Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

The lagging measures of social awareness – The Chatham News + Record

A CN+R EDITORIAL

Anyone with an abiding interest in human behavior and more specifically, the nature that drives behavior surely understands the notion of what specialists in those related fields call lagging measures.

When seen in a cultural context, a lagging measure is the simple expression of the fact that significant changes we observe in a society lag behind or follow after a span of time a preceding change in mindset.

In diverse Chatham County, there are plenty of mindsets to consider. One manifested itself a couple of weeks ago when a peaceful group gathered in Siler City, and then a different group gathered in Pittsboro a day later, in explicit expressions of racial unity.

A different mindset was manifested in a demonstration of differences and disagreement in Pittsboro last Thursday. The fracas that accompanied that clash between Confederate flag-wavers and their opposites resulted in, among other nastiness, profanity-laden tirades, threats, injury and an arrest warrant.

What made one of those events different from the other?

It could be the fact that one event focused on change this is an example of lagging measures brought forward while the other was focused against it. Its the difference in working toward something versus working against something.

As weve seen in the wake of COVID-19 and the George Floyd killing in Minnesota, the lag in lagging measures can sometimes be significantly abbreviated. In other words, changes (in procedure, in practice, in regulations, in beliefs, in relationships) can indeed come fast. COVID-19 has proven that. But when conflict remains unresolved (To mask up or not? To re-open or stay closed? To tear down historical monuments or not? To rename buildings or not?) there are usually missing pieces to our collective understanding.

That creates the lag.

Writer and social observer Seth Godin reminded us of this last week when he told the story of the publishing of the periodic table of elements some 150 years ago. Remember that from high school? Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, etc. all the chemical elements, arranged by atomic number?

When Dmitri Mendeleyev created the periodic table in 1869, he was keenly aware that not all elements in existence had been discovered. He therefore left the appropriate empty squares on the periodic table blank. He wasnt sure what needed to go there, but generations of other scientists knew, Godin writes, to go looking for what needed to fill in that empty slot.

Like the fish who isnt aware hes in water, lack of awareness in other words, not knowing there are empty slots, or gaps, in our collective thinking that need filled through discovery creates the kind of chaotic behavior that resulted in the pandemonium around the square at the historic Chatham County Courthouse last week. It results, too, weve witnessed, in a purposeless standoff over symbolism, over whether to wear face coverings in a pandemic, over whether to argue against the existence of systemic racism, or over how prejudgments about a fellow citizen should carry any weight.

Behaviors weve seen these last few weeks suggest proof of lagging measures. They also suggest how counterproductive it is to ignore the gaps in thinking, those empty slots in our nature, that lead to the kind of chaos we saw in Pittsboro last week.

Thinking about how we think about things is the best way to close the gap on lagging measures.

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The lagging measures of social awareness - The Chatham News + Record

Human Behavior

Cebuanos complacent and stubborn? – The Freeman

Cebuanos complacent and stubborn?

Among the reasons that PRRD gave for sending former general Cimatu to Cebu last week to help in the COVID-19 pandemic was that Cebuanos are complacent and stubborn. This is a generalization that was debated and contested by many people in main and social media, and an issue worth digging deeper into, not just for Cebuanos, but for all Filipinos and people in general. There are Americans, Europeans, Asians, and all kinds of people all over the world who are not really following the suggested precautions of wearing face masks, physical distancing, crowding, and staying at home.

Human behavior in crisis situations like a pandemic has been studied as an extension of many behavior studies by many sociologists, political scientists and economists. This is important because social studies have no controlled laboratories, but use the open social environment as their laboratories to test theories on human behavior. While it is difficult to arrive at a predominant human reaction or behavior in a given situation, the objective is to get the most probable/possible behavior of the majority or the average person, the average person being an artificial construct representing 70%/80% of the people. Economists also use this concept of the average rational man to determine consumer behavior.

There are actually many factors that affect human behavior and are as varied as there are locations. Geography, environment/climactic conditions, economics, demographics, education levels, and politics are some of them. Hot and cold weather affects peoples temperament, the stage of economic development/wealth distribution/poverty levels are catalysts for extreme behavior, and the young, educated, and uneducated react differently. The prevailing national and local politics which depends on the credibility and capability of the leaders are also major factors in the eventual behavior or misbehavior of people during pandemics.

