The Mushrooming Science

Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., is Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His principal research focus in both clinical and preclinical laboratories has been on the behavioral and subjective effects of mood-altering drugs. He is also currently a member of the Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Dependence for the World Health Organization. The most interesting find (and not unusual for anyone studying entheogens) is that the Psilocybin mushroom is measurably more real than the reality you are experiencing while reading this. 


Additionally according to the scientific results, it is also in the top five experiences ever; such as child birth, marriage and other spiritually moving and deeply human experiences in life.


What's the point? Well as Joe Rogan pointed out in a video I saw earlier. It's not very good for capitalism and the military industrial complex. 


Weird how top down hierarchical religion and government deemed it illegal and immoral.


I just can't figure it out. Can you?

Thailand's Tropical Gulag

The troubles down south have been going on a lot longer than the reductionist story of Reds versus Yellows. It's straight forward ignorance, chauvinism and arrogance coupled with territorial insensitivity and inflexibility to subsidiarity, that only exists due to the geographical and historical idiocy of the British empire in that part of the world . 

I used to occasionally cross the border at Narathiwat though that is no longer sensible given the violence that takes place in that part of the world. It's evident to me that the muslims down South or rather less materialistic cultures are de facto materially/fiat currency poorer in the the 21st century than materialist cultures that value stuff over non stuff. 

Things like feelings and consciousness for example. We should be aware of that when assessing a balance sheet for the superiority of cultures. Once again Al Jazeera does more serious and more pertinent content than any other global news organization.

Brands & Social Media

Doug Rushkoff (who put me on to Terence McKenna) thinks he may have gone over the top on this talk but I think it's smart and cogent. I would have liked to embed this in my page here but the organisers of the branding conference don't quite get the mechanics of what makes a brand in the 21st century. It's about a half hour and is a must see video.

Quora Versus Yahoo

Via Jay Dolen

American Twitter: Who & How

Via We are Social

Is Science Predicated On Woo Woo?

Behaviour Change

As much as for me as for anybody. Via Mike

Terence & Typography

Lazyscope

It all very much depends on how you use Twitter and drilling that thought down a bit further; what types of user experience you either have or wish to have. For example sometimes I like to have Twitter alerts on while I'm watching a movie or other times I want a really low level intrusion experience. Lazyscope is a bit different because if you're in content reviewing mode i.e. Interested in taking a better look at the content being linked to in tweets without opening up a new tab or browser, then it's a great tool and one I like to use when the intensity of Tweetdeck is too much for getting on with other tasks. You can add RSS and Google reader's feeds to it as well as some other stuff if that sounds interesting.

War Porn - Festival of Dangerous Ideas

I was all prepared to criticize P.W. Singer in this talk, properly entitled Wired for War at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. He's too young to work at a think tank, he must be immoral for working at the Pentagon, he's too tall and so on and so forth but in conclusion it's a useful exploration of technology acceleration in war though it really is depressing to hear a well framed adumbration of war technology squared when the reality of an ecologically strip mined planet with obesity and hunger as the definitive wellbeing paradigm is where the good brains should really be put to work.

Update: Original video censored or deleted. Replacement is a similar presentation.

Myth Matters

Brilliant story telling from around the world that is echoed time and again through the lens of fractal and recursive geometric patterns illuminated by Joseph Campbell. I love the way he talks about the need for fresh metaphors to illuminate ancient religions including his advocacy of Star Wars to that end.

RGB

Two completely different directions but this and the last post are both executions I really like, though that doesn't mean I think they are effective. Liking something is a little too subjective from a planning perspective as I may be projecting my bias against cars and thus for environmentally responsible motoring, though that too is up for debate given the manufacturing footprint both of these may or may not require. Like I said, I just like the work. I'm feeling too lazy to figure out if they would actually work.

This execution via AJ

a priori language?

A priori language via Gemma

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

Feels like Google's hire of Matias Duarte from Palm to Android was a good move. I'm certainly feeling better about Android over Apple after this interview at CES, which gets into the 'to and fro' of designing for people as well as open source developers (though of course the latter are people too).

Entheogen

This documentary on Entheogens is quite uplifting. I recommend bookmarking it for one of those times when being cheered up isn't going to work or help, but taking your mind off things will or if you just want to skip to the Stanford and MIT geek-mafia talking about the inseparable relationship of computing and LSD when pitching the hippies against the pocket protector brigade for creative output (no contest). It's at 50 minutes 30 seconds. 


In case you know of any good documentaries, talks and so forth, I'm in the process of hoovering up as much of the internet's video content on quantum mechanics, relativity, entropy, and of course big bucking bang as well as mysticism including all the deisms. so please do let me know of any gems.

The Internet's Mid-Life Crisis

Tim Wu is the guy who coined the phrase net neutrality. I've blogged about him before as his grasp of the internet, media and commerce is well thought out, as exemplified by his ability to identify and reconcile the dangers of corporate narrow interests along with the need for Stalinist self interest in the face of egregious competition. Uncomfortable business thinking indeed.

In this video he elegantly entangles the dynamics of censorship, vertical integration, technology suppression and the emergence of Apple as a record label/TV Station or even old school film studio. He makes great use of historical but little known precedents to support his claims.

Steve Fuller

I rate Steve Fuller in this. He has  dazzling verbiage skills  and at least talks from his heart though I still say he's unwilling to pay homage to the nicompoop(s) deer-in-the-headlights reverence on the right. 

Anybody else feel that way or is it a bit too boring and grown up?

Update: I got Steve Buller mixed up with Simon Conway when originally posting this so I've amended the title and post. Sorry about that.

Dark Matter

One

This is the best I've seen yet (you generally know something is good on Youtube if it's under 50000 views and preferably under 5000). Sean Carroll is brilliantly lucid and engaging in this presentation.

Intel