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savegraduation · 5 years

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“But being a minor is only temporary!”

On the old Fourth Turning forum one day, a teacher who called herself TeacherOfMillies ("Millie" being a diminutive of "Millennial" popular on the board) started a thread in which she wrote about telling her son that he needs to "respect adults". Adina, a Millennial on the board, accused her of ageism. TeacherofMillies' response was:

Adina: Recognizing that minors have different capacities from adults and therefore do not deserve the same rights cannot be put in the same category as racism or sexism. A minority group is a group (such as sex, race or religion) whose membership is normally permanent. People who are born black stay black for life. Adolescence is not permanent. There is no discrimination here.

Then there was the old Pagan message board at AOL, where Brocéliande, a Joneser Wiccan with a 12-year-old son, told me that teens were not a minority group, because a minority group was by definition permanent, with the implied reasoning that discrimination on the basis of age was therefore acceptable.

It happens again and again when youth rights is brought up. Someone will bring up the -isms: sexism, racism, classism, ableism, and by extension, ageism. Someone will then bring up Murray and Herrnstein's The Bell Curve or other ostensibly scientific claims that some demographic groups are statistically more likely than others to be wise or have a higher IQ. Someone might say, "Statistics show that Asians are, on the average, worse drivers", or "Simon Baron-Cohen showed that men are better than women at systemizing tasks and women are better than men at empathizing tasks", or even, turning the tables, "Statistically, women are less likely than men to start wars; does this mean we should deny all men the right to positions of world leaders, even the gentler men, so the world will be safe from the risk of blowing ourselves up?" And then she or he will ask, "If it's not right to deny freedoms to deserving ethnic minorities, or deserving women, or deserving men, just because a large number of other people in their demographic aren't qualified -- it would be discrimination -- why is it OK to deny a mature 17-year-old the right to vote or drink just because some other people her/his age are immature?" And then some defender of the anti-YR position will fumble to defend it by arguing, "Being a minor is only temporary, so age is different from race, gender, or religion!"

Before I go any further into rebutting this argument, let's play this on an honest ground with our terms here. I prefer the term "demographic group" to "minority group". A group does not have to be a minority group to be discriminated against. Males are not a minority group, and the draft discriminates against males. Blacks are not a minority group in South Africa, where only 10% of the population is White, and apartheid discriminated against the Black majority. But males and Black South Africans are demographic groups, and prejudicial treatment against them is discrimination. Discrimination simply means treating someone wrongly differently because of her or his demographic group. And no one can argue with the fact that teens are a demographic group (as are seniors, for what it's worth!) When you say "minority group", you're really saying "demographic group that has traditionally been at a social disadvantage in the society/civilization in question" (in this case, the United States, or the West). So it's not "minority group", but "demographic group" that's the relevant concept here.

The first problem with this argument is that the impermanence of being a minor ("An American who was born Black could never wake up one day and be White all of a sudden!"), while making this different from other forms of discrimination, is not really relevant to the issue of whether discrimination is justified. One can pull up interesting differences when comparing two things, but just because those differences exist, it does not necessarily follow that said differences are relevant to right and wrong. For example, one might argue that in England, committing murder with a knife is different from committing murder with a gun because knives are legal to own in England, just not to use for murder, whereas guns are outright illegal to so much as possess. While this as a fact in and of itself is true, is this difference in any way germane to whether an Englishman killing someone with a knife is morally acceptable, or whether it should be legal to murder someone with a knife in England? Exactly how does the temporariness of membership in a group make discrimination defensible? I don't think that if that person became White one day and was finally allowed to vote because of it in the pre-1860's world, he or she would forgive and forget all the needless discrimination in the past!

Secondly, being mistreated during one's teen-age years will stay with a person for life. Your world does not become a clean slate again once you reach the legal age to do something; rather, the pain of discrimination from the past carries on.

A butterfly that flaps its wings when you are 13 will still have the ripple effect going when you are 40. For example, if 15-year-old Rachel's parents restrict her from taking the courses that competitive colleges like by refusing to sign her course selection form until it is whittled down to the dumbed-down classes that satisfy their anti-intellectualism, Rachel will have a very hard time getting into the colleges she wants by the time she's applying for colleges her senior year. As an adult, her opportunities will be limited against her will because of the choices her parents made for her against her will as a teen-ager.

In 2016, a 16-year-old boy named Gary Ruot was diagnosed with Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), an ocular disease that causes rapid degeneration and ultimately leads to blindness. The only hope for Ruot was a treatment called gene therapy, for which GenSight Biologics was running a trial for the treatment of LHON. However, the FDA had only approved the gene therapy LHON trial for patients over 18. By the time Ruot would turn 18, it would be too late, and he would be blind. Ruot's relative, Avery Wilson, posted a petition on Change.org, demanding the FDA lower the age for this trial to 16. Less than three months later, the FDA did the right thing and lowered the age for the trial, and Gary Ruot was saved. But what if the FDA had not reduced the age to 16? By the time Ruot was 18, he would be blind, and it would be too late for the gene therapy to save him. He could turn 21, 25, 30, 50, 75, and 100, and he would still be blind.

And what if your parents take you to get a circumcision before you are old enough to legally say no to an operation? Your foreskin isn't going to magically grow back once you reach the age of medical consent (which, in the U.S. varies depending on your jurisdiction, from 15 in Oregon to 19 in Alabama). Judging by the arguments ageists use against 12-year-old boys being allowed to say no to circumcision, you’d think they were convinced a boy’s foreskin will magically regenerate on his eighteenth birthday! Similarly, we're now hearing news stories about teens who live in states where under18s may not get vaccinated without their parents' permission researching vaccination on the Internet and often driving (or, if under 16, being driven by a friend) into states where minors do not need parental permission to be vaccinated. If some teen's Christian Scientist parents say no to a vaccination, and then s/he is exposed to the bacterium Bordetella pertussis or the rubella virus at 16, and catches pertussis or rubella, the teen will most likely die before her/his eighteenth birthday of a preventable disease -- are you seriously then going to defend this with the "But being a minor is only temporary!" argument?

The emotional enscarment that comes from being hurt by age-discriminatory laws will also last for the rest of one's life. If someone goes through a gulag school where he is subject to waterboarding, electroshock therapy, straitjacketing, and sensory deprivation, he may eventually be out of it as an adult, but by then the damage will be done. He will suffer the trauma for the rest of his life. Survivors of conversion therapy may be past conversion therapy, but by now they're 8.9 times as likely as their peers to consider suicide. Since I was 6, I suffered from a mental disorder called logaesthesia, where I taste words and have the sensations of swallowing them. The words I don't like I have to "purge" out by scraping my nails against my groin and then "vomiting" them up by carrying my nails over my abdomen, chest and throat. All the "socialization" I received in high school, all the being forced to do things, all the fascist comments that my behavior was "inappropriate" or "socially unacceptable", haunt me to this very day. I'm 39 now. Every day I still think back weekly to run-ins with authoritarian teachers that happened during my school years over both logaesthesia and other conflicts that came up. I have flashbacks, I bite myself, I slam my fist against my head, and punch my abdomen as if slicing open a watermelon, I yell. If I had only been given the chance to stop going to school, to live away from my parents, to move to Berkeley, I may have been able to get away from it before too much damage was done.

People who have been arrested under status laws may feel the effects of the arrest for the rest of their lives. Many employers would not hire a 30-year-old if they dug in his records and found he had been arrested for underage drinking at age 19. In California, where Proposition 21 eliminated the automatic sealment of one's juvenile record upon reaching 18, a conviction for breaking a city's curfew law at age 15 could put off potential employers. And the social stigma will attach to the arrested ex-minor from many people who know, firsthand or secondhand, about the arrest.

And what if you die during your teens? Then your adolescence will indeed become permanent. If you die before age 18, you will never have the chance to vote for or against a president. If you abided by the law stating no one is to drink alcohol until his or her twenty-first birthday, then you got drafted and went to war rather than dodging the draft, and got killed in war at the age of 20, you would die without ever having the chance to try alcohol. You think a belated "sorry" is going to make that OK?

The choices adults make for minors may even last beyond their terrene life and carry beyond the grave. For example, a recently deceased 17-year-old may have his organs harvested for donation against his consent. Or imagine that Blebdahism is the one true religion, that God is a Blebdahist and believes anyone who betrays Blebdahism is sentenced to Hell. But one young person who believes in Blebdahism deep down in his heart may have parents who are Sporgalists. In the United States, the parents may, by law, force their child to practice Sporgalism even though it is wrong, which would thereby condemn not only the parents, but also their child, to Hell for refusing to practice the rituals of Blebdahism. Since no one knows God's exact sentiments, one could not promise children that God would understand if they betrayed their religion only because they were forced; it could very well be that God thinks conforming to parental force is no excuse for not following Blebdahism, even for part of one's life, and still refuses to let those youth into Heaven, regardless. Of course, it may very well be that God understands people who betray their religion because of coercion by authority, that several religious paths lead to "Heaven", or even that Heaven does not really exist . . . but what if those aren't the case? Or suppose, arguendo, that God does let people into Heaven who practiced Sporgalism as minors but converted to Blebdahism as adults, but not people who were still practicing Sporgalism when they died. What if the child of Sporgalist parents who wants to practice Blebdahism gets hit by a truck at age 15? She'll never get another chance at practicing Blebdahism, and will be stuck spending an eternity in Hell. And the Blebdahist child of Sporgalist parents will probably be buried, in accordance with her parents' wishes, in a Sporgalist cemetery, where her body will lie forever . . . and ever . . . and ever.

Thirdly, lost time is never found again. Everyone only has a finite time to live -- at least until human life extension technology is invented, and we don't know how soon that will be. If the first 18 years of a 90-year life are spent in chains, that's one whole fifth of your life -- lost forever. Say a girl named Danielle wants to wear dreadlocks starting at the time she begins high school in September of 2016, at the age of 14 years and 6 months, but her school clamps down and forbids her to wear dreadlocks because they are against the dress code. Danielle graduates in June of 2020 at the age of 18 years and 3 months. She is then free to wear dreadlocks, until she dies the day after her eightieth birthday. She got 61 years and 9 months to wear her dreadlocks, but if her high school hadn't disallowed them it would have been 65 years and 6 months of her life. God is not going to magically add 3 years and 9 months to her life, allowing her to live to 83.75, to make up for the years she could have spent dreadlocked but was wrongly denied the right to.

An election only comes once. A person born in 1980 would not get to vote until 1998, and the thousands of decisions voted on in 1996 and 1997 did not have that person's say. He may get to vote on 1998 propositions or in the 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 elections, but it is already too late for him to vote in the Clinton-Dole election of 1996, which is lost forever in the annals of history. For any of the bad decisions of voters leading up to the current day, there’s a possibility it could have been avoided being passed had more young people, those who were 16 and 17, been allowed to vote.

Fourthly, ethnicity is the platonic prototype of a demographic variable and racism of discrimination, and every other demographic variable about humans has something about it that makes it different from race and unique from other demographic variables.

Take gender and sexism, for instance. Gender is a universally recognized trait; the gender someone is assigned at birth would be the same across the world in more than 99% of cases. Someone's race may be labeled as Mulatto or Mestizo or Black in Cuba but Hispanic in the United States. In one society, having sex with another person of your gender automatically makes you gay, whereas in another society, it is viewed as natural to experiment even if you are straight, and a third society may have no concept of "sexual orientation” whatsoever. The legal ages for things differ from country to country. Someone with epilepsy is viewed as disabled in modern countries but as having special, supernatural powers in the Hmong culture, and what is seen as ADD in the context on one culture is "normal" in a traditional nomadic culture. But everywhere around the world, someone with a penis and testicles is assigned male at birth and someone with a vagina and ovaries is assigned female at birth. (Defining someone by their karyotype -- XX vs. XY vs. various trisomies and polysomies like Klinefelter's syndrome -- is a twentieth and twenty-first century development, and even then, fewer than 1% of births are ambiguous or "intersex" when external genitalia, gonads, and chromosomes are taken into account.) Some people turn out trans, and there are some special gender categories, such as the berdaches/Two-spirit people in Native American cultures or the Thai kathoey, or ladyboys, in some cultures, but even then the person's biological sex is still acknowledged. Even in the relatively trans-friendly United States, the Selective Service system still has laws on the books requiring transfemales to register but denying transmales registry, because gender assigned at birth is so hardwired into the law. In 2002, in the case of In re Estate of Gardiner, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that a man and a transwoman could not marry, because the transwoman was male before the law and Kansas did not recognize same-sex marriages at the time.

Religion and religious discrimination are unique because unlike other demographic variables, people choose their religion. No one chooses to be male, or Chinese, or gay, or 23 years old, or disabled (unless they deliberately stab their eyes out or jump off a height to make themselves paraplegic). But people have control over what religion they practice, and this makes religion different.

