Where does nihilism come from?
Nihilism is not a choice or intellectual commitment, but a feeling that simply arrives.
09 January, 2021
Photo by Boglárka Mázsi on Unsplash
Friedrich Nietzsche was most famously concerned with the problem of nihilism.
<p> All societies, in his view, rely on implicit value judgments. If the foundations of these are lost, he predicts terrible consequences: widespread apathy or violent, fanatical attempts to reclaim a sense of purpose, or perhaps both. We talk about values a lot, and we know they do <em>something</em>, but we have little idea how. Compounding this is uncertainty over their loss. Nihilism is not a choice or intellectual commitment, but a thing that comes upon you. As Nietzsche put it in 1885: 'Nihilism stands at the door. Whence comes this uncanniest of all guests?' </p><p>Part of the answer comes from understanding how values connect to knowledge and action. In <em>Seeing Like a State </em>(1998)<em>,</em> the political scientist James C Scott classifies knowledge in two ways: epistemic knowledge, which can be quantified, theorised and transmitted in abstract, and <em>metis</em> (from the classical Greek), which concerns knowledge gained from practical experience, such as personal relationships, traditions, habits and psychological states. <em>Metis</em> governs local experience: farming the family's land, for example, rather than agronomic study. We all recognise it; it's why we hire for experience. For instance, Jane and Martha have identical diplomas, but if Jane's first shift was on Tuesday and Martha's was in 1970, then Martha will have certain tricks and habits to expedite her work. Still, it's not easy to quantify just what that is: Martha has <em>metis</em>, and <em>metis</em> can't easily be reproduced. If it were trainable, it would have been in Jane's training.</p>
<p>Scott's genius is to compare <em>metis</em> to local traditions. Over a long enough time, habits and behaviours are selected for and passed down, just as evolution selects helpful traits. A successful group will institutionalise an irreducibly complex set of cultural tools that relate to its environment. Since these are <em>metis</em>, and not epistemic, they won't always be obvious or quantifiable. Scott recounts dozens of examples of customs that might appear backwards, confused, unscientific – yet when they're banned or discouraged, productivity collapses. He calls this the problem of 'legibility'.</p><p>Epistemic theories rely on isolated, abstracted environments capable of taxonomy, but these are far removed from the dynamic, interconnected systems of nature and human culture. <em>Metis</em>, by contrast, develops within complex, 'illegible' environments, and thus works with them. But that also means its application is limited to a specific act, rather than a broader theory. Outsiders want to know why something works, but locals will explain it in a language unintelligible to them.</p><p>These practices and traditions are, of course, more than work experience. They're used to efficiently solve political problems. In <em>The Righteous Mind</em> (2012), the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt describes Balinese rice farmers who needed to coordinate irrigation along a river. Since they were politically divided into small familial units – called <em>subaks</em> – they needed to rely on means older than governance to ensure cooperation:</p><blockquote>The ingenious religious solution to this problem of social engineering was to place a small temple at every fork in the irrigation system. The god in each such temple united all the <em>subaks</em> that were downstream from it into a community that worshipped that god, thereby helping the <em>subaks</em> to resolve their disputes more amicably. This arrangement minimised the cheating and deception that would otherwise flourish in a zero-sum division of water. The system made it possible for thousands of farmers, spread over hundreds of square kilometres, to cooperate without the need for central government, inspectors and courts.</blockquote><p>This still occurs. A 2017 <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2938751" target="_blank">paper</a> by the economists Nathan Nunn of Harvard University and Raul Sanchez de la Sierra of the University of California, Berkeley mentions <em>gri-gri</em>, a magical powder that witchdoctors manufacture. In 2012, following a period of widespread banditry and state insecurity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, <em>gri-gri</em> came to a village elder in a dream. Applying this powder made the user bulletproof, and it worked so well that neighbouring communities swiftly adopted it. The reason was simple: groups fight better than individuals, and more people will dare to fight if they believe they are bulletproof. Hence, a village using <em>gri-gri</em> was more likely to survive.</p>
<p><em>Gri-gri</em> and water temples are kinds of <em>metis</em>, but they require belief in larger structures: respectively, magic and gods. However these structures first developed, it's critical that they rest on more than mere faith or tradition. Shared values provide conviction for greater actions, but those values are certified by the success of those actions. <em>Gri-gri</em>'s success is an empirical testament to magic, and its utility inclines one towards trusting more activities by witchdoctors. Nunn and Sanchez de la Sierra point out that</p><blockquote>many of [the spells] appear to provide individuals with a greater sense of security and confidence, which could serve to … reduce their anxiety and thus improve their performance. For example, most of the spells provide protection, whether it be from drought, disease, attacks on the village or even to harm potential thieves – and thieves also believe in their efficacy, which acts as a deterrent.</blockquote><p>In other words: these practices and institutions serve several different roles, all bound up in one another. This intermingling exacerbates the problem of legibility.