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makingscipub · 7 years

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Collision, collaboration and communication

The other day I read an article on why academics are losing relevance in society. I noticed that it contained a picture of a celebratory cake with the inscription “Here’s to the first direct detection of gravitational waves” (after two black holes collided). This event happened in 2016 and was widely celebrated around the world, mainly I suppose by scientists and science enthusiasts. The article says nothing about this event or why this picture was chosen for an article talking about the loss of relevance of science in society.

I read this article just a week after another, even more spectacular announcement relating to gravitational waves. I am not talking about gravitational wave researchers being awarded the Nobel prize for physics this year on 3 October, but about the announcement of the detection of a binary neutron star merger resulting in a gamma-ray burst and emission of gravitational waves. This was observed on 17 August and announced on 16 October.

Although in terms of astronomical distances, this collision of stars happened in our backyard, has this got any relevance to society here on earth? In some sense it hasn’t, in particular to those people living with war, hunger, illness and poverty or the aftermaths of hurricanes, floods and wildfires. People caught up in these situations certainly won’t find comfort in knowing that distant neutron stars have collided.

So, can one make a case for these findings being in any way relevant to society? Perhaps yes. Just like the 1968 picture of planet earth sent back from space, they allow us to see things differently. Seeing things differently might lead to acting on the world and on each other differently.

And despite everything, these findings may also bring some solace to us in dark times. As J. K. Rowling said in a tweet, referring to an article in The Independent: “Following space accounts on here is good for your mental health. Soothing glimpses of vastness, beauty & mystery.”

Collision

What am I actually talking about? I am talking about the observation (‘sight’ and also ‘sound’) of two neutron stars slamming into each other and shaking the fabric of the universe. Lots has been written and said about this discovery and I won’t go too deeply into the science as such.

Hannah Devlin has written a good overview for The Guardian and an article published by the ‘Inside Science News Service’ adds a human dimension to the story. It shows how news of the neutron star collision rippled round this planet and woke up hundreds and hundreds of scientists; like this one for example:

“Aug. 17, 2017. It started as an ordinary morning in southern Louisiana. The air was hot and humid as the sun rose above the Mississippi River. Brian O’Reilly, one of the lead scientists at the Livingston location of the gravitational wave detection facility known as LIGO, was just beginning his day. It was barely 8 o’clock when his phone rang. ‘I have twin babies — they’re a year and a half — and I was actually changing my daughter at the time,’ said O’Reilly. ‘That’s when my phone started beeping in my pocket.’ Minutes later, he was in a phone conference with fellow astrophysicist Gabriela Gonzalez from Louisiana State University, as well as scientists thousands of miles away at LIGO Hanford in the state of Washington.” … There are many more such human stories out there.

This feat of scientific detection was only made possible through extensive collaborations between human scientists across the world.

Collaboration

The scientists involved were spread across continents and worked at numerous institutions and installations, most importantly perhaps LIGO and Virgo: “LIGO and Virgo comprise more than 1,500 scientists, all of whom are working towards a single goal: to capture signs of gravitational waves and decode their meaning. The data gathering happens at massive observatories in the US and Italy, but the analysis is done in countries all over the world.”

As Kieran Healy tweeted: “One of the new LIGO papers has 4,500 authors at 910 different institutions—about a 1/3 of the world’s astronomers.” To which Nathan Oxley replied: “It can stop you in your tracks to think about the level of cooperation and coordination of resources and people needed to achieve this.”

It is therefore not astonishing that the news was greeted with great excitement by a new initiative that has just been launched, namely “Together Science Can”, which is supported by the Wellcome Trust and many other organisations (see here for tweets).

Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust and supporter of this initiative, wrote an article for The Guardian about scientific collaboration before the neutron stars announcement. Some of what he wrote is worth quoting in the context of our search for ‘relevance’ of science in society:

“We need to celebrate […] collaboration more than ever, because it doesn’t happen on its own. It needs an environment that encourages researchers to build international and interdisciplinary teams, to work in different countries, to attack problems that no one person, or nation, can solve alone. […]

It’s up to people who, like me, believe in the power of science to speak up for the systems and principles that make collaboration possible. It means making the case for flexible, welcoming immigration that allows the movement of talented people and teams across borders in order to take global action against global problems.”

The discovery of the neutron star collision was a great example of collaboration in fundamental science. We need to nurture, not restrict and obstruct, such collaborations, also beyond fundamental science. They are ‘relevant’ for society as a whole, as they show what humans can do when they work together.

Communication

As Philip Ball has recently pointed out, science communication is difficult. On the one hand, one wants to a serious job, not just rave and enthuse about science; on the other one has to grab readers’ or listeners’ attention and engage them in discussion and dialogue. In the case of this discovery it was difficult not to be enthusiastic.

Adam Rutherford, an experienced science communicator/writer, introduced a report about the neutron star collision for the BBC Radio 4 programme Inside Science in the following way: “… it’s our job on Inside Science to get behind the headlines and more importantly to undo the hype and give a real cool-headed scientific analysis of landmark new discoveries. So let me begin by saying that this is freaking awesome”. If you know how awesome this was in terms of science and collaboration, please listen to the podcast.

The language used when communicating about this discovery was certainly colourful and would deserve a more detailed analysis. The Independent spoke of an ‘alchemical explosion’, a headline that was retweeted by Scientists for EU in the following way: “’An alchemical explosion’. Beautiful! Two neutron stars just seen colliding – disrupting spacetime & spewing… gold”.

And with gold we get down to earth, away from abstract notions of gravitational waves and neutron stars. Some people said that scientists had indeed struck gold! And one tweeter replied to the Scientists for EU tweet by saying: “Where’s ma mule? I’m a gonna get me some o’that thar gold.”

More seriously, we can now begin to find out where the heavy elements, like gold, on the periodic table come from, where they are ‘forged’ in the universe. Does this make it ‘relevant’ to people? Perhaps not, as this tweet shows: “Gogglebox is hilarious. ‘Two neutron stars collided 130 million years ago’ ‘Why are they bringing it up now then?’” Ok, so not everybody is interested in space and astronomy; even some big science writers aren’t!

However, what really cheered me up was that this event was not just ‘communicated’ by scientists and professional science communicators. It was also talked about by people who are just good communicators (with a background in science), such as Mike Galsworthy, of ‘Brexit communication’ fame. Listen to his talk about how scientific collaboration is turning our planet into a listening super-organism; a great example of good science communication!

Conclusion

The picture of Earthrise sent to us from space in 1968 changed some people’s perceptions of our planet. Seeing our planet as a listening super-organism based on international collaboration might perhaps change how we see ourselves as a collaborative species. I find this quite inspiring and relevant for society.

In any event, it is really important that we talk more about collaborations beyond borders in science and also society; and not only talk; let’s provide the best conditions for this to happen, rather than putting more and more obstacles in the way.

Epilogue

When the announcement was made on BBC Breakfast on 16 October, I was, yet again, in Eye Casualty. I saw and listened to it over and over in the course of two hours and the whirr-plop sound of the collision will stay with me for ever. Did it cheer me up, give me ‘perspective’? No! However, the thought of someday perhaps going back to all this and looking at this more deeply, even just to distract myself, did give me something to hang on to, at least for some of the time. So I tucked away some tweets while I waited…

Image: Illustration of a binary neutron star system in the process of merging. The remnant formed by this merger could be either a neutron star or a black hole, determining whether it launches a gamma-ray burst. [NASA] (Los Alamos National Laboratory)

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smithbrayden-blog · 5 years

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Cryptocurrency Update: Cryptocurrency ride over last three years

The pressure got increased for the global financial system to cope up and to develop as per the needs of its customers. Disasters such as the housing bubble collapse in 2008 and the failed currencies in places like Venezuela and Zimbabwe have seen people look for another course of action to traditional banking and financial systems. For many people, Bitcoin emerges as a great solution, as it has the ability to be used as an international payment system and it also doesn’t involve third parties or government organizations.

Even though Bitcoin got geared up too fast in the last three years, the whole credit goes to media as well as public attention that it has been going on since decade. As early as 2010-2014, cryptocurrencies were not well known, and their initially reported use as a tool to buy weapons and drugs on the darknet. Soon, innovators and technology saw the potential of cryptocurrency not only as a means of tax evasion and shadow buyers but also as a tool that could benefit consumers with a fast and stable transfer of value. The broad audience realized that there was nothing to fear from Bitcoin, and people in all spheres of life tormented by the system, as well as by banks and high fees, began to do their own research. After people began to get interested, the cryptocurrencies increased.

The huge leap of interest and public consciousness has forced banks, governments, and companies on the scale of IBM, Microsoft and Amazon to explore digital currencies and their core technology. The last three years have set a charming basis for the future of money.

About three years ago, news came about the early miners and investors who saw thousands of accumulated Bitcoins that turned into millions of dollars. Overnight millionaires appear everywhere, with Bitcoin’s price rising to $1,000. Suddenly, Bitcoin has been bought by amateurs and investors who see a chance to achieve the dream that comes quickly. Bitcoin was relaxed to come to be and trade and it looked like a decent choice to make money because the attention in the digital coin makes the price bubble up. Bitcoin needed less than a year to 20 times its value by 2017, which was supposed to be a cautionary sign for every cautious investor.

With all its beginnings, the original coins (IPO with cryptocurrency) began to appear everywhere. Blockchain companies create a sign of their business and then put it on the market in order for investors to buy in the hope of making a huge return on their investment. On one side, ICOs interrupted the venture capital model in a way that has not been noticed so far, with companies able to finance their business within minutes, hours and days beyond their expectations and without all the rules that traditional companies have experienced. They had the opportunity to self-finance with thousands of investors around the world who want to invest in the golden fever for cryptocurrency.

On the contrary, space was overwhelmed by scammers and amateurs who wanted to take advantage of the opportunity for funds in the unregulated space, often without the intention of paying to investors in any way. People were flinging money on the smoothest projects without doing their due conscientiousness and little knowledge of the company’s success model. Over the past few years, many ICOs, some of whom have raised millions in capital, have failed to take the money with others, while others have been scammers. OneCoin is an excellent example of ICO scam because it has taken the cryptocurrency excitement and used it to mask a clear and obvious Ponzi scheme. Expected financial damage in this fraud has exceeded $4 billion.

Hype triggered a bubble that quickly popped out and $20,000 Bitcoin fell to levels of $3,000 in 2018, launching a long-term bear market and scorching a lot of hypothetical investors. The bear market has caused many newcomers to withdraw, some go out and some keep a few Bitcoins hoping to turn. The bear market was bad for many of those who invested, but overall it was a good thing for cryptocurrency because it makes people stop using Bitcoin as a hypothetical asset that was never meant to be. With fewer people redirecting space, businesses and regulators have been able to get in and focus on what is most important about the cryptocurrency, which is the core blockchain technology.

Abruptly, IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, and others were building blockchain blocks. Banks that once laughed at the ecosystem now hire blocking engineers, adding unbelievable legality to space. The regulators have already seen that the block and the numeric symbols are of great value and can be separated from the frauds and hacks that are often seen in the ICO markets. Regulators wanted to work with technology, and companies wanted to use it for their systems.

As it made a massive hit in 2018, the cryptocurrency market began relying on the legitimacy of its technology-block-winning. Abruptly, after mostly losing profits, several cryptocurrencies began to pick up at the beginning of 2019. In a little while, the positive news of the cryptocurrency market saw the return to the interests of society – only this time the interest was based on more conjecture supported by large institutional money.

The media began to announce the first quarter of 2019 for the ‘Cryptocurrency Spring’, which has been excited both by investors and businesses. People predicted that the institutional buy-in will re-start the space, and it looks like 2019 is turning into a year of studying the cryptocurrencies for businesses. Co-founder and Product Architect of Bancor, Eyal Hertzog and a longtime crypto enthusiast, spoke of his predictions about the forthcoming of cryptocurrencies:

“Cryptocurrencies, as we know them today, are only the tip of the iceberg. In the future, we’ll see tokens for everything from artists and artwork, to neighborhoods, charities, startups and more, creating new network models and embedding localized incentive structures into online and offline communities across the globe. Right now, the Libra project represents a watershed moment as Facebook, one of the largest corporations in the world, has entered the fray along with giants like eBay, PayPal, and Visa.”

Bitcoin has already passed the mark of $12,000 and shows no signs of delay in returning to the public’s favor. We hope that with the regulation of the road and the legitimate institutions that are leading this way, crypto market will become more stable, more reliable space for the prosperity of real companies and new technologies, which will lead to transactions in the 22nd century and for the betterment of all of us, changing the financial systems as well.

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thisdaynews · 5 years

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The Rise of the Battleground Campus

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/the-rise-of-the-battleground-campus/

The Rise of the Battleground Campus

NextGen Arizona’s organizers Maria Eller and Dana Carey on the Arizona State University campus in Phoenix. | M. Scott Mahaskey/Politico

Kyle Spencer is a journalist who covers the confluence of education and politics. The reporting for this article was supported by a Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship at Columbia University.

TEMPE, Ariz.—The vibe at Arizona State University’s sprawling main campus of palm trees and succulents was part carnival, part political convention. Hip hop and dance pop blasted from speakers as students handed out free popcorn and cotton candy on the lawn near the student union. Young men and women played bean bag and ball-toss games typically reserved for child birthday parties or the state fair, whilecheerful, clipboard-toting activists in T-shirts and flip-flops urged them to register to vote.

This mixing of junk food and civic zeal was a poll-tested and focus-grouped enterprise, as carefully constructed as a 30-second television advertisement. It was all part of September’s National Voter Registration Day, a 7-year-old aspiring holiday. It’s little known among people who aren’t election officials, political activists—or the college students in their sights. At ASU, the civic zeal regularly spills over into the rest of the week and well into the next, as young liberals seek to register as many students as possible, and while young conservatives seek to remind them that not every 20-something has to be a liberal.This year, there were so many volunteers registering their classmates in preparation for the state’s Democratic primary in March and the general election in November 2020 that canvassers had trouble finding a single student who hadn’t already been approached.

The College Republicans stood behind tables brimming with Constitutions. March for Our Lives organizers distributed flyers for a free pancake breakfast to talk about gun safety laws. And Turning Point U.S.A., the ubiquitous campus conservative group, not only handed out bags of potato chips and miniature Snickers bars, but also rolled out a giant “free speech ball” and asked students to write “whatever you want” on the ball with a black sharpie. Many did. The idea was to mock safe spaces and knee-jerk campus liberalism, but the ball ended up blanketed with as many far-left as far-right views.South America is America too. I love Donald Trump. We need government transparency. #Bernie2020.

