Targeted Individuals Quotes

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Invalidating someone else is not merely disagreeing with something that the other person said. It is a process in which individuals communicate to another that the opinions and emotions of the target are invalid, irrational, selfish, uncaring, stupid, most likely insane, and wrong, wrong, wrong. Invalidators let it be known directly or indirectly that their targets views and feelings do not count for anything to anybody at any time or in any way.
David M. Allen
Narcissistic abuse is a form of psycho-emotional abuse that takes place when a pathological narcissist targets another individual and exposes them to trauma. It can also manifest as physical, financial, spiritual and sexual abuse.
M. Wakefield (Narcissistic Family Dynamics: Collected Essays)
Hate Poem I hate you truly. Truly I do. Everything about me hates everything about you. The flick of my wrist hates you. The way I hold my pencil hates you. The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped in the jaws of a moray eel hates you. Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you. Look out! Fore! I hate you. The blue-green jewel of sock lint I’m digging from under by third toenail, left foot, hates you. The history of this keychain hates you. My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases hates you. The goldfish of my genius hates you. My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors. A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious symbol of how I hate you. My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate. My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate. My pleasant “good morning”: hate. You know how when I’m sleepy I nuzzle my head under your arm? Hate. The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit practices it. My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning to night hate you. Layers of hate, a parfait. Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate, I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one individually and at leisure. My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity of my hate, which can never have enough of you, Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine.
Julie Sheehan
Most people have no clue hidden abuse is taking place right under their noses. It is being perpetrated by individuals who would never be suspected of being abusers. The concealed nature of this harm is what leaves its targets devastated.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
She is opinionated, as most of us are, but you won’t find yourself impaled on her arguments; she doesn’t charge at you as some people do. What [she] does is walk slowly and steadily into a conversational battle, somehow managing to deflect all incoming targets until she is standing in your corner with her flag dug firmly into the ground. I think it comes from the deep-seated confidence she possesses in her core. I think it is the powerful combination of encouraged individualism and a strong family unit.
Carrie Adams (The Godmother)
My gut told me that the giantesses would be much more powerful if they combined forces, like they had when they sank our ship. We were only alive so far because each of the sisters was intent on killing her own target. We had succeeded at being just that individually annoying.
Rick Riordan (The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #3))
There are abusive individuals whose worst little demons are greed, sloth,envy, gluttony, pride and wrath enslaved by their god which is money. They usually set their false assumptions, wrong judgments, gossips and lies forceful than the ones who hold the truth but what they missed out is that the victims of their aggressions, the targets of their wrong accusations and the recipients of their repetitive harassments carry what is truly essential and what lives longer, that is: truth and goodness, both of which shall always prevail against their vicious, evil manners.
Angelica Hopes (Landscapes of a Heart, Whispers of a Soul (Speranza Odyssey Trilogy, #1))
Psychologically abusive families can never be without a targeted victim. Otherwise, they would have to look at their own individual issues and deal with them. That is not likely to happen.   Psychologically
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Power is not a matter of one dominant individual or institutions, but instead manifests in interconnected, contradictory sites where regimes of knowledge and practice circulate and take hold. This way of understanding the dispersion of power helps us realize that power is not simply about certain individuals being targeted for death or exclusion by a ruler, but instead about the creation of norms that distribute vulnerability and security.
Dean Spade
Your new role is that of interventionist. Liberator. Your target is faith. Your pro bono clients are individuals who’ve been infected by faith.
Peter Boghossian (A Manual for Creating Atheists)
The act of assassination - the targeting of visible individuals, is the result of mental inclinations honed for the pre-literate societies in which our species evolved,
Julian Assange
Emotional abusers condition their victims to feel ashamed, inadequate, and unstable. This is because they are cowards, incapable of healthy relationships with strong and self-respecting individuals. Oftentimes, they choose targets who are unusually successful and idealistic, because these people have more to lose. But abusers cannot control someone with such qualities, and so they break down the target’s self-esteem through belittling, teasing, and manufactured jealousy. The target may have perfectionist tendencies, striving to meet the abuser’s impossible standards. This results in a strange dynamic where the abuser is idealized, despite being lazy, dishonest, and unfaithful, while the victim is devalued, despite putting more effort into this relationship than ever before.
Jackson MacKenzie (Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People)
The higher up the food chain the targeted individual was, the bigger a pussy he was.
Mark Owen (No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden)
When he’d joined the Service he’d been in Psych Eval, which had involved evaluating operational strategies for psychological impact – on targets as well as agents – but had also meant carrying out individual assessments; who was stressed, who’d benefit from a change of routine, and who was a psychopath. Every organisation had a few, usually at management level, and it was handy to know who they were in case there was an emergency, or an office party.
Mick Herron (London Rules (Slough House, #5))
Police officers are well known for their aggressive behaviors, search "Police Officer Angry Aggression Theory". I can speak from personal experience that they do cover up for each other and target individuals that they have a vendetta on. Police Internal Affairs is just an extension of the cover up machine, they uphold very few complaints.
Steven Magee
The realms of dating, marriage, and sex are all marketplaces, and we are the products. Some may bristle at the idea of people as products on a marketplace, but this is an incredibly prevalent dynamic. Consider the labor marketplace, where people are also the product. Just as in the labor marketplace, one party makes an offer to another, and based on the terms of this offer, the other person can choose to accept it or walk. What makes the dating market so interesting is that the products we are marketing, selling, buying, and exchanging are essentially our identities and lives. As with all marketplaces, every item in stock has a value, and that value is determined by its desirability. However, the desirability of a product isn’t a fixed thing—the desirability of umbrellas increases in areas where it is currently raining while the desirability of a specific drug may increase to a specific individual if it can cure an illness their child has, even if its wider desirability on the market has not changed. In the world of dating, the two types of desirability we care about most are: - Aggregate Desirability: What the average demand within an open marketplace would be for a relationship with a particular person. - Individual Desirability: What the desirability of a relationship with an individual is from the perspective of a specific other individual. Imagine you are at a fish market and deciding whether or not to buy a specific fish: - Aggregate desirability = The fish’s market price that day - Individual desirability = What you are willing to pay for the fish Aggregate desirability is something our society enthusiastically emphasizes, with concepts like “leagues.” Whether these are revealed through crude statements like, “that guy's an 8,” or more politically correct comments such as, “I believe she may be out of your league,” there is a tacit acknowledgment by society that every individual has an aggregate value on the public dating market, and that value can be judged at a glance. When what we have to trade on the dating market is often ourselves, that means that on average, we are going to end up in relationships with people with an aggregate value roughly equal to our own (i.e., individuals “within our league”). Statistically speaking, leagues are a real phenomenon that affects dating patterns. Using data from dating websites, the University of Michigan found that when you sort online daters by desirability, they seem to know “their place.” People on online dating sites almost never send a message to someone less desirable than them, and on average they reach out to prospects only 25% more desirable than themselves. The great thing about these markets is how often the average desirability of a person to others is wildly different than their desirability to you. This gives you the opportunity to play arbitrage with traits that other people don’t like, but you either like or don’t mind. For example, while society may prefer women who are not overweight, a specific individual within the marketplace may prefer obese women, or even more interestingly may have no preference. If a guy doesn’t care whether his partner is slim or obese, then he should specifically target obese women, as obesity lowers desirability on the open marketplace, but not from his perspective, giving him access to women who are of higher value to him than those he could secure within an open market.
Malcolm Collins (The Pragmatist's Guide to Relationships: Ruthlessly Optimized Strategies for Dating, Sex, and Marriage)
Without a target to shoot at, our lives are literally aimless. Without something productive to do, without positive goals and a purpose, a human being languishes. And then one of two things happens. Aimlessness begins to shut a person down in spiritual lethargy and emptiness, or the individual lashes out and turns to destructive goals just to make something happen.
Tom Morris (Art of Achievement: Mastering the 7 C's of Success in Business and Life)
The narrative illusion introduces a “mind virus”, which is a syntactical contagion that spreads through communicative vectors and colonizes the cognitive biases of the targeted individual’s psychology, thus transforming the mental processes of that target.
James Scott, Senior Fellow, The Center for Cyber Influence Operations Studies
A Nation State or Cyber-Mercenary won’t hack e-voting machines one by one. This takes too long and will have minimal impact. Instead, they’ll take an easier approach like spear phishing the manufacturer with malware and poison the voting machine update pre-election and allow the manufacturer to update each individual machine with a self-deleting payload that will target the tabulation process.
James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology
To the extent that propaganda is based on current news, it cannot permit time for thought or reflection. A man caught up in the news must remain on the surface of the event; he is carried along in the current, and can at no time take a respite to judge and appreciate; he can never stop to reflect. There is never any awareness -- of himself, of his condition, of his society -- for the man who lives by current events. Such a man never stops to investigate any one point, any more than he will tie together a series of news events. We already have mentioned man's inability to consider several facts or events simultaneously and to make a synthesis of them in order to face or to oppose them. One thought drives away another; old facts are chased by new ones. Under these conditions there can be no thought. And, in fact, modern man does not think about current problems; he feels them. He reacts, but be does not understand them any more than he takes responsibility for them. He is even less capable of spotting any inconsistency between successive facts; man's capacity to forget is unlimited. This is one of the most important and useful points for the propagandist, who can always be sure that a particular propaganda theme, statement, or event will be forgotten within a few weeks. Moreover, there is a spontaneous defensive reaction in the individual against an excess of information and -- to the extent that he clings (unconsciously) to the unity of his own person -- against inconsistencies. The best defense here is to forget the preceding event. In so doing, man denies his own continuity; to the same extent that he lives on the surface of events and makes today's events his life by obliterating yesterday's news, he refuses to see the contradictions in his own life and condemns himself to a life of successive moments, discontinuous and fragmented. This situation makes the "current-events man" a ready target for propaganda. Indeed, such a man is highly sensitive to the influence of present-day currents; lacking landmarks, he follows all currents. He is unstable because he runs after what happened today; he relates to the event, and therefore cannot resist any impulse coming from that event. Because he is immersed in current affairs, this man has a psychological weakness that puts him at the mercy of the propagandist. No confrontation ever occurs between the event and the truth; no relationship ever exists between the event and the person. Real information never concerns such a person. What could be more striking, more distressing, more decisive than the splitting of the atom, apart from the bomb itself? And yet this great development is kept in the background, behind the fleeting and spectacular result of some catastrophe or sports event because that is the superficial news the average man wants. Propaganda addresses itself to that man; like him, it can relate only to the most superficial aspect of a spectacular event, which alone can interest man and lead him to make a certain decision or adopt a certain attitude. But here we must make an important qualification. The news event may be a real fact, existing objectively, or it may be only an item of information, the dissemination of a supposed fact. What makes it news is its dissemination, not its objective reality.