</p><p>When we discuss changing values, we often think top-down: a new and persuasive ideology that took hold for intellectual reasons. What Scott and the adoption of <em>gri-gri</em> suggest is the opposite: the motive force of values requires a degree of certainty that is dependent on action. It was <em>gri-gri</em>'s empirical demonstration that allowed it spread it to neighbouring villages, not its poetry. The inverse to this is also important: we can improve on a specific task, but other roles need time to sediment and evolve. Trade the temples for a government, and you have zero-sum bickering. Explain the game theory behind <em>gri-gri</em>, and no one will fight with it. The utility of a cultural institution first allows adoption, but its maintenance allows <em>metis</em> ample time to tinker and perfect.</p><p>If we've lost faith in certain values, then I doubt this was because of academic debates. The 20th century profoundly changed labour, technology and social organisation in the Western world. It's hard to imagine that this didn't change <em>metis</em>, or render older forms of <em>metis</em> irrelevant. While the values of <em>metis</em> might still be desired – or even identified with – they lack the same certainty they once had. Nothing can prove them and thus justify the higher claims. 'Faith without works is dead,' as the Bible said, but faith without <em>metis</em> is unbelievable.</p><p>A top-down view of value implies that we can simply create new reasons for living, that the ideology itself is its own proof. But if values come bottom-up, then man's quest for meaning cannot be separated from his labour. They are the same.<img src="https://metrics.aeon.co/count/c3ebc7b8-c9df-445f-8385-c04cd6076a2c.gif" alt="Aeon counter – do not remove"></p><p>Lou Keep</p><p>This article was originally published at <a href="https://aeon.co/?utm_campaign=republished-article" target="_blank">Aeon</a> and has been republished under Creative Commons. Read the <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/whence-comes-nihilism-the-uncanniest-of-all-guests" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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Anxiety and depression can affect your learning ability
An excessive focus on past failures can make learning about new situtations more difficult.
28 December, 2020
- A new study confirms that anxiety and depression can lead to difficulties in analyzing data.
- Test subjects with symptoms of those conditions were slower to realize that changes in the game they were played occured.
- The study is not the last word on the topic, but its findings will prompt further investigations.
Uncertainty is a fact of life that can often impede our ability to make decisions. While everybody knows what it's like to make the wrong choice based on incomplete data, a new <a href="https://elifesciences.org/articles/61387" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">study</a> suggests that people with anxiety and depression have a particularly rough go of it. On a more positive note, it also points to ways to narrow the gap between those with these issues and everybody else. <p class=""><br></p>
The learning curve gets harder to climb when you’re anxious
<p> In two separate experiments, researchers at UC Berkeley had participants play games for cash prizes. </p><p>The first involved test subjects playing a game, with correct answers being awarded a prize. A wrong answer would lead to a mild electric shock, euphemistically deemed "stimulation" in the study. Participants had to select either a circle or a square, with the correct answer sometimes being predictable but always subject to change. Players showing symptoms of depression or anxiety had a more difficult time than others in keeping track of the changes. </p><p>In the second, players remotely played a similar game without the risk of electric shock. Wrong answers resulted in a loss of prizes. Again, those test subjects reporting anxiety or depression symptoms had a more difficult time keeping up as the conditions of the game changed compared to their peers without those symptoms. </p><p>The findings are in line with several previous studies, including <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2015/03/02/anxious-people-decisions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">one</a> involving some of the same authors, suggesting that anxiety disorders impact people's ability to predict future events using past data. The thought is that an excessive focus on previous failures prevents people from using data on changing conditions as effectively as possible.</p><p>The study also provides new evidence that people with depressive symptoms have similar difficulties in decision making as those with anxiety symptoms. Previous research had suggested the two conditions impacted decision making differently, with the ability to focus on gaining rewards or avoiding pain being affected differently.</p><p>Senior author Sonia Bishop explained the findings to <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/12/22/in-shaky-times-focus-on-past-successes-if-overly-anxious-depressed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Berkeley News</a>:</p><p>"When everything keeps changing rapidly, and you get a bad outcome from a decision you make, you might fixate on what you did wrong, which is often the case with clinically anxious or depressed people. Conversely, emotionally resilient people tend to focus on what gave them a good outcome, and in many real-world situations that might be key to learning to make good decisions."</p><p>These findings also point towards treatment options. Techniques, such as those promoted by cognitive behavioral therapy, which help people focus on previous successes rather than failures, can help improve symptoms of various conditions and, by the implications of this study, decision-making ability.<br><br>The limited size of the study and its new findings mean that further investigations will have to take place before these ideas will be widely accepted. However, even the attempt to confirm or deny them will help advance our understanding of these conditions, how we learn, and the human brain in general. As the number of people with symptoms of anxiety and depression increase, these advances can come none too <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-covid-mental-health-1.5848388" target="_blank">soon</a>. <br></p>
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Is rap music destigmatizing mental health disorders?
