Ask an Astronaut: What surprised you most in space?
Garrett Reisman
Dr. Reisman was selected by NASA in 1998. His first mission was aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, in 2008, with a 95 day mission aboard the International Space Station. His second mission was aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, in 2010. During these missions, Dr. Reisman performed 3 spacewalks, operated the Space Station Robot Arm and was a flight engineer aboard the Space Shuttle. He served as a technical consultant for the film Ad Astra and is currently a technical advisor for the TV Show For All Mankind. At present he is a Professor of Astronautical Engineering at USC, Motivational Speaker and Senior Advisor at SpaceX. Learn more at garrettreisman.com.
GARRETT REISMAN: A transformative moment or reaction I had, other than many beautiful things I observed, especially like the views I saw during my spacewalks and things that were just indescribably wonderful. But I would say the thing that was probably the most impactful and surprising to me was when I looked at the horizon of the earth and I saw how thin the atmosphere was. That was actually really scary. It was shocking. When you look at the atmosphere from Earth orbit, it looks incredibly fragile. It's this little tiny thin blue line that separates the sunlit Earth from the black void of space. And compared to the diameter of the Earth, it's tiny. I mean you could hold up your pinky and block the whole thing out very easily. I mean it looks terribly fragile. It looks like a gust of wind could come by and just strip the thing away.
The next time, in fact if you're home right now at your computer please open up a browser, put this on pause and open up a browser and just Google Earth from space and then go to the images. Just look at any picture we took of the horizon of the earth from space and you'll see that thin blue line. Look for yourself at just how thin that is.
When you compare the thickness of the atmosphere to the diameter of the earth it's like the same dimension or fraction or ratio I should say as the shell on an egg or the skin on an apple. It's incredibly thin and that gives you a real visceral impression of just how fragile this planet is. And by the way, this happened to me, I had this experience and then about a week later I was looking out the window and I was looking down at the Earth and I saw what you see most of the time, which is the ocean. When you look at the ocean I thought to myself well gee, how thick is that? I could see the atmosphere. I could see how thin that is. What about the ocean? How deep is it? And the answer is that the ocean is ten times less deep than the atmosphere is high. The atmosphere, we draw an arbitrary line at 100 kilometers. We call that the Karman line and we say okay, that's where the atmosphere ends and that's where space begins. And again, that's kind of made up but it's about where – the blue line you see in those photographs is probably about 80 kilometers, but let's say about 100 kilometers. That's a nice round number, that's about 300,000 feet.
The deepest part of the ocean like the Marianas Trench challenger deep. The very deepest part that's about 35,000 feet deep. So that's ten times thinner than the atmosphere. So when you see that tiny thin blue line when you look at those photographs think for a moment that the ocean is ten times thinner than that. And then think about the fact as I talked about before about how this planet is perfect for us, how it provides everything we need. All the food we need, all the air we need to breathe, the water we need to drink. It's where all of our friends and family live. It's where all the animals are and the plants and rainbows and mountain ranges and whales in the ocean. All that stuff that makes this our home.
It's somewhere between the bottom of the ocean and the top of the atmosphere. And that's tiny. It's so tiny. What we have is a giant planet and sure, if you look out the window of the space shuttle, the space station it covers your whole view and it's monstrous this planet, but the part that matters to us is this tiny little bit. Just a tiny sliver on top. It's like we have a massive planet that's a big giant dead rock with an incredibly precious surface coating. And we need to do a better job of taking care of that surface coating, because that's all we've got.
- Astronaut Garrett Reisman took in countless indescribably beautiful views while he lived in space. But most shocking, he says, was observing the thinness of Earth's atmosphere.
- You can compare the thickness of the atmosphere to the diameter of Earth to the skin on an apple, or the shell of an egg. It's incredibly thin and shows just how seemingly fragile our planet is.
- But to put this into perspective, whereas the atmosphere reaches a height of 300,000 feet from Earth's surface, the deepest part of the ocean only reaches 35,000 feet, ten times thinner than Earth's atmosphere. Everything we experience on Earth, from sea to sky, exists on just a tiny slice of precious surface coating.
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COVID-19 amplified America’s devastating health gap. Can we bridge it?
The COVID-19 pandemic is making health disparities in the United States crystal clear. It is a clarion call for health care systems to double their efforts in vulnerable communities.
19 November, 2020
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Sponsored by Northwell Health
- The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated America's health disparities, widening the divide between the haves and have nots.
