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Technology and Moral Panic
pbahra writes "Why do some technologies cause moral panic and others don't? Why was the introduction of electricity seen as a terrible thing, while nobody cared much about the fountain pen? According to Genevieve Bell, the director of Intel Corporation's Interaction and Experience Research, we have had moral panic over new technology for pretty well as long as we have had technology. It is one of the constants in our culture. '... moral panic is remarkably stable and it is always played out in the bodies of children and women,' she said. There was, she says, an initial pushback about electrifying homes in the U.S.: 'If you electrify homes you will make women and children vulnerable. Predators will be able to tell if they are home because the light will be on, and you will be able to see them. So electricity is going to make women vulnerable. Oh and children will be visible too and it will be predators, who seem to be lurking everywhere, who will attack.' 'There was some wonderful stuff about [railway trains] too in the U.S., that women's bodies were not designed to go at 50 miles an hour. Our uteruses would fly out of our bodies as they were accelerated to that speed,' she says."
I don't really believe this theory about changing relationship to time, space and other people. Personally I find it more to be about understanding. I am always cautious of things I don't understand. From computer software to mechanical things to ... well, anything at all. Those five hour energy drinks? Not for me. Probably safe. But I don't understand it so I'm not doing it. Do they change my relationship to time, space and other people? Not at all.
And I think that's where moral panic comes from. Why even call it "moral panic" when it's really just a matter of a large amount of change coming from something that's hard to understand sparking extreme caution and sometimes panic. World of Warcraft is really scary to older people who don't play it. Electricity is really scary to people who don't understand it. Hell, it'd look like magic to me if I had never encountered it before. And your knee-jerk reaction is caution.
I think simply informing people alleviates this and -- in some cases like cellular phones -- when you can't effectively communicate to the masses you will suffer from this panic.
My work here is dung.
'There was some wonderful stuff about [railway trains] too in the U.S., that women's bodies were not designed to go at 50 miles an hour. Our uteruses would fly out of our bodies as they were accelerated to that speed,' she says"
Yeah, nothing worse than riding on the bus or a train when, all of a sudden, whoa flying uterus!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Vatican is still againt condoms !!!!!!
There will always be somebody that gets freaked out by something they don't understand. Humans can be herded very easily with fear. Just look at the US political system.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/
The laws of probability forbid it!
So that's where I left my uterus. Thanks!
The reasons listed in this study are a lie. Electrifying homes had other reasons for scaring people than whats said here. Go read about Tesla and Edison, why are modern studies filled with such dribble? Especially American ones?
If the title would have more accurately stated "people are resistant to change" this would have not been news at all, as it is widely recognized.
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Any offense taken to this post is at your sole discretion.
Hey, long time no see..
BTW, you forgot to add the chiropracy to the list of things we found out are bad for people!
Long ago, an author published a long screed against the evils of pens, that they made writing too easy. You didn't have to lug around heavy clay tablets, papyrus was wasted when words couldn't be edited like tablets could before they were baked. Heck, you didn't even need an oven.
After publication, his editor received several spiteful singing telegrams from greyhairs complaining that his drivel was published, as evidence was clear that writing itself was making people stupid and forgetful.
People fear what the don't understand or can't profit from.
--edfardos
Our uteruses would fly out of our bodies as they were accelerated to that speed
Won't someone please think of the uteruses!!
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
If you want to know about sociology or psychology... talk to a lady that works for Intel.
Seriously, reading that article made me think she gets her info from Slashdot comments - "oh noes, thinks of the CHILDREN". And I bet she doesn't read the articles either.
#DeleteChrome
I realize that you are the resident quack-doctor-troll; but here goes:
Asbestos: Wonderful stuff for serious fireproofing/insulation applications. Just don't bloody breath it. (And, incidentally, don't let those sociopathic fuckers we call 'lobbyists' anywhere near public policy. The curious little quirk of physical geography that puts some of the major asbestos deposits in Quebec, whose always-restive local government the national government is always trying to placate, made for decades of obfuscation, stalling, and straight-out lies about the stuff's safety...)
Thalidomide: Crazy teratogenic(which is why the evil, evil, FDA didn't approve it in the US). On the other hand, as long as you aren't pregnant, it shows a great deal of promise in the treatment of Leprosy and certain cancers. Use as Directed, kids.
