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When Epicurus defined happiness as the supreme good, he warned his disciples that it is hard work to be happy. Material achievements alone will not satisfy us for long. Indeed, the blind pursuit of money, fame and pleasure will only make us miserable. Epicurus recommended, for example, to eat and drink in moderation, and to curb one’s sexual appetites. In the long run, a deep friendship will make us more content than a frenzied orgy. Epicurus
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Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow)
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...I should always find, the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind; nay, they were not subjected to so many distempers and uneasinesses either of body or mind, as those were who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances on one hand, or by hard labor, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient diet on the other hand, bring distempers upon themselves by the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of life was calculated for all kind of virtues and all kind of enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings attending the middle station of life...
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Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe)
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Men achieve cheerfulness by moderation in pleasure and by proportion in their life excess and deficiency are apt to fluctuate and cause great changes in the soul. And souls which change over great intervals are neither stable nor cheerful. So one should set one's mind on what is possible and be content with what one has taking little account of those who are admired and envied and not dwelling on them in thought but one should consider the lives of those who are in distress thinking of their grievous sufferings so that what one has and possesses will seem great and enviable and one will cease to suffer in one's soul through the desire for more.
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Democritus
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This system of discrimination, an inculcated double standard, may vary in content from culture to culture, but it is always unjust. There are thousands of kinds of injustice but there is only one kind of justice - equal justice for all. To call for a little more justice, or a moderately gradual sort of justice, is to call for no justice. That is a simple truth.
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John Howard Griffin (Black Like Me)
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The Shire at this time had hardly any ‘government’. Families for the most part managed their own affairs. Growing food and eating it occupied most of their time. In other matters they were, as a rule, generous and not greedy, but contented and moderate, so that estates, farms, workshops, and small trades tended to remain unchanged for
generations.
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J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings (Middle Earth, #2-4))
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Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or riches can feed the appetite of novelty with perpetual gratifications, survey the Pyramids, and confess thy folly!
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Samuel Johnson
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For every job lost to automation, a new one will materialize that we cannot anticipate: he unemployed forklift operators will retrain as tattoo removal technicians and video game costume designers and social media content moderators and pet psychiatrists.
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Steven Pinker (Rationality)
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I put for a generall inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death. And the cause of this, is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight, than he has already attained to; or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.
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Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan)
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In particular, our church will have to confront the vices of hubris, the worship of power, envy, and illusionism[28] as the roots of all evil. It will have to speak of moderation, authenticity, trust, faithfulness, steadfastness, patience, discipline, humility, modesty, contentment.[
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Letters and Papers from Prison DBW Vol 8 (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works))
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Perhaps the attitude for us to take towards our many failures is the one adopted by Gopal Krishna Gokhale towards those of the Moderate nationalists: Let us not forget that we are at a stage of the country’s progress when our achievements are bound to be small, and our disappointments frequent and trying. That is the place which it has pleased Providence to assign to us in this struggle, and our responsibility is ended when we have done the work which belongs to that place. It will, no doubt, be given to our countrymen of future generations to serve India by their successes; we, of the present generation, must be content to serve her mainly by our failures. For, hard though it be, out of those failures the strength will come which in the end will accomplish great tasks.9
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Bipan Chandra (India Since Independence)
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to eat and drink in moderation, and to curb one’s sexual appetites. In the long run, a deep friendship will make us more content than a frenzied orgy.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow)
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Epicurus recommended, for example, to eat and drink in moderation, and to curb one’s sexual appetites. In the long run, a deep friendship will make us more content than a frenzied orgy.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow)
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The chief obstacle is that we are quick to be satisfied with ourselves. If we find someone to call us good men, cautious and principled, we acknowledge him. We are not content with a moderate eulogy, but accept as our due whatever flattery has shamelessly heaped upon us. We agree with those who call us best and wisest, although we know they often utter many falsehoods: we indulge ourselves so greatly that we want to be praised for a virtue which is the opposite of our behavior. A man hears himself called ‘most merciful’ while he is inflicting torture.. So it follows that we don’t want to change because we believe we are already excellent.
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Marcus Aurelius
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What I ask of you is reasonable and moderate; I demand a creature of another sex, but as hideous as myself; the gratification is small, but it is all that I can receive, and it shall content me. it is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another. Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless, and free from the misery I now feel. Oh! my creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude towards you of one benefit!
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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein)
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Eating disorders and body dissatisfaction are reaching epidemic proportions in the West, yet this is possible only in a culture that no longer believes that God causes all things, including one's body shape...The Qur'an's message is to be happy and content with one's body because God created our shapes: "He it is Who shapes you in the wombs as He pleases (3:6);" and He created us "in the best of moulds" (95:4). The Prophet used to advise people to be healthy and consume and exercise in moderation.
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Katherine Bullock (Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical & Modern Stereotypes)
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When Epicurus defined happiness as the supreme good, he warned his disciples that it is hard work to be happy. Material achievements alone will not satisfy us for long. Indeed, the blind pursuit of money, fame and pleasure will only make us miserable. Epicurus recommended, for example, to eat and drink in moderation, and to curb one’s sexual appetites. In the long run, a deep friendship will make us more content than a frenzied orgy. Epicurus outlined an entire ethic of dos and don’ts to guide people along the treacherous path to happiness.
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Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow)
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Moderation He that holds fast the golden mean, And lives contentedly between The little and the great, Feels not the wants that pinch the poor, Nor plagues that haunt the rich man’s door Embittering all his state Horace, from Odes, Book II, translated by William Cowper
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Daisy Goodwin (101 Poems to Get You Through the Day (and Night))
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A borderline suffers a kind of “emotional hemophilia”; she lacks the clotting mechanism needed to moderate her spurts of feeling. Prick the delicate “skin” of a borderline and she will emotionally bleed to death. Sustained periods of contentment are foreign to the borderline.
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Jerold J. Kreisman (I Hate You--Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality)
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The only defect in which excellent constitution seems to be, the difficulty of finding any man adequate to the office of an absolute monarch: for this indispensably requires three qualities very difficult, as it appears from history, to be found in princely natures: first, a sufficient quantity of moderation in the prince, to be contented with all the power which is possible for him to have. 2ndly, Enough of wisdom to know his own happiness. And, 3rdly, Goodness sufficient to support the happiness of others, when not only compatible with, but instrumental to his own. Now
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Henry Fielding (History of Tom Jones, a Foundling)
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The man whose public spirit is prompted altogether by humanity and benevolence, will respect the established powers and privileges even of individuals, and still more those of the great orders and societies, into which the state is divided. Though he should consider some of them as in some measure abusive, he will content himself with moderating what he often cannot annihilate without great violence. When he cannot conquer the rooted prejudices of the people by reason and persuasion, he will not attempt to subdue them by force; but will religiously observe what, by Cicero, is justly called the divine maxim of Plato, never to use violence to his country no more than to his parents. He will accommodate, as well as he can, his public arrangements to the confirmed habits and prejudices of the people; and will remedy, as well as he can, the inconveniencies which may flow from the want of those regulations which the people are averse to submit to. When he cannot establish the right, he will not disdain to ameliorate the wrong; but like Solon, when he cannot establish the best system of laws, he will try to establish the best that the people can bear.
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Adam Smith (The Theory of Moral Sentiments)
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Thankfully you tune the strings of your moldering lyre to a moderated, to a passably joyful, nay, to an even delighted psalm of thanksgiving and with it bore your quiet, flabby and slightly stupefied half-and-half god of contentment; and in the thick warm air of a contented boredom and very welcome painlessness the nodding mandarin of a half-and-half god and the nodding middle-aged gentleman who sings his muffled psalm look as like each other as two peas.
