Arts and humanities are fundamental pillars of any education system and more important than ever. While education in Science, Technology, Engineering and math (STEM) is important, it is not enough. Tomorrow's generations need to become versed in empathy, imagination, and creativity. Integrating the arts into STEM education is a necessary strategy to reduce the skills gap of the next generation. But empathy, imagination and creativity are required to ensure that science and technology are developed in a human-centred way.

Reducing the skills gap

Art is necessary to build an emotional framework to make sense of the dialogues at the core of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Art and culture build the trust needed to bridge conflicting views and interests, overcome obstacles with dynamic and innovative approaches and understand the value embedded in any process of technological innovation.

Trust in technology

Art and design enable us to deep dive into the consequences of futuristic “what if” scenarios. A series of artworks can express and critique values before they are embodied in technology. Art provides cognitive and emotional tools to design the future and make creative breakthroughs in unexpected and emotional ways.

Embedding art and design into prototyping

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is transforming health. It has the potential to make it more patient-centric, affordable and accessible. Agi Haines designed a series of speculative designs that imagine which parts of various animals could be used in combination with human tissue to solve common health problems. Circumventive Organs show the messy reality behind commoditizing biological material, and its potential to help people in need.

Shaping the future of health

We need the arts to stimulate debate over the impact of technological breakthroughs on society

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

Here’s how art is inspiring the Fourth Industrial Revolution

“The United States is experiencing an extreme teenage mental-health crisis. From 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent, according to a new CDC study. This is the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded.”

Teenage Mental-Health Crisis

“In the 2020 Atlantic feature “What Happened to American Childhood?,” Kate Julian <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/05/childhood-in-an-anxious-age/609079/">described </a>a related phenomenon that affects families a bit more broadly: Anxious parents, in seeking to insulate their children from risk and danger, are unintentionally transferring their anxiety to their kids.”

The “Rug Rat Race”

“I want to pull out two points from Julian’s complex essay. First, children are growing up slower than they used to. Today’s children are less likely to drive, get a summer job, or be asked to do chores. The problem isn’t that kids are lazy (homework time has risen), or that scrubbing dishes magically dispels anxiety disorders. Rather, Julian wrote, these activities “provide children with two very important things”: tolerating discomfort and having a sense of personal competence.”

Children Are Growing Up Slower In Real Life, But Faster Online

“Second, researchers have noted a broad increase in an “accommodative” parenting style. If a girl is afraid of dogs, an “accommodation” would be keeping her away from every friend’s house with a dog, or if a boy won’t eat vegetables, feeding him nothing but turkey loaf for four years (<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/05/childhood-in-an-anxious-age/609079/">an actual story from the article </a>). These behaviors come from love. But part of growing up is learning how to release negative emotions in the face of inevitable stress. If kids never figure out how to do that, they’re more likely to experience severe anxiety as teenagers.”

Accommodation Is Breeding Anxiety

”Why American Teens Are So Sad" made me realize the big lesson from a movie I recently enjoyed. This beautiful man, King Richard, protected his daughters from early pressure and burn out. Let kids be kids. The combination of working hard from a young age, but keeping the work manageable and fun turned Venus and Serena into some of the greatest athletes of all time.

Learn From King Richard 

This article was amazing. Many of these ideas have been on my mind recently.

Four forces are propelling the rising rates of depression among young people.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

health

Health

mentalhealth

Mental Health

Why American Teens Are So Sad

Relationship is the fundamental truth of this world of appearance.

Relationship is what makes <a href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/12/08/the-songs-of-trees-david-haskell/">a forest a forest</a> and <a href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/02/28/undersea-rachel-carson/">an ocean an ocean</a>. To meet the world on its own terms and respect the reality of another as an expression of that world as fundamental and inalienable as your own reality is an art immensely rewarding yet immensely difficult.How to master the orientation of heart, mind, and spirit essential for the art of sincere and honorable relationship is what philosopher Martin Buber explores in his 1923 classic <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743201337/braipick-20">I and Thou</a> — the foundation of Buber’s influential existentialist philosophy of dialogue.

Philosophy of dialogue: Relationship

<a href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/01/06/alan-watts-reality/">Life and Reality are not things you can have for yourself unless you accord them to all others</a>.

To the man the world is twofold, in accordance with his twofold attitude. The attitude of man is twofold, in accordance with the twofold nature of the primary words which he speaks. The primary words are not isolated words, but combined words. The one primary word is the combination I–Thou. The other primary word is the combination I–It; wherein, without a change in the primary word, one of the words He and She can replace It. Hence the I of man is also twofold. For the I of the primary word I–Thou is a different I from that of the primary word I–It.

