Ideology is theft: Thoughts on the legitimacy of a Maori psychology

‘War, in fact, can be seen as a process of achieving equilibrium among unequal technologies’ (McLuhan, 1964) We are at war. As Western science and its accompanying technology expands the frontiers of knowledge at an ever-increasing rate, ‘indigenous’ perspectives of knowledge are exiled into the borderlands of special interest groups and localized research programmes. Mainstream scientific thought lays claim to objective interpretations of experience at the expense of alternative realities offered by emerging theories of knowledge. Furthermore, as localized worldviews (i.e., those derived from ancestral knowledge bases and pre-industrial or non-scientific premises) challenge existing paradigms, the inevitable interactions threaten to undermine the fidelity of this knowledge. One such arena where this ideological conflict is apparent is the growing field of Maori psychology

Bizarre thoughts, magical ideations, and voices from the unconscious: Exploring issues of anomalous experience

This project was initially concerned with the clinical interpretations of ‘bizarre’ or ‘magical’ ideations (i.e., statements considered to have little or no validity in our predominant western culture). The first study explored clinical assessment issues of who determines the validity of expressed beliefs and what kinds of criteria such decisions are based on in the mental health field. The present study examined a particular type of magical ideation, an auditory phenomenon involving claims that forward spoken conversation contains hidden backwards speech embedded in the vocal sounds. Thirty-two participants were invited to listen to various audio samples of the alleged phenomenon and provide interpretations of what was heard. Participants were assigned to four groups, each differing in the level of pre-emptive information. A comparative measure revealed that priming and suggestion could not be dismissed as alternative explanations of the reported effects. Clinical and social implications will be discussed

Labour markets in a Post-Keynesian growth model: the effects of endogenous productivity growth and working time reduction

We study endogenous employment and distribution dynamics in a Post-Keynesian model of Kalecki-Steindl tradition. Productivity adjustments stabilize employment and the labour share in the long run: technological change allows firms to replenish the reserve army of workers in struggle over income shares and thereby keep wage demands in check. We discuss stability conditions and the equilibrium dynamics. This allows us to study how legal working time and its reduction affect the equilibrium. We find that a demand shock is likely to lower the profit share and increase the employment rate. A supply shock in contrast tends to have detrimental effects on employment and income distribution. Labour market institutions and a working time reduction have no long-term effect on growth, distribution and inflation in the model. The effects on the level of capital stock and output however are positive in a wage-led demand regime. Furthermore, an erosion of labour market institutions dampens inflation temporarily. The model provides possible explanations as to the causes of several current economic phenomena such as secular stagnation, digitalisation, and the break-down of the Philips curve.Series: Ecological Economic Paper

WIP

Games have been shown to be capable tools in teaching. Additionally, programming can be a hard skill to learn. The objective of this research was to create a game that helps student learn coding concepts by playing a video game. The result of our work is a fully functional game that introduces the beginning concepts of programming: sequential, conditional, iterative operations

Gracián Dantisco and the Culture of Secrecy in Hapsburg Spain

El tratado epistolar de buenos modales de Lucas Gracián Dantisco, El galateo español, representa un nexo temprano y decisivo en el debate sobre la disimulación en la España de los siglos XVI y XVII. Arguyo que la ética normativa de discreción dentro del micro-ámbito social de la corte autorizada por El galateo español prepara el terreno para la política de tapujo que se produciría a nivel estatal en el siglo siguiente. O sea, al demostrar la eficacia de callar dentro de la esfera de la sociabilidad cortesana, El galateo español auspiciaría la aceptación de guardar silencio dentro de la esfera más amplia de la diplomacia internaciona