Category Archives: Transhuman News

To the Editor:

I was surprised to see throughout our city many posters with a particularly interesting message containing two demands. The first one was to celebrate diversity; he second, to replace the Columbus statue. But how can we celebrate diversity by removing a preeminent symbol of diversity?

The Syracuse Columbus statue was paid for with the donations of Italian immigrants; people who risked their lives coming to America in filthy hulls of ships, escaping from an economic crisis. And exactly as other minority groups at the time, they were segregated not de jure but de facto fiercely criticized by the press, and subjected to all kinds of humiliations and discriminations. It should not be difficult to understand that those who paid for the Columbus statue were not thinking about the flaws in the life of the explorer, but in the values that he embodied to their community. For Italians, Columbus was a reason to be proud of their identity, and a symbol of their bravery and success in a hostile new land. And anyone who is an immigrant me included can easily relate to this.

But even if you think that Columbus and 99% of the people of his time were sadistic maniacs that enslaved or slaughtered people for pleasure, you should still be in favor of keeping the statue. Why? Because it is, like it or not, a piece of well-preserved evidence of our citys multicultural past. What could be more diverse in essence, than respecting what constituted the heritage of older generations? And what is the price we pay to keep that heritage? I do not think that the discomfort of a small sector of the population is reason enough to deny our cultural legacy. Moreover, being willing to preserve a statue of a controversial figure in the center of our city speaks volumes about our commitment to diversity and liberal values. It states that we accept different points of view, or that at least we are open to debate. However, if we ask for its removal, we deliberately exclude a manifestation of that diversity that we seek to protect.

At this point, its relevant to ask ourselves what portion of the concept of diversity we are trying to embrace. Since diversity is such a broad term going far beyond racial issues it would be a huge mistake to consciously choose its racial over ideological implication. Doing so would make us hypocrites regarding an important human value, because any kind of inclusionary diversity that can be achieved in a free society is the result of diversity of thought. That diversity (of thought, ideologies, ideas, political views and worldviews) that the statue of Columbus represents especially today should not be abandoned to fit in with the fashionable narrative. In the short term (the one that worries most politicians) those who have blindly consumed this narrative will applaud the cancelers of Columbus for their apparent courage and historical empathy, but in the long term (the one that should concern us, citizens) this will leave a terrible precedent: the imposition of an absolute vision of the world from one political spectrum on another.

Unfortunately, the citys debate over the statue has gotten too political when it shouldnt have. Although our biased media outlets have tried to sell it to us in this way, it is not about empowering a marginalized community by removing the stigma of their oppression. Its not even about Columbus. It is about politicians taking advantage of the pain of a community and censoring the voice of another community to paint themselves as social justice warriors; and it is also about the willingness of the public to either acknowledge or conceal a part of history that our modern standards consider politically incorrect.

We can defend the rights of those who need it, and at the same time understand that we are doing no good by filtering our past for future generations. Whether or not we want to praise some historical figures in textbooks is one thing, but wanting to erase any trace of them is another. In fact, it is the liberals and not the conservatives who should be advocating for the preservation of the Columbus statue. Being liberal does not mean believing as absolute truth everything that is fashionable to say for leftist celebrities, or joining the current trend on social networks because it flirts with certain terms that sound pleasant to the ear. It means siding with individual freedom, and being open and tolerant of our differences, rather than accepting preconceived values imposed on us by religious or governmental authorities.

The best, most inclusive and truly liberal solution would be to raise funds for the Indigenous people to erect their own statue in a central location of the city. Only in this way would we recognize the relevance of both the Italian and Native American communities without the need to underestimate the heritage of one or the other.

Justo Antonio Triana

Syracuse

Related: Crowd gathers at Syracuse courthouse to hear arguments in Columbus monument case

Read the original here:
Preserving Columbus statue would show we value diversity of thought (Your Letters) - syracuse.com

Known for his uniquely irreverent wit, Richard Kinky Friedman is a Jewish country-western singer/songwriter from my home state of Texas. He is also the author of detective mysteries and a former gubernatorial candidate.

Although not among the most famous in show business, the Kinkster (as he is affectionately known) has been around a while. Fifty years ago, he caught the attention of the American Jewish community with his iconic song Ride Em, Jewboy. The lyrics tell of a cowboy who imagines himself watching Jews herded into the trains going to Auschwitz, and comparing them to the cattle he herds, which eventually also will be slaughtered. Although the title was deemed offensive (and still is, by some), the lyrics themselves are quite poignant.

That song was followed a couple of years later by another eye-brow raiser on his second albumthe uber-politically incorrect They Aint Makin Jews Like Jesus Anymore. Sung in the first person, it tells of a Jewish guy in a bar who challenges a redneck patron for spewing all kinds of racial epithets. After some initial verbal exchanges, the narrator hits him with everything I had, right square between the eyes, then confidently declares to the other bar patrons:

They aint makin Jews like Jesus anymoreWe dont turn the other cheek the way we done before.

