Scientists pinpoint the age you’re most likely to find meaning in life

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What is the meaning of life? But if you’re still searching, take solace in the fact that scientists may have finally found the age when purpose becomes clear. Knowing the answer could be a boon to your physical and mental health — humans tend to thrive with a sense of purpose, their results suggest.

Interviews with 1,042 people aged 21 to more than 100 years old reveal that people tend to feel like their lives have meaning at around age 60. That’s the age at which the search for meaning is often at it’s lowest, and the “presence” of meaning is at it’s highest, according to a new paper published this week in the journal Clinical Psychiatry.

If you’re a twenty-something ruminating about your life’s purpose, that may seem like a long time to wait. But take heart: If this study tells us anything, it’s that the ennui-fueled search for meaning in your early life is normal, and, even after 60, it doesn’t actually ever end. Instead, people may readjust how they derive purpose as they age.

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Work is a fundamental part of being human. Robots won’t stop us doing it

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Hardly a week goes by without a report announcing the end of work as we know it.

In 2013, Oxford University academics Carl Frey and Michael Osborne were the first to capture this anxiety in a paper titled: “The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?”.

They concluded 47% of US jobs were threatened by automation. Since then, Frey has taken multiple opportunities to repeat his predictions of major labour market disruptions due to automation.

In the face of threats to employment, some progressive thinkers advocate jettisoning our work ethic and building a world without work.

If machines can do our work, why not reduce the working week drastically? We should be mature enough to decide what truly matters to us, without tying our identity to a job, or measuring happiness in dollars and professional status. Right?

Not quite.

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We would rather lose our jobs to robots than humans, a study shows

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Losing your job to a human stings more than getting replaced by a robot, research found.

 The question has a surprising psychological factor for workers now and in the future.

Losing a job can be stressful and demoralizing. Seeing your role replaced by automation is an additional stressor that more workers will have to contend with and worry about in the future.

Robots are already replacing people in some jobs. Apps take orders in chain restaurants, and some supermarkets use self-checkout machines to replace checkers. This is the new reality. The Brookings Institution predicts that 36 million Americans face a “high exposure to automation” in the coming decades, meaning they will have more than 70% of their role at risk of being substituted by artificial intelligence.

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Who wants to tie the knot with a bot? The answer may surprise you!

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Fancy a robot as a spouse? Artificial intelligence, that marvel of software, is expected to revolutionize affairs of the human heart. But would algorithmic love still be love?

Marriages are made in heaven, we were once told. But heaven might be displaced by technology within a few decades. Credit for this disruption would go to artificial intelligence (AI), according to those who have gazed into crystal balls (of silicon, naturally), and spied weddings between humans and robots in the not-so-distant future. Among them is Maciej Musiał, a philosopher from Poland’s Adam Mickiewicz University, who has been studying bonds that we develop with machines. Virtual reality, in his view, is no longer an oxymoron, and he presents the chit-chat we do with online assistants, such as Siri and Alexa, as evidence of not just a great blurring, but also of our capacity for emotional ties with e-individuals. Of course, Spike Jonze’s 2013 film, Her, has already been there and done that—its hero falls for an AI “her”. What’s new are corporeal versions, or “sexbots”, that promise physical intimacy as well. Many believe we’re only a few upgrades away from the whole spousal package—pillow talk, toilet-seat tiffs, and all. Designer babies, engineered with DNA samples, are already being talked about. Will humanoid infants be next? What’s going on? Is human evolution about to get warped by this brave new world?

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Why employees trust robots more than their managers

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​Managers can’t compete with artificial intelligence (AI) when it comes to some areas of decision-making and trust building, according to a broad new global study of workers. But rather than be viewed as an indictment of managers, the study findings can help organizations create a more human workplace, some experts say.

The study by Oracle and Future Workplace, an HR advisory and research firm in New York City, found that the growing use of AI is having a significant impact on the way employees interact with their managers. Among the study’s key findings is that 64 percent of respondents would trust a robot more than their direct manager, and 82 percent believed AI or bots could perform certain tasks better than their managers. The study surveyed 8,370 HR leaders, managers and employees across 10 countries.

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Sex robots take over Swiss brothel

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A brothel in Switzerland is giving the boot to its’ female staff in favor of sex robots as more and more clients become financially strapped. The brothel in Lucerne has replaced most of the employees with sex robots and the switch has been quite a hit. The ‘Arsenal-51’ brothel now has twelve sex robots to pick from and just a couple of prostitutes providing their services. The move to the robots comes as another sex robot company has unveiled a transgender doll with a detachable penis. It runs $1,600.

