Filipino, Spanish, and Chinese", when they really should be saying they're FILIPINOS of MALAY, Spanish, and Chinese descent), and it's incorrect and a result of miseducation, which is why I'm very adamant about rewritting the way Philippine culture and history is written in our books and text books, because people from other countries use books written by Filipinos as a reference to their information, so if the information written by Filipinos themselves is incorrect in the way ancestry is viewed, then that incorrect information will be spread to the entire world (which it already has been) affecting everything, especially the amount of pride young Filipinos have in their own culture.
I don't know exactly when this mixup between the words Malay and Filipino occured, and when Filipinos started to view "Filipino" as an actual homogenous separate race instead of as a national identity made up of the mixture of several races, but what is fact is that it did not start before the 1898 revolution since Jose Rizal was quite fond of using the words "Malay people" in his works, but if you study history and are familiar with the culture that influenced and colonized the Philippines after the revolution in 1898, it's quite obvious that it probably came from the influences of that culture which has a history of segregating races and frowning upon people of mixed race that was imposed on the Philippines after the 1898 revolution. In other words, the concept of mestizaje, the concept which accepts racial mixture as a normal part of national life, which united the peoples in former Spanish colonies after their revolutions against Spain, the concept of mestizaje which unites a people as one regardless of their race was wiped out in the Philippines after 1898, and replaced by the cultural values of a new culture that was not compatible with the previous values, and which wrecked havoc and continues to wreck havoc on Filipinos' sense of identity even to this day. This has a lot to do with why nationalism died very quickly during the first half of the 20th century, and why Filipinos have a hard time uniting as a people today, because the nationalism ideals that took place in the late 19th century built on the ideals of the unity of a single people and country based on mestizaje, was quickly forgotten (obviously, since most Filipinos view being Filipino as a separate race instead of as a national identity, and most don't even know what that word means even though it plays a significantly important role in the history and formation of our country) and was replaced with the national anthem and the forced and imposed allegiance to the cultural values of the country of the Thomasites, something which still affects the Filipino people to this day, in both positive, but also overwhelmingly negative ways.
There were good and bad points to mestizaje, but one thing is undeniable in that it united the peoples in the countries of South America extremely well and instilled in them a sense of national pride in their country that could as well have happened to the Philippines. But it didn't, and it's history, and it's all done. What is important today for Filipinos is education, and more education specifically about the Philippines, because not enough Filipinos care about studying the Philippines, but the truth is, there's still a lot more things to be done, rewritten, corrected, clarified and discovered. A glance in any Filipino history textbook from the Philippines will tell you that.
Mestizaje is the reason why there is no such thing as a Filipino race, and there is no such thing as a Hispanic race as well, contrary to popular belief in most non-Latin countries that like to categorize people into neat racial boxes, which are never correct.
European/Spanish ancestry is always regarded by Filipinos as "foreign ancestry", but it's not really foreign as European/Spanish ancestry has been in the Philippines for centuries and makes up the bloodlines and family trees of millions of Filipinos, and not just in the upper class as most Filipinos are led to believe. Filipino is always referred to as "indigenous ancestry" again referring to how the word Filipino has become synonymous with ONLY Malay ancestry, but again Filipino ancestry is not always just Malay ancestry.
A people's history and ancestry is a very important topic for any country in the world, and education is the key to enlightenment.
It has to start with us, and it has to start with changing the way we use the word Filipino. For example, it's very common for Filipinos to say that a mestizo from the Philippines is of mixed Filipino and Spanish ancestry. This miseducation is so deep in Filipinos, that that's even what I saw written in my niece's history textbook when I visited the Philippines. And that is incorrect, because a mestizo from the Philippines is NOT of mixed Filipino and Spanish ancestry, but of mixed MALAY and Spanish ancestry, and the combination is what makes them a Filipino. Pilita Corrales is not of mixed Filipino and Spanish ancestry, she is of mixed Malay and Spanish ancestry, and she is a Cebuana, and she is definitely a Filipina. This is very important because correcting this simple error in the use of words will also help to correct the negative viewpoints and confusion that many Filipinos have about their ancestry, and also help in having pride in being simply Filipino if people finally accept mestizaje (mixture) as the norm in Filipinos instead of as something to be praised and put on a pedestal.
This will help everyone, those Filipinos who are more European looking than other Filipinos sometimes spend their entire lives trying to prove to other Filipinos how "Filipino" they are, because other Filipinos doubt their "Filipino-ness" because their facial phenotype doesn't match what their perception of what a "real Filipino" is supposed to look like. And it will help eliminate Filipinos' insecurities because it will stop the constant: "Is [Celebrity] really Filipino? He/she doesn't look Filipino!" because they will feel pride in Filipinos of all facial types and skin colors. And if we educate ourselves as Filipinos, and write correct information in our history books, we educate the world about us, and it saves us a lot of time and stress having to explain all the time about why certain Filipinos don't "look Filipino" or why some Filipinos look white and others look Chinese and others have dark skin, because it will be in there in the books, and hopefully written as culturally accurate as possible.
Filipino Mestizos: A quick thought, why you're a Filipino mestizo and you don't even realize it
So back to Isabel Preysler and her kids, everytime I hear other Filipinos say "They're not really Filipino, they're Spanish!" I always remember this photo I saw on Isabel Preysler's website of Chabeli Iglesias and Julio Iglesias Jr. when they were kids dressed in traditional Filipino clothing. Chabeli is wearing baro't saya, and Julio is wearing the traditional costume for Tinikling. I also remember when Enrique Iglesias wore a Philippines t-shirt on MTV's Spring Break 2000, and the picture of Isabel Preysler wearing the Terno, the traditional national costume for Filipina women, at a social event in Spain.
