AI is killing choice and chance – which means changing what it means to be human

AI is killing choice and chance – which means changing what it means to be human

AI promises to make life easier, but what will humans lose in the bargain? AP Photo/Frank Augstein By Nir Eisikovits, University of Massachusetts Boston and Dan Feldman, University of Massachusetts Boston The history of humans’ use of technology has always been a history of coevolution. Philosophers from Rousseau to Heidegger to Carl Schmitt have argued that technology is never a neutral tool for achieving human ends. Technological innovations – from the most rudimentary to the most sophisticated – reshape people…

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That is not how your brain works

That is not how your brain works

Lisa Feldman Barrett writes: As a neuroscientist, I see scientific myths about the brain repeated regularly in the media and corners of academic research. Three of them, in particular, stand out for correction. After all, each of us has a brain, so it’s critical to understand how that three-pound blob between your ears works. Myth number one is that specific parts of the human brain have specific psychological jobs. According to this myth, the brain is like a collection of…

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Countries with highest levels of obesity have most Covid deaths, report finds

Countries with highest levels of obesity have most Covid deaths, report finds

The Guardian reports: Countries with high levels of overweight people, such as the UK and the US, have the highest death rates from Covid-19, a landmark report reveals, prompting calls for governments to urgently tackle obesity, as well as prioritising overweight people for vaccinations. About 2.2 million of the 2.5 million deaths from Covid were in countries with high levels of overweight people, says the report from the World Obesity Federation. Countries such as the UK, US and Italy, where…

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In Palm Beach, Covid-19 vaccines intended for rural Black communities are instead going to wealthy white Floridians

In Palm Beach, Covid-19 vaccines intended for rural Black communities are instead going to wealthy white Floridians

STAT reports: The winds blew southwest the day of Pahokee’s Covid-19 vaccination drive, which meant the sugarcane fields were ablaze. Growers are banned from burning excess leaves when there’s an eastward breeze, to keep fumes away from the gated communities of Florida’s Gold Coast 40 miles away. Pahokee is in the same county but, with a median personal income of $13,674, its residents live in a different world. A single highway connects the billionaire’s club of Mar-a-Lago to the working-class…

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Climate activist who took on BlackRock now takes aim at Vanguard

Climate activist who took on BlackRock now takes aim at Vanguard

Bloomberg reports: Casey Harrell, the campaigner whose sustained pressure was instrumental in pushing BlackRock Inc. to act against climate change, approaches his work as if locked in a race against time. That was true even before the 42-year-old environmental activist was diagnosed last year with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Harrell’s latest effort, focused on Vanguard Group Inc., is likely to be his last. “My diagnosis has put me on the ALS clock, which is a…

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Some Oath Keepers say its founder has betrayed the group’s mission — and them

Some Oath Keepers say its founder has betrayed the group’s mission — and them

BuzzFeed News reports: In a recent indictment of nine people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, federal prosecutors went to great lengths to describe the magnitude of the day’s events, the alarming threat to democracy their actions posed, and the powerful influence that one charismatic leader had in shaping their beliefs. They took care, however, not to refer to that man by name. Instead, they refer to him as “Person One.” Elmer Stewart Rhodes III — a one-time Army…

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In ‘exceedingly rare’ case, Iowa journalist faces charges from reporting on summer protests

In ‘exceedingly rare’ case, Iowa journalist faces charges from reporting on summer protests

USA Today reports: The trial of a Des Moines Register reporter who was arrested covering racial justice protests last summer is slated to begin next week in what experts said is a rare criminal prosecution of a journalist on assignment in the USA. Andrea Sahouri faces charges of failure to disperse and interference with official acts and is set to stand trial starting Monday. At least 126 journalists were arrested or detained in 2020, but only 13 still face charges,…

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He told the world about his brutal torture in Syria. Then, mysteriously, he went back

He told the world about his brutal torture in Syria. Then, mysteriously, he went back

The Washington Post reports: With his gaunt frame, haunted face and copious tears, Mazen al-Hamada became a poster boy for the suffering of Syrian torture victims. After escaping from Syria to the Netherlands, he traveled widely, sharing with audiences across the United States and Europe stories of the horrors he endured in a Damascus prison. And then, mysteriously, inexplicably and perhaps suicidally, just over a year ago he returned to Syria, to risk once again the cruelties of the government…

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Why Glenn Greenwald says Tucker Carlson is a true socialist

Why Glenn Greenwald says Tucker Carlson is a true socialist

Jonathan Chait writes: Glenn Greenwald’s long intellectual journey from center left to far left to, well, somewhere is a subject of fascination in elite circles. Greenwald comes out of a tradition of progressive journalism that focused primarily on attacking liberals and the Democratic Party from the left. Like many progressives, he latched on to Bernie Sanders’s two presidential campaigns as a righteous crusade to liberate the Democratic Party from the nefarious grip of its corporate, neoliberal masters. After that, things…

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Democracy under siege

Democracy under siege

Freedom House reports: As a lethal pandemic, economic and physical insecurity, and violent conflict ravaged the world in 2020, democracy’s defenders sustained heavy new losses in their struggle against authoritarian foes, shifting the international balance in favor of tyranny. Incumbent leaders increasingly used force to crush opponents and settle scores, sometimes in the name of public health, while beleaguered activists—lacking effective international support—faced heavy jail sentences, torture, or murder in many settings. These withering blows marked the 15th consecutive year…

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Democrats’ only chance to stop the GOP assault on voting rights

Democrats’ only chance to stop the GOP assault on voting rights

Ronald Brownstein writes: The most explosive battle in decades over access to the voting booth will reach a new crescendo this week, as Republican-controlled states advance an array of measures to restrict the ballot, and the U.S. House of Representatives votes on the federal legislation that represents Democrats’ best chance to stop them. It’s no exaggeration to say that future Americans could view the resolution of this struggle as a turning point in the history of U.S. democracy. The outcome…

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Capitol riot probe zeroes in on Pentagon delay in sending troops

Capitol riot probe zeroes in on Pentagon delay in sending troops

Politico reports: Three hours and 19 minutes, while a riot raged at the Capitol. That’s how long the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard says elapsed between then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund’s “frantic” plea for help quelling a violent mob and the ultimate approval of military aid by the Pentagon. The discrepancy between his estimate and the Pentagon’s conflicting testimony is now at the heart of lawmakers’ investigation into the security lapses that prolonged the siege on Congress on…

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U.S. militia group draws members from military and police, website leak shows

U.S. militia group draws members from military and police, website leak shows

The Guardian reports: A Guardian investigation of a website leak from the American Patriots Three Percent shows the anti-government militia group have recruited a network across the United States that includes current and former military members, police and border patrol agents. But the leak also demonstrates how the radical group has recruited from a broad swath of Americans, not just military and law enforcement. Members include both men and women, of ages ranging from their 20s to their 70s, doing…

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Germany places far-right AfD party under surveillance for extremism

Germany places far-right AfD party under surveillance for extremism

The New York Times reports: For the first time in its postwar history, Germany has placed its main opposition party under surveillance, one of the most dramatic steps yet by a Western democracy to protect itself from the onslaught of far-right forces that have upset politics from Europe to the United States. The decision by the domestic intelligence agency will now allow it to tap phones and other communications and monitor the movements of members of the far-right Alternative for…

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