Sexual orientation and homophobia are different because sexual orientation revolves around certain behaviors, and behaviors that certain factions and individuals believe are immoral at that. No one gets arrested for the mere condition of being African-American, or female, or teen-age. No one believes that blind people will burn in Hell. But many nations still have sodomy laws on the books making gay sex illegal (this included several U.S. states as late as 2003). Many churches teach that LGBT people will burn in Hell after they die. There are no controversial behaviors that are defining of Blackness, or defining of womanhood, or defining of adolescence. But sexual orientation is about what someone does just as much as what she or he is.

Disability and ableism are different because a disability can render someone by definition unable to do something. An example would be paraplegics being unable to do work that requires you to walk on feet. Men are generally stronger than women, but there are amazonian women and plenty of weak men. Stating that 20-year-olds are too immature to drink but 21-year-olds are mature enough to drink is a loose generalization. Some psychologists, most notably the White Charles Murray and the Jewish Richard J. Herrnstein, in The Bell Curve, make claims that average IQ of African-Americans is lower than that of Whites, which is in turn lower than the average IQ of Asians. There are disputes as to whether these statistics come from culturally biased IQ tests written by upper-middle-class White males, and many people believe there is no difference in intelligence among ethnic groups at all. Others believe that different ethnic groups and different genders have different tendencies towards strengths and weaknesses, such as Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen's theory of female empathizing and male systemizing. Whether the Bell Curve statistics are legitimate or not, though, no one can deny you find bright people and dim people -- even a few autistic savants with extremely lopsided abilities -- in all racial/ethnic groups. But blind people driving? This form of discrimination based on disability is recognized as "bona fide discrimination", and actually is legal in certain cases in many jurisdictions across the world. On the other hand, forbidding an epileptic to become a lawyer or refusing to let someone with cerebral palsy into your cake shop would most certainly not be bona fide discrimination, and pointing out this way disability is different from other demographic variables would not be an acceptable argument.

Socioeconomic class and classism are different because class is mutable (yes, possibly temporary!) in some societies but not in others. If you live in present-day Nashville or Los Angeles, you can rise to the top echelons just by being a great singer or actor. If you lived in Edwardian England, on the other hand, being a prole pretty much meant you were stuck being a prole, all your lower-class ways and mannerisms hard-wired into your identity. Rising in social class was very difficult.

Every rights movement has its own hurdles to overcome, and people who shout, "But this is different!" cause every rights movement to have to start at square one. A good example is Martin Luther King's niece, Alveda King, who fights against the gay rights movement and argues that homosexuality flies in the face of "family values" and therefore cannot be compared to the Civil Rights movement. Youth rights, like women's rights, LGBT rights, disability rights, and civil rights for ethnic and religious minorities, are human rights, and human rights supporters today don't say that being free from anti-Islamic discrimination isn't a human right because people choose their religion, or that being free from sexism isn't a human right because sex is a biological reality instead of just a social construct.

Finally, the transience of temporary pain or damage has never excused hurting people. As someone on the forum for National Youth Rights Association (NYRA) once wrote about people you argue that discrimination against teens is acceptable because minority is temporary: "Someone should give them a hard punch in the face. After all, it will only hurt for a little while". Damage can be temporary (even though damage caused by ageism is NOT always temporary), such as the 7-year-old who gives his baby sister a bad haircut, knowing it will grow back. But, as Martin Luther King famously stated in 1963 in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, "Justice too long delayed is justice denied". Perhaps no infliction of suffering should be illegal because life itself is only temporary, and therefore all of a person's suffering will one day come to an end?

"But!", you say, "What about the definition? You can't deny that a minority group is a permanent group, like female, or Chinese, or lower-class, or Hindu, and therefore teens are not a minority group!"

Putting aside the "minority group" vs. "demographic group" issue, the problem is this: what you've got here is an ad hoc definition. It's what logicians call the definist fallacy. Let's look at the definition of "minority" (definition 3a) in Merriam Webster's Webster's Unabridged: "A part of a population differing from others in some characteristics and often subjected to differential treatment". No mention of the membership in that group being permanent. Next, Wiktionary defines "minority group" as: "A group that forms only a small part of the population, whether it be for ethnic or other reasons". Still no mention of being permanent. Finally, for something different, let's look at the Collins COBUILD dictionary's definition (definition 2): "A minority is a group of people of the same race, culture, or religion who live in a place where most of the people around them are of a different race, culture, or religion". This excludes age, but this definition is so narrow that it also excludes such undisputed minorities as lesbians, transgender people, and the blind! Does that mean the U.S. government should feel free to round up gay people or people with bipolar disorder, since they're not protected by the definition of "minority group"?

As a matter of fact, some published, professional authors have referred to youth as a minority group. In 1971, Edward Sagarin edited a book titled The Other Minorities, which consisted of essays concerning the minority status of non-ethnic minorities: there are essays on women, gays, teens, the elderly, the disabled, criminals, and even intellectuals as minority groups. From pages 95 to 107 is Edgar Z. Friedenberg's essay "The Image of the Adolescent Minority". In it, Friedenberg writes: "In the most formal sense, then, the adolescent is one of our second-class citizens. But the informal aspects of minority status are also imputed to him. The 'teen-ager', like the Latin or Negro, is seen as joyous, playful, lazy, and irresponsible, with brutality lurking just below the surface and ready to break out into violence. All these groups are seen as childish and excitable, imprudent and improvident, sexually aggressive, and dangerous, but possessed of superb and sustained power to satisfy sexual demands. West Side Story is not much like Romeo and Juliet, but it is a great deal like Porgy and Bess." Friedenberg recognizes how facile stereotypes of teen-agers are about as respectful as the old "minstrel show" stereotype of African-Americans.

"But!", you object, "I'm just saying teens aren't a minority group!" Then if the question of whether teens are a minority group isn’t relevant to whether anti-youth discrimination is acceptable (and it isn't, given all the other problems with the "temporariness" argument), then why are you even bringing it up?

Teens are a (very often) oppressed demographic group. Discrimination against teens is still discrimination. The fact that unless you die before your twenty-first birthday you will not be underage forever does not justify your parents dictating what high school courses you will take, or you being denied the rights to medical consent, or you getting arrested for breaking curfew or underage drinking, or you being denied the vote at 16. So please don't use this argument.

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nebris · 5 years

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Gun Violence Isn’t a Problem—it’s actually 5 Problems, with Different Solutions

Thom Dunn Nov 8, 2018

Naming something gives you power over it.

That’s the basic idea behind all the magic in every folktale dating back for centuries, from “Rumpelstiltskin” to the Rolling Stones’ “Hope you guessed my name.” Ancient shamans didn’t practice “magic”; they just had knowledge, and names for things like “eye of newt” that no one else could understand. To name something is to know it, and knowledge is power. Think about the relationship between “spelling” and “spells” and you won’t be so surprised that Harry Potter has been all over the gun violence conversations lately, on both the Left and the Right—which makes sense, considering that they have a word you memorize and practice reciting in order to kill people.

But when we talk about gun violence—or gun control, or gun reform, et cetera et cetera ad nauseam—we’re all too busy tripping over words to see the problems that we’re trying to address. And no, I’m not talking about “gunsplaining,” or even about the eye-roll-inducing “assault weapon” terminology (which is a distinction that I have come to understand and appreciate, and also a debate that is nothing but distracting on every single side of it). It’s hard to deny that gun violence is a problem in the United States of America, but it’s in our attempts to name that problem where we start to lose our footing, and thus, our focus (and I know a thing or two about focus). Perhaps if we learned to name the individual issues of gun violence that need to change, then we can start to identify specific solutions — one at a time, without infringing on civil rights or liberties. Then maybe then we could have some real conversations about how to make our society safer.

Instead of seeing at gun violence at One Big All-Encompassing Monolithic Problem, let’s look at the isolated areas where gun violence needs to be addressed: Domestic Violence, Suicides, Mass Shootings, Gang Violence, and State Violence.

1. Domestic Violence

An existing history of violence against family or loved ones is the greatest indicator of a person’s penchant for gun violence. An American woman is shot and killed by her partner every 16 hours, according to the Trace, and more male shooters attack their own families than schools or public places. In terms of the sheer number of deaths, the money we spend on terrorism would be better focused on the threat of husbands.

Perhaps none of this is surprising—but for some reason, we still don’t do anything about it. While the NRA loves to whinge on about self-defense, they ignore the fact that abused women are five times more likely to be killed by partners who own firearms, and 90% of women imprisoned for killing men had previously been abused by those same men.

That’s what I mean when I say “We have a problem.”

Felony offenses for domestic violence are supposed to mean that an American loses their right to gun ownership. But this requires the person to willingly turn their private property over to the government, or for the ATF to actively pursue civil asset forfeiture on those guns—neither of which is a very practical solution.

So what can we do? Legally, it’s complicated. But states like Rhode Island, California, Washington, and New York have recently enacted laws to prevent guns from even failing into the hands of misdemeanor* domestic abusers, and quite frankly, I don’t see a reason why that can’t be enacted everywhere. It’ll save lives, and it won’t infringe on the rights and freedoms of law-abiding gun-owners, or people at greater risk of being victims of violence. We can also improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (which even the NRA has mockingly acknowledged to be flawed) by standardizing the information that states and military are required to submit, under threat of financial penalty.

(*The one caveat I will acknowledge: this requires people to actually press charges. And that’s easier said than done, for a number of social reasons that are difficult to legislate.)

2. Suicides

According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, nearly two-thirds of all gun deaths are suicides, and almost half of all suicides are gun deaths. The majority of those victims are men, often with military backgrounds, and mostly over the age of 45.

This is the one place where mental health really enters the gun reform debate, and it has nothing to do with a risk of physical harm to others.

Suicides of all kinds are unfortunately difficult to prevent. But most attempts are impulsive, and 70% of people who survive an attempt won’t try again. Unfortunately, only about 10% of people survive a suicide attempt by gun — which means the trick is in screening those deadly impulse buys.

Some gun sellers in America have already started taking the initiative to spot suicide warning signs in customers, using grassroots activism to empower more community intervention. And in fact, when Australia enacted its gun ban, the country saw a drastic drop in suicides as well. If we want to focus our energies on saving lives, that might be a place to start. (Of course, this will also require investing more money in community resources and social work, too — but I think the return on investment is worth it, ya know?)

3. Mass Shootings

Mass shootings get the most attention, because they’re massive and tragic. More often than not, the circumstances around them are almost too absurd to wrap out heads around, so we search for scapegoats such as “mental illness.” But mass shootings account for less than 1% of firearm deaths—which unfortunately makes them kind of hard to plan for and around to base legislation upon.

Now, to be fair: mental illnesses do figure out one-quarter to one-half of mass shootings. But anyone who knows anything about data will tell you 1/2 of 1% is not really a good indicator of anything, especially when about 20% of the population has a mental disorder, and those people are still significantly more likely to be victims rather than perpetrators of violence. It’s also important to point out that, while gun violence in general is on the decline, mass shootings are becoming deadly—but not necessarily more frequent.

Now that all that data is out of the way, we still need to talk about the fact that mass shootings—especially in schools—are a problem. Given that small statistical sample, however, it’s harder to find solutions that will be applicable in enough situations to make a difference. This is about more than “walking up” and bullying initiatives. Because the most bullied people are LGBTQ+, or Muslim, or poor, or physically unattractive, while most school shooters are white men. But you know where we can start? Increase funding and training for social work, especially at schools, and give people the tools they need to express their frustrations.

See that? None of it will infringe on civil rights and civil liberties. It will infringe upon the people who don’t want to pay taxes and/or want to harm social services and public education. Poverty, opportunity, and violence go hand-in-hand, and they all require some financial investment to upend.

4. So-called “Gang-Related” Violence

This one is particularly frustrating, because it’s often racially charged — and thus, often used as a racist deflection (STOP👏BRINGING👏UP👏CHICAGO👏 ). Even without the racialized aspect, it’s still quite complicated.

Unfortunately, it’s also true that 80 percent of gun homicides (but not all gun deaths) are gang-related killings, which affect mostly young men. And while there is a racial element, it has more to do with the survival tactics that people are forced to go through in order to survive in a racist society.

If you ask me, much of this connects back to the same problems of toxic masculinity that lead to domestic violence. Even financial struggles or other markers of “manliness” can drive men to violence, lashing out at the world for their own perceived failures. Simply put, violence is a byproduct of anger, not of general mental health. That alone is not a legislative solution, but perhaps it can serve as a guide for the ways in which we cultivate our culture with compassion, empathy, and understanding—oh, and not automatically treating teens who misbehave like they’re already criminals, damned for life, as often happens in our racist education and justice systems.

Luckily, there are already educators and social workers trying to address these problems. Perhaps we should consider increasing their support and resources; after all, it’s better to address a problem before it starts than to spend all your money trying to clean-up the mess after the fact. But it has to start within the communities first. They know what’s best for them more than any government or police interference could help—they just need allies and support to make it happen.

