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Seneca observed that “we do not receive a life that is short, but rather we make it so,” by dissipating it in “extravagance and carelessness.” How better to describe the contemporary leisure experience? Americans spend, on average, more than three hours per day—more than 60 percent of their “leisure” time—watching TV…
All were expressing a leisure ethic: a worldview in which a preference for free time and intrinsically motivated pursuits is accompanied by an understanding of how time can best be spent. To most people today, the notion of a leisure ethic will sound foreign, paradoxical, and indeed subversive, even though leisure is…
Over a decade of writing and thinking about modern work and its opportunity costs, I have generally mentioned the “problem of leisure” only in passing, largely because I would like to believe that it is soluble. Yet the political situation in the United States (and some other industrialised democracies) demands a…
In her book, Montell offers evidence that these linguistic tactics have seeped out from cults and into wider society. Propelled by capitalist demands and the reach of social media, the language of cults, she says, is now everywhere. If you question the business model of a multi-level marketing scheme, well, that's…
The structure of the paper is as follows: in the first section, we outline how ChatGPT and similar LLMs operate. Next, we consider the view that when they make factual errors, they are lying or hallucinating: that is, deliberately uttering falsehoods, or blamelessly uttering them on the basis of misleading input…
Corporate interests, alongside changes in media distribution, are eroding the public’s ability to construct and access its own cultural record. As more digital content is being provided to individuals, libraries, and archives solely through streaming and temporary licensing deals, rather than through permanent…
There's a membership problem. Haqr society is like the Shakers--the community can't grow by the usual primate strategy--biological reproduction is right out--so its continuation depends on the faithful going out and bringing in new recruits from the general population. Yes, we're saying it out loud: Haqrs recruit…
2.8 Rarely is a person seen to be in a bad way because he has failed to attend to what is happening in someone else’s soul, but those who fail to pay careful attention to the motions of their own souls are bound to be in a wretched state. 2.11 Let your every action, word, and thought be those of one who could depart…
Prohairesis or proairesis (Ancient Greek: προαίρεσις; variously translated as "moral character", "will", "volition", "choice", "intention", or "moral choice"[1]) is a fundamental concept in the Stoic philosophy of Epictetus. It represents the choice involved in giving or withholding assent to impressions (phantasiai)…
Today’s society is no longer Foucault’s disciplinary world of hospitals, madhouses, prisons, barracks, and factories. It has long been replaced by another regime, namely a society of fitness studios, office towers, banks, airports, shopping malls, and genetic laboratories. Twenty-first-century society is no longer a…
1-48. This principle is named after Reginald Victor Jones, a British professor heavily involved in solving science and technology intelligence challenges. In this deception, the target receives information through multiple means and methods, from many angles, throughout an operational environment. Deception generally…
1-46. A strong correlation exists between deception and surprise. The more forms of surprise built into the deception plan, the more likely it will overwhelm the target. These forms of surprise include size, activity, location, unit, time, equipment, intent, and style. One effect of surprise is the cry-wolf syndrome…
1-42. Magruder’s principle states that it is generally easier to induce the deception target to maintain a preexisting belief than to deceive the deception target for the purpose of changing that belief. Magruder’s principle exploits target biases and the human tendency to confirm exiting beliefs. Magruder’s principle…
At its heart, a counterinsurgency is an armed struggle for the support of the population. This support can be achieved or lost through information engagement, strong representative government, access to goods and services, fear, or violence. This armed struggle also involves eliminating insurgents who threaten the…
Many commentators have suggested that undecided voters’ opinions are better understood not as deeply held, thought-through beliefs, but as a sort of verbal Muzak. You say, of a candidate who has given many policy specifics already (and whose opponent speaks in word salad), “I need more policy specifics,” because it…
Other examples of remarkable societal resilience are more recent. We can consider, for example, the atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945. The bomb the United States dropped was 1,500 times more powerful than any previously used.32 The fireball at the hypocenter of the blast reached several thousand…
Entrenchment of values creates multiple equilibria because there is a significant element of chance in which value system becomes most powerful at a particular place and time, and because, once a value system has become sufficiently powerful, it can stay that way by suppressing the competition. Moreover, the theory of…
There were issues with this book, but I appreciate how the Critical Theory aspects of it serve as a sort of "red pill" to break us out of our complacent acceptance of the world--specifically in video games. Many reviews complain about the erudite verbiage, but all Critical Theory makes use of newly-invented words in…
‘Play’ was once a great slogan of liberation. Richard Neville: “The new beautiful freaks will teach us all how to play again (and they’ll suffer society’s penalty).” Play was once the battering ram to break down the Chinese walls of alienated work, of divided labor. Only look at what has become of play. Play is no…
In practice, critical theorists use these concepts to: Topic: Identify and critique the central themes and issues in various discourses, questioning what is considered important or relevant and why. Topology: Analyze the networks and relationships within social structures to reveal how power and influence are…