As the 2020 election approaches, both parties are sinking money and time into college campuses, driven by the idea that students—often dismissed as low-turnout layabouts—could have a huge effect in a tight race in a swing state. The mega-campuses of the Brobdingnagian public universities and community colleges in states like like Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania are sometimes called “battleground campuses” by organizers and activists on the ground. “In an election that could come down to a point or two either way in Arizona or Wisconsin, turning out voters at ASU, University of Wisconsin-Madison and other college campuses in these states could easily make the difference,” said Andrew Baumann, a pollster for Global Strategy Group, a consulting firm that spent 2018 trying to figure out what makes the would-be college voter tick for Tom Steyer’s NextGen.

“It’s pretty clear that 2020 is going to shatter records for turnout given what we saw in 2018, the Virginia and Kentucky elections a couple of weeks ago, and what we’re seeing in every poll that asks about enthusiasm to vote or motivation,” Baumann said. “And the group that has the most room to grow is young people.” While young voters still turned out at lower rates than older voters in 2018, their rate of increase in turnout was, he says, “by far” the highest.

In the Trump era, college students are voting in record numbers. In 2018, 7.5 million college students who were eligible to vote went to the polls. That was a 40 percent turnout, more than double the rate four years earlier, according to researchers at Tufts University. At ASU, of the students registered to vote in the most recent midterms, 59 percent pulled a lever, compared to 27 percent in 2014.

And there are more young people now than ever. In 2020, people between 18 and 23 will make up a tenth of the electorate, up from just 4 percent in 2016. Going beyond college-age Americans, voters between 18 and 29 now represent 21 percent of the population. That’s 46 million voters, compared to 39 million among seniors.

With multiple Starbucks, their own police departments, community engagement centers and polling booths, these massive universities are like small cities. In 2016, Trump took Arizona by 91,234 votes. ASU’s total 2018 enrollment was 111,249 (with 72,709 students on its campuses and 38,540 enrolled online). In Wisconsin, Trump won by 22,748. The student population at the University of Wisconsin at Madison is nearly double that. Trump secured Pennsylvania with 44,292 votes. The student population at Pennsylvania State University at State College is more than twice that. And in Michigan, where Trump won by almost 11,000 votes, Michigan State University’s student body count is more than four times that number. College students really could help swing a state and therefore the presidential election, as well as make the difference for a U.S. Senate seat and other down-ballot races.

“You’ve got 50,000 kids living in a fairly compact area,” said Teddy Goff, a partner at Precision Strategies, a consulting firm in Washington that was founded by veterans of Barack Obama’s political operation. “If you’ve got people on foot going door to door or standing in a single location with a clip board and fliers there’s not a more effective way to get people registered and ready to vote.”

In advance of Trump’s reelection effort, his son Don Jr. has embarked on a near-constant tour of swing state universities, often with his girlfriend and former Fox News host, Kimberly Guilfoyle. Since announcing her 2020 run, the selfie-fueled Elizabeth Warren has addressed a 3,000-person audience in an auditorium at ASU about “money-driven corruption in Washington” and student loan debt. During a recent call inquiring about the preponderance of candidates addressing students the University of Michigan, I was told the press office was too busy to talk, as the university was planning a visit from Hillary Clinton, who came the next day, to share her wisdom on how to beat (or perhaps just get more votes than) Trump.

Yet polls also show that these young voters are less likely to identify with political parties, which they view as feckless entities corrupted by big business and bureaucrats, than they are to ally with specific issues like health care or LGBTQ rights. This aversion to parties can make them less predictable than boomers who have voter files that are decades-long.

In addition to untold student debt, many young college students also bear resentment that no one kept the semi-automatics out of their high schools. They aren’t really mad, according to surveys, polls and chats with people who spend a lot of time with them, as much as they are ready to take charge.

Even if they resistbeing identified as party members, most college students vote for the Democrats, so it would seem that Trump’s eventual opponent would have an obvious advantage on the nation’s campuses. Voters of ages 18 to 29 supported Democrats by a 44-point margin in 2018, Baumann says. That was up from a 25-point margin in favor of Hillary Clinton in 2016.

But with a well-funded and heavily coordinated band of conservative groups long used to outspending Democrats, it’s not entirely clear who is the David and who is the Goliath. The Leadership Institute, a school for young conservatives founded by Morton Blackwell, has trained more than 200,000 Republican-leaning activists since its inception in 1979. Among its graduates are Karl Rove, Grover Norquist and Mitch McConnell. Last fiscal year, the institute had nearly $20 million in net assets and worked with close to 2,000 groups, holding nearly 6,000 campus activities. A review of dozens of tax documents indicate that this past fiscal year alone, conservative foundations spent more than $100 million on the long-term venture of drawing college students to their side, with groups like Young America’s Foundation, which has $70 million in net assets, alone spending more than $19 million on educational endeavors.

NextGen America, the progressive, get-out-the-vote group founded by California billionaire turned 2020 presidential candidate Tom Steyer, is the most prominent advocacy outfit aimed at the young left. It spent $38 million in 2018 and is expected to spend at least that much in 2020 on voter participation efforts, mostly on large schools in swing states. That’s made NextGen a campus darling and has helped it to infuse its well-tested strategies into other less impressively funded progressive groups.

But together conservative groups are expected to far exceed that. Students for Trump, the political arm of Charlie Kirk’s conservative Turning Point U.S.A., has announced that it will be spending an estimated $15 million, and Young Americans for Liberty is planning on spending a projected $13 million on campuses recruiting, training and canvassing for 150 libertarian candidates that the organization plans to endorse in state legislative races around the country.

Sitting at one of ASU’s five Starbucks, wearing a blue T-shirt that read Be A Voter, Azza Abuseif, who is the Arizona coordinator for NextGen, told me her team at ASU—111 volunteers, two paid organizers and a regional coordinator who oversees operations—was focused on one thing: “Register, register, register.” In 2018, the group registered more than 20,000 young Arizonans and aims to register at least as many for 2020. Other groups in the state will focus on stoking the state’s Latino population, or white suburban women, or Native Americans and African Americans. As Abuseif said, “We are going to bring the youth vote.”

“We believe we can change this election by targeting students,” she told me.

Austin Smith, the administrative director for the PAC overseeing Students for Trump, told me he wasn’t sure Abuseif’s plan would do the trick. It was lunchtime and he was wearing jeans and cowboy boots, despite the scorching heat. We were standing on the campus’ main quad a week after Voter Registration Day, and activists of all political persuasions were enticing students to their tables. Turning Point’s table—bursting with volunteers wearing T-shirts that said “Hate Us ‘Cause They Aint’ Us,” a nod to the group’s belief in American exceptionalism—seemed to be garnering the most attention.

Smith seemed to know that he wasn’t going to persuade a majority of his peers to vote to reelect Trump—but that isn’t the plan. If Students for Trump can distract its progressive rivals and shave off a few votes for the Democrats here and there, they’ll count it as a win, maybe even a decisive one. “We’re going to get a larger amount of votes than most political consultants and pundits think,” Smith told me. “We don’t need as many votes as the left does.”

Still, in 2016 in Wisconsin, Hillary Clinton won voters under 30 by just 4 points. Across the fabled and breached Blue Wall that year, college-aged field organizers grumbled bitterly that they’d been ignored by Clinton’s headquarters in Brooklyn. In Michigan, they alleged, frequent requests for campaign literature were denied by Brooklyn. In Pennsylvania, young canvassers said Brooklyn brushed aside their on-the-ground observations that Trump was more appealing than the campaign’s beloved data was indicating. And in Wisconsin, when Clinton failed to show up to a single Wisconsin college between the Democratic National Convention and Election Day, Wisconsinites, young and old, returned the favor. Trump won the state by less than 23,000 votes. Green Party candidate Jill Stein got 31,000 votes.

In the months after the 2018 midterms,Rachel Haltom-Irwin, Barack Obama’s 2012 get-out-the-vote director, presented an idea to the Democratic National Committeefor a national college student training program that would center on the swing state ground game and make efficient use of young activists. Called Organizing Corps, the multimillion-dollar program targets mostly students of color. This past summer, the program trained 300 students in an Atlanta classroom, and then sent them back to their swing states with instructors who continued to coach them on the ground for another seven weeks. The process is designed to resemble a “medical residency,” Haltom-Irwin said. There are currently 25 members in Arizona. More young Arizonians will be trained in Tempe in January.

On the Republican side, a similar interest in college students has surfaced but for the opposite reason. Although polls showed that support for Trump among younger voters was dismal, he surpassed expectations, earning 37 percent of the millennial vote,exactly what Mitt Romney had gotten in 2012. Trump did particularly well with young white males. Turning Point’s Kirk, who had spent months on the trail advocating for the president, believed the election was a sign. “The president won and a lot of young people who love our country realized he was looking out for us,” Kirk told me. “He was restoring the idea of America, our values and our pride.”

Weeks after the election, Trump’s staff began meeting with the leaders of student youth groups to explore how issues around campus speech could be pushed to generate more support for a president who was already developing an unlikely cult following among certain young, mostly white evangelicals and hardliners who related to his resistance to “PC” culture. They saw him as a rebellious rabble-rouser bucking a liberal establishment that had been snubbing them since they’d arrived on their campuses. Buoyed by the momentum, groups like Prager University, a conservative website that produces videos designed for young undecideds, looked to expand their reach. And the Leadership Institute reformulated a two-day training program so they could take it on the road to the growing number of conservative student conferences.

But it was Turning Point, the group that has touted as its mission for seven years “to identify, educate, train and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets and limited government” that saw the most drastic uptick. The group says it will have increased the number of its chapters to more than 600 by this fall. Members didn’t see Trump’s win as a victorious ending, but the beginning of a new movement to return conservative ideas to their campuses.

Nowhere has this uptick been more pronounced than in Arizona. On one side is a pack of heavily energized progressive organizations that sprouted to life in 2010 on high school and college campuses as a response to the state’s crackdown on undocumented residents, led by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. During the 2018 midterms, these young activists helped to elect a new secretary of state and a new schools superintendent, the first Democrats to hold those offices in decades. They began to believe that if they could strengthen their campus ground game even more, especially at schools like ASU, they might be able to play a significant role in defeating Trump in Arizona in 2020.

On the other side is a group of young Arizona conservatives driven by Tyler Bowyer, an ASU grad who landed a seat on Arizona’s Board of Regents in 2011. In 2016, Trump’s victory felt to Bowyer like a personal one. While leading the Republican Party of Maricopa County, the largest in the state, he had organized one of the nation’s first Trump for president rallies. Shortly after the election, when Kirk went looking for a place to build out Turning Point’s headquarters, Bowyer had already been hired to develop a leadership program for the nonprofit and was building Turning Point’s West Coast presence. Kirk chose Arizona, at Bowyer’s prodding, and hired him to run the organization’s daily operations from his home state.

Turning Point’s headquartersare in a warehouse in an office park purposefully situated a mere 10 minutes from the Phoenix Airport, so students from other campuses can easily fly in and out for three- and four-day training sessions. It buzzes with the activity of dozens of young employees, many of whom recently graduated from ASU. WhenI arrived on an early October morning, passing through a carpeted entryway, I was ushered into a conference room that overlooks one of Phoenix’s jagged mountain ranges, decorated with photos of a beaming Kirk—with Trump, with Kellyanne Conway, with Jordan Peterson. There I met Bowyer, an effervescent 34-year-old wearing jeans, a baseball cap and a fleece jacket with Turning Point’s logo on the lapel. He was on the phone with the White House, he said, discussing plans for a black leadership summit booked for that weekend where black college students were scheduled to meet the president, which they did.

Many conservative donors and Turning Point members believe, seemingly rightly, that campuses and the professors that teach on them aren’t just pushers of liberal thought, but promoters of the Democratic Party platform. The place is studded with framed posters and placards taped to cubicles that bash the political leanings of the average campus progressive: “Taxation is Theft,” and “If socialism is so great why don’t people flee from Florida to Cuba?” There are desk chairs draped in American flag quilts and little elephant statues, a nod to the Grand Old Party mascot, scattered about.

When I was there several young, casually dressed staffers were inputting data on the 600-plus chapters regional directors were helping to develop, collecting the names and phone numbers of hundreds of young conservatives. In front of oversized computer screens, graphic designers mulled color schemes and fonts—using specs found in a 126-page brand guide for Turning Point—for material that is mailed to campuses across the country. This headquarters is also where Turning Point oversees its Professor Watch list, a controversial online archive of college and university professors who are said to have expressed rage at the president or dismay at right-wing policies.

Turning Point has a professional TV studio that feeds directly to Fox News and a huge production area where editors design memes and videos that take down campus “snowflakes” and leftist politicians. In the back, Alex Clark, the ripped-jean wearing host of Poplitics, a five-minute multi-platform show that Turning Point launched late last month, was finishing up the editing of her first episode.

I stepped into the office of the events administrator, Gage Huber, who was planning the group’s upcoming annual summit, held every December at the West Palm Beach Convention Center. A list of needed purchases—lighting, grass carpeting, new furniture—was hastily scrawled on a white board next to the words: Sense of Urgency. This year’s summit, Huber told me, was going for the look and feel of Coachella, the music festival. There are 5,000 expected attendees, and Turning Point says it has reserved rooms in seven hotels to house them.

Students for Trump, the group’s newly formed political arm, Bowyer made a point of telling me, would be opening in a few days in a warehouse across the parking lot. It would be organized in much the same way as its sister organization, with paid staff members in all 50 states, divided up by regions and territories, using the same methodology to determine what types of communications best persuade college students. Most of its efforts, he told me, would be clustered on large campuses in the 2020 battleground states.

He propped up a large, color-coded posterboard map of the country carved up into regions and later showed me a flow chart of the group’s employees. The same structure would be used for Students for Trump.

“We are going to run this thing like a midsize sales company,” Bowyer said.

Studies of donor patterns suggest that Republican groups are better than their Democratic counterparts at soliciting funds early for upcoming elections. That fundraising edge is probably why Turning Point feels like it is hurdling headfirst into the social media obsessed future, while its local progressive rival, One Arizona, resembles a lightly staffed suburban accounting firm. An umbrella organization that helps coordinate the state’s progressive groups, One Arizona does its work 12 miles away, on the top floor of a 1970s-era brick and stucco office building, in a suite of carpeted offices above Arizona’s school employees union.

