Film Synopsis: THRIVE is an unconventional documentary that lifts the veil on what’s REALLY going on in our world by following the money upstream — uncovering the global consolidation of power in nearly every aspect of our lives. Weaving together breakthroughs in science, consciousness and activism, THRIVE offers real solutions, empowering us with unprecedented and bold strategies for reclaiming our lives and our future. http://www.thrivemovement.com/
The sheer volume of criticism of the government, and the sometimes clever ways that critics dodge censors, are testing Beijing’s ability to control the narrative.
In Beijing on Sunday, riders wearing protective masks cycle on a nearly empty street that is normally busy with tourists.Credit…Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
SHANGHAI — Recently, someone following the coronavirus crisis through China’s official news media would see lots of footage, often set to stirring music, praising the heroism and sacrifice of health workers marching off to stricken places.
But someone following the crisis through social media would see something else entirely: vitriolic comments and mocking memes about government officials, harrowing descriptions of untreated family members and images of hospital corridors loaded with patients, some of whom appear to be dead.
The contrast is almost never so stark in China. The government usually keeps a tight grip on what is said, seen and heard about it. But the sheer amount of criticism — and the often clever ways in which critics dodge censors, such as by referring to Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, as “Trump” or by comparing the outbreak to the Chernobyl catastrophe — have made it difficult for Beijing to control the message.
In recent days, critics have pounced when officials in the city of Wuhan, the center of the outbreak, wore their protective masks incorrectly. They have heaped scorn upon stumbling pronouncements. When Wuhan’s mayor spoke to official media on Monday, one commenter responded, “If the virus is fair, then please don’t spare this useless person.”
The condemnations stand as a rare direct challenge to the Communist Party, which brooks no dissent in the way it runs China. In some cases, Chinese leaders appear to be acknowledging people’s fear, anger and other all-too-human reactions to the crisis, showing how the party can move dramatically, if sometimes belatedly, to mollify the public.CORONAVIRUS UPDATES Read the latest developments in the coronavirus outbreak here.
Such criticism can go only so far, however. Some of China’s more commercially minded media outlets have covered the disease and the response thoroughly if not critically. But articles and comments about the virus continue to be deleted, and the government and internet platforms have issued fresh warnings against spreading what they call “rumors.”
“Chinese social media are full of anger, not because there was no censorship on this topic, but despite strong censorship,” said Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, and the founder of China Digital Times, a website that monitors Chinese internet controls. “It is still possible that the censorship will suddenly increase again, as part of an effort to control the narrative.”
When China’s leaders battled the SARS virus in the early 2000s, social media was only just beginning to blossom in the country. The government covered up the disease’s spread, and it was left to journalists and other critics to shame the authorities into acknowledging the scale of the problem.
Today, smartphones and social media make it harder for mass public health crises to stay buried. But internet platforms in China are just as easily polluted with false and fast-moving information as they are everywhere else. During outbreaks of disease, Beijing’s leaders have legitimate reason to be on alert for quack remedies and scaremongering fabrications, which can cause panic and do damage.
China’s premier, Li Keqiang, center, visiting a supermarket in Wuhan on Monday.Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In recent days, though, Beijing seems to be reasserting its primacy over information in ways that go beyond mere rumor control. At a meeting this past weekend between Mr. Xi and other senior leaders, one of the measures they resolved to take against the virus was to “strengthen the guidance of public opinion.”
Chinese officials seem to recognize that social media can be a useful tool for feeling out public opinion in times of crisis. WeChat, the popular Chinese messaging platform, said over the weekend that it would crack down hard on rumors about the virus. But it also created a tool for users to report tips and information about the disease and the response.
Internet backlash may already have caused one local government in China to change course on its virus-fighting policies. The southern city of Shantou announced on Sunday that it was stopping cars, ships and people from entering the city, in a policy that echoed ones in Wuhan. But then word went around that the decision had led people to panic-buy food, and by the afternoon, the order had been rescinded.
Nowhere has the local government been the target of more internet vitriol than in Hubei Province, where Wuhan is the capital.
After the Hubei governor, Wang Xiaodong, and other officials there gave a news briefing on Sunday, web users mocked Mr. Wang for misstating, twice, the number of face masks that the province could produce. They circulated a photo from the briefing of him and two other officials, pointing out that one of them did not cover his nose with his mask, that another wore his mask upside down and that Mr. Wang did not wear a mask at all.
