Category Archives: consciousness

Anonymous Calls for Worldwide Wave of Action #www

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Via: Anonymous

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The modern paradigm may still seem insurmountable “because it possesses an outward front, the work of a long past, but is in reality an edifice crumbling to ruin and destined to fall in at the first storm.”
— Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind

The decentralized movement toward freedom is raging across the world. It cannot be stopped. The tipping point is near. Despite the lack of coverage in the mainstream media, actions are springing up on an increasing basis. A wave of transformation is rising. The zeitgeist is shifting in our direction.

At this point, given all the nonviolent direct actions that are currently being planned, it makes strategic sense for us to organize them, in a decentralized way, in a way that the mainstream media cannot ignore. A slightly more coordinated approach is all it will take.

The Awakening Wave

The last time we all rallied together in a loosely knit collective fashion, the Occupy movement was born and the 99% meme brought the corruption of our political and economic system, along with the grotesque inequality of wealth, into mass consciousness in a profound and lasting way. It was the opening act, the awakening wave.

Since the Occupy camps were crushed by brutal police state force, the movement has splintered in many different directions. This is now proving to have been a blessing in disguise. It gave us time to learn from our mistakes, figure out what worked best and forced us back into the autonomous actions that built the movement in the first place. We have now experimented with different tactics and thought through longer-term strategies.

Meanwhile, the repressive conditions that inspired Occupy in the first place have become even more oppressive. Now more than ever, governments no longer have the consent of the governed. A critical mass has lost faith and trust in our existing institutions. The present paradigm has outlived its usefulness. It has been overrun with corruption and rendered obsolete. Our political, economic and legal systems are doing much more to limit our potential than enhance it.

It’s Time For A Worldwide Wave of Transformation

Let’s pick a three-month span, perhaps throughout this coming spring, and unite our collective actions into an unprecedented Worldwide Wave that cannot be ignored by anyone.

Let’s crowdsource a relentless global wave of action that protests the corrupt, while also rallying around and celebrating effective alternatives and solutions to the vast problems we are confronted by. Imagine thousands of nonviolent guerrilla armies swarming corrupt targets and rallying for viable solutions for a sustained three-month cycle. If we begin preparing now, a massive spring offensive can lead to a summer of transformation.

Staying true to the vital nature of the movement, you lead, in your own way. Pick whatever issues concern you most and run with them, knowing that likeminded people throughout the world will also be fighting in solidarity, in whatever way they can, at the same time you are.

Not Focused Enough?

In an attempt to dismiss and undermine us, status quo propagandists will once again criticize us by saying that our message of systemic change is not focused enough or lacks coherent goals. This feeble attempt to keep people from joining in with us will be overcome by our widespread and consistent actions, which will lead by example and inspire the cultural shift in mass consciousness that we urgently need. Our diverse crowdsourced actions will boldly demonstrate our will to expose, fight and overcome tyrannical systems. By rallying around viable solutions and protesting what we are against, the goals and freedoms that we aspire to will organically become self-evident to all.

Throughout history, when people have fought against tyranny and oppression, they didn’t have one perfect utopian model outcome agreed upon beforehand. They just knew that the invading and old systems were detrimental to their wellbeing and had to go. We are now in that position.

Don’t let the propagandists fool you. We do not need corrupt corporations or aristocratic government rulers anymore. They are obsolete. People throughout this interconnected technological world have already come up with much more effective systems to replace the tyrannical one that is currently dominating our lives. There are already many effective solutions to our problems, solutions that are held back by the entrenched forces of shortsighted greed. Once a small percentage of us withdraw our participation from corrupt entities and opt out of tyranny, the old and obsolete systems of rule will quickly fall away.

Extensive empirical evidence demonstrates that nonviolent movements toward freedom result in positive outcomes. Research has proven that it only takes approximately 3% of the population engaging in various forms of nonviolent action to create significant meaningful change, for the betterment of society. We now have the necessary critical mass of aware people who are ready, willing and capable.

Guerrilla Tactics

This time the police state will not be able to crush us. We will not have stationary targets. We will be everywhere, fluid and evasive. The movement will be an unstoppable crowdsourced, decentralized and autonomous revolutionary force.

We will engage in a diversity of nonviolent tactics, from large-scale mobilizations to small daily acts. Most of you already know the actions and tactics that are needed. Without revealing too much strategic information, here are a few basic actions to get a fire going in your mind:

-Mass gatherings, demonstrations;
-Marches, parades;
-Flash mobs, swarms;
-Shutdown harmful corporate and governmental operations;
-Worker Strikes;
-Hunger strikes;
-Sit-ins;
-Strategic defaults, debt strikes;
-Foreclosure prevention;
-Boycotting corrupt corporations;
-Monkeywrench corrupt corporations;
-Move your money out of the big banks and the stock market;
-Use alternative currencies and economic systems;
-Cancel your cable television and support independent media;
-Use independent online tools that don’t sell your info and protect your privacy;
-Online civil disobedience, Anonymous operations;
-Leak information on corruption;
-Use alternative energy;
-Build your own urban and hydroponic farms, or get your food from them;
-Support local businesses;
-Join local community organizations;
-Take part in food banks and help develop community support systems;
-Start or join intentional and autonomous communities;
-Experiment with new governing systems, Liquid Democracy;
-Create Temporary Autonomous Zones
-Host teach-ins;
-Organize socially conscious events;
-Make conscious media;
-Guerrilla theater;
-Guerrilla gardening;
-Guerrilla postering, messages on money;
-Help inspiring groups and organizations spread their message;
-Random acts of kindness and compassion;
-Mass meditations, prayer sessions and spiritual actions.

The list goes on and on. You know what you can do to play a part. Do whatever you feel inspired to do. Amplify what you are already doing. Think about what you are willing to do to be the change that we urgently need to see in the world, and then do it.

