A different kind of Cancel Culture

 So, now Joe Biden wants to do outreach to isolated communities to inform them about Covid vaccines and the Right are going apoplectic?

On top of all that, there are multiple sites on the internet telling us ways we can reach those who don't want to take the vaccine:

https://www.thedrum.com/news/2021/03/01/how-do-you-convince-anti-vaxxers-get-vaccinated-covid-comms-around-the-world

Then there is this:

Almost All U.S. COVID-19 Deaths Now in the Unvaccinated

https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210629/almost-all-us-covid-19-deaths-now-in-the-unvaccinated

Here is what I think:

There are two groups, those in minority communities that distrust the government and the medical profession.

Then there are those who are just OBSTINANT, who refuse for religious reasons, conspiracy reasons, or just plain "I don't wanna" reasons.

We should ALL do all we can to do outreach to those who are fearful of vaccines and provide them with information and support, not ridicule them.

As for the second group, as nasty as it is for me to think this, maybe they just need to die out since they are going to be the ones dying. I would avoid them like the plague, make them unwelcome, and would go one step further, anyone who ends up spreading the virus because they went out publicly unmasked and unvaccinated should be charged. That last one likely won't happen, but wish it would.

Lastly, I would do NO outreach to that second group, NONE - ZIP, they won't change their minds anyways - so why waste an ounce of breath on them?

Time to Cancel Culture that group!

Predicting economic collapse: 1972 predictions revisited

Wheeee!!! I bought a brand new Black Smoker!

Loud, proud, does not care about the environment

and wants everyone to know how he feels

In 1972, a MIT study generated some scenarios indicating that slowed economic growth would lead to significant societal collapse or reversals in the 21st century. Collapse meant that economic growth would slow, stop and maybe even reverse. That would be accompanied by a decreasing standard of living for most people. Presumably rich folks would be, as usual, just fine, happy and rolling in dough. 

A recent reanalysis by a risk assessment wonk at KPMG (Gaya Herrington) of that original study based on current data indicates that according to two modeled scenarios, the human race is on track to basically follow the 1972 predictions. The updated study is published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology. One was the ‘BAU2’ or the business-as-usual scenario and the other was the ‘CT’ or comprehensive technology scenario. Both predicted a collapse would start sometime in the next decade or two in accord with the new analysis.

Gathering for a Black Smoker party!!

Vice writes:

The study represents the first time a top analyst working within a mainstream global corporate entity has taken the ‘limits to growth’ [LtG] model seriously. Its author, Gaya Herrington, is Sustainability and Dynamic System Analysis Lead at KPMG in the United States. However, she decided to undertake the research as a personal project to understand how well the MIT model stood the test of time.

Titled ‘Update to limits to growth: Comparing the World3 model with empirical data’, the study attempts to assess how MIT’s ‘World3’ model stacks up against new empirical data. Previous studies that attempted to do this found that the model’s worst-case scenarios accurately reflected real-world developments. However, the last study of this nature was completed in 2014.

Herrington’s new analysis examines data across 10 key variables, namely population, fertility rates, mortality rates, industrial output, food production, services, non-renewable resources, persistent pollution, human welfare, and ecological footprint. She found that the latest data most closely aligns with two particular scenarios, ‘BAU2’ (business-as-usual) and ‘CT’ (comprehensive technology).

“BAU2 and CT scenarios show a halt in growth within a decade or so from now,” the study concludes. “Both scenarios thus indicate that continuing business as usual, that is, pursuing continuous growth, is not possible. Even when paired with unprecedented technological development and adoption, business as usual as modelled by LtG would inevitably lead to declines in industrial capital, agricultural output, and welfare levels within this century.”

Study author Gaya Herrington told Motherboard that in the MIT World3 models, collapse “does not mean that humanity will cease to exist,” but rather that “economic and industrial growth will stop, and then decline, which will hurt food production and standards of living… In terms of timing, the BAU2 scenario shows a steep decline to set in around 2040.”

Unfortunately, the scenario which was the least closest fit to the latest empirical data happens to be the most optimistic pathway known as ‘SW’ (stabilized world), in which civilization follows a sustainable path and experiences the smallest declines in economic growth—based on a combination of technological innovation and widespread investment in public health and education.

