Functional Threshold Power (FTP) is one of the key performance metrics for cyclists who want to train and race with power.

It is generally defined as the maximum average power, measured in watts, that a cyclist can sustain for an hour.

While this has applications in its own right if you race 25-mile time trials in the UK, for example, its a very useful figure to know if youre racing with a power meter its more commonly used to set training zones and for measuring improvements (or deteriorations) in fitness.

FTP is also one of the key figures used to determine all manner of things on Zwift, such as training zones and race categories.

Dont worry if this is all Greek to you though, because you can check out our full guide to FTP and why it matters for the full run-down. Here were going to focus on how to use Zwift to complete an FTP test.

While you can complete an FTP test on the open road, it can be difficult to find a suitable stretch of tarmac, free of interruptions such as junctions, traffic lights, road works and congestion. Given how downright unpleasant an FTP can be, theres nothing worse than having to stop your effort after 15 minutes.

Using the turbo trainer removes those variables and allows you to focus on producing your best performance.

Zwift is the ideal platform to test your FTP and for power-based training. Zwift

Before you embark on any kind of training plan, like those available on Zwift, its worth setting a baseline FTP figure for a couple of reasons.

Matt Rowe, of Rowe and King Cycle Coaching and host of the Zwift Power Up Cycling Podcast, says that having an accurate figure for your FTP is vital because its used to set you power zones.

If your power zones arent accurate, youll be training in the wrong zones, and not targeting what youre intending to, says Rowe.

Having a baseline figure from the very beginning of your training plan will also allow you to know how much progress youre making throughout the plan.

Get a couple of weeks under you belt, then get stuck in, he says. Youre not going to get a great score, but it helps establish where youre at.

Its particularly relevant at this time of the season, Rowe adds particularly if youre just coming back to training after a break. You might be a long way off where you want to be but, at this time of year, thats where you should be, says Rowe. Setting an FTP now will help you to evidence your improvements later on.

One of the main reasons to use Zwift is that it makes it all very simple the test protocols are well signposted and easy to follow. This also means its very repeatable, so you can be sure that your results are comparable every time.

If you have a smart trainer, then Zwift can also use ERG mode to control the resistance of the trainer to ensure you hit the specific power levels required in a ramp test, or in the warm-up for a 20-minute time-trial test. Weve cover those options in more detail below.

Once youve set your FTP, Zwift can then adjust all of the workouts and training plans to your specific level of fitness.

Youll also then know which race category you fit into, based on your current fitness level, because these are decided according to FTP in watts per kilogram (w/kg).

There are three FTP tests on Zwift: two classic tests, which involve a 20-minute max effort, and a ramp test. Zwift

Outside of simply riding as hard as you can for an hour (which is very hard to pace correctly and can also be pretty dull), there are two main ways to test FTP, both of which are available on Zwift.

First, theres the traditional 20-minute time-trial test. After a warm-up, you perform a 20-minute interval at maximum effort. Record your average power and then subtract 5 per cent to determine your FTP (Zwift will do this automatically for you).

The second way to calculate FTP is to perform a ramp test. As the name suggests, the ramp test involves performing intervals at ever increasing power levels until failure. Zwift then calculates your FTP based on 75 per cent of the maximum power interval that you reach.

If youre new to Zwift but you already know what your FTP is, you can manually enter it on your profile page or on the workout page it displays your FTP on the bottom right of the window, and to change it you simply need to click it.

Alternatively, Zwift will calculate your FTP from general riding in the game or from racing. Zwift will automatically calculate your FTP on every ride, using the maximum 20-minute average power you record on each ride, but will only notify you if it detects an increase over your current score.

However, the best way is to perform one of the three specific FTP workouts available in the training page on Zwift.

The first workout, which is simply called FTP Test, is Zwifts standard protocol.

It starts with a long, easy warm-up, followed by a few ramps and a 5-minute effort. After that, you get a rest period, before performing the 20-minute maximum effort test interval.

Zwift will then subtract 5 per cent from your average power during that test interval to extrapolate it out to an hour.

For example, if you average 300 watts for the 20-minute test interval, you FTP would be 285 watts.

The shorter FTP test simply ahortens up the warm-up the 20-minute max effort test interval is still just as long. Zwift

The second FTP test on Zwift is called the FTP Test (shorter). Its simply a compressed version of the first test.

The 20-minute maximum effort test interval is the same, so its not any easier, the only difference is that the initial warm-up is shortened to save time.

This test has the advantage of being a reasonably long interval, so it tests your aerobic capacity very well and can give accurate results. However, Rowe says it can be a daunting task for many people, because its always going to be a very hard test and is difficult to pace properly, especially for beginners.

With that in mind, Zwift has recently introduced a different kind of test; the ramp test.

The ramp test is intended to be a more manageable way to test your FTP. Zwift

As the name suggests, the ramp test involves performing intervals at ever-increasing power levels until you cant ride any further.

Rowe says the ramp test is more manageable than the 20-minute test, so people repeat it more often and therefore have more accurate zones as their training progresses.

Another benefit of the ramp test is that the result depends less on pacing you simply keep going as long as you can.

On Zwift, after a brief warm-up, the ramp test begins at 100 watts, then increases by 20 watts each minute. At first, it should feel easy, but it will eventually get very hard (how long that takes will depend on how strong you are the test continues as long you can keep holding the power).

Zwift will then take 75 per cent of the maximum power you reach on the test as your FTP.

No matter which workout you do, Zwift recommends staying seated for the duration of the test effort, because this helps to keep your effort and technique consistent throughout the intervals.

In terms of how often you should be retesting your FTP, Rowe recommends doing so once every six to ten weeks, or at the end of each training block preferably after an easier few days so that youre well rested.

You might think it would be useful to test more often, to keep your zones as accurate as possible, but Rowe says that any more often than that and you risk getting bogged down with testing rather than training.

At the end of the test, Zwift will notify you of your score. Hopefully you will have improved, but dont fret if not sign up for one of Zwifts training plans and kick-start your winter riding. Zwift

1

Once you hit the test part of the session, you dont want to pause or take any sort of breaks, because doing so will spoil the data.

With that in mind, its vital to ensure your indoor training setup is running as efficiently as possible: make sure youve fuelled correctly, have a full water bottle to hand, a fan to keep you cool, and youve got some suitably motivational music lined up to last the full duration of the test.

2

When pacing an effort such as a 20-minute power test, its very easy to go out too hard and end up finishing with a whimper or vice versa. What you really want to do is ride right on the limit of what youre capable of for the entire duration of the test which might leave you wondering how you are supposed to know where that limit is?

British cycling legend Chris Boardman once suggested a method whereby you simply ask yourself, Is this current effort sustainable for the remaining duration?. If your answer is yes, then youre going too easy, if its no, then youre going too hard. What youre looking for is maybe.

3

Although hitting huge numbers in the lab/shed/spare room can be exhilarating and hats off to all those who do it the final figure isnt the be all and end all of cycling.

An FTP test isnt a race there arent any prizes for getting a great score, and getting a low score doesnt mean youve lost anything either its simply a personal performance benchmark and everyone is different.

Sign up for one of the many training plans available on Zwift and try to focus on the process of self-improvement, rather than the specifics of the raw data. Unless youre a professional, having fun is what matters, after all. The numbers are just that numbers.