Don’t get bogged down in infighting and caught up in negativity. Ignore the saboteurs. Collaborate with people who inspire you. Keep moving forward with an indomitable will, a compassionate spirit and radiate a positive attitude. Moods are contagious. Be passionate and have fun!

Our ability to take part in civil disobedience is multiplied by our ability to easily record the actions on video and spread them throughout the Internet. By flooding social media with these inspiring videos, we will create a positive feedback loop that translates into more action on the ground.

Radical change is urgently needed, so let’s make transforming the world the cool thing to do. Let’s create a culture of transformation. Let’s blaze a contagious nonviolent wave of action through mass consciousness, signaling the end of the old world, ushering in a new paradigm.

Now is the time.

~~*~~

Ride the Worldwide Wave of Transformation
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#www

Tweak this meme! This is a draft call to action, a work in progress. Feel free to make changes to it and spread it around however you see fit.

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TPP: NAFTA on Steroids

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by Stephen Lendman

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade deal from hell. It’s a stealth corporate coup d’etat.

It’s a giveaway to banksters. It’s a global neoliberal ripoff. It’s a business empowering Trojan horse. It’s a freedom and ecosystem destroying nightmare.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) calls it “a secretive, multi-national trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement.”

More on TPP below. New York Times editors support it. Two decades ago, they endorsed NAFTA.

 

On January 1, 1994, its destructive life began. It’s anti-labor, anti-environment, anti-consumer and anti-democratic.

Corporate giants love it. Why not? They wrote it. Hundreds of pages of one-size-fits-all rules benefit them.

They override domestic laws. A race to the bottom followed. NAFTA was a disastrous experiment. In November 1993, New York editors headlined “The ‘Great Debate’ Over NAFTA,” saying:

“The laboriously constructed agreement to phase out trade barriers among the US, Mexico and Canada, which this page has strongly supported, is likely to have a positive, though small, impact on US living standards and provide a modest boost to the Mexican economy.”

“Some American jobs would be lost to cheaper Mexican labor, other jobs would be gained because American exports would increase as Mexico’s high tariffs gradually disappeared.”

“Economics aside, Nafta’s defeat would suggest that the US had abandoned its historical commitment to free trade and would thus discourage other Latin and South American countries thathave moved toward more market-oriented economies in the expectation of freer world trade.”So-called “free trade” is one-sided. It isn’t fair. NAFTA proponents promised tens of thousands of newly created US jobs.

Ordinary famers would export their way to wealth. Mexican living standards would rise. Economic opportunities would reduce regional immigration to America.

NAFTA’s promises never materialized. Reality proved polar opposite hype. A decade later, about a million US jobs were lost.

America’s Mexican trade deficit alone cost around 700,000 jobs by 2010.

Official government data show nearly five million US manufacturing disappeared since 1994.

NAFTA alone wasn’t responsible. It reflected broken promises, lost futures, and other trade deals from hell to follow. TPP stands out. It’s NAFTA on steroids.

Since 2008, multiple negotiating rounds were held. They continue secretly. Twelve nations are involved.

They include America, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. Others are invited to join.

At issue is agreeing on unrestricted trade in goods, services, rules of origin, trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers, government procurement and competition policies, and intellectual property (IP).

It’s about eliminating fundamental freedoms. It’s circumventing sovereign independent rights. Corporate power brokers want unchallenged control.

They want global rules and standards rewritten. They want supranational powers. They want them overriding national sovereignty. They want investor rights prioritized over public ones.

They already rule the world. Imagine giving them more power. Imagine no way to stop them.

Imagine a duplicitous president. Obama’s in lockstep with their wish list. He intends giving them everything they want.

Public Citizen is independent. It’s our voice. Its work entails “ensur(ing) that all citizens are represented in the halls of power.”

Its Global Trade Watch (GTW) monitors TPP developments. It calls it “a stealthy policy being pressed by corporate America. (It’s) a dream of the 1%.” It’ll:

• “offshore millions of American jobs,

• free the banksters from oversight,

• ban Buy America policies needed to create green (and many other) jobs (as well as) rebuild out economy,

• decrease access to medicine,

• flood the US with unsafe food and products,

• and empower corporations to attack our environment and health safeguards.”

Hyped benefits are fake. Reality is polar opposite what corporate shysters claim. Everything accruing from TPP benefits them. It does so by undermining what matters most to ordinary people.

Lori Wallach heads GTW. Ben Beachy is research director. Last June, they headlined their New York Times op-ed “Obama’s Covert Trade Deal.”

He’s committed to open government, he claims. His policies reflect otherwise. He’s negotiating TPP secretly.

It’s “the most significant international commercial agreement since the” World Trade Organization’s 1995 creation, said Wallach and Beachy.

Congress has exclusive “terms of trade” authority. Obama systematically refuses repeated congressional requests to release the entire draft agreement being negotiated.

He “denied requests from members to attend (sessions) as observers.” He “revers(ed) past practice” snubbing them.

He “rejected demands by outside groups” to release the draft text. George Bush never went that far.

Obama’s “wall of secrecy” had one exception. About “600 trade ‘advisors,’ dominated by representatives of big business,” got access to what Congress was denied.

TPP overrides American laws. It requires changing them. Otherwise trade sanctions on US exports can be imposed.

Wall Street loves TPP. It prohibits banning risky financial products. It lets banksters operate any way they want without oversight.

Congress has final say. Both houses will vote on TPP. Ahead of doing so, they’ll have access to its full text.

Why later? Why not now? Why not earlier? Why not without enough time for discussion and public debate?

Members won’t get enough time to examine TPP carefully. Maintaining secrecy as long as possible prevents public debate.

Obama wants TPP fast-tracked. He wants it approved by yearend. Until March, Ron Kirk was Obama’s trade representative.

He was remarkably candid. He said revealing TPP’s text would raise enormous opposition. Doing so might make adopting it impossible.

According to Wallach and Beachy:

“Whatever one thinks about ‘free trade,’ (TPP secrecy) represents a huge assault on the principles and practice of democratic governance.”

