Is Burning Man counter-cultural?
One dude interviewed for this academic paper about Burning Man had a pretty interesting answer to the question – is Burning Man counter-cultural:
No… I consider my day-to-day world counter-cultural. I think that society, the global-whatever you want to call this thing we live in, most of the time, going to work, it’s just… just so fragmented, so incongruent, that I think true culture is found in what we’re doing with Burning Man. I don’t get that same sense of community and cultural richness presented to me, or presented [at all]… It’s almost like you have to search for it outside of select few things, and Burning Man being one of those things. And the intentional communities that are forming through people having met one another at Burning Man, who started collaborating on projects, started to share their passion… that’s real culture. I think counter-culture is people getting numbed and going to work forty hours a week and losing their passion and sight of their dream and purpose, that’s counter-cultural.
It’s interesting to think about Burning man not as an arbitrary departure from modern culture but as a powerful restoration of premodern culture.
I think I have to agree with this guy.
The modern industrial project is counter-cultural.
Burning Man, to some degree, is the restoration of human culture.
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“Cultural Performances at Burning Man: Dramatizing the Postmodern Crisis of Affect”
Baha'i leader predicts social media in 1938
(via @pupakat)
The great grandson of Baha’i’s founder Baha’u’llah, Shoghi Effendi spoke of a technology which eerily jives with social media (especially Twitter).
Check this out:
“A mechanism of world inter-communication will be devised, embracing the whole planet, freed from national hindrances and restrictions, and functioning with marvellous swiftness and perfect regularity…The press will, under such a system, while giving full scope to the expression of the diversified views and convictions of mankind, cease to be mischievously manipulated by vested interests, whether private or public, and will be liberated from the influence of contending governments and peoples.”From Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha’u’llah, p. 203-204
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If you’ve never heard of Baha’i, check out the teachings. They’re beautiful.
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The things you can learn from speed dating
I keep hearing about studies that leverage speed dating events to research physical attraction, romance etiquette and the like.
This write up is pretty interesting.
Researchers found that something as simple as who physically approaches who can have a significant impact on desire:
“The mere act of physically approaching a potential partner, versus being approached, seemed to increase desire for that partner,” said Eli Finkel, associate professor of psychology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern and co-investigator of the study.
Regardless of gender, those who rotated experienced greater romantic desire for their partners, compared to those who sat throughout the event. The rotators, compared to the sitters, tended to have a greater interest in seeing their speed-dating partners again.
“Given that men generally are expected — and sometimes required – to approach a potential love interest, the implications are intriguing,” Finkel said.
“Let’s face it, even today, there is a huge difference in terms of who is expected to walk across the bar to say ‘hi,’” added Northwestern’s Paul Eastwick, the study’s other co-investigator.
It sounds like it would be in the organizers’ interest to make everyone get up and rotate. Wouldn’t that stimulate desire across the board?!
Next time I organize a speed dating event, I think I’ll have to give this a try.
How many senses do you have?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUn7zy8Ya20&rel=0&color1=0x402061&color2=0x9461ca&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
Although this is kind of a silly video, I think the dude has a point.
The 5 senses – especially touch – are extremely oversimplified.
Distinguishing proprioception (the ability to sense where you body parts are in space) as a separate sense seems very reasonable.
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The Octopus is an interesting reference.
While they have a great sense of touch, octopi have a poor sense of proprioception.
Meanwhile they can taste stuff they touch.
An octopus’ suction cups are equipped with chemoreceptors so that the octopus can taste what it is touching.
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Octopuses also don’t have stereognosis.
Meaning, they cannot “form a mental image of the overall shape of the object it is handling.”
They can “detect local texture variations, but cannot integrate the information into a larger picture.”
Maybe we should add this to the human tally as well…
We might learn a lot if the complexity of our senses was explained more thoroughly, and not in hard and fast categories.
And who’s to say out senses are a static reality. Evolution didn’t end with it’s discovery…
Curious
Lifecasting has a pretty robust Wikipedia entry:
Lifecasting is a continual broadcast of events in a person’s life through digital media. Typically, lifecasting is transmitted through the medium of the Internet and can involve wearable technology. Lifecasting reverses the concept of surveillance, giving rise to sousveillance through portability, personal experience capture, daily routines and interactive communication with viewers.
After reading this NPR blog post, I’m starting to wonder if somebody needs to start a wikipedia entry for afterlifecasting (?)…
Bootstrapping the Noosphere
(image from here)
Ever heard of the Noosphere?
If not, keep reading.
The Noosphere is a combination of the greek words for mind and sphere: Greek νοῦς (nous “mind“) + σφαῖρα (sphaira “sphere“).
So thte Noosphere is a sphere of mind which surrounds the planet.
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The idea of the Noosphere is credited to Ukrainian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky and French philosopher Teilhard de Chardin (both pretty interesting dudes).
Vernadsky and Chardin both saw the Noosphere – a sphere of consciousness or mind – within a larger cosmic trajectory.
Vernadsky thought the Noosphere was the next logical step after the geosphere (inanimate matter) and biosphere (biological life).
Chardin thought of the Noosphere as a type of collective consciousness to emerge in line with his Law of Complexity/Consciousness.
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If Chardin and Verdansky were around today, I am curious what they would have to say about the Internet and its ability to network human minds via wikis, blogs, Twitter, Facebook…and pretty soon Google Wave.
I think you could argue that Internet is a bootstrapped version of the Noosphere.
That the Internet is a global sphere of mind.
Leave the kids alone….
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maeXjey_FGA&hl=en&fs=1]
How all of this targeted marketing impacts the psychology of children is a question I don’t think enough people are asking…
The View tackles torture
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSra-McRZEc&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
