domingo, 31 de julho de 2016

A crise da polícia

Is America Facing a Police Crisis?

Citizen confidence in the police at its lowest point in 20 years. It has dropped among Americans of all ages, education levels, incomes and races.

Police preparing to put a midnight curfew into effect in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 16, 2015, a week after the shooting death of Michael Brown.ENLARGE
Police preparing to put a midnight curfew into effect in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 16, 2015, a week after the shooting death of Michael Brown. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Ronald Reagan famously stated, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” But should we apply such thinking to the police? The answer depends on whom we ask. Many liberals who otherwise defend every government program and unionized job believe that the police are increasingly abusing their power. Many conservatives who otherwise complain about unaccountable government officials consider the police department beyond reproach and say that any form of de-policing will make America less safe. Crime has decreased significantly in the past two decades, and many attribute that outcome to the proactive “broken windows” policing first advocated by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in a 1982 article. The theory goes that arresting offenders for minor crimes like loitering or drinking in public leads to a mien of order that in turn discourages major crimes. Citizens will be better off with, and thus prefer, police playing an active role in the community.
Surveys today, though, show citizen confidence in the police at its lowest point in 20 years. It has dropped among Americans of all ages, education levels, incomes and races, with the decreases particularly pronounced among the young and minorities. According to a USA Today/Pew Research Center poll, only 30% of African-Americans say that they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the police, and nine out of 10 say that the “police do an ‘only fair’ or poor job when it comes to equal treatment and appropriate force.” Nine out of 10 Americans surveyed say that officers should be required to wear body cameras to check police violence.

A fascinação dos intelectuais com o totalitarismo

„Raserei nach Sinn“

Der Sozialphilosoph Roland Baader warnt vor neuen totalitären Ideologien.
factum: George Orwell warnte in seinen Essays und Romanen („1984“, „Farm der Tiere“) vor Totalitarismus. Gerade Intel­lektuelle sind anfällig für totalitäre Ideo­logien wie den Stalinismus, so seine Be­obachtung. Teilen Sie seine Ansicht?
Baader: Ja. Orwell hat geschrieben, dass er mit seinem Buch „1984“ die totali­tären Ideen in den Köpfen der Intellek­tuellen nur „logisch zu Ende gedacht hat“. Er hat auch gesagt: „Einige Ideen sind so absurd, dass nur Intellektu­elle an sie glauben konnten.“ Intellek­tuelle sind aber nicht nur passiv anfäl­lig für totalitäre Ideen; sie gebären sie auch aktiv. Mit und nach der Franzö­sischen Revolution waren alle Schreckensregime der Neuzeit längst von eit­len Denkwerksburschen erdacht und propagiert worden, bevor sie von skru­pellosen politischen Machtfiguren in die Tat umgesetzt wurden. Sprach-Verbrechen gehen den Tat-Verbrechen vo­raus. Der satanische Erfolg des Marxismus und seiner Spielarten mit weltweit vie­len hundert Millionen Toten ist letztlich nicht Marx zuzurechnen, sondern der marxistischen Gefühlslage der schrei­benden und redenden Zunft. Natürlich gilt das nicht für alle Intellektuellen, aber für eine Mehrheit.
factum: Woran liegt das, was macht In­tellektuelle so empfänglich?

sexta-feira, 29 de julho de 2016

Mao

Please share this so that a full understanding of the crimes of collectivism can start to be understood among the intelligentsia and the general public. This should never be forgotten _ever_, not for one second. Communism kills. Humanity did _not_ fail to live up to the grand ideals of communism, communism is an ideology that cannot live up to the demands of humanity. It is a false idea with false promises, and a horrendous reality wherever and whenever it has been implemented in any large scale manner.
From Frank Dikötter’s short note at History Today: In the People’s Republic of China, archives do not belong to the people, they belong to the Communist Party.…
MARGINALREVOLUTION.COM

Inteligência em diclínio

“Analysis of human mutation rates and the number of genes required for human intellectual and emotional fitness indicates that we are almost certainly losing these abilities”


Ever can’t help but think you’re surrounded by idiots? A leading scientist at Stanford University thinks he has the answer, and the bad news is things aren’t likely to…
RT.COM