Jacques Ellul (Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes)
The black middle class displays a torn ambivalence toward the situation of the black poor. They sympathetically recognize the harms of racism and targeted inequality while simultaneously pointing an accusatory finger at the individual faults of their poor friends, relatives, and neighbors.
Mary Pattillo (Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class)
Normal people assume that SJWs are inclined to take on their ideological opponents, people like me. But the truth is that although they certainly don't like those they invariably label “right-wing extremists”, for the most part they leave us alone because we are impervious to their influence. Oh, they will certainly complain about us, take advantage of any tactical missteps on our part, and block us on Twitter, but they very seldom make the sort of concerted effort that one saw in the hounding of Brendan Eich or the metaphorical stoning of Dr. James Watson because they know their efforts will largely be futile. Instead, they prey on the naïve and the unsuspecting. They prey on the moderates, the middle-grounders, and the fence-sitters. They prey on people like you: good, decent individuals who try to treat everyone fairly and who can't even imagine having done anything that anyone could possibly find objectionable. Why? Because soft targets are always easier to destroy than hard ones.
Vox Day (SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police (The Laws of Social Justice Book 1))
Hellfire missiles, the explosives fired from drones, are not always fired at people. In fact most drone strikes are aimed at phones. The SIM card provides a person’s location; when turned on, a phone can become a deadly proxy for the individual being hunted. When a night raid or drone strike successfully neutralizes a target’s phone, operators call that a “touchdown.
Jeremy Scahill (The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government's Secret Drone Warfare Program)
Those individuals who refuse to join in the lies supporting the war are condemned as being unpatriotic, ill-informed, or friends of the enemy. If the propaganda doesn’t silence them and they are seen as a sufficient threat to the war machine, the government will enact laws granting power to arrest and punish those refusing to succumb to the propaganda. This will be done not only to punish the direct targets. It will also be done to frighten others who may be considering boldly challenging the authoritarians supporting a war that will only benefit the special interests.
Ron Paul (Swords into Plowshares: A Life in Wartime and a Future of Peace and Prosperity)
In addition to being able to read minds and divine deeply hidden prejudices, SJWs are also walking, talking odioscopes capable of detecting otherwise undetectable hate at microscopic levels of only 15 parts per billion. This refined ability to detect offense is very important for the SJW because it provides him with a ready excuse to go on the attack against almost anyone while wrapping himself in the virtuous cloak of either a) the noble champion of the downtrodden and oppressed or b) the holy and sanctified victim. While the chosen target may not have violated any social norms perceptible to any sane individual, the SJW's infallible hate-detector will always be able to manufacture something that will justify his launching a campaign of socially just retribution against the offender.
Vox Day (SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police (The Laws of Social Justice Book 1))
They, they have this program where they radicalize at-risk individuals from target populations. They recruit them to what they think is a radical Islamic movement and then use them as expendable assets.
Jack Carr (The Terminal List (Terminal List, #1))
It occurred to him that there is so much out there these days about people in open source that a motivated and intelligent individual could take old SF-86 info and translate it into real-time targeting info.
Mark Greaney (True Faith and Allegiance (Jack Ryan Universe, #22))
Galbraith, tellingly, drew a line between ‘simple modes of enjoyment’ (he included here sport, food and houses as well as cars and sex) and more ‘esoteric’ ones such as music, fine art ‘and to some extent travel’. The first group required ‘little prior preparation of the subject for its highest enjoyment’ and was thus the target of ‘modern want creation’. The latter, by contrast, were more distinctly individual and had to be cultivated.
Frank Trentmann (Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First)
if superspreaders exist and can be identified during a disease outbreak, then control measures should be targeted at isolating those individuals, rather than applied more broadly and diffusely across an entire population.
David Quammen (Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic)
It is useful to remember the classical Greeks’ attitude to moral failure: in their view it is like taking aim at a target, and missing; it is a bad shot; what you must do is aim again, and do better. In other moral regimes failure is a blemish, a stain that remains, culpable and in need of grace or forgiveness from an outside source. In the classical view, the remedy and improvement is as much the individual’s responsibility as the mistake was in the first place.
A.C. Grayling (The God Argument: The Case Against Religion and for Humanism)
For Eric, Columbine was a performance. Homicidal art. He actually referred to his audience in his journal: “the majority of the audience wont even understand my motives,” he complained. He scripted Columbine as made-for-TV murder, and his chief concern was that we would be too stupid to see the point. Fear was Eric’s ultimate weapon. He wanted to maximize the terror. He didn’t want kids to fear isolated events like a sporting event or a dance; he wanted them to fear their daily lives. It worked. Parents across the country were afraid to send their kids to school. Eric didn’t have the political agenda of a terrorist, but he had adopted terrorist tactics. Sociology professor Mark Juergensmeyer identified the central characteristic of terrorism as “performance violence.” Terrorists design events “to be spectacular in their viciousness and awesome in their destructive power. Such instances of exaggerated violence are constructed events: they are mind-numbing, mesmerizing theater.” The audience—for Timothy McVeigh, Eric Harris, or the Palestine Liberation Organization—was always miles away, watching on TV. Terrorists rarely settle for just shooting; that limits the damage to individuals. They prefer to blow up things—buildings, usually, and the smart ones choose carefully. “During that brief dramatic moment when a terrorist act levels a building or damages some entity that a society regards as central to its existence, the perpetrators of the act assert that they—and not the secular government—have ultimate control over that entity and its centrality,” Juergensmeyer wrote. He pointed out that during the same day as the first attack on the World Trade Center, in 1993, a deadlier attack was leveled against a coffee shop in Cairo. The attacks were presumably coordinated by the same group. The body count was worse in Egypt, yet the explosion was barely reported outside that country. “A coffeehouse is not the World Trade Center,” he explained. Most terrorists target symbols of the system they abhor—generally, iconic government buildings. Eric followed the same logic. He understood that the cornerstone of his plan was the explosives. When all his bombs fizzled, everything about his attack was misread. He didn’t just fail to top Timothy McVeigh’s record—he wasn’t even recognized for trying. He was never categorized with his peer group. We lumped him in with the pathetic loners who shot people.
Dave Cullen (Columbine)
But one “surefire” way for a guy to attract a member of the opposite sex was to place a piece of bread in his armpit and leave it there for a while, before feeding it to the target individual without her knowing exactly what she was eating (Lid
J.T. Sibley (The Way of the Wise: Traditional Norwegian Folk and Magic Medicine)
Theorists of propaganda have identified five basic rules: 1. The rule of simplification: reducing all data to a simple confrontation between ‘Good and Bad’, ‘Friend and Foe’. 2. The rule of disfiguration: discrediting the opposition by crude smears and parodies. 3. The rule of transfusion: manipulating the consensus values of the target audience for one’s own ends. 4. The rule of unanimity: presenting one’s viewpoint as if it were the unanimous opinion of all right-thinking people: drawing the doubting individual into agreement by the appeal of star-performers, by social pressure, and by ‘psychological contagion’. 5. The rule of orchestration: endlessly repeating the same messages in different variations and combinations.
Norman Davies (Europe: A History)
With behavioral microtargeting, a term Cambridge trademarked, they could zoom in on individuals who shared common personality traits and concerns and message them again and again, fine-tuning and tweaking those messages until we got precisely the results we wanted.
Brittany Kaiser (Targeted: The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower's Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again)
My glorification of independence and individualism made me and easy target for the myth of meritocracy, and overshadowed what in my heart I knew to be true: the deep interconnectedness I longed for with family, friends, colleagues, and even strangers is core to human survival. Interdependence is our lifeblood.
Debby Irving (Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race)
Yet what moved Our Blessed Lord to invective was not badness but just such self-righteousness as this…He said that the harlots and the Quislings would enter the Kingdom of Heaven before the self-righteous and the smug. Concerning all those who endowed hospitals and libraries and public works, in order to have their names graven in stone before their fellow men, He said, “Amen I say to you, they have received their reward” (Matt. 6:2). They wanted no more than human glory, and they got it. Never once is Our Blessed Lord indignant against those who are already, in the eyes of society, below the level of law and respectability. He attacked only the sham indignation of those who dwelt more on the sin than the sinner and who felt pleasantly virtuous, because they had found someone more vicious than they. He would not condemn those whom society condemned; his severe words were for those who had sinned and had not been found out…He would not add His burden of accusation to those that had already been hurled against the winebibbers and the thieves, the cheap revolutionists, the streetwalkers, and the traitors. They were everybody’s target, and everybody knew that they were wrong…And the people who chose to make war against Our Lord were never those whom society had labeled as sinners. Of those who sentenced Him to death, none had ever had a record in the police court, had ever been arrested, was ever commonly known to be fallen or weak. But among his friends, who sorrowed at His death, were coverts drawn from thieves and from prostitutes. Those who were aligned against Him were the nice people who stood high in the community—the worldly, prosperous people, the men of big business, the judges of law courts who governed by expediency, the “civic-minded” individuals whose true selfishness was veneered over with public generosity. Such men as these opposed him and sent Him to His death.
