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Chinese Witches
In rural China, calling someone a 'witch' has serious social consequences
Population structured by witchcraft beliefs (DOI: 10.1038/s41562-017-0271-6) (DX)
Anthropologists have long argued that fear of victimization through witchcraft accusations promotes cooperation in small-scale societies. Others have argued that witchcraft beliefs undermine trust and therefore reduce social cohesion. However, there are very few, if any, quantified empirical examples demonstrating how witchcraft labels can structure cooperation in real human communities. Here we show a case from a farming community in China where people labelled zhu were thought capable of supernatural activity, particularly poisoning food. The label was usually applied to adult women heads of household and often inherited down the female line. We found that those in zhu households were less likely to give or receive gifts or farm help to or from non-zhu households; nor did they have sexual partnerships or children with those in non-zhu households. However, those in zhu households did preferentially help and reproduce with each other. Although the tag is common knowledge to other villagers and used in cooperative and reproductive partner choice, we found no evidence that this assortment was based on cooperativeness or quality. We favour the explanation that stigmatization originally arose as a mechanism to harm female competitors. Once established, fear that the trait is transmissible may help explain the persistence of this deep-rooted cultural belief.
Human Wi-Fi vs. Coffee Enemas
Roy Moore Accuser's Home Burns Down
Trump Book
Donald Trump Didn’t Want to Be President (long excerpt)
Trump Bannon row: 11 explosive claims from new book
Trump Bannon row: Lawyers seek to halt book's release
Read the excerpt at New York Magazine. It seems entirely believable.
Gretchen Carlson Becomes Chairwoman of the Miss America Org.
Gretchen Carlson named chair of Miss America organization
Former Fox News Channel anchor and 1989 Miss America Gretchen Carlson was named chairwoman of the Miss America Organization's board of directors Monday, and three other past pageant winners will join her on the board.
The new leadership comes less than two weeks after leaked emails surfaced showing CEO Sam Haskell and others disparaging the appearance, intellect and sex lives of former Miss Americas. Haskell resigned Dec. 23, along with two other top leaders.
The selection of Carlson marks the first time a former pageant winner has served as the leader of the nearly 100-year-old organization. The organization also announced the appointments of three other past Miss Americas: 2012 winner Laura Kaeppeler Fleiss, 2000 winner Heather French Henry and Kate Shindle, who won in 1998 and now serves as president of the Actors' Equity Association. Their appointments take effect immediately, as does Carlson's.
Previously: Miss America on Life Support
iTunes Store login prompt won't take "No" for an answer
Summary:
Pressing "cancel" when prompted to log in to iTunes Store must be done repeatedly.
Steps to Reproduce:
Change your Apple ID password then use your iPhone for a while. Eventually you will be prompted to log in to iTunes Store.
Tap "Cancel".
The dialog disappears briefly then immediately reappears.
Sometimes tapping "Cancel" a second time causes the dialog to disappear for just a few minutes but it will inevitably reappear, just about always in pairs.
Expected Results:
iTunes Store login prompt will never reappear after I tap cancel just once.
Actual Results:
The login prompt doesn't believe that "No Means No" and perpetually bothers me when I'm trying to use my device.
Version/Build:
iOS version 10.0.1 (14A03)
Configuration:
Model Identifier MNA62LL/A
256 GB Flash
Bernard Kouchner: Ban/Boycott Austria EU Presidency
Italy Plans to Send Anti-Migrant Military Mission to Niger
Stray thoughts on physics and the next paradigm
I am not a physicist, but I'll throw this one out there because:
1. It seems fairly reasonable, maybe if anything it's too obvious (I'm bad at telling).
2. I think physicists would agree (I would be biased :D).
3. It might be interesting to think about. If not it's short.
4. I've got nowhere else to put it/it didn't really fit with a comment I wrote :D
I'll apologize in advance for missing replies to replies and any discussions. I get bogged down on a daily basis and then time evaporates and later I often discover that I need to think more about what people say and I get bogged down again and suddenly it's months or maybe even years... (anyone who is "young" this is how cruel it is to become "old" although I'm not ancient: live, do, and think, as much as you can while time seems infinite!).
Anyway here it is:
Science is not dogma, science is imperfection striving to be less imperfect. That something is good enough for practical application including awesomely impressive feats like detecting gravitational waves —a feat which was considered impossible/unachievable by Einstein— does not truly give any qualitative or relative measure of how correct the current science is compared to better future science. What we can surmise is that there are at least some large questions left unsolved (grand unified theory stuff) and those indicate that there will be a future paradigmatic shift in physics that is at least on the scale of the one from Newtonian to "Einsteinian".
Welcome to Your Future: An Inspiring Holiday Message
⛄🎅🎄🎁👼
ＩＮＩＴＩＡＴＩＮＧ．．．
Out of boredom, I did a Google News search for "arcology". This was the lone result:
Paolo Soleri accused of sexual abuse by daughter
No serious arcologies have been built despite decades of research/advocacy. Various projects have been proposed but not realized:
Crystal Island
Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid
Dubai City Tower
Sky City 1000
X-Seed 4000
But the dead stiff Paolo Soleri is now just another #MeToo rapist. Is disinterment on the table?
In the future, there will be no arcologies. Soleri's ideas have been celebrated and studied, and others have proposed arcologies, but there will always be pesky obstacles like a global financial crisis, lack of lengthy carbon nanotubes, or the threat of terrorism. If you put one million people in a single building, the incentive to find the one or handful of weak spots becomes that much greater. Because more kills = higher score. Instead of arcologies, expect more apps and socially-conscious VR.
If we don't see nukes flying in every direction, we'll get to experience new and exciting wars soon. Perhaps right here on American soil. They'll be fought with bioweapons, maybe some directed energy weapons, and Hackaday-chique explosives powered by 3D printing and Raspberry Pis. American ingenuity is not dead: it has to kill America first.
A select few elites may be able to escape the carnage. The Musky One will soon have four spaceports from which to launch his escape vehicle to Mars. Why else would he plan for 2024 when everyone else is talking about 2035? He saw the writing on the wall and wants to print his "Get Out of Judgment Day Free" card ASAP. Assuming Muskman survives the journey, he will live in a cave on the side of a cliff as the free market's chosen God-Emperor of the Red Planet. The ratio of women to men will be around 10 to 1, if not 50 to 1. You can guess what comes next. Homo sapiens sapiens erectus muskii.
So as you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, or New Year's this season, take a look at the people around you. Look for the pressure points, the joints, and any visible signs of weakness that could be exploited. Do so reflexively. Make a higher level of paranoia your new normal. Become more ascerbically cynical and distrustful than you already were as a SoylentNews reader. Get ready for mankind's final adventure, a global battle royale with no winners.
