It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, December 05, 2021
China's research ship Tansuo-1 returns from deep-ocean expedition
Xinhua | Updated: 2021-12-05
The deep-sea manned submersible Fendouzhe. [File photo/CCTV]
SANYA -- China's scientific research ship Tansuo-1 returned to a port in the city of Sanya, in South China's Hainan province, on Sunday, after completing its deep-ocean expedition to the Mariana Trench.
The vessel, which carries the deep-sea manned submersible Fendouzhe (Striver), berthed on Sunday morning, according to the Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
During the 53-day expedition, which started on Oct 14, the China-built Fendouzhe successfully completed 23 dives, six of which exceeded a depth of 10,000 meters.
Scientific researchers collected several large organisms, in-situ micro-organisms, sediments and rock samples, accumulating valuable data for use in genetic research on the area and understanding its geological structure, according to the institute.
During the voyage, Chinese research teams participating in the expedition jointly launched the Mariana Consensus. The consensus calls for the establishment of a standardized system for deep-sea expeditions to realize the long-term preservation and sharing of deep-ocean scientific samples and data, so as to achieve international cooperation on deep-sea expeditions.
The team also launched the Mariana Trench Environment and Ecology Research Project (MEER) during the expedition. The project aims to invite more researchers from home and abroad to join in the MEER, so as to tackle major scientific issues together, such as the origins of life and environmental adaptation, biodiversity and climate change, among others.
Reservations about robots remain, but abundant benefits seen By Harvey Morris | China Daily Global | Updated: 2021-12-06
Robot artist 'Ai-Da', described as "the world's first ultra-realistic AI humanoid robot artist" stands at the Great Pyramids of Giza, where she exhibits her sculpture during an international art show, on the outskirt of Cairo, on Oct 23, 2021. [Photo/Agencies]
It is hard not to have some sympathy for the Egyptian customs officials who detained a human-like robot who arrived this month to take part in an art exhibition in the shadow of the pyramids.
The would-be visitor, named Ai-Da, has the face, body and eyes of a young woman, although her clunky bionic arms are perhaps the first clue that she is not entirely human.
The officials were particularly concerned about her camera eyes, which she uses to create convincing paintings but which they feared could also be used to operate as a spy.
Over 10 days, the issue was resolved and Ai-Da was released to display her artistic skills at the exhibition.
Despite her lifelike characteristics, Ai-Da is clearly not human. But what happens if advances in artificial intelligence technology render her robotic descendants indistinguishable from us? It's the stuff of many modern nightmares.
"People fear robots, I understand that," said her British creator, Aidan Meller. Moreover, he said the aim of his project was to highlight and warn of the abuse of technological development.
Use of robotics in industry, defense and other sectors is already an established and accepted reality. However, the prospect of the emergence of ever more lifelike and intelligent robots can be profoundly unsettling.
Even the developers of super-robots are aware of the natural fear of the machines one day taking over. Unveiling the prototype of a humanoid robot designed to carry out some of the boring and repetitive tasks currently undertaken by humans, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said this would not pose a threat.
"We're setting it such that it is at a mechanical level, at a physical level, that you can run away from it and most likely overpower it," he told an audience in August, although that "most likely" phrase might have left some of them less than totally reassured.
Musk has predicted that AI will overtake humans by the middle of the current decade. As a self-declared pioneer of so-called ethical AI, Musk has warned against the potential negative impact of the new technology. He once warned that AI might become "an immortal dictator from which we would never escape".
Many people will accept the benefits of current robot technology as an extension of the mechanical age. Machines that harvest crops, assemble products or vacuum floors provide tangible benefits, except perhaps to those low-paid workers whose jobs they are replacing.
In October, an Egyptian engineer revealed that he had developed an AI robot that could extract drinkable water from thin air, while an AI robot being rolled out in the agricultural sector can already distinguish between 50 tomato varieties and will only get better the more it practices.
So far so good. But what of robots that might copy other human characteristics such as empathy? Researchers at Columbia University in New York City say they have developed a robot that displays glimmers of empathy by learning to predict the future behavior of a robot partner.
Robot companions for the sick and elderly are being developed in the health sector to replace the soothing presence of the traditional nurse.
More worrisome, however, is the fact that some nations are developing robot armies, raising the science fiction specter of future robot wars. A developer in the United States has refined so-called robot dogs by arming them with sniper rifles, while the US Army recently staged a mock battle between robot enemies in what was described as a historic first.
At a more benign level, a so-called natural language chat bot, Xiaoice, has just had 139 of its Chinese poems published, although not all its human reviewers were impressed by the results. Aimless and superficial, lacking the inner logic for emotional expression－this was the judgment of poet Yu Jian.
Despite such reservations, there is little doubt that robotics and AI are already delivering significant benefits to humanity, not least in the medical sector, where the new technology has helped to save lives.
Elsewhere, progress in AI promises to relieve humans of the burden of sometimes backbreaking work that might just as well be done by a thinking machine.