“That is untenable in the age of transparency, especially coming from an administration that is otherwise so quick to trumpet its commitment to open government.”

On October 30, a newly formed Friends of TPP caucus was formed. Four House co-chairman head it. They include Reps. David Reichert (R. WA), Charles Boustany (R. LA), Ron Kind (D. WI) and Gregory Meeks (D. NY).

They sound like earlier NAFTA supporters. They claim TPP is important for US jobs, exports and economic growth. They lied saying so.

Wallach commented separately. TPP is hugely hugely destructive, she said. It’s more than about trade. It’s a “corporate Trojan horse.” It has 29 chapters. Only five relate to trade.

The others “either handcuff our domestic governments, limit food safety, environmental standards, financial regulation, energy and climate policy, or establish new powers for corporations.”

They promote offshoring jobs to low-wage countries. They ban Buy America. Corporations can do whatever they please. Instead of investing domestically, they can use “our tax dollars” to operate abroad.

They can exploit national resources freely. They’ll have “rights for min(ed) (commodities), oil, gas” and others “without approval.”

TPP includes all sorts of “worrisome issues relating to Internet freedom.”

It provides a back door to earlier failed legislation. It resurrects SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and CISPA provisions. It tramples on fundamental freedoms and national sovereignty.

“Think about all the things that would be really hard to get into effect as a corporation in public, a lot of them rejected here and in the other 11 countries, and that is what’s bundled in to the TPP,” said Wallach.

“And every country would be required to change its laws domestically to meet these rules.”

“The binding provision is each country shall ensure the conformity of domestic laws, regulations and procedures.”

Negotiations are secret. Nothing is discussed publicly. Details leaked out. TPP includes hugely unpopular policies. It forces them on member countries.

It overrides domestic laws protecting people and ecosystems. It’s predatory capitalism at its worst writ large. Obama fully supports it. Lawmakers hadn’t seen it until last year.

They got access to a single chapter. Examining it is severely restricted. Their office is denied a copy. They alone can read it. Their staff is denied permission.

They can’t take detailed notes. They can’t publicly discuss what’s in it. Technical language makes it hard to understand what they read.

Congressional approval is likely. Lobby pressure is intense. “Everything is bought and sold,” said Wallach. “Honor is no exception.”

The reason there’s no deal so far “is because a lot of other countries are standing up to the worst of US corporate demands,” Wallach explained.

For how long remains to be seen. If TPP is adopted, public interest no longer will matter. The worst of all possible worlds will replace it. Corporate rights will supersede human ones. A global race to the bottom will intensify.

Signatory countries will be legally bound to support loss of personal freedoms. Sovereign laws won’t protect against poisoned food, water and air.

Ecosystems will be destroyed. Millions more jobs will shift from developed to under or less developed nations.

Corporate power will grow more exponentially. Fundamental human and civil rights may erode altogether. Not according to Times editors.

On November 5, they headlined “A Pacific Trade Deal.”

A dozen nations want a deal by yearend, they said. They want it to “help all of our economies and strengthen relations between the United States and several important Asian allies.”

It bears repeating. TPP is a trade deal from hell. It’s a stealth corporate coup d’etat. It’s a freedom and ecosystem destroying nightmare. Times editors didn’t explain.

They lied to readers. They betrayed them. They repeated their 1993 duplicity. Millions affected understand best.

An October 8 White House press release lied. It called TPP “a comprehensive, next-generation model for addressing both new and traditional trade and investment issues, supporting the creation and retention of jobs and promoting economic development in our countries.”

“The deepest and broadest possible liberalization of trade and investment will ensure the greatest benefits for countries’ large and small manufacturers, service providers, farmers, and ranchers, as well as workers, innovators, investors, and consumers.”

Times editors endorsed what they haven’t read. TPP provisions remain secret. Leaked information alone is known.

Times editors willingly accept Obama misinformation as fact. Twenty years ago, they got NAFTA wrong. Here they go again.

They’re mindless about secret negotiations. Public concerns don’t matter. Corporate interests alone count.

Subverting national sovereignty is OK. So is empowering transnational giants without oversight. They’ll be able sue countries for potentially undermining future profits.

Times editors support the worst of corporate excess. Doing so shows which side they’re on.

Fundamental freedoms aren’t important. Corporate rights drive The Times’ agenda. Its editors explained nothing about fast-track authority.

Max Baucus (D. MT) chairs the Senate Finance Committee. He supports fast-tracking. Doing so hands congressional authority to Obama.

Proper hearings are restricted. Debate is limited. Amendments can’t be introduced. The Senate can’t filibuster. Congress can only vote up or down.

It can happen virtually out of sight and mind. It can happen with scant media coverage. It can happen with none at all. It can become law with practically no public awareness.

Imagine corporate America getting coup d’etat authority with hardly anyone knowing what happened. Imagine the consequences if it does. Imagine today’s America becoming worse than ever.

Times editors stressed how Obama wants TPP to be “an example for the rest of the world to follow.”

Imagine one more than ever unfit to live in. Imagine a president promising change to believe in promoting it.

Imagine Times editors endorsing what demands condemnation. Imagine not explaining what readers most need to know.

Imagine substituting misinformation for truth and full disclosure. Imagine all the news they call fit to print not fit to read.

A Final Comment

On November 13, Public Citizen headlined “Leaked Documents Reveal Obama Administration Push for Internet Freedom Limits, Terms That Raise Drug Prices in Closed-Door Trade Talks.”

“US Demands in Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Text, Published Today by WikiLeaks, Contradict Obama Policy and Public Opinion at Home and Abroad.”

TPP’s leaked text reveals Obama demands limiting Internet freedom. He wants restricted access to lifesaving medicines.

He wants all TPP signatory countries bound the the same deplorable rules.

He lied claiming TPP reduces health care costs. It has nothing to do with advancing online freedom as he promised. It’s polar opposite on both counts.

