Lets talk about TIME

Time is money…

Imagine this: There is a bank that credits your account every morning by 86.400 Euro. It doesn’t transfer the balance from day to day. Each evening it deletes the rest of the balance you didn’t spend during the day. What would you do: Of course you would WITHDRAW the whole amount!! Every one of us has a similar bank. That bank is called TIME.

Every morning it credits us with 86.400 seconds. it. Every morning a new account is opened. Every night the rest of the money in the account are burned. If you fail to use the deposit of the day, the loss is yours. You can’t go back and you can’t withdraw money from tomorrow. You have to live in the present, with your current deposit. Invest in them in order to win in HEALTH, HAPPINESS and SUCCESS. Time is ticking. Do what you can and do it better today!

Article: New Year's Resolution: I will believe in free will

By John Horgan  (on Scientific American)

In the wee hours of this morning my eyes popped open, and I spent the next half hour trying to figure out what to write about in this column. After careful, albeit groggy deliberation, I decided to go with free will, both because of the tie-in to New Year's resolutions and because some high-profile scientists have been questioning whether free will exists.

One is the neuroscientist Sam Harris. His new book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (Free Press, 2010), which I critiqued in a previous post, has a section titled "The Illusion of Free Will". Harris argued that "no account of causality leaves room for free will." He cited experiments in which magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) "predicts" that a subject is going to do something—on the basis of activity in the subject's brain—up to 10 seconds before the subject consciously decides to do it.

"Clearly, findings of this kind are difficult to reconcile with the sense that one is the conscious source of one's actions," Harris wrote. This and other experiments,

Speech: Sir Ken Robinson - Changing Education Paradigms

Another influential speech by Sir Ken Robinson! (plus more epic animations by the RSA)

Article: What WikiLeaks revealed to the world in 2010

BY GLENN GREENWALD

AP

Throughout this year I've devoted substantial attention to WikiLeaks, particularly in the last four weeks as calls for its destruction intensified.  To understand why I've done so, and to see what motivates the increasing devotion of the U.S. Government and those influenced by it to destroying that organization, it's well worth reviewing exactly what WikiLeaks exposed to the world just in the last year:  the breadth of the corruption, deceit, brutality and criminality on the part of the world's most powerful factions.

As revealing as the disclosures themselves are, the reactions to them have been equally revealing.  The vast bulk of the outrage has been devoted not to the crimes that have been exposed but rather to those who exposed them:  WikiLeaks and (allegedly) Bradley Manning.  A consensus quickly emerged in the political and media class that they are Evil Villains who must be severely punished, while those responsible for the acts they revealed are guilty of nothing.  That reaction has not been weakened at all even by

Video: The Danger of a Single Story

Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie believes in the power of stories, and warns that hearing only one about a people or nation leads to ignorance. She says the truth is revealed by many tales.

Article: WikiLeaks - The perfect check mate

by http://lightswitcher.blogspot.com

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Recently I've had a few heated discussions regarding WikiLeaks with people who question the motives and consequences of leaked secret documents. Some believe a leak this massive is only possible if it is either a disinfo operation run by those seeking to further censorship the internet or in the best case scenario, it is being exploited to leak false or filtered documents that will push the globalists agenda. From what I gather, WikiLeaks sceptics think this way because, they say, WikiLeaks has had mass media attention. Because the content is slanted or unimportant. Because it promotes war with Iran and because it blames the US. Oh, and the fact that Assange hasn't caught up with the inconsistencies in the main stream story of what happened on 9/11. Some also claim a "fishy" gut feeling that something isn't right but they can't put the finger on it! Hmm...

Spinning the spin 

Fair enough, Assange has discredited the 9/11 movement but I know plenty of intelligent people who still to this day don't dare looking at the evidence of what happened. Like Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore for example. Could this be a symptom of main stream indoctrination and arrogance of knowledge? Or is it

Speech: James Randi on Homeopathy (2001)

James Randi explains what homeopathy is all about (from his 2001 Princeton lecture).

Story: A Lesson in Philosophy

The philosophy Professor appeared in the classroom with a big paper box. Without saying anything, he took out of the paper box a glass vase and began filling it up with small stones. The students were all looking puzzled.

When the vase didn’t have any more space for stones, the professor asked:

-Is the vase full?

And the students replied:

-Yes, it’s full.