[My one comment here: the vast majority of this violence can also be laid at the door of the failed War on Drugs. End that and much of this particular form of gun violence will abate. Nebris]

5. State Violence

Neither the military nor the police should be excused from unnecessary acts of violence. History has shown time and time again that the use of violence as a tool of persuasion only engenders more fear and anger among the general public, and that in turn leads to more violence every time. The state should not have a monopoly on violence, and violence committed at the hands of the government is just as bad or worse than violence between civilians. This harkens back to the original intentions of the 2nd Amendment, too—to defend against a tyrannical government, a.k.a., state-sponsored violence.

Militarized policing, for example, is known to harm both police reputations, and community stability, without actually make anyone safer. The FBI has been watching and warning of an increase in violent white supremacists infiltrating police departments for years, and nothing’s happened to stop it.

Or consider the fact that 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence, according to the National Center for Women and Policing. And yet, the Blue Fraternity all but ensures that charges are never brought against the officers involved, even though it’s been established that patterns of violent behavior almost always lead to more violent behavior. The same goes for the rising problem of police brutality (or as the passive-voiced PR prefers, “officer-involved shootings,” a phrasing that’s intentionally designed to absolve the officers of any responsibility). Thanks to police union laws, officers who do commit excessive and unnecessary acts of violence are often transferred to or hired by another nearby department, with little to no consequences for their actions—despite the fact that they are likely to repeat them.

We should not excuse these acts of violence simply because they are committed by police officers. By doing so, we just enable more violence—which empowers more cops to act with extreme prejudice, which leads to more violence, which is met by more violence.

Much of this goes back to mental health as well, and the way we treat our veterans after subjecting them to the horrors of war. If a history of violence is the best indicator of future acts of violence, then training our soldiers to commit acts of violence—with little support for the PTSD they endure when they come home—is simply setting them up for more violence. That’s why veterans tend to be more susceptible to joining the ranks of white supremacists, or committing acts of domestic violence: it’s an outlet for the violence that we inflicted upon them by sending them to war in the first place.

(This especially true of men who receive other than honorable or bad conduct discharges. The military has their reasoning for their categories, which don’t impact a discharged veterans ability to purchase a gun in the future, even if the reason for their discharge had to do with violence. An improved FBI background check system would find a way to address this loophole, too.)

Unfortunately, this makes it easier for those same veterans to seek out the camaraderie and power of the military by joining extremist militias, or to seek solace in suicide, as mentioned above. Our society (rightly) likes to talk big of honoring our veterans, but there’s nothing honorable about subjecting them to these horrible fates.

We can’t find common ground unless we can actually identify the problem to solve—and we can’t see the problem if we don’t share the same words to describe it. That’s the source of our gun debate.

Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, I hope that we can all agree that reducing death and violence is a good thing for everyone. But we can’t just throw our arms and shrug after every awful shooting tragedy; nor can we throw our arms up and scream about every single death like they’re all the same.

Sometimes, the best way to tackle a larger problem is to break it down into smaller ones, and to make sure that everyone’s using the same words to refer to all the same things. If we’re ever going to deal with our gun violence epidemic, then I think this could be a good place to start.

I’ve written extensively on gun violence, spoken on international TV and radio on the subject, and even pursued a gun license in the strictest city of one of the strictest states in the country. Despite my first-hand experience, the most ardent defenders of the Second Amendment will still tell me things like, “We don’t need more laws! We need to enforce the laws on the books!” or “We can’t stop every shooting because that’s just the price of freedom.” However, those #2A Avengers will still acknowledge that yeah, okay, maybe NICS has some problems, or maybe those Parkland cops should have done something earlier — that is, until they swiftly retreat back into the same tribalistic mindsets that always prevent human progress. But I wrote this, because I truly think that maybe—just maybe—we can find more common ground.

https://medium.com/@thomdunn/gun-violence-isnt-a-problem-it-s-actually-five-problems-with-different-solutions-63f58e93da08

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edivupage · 5 years

Text

The Effects of Technology on Teen Anxiety, Depression and Mental Health

We can’t talk about the effects of technology on teens without the mention of social media, so we’re just going to dive right in.

Elementary, middle and high school students are of the social media generation; they’ve been exposed to it their entire lives and don’t remember a time without it.

Regardless of personal opinions on technology, social media, teens and how these three things interact, here are a few facts worth noting:

Two-thirds of teens have access to internet-capable mobile devices (a.k.a. smartphones).

Ninety percent of teens have used social media.

On average, teens spend roughly nine hours per day on the internet, not including time spent on homework.

Being the most prevalent form of technology that teens have access to today, social media not only opens the door for brutal cyber bullying, but also for mental health issues linked to comparison, materialism, body image, self-worth and more.

Avoiding the influence of social media is nearly impossible for teens and, with the rise of safety concerns in schools, many districts are opting to allow students access to their phone all throughout the school day. But, what does this mean for mental health?

Well, according to experts, technology is not inherently bad. Most problems lie in the way in which we interact with it.

In many situations, access to technology has vastly improved the educational system by streamlining communication with parents, improving the student-teacher relationship and presenting information in more engaging, tactful ways. Technology has both the power to encourage collaboration and provide access to positive social groups, as well as flood teens with unrealistic imagery, inappropriate information and distractions from finding peace in the present moment.

Yet, we cannot downplay the correlation between the rise of technology along with increases in teenage mental illness and suicide. Anxiety has become the most prevalent mental health concern among teens with 62 percent of undergraduate students admitting feelings of “overwhelming anxiety.”

So, back to the burning question… What does this mean for teenage mental health?

It means that schools should consider a more holistic approach that neither outwardly banishes technology nor labels it as good or bad. As educators and parents, it’s our responsibility to teach our kids how to monitor their contact with technology by demonstrating situations in which it is helpful and situations in which it is a distraction or harmful.

Technology is already too far intertwined with education culture for us to ignore it, and the same goes for the alarming statistics on teenage mental health. Overall, our students need the tools, education, mindfulness practice and understanding that technology is just one of many potentially toxic substances the world has to offer. Its infiltration into our lives is largely out of our control. But, what we can control is our relationship to it, our commitment to improving access to counseling and mental health resources in schools and our job as adult role models to open up the conversation about mental health and create a safe space for sharing the struggles felt by many of us.

The post The Effects of Technology on Teen Anxiety, Depression and Mental Health appeared first on The Edvocate.

The Effects of Technology on Teen Anxiety, Depression and Mental Health published first on https://sapsnkra.tumblr.com

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timclymer · 5 years

Text

Halloween – Samhain Teach Us To Overcome Fear

At its core, Samhain is about the night when the old God dies and the crone Goddess mourns him deeply for the next six weeks. The popular image of her as the old Halloween hag stirring her cauldron comes from the Celtic belief that all dead souls return to her cauldron of life, death and rebirth to await reincarnation.

After the Christian church to recast the sabbat, or seasonal season, by turning it into a day of fasting and prayer for saints (All Hallow Eve, preceding all Saints Day, is still one of the holiest days in Catholicism), Samhain lore and practice remained popular and the church was forced to diabolize it as a night “boiling with evil spirits.”

Masters of cultural blending, the church declared that the evil spirits were dispelled only the ringing of church bells on All Saints Day. Although terrorism has nothing to do with this pagan holiday, the idea of Samhain being a night of unleashed evil took hold in the collective mind.

The effect of this unfortunate misinterpretation is that a great opportunity to reflect on life and death, on the endless cycle of seasons, and extremely, on confronting and overcoming that which frigtens us, has become lost. Halloween has become an extremely commercial holiday, second only to Christmas in decorating and candy sales, or a celebration of the macabre, leading to fearful rejection by religiously conservative groups, or wanton abandon by those happy to unleash their versions of the hounds of hell.

Very few people however, seem to take the opportunity Halloween presents to face our fears, which is interesting – or maybe understandable — America appears to be one of the most frightened places on earth. According to a NY Times poll in 2006, nearly half of Americans feel “something uneasy or in danger.” Compared with five years previous, 39% of Americans said they feel less safe now, while only 14% said they feel safer.

While there does not seem to be any exact figures, turn on the television at almost any given time, and it’s clear that there’s been an increase, in recent years, in the number of crime dramas and crime related news coverage. We’ve got show like the venerable America’s Most Wanted reminding us that violent predators are loose in every city; CSI solving dramatic counters in at least three states; 20/20, PrimeTime and 48 Hours, with their companionable reporters warning us, with great concern for our well-being, about scams, crooks and thugs of every variety; and horrific slasher films, available on cable, right in our own homes and enhanced with the best blood-letting computer graphics to bring it all home.

In the early 1990s, there was a dramatic increase in the public perception of crime as the most important problem facing the country – 52% of Americans, in 1994, felt that crime was of utmost concern. Based upon data from 1978 through 1998, results suggest that this “big scare” was more a network TV news scare than a scare based on the real world of crime. The television news alone accounted for almost four times more variance in public perceptions of crime as our most important problem, than did actual crime rates, which – believe it or not – have actually gone down in the last fifteen years.

Yes – down: For the 10-year trend, from 1996 to 2005, the FBI reports that violent crime declined nearly 18%. Murder decreased 15% in 2005 compared to 1996. In this same time period, robbery offenses decreased 22%. Even motor vehicle theft decreased, down more than 11% in 2005 compared with 1996.

So just what are we so afraid of? If you’ve managed to avoid the crime scare, modern media has some other concerns for you: How about dying in an airplane accident? Getting cancer from … well, anything at all? Virulent breeds of superbugs resistant to every known antibiotic? Food safety? Organ trafficking? Killer bees? Having your child kidnapped? Hooked on drugs? Or finding a razor blade in their Halloween candy? Lead in toys?

For what it’s worth, the Halloween razor blade thing never happened, and most of those other concerns are overblown as well. Barry Glassner, author of The Culture of Fear (Basic Books, 2000), calls these “pseudodangers”, and says the media, advertisers, politicians and various companies and organizations thrive on them and the money (or votes, which extremely translates to money ) that your fears bring them. Pseudodangers, suggests Glassner, represent an opportunity for us to avoid facing problems head-on. Rather than address – or sometimes, better said, because of our inability to address – poverty, we fear the criminals that poverty can create. Our inability to address foreign policy issues renders us terrified of terrorism.

“In just about every contemporary American scare,” says Glassner, “rather than confront disturbing shortcomings in society, the public discussion centers on disturbed individuals.”

Our fears, however, are often far worse than our realities.

According to John Meuller, the Woody Hayes Chair of national security policy and professor of political science at Ohio State University, we’re suffering from a national false sense of insecurity.

“Until 2001,” he writes, “far fewer Americans were killed in any grouping of years by all forms of international terrorism than were killed by lightning, and almost none of those terrorist deaths occurred within the United States itself. 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (which is when the State Department began counts) is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer , or some severe allergic reaction to peanuts. ”

Further, Meuller noted that transportation researchers at the University of Michigan calculated than “an American’s chance of being killed in one nonstop airline flight is about one in 13 million (even taking the Sept. 11 crashes into account). risk when driving on America’s safest roads – rural interstate highways – one would have to travel a mere 11.2 miles. ”

Driving is, in fact, one of the most dangerous things we do, and yet most of us are quite willing to accept that risk. Author Bruce Schneier, in Beyond Fear (Springer, 2nd edition 2006), observes that, “In America, automobiles cause 40,000 deaths every year; that’s the equivalent of a full 727 crashing every day and a half – 225 total in a year. As a society, we effectively say that the risk of dying in a car crash is worth the benefits of driving around town. But if those same 40,000 people died each year in fiery 727 crashes instead of automobile accidents, you could be sure there would be Similarly, studies have shown that both drivers and passengers in SUVs are more likely to die in accidents than those in compact cars, yet one of the major selling points of SUVs is that the owner feels safer in one . ”

Many of our fears, of late, involve children – everything from being afraid for them to being afraid * of * them. Surveys have found that kidnapping tops parents’ list of concerns for their children. Yet the largest safety issue for kids is basic simple safety measures in homes and public places. The risk of kidnapping by strangers remains incredibly small – under 1% of the nation’s more than 64 million children are located by non-family members and actually returned. A far smaller number die.

And those killer Columbine type kids? They’re statistically almost non-existent. 80% of our nation’s counties never experience a juvenile homicide.

But are things getting worse? “There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know,” said Harry Truman.

“A new army of 6 million men are being mobilized against us, an army of delinquents.” Juvenile delinquency has increased at an alarming rate and is eating at the heart of America, “declared a Juvenile Court Judge – in 1946.

There are "predatory beasts” on the streets, hordes of teens and preteens running wild in city streets, “gnawing away at the foundations of society,” said a commentator – in the 19th century. In 1850 in New York alone, there were more than 200 gang wars mostly by teenage boys.

The youngest American ever executed for murder was 12 years old. She killed the baby in her care – in 1786.