In the wake of Colleyvilleand Pittsburgh and PowayIve been thinking about these words. They were first recorded not long after the Yom Kippur War. Six years earlier, Israel miraculously defeated several Arab armies in a war for her survival. Although the Yom Kippur War was longer and more devastating, it ended with Israel still victorious.

Since then, Israel has fought more wars. Against conventional armies and terrorist groups, she has continued to show the world that, after the Holocaustwe dont turn the other cheek the way we done before. Or, as someone else once succinctly expressed the same sentiment never again!

That someone was the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League. Never Again is the title of his book, first published in 1972. At that time, Jews were being attacked in this country and abroad by Palestinian terrorists (Munich), radical Black activists (NYC), and far-Left terrorist groups sympathetic to the Arab cause (e.g., the Japanese Red Army and the German Baader-Meinhof Gang). With attacks coming from so many directions and the memory of the Holocaust still fresh, Kahanes message was this: Jews needed to understand that responses to physical attacks had to be more than just writing letters to the editor and appealing to societys better angels. Ultimately Jews are responsible for their own safety and security. Therefore, they had to learn how to respond with physical force, both armed and unarmed. Such sentiments led to the founding of the JDL and helped to make the rabbi an anathema among many if not most Jews in America.

Fast forward 50+ years: same scenarios, different characters. Rabbi Kahane still remains an anathema among most American Jews. Yet, ironically, the same Jews who hold him in such contempt reliably repeat his words Never Again! Why? Because 50+ years later, the words have a different tenor. Originally, they were a call for Jews to learn physical self-defense, and not rely only on law enforcement. Today, the phrase has become more of a bromide, a clich. Reliably invoked in the wake of attacks on Jewish individuals or institutions, it has become the inspiration to write more letters, hold more vigils, or organize more outreach to those who either hate us, or who are indifferent to what happens to us. In other words, to be righteously indignantbut politely and without offense.

To be sure, in the wake of Pittsburgh, Poway and now Colleyville, Jewish institutions all over the world are beefing up security with better technology and hiring professional security personnel. Local and national government resources offer training on how to respond to an active shooter (run, hide, and fight). All of these are good and necessary. But they are not sufficient. As we are seeing today, even first-line precautions dont always stop the virus. Intruders can get through the most sophisticated technology and neutralize armed security. Thus, the intended victims may have to stop aggression with their own counter-aggression. And yet, despite the stories we tell about our warrior-ancestors Joshua, King David and Judah Maccabee, despite the memory of the Holocaust when only few Jews took up arms against their enemies, despite the State of Israels showing the world that now Jews dont the other cheek the way we done before, mainstream American Jewry still hasnt gotten the memo.

Item: Both congregations in Pittsburgh and Colleyville reportedly had offered active-shooter training to their congregations. From the beginning, the people in Colleyville were never able to hide and apparently had nothing to fight back with. After eleven hours (!), the rabbi distracted the intruder by throwing a chair at him, and the hostages were able to escape. When the congregants in Pittsburgh responded to the shooter by doing what they had been told to dohide by ducking under the pews the shooter walked up and down the aisles, picking them off one by one.

Item: In the face of ongoing threats, Jews are told to be more vigilant. Yet, on the very day that the Colleyville congregations security officer was absent, vigilance and situational awareness should have been heightened and standard security protocol should have been followed. Yet, allowing compassion to eclipse good judgment, the rabbi himself let the intruder in. This is not to take away from the courage he showed during the 11-hour ordeal. But the hard truth is that his good deed endangered his life and the lives of his congregants. For those 11 hours, everyone in that synagogue was at the intruders mercy. Had the intruder been more competent and more focused, the situation most probably would have ended very badly.

A recent op-ed piece in the UKs Jewish Chronicle that appeared after Colleyville stated:

Anti-Semitism is no longer at arms-length, somewhere else on the globe and irrelevant. It is here, it has power, and it is ferocious. It is aiming at America and Jews together. The Jewish community is waking to its danger and the danger to the America that has given them a place to live, to strive, and to thrive for so long.

Anti-Semitism no longer being at arms-length means that our Jewish cheeks, as it were, are also no longer at arms-length. Regrettably, we live in a time when our cheeks may be hit from any directionfrom the Right or from the Left, from in front of us or from behind us.

If we are going to continue to thrive as a vibrant community in America, we must not succumb to weakness or victimhood. Instead, we as a community must be resolute in affirming in words and actions WE DONT TURN THE OTHER CHEEK THE WAY WE DONE BEFORE!.

And as the Kinkster reminds us in another song also from that second album:

Its time for the chosen ones to choose.

Cary Kozberg is a rabbi who has served in congregations, Hillel, and health care chaplaincy. He is currently rabbi of Temple Sholom in Springfield, Ohio

Read more:
Invoking The Kinkster": Thoughts After Colleyville | Cary Kozberg | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

Jennie Nguyen fled war-torn Vietnam on a boat. She was captured by Thai pirates, Nguyen says, and saved from a refugee camp three years later by Christians who sponsored her journey to America. Bravo just fired Nguyen, the networks first Vietnamese Real Housewife, over anti-woke memes she posted in 2020.