The professor smiled and without speaking, he took out of the paper box a bag with small pebbles and

Article: Wikileaks and the creed of guerrilla transparency (with selected comments & research)

An interesting and maybe quite objective article from one of the Economist blogs "Democracy in America"

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Dec 13th 2010, 17:35 by G.L. | NEW YORK

I’VE held back from adding to my colleagues' fascinating debate about Wikileaks on this blog (see our topic page on the subject), but since speaking at the "flash symposium" that Personal Democracy Forum (PdF) organised two days ago in New York City, I've been chewing over an idea about what Wikileaks presages.

But first, a few things that might be obvious, but need to be clear.

One, any reasonable person looking at the  list of leaks to date would agree that Wikileaks has done both good and harm. The world is better off for knowing about the procedures for dealing with prisoners at Guantánamo, a nuclear accident in Iran and the dumping of toxic chemicals in Côte d’Ivoire; on the other hand, those

Speech: Gordon Brown - Global Ethic vs National Interest

Gordon Brown on TED.COM discussing the very interesting matter of global ethics versus national interest. How leaders should consider global ethics more without neglecting their countries interests? How short term costs for global ethics can also benefit a country in the long term?

Video: Pentagon Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg on Wikileaks Iraq War Docs

The man who released the files containing the truth about the Vietnam war 40 years ago talks about WikiLeaks and Julien Assange!



Watch part 2 HERE!

Research: Wikileaks, Julian Assange (Founder), his Arrest & Anonymous "Operation: Payback"

[Update: Check all Recent Wikileaks related material of the blog HERE]


1) Intro 

WikiLeaks is an international new media non-profit organization that publishes submissions of otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous news sources and leaks. In July 2010 Wikileaks released confidential documents that shed light on the war in Afghanistan. Now Wikileaks has posted online almost 400,000 similar documents detailing events in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. (Current Link: http://213.251.145.96/)

Julian Paul Assangeis is an Australian journalist, publisher and Internet activist. He is best known as the spokesperson and editor in chief for WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website. Before working with the website, he was a computer programmer. He has lived in several countries, and has made occasional public appearances to speak about freedom of the press, censorship, and investigative journalism.

Anonymous are online supporters of Wikileaks who are fighting back after news of Julian Assange’s arrest hit the wires. They have initiated what they called Operation: Payback, a call to action to bring down the websites of companies that have publicly removed services once used by the Wikileaks website. (Current Link: http://anonops.net/anonops/About)

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2) About Sweden issuing European arrest warrant for Mr Assange over sex crime allegations:

Information about his arrest & accusations:

• Will the U.S. prosecute Julian Assange?
• WikiLeaks: Interpol issues wanted notice for Julian Assange
• Q&A: Arrest of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange
• Julian Assange arrested in London
• Julian Assange Arrested in London: Is it a Conspiracy?
  
• Julian Assange to be questioned by British police
• Julian Assange’s Sex Accuser Worked with US-Funded, CIA-Tied Anti-Castro Group
• Special Report: STD fears sparked case against WikiLeaks boss

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3) What is WikiLeaks?

• Current WikiLeaks link

Speech: Steven Johnson - Where good ideas come from

One of our most innovative, popular thinkers takes on-in exhilarating style-one of our key questions: Where do good ideas come from?


(Again, Amazing animation!)

Speech: Denis Dutton - A Darwinian theory of beauty

Video: IRAN - A Nation Of Bloggers

Very interesting video about the current situation in Iran, the suppressed youth and the way they use blogs as their last resort to freely express their views between them.


IRAN: A Nation Of Bloggers from ayrakus on Vimeo.


ps. internet <3

Story: El Elefante Encadenado

- ''I can't, I just can't!''
- ''Are you sure?'' he asked.
- ''Yes, I would love to just stand in front of her and tell her how I feel... But I know I can't!!!''

Jorge stood like Buddha on those terrible blue armchairs of his office. He smiled, looked me in the eyes and by lowering his voice - like he did every time he wanted to be heard carefully - he whispered to me: ''Here's a little story...''

Without waiting for my answer, Jorge started narrating:

Short Film: Validation (2007)

A wonderful & positive short film :) Won a lot of awards.

"A cheerful parking attendant considers it his job to do more than validate parking. He wants to validate the customers themselves, delivering compliments about their appearances and the inner qualities behind them. Everyone who comes up to him with a ticket walks away validated as a worthwhile human being. Soon, the parking attendant becomes so popular that people line up for validation. He appears on news broadcasts and even ends up validating George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein. His life hits a roadblock when he goes to the DMV to get his driver's license photo taken and is met with a beautiful photographer whom he can't get to smile.  (IMDB Storyline by J. Spurlin )





"Validation" is a fable about the magic of free parking. Starring TJ Thyne & Vicki Davis. Writer/Director/Composer - Kurt Kuenne.

