Society

About Zuckerberg’s Global Community Vision

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Two weeks ago Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of FaceBook, dropped what I consider to be an ideological bombshell on the tech industry and on business in general. It doesn’t even matter what the true intentions behind it are. It grabbed attention and dared to change – at least for a little while – the tune of the global business discourse.

Mark’s Global Community^ post is very well written and published at the ideal time to provide maximum PR value. I’m not surprised that some have even seen it as a sort of political statement. I liked how this article^ from The Guardian explores the text.

Perhaps this is indeed the beginning of the age of corporations governing the planet publicly (rather than from the shadows). If it is, I’d definitely have Mark run the show rather than somebody like Trump. I try to keep a balanced tone on this website but even though I can understand why Trump has become the man he is (given the society that shaped him), I do believe it’s healthier to leave his world ideology behind and advance to something more akin to what Mark is envisioning.

Mark’s “manifesto”, as some in the press have called it, is of course rich with positive examples about FaceBook’s achievements. What I really appreciated though is the fact that it acknowledged some serious issues with the website, such as the fact that some people’s posts get censored when they shouldn’t and posts that should be removed are not. Mark’s explanation for this makes a lot of sense: “we’re operating at such a large scale that even a small percent of errors causes a large number of bad experiences.”

Still, FaceBook does censorship. It has a special kind of censorship but it’s still censorship. And I don’t mean this respected author^ getting banned for saying bad things about Trump’s supporters. Perhaps that was a good way to break the circle of insults. What I mean is how FaceBook prevents people from being exposed to other opinions, keeping them inside their comfort zones, blissfully unaware of the storm raging outside. I call this phenomenon ideological clumping. FaceBook engages in this probably because a happy user generates more revenue for the company.

This issue of ideological clumping is addressed in the manifesto so I’m curious how FaceBook will deal with it in the future, especially given the fact that its financial model is based on convincing creatives to pay money in order to get their content in front of their followers. By this I mean how the default follow command on FaceBook only means that a user allows the application’s algorithms to sometimes show posts from a followed person, page or group.

The manifesto also addresses the issue of fake news. The viral spread of misinformation using social media is an intellectual disease that has given Trump more than a few votes – granted, he wasn’t the sole benefactor of this phenomenon. Sadly, this is a problem that Mark & co. will have to work much harder to fix than by writing a goody two shoes manifesto.

Last but not least, FaceBook’s visionary CEO mentions artificial intelligence quite often. Trusting A.I. to do the very hard work of curating content is a risky bet with a lot of unknowns – something he acknowledges, but not strongly enough I think. If A.I. were truly intelligent I’d be more inclined to trust it, but right now, we’re talking about some closed-source (sometimes buggy) algorithms that are controlling the information people are exposed to, not to mention able to shut people up. There’s less intelligence in there than there is manipulation for the advertisers’ interests.

I’m quite sure the company has plenty of ulterior motives when it wants to offer free internet to people. Mark actually made some parallels to television in his text. Well, television was free in many countries if only to make it easier to manipulate the masses. “Connect the world” they say. But FaceBook is not only a tool for change. It’s also an advertisement platform, let’s not forget that. And the kind of product that political parties have to sell is much more dangerous than a brand of bad detergent.

When it’s all said and done, I think that Mark’s step forward volunteering to do what can be done in helping with global problems is a positive example for corporate responsibility. This manifesto was needed and I’m truly happy it’s out there. For this reason, I’m going to give Mark & co. the benefit of the doubt. Let’s see what the future holds. So far, score 1 for FaceBook.

Oh, and one more thing. I am really curious to see how other corporations will respond to this and if they even will. I’m thinking especially about Google, whose “do no evil” mantra 5 to 10 years ago was heading the company towards the same style of social action that FaceBook is doing today. But now-a-days Google’s execs seem even more uninspiring than Microsoft’s.