Simon is a freelance writer and photographer, who has been riding bikes for fun since he was a kid, but took a deep dive into road racing, crits and time trialling culture whilst living in London in his twenties. As a man of very little talent, he always looks to tech to compensate and loves nothing more than finding a smart (preferably cheap) hack that others hadnt thought of. His stable of bikes certainly isnt the most extravagant, but theyre all customised to meet Simons particular tastes and kept fastidiously clean. His current No.1 bike is a 2009 Giant TCR Advanced SL, that he purchased second hand from a friend in London he maintains that the 2019 TCR is basically the same bike, so why bother upgrading?

See the rest here:
How to take an FTP test on Zwift to kick-start your winter training - BikeRadar.com

Serge Aurier was in top form on Tuesday evening as he helped Tottenham complete a remarkable turnaround against Olympiacos.

Trailing 2-0 after a nightmare opening 20 minutes, the right-back scored the crucial third goal before they ran out 4-2 winners overall to seal a place in the knockout phase of the Champions League.

Excellent against the Greek side as he started his second successive game under Jose Mourinho, it has not always been easy for the Ivorian with a number of poor performances since his transfer from Paris Saint-Germain in 2017.

Now getting a good run in the team following Kieran Trippier's summer move to Atletico Madrid, the 26-year-old has opened up on his difficult display against Liverpool at the end of October and why he now believes he's in his "best period" for the Lilywhites.

"It's all about confidence," he told the club's matchday programme. "Starting the season with Mauricio Pochettino, I had some good games and then, after the game against Liverpool where we lost, people talked quite a bit about that performance.

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"In tough moments, we have to stay calm, not listen to anything that is being said externally. I know if I've had a bad game, I'm a footballer, I know when I have played well or when I have not.

"I've been here for three years now; I know when people aren't happy about my performance. I've played at Paris Saint-Germain and Toulouse and, of course, it was the same there. I'm not young either. For me, I prepare myself for everything, every possibility, for good things and for bad things.

"It wasn't that easy when I arrived here because I didn't always play. It's difficult. Players need to be playing to keep their confidence. When you play each week, it's easy to stay in that same vein and mindset and keep your levels. I work hard to stay at that level so I can do my best for the team and the gaffer.

"When I came back in against Crystal Palace, my first game of the season, I gave everything and Mauricio was very happy with my performance that day. I want to keep at that level but sometimes, if the team is in a difficult period and when you suffer a defeat, people will talk about your personal performance, that's normal. When the team are winning, it's easier to show your qualities because everyone is at their best level.

"Now, I feel I'm in the right place. I need to stay in this mood and with this confidence because when I am like this, I am happy, I play well, I can give the team and the fans good energy.

This week football.london are running a special series of articles looking back at the key moments from the last decade for Spurs.

Each day, there will be three new articles; one in the morning, one at lunchtime and one in the evening.

Here are some of the best bits so far...

"I think I'm at my best period, especially with the team winning back-to-back games but we need to do more and work harder. We might have won 4-2 against Olympiacos but there are still many parts of our game that we need to get right - it was by two clear goals that we won but we are conceding too many, so we need to say focused for the full 90 minutes. We have to stay together in difficult moments, like at the start of the Olympiacos game.

"Obviously, it's good to win but we want to be in control and dominate games. We know what we need to do to get to that point, so everyone is working towards that."

Link:
Serge Aurier speaks out on that Liverpool display, his form and why he's in his 'best period' - Football.London

The Uplands Lifelong Learning Institute is joining with Pleasant Hill Community Church, United Church of Christ, to bring a different kind of program to the area.

Ulli (formerly the Shalom Center for Continuing Education) has sponsored two-day educational programs or short courses meetings for six to eight weeks with live speakers or leaders.

On three days, Friday-Sunday, Dec. 6-8, the Institute and Church will bring the broadcast of an Omega Center Conference Webinar called Love at the Heart of the Cosmos: Living in Relational Wholeness to Pleasant Hill. The sessions will be shown on the large-screen and smaller video screens in Adshead Hall of Fletcher House for Assisted Living.

After each of the lectures, Ulli Group Discussions will be led by Ed Olson and Mark Canfield. Because of the different nature of this program, there will not be a potluck dinner on Friday night, but coffee and a light breakfast will be provided for the morning sessions.

On Friday, Dec. 6, the webinar will begin at 5:30 p.m. with an introduction by Ilia Delio. This webinar is an event committed to Teilhards vision for a new religion of the Earth for a new planet of life.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French idealist philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and is known for his theory that man is evolving, mentally and socially, toward a final spiritual unity.

Delio said, Teilhard envisioned a new type of energy flowing from the convergence of world religions, giving rise to a new religion of the Earth and a new ultrahuman community, electronically connected in a rising Cosmic Person.

The lecture beginning at 6 p.m. will be by Ursula King, a German theologian and scholar of religion, who specializes in gender, religion, and feminist theology. She has been a professor of theology and religious studies, president of Catherine of Siena College, and a prominent lecturer.

King received honorary doctorates from the universities of Edinburgh, Oslo and Dayton, OH, as well as research awards from the University of Delhi and Sorbonne, Paris. She is a Life Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts.

On Saturday, Dec. 7, from 7:45-8 a.m., a continental breakfast will be followed with the morning lecture by Kathleen Duffy, editor of Teilhard Studies who serves on the advisory boards of the American Teilhard Association and Cosmos and Creation, holding an honorary doctorate from Iona College.

She has published Teilhards Mysticism: Seeing the Inner Face of Evolution.

Following a break, there will be Teilhard & Centering Prayer led by Cynthia Bourgeault from 9:45-11:15 a.m. She is a modern-day mystic, Episcopal priest, writer and internationally known retreat leader. She is a core faculty member at the Center for Action and Contemplation, a member of the Global Peace Initiative for Women Contemplative Council and recipient of the 2014 Contemplative Voices award from Shalem Institute. Bourgeault is a founding director of both The Contemplative Society and the Aspen Wisdom School and author of several books.

The program will resume again from 4:30-6 p.m. with a lecture by John Haught. A theologian of science and religion, he will provide an analysis of what faith might mean in an age of science.

Haught is a distinguished research professor in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University and the author of 20 books, more than 100 book chapters and articles as well as hundreds of invited lectures and major academic presentations.

He offers fresh insight into the biblical nature of hope in order to clarify his position about those who differ with his approach the New Atheists and Creationists.

On Sunday, Dec. 8, from 7:45- 9:30 a.m., Ilia Delio will focus on exploring divine action in a world of evolution, complexity, emergence, quantum reality and artificial intelligence.

She earned doctorates in pharmacology from Rutgers University-School of Healthcare and Biomedical Sciences and in historical theology from Fordham University, NY. She is the recipient of a Templeton Course in Science and Religion award and the author of 17 books, many of which have been translated into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and German.

Ulli anticipates people will come and go throughout the three days of the conference.

Adshead Hall is on the lower level of the Elizabeth Fletcher House for Assisted Living, 40 Fletcher Dr. in Pleasant Hill off of Church Dr. across from the Community Church.

The webinar is free and open to the public, but donations will be appreciated.

This week in Pleasant Hill:

Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2 p.m. Documentary (Retirement Revolution) in Room 4, Pleasant Hill Community Church, United Church of Christ, Main St. and Church Dr.

Wednesday, Dec. 4, 5:30 p.m. Spaghetti supper, 6:15 p.m., and Taize Service in Pleasant Hill Community Church sanctuary, 67 Church Dr.

Wednesdays, 6 p.m. Bible study and prayer at the Pleasant Hill Baptist Mission at 39 Browntown Rd. near Main St.

Thursdays, 2-4 p.m. Fair Trade Room open in Pleasant Hill Community Church. Coffee, tea, chocolate, SERRV crafts from around the world. Supports co-ops and crafters with a fair price for their goods.