That, according to the tech pioneers, will free us up to undertake more rewarding tasks geared toward personal and societal development rather than wasting our days on the boringly routine. With thinking robots determining our big decisions, there might be more time to sit back and relax.
The problem is that if the likes of Ai-Da take over our art and Xiaoice delivers our poetry, and robots take responsibility for the care of our ailing relatives, what exactly will there be left for us to do?
Harvey Morris is a senior media consultant for China Daily UK.
President Xi stresses developing religions in Chinese context By MO JINGXI | CHINA DAILY/XINHUA | Updated: 2021-12-06
President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addresses a national conference on work related to religious affairs in Beijing, capital of China. The conference was held from Friday to Saturday. [Photo/Xinhua]
President Xi Jinping has stressed the importance of enhancing the religious sector's recognition of the motherland, the Chinese nation and culture, the Communist Party of China and socialism with Chinese characteristics.
The measures will help develop religions in the Chinese context, Xi said.
He urged education on nationalism, collectivism, socialism and an improved understanding of history in the religious sector to guide the adaptation of religions to socialist society.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks while addressing a two-day national conference on work related to religious affairs, which concluded on Saturday in Beijing.
Stressing the importance of religious affairs in the work of the Party and the State, he highlighted the need to uphold and develop a religious theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics, work in line with the Party's basic policy on religious affairs, and uphold the principle that religions in China must be Chinese in orientation.
He also asked for efforts to rally religious people around the Party and government, foster positive and healthy relations among religions, support religious groups in strengthening self-education, and improve the management of religious work under the rule of law.
Xi said that religious activities must be carried out within the scope stipulated by laws and regulations, and should not impair the well-being of citizens, offend public order and good morals or interfere with educational, judicial and administrative affairs as well as social life.
He emphasized training of a team of Party and government officials familiar with the Marxist view on religion and religious affairs, and competent enough to engage in work related to religious people.
In his speech, Xi emphasized the full and faithful implementation of the Party's policy on freedom of religious beliefs, respecting people's religious beliefs and managing religious affairs in accordance with the law.
Religious and nonreligious people share common fundamental interests, both politically and economically, he said.
Xi also urged that the necessary support and assistance be provided to religious groups, which serve as the bridge for the Party and government to unite and contact religious figures and believers.
Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping at the core has paid high attention to religion in China. Xi has made a series of instructions on religious work at important meetings and during his work inspections.
It is vital to understand the meaning of Marx to grasp his ideas in relation to his development. In this connection, his conception of religion is one of the most important aspects of his notions.
As early as 1842, he wrote:
I desired there to be less trifling with the label ‘atheism’ (which reminds one of children, assuring everyone who is ready to listen to them that they are not afraid of the bogy man), and that instead the content of philosophy should be brought to the people. (Letter to Ruge, November 24, 1842.)
It was quite easy to deal with religion by just being against it, but that was not good enough. ‘Everybody knows’ that Marx wrote about religion being the opium of the people, so we shall look at the entire passage from which this comes.
The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is indeed the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man, state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions.
It is the opium of the people.
(Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Introduction.)
'Magic mushroom' drug psilocybin edges toward mainstream therapy
By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter Psilocybin, or "magic mushrooms," is now legal for mental health treatment in Oregon, a result of a ballot initiative.
File Photo by Shots Studio/Shutterstock.
Tony Head was depressed and fearing death from stage 4 prostate cancer when, as part of a supervised scientific trial, he took a large dose of the psychedelic agent in "magic mushrooms," psilocybin.
Head donned a mask and headphones to shut out the world around him, and had an experience that changed the course of his life.
"At some point in that time I felt like a higher power or something -- I didn't see anything, I didn't see any type of image -- I felt like something connected and touched me and as soon as it did, I just started crying," Head, an award-nominated actor who lives in New York City, said in an interview with HealthDay Now.
He said the one-time therapy helped relieve much of the anxiety surrounding his prognosis.
"I think it taught me how to live better and not worry about dying," he added.
"I was blown away by what had just happened. It's an unimaginable experience, at least it was for me," Head added. "It's something that can't be explained, but I can tell you it is probably one of the most important things that ever happened to me."
Psychedelic therapy focused on psilocybin has garnered much new interest lately as a potential treatment against anxiety, depression and other mental ills.
In fact, the drug is now legal for mental health treatment in Oregon, a result of a ballot initiative. The recent release of Hulu's miniseries Nine Perfect Strangers has also focused fresh attention to the concept of microdosing psilocybin as a means of therapy.
Long history
It's a field that foundered in the 1960s as psychedelic drugs became associated with the left-wing counterculture, explained Dr. Charles Grob, a professor of clinical psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences with the UCLA School of Medicine.
However, prior to that, psychedelics like psilocybin had shown "great promise" in mental health research, Grob told HealthDay Now.
"In the '50s and '60s, there was a period of time when psychedelics were really considered the cutting edge of psychiatric research, and there was tremendous enthusiasm," Grob said. "There were reports of patient populations who did not respond well to conventional treatments that did very well."
