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Many young people mistakenly believe that smoking tobacco from a hookah is less harmful than cigarette smoking because the tobacco is filtered through water, but there is no scientific evidence that supports that claim," said lead author Aruni Bhatnagar, a professor of medicine at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
Hookah smokers inhale toxic chemicals that may harm the heart, says report - CNN
https://edition-m.cnn.com/2019/03/08/health/hookah-smoking-toxic-chemicals-heart-study-intl/index.html
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Little Girl to her friend: "I'm never having kids. I hear they take nine months to download."
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A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.
The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small.
The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale.
Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible.
The little girl said, 'When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah'.
The teacher asked, 'What if Jonah went to hell?'
The little girl replied, 'Then you ask him'
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So if you blame Facebook, Trump or Putin for ushering in a new and frightening era of post-truth, remind yourself that centuries ago millions of Christians locked themselves inside a self-reinforcing mythological bubble, never daring to question the factual veracity of the Bible, while millions of Muslims put their unquestioning faith in the Qur’an. For millennia, much of what passed for “news” and “facts” in human social networks were stories about miracles, angels, demons and witches, with bold reporters giving live coverage straight from the deepest pits of the underworld. We have zero scientific evidence that Eve was tempted by the serpent, that the souls of all infidels burn in hell after they die, or that the creator of the universe doesn’t like it when a Brahmin marries an Untouchable – yet billions of people have believed in these stories for thousands of years. Some fake news lasts forever.
I am aware that many people might be upset by my equating religion with fake news, but that’s exactly the point. When a thousand people believe some made-up story for one month, that’s fake news. When a billion people believe it for a thousand years, that’s a religion, and we are admonished not to call it fake news in order not to hurt the feelings of the faithful (or incur their wrath). Note, however, that I am not denying the effectiveness or potential benevolence of religion. Just the opposite. For better or worse, fiction is among the most effective tools in humanity’s toolkit. By bringing people together, religious creeds make large-scale human cooperation possible. They inspire people to build hospitals, schools and bridges in addition to armies and prisons. Adam and Eve never existed, but Chartres Cathedral is still beautiful. Much of the Bible may be fictional, but it can still bring joy to billions and encourage humans to be compassionate, courageous and creative – just like other great works of fiction, such as Don Quixote, War and Peace and Harry Potter.
www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/aug/05/yuval-noah-harari-extract-fake-news-sapiens-homo-deus
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ABC OF LIFE
Accept, Breakaway, Create, Decide, Explore & Experiment, Forgive & Forget, Grow, Hope, Ignore, Journey, Know, Love, Manage, Notice, Open, Play, Question, Relax, Share, Try, Use, Value, Work, X-Ray, Yield, Zoom
https://t.me/MkNotes/792
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21 LESSONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY, by Y. N. Harari
‘Fake news’ is much older than Facebook.
Humans prefer power to truth. We spend far more time trying to control the world than trying to understand it.
As a species, humans prefer power to truth. We spend far more time and effort on trying to control the world than on trying to understand it – and even when we try to understand it, we usually do so in the hope that understanding the world will make it easier to control it. Therefore, if you dream of a society in which truth reigns supreme and myths are ignored, you have little to expect from Homo sapiens. Better try your luck with chimps.
It is the responsibility of all of us to invest time and effort in uncovering our biases and in verifying our sources of information. First, if you want reliable information – pay good money for it. If you get your news for free, you might well be the product. Suppose a shady billionaire offered you the following deal: “I will pay you $30 a month, and in exchange, you will allow me to brainwash you for an hour every day, installing in your mind whichever political and commercial biases I want.” Would you take the deal? Few sane people would. So the shady billionaire offers a slightly different deal: “You will allow me to brainwash you for one hour every day, and in exchange, I will not charge you anything for this service.” Now the deal suddenly sounds tempting to hundreds of millions of people. Don’t follow their example.
The second rule of thumb is that if some issue seems exceptionally important to you, make the effort to read the relevant scientific literature. And by scientific literature I mean peer-reviewed articles, books published by well-known academic publishers, and the writings of professors from reputable institutions. Science obviously has its limitations, and it has got many things wrong in the past. Nevertheless, the scientific community has been our most reliable source of knowledge for centuries. If you think that the scientific community is wrong about something, that’s certainly possible, but at least know the scientific theories you are rejecting, and provide some empirical evidence to support your claim.
Scientists, for their part, need to be far more engaged with current public debates. They should not be afraid of making their voice heard when the debate wanders into their field of expertise, be it medicine or history. Silence isn’t neutrality; it is supporting the status quo.
www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/aug/05/yuval-noah-harari-extract-fake-news-sapiens-homo-deus
https://t.me/MkNotes/789
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Yuval Noah Harari: the myth of freedom by Yuval Noah Harari
Fri 14 Sep 2018
www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/14/yuval-noah-harari-the-new-threat-to-liberal-democracy?CMP=fb_gu
Realizing that our thoughts and desires don’t reflect our free will can help us become less obsessive about them. People sometimes imagine that if we renounce our belief in “free will”, we will become completely apathetic, and just curl up in some corner and starve to death. In fact, renouncing this illusion can have two opposite effects: first, it can create a far stronger link with the rest of the world, and MAKE YOU MORE ATTENTIVE TO YOUR ENVIRONMENT AND TO THE NEEDS AND WISHES OF OTHERS. It is like when you have a conversation with someone. If you focus on what you want to say, you hardly really listen. You just wait for the opportunity to give the other person a piece of your mind. But when you put your own thoughts aside, you can suddenly hear other people.
https://t.me/MkNotes/787
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ANY FOOL CAN CRITICIZE, CONDEMN AND COMPLAIN-
AND MOST FOOLS DO. --Benjamin Franklin
AND THOSE FOOLS MUSTN'T FEEL SMART WHEN THEY DO SO.
- - MkNotes
https://t.me/MkNotes/781
