In a recent podcast, Does the Moon Exist if No One is Looking at It?, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor interviewed philosopher and computer programmer Bernardo Kastrup. Dr. Kastrup has been, in Dr. Egnors words, leading a modern renaissance of metaphysical idealismthat is, reality is essentially mental rather than physical.

Of course, Kastrups view is parts ways with the dominant materialist perspective in science. But growing numbers in science are becoming curious about or comfortable with his panpsychist perspective. In the interview, he is sympathetic to the basic intuitions behind intelligent design theory but he and Egnor have very different conceptions of what underlies the universe.

Michael Egnor: And so can consciousness have evolved by a Darwinian mechanism?

Bernardo Kastrup: I think by definition it cannot. By the way we define matter, it could not have evolved because it performs no function. Our physicalist account of reality entails that it is the measurable quantitative properties of matter that are causally efficacious. In other words, its mass, spin, charge, momentum that leads to effects, that leads to the dynamisms of nature, to the chains of cause and effect. And consciousness, that qualitative state that seems to accompany the quantitative dynamics of physicality, by definition cannot have causal efficacy

Thats the definition of consciousness and matter under a physicalist metaphysics. So if it cannot produce an effect, if its something that simply accompanies the material dynamisms of the world, it could not have been favored by natural selection. And then of course, what materialist Darwinists would say is that it doesnt need to have an effect in order to evolve. Even if it has no selective advantage, it could still have evolved. And I think this basically renders evolutionary theory, unfalsifiable. Because if something, as presumably complex as consciousness can evolve, even if it has no function, even if its not selected by natural selection, then anything at all could have evolved and we might as well just throw our arms up and start over.

Michael Egnor (pictured): Thats actually a fascinating perspective because what youve described is in fact, what Darwinists tend to suggest, that consciousness is epiphenomenal. But youre right. If something as remarkable as consciousness could take place without natural selection, then anything could take place without natural selection, and then what role does natural selection have in the explanation for nature?

Bernardo Kastrup: Exactly. You see, theyre forced into two alternatives. One, consciousness is strongly emergent. In other words, its something that comes into being only when there is sufficient physical complexity, like the complexity of the brain. In other words, consciousness is something very complex. So they may appeal to that, but then they cannot explain why that complexity that leads to consciousness evolved because presumably its a very different type of complexity than the complexity required to manipulate data at the cognitive level, without accompanying experience. Theres no reason to think that these two complexities are the same. Theyre incommensurable.

So the other alternative they have is to say, well, it doesnt need to be very complex for consciousness to accompany physical dynamisms and therefore it could have just come along, even if it was not selected for, because it doesnt need to be complex. Well, that immediately puts you on the field of panpsychism, cosmopsychism, and idealism, which also defeats materialism. So its very difficult to see how the metaphysics of materialism can survive together with newer Darwinism. I personally think that its the metaphysics of materialism that we have to get to rid of.

Note: Kastrup has clashed with Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne on this topic. See: No, consciousness cannot be just a byproduct: Philosopher Bernardo Kastrup responds to biologist Jerry Coynes claim that consciousness could be a mere by-product of a useful evolved trait.

Michael Egnor: What do you think of intelligent design theory?

Bernardo Kastrup (pictured): I do not know enough about it to really make an intelligent comment. I am ashamed to confess to this. But what I read about it, the limited reading I spent on this, suggests to me that there is nothing crazy about it. It seems a very reasonable thing to imagine that there are organizing principles in nature that have a causal influence on the organization of genomes in the course of evolution. And that we may not be aware of these organizing principles yet. I mean, thats a fundamental assumption in science, that there are patterns of organization out there that we dont know yet. Thats why we do research. Thats why you try to find out more about how the universe works.

So I think it is reasonable to imagine that the supposedly random mutations at the root of evolution may after all, not really be random, they may comply to certain patterns of organization, some organizing principles in nature, that we still do not know very well. I would say that evolution by natural selection does happen in the sense that species evolve into other species through the accrual of genetic mutations. But I think to say that these genetic mutations are random at root is a baseless statement to make. We just do not have enough data to run a randomness test to see if these mutations are really random. For all we know they are following certain coherent and consistent patterns through the course of evolution. And we do not know what the causal agency behind those patterns might be, but I think its prudent to say that we do not know as opposed to saying that well, they are definitely random, because thats something we simply cannot know. Its just a prejudiced statement by definition.

Note: Kastrup and Egnor discussed atheist philosopher Jerry Fodors book, What Darwin Got Wrong (2010), in which Fodor (19352017) discussed the vacuity of natural selection as a concept. Kastrup offered some thoughts from his own work on evolutionary paradigms, sing computer programs:

Bernardo Kastrup: My own perspective, and this is not Fodors perspective, my own perspective is that materialists have used the concept of natural selection as if it was a force in nature. That is, as if it was a level of explanation. And I believe, and Fodor or seemed to come at it from this perspective, that natural selection is not a level of explanation. It doesnt mean anything. What means things is the physical constraints that each organism has as to what its capable of doing and the natural history of that organism and the population that its in. Natural selection is nothing above and beyond that

What I can share with you is that, my first PhD back in 2001, half a life ago, was in computer engineering. And I did run for a while in my life, experiments, computing experiments with genetic algorithms, cellular, [inaudible 00:11:35], neural networks, but applying an evolutionary paradigm to that. So as to force a certain architecture or a certain optimization structure to change and adapt according to some cost function that was determined by the surrounding environment in that computer simulation. And it was impressed on me from that time, that fitness principles clearly seem to happen in those simulations.

If you change the function that gives you the cost, you get completely different organizational structures, completely different paths for solving a problem. So Im not skeptical of that. What I am skeptical of is the randomness of the mutations that underlie the process. My intuition is that the mutations arent random. Randomness after all, is just an acknowledgement of causal ignorance. Everything in principle is caused, but when we dont know what the cause is, and we cant discern any pattern, we say its random. But thats all there is to it, its ignorance. I suspect there are organizing principles that steer the mutations down some roots, some avenues that may increase an overall cost or reduce an overall cost function or a teleological target, so to say. This is what I suspect.

Later, Kastrup offered some thoughts on how he understands God:

Bernardo Kastrup: I dont think God is self-reflective. I dont think it is metacognitive. I dont think it tells itself, Oh, Im doing this now. And Im going to do that. I dont think thats whats going on. I think there are experiential states underlying nature, they are felt. They may be even omniscient. But I tend to think they are instinctive, not premeditated. So when I say its getting warm or getting cold, what I mean is the universe may instinctively knows whether things are going a direction that is not planned because there is no planning, but which minimizes, some felt cost function, or maximizes it some felt desire function. And it never knows beyond what is right in front of it. But it knows whether whats happening right now is conducive to that increased pleasure or reduced cost or not.

And it may influence things. There may be an organizing principle that influences things based on this experiential instinctive reaction at the most fundamental level of nature. This is what Im suggesting.

Michael Egnor: And its kind of an interesting perspective that falls out of our conversation that strikes me as something quite relevant, is the richness of the idealistic perspective on metaphysics. In contrast with the materialist perspective. Theres so much profound, fascinating stuff in the idealist perspective and materialism is really just an impoverished mistake.

Note: Here is a paperBernardo Kastrup has published on panpsychism.

Further reading on panpsychism:

Consciousness cannot have evolved. How many joules of consciousness would make you a human instead of a chimpanzee? How many more joules of consciousness would make you a genius?

Why is science growing comfortable with panpsychism (everything is conscious)? At one time, the idea that everything is conscious was the stuff of jokes. Not any more, it seems.

Why some scientists believe the universeis conscious.Theyre not mystics. But materialism is not giving good answers so they are looking around

No materialist theory of consciousness isplausible.All such theories either deny the very thing they are trying to explain, result in absurd scenarios, or end up requiring an immaterial intervention.(Eric Holloway)

Panpsychism: You are conscious butso is your coffee mug.Materialists have a solution to the problem of consciousness, and it may startle you.

How can consciousness bea material thing?Maybe it cant. But materialist philosophers face starkly limited choices in how to view consciousness.

and

Can machines begiven consciousness?A prominent researcher in consciousness studies offers reasons for doubt.