Thursday, Dec. 5, 7 p.m. Community Bridge at Fletcher House Dining Room. All welcome. Call 931-277-5005.

Friday, Dec. 6 Obed Wild and Scenic River 1.5-mile hike to the high rock outcrop of Lilly Bluff. Meet at 9:15 a.m. in the Aquatic Center parking lot on West Lake Rd. to carpool to the trailhead.

Tuesday, Dec. 10, noon Pleasant Hill emergency siren test.

Tuesday, Dec. 10, 6 p.m. Pleasant Hill Town Council meeting at Pleasant Hill Town Hall, 351 E. Main St. Call 931-277-3813.

Link:
PLEASANT HILL RAMBLINGS: 'Love at the Heart of the Cosmos' webinar set - Crossville Chronicle

There's at least one industry millennials haven't killed: real Christmas trees.

Millennials could actually be the saving grace for an industry that is facing a growing threat from fake trees.

Environmentally conscious millennials who are settling down with families are helping fuel demand for real trees during the holidays, Doug Hundley, a seasonal spokesperson with the National Christmas Tree Association (NCTA), told Business Insider.

"We're really glad to see the environmentally minded millennial generation joining the group of people who prefer real trees," Hundley, who worked in the real-Christmas-tree business for 40 years, said. "Because we've been losing market share for some time and it's not because we don't have the trees."

More than 95 million American homes had Christmas trees in 2018, at least 75% of which were fake, Hundley said.

Despite the threat from the fake-tree business, demand for real Christmas trees has seen an uptick in the last year. According to data from the NCTA, 32.8 million real Christmas trees were purchased in 2018, up from 27.4 million in 2017. There was also a smaller uptick in fake-tree purchases from 21.1 million in 2017 to 23.6 million in 2018 which Hundley attributes to a stable and surging economy.

But the NCTA said the uptick in real tree purchases is related to millennials' shopping habits.

"The millennials are now settling down and having children and families and they're looking to let their kids have the experience of using a real tree,"' Hundley said.

Millennials are also known to be more environmentally conscious when it comes to their spending. Real Christmas trees are biodegradable and can be reused and recycled, a press release from the NCTA said.

"In today's world as consumers increasingly seek to reduce the use of plastic straws and plastic bags with their purchasing decisions, choosing a real tree is another way they can make a positive contribution to the environment and their Christmas enjoyment," the NCTA said in the release.

Environmental aspects aside, the real-tree industry always benefits from a generational evolution, Hundley said.

"It's a lot of heritage there," the real-tree expert said of the decades-old tradition of having a Christmas tree in the home. "And I think when people start having kids and wanting to build memories, that's an increase for us."

See original here:
The Christmas tree industry is banking on environmentally conscious millennials to save it - Business Insider

by Jens Zimmermann, Project Director, Human Flourishing; Canada Research Professor for Interpretation, Religion, and Culture at Trinity Western University; Visiting Professor for Philosophy, Literature, and Theology at Regent College; Visiting Fellow of the British Academy at the University of Oxford; Research Associate at the Center for Theology and Modern European Thought in Oxford. Read more about Dr. Zimmermann.

One of the most important contemporary issues is our relation to technology. To be sure, technology is nothing new but has always been integral to human evolution; never before, however, has technology suffused every area of life or shaped human self-understanding to the extent it does today. Consequently, debates about the benefits and possible drawbacks of technology currently dominate all crucial, formative arenas of human existence: work, education, healthcare, social development, and even religion. Critical voices are not lacking in these discussions but, on the whole, we increasingly place our future hopes for society in technological enhancements. Transhumanism, in its pursuit of a humanly engineered evolution that will eventually leave the body behind by uploading our digitized brains to computing platforms, a vision that includes merging human with artificial machine intelligence, is merely the extreme edge of a techno-reasoning that increasingly forms our collective social imaginary.

How is one to assess this development? I suggest that the most effective assessment of techno-reasoning is to probe the range of its imagination. After all, how we perceive the world, others, and ourselves is principally a matter of the imagination. As the well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye put it in The Educated Imagination:

we use our imagination all the time: it comes into all our conversation and practical life: it even produces dreams when we are asleep. Consequently we only have the choice between a badly trained imagination and a well trained one, whether we ever read a poem or not.[1]

Fryes reference to poetry indicates his view that literature best exemplifies the language of the imagination, of how we perceive the world in all its semantic complexity: our use of metaphors and choice of words in everyday speech reveals the vision of society, and indeed of reality that underlies our thoughts and actions. Equally important, the fundamental job of the imagination in ordinary life, then, is to produce out of the society we have to live in, a society we want to live in.[2] We need fiction to envision reality differently. We often use the word fiction to refer to what is untrue or false, but the word actually means creative invention and describes our capacity for understanding and shaping reality meaningfully through narrative. Hence reimagining society differently depends in turn on the sources that train our imagination to produce narratives for our self-understanding.

What should concern us is that Transhumanisms imagination runs only along engineering and computational lines. Transhumanists like to call themselves critical rationalists,[3] but the fact is that this critical aspect is limited to a techno-reasoning that produces a narrative of techno-fiction. When we examine the current techno-reasoning of transhumanism, we will find a strongly diminished view of human identity that reduces consciousness to the activity of neuronal networks we can detach from the body and transferable to a computing platform.[4]

It is generally known that transhumanism denigrates the human body as rather primitive biological form of existence that requires perfection through nano- and computing technologies. Ultimately, as Ray Kurzweil argued in his book How to Build a Human Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed (2012), the brain is a complex biological machine in which human ideas, feelings, and intentions are ultimately tied to neuronal functions of the brain. Kurzweil imagines that the imminent completion of mapping this biological machine anatomically will allow us to digitize its functions and thus transpose human thinking into computational format, permitting in turn the uploading of ones mind (of consciousness, self, or personality) to a data cloud storage. This transhumanist vision indicates a breathtaking ignorance of human cognition and its dependence on biology for a human consciousness. For one, aside from being technologically unfeasible, the computational model of the brain and its possible detachment from the body is flatly contradicted by recent neuroscience and its insistence on embodied cognition.

For example, the well-known neuroscientist Antonio-Damasio breaks with the traditional cognitivist view of human beings as rational minds inhabiting insentient bodies.[5] In his book The Self Comes to Mind (2010), Damasio reintroduces the body as essential for structuring the brain, albeit still based on a representational view of cognition: Because of this curious arrangement, the representation of the world external to the body can come into the brain only via the body itself, namely via its surface. The body and the surrounding environment interact with each other, and the changes caused in the body by that interaction are mapped in the brain. It is certainly true that the mind learns of the world outside via the brain, but it is equally true that the brain can be informed only via the body.[6] You may not consider this concession very great, but eight years later, Damasio rejects the Cartesian mind-body dualism behind traditional neuroscience, arguing that a new, biologically integrated position is now required.[7]

This new position leaves behind a computational model of the mind, rejecting the dried-up mathematical description of the activity of the neurons because it disengaged neurons from the thermodynamics of life.[8] New brain science acknowledges, according to Damasio, that the body as organism, for example through our nervous and immune systems, possesses a kind of perception conveyed through feelings that are registered in turn as complex mental experiences that help us navigate life. Damasio concludes that neural and non-neural structures and processes are not just contiguous [i.e. adjacent, sharing a common boarder] but continuous partners, interactively. They are not aloof entities, signaling each other like chips in a cell phone. In plain talk, brains and bodies are in the same mind-enabling soup.[9] On the basis of this new insight (new to brain scientists at any rate), Damasio rejects the reductive, but sweepingly common notion in the worlds of artificial intelligence, biology, and even neuroscience, that natural organisms would somehow be reducible to algorithms.[10]

Damasios new insights from Neuroscience are a welcome antidote to the severely stunted imagination of the Transhumanists. Even so, neuroscience in general, and transhumanism in particular, suffer from a striking lack of philosophical reflection on the historical origins of the naturalist and functionalist view of organic life that still forms the imaginative framework of cognitive science. Natural scientists, along with all those who pursue their research into human perception in the investigative mode of the natural sciences, still have a hard time with admitting that metaphysics is always at play when imagining what it means to be human. How many scientists (and indeed philosophers) are fully conscious of the historical developments that made possible a purely materialist view of reality?