Obviously, not all new technologies are good, and there is always the risk that we either won't know that, or that the people who do know that will have an interest in ignoring the fact(Thanks for all the lead, Ethyl Corporation...). That doesn't mean that many of them aren't progress, though.
Have you ever noticed that many movies are made about new technologies? In the 1950s it was all about nuclear and/or space travel. Later we had stuff about bio-technology like Andromeda Strain , and Jurasic Park. In the original movie, Frankenstein was brought to life by electricity, in the origianal book it was chemistry. As computers, and internet progress, we get movies like "War Games" and "Colossues."
Led by researcher Daniel Favre, the alarming study found that bees reacted significantly to cell phones that were placed near or in hives in call-making mode.
I think its also been shown that when cell phones are placed in moving cars in call-making mode that it leads to a significant increase in human deaths.
> "women and children and vulnerable"
Yes, the spell checker was a technological necessity, but the grammar checker, now that was morally abhorrent. Won't someone please think of the women and children and vulnerable.
War of Currents
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
... it's simple really.
I'm always amused when someone expresses shock that the general population behaves in ways that seem illogical or dumb. It's really very simple. Around 40% of students in the UK fail to achieve 5 GCSEs (for you Americans, the most basic qualification level in the UK) grades C (the most basic pass) or higher. 15->20% of students gain no qualifications at all. These people grow up. And then they read (at least those who've progressed that far) the Sun and the Daily Mail (entities which only exist to tell them what to be panicking about), and they vote. 40% of the voting population are functionally no smarter than vegetables. No wonder they make stupid decisions.
As a species, human beings aren't very smart at all.
...are unable to adapt to slashdot too. This is the way of things.
Its a panic because it represents a change. And people don't do well with change. Its moral because we can't come up with a reasoned argument not to do it, or at least to take it slowly. Making things a moral issue creates a taboo that we are not supposed to question. Or we might be on the slippery slope to having sex with animals or some such nonsense.
When I hear 'panic', I step back and weigh the pros and cons. When I hear 'moral', I start looking for a group seeking to control society to suit their own agendas.
Have gnu, will travel.
can be viewed as an invasion of privacy
an invasion of privacy invokes the ancient primate evolutionary panic of some other male inseminating the female you are paired with, which means you are stuck devoting all of your time and resources raising some other man's child
so yes, the battlefield is the woman's body when it comes to fear of the unknown, and especially something that is sticking tendrils into your house or creeping out over the ether and grabbing and inseminating YOUR WOMAN
AAAAAAAHHHHH
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"women's bodies were not designed to go at 50 miles an hour. Our uteruses would fly out of our bodies as they were accelerated to that speed,' she says."
This is nothing more than a complete lack of even the most basic understanding of physics. This is why physics (and for other reasons, chemistry and biology) should be REQUIRED for every single person going through the school system.
Without a basic grasp of physics, you cannot understand the world around you. I don't mean we should be teaching them quantum electrodynamics, I mean we should be teaching them basic Newtonian mechanics, so they do not think stupid things like women's bodies will fly apart at 50 mph in a train, or that horoscopes influence their lives, or that dousing works or that homeopathy is anything but bullshit.
That study was bullshit pseudoscience that wasn't even done with proper controls. If you look at the original Daily Mail article that your link links to, you'll see that an expert on bees notes that you can do the same damage simply opening a hive and stuffing things in it, cell phone or otherwise. You can't get a meaningful conclusion from that.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Bitcoin... *ducks*
Human beings fear what they do not understand.
So instead of looking like a wimp, they come up with reasons to rationalize their fear.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Republicans were the same way back in the 1800's? It's a good thing today we have our Electronic Health Records and Death Panels to weed out all the old and vulnerable women and children that may be injured at speeds in excess of 50 MPH before they become a financial burden to care for. And they said the health care reform bill was only bad.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
Won't somebody please think of the children!
it is always played out in the bodies of children and women,
This sounds like "I'm not worried for myself, but I am concerned of the effect <whatever> could have on other people". So men would transfer their fears, ignorance and paranoia onto concern for womem. Women would transfer it onto children (and presumably children would transfer it onto the family dog). I'd guess that a significant proportion of people are simply resitant to change. Not because they necessarily like living in the dark, suffering from deficiency diseases or being socially isolatedd. It's just that they've learned to cope with those conditions (and more importantly: they recognise that everyone else is no better off than they are). When change happens, it's possible that other people will get to grips with it, or exploit it's value before they do - or they are shown up to be stupid by their lack of understanding - sooner than they do, leaving them at a disadvantage.