So how did we get so scared? Our fears, suggests Glassner, are carefully and repeatedly fed by anyone who desires to create fear, often by manipulating words, facts, news, sources or data, in order to indict certain personal behaviors, justify governmental actions or policies (at home or abroad ), keep people consuming, elect certain politicians, or distract the public’s attention from allegedly more urgent social issues like poverty, social security, unemployment, crime or pollution. The most common techniques for social haunting include:

Careful selection and omission of news (some relevant facts are shown and some are not); (reporting that the number one problem teachers faced in 1940 was talking and gum chewing, and in 1990, pregnancy, suicide and drug abuse; , teachers today site problems parent apathy and lack of text books as their biggest problems)

Distortion of statistics or numbers (declaring 800,000 children missing each year, but failing to break those statistics down meaningfully)

Transformation of single events into social epidemics ; (going “postal” is not a postal service epidemic – that remains one of the safest occupations)

Corruption and distortion of words or terminology according to specific goals ;

Stigmatization of minorities , especially when associated with criminal acts or degeneration behavior;

Generalization of complex and multifaceted situations ;

Causal inversion (turning a cause into an effect or vice-versa).

None of this is to suggest we should not be cautious or aware or concerned, that we should not be proactive in caring for ourselves or our children, and taking normal precautions for health and safety. But simple things like wearing seatbelts and washing hands will do more to protect you than refusing to talk to strangers or carrying a gun.

“To fear is one thing,” says author Katherine Paterson, who wrote Jacob Have I Loved (HarperTrophy, 1990). “To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.”

Nobel Prize Laureate Bertrand Russell, a British philosopher, logician, essayist and social critic, suggested, in 1950 when we were dealing with all sorts of still familiar concerns, there are two ways of coping with fear:

“… one is to diminish the external danger, and the other is to cultivate Stoic endurance. The latter can be reinforced, except where immediate action is necessary, by turning our thoughts away from the cause of fear. of very great importance. Fear is in itself degrading; it easily becomes an obsession; it produces hate of that which is feared, and it leads headlong to excesses of cruelty. ”

In “ We are Not Afraid, ” Homer Hickam, author Rocket Boys (Delta, 2000) (which was made into the film, October Sky ), drew on his experiences growing up in the brave and resilient community of Coalwood, West Virginia, a town were the threat of death was constant, but fear was not. He said Coalwood residents take a four pronged approach to fearlessness that he sums up in something like a set of mantras:

We are proud of who are

We stand up for what we believe

We keep our families together

We trust in God but rely on ourselves

Hickam also says something substantially Buddhist early in his book. He says that despite the ills of our society, we large live among compassionate, kind and optimistic people who are striving to do good. “As an American,” he says, in a line that would make the Dali Lama proud, “you have a duty to be happy. pursuit of happiness. So do your duty. Learn how to be happy and keep this in mind: You can not be happy unless you stop being afraid. ”

Senator. John McCain (R-Ariz.) Puts it less poetically: “Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! wave. Suck it up, for crying out loud. You’re almost certainly going to be OK. a life worth living, is it? ”

Fear, Hickam says, is mostly a habit.

“The habit of fear and dread,” he writes, “can be compared to having a chronic disease. that we walk around with slumped shoulders and drag one heavy foot after another. We dread getting out of bed in the morning, certain that only awful things are going to happen when we do. We include ourselves. We do not like the way we look. We feel victimized. We’re envious of others and assume the world is filled with meanness. We always lose our views and we do not even know why. Worse, the disease we have is infectious. Innocent people we encounter are susceptible to catching fear and dread from us, including our children. wrong, but we do not know how to be cured. ’

One way to rid yourself of this infection, says Hickam, is to "stand up straight and …. be proud of who you are.” To do that, he says, it’s necessary to know who you are, and how you’re connected to your family and your community. That involves talking to family members, to community members – and passing their stories on to your children and other family members. To be unafraid, you have to be connected to something larger than yourself, says Hickam.

The habit of fear and dread also causes timidity, says Hickam, a tendency to avoid confrontation, especially in defending our opinion. That one’s probably not quite as big an issue here for us – we have lots of opinions and fling them around easily here. But how about “out there”? “If you act as if what you think is not important, it’s the same as believing * you * are not important,” wrists Hickam. “An attitude like that can squeeze the life right out of anyone.”

One of the best ways to overcome that aspect of fear and dread, he says, is “to take up for those who can not take up for themselves.”

“There’s always someone who needs you help. How can you be afraid if you’re the protector of someone else in a dangerous world?

But there’s more to it than just faking it till you make it. Hickam says you should also teach that person to stand up for himself, too, so that he can keep his dignity. Hickam cautions that standing up for what you believe "does not mean that every time you feel you’re slighted, you should erupt with loud, hateful behavior. of some perceived oppression. This attitude ahs to do with a quiet determination to have your opinion explained and heard. To be effective, it also has to be respectful and fair. The most effective way of standing up is always going to be the nonviolent way, quiet but determined. ”

Keeping our families together can actually be one of the harder tools for fearlessness, observes Hickam, but it’s a vital one. “An intact, functioning family works to not only provide a loving refugee, but also fills in the cracks of our own personalities. Smart he is, or how many muscles he ahs or anything else. The family can be a shield against the world, and also the springboard to a better life. ”

And finally, Hickam says trusting God but relying on yourself is a sure way to rise above fear. “The people of Coalwood were against calling on God any time they needed help,” he recalled. “For one thing, it was considered impolite. God had a lot of things to worry about after all, without including everything that got in the way of one particular human being. with most of what they needed to get past a scrape, including their own good common sense. ” Mostly, he said, they reserved their prayers for thanks.

While others often ponder why bad things happen to good people, Hickam ponders something he says as more amazing: “Why, in a universe and a world where everything must work hard to simply survive, did that which we think of as decent and fine get we are crave goodness, seek out honesty and strive to be honorable, even when evil is so much easier? our species and our world and our universe? Some great goodness is out there, and it’s here, too. It is everywhere. ”

We’re two parts, says Hickam, “one spiritual and the other physical. Both are important. us. But we also must use our hands and minds to keep our families safe and build a better world. ”

A world in which we are not afraid.

“We are not afraid.”

Say it slowly, and savor it, says Hickam, like we should savor the world and each moment. This sacred time of year honors the timeless changes of our lives, and offers us a rare opportunity to look death in the eye and give it a wink and a nod.

“There is no reason to fear life or dread what might be coming your way,” wrists Hickam. “Every hour of every day, recall all the people who came before you, all those who make up who you are, and stand tall and be proud. No matter how perilous the times, they will always be with you …”

Bertrand Russell would agree. “We want to stand up our own feet and look fair and square at the world,” he said. “- its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it … We bought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We bought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create. ”

As Samhain reminds us, death is not an end, but a transition, a time to look forward to new beginnings, when we will be born anew as the wheel of the year turns on and on.

And there is nothing to be afraid of.

Source by Theresa Willingham

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/halloween-samhain-teach-us-to-overcome-fear/ via Home Solutions on WordPress from Home Solutions FOREV https://homesolutionsforev.tumblr.com/post/184650014775 via Tim Clymer on Wordpress

#Home Solutions FOREV

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homesolutionsforev · 5 years

Text

Halloween – Samhain Teach Us To Overcome Fear

Very few people however, seem to take the opportunity Halloween presents to face our fears, which is interesting – or maybe understandable — America appears to be one of the most frightened places on earth. According to a NY Times poll in 2006, nearly half of Americans feel "something uneasy or in danger." Compared with five years previous, 39% of Americans said they feel less safe now, while only 14% said they feel safer.

While there does not seem to be any exact figures, turn on the television at almost any given time, and it's clear that there's been an increase, in recent years, in the number of crime dramas and crime related news coverage. We've got show like the venerable America's Most Wanted reminding us that violent predators are loose in every city; CSI solving dramatic counters in at least three states; 20/20, PrimeTime and 48 Hours, with their companionable reporters warning us, with great concern for our well-being, about scams, crooks and thugs of every variety; and horrific slasher films, available on cable, right in our own homes and enhanced with the best blood-letting computer graphics to bring it all home.

In the early 1990s, there was a dramatic increase in the public perception of crime as the most important problem facing the country – 52% of Americans, in 1994, felt that crime was of utmost concern. Based upon data from 1978 through 1998, results suggest that this "big scare" was more a network TV news scare than a scare based on the real world of crime. The television news alone accounted for almost four times more variance in public perceptions of crime as our most important problem, than did actual crime rates, which – believe it or not – have actually gone down in the last fifteen years.

So just what are we so afraid of? If you've managed to avoid the crime scare, modern media has some other concerns for you: How about dying in an airplane accident? Getting cancer from … well, anything at all? Virulent breeds of superbugs resistant to every known antibiotic? Food safety? Organ trafficking? Killer bees? Having your child kidnapped? Hooked on drugs? Or finding a razor blade in their Halloween candy? Lead in toys?

For what it's worth, the Halloween razor blade thing never happened, and most of those other concerns are overblown as well. Barry Glassner, author of The Culture of Fear (Basic Books, 2000), calls these "pseudodangers", and says the media, advertisers, politicians and various companies and organizations thrive on them and the money (or votes, which extremely translates to money ) that your fears bring them. Pseudodangers, suggests Glassner, represent an opportunity for us to avoid facing problems head-on. Rather than address – or sometimes, better said, because of our inability to address – poverty, we fear the criminals that poverty can create. Our inability to address foreign policy issues renders us terrified of terrorism.

"In just about every contemporary American scare," says Glassner, "rather than confront disturbing shortcomings in society, the public discussion centers on disturbed individuals."

Our fears, however, are often far worse than our realities.

According to John Meuller, the Woody Hayes Chair of national security policy and professor of political science at Ohio State University, we're suffering from a national false sense of insecurity.

"Until 2001," he writes, "far fewer Americans were killed in any grouping of years by all forms of international terrorism than were killed by lightning, and almost none of those terrorist deaths occurred within the United States itself. 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (which is when the State Department began counts) is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer , or some severe allergic reaction to peanuts. "

Further, Meuller noted that transportation researchers at the University of Michigan calculated than "an American's chance of being killed in one nonstop airline flight is about one in 13 million (even taking the Sept. 11 crashes into account). risk when driving on America's safest roads – rural interstate highways – one would have to travel a mere 11.2 miles. "

Driving is, in fact, one of the most dangerous things we do, and yet most of us are quite willing to accept that risk. Author Bruce Schneier, in Beyond Fear (Springer, 2nd edition 2006), observes that, "In America, automobiles cause 40,000 deaths every year; that's the equivalent of a full 727 crashing every day and a half – 225 total in a year. As a society, we effectively say that the risk of dying in a car crash is worth the benefits of driving around town. But if those same 40,000 people died each year in fiery 727 crashes instead of automobile accidents, you could be sure there would be Similarly, studies have shown that both drivers and passengers in SUVs are more likely to die in accidents than those in compact cars, yet one of the major selling points of SUVs is that the owner feels safer in one . "

Many of our fears, of late, involve children – everything from being afraid for them to being afraid * of * them. Surveys have found that kidnapping tops parents' list of concerns for their children. Yet the largest safety issue for kids is basic simple safety measures in homes and public places. The risk of kidnapping by strangers remains incredibly small – under 1% of the nation's more than 64 million children are located by non-family members and actually returned. A far smaller number die.

And those killer Columbine type kids? They're statistically almost non-existent. 80% of our nation's counties never experience a juvenile homicide.

But are things getting worse? "There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know," said Harry Truman.

"A new army of 6 million men are being mobilized against us, an army of delinquents." Juvenile delinquency has increased at an alarming rate and is eating at the heart of America, "declared a Juvenile Court Judge – in 1946.

There are "predatory beasts" on the streets, hordes of teens and preteens running wild in city streets, "gnawing away at the foundations of society," said a commentator – in the 19th century. In 1850 in New York alone, there were more than 200 gang wars mostly by teenage boys.

The youngest American ever executed for murder was 12 years old. She killed the baby in her care – in 1786.

So how did we get so scared? Our fears, suggests Glassner, are carefully and repeatedly fed by anyone who desires to create fear, often by manipulating words, facts, news, sources or data, in order to indict certain personal behaviors, justify governmental actions or policies (at home or abroad ), keep people consuming, elect certain politicians, or distract the public's attention from allegedly more urgent social issues like poverty, social security, unemployment, crime or pollution. The most common techniques for social haunting include:

Distortion of statistics or numbers (declaring 800,000 children missing each year, but failing to break those statistics down meaningfully)

Transformation of single events into social epidemics ; (going "postal" is not a postal service epidemic – that remains one of the safest occupations)

Corruption and distortion of words or terminology according to specific goals ;

Stigmatization of minorities , especially when associated with criminal acts or degeneration behavior;

Generalization of complex and multifaceted situations ;

Causal inversion (turning a cause into an effect or vice-versa).

"To fear is one thing," says author Katherine Paterson, who wrote Jacob Have I Loved (HarperTrophy, 1990). "To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another."