- Studies show disparities in wealth, race, and online access have disproportionately harmed underserved U.S. communities during the pandemic.
- To begin curing this social aliment, health systems like Northwell Health are establishing relationships of trust in these communities so that the post-COVID world looks different than the pre-COVID one.
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<p>In the last 100 years, we've made incredible advances in health care, advances that would be viewed as miraculous to any previous generation. To pick one example, the<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy" target="_blank"> U.S. life expectancy</a> in 1950 was 68.2 years. We've since added 10 years to that average. Social programs have helped the young and elderly, two of the most health-vulnerable populations, receive unprecedented levels of care and attention. And telemedicine has decoupled many Americans' health support and monitoring from brick-and-mortar hospitals, expanding access to care.</p><p>Yet, despite these advances and despite handily<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/a-dozen-facts-about-the-economics-of-the-u-s-health-care-system/" target="_blank"> outspending other OECD nations on health care</a>, the United States preserves vast health disparities. As James Madara, CEO and executive vice president of the American Medical Association,<a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/about/leadership/america-s-health-care-crisis-much-deeper-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </a>wrote on the organization's site: "The U.S. health system that exists today is a hodgepodge of ideas, programs, and regulations that is both extraordinarily expensive and highly inefficient. And despite its size and technological advancements, our health system is beset by tremendous gaps and inequities that favor some groups while unfairly disadvantaging others."</p><p>Our current predicament has its origins in tectonic sociohistorical forces that have shifted and fractured the health care landscape. For those at the peaks, access to superior care, education, resources, and social networks serve to protect their health. For those in the canyons, the ground continues to weather away with each past and ongoing crisis—consider, for example, the disproportionate fallout from<a href="https://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/60/11/2667" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </a><a href="https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the dissolution of the Mental Health Systems Act</a>.</p><p>Then came COVID-19.</p>
COVID-19 deepens U.S. health disparities
<p>Communities on the pernicious side of America's health disparities have their unique histories, environments, and social structures. They are spread across the United States, but they all have one thing in common.</p><p>"There is one common divide in American communities, and that is poverty," said <a href="https://www.northwell.edu/about/leadership/debbie-salas-lopez" target="_blank">Debbie Salas-Lopez, MD, MPH</a>, senior vice president of community and population health at Northwell Health. "That is the undercurrent that manifests poor health, poor health outcomes, or poor health prognoses for future wellbeing."</p><p>Social determinants have far-reaching effects on health, and poor communities have unfavorable social determinants. To pick one of many examples, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/27/913612554/a-crisis-within-a-crisis-food-insecurity-and-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">food insecurity</a> reduces access to quality food, leading to poor health and communal endemics of chronic medical conditions. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified some of these conditions, such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes, as increasing the risk of developing a severe case of coronavirus.</p><p>The pandemic didn't create poverty or food insecurity, but it exacerbated both, and the results have been catastrophic. A study published this summer in the <em><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-020-05971-3" target="_blank">Journal of General Internal Medicine</a></em> suggested that "social factors such as income inequality may explain why some parts of the USA are hit harder by the COVID-19 pandemic than others."</p><p>That's not to say better-off families in the U.S. weren't harmed. A <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/poverty-inequality-and-covid-19-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">paper from the Centre for Economic Policy Research</a> noted that families in counties with a higher median income experienced adjustment costs associated with the pandemic—for example, lowering income-earning interactions to align with social distancing policies. However, the paper found that the costs of social distancing were much greater for poorer families, who cannot easily alter their living circumstances, which often include more individuals living in one home and a reliance on mass transit to reach work and grocery stores. They are also disproportionately represented in essential jobs, such as retail, transportation, and health care, where maintaining physical distance can be all but impossible.</p><p>The paper also cited a positive correlation between higher income inequality and higher rates of coronavirus infection. "Our interpretation is that poorer people are less able to protect themselves, which leads them to different choices—they face a steeper trade-off between their health and their economic welfare in the context of the threats posed by COVID-19," the authors wrote.</p><p>"There are so many pandemics that this pandemic has exacerbated," Dr. Salas-Lopez noted.