Even Hollywood leading man Cary Grant turned to psychedelics during that early period. The actor took LSD as many as 100 times under the care of a Beverly Hills doctor, according to the documentary Becoming Cary Grant.
"After weeks of treatment came a day when I saw the light," Grant said in the film. "When I broke through, I felt an immeasurably beneficial cleansing of so many needless fears and guilts. I lost all the tension that I'd been crippling myself with."
Now, a new generation of researchers are exploring the possibilities of these drugs to help people in crisis.
Head, 69, took his psilocybin trip as part of a research effort at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, after doctors had told him he probably had three to five years to live. Head has appeared in the HBO dramas The Wire and The Deuce and had a small role in the 2019 movie Joker.
His psilocybin experience lasted for about seven hours, and during it he felt as though he had come into contact with a "higher power" existing in a place beyond death.
"The biggest thing I got out of this was it taught me how not to fear dying. I don't fear death. I don't want to suffer for years like that, but I don't fear death at all," Head said. "I think wherever death is or leads to, it's going to be a good place.
"I think it taught me how to live better and not worry about dying," he added.
Head says he also got everything he needed from psilocybin during his single high-dose trip.
"I have no wish to do it again. I don't need to do it again," he said.
Recalibrating the mind
Just how do psychedelics work their magic on the brain? According to Grob, psilocybin and its pharmaceutical cousins "profoundly alter our state of consciousness" by acting on certain receptors in the brain.
"We also know the circuitry of the brain is briefly modified and in a sense, goes offline and creates more of a resting state," Grob said. "It's almost as if the brain for a period of time goes offline and then recalibrates in an enhanced state.
"It's an alteration of what's called the default mode network, where regions of the brain that normally are very much in communication basically briefly disconnect and create a greater sense of calm and less internal chatter, and perhaps more opportunity to perceive beyond what is normally within our field of awareness," Grob continued.
Research from the 1950s and '60s, as well as more recent studies, have shown psilocybin's promise in helping people like Head who are suffering an existential crisis, Grob said.
Psychedelics have also shown potential in people dealing with alcoholism and addiction, he added.
"Investigators observed dating back to the '50s that individuals with one powerful experience of a psychedelic, with one powerful altered state, appeared to have lost their craving and are able to establish and maintain sobriety," Grob said.
When use turns to abuse
The drug's promise does need to be weighed against its potential for abuse, however, Grob said.
"Going back to the '60s, there's no lack of examples of individuals who misused and abused the drug and got themselves into some serious situations which no one would want to replicate," Grob said. "There are inherent risks when this drug is ingested in uncontrolled settings, without proper facilitation by an experienced psychotherapist who is trained in administering this model."
Grob also noted that psilocybin and other psychedelics still require more research to fully understand their risks and benefits, given that academic study into the drugs fizzled out after the 1960s.
"We have today the opportunity to take a fresh look at these compounds, utilizing optimal conditions," Grob said. "We have the support of many high-level officials within academia. The regulatory agencies are far more receptive."
For example, there needs to be rigorously controlled studies to test the potential benefits of microdosing, the psychedelic treatment highlighted by Nine Perfect Strangers, Grob said.
"It's still more in the realm of conjecture, and the positive reports we're hearing are essentially anecdotal case reports," Grob said. "These individuals do report on occasion a very remarkable transformation, remarkable therapeutic outcome, but we really don't know for sure whether this is a real phenomenon or a placebo effect." More study needed
Psilocybin has garnered more interest in modern research and therapy than LSD because it has a few advantages over the more powerful psychedelic, Grob said.
A psilocybin trip tends to be much shorter than with LSD, although it can extend to as long as six or seven hours. The trip also tends to be easier to guide, more visionary, and less likely to create anxiety or paranoia in the patient, Grob said.
People running these studies will need to seriously consider the patient's mindset and expectations and place them in a positive, carefully controlled setting, Grob said.
"You take all those factors into account, there's a good likelihood you can guide someone through this altered terrain in a safe manner and allow them to have the kind of experience that might endow them with the kind of insight and the kind of positive transformative experience that leads to therapeutic change," Grob said.
Head said that he can definitely see the potential of psilocybin to help treat people with addiction and other mental health issues, if it's used in a supervised way.
"This drug opens a door to put you in another place that you wouldn't normally be able to get to in your brain," Head said. "It has that kind of effect on you."
A woman wears a US flag in her hat as with the Lincoln Memorial in the background, during a ceremony at the World War II Memorial on Veterans Day in Washington, on Nov 11, 2021. [Photo/Agencies]
American style gravely ill with money politics, elite rule, dysfunctional system
The Foreign Ministry released a report on democracy in the United States on Sunday, exposing the deficiencies and abuse of democracy in the country as well as the harm of its exporting such democracy.