I–It establishes the world of experience and sensation.I–Thou establishes the world of relationship, which asks of each person a participatory intimacy. Thou addresses another not as an object but as a presence.

I - Thou. I - It.

“Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you.”

To address another as Thou, Buber suggests, requires a certain self-surrender that springs from inhabiting one’s own presence while at the same time stepping outside one’s self. Only then does the other cease to be a means to one’s own ends and becomes real. The primary word I–Thou can be spoken only with the whole being. Concentration and fusion into the whole being can never take place through my agency, nor can it ever take place without me. I become through my relation to the Thou; as I become I, I say Thou.

All real living is meeting

Another perspective to look into relationship:  the fundamental truth of this world of appearance. 

philosophy

Philosophy

religionandspirituality

Religion & Spirituality

communication

Communication

I and Thou: Philosopher Martin Buber on the Art of Relationship and What Makes Us Real to One Another

<ul><li>Both Orthodox Easter and Easter Sunday are Christian festivals where believers celebrate the resurrection of Jesus - it's the most important festival in the Christian Calendar.</li><li>In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the preparations begin with Great Lent, 40 days of reflection and fasting, which starts on Clean Monday and ends on Lazarus Saturday (eight days before Easter Sunday and signifies the end of Great Lent, although the fasting continues into Holy Week).</li><li>Next comes Palm Sunday, one week before Easter, remembering the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, followed by Holy Week, which ends on E<warningtag>aster Sunday.</warningtag></li></ul>

What is Orthodox Easter?

<ul><li>Orthodox churches in some countries including Greece, Cyprus, and Romania base their Easter date on the Julian calendar.</li><li>The Julian Calendar was designed by Julius Caesar in 45 BC - basing a year on the time it takes the Sun to go around the Earth.</li><li>The Gregorian Calendar was created by Pope Gregory in 1582 to fix some of the glitches in the Julian Calendar as astronomy became more accurate.</li><li>Great Britain changed to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.</li><li>Also in the eastern Orthodox Church, Easter must happen after the Jewish festival of Passover - as in the Easter story, Jesus celebrates Passover bef<warningtag>ore his death.</warningtag></li></ul>

Why are there two Easter Dates?

Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter later than the Western Church - here's why.

history

History

The last emperor of India’s Mauryan Dynasty, Ashoka became a patron of Buddhism after witnessing the suffering caused by his military conquest of Kalinga. Following this, he renounced violence in favor of “conquest by Dharma.”

Ashoka The Great Buddhist 

Ashoka adopted the Buddhist virtues of honesty, compassion, humility, & non-violence. As a ruler with perhaps the power to outcast minority religions, Ashoka nonetheless exercised & encouraged tolerance & respect for all spiritual alignments.

New Principles 

Ashoka appointed “Dharma Ministers,” public servants—especially attentive to gender & religious minorities—who also reported the state of the general citizenship to Ashoka frequently. Under his rule, the government constructed hospitals, veterinary hospitals, wells, & other public-serving structures.

Dharma Government 

The Emperor had stupas & monasteries built, along with pillars inscribed with his interpretations of just spirituality & philosophy. He sent his own children as preaching missionaries to Sri Lanka, & made personal efforts to settle disputes within the Sangha (or Buddhist community).

Patronage Projects 

Ashoka the Great was the ideal Chakravartin ruler, who used Buddhism as a template for just & benevolent governance. 

Ashoka, also spelled Aśoka,  (died 238? bce,  India), last major emperor of the Mauryan dynasty of India. His vigorous patronage of Buddhism during his reign (c. 265–238 bce; also given as c. 273–232 bce) furthered the expansion of that religion throughout India. Following his successful but bloody conquest of the Kalinga country on the east coast, Ashoka renounced armed conquest and adopted a policy that he called “conquest by dharma” (i.e., by principles of right life). In order to gain wide publicity for his teachings and his work, Ashoka made them known by means of oral announcements and by engravings

Ashoka | Biography, History, Religion, India, & Buddhism

The father of industrial design, Raymond Loewy had an uncanny sense of how to make things fashionable. He believed that consumers are torn between two opposing forces: neophilia, a curiosity about new things; and neophobia, a fear of anything too new. As a result, they gravitate to products that are bold, but instantly comprehensible. Loewy called his grand theory “Most Advanced Yet Acceptable”—Maya. He said to sell something surprising, make it familiar; and to sell something familiar, make it surprising.

