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criscimagnael

Writing History: An Introductory Guide to How History Is Produced | AHA - 0 views

www.historians.org/...ide-to-how-history-is-produced

shared by criscimagnael on 30 May 22 - No Cached
  • In fact, history is NOT a "collection of facts about the past." History consists of making arguments about what happened in the past on the basis of what people recorded (in written documents, cultural artifacts, or oral traditions) at the time.
  • The problem is complicated for major events that produce "winners" and "losers," since we are more likely to have sources written by the "winners," designed to show why they were heroic in their victories.
  • There is no interpretation. There is no explanation of why the Mexicas lost.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Many individuals believe that history is about telling stories, but most historians also want answers to questions like why did the Mexicas lose?
  • Unfortunately, in the case of the conquest of Mexico, there is only one genuine primary source written from 1519-1521. This primary source consists of the letters Cortés wrote and sent to Spain.
  • Ideally, under each of these "thesis statements," that is, each of these arguments about why the Mexicas were defeated, the authors will give some examples of information that backs up their "thesis." To write effective history and history essays, in fact to write successfully in any area, you should begin your essay with the "thesis" or argument you want to prove with concrete examples that support your thesis.
  • To become a critical reader, to empower yourself to "own your own history," you should think carefully about whether the evidence the authors provide does in fact support their theses. 
  • Or, if your professor has said something in class that you are not sure about, find material to disprove it—the "trash the prof" approach (and, yes, it is really okay if you have the evidence).
  • If one analyzes omens in the conquest, will it change the theses or interpretations presented in the textbook?
  • One way to think about the primary sources is to ask the questions: (1) when was the source written, (2) who is the intended audience of the source, (3) what are the similarities between the accounts, (4) what are the differences between the accounts, (5) what pieces of information in the accounts will support your thesis, and (6) what information in the sources are totally irrelevant to the thesis or argument you want to make.
    • criscimagnael
      criscimagnael on 30 May 22
       
      OPCVL!
criscimagnael

Understanding Science: An overview - 0 views

undsci.berkeley.edu/...intro_01

shared by criscimagnael on 30 May 22 - No Cached
  • Science is, in one sense, our knowledge of all that — all the stuff that is in the universe
  • does not deal with supernatural explanations.
  • Science helps satisfy the natural curiosity with which we are all born: why is the sky blue, how did the leopard get its spots, what is a solar eclipse? With science, we can answer such questions without resorting to magical explanations.
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  • Without science, the modern world would not be modern at all, and we still have much to learn.
  • But just as importantly, science is also a reliable process by which we learn about all that stuff in the universe. However, science is different from many other ways of learning because of the way it is done. Science relies on testing ideas with evidence gathered from the natural world.
  • it is a path to understanding.
  • all science relies on testing ideas by figuring out what expectations are generated by an idea and making observations to find out whether those expectations hold true.
  • Accepted scientific ideas are reliable because they have been subjected to rigorous testing,
  • It relies on a system of checks and balances, which helps ensure that science moves in the direction of greater accuracy and understanding. This system is facilitated by diversity within the scientific community, which offers a broad range of perspectives on scientific ideas.
criscimagnael

3 Reasons Why Smart Technology Is Actually Making Us Less Productive | Inc.com - 0 views

www.inc.com/...making-us-less-productive.html

shared by criscimagnael on 30 May 22 - No Cached
  • Here's the thing though--as a parent, I probably shouldn't have to depend on a $400 piece of smart technology to remind me to, you know, show up.Except, unfortunately, I do.
  • The downside is that I've noticed that as our dependence on technology increases, our actual productivity decreases. I think technology is really good at making it easier to stay busy, but busy isn't the same thing as productive.
  • 1. Notifications are basically technology's drug. 
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  • Except, all I do all day is tap icons with red dots like a digital version of whack-a-mole, trying to get rid of all the notifications. Research has shown that this constant stimulation on our devices raises the dopamine in our brains, which basically means they are like drugs. 
  • It's hard to be productive when you stop to look at your phone every 10-12 minutes.
  • It's true, technology has allowed us to do some pretty incredible things. I can't argue with the fact that it has allowed us to solve problems that were previously insurmountable, but at a very basic level, all of this smart technology has made us dumb. Mostly, I think it's because of how much we now depend on it for even the most basic things. 
  • Here's the thing. If you don't use a muscle, after a while you'll lose it.  Sure, it's not technically a muscle, but if you stop using your brain because your watch tells you when it's time to go to a meeting, or stand up, or use the bathroom-- can we at least agree you're not getting any smarter? The more we hand over to machines what makes us unique as humans--our ability to think, process, and make decisions--the less we stretch and grow our capacity to do those things. 
  • Have you ever sat in a restaurant and looked around? Of course not, the last time you were in a restaurant you were busy looking at your phone. But if you had, you would have seen a bunch of other people who were doing the same thing. A room full of people, all sitting at tables with presumably other people they know and have some level of affection for, staring at an illuminated screen. 
  • But it has also increased the space in our relationships to the point where we don't talk, we Slack.
  • igital conversations are very different than real-world conversations. When smart technology helps remove barriers to communication, that's a good thing. But when we substitute technology for relationships and real conversations, it has real-world consequences.
criscimagnael

