Communitarianism as the answer to political polarization; Wasps can use logical reasoning; Reality as a simulation; An injection to prevent heart attacks; And more...
Business, News, Science, Technology, or whatever gets my attention.
Straight from my RSS feed:
Ten links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.
- The Communitarian Revival - John R. Wood, Jr. opens by describing David Brooks' keynote speech to a global philanthropy forum that took place in April. One key concept is the enumeration of four commitments that define a person's purpose: family, vocation, philosophy, and community. A second important concept is the distinction of tribe from community, suggesting that tribe is defined by a common enemy, whereas community is defined by a common humanity. To build community, Brooks suggests empathy, generosity, "radical hospitality", and "deep mutuality". After Brooks, the article goes on to list a number of other examples of communitarian advocates from the modern right (Arthur Brooks, Ben Sasse, Glenn Beck, and Ben Shapiro) and left (Cornell West, Hawk Newsome, Van Jones, Jonathan Haidt, and Pete Buttigieg). Finally, the article closes by arguing for a communitarian revival as the antedote for today's polarized society.
- Wasps Have the Ability to Use Logic, According to a New Study - Researchers used electric shocks and 5 colors labeled A through E for human observers to train wasps to learn a hierarchy of "better" colors based upon the severity of the shock. They then exposed the wasps to pairs of colors to see if the wasps could use transitive inference, recognizing that [B > C > D], for example, implies that [B > D]. It turns out that the wasps choose the correct color 65% of the time, a result that is better than chance.
- Sphinx Room at Nero's Domus Aurea re-emerges after 2,000 yrs - Work to restore one room of Nero's 150 room palace unearthed another one. The newly accessible rectangular room's wall is decorated by elaborate paintings such as the Roman god, Pan; a man with a sword fighting a panther; and various actual and imagined sea creatures. The room is believed to be part of the so-called A workshop, which operated between 68 and 65 BC. The palace remains under ground after being buried and covered by a bath house by Emperor Trajan. h/t archaeology.org
- The Lowest Bid Universe - Perhaps somewhat tongue in cheek, Columbia University's Director of Astrobiology - Caleb A. Scharf, argues that "features" of our universe like slowing star creation rates and inflation, which leads to the eventual isolation of all sections of the universe, demonstrate that we may well live in a complex simulation, where design compromises were made in order to limit the model's cost and difficulty.
- One-off injection may drastically reduce heart attack risk - Within three years, researchers hope to trial an injection in people with a gene variation that makes them susceptible to heart attacks. If safe and effective, they hope to run trials with a wider population after that. The injection is designed to reduce the risk of heart disease, the number 1 cause of death in many countries, by targeting the liver and activating a gene editing tool to turn off the PSCK9 gene. It is believed that deactivating 30-40% of PSCK9 genes will drastically reduce the risk of heart attack. The therapy has received investments to the tune of $58.5 million. h/t RealClearScience
- Opinion: How to Define Life - In order to grapple with the complex web of ethical implications that surround artificial intelligence (AI) development, Case Western Reserve AI researchers propose to define life as, "the property of an organism that possesses any genetic code that allows for reproduction, natural selection, and individual mortality." They argue that this definition would facilitate decision making by enabling us to distinguish life from non-life in AI robots and synthetic organisms. h/t RealClear Science
- Video Friday: This Drone Is a Flying Tray for Your Smart Home - IEEE Spectrum's weekly selection of awesome robot videos includes a (noisy) flying serving tray, the Vision 60 quadruped from Ghost Robotics, the LightBee telepresence robot, a robotic suitcase that helps the visually impaired navigate, a tic tac toe robotic game, more soft robotics from NASA, and others.
- The case for having kids - Against a background of globally declining birth rates, Wajahat Ali's TED talk makes the case for increasing international birth rates. He argues that, "we can and should fight for the Earth and humanity at the same time." He also notes that declining birth rates means a lower ratio of young people to old people, and that this leads to multiple societal problems including labor shortages and insufficient tax revenue for the funding of safety-net programs. To elaborate, he points out a number of policy responses in countries around the world who are struggling with birth rates that are stuck below replacement rates, and suggests that national policies should make life easier for people who want to have babies. His final point, driven home with a poignant personal example, is that uncertainty is part of life, but it shouldn't be an excuse to withdraw from life.
- STEEM ‘No future for dissidents’ on social media: Paul Joseph Watson reflects on Facebook ban - @rt-international writes about Paul Joseph Watson's response to being banned from Facebook and labeled a "dangerous individual". Watson has hired a UK law firm and is exploring his legal options. (@rt-international will receive 5% of this post's payout)
- STEEM Will Facebook kill Steem overnight? - Among the earliest of steembloggers, @dana-edwards wonders if Facebook's planned stablecoin will drastically reduce demand for Steem, and calls for Steemit to issue a statement about the perceived competition. The post observes that a stablecoin that's actually stable will provide a better tool for vendors than the volatile Steem Dollar; that from a user perspective, Steem's once state of the art technology now seems stagnant; and that Facebook has a billion users. Some of my own thoughts lead me to be less concerned: (i) Facebook isn't really a blogging platform; (ii) Facebook, control freak that it seems, is unlikely to duplicate Steem's custom_json capability which has spurred community initiatives like @steemmonsters, @steem-engine, and @drugwars; and (iii) From what I've seen, Facebook plans to rely exclusively on advertising revenue, not a reward pool, to reward users (if at all). TSU tried that, and the financials didn't work. (5% of this post's payout will go to @dana-edwards)
### About this series
Note: Sharing a link does not imply endorsement or agreement, and I receive no incentives for sharing from any of the content producers.
Thanks to SteemRSS from @philipkoon, @doriitamar, and @torrey.blog for the Steem RSS feeds!
In order to help make Steem the go to place for timely information on diverse topics, I invite you to discuss any of these links in the comments, and/or your own response post.
If you're not on Steem yet, you can follow this account in RSS.
Congratulations @remlaps-lite! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:
Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!