How to shut down coronavirus conspiracy theories | Michael Shermer | Big Think

How to shut down coronavirus conspiracy theories | Michael Shermer Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- During times of high anxiety, not unlike the situation we find ourselves in now, there is a rise in conspiracism. Conspiracy theories provide comfort where there is uncertainty. As author Michael Shermer points out, history has shown that this way of thinking is sometimes warranted, but not in the case of coronavirus. One factor that has helped recent coronavirus conspiracy theories grow, he says, is the shrinking political middle and an increased polarization to the far left and far right. "The further out you go in the extreme nature of a conspiracy theory the less likely the theory is to be true," says Shermer. Actual conspiracies happen on a more localized, more narrowly-focused level. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MICHAEL SHERMER: Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. Check his latest book Giving the Devil His Due: Reflections of a Scientific Humanist at https://amzn.to/3e7fDkp ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: MICHAEL SHERMER: Whenever there's a high level of anxiety and uncertainty in an environment, your personal life or society at large conspiracism goes up. That is to say people find comfort in attenuating the anxiety or uncertainty they're feeling by concocting some overarching plan. This is what's going on. Now I understand it. Now I don't have to feel so uncertain about the environment. So people concoct conspiracy theories for that main reason. Now, people differ on, different groups believe different conspiracy theories and so on but let's set that aside for the moment and just think about with the coronavirus this is, we know pandemics happen historically. We know about more recent ones like SARS and the avian flu and so on and what that causes. This appears to be at least that bad if not worse. In a way it's a real event that people should fear. We should have a certain amount of paranoia and anxiety about that and respond accordingly. So there it's only a small step to making a paranoid conspiracism claim that well, it was invented by the Chinese or in the case of the Chinese they say well, it was invented by the U.S. military. And we've all seen enough of the movies about bioterrorism that that's not completely crazy. It could happen. In this case there was just a paper published in Nature this last week about that it's not. There's evidence and genetics to show that it was derived from animal DNA, not manipulated in a lab with human DNA. Okay, so we can set aside that conspiracy theory. But finally, we know that governments do bad things on occasion, especially autocratic governments. But even our own, the U.S. government. If you look at the history of the things we've done to attempt to assassinate foreign leaders or manipulate elections in South American countries in the 1970s, for example, a lot of this has come out in the Pentagon Papers and the Wikileaks that our government was doing things that we didn't know they were doing. Congress didn't even know. So we know that happens. Again, my point is that I don't think this applies to the coronavirus example. I think those conspiracy theories are wrong. But worrying about that is not completely crazy because sometimes that sort of thing does happen. Another factor with conspiracy theories is politics. I mean we're very tribal and it's gotten worse since the 1990s. The left and right have become more polarized. The centric middle has shrunk as the two bimodal curves have gotten a larger on the far left and the far right. More people are identifying with extreme positions. So the moment something like a coronavirus conspiracy theory erupts the only question is who's going to accuse which side and it ends up both sides are accusing each other. You go to certain sites and Trump gets hammered all day long for his inadequacy in responding to coronavirus crisis. Then you go to another media source and it's just the opposite. It's the left that's failed this and Trump is going to save us. Then you have the really far out ones about the deep state and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the voice of reason here is actually just a pawn to destroy Trump. I mean the further out you go in the extreme nature of a conspiracy theory the less likely the theory is to be true. The more people that have to be involved in the conspiracy theory, the less likely it is to be true. The more elements that have to come together just at the right moment to make... Read the full transcript at https://ift.tt/2WKBIP2

Facing adversity: Build resilience like a Navy SEAL | Brent Gleeson & Nathan Rosenberg | Big Think E