Most Advanced Yet Acceptable

Why do people like what they like? It is one of the oldest questions of philosophy and aesthetics. Ancient thinkers inclined to mysticism proposed that a “golden ratio”—about 1.62 to 1, as in, for instance, the dimensions of a rectangle—could explain the visual perfection of objects like sunflowers and Greek temples. Other thinkers were deeply sceptical: David Hume, the 18th-century philosopher, considered the search for formulas to be absurd, because the perception of beauty was purely subjective, residing in individuals, not in the fabric of the universe.

The Formula Of Likeness

In the 1960s, the psychologist Robert Zajonc conducted a series of experiments where he showed subjects nonsense words, random shapes, and Chinese-like characters and asked them which they preferred. In study after study, people reliably gravitated toward the words and shapes they’d seen the most. Their preference was for familiarity.This discovery was known as mere-exposure effect, and it is one of the sturdiest findings in modern psychology. Across hundreds of studies and meta-studies, subjects around the world prefer familiar shapes, landscapes, consumer goods, songs, and human voices.

Liking The Known: Mere Exposure Effect

In mere-exposure studies, the preference for familiar stimuli is attenuated or negated entirely when the participants realize they’re being repeatedly exposed to the same thing. For that reason, the power of familiarity seems to be strongest when a person isn’t expecting it.The reverse is also true: A surprise seems to work best when it contains some element of familiarity.

Familiar Surprise

Eureka moments are a force in the academic world as well.Scientists and philosophers are exquisitely sensitive to the advantage of ideas that already enjoy broad familiarity.In 2014, a team of researchers from Harvard University studied about sort of proposals that were most likely to win funding from prestigious institutions such as the National Institutes of Health: familiar proposals or extremely novel ones?<ul><li>Most-novel proposals got the worst ratings.</li><li>Exceedingly familiar proposals fared a bit better.</li><li>The highest evaluation scores went to submissions that were deemed slightly new.</li></ul>

Mere-Exposure Effect In The Academic World

In Silicon Valley, where venture capitalists also sift through a surfeit of proposals, many new ideas are promoted as a fresh spin on familiar successes.Optimal newness in names: Most parents prefer first names for their children that are common but not too common, optimally differentiated from other children's names.This helps explain how names fall in and out of fashion.

Optimal Newness

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

business

Business

The Four-Letter Code to Selling Just About Anything

How do you calculate the ROI of community? And where should community live in a business? Businesses have been building communities for a long time, but community was historically seen as a cost center. At most, community was seen as a customer support channel or a marketing channel.

What is the value of community?

Businesses have been building communities for a long time, but community was historically seen as a cost center. At most, community was seen as a customer support channel or a marketing channel. We’ve witnessed the renaissance of the community discipline. Community has come to be seen and utilized as so much more than simply support forums or social media followings. While both of these applications remain important and needed, they are just a couple pieces of the total business value that is driven by community.

The Business of Community 

Unlike most other disciplines, community can live in its own department or across departments. As a strategy, community can be applied to almost every aspect of business from marketing, to product, to sales, to success…The options can be dizzying, which is why we’ve created a simple model for defining community business value: The SPACES Model.

Simple Model For All Communities 

A customer support community, members answer questions and solve problems for each other to reduce overall customer support costs and improve satisfaction.Most common metrics for Support Communities:<ul><li>Case deflection</li><li>Active users</li><li>Conversation engagement (posts, comments, DMs, etc.)</li><li>Number or percentage of answered questions</li><li>Reduced customer support calls</li></ul>

S: Support

In product communities, members share ideas and feedback that drive innovation and product improvements.By bringing users or customers together online (or sometimes offline), companies can leverage the collective insight of their community to get ideas for innovative features, identify the most important changes that will improve their products, and save money and time on surveys. Most common metrics for Product Communities:<ul><li>Product ideas</li><li>Feature adoption</li><li>New user-generated content</li><li>Customer satisfaction</li><li>Number of event attendees</li></ul>

P: Product Ideation, Innovation & Feedback

These communities operate as a network of ambassadors and advocates who drive awareness and growth for the business.This is where community and marketing most closely intersect. Sure, a company can tell people to buy its product. But it’s much more powerful to have authentic advocates promote a product or experience.

