Civilizations can carry a surprising number of parasites and live. But there’s a line — Rome crossed it, the Gilded Age toed it, and for the first time in history, we can measure it.
Don't delegate understanding
There is a parasite, I see it everywhere. It consumes your health and wealth. It preys on ignorance and is easy to catch. It’s so common you may not even not...
Global aid cuts could lead to 23 million deaths by 2030, study estimates
Lab tests are negative for more than 200 pathogens, but testing continues.
America, América: a new history of the New World
"The story of how the United States' identity was formed is almost invariably told by looking east to Europe. But as Greg Grandin vividly demonstrates, the nation's unique sense of itself was in fact forged facing south-no less than Latin America's was indelibly stamped by the looming colossus to the north. In this stunningly original reinterpretation of the New World Grandin reveals how North and South emerged from a constant, turbulent engagement with each other. America, América traverses half a millennium, from the Spanish Conquest-the greatest mortality event in human history-through the eighteenth-century wars for independence, the Monroe Doctrine, the coups and revolutions of the twentieth century, and beyond. Grandin shows, among other things, how royalist Spanish America, by sending troops and supplies, helped save the republican American Revolution; how in response to U.S. interventions, Latin Americans remade the rules, leading directly to the founding of the United Nations; and how the Good Neighbor Policy allowed FDR to assume the moral authority to lead the fight against world fascism. Grandin's book sheds new light on well-known historical figures like Bartolomé de las Casas, Simón Bolívar, and Woodrow Wilson, as well as lesser-known actors such as the Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda, who almost lost his head in the French Revolution and conspired with Alexander Hamilton to free America from Spain; the Colombian Jorge Gaitán, whose unsolved murder inaugurated the rise of Cold War political terror, death squads, and disappearances; and the radical journalist Ernest Gruening, who in championing non-interventionism in Latin America, helped broker the most spectacularly successful policy reversal in United State history. This is a monumental work of scholarship that will fundamentally change the way we think of slavery and racism, the rise of universal humanism, and the role of social democracy in staving off extremism. At once comprehensive and accessible, America, América shows that centuries of bloodshed and diplomacy not only helped shape the political identities of the United States and Latin America but also the laws, institutions, and ideals that govern the modern world. A culmination of a decades-long engagement with hemispheric history, drawing on a vast array of sources, and told with authority and flair, this is a genuinely new history of the New World"-- Provided by publisher
The liberal virus: permanent war and the Americanization of the world
Humans Create Empires For The Same Reason They Create Egos
Reading by Tim Foley:
CDC Stopped Monitoring Parasite Now Causing Explosive Diarrhea Across The Country
MAHA.
HOME - Daniel Schmachtenberger
EXPLORATIONS ON THE FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION Some of the central questions being explored here: With the first fully globalized civilization, how do we avoid the collapse fate that has befallen all previous civilizations? What are effective types of immune systems for identifying and correcting corruption in governance systems? How do we comprehensively disincentivize misinformation and harm to … HOME Read More »
Norm Dynamics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Social Norm Emergence, Persistence, and Change
Social norms are the glue that holds society together, yet our knowledge of them remains heavily intellectually siloed. This article provides an interdisciplinary review of the emerging field of norm dynamics by integrating research across the social sciences through a cultural-evolutionary lens. After reviewing key distinctions in theory and method, we discuss research on norm psychology—the neural and cognitive underpinnings of social norm learning and acquisition. We then overview how norms emerge and spread through intergenerational transmission, social networks, and group-level ecological and historical factors. Next, we discuss multilevel factors that lead norms to persist, change, or erode over time. We also consider cultural mismatches that can arise when a changing environment leads once-beneficial norms to become maladaptive. Finally, we discuss potential future research directions and the implications of norm dynamics for theory and policy.
Differences Between Tight and Loose Cultures: A 33-Nation Study
The differences across cultures in the enforcement of conformity may reflect their specific histories. , With data from 33 nations, we illustrate the differences between cultures that are tight (have many strong norms and a low tolerance of deviant behavior) versus loose (have weak social norms and a high tolerance of deviant behavior). Tightness-looseness is part of a complex, loosely integrated multilevel system that comprises distal ecological and historical threats (e.g., high population density, resource scarcity, a history of territorial conflict, and disease and environmental threats), broad versus narrow socialization in societal institutions (e.g., autocracy, media regulations), the strength of everyday recurring situations, and micro-level psychological affordances (e.g., prevention self-guides, high regulatory strength, need for structure). This research advances knowledge that can foster cross-cultural understanding in a world of increasing global interdependence and has implications for modeling cultural change.
The great myth of empire collapse | Aeon Essays
Societal downfalls loom large in history and popular culture but, for the 99 per cent, collapse often had its upsides
Trump’s deep public health cuts hinder response to record US cyclosporiasis outbreak
Experts say layoffs, reduced disease surveillance and Medicaid cuts have made the foodborne parasite more difficult to track and contain
America Has a Pangram Problem
AI-detection tools are getting better. But they still aren’t good enough.
Humanity’s Endgame
A new history of societal collapse by an expert in existential risk argues that our globalized society is edging toward the precipice.
We May Be Entering A Second Axial Age
The transition from small hunter-gatherer societies into complex civilizations gave rise to the first Axial Age. Today, the planetary polycrisis of climate chaos, mass migration, increasing warfare and transformative AI represents a rupture of comparable magnitude.
How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United …
A pathbreaking history of the United States' overseas p…