Podcast Transcript for Download

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Why Consciousness Couldn't Just Evolve from the Mud - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

Have you ever stood in the skin-care aisle of your favorite beauty store and felt enthralled and yettotally bewildered? Were living in the glory days of skin care, with more options than ever before, with a growing number of influences and innovations, be it a hybrid formula or a new moisturizing technique (really). But even so, some classics remain untouchablethink household names like Cetaphil Daily Facial Cleanser ($6) and Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion ($28). So where does skin care go from here? And is it time for you to switch things up? We decided to scope things out.

Lets start with the familiar. Many old-school productsincluding those mentioned above, as well as Ponds Cold Cream, Dove Beauty Bar, and Olay Beauty Fluidhave achieved their status as skin-care classics in part because of their gentle formulations. Were they to have a group motto, it would be: First, do no harm.

Their chosen ingredients are gentle for nearly all skin types and can calm and improve skin on a very basic level, improving moisture and hydration, explains Rachel Nazarian, MD, a dermatologist at Schweiger Dermatology in New York City. Hydrated skin may not seem dramatic, but it can make a very drastic difference in the quality of skin.

Instead of being tricked out with actives or making near-unbelievable product claims, the majority of these formulas simply give skin what it needs on a more fundamental level than, say, your average serum. The basics never go out of style, agrees cosmetic chemist NiKita Wilson. Theyre the reliable workhorses of the average skin-care routine. (It doesnt hurt that they tend to be available at mass retailers, too.)

Still, newer ingredients inevitably come to the forefrontparticularly when they contain a cocktail of active ingredients. Some of the most popular actives, such as vitamin C, retinol, and vitamin E, will never go out of style, says Wilson. Brands may not call them out, but because they are so efficacioustried-and-true, [with] decades of studiesthey will always have a home, she explains. Many brands can and do highlight them, though, in accordance with the level of consumer education. The more you hear about the brightening benefits of vitamin C, for example, the more likely youll see L-ascorbic acid highlighted as a star ingredient in a product.

The upside here is that theres not much overlap between these super-effective actives and gentle staples. As Dr. Nazarian mentioned, the classics are rooted in more basic tasks. As long as youre satisfied, theres no reason to ditch your moisturizer if youre simply adding a vitamin C serum to your routine. And some ingredients that have only recently become buzzy, like hyaluronic acid, have low-key been around for decades.

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However, that doesnt mean theyre without room for improvement. Take vitamin C, which is notoriously unstable. Formulators are now exploring equally effective yet more stable forms of it, such as tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate (THD ascorbate). This allows for high efficacy and stability without additional supporters and boosters needed, says Dr. Nazarian. That sort of flexibility will give an ingredient more staying power.

In other cases, however, the drawbacks lead to entire categories being replaced. Products that remove surface hydration, disrupt the natural moisturizers of the skin, or threaten the microbiome of our skin are [becoming less popular and] being replaced by gentler, smarter alternatives that support our natural skin state, says Dr. Nazarian. That makes sense, seeing as the rise of probiotics and subsequent chatter about the microbiome has made everyone much more conscious of their skin barrier.

For that reason, notes Dr.Nazarian, both scrubs and harsh alcohol-based toners are outleaving the door wide open for acids. Glycolic, lactic, and salicylic acids, among many others, are the new guard of exfoliants. Though acid exfoliation is popular right now, years of research and proven efficacy make these ingredients reliable, says Wilson.

Among the big trends in skin care over the last decade, clean beauty stands out. Its what Wilson believes will challenge the skin-care industry for years to comeas well as stringent formulation rules set by clean-beauty retailers like Credo Beauty, Follain, and NakedPoppy. We no longer can use ingredients that we have relied on forever to create stable, texturally interesting formulas that are effective, Wilson explains. Ingredient stories come and go, but getting the actual formulas right pose the biggest issues.

Already, clean beauty has assumed the role of gatekeeper for what makes it into new products. For instance, hydroquinone, octinoxate, and oxybenzone are ingredients that have fallen out of favor due to safety concerns, says Wilson.

Hydroquinone, a skin-brightening ingredient popular among dermatologists, has already been banned by the EU, Japan, and Australia, although the FDA still permits it in certain concentrations here in the United States. Meanwhile, octinoxate and oxybenzone are sunscreen actives that are on many brands banned lists because of safety and environmental concerns, says Wilson.

And thats just the beginningthere are microplastics, artificial colorants, and other harmful ingredients to consider. Even if the powers-that-be (i.e. the government) are slow to adjust their standards, many beauty brands are doing the work for them based on pressure from informed consumers.

Another factor in the future of skin care is the social media conversation. Whether its a debate about whether certain molecular sizes of hyaluronic acid cause dryness or the safety of ingredients like polyethylene glycol, the comment section is something to which peopleand brandspay attention.

While that can be a good thing in terms of education, with consumers having greater knowledge of what they put on their skin, theres no fact-checking system for the dialogue. The same goes for influencers, which is especially worrisome to Dr. Nazarian. Influencerswith no formal training or understanding of dermatology and skin functionare able to spotlight specific products and brands often based on sponsorship alone, she says. This makes it more challenging for good, science-backed, effective products to gain attention.

Thats a big deal when youre talking about skin care versus makeup. Skin is an organ, no less important than our eyes, our lungs, our heart, says Dr. Nazarian. Its important to let facts and science determine what deserves our attention, energy, and, of course, our financial support. The upside, however, is that these conversations still serve as a direct line to brands, informing and influencing formulations to come.

The nice thing about skin care is that theres always room for improvement, be it in terms of speed, experience, or simplicity. The next frontier will be to satisfy the budding demand for clean formulations amid the onset of new challenges to skin health, like exposure to blue light. Thats one skin concern that Wilson is particularly excited to tackle as she creates new cosmetic formulas. There are a couple of ingredients surrounding blue light that got me very excited because the story was more than just an antioxidant play, she explains. It actually showed how blue light affects the skin.

Nazarian, on the other hand, is bullish about ingredients for mature skinnamely, peptides. These small-chain amino acid proteins are able to effectively send messages to our cells and alter how it behaves, she says. They have the capacity to soften wrinkles and expression lines and boost collagen production.

No matter what exciting ingredients or formulations are in store, its still comforting to know that we can always count on the classics while testing out the next big thing. And there might be an even better version coming sooner than you think.

More:
How the History of Skin Care Pushes the Industry Forward - Well+Good

Summarizing the history of a 175-year-old magazinethat's 5,107 editions with 199,694 pages containing 110,292,327 words!into a series of graphics was a daunting assignment. When the hard drive with 64 gigabytes of .pdf files arrived at my home in Germany, I was curious to dig in but also a bit scared: as a data-visualization consultant with a background in cognitive science, I am well aware that the nuance of language and its semantic contents can only be approximated with computational methods.

I like to start by brainstorming concept ideas and data-discovery questions and immersing myself in the available materials. To get inspired, I read samples of the magazine across the decades, marveling at the old illustrations and typefaces. I set up a data-preprocessing pipeline early on to extract the text from the .pdf files and run the first analyses. I used Jupyter Notebooks (a flexible programming environment for data exploration) with the spaCy Python library (which uses computational linguistics to turn mere character sequences into a structured representation of language) as well as the pandas package (a tool kit for processing large amounts of numeric data easily and quickly).

A central question in any data-science project is how wide a net one casts on the data set. If the net is too coarse, all the interesting little fish might escape. Yet if it is too fine, one can end up with a lot of debris, and too much detail can obscure the big picture. Can we find a simple but interesting and truthful way to distill a wealth of data into a digestible form? The editors and I explored many concept ideas: looking at sentence lengths, the first occurrences of specific words, changes in interpunctuation styles (would there be a rise of question marks?), and mentions of persons and places. Would any of these approaches be supported by the available data?