9 Subtle Ways Technology Is Making Humanity Worse - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/ive-bad-effects-society-2019-8

shared by criscimagnael on 12 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Can you imagine doing your job without the help of technology of any kind? What about communicating? Or traveling? Or entertaining yourself?
  • Smartphone slouch. Desk slump. Text neck. Whatever you call it, the way we hold ourselves when we use devices like phones, computers, and tablets isn't healthy.
criscimagnael

Social media's toxic content can harm teens | News | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public... - 0 views

www.hsph.harvard.edu/...-teens-into-a-dangerous-spiral

shared by criscimagnael on 30 May 22 - No Cached
  • social media platforms—especially image-based platforms like Instagram—have very harmful effects on teen mental health, especially for teens struggling with body image, anxiety, depression, and eating disorders.
  • we know that Instagram, with its algorithmically-driven feeds of content tailored to each user’s engagement patterns, can draw vulnerable teens into a dangerous spiral of negative social comparison and hook them onto unrealistic ideals of appearance and body size and shape.
  • Keep in mind that this is not about just about putting teens in a bad mood. Over time, with exposure to harmful content on social media, the negative impacts add up. And we now have more cause for worry than ever, with the pandemic worsening mental health stressors and social isolation for teens, pushing millions of youth to increase their social media use. We are witnessing dramatic increases in clinical level depression, anxiety, and suicidality, and eating disorders cases have doubled or even tripled at children’s hospitals across the country.
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  • The company knows that strong negative emotions, which can be provoked by negative social comparison, keep users’ attention longer than other emotions—and Instagram’s algorithms are expressly designed to push teens toward toxic content so that they stay on the platform.
  • Instagram is peddling a false narrative that the platform is simply a reflection of its users’ interests and experiences, without distortion or manipulation by the platform. But Instagram knows full well that this not true. In fact, their very business model is predicated on how much they can manipulate users’ behavior to boost engagement and extend time spent on the platform, which the platform then monetizes to sell to advertisers.
  • The business model, which has proven itself to be exquisitely profitable, is self-reinforcing for investors and top management.
  • Although it’s a real struggle for parents to keep their kids off social media, they can set limits on its use, for instance by requiring that everyone’s phones go into a basket at mealtimes and at bedtime.
  • With all that we know today about the harmful effects of social media and its algorithms, combined with the powerful stories of teens, parents, and community advocates, we may finally have the opportunity to get meaningful federal regulation in place.
criscimagnael

'I don't even remember what I read': People enter a 'dissociative state' when using soc... - 0 views

www.washington.edu/...-state-when-using-social-media

shared by criscimagnael on 30 May 22 - No Cached
  • “I think people experience a lot of shame around social media use,” said lead author Amanda Baughan, a UW doctoral student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. “One of the things I like about this framing of ‘dissociation’ rather than ‘addiction’ is that it changes the narrative. Instead of: ‘I should be able to have more self-control,’ it’s more like: ‘We all naturally dissociate in many ways throughout our day – whether it’s daydreaming or scrolling through Instagram, we stop paying attention to what’s happening around us.'”
  • “Having a stop built into a list meant that it was only going to be a few minutes of reading and then, if they wanted to really go crazy, they could read another list. But again, it’s only a few minutes. Having that bite-sized piece of content to consume was something that really resonated.”
  • Over the course of the month, 42% of participants (18 people) agreed or strongly agreed with that statement at least once. After the month, the researchers did in-depth interviews with 11 participants. Seven described experiencing dissociation while using Chirp.
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  • “But people only realize that they’ve dissociated in hindsight. So once you exit dissociation there’s sometimes this feeling of: How did I get here? It’s like when people on social media realize: ‘Oh my gosh, how did 30 minutes go by? I just meant to check one notification.'”
  • The problem with social media platforms, the researchers said, is not that people lack the self-control needed to not get sucked in, but instead that the platforms themselves are not designed to maximize what people value.
  • These platforms need to create an end-of-use experience, so that people can have it fit in their day with their time-management goals.”
criscimagnael