</p><p>One example is the health-wealth gap. The mental stressors of maintaining a low socioeconomic status, especially in the face of extreme affluence, can have a physically degrading impact on health. <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/index.cfm/_api/render/file/?method=inline&fileID=123ECD96-EF81-46F6-983D2AE9A45FA354" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Writing on this gap</a>, Robert Sapolsky, professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University, notes that socioeconomic stressors can increase blood pressure, reduce insulin response, increase chronic inflammation, and impair the prefrontal cortex and other brain functions through anxiety, depression, and cognitive load. </p><p>"Thus, from the macro level of entire body systems to the micro level of individual chromosomes, poverty finds a way to produce wear and tear," Sapolsky writes. "It is outrageous that if children are born into the wrong family, they will be predisposed toward poor health by the time they start to learn the alphabet."</p>Research on the economic and mental health fallout of COVID-19 is showing two things: That unemployment is hitting <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/09/24/economic-fallout-from-covid-19-continues-to-hit-lower-income-americans-the-hardest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">low-income and young Americans</a> most during the pandemic, potentially widening the health-wealth gap further; and that the pandemic not only exacerbates mental health stressors, but is doing so at clinically relevant levels. As <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7413844/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the authors of one review</a> wrote, the pandemic's effects on mental health is itself an international public health priority.<blockquote>We need to find ways to unify this country because we're all human beings. We're all created equal, and we believe that health is one of those important rights.</blockquote>
Working to close the health gap
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDc5MDk1MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNTYyMzQzMn0.KSFpXH7yHYrfVPtfgcxZqAHHYzCnC2bFxwSrJqBbH4I/img.jpg?width=980" id="b40e2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1b9035370ab7b02a0dc00758e494412b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Northwell Health coronavirus testing center at Greater Springfield Community Church.
Credit: Northwell Health
<p>Novel coronavirus may spread and infect indiscriminately, but pre-existing conditions, environmental stressors, and a lack of access to care and resources increase the risk of infection. These social determinants make the pandemic more dangerous, and erode communities' and families' abilities to heal from health crises that pre-date the pandemic.</p><p>How do we eliminate these divides? Dr. Salas-Lopez says the first step is recognition. "We have to open our eyes to see the suffering around us," she said. "Northwell has not shied away from that."</p><p>"We are steadfast in improving health outcomes for our vulnerable and underrepresented communities that have suffered because of the prevalence of chronic disease, a problem that led to the disproportionately higher death rate among African-Americans and Latinos during the COVID-19 pandemic," said Michael Dowling, Northwell's president and CEO. "We are committed to using every tool at our disposal—as a provider of health care, employer, purchaser and investor—to combat disparities and ensure the <a href="https://www.northwell.edu/education-and-resources/community-engagement/center-for-equity-of-care" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">equity of care</a> that everyone deserves." </p><p>With the need recognized, Dr. Salas-Lopez calls for health care systems to travel upstream and be proactive in those hard-hit communities. This requires health care systems to play a strong role, but not a unilateral one. They must build <a href="https://www.northwell.edu/news/insights/faith-based-leaders-are-the-key-to-improving-community-health" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">partnerships with leaders in those communities</a> and utilize those to ensure relationships last beyond the current crisis. </p><p>"We must meet with community leaders and talk to them to get their perspective on what they believe the community needs are and should be for the future. Together, we can co-create a plan to measurably improve [community] health and also to be ready for whatever comes next," she said.</p><p>Northwell has built relationships with local faith-based and community organizations in underserved communities of color. Those partnerships enabled Northwell to test more than 65,000 people across the metro New York region. The health system also offered education on coronavirus and precautions to curb its spread.</p><p>These initiatives began the process of building trust—trust that Northwell has counted on to return to these communities to administer flu vaccines to prepare for what experts fear may be a difficult flu season.</p><p>While Northwell has begun building bridges across the divides of the New York area, much will still need to be done to cure U.S. health care overall. There is hope that the COVID pandemic will awaken us to the deep disparities in the US.</p><p>"COVID has changed our world. We have to seize this opportunity, this pandemic, this crisis to do better," Dr. Salas-Lopez said. "Provide better care. Provide better health. Be better partners. Be better community citizens. And treat each other with respect and dignity.</p><p>"We need to find ways to unify this country because we're all human beings. We're all created equal, and we believe that health is one of those important rights."</p>
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What the Greek classics tell us about grief and the importance of mourning the dead
The rites we give to the dead help us understand what it takes to go on living.
29 November, 2020
Photo by Stavrialena Gontzou on Unsplash
Culture & Religion
As the coronavirus pandemic hit New York in March, the death toll quickly went up with few chances for families and communities to perform traditional rites for their loved ones.
