№ 548. Social Connections and Our Well-Being

Text from The Atlantic

Marketoonist

The psychological effects of losing all but our closest ties can be profound. Peripheral connections tether us to the world at large; without them, people sink into the compounding sameness of closed networks. Regular interaction with people outside our inner circle “just makes us feel more like part of a community, or part of something bigger,”.... People on the peripheries of our lives introduce us to new ideas, new information, new opportunities, and other new people. 

 

If variety is the spice of life, these relationships are the conduit for it.

The loss of these interactions may be one reason for the growth in internet conspiracy theories in the past year, and especially for the surge in groups like QAnon. But while online communities of all kinds can deliver some of the psychological benefits of meeting new people and making friends in the real world, the echo chamber of conspiracism is a further source of isolation. “There’s a lot of research showing that when you talk only to people who are like you, it actually makes your opinions shift even further away from other groups,”.... 

 

“That’s how cults work. That’s how terrorist groups work.”

The physical ramifications of isolation are also well documented.... social isolation increases the risk of premature death from any cause by almost 30 percent. “The scientific evidence suggests that we need a variety of kinds of relationships in our lives, and that different kinds of relationships or social roles can fulfill different kinds of needs,”.... People maintain hygiene, take their medication, and try to hold themselves together at least in part because those behaviors are socially necessary, and their repetition is rewarded. Remove those incentives, and some people fall into despair, unable to perform some of the crucial tasks of being alive. In people at risk for illness, lack of interaction can mean that symptoms go unnoticed and arrangements for medical care aren’t made. Humans are meant to be with one another, and when we aren’t, the decay shows in our bodies.

№ 547. "Life is more important than a concert"

№ 546. Not All Masks Are Created Equal

Is there a hierarchy of masks?
 

A new study in Duke University ranked 14 types of commonly available masks, finding that medical masks offer significantly more protection against droplet spread than cotton alternatives – while bandanas protect less, and neck fleeces don’t do much at all.
 

The study revealed that different masks eliminated droplet spray by the following percentages, from the best to worst:

1. N95 - 99.9%
2. Surgical or polypropylene masks - 90%
3. Cotton face coverings - 70% to 90%
4. Bandanas - 50%
   

Neck fleeces, meanwhile, were found to expel more droplets than with no mask at all, probably by dispersing the largest droplets into many smaller droplets.

"The notion that 'anything is better than nothing' didn't hold true," said Eric Westman, one of the study's co-authors.

 

№ 545. Waking Up to Binary Dreams 3: AI

Robots v. Immigrants

 

"We are fascinated by machines that can control cars, compose symphonies, or defeat people at chess, Go, or Jeopardy! While more progress is being made all the time in Artificial Intelligence (AI), some scientists and philosophers warn of the dangers of an uncontrollable superintelligent AI. Using theoretical calculations, an international team of researchers, including scientists from the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, shows that it would not be possible to control a superintelligent AI."

№ 544. Witness

 

№ 543. Then A Bit of Validation

Incidental Comics

 

“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of ‘getting to know you’ questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

“And he went wow. That’s amazing! And I said, ‘Oh no, but I’m not any good at any of them.’

“And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: ‘I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.’

“And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could ‘win’ at them.”

№ 542. Waking Up to Binary Dreams 3: Digital Frankenstein

It's a digital Frankenstein.

 

Black Mirror: Be Right Back

 

No one knows where we go when we die. Microsoft might have some ideas.

Last month, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted a patent to Microsoft that outlines a process to create a conversational chatbot of a specific person using their social data. In an eerie twist, the patent says the chatbot could potentially be inspired by friends or family members who are deceased, which is almost a direct plot of a popular episode of Netflix's Black Mirror.

 

In that episode, "Be Right Back," a woman named Martha is upset when her partner, Ash, dies in a car accident on the day they were supposed to move in with each other. It turns out one of Martha's friends has signed her up for a service that will let her communicate with Ash through text messages. Of course, it isn't really Ash, but a sort of AI-based version of him. Suffice to say, things get weird. 

 

According to the new Microsoft patent, images, voice data, social media posts, electronic messages, and written letters can all be used to "create or modify a specific index in the theme of the specific person's personality." From there, engineers can use the index to train a chatbot to converse like that person—yes, even if they're already dead.   

 

Even creepier: The application could also don the likeness of your dead loved one in a "2D or 3D model," and utilize their voice while talking to you. 

 

№ 541. Be kind, be patient, help others

Agencia Balcells

 

"Ultimately, A Long Petal of the Sea is a story about finding joy and love in a time of chaos and anxiety. What are some lessons you think readers can take away to navigate this current climate of global uncertainty?

I was born during the Second World War, during the Holocaust, the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and many other terrible events. I am 78 years old. In my lifetime I have experienced times of uncertainty several times. When that happens, I always remember that everything is temporary, everything changes, the nature of life is impermanence and uncertainty.

We control very little, but we can control how we react to our circumstances. This global crisis will also pass. The definition of crisis is danger plus opportunity. I hope that this danger will give us the opportunity to create a better world and a brighter future for everybody, not just the privileged.

How to navigate? Be kind, be patient, help others."

 

№ 540. ;-)

 This made me laugh.

№ 539. Constant Discovery

“I do not accept any absolute formulas for living. No preconceived code can see ahead to everything that can happen in a man's life. As we live, we grow and our beliefs change. They must change. So I think we should live with this constant discovery. We should be open to this adventure in heightened awareness of living. We should stake our whole existence on our willingness to explore and experience. ”  ― Martin Buber 

№ 538. Journey through the Looking Glass

 

Modernist Controversy

Writing in his (Albert Camus) notebook in 1942, he observed: “Calypso offers Ulysses a choice between immortality and the land of his birth. He rejects immortality. Therein lies perhaps the whole meaning of the Odyssey.” In Camus’ reading, Homer teaches us to embrace a life of limits, a life in which we are not yearning for either immortality or the afterlife. Our love for this earth is necessarily brief, and death is the price of admission, the final limit. Camus could not believe in God because to do so, as he put it in “Summer in Algiers,” is to “sin against life” by hoping for another, thus “evading the implacable grandeur of the one we have.”

 

№ 537. Second Chances

Pictures in History

 

"As the future star charmed a judge throughout the ordeal, he told (Tim) Allen that he expected him to 'be a very successful comedian.' Fortunately in the comedy world, being a snitch isn’t a dealbreaker....

'When I went to jail, reality hit so hard that it took my breath away, took my stance away, took my strength away,' Allen later told Esquire.

'I was put in a holding cell with twenty other guys — we had to crap in the same crapper in the middle of the room — and I just told myself, I can’t do this for seven and a half years. I want to kill myself.'

Amazingly, that’s when the comic in him began to grow. Before long, he was able to make some of the toughest prisoners and even guards laugh.

 

№ 536. Geopolitics and Exit Strategies 2

Empires wax and wane. Powers ebb and flow. Spheres of influence retreat and surge. Celestial bodies are born and die.

As it is with the universe, so it is with its subsets and elements.

 

Political Cartoons

№ 535. I for Ikigai

For a State of Happiness

№ 534. Bottoms Up, 2021!

 This was forwarded in a viber group. Credit to the creator of the image. Very pointed sense of humor.