/////////////////////////SARTRE=ROAD TO FREEDOM=EXISTENTIAL FREEDOM=http://bestdocumentaries.blogspot.com/2007/11/sartre-road-to-freedom.html
//////////////////////BEING AND NOTHING
//////////////////////////FREEDOM EXPLODES IN MANS SOUL/SELF=EXISTENTIAL
/////////////////////////FREEDOM OF CHOICE
////////////////////////How do we spell relief? O-B-L-I-V-I-O-N =LWP
///////////////What price peace of mind? And ultimate security? The pill may cost quite a bit, in the beginning. But hey, it's kind of like insurance, you know? A lot of people will want to get their own death control pill just in case. For instance, if the world ever did go crazy and launch an all out nuclear war, that pill could come in darn handy in the aftermath. Or, say you were in an accident and paralyzed from the waist down; or your legs amputated completely. Or you got Alzheimer's and your mind began to go. And let us not forget AIDs and the other nasty beasties running around infecting people from all sorts of unexpected quarters. Many might prefer death to life in such instances. So what price would be too high for escape? Escape from all our problems, forever and ever?
A lot of people might already have killed themselves if they weren't afraid of the pain of slashed wrists or blown out brains. Or of making a mistake and living beyond the act, with a disfigurement or handicap, and the humiliation in facing those who knew them before the attempt.
////////////////////Final flings Some users may choose to enjoy a brief but extravagant shopping spree or vacation before popping a pill at the end to avoid the financial consequences. It could take some years before institutions could put up adequate defenses against such morbid shenanigans. If it were allowed to run too far afield, it might actually create its own banking and insurance crisis, akin to that of the U.S. Savings and Loan fiasco of the eighties. However, the magnitude of damage inflicted could far exceed that earlier case.
////////////////////////The countries hardest hit and why Among the developed nations use of the pill will be further concentrated in those countries enduring the greatest magnitude of 'future shock' as described by Alvin Toffler in his book of the same name; those nations where the pace of cultural, technological, and economic change are the most progressive, the fastest and most violent in nature: the United States, Canada, and Germany being among the prime candidates. The states of the old Soviet Union and most progressive of the Eastern European states may follow.
Why won't Japan be among the hardest hit? Its homogeneous population and culture, and confidence gained from recent economic successes may shield it somewhat from many of the pressures faced by others.
//////////////////////////Opening the floodgates of wealth and opportunity The loss of a significant portion of the world population could force the powers that be to open the floodgates of innovation and economic opportunity to an unprecedented scale.
Business, financial, and educational bias in areas of race, sex, and religion would finally be stamped out entirely by tough new laws and the cold reality of shrinking populations. Every bit of realized human potential, regardless of its source, would be desperately needed by society. Prejudice would simply become too expensive in the new order
////////////////////////JRM=
2001 AD-2049 AD: Human civilization is rocked by technological upheaval and growing uncertainties...
2009 AD-2017 AD: The net reshapes the world; 'perfect' organ replacements for the wealthy; contagious insanity; the introduction of 'second skins'; and the rise of the vigilantesThe internet permeates our lives and begins radically reshaping our institutions, even as breakthroughs in other fields promise fundamental changes in living standards and all future human endeavor; personal computing gets still more powerful even as costs drop further; net users in the developed nations are becoming increasingly isolated in terms of typical historical human interaction; the first crude 'second skin' applications arrive; some forms of insanity and other surprising afflictions prove to be literally contagious; the danger of mass effect biochemical weapons use peaks for most developed states; the wealthy enjoy 'perfect' organ replacements; there are significant increases in the numbers of people taking to the sea to live and work; vigilante organizations rise in prominence and influence.
2018 AD-2025 AD: Consumer robotics and personal virtual realities go mainstreamPersonal virtual realities are taking marketshare from TV, radio, films, and other media; near paperless offices, wireless appliances becoming the norm; consumer robotics go mainstream; do-it-yourself medical care becoming ever more practical and effective for many ailments; adequate hardware to support human level intelligence at consumer level prices becomes available (but suitable software remains elusive).
The true source of this page is
2026 AD-2049 AD: Accelerated environmental decline, increased religious conflict, and a wholesale plunge into VR by citizens in the developed nations (to escape mounting stresses)The emergence of the 'Bounty Economy'; rampant identity theft and other cybercrimes lead to the first and most important privacy vs. security issues being resolved; substantial religion-related conflict erupts; budgetary priorities undergo fierce turf fights in the developed nations, with education and other consumer services usually winning; the human senses are technologically expanded in wondrous new ways; the final elements fall into place to allow software-based human level intelligence to become widely available; 98% of all cancers become curable; mini-subs and STOL/VTOL warplanes (both unmanned) are the cutting edge of warfare; tactical nuclear, biological, and space-based weapons use in conflicts not uncommon; traditional aircraft carriers now obsolete; troops enjoy numerous micromachine-based aids and supplements; environmental decline due to pollution, accidents, terrorism, war, and excessive harvests becomes alarmingly obvious now, but business continues to actively lobby governments for minimal regulatory remedies.