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Hermann Hesse
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Temperance moderate nothing, except to the end that men may be pleased and vain glory served. Nor will they be able to defend themselves from the charge of such baseness, whilst they, by way of being despisers of glory, disregard the judgment of other men, seem to themselves wise, and please themselves. For their virtue,--if, indeed, it is virtue at all,--is only in another way subjected to human praise; for he who seeks to please himself seeks still to please man.
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Augustine of Hippo (The Complete Works of Saint Augustine: The Confessions, On Grace and Free Will, The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, Expositions on the Book Of Psalms, ... (50 Books With Active Table of Contents))
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Sonnet of Luxury
Serenity shrinks as luxury grows,
While you pay moderation no heed.
Disparity is not a matter of economics,
All of it is born of human greed.
Moderation is the key to contentment,
Lesser the needs the happier you are.
Grow up and get hold of your needs,
Learn to tell necessities from desire.
Cherish the little things in life,
Value people over possession.
A healthy society is born of healthy mind,
Health begins where ends self-obsession.
Sophistication is an enemy of life.
A life of simplicity is bound to thrive.
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Abhijit Naskar (Hometown Human: To Live for Soil and Society)
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Neither Trump nor his Russian backers spent very much money during the campaign. Television did the advertising for them free of charge. Even the Twitter accounts of MSNBC, CNN, CBS, and NBC mentioned Trump twice as often as they mentioned Clinton. When Russia began to release hacked emails, the networks and the media played along. Russia thus influenced the headlines and even the questions posed in the presidential debates. Content from hacked emails figured in two of the three debates; in the final one, the debate moderator accepted an erroneous Russian recasting of Clinton’s words in a speech, and made of it a central issue.
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Timothy Snyder (The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America)
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He who has known the other days, the angry ones of gout attacks, or those with that wicked headache rooted behind the eyeballs that casts a spell on every nerve of eye and ear with a fiendish delight in torture, or soul-destroying, evil days of inward vacancy and despair, when, onthis distracted earth, sucked dry by the vampires of finance, the world of men and of so-called culture grins back at us with the lying, vulgar, brazen glamor of a Fair and dogs us with the persistence of an emetic, and when all is concentrated and focused to the last pitch of the intolerable upon your own sick self—he who has known these days of hell may be contente indeed with normal half-and-half days like today. Thankfully you sit by the warm stove, thankfully you assure yourself as you read your morning paper that another day has come and no war broken out, no new dictatorship has been set up, no particularly disgusting scandal been unveiled in the worlds of politics or finance. Thankfully you tune the strings of your moldering lyre to a moderated, to a passably joyful, nay, to an even delighted psalm of thanksgiving and with it bore your quiet, flabby and slightly stupefied half-and-half god of contentment; and in the thick warm air of a contented boredom and very welcome painlessness the nodding mandarin of a half-and-half god and the nodding middle-aged gentleman who sings his muffled psalm look as like each other as two peas.
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Hermann Hesse (Steppenwolf)
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he who has known these days of hell may be content indeed with normal half-and-half days like today. Thankfully you sit by the warm stove, thankfully you assure yourself as you read your morning paper that another day has come and no war broken out, no new dictatorship has been set up, no particularly disgusting scandal been unveiled in the worlds of politics or finance. Thankfully you tune the strings of your moldering lyre to a moderated, to a passably joyful, nay, to an even delighted psalm of thanksgiving and with it bore your quiet, flabby and slightly stupefied half-and-half god of contentment; and in the thick warm air of a contented boredom and very welcome painlessness the nodding mandarin of a half-and-half god and the nodding middle-aged gentleman who sings his muffled psalm look as like each other as two peas.
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Hermann Hesse (Steppenwolf)
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The crystallized opposition of the segregationists was not unexpected; but we had only dimly foreseen the resistance that came from another quarter. Victor Hugo has spoken of the "madmen of moderation" who are "un-paving hell." The descendants of Hugo's moderates appeared in the fall of 1963, bearing banners inscribed with the message: Order Before Justice.
For the most part, these moderates counted themselves as friends of the civil-rights movement; certainly they were in no sense moral bedfellows of the forces of segregation and violence. But they were now wrestling with a logic that an earlier, more passive, movement had never forced them to question. They had long settled on a simple compromise, one easy to accept and to live with. They could countenance token changes, and they had always believed these would make the Negro content. They were not asking him to stay in his old ghetto. They were ready to build a brand-new ghetto for him with a small exit door for a few. But the breath of the new movement chilled them. The Negro was insisting upon the mass application of equality to jobs, housing, education and social mobility. He sought a full life for a whole people. These moderates had come some distance in step with the thundering drums, but at the point of mass application they wanted the bugle to sound a retreat.
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Martin Luther King Jr. (Why We Can't Wait)
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Given that at all times, so long as there have been human beings, there have also been herds of human beings (racial groups, communities, tribes, peoples, states, churches) and always a great many followers in relation to the small number of those issuing orders―and taking into consideration also that so far nothing has been better and longer practised and cultivated among human beings than obedience, we can reasonably assume that typically now the need for obedience is inborn in each individual, as a sort of formal conscience which states "You are to do something or other without conditions, and leave aside something else without conditions," in short, "Thou shalt." This need seeks to satisfy itself and to fill its form with some content. Depending on its strength, impatience, and tension, it seizes on something, without being very particular, like a coarse appetite, and accepts what someone or other issuing commands―parents, teachers, laws, class biases, public opinion―shouts in people's ears. The curiously limitation of human development―the way it hesitates, takes so long, often regresses, and turns around on itself―is based on the fact that the herd instinct of obedience is passed on best and at the expense of the art of commanding. If we imagine this instinct at some point striding right to its ultimate excess, then there would finally be a total lack of commanders and independent people, or they would suffer inside from a bad conscience and find it necessary first to prepare a deception for themselves in order to be able to command, as if they, too, were only obeying orders. This condition is what, in fact, exists nowadays in Europe: I call it the moral hypocrisy of those in command. They don't know how to protect themselves from their bad conscience except by behaving as if they were carrying out older or higher orders (from ancestors, the constitution, rights, law, or even God), or they even borrow herd maxims from the herd way of thinking, for example, as "the first servant of their people" or as "tools of the common good." On the other hand, the herd man in Europe today makes himself appear as if he is the single kind of human being allowed, and he glorifies those characteristics of his thanks to which he is tame, good natured, and useful to the herd, as the really human virtues, that is, public spiritedness, wishing everyone well, consideration, diligence, moderation, modesty, forbearance, and pity. For those cases, however, where people believe they cannot do without a leader and bell wether, they make attempt after attempt to replace the commander by adding together collections of clever herd people All the representative constitutional assemblies, for example, have this origin. But for all that, what a blissful relief, what a release from a pressure which is growing unbearable is the appearance of an absolute commander for these European herd animals. The effect which the appearance of Napoleon made was the most recent major evidence for that:―the history of the effect of Napoleon is almost the history of the higher happiness which this entire century derived from its most valuable men and moments.