To effectively and efficiently influence human behavior in this pandemic or in any other situation, the above factors are the givens/backdrops that have to be known, as these cannot be changed in the short term. The authorities have to make a plan, organize, implement, and control, given these prevailing conditions. These are the management and governance parameters. The inadequacy of Cebu and the national government in managing the COVID-19 pandemic is a management and governance issue. There was enough information on the different environments and even the favorable fiscal and monetary conditions of the country at the outset of the pandemic, but the planning, implementing, and control were wanting. The government and Cebu City in particular, is not organized to handle the pandemic. The implementors who are the barangay leaders were far but directly under the mayor, the councilors were not utilized, and the City Hall departments were not properly empowered and coordinated. Planning could also be faulted due to the dearth of available competency as the new mayor had to scout for willing and able staff with the deficiency of the political structure. As a consequence, there was an absence in the control mechanism. The available and generated data before and during the pandemic were inadequate and faulty compounding the management problem. You cannot manage what you cannot measure.

While it is difficult to define or there may not be an average Cebuano or person, there is a normal distribution of personal characteristics/temperaments which can be represented in a normal curve or a Poisson distribution. Most people would fall under 80% to 90% of the curve, while 10% to 20% would be in the fringes, depending on the steepness of the curve. Good governance and good management flatten this distribution curve, (also the COVID-19 infection curve), leaving the complacent and stubborn in the fringes.

Cebuanos, are not more complacent and stubborn than other Filipinos, they were just not as well-managed as those in other areas. Look at Pasig, Marikina, Baguio, and Valenzuela.

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Cebuanos complacent and stubborn? - The Freeman

Human Behavior

The US isn’t in a second wave of coronavirus the first wave never ended – Huron Daily Tribune

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Melissa Hawkins, American University

(THE CONVERSATION) After sustained declines in the number of COVID-19 cases over recent months, restrictions are starting to ease across the United States. Numbers of new cases are falling or stable at low numbers in some states, but they are surging in many others. Overall, the U.S. is experiencing a sharp increase in the number of new cases a day, and by late June, had surpassed the peak rate of spread in early April.

When seeing these increasing case numbers, it is reasonable to wonder if this is the dreaded second wave of the coronavirus a resurgence of rising infections after a reduction in cases.

The U.S. as a whole is not in a second wave because the first wave never really stopped. The virus is simply spreading into new populations or resurging in places that let down their guard too soon.

To have a second wave, the first wave needs to end

A wave of an infection describes a large rise and fall in the number of cases. There isnt a precise epidemiological definition of when a wave begins or ends.

But with talk of a second wave in the news, as an epidemiologist and public health researcher, I think there are two necessary factors that must be met before we can colloquially declare a second wave.

First, the virus would have to be controlled and transmission brought down to a very low level. That would be the end of the first wave. Then, the virus would need to reappear and result in a large increase in cases and hospitalizations.

Many countries in Europe and Asia have successfully ended the first wave. New Zealand and Iceland have also made it through their first waves and are now essentially coronavirus-free, with very low levels of community transmission and only a handful of active cases currently.

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In the U.S., cases spiked in March and April and then trended downward due to social distancing guidance and implementation. However, the U.S. never reduced spread to low numbers that were sustained over time. Through May and early June, numbers plateaued at approximately 25,000 new cases daily.

We have left that plateau. Since mid-June, cases have been surging upwards. Additionally, the percentage of COVID-19 tests that are returning positive is climbing steeply, indicating that the increase in new cases is not simply a result of more testing, but the result of an increase in spread.

As of writing this, new deaths per day have not begun to climb, but some hospitals intensive care units have recently reached full capacity. In the beginning of the outbreak, deaths often lagged behind confirmed infections. It is likely, as Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious-disease specialist said on June 22, that deaths will soon follow the surge in new cases.

Different states, different trends

Looking at U.S. numbers as a whole hides what is really going on. Different states are in vastly different situations right now and when you look at states individually, four major categories emerge.

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Places where the first wave is ending: States in the Northeast and a few scattered elsewhere experienced large initial spikes but were able to mostly contain the virus and substantially brought down new infections. New York is a good example of this.

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Places still in the first wave: Several states in the South and West see Texas and California had some cases early on, but are now seeing massive surges with no sign of slowing down.

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Places in between: Many states were hit early in the first wave, managed to slow it down, but are either at a plateau like North Dakota or are now seeing steep increases like Oklahoma.