A new study shows that the top rap songs in the U.S. are making increasingly frequent references to depression and suicidal thoughts.
17 December, 2020
Credit: Axel Antas-Bergkvist on Unsplash
- The most popular rap songs in the U.S. are more frequently making references to mental health problems, particularly suicide and depression.
- A research team analyzed lyrics from the top 25 most popular rap songs released in the years 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013, and 2018, examining the lyrics of artists such as Eminem, Drake, Post Malone, Lil' Wayne, Juice WRLD, Kanye West, and Jay-Z.
- References to suicide rose from 0% to 12%, and references to depression from 16% to 32% over the last 20 years.
<p>According to a new study, the top rap songs in the U.S. are making increasingly frequent references to mental health problems, particularly suicide and depression.</p><a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.5155?guestAccessKey=b0cd42e5-ce5b-4a29-ac74-d05ab8ce119d&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=120720" target="_blank">The study</a>, which was published last week in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, was conducted by a team of researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The team analyzed lyrics from the top 25 most popular rap songs released in the years 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013, and 2018 using data from companies such as Billboard and Nielsen. Artists whose lyrics were examined in the study included Eminem, Drake, Post Malone, Lil' Wayne, Juice WRLD, Kanye West, and Jay-Z. Most of the songs featured a Black artist, and the mean age of the artists was 28.2 years old.
Lyrics and mental health
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDk3NTMwNC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNzY1MTAzOX0.LucgHFKGAeqMPYhdVTgEZBN1qlPW1C2DX77M4A17PlE/img.png?width=980" id="520ba" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d770fd1d5acafd765747a28c344b3efa" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="944" data-height="573" />Credit: Alex Kresovich et al. / JAMA Pediatr.
<p>The lyrics were analyzed for references to anxiety (e.g. "Do you experience nervousness or shakiness inside, faintness and dizziness?"); depression ("Went through deep depression when my mama passed…"), and suicide or suicidal ideation ("Only once the drugs are done / Do I feel like dying.").</p><p>Overall, the researchers found that about about one-third of the 125 songs referred to anxiety, 22 percent to depression, and 6 percent to suicide. Alarmingly, these percentages had more than doubled in 2018 as compared to 1998. </p><p>Zooming in closer, general mental health-related metaphors in the lyrics had increased from 8 percent to 44 percent over the two decades. References to suicide rose from 0 percent to 12 percent, and references to depression from 16 percent to 32 percent over the last 20 years. Anxiety-related references did not increase significantly. </p>America's youth is not okay
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e8c85c5d93f972abcb6a5aee50c5f14e"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BLKuqdAoGvg?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>This isn't just a rapper thing, as <a href="https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/emotional-problems/Pages/Anxiety-Disorders.aspx" target="_blank">research trends</a> over the years are indicating that young Americans are not okay. The trend in emotionally darker rap lyrics mirrors what has been referred to as the "mental health crisis" in the United States.</p><p>Some data has found that psychological stress and suicide risk as rocketed from 2008 to 2017, and that's particularly true among 18 to 25 year-olds. The prevalence of "major depressive episodes" among US adolescents <a href="https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/138/6/e20161878" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">also increased from 2005 to 2014</a>. According to X, anxiety affects around 30 percent of adolescents, with 80 percent never seeking treatment. The crisis reached a fever pitch in 2017 when the suicide rate among 15 to 24 year olds in the United States peaked at its highest level since 1960. From 2007 to 2017, suicide rates among people aged <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db352.