Fulton J. Sheen (Peace of Soul: Timeless Wisdom on Finding Serenity and Joy by the Century's Most Acclaimed Catholic Bishop)
The news filled me with such euphoria that for an instant I was numb. My ingrained self-censorship immediately started working: I registered the fact that there was an orgy of weeping going on around me, and that I had to come up with some suitable performance. There seemed nowhere to hide my lack of correct emotion except the shoulder of the woman in front of me, one of the student officials, who was apparently heartbroken. I swiftly buried my head in her shoulder and heaved appropriately. As so often in China, a bit of ritual did the trick. Sniveling heartily she made a movement as though she was going to turn around and embrace me I pressed my whole weight on her from behind to keep her in her place, hoping to give the impression that I was in a state of abandoned grief. In the days after Mao's death, I did a lot of thinking. I knew he was considered a philosopher, and I tried to think what his 'philosophy' really was. It seemed to me that its central principle was the need or the desire? for perpetual conflict. The core of his thinking seemed to be that human struggles were the motivating force of history and that in order to make history 'class enemies' had to be continuously created en masse. I wondered whether there were any other philosophers whose theories had led to the suffering and death of so many. I thought of the terror and misery to which the Chinese population had been subjected. For what? But Mao's theory might just be the extension of his personality. He was, it seemed to me, really a restless fight promoter by nature, and good at it. He understood ugly human instincts such as envy and resentment, and knew how to mobilize them for his ends. He ruled by getting people to hate each other. In doing so, he got ordinary Chinese to carry out many of the tasks undertaken in other dictatorships by professional elites. Mao had managed to turn the people into the ultimate weapon of dictatorship. That was why under him there was no real equivalent of the KGB in China. There was no need. In bringing out and nourishing the worst in people, Mao had created a moral wasteland and a land of hatred. But how much individual responsibility ordinary people should share, I could not decide. The other hallmark of Maoism, it seemed to me, was the reign of ignorance. Because of his calculation that the cultured class were an easy target for a population that was largely illiterate, because of his own deep resentment of formal education and the educated, because of his megalomania, which led to his scorn for the great figures of Chinese culture, and because of his contempt for the areas of Chinese civilization that he did not understand, such as architecture, art, and music, Mao destroyed much of the country's cultural heritage. He left behind not only a brutalized nation, but also an ugly land with little of its past glory remaining or appreciated. The Chinese seemed to be mourning Mao in a heartfelt fashion. But I wondered how many of their tears were genuine. People had practiced acting to such a degree that they confused it with their true feelings. Weeping for Mao was perhaps just another programmed act in their programmed lives. Yet the mood of the nation was unmistakably against continuing Mao's policies. Less than a month after his death, on 6 October, Mme Mao was arrested, along with the other members of the Gang of Four. They had no support from anyone not the army, not the police, not even their own guards. They had had only Mao. The Gang of Four had held power only because it was really a Gang of Five. When I heard about the ease with which the Four had been removed, I felt a wave of sadness. How could such a small group of second-rate tyrants ravage 900 million people for so long? But my main feeling was joy. The last tyrants of the Cultural Revolution were finally gone.
Jung Chang (Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China)
It is interesting that for Plato, and for most Platonists, an altruistic individualism cannot exist. According to Plato, the only alternative to collectivism is egoism; he simply identifies all altruism with collectivism, and all individualism with egoism. This is not a matter of terminology, of mere words, for instead of four possibilities, Plato recognized only two. This has created considerable confusion in speculation on ehtical matters, even down to our own day. Plato’s identification of individualism with egoism furnishes him with a powerful weapon for his defence of collectivism as well as for his attack upon individualism. In defending collectivism, he can appeal to our humanitarian feeling of unselfishness; in his attack, he can brand all individualists as selfish, as incapable of devotion to anything but themselves. This attack, although aimed by Plato against individualism in our sense, i.e. against the rights of human individuals, reaches of course only a very different target, egoism. But this difference is constantly ignored by Plato and by most Platonists... Individualism was part of the old intuitive idea of justice. That justice is not, as Plato would have it, the health and harmony of the state, but rather a certain way of treating individuals, is emphasized by Aristotle, when he says, ‘justice is something that pertains to persons.
Karl Popper
The Western church is attempting to legislate morality in order to maintain a society that is pure, safe, and peaceful. Which, in and of itself, is not a bad desire. But when injured, we change. Under fire from a hostile and misunderstanding world, we grow defensive, begin challenging and targeting different opposition groups, demolishing the characters and teachings of individuals through media outlets, pamphlets, and even sermons. It becomes very difficult to “love the sinner, hate the sin” when we hole up in a defensive posture. I think it’s a huge mistake to turn morality into a politically, legally enforced code, because doing so creates more division and defensive posturing.
Carl Medearis (Speaking of Jesus: The Art of Not-Evangelism)
Much of what it takes to succeed in school, at work, and in one’s community consists of cultural habits acquired by adaptation to the social environment. Such cultural adaptations are known as “cultural capital.” Segregation leads social groups to form different codes of conduct and communication. Some habits that help individuals in intensely segregated, disadvantaged environments undermine their ability to succeed in integrated, more advantaged environments. At Strive, a job training organization, Gyasi Headen teaches young black and Latino men how to drop their “game face” at work. The “game face” is the angry, menacing demeanor these men adopt to ward off attacks in their crime-ridden, segregated neighborhoods. As one trainee described it, it is the face you wear “at 12 o’clock at night, you’re in the ‘hood and they’re going to try to get you.”102 But the habit may freeze it into place, frightening people from outside the ghetto, who mistake the defensive posture for an aggressive one. It may be so entrenched that black men may be unaware that they are glowering at others. This reduces their chance of getting hired. The “game face” is a form of cultural capital that circulates in segregated underclass communities, helping its members survive. Outside these communities, it burdens its possessors with severe disadvantages. Urban ethnographer Elijah Anderson highlights the cruel dilemma this poses for ghetto residents who aspire to mainstream values and seek responsible positions in mainstream society.103 If they manifest their “decent” values in their neighborhoods, they become targets for merciless harassment by those committed to “street” values, who win esteem from their peers by demonstrating their ability and willingness to insult and physically intimidate others with impunity. To protect themselves against their tormentors, and to gain esteem among their peers, they adopt the game face, wear “gangster” clothing, and engage in the posturing style that signals that they are “bad.” This survival strategy makes them pariahs in the wider community. Police target them for questioning, searches, and arrests.104 Store owners refuse to serve them, or serve them brusquely, while shadowing them to make sure they are not shoplifting. Employers refuse to employ them.105 Or they employ them in inferior, segregated jobs. A restaurant owner may hire blacks as dishwashers, but not as wait staff, where they could earn tips.
Elizabeth S. Anderson (The Imperative of Integration)
I began this path with a sense that an individual should be able to live in freedom among his neighbors, and not as a host for parasites, even if those parasites were endowed with power by the state. I had a sense that the individual should not be at the mercy of the bully or the mob, even if the bully or the mob was sanctioned by the state. I had a sense that if an individual was the target of aggression and I stood with him, or her, or them, I would have the satisfaction of knowing I had opposed villainy, and if others who shared my beliefs would join in the fight, then perhaps a measure at a time, evil would not prosper. I believed that each time malevolence and iniquity were thwarted the chances were increased that I could live in freedom … that I would not be at the mercy of the aggression of others.” He captured them as he looked them in the eyes across the silent hall. “The measure of success from acting on these simple truths is all around us, hangs above us in the sky, pervades the system of our sun … and may now be found among the stars.”
William C. Samples (Fe Fi FOE Comes)
In fact, a nation that is full of hives is a nation of happy and satisfied people. It’s not a very promising target for takeover by a demagogue offering people meaning in exchange for their souls. Creating a nation of multiple competing groups and parties was, in fact, seen by America’s founding fathers as a way of preventing tyranny.60 More recently, research on social capital has demonstrated that bowling leagues, churches, and other kinds of groups, teams, and clubs are crucial for the health of individuals and of a nation. As political scientist Robert Putnam put it, the social capital that is generated by such local groups “makes us smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy.”61
Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion)
On average, dopamine receptor density is reduced in the VTA target regions of obese subjects as compared with those lean subjects (a characteristic that can be measured in a brain scanner). But the key question remains: Do obese individuals show reduced dopaminergic activation of VTA target areas in response to food? Is a blunted pleasure response to food involved in obesity?
David J. Linden
Indeed, future historians may well attribute our recent successes—toppling the two worst regimes in the Middle East, presiding over the birth of consensual governments in their places, and losing fewer soldiers in the effort than during many individual campaigns of the Second World War or Korea—to an ever-innovative American military that learned quickly from mistakes of the kind described in Finding the Target and War Made New. The sometimes dour work of Frederick W. Kagan and Max Boot is itself emblematic of one of our society’s greatest strengths: the capacity to adjust to changing events with the help of thinkers who rely on a more deeply informed sense of historical reality than is conveyed in the panicked conclusions of the twenty-four-hour news cycle.
Victor Davis Hanson (The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern)
During that seven-year stint, however, I participated in the most significant change in the history of American espionage—the change from the targeted surveillance of individuals to the mass surveillance of entire populations. I helped make it technologically feasible for a single government to collect all the world’s digital communications, store them for ages, and search through them at will.
Edward Snowden (Permanent Record)
Because psychopaths tend to target individuals who are especially empathetic and trusting, the best way to win a target is to appeal to her decency. The psychopath will weave an elaborate sob story, pouring his heart out to his target and making her feel not only sympathetic to the psychopath’s “bad luck” but also extremely flattered that the psychopath has chosen her to divulge his deepest secrets to.
Jen Waite (A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal)
Demagoguery is powerfully reduced when it stops getting people elected, and that usually happens because of in-group policing. Similarly, when it isn't profitable for a media outlet to engage in demagoguery, it won't, and that happens when its target market declines to put up with it. Individual demagogues are best stopped by in-group condemnation, and particular strains of demagoguery are generally ended by public shaming.
Patricia Roberts-Miller (Demagoguery and Democracy)
Let’s say that you have committed to running every day for two weeks, and at the end of those two weeks, you “reward” yourself with a massage. I would say, “Good for you!” because we all could benefit from more massages. But I would also say that your massage wasn’t a reward. It was an incentive. The definition of a reward in behavior science is an experience directly tied to a behavior that makes that behavior more likely to happen again. The timing of the reward matters. Scientists learned decades ago that rewards need to happen either during the behavior or milli-seconds afterward. Dopamine is released and processed by the brain very quickly. That means you’ve got to cue up those good feelings fast to form a habit. Incentives like a sales bonus or a monthly massage can motivate you, but they don’t rewire your brain. Incentives are way too far in the future to give you that all-important shot of dopamine that encodes the new habit. Doing three squats in the morning and rewarding yourself with a movie that evening won’t work. The squats and the good feelings you get from the movie are too far apart for dopamine to build a bridge between the two. The neurochemical reaction that you are trying to hack is not only time dependent, it’s also highly individualized. What causes one person to feel good may not work for everyone. Your boss may love the smell of coffee. When she enters a coffee shop and inhales, she feels good. And her immediate feeling builds her habit of visiting the coffee shop. But your coworker might not like the way coffee smells. His brain won’t react in the same way. A real reward — something that will actually create a habit — is a much narrower target to hit than most people think. I
B.J. Fogg (Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything)
And the United States has not poured endless federal and state dollars into public education campaigns aimed at regulating corporate food production, subsidizing nutritious foods, or ending poverty and economic instability—top predictors of individual health, according to the US Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.43 Instead, fat bodies themselves are targeted in the “war on obesity” and the “childhood obesity epidemic.
