The advances of modern imaging technology mean that we no longer have to guess what the brain is up to. Our innermost thoughts and character are on display, and via scans that lay bare who has lots of empathy and who has none, who lies and who is a truth-teller, whom we should trust and welcome as a friend, and whom we should shy away from. Thanks to modern neuroscience, we can begin to piece together, for example, how we might “improve our society by harnessing the extraordinary positive force of empathy”. Since “neuroscientists, psychologists and geneticists now know which parts of the brain are specifically linked to empathy and compassion”, we should be “considering how we can enhance these abilities . . . .The empathy instinct is an idea whose time has come”.
Tag: 04.10.18
America’s Poet Laureate Takes Poetry Down America’s Back Roads
“[Tracy K.] Smith, the fifth African-American to hold the title, has put an unexpected spin on it. She is taking poetry on the road around the nation, focusing primarily on rural areas where most writers are unlikely to visit.” She say, “This is a strange period where, nationally, we’re being reminded or convinced of the great divisions that separate coastal and urban communities from the central and rural communities. I’ve always distrusted that. I think there are lots of places where we have something very clear, compelling and welcome to say to one another.”
A Full-On Rant About The Essence Of Being An Artist
“As the world becomes more hostile to us all as artists, you must find that thing in making art that brings you as much peace as reifying my deeper self does for me. Not the thing about theatre that makes you feel ecstatic and high, not the thing you would suffer and die for like artists do in all those stupid movies that romanticize us. Find the thing or idea or core value in your artistic practice that brings you peace. Because when the show is a hit, that peace is what will carry you through self-doubt and self-sabotage. And when the show is a failure, that peace will hold off self-destruction. And when there is no show at all, which is most of the time, that peace is what will remind you that it doesn’t matter.”
Did We Just See The First Cracks In The Big Data Bust?
The disorienting and thoroughly unsatisfying Cambridge Analytica saga is a preview of what trailing indicators of the collapse of the data boom might look like: revealing signs, evident years later, that something was rotten with these arrangements, arriving too late to be actionable but soon enough to foster resentment against companies and services on which we’ve come to depend.
Univ. Of Texas, Bowing To Protests, Reverses Decision To Move Fine Arts Library Off-Campus
“For the better part of a year, students, faculty, staff, librarians, museum professionals, artists, and many members of the public [in Austin] worked tirelessly to protest further removal of books and materials, after discovering that, over the summer of 2017, around 75,000 items from the Fine Arts Library had been removed to off-site facilities. The rest of the items held by the library – which predominantly occupied the fifth floor of the Doty Fine Arts Building – also appeared to be at risk of removal.”
Andrew Davis To Leave Chief Conductor Post At Melbourne Symphony
“Sir Andrew Davis will step down from his role as Chief Conductor with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the end of his contract in December 2019, the Orchestra announced today. The British maestro, who has led the MSO since 2013, will continue his artistic relationship with the orchestra as Conductor Laureate.”
Sales Of Crime Fiction Are Way Up. Why?
The rise has been fuelled by the growth of psychological thrillers and the success of big names like Lee Child, James Patterson and Dan Brown. Last year, 18.7 million crime books were sold – 19% more than in 2015, data company Nielsen Bookscan says. They overtook sales for general and literary fiction, which were down 16%.
We All Depend On Online Recommendation Engines. But They’re Broken
Today, recommendation engines are perhaps the biggest threat to societal cohesion on the internet—and, as a result, one of the biggest threats to societal cohesion in the offline world, too. The recommendation engines we engage with are broken in ways that have grave consequences: amplified conspiracy theories, gamified news, nonsense infiltrating mainstream discourse, misinformed voters. Recommendation engines have become The Great Polarizer.
Entertainment Companies Reported Their Gender Pay Gaps. It Isn’t Pretty
Much of the media focus has been on the size of the salary gaps. But what really tells the story about ingrained gender inequality is the disparity in bonus pay (men receive 67% more than women at Warner Bros., 88% at Live Nation, 68% at Turner Broadcasting) and the disproportion of men — usually in the region of 70% — in the upper quartile of earners.
A Superhero Movie Where The Superpowers Come From Sign Language
In Sign Gene, the first feature by deaf filmmaker Emilio Insolera, “the plot centers on an international band of deaf people, who, thanks to a genetic mutation, can channel superpowers through their use of sign language. The independent film is a fast-paced, genre-bending romp, shot on three continents with a cast made up entirely of deaf actors and CODAs (meaning children of deaf adults).”