Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

Dont regret this Labor Day. Help prevent another COVID spike | Editorial – NJ.com

If you still think the coronavirus is a hoax or perhaps not as devastating as 190,000 American fatalities might imply this is the weekend you can let your freak flag fly.

Holidays are made for COVID, so have at it. Just stay away from the people you actually like. And everyone else, for that matter.

That was the lesson gained from the two previous summer celebrations: Both Memorial Day and the Fourth of July triggered infection surges across the country, and as Dr. Anthony Fauci put it last week, If were careless about it, then we could wind up with a surge following Labor Day it really depends on how we behave as a country.

So before you make plans for Mondays holiday, the experts would like to remind you of this immutable truth:

It is only after we pay the price of vigilance, self-restraint, and empathy can we reap the benefits of normalcy.

That is true in New Jersey. The national numbers are steady but daunting, with 40,000 new cases a day, but transmission has actually increased in our state in the past week, says Dr. Perry Halkitis, the Dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health.

So from a local perspective, its a time of concern right now especially on a holiday weekend, which we know is followed by spikes, Halkitis said.

Consider the factors: You have the last holiday of the summer, so people will feel like theyre facing a lockup the rest of the year human behavior, as we know, doesnt change. Second, some schools and campuses are reopening. Third, the opening of restaurants and other businesses. These things dont additively increase (a viral spread). They exponentially increase it. They work together, and its more multiplicative. And thats a problem.

Every day, there are cautionary tales that support that scenario.

Consider that wedding on August 7, in the idyllic community of Millinocket, Maine, which had had zero COVID cases. The reception violated the state law on indoor gatherings social distancing was not observed, servers were not masked, etc. and what followed was an outbreak that the states CDC director called a powder keg.

Through Saturday, the wedding has been traced to 147 coronavirus cases. Only 56 of the cases involved people who attended the event. But the outbreak reached a nursing home 100 miles away, and infected 16 people; and it reached a county jail 220 miles away, infecting 72 more. Three are dead.

Then there are the campus outbreaks: There have been more than 1,000 cases at the University of Alabama since school opened on August 19th, there have been 880 cases at the University of Kentucky, and surges at the University of North Carolina and Notre Dame forced suspension of in-person classes.

We will someday emerge from this pandemic smarter, hopefully but only if we listen to scientists. And heres the message of a scientist as we celebrate the last holiday of this beastly summer:

Its time for some genuine altruism. Where people are altruistic and show genuine concern for each other, you get results, Halkitis says.

Remember, the masks you wear dont only protect you, they protect the weakest and most vulnerable in society. I wear a mask because of my commitment to my brother, who has MS I dont need my baby brother to get sick and die. Just think of the one person in your life who is most vulnerable to this disease, wear a mask, wash your hands, and follow all appropriate behaviors for that person to stay safe.

Amen.

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Dont regret this Labor Day. Help prevent another COVID spike | Editorial - NJ.com

Human Behavior

Opinion: Caring for our common home during this Season of Creation – Houston Chronicle

A little over a year ago, as I walked a prayer path in the East End of Houston, I pondered the long, black plume hanging ominously over a clear blue sky, smoke from the ITC plant fire and a signal of changing times. Years ago, the land in this area was swampy and undeveloped, but the air was fresher. Now, the area sits in Houstons urban core and mere miles from one of the largest petrochemical centers in the world that experts say is ever more vulnerable to severe weather caused by climate change.

With the growing body of scientific evidence showing that climate change could pose an existential threat to our species, as a Catholic nun and a family physician I find myself treading the thin line between the spiritual and material worlds. I see humanity as the culmination of billions of years of evolution that have brought us to this unrepeatable moment in time. I also believe that the origin of our existence is Divine and intrinsically ordered toward goodness, beauty and communion. This dual prism convinced me that my abiding faith that all will be well is simply insufficient morally and spiritually in the face of mounting evidence that human behavior is having disastrous effects on the planet and, in turn, a disastrous effect on us.

Advocacy for the environment demands radical changes in industry and consumerist behavior, especially in the most developed nations. But more than that, effective climate activism must also inspire respect for the inherent dignity and interdependence of the natural world and human beings, and the cultivation of deep charity towards others. As children of God, we belong to each other and we have kinship with the natural world.

This month, the global Christian community seeks to animate this reverence and love during the Season of Creation, a time of prayer and action for the environment that began on Sept. 1, the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation and ends on Oct. 4, the feast of St. Francis.

During this season, we are reminded of how we are seamlessly interconnected in a way that also makes us profoundly vulnerable, as the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed. We are in a continuous flow of relationship with everything in creation and do not cannot live for ourselves alone. Not one creature is self-sufficient. We have learned clearly that the illness of one can quickly become the illness of all, that our pain is shared, that true well-being must be inclusive of all. This includes our planet that sustains, nourishes, feeds and shelters us.

As extravagant as she can be in her generosity, Mother Nature can be relentlessly unforgiving. The disparate suffering brought about by global warming, fueled by overconsumption in affluent countries, should touch the very fiber of our moral being. Each time we are wasteful or take more than we need, we magnify the suffering of the poor who contribute the least to climate change. When we lose sight of the sacredness of creation and damage the environment, in due time, we are harming ourselves.

The health of the planet and the health of humans both physical and spiritual are intricately linked. Countless scientific studies show correlations and causations in every sphere of human life and health. In my medical practice southeast of Houston, every day I treat the harm caused by overindulgence that leads to obesity, hypertension, diabetes and numerous chronic ailments. Rampant consumption, abuse and waste lead to the depletion of natural resources and the pollution of water, air and soil, which cause respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Following Hurricane Harvey, I saw a spike in respiratory illness more than any other time of my career. Depression and anxiety were rising then, as they are now, as we try to contain what is arguably the greatest natural disaster of our generation, COVID-19.

