MetaFilter posts tagged with humanity

transcendental numbers rumble in the technium

kliuless — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 08:00:48 -0800

Extropy
How did life arise? What is information? In his recent dispatches from The Technium, Kevin Kelly would say extropy (cf. negentropy & Prigogine). [previously 1|2]

Ragpickers

hadjiboy — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:09:49 -0800

The Ragpicker's Dream (Short). World at Work: Brazilian Ragpickers. What it feels like to be a Ragpicker. Their contradictions, and a mobile home for them to sleep in.

"I'm so grateful for getting shot out of the sky"

The Light Fantastic — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:45:28 -0800

Stranded on the island of New Britain during WWII, Fred Hargesheimer was rescued by native islanders, who hid him for 8 months from occupying Japanese forces. Fred never forgot the kindness he received, and in 1960, he used his family's vacation money to return to the island to personally thank the people who saved him. Thus began a 48 year relationship between Hargesheimer and the people of New Britain. Chico state has a slideshow about New Britain which also features a song written especially for Fred Hargesheimer.

Plus c'est la merde

Wolfdog — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 07:39:57 -0800

Plus ça change... (that's a 15941x261 pixel, NSFW-ish jpg).

What the World Eats

Dave Faris — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:03:35 -0800

What the World Eats A photo slide show of images taken of families around the world, and the food they consume in one week. The commentary also provides the amount of money they have to spend, and what their favorite meals are.

A Soldier's Thoughts.

wander — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:52:02 -0800

While there have been many posts on Mefi of blogs written by those affected by the Iraq War, I have not seen this one posted. No matter your stance on the war, your opinion of American soldiers, or the amount of other Iraq war blogs you've read, all I ask is that you at least read these few entries. I've used too many words already, when the journal does more than enough to speak for itself. A Soldier's Thoughts. (via) [more inside]

Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me...

Unregistered User — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 02:46:23 -0800

Panel Suggests Using Inmates in Drug Trials PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 7 An influential federal panel of medical advisers has recommended that the government loosen regulations that severely limit the testing of pharmaceuticals on prison inmates, a practice that was all but stopped three decades ago after revelations of abuse. Cruel and unusual punishment?

GATTACA

Gyan — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 04:15:19 -0800

The Promise and Perils of Synthetic Biology

National Geographic on Africa

Gyan — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:35:19 -0800

National Geographic has a special issue on Africa out this month. There's also their Africa resource site.

Common base of morality?

Gyan — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 11:14:58 -0800

Do the Right Thing

Human Variety

Kattullus — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 04:58:16 -0800

The Nature of Normal Human Variety A talk with Dr. Armand Leroi (his website). "Almost uniquely among modern scientific problems [the problem of normal human variety] is a problem that we can apprehend as we walk down the street. We live in an age now where the deepest scientific problems are buried away from our immediate perception. They concern the origin of the universe. They concern the relationships of subatomic particles. They concern the nature and structure of the human genome. Nobody can see these things without large bits of expensive equipment. But when I consider the problem of human variety I feel as Aristotle must have felt when he first walked down to the shore at Lesvos for the first time. The world is new again." (via Arts & Letters Daily)

Are the end, and beginning, nigh?

AlexSteffen — Fri, 01 Aug 2003 01:07:29 -0800

The World Transhumanist Association met recently at Yale to discuss the pending demise of humanity and the rise of post-human beings, and the Village Voice was there to cover it. With more and more and more media attention paid to the idea that the Singularity is a-comin', are the issues getting clearer and more interesting, or have you just had enough?

Beginnings

plep — Sat, 03 May 2003 12:17:58 -0800

Beginnings at the Library of Congress. The origins of the Universe, humanity and society as viewed by different cultural and religious traditions; and their attempts to explain it all.
The Talk.Origins Archive presents a more scientific view of physical and biological beginnings.

walrus — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 11:48:34 -0800

Google Compute is a distributed computing project involving users of the google toolbar. It's a light application which uses idle processor cycles to analyse data for "carefully selected charitable projects, with the guiding principle being to help humanity and advance scientific knowledge".

Bones423 — Wed, 23 Oct 2002 06:38:07 -0800

The Wildlife Conservatory Society has just released a new map of the Human Footprint on Earth. With this map (pdf) you can see just how much wild space isn't left. For a closer look at each continent look here. So what do we do about it? Terraform the moon? Or maybe Mars? Or is our best bet for keeping Earth habitable simply to go electric?

And just to clarify, I'm talking about the impact of humanity on the earth's natural resources, not the supposed giants humans that walked with dinosaurs.

kv — Wed, 17 Apr 2002 07:35:47 -0800

Refugees denied human face. 'Taking photographs that could "humanise or personalise" asylum seekers was banned by former defence minister Peter Reith's office, the Senate inquiry into children-overboard claims was told yesterday.'

hincandenza — Fri, 21 Sep 2001 00:26:04 -0800

CBS's Big Brother 2 is now over and it looks like a Snake v. Rat redux a la Survivor 1. This finale depressed me for its bleak depiction of humanity...
<< more inside, Spoilers >>

bwg — Fri, 27 Apr 2001 08:37:09 -0800

Customer gives sick waitress $1,000 tip
i love hearing stories like this, it bolsters my faith in people.

PaperCut — Tue, 06 Jun 2000 20:36:11 -0800

Human Evolution Will the next significant steps be biological, technical or both?