The philosopher Hans Jonas offers a superb philosophical analysis of this development and its effects on the study of human nature in The Phenomenon of Life: Approaches to a Biological Philosophy (1994). He describes how the duality of mind and spirit of the ancient world was reified into a mind-body dualism by Descartess division of reality into the two spheres of timeless mental ideas on the one hand, and spatio-temporal mechanisms of material stuff on the other hand. Leaving the side of mental ideas to religion and philosophy, he reduced nature (including animals and the human body) to an inert machine running on functional, mathematical principles, wholly explorable through quantifiable data. The legacy of Cartesian dualism was the modern conception of nature without soul or spirit.[11] Encouraged by the enormous success of the scientific method, it was only a matter of time until a secularist science, eager to do away with Descartes God, also claimed the mental sphere for its mechanistic understanding of reality.

This mechanistic monism was further aided by Darwins theory of evolution. Naturalistic evolution exploded Cartesian dualism or a separate mental realm by integrating human beings into a general developmental process. Jonas argues that even though evolution raised once again the problem of how the transcendent freedom and intentionality of consciousness could arise from such a process, the functionalist bias of naturalism closed the door to any arguments that may have led out of the reductionist dead-end of materialist monism. Early evolutionary theory dogmatically adhered to a mechanistic view of causality that tried to explain organic life analogously to complex machines, declaring consciousness to an epiphenomenon, a random side-effect of an essentially material process. This view, argues Jonas, inverts how organic life forms, and in particular human beings, actually function. Human thought and action originate from an intentional center and exercise volitional freedom in their striving to accomplish goals. While we are certainly able to automate strategies for accomplishing goals, this ability does not warrant reducing our humanity to the workings of a complex machine.

Jonas work himself has helped inspire profound changes in evolutionary theory, including the growing conviction among evolutionary psychology that an embodied intentionality or consciousness is intrinsic to organic life itself. The phenomenon of organic life is impossible to describe, let alone understand, without recognizing that a minimal form of intentionality, individuation, and indeed freedom is evident in even the most primitive living organisms striving to survive.

Neither transhumanism, however, nor the AI research that fuels transhumanists hopes for melding human and machine intelligence, have followed this trend of evolutionary biology. Instead, the transhumanists and AI researchers remain beholden to the basic premise of cybernetics that human life and thought boil down to mechanisms controlled by the exchange of information and are therefore amenable to transposition into algorithms so that the essence of human thought and emotion can be digitized and replicated on computational platforms.

This brief historical sketch shows us that transhumanisms abandoning of the earth by leaving behind the body constitutes not a neutral fact based on scientific progress but is indeed a historically conditioned choice. This choice takes one particular aspect of human perception, namely our ability to abstract material from the rich flow of experience to objectify and quantify it for better understanding, and the re-imagines all of reality in these terms. This reductionist ontology ignores the organic and especially the personal aspects characteristic of human life.

It is worth reiterating that the materialist, functionalist premise of transhumanism (and much AI research) is neither empirically convincing nor in any way morally neutral. From a historical point of view, it is actually astonishing how beholden the field of techno-science still is to scientistic attitudes originating in the scientific revolution and the European Enlightenment.

For example, the well-known AI researcher Marvin Minsky (d. 2016), equated belief in consciousness with the kind of religious mumbo jumbo science is supposed to combat.[13] For Minsky, there is no such thing as consciousness, there is no such thing as understanding.[14] Those who believe in such silly superstitions ignorantly hold to this religious idea that there is magic understanding: there is a magic substance that is responsible for understanding and for consciousness, and that there is a deep secret here.[15] For Minsky, the problem of consciousness and understanding with regard to AI simply doesnt exist because he has a thoroughly mechanical, functionalist view of the human mind. For this reason, he looks to Freud as an important figure because hes the first one to consider that the mind is a big complicated kludge of different types of machinery which are specialized for different functions.[16] While most of psychology and other sciences have moved on from Freuds nave mechanical view of the psyche, transhumanism and much popular opinion has not.

One cannot blame transhumanists for wanting to improve human life, but a sober, historical-philosophical analysis of transhumanism exposes it as delusive and naive. The whole idea of engineering a post-human existence by abandoning the organic body is based on an untenable materialist metaphysics. As Hans Jonas perceptively put it, materialistic biology (its armory recently strengthened by cybernetics) is the attempt to understand life by eliminating what actually enables this attempt in the first place: the authentic nature of consciousness and purpose.[17] Only because they suppress the basic structure of organic life and reduce consciousness to an epiphenomenon of materialist functions can transhumanists propose their futuristic vision. Only because they have already reduced life to a machine, however complex, can they imagine a post-humanist future of immortality through technology. The transhumanist imagination concerning our humanity is deceived by the strange proclivity of human reason to interpret human functions by the categories of the artifacts created to replace them, and to interpret artifacts by the categories of the human mind that created them.[18]

Given that transhumanism is driven by this historically conditioned reductionist view of human life, I am less worried about the question whether transhumanism functions as Ersatzreligion, though the growing number of Christian transhumanists is somewhat alarming. Their belief in technology as providential means for procuring god-likeness and immortality makes one wonder about the efficacy of the incarnation. Why did God bother to become a human being rather than a cyborg? Only an imagination already hooked on techno-fiction could suggest that the divine transformation of biological matter is inferior to, or even akin to a man-made metamorphosis through technology.

From a traditional Christian perspective at least, techno-fiction that deems the body to be optional ranks among gnostic heresies. As the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer explained, from an incarnational point of view, we dont have bodies but we are our bodies, and are thus rooted in the earth. Abandoning the earth, he declared, therefore means also to lose touch with our fellow human beings and with God who created us as embodied souls. Bonhoeffer concluded that the man who would leave the earth, who would depart from the present distress, loses the power which still holds him by eternal, mysterious forces. The earth remains our mother, just as God remains our Father, and our mother will only lay in the Fathers arms him who remains true to her.[19]

However, what is of greater concern than grouping transhumanism among gnostic heresies is that the movement perpetuates the pervasive techno-reasoning in our culture by glorifying the functionalist image of human existence that continues to enthral the public social imaginary by means of social media and AI research. Transhumanism is just one example, perhaps the most glamorous one, of our current collective culture delusion that the human mind, human language, and human relations boil down to functions that computers will eventually master in far better ways.

We would do well to listen to critical voices of those well familiar with the computing industry like Jaron Lanier. Lanier, credited with inventing virtual reality, exposes the false and dangerous presuppositions of techno-fictions. For example, he debunks the delusion that AI has anything to do with computers gaining intelligence, let alone sentience. AI, he reminds us, is nothing but a story we tell about our code.[20] This story, he confesses, was originally invented by tech engineers to procure funding from government agencies. AI, in short, does not exist if one implies that machines actually think or feel with even the lowest form of consciousness we know from organic life.