According to Public Citizen:

“It is clear from the text obtained by WikiLeaks that the US government is isolated and has lost this debate.”

“Our partners don’t want to trade away their people’s health. Americans don’t want these measures either.”

Obama’s in the pocket of Big Pharma. He’s a Wall Street tool. He represents other corporate interests. He spurns popular ones. He lies claiming otherwise. He repeatedly avoids truth and full disclosure.

He lied about Obamacare. It’s an abomination. It’s a scam. It’s a scheme to enrich insurers and other healthcare giants.

TPP is a global scam. It’s an assault on fundamental freedoms.

Reports indicate around half the House members strongly oppose it. Others lean that way. According to Lori Wallach:

“This could be the end of TPP.”

“All these other countries are like, ‘Wait, you have no trade authority and nothing you’ve promised us means anything. Why would we give you our best deal?’ Why would you be making concessions to the emperor who has no clothes?”

It bears repeating. TPP is a trade bill from hell. It’s a stealth corporate coup d’ etat. Killing it is essential.

The alternative is losing fundamental freedoms. It’s destroying national sovereignty. It’s making healthcare less affordable. It’s undermining what ordinary people value most.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago.

He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

 

Saturday Matinee: Gridlock’d

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“Gridlock’d” (1997) is a film most people remember for featuring one of Tupac Shakur’s last starring roles (he was murdered in a shooting just two months after its completion). While Tupac’s performance as Spoon, a level-headed but drug-addicted jazz musician, is impressive and possibly his best, often overlooked are contributions of co-star Tim Roth and actor/writer/first-time director Vondie Curtis Hall. Roth stars as Stretch, Spoon’s impulsive and slightly deranged partner in addiction and music. Both Shakur and Roth inhabit their roles with a sense of authenticity, humanity, and charisma, giving their potentially pathetic characters believable chemistry and a likeable comic edge. The film kicks off when the third member of their jazz combo, Cookie, played by Thandie Newton, has an overdose, compelling the others to go on a quixotic quest seeking treatment for their addiction. Unfortunately for our protagonists the Detroit healthcare system is a bureaucratic maze seemingly designed to thwart their efforts. Odds of their success are decreased further when they’re targeted by cops and gangsters.

Detroit-born Vondie Curtis Hall does an excellent job balancing the script’s gritty realism and dark outlook with comedy and wit. Visually, the film is stylish without looking too glamorous or grim, and he keeps moments of humor and suspense well-paced. Hall is also suitably menacing as gangster D-Reper. Director John Sayles, who previously worked with Hall on the film “Passion Fish”, makes a cameo appearance as one of the cops. Hall hasn’t yet made another film on par with the quality of Gridlock’d, but he continues to do much acting and directing work for television.

As strong as Hall’s directorial debut is, it wouldn’t be as emotionally involving and memorable were it not for Tupac Shakur’s presence. Like his character in Gridlock’d, Tupac was at the time seeking a new beginning; a new creative direction. The fact that his life was tragically cut short can’t help but add a sense of poignancy and dramatic weight to his role and the entire film.

Five Ways to Boost Intelligence

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I’ve never subscribed to the notion that intelligence is fixed and unchanging. Intelligence (and its opposite) can be taught and reinforced though there may be varying ranges determined by factors such as diet, habits, genetics, personality, environment, time, resources and relationships. There’s also different categories of intelligences that aren’t equally valued by society, but the type of intelligence involved in critical thinking and creative problem solving is what our society seems to need most. On the latest episode of The Bulletproof Executive podcast, host Dave Asprey and researcher/science writer Andrea Kuszewski discuss methods to improve this type of intelligence among other topics including the relationship between extreme altruism and sociopathy.

Listen to the full interview here:

Kuszewski previously expanded on 5 ways to maximize cognitive potential as a guest blogger for Scientific American. Even if one has no need or desire to boost intelligence, they can also be used for sustaining intelligence and preventing cognitive decline associated with aging. Here are the five recommendations and her conclusion:

1. Seek Novelty

It is no coincidence that geniuses like Einstein were skilled in multiple areas, or polymaths, as we like to refer to them. Geniuses are constantly seeking out novel activities, learning a new domain. It’s their personality.

There is only one trait out of the “Big Five” from the Five Factor Model of personality (Acronym: OCEAN, or Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) that correlates with IQ, and it is the trait of Openness to new experience. People who rate high on Openness are constantly seeking new information, new activities to engage in, new things to learn—new experiences in general [2].

When you seek novelty, several things are going on. First of all, you are creating new synaptic connections with every new activity you engage in. These connections build on each other, increasing your neural activity, creating more connections to build on other connections—learning is taking place.

An area of interest in recent research [pdf] is neural plasticity as a factor in individual differences in intelligence. Plasticity is referring to the number of connections made between neurons, how that affects subsequent connections, and how long-lasting those connections are. Basically, it means how much new information you are able to take in, and if you are able to retain it, making lasting changes to your brain. Constantly exposing yourself to new things helps puts your brain in a primed state for learning.

Novelty also triggers dopamine (I have mentioned this before in other posts), which not only kicks motivation into high gear, but it stimulates neurogenesis—the creation of new neurons—and prepares your brain for learning. All you need to do is feed the hunger.

Excellent learning condition = Novel Activity—>triggers dopamine—>creates a higher motivational state—>which fuels engagement and primes neurons—>neurogenesis can take place + increase in synaptic plasticity (increase in new neural connections, or learning).

As a follow-up of the Jaeggi study, researchers in Sweden [pdf] found that after 14 hours of training working memory over 5 weeks’ time, there was an increase of dopamine D1 binding potential in the prefrontal and parietal areas of the brain. This particular dopamine receptor, the D1 type, is associated with neural growth and development, among other things. This increase in plasticity, allowing greater binding of this receptor, is a very good thing for maximizing cognitive functioning.