Culture and the passing down of culture to future generations of Filipinos should be more important than racial ancestry, and Isabel Preysler has done a good job in that, which is a lot better than can be said about many Filipino parents in the United States or other countries, according to many young Filipinos who feel upset that their parents didn't teach them anything about their Filipino culture growing up, which seems to be a common thing among Filipinos growing up overseas, because you only have to strike up a conversation with other young Filipinos or visit other young Filipinos' various websites and read their stories to see that. Educating our kids about the Filipino culture is extremely important for their emotional well-being, and in their self confidence when they enter the world as adults.
A picture says a million words.
Enrique Iglesias with his lola, Betty Preysler at their home in Manila, Philippines.
Labels: Chabeli Iglesias, Enrique Iglesias, Filipina Women, Filipino Celebrities, Filipino Culture, Filipino Designers, Filipino Fashion, Filipino Mestizo, Isabel Preysler, Julio Iglesias Jr.
Raquel Rivera Ford said...
I like your blog. Perhaps we didn't realize it but we Filipinos had always been called Malay Polynesians even way before the colonizers came. If you look at the words Polynesians use (I could only say the numbers, ie Samoans, Trinidad-Tobagoans, the maoris), their numbers pronunciation are pretty similar to ours...which is easy to explain: trade.
Having said that, so much has happened to our culture, that we lost this beautiful part of our culture. Thank you
Great accuracy. Most people tend to generalize the filipino people saying that we're pacific islanders or malaysians who picked up the spanish language. Thanks for clearing that up!
Filipinos are a mixture of Latino or English ancestry. I am Spanish Filipino and Chinese descent. My mom's friend's daughter is British Filipino. There are other Filipinos with other European mixed bloods.
I have a Norwegian friend she is part Filipino she lives in Norway
IMSCF
and proud of it ..
I am Spanish Chinese and Filipino .
and proud of it .
my DNA is the envy of a lot of people , hybrids are the new Master Race !!
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your blog really really made it clear to me. thanks for all the info. now i know my true identity. haha. malay and spanish, great! i am a filipino. :)
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Filipino's are mix of all 4 or any of them
Filipino's are mix of all 4 or any i guess?
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Joanne Ramos said...
Thank you for clearing up what ethnic group, americans, seems to perceive us as. My mother's side is mixed up of Chinese,French ,Malay and spanish ancestry. My father side is hispanic and malay.
People think I am either Chinese, Vietnamese, and sometimes, Filipinos will ask what nationality I am.
You are pretty spot-on on how "Filipino" is misused to represent a race, instead of a cultural collection of diverse peoples. I only disagree with you on the concept of mestizaje. No concept of mestizaje every existed in the Philippines before 1898. Manila was very racially segregated by their own imposition. One HUGE difference between their American colonies and the Philippines was their caste system (for financial gain), that was broken down to % of race. They were divided as such: Indios, malays who paid base tax, Sangleys (pure Chinese who paid 4x base tax), Negritos (base tax), Mestizo Sangleys (paid 2x base tax), and Insulares and Penisulares (ethnic Spanish who paid NO tax). Mestizo Spanish were also exempt for Tax. There are other l classifications that break race down to 1/4 and other mixes. I guess my point is how was mestizaje supposed to exist post-1898 when it never really existed in the first place? Unfortunately, it is those same perverted ideals brought from the Spanish conquistadors, that still divide Filipinos today. Otherwise, great post!
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very well said :) me too is a mixed race of spanish, filipino, and chinese (i think? not sure maybe from ancestors)thumbs up to you!
Romi said...
Another misconception that most Filipinos have is in calling themselves as Orientals. They are confused as to what race they are. Filipinos are of the Brown Race, the Malay Race, and with the Pacific Islander Group since the Philippine Archipelago lies in the Pacific Ocean,...it just so happens that it is closer to the Asian Continent, and is thus tagged as being Asian. Otherwise, Filipino is the nationality of anyone born in the Philippines, and is of the Malay(Brown) Race, and a Pacific Islander, neither Asian nor Oriental. Filipinos by and large are of mixed ancestries of European (Spanish/French/British, etc),Asian (Chinese/Japanese/etc), and Pacific Islander. No matter what the mix of combination is, the individual remains to be Filipino,of the Malay (Brown)Race,, and a Pacific Islander.
Your opinion is unfounded, I am an expert of ethnic, race and religious identities and you really need to research what you say and reference where you get this info you use. your statement are quite dangerous, for written words create and actually fuels connotations and presumptions of hate by dislocating an already exodusof identity. Your identification of race is outdated, and its wrong. And highly dangerous.
SF said...
Hi, you might be interested in joining our page to show your support: https://www.facebook.com/spanishphilippines
it should interest everyone to note that not all indigenous peoples in the philippines can be termed "Indo-Malay". there are scientific studies that posit that some peoples, as those in Northern Luzon (e.g. Batanes, Cordilleras, etc.) share a common ancestry with the aborigines of Formosa (now Taiwan). specifically, the Tao Tribe of Southern Taiwan share a common language and culture with the Ivatans of Batanes, Philippines. and we also need to note the Aetas, previously known as Negritoes. Then there is the large influence from India. it would be best, then, to re-educate the Filipino on these realities.