<p>A reporter for <a href="https://time.com/5839056/new-york-city-burials-coronavirus/" target="_blank">Time magazine described</a> how bodies were put on a ramp, then onto a loading dock and stacked on wooden racks. Emergency morgues were set up to handle the large number of dead. By official count, New York City alone had <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/28/863710050/reckoning-with-the-dead-journalist-goes-inside-an-nyc-covid-19-disaster-morgue" target="_blank">20,000 dead</a> over a period of two months. </p><p>Months later, our ability to mourn and process death remains disrupted due to the ever-present fear of the threat of the coronavirus and the need to observe social distancing.</p><p>As a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=1be7ee967d45605afddf7da9ad4ca2c049a26c0b" target="_blank">scholar of classical studies</a>, I tend to look to the past to help understand the present. Ancient literature, especially ancient Greek epics, explore what it means to be human and part of a community. </p><p>In the Greek classic “The Iliad," Homer specifies few universal rights, but one that emerges clearly is the expectation of proper lamentation, burial and memorial. </p>
<h2>Valuing life in death</h2><p>Homer's "Iliad" explores the themes of 10 years of war – the Trojan War – over a narrative that lasts around 50 days. It shows the internal strife and the struggles of the Greeks as they try to defend themselves against the Trojans.</p><p>It humanizes the city of Troy by emphasizing the scale of loss and suffering and not just the boastful nature of its kings and warlords.</p><p>The epic <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0134" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">begins with the recognition</a> that the rage of its main character, Achilles, on account of a slight to his honor, "created myriad griefs" for the Greeks and "sent many strong heroes to the underworld."</p><p>The epic's conflict <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Il.+1.100&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">starts</a> when king Agamemnon, leader of the Greek army, deprives the semi-divine hero Achilles of Briseis, an enslaved woman he was awarded as a prize earlier in the war.</p><p>Briseis is said to be Achilles' "geras," a physical token indicating the esteem his fellow Greeks have for him. The meaning of the word "geras" develops as the poem progresses. But as readers learn alongside Achilles, physical objects are essentially meaningless when one is going to die anyway.</p><p>By the end of the epic, physical tokens of honor are replaced in importance by burial rites. Zeus accepts that his mortal son Sarpedon can at best receive "the geras of the dead" when he is <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D16%3Acard%3D394" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">buried and mourned</a>. Achilles too insists that mourning is "the geras of the dead" when he gathers the Greeks to <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D23%3Acard%3D1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">honor his fallen comrade, Patroklos</a>.</p><p>The epic ends with a justification for the burial of Achilles' opponent, Hector, the greatest of the Trojan warriors and another victim of Achilles' rage.</p><p>For Hector's funerary rites, the Greeks and the Trojans agree to an armistice. The Trojans gather and clean Hector's body, cremate him, and bury his remains below a monumental tomb. The women of the city tell the story of the brave hero <a href="https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/6668" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">in their laments</a>.</p><p>This is its foundational narrative – that burial rites are essential to the collective work of communities. Failure to observe burial provokes crisis. In the Iliad, the gods meet to resolve <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D24%3Acard%3D22" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the problem of Hector's unburied body</a>: Achilles must quit his rage and give Hector's body back to his family.</p>
<h2>A divine right</h2><p>This narrative is repeated in other ancient Greek myths. Best known, perhaps, is Sophocles' "Antigone," a Greek tragedy dating from the 440s B.C. In this play, two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, are killed in their fight for control of the city.</p><p>Creon, their uncle, who takes over the city, <a href="http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/ewatkins/Phil107S13/Sophocles-Antigone.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">forbids burial of one</a>. The play's conflict centers around their sister Antigone, who buries her brother against the new king's wishes, consigning herself to death.</p><p>In opposing this basic right, Creon is shown to suffer in turn, losing his wife and son to suicide in the process. In response to the capital punishment of Antigone for performing the rites due to her brother, his son Haemon takes his life and his mother Eurydice follows him.</p><p>Properly honoring the dead – especially those who have died serving their people – is from this perspective a divinely sanctioned right. Furthermore, mistreatment of the dead brings infamy on the city and pollution. Plague often curses cities and peoples who fail to honor their fallen.</p><p>This is central to the plot of "<a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/suppliants.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Suppliants</a>," another Greek play telling us the story of the conflict between the sons of Oedipus, king of the Greek city of Thebes. In this play by Euripides, the Thebans refuse to bury any of the warriors who fought against their city. The crisis is resolved only when the Athenian hero Theseus leads an army to force them to honor the dead.