Subversive Calculus

10/12/2023

I love this hand drawn map of different types of urbanization across the world. Roughly checks out. Simple visualisation that tells quite the story... Source: https://buff.ly/4a45GkY

06/12/2023

17/08/2023

This is not a theory.

17/08/2023

“Anthropologists who have trekked to isolated regions of the world to observe hunter-gatherer societies—whether in Africa, Asia, South America or elsewhere—have consistently been impressed by the egalitarian nature of those societies (e.g. Ingold, 1999). The people live in small self-governing bands of about 20 to 50 people per band. They are nomadic, moving from place to place to follow the available game and edible vegetation.

Most remarkably, unlike any other people that have been studied, hunter-gatherers appear to lack hierarchy in social organization. They have no chief or big man, no leaders or followers. They share everything, so nobody owns more than anybody else. They make all group decisions through discussion until a consensus is reached. In fact, another name that anthropologists regularly use to refer to band hunter-gatherer societies is egalitarian societies. As part of their egalitarianism, they have an extraordinary degree of respect for individual autonomy. They don’t tell one another what to do or offer unsolicited advice. Elsewhere I have described how this egalitarian ethos underlies even their interactions with young children (Gray, 2012 and here).

Wherever else we look in the human world, outside of band hunter-gatherers, we see hierarchical structures, in which some people dominate others. Pre-state agrarian tribes are headed by chiefs; modern governments are headed by leaders, elected or not, that have the power to dominate. We see hierarchy in the workplace, where bosses tell employees what to do. We see it in gangs and in all sorts of formal or informal gatherings, especially of boys and men, who jockey, sometimes violently, for dominance. We see it in schools, where principals tell teachers what to do and teachers tell students what to do. We see it in families where parents dominate children. We also see dominance hierarchies almost everywhere we look in other primates, with alpha individuals (generally males) on top and frequent fighting for status.

It would seem from all this that we humans, or more generally all of us primates, are predisposed genetically to live in dominance hierarchies in which individuals, especially males, more or less continuously strive to move up in the hierarchy. But if that is so, then how do hunter-gatherers manage to live in their egalitarian way? Genes can’t account for that difference. Indeed, people just a generation or so away from being hunter-gatherers, who now live in agricultural societies, often quickly lose their egalitarian tendencies and fall into dominance patterns.”...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201908/the-play-theory-hunter-gatherer-egalitarianism

In the Anishinaabe tradition repetition and heart knowledge are valued methods of sharing, learning, being, and knowing.

10/08/2023

🤣🤣🤣

10/08/2023

Cosplay is fan art. And because art is subjective, YOU don't have to like something. But if you can't accept that something makes ME happy, makes ME feel better and helps ME in life then swerve lanes and keep moving. You don't have have to try and bring others down because the subject wasn't for you in the first place. ❤️

10/08/2023

22/01/2023

Reading old papers is fun. Microbiologist Alice Evans, in a 1934 paper on brucellosis, writes about "odious" & stigmatizing name "Malta fever". The Lancet knew it pi**ed folks off in 1896. But yes, tell me how "woke" it is to explain how such names cause harm 100 years later.

30/11/2022

24/11/2022

New: Black People Know How to Fight Racism, But We Also Know White People

“Notice that most of the remedies for racism—changes to the criminal legal system, expanding access to the vote, equitable funding for Black businesses—have little to do with changing hearts, minds, and attitudes of individuals.

The recommendations Black people offer for pursuing racial justice do not generally concern how white people feel about Black people. Rather the strategies we prefer focus on systemic, institutional, and policy changes.” Read more

Pew Research Center

23/11/2022

facts

23/11/2022

Imagine 🤍

19/11/2022

— Aphantasia: When you try to picture something in your mind and nothing happens —

“This is a difficult topic to talk about, since it involves things that happen exclusively inside your (or my) mind, which by definition can’t be experienced by anyone else.

So it’s hard to even describe properly, since different people are going to experience things differently, even if we are trying to talk about the same thing. But here’s a question: When someone asks you to picture something in your mind — a horse, a sunset, a shiny red apple — and you close your eyes, what happens?

Many people see a visual representation of that thing hovering in front of their “mind’s eye,” and in some cases it is in full colour, like they were looking at a photograph but in their mind.

For me, there is nothing. Literally. Just a blank space.”

Posted on April 5, 2020November 19, 2022 by mathewiAphantasia: When you try to picture something in your mind and nothing happens This is a difficult topic to talk about, since it involves things that happen exclusively inside your (or my) mind, which by definition can’t be experienced by anyone e...

18/11/2022

“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”
— Leo Tolstoy

18/11/2022

18/11/2022

/ George Orwell /
"George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair's pen name) was an English writer, essayist and journalist, born on 25 June 1903 in India and died on 21 January 1950 in London. A multifaceted author, his work reflects his political commitments against totalitarianism and in favor of social justice.
George Orwell took advantage of his intellectual abilities to obtain scholarships allowing him to receive a good academic education, notably at Eton College. He affirmed a rebellious temperament over time, but nevertheless joined the Burmese imperial police, following a family tradition of serving the British Empire. After five years, he left his position to devote himself to writing.
George Orwell then alternated between periods during which he explored the living conditions of the poor and periods of working as a teacher or bookstore employee. After having been involved in Spain against the Franco dictatorship, he returned to London and wrote his main novels, including Animal Farm. He died of tuberculosis shortly after the publication of his most famous work, the dystopian novel 1984.
Kwize
George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.191, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
sculptor: Martin Jennings, in London, BBC headquarters