Voltaire & the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755

in Life, Religion | January 18th, 2010

The lines below are tak­en from Voltaire’s “Poème sur le désas­tre de Lis­bonne,” writ­ten in response to the Lis­bon earth­quake of 1755. Then, as now, there’s a lit­tle wis­dom here for those (hint: Pat Robert­son) inclined to infer moral supe­ri­or­i­ty from the suf­fer­ing of oth­ers.

What crime, what sin, had those young hearts con­ceived
That lie, bleed­ing and torn, on moth­er’s breast?
Did fall­en Lis­bon deep­er drink of vice
Than Lon­don, Paris, or sun­lit Madrid?
In these men dance; at Lis­bon yawns the abyss.
Tran­quil spec­ta­tors of your broth­ers’ wreck,
Unmoved by this repel­lent dance of death,
Who calm­ly seek the rea­son of such storms,
Let them but lash your own secu­ri­ty;
Your tears will min­gle freely with the flood.

Note: Pat Robert­son’s con­tro­ver­sial remarks con­tained one basic his­tor­i­cal fact, and it was wrong. He assert­ed that the Haitians brought dis­as­ter upon them­selves when they broke free from “Napoleon III.” Robert­son got the wrong guy here. It was­n’t Napoleon Lite (1808–1873). It was Napoleon Bona­parte (1769–1821) who coopt­ed the French Rev­o­lu­tion 50 years ear­li­er and tried to impose his will on Haiti. But, what­ev­er…

via The Sun Times

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Is Anything Real?

in Film, Life | January 11th, 2010

Wel­come to the new world of dig­i­tal film­mak­ing. Give this one a minute to get going.

Thanks Nats and Gary for send­ing this one along. Have a great link to share with us? (I know you do!) Write us at mail at open­cul­ture dot com.

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How is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?

in Life, Science, Technology | January 11th, 2010

Every year, The Edge.org pos­es a thought-pro­vok­ing ques­tion to 150+ engag­ing thinkers, and the answers nev­er dis­ap­point. This year, they throw out the ques­tion: How is the Inter­net Chang­ing the Way You Think? In this col­lec­tion, you will find answers by George Dyson, Clay Shirky, Tim O’Reil­ly, Maris­sa May­er, Richard Dawkins and many more. Below, I’ve includ­ed an excerpt from Nas­sim Taleb (author of The Black Swan), who has a less san­guine out­look on how the inter­net is chang­ing our world. He writes:

I used to think that the prob­lem of infor­ma­tion is that it turns homo sapi­ensinto fools — we gain dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly in con­fi­dence, par­tic­u­lar­ly in domains where infor­ma­tion is wrapped in a high degree of noise (say, epi­demi­ol­o­gy, genet­ics, eco­nom­ics, etc.). So we end up think­ing that we know more than we do, which, in eco­nom­ic life, caus­es fool­ish risk tak­ing. When I start­ed trad­ing, I went on a news diet and I saw things with more clar­i­ty. I also saw how peo­ple built too many the­o­ries based on ster­ile news, the fooled by ran­dom­ness effect. But things are a lot worse. Now I think that, in addi­tion, the sup­ply and spread of infor­ma­tion turns the world into Extrem­is­tan (a world I describe as one in which ran­dom vari­ables are dom­i­nat­ed by extremes, with Black Swans play­ing a large role in them). The Inter­net, by spread­ing infor­ma­tion, caus­es an increase in inter­de­pen­dence, the exac­er­ba­tion of fads (best­sellers like Har­ry Pot­ter and runs on the banks become plan­e­tary). Such world is more “com­plex”, more moody, much less pre­dictable.

So con­sid­er the explo­sive sit­u­a­tion: more infor­ma­tion (par­tic­u­lar­ly thanks to the Inter­net) caus­es more con­fi­dence and illu­sions of knowl­edge while degrad­ing pre­dictabil­i­ty.

You can find Tale­b’s full answer here, and the entire col­lec­tion of thoughts here. If you want to tell us how the inter­net has changed the world for you, please add your thoughts to the com­ments sec­tion below.