But One Arizona’s drab offices mask a sophisticated operation that, like Students for Trump, carefully tracks what get-out-the-vote tactics—doors, phones, digital ads, mail, radio—work best. On both sides, nothing in this regard is left to chance. Bowyer’s team at Turning Point have spent hours exploring what colors elicit the warmest response, in-person and online (“Green,” he told me), or what kind of tone should be used for a video designed to change a 20-something’s opinion. (“Keep it as simple as possible, as acceptable as possible, as tongue-in-cheek as possible. That’s what’s going to be shared,” he said.) The research is mixed on whether a young person with undeveloped views about which side to vote for wants to hear his peers bash Elizabeth Warren or pump up Trump. Not mixed is how much fear of “socialism” resonates with young, middle-of-the-road voters. And a greasy hipster is a good way to elicit annoyance about sloppy complainers who don’t want to work very hard. “There aren’t that many of them,” Bowyer said. “But everyone knows one.”

“It doesn’t necessarily work with this generation to make voting a political thing,” said Baumann, the Global Strategy Group pollster. “Many young people believe that politics is broken and not working. You don’t want to remind them of something they don’t like. You want to make voting a positive, empowering, community experience.”

Yet at the same time, campus politics and national politics seem to have merged. On a Sunday in early November, Turning Point fans in Arizona and across the country celebrated “MAGA Pride Day,” a predictable stab at college Pride celebrations, as part of the official launch of Students for Trump. Students tossed their red MAGA hats in the air and posted their photos online. On the winter schedule are a roster of campus stopovers for Kirk and Don Jr., who made a series of college visits in the past few weeks to talk about Biden and impeachment and to rile up Democrats over the $50,000 the University of Florida at Gainesville spent to have him and Guilfoyle show up.

The results of that tour, however, have been checkered. Don Jr. was booed off the stage not long ago at the University of California at Los Angeles during an event to promote his new book,Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us. In that case, the alt-right did the booing. But Don Jr. is unsurprisingly getting it from all sides. This week, Michael C. Murphy, the student body president who invited him to speak at the University of Florida, was accused of “malfeasance” and “abuse of power,” theTampa Bay Timesand the university’s independent student newspaper theAlligatorreported, for deploying student fees to pay for the appearance.

Like the rest of American life, basically everything has become a part of, or a response to, the Trump show. At the University of Florida, a student senator said the student president “colluded,” not with Russia or Ukraine in this case, but “with a member of the Donald Trump campaign.” The remedy, naturally, is a resolution of impeachment.

#Battleground #Campus #Foreign #Politics

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juliettespencerus · 5 years

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Powerful Topics in Medicine Interview with Sayer Ji

Marc David, Founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, interviews Sayer Ji who is a widely recognized researcher, author, and founder of greenmedinfo.com. Greenmedinfo is known internationally for providing open access, evidence based resources supporting natural and integrative healing modalities. Marc and Sayer discuss how true health is life empowerment and why so many people are choosing natural remedies.

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Transcript:

Marc: Welcome, everybody. I’m Marc David, Founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. Here we are in The Future of Healing Online Conference, and I am here with one of my favorite thought leaders in the nutrition and health and transformation space, Sayer Ji. Welcome, Sayer Ji.

Sayer Ji: So good to be here, Marc. I love your interviews and what you’re doing, and it’s always a great pleasure to be in your events.

Marc: Thanks! The feeling is so mutual. Let me just say a quick few words about you for anyone who’s not familiar with your work.

Sayer Ji is a widely recognized researcher, author, and presenter, a member of the Global GMOFree Coalition and advisory board member of the National Health Federation and Fearless Parent. He’s a reviewer and editor of The International Journal of Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine and the founder of one of my favorite online resources and one of the world’s most widely referenced, evidencebased natural health resources of its kind, and that’s greenmedinfo.com. Now Sayer Ji founded greenmedinfo.com in 2008 to provide the world an openaccess, evidencebased resource supporting natural and integrative modalities.

That’s how I first found you was just doing what guys like us do. We poke around online and we find stuff. Somehow I found GreenMedInfo and my jaw just dropped! Then I spent a little time stalking you and finding out more about you. I’m like, “Wow! I’ve got to meet this person.” I’m a huge fan of your work, and we’ve gotten to have some great conversations. I’m wondering if we could just start out a little bit, big picture of just how you personally got on your journey into the work that you do. How did you end up here?

Sayer Ji: Well, it’s a very similar story. We had spoken about how you also had come to this movement because of health issues, and I think both of us suffered early on from types of illnesses that made it necessary to be within the conventional medical system. I know I had an inhaler until I was 20, always by my side because I would periodically have severe bronchial asthma episodes and have to go to the hospital and undergo what felt like experimental procedures to open up my lungs.

It wasn’t till I got into nutrition, diet, learning about cow’s milk affecting asthma incidents and then weed and all the other things we all know about now that I was

liberated from that system. Over time, it just became really a passion for me to identify what—today people want evidence. They want peerreviewed, published research because if they don’t have that, well, then coin to the powers that be, it’s just not true. When you have selfhealing experiences and you see the wonder of something as simple as turmeric or Echinacea or vitamin C, you just want to tell the world.

That’s when, through happenstance, I was exposed to the National Library of Medicine’s database, which is 23 million citations presently. You can go on pubmed.gov and search and it’s this huge ocean of data that you just jump into, like you’re swimming looking for clinical pearls. You just sit there on the edge and fish with your keywords, and you can find the most amazing research supporting what you and I love to advocate for, natural healing.

Marc: These days, you and I were talking before this conversation. There’s so much opportunity available to us. It just feels like there’s an explosion of, in a sense, personal empowerment because we now have access to information like never before, and we have access to kind of dig into that information. I’m just wondering when you kind of take the temperature of the people in your world, the people who come to GreenMedInfo, what is the general sense when it comes to people’s relationship with health, with health information, with integrative modalities? What are you seeing from the big picture?

Sayer Ji: I agree with you. It’s like this massive wave of enthusiasm when it comes to the technology we’re using now. It’s amazing to think that there are thousands of people around the world that are now able to stream into this conversation, and we’re able to make available what we want to share to them. That technology has really created sort of a literal manifestation of a global brain so that we’re all connected, we all can share what we feel is valuable, and it’s just created such an empowering movement because previous to this we were kind of dependent on the priests of the body, the physicians or the scholars who stated that they know the truth, but it was very hard to get to it.

In fact, just 20 years ago, you couldn’t even get to the National Library of Medicine’s database without modem speeds that were, I think, a thousand times slower. It was, I think back then, $100 an hour and now you go on GreenMedInfo and you can get tens of thousands of studies or go on Medline and get millions, and it’s such a Copernican revolution.

But on the other hand, people are overwhelmed and the information is too voluminous so that they’re kind of paralyzed. What you and I think to try to do as well is to try to translate some of that and make it more understandable as best as we can so that people can have chunks of edible wisdom that aren’t going to give them indigestion.

Marc: Well put! Let me ask you this question. What do you notice when it comes to just the health, in general, of the population. Since you’ve been doing this work, would you say, “Wow! We, the collective we, we seem to be getting healthier or maybe we’re kind of staying the same or maybe things are getting worse.” I look at statistics. I look at my friends. I’m trying to gauge these things. I’m just wondering what’s your big picture assessment of sort of health of the world, health of humans?

Sayer Ji: Wow! Well, it appears that I believe there’s been no time that I can think of in recorded history and we can assume even prerecorded history, and things have been so polarized. We have little pockets where you can get some of the highest quality food that probably has ever been produced using technologies like biodynamic farming, using sea salt derived hydroponics so that it’s really clean and in high mineral, and yet we also live in a time when it’s a miracle any of us are standing because we’re in the kind of postindustrial, chemical apocalypse where there are hundreds of thousands of chemicals that have no regulatory oversight, that the industries have released directly into our food supply, our cosmetics, our air, our water, and now they’re in our bodies lodged there. There’s no toxicology research that has ever assessed the notarial effects, the synergy of more than one of these compounds at any single time.

When you look at what are called toxicants or synthetic often petrochemical derived substances, additives, pesticides, and then, of course, almost every pharmaceutical on the planet that has FDA approval, the kiss of death, technically, is a petrochemical derivative.

We’re all being poisoned. It’s a miracle that we all are still standing and feeling okay, which speaks to the resilience that I think later hopefully we can expand on, just the amazing ability of our body to heal itself and overcome what, in really scientific terms, shouldn’t really be possible. Yeah, it’s really a tough time. I think there’s cognitive dissidence where we have all this great stuff available. You have so many choices, but then on the other hand, we don’t. Our choice is to be exposed to chemicals has been taken away from us. We can’t even tell if there are GMO, Roundupladen ingredients

in our foods because it’s not mandatory to label them, so it’s a tough time, I think, for everyone.

Marc: I love how you mapped it out as a time of tremendous polarization. It’s so true. I got in the shower this morning and recently I bought this natural shampoo that was made by essentially two young hippies, and it’s truly all natural, all organic, handmade. This is the best shampoo I’ve ever used. I felt great and I think of just a week ago I was in a hotel somewhere and I forgot to bring my shampoo, and I’m using whatever is sitting in the hotel room. I remember putting this stuff on my hair and thinking, “I am going to die!” Because I’ve so trained my body to enjoy what’s natural or real or organic, that when something different shows up, I really react.

Sayer Ji: Oh, it’s so true! In fact, that’s the problem for those who are educated out there on these topics is that once you realize, for example, just a year ago, a study was published on the effect that Roundup has in infinitesimal concentrations. We’re talking about the parts per trillion range, and then recently I had a discussion with Jeffrey Smith about the paper and he believes that it implies they’re parts per quadrillion range has an estrogenlike effect on breast cells so that it causes cancer, a proliferative effect on the cells lines.

It’s just amazing to think that that’s possible, so now you live in a world where you think, “Oh, my gosh! Okay, it’s not the dose that makes it poison, but any amount of this substance.” In fact, even diluting it can have a greater endocrine disruptor or cancerous effect. It just makes you kind of go batty because previously you didn’t know about it. You weren’t freaking out. All the stress hormones weren’t there. You were just kind of ignorantly blissful, so there is a really difficult situation for all of us here now that we didn’t even have a decade ago.

Now that we’re aware, it can get scary and we have to know what to do with that information. That’s where, I think, I know you do this a lot. I try really hard is to find that research that also shows that even though things are so bad, there’s hope and that there’s an amazing resilience that we can access to overcome even what seems like a very bleak situation.

Marc: It feels like one of the things that you and I both do is we’re educators, and there are parts of that job that are so, to me, thrilling because I’ve been in a classroom since I was sitting in kindergarten, and I love learning. In the health field, getting back to this

polarization thing, there’s a topic that I would love to talk about with you just because I know you’ve really taken this on, and it’s the topic of vaccinations.

Let me just preface my question by saying, for me personally, this is a topic that’s very near and dear to me because in my infancy I almost died a handful of times, and my immune system collapsed and my lungs—I became intensely asthmatic within minutes after I was vaccinated. I really spent the first 13 years of my life struggling, going from hospital to hospital and doctor to doctor.

There’s so much information now coming out about the problematic nature of vaccines, which previously vaccines are kind of like motherhood. You don’t question it. You don’t question the value of a mother. How dare you! I’m just wondering if you can just give us some big picture pieces of what you’ve noticed as you’ve started to explore this topic and see what other experts are saying. What’s sort of going on behind the scenes here?

Sayer Ji: Well, it’s a great question because I’m a curious individual, and of course, my whole platform is based on really looking at the research as a standard for asking questions like, “Okay, I’m not just going to say, ‘Echinacea is good for a cold.'” I’ve experienced it. I’ve talked to hundreds who have, but unless the powers that be have evidence to prove it, it’s really not going to have any meaning and doctors aren’t going to feel compelled to use it. For Echinacea, I spent about a week looking at every published study ever in Echinacea and I indexed all the relevant studies from GreenMedInfo showing value. We have now 70 studies on its benefits.

I did the same with vaccines and I wanted to see what the research was like. The studies that showed benefit, I wanted to look at the affiliations. Was this a study funded by a drug company or a vaccine company? Is this a study funded by the government or is it independent? After looking at a lot of studies, I was shocked to find that the evidence to support the health policy that the CDC’s immune—the vaccine schedule, for example, isn’t really compelling. It was actually quite a shock to find this, and it was extremely meaningful to me because I have two small children. I have two daughters and when I’m being told that for their safety and the safety of society they should receive 60+ vaccines by age six, it’s a really serious problem because, of course, so many of their peers are sick.

We have the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world, and we have the highest number of vaccines, and this has been studied in depth. In fact, SAGE published a study showing that the multiple vaccines are likely causing this, then it really brings up red flags.

Again, the research is very shockingly not provaccine. That’s really where my journey started with questioning whether there’s really any sanity to the whole process of vaccination, which is unfortunately mistakenly equated with immunization. This is what I really dislike when I hear this. Someone will ask, “Have you immunized your children?” The problem is vaccination is not equivalent to bona fide immunity. They’re already assuming that all the questions have been answered, effectiveness is proven, and that’s not what they do. They use surrogate markers often now, which means they inject something into a patient. They see the antibody levels rise, and they equate an elevated antibody titer with realworld effectiveness or protection from a pathogen.

That is absolutely not evidencebased medicine. It’s really a way to fasttrack approval and also evades the problem, which is realworld effectiveness is almost impossible to prove. The reason is you can never prove that any single vaccine prevented any single disease because the outcome is a nonevent.

In other words, if you’re intervening and you’re choosing to vaccinate, you can’t prove that the person didn’t get chicken pox because of the vaccine, because guess what? They have an immune system. How can you say the immune didn’t do it? It’s impossible to prove. When you look at the assumption that this is evidencebased, the notion that vaccines confirm immunity, it’s based on very broad epidemiological studies, which are extremely weak in terms of evidence quality.

Marc: What happens from here is that what I’ve noticed in the conversation going on around vaccinations, there’s this big sort of black hole around vaccinations and autism.

There’s even a connection that you were mentioning before potentially with GMOs. What are some of the pieces that you have seen come together in terms of what might be some of the unwanted effects of vaccinations that we should be aware of?

