While the author’s previous book on the matter, Exploring the Illusion of Free Will, Second Edition, is a popular work, this brief discourse is decidedly and robustly academic. It will doubtlessly prove inaccessible to many physical and social science professors who are, as evident by the profusion of elementally flawed free will defenses published by major peer-reviewed journals, far more adept at learning, communicating and applying concepts and principles than at understanding their fundamental nature. The book focuses exclusively on the physical refutation of the free will construct, concurrently addressing claims that because we are human, our choices are somehow exempt from physical law. It also delves deeply into quantum mechanical principles and phenomena relevant to the free will question, siding with Einstein, Bohm, Hawking, Krauss and others regarding the causal nature of both the macro and quantum world. The refutations presented hopefully describe the physical evidence against free will with sufficient strength and clarity to win over more hitherto agnostic minds than have earlier attempts by other authors. The book's original contributions to the literature on human agency are that it presents an a priori argument for the causality that refutes free will, and that it not only challenges recent published warnings of dangerous repercussions from abandoning belief in free will, it presents a convincing argument for humanity evolving beyond a notion of free choice that seems the catalyst for more harm than good. The author presents evidence associating the psychological defense mechanism known as "denial" with free will belief, and proposes that a belief in human autonomy's correlate of fundamental moral responsibility amplifies the widespread denial of the existence and anthropogenic origin of a climate change crisis that, unless successfully mitigated, many prominent scientists fear poses a serious threat to the civilization we know. The hard physical evidence prohibiting free will, and the arguments suggesting a serious downside to maintaining the belief, will hopefully inspire a long-overdue exploration of the implications of acknowledging that we live in a world in which we, as humans, have fundamentally no control. Such an investigation is clearly akin to our formulating a categorically new, and distinctly evolved, understanding of who we are, and of what our essential collective experience is, as a human species.
Just as the world’s controlling population won that control by selling goods and services, humanity must use this same means to win back the level of political influence necessary to first winning its battle against them, and then winning the battle against climate change. Humanity must go into business for the sake and interests of humanity, and market products that compete with, and win against, products marketed by today’s controlling population. Climate Rescue Capitalism is a powerful vehicle by which business profit within a capitalist economy can be redirected in order to fight climate change. It is a way to direct product profits away from conventional corporations and toward the funding of the scientific, sociological and political initiatives needed to best mitigate and adapt to climate change. As such, it represents a pragmatic coming together of capitalist and socialist perspectives that maximizes the fundamental strengths of these two disparate economic systems, as they relate to climate change. As a strategy, Climate Rescue Capitalism, is deceptively simple but of unparalleled promise. The idea is to create new companies we will call Climate Rescue Corporations that do business in order to finance the fight against climate change. These corporations would be owned and operated by private individuals as well as not-for-profit climate change organizations. They would manufacture products to compete with existing products offered by conventional companies. Consumers would choose Climate Rescue Corporation products over those of their competitors because they would prefer to see the profit from their purchases be used to fight climate change than to further enrich private corporations. This market-based means of increasing humanity’s ability to fight climate change is called Climate Rescue Capitalism for two reasons. First, because it is a capitalist venture designed expressly to fund the fight against climate change. And second, because it is a free-market capitalist venture in every sense of the word. It requires no government participation, and infringes upon no one’s personal, political or economic freedom. It is nothing more, or less, than the utilization of capitalist marketing principles and practices for the purpose of fighting climate change, rather than to further enrich the individuals and corporations whose stranglehold on our world’s political will to fight climate change is neither ecologically sustainable, nor morally acceptable. How effective would the selling point of donating 100 percent of product profit to fighting climate change be in encouraging shoppers to buy these kinds of products? In early September, 2014, I conducted a survey in White Plains, New York to determine if consumers would buy Climate Rescue Corporation supermarket products equal in price and quality to products they now buy to help fight climate change, and 44 of the 50 respondents surveyed answered “yes.” The exact question I had respondents read so as to not verbally influence their answer was: "If your supermarket offered new food products that were equal in price and quality to the products that you now buy, and you knew that one hundred percent of the profit from these new products would be donated to the cause of fighting climate change, would you buy these new products?" Climate Rescue Corporations would provide us with the opportunity to do something very good for ourselves and for our world’s future generations every time we buy one of their products. And we would feel very good about doing this good. We would also feel good about learning more and more about climate change by reading with interest and motivation the routinely updated information provided on the package labels of the products we buy. These small joys are, of course, insignificant when compared to the good we would be doing to hasten our world’s meaningful response to the climate crisis. This is Climate Rescue Capitalism’s real gift.
After forty years in the Hell's Angels, George Christie was ready to retire. As the president of the high-profile Ventura chapter of the club, he had been the yin to Sonny Barger's yang. Barger was the reckless figurehead and de facto world leader of the Angels. Christie was the negotiator, the spokesman, the thinker, the guy who smoothed things out. He was the one who carried the Olympic torch and counted movie stars, artists, the Grateful Dead, and police chief captains among his friends. But leaving isn't easy, and within two weeks of retirement he was told he was 'out bad,' blackballed by his fellow Angels, prohibited from wearing the club patch, even told he should remove his Death's Head tattoo. Now, Christie's set out to tell his story
Cybercrime has become increasingly prevalent in the new millennium as computer-savvy criminals have developed more sophisticated ways to victimize people online and through other digital means. The Law of Cybercrimes and Their Investigations is a comprehensive text exploring the gamut of issues surrounding this growing phenomenon. After an introduction to the history of computer crime, the book reviews a host of topics including: Information warfare and cyberterrorism Obscenity, child pornography, sexual predator conduct, and online gambling Cyberstalking, cyberharassment, cyberbullying, and other types of unlawful expression Auction fraud, Ponzi and pyramid schemes, access device fraud, identity theft and fraud, securities and bank fraud, money laundering, and electronic transfer fraud Data privacy crimes, economic espionage, and intellectual property crimes Principles applicable to searches and seizures of computers, other digital devices, and peripherals Laws governing eavesdropping, wiretaps, and other investigatory devices The admission of digital evidence in court Procedures for investigating cybercrime beyond the borders of the prosecuting jurisdiction Each chapter includes key words or phrases readers should be familiar with before moving on to the next chapter. Review problems are supplied to test assimilation of the material, and the book contains weblinks to encourage further study.