Aubrey Gordon (What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat)
A properly functioning system of indoctrination has a variety of tasks, some rather delicate. One of its targets is the stupid and ignorant masses. They must be kept that way, diverted with emotionally potent oversimplifications, marginalized, and isolated. Ideally, each person should be alone in front of the TV screen watching sports, soap operas, or comedies, deprived of organizational structures that permit individuals lacking resources to discover what they think and believe in interaction with others, to formulate their own concerns and programs, and to act to realize them. They can then be permitted, even encouraged, to ratify the decisions made by their betters in periodic elections. The "rascal multitude" are the proper targets of the mass media and a public education system geared to obedience and training in needed skills, including the skill of repeating patriotic slogans on timely occasions.
Noam Chomsky (Chomsky On Anarchism)
As things stand, our culture is far too critical of the individuals who eat junk foods and not critical enough about the corporations that profit from selling them. We spend a lot of time discussing unhealthy foods in terms of individual guilt and willpower and not enough looking at the morality of big food companies that have targeted some of the poorest consumers in the world with products that will make them sick, or the governments that allowed them to do so.
Bee Wilson (The Way We Eat Now: Strategies for Eating in a World of Change)
Individual transformation is the more popular conversation, and the choice not to focus on it [in this book] is because we have already learned that the transformation of large numbers of individuals does not result in the transformation of communities. If we continue to invest in individuals as the primary target of change, we will spend our primary energy on this and never fully invest in communities. In this way, individual transformation comes at the cost of community.
Peter Block (Community: The Structure of Belonging)
But why can’t the language for creativity be the language of regeneration? You killed that poem, we say. You came in to that novel guns blazing. I am hammering this paragraph, I am banging them out, we say. I owned that workshop. I shut it down. I crushed them. We smashed the competition. I’m wrestling with the muse. The state, where people live, is a battleground state. The audience a target audience. ‘Good for you man,’ a man once said to me at a party, ‘you’re making a killing with poetry. You’re knocking ‘em dead.’ “-On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, p. 179, Ocean Vuong “I am thinking of beauty again, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink of an eye, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you’re born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly. Like right now, how the sun is coming on, low behind the elms, and I can’t tell the difference between a sunset and a sunrise. The world, reddening, appears the same to me--and I lose track of east and west. The colors this morning have the frayed tint of something already leaving. I think of the time Trev and I sat on the toolshed roof, watching the sun sink. I wasn’t so much surprised by its effect--how, in a few crushed minutes, it changes the way things are seen, including ourselves--but that it was ever mine to see. Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. To be gorgeous, you first must be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted
Ocean Vuong (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous)
The silent treatment is a form of emotional abuse typically employed by people with narcissistic tendencies. It is designed to (1) place the abuser in a position of control; (2) silence the target’s attempts at assertion; (3) avoid conflict resolution/personal responsibility/compromise; or (4) punish the target for a perceived ego slight. (..) The target, who may possess high emotional intelligence, empathy, conflict-resolution skills, and the ability to compromise, may work diligently to respond to the deafening silence. He or she may frequently reach out to the narcissistic person via email, phone, or text to resolve greatly inflated misunderstandings, and is typically met with continued disdain, contempt, and silence. Essentially, the narcissistic person’s message is one of extreme disapproval (..) The silent treatment is a form of emotional abuse that no one deserves nor should tolerate. If an individual experiences this absence of communication, it is a sure sign that he or she needs to move on and heal. The healing process can feel like mourning the loss of a relationship that did not really exist and was one-way in favor of the ego-massaging person with narcissism.
Andrea Schneider
Political correspondent Jim Rutenberg’s New York Times account of the data scientists’ seminal role in the 2012 Obama victory offers a vivid picture of the capture and analysis of behavioral surplus as a political methodology. The campaign knew “every single wavering voter in the country that it needed to persuade to vote for Obama, by name, address, race, sex, and income,” and it had figured out how to target its television ads to these individuals. One breakthrough was the “persuasion score” that identified how easily each undecided voter could be persuaded to vote for the Democratic candidate.103
Shoshana Zuboff (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism)
We live in a society where the individual is far more empowered, but that brings other challenges. Once the mob gets going, it is very easy to silence authors, or to get publishers to pull books from publication. And that raises questions about the books that are getting out: who is writing them? And who is being approved to write them?” said Ginsberg. The young adult novelist Hennessy pointed to a recent Vulture piece about the “toxic” online community around young adult books, where novels are being “targeted in intense social-media callouts, draggings, and pile-ons – sometimes before anybody’s even read them”.
Alison Flood
Lia eyed me. She eyed Michael. She eyed Dean. “Honestly,” she said, “I doubt that anyone is as happy as Cassie is at this exact moment.” I was getting better at ignoring Lia’s suggestive little digs, but this one hit its target, dead center. Squished in between Michael and Dean, I blushed. I was not going to go there—and I wasn’t going to let Lia ruin this. A grim expression on his face, Dean stood and marched toward Lia. For a moment, I thought he might say something to her about spoiling the moment, but he didn’t. He just picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. “Hey!” Lia protested. Dean grinned and threw her onto the sofa with Michael and me and then resumed his perch on the edge of the couch like nothing had happened. Lia scowled, and Michael poked her cheek. “Admit it,” he said again. “You’re just as happy as we are.” Lia tossed her hair over her shoulder and stared straight ahead, refusing to look any of us in the eye. “A little girl is going home,” she said. “Because of us. Of course I’m as happy as you are.” “Given individual differences in serotonin levels, the probability that any four people would be experiencing identical levels of happiness simultaneously is quite—” “Sloane,” Michael said, without bothering to turn around. “If you don’t finish that sentence, there’s a cup of fresh ground coffee in your future.” “My immediate future?” Sloane asked suspiciously. Michael had a long history of blocking her consumption of caffeine. Without a word, Michael, Lia, and I all turned to look at Dean. He got the message, stood up, and strode toward Sloane, giving her the exact same treatment he’d given Lia. When Dean tossed Sloane gently on top of me, I giggled and almost toppled onto the floor, but Lia grabbed hold of my collar. We did it, I thought, as Michael, Lia, Sloane, and I elbowed for room and Dean stared on from his position, just outside the fray.
Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Killer Instinct (The Naturals, #2))
Anyone who has not groomed his life in general towards some definite end cannot possibly arrange his individual actions properly. It is impossible to put the pieces together if you do not have in your head the idea of the whole. What is the use of providing yourself with paints if you do not know what to paint? No man sketches out a definite plan for his life; we only determine bits of it. The bowman must first know what he is aiming at: then he has to prepare hand, bow, bowstring, arrow and his drill to that end. Our projects go astray because they are not addressed to a target.16 No wind is right for a seaman who has no predetermined harbour.
Michel de Montaigne (The Complete Essays)
Many aspects of how the Chinese political class manages its economy are antithetical to the Western values of democracy and free markets. But this stance has not put off foreign investors, who are attracted to the government’s willingness to prioritize physical infrastructure, political security, and stability over the health of the population, transparency in decision making, and transparency in the rule of law (if not necessarily the system of governance). In essence, the pursuit of economic growth overrides any views on the political system they invest in. Currently China’s political class has a strategy to evolve from an investment-led exporting economy to one more in line with Western economies, relying on domestic consumption. The transition to this new economic equilibrium will not be linear. China will likely experience significant economic volatility and market gyrations as the structure of its economy shifts. There is also mounting skepticism about China’s ability to manage its debt levels, and the country’s lack of individual political freedoms will continue to hamper its growth prospects. But Chinese policymakers will, no doubt, be focused on continuing to show economic progress in advance of two target dates: 2021—one hundred years after the formation of the Communist Party—and 2049, one hundred years after the formation of the People’s Republic of China.
Dambisa Moyo (Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy Is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth-and How to Fix It)
Racially biased police discretion is key to understanding how the overwhelming majority of people who get swept into the criminal justice system in the War on Drugs turn out to be black or brown, even though the police adamantly deny that they engage in racial profiling. In the drug war, police have discretion regarding whom to target (which individuals), as well as where to target (which neighborhoods or communities). As noted earlier, at least 10% of Americans violate frug laws every year, and people of all races engage in illegal drug activity at similar rates. With such an extraordinarily large population of offenders to choose from, decisions must be made regarding who should be targeted and where the drug war should be waged.
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
Over a five-year period they had met casually with Montero’s chief supporters, in the fields of science and defense. In each case a simple handshake or pat on the back yielded the fleck of skin or single strand of hair needed for a genetic sample. These specimens were then studied with the individual’s particular vulnerabilities being identified. Later, pathogen-loaded viruses, or DNA bombs as Donald called them, were engineered from the samples to deliver infectious agents lethal only to the original donors. These viruses could then be injected harmlessly into the assassin and carried invisibly to their mark. In the target’s presence, a simple cough would release the magic bullet, killing the victim within a few hours or days. Referring to Special Atomic Miniature Munitions, or SAMM suitcase nuclear warheads,
Thomas Horn (The Ahriman Gate)
We have seen mass protests about military invasions and about injustices of many kinds, but we are now entering a new era of understanding and for the first time we are going to see people protesting in large numbers about the conspiracy itself and not just its individual expressions, like globalisation and wars. It is a time when the irresistible force (the human awakening) is going eye-to-eye with what it thinks is the immovable object (the agenda for global control). Immovable it is not, as we shall see in due course, but it is not going to go quietly. We need to be strong and refuse to acquiesce to these control freaks under any circumstances, no matter what the scale of intimidation and provocation. The Illuminati families may have the money, governments, banks, corporations, police and military, but the humanity that they so mercilessly target has the sheer numbers.
