Video+discussion

Video and Discussion – Mental Immune Collapse: Mind-Parasites & Roots of Mass Irrationality

Facilitated by Alex Havasy

11 a.m., July 25, 2021

At this Sunday’s Humanist Forum, Alex Havasy will show part of an hour and 20 minute video entitled “Mental Immune Collapse: Mind-Parasites and the Roots of Mass Irrationality – AHA Center for Education” (see https://americanhumanistcenterforeducation.org/mental-immune-collapse-mind-parasites-and-the-roots-of-mass-irrationality/). Alex will then lead a discussion of the video.

Here is the description of the video:

Why are ideologies poisoning public discourse? Why is extremism on the rise? How did we get here, and what can we do about it?

It turns out some influential assumptions are suppressing our culture’s “immune response” to dangerous ideas. These assumptions prevent us from normalizing critical thinking, and leave us vulnerable to epidemics of unreason. In this video, philosopher Andy Norman will identify the root cause of mass irrationality, and argue that we can inoculate minds against unhinged thinking.

Andy Norman studies how ideologies short-circuit minds and corrupt moral understanding. Then he develops tools that help people reason together in more fruitful ways. In his book Mental Immunity, he lays out the conceptual foundations of cognitive immunology—the emerging science of mental immune health. He’s currently testing a “mind vaccine”—a way to inoculate minds against infectious ideas. Andy directs the Humanism Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University.

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Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.

If you don’t intend to ask any questions or make any comments during this Forum, then please click the below link on Sunday around 11 a.m. in order to view the Forum as it occurs (in real time):

www.facebook.com/humanistcommsv/live

Note the new website above for streaming the Forum.

If you may want to ask a question or make a comment during this Forum, then please click the below link on Sunday around 11 a.m. in order to view, and possibly take part in, the Forum as it occurs (in real time):

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/314247393?pwd=d285R2VxWWdNcmk4NHdPaVNpWjc4dz09

(Note: this is a different link than has been posted here previously.)

If you don’t have the Zoom app installed on your desktop computer, then joining the meeting via the above link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer, and then take you to the meeting.

You can also install the Zoom app on your smart phone, and then enter:

314247393

as the meeting number, and

255787

as the passcode, to get to this Zoom meeting.

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Food Biotechnology for a Sustainable Future – Video and Discussion

Facilitated by Alex Havasy

11 a.m., July 18, 2021

At this Sunday’s Humanist Forum, Alex Havasy will show a 51 minute, 57 second video of a panel discussion about “Food Biotechnology for a Sustainable Future” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uA8xKi2VCU). Alex will then lead a discussion of the video.

The panelists in that video are:

Mahaletchumy Arujanan, Chair (Malaysia) – Global Coordinator, International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA); Executive Director, Malaysian Biotechnology Information Centre (MABIC)
Angela Bearth (Switzerland) – Research Scientist, Consumer Behavior, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich
Jon Entine (USA) – Founder and Executive Director, Genetic Literacy Project
Sarah Davidson Evanega (USA) – Director, Cornell Alliance for Science, Cornell University
Margaret Karembu (Kenya) – Director, AfriCenter, International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA)

That video shows one of 6 panel discussions of the Aspen Global Science Congress on Scientific Thinking & Action, a four-day gathering of 100 science communicators and advocates from over 50 countries, March 17–20, 2021, co-organized by the Aspen Institute Science & Society Program (USA) and the Question of Science Institute (Brazil) in collaboration with the Aspen Institute Italia (Rome, Italy) and EquiTech Futures.

All 6 panel discussions are listed at https://www.aspeninstitute.org/events/global-congress-on-scientific-thinking-and-action/#Panel4 . On that site you can also check out the other talks on scientific thinking and action.

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Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.

www.facebook.com/humanistcommsv/live

Note the new website above for streaming the Forum.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/314247393?pwd=d285R2VxWWdNcmk4NHdPaVNpWjc4dz09

(Note: this is a different link than has been posted here previously.)

You can also install the Zoom app on your smart phone, and then enter:

314247393

as the meeting number, and

255787

as the passcode, to get to this Zoom meeting.

———-

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

Video and Discussion: Mars Mission Update

Facilitated by Alex Havasy

11 a.m., July 11, 2021

At this Sunday’s Humanist Forum, Alex Havasy will show the 48 minute, 31 second video Mars Mission Update: June 2021, and then lead a discussion of the video.

Here is the description of the video:

“The Starship vehicle is poised to revolutionise human spaceflight. With SpaceX and NASA working together to develop Starship for the Artemis Program, our ambitions in space have profoundly changed. Aspiring Martian Colonist Dr Ryan MacDonald charts the course towards the first human missions to the Red Planet.”

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Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.

www.facebook.com/humanistcommsv/live

Note the new website above for streaming the Forum.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/314247393?pwd=d285R2VxWWdNcmk4NHdPaVNpWjc4dz09

(Note: this is a different link than has been posted here previously.)

You can also install the Zoom app on your smart phone, and then enter:

314247393

as the meeting number, and

255787

as the passcode, to get to this Zoom meeting.

———-

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

Does a Person’s Label Tell Us What They Believe? (Audience Discussion)

Facilitated by Alex Havasy

11 a.m., June 27, 2021

At this Sunday’s Humanist Forum, Alex Havasy will show a short video to introduce the concept of worldviews, and then lead a discussion on “Does a Person’s Label Tell Us What They Believe?”.

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Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.

www.facebook.com/humanistcommsv/live

Note the new website above for streaming the Forum.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/314247393?pwd=d285R2VxWWdNcmk4NHdPaVNpWjc4dz09

(Note: this is a different link than has been posted here previously.)

You can also install the Zoom app on your smart phone, and then enter:

314247393

as the meeting number, and

255787

as the passcode, to get to this Zoom meeting.

———-

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

The video: Professor Francis Fukuyama on ‘What Trump Got Right’

Facilitated by Alex Havasy

11 a.m., June 20, 2021

At this Sunday’s Humanist Forum, we will hear and discuss an interview by Freddie Sayers with Professor Francis Fukuyama, on ‘What Trump Got Right’. Francis Fukuyama is a political scientist, political writer, and writer.

You can view the interview at https://unherd.com/thepost/francis-fukuyama-trumpism-came-from-the-soul/

One commentator stated: Since Aris Roussinos’s fantastic essay on https://unherd.com/ earlier this month, “Why Fukuyama was right all along,” I’ve been getting to know the much-misunderstood thinker’s writing. It turns out that, far from the triumphalist credo of 1990s liberalism, ‘The End of History’ is a disquieting, and prescient, sketch of what the liberal era would feel like, and how it would eventually go wrong.

———-

Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.

www.facebook.com/humanistcommsv/live

Note the new website above for streaming the Forum.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/314247393?pwd=d285R2VxWWdNcmk4NHdPaVNpWjc4dz09

(Note: this is a different link than has been posted here previously.)

You can also install the Zoom app on your smart phone, and then enter:

314247393

as the meeting number, and

255787

as the passcode, to get to this Zoom meeting.

———-

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.