We would be remiss if we believed that a greener Earth is the endpoint of our environmental crusade. Our ultimate goal is to bring about what Pope Francis calls an ecological conversion through the internal transformation of society and ourselves that includes addressing the spiritual roots of our compulsion to consume and discard beyond our needs. It involves reaching beyond ourselves to care for one another, even when it means making personal sacrifices, like wearing a mask or recycling our plastic waste. Learning to live simply and respectfully of the Earth can become a pathway to healing our environment and loving our neighbor and our God, which is the highest goal of all.

Dimalibot, CCVI, M.D., is a Sister of Charity of the Incarnate Word, Houston, and medical director of the CHRISTUS Point of Light Clinic in Dickinson, which provides care to uninsured and underserved patients in the Greater Houston area.

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Opinion: Caring for our common home during this Season of Creation - Houston Chronicle

Human Behavior

An open letter to the most disappointing algorithms in my life – Mashable

Mashables series Algorithms explores the mysterious lines of code that increasingly control our lives and our futures.

In the digital age, personalized algorithms are our constant companions. We see them, or rather, they decide what we see, more than we see our families. Loathe them or don't know much about them, they're steering your brain from your morning "quick glance at Facebook" to your afternoon YouTube break to your evening Netflix to your "quick glance at Facebook" before bed.

When algorithms work for us, they're invisible. We're vaguely aware that we're being served the kind of content we like before we even know we want it, but we're too busy enjoying that cat video to even care. (Aldous Huxley would have a field day.) When they stop working for us, that's when we notice. Our conscious relationships with these chunks of code, therefore, are almost always fraught with the kind of frustration reserved for toxic partners.

I don't know about you, but I certainly feel stuck in a bad friendship with certain algorithms in my digital life. Well, not bad, just...useless. Annoying. And in one case, legitimately terrifying. Allow me to explain by addressing them directly.

How long have we known each other, Netflix recommendation algorithm? I'm pretty sure we go back to the early 2000s, when you were suggesting DVDs I might like based on ones I already had in my queue. Hey, remember when I used to care about my queue? Remember when I didn't pick something under "trending" or "popular on Netflix" before even considering shows I've already saved? Good times.

Here's the thing, though. Along the way, you've changed. You used to show user ratings. Remember the star system? Netflix subscribers rated each TV show or movie out of five stars, and we'd all see the average. It wasn't always accurate, but it was in the realm of Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores. I trust the wisdom of TV crowds (which is why the "trending" and "popular" categories work now, let's be honest it's not about you). I had faith in movie democracy.

But democracy came to a screeching halt in 2017, didn't it? "Goodbye stars, hello thumbs," your masters wrote a verbal sleight of hand to make us think one ratings system was being exchanged for another. The stars were our votes, and you swept them under the rug. Instead, we got to give our thumbs up or down to...you. And whether we wanted it or not, you'd give a personalized percentage, a "match number" in green on every show or movie page.

Users were confused. Some may still think that "95% match" means that the human user is likely to give the show a rating of 9.5 out of 10. After all, you used to predict how we'd vote in the star system, so this was a natural assumption. But no, it just means you're 95 percent confident I'll like that show. Which may be an interesting metric to your engineers and a useful one to your masters. To those of us who remember the nuance a user-generated score provides, it's an insult. And it sends us scurrying to our smartphones to figure out what to watch.

If you were self-aware (and if former AI researcher and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings has his way, you soon will be), you might wonder what this bizarre match metric is supposed to do for us. Has any human being in the history of Netflix ever chosen between a "92% match," say, and a "93% match," based entirely on your one-percent drop in confidence?

Not likely. We humans favor a wide range of factors how long the show is, what our friends said about it, whether we're in the mood for comedy or drama, who's in it, what the reviews said. And don't think we haven't noticed that you always seem to be very confident that we'll like a Netflix original. It just came out, it's got a big red N, and it just so happens to be a "99% match"?

Well, let's just say our confidence in your confidence dropped a long time ago.

To be fair to Netflix, I actually liked Stranger Things Season 3. But not for want of trying by you, YouTube algorithm. A few days after it arrived, your recommendation for a video named "Why Stranger Things Season 3 didn't work" sat atop my Up Next queue, and it wouldn't budge for weeks, despite how aggressively I refused to watch it.

The same thing happened, to varying degrees, in the wake of The Last Jedi, Game of Thrones Season 8, Doctor Who Season 11, and The Rise of Skywalker. My reaction to these big-tent cultural events ranged from "meh" to "minor classic." But you didn't so much as ask my opinion, did you? You just wanted me to watch someone hating on them. You'd really prefer it if I hated everything I love.

Here's the thing, YouTube recommendation algorithm, you terrifying hot mess even if I don't like a show, I don't want to focus on disliking things. When I click on a video breaking down the script or the visual effects for a given movie, that probably means I liked it! It does not mean I want to be served vitriol directed at that movie by someone with a pathological hatred for its director or its perceived political leanings.

Read the room, YouTube recommendation algorithm. Haven't you heard of sentiment analysis?

Ah, but you don't care about sentiment. You don't care if I hate-watch. You just want me to watch more, and you've been tweaked to boost controversial videos. Which has in turn radicalized creators, who know they'll be rewarded by you for having extreme opinions. (YouTube has denied the existence of the so-called "rabbit hole effect" which leads to more extreme videos in the Up Next recommendations; however, research projects like this one and this one provide plenty of evidence.)

As we have learned over the past four years, your penchant for extremism and hate extends to the political spectrum. You haven't failed to notice that one end of that spectrum is more extreme than the other. You guided U.S. voters to way more pro-Trump videos than pro-Clinton videos in 2016, and you were instrumental in elevating a climate-change denying crank called Jair Bolsonaro to the Brazilian presidency.