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Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
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Given that at all times, so long as there have been human beings, there have also been herds of human beings (racial groups, communities, tribes, peoples, states, churches) and always a great many followers in relation to the small number of those issuing orders - and taking into consideration also that so far nothing has been better and longer practised and cultivated among human beings than obedience, we can reasonably assume that typically now the need for obedience is inborn in each individual, as a sort of formal conscience which states "You are to do something or other without conditions, and leave aside something else without conditions," in short, "Thou shalt." This need seeks to satisfy itself and to fill its form with some content. Depending on its strength, impatience, and tension, it seizes on something, without being very particular, like a coarse appetite, and accepts what someone or other issuing commands - parents, teachers, laws, class biases, public opinion - shouts in people's ears. The curiously limitation of human development - the way it hesitates, takes so long, often regresses, and turns around on itself - is based on the fact that the herd instinct of obedience is passed on best and at the expense of the art of commanding. If we imagine this instinct at some point striding right to its ultimate excess, then there would finally be a total lack of commanders and independent people, or they would suffer inside from a bad conscience and find it necessary first to prepare a deception for themselves in order to be able to command, as if they, too, were only obeying orders. This condition is what, in fact, exists nowadays in Europe: I call it the moral hypocrisy of those in command. They don't know how to protect themselves from their bad conscience except by behaving as if they were carrying out older or higher orders (from ancestors, the constitution, rights, law, or even God), or they even borrow herd maxims from the herd way of thinking, for example, as "the first servant of their people" or as "tools of the common good." On the other hand, the herd man in Europe today makes himself appear as if he is the single kind of human being allowed, and he glorifies those characteristics of his thanks to which he is tame, good natured, and useful to the herd, as the really human virtues, that is, public spiritedness, wishing everyone well, consideration, diligence, moderation, modesty, forbearance, and pity. For those cases, however, where people believe they cannot do without a leader and bell wether, they make attempt after attempt to replace the commander by adding together collections of clever herd people All the representative constitutional assemblies, for example, have this origin. But for all that, what a blissful relief, what a release from a pressure which is growing unbearable is the appearance of an absolute commander for these European herd animals. The effect which the appearance of Napoleon made was the most recent major evidence for that: - the history of the effect of Napoleon is almost the history of the higher happiness which this entire century derived from its most valuable men and moments.
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Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
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Yoel Goldenberg makes exhibitions, photographs, models and media craftsmanship. His works are an examination of ideas, for example, validness and objectivity by utilizing an exhaustive methodology and semi exploratory exactness and by referencing documentaries, 'actuality fiction' and prominent experimental reciprocals. Yoel Goldenberg as of now lives and works in Brooklyn.
By challenging the division between the domain of memory and the domain of experience, Goldenberg formalizes the circumstantial and underlines the procedure of synthesis that is behind the apparently arbitrary works. The manners of thinking, which are probably private, profoundly subjective and unfiltered in their references to dream universes, are much of the time uncovered as collections. His practice gives a valuable arrangement of metaphorical instruments for moving with a pseudo-moderate approach in the realm of execution: these fastidiously arranged works reverberate and resound with pictures winnowed from the fantastical domain of creative energy. By trying different things with aleatoric procedures, Yoel Goldenberg makes work in which an interest with the clarity of substance and an uncompromising demeanor towards calculated and insignificant workmanship can be found. The work is detached and deliberate and a cool and unbiased symbolism is utilized.
His works are highlighting unplanned, unintentional and sudden associations which make it conceivable to overhaul craftsmanship history and, far and away superior, to supplement it. Consolidating random viewpoints lead to astounding analogies. With a theoretical methodology, he ponders the firmly related subjects of file and memory. This regularly brings about an examination of both the human requirement for "definitive" stories and the inquiry whether tales "fictionalize" history. His gathered, changed and own exhibitions are being faced as stylishly versatile, specifically interrelated material for memory and projection. The conceivable appears to be genuine and reality exists, yet it has numerous countenances, as Hanna Arendt refers to from Franz Kafka. By exploring dialect on a meta-level, he tries to approach a wide size of subjects in a multi-layered route, likes to include the viewer in a way that is here and there physical and has faith in the thought of capacity taking after structure in a work.
Goldenberg’s works are straightforwardly a reaction to the encompassing environment and uses regular encounters from the craftsman as a beginning stage. Regularly these are confined occasions that would go unnoticed in their unique connection. By utilizing a regularly developing file of discovered archives to make self-ruling works of art, he retains the convention of recognition workmanship into every day hone. This individual subsequent and recovery of a past custom is vital as a demonstration of reflection. Yoel’s works concentrate on the powerlessness of correspondence which is utilized to picture reality, the endeavor of dialog, the disharmony in the middle of structure and content and the dysfunctions of dialect. To put it plainly, the absence of clear references is key components in the work. With an unobtrusive moderate methodology, he tries to handle dialect. Changed into craftsmanship, dialect turns into an adornment. Right then and there, loads of ambiguities and indistinctnesses, which are intrinsic to the sensation, rise up to the top
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Herbert Goldenberg
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The healthy householder understands and appreciates the energy of life and therefore lives in moderation and contentment in order to conserve and nourish qi, or life energy.
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Eva Wong (Being Taoist: Wisdom for Living a Balanced Life)
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Here are a few common time-consumers in small businesses with online presences. Submitting articles to drive traffic to site and build mailing lists Participating in or moderating discussion forums and message boards Managing affiliate programs Creating content for and publishing newsletters and blog postings Background research components of new marketing initiatives or analysis of current marketing results Don’t expect miracles from a single
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Timothy Ferriss (The 4-Hour Workweek)
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Cultivating the habits of balance, moderation, care, and observance will then comfortably ensure more hygge in our daily lives.
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Louisa Thomsen Brits (The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Contentment, Comfort, and Connection)
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Facebook without content moderation is a gun without gun control.
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Abhijit Naskar (The Constitution of The United Peoples of Earth)
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We live in a time where the Ring of Gyges could represent “power,” and how we use such power is reflected by our action and choices. Do we have a moral compass? Are we capable of anything or subject to being corrupted by absolute power? The old saying absolute power corrupts absolutely. I think the answer, in my humble opinion, is that with great power comes great responsibility. I would go further and say such influence and power used in the correct way, to ultimately help others or change the world for the better, is a positive possibility. The person who is truly content, resourceful and adaptive would not need such a lever to succeed as well. Although if money or power gives us access to more opportunities for travel, or work, or education for Lexivists who are focused on obtaining knowledge and positive activity which all is done in a way that is moderated rather than taken to an extreme of being corrupted, or being excessive. The choice is ours and how we act reflects our capacity to be virtuous, to continue to better ourselves as human beings and Lexivists.
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Alexander Lloyd Curran (Introduction to Lexivism)
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Milk Milk can be a mild to moderate trigger for some. Generally, the lower the fat content, the greater the potential for migraine. Lower-fat milk has a higher concentration of milk sugars, which are the likely trigger here.
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Josh Turknett (The Migraine Miracle: A Sugar-Free, Gluten-Free, Ancestral Diet to Reduce Inflammation and Relieve Your Headaches for Good)
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Just because you are anti-police, that does not necessarily mean that your whiteness has disappeared or that anti-Black racism is gone. Remember what James Baldwin told us, “White Americans find it as difficult as white people elsewhere do to divest themselves of the notion that they are in possession of some intrinsic value that black people need, or want.”5 Even Dr. King—yes, the one that even conservatives love to tout as the content-of-your-character caricature—argued that he was disappointed in the “white moderate” who “is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice . . . who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom.”6 White liberals are who we should be concerned about. Of course, Malcolm X warned us to be aware of the fox and the wolf—by which he meant that white liberals would try and be your friend in order to take advantage of you, but the wolf would always make clear its intentions and commit an act of violence. Finally, let’s not forget the words of South African and Black Consciousness movement freedom fighter Steve Biko, who wrote of white liberals: Instead of involving themselves in an all-out attempt to stamp out racism from their white society, liberals waste lots of time trying to prove to as many blacks as they can find that they are liberal.