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How to Live to Be 100 and Beyond: 9 Diet & Lifestyle Tips

in Health, Life, Science | January 6th, 2010

A lit­tle pub­lic ser­vice announce­ment… Dan Buet­tner, a writer for Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, has stud­ied the world’s longest-lived peo­ples. Most of his find­ings are summed up in his book, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Liv­ing Longer From the Peo­ple Who’ve Lived the Longest. And here, in this Ted Talk, he boils things down even fur­ther, giv­ing you 9 com­mon diet and lifestyle habits found among the world’s old­est pop­u­la­tions. They’ve been use­ful­ly sum­ma­rized by Pre­sen­ta­tionZen as fol­lows:

Move Nat­u­ral­ly
(1) You don’t need a for­mal, rig­or­ous exer­cise plan. We’re talk­ing here a change in lifestyle that is fun­da­men­tal­ly active. We’re designed to move. We’ve not meant to dri­ve 100 meters in a car to pick up chips at the local store. Walk, do yard work, what­ev­er. Do exercises/activities that you enjoy.

Have Right Out­look
(2) Slow down. When you’re con­stant­ly in a hur­ry and stressed out, this has a neg­a­tive impact on your health. Lim­it­ing neg­a­tive stress is one of the health­i­est things you can do for your­self.
(3) Have a clear pur­pose. The Japan­ese call it “iki­gai” 生き甲斐 (lit: life + val­ue, be worth while). You must have a pas­sion, a call­ing, a pur­pose. There’s got to be a rea­son to get out of bed every day.

Eat Wise­ly
(4) Drink a lit­tle (wine) every­day.
(5) Eat main­ly plant-based foods. Small amounts of meat and fish are OK.
(6) Hara Hachi Bu: Eat until 80% full. Do not eat eat until you’re stuffed. (I’ve talked about this many time before in the con­text of pre­sen­ta­tion.)

Be Con­nect­ed with oth­ers
(7) Put fam­i­ly, loved ones first.
(8) Belong to a com­mu­ni­ty. Many in his study belonged to faith-based com­mu­ni­ties.
(9) Belong to the right tribe. That is, hang out with peo­ple with healthy habits, phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al ones.

Takes these tips to heart, and please share them with friends…

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Can You Train the Aging Brain?

in Life, Science | January 1st, 2010

The New York Times asks: Can an old brain learn, and then remem­ber what it learns? Can it keep nim­ble and throw off the rust? Hap­pi­ly, new stud­ies sug­gest that it can, and it large­ly comes down to nudg­ing neu­rons in the right direc­tion by chal­leng­ing our ingrained per­cep­tions, con­fronting new ideas, and con­stant­ly push­ing to dis­cov­er new things. Get more on how to keep your mind sharp here.

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2009: The Year in Pictures

in Art, Life | December 25th, 2009

Some very pow­er­ful images in this New York Times fea­ture. But, tak­en togeth­er, they don’t say much good for 2009. Bring on the New Year…

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One of the Biggest Risks is Being Too Cautious…

in Life | December 24th, 2009

To eat bacon sand­wich­es? Or not to eat bacon sand­wich­es? That’s the ques­tion that David Spiegel­hal­ter, “Pro­fes­sor Risk” at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty, tack­les in this short video exam­in­ing stats, life, and whether we should err on the side of cau­tion … or risk. This clip is part of Cam­bridge’s YouTube chan­nel, which now appears in our Smart YouTube Col­lec­tion.

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The Best of TED: A Stroke of Insight?

in Life, TED Talks | December 1st, 2009

Last week, we wad­ed into the best of TED debate. What’s the best TED Talk out there? It’s hard to say. Pure­ly sub­jec­tive. But we can say one thing. Jill Bolte Taylor’s “Stroke of Insight” talk reach­es the top of many lists. What hap­pens when a neu­roanatomist expe­ri­ences a mas­sive stroke and feels all the brain func­tions she has stud­ied (speech, move­ment, under­stand­ing, etc) sud­den­ly start to slip away? And how do these loss­es fun­da­men­tal­ly change who we are? You’ll find out in a crisp (and at times emo­tion­al) 18 min­utes and 40 sec­onds. You can also read her book that elab­o­rates on her life-alter­ing expe­ri­ence. See My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Sci­en­tist’s Per­son­al Jour­ney.

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