Today FaceBook has something way more powerful than Google: it has people’s lives, not only their web searches. Combine this with a bright CEO that has a very skilled PR team behind him and you get yourself a serious challenger to tech leadership. If Mark showed anything to these behemoths it’s the fact that in the 21st century a CEO is as much a public figure as any politician and perhaps even more needed.

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Science

How Pregnancy Changes the Brain

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Almost any woman withbaby can tell you that they feel that their mind works differently than before. I always attributed this to the fact that during fetal development, the brain has to adapt to an increased amount of work. It’s all the extra that comes from regulating the operation of all the additional bodily functions that are required by the development of a new human being. After birth, the brain has to adjust once again, dealing with the extremely complex social dynamics that are involved in having a new human being around in a group – and the larger the group, the more variables the brain will have to keep track of.

A recent neuroimaging study has found pronounced differences in the physical structure of women’s brains during fetal development and afterwards:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/12/19/pregnancy-changes-the-brain-for-as-long-as-two-years/?utm_term=.824fa427caec^

The fact that these changes occur shouldn’t come as a surprise at all. It’s our body working at its finest, adapting in wonderful ways to the tasks that it has to undertake. I’m happy that scientists have went through the effort to understand more about this important period in a woman’s life and about the changes that occur. Now we have one more reason to be in awe of our body’s amazing complexity.

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Society

Romania Takes on Corruption in the 21st Century

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Following the proposal and then adoption of a law that would have allowed corruption to thrive, on the 5th of February, 2017, the capital of Romania was the scene of the largest public protest since toppling the communist regime in 1989. The number of people participating in the capital alone was anywhere between 120,000 and 300,000, depending on who did the estimating. The protests spiraled to other cities in Romania as well as many cities around the world that host large Romanian diaspora communities. As a result, the law was repealed.

Here’s a beautiful video showing the scale of the protest as well as some wonderful moments that took place during the peaceful manifestation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZPgJ4spMZw^

Backup version:

https://www.facebook.com/alexandru.damian.73/posts/1425087934176498^

Romania can do it. Romania did it twice in less than 30 years. I think this should be an inspiration for other democratic countries where this sort of manifestation can still take place without the fear of military intervention. So, is the USA just going to sit tight while decades of progress in human rights and empathy towards ourselves and the ecosystem are systematically erased?

I’m happy to see my brothers and sisters from Romania standing up against the system in such a beautiful, peaceful way. I wish I could say that I’m proud of my country, but unfortunately what you see in the video is a protest of the minority. The majority has actually voted in this disgusting government. So even if I would care for a feeling like “pride” (I don’t), I still couldn’t be proud of my country. I am sad that Romania was fooled into voting in the current government. But I would totally be proud of the brothers and sisters that try to wake up the victims of mass manipulation.

The only solution I see is to engage in peaceful but determined activism. Wake up the sleepers, educate those left in the dark by offering them alternative sources of information and patiently allowing them to find the truth themselves, for this is the only way to accept it. Open any discussion, even with the most bitter of enemies with a smile: we’re all in this together.

I wish that one day the human species will discover that the greatest gift of having free will is the ability to transform the primordial “survival of the fittest” instinct into something different. We don’t need to compete by killing each other. There are many other more elegant ways for the powerful to show their might.

In fact, the mightiest of the mighty will eventually find that the ultimate show of force is to surrender to peace and love.

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Society

Hypernormalisation

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Wait wait wait. Before you start screaming “Whaaat!? An almost three hours long documentary about manufactured truth and propaganda through social media?!”, just watch this short, 1 minute extract from mentioned documentary:

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/chilling-clip-from-adam-curtis-doc-should-make-everyone-rethink-their-online-outrage/^

Now, imagine that there are a lot more minutes like that in the documentary located at the link below. Also imagine that together, these seconds are much more powerful than taken in individual extracts (think “interconnected brains math”: 1+1=3, 3+3=a million). Now feel free to go ahead and advance your awareness of the world:

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/hypernormalisation-2016/^

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Inspirational

Four Awesome Photo Series

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These four amazing photography sets have showed their goods in front of my eyes in the past few months. After the ensuing visual orgasm, I have decided to share these with you, dear Reader.