It soon became apparent that any texts from the predigital era of Scientific American (before 1993) are to some degree affected by optical character-recognition (OCR) errors. Reconstructing the original text from images is an inherently noisy process where letters can be mixed up (for instance, substantially was often parsed as snbstantlally), words might be combined or split at the wrong places, or multicolumn layouts might be read in the wrong order. Accordingly, zooming out on the data-analysis lens to a yearly perspective (rather than working on the level of individual editions) and analyzing the count of single words (rather than looking for compound terms or doing sentence-level analyses) became our sweet spot in the trade-off space between accuracy and robustness against noise.

My first intuition was to focus on what has been written about, but working with the data, I became especially intrigued by looking at the how: the evolution of verbs, adjectives and adverbs. These word types can tell so much about how the tone and attitude of the original magazine have changed from the engineering-driven, mechanistic language to the multifaceted science magazine we know today.

Another key insight was learning that there is actually very little variety in the vocabulary used in the English language. Given that the frequency of words in a language (and in the corpus of Scientific American's text archives) is so skewed, rather than comparing raw numbers of how often words occur, it became far more compelling to look at how the proportion of text a word occupies each year (its relative frequency) evolves over time.

Based on this central idea, we explored many different visual formsword clouds, stack area graphs, line charts, animations, spatial maps of semantic spacesbefore settling on the layered stacked area chart for the opening spread as the overview visualization. This high-level view of the major shifts in vocabulary, shown as sediment layers, is complemented by the individual miniature line charts showing the evolution of each top peaking word per year.

Making dense chart arrangements effortlessly scannable requires conscious visual design choices. Reinforcing the shape of the line chart with a continuous color scale may seem like a redundant decoration, but it is perceptually quite effective because it allows us to quickly see if a word is old or new without studying the line shape in detail. In addition, the color associations (gray/brown representing the mechanistic, vintage past, compared to a fresh, modern purple for the present) help to tie data semantics and visual form together.

Doing data science means having to live with imperfections. No model can be a 1:1 reproduction of reality, and some of the data still remains mysterious to me. For instance: Why does the use of substantially drop so substantially after 1868? (I suspect some OCR errors in connection with new typefaces.) Others are launching points for investigation: Why did tomato peak so heavily in 1978? Each new discovery instigates curiosity, and I encourage others to view this data set not as an objective and final measurement but as inspiration for new questions.

Explore the data yourself at http://www.scientificamerican.com/interactive/science-words

Originally posted here:
How to Turn 175 Years of Words in Scientific American into an Image - Scientific American

The chicken or the egg which came first? Tourists or locals?

Santa Fe has been a destination since the 16th century with the arrival of Spanish conquistadors looking for gold and religious converts, leaving a footprint as big as the Southwest across New Spains northern provinces.

From the beginning, we have been a tourist town. Santa Fe was such a draw that its name was affixed first to the main trail west of Missouri and then to a railroad that didnt even pass through Santa Fe.

We have become a local conglomeration mixed in a petri dish of DNA, customs, styles, tastes, likes and dislikes. Blame for the tensions now present in town belongs to no one in particular, yet all of us are living in a pressure cooker of uncertainty, hopes and fears.

Will our small businesses survive? Will we emerge from the pandemic in good health? Will we even recognize many of the components of the old normal? What will the new normal be like?

My fear, like many, is that the fabric of our economy could unravel to such an unprecedented degree that the stitching composed of the millions of small businesses will not withstand the pressures of their foundations being laid bare to the elements of the current economic storm.

Will Lowes and Home Depot squeeze out Big Jo True Value Hardware and Alpine Builders Supply? Or will our local businesses turn toward one another and get on the same economic bandwagon? Could the new normal become an economy still based on small, individually owned restaurants and retail establishments, small businesses like the Inn on the Alameda?

Could the new normal be even better? Quite possibly, America will yearn to rebuild in the old tradition, create a better environment with defined hipness and pride associated with shopping locally.

Maybe this COVID-19 experience will scare us all the way back to the past and what we recall as better times, when business owners recognized their customers by name. This will take commitment on our communitys part to pay a little more to maintain who we are.

Maybe a great starting place should be a friendly acknowledgment of others with more of a smile than a scowl, even while wearing a mask.

The inn is coming back to life, slower it seems than other properties, we believe, because we hitched our wagon to a more mature clientele, guests who do not want pay-per-view or room service, who arrive with books about Bandelier, Santa Fe, the pueblos, our art and culture.

These older profile guests are more health conscious during this pandemic. Hence they are more reluctant to travel right now.

I am at a loss to think of any better approach to craft the new normal than in terms of how we have defined ourselves over centuries of socioeconomic evolution a vast blanket of small businesses covering the land.

Joe Schepps is the president and co-owner of the Inn on the Alameda and has lived in New Mexico for 50 years.

More:
Where will the new normal take this tourist town? - Santa Fe New Mexican

Aug. 18, 2020, 7:37 PM UTC

Transcript

Into America

Into Black Women and the 19th Amendment

Joe Biden: You ready to go to work?

Kamala Harris: Oh, my God, I am so ready to go to work.

Trymaine Lee: Kamala Harris is ready to get to work.

Harris: My mother knew that she was raising two Black daughters who would be treated differently because of how they looked. Growing up, whenever I got upset about something, my mother would look me in the eye and ask, "So, what are you gonna do about it?"

Lee: As Joe Biden's VP pick, she'll be the first Black woman to appear on the presidential ticket for a major political party. And if the Biden-Harris ticket wins this fall, Harris will be the country's first female vice president, putting her closer to the Oval Office than any other woman in history. She'll stand on the shoulders of the women who came before her, people like Shirley Chisholm.

Shirley Chisholm: I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States of America. (APPLAUSE)

Lee: And build on the legacy of women like Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton: Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you it's got about 18 million cracks in it. (APPLAUSE)

Lee: Harris's nomination comes the same year that the country is commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which prohibited voting discrimination based on sex. The irony here though is that Kamala Harris wouldn't have really been part of that victory.

I'm Trymaine Lee and this is Into America. Tuesday marks 100 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment, but that milestone, despite the work done by women of all races for the right to vote, was mostly a win for white women. Today, we're looking at the role Black women played in leading the charge for full voting rights for all Americans and the impact of that work on today's politics.

Martha Jones is one of the leading voices when it comes to understanding Black women's political participation. She's a legal and cultural historian, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of a new book out this September called Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All.

When we hear about the suffrage movement, we often hear about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, but there are women missing. In particular, Black women are missing. What have you found about the role of Black women pushing and fighting and grappling with the suffrage movement itself and the right to vote?

Martha Jones: The first thing I learned is that if I looked for Black women in suffrage associations like those led by Stanton and Anthony, I would find some, but it would be very few. And so the first lesson really was to follow Black women where they were. It turns out they are in their churches, they are in anti-slavery societies, they are in civil rights organizations.

And when we follow them there, we discover that Black women are as engaged as any American women around questions of political power, are as interested as any in how to win voting rights, among other things. And why did we overlook them? Well, in part, because Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, beginning in the 1880s, write a history of women's suffrage.

And they privilege, if you will, their own story, their own part of the movement, and don't in fact follow African American women into their own organizations. For a long time, we relied upon their history as the history. And we had to come back then and discover new facets of the story.

Lee: So, as they're kind of, you know, practicing some level of erasure in writing the story of it, Black women were pushing and doing their thing. Who were some of these women? And we hear now people talking about women needing, you know, a seat at the table.

Jones: Uh-huh (Affirm).

Lee: And then others are saying like, "You know what? Let's build our own table." (LAUGH)

Jones: Uh-huh (Affirm).

Lee: Were Black women at the time doing that?

Jones: Absolutely building their own tables. Even at the very earliest decades of the 19th century, a woman like Jarena Lee, not a household name, but a Black woman preacher in the AME church who stirs things up in the AME church and really battles for the right to preach, to have authority, to have a license.

This is a beginning for Black women of this story. Maria Stewart, a peer to Jarena Lee in Boston, by the 1830s, speaking at the podium, fiery as any speaker of the era. Calling not only for a more concerted campaign for civil rights for Black Americans, but Maria Stewart recognizes that to be a woman and do that requires she also speak, if you will, a kind of feminist or a womanist rhetoric as well.

