Why this activist is calling for the mass ingestion of psychedelics

Gail Bradbrook, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, called for a mass psychedelic act of civil disobedience in protest of drug criminalization.

  • During a conference, the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, an environmentalist social movement, called for people to take psychedelics en masse as an act of civil disobedience.
  • Gail Bradbrook argues that "The causes of the crisis are political, economic, legal and cultural systemic issues but underneath that are issues of human trauma, powerlessness, scarcity and separation," and that "psychedelic medicines are opportunities to help us shift our consciousness."
  • The research on psychedelics does suggest that they could be powerful mediators for personal change and possibly encourage people to become more aware of and concerned for the environment.
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Bigotry and hate are more linked to mass shootings than mental illness, experts say

How do we combat the roots of these hateful forces?

  • American Psychological Association sees a dubious and weak link between mental illness and mass shootings.
  • Center for the study of Hate and Extremism has found preliminary evidence that political discourse is tied to hate crimes.
  • Access to guns and violent history is still the number one statistically significant figure that predicts gun violence.
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Brazil's Amazon fires: How they started — and how you can help.

The Amazon Rainforest is often called "The Planet's Lungs."

  • For weeks, fires have been burning in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, likely started by farmers and ranchers.
  • Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, has blamed NGOs for starting the flames, offering no evidence to support the claim.
  • There are small steps you can take to help curb deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, which produces about 20 percent of the world's oxygen.
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Andrew Yang: Give truckers severance packages when driverless vehicles take over

The 2020 Democratic candidate's plan to give Americans a universal basic income seems to include a special provision for truckers.


Photo credit: ROSLAN RAHMAN / Contributor
Politics & Current Affairs
  • Andrew Yang is a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who's made technology and automation central to his campaign.
  • Yang says the U.S. needs a plan for how to manage the upcoming loss of millions of American trucking jobs to self-driving vehicles.
  • Yang wants to tax profits from self-driving trucks to give these laid-off truckers a "severance package."
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Terraform Mars? How about Earth?

Fauna and flora refuse to go quietly into the Anthropocene.

Image source: Lightspring/Shutterstock
Politics & Current Affairs
  • Pioneers of the Greater Holocene plan to strike back against concrete.
  • Seed packets and plant nutrients are the weapons of choice for standing up to humanity's destructive impact.
  • Hopeless? Maybe. Poignant? Absolutely.
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Hashtag politics: 4 key ways digital activism is inegalitarian

Many believe that the internet has made it easier for us to participate in political activism. But is that really true?

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  • Protesting in person is costly in terms of money and resources; some people have children to take care of, jobs that can't be away from, or may not have time to attend a planning event.
  • The internet was supposed to be a way to sidestep this barrier to political activism. But this doesn't consider the other barriers preventing poor and working-class folks from participating in digital activism.
  • In particular, these people lack ASETs: access to computers, the skills to use them, the empowerment necessary to feel that using Twitter or other social media is for them, and the time to make use of digital platforms in an effective way.
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