India has more linguistic diversity than all of Europe put together: recent research shows at least 780 languages are spoken across India. This article highlights the work being done to document these languages and the political dimension of doing so while India's Hindu-nationalist BJP government is trying to make Hindi the country's national language. www.nytimes.com/2022/06/11/world/asia/india-languages-ganesh-devy.html

This is one of several compelling graphics from a recent report in The Economist (UK) about slavery in the U.S. prior to the Civil War.  (Map from www.economist.com/interactive/graphic-detail/2022/06/18/slave-trade-family-separation.)

Reuters (UK) is reporting that Amazon is working on technology that would allow Alexa to mimic anyone's voice based on an audio sample of a minute or less.  This technology is being pitched as a way to capture loved one's voices but, like deep-fake videos, raises epistemological issues ("what do we actually know when our usual sensory input can be deceived?") as well as privacy issues concerning ownership of our images and voices. www.reuters.com/technology/amazon-has-plan-make-alexa-mimic-anyones-voice-2022-06-22

World Refugee Day was earlier this week. Although Ukrainian refugees -- now numbering 5.2 million -- have dominated the news this year, this map from Statista is a reminder that Ukrainians are just a fraction of the world's refugees: www.statista.com/chart/18436/total-number-of-refugees-by-origin-country

When lives are on the line, who should be making decisions: artificial intelligence, with its lightning-fast ability to weigh options, or humans? This question is ever-less theoretical, with AI being built into health care systems, criminal justice systems, and, increasingly, weapons systems. The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), for example, recently launched its "In the Moment" program, designed to develop defense technology that pairs AI with expert systems to "build trusted algorithmic decision-makers for mission-critical Department of Defense (DoD) operations." www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/29/darpa-artificial-intelligence-battlefield-medical-decisions/ (Quote from  www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-03-03.)

This article from Geographical (UK) profiles the world's 10 fastest-growing cities -- chances are you've heard of relatively few of them -- and looks at new additions to the list of the world's megacities (population 10M+): geographical.co.uk/culture/the-fastest-growing-cities?

Because I teach science fiction too, I always encourage my philosophy students to consider the darker applications of philosophical thought experiments -- like the brain in the vat -- as well. This proposed alternative to capital punishment is a bold, if creepy, application of philosophy's brain in the vat.
"Many people born into liberal democracies find corporal or capital punishment distasteful. We live in an age which says there are only three humane, acceptable ways to punish someone: give them a fine, force them to do “community service,” or lock them up. But why do we need to accept such a small, restrictive range of options? Perhaps, as Christopher Belshaw argues in the Journal of Controversial Ideas, it’s time to consider some radical alternatives. To punish someone is to do them harm, and sometimes, great harm indeed. As Belshaw writes, it’s to “harm them in such a way that they understand harm is being done in return for what, at least allegedly, they did.” Justice assumes some kind of connection between a crime and the punishment, or between the victim and the criminal. This makes punishment, in the main, retributive — a kind of payback for a wrong that someone has committed. ... Belshaw’s article hinges on the idea that the prison system is not fit for purpose. First, there’s the question of whether prison actually harms a criminal in the way we want. In some cases, it might succeed only in “rendering them for a period inoperative.” ... Second, and on the other hand, a bad prison sentence might cause more harm than is strictly proportional. A convict might suffer unforeseen abuse at the hands of guards or other inmates. ... Third, and especially concerning decades-long sentences, there’s a question about who prison is punishing. ... When we punish an old, memory-addled person convicted 40 years previously, are we really punishing the same person? ... Well, one option is to put criminals into a deep and reversible coma. One of the biggest problems with capital punishment is that it is irreversible. So long as there’s even a single case of a mistaken conviction, wrongfully killing someone is an egregious miscarriage of justice. But what if the criminal could always be brought back to consciousness? ... Putting someone in a coma essentially “freezes” a person’s identity. They wake up with much the same mental life as they did when they went into a coma. As such, it avoids the issues of punishing a changing person, decades later. A convict will wake up, years off their life, but can still appreciate the connection between the punishment and the crime they committed.But the biggest advantage a reversible coma has over prison, is that it’s standardized form of punishment. It’s a clear measurement of harm (i.e. a denial of x amount of years from your life) and is not open to the variables of greater and lesser harm in a prison environment. Essentially, putting prisoners in a coma establishes “years of life” as an acceptable and measurable payment for a wrong done. ... Even if you find the idea of induced comas as unspeakably horrible, Belshaw does at least leave us with a good question. Why do we assume that only one kind of punishment is the best? With science, technology, and societal values moving on all the time, might it be time to reconsider and re-examine how we ensure justice?"
bigthink.com/thinking/comas-for-convicts

