The plummeting price of fossil fuel has made certain industries quite profitable due to decreasing production and delivery costs. It also marginally helped car owners in certain parts of the world, even though the actual fuel price has not decreased as much as crude price. That is due to the fact that the cost of transforming crude to fuel (refinement, transportation) has not changed that much.
Unfortunately our reliance on fossil fuels may end up being much more costly in the long run than any short term gains. Here’s an article that explains why the situation is the way it is while also highlighting one of the worst effects of the worldwide drop in oil prices: collapsing oil-depending economies whose fall hurts millions of people:
The damage to the ecosystem is not that hard to quantify either. The sudden release (in geological terms) of all this energy that nature has stockpiled for millions of years^ is destabilizing the delicate balance of the atmosphere and oceans. The planet will rebalance itself, but the 99% of the Earth’s population that doesn’t afford shelter from the extreme weather conditions coming our way will pay a steep price for the shortsighted goals blindly followed by corporate leaders. United States’ withdrawal from the Paris accord^ encourages these dangerous practices and may set a very regrettable precedent.
And if the destruction of societies and ecosystems is not enough reason for developed countries to think twice about burning these fossil fuels so fast and greedily, how about money lost due to the exaggerated focus on private transportation? Traffic jams are very expensive:
But who knows, I’m not ruling out the possibility of this industrial spurt spawning a scientific solution to the coming predicament. It’s a risky bet to make. I’ll always wish for the best while preparing for whatever I find likely to happen next.
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Time for a hopeful look towards tomorrow. Desert Dwellers’ psybient song “New Generation” was begging for some more message. As luck would have it, Temple Step Project stepped in the project. Now, the already awesome vibes of “New Generation” are joined by a beautiful speech which integrates seamlessly with the music.
Temple Step Project went all in for the “new generation” message and gave the song a powerful, intentful message – if at time a bit too bombastic for its own good. It’s one of the better remixes out there. Even better, courtesy of a wonderfully composed fan-video we are transported to what is and what could be. I’ll link the original song too because it’s too good not to.
“We stand at the threshold of a great dawning.
Something deep within life is changing.
An era is ending.
And at the very core of creation something new is being born.
We are awakening from a long collective sleep.
An in-vitro dreaming deep in the womb of our mother Earth.
We are awakening
[…]
Let go, and let life be you. Let life be the dancer, and simply become the dance.”
You can listen to the melody for free, in good quality, on BandCamp, which is one of the best websites when it comes to supporting artists. You can also purchase the song (or album) from this same location. And in case you’re wondering, yes, I did purchase Temple Step’s album :).
You can listen to the melody for free, in good quality, on BandCamp, which is one of the best websites when it comes to supporting artists. You can also purchase the song (or album) from this same location. And in case you’re wondering, yes, I did purchase Desert Dwellers’ album :).
This Weekly Song entry has been brought from the FaceBook archive of Weekly Song^. This exploration was originally started through a FaceBook page, about 13 months prior to launching Mentatul. Slowly but surely, the entire FaceBook archive will be brought here.
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Facebook doesn’t really do its job when you ask of it to follow a website for you. Before getting into the reasons and details, here are two images that explain how you can properly follow a page on Facebook. Unless you change your notification settings as shown in the images, the default behavior is that whatever you see in your news feed is at the whim of algorithms designed to extract money out of everybody using the website – users on the one side and advertisers on the other. Sadly Facebook treats as advertisers even non-profit content creators such as myself, but more on that below. However, at least for now, there are still ways to circumvent the algorithms. Here’s what I’m talking about:
How to follow, step 1How to follow, step 2
Fueling the division
It’s a pity that I even have to type this but alas, due to the rather unfair algorithms employed by Facebook (and many other social networks), I realize it’s necessary to explain the current situation. Before I start, I’d like to emphasize that I have no problem with Facebook making a profit. As a living commercial entity, it needs to survive in order to evolve. But what will it evolve into? We as users of Facebook need to voice our concerns if we wish to have a say in its evolution. A social network should be the best place to make oneself heard but unfortunately, in the case of Facebook this is increasingly false.
For example even if you follow Mentatul on Facebook, you will still not see all the new posts in your feed because the social network uses a ruthless filtering system that actually separates people into comfort bubbles^. This algorithm has its upsides because it can show users more of the stuff they are actually interested in, but it comes at a great cost.