Lanier warns that current techno-fiction and our use of technology are deeply dehumanizing. Social media apps are designed to manipulate users into addiction to exploit their consumer habits. Moreover, the whole gamut of computing technology erodes our self-understanding of what it means to be truly human. Lanier worries that if you design a society to suppress belief in consciousness and experienceto reject any exceptional nature to personhoodthen maybe people can become like machines. The greatest danger, he concludes, is the loss of what sets us apart from all other entities, the loss our personhood. His warning echoes the prophetic voices of other critics like the former software coder Steve Talbot, or the late philosopher Hubert Dreyfus, who also worried that instead of adapting technology to human intelligence we slowly conform human consciousness to the functional logic of machines.

These thinkers show us that one does not have to be a luddite or religious zealot to reject transhumanism or entertain a critical attitude towards the nave embracing of current technologies. What is at stake in the discussion about technology and transhumanism is nothing less than our true humanity. Now, it is certainly the case, in my view, that the more holistic approach to human existence offered by religions, and in particular the Christian teaching that God became a human being, provide better anthropological frameworks for approaching technology than secularist or naturalist approaches; however, the time may be ripe for all those concerned about losing our true humanity to come together in exposing the dehumanizing misconceptions put forward by transhumanists, no matter how much these are presented in the radiant, Luciferian promises of divinity. Sicut eritis deus . . . .

[1] 134-135.

[2] 140.

[3] Max More, The Philosophy of Transhumanism in Transhumanist Reader (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013, 1-17), 6.

[4] Martin Rothblatt, Mind is Deeper than Matter, in Transhumanist Reader, (317-326).

[5] Economist John Greys endorsement of Damasios recent book The Strange Order of Things (2018).

[6] The Self Comes to Mind, 97.

[7] The Strange Order of Things, 240.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid., 200. Damasion recognizes that the worlds of artificial intelligence, biology, and even neuroscience are inebriated with this notion. It is acceptable to say, without qualification, that organisms are algorithms and that bodies and brains are algorithms. This is part of an alleged singularity enabled by the fact that we can write algorithms artificially and connect them with the natural variety, and mix them, so to speak. In this telling, the singularity is not just near: it is here. For Damasio, these common notions are not scientifically sound because they discount the essential role of the biological, organic substrate from which feelings arise through the multidimensional and interactive imaging of our life operations with their chemical and visceral components (201).

[11] Jonas, Phenomenon of Life, 140.

[12] Das Prinzip Leben, 219.

[13] Why Freud was the First good AI Theorist in Transhumanist Reader, 169.

[14] Ibid., 172.

[15] Ibid., 170.

[16] Ibid., 169.

[17] Das Prinzip Leben, 230.

[18] Prinzip Leben, 199.

[19] Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English, 10, 244-45.

[20] Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

See the rest here:
Abandoning Earth: Personhood and the Techno-Fiction of Transhumanism - Patheos

For millennia, people have found support and community through defining factors, ranging from age and race to income and education levels.

However, these characteristics are not staticand drastic demographic changes are starting to create powerful ripple effects in the 21st-century economy.

Todays infographic from BlackRock delves into the significant impact that demographics and human rights movements have on global markets. Of the five megatrends explored in this series, demographics are predicted to have the farthest-reaching impact.

Demographics are the characteristics of populations that change over time. These include:

As a result, major demographic trends offer both unique challenges and opportunities for businesses, societies, and investors.

What are the biggest shifts in demographics that the world faces today?

The global population is aging rapidlyas fertility rates decline worldwide, those in the 65 years and older age bracket are steadily increasing in numbers.

As the population continues to age, fewer people are available to sustain the working population. For the first time in recorded history, the number of people in developed nations between 20 to 64 years old is expected to shrink in 2020.

Immigration has been steadily increasing since the turn of the 21st century. Primary migration factors range from the serious (political turmoil) to the hopeful (better job offers).

In particular, areas such as Asia and Europe see much higher movement than others, causing a strain on resources in those regions.

A steadily aging population is slowly shifting the purchasing power to older households. In Japan, for example, half of all current household spending comes from people over 60, compared with 13% of spending from people under 40.

Demographics are the characteristics of people that change over time, whereas social change is the evolution of peoples behaviours or cultural norms over time.

Strong social change movements have often been influenced by demographic changes, including:

Examples of major human rights movements include creating stronger environmental policies and securing womens right to vote.

These changes pose some exciting opportunities for investors, both now and in the near future.

Global healthcare spending is predicted to grow from US$7.7 trillion in 2017 to over US$10 trillion in 2022. To meet the demands of age-related illnesses, companies will need solutions that offer quality care at much lower costsfor patients and an overburdened healthcare system.

With a declining working population, adapting a workforces skill set may be the key to keeping economies afloat.

As automation becomes commonplace, workers will need to develop more advanced skills to stay competitive. Newer economies will need to ensure that automation supports a shrinking workforce, without restricting job and wage growth.

By 2100, over 50% of the world will be living in either India, China, or Africa.

Global policy leadership and sales of education goods and services will be shaped less by issues and needs in the U.S., and more by the issues and needs of Africa, South Asia, and China.

Shannon May, CoFounder of Bridge International Academies

In the future, education and training in these growing regions will be based on skills relevant to the modern workforce and shifting global demographics.

Spending power will continue to migrate to older populations. Global consumer spending from those over 60 years is predicted to nearly double, from US$8 trillion in 2010 to a whopping US$15 trillion in 2020.

Demographics and social changes are the undercurrents of many economic, cultural, and business decisions. They underpin all other megatrends and will significantly influence how the world evolves.

As demographics shift over time, we will see the priorities of economies shift as welland these changes will continue to offer new opportunities for investors to make an impact for the future of a global society.

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The Global Inequality Gap, and How It's Changed Over 200 Years - Visual Capitalist

Gartners definition: A citizen developer is a user who creates new business applications for consumption by others using development and runtime environments sanctioned by corporate IT.

The idea of a citizen developer is edging its way into reality across many Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platforms. Through a simple graphical interface and smart building tools, non-tech users are empowered to automate processes via software bots into production environments. The benefits provided by RPA technologies and solutions are significant. Giving standard users the ability to drag-and-drop future-proof apps without touching source code or having to know anything about programming languages creates a force multiplier for speed and value.

RPA can enable more rapid innovation and provide a leg up on competition. It can also save time and money and enable the dev team to work on more impactful things.

The list goes on.

Domo Arigato, Mr. Citizen Developer

However, no technology is perfect or perfectly safe and RPA is no exception. In my previous blog, I touched on how RPA expands the organizations overall attack surface and how rushing into this technology without examining security considerations introduces substantial risk. The genesis of many RPA projects can be found within the organizations Center of Excellence (COE). At the COE-level, the first priority, before even beginning to consider the benefits of RPA, is securing and managing the access rights of this digital workforce. Its important to make the security team a part of the conversation on RPA implementation from the beginning. Including the security team means that security issues are addressed up front before they can cause delays in the final stages of deployment. Sustaining world-class performance and value cannot be achieved if security is an afterthought.

Gartner reinforces this point in its Predicts 2019: RPA Evolution1report:

The rapid adoption of RPA software has created a lot of hype in the market, leading many organizations to jump into RPA initiatives without proper analysis, planning, defined strategies and COEs. All this elevates the risk of errors by failing to automate the right processes, identify the right guardrails, and focus on security issues and access rights for the new virtual users (RPA bots).

