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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Controversial knowledge
Modern Conspiracy attempts to sketch a new conception of conspiracy
theory. Where many commentators have sought to characterize
conspiracy theory in terms of the collapse of objectivity and
Enlightenment reason, Fleming and Jane trace the important role of
conspiracy in the formation of the modern world: the scientific
revolution, social contract theory, political sovereignty,
religious paranoia and mass communication media. Rather than see in
conspiratorial thinking the imminent death of Enlightenment reason,
and a regression to a new Dark Age, Modern Conspiracy contends that
many characteristic features of conspiracies tap very deeply into
the history of the Enlightenment itself: among other things, its
vociferous critique of established authorities, and a conception of
political sovereignty fuelled by fear of counter-plots. Drawing out
the roots of modern conspiratorial thinking leads us to truths less
salacious and scandalous than the claims of conspiracy theorists
themselves yet ultimately far more salutary: about mass
communication; about individual and crowd psychology; and about our
conception of and relation to knowledge.Perhaps, ultimately, what
conspiracy theory affords us is a renewed opportunity to reflect on
our very relationship to the truth itself.
Misogyny is a hot topic, yet it's often misunderstood. What is
misogyny, exactly? Who deserves to be called a misogynist? How does
misogyny contrast with sexism, and why is it prone to persist - or
increase - even when sexist gender roles are waning? This book is
an exploration of misogyny in public life and politics, by the
moral philosopher and writer Kate Manne. It argues that misogyny
should not be understood primarily in terms of the hatred or
hostility some men feel toward all or most women. Rather, it's
primarily about controlling, policing, punishing, and exiling the
"bad" women who challenge male dominance. And it's compatible with
rewarding "the good ones," and singling out other women to serve as
warnings to those who are out of order. It's also common for women
to serve as scapegoats, be burned as witches, and treated as
pariahs. Manne examines recent and current events such as the Isla
Vista killings by Elliot Rodger, the case of the convicted serial
rapist Daniel Holtzclaw, who preyed on African-American women as a
police officer in Oklahoma City, Rush Limbaugh's diatribe against
Sandra Fluke, and the "misogyny speech" of Julia Gillard, then
Prime Minister of Australia, which went viral on YouTube. The book
shows how these events, among others, set the stage for the 2016 US
presidential election. Not only was the misogyny leveled against
Hillary Clinton predictable in both quantity and quality, Manne
argues it was predictable that many people would be prepared to
forgive and forget regarding Donald Trump's history of sexual
assault and harassment. For this, Manne argues, is misogyny's
oft-overlooked and equally pernicious underbelly: exonerating or
showing "himpathy" for the comparatively privileged men who
dominate, threaten, and silence women.
Mind Synergy is about you. It is about how you lost your mind and
how with my help you're going to get it back. If you think I am
talking science fiction. Fine, but first ask yourself this; "Why do
I always doubt myself?" "Why am I stressed out?" "Why don't I have
the confidence to realise my goals?" And "Why oh why am I not happy
or at least happier?" Believe it or not your mind has the same
anatomy as Einstein or any other genius for that matter, the only
difference between you and them is that they found the way to use
their mind effectively and efficiently. Mind synergy shows you how
to silence the negative voices and how to get your mind to work in
sync with you and for you. What would your life be like if you
could use your mind to its full genius potential and you were
confident and happy? The answer is inside...
By the age of nine, I will have lived in more than a dozen
countries, on five continents, under six assumed identities. I'll
know how a document is forged, how to withstand an interrogation,
and most important, how to disappear . . . To the young Cheryl
Diamond, life felt like one big adventure, whether she was hurtling
down the Himalayas in a rickety car or mingling with underworld
fixers. Her family appeared to be an unbreakable gang of five. One
day they were in Australia, the next in South Africa, the pattern
repeating as they crossed continents, changed identities, and
erased their pasts. What Diamond didn't yet know was that she was
born into a family of outlaws fleeing from the highest
international law enforcement agencies, a family with secrets that
would eventually catch up to all of them. By the time she was in
her teens, Diamond had lived dozens of lives and lies, but as she
grew older, love and trust turned to fear and violence, and her
family--the only people she had in the world--began to unravel. She
started to realize that her life itself might be a big con, and the
people she loved, the most dangerous of all. With no way out and
her identity burned so often that she had no proof she even
existed, all that was left was a girl from nowhere. Surviving would
require her to escape, and to do so Diamond would have to unlearn
all the rules she grew up with. Wild, heartbreaking, and often
unexpectedly funny, Nowhere Girl is an impossible-to-believe true
story of self-discovery and triumph.
