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Cross Post: Brainpower: Use it or Lose it?

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This is the first in a series of blogposts by the members of the Expanding Autonomy project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council

Written By: J Adam Carter, COGITO, University of Glasgow

E-mail: adam.carter@glasgow.ac.uk

 

What are things going to be like in 100 years? Here’s one possible future, described in Michael P. Lynch’s The Internet of Us. He invites us to imagine:

smartphones are miniaturized and hooked directly into a person’s brain. With a single mental command, those who have this technology – let’s call it neuromedia – can access information on any subject ….

That sounds pretty good. Just think how quickly you could gain information you need, and how easy and intellectually streamlined the process would be. But here is the rest of the story:

Now imagine that an environmental disaster strikes our invented society after several generations have enjoyed the fruits of neuromedia. The electronic communication grid that allows neuromedia to function is destroyed. Suddenly no one can access the shared cloud of information by thought alone. . . . [F]or the inhabitants of this society, losing neuromedia is an immensely unsettling experience; it’s like a normally sighted person going blind. They have lost a way of accessing information on which they’ve come to rely.Read More »Cross Post: Brainpower: Use it or Lose it?

Pandemic ethics: Never again – will we make Covid-19 a warning shot or a dud?

by Anders Sandberg

The Covid-19 pandemic is not the end of the world. But it certainly is a wake-up call. When we look back on the current situation in a year’s time, will we collectively learn the right lessons or instead quickly forget like we did with the 1918 flu? Or even think it was just hype, like Y2K?

There are certainly plenty of people saying this is the new normal, and that things will never be the same. But historically we have adapted to trauma rather well. Maybe too well – we have a moral reason to ensure that we do not forget the harsh lessons we are learning now.

Read More »Pandemic ethics: Never again – will we make Covid-19 a warning shot or a dud?

Video Interview: Richard Holton on Dementia and the Social Self

In this interview with Dr Katrien Devolder (Philosophy, Oxford), Professor Richard Holton (Philosophy, Cambridge) argues that those interacting with people suffering from dementia have an important role to play in buttressing their identity. He also discusses the implications of his views for the role of family and friends in medical decision-making for those with dementia,… Read More »Video Interview: Richard Holton on Dementia and the Social Self

Punishment and Memory

The public outcry at the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service that Lord Janner was not fit to stand trial for 22 sex offences, the last of which were allegedly committed in the 1980s, appears to have led the CPS to initiate a review. Janner’s case raises several issues about the punishment of crimes that may have taken place in the relatively distant past.Read More »Punishment and Memory

“One cup of joe and your brain is ready to go”? – Caffeine as memory enhancer

The first systematic study investigating the effects of caffeine on human performance – sponsored by Coca-Cola – has been published about 100 years ago. Since then, thousands of other studies have been looking at if and in which ways caffeine improves cognitive performance. This question is still debated in science, but there is general consensus that caffeine can be seen as an enhancer for specific functions like mood, attention, concentration and reaction time. These enhancement effects have been shown in studies with the general set-up that participants first took caffeine and then did a performance task. This matches our everyday representation of “wise” caffeine use: if I wanted to enhance my performance with caffeine, I’d take it immediately before the “critical situation”, for example an exam.

Read More »“One cup of joe and your brain is ready to go”? – Caffeine as memory enhancer

Your password will probably be hacked soon, and how to (actually) solve the problem

By Brian D. Earp

See Brian’s most recent previous post by clicking here.

See all of Brian’s previous posts by clicking here.

Follow Brian on Twitter by clicking here.

 

Your password will probably be hacked soon, and how to (actually) solve the problem

Smithsonian Magazine recently reported: “Your Password Will Probably Be Hacked Soon” and delivered a troubling quote from Ars Technica:

The ancient art of password cracking has advanced further in the past five years than it did in the previous several decades combined. At the same time, the dangerous practice of password reuse has surged. The result: security provided by the average password in 2012 has never been weaker.

After the Twitter accounts for Burger King as well as Chrysler’s Jeep were recently broken into, Twitter apparently issued some advice to the effect that people should be smarter about their password security practices. So: use lots of letters and numbers, passwords should be 10-digits or longer, use a different password for every one of your online accounts and so on.

But this is nuts. Does Twitter know anything about how human beings actually work? Why do you think people reuse their passwords for multiple sites? Why do you think people select easy-to-remember (and easy-to-discover) factoids from their childhoods as answers to security questions?

Read More »Your password will probably be hacked soon, and how to (actually) solve the problem