According to some researchers, the Zika virus, which causes the Zika fever^, can cause microcephaly and other brain malformations in some babies if the mother is infected during pregnancy. However, there have been indications that there might be other causes for the infants’ malformations, such as the parents’ exposure to toxic pesticides. In 12000 Zika-infected Colombian pregnancies there wasn’t a single case of microcephaly. Unfortunately the sources for this last information are unreliable and contested, so take this with a grain of salt.
While the jury is still out on what is causing microcephaly, let’s take a look at one solution that’s being considered for fighting the spread of Zika:
OX513A is a genetically engineered male mosquito produced by a British company. The USA is tentatively playing with the idea of releasing this species into the wild with the purpose of controlling mosquito populations. This male mosquito passes a gene that makes females’ offspring die before reaching adulthood. It may even work.
As is often the case, humans scramble to find quick solutions for their own speciest interest, tampering with complex ecosystems about which they barely have developed an inkling of understanding. And also as is often the case, this might end blowing up in our faces.
Then again, the people working on such projects are top scientists so they know what they’re doing, at least momentarily. But that’s the thing. Momentarily, we’ve always been good at patching things up. It’s the long term effects^ that usually end up hurting us the most.
Bioengineering plants is one thing, but insects are highly mobile and I just don’t want to imagine what might happen when a certain mosquito’s genetic material combines with another’s, producing who-knows what sort of super-mosquito. This will probably not happen, but at times I can’t help thinking that our playing with the ecosystem is at best risky and at worst misguided, arrogant and deadly.
Fortunately, the proposal to trial OX513A in the wild will most likely be voted down, but the very fact that they’re considering it, is worrying – also from an ethical perspective. What right do we have to decide if another species can or cannot have offspring? Perhaps we’re taking “survival of the fittest” a bit too far?
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Relaxation and play constitute an important part of life. Most of us spend around half of our waking time at work. We live in a world of informational overload. As such, the breaks we can take from the daily routines are quite important. The digital age has made audio-visual entertainment cheap, easy to obtain and, for an ever-increasing number of people it became one of the main means of counteracting the stress of daily life.
Cinematography and computer games are the undisputed leaders when it comes to this sort of fun. There are a lot of excellent movies and games out there. The opposite is also true and therein lays a problem: entertainment is a highly efficient means of propagating stereotypes and ideologies. Let’s take a look at some of these effects and observe how they sometimes end up damaging our society.
The human body
Nowhere are the stereotypes more apparent than the portrayal of the human body in mainstream entertainment. The prime example is the stereotyping of the female body and the worst offender is the computer games industry. Take a look at these examples:
Females in computer games
Most action flicks spewing from Hollywood ooze the same type of intellectual pollution. Through this, not only are men trained into appreciating a stereotypical body type, but women are also subliminally directed into attempting to become exactly that. Men fall prey to images of them as muscle monsters that have to go to the gym and eat stuff like this:
The Church of the Artificially Grown Muscle – the all-mighty Protein Store
Why is this happening, who benefits from all this? On the one hand, we have the chemical nutrition industry, the cosmetics industry and of course, the pharmaceutical industry (which comes in when the chemical nutrition & cosmetics succeed in damaging the body). For these businesses, mainstream entertainment has become excellent free advertisement. The emphasis placed on the word “mainstream” is there to remind that we’re targeting the trend, rather than the exceptions.
On the other hand, we have the entertainment industry itself. With the stereotypes now in place, it is easy to create generic movies and games, all following the same template. This sort of patterned repetition generates quick income and strengthens existent stereotypes. It’s a clever system that feeds on itself and grows in size through the conversion of human intellect, not unlike religion really, which at one point was some societies’ means of escape from real or imaginary threats.
Many people try to resist this sort of programming. However, entertainment can be an insidious force. After showering the brain with sounds and images, it has the advantage of dealing with a relaxed mind that is at its most receptive to external stimuli, with most of its defenses lowered (because it’s just “fun” broadcasting). To better envision how important the state of relaxation is, simply remember how a muscle has to be before getting an injection.