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Places experiencing local second waves: Looking only at a state level, Hawaii, Montana and Alaska could be said to be experiencing second waves. Each state experienced relatively small initial outbreaks and was able to reduce spread to single digits of daily new confirmed cases, but are now all seeing spikes again.

The trends arent surprising based on how states have been dealing with reopening. The virus will go wherever there are susceptible people and until the U.S. stops community spread across the entire country, the first wave isnt over.

What could a second wave look like?

It is possible though at this point it seems unlikely that the U.S. could control the virus before a vaccine is developed. If that happens, it would be time to start thinking about a second wave. The question of what it might look like depends in large part on everyones actions.

The 1918 flu pandemic was characterized by a mild first wave in the winter of 1917-1918 that went away in summer. After restrictions were lifted, people very quickly went back to pre-pandemic life. But a second, deadlier strain came back in fall of 1918 and third in spring of 1919. In total, more than 500 million people were infected worldwide and upwards of 50 million died over the course of three waves.

It was the combination of a quick return to normal life and a mutation in the flus genome that made it more deadly that led to the horrific second and third waves.

Thankfully, the coronavirus appears to be much more genetically stable than the influenza virus, and thus less likely to mutate into a more deadly variant. That leaves human behavior as the main risk factor.

Until a vaccine or effective treatment is developed, the tried-and-true public health measures of the last months social distancing,universal mask wearing, frequent hand-washing and avoiding crowded indoor spaces are the ways to stop the first wave and thwart a second one. And when there are surges like what is happening now in the U.S., further reopening plans need to be put on hold.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/the-us-isnt-in-a-second-wave-of-coronavirus-the-first-wave-never-ended-141032.

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The US isn't in a second wave of coronavirus the first wave never ended - Huron Daily Tribune

Human Behavior

Coronavirus in Ohio: No single number captures the pandemic. But watch this one. – The Cincinnati Enquirer

Cincinnati Enquirer Published 6:23 a.m. ET June 30, 2020 | Updated 4:16 p.m. ET June 30, 2020

There are "four C's" to help keep you safe from coronavirus. Get to know what those are. Cincinnati Enquirer

Back in April, health experts warned Kaiser Health News, a leading provider of health news and information, that a one-day peak in cases would not signal that the tide had turned against the new coronavirus.Two months later, what's clear in Hamilton County is that the trend here is sharply up and there's no clear sign of a peak.

On June 18, the county recorded at least 100 new COVID-19 positive patients for the first time. Since then, seven more days (including Sunday, the last day for which data are available) have exceeded 100 cases.

Scientists use averages to figure out the ups and downsof infectious diseases such as the virus. With the coronavirus, they oftenuse one of three different averages to track trends in new cases.

State officials feature the 21-day moving average on Ohio's coronavirus dashboard. It accounts for the 10 to 14 days that it takes for many people to display symptoms once they've been infected by the virus. (Except that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 35% of the infected never show symptoms, a number lower than found in some studies.)

Twenty-one days ago, Hamilton County's21-day average of cases was 38, according to an Enquirer analysis of data from the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracking project. On June 18, that first date of 100-plus cases, the 21-day average was 45. By June 22, when the county had a single-day record of 191 new positive results, the average was 61. A week later, on June 28, it was 89.

With new case totals over 100 foreach of the last five days, the 21-day averagewill keep going higher this week with no plateau, much less a decline, on the horizon.

The average of new cases sometimes is expressed in other ways.

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The seven-day average is used by the Associated Press and other news organizations. Hamilton County's seven-day average is 138 cases, nearly double from the level on June 18 (when that first 100-plus count was reported). The White House coronavirus task force used the 14-day average, keeping in mind the virus' incubation period, when it set up criteria for reopening businesses, schools and the like. The county's 14-day average is 115 cases, more than twice the reading on June 18.

Bottom line: All three averages have risen sharply at the end of this month.

The result: State and even federal officialsare worried we haven't seen a peak in Hamilton County. The county was among the hot spots nationally discussed by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in a conference call with Vice President Mike Pence, head of the Trump administration's coronavirus task force.

1. A measure of the coronavirus that's based in part on community spread is flashing red in Hamilton County, as well asin Butler, Kenton and Warren counties.