On Monday, social media users were similarly unrelenting toward Wuhan’s mayor, Zhou Xianwang.
During an interview Mr. Zhou gave to state television, commenters in live streams unloaded on him, with one writing: “Stop talking. We just want to know when you will resign.”
Top authorities may be deliberately directing public anger toward officials in Hubei and Wuhan as a prelude to their resigning and being replaced. Many other targets within the Chinese leadership seem to remain off limits.
This month, as news of the coronavirus emerged but Mr. Xi did not make public appearances to address it, people on the social platform Weibo began venting their frustration in veiled ways, asking, “Where’s that person?”
Masks offer a visible reminder of China’s struggle with the coronavirus. A Chinese couple took a selfie while overlooking the Forbidden City in Beijing on Sunday.Credit…Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
But even those comments were deleted. So some users started replacing Mr. Xi’s name with “Trump.” As in, “I don’t want to go through another minute of this year, my heart is filled with pain, I hope Trump dies.”
Other people hungering to express frustration have taken to the Chinese social platform Douban, which has been flooded recently by user reviews for “Chernobyl,” the hit television series about the Soviet nuclear disaster.
“In any era, any country, it’s the same. Cover everything up,” one reviewer wrote on Monday.
“That’s socialism,” wrote another.
Some Chinese news outlets have been able to report incisively on the coronavirus. The influential newsmagazine Caixin has put out rigorous reporting and analysis. The Paper, a digital news outlet that is overseen by Shanghai’s Communist Party Committee, published a chilling video about a Wuhan resident who couldn’t find a hospital that would treat him and ended up wandering the streets.
Mr. Xiao, the Chinese internet expert, said the central authorities long gave such outlets special leeway to cover certain topics in ways that official media cannot. But the outlets should not be viewed as independent of the government, he said, calling their coverage “planned and controlled publicity” from the authorities.
Even outside the digital realm, it is not hard to find people in China who remain unsure of whether to trust what their government is telling them about the outbreak.
Chen Pulin, a 78-year-old retiree, was waiting outside a Shanghai hospital recently while his daughter was inside being tested for the virus. When word of the disease first began trickling out, he immediately had doubts about whether officials were being forthcoming about it.
“Even now, the government seems to be thinking about the economy and social stability,” Mr. Chen said. “Those things are important, but when it comes to these infectious diseases, stopping the disease should come first.”
Li Yuan contributed reporting from Hong Kong. Claire Fu, Lin Qiqing and Wang Yiwei contributed research.
MEANING:noun: Overzealous censorship of material considered obscene.
ETYMOLOGY:After Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. He crusaded against anything he considered immoral. Nothing escaped his wrath — even anatomy textbooks for medical students and the draping of mannequins in public view in shop windows were obscene to him. He lobbied for laws against mailing any material that could be perceived as promoting immorality.
He was appointed postal inspector and he seized books, postcards, and other materials by the boatload. He boasted that he had arrested more than 3,000 people and driven more than 15 to suicide. George Bernard Shaw coined the word comstockery after him when he attacked the American production of Shaw’s play “Mrs. Warren’s Profession”.
USAGE:”The language and thought police are hardly some Orwellian invention; America has been unusually susceptible to plagues of Comstockery and self-righteous tomfoolery.” Jon Newlin; Well, Shut My Mouth; Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana); Oct 13, 1996.