"… one is to diminish the external danger, and the other is to cultivate Stoic endurance. The latter can be reinforced, except where immediate action is necessary, by turning our thoughts away from the cause of fear. of very great importance. Fear is in itself degrading; it easily becomes an obsession; it produces hate of that which is feared, and it leads headlong to excesses of cruelty. "

In " We are Not Afraid, " Homer Hickam, author Rocket Boys (Delta, 2000) (which was made into the film, October Sky ), drew on his experiences growing up in the brave and resilient community of Coalwood, West Virginia, a town were the threat of death was constant, but fear was not. He said Coalwood residents take a four pronged approach to fearlessness that he sums up in something like a set of mantras:

We are proud of who are

We stand up for what we believe

We keep our families together

We trust in God but rely on ourselves

Hickam also says something substantially Buddhist early in his book. He says that despite the ills of our society, we large live among compassionate, kind and optimistic people who are striving to do good. "As an American," he says, in a line that would make the Dali Lama proud, "you have a duty to be happy. pursuit of happiness. So do your duty. Learn how to be happy and keep this in mind: You can not be happy unless you stop being afraid. "

Senator. John McCain (R-Ariz.) Puts it less poetically: "Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! wave. Suck it up, for crying out loud. You're almost certainly going to be OK. a life worth living, is it? "

Fear, Hickam says, is mostly a habit.

"The habit of fear and dread," he writes, "can be compared to having a chronic disease. that we walk around with slumped shoulders and drag one heavy foot after another. We dread getting out of bed in the morning, certain that only awful things are going to happen when we do. We include ourselves. We do not like the way we look. We feel victimized. We're envious of others and assume the world is filled with meanness. We always lose our views and we do not even know why. Worse, the disease we have is infectious. Innocent people we encounter are susceptible to catching fear and dread from us, including our children. wrong, but we do not know how to be cured. '

One way to rid yourself of this infection, says Hickam, is to "stand up straight and …. be proud of who you are." To do that, he says, it's necessary to know who you are, and how you're connected to your family and your community. That involves talking to family members, to community members – and passing their stories on to your children and other family members. To be unafraid, you have to be connected to something larger than yourself, says Hickam.

The habit of fear and dread also causes timidity, says Hickam, a tendency to avoid confrontation, especially in defending our opinion. That one's probably not quite as big an issue here for us – we have lots of opinions and fling them around easily here. But how about "out there"? "If you act as if what you think is not important, it's the same as believing * you * are not important," wrists Hickam. "An attitude like that can squeeze the life right out of anyone."

One of the best ways to overcome that aspect of fear and dread, he says, is "to take up for those who can not take up for themselves."

"There's always someone who needs you help. How can you be afraid if you're the protector of someone else in a dangerous world?

But there's more to it than just faking it till you make it. Hickam says you should also teach that person to stand up for himself, too, so that he can keep his dignity. Hickam cautions that standing up for what you believe "does not mean that every time you feel you're slighted, you should erupt with loud, hateful behavior. of some perceived oppression. This attitude ahs to do with a quiet determination to have your opinion explained and heard. To be effective, it also has to be respectful and fair. The most effective way of standing up is always going to be the nonviolent way, quiet but determined. "

Keeping our families together can actually be one of the harder tools for fearlessness, observes Hickam, but it's a vital one. "An intact, functioning family works to not only provide a loving refugee, but also fills in the cracks of our own personalities. Smart he is, or how many muscles he ahs or anything else. The family can be a shield against the world, and also the springboard to a better life. "

And finally, Hickam says trusting God but relying on yourself is a sure way to rise above fear. "The people of Coalwood were against calling on God any time they needed help," he recalled. "For one thing, it was considered impolite. God had a lot of things to worry about after all, without including everything that got in the way of one particular human being. with most of what they needed to get past a scrape, including their own good common sense. " Mostly, he said, they reserved their prayers for thanks.

While others often ponder why bad things happen to good people, Hickam ponders something he says as more amazing: "Why, in a universe and a world where everything must work hard to simply survive, did that which we think of as decent and fine get we are crave goodness, seek out honesty and strive to be honorable, even when evil is so much easier? our species and our world and our universe? Some great goodness is out there, and it's here, too. It is everywhere. "

We're two parts, says Hickam, "one spiritual and the other physical. Both are important. us. But we also must use our hands and minds to keep our families safe and build a better world. "

A world in which we are not afraid.

"We are not afraid."

"There is no reason to fear life or dread what might be coming your way," wrists Hickam. "Every hour of every day, recall all the people who came before you, all those who make up who you are, and stand tall and be proud. No matter how perilous the times, they will always be with you …"

Bertrand Russell would agree. "We want to stand up our own feet and look fair and square at the world," he said. "- its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it … We bought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We bought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create. "

As Samhain reminds us, death is not an end, but a transition, a time to look forward to new beginnings, when we will be born anew as the wheel of the year turns on and on.

And there is nothing to be afraid of.

Source by Theresa Willingham

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/halloween-samhain-teach-us-to-overcome-fear/ via Home Solutions on WordPress

#Home Solutions Forev

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thomdunn · 5 years

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Gun Violence Isn’t a Problem—it’s actually 5 Problems, with Different Solutions

Naming something gives you power over it.

But when we talk about gun violence—or gun control, or gun reform, et cetera et cetera ad nauseam—we’re all too busy tripping over words to see the problems that we’re trying to address. And no, I’m not talking about “gunsplaining,” or even about the eye-roll-inducing “assault weapon” terminology (which is a distinction that I have come to understand and appreciate, and also a debate that is nothing but distracting on every single side of it). It’s hard to deny that gun violence is��a problem in the United States of America, but it’s in our attempts to name that problem where we start to lose our footing, and thus, our focus (and I know a thing or two about focus). Perhaps if we learned to name the individual issues of gun violence that need to change, then we can start to identify specific solutions — one at a time, without infringing on civil rights or liberties. Then maybe then we could have some real conversations about how to make our society safer.

1. Domestic Violence

That’s what I mean when I say “We have a problem.”

So what can we do? Legally, it’s complicated. But states like Rhode Island, California, Washington, and New York have recently enacted laws to prevent guns from even failing into the hands of misdemeanor* domestic abusers, and quite frankly, I don’t see a reason why that can’t be enacted everywhere. It’ll save lives, and it won’t infringe on the rights and freedoms of law-abiding gun-owners, or people at greater risk of being victims of violence. We can also improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System(which even the NRA has mockingly acknowledged to be flawed) by standardizing the information that states and military are required to submit, under threat of financial penalty.

(*The one caveat I will acknowledge: this requires people to actually press charges. And that’s easier said than done, for a number of social reasons that are difficult to legislate.)

2. Suicides

This is the one place where mental health really enters the gun reform debate, and it has nothing to do with a risk of physical harm to others.

3. Mass Shootings

See that? None of it will infringe on civil rights and civil liberties. It willinfringe upon the people who don’t want to pay taxes and/or want to harm social services and public education. Poverty, opportunity, and violence go hand-in-hand, and they all require some financial investment to upend.

4. So-called “Gang-Related” Violence

This one is particularly frustrating, because it’s often racially charged — and thus, often used as a racist deflection (STOP👏BRINGING👏UP👏CHICAGO👏).

Unfortunately, it’s also true that 80 percent of gun homicides (but not allgun deaths) are gang-related killings, which affect mostly young men.

If you ask me, this connects back to the same problems of toxic masculinitythat lead to domestic violence.Even financial struggles or other markers of “manliness” can drive men to violence, lashing out at the world for their own perceived failures. Simply put, violence is a byproduct of anger, not of general mental health. That alone is not a legislative solution, but perhaps it can serve as a guide for the ways in which we cultivate our culture with compassion, empathy, and understanding—oh, and not automatically treating teens who misbehave like they’re already criminals, damned for life.

5. State Violence

Much of this goes back to mental health as well, and the way we treat our veterans after subjecting them to the horrors of war. If a history of violence is the best indicator of future acts of violence, then training our soldiers to commit acts of violence—with little support for the PTSD they endurewhen they come home—is simply setting them up for more violence. That’s why veterans tend to be more susceptible to joining the ranks of white supremacists, or committing acts of domestic violence: it’s an outlet for the violence that we inflicted upon them by sending them to war in the first place.

#police #politics #political discourse #gun violence #gun control #guns #violence #domestic violence #military

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citizentruth-blog · 6 years

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The United States of Suicide: 25% Surge Since 1999 Brought on by Debilitating Depression and Incessant Isolation - PEER NEWS

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/the-united-states-of-suicide-25-surge-since-1999-brought-on-by-debilitating-depression-and-incessant-isolation/

The United States of Suicide: 25% Surge Since 1999 Brought on by Debilitating Depression and Incessant Isolation

I really hope this article doesn’t depress you as it did me while I was researching it. But this is an important subject that must be discussed and properly dissected.

Here’s a shocking and telling statistic on the direction of American society today: suicide rates have risen sharply in every U.S. state (except Nevada, which was already alarmingly high) from 1999 to 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Suicide rates are up more than 30 percent in half of the states over the last couple decades. There were 45,000 suicides in 2016, up from 44,193 in 2015. Suicides on average across the nation have increased by 25 percent.

A Sad State of Affairs in America…

Depression, isolation, opioids, technology, and substance abuse are to blame. But more important than the causes is the fact that we need to learn to talk about this, open up with how we’re feeling to those closest to us, and learn how to handle life on life’s terms instead of ending it all. Taking one’s own life is tragic yet cowardly, and the dramatic spike should be of utmost concern to every American.

In addition to these stunning statistics, the very recent deaths of public figures Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade put suicide back in the spotlight. This is a disturbing trend that has to be dealt with so we can stop people from taking their own life. But how is one to know someone is in trouble of harming themselves or ending their life when they exhibit no mental health issues of any kind and don’t want to talk about it at all?

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The most tragic facet of this suicide epidemic is the fact that the CDC found that about half of those who commit suicide suffer from mental health issues like depression. Other factors contributing to the spike in suicides over the years were: relationship stress, financial troubles, and substance abuse. And the trend is seen across all Americans of all races and incomes, but the biggest takeaway from the numbers is that white men are killing themselves at alarming rates: white males accounted for seven of ten suicides in 2016.

“From 1999 to 2015, suicide rates increased among both sexes, all racial/ethnic groups, and all urbanization levels,” wrote the CDC researchers in its report. Furthermore, suicide is now the tenth leading cause of death in America and for every successful suicide, there another 25 unsuccessful attempts.

It cuts across age, ethnicity, gender, and is occurring everywhere in the U.S. States with the highest percentage increases were: North Dakota, Vermont, New Hampshire, Utah, and Kansas, each recording a 45 percent or more increase in suicides over the last 30 years.

Firearms were used in about half of all suicides.

Here are more stats on the Americans who have committed suicide in recent years:

42 percent had relationship issues

29 percent had some kind of crisis

28 percent had substance abuse issues

22 percent had physical health issues

16 percent had job or financial problems

9 percent had criminal or legal problems

The underlying conundrum is, according to medical professionals, finding adequate and proper mental health treatment. Even for those who are adequately insured and can afford mental health treatment, it is exceedingly difficult to cater the right treatment for each individual.

The Social Media Connection Creates Nothing but Isolation

What I have not mentioned yet is the social media age we live in today. Americans are increasingly connecting with people online and failing to make connections with people in everyday life. When we are supposed to be more connected than ever, a great feeling of loneliness arises from an overwhelming sense of isolation stemming from failing to experience real interactions with people in-the-flesh. Technology is keeping us apart from other human beings who all deep down desire real and authentic human connection, no matter how introverted or shy you are.

But we are all glued to our smartphones and living in an increasingly electronic world, failing to really live and be present in the world we are inhabiting.

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According to a recent survey by Pew Research, 45 percent of American teens say they are online “almost constantly,” about double what it was just three years ago.

The smartphone generations (Millennials and Gen Z) have become a swath of lonely humans addicted to their gadgets. An astonishing 95 percent of American teens have access to a smartphone, according to the same Pew survey. Smartphone technology is insidiously designed to be more addictive and trigger our brains to crave that ding we hear when we get a new text or Facebook like or retweet.

The media continues to report about digital addiction, but they continue to fail to address the effect that cell phone and WiFi radiation exposure has on the brain, as B.N. Frank points out in a recent post on Activist Post. Research has shown that being exposed to a cell phone and WiFi radiation disrupts the blood-brain barrier which can cause it to leak.

Frank continues, writing that there has been “no ‘safe’ level of cell phone or WiFi radiation” that has “been scientifically determined for children or pregnant women.” But WiFi and smartphones and tablets keep becoming a larger part of our society and everyday life and are even being introduced in schools replacing physical textbooks. While technology continues to be pushed in the classroom, tech inventors have been limiting their own children’s use of it and sending them to private “low tech” schools. In addition, your tax dollars are being spent to make public schools “high tech.”

This is no conspiracy theory. This is not a scare tactic. This is reality. Backed up by scientific research. And it’s eroding our society and degrading our culture in a multitude of ways, leading to the continued rise of suicides across the country.

One additional point on cell phone and wireless technology is worth mentioning. In 2011, cell phone and wireless WiFi radiation were classified as a Group 2B Possible Carcinogen by the World Health Organization.

There is something very wrong with our culture today. On average, there are 123 suicides that occur every day in the U.S.

Please… If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK.