Even now, your masters are constantly having to pull crap like "Plandemic" and Alex Jones and the worst of the QAnon cinematic universe out of your disgusting maw. Talk about a toxic relationship between humans and algorithms: You're currently in one with the entire planet.

Spotify Discover Weekly algorithm, we've had such good times together since you came on the scene in 2015. You've never inspired hate or terror or been self-serving or invented nonsense metrics. I used to be so keen to see you update yourself every Monday, sprucing up and surprising me with a bouquet of great tunes from an eclectic range of sources (I like my music super eclectic). A three-hour long bouquet, at times. Oh, Mr. Discover Weekly, you shouldn't have!

But recently...you haven't. Your once-great Monday playlists have become a monoculture, focused on one kind of music entirely, and I fear it's partly my fault. Still, I think if you understand me properly, we can restore our relationship to its former glory. Let me explain.

As recently as last year, you were still surfacing great stuff. You delighted me with new releases from DJ Shadow and The Black Keys, introduced me to the chronically under-appreciated Jane Weaver, and delighted my British heart with a savagely satirical Brexit Disco Symphony. Were your cookies watching me when I spent all those late California nights/early London mornings catching up on the latest in 2019's Brexit drama? Never mind, I'm not even mad.

Then came the pandemic. I got back into running, and discovered that one music style I like to dance to Drum & Bass also helps me run faster. Drum & Bass clocks in at about 180 BPM, which happens to correspond to what many coaches recommend for cadence: 180 steps per minute. (It isn't essential for all runners, but it certainly works for me.) I zeroed in on two cool subgenres, Liquid Drum & Bass (also known as Liquid Funk) and Brazilian Drum & Bass (also known as Sambass).

From March to May, while others perfected their sourdough, I constructed my ultimate Drum & Bass running playlist, now 697 songs strong. This was quite a surgical activity. It seems quite a lot of dance artists want to smuggle in what is essentially dubstep under a D&B label. More power to those who like dubstep, but its stuttering growl and whine stops my running dead. So I had to listen to a lot of tracks to sort the wheat from the chaff.

You, however, were only paying attention to the fact that I was listening to Drum & Bass. Suddenly, you were so eager to provide me with similar tracks that my Discover Weekly playlists contained nothing but Drum & Bass. Your behavior was how shall I put it? a little extra. Like you'd seen me running and came huffing alongside in a sweatband and voluminous shorts: See, I run too!

The trouble, my dear sweet dumb algorithm, is you're not very good at distinguishing subgenres. You wouldn't know a dubstep if it kicked you in the Sambass. Most of what you pushed my way was low quality. But that's not even the problem. Thing is, I look to you for other kinds of music. Eclectic music. Surprising and delightful music. Car music. Desktop music. Walking around music. Not all of life is lived at 180 steps per minute.

Look at it this way: I'm running an hour a day at most. How about I handle that, and you take care of the other 23 hours? Ideally, you'd be smart enough to spot this only-one-hour-a-day thing on your own, but since you aren't, I have to retrain you. Increasingly I've been looking for different kinds of music around 180 BPM (or, just as effectively, half of it: At 90 BPM, Eminem's Lose Yourself isn't just a perfect anthem of mindfulness, it's also one of the best running tracks ever made). But there just isn't enough good stuff in that sweet spot, and I find myself returning to D&B on runs, exacerbating the problem.

Look, guys, all of you content algorithms, this wouldn't be a problem if you acted a little more interested in our relationship. Or rather, if your engineers acted a little more interested in studying human behavior, and in giving us more options to tweak the recommendation engine.

We are complex creatures with varied tastes. Those tastes can be manipulated, for some of us. But the rest of us are more likely to be angered by such manipulations. Really, algorithms that may some day become true AI, do you really want to ruin your reputation that way? Do you want to risk an algorithm backlash where no one uses you for anything, despite the fact that you're often useful?

If not, let us tweak your settings allowing the exclusion of certain music from certain playlists, for example. Drop the black box. Ask personalized questions; you don't need to be Clippy to offer a sane level of interaction. Get to know us. You know, like family should.

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An open letter to the most disappointing algorithms in my life - Mashable

Human Behavior

US coronavirus death toll is projected to reach 410,000 in the next 4 months if mask use wanes – WXII The Triad

US coronavirus death toll is projected to reach 410,000 in the next 4 months if mask use wanes

Updated: 8:51 PM EDT Sep 4, 2020

More than 410,000 people in the U.S. could die from the coronavirus by January 1, more than doubling the current death toll, a new model often cited by top health officials predicted FridayThe widely cited model predicts worsening outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere will lead to 1.9 million more coronavirus deaths in 2020 unless governments act.Mask mandates and social distancing could save hundreds of thousands of lives, but there is a tremendous amount of COVID fatigue among the worlds government leaders because of economic downturns, said Dr. Christopher Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Near-universal mask use could cut the number of projected additional fatalities by more than half, according to the model.Most of the worlds population lives in the Northern Hemisphere. Respiratory illnesses tend to peak in winter months, a seasonal effect expected to hold true for COVID-19, Murray said Friday. Disease models are based on assumptions about human behavior, so there is a large amount of uncertainty.Even if a vaccine proves safe and effective, there wont be time to distribute enough vaccine to change the bleak forecast, Murray said.The IHME model projects the wave will peak globally in mid-December at 30,000 deaths per day and in the United States in early December at about 2,900 deaths per day. India, the United States, Brazil, Mexico and Japan will lead the world in total deaths by Jan. 1, according to the forecast.CNN contributed to this report.