The report, titled "The State of Democracy in the United States", based on facts and expert opinions, said it is hoped the US will improve its system and practices of democracy and change its way of interacting with other countries.
Democracy in the US has been "alienated and degenerated" over the years and has increasingly deviated from the essence of democracy and its original design, the report said.
The self-styled American democracy is now gravely ill with money politics, elite rule, political polarization and a dysfunctional system, it said.
That US democracy has gone wrong is reflected in the country's practices and events, including the Capitol riot on Jan 6, its entrenched racism and tragic mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a result, "American-style democracy can hardly uphold public order and ethics, nor advance public wellbeing to the fullest", the report said.
The US, despite the structural flaws and the problematic practice of its democratic system, has attempted to model other countries after its own image and export its brand of democracy.
Such entirely undemocratic attempts are at odds with the core values and tenets of democracy, the report said.
Beijing has urged Washington on many occasions to get to work in earnest to ensure its people's democratic rights and improve its system of democracy as well as undertake more international responsibilities and provide more public goods to the world.
"It would be totally undemocratic to measure the diverse political systems in the world with a single yardstick or examine different political civilizations from a single perspective," said the report.
Su Xiaohui, deputy director of the China Institute of International Studies' Department of American Studies, said the report reveals that the US is by no means an exemplary model of democracy.
"With its mounting internal problems, the US still points fingers at others and pushes for what it calls 'democratic transition', plunging many regions and countries into turmoil, conflict and disaster, which shows its hypocrisy," Su said.
Su cited the Capitol riot as saying that even Washington's allies and partners have spotted the malaise of US-style democracy.
Diao Daming, an associate professor of US studies at Renmin University of China, said the report exposes US democratic chaos in an objective and comprehensive manner and plays a positive role in helping the world understand its state of democracy.
"China's intention is not to contend with the US for the definition of democracy, nor does it fight for the so-called position of 'beacon of democracy'," he said.
Diao said the report, which is rich with facts and tight logic and represents various views, including those of US experts, also reflects the universal concerns of the international community about US-style democracy.
As for the "Summit for Democracy" to be held by the US, he said it had nothing to do with democracy and was a move by the US to engage in group politics and try to achieve a hegemonic agenda in the name of democracy.
US-style democracy 'only awakened during voting'
By CAO YIN | CHINA DAILY | Updated: 2021-12-06
A voter casts her ballot at a polling station in Chongqing's Shapingba district on Friday. Voters in the district reelected deputies to grassroots people's congresses. [Photo provided to China Daily]
With wide participation and strong oversight, China's democracy is more extensive, more genuine and more effective than the United States' version, senior Chinese officials said while introducing a white paper over the weekend.
The State Council Information Office issued the white paper "China: Democracy That Works" on Saturday, noting that there is more than one path to democracy and there are many ways to achieve it.
When asked which style of democracy is better, Chinese or US, Tian Peiyan, deputy head of Policy Research Office with the Communist Party of China Central Committee, answered that its "practice is the most convincing" argument.
He said under the US democratic system, politicians are agents of interest groups, rather than representing the interests of the majority of voters and the country.
"Those politicians can randomly make promises for the sake of elections, but they seldom fulfill the promises after being elected," Tian said. "Superficially, they accept voters' supervision, but when they're elected, the voters have no option but to wait for the next election.
"It's a democracy that is only awakened during voting but becomes dormant after voting, and it's also a democracy where voters listen to dazzling slogans only during the election but have no say after the election," he said, adding that such democracy is not a real democracy.
China's democracy, however, is a whole-process people's democracy under the CPC's leadership, he said.
Party members and officials at all levels must accept the process and supervision by the CPC and the people while performing their duties to ensure the power granted by the people is always used for serving the people's interest.
"Any violation of Party disciplines and laws must be punished, no matter how senior the violator is or how high his or her social status is. No one is an exception," Tian said.
Tian emphasized that deputies to people's congresses, China's legislative bodies, are from the people and elected by the people. Therefore, they represent the people, serve the people and should be responsible for the people, he said.
"The deputies have always kept close contact with the public, listening to people's requests, striving to solve their problems and receiving their supervision in all areas," he added. "Deputies who don't perform their duties or violate disciplines or laws can be disqualified or removed from office."
Guo Zhenhua, deputy secretary-general of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, the country's top legislature, pointed out the behavior of US politicians before and after elections changed due to the lack of a supervisory mechanism after they take office.
"But in China, both the Constitution and the Electoral Law stipulate that deputies to the NPC and local people's congresses must be supervised by voters and the original electoral units," he said. "Voters or original electoral units have the right to recall elected representatives."
Since the 13th NPC was established in 2018, a total of 10 NPC deputies have been dismissed, he said.
Xu Lin, director of the State Council Information Office, said the US' so-called "Summit for Democracy", due to be held Thursday and Friday, is actually intended to contain and suppress countries that have social systems and development models different to the US'.
He said in a widely diverse world, democracy comes in many forms, adding that China has always been receptive to any type of democracy and given respect to efforts to explore and pursue different models.