Romi you dummy. You're talking about people and race based only on it's location on the map. Maybe you should check out The philippine history to note that the negritoes were the first settlers, then came the malays , then the indonesians, later on the spaniards colonised the philipines for three centuries giving rise to filipinos of spanish descent. Then, of course with war came the japs and americans to further add into the mix of gene pool, not to mention the chinese and indian immigrants. The pacific islander groups and their gene pool are also mixed due to colonization. Also read about capt. Cook. You'll find it educational.
uhm, there is no such thing as 'race', unless you mean a stereotypical phenotype of 'black', 'white', 'brown', etc. but even this is not reliable. There are language groups - and it is the language that points to cultural and genetic origins. The more than 100 languages and dialects, with the exception of the Indo-European Hindi, Spanish, English, etc., are from the Austronesian family of languages. The Malay language is Austronesian, so technically Filipinos are not Malay. They spoke Malay during the first millenium, for foreign and domestic trade purposes, but they had their own native languages, which were Bisaya, Tagalog, Maranao, etc. The real problem with Philippine identity is with the persistent use of the word Filipino and Filipinas, which are Spanish words, to the inhabitants and the territory. Filipinos of Spanish ancestry are a very small minority. There were not a lot of Spanish settlers in the Philippines as there were in the Americas, so what happened in the Americas could not have happened here. The inhabitants continue to use their respective languages, so it would be more correct to identify Filipinos by language groups, as in half-Tagalog, half-Spanish, which was the dominant profile of the elite of Manila.
I don't think the question of racial ethnicity is still relevant when talking about Filipinos. True that there are many of us with a much more fair complexion with straight noses while others are darker with more flat noses and others are more chinese looking. My great grandmother was Italian/Portuguese/Filipino and my great grand father was of Filipino/Chinese descent and everyone in my family are Filipinos in a sense that we come from a mix heritage. We don't consider ourselves mestizos because a true mestizo is a half breed and everyone in my family are married to Filipinos who are also of mixed heritage. Sure we do not look like pure Malays but we don't look like pure Spanish nor Chinese neither, we have fair complexion and straight noses but we are true Filipinos because our family roots lies within the Philippines and not otherwise. We don't care and we don't even know how much spanish blood, malay or chinese blood we have...we're just normal Filipinos born and raised in the Philippines. But it is understandable that Filipinos do not look all the same which is normal because the Philippines has always been a trade center and many people from different parts of the world traded here and many stayed here plus not even considering the spanish colonization. Unfortunately I've met many Filipinos who do not seem to be proud of what they are, and you see it from how they react to the colour of their skin wishing they had a more fair complexion or a "straighter" nose, I find these Filipinos to be the caused of many misunderstanding and differenciation between Filipinos as they are the ones who are trying to put a line in between all of us. And of course there is the filipino segregation which every Filipino born in the Phils knows about, Filipinos discriminating other Filipinos because of their dark skin of facial characteristics. In the end you should be proud of what you are regardless of your ethnic/racial background and just be proud of being a Filipino because if you are then you would care less of what other people think.
I have never read an article with such lengthy sentences such as yours! Utilise periods, man!
Ivan Reyes y Forca said...
You certainly don't have manners though.
The term "Filipino" originally referred to Spaniards born in the Philippines, also known as insulares, criollos or español filipino. This distinguished them from Spaniards born in Europe who were known as peninsulares. The Indios opposed this connotation for they have claimed that they should be the ones whom 'Filipino' should refer too. By the late 19th century, the term Filipino began to widely refer to the indigenous population of the Philippines. According to historian Ambeth Ocampo, José Rizal was the first to call the native inhabitants Filipinos.
what is a pure race? Is there any?
FILIPINO said...
IF YOU ANALYZE THE COMMENTS, THERE ARE SOME WHO STILL DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THE AUTHOR TO EXPLAIN THAT IT IS THE MIXTURE THAT MAKES A PERSON FILIPINO AND THAT THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FILIPINO RACE. SO THOSE WHO COMMENT ABOVE THAT THEY ARE A MIXTURE OF CHINESE, SPANISH AND FILIPINO, I THINK, HAVE NOT UNDERSTOOD THIS BLOG.
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Genegat said...
Very enlightening to have come from filipino-Eurasians!
Keep on thriving!
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Industry outraged over unfounded recommendation to close 30% marine areas globally to fishing
Europêche, the representative body of the EU fishing sector and EAPO, the European body representing the producer organisations, have expressed their outrage at the decision taken by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to set an ambitious target with the aim of closing off 30% of all marine areas from extractive activities by 2030.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) meets every four years at the IUCN World Conservation Congress to recommend a set of environmental and conservation priorities for future years. During this latest Congress held in Hawaii, from 1st - 10th September 2016, the IUCN adopted a series of non-binding commitments to recommend to governments and other relevant international bodies such as FAO or the European Union.
The IUCN Congress is composed of environmental ministries and conservation NGOs who decide on issues relating to general biodiversity conservation in the absence of relevant fisheries sector stakeholders who are the primary target of these policies. This body takes decisions on fisheries issues whilst disregarding the huge socio-economic impacts that this 30% area closure would have on coastal communities and food security.
The fishing sector argues that fisheries is actually one of the most affected sectors by these recommendations which don't take into account other impacts such as pollution and marine mining industries (including oil and gas). Moreover, the decision taken by the IUCN is not based on any broad consensus of the scientific community and disregards the unpleasant fact that a large proportion of MPAs already established are 'paper parks' with zero efficiency in meeting their objectives. On the contrary, some scientists present at the Congress highlighted that there is little proof that the 30% closure would bring about any major benefit to biodiversity and have objected very strongly to the proposal since it goes against efforts made by MPA proponents during the last decade to involve coastal communities in decision-making.
The fishing bodies also believe that any proposal which greatly impacts any economic sector should be accompanied by a thorough impact assessment from an environmental, social, economic and food security perspective, which was not the case in this decision. This would be the only tool which would highlight the consequences of the problems and allows states to decide whether to take action based on accurate, objective, comprehensive and non-discriminatory information.