By the time we get to the 20th century and Ida B. Wells, the great journalist and anti-lynching campaigner, also a suffragist. Mary Church Terrell, the first president of the National Association of Colored Women. And we could come forward all the way to the modern civil rights era. That is, too, part of the story. Fannie Lou Hamer, Septima Clark, Rosa Parks, all women who cut their political teeth in voting rights even as they did many things as activists.

Lee: So, let's jump to the 19th Amendment. White leadership had a very specific strategy. What was it and how did race play a role in that strategy?

Jones: The open secret of the 19th Amendment is that the language of the amendment will do nothing to interfere with the Jim Crow laws that are already keeping Black men from the polls and are now gonna keep Black women from the polls, poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses.

The premise, the understanding is that Southern states in particular will continue to have the authority to use their laws to keep Black women from the polls. And this is an open dimension of the deliberations around the 19th Amendment. It is what makes it possible, for example, to achieve ratification of the amendment in a state like Tennessee. Tennessee will still be able to disenfranchise Black women even after it ratifies the 19th Amendment.

Lee: Yeah, I wanted to ask that. So, we get to 1920 and the 19th Amendment is ratified. In practice, what did the 19th Amendment actually change? And do we have a sense of how Black women at the time, given all the nuance, view the passage of the amendment?

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Jones: So, the-- the amendment strikes the word male from state laws and local laws across the country. No longer must you be a male person in order to vote. That's powerful. It's like the 15th Amendment that had stricken race from the formal laws around voting across the United States.

But Black women know that you don't have to say race and you don't have to say sex in order to disproportionately keep them from the polls. So, even before we get to the summer of 1920, Black women across the country are organizing in citizenship schools and suffrage schools where they are training one another in how to overcome the state law barriers that they are going to confront.

So, how do you pay a poll tax? What is a literacy test? What is an understanding test, right? These are the kinds of things that, in suffrage schools, Black women are going to learn to confront. And by the time we get to September and October of 1920, when the registrations rolls open for the first time across the country to American women, Black women are going to show up throughout the country and test the limits of the 19th Amendment, test their own capacities to overcome the hurdles that are laid in front of them.

And it will lead to a very, very uneven landscape for Black women who, in some cities, will in fact be able to register. I've written about St. Louis in Missouri and Danville in Kentucky. These are places where Black women successfully register and can cast ballots in 1920.

But I've also written about Daytona, Florida, and Florida more generally, where even those Black women who manage to register are going to face violence and intimidation that will mean risking their lives in order to get to the polls. And many of them will miss the opportunity to vote.

Lee: And I want to go back to something I just heard you mention, these suffrage schools. Were they, like, informally set up? How were they funded? Like, let's (LAUGH) jump back into that because I don't think many people have ever heard of a suffrage school. I know I haven't.

Jones: So, some of them are run by branches of the National Association of Colored Women. So, local women's clubs are sponsoring suffrage schools. Black women's YWCAs sponsoring suffrage schools. So, Black women are activating the political networks that they have already built by this time and now transforming them into suffrage schools.

One of the things I love about the school in St. Louis is that men show up also because Black men think, "Well, maybe this is the opportunity for me to learn how to overcome the barriers that have kept me from the polls." And so, while they are founded in the interest of getting women to the polls, Black men also show up and turn out to register in this year.

And so, it is a kind of resurgence. But, to your question, these are old networks, some of which go back all the way to the Civil War and the relief work that African American women had done across the country to support Black soldiers and Black refugees during the Civil War.

It's become part of a national network by the 1890s. And then Black women can activate that network. I'd say it's not going too far to suggest that those networks in churches, in YWCAs, in Black women's clubs, are still the networks, right, on the ground today mobilizing voters across the country.

Lee: You know, when we unpack and dig into all of the movements for rights, there are the names we know, right, and the names that have been lost to history, but played a meaningful role none the less. And in your book, Vanguard, you found a personal connection and the names of some women in your lineage who have been connected to civil rights and voting rights. Tell us about what you found in terms of that personal connection.

Jones: You know, I got very self-conscious as I was finishing Vanguard that the women whose pictures hang on my wall every day, (LAUGH) I didn't know their stories. And so, I take a kind of detour to try and understand my own grandmother, Susie Jones, born in Kentucky at the end of the 19th century, the daughter of a formerly enslaved woman.

And I follow her story. She's in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1920. She's a young mother. I can see her mother as an activist, but I can't quite see Susie. I follow her eventually to Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1926, when her husband, David, becomes president of the Black women's college in that city, Bennett College.

And I still can't figure out if she voted. I go to the state archives and it turns out nobody has saved the records. We can't really tell that early history of women's votes with the kind of detail, right, that I would like to have, which is my question, did my grandmother vote.

But by the 1950s and certainly by 1960, the young women at Bennett College are registering voters in the city of Greensboro. And there's my grandmother recounting that history. The word she uses is she was thrilled. And I realize that by following her story, it was a lesson in how to tell Black women's history of the vote, that it couldn't stop in 1920.

Maybe I'll never know if she voted in 1920, but that in fact, for her, the story continues all the way until the modern civil rights era, until 1960, 1965, and the passage of the Voting Rights Act. And this is a chapter that Black women, like my grandmother and many thousands of others, write on their own because, of course, they are the women who remain disenfranchised even after the 19th Amendment.

Lee: When we come back, Martha explains how Black women continue their fight for full voting rights and the power that comes with those rights. Stick with us.

Lee: We're back with Martha Jones. So, between then, the suffrage schools, and now where we see the structural mechanisms kind of being built and expanded upon, but in the years after the 19th Amendment was passed, how did Black women continue to organize and build around those structures?

Jones: There's a major figure who enters the scene in 1920 and that is Mary McLeod Bethune from Daytona, Florida, the educator who comes to Washington D.C. to found the National Council of Negro Women. Now Bethune is really going to try and create a robust structure that will bring together all sorts of Black women's organizations.

But more importantly, Bethune, who had cut her teeth politically getting Black women to the polls in 1920, is coming to Washington to do a different kind of politics. By the '30s, she is working inside the Roosevelt Administration. She's going to help Franklin Roosevelt establish his Black Cabinet.

Why is this important? Because Bethune knows that there's more than one way to win political power and influence. And she comes from a state where Black people are disenfranchised, Florida, but Roosevelt can appoint her to leadership within the federal government, especially in the new New Deal agencies that are providing relief from the Depression across the country.

So, what I love about Bethune is that she's deeply committed to voting rights, but she's not gonna wait until she has the vote to exercise political power. She's gonna build political power through patronage, through networks, through federal appointments, and bring many, many Black women with her to the nation's capital, where they will use federal resources to help bring Black communities out of the scourge of the Depression.

Lee: I could literally probably name two dozen women who walk in the footsteps of those great women, who are organizing in the front lines today. But how have things evolved? How has the organizing evolved? Or is it the same playbook that had some success in the past?

Jones: Well, I do think those networks, when we observe that Black women vote as a bloc frequently, 94%, 95%, 96% of Black women, that is a reflection, I think, of these old networks and their evolution. They still exist in this time. But of course, once we get to 1965 and the passage of the Voting Rights Act, now we have the polls forthrightly opened to African Americans, including Black women.

We have, by 1968, figures like Shirley Chisholm coming into American politics. So now that grassroots, everyday Black woman voter is a companion to Black women who are going to begin to hold office, shape policy. That is the fruits that I think we are witnessing today in 2020. And that really takes hold undeniably after 1965.

Lee: You know, sometimes we've seen throughout history, and we talked about this a bit, that even our quote/unquote allies are actually racist and working against us. Think about (LAUGH) Susan B. Anthony and such. But I wonder, getting up to the Voting Rights Act of '65, did we begin to see some solidarity or coalition building between Black women and white women in particular?

Jones: Yes. The civil rights era grows out of a long moment of interracial cooperation that begins before the Second World War. So, Black and white women have built new kinds of relationships politically. It's no longer the inequality and the disparities of the suffrage movement.

Now there is the expectation of equality. And we can tell the stories of heroic African American women who do, in fact, have allies in some white women in the modern civil rights movement. I think that's undeniable. And at the same time, I think that there is a persistent question about power and politics inviting the sense that some folks are on top and some folks are in charge, and others are not.

