Kropotkin's Favorite Links on society from Diigo

Cognitive Processes and Suppression of Sound Scientific Ideas

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:45:22 -0000

American and British history is riddled with examples of valid research and inventions which have been suppressed and derogated by the conventional science community. This has been of great cost to society and to individual scientists. Rather than furthering the pursuit of new scientific frontiers, the structure of British and American scientific institutions leads to conformity and furthers consensus-seeking. Scientists are generally like other people when it comes to the biases and self-justifications that cause them to make bad decisions and evade the truth. Some topics in science are 'taboo' subjects. Two examples are the field of psychic phenomenon and the field of new energy devices such as cold fusion. Journals, books and internet sites exist for those scientists who want an alternative to conformist scientific venues.

Tags: Science society

Posted by: kropotkin

The End Does Not Justify The Means

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:39:16 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

for once a little corruption is accepted, more serious opportunities of corruption will surely follow.

so many Americans have let fear do the choosing between right and wrong.

Decades of history show the U.S. government does not value human life - it values only power. And the government uses fear to manipulate the people into supporting its actions no matter how horrendous. Because so many accept the falsehood “the end justifies the means” they become capable of endorsing evil they would otherwise have rejected.

A recurrent example of this is of the United States’ targeting civilians for some geopolitical “end” it wishes to achieve (resulting in the tragic death and suffering of millions)

Do not arrogantly think you are capable of compromising what you know is right and wrong in a situation just because it is difficult, for many well-intentioned people have done so only to later find themselves having accepted degrees of inflicting harm upon others they would never have thought themselves capable.

Tags: society resistance ponerology

Posted by: kropotkin

No Title

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:17:20 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

It is the work that allows one to live, joyously, while in a profound state of grief.

No matter how much time we humans have left on the planet, we can do what is possible to make that time meaningful.

Pornography is a place where we can see what the death of empathy looks like; it offers a picture of a world bereft of the fundamental values of compassion and solidarity; it provides a narrative of a people with no sense of shared humanity.

For me, they are political (the absence of meaningful democracy in large-scale political units such as the modern nation-state), economic (the brutal inequalities that exist internal to all capitalist systems and between countries in a world dominated by that predatory capitalism), and ecological (the unsustainable nature of our systems and the lifestyles that arise from them). Beyond that, I am most disturbed by a cultural and spiritual crisis, a condition that goes to the core of how we understand what it means to be human.

Consider all the ways you have to understand the world: Is there anything in your field of perception that tells you that we're on the right track?

a reminder that human egos are typically larger than brains, which emphasizes the dramatic need for a drastic humility.

Tags: society resistance transition culture

Posted by: kropotkin

All experts agree: Legalize Drugs

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 08:20:02 -0000

Tags: society social engineering drugwar

Posted by: kropotkin

Reality Versus Your Comforting Illusions

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:55:19 -0000

Tags: society mindcontrol social engineering

Posted by: kropotkin

Dear world, please confront America

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:50:20 -0000

Tags: empire society resistance

Posted by: kropotkin

The Power of Synergy: Individual Personal Ties Strengthen Teams' Overall Creativity

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:46:16 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

In essence, there is a team mindset that is greater than the sum of individual team members. When this synergistic process occurs, teams have the capacity to achieve high levels of creativity.

With more employees working in teams, it is critical to find ways to enable teams to be more creative in their work. A new article in Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal explores how imagination, insight, and creative ideas develop, evolve, and spread from one team member to another, ultimately increasing the team’s ability to think creatively about a range of problems.

Tags: society cooperation creativity

Posted by: kropotkin

Feel the Eyes Upon You

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 13:37:44 -0000

Tags: surveillance psychology society

Posted by: kropotkin

Group Helplessness and Rage, Ernest S. Wolf, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:28:52 -0000

Tags: society psychology

Posted by: kropotkin

Do criminal psychopaths enjoy other people's fear?

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:22:26 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Also for more information on psychopathy read Robert D. Hare's Without Conscience and Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths go to Work posted by kropotkin

However, whereas the non-psychopathic subjects showed a similar increase in brain activity in response to the distressed faces, the psychopathic subjects did not. In fact, when the psychopaths were shown sad or fearful faces, their brain scans actually showed less neural activity than when they were shown neutral faces.

normal" people lie, there is increased activity in the frontal lobe that suggests the experience of guilt and discomfort; but when psychopaths lie, there is no increased brain activity. An earlier study found that when psychopaths viewed emotionally charged words like "rape" or "murder," the changes in their brain activity were completely different from the changes that occurred when non-psychopaths saw those words. The increased brain activity in the psychopaths wasn't even in the limbic system, which is where language processing occurs.

But not all psychopaths are violent -- some are "merely" manipulative, dishonest and incapable of experiencing deep emotions, and they may blend in with society with relative ease. A CEO who cheats his employees out of their pensions and then walks off without a tinge of regret may be a psychopath. Psychopaths, violent or non-violent, have no "moral compass," no conscience. They do not experience feelings of guilt for the crimes or betrayals they commit.

Tags: psychopathy society

Posted by: kropotkin

What Power Looks Like

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:06:01 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

All the discussion of how permeable the new superclass is obscures the issue of those who have a permanent place. You can bet that right at the top, in the immovable, permanent positions, are the psychopaths, protecting their positions for the bloodline of their families. posted by kropotkin

Tags: global elite economics society

Posted by: kropotkin

At last we know why the Columbine killers did it.

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:46:50 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Harris, they believe, was irretrievable. He was a brilliant killer without a conscience, searching for the most diabolical scheme imaginable. If he had lived to adulthood and developed his murderous skills for many more years, there is no telling what he could have done. His death at Columbine may have stopped him from doing something even worse.