Wildlife photographer of the year 2016:

http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/09/wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-2016/499979/^

The most influential images of all time:

http://100photos.time.com/^

20 Awesome modern sculptures:

https://brightside.me/article/17-modern-sculptures-you-will-fall-in-love-with-62655/^

The very best drone photography of 2016:

https://qz.com/868006/drone-photos-dronestagrams-best-images-of-2016/^

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Politics

How Donald Trump Becoming President Changed My World

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Months ago, I wrote a short piece rationalizing why Trump will not be president of the USA (unless the Republican party wants to commit political suicide). I was quite sure it will be the last time I’d mention his name on this website. During the following months, I was given a stark reminder that “nothing’s certain”. Not only did Trump get the presidency, but the Republican party is doing quite well.

I’m not ruling out political suicide just yet, but this doesn’t change the fact I’ve made a serious estimation error regarding Donald’s chances. It has been one of my most disappointing prognoses, so I chastised myself over it more than a few times. However, I spent far more energy into learning from this mistake. There are many teachings indeed.

First of all, it seems like some countries are failing to adapt democracy to the Internet age. Starting with the spread of lies about candidates through social media and ending with cyber warfare, I think that the democratic process is in serious need of renovation.

I wouldn’t really call it a teaching – since I was always aware of this – but the fury of the people should never be underestimated. Trump and similar candidates across the world are riding on this wave of anger. I just hope that Americans won’t regret installing Trump as their president like other nations regretted their choice dearly in the past. I can’t help drawing some parallels with a certain leader that got elected in Europe about 85 years ago. We’re still recovering from the emotional scars he left behind.

But the most important change in my life since Donnie Tea became president is that the event miraculously stopped me from reading the news three times a day (I’ve been trying to cut down for years). I’m now at about twice a week, having gained about 2-3 extra hours per week. As I said in the title of this posting, this is about how my world has changed. It’s one of the more subjective posts I’ve written, which is why I filed it under the new category “Life Fragments”.

I’m fed up seeing news feeds clogged with “Donald said that” or “Donald did that”. I’m done being coaxed into reading these venomous sensationalist stories. I can’t help sharing a comparison I made recently: “democracy without education is like capitalism without capital”. Unfortunately, many voters lack the education to properly detect fake and/or manipulative press.

I’m going to pass this season of the “all-you-can-consume information age”. Sure, I’ll keep an eye out on the news, but I’m done letting these companies infect my mind and therefore my life.

Before, during and after the election, many media cartels made tons of money writing about Trump. Most of the published stories consist of the endless repetition of a single event, or are of little relevance. Even in countries that had nothing to do with the circus of an election that occurred in the USA, his name was mentioned more often than the most important local politicians. For example in Sweden, Donnie’s name was mentioned in the press many more times than the country’s most important political figure, the Prime Minister.

For a while, I will stop writing much about politics. Even when I will, my approach will be very cautious. I’ll close this short entry with a few of the more relevant links written in the past few days about the beginning of Donnie Tea’s illustrious career as threat to human rights and civilization.

However, I know that I know nothing. Perhaps some of his and his party’s decisions will turn out quite beneficial for our civilization. So take my comments below as perhaps totally wrong. Let’s see how things look ten years from now.

Denying human-caused climate change and therefore setting back efforts to clean up our ecosystem:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/politics/trump-white-house-website.html^

Setting back the only recent attempt – however feeble – to improve healthcare in the USA:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-signs-executive-order-that-could-lift-affordable-care-acts-individual-mandate/2017/01/20/8c99e35e-df70-11e6-b2cf-b67fe3285cbc_story.html?utm_term=.7a657c600a5a^

Turning government into a discount shop for selling the tax payer’s hard-earned rights to a clean, safe and fair country (and accelerating the destruction of the ecosystem – also setting a bad example for governments across the world):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/23/trump-to-ceos-ill-wipe-out-75-percent-of-regulations-fast-track-u-s-factories/?utm_term=.89318c36c008^