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Kyle T. Mays (An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States (ReVisioning History Book 6))
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Whether these politicians lack understanding of the law or simply seek to circumvent it by using corporate regulations instead is unclear. But in the case of both Hamas and Hezbollah, we need to ask: What is the impact in Palestine and Lebanon, where these groups are powerful players in local politics—local politics that have no shortage of violent actors? Azza El Masri is a media researcher from Lebanon who, for the past several years, has studied content moderation. “Is Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and its participation in the Iran-KSA proxy war tantamount to terrorist activities? Yes,” she told me in a text message. “However, this doesn’t absolve the fact that Hezbollah today is the most powerful political actor in Lebanon.” Lebanon’s political scene is, to the outsider, messy and difficult to parse. After the fifteen-year civil war that killed hundreds of thousands, the country’s parliament instituted a law that pardoned all political crimes prior to its enactment, allowing the groups that were formerly militias to form political parties. Only Hezbollah—an Iran-sponsored creation to unify the country’s Shia population during the war—was allowed by the postwar Syrian occupation to retain its militia. The United States designated Hezbollah (which translates to “Party of God”) a foreign terrorist organization in 1995, more than a decade after the group bombed US military barracks in Beirut.
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Jillian York (Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism)
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Facebook and its counterparts don’t operate like courts; there is no case law, no checks and balances, and—until recently—no due process. The judges (content moderators) are not appointed or elected by voters, unlike in well-functioning democracies. There are simply no systems of accountability to the process and, as such, the same image that might be banned for one user can be allowed for another.
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Jillian York (Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism)
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There is no greater contentment than the feeling of victory over your own savagery.
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Abhijit Naskar (Karadeniz Chronicle: The Novel)
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The work we must do next is less cerebral and more spiritual. It’s work located in the heart and in the soul, and not in the mind. Because it is our soul that is the key to our happiness (or our unhappiness), contentment (or discontent), moderation (or gluttony), and stillness (or perturbation). That is why those who seek stillness must come to . . . Develop a strong moral compass. Steer clear of envy and jealousy and harmful desires. Come to terms with the painful wounds of their childhood. Practice gratitude and appreciation for the world around them. Cultivate relationships and love in their lives. Place belief and control in the hands of something larger than themselves. Understand that there will never be “enough” and that the unchecked pursuit of more ends only in bankruptcy. Our soul is where we secure our happiness and unhappiness, contentment or emptiness—and ultimately, determine the extent of our greatness. We must maintain a good one.
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Ryan Holiday (Stillness is the Key)
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Mark Zuckerberg had recently announced the creation of Facebook’s “Supreme Court,” an oversight board7 designed to take content moderation to an independent court-style setup. That board addressed the wrong issue: content, which had never really been the problem. The first problem was the company’s distribution model: an oversight board on content could never match the speed of the dissemination of information online.
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Maria Ressa (How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future)
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Many of the issues were foundational. Facebook never bothered to translate its community standards into languages spoken by tens of millions. It often used contractors to review content in other languages, and would route posts in Syrian and Iraqi Arabic to contractors in Morocco, for whom they were incomprehensible. An internal review referred to that as a failure to meet the “rock-bottom minimum” standard that contract moderators understand the language of the content they reviewed.
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Jeff Horwitz (Broken Code: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets)
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The idea is not to ban innovation, but to adapt it with human welfare.
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Abhijit Naskar (Iman Insaniyat, Mazhab Muhabbat: Pani, Agua, Water, It's All One)
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the technical ignorance of elected politicians who are hardly credible in providing oversight or contemplating regulation; profound disagreements about what we value and how trade-offs should be made, whether in regard to data privacy, free speech, and content moderation or automation and the future of work; the slow, painstaking consideration of legislation that seems to generate competing bills—so that everyone has his or her name on one—without generating significant progress, especially in a highly polarized political environment; and the strong status quo bias of democratic institutions, which means that policy change is slow and sticky, making it difficult for regulators to respond flexibly and adaptably to new developments in technology.
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Rob Reich (System Error: How Big Tech Disrupted Everything and Why We Must Reboot)
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How much real comfort every one might enjoy if he would be contented with the lot in which heaven has cast him, and how much trouble would be avoided if people would only "let well alone." A moderate independence, quietly and honestly procured, is certainly every way preferable even to immense possessions achieved by the wear and tear of mind and body so necessary to procure them. Yet there are very few individuals, let them be doing ever so well in the world, who are not always straining every nerve to do better; and this is one of the many causes why failures in business so frequently occur among us.
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Grace MacGowan Cooke (The Best American Humorous Short Stories)
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But it was the Count’s review of the Contents—a list of 107 essays on the likes of Constancy, Moderation, Solitude, and Sleep—that confirmed his initial suspicion that the book had been written with winter nights in mind. Without a doubt, it was a book for when the birds had flown south, the wood was stacked by the fireplace, and the fields were white with snow; that is, for when one had no desire to venture out and one’s friends had no desire to venture in.
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Amor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow)
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His muscles twitched in anticipation, but he moderated his steps, determined not to let his absolute weakness for the woman propel him into an unmanly display of emotion. Especially here, under her father’s scrutiny. She, on the other hand, began a jog. Then she broke into a skirt-lifting sprint—as she’d done outside the burning fort. Except this time, she was not running to Phillip, and the only object in flames was Totka’s throat as it burned with the effort to swallow. He braced himself to receive her all-out run, but when she loosed his name on a jagged cry, he dropped his bow, quiver, and decorum and hastened to meet her. She flew hard into his arms, laughing and crying at once, knocking the wind from his chest and the good sense from his brain. His rogue mouth went in search of hers. Despite her happy little murmurings and the sighs hot at his ear, he regained himself and angled away, pressing his cheek to hers, unable to draw her close enough. Her body was softer than he recalled, warmer, more eager. And Little Warrior was right—she smelled as sweet as honey. Nose buried in his shirt, she inhaled until her ribs strained against his hold. “Tell me you’ve come to take me home,” she said on a contented discharge of breath.
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April W. Gardner (Beneath the Blackberry Moon: The Sacred Writings (Creek Country Saga #2))
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Pay is meager: a few cents per image or a dollar per hour, sometimes with opportunities to make a couple more bucks.* It’s brutal work, numbing, boring, and rife with imagery of gore, bestiality, abuse, and violent pornography. As one moderator, or content reviewer as they’re also called, told the journalist Adrian Chen: “Think like that there is a sewer channel and all of the mess/dirt/waste/shit of the world flow towards you and you have to clean it.” The job of these unseen laborers is to deal with all of the horrible stuff people upload to social networks and prevent it from ever being seen. They are the ones who make sure that Facebook is a clean and well-lighted place.
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Jacob Silverman (Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection)
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Both the Old Testament and the Quran tell a similar story of Adam, the first man, who threw happiness away, and was consigned by God to live a harsh life scratching a living from the earth. Earth is not a place where everlasting and permanent happiness is found. Looking for it here is a distraction that diverts us from pursuing moderate contentment and peace of mind.
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A.A. Alebraheem (5 ESSENTIAL DIMENSIONS: How to balance your life for health, success and content)
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Joy of Conscience (The Sonnet)
Conscience brings joy,
Conscience brings relief.
It's a different kind of joy,
sanctified by bouts of grief.
Conscience causes content,
unsurpassed by material excitement.
Only through conscientious moderation,
shall we overcome shallow derangement.
Materials are needed for sustenance,
beyond that point it becomes poison.
Cluttering the mind with toxic waste,
it separates the human from human.
Conscience brings joy,
untainted by shallow glee.
Surrounded by ritual compromise,
conscience alone can set us free.