The measure is the R0 (spoken asR-naught, pronounced AHR-nawt)or reproductive number. Data from the Health Collaborative, a consortium of hospitals in the Cincinnati area, show the virus' R0 in the four counties is above one.The R0indicatesthe number of people, on average, that one infected person will subsequently infect. Any reading above one indicates infections are rising. But it's worth noting that the R0 is an estimate anddifficult to calculate (in part because it measures human behavior, which can change abruptly).

2. Infection rates are highest among younger people in the region, with the positive test rate for those ages 20-30 at over 10%.

The Health Collaborative data show the positive rate in this age group rose in the second half of June to above 10% even as the positive rate fell in all other age groups.

The local data mirrors a national trend. People under 45 made up 42% of cases before Memorial Day weekend but 55% of cases reported since then, USA TODAY analysis has found.

The trend holds in places where new cases are surging and in those that are not, according to the analysis of data from 25 states and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

3. Local hospitals have room but beds are filling

Hospitalizations are rising across the Cincinnati region.The number of COVID-19 patients in Hamilton County's hospitals has doubled from a low of 65 people on June 11 to more than 130 this weekend, DeWine said at his Monday news conference.

The Health Collaborative's dashboard showed the region's hospital and ICU beds just under 80% occupancy on Sunday. So there's room for more patients, but not the surplus of space that existed inearly May, as the pandemic was easing.

In addition, more young people are ending up in the hospital with COVID-19, an Enquirer analysis of state data shows. People under 40 accounted for 11% of Hamilton County hospitalized cases in March and April. But that rose to 19% in May and stands at 37.4% so far in June.

Kaiser Health News and USA TODAY contributed.

Read or Share this story: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2020/06/30/coronavirus-ohio-no-single-number-captures-pandemic-watch-one-hamilton-county/3283338001/

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Coronavirus in Ohio: No single number captures the pandemic. But watch this one. - The Cincinnati Enquirer

Human Behavior

The Anthropause: How the Pandemic Gives Scientists a New Way to Study Wildlife – WIRED

But with the fishers, the behavioral change in the anthropause happened waaaaay too fast to be genetic. Instead, it could be a change driven by choices made by individuals or groups of animals. You see that personalities differ, says Wikelski. There may be now a selection for certain personalities to enter cities, and that may be propagated through their culture.

The global experiment on the transmission and retention of information in animal societies is just unbelievably beautiful, Wikelski adds.

Scientists can watch such rapid, dramatic behavioral shifts thanks to increasingly sophisticated monitoring equipment. Tracking collars of course map an animals movement, but some now come equipped with inertial measurement units, or IMUs, the same sensors that let you shift your phone around to control a game. This allows researchers to determine if a wild animal has suddenly accelerated, indicating that it might have been startled. An even more sophisticated monitoring device might detect the animals heart rate or listen with a microphone to its interactions with its peers.

It's the Fitbit for animals, says Wikelski. Are they sick? Are they fine? Are they interacting? How quickly are they moving? Are they getting up at the right time, at the same time as before? Are they active differently during the night, during the day?

During the anthropause, researchers can marry this data that tracks animal behavior with data that tracks human behavior, particularly traffic, to show whether a species might be exploiting our absence or going about its business as usual in the wild. As the anthropause continues and eventually wanes, scientists will be able to watch how a species adapts, answering questions that would have been impossible to tackle if not for the pandemic.

Researchers have been trying to solve one of these riddles for decades: Are animals afraid of our built environmentroads, buildings, and other infrastructureor are they afraid of us? We suddenly didn't have humans in many areas, says ecologist Matthias-Claudio Loretto of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and University of Konstanz, coauthor on the anthropause paper. So, he says, if animals will visit these places during the pandemic shutdown, they're obviously just normally afraid of humans.

On the other hand, if a particular species didnt penetrate a populated area even with humans gone these past few months, that might be an indication that its the built environment keeping them away. But conservation biologists can look at the species that did traipse through an area and note the paths they took.

The riddle gets more nuanced in urban places where the restrictions on movement havent been particularly strict. Maybe a city has allowed residents to go for walks, so animals are still avoiding public parks, but are instead turning up in places that are entirely shut down to people. Some cities may have restricted driving, while others didntresearchers can look at both traffic and animal data to see how species in different areas adapted.