Take home point: Be an “Einstein”. Always look to new activities to engage your mind—expand your cognitive horizons. Learn an instrument. Take an art class. Go to a museum. Read about a new area of science. Be a knowledge junkie.

2. Challenge Yourself

There are absolutely oodles of terrible things written and promoted on how to “train your brain” to “get smarter”. When I speak of “brain training games”, I’m referring to the memorization and fluency-type games, intended to increase your speed of processing, etc, such as Sudoku, that they tell you to do in your “idle time” (complete oxymoron, regarding increasing cognition). I’m going to shatter some of that stuff you’ve previously heard about brain training games. Here goes: They don’t work. Individual brain training games don’t make you smarter—they make you more proficient at the brain training games.

Now, they do serve a purpose, but it is short-lived. The key to getting something out of those types of cognitive activities sort of relates to the first principle of seeking novelty. Once you master one of those cognitive activities in the brain-training game, you need to move on to the next challenging activity. Figure out how to play Sudoku? Great! Now move along to the next type of challenging game. There is research that supports this logic.

A few years ago, scientist Richard Haier wanted to see if you could increase your cognitive ability by intensely training on novel mental activities for a period of several weeks. They used the video game Tetris as the novel activity, and used people who had never played the game before as subjects (I know—can you believe they exist?!). What they found, was that after training for several weeks on the game Tetris, the subjects experienced an increase in cortical thickness, as well as an increase in cortical activity, as evidenced by the increase in how much glucose was used in that area of the brain. Basically, the brain used more energy during those training times, and bulked up in thickness—which means more neural connections, or new learned expertise—after this intense training. And they became experts at Tetris. Cool, right?

Here’s the thing: After that initial explosion of cognitive growth, they noticed a decline in both cortical thickness, as well as the amount of glucose used during that task. However, they remained just as good at Tetris; their skill did not decrease. The brain scans showed less brain activity during the game-playing, instead of more, as in the previous days. Why the drop? Their brains got more efficient. Once their brain figured out how to play Tetris, and got really good at it, it got lazy. It didn’t need to work as hard in order to play the game well, so the cognitive energy and the glucose went somewhere else instead.

Efficiency is not your friend when it comes to cognitive growth. In order to keep your brain making new connections and keeping them active, you need to keep moving on to another challenging activity as soon as you reach the point of mastery in the one you are engaging in. You want to be in a constant state of slight discomfort, struggling to barely achieve whatever it is you are trying to do, as Einstein alluded to in his quote. This keeps your brain on its toes, so to speak. We’ll come back to this point later on.

3. Think Creatively

When I say thinking creatively will help you achieve neural growth, I am not talking about painting a picture, or doing something artsy, like we discussed in the first principle, Seeking Novelty. When I speak of creative thinking, I am talking about creative cognition itself, and what that means as far as the process going on in your brain.

Contrary to popular belief, creative thinking does not equal “thinking with the right side of your brain”. It involves recruitment from both halves of your brain, not just the right. Creative cognition involves divergent thinking (a wide range of topics/subjects), making remote associations between ideas, switching back and forth between conventional and unconventional thinking (cognitive flexibility), and generating original, novel ideas that are also appropriate to the activity you are doing. In order to do this well, you need both right and left hemispheres working in conjunction with each other.

Several years ago, Dr Robert Sternberg, former Dean at Tufts University, opened the PACE (Psychology of Abilities, Competencies, and Expertise) Center, in Boston. Sternberg has been on a quest to not only understand the fundamental concept of intelligence, but also to find ways in which any one person can maximize his or her intelligence through training, and especially, through teaching in schools.

Here Sternberg describes the goals of the PACE Center, which was started at Yale:

“The basic idea of the center is that abilities are not fixed but rather flexible, that they’re modifiable, and that anyone can transform their abilities into competencies, and their competencies into expertise,” Sternberg explains. “We’re especially interested in how we can help people essentially modify their abilities so that they can be better able to face the tasks and situations they’re going to confront in life.”

As part of a research study, The Rainbow Project [pdf], he created not only innovative methods of creative teaching in the classroom, but generated assessment procedures that tested the students in ways that got them to think about the problems in creative and practical ways, as well as analytical, instead of just memorizing facts.

Sternberg explains,

“In the Rainbow Project we created assessments of creative and practical as well as analytical abilities. A creative test might be: ‘Here’s a cartoon. Caption it.’ A practical problem might be a movie of a student going into a party, looking around, not knowing anyone, and obviously feeling uncomfortable. What should the student do?”

He wanted to find out if by teaching students to think creatively (and practically) about a problem, as well as for memory, he could get them to (i) Learn more about the topic, (ii) Have more fun learning, and (iii) Transfer that knowledge gained to other areas of academic performance. He wanted to see if by varying the teaching and assessment methods, he could prevent “teaching to the test” and get the students to actually learn more in general. He collected data on this, and boy, did he get great results.

In a nutshell? On average, the students in the test group (the ones taught using creative methods) received higher final grades in the college course than the control group (taught with traditional methods and assessments). But—just to make things fair— he also gave the test group the very same analytical-type exam that the regular students got (a multiple choice test), and they scored higher on that test as well. That means they were able to transfer the knowledge they gained using creative, multimodal teaching methods, and score higher on a completely different cognitive test of achievement on that same material. Sound familiar?

4. Do Things the Hard Way

I mentioned earlier that efficiency is not your friend if you are trying to increase your intelligence. Unfortunately, many things in life are centered on trying to make everything more efficient. This is so we can do more things, in a shorter amount of time, expending the least amount of physical and mental energy possible. However, this isn’t doing your brain any favors.

Take one object of modern convenience, GPS. GPS is an amazing invention. I am one of those people GPS was invented for. My sense of direction is terrible. I get lost all the time. So when GPS came along, I was thanking my lucky stars. But you know what? After using GPS for a short time, I found that my sense of direction was worse. If I failed to have it with me, I was even more lost than before. So when I moved to Boston—the city that horror movies and nightmares about getting lost are modeled after—I stopped using GPS.