Since they can't admit their own fears, they express them as concern for others. Presumably people whom they consider inferior (physically, or in some other way) and can therefore show their compassion and concern, while still pursuing their intention of preventing other people from gaining an advantage over themselves.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
That's the central question of moral panics over technology (transhumanism causes another type of panic entirely, so I'll leave that discussion for the birds).
People will panic over your new invention if they see it can kill people--best example is the electric chair back when public executions were much more common.
Don't forget the invention of nuclear weapons, which will ultimately lead to a nasty nuclear world war in 2037.
Oh, wait, did I say that out loud?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Disruption afford opportunities for opportunists, and some of them are dishonest. Balances worked out over many decades that represent some kind of rough fairness between competing interests are brushed aside in a twinkling, and the new technology creates a chance for early colonizers to make a successful power grab. The ordinary citizens understands intuitively that new technology is used against him first, then checks and balances are worked out later.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Did you pay attention to your own search results? Half of them discredit the study, and I don't even see additional studies in them. I did however find a very nice debunking article in a chain of links off your weak Google-fu: http://skepchick.org/2011/05/bees-ccd-and-cellphones-still-no-link/
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
The mad scientist is named Victor Frankenstein, and I don't remember him having his doctorate when he created the monster. The monster gives himself the name Adam, but he is Victor's "son" (in a way), so I guess the name Adam Frankenstein isn't too far off the mark.
It's 2038, and it will only happen if they don't upgrade from the archaic 32 bit version of Unix that runs on them now. 32 bit operating systems destroy women, children and space/time. For the humor impaired, this is not a serious comment.
Thalidomide. Asbestos. Lead paint. "More Doctors smoke Camels".
Corporate America doesn't give a damn what garbage it can unload on the public, or how safe it is, as long as it can make a profit. People are smart to be wary. Once bitten, twice shy.
Of course the Wall Street Journal doesn't give a damn either. And of course it will throw mud at the public who show the least bit hesitancy to the garbage Corporate America wants to shovel out, wondering what psychological problems they might have to want a strong, well-funded FDA and the like.
parodied here is pretty much only present in western science fiction. Eastern block (both COMECON countries and Jugoslavijan) science fiction rarely has technologically brought on disasters, unless it's by abuse of such technology , quite often intentionally. Shows quite a difference in mindset, eh?
How do they work?!
Change is being seen or spin doctored if somebody looses power. Like:
-Trains pose a economic threat to anybody who want to transport people by horse-carriages.
-electricity poses a threat to people who distribute energy in another way
-the internet poses a threat to people who possess already other media
-green energy poses a threat to everybody who invested in traditional power plants
I grew up in a heavily conservative environment. Each new piece of technology was seen as a new way for the devil to attack, signaling the arrival of the anti-christ. This included...
Credit cards: Banks want you to use credit cards because it assigns you a number, and numbering the people was something that the anti-christ did.
ATM Machines: Something about not carrying cash was evil. Not sure what that was about.
RFID: They want to implant them into your body. The resulting scar was the mark of the beast.
If they couldn't find a rational reason to explain their fear of a new technology, they blamed it on the anti-christ.
My favorite "protect the women" argument has to do with the introduction of anesthesia in the 19th Century. Use of ether or chloroform, while risky, began to receive widespread acceptance after its introduction in the 1840's, and any number of physicians and surgeons worked to perfect it. One in particular, John Snow, recognized its possibilities during childbirth. He developed techniques for cutting back on pain (analgesia) without knocking the prospective mother out completely. Queen Victoria is known to have employed him for several of her numerous deliveries.
His work was raved against in many pulpits because it was perceived to be in violation of the book of Genesis, which states "you will bring forth your children in sorrow." Fortunately, rationality in tandem with numerous upper-crust British ladies, eventually prevailed.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
Fountain pens made it easier for criminals to write their instructions to abduct women and children.