The fishing sector also highlights that closing off parts of the ocean from extractive use would actually conflict with other the UN Sustainable Development Goals such as increasing food security and reducing poverty; both of which require the use of the ocean. Closing 30% of all coastal areas would be disastrous in the developing world, where coastal communities have no social safety nets and no unemployment schemes.
Javier Garat, President of Europêche stated: "No-take zones (marine reserves) have become, in the eyes of many scientists, NGOs and lay-people, a solution for the overexploitation of fish populations. However, before we close off any area to extractive activities such as fishing we must first ask ourselves what are we protecting and why. MPAs are a tool, not an objective so in order for these closures to be successful, their existence has to be justified. They therefore must be science-based, well monitored, effective and not simply established to reach a quota. As we know, fish populations do not respect boundaries and closing off an area to fishing will only displace vessels to neighbouring areas with unintended consequences on management. Many MPAs actually fail because their planning is rarely integrated as part of broader marine spatial planning and ocean zoning efforts, creating a dangerous illusion of protection."
Garat continued: "I am sure that the IUCN means well but given the problems that have already arisen with existing MPAs as a conservation and management tool, we believe that we should not make the same mistakes again simply because MPAs appear an attractive, quick-fix solution. In addition, these measures will threaten many livelihoods and local communities since fishermen will no longer be permitted to carry out their usual sustainable activities in these areas. MPAs seem to be more about politics than targeting specific threats. What you are perceived to be doing seems more important these days than what you should be doing."
Pim Visser, President of EAPO added: “This is a typical broad brush approach which will lead to unworkable situations in coastal areas and estuaries. Imagine the 30% criterion for instance being applied to the Irish Sea, North Sea and the Baltic; areas also destined to produce large amounts of renewable energy. A 30% closure will erase all fishing activities in these areas and negatively affect fishermen, their families and their communities”.
Europêche represents the fisheries sector in Europe. Currently, the Association comprises 14 national organisations of fishing enterprises from the following 9 EU Member States: DE, DK, ES, FR, IT, MT, NL, PL, UK.
Kathryn Stack, Managing Director of Europêche: +32.2.230.48.48 kathryn.stack@europeche
EP72 Press Release - MPAs (cosigned)
MPA event - Europeche comments
Marine Protected Areas, a management tool and not an end in themselves
Tags: IUCN, MPA, fishing, marine reserve, oil, gas, impact, NGO
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Why don’t UK child protection laws safeguard Shamima Begum?
By Victoria Basma gal-demPolitics 21st February 2019
Image via Element5 Digital/Unsplash
In 2015, 15-year-old schoolgirl Shamima Begum fled her home in Bethnal Green to join an Islamic State group in Syria. For four years Shamima remained within the fold of the Islamic State where she lived a ‘mostly normal life in Raqqa’ with her husband and two children. A few days ago it was discovered that Shamima is living in the al-Hawl refugee camp in northern Syria with a newborn baby, her husband a prisoner of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and her two older children, by her account, dead from disease or malnutrition. Today, it was announced that the UK Home Office was taking steps to revoke her citizenship.
Since she was discovered in the camp, a polarised debate has emerged surrounding Shamima and her newborn son’s fate. Although Shamima herself admits that she is no longer the same “silly schoolgirl” who ran away from home four years ago, the voice of an uncertain and disaffected teenager certainly permeates the interviews she has given over the last few days.
“There has been little concern for her situation as an indoctrinated minor”
A large swathe of news and political commentators have seemed to reach a consensus that Shamima should now face criminal investigation, but there has been little concern for her situation as an indoctrinated minor, who in any other circumstance would have been considered under the UK’s Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) laws. When Shamima arrived in Syria as a 15-year-old, she ‘was put in a house where jihadist brides-to-be waited to be married’ and within 10 days, she became the wife of then 23-year-old Yago Riedjik. Under UK law, CSE is defined as ‘when an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce…or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 into sexual activity’; framed in this way, focus urgently needs to be shifted away from the individual so consideration can be given to the larger operations of power that condition girls like Shamima through violent and non-violent means. Indeed, international humanitarian law identifies young women recruited by terrorist groups like ISIS as “victims of multiple violations of their rights” who must be afforded the same protections as others who have been exploited in criminal activities and trafficking.
In a climate that continues to reduce complex questions about faith and “integration” to hysterical debates about terrorism, girls like Shamima are denied the proper assistance and appropriate care for future reintegration. Indeed, whilst similar cases have included a considerably more nuanced consideration of the relationship between victim status and criminal liability, the same cannot be said for the young women given sensational and victim-blaming labels such as “jihadist-brides”. Instead, these girls have come to symbolise the country’s growing suspicion of muslim communities, in turn highlighting how little safeguarding policies recognise the right to a childhood for children from black and ‘minority ethnic’ (BME) backgrounds.
“Counter-terrorism strategies have racialised the language and framework of child protection policies at large”
As part of the UK’s 2015 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, the “PREVENT” strategy was introduced, allegedly to help identify radicalised children and apply safeguarding measures as a means of reinforcing so-called “British values”. Since its inception, PREVENT and policies like it have been accused of having a disproportionate impact on Muslim communities. Worse still, counter-terrorism strategies like these have racialised the language and framework of child protection policies at large, relying on the categorisation of Muslims based on Islamophobic tropes.
In reality, the current frameworks in place are wholly incapable of making assessments on what constitutes as an indicator for radicalism. With so little space for Muslims in particular, and people of colour broadly within the policy making process, can we expect safeguarding strategies to engage thoughtfully with a diversity of religious beliefs and practices? Human rights organisations fear that these policies are in fact cover-ups for the ramping up of surveillance and policing of our communities on the sly. If we begin consider safeguarding strategies in this way, we start to uncover the “contemporary manifestations of Islamophobia” that are deeply embedded within them.