First of all, it deepens the chasms between social groups, reducing one’s opportunity to discuss with people outside one’s comfort zone. Like any company, Facebook wants its users happy. Happy users spend more time on the website and make the company more money. I’m not saying that the Facebook experience should become a carousel of discomfort, being bombarded with things you don’t care about or even disturb you. But instead of allowing users to become isolated tribes there should be certain topics that can cross all boundaries, especially topics that are important for social development (equal rights, education, ecosystem, anti-corruption, critical thinking).
Perhaps one day AI algorithms will be smart enough to discern between constructive writing (ideas, criticism, analysis) and intellectual poison (false news, hate speech). The question is if the humans sitting at the control panel will allow these algorithms to contribute to educating people. Certain elite groups prefer to dumb down the masses so that they are easily controllable. But there are also those that have realized that an educated population can be much more profitable for the entire species in the long run.
Making life difficult for non-profits
Another way Facebook algorithms are hurting is treating non-profits as if they were advertisers. The website is built quite “intelligently” so that it coerces the owners of pages into paying for getting exposure. It’s understandable when we’re talking about commercial, for-profit entities. But sadly, for all its “well meaning”^ attitude, Facebook doesn’t help non-profits much. Most of my posts there hardly reach a third of my followers, with the website constantly nagging me to pay in order to reach more people.
A friendly reminder to PAY
There is zero advertisement on Mentatul and the website doesn’t bring me any money yet, quite the contrary, it consumes time and bandwidth. I will never charge for my work, everything is provided for free, with a possible future option for donations. Unfortunately, Facebook doesn’t care that my page is a non-profit. Even though I’m an independent writer, it still treats me as an advertiser. What a non-profit cares about is for people who are interested in what the non-profit has to say to receive all updates.
Another friendly reminder to PAY (for each post)
When I post something on Mentatul’s Facebook page, it gets shown to a (sometimes very) limited amount of people “following” the page. To make matters worse, I’ve noticed that the most important articles, such as the ones about social issues (consumerism, intellectual diet, cultural and environmental decay) are shared even less. It’s not surprising, because such articles seem to go against Facebook’s profit-driving forces: advertisement.
A friendly reminder to PAY (for sharing original content I created and already paid for… with my time)
This is not a revolution. It’s evolution
What makes me even sadder about this situation is that I’m not even against any company making money! I’m not against advertisement at all. Treating our consumerism problem for example doesn’t mean there won’t be advertisement or profits anymore.
It simply means that companies should be encouraged to produce higher quality products with replaceable parts at increased cost. The increased cost is a profit driver that will allow companies to cover for the R&D investment required for providing better quality and the infrastructure required for maintaining products for a longer time.
Competition means that there will always be winners and losers. Curing consumerism will still be done by companies, but it has to be us, the buyers of products, who make sure that non-consumerist companies succeed. Facebook still has a place in that world, so does advertisement and corporations. But it can all be done in a much better fashion in order to safeguard our ecosystem and continued quality of life on this planet.
And this is how I turned a post about how to follow a website into a philosophical discussion about economy, advertisement and the artificial intelligence used by social networks. Seriously though, if you like what I write here, please go through the trouble of following my Facebook page properly :D.
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You can’t play this song. It plays you. If you let it, it’ll stretch your mind far towards funkyland and load it up with a sphere of crazyjoy. Then, the intellectual bow will be fired and the ball of crazyjoy will be shot back into our reality with a noisy twang. It will reach Earth at full power, trumpeting and tip-toeing its chaotic-yet-charming dance, changing tempo, keeping the ear guessing at what’s going to play its drum next.
You can listen to the melody for free, in good quality, on BandCamp, which is one of the best websites when it comes to supporting artists. You can also purchase the song (or album) from this same location. And in case you’re wondering, yes, I did purchase Argaman’s album :).
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I present you with one of the best geopolitical analysis articles I’ve read in the past couple of years. It’s also quite a long read. But if you care about the conflict between the world’s superpowers, this will be an excellent use of your time since it’s also very well written.
The text goes in ample detail regarding cyberwarfare and how Russia has become a force to be reckoned with in the field of social media manipulation. You will also learn why it was possible for Russia to influence the elections in the United States. In turn, this will make it clear that democracy is facing a threat as a result of the intense polarization affecting many societies on Earth.