The author of the article clearly has no background in history and is just making stuff up.
In London by 1736, the streets were lit all night long.
Gas and oil lamps were common in homes by the time the electric light was introduced. Oil Lamps
had been around for 1000s of years. Then you also had these things called candles.
There was moral panic about the safety of the electric wires but that has nothing to do with the authors argument
if you read it half assed, of course you will see that half of them discredit the study. if you read it properly instead of fervently trying to zealot-out something you dont find convenient, you would see that they were trying to 'discredit' that the SIGNALS itself kill bees. not that the signals confuse, disorient and repulse bees, leading to their reduction as a species.
Read radical news here
Hey, long time no see..
BTW, you forgot to add the chiropracy to the list of things we found out are bad for people!
Not to mention that later testing revealed that the Chevy Corvair was actually one of the safest cars in its class at the time, Nader just singled it out because GM was the largest car company in the world to get publicity...
'There was some wonderful stuff about [railway trains] too in the U.S., that women's bodies were not designed to go at 50 miles an hour. Our uteruses would fly out of our bodies as they were accelerated to that speed,' she says."
Well, 'she' needs to provide a citation. I'm having a hard time finding one. I suspect she's just making shit up.
'If you electrify homes you will make women and children and vulnerable'? 'Predators will be able to tell if they are home because the light will be on, and you will be able to see them' - Isn't seeing an intruder a good thing? 'Oh and children will be...' - Did you really just start a sentence in an Article with "Oh"? Oh, you did. All in all this article is clearly written in only one view point, and a negative and backwards one at that.
It's an interesting article but honestly I don't buy the "If you don't like new stuff, you're a Luddite" mentality. History is replete with technological disasters:
Posting from Niagara Falls.
I don't know where she sees a pushback against electricity in the home -- not for the reasons she suggests, anyway.
The alternatives were candles, kerosene and gas. Petroleum products before Standard Oil were feared and for very good reasons. Gas lighting was expensive when and where you could get it.
Imagine a hose connected to a desk lamp. That is gaslight in the Sears, Roebuck catalog ca. 1910. The stove had a pilot, the gas had a scent, but that was the limit of your protection.
Electricity brought with it new risks of electric shock and fire.
You were wired into the Bell system in the late 1880s, you owned a flashlight and maybe a doorbell. That isn't going to tell you much about how to behave around the 15 amp 120 volt line serving your bathroom.
To say that I am scared of X is to open one's self up to argument, facts, rationality, or even to ridicule.
To say that X will frighten Y (where Y is a person or group seemingly deserving or in need of protection) makes one out to be a generous altruistic person. It also prevents any attempt at arguing the position because Y's behavior and beliefs can be whatever you want them to be in order to win the argument.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
If I'm uncomfortable with a new technology (plastic, e-waste, cell phone, packaging, condoms) I could avoid them myself. The column, which is excellent, is trying to predict when the panic over "witches brews" of technology create a stampede, legislation, or environmentalist-locust mode of panic. I am not sure I buy the common correlations Genevieve Bell postulates about space and time. People have always been more afraid of plastic packaging than paper. It's interesting when a group in society becomes irrationally panicked about a technology, and then another technology company with a commercial interest in the panic plays a role in stirring it up.
Gently reply
Well then here's your first. http://www.680news.com/news/local/article/248658--alannah-myles-shares-tragic-health-news-with-canada-day-crowd
TORONTO, Ont. - The crowd at Woodbine Park cheered loudly as Canadian rocker Alannah Myles was about to take the stage at one of the summer festivals taking place on Canada Day.
However, the tone changed as the "Black Velvet" singer was carried on and helped seated onto the piano bench using two canes. Although she seemed unable to move her head or neck, her voice sounded great as she played a few songs that really got the crowd rocking.
Finally, Myles explained to the audience that she had overdone chiropractic treatments, having some 500 treatments over three years, and had suffered some severe spinal damage.
She is unable to move her neck and head.
Actually, I don't think it's just misunderstanding. There are historical examples of people having moral panics or outrages over things that didn't involve any special maths to understand.
