May 2013
Scientific American: Why People Believe in...
Sander van der Linden, in a Scientific American post, reviews the environment of conspiracism and psychology detailing the correlates with adhering to the conspiracist world-view as: believing in other contradictory conspiracies; “higher-order beliefs” (such as general distrust of authority); rejection of mainstream science; and disengagement from society and politics, which they...
“After everything I’ve been through, the last thing I’m going to...”
– Richard Finney
FBI wants mandatory backdoor into Facebook and...
In what the FBI’s lawyers call the “going dark” problem, they claim without mandatory “wiretapping backdoors” the FBI would be forced to shut down investigations, with proposals for “…a kind of digital-age wiretap that could read, for instance, Facebook messages or Gchats.”
Read at Ars Technica http://mys.tc/2m6
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Christian Settlers in Jamestown Colony Resorted to... →
In the most interesting anthropological / american history article I’ve read in a while, Joseph Stromberg of Smithsonian Magazine details how English settlers in the “American” Jamestown colony resorted to cannibalism during the “Starving Time,” for the first time giving physical evidence to written allusions of cannibalism [and explicit mentions of consuming dug-up corpses] by the settlers...
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Religion as a psychological disorder?
Should psychologists adopt the schemata of religious ideology to fulfill the goals of psychological science?
Religion and psychology have a contentious past. As modern psychologists are distancing themselves from Freud’s psychoanalytic examination of religion(s), we are discovering that the culture of religion, and the belief it creates, is ripe for a grounded and scientific analysis by way of...
April 2013
*the site you are looking for doesn't seem to...
Sorry for the glitch, folks! MysticPolitics.com is back after a quick squabble with our host. :)
Religion as Psychosis?
Working on my Psy Final. Paper is on a psychological disorder or phenomena. I chose religious psychosis and religious delusion. :)
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at...”
– Henry David Thoreau
Court rejects plea for access to Bradley Manning...
Josh Gerstein:
“The decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces came on a bid by journalists to gain access to legal filings and court orders in the court martial of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who’s accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of military reports and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.
In a sharply divided ruling, the appeals court ruled, 3-2, that it had no...
“Hackers from the group Anonymous have claimed responsibility for an attack on...”
“When human judgment and big data intersect there are some funny things that...”
– Nate Silver
House overwhelmingly approves CISPA cybersecurity...
Declan McCullagh:
“CISPA is controversial because it overrules all existing federal and state laws by saying “notwithstanding any other provision of law,” including privacy policies and wiretap laws, companies may share cybersecurity-related information “with any other entity, including the federal government.” It would not, however, require them to do so.
That...
Neuroscience and Fear: How Terror Hijacks the...
Maia Szalavitz:
‘When the brain is under severe threat, it immediately changes the way it processes information, and starts to prioritize rapid responses. “The normal long pathways through the orbitofrontal cortex, where people evaluate situations in a logical and conscious fashion and [consider] the risks and benefits of different behaviors— that gets short circuited,” says Dr. Eric...
“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it”
– Alfred Hitchcock
CBS News: EMS: 60 dead, over 100 injured in Waco,...
CBS News: EMS: 60 dead, over 100 injured in Waco, Texas fertilizer plant explosion | http://mys.tc/2ly
“If we have souls they are made by a love we share”
– Jack Harper, Oblivion
“Cloning will enable mankind to reach eternal life”
– Claude Vorilhon
Made-to-Order Embryos Create New Legal Issues
Live Science:
“People in the United States who want to have children have been able to purchase donated sperm and eggs separately for some time, but the relatively recent practice of selling embryos introduces new ethical and legal issues that should be addressed, experts say.”
Read at Live Science | http://mys.tc/2lx
“The gentleman understands what is right, whereas the petty man understands...”
– Confucius
Big Data and Retailers: How Stores Spy on You
Consumer Reports details how retail stores leverage your in-store and out-of-store data such as where you look (products and duration), the collective heat map of your cellphone signal to track paths, and data-mine your facial expressions, government ID’s and license plates to tailor ad experiences, maximize their profits, and open the door to gender and ethnicity biased price-points.
...
“The bird, the bee, the running child are all the same to the sliding glass door”
– Demetri Martin
Robotic Bees to Pollinate Monsanto Crops?
Earth First:
“Harvard roboticists are developing a solution to the [bee] crisis: swarms of tiny robot bees made of titanium and plastic that can pollinate those vast dystopian fields of GMO cash crops.”
Read at Earth First | http://mys.tc/2lv
(Comic) NRA Magnet School by Steve Sack
NRA Magnet School:Raise your hands and hold out your bathroom hall pass! -Nice and slow… (img by Steve Sack, Star Tribune).
“The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history”
– Noam Chomsky
Climate-Skeptic Congressman Cites Biblical Flood...
ABC News:
“In his five-minute remarks today on the Keystone Pipeline, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, pointed out a “divergence of evidence” on global warming, citing the biblical Great Flood as an example of climate change. Barton delivered remarks today at the Subcommittee on Energy and Power hearing in support of the Northern Route Approval Act, legislation that would grant Congress the...
“A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity”
– Baltasar Gracian
Glenn Greenwald: Three key lessons from the Obama...
Glenn Greenwald:
“For years, senior Obama officials, including the president himself, have been making public claims about their drone program that have just been proven to be categorically false. The evidence of this falsity is so conclusive that even establishment sources are using unusually harsh language - including “lies” - to describe Obama’s statements.”
...
“The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all”
– John F. Kennedy
House Intelligence Committee approve CISPA Bill...
CNET:
“A controversial data-sharing bill won the approval of a key congressional committee today without privacy amendments, raising concerns that the National Security Agency and other spy agencies will gain broad access to Americans’ personal information.
The House Intelligence committee, by a vote of 18 to 2, adopted the so-called CISPA bill after an unusual session closed to...
“People love conspiracy theories”
– Neil Armstrong
“Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies”
– Jane Austen
Verizon Wireless: Secrets of FBI Smartphone...
Wired:
“A legal fight over the government’s use of a secret surveillance tool has provided new insight into how the controversial tool works and the extent to which Verizon Wireless aided federal agents in using it to track a suspect.
Court documents in a case involving accused identity thief Daniel David Rigmaiden describe how the wireless provider reached out remotely to reprogram an...
Children's Book Author Reveals The 'Spooky Truth'...
Ha. From the Onion:
“The bestselling author of “The Spooky Truth” series wants to teach kids that pulling back the curtain on what the government doesn’t want us to know can be fun!”
Watch at Mystic Politics: http://mys.tc/2lq
IRS Datamining Social Media and Online...
U.S. News:
“The Internal Revenue Service is collecting a lot more than taxes this year—it’s also acquiring a huge volume of personal information on taxpayers’ digital activities, from eBay auctions to Facebook posts and, for the first time ever, credit card and e-payment transaction records, as it expands its search for tax cheats to places it’s never gone...
“Most intellectuals today have a phobia of any explanation of the mind that...”
– Steven Pinker
Australian Bio-Ethicist: In Vitro Eugenics will...
An Australian bio-ethicist predicts eugenicist applications [which he apparently supports] of stem cell technology to breed humans in a Petri dish, where over the next ten years they can engineer “…20–30 generations of human beings in vitro — enough to achieve significant changes in genotype. Advances in cell culture technology and in the science of gametogenesis might increase this...