</p><p>One of the most famous examples of classical rhetoric shares in the tradition of honoring the dead as a public duty. Greek historian Thucydides writes about the funeral oration of Pericles, who was a popular leader in Athens during the 430s B.C.</p><p>On the occasion of offering the "<a href="https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-2461" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">epitaphios</a>," a speech over the fallen war dead, Pericles articulates his vision of the Athenians as standing against foreign threats in the past.</p><p>Memories of the past were an important guide to the future. This is in part why the funeral oration became so important in Athenian life: It provided an opportunity to explain why those lives were sacrificed in service of a shared civic mission and identity.</p>
<h2>Communities of memory</h2><p>Even today, memories are shaped by stories. From local communities to nations, the stories we tell will shape what we will remember about the past.</p><p>Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predict that an estimated 200,000 people in the U.S. will have died from the coronavirus <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-united-states-coronavirus-deaths-projection-400000-by-end-of-year/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">by Sept. 26</a> and some 400,000 by the year-end.</p><p>Many people who see loved ones die will deal with unresolved loss, or "<a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/complicated-grief/symptoms-causes/syc-20360374" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">complicated grief</a>" – grief that results from not knowing what happened to one's loved ones or without having the social structures to process their loss. That grief has been compounded by the current isolation. It has prevented many from carrying out those very rites that help us learn to live with our grief.</p><p>Just recently, I lost my 91-year-old grandmother, <a href="https://www.rivertowns.net/obituaries/obits/6665780-Beverly-Jean-Mjolsness" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Beverly Mjolsness</a>, to a non-coronavirus death. My family made the hard decision not to travel across the country to bury her. Instead, we gathered for a video memorial of a celebration of a life well-lived. As we did so, I could see my family struggling to know how to proceed without the rituals and the comfort of being together.</p><p>Such grief that does not allow for collective in-person memorialization can turn into <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/04/grief-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">debilitating trauma</a>. Our public discourse, however, when it has not tried to minimize the number of the dead or the continuing threat, has not sought to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/national-mourning-coronavirus/2020/05/15/b47fc670-9577-11ea-82b4-c8db161ff6e5_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">provide any plan for memorials</a>, now or in the future.</p><p>What Homer and Sophocles demonstrate is that the rites we give to the dead help us understand what it takes to go on living. I believe we need to start honoring those we have lost to this epidemic. It will not just bring comfort to the living, but remind us that we share a community in which our lives – and deaths – have meaning.<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145827/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation"></p><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/joel-christensen-965979" target="_blank">Joel Christensen</a>, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/brandeis-university-1308" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Brandeis University</a></em></p><p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-greek-classics-tell-us-about-grief-and-the-importance-of-mourning-the-dead-145827" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">original article</a>.</p>
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Bruce Lee: How to live successfully in a world with no rules
Shannon Lee shares lessons from her father in her new book, "Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee."
27 November, 2020
Videos
- Bruce Lee would have turned 80 years old on November 27, 2020. The legendary actor and martial artist's daughter, Shannon Lee, shares some of his wisdom and his philosophy on self help in a new book titled "Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee."
- In this video, Shannon shares a story of the fight that led to her father beginning a deeper philosophical journey, and how that informed his unique expression of martial arts called Jeet Kune Do.
- One lesson passed down from Bruce Lee was his use and placement of physical symbols as a way to help "cement for yourself this new way of being, or this new lesson you've learned." By working on ourselves (with the right tools), we can develop the skills necessary to rise and conquer new challenges.
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The "singleton hypothesis" predicts the future of humanity
Philosopher Nick Bostrom's "singleton hypothesis" predicts the future of human societies.
23 October, 2019
Politics & Current Affairs
- Nick Bostrom's "singleton hypothesis" says that intelligent life on Earth will eventually form a "singleton".
- The "singleton" could be a single government or an artificial intelligence that runs everything.
- Whether the singleton will be positive or negative depends on numerous factors and is not certain.