Speech (RSA Animate): Crises of Capitalism

A very good and easy to understand speech about the crises of capitalism. Great analysis of the different causes very nicely organised and presented.

Amazing animation too :)




Note:

  There was much criticism by "youtubers" on the comments section who wrote that we do not have capitalism at all, and that in fact actual capitalism is not even legal especially in the USA. While browsing in this chaos of comments I noticed that the majority of constructive and worth reading answers argued that we actually suffer from lack of capitalism and that instead we get "corporatism", "mercantilism" and so on. Basically what they say is that governments and/or corporations are mainly responsible for corrupting the system and creating the crisis. It did make some sense.

  Some of them quoted thinkers, others linked websites and videos or mentioned books and articles to make their thesis stronger (yes, all that on the youtube comment section!) and there was one book that grabbed my attention. It's called "The case for legalizing Capitalism", by Kel Kelly and it seems to elaborate more or less on what all those angry youtubers were trying to say. Amazon's description was quite interesting and

Speech: Matthew Taylor - 21st century enlightenment

Matthew Taylor's lecture "21st century Enlightenment"   
(Full edit with the audience Q&A session) 

A very interesting lecture about people changing the way they think in order for us to prosper in the future, about self awareness and finding what actually makes each of us happy.
Analysis of the middle ages enlightenment in order to understand how it happened and how long it took for it to happen in order to help us create the 21st century enlightenment.
A quite positive view on human nature adequately justified through examples of experiments as well as through the theory of evolution.
Those are just a few of the very interesting points discussed by Matthew Taylor in this lecture.

I was actually lucky enough to watch an almost identical lecture by Matthew live at my university :)

Enjoy!
/od

Article: Tiny little thoughts

by ligesskepsis.blogspot.com


Sometimes I think of this classic story that companies selling antivirus software, have first created the virus itself and then have the ''antidote'' ready for the customers to buy! How many times have we felt that somehow the antivirus came first? How many times have we been told to be careful of a new virus, we bought the software to be ready and sure but in the end we never got ''ill''? They were sometimes though that we heard of someone that did get ''infected'' because he didnt have the ''antibiotic''..

Speech: Noam Chomsky - Distorted Morality (2003)

Very interesting speech by Noam Chonmsky, who explains why we are all hypocrites and how obvious it is that there cannot be a war on terror.

"Whatever has been happening for the past several months and is going on now, and however you evaluate it, like it, hate it, or whatever, its pretty clear that there cannot be a war on terror."

 Noam Chomsky, Distorted Morality

There are always two sides to every story.

Video: TV is a Drug

Television is a drug. from Beth Fulton on Vimeo.

Documentary: Evilness of Power (2010)

"An examination of the effects of power and hierarchy."

Very interesting documentary!

Video: Webster Tarpley talks about Greece's role on the deliberate recession

Article: Fear, the social paranoia inside you.

by dinatomirmigi.blogspot.com

Have you ever seen a kid hitchhiking but you didn’t stop because you thought he might rob you? Have you ever seen a homeless man coming at you in the train station and you stepped aside because you thought he is maybe sick or carrying a virus? Have you ever listened to an announcement on the train about your personal belongings and immediately you searched yourself to look if your awesome new mobile phone is missing or seen an old lady grabbing her purse looking suspicious to the kid across the carriage like if he was an imposter trying to steal her bag?

Article: We won't be a lost generation

by dinatomirmigi.blogspot.com


1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,
33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40..

If you find these numbers too many to count, then probably you find them way too many to work. These are the years that someone is supposed to work if he eventually wants to go on pension and finally live his life. I'm sure that some of you may wonder, what else can anyone do? Is there a solution for not working so much and for so long and even so, to have a correct and well maintained society to live in? I think the answer is pretty simple and it is of course YES! From the productive side, a man isn't capable of working to his maximum for 40 years, his most efficient 40 years. No matter how much you love what you do, in 40 years your body wears out and the psychological pressure and fatigue won't let you offer and produce, but in the contrary, you will learn to live in a routinised way and in the same motif of living. In the western societies there are lots of occupations that can't offer satisfaction to their employees just because they don't give them the sense of creative productivity they want. How productive can someone feel behind a telephone? How productive and useful can an employee feel with so much bureaucracy? 