Sayer Ji: Well, #1 is when you look at the PDF inserts for the vaccines. This is really all the manufacturers are beholden to the public to provide. You’ll find listed clearly the ingredients, which are so shocking to see that yes, they took Thimerosal, a type of mercury out of vaccines around—I think it was 2005 is when they started to kind of pull it out in acknowledgement that everyone was raising red flags. “How can you inject

mercury into any healthy individual when you know if you’re playing with a mercury thermometer your mom says, ‘You can’t do that. It’ll stay in your body forever.'” We know that pregnant women shouldn’t eat types of fish because they can cause all types of serious harm to the fetus. But they inject it directly into children.

So what they did is they switched it out for aluminum, aluminum hydroxide, and it’s also extremely neurotoxic. It doesn’t belong in the body. It serves no biological role whatever that we know of. What we saw is that the rates of autism continue to expand to the point where it’s truly an exponential increase. The problem, of course, is that there are those out there who claim it’s a genetic epidemic or there’s some type of environmental set of causes that we haven’t yet identified, but has nothing to do with vaccines.

But by definition, a genetic epidemic is an oxymoron. I mean there’s no such thing, you can’t—genetically, in theory, it takes thousands and thousands of years for a change in the DNA sequence to confer some type of radical change in disease risk, so it’s pretty ridiculous.

When it comes down to the sort of emperor not wearing any clothes, the problem is that if the CDC was to acknowledge that the brain damage caused by vaccines is linked to this dramatic increase in autism spectrum disorder cases, then the whole process of protecting the manufacturer from a lawsuit, and of course, the government’s role in hiding data which showed the connection between certain vaccines and autism would be exposed. Really the whole credibility of the conventional medical establishment would implode.

It’s a big deal because globally the CDC is still considered by many nations to be sort of the ultimate authority. What they do is it’s called “science by proclamation” or “evidencebased medicine,” is that when you go to the CDC’s site and they talk about a particular topic like say measles being deadly. One in a thousand people with measles die or some kind of ridiculous distortion of the truth—they don’t reference research. What you see in the mainstream media, thousands of articles on the dangers of measles is they reference the CDC as their authority, but in this chain, you don’t see reference to actual proof, which is the assumption that somehow the CDC is on top of the evidence chain of command and that they are talking from a perspective of science. It’s actually quite the opposite.

Marc: We have such a—it feels like a powerful opportunity because we have to educate ourselves and we really have to kind of dive into the information and at least listen to those who are diving into the research and go, “Huh? What’s happening here?” It feels like it gets back to personal empowerment.

I remember when I was a kid and I used to learn in grade school about all the information that was coming out from the FDA on the food pyramid, and I should be drinking a lot of milk and eating a lot of breakfast cereal and eating Pop Tarts. That was the reigning nutritional—and margarine, for goodness sakes! That was the reigning nutritional wisdom of the day that was sort of governmentally approved.

Sayer Ji: Yes, I mean one thing is so clear factually, which is that in 1986, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund was launched, which sounds great. If you’re injured by a vaccine, which, of course, many people in mainstream media say doesn’t ever happen, that you get compensated. But what actually it did was it indemnified manufacturers from liability, from manufacturing a product that can cause harm or death in the exposed populations.

It also kept it from being possible to sue a physician or pediatrician, for example, who is just without any thought to bio individuality or any type of susceptibility that their patients may have to injury, being sued or being liable for pushing the agenda.

Since the beginning of this program, $3 billion has been paid out to those in this country who have been injured by vaccines as settlements. Anyone who claims that there isn’t a massive burden of injury caused by vaccines can look to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund and know that isn’t true. Furthermore, the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, theirs only captures approximately 1% of the injuries that occur because it’s a passive reporting system.

There’s so much negative pressure keeping these reports from being heard because, of course, if you’re a pediatrician, you have thousands of patients. You’re administering all these vaccines, and your children are getting harmed, they’re getting brain damage. No one in that position is going to acknowledge that the vaccine caused harm because they’re saying, “They’re safe and effective,” to the parents. In fact, they’re saying, “If you don’t take this, you’re going to harm someone else. You can’t go to school.” I mean it’s just such a really terrible system, but the facts speak for themselves. Over $3 billion in compensation has been paid out by our government for

vaccine injury, so it’s really disturbing that the socalled “skeptics,” right, they’ll question a mother’s observation that after early vaccine their child went through a sudden regressive state, but they won’t question that the public facts, which are that the manufacturers have no liability just like the nuclear power industry, the government underwrites the risk for private industry. That is the worst type of collusion that is possible when you’re dealing with the health and wellbeing of little children.

Marc: How can people empower themselves in this area and learn more? Do you have any resources that you recommend for the inquisitive mind that wants to go, “Huh? This is interesting. Where do I go?”

Sayer Ji: Well, the first thing is common sense because when you think about things, for example, “Oh, wait. They want me to vaccinate my children with 60 vaccines so their kids don’t get infected. But wait a second. They’re fully immunized. How come they’re not super immune, then?” There’s a task and acknowledgement by those rabid provaccers that, “Oh, my gosh! If your kids don’t vaccinate, my kids are in danger.” If that was true, then why are you giving your kids vaccines? They’re supposed to work.

So #1, commonsense. Number 2 in this category is that the whole justification for vaccination is based on the fact that when challenged in nature to wildtype exposure, chicken pox, measles, our body meets the challenge and then has lasting immunity. In fact, it’s conferred for a lifetime, whereas the vaccine schedules peppered through with these boosters because the vaccines failed to convert any kind of significant immunity. In fact, they often result—like chicken pox results in a worse form of herpes zoster, which is—or varicella, which is shingles—is that they just make the disease worse.

The idea that vaccines now are required for us to be immune when for literally millions of years that’s all we had was an immune system. It’s just if we apply commonsense, we won’t fall prey to the propaganda that immunization vaccination is truly the lifesaving—it’s the sacred cow of conventional medicine. It’s their Holy Grail. It’s their holy water. It doesn’t work. When you look at the actual implementation of mass immunization in the United States, you’ll find the decline occurred after sanitation, refrigeration, improved nutrition, better hygiene protocols, less crowded. All of those factors were dramatically reduced at the time of decline of the diseases that we now have the vaccines for like measles and chicken pox and rubella was after there was already a success through changing the terrain and not trying to eliminate germs, which actually help us to regulate immunity and confer lasting immunity.

Then #2, because your question was the research is so abundantly clear. We released a PDF document of 1,000 studies. You can download it for free on greenmedinfo.com. Showing over 200 serious adverse health effects linked to the CDC’s vaccination schedule that really no one in the mainstream media is discussing. This goes from autism spectrum disorder to diabetes type 1 to psychiatric issues to bowel problems. I mean it’s really quite disturbing. The problem is that without informed consent, without a parent knowing that these risks are there, then this is not abiding by the Nuremberg Code of Medical Ethics. That is a serious humanitarian issue. Not only is it unconstitutional. It is illegal. It’s unethical. It’s all the things that we don’t want to believe that our government would force upon us, but the truth is so clear.

Marc: The download from your website of free—1,000 studies.

Sayer Ji: Yeah.

Marc: PDF showing the not so pleasant effects of vaccinations. I mean congratulations on creating that labor of love. I know that was a lot of work!

Sayer Ji: Thank you. It just was done for my own process of learning that really the research doesn’t unequivocally support the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, and if that’s true, then there’s nothing to stand on because you can’t use eminence or authoritybased medicine in this day and age and assume that you’re going to have credibility in the eyes of those who have sick children because of these sorts of pharmaceutical products being shoved down their throats and onesizefitsall is what they’re doing. It’s just completely—it’s unreasonable.

Marc: Yeah, this conversation reminds me once again it feels like the zeitgeist. It feels like this isthe times that we’re living in right now. I mean just think of straight up nutrition. So many of us have to find good food, so if you’re born into this world, there’s a very good chance that you’re born into sort of an unnatural toxic way of eating. That’s the probability. You’re going to be exposed to massproduced food, nutrientdepleted food, food that’s laden with chemicals, pesticides, GMOs. You don’t have to do anything.

That food will come your way. If you travel across the United States in a car, there are stretches for hundreds and hundreds of miles on the highway where all you can do is stop at a gas station and there’s nothing real or nothing fresh.

All I’m trying to say here is that I think we live in a time when we can’t take for granted that we have to go find the good. We have to find the good food. You have to go find the good health practitioner. You have to go find the good people, the people that are your friends, that will care about you. We’ve got to look for it. It doesn’t just come flooding in. oftentimes, it seems like we have to wade through a lot of disinformation to find the treasure, and it just feels like that’s the times that we live in.

Sayer Ji: Totally, yeah, the default trajectory for all of us is disease and suffering, unfortunately and packaged in a way that it seems as if it’s the opposite. You look at something that says, “All natural.” Well, it’s guaranteed to be synthetic. It’s just everything Orwellian, and in a way, like you’re saying, it’s forcing us to become to conscious and aware in our daily decisions. It’s forcing us to become more spiritual in that sense because ultimately choice is the most powerful thing that we are bestowed in this life because we can make a choice to go ahead and get good food or decide that we’re going to investigate vaccinations instead of letting our children just be pulled into the system.

There are many likeminded individuals doing this. In fact, the beauty of this summit or conference is that a lot of you listening are preselected. You’re like me and Marc and you’ve already kind of come to this conclusions. Together it’s like a new mycelium or the sort of undercurrent in the soil of people that are working together to create a better world. Yeah, it’s a very interesting situation. It’s not easy to be healthy, but it makes you very aware and it gives you an opportunity to be very conscious if you are going to make this your lifestyle.

Marc: Here we were moments ago. We were talking about vaccinations and how it’s called immunization. Have you been immunized? I oftentimes think of the immune system that we don’t always give it the sort of beautiful definition that it deserves. Just you and I being able to sort of reach out and look at concepts or information that might not be healthy, that might be toxic. That’s sort of the psychic immune system at work. Us getting together and having a conversation and sharing it with other people. That’s a collective immune response saying, “Wait a second. There’s information coming into the system and we want to alchemize that a little bit or we want to stop that or we want to do something with that.” There are all different ways that I think immunity has to exist, and I think maybe immunity in the realm of mind might be as important as anything. It’s kind of where it starts in a lot of ways.

Sayer Ji: I love that! Absolutely, because you look at notions like herd immunity, which really are not based on any type of evidence. It’s just this assumption that you reach a certain point in the herd where a certain number are infected, and then therefore they end up being immune.

When you apply that to humans and vaccines, it’s really more of just a metaphor that has been taken in a very literal sense, but the herd concept is true. When I post information to Facebook, for example, on questioning vaccines and I’m referencing Lancet or some highimpact journal, it’s amazing how few people will actually look at the research that they claim is so important, the science, and they’ll constantly question and say, “This isn’t true. The CDC says it’s not true.” It’s remarkable. We need to cultivate an immune system for the misinformation because it is truly like a disease.

I like the term meme, because a meme is an idea that has viral components. It’s like ideology. It takes over, and in fact, consumes biological resources. The notion is that if you’re, for example, looking at life in terms of the biological instinct to reproduce, there are religions where, for example, being a martyr or not reproducing is fundamental. So we have to start understanding that ideas have more power than genes on some level, and they are infectious, and we need to start, like you said, exerting greater immunity against false and dangerous information. When it comes to medical information today, I think we have the ultimate religion. It’s the science that devours all other religions or the religion that devours all other religions is this notion that somehow science is going to give us the answer and the only way, and then when we apply it politically, you don’t even have a choice. It’s like the ultimate fascism.

Marc: Usually I think when people hear the term “science,” we often think it’s a bunch of guys in white coats with gray beards nodding their heads and agreeing with each other and sort of somehow connected to this higher, irrefutable wisdom and science, it’s the Wild West, really.

Sayer Ji: It is. It’s so the Wild West. It’s a projection. The whole notion that you can separate subjectivity was destroyed with quantum mechanics. We know that just based on how you’re looking at something it’s going to change it manifestation. If you’re looking for a particle of light, it’s particle. If you’re looking for a wave, it’s a wave. Completely different substances.

No one can sustain the concept anymore that there’s just this impartial observer and there are these little atoms or little mathematical entities that we’re going to determine this is true for everyone. That’s really not how it works. It doesn’t mean that the other is true in its pure subjectivity, but yeah, science is an investigative open attitude. It’s about being aware of what you’re perceiving. It’s about really being a reasonable, using commonsense individual. It’s not some kind of highlevel, Greek, Latin, reading tealeaves type of occupation. It’s really misunderstood.

Marc: So along this concept of memes and how they’re so powerful and how they can take over. There are a lot of good memes out there, and I know you like to keep your eye on how food is information and how even plants are imparting energies and information that we’re not always aware of. I’d love to spend a little bit of time on that topic just because I find it so fascinating, some of the different ways to look at food, not just as merely a package of nutrients, but energy and information.

Sayer Ji: I love it! I mean because we started out really appreciating the healing properties of other entities within our environ, so if a plant was able to heal us, it had a soul and energy and it had compassion. It was able to give us its essence and we’re consuming it. It’s not living anymore. It’s a sacrificial, mutually—it’s like a spiritual relationship. It sounds all poetry and sort of a bunch of gobbledygook, but now the science is confirming this, in my opinion, because after spending so many years looking at the research on turmeric, there are 7,200 studies published right now on it on Medline. I started to index piece by piece the studies showing benefit and found over 600 different health benefits that this one plant seemed to impart to mammals, because some of the research is on rodents, etc.

I was like, “Is that possible?” I mean you think about a drug. It has one benefit they’ve already—which is actually a side effect, and then 75+ adverse effects, which usually include death, depending on the dose. Then you see something like a plant that can heal 600 different conditions. Then I analyzed the physiological actions by which it was doing these miraculous things. It was just amazing! Over 170 different ways documented that it’s able to modulate a certain pathway in the body.

Over time, it came to me and this was based really on one study published in the Journal of Nutrition and Cancer, where they took the retinoblastoma cells, a type of neurological cancer that’s extremely hard to treat, and they added curcumin to that environment, and within a matter of just a few minutes, it was able to downregulate

903 different genes and upregulate 1,319 other genes and start to turn the cell into a noncancerous cell.

What that showed me was there’s infinite amount of information that just one biomolecule in turmeric contains because turmeric has 1,000 chemistries. It’s an intelligent, orchestrated, complex food plant. One of its compounds has all this information. That’s an intelligence that no chemical we use to treat cancer has. Then also, it embodies truly an ability to alleviate suffering in higher multicellular species like a human or a rat. That’s really, to me, an environment of compassion. When you look at the mythos, the lore associated with turmeric or back to the Indian tradition, it’s linked with a number of goddesses. It’s the embodiment of one who shined a bright light of compassion and has all these different names.