Whats the Risk?

Security needs to be built in directly as part of the automation workflow. As citizen developers become increasingly common, security by design becomes even more critical. Anyone can make mistakes, but citizen developers who lack both technical and security knowhow are more likely to make the kinds of mistakes that unknowingly expose access to sensitive corporate networks and systems.

Many of the current low-code platforms do not have built-in security, but IT can hook the platforms into best-in-class security solutions, taking security out of the hands of the less security conscious citizen developer. If there arent enough developers to go around at the organization, before diving into low-/no-code environments or giving access citizen developers, credential management and security need to be top of mind. Moreover, they need to be at the top of the list of strategic objectives for the COE to ensure that RPA is implemented securely and the desired outcome of the program is achieved successfully.

Gartner reaffirms the importance of credential security in its Best Practices for Robotics Process Automation Success2report:

One of the most critical functions of the management platform is credential management. With robots actively accessing and manipulating data, thoughtful consideration and intentional implementation of credential management is a requirement of all RPA deployments. The management platform of an RPA system should allow for the creation, deletion and expiration of credentials for the RPA system, as well as the encryption of any locally stored credentials, if the use case requires them. IGA, RPA, and Managing Software Robot Identities is required reading for architects and technical professionals responsible for IAM.

Why Security Matters

Developers often work fast and dirty. They have aggressive deadlines. They have internal and external pressures to get their code out the door at lightning speed. Anything that has even a remote chance of slowing code production takes a back seat and security is no exception to this rule. Now consider the citizen developer. The majority of traditional developers at least have some knowledge of the importance of developing secure code whether they choose to maintain technical ethics and write their code in a secure manner is another story. However, the citizen developer doesnt think like the traditional developer. The citizen developer is often times a standard business user in some sort of managerial/supervisory capacity. They probably know very little about application and credential security, so they introduce risk to the app development pipeline.

Here are a few things to consider to help maintain the correct balance of security and usability:

Embrace Digital Transformation with Confidence.

Move fearlessly forward into the new digital landscape with CyberArk and take the first step by requesting a demo today. See how easy it is to start securing RPA workflows and processes with the #1 leader in privileged access security. To learn more about how to get started securely deploying RPA, read Gartners analyst report, Predicts 2019: RPA Evolution.1

1 Gartner, Predicts 2019: RPA Evolution, 6 December 2018, Analyst(s): Stephanie Stoudt-Hansen, Frances Karamouzis, Arup Roy, Arthur Villa, Melanie Alexander

2 Gartner, Best Practices for Robotic Process Automation Success, 18 June 2019, Analyst(s): Gregory Murray

The post RPA: Citizen Developers at the Corner of Speed and Value appeared first on CyberArk.

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*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from CyberArk authored by Corey O'Connor. Read the original post at: https://www.cyberark.com/blog/rpa-citizen-developers-at-the-corner-of-speed-and-value/

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RPA: Citizen Developers at the Corner of Speed and Value - Security Boulevard

LODI, Calif., Dec. 4, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --FitVine Wine,creator of crisp, clean-tasting, lower sugar wines to help you "Live Your Fit", unveiled a new label design. The new vibrant layout, including a new label shape expressing the movement of the brand's signature running man logo, offers the brand further opportunity and access to enthusiastic, health-conscious consumers by visually guiding them to FitVine Wine.

"Navigating the wine aisle can often be intimidating and overwhelming, so we wanted to create a new look and feel that is colorful, fun and approachable," said Tom Beaton, co-founder of FitVine Wine along with Mark Warren. "As we continue to grow our distribution in new retailers nationwide and offer more varietals, this new brand architecture supports our evolution, while still offering the same low sugar, fewer sulfites and no flavor additives wine."

With the rebrand rolling onto shelves nationwide, FitVine Wine continues to maintain a 'grape to bottle' philosophy, sourcing only the highest quality, pesticide-free grapes from small farmers in California. With a rich variety of red and white wines, the brand's crisp, clean-tasting and full-alcohol wines contain less than 1g of sugar per liter and low sulfites, for easy integration into many diets, including keto, paleo and celiac.

FitVine Wines portfolio includes a broad variety of white and red wines, ranging from the bubbly Prosecco to the limited-edition Holiday Red alongside classic varietals equally perfect for pairing with weekday meals or a 5k road race. FitVine Wine is available at major retailers nationwide, such as Whole Foods, Sprouts, Earth Fare, Fresh Thyme, Binny's and more, with recent distribution in Meijer.

FitVine Winery is located at 5573 W. Woodbridge Rd, Lodi, CA 95242. To learn more aboutFitVine Wineplease visit http://www.fitvinewine.com.

About FitVine Wine FitVine Wine was born when friends made a pact to craft amazing wines that also fit their active lifestyles. FitVine Wines contain less sugar, fewer sulfites, and no flavor additives without compromising taste or sacrificing alcohol content. To create clean and rich tasting wines with the flavor, mouthfeel and alcohol content you'd expect from a fine wine.

MEDIA CONTACTS:Lauren Newhouse / Hasmik Piliposyan 213.225.4403 230080@email4pr.com http://www.konnectagency.com

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fitvine-wine-uncorks-a-new-bright-and-bold-look-300969058.html

SOURCE FitVine Wines

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FitVine Wine Uncorks A New Bright And Bold Look - Benzinga

Regardless of your political identity, there is a good chance you see clear bias in political media, especially cable news. But while media bias is a wholly subjective debate, there is an objective bias to which all cable news networks slant, and that is towards conflict.

It is in this milieu that we take note of Jessica Tarlov, who may very well be the unlikeliest of the rising cable news stars this year.

As one of a handful of progressive voices on Fox News, Tarlov has consistently provided a sharp and dispassionate voice that serves as a compelling counterbalance to the reliably right-of-center opinion programming that has made Fox the top rated cable news outlet.

While Tarlov often gives voice to moderate liberal policies and engages in well-thought and often spirited discussions (that often lead to Mediaite posts) she also undermines critics who oversimplify Fox News as state-run TV.

Mediaite sat down with Tarlov at the recently decorated commissary on the 44th floor of Fox Corporation in Manhattan a space that felt inspired by a Copenhagen-set remake of Succession. We talked at length about the private charm of her ideological foe Sean Hannity, how she manages to deal with big piles of disinformation out there, persuadable voters on Fox News, and her standing among the ranks of fellow Fox News contributors.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

MEDIAITE: How did you get first get on Fox News?

JT: I came home from working on Boris Johnsons mayoral campaign right before Obamas reelection campaign to work for Doug Schoen, who is a Fox News contributor and Bill Clintons pollster and now works for Bloomberg. Doug encouraged me to start doing media to make me a better public speaker and to get more exposure. So Doug was really enthusiastic about the opportunity. And I started coming on Fox and they liked me and I liked them. And so, Ive been here for about four years, since before the 2016 election. And about three years ago, I left working for Doug to move over to Bustle Digital Group, and I run their research outfit.

MEDIAITE: Your first big, most visible hits were on Hannity, where you continue to contribute. What would a progressive audience hate to hear about Sean Hannity?

JT: He is the nicest dude Ive met. He is the most generous and caring. He remembers the little details about everybody. He takes everyone out all the time. Hes just gracious and lovely and so open. Also, with his own experience and his story of how he got to where he is and genuinely wants to know also about how you got to where you are.

MEDIAITE: Can you explain how your role as a panelist is different from of monologists like Tomi Lahren or Dan Bongino?