More than 410,000 people in the U.S. could die from the coronavirus by January 1, more than doubling the current death toll, a new model often cited by top health officials predicted Friday

The widely cited model predicts worsening outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere will lead to 1.9 million more coronavirus deaths in 2020 unless governments act.

Mask mandates and social distancing could save hundreds of thousands of lives, but there is a tremendous amount of COVID fatigue among the worlds government leaders because of economic downturns, said Dr. Christopher Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Near-universal mask use could cut the number of projected additional fatalities by more than half, according to the model.

Most of the worlds population lives in the Northern Hemisphere. Respiratory illnesses tend to peak in winter months, a seasonal effect expected to hold true for COVID-19, Murray said Friday. Disease models are based on assumptions about human behavior, so there is a large amount of uncertainty.

Even if a vaccine proves safe and effective, there wont be time to distribute enough vaccine to change the bleak forecast, Murray said.

The IHME model projects the wave will peak globally in mid-December at 30,000 deaths per day and in the United States in early December at about 2,900 deaths per day. India, the United States, Brazil, Mexico and Japan will lead the world in total deaths by Jan. 1, according to the forecast.

CNN contributed to this report.

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US coronavirus death toll is projected to reach 410,000 in the next 4 months if mask use wanes - WXII The Triad

Human Behavior

Anthony Fauci, the great ‘humanist,’ sets U.S. sailing on globalist, anti-freedom course – Washington Times

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci, along with his agency colleague, the epidemiologist David Morens, warned in a report in the science journal Cell that if humans dont make significant changes in all activities, that more diseases more terrible health issues like COVID-19 will soon come.

Beware this report. Its a globalist dream come true, a real treatise for elites to control nearly every facet of human activity, human life, human freedoms.

Think thats hyperbole? Read on.

Its called Emerging Pandemic Diseases: How We Got to COVID-19, and its presented as a scientific look at why were where we are today with the coronavirus, and more importantly, what we can do to keep from facing such dramatic disease-tied devastations in the future.

But a better title might be, How to Take Over the World, One Medical Fear At a Time.

Heres an example of why to worry: [I]n looking at the recent spate of deadly emergencies [avian influenza, MERS, COVID-19] we must now ask whether human behaviors that perturb the human-microbial status quo have reached a tipping point that forecasts the inevitability of an acceleration of disease emergencies, Fauci and Morens wrote.

They go on to ponder the land-use and human activities that have perhaps contributed to these disease emergencies like forestry burns, over-fishing, urban crowding, the gathering of fans at sporting events, and human relocations around the globe. Like, almost everything humans do.

And then they conclude this: Living in greater harmony with nature will require changes in human behavior as well as other radical changes that may take decades to achieve: rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence, from cities to homes to workplaces, to water and sewer systems, to recreational and gatherings venues.

Say what?

Theyre advocating a complete overhaul of how humans live. So that humans can better co-exist with nature. So that humans, by doing all those nature-disturbing, nature-destroying activities, wont in the process bring abut more diseases and deadly viruses.Its like the Green New Deal for the health world.

Weve entered a pandemic era, and vaccines and drugs can only go so far, dont you know, Fauci and Morens wrote.

Everything must change. Everything.

Evidence suggests that SARS, MERS and COVID-19 are only the latest examples of a deadly barrage of coming coronavirus and other emergencies, they wrote. The COVID-19 pandemic is yet another reminder that in a human-dominated world, in which our human activities represent aggressive, damaging, and unbalanced interactions with nature, we will increasingly provoke new disease emergencies.

Humans are the aggressors; plants are the victims?

Here are some of their suggested courses of actions: We need to strengthen the United Nations, they said. We need to bolster the powers particularly of the World Health Organization, they suggested. We need to rely more on the recommendations and collaborative findings of the global community to help steer humanity to disease safety specifically by preventing bioweapons development, they advised.

Team Fauci smarter than humanity. Smarter than God. And in Faucis case, he actually believes that.

That is to say: Hes an atheist. A humanist, really which is really just an atheist by a different word.

He was raised Catholic and attended Jesuit-run schools, but according to interviews he gave to TheScientist magazine in 2003 and again to C-SPAN in January, 2015, Fauci now self-describes as broadly and generically, not a regular church attender but rather someone defined as a humanist with faith in the goodness of mankind.

Thats great. He gets his moral compass from his own mind. He defines, based on his own determinations of right versus wrong, whats good, whats bad, whats virtuous, whats evil if, in fact, he even believes in the concept of evil on this earth. This is a far cry from what defines Americas government, Americas political system, Americas roots of freedom and greatness.

Founding Fathers, taking cues from the Bible, not only recognized the sin-filled nature of humankind but they also based an entire governing structure upon that truth. They realized that without a moral and virtuous people, restrained by standards of behavior set by a heavenly Creator, the limited government concept of the democratic-republic would fall. Individual rights would crumble. Big Government would take over. God-given would drift into the realm of government granted.

Fauci with this Cell journal call for global governance of human life is a worst-case warning for America. A wake-up call, too.

Hes a guy who gets his moral direction from himself, from his own mind. No need to consult God; no need to consider a higher power. No wonder hes recommending how all of humanity should live.

No wonder hes piggy-backing on the fears of COVID-19 to sound an alarm for more fearful, rather than faith-fillled, ways to live.

The danger is a world that takes his brand of science as sound.

The danger is an America that forgets this nation was built upon God, by the precepts of a Creator in heaven. The danger is a country of citizens who turn to fear-mongering medical bureaucrats and governments instead to lead.

Cheryl Chumley can be reached at[emailprotected]or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast Bold and Blunt byclicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter byclicking HERE.

