The Power of Fear in Networked Publics Radical transparency is particularly tricky in light of the attention economy. Not all information is created equal. People are far more likely to pay attention to some kinds of information than others. And, by and large, they’re more likely to pay attention to information that causes emotional reactions. Additionally, people are more likely to pay attention to some people. The person with the boring life is going to get far less attention than the person that seems like a trainwreck. Who gets attention – and who suffers the consequences of attention – is not evenly distributed. And, unfortunately, oppressed and marginalized populations who are already under the microscope tend to suffer far more from the rise of radical transparency than those who already have privilege. The cost of radical transparency for someone who is gay or black or female is different in Western societies than it is for a straight white male. This is undoubtedly a question of privacy, but we should also look at it through the prism of the culture of fear. Full article: http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/2012/SXSW2012.html Taken from http://boingboing.net/2012/04/25/how-a-culture-of-fear-thrives.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter h/t +Boing Boing +Rebecca Spizzirri #attentioneconomy http://vimeo.com/38139635

More on this research here: http://depts.washington.edu/hints/video1b.shtml Derya Unutmaz originally shared this post: This study was conducted on whether people hold a humanoid robot morally accountable for a harm it causes. In the video clip presented here, Robovie and a participant play a visual scavenger hunt. The participant has chosen a list of items to find in the lab, and is promised a $20 prize if he can identify at least seven items in 2 minutes. Robovie is in charge of keeping score and making the final decision as to whether or not the participant wins. Although the game is easy enough that all participants win, Robovie nonetheless announces that the participant identified only five items and thus did not win the prize. As you watch this video, note the tension in the participant’s voice. At the end of his interaction with Robovie, he even accuses Robovie of lying. While this participant’s reaction was on the strong end of the behaviors observed, 79% of participants did object to Robovie’s ruling and engage in some type of argument with Robovie.

“Consider the various moral panics that surround young people’s online interactions. The current panic is centred on “cyberbullying”. Every day, I wake up to news reports about the plague of cyberbullying. If you didn’t know the data, you’d be convinced that cyberbullying was spinning out of control. The funny thing is that we have a lot of data on this topic, dating back for decades. Bullying is not on the rise and it has not risen dramatically with the onset of the internet. When asked about bullying measures, children and teens continue to report that school is the place where the most serious acts of bullying happen, where bullying happens the most frequently, and where they experience the greatest impact. This is not to say that young people aren’t bullied online; they are. But rather, the bulk of the problem actually happens in adult-controlled spaces like schools. “What’s different has to do with visibility. If your son comes home with a black eye, you know something happened at school. If he comes home grumpy, you might guess. But for the most part, the various encounters that young people have with their peers go unnoticed by adults, even when they have devastating emotional impact. Online, interactions leave traces. Not only do adults bear witness to really horrible fights, but they can also see teasing, taunting and drama. And, more often than not, they blow the latter out of proportion. I can’t tell you how many calls I get from parents and journalists who are absolutely convinced that there’s an epidemic that must be stopped. Why? The scale of visibility means that fear is magnified.” ____ +danah boyd is doing amazing work on the #attentioneconomy . I posted her talk at SXSW earlier, and it is brilliant and definitely worth a watch. […]

Left the comment below in Jennifer’s original thread. Comments in either thread are welcome. _ I agree with the main thrust of the thesis, but I have a quibble. It is minor, but I think it is worth stating. Look, identity politics matter, not just in the practical “that’s the way it is, get over it” sense, but in the deeper sense of “that’s how our brains work.” Specifically, we tend to think about the world and our place in it in terms of how we identify (label, name) ourselves, and a lot of our ability to socialize comes from our ability to identify (label, name) others. Yeah, some of that results in stereotype and caricature, but frankly it is amazing that our brains can do it at all, and worrying about “identity” is how the brain does it. We know we can overcome the unfortunate shortcomings of the algorithm, but it takes a lot of training and practice. It’s not as easy as saying “we should stop worrying about our identities”, because this is the result of literally hundreds of thousands of years of evolution as a eusocial primate. It’s not the kind of thing that changes with stern finger wagging. To the topic at hand, identifying as a skeptic is something that is very important to a lot of people, and we shouldn’t downplay that importance. I was the faculty adviser to my university’s first secular student club. The club spent a lot of time talking about science and skepticism, but one thing that struck me was how many students used the club as a support group of sorts, in ways that felt closer to a LGBTQ meeting or an AA meeting than other kinds of affinity groups. It was very typical to hear students discuss their “coming […]

This is just embarrassing. Krauss got destroyed by a scientifically-trained philosopher in the Times, and instead of swallowing his pride he goes on a rant against the discipline. His understanding of the relations between science and philosophy is so full of errors and presumption that I don’t even know where to start. Here’s a big hint: if your argument requires going through some of the most important thinkers of the 20th century and determining whether they were “scientists” or “philosophers”, you are doing it wrong. Bruno Gonçalves originally shared this post: Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete? “I think at some point you need to provoke people. Science is meant to make people uncomfortable.”