And so, you know, when we read the words of a Shirley Chisholm or a Barbara Jordan, right, these path-making Black women who come to Congress, they are challenged with, if you will, explaining themselves, right, making themselves legible to white Americans generally, but including white women, because these are women who have not come to be subordinate.

These are not women who have come to defer at all. And I think we're still grappling with the reckoning of what it means for African American women to be subordinate to no one in American politics. And as our numbers grow, both as voters clearly, but also increasingly as officeholders, white Americans, men and women, maybe some Black men as well, I'd say, Americans have to rethink their old ideas about what politics looks like and about who should be in charge.

Lee: You know, despite the thorns and daggers of racism, Black women have fought and gained political power time and again. And we often talk about, you know, Black women and Black folks being the base of the Democratic party, but especially built on the backs of Black women. But I wonder if you could explain just how significant a voting bloc Black women actually are.

Jones: We could look, for example, at 2017 and Alabama's special election, where the Democrat, Doug Jones, ran in a very, very tight race. And what we know is not only did 98% of Black women voters vote for Jones, right, and flip that Senate seat from red to blue, they not only voted for Jones, they turned out disproportionately, right. And these are the companion keys to understanding the power of Black women voters. It's not just the voting as a bloc; it's turning out. So, in that case, a state-level election, right, a U.S. Senate seat flips.

Lee: In Alabama. (LAUGH)

Jones: In Alabama. And so, this is the kind of evidence that I think has, you know, led to some very deliberate thinking, analysis, and attention to where Black women are in this 2020 election cycle. This is not incidental. This is essential analysis.

Lee: And not just as voters and bodies pushing to the polls, but actually Black women participating in the electoral process in terms of candidates. There are a record number of Black women running for Congress in 2020. Biden had six Black women on his short list.

Jones: Uh-huh (Affirm).

Lee: Ultimately he selects Senator Kamala Harris as the first Black woman on a major party ticket. What's the significance of all this? Is this just the culmination of all that work over the last hundred-plus years? What does this moment mean?

Jones: I think it is a culmination. In my book, it's a culmination really of 200 years, which is to say Black women have been at this a very long time. And Kamala Harris does not drop from the heavens, (LAUGH) right. She grows out of Black women's politics across many generations.

And when you look at a figure like Senator Harris or Representative Ayanna Pressley or leader Stacey Abrams, these are women, when you ask them, they will tell you, "I come out of a political tradition." And it's not the political tradition exemplified by Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Alice Paul at all.

It is a political tradition that these women will tell you easily comes out of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, Mary McLeod Bethune, Ida B. Wells, Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan. Black women understand their own political history and how we come to be where we are in 2020.

And so, for me, it was important to write a book that helped Americans sort of reset their sense of women's political history through a Black woman's lens be if you don't understand who Shirley Chisholm was or Carol Moseley Braun was, it's hard to understand Senator Harris. So, we need a new political education, (LAUGH) frankly, to go with that to appreciate whatever the outcomes may be in any given election in November, Black women candidates are here to stay.

Lee: As we recenter and reposition not just the narrative, but our understanding of the role that Black women have played in the right to vote for women and keep pushing for political power, do you think America is necessarily ready? What do you expect to come next with this rise of power, with the reimagining and recentering of Black women in this political discourse? What do you think happens?

Jones: My metaphor is catching up. This nation is catching up to the kind of ideals that Black women 200 years ago, as founders of this nation, put on the table, the challenge that Black women set, which is, for example, right, no racism, no sexism in American politics.

They have no role, right, in arbitrating power, access, office holding, votes, and more. Black women have been saying that for 200 years. And I think it's fair to say we might be catching up to that wisdom as a nation, to those political ideals.

And so, what I see is a country that is being led by Black women. I call them the vanguard because they hold a high bar up for this nation for a very long time. That is not an enviable position, but it turns out to be an essential one in a nation that has deep troubles in its past. And I can only hope that we have the opportunity to continue to follow Black women, in politics and elsewhere, to realize the kinds of values that they have long exemplified.

Lee: Martha Jones, thank you so much for your time, your amazing work. The struggle continues. Thank you very much.

Jones: Thanks so much.

Lee: That was legal and cultural historian Martha Jones. Her new book, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All, comes out on September 8th. Into America is produced by Isabel Angel, Allison Bailey, Aaron Dalton, Max Jacobs, Barbara Raab, Claire Tighe, Aisha Turner, and Preeti Varathan. Original music by Hannis Brown. Our executive producer is Ellen Frankman. Steve Lickteig is executive producer of audio. I'm Trymaine Lee. We'll be back on Wednesday.

Link:
Transcript: Into Black Women and the 19th Amendment - NBC News

To date, the coronavirus has taken over 700,000 lives worldwide and it is even spreading into remote places, threatening the health and safety of indigenous tribes and native communities.

In Brazil, the governments COVID-19 response (or lack of) has shown incompetence to protect its tribal populations from the threat. According to Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the death rate from coronavirus in indigenous communities has rise from 46 in May to 262 by early June.

Nepal is also struggling with protecting its indigenous people, who make make up around one-third of the countrys total population, approximately 11 million. Local language barriers and cultural differences in communicating health protocols such as observing social distancing, self-quarantine and hand washing (running water is also scarce in many parts of the country) have meant that people with disabilities and indigenous communities are most vulnerable to contracting the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, the Indigenous People of Mindanao in the Philippines are taking a different route, invoking the spirits of protection against the virus rather than wait for the government to provide health and safety protection to their tribes.

The sluggish response from various governments across the globe has triggered a lack of trust to deliver sufficient health and wellbeing services to indigenous peoples.

One way to protect and support indigenous communities and help in the development and independence of their economy is to shop Indigenous owned brands and conscious businesses that partner with indigenous collectives.

In light of the International Day of the Worlds Indigenous Peoples celebrated on August 9, here is a curated list of some ethical brands that support indigenous people and help to preserve their arts and culture:

A commercial Aboriginal artist and designer from Goreng Goreng Country, Rachael Sarra uses contemporary art as a tool to educate and share Aboriginal culture, explore Indigenous Australian identity and its evolution.

From custom designs, collaborations through to commissioned pieces, Sarras work can be found in jewellery, notebooks and even clothing. To view her portfolio or purchase canvas prints or merchandise featuring her distinctive bold and feminine style, visit rachaelsarra.com.

Australian brand Bundarraresponsibly manufactures Indigenous-inspired clothing and sportswear and Aboriginal themed gifts showcasing authentic paintings and artwork from First Nations artists. The ethical brand also supplies custom corporate uniforms, teamwear and promotional products.

Over the last three years the company and its partners have been able to contribute A$1.5 million to Indigenous employment development, artist and direct sponsorship and donations for community development.

Canada based fashion and lifestyle brand SheNative was founded by Devon Fiddler a Cree woman from Saskatoon, with the aim of empowering Indigenous women and girls through employment, collaboration, co-creating designs with Indigenous communities and donating 10% of profits towards causes that positively impact the lives of Indigenous women. The brand specialises in crafting leather handbags and printed merchandise and apparel using Indigenous techniques and story-telling.

We create inspiring leather handbags and apparel that shares Indigenous teachings embedded with positive values passed down by our ancestors. She Native

Indigenous Designs sells and promotes beautiful organic and responsibly-made apparel for both men and women that feature the skills of indigenous artisans in Peru. Since launching in 1994, the brand has continued to go beyond the concept of fair trade by fully committing to the economic empowerment of its artisans and their families, crafting a supply chain that focuses on the needs of its workers and helping to keep traditional artistry and ancient skills hand looming, handweaving, knitting and farming techniques alive.

Hiptipico is an ethical fashion brand located in Panajachel, Guatemala. The brand name comes from the Spanish word tipico, which is what the traditional clothing worn by the indigenous Maya people in Guatemala is called.

Hiptipico honors the Maya culture through the preservation of indigenous communities by promoting traditional weaving and embroidery by Guatemalan artisans.

At Hiptipico, I always tell the women that I work for them. Not the other way around. My job is to share their story and products with the world in order to get them more orders to help support their family. Simple, says Hiptipico founder Alyssa Yamamoto.