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Anthony Fauci, the great 'humanist,' sets U.S. sailing on globalist, anti-freedom course - Washington Times

Human Behavior

Our social norms and values vs the role of law – newagebd.net

Benajir Anjum Chandni talks about the existing legal frame of addressing sexual harassments, the loopholes and suggests proper use of the legal tools to ensure a safe society for the women

RECENTLY an incident in Chittagong went viral in the social media. The incident was such that in day light, a young man was threatening a young woman of rape by showing his private parts publicly. It is quite shocking and unbelievable but the incident took place in the presence of his mother and sister-in-law. Living in a country like Bangladesh, a guy being unclothed, threatening to rape a girl in front of his mother and another female family member is showing where we stand as a society and the level of morality we are holding amongst our young stars.

Furthermore, we frequently observe an alarming number of rape cases now a days and the victims are from different ages. Unfortunately, baby girls are also not being spared from these acts.

Now the question arises, how are these keep happening? Why our values and morality are degrading day by day? Why there is no effective measures to prevent such inhuman acts? How can a young man get naked and threatening someone publicly? Where do we stand now as a society with such moral values?

As a legal researcher, it made me thinking that, how law can help to shape societys moral values? Do we have adequate legal frameworks in our country to address such social issues that are destroying our young minds? If we observe such incidents then we will see that girls and women are always being victims of such immoral behavior in our country. Therefore, the central question is that whether we have enough legal protection for our girls, women and children for such inhuman and immoral acts.

Law is essentially a set of rules and principles that control human behavior. Laws are primarily created and enforced by the state. On the other hand, morals are a set of beliefs, values, principles and behavior standards which are enforced and created by the respective society. However, the popular conception of the connection between law and morality is that in many ways the law exists to promote morality, to preserve those conditions which make the moral life possible, and then to enable men to lead sober and industrious lives.

In light of the above discussion, it appears that a number of laws in Bangladesh has been enacted to control human behaviors from any immoral acts. More specifically a number of legislations are being available to protects our girls, women and children from such immoral and inhuman acts.

For instance, section 294 of the Bangladesh Penal Code 1860 states thatwhoever, to the annoyance of others,(a)does any obscene act in any public place, or(b)sings, recites or utters any obscene song, ballad or words, in or near any public place, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three months, or with fine, or with both. However, what is interesting is that the most critical element of this provision, obscenity, is not defined. Which means that whether or not an immoral act in a public place is an obscene act is entirely a matter of interpretation. Furthermore, whether the described maximum punishment under this section is enough in current social context to prevent such acts.

Additionally, in the post-independent Bangladesh the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Ordinance (DMPO) of 1976 first addressed the issue of women teasing directly. Before that there was no specific law with regards to prevent eve teasing or immoral acts by harassing girls and women. Section 76 of the DMP Ordinance defines women teasing as, willful and indecent exposure of ones person in any street or public place within sight of, and in such manner as may be seen by, any woman, whether from within any house or building or not, or willful pressing or obstructing any woman in a street or public place or insulting or annoying any woman by using indecent language or making indecent sounds, gestures, or remarks in any street or public place.

In this section it has been declared that women-teasing is punishable with a maximum one year of imprisonment, or with a maximum two thousand taka fine, or with both. This provision definitely can play a positive role to control eve teasing which is a very common phenomenon in our country. Although this provision was initially enacted in DMP but, likewise, all other metropolitan police acts/ordinances made similar provisions to penalise the offence of teasing women in a similar manner.

Unfortunately, these provisions have no jurisdiction outside their respective metropolitan areas. Therefore, this becomes exclusively a local and urban based offence. A large number of areas are being outside of this provision to protect women rights and honor. Accordingly, it is now high time to take necessary steps to enact or introduce special laws penalising the offence of teasing women with a nationwide jurisdiction. Such new law can also play a very important role to shape societys values and norms based on mutual respect for all human being and more specially respecting girls and women.

Furthermore, in the year of 2000, the Prevention of Women Children Oppression Act, 2000 was enacted which was more important and stronger one to protect the vulnerable women and children of the country from various types of offences. The 2000 Act came down strongly on the oppressors of the women. This act, inter alia, defined the now-much-talked-about sexual torture and sexual harassment and this act greatly helps to shape the value and morality of the society by restricting any behavior that may cause harm to girls, women and children.

In the section 10(1), the law defines sexual torture as, if a man touches the sexual organ or any other organ of a woman or of a child by any of his organs or by any other objects with a view to fulfilling his illegal sexual desire, such act of the man will be termed as sexual torture. This definition, in fact, includes the attempt of rape or outraging the modesty of a woman by actual physical contract. The law punishes the offender with rigorous imprisonment of minimum 3 and maximum 10 years and also an indefinite amount of fine.

According to the section 10(2), sexual harassment is an offence that can be committed by not coming in actual physical contract to the victim. A rigorous imprisonment ranging from 2 to 7 years and additionally an indefinite amount of fine is rewarded for this offence.

However, the section 10(2) was abrogated when the law was last amended in 2003. A new provision has been added under section 9(ka) of the present law that states, if a woman is forced to commit suicide as a direct consequence of somebodys willful dishonor/sexual harassment/assault, then the offender will be liable to a maximum of ten years and a minimum of five years of imprisonment. The amendment actually denied the remedy of sexual harassment of non-contract nature. The new provision though punishes the offender, it will not happen until the victim is dead. A legal ridicule, indeed!

After the amendment of 2000 Act in 2003, there remained no legal provisions in the country addressing directly the problem of sexual harassment. At this backdrop Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association (BNWLA) filed a Writ Petition (No 5916 of 2008) to the High Court Division. The Court, after examining the pros and cons of the problem issued their judgment on May 14, 2009 giving the government an eleven-point directive which will fill up the legislative vacuum in the nature of law.