I won’t lie—it was painful as hell. I had a new job which involved traveling all over the burbs of Boston, and I got lost every single day for at least 4 weeks. I got lost so much, I thought I was going to lose my job due to chronic lateness (I even got written up for it). But—in time, I started learning my way around, due to the sheer amount of practice I was getting at navigation using only my brain and a map. I began to actually get a sense of where things in Boston were, using logic and memory, not GPS. I can still remember how proud I was the day a friend was in town visiting, and I was able to effectively find his hotel downtown with only a name and a location description to go on—not even an address. It was like I had graduated from navigational awareness school.

Technology does a lot to make things in life easier, faster, more efficient, but sometimes our cognitive skills can suffer as a result of these shortcuts, and hurt us in the long run. Now, before everyone starts screaming and emailing my transhumanist friends to say that I’ve sinned by trashing tech—that’s not what I’m doing.

Look at it this way: Driving to work takes less physical energy, saves time, and it’s probably more convenient and pleasant than walking. Not a big deal. But if you drove everywhere you went, or spent your life on a Segway, even to go very short distances, you aren’t going to be expending any physical energy. Over time, your muscles will atrophy, your physical state will weaken, and you’ll probably gain weight. Your overall health will probably decline as a result.

Your brain needs exercise as well. If you stop using your problem-solving skills, your spatial skills, your logical skills, your cognitive skills—how do you expect your brain to stay in top shape—never mind improve? Think about modern conveniences that are helpful, but when relied on too much, can hurt your skill in that domain. Translation software: amazing, but my multilingual skills have declined since I started using it more. I’ve now forced myself to struggle through translations before I look up the correct format. Same goes for spell-check and autocorrect. In fact, I think autocorrect was one of the worst things ever invented for the advancement of cognition. You know the computer will catch your mistakes, so you plug along, not even thinking about how to spell any more. As a result of years of relying on autocorrect and spell-check, as a nation, are we worse spellers? (I would love someone to do a study on this.)

There are times when using technology is warranted and necessary. But there are times when it’s better to say no to shortcuts and use your brain, as long as you can afford the luxury of time and energy. Walking to work every so often or taking the stairs instead of the elevator a few times a week is recommended to stay in good physical shape. Don’t you want your brain to be fit as well? Lay off the GPS once in a while, and do your spatial and problem-solving skills a favor. Keep it handy, but try navigating naked first. Your brain will thank you.

5. Network

And that brings us to the last element to maximize your cognitive potential: Networking. What’s great about this last objective is that if you are doing the other four things, you are probably already doing this as well. If not, start. Immediately.

By networking with other people—either through social media such as Facebook or Twitter, or in face-to-face interactions—you are exposing yourself to the kinds of situations that are going to make objectives 1-4 much easier to achieve. By exposing yourself to new people, ideas, and environments, you are opening yourself up to new opportunities for cognitive growth. Being in the presence of other people who may be outside of your immediate field gives you opportunities to see problems from a new perspective, or offer insight in ways that you had never thought of before. Learning is all about exposing yourself to new things and taking in that information in ways that are meaningful and unique—networking with other people is a great way to make that happen. I’m not even going to get into the social benefits and emotional well-being that is derived from networking as a factor here, but that is just an added perk.

Steven Johnson, author who wrote the book “Where Good Ideas Come From”, discusses the importance of groups and networks for the advancement of ideas. If you are looking for ways to seek out novel situations, ideas, environments, and perspectives, then networking is the answer. It would be pretty tough to implement this “Get Smarter” regiment without making networking a primary component. Greatest thing about networking: Everyone involved benefits. Collective intelligence for the win!

…And I have a departing question for you to ponder as well: If we have all of this supporting data, showing that these teaching methods and ways of approaching learning can have such a profound positive effect on cognitive growth, why aren’t more therapy programs or school systems adopting some of these techniques? I’d love to see this as the standard in teaching, not the exception. Let’s try something novel and shake up the education system a little bit, shall we? We’d raise the collective IQ something fierce.

Intelligence isn’t just about how many levels of math courses you’ve taken, how fast you can solve an algorithm, or how many vocabulary words you know that are over 6 characters. It’s about being able to approach a new problem, recognize its important components, and solve it—then take that knowledge gained and put it towards solving the next, more complex problem. It’s about innovation and imagination, and about being able to put that to use to make the world a better place. This is the kind of intelligence that is valuable, and this is the type of intelligence we should be striving for and encouraging.

Public Outrage Forces Seattle Officials to Backtrack on DHS Surveillance Grid

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Last week, Seattle’s alternative weekly paper The Stranger published an exposé on their city’s new wireless mesh network, part of a $2.7 million project purchased by the Department of Homeland Security. The Seattle Police Department refused to answer more than a dozen questions about the network (which was fast-tracked by Seattle City Council with very little process for review and approval) including whether it’s operational, who can access its data, what it might be used for, whether the SPD has used or intends to use it to geo-locate people’s devices via MAC addresses or other identifiers, and how accurately it would be able to track people.

On November 12, Anthony Gucciardi and Mikael Thalen released reports on Infowars and Storyleak featuring leaked documents on the surveillance mesh posted by an anonymous whistleblower earlier this year. Some of the findings are recapped in the video below:

Shortly after the leaks went public (Tuesday evening) Seattle Police Spokesperson Sgt. Sean Whitcomb announced “The wireless mesh network will be deactivated until city council approves a draft policy and until there’s an opportunity for vigorous public debate.” While it’s fortunate they were forced to do this due to public pressure, it contradicted previous statements SPD had made to the local press in the wake of The Stranger article. As reported by RT:

The SPD told The Stranger previously that the system was not being used, but anyone with a smart phone who wandered through the jurisdiction covered by the digital nodes could still notice that their devices were being discovered by the internet-broadcasting boxes, just as a person’s iPhone or Android might attempt to connect to any network within reach. In theory, law enforcement could take the personal information transmitted as the two devices talk to each other and use that intelligence to triangulate the location of a person, even within inches.