David Icke (Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More)
1.      Establishing artificial time constraints: Allow the person being targeted to feel that there is an end in sight. 2.      Accommodating nonverbals: Ensure that both your body language as well as your voice is non-threatening.           3.      Slower rate of speech: Don’t oversell and talk too fast. You lose credibility quickly and come on too strong and threatening. 4.      Sympathy or assistance theme: Human beings are genetically coded to provide assistance and help. It also appeals to their ego that they may know more than you. 5.      Ego suspension: Most likely the hardest technique but without a doubt the most effective. Don’t build yourself up, build someone else up and you will have strong rapport. 6.      Validate others: Human beings crave being connected and accepted. Validation feeds this need and few give it. Be the great validator and have instant, great rapport. 7.      Ask… How? When? Why? : When you want to dig deep and make a connection, there is no better or safer way than asking these questions. They will tell you what they are willing to talk about. 8.      Connect with quid pro quo: Some people are just more guarded than others. Allow them to feel comfortable by giving a little about you. Don’t overdo it. 9.      Gift giving (reciprocal altruism): Human beings are genetically coded to reciprocate gifts given. Give a gift, either intangible or material, and seek a conversation and rapport in return. 10.  Managing expectations: Avoid both disappointment as well as the look of a bad salesman by ensuring that your methods are focused on benefitting the targeted individual and not you. Ultimately you will win, but your mindset needs to focus on them. You now have the top ten secrets on how to build rapport with anyone in just a few minutes.  There is nothing in these pages that
Robin Dreeke (It's Not All About "Me": The Top Ten Techniques for Building Rapport)
Looking at a situation like the Israel-Palestine conflict, Americans are likely to react with puzzlement when they see ever more violent and provocative acts that target innocent civilians. We are tempted to ask: do the terrorists not realize that they will enrage the Israelis, and drive them to new acts of repression? The answer of course is that they know this very well, and this is exactly what they want. From our normal point of view, this seems incomprehensible. If we are doing something wrong, we do not want to invite the police to come in and try and stop us, especially if repression will result in the deaths or imprisonment of many of our followers. In a terrorist war, however, repression is often valuable because it escalates the growing war, and forces people to choose between the government and the terrorists. The terror/repression cycle makes it virtually impossible for anyone to remain a moderate. By increasing polarization within a society, terrorism makes the continuation of the existing order impossible. Once again, let us take the suicide bombing example. After each new incident, Israeli authorities tightened restrictions on Palestinian communities, arrested new suspects, and undertook retaliatory strikes. As the crisis escalated, they occupied or reoccupied Palestinian cities, destroying Palestinian infrastructure. The result, naturally, was massive Palestinian hostility and anger, which made further attacks more likely in the future. The violence made it more difficult for moderate leaders on both sides to negotiate. In the long term, the continuing confrontation makes it more likely that ever more extreme leaders will be chosen on each side, pledged not to negotiate with the enemy. The process of polarization is all the more probably when terrorists deliberately choose targets that they know will cause outrage and revulsion, such as attacks on cherished national symbols, on civilians, and even children. We can also think of this in individual terms. Imagine an ordinary Palestinian Arab who has little interest in politics and who disapproves of terrorist violence. However, after a suicide bombing, he finds that he is subject to all kinds of official repression, as the police and army hold him for long periods at security checkpoints, search his home for weapons, and perhaps arrest or interrogate him as a possible suspect. That process has the effect of making him see himself in more nationalistic (or Islamic) terms, stirs his hostility to the Israeli regime, and gives him a new sympathy for the militant or terrorist cause. The Israeli response to terrorism is also valuable for the terrorists in global publicity terms, since the international media attack Israel for its repression of civilians. Hamas military commander Salah Sh’hadeh, quoted earlier, was killed in an Israeli raid on Gaza in 2002, an act which by any normal standards of warfare would represent a major Israeli victory. In this case though, the killing provoked ferocious criticism of Israel by the U.S. and western Europe, and made Israel’s diplomatic situation much more difficult. In short, a terrorist attack itself may or may not attract widespread publicity, but the official response to it very likely will. In saying this, I am not suggesting that governments should not respond to terrorism, or that retaliation is in any sense morally comparable to the original attacks. Many historical examples show that terrorism can be uprooted and defeated, and military action is often an essential part of the official response. But terrorism operates on a logic quite different from that of most conventional politics and law enforcement, and concepts like defeat and victory must be understood quite differently from in a regular war.
Philip Jenkins (Images of Terror: What We Can and Can't Know about Terrorism (Social Problems and Social Issues))
Matt Espenshade confirmed that in spite of the deaths of so many of the kidnappers, many more are still at large, including their leaders. Those men might hope to be forgotten; they are not. The FBI has continued its investigative interest in those involved with the kidnapping. The leaders, especially, are of prime interest to the Bureau. And now the considerable unseen assets in that region are steadily feeding back information on these targeted individuals to learn their operational methods and their locations and hunt them down. The surviving kidnappers and their colleagues are welcome to sneer at the danger. It may help them pass the time, just as it did for Bin Laden’s henchmen to chuckle at the idea of payback. If the men nobody sees coming are dispatched to capture or kill them, the surviving kidnappers will find themselves dealing with a force of air, sea, and land fighters s obsessed with the work they do that they have trained themselves into the physical and mental toughness of world-class athletes. They will carry the latest in weapons, armor, visual systems, and communication devises. Whether they are Navy SEAL fighters, DEVGRU warriors, Army Delta Force soldiers, Green Berets, or any of the elite soldiers under United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM), they will share the elite warriors’ determination to achieve success in their mission assignment. The news that they are coming for you is the worst you could receive. But nobody gets advance warning from these men. They consider themselves born for this. They have fought like panthers to be part of their team. For most of them, there is a strong sense of pride in succeeding at missions nobody else can get done; in lethal challenges. They actually prefer levels of difficulty so high it seems only a sucker would seek them, the sorts of situations seen more and more often these days. Impossible odds.
Anthony Flacco (Impossible Odds: The Kidnapping of Jessica Buchanan and Her Dramatic Rescue by SEAL Team Six)
A golden visa is a permanent residency visa issued to individuals who invest, often through the purchase of property, a certain sum of money into the issuing country. The United States EB-5 visa program requires overseas applicants to invest a minimum of anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million, depending on the location of the project, and requires at least 10 jobs to be either created or preserved.[22] When these criteria are met, the applicant and their family become eligible for a green card. There is an annual cap of 10,000 applications under the EB-5 program.[citation needed] The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has offered its EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program since 1990. It is designed to encourage foreign investment in infrastructure projects in the U.S., particularly in Targeted Employment Areas (TEA), high unemployment areas. The funds are channeled through agencies called regional centers, now designated only by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The funding opportunities allow the investor to make a sound financial investment and obtain a U.S. “Green Card. A large majority of users of such programs are wealthy Chinese seeking legal security and a better quality of life outside of their home country.
Wikipedia: Immigrant investor programs
Daily work in the field of online advertising, as Jack Goldenberg sees it, is still significantly different from what the trends are propagated by online promotions. Defining online budget According to Jack Goldenberg a vast majority of the budget for online advertising does not exceed $2,000 on a monthly basis, depending on the perception of the company as they can bring effects "online adventure", established budgets for online advertising move in value from $200 to $2,000 per month (with highest proportion of $200-$500). This does not mean that a number of companies gives less advertising - but even then it can not be called "creating the campaign." Goldenberg believes that in order to create an online advertising campaign there should be a budget of at least $500 for the use of different types of online advertising. Goldenberg explains this as: In an environment of such budget is not simply distribute the money "wisely" and that since it has obvious benefits through a variety of online advertising systems. Jack Goldenberg found out how most companies in the world and USA are oriented towards effects in relation to the funds that are made for advertising. In this type of company, regardless of what everyone knows to be used types of brand advertising (advertising through banners - display advertising) to create recognizable firms in certain target groups, the effects of such advertising are not directly comparable with respect to the effects of (price per click - CPC - Cost per click) with contextual advertising, which for years has given much more efficient (measurable) results in relation to advertising banners, concludes Mr. Goldenberg. According to Yoel Goldenberg it is good when there is an understanding in companies that brand advertising has a different type of effects in relation to the PPC (contextual) advertising, and that would be it "documented" in a certain way, it is necessary to constantly explore and find those web sites that deliver the best effects for optimum need of assets. The process of creating an online advertising campaigns, explained by Goldenberg, usually starts (or should start) finding individual Web sites on which to advertise a company could, possibly longer term. Unfortunately, says Goldenberg, in our country is not in all sectors (industries) simply find diverse Web sites from which to choose "pretenders" for online advertising. An even greater problem is the fact that long-term advertising on a Web site does not bring the desired effect, unless it is constantly not working to the content of advertising often changes with an emphasis on meeting the needs of potential clients.
Jack Goldenberg (My Secret List of Sites that Pay: Websites that pay you from home (Quick Easy Money))
CRACKING A WHIP MADE OF SMALL ROBOTS JOINED END TO END into a long, flexible chain was neither an especially bad nor an especially good way of engaging a foe in ambot-based combat. Extensive studies conducted within Blue military research labs had concluded that, on average, it was somewhat less effective than the more obvious procedure of just shooting individual ambots out of katapults. A dissenting opinion held that such studies were flawed because they failed to take into account two factors that were important in actual battle: One, the psychological impact on a defender who knew that the attack might literally whip around and come at him from any direction, including around corners or over barricades. Two, the element of skill, which was difficult to measure scientifically; the test subjects wielding those things in the lab were unlikely to have the same knack for it as Neoanders who had grown up using them and who had access to an ancient body of lore—a martial art, in effect—that they were disinclined to share with anyone else. If the whip was allowed to dissociate in midcrack, then its component ambots would be flung toward the target at supersonic velocity, which was as good as could be achieved by shooting the same objects out of a katapult. If it made contact with the target, direct physical damage would be inflicted and the ambots that had inflicted it could decouple themselves and carry out their usual programs. And if the whipcrack was off target, the chain could be recovered in full with no waste of ammunition. All the ambots came back for another attempt: something that certainly could not be said of ones that had been fired out of kats.
Neal Stephenson (Seveneves)
Information or allegations reflecting negatively on individuals or groups seen less sympathetically by the intelligentsia pass rapidly into the public domain with little scrutiny and much publicity. Two of the biggest proven hoaxes of our time have involved allegations of white men gang-raping a black woman-- first the Tawana Brawley hoax of 1987 and later the false rape charges against three Duke University students in 2006. In both cases, editorial indignation rang out across the land, without a speck of evidence to substantiate either of these charges. Moreover, the denunciations were not limited to the particular men accused, but were often extended to society at large, of whom these men were deemed to be symptoms or 'the tip of the iceberg.' In both cases, the charges fit a pre-existing vision, and that apparently made mundane facts unnecessary. Another widely publicized hoax-- one to which the President of the United States added his sub-hoax-- was a 1996 story appearing in USA Today under the headline, 'Arson at Black Churches Echoes Bigotry of the Past.' There was, according to USA Today, 'an epidemic of church burning,' targeting black churches. Like the gang-rape hoaxes, this story spread rapidly through the media. The Chicago Tribune referred to 'an epidemic of criminal and cowardly arson' leaving black churches in ruins. As with the gang-rape hoaxes, comments on the church fire stories went beyond those who were supposed to have set these fires to blame forces at work in society at large. Jesse Jackson was quoted was quoted in the New York Times as calling these arsons part of a 'cultural conspiracy' against blacks, which 'reflected the heightened racial tensions in the south that have been exacerbated by the assault on affirmative action and the populist oratory of Republican politicians like Pat Buchanan.' Time magazine writer Jack White likewise blamed 'the coded phrases' of Republican leaders for 'encouraging the arsonists.' Columnist Barbara Reynolds of USA Today said that the fires were 'an attempt to murder the spirit of black America.' New York Times columnist Bob Herbert said, "The fuel for these fires can be traced to a carefully crafted environment of bigotry and hatred that was developed over the last century.' As with the gang-rape hoaxes, the charges publicized were taken as reflecting on the whole society, not just those supposedly involved in what was widely presumed to be arson, rather than fires that break out for a variety of other reasons. Washington Post columnist Dorothy Gilliam said that society in effect was 'giving these arsonists permission to commit these horrible crimes.' The climax of these comments came when President Bill Clinton, in his weekly radio address, said that these church burnings recalled similar burnings of black churches in Arkansas when he was a boy. There were more that 2,000 media stories done on the subject after the President's address. This story began to unravel when factual research showed that (1) no black churches were burned in Arkansas when Bill Clinton was growing up, (2) there had been no increase in fires at black churches, but an actual decrease over the previous 15 years, (3) the incidence of fires at white churches was similar to the incidence of fires at black churches, and (4) where there was arson, one-third of the suspects were black. However, retractions of the original story-- where there were retractions at all-- typically were given far less prominence than the original banner headlines and heated editorial comments.