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Abhijit Naskar (Abigitano: El Divino Refugiado)
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No, it had not even been a day brightened with happiness and joy. Rather, it had been just one of those days which for a long while now had fallen to my lot; the moderately pleasant, the wholly bearable and tolerable, lukewarm days of a discontented middle-aged man; days without special pains, without special cares, without particular worry, without despair; days when I calmly wonder, objective and fearless, whether it isn’t time to follow the example of Adalbert Stifter and have an accident while shaving. He who has known the other days, the angry ones of gout attacks, or those with that wicked headache rooted behind the eyeballs that casts a spell on every nerve of eye and ear with a fiendish delight in torture, or soul-destroying, evil days of inward vacancy and despair, when, on this distracted earth, sucked dry by the vampires of finance, the world of men and of so-called culture grins back at us with the lying, vulgar, brazen glamor of a Fair and dogs us with the persistence of an emetic, and when all is concentrated and focused to the last pitch of the intolerable upon your own sick self—he who has known these days of hell may be content indeed with normal half-and-half days like today. Thankfully you sit by the warm stove, thankfully you assure yourself as you read your morning paper that another day has come and no war broken out, no new dictatorship has been set up, no particularly disgusting scandal been unveiled in the worlds of politics or finance. Thankfully you tune the strings of your moldering lyre to a moderated, to a passably joyful, nay, to an even delighted psalm of thanksgiving and with it bore your quiet, flabby and slightly stupefied half-and-half god of contentment; and in the thick warm air of a contented boredom and very welcome painlessness the nodding mandarin of a half-and- half god and the nodding middle-aged gentleman who sings his muffled psalm look as like each other as two peas.
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Hermann Hesse (Steppenwolf)
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Many of these officials, journalists, and academics today would be mortified to be associated with “censorship” or an anti–free speech movement. Yet, the use of euphemisms like “disinformation” or “content moderation” does not change the fact that they are part of a comprehensive effort to control and, in some cases, punish the exercise of free expression.
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Jonathan Turley (The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage)
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your job is to make him acquiesce in the present low temperature of his spirit and gradually become content with it, persuading himself that it is not so low after all. In a week or two you will be making him doubt whether the first days of his Christianity were not, perhaps, a little excessive. Talk to him about “moderation in all things”. If you can once get him to the point of thinking that “religion is all very well up to a point”, you can feel quite happy about his soul. A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all—and more amusing.
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C.S. Lewis (The Screwtape Letters)
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Far from meekly living in a drab condition of equality, the United States is a land where success is richly rewarded, so much so that it is at least as notable for its striking inequalities as for its professions of equal rights and equality before the law. Far from being passive Americans are renowned for their drive and inventiveness. In their high energy Americans more closely resemble Hobbes’s chilling portrait of a man who cannot remain content “with moderate power” because “he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.” If, as Hobbes claimed, there “is a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power that ceaseth only in death,
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Sheldon S. Wolin (Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism - New Edition)
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Self-determination theory,” he intones calmly, as if the moderator had never spoken, “states that human beings need three basic things in order to feel content. Number one, they need to feel competent at what they do. Number two, they need to feel authentic in their lives, and number three, they need to feel connected to others.
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Noah Hawley (Anthem)
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Self-determination theory,' he intones casually, as if the moderator had never spoken, 'states that human beings need three basic things in order to feel content. Number one, they need to feel competent at what they do. Number two, they need to feel authentic in their lives, and number three, they need to feel connected to others. Is there anyone here who feels they can check all three of those boxes?
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Noah Hawley (Anthem)
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The most recent statistic is that YouTube adds nearly 600 hours of content every minute, as the product continues to grow its network into the many billions of users across web and mobile. To me, the key learning from the YouTube story is the journey that every networked product has to take. When they started out, they needed very little organization, but as the network grew, more and more structure was applied—first by editors, moderators, and users—and then by data and algorithms. The earliest iterations weren’t sophisticated, just whatever got the job done. Algorithms came later, and even years later, keeping the network healthy is still an everyday battle.
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Andrew Chen (The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects)
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Will and Wheel (The Sonnet)
Where there is a will, there is a wheel.
Where there is intent, there is upliftment.
Where there is heart, there is less dirt.
Where there is content, there is less torment.
Where there is simplicity, there is sanity.
Where there is luxury, there is degradation.
Where there is sharing, there is serenity.
Where there is moderation, there is ascension.
Where there is love, there is acceptance.
Where there is division, there is judgment.
Where there is selflessness, there is joy.
Where there is self-absorption, there is lament.
The requirement of civilization is simply this.
We are to have the will to love and the will to lift.
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Abhijit Naskar (Bulldozer on Duty)
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In 2009, Facebook was employing just around 150 content moderators, who worked primarily from Palo Alto, making around $50,000 per year (consider that salary in light of the already-skyrocketing Bay Area rents at the time). Although the moderators’ focus was broad, covering an array of topics, a Newsweek article from that year failed to appreciate the workers’ broad responsibilities, calling them “porn cops,” but also conceded that they were key to the company’s growth.6 Simon Axten, a twenty-six-year-old Facebook employee profiled in the article, was quoted in the New York Times just four months later as saying that Facebook had tried outsourcing content moderation, but “had not done so widely.”7
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Jillian York (Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism)
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Meanwhile, Facebook censors Palestinian groups so often that they have created their own hashtag, #FBCensorsPalestine. That the groups have become prominent matters little: in 2016, Facebook blocked accounts belonging to editors at the Quds News Network and Shehab News Agency in the West Bank; it later apologized and restored the accounts.30 The following year, it did the same to the official account of Fatah, the ruling party in the West Bank.31 A year after Facebook’s relationship with the Israelis was formalized, the Guardian released a set of leaked documents exposing the ways the company’s moderation policy discriminates against Palestinians and other groups. Published in a series called “The Facebook Files,” the documents contained slides from manuals used to train content moderators. On the whole, the leaks paint a picture of a disjointed and disorganized company where the community standards are expanded piecemeal, and little attention is given to their consequences. Anna, the former Facebook operations specialist I spoke with, agrees: “There’s no ownership of processes from beginning to end.” One set of documents demonstrate with precision the imbalance on the platform between Palestinians and Israelis (and the supporters of both). In a slide deck entitled “Credible Violence: Abuse Standards,” one slide lists global and local “vulnerable” groups; alongside “foreigners” and “homeless people” is “Zionists.”32 Interestingly, while Zionists are protected as a special category, “migrants,” as ProPublica has reported, are only “quasi-protected” and “Black children” aren’t protected at all.33 In trying to understand how such a decision came about, I reached out to numerous contacts, but only one spoke about it on the record. Maria, who worked in community operations until 2017, told me that she spoke up against the categorization when it was proposed. “We’d say, ‘Being a Zionist isn’t like being a Hindu or Muslim or white or Black—it’s like being a revolutionary socialist, it’s an ideology,’” she told me. “And now, almost everything related to Palestine is getting deleted.
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Jillian York (Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism)
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First, it is imperative that we understand and view content moderation as existing outside of and apart from extant systems of governance. At worst, content moderation is inherently broken and, at best, is an imperfect system retrofitted to societal structures that are already deeply flawed. The processes of content moderation were not built to scale, nor were the rules created by companies; rather, they were built over time like an onion being peeled in reverse, layers stacked upon layers, always reactive to external forces. To mitigate its harms, this system must be subject to a comprehensive, external audit of both rules and processes, policies and procedures.