Some of Nguyens posts have been described as racist in the media since a Reddit user dug them up earlier this month. After each of her cast members took her turn denouncing Nguyen, she apologized, describing the memes as offensive and hurtful. It wasnt enough. By Tuesday, Nguyen had been axed from the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.

Heres a representative sampling of the memes, which would have been hard for Bravo to miss when they vetted Nguyen as a member of the cast.

The posts are not gentle criticisms of the social justice movement, that much is clear. Theyre biting, politically incorrect, and openly unsympathetic. Theyre also pretty standard fare in the universe of political memes and the universe of parents Facebook feeds. Thats not because the country is teeming with racists, its because a movement considered mainstream by the political establishment is actually very polarizing.

Nguyen, for instance, posted the Community meme that said, If you follow the officers [sic] orders, you wont get shot, on Aug. 27, 2020, in the aftermath of Black Lives Matter riots that torched Kenosha, Wis. over the shooting of Jacob Blake. It turned out Blake, who is now paralyzed, was armed with a knife, resisting arrest, trying to enter an SUV with his children in it, and hadnt responded to stun-gun shocks. State and federal prosecutors ultimately declined to charge the officer who fired.

Again, Nguyens post is sharp and unsympathetic, but hardly racist or inaccurate in the context of that particular incident. The Blaze article she posted about George Floyds death is also accurate, and theres nothing racial in Nguyens Sept. 23 post about crime, especially in the context of 2020 where Antifa rioters from all racial backgrounds were vandalizing cities around the country.

The graphic Nguyen posted on Sept. 2 makes a pretty popular argument in crude terms: the countrys problems have more to do with culture than cops. If you use the false, expansionist definition of racism that thinkers like Ibram X. Kendi successfully mainstreamed, then yes, Jennie Nguyen and many other Americans are virulently racist.

But this is not a problem with them, its a problem with the definition, which has been weaponized by ideologues and partisans to make our cities less safe for people of all races while elite leftists move to the suburbs. Remember when the ultra-left mayor of Minneapolis was booed out of a rally for saying he wasnt fully on board with abolishing the entire police department? Under the Kendi definition, support for systems of oppression (like capitalism or policing) is not anti-racism, thus it is racism.

That word used to be commonly understood as a label for people who discriminate against others based on the idea their race is inferior. The far left intentionally changed this.

I have no idea whether Nguyen is racist, but deciding these memes mark an unacceptable level of racism sends a message that reasonable opinions are bigotry. It reinforces dangerous new norms of what constitutes racism and what constitutes a fixable offense.

Of course, its also a double standard on more levels than one. Nguyens castmate Mary Cosby told her she love[s] slanted eyes earlier this season. She also said something about Mexican thugs who make drugs. Cosby seems to have quit the show amid mounting allegations the Pentecostal church she runs is exploitive at best and a cult at worst.

Nguyen herself said on this weeks episode of the show that she broke her husbands ribs during an argument once. That seems worse than holding conservative views about policing, but the outrage is disproportionate.

Bravo has been happy to follow the legal drama of RHOSLCs Jen Shah, whos pleading not guilty to charges of fraud in a telemarketing scheme. Teresa Giudice went to prison. Its great television, and thats okay.

Bravo does not cast Real Housewives as protagonists. Theyre not supposed to function as role models and theyre not supposed to normalize bad behavior. When we laugh or gasp at their bad behavior, we reinforce the boundaries of whats right and wrong. Firing Nguyen instead of forcing her to talk through the issue with her cast is silly because its falsely predicated on the notion her posts were racist, but also because its less constructive.

Above all, Bravo is a business. Like many businesses around the country, the networks culturally progressive leaders see backlash from hyper-political leftists on social media and the entertainment press as a threat to their bottom line. Its not, even for a niche subculture like the Bravo universe. Nguyens diversity mattered to them until she turned out to be ideologically diverse by the standards of their bubbles.

As woke culture built momentum in recent years, Bravo proactively started adding layers of leftist messaging to its shows, casting finger-waggers who intentionally steered the plots toward politics in order to lecture their castmates about good and evil. Its sucking the life out of the network, saddling shows that used to chronicle the decadence of the nouveau riche with protagonists who dont deserve that framing.

Indeed, amid the news of Nguyens firing, commentators and fans suddenly turned their attention to Ramona Singer. Whether you think shes racist (I have no idea), Singer is one of the greatest housewives of all time, and shes almost certainly one of the least likable. How? Because thats what the franchise is about.

Its entirely reasonable to take exception with the idea of shows being predicated on that kind of model. But if youre a fan of the network, it makes absolutely no sense to suddenly demand ideological and moral purity from the women who arent fully left.