The anthropause is bringing scientists a unique opportunity to study how animals move through built environments; this knowledge could inform new modifications to urban areas to provide safe passage for animals. For example, maybe if we learn that a development or freeway has sliced a species habitat and population in two, we could reunite them to encourage genetic diversityisolated populations, after all, tend to inbreed. It's not good enough that managers tell animals where to go, says Wikelski. Animals should tell us where they need to go, where they want to go. It's the animal-defined corridor that we need.

But not every animal species has benefited from the freedom of having fewer humans around. The generalists among them, like coyotes, rats, and wild boar, may comfortably move about city streets, taking any food they can. But theres nothing for a mountain lion in downtown San Franciscoits prey, like deer, remain in the hilly regions to the south of the city.

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The Anthropause: How the Pandemic Gives Scientists a New Way to Study Wildlife - WIRED

Human Behavior

How Shelter-In-Place Orders Affected Atlanta’s Air Pollution | 90.1 FM WABE – WABE 90.1 FM

In Atlanta, its getting hot and traffic is coming back, which means air quality will go downhill.

Still, if it seemed like this spring the air was better while so many people were sheltering in place, thats because it was, at least in some respects.

In March, people started staying home because of the coronavirus. In April, it became mandatory statewide. And that had a dramatic effect on traffic.

On the Perimeter, for example, before the shutdown, there were about 217,000 vehicles a day, according to Christina Fuller, a public health and air pollution expert at Georgia State. After the governors shelter-in-place order, the number came down to about 133,000 a day, she said.

Thats almost a 40% decrease in cars and trucks that are on the highways, she said.

And that had an effect on particulate matter, a pollutant from tailpipes and smokestacks that can contribute to conditions including asthma and heart disease. Using data from air monitors in Atlanta, including along roads, Fuller said she could see that levels of particulate matter had dropped.

Theyve been consistently lower in the air, especially for the month of April, she said.

The change cant necessarily all be attributed to people not driving because weather can have an effect: rain can temporarily lower levels of particulate matter, while cooler temperatures can lead to an increase. So there will need to be more analysis to sort things out, Fuller said.

Pulling back, changes were apparent on a bigger scale, too.

NASA scientist Bryan Duncan, whos a Georgia Tech alumnus, uses satellites to study air quality. One pollutant in particular that he looks at is nitrogen dioxide, another one that affects peoples health.

It has a relatively short lifetime. Once its emitted, its around only for a matter of hours. So researchers can see hot spots where its coming from.

Over cities, over power plants, sometimes major highways. So its a great indicator of pollution in general, Duncan said.

In March and April, he said, nitrogen dioxide levels over a lot of the East Coast, including Atlanta, decreased by about 30% to 40%.

Like Fuller, he cautioned that there has to be more analysis to figure out exactly what happened where, and to sort out whats because of changes in human behavior versus the weather.

Still, he said, Its absolutely dramatic.

But theres a lot of different kinds of pollution out there, and not everything is so clear.

Ozone, for instance, is more complicated to untangle.

Ozones a really neat pollutant, said Ted Russell, a professor of environmental engineering at Georgia Tech, where he studies air quality.

During the spring, ozone levels are typically lower in Atlanta. And its not a pollutant that comes directly from cars or industrial sources. Instead, its a result of emissions from those sources but also from trees reacting to sunlight.

A recent analysis by NPR found that even though traffic has been down around the country, ozone hasnt dropped nearly as much as expected. Russell said thats not surprising, since ozone doesnt come directly from traffic and its so affected by season and weather.

When I look at the air quality data for ozone, its not that clear at all, and in part because the meteorology plays such a big role, he said. So for ozone, we really cant tell if its the meteorology thats making the biggest difference day to day or the emissions.

All these pollutants particulate matter, ozone and nitrogen dioxide are things that affect peoples health, not the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

With carbon dioxide which also comes from tailpipes and smokestacks its harder to see local effects. There is a lot of it, and its long-lived. So its all just muddled in the atmosphere, not at certain hot spots. Nationwide, carbon emissions have gone down, but like the other pollutants are likely to come back up.

Still, Duncan said maybe pollution wont bounce back quite as much. Hes learned he likes telecommuting, and he hopes to continue doing it a couple days a week.

And I think other people may realize that, too, he said.

People may also get new insight into the connection between their cars and air quality, said Fuller.

Because it may be difficult for people to think, Oh, when Im driving my car, then what does that do? How much can I contribute? But we see that as a group, it really does make a big difference, she said.