While focusing on the pursuit of continued economic growth for its own sake will be futile, the study finds that technological progress and increased investments in public services could not just avoid the risk of collapse, but lead to a new stable and prosperous civilization operating safely within planetary boundaries. But we really have only the next decade to change course.  

“The necessary changes will not be easy and pose transition challenges but a sustainable and inclusive future is still possible,” said Herrington.

The 1972 scenarios predicting bad outcomes tend to be better matches with reality in 2021, than the scenarios predicting better outcomes. Maybe this gives us a reasonable indication of what is to come if rich and powerful people, special interests and rigid ideologues keep opposing regulations to protect the environment and masses of people, just like they have been for decades.

No doubt, climate science deniers, government-hating political and Christian ideologues, crackpot conspiracy theorists and the carbon energy and chemicals sectors, e.g., Exxon-Mobile, Dow Chemical, Koch Industries, some or most transportation companies, etc., will reject any analysis like this as flawed or whatever they deem is needed to argue this into oblivion and keep profits flowing and/or the cognitive dissonance at bay from reality-based ideological disturbances. We wouldn’t want to upset anyone’s serene Feng Shui, would we?

Hm. Yup, at least some of us would love to see some upset Feng Shui among the elites, rabid ideologues and crackpots.

Anyway, the seeds of human self-destruction and long-term misery are hard wired into our mostly irrational brains by evolution. Too bad we cannot learn from science or history. So let's just blindly blunder ahead into the hardship and misery that awaits us bottom ~99%. The misery fun and games maybe starts beginning about 20 years or thereabouts from now.

Real black smokers

Update: Brain-machine interface technology

Brain-machine interface (BMI) technology is an area of long-term personal interest. BMI tech links brains with machines. That is usually done by implanting electrodes into brains and then linking electrical brain signals to computers that analyze the signals and translate them into coherent speech or mind-controlled machine movement. In essence, the technology fuses aspects of consciousness or mind with machines. The point is to allow people who cannot speak or move to do so through machines. Progress in this area is slow and incremental.

Part of the interest in BMI tech is looking for hints about the nature and biological basis of consciousness and possible insights into the centuries old mind-body problem. Depending on the expert one listens to, the mind-body problem is either one of the hardest, most complex problems that humans have ever attempted to solve, or it is just a matter of figuring out how to read electrical signals in the brain. Incremental advances in BMI tech strike me as generally in the figuring out how to read signals category, but maybe we still don’t fully understand the problem. Despite several decades of research in this area, BMI tech is still in its infancy. There could still be major surprises along the way.

A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine describes another incremental advance. In a person with anarthria (the loss of the ability to articulate speech), scientists implanted an electrode array into the sensorimotor cortex of his brain. The scientists used the electrode array to record 22 hours of the patient’s brain activity while he attempted to say individual words from a set of 50 words. Deep-learning algorithms created computational models for detecting and classifying words from electrical patterns in the recorded cortical activity. These computational models and a natural-language computer model were used to generate probabilities of a next word based on the preceding words in a sequence. That was used to decode full sentences as the patient tried to say them. The electrodes transmitted brain signals to a computer that analyzed them and displayed the intended words on a computer screen.

The researchers reported their results as follows: 

We decoded sentences from the participant’s cortical activity in real time at a median rate of 15.2 words per minute, with a median word error rate of 25.6%. In post hoc analyses, we detected 98% of the attempts by the participant to produce individual words, and we classified words with 47.1% accuracy using cortical signals that were stable throughout the 81-week study period.

 

The patient chatting through his BMI set-up

A New York Times article elaborates on what is going on here.

In nearly half of the 9,000 times Pancho [the patient] tried to say single words, the algorithm got it right. When he tried saying sentences written on the screen, it did even better.

By funneling algorithm results through a kind of autocorrect language-prediction system, the computer correctly recognized individual words in the sentences nearly three-quarters of the time and perfectly decoded entire sentences more than half the time.

“To prove that you can decipher speech from the electrical signals in the speech motor area of your brain is groundbreaking,” said Dr. Fried-Oken, whose own research involves trying to detect signals using electrodes in a cap placed on the head, not implanted.

