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Esoteric Sciences Roundtable: The Art of Memetics Interview

November 1, 2008 /

THE ART OF MEMETICS

Kory Kortis talks to Wes Unruh about the book he co-authored with Edward Wilson “The Art of Memetics”

“Kory Kortis has been running ESR for six years now, and I was the last guest this season. We covered this view of memetics that I’ve been espousing, and hopefully I get some of the important ideas in the book across in the interview below.

Kory was kind enough to send me two DVD’s of the episode and a grip of stickers, so I got this up on my google video account (with Kory’s permission).”

(via Alterati)

T.V’s Samhain Link Dump

November 1, 2008 /
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Sometimes you have to jump into the fire without worrying about what will arise from the ashes…

Stephen King’s God Trip

November 1, 2008 /

“In 1927, a little-known writer of horror stories named H.P. Lovecraft tried to put into words the secret of his diabolical craft. “The one test of the really weird is simply this,” Lovecraft wrote in the introduction to “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” “whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes or entities on the known universe’s utmost rim.”

That’s a mouthful, and yet I swear, two decades or so ago, I had the very experience that Lovecraft describes while on an overnight bus trip from Dallas to a Christian youth camp in northern Minnesota. Most of the other teen campers flirted or gossiped or joked around. Some endured the long hours by reading Scripture, and in their own way, may have been grappling with “the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities.” I was mesmerized by a less prescriptive but equally god-smitten work: Stephen King’s epic of apocalypse, “The Stand.”

This year, the novel “The Stand” turns 30, and far from fading into the dustbin of bygone bestsellers, King’s great tale of plague seems more prescient than ever. Fundamentalist religion, biological weapons, monster viruses, nuclear destruction, ecological havoc, mistrust of government, the breakdown of democracy — it’s all here. The 1,153-page novel recounts the story of a nasty airborne bug that decimates the population of the United States, leaving behind a remnant to wage a battle for the soul of humanity. The children of light are drawn to Boulder, Colo., where they follow a version of Moses named Mother Abagail, a 118-year-old black woman subject to supernatural visions, while the children of darkness gravitate to Las Vegas and come under the sway of a “dark man” named Randall Flagg, who wears faded blue jeans and worn cowboy boots and can turn himself into wolf, weasel and crow.

[..] I spoke to Stephen King recently about the novel 30 years on, his new collection of short stories, religious faith, presidential politics and the possibilities of the afterlife.”

(via Salon)

Documentary- “Off The Grid: Life On The Mesa”

October 26, 2008 /

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The current economic crisis has some people showing an an interest in survivalism, frugal lifestyles, etc. This fascinating documentary focuses on one particular group of people who live according to their own rules.

“Twenty-Five miles from town, a million miles from mainstream society, a loose-knit community of eco-pioneers, teenage runaways, war veterans and drop-outs, live on the fringe and off the grid, struggling to survive with little food, less water and no electricity, as they cling to their unique vision of the American dream…”

(“Off The Grid: Life On The Mesa” via Snag Films)

Interview: Investigating the Buddha’s World

October 26, 2008 /

“The teachings of the Buddha have been variously understood by scholars, monks, and laypeople over the centuries. But what was it that the Buddha actually taught? While this remains an open and oft-debated question, scholar John Peacocke”‘in his work as both an academic and a dharma teacher”‘asserts that by looking to the history, language, and rich philosophical environment of the Buddha’s day we can uncover what is most distinctive and revolutionary about his teachings. Peacocke, who does not shy away from controversy, argues that in some very important ways, later Buddhist schools depart from early core teachings.

Peacocke has been practicing Buddhism since 1970. He was first exposed to Buddhism at monasteries in South India, where he ordained as a monk in the Tibetan tradition. He later studied in Sri Lanka, where Theravada Buddhism has flourished for centuries. Returning to lay life and his native England, Peacocke went on to receive his Ph.D. in Buddhist studies at the University of Warwick. He currently lectures on Buddhist and Hindu thought at the University of Bristol and next year will begin teaching at the Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy Master of Studies program at Oxford University. A former director of the Sharpham Centre for Buddhist Studies in Devon, England, Peacocke also serves on the teaching council at nearby Gaia House, a retreat center offering instruction in a variety of Buddhist traditions. He now teaches and practices in the Vipassana tradition. Tricycle editor James Shaheen visited with Peacocke near Bristol University in April to discuss what the language of the early Pali and Sanskrit texts tells us about Buddhism today.”

(via Tricycle. h/t: H~Log)

The Psychology of Conmen

October 26, 2008 /

“How do conmen convince you to part with your money? Who are they? And how do they choose their victims? Learn their secrets from someone who has studied their dark arts. Magician Nick Johnson has some interesting insights into psychology of scams…and some suggestions on how to stop your money from going up in smoke!