She said that if people want to keep seeing cleaner air going forward, there are going to have to be bigger changes in policy and in planning.

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Human Behavior

US Facebook Advertising Boycott to Expand Internationally – VOA Learning English

American organizers of a Facebook advertising boycott say they are seeking support in Europe to push the social media service to do more to remove hate speech.

The Stop Hate for Profit campaign has received support from more than 160 companies. They include American corporations like Coca-Cola, Levi Strauss & Company, Patagonia and The Hershey Company.

The companies united to stop buying advertising on Facebook, the worlds largest social media company. The boycott, which includes Facebook-owned Instagram, was launched following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died on May 25 after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes. The incident was caught on video. Floyds death led to widespread protests across America aimed at police and racial inequality.

Anger over Floyds death also led to public demonstrations in cities across the world. Some corporations also released statements denouncing racism in society.

The Stop Hate for Profit campaign is supported by several U.S. civil rights groups and non-profit media organizations.

One group is the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The ADL said in a recent open letter that Facebooks hate speech, incitement, and misinformation policies are inequitable.

The group said Facebooks efforts to find and remove hateful material are not effective. It added that a companys ad can appear on Facebook next to hateful or divisive material. The ADL also criticized the company for failing to remove false information appearing in advertisements or published by users.

Critics have said that Facebook reported receiving $70 billion in advertising money in 2019, while earning about $18 billion in profit.

One campaign supporter is the group Free Press. It said that even with such high advertising profits, the company has repeatedly failed to meaningfully address hate, incitement to violence and disinformation across its products.

The Stop Hate for Profit campaign has created a set of demands for Facebook.

Among them are the establishment of a new process to help users targeted with ads based on race and other identifiers. The groups are pushing Facebook to release more information about the number of hate speech reports it receives. They also want the company to stop making money from ads linked to harmful content.

Jim Steyer heads the media education group Common Sense Media. He recently told the Reuters news agency that the campaign will start calling on major companies in Europe to join the boycott.

The next frontier is global pressure, said Steyer. He added that he hopes the campaign will lead regulators in Europe to reexamine policies covering the social media company. Earlier this month, the European Commission announced new guidelines for technology companies to report monthly how they are attempting to reduce misinformation about the new coronavirus.

Steyer said the campaign will urge major international advertisers like Unilever and Honda - which have already stopped buying U.S. ads - to halt all Facebook ads worldwide.

Campaign organizers say they also plan to keep urging more U.S. companies to take part in the boycott. Jessica Gonzalez is co-leader of the group Free Press. Gonzalez told Reuters she recently contacted big U.S. telecommunications and media companies to ask them to join.

Responding to demands for more action, Facebook has admitted the company has more work to do. It said it was working with civil rights groups and experts to develop more tools to fight hate speech. Facebook said its investments in artificial intelligence (AI) tools permit the company to identify about 90 percent of hate speech before users report it.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Sheila Dang reported this story for Reuters. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English, with additional information from the Stop Hate for Profit campaign and online sources. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

kneel v. to put one or both knees on the ground

inequitable adj. not fair

divisive adj. causing disagreements between people

address v. to discuss

content n. the information or ideas included in a book, film or on the internet

frontier n. the limits of what is known or what has been done before

regulator n. the prople or institutions that make rules or laws that control something

artificial intelligence n. the power of a machine to copy intelligent human behavior

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US Facebook Advertising Boycott to Expand Internationally - VOA Learning English

Human Behavior

Stanford professor says rise in COVID-19 cases is proof that virus is tracking human behavior – KRON4

STANFORD, Calif. (KRON) There are several factors behind the rise in COVID-19 cases, including testing, contact tracing, and people interacting more as shelter-in place orders get relaxed.

But as we continue to track the virus a Stanford University professor says the new numbers are proof that the coronavirus is also tracking us.

I think the virus is tracking peoples behavior, Dr. Robert Siegel said.

Stanford University professor of microbiology and immunology Dr. Robert Siegel

says wear your mask, accounting for the recent rise in COVID-19 case numbers like this.

The virus would be very happy if we all went back and started socializing, Dr. Siegel said.

In other words, says Dr. Siegel, the virus doesnt care about what matters to people and that is the key to reopening.

The reopening is not working perfectly because as things open people are being more lax in their behavior like fewer people wearing masks, Dr. Siegel said.