If Bravo got rid of Singer, theyd basically be conceding the entire franchise is built on an immoral foundation. Again, thats a reasonable argument. But its one that would turn Bravo into a much less interesting network, even by the standards of people cheering for Singers departure.

These women are not meant to be protagonists. They are not meant to behave virtuously. They are antiheroes who sell access to their materialistic lives for brand visibility. They arent running for president, theyre running for a job that shows us what fame and money does to families.

Emily Jashinsky is culture editor at The Federalist. She previously covered politics as a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner. Prior to joining the Examiner, Emily was the spokeswoman for Young Americas Foundation. Shes interviewed leading politicians and entertainers and appeared regularly as a guest on major television news programs, including Fox News Sunday, Media Buzz, and The McLaughlin Group. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Real Clear Politics, and more. Emily also serves as director of the National Journalism Center and a visiting fellow at Independent Women's Forum. Originally from Wisconsin, she is a graduate of George Washington University.

Link:
Jennie Nguyen Dust-Up Is Bravo's Latest Battle In The War Over Its Soul - The Federalist

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In the past couple weeks, Hong Kongs battle against the COVID-19 pandemic made international headlines in a strange and unexpected way. Facing a virus outbreak in recent weeks, Hong Kong officials implemented a range of measures in response to what was labelled a fifth wave, but the one that caught the most attention must be the culling of more than 2,200 hamsters after a COVID-19 case was traced to workers of a pet shop, and traces of the virus were found on 11 hamsters out of the 178 tested.

Authorities then called on the public to turn in their pet hamsters to be culled en masse, in spite of outcry from animal lovers. An expert from the WHO also said that the risk of animals like hamsters infecting humans with the coronavirus remains low. So far at least one hamster which was turned in by its owner, as opposed to the previous lot in pet shops, was found to be carrying the virus.

Another recent COVID-19 report that became the talk of the town was how a schoolteacher caught the virus apparently by encountering two other infected people in a subway station tunnel, for a brief period of nine seconds, while all were wearing masks and had no direct contact. Such detective-work in tracing individual cases has become a hallmark of the zero COVID tactics undertaken by Hong Kong authorities ever since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Distraction of the Hamsters

Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific.

Meanwhile, city authorities confirmed more than 170 new COVID-19 infections from two nearby public housing buildings in Kwai Chung, the highest number in 18 months, resulting in authorities ordering a five-day lockdown for the thousands of residents in both buildings. Mandatory COVID-19 testing was ordered for hundreds of thousands of citizens across the city, based on contact tracing or just being residents or workers in buildings with confirmed cases. And, in a case of bad timing, all these are happening as the city heads into the Lunar New Year holiday period, traditionally the most festive time of the year. Restaurants have been ordered to reduce capacity and the traditional annual flower markets are cancelled.

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Amid the current wave, medical experts continue to emphasize to the public the need for Hong Kong to achieve a higher full vaccination rate Hong Kongs fully vaccinated rate of 63 percent is on par with the U.S., but is starkly lower than regional peers such as Taiwan (72 percent), Japan (79 percent), South Korea (85 percent) and Singapore (87 percent). Meanwhile, however, Hong Kongs experts are also sidetracked into defending government actions such as the culling of hamsters, by partially blaming the mass euthanasia on people who did not get vaccinated.

All these are regrettable distractions in Hong Kongs fight against COVID-19. The government seems to be trapped in a rabbit hole to justify what Chief Executive Carrie Lam has called the dynamic zero-infection strategy, code words for adhering to Chinas overall zero COVID approach. The team of government medical advisers continues to correctly stress that, despite the overall lower rate of serious infection from the Omicron variant, the effect on the older population and those with chronic illness may still be severe. However, there is a lack of any effective plan of communication and action to relate such concerns in a way that will convince more of the holdouts to get vaccinated.

Moreover, although most people would agree that getting more Hong Kongers to vaccinate is a good thing, it would be misleading to simply infer that a high vaccination rate would automatically mean zero or even low infection. We can see this from the recent surge of cases in South Korea, one of the countries with the highest vaccination rates.

It is a mismanagement of both policy messaging and public resources to fixate on relatively unproductive matters such as culling hamsters. Instead, in order to protect the most vulnerable, what has the Hong Kong government done to prioritize the protection of senior citizens and directly assist those who are most in need of medical attention? In order to maintain social distancing, rather than or in addition to suspending crowd gatherings such as flower markets, what have the authorities done to effectively encourage or even mandate measures such as working from home? The answer is, very little.

The Urgent Need to Manage the Jump From Zero

As other countries increasingly emphasize the large-scale provision of frequent, voluntary, and free self-testing at home for all, Hong Kong continues to rely on officially mandated compulsory testing drives by having the police round up residents of entire buildings overnight to get all inside tested, causing them much anxiety and discomfort, and thereby creating an undesirable stigma for what should be an effective and fundamental safeguard against infection.