Meu novo artigo sobre o Brasil

quinta-feira, 28 de julho de 2016

Despolitização

Depoliticize and Humanize

Reading Notebooks 1951-1959 of Albert Camus, I cannot help but love and sympathize with this sensitive, self-doubting, and tortured soul.
Stages of healing.
Letting volition sleep. Enough of 'you must.'
Completely depoliticize the mind in order to humanize it.
Write the claustrophobic -- and comedies.
Deal with death, which is to say, accept it.
Accept making a spectacle of yourself.  I will not die of this anguish.  If I died from it, the end.  Otherwise, at worst, shortsighted behavior.  It suffices to accept others' judgment.  Humility and acceptance: purely medical remedies of anguish. (p. 203)
CamusLike his hero Nietzsche, Camus had the throbbing heart of the homo religiosusbut the bladed intellect of the skeptic: he could not bring himself to believe. Trust in the ultimate sense of things was impossible for this argonaut of the Absurd, as was hope.  Thus humility and acceptance could only be for him "purely medical remedies."  
And how could he completely depoliticize his mind when the only world for him was this miserably political one? If this is all there is, then all of one's hopes and dreams and aspirations for peace and justice have to be trained upon it and its future.  There you have the futile delusion of the 'progressive.'  Rejecting God, he puts his faith in Man, when it ought to be evident that Man does not exist, only men, at each others' throats, full of ignorance and corruption, incapable of redeeming themselves.

Teoria do estado

¿Existe el estado? ¿De qué se compone, qué respresenta? Este y muchos otros interrogantes son analizados con rigurosa lógica por el profesor…
YOUTUBE.COM

Expropriação da saúde

"Ivan Illich gives a lecture to mark the launch of his book Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health in which he continues his critique of the medical profession and the 'delusions' of importance that exist in Western culture regarding that profession. Illich contrasts personal responsibility with individual."
Lecture date: 1974-12-09 Ivan Illich gives a lecture to mark the launch of his book Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health in which he continues his cr...
YOUTUBE.COM

quarta-feira, 27 de julho de 2016

Germanificação de Alemanha

Overcoming the Germanification of Europe
16. April, 2016

Odd Nerdrum: "Frontal Self Portrait"
A student of mine met an old art collector at an art fair. They exchanged a few words and the collector agreed to visit the young man’s studio. The old collector struggled up all the stairs to the young painter’s loft  studio, but was at last at the doorstep.
The painter bid him humbly welcome, and, with heavy breath, the collector entered the studio.
Those old looking pictures… Is that what you wanted to show me? He asked.
Yes…, replied the proud young painter.
But this is not art… have you fooled me all the way up here to see those dark paintings… those sad faces?
The painter stood silent, shocked.
Don’t you trick people like that, said the collector before leaving.
The old man was fooled, but by whom?
Most people are of the opinion that the French artist Paul Cezanne found everything in himself. But what is “oneself?” Cezanne’s notorious color palette: 40 pure and unmixed colors. In a painting, the depiction of a shoelace was to have as much importance as the human eye.
Where did these ideas come from?
Who instructed the modern artist to paint like a child?1
After mediocre attempts to create baroque pictures, Cezanne read the philosopher Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) The Critique of Judgment and became an illustrator of Kant’s rules of art.
In the Critique of Judgment, Kant searched for truth in the beauty of art. A silent beauty, with no reference to anything,2 was the ideal for him. And art’s creator, a genius with a big G, possessed a gift with no references from this world.3
Goethe advised all artists to read “The Critique of Judgment”4
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
According to Kant:
  • The genius never uses a borrowed form; technique therefore cannot be utilized.5
  • The genius fumbles to something no one has seen before.6
  • The genius is the example of beauty; all other artists must be judged according to this genius.7
  • The genius operates with the same habits of living as previous geniuses. So if, for example, you were a composer studying Beethoven, you would not imitate his music, but his coffee habits.8
  • And at last, the Genius should not blend colors, because each individual color would then get dirty.9
Half a century prior to Cezanne, Madame De Stäel was on a trip to Berlin, and came back in excitement; the country of great thinking: L’Allemagne.
The cultural life of France is enlightened by the thoughts of German idealists, such as G. Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), who writes in his Aesthetics that classicism’s imitational form is not good enough.
– Spirit must find its greatness in itself10

segunda-feira, 25 de julho de 2016

Gramsci

«Gramsci focused on culture. Still a Marxist, he viewed art, literature, education, and all its other elements through the jaundiced lens of a class struggle. But he realized that these things didn’t just respond to political and economic power; they also produced it. So if the Left wants to win, it must seize these things first, get control of the “cultural means of production.” Gramsci insisted that Marxists had underestimated the importance of culture-forming institutions such as the media, universities, and churches in deciding whether the Left or the Right would gain control (or to use his favorite word, “hegemony”).»
It may be that the most effective Marxist was an Italian philosopher, journalist and Communist who spent the last years of his life in Mussolini’s prisons.

Reinterpretação do capitalismo

sexta-feira, 22 de julho de 2016

Rebelião dos perdedores

The world’s losers are revolting, and Brexit is only the beginning
THE world has enjoyed an unprecedented run of peace, prosperity and cooperation the last 25 years, but now that might be over. At least when it comes to those last two.
That, more than anything else, is what Britain's vote to leave the European Union means. A British exit, or Brexit, will make the country poorer in the short run, perhaps in the long run too, and might drag the rest of Europe down with it. That's because Britain is essentially ripping up its free trade deal with the rest of Europe. But of far greater concern than just dollars and cents is that this is the most significant setback in Europe's 60-year quest for "ever closer union," and the most shocking success for the new nationalism sweeping the Western world.
Brexit, in other words, is the end of the end of history.

