> With this in mind, smoking should be commenced at as young an age as is reasonably possible. Children who have not yet developed a pincer grasp might require modified cigarette holders, safety lighters or both. These points are moot at this time, because such initiatives are not possible in many countries because of existing legislation putting age restrictions on the purchase of cigarettes.
> They expanded the search to include other Germanic relatives, such as Icelandic and older forms of German, to shed light on Old English.
Interesting, is this 17th century German fandom the basis of Tolkien's work? His Middle Earth was so fleshed out, I guess it would make sense.
> By 1720 intellectual interest in England had turned to Druidry, Celtic heritage, Stonehenge, and the imaginary world of Phoenician Druids bringing the Abrahamic religion to Britain, complete with chariot races around Stonehenge.
Reminds me, of the Hindu Nationalists view of history. Maybe not in form but in motivation. State/Church wanting to found its origins in itself.
Book was more oriented to explaining world class performance not high school or college. It made a pretty convincing case by going through some really famous examples of excellent young talent (Tiger Woods, Jerry Rice and Mozart).
Goes a lot into the studies on the matter and he argues it they paint a pretty clear picture.
I remember PH having the same issue. Do payment processors take on liability for facilitating sexual content that is illegal in some way? Is it a PR thing? Is mastercard owned by the Holy See? What's the deal?
Yeah these findings remind me of a passage from the book "Talent Is Overrated". Thesis of the book is that world class talent is mostly due to hard work over innate ability. He supposes that one way that children develop drives in different directions is some identification of ability (even when it is not there really) in some domain leads adults to heap praise on them for that particular talent, causing a virtuous cycle of work and praise.
You can see this in parents who marvel at how great their children are at x, seems to be how kids are pushed. If kids are designed to be pushed to develop their skill sets by the dopamine inducing praise it could be that these drugs work because they tap into that pathway.
> the current fuel density in much of the Sierra, mixed with the hotter, drier conditions already triggered by climate change, has made managing wildfire even riskier than it was when forest managers started allowing fires to burn in Yosemite in 1972.
So if fire fighters and politicians do not want to start a burn policy now that there is so much fuel, why not log an area for a while then start burning? Is there something I am missing about the nature of the problem?
Not sure how valid but I think a case from this hypothesized Chinese Government perspective can be made even without criticizing Netflix itself.
When Hollywood was built in the 1920's it was not exactly the backbone of the economy. The article argues that the Chinese Government sees value in the economy beyond GDP goes up and cash flows good. Technology and manufacturing are important to national security.
The article quote Xi Jinping saying “we must recognize the fundamental importance of the real economy… and never deindustrialize.” I guess the national question for the other super power is how important is this "real economy" to itself. Is too much talent and labor sucked up in profitable activity that is suboptimal for a nation? Are these 21st century company's like Netflix good enough for our nation?
Yeah the theory seems to only explain interiority of our consciousness. But if I recall the author does seem to cover critiques like this in the first chapter where he explains what he sees as erroneous ideas about what consciousness is.
He give the example of automatized actions and the lack of conscious recognition of what would normally be experiences with conscious perceptions. For example driving, you often do not consciously feel the petals, or see a lot of the road you are obviously responding too.
I definitely do not buy the theory totally explains consciousness but the book makes a convincing enough case to not dismiss.
> No reason to be wary of recreational use. No more so than you might of caffeine
You should be wary of caffeine use, especially if your culture does not have any rules about its use, or complete enough understanding about its effects. We like drugs because they work, but the problem is we do not know what they do over larger timescales or how to fit them into your life.
Weed is a relative newbie in the average American's life and we would be silly to not respect the drug enough to be wary.
> You need a bit of arrogance to think cannabis is on your side and you can dominate it, as I witnessed myself when I started stumbling as a teenager.
I have had similar experiences. Without your mind you are not you, a drug which changes the minds substrate (in some ways permanently) is going to be outside the control of the effected mind. Beware the Snoop Dogg pool party.
Seems like we are leaving the cultural moment that presented Marijuana as a glorious panacea which would open your third eye if only you let go of your fear. Our culture was so scared of the stuff before, maybe we needed to paint an unrealistically bright picture to find the courage to leave the cave.
To the unfamiliar it can be a thrilling adventure, to others it can serve as inspiration. It feels like it has mental costs though. Being wary of regular recreational use seems warranted.
This was a great read. The history of human cognition is obviously fascinating and there is a lot written on subject for me to devour which is great. But what about his thoughts on hypnosis?
I guess it is not as sexy a topic as the history of the mind but his ideas about it are really intriguing. Been a year since I read the book, but hypnosis as painted in the book changes in form with peoples ideas about what hypnosis is, pretty much everything that people say about it is culturally determined and yet it still is real. People will themselves into into filling out these cultural forms where they are in a totally different cognitive state when in the right social context and most people just think of it as a party trick.
The theory states that our consciousness is a linguistic phenomenon, produced by culturally given ideas like the metaphorical I.
Maybe other mental configurations could give rise to consciousness but if an animal was to possess the type of consciousness described in this book, it would need the ability to symbolically represent pretty much everything and the ability to share those symbolic representations with others.
I am not arguing that expiring currency is unprecedented. Further, I am aware governments have had control over the money supply for thousands of years.
Main thing that worries me is the sophistication of the control. What I do not want is all economical activity to be corralled into a financial system where states/bankers can see every transaction, take your assets at a key press, and destroy your savings.
State backed currencies seem like a good idea, so do legal alternatives and anonymous payment options like physical cash.
> The money itself is programmable. Beijing has tested expiration dates to encourage users to spend it quickly, for times when the economy needs a jump start.
Yikes, that is a lot of power. Been an ideological Bitcoin holder/gold bug/physical cash fan for quite some time now. The sophisticated mechanisms that Central Banks have to control the economy/money seems dangerous in shortsighted democracies, and nightmarish in more authoritarian states.
No anonymity in financial transactions makes it easier to catch drug dealers and tax evaders. The ability to control the money supply will keep the economy healthy (theoretically). Only problem is the ability of communities/individuals to economically resist national governments is so thoroughly squashed that citizens are turned into subjects when the nations elites decide subjugation is a good idea.
Dirty secret of politics is that rights become inalienable in the same way boxers become champions. By winning a lot of fights.
Definitely agree that the fall of the West is best understood as a consequence of the civil instability/war. I also think it is probable the successor states where most likely better managed/fruitful economically (although I probably would not say that to a Briton who had just been conquered by the Angles). Would seem to be a step too far to not give the Germans due credit for the fall of the West though.
The title Imperator in the days of the late republic was an honorific given to successful generals. This is is quite an apt title for the Roman political head during the Imperium. It was hard for the formally republican Romans of the early Empire to counter the precedent set by Julius and Augustus, who killed their way to the top. Normal stabilizing mechanisms like the divine right of kings were anaesthetized by Roman sensibilities. Conquerors did not face legitimacy issues like they might have in a political system with more ceremonial/spiritual backing.
But when the commander of forces on the Rhine was no longer a Roman General commanding Roman Legions but a German commanding his tribe that same process of conquering yourself a nice political office seems to have more political implications. Sure the Lombards kept the Senate but the lack of political union of the German tribes probably has something to do with break in political union of the Western Empire.
Lol, what a shame