Understandably, going from zero COVID-19 cases to any positive number, however small, would be a big shock. For a population trained and accustomed to the comfort of zero infections for most of the last two years, it can be frightening to accept a new reality of living with COVID. That may explain why, while many people in Hong Kong are unhappy and dissatisfied with the governments responses, they are just as uncomfortable with the concept of treating COVID-19 as endemic, with many expressing shock at the relaxed and callous manner with which some in the West regard the COVID-19 virus.

But like it or not, if the rest of the world has decided to live with COVID, it will be more and more impractical for any government to insist on a zero COVID stand. This is true for Hong Kong as much as it is true for China. Indeed, the cost of isolation appears to be mounting, with no end in sight. In a recent survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, 44 percent of the respondents indicated they may leave Hong Kong due to its draconian border controls and social restrictions. Currently, flights from a list of Group A countries are suspended, and no individuals who have stayed for more than two hours in any of these countries within the last 21 days will be allowed to enter Hong Kong even if they are Hong Kong citizens. These countries include Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, the U.K. and the U.S.

Such travel bans are hardly scientific, and even the World Health Organization has recommended against them in a recent report as unsustainable. These border closures can bring dire consequences to the economy, and the interruption to the supply chain of goods and business confidence has already been increasingly felt by local and global businesses. Lam has acknowledged that rising costs will be felt by everyone. Nonetheless, the government has offered no alternative, no solution, and no relief.

Zero COVID Is More Politics Than Science

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Just as regrettably, criticizing or casting doubts on zero COVID is politically incorrect and a taboo in Hong Kong. Even among the medical community, there is a lack of open discussion in search of a more balanced approach than a practically unattainable and unsustainable target of zero COVID. Only a few medical academics have come out to express doubts over matters such as the lack of scientific reasons to support the 21-days centralized quarantine period for infection, compared with quarantining at home for as short as five days in many other countries. If science is not driving Hong Kongs COVID-19 response, what is?

The governments key goal is to open its border with mainland China, which would require matching the mainlands zero CVID stance. This ambition is the real cause of draconian measures, including the hamster culling.

Such is the awkward situation that Hong Kong has found itself in, being an international hub for finance and commerce, yet with no choice but to follow Chinas zero COVID obsession. Over the past year, the Hong Kong administration along with the local pro-Beijing politicians now unopposed after the purging of all opposition from Hong Kongs political scene has been adamantly pursuing harsher and harsher domestic measures, purportedly trying to meet Beijings requirements for re-opening the border with the mainland. While the re-opening is still denied by Beijing, Hong Kong has instead succeeded in isolating itself from the rest of the world.

The longer Hong Kong holds out before it finds a way to counterbalance its zero COVID deference to Beijing with the real-world costs to its people, the more difficult and the higher the cost it will be for Hong Kong to extract itself from the hole it dug for itself. On the other hand, Beijing should see Hong Kong as the ideal testing ground for an exit plan from zero COVID. After all, Hong Kongs value is always its differentiation from the mainland, rather than complete integration and sameness.

However, judging from the political development in the last few years, such rethinking on the role of Hong Kong will prove elusive. Thats doubly true in 2022, which is an exceptionally political year for China with Xi Jinpings planned ascension to a precedent-breaking third term and for Hong Kong, with Beijing loyalists jockeying for Beijings favor to be anointed as the next chief executive. Under those circumstances, its unlikely either Beijing or Hong Kong will take the political risks needed to move away from zero COVID. So, sadly, while many in the rest of the world may see the beginning of the end to the pandemic, Hong Kong, and indeed China, show no signs of moving forward.

Read the rest here:
The Dilemma of Hong Kong's Fixation on Zero COVID - The Diplomat

If there is anything confounding about the whole issue of alien abduction, it is the utter conviction of those who claim ETs have taken them into their spaceships. Usually during sleep. Usually to perform illicit sexual experiments, as in the hilarious Saturday Night Live skits like this one with Kate McKinnon, Cecily Strong, and Ryan Gosling. For many people, millions in fact, this is serious business. How come?

In the U.S., the first popular story of abduction by extraterrestrials was that of Betty and Barney Hill. The couple from New Hampshire claimed to have been kidnapped into a UFO on September 19, 1961. The Hills account, however, is the second abduction story that became world famous. The first is from 1957 and centered around Antnio Villas Boas, a farmer from rural Brazil. (A sensationalist video about the case can be seen at this link.) Since I grew up in Brazil and live in New Hampshire, Im naturally curious and no wonder some of my research is on astrobiology and the origin of life!

According to Villas Boas, on the night of October 16th, while he was plowing fields with his tractor, he was taken into a spaceship by a group of ETs measuring about 5 feet tall. He was put in a room and saw gas coming out of the walls. The gas made him very sick. Then, a very attractive female naked, with long platinum blonde hair, fire-red pubic hair, and deep-blue cat eyes came and forced him to have intercourse. (I speculate that he didnt resist too much.)

