For Sama

Now with the global pandemic being a new reality, film festivals are increasingly going online. SXSW, for instance, went virtual within weeks and even partnered with Amazon Prime for an online Film Festival.

Digital solutions are the way forward for many other film festivals, as otherwise, they lose millions in and revenue while scrambling for viewers and distributors for their projects.

Digital platforms and technological solutions make the content more accessible, sustainable and democratic. The streamed screenings and online question and answer sessions bring in unexpected benefits coupled with a vaster reach, due to the elimination of physical constraints and logistical issues associated with big events. 

Case in Point: Disabled audiences were earlier unable to access or be part of the event, and were now optimistic about the technological elements deployed, which helped them tremendously.

As the content is based on an existing book, TV show, movie, video game, or something they already love, the participants have a genuine interest and personal identification with the topic.

Websites specializing in fan-fiction are using the existing bodies of work, playing and tinkering with it, while providing feedback to each other. In this process, the participants are learning and teaching each other to write well. The continuous, constructive feedback helps make fanfiction writing a collective effort, which is sometimes better than the original, in which only one mind was involved.

This kind of vast, community-based learning is called distributed mentorship.

The theory is that if everyone has high self-esteem, then everyone will be successful and live a happy life. If a society was inoculated with high self-esteem, it would end poverty, crime, and violence.

But, one should take into account that high self-esteem could be the result of success, not necessarily the cause. Also, thinking that only one thing can explain how to be successful, is probably naive.

There’s actually very little correlation between self-esteem and success.  Research on self-esteem strongly correlates with how good people feel, in general. 

Self-esteem is complex and can be a good or a bad thing, depending on what is measured. 

Much can be learned from how you each deal with conflict, and avoiding it keeps you from that knowledge. 

An inability to resolve conflict is a major reason why in-love feelings fade away.

Ask the important questions -- about values, money, children, religion/spirituality, past relationships.

If you are afraid to be forthright in your questions, then the fear itself is letting you know that your fear of rejection may be in charge -- which means you have more inner work to do.

• The Time’s Up movement is making strides to eliminate gender-based discrimination at every stage of the film-making process.
• It has established a mentorship programme for aspiring producers from socio-economically disadvantaged households.
• The 4 Percent Challenge, encourages industry figures to work with a female director every 18 months.
• Grants have been made available to journalists covering film festivals.
• Standards of behaviour on set are changing. There is a push for more female directors and equal pay to ensure sustainable cultural change.

Streaming services following in the footsteps of Netflix, have revolutionized the way we consume visual media.

• Despite the boycotts by major cinema chains, they also succeeded in democratizing the movie business, because they can take more risks. They release more films and are free from box-office pressures.
• Mid-budget movies is another welcome side-effect.

Napoleon Hill was said to be an advisor to two presidents: Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
In fact, there’s no evidence whatsoever outside of Hill’s own writings that Hill met President Wilson or President Roosevelt, let alone acted as a trusted advisor to both.

Napoleon Hill’s most infamous claim was that he met and interviewed at length the industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1908.

Andrew Carnegie's biographer David Nasaw found no evidence of any sort that Carnegie and Hill ever met.

Barnum is a lowly servant with big dreams working in a wealthy household. He gets a glimpse of the life he could live if he were to rise above his circumstances.

Barnum did not obsess over his daydreams but through hard work made his dream a reality.

Barnum’s original museum highlighted the spectacular and unbelievable marvels of the world. Unfortunately, none of these rarities was real. 

His original museum relied on poor quality replicas of mermaids and other mythical phenomena, which were not appealing to consumers. But the lack of customers drives Barnum to go in search of real, and rare, human acts.

Jordan Peterson observed that virtues aim for balance and to avoid the extremes of the vices. Cultivating judgment about the difference between virtue and vice is the beginning of wisdom.

Modern relativism asserts judging how to live is impossible, because good and virtue are relative. Thus relativism’s version of “virtue” is “tolerance.” This leads to people broadcasting their tolerance as a form of self-promotion, and secret vice, which is also known as virtue signaling.

Order is where the people around you act according to the established social norms, remaining predictable and cooperative. Society is simultaneously structure and oppression.

Chaos is where the unexpected happens. 

• Researchers extract a lot of false certainty from data which is used to study a particular hypothesis, due to their myopic thinking, confirmation bias, and other cognitive assumptions that they aren't even aware of.
• Many researchers believe in small samples of data as if they stand for the whole of the population, and this can lead to unpredictable consequences.

It points out our irrational bias and behavior towards our surroundings. How people succumb to irrational beliefs was demonstrated in an experiment at a University Kitchen.

It found out that if there was a poster with eyes put up near the kitchen counter, then people were more likely to pay for the food, subconsciously taking those eyes in the poster as someone looking at them.

One controversial study from an online dating platform claims that couples who met online have a 6 percent separation and divorce rate whereas couples who met offline have an 8 percent rate.

A study of 4000 people claims couples who meet on dating sites are less likely to get married and more likely to break up than couples who met offline. The phenomenon holds true for both married and unmarried couples.