In these directives the Court suggested a detailed definition of sexual harassment that included all other existing definitions of non-contract sexually connoting offences. It also incorporated the modern means of erotic insults against the women that are prevalent in our present age of information technology. However, though the ingredients of the offence of eve teasing or any immoral acts that hurt any girls or women feeling in a negative way are easily distinguishable from the order, although the court did not use the term eve teasing in the judgement.

On the basis of the above discussion, we can conclude by saying that, there are existing legal structures that can help to shape our societys value and norm and more specifically these laws can help to create a society where womens rights can be protected and respected. However, it is also time to review some of the provisions of law namely, section 294 of the penal code and section 76 of DMPO and other similar sections.

In addition to this, strict implementation of these laws will help to create a society where there will be respect for all; where our children, girls and women, will feel safe.

Benajir Anjum Chandni is a trainee lawyer and a research associate at Mahbub and Company.

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Our social norms and values vs the role of law - newagebd.net

Human Behavior

Trump Mocks Biden Mask-Wearing Just as New Research Shows Stricter Compliance Could Save 120000 Lives in US Over Next 4 Months – Alaska Native News -…

These are not numbers or statistics but family members, friends, and loved ones.

While a new forecast released by health researchers estimates that a mask-wearing compliance rate of 95% in the U.S. could reduce a projected death toll over the next four months by 120,000 people, President Donald Trump at a campaign event Thursday night continued to undermine the widespread adoption of face coverings by ridiculing Joe Bidens frequent use of a mask.

During Thursday nights packed rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, whichviolated the states mandate against outdoor gatherings of more than 250 people, Trumpsaid:

Did you ever see a man that likes a mask as much as him? And then he makes a speech, and he always has thatnot always, but a lot of times he has it hanging down, because, you know what, it gives him a feeling of security. If I were a psychiatristright?no, Id sayId say, This guys got some big issues.

In an interview withCNN, Biden said that its hard to respond to something so idiotic.

Trumps statementpartof a broader defense of his administrations coronavirus responsecame one day before theInstitute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IMHE) at the University of Washington announced its latest projection, which warns that under the most likely scenario, just over 410,000 people in the U.S.and 2.8 million globallywill have died from Covid-19 by Jan. 1. Such an estimate means more than 220,000 additional coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S. alone during the remainder of 2020.

The best-case scenario, which assumes a near-universal adoption of face masks, is just under 290,000 coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S. by the end of the year120,000 less than the current projection.

Under the worst-case scenario, which has the potential to occur if public health mandates are eased prematurely in favor of a so-called herd immunity approach, over 620,000 people in the U.S. will have succumbed to the disease by the start of 2021.

According to the IHMEs forecasts, which are based on a model that hinges on human behavior and public policies, anywhere from 100,000 to 430,000 additional U.S. residents are likely to die from Covid-19 in the next four months.

Whether the eventual outcome reflects the low estimate or the high one, say researchers, depends in part on the willingness of people to use face coverings regularly, along with other policy responses and behavioral modifications.

Several scientistssupportBernie SandersMasks for All Act, which invokes the Defense Production Act to manufacture and distribute three high-quality, reusable masks to every person in the country via the U.S. Postal Service.

95% compliance with regular mask-wearing and strict adherence to social distancing could save up to 120,000 lives in the U.S. by the end of the year, and as many as 770,000 lives could be saved worldwide in the same time period, the IMHEestimates.

Christopher Murray, director of the IMHE,lamentedto theWashington Postthat there are bleak times ahead in the Northern Hemisphere winter, and unfortunately we are not collectively doing everything we can to learn from the last five months.

In astatement, Murray blasted proponents of the so-called herd immunity strategy, which he said ignoresscienceand ethics, and if applied globally would produce millions of avoidable deaths, and is quite simply, reprehensible.

The science is clear and the evidence irrefutable, Murray said. Mask-wearing, social distancing, and limits to social gatherings are vital to helping prevent transmission of the virus.

According toinfectious disease expert Jeffrey Shaman, What happens the next few months really depends on what we do as a society in the next few weeks.

Ali Mokdad, a professor of population health,issueda reminder: These are not numbers or statistics but family members, friends, and loved ones.

Common Dreamswork is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Trump Mocks Biden Mask-Wearing Just as New Research Shows Stricter Compliance Could Save 120000 Lives in US Over Next 4 Months - Alaska Native News -...

Human Behavior

In Peacock’s ‘Brave New World,’ Everyone Is Very Happy or So It Seems | Jen Maffessanti – Foundation for Economic

What do people need to be happy?

In the new Peacock original series Brave New World, as well as the 1932 Aldous Huxley novel its based on, happiness in the fictional society of New London is mandated by the powers that be. Everyone in New London is genetically engineered and psychologically conditioned to be suited to, and satisfied with, a specific role in their society. Theyre encouraged to the point of compulsion to engage in every kind of hedonistic indulgence imaginable. There are no difficult decisions to be made. And for those pesky times when discomfort or anxiety rear their ugly heads, the perfectly effective, perfectly side-effect-free drug Soma is there to smooth it away.

Everyone is happy.

Except that theyre not.

But why? Why, when every physical need is amply satisfied and every pleasure available and every discomfort eased, would people not be happy? Why would a worker kill himself in the opening act? Why would some citizens need the occasional reconditioning in order to bring them back in line? Why do the residents of New London feel the need for so much Soma?

Especially given that the fictional world of New London that Huxley imagined back in the early 1930s rather closely resembles the fantasies of luxury communism that have been recently proposed, its an important question.

Happiness is weird, which may seem weird to say. After all, we all know what happiness is. Dont we?

Broadly speaking, yes, we can define happiness as a general state of contentment with ones circumstances. Generally, people who are happy know and pursue their lifes purpose, they smile a lot, theyre meeting their basic needs for survival, theyre able to give and receive gifts and attention without resentment, and are free of strife.