According to Villas Boas, her intentions were quite clear: to produce a human-alien hybrid that she would raise on her planet. After he got back, Villas Boas noted he had burns on his body. A doctor from a reputable medical center diagnosed them as being radiation burns. This doctor, Olavo Fontes, had contacts with the American UFO research group APRO. Villas Boas had no recollection how he got the burns.

We must wonder whether these aliens are really that smart, given that they keep repeating the same experiment on human anatomy over and over again.

The story gained worldwide popularity in the late 1950s. Many believed its veracity for politically incorrect reasons, claiming that a humble farmer from rural Brazil would not be able to concoct such a tale. In reality, Villas Boas was neither humble nor uneducated. His family owned large tracts of land. He later became a lawyer and practiced until his death in 1992. No doubt his notoriety helped his career.

The overwhelming majority of scientists categorically denies that narratives of abductions have any real component. When told in earnest, most are products of various kinds of abnormal psychological states, from fantasy-prone personalities to self-hypnotic trances, false-memory syndrome, sleep paralysis, environmental disturbances during sleep, or some more serious type of psychopathology. Another possibility is a misrepresentation of reality caused by posttraumatic stress, plausibly due to some unwanted sexual encounter.

American researcher and skeptic Peter Rogerson questioned the veracity of Villas Boas narrative, and indeed of many others, arguing that an article about alien abduction had appeared in the popular magazine O Cruzeiro in November 1957. He noted that Villas Boas story only started to gain popularity in 1958 and that Villas Boas could have predated his encounter to give it more credibility. Also, Rogerson argued that Villas Boas (and other presumed abductees) was influenced by the sensationalist narratives of ufologist George Adamski, who was very popular in the 1950s. For anyone interested in the history of abductions, Rogersons article is an essential read.

Most abduction stories have elements in common with that of Villas Boas: kidnapping into an alien spaceship, medical exams that center around the human reproductive system (or explicit sexual contact with extraterrestrials), and mysterious marks left on the body. Carl Sagan, in his wonderful book The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, brings these elements together, arguing for a connection between what abductees say now and what narratives of mysterious sexual night encounters have been saying for ages.

There are mythologies dating back to Sumerian folklore of 2400 BCE in which a demon in either male or female form seduces people in their sleep. Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas wrote of the incubus and succubus demons that come during sleep to have sexual relations with unwilling humans. Similar stories appear in cultures across the world. Villas Boas platinum blonde sure fits the bill.

The nearest star to Earth is about four light-years away. Our fastest spaceship would take some 100,000 years to get there. If intelligent aliens exist and came here, they must have technologies that are beyond anything we can imagine because they must be capable of (1) fast interstellar travel; (2) passing undetected by radar; and (3) leaving without a trace. The feats are even more spectacular considering there are thousands of abduction narratives and UFO encounters, a topic that has been making headlines recently.

On the other hand, we must wonder whether these aliens are really that smart, given that they keep repeating the same experiment on human anatomy over and over again. Can they not figure out human biology? Or do they just have a perverted side? And are there different aliens coming to Earth? If so, how many species are out there, fixated on us? I find the possibility highly improbable, given their spectacular space travel technology.

J. William Schopf, a paleontologist at the University of California, once said that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, a quote Carl Sagan made famous. In the case of alien abductions, very ordinary explanations easily surpass the absence of extraordinary evidence. (Where are they? How come no serious scientists ever have any contact with them?)

Scientists dont say this because they are stubborn, nasty, insensitive, or blind. We would love to have evidence of extraterrestrial life, especially intelligent life! Thats what astrobiology wants. (See my recent post on finding biosignatures with the James Webb Space Telescope.) We would be the first to embrace the facts if there were any.

The fundamental precept of science is to base claims on evidence backed by solid, verifiable data. Otherwise, why give scientific claims any credibility? Thats what distinguishes what we do from fake news. I, for one, cannot wait to find convincing evidence of extraterrestrial life. It will most probably not be very intelligent more like simple alien bacteria. But, wow, how amazing would it be to know that life is not just a fluke that happened only here? Or, even more amazingly, that it is?

See the original post:
Alien abductions: What explains this phenomenon? - Big Think

According to a number of polls and surveys, significant majorities of Republican-aligned voters seem to believe the big lie that Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 US presidential election and, consequently, the Biden administration is illegitimate.

Taking these data at face value, a growing chorus insists that were living in a post-truth era, where members of one political party, the Republican party, can no longer tell facts from falsehood. As a result of the Republican party becoming unmoored from reality, the narratives typically continue, America is drifting headlong into a fascist takeover or a civil war.

Fortunately for all of us, these dire predictions are almost certainly overblown. We are not living in a post-truth world. We are not on the brink of a civil war. The perception that we are is almost purely an artifact of people taking poll and survey data at face value despite overwhelming evidence that we probably shouldnt.