Its called mask fatigue or quarantine fatigue.

Dr. Siegel points out that new cases are not spiking among one high risk group in particular, health care workers.

People are very carefully watching health care providers and their rate of infection is really, really low so they have a high exposure but they are being very careful and they are not getting infected, Dr. Siegel said.

If anything, Dr. Siegel says more testing is showing the recent uptick in cases is real.

He says there is scant evidence warmer weather has made much of a difference.

The key is, we have to continue to do the public health measures of wearing masks, social distancing and washing hands, using hand sanitizers and basically being smart, Dr. Siegel said.

Dr. Siegel says outsmarting the coronavirus starts with admitting that its still here and what you can do could save your life or someone elses life.

The virus is still very much present and you just have to look at the numbers, we are breaking records every day so in terms of risky behavior, you are more at risk for being in social settings without a mask than you ever were, Dr. Siegel said.

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Human Behavior

Racism: Its foundations may not be what you think they are – Washington Daily News – thewashingtondailynews.com

I recently received an email from the son of a Greenville friend who lives in Florida. The son was moved by the murder of George Floyd to initiate a new local program to reduce acts of racial prejudice through education, in hopes that education would change human behavior.

I applaud his efforts to make a difference. Would that more Americans would be stirred by the murders of black men to reduce racial hatred and prejudice. But I fear that education, alone, will is insufficient to address Americas original sin. It is difficult for me to imagine that after 400 years of prejudice and exploitation of African Americans in the land of the free there remains anyone unaware of the cruelty and viciousness with which black persons have been treated.

In 2016, Ibram X. Kendi addressed these issues in his National Book Award for Non-Fiction, Stamped from the Beginning. Kendis book traces the history of racist ideas in America, from colonial times to the present. During a recent book tour, he explained why education, alone, is inadequate for reducing racism: If the fundamental problem is ignorance and hate, then your solutions are going to be focused on education, and love and persuasion. But the actual foundation of racism is not ignorance and hate, but self-interest, particularly economic and political and cultural.

Self-interest, he added, drives racist policies that benefit that self-interest. When the policies are challenged because they produce inequalities, racist ideas spring up to justify those policies. Hate flows freely from there.

The first slaves to step foot on what would become American soil did so in the English settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. Over the next decades, 400,000 more slaves joined them in the cotton, tobacco and sugar fields of southern planters interested in increasing profits. And what better way to cut costs than free labor?

By the 1800s, slavery had become the economic engine of the South, making it possible for planters to reap enormous profits. Self-interest motivated the heirs of those planters to succeed from the Union in 1860. And self-interest moved their descendants to deny civil rights to African Americans during the Jim Crow era.

In fact, throughout American history, racism has been used intentionally to preserve the privileged positions of white Americans. Since the very founding of the Republic, discrimination has been justified by those who benefit from it by appeals to pseudo-science, scriptures and other self-serving rationalizations that the black race is inferior by nature in intellect; that Africans were created by God to serve white Europeans; that the Bible supports slavery; that African Americans cannot compete with whites in school or work; that blacks are inherently violent and non-law abiding; and that all black men secretly desire to rape white women.

All of that, of course, is bunk. There is no verifiable evidence that Africans were or have ever been less intelligent than Europeans. Verses in the Bible that purport to legitimize slavery were cherry-picked and abused by Christian racists interested in providing scriptural cover for their right to own other human beings. Given a fair chance, there is no reason African Americans cannot compete with their white counterparts in school and work. Black neighborhoods are not more dangerous than white neighborhoods and neither are black people. And, to the consternation of members of the KKK and other white supremacist groups, black men do not rape white women near as often as white men do.

Prejudice against non-white peoples in America has existed for so long that it has become institutionalized. Practically every economic, political, social and, yes, religious institution in the USA continues to support racist policies, to varying degrees. Since the first European settlers landed on the shores of Virginia in 1608, the superiority of white European culture has been encoded in our customs, traditions and laws.

From housing to healthcare, policing to education, and banking to employment, America is a racist system that knows exactly what it is doing and does it successfully every day.

We cant educate our way out of something as structural, deeply embedded and systemic as American racism. No amount of education or love can eradicate the cancer that has been eating away at the body politic of America for more than 400 years.

On the contrary, efforts to reduce racism demand both honest recognition and our participation in a systemic response that changes the political, economic, social, cultural and religious policies that are the foundation of Americas foulest bias.