Leaning Into Adversity How to Build Grit and Resilience Like a Navy SEAL with Brent Gleeson, moderated by Nathan Rosenberg Most of us have been knocked down in one way or another by this pandemic. How can we get back up? And better still, how can we thrive? In this Big Think Live session, Brent Gleeson, Navy SEAL combat veteran, and Nathan Rosenberg, founding partner of management consulting firm Insigniam, discuss what it means to be resilient in times of hardship and how we can let our characters be revealed and strengthened by adversity. Brent Gleeson is a Navy SEAL combat veteran with multiple combat tours to Iraq and Africa. Upon leaving SEAL Team 5, Brent turned his discipline and battlefield lessons to the world of business and has become an award-winning entrepreneur, bestselling author, and acclaimed speaker on topics ranging from leadership and building high-performance teams to culture, organizational transformation, and resilience. Brent is the founder and CEO of TakingPoint Leadership, a progressive leadership and management consulting firm with a focus on business transformation and building high-performance cultures, and bestselling author of TakingPoint: A Navy SEAL’s 10 Fail Safe Principles for Leading Through Change. His new book, Embrace the Suck: The Navy SEAL Way to an Extraordinary Life, is about resilience and will be released on December 22, 2020. Nathan Owen Rosenberg is a founding partner of Insigniam. In over 30 years in consulting he has worked with more than 70,000 people. Prior to co-founding Insigniam, Nathan founded two other successful enterprises and served as chief executive of four corporations. As a young man, he served as an officer and aviator in the United States Navy, executive support officer to the Secretary of Defense, and national security advisor to the U.S. Senate Majority Leader. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT BIG THINK: Smarter Faster™ Big Think is the leading source of expert-driven, actionable, educational content -- with thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, we help you get smarter, faster. S​ubscribe to learn from top minds like these daily. Get actionable lessons from the world’s greatest thinkers & doers. Our experts are either disrupting or leading their respective fields. ​We aim to help you explore the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century, so you can apply them to the questions and challenges in your own life. Other Frequent contributors include Michio Kaku & Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Michio Kaku Playlist: https://bigth.ink/kaku Bill Nye Playlist: https://bigth.ink/BillNye Neil DeGrasse Tyson Playlist: https://bigth.ink/deGrasseTyson Read more at Bigthink.com for a multitude of articles just as informative and satisfying as our videos. New articles posted daily on a range of intellectual topics. Join Big Think Edge, to gain access to an immense library of content. It features insight from many of the most celebrated and intelligent individuals in the world today. Topics on the platform are focused on: emotional intelligence, digital fluency, health and wellness, critical thinking, creativity, communication, career development, lifelong learning, management, problem solving & self-motivation. BIG THINK EDGE: https://bigth.ink/Edge If you're interested in licensing this or any other Big Think clip for commercial or private use, contact our licensing partner, Executive Interviews: https://bigth.ink/licensing ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Follow Big Think here: 📰BigThink.com: https://bigth.ink 🧔Facebook: https://bigth.ink/facebook 🐦Twitter: https://bigth.ink/twitter 📸Instagram: https://bigth.ink/Instragram 📹YouTube: https://bigth.ink/youtube ✉ E-mail: info@bigthink.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dose Working Women Are Good Mother | Qasim Ali Shah

INTRODUCTION Qasim Ali Shah is not a speaker but a doer. He followed his passions and proving himself as a successful entrepreneur, an inspiring academician, a best-selling author, a philanthropist and an influential trainer. Drawing from this vast experience in these fields and his extensive study, Qasim Ali Shah delivers an inspirational experience unlike any other. He has a rare ability to quickly develop a strong rapport with his audience and win their trust which enables him to fully ignite their passion. He has a unique methodology of combining conventional wisdom and latest research with real life examples to offer simple and practical advice. This has won him huge respect from everyone including hundreds of highest placed private sector executives and top bureaucrats of the country he has trained. He has been declared the best trainer by Punjab Judicial Academy. In recognition of his services, Govt. of Uzbekistan has nominated him as Ambassador of Tourism. In a very sort of time, his videos got viral on YouTube, whats app, Facebook he has millions of followers on social media. His live audience whom he has trained is approximately ten millions. He has written hundreds of articles for several newspapers. Hundreds of articles, blogs and podcasts have been written on his works and achievements at national and international level. Follow Us On Social Media :https://www.facebook.com/Qasim.Ali.Shahhttps://www.facebook.com/qasfoundhttps://twitter.com/QasimAliShah_https://twitter.com/qasfoundation https://ift.tt/3dYYZ5F