A: Acquisition and Advocacy

These communities are built of people who are contributing content that makes up the product or other assets.Distributed content models are changing the way businesses function. From user-generated content to open-source platforms, distributed models allow value to be created by the masses, with the business just providing the platform.Most common metrics for content communities:<ul><li>New user-generated content</li><li>Active users</li><li>Conversation engagement (posts, comments, DMs, etc.)</li><li>New user/member signup</li><li>Number of event attendees</li></ul>

C: Content and Contribution

External engagement communities bring together a group of people around a common interest that is related to a given brand or product.Community is powerful because it gives people a common sense of identity and belonging. Most common metrics for external engagement communities:<ul><li>Active engagement</li><li>Conversation engagement (posts, comments, DMs, etc.)</li><li>Number of event attendees</li><li>New user-generated content</li><li>New user/member signup</li></ul>

E: Engagement (External)

Internal engagement communities are made up of employees, suppliers, partners, or vendors who work with a specific brand.As organizations become more distributed and remote work becomes more common, internal engagement becomes even more important.Most common metrics for internal engagement communities:<ul><li>Active users</li><li>Conversation engagement (posts, comments, DMs, etc.)</li><li>Net Promoter Score (NPS)</li><li>Number of event attendees</li><li>New user/member signup</li></ul>

E: Engagement (Internal)

Building off the popularity of customer support communities, success communities go beyond just fielding questions to actively drive increased product adoption and customer lifetime value.These communities connect customers with each other to share best practices. They may help customers upskill how they use the product and develop strategy, or they may empower customers to become mentors and instructors.Most common metrics for success communities:<ul><li>Active users</li><li>New user/member signups</li><li>Net Promoter Score (NPS)</li><li>Customer retention</li><li>Customer satisfaction</li></ul>

S: Success

Use the SPACES Model to get buy-in for your community by clearly articulating how and where community adds business value.<ol><li>Use the SPACES Model to get buy-in for your community.</li><li>After you mastered one area of the SPACES Model, extend your influence.</li><li> Identify the metrics you’ll use on your objective. </li><li>Use your SPACES objective to inform overall strategy. </li><li> </li></ol>

Apply the SPACES Model

These communities are built of people who are contributing content that makes up the product or other assets.Distributed content models are changing the way businesses function. From user-generated content to open-source platforms, distributed models allow value to be created by the masses, with the business just providing the platform.Most common metrics for content communities: New user-generated contentActive usersConversation engagement (posts, comments, DMs, etc.)New user/member signupNumber of event attendees

External engagement communities bring together a group of people around a common interest that is related to a given brand or product.Most common metrics: Active engagementConversation engagement (posts, comments, DMs, etc.)Number of event attendeesNew user-generated contentNew user/member signup Internal engagement communities are made up of employees, suppliers, partners, or vendors who work with a specific brand.Most common metrics: Active usersConversation engagement (posts, comments, DMs, etc.)Net Promoter Score (NPS)Number of event attendeesNew user/ signup

E: Engagement

Building off the popularity of customer support communities, success communities go beyond just fielding questions to actively drive increased product adoption and customer lifetime value.These communities connect customers with each other to share best practices. Most common metrics:Active usersNew user/member signupsNet Promoter Score (NPS)Customer retentionCustomer satisfaction

What is the value of community? Where does it fit in your business? We've created a simple model you can now follow.

The SPACES Model for Defining Community Business Value

<ol><li>Zip it - to stop talking immediately.</li><li>Hush - usually used to tell someone to be quiet</li><li>Conticent - silent.</li><li>Obmutescence - a becoming or keeping silent or mute.</li><li>Shush - to urge to be quiet.</li><li>Shut Your Pie Hole - used to tell someone to stop talking.</li><li>Silence - forbearance from speech or noise; muteness — often used interjectionally.</li><li>Basta - that’s enough; stop it!</li></ol>

8 Ways to Tell Someone to Be Quiet

Definition - To stop talking immediately.There is no dearth of occasions on which one might wish to ask others to be quiet, and so it is useful to have a variety of ways in which to make such a request. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zip%20it">Zip it</a> is one of the informal ones, a relatively recent (late 20th century) Americanism.

Zip It

Usually used to tell someone to be quiet.<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hush">Hush</a> may function as a number of different parts of speech (verb, noun, and adjective), although it comes from a Middle English interjection (huissht, used to enjoin silence). When formed with the adjective suffix -ful it gives us <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hushful">hushful</a>, meaning “full of silence; quiet.”

Hush

“Hush, hush!” I interrupted. “Still you have not told me, Heathcliff, how Catherine is left behind?”

Definition - silent.Sometimes it is nice to have an obscure way to refer to common things, and one would be hard-pressed to find a word more obscure than <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conticent">conticent</a>.<ul><li>The word comes in part from the Latin tacēre (to be silent), a word which also serves as the root of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tacit">tacit</a> (expressed or carried on without words or speech) and <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tacet">tacet</a> (used as a direction in music to indicate that an instrument is not to play during a movement or long section).</li></ul>

Conticent

Definition - a becoming or keeping silent or mute.Obmutescence is another lovely and obscure entry in the catalog of words for being quiet. It comes from adding the prefix ob- (to, toward) to the Latin mutescere (to become mute).