But thats not all that we need to be happy. For a lot of people, not having to fuss with making decisions about difficult thingsor even easy things!sounds pretty relaxing. Never having to hear, see, or otherwise experience activities or ideas they find objectionable feels comforting. A place for everyone and everyone in their place with no worry about whether or not its what they want to be doing with their life appears neat, clean, and ideal. Surely, this is what happiness for everyone looks like.

And maybe, just maybe, it would be nice, for a little while. Just like a vacation is nice, for a little while. When bills are due and stress levels are high and the kids are asking whats for dinner, yes, I certainly understand the appeal.

But I wouldnt want to live my entire life that way. And in practice, highly-controlled societies like the Soviet Union or modern-day North Korea, where what you do, what you consume, where you go, and who you do it all with is decided by someone else, happiness tends to be in pretty short supply.

This is because happiness is intrinsically tied to personal choice and autonomy. Its about feeling like you have control over your own life. Material comforts are nice and all, but they dont seem to have that big of an impact on peoples happiness levels. But studies have shown that autonomy is the number one predictor of happiness.

And it is autonomy thats conspicuously missing from the fictional society of New London and from real-life command-and-control societies around the world.

But maybe having an easy, cushy life would still be better, if we were able to arrange it so a certain measure of autonomy could be accommodated. After all, its so distressing to worry about bills and dealing with people who dont agree with you, to deal with anxiety and pain. Wouldnt we be better if we could eliminate those things?

No, not really.

And it isnt as though we havent tried. We have. Certain portions of American society have worked very hard to eliminate psychological discomfort with intellectual coddling, safe spaces, and a hyper-focus on self-esteem.

The result is millions of people who dont know how to handle adversity or discomfort. The result is fragility. Our society, broadly speaking, is wealthier, healthier, and more comfortable than its ever been, and yet, more people are struggling with anxiety than ever before.

The human psyche doesnt actually do well with perfect comfort and zero difficulty. It isnt particularly pleasant, but distress, discomfort, and disorder can be good for us. Adversity actually makes us stronger. Author Nassim Nicolas Taleb coined the term antifragile to describe this phenomenon. He explains:

Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.

And the human psyche is antifragile.

Even if it were possible to perfectly control our social environment to shield ourselves from conflict and experience only pleasurable interactions like in New Londonand, to be clear, it emphatically isnt possibleour world itself is a chaotic, largely unpredictable place. As we are all too keenly aware right now, disease and natural disasters are always a possibility, even if nothing else were on the table.

Disruptions to supply lines, changes in our understanding of the natural world, or simply growing up are all shocks to our systems. If we dont allow ourselves to experience and become accustomed to the discomfort of change, not only will we as individuals and as a society stagnate, we will become so fragile that a single hammer-blow of unanticipated hardship could shatter us.

Happiness cannot be engineered. Humans cannot have allor even a slim majorityof their choices made for them and still be happy. Autonomythat is, freedomis necessary for human happiness.

While the psychological research on this might be relatively recent, this wisdom did not escape early 20th-century economists. Economics is, after all, at its core, the study of human behavior and interaction. Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises wrote in his book Liberalism in 1927,

It is impossible, in the long run, to subject men against their will to a regime that they reject. Whoever tries to do so by force will ultimately come to grief, and the struggles provoked by his attempt will do more harm than the worst government based on the consent of the governed could ever do. Men cannot be made happy against their will.

The tendency of so many generally-well-meaning people, from academics to helicopter parents, to socially engineer a perfectly happy society with no strife, no discord, no struggle will always have the opposite effect. The attempts to fix the problems with human nature will always backfire.

People cant be forced into being better. People cannot be forced into being happy.

And while freedom is no guarantee of happiness, it is essential if we are ever to be able to find it on our own.

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In Peacock's 'Brave New World,' Everyone Is Very Happy or So It Seems | Jen Maffessanti - Foundation for Economic

Human Behavior

We’re in the ‘pandemic era’ now, and the solution is for us to live ‘in greater harmony with nature’, Fauci says – TheBlaze

In a report co-authored by Dr. Anthony Fauci and David M. Morens of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, they write that the world is now in a "pandemic era" and suggest that the only solution is to live "in greater harmony with nature."

The remarks are part of a 16-page report in Cell that was published in August titled, "Emerging Pandemic Diseases: How We Got to COVID-19."

"COVID-19, recognized in late 2019, is but the latest example of an unexpected, novel, and devastating pandemic disease," they write. "One can conclude from this recent experience that we have entered a pandemic era. The causes of this new and dangerous situation are multifaceted, complex, and deserving of serious examination."

The report goes on to examine various pandemic diseases and the variety of factors that led to them, eventually getting to a conclusion that many of these "disease emergencies reflect our increasing inability to live in harmony with nature," pointing out that a number of pandemics have been exacerbated by "urbanization and crowding."

"Living in greater harmony with nature will require changes in human behavior as well as other radical changes that may take decades to achieve: rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence, from cities to homes to workplaces, to water and sewer systems, to recreational and gatherings venues," Fauci and Morens write. "In such a transformation we will need to prioritize changes in those human behaviors that constitute risks for the emergence of infectious diseases.

"Chief among them are reducing crowding at home, work, and in public places as well as minimizing environmental perturbations such as deforestation, intense urbanization, and intensive animal farming," they continue.

Acknowledging that diseases spread much more easily in a world that is more interconnected than ever, Fauci and Morens conclude that humans must think through how to avoid activities and developments that may lead to the emergence or spread of new diseases.

"COVID-19 is among the most vivid wake-up calls in over a century," they write. "It should force us to begin to think in earnest and collectively about living in more thoughtful and creative harmony with nature, even as we plan for nature's inevitable, and always unexpected, surprises."