This is a relatively short biography of a true hero of the Muslim culture, Saladin. As such it is a history that westerners are relatively or completely unfamiliar with. The book covers roughly the period of Middle East history during the Second and Third Crusades in which Saladin rises from obscurity to unifier of a major portion of the then Muslim world. Saladin is truly a historic personage worth learning about as he exemplifies qualities that we westerners would like to think are possessed by our historic heroes. While the history is well written and engaging it is a bit thin in my thinking considering Saladin’s accomplishments and the obstacles he faced within his own culture. That he was able to do any of the things he did in the face of the Shia and Sunni animosity that still exists today and he, Saladin, being a mere Kurd on top of it is quite remarkable. The brevity of the biography may be due the lack of resource material available for this man. As the author admits there is virtually nothing known about Saladin’s childhood and it is only because of his leadership positions that he is known at all. And while he was revered in life he was soon forgotten after his death. He is known today only because of a renewed interest in his life that began toward the end of the 19th century as a propaganda symbol of the Ottoman Emperor and those trying to win favor with the emperor. However, as Saladin’s death is reported in this book there are still two more chapters and nearly 40 pages of text remaining. I expected to be treated to a description of the post-Saladin scramble for power and the intrigues usually associated with a power vacuum. Unfortunately, that id not happen. What you get is a chapter discussing leadership, its definition and its attributes and whether they applied to Saladin. The next chapter was the influence or lack of influence of Saladin in present day Middle East affairs. Such discussions were certainly not expected. Neither chapter was badly written or without merit but I question their value in a biography and maybe they should have been better placed in a scholarly paper rather than in this book. Nevertheless, not a bad book but I would have like more substance, more meat. The book did leave me wanting more so maybe that’s not a bad thing.
“A unique and special kind of masterpiece.” –John Banville
Stephen Mitchell’s gift is to breathe new life into ancient classics. In Joseph and the Way of Forgiveness, he offers us his riveting novelistic version of the Biblical tale in which Jacob’s favorite son is sold into slavery and eventually becomes viceroy of Egypt. Tolstoy called it the most beautiful story in the world. What’s new here is the lyrical, witty, vivid prose, informed by a wisdom that brings fresh insight to this foundational legend of betrayal and all-embracing forgiveness. Mitchell’s retelling, which reads like a postmodern novel, interweaves the narrative with brief meditations that, with their Zen surprises, expand the narrative and illuminate its main themes.
By stepping inside the minds of Joseph and the other characters, Mitchell reanimates one of the central stories of Western culture. The engrossing tale that he has created will capture the hearts and minds of modern readers and show them that this ancient story can still challenge, delight, and astonish.
Holocaust survivor Werner Reich recounts his harrowing adolescence as a prisoner transported between concentration camps — and shares how a small, kind act can inspire a lifetime of compassion. “If you ever know somebody who needs help, if you know somebody who is scared, be kind to them,” he says. “If you do it at the right time, it will enter their heart, and it will be with them wherever they go, forever.”
This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxMidAtlantic, an independent event. TED’s editors chose to feature it for you.
One of the most famous modern metaphors we have for what life is, is: “survival of the fittest.” It is often used to refer to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, in which different species compete with each other for survival in their particular ecological niches.
Evolutionary theory is perhaps the most influential theory we have today. It permeates every aspect of both science and culture. There is much that it does explain, and much more that we use it to explain. It’s robust in its reach and broad in its explanatory power.
Interestingly, the term “survival of the fittest,” the metaphor that conjures up these vivid images that we imagine life goes through as it perpetuates itself, was a term introduced by the philosopher Herbert Spencer. After reading Darwin’s famous masterpiece On the Origin of Species, he used the phrase to highlight the similarities between his own economic theories and Darwin’s work. When Alfred Russel Wallace, the independent co-creator of the theory, suggested that they instead use that phrase to denote the concept of natural selection, Darwin was happy to agree.
That said, Darwin’s own definition of natural selection was the idea of a species “better designed for an immediate, local environment.” The competitive aspects that the phrase “survival of the fittest” highlights are one part of that, yes, if the resources in an ecological niche are scarce and different species or even populations within a species come into contact with each other for those resources, but otherwise, the idea is that we evolve best when we best harmonize with the conditions of our environment.
If the frame of reference is Herbet’s phrase, then life is a brutal, zero-sum game where something has to lose for me to win, which in nature is indeed often the case. If the frame of reference is shifted to Darwin’s more precise definition, then a zero-sum game might be necessary, but the attempt at harmonizing with the environment means that positive-sum games are also possible. Just because I win doesn’t mean that you lose.
Humans, of course, are slightly more civilized animals in the 21st century. Rather than a scarce world, we live in an abundant world. Rather than problems of day to day survival (outside of obvious cases of extreme poverty and war and so on), we instead deal with day to day problems of meaning (what do I want, how can I get it, what is important and so on).