DOJ investigates Instagram's impact on young adults - 0 views

www.wisn.com/...40115444

shared by criscimagnael on 30 May 22 - No Cached
  • I probably check Instagram about 25 times a day," said Marika Marsh, a sophomore.She said while she's scrolling, she feels a bit of anxiety."Especially with girls today, because everyone looks so perfect all the time and it makes you feel insecure,"
  • "Social media platforms identify young girls who click on information suggesting that they feel bad about how they look and they don't flood them with resources, helping them feel better."
  • "In reality, their days might be as boring as ours. I think it’s more of an image they're trying to portray for themselves,"
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  • "A lot of the times I catch myself editing this to brighten my eyes, it will look nicer it's all about angles and perspective.
criscimagnael

Explained: Social media and the Texas shooter's messages | Explained News,The Indian Ex... - 0 views

indianexpress.com/...exas-shooters-messages-7942576

shared by criscimagnael on 30 May 22 - No Cached
  • Could technology companies have monitored ominous messages made by a gunman who Texas authorities say massacred 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school? Could they have warned the authorities? Answers to these questions remain unclear
  • But if nothing else, the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, seems highly likely to focus additional attention on how social platforms monitor what users are saying to and showing each other.
  • Shortly thereafter, Facebook stepped in to note that the gunman sent one-to-one direct messages, not public posts, and that they weren’t discovered until “after the terrible tragedy”.
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  • Some reports appear to show that at least some of the gunman’s communications used Apple’s encrypted iPhone messaging services, which makes messages almost impossible for anyone else to read when sent to another iPhone user.
  • Facebook parent company Meta, which also owns Instagram, says it is working with law enforcement but declined to provide details.
  • A series of posts appeared on his Instagram in the days leading up to the shooting, including photos of a gun magazine in hand and two AR-style semi-automatic rifles. An Instagram user who was tagged in one post shared parts of what appears to be a chilling exchange on Instagram with Ramos, asking her to share his gun pictures with her more than 10,000 followers.
  • Meta has said it monitors people’s private messages for some kinds of harmful content, such as links to malware or images of child sexual exploitation. But copied images can be detected using unique identifiers — a kind of digital signature — which makes them relatively easy for computer systems to flag. Trying to interpret a string of threatening words — which can resemble a joke, satire or song lyrics — is a far more difficult task for artificial intelligence systems.
  • Facebook could, for instance, flag certain phrases such as “going to kill” or “going to shoot”, but without context — something AI in general has a lot of trouble with — there would be too many false positives for the company to analyze.
  • A recent Meta-commissioned report emphasized the benefits of such privacy but also noted some risks — including users who could abuse the encryption to sexually exploit children, facilitate human trafficking and spread hate speech.
  • Security experts say this could be done if Apple were to engineer a “backdoor” to allow access to messages sent by alleged criminals. Such a secret key would let them decipher encrypted information with a court order.
criscimagnael

Social media CEO hopes to 'remove any temptation for bad behavior' from its platform - 0 views

finance.yahoo.com/...om-its-platform-190837573.html

shared by criscimagnael on 30 May 22 - No Cached
  • A new platform being beta-tested hopes to re-introduce an element of what many social media companies have seemingly lost sight of amid industry controversies — maintaining a sense of community.
  • There are no likes. There are no followers. There are no algorithms tracking you. We've removed any temptation for bad behavior that you'll find on other platforms
  • However, Austin stressed how her platform will be very different from Twitter and other social media networks where online discord can create toxic digital environments.
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  • "In terms of moderation, we have a lot of thoughts — we're trying to move very slowly and intentionally around what the experience is like," Austin said. "I will say, unequivocally, that we won't allow any language that revolves around hate and all the encompassing ways of what that can mean."
  • "[We're] definitely [going] for scale, but I think in scale there can be very different groups inside that space," Austin said. "I think fragmentation has been happening since the beginning of the internet, we just had these larger conglomerates come in and bring everyone to that space."
criscimagnael

Can Forensic Science Be Trusted? - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...629632

