Having spent most of the last two weeks confined to a house I had no particular wish to leave, I have been reminded of John Locke's free-will analogy. Locke, a 17th century English philosopher, wrote, "Suppose a man be carried, whilst fast asleep, into a room where is a person he longs to see and speak with; and be there locked fast in, beyond his power to get out: he awakes, and is glad to find himself in so desirable company, which he stays willingly in, i.e. prefers his stay to going away. I ask, is not this stay voluntary? I think nobody will doubt it: and yet, being locked fast in, it is evident he is not at liberty not to stay, he has not freedom to be gone." (from An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690) For Locke, the man's freedom was an illusion; he could not have left even if he wanted to because the door (unbeknownst to him) was locked. Likewise, Locke believed that free will is an illusion, that our actions flow from prior causes and that even if we think we have the power to choose differently, we in fact do not. This 40-second video explains Locke's locked-room thought experiment. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZMJ-xaaNu0
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For those who are tracking COVID-19 infections in the U.S., this map from the University of Chicago Center for Spatial Data Science does something a little different: it shows infections as a proportion of the population. (You may notice that, as of this writing, the area around Ketchum, ID, and the Sun Valley ski resort actually has a higher proportional infection rate than NYC and its environs.) This map is being updated regularly. geodacenter.github.io/covid/map.html
You can engage in citizen science in your own backyard or at the neighborhood park. The Nature's Notebook program allows you to carefully observe an individual plant or animal for as little as 2 minutes and submit your observations. www.usanpn.org/nn/become-observer
Genetic sequencing has found that there are now at least 8 different strains of COVID-19, with very small variations between them, circulating around the world. This site maps out the dominant strains by country and tries to recreate possible routes of transmission and evolution. nextstrain.org/ncov?d=map,entropy&p=full
In 2019, 21 different countries, including the world's largest democracy, cut off internet service 122 times. But that could never happen in the U.S., right? This article, adapted from a talk by a member of the Federal Communications Commission, says, yes, actually, it could.
"In the age of the always-on Internet, what happens when a government decides to turn it off? For many people around the world, this is no longer a theoretical question. Last year, Internet service was shut off for roughly seven months in India’s Kashmir Valley, affecting 7 million people. ... Congo blacked out the Internet for 20 days after last December’s elections, preventing electoral observers from relaying information from rural polling stations. Ethiopian authorities shut down the Internet for three days last June to prevent student cheating on national exams. In January, there were outages in Iran during protests over the downing of a Ukrainian plane, following a week-long blackout last year after the price of fuel went up. ... [Under the 1934 law that governs "wireless communications" in the United States] suspending service is permitted not only in a 'war or a threat of war,' but merely if there is a presidential proclamation of a 'state of public peril' or simply a 'disaster or other national emergency.' There is no requirement in the law for the president to provide any advance notice to Congress. ... "That’s alarming. Because if you believe there are unspoken norms that would prevent a U.S. president from using Section 706 this way, recent history suggests that past practice is no longer the best guide for future behavior. Norms are now broken all the time in Washington. It’s time for a front-to-back assessment of Section 706. We need a dialogue about what it means and what it should mean in the digital age. We need Congress to consider how this power squares with the Constitution and ask what role there should be for the legislative and judicial branches. While we’re at it, the United States should develop a formal policy on government-directed Internet shutdowns." www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-government-couldnt-shut-down-the-internet-right-think-again/2020/03/06/6074dc86-5fe5-11ea-b014-4fafa866bb81_story.html |
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