////////////////////////ECO-FATIGUE
//////////////////////By the year 2050, what the reports calls the "E7" economies — China, India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey — will have outstripped the current G7 — US, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Italy and Canada — by between 25% when comparing GDP using market exchange rates to around 75% when using purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates.
But this should create major new market opportunities, allowing companies in the established OECD economies to specialise in areas of comparative advantage, while their consumers benefit from low cost imports from the emerging economies — a "win-win" outcome rather than "one winner takes all".
/////////////////////////Aggressive behavior can be divided into two types: proactive and reactive. Proactive aggressors plan how they're going to hurt and bully others. Reactive aggression, however, is not premeditated; it occurs in response to an upsetting trigger from the environment.
"Reactively aggressive adolescents -- most commonly boys -- frequently misinterpret their surroundings, feel threatened, and act inappropriately aggressive," Frank says. "They tend to strike back when being teased, blame others when getting into a fight, and overreact to accidents. Their behavior is emotionally 'hot,' defensive, and impulsive."
The term "reactive-affective-defensive-impulsive" (RADI) has recently been created to describe such behavior. Research suggests that adolescents with RADI behavior are at an increased risk for a lifetime of problems associated with impulsive aggression. "A major problem in researching this topic is stigma and a notion that children will grow out of aggressive behaviors," Frank says. "It's often difficult to recruit such youngsters and their families to participate in research."
Little is known about how the brain works in reactive aggression. In their most recent studies, Frank and his colleagues recruited two groups of male adolescents: one group diagnosed with RADI behavior and the other group without any history of mental illness or aggression problems. While being scanned by a brain imaging machine, both sets of teenagers were asked to perform tasks that involved reacting to age-appropriate, fear-inducing images. The tasks also tested the teenagers' impulsivity.
Preliminary data reveal that the brains of RADI teenagers exhibited greater activity in the amygdala and lesser activity in the frontal lobe in response to the images than the brains of the teenagers in the control group. In a related study, Frank and his colleagues are investigating whether these changes in brain activity are associated with an abnormal increase in cortisol levels, a marker of the stress response.
The brain chemical serotonin has long been known to play an important role in regulating anger and aggression. Low cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of serotonin have even been cited as both a marker and predictor of aggressive behavior.
New studies from the Netherlands, however, indicate that this serotonin-deficiency hypothesis of aggressiveness may be too simple. "Serotonin deficiency appears to be related to pathological, violent forms of aggressiveness, but not to the normal aggressive behavior that animals and humans use to adapt to everyday survival," says Sietse de Boer, PhD, of the University of Groningen.
Furthermore, research now suggests that unchecked aggressive behavior can eventually change the brain in ways that cause serotonin activity to decrease-and, perhaps, violent behavior to increase.
To perform their most recent studies, de Boer and his colleagues engendered violent characteristics of aggressive behavior in feral mice and rats by permitting them to physically dominate other rodents repeatedly. With such positive reinforcement, the animals' initially normal aggressiveness gradually became transformed into a more pathological form-the kind also seen in pathologically violent people.
During this transformation, de Boer studied the chemical changes that occurred in the rodents' aggression-related brain circuits, particularly those circuits involved with serotonin. They found that serotonin activity decreased as a result of the animals experiencing repeated victorious episodes of aggression but not as a result of normal, functional acts of aggression.
"Our findings support meta-analyses of serotonin activity in aggressive humans," says de Boer. "That data showed that serotonin deficiency is most readily detected in people who engage in impulsive and violent forms of aggressive behavior rather than in individuals with more functional forms of aggression."
More recently, de Boer and his colleagues have found that the transition from normal, adaptive aggressive behavior into abnormal forms that inflict harm and injury is due to functional, but not structural, changes in certain serotonin receptors in the brain. In animal studies, treatment with selective serotonin receptor agonist compounds has been found to restore the normal function of these receptors-and suppress aggressive behavior, including its escalated forms. These findings may one day lead to more effective treatments for violent behavior in humans.
Researchers have identified, for the first time, that the release of a neurotransmitter called arginine-vasopressin (AVP) in an area of the brain called the amygdala helps regulate maternal aggression-a behavior that ensures the survival of the offspring. Although the study was conducted using rat dams, maternal aggression occurs in all mammals, including humans.
"By understanding the brain pathways underlying maternal aggression in rodents, we're also gaining deeper understanding of regulation of maternal behavior in general," says Oliver Bosch, PhD, of the University of Regensburg, in Germany.