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">10 to 24</a> rose by a grim 56 percent. Another <a href="https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/144/5/e20191187" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">analysis</a> found that suicide attempts among Black youth <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/01/black-youth-suicide" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">rose by 73 percent</a> from 1991 to 2017, while declining for whites.</p><p>The finding that rap lyrics have increasing references to mental health problems is significant because of the genre's popularity amongst American youth, who now spend nearly <a href="https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2017/time-with-tunes-how-technology-is-driving-music-consumption/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">40 hours per week</a> listening to music. The authors note that rap artists influence "the development of these young people's identities." </p><p>The researchers noted that they could not determine "whether these lyrical references to mental health are due to rap artists' desires to self-disclose or to instigate discussions about mental health," according to the study. "Because rap is an autobiographical art form, the artists and younger adults may have observed and reflected national trends of distress experienced by themselves or people close to them." </p>Shifting social stigmas
<p>Over the past two decades, rappers have begun to embrace emotional vulnerability in ways they hadn't previously, for example Kanye West and J. Cole. In fact, researchers of the study suggested that the increase of references was linked to Kanye West's 2008 album "808s & Heartbreak," noting that artists such as Drake, Juice WRLD, and Post Malone (all of whom had songs examined in the study) have nodded to West's album as having had influence on their music styles. Even before male emotional introspection and mental health were part of the mainstream discourse, they were being embraced in rap. </p><p>More research will be necessary, the authors write, to understand "how this music can improve the mental health of its listeners or how it might lead to greater risk." In conclusion, the authors highlight that the study underscores a need to examine rap music and now, depending on the messaging, it may be able to reduce stigma surrounding mental illness by putting it in the spotlight. </p>
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Psychedelics: The scientific renaissance of mind-altering drugs
There is a lot we don't know about psychedelics, but what we do know makes them extremely important.
11 December, 2020
- Having been repressed in the 1960s for their ties to the counterculture, psychedelics are currently experiencing a scientific resurgence. In this video, Michael Pollan, Sam Harris, Jason Silva and Ben Goertzel discuss the history of psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin, acknowledge key figures including Timothy Leary and Albert Hoffman, share what the experience of therapeutic tripping can entail, and explain why these substances are important to the future of mental health.
- There is a stigma surrounding psychedelic drugs that some scientists and researchers argue is undeserved. Several experiments over the past decades have shown that, when used correctly, drugs like psilocybin and LSD can have positive effects on the lives of those take them. How they work is not completely understood, but the empirical evidence shows promise in the fields of curbing depression, anxiety, obsession, and even addiction to other substances.
- "There's a tremendous amount of insight that can be plumbed using these various substances. There's also a lot of risks there, as with most valuable things," says artificial intelligence researcher Ben Goertzel. He and others believe that by making psychedelics illegal, modern governments are getting in the way of meaningful research and the development of "cultural institutions to guide people in really productive use of these substances."
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What will 'psychedelic therapy' look like when it's legalized?
Psychedelic therapy will become legal in Oregon in 2023. That's thanks largely to a renaissance of psychedelic research that's changing attitudes on the substances' medical potential.
03 December, 2020
Credit: contentdealer via Adobe Stock
- In November, Oregon voted to legalize psilocybin therapy.
- Psilocybin is already being used in clinical research settings, but it remains a controlled substance on the federal level.
- At the 2020 Web Summit, two experts in the field of psychedelic research and therapy shed light on what the future of psilocybin therapy might look like.