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently compared himself to Czar Peter the Great, who waged war against neighbors to "reclaim" Russian lands. This map from Statista compares the borders of Russia today with the borders of the Russian empire at the beginning of WWI: cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/27605.jpeg

It's a prominent landmark on any U.S. map, but Utah's Great Salt Lake has already shrunk by two-thirds due to extended drought, booming population, and regional water usage policies. This article from The New York Times profiles a catastrophe-in-the-making as the Great Salt Lake continues to shrink, with arsenic dust filling the air, snowfall in nearby ski areas declining, and the lake's brine shrimp, a critical food source for 10 million migratory birds, dying off:
"The stakes are alarmingly high, according to Timothy D. Hawkes, a Republican lawmaker who wants more aggressive action. Otherwise, he said, the Great Salt Lake risks the same fate as California’s Owens Lake, which went dry decades ago, producing the worst levels of dust pollution in the United States and helping to turn the nearby community into a veritable ghost town. 'It’s not just fear-mongering,' he said of the lake vanishing. 'It can actually happen.'"
www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/climate/salt-lake-city-climate-disaster.html

Beginning tomorrow, the University of Oxford (UK) is hosting a free, weeklong, online festival of practical ethics. For the full line-up or to register, see www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/festival (If attending, don't forget to account for the timezone change.)

After nearly six years of gathering and preparing content, every day, for this ad-free blog, I have decided to take a break.  I expect that I will still post when I come across particularly interesting tidbits about geography, philosophy, world affairs, and outside-the-box learning, but this will no longer be a daily blog. Thank you to all who have accompanied me on this intellectual journey to date! (Pic from recent trip.)

I will be out exploring the next couple of weeks and will not be posting to my blog or Facebook page until June.

Here's an incentive for you or your kids to get outdoors and to develop those digital photography skills: the Maryland Department of Natural Resources is sponsoring a photography contest for photographs taken in Maryland, with a preference given to photos highlighting native species. Submissions are due by Aug. 1 dnr.maryland.gov/Pages/photocontest.aspx  (Scroll to the bottom of the website to see last year's winning images.)

Although Russia has been the focus of the world's liberal democracies for the last several months, countering China remains the long-term project. In the wake of a recent security agreement between China and the Solomon Islands, The Economist (UK) looked at other countries in Asia, Africa, and Oceania in which China either already has a military base or likely has an interest in establishing a military base: www.economist.com/img/b/640/356/90/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20220507_CNM979.png   (Map from www.economist.com/china/2022/05/05/china-wants-to-increase-its-military-presence-abroad.)

In some ways, the violent re-ordering of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs that flowed from Indian and Pakistani independence in 1947 has overshadowed the violent re-ordering of Jews, Muslims, and Christians that flowed from Israeli independence the following year. Concerned about denialism and "memoricide" of the latter event, the Middle East Institute, a broad-based nonpartisan think tank in Washington, DC, has published a new paper based on diplomatic documents in the U.S. archives about what U.S. diplomats knew was happening on the ground in Israel/Palestine in 1948:  www.mei.edu/publications/five-things-united-states-knew-about-nakba-it-unfolded

Half way between Tasmania and Antarctica lies one of the only spots in the world where the earth's mantle is actually above sea level. Macquarie Island, considered part of Australia, was created by a collision of two tectonic plates that pushed rock that had been kilometers beneath the seafloor above water. Because of its unique geology, Macquarie Island is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.  www.atlasobscura.com/places/macquarie-island

The U.S. is experiencing its worst outbreak of bird flu in seven years, resulting in the culling of nearly 40 million chickens and turkeys. This map, from the digital business journal Quartz, reflects both the spread of bird flu and the geographic concentration of commercial chicken operations.  (Map from qz.com/2162831/free-range-chickens-are-facing-global-bird-flu-lockdowns.)