Thomas Sowell (Intellectuals and Society)
As I see it, the War on Drugs—more than any other government program or political initiative—gave rise to mass incarceration as defined above. Although the political dynamics that gave birth to the system date back to slavery, the drug war marked an important turning point in American history, one that cannot be measured simply by counting heads in prisons and jails. The declaration and escalation of the War on Drugs marked a moment in our past when a group of people defined by race and class was viewed and treated as the “enemy.” A literal war was declared on a highly vulnerable population, leading to a wave of punitiveness that permeated every aspect of our criminal justice system and redefined the scope of fundamental constitutional rights. The war mentality resulted in the militarization of local police departments and billions invested in drug law enforcement at the state and local levels. It also contributed to astronomical expenditures for prison building for people convicted of all crimes and the slashing of billions from education, public housing and welfare programs, as well as a slew of legislation authorizing legal discrimination against millions of people accused of drug offenses, denying them access to housing, food stamps, credit, basic public benefits, and financial aid for schooling. This war did not merely increase the number of people in prisons and jails. It radically altered the life course of millions, especially black men who were the primary targets in the early decades of the war. Their lives and families were destroyed for drug crimes that were largely ignored on the other side of town. Those who define “mass incarceration” narrowly, to include only individuals currently locked in prisons or jails, erase from public view the overwhelming majority of
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
Cataract Treatment Advanced by Laser Eye Surgery It is estimated that half of individuals aged 65 and above will grow a cataract at some period in their life. A cataract is an eye condition that may be hazardous to your eyesight. In a healthy eye, there's a clear lens which enables you to focus. For those who have a cataract, the lens slowly deteriorates over a long period of time. Your vision can be blurry as the cataract develops, until the whole-of the lens is muddy. Your sight will slowly get worse, becoming blurry or misty, which makes it tough to see clearly. Cataracts can occur at any age but generally develop as you get older. Cataract surgery involves removing the cataract by emulsifying the lens by sonography and replacing it with a small plastic lens. This artificial lens is then stabilised within your natural lens that was held by the same lens capsule. The results restore clear vision and generally wholly remove the significance of reading glasses. However, years following the surgery, patients can occasionally experience clouding of their sight again. Vision can become blurred and lots of patients have issues with glare and bright lights. What is truly happening is a thickening of the lens capsule that holds the artificial lens. Medically this is known as Posterior Lens Capsule Opacification. This thickening of the lens capsule occurs in the back, meaning natural lens cells develop across the rear of the lens. These cells are sometimes left behind subsequent cataract surgery, causing problems with the light entering the-eye and hence problems with your vision. Laser Eye getlasereyesurgery.co.uk y Treatment Lasers are beams of power which may be targeted quite correctly. Nowadays the technology will be used increasingly for the purpose of rectifying the vision of patients after cataract operation. The YAG laser is a focused laser with really low energy levels and can be used to cut away a small circle shaped area in the lens capsule which enables light to once again pass through to the rear of the artificial lens. A proportion of the lens capsule is retained in order to keep the lens in place, but removes enough of the cells to let the light to the retina. If you want to read more information, please Click Here
getlasereyesurgery
Wherever human beings are thrown together, one of them at once becomes a laughing stock, a source of malicious mirth, whether the mirth is uproarious or restrained, surreptitious, soundless. Society never rests content until one of the many - or of the few - has been selected as its victim and has become the target of every pointing finger. The community always seeks out its weakest member and exposes him to its pitiless laughter, to repeated and ever more exquisite torture by ridicule and mockery; and it always shows itself supremely inventive in constantly devising fresh refinements. We need only look at what goes on in families: there is always one member of a family who is mocked and ridiculed. Wherever three are gathered together, there is always one in the midsts who is mocked and ridiculed. Society cannot exist without one or more such victims. It always derives its amusement from one individual or a small number of individuals in its midst. We see this happening all our lives. And the victims go on being exploited until they are destroyed. In the cases of the crippled schoolboy and Pittioni I was able to observe the degree of viciousness which society or the community can reach in the process of mocking, destroying, and annihilating its victims. It always reaches the very highest degree and then often goes one better, casually killing the victim in the process. Any sympathy felt for the victim is sympathy only in name; it is really no more than bad consience on the part of the individual at the cruel behaviour indulged in by the others, behaviour in which he is in fact just as keenly involved by behaving cruelly himself. No extenuation can be pleaded. Examples of cruelty, viciousness, and ruthlessness practised by the community against its victims to provide itself with entertaiment run into hundreds and thousands, as we know, and the victims are invariably driven to the extremity of despair. Society tries out every variety of cruelty and viciousness on its victims and goes on experimenting until it has killed them. As invariably happens in nature, the weakened elements in the organism, the weakened substances, are the first to be attacked, exploited, killed off, and eliminated. And of all the organisms there are humann society is the basest, being the most cunning. And the passing of centuries has brought not the slightest change: on the contrary, methods have become more refined and hence more appalling and more infamous. Morality is a lie. Inwardly the so-called healthy person gloats over the sick or the crippled.
Thomas Bernhard (Gathering Evidence)
Correlation and causality. Why is it that throughout the animal kingdom and in every human culture, males account for most aggression and violence? Well, what about testosterone and some related hormones, collectively called androgens, a term that unless otherwise noted, I will use simplistically as synonymous with testosterone. In nearly all species, males have more circulating testosterone than do females, who secrete small amounts of androgens from the adrenal glands. Moreover, male aggression is most prevalent when testosterone levels are highest; adolescence and during mating season in seasonal breeders. Thus, testosterone and aggression are linked. Furthermore, there are particularly high levels of testosterone receptors in the amygdala, in the way station by which it projects to the rest of the brain, the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and in its major targets, the hypothalamus, the central gray of the mid-brain, and the frontal cortex. But these are merely correlative data. Showing that testosterone causes aggression requires a subtraction plus a replacement experiment. Subtraction, castrate a male: do levels of aggression decrease? Yes, including in humans. This shows that something coming from the testes causes aggression. Is it testosterone? Replacement: give that castrated individual replacement testosterone. Do pre-castration levels of aggression return? Yes, including in humans, thus testosterone causes aggression. Time to see how wrong that is. The first hint of a complication comes after castration. When average levels of aggression plummet in every species, but crucially, not to zero, well, maybe the castration wasn't perfect, you missed some bits of testes, or maybe enough of the minor adrenal androgens are secreted to maintain the aggression. But no, even when testosterone and androgens are completely eliminated, some aggression remains, thus some male aggression is testosterone independent. This point is driven home by castration of some sexual offenders, a legal procedure in a few states. This is accomplished with chemical castration, administration of drugs that either inhibit testosterone production or block testosterone receptors. Castration decreases sexual urges in the subset of sex offenders with intense, obsessive, and pathological urges. But otherwise, castration doesn't decrease recidivism rates as stated in one meta-analysis. Hostile rapists and those who commit sex crimes motivated by power or anger are not amenable to treatment with the anti-androgenic drugs. This leads to a hugely informative point. The more experience the male had being aggressive prior to castration, the more aggression continues afterward. In otherwise, the less his being aggressive in the future requires testosterone and the more it's a function of social learning.
Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
Kaffman (2009) described childhood victimization as a "silent epidemic", and Finkelhor, Turner, Ormrod, and Hamby (2010) reported that children are the most traumatized class of humans around the globe. The findings of these researchers are at odds with the view that children have protected status in most families, societies, and cultures. Instead, Finkelhor reports that children are prime targets and highly vulnerable, due principally to their small size, their physical and emotional immaturity with its associated lack of control, power and resources; and their related dependency on caregivers. They are subjected to many forms of exploitation on an ongoing basis, imposed on them by individuals with greater power, strength, knowledge, and resources, many of whom are, paradoxically and tragically, responsible for their care and welfare. These traumas are interpersonal in nature and involve personal transgression, violation and exploitation of the child by those who rely on the child's lesser physical abilities, innocence, and immaturity to intimidate, bully, confuse, blackmail, exploit, or otherwise coerce. In the worst-case scenario, a parent or other significant caregiver directly and repeatedly abuses a child or does not respond to or protect a child or other vulnerable individual who is being abused and mistreated and isolates the child from others through threats or with direct violence. Consequently, such an abusive, nonprotective, or malevolently exploitative circumstance (Chefetz has coined the term "attack-ment" to describe these dynamics) has a profound impact on victim's ability to trust others. It also affects the victim's identity and self-concept, usually in negative ways that include self-hatred, low self-worth, and lack of self-confidence. As a result, both relationships, and the individual's sense of self and internal states (feelings, thoughts, and perceptions) can become sources of fear, despair, rage, or other extreme dysphoria or numbed and dissociated reactions. This state of alienation from self and others is further exacerbated when the occurrence of abuse or other victimization involves betrayal and is repeated and becomes chronic, in the process leading the victim to remain in a state of either hyperarousal/anticipation/hypervigilance or hypoarousal/numbing (or to alternate between these two states) and to develop strong protective mechanisms, such as dissociation, in order to endure recurrences. When these additional victimizations recur, they unfortunately tend to escalate in severity and intrusiveness over time, causing additional traumatization (Duckworth & Follette, 2011). In many cases of child maltreatment, emotional or psychological coercion and the use of the adult's authority and dominant power rather than physical force or violence is the fulcrum and weapon used against the child; however, force and violence are common in some settings and in some forms of abuse (sometimes in conjunction with extreme isolation and drugging of the child), as they are used to further control or terrorize the victim into submission. The use of force and violence is more commonplace and prevalent in some families, communities, religions, cultural/ethnic groups, and societies based on the views and values about adult prerogatives with children that are espoused. They may also be based on the sociopathy of the perpetrators.