Americans are today suffering from unprecedented levels of emotional despair. Johann Hari, an unparalleled voice on the subject of addiction and mental health, notes that the epidemic of depression in the Western World is not always caused by our brains, it is mostly caused by key problems in the way we live our lives. We exist in a disconnected state from our families, friends, and communities while clinging to a superficial connection of interactions online and on social media.

A Culture Without Connection

As materialistic Americans, we always think some kind of change in our lives or some kind of financial improvement will make us feel more fulfilled and less depressed. If only we get that big raise or that promotion or buy that new house or finally have children, then we will really be happy. But almost always, we won’t. Our culture prioritizes escalating financial and personal achievements while neglecting our innermost desires for connection, community, contentment, and happiness. We need to embrace therapy when we feel we are without hope. We need to make meaningful connections with people in real life and build a support group of family, friends, and colleagues to create a lasting peace through authentic interaction with other people.

“Changing our culture is critical,” Kirsten Powers writes in USA Today. “Being honest with others about our own personal struggles and dark nights of the soul is the first step. People on the edge need to hear stories that assure them there is a way through the all-consuming pain to a meaningful life.” If we get to that point of talking about our personal issues openly and honestly, then we can perhaps make a real dent in reducing the amount of depression and eventually suicides ravaging our great nation.

“The gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain.”

William Styron, born on this day in 1925, on what depression is really like: https://t.co/ARwRDiQxdg

— Maria Popova (@brainpicker) June 12, 2018

It all comes down to that unyielding sense of isolation that is affecting millions of Americans.

Adam Taggart wrote a great piece in PeakProsperity, titled, “Feeling Isolated?” last week delving into how lonely and isolated we are in America today.

The number one most commonly-reported complaint Taggart and his colleagues hear is that they feel alone and isolated. This is because as humans, we are biologically wired for social connection and meaningful interaction. Up until quite recently, humans lived in small tribal groups of 60 people or less where unity and cohesiveness were required for the tribe to survive. Each member of the group had an important role to play in maintaining the survival of the group, facing adversity and conflict together and living meaningful lives with a people they maintained intimate bonds with.

In a podcast with author Sebastian Junger, who wrote the great book, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, which I’ve read and would recommend to you all, Junger discusses how modern life is so far removed from the lives our ancestors evolved from. We are quite disconnected from each other, and the sense of community is gone as we are glued to our smartphones and obsessing over our number of friends and likes on social media.

One disturbing point Junger makes in Tribe is about veterans struggling to find meaning in their everyday lives back in the U.S. after returning from war. A telling reality of how messed up our society and culture have become today is the fact that most veterans would prefer life in a conflict zone, facing bullets and the constant threat of death or attack, than live in the isolated states of America. Veterans are committing suicide at the rate of over 20 deaths a day. A sobering statistic that is brought on by the spike in opioid drug overdoses, which are occurring at twice the rate of the civilian population. Veterans have essentially lost their tribe and their closeness that comes with being part of a group and serving a real purpose in life.

But veterans are far from the only ones feeling this sense of alienation. In today’s digital/social media world, our interaction with others is increasingly virtual. “In the sprawl of suburbia, we live in densely-packed cul-de-sacs yet hardly know our next-door neighbors’ names,” Taggart writes. “The fast-growing wealth gap is forcing the 99 percent to work harder just to make ends meet, leaving little time left in the week for socializing or family interaction.” Therefore, the U.S. is experiencing an undeniable epidemic of loneliness and depression.

A study released by Cigna in May revealed how Generation Z is the worst off, undoubtedly dubbed the loneliest generation. Americans experiencing loneliness has reached “epidemic levels,” according to Cigna’s U.S. Loneliness Index, which surveyed over 200,000 U.S. adults. The index almost exactly mirrors the 45 percent of American teens who say they are online constantly as 46 percent of those surveyed say they always feel alone and 47 percent feel left out. Younger generations feel far lonelier than older ones as more than half of Gen Z’ers identified with ten of the 11 feelings associated with loneliness.

But adults are suffering too. According to former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, at least 40 percent of all American adults report feeling lonely, with loneliness rates doubling since the 1980s during the most technologically connected society to date. Furthermore, the number of people who report having a close confidante in their lives has been declining over the past few decades while the average number of square feet of our homes has been skyrocketing (new homes are 1,000 square feet larger than they were in 1973).

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The social media bubble is real and is upending our culture of connection and human interaction. A recent study by Harvard Business Review confirmed that the more we use Facebook, the worse our physical health, mental health and life satisfaction. Most telling is the fact that former Facebook executives have gone public with their fears that it’s “ripping apart society” by “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology” as we put our best lives out there for the world to see while masking the real issues we have going on and making others feel that their lives are inadequate or missing something.

What Can We Do?

It is imperative to not feel shame or guilt for feeling lonely or isolated. Reaching out and asking for help is essential to getting your life back on a path toward lasting happiness. We need to recognize loneliness for what it is, a human condition and one that can be done away with if the proper actions are taken. We need to fight past our isolating tendencies and engage more directly with others in everyday life.

As I’ve stated, human beings crave connection, whether you believe that or not. But these connections must be of high quality, not quantity. You don’t have to be a social butterfly to feel the full benefits of authentic social connection. You only need a few meaningful relationships at a minimum. But they have to be in-the-flesh face-to-face interactions. Facebook messaging or replying via Twitter comments do not count.

Here are several sources PeakProsperity references that offer guidance for creating a community and building relationships:

75 Actions That Build Community

Peak Prosperity’s Community Building Wiki page

Success Factors for Developing a Sense of Community

Chapters 10 & 11, “Emotional & Social Capital,” from Prosper!: How to Plan for the Future & Create a World Worth Inheriting

If you’re struggling, don’t be ashamed to ask for help. If you are depressed, anxious or lonely, talk about it. Reach out. If you need a professional therapist, go find one and get help. Suicide is never the answer. There is a way to improve your life and get you out of the social media bubble of isolation. Look for people in real life and form meaningful bonds and connections with others in your community. You are not alone. You can live a happy and fulfilling life if you take the right steps toward improving your current situation, no matter how dire.

Follow me @BobShanahanMan

Free Mental Health Counseling for Veterans And Their Families

#Community #Connection #depression #Facebook #Gen Z #Happiness #Instagram #Isolation #Loneliness #mental health #Millennials #Social Media #suicide #Twitter

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sharionpage · 6 years

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Identity: Not Just a Fashion

The Self Improvement Blog | Self Esteem | Self Confidence

Identity. Self-esteem. Self-confidence. Individuality. Each are words we hear every day. But when I speak to women and young people and listen to how they feel about how they fit into society and the media, I wonder how much of our sense of individual confidence is generated from within. How much of it depends on what is in fashion?

One of my girlfriends recently admitted that part of her confidence in her own body shape is because it’s become societally desirable. When Alek Wek was on the front of all the magazines with her gorgeous Dinka features, the media constantly reminded us that she was very far from the conventional beauty ideals at the time. Whose beauty ideals? For me, Alek is a stunning woman full-stop. As much as I was thrilled to see her ‘breaking barriers’ and records, I feel strongly that we didn’t need the media to tell us what beauty looks like.

From disability to color and everything in between, it seems like not a week goes by that a new identity trend is on the front page. Only where it was once a new seasonal color or skirt style; it is now people’s actual real identities.

As a PR expert, I know how the media machine works. The media uses representation to convey (or push!) specific ideas and values related to culture and identity in society. Blackness, disability, culture, and class have all become ‘fashionable’ at different times but why? And according to who? As a diversity marketing pioneer, I’m always happy to see new frontiers being forged. But as a psychologist, my concern is that these representations aren’t an authentic celebration of our differences. I’m concerned that they are more and more a temporary act of ‘permission’ for minorities to feel at ease with their individuality.

The problem is that fashion isn’t timeless, it’s what is hot right now today. Once the season is over, today’s hottest trend becomes ‘out’ overnight. So what happens when the trend is over?

Last year Kylie Jenner caused a backlash when she posed for a photo shoot in a wheelchair. She appeared as a ‘disabled’ fetish sex doll all in the name of ‘fashion.’

The media touted it as an ‘empowering representation’ of disability.

Historically, people with disabilities have been denied fundamental human and civil rights. Modern societies still attach a huge stigma to both physical and mental disability. As it stands, the representation of models with disabilities is particularly bad in the UK. To me, an able-bodied reality TV star posing in a wheelchair isn’t a route to the disabled community feeling relevant. Kylie Jenner sitting in a wheelchair doesn’t promote diversity, it portrays disability as a fad.

The Paralympics sparked similar conversations with Paralympian Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson pointing out,

“When we see next year’s hate crime figures then we’ll have a better view of whether there’s been a real change or whether it’s been a moment in time.”

Whether we like to admit it or not, it feels good to be ‘en vogue’ and particularly for those of us in minority communities, the feeling of acceptance from seeing your culture, race, disability or ‘look’ on the front of Vogue is reassuring. Still, this shouldn’t be viewed as validation.

Our teenagers are totally consumed by this feeling. In their world social currency is the amount of “likes” or

Photo by giano currie on Unsplash

“retweets” they get. With their self-esteem at a low (7 in 10 girls believe they are not good enough), social media has become a safe haven as they instantly get the attention or the validation they are craving for. When this stops or changes, the effect on a young person’s self-esteem is catastrophic, in some cases resulting in suicide.

For adults, social media might not have the same appeal or importance but mainstream media affects us all. Some time ago Dove performed a study that revealed women are suffering poor self-esteem because of advertising campaigns which use airbrushing techniques to portray ”unattainable perfection” with 80% of us unhappy with our appearance. We might feel that our days of trying to fit in with the ‘popular’ crowd are over but with statistics like those, we’re more susceptible than we realize.

When self-esteem is harvested from within, our confidence is more likely to be centered on who we are as unique individuals. So, regardless of the latest trend or fad and whether it reflects us, our sense of identity and self-esteem stays intact.

Few would argue that exchanging cultural ideas is a negative thing. But what happens when the influence and origins of a culture or community go unacknowledged and ignored? How are we meant to feel accepted as individuals if we need celebrity fashion to validate our uniqueness?

I was a model in the 80’s and I can tell you now that a big butt was not in fashion. I weighed every week to maintain a tiny 8 stone figure and part of my success was down to my lean figure. Today, I’m no longer a size zero. But black body shapes are suddenly being accepted because of the ‘Kim Kardashian curves’ fashion. Am I supposed to feel better about myself because of that? Will we remember how to love our shapes and sizes and big butts once the trend is over? Or will we go straight back to asking ‘does my bum look big in this?’

My standards for my body no longer depends on what I’m told is ‘O.K.’ I understand now more than ever that when self-esteem is dependent on a person, trend, or campaign, anything external, it will crumble the moment that thing is taken away.

I grew up as a minority and the last thing me and my peers received when my mum put my hair in cornrows was praise from my non-black peers. So much so that girls of my generation desperately wanted their hair chemically straightened so that they could ‘fit in’. Fast forward to 2017 and Selfridges. One of London’s oldest and best-loved department stores opened Braid Bar. Celebrity models Lila Grace Moss and Stella Jones (the daughters of supermodel Kate Moss and Clash guitarist Mick Jones) helped launch the campaign. The problem is, whilst Selfridges might say this is a ‘step forward’ I don’t see how a pair of white privileged teens can ‘endorse’ a protective Afro hairstyle that has history and meaning. This isn’t an example of progress to me, it’s another fad.

I would rather my daughters love their hair and feel confident wearing their braids for themselves regardless of the latest campaign because I feel it has a deeper, more enduring impact.

We grow and harvest self-belief from inside. It’s the power base of energy that we were born with. The first step to achieving any kind of ‘wholeness’ is to develop the strengths within our character; to celebrate and accept our own quirks and uniqueness. When you spend your time wishing you were somebody else, comparing yourself to someone else, regretting what you have or have not done, analysing your every flaw, wishing you were more ‘normal’ and only feeling confident when someone like you is on the screen, you are driving yourself further and further away from your life’s happiness. The solution? Your identity, history, and body are as unique as your DNA. So look yourself in the eye, appreciate yourself for everything that you are and celebrate the uniqueness of YOU.

A strong sense of self-worth will never be out of fashion.

About Dr. Diahanne Rhiney

Biography

Dr. Rhiney is a leading-edge Domestic Violence interventionist. Her passion lies in providing guidance, support, education and giving voice to marginalized groups. Further, she is a recognized award-winning commentator using her multiple platforms and enterprises to raise awareness, educate and empower. She has developed groups, presented workshops and spoken extensively on self-esteem, body issues, children in care, abuse, emotional wellbeing and healthy relationships (including peer pressure and intimate relationship abuse). Also, she is a long time ambassador for children’s women’s rights, safety, and wellbeing.

Diahanne has provided training for foster carers on the challenges of online grooming. She has also worked across borders in Washington, Ghana and Malta focusing on concepts of ‘wholeness’. She is a qualified psychologist. Her pioneering Domestic Violence charity, Strength With In Me Foundation (S.W.I.M) is a trailblazing method for change. The Foundation equips the next generation with the tools to avoid negative relationships and make empowered life choices.