Jeopardizing an already fragile geopolitical climate:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-reacts-to-trumps-america-first-inaugural-speech/2017/01/20/5452f9ca-df95-11e6-8902-610fe486791c_story.html?utm_term=.aabf5ad12666^

Using American influence to restrict women’s rights across the world (I’m not completely pro-choice, but I do believe that pro-life is a severe restriction of a woman’s rights, especially in special circumstances such as rape or very risk family environments):

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/abortion/315652-trump-signs-executive-order-reinstating-global-gag-rule-on^

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As applied to individuals

Because You Are Here

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For years I searched ways in which to thank you for reading these words. To thank you for having been here, for learning the art of communication, for bringing the light of your consciousness into this world and for contributing to the diversity of this existence. Echoes of your choices spread across the Everything, gifting experience back to this Universe that gave us birth.

These sentences will now become the conduit through which I will channel my gratefulness for your being. You may wonder how is it that I can write all this to somebody that I perhaps don’t even know. I will explain by showing you my image of gratefulness, for it is this feeling that guides and inspires me.

Reflecting the gift

Gratefulness is an expression of respect. Life doesn’t develop without effort. It’s thanks to an amazing coming together of astronomic odds that we are here as sentient individuals. According to some philosophies, our separation is only temporary, so isn’t the respect we grant to each other really the respect we grant to ourselves? By extension, everything that surrounds us is worthy of solemn respect.

Gratefulness is a bringer of peace. It stimulates empathy and patience towards each other. Knowing how to appreciate the gift of somebody’s presence is a transformative skill that leads to constructive outcomes.

Gracefulness is a species of humility. We have the means to accomplish what people centuries ago would consider miracles. Being able to share these words among us means we have so much more than our predecessors. I consider it humbling to even be read, so these words better deliver something worthy of being read.

Gratefulness is a propagator of wisdom. It is like an emotional key for opening doors of the mind. Discoveries or actions that conjure this feeling may lead to realizations that are conductive towards building up wisdom. Being grateful will keep opening new paths. Knowledge will come as a river, fed by a rain of curiosity.

Gratefulness is a compass for love. Few feelings are as magnetic towards love as this one. A gift is being given to us in the form of each unfolding moment of life. We experience each other and learn from the interplay of thoughts. Everything that touches our consciousness – a word, a mote of dust or the fiery sphere up in the sky – becomes a gift. A gift is an expression of love, a means of conveying it. If everything we experience is a gift, then we could say that these infinite gifts make up a sort of universal magnetic field.

To you

Everything that has the possibility of exercising free will is also a force of creation. It matters not what you create. Whatever it is you’re doing, you’re building experience, for yourself and for those around you. So thank you for creating. Life is the process of crafting experience. I am grateful to you because I’ve been shaped by the same process – in this respect, we’re siblings.

I sometimes wonder if I should be yet more thankful to those that have influenced me directly. If we’ve met even for one second, if I’ve heard something you said or read something you’ve written, then I have been touched. But gratefulness is a primordial emotion – it is or it is not. It’s unquantifiable.

This means it is fair to be equally grateful to everything that exists. It’s a misconception that this would devaluate the emotion. The universalization of a feeling does not make it disappear. Instead, the complete integration of a nourishing emotion leads to the enrichment of life.

To humanity, my brothers and sisters

We’ve had plenty of conflicts throughout history. We’ve made mistakes. But what I’d like to focus on is all the fascinating art that we’re creating, the progress towards understanding ourselves and our ecosystem and, perhaps more important than anything, the way we love and the way we dream. I believe that this is a bountiful source of gratefulness for having been shaped by this society.

It is thanks to everybody I’ve ever met – all the human teachers and their works – that I’ve come to welcome gratefulness in my life in this way. I may not know you, but knowing you is not a requirement for being grateful for your being here, reading these words.