E.g., the funniest was one monk having a long rant against the printing press, back in Gutenberg's days. Among other things, apparently copying books by hand builds character and appreciation, according to him, so obviously this newfangled printing press will cause some generations of wimps and illiterates. Actually it was one factor that caused literacy and access to literature to go up.
I don't think he needed any special knowledge to understand what a printing press does. He just feared the change it would cause.
But an even more common factor is: follow the money. You'll find that a lot of scaremongering over new technologies can be traced to people fearing:
A. Loss of income. Remember the whole scare campaign the Edison waged against AC, just because he stood to lose sales of his DC generators that had to be placed every couple of houses. That was sales of thousands of generators he stood to lose, should people switch to AC.
The same can be seen for many other scares. E.g., TV and radio stations making scare stories about computer games? Oh gee, I wonder why that is... ;)
Even in the case of bringing electricity to homes that is quoted in TFA, remember that there was a whole industry to supply lamp oil and/or gas for lighting. A couple of electrical wires and lightbulbs would have put them out of business. And historically it did. Quick: how many whaling companies are there in the west to supply whale oil for lamps? None, eh? Well, now you know why they raised a stink and dressed it in some moral outrage BS.
B. Loss of status symbols.
Sometimes if I can get X while the Joneses can't get X, it's a symbol that I'm better than the Joneses. It can be a fur coat for the missus, or a sports car, or historically affording a well lit home or a book. Or whatever. What matters is that I have something that the Joneses can't afford. Historically we even once made a fashion thing to be deathly pale, to make a "look, I can afford to stay indoors all day, while the Joneses work in the fields" status point, and switched to it being fashionable to be tanned when most jobs moved indoors, so now the better point was "look, I can afford to go to the beach". Etc.
So, yes, expect a lot of people to oppose anything that would lower the price of something and devalue its status symbol value. If the Joneses can get X too, then my having X isn't worth any status symbol points any more.
Look at electricity and lit homes again. At one point having a well lit home was a status symbol. The poor would have at most a candle or small lamp and spend all evening clustered around it, while the rich could flaunt their having a whole mansion lit like day. The prospect that in a few years every plebeian could have the same... you can see how that would make a lot of ad hoc "moralists" raise a stink.
Only of course, they can't just come out and say, "you fucking plebs should fucking stay in the dark so I can keep bragging about affording light!!!" They had to pack it in some "it's for your own good" kind of bullshit.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
http://www.google.ca/search?q=chiropractor+injuries
You claim that additional studies have borne out the conclusion, I said I didn't see them in your search, and you still haven't provided them. Further, if you read the article I linked, you'll see that the original study was very poorly and unscientifically reported. Proper statistics and times were not kept, proper controls were not in place. I am providing actual evidence and reasons for why this is bunk. All you are doing is referencing vague things that you cannot produce and calling me names like 'zealot'. I think that the spectators to this exchange can see who the real 'zealot' is here.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Our uteruses would fly out of our bodies as they were accelerated to that speed
That would explain why first class was at the front of the trains
Nope
Not one single injury
EVER
Hmmm...how is that a problem? At what point did we even begin to think that human culture should somehow be bound to incorporate novel technological application?
Of course "the rate of moral panic" is increasing along with the rate of technological innovation: such leaps and bounds do not even begin to allow a dialectic between the creators and the created object.
In the last few decades, especially, the objects that technology supplies to humanity have become less a result of an actual need, and more the result of a perceived need that has been been determined by marketing departments. To think that the process of cultural determination is a problem shows a supremely glib understanding of what makes us function as a collective whole.
Any technology advancements that can challenge religious beliefs are taboo!
If bringing someone back from cryopreservation was made possible then it would raise serious questions about the state of the human soul while the body was in stasis. Teleportation also challenges the existance of the human soul. In "Star Trek", during dematerialization, is the body considered gone, freeing the soul to pass on, and then during rematerialization does the soul relize it's mistake and comes running back?
Genetic engineering is considered playing God by many. While we might not be designing our next generation, we do check for genetic defects, and then potentially aborting when they are detected. Eventually, with in vitro fertilization, we can selectively choose the ones we like best, which is getting close to genetically engineering our kids.