My Evening Ritual For Optimal Sleep And Finishing The Day Strong

Want to know my evening ritual for optimal sleep and finishing the day strong? If so, this video is a must-watch! Join my Life Mastery Accelerator program to learn how you can hack your sleep and master your energy: https://ift.tt/2WGZhbB 🔎 RESOURCES MENTIONED 👇 My Morning Ritual ► https://youtu.be/DH-ljbSald8 Swannies Blue-Blocking Glasses ► https://ift.tt/368aJjw Oura Ring ► https://ift.tt/36bfMQv 67 Morning Ritual Habits book ► https://ift.tt/2YDRzxX Morning Ritual Mastery ► https://ift.tt/2NTfLpW Gaia ► https://www.gaia.com/ Calm App ► https://www.calm.com/ 🤔 ABOUT THIS VIDEO 👇 In this video, I talk about my evening ritual for optimal sleep and finishing the day strong. How you end your night determines how your next day will play out. This is why it's so important that you have a night routine. Before I go to bed every night, I engage in a series of rituals that nurture my mind, body, and spirit. Doing so ensures that I get the most out of my day and my life. If you want to know what my evening ritual is, watch this video! 🤓 VIEW THE BLOG POST 👇 https://ift.tt/2LFSl8d 🔔 SUBSCRIBE TO PROJECT LIFE MASTERY ON YOUTUBE 👇 https://ift.tt/2TYg0Dx ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 🗣️ TALK TO ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA 👇 Instagram ► https://ift.tt/2PPDJXK Facebook ► https://ift.tt/21u1H7j Twitter ► https://www.twitter.com/stefanjames23 ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 💥FOLLOW PROJECT LIFE MASTERY ON SOCIAL MEDIA 👇 Instagram ► https://ift.tt/2DfYbKy Facebook ► https://ift.tt/2BGhawg Twitter ► https://ift.tt/2TYg0U3 Podcast ► https://ift.tt/2XYj5WH ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 💻 MY PRODUCTS & COURSES 👇 https://ift.tt/2X6JuSu ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 🤔 ABOUT PROJECT LIFE MASTERY 😃 Stefan James from Project Life Mastery reveals his very best strategies to mastering and living life fully; everything from how to be motivated, his secrets to success, how to make money online, making passive income online, how to change your beliefs and mindset, being healthy and physically fit, being happy and productive, life management, cultivating relationships, spirituality, and much more! The Project Life Mastery YouTube channel contains Stefan's best strategies and principles that has now helped millions of people around the world. This YouTube channel is designed to help you make continual progress in each area of your life, so that you can have lasting growth and fulfillment. Website ► https://ift.tt/2ZbIdMF ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 📚 RECOMMENDED RESOURCES 👇 https://ift.tt/3cLw7Oi If you found this video valuable, give it a like. If you know someone who needs to see it, share it. Leave a comment below with your thoughts. Add it to a playlist if you want to watch it later. DISCLAIMER: The information contained on this YouTube Channel and the resources available for download/viewing through this YouTube Channel are for educational and informational purposes only.​ This description may contain affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of them, I will receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). I only ever endorse products that I have personally used and benefitted from personally. Thank you for your support! #RITUALS #ROUTINES #HABITS #SLEEP #PRODUCTIVITY