Obmutescence

Definition - to urge to be quiet.Although shush and hush would appear to be cut from the same cloth, etymologically speaking, the two words are distinct. Shush is of imitative origin, and is often used in the imperative to urge cessation of talk or moderation of sound.

Shush

Definition - used to tell someone to stop talking.Shut your pie hole may not be apt for most academic writing.This euphonious idiom is first found in Stephen King’s 1983 novel Christine. However, this use is preceded by a similar turn of phrase, shut your cake-hole; in both cases referring apparently to the mouth, through which one might ingest either cake or pie.

Shut Your Pie Hole

Definition - forbearance from speech or noise; muteness — often used interjectionally.“Silence!” is always a good thing to yell when trying to quiet a room full of unruly children. It is unlikely to have such effect, but at least manages to convey an air of gravitas.The word comes from the Latin silens (silent), which also serves as the root of a number of other, lesser known words relating to quiet, including silential (conducted in silence) and silentious (habitually silent).

Silence

Definition - that’s enough; stop it!Although it is often used in English, we label basta as an Italian and Spanish verb. This is due to the fact that it has never really been fully naturalized in English, even though it has been in some use for hundreds of years.<ul><li>The word may be found as far back as 1543, when Sir William Paget used it in a letter to the Earl of Hertford (“but as the Italyen saith, Basta”).</li><li>It also appears in the writings of a number of 17th century playwrights, including Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.</li></ul>

Basta

When shushing just isn't cutting it, here is a collection of other ways to say be quiet, for use on all the yellers, library talkers, and loud chewers.

problemsolving

Problem Solving

When you ask most people how they are doing, they will respond by saying they're busy. Being busy is seen as a currency in our society. We've cultivated the myth that busyness is the same as value, which equals worth. While we're struggling to maintain this status, the stress of busyness is leading to major public health concerns. More concerning is that if we think of ourselves as busy, we make ourselves victims. "I have too many things to do that are out of my control. I feel overwhelmed."

Being “busy” wrongly demonstrates value

Messaging and language can shift how you think about things. If we view our schedule as "full" instead of "busy", we can regain control and reframe our entire day. Being "busy" means you're running nonstop. But "full" means it is rich, happy, and content.

Changing our perception

When you view your life as "full" instead of "busy", <ul><li>You become grateful for all the different roles you play.</li><li>You learn how to prioritize. You view everything on your to-do list and decide if it adds to your day being full or detracts from it.</li><li>You take back control of your life. When you live a full life, you're content.</li></ul>

How your mindset can change

There’s a better way to reframe busyness (a negative!) by using different words, this comms exec and self-described word geek says.


productivity

Productivity

timemanagement

Time Management

You’d be a lot happier if you stop saying you’re so busy

Sometimes we need anime quotes to bring back the good memories.And it’s one of the easiest ways to do it besides music.If you’re a fan of One Punch Man or not, you should check out these 15 anime quotes One Punch Man has to offer.And if it leaves you amused, entertained or encouraged, that’s a job well done!

Mightiest Quotes For Becoming Mightiest By Saitama

“You said you worked hard? Well, maybe you need to work a little longer.”

“I’m not a hero because I want your approval. I do it because I want to!”

“I’ll leave tomorrow’s problems to tomorrow’s me.”

“Overwhelming strength is boring.”

“You gotta train like hell until the point where your hair falls out. That’s the only way to become truly strong.”

“100 Push ups. 100 sit ups. And 100 squats. Then a 10 kilometer run. Do it every single day!”

“Human beings are strong because we can change ourselves.”

“You have to keep doing it. No matter how difficult it gets. It took me a full 3 years to get this strong.”

“When I was a little boy I wanted to be a hero. Not some damn business man. But a superhero who could send rotten villains like you flying with one punch.”

“If the heroes run and hide, who will stay and fight?”

“If you really want to become strong, stop caring about what others think about you. Living your life has nothing to do with what others think.”

“Is that really the limit of your strength? Could the you of tomorrow beat you today? Instead of giving in, move forward.”

“In exchange for power, maybe I’ve lost something that’s essential for a human being?”

"Never ever give up."

Working hard when you care if anyone is watching you or not is never the real hard work. Working hard when no one is watching you is the real game. Thats what I learnt from Saitama aka One Punch Man.

One Punch man has a large list of heroes with their own quotes. Which are both hilarious, funny and motivational. Here are 15 of the best worth sharing!

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

movies

Movies & Shows

15 Of The Mightiest Anime Quotes From One Punch Man

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