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Jillian York (Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism)
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The following are all foods you should feel welcome to eat freely (unless, of course, you know they bother your stomach): Alliums (Onions, Leeks, Garlic, Scallions): This category of foods, in particular, is an excellent source of prebiotics and can be extremely nourishing to our bugs. If you thought certain foods were lacking in flavor, try sautéing what you think of as that “boring” vegetable or tofu with any member of this family and witness the makeover. Good-quality olive oil, sesame oil, or coconut oil can all help with the transformation of taste. *Beans, Legumes, and Pulses: This family of foods is one of the easiest ways to get a high amount of fiber in a small amount of food. You know how beans make some folks a little gassy? That’s a by-product of our bacterial buddies chowing down on that chili you just consumed for dinner. Don’t get stuck in a bean rut. Seek out your bean aisle or peruse the bulk bin at your local grocery store and see if you can try for three different types of beans each week. Great northern, anyone? Brightly Colored Fruits and Vegetables: Not only do these gems provide fiber, but they are also filled with polyphenols that increase diversity in the gut and offer anti-inflammatory compounds that are essential for disease prevention and healing. Please note that white and brown are colors in this category—hello, cauliflower, daikon radish, and mushrooms! Good fungi are particularly anti-inflammatory, rich in beta-glucans, and a good source of the immune-supportive vitamin D. Remember that variety is key here. Just because broccoli gets a special place in the world of superfoods doesn’t mean that you should eat only broccoli. Branch out: How about trying bok choy, napa cabbage, or an orange pepper? Include a spectrum of color on your plate and make sure that some of these vegetables are periodically eaten raw or lightly steamed, which may have greater benefits to your microbiome. Herbs and Spices: Not only incredibly rich in those anti-inflammatory polyphenols, this category of foods also has natural digestive-aid properties that can help improve the digestibility of certain foods like beans. They can also stimulate the production of bile, an essential part of our body’s mode of breaking down fat. Plus, they add pizzazz to any meal. Nuts, Seeds, and Their Respective Butters: This family of foods provides fiber, and it is also a good source of healthy and anti-inflammatory fats that help keep the digestive tract balanced and nourished. It’s time to step out of that almond rut and seek out new nutty experiences. Walnuts have been shown to confer excellent benefits on the microbiome because of their high omega-3 and polyphenol content. And if you haven’t tasted a buttery hemp seed, also rich in omega-3s and fantastic atop oatmeal, here’s your opportunity. Starchy Vegetables: These hearty vegetables are a great source of fiber and beneficial plant chemicals. When slightly cooled, they are also a source of something called resistant starch, which feeds the bacteria and enables them to create those fantabulous short-chain fatty acids. These include foods like potatoes, winter squash, and root vegetables like parsnips, beets, and rutabaga. When was the last time you munched on rutabaga? This might be your chance! Teas: This can be green, white, or black tea, all of which contain healthy anti-inflammatory compounds that are beneficial for our microbes and overall gut health. It can also be herbal tea, which is an easy way to add overall health-supportive nutrients to our diet without a lot of additional burden on our digestive system. Unprocessed Whole Grains: These are wonderful complex carbohydrates (meaning fiber-filled), which both nourish those gut bugs and have numerous vitamins and minerals that support our health. Branch out and try some new ones like millet, buckwheat, and amaranth. FOODS TO EAT IN MODERATION
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Mary Purdy (The Microbiome Diet Reset: A Practical Guide to Restore and Protect a Healthy Microbiome)
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The games industry calls this “first-party content,” and it can be a serious investment. Over the years, Microsoft Xbox has taken this strategy to an extreme, buying a large number of studios and bringing them in-house. This isn’t a small outlay of cash—Microsoft now owns nearly a dozen video game studios, including Mojang, the maker of Minecraft, which they bought for $2.5 billion in 2014. It might seem expensive, but this is what’s needed to win in the video game console market. Sometimes, you just have to do it yourself. Reddit didn’t pursue this type of strategy, but it could have. There could have been a world where Reddit built many internal studios—one for their “cute” sub-Reddit community, another for sports, yet another for music—and hired full-time moderators as employees of those studios to create the necessary content. While this isn’t a common strategy for social networks, it’s also not crazy. In recent years, we’ve seen players like YouTube in video and Spotify in podcasts begin to license and create more first-party content to accelerate their services.
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Andrew Chen (The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects)
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The earth was given to man with this condition, that he should occupy himself in its cultivation. . . . The custody of the garden was given in charge to Adam, to show that we possess the things that God has committed to our hands, on the condition that being content with frugal and moderate use of them, we should take care of what shall remain. . . . Let everyone regard himself as the steward of God in all things which he possesses. Then will he neither conduct himself dissolutely, nor corrupt by abuse those things which God requires to be preserved.65
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Christopher Watkin (Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture)
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The third component of yama is nonstealing (asteya). Once again, this is to be understood in a very comprehensive sense. As a form of dispassion it is the abstention—in deed, word, and thought—from grasping after another’s property. Even merely coveting our neighbor’s strawberries, let alone his wife or her husband (who is of course not property), constitutes an infringement of this moral commandment. This virtue is connected on the one hand with nongrasping (aparigraha) and on the other hand with contentment (samtosha), which will be discussed below. Where does faith come into play in this case? The Yoga practitioner’s faith is placed in the Self as the inexhaustible Fullness (pūrnatva) that, once it has been realized, leaves nothing to be desired. Our external grasping after, or seizing of, things (and also relationships) is an expression of the ego’s strategy to overcome its basic fearfulness created by its self-isolation (or separation from the Self). But in this endeavor to extend its radius, the ego necessarily encroaches on the life-space of others, and this violates the first law of nonharming. Through surrender to the Self as the absolutely self-sufficient Reality, the ego’s harmful activity is gradually neutralized. The yogins or yoginīs who live this ideal are no longer at war with the world or themselves. The next element of yama is chastity (brahmacarya). The literal meaning of this old Sanskrit word is “brahmic conduct,” that is, the “behavior of a brahmin” or “mode of the Absolute.” Here the principle of reversal, spoken of above as the very essence of the yogic process, is most clearly expressed. To behave like the Absolute means to model one’s life on the ideal condition of the genderless Absolute. This is the underlying idea of chastity. Our ordinary experience of the world is always framed in terms of male and female (and occasionally neuter). “Chastity” is, first of all, the attempt to break away from this binary compartmentalization of life. True continence begins in the mind. Spiritual practitioners who have mastered this virtue regard all people as the same (sama), irrespective of their sex. On the physical level, chastity involves the abstinence from sexual activity. Some schools make this an unqualified condition, whereas others hold a more lenient view. The latter apply the principle of moderation to this aspect of one’s personal life, but also have rather definite notions about what is to be considered as legitimate sex. Sexual exploitation between men and women, which is often what today’s sexual revolution is about, is in yogic terms not only a waste of precious vital energy (ojas), but also a kind of violence, theft, and deception. Certain that the eternal Self not only transcends all bodily distinctions but also is inherently blissful (ānanda), Yoga practitioners are able to surrender their desire for the transient pleasure afforded through sexual activity.3
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Georg Feuerstein (The Deeper Dimension of Yoga: Theory and Practice)
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Positive Input Pure food, air, and water Positive emotions Strong self-esteem Low stress, good coping skills in the face of stress Moderate exercise Good sleep (eight to nine hours every night) Loving, supportive relationships Inner contentment, lack of conflicts and tensions Satisfying work Meditation and other contemplative practices Abstaining from alcohol, tobacco, and recreational drugs Minimizing the use of prescription drugs Healing old wounds and self-destructive conditioning from the past The reason that little or none of these things seem new is that they don’t need to be.
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Deepak Chopra (Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine)
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A TikTok clone app script is a pre-built software solution that allows you to create a short-form video sharing app that is similar to TikTok in terms of features and functionality. TikTok clone scripts are typically much less expensive than developing a custom app from scratch, and they can be deployed quickly, allowing you to launch your video sharing app in a short amount of time.