What is Maturity | Qasim Ali Shah

INTRODUCTION Qasim Ali Shah is not a speaker but a doer. He followed his passions and proving himself as a successful entrepreneur, an inspiring academician, a best-selling author, a philanthropist and an influential trainer. Drawing from this vast experience in these fields and his extensive study, Qasim Ali Shah delivers an inspirational experience unlike any other. He has a rare ability to quickly develop a strong rapport with his audience and win their trust which enables him to fully ignite their passion. He has a unique methodology of combining conventional wisdom and latest research with real life examples to offer simple and practical advice. This has won him huge respect from everyone including hundreds of highest placed private sector executives and top bureaucrats of the country he has trained. He has been declared the best trainer by Punjab Judicial Academy. In recognition of his services, Govt. of Uzbekistan has nominated him as Ambassador of Tourism. In a very sort of time, his videos got viral on YouTube, whats app, Facebook he has millions of followers on social media. His live audience whom he has trained is approximately ten millions. He has written hundreds of articles for several newspapers. Hundreds of articles, blogs and podcasts have been written on his works and achievements at national and international level. Follow Us On Social Media : https://ift.tt/1HAPumV https://ift.tt/3boEkpZ https://twitter.com/QasimAliShah_ https://twitter.com/qasfoundation https://ift.tt/2Wqt4p2 https://ift.tt/2Wqeei1 https://ift.tt/35QV7Ro https://ift.tt/2YTR716 https://ift.tt/2WpbS37 https://ift.tt/2Z7PwVJ

What surprised you most in space? | Ask an Astronaut | Garrett Reisman | Big Think

What surprised you most in space? Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Astronaut Garrett Reisman took in countless indescribably beautiful views while he lived in space. But most shocking, he says, was observing the thinness of Earth's atmosphere. You can compare the thickness of the atmosphere to the diameter of Earth to the skin on an apple, or the shell of an egg. It's incredibly thin and shows just how seemingly fragile our planet is. But to put this into perspective, whereas the atmosphere reaches a height of 300,000 feet from Earth's surface, the deepest part of the ocean only reaches 35,000 feet, ten times thinner than Earth's atmosphere. Everything we experience on Earth, from sea to sky, exists on just a tiny slice of precious surface coating. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GARRETT REISMAN: Dr. Reisman was selected by NASA in 1998. His first mission was aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, in 2008, with a 95 day mission aboard the International Space Station. His second mission was aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, in 2010. During these missions, Dr. Reisman performed 3 spacewalks, operated the Space Station Robot Arm and was a flight engineer aboard the Space Shuttle. He served as a technical consultant for the film Ad Astra and is currently a technical advisor for the TV Show For All Mankind. At present he is a Professor of Astronautical Engineering at USC, Motivational Speaker and Senior Advisor at SpaceX. Learn more at garrettreisman.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: GARRETT REISMAN: A transformative moment or reaction I had, other than many beautiful things I observed, especially like the views I saw during my spacewalks and things that were just indescribably wonderful. But I would say the thing that was probably the most impactful and surprising to me was when I looked at the horizon of the earth and I saw how thin the atmosphere was. That was actually really scary. It was shocking. When you look at the atmosphere from Earth orbit, it looks incredibly fragile. It's this little tiny thin blue line that separates the sunlit Earth from the black void of space. And compared to the diameter of the Earth it's tiny. I mean you could hold up your pinky and block the whole thing out very easily. I mean it looks terribly fragile. It looks like a gust of wind could come by and just strip the thing away. The next time, in fact if you're home right now at your computer please open up a browser, put this on pause and open up a browser and just Google Earth from space and then go to the images. Just look at any picture we took of the horizon of the earth from space and you'll see that thin blue line. Look for yourself at just how thin that is. When you compare the thickness of the atmosphere to the diameter of the earth it's like the same dimension or fraction or ratio I should say as the shell on an egg or the skin on an apple. It's incredibly thin and that gives you a real visceral impression of just how fragile this planet is. And by the way, this happened to me, I had this experience and then about a week later I was looking out the window and I was looking down at the Earth and I saw what you see most of the time, which is the ocean. When you look at the ocean I thought to myself well gee, how thick is that? I could see the atmosphere. I could see how thin that is. What about the ocean? How deep is it? And the answer is that the ocean is ten times less deep than the atmosphere is high. The atmosphere, we draw an arbitrary line at 100 kilometers. We call that the Karman line and we say okay, that's where the atmosphere ends and that's where space begins. And again, that's kind of made up but it's about where – the blue line you see in those photographs is probably about 80 kilometers, but let's say about 100 kilometers. That's a nice round number, that's about 300,000 feet. The deepest part of the ocean like the Marianas Trench challenger deep. The very deepest part that's about 35,000 feet deep. So that's ten times thinner than the atmosphere. So when you see that tiny thin blue line when you look at those photographs think for a moment that the ocean is ten times thinner than that. And then think about the fact as I talked about before about how this planet is perfect for us, how it provides everything we need. All the food we need, all the air we need to breathe, the water we need to drink. It's where all of our friends and family live. It's where all the animals are and the plants and rainbows and mountain ranges and whales in the ocean. All that stuff that makes this our home... Read the full transcript at

