This reissue of the modern classic on the study of argumentation features a new Introduction by the author.

    Regularly priced at $4.99. Read on your PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet or Kindle device. Vipassana is not a belief system, religion, or a philosophy. Though Buddhist in origin, it isn’t dependent on Buddhism, and you certainly don’t have to be a Buddhist to practice Vipassana. Vipassana is a form of meditation, or a mental exercise, if you will, that has the capacity to do absolute wonders in your life. It’s a fantastic way to relieve stress, anxiety, depression, reduce blood pressure, end drug dependency, and help with pain management – greatly minimizing the need for medication. It’s also effective in dealing with anger management issues, post traumatic stress, and hormonal changes. The list doesn’t end there. It’s proven to increase productivity in the workplace, heighten memory, concentration, and focus, and helps those with cognitive difficulties. And best of all? It requires absolutely no investment or special equipment. It’s free! This book will delve into Vipassana, explaining everything you need to know to practice Vipassana regularly (and successfully) in your life so that you can reap all its benefits, most especially ridding yourself of stress and anxiety, instead living with happiness, peace, and joy. Here Is A Preview Of What You'll Learn... What is Vipassana? Preliminary Preparations Sitting Vipassana (the First Exercise) Labelling Observing Motion Observing Sensation If You ABSOLUTELY Have to Move A Few Warnings Active Vipassana Much, much more! Download your copy today! Tags: vipassana, mindfulness, meditation, vipassana meditation, dhamma, dharma, mindfulness exercises, mindfulness training, vipassana yoga, vipassana meditation technique, Buddhism, vipassana buddhism, vipassana goenka, vipassana mindfulness, meditation, buddhist

    An Australian millionaire says Millennials could all afford homes if we'd just give up avocado toast. Thanks, millionaire. This Millennial is here to prove them all wrong.Millennials have been stereotyped as lazy, entitled, narcissistic, and immature. We've gotten so used to sloppy generational analysis filled with dumb clichés about young people that we've lost sight of what really unites Millennials. Namely:-We are the most educated and hard-working generation in American history.-We poured historic and insane amounts of time and money into preparing ourselves for the 21st century labor market.- We have been taught to consider working for free (homework, internships) a privilege for our own benefit.- We are poorer, more medicated, and more precariously employed than our parents, grandparents, even our great grandparents, with less of a social safety net to boot. Kids These Days, is about why. In brilliant, crackling prose, early Wall Street occupier Malcolm Harris gets mercilessly real about our maligned birth cohort. Examining trends like runaway student debt, the rise of the intern, mass incarceration, social media, and more, Harris gives us a portrait of what it means to be young in America today that will wake you up and piss you off. Millennials were the first generation raised explicitly as investments, Harris argues, and in Kids These Days he dares us to confront and take charge of the consequences now that we are grown up.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    The essay focuses on political language, which, according to Orwell, "is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." Orwell believed that the language used was necessarily vague or meaningless because it was intended to hide the truth rather than express it.

    As Pluckrose and Lindsay warn, the unchecked proliferation of these anti-Enlightenment beliefs present a threat not only to liberal democracy but also to modernity itself. While acknowledging the need to challenge the complacency of those who think a just society has been fully achieved, Pluckrose and Lindsay break down how this often-radical activist scholarship does far more harm than good, not least to those marginalized communities it claims to champion. They also detail its alarmingly inconsistent and illiberal ethics. Only through a proper understanding of the evolution of these ideas, they conclude, can those who value science, reason, and consistently liberal ethics successfully challenge this harmful and authoritarian orthodoxy—in the academy, in culture, and beyond.

    But what if the problem is not that we are all synchronized to the same motions or moments, but rather dispersed into countless different emotional micro-experiences? What if the effect of so-called social media is to calibrate the interactive spectacle so that we never fully feel the same way as other potential allies at the same time? While one person is fuming about economic injustice or climate change denial, another is giggling at a cute cat video. And, two hours late, vice versa. The nebulous indignation which constitutes the very fuel of true social change can be redirected safely around the network, avoiding any dangerous surges of radical activity. In this short and provocative book, Dominic Pettman examines the deliberate deployment of what he calls 'hypermodulation,' as a key strategy encoded into the contemporary media environment. His account challenges the various narratives that portray social media as a sinister space of synchronized attention, in which we are busily “clicking ourselves to death.” This critical reflection on the unprecedented power of the Internet requires us to rethink the potential for infinite distraction that our latest technologies now allow.