Christine A. Courtois (Treatment of Complex Trauma: A Sequenced, Relationship-Based Approach)
In addition to salary, all Mercadona employees, from the cleaner to the CEO, received an annual bonus if their individual and local goals were met and if the company met its overall targets. The bonus was two months’ salary for employees who had been with Mercadona four or more years and one month’s salary for those who had been there less than four years. In a typical year when company targets were met, about 95 percent of the employees qualified for the bonus because they had met their individual and local goals. If the company targets were not met, no one—neither the cleaner nor the CEO—would receive any bonus.4
Zeynep Ton (The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits)
Consumer prices in August rose just 0.3 per cent from the year before as lower energy and food costs took their toll. The dip comes after inflation had already slowed from 0.5 per cent in June to 0.4 per cent in July, putting it at less than a quarter of the ECB’s official inflation target of 2 per cent. Individual countries were even harder hit. In Italy, inflation reached its lowest level since 1959 as consumer prices slumped 0.2 per cent in August, triggering calls for the eurozone central bank to signal to markets when it meets next week that it is ready to act.
Anonymous
Investment In Real Estate Is A Worthwhile Endeavor Several factors has to be studied by any individual who is planning an investment in real estate. For example, if business properties are desired, the client should are aware of they may be targeting certain conditions that aren't typically seen with residential properties. Nonetheless, for the appropriate particular person, and for those who plan fastidiously and receive good recommendation, this feature investment will be highly profitable. Individuals looking for commercial properties can certainly find that there are numerous kinds of institutions by which to come up with selection. For instance, an individual should purchase a restaurant or lodge, or invest in a retail store. The consumer may also select to buy an investment property comparable to your rent amount advanced and make an income from leaseing every unit. Office constructings can also be a smart selection, as tenants will likely be seen reasonably ardmore three wheelock quickly. It's fundamental, nevertheless, to buy such properties in nearly anything that receives beneficiant traffic. Most commercial institutions fail if they can't appeal to a steady transfer of customers. Buying residential property is something customers may additionally wish to think about that these planning to decide on their investment portfolios. For instance, an individual may decide to obtain a dwelling that have been renovated. Sometimes called "handyman specials, " such properties will be repaired which can offered during profit. Fortuitously, usually they are cheaper than properties that are in good repair. It is also a possibility to build an ad or residential property can be an investment. Builders who've satisfactory money to finance exceptionally challenge made having a tract of land and fill homes for it on the market to the general public. However, as soon as again, it is essential to pick a location carefully, as it may possibly nominal good to supply homes for sale in a part of the country in which nobody wants to live. Purchasing the primary property one finds is rarely a clever program of action. Instead, it is always the most effective interest match investor to comparability store attempting to discover at a couple of home or business earlier than making a final decision. It will make sure that the excellent ill use made. It can be more suitable obtain authorized advice every time one is planning to purchase various types property. This is even if that the buyer must have assurance that the property just isn't encumbered, and he or she can even want knowledgeable to make all the paperwork regarding the transaction is legal. Finally, individuals planning an investment in real estate will find that it plan of action is sensible, supplied they plan with care and hire a reliable broker to supervise their transactions.
Jack Dorsey
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practice, the synagogue generally limits its services only to members in the area of bat or bar mitzvah. Most life-cycle events (outside of these four core events) that individuals mark, such as getting a drivers license or graduating from college, are outside the purview of the synagogue. And for life-cycle events that used to be a benefit of synagogue membership, such as bar or bat mitzvahs and weddings, families are looking outside of the synagogue for assistance. This new model allows the synagogue to reach a larger target population and expand its ability to bring Judaism together with important milestones, beyond the traditional four, in a person’s life.
Kerry M. Olitzky (Playlist Judaism: Making Choices for a Vital Future)
be familiar to potential participants, such as Passover or Hanukkah. Charge no entry fee to keep the barriers low for participation. 3. As an option, take an event or program already planned and move it into a public space. Or take a longer multisession program and divide it into individual stand-alone events. Also, plan events as part of the secular community-at-large calendar, such as local fairs and parades. 4. Always design events to appeal to a defined target audience. Focus on the needs of the potential participant, not the needs or interests of the sponsoring institution. 5. Make sure the event is convenient for potential participants to attend. Identify arts, music, and cultural venues that your target audience frequents, including bookstores, theaters, concert halls, and athletic centers. 6. Market your programs in secular venues
Kerry M. Olitzky (Playlist Judaism: Making Choices for a Vital Future)
5. It is just as important to establish groups of followers who are seeking change as it is to foster leaders who will be instrumental in making change. Reflection and Discussion Questions for Synagogue Leaders 1. How do you help large numbers of people navigate their journey from one institution to another and still keep that journey intimate and personal? 2. In what ways can a synagogue strive to serve distinct target populations even if those populations are transitory? 3. To what extent is the spiritual environment of an institution shaped by the individual personalities or interests of its spiritual leaders? What are the advantages and disadvantages of building a spiritual environment according to the inclination of
Kerry M. Olitzky (Playlist Judaism: Making Choices for a Vital Future)
Twenty-two thousand jobs were to be shed in two years. Since 80 percent of workers were fonctionnaires and therefore unsackable, management resorted to more insidious psychological tactics to force them to leave the company. They engaged in what might be described as terror tactics that targeted individuals by every means possible. Some employees received a barrage of e-mails from managers exhorting them to find work elsewhere. Others were forced to change jobs or move to new cities on a continuous basis as managers sought to destabilize their working life. Others were subject to interviews where they were criticized and humiliated in front of others. Under French law, these methods are defined as harcèlement moral or psychological harassment.
Anonymous
So training smart, training effectively, involves cycling through the three zones in any given week or training block: 75 percent easy running, 5 to 10 percent running at target race paces, and 15 to 20 percent fast running or hill training in the third zone to spike the heart and breathing rates. In my 5-days-a-week running schedule, that cycle looks like this: On Monday, I cross-train. Tuesday, I do an easy run in zone one, then speed up to a target race pace for a mile or two of zone-two work. On Wednesday, it’s an easy zone-one run. Thursday is an intense third-zone workout with hills, speed intervals, or a combination of the two. Friday is a recovery day to give my body time to adapt. On Saturday, I do a relaxed run with perhaps another mile or two of zone-two race pace or zone-three speed. Sunday is a long, slow run. That constant cycling through the three zones—a hard day followed by an easy or rest day—gradually improves my performance in each zone and my overall fitness. But today is not about training. It’s about cranking up that treadmill yet again, pushing me to run ever faster in the third zone, so Vescovi can measure my max HR and my max VO2, the greatest amount of oxygen my heart and lungs can pump to muscles working at their peak. When I pass into this third zone, Vescovi and his team start cheering: “Great job!” “Awesome!” “Nice work.” They sound impressed. And when I am in the moment of running rather than watching myself later on film, I really think I am impressing them, that I am lighting up the computer screen with numbers they have rarely seen from a middle-aged marathoner, maybe even from an Olympian in her prime. It’s not impossible: A test of male endurance athletes in Sweden, all over the age of 80 and having 50 years of consistent training for cross-country skiing, found they had relative max VO2 values (“relative” because the person’s weight was included in the calculation) comparable to those of men half their age and 80 percent higher than their sedentary cohorts. And I am going for a high max VO2. I am hauling in air. I am running well over what should be my max HR of 170 (according to that oft-used mathematical formula, 220 − age) and way over the 162 calculated using the Gulati formula, which is considered to be more accurate for women (0.88 × age, the result of which is then subtracted from 206). Those mathematical formulas simply can’t account for individual variables and fitness levels. A more accurate way to measure max HR, other than the test I’m in the middle of, is to strap on a heart rate monitor and run four laps at a 400-meter track, starting out at a moderate pace and running faster on each lap, then running the last one full out. That should spike your heart into its maximum range. My high max HR is not surprising, since endurance runners usually develop both a higher maximum rate at peak effort and a lower rate at rest than unconditioned people. What is surprising is that as the treadmill
Margaret Webb (Older, Faster, Stronger: What Women Runners Can Teach Us All About Living Younger, Longer)
There are five characteristics that can define an intervention as more intensive: Frequency. The more often a child receives a particular support, the more intensive the intervention. Duration. The more time a student spends receiving a particular support, the more intensive the intervention. Ratio. The smaller the teacher-to-student ratio, the more intensive the intervention. Targeting. The more aligned a particular support is with the individual needs of a specific student, the more intensive the intervention. Training. The more highly trained the staff member is in the student’s area of need, the more intensive the intervention.
Austin Buffum (Simplifying Response to Intervention: Four Essential Guiding Principles (What Principals Need to Know))
A group called Al Qaeda, according to my sources. The leader is some Saudi Arabian named Osama bin Laden. He comes from a very rich family, and he rejected the authority of the KGB to direct his group after they first approached him five years ago. Since the Soviet Union collapsed, a lot of individual terrorists have been joining up with him in the last three years, and as a result, they’ve been targeting a lot of western assets. They don’t seem to care that we want to take down the United States from within, because they consider all of us infidels, and they want us to disappear from the face of the Earth.
Cliff Ball (The Usurper: A suspense political thriller)
the researchers identified 8 distinct practice strategies that were common to the top pianists, but occurred less frequently in the practice sessions of the others: 1 Playing was hands-together early in practice. 2 Practice was with inflection early on; the initial conceptualization of the music was with inflection. 3 Practice was thoughtful, as evidenced by silent pauses while looking at the music, singing/humming, making notes on the page, or expressing verbal “ah-ha”s. 4 Errors were preempted by stopping in anticipation of mistakes. 5 Errors were addressed immediately when they appeared. 6 The precise location and source of each error was identified accurately, rehearsed, and corrected. 7 Tempo of individual performance trials was varied systematically; logically understandable changes in tempo occurred between trials (e.g. slowed things down to get tricky sections correct). 8 Target passages were repeated until the error was corrected and the passage was stabilized, as evidenced by the error’s absence in subsequent trials.
Anonymous
Sanctions that target individuals rather than entire countries would allow Congress to put pressure on the executive branch when it doesn’t act. And these sanctions cost virtually nothing to implement. They’re the equivalent of a nextgeneration cancer treatment that targets cancer cells instead of the whole patient.
Anonymous
Targeting individuals, while ignoring larger system failures, oversimplifies the problem and does little to prevent its recurrence.