To me, it was just an illustration on how today we have the mythos, the old stories, all the plant wisdom that was once passed down orally. Then you have this almost alienlike entity of science. It’s coming in and it’s scanning all the way down to a molecular level, all these different substances trying to say, “No, it’s just about the chemistries.” But even that approach has led us to the point where we have to acknowledge that there’s a miracle going on that nothing even close to this type of medicinal action can be reproduced through a chemical. I think we’re finding once again that the ancient approach to healing is really the one that we need to reemploy in this day and age.

Marc: Beautifully put. It feels like we are living in a time when it’s easy to miss, to not perceive the intelligence that’s around us that is part and parcel and has created the natural world and us. There’s such this mindset that wants to reduce humanity to a bunch of random molecular collisions, and we lose the fact that we are this brilliant creation. My body is a brilliant creation. It’s easy to take the plants for granted. Here you’ve picked one plant and shown this impossible to recreate intelligence. We can’t, in a laboratory, create that kind of intelligence into turmeric. We can’t create that in a prescription drug, as you described. Maybe a prescription drug might have a couple of actions. I know every time a drug company finds that their medication actually has this other positive effect that they didn’t even intend, they get all excited.

Sayer Ji: I know, right? It’s usually a side effect, so you take something like Lunesta. It’s a neurotoxic chemical that’s been linked to increased mortality from all causes. So basically its side effects that are probably almost killing you, knocking you out, and

then they repackage it into the intended beneficial, pharmacological action. It’s just insane when you think about what they’re doing.

I wanted to point out that I agree with you that we’re living in a day and age where really medicine has converted us all into objects of control, not intentionally, necessarily, but the ultimate outcome is that it has nothing to do with healing whatsoever. It has to do with if you have a planet full of billions of bodies, the best way to control, organize, exert influence over those bodies is to control their definition of their self through medicine. It’s actually rather disturbing, but I think that’s true, is this is really a global, political control system. It has nothing to do with healing any longer.

Marc: Well, it just reminds me that a healthy human has the launching pad to be an amazing creature. I don’t just mean somebody who can run faster and jump higher. A healthy human can fulfill one’s potential, can fulfill one’s personal, emotional, spiritual potential. A healthy human is unstoppable. I think health, in a lot of ways, can really—it propels us to our genetic potential, our inborn spiritual potential, and that can be dangerous.

I think you look back in history. Some of our greatest leaders and our most revered peacemakers get shot and killed. It’s almost as if the times are asking us to find that baseline of health, not just so I can be thin and sexy. That’s nice. That’s interesting, but it just feels like health is so much more. Health is empowerment.

Sayer Ji: Yeah, it goes pretty deep because you think about—I like to think about sort of the little miniature Big Bang that occurs in the womb through embryogenesis. You start off as just an egg and a sperm, and from that moment, a miracle occurs, which for some reason, we forget soon after birth maybe because of a colicky baby driving us crazy that humans are an explosion from the void, from nothing into something. There’s no way we can explain this miracle through any present scientific notion.

That’s what happens on a daily basis. Again, that’s the miracle of how we’re exposed to absolutely devastating nutritional compatibilities, toxic and exposures all day long, stress is unlike anything we’ve seen before, and we’re still holding together, feeling quasihealthy. It’s because it’s not that we depend on solely the biochemistry of our food, as you know, because this is what you do all the time through your amazing platform The Psychology of Eating. We are a soul that has a body, not a body that has a soul. I mean there’s an element where the body has a soul. It could be a prison if

we’re really not healthy, but as you have done such good work with, this isn’t pseudoscience. It’s not new age. This is the truth.

I even have some examples I’ve mentioned before in previous talks. The New England Journal of Medicine found when those who had received a cancer diagnosis were told either they had it or they didn’t, regardless if it was actually a false positive or not. They had up to 26.9 fold increase risk of heartrelated death within one week if they had been told they had a cancer. You can imagine the power of belief is so strong that they literally died internally and physically because they gave up hope that they could live because they had cancer.

The other is true, too. If a doctor comes in and says, “Guess what?” The person could have a serious cancer. You’re totally healed. It can completely induce within the body an elimination of that condition. There are documented examples of this. The reality is that I think on the one hand we are thinking we’re these molecules mashing together, this hunk of flesh, this carcass. Then on the other hand, we’re starting to see the research itself, the science, proving that our belief, our choice, is fundamental in determining our health outcomes.

Marc: There’s the good news. Really, the good news is, on the one hand—I was thinking as you were speaking how you started getting very poetic. There’s a place where, if you really dive into science and you dive into the science of life and you really follow it, you have to become a poet almost because we hit these places where science just reaches its limits in that moment, and we can’t explain the miracle. We can’t explain the beauty. We can’t explain this invisible big bang that happens in the womb that produces a life form out of really nothingness, out of this tiny amount of nothingness. We can’t reproduce that in a laboratory. It’s impossible.

Sayer Ji: No, it’s such a beautiful thing. You could condense it down to this, which is that science is truly the system where you have to see it to believe it, and then you have traditionally religion or the finer arts and all that are about you have to believe it in order to see it. Actually, technically my background is philosophy and I focused on phenomenology, which is all about going to the things themselves. You have to open up your eyes, get rid of your assumptions, and try to really perceive what reality is. In that case, there was something called a “perceptual faith,” so you didn’t throw down assumptions on what you were seeing. You were just opening yourself to it, so it doesn’t have to be religion, but the idea is that you’re open and you think that

possibility is there for healing, for all the things that we’re so scared of and maybe not being the only way of looking at it.

Yeah, I think that we’re getting closer to acknowledging the selfhealing ability of the human body and soul is so profound that even though we’re seeing the darkest times in history coalescing, even the conspiracy theorists and Orwell and all these folks had predicted, we also are being forced to recognize that we are truly the priority agent in our experience in that we can affect profound change just through some really basic choices and believing in ourselves.

Marc: Let me ask you this question. In your work, what gives you hope?

Sayer Ji: What gives me hope? Well, in my work, what gives me hope, really, is the response that I see to those that are just looking for alternative information, because when I started, I was just a hobbyist. I just was compelled by the research. I wanted to share it because I was like, “Wow!” You start out writing a few articles, and before you know it, it went from just being a little database and a couple blogs to having several million visitors every month. It’s not really based on anything new. I still write maybe once every other day and people out there are responsive because really this kind of information has been completely blacklisted. It’s causing this kind of ripple effect where now people are going to your site, they’re going to my site, they’re making choices not based on just their doctor saying, “This is what the CDC says you’re going to do this or you’re going to die.” They’re questioning things. They’re saying, “Well, really? Well, here’s research saying that’s not true.”

I think that ultimately it’s really beautiful because the Internet has given us a platform that anyone can use for free, speed of light, and really end up empowering themselves in a way that never was possible before. I’m hopeful. I’m definitely hopeful.

Marc: Well, Sayer Ji, I so appreciate how you have really brought together so much information and really been faithful to the research and compiling it and just saying, “Okay, here. Here’s what science says. Here’s some of the buried treasure that you might not know about.” That’s kind of how I see you. It’s like we sort of send you into the wilderness of information, and you come back with the nuggets that are really useful for us. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I would just love if you can share with us how we can stay in touch with you and your world and what we should know about.

Sayer Ji: Oh, thanks! Well, I love connecting through our newsletter. I try to do that daily. We send out a daily newsletter. Then Facebook is okay. They recently censored our article on removing ovaries for preventing cancer, but regardless, that’s still presently a way that a lot of our fans connect. Other than that, really, I encourage people to actually go through our site, pass through it, go to pubmed.gov themselves and give it a little try.

It’s the global brain’s convulsion dedicated to medicine, and it’s just a miracle.

You go in. Say you have diabetes and you want to learn about diabetes and ginger. Type in “diabetes and ginger.” Seventy studies and it’s just amazing when you look at the primary literature, which by the way, almost no doctors do. You start realizing, “Wow! If this is true, then maybe I could start using natural medicine,” like their intuition is telling them. So it’s good.

Marc: Beautiful, my friend. That’s GreenMedInfo.com.

Sayer Ji: Thank you.

Marc: Which is any time somebody asks me what are my favorite online research resources for health, medicine, transformation, that’s #1 on my list, so thank you for the work that you do. Really appreciate it, my friend.

Sayer Ji: Thank you, Marc. I feel the same about your work.

Marc: Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. I appreciate you. I’m Marc David, on behalf of The Future of Healing Online Conference. I’ve been with Sayer Ji of GreenMedInfo.com. Lots more to come, my friends.

from Healthy Living https://psychologyofeating.com/powerful-topics-in-medicine-interview-with-sayer-ji/

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topsolarpanels · 7 years

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NASA Finds More Evidence of Water Plumes on Jupiter’s Moon Europa

Last week, NASA announced its scientists had found” surprising activity” on Jupiter’s moon Europa. And, just like you’d expect, the space-dork corner of the Internet whipped itself into a craze. Because that kind of vague statement can merely mean they found aliens, right? Well , not really. But some people are still persuaded, even after NASA tried to walk back its blatant nerd-baiting by tweeting that it was definitely not aliens.

We’re here to set the record straight. While NASA didn’t find anything gangly, gray, and bug-eyed on Europa this time, what they did discover is still important. Use the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists caught sight of water plumes exploding out from Europas icy surface. If any Europeans are lurking beneath the moon’s surface, they just got a whole lot easier to reach.

The excitement over “activity” on Europa induces sense. In this solar system, having any kind of liquid ocean stimulates you a member of a fairly exclusive club. As far as we know, the only ocean worlds we’ve got are Earth( duh ), Jupiter’s largest moon Ganymede, Saturn’s moons Titan and Encedalus, and Europa. Those moons are where scientists think they’re most likely to find extraterrestrial life in our solar system, if there’s any to determine. Europa doesn’t have liquid on its surface like Earth or Titan, but beneath its icy crust is a sizable, H 2 O ocean situation happening. And we entail big–it encompass the whole moon. So as an incubator for life, it’s looking a lot better than Titan super-chilled methane lakes.

As a study subject though, Europa’s oceans( and their potential plumes) are tricky. The moon is hundreds of millions of miles away. This analyze adds independent verification of a previous NASA investigation that suggested the existence of the plumes in 2012. Last hour, it was Hubble’s imaging spectrograph showing signs of oceanic ingredients in Europa’s atmosphere. For this study, Hubble was looking for geysers silhouetted against the sunlight of Jupiter instead–a technique they accommodated from the route scientists examine exoplanets’ atmospheres when they pass in front of their starrings. ButNASA is quick to say that they’re really stretching Hubble to its limits here, so there’s a sizable margin for error.

And the plumes aren’t merely difficult to situate because they’re far away. Scientists have known about plumes rocketing out of Saturn’s moon Encedalus for a while now because their activity, which creates ridges on Encedalus’ surface, is bunched up in one location. But Europa is active and ridgy just about everywhere.” The particular orbit of Europa around Jupiter causes tidal forces to essentially knead the moon ,” says Adrian Lenardic, a planetary geophysicist at Rice University. The tidal tug of Jupiter’s massive gravitation generates those ridges and the frictional heating that could maintain Europa’s ocean liquid even so far from a solar energy source–all of which could lead to plumes, but also builds themdifficult to spot.

So catching sight of the plumes is no small achievement. And if they’rereal, they could attain the task of studying Europa’s water a bit more manageable .” We may be able to explore that ocean for organic chemicals, or even signs of life, without having to drill through miles of ice ,” says William Sparks, an astronomer with theSpace Telescope Science Institute, at a press conference.It would be difficult–and highly expensive–to generate enough power to carry heavy-duty drilling equipment all the way out there. But with geysers intermittently spurting samples of the ocean skyward, you could examine the contents of the ocean by only flying through the plumes.

The most exciting outcome of that sample would be discovering organic material, but this is a big discovery either way.” Life as we know it and depends on liquid water ,” says Lenardic.” Knowing that liquid water can exist at that distance from our starring changes what it means to think about places that could support life .” This discovery shifts scientists’ understanding of bodies that can be considered habitable zones–in our solar system and in others. Even if these plumes aren’t home to any Europeans, scientists now have plenty more places to look for signs of life.

The post NASA Finds More Evidence of Water Plumes on Jupiter’s Moon Europa appeared first on Top Rated Solar Panels.

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jmrphy · 8 years

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“I Think We're Really Onto Something:” Mark Fisher and My Revolutionary Friends

Mark Fisher was a revolutionary, but I do not mean his writings were revolutionary (although they were); I mean that Mark Fisher was a revolutionary in a very specific sense of the word, a sense that does not necessarily apply to everyone who happens to be sympathetic to radical ideas or causes. We know this because, over the past two years, we have not just been friends with Mark. A number of us have been, together, in the process of concrete, organized, revolutionary political transformations. These transformations remain somewhat obscure, and before Mark’s death I did not fully comprehend what he and all of us in Plan C have been doing over these past couple of years. But now, for me at least, Mark’s death has been like a flash of emotional lightning that suddenly illuminates a dark forest pulsing with life, revealing with undeniable clarity where one even is. In an email, Mark once wrote to us: “I think we’re really onto something…” I think he was right, in fact I think he was more right than any of us have known what to do with. With Mark’s passing I believe I can see more clearly now than ever what exactly we have been onto. To be honest, I did not know Mark well, and I have only a passing familiarity with his writing; that I have so much to say can only be attributed to the political processes that have been, over the past few years, sweeping a few of us away, together.

Mark always struck me as the type whose opposition to the status quo was such that he sincerely thought, felt, and lived as if it could not be so. For some people, opposition to the status quo can be a form of adaptation and survival. For these people, activism provides socio-psychological supports that make the experience of the status quo tolerable. But others are plagued with a humanity that will not go away no matter what you offer it, a certain inability to accept the status quo, an incapacity to integrate oneself into its consistency, resulting in a kind of maladaption risking rather than securing survival. For these types, entry into radical politics is not about making life livable under unlivable conditions, it is about figuring out how to produce genuinely livable conditions at any cost. This is a subtle but crucial difference: the former model waters down the definition of what is considered “living” in order to survive and claim we are “living,” while the latter admits plainly the unfortunate but real challenge of an unjust political order: either overthrow unlivable institutions and make life together possible immediately, or we will already be dead.