The recruitment and exploitation of young women by terrorist groups presents very complex and multifaceted issues for our current child protection agencies. Knowing this, revoking citizenship as a response to CSE, seems to be an utterly inappropriate and alarming move by the Home Office. In order to address cases like that of Shamima Begum properly, current safeguarding strategies must urgently refocus on centring the needs of the individuals and communities which safeguarding is meant to protect. The first step in doing so is to apply the same level of sensitivity and nuance that we would see around any other system of violence and exploitation.
TAGS: counter-terrorismISISshamima begumterrorismVictoria Basma
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« Contest: Lewis Black @ Chicago Theatre Dietzel: A Retrospective comes to Chicago »
Column Fri Nov 15 2013
The Book Thief, The Best Man Holiday, The Armstrong Lie, Big Ass Spider! & Running from Crazy
Good intentions and popular source material can be a dangerous and risky combination. It's so clear as you watch the film adaptation of the hit Markus Zusak novel The Book Thief why this material is such a hit with young and old alike, and it took little effort to see how this story would succeed on the page. But as a film in the hands of director Brian Percival (a regular director on the "Downton Abbey" television series), drama is lost to boatloads of overly sentimental writing and certain performers playing things too broadly.
I was actually a fan of the gentlemanly voice of Death (Roger Allam) acting as our narrator; it was just a strange enough idea to work, and he delivers certain bits of startling news that shake up the proceedings in the right ways. The World War II timeframe gives us the story of a young German girl named Liesel (relative newcomer Sophie Nélisse), whose parents are killed and is adopted by provincial couple Hans and Rosa (Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson). Hans is not getting a lot of work as a painter, partly because he refuses to join the Nazi party — this is our first clue that he's a good German, I suppose. Our second clue is that the family takes in a young Jewish man, Max (Ben Schnetzer), whose parents apparently knew Hans and Rosa at some point in the past and was told to come find them if he made it to their village.
To be clear, The Book Thief is not a Holocaust film; it's primarily a film about finding large and small ways of subverting authority and being heroic. The stolen books of the title refers partly to banned books that Liesel steals after she sees many of them being burned one night. More than anything, the film focuses on Germans turning in other Germans, and young Liesel deciding the right moment to stand up to the Nazis to help friends. Nélisse is a remarkable screen presence but her character has a bit too much fire to be believable under these oppressive conditions. Rush is simply playing things too simple and nice — not that people like that don't exist in the real world, but setting him up as a living saint for this young girl to bond with borders on cutesy. While Emily Watson is the sour-puss mother, who we soon find out is actually a teddy bear at heart.
The biggest problem with The Book Thief is its use of Nazis as a device. They aren't real people, and maybe some don't want us to consider them as such. But if you really want us to fear an enemy, make us see the human being before it turns nasty. The film uses prolonged shots of the Nazi flag and men in Nazi uniforms more as an emotional trigger than an actual plotting device, as if the mere sight of these things will enrage us or make us scared for our heroes. But for even the slightly sophisticated moviegoer those old tricks don't cut it any longer. The filmmakers act as if we're just supposed to know what the Nazis did to make them so hated in the world, but especially with young adults (the clear target of the book and, to a degree, the movie), I don't think you can assume that any longer.
I like the idea of The Book Thief far more than the execution. Another reason for the title is that Liesel swipes books from the local mayor's wife, who finds out and eventually gives the girl books to sneak out and bring back when she's done. There is more heart in the scenes between those two characters, who speak very few words to each other, than there is in the rest of the film simply because there's an exchange of heartfelt ideas between the two. The film could have used about a dozen more moments like that. That being said, the movie's final scene, set amongst the bombed-out buildings that were once Liesel's village, is quite shocking and heartbreaking, and the mere fact that is impacted me as much as it did means that at least some of what the filmmakers were attempting to achieve emotionally got through. Some did, yes, but not much.
I think I'd like to meet someone who genuinely loves this movie, because I think if I did, I'd be staring into the face of a person I have absolutely nothing in common with, and that's alright. There's just something about The Book Thief that feels disingenuous and manipulative to the nth degree. I didn't hate the experience of watching it, but I wasn't especially moved by its life lessons either, only its horrific conclusion.
To read my exclusive interview with The Book Thief stars Geoffrey Rush & Sophie Nélisse, and director Brian Percival, go to Ain't It Cool News.
The Best Man Holiday
Remember when "buppies" was a thing? As if in response to a wave of successful films in the early-1990s that portrayed African Americans as gang members and/or living in impoverished conditions, such as Boyz N the Hood, Menace II Society or the comedic version in Friday, a new breed of black filmmakers retaliated with works like Love Jones, Soul Food and writer-director Malcolm Lee's (cousin of Spike) feature debut, The Best Man, in the mid- to late '90s. The thing these latter films had in common was that they showed the flip side of the movies from earlier that decade by portraying their black characters as living comfortably, upwardly mobile in their careers, dressed to the nines in nearly every frame of the film and more concerned with who was sleeping with whom than the life or death struggles of South Central. As a young white dude, imagine my confusion in the 1990s. Which of these portrayals was I meant to take to heart, especially when I finally met my first black person? (I'm kidding; save it.)
Aside from the Friday sequels and the adaptation of Soul Food into successful TV series, most of these films didn't turns into franchises, although many of the actor in these films went on to bigger and most established careers. Now 14 years after The Best Man's debut, Lee (who also directed Undercover Brother, Roll Bounce, Soul Men and, earlier this year, Scary Movie V) has managed to pull together his original cast and update us on the trials and tribulations of these many characters whose lives have gone in every possible direction involving marriage, kids, health issues, successes and failures.
