Saturday, 16 May 2026

Post No. 3,450 - Some (hopefully) interesting reading / viewing / listening - Saturday 16th May, 2026

I recently found the following interesting and/or useful, and am posting them here in case anyone else does as well.  

 

  • “The Discovery of the Sperm Whale Phonetic Alphabet”   https://youtu.be/Hm9ADZ28Wgo   This was fascinating - especially diphthong vowels and possible coordinating of group activities.   Chapters are:   0:00 SETI vs CETI   0:40 Whale language is way too complex   2:00 How sperm whales communicate - clans and cultures   4:05 Phonetic alphabet found   5:25 Vowels, intonation and coarticulation   6:40 Similar to Chinese   7:50 Why do they need this complexity? Breakthrough observations   9:10 Dolphins and humpbacks too   11:10 Conclusions    
  • “Meditation at Scale: What a Global Citizen Science Study Reveals About Mind and Brain”   https://noetic.org/experience/connections-live/?vgo_ee=PUngDcg8sAlhpmbb1HuDtekYRe2NmFIyzDEIb#replay  “This recording is available to the public until June 12, 2026.   Meditation is widely practiced, yet questions remain about how different techniques shape the mind and body. The Citizen Science Meditation Study explores this by combining large-scale public participation with wearable neurotechnology.   In this webinar, researchers from the Institute of Noetic Sciences and InteraXon share findings from a global study comparing four meditation practices—mindfulness, loving-kindness, nondual, and mantra—alongside an active control. Using the MUSE EEG headband, participants tracked changes in well-being, mood, cognition, brain activity, and heart rate variability over four weeks.   Together, the speakers offer a closer look at how different approaches to meditation may influence mental and physiological states—and what this could mean for the future of meditation research.”   This also covered what didn’t work, and links to the meditation techniques are included.    

 

 

  • “Neurasthenia to Fibromyalgia: The Condition Medicine Forgot Part 1 - YouTube”   https://youtu.be/oCPbh-qf2uU   “In this video, Dr. Michael Lenz explores the historical context of fibromyalgia, discussing how patients with debilitating pain and fatigue were often dismissed, highlighting the evolution of understanding surrounding this complex “syndrome”. He sheds light on how diagnoses like neurasthenia and fibrositis were used in the past, and how symptoms often diminished once a diagnosis was provided. This discussion is vital for understanding the “pain science” behind “what is fibromyalgia” today, emphasizing the journey from historical dismissal to current recognition as a legitimate “chronic illness” often involving “central sensitization”.”   and   “Science's Greatest Failure: What Happened to Neurasthenia Patients Part 2”   https://youtu.be/NsIVfXyxgLc   “Dr. Michael Lenz frames neurasthenia as a “medical cold case” abandoned when 20th-century medicine prioritized visible, measurable diseases over conditions lacking clear lab or imaging evidence. He contrasts major medical breakthroughs (x-rays, aspirin, blood typing, ECG, insulin, penicillin, ultrasound, vaccines, transplants, MRI, smallpox eradication) with the fading of neurasthenia, once the most common U.S. diagnosis by 1900 and often labeled a “trash can” category. Lens explains George Beard’s theory of nervous “weakness,” bioelectricity, and dephosphorylation, noting parallels with modern nociplastic pain and central sensitization and citing fMRI as later evidence of brain dysfunction. He discusses links to high achievers, neurodivergence, masking, and sensory overload, and argues the psychosomatic/Freudian shift created shame and invalidation. He previews part three on symptom lists and mast cell activation.”   
  • From the UK, via LinkedIn:   “... inclusion is not just being allowed into the room.   It is whether someone can access the information, expectations and decisions being made inside it.   The legal question is no longer just:   “Did we intentionally exclude someone?”   It is also:   ⚖️ Did our communication style create disadvantage?   ⚖️ Were expectations actually clear?   ⚖️ Did managers adapt communication where needed?   ⚖️ Did the employee have equal access to information?”   https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danjharris_a-neurodiversity-employment-tribunal-has-activity-7459537111667470337-HSBS     

 

 