For instance, in the wake of the 2016 election, Trump claimed to have had higher turnout at his inauguration than Barack Obama did. Subsequent polls and surveys presented people with pictures of Obama and Trumps inauguration crowds and asked which was bigger. Republicans consistently identified the visibly smaller (Trump) crowd as being larger than the other. A narrative quickly emerged that Trump supporters literally couldnt identify the correct answer; they were so brainwashed that they actually believed that the obviously smaller crowd was, in fact, larger.

Of course, a far more obvious and empirically plausible explanation is that respondents knew perfectly well what the correct answer was. However, they also had a sense of how that answer would be used in the media (Even Trumps supporters dont believe his nonsense!), so they simply declined to give pollsters the response they seemed to be looking for.

As a matter of fact, respondents regularly troll researchers in polling and surveys especially when they are asked whether or not they subscribe to absurd or fringe beliefs, such as birtherism (a conspiracy that held that Barack Obama was born outside of the US and was legally ineligible to serve as president of the United States).

However, many academics and pundits do not seem to be in on the joke. Instead, post-2016, a consensus quickly emerged from credulous readings of polls and surveys that America is facing an epidemic of fake news, which was leading people to believe things that were obviously false, and to vote for unsavory political candidates. Some of the initial studies on this topic were blatantly prejudicial in their design; other widely shared studies were ultimately retracted.

As more reliable data began to emerge, it turned out that, contrary to the initial hysteria, fake news stories were viewed by a relatively small number of voters, and infrequently at that. Most of those served pro-Trump or anti-Clinton fake news by social media sites already seemed firmly committed to voting for Trump, or intractably resolved against voting for Clinton (which is why the algorithms served them this niche content to begin with). That is, fake news is unlikely to have changed many, if any, votes. It is not a plausible explanation for the 2016 electoral outcome nor Trumps support more broadly.

Even people who share fake news stories typically never read (or even click on) them. That is, people are not sharing the content because they read the stories, grew convinced of their factual accuracy, and are genuinely trying to inform others. Instead, people typically share these stories based on their headlines, for a whole host of social reasons, while recognizing them to be of questionable accuracy (see here, here, here, here and here for more on this).

It should not be surprising, then, that correcting misinformation seems to have virtually no effect on political preferences or voting behavior; misperceptions are generally not driving political alignments to begin with nor are they driving political polarization.

Contrary to narratives that have grown especially ubiquitous in recent years, Americans are actually not very far apart in terms of most empirical facts. We do not live in separate realities. Instead, people begin to polarize on their public positions on factual matters only after those issues have become politicized. And even then, polarized answers on polls and surveys often fail to reflect participants genuine views. Indeed, when respondents are provided with incentives to answer questions accurately (instead of engaging in partisan cheerleading), the difference between Democrats and Republicans on factual matters often collapses.

In other cases, apparent disagreements about factual matters often turn out to be, at bottom, debates about how various facts are framed and interpreted, or disputes about the policies that are held to flow from the facts. That is, even in cases of genuine disagreement, there is typically less dispute about the facts themselves than about what the facts mean morally or practically speaking.

All said, measuring misperceptions is a fraught enterprise even when it comes to banal and politically uncontested facts. Attempting to draw inferences about incorrect views on matters tied political, moral and/or identity struggles is a far more complicated endeavor. These are not data that lend themselves to being taken at face value.

Similar realities hold for the data that purportedly show were on the brink of a new civil war.

There is strong evidence that many of the surveys and polls indicating support for, or openness towards, political violence hugely overstate actual levels of support in the American public. Likewise, data that purport to show high levels of partisan vitriol may be misleading.

In general, behaviors are often a stronger indicator than attitudinal data for understanding how sincere or committed people are to a cause or idea. The number of people who are willing to rhetorically endorse some extraordinary belief tends to be much, much higher than the subset who meaningfully behave as if that claim is true. The number of people who profess commitment to some cause tends to be much, much higher than the share who are willing to make sacrifices or life adjustments in order to advance that cause.

The big lie is no exception. Both the low levels of turnout and the relatively low levels of violence are extraordinary if we take the polls and surveys at face value.

Event organizers were expecting, hundreds of thousands, if not millions to take part in the January 6 uprising. This would be reasonable to expect in a world where tens of millions of Americans literally believed that an apparently high-stakes election was stolen out from under them. Even if just 1% of those who purportedly believe in the big lie had bothered to show up, the demonstrations would have been hundreds of thousands strong. Instead, they only mustered 2,500 participants (according to US government estimates).

The lack of casualties was also striking, even when one considers injuries and indirect fatalities. After all, the former president also enjoyed strong support among people who are armed and formally trained in combat, such as active duty and veteran military and law enforcement. A large number of other Trump supporters participate in militias, or are private gun owners.

Yet most January 6 participants did not bring firearms, and those who were armed did not discharge their weapons not even in the heat of the violence that broke out. The only person shot in the entire uprising, Ashli Babbitt, was killed by a law enforcement officer. In fact, Babbitt was actually the only homicide to occur on that day.