Led by researcher Daniel Favre, the alarming study found that bees reacted significantly to cell phones that were placed near or in hives in call-making mode.
Does this explain the calls I've gotten lately, where I pick up the phone and just hear buzzing at the other end? Why are the bees calling me? Do they want their honey back? It's too late; I already ate it!
Humans sometimes perceive risk wrongly.
One example from Bill Gates is when he says that things that kill many many people a few people at a time are more acceptable to politicians compared to things that kill a fraction of the number, but do it all at once and with great media coverage. Logically, the absolute number of killed should be the basis, not the distribution of the deaths or the media coverage
www.wired.com/magazine/2011/06/mf_qagates/
Another example is say a protester driving to a protest march against a nuclear reactor while 1. not wearing a seatbelt, 2. smoking a cigarette in the car and 3. calling someone on the cellphone.
Any one of those 3 activities probably has a higher chance of harming the protester in the long run, but since those risky activities are voluntary, it is perceived as low risk while anything forced or imposed from the outside is perceived as high risk and it makes them mad
No. Its revenge. You're invading their space with cell phone radiation so they're trying to call you while you're driving.
'that' research. what research ? there are more than 1 research. there were two researches pointing to the same result, one from lausanne, switzerland, and one from india, Punjab University in Chandigarh.
http://alerte.ch/etudes/4-presentation/76-la-telephonie-mobile-perturbe-le-comportement-des-abeilles.html
that is the lausanne study
http://www.google.com/search?q=Sharma%2C+V.P.+and+Kumar%2C+N.+K.+2010.+Changes+in+honeybee+behaviour+and+biology+under+the+influence+of+cellphone+radiations.+Current+Science+98+(10)%3A+1376+%E2%80%93+1378.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
that is the punjab study.
im calling you a zealot, because despite you could have reached to the above results with a little bit effort, you went in a foray to discredit an 'original' study thinking that there was only one, ranging from ranting about statistic samples to controlled environments. there now, you can proceed on to working on these two papers trying to discredit them, since now you know that there isnt only ONE research, but more. you didnt even know that just a post ago, but you were raving all around.
even the effort i expended above on YOUR behalf is way too much. apparently the inconvenience of accepting something you find convenient harms your environment hits your nerves.
Read radical news here
Myles explained to the audience that she had overdone chiropractic treatments,
Anything in excess leads to tragedy.
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
I totally sympathize with the luddites. After all, those ATMs took our jobs! And I can't figure out how to use an Xbox!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I'll give you that you finally turned up your claims of additional tests. Now here's what's wrong with them. The Punjab University study (the full, original, published study, not some digested article from the mainstream news) mentions but gives no statistics for its blank group. This is highly suspicious, because it was subjected to all of the physical stress save the EM radiation of the phones. If the EM radiation were so significantly responsible, they would be shouting from the rooftops that even in the colony where they ripped shit up and dumped dead phones in, nothing significant happened. Instead, that they did a blank study is barely mentioned, and all the statistics are compared between the aggregates of the active tests with the absolute control group that had nothing done to it whatsoever. That is bad, bad science. What's the point of having a blank group if you're not going to report your findings? Because that would have undermined their bullshit, as apiologists already know that just sticking things in hives damages them.
The link I provided earlier already debunks the Favre study, so I see no need in rehashing it. The full, original, and published study is here, for those who want to assess it for the lacking elements discussed by Skepchick.
I forget who said it, some professor of a graduate program somewhere I roughly recall, but there is a fitting insight for this contrast. To paraphrase, undergraduate students tend not to question. They do research and when they find information in papers they take it as some kind of divine inspiration handed down from on high. When a person with a PhD does research and finds information in a study, they immediately pick up a hammer and start whacking to see what breaks.
If you want a true scientific perspective, you need to ask questions about what you're being told. If somebody came in here and started saying that bees are absolutely not impacted in any way by EM radiation, I would say that current studies are not conclusive, that there are flaws in their methodology that should be fixed and the studies run again before any verdict can *usefully* be reached. You want to believe that bees are detrimentally impacted because you have a green agenda. I am not arguing for or against an agenda, I am simply pointing at the flaws of these studies. When one is done that is completely transparent, properly controlled and documented included all times and statistics for all groups, then I will be satisfied.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
let me tell you what's scientific : an actual study, regardless of how much a random internet persona plays it down, versus a random internet persona. the former is scientific.
my final verdict is that it is rather too disturbing for you to admit/accept the possibility of a major convenience in your life is damaging your ecosystem. lest you may need to give up on it.