<p>For millennia, humans have been using psychedelic drugs for medicinal and spiritual purposes. But today, most nations have criminalized psychedelics, including the U.S., where psilocybin and LSD are classified as Schedule 1 drugs, defined as having "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse."</p><p>But attitudes on psychedelics are shifting. That's thanks largely to a renaissance of psychedelic research that's been gaining steam since the 2000s, producing startling studies showing how psilocybin (and other psychedelics) can help alleviate mental health problems like <a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/psychedelic-treatment-with-psilocybin-relieves-major-depression-study-shows" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">major depression</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6007659/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">anxiety</a>, and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-59282-y" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">addiction disorders</a>. </p><p>In November, Oregon made history by passing <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Oregon_Measure_109,_Psilocybin_Mushroom_Services_Program_Initiative_(2020)" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Measure 109</a>, which legalized the use of psilocybin in therapeutic settings. That's a step beyond measures in other progressive American cities, like Denver and Oakland, which have decriminalized the substance but stopped short of allowing people to consume it. </p><p>What it means for Oregonians is that, starting as early as 2023, adults 21 and older will be able to go to a clinic and consume psilocybin under the supervision of a licensed therapist, who has to obtain the psilocybin from a licensed manufacturer. </p><p>So, what exactly will psychedelic therapy look like, and why would people seek it out? </p><p>Those questions were <a href="https://websummit.com/schedule/timeslot/does-mental-health-need-psychedelic-support" target="_blank">explored in a recent presentation at the 2020 Web Summit</a> by Ekaterina Malievskaia, co-founder of the mental health company Compass Pathways, and Kelsey Ramsden, the COO of Mind Cure, which identifies, develops, and commercializes new mental health products.</p>
What psychedelic therapy could look like
<p>Ramsden said a psychedelic therapy session might look like this: You enter "a lovely place that looks much like your living room with some lovely people [licensed therapists] who are going to sit with you for the duration of your treatment," and then you're administered psilocybin. You might sit or lie down with a mask over your eyes, potentially listening to some music, while being supported by the professionals in the room until the experience winds down.</p><p>This session would be followed by an "integration period," which would take place in the days and weeks following the psilocybin experience. The <a href="https://erievision.org/" target="_blank">Entheogenic Research Integration & Education</a> (ERIE) defines <a href="https://erievision.org/integration-3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">integration</a> as "the process by which the material accessed and insights gained in a [psychedelic] experience are incorporated over time into one's life in a way that benefits the individual and their community."</p><p>What kinds of insights might you gain? It's hard to say, as everyone's experience varies, and scientists are still working to understand exactly how psychedelics interact with the brain.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Because these experiences are so unusual, it's very difficult to explain what to expect, what people are going to be experiencing," Malievskaia said. "I think only with advancement in neuroimaging, and advancement in different scientific techniques, that we started understanding how they actually work, and we can show how they work, and that sort of paradoxically demystifies these mystical experiences."</p>How psilocybin acts on the brain
<p>Malievskaia noted that psilocybin works primarily on the brain's serotonin system, attaching to specific serotonin receptors that trigger a cascade of different neurological events. These serotonin receptors are densely expressed in a system of connections called the "default mode network" (DMN).</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"The DMN is not an anatomical structure in the brain," Malievskaia explains. "It's a system of functional connections that forms throughout people's lives based on their life experience, life events, their learning, their environment. So essentially, it's a collection of patterns — cognitive, behavioral, emotional patterns — in response to environmental stimuli. And we associate these patterns, perhaps sometimes, with a sense of self, or sense of ego."</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"So, when psilocybin binds to these [serotonin] receptors, it downregulates the DMN, and temporarily, people are lifted out of their ego. In these profound psychedelic experiences, they're able to look at their life situation — their conflicts, their personal narratives — from a different vantage point."</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"And with skillful support, and in carefully controlled, supported environments, they're able to process traumatic events, memories, and generate more insights. With subsequent skillful integration, they're able to embody those insights, and that could lead, potentially, to changes in unhelpful behavioral patterns."</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="104aa85d9aeb124d3fba646822905dcc"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FyAgx_tzh80?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>Neuroimaging studies suggest that the DMN is active during much of our experience, particularly when we're doing repetitive tasks, worrying, daydreaming, or going over memories. It's something like an "auto-pilot" mode that helps the brain save energy. But for people suffering from, say, depression or anxiety, this function can make it difficult to overcome a mental-health rut.</p><p>That's why psychedelics might function as something like a "reset button": By quieting activity in the DMN, psychedelics may help the brain break free of its usual patterns, allowing other regions of the brain to begin "talking" to each other, creating new connections. What's interesting is that studies suggest these beneficial effects persist long after the drug wears off — for months, in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-59282-y" target="_blank">some</a> <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5813062/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cases</a>.</p><p>Given popular misconceptions about psychedelics, Ramsden said it's important for researchers and psychedelic therapy advocates to be thoughtful in how they discuss emerging therapies, and she reiterated that the new wave of psychedelic research and therapy is grounded in real science.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"What we're not talking about is this idea of self-medicating, or going on these wild trips," she said. "This really is a practice with deep scientific rigor, with high-efficacy outcomes."</p>
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