Two other rioters died from heart problems, another from a drug overdose. Police officer Brian Sicknick died from strokes on 7 January; the medical examiner ultimately concluded that this was unrelated to any injuries sustained during January 6. In the months that followed, four other police officers would perish by suicide. All said, then, a total of nine deaths have been associated with the events of January 6 (directly or indirectly). Not one person, however, was actually killed by the rioters. Nor is a single bullet alleged to have been fired by the rioters, despite many participants allegedly possessing guns.

In a world where 74 million voted for Trump, and more than two-thirds of these (ie more than 50 million people, roughly one out of every five adults in the US) actually believed that the other party had illegally seized power and now plan to use that power to harm people like themselves, the events of January 6 would likely have played out much, much differently.

Indeed, had even the 2,500 people who assembled on the Capitol arrived armed to the hilt, with a plan to seize power by force, committed to violence as needed to achieve their goals things would have gone much, much differently.

Instead, most participants showed up expecting Trump would provide them with definitive evidence for his claims of electoral malfeasance, and then unveil some master plan to take the country back. This didnt happen. Those gathered seemed to have no idea what to do after that. Most of what followed was spontaneous, not planned. Even when they breached the Capitol, most had no information about the layout of the building, little knowledge about the proceedings they were ostensibly striving to disrupt, and no clear agenda of what to do once they got inside.

There was a small number, dozens perhaps, who showed up to the Capitol with a clear intent to forcibly overturn the election who equipped themselves for violence, researched the congressional proceedings and the layout of the building, developed and executed a plan, etc. These are behaviors consistent with a sincere belief in the big lie, and a strong commitment to doing something about it.

Yet, critically, even these actors were operating independently of Trump, motivated in part by frustration with the former presidents apparent inaction. In their telling, Trump himself wasnt acting like he believed his own rhetoric. There was no urgency. There was no fire. There was no focus. There was no plan. The Oath Keepers hoped to engage in a radical act that would push the president to actually behave as if the election was stolen and the republic was on the line. As their leader (currently arrested on sedition charges) put it:

All I see Trump doing is complaining. I see no intent by him to do anything. So the patriots are taking it into their own hands. Theyve had enough. Were going to defend the president, the duly elected president, and we call on him to do what needs to be done to save our country.

Of course, even tiny numbers of genuine extremists like these can be extremely destabilizing under the right circumstances. Had Oath Keepers breached the Capitol instead of being repelled (even as Q-Shaman, Confederate Flag Guy et al wandered the building aimlessly) January 6 could have played out much differently.

Nonetheless, there is a huge difference in talking about identifying and disrupting small numbers of highly committed individuals willing to engage in revolutionary political violence v tens of millions of Americans genuinely believing the election was fraudulent and being open to violence as a means of rectifying the situation. Those are very different problems. Orders of magnitude different.

The good news is that the second problem, the tens-of-millions-of-Americans problem, is not real. It is an artifact of politicized polling design and survey responses, followed by overly credulous interpretations of those results by academics and pundits who are committed to a narrative that half the electorate is evil, ignorant, stupid, deranged and otherwise dangerous.

In fact, rather than January 6 serving as a prelude to a civil war, the US saw lower levels of death from political violence in 2021 than in any other year since the turn of the century. Even as violent crime approached record highs across much of the country, fatalities from political violence dropped. This is not an outcome that seems consistent with large and growing shares of the population supposedly leaning towards settling the culture wars with bullets instead of ballots. This turn of events does not seem consistent with the notion that tens of millions of Americans including large numbers of military, law enforcement and militia members literally believe the presidency was stolen, elections can no longer be trusted, and the fate of the country is on the line.

Indeed, far from giving up on elections, Republican voters are reveling in the prospect of taking back one or both chambers of Congress at the end of this year; they are eagerly awaiting the midterms (likely for good reason).

In truth, most Republican voters likely dont believe in the big lie. But many would nonetheless profess to believe it in polls and surveys just as theyd support politicians who make similar professions (according to one estimate, Republican candidates who embrace the big lie enjoy a 6 percentage point electoral boost as compared to Republicans who publicly affirm the 2020 electoral results).

Within contemporary rightwing circles, a rhetorical embrace of the big lie is perceived as an act of defiance against prevailing elites. It is recognized as a surefire means to trigger people on the other team. A demonstrated willingness to endure blowback (from Democrats, media, academics, social media companies et al) for publicly striking this defiant position is interpreted as evidence of solidarity with, and commitment to, the people instead of special interests; its taken as a sign that one is not beholden to the Establishment and its rules. That is, the big lie seems to be more about social posturing than making sincere truth claims.

For many reasons, this situation is also far from ideal. But its a very different (and much smaller) problem than partisans actually inhabiting different epistemic worlds and lurching towards a civil war. Glass half full.

Continued here:
No, America is not on the brink of a civil war - The Guardian