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Anecdotes, Facts, Examples for GS and Essay

This thread is meant to be a repository of interesting anecdotes/news articles/facts/examples/case studies which we can use in our essay and GS papers. In my experience, listing these things down somewhere is not enough to ensure that we are able to use them in the exam. Therefore let us discuss and debate so that we can internalize them.

sonder,chamomileand59 otherslike this
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“There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.”

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner


Joey27,GaryVeeand13 otherslike this
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Extended Mind Hypothesis by Chalmers & Clark

Can be Used in essay related to technology


We have traditionally thought of our mind as being limited to our brain. While the brain is a tangible organ of our body, the human mind is much more than that. It is an invisible entity that transcends our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and imagination. The act of cognition isn’t restricted to the grey matter in our skull. David Chalmers and Andy Clark call this belief a kind of “skull chauvinism”. In ‘The extended mind thesis’, a seminal work in the philosophy of mind, these cognitive philosophers suggest that the objects within our environment function as parts of our mind. It is arbitrary to say that the mind is contained inside the skull. Our external environment plays a significant role in aiding the cognitive process. The brain and the environment work together in a coupled system to create effective cognition. When we use pen and paper to solve long divisions, a part of our cognition takes place on the paper. Once the Historian Charles Wiener told the famous physicist Richard Feynman that his notebooks were a wonderful “record of his day-to-day work”. Feynman replied that the notebooks weren’t the record of his thinking process. They were his thinking process. Complex acts of cognition become almost impossible without external aid and Feynman clearly understood the extended mind. We have moved on from using just pen and paper as our extended mind. Our smartphones are always with us, ready to connect us to the world on a click. Clark & Chalmers used the example of a notebook that an amnesic person can carry. The notebook does the job what his mind can’t- Remember. Smartphones are way better than our extended minds.  

Clarke’s* third law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”


*A different Clarke

priyanka1506,sstarrrand2 otherslike this
7k views

https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/DmR1fQSnVD62p4D3eyq9mO/The-life-and-times-of-Savitribai-Phule.html

Essay, optional - intersectional feminism, gs4 ,gs1. Etc

chamomile,sbhatiand1 otherslike this
6.5k views


EiChan,chamomileand6 otherslike this
9.6k views
@D503 I had read this very article before mains last year.... helped me in 1 ethics ques and as an opening in essay. :)


D503,sbhati
6.8k views
In the book 'Everybody lies', the author remarks that the in modern info age, the most naked expression of ourselves lie in Google searches. He has analysed metadata of Google searches over years and provided numerous eg of how it can be used to let's say frame national policy on issues. For eg, while analysing metadata for Brazil he noticed that a lot of pregnancy related searches were about the effect/side-effect of consuming papaya during pregnancy. This means a lot of people do not have clarity on it and hence it can be used to provide awareness and information by the govt regarding this to pregnant women. 
D503,sbhatiand7 otherslike this
9.6k views

 Sharing some pointers that I had made while reading Homo Deus..@Purplesunbird 
These are very random notes and may not even make sense to you.. But if you type these phrases on google and write homo deus in front of it, maybe it will help you..

Cyber warfare

Knowledge based war.

Coca cola vs terrorism.

Terrorism. China shop. Fly story. .

Saddam hussain. USA. Analogy. .

Homo sapiens into homo deus.

Glass cieling of happiness. Psychological(expectations)

Biological

Cyborg

70s might become the new 40s. Researches on increasing human life.

No money for pensions.

No line between healing and upgradation in medicine.

Paradox of knowledge.

The more we can know, the less we can predict.

Mother infant bond is universal among all species.

Turing test compt vs human mind

Economic growth has now become a religion.

Considered to solve all issues. .

Greatest discovery is the discovery of ignorance.

Energy ,raw material ,and knowledge are the main sources.

Save economy from freezing and ecology from. Boiling.

Assumption that future scientists will be better at handling crisis. It is a flawed approach.

Poor more worried about economy than ecology because they have no other option.

Rat race- individual stress.

Despite all achievements, we have more pressure to do better.


In a free market customers are always right. . If customers reject a car, it is a bad car.

Implant electrodes in brain to remove PTSD or depression. Ethical reasons.

Transcranial direct current stimulus-helmets.

Watson AI machine.

Ibm deep blue chess.

Humans are specializing in comparison to hunter gatherers. Thus AI is feasible.

Techno-humanism.= create homodeus from homo sapiens.

Intelligence is decoupling.

DM,EiChanand12 otherslike this
9.2k views
“Indian Administration is having problem of Bureaucratic arteriosclerosis” ( i.e careerist bureaucrats who have lost the spark)  -The Unending Game ( Vikram Sood)
DM,sjerngaland2 otherslike this
6.2k views
“Give me television and hamburgers, but do not bother me with the responsibilities of Liberty.” - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
D503,chamomileand3 otherslike this
6k views
  • Uniqueness of 'Kudumbashree' SHG in Kerala

https://www.iasparliament.com/current-affairs/uniqueness-of-kudumbashree-shg-in-kerala

 

 

 'Kudumbashree' SHG was started in 1998 by the CPI (M)-led government - is not politically affiliated - has 3 tier structure - Neighbourhood group(NGs) ->Area development society (ADS) ->Community development society (CDS)

 

Every member has vote - direct Elections for NGs - Good Representation and reservation at CDS/ Highest level of weaker sections - hence Successful (other such groups are highjacked by women from elite sections and subsequent dropout)

D503,chamomileand4 otherslike this
6.5k views


kahin to ghusa dena

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kahin to ghusa dena

Almost a page on climate change essay xD 

There are other kurzgesagt videos on CC which can collectively form a good essay framework. 

Hououin_Kyouma,sjerngal
5.5k views
Nagaur, Rajasthan: Coffee with DM for female sarpanch
DM,sjerngaland1 otherslike this
5.5k views
“When a slave becomes a happy slave, he has effectively relinquished all that makes him human” - Frederick Douglas
D503,chamomileand3 otherslike this
5.5k views

We are living at a stage where face to face relations are being converted into "Facebook" Relations -- A wise person once remarked. 

DM,THE_MECHANIC
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Ah, such are the times. 

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