Bowerbirds are one of my favorite animal cyborgs! Consider the fact that peacocks and other birds grow elaborate feathers to attract mates. For them, it might take generations for an attractive feature to work its way into the gene pool. Bowerbirds use their bowers for the same purpose (to attract mates), but because their resources are external objects, bowerbirds can switch them around as often as they like to develop just the right mix to attract mates. In some species of bowerbird, the characteristics of the bowers will differ between individual birds of the same species, and those birds might entirely redecorate their bowers multiple times a season! The bowers are so elaborate that early Western explorers routinely mistook bowers to be the homes of tiny people! Bowerbirds have literally extended their reproductively salient characteristics into their bowers. This externalization has some surprising consequences: bowerbirds have become extraordinarily cunning and deceptive. Instead of fighting each other (as male peacocks tend to do), theivery and vandalism are common among mature male bowerbirds. It’s a great example of the use of technology in nature, and how it augments the drive for biological fitness. Some great links below. David Attenborough has also done a few bowerbird specials that are worth finding and watching. Thanks for the link +John Baez! Rajini Rao originally shared this post: BUILDING A BOUDOIR Who knew that gardening was an act of seduction? Male bowerbirds are famed for their elaborate nests, decorated over the years with colorful trinkets and flowers. Researchers have now learned that Australian bowerbirds are gardeners with a flair for genetic engineering. • They noticed that bowers were always surrounded by a lush garden of potato bushes (Solanum ellipticum), with bright purple flowers and round green fruits. Observation showed that the birds were not choosing areas […]

The truth is that everything you do changes your brain. Everything. Every little thought or experience plays a role in the constant wiring and rewiring of your neural networks. So there is no escape. Yes, the internet is rewiring your brain. But so is watching television. And having a cup of tea. Or not having a cup of tea. Or thinking about the washing on Tuesdays. Your life, however you live it, leaves traces in the brain. Psychology World originally shared this post: Does the internet rewire your brain? By Tom Stafford, +BBC News Being online does change your brain, but so does making a cup of tea. A better question to ask is what parts of the brain are regular internet users using. Read here: http://goo.gl/oAQlV

Clickstream Data Yields High-Resolution Maps of Science Intricate maps of science have been created from citation data to visualize the structure of scientific activity. However, most scientific publications are now accessed online. Scholarly web portals record detailed log data at a scale that exceeds the number of all existing citations combined. Such log data is recorded immediately upon publication and keeps track of the sequences of user requests (clickstreams) that are issued by a variety of users across many different domains. Given these advantages of log datasets over citation data, we investigate whether they can produce high-resolution, more current maps of science. direct link to high res image: http://www.plosone.org/article/slideshow.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004803&imageURI=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004803.g005 Original article: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004803 h/t +Heikki Arponen

Harvard research now shows that Nodal and Lefty — two proteins linked to the regulation of asymmetry in vertebrates and the development of precursor cells for internal organs — fit the model described by Turing six decades ago. In a paper published online in Science April 12, Alexander Schier, professor of molecular and cellular biology, and his collaborators Patrick Müller, Katherine Rogers, Ben Jordan, Joon Lee, Drew Robson, and Sharad Ramanathan demonstrate a key aspect of Turing’s model: that the activator protein Nodal moves through tissue far more slowly than its inhibitor Lefty. “That’s one of the central predictions of the Turing model,” Schier said. “So I think we can now say that Nodal and Lefty are a clear example of this model in vivo.” Omar Loisel originally shared this post: Turing was right Researchers at Harvard have shown that Nodal and Lefty — two proteins linked to the regulation of asymmetry in vertebrates and the development of precursor cells for internal organs — fit a mathematic…

Rey Junco originally shared this post: Automated Grading Software In Development To Score Essays As Accurately As Humans | Singularity Hub April 30 marks the deadline for a contest challenging software developers to create an automated scorer of student essays, otherwise known as a roboreader, that performs as good as a human expert grad…

How can our societies be stabilized in a crisis? Why can we enjoy and understand Shakespeare? Why are fruitflies uniform? How do omnivorous eating habits aid our survival? What makes the Mona Lisa ‘s smile beautiful? How do women keep our social structures intact? Could there possibly be a single answer to all these questions? This book shows that the statement: “weak links stabilize complex systems” provides the key to understanding each of these intriguing puzzles, and many others too. The author (recipient of several distinguished science communication prizes) uses weak (low affinity, low probability) interactions as a thread to introduce a vast variety of networks from proteins to economics and ecosystems. Many people, from Nobel Laureates to high-school students have helped to make the book understandable to all interested readers. This unique book and the ideas it develops will have a significant impact on many, seemingly diverse, fields of study. Jon Lawhead originally shared this post: This book argues that weak links (rather than strong links) are the key to stability of complex networks. This has important implications for social design. Weak Links books.google.com – How can our societies be stabilized in a crisis? Why can we enjoy and understand Shakespeare? Why are fruitflies uniform? How do omnivorous eating habits aid our survival? What make…

#attentioneconomy Jonathan Zittrain originally shared this post: Harvard Library to faculty: we’re going broke unless you go open access Henry sez, “Harvard Library’s Faculty Advisory Council is telling faculty that it’s financially ‘untenable’ for the university to keep on paying extortionate access fees for academic journals. It’s suggesting that faculty make their research publicly available, switch to publishing in open access journals and consider resigning from the boards of journals that don’t allow open access.” Harvard’s annual cost for journals from these providers now approaches $3.75M. In 2010, the comparable amou…