Humanities & Cultures
aeon.co
> But this is only part of the story, and it gets awkwardness wrong in important ways. Yes, awkwardness is caused by a failure to conform to existing social norms. But this failure isn’t individual and, rather than think in terms of awkward people, we ought to think in terms of awkward situations. And yes, awkwardness can be painful, and unpleasant. But it’s not embarrassing, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Contrary to popular belief, our awkward moments aren’t cringeworthy. Rather than cringing inwardly about them, we ought to examine them more closely. Because once we realise the true nature of awkwardness, we can stop seeing it as an individual failure and start seeing it as an opportunity for social change. In short: we should take awkwardness less personally, and more seriously.
filtermag.org
> Every cell you’d go to, someone would be begging you for toilet paper or for water. These are “wet cells” with a sink and toilet, but the person inside can’t flush the toilet or open the faucet to get drinking water themselves; someone outside the cell has to press a button to do it. So as a fellow incarcerated person, who’d been in similar cells myself at previous facilities, I’d usually spend the next two hours walking back and forth filling up people’s cups from the mop sink, because it’s midday and there hasn’t been officer around since 5 pm yesterday. > > You can land in these cells for months for talking back to an officer, or being in a fight even if you were just defending yourself. If you have a mental health episode, or report that you were sexually assaulted, they might stick you in there for a year. Purportedly for your safety, but really to shut you up. These inequities are wielded most harshly against trans women of color like myself. > There should be an external civilian review board that audits the process, with members who rotate out every six or 12 months and are paid for their time. There should really be multiple boards—one for general housing conditions, one for use of force, one for mental health care, etc.
theonefeather.com
> The name of the third-highest summit east of the Mississippi River has been restored to its original name. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN) approved an application on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024 that restores the name of Clingman’s Dome, in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP), to its original Cherokee name, Kuwohi (mulberry place). > > Lavita Hill and Mary “Missy” Crowe, both members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), started this effort in 2022 and received widespread support for the initiative.
[studiolo.online/2024/08/24/bor…](https://studiolo.online/2024/08/24/border-marks-a-project-at-the-border-of-cities-and-times/)
worksinprogress.co
Very long but also very interesting. Amazing how they're able to "open" and read carbonized scrolls.
gamescriticism.org
> While in recent years many European businesses have taken steps to alter their previously racist product designs, some games, especially board games like the popular Finnish Afrikan tähti (Star of Africa; Kuvataide, 1951), resist this trend. This raises two questions: First, what are the emotional mechanics which allow openly racist games like Afrikan tähti to remain unchanged and celebrated as ‘classics’ today? Secondly, what can our predominantly white board and role-playing game communities do to let go of emotional attachments to white supremacist games and become invested in a more respectful and welcoming games culture? > [...]we speculate on ways to expedite collective grief to help players reach what we term the ‘white acceptance stage’. We speculate that one useful design intervention to help rethink Afrikan tähti might be to classify it as a PEGI 18 game with the descriptor ‘discrimination’. Seen in this new light, the game might find a new purpose as a cultural educational item complementing lessons on Europe’s colonial past and the self-image of (Northern) Europe for older children. This intervention is inspired by the recent introduction of sensitivity warnings by multinational entertainment corporations such as Disney and broadcasting agencies like YLE (Rytsä, 2007). We argue that adopting such labeling practices for popular board games like Afrikan tähti can be a first step towards confronting racist and colonial ludic heritage.
www.outsideonline.com
[archive.is link](https://archive.ph/hTh7o) > The U.S. has a near-infinite supply of clueless tourists such as myself, much to the dismay of our National Park Service. Yellowstone, our most famous national park thanks to Kevin Costner, welcomes 4.5 million of us each year. Like all of our parks, Yellowstone takes in tourists not only for the revenue but to remind them that the physical country they reside in is a marvel well beyond their comprehension. As such, Yellowstone is set up to accommodate these hordes. And while park officials do their best to keep tourists in line, often literally, my kind still manage to do plenty of tourist shit. We trample plant life. We get shitfaced and pick unwinnable fights with animals ten times our size. And we hurt ourselves. According to NPS data, at least 74 people have died while visiting Yellowstone in the past 15 years. I could have been one of those people. I deserve to be one of those people. > > This is why Outside sent me to the park just a few weeks ago, during one of the busiest times of the year. They wanted me to observe our most basic tourists in the wild. Maybe I’d even get to see one die. Or, even better for my editors, maybe I would die while I was there. Maybe I’d look down my nose at the tourists around me only to end up as wolf food myself. Like most other Yellowstone visitors, I was not trained for the outdoors, I relish doing shit that posted signs yell at me not to do, and I often daydream about fighting bears (and winning!). I find danger tempting, which isn’t a good thing given that I can no longer swim a single pool lap without taking a break. Are people like me responsible enough to visit one of our national treasures without breaking it? Do we, as a population, know how to do national parks?
www.404media.co
The 404 Media team wrote about what they learned in their first year of 404 Media, and it’s full of hope.
www.thechatner.com
An instant classic, Daniel Lavery’s How to win the battle against objects shares an extremely healthy strategy based on blaming an inanimate appliance and a person (who isn’t yourself) for anything inconvenient that happens to you. My partner and I have been practicing hard and I’m sorry to say they’re naturally gifted (and I’m naturally infuriated).
www.thenation.com
This is a surprisingly interesting thinkpiece for its length that ultimately arrives at no conclusion, but it's an important discussion to be having while we still can.
sojo.net
> But the thing that excites me most about taking public transit is watching the people who come in at every stop. It is exciting to recognize the middle schooler with the headphones, the young mother with the infant in a stroller, and the construction workers with their hard hats tucked under their arms. They are my neighbors. On public transportation, I am reminded that they are the people I am called to love.
> OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The latest search for the remains of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre victims has ended with three more sets containing gunshot wounds, investigators said. > The three are among 11 sets of remains exhumed during the latest excavation in Oaklawn Cemetery, state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck said Friday. > “Two of those gunshot victims display evidence of munitions from two different weapons,” Stackelbeck said. “The third individual who is a gunshot victim also displays evidence of burning.” Stories like this underscore the importance of reading history, because (at least here in Missouri) I was never taught about the Tulsa Massacre and didn't learn about it until I read about it myself. Other things you may want to read about that you may have never heard of: The Battle of Blair Mountain, Haymarket Square, or the Great Rail Strike of 1877.
theconversation.com
> Shielding of lights is an important aspect. Instead of having an open light, flat lights or shielded lights that prevent spill upward are crucial. They direct light to the ground, and not up into the sky. > > In Canberra, the Australian Capital Territory government and light operator Omexom have been changing streetlights to do exactly this – no upward spill, and controllable lights. > > In doing so, Canberra has reduced its light pollution by about 30% in only a few years, as my colleagues and I report in a forthcoming paper.
www.niemanlab.org
> Our new research, published in the journal Communication Research, suggests that’s the case. In two studies, we found that people generally trust journalists when they confirm claims to be true but are more distrusting when journalists correct false claims. > > Some linguistics and social science theories suggest that people intuitively understand social expectations not to be negative. Being disagreeable, like when pointing out someone else’s lie or error, carries with it a risk of backlash.
>On September 11, 2001, Genelle Guzman-McMillan made it from the 64th floor to the 13th floor of the North Tower when "everything went black." Over 27 hours later, she was miraculously pulled out of the wreckage. Though I hate the overuse of the word 'miraculous', this is an interesting story for sure.
Does economic education spoil students’ morality? Economists and the Trolley problem [https://www.economics-sociology.eu/?1030,en\_does-economic-education-spoil-students’-morality-economists-and-the-trolley-problem](https://www.economics-sociology.eu/?1030,en_does-economic-education-spoil-students’-morality-economists-and-the-trolley-problem) [@humanities](https://beehaw.org/c/humanities)
The Problem of Collective Harm: A Threshold Solution [https://ejpe.org/journal/article/view/798](https://ejpe.org/journal/article/view/798) "Many harms are collective: they are due to several individual actions that are as such harmless. At least in some cases, it seems impermissible to contribute to such harms, even if individual agents do not make a difference. The Problem of Collective Harm is the challenge of explaining why. I argue that, if the action is to be [moral], the probability of making a difference to harm must be small enough." [@humanities](https://beehaw.org/c/humanities)
Utility, social utility, democracy, and altruistic and moral behavior from unexploitability, Darwinian evolution, and tribes [https://www.rangevoting.org/OmoUtil.html](https://www.rangevoting.org/OmoUtil.html) "S.M.Omohundro in 2007, by building on and/or simplifying ideas by a large number of economists, demonstrated that the philosophy of utilitarianism is forced upon an organism if that organism wishes to be "unexploitable." Exploitable organisms presumably tend to get exploited, suffer a competitive disadvantage." [@humanities](https://beehaw.org/c/humanities)
19thnews.org
> Right away, the data clearly showed that cash helped people spend more on their basic needs. Those who received $1,000 monthly spent $67 more per month than the lower-paid group on food, $52 more on rent and $50 more on transportation. They also spent about 26 percent more financially supporting others, typically family members or children, suggesting that the beneficiaries of guaranteed income programs extend beyond the actual participants. > > Some of the volunteers told the researchers that the money allowed them to stop living paycheck to paycheck and start imagining what they could do if they had more financial breathing room. Karina Dotson, OpenResearch’s research and insights manager, often heard participants talk about the cash giving them a “sense of self.” She said it “gave them head space to dream, to believe, to hope, to imagine a future they couldn’t imagine before.” Other research has found similar outcomes. > > Those who received $1,000 monthly were 5 percent more likely to report having a budget, spending an average of 20 minutes more a month on finances than the group that received $50 monthly. The money also affected how much medical care people sought, how much they considered entrepreneurship or additional schooling and even the kinds of jobs they took. Those choices varied widely from person to person.
Humanities & Cultures
!humanities@beehaw.orgHuman society and cultural news, studies, and other things of that nature. From linguistics to philosophy to religion to anthropology, if it's an academic discipline you can most likely put it here.
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