Damien Carrick: Now from secrets that get lifted from government, to how you and I sometimes inadvertently hand over information or money to con men. How do scammers manage to convince people to hand over their hard-earned cash? To find the answer, perhaps we could talk to a police officer or a criminologist. But someone with a lateral take is magician Nicholas Johnson. He reckons that both magicians and scammers use the same box of tools: psychology and sleight of hand. In fact he’s studied the dark arts of the scamster, and has some suggestions on how to stop your money from going up in smoke.

Nicholas Johnson: I think what I love most about con artists and the world of scammers is that they’re criminals who manage to get their victims to hand over their possessions freely. Most thieves and robbers and the like, tend to use force, or deception, in order for them to take things, whereas a con artist manages to get their victim to freely give up their stuff. And I think that’s what really fascinates me the most.”

(via The Law Report. h/t: Schneier on Security)

Chemical From Tainted Milk Found In Sex Shop Items

October 22, 2008 /

“The British government has released a health warning over a so-called “willy spread”  found to have the same chemical blamed for China’s bad milk.

The Ann Summers sex shop’s “I Love You”  sets seemingly have melamine, the stuff that made thousands of Chinese babies sick and led to at least four deaths. The British Food Standards Agency says it’s in the kits’ chocolate-flavored “body pen,”  “willy spread,”  and “nipple spread”  “‘ all of which are made in China.

“This is a first. We’ve never had to put out an alert before on “?willy spread’ “‘ chocolate-flavored or otherwise,”  an FSA spokesperson said in the official announcement.”

(via The Inquisitr. Thanks DJ!)

Hard Times Have Some Flirting with Survivalism

October 22, 2008 /

“Atash Hagmahani is not waiting for the stock market to recover. The former high-tech professional turned urban survivalist has already moved his money into safer investments: Rice and beans, for starters. “I hoard food,”  says Hagmahani, 44, estimating that he has enough to last his family a year or two. “I’m not ashamed to admit it.”  “People keep asking when this (economic crisis) is going to clear up,”  says Hagmahani, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that he be identified only by this pseudonym, which he uses for his survivalist blog, or by his first name, Rob.

The answer, he predicts, is that the country is entering what he calls a “Greater Depression.”  “Maybe they jolly well better get used to the change in lifestyle.”  Hagmahani is not alone in concluding that desperate times call for serious preparations. With foreclosure rates running rampant, financial institutions teetering and falling, prices for many goods and services climbing, and jobs being slashed, many Americans are making preparations for worse times ahead. For some, that means cutting spending and saving more. For others, it means taking a step into survivalism, once regarded solely as the province of religious End-of-Timers, sci-fi fans and extremists. That often manifests itself as a desire to secure basic emergency resources “‘ what survival guru Jim Wesley Rawles describes as “beans, bullets and Band-Aids.” 

(via MSNBC. h/t: LOLFed)

Stone Age Man Took Drugs, Say Scientists

October 21, 2008 /

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“It has long been suspected that humans have an ancient history of drug use, but there has been a lack of proof to support the theory. Now, however, researchers have found equipment used to prepare hallucinogenic drugs for sniffing, and dated them back to prehistoric South American tribes. Quetta Kaye, of University College London, and Scott Fitzpatrick, an archeologist from North Carolina State University, made the breakthrough on the Caribbean island of Carriacou.

They found ceramic bowls, as well as tubes for inhaling drug fumes or powders, which appear to have originated in South America between 100BC and 400BC and were then carried 400 miles to the islands. While the use of such paraphernalia for inhaling drugs is well-known, the age of the bowls has thrown new light on how long humans have been taking drugs. Scientists believe that the drug being used was cohoba, a hallucinogen made from the beans of a mimosa species. Drugs such as cannabis were not found in the Caribbean then. Opiates can be obtained from species such as poppies, while fungi, which was widespread, may also have been used.”

(via Telegraph)

Fatty Acids Clue to Alzheimer’s

October 21, 2008 /

“Controlling the level of a fatty acid in the brain could help treat Alzheimer’s disease, an American study has suggested. Tests on mice showed that reducing excess levels of the acid lessened animals’ memory problems and behavioural changes. Writing in Nature Neuroscience, the team said fatty acid levels could be controlled through diet or drugs. A UK Alzheimer’s expert called the work “robust and exciting”. There are currently 700,000 people living with dementia in the UK, but that number is forecast to double within a generation.

Scientists from Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and the University of California looked at fatty acids in the brains of normal mice and compared them with those in mice genetically engineered to have an Alzheimer’s-like condition. They identified raised levels of a fatty acid called arachidonic acid in the brains of the Alzheimer’s mice. Its release is controlled by the PLA2 enzyme. The scientists again used genetic engineering to lower PLA2 levels in the animals, and found that even a partial reduction halted memory deterioration and other impairments.”

(via BBC News)

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