Stephan: First, I want to wish each of you my very best wishes that for you and those you care about 2022 is a year that is safe, and that you are well and prosper.
Second, I want to thank all of you who have supported SR this year. Your donations, particularly the monthly pledges, mean a great deal to me, and I thank you for them. SR gets technically more complicated and expensive to do every year, and it costs more to protect SR from the thousands of malicious attacks -- over seven thousand five hundred this year -- that are attempted. Your donations also allow me to publish each day without having to resort to those pop-up ads we all dislike.
Let's all focus this year on doing everything we can to preserve America's democracy, and let's all vote.
-- Stephan
Nicholas P Money, Professor of Biology and Western Programme Director at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio - Psyche
Stephan: In 1931, Max Planck, the father of Quantum Mechanics, who gave few interviews, was interviewed in London by a reporter from the Observer newspaper, who had one question: What have you learned? I think the reporter thought Planck would talk about atoms and molecules. Instead he answered by saying: “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” Einstein, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Pauli, agreed, and are on record as expressing similar views. When I talk with materialists about any of this they have no substantive response; they give you word salads about how the idea of an aspect of consciousness that is not physiologically based is impossible, and find the idea that all consciousness is interdependent and interconnected to be incomprehensible. Materialism is a dying paradigm, but still the dominant view of academia. The only way we are going to be able to effectively deal with climate change is by recognizing that consciousness is causal and fundamental and must be factored into science and technology. It is a race as to whether we can do that, and let materialism die, before climate change becomes catastrophic. Mayfield, Kentucky and Colorado give us a hint as to what is coming.
Fleecy milk-cap (Lactifluus vellereus). Credit: Philippe Clement/Getty
Mushrooms and other kinds of fungi are often associated with witchcraft and are the subjects of longstanding superstitions. Witches dance inside fairy rings of mushrooms according to German folklore, while a French fable warns that anyone foolish enough to step inside these ‘sorcerer’s rings’ will be cursed by enormous toads with bulging eyes. These impressions come from the poisonous and psychoactive peculiarities of some species, as well as the overnight appearance of toadstool ring-formations.
Given the magical reputation of the fungi, claiming that they might be conscious is dangerous territory for a credentialled scientist. But in recent years, a body of remarkable experiments have shown that fungi operate as individuals, engage in decision-making, are capable of learning, and possess short-term memory. These findings highlight the spectacular sensitivity of such ‘simple’ organisms, and situate the human version of the mind within a spectrum of consciousness that might well span the entire natural world.
Before we explore the evidence for fungal intelligence, we need to consider the slippery vocabulary of […]
Stephan: This is the question on which our future hinges: How is it that Donald Trump, his daughter, his son-in-law and his major orcs are not in prison? Trump has committed more crimes in his adult life than anyone we know of, yet he is never held accountable. Interesting karma, but it is time to end his invulnerability. Will it happen in 2022? The answer to that question will determine what happens in the United States, and whether our democracy survives.
Donald Trump Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston is not giving up on exposing how Donald Trump and his family fleeced America while he was in the White House. To that end, the bestselling author is back with a meticulously researched new book, “The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family.”
I recently spoke to Johnston about his new book for “Salon Talks” and one thing is clear: His enthusiasm to see Trump held accountable has not waned just because the Trump presidency is over. In “The Big Cheat,” he uncovers details on Trump’s scams that began with his inaugural committee and ran straight through his “Stop the Steal” fundraising grift. In between, Johnston notes a range of corruption by Trump, such as stopping in front of his Washington hotel during the inaugural parade in 2017 to send a clear message: “If you want something from the Trump administration, you will first pay tribute to Donald.” As Johnston writes, spending money at Trump’s hotel was one way to do just that.
Richard H. Pildes, Legal Scholar Analyzing the Intersection of Politics andLaw and How They Affect Our Democracy. - The New York Times
Stephan: Here is an excellent assessment of what is going on not only in the United States, but in democracies throughout the world by a distinguished legal scholar who has been study the dynamics of democracy for his entire professional life.
Credit: Maria Mavropoulou/The New York Times
We pay too little attention to delivering effective government as a critical democratic value. We are familiar with the threats posed by democratic backsliding and the rise of illiberal forces in several democracies, including the United States. But the most pervasive and perhaps deepest challenge facing virtually all Western democracies today is the political fragmentation of democratic politics.
Political fragmentation is the dispersion of political power into so many different hands and centers of power that it becomes difficult for democratic governments to function effectively.
President Biden has recognized this historic challenge, calling the defining mission of his presidency to be winning the “battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies.”
Yet even with unified control of government, the internal divisions of the Democratic Party postponed passage of his bipartisan infrastructure bill for several months and have made it uncertain which parts, if any, of the Build Back Better proposal will be enacted.
Juan Cole, Founder and Chief Editor of Informed Comment, and Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan - CNN
Stephan: This article describes a trend which I find increasingly alarming. The mainstream media plays everything like a sports event, and constantly cuts slack for Trump because he knows how to play them like an accordion, while Biden is more interested in the substance of government rather than the flash of media. The social outcome data from Biden's first year compared with Trump's entire four years makes this very clear.
CNN screen capture
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – I am not the only analyst to see an extraordinary set of double standards applied in the US media to Joe Biden in comparison with Donald Trump. It is almost as if reporters and anchors are willing to forget every one of Trump’s perfidies but never willing to forget even one of Biden’s missteps. It is hard to know what drives this weird amnesia. Maybe it is a desire to appear even-handed, given the rabid email rebukes they would receive from Trump loyalists if they reported on the former president as he deserves. Maybe it is an attempt by for-profit news to get Republican readers. Maybe it is sensationalism and clickbait. Maybe the handful of big corporations that purvey to us most of our news would really like to have Trump back. After all, he put viewership way up by his constant trolling of the public, and he cut taxes on the rich and corporations, so what is not to like?
Biden’s pull-out from Afghanistan was admittedly a […]