When the SPD was approached about the system last week, they insisted that it wasn’t even in operation yet. David Ham of Seattle’s KIRO-7 News asked, however, how come “we could see these network names if it’s not being used?”

“Well, they couldn’t give us an explanation,” Ham said at the time.

“They now own a piece of equipment that has tracking capabilities so we think that they should be going to city council and presenting a protocol for the whole network that says they won’t be using it for surveillance purposes,” Jamela Debelak of the American Civil Liberties Union told the network.

Now just days later, the SPD has admitted to The Stranger that indeed the mesh network was turned on — it just wasn’t supposed to be.

“SPD maintains it has not been actively using the network — it was operational without being operated, having been turned on for DHS grant-mandated testing and then never turned off — so shutting it down won’t hamper any current SPD activities,” The Stranger reported.

Are we supposed to believe the SPD “forgot” to shut the system off or trust that they would leave it operational without anyone operating it in light of the fact that they lied to reporters about the system being on a few days earlier? Both seem unlikely, as does promises that they’ll have enough safeguards in place to prevent misuse of the information they collect.

As RT previously reported, the DHS has been quietly rolling out similar surveillance grids in other cities including Oakland and Las Vegas. At this point, all Americans must remain extra vigilant to stay on top of such Orwellian schemes and do everything within power to shut them down.

UPDATE 11/28: Infowars just released this follow-up report revealing SPD had in fact NOT shut down the surveillance grid after publicly announcing that they would. This is further evidence that government lies and/or is incompetent at doing anything not a high priority for them (like shutting off surveillance grids), as if anyone needed more evidence.

UPDATE 12/9: Seattle police just announced today that the last of the surveillance nodes had finally been shut off last Friday (12/6). According to The Stranger:

Today, an SPD spokesperson said the department had turned off the final nodes in the network on Friday—156 could be disabled remotely, which happened weeks ago (though 19 had to be double-checked in person), but 8 had to be deactivated manually by a technician. Those are now off.

Today, I also received a copy of a letter sent from SPD Chief Jim Pugel to city councilperson Bruce Harrell about the mesh network. The full text is below the jump, but the relevant points are: (a) the department says the technology needs “more vetting with the ACLU and other stakeholders before a public hearing” and (b) Chief Pugel’s assertion that the network does not have the capability to track or record a person’s movements, but that SPD’s draft policies about its use “will cover any non-video technology” anyway.

The department, Pugel says, should be ready for a briefing with the council member earlier next year.

WikiLeaks Releases Complete Secret TPP Draft

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Showing remarkably good timing (acting just one day after bipartisan groups of House Democrats and Republicans spoke out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Washington DC), WikiLeaks sent out the following press release today:

Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)

Today, 13 November 2013, WikiLeaks released the secret negotiated draft text for the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter. The TPP is the largest-ever economic treaty, encompassing nations representing more than 40 per cent of the world’s GDP. The WikiLeaks release of the text comes ahead of the decisive TPP Chief Negotiators summit in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 19-24 November 2013. The chapter published by WikiLeaks is perhaps the most controversial chapter of the TPP due to its wide-ranging effects on medicines, publishers, internet services, civil liberties and biological patents. Significantly, the released text includes the negotiation positions and disagreements between all 12 prospective member states.

The TPP is the forerunner to the equally secret US-EU pact TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), for which President Obama initiated US-EU negotiations in January 2013. Together, the TPP and TTIP will cover more than 60 per cent of global GDP. Both pacts exclude China.

Since the beginning of the TPP negotiations, the process of drafting and negotiating the treaty’s chapters has been shrouded in an unprecedented level of secrecy. Access to drafts of the TPP chapters is shielded from the general public. Members of the US Congress are only able to view selected portions of treaty-related documents in highly restrictive conditions and under strict supervision. It has been previously revealed that only three individuals in each TPP nation have access to the full text of the agreement, while 600 ’trade advisers’ – lobbyists guarding the interests of large US corporations such as Chevron, Halliburton, Monsanto and Walmart – are granted privileged access to crucial sections of the treaty text.

The TPP negotiations are currently at a critical stage. The Obama administration is preparing to fast-track the TPP treaty in a manner that will prevent the US Congress from discussing or amending any parts of the treaty. Numerous TPP heads of state and senior government figures, including President Obama, have declared their intention to sign and ratify the TPP before the end of 2013.

WikiLeaks’ Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange stated: “The US administration is aggressively pushing the TPP through the US legislative process on the sly.” The advanced draft of the Intellectual Property Rights Chapter, published by WikiLeaks on 13 November 2013, provides the public with the fullest opportunity so far to familiarise themselves with the details and implications of the TPP.

The 95-page, 30,000-word IP Chapter lays out provisions for instituting a far-reaching, transnational legal and enforcement regime, modifying or replacing existing laws in TPP member states. The Chapter’s subsections include agreements relating to patents (who may produce goods or drugs), copyright (who may transmit information), trademarks (who may describe information or goods as authentic) and industrial design.

The longest section of the Chapter – ’Enforcement’ – is devoted to detailing new policing measures, with far-reaching implications for individual rights, civil liberties, publishers, internet service providers and internet privacy, as well as for the creative, intellectual, biological and environmental commons. Particular measures proposed include supranational litigation tribunals to which sovereign national courts are expected to defer, but which have no human rights safeguards. The TPP IP Chapter states that these courts can conduct hearings with secret evidence. The IP Chapter also replicates many of the surveillance and enforcement provisions from the shelved SOPA and ACTA treaties.

