The Post-Partisan Emporium

When Behavioural Scientists Misbehave A not so hidden secret BY   JOHN RIDGWAY “ Psychology is no longer just about diagnosing or fixing us, it is now about socially engineering and shaping us. If you don’t control your mind, someone else will.” Dr Patrick Fagan, behavioural psychologist, University of London The relationship between psychology and your average climate sceptic is a strange one indeed. On the one hand psychologists are  reputed  to have generated a “dramatically growing body of research” that demonstrates how our inability to think critically leads to conspiracy ideation. For example, our cognitive failings are presupposed to lead us to think that the public is being unwittingly manipulated as part of some government masterplan. But, on the other hand, it is open knowledge that psychologists have been responsible for developing techniques of behavioural science that have been extensively used by governments to surreptitiously manipulate public opinion. They even have a

  Harvesting Discontent: The Global Farmer’s Revolt  An agricultural revolution, farmers uprising worldwide, seeking to seed change… Kristian James 21st Century Wire When the ancestors of modern humans began to observe the cycles of plants, understanding the rhythm of the environment, and started utilizing the seed to plant the next crop. This knowledge solidified the formation of the beginning of agriculture. The end of roaming and hunting for food, the decision to gather together, and to prepare and wait for the success of good crops. Thus, farming developed as a skill integral to the development of all worldwide societies, defined by thousands of years of learned cultivation under the belts of countless generations, the ability to feed yourself and grow abundance, and also the ability to sell and trade. This is the very basis and crux of the world economy.  As we enter 2024, the year of the Dragon, Earth’s population has surpassed 8 billion, and the vital role of farming in sustaini

 Thanks to Saint Jimmy (Russian American) for recommending this article... 2024: Too Many Things Going Wrong by   Gail Tverberg It will be an interesting year. We know that the age of peak performance for humans varies, depending upon the activity. Peak performance for an athlete tends to come between ages 20 and 30, while peak performance for a person writing academic papers seems to come between  ages 40 and 50 years . By the time people are 80 years old, they have a strong suspicion that health and other aspects of performance will deteriorate in the next 20 years. Economies, in physics terms, are similar to human beings. Both are dissipative structures. They require energy of the appropriate kinds to keep their systems growing and operating normally. For humans, the main source of this energy is food. For an economy, it is a mixture of energy that the economy is specifically adapted to. Today’s economy requires a certain mixture of energy directly from the sun, plus energy from fos