Discloses the Israeli plan to assassinate the known terrorist leaders responsible for the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes and chronicles the story of the hit-squad's leader, a man morally destroyed by his mission.
The first four chapters of this book give a comprehensive and unified theory of the Krylov methods. Many of these are shown to be particular examples ofthe block conjugate-gradient algorithm and it is this observation thatpermits the unification of the theory. The two major sub-classes of thosemethods, the Lanczos and the Hestenes-Stiefel, are developed in parallel asnatural generalisations of the Orthodir (GCR) and Orthomin algorithms. Theseare themselves based on Arnoldi's algorithm and a generalised Gram-Schmidtalgorithm and their properties, in particular their stability properties,are determined by the two matrices that define the block conjugate-gradientalgorithm. These are the matrix of coefficients and the preconditioningmatrix.In Chapter 5 the"transpose-free" algorithms based on the conjugate-gradient squared algorithm are presented while Chapter 6 examines the various ways in which the QMR technique has been exploited. Look-ahead methods and general block methods are dealt with in Chapters 7 and 8 while Chapter 9 is devoted to error analysis of two basic algorithms.In Chapter 10 the results of numerical testing of the more important algorithms in their basic forms (i.e. without look-ahead or preconditioning) are presented and these are related to the structure of the algorithms and the general theory. Graphs illustrating the performances of various algorithm/problem combinations are given via a CD-ROM.Chapter 11, by far the longest, gives a survey of preconditioning techniques. These range from the old idea of polynomial preconditioning via SOR and ILU preconditioning to methods like SpAI, AInv and the multigrid methods that were developed specifically for use with parallel computers. Chapter 12 is devoted to dual algorithms like Orthores and the reverse algorithms of Hegedus. Finally certain ancillary matters like reduction to Hessenberg form, Chebychev polynomials and the companion matrix are described in a series of appendices. · comprehensive and unified approach· up-to-date chapter on preconditioners· complete theory of stability· includes dual and reverse methods· comparison of algorithms on CD-ROM· objective assessment of algorithms
The epic saga that inspired HBO’s Game of Thrones made George R. R. Martin an international phenomenon, but there’s much more to this versatile, prolific, and original author. In addition to the book that kicks off A Song of Ice of Fire, this eBook bundle includes Dreamsongs: Volume I, which showcases Martin’s early writings; Fevre Dream, the acclaimed author’s reinvention of the vampire novel; and The Armageddon Rag, a thrilling story of psychedelic—and apocalyptic—rock. Spanning genres of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and suspense, Martin’s virtuosic talents will surprise and delight even his most devoted fans. A GAME OF THRONES “The only fantasy series I’d put on a level with J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings . . . It’s a fantasy series for hip, smart people, even those who don’t read fantasy.”—Chicago Tribune In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. As sinister forces mass beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall, the king’s powers are failing—his most trusted adviser is dead and his enemies are emerging from the shadows of the throne. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the frozen land they were born to. Now Lord Eddard Stark is reluctantly summoned to serve as the king’s new Hand, an appointment that threatens to sunder not only his family but the kingdom itself. DREAMSONGS: VOLUME I “The ideal way to discover . . . a master of science fiction, fantasy and horror. . . . Martin is a writer like no other.”—The Guardian (U.K.) Gathered here are the very best of Martin’s early works, including his Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker award–winning stories, cool fan pieces, and the original novella The Ice Dragon, from which his New York Times bestselling children’s book of the same title originated. With extensive author commentary, Dreamsongs: Volume I is a rare treat, offering fascinating insights into Martin’s journey from young writer to award-winning master. FEVRE DREAM “An adventure into the heart of darkness that transcends even the most inventive vampire novels.”—Los Angeles Herald Examiner Abner Marsh, a struggling riverboat captain, suspects that something’s amiss when he is approached by a wealthy aristocrat with a lucrative offer. The hauntingly pale, steely-eyed Joshua York doesn’t care that the icy winter of 1857 has wiped out all but one of Marsh’s dilapidated fleet. Not until the maiden voyage of Fevre Dream does Marsh realize that he has joined a mission both more sinister, and perhaps more noble, than his most fantastic nightmare—and humankind’s most impossible dream. THE ARMAGEDDON RAG “The best novel concerning the American pop music culture of the sixties I’ve ever read.”—Stephen King Onetime underground journalist Sandy Blair has come a long way from his radical roots in the sixties—until he’s drawn back by the bizarre and brutal murder of a rock promoter who made millions with a band called the Nazgûl. As Sandy investigates the crime, he finds himself drawn back into his own past. For a new messiah has resurrected the Nazgûl along with a requiem of demonism, mind control, and death, whose apocalyptic tune only Sandy may be able to change.
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