After a recent session, observed by The New York Times, Pancho, wearing a black fedora over a white knit hat to cover the [electrode] port, smiled and tilted his head slightly with the limited movement he has. In bursts of gravelly sound, he demonstrated a sentence composed of words in the study: “No, I am not thirsty.”

In interviews over several weeks for this article, he communicated through email exchanges using a head-controlled mouse to painstakingly type key-by-key, the method he usually relies on.

The brain implant’s recognition of his spoken words is “a life-changing experience,” he said.

“I just want to, I don’t know, get something good, because I always was told by doctors that I had 0 chance to get better,” Pancho typed during a video chat from the Northern California nursing home where he lives.

Later, he emailed: “Not to be able to communicate with anyone, to have a normal conversation and express yourself in any way, it’s devastating, very hard to live with.”

Context

This is another example of machines being able to read and translate brain signals into some form of coherence that other minds can receive and understand. Past BMI tech accomplishments include mouse to mouse communication over the internet about how to navigate a maze to get to food. In that study one mouse was in Brazil and the other in the US. Their brains were linked by signals transmitted from one brain to the internet then from the internet to the other brain. 

Another BMI increment was getting a fully paralyzed person to successfully fly a modern jet fighter simulator (an F-35, I think) through BMI tech. A US military program attempted to use commands from a human brain to a rat brain with some success. It was an attempt to weaponize the rodents for use in armed conflicts. In another research project, limited human to human brain (mind?) communication was accomplished using recorded and decoded magnetic pulses that were converted to electrical signals and decoded by computers.

Clearly, this technology is still both complex and primitive. The computer algorithms have to be able to teach themselves how to read brain signals. That accomplishment appears to be beyond the ability of the human mind alone, maybe because the signal to noise ratio is too low for humans alone to work with. Progress just inches forward. 

Despite that, there are no limits on how far BMI tech can go that I am aware of. Decoding brain signals takes a lot of computer power and sophisticated programming, but there seems to be enough of that so far. Until some kind of a technological brick wall is hit, continued slow progress can be expected for the foreseeable future.

The fascinating question still remains unanswered. Is the brain the same thing as the mind (or consciousness, intelligence or sentience), or is there something more to it? So far, all the BMI data seems to be compatible with brain = mind, or maybe brain + CNS + PNS = mind.[1] Either one would be a possible solution to the old mind-body problem. As data slowly accumulates, it seems that room for something other than body being needed for mind gets smaller and smaller. Room for a God of the gaps seems to be decreasing as knowledge increases.

Footnote: 

1. CNS = central nervous system; PNS = peripheral nervous system

It is possible that brain + CNS + PNS + all or nearly all other cells and tissues = mind, maybe even brain + CNS + PNS + all or nearly all other cells and tissues + other people and the environment = mind.

For example, sometimes an amputee feels pain from a limb that has been amputated. The brain is heavily and intimately connected to almost the entire body and it can ‘remember’ something that just isn’t there. And, humans are inherently social creatures. Social structures or institutions can and do shape or control how we perceive and think about reality. What are the physical-biological-social limits of the mind, e.g., just the brain, or something(s) more than just that? Is the question even answerable?

And, also note that the brain isn’t just neurons. There are other cells there that can and do modulate neuron activity, and presumably that affects (is part of?) the mind too. 

The CNS is in yellow, the PNS is in blue 

humans are complicated little machines

In case of emergency, break glass… (or not)

It is no secret that we, here on DisPol, are not all that fond of the rank and file Republicans.  “We see” mentally “dead people” out there, raising political hell, and we are concerned.  We feel totally justified in our concern and can present case after case of what we (and the media) see as the systematic crumbling of American democracy.  Like the religious eat, drink and sleep their religions, we here do the same with our politics.  Let’s face it, we’re just as fanatical.  We’re here virtually every day, investigating and showcasing what we see as political trouble/shenanigans.  BUT…

Out there in the real world, I have to wonder if the rest of the people (you know, “the real people” as Jack Nicholson called them in Cuckoo’s Nest) are all that taken in by what we here see as the blatant and nefarious shenanigans of the Republican Party.  Are we really in as dire shape, politically, as we think we are?

Questions: What do you think?  Do we overreact around here?  Or, is democracy indeed on the verge of falling and Everyman’s hair should be on fire?  Make your for/against case.

Thanks for posting and recommending.