#book2read: Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam
https://a.co/d/fLuNixl
via Unabashed Faith: Resisting Anti-Spiritual Influences in the Modern World by C. Andrew Doyle
https://a.co/d/5QeXagv
Recommended book: The Disunited States - Threats of Secession in Red and Blue America and Why They Won't Work. Ryan D. Griffiths. Examines the growing interest in a national divorce between #RedState America and #BlueState #America. Discusses how current #polarization in America is a problem, but it is one that needs to be worked out through dialogue rather than a bloody #civilwar. Brings expert analysis on the topic of #secession, & how it works #globally #democracy https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-disunited-states-9780197816257?cc=us&lang=en&
America's Self-Segregation Online - Balaji Srinivasan & Michael Malice
Homebrew Pockels Cell Is Worth the Wait - We haven’t seen any projects from serial experimenter [Les Wright] for quite a whi... - https://hackaday.com/2025/06/25/homebrew-pockels-cell-is-worth-the-wait/ #non-linearoptics #indiumtinoxide #polarization #highvoltage #mischacks #laser #ito #kdp
There was a political #assassination in #Minnesota & #arrests across the country of govt officials protesting #Trump’s #immigration agenda, along w/political #polarization so acute that it is affecting people’s views on a broad array of topics.
Whether you are feeling upbeat about the #stock #market may depend, in part, on your political alignment. Gallup reported in April that 58% of #Republicans expected the stock market to rise, compared with only 21% of independents & 12% of #Democrats.
DiscourseNet Winter School #9 - Transformative #DiscourseStudies. Social and political struggle in a polarised world
We are organising the Winter School #9 that will take place at the Universitat de #València in January 2026. It is aimed at international masters and doctoral students interested in discourse studies from diverse perspectives.
If you want to participate you can find all necessary information here: https://discourseanalysis.net/en/discoursenet-winter-school-9-transformative-discourse-studies-social-and-political-struggle-0
The deadline for abstract submission is August 31st, 2025.
17-Jun-2025
Speed-snap science: solving for molecular details in a flash
Caltech’s new technique, called Compressed Ultrafast Planar #Polarization #Anisotropy #Imaging (CUP2AI), enables real-time, non-invasive, wide-field fluorescence polarization measurements that can provide unprecedented insights into dynamic events.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1087843
#science #nanoworld #molecules #structure #chemistry
Check out and share my latest blog post, “Hijacked Minds and Broken Trust”
https://www.speedofcreativity.org/2025/06/19/hijacked-minds-and-broken-trust/
(btw I blogged this on my iPad, which I’m trying to use more for media creation and sharing)
These shameless far right extremists should face the consequences for what they are initiating, the hate and the polarization…
How much further can this go, when is enough, enough? When will people rise to put an end to this?
The #political conditions surrounding the current deployment are dramatically different from those during that prior wave. #Polarization has spread from society to the political elites, who now, more than ever, seek to use the #military for political gain. On the #Republican side, Donald #Trump appears eager to deploy the #Army against left-wing #protesters.
Next at the #SolarEclipse Conference Nick James talked about new (and finally amateur-affordable) polarization-sensitive cameras in which each pixel comes with a polarizer: since it's a while til the next solar eclipse he demonstrated it with the #Moon where the #polarization of the maria is higher than of the highlands, matching expectations. 2/n
Us vs Them: How to Address Polarization
At #rp25 Bart Brandsma unpacked how polarization works—not as debate, but as identity conflict. His argument: while pushers dominate the extremes, the key to depolarization lies with the often-overlooked “silent” middle.
My main takeaway: Don’t fight polarization at the fringes. Empower the silent middle by taking their dilemmas seriously.
**Narcissism and Affective Polarization**
“_We argue that the personality trait of narcissism (entitled self-importance) is an important correlate of affective polarization. We test this claim in Britain using nationally representative survey data, examining both long-standing party identities and new Brexit identities. Our findings reveal that narcissism, and particularly the ‘rivalry’ aspect of narcissism, is associated with both positive and negative partisanship._”
Tilley, J., Hobolt, S. Narcissism and Affective Polarization. Polit Behav 47, 599–618 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-024-09963-5.
Korea Institute of Finance suggests differentiated regulations for savings banks, proposing incentives for capable institutions to expand amid growing polarization between large and small players in the industry.
#YonhapInfomax #SavingsBanks #Polarization #RegulationFramework #FinancialIncentives #CreditExtension #Economics #FinancialMarkets #Banking #Securities #Bonds #StockMarket
https://en.infomaxai.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=60549
Preprint with @vheddesheimer.bsky.social
Economic Insecurity Increases Affective #Polarization and Outgroup-Aversion
osf.io/preprints/os...
You may remember I'm on team "precarity" not team "social media." Causal / diff on diff evidence from Dutch panel study LISS en.centerdata.nl/liss-panel
OSF
Analysis of language used in U.S. congressional speeches from 1879 to 2022, focusing on use of words taken to represent use of either evidence or intuition, found that intuition-signifying words became increasingly prominent since the 1970s, and this change was reflected in increasing political polarization.
Summary: https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/scientists-analysed-8-million-us-speeches
Original paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02136-2
@glynmoody The times we’re living in - everything, absolutely everything, is being politicized, even simple machines such as heat pumps! Refrigerators next?
I am convinced this polarization of everything trend started with and is driven by algorithms on social media and how we are leveraging them. It’s the greatest experiment in human history, and we are all lab rats l. It’s not going well for us.
#polarization #politicization
Concordia University: New Concordia research shows social networks are vulnerable to relatively simple AI manipulation and polarization. “It seems that no matter the topic of conversation, online opinion around it will be split into two seemingly irreconcilable camps. That’s largely a result of these platforms’ design, as the algorithms driving them direct users to like-minded peers. This […]
How A Journalist Divided A City (A free, 38-minute podcast from 2023)
Tags: #Journalism #Mind #Society #Polarization #Arctic
https://buddhistuniversity.net/content/av/journalist-explorer_harford-tim
In South Carolina, a Once Thriving Textile Hub Is Baffled by Trump’s Tariffs by #NYTimes