TikTok clone scripts are highly customizable, allowing you to tailor the platform to your specific needs. For example, you can change the branding of the app, add or remove features, and integrate your own monetization strategies.
Here are some of the key features that you should look for in a TikTok clone app script:
• Video recording and editing: The script should allow users to record and edit short-form videos. Editing features should include trimming, cropping, adding music and effects, and more.
• Social features: The script should include social features such as following other users, liking and commenting on videos, and creating and participating in challenges.
• Content moderation: The script should have robust content moderation systems in place to prevent the spread of harmful or offensive content.
• Monetization options: The script should support a variety of monetization options, such as in-app advertising, subscription fees, and virtual goods.
Once you have chosen a TikTok clone app script, you will need to work with a development team to customize the script and deploy your app. The development team will also help you to set up your monetization strategies and launch your app on the App Store and Google Play.
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Tittokclone
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Quitting all addictions 2. Cultivating a good-quality sleep habit 3. Following sound nutritional habits 4. Performing 3 to 5 hours of moderate exercise per week 5. And most importantly, nurturing peace, happiness and contentment in your life. The often-ignored MORGEN trial from Holland demonstrated an 83% reduction in cardiovascular disease in people who follow these principles
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Aseem Malhotra (A Statin-Free Life: A revolutionary life plan for tackling heart disease – without the use of statins)
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BestBlackHatForum is a fully moderated SEO Forum dedicated to dispersing Internet Marketing techniques. Discover new services on our marketplace including, SEO tools, video content creation, proxies, Social media, automatic content generators and more. Master the ART of Internet Marketing with BestBlackHatForum.eu
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SEO (SEO (Japanese Edition))
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Evangelical Christians, who ought to know better, have contented themselves for some years now in voting for the lesser of two evils. One faction wants to drive toward the cliff of God’s judgment at sixty miles an hour, while the loyal opposition wants to slow down to forty. Hard-working and soft-thinking Christians bust a gut to get the latter group into power. And then, when they do assume control, they compromise with the ousted group and settle on a moderate and well-respected speed of fifty-eight.
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Douglas Wilson (Joy at the End of the Tether: The Inscrutable Wisdom of Ecclesiastes)
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In my condemnation of Christianity I surely hope I do no injustice to a related religion with an even larger number of believers: I allude to Buddhism. Both are to be reckoned among the nihilistic religions—they are both décadence religions—but they are separated from each other in a very remarkable way. For the fact that he is able to compare them at all the critic of Christianity is indebted to the scholars of India.—Buddhism is a hundred times as realistic as Christianity—it is part of its living heritage that it is able to face problems objectively and coolly; it is the product of long centuries of philosophical speculation. The concept, “god,” was already disposed of before it appeared. Buddhism is the only genuinely positive religion to be encountered in history, and this applies even to its epistemology (which is a strict phenomenalism). It does not speak of a “struggle with sin,” but, yielding to reality, of the “struggle with suffering.” Sharply differentiating itself from Christianity, it puts the self-deception that lies in moral concepts behind it; it is, in my phrase, beyond good and evil.—The two physiological facts upon which it grounds itself and upon which it bestows its chief attention are: first, an excessive sensitiveness to sensation, which manifests itself as a refined susceptibility to pain, and secondly, an extraordinary spirituality, a too protracted concern with concepts and logical procedures, under the influence of which the instinct of personality has yielded to a notion of the “impersonal.” (—Both of these states will be familiar to a few of my readers, the objectivists, by experience, as they are to me). These physiological states produced a depression, and Buddha tried to combat it by hygienic measures. Against it he prescribed a life in the open, a life of travel; moderation in eating and a careful selection of foods; caution in the use of intoxicants; the same caution in arousing any of the passions that foster a bilious habit and heat the blood; finally, no worry, either on one’s own account or on account of others. He encourages ideas that make for either quiet contentment or good cheer—he finds means to combat ideas of other sorts. He understands good, the state of goodness, as something which promotes health. Prayer is not included, and neither is asceticism. There is no categorical imperative nor any disciplines, even within the walls of a monastery (—it is always possible to leave—). These things would have been simply means of increasing the excessive sensitiveness above mentioned. For the same reason he does not advocate any conflict with unbelievers; his teaching is antagonistic to nothing so much as to revenge, aversion, ressentiment (—“enmity never brings an end to enmity”: the moving refrain of all Buddhism....) And in all this he was right, for it is precisely these passions which, in view of his main regiminal purpose, are unhealthful. The mental fatigue that he observes, already plainly displayed in too much “objectivity” (that is, in the individual’s loss of interest in himself, in loss of balance and of “egoism”), he combats by strong efforts to lead even the spiritual interests back to the ego. In Buddha’s teaching egoism is a duty. The “one thing needful,” the question “how can you be delivered from suffering,” regulates and determines the whole spiritual diet. (—Perhaps one will here recall that Athenian who also declared war upon pure “scientificality,” to wit, Socrates, who also elevated egoism to the estate of a morality).
The things necessary to Buddhism are a very mild climate, customs of great gentleness and liberality, and no militarism; moreover, it must get its start among the higher and better educated classes. Cheerfulness, quiet and the absence of desire are the chief desiderata, and they are attained. Buddhism is not a religion in which perfection is merely an object of aspiration: perfection is actually normal.—
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Nietszche
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Are happiness and virtue synonymous with living as truthfully and honorably as possible or do these concepts allow for certain mental deceptions? Is a gullible person or a shrewd person more likely to be happy? Is a foolish or wise person more likely to live guiltlessly? What is more essential to living a contented life, accumulation of knowledge or the ability to feel and effusively express compassion for other people? Can we maintain happiness by acting as harsh judges of ourselves while acting as kindhearted judges of other people? Does happiness entail releasing an underground river of long suppressed passion or does it require living an aboveboard life of disciple-like moderation? Should I strive to modulate my desires by laboring diligently to maintain a disciplined mental and spiritual homeostasis? Alternatively, should I take calculated risks and passionately immerse myself in all facets of a tumultuous life?
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Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
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Now, this Ninus, or "Son," borne in the arms of the Babylonian Madonna, is so described as very clearly to identify him with Nimrod. "Ninus, king of the Assyrians," says Trogus Pompeius, epitomised by Justin, "first of all changed the contented moderation of the ancient manners, incited by a new passion, the desire of conquest. He was the first who carried on war against his neighbours, and he conquered all nations from Assyria to Lybia, as they were yet unacquainted with the arts of war." This account points directly to Nimrod, and can apply to no other.