Via Iheart.com

 

Dunbar’s number: Why we can only maintain 150 relationships

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The theory of Dunbar’s number holds that we can only really maintain about 150 connections at once. But is the rule true in today’s world of social media?

If you’ve ever been romantically rejected by someone who just wanted to be friends, you may have delivered a version of this line: “I’ve got enough friends already.” Your implication, of course, being that people only have enough emotional bandwidth for a certain number of buddies.

It turns out that’s not just an excuse. There are well-defined limits to the number of friends and acquaintances the average person can retain. But the question about whether these limits are the same in today’s digital world – one in which it’s common to have social media profiles, or online forums, with thousands of followers – is more complicated.

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Gartner’s top 10 strategic predictions for 2020

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Mobile-accessible cryptocurrency, AI and ML oversight, blockchain to counter deepfake technology and an Internet of Behavior are all among the predictions for the near future.

Technology is creating ever-changing expectations for people, and Gartner’s top predictions for 2020 reflect these new challenges.

The predictions were revealed at the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2019 in Orlando, which runs through October 24. More than 9,000 IT leaders and CIO’s are in attendance at the conference.

“Technology is changing the notion of what it means to be human,” said Daryl Plummer, distinguished vice president and Gartner Fellow. “As workers and citizens see technology as an enhancement of their abilities, the human condition changes as well. CIOs in end-user organizations must understand the effects of the change and reset expectations for what technology means.”

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Gen Z women are less likely than millennial women to want to be reachable at all times, and it might be a sign of ‘tech fatigue’

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Only one-third of women in Gen Z report feeling optimistic about the effects of technology on society. Olivia Harris/Getty

A new study from GfK Consumer Life asked over 37,000 people in 31 different markets and 25 countries about their feelings on technology.

More than 60% of Gen Z women reported that they have difficulty taking even a short break from technology.

But Gen Z women are less likely than millennial women to want to be reachable all the time.

Gen Z women and girls are both more tied to technology, and more skeptical about its possible benefits than their millennial counterparts, and women as a whole, according to a new study from GfK Consumer Life.

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Why you never see your friends anymore

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Our unpredictable and overburdened schedules are taking a dire toll on American society.

Just under a century ago, the Soviet Union embarked on one of the strangest attempts to reshape the common calendar that has ever been undertaken. As Joseph Stalin raced to turn an agricultural backwater into an industrialized nation, his government downsized the week from seven to five days. Saturday and Sunday were abolished.

In place of the weekend, a new system of respite was introduced in 1929. The government divided workers into five groups, and assigned each to a different day off. On any given day, four-fifths of the proletariat would show up to their factories and work while the other fifth rested. Each laborer received a colored slip of paper—yellow, orange, red, purple, or green—that signified his or her group. The staggered schedule was known as nepreryvka, or the “continuous workweek,” since production never stopped.

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Women win the right to go topless in 6 states

 

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It’s unlikely that mayhem and anarchy will ensue

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals recently struck down a ban on women being topless in public in Fort Collins, Colorado. The court’s decision makes it now legal for women to go topless in all of the states that fall under the 10th Circuit — Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Brit Hoagland and Samantha Six had sued the City of Fort Collins in 2015 on behalf of the #FreeTheNipple movement.

They called the ban an attack on gender equality because there were different laws for men and for women. Considering female breasts to be inherently sexual in a way that men’s breasts aren’t, was discriminatory said the plaintiffs. Determining that male breast nudity is different than female breast nudity and only criminalizing one in effect criminalizes being a woman. The city did have an exception for nursing mothers, but otherwise, there was a $250 fine for any female over the age of 10 who exposed her breast below the top of the nipple.

“Hey, my body is not indecent if his is not indecent,” said Brit Hoagland.

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Can video games replace the outdoors?

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Maybe not in our hearts, but certainly in our brains. Plus, they can make you love the indoors far too much—which is why there’s now a full-fledged, woodsy rehab center for joystick addicts who need a soothing pathway back to a normal life.

Joining game in progress.

You materialize at a sprawling ranch near a snowcapped mountain covered with freshly powdered pines. Three horses graze nearby behind a purplish wooden fence.

To open the gate, click the lock.

A jet-black mare wearing a striped blanket approaches, its hooves sinking into the slush and white puffs blooming from her nostrils.

Click horse.

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