According to the white paper, China did not duplicate Western models of democracy, but created its own, and its original aspiration was to ensure the people's status as masters of the country.
It says China built and developed whole-process people's democracy in line with its national conditions, noting it involves complete institutional procedures and covers various fields.
Whole-process people's democracy is a combination of electoral democracy and consultative democracy, and is applied through a combination of elections, consultations, decision-making, management and oversight, it says, adding it has been fully tested through wide participation
China's democracy guarantees all people's right to happy life, experts say
Xinhua | Updated: 2021-12-05
A staff member registers itinerary of people on a vehicle at an expressway entry in Harbin city, Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, Dec 3, 2021. [Photo/Xinhua]
BEIJING -- China's State Council Information Office on Saturday released a white paper titled "China: Democracy That Works," which expounded on the values, history, institutional frameworks, practices, and achievements of China's democracy.
China's democracy, according to experts and observers from multiple countries, has guaranteed all people's right to a happy life and promoted the country's rapid development.
"The Chinese democratic system mainly focuses on whether the people have the right to govern their country, whether the people's needs are met, and whether the people have a sense of fulfillment and happiness," Kin Phea, director-general of the International Relations Institute at the Royal Academy of Cambodia, told Xinhua.
"That's why it gains the great support of the Chinese people from all walks of life," he pointed out.
Hamed Vafaei, director of the Center for Asian Studies at the University of Tehran, said that there is no standard democracy in the world, and that people in each country should find their own development and democratic model.
The Chinese people, Vafaei noted, have chosen their own path, and China's development in various fields, as well as achievements in poverty reduction, have all demonstrated the high quality of China's democracy.
Bambang Suryono, chairman of Asia Innovation Study Center, an Indonesian think tank, said that a good democracy is one that has been built according to actual conditions of the country and that also works for the benefit of the people.
China's democracy has made remarkable achievements in poverty reduction, health care, education, and other areas, Suryono continued, while calling it a democracy that serves its people.
Mehmet Enes Beser, director of the Bosphorus Center for Asian Studies in Turkey, stressed that China has always put people's lives first during the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting that China's democracy has been put into practice well.
Some Western countries, by contrast, failed to take active and timely actions when the pandemic broke out, showing that "democracy" was only an empty campaign slogan for them, Beser added.
$14.7 million in funding announced to fight invasive species in Alberta mountain parks
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Steven Guilbeault, left, visited Cascade Ponds in Banff National Park Saturday to announce almost $15 million in funding to fight invasive species. (Evelyne Asselin/CBC)
Steven Guilbeault, federal minister of environment and climate change, announced $14.7 million in funding to fight invasive aquatic species in Alberta's national parks Saturday.
The money will be spent over five years on conservation projects in Banff, Jasper, Kootenay, Waterton Lakes and Yoho national parks.
"Aquatic invasive species are a very concerning issue, certainly here in the region as they are in many parts of Canada," said Guilbeault during a visit to Cascade Ponds in Banff National Park.
"This money will help increase surveillance and monitoring and try to ensure that we limit, if not stop entirely, the spread of these invasive species."
The funding will be used for prevention and eduction programs, and is divided for each park:
$4.70 million for Yoho and Kootenay parks, as well as the northern part of Banff National Park
$3.73 million for Jasper National Park
$3.43 million for the southern part of Banff National Park
$2.84 million for Waterton Lakes National Park
"The mountain national parks are particularly vulnerable to aquatic invasive species due to the high amount of water recreationists who visit each year," said a release from Parks Canada.
"Aquatic invasive species alter aquatic ecosystems, cause irreversible damage, impact vulnerable species at risk, and spread downstream beyond park boundaries through the interconnected river systems."
Rick Kubian, the field unit superintendent for the Lake Louise Yoho Kootenay field unit, says the first priority is not allowing species to get introduced in the first place.
"It's very expensive to remove aquatic invasive once they've taken hold," said Kubian.
He also said it's important to make sure sure visitors are aware of how they can help prevent the movement of invasive species between parks.
Whirling disease, mussels of concern for mountain parks
Parks Canada hopes to prevent a parasite that causes whirling disease, which causes skeletal deformities in some fish, such as whitefish, bull trout and cutthroat trout, from entering the ecosystems.
A sign posted by Alberta Parks near a stream in Kananaskis warns of the risks of whirling disease in summer 2021. (Sarah Rieger/CBC)
Invasive zebra and quagga mussels are also a concern. They take nutrients from the water, which affects the entire food web, and change water chemistry. Mussels can also clog structures such as dams, water treatment facilities and boats.
These species are often transported by people. Making sure all watercraft and recreational gear are cleaned, drained and dried before moving between bodies or water is the best way to protect against aquatic invasive species, says Parks Canada.
Mandatory policies for visitors to clean, drain and dry their boats are already in place for Kootenay, Waterton Lakes and Yoho national parks. Banff joined that list this summer.