In my own view, everything seems to suggest that the truly revolutionary life today must be of the latter type; it would seem that revolutionary politics today could not be anything other than a kind of minimally sustainable, reproducible type of militant maladaption, the capacity to creatively occupy oneself as something that consciously and purposely does not belong to nearly all of that which is currently and falsely called reality. But obviously individual human organisms have limits and this tendency can lead to self-destruction; one question we have therefore been grappling with is, how to sustain this kind of creative maladaption over time, how to make revolutionary maladaption socially reproducible.

It seems to me that, in his intellectual work, Mark sought actively to inhabit this heady, scandalous mental space in which everything people call real is, clearly, not real. Exciting and true, but anyone who has ever sought to engage in radical intellectual work over a period of time learns quickly that this parallax is quite a load on the nervous system, because every interaction in our really existing Boring Dystopia will require far more emotional and cognitive stress than would be required if one simply took the Boring Dystopia to be real. Now, if we have any hope of living a true life together then we must at all cost hold onto this heady, stressful, critical distance. But I think one thing Mark understood was that there do exist tactics and techniques for making true life possible despite everything. I think Mark was a maestro of such tactics, not just because I got to observe him performing them (as I will sketch below), but because to do his kind of radical theory over any period of time. you need them. That he was able to write all of those words on topics such as mental health and capitalism, in that dangerous and difficult mental space he was most known for, is evidence enough that he possessed some mastery of how to power a life that is not being fueled in the conventional way through complacent, adaptive negotiation with the status quo.

I should say at the outset that I am not interested in claiming Mark for any particular thesis or agenda; like any genuine, radical intellectual, I am sure he thought many different things that he never brought to perfect coherence. Yet I do believe, for a number of reasons I will try to articulate, that Mark was especially interested in this question about the interpersonal and social tactics that transform individual and group consciousness into weapons that perform concretely revolutionary work (however slowly and invisibly at first) on even the largest-scale political and economic institutions.

One reason I know Mark was keen on this point is that he told me so. I remember one time he was telling me about the most recent book project he had been working on. I asked him about the thesis. He summarized it by saying something to the effect of, ”Basically, 1970s socialist feminism had it all figured out.” We can debate what he might have meant by this, but I believe he had in mind especially the feminist consciousness-raising groups prevalent at the time. Even more specifically, I think Mark was interested in how these groups—dedicated to the sharing and making visible of once silent, privatized struggles—really worked, not just for “therapy” or the now more chic “self-care” but as a bona fide methodology for producing large-scale, revolutionary political change at the systemic level. The various movements of this one particular historical moment were crushed, yes, but the point is that it worked, as far as it went. Of course, there will be opponents and enemies, but the basic method is a real, concrete, and reproducible way for even lonely individuals and small groups to immediately begin the overthrow of dominant institutions.

My memory of his characteristic, nervous excitement seemed to be saying, like, “We already know what to do! Next time, this time, we just have to figure out how not to get crushed!” That is, we have to figure out a number of auxilliary questions that our revolutionary predecessors had not fully worked out—such as how to expand, aggregate, and materially reproduce consciousness-raising dynamics against powerful reactionary forces and agents—but as to the basic nature of revolutionary movement, its primary source and destination as an actual activity human beings can do, we already know it. It is the concrete, immanent process of human beings seeking, through each other, their true consciousness. That might sound woo-woo, but I will argue that the status quo reproduces itself in large part by making this proposition seem woo-woo. Our fear of being naïve, our fear of wagering too much on our own immediate shared consciousness—more and more I think this is the enemy, or at least the single most real and vicious tenterhook that status quo institutions have successfully lodged in our bodies. It seems to me that radicals and activists today may be scrambling to find what is already under their noses, in the historical sense that the 1960s already demonstrated how to produce massive, global, political shockwaves, but also in the immediate interpersonal sense that all we need is exactly whoever is right in front of us.

Another minor exhibit. Within the group, I once wrote an essay that argued consciousness-raising is effectively strike action, the real and concrete withdrawal of cognitive and emotional energy from the status quo. The essay was critical of many basic assumptions of contemporary leftism and I know that Mark was sympathetic to the essay. Interestingly, he was very worried about the backlash I might receive, most likely due to his own ghastly experiences taking risks on the internet (which I consider in more detail below). Of course nothing happened, my article received the much harsher fate of a generally tepid response. Nonetheless, this all suggests to me that what I was trying to articulate in that essay overlaps, at least in some degree, with what Mark had been thinking in recent years. Something difficult and apparently sensitive, something that progressive folks either don’t care about or get very angry about. It all seems to indicate that we are getting closer and closer to understanding what exactly we have been onto.

When one speaks the words “consciousness-raising,” the connotation is so strongly one of New-Age spiritualism that, from a political perspective, the conversation is usually over before it starts. I think the coming years will show this to be an error. Nonetheless, for this reason, I prefer to speak of the physiological and biochemical effects of consciousness tactics; how shared consciousness—if all parties truly take that shared consciousness to be more real than official reality and allow their future thoughts and behaviors to morph accordingly—produces concrete attitudinal and behavioral effects that immanently decrease the power flowing into the institutional center while increasing the autonomous power circulating in the commune of those who compose it. Even better, these tactics come with the exceptional virtue of being immediately palpable in the body and mind when executed correctly, and so they are self-guiding and self-reinforcing. Relationships conducted in this fashion become veritable collective revolution machines capable of spanning vast distances, but only if they are done correctly. Such relationships can and will take infinitely different forms, but I think there is perhaps one hard rule. There will be various implications from this rule, implications which will have to be identified and dealt with creatively depending on the situation, but only one hard requirement. In my own view, I summarize it with the word “honesty,” similar to “conscience” but more secular and relational, like “truth” but less formal and more pluralistic.

In a nutshell, I would venture a possible definition of consciousness-raising as interpersonal communications, on any scale, motivated by nothing but honesty and unconcerned with consequences. By doing this, conciousness-raising is a form of direct action, immediately available between any two people (or more), that withdraws one’s labour from the status quo and immanently produces what you are welcome to call freedom, energy, joy, or power. At a certain resolution these can all be thought of as interchangeable. While this might sound too simple to be serious revolutionary politics, the truth is it’s very difficult and extremely rare. Consider the extraordinary fact that such an orientation is almost impossible to find in activist circles; almost the entirety of contemporary activism is organized around the pursuit of certain consequences, to such a degree that in activist circles if your thoughts and speech are not perceived as contributing to some future consequence, or if you are not minimally able to produce speech that has certain immediate consequences (e.g. making people feel “hope” or appearing “useful”) then you might as well not even be there.

There is massive problem in the activist instinct to organize your thoughts and actions around producing consequences (a fancier term for this is “instrumental rationality,” and it is basically the rationality of modernity and capitalism). The problem is that, in your attachment to those consequences, you are liable to make mistakes and tell lies without even knowing it. And once errors or lies are circulating, however tiny, everything you try to do with anyone will be doomed. First, it leads to the crucial error that you see other human beings as means to some end, whereas in fact the truth is they are ends unto themselves. Humans are not valuable for some purpose, they are the creators of these odd things called values, and if you think about it, that is one of the main reasons why we believe all humans must be free and equal in the first place. But this error is not merely an ethical mistake that does violence to others, it is a practical political mistake also because it blocks revolutionary dynamics before they even have a chance to begin. The whole problem of alienation under capitalism is that we have all been reduced to objects in a system we have no say in. We have to learn how to become revolutionary, from the starting point of having been born as objects, but when we assume that activism means making yourself an object or instrument useful for the goal of producing social change, then we are prohibiting exactly what we really want and need and the only thing that fuels macro social change anyway.

Therefore, it stands to reason that the only possible first step toward transforming the currently existing social system is to create minimal spaces, with at least one other person, in which both parties serve absolutely no purpose. And the only way to create a zone in which all parties serve no other purpose is by committing to the only criterion than can possibly attune diverse atomized individuals: honesty. Honesty converts the most diverse individuals to the only unification that preserves all of their differences; everyone can be as radically different as they please, and yet attuned around the only thing they truly all share, namely, the objective fact that none are objects to any of the others but all are their own autonomous ends, that all are recognized as the creators of themselves, ultimately subordinate to nothing. If this feels uncmofortably “individualistic” for altruistic types, I need only remind you that this only works as a collective activity, and the truly autonomous individual immediately recognizes this individuality as a gift of the community. If this feels too simple or easy to be a serious revolutionary politics, I need only remind you that this is harder than you think, so accustomed we are to constantly calculate consequences. Yet it is only in this unique situation of purposelessness that one can exit the state of objecthood under capitalism, in order to experience, if only for a minute, what it feels like to be free. It is horrifying but I genuinely believe there are many people today who have never felt what I am talking about, because the constant mental chatter that is constantly calculating consequences has hijacked our experience of each other to such an extraordinary degree that we don’t even realize it.

Nobody wants to admit their mind and body are so fully hijacked (in part because people won’t like you, etc., i.e. the consequences), so we all continue this horrible state of things in which we actively push away from ourselves and others the only really desirable thing. The other reason I believe there exist many people who have never really grasped or cannot remember this experience is that, feeling or even remembering such an experience forces one to be a revolutionary. If you really know or remember this feeling, you cannot not find yourself foaming at the mouth in opposition to the absurdity, stupidity, and brutality of almost everything currently existing under the label of “reality.” That the average person appears to at least publicly speak and behave as if the offical reality is real—that is data supporting the inference that the very experience of true autonomous existing is itself going extinct. Or maybe everyone knows it, but we’re all too afraid to truly speak and act accordingly. Either way, the upshot is the same: revolutionary politics, in the first and perhaps even final analysis, means nothing other than the immanent production of autonomous communal social power through the basic principle of radical honesty, which implies immediate de-objectification followed by all parties becoming whatever they are (i.e. flourishing). By gaining a collective mastery over this production, how it works and how it breaks, we expand the commune indefinitely.

It is worth remembering that the world-historical revolution of capitalism itself, which overthrew feudalism, operated on precisely these terms. Whatever we might say about the inhumane consequences of capitalism, the pioneering individuals whose attitudes and behaviors would lead to generalized capitalist society were: highly creative, courageous individuals (in the sense of defying social expectations) who met in new and uncharted zones (the cities), who acted to manipulate the nature of reality by leveraging new forms of knowledge and new forms of technology that the traditional status quo repressed. They started in small groups, sometimes as individuals and sometimes in small networks of oath-bound individuals. Fearlessness, creativity, trust, and the purposeful alteration of social reality in a way that no one’s ever done before, produced a world-historical revolution. There’s no reason capitalism can’t be overthrown by the same type of operations, this time geared toward the the truth of our being rather than dishonest material interests in commanding nature and each other.

Most of what most people do generates nothing but their own misery, and bad faith converts this misery into only a minimally tolerable survival (and even this minimum appears increasingly hard to maintain). Almost everything that passes for education today is essentially false. Most human relationships, at least in the overdeveloped world, range from empty to shit, as the number of our weak relationships has increased and the number of our deep relationships has decreased. And even the best benefits you can get from the status quo—if you’re really lucky, privileged, and/or do everything by the rules—don’t even give you that much security nowadays. These are some reasons why today, it is in some of our own lived relationships that we see not merely potential, but rather the site of currently unfolding revolutionary dynamics we are only beginning to decipher.

I am writing this on the day that Donald Trump is being inaugurated as the President of the United States. There is something significant in the fact that I’m thinking far more about Mark Fisher and my revolutionary friends than I am about Donald Trump and the government of the United States.

There’s this long-standing assumption that educated, progressive individuals should pay close attention to national and international news, but if high-level politics and what is called the news are both institutionally and ideologically locked down to an unprecedented degree—as I would argue they are—then I believe that today, educated and progressive individuals will increasingly learn the courage to unhinge their attunement from what is effectively at this point mere noise in the social system. I think one of the discoveries some of us have been making recently is that, when you do this, in conjunction with doubling down on your attunement to dearest friends and comrades, so long as they are also honestly attuned to you, then fundamentally new energies emerge into this new collective entity-machine-project that feels quite literally out of this world. I don’t mean this in a woo-woo, spiritual way, I mean fundamental physiological, biochemical effects are triggered that then ripple out into speech and behaviors in organic ways tending to the overthrow of institutions.

For people who see short and easy proclamations on social media as the key gauge of someone’s political life, I am happy to give you 30 seconds to type that I think Donald Trump is very bad and, whatever it is, I’m against it. But I’m conserving my energy for larger projects; for my living, intimate accomplices and my revolutionary friends dead and alive. The big center is a massive, empty zone filled with little more than the fears of those who incorrectly believe there is still something there. Mark’s death is teaching me that, more and more I want to wager everything on my friends, and that means moving investments away from the big empty center of this dead society into the spaces, times, and experiences that you have the concrete ability to fill with power. None of this is an attack on other styles, it’s just to remind everyone that silence is not always complicity and indeed it is sometimes the mark of a groundswell you may just not know how to interpret.

That Mark and many of us have been onto something different, ever so slightly different but crucially, categorically different, is nicely measured by the reception of Mark’s infamous essay on the Vampire’s Castle. First, I think time has shown that essay to be way more correct than incorrect. I’m very sorry but anyone I know who has half-honestly watched the sociology of left internet discourse evolve over the past few years will agree on this point in private. Many remain afraid to say it, but with Mark’s passing this feels more important than ever to just put on the record. I remember following the whole fiasco when it happened, before I even knew Mark, and I thought it was absurd but I didn’t dare to say so. That’s shameful and embarrassing. Any self-respecting adult has to call bullshit wherever they honestly see bullshit, in public, without apologies. I know way too many people, myself included (although I’m trying to end this), who won’t say in public really important thoughts and feelings they have about various habits and tendencies prevalent in what passes for radical or progressive politics today. I won’t argue it here, because anyone who would be offended by what I’m suggesting almost certainly won’t be convinced and most people whose opinions and judgments I know and respect know what I’m talking about or at least accept and respect my comradely right to say what I think without apology. And here’s where this gets real: the truth is I wouldn’t even be writing this if I wasn’t at this very moment embedded in real liberatory dynamics with others who I know have my back because they are themselves flying on the same winds.

A little story I haven’t told many people. I have this draft book manuscript and Mark once invited me to share it with him. He was one of the first people I had ever shared it with, and honestly it is a pretty scrappy and highly idiosyncratic project that I could not have imagined appealing to anyone. But of course he loved it, or at least pretended to love it. His encouragement could not have come at a better time, it was a really long and dark period of nothing but rejections and failures on all other fronts, intellectual and personal. His interest in the book was maybe my most positive achievement I had in the entire year of 2014 – 2015. And again, where many people might only see a minor act of kindness, I think there is something much more substantial, if we can learn to see it.