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What it sounds more like is that purveyors of goods and services that would be displaced by the new technologies usually eventually realize that "but think of the women and children!" has more impact then "but think about my income stream!" when trying to motivate other people to serve your personal financial interests.
Argument from authority, nice fallacy. They're right because they are scientists! Why couldn't I see it before! Oh, that's right, because I actually think about things, and you just buy whatever is spoonfed to you and attack the moral character of anybody who asks questions.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
yes, they are scientists. even if they werent, at least they are not a random guy on the internet who is arguing excessively fervently and aggressively - apparently emotionally, rather than analytically. the sparkling of analytical expressions and propositions in amongst the fervent text you are posting does not make neither your motive, nor your argument analytical. the picture you are putting in front of me is the picture of someone who is vehemently and aggressively opposing to something, AND finding justifications and reasons to do so, instead of someone opposing BECAUSE there are justifications and reasons to do so.
Read radical news here
Sorry, the source of analysis does not invalidate it, neither does 'fervency' (which is subjective anyway). Until you can assail my analysis itself as opposed to just tossing ad hominem nonsense at me, you are engaging in fallacy.
Also it doesn't give you any high ground that you are using a second account to mod up your own posts. I was suspicious the first few times that you were modded up virtually the same minute you posted, but when it became every time I checked your comments record. Every one of your posts is modded up exactly one point. That doesn't happen, it's not a coincidence. You're a tool who abuses open systems, and anybody with eyes should question your motives and honesty to the very core of your character.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
I have no idea what effects women have or have not had on the internal organization of companies or any other things you have stated, but I do agree and have seen many examples of women having no ability to logically contemplate the risks caused to children by particular actions, rules, or practices.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
source of analysis and the fervency of analysis does invalidate it. it is possible to challenge any given proposition on and on by citing various objections, even in the case of almost surefire research or papers. and many people tend to just do that when they want to suppress something they dont want to hear. spending hours and hours for a random internet persona engaging in such an act is not something anyone desires in their right mind.
and, hot on the heels of my above observation, you drop the gem that is "using a second account to mod up your own posts". for someone who had talked about statistic samples, independent observation and so on to object to a scientific research, you just concluded that i mod up my own posts 'with a second account' by just a mere observation. that goes as far to invalidate all the effort you have been putting out to picture yourself as arguing scientifically.
i havent posted anonymous even for purposes of swearing at some other person in slashdot, leave aside being my radical views downmoded by thosew who are disturbed by them. modding my own post with a 'second' account 'observation' of yours, has concluded my discussion with you, on grounds that you are totally full of shit, leave aside having being arguing scientifically and rationally.
audieu. hasta la vista. whatever goes in your locale.
Read radical news here
I remember when the state I lived in was having a referendum about daylight savings time. There were several arguments against it. One was that it flaunted "God's time" (as if the railroads were endowed by the Creator for standard time zones). The best one was that if you died during daylight savings time you would be losing an hour of your life that you would never get back.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
http://www.springerlink.com/content/bx23551862212177/fulltext.pdf">The article you linked to provides some fairly convincing evidence of localized electromagnetic fields affecting bee behavior, as compared with inactive cell phones (in standby mode) to control for the assertion that this is just because scientists are jamming phones into hives and observing the bees get pissed about it.
What I'm not seeing is how this problem should be exclusive to cell phones. The proposed mechanism is strong emf fields, but radios, walkie-talkies, TV transmissions, etc. should also be affecting bees if this were the case. Of course, it's entirely possible that it wasn't until cell phones became commonplace that the effects of emf on bees became noticeable.
With these data, were I a policymaker, I'd be convinced to fund more research in the area, but it doesn't immediately strike me as the smoking gun for "Ah hah! This is the reason bees are dying!"
And? Many of these seem to be knee-jerk reactions. They don't actually support their claims with evidence in these cases. They're probably just looking to discredit the new technology (for whatever reason). And just because a technology has unintended side effects, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is "bad" (which is subjective, anyway).
