Summary: Positive thinking can be a way to silence healthy doubt
The video suggests that positive thinking for the sake of it is delusional.
I would prefer to call it delusional optimism. The problem is that people are not allowed to warn others of problems they see, in the name of optimism.
Summary: Doom and gloom on current capitalism.
No solution is proposed.
Perhaps things are so bad that progress is just to realise things will not automatically get better, as politicians seem to promise lately.
Video link
Summary: Praying mantis with 3D glasses
Researchers in Newcastle have put 3D glasses on preying mantises to study their stereoscopic vision.
They seem to have it as they are fooled by 3D glasses the same was as humans do.
Video link
Summary: by a senior member of staff...
Here is an interview of a senior member of staff, who was part of a committee discussing PostDocs. He starts an interesting discussion, here is what I kept:
Postdocs are invisible. Many departments don't even know how many they have. There is no responsible person for them, at best it is the same person that worries about PhD students.
Most postdocs leave academia. When they are prepared for alternative careers, it is an afterthought, but in most cases they are on their alternative career by being in academia! The training they receive has no goals.
Most have ended up there because they thought it is an inevitable/default part of their career. No alternatives are shown by universities.
One solution is to raise salaries, and hire less so they are taken better care of.
Seems like a bubble that will at some point burst.
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More discussion at quora.
Summary: A call for a new enlightenment
Here is an interesting idea: we need a new enlightenment!
My summary: Progress since the enlightenment is centred around what we can achieve. The main means have been science/technology, markets and bureaucracy. However:
Science/technology and markets do something because they can, being indifferent to general good.
Bureaucracy puts rules above ends.
The talk argues it is equally important to discuss and understand what we aim to achieve. Which is defined by ethics, and can be approached by the humanities.
Video link.
Snowden on stage with the creator of the world wide web. Great interview.