Humans are relaxed when they are entertained, and it is therefore difficult to resist the poisonous messages delivered to them. The pornographic industry, for example, takes advantage of the receptivity of the brain while being entertained by erotic imagery. While in this state, the rewiring of neural pathways (obtained through repeated suggestion) is very efficient.
Devaluing beauty
The result of this “war against uniqueness” is a net devaluation of beauty. Stereotypes may be funny at times, convenient shortcuts at others, but sadly, a significant part of the entertainment industry has turned firmly against that which is unique, special and beautiful in favor of what sells. See this excellent short video^ about how men are treated in video games – like sacks of meat that should be stabbed, beat, shot and blown into oblivion.
Objectification leads to a loss of identity. When any person diverts too much attention towards physical aspects, they neglect the equally important internal world. That is not to say that physical beauty is irrelevant. Of course we should respect and take care of our bodies. However, due to the perpetual conditioning received through various forms of entertainment, many victims lose touch with the natural beauty of their bodies.
The mainstream pornographic industry is probably at the pinnacle of objectification. Taking advantage of already established stereotypes while in the same time reinforcing them, this business is one of the biggest earners in audio-visual entertainment. Many, if not most of the women performing in adult movies have done so under social pressure. There are many means of coercing, ranging from criminal (slavery) to exploiting social programming. Because of Social Contribution Inequality^, the number of vulnerable women is astonishingly high.
The advertisement business is akin to pornography
How many people have been through depression due to the way they believed their body looks? Notice here the use of the word “belief”. The human body is beautiful throughout the many changes that happen to it. But those that can influence what people see and hear love nothing more than to teach humans what to think about their and others’ bodies. The purpose is to divert people from their internal world, even abandon it in pursuit of cosmetic fixes. It’s no wonder many victims end up numbing themselves with antidepressants, filling up Big Pharma’s coffers.
In a healthy culture, there is no “ugly” person. A proof of this is that we often find ourselves in awe of a special, twisted tree. This is because we haven’t been conditioned as to what “the perfect tree” should look like. Although, it should be added that gardening is also an industry.
Devaluing life
While we’re at the subject of trees, why not look a bit further. Animals, robots, aliens, zombies, mutants, they’re all shoved into the cinema/gaming stereotype-fest in often unhealthy ways such as serving as cannon fodder during various types of massacre. Again, this is not about those beautiful productions that manage to challenge our intellect and present unique perspectives or teach us about compassion. It’s about the downward spiral towards the dark side of the survival instinct – fear.
There is little respect given to the creatures portrayed on-screen and even less compassion – which is not surprising, since the industry has reached a point where writers are demanded to produce shallow stories that satisfy consumers whose intellectual appetite has been numbed by low quality entertainment. There are exceptions to this, but they are increasingly rare.
Desensitization to violence & devaluing life
All of this devaluesour society’s inherent respect for life. It is therefore not surprising that humans are destroying their environment or subjecting other forms of life to benevolent imprisonment.
Solutions
Education is the obvious key here. Our children will be happier when they are aware of their natural beauty and even more importantly, they should know how to find and respect others’ natural beauty, how to appreciate the value of life, regardless of species.
An Intellectual Diet^ can help by getting rid of some of the toxic programming. A pro-active attitude is perhaps necessary. Boycott the companies that engage in such practices; refuse to see movies, buy games or products that sustain “dirty entertainment”.
Knowledge such as this is widely available all around us. Once incorporated, it can serve as a sort of mental immune system. I’m certainly not the first one to write on this topic and I wish others will continue to advance this discussion further. I rarely, if ever, ask anybody to share one of my articles, but if you can see value in what you just read, if you think that this is a good explanation for something that you already felt, perhaps now is the time to administer an intellectual vaccine to those that you care about.
To conclude on a positive note, here are some proposals for male costumes, if only artists would apply the same techniques used to emphasize women’s bodies.