Polk Culpepper is a former Episcopal priest, retired lawyer and resident of Washington.

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Racism: Its foundations may not be what you think they are - Washington Daily News - thewashingtondailynews.com

Human Behavior

HBO Max’s magical and action-packed "Adventure Time" special is a tribute to heroic resistance – Salon

While watching the first installment ofHBO Max'sfour hour-long specials"Adventure Time: Distant Lands,"based on Pendleton Ward'sfantasy animated seriesthat ran on Cartoon Network, I was reminded of an episode from the show's fifth season. In the episode titled "BMO," the sentientgaming console voiced by Niki Yangaccidentally deletes their entire coresystemdrivers.sys during a round of routine maintenance. In order to operate as normal, BMO explains to Finn (Jeremy Shada) and Jake (John DiMaggio) that they'll need to trek out to the MO factory where BMO was "born."

Disguises are donned and shenanigans ensue, until BMO is finally reunited with their creator, Moseph "Moe" Mastro Giovanni, who proceeds to fix them. Moe reveals that BMO is very special. They were built as a companion for the child he never ended up having.

Moe explains, "I made BMO to be more."

In "Distant Lands," helmed by executive producer Adam Muto,BMO fully embraces that element of their design in their own special way. After 10 seasons of serving as a sidekick to Finn and Jake (albeit it an incredibly adorable and well-loved one), BMO steps into the role of hero by fighting the power of a broken system led by a corrupt ruler a narrative that is both universally timeless and incredibly timely.

BMO is happily shuttling through spacearmed with potatoes and a song about potatoes:"They're better than tomatoes!" on a mission to terraform Mars when they're suddelny thrown off course. BMO ends up on The Drift, a debilitated space station powered on-and-off by questionable energy sources and inhabited by colonies of scavengers. Watch the first four minutes below:

Thesociety is built on selling bits of valuable scrap to Hugo (Randall Park), a sketchy former Earthling who masterminds many of The Drift's mechanisms. BMO's crash-landingdestroys some valuable scrapping equipment that two groups The Great Elves and Shell People are feuding over, which then turns the conflict on BMO.

Before they can retaliate, BMO is swept up by Y4 (later renamed Y5), a young bunny-like creature (Glory Curda), who initially contemplates selling them to Hugo. But after BMO's quick thinking helps residents repair a breach and earns them the self-styled title ofsheriff, Y5 decides to become their playmate/deputy.

Together, they spend their days assisting Drift residents with day-to-day disasters like saving space beetles from drowning or wrangling space lard whileY5 is visibly weighed down by a sense of impending doom, as well as the vocal disapproval of her parents, who work for Hugo. As The Drift is becoming more and more unstable, it becomes increasingly apparent that Hugo is less of a reliable leader and more of a smarmy politician using the labor of the station's residents for his own selfish gain.

Inevitably, Y5 has to determine her own loyalties, while BMO remains undeterred from fighting against the injustice at play on The Drift.

"Even when things look really, really stupid, we still have to try," BMO says.

In this case, what is viewed as "stupid" on The Drift is voicing dissent especially as a child or a member of a marginalized community even when the people around you are apathetically falling in line.

And in this world, that so-called stupidityultimately makes a big difference.

"Adventure Time" has always succeeded in communicating a message without being moralistic, and this installment of "Distant Lands" is no different. This is partially because of, despite the absurdist environments, the show's very real depiction of human behavior and political machinations. When I watched Hugo boarding an escape pod despite cries of injustice, I couldn't help but think of Donald Trump retreating to the White House bunker while thousands took to the streets to protest racial inequality.

But just because "justice," however you define it, may not be immediately achieved, "Distant Lands" shows, through its depiction of BMO, that it's still something for which people should fight. "This robot expends energy in ways that yield it no benefit," observes Y5 at one point, perfectly encapsulating the generous heroism woven throughout the "Adventure Time" canon.

It's an almost childishly idealistic way to approach the universe, but after watching "Distant Lands," I realize that our world needs more BMOs because by embracing the philosophy to "be more," change can happen.

Thefirst installment of "Adventure Time: Distant Lands" is available to stream now on HBO Max. No release date has been announced for the following specials.

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HBO Max's magical and action-packed "Adventure Time" special is a tribute to heroic resistance - Salon