During the past few years science and medicine have been converging with common sense, confirming a widespread belief that everything―especially the mind and the body―is far more connected than traditional physics ever allowed.
The Field establishes a new biological paradigm: it proves that our body extends electromagnetically beyond ourselves and our physical body. It is within this field that we can find a remarkable new way of looking at health, sickness, memory, will, creativity, intuition, the soul, consciousness, and spirituality.
The Field helps to bridge the gap that has opened up between mind and matter, between us and the cosmos. Original, well researched, and well documented by distinguished sources, this is the mind/body book for a new millennium.
The Secrets of Life series is written for everyone who, frankly,
needs a spot of cheering up, and will provide conversation starters
for years after reading! O'Connor's easy-going, conversational
style brings an outsider's questioning eye to the great forces
behind life. The third in the four-part series explains how game
theory developed, and why it came to show us not only how humans
arrive at their decisions, but why so much of the apparently
bizarre behaviour of the natural world has the same mathematical
logic to it. Instead of the confusion and chaos one might expect in
life, O'Connor shows that there are profound reasons behind the
choices organisms make when they interact, and how we humans
refined this process through the addition of our intelligence and
language skills. Starting with the mind-blowing new ways of
thinking that Adam Smith opened the world's eyes to, the book
progresses to the 20th century-and shows how there's a coherent
rationale behind our thought processes-and how this was gradually
revealed by scientists at a time when the very future of the world
was at stake. As O'Connor unfolds the story in Why Do We All Behave
In The Way We Do?, it becomes ever clearer how cooperation has
evolved to be the critical force at every level of life. It was
what built our world, and it would settle so deeply into the
hardwiring of living things that it would eventually become
instinctive and innate in us. Perhaps most pleasingly, game theory
explains how the benefits of collaboration are bound to ratchet
upwards-and how this will inevitably lead to ever-increasing levels
of moral behaviour in our societies. It is so often an accepted
fact that bad people will win. And yet, as Book Three so clearly
explains, collaborative societies are bound to grow, that it's
rational to forgive to overcome vendettas and feuds, and that nice
folks will always win in life by coming second. Example questions
posed (and answered) in Book Three - Why Do All We Behave In The
Way We Do? What's Game Theory - and why is it so critical to
understanding how to make the right decisions? Why, if humans are
so convinced that most of us are bad, are we concerned about being
fair in our lives? Why do we value trust so highly? What are the
reasons for our surprising wish to care for each other? Why do we
share things, even though we might not have to? How did a failed
robbery explain human nature? Why can it be rational to be
irrational? And why is life like a poker game?
New Lands was the second nonfiction book of the author Charles
Fort, written in 1925. It deals primarily with astronomical
anomalies. Fort expands in this book on his theory about the
Super-Sargasso Sea - a place where earthly things supposedly
materialize in order to rain down on Earth - as well as developing
an idea that there are continents above the skies of Earth. As
evidence, he cites a number of anomalous phenomena, including
strange "mirages" of land masses, groups of people, and animals in
the skies. He also continues his attacks on scientific dogma,
citing a number of mysterious stars and planets that scientists
failed to account for.
Exploring how technological apparatuses "capture" invisible worlds,
this book looks at how spirits, UFOs, discarnate entities, spectral
energies, atmospheric forces and particles are mattered into
existence by human minds. Technological and scientific discourse
has always been central to the nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century spiritualist quest for legitimacy, but as this
book shows, machines, people, and invisible beings are much more
ontologically entangled in their definitions and constitution than
we would expect. The book shows this entanglement through a series
of contemporary case studies where the realm of the invisible
arises through technological engagement, and where the paranormal
intertwines with modern technology.
Does our universe exist inside of a computer? Have the strange
phenomena of quantum physics finally been explained? Not IMPOSSIBLE
demonstrates that the surprising answer may be Yes But the material
world is real we insist, knocking on wood. How can this all be just
information inside of a computer? Surely that's impossible Climb
aboard as computer science and AI researcher, G. Wells Hanson,
takes us on the seemingly impossible journey from our universe,
into the depths of a computerized universe. As you ride, your
fingers are pried loose from your current ideas of reality. Watch
as your material world slowly begins to fade. You will travel
through the machinery of the worlds of human thinking, quantum
reality, the brain, and the mind. Finally, you enter a universe
programmed within a computer, where the strange phenomena that
appear there provides an explanation for the mysterious quantum
physics that has puzzled humankind for a century. Shaun Holmes, MA,
and high school math teacher, describes the book as ...an
intellectual thrill-ride that takes us from our everyday world, to
a place where I question my very existence...and there's no going
back
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