Lee G. Bolman (Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership)
1 = Very important. Do this at once. 2 = Worth doing but takes more time. Start planning it. 3 = Yes and no. Depends on how it’s done. 4 = Not very important. May even be a waste of effort. 5 = No! Don’t do this. Fill in those numbers before you read further, and take your time. This is not a simple situation, and solving it is a complicated undertaking. Possible Actions to Take ____ Explain the changes again in a carefully written memo. ____ Figure out exactly how individuals’ behavior and attitudes will have to change to make teams work. ____ Analyze who stands to lose something under the new system. ____ Redo the compensation system to reward compliance with the changes. ____ “Sell” the problem that is the reason for the change. ____ Bring in a motivational speaker to give employees a powerful talk about teamwork. ____ Design temporary systems to contain the confusion during the cutover from the old way to the new. ____ Use the interim between the old system and the new to improve the way in which services are delivered by the unit—and, where appropriate, create new services. ____ Change the spatial arrangements so that the cubicles are separated only by glass or low partitions. ____ Put team members in contact with disgruntled clients, either by phone or in person. Let them see the problem firsthand. ____ Appoint a “change manager” to be responsible for seeing that the changes go smoothly. ____ Give everyone a badge with a new “teamwork” logo on it. ____ Break the change into smaller stages. Combine the firsts and seconds, then add the thirds later. Change the managers into coordinators last. ____ Talk to individuals. Ask what kinds of problems they have with “teaming.” ____ Change the spatial arrangements from individual cubicles to group spaces. ____ Pull the best people in the unit together as a model team to show everyone else how to do it. ____ Give everyone a training seminar on how to work as a team. ____ Reorganize the general manager’s staff as a team and reconceive the GM’s job as that of a coordinator. ____ Send team representatives to visit other organizations where service teams operate successfully. ____ Turn the whole thing over to the individual contributors as a group and ask them to come up with a plan to change over to teams. ____ Scrap the plan and find one that is less disruptive. If that one doesn’t work, try another. Even if it takes a dozen plans, don’t give up. ____ Tell them to stop dragging their feet or they’ll face disciplinary action. ____ Give bonuses to the first team to process 100 client calls in the new way. ____ Give everyone a copy of the new organization chart. ____ Start holding regular team meetings. ____ Change the annual individual targets to team targets, and adjust bonuses to reward team performance. ____ Talk about transition and what it does to people. Give coordinators a seminar on how to manage people in transition. There are no correct answers in this list, but over time I’ve
William Bridges (Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change)
Just listen … and read’ is based on the hypothesis that language acquisition takes place when learners are exposed to comprehensible input through listening and/or reading. As noted in Chapter 4, the individual whose name is most closely associated with this proposal is Stephen Krashen (1985, 1989). This is a controversial proposal because it suggests that second language learners do not need to produce language in order to learn it, except perhaps to get other people to provide input by speaking to them. According to this view, it is enough to hear (or read) and understand the target language.
Patsy M. Lightbown (How Languages are Learned)
It is not at all clear to the ascriptive scientist that every individual is a self. a self is something to be achieved by doing the hard and humbling work of self-experimentation, not something that one possesses solely by virtue of being biologically human. The “self-management” tools and techniques sup- plied by the psychological sciences of self-regulation and self-control become, within ascriptive science, personal technologies for the targeted transforma- tion of some counterproductive behavior. epistemic rationality is more than something to talk about in the arid confines of academic classrooms; it is a blueprint for a structured and more productive series of conversations with oneself.
Mihnea C. Moldoveanu (Inside Man: The Discipline of Modeling Human Ways of Being)
The factors that usually decide presidential elections—the economy, likability of the candidates, and so on—added up to a wash, and the outcome came down to a few key swing states. Mitt Romney’s campaign followed a conventional polling approach, grouping voters into broad categories and targeting each one or not. Neil Newhouse, Romney’s pollster, said that “if we can win independents in Ohio, we can win this race.” Romney won them by 7 percent but still lost the state and the election. In contrast, President Obama hired Rayid Ghani, a machine-learning expert, as chief scientist of his campaign, and Ghani proceeded to put together the greatest analytics operation in the history of politics. They consolidated all voter information into a single database; combined it with what they could get from social networking, marketing, and other sources; and set about predicting four things for each individual voter: how likely he or she was to support Obama, show up at the polls, respond to the campaign’s reminders to do so, and change his or her mind about the election based on a conversation about a specific issue. Based on these voter models, every night the campaign ran 66,000 simulations of the election and used the results to direct its army of volunteers: whom to call, which doors to knock on, what to say. In politics, as in business and war, there is nothing worse than seeing your opponent make moves that you don’t understand and don’t know what to do about until it’s too late. That’s what happened to the Romney campaign. They could see the other side buying ads in particular cable stations in particular towns but couldn’t tell why; their crystal ball was too fuzzy. In the end, Obama won every battleground state save North Carolina and by larger margins than even the most accurate pollsters had predicted. The most accurate pollsters, in turn, were the ones (like Nate Silver) who used the most sophisticated prediction techniques; they were less accurate than the Obama campaign because they had fewer resources. But they were a lot more accurate than the traditional pundits, whose predictions were based on their expertise. You might think the 2012 election was a fluke: most elections are not close enough for machine learning to be the deciding factor. But machine learning will cause more elections to be close in the future. In politics, as in everything, learning is an arms race. In the days of Karl Rove, a former direct marketer and data miner, the Republicans were ahead. By 2012, they’d fallen behind, but now they’re catching up again.
Pedro Domingos (The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World)
It will involve figuring out where in the country a product will work better, in terms of both efficacy and revenue. It will involve more than sending out an army of sales reps who often can’t get in the door anymore. It will take advantage of new digital promotion tools and targeting. It will harness big data for a far better understanding of competitive advantages, ideal patient populations, and how medicines can be personalized to the individual.
Scott Weintraub (RESULTS: The Future Of Pharmaceutical And Healthcare Marketing)
Like the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council, the Patriot Act and related federal legislation enacted in the wake of 9/11 have provided a legal framework for the war on terror. Secret trials were mandated for foreign nationals whom the federal authorities sought to deport—the real targets, of course, were men and women from Muslim countries—and the evidence on which the government relied could be withheld from their attorneys. Of the 13,740 foreigners who were prosecuted under these new laws, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, “not a single one of these individuals was ever publicly charged with terrorism.
Jonathan Kirsch (The Grand Inquisitor's Manual: A History of Terror in the Name of God)
target still seems achievable. For example, Eldridge et al. (2010: 82) investigated the vocabulary needs of learners who are studying school subjects in a second language, and found that the evidence ‘suggests a distinct lexical threshold of around 1,600–1,700 of the most frequent word families.’ (A word family is a group of words that share the same root but have different affixes, as in care, careful, careless, carefree, uncaring, carer; 1,600 to 1,700 word families represent around 6,000 individual words.) They add that ‘students who fall even 200 or 300 word families below the threshold seem to have a vastly reduced vocabulary in total and consequently find it extremely difficult to cope with content studies in the medium of English.
Scott Thornbury (Big Questions in ELT)
The news may encourage us to imagine that the roots of a nation's problems have their fundamental origins in criminality at the top and yet, though there is clearly a role for targeting individual rotten apples, there is an equally vital task in directing attention to the colourless yet far larger institutional failures that lie concealed within our political and social arrangements.
Alain de Botton (The News: A User's Manual)
According to data from the Feminist Majority Foundation, individualized targeting has been on the rise. In 2014, the organization surveyed abortion clinics in the United States and found that there are “significantly higher levels of threats and targeted intimidation of doctors and staff than in prior years.” Moreover, “the overall percentage of clinics impacted by these types of threats and targeted intimidation tactics increased dramatically since 2010, from 26.6% of clinics to 51.9% of clinics.”22 This
David S. Cohen (Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism)
Because liberal feminism works in accordance with modernist ideals of secular, liberal democracy, individual agency within a framework of universal human rights, and an Enlightenment focus on reason and science, it has been the explicit, central target of postmodernists.
Helen Pluckrose (Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody)
Simple Ways To Harness The Power Of Tiktok For Business Success In 2020, social media has been empowered in the world of digital marketing. TikTok is one of the traditional video-sharing platforms, for all the individual and business accounts use this platform to entertain people. TikTok gives you an amazing way to share your posts with your audience and get more visibility to your website. Make sure you can only post your video through reactions. TikTok allows you to share 15-second videos with a variety of topics. It gives different songs with filters to shoot your video directly from your mobile device. But many also struggle to exactly use TikTok for business purposes. Here are some simple ways to harness the power of TikTok for business success. TikTok On Business TikTok is a great opportunity to start your business, promote your brand, and create a connection with your audience and brand by using engaging videos. It is one of the most popular social media in the world because it connects with a wider audience. Under this updated world, everything is changed into online marketing and purchasing. This is the big advantage to start your business with this social media. TikTok is relative to a younger audience, so you should target teens and promote your brand relevant to their needs and interest to get better positive results. Create Engaging Contents TikTok is only a place to make fun and creativity. TikTok short-form videos easily capture the audience's attention because of the entertaining nature. It gives the big opportunity to create your content that focuses more on the fun and entertaining to connect the wider audience. So, you don’t need to feel the pressure of creating your content. You can simply make your video with an effective background and showing your product. But your main goal is to keep managing your product offers. Get More Influencers There are lots of ways to take advantage of the platform to promote your brand. One easy way to advertise your products on TikTok via influencers. You need to find the right influencer to develop your business. If you grow your TikTok likes, you can improve your brand identity and get more profit. Also, you can analyze which kind of products you offer to get the best and positive results. If you share more videos whether or not they are relevant to your industry, you can change to become a good influencer. But, you need to post your stories frequently. Promote Hashtag Challenges If you add your branded hashtag with your video, you can get more visibility in your audience. A hashtag challenge is one of the effective ways to reach your targeted audience to talk about your business. The main goal of the hashtag challenge is to encourage your audience and create a brand identity. Most of the users love to participate in these challenges. TikTok Growth TikTok is undoubtedly a powerful social media tool with billions of followers sharing their expressions every day. This is a new platform compared to other social media networks, but it contains large competitors. It is worth spending your time developing for the benefit of your business.
Alison Williams
The conjunction of those three things—1) Maslow’s hierarchy, where many in the world or even our own backyard are at very different stages of the pyramid; 2) technology that targets us individually and therefore reinforces belief patterns; and 3) a natural tendency in humans to create “us versus them”—has the potential to create a dangerous reinforcing loop where hate and division reign. Especially if the world is becoming more unequal. The
Jeff Booth (The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation is the Key to an Abundant Future)