LINKS - June 29th, 2022
Welcome to LINKS — my attempt to provide Rhapsody readers with five interesting stories that tell us something about what it means to be human. LINKS is published every Wednesday. Have a link you want to share? Drop it in the comments.
Difficult Truths: Confronting Irish Industrial Schools
By Fiona Murphy, Sapiens
“An anthropologist delves into the archives to uncover her family’s early 20th-century experiences with Catholic-run Irish industrial schools—institutions later revealed to be rife with child abuse.”
Are You a Naïve Realist? Do you think you see the world objectively and others are biased?
By Erika Weisz & Sarah Stamper, Nautilus
“First, the naïve realist believes that their perceptions are realistic and “objective.” Accordingly, other people (at least, reasonable other people) should share their beliefs, preferences, and convictions. Second, the naïve realist expects that any reasonable, open-minded person will be persuaded to agree with the naïve realist if there is disagreement between parties. If there is disagreement, and if the disagreeing party is a reasonable person, presenting the “real facts” should restore harmony. Third, anyone who disagrees with the naïve realist after the presentation of real facts is unreasonable, biased, or irrational.”
Fashion Has Abandoned Human Taste
“At the end of the 1990s, things in fashion started to change. Conglomeration accelerated within the industry, and companies that had once been independent businesses with creative autonomy began to consolidate, gaining scale while sanding off many of their quirks. Computers and the internet were becoming more central to the work, even on the creative side. Trend-forecasting agencies, long a part of the product-development process for the largest American retailers, began to create more sophisticated data aggregation and analysis techniques, and their services gained wider popularity and deeper influence. As clothing design and trendspotting became more centralized and data-reliant, the liberalization of the global garment trade allowed cheap clothing made in developing countries to pour into the American retail market in unlimited quantities for the first time. That allowed European fast-fashion companies to take a shot at the American consumer market, and in 2000, the Swedish clothing behemoth H&M arrived on the country’s shores.”
Why DARPA wants its robots to think like kids
By Kelsey D. Atherton, Popular Science
“This is the domain of Machine Common Sense, a DARPA initiative about developing a kind of AI that allows robots, first in simulation and then in the real world, to emulate a toddler’s ability to understand, interact with, and navigate through the world. It includes efforts on processing language, manipulating objects, and moving across unfamiliar terrain….
“The ultimate goal, though, is to enable computer systems and robotic systems to be able to be trained in much the same way that we train soldiers in technical areas that they work on within the military,” says Shrobe.”
See the Vibrant, Long-Overlooked Colors of Classical Sculptures
By Meilan Solly, Smithsonian Magazine
“Starting next week, a new exhibition at the Met will offer visitors a sense of what ancient masterpieces might have looked like in their original, vibrantly painted form. Titled ‘Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color,’ the show features 40 artworks from the Manhattan museum’s collections and 14 full-size reconstructions created by polychromy experts Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann. (A companion gallery on the Met’s mezzanine level showcases 22 original artworks and 3 reconstructions.)”