With files from Evelyne Asselin
Anger management: New Twitter CEO needs to make platform less hostile
When the CEO of a major company steps down, there’s usually a clear and obvious reason: sometimes scandal, often shareholder revolt — or more simply, that after amassing billions, it’s just time.
In the case of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, however, there seems to be a different reason: his heart just didn’t seem to be in it any more.
Dorsey, who announced his exit from Twitter this week — and whose public persona over the past few years has morphed into more a New Age, crypto-obsessed yoga fan than a tech CEO — also runs financial company Square, and many in the company felt his focus on Twitter was insufficient. While Twitter itself remains important, the company has been on an unsteady course, failing to do much to grow or tackle the many challenges of an acrimonious platform.
The question, then, as new CEO Parag Agrawal steps in, is what Twitter needs to do to ameliorate what has become, for better or worse, the closest thing to an online public square. What seems key for Twitter is twofold: first, to make itself more useful to everyday people; but perhaps more importantly, find new ways to clamp down on the bitter, angry, inflammatory culture that seems to have become endemic to the platform.
One should be clear that Twitter is never going to replace Facebook: your dad or your aunt will never turn to a social-information site in order to connect with people. It is also completely dwarfed by other social-media platforms. Twitter sits at a comparatively meagre 315 million users on the site daily, while Facebook has nearly 10 times as much. To try and narrow that gap seems futile.
What Twitter has rather remarkably done, however, is to become the place people go to both find out what is happening and debate the issues of the day. The platform has become the go-to home for journalists, writers, media figures, or people who simply wish to shoot the breeze and make jokes in a public way. If you want to be plugged in to the world and culture, you don’t turn to Instagram or Facebook; you log on to Twitter.
However, Twitter abides by the classic “one per cent rule” of the internet: a tiny fraction of people are responsible for the bulk of content and most people just lurk. That is a problem for a company looking to grow.
Despite some steps made by the site — curating tweets instead of presenting them in chronological order; showing trending topics, if often clumsily — Twitter is still an overwhelming place for newcomers. While for expert users it is a great place to learn both the news and what people are saying about it, for new users it is a miasma of in-jokes, niche cultural expectations, and a flood of information, the quality of which is hard to parse.
Agrawal’s task is thus to make Twitter’s vitality as a source of information for its core users available to all. That will likely involve more and better human curation, more accessible onboarding, and a focus and marketing push to get people to think of Twitter as the place to go for news and discussion.
But before that can happen, the nature of discussion also needs to be tackled. While Twitter of course cannot single-handedly tackle the deep polarization of contemporary societies, certain features of the site do lend themselves to bad-faith interpretations, drive-by condemnation and a bitter tone.
The ability to “quote tweet” — adding commentary to another’s tweet — very often results in blunt, frequently unfair interpretation, quashing conversation rather than encouraging it. It also cultivates a culture of people talking past one another.
Maybe more importantly, Twitter has yet to deal with two key problems: context collapse; and the tension between ephemerality and permanence.
Context collapse is the problem that arises when differing groups and interpretive frameworks try to engage online with the same thing. The result — at best miscommunication, at worst deep offence — is something that could be mitigated by an ability to limit tweets to particular groups, or perhaps only those who ask for them.
The other issue is that while a record of statements is sometimes useful, very often tweets — which can be small, throwaway thoughts — have no reason to be made permanent. While Twitter tried an ill-fated experiment with vanishing posts called Fleets, there is no default way to have tweets delete, or choose certain ones to disappear.
Those oversights reflect a product and a platform that has for too long languished, and been unresponsive to the needs of both its current and new users. Dorsey’s heart may have never been in it, but if Twitter is to find a more stable footing, Agrawal is going to have give it not just effort but, more importantly, a commitment to building a platform which cultivates a culture of communication, rather than the anger that so predominates now.
Navneet Alang is a Toronto-based freelance contributing technology columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @navalang
News From, TORONTO STAR
Absence of Dissident Artist’s Works Spurs Fears of Hong Kong Art Censorship
Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei joins supporters of Julian Assange as they stage a demonstration outside the High Court in London, Oct. 27, 2021
HONG KONG —
Art censorship in Hong Kong is “very much real,” an expert said after the city’s much-anticipated art gallery opened recently without showcasing some expected artworks by a Chinese dissident.
The former British colony’s largest art museum, M+, opened Nov. 12 to great fanfare, but also heated debate because of its failure to exhibit two of famous exiled artist Ai Wei Wei’s artworks in a donated collection of celebrated Swiss art collector Uli Sigg.
Among the collection of contemporary Chinese art from the 1970s to the 2000s, Ai’s Study of Perspective: Tiananmen, a photo that features Ai’s middle finger in front of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, and Map of China, a sculpture made of salvaged wood from a Qing Dynasty temple, have been under review by authorities since March this year, essentially barring them from display.
That came two weeks after M+ director Suhanya Raffel guaranteed that the gallery would show Ai’s art and pieces about the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, according to The South China Morning Post.