JT: Yeah, I think I mean, with a show like Outnumbered, which is an ensemble show that I do quite regularly, a little bit of your personal ego has to go away to support the greater good of the show.

MEDIAITE: Youre such a socialist.

JT: I am a socialist in all ways! (Editors note: a joke) You know, you want to make sure that everybody gets in and you also want to make your colleagues feel good about the points that theyre making. And thats just important to the dynamic. You have to say we have one lucky guy who is our guest. So your first priority is to bring out whatever information they came there to offer to your audience. Right. If they have a specialty, you want to make sure that youre highlighting that. But for the viewer at home, if youre just screaming at each other, its not good TV.

MEDIAITE: Outnumbereds conceit is featuring a panel of four women and a male cast as the one lucky guy. Yet, ideologically, very often YOU are outnumbered. How do you deal with that inevitable frustration that comes with being ganged up on?

JT: Breathing. not to get too therapeutic about it is a big part of it. And to really take a moment to think, is this an avenue that I really want to go down or is this a hill to die on, like where I want to raise the decibel level to, you know, 100 versus 50 and something like that. I keep in mind the fact that I truly believe what Im saying. And that also my views represent a majority of Americans, not the views of many of the people that Im on with.

MEDIAITE: Like what?

JT: If you look at the polling on things like a womans right to choose or raising the minimum wage or how we do an impeachment, how we deal with immigration in this country, right? Democrats are in the majority here and there. Their platforms actually could be sourced right out of current polling and it would do a hell of a lot better than what the president has put forward.

MEDIAITE: Since much of opinion programming on Fox News is very pro-Trump, do you feel like you have a greater responsibility to carry a big part of the progressive burden?

JT: I take it really seriously and I know that people are watching. And its a complete myth that liberals dont watch Fox. Right now the polling goes anywhere between 10 and 20 percent are liberals and then a good 20 to 30 percent are independents that are right. So those are persuadable voters. Its a really big number, and I think that that word on the street has kind of been that this is just an echo chamber for President Trump and Mick Mulvaney to sit around and eat popcorn and watch Fox. But thats not whats going on here. I feel like thats a complete fallacy. And I do also feel a responsibility to the liberal Twiterrati to say Im here and Im doing a really good job. But Im not backing down. Im not being mealy-mouthed about this. Im not bashing Hillary. Thats something that I take really seriously. I think there are too many liberals that go on TV and kind of feed Republican talking points about how bad her campaign was. I do feel like I have something to prove.

MEDIAITE: Do you ever catch hell from progressives for cashing a check fromFox News because theres so much animus towards the network?

JT: Theres been an evolution in the perception of me from when I started to now. I think that doesnt have to do necessarily in a change in my belief system, but how Im able to advocate my beliefs. So when you start out doing TV youre less sure of when you can jump in, and like, how hard can you push, youre not as comfortable with theseyou find your rhythm like I know more or less the boundaries of how far I can go with X host. And also what makes good TV and what makes bad TV and when you should cut someone off and when you shouldnt.

JT: The first rule of television: have your talking points and get them out. And they should be short and succinct. And its really hard if you feel like there has been a big pile of disinformation thrown out there.

MEDIAITE: A big pile of disinformation? You clearly have a different point of view than your fellow Outnumbered panelists.

JT: Well, Im a hired partisan. Im very happy to be. I mean, people will come to me and say youre not being fair or what kind of journalist are you? Im not a journalist. Im a hired liberal. So I dont have to both sides it. What I think is something I mean, and I revel in that at this moment. I would really hate to be sitting there saying, oh, well, Hunter Biden really shouldnt have had that job.

MEDIAITE: Theres a small group of progressives at Fox News. Do you offer some support or you do stay in touch or do you just sort of like theyre just another talent?

JT: Im definitely closest with Juan and Marie. Juan fills a mentor role for a lot of people in this building. And its something he takes really seriously. And hes wonderful at it. I mean, hes seen everything. Obviously, being a print journalist, moving into TV legend, and youre totally right. And he also in a tough environment where you are the outnumbered one, hes really good at helping you talk through the topics that youre gonna be discussing. Whats the best way to focus on what you really think is important? Its like I mentioned before. Sometimes if a lot of things are going on, you might not even get out the point that you wanted to make because youre busy addressing wherever the conversation went. And likewise, I think that Juan looks to me and to Marie and other progressives that are here to chat about the issues. But its kind of its a fun little fraternity party.

MEDIAITE: Media that covers media is a new thing. Are there moments where you or the set of Outnumbered immediately realize that this is gonna be up on Mediaite?

JT: I think about 90 percent of the time we know what happened, you know, and what kind of headline it will be like, blah, blah, blah, lets loose on or panel erupts over. So you can usually feel it coming. I genuinely feel like the majority of the talent here doesnt care. And its just part of the day.

MEDIAITE: Seems a slippery slope to obsess over the coverage

JT: And I think what people are most conscious of is if they have offended somebody that they care about. Right. Because you dont want to if you have to have a thick skin to do this anyway. But you dont necessarily want a post to go viral that pits you against your colleague in such a way that suddenly theyre being inundated with liberals saying youre terrible, so disrespectful and you dont want it to come in the reverse. And I assume my colleagues are conscious of that visa vis me.

MEDIAITE: After the lights go off, do you ever sort of meet up with people that youve had a spirited debate with and say, like, are we good?

JT: Im a big fan of extra talking and follow up. So I will pretty regularly send a note or a text and just say, like, You know, hope everything is cool. Nothing personal. Or to actually follow up on the point. Ive done that, too. Ive sent links then to whatever study I was citing. To say this is where I got my information out because the truthfulness of the way that you represent yourself on TV is all you have here So if youre putting out data and facts, which is how I like to do it. And if they get disputed on air, I want to make sure that I have a reputation for not making things up, because I think there are people across the whole spectrum of channels that are saying things that arent true.

MEDIAITE: Have you felt moments where you were just like felt like if I dont if we dont wrap this segment, Im gonna burst into tears, or just scream my head off, or youre just like, I cant deal with this anymore?

JT: There was a moment about when Cindy Hyde-Smith made those lynching comments where I just cant understand backing her up in any way whatsoever. And that thats frustrating. Or Im talking about the presidents racism has been something thats really personal for me. I made it clear from very early on that I believed him to be a racist. And there was a lot of evidence for it. Going back to not letting African-Americans live in Trump housing complexes up until the tweets that he sent about Elijah Cummings in Baltimore. But that was something that was really hard for me. Going back to what I said a little while ago about representing a majority viewpoint, the majority of Americans think the president is a racist. That shouldnt be a controversial thing to say at all, that it is the majority viewpoint.

MEDIAITE: And yet thats not really covered that much at Fox News. And so Im curious where do you think Fox is going editorially right now?

JT: Lynne Jordal Martin, who runs the opinion section, is fantastic and a huge advocate of mine. She always wants a Democratic voice on FoxNews.com and asks all of us to write regularly. But one thing that Fox does that, I cant say necessarily about all the other channels, at the same time is like a voice like mine is always there. The news and opinion side is obviously split, but during the day, much to the chagrin of a viewer, someone who thinks like me is showing up and being quite loud about it. So when there are these accusations of State TV I think to myself, I had half the airtime in that segment and I was calling the president a racist. How? How are you backing up that theory?

MEDIAITE: People here at Fox News treat you well.