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Identity: Not Just a Fashion published first on http://ift.tt/2wQcX5G

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alexkovarovic-blog · 7 years

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A letter to America

Dear America, I wanted to discuss a really important issue with you that I have had to go through; an issue that so many teens across the country face on a daily basis. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for youth, ages 10-24. Each day in the United States, over five thousand teens attempt suicide. Out of all the teen suicide attempts, four out of five of them have given clear warning signs. In America, thousands of teens deal with depression, self harm, and suicidal thoughts on a daily basis. This is becoming such a big issue in America and we need to start helping teens who are in need of help. I graduated high school in 2016. In all my years of schooling, I never, not even once, learned about teen suicide prevention, awareness, or how to recognize warning signs in other teens. This is not my school district’s fault, because I know many other school districts don’t teach this as well. For something that has been becoming such an issue, why are we not being taught how to receive help? Everyday, teens across the country feel worthless, hopeless, and like they aren’t good enough. Everyday, teens wonder if they’re better off not living. Teens don’t know where to get help or who to reach out to. You may be wondering how I know all of this. I was one of those teens. I had major depression disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and social anxiety disorder. I also fought through an eating disorder as well as self harm. In 2016, I reached a point in my life where I felt that I no longer mattered so I attempted suicide. I had no education on the topic of teen suicide. I had no education on where to get help or how to reach out for help. I, along with many teens, was not close to any family members so I couldn’t go to them either. I wasn’t taught how to recognize the warning signs for depression and suicide. I did not succeed at my suicide attempt and I’m very grateful for that. But I could have very well been just another statistic. We deserve to know how to be able to recognize the warning signs for suicidal teens. We as teenagers need to know this so we can help our friends, our siblings, and most importantly, ourselves. If I had known how to work through depression, I probably would have never attempted to take my own life.

I turned my life completely around. I lived on to become a crisis and suicide prevention counselor. I have a social media following of over 25,000 people, most of them being teens. I receive messages from teens across the country every single day just begging for help. I receive messages everyday from teens who don’t understand what they’re feeling, teens who don’t recognize the warning signs of depression, and teens who self harm and are suicidal, but don’t know where to get help. Around 85 percent of these teens have not told anyone how they have been feeling, because they’re too worried about what their friends will think. As a teen who has tried taking my life, I’m hoping that more resources come to light for teens in need of help. Suicide warning signs should be taught in every single school in the country and there should be suicide prevention posters in every school with the number to call if they need help. I have lost two friends due to suicide and I have seen so many new stories about teens who have died by suicide. Some teenagers struggle so much because they’re young and are scared and don’t have the knowledge on what to do when they face symptoms of mental illness and that’s on top of the stress that all teenagers face with fitting in and with having good grades. This is why we need to spread resources across the country like the Crisis Text Line, the National Suicide LIfeline, and local organizations whose mission is to help teens. Some schools offer great resources and some schools really spread awareness on teen suicide prevention. But “some” is not good enough. I have personally seen this at local schools near where I live. There’s no information or resources for teens in need of help in a school, but as soon as something happens to a teenager, then all the resources start pouring in. Why is it that we wait until after it’s too late? The resources should already be there for teenagers who are struggling so hopefully they can receive help before it reaches the point of suicidal thoughts. Never talking about mental illnesses also leads some teens and kids to believe that it’s not common and that it makes them “weird”. So many lives could have been saved if they just knew that there were people there to help them.

I truly felt alone and like no one knew what I was going through. I thought I was weird and that I would never get past feeling depressed and anxious. No teenager should feel alone and like they can’t receive help. We all deserve to be happy. To whoever is reading this, please learn the warning signs of suicide, depression, and self harm. If you’re a parent, please make sure that your kids know that you’re always there for them. Make sure they know that they can come to you if they have a personal struggle. If you’re a struggling teen, please hang in there. I know how tough it can be. Take it day by day. I know it’s stressful and I know that it seems easier to give up sometimes, but I promise that life is worth it. You matter and your life is important. You are only given one life, so don’t ever give up! I have been where many of you are. I can relate to what many of you are going through. Don’t give up on yourself. You deserve to have a happy life. I’m begging you America, please become educated. Please keep our teens safe. Please learn about suicide statistics. Please learn the warning signs. Please learn how to help your friends and yourself. Mental illness can affect anyone. Your sister. Your son. Your best friend. You. It affects people of all ages. Don’t think that it can’t happen to your family. Become educated so that you can know the warning signs if the situation were to ever arise. If your child or friend comes to you asking for help, please do not brush them off like they’ll be “fine in the morning”. They’re trying to reach out for help. Take them serious and get them help so they can work through what they’re feeling. Don’t think that they aren’t serious or that they’re just looking for attention. We’re talking about someone’s life here. Don’t just assume it’s nothing. Give them the resources that they may be to scared to get. It may not be your “job to help them”, but as an American you should want to help someone in need of help. Just guide them to the right resources. None of us want to lose someone that’s close to us. Spread suicide awareness. We can truly make a difference if we try. If you are feeling suicidal, please don’t give up. You’re stronger than you think and you matter way more than you’ll ever see. If you need help, please reach out to us counselors. We are here to help you. Crisis Text Line: Text “Start” to 741-741 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Call 1-800-273-8255 National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673 National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 Stay strong. Your life matters. -Alexander J. Kovarovic

#hope #hopeful #depression #suicide #bullying #prevention #advocate #help #letter #America #teens #teenager #teen #school

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pagedesignhub-blog · 7 years

Text

Hey, Computer Scientists! Stop Hating on the Humanities

New Post has been published on https://pagedesignhub.com/hey-computer-scientists-stop-hating-on-the-humanities/

Hey, Computer Scientists! Stop Hating on the Humanities

AS A COMPUTER science Ph.D. scholar, I am a disciple of huge statistics. I see no ground too sacred for facts: I even have used it to study the whole thing from sex to Shakespeare and earned angry retorts for these attempts to render the ineffable mathematical. At Stanford, I become given, as a teen, guns both elegant and lethal—algorithms that might select out the terrorist maximum worth targeting in a community, come across someone’s dissatisfaction with the authorities from their on line writing.

Computer technology is wondrous. The hassle is that many human beings in Silicon Valley believe that it is all that subjects. You see this whilst recruiters at career fairs make it clear they’re simplest interested in the PC scientists; inside the profits gap between engineering and non-engineering college students; within the quizzical appears humanities college students get when they dare to show their majors. I’ve watched superb computer scientists display such woeful lack of information on the populations they had been reading that I laughed in their faces. I’ve watched army scientists gift their lethal innovations with childlike enthusiasm even as making no mention of whom the weapons are being used on. There are few things scarier than a scientist who can give an academic speak on the way to shoot an individual but can’t cause about whether or not you have to be shooting them at all.

The reality that such a lot of laptop scientists are ignorant or disdainful of non-technical tactics is worrisome because, in my work, I’m continuously confronting questions that can’t be answered with code. When I coded at Coursera, an internet schooling company, I advanced an algorithm that might advocate instructions to human beings in element based totally on their gender. But the enterprise decided now not to use it whilst we discovered it’d push women away from PC science classes.

It seems that this impact—in which algorithms entrench societal disparities—is one which happens in domain names from crook justice to credit scoring. This is a hard dilemma: In crook justice, for example, you’re faced with the fact that an algorithm that fulfills basic statistical desiderata is also loaded more likely to fee black defendants as excessive-hazard even if they’ll now not cross on to commit any other crime.

I don’t have a solution to this problem. I do recognize, but, that I received locate it in my algorithms textbook; I’m far more likely to locate applicable records in Ta-Nehisi Coates’s paintings on systemic discrimination or Michelle Alexander’s on mass incarceration.

My personal coding tasks have presented similarly thorny moral questions. Should I write a computer application to be able to down load the communications of thousands of teenagers tormented by consuming issues published on an anorexia advice website? Write a software to submit anonymous, suicidal messages on masses of college boards to peer which colleges offer the maximum support? My solution to these questions, incidentally, become “no”. But I considered it. And the consideration and peril of computers are that they amplify the effect of your whims: an impulse turns into an application which could harm heaps of human beings.

Perhaps it’s extra efficient to permit laptop scientists to do what we’re high-quality at—writing code—and produce other people regulate our merchandise? This is insufficient. Coders push merchandise out at blinding pace, frequently cloaked in enterprise secrecy; by the point, regulation catches up, thousands and thousands of people could be harmed. Ethics schooling is needed for specialists in different fields in component because it’s important for medical doctors and lawyers in an effort to act ethically even if nobody’s searching over their shoulders. Further, computer scientists want to assist craft rules because they have got the vital technical knowledge; it’s hard to adjust algorithmic bias in phrase embeddings if you have no idea what a word embedding is.

Here are some steps forward. Universities should start with broader schooling for computer science students. I contacted 8 of the pinnacle undergraduate packages in computer science and found that most do now not require students to take a route on ethical and social troubles in computer science (although some offer optional publications). Such publications are difficult to educate nicely. Computer scientists often don’t take them significantly, are uncomfortable with non-quantitative thinking, are overconfident due to the fact they’re mathematically brilliant or are satisfied that utilitarianism is the answer to everything. But universities want to try. Professors want to scare their students, to lead them to the experience they’ve been given the capabilities now not just to get rich but to wreck lives; they need to humble them, to make them understand that however desirable they are probably at math, there’s nevertheless a lot they don’t know.

An extra socially focused curriculum could now not only make coders less probably to cause damage; it’d also make them much more likely to do exactly. Top colleges squander a long way too much in their technical talent on socially useless, high-paying hobbies like algorithmic trading. As Andrew Ng, a Stanford computer scientist, admonished a roomful of Stanford students he changed into looking to recruit to Coursera: “You ought to ask yourself, why did I study PC science? And for plenty of college students, the answer appears to be, so I can design the modern-day social media app…I accept as true with we will construct matters which are more significant than that.”

There are many steps tech businesses ought to take as well. Organizations ought to discover the social and moral problems their products create: Google and Microsoft deserve credit score for researching algorithmic discrimination, for example, and Facebook for investigating echo chambers. Make it less difficult for external researchers to assess the effects of your merchandise: be transparent about how your algorithms work and offer get admission to statistics under suitable records use agreements. (Researchers additionally need to be allowed to audit algorithms without being prosecuted.) Ask social or ethical questions in hiring interviews, now not simply algorithmic ones; if hiring managers asked, college students could discover ways to answer them. (Microsoft’s CEO turned into once requested, in a technical interview, what he could do if he noticed a baby lying in an intersection: the plain answer to select up the baby did no longer arise to him).

Companies need to rent the humans harmed or excluded via their products: whose faces their computer vision systems don’t understand and smiles their emojis don’t seize, whose resumes they rank as less applicable and whose housing options they limit, who are mobbed by way of online trolls they helped prepare and do little to control. Hire non-computer-scientists, and produce them in for lunchtime talks; have them project the worldviews of the personnel.

It’s possible that listening to non-laptop scientists will gradual the Silicon Valley gadget: Diverse worldviews can produce an argument. But slowing down in places where reasonable people can disagree is a great thing. In a technology in which even elections are received and misplaced on digital battlefields, tech agencies need to move much less rapid and damage fewer matters.

Computer Scientist Jobs – Are You Interested in a Career in Computer Science? Computer scientists are answerable for the use of their technical understanding so that it will use generation to resolve a wide sort of complex issues. Computer science studies can stretch from hardware design to fixing complex principle, and it is not unusual for a scientist to paintings on designing robots or locating makes use of for a virtual fact. These professionals will generally work on design teams that could encompass electric engineers.

A quantity of laptop scientists are hired via academic establishments that specialize in theory rather than practical utility, and statistics directors could have the obligation of the usage of a database control software program that allows you to organize facts. Database administrators will often update laptop databases and transfer data from one medium to every other.

Network structures analysts, in addition, they are called network architects and they will configure local region community systems and the Internet for each industrial companies and home clients. Systems can be organized in a variety of ways using hubs and routers, further to wireless adapters and different cables.

Telecommunications professionals will cognizance on voice verbal exchange structures and oversee the installation of running structures and software programs. Webmasters may have the duty of dealing with a web website online, and internet designers are chargeable for developing websites and designing them.

Computer scientists will usually work forty hours every week, and they will work evenings and weekends so that you can resolve the technical problem. The work itself in all fairness low pressure, despite the fact that there may be the danger of growing carpal tunnel syndrome from typing over prolonged periods of time.

Employment will normally require as a minimum a bachelor’s degree so that it will acquire a position as a network or a database administrator, although some positions may also take delivery of a pals degree.

In 2006, laptop scientists and other professionals had almost 550,000 jobs in America, with about a tenth of those individuals being self-hired. The task prospects normal for these individuals may be excellent with the field developing over 37% inside the next 10 years.

In 2006, the middle fiftieth percentile of records scientists engaged in research made among $seventy-two,000 and $118,000, even as network systems directors made among $49,000 and $85,000.

