All posts tagged: objective

Trump revealed his objective in Iran — 40 years ago

Trump revealed his objective in Iran — 40 years ago

Published by Sam Flores

Much has been said over the past few weeks about what motivated Donald Trump to go to war with Iran. Since he has given more than half a dozen different explanations, and sometimes in the same day, there’s no way of knowing for sure. With few restraints on his ambitions in his second term, the president has seemingly become convinced of his own omnipotence. He has also thrown in his lot with Israel and certain Gulf states for ideological and financial reasons. (In the case of Israel, there are also theological considerations at play.) But Trump has another motive that he’s never tried to hide. In fact, he’s been saying it explicitly for the better part of 40 years: “We should take the oil.”  Like his devotion to tariffs, Trump latched onto the notion when he was first creating his image as a brilliant businessman with political opinions that, for some reason, journalists thought the public would be interested in hearing. Like his devotion to tariffs, Trump latched onto the notion when he was first …

NSS welcomes proposals for more ‘pluralist’, ‘objective’ RE in NI

NSS welcomes proposals for more ‘pluralist’, ‘objective’ RE in NI

Published by Sam Flores

The National Secular Society has welcomed proposals to make religious education in Northern Ireland more pluralist and inclusive – but has warned this cannot be achieved without fundamental reforms. The Department of Education (DoE) in NI is consulting on its review of the religious education (RE) core syllabus, following a UK Supreme Court ruling that current RE arrangements breach human rights. In November, the court unanimously allowed the appeal in the case of JR87 – a daughter and father from Belfast who argued Christian-based RE and collective worship in NI’s schools are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court found the current RE syllabus amounts to indoctrination. This included encouraging children to accept ideas such as creation being “the gift of God” as “absolute truths”. The NSS responded to the consultation stressing the need for a reform of RE, and to call for collective worship (CW) and relationships and sex education (RSE) to also be addressed. NSS calls for end to requirement for RE to be “based upon the Holy Scriptures” The …

What is Trump’s true objective in the Iran war? U.S. targets provide a clue

What is Trump’s true objective in the Iran war? U.S. targets provide a clue

Published by Sam Flores

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department last week outlined a concise set of military objectives in President Trump’s war against Iran, claiming its ultimate goal is to dismantle Tehran’s ability to project power beyond its borders. Yet it may be targets the Pentagon has largely left unacknowledged that offer the clearest insight yet into Trump’s true intentions. U.S. military strikes have focused on Iran’s ballistic missile, drone and nuclear programs, as well as its naval assets, according to U.S. Central Command. But strikes have also increasingly targeted Iran’s internal security forces, used by the Islamic Republic to suppress public dissent, according to an analysis from the Institute for the Study of War and the Critical Threats Project shared with The Times. The strikes have targeted at least 123 headquarters, barracks and local bases operated by Iran’s paramilitary organizations, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Basij militia. Regional police forces, primarily in the capital region around Tehran and in western Iran, near areas dominated by Kurdish groups hostile to the Iranian government, have also been targeted. Some …

Psychiatry has finally found an objective way to spot mental illness

Psychiatry has finally found an objective way to spot mental illness

Published by skeptic

AI is able to bring together dozens of small physical details to help diagnose mental illness Bratislav Milenković “It seems like this past week has been quite challenging for you,” a disembodied voice tells me, before proceeding to ask a series of increasingly personal questions. “Have you been feeling down or depressed?” “Can you describe what this feeling has been like for you?” “Does the feeling lift at all when something good happens?” When I respond to each one, my chatbot interviewer thanks me for my honesty and empathises with any issues. By the end of the conversation, I will have also spoken about my sleep patterns, sex drive and appetite for food. Could this be the future? According to some psychiatrists, chatbots like this may one day play a major role in the diagnostic toolkit. Their aim is to establish a series of “digital biomarkers”, analysed by AI, that will help assess people’s current condition, inform treatment options and keep track of their mental health. The list of candidate biomarkers so far includes the …

Does our physical reality exist in an objective manner?

Does our physical reality exist in an objective manner?

Published by Jenni Sidey

Sign up for the Starts With a Bang newsletter Travel the universe with Dr. Ethan Siegel as he answers the biggest questions of all. If there’s one thing most of us can be certain of it’s this: that our observed, physical reality actually exists. Although there are always some philosophical assumptions behind this conclusion, it’s an assumption that isn’t contradicted by anything we’ve ever measured under any conditions: not with human senses, not with laboratory equipment, not with telescopes or observatories, not under the influence of nature alone nor with specific human intervention. Reality exists, and our scientific description of that reality came about precisely because those measurements, conducted anywhere or at any time, are consistent with that very description of reality itself. But there had previously been a set of assumptions that came along with our notion of reality that are no longer universally agreed upon, and chief among them is that reality itself exists in a fashion that’s independent of the observer or measurer. In fact, two of the greatest advances of 20th …