<p><br></p></div>
<p>Does history have a goal? Is it possible that all the human societies that existed are ultimately a prelude to establishing a system where one entity will govern everything the world over? The Oxford University philosopher <a href="https://www.nickbostrom.com/" target="_blank">Nick Bostrom</a> proposes the <strong>"singleton hypothesis," </strong>maintaining that intelligent life on Earth will at some point organize itself into a so-called "singleton" – one organization that will take the form of either a world government, a super-intelligent machine (an AI) or, regrettably, a dictatorship that would control all affairs.</p><p>Other forms of a singleton may exist, and, ultimately, Bostrom believes one of them will come into existence. The philosopher argues that historically there's been a trend for our societies to converge in "higher levels of social organization". We went from bands of hunter gatherers to chiefdoms, city-states, nation states and now multi-national corporations, the United Nations and so forth, all the way to <em>globalization</em> – one of President Donald Trump's <a href="https://time.com/5406130/we-reject-globalism-president-trump-took-america-first-to-the-united-nations/" target="_blank">favorite targets for attack</a>. One view of that trend sees increased power going to multi-national businesses and world government bodies, making globalization somewhat of a punching bag concept, often seen not as a needed re-organization of societies around the world, leading to increased cooperation and a peaceful international order, but rather for its potential to bring about the loss of jobs and undermine the sovereignties of individual countries, making citizens beholden to faceless totalitarian bureaucrats from foreign lands. </p>
<p>But a singleton doesn't have to result in a bad outcome, argues Bostrom. In fact, he thinks it could also be a good thing or at least something that's neither obviously positive or negative – just neutral. One way to get to a singleton, according to the philosopher, is through technology. Improved surveillance and communication, mind-control tech, molecular nanotechnology and artificial intelligence could all bring about a singleton.</p><p>While some aspects of such technologies could certainly be unwanted and infringe upon individual freedoms, Bostrom thinks that there are situations in which there could be broad support for either a technological solution or a single government agency to take control of the society. As the world grows more complex, it's harder to achieve efficient coordination between countries and individuals within them. Tech solutions in conjunction with converging moral values and a democratic worldwide government could facilitate that. </p><p>Other scenarios, like catastrophic events, could also hasten the creation of singletons. The League of Nations, for example, came out of World War I, while the creation of the United Nations was a byproduct of World War 2. </p><p>Some may view the current political trends of rising nationalism, tariff wars and anti-immigration platforms to mean that globalization and an overall unification of people the world over is not coming any time soon. In fact, it feels like we are going backwards on such a path.</p><p>In an email exchange with <strong>Big Think</strong>, Bostrom cautioned us to not only look at what is happening over the course of a decade or maybe even a few decades. There are much larger, historic trends at work, which may see the current times as a blip rather than a change in the overall direction.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"I don't think there's much evidence in the year-to-year (or even decade-to-decade) political jitters for the question of the long-term fate of Earth-originating civilization," writes Bostrom, while adding "Still, it seems a bit sad whenever the world is moving in the direction of fragmentation and unilateralism."</p><p>He would rather see relationships between nations like the United States and China to be cordial rather than the "tussles and tensions" that we get now, with the added risk of a further breakdown in communication leading to even worse outcomes. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"I fear that people have forgotten how bad the Cold War was or have learned the wrong lesson - "well we survived it so it wasn't so bad," warns the philosopher. "But I think it's more like somebody played a round of Russian Roulette and survived and then they say "hey that wasn't so bad, let's play another round!" With the opening of the nuclear archives, we can see how close the world came to the brink on several different occasions. Allowing ourselves to slide into another situation even remotely like that of the Cold War would be a huge mistake."<br></p><p>Political tides certainly can come and go. It might be long until we can definitively tell which era we are living in now. Either advanced technology and a spreading democratic order will create a global techno-utopia of the future or we will be enslaved by corporate hegemony and international oligarchs. There are also options in between. It's important to remember that once created, a singleton could become the way of life for the foreseeable future as it will take measures to stay in existence and to keep away threats.</p>
<blockquote> "Earth-originating intelligent life will (eventually) form a singleton," <a href="https://www.nickbostrom.com/fut/singleton.html" target="_blank">writes</a> Bostrom.<br></blockquote><p>Before you get set for your life to be dominated by a single agency, Bostrom's <a href="https://www.nickbostrom.com/fut/singleton.html" target="_blank">classic paper</a> on the subject lays out some specific pros and cons of a singleton.</p>
<p><strong><u></u></strong><strong><u>Four Advantages:</u></strong></p><p>- avoiding <strong>dangerous arms races</strong> – these are costly and potentially disastrous. Without many competing world powers, arms races would be unnecessary.</p><p>- avoiding a <strong>space colonization race</strong>, again leading to potential war and extreme expenses.</p><p>- avoiding <strong>inequality</strong> - a singleton could distribute wealth.</p><p>- avoiding <strong>evolutionary outcomes</strong> we don't want - a singleton (especially an AI) could better keep track of dystopian scenarios, like epidemics, and work towards the survival of the population as a whole.</p>