Australian Aboriginal-owned and led social enterprise Clothing The Gap and fashion label producing merchandise such as tees, jumpers, masks and tote bags that celebrate Aboriginal people and culture. Some of the products are locally made and are accredited withEthical Clothing Australia(ECA). Managed by a team with a background in health, 100% of the brands profits support Aboriginal health and education programs throughout the state of Victoria.

The social enterprise complements an existing Australian government health initiative Closing the Gap that aims to remove the life expectancy gap between Indigenous Australians and non-indigenous Australians, though Clothing The Gap focuses on supporting the Indigenous community by uniting all Australians through fashion and cause.

Founded in 2015 by fashion designer Bethany Yellowtail who hails from the Crow (Apsaalooke) and Northern Cheyenne (Tsetsehestahese and Sotaeoo) Nations in southeastern Montana, B.Yellowtail is a Native American owned fashion and accessories label that stocks handmade, heirloom quality jewelry, textiles and accessories and specializes in storytelling through wearable art.

Offering womens clothing and an extensive collection of accessories handmade by a collective of Native American, First Nation and Indigenous creators who all come from Tribal Nations throughout North America such as Etkie, Bison Star Naturals, and QUWUTSUNMADE. All products are created using traditional methods which are passed down from one generation to the next. With this, the tale that lingers in every piece lives on through the wearer.

With tradition and culture at the heart of what we do, weve set out to share authentic indigenous creativity with the world, while providing an empowering, entrepreneurial platform for Native peoples. b.Yellowtail

For Indigenous Australian wearable artwork and hand printed textiles, you cant go past Wiradjuri Yorta Yorta Gangalu woman Lillardia Briggs-Houston who uses fashion design to explore identity, culture, sovereignty and self-determination. Producing eye-catching authentic Aboriginal textile designs on linen fabrics on unceded Wiradjuri land, its little wonder she was shortlisted alongside 32 other talented artists and makers, for the first ever National Indigenous Fashion Awards.

Cambio & Co. is dedicated to showcasing contemporary, conscious fashion that are designed and handcrafted by Filipino artisans with the aim to preserve Filipino culture by blending Indigenous traditions with modern designs while maintaining the authenticity of the craft and the community where it came from.

Its curated collection of Filipino jewelry and sustainably-made bags are carefully curated to elevate how people see the Philippines and see that each product carries the soul, beauty and the Filipino story.

Creatively designed and stitched together using remnant fabrics and textile waste, Home Plush Toys, anANTHILLcommunity sewing enterprise of homeartisans in Tisa and Gawad Kalinga Minglanilla, Cebu in the Philippines, are handcrafted toys that celebrate different indigenous communities in the regions of Lumad, Moro and Katutubo.

Its signature toy, the Kapwa Doll, is a symbol of interconnectedness, teaching the younger generation about respecting diversity, promoting inclusivity as well as acknowledging the identities of tribal communities in the country and understanding that each one is a part of a shared Filipino heritage.

Recommending reading:

Cover image via B.Yellowtail.

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10 Ethical Brands That Support Indigenous Artisans and Communities - Eco Warrior Princess

Global Integrated Revenue and Customer Management for CSP Market research report presents a comprehensive overview of market size, share, evolution, trends, and forecast, and growth opportunities of Integrated Revenue and Customer Management for CSP market by product type, application, key manufacturers and key regions and countries. This report offers comprehensive analysis on global Integrated Revenue and Customer Management for CSP market along with, market trends, drivers, and restraints of the Integrated Revenue and Customer Management for CSP market. In-depth study of market size with data Tables, Bar & Pie Charts, and Graphs & Statistics which helps easy to understand detailed breakdown of market.

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Integrated Revenue and Customer Management for CSP Globally Expected to Drive Growth through 2020 - Scientect

At Innovate Insights, Global Silica based Matting Agents Market research report presents a comprehensive overview of market size, share, evolution, trends, and forecast, and growth opportunities of Silica based Matting Agents market by product type, application, key manufacturers and key regions and countries. This report offers comprehensive analysis on global Silica based Matting Agents market along with, market trends, drivers, and restraints of the Silica based Matting Agents market. In-depth study of market size with data Tables, Bar & Pie Charts, and Graphs & Statistics which helps easy to understand detailed breakdown of market.

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Global Silica based Matting Agents Market 2020: Industry Analysis and Detailed Profiles of Top Key Players Evonik Industries, WR Grace, PPG...

When VSNL launched the internet in India on August 15, 1995, optimism about the new arrival was high. Even in those days of dial-up lines, big machines and steep tariffs when the internets future looked fuzzy and potential barely discovered the world was aware of its promise.

The information superhighway was supposed to democratise the world, giving everyone a voice and levelling the playing field in politics, business, society. There are issues that need addressing but it is fair to say the internet has revolutionised our lives in the quarter century it has been with us moving from a slow service with limited utility few could afford, to a ubiquitous, accessible force that has changed how we live , mostly peering at a mobile device.

A massive 4.6 billion people today use the internet, sending out billions of gigabytes of data over the World Wide Web. It has connected the world, making national, social and economic boundaries less consequential. It has dramatically changed the way people globally communicate with each other as video and audio calling become cheap and commonplace. The internet has also reshaped the corporate world, creating new giants that have successfully tapped into voids of demand the internet has created in its wake.

Today, the worlds top corporate giants are technology firms, and no company can succeed without digitising large parts of its business. Creating an alternate universe, the internet has opened the door to a limitless virtual world where social norms are being reshaped. From Facebook to Twitter, virtual public squares have emerged where people are pilloried and praised. Platforms like Tinder and Truly Madly are helping make new connections in the dating world. Amazon and Flipkart are changing the way people shop even as cryptocurrencies threaten the monopoly of fiat money. From medicine to entertainment, education to remote working, the pandemic has offered a perfect opportunity for the internet to demonstrate its versatility.

Yet, today the internet isnt where it was supposed to be. The old order has given way to new. The world has seen the emergence of new gatekeepers from Google to Amazon to Facebook. New technologies have been hijacked by the rich and the powerful, says Vivek Wadhwa, distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School Labor and Worklife Program.

Vast amounts of internet traffic are controlled by a few platforms, which tend to be dominated by a few creators. While social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook have given voice to many, scandals like Cambridge Analytica and the inexorable march of fake news highlight the corrosive effect they can have on democracy and public discourse. From hate campaigns to fake news, stealing identities to stalking innocents the public hygiene on the World Wide Web is deteriorating rapidly and is in desperate need of deep cleansing.

What does the future hold? On one hand, expect new technologies like AI/ML to make the internet highly personalised and customised with new tools, from holographic presence to augmented reality, becoming commonplace. The pandemic is playing a critical role in amplifying and hastening many of these changes. Expect this election in the US as well as closer home in Bihar to lean heavily on micro-targeting to connect with voters instead of rallies.

Also, expect totalitarian impulses to gain momentum as governments try to wrest control, curbing and controlling tech giants. Led by China, the power balance is beginning to shift as governments across the world, including India, want to enforce their idea of internet governance and enforce the idea of cyber sovereignty.

Entrepreneur Rajesh Jain, founder of Netcore Solutions, says digital surveillance will surge as both corporates and governments play a tug of war for controlling data. Sajan Paul, MD, Juniper Networks India & SAARC, says safety and security will be big issues as both bad and good actors trawl the internet with powerful viruses. How the internet will evolve over the next quarter century is hard to predict evolution of technology is so rapid that it would be a perilous endeavour. But it will likely usher in even more bewildering changes to our lives and our world, compared with its predecessor.

Let the eWorld be Flat- We need to ensure that a future powered by the internet is more equitable and prosperous By Kris Gopalakrishnan

I still vividly remember the launch of the Mosaic browser in late 1993 which unlocked the era of the consumer internet. Soon after, in August 1995, the Indian consumer internet era began. India has come a long way from those days of Rs 15,000 for a non-commercial consumer account that provided 250 hours of internet connectivity at 9.8 kbps.