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ibloggingkits-blog · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Blogging kits

New Post has been published on https://bloggingkits.org/hiya-pc-scientists-forestall-hating-on-the-humanities/

Hiya, Pc Scientists! Forestall Hating on the humanities

AS A Computer technological know-how Ph.D. scholar, I am a disciple of huge information. I see no ground too sacred for statistics: I have used it to study the whole lot from sex to Shakespeare and earned angry retorts for those attempts to render the ineffable mathematical. At Stanford I used to be given, as a teen, guns both elegant and lethal—algorithms that could pick out-out the terrorists most well worth targeting in a network, locate someone’s dissatisfaction with the authorities from their on line writing.

Pc technological know-how is wondrous. The trouble is that many people in Silicon Valley agree with that it’s miles all that matters. You notice this when recruiters at career fairs make it clean they’re only interested in the Computer scientists; in the salary hole between engineering and non-engineering college students; within the quizzical looks humanities college students get when they dare to expose their majors. I’ve watched fantastic Pc scientists show such woeful lack of expertise of the populations they have been studying that I laughed off their faces. I’ve watched army scientists gift their lethal innovations with childlike enthusiasm whilst making no mention of whom the weapons are getting used on. There are few things scarier than a scientist who can deliver an academic talk on how to shoot a person but can’t motive about whether you need to be taking pictures them in any respect.

The reality that such a lot of Pc scientists are ignorant or disdainful of non-technical strategies is worrisome because, in my work, I’m constantly confronting questions that can’t be responded with code. Once I coded at Coursera, a web schooling business enterprise, I advanced an algorithm that could advise classes to people in element based totally on their gender. But the corporation determined no longer to apply it when we located it’d push women away from Computer technological know-how lessons.

It turns out that this effect—wherein algorithms entrench societal disparities—is one which happens in domains from crook justice to credit score scoring. This is a difficult catch 22 situation: In crook justice, as an instance, you’re confronted with the fact that a set of rules that fulfills fundamental statistical desiderata is likewise a lot much more likely to charge black defendants as high-chance even when they will no longer move directly to devote another crime.

I don’t have a way to this problem. I do recognize, but, that I gained locate it in my algorithms textbook; I’m far more likely to discover applicable records in Ta-Nehisi Coates’s paintings on systemic discrimination or Michelle Alexander’s on mass incarceration.

My private coding projects have presented in addition thorny ethical questions. must I write a Laptop application with a purpose to download the communications of thousands of teens suffering from eating issues posted on an anorexia advice website? Write a software to submit nameless, suicidal messages on hundreds of college boards to see which faculties offer the most help? My solution to those questions, by the way, turned into “no”. however, I took into consideration it. And the respect and peril of computers are they magnify the impact of your whims: an impulse will become a program that could harm thousands of people.

Possibly it’s more efficient to permit Computer scientists to do what we’re first-rate at—writing code—and have other human beings modify our products? This is inadequate. Coders push products out at blinding velocity, frequently cloaked in industry secrecy; by the time rules catches up, tens of millions of people can be harmed. Ethics education is needed for professionals in different fields in the element as it’s important for doctors and legal professionals with a view to acting ethically even when no person’s searching over their shoulders. Further, Computer scientists need to help craft regulations due to the fact they have the vital technical information; it’s difficult to adjust algorithmic bias in phrase embeddings if you have no concept what a word embedding is.

Laptop Scientist Jobs – Are You inquisitive about a profession in Computer science? Computer scientists are accountable for using their technical knowledge so that it will use generation to remedy an extensive form of complex troubles. Computer technological know-how research can stretch from hardware design to fixing complex theory, and it’s miles not unusual for a scientist to paintings on designing robots or locating uses for a digital fact. these professionals will generally paintings on layout groups that may include electric engineers.

Some of Laptop scientists are employed by academic institutions focusing on theory instead of practical software, and statistics directors may have the obligation of the use of database management software program so that you can organize statistics. Database directors will frequently replace Pc databases and transfer statistics from one medium to another.

network structures analysts, in addition, they are called community architects and they may configure nearby location network structures and the Net for both commercial groups and residential clients. structures may be arranged in a variety of approaches using hubs and routers, further to wi-fi adapters and other cables.

Telecommunications professionals will cognizance on voice conversation systems and oversee the set up of working structures and software packages. Webmasters can have the duty of coping with an internet web site, and internet designers are chargeable for growing web sites and designing them.

Laptop scientists will commonly paintings forty hours per week, and they will have to paintings evenings and weekends to be able to clear up the technical problem. The work itself is fairly low pressure, despite the fact that there is the danger of developing carpal tunnel syndrome from typing over prolonged intervals of time.

Employment will commonly require at least a bachelor’s degree with a view to achieving a function as a community or a database administrator, despite the fact that a few positions might also receive an associates diploma.

In 2006, Computer scientists and different experts had nearly 550,000 jobs in The USA, with about a 10th of those people being self-hired. The job possibilities common for those persons will be superb with the sector growing over 37% within the next 10 years.

In 2006, the center fiftieth percentile of records scientists engaged in research made among $seventy-two,000 and $118,000, at the same time as network systems administrators made between $49,000 and $85,000.

Are Laptop Scientists Sealing Their Destiny through Programming AI software program to Do studies technological know-how? It appears every day we look around, computers, robotics, and artificial intelligence are taking the jobs of human beings. As a former employer, it’s hard for me to present you an opinion of all of this that you’ll be glad about, and that is because I’ve watched a number of the shenanigans that human beings attempt to drag even as they may be gainfully employed. Now then, I would like to talk to you approximately this venture we’ve got with our ever-increasing and advancing technology inside the gift period.

As the coordinator for a assumes tank, as we work on methods to improve efficiencies in enterprise, industry, authorities, military, strength, water, education, transportation, healthcare, and economics. It seems that synthetic intelligence, robotics, and computers are the solution to accomplishing such productiveness and efficiency. For this reason, at this degree, and for the Laptop scientists that do the studies, I would say we are fairly unfazed with the unintended consequences that this could motive the destiny. In fact, till it affects us in my opinion, it is dubious that we will be bothered via such triviality in our quest to higher those technologies.

However, I would really like to invite the question which happens to be the name of this newsletter; “are our Pc scientists inadvertently sealing their personal Destiny by using doing studies and programming the today’s artificial smart software program, robotics, and computer systems which will use those new algorithmic schemes?” the answer is yes, and we do not should appearance too some distance to take into account that the venture is already here. In any case, what turned into the first thing that they desired to use IBM’s “Watson” Supercomputer for as soon as it gained “Jeopardy” and outscored the pinnacle people in the sport?

That’s right, they positioned it to paintings doing medical and healthcare studies. Being able to experiment all the human research all over the planet, at the same time as making connections and go pollinating thoughts is something that this new Computer is surprisingly suited for, and consequently, humans will no longer be needed to do the equal component. In fact, once they teach those synthetic shrewd computer systems to start asking their own questions, is set the time while humans might not be wished at all. Now one may say humans can be needed to make the prototypes, installation the Petri dishes, and do all of the work, however, they might not be doing any of the wonderings, and we are able to hire interns for that Petri dish work.

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worldupdatereviews2017-blog · 7 years

Text

Hiya, Pc Scientists! Prevent Hating on the arts

New Post has been published on https://worldupdatereviews.com/hiya-pc-scientists-prevent-hating-on-the-arts/

Hiya, Pc Scientists! Prevent Hating on the arts

AS A Laptop technological know-how Ph.D. student, I’m a disciple of big information. I see no floor too sacred for records: I have used it to observe everything from sex to Shakespeare and earned angry retorts for those tries to render the ineffable mathematical. At Stanford I used to be given, as a teen, weapons both elegant and lethal—algorithms that could pick out the terrorists most well worth targeting in a network, locate someone’s dissatisfaction with the authorities from their on line writing.

Laptop science is wondrous. The problem is that many human beings in Silicon Valley believe that it is all that subjects. You notice this when recruiters at profession fairs make it clear they’re simplest interested by the Pc scientists; within the salary gap among engineering and non-engineering students; inside the quizzical seems humanities college students get when they dare to show their majors. I’ve watched remarkable Pc scientists show such woeful lack of know-how of the populations they have been reading that I laughed in their faces. I’ve watched military scientists gift their deadly improvements with childlike enthusiasm at the same time as making no point out of whom the weapons are getting used on. There are few things scarier than a scientist who can provide an academic talk on a way to shoot a person but can’t motive about whether or not you must be shooting them at all.

The reality that so many Pc scientists are ignorant or disdainful of non-technical tactics is worrisome because, in my paintings, I’m continuously confronting questions which can’t speak back with the code. After I coded at Coursera, a web education company, I advanced an set of rules that could advise training to humans in component primarily based on their gender. However, the corporation decided now not to use it when we determined it might push ladies away from Laptop technological know-how instructions.

It turns out that this effect—in which algorithms entrench societal disparities—is one that takes place in domains from crook justice to credit scoring. That is a difficult catch 22 situation: In crook justice, as an instance, you’re faced with the reality that an algorithm that fulfills primary statistical desiderata is likewise plenty more likely to rate black defendants as high-threat even when they may now not cross on to dedicate every other crime.

I don’t have a strategy to this hassle. I do know, but, that I won’t find it in my algorithms textbook; I’m ways much more likely to discover applicable information in Ta-Nehisi Coates’s work on systemic discrimination or Michelle Alexander’s on mass incarceration.

My personal coding projects have presented similarly thorny ethical questions. should I write a Pc software as a way to download the communications of heaps of young adults laid low with eating disorders published on an anorexia recommendation internet site? Write an application to publish nameless, suicidal messages on loads of university forums to peer which schools offer the maximum assist? My solution to these questions, incidentally, turned into “no”. however, I took into consideration it. And the consideration and peril of computer systems are they magnify the impact of your whims: an impulse becomes a program that could hurt heaps of people.

Possibly it’s more green to permit Computer scientists to do what we’re nice at—writing code—and have other human beings alter our merchandise? This is inadequate. Coders push products out at blinding velocity, regularly cloaked in industry secrecy; by the point, legislation catches up, hundreds of thousands of human beings could be harmed. Ethics education is needed for experts in different fields in the element as it’s essential for doctors and legal professionals as a way to act ethically even when no one’s looking over their shoulders. In addition, Computer scientists want to assist craft policies because they have the necessary technical know-how; it’s tough to regulate algorithmic bias in word embeddings if you have no concept what a phrase embedding is.

Right here are a few steps forward. Universities should start with broader training for Laptop technology students. I contacted eight of the pinnacle undergraduate programs in Computer technology, and observed that most do now not require students to take a path on ethical and social issues in Laptop technology (even though a few offer optionally available courses). Such guides are hard to teach well. Laptop scientists regularly don’t take them seriously, are uncomfortable with non-quantitative wondering, are overconfident due to the fact they’re mathematically top notch or are satisfied that utilitarianism is the answer to the whole lot. but universities need to strive. Professors need to scare their college students, to cause them to experience they’ve been given the talents not simply to get rich however to break lives; they want to humble them, to lead them to realize that however proper they might be at math, there’s still a lot they don’t recognize.

A greater socially focused curriculum might no longer best make coders less possibly to reason damage; it additionally makes them more likely to do properly. top faculties squander a long way too much in their technical talent on socially vain, high-paying interests like algorithmic buying and selling. As Andrew Ng, a Stanford Computer scientist, admonished a roomful of Stanford college students he changed into looking to recruit to Coursera: “You have to ask yourself, why did I have a look at Laptop science? And for a variety of college students, the answer appears to be, so I will design the latest social media app…I consider we will construct matters which can be extra meaningful than that.”

There are many steps tech groups need to take as well. Businesses have to explore the social and moral troubles their merchandise creates: Google and Microsoft deserve credit for studying algorithmic discrimination, for example, and Fb for investigating echo chambers. Make it easier for outside researchers to evaluate the influences of your products: be transparent approximately how your algorithms paintings and provide get right of entry to statistics underneath appropriate statistics use agreements. (Researchers additionally need to be allowed to audit algorithms without being prosecuted.) Ask social or moral questions in hiring interviews, not just algorithmic ones; if hiring managers asked, students might discover ways to answer them. (Microsoft’s CEO become as soon as requested, in a technical interview, what he might do if he noticed an infant mendacity in an intersection: the plain answer to pick up the toddler did no longer occur to him).

corporations have to rent the human beings harmed or excluded by means of their products: whose faces their Pc vision systems don’t apprehend and smiles their emojis don’t seize, whose resumes they rank as much less applicable and whose housing alternatives they limit, who’re mobbed through online trolls they helped organize and do little to govern. rent non-Pc-scientists, and bring them in for lunchtime talks; have them ask the worldviews of the group of workers.

It’s possible that taking note of non-Computer scientists will slow the Silicon Valley machine: Various worldviews can produce an argument. however slowing down in locations wherein reasonable human beings can disagree is a good factor. In a generation in which even elections are won and misplaced on digital battlefields, tech corporations need to transport less speedy and spoil fewer things.

0 notes