Want to Retain American Jobs? Stop Blaming Globalization
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-media_id="oxK8j1xN" data-player_id="FvQKszTI" data-rm-shortcode-id="2cf425d7b91ed2a6fc4fe19d065f3408"> <div id="botr_oxK8j1xN_FvQKszTI_div" class="jwplayer-media" data-jwplayer-video-src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/oxK8j1xN-FvQKszTI.js"> <img src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/thumbs/oxK8j1xN-1920.jpg" class="jwplayer-media-preview" /> </div> <script src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/oxK8j1xN-FvQKszTI.js"></script> </div><p><strong><u>Four Disadvantages:</u></strong></p><p>- having one entity control everything could lead to <strong>less control over decision-making</strong> and things could go bad for us humans. "All the eggs are in one basket" under this scenario, points out Bostrom.</p><p>- world without competition between states could be more vulnerable to <strong>systemic breakdowns</strong> than a world that is less arranged, in which "there are some processes that limit the destructiveness of certain kinds of failures," writes the philosopher.</p><p>- some singletons could lead to<strong> terrible bureaucracy </strong>and inefficiency – it's not certain whether that would outweigh the gains from such a coordinated society. That would depend on the "severity" of the problems.</p><p>- some singletons could be created by <strong>force</strong> - think Ghenghis Khan, Napoleon, Nazis and whatever new dictator is waiting in the wings. </p><p>Check out Nick Bostrom's paper<a href="https://www.nickbostrom.com/fut/singleton.html" target="_blank"> "What is a Singleton?" here.</a></p>
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3 reasons for information exhaustion – and what to do about it
How to deal with "epistemic exhaustion."
26 November, 2020
Photo by Filip Mishevski on Unsplash
Mind & Brain
An endless flow of information is coming at us constantly: It might be an article a friend shared on Facebook with a sensational headline or wrong information about the spread of the coronavirus.
<p> It could even be a call from a relative wanting to talk about a political issue. </p><p>All this information may leave many of us feeling as though we have no energy to engage. </p><p>As a <a href="https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/hf1190" target="_blank">philosopher</a> who studies <a href="https://philpeople.org/profiles/mark-satta" target="_blank">knowledge-sharing practices</a>, I call this experience “epistemic exhaustion." The term “epistemic" comes from the Greek word <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/" target="_blank">episteme</a>, often translated as “knowledge." So epistemic exhaustion is more of a knowledge-related exhaustion.</p><p>It is not knowledge itself that tires out many of us. Rather, it is the process of trying to gain or share knowledge under challenging circumstances. </p><p>Currently, there are at least three common sources that, from my perspective, are leading to such exhaustion. But there are also ways to deal with them. </p>
<h2>1. Uncertainty</h2><p>For many, this year has been full of uncertainty. In particular, the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0141076820930665" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">coronavirus pandemic</a> has generated uncertainty about health, about best practices and about the future.</p><p>At the same time, Americans have faced <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/07/voters-anxiously-approach-an-unusual-election-and-its-potentially-uncertain-aftermath/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">uncertainty about the U.S. presidential election</a>: first due to delayed results and now over <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/us/politics/trump-power-transfer-2020-election.html?searchResultPosition=3" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">questions about a peaceful transition of power</a>.</p><p>Experiencing <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/stress-uncertainty" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">uncertainty can stress most of us out</a>. People tend to prefer the planned and the predictable. Figures from 17th-century French philosopher <a href="http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/15537/1/Certainty%20and%20Explanation%20in%20Descartes%20HOPOS%20AcceptedFinal.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">René Descartes</a> to 20th-century Austrian philosopher <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/762159.On_Certainty" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ludwig Wittgenstein</a> have recognized the significance of having certainty in our lives.</p><p>With information so readily available, people may be checking news sites or social media in hopes of finding answers. But often, people are instead greeted with more reminders of uncertainty.</p>
<h2>2. Polarization</h2><p>Political polarization <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/robert-barrett-phd/the-stress-from-political-polarization-is-killing-us-slowly_a_23350469/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">is stressing many Americans out</a>.</p><p>As political scientist <a href="https://gvpt.umd.edu/facultyprofile/mason/lilliana" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Lilliana Mason</a> notes in her book, "<a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/U/bo27527354.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Uncivil Disagreement: How Politics Became Our Identity</a>," Americans have been increasingly dividing politically "into two partisan teams."</p><p>Many writers have discussed the <a href="https://theconversation.com/extreme-political-polarization-weakens-democracy-can-the-us-avoid-that-fate-105540" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">negative effects of polarization</a>, such as how it can damage democracy. But discussions about the harms of polarization often overlook the toll polarization takes on our ability to gain and share knowledge.</p><p>That can happen in at least two ways.</p><p>First, as philosopher <a href="https://www.kevinvallier.