Catching up with everyone takes nearly the entire first third of the film. There's a helpful Cliff's Notes montage during the opening credits that shows us clips from the first film to remind us who did what with whom and for how long. I wasn't inclined to revisit the first film now, so this was extremely useful. Successful writer Harper (Taye Diggs) is married to chef Robyn (Sanaa Lathan), who is about eight-and-a-half months pregnant, after several failed attempts at having a baby. Harper is still close friends with career woman Jordan (Nia Long), who is a strong, independent woman who happens to be dating Brian, a very good-looking white man (Eddie Cibrian), who is so handsome both the other ladies approve. Lest we forget that in the first film Harper admitted to sleeping with his best friend Lance's (Morris Chestnut) wife Mia (Monica Calhoun) early in their relationship, it's still a sore spot for Lance, a successful running back with the New York Giants. He and Mia have several kids and are having all of the old gang over to their mansion for Christmas.
Other members of the group include Harold Perrineau's Julian; his wife Candace (Regina Hall); Melissa De Sousa's Shelby, a self-centered gold digger starring on one of the "Real Housewives" reality shows; and the highlight of the film, the great Terrence Howard as Quentin, a man with no filter when it comes to sexually explicit thoughts, drug use or getting into it with someone who disrespects you. He's a natural button pusher, and he has his sights set on his friends.
Much of the film's drama stems from Harper struggling to write another hit book, and his publisher suggesting writing the biography of Lance, who is about to break the all-time rushing record during the Giants' Christmas game. There's a great deal of tension between the two men, but Harper is desperate and damn near broke, so he begins to take notes and asking pointed questions to Lance throughout the weekend. Any guesses where this storyline ends up?
Whereas the first film was about these folks entering the early stages of real adulthood by getting involved in long-term relationships and settling into careers, The Best Man Holiday is about being waist deep into adulthood with financial concerns, kids and rough marriages. What undercuts any potential for anything beyond a surface treatment of these crises is the schmaltzy holiday themes. Lance actually promises a dying person to get the rushing record that night. Really!? And while we're examining cliches, there is one character who is outted as a former stripper and possible prostitute years earlier, and her actual defense is effectively, "I was young and I needed this money." That's the best you could come up with, Malcolm Lee?
I'm not usually one to complain about tonal shifts in any movie, but The Best Man Holiday is downright schizophrenic at times, going from cheesy holiday talk of forgiveness and family one minute and then some of the most graphic description of sex acts from the men and women. I'm not complaining about either of these lines of conversation, but when you put them back to back to back in a film, it's a bit jarring.
The other downside to the film is that there are almost no surprises, and predictability is the worst crime any film can commit upon its audience. Even in the performances, the actors are assigned their characters and their traits, and no one really strays from that, with the exception of Terrance Howard, who seems to be free wheeling his lines, making them cut right through everyone's bullshit into their lust-filled souls. Although he'd been in many parts on TV and in movies before The Best Man, it was that film that put him on the map with a lot of people, and he hasn't forgotten what makes Quentin a priceless addition to this cast. But one actor in an ensemble this size cannot save the movie.
So many (maybe all) of the film's emotional peaks are spoon fed and ring so false and manipulative as to be offensive. The audience I saw the film with got so sick of being toyed with in this way, they started to laugh at moments that were meant to be extremely serious. It doesn't get much worse than that. It's hard to completely dismiss The Best Man Holiday because the cast is so easy to look at and listen too. When the characters get into the actual act of conversation (as opposed to the witty zingers they trade 95 percent of the time), the film moves past being tolerable into the realm of enjoyable. But those moments are few and far between. Lee's screenplay is essentially a two-hour soap opera with all of the emotional depth of that format. It's frustrating in so many ways to see this amount of pure talent pulled together to share their shared roots in film and then watch it get squandered because of a weak screenplay.
But there you have it. If you have the uncontrollable urge to see Morris Chestnut shirtless (and who doesn't?), I have a movie for you. Otherwise, simply seeing this impressive cast back together again will only get you so far before you realize the story is beneath each and every one of them.
The Armstrong Lie
Bob Seger said it best: "Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then." I'm guessing master documentarian Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and earlier this year We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks). Back in 2009, Gibney was hired to chronicle what was meant to be the attempted comeback to the Tour de France of cyclist Lance Armstrong, who had been surrounded by accusations of using performance-enhancing drugs to win seven consecutive tours a few years earlier. The return was meant to be proof positive that Armstrong could win the contest (or at least place in the top three) while having his every move watched and documented by cameras and medical experts alike. To this day, Armstrong said he stayed clean during that race (he placed third), but soon thereafter, he admitted to doping just as major, irrefutable evidence was about the surface confirming he had been using. The bottom line, as Gibney's narration points out, is that if Armstrong hadn't been so insistent on clearing his name, he probably would have gotten away with it. So why did he do it?
More importantly than the question of why did he cheat is, why did he make the lie too big to contain? And that's the angle that Gibney deftly explores in The Armstrong Lie, an examination of perhaps the biggest sports scandal since the White Sox threw the World Series, and Armstrong's admission may have been bigger because of the sheer number of fans and supporters who stood by him and looked to him for inspiration as a cancer survivor. But Gibney seems equally curious about Armstrong the vindictive man, who would go inconceivably out of his way to personally hurt and damage those who threatened to expose the lie. The petty behavior, the character assassinations that he unleashed will make you forget about the doping and concentrate on hating Armstrong the person, instead of the athlete.
One unique aspect of The Armstrong Lie is that when Gibney was documenting the comeback race, he admits that he probably became too friendly with his subject and started to become part of the PR machine that surrounded the event. More a cheerleader than an impartial observer, Gibney fully admits that a professional line became dangerously close to being crossed, one that would have been disastrous to his reputation and career had that original film actually come out (which it was on the verge of doing, under the title The Road Back).