Today, Indians typically get internet at 4G speeds and at the worlds cheapest rate of about Rs 20 per GB of data. From zero users in 1995, India now has about 600 million internet users the second highest in the world. The internet is probably the most important technology of our era.

The rapid growth of the internet in the world created new categories of businesses and disrupted entire sectors. It has created a new wave of entrepreneurship and innovation. Google, which puts real-time information on our fingertips, is now a verb. You are probably reading this because it was shared on social media like Facebook or Twitter.

Amazon has upended incumbent giants and reinvented the retail industry. Uber and Ola have redefined transportation services in Indian cities. For our entertainment, we are probably catching up on a movie on Netflix, and ordering dinner on Swiggy. And we pay for these internet-enabled services using e-wallets like Paytm. The internet has connected businesses to their customers in a reliable way and has lowered the cost of building a business.

Of these companies, only Microsoft existed 25 years back. Facebook, the youngest, was founded in 2004. Even though Microsoft and Apple predate the consumer internet era, they have immensely benefitted by creating new products or services leveraging the internet. Apples revival is attributed to iTunes and its music distribution service. Microsoft is now fashioning itself into a cloud company.

A Better Internet I believe that the most important role of the internet is its fundamental ability to empower and connect individuals. This is the most innovative aspect of the internet. We are sharing our ideas without third-party interference and at a low cost, using messaging services like WhatsApp. We are connected to many others in different parts of the world in real-time with messaging and video-conferencing. Internet-based governance platforms are increasingly playing an important role in citizen-government connect, thanks to the many digital initiatives of the central and state governments.

For example, Covid-19 has demonstrated the value of the internet and digital technologies. They have made it easy for us to connect with our near and dear, and with health services providers. Teleconsultations are growing in India. Government is also leveraging the internet to provide real-time updates to citizens about the availability of healthcare facilities. Schools and colleges are conducting classes online. IIT-Madras has started an online BSc in Programming and Data Science. While there is still a lot more to be done, it is clear that the impact on all of us and the Indian economy would have been more severe in a pre-internet era. How do we make the internet work better for Indians?

A fundamental aspect of the internet so far is that it is lightly regulated or unregulated. This is likely to change as the value appropriated from the internet seems skewed and concentrated with a few players. This cannot continue if the internet has to work better for all Indians. I envisage this playing out in three domains.

First, we need to reduce the digital divide and asymmetry of online platforms. There is still a significant number of us who are not on the internet. How can we ensure that many more of us are able to access it? Indians who are on the internet need to have more control especially over their data. Sometimes we get locked into large platforms and find it difficult to move out along with our data.

Second, the internet is also the 21st century turf for economic war. Many American social media platforms are banned in China. Recently, the US started the process of getting the popular Chinese video platform TikTok to stop operating or become American-owned. India, too, has banned a number of Chinese platforms and apps from operating in the country in response to unprovoked Chinese aggression on our border. The 5G gear that will power the internet in the future is now a turf war between the US and its allies on one side, and China on the other. India will judiciously need to play these internet wars.

Third, Indian internet entrepreneurs need a level playing field against the bigger internet companies that sometimes unfairly leverage the power of their network externalities. This is required to spur Indian innovation and entrepreneurship.

While India continues to make the internet a better place for Indians, we should be ready for the next disruptive wave on the horizon. 5G, IoT, AI/ML are technologies built on the internet that will proliferate in the near future. The internet will connect billions of machines, devices and appliances. When these technologies are well designed and used wisely, it will make our lives better. I can see these technologies transforming Indian healthcare, transportation, logistics, etc.

India is taking steps in the right direction in terms of using the internet and the technologies that are built over the internet. I foresee a future powered by the internet that will be more equitable and prosperous for all of us.

Connect to Uplift- The inequities and disparities in the physical world can be reduced through online learning Byju Raveendran, Founder and CEO of Byjus

How to build the strongest global workforce? How to create learners who can positively impact the world? These core questions guide the future of learning in India. While the answers may vary, one element udeniably stands out- the role of technology and the internet.

Since the launch of public internet services 25 years ago, adoption of technology in India has seen a steady rise. Smartphone penetration and cheap data have contributed to India having 600 million internet users today. In this backdrop of an India that is hungry for growth and willing to improve, I believe the nation is poised to utilise the internet in its most impactful sector yet education.

Despite having the largest school-going population globally, with 260 million enrolment, Indian students rank low in many major global assessments. Why? There are three key reasons: a lack of access to high-quality content and teaching; a one-size-fits-all approach with no personalisation; and most importantly, learning driven by the fear of exams and not the love for learning.

To solve these challenges at scale, we must use technology as an enabler. The inequities and disparities in the physical world are a far bigger hurdle which can be reduced through online learning as the internet makes quality content accessible at an unprecedented rate. With 70% of Indian youth having access to smartphones, mobile apps emerge as the medium to transport content and pedagogy. This accessibility democratises education. It brings novel opportunities to the masses and gives students a chance to learn from great teachers and resources, no matter where they live. Technology levels the playing field. In India, where education is still the only way to make it big, these opportunities to learn better are invaluable.

With an average age of 29 years, India is also home to the worlds youngest population. Technology-enabled learning plays a key role to capitalise on this demographic dividend. Potentially a double-edged sword, education lies at the heart of empowering our youth to meet the unseen jobs of tomorrow. And mastering technology within that is even more crucial to prepare them for an increasingly digital world. The new National Education Policy (NEP) addresses this with emphasis on making education accessible through online learning. By focusing on developing interdisciplinary competencies and digital skills, the NEP will contribute to building a globally competitive talent pool. We are at that crucial point in history where our classrooms are possibly changing for the first time in 100 years. It took a pandemic for everybody to realise the impact of online learning.

Virtually overnight, schools and colleges had to transform into online education platforms. Interestingly, the changes we see with respect to online learning took less than six months to implement. Without yearly plans or training, millions of teachers and learners have transitioned smoothly. As a learning company, we were acutely aware that amid school closures, children were counting on us to bring them their daily learning. And what we achieved, as a result, would be impossible without the internet.

At a time when technology is being regarded as an essential service, we owe our children the best education. The answer remains online during the pandemic, but I believe in the future, we will ultimately see a blended approach. Learning eventually will combine asynchronous online elements (where students can study at their own pace; have some choice over their learning; and engage deeply and critically with content) with synchronous elements (where students online can interact with each other, their teachers and the content at the same time).

Schools will also function in tandem with online learning platforms. In the future, an innovative, blended format combining the best of offline and online will evolve as a more efficient and impactful way to learn. Internet and technology will be at the heart of creating empowered students and impactful future leaders.

Apna Internet -We have made the World Wide Web truly ours By Rama Bijapurkar, Author of A Never Before World: Tracking the Evolution of Consumer India We are an affiliative, clannish, inquisitive, parochial society with each of us having multiple identities and belonging to several reference groups, always seeking out people like us, like homing pigeons. WhatsApp makes all this easier and more efficient. The whole clan weighs in on wedding preparations, and festivals are celebrated and new babies monitored closely by many more family members scattered around the globe.

I know one grandparent in small-town India who watches the prized grandchild every day at her playschool in America. I have friends who belong to at least 10 different WhatsApp groups spanning their many identities which are getting even more complexly constructed then before. The multilingual keyboard with all its features, emojis, gifs and voice messaging is making language fluency less of a barrier, as we now transact socially with different combinations of speak/ read/ write/ understand, extending the catchment area of people we can converse with.

Ditto for the amount of Indian classical music uploaded on it. There is no raga, no matter how rare, that you cannot find on the net; no musician from the good old days whose recordings you cannot listen to.

Land of Liberal & Illiberal Indians People sometimes think the internet is where the modern liberal Indian lives. But heres where every kind of illiberal Indian also lives as you can see from the trolling that happens. The internet is entirely compatible with most other things that are hard to explain. A Naadi astrologer (Google it) now says, Scan your thumb and mail it and we will tell you if you have a chance of finding your details.

In addition to all this bewildering back to the future, the most heartening forward movement is how it has managed to make lives so much better for so many lower income Indians.