Ochberg theorizes that the two killers complemented each other. Cool, calculating Harris calmed down Klebold when he got hot-tempered. At the same time, Klebold's fits of rage served as the stimulation Harris needed.

Psychopaths follow much stricter behavior patterns than the rest of us because they are unfettered by conscience, living solely for their own aggrandizement. (The difference is so striking that Fuselier trains hostage negotiators to identify psychopaths during a standoff, and immediately reverse tactics if they think they're facing one. It's like flipping a switch between two alternate brain-mechanisms.)

Harris' pattern of grandiosity, glibness, contempt, lack of empathy, and superiority read like the bullet points on Hare's Psychopathy Checklist and convinced Fuselier and the other leading psychiatrists close to the case that Harris was a psychopath.

Both killers feigned regret to obtain an early release, but Harris had relished the opportunity to perform. He wrote an ingratiating letter to his victim offering empathy, rather than just apologies. Fuselier remembers that it was packed with statements like Jeez, I understand now how you feel and I understand what this did to you.

Harris claimed to lie to protect himself, but that appears to be something of a lie as well. He lied for pleasure, Fuselier says. "Duping delight"—psychologist Paul Ekman's term—represents a key characteristic of the psychopathic profile.

These are the rantings of someone with a messianic-grade superiority complex, out to punish the entire human race for its appalling inferiority. It may look like hate, but "It's more about demeaning other people," says Hare.

What the boy was really expressing was contempt.

And when the media studied Harris, they focused on his hatred—hatred that supposedly led him to revenge.

Fuselier and Ochberg say that if you want to understand "the killers," quit asking what drove them. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were radically different individuals, with vastly different motives and opposite mental conditions. Klebold is easier to comprehend, a more familiar type. He was hotheaded, but depressive and suicidal. He blamed himself for his problems.

Harris is the challenge. He was sweet-faced and well-spoken. Adults, and even some other kids, described him as "nice." But Harris was cold, calculating, and homicidal. "Klebold was hurting inside while Harris wanted to hurt people," Fuselier says. Harris was not merely a troubled kid, the psychiatrists say, he was a psychopath

It wasn't just "fame" they were after—Agent Fuselier bristles at that trivializing term—they were gunning for devastating infamy on the historical scale of an Attila the Hun.

But Harris and Klebold planned for a year and dreamed much bigger. The school served as means to a grander end, to terrorize the entire nation by attacking a symbol of American life.

Tags: psychopathy society

Posted by: kropotkin

Monsanto: History of Contamination and Cover-up

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:41:08 -0000

The new Monsanto has clearly come to dominate the American food chain with its genetically modified (GM) seeds. It’s a master at enforcing its 674 biotechnology patents, using tyrannical and ruthless tactics against small farmers.

Tags: corporations ecology society

Posted by: kropotkin

More than 2,000 US children reported missing per day

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:26:34 -0000

Tags: empire society pathocracy

Posted by: kropotkin

Social engineering: The art of manipulating the internet user

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:34:43 -0000

Tags: internet society

Posted by: kropotkin

Development: US fails to measure up on 'human index'

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:24:07 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

the world's number-one economy has slipped to 12th place - from 2nd in 1990- in terms of human development.

Thats a quite a fall in just 20 years. posted by kropotkin

It has 5% of the world's people but 24% of its prisoners.

In fact, the report shows that 15% of American children - 10.7 million - live in families with incomes of less than $1,500 per month.

It also reveals 14% of the population - some 40 million Americans - lack the literacy skills to perform simple, everyday tasks such as understanding newspaper articles and instruction manuals.

One of the main problems faced by the US, says the report, is that one in six Americans, or about 47 million people, are not covered by health insurance and so have limited access to healthcare.

Tags: empire society

Posted by: kropotkin

Psychopathy shouldn't be treated as an illness

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:20:26 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Their salient characteristic is that they are phenomenally selfish. They lack any capacity for empathising with others. They can think with brutal logic about how to get what they want, and then act so as to achieve it - simply ignoring the harm that they do to others on the way.

"Do I feel bad when I hurt someone?" another rapist and kidnapper is recorded as telling a psychiatrist. "Yeah, sometimes. But mostly it's just like. . . uh. . . (he laughs). I mean, how did you feel the last time you squashed a fly?"

I see myself more as the victim than as a perpetrator

Tags: psychopathy society

Posted by: kropotkin

Roots of Corruption Jamaica Gleaner 1.8.06.pdf

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:20:10 -0000

Tags: society pathocracy

Posted by: kropotkin

Action-as-Propaganda

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:40:25 -0000

Action-as-propaganda can reinforce an oddly reassuring feeling of certainty, helping to bend reality into line with a distorted and propagandistic image of the world. It also distorts our perceptions of this reality so that the gap between public perception and official propaganda is further diminished.

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

sott:The author, although seeming to have an excellent grasp of the mechanics used to sway mass public opinion and to perpetrate attrocities, still appears to be affected by the 'evil arab terrorist' line being sold to him by those aforementioned methods! When he says the following: "It is hard to imagine that Bush and Blair consciously wish to make things worse;" he may be missing a vital clue: psychopathy. His statement above, is best explained in the words of Andrew Lobaczewski: Goaded by their character, such people thirst for just that even though it would conflict with their own life interest.... They do not understand that a catastrophe will ensue. Germs are not aware that they will be burned alive or buried deep in the ground along with the human body whose death they are causing. posted by kropotkin

You watch, public opinion will change. We lead our publics

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too." This is a path to madness--but a perversely persuasive one.

Tags: society psychology propaganda

Posted by: kropotkin

New Interest in Vertical Farms for Urban Areas

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:35:45 -0000

Tags: agriculture society

Posted by: kropotkin