JT: They do treat me well. Im not best friends with everybody, but I think that people who even abhor my political beliefs, they like me personally. Ive had a lot of dual pairings where its been consistent, like with Tomi Lahren and with Jesse Watters, with Kayleigh McEnany. Any. Those arent conservative wallflowers. They are really passionate about their beliefs and who will go for the jugular if they need to elbow. And I think theres also something thats changing a bit in 220 versus 2016. So I think in 2016 it was a lot of like Bernie flame-throwing types and that was the more appealing Democrat for TV clashes. But I think that if you can make good TV and if you can have a thoughtful argument about the real issues of the day from a more moderate position, which is where I consider myself to be so obviously a Democrat, a liberal part of a progressive coalition.

I think a lot of conservatives have found themselves on the back foot about that because they went in saying its impossible, you know, best economy ever. And guess what? People showed up and voted no one on health care and overwhelmingly said the Democrats were the people that they wanted to lead. Right.

MEDIAITE: Rapid fire to end it Yeah? Yes or no: Will Trump be impeached?

JT: Yes.

MEDIAITE: Will Trump be removed from office?

JT: No.

MEDIAITE: Who is will be the Democratic candidate in 2020?

JT: Joe Biden.

MEDIAITE: Who will be elected president in November 2012.

JT: Very worried it be President Trump. I said on air actually outnumber just a few minutes ago. I think its certainly over 50 percent odds. And I got big natural support from Chris Stirewalt. Well, I mean, its really hard to unseat a president.

Have a tip we should know? [emailprotected]

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Foxs New Progressive Star Jessica Tarlov Talks to Mediaite About Being Outnumbered - Mediaite

Indians who dwell in metropolitan cities do all sorts of important tasks during their daily long commutes. Chop vegetables in trains. Create sales presentations in cars. Complete hurried skincare routines like applying a Tea Tree and aloe-infused hydration face mask in a cab stuck in traffic. Now, due to well-established gender stereotypes, one might immediately picture a woman doing the last of these activities. But, in fact, it was a man behind that beauty mask. Hydrating sheet masks infused with all sorts of ingredients from honey to black mud and seaweed are all the rage among Indian women today, but men are not too far behind. One of the most frequently asked questions by men on beauty brand Innisfree Indias Instagram is Can men use sheet masks? Just to be sure, the answer is yes, they can.

Indian men are finally shedding some of the misplaced shame associated with personal grooming, skincare and beauty. After all, its only fair that men too get to be lovely. And given the fact that life today is increasingly lived and experienced online, often through rose-tinted filters, women and men are feeling the pressure to be selfie-ready 24/7.

According to market research firm Nielsen, 177 new male grooming brands or variants were launched between April 2018 and March 2019. The size of the branded male grooming segment has crossed the Rs 5,000 crore-mark in urban India. While shaving and face care products continue to account for over 50 per cent of the male grooming pie, new categories such as body care and hair care are also fuelling the growth.

The Korean brand Innisfrees marketing head in India, Mini Sood Banerjee, has been noticing some interesting trends in mens skincare routines. For instance, the company launched a sunscreen specially created for Indian men who care about complexion and sun damage, and the Green Tea range is one of the most popular among the brands male customer base as they want gentler products. Previously the only choice men had was to use what companies were pitching specifically to women or use that one-in-all lotion for all skin types, body parts and seasons. Says Banerjee, We have noticed that men usually check skincare routine videos online. But they arent very open to in-store trials yet. In that case, wed strongly recommend the brand try catching them in a taxi next time.

At Gurugram-based mens grooming brand The Man Company, founder and managing director Hitesh Dhingra tells us how the company is responding to the evolving needs of Indian men. We conduct a customer survey every six months, where not only do we ask for feedback on our products but we also ask what new products they would want us to introduce in our product portfolio. Thats the reason why we dont shy away from launching products which are as universal as beard and shaving products to something as functional as intimate care or tattoo care products.

The company is also changing its communication script. Recently, actor Ayushmann Khurrana came on board as the brands endorser and hes invested in the startup. Khurranas first film for the brand Gentleman kise kehte hai attempts to break preconceived notions about male grooming and beauty regimes, and also mocks the ad industry thats played a big role is perpetuating damaging stereotypes.

Talking about the line of communication, Dhingra says, To become a gentleman, how one looks or the choice of profession is irrelevant. What matters are the inherent qualities one possesses and the mindset of constant evolution. Its the kind of higher-order brand purpose that P&Gs Gillette has pushing for a while. But Gillette caused quite a storm with Is this the best men can be campaign, and since that close shave has returned to a much tamer #ManEnough campaign. The new approach celebrates local heroes and while at it shatters some behavior codes to create new ones like men cry too.

Mass Connection to Complexion

While men are opening up to hydrating, de-tanning, and masking, they are also more actively and openly seeking standard grooming and beauty services. UrbanClap, Indias largest services marketplace, recently launched its home mens grooming services in nine cities. According to Pratik Mukherjee, AVP - marketing, beauty and wellness at UrbanClap, We frequently got tweets and messages on Instagram from men enquiring if we had grooming services for them. The one thing we understood is that men in India are big standard maintainers. They want either a haircut or set/shave their beard. That itself is a large customer base for us.

From a content perspective, too, the mass segment is becoming more curious, says Ranveer Allahabadia who runs a YouTube channel called BeerBiceps. Allahabadia started by creating fitness content but now is creating more content in the grooming space. He says, Today, men are conscious about how they look. They want to have a sexy attitude. Also, they want to try things that they see on the Internet - from new hairstyles to balding treatments. Allahabadia who also co-founded Monk Entertainment, a digital content company, works with brands like WOW Skin Science and Nykaa. He tells us that the steepest growth in views and engagement is coming through Hindi-language grooming videos. An average Indian man wants to groom himself. His first research is an internet search. Thats why tips and trick videos are a hit for this segment, he says.

Veet, a depilatory products brand, recently forayed into the male grooming segment in India with the launch of Veet Men Hair Removal Cream. Pankaj Duhan, chief marketing officer, RB Health South Asia, tells Brand Equity the brand took a couple of years to develop the product and the biggest insight in the development phase came from women, surprisingly. According to our conversation with women, we understood that about 87% of them want men to take care of their appearance. 70% of women said they are put off by men with excessive body hair. In fact, men wanted more DIY solutions to get rid of their body hair.

Duhan also agrees that the definition of masculinity is evolving and with it the consumers preferences; Men today want to feel good about themselves. Therefore, it was important for us to design a product especially for men and deliver the solutions they are looking for. Solutions that are easy to use, with better results, and pain-free. Hot wax has made many shed tears.

However, Prathish Nair, founder and chief business architect, Transcend Brand Consulting, thinks that brands need to take a deeper look at the category. The masculine image code is a response to the contemporary cultural, social and political factors. The representation of a mans image is in no way simple but rather as complex as the image of a woman. He thinks companies should actually design for men from the ground up. These should be nothing like what you would currently find and are not just womens products with a For Men label slapped on the front of it or merely reproductions of international bestsellers. As the famous LOral brand line goes: Because youre worth it, man.

The Mens Makeup War

Earlier this year, War Paint, a male vegan beauty brand, released a video of its campaign on Twitter with a caption: We couldn't find a make-up brand formulated specifically for men's skin; so we created one. In the short video, a heavily tattooed and muscular man was seen showering before applying products to his face and putting on a skull ring. Twitter users criticized the brand for its use of overtly masculine imagery by focusing more on the males physique than the actual products. The video was eventually taken down.

Global K-pop sensation, BTS launched a makeup line in collaboration with VT Cosmetics.

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What men really want: The evolution of mens grooming category - ETBrandEquity.com