A fechada da menta americana

The Closing of the American Mind

There are dangerous signs that the U.S. is turning its back on the principles of a free and open society that fostered the nation’s rise.


I was born in the midst of the Great Depression, when no one could imagine the revolutionary technological advances that we now take for granted. Innovations in countless fields have transformed society and radically improved individual well-being, especially for the least fortunate. Every American’s life is now immeasurably better than it was 80 years ago.
What made these dramatic improvements possible was America’s uniquely free and open society, which has brought the country to the cusp of another explosion of life-changing innovation. But there are dangerous signs that the U.S. is turning its back on the principles that foster such advances, particularly in education, business and government. Which path will the country take?

quinta-feira, 21 de julho de 2016

Característica de inteligência

8 Personality Traits of Highly Intelligent People (Backed by Science)

The scientific reason behind some of the personality traits that smart people share.

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Over on Quora, more than 100 people have answered the question "What are the common traits of highly intelligent people?"
Some users claim to know from personal experience; others are just taking an educated guess.
As it turns out, many users gave answers that researchers would agree with.
We pulled eight of the most intriguing Quora responses and explained the science behind them -- and let's just say that we feel a lot smarter now.
Here's what we learned:

They're highly adaptable

Several Quora users noted that intelligent people are flexible and able to thrive in different settings. As Donna F Hammett writes, intelligent people adapt by "showing what can be done regardless of the complications or restrictions placed upon them."
Recent psychological research supports this idea. Intelligence depends on being able to change your own behaviors in order to cope more effectively with your environment, or make changes to the environment you're in.

They understand how much they don't know

The smartest folks are able to admit when they aren't familiar with a particular concept. As Jim Winer writes, intelligent people "are not afraid to say: 'I don't know.' If they don't know it, they can learn it."
Winer's observation is backed up by a classic study by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, which found that the less intelligent you are, the more you overestimate your cognitive abilities.
In one experiment, for example, students who'd scored in the lowest quartile on a test adapted from the LSAT overestimated the number of questions they'd gotten right by nearly 50%. Meanwhile, those who'd scored in the top quartile slightly underestimated how many questions they'd gotten right.

They have insatiable curiosity

Albert Einstein reportedly said, "I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious."
Or, as Keyzurbur Alas puts it, "intelligent people let themselves become fascinated by things others take for granted."
Research published in 2016 suggests that there's a link between childhood intelligence and openness to experience -- which encompasses intellectual curiosity -- in adulthood.
Scientists followed thousands of people born in the UK for 50 years and learned that 11-year-olds who'd scored higher on an IQ test turned out to be more open to experience at 50.
 

They're open-minded

Smart people don't close themselves off to new ideas or opportunities.Hammett writes that intelligent people are "willing to accept and consider other views with value and broad-mindedness," and that they are "open to alternative solutions."
Psychologists say that open-minded people -- those who seek out alternate viewpoints and weigh the evidence fairly -- tend to score higher on the SAT and on intelligence tests.
At the same time, smart people are careful about which ideas and perspectives they adopt.
"An intelligent mind has a strong aversion to accepting things on face value and therefore withholds belief until presented with ample evidence," says Alas.

They like their own company

Richard He points out that highly intelligent people tend to be "very individualistic."
Interestingly, recent research suggests that smarter people tend to derive less satisfaction than most people do from socializing with friends.
 

They have high self-control

Zoher Ali writes that smart people are able to overcome impulsiveness by "planning, clarifying goals, exploring alternative strategies and considering consequences before [they] begin."
Scientists have found a link between self-control and intelligence. In one 2009 study, participants had to choose between two financial rewards: a smaller payout immediately or a larger payout at a later date.
Results showed that participants who chose the larger payout at a later date -- i.e., those who had more self-control -- generally scored higher on intelligence tests.
The researchers behind that study say that one area of the brain -- the anterior prefrontal cortex -- might play a role in helping people solve tough problems and demonstrate self-control while working toward goals.

They're really funny

Advita Bihani points out that highly intelligent people tend to have a great sense of humor.
Scientists agree. One study found that people who wrote funnier cartoon captions scored higher on measures of verbal intelligence. Another study found that professional comedians scored higher than average on measures of verbal intelligence.
 

They're sensitive to other people's experiences

Smart people can "almost feel what someone is thinking/feeling,"says He.
Some psychologists argue that empathy, being attuned to the needs and feelings of others and acting in a way that is sensitive to those needs, is a core component of emotional intelligence. Emotionally-intelligent individuals are typically very interested in talking to new people and learning more about them.
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