This contact between two imaginations, two Universes of language, is both timeless and ephemeral. It is so beautiful in its instant simplicity that the only constructive outcome is to be entertained by the experience and perhaps draw a positive thought out of it.

Because you are here

Having the opportunity to share these thoughts with another consciousness – and all that this entails – is reason enough for having lived. It doesn’t even matter if you belong to the same species I do. Indeed, I do believe that the traces of our creations are not limited to this civilization.

Thanks for stopping by, for sharing some of your time, perhaps a tiny but undoubtedly important slice of your existence. Thank you for inspiring art, for creating it and for being who you are.

 

This article is the first part of The “Art of Peace” Trilogy^.

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Life Fragments

The Tesla-driving Real Estate Agent

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It was late August, 2016, when my wife and I parked our gasoline-powered Toyota Yaris in front of a house in Tullinge, a suburb of Stockholm. We were there for a showing. We arrived a bit ahead of schedule so we waited patiently in our car. After about five minutes, I saw a beautiful black Tesla car turning onto our street.

“Oh look, a Tesla”, I tell her.

This isn’t really a common brand around here. I always enjoy seeing it around because I like it when people support the underdog. It encourages competition. Not to mention that Tesla’s cars are part of a new generation of vehicles that is more forward-looking and cleaner than the outgoing petrol-powered generation.

To my amusement, the Tesla enters the driveway of the house we are about to view and, sure enough, the real estate agent exits. He brands a neat black suit and gives us a thin smile.

“Looks like we got an environmentally-friendly agent here”, I enthusiastically tell my wife.

The guy takes out sign that spells “Visning” (that’s “viewing” in Swedish) and places it at the entrance of the driveway. Then, he strolls over to the house. His car takes up most of the driveway so, he walks close to the garden. On his way towards the entrance, the thin green-leafed branch of a tree gently touches his head.

He takes one more step forward then suddenly stops, casually steps back and, with a firm and determined hand, proceeds to bend the branch backwards until it snaps. With its new-found shape, the mutilated branch can now be shoved among its sisters so that it can wither away from the foreheads of Homo-sapiens. The cheeky tree will interfere with people going to the viewing no more. It is all done with fluent, calm, precise moves. We’re seeing a true professional at work here.

It all happens so fast that we are barely able to think about it. As he calmly makes his way to the house to open the door, I find myself looking at my wife and am met by her equally shocked expression.

“Do we dare to get out of the car? I’m afraid now. This guy is going to break us”, she jokes.

***

I don’t remember if I heard the branch snap, but I have a pretty vivid imagination. I remember how I cringed when he did that. For sure, something snapped inside of me. To better illustrate my level of surprise, imagine how a passenger enters the bus through the front door and presents his ticket to the driver. Everything being in order, the passenger makes a step towards his seat then, as if he forgot something, comes back and punches the driver in the face. After that, he proceeds and takes a seat as if nothing happened. Like the driver, the tree was just doing its job, growing and making the garden prettier. The tall and “environmentally-friendly” agent ruined a thin branch that would have barely touched anybody.

Sometimes people cheat our expectations in the funniest ways. I saw this guy as some sort of example of environmental-awareness because of the car he drove. Sure, I am fully aware of the fact that real estate agents earn a lot of money, especially during a time when Sweden has been experiencing a decade-long property bubble. Even so, I liked the fact that he chose to buy a Tesla. I was thinking that he’s probably such a swell guy. Perhaps he really is a swell guy, but his gesture betrayed a gross disrespect for environment and life (which is not incompatible at all with being a swell guy, among humans at least).

I don’t want to paint this man as if he’s an agent of evil. We’re all different. Diversity is beautiful. What we think is right or wrong varies wildly from person to person, especially when it comes to things that our culture doesn’t bother too much educating. I do find it sad that our species finds it easier to bulldoze nature around rather than collaborate with it.