Perhaps the most remarkable portion of the film is the interview Armstrong gave Gibney immediately after he came clean to Oprah Winfrey in January 2013; Gibney was literally waiting in the wings, ready to pounce on the man he considered a friendly acquaintance. Armstrong looks embarrassed, broken and ready to unload his secrets to someone he might still think would give him some degree of sympathy; it's an incredible, difficult-to-watch piece of footage. Some may quibble with Gibney being in the film at all, but his original documentary (which was torn up to make this film) was an important part of the lie and the revelation of the truth, so it doesn't feel like the filmmaker trying to insert himself into the story.
The Armstrong Lie is classic Gibney investigative greatness. While the original film was going to include a great deal of discussion on the doping allegations, the filmmakers was going to make it clear that Armstrong to this day has never tested positive of drugs. But with this recut film, the gloves are off, and Gibney talks to former teammates, acquaintances, journalists looking into the allegations — anyone who has a story to tell.
Gibney was smart enough to let the story take him where it needed to and not force it in any one direction. The result is a rare first-hand account from the front row of sports history of one of the most admired and influential athletes in recent memory. Many in sports brush off the label of "role model," but Armstrong embraced it and used it well. His ego and his vindictive spirit are what brought him down, not his lying. Like many of Gibney's films, The Armstrong Lie is a remarkable tale of someone who thought that their lie was too big to be exposed, and of a person who thought he would get away with it because of that. The film opens today in Chicago at the Landmark Century Center Cinema.
To read my exclusive interview with The Armstrong Lie director Alex Gibney (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/65085), go to Ain't It Cool News.
Big Ass Spider!
A popular attraction at this year's SXSW Film Festival was director Mike (The Convent, The Gravedancers) Mendez's Big Ass Spider!, which celebrates the monster movie sub-category of supersizing everyday critters into enormous, destructive and deadly creatures. As you might have guessed from the title, this one is about a huge fucking spider that escapes from a military lab, trashes an L.A. hospital, and eventually ends up bigger than King Kong crawling up the sides of tall buildings, threatening to lay eggs that will lead to spider domination.
The story is told through the eyes of exterminator extraordinaire Alex Mathis (Greg Grunberg of "Heroes," whose comic timing saves a lot of the film's lamer jokes), who just happens to be at the hospital when the spider first attacks. He is assisted by the hospital's security guard, Jose (Lombardo Boyar), and the two take on the appropriate roles that would befit a buddy cop movie. I won't lie, Boyar's characterization of Jose as a (presumably) Mexican-American borders on uncomfortable stereotyping, but he gets off so many ridiculous one-liners that he's clearly trying to rise above some of the more culturally insensitive moments in writer Gregory Gieras' screenplay.
Eventually the source of the problem, the military, steps in to take over the hunt for the ever-growing spider. Ray Wise's Major Braxton Tanner is leading the counter attack, and like all things Wise does, he's fantastic. His second in command is Lt. Karly Brant (Clare Kramer), who soon becomes a potential love interest for Mathis. There's also a weird military scientist (Patrick Bauchau) thrown into the mix just for the creep vibe, which he provides admirably.
The first thing that struck me about Big Ass Spider! is that it's clear director Mendez has a deep love for these types of films (unlike the makers of most of the films of this ilk that end up on the SyFy channel). I'm not saying that Mendez misses many opportunities for campy behavior and corny jokes, but he also is clearly has no issues going full-on violent and nasty, especially when the spider gets large enough to start stabbing people through the chest with its legs, binding them up in its web, and eating them whole. Yum!
While it's clear the film was made for pennies, I couldn't help being impressed with many of the effects shots in the film (some of which hadn't quite been completed at this particular screening). The filmmakers only show us bits and pieces of the spider (a black widow, if I'm not mistaken) in early scenes to build suspense, but once the full creature is revealed, it's almost always kept in broad daylight so we can admire its intricate design. There's no hiding effects shots in darkness here.
I'm a huge admirer of 1990s silly and scary Arachnophobia, and Big Ass Spider! is clearly the heir apparent to that work (with bits of Eight Legged Freaks thrown in for good measure). Would the film work as well and amuse you as much if you were watching it home alone in the middle of the week when the sun was still up? Probably not. This is the kind of film whose enjoyment is fueled and heightened by laughter, applause, screams and the shared experience, whether it be at midnight viewings in rep houses or at home with a few friends. Big Ass Spider! is not a great movie, but it's a great time at the movies. The film is playing this weekend in Chicago at midnight Friday and Saturday nights at the Music Box Theatre.
Go to Ain't It Cool News to read my exclusive interview with Big Ass Spider! director Mike Mendez.
Running from Crazy
Teetering on the line (but never quite crossing it, thankfully) of self-indulgent, celebrity pretentiousness, Running from Crazy is the frank, sincere and inspirational story of the Hemingway family, which has been plagued through the generations with mental illness and a slew of suicides that would and does make any blood relation nervous. The profile is told through the unfiltered reflections of actor Mariel Hemingway (Manhattan, Personal Best, Star 80) whose direct contact with her family's issues could be seen all around her, from her supermodel sister Margaux (who committed suicide) and artist sister "Muffet" (real name Joan, who is still alive but mentally troubled) to her alcoholic parents, including father Jack, who lived his whole life in the shadow of his father, the legendary author Ernest Hemingway, also a suicide victim.
Listening to Mariel sift through the emotional wreckage of her family is fascinating stuff, especially when it's accompanied with raw footage from a documentary sister Margaux was making about her parents and sisters, although Mariel ended up not appearing in that footage, nor was she even aware it existed until seeing a cut of this film for the first time. Mariel managed to avoid the severe mental anguish of most of her close family members, but worrying that one day it would strike provided an underlying tension to her life, which ended up making her vulnerable and open to outside influences in both her career and her lengthy marriage to her now ex-husband, who makes an amazingly awkward appearance in the film.