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
at least they are not a random guy on the internet who is arguing excessively fervently and aggressively
A random guy could still be correct. The fact that someone is a so-called "expert" in their field only affects your willingness to believe what they say.
apparently emotionally, rather than analytically.
Surely you've realized that everyone who disagrees with you is just arguing emotionally instead of analytically. They are completely incorrect.
justifications
Those aren't necessary.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Anything in excess leads to tragedy.
- Dan.
Except moderation. Take moderation to the extreme!
Fixed that for you.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. -- Mussolini
Sadly the available evidence doesn't bear this out... moderation in excess is death by boredom, and in exercise we learn wind sprints are vital to building functional capacity. So even moderation should at best be done in moderation.
... is not "uteruses," it's uterus. (That's intended to be a somewhat obscure Latin joke. The plural is actually "uteri.")
Suggesting otherwise is slanderous.
Chiropractics has numerous reported cases of injury. So sue me?
Moral panic over the internet seems to stem from convetional news media, who find stories of hackers and predators on the internet rather easy sensationalism, especially on a slow news day. Indeed the moral panic is confined to people who seem to get their opinion from the 6pm news. I can't think how many (usually older) people I met who were actually genuinely affraid of going on the internet.
The traditional media's business model depends somewhat on people not using the internet, remaining fearful and insecure, it's all about the advertisers.
To this day mainstream news carries endless stories about internet and gadgets harming our productivity, children, and the moral decline of society. In just about the same breath from a news anchor you'll hear a story that was clearly sourced by lazy journalist surfing celebrity twitter feeds.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Actually the orignial sketch by Dom Joly was in an art gallery, and lead to an ongoing series of sketches in various locations.
HELLO? I'M ON A BOAT! SHOUT!
Even though the phones wereâ"literallyâ"on top of the hive, it wasnâ(TM)t until they had been transmitting for over 30 minutes before an effect was recorded. The effect was that the bees began piping (a really cool rhythmic buzzy sound). It is true that piping bees are related to swarms; however, bees pipe for a lot of other reasons too. If you bump into a hive, bees will pipe. Itâ(TM)s something they do when they are disturbed. Itâ(TM)s important to note that no alteration of behavior (swarming or otherwise) other than piping was actually observed, even after 20 hours of exposure to active mobile phone headsets. The swarming and dying part was completely made up. The immediate critique that occurs to me is that a cell phone transmitting for over an hour will heat up. If a hot, noisy object is on top of a bee hive, I think it is reasonable to expect the bees to react. That effect may have no relationship with cell phone transmission or magnetic fields at all. It is, frankly, difficult for me to say much about this paper besides negative things, because it is entirely made up of un-replicated experiments. It was a âoepilot studyâ. As a reviewer, I would not have approved this paper in itâ(TM)s present form, simply because it is so difficult to figure out just what the methodology was!! I canâ(TM)t even say how often the piping occurred because no statistics are presented. At the very least, I would want to see how long, on average, the phones were on and transmitting before piping began! The acoustic characteristics of the piping are described, but that doesnâ(TM)t tell me anything about the relationship to phones. In terms of sample size, we have 8 negative control trials (phones off); 10 inactive trials (phones on, but not transmitting); and 12 active trials (phones on and transmitting for unspecified times. Each of these conditions (off/on/transmitting) was tested on different days, and at two different locations, but there are no details on which and when. The âoe83 experimentsâ number used in so many of these news stories appears to be a complete misunderstanding of what an experiment actually is. The paper did say that 80 sound recordings were madeâ"but clearly some of those were repeated measures on the same setup. The actual sample size was at best 12.
If it takes half an hour for the bees to respond to stimulus, it's rather difficult to ascertain whether it's the EM radiation of the phone's signal, or the heat and noise generated by the phone being called. To properly test the signal alone, the phone should have its speaker disabled and some steps should be taken to prevent it from radiating a temperature above ambient. This remains an incomplete, improperly controlled study. (This is all without mentioning that the inverse square law makes testing phones on top of bees rather unrealistic.)
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Slashcode needs to be re-written so that whenever this meme resurfaces, it attracts an obligatory -10 moderation.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"