If you're looking for something to add to your podcast line up, "The Philosopher's Zone" from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is a 30-minute dive into a different philosophical topic each week: www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/ "The Philosopher's Zone" should be available wherever you get your podcasts.

Historically, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was considered an autonomous subordinate of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 2018, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (long considered first among equals in the Eastern Orthodox Church) announced its intention to grant autoencephaly (religious independence) to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at some point in the future, causing the Russian Orthodox Church to sever communion with Constantinople. In January 2019, after intense opposition by Russia, which reportedly included involvement of Russian security services operating in Ukraine, various factions of the Ukrainian Orthodox community agreed to unification, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was granted autoencephaly by Constantinople shortly thereafter. Since then, more than 2,000 Ukrainian parishes have switched from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) to the newly unified and independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This map, created by a Reddit user 5 years ago, hints at the complexity of Orthodox Christianity in Europe and the Mediterranean. preview.redd.it/y2s27pd5oobz.png?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=cd386b0ae22f56b311ce36bfa4000926bf6f70d1

Use your knowledge of geography to rearrange these 12 words into the names of countries:

1. ANALOG
2. CHAIN
3. LAITY
4. MAIL
5. PAINS
6. PLANE
   
7. PURE
8. RABIES
9. RAIN
10. REGALIA
11. SERIAL
12. UNHOARDS
    

Puzzle and answers from Solomon Golomb hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2022/spring/golomb-verbal-geography/

Reporters Without Borders has released its 2022 assessment of press freedom in 180 countries and territories. Notably, Central and South America saw serious declines in press freedoms over the last year, with Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Colombia, and Venezuela all dropping at least 11 (and as many as 39) positions in global rankings. Users can mouse over the map for details or click on the "Analyses 2022" for details: rsf.org/en/index

This recent article by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt about the influence of social media -- described as a "universal solvent, breaking down bonds and weakening institutions everywhere it reached" -- is long but worth a read:

"Historically, civilizations have relied on shared blood, gods, and enemies to counteract the tendency to split apart as they grow. But what is it that holds together large and diverse secular democracies such as the United States and India, or, for that matter, modern Britain and France? Social scientists have identified at least three major forces that collectively bind together successful democracies: social capital (extensive social networks with high levels of trust), strong institutions, and shared stories. Social media has weakened all three. To see how, we must understand how social media changed over time—and especially in the several years following 2009. ... But by rewiring everything in a headlong rush for growth—with a naive conception of human psychology, little understanding of the intricacy of institutions, and no concern for external costs imposed on society—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a few other large platforms unwittingly dissolved the mortar of trust, belief in institutions, and shared stories that had held a large and diverse secular democracy together. ... A mean tweet doesn’t kill anyone; it is an attempt to shame or punish someone publicly while broadcasting one’s own virtue, brilliance, or tribal loyalties. It’s more a dart than a bullet, causing pain but no fatalities. Even so, from 2009 to 2012, Facebook and Twitter passed out roughly 1 billion dart guns globally. We’ve been shooting one another ever since. ... First, the dart guns of social media give more power to trolls and provocateurs while silencing good citizens. ... Second, the dart guns of social media give more power and voice to the political extremes while reducing the power and voice of the moderate majority. ... In other words, political extremists don’t just shoot darts at their enemies; they spend a lot of their ammunition targeting dissenters or nuanced thinkers on their own team. In this way, social media makes a political system based on compromise grind to a halt. Finally, by giving everyone a dart gun, social media deputizes everyone to administer justice with no due process. ... When our public square is governed by mob dynamics unrestrained by due process, we don’t get justice and inclusion; we get a society that ignores context, proportionality, mercy, and truth. ... [Many of America’s key institutions] got stupider en masse because social media instilled in their members a chronic fear of getting darted. ... We can never return to the way things were in the pre-digital age. ... And yet American democracy is now operating outside the bounds of sustainability. If we do not make major changes soon, then our institutions, our political system, and our society may collapse during the next major war, pandemic, financial meltdown, or constitutional crisis."
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369

