Thursday, December 23, 2010

I support Julian Assange

US politicians on both sides, including the most 'liberal', mouth platitudes on free speech:
I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves.”
- Barrack Obama 17 November 2009

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said on 21 January 2010 -
“Now, in many respects, information has never been so free. .. And even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable. ..
Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world’s networks. ... Information freedom supports the peace and security that provides a foundation for global progress."

Now they try to silence Wikileaks and condemn Julian Assange, some even calling for him to be assassinated. Many lawyers and others have challenged Julia Gillard in an open letter to support Assange as an Australian and condemn the threats to do him harm.

Jaqi Pascoe
called for Assange to be Australian of the Year and now he has been named Crikey's Readers' Choice Person of the Year and Le Monde Man of the Year. Recently he was awarded a gold medal by the Sydney Peace Foundation.

The alleged sexual offences appear to be politically instigated. He might be polyamorous or dishonest in his personal relationships, but his behaviour as reported would not breach Australian law. In fact he has not been charged with any offence in Swedish law either.

There are parallels in this hypocrisy to St Kilda FC threatening to prosecute the 17 year old girl who posted snaps of posing naked footballers on her Facebook. The footage of the poor 'maligned' footballers is close to vomitous .

Chicago art - recognise anything?






Chicago architecture







Thursday, November 18, 2010

Hard-Wired Emotion

At the Mind & Its Potential conference yesterday Matthew Lieberman and Julian Short presented on the science of social cognition and described why 'fairness' tastes like chocolate. It appears humans have a large part of the brain dedicated to social interactivity, including our notions of fairness. If you're unsure what fairness is, just ask an average 7 year old. Unfairness includes social exclusion. Our evolutionary experience was that most individuals who are not part of the social group don't survive. You may be fantastic, independent, unique and ... eaten. Fairness activates the same area of the brain's cortex as eating chocolate, and social rejection hurts just like physical pain.

That night at the Dendy I saw Social Network, a fascinating story about the beginnings of Facebook, and the pain and destruction of flaming, and it all came together. Social networking on Facebook, Twitter, texting etc is so popular not because it's trendy, it is 'hard-wired'. In addition to flight, fight and freeze we have a 4th embeded reaction - to see ourselves in the mirror of other's reactions, to confirm our social inclusion. The behaviour of survival has not changed for 20 million years.

Jaqi's back - 8 November 2010

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Followers