Don’t Aim At Success — The More You Aim At It And Make It A Target, The More You Are Going To Miss

Debt is a Product of Power Relations

Debt is a Product of Power Relations

View On WordPress

Stelios Kerasidis(7)- isolation valse ( το βαλς της απομόνωσης)

Estonian Art And Literature: Big Ideas In A Small Country

Photographer Michael Gaffney followed Muhammad Ali’s storied career and documented many of his finest moments. He also captured a collection of pictures that show the more unseen side of Ali outside of the ring – from time on the road with his family, to impromptu greetings with fans and moments Ali took alone, away from his exuberant fame.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/yfViYlM8KwU?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque

Virtual Artists Talks Series: Praveen K. Chaudhry on New York City: Pand...

Virtual Guantanamo (by Draxtor Despres)

nonnydlp.com | nonnydelapena.com | pyedogproductions.com

Fast Company’s Co-Create Magazine called Nonny de la Peña one of the 13 People Who Made the World More Creative. She is the pioneer of Immersive Journalism, a groundbreaking brand of nonfiction that offers fully immersive experiences of the news using virtual reality gaming platforms. Combining her communication and technology skills with her lengthy career as a reporter, de la Peña believes newsgames can deepen the understanding of complex stories. Her most recent project Hunger in Los Angeles creates the feeling of ‘being there’ as a real crisis unfolds on a food-bank line at the First Unitarian Church. Hunger was called ‘one of the most talked-about’ pieces at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Her other projects include the MacArthur funded Gone Gitmo, a virtual Guantanamo Bay Prison; Cap & Trade, an interactive exploration of the carbon markets built with Frontline World and CIR; Ipsress which investigates detainees held in stress positions; and Three Generations, a newsgame on the California eugenics movement that premiered at 2011 Games For Change. She also co-founded the Knight News Challenge winner Stroome.com, an online collaborative video editing platform that hosted users from 126 different countries. A graduate of Harvard University, she is a award-winning documentary filmmaker with twenty years of journalism experience including as a correspondent for Newsweek Magazine and as a writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Premiere Magazine, and others. Her films have screened on national television and at theatres in more than fifty cities around the globe, garnering praise from critics like A.O. Scott who called her work ‘a brave and necessary act of truth-telling.”

A new question for the jury: Did my brain implant make me do it? « The Jury Room

We’ve written as lot about “brain malfunction” [aka “did my brain make me do it?”] defenses here but this is a new twist on the neurolaw question. Deep brain stimulation (“DBS”) is a well-accepted treatment for a number of serious and treatment resistant neurological conditions from Parkinson’s Disease to depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. As effective as DBS can be, there are also concerns about how, in some patients, it changes one’s personality to cause “undesirable or even deviant behavior”. The behavioral/personality changes depend on the location of the deep brain stimulation (and the functions carried out by that portion of the brain). 

So. You have a condition for which everyday treatment is ineffective or causes side-effects worse than the condition itself. Your doctor suggests a brain implant to offer deep brain stimulation (DBS). You are unfortunately, one of those for whom DBS creates behavioral reactions and you do something illegal. Are you responsible? Or is it your brain implant? […]

The article is very complex and the ideas in it are provocative. We cannot do justice to the questions raised by these writers in a brief blog post. It’s a very serious question.

"When you agree to a cutting-edge treatment and you are informed that for some people, behavioral changes may occur, do you thereby accept responsibility for any actions you take under the influence of that treatment?

"Or, since the behavior is completely different than anything you have previously displayed  and is thus believed due to the treatment (which can be shut off) is it fair to deny responsibility?

"And if you encounter aberrant behavioral effects but decide to not shut off the DBS because you appreciate the ways in which it helps you function, are you then more responsible for any illegal act you committed since you are choosing to continue down the same path?"

Yes. This is a new question. Not, “did my brain make me do it?” but “did my brain implant make me do it?”. Ultimately, however, the larger question remains the same. Where does our personal responsibility end?

Below the Asphalt Lies the Beach

Below the Asphalt Lies the Beach

There is still much to learn from the radical legacy of critical theory.

Source: Below the Asphalt Lies the Beach

View On WordPress