Men Dressed Like Women
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This song starts with some of the most beautiful percussion I’ve heard lately. It’s exquisitely laid-back and relaxing but in the same time, solemn and evocative. The lyrics bring home what is definitely a true musical gem.
Alternative country is a very interesting musical style. These handsome artists and their expertly mixing indie folk in it have just made it even more interesting. I wish this song was 2 hours long, but its short length is what makes it so charming. Welcome to the paradox that is art.
“From the dusty mesa, her looming shadow grows
Hidden in the branches of the poison creosote
She twines her spines up slowly towards the boiling sun,
And when I touched her skin, my fingers ran with blood.
[…]
And rise with me forever across the silent sand,
And the stars will be your eyes and the wind will be my hands.”
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Late in the sixties, the USA, along with Denmark who controlled Greenland at the time, thought that it’s pretty safe to bury the remnants of a military nuclear reactor within the ice sheet. They assumed continual snowfall would only bury the waste deeper.
Needless to say, the assumption was not only wrong, but the exact opposite is happening. Due to global warming, in as little as 75 years, the buried remnants will resurface and will have to be dealt with, or else. Or else they’ll enter our ocean.
Taking care of the problem isn’t really rocket science. Extract the waste, haul it some hundred kilometers north and bury it again, this time in a concrete or metal sarcophagus. It won’t be cheap but it’s probably the easiest solution. A more complicated solution would be to mail it to Washington.
Sadly, we’ve proven ourselves once again to be incapable of finding a good long-term solution for the mess we’re making through irresponsible use of technology (which is more often than not related to the military industrial complex). But humans eventually learn from past mistakes, even if sometimes the lesson needs to be repeated a hundred too many times.
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There were strange sounds coming from within the beatbox. The Ear approached and, with a greedy grin, attached itself to the musical device. Absorbing Ott’s delicious sound nectar, the Ear was getting closer to ecstasy minute after minute.
The music was chasing imagination over the Mountains of Impossible and Ear was delighted. Owl was stretching time so that Ear could cross the Valley of the Infinite in just a few seconds. Finally, Ear found the magic key and this is where words finally reach the end of their usefulness.
You can listen to the song 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 Ott’s album :).
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Recent studies show that ducks may be capable of abstract thinking. Scientists have reached this conclusion after hatching about a hundred ducklings and playing shape games with them while they were imprisoned in an enclosure:
The fact that we’re the dominant species on this planet certainly has its perks. I suppose it would also be just fine if a race of curious aliens starts taking our babies away and make them crawl after floating spheres and cubes in order to examine how their curiosity develops.
Oh, did you know we’re able to hatch chicks without eggshells?
Wouldn’t it be great if those aliens would start to populate our planet with babies grown in grocery bags with tubes rather than a mother’s womb? Do you think those children would turn out smarter and perhaps less merciless than we are?
And last but not least, here’s one last bitter pill for the day:
Congratulations brothers and sisters, both for causing this and for fighting against it. Sarcasm doesn’t go well with optimism, does it?
Sharkasm
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There are very few songs of which you can say “oldie but Goldie” with as much satisfaction. This beautiful musical poem was released at the end of the 80s and topped the charts in more than a few countries. True to its name, the melody flows like few others. With its excellent production values and clever use of reverb, this song was way ahead of its time – and this makes it as actual today as it was 30 years ago.
Surprisingly, the same can be said about the video, which uses simple graphical techniques that look beautiful even in the 21st century. Good job Enya & crew!
“From the north to the south, Ebudae into Khartoum,
From the deep sea of clouds to the island of the moon,
Carry me on the waves to the land I’ve never been,
Carry me on the waves to the lands I’ve never seen.”
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Among the strangest things I’ve read lately is how a group of (Christian) parents prevented yoga exercises from being taught at a Swedish school. Among others, the motivation was that the exercises might tamper with their children’s religious beliefs:
Fairness champion Sweden interdicts religious interference in schools. However, yoga is tied to Buddhism the same way fasting is tied to Christianity or Islam (not at all). Yoga and fasting are disciplines that test the body and mind. Both practices have been proven time and again to be beneficial. And while fasting requires a careful understanding of one’s biorhythms, yoga is a readily available for improving one’s body, balance, physical and mental discipline.
