Scientists are mixing human and animal forms

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

The situation with what is called “science” but is actually technology (and sometimes technology-worship) is about as bad as it can get. The “science” establishment in our society has more or less the power, influence, prestige and access to resources that the Church had at the time of the renaissance. Where is the Luther that will free us from slavery to this oppressive organization?

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Ventura column – Accidents of Birth and Rebirth

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

MICHAEL VENTURA

LETTERS AT 3AM – ACCIDENTS OF BIRTH AND REBIrTH

Austin Chronicle – July 13, 2012

 

Whenever I bitch about the evils of my era, I take a moment to remind myself that no other era would have me.

Had my birth occurred a few years earlier, my mother almost certainly would have died — me, too, probably. Fortunately for us, by 1945 the world had spent a decade tearing itself to pieces with war; that massive variety of wounds inspired myriad new medical techniques, and as a direct consequence, my mother and I lived.

Me, just barely. I kept on almost dying. Doctors said I’d not make it to 1950 and age five. But penicillin worked wonders. Now I read that penicillin’s mass production wasn’t effective until well into the Fifties. Gee. I’d lucked out again.

My existence has been, so to speak, a generational gift, but my generation is famously ungrateful for its advantages, and I’m no exception.  My good fortune failed to restrain a recklessness that is, for better and worse, at the core of my nature. Drinking, smoking, pushing myself past sane limits of endurance – I like that sort of thing. (But I don’t do drugs, and never have, for fear they’d mess with what Mikey says is my favorite vice: writing.)

Life continued for an unexpectedly long time until, six or so years ago,

Continue reading Ventura column – Accidents of Birth and Rebirth

How many widgets?

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Thinking, Fast and Slow

I am reading a book by a retired professor of psychology who is a winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Probably a pretty dull book, right?

Pretty dull book, wrong. It’s lively, consistently engaging, and useful. It’s called Thinking, Fast and Slow. The author is Daniel Kahneman.

A while ago I sent out a puzzle to my email list,  saying that a bat and a ball together cost $1.10, and the ball cost $1 more than the ball did, so how much did the ball cost. I and many of my friends were flummoxed by this elementarily easy puzzle, not because we’re stupid (we aren’t) but because of the way we habitually process information.

That puzzle came from this book. Here’s another. (This time, forewarned that there might be a rat in the cellar, I got the answer right, easily. I predict that you will too, for the same reason: You are forewarned. This is what his book is about, how the mind uses two systems to process information. Forewarning mobilizes system 2.)

“If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?

“100 minutes OR 5 minutes”

If you got the answer right without hesitation, you haven’t learned anything by this puzzle.

If you got it wrong, or got it right only after you hesitated and then rejected the wrong answer, you have experienced the shift from system 1 to system 2.

If you don’t know if your answer is right or wrong, email me and I’ll tell you, but that is a sign that you are not shifting over to system 2 when you should.

This is a fascinating book!

A Time for Planting Intentions

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Those who have no personal experience of dowsing, and those who know of dowsing only in connection with the practice of finding water, will scarcely be able to believe its true potential. One particularly effective practitioner is my friend Raymon Grace, whose book The Future is Yours we distributed at Hampton Roads about 10 years ago.

Here is Raymon’s latest newsletter. As always, it contains good news, hopeful news, because it reminds us of the great abilities we have to directly affect things that conventional understanding says can’t be affected.

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Peter Diamandis: Abundance is our future

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Peter Diamandis: Abundance is our future

This TED talk  is the ultimate answer to the people who think the past is dismal, the present is dismal, and the  future is  hopeless.

Peter Diamandis runs the X Prize Foundation, which gives rich cash awards to  inventors and engineers. The X Prize’s first $10 million went to a space-themed challenge. Diamandas’ goal now is to extend the prize into health care, social policy, education and many other fields that could use a dose of competitive innovation.

Now that you know who he is, listen to his irrefutable analysis of what’s going on around us.

http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamandis_abundance_is_our_future.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2012-03-02&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

 

Sitting in the top ten

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

I see from the New Consciousness Review that their interview with me was one of the 10 most popular interviews of 2011. The hypertext listing brings you to a page that includes the interviews.

Sitting in some pretty fast company there, too. Coming in just after Hank Wesselman ain’t bad!