This polarization is a result of people having become disillusioned with the establishment (both political and economic). Unfortunately, everybody stands to lose when power is transferred to irrational, perhaps even sick individuals.
In the article below, you will also be presented with valuable historical information that will help in understanding the current geopolitical situation.
Even though the text is written from an American point of view, I found it to be quite balanced. Of course, I’m aware that this judgement is based on my ideological preferences. In any case, there’s a lot of useful information to be extracted from the text, which is why I highly recommend it.
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Telling a tale through music is one of the most beautiful joinings of the arts. The atmosphere-building in this song is done with supreme mastery. Every instrument is introduced at just the right time and is being kept on the stage for exactly as much as it should. For example there’s some delicate percussion starting at 0:28. It stays around for less than 20 seconds.
Kenny’s voice is just perfect for the story he’s telling. The reverb is used in ample amount, but again, ideal for the mood being conjured. As the song builds up, a choir joins voices with the singer, telling us important things about life from a gambler’s perspective. And this brings me to the lyrics. The song does very well at imparting life wisdom through the use of analogy.
This is probably the oldest song I’ve featured in my Weekly Song collection. The fact that it “made it” in this modern music listener’s subjective “best of” is sign of how actual this song still is. It also makes me want to find more “oldies but goldies” through the endless tail of the comet named Human Art.
“You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em
Know when to fold ‘em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done
Every gambler knows
That the secret to survivin’
Is knowin’ what to throw away
And knowin’ what to keep ‘Cause every hand’s a winner And every hand’s a loser
And the best that you can hope for is to die
in your sleep”
I have one (very) personal comment regarding these last two verses. In this writer’s opinion, a lucid death under the sun is better. Preferably without excessive pain.
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In the past few years we’ve learned a lot about how plants communicate with each other. The first such communication to be discovered was through volatile organic compounds that plants secrete in order to notify each other of predators. This is known as hormonal sentience^.
More recently, scientists have discovered that plants communicate even underneath the surface, using fungi:
Things get even more interesting. It appears that trees have a complex social life, being aware to recognize family members and different species. It’s as mind-blowing as it is expected (humanity is slowly but surely waking up to the fact that intelligence comes in many flavors):
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There’s a fine balance between ambient and dance music. At the crossroads, you can find styles such as psybient, to which this calm yet diverse song belongs. The rather lengthy composition seems to have but one purpose: to submerge the listener in a world of adventurous, delicate sound, guided by mystical chanting. It is all supported by solid, well-thought rhythm.
You can listen to the melody for free, in good quality, on BandCamp, which is one of the best websites when it comes to supporting artists. You can also purchase the song (or album) from this same location.
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First of all, congratulations to India for launching 104 satellites in one shot. Congratulations also to the various organizations that will advance science through the various experiments on board them satellites. However…
I have said it in the past^ as well. We’re being careless with our orbital activities. It’s not only our forests and seas that we’re spoiling, but also our lovely planet’s orbital space. And like the environment down here, there’s only one up there and once we’ve ruined it, it’ll take a long time to fix.
Sure, there’s a lot more space up there, even if we only consider close Earth orbit. But if we keep launching our tech-junk with little foresight one day we might get hit by the nasty Kessler syndrome^, and then we’ll see decades of technological progress thrown out the window, not to mention it’ll be very difficult for anything to leave Earth until we clean the mess up. At least it’ll be some measure of defense against alien immigrants?
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It’s one of The Crystal Method’s most lyrically-inspired songs. It’s also one of the more mellow ones – this tune is not as danceable as some of the band’s other creations. Instead, they wisely opted for crafting an intricate arrangement of atmosphere-enhancing sound textures. These are the perfect accompaniment for Hanifah Walidah’s voice, as it punctuates the flowy instrumentals with lyrical surgical strikes.
This is one of those times when a lot can be communicated through not so many words. Two of the song’s verses in particular have impressed me: Open like a child’s mind? / But then you start talkin’. I interpreted this as “a child’s mind is open until it starts talking”. Food for thought: just how much is language restricting the mind’s full and total openness? Isn’t language to the mind what the lines on millimeter paper are to a virgin canvas?
“Open like what?
Open like a child’s mind?
But then you start talkin’