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kevin Vallier</a> has argued, there is a "<a href="https://www.kevinvallier.com/reconciled/low-trust-exacerbates-polarization/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">causal feedback loop</a>" between polarization and distrust. In other words, polarization and distrust fuel one another. Such a cycle can leave people feeling <a href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/284357/polarization-may-undermine-community-bonds-trust-others.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">unsure whom to trust or what to believe</a>.</p><p>Second, polarization can lead to <a href="https://time.com/5907318/polarization-2020-election/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">competing narratives</a> because in a deeply polarized society, as studies show, we can <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/for/16/1/article-p47.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lose common ground</a> and tend to have less agreement.</p><p>For those inclined to take the views of others seriously, this can create additional cognitive work. And when the issues are heated or sensitive, this can create additional <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190926073348.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">stress and emotional burdens</a>, such as sadness over damaged friendships or anger over partisan rhetoric.</p>
<h2>3. Misinformation</h2><p>Viral misinformation is everywhere. This includes <a href="https://iop.harvard.edu/get-involved/study-groups/propaganda-today%E2%80%99s-american-politics" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">political propaganda in the United States</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/books/review/peter-pomerantsev-this-is-not-propaganda.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">around the world</a>.</p><p>People are also inundated with advertising and misleading messaging from private corporations, what philosophers <a href="http://cailinoconnor.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Cailin O'Connor</a> and <a href="http://jamesowenweatherall.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">James Owen Weatherall</a> have called "<a href="https://heterodoxacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/062_Cailin_oConnor_How_False_Beliefs_Spread.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">industrial propaganda</a>." And in 2020, the public is also dealing with <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01452-z" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">misinformation about COVID-19</a>.</p><p>As chess grandmaster <a href="https://twitter.com/kasparov63/status/808750564284702720?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Garry Kasparov put it</a>: "The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth."</p><p>Misinformation is often exhausting by design. For example, <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-plandemic-and-the-seven-traits-of-conspiratorial-thinking-138483" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a video that went viral,</a> "<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2020/05/08/why-its-important-to-push-back-on-plandemic-and-how-to-do-it/?sh=3e430c9e5fa3" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Plandemic</a>," featured a large number of false claims about COVID-19 in rapid succession. This flooding of misinformation in rapid succession, a tactic known as a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/9/26/13036258/donald-trump-debate-win-lies-preparation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gish gallop</a>, makes it challenging and time-consuming for fact checkers to refute the many falsehoods following one after another.</p>
<h2>What to do?</h2><p>With all this uncertainty, polarization and misinformation, feeling tired is understandable. But there are things one can do.</p><p>The American Psychological Association suggests <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/stress-uncertainty" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">coping with uncertainty</a> through activities like limiting news consumption and focusing on things in one's control. Another option is to work on becoming more <a href="https://pemachodronfoundation.org/product/comfortable-with-uncertainty-book/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">comfortable with uncertainty</a> through practices such as meditation and the cultivation of mindfulness.</p><p>To deal with polarization, consider communicating with the goal of <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/phpr.12624" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">creating empathetic understanding</a> rather than "winning." Philosopher <a href="http://mjhannon.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Michael Hannon</a> describes empathetic understanding as "the ability to take up another person's perspective."</p><p>As for limiting the spread of misinformation: Share only those news stories that you've read and verified. And you can prioritize outlets that meet high ethical <a href="https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">journalistic</a> or <a href="https://www.poynter.org/ifcn-fact-checkers-code-of-principles/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fact-checking standards</a>.</p><p>These solutions are limited and imperfect, but that's all right. Part of resisting epistemic exhaustion is learning to live with the limited and imperfect. No one has time to vet all the headlines, correct all the misinformation or gain all the relevant knowledge. To deny this is to set oneself up for exhaustion.<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149615/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation"></p><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/mark-satta-1173820" target="_blank">Mark Satta</a>, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/wayne-state-university-989" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Wayne State University</a></em></p><p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-reasons-for-information-exhaustion-and-what-to-do-about-it-149615" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">original article</a>.</p>
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