Documentary: Occupation 101 (2006)

A thought-provoking and powerful documentary film on the current and historical root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unlike any other film ever produced on the conflict -- 'Occupation 101' presents a comprehensive analysis of the facts and hidden truths surrounding the never ending controversy and dispels many of its long-perceived myths and misconceptions.

FORGET ANYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT GAZA.

Continue to youtube for part two and the rest of the documentary.

Documentary: Women Are Heroes (2010)

Women Are Heroes (2010), a film by artist JR




http://www.womenareheroes.be/

Video: Bill Hicks Interview

A rare Bill Hicks interview with a lot of very interesting points,

Speech: Sir Ken Robinson - Bring on the learning revolution!

More wise-talk from Sir Ken Robinson on education and the learning revolution! (As seen on TED.COM)

Movie: Underground (1995)

Underground is the sensational story of the country of Yugoslavia starting from the Nazi invasion going through the communist regime of Tito and ending with the American bombings of the 90s. The movie tracks the life of two crooks that serve the communist party and the actress they both fall in love with. Star performances by Miki Manojlovic and Lazar Ristovski and directed by Emir Kusturica this authentic movie is guaranteed to move any "Passive Observer".

Article: One Million Kids on Anti-Psychotics

by Susan Rosenthal

In July, the Washington Post reported that Corporate America is hoarding a record $1.8 trillion in cash while it waits for profit-making opportunities. At the same time, record numbers of American children are being prescribed toxic psychiatric drugs at earlier ages. These two facts are connected.

The corporate class stole its trillions from us, by exploiting workers at home and abroad – paying us less than our labor is worth – and by laying off workers and squeezing the rest to work a lot harder for much less.

They also steal from our children.

Exploitation and deprivation cause parents to be distressed, depressed, angry, anxious and overwhelmed. An estimated 15 million American children (one in five) live with an adult who suffered a major depression in the previous year. Children respond to parental distress with symptoms and behaviors. The greater the parent’s distress, the greater the child’s distress.

Instead of using some of the corporate treasury to invest in families, distressed children are being labeled with mental disorders and drugged into submission. These children

Speech: Sir Ken Robinson - Do schools kill creativity?

An amazing speech by Sir Ken Robinson (found on TED.COM) about schools, the importance of teaching creativity and how the worldwide educational system needs to be reformed!

Really a "Must-See" !

Video: Big Brother State

http://www.bigbrotherstate.com

Article: Capitalism for a New Millenium

- by Petros Iliadis

  If further evidence were needed that capitalism is incapable of taking society forward, the last ten years have provided it. Not only the ongoing nightmare of the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and soon India and Pakistan – which has led to the death of many tens of thousands and over 5,000 ‘coalition’ soldiers – and the unfair bombing of Korea, Vietnam and Serbia but also the inability of capitalism to take any effective action towards climate change, social discrimination and inequality. In some ways,the most graphic illustration of capitalism’s crisis is not the so-called credit crunch or the inability to cope with natural disasters such as the tsunami at the end of 2004, the South Asian earthquake or Hurricane Katrina,nor the countless thousands who died unnecessarily, and those still homeless (including in the US, the richest nation on the planet) but the actual theory hiding behind contemporary capitalism.

  We are told that because we are greedy, self-interested animals, an economic system must reward greedy, self-interested behaviour if we are to thrive economically. Are we greedy and self-interested?

Video: Reality as you know it, does not exist!

Article: Michael Lewis Talks About the Banks That Brought Down Greece

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/09/michael-lewis-talks-about-the-banks-that-brought-down-greece.html

Article: Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010?currentPage=1

Video: Bill Clinton Talk/Interview (2007)

Very interesting talk by Bill Clinton with fascinating facts revealed.

Documentary: Zeitgeist (2007)

"Zeitgeist: the Movie is a 2007 documentary film by Peter Joseph that asserts a number of ideas, including an artificial, mythological origin of Christianity, alternate theories for the parties responsible for the September 11th attacks, and finally, that a cabal of international bankers have been manipulating the international monetary system and the media in order to consolidate power under a unified world government" (- wiki)

You can watch it for free at www.zeitgeistmovie.com, as well as Zeitgeist: Addendum (2008), and soon "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2010).

Movie: Waking Life (2007)

Waking life is one of the most inspiring philosophical films ever made. Definately a "Must See" !

Also, interesting reviews and analysis:

http://www.philfilms.utm.edu/1/waking.htm