shared by criscimagnael on 30 May 22 - No Cached
  • When asked, years later, why she had failed to photograph what she said she’d seen on the enhanced bedsheet, Yezzo replied, “This is one time that I didn’t manage to get it soon enough.” She added: “Operator error.”
  • The words were deployed as definitive by prosecutors—“the evidence is uncontroverted by the scientist, totally uncontroverted”
  • Michael Donnelly, now a justice on the Ohio Supreme Court, did not preside over this case, but he has had ample exposure to the use of forensic evidence. “As a trial judge,” he told me, “I sat there for 14 years. And when forensics experts testified, the jury hung on their every word.”
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  • Forensic science, which drives the plots of movies and television shows, is accorded great respect by the public. And in the proper hands, it can provide persuasive insight. But in the wrong hands, it can trap innocent people in a vise of seeming inerrancy—and it has done so far too often. What’s more, although some forensic disciplines, such as DNA analysis, are reliable, others have been shown to have serious limitations.
  • Yezzo is not like Annie Dookhan, a chemist in a Massachusetts crime laboratory who boosted her productivity by falsifying reports and by “dry labbing”—that is, reporting results without actually conducting any tests.
  • Nor is Yezzo like Michael West, a forensic odontologist who claimed that he could identify bite marks on a victim and then match those marks to a specific person.
  • The deeper issue with forensic science lies not in malfeasance or corruption—or utter incompetence—but in the gray area where Yezzo can be found. Her alleged personal problems are unusual: Only because of them did the details of her long career come to light.
  • to the point of alignment; how rarely an analyst’s skills are called into question in court; and how seldom the performance of crime labs is subjected to any true oversight.
  • More than half of those exonerated by post-conviction DNA testing had been wrongly convicted based on flawed forensic evidence.
  • The quality of the work done in crime labs is almost never audited.
  • Even the best forensic scientists can fall prey to unintentional bias.
  • Study after study has demonstrated the power of cognitive bias.
  • Cognitive bias can of course affect anyone, in any circumstance—but it is particularly dangerous in a criminal-justice system where forensic scientists have wide latitude as well as some incentive to support the views of prosecutors and the police.
criscimagnael

Living better with algorithms | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology - 0 views

news.mit.edu/...tter-algorithms-sarah-cen-0518

shared by criscimagnael on 30 May 22 - No Cached
  • At a talk on ethical artificial intelligence, the speaker brought up a variation on the famous trolley problem, which outlines a philosophical choice between two undesirable outcomes.
  • Say a self-driving car is traveling down a narrow alley with an elderly woman walking on one side and a small child on the other, and no way to thread between both without a fatality. Who should the car hit?
  • To get a sense of what this means, suppose that regulators require that any public health content — for example, on vaccines — not be vastly different for politically left- and right-leaning users. How should auditors check that a social media platform complies with this regulation? Can a platform be made to comply with the regulation without damaging its bottom line? And how does compliance affect the actual content that users do see?
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  • a self-driving car could have avoided choosing between two bad outcomes by making a decision earlier on — the speaker pointed out that, when entering the alley, the car could have determined that the space was narrow and slowed to a speed that would keep everyone safe.
  • Auditors have to inspect the algorithm without accessing sensitive user data.
  • Other considerations come into play as well, such as balancing the removal of misinformation with the protection of free speech.
  • To meet these challenges, Cen and Shah developed an auditing procedure that does not need more than black-box access to the social media algorithm (which respects trade secrets), does not remove content (which avoids issues of censorship), and does not require access to users (which preserves users’ privacy).
  • which is known to help reduce the spread of misinformation
  • In labor markets, for example, workers learn their preferences about what kinds of jobs they want, and employers learn their preferences about the qualifications they seek from workers.
  • But learning can be disrupted by competition
  • it is indeed possible to get to a stable outcome (workers aren’t incentivized to leave the matching market), with low regret (workers are happy with their long-term outcomes), fairness (happiness is evenly distributed), and high social welfare.
  • For instance, when Covid-19 cases surged in the pandemic, many cities had to decide what restrictions to adopt, such as mask mandates, business closures, or stay-home orders. They had to act fast and balance public health with community and business needs, public spending, and a host of other considerations.
  • But of course, no county exists in a vacuum.
  • These complex interactions matter,
  • “Accountability, legitimacy, trust — these principles play crucial roles in society and, ultimately, will determine which systems endure with time.” 
criscimagnael

America!: Leaf-Peeping with Marjorie Taylor Greene | The New Yorker - 0 views

www.newyorker.com/...ng-with-marjorie-taylor-greene

shared by criscimagnael on 30 Oct 21 - No Cached
    • criscimagnael
      criscimagnael on 30 Oct 21
       
      Although this comic strip is a parody/comedy, it reflects real life. The woman is set in her ideas, so nothing will change them. The man is trying to help her, and point out interesting things, but she has to ruin it because her mind is already set. She has come to a conclusion with evidence or premises backing it, and she is trying to rationalize her way to sounding correct.
criscimagnael

6 Surprising Discoveries From Medieval Times - HISTORY - 0 views

www.history.com/...dieval-discoveries-archaeology

shared by criscimagnael on 28 Oct 21 - No Cached
  • According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, the weapon is 900 years old, and belonged to a knight who came to the Middle East to fight in the Crusades, in which European Christian armies fought Muslims over control of Jerusalem and other sites.
  • “First, it dates to just before—or possibly around the very start of—Christianization in Ireland. St. Patrick, writing about a hundred years after the idol was made, in the fifth century, condemned “pagan” figures like this one. Second, it was found in a bog; bogs were special sites, neither water nor land, where people dumped sacrifices and the bodies of executed victims. This figure was found with animal remains and a dagger, thus clearly part of a ritual. Third, all this suggests something about religious practices in Ireland before people turned Christian.”
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