Much of the past research into the neurobiology of maternal aggression has focused on oxytocin, a neurotransmitter released in the brain during birth and breastfeeding. Oxytocin reduces anxiety and fear, a factor that is believed to enable new mothers to more aggressively face intruders that might harm their offspring.
In his new study, Bosch investigated whether AVP also plays a role in the regulation of maternal aggressiveness. Found in all mammals, AVP is synthesized in the brain and then released to the kidneys, where it helps regulate the body's retention of water. More recently, AVP has been implicated in male aggression and other social behavior, particularly pair-bonding between sexual partners.
Using tiny probes that enabled the real-time collection of samples of brain fluid, Bosch and his colleagues measured the release of AVP within the amygdala, an area of the brain associated with both maternal anxiety and aggression, while rat dams moved around their cages with their pups. Some of the dams had been selectively bred for high anxiety-related behavior; others had been bred for low anxiety-related behavior. High-anxiety dams are not only more anxious, but also show more maternal aggression towards intruders. In addition, they spend more time nursing and in direct contact with their pups.
During the study, the rat dams were sometimes left undisturbed and were at other times confronted for 10 minutes with an intruder. The more aggressive, high-anxiety dams released more AVP within the amygdala while defending their offspring from the intruder than did the less aggressive, low-anxiety dams-a finding that strongly suggests a role for AVP in maternal aggression.
The researchers also found they could use the brain's AVP system to manipulate the aggression shown by the dams. When the animals were given an AVP receptor antagonist, which blocks the brain's receptors for AVP, the dams became less anxious and less aggressive. When synthetic AVP was infused into the animals' brains, however, the dams became more anxious and increasingly aggressive.
"While AVP's effects on maternal aggression are similar to what we found earlier for oxytocin, these neuropeptides act differently on anxiety," Bosch says. "So it's the brain's AVP system itself, not AVP acting on oxytocin receptors, that causes these changes in maternal behavior."
Being the recipient of an aggressive social encounter can cause changes in the brain that lead to depression, anxiety, and susceptibility to immune-related illnesses, according to new animal studies from Carleton University in Ottawa. Surprisingly, some of these negative effects appear to be as strong in animals that successfully dominate social situations as in those that react with submission.
"It seems that aggression, which is clearly deleterious to the well-being of the victim, also has several negative repercussions for the aggressor as well," says Marie-Claude Audet, PhD.
Social stressors and negative relationships are believed to contribute to stress-related disorders, including depression and anxiety. Stressful events have a profound influence on the neuroendocrine and neurochemical systems, causing chemical changes in many areas of the brain, including several that are strongly involved in emotions: the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, and the amygdala. Among the neurotransmitters and hormones altered by stress are dopamine, serotonin, noradrenalin, and corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) (which affects blood levels of corticosterone). Recent research also has suggested a link between stress and cytokines (signaling molecules within the immune system). Cytokines may inform the brain of the presence of pathogens in the body, thus triggering a stress-like response.
To more precisely determine how a social stressor disturbs neuroendocrine, neurochemical, and cytokine function as well as behavior, Audet and her colleagues designed a study in which naive mice (ones not previously exposed to any social situation) were introduced to the home cage of dominant mice for 15 minutes on either a single day or on three consecutive days. As a control, some mice were not exposed to any social stressor. The animals' basal motor activity was monitored, and blood and brain samples were taken and analyzed either 3 minutes or 75 minutes after the end of the stressor.
The study found that aggressive social interactions caused both dominant and submissive mice to become hyperactive relative to the controls. However, although motor activity remained high in dominant mice, particularly in those that engaged in vigorous behavior, it declined gradually in the submissive mice. Corticosterone levels-a marker of stress-were significantly increased soon after the end of the stressor session, and those levels remained elevated for protracted periods over the course of the experiment. The increase was similar in both submissive and dominant mice. Some cytokines also became elevated in the prefrontal cortex of both groups of mice, and this effect was greater after the stressful social encounters were repeated.
Measurements of stress-related neurotransmitters and hormones, however, revealed some significant differences between the dominant and submissive animals. For example, brain levels of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline, which may help mediate the effects of stress on the body, fell in the hippocampus of the dominant mice, but increased in the central amygdala of the submissive mice. The expression of CRH also fell in the prefrontal cortex of the dominant mice, but only after repeated encounters with an intruding mouse.
In further studies, Audet observed that chronic exposure to social stress increased the sensitivity to a bacterial challenge and that this effect was more apparent in dominant mice.
"Our findings suggest that stressful social experiences, by affecting central neurotransmitters and cytokines, may influence vulnerability to depression and susceptibility to immune-related illness," says Audet. "Moreover, it appears that in addition to markedly affecting the victim's existence, aggression may have detrimental consequences also for the one that dominates the interaction."
Adapted from materials provided by Society For Neuroscience.
AMT
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