In the same month, Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam said the authorities would be on “full alert” to ensure museum exhibitions would not undermine national security, after pro-Beijing lawmakers said the artworks at M+ caused “great concerns” to the public for “spreading hatred” against China, public broadcaster RTHK reported.
In a September editorial in local media outlet Stand News, Ai called the government’s decision to shelve his two pieces “incredible.”
“The Study of Perspective series I started at Tiananmen Square 26 years ago once again became the testing ground for an important change in history, and a convincing note for China’s political censorship of its culture and art,” Ai wrote. Other images in the series featured the middle finger in front of the White House, the Swiss parliament and the Mona Lisa.
Sigg donated over 1,400 artworks and sold 47 pieces to M+ gallery in 2012, before the city experienced political turmoil from the 2014 Occupy Central movement, the 2019 anti-government protests and implementation of the controversial national security law last year.
FILE - A woman walks outside the M+ visual culture museum in the West Kowloon Cultural District of Hong Kong, Nov. 11, 2021.
Sigg originally wanted to make mainland China home to his collection, but no art galleries there could ensure that his artworks, including Ai Wei Wei’s, would be displayed without restriction, according to SOAS University of London art history professor Shane McCausland.
“Hong Kong’s legal framework at the time promised that these artworks could be shown…[but] policy on display will have changed dramatically after the national security law came in,” McCausland told VOA.
The head of the West Kowloon Cultural District, Henry Tang, said ahead of the M+ gallery opening that the board would “uphold and encourage freedom of artistic expression and creativity,” but added that the opening of M+ “does not mean artistic expression is above the law.” He also denied that the two artworks put under review meant they were illegal.
However, such an ostensibly normal bureaucratic act from the government is China’s usual form of censorship, McCausland said.
“It’s often unclear even to the initiated, where the boundary lies, as it moves all the time. The laws are framed in vague language: they often appear to be applied arbitrarily and randomly. …The application depends on the [Chinese] leadership from the top, where there is a degree of sensitivity to criticism and intolerance of critiques,” he said.
FILE - A painting titled 'Rouge 1992' created by Chinese artist Li Shan, is seen during a media preview in the West Kowloon Cultural District of Hong Kong, Nov. 11, 2021.
The city’s freedom of artistic expression has been declining since the national security law took effect last year, according to a local independent performance and dance artist who asked that she only be identified by her initial, “V.”
“This [the ban] did not come as a surprise - some artists’ works that might be considered sensitive are not allowed to display recently after the national security law was out, not to mention M+ is a government venue,” V told VOA.
Self-censorship has become a norm in Hong Kong’s art circles, V added.
“The atmosphere has been rather tense. Some movie screenings had to be canceled. Now we still want to voice out our views, but we start thinking about if we should express in a very edgy way, or if politics is the only way for us to express,” she said.
A new film censorship law came into effect in November that aims to “prevent and suppress acts or activities that may endanger national security.”
The supposedly autonomous region is now on track to mirror mainland China’s propaganda and censorship, McCausland said.
“Essentially Hong Kong is poised to become very similar to the framework within the rest of China, with artists being vigilant and constantly watching the moving sense of what’s OK and becoming attuned to when the likelihood is high of the system kicking in with legal ramifications, such as house detention or other judicial options that are open to the authorities, which they are happy to use to ensure the public discourse of harmony,” he said.
Growing art censorship is expected to intensify the talent drain in Hong Kong, which has witnessed an exodus to Western countries, including Britain and Canada, since the start of the 2019 anti-government protests, the art expert said.
“We know there was an astounding majority in favor of democracy - the views of the people were very clear but now you are hearing and seeing the space for expression has been closed down, and often in a heavy-handed way,” McCausland said.
The University of Hong Kong, one of Hong Kong’s most prestigious educational institutions, has ordered the removal of a sculpture commemorating the student victims of the Tiananmen crackdown since October. The university cited “the latest risk assessment and legal advice” as the reason for the request to take away the iconic statue that has been in place for the last 24 years.
“Being an ‘artivist’ [activist artist] is not easy anymore - I started thinking about the role I should play in this era. … I can’t say for sure I will go, but some of my artist friends left because funding has become more challenging,” V said.
‘There is still hope here’ in Hong Kong: Zhang Xiaogang, Chinese contemporary artist, tours M+ museum
Zhang Xiaogang, the first major Chinese art figure to tour M+, admits to being pleasantly surprised by Hong Kong’s new museum and its exhibitions
Chinese artist Zhang Xiaogang (wearing a cap) in conversation with Pi Li, Sigg Senior Curator of M+, on December 2, 2021. The event was held at the M+ Lounge for patrons of Hong Kong’s new museum of visual culture. Photo: Enid Tsui
He says it would be ‘difficult’ to show some of its Chinese contemporary art in mainland China, and reaffirms his intention to live and work in Hong Kong
One of China’s best-known contemporary artists said after touring the newly opened M+ museum it had reassured him there is “still hope” in Hong Kong and that he was ready to live and work in the city as soon as quarantine restrictions on travel are lifted.