One parent is quoted as saying: “Yoga is used by Buddhists as a form of meditation. We don’t know what it might lead to.” Maybe the person could be informed that it could lead to less violence^. How can anybody have a problem with meditation? Meditation is inherently non-religious and Buddhism itself is not a religion. It could perhaps be considered a religion of no religion. It’s scientific spirituality and encourages experimentation and a personal understanding of spiritual matters.
It’s sad that people aren’t well educated at all when it comes to other cultures. Maybe it’s natural to fear what you don’t know, but these things are actually quite easy to get to know and understand. But then again, the educational system that is used in constructing the foundations of our society has serious issues.
How can we expect to live in a healthy society when most children are put through a schooling system that encourages obedience, conformity and competition? There are no lessons in school about empathy and compassion.
Children are discouraged from challenging the authority of their parents and their leaders. They’re treated as second the class citizens of an adult family so it’s no surprise one of the first things they do in life is to discriminate between themselves and others. In the same time, they’re conditioned to think that being a leader is something reserved to an entirely different class of people.
Nature vs Culture
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It’s not easy to make good quality psybient music. If the beat is too alert, the atmosphere is ruined. If the melody is too slow or simple, then it definitely isn’t psy. Among the few artists that do psybient right, Kaminanda is one of the most promising. This song flows perfectly and relentlessly. Give it a listen and let the music play your mental drums.
You can listen to the song 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 Kaminanda’s album :).
[ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/00887-KaminandaGatewaysOfConsciousness-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Kaminanda – Ritual Ecologies’ desc=’This song flows perfectly and relentlessly. Give it a listen and let the music play your mental drums.’]
It’s full of overpriced devices out there. Here’s a short list of shame that I’ve compiled during years of reading hardware & technology news.
Lenovo PCs – they’ve took over IBM’s high quality laptop business and proceeded to thoroughly exploit it. Almost all competing brands offer a lower price for identical hardware configurations. Dell, another high quality manufacturer is also among these competitors (and unlike Lenovo, they’re much more upfront with drivers & servicing manuals, both of which are available online). Did I mention that Lenovo was recently involved in a major spyware scandal^?
Razer – oh no, it’s those guys who try to make their devices seem more capable or expensive by adding fancy LED lighting and cool logos. Razer’s gaming laptop is nice but overpriced, so is most of their product catalog. What’s worse is that the company also has lots of quality issues^. Admittedly, Razer has innovated quite a bit in the past decade, so at least they’re putting the money to (some) good use.
Any top CPU or GPU model – unless you’re swimming in money, don’t buy the fastest CPU or GPU. Their price-performance ratios are terrible (around twice the price for just 50% extra bang). Always buy mid-range or mid-to-high-range, unless you urgently and imperatively need everything you can get and are sure you will fully exploit it.
Oculus Rift – despite being cheaper than the competing Vive, the Rift comes with no special VR-designed controllers and lacks room-scale (the ability to track the position of the player’s body). Oculus controllers will only come out in Q4 2016 and the platform will probably continue to lack room-scale. Add to this a rather arrogant approach to cross-platform compatibility and you got a product that definitely needs some additional time to mature. For those that want to get into VR, I recommend the Vive. This is a completely unbiased recommendation since I do not own either of them, nor do I intend to buy anything just yet.
What about Apple? Their products are indeed over-priced, but this is at least partially justified. The quality of Apple hardware is among the highest I’ve ever seen. The software is highly optimized so that it requires fewer resources. This is especially important when it comes to mobile devices. Apple devices have impressive battery life. The company also deserves credit for currently having the highest standard in terms of privacy and security for its customers. All things considered, with Apple, you get what you pay for. And no, I do not own any single Apple product, being a long-time PC / Android user.
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Because being informed is just not enough anymore…