But coming clean about the Hemingway family story is also an exercise for Mariel in relaying previously unheard stories to her two daughters, the actress/model Dree, who rattles her mother with the revelation that she considers Margaux a role model, and burgeoning artist Langley, who admits to struggling with depression herself. The film shows mother and children in separate conversations talk about the family — past and present — as Mariel explains why she waited so long to let them in on the family's secrets.
Running from Crazy also shows Mariel Hemingway's life today, and exploring the ways she has attempted to keep her mind and body in check, trying every diet and spiritual outlet imaginable. Clearly a lifetime of watching others behave out of control had made her a control freak, with a schedule that cannot be broken (or there will be hell to pay) and a diet and exercise regimen that is guaranteed to make you feel old and out of shape no matter how healthy you think you may be.
The film is expertly directed by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Barbara Kopple (Harlan County U.S.A., Shut Up and Sing), who is a master at getting her subjects to talk and be more open and honest than they probably are with their therapist. But her skills yield enlightening and wonderful material that goes well beyond the typical reality show manufactured drama that passes for a documentary these days. Mariel Hemingway is shows using the knowledge that she has collected about her troubled family over the years and turning into the spearhead of a cause she is deeply passionate about — suicide prevention. Her continuing message and goal is to remind people that however terrible they feel, they are not alone.
We all think we come from a crazy family in one way or another; Running from Crazy is an case study of one of the most famous families in American history, and even they struggled to stay sane and keep it together. The film is an exposed nerve of emotion, shame, fear and ultimately acceptance. But director Kopple never forgets to keep things interesting, informative and even entertaining. It's a delightful change from much of what I've been seeing lately, and this story is told with admirable clarity and intelligence. The film opens today in Chicago at the AMC River East theaters. Both subject Mariel Hemingway and director Barbara Kopple will be on hand for a post-screening Q&A after the Friday, Nov. 15, 7:15pm showing.
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The Observer: What would Frances Perkins do?
seacoast online
https://www.seacoastonline.com/news/20181119/observer-what-would-frances-perkins-do
By Ron McAllister
It is easy to think that life as we experience it today is much the same as it was decades ago but a little historical perspective shows that life in 2018 is very different from life, say in 1918. Imagine trading your life for that of your parents, grandparents or great grandparents. As an example, think about working conditions 100 years ago.
In 1918, there was no standard 40-hour work week, no minimum wage, no worker’s compensation, no unemployment insurance, no prohibition on child labor, no Social Security. All these initiatives (and more) came into existence as part of the New Deal of the 1930s; programs that have persisted for nearly 80 years.
These programs, along with the alphabet soup of agencies that helped end the Great Depression, were shaped by a woman closely identified with Maine — Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945. Born in 1880 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Perkins became a social worker following graduation from Mount Holyoke College. She subsequently worked with the legendary Jane Addams of Hull House in Chicago, learning about the world of settlement houses and of the precarious lives of laboring people.
Frances Perkins witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City in 1911. She never forgot the working conditions that killed 146 mostly immigrant workers that day. Seeing young women hurl themselves from the windows of the burning factory had a profound effect on Perkins whose life had been relatively comfortable to the point.
Following his election in 1932, but before his inauguration, FDR invited Frances Perkins to be his Secretary of Labor. They had worked together in Albany when FDR was governor of New York. The president knew the vision, persistence and toughness that Perkins would bring to his cabinet.
She was the first woman ever appointed to a president’s cabinet and she faced widespread opposition from powerful men who did not like the idea of having any woman in power. But there was more than sexism at play in the headwinds Frances Perkins faced. Entrenched interests opposed her appointment and made her job harder than it would otherwise have been.
The Republican opposition she and FDR encountered in the 1930s when they were working on economic security measures like Social Security has not disappeared. The GOP remains hostile to progressive initiatives like Social Security as well as toward subsequent Perkins-inspired social programs like Medicare.
Echoes of New Deal-era Republican opposition also can be seen in Gov. Paul LePage’s resistance to increases in the minimum wage, to limits on child labor and to expanding Medicaid coverage. No fan of Perkins, in 2011 LePage removed a multi-panel mural from the Maine State House that featured her image.
I’m embarrassed to confess how little I knew about Secretary Perkins and her legacy. Much of what I learned followed a visit to the Frances Perkins Center in Damariscotta, Maine. The Perkins family summered in mid-coast Maine for many years. Frances grew up in Newcastle on the Damariscotta River. The Main Street Damariscotta museum dedicated to this remarkable woman is something I recommend. [See www.FrancesPerkinsCenter.org for details.]
According to Perkins’ biographer, Kirstin Downey (The Woman Behind the New Deal), Frances Perkins would only accept the president-elect’s cabinet offer if he agreed to let her pursue her progressive agenda. She had a long list of social welfare and labor policies she was eager to pursue. Over the course of her time at Labor, most of her major ideas were enacted with one glaring exception; something we still wrangle over today — universal health insurance.
Perkins pursued a national health insurance program because she could see the need for it. She was vilified in her pursuit but she fought for it relentlessly and if she were alive today, she’d still be fighting for it just as she would be fighting to preserve Social Security, one of the proudest achievements of her extraordinary career.
It is easy to think that life as we know it today is much the same as it will be decades from now but a little imagination suggests that life could be very different in 2118. Voters everywhere should be asking what is best for their families, their state and for their country. Each of us should ask ourselves: What would Frances Perkins do? I’ll tell you: she would be working to protect Social Security and to expand Medicare and Medicaid.
Ron McAllister is a sociologist and writer who lives in York.
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