Zhang Xiaogang, 63, has painted some of the most recognisable works of the post-1989 generation of Chinese artists, and a large reproduction of his Bloodline – Big Family No. 17 (1998) is displayed prominently in one of the M+ lobbies.
Zhang, who arrived in Hong Kong on November 28, is the first major mainland Chinese artist to see the new museum of visual culture.
Speaking on December 2 to museum patrons, he said he had doubted what M+ could accomplish after the “rich” events of the past two years in Hong Kong, a reference to the 2019 anti-extradition-law protests and subsequent introduction of National Security Law, which includes broad powers of censorship that many fear will diminish the civil liberties enshrined in the city’s mini-constitution.
My art is independent of politics and only comes from within. I can make anything I like inside my studio in mainland ChinaZhang Xiaogang
“The opening hasn’t been very well publicised in mainland China. And the level of anticipation had gone from very strong to numbness over the years. But now that I’m here, I am surprised and also touched to see the building and the exhibitions,” he said.
Without mentioning specific works, he said the contents in the Sigg Galleries of contemporary Chinese art would be “difficult” to show under mainland China’s strict censorship regime. “There is still hope here,” he added.
“The Dark Trilogy: Fear, Meditation, Sorrow” by Zhang Xiaogang on display ahead of a Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong in 2020. Photo: SCMP/Sam Tsang
M+ opened on November 12 after 14 years of preparations, at a time when the Hong Kong government’s strict implementation of the National Security Law has impinged on many aspects of life in the city, including the cultural realm: people have been arrested for publishing a children’s book about sheep and wolves that was considered seditious, for example, and the film censorship law amended to allow the screening of films to be banned on national security grounds.
The museum’s Sigg Collection of contemporary Chinese art, which includes three pieces by Zhang, has been attacked for promoting anti-Chinese sentiment by pro-Beijing politicians and newspapers controlled by the Chinese government’s liaison office in Hong Kong. However, M+ insists its curatorial independence has not been affected by politics, and works by dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and paintings referencing the Cultural Revolution and the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown remain on display.
Speaking to the Post, Zhang stressed that his long-planned move to Hong Kong was mainly prompted by practical considerations rather than freedom of expression. “New Beijing” by Wang Xingwei, which references the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, on display at M+. Photo: SCMP/Felix Wong
In 2019, Zhang decided to set up a second home and workshop in Hong Kong because Pace Gallery, which represents him, closed its permanent space in Beijing. He has visited the city many times – coming often to attend the annual Art Basel international art fair – but acknowledged that his knowledge of the city remains shallow. (He could not remember where his Ap Lei Chau workshop is located, for example.)
“It is simply too complicated to move my paintings from Beijing to the gallery here,” he said, referring to the city’s tax-free status and easy connections to the rest of world before the pandemic.
Of his work, Zhang said: “My art is independent of politics and only comes from within. I can make anything I like inside my studio in mainland China.” That is true even for his painting One Day in March 2020 (2020), which he completed shortly after the death of Dr Li Wenliang, the whistle-blower in Wuhan who tried to alert people to the spread of Covid-19 but was reprimanded by the police.
One Day in March 2020, Zhang Xiaogang. Photo: courtesy Pace Gallery
The painting shows a hand holding a torch that illuminates newspaper cuttings about the pandemic. “I have never said it was a commemoration. The painting merely reflects my own emotions. It’s open to interpretation,” Zhang said.
He said he did appreciate the chance to see art in Hong Kong that he wouldn’t see in Beijing, especially as many of the paintings at M+ donated by Swiss collector Uli Sigg were by artists he has known well. “It gives me such a warm feeling to see these works again,” he said.
In a speech at M+, Zhang spoke obliquely about how his whole approach to art changed after the 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement.
Bloodline – Big Family No 3 (1995) by Zhang Xiaogang.
“After 1989, artists like myself experienced a great awakening from within. We felt we had to find our own identity, our own position, role and values in the world. It was a big turning point for me,” he said.
He explained that before 1989, his paintings were “romantic narratives” reflecting on Western art historical materials and philosophy that the 1978 opening up of China had made available to a generation that grew up during the Cultural Revolution. But after a short spell in Germany in 1992, he returned home to look through old family photo albums and saw them with new eyes, he said.
The result was his “Bloodline – Big Family” series. These large oil paintings of Cultural Revolution-era family studio portraits show near-identical faces all bearing the same, expressionless, blank look.
“It moved me that no matter what pain people went through in their lives they looked the same in the photos. I also wanted to reflect certain de-individualised traditions in Chinese aesthetics,” he said.
He has long moved on from this career-making series, and in recent years has produced works that are more surreal and dream-like. Some of these will soon go on display at a new solo exhibition in Shanghai’s Long Museum, he said.
“I look forward to the day when I can have a solo exhibition at M+”, he added.
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