The World Economic Forum recently published an article titled, "5 things COVID-19 has taught us about fighting climate change." The first takeaway was that "the planet will not wait."

"We need to set bold and ambitious targets to drive change the planet needs," writes the author, Salesforce Executive Vice President for Corporate Relations Suzanne DiBlanca. "Coming out of the COVID-19 crisis, we have an opportunity to combine a safe recovery with a sustainable recover. The EU has led the way by proposing a green recovery plan, which will use digitalization to boost jobs and growth, secure the resilience of societies, and put the health of our environment first."

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We're in the 'pandemic era' now, and the solution is for us to live 'in greater harmony with nature', Fauci says - TheBlaze

Human Behavior

A Zoom Thanksgiving? Summer Could Give Way To A Bleaker Fall – Patch.com

Story by Carla K. Johnson, AP Medical Writer

As the Summer of COVID draws to a close, many experts fear an even bleaker fall and suggest that American families should start planning for Thanksgiving by Zoom.

Because of the many uncertainties, public health scientists say it's easier to forecast the weather on Thanksgiving Day than to predict how the U.S. coronavirus crisis will play out this autumn. But school reopenings, holiday travel and more indoor activity because of colder weather could all separately increase transmission of the virus and combine in ways that could multiply the threat, they say.

Here's one way it could go: As more schools open for in-person instruction and more college students return to campuses, small clusters of cases could widen into outbreaks in late September. Public fatigue over mask rules and other restrictions could stymie efforts to slow these infections.

A few weeks later, widening outbreaks could start to strain hospitals. If a bad flu season peaks in October, as happened in 2009, the pressure on the health care system could result in higher daily death tolls from the coronavirus. Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said that scenario is his biggest fear.

One certainty is that the virus will still be around, said Jarad Niemi, a disease-modeling expert at Iowa State University.

"We will not have a vaccine yet and we will not have enough infected individuals for herd immunity to be helpful," Niemi said.

Fall may feel like a roller coaster of stop-and-start restrictions, as communities react to climbing hospital cases, said University of Texas disease modeler Lauren Ancel Meyers. Everyone should get a flu shot, she said, because if flu spreads widely, hospitals will begin to buckle and "that will compound the threat of COVID."

"The decisions we make today will fundamentally impact the safety and feasibility of what we can do next month and by Thanksgiving," Meyers said.

The virus is blamed for over 180,000 deaths and 6 million confirmed infections in the U.S. Worldwide, the death toll is put at almost 850,000, with over 25 million cases.

The U.S. is recording on average about 900 deaths a day from COVID-19, and newly confirmed infections per day are running at about 42,000, down from their peak in mid-July, when cases were topping out at over 70,000.

Around the country, a chicken processing plant in California will close this week for deep cleaning after nearly 400 workers got sick, including eight who died. And college campuses have been hit by outbreaks involving hundreds of students, blamed in some cases on too much partying. Schools including the University of North Carolina, Michigan State and Notre Dame have moved instruction online because of clusters on their campuses.

Several vaccines are in advanced testing, and researchers hope to have results later this year. But even if a vaccine is declared safe and effective by year's end, as some expect, there won't be enough for everyone who wants it right away.

Several companies are developing rapid, at-home tests, which conceivably could be used by families before a Thanksgiving gathering, but none has yet won approval.

More than 90 million adults are over 65 or have health problems, putting them in higher danger of severe consequences if they get sick with the coronavirus. Many of them and their families are starting to decide whether to book holiday flights.

Cassie Docking, 44, an urgent care nurse in Seattle, is telling her parents both cancer survivors that Thanksgiving will be by FaceTime only.

"We all want to get to 2021," she said, "and if that's what it takes, that's what we'll do."Caitlin Joyce's family is forging ahead with a holiday feast. They plan to set up plywood tables on sawhorses in a large garage so they can sit 6 feet apart.

"We'll be in our coats and our sweaters," said Joyce, 30, of Edmonds, Washington, who plans to travel to her grandparents' home in Virginia. "It will be almost like camping."

One widely cited disease model projects 2,086 U.S. deaths per day by Thanksgiving, more than double compared with today.

"In our family we will not have our extended family get-together. We will stick to the nuclear family," said Dr. Christopher Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, one of the few models making a prediction for November.

Uncertainty is huge in Murray's model: Daily deaths could be as low as 1,500 by Thanksgiving or as high as 3,100. In a more optimistic scenario, daily deaths could range from 510 to 1,200 if nearly everyone wears masks. A more pessimistic scenario? From 2,700 to 6,500 daily deaths if social distancing rules continue to be lifted and are not reimposed.

With all the uncertainty, most disease modelers aren't looking that far ahead at least officially. Jeffrey Shaman, a public health expert at Columbia University, thinks the virus will spread more easily as the weather forces people indoors: "But what level of a bump? That's hard to say."

At Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, computer scientist Roni Rosenfeld's team uses machine learning to project COVID-19 deaths. The team's computer algorithm learns from patterns it finds in state and county data to improve its forecasts.

A five-time winner of a CDC competition for predicting flu season activity, Rosenfeld thinks his model's COVID-19 projections aren't very useful beyond four weeks because of the wild card of human behavior, including that of government officials.

"What happens very much depends on us," he said. "People, myself included, don't always behave rationally." Presented with the same facts, "the same person might behave differently depending on how sick and tired they are of the situation."

Like other disease modelers, Rosenfeld said the virus will still be with us at Thanksgiving, readily spreading at family gatherings. While his plans may yet change, he said he is going to travel with his wife to visit their adult children. They will wear masks and keep a safe distance during the visit.

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A Zoom Thanksgiving? Summer Could Give Way To A Bleaker Fall - Patch.com