Month: June 2018

Activism, Big Brother, Brain, Conspiracy, Curiositys, Fascism, Manipulation, Matrix, Politics, PsychologyLeave a comment

THE PUSH ME, PULL YOU SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL TAFFY MACHINE

Fernando Kaskais

by Zen Gardner, Guest Waking Times This is fundamental in many ways but the solution may surprise most. Nothing is as it appears. Nothing. The answers lie in the observer and within each of our grasps. But it requires some serious personal work and true honest evaluation of many profound things. Mainly ourselves, at levels many may have not yet begun to fully perceive. The ultimate challenge and final frontier…. What is the truth? What do we base what we call truth on? When it comes to information we tend to trust what we consider “reliable sources”. And just where do they … Continue reading THE PUSH ME, PULL YOU SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL TAFFY MACHINE

Curiositys, Globalization, Hypocrisy, Living, Media&Culture, Rights, Sex1 Comment

Prostitution is slavery

Fernando Kaskais

Red light district, Antwerp, 1993. Photo by Harry Gruyaert/Magnum The free-market arguments won’t wash: prostitution trades on the lives of the poor and marginalised – just like slavery by Julie Bindel is a British journalist, author, broadcaster and feminist campaigner against sexual violence. Her latest book is The Pimping of Prostitution (2017). She lives in London. Edited by Nigel Warburton Prostitution is a system of commercial sexual exploitation, which is reliant on and steeped in racism, colonialism, slavery, genocide and abuse of the most marginalised and disenfranchised women and girls. The sex trade has much in common with the slave trade. Transatlantic slavery was a … Continue reading Prostitution is slavery

Brain, Curiositys, Living, Media&Culture, Philosophy, PsychologyLeave a comment

Should You Tell Everyone They’re Honest?

Fernando Kaskais

People try to live up to their labels. BY CHRISTIAN B. MILLER Here is the predicament that most of us seem to be in. We are not virtuous people. We simply do not have characters that are good enough to qualify as honest, compassionate, wise, courageous, and the like. We are not vicious people either—dishonest, callous, foolish, cowardly, and so forth. Rather we have a mixed character with some good sides and some bad sides. This is the most plausible interpretation of what psychology tells us. It is also true to our lived experience in the world. Those are the … Continue reading Should You Tell Everyone They’re Honest?

Curiositys, Living, Psychology, Sex1 Comment

I Love You and I’m Cheating. Why?

Fernando Kaskais

Source: Shutterstock Even people who are happy in their relationships can cheat. The general thinking about why people cheat on a committed relationship partner is that there is a problem with either the cheater or the relationship. Often, we assume that cheaters have a pathology, some unresolved trauma/dysfunction, or at best a form of emotional immaturity that pushes them into infidelity. Other times, we assume that the primary relationship is flawed in some significant way that creates a perceived need for external sex and intimacy. Either way, we tend to view infidelity as symptomatic of underlying problems. The cheater and/or the relationship is troubled, and … Continue reading I Love You and I’m Cheating. Why?

Brain, Health, Literature, Living, Media&Culture, Philosophy, Psychology1 Comment

If Words Hurt, It’s Because You Let Them 

Fernando Kaskais

Photo: x1klima by Patrick Allan This week’s selection comes from Marcus Aurelius and his Meditations, a collection of personal notes he wrote to himself that were never intended to be published. In book four, Aurelius provides us with an example of the power of our perception on the world and the often terrible, vocal people in it: “Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, “I have been harmed.” Take away the complaint, “I have been harmed,” and the harm is taken away. That which does not make a man worse than he was, also does not make his … Continue reading If Words Hurt, It’s Because You Let Them 

Art, Brain, Curiositys, Living, Media&Culture, Psychology, Science1 Comment

How eye disorders may have influenced the work of famous painters

Fernando Kaskais

Vincent Van Gogh, The Starry Night, Oil on canvas 73 × 92 cm, 28¾ × 36¼ in. Via Wikimedia Commons (cropped) by ANDREW ANDERSON Vision is an important tool when creating a painted artwork. Vision is used to survey a scene, guide the artist’s movements over the canvas and provide feedback on the colour and form of the work. However, it’s possible for disease and disorders to alter an artist’s visual perception. There is a long history of scientists and clinicians arguing particular artistswere affected by vision disorders, based on signs in their works. Some argued the leaders of the Impressionist movement were short-sighted, for instance, and that … Continue reading How eye disorders may have influenced the work of famous painters

Art, Brain, Literature, Living, Media&Culture, Philosophy, PsychologyLeave a comment

Frankenstein’ Author Mary Shelley on Creativity

Fernando Kaskais

Mary Shelley. Art from Literary Witches — an illustrated celebration of trailblazing women writers who have enchanted and transformed the world. “Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.” BY MARIA POPOVA “Creativity involves not only years of conscious preparation and training but unconscious preparation as well,” Oliver Sacks wrote in outlining the three essential elements of creativity, adding: “This incubation period is essential to allow the subconscious assimilation and incorporation of one’s influences and sources, to reorganize and synthesize them into something of one’s own.” The richer one’s reservoir of these influences and sources, the … Continue reading Frankenstein’ Author Mary Shelley on Creativity

Brain, Curiositys, Health, Living, Media&Culture, PsychologyLeave a comment

WHY WE’RE A CULTURE OF ADDICTS

Fernando Kaskais

by Leslie Garrett, Guest Waking Times If there’s one constant among addicts of all types, it’s shame. It’s what makes us lie and hide. It’s what keeps us from asking for help – though we don’t think we need it because we’re also good at lying to ourselves. About why we eat. Or shop. Or gamble. Or drink. Dr. Gabor Maté knows the feeling well. Maté, a renowned doctor, speaker, and author, has seen it in the heroin-addicted men and women he treats in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. He sees it in the behavior of well-respected workaholics. The cosmetic surgery junkies. The power … Continue reading WHY WE’RE A CULTURE OF ADDICTS

Brain, Curiositys, Drugs, Living, Media&Culture, Psychology, SexLeave a comment

Men Who’ve Tried Psychedelics Are Less Likely to Abuse Their Partners

Fernando Kaskais

They may also may be an effective therapy for victims (and perpetrators) of abuse by Andrew Fiouzi New research from the University of British Columbia and Laurentian University suggests that psychedelics are good for more than just seeing faces in clouds. “A study published last month in the Journal of Psychopharmacology found that men who reported previous use of psychedelic drugs (aka hallucinogens) were less likely to act violently toward their intimate partners, based on their self-reported emotional habits,” reported Forbes. According to the lead author of the study, Michelle Thiessen (a clinical psychology graduate student at the University of British Columbia), previous research … Continue reading Men Who’ve Tried Psychedelics Are Less Likely to Abuse Their Partners

AI, Brain, Curiositys, Future, Living, Matrix, Psychology, TechnologyLeave a comment

Artificial Consciousness: How To Give A Robot A Soul

Fernando Kaskais

Victor Tangermann, The Birth of Alexa, Photoshop, 2018  StockSnap/Victor Tangermann by Dan Robitzski  The Terminator was written to frighten us; WALL-E was written to make us cry. Robots can’t do the terrifying or heartbreaking things we see in movies, but still the question lingers: What if they could? Granted, the technology we have today isn’t anywhere near sophisticated enough to do any of that. But people keep asking. At the heart of those discussions lies the question: can machines become conscious? Could they even develop — or be programmed to contain — a soul? At the very least, could an algorithm contain something resembling a soul? The … Continue reading Artificial Consciousness: How To Give A Robot A Soul