Dispensing encouragement to younger people can be a world-transforming political action. And if there’s one thing that emerges from all of the beautiful tributes that have been written recently, Mark appears to have done this on an almost industrial scale. I was somewhat humbled to learn I am not so special, but impressed to learn that Mark appears to have been on some kind of mission to push forward everyone he possibly could. And you know what, lots of notable radicals or intellectuals or academics are nice people and they try their best to be “supportive” of others, but there are levels to this. This is where, if you look closely enough, you’ll see that people like Mark are not just kind or supportive; he was practicing a revolutionary politics much harder and far more interesting than just being kind.

If you meet someone you admire and they give you some general positive feedback or words of encouragement, the actual transforming effect is going to be conditional on a series of other factors. Typically, you might find it vaguely uplifting and inspiring for a little while. But when someone you admire goes to the same political meetings as you, and sits around before and after just like you, somewhat awkward, somewhat terrified of recent news, and personally, vulnerably desperate to change everything that currently exists, with you, well you know what? It changes everything. The effect is totally different, far more powerful, far more lasting. And it matters when radicals are also respected in more status quo hierarches—while of course there is so much to criticize about those hierarchies. When people such as Mark, who could be off writing cool books or seeking an academic promotion, are going to the same meetings as you because they genuinely want to make revolution now, it produces a unique effect. And I think that’s because no matter how radical we are, we cannot help but be affected differently depending on where a signal is coming from within the social status hierarchy. Placement in the social status hierarchy should mean nothing whatsoever for how we value or treat each other, my point is just that when people possess status quo cultural capital and they are choosing to invest themselves in the hard work of organized revolutionary politics, this is something relatively rare and it produces unique effects that deserve to be appreciated.

It is these types of interpersonal activities that generate irrevocable anthropological transformations. Mark’s interest in my book was not just “encouraging”—it effectively supported my entire will for almost a year at a time when so many rejections were really making me wonder whether I was maybe just dumb or crazy. But also it altered the course of my life, to make me more invested in the real, immediate actualization of revolutionary political change, because our relationship was one defined by a revolutionary organization and if I felt indebted to Mark’s support what that really meant was I was indebted to keep figuring out how to make revolution. I’m fully aware how absurd this might sound to others, but think about it. Since that time, I’ve had some modest academic success in my bullshit bourgeois career, which means my precious ego and income are pretty secure at the moment, so this is exactly when most people start to drift from their youthful radical politics toward a comfortable integration with the status quo. I have every social, financial, and cultural reason to now just kick back and enjoy my permanent academic post. But now I can’t do that, and I’m happy I can’t do that, but the reason is because through my revolutionary friends I am increasingly and irrevocably indebted to figuring out how to make revolution—to pursue my own liberation means pursuing the liberation of those others who are the concrete, direct generators of the power that has animated me over the past two years.

This is what we are onto. True attention and care, radical honesty and making shared/public that which is hidden, not to make a watered-down life possible within unlivable conditions but as a necessary path to making true life occur now. The politics of “consciousness-raising” is the material process of overthrowing oppressive political institutions at the only point they really exist (where they enter our bodies), by treating each other honestly and never as instruments, thereby generating irrevocably bonded yet autonomous agents and collectives incapable of being consistent with status quo institutions. In my tiny little corner of contemporary Western radical politics, this is exactly what I’ve been doing with Mark and a number of others.

Something about all of the lovely tributes that has given me pause is the tendency to see Mark with somewhat rose-tinted glasses. Don’t get me wrong, Mark was a first-class intellect, an excellent writer, and he made quite an impact on a sizable audience. Many people knew Mark and his work much better than I do, but from where I’m sitting I don’t even see Mark as primarily a writer. To me, Mark was an active revolutionary first and foremost, he just happened to write a lot of things down. I think this is really important because, how do you think anyone becomes an important writer? It’s certainly not by choosing to become an important writer; it is by having some above-average source of interest or energy toward certain questions and writing things down along the way because you need to make sense of things as you go. Personally, I think Mark was interested in how such a rotten set of institutions can perpetuate themselves, and of course the question of how to overthrow them. I see his writings as by-products of the much larger qualities, attitudes and behaviors that made Mark the uniquely important figure he was.

In a comradely way, I would even wonder if there is not something possibly ideological in some of the glowing obituaries of Mark as a writer. As if his obscure, independent k-punk blog became so valuable and influential because of his way with words? I doubt that. And if you want to grow up to be cool and valuable and influential then just start an obscure, independent blog with good words? Maybe, but I think the real reason Mark made a lasting contributon to late 20th century British culture is because he fucking hated capitalism and it was killing him and he actually dared to say so, and to explain how and why, and to actively find others with whom he might take an honest shot at changing everything. If that’s the type of person you are, if that’s how you live, then anything you scribble on the back of a napkin is going to be fascinating, inspiring, useful, and impressive. Not because you’re a good “writer” but almost the opposite, because you care so much more about seeking liberation than being a successful “writer” that you have the freedom and energy to do something real with words. This is a crucial lesson for those interested in pursuing their own path of radical cultural production, but it’s one that tends to be erased in the tropes our cultural industry uses to describe important writers.

No doubt I liked and admired Mark’s writings, but I think Mark would understand my wish to make clear that he was not some sort of super rare genius talent. He wasn’t: he was you. Of course he was smart, and a good writer, but he was also weird and awkward and nervous, like you, like me. I have met certain towering intellects whose mental function is in fact probably something incomparable to what you and I have. Mark was not that type, he was something far more dangerous. He would often say interesting and brilliant things and also things I hardly understood or did not agree with or did not find interesting. I’ve heard people call him a great speaker, and he was certainly quite a speaker, but “great speaker” risks a crucial misunderstanding. He was great fun to listen to and talk with, but he was not a great speaker in the classic sense most people associate with that phrase. He was often quite disorganized, mentally cluttered, elliptical, stuttering, longwinded, and—if we are being honest, and of course we are—sometimes downright incomprehensible.

I remember at a Plan C Congress he gave a talk on some ideas from Operaismo and I left the room with almost no idea what he was trying to say. But the radical insight here is that that can be more politically powerful and sometimes even more fun and cool than “great speakers.” This is exactly the political-psychological mechanics of punk, where it is a lack of certain skills combined with a kind of passionate carelessness that triggers real excitement and empowerment in others, more so than mastery. So to call Mark a “great speaker” risks the very same media-spectacle recuperation that pacified Punk. I’m overjoyed to see Mark becoming a legend even sooner than I would’ve predicted, given the remarkable outpouring of acclaim in the aftermath of his death. But if the effect is to increase the perceived cognitive or performative distance between the average reader and Mark, then that would be unfortunate. What made Mark so interesting and powerful was that he thought what he thought, and he said what he said, because he wanted to, because he was irrepressibly moved to overthrow an intolerable state of things. And he said what he said despite that he had all of the shortcomings and deficiencies of the average person. To hear someone like Mark think all this radical shit, and make all these crazy statements, was so politically electrifying exactly because he was not super gifted and had to struggle against obvious normal difficulties. But he didn’t give a fuck, because he was a revolutionary, and that could be you tomorrow, today.

Or consider what is probably his most famous work, Capitalist Realism. It’s a totally cool little book that’s fun to read and I think it was really useful to a lot of people. But it’s crucial to celebrate it for the right reasons, and avoid those that distort Mark’s unique powers. It was not super original, certainly not systematic or comprehensive, and it gave very little direction on what any of us should do next. Mark wasn’t a genius, he was an interested, passionate, creative person on a search for something real, and that’s so much more revolutionary than mere genius. Again, his work was something you could do, if only you could find the courage and energy to pay attention to what really interests you, and write down what you think, for your friends, precisely without really giving a fuck if its original or systematic or impressive. This is the secret recipe of radical culture that actually produces effects on people, and I’m pretty sure Mark would not mind me reminding people of this.

From my view, I think Mark had a few key insights and I would summarize them as follows. All of this is temporary and it’s not supposed to be like this, but if you look closely you can always find glimmers of life. And it’s necessary to find those glimmers of life and invest in them, and if we all do this honestly and openly than we can and will find a way to change everything. These insights are insights that many of us have deep down inside, he just went after them as if it were a matter of life and death, because it was a matter of life and death, just as it is for us today, whether we feel like facing it now or later.

Mark’s death is teaching me that our revolutionary moment today is so much more real than I thought. Not an abstract potential, but something that is already operating wherever radically true relationships are being formed, if you only know how to pay attention, be honest with yourself and others, and invest your energies wisely. The more you take your attention and energies away from status quo fixations, and divert them into those people genuinely attuned to liberation, then as the dynamics of genuine bonding and belonging take hold, larger collectives can be spun from the two, to the three, and so on. If Mark’s readers trust him as an authority on the political nature of depression, then we should also trust him as an authority on the real and immediately available road to revolutionary transformation that he and I and others have been stumbling down together for the past few years.

There’s nothing magical or sacred about Plan C, which is only one particular group trying to figure these things out; it’s about the discoveries many people are making and are continuing to make, discoveries which anyone can pursue in their own way and on their own terms with anyone around them. This is not a vague appeal for everyone to “come together in love” with everyone around them, not that at all: it is an appeal to break away from all that is wrong and false with ony those you can trust to make of yourselves whatever it is you need to make of yourselves in order that life may occur together now. Not a universal love, but a highly careful and discriminating love—which might very well produce some enemies in the short term—based rigorously only on those principles you honestly believe to produce real dynamics of liberation, and an unflinching refusal of anything else. Not a circle of people singing kumbaya, but a real uprising that honestly feels like an uprising and which creates, almost out of thin air, the very thing you have been seeking all along.

At least for me, this is how it’s working. It’s sad to say, but it might’ve been Mark’s death that has really driven this home to me once and for all. During my last visit to the Plan C group in London, I had the good fortune of spending some quality time with several of my closest friends in that group. In a few moments, spread throughout my visit, I had the distinct feeling that, with those people, I’m truly embedded in a life or death struggle, but at the same time, in those very moments, I felt fully 100% alive and doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. You can’t call it liberation or revolution exactly, because no one is liberated until everyone is liberated, but it was a really unique and overpowering quality or experience of life that I used to think was something that would only come after the revolution, as it were. In these moments I sincerely felt like it was already here, or presently swelling like a wave, like it was actually happening in my body, like we are really doing the only thing that revolution could possibly be: our radically honest best, together. Interestingly, the only time I can remember having this feeling was in the headiest days of Occupy. The reason this is remarkable, and more evidence that indeed we are onto something, is that feelings of revolutionary power are supposedly short-term, fleeting, unsustainable rushes that only come about in rare insurrectionary upsurges such as Occupy—but here I am feeling them in a random pub with E, in another pub with N and A and J and W, on the overground to Tottenham with S, with C and T and A and J and A and S and everyone else at the same Misty Moon where I first met Mark Fisher before a Plan C meeting in 2014. And I still feel them right now, weeks later, even though to the naked eye “nothing is happening.”

In a way that I wouldn’t have said even two weeks ago, it really now does seem to me that we are already doing it. I’ve never seen it so clearly. I do not feel any hope for the future, which I firmly believe is a conservative affect. What I have is an interpretation of where I am and what is going on around me and who exactly are these different people. And I have increasing reasons to believe that my interpretation is true, while the socially dominant interpretation is false. What I also have are concrete tools, reproducible tactics and techniques to make energies flow inside our bodies, tactics I have discovered with my revolutionary friends, whether we have fully realized it or not, tactics that I can now creatively employ to remake every part of the world that I touch. What’s even more remarkable is a peculiar strategic assymetry about these tactics: these are tools that only real revolutionaries can learn, for the simple reason that today one must enter a revolutionary attitude to even access certain basic human experiences prohibited by what is currently called normalcy. Not least of these basic experiences is the one I mentioned above regarding “consciousness-raising,” that most primordial experience of being present with others for no ulterior purpose whatsoever.

That simple and immediately available place of radical honesty and being-unto-ourselves, easy as it sounds, is available only to individuals and groups able to see that it is effectively barred to normal humans adapted to the status quo. Also it is only through radical relationships, attuned and bonded around the honest search for liberation, that currently atomized individuals can gain the courage to take the risks necessary for shooting down this path. When I speak of risks I don’t mean anything grand, I mean even just that blog post you’ve been meaning to write but for some reason you’re just vaguely afraid to post. With honestly revolutionary friends, you stop caring what the Big Other will think, and you say a little more, do a little more, than you normally would—because you actually believe you’re onto something, as your friends are onto it also, and you might be crazy or stupid but you can’t all be crazy and stupid.

Last but not least, you begin to realize that even if everything fails and everything goes wrong, nobody can really touch you, because the truth is most people won’t even know what you’re talking about. At first one’s fear is always that people will respond negatively and punish you for sticking your neck out, but as you learn to do so, buoyed by revolutionary friends, you realize something at once more horrifying and liberating: you are much more likely to be ignored or misunderstood, possibly forever, than maligned and punished. If you’re honest path brings malice against you then you should count yourself lucky, for it means you are certainly onto something. See the Vampire’s Castle. Of course you could also be veering toward evil, always a risk, but again that’s why you’ve invested so much into your revolutionary friends. They will keep you honest without oppressing you.

And let me tell you one of the most beautiful things. If I haven’t made myself clear or you just don’t understand what I’m talking about, I am sorry about that but I also don’t need to care or worry because I know with certainty that at least a few of my comrades will. I’m able to know this with certainty because the only reason I’m able to write this is because of them, so almost by definition they will find themselves in it. Radical political groups are often mocked for being self-referential little spheres, but the only reason this is mock-worthy is because we feel like we have to be accountable to something or someone else outside of those circles. So the inside of those circles can feel sad and guilty and lacking something. What exactly are they lacking, though? Nobody can ever say. We feel like we need to do something more, or do something bigger or better outside of ourselves, and we mock ourselves for being tiny and self-referential only because we judge ourselves from the perspective of some stranger in the big dead center who in fact is not looking at us, and never looks at us. Ironically, the really perverse thing about our little circles is that they are not radically circular enough.