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Alexander Hislop (The Two Babylons)
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Here are the ominous parallels. Our universities are strongholds of German philosophy disseminating every key idea of the post-Kantian axis, down by now to old-world racism and romanticist technology-hatred. Our culture is modernism worn-out but recycled, with heavy infusions of such Weimarian blends as astrology and Marx, or Freud and Dada, or “humanitarianism” and horror-worship, along with five decades of corruption built on this kind of base. Our youth activists, those reared on the latest viewpoints at the best universities, are the pre-Hitler youth movement resurrected (this time mostly on the political left and addicted to drugs). Our political parties are the Weimar coalition over again, offering the same pressure-group pragmatism, and the same kind of contradiction between their Enlightenment antecedents and their statist commitments. The liberals, more anti-ideological than the moderate German left, have given up even talking about long-range plans and demand more controls as a matter of routine, on a purely ad hoc basis. The conservatives, much less confident than the nationalist German right, are conniving at this routine and apologizing for the remnants of their own tradition, capitalism (because of its clash with the altruist ethics)—while demanding government intervention in or control over the realms of morality, religion, sex, literature, education, science. Each of these groups, observing the authoritarian element in the other, accuses it of Fascist tendencies; the charge is true on both sides. Each group, like its Weimar counterpart, is contributing to the same result: the atmosphere of chronic crisis, and the kinds of controls, inherent in an advanced mixed economy. The result of this result, as in Germany, is the growth of national bewilderment or despair, and of the governmental apparatus necessary for dictatorship. In America, the idea of public ownership of the means of production is a dead issue. Our intellectual and political leaders are content to retain the forms of private property, with public control over its use and disposal. This means: in regard to economic issues, the country’s leadership is working to achieve not the communist version of dictatorship, but the Nazi version. Throughout its history, in every important cultural and political area, the United States, thanks to its distinctive base, always lagged behind the destructive trends of Germany and of the rest of the modern world. We are catching up now. We are still the freest country on earth. There is no totalitarian (or even openly socialist) party of any size here, no avowed candidate for the office of Führer, no economic or political catastrophe sufficient to make such a party or man possible—so far—and few zealots of collectivism left to urge an ever faster pursuit of national suicide. We are drifting to the future, not moving purposefully. But we are drifting as Germany moved, in the same direction, for the same kind of reason.
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Leonard Peikoff (The Ominous Parallels)
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For twenty years, he had existed at moderate intensity. He had experienced hills of joy, mounds of contentment, dips of disappointment and gentle valleys of sorrow spread more or less evenly over time so that those slight changes in elevation faded to background noise when viewed at the appropriate scale. He had then crammed Everests of beauty and exhilaration and Marianas of agony and terror into the space of a few wartorn years, punching a hole through the relief map of his life." (From Parabellum, by Greg Hickey, pp. 183 - 184)
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Greg Hickey (Parabellum)
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Just as calories differ according to how they affect the body, so too do carbohydrates. All carbohydrates break down into sugar, but the rate at which this occurs in the digestive tract varies tremendously from food to food. This difference forms the basis for the glycemic index (GI).
The GI ranks carbohydrate-containing foods according to how they affect blood glucose, from 0 (no affect at all) to 100 (equal to glucose). Gram for gram, most starchy foods raise blood glucose to very high levels and therefore have high GI values. In fact, highly processed grain products – like white bread, white rice, and prepared breakfast cereals – and the modern white potato digest so quickly that their GI ratings are even greater than table sugar (sucrose). So for breakfast, you could have a bowl of cornflakes with no added sugar, or a bowl of sugar with no added cornflakes. They would taste different but, below the neck, act more or less the same.
A related concept is the glycemic load (GL), which accounts for the different carbohydrate content of foods typically consumed. Watermelon has a high GI, but relatively little carbohydrate in a standard serving, producing a moderate GL. In contrast, white potato has a high GI and lots of carbohydrate in a serving, producing a high GL. If this sounds a bit complicated, think of GI as describing how foods rank in a laboratory setting, whereas GL as applying more directly to a real-life setting. Research has shown that the GL reliably predicts, to within about 90 percent, how blood glucose will change after an actual meal – much better than simply counting carbohydrates as people with diabetes have been taught to do.
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David Ludwig (Always Hungry?: Conquer Cravings, Retrain Your Fat Cells, and Lose Weight Permanently)
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For consumers, most of these problems are invisible. That is by design. You’re not supposed to know that the trending topics on Twitter were sifted through by a few destitute people making pennies. You’re not supposed to realize that Facebook can process the billions of photos, links, and shareable items that pass through its network each day only because it recruits armies of content moderators through digital labor markets. Or that these moderators spend hours numbly scrolling through grisly photos that people around the world are trying to upload to the network. Uber’s selling point is convenience: press a button on your phone and a car will arrive in minutes, maybe seconds, to take you anywhere you want to go. As long as that’s what happens, what do consumers have to complain about? Now joined by a host of start-up delivery services, ride-sharing companies are in the business of taking whomever or whatever from point A to point B with minimal fuss or waiting time. That this self-indulgent convenience ultimately comes at the expense of others is easily brushed off or shrouded in the magical promise that anything you want can be produced immediately.
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Jacob Silverman (Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection)
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In the mid-1950s, Governor Luther Hodges cited Aycock’s “march of progress” in his defense of Jim Crow as a system that both ensured political tranquility and enabled racial uplift. His successor in the state house, Terry Sanford, noted that Aycock famously proclaimed “as a white man, I am afraid of but one thing for my race and that is we shall become afraid to give the Negro a fair chance. The white man in the South can never attain to his fullest growth until he does absolute justice to the Negro race.” This framing enabled Hodges, Sanford, and, later, Governor Dan Moore to define the “North Carolina way” in sharp contrast with the racially charged massive resistance rhetoric that defined the approaches of Alabama under George Wallace and Mississippi under Ross Barnett. This moderate course caused early observers like V. O. Key to view the state as “an inspiring exception to southern racism.” Crucially, it operated hand-in-hand with North Carolina’s anti-labor stance to advance the state’s economic interests. Hodges, Sanford, and Moore approached racial policy by emphasizing tranquility, and thus an intolerance for political contention. These officials placed a high value on law and order, condemning as “extremists” those who threatened North Carolina’s “harmonious” race relations by advocating either civil rights or staunch segregation. While racial distinctions could not be elided in the Jim Crow South, where the social fabric was shot through with racial disparity, an Aycock-style progressivist stance emphasized the maintenance of racial separation alongside white elites’ moral and civic interest in the well-being of black residents. This interest generally took the form of a pronounced paternalism, which typically enabled powerful white residents to serve as benefactors to their black neighbors, in a sort of patron-client relationship. “It was white people doing something for blacks—not with them,” explained Charlotte-based Reverend Colemon William Kerry Jr. While often framed as gestures of beneficence and closeness, such acts reproduced inequity and distance. More broadly, this racial order served dominant economic and political interests, as it preserved segregation with a progressive sheen that favored industrial expansion.12
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David Cunningham (Klansville, U.S.A.: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan)
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The First Amendment was meant to protect society. And ad targeting that prioritized clicks and salacious content and data mining of users was antithetical to the ideals of a healthy society. The dangers present in Facebook’s algorithms were “being co-opted and twisted by politicians and pundits howling about censorship and miscasting content moderation as the demise of free speech online,” in the words of Renée DiResta, a disinformation researcher at Stanford’s Internet Observatory. “There is no right to algorithmic amplification. In fact, that’s the very problem that needs fixing.
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Sheera Frenkel (An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination)
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The way that Berardi describes labor will sound as familiar to anyone concerned with their personal brand as it will to any Uber driver, content moderator, hard-up freelancer, aspiring YouTube star, or adjunct professor who drives to three campuses in one week: In the global digital network, labor is transformed into small parcels of nervous energy picked up by the recombining machine…The workers are deprived of every individual consistency. Strictly speaking, the workers no longer exist. Their time exists, their time is there, permanently available to connect, to produce in exchange for a temporary salary.15 (emphasis mine)
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Jenny Odell (How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy)
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In effect, he amalgamated his earlier Russocentric, great-power gospel of socialism in one country with the programmatic content of high-speed industrialization and collectivization; yet he was flexible on certain points or adopted a moderate tone so as to allay fears concerning the possible implications of this program. A landmark in the arguing of the case was Stalin’s principal address during the Central Committee plenum of July 4–12, 1928.
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Robert C. Tucker (Stalin as Revolutionary: A Study in History and Personality, 1879-1929)
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Missoula is a contented Western university town blessed with frigid winters that moderate the inflow of newcomers seeking refuge from Eastern cities of discontent.
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M.W.Gordon