The consolidated text obtained by WikiLeaks after the 26-30 August 2013 TPP meeting in Brunei – unlike any other TPP-related documents previously released to the public – contains annotations detailing each country’s positions on the issues under negotiation. Julian Assange emphasises that a “cringingly obsequious” Australia is the nation most likely to support the hardline position of US negotiators against other countries, while states including Vietnam, Chile and Malaysia are more likely to be in opposition. Numerous key Pacific Rim and nearby nations – including Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and, most significantly, Russia and China – have not been involved in the drafting of the treaty.

In the words of WikiLeaks’ Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange, “If instituted, the TPP’s IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons. If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you’re ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs.”

Current TPP negotiation member states are the United States, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand and Brunei.

Read the full secret TPP treaty IP chapter here

Are Babies Moral Beings?

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By Leanne Italie, AP

Are we naturally good or naturally evil? Cognitive scientist Paul Bloom argues in a new book that we’re both.

In “Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil” (Crown), the developmental psychologist and Yale professor takes on the nature of morality and vast research spanning evolutionary biology to philosophy, drawing on everyone from Sigmund Freud to Louis C.K.

His conclusion? Babies have the capacity for empathy and compassion, possess a limited understanding of justice and have the ability to judge. Yet they navigate not along colour lines but as Us versus Them, usually landing squarely in the Us camp.

A conversation with Paul Bloom:

AP: What light do you shed on the “moral sense” of babies?

Bloom: We’re born with this extraordinary moral sense. A sense of right and wrong just comes naturally to humans and shows up in the youngest babies we can study. But this morality is limited. I think tragically limited. So we are morally attuned to those around us, to our kin, to our friends, to those we interact with, and we are utterly cold-blooded toward strangers. To some extent I think babies are natural-born bigots. They are strongly attuned to break the world into Us versus Them and have no moral feelings at all toward the Them, and this shows up all through development.

So in some way, although a lot of morality is inborn, I think the great success of humans … is expanding and transcending this inborn morality. You and I believe that, you know, not only is it wrong to kill somebody, it’s wrong to kill somebody from anywhere around the world. We might also agree that we’re obliged to help people in trouble, even if they look different from us or are from a different land.

We have notions of fairness and equity and justice that, again, extend more broadly, and although we might favour our own group in some ways, consciously or unconsciously, we’re probably not racist. We probably think that racism is wrong, and that a good moral system should treat all humans more or less the same, but none of that is present in the mind of a baby.

AP: Is it a revelation that we create the environments that can transform a partially moral baby into a very moral adult?

Bloom: I think in some sense it is not. I think any good parent knows that you raise a kid into a moral kid not by, you know, imparting moral lessons and making moral pronouncements, but by shaping the environment in ways that bring out our better selves. When you want to make people good people you don’t just say, ‘Oh, try real hard.’ You try to structure their environment so as to bring out their better aspects.

AP: Is that surprising?

Bloom: I think it’s surprising the extent to which it works and the extent to which the alternative fails. So, for instance, many people believe that giving people moral stories, expressing through literature moral values, has a profound effect on people’s lives. The actual evidence says it has no effect at all. It’s just zero. In fact, there are some studies showing that if you give kids stories about being generous and kind it paradoxically makes them a little bit meaner, roughly between the ages of 4 and 10. Preaching in general with kids often backfires.

AP: Where do serial killers come from?

Bloom: Serial killers are very unusual people. … We know that there’s genetic differences in people’s empathy, in people’s compassion and how much they care about other people, in their ability to control violent rages, for example, and I’m sure a serial killer is somebody who has the genetic short end of the stick. Then you toss in certain environments. Your typical serial killer had a very unhappy childhood.

AP: What about being hard-wired at birth?

Bloom: Some people are more likely to be serial killers than other people due to accidents of genes. I am far more likely to be a murderer or a rapist or a serial killer than you are because I’m a man. There’s some evidence that people who turn out to be psychopaths, even murderous psychopaths, have the short end of the genetic stick but there’s all sorts of environmental factors. … Fifty years ago, slapping one’s wife or raping one’s wife would be viewed as comical, legitimate, certainly not a crime. Now it’s the sort of thing that only a monster would do, and so we have tremendous evidence for profound changes that have nothing to do with genes.

AP: You discuss “hodgepodge morality.” Is there such a thing in babies?

Bloom: I think we naturally have multiple moral systems, multiple responses. Some of our responses are created by disgust, some by empathy, some by a sense of justice, some by a sense of fairness, some by self-interest. We respond to kin, to our family members in different ways than we respond to strangers in all sorts of ways that don’t fall into any elegant philosophical theory. And I think this is true for babies, too.

Babies are moral beings but they aren’t moral philosophers. They don’t have some sort of coherent theory. Rather they have a series of gut reactions, a series of moral triggers that they respond to. What we find in our research is all sorts of moral capacities on the part of babies. What we don’t find is some kind of careful, contemplative theory.

AP: Is that a bad thing?

Bloom: It isn’t. It’s the way we are, one way or another, but if you set yourself the task of constructing a society where everybody lives and everybody follows the same rules and adheres to the same notions, then you do want to some degree a consistent and coherent theory.

So it may be a good theory of psychology to say that a white person naturally cares a lot more toward another white person than toward a black person, and that’s an instinctive response that could develop in certain societies, but from the standpoint of constructing a theory of what actually is good, how we should live our lives, we would say, ‘Well that’s too hodgepodge for us. It’s inconsistent. It’s actually a cruel way for the mind to work.’

AP: You write about conflicts in research on racial bias in young children.

Bloom: For kids there’s a lot of evidence that they’re very strongly biased on Us versus Them if you get them to do it on the basis of things like different colored T-shirts, for example, but race and skin colour isn’t an automatic way of dividing up the world. So you take a two- or three-year-old and typically a two- or three-year-old shows no signs of being racist in any way. When you get older, if kids are in an environment when blacks and whites interact and they’re totally mellow with each other and there’s not much conflict, they’ll see black and white but it won’t matter at all. If you’re in an environment where it matters then it will matter.

Children are extremely prone and very ready to divide the world into groups, but the groups that they focus on is determined through learning.