Are we living in a simulation? | Bill Nye, Joscha Bach, Donald Hoffman | Big Think

Are we living in a simulation? Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elon Musk famously believes we're living in a simulation, that constant technological improvement means we could be trapped inside a video game console created by a more advanced civilization. In this video, Bill Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society, Joscha Bach and Donald Hoffman, both cognitive psychologists, all weigh in on whether this is base reality or a realistic fiction. What insight from these three thinkers gets your mind ticking? Let us know in the comments! We're stunned at the thought that, if this is a simulation, humans might not be the central purpose of it; we may be an accident of a larger experiment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BILL NYE: Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life. In Seattle Nye began to combine his love of science with his flair for comedy, when he won the Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night. Nye then quit his day engineering day job and made the transition to a night job as a comedy writer and performer on Seattle’s home-grown ensemble comedy show “Almost Live.” This is where “Bill Nye the Science Guy®” was born. The show appeared before Saturday Night Live and later on Comedy Central, originating at KING-TV, Seattle’s NBC affiliate. While working on the Science Guy show, Nye won seven national Emmy Awards for writing, performing, and producing. The show won 18 Emmys in five years. In between creating the shows, he wrote five children’s books about science, including his latest title, “Bill Nye’s Great Big Book of Tiny Germs.” Nye is the host of three currently-running television series. “The 100 Greatest Discoveries” airs on the Science Channel. “The Eyes of Nye” airs on PBS stations across the country. Bill’s latest project is hosting a show on Planet Green called “Stuff Happens.” It’s about environmentally responsible choices that consumers can make as they go about their day and their shopping. Also, you’ll see Nye in his good-natured rivalry with his neighbor Ed Begley. They compete to see who can save the most energy and produce the smallest carbon footprint. Nye has 4,000 watts of solar power and a solar-boosted hot water system. There’s also the low water use garden and underground watering system. It’s fun for him; he’s an engineer with an energy conservation hobby. Nye is currently the Executive Director of The Planetary Society, the world’s largest space interest organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JOSCHA BACH: Dr. Joscha Bach (MIT Media Lab and the Harvard Program for Evolutionary Dynamics) is an AI researcher who works and writes about cognitive architectures, mental representation, emotion, social modeling, and multi-agent systems. He is founder of the MicroPsi project, in which virtual agents are constructed and used in a computer model to discover and describe the interactions of emotion, motivation, and cognition of situated agents. Bach’s mission to build a model of the mind is the bedrock research in the creation of Strong AI, i.e. cognition on par with that of a human being. He is especially interested in the philosophy of AI and in the augmentation of the human mind. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DONALD HOFFMAN: Donald Hoffman is professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine. His writing has appeared in Scientific American and Edge, and his work has been featured in the Atlantic, Wired, and Quanta. He resides in Irvine, California. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: Bill Nye: Are we living in a video game? Are we actually part of a giant simulation? Joscha Bach: The question of whether we are living in a simulation is more related to something more narrow, that is: Is this computer program that we're living in intentionally created or is it just a natural occurrence? Bill Nye: It seems to me it's a hard question to resolve because it's easy to imagine a game designer, a simulation designer, making it so sophisticated that you can't tell. Joscha Bach: There is this argument that, for instance, Elon Musk made that we can build game consoles that create virtual worlds that look a lot like simulations to us... Read the full transcript at https://ift.tt/2ACjU07