The past two months were the hottest March and April in India in 122 Years, with high temperatures in the Delhi area occasionally exceeding 110°F. At the same time, shortages of coal for the country's power plants have resulted in daily power outages for 2 in 3 Indian households. Power plants in the Indian states of Rajasthan (capital: Jaipur), Maharashtra (capital: Mumbai), West Bengal (capital: Kolkata), and Tamil Nadu (capital: Chennai) have been experiencing the most critical shortages. www.businesstoday.in/latest/story/power-crisis-in-india-these-states-facing-electricity-problems-full-list-332105-2022-05-02

Based on existing laws and the current political landscape, the Center for Reproductive Rights estimates this is what the legal status of abortion would look like in the United States if Roe v. Wade is overturned this summer: cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/26955.jpeg (map from Statista)

When you lose yourself in a book or a piece of music or a work of art, where do you go? This interesting piece from the digital magazine Psyche blends aesthetics and phenomenology to consider this question.

"No wonder, then, that there is a certain sense of wistfulness when it all ends, when the lights come up or the last page is turned, and we find ourselves back where we were, forced to carry on with our daily lives. ... Here we face what I call the paradox of aesthetic immersion: when I’m immersed in artwork, I seem to go somewhere without going anywhere, and I seem to be in two worlds at once, and yet I’m not properly in either. So what kind of ‘travelling’ are we talking about? ... An artwork necessarily requires a physical basis, such as pigments on a canvas, a block of marble, letters on a page, people on the stage – in short, an external object or state of affairs that the perceiver can engage with. However, the work also needs a perceiver to blossom into what [Polish phenomenologist Roman] Ingarden called the aesthetic object, the artwork as experienced: it is the consciousness of the perceiver that turns the letters on a page into an imagined world, sees a landscape in a painted surface, or hears sadness in a melody. ... Indeed, when perceiving an artwork, we often literally overlook the artwork as a physical object; I’m not usually aware of the letters on the page or the pigments on the canvas, as my consciousness glides over them and attends to the depicted or narrated world that opens up in engagement with the artwork. This world is not localisable in physical space. No map can lead me there. The only entry goes through the artwork. Neither is the artwork’s world a mere mental event inside my consciousness, like a phantasm or a memory, because I experience the artwork’s world as something external to my consciousness. ... The dull habituality of everyday life can easily make us forget how rich and varied human experience can be. We usually live through our daily hustle and bustle with a certain automatism that stultifies our ways of relating to the world and ourselves. By altering the basic experiential structures that sustain our sense of the everyday world, immersive artworks can show us that there are more possibilities of thinking, feeling and imagining than we usually realise. Immersion mobilises the mind, and makes its gears run in a new fashion. Though immersive experiences might not teach us anything in terms of ‘X is Y’, we do not necessarily return from immersion unchanged. Many are probably familiar with the way art’s magic can linger after immersion itself has dissipated, and how the world appears, at least for a while, richer, deeper and more enchanting than before. I believe such experiences are vital in leading towards a more curious and nuanced relation to the world. As the German philosopher J G Fichte (1762-1814) put it, aesthetic experiences might not straightforwardly make us wiser or better people, but ‘the unploughed fields of our minds are nevertheless opened up, and if for other reasons we one day decide in freedom to take possession of them, we find half the resistance removed and half the work done.’"
psyche.co/ideas/when-art-transports-us-where-do-we-actually-go