These two conditions, abundance and problems of meaning, mean that we suddenly have a lot more choice in our lives about what to prioritize. And one of the first things that most of us prioritize is freedom. If the world is abundant, and there is room for us, then we want to live in it on our own terms. But the question is: How do we do that? What is freedom?
There is a wonderful little story about a businessman and a fisherman that gets to the root of this problem of freedom, about what to prioritize, especially as we relate to the concept in the modern Western world.
An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied, “only a little while. The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.”
The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”
To which the American replied, “15–20 years.”
“But what then?” Asked the Mexican.
The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions!”
“Millions — then what?”
The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”
The story makes an important point, and it gives us something to examine, but it is, of course, an oversimplification. It ignores the fact that some people like to build things to challenge themselves. That, perhaps, sometimes, pursuing an opportunity to add value in the world or to make a little more money or to use your time to work harder than you need to is just as much a part of being human is knowing that you have enough.
Nonetheless, the businessman here is a good embodiment of the “survival of the fittest” mentality, whereas the fisherman aims more at being “better designed for an immediate, local environment.”
The latter fits well with what he has, which is enough. If from there, he chooses to go for more, it will come from a place of harmony, of trying to increase the challenge and the complexity of his life. He is already free, and the rest is just whatever he makes of it if he so chooses. His freedom comes from not needing anything else.
The former, by virtue of associating time with money and opportunity, is playing the game that everyone else around him is likely also playing. He probably convinces himself that he wants a nice car because a nice car is nice, but most likely, it’s because the people around him have a nice car. He probably accepts that he is competitive, but he would probably deny that he is competing with someone else. But his mindset tells a different story, and that story is that he still living with a scarcity mindset in an abundant world because everyone around him is, too, and that’s a deep part of our evolutionary programming. His freedom is tied to what he has, which will never be enough because there is always more, so he is never actually free.
Competition is one necessary part of evolution, and we have a deep drive towards it, but evolution itself is fundamentally about growing towards harmony with the environment. Competition can get you the resources you need to be free, but only this harmony can keep you free once the basic necessities have been taken care of. In a world of scarcity, competition will help you become free from harm; in a world of abundance, competition will slowly morph into the opposite of freedom.
The problem at the core is really a problem of needs. You are free when you don’t need anything and can simply pursue what you want without any great attachment other than perhaps aiming for growth in the process. You are not, however, free if you think that there is something else out there, whether that be some position of status or a nicer house, that is necessary to someday make you happy and satisfied in the world.
What life and evolution seem to aim for is greater degrees of complexity, which may sometimes be obtained through competition but can only really be sustained through harmony. The fisherman has the inner harmony, the inner freedom, he needs to increase the complexity of his outer life if he so chooses, and he can then sustain that in the process over time if he wants.
The businessman, in this sense, seems to only see outer complexity, without having the inner harmony to support that complexity over the long-term. That can only inevitably lead to that circle of realizing that he has always had what he was looking for and that he was merely just looking in the wrong direction.
Freedom is an abstract concept built in our minds, and that means it can only truly be felt and experienced if the associations we have with that concept in our minds let us harmonize with the environment that we are in. We are free when we have enough, and enough may want to grow in complexity, to create something in the world, but it doesn’t need to compete.Personal Growth
Playing at the intersection of science, art, and philosophy. Trying to be less wrong. I share my more intimate thoughts at www.designluck.com/community.
Listen And Learn Channel The hidden truth about all religions that they do not want you to know is revealed in this award winning documentary video. Please watch, discover and become awake to the lies that you have been told, learn and share the truth with others.
Waking the Tiger offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma. It views the human animal as a unique being, endowed with an instinctual capacity. It asks and answers an intriguing question: why are animals in the wild, though threatened routinely, rarely traumatized? By understanding the dynamics that make wild animals virtually immune to traumatic symptoms, the mystery of human trauma is revealed.
Waking the Tiger normalizes the symptoms of trauma and the steps needed to heal them. People are often traumatized by seemingly ordinary experiences. The reader is taken on a guided tour of the subtle, yet powerful impulses that govern our responses to overwhelming life events. To do this, it employs a series of exercises that help us focus on bodily sensations. Through heightened awareness of these sensations trauma can be healed.
(Goodreads.com)
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