    Deviant Behavior covers a wide spectrum of theories of deviance, and analyzes numerous specific deviant behaviors. The author uses an abundance of research data, including many that debunk our common assumptions about deviant behavior. Students are exposed to the full range of theories and data about deviance, and are challenged to think about and evaluate their own biases and preconceptions.

    It has not been by shaping the opinions or directing the actions of the holders of power that modern intellectuals have most influenced the course of events, but by shaping public opinion in ways that affect the actions of power holders in democratic societies, whether or not those power holders accept the general vision or the particular policies favored by intellectuals. Even government leaders with disdain or contempt for intellectuals have had to bend to the climate of opinion shaped by those intellectuals.Intellectuals and Society not only examines the track record of intellectuals in the things they have advocated but also analyzes the incentives and constraints under which their views and visions have emerged. One of the most surprising aspects of this study is how often intellectuals have been proved not only wrong, but grossly and disastrously wrong in their prescriptions for the ills of society—and how little their views have changed in response to empirical evidence of the disasters entailed by those views.

    The author shows that no matter how bizarre a people's behavior may seem, it always stems from concrete social and economic conditions. It is by isolating and identifying these conditions that we will be able to understand and cope with some of our own apparently senseless life styles. In a devastating attack on the shamans of the counterculture, the author states the case for a return to objective consciousness and a rational set of political commitments.

    This updated edition features new material.

    He is also one of its most controversial. The author of important books such as Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, Rethinking Life and Death, and The Life You Can Save, he helped launch the animal rights and effective altruism movements and contributed to the development of bioethics. Now, in Ethics in the Real World, Singer shows that he is also a master at dissecting important current events in a few hundred words.In this book of brief essays, he applies his controversial ways of thinking to issues like climate change, extreme poverty, animals, abortion, euthanasia, human genetic selection, sports doping, the sale of kidneys, the ethics of high-priced art, and ways of increasing happiness. Singer asks whether chimpanzees are people, smoking should be outlawed, or consensual sex between adult siblings should be decriminalized, and he reiterates his case against the idea that all human life is sacred, applying his arguments to some recent cases in the news. In addition, he explores, in an easily accessible form, some of the deepest philosophical questions, such as whether anything really matters and what is the value of the pale blue dot that is our planet. The collection also includes some more personal reflections, like Singer’s thoughts on one of his favorite activities, surfing, and an unusual suggestion for starting a family conversation over a holiday feast.Provocative and original, these essays will challenge—and possibly change—your beliefs about a wide range of real-world ethical questions.

    Most forms of private vice and public evil are kindled and sustained by lies. Acts of adultery and other personal betrayals, financial fraud, government corruption—even murder and genocide—generally require an additional moral defect: a willingness to lie.

    Beginning with a central problem that distinguishes sociology from most other ways of looking at the world, Randall Collins examines the limits of human rationality and sociological theories of religion, showing how they open up a general theory of social rituals that holds the key to much of the rest of sociology. With these conceptual tools in hand, he invites students to ponder how sociological analysis can illuminate a variety of urgent topics--power, crime, sex, love, and the position of women in society--as it reveals both their visible social symbols and their paradoxical deep structures. In a new final chapter, Collins stakes out an important role for sociology in the information age, while coming full circle to the theories of rationality and ritual with which he began, showing that artificial intelligence can approximate human creativity only if it can take part in ritual interactions. Uniquely engaging, Sociological Insight dramatizes the major issues and concerns of sociology in a way that gets students thinking and talking, and whets their appetites for more.

    But more than a temperament, being positive, we are told, is the key to success and prosperity. In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, Barbara Ehrenreich traces the strange career of our sunny outlook from its origins as a marginal nineteenth-century healing technique to its enshrinement as a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude. Evangelical mega-churches preach the good news that you only have to want something to get it, because God wants to "prosper" you. The medical profession prescribes positive thinking for its presumed health benefits. Academia has made room for new departments of "positive psychology" and the "science of happiness." Nowhere, though, has bright-siding taken firmer root than within the business community, where, as Ehrenreich shows, the refusal even to consider negative outcomes—like mortgage defaults—contributed directly to the current economic crisis.With the myth-busting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of America’s penchant for positive thinking: On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out “negative” thoughts. On a national level, it’s brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best—poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.