Even if many cant do it on their own, theres a whole tribe of young digital middlemen who do it for you facilitate medical treatment, help you avail of e-governance, etc. You now get cheap and plentiful movies and banking services at your doorstep, money directly into your account for welfare benefits, and access more status-blind service than ever before for things like booking a gas cylinder or a train ticket.

My favourite example of what the internet can do to Indians is to discipline them into accepting rules. I notice that if a human being tells you that you cannot have something because no slots are available or because you dont qualify, Indians will argue, bully and try and get their way. Switch to a computer and theres no scope for arguing with it, so may be the internet will eventually make us a rule-obeying society, after all!

Ad Infinitum- The internet has blown away the old ways of marketing: instead of brands speaking to the masses, now consumers are holding countless conversations with and about the brands By Santosh Desai, MD & CEO, Future Brands Back then, we were brand guardians. Or, custodians. Anyone charged with the task of managing brands was in essence a protector of the asset, someone who patrolled the boundaries of the brand and looked out for any transgressions. The implicit mental model of the brand was that of a citadel, a fortress, that needed to be kept intact.

Brand building was a careful exercise involving consistency and repetition, all the while adhering strictly to a script. The brand spoke through extremely select apertures, and almost every communication from it was a one-way exercise using a carefully controlled script. Advertising, that brash form which elbowed into consumer homes and consciousness, was the dominant mode used to communicate.

The internet has changed all this. Everyone is a broadcaster and every device an encyclopaedia. Information and influence flow freely in every direction. If the brand was earlier a pristine lake, it is today a gushing river. And like a river, it changes ever so slightly with every new interaction. Its interactions with consumers have grown exponentially. It is listening much more than speaking. People are talking to each other about the brand, without the brand having any role whatsoever in the dialogue.

The mental model of a static protectorate that needed cautious tending by a few very responsible people has been blown away. The brand is now in the midst of our bustling lives and our untidy conversations. It has to speak with its consumers and not talk down to them. It cannot solve problems largely by throwing money at it. In an earlier time, established brands could extend their hegemony simply by outspending its new rivals or by squeezing them out by virtue of their superior distribution reach. The internet has made access a non-issue; even the smallest brand can reach a consumer in a tiny hamlet.

The internet rewards curiosity and interestingness, not money and intrusiveness. Unlike other media, where advertising is the price consumers pay for being interested in any content, in a digital medium, exposure to content is voluntary. Consumers cannot be made to watch brand messages, unless they choose to do so. Being omnipresent is not as important as being present precisely when the consumer is likely to be predisposed to buying. The 20th century can be thought of as a giant training programme which converted human beings into consumers.

We learnt the grammar of consumption, and became fluent in its vocabulary. The internet has empowered the individual enormously, and now the consumer in us is ready to hold a sophisticated dialogue with brands. What it believes in, what it delivers against what it promises, what kind of service it provides, what kind of people it hires, how it deals with crises, what positions it takes on issues of public interest these have all become important determinants of a consumers relationship with a brand.

Conscious Brand The internet speaks to individuals one at a time. The idea of a mass medium that speaks to large collectives has given way to one that not only interacts with each consumer uniquely, but is also able to generate understanding about every individual with a degree of precision that was not even remotely possible earlier. This gives brands the ability to tailor their relationship with each individual in a unique way.

This has meant that brands must re-orient themselves completely in order to navigate this new world. The brand is no longer a mask, an external face constructed artfully and projected purposefully to attract consumers. Advertising can no longer merely be a promise, which weaves gossamer stories only marginally connected to the brands actions. The product quality and service delivery now get publicly critiqued and discussed; ratings create a new benchmark that circumvents a brands claims about itself. Brand communication must engage every individual in the manner that works best for her.

This also means that just as the internet has made it easy for brands to communicate at a far deeper and more meaningful level with consumers, it has also created conditions that can damage brands in no time. The increased scrutiny which brands and its leaders are subject to today means that a small slip can prove disastrous for brands.

In some senses, the internet has made marketing the disciple that it has always claimed to be, but has never quite been. Marketings boast has always been that it understands consumers at a deep level, and fashions a brand in a manner that consumers naturally gravitate to it. While in truth, this was rarely the case, in a digital world, brands have no option but to learn to become interesting and desirable. In other words, brands have no choice but to learn marketing.

Windows Shopping: The internet has changed the way India shops and transacts. The transformation is gaining pace in the pandemic By Deep Kalra, Founder & group executive chairman, MakeMyTrip Five years after India got access to the World Wide Web, I launched Make-MyTrip in 2000, with the conviction that the internet was going to fundamentally change the way we did a lot of things thus far.

Quite frankly, how deep and profound is the impact of the internet on people, economies and countries is something that continues to astonish me. From how you connect, communicate, live and shop to work and socialise there isnt probably anything left untouched by the internet. In the ways in which it has touched lives, the internet has been clearly transformational.

The early days of the internet are dotted with memories of the infamous, screeching dial-up modem sound as it made its way from cybercafes to peoples homes. While there were trailblazers like Naukri, Rediff and IndiaMart, companies after companies built businesses of scale as Indias internet age set in. Today, many of these companies are key drivers in the social and economic growth of the country.

While working through all the constraints and uncertainty that existed for internet businesses, it is really the consumer shift in behaviour that led to online shopping taking off. The online commerce was embraced by customers as the internet democratised information and availability of products and services like never before. Indians are even changing the way the internet is used for online commerce.

Be it voice search, video, vernacular, or innovative payments solution internet businesses relentlessly tailored products for Indians in a way that it will shape the internet way beyond Indias borders.

According to the Internet and Mobile Association of India, at present, there are 433 million active internet users who are 12 years and above. For all the people who now have access to the internet and will progressively move from chatting to booking their first train or bus ticket online, there are millions more who have yet to be catapulted into the mobile internet age.

If demonetisation led to people adapting to cashless payments, Covid-19 is compelling them to buy online. The pandemic has intensified the consumers need to shop safely from home, and online businesses will continue to gain salience as the convenience and choice offered will induce shape-shifting behaviour. We see new habits being formed and the ease, convenience and choice that internet businesses offer will ensure that these habits will endure well beyond the crisis.

Over the years, it has become clear that online commerce is Indias big opportunity to use its vast domestic consumption to boost the economy in a way never imagined before. Within a short period of time, the significance of economic activities in the digital space has grown substantially.

Vast opportunities have been unlocked, leading to job creation, productivity improvement and enhanced consumer choices. And whats most amazing is the fact that these are still early days in Indias internet journey.

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The India story after 25 years of internet and how it has transformed our lives - Economic Times

Remco Evenepoel is expected to be transported by aeroplane back to Belgium in the next 24 hours, according to a medical update from his team Deceuninck-QuickStep on Sunday.

The Belgian rider suffered a fractured pelvis and a right lung contusion following a crash at Il Lombardia on Saturday. The team confirmed that he is currently in good condition but will remain in hospital in Como until he can be transported home.

"We would like to inform you that Remco Evenepoel had a quiet night at the hospital and that the evolution of his condition is good. Due to the nature of the injury, Remco has to be transported by plane to Belgium in a supine position," the team confirmed in a medical update on Sunday.

"The team is doing everything possible to bring him back home as soon as possible, hopefully in the next 24 hours, in the most efficient and safe way."

Evenepoel crashed during the final 50km of racing atIl Lombardiaafter losing control on the descent of the Muro di Sormano, hitting the stone wall of a bridge and falling into the ravine below.

He was placed into a precautionary neck brace and taken to the Como hospital by ambulance following the crash. The team confirmed that he was conscious at all times and he underwent a series of examinations to reveal the extent of his injury.

Deceuninck-Quickstepconfirmed Saturday evening that the 20-year-old suffered a fractured pelvis and bruised lung in the crash.

Evenepoel has had a successful season with victories at four stage races: the Tour de Pologne, Vuelta a Burgos, Volta ao Algarve and Vuelta a San Juan. The team confirmed that due to the extend of his injuries, he will be sidelined for the coming period, with team manager Patrick Lefevere saying his 2020 season was over, ruling him out of the Giro d'Italia in October.

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Remco Evenepoel expected to travel back to Belgium within 24 hours - Cyclingnews.com