Making a Point

In another case of press repression which succeeded only in creating a martyr, the editor of the Swedish newspaper Stockholms Posten, Captain Anders Lindeberg, was convicted of treason in 1834 for implying that King Karl Johan should be deposed. He was sentenced to death by decapitation, under a medieval treason law. When the King mitigated the sentence to three years in prison, Lindeberg decided to highlight the King’s repressive press policy by insisting upon his right to be beheaded and refusing to take advantage of the government’s attempts to encourage him to escape. Finally, in desperation, the King issued a general amnesty to ‘all political prisoners awaiting execution’, which applied only to Lindeberg. When the editor stubbornly insisted upon his right to execution, the government solved the problem by locking him out of his cell while he was walking in the prison courtyard and then refusing him re-entry.

— Robert Justin Goldstein, Political Censorship of the Arts and the Press in Nineteenth-Century Europe, 1989

(Thanks, Jason.)

| Death · History · Society

The Asch Conformity Experiments

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Asch_experiment.svg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

In a 1951 experiment, social psychologist Solomon Asch placed each of 50 college students in a room with 6 to 8 confederates and showed them two cards like the ones above. Which line on the second card is the same length as that on the first card? In the first two trials the confederates gave the obviously correct answer, and the subject, who was placed near the end, did also.

But after this point the confederates began to give a clearly wrong answer, and continued to do so for 12 of the 18 trials. Asch found that only 23 percent of the subjects stood up consistently against this social pressure; 4.8 percent agreed with the confederates throughout, and the rest agreed with the incorrect majority in only some trials.

Asch wrote, “That intelligent, well-meaning, young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern.”

| Science & Math · Society

The Garden of Eden

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lower_East_Side_in_Adam_Purple%27s_Garden_1984..jpg

When a building was razed in 1973 on Eldridge Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, local resident Adam Purple cleared the lot, gathered manure left by horse-drawn carriages around Central Park, and designed a garden laid out in concentric circles around a central yin-yang symbol. As nearby buildings were torn down he added further circles, until the garden filled 15,000 square feet with corn, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, asparagus, black raspberries, and strawberries.

The city bulldozed Purple’s lot in 1986, but Richard Reynolds’ London-based blog now documents similar “guerrilla gardening” initiatives around the world.

| Society

Public Spirit

The Guinness record for the most fraudulent election ever reported belongs to the Liberian general election of 1927, in which President Charles D.B. King was re-elected over challenger Thomas J. Faulkner:

Candidate Votes %
Charles D.B. King 243,000 96.43
Thomas J. Faulkner 9,000 3.57
Total 252,000 100.00

As there were fewer than 15,000 registered voters, this represents a turnout of 1,680 percent — robust indeed.

| Society

The Friendship Medals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nishida-Oe_medal.jpg

At the 1936 Olympics, Japanese pole vaulters Sueo Oe and Shuhei Nishida tied for second place, and the Japanese team were told to decide who should claim second place and who third.

After a long discussion, the team chose to favor Nishida, who had cleared 4.25 meters at his first attempt.

When they returned to Japan, Nishida and Oe had a jeweler cut each medal in half and then join the disparate halves, so that each man had a new medal, half silver and half bronze.

| History · Society

Podcast Episode 345: Climbing Mont Blanc

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henriette_d%27Angeville_and_her_party_ascending_Mont_Blanc,_18_Wellcome_V0025176EL.jpg

In 1838, Frenchwoman Henriette d’Angeville set out to climb Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, against the advice of nearly everyone she knew. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll follow d’Angeville up the mountain to fulfill what she called “a monomania of the heart.”

We’ll also escape Australia in a box and puzzle over a fixed game.

See full show notes …

| History · Podcast · Society

Streets and Order

https://appliednetsci.springeropen.com/articles/10.1007/s41109-019-0189-1

This is interesting: USC urban planning professor Geoff Boeing examined the street networks of 100 world cities as a measure of their spatial logic and order.

The cities with the most ordered streets are Chicago, Miami, and Minneapolis; most disordered are Charlotte, São Paulo, and Rome.

“On average, US/Canadian study sites are far more grid-like than those elsewhere, exhibiting less entropy and circuity.”

(Geoff Boeing, “Urban Spatial Order: Street Network Orientation, Configuration, and Entropy,” Applied Network Science 4:1 [2019], 1-19.) (Via Ethan Mollick.)

| Science & Math · Society · Technology

Neighbors

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2fca2kvsvpkak41/AADSqcRVBEm7c3K68uDWPfUha?dl=0

In the spirit of amity, Vilnius, Lithuania, has installed a “portal” that allows residents to make contact in real time with the inhabitants of Lublin, Poland. Each city hosts a large circular screen and cameras by which residents can interact in real time via the Internet.

“Humanity is facing many potentially deadly challenges; be it social polarisation, climate change or economic issues,” said organizer Benediktas Gylys. “However, if we look closely, it’s not a lack of brilliant scientists, activists, leaders, knowledge or technology causing these challenges. It’s tribalism, a lack of empathy and a narrow perception of the world, which is often limited to our national borders. That’s why we’ve decided to bring the PORTAL idea to life — it’s a bridge that unifies and an invitation to rise above prejudices and disagreements that belong to the past. It’s an invitation to rise above the us and them illusion.”

The planners hope to install dozens of similar portals around the world. “Meaningful projects like this one are born when diverse people succeed in working together and achieving synchronicity,” said Adas Meskenas, director of LinkMenu fabrikas, which built the portal. “And this is just another example of what people who are united can do.”

| Society · Technology

Moving Up

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:One_red_paperclip.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

In 2006, Canadian blogger Kyle MacDonald traded this red paper clip for a fish-shaped pen. Then, in successive transactions, he bartered his way up to a hand-sculpted doorknob; a Coleman camp stove; a Honda generator; an empty keg with an IOU for beer; a snowmobile; a two-person trip to Yahk, British Columbia; a box truck; a recording contract; a year’s rent in Phoenix, Arizona; an afternoon with Alice Cooper; a motorized KISS snow globe; a role in the film Donna on Demand; and a two-story farmhouse in Kipling, Saskatchewan.

“A lot of people have been asking how I’ve stirred up so much publicity around the project,” he told the BBC, “and my simple answer is: ‘I have no idea.'”

| Oddities · Society

Podcast Episode 344: Martin Couney’s Incubator Babies

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baby_incubator_exhibit,_A-Y-P,_1909.jpg

For more than 40 years in the early 20th century, Martin Couney ran a sideshow in which premature babies were displayed in incubators. With this odd practice he offered a valuable service in an era when many hospitals couldn’t. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll describe Couney’s unusual enterprise, which earned both criticism and praise.

We’ll also marvel over an Amazonian survival and puzzle over a pleasing refusal.

See full show notes …

| History · Podcast · Science & Math · Society · Technology