Perhaps in the world this brother lives in, a low branch barely infringing upon the edge of the driveway counts as a nuisance, but for my wife and I, that branch would have brought our garden closer to us. The very reason why we’re looking to buy a house is exactly so that we can be closer to the earth, with all its life. We’re not fanatics about protecting nature, we’re aware that in order to survive we have to eat and at times manipulate our environment. But there is such a thing as taking it too far.

So, little did he know that in our eyes, he just committed an act of savagery against our possible future garden. Well, we didn’t get too far in the bidding process for the house anyway. But looking back, I think I should’ve told him, as a joke at least, that his gesture has just decreased our interest in the property with about ten thousand kronor. After all, real estate agents are interested to get as much as possible for a given house. Perhaps he would have thought more carefully about his gesture if a possible customer, especially a non-Swede, would have administered a bit of advice into the ways of respecting nature. Especially since Swedes pride themselves with having an innate respect for the ecosystem.

I won’t even remotely blame him for his behavior. It’s full of fake environmentalists out there. The only reason I’m even writing this story is because his gesture was in such stark contrast with who I thought I’m dealing with. First impressions can be deceiving.

More importantly, “deceived first impressions” will matter a lot especially during the first hours spent with a person. The guy turned out to be quite polite and friendly. But the indifference with which he snapped that branch seriously affected my opinion of him. Perhaps this is an exaggerated reaction, but I like to think of it as an indication that I can have empathy towards many forms of life.

Sure, plants are quite different than us, but they’ve also been here much longer than we have. Plants are the ramp upon which more complex organisms launched themselves into existence, ourselves included.

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Recommendations, Technology

Why Google Did Away with Project Ara

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Some months ago, Google killed Project Ara, an ambitious venture to create a modular smartphone featuring upgradeable components. And when I say ambitious, boy was it a moon shot.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/project-ara-googles-modular-smartphone-is-dead/^

It’s one thing to upgrade components in a desktop computer or a car, but the smaller the device, the trickier it is to engineer efficient connections between components whose bandwidth requirements and standards of communication vary wildly. Even notebook manufacturers struggle with this limitation as they attempt to engineer ever-thinner devices.

As a result, Project Ara phones turned out a bit on the bulky side and looked like the phone would disassemble if dropped. Regarding this second caveat, don’t get me wrong: dissipating impact energy by falling apart isn’t necessarily bad. Nokia was an expert in this “method”. Its bulky phones could withstand countless drops. But at least for now it’s difficult to get the best of both worlds.

The idea behind Project Ara was good, the timing was not. Our technologies are a bit too scattered right now for this to properly work. There are different manufacturers for each phone component and countless standards in place. Building a prototype was easy (with Google’s money), but getting all those manufacturers in the same boat and getting a good selection of upgradeable components in shops around the world is a daunting logistical challenge. However, the largest obstacle was undoubtedly the fact that…

There is little customer interest in such a project. Who wants to carry around a phone that has 20% extra weight and size only so that they can upgrade a component or two once a year? Some people maybe will, but we live in a world where those that could afford or have interest in upgrading phone components will most probably choose to buy a new phone altogether.

Kudos goes to Google for making the attempt and opening the way. We still have a lot to learn regarding miniaturization, standards and logistics. I think we’ll see something like Project Ara come back sometime in the coming decades. For now, looks like we’re stuck with Samsung and Apple and their consumerist phones for which one can’t even replace the battery (not really, there are plenty of brands that allow this; it’s a pity people don’t press this requirement and instead let themselves fall prey to planned obsolescence).

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Inspirational

Today I Rise

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Although I do not consider myself a feminist, I have advocated women’s rights for as long as I can remember. This is one of the most inspirational and moving works of art created for the purpose of empowering women:

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/today-i-rise/^

Most societies on Earth are still a long way from treating women fairly. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can reach peak efficiency as a species. It’s not about tapping into the full range of human talent, although a solid business case could be made. It’s about making the gender symbiosis work as it should: from the procreation of the species to the procreation of ideas that will lead to the next evolutionary step.

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