There’s nothing wrong with a small group that makes time and space to see nothing but itself. But the crucial condition for this to become revolutionary, the condition which is so hard to meet, is that such a circle must dare to make its own judgments about what is true and not true, real and not real (not in the sense of one objective truth but in the sense of diverse honesties or consciences), without apology and without paranoia and with absolutely zero respect for the millions of idiotic responses that might come from the massive dead center of society. And then it must dare to really believe and live by those judgments. The capacity to generate charmed circles is an extraordinary political power. All that is necessary from there is to make that circle expandable with a scalable membrane, not to self-loathe the inherently circular nature of a shared world, constantly fearing that we are not already enough for each other.

from Justin Murphy http://ift.tt/2k9yK3F

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charllieeldridge · 4 years

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2 Days in Seattle: The Perfect Weekend Itinerary

Wondering what to do with 2 days in Seattle? Read on for a detailed look at how to spend the perfect weekend in the Emerald City!

First of all, let’s talk about the nickname. It’s not that Seattle is full of shiny gemstones, but rather that it’s surrounded by evergreen forests and mountains.

Located in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle is nestled between Puget Sound and Lake Washington. With views of both the Olympic and Cascade mountains, this is definitely one of the most scenic cities in the United States.

You don’t have to go very far to enjoy nature here, though. There are plenty of beautiful green spaces right in the middle of the city. With a weekend in Seattle, you’ll be able to explore some of them along with iconic attractions like the Space Needle.

As an avid music fan, I’ve always known Seattle as the birthplace of grunge. This is where bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden got their start. Jimi Hendrix was born here, too. There are many things to see and do in Seattle — no matter what your interests are.

Here’s a look at how to spend the perfect weekend in Seattle!

Day 1 in Seattle

With just a weekend in Seattle, you’ll want to take in some of the sights in the city and also get out in nature. On the first day, we’ll take care of the sightseeing aspect and dive into the local culture a bit.

Morning

A busy 2 days in Seattle kicks off at the famous Pike Place Market. This historic farmers’ market has been in business here for over 100 years and is a Seattle institution.

While we’re on the topic of Seattle institutions, this is where the original Starbucks first opened back in 1971. It actually moved a few blocks away 5 years later to its current location.

Seattle is known for its coffee, so if you’re more into finding a local gem that doesn’t have a line of tourists out the door, there are dozens of cafes to choose from in downtown Seattle. Around the market, a few solid choices are Storyville Coffee and Ghost Alley Espresso.

With a nice caffeine buzz, you’re ready to explore this bustling market. There’s a lot to see and do here, so be sure to check out their website in advance to plan your visit.

One thing the market is famous for is its flying fish. The fishmongers working there are known to throw the massive fish to each other across the shop.

You may recognize these flying fish from the intro to the “Real World: Seattle.” It’s quite the sight and a very Seattle thing to see.

You can try to figure out where to eat on your own, or you can just leave it up to an expert.

The fine folks at Eat Seattle have a 2-hour culinary adventure called the Pike Place Market Chef Guided Food Tour. Be sure to come hungry for this one, as you’ll stop by ten different vendors for samples!

In addition to the markets, shops, and restaurants, Pike Place has a lot of positive local initiatives. From a food bank to a pre-school, it’s a big part of the community. You can show your support by making a donation at Rachel the Piggy Bank.

Afternoon

Following a busy morning at Pike Place, you have a few options for how to spend your afternoon. With just 2 days in Seattle, you’ll have to make some important decisions!

If it’s a nice day, I recommend heading to nearby Waterfront Park. This is the perfect place to enjoy the views of the Olympic Mountains on a clear day. If you have some change in your pocket you can get a closer look with the coin-operated telescopes.

While you’re over here, you may want to take a ride on the Seattle Great Wheel. Regular tickets are $15 for adults or you can splurge on a glass-bottom VIP cabin for $50. It comes with a t-shirt, a drink, and a photo as well as line-skipping privileges.

Have a look at this highly rated, 3-hour tour which takes in many of the sights I list. Transportation and guide are included in the rate. Find out more on Viator, here.

The views from land are great and all, but they’re even better out on the water. Argosy Cruises comes highly recommended for trips around Elliot Bay and Puget Sound.

You can choose from their 1-hour harbor cruise ($34) or 2.5-hour cruise of the Ballard Locks ($47). Both are excellent choices and afford some fantastic views of the city and its surroundings.

On the budget end, you can simply head down to the Colman Dock to catch the local ferry. It heads over to Bainbridge Island and only costs $8.50 for a return ticket.

If it’s raining on your weekend in Seattle (which is quite possible), you might tuck into a museum for a few hours. The Seattle Art Museum boasts an impressive collection and is well worth a visit.

The SAM has upwards of 25,000 different artworks here so it’s easy to kill some time on a rainy day! Tickets are $29.99 for adults and free for kids 14 and under.

Evening

I didn’t give a specific recommendation for lunch as I’m encouraging you to go big at the market in the morning. Plus it’s not hard to find a quick bite to eat when you’re out and about in downtown Seattle.

Whether it ends up being a late lunch or early dinner, it doesn’t matter. It’s worth it to head back to Pike Place to get a table at Matt’s in the Market.

They’re known for classic Pacific Northwest fare, such as oysters on the half shell, king salmon, and seared scallops. Here’s a pro tip — between 5 and 6pm you can enjoy an excellent Happy Hour menu if you’re OK with a barstool.

If it’s a craft cocktail that you seek to get your evening going, head over to Zig Zag Cafe. It’s a bit tucked away down a long staircase and definitely has that speakeasy vibe. Just be careful going back up if you decide to have a few drinks here!

Here’s one more solid recommendation for a night out in Seattle. Can Can Culinary Cabaret is a dinner theater below the market and is tons of fun. Click here to check out their schedule and grab your tickets online.

Seattle is definitely a unique city, and it shows in the many interesting things you can get up to on any given evening. Love dogs and craft beer? Then check out this cool Airbnb experience by Dog Gone Seattle.

This only happens on the weekend in Seattle and it’s a fun way to support a good cause. Your ticket includes your first drink and 100% of the proceeds go to the non-profit organization.

While Seattle may not be known for its nightlife like New Orleans or Los Angeles, you can still find plenty to do once the sun goes down.

If you just want to bounce around and check out different bars and clubs, then Pike/Pine is a happening place to go. This area is home to places like Unicorn (a carnival-themed bar) and Rock Box (a late-night Japanese karaoke bar).

There’s nothing quite like drunkenly belting out some nostalgic tunes to end the first of 2 days in Seattle!

Day 2 in Seattle

Let’s hope the weather is on your side and it’s a beautiful weekend in Seattle. The plan for day two is to spend a lot of time outside, but don’t worry — there will be a backup plan. Let’s start day two off with the most iconic landmark in the city.

Morning

If you’re looking for a place to grab a bite and some coffee, there are a few good spots on the way. Tilikum Place Cafe is a solid choice for a full meal, while Uptown Espresso works for a strong coffee and something light.

You won’t need directions to our first stop of the day as you can see it from all over the city. I’m talking of course about the Space Needle.

This funky looking tower has been the symbol of Seattle since its construction back in 1961. Originally built for the World’s Fair, it has received some pretty sweet improvements in recent years.

Way up at 520 feet (158 meters), the observation deck provides some epic views of the Emerald City. The Space Needle now features The Loupe, which is the first rotating glass floor in the world.

Tickets range in price from $32.50-37.50 for adults. You can also pick up combo tickets that get you access to other Seattle attractions, so check their website for all the info.

Alternatively, you can consider saving your visit to the Space Needle for the evening. It stays open until midnight, so you have all day to figure it out!

Another option is to join a day tour of Seattle, which takes in many sights in the city, including the Space Needle. Transport and guide are included in this highly rated tour. Find out more on Viator, here.

Perhaps you’d rather ditch the city and get out in the mountains. There are plenty of options for doing just that in Seattle! Check out this Meditative Mountain Hike Airbnb experience with a local ecotherapist, for example.

There are also two National Parks within reach of Seattle. Either one will take up the entire day, but it’s worth it for those who really want to see the natural beauty of the area. Check out these two tours – one to Mt. Rainier and another to Olympic National Park.

Afternoon

While it’s definitely the most famous building there, the Space Needle is just a part of the larger Seattle Center complex. There’s so much to see and do that you could spend your whole 2 days in Seattle trying to take it all in.

Some of the highlights include the International Fountain, which is synchronized to music at different times of the day. Another must-see over here is the Chihuly Garden & Glass Museum.

Featuring the work of renowned artist Dale Chihuly, it’s spread out over three different areas. There’s the garden, an indoor exhibit area, and the stunning glasshouse.

Tickets cost $32 and you can take a free audio tour or sign up for one with a guide. Head over to their website to see all the options and book in advance.

If it’s a typical rainy day in Seattle, there’s lots of fun to be had indoors over here as well. I personally recommend the Museum of Pop Culture. It’s worth heading over there just to check out the building, designed by world-famous architect Frank Gehry.

Inside, there are exhibits dedicated to some of Seattle’s biggest music legends like Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana. It’s far more than music, though — it also covers science fiction, comedy, video games, and more. This just might be the coolest museum I’ve ever been to!

Tickets for MoPOP cost $30, and you can save a few bucks by booking them online. Rain or shine, I think this place is a fantastic addition to any Seattle 2 day itinerary.

There’s always something cool going on at the Seattle Center, from festivals to concerts to fitness classes. Check their event calendar to see what’s happening during your stay.

If you’re traveling in a small group, one way to make your weekend in Seattle just a bit more fun is to try a scavenger hunt. It’s basically a mix of the Amazing Race and a sightseeing tour that you do from your smartphone.

This awesome challenge from Urban Adventure Quest is for a group of up to 5. It starts at the Seattle Center and takes about 3 hours to complete. Click here to check it out!

Finally, if the above options don’t appeal to you, you can visit the Olympic Sculpture Park, the Washington Park Arboretum, or Discovery Park in the north of the city to enjoy trails, beaches, sand dunes, and more.

Evening

It’s been a pretty huge two days in Seattle, regardless of which options you chose! After covering so much ground in the Emerald City, it’s time to enjoy a nice dinner and maybe an adult beverage or two.

One fun area to check out for dinner and drinks is Belltown. It’s conveniently located between downtown and the Seattle Center and has lots of options for wining and dining.

Seattle has some pretty fantastic Asian cuisine and Belltown is a great place to try it. There’s Umi Sake House for Japanese, Green Leaf for Vietnamese, and Bangrak Market for Thai.

Chances are you’ll be feeling a bit worn out after such a jam-packed weekend. Who knows when you’ll make it back up to the Pacific NW, though. It’s time to power through and go out for one more night.

My recommendation goes to catching some local live music. With just two days in Seattle, you have to rock out a bit and honor the city’s musical history. Click here to see what shows are in town.

Insider’s Tips for a Weekend in Seattle

That’s a pretty solid plan for how to spend 2 days in Seattle. You’ll have an even better time if you follow these tips:

Try to visit when the weather is nice – While the weather in Seattle is known to be gloomy and rainy, the city sees plenty of sunshine in the summer months.

As you might expect, these are definitely the busiest months in terms of tourism. Consider planning your visit in May or September to enjoy pleasant weather with smaller crowds.

Be prepared for unpredictable weather – One minute you’ll be comfortable in a t-shirt and shorts, while the next you’re wishing you had brought a sweater. Then it starts to rain and you wish you had a raincoat or umbrella. Be prepared for all kinds of weather.

Have an outdoor and indoor plan – It’s best to have a backup plan if the weather turns on you, which is quite likely in Seattle. Hopefully, you can enjoy the great outdoors, but it’s not a bad idea to have a list of museums or other indoor attractions to fall back on.

Book tickets online – With only a weekend in Seattle, you don’t want to waste time. Decide which attractions you want to visit and book those tickets online in advance. You can also save money on combo tickets if you plan to visit places like the Space Needle. Find out more about the top tours on Viator here.

Getting to Seattle

If you’re flying into Seattle, you’ll arrive at the Sea-Tac International Airport (SEA). It’s about 15 miles south of the city and is a major transportation hub with direct flights all over the world.

By Metro

One great thing about Seattle is that it has a solid public transportation network. You can easily get from the airport to downtown by hopping on the Link Light Rail.

A one-way ticket costs just $3.00 and it takes about 40 minutes to reach downtown. It runs every 10 minutes during the day on the weekend so you won’t have to wait around too long.

By Taxi

There are also flat-rate and metered taxis at the airport. The flat-rate ones are two colors and give you a set price depending on the area you’re headed to. Metered taxis are a solid color and charge per mile and/or time.

By Rideshare

Three different rideshare apps work in Seattle. You can catch Uber, Lyft, or Wingz from the airport on the 3rd floor of the parking garage.

Renting a Car

Renting a car is also an option but isn’t really necessary for a weekend in Seattle. As I said, the city has great public transportation. There’s really no need to worry about finding and paying for parking.

By Train

If you’re traveling to or from Seattle via other American cities, you may want to consider taking a scenic train. The Amtrak Cascades, Coast Starlight, and Empire Builder lines all pass through Seattle. Click here to read about your options.

Where To Stay for a Weekend in Seattle

For such a short trip to the Emerald City, you’ll want to stay in a central area. For a weekend in Seattle, it’s best to stick to downtown or the adjacent neighborhoods.

Staying here gives you easy access to and from the airport via light rail. It also puts you within walking distance to Pike Place Market and Waterfront Park. Public transportation makes it easy to get up to the Seattle Center as well.

Of course, downtown Seattle is also home to a wide range of hotels, restaurants, shops, and bars. This makes it a super convenient place to stay for a short trip.

Here are a few recommendations for downtown Seattle accommodation to suit all budgets:

Budget: Green Tortoise Hostel

Mid-Range: Residence Inn by Marriott

Luxury: Fairmont Olympic Hotel

If you don’t want to be right in the middle of the city, you can look for options in nearby Pioneer Square, Belltown, or Pike/Pine. There are some awesome places on Airbnb as well, so it’s worth doing a quick search on there.

Enjoy Your Trip to Seattle

I’ve had a lot of fun writing this guide, so I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Seattle is a fantastic choice for a weekend getaway and it’s definitely one of my favorite American cities. If you’re wondering if 2 days in Seattle is enough time, the answer is yes.

As with anywhere, you could always spend longer, see more, do more, or travel slower. But, if you just have a weekend available, it’s possible to enjoy a fun itinerary.

There aren’t many destinations that have such a wide variety of activities, restaurants, events, and bars on offer. There really is something for everyone in Seattle. Enjoy your trip.

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