  • “Transgender UW Student Killed in Student Housing Sunday Night was the Seventh Trans Woman Attacked in Seattle in Twenty Months”   https://aridrennen.substack.com/p/transgender-uw-student-killed-in   “A 19-year-old transgender UW student was killed in off-campus student housing Sunday night. She was the seventh trans woman attacked in Seattle in twenty months, and the first not to survive.”   
  • “Making An Enemy Out Of Ideas - YouTube”   https://youtu.be/3Ik25srzIvw   and   “Hamilton’s Imperial Presidency: Did Americans Lose Our Constitutional Imagination?”   https://youtu.be/Ee4_ZtASiyg   “Alexander Hamilton’s case for a single executive in Federalist 70 was the fallback position of a man who, in June 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, had argued for an executive serving “during good behavior” — life tenure, openly modeled on the British monarch. The accountability mechanism is the consolation prize.   The passage that sparked this video is from Arthur Schlesinger’s The Imperial Presidency, published in 1973. Schlesinger is worth saying a few things about. He had been an aide to John F. Kennedy and a friend of Robert Kennedy. He had served inside the administrations whose accretion of executive power he was now writing the autopsy on. The term “imperial presidency” was coined out of insider experience. And the book opens its case for the unitary executive by quoting Hamilton on how watched and suspected a single president would be — which tells you how deep liberal nationalism’s hold runs even on the diagnosticians.   The same Schlesinger passage shows Jefferson arriving at the unitary executive from the other side. Jefferson had favored a plural executive under the Articles of Confederation, watched the French Directoire fail, served in Washington’s cabinet alongside Hamilton, and concluded — wrongly, by the lights of his own resistance tradition — that plurality produced “absolute inaction.” Charles Pinckney rounds out the consensus, defending executive discretion on the grounds that an able council would “thwart” the president while a weak one would let him “shelter himself under their sanction.” That is the founding consensus on the unitary executive in three voices.”   

 

 

 My article(s) on SubStack: 

  • “Rights and Spirit No. 004 (~1,120 words, ~ 7 minutes)”   https://musingsofgnwmythr.substack.com/p/rights-and-spirit-no-004-1120-words   “The problem of performative pretentions”   This week I discuss “performative pretentions”, particularly those fostering an illusion of familial love, such as illustrated, for example, by reactions to abhorrent crimes. These public displays - which have been used by people later convicted of the very crime they pretend to be reacting to - are what I term “performative protestations”. This behavior exemplifies social conditioning and pushing individuals to conform to expected displays of affection (which can be controlling and harmful). Additionally, such pretentions appear in political contexts and intimate relationships, leading to other problematic societal pressures. To address and ultimately prevent these issues, I consider that we need to teach critical thinking and emotional competence in children, emphasising in particular the need for individuality in understanding purpose and meaning. I also note that social conditioning is a significant driver of discrimination, particularly through the long-standing influence of patriarchy, which has resulted in misogyny and hypocrisy, now partially encapsulated by the term “manosphere”. Current global issues, such as conflicts in West Asia, and political problems in the US government, further highlight the ongoing struggle for democracy and the erosion of social values as a result of social conditioning. The character flaws of those in power enable, initiate, and exacerbate these problems. To combat these problems, I again emphasise that it is essential to foster values of decency and critical thinking among children. 

article title and details appear across a photo of a distressed woman covering her head, as if to protect her thoughts from others nearby, perhaps
 


  • “Telepathy in a 1980s workplace”   https://musingsofgnwmythr.substack.com/p/telepathy-in-a-1980s-workplace   “A cautionary experience”   In the 1980s, I had a constructive relationship with a manager who occasionally sought my input. On one occasion, the manager presented a pad of sticky (or “Stick It”) notes for my feedback. Despite trying to suppress my psychic abilities at work - largely to protect myself against the harmful energies of a high-pressure environment, I could sense the manager forcefully projecting a strong desire for me to confirm the notes’ quick loss of stickiness. This led to a discussion about psychic phenomena and ethics, and an agreement that I would pretend to discover the flaw through normal means to provide an excuse for the manager. However, after this incident, the manager left, out of fear - highlighting the importance (particularly in a competitive and often cruel industry where you needed allies) of staying shut down, and hiding any psychic ability beyond just not using it: actively hiding it, not because it could be actively harmful (think angry people with pitchforks), but there could be pitchfork-free adverse consequences as well. Much of the world is less ignorant now, but I personally would still hide any psychic ability in workplaces.   

article title and details appear across a photo where, beyond a light green ridge sloping from left to right in the foreground, is a parallel ridge, with darker grass and two trees communing with each other against white clouds  

 


Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider: 

  • there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”;  
  • I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.

 

 

Gnwmythr 

teaching the "good" (balanced positive and spiritually mature) 
safe ways to counter the "bad" (out of balance, spiritually immature) 

 

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Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

#PsychicABetterWorld   and   may all that I do be of value and actively BPM used for and by the nonphysical  BPM  because   #KindnessIsThePoint   

Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here, and Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear   

Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2026     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/  




 

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