Monday, April 18, 2022

Reading archive 2022-04-18

McDuffie ineligible to run for D.C. attorney general, elections board says

The nuclear missile next door: What it’s like to live with a bomb stronger than 20 Hiroshimas in a time of rising worldwide tensions.

China tries to cover lockdown strains on Shanghai’s front-line workers

Elon Musk wants a free speech utopia. Technologists clap back.: Musk’s vision of the Internet is outdated and doesn’t take into account the real world, they say - "Fast forward and the Internet is indeed a different place. Russian trolls sowed disinformation on social platforms in the 2016 U.S. election and President Donald Trump used a network of followers as a misinformation megaphone in the lead up to the last election. Anti-vaccine activists have used social media to spread health conspiracies to millions of people. Even now, amid the conflict in Ukraine, researchers and Facebook have identified disinformation networks trying to tilt public opinion toward Russia."

A Democrat in gym shorts tries to rally blue votes in Trump country: John Fetterman believes his road to the U.S. Senate runs through Pennsylvania’s red, rural areas

The mindfulness conspiracy: It is sold as a force that can help us cope with the ravages of capitalism, but with its inward focus, mindful meditation may be the enemy of activism. - "Instead of encouraging radical action, mindfulness says the causes of suffering are disproportionately inside us, not in the political and economic frameworks that shape how we live. And yet mindfulness zealots believe that paying closer attention to the present moment without passing judgment has the revolutionary power to transform the whole world. It’s magical thinking on steroids."

Thich Nhat Hanh: is mindfulness being corrupted by business and finance?

The Trouble with Mindfulness Be mindful of three compelling problems with mindfulness. - "Thus, these studies basically find that mindfulness is better than nothing. Those that do use established interventions as comparison groups in randomized trials generally find that mindfulness works about as well as the other interventions such as exercise, prayer, pleasant activities (including watching television), and so forth."

Mindfulness is a capitalist grift: How faux enlightenment maintains our status quo: The meditative practice favored by America's titans of industry bears no relation to its anti-materialist origins


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