In psychology and psychiatry, anhedonia (< Greek ἀν- an-, “without” + ἡδονή hēdonē, “pleasure”) is defined as the inability to experience pleasure from activities formerly found enjoyable, e.g. hobbies, exercise, social interaction or sexual activity.
Mood disturbances are commonly observed in many psychiatric disorders. Disturbing mood changes may occur resultant to stressful life events and they are not uncommon during times of physical illness. [2] While anhedonia can be a feature of such mood changes, they are not mutually inclusive.
“Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.”
—George Eliot
We're losing! Here's a playbook, see especially the focus on new metrics that have more meaning.
The essay below is an updated and edited version of a post I wrote here a few years ago, I'm Human, I'm American and I'm Addicted to Oil. Richard Douthwaite, Irish economist and activist, (and a fellow at the Post Carbon Institute), invited me to contribute it as a chapter in the just released book Fleeing Vesuvius, which is a collection of articles generally addressing “how can we bring the world out of the mess it finds itself in”? My article dealt with the evolutionary underpinnings of our aggregate behavior – neural habituation to increasingly available stimuli, and our evolved penchant to compete for status given the environmental cues of our day. And how, after we make it through the likely upcoming currency/claims bottleneck, we would be wise to adhere to an evolutionary perspective in considering a future (more) sustainable society.
Click here for the table of contents from Fleeing Vesuvius, followed by my article.
Phi Beta Iota: Will and Ariel Durant, in Lessons of History, state that the only real revolution is in the mind of man. We strongly believe that strategic analytics is the next revolution, and that strategic analytics will make possible transparency, truth, and truth leading to compassionate non-zero evolution–a world that works for all.
India-China-Pakistan: Indian intelligence agencies say they have credible evidence that several hundred Chinese working in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir are People's Liberation Army engineers, the Times of India reported 12 May.
According to the report, Indian intelligence agencies are verifying that the engineers are engaged with military construction projects, such as bunkers, and said the presence of military engineers in civilian construction activities carried out by China in other countries is “unusual,” an intelligence source said. The information about the engineers was part of an assessment presented by the Indian Army to the Indian prime minister, defense minister and other senior officials weeks ago.
Comment: This is the first press report of Chinese military engineers in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir. Chinese engineers are working on road construction in far northern Pakistan which borders China, but no engineering agreements are known that cover Pakistani Kashmir.
India-Afghanistan: India has committed about $1.5 billion to Afghanistan for developmental assistance and plans to commit another $500 million over the next five years, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on 12 May. Priority areas for the aid will be social programs, agriculture and infrastructure, according to Singh
India strongly supports Afghanistan's peace and reconciliation efforts with the Taliban, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Afghan President Hamid Karzai during Singh's two-day visit to Kabul. Singh told Karzai and senior Afghan officials that New Delhi is Kabul's “neighbor and partner in development.” He expressed support for Afghanistan's “unity, integrity and prosperity
Comment: The two news stores above help explain Pakistan's dogged support for the Taliban and other anti-Kabul movements and its anxiety about India. India supported the Northern Alliance of Uzbek and Tajik tribes against the Pashtun Taliban when Karzai still was working for the Taliban, before he switched sides.
The presence of Indian advisors and influence west of Pakistan confronts Pakistani strategists with the prospect of fighting on two fronts in a putative future war, with no strategic depth because Pakistan is so narrow. More importantly, the Indian Border Roads Organization (BRO) has thousands of workers and Indian Army engineers working on the “infrastructure” projects in Afghanistan about which Prime Minister Singh spoke. BRO seems to concentrate on improving the roads in Afghan provinces that border Pakistan.
Indian motives in helping Afghanistan are far from altruistic, just as are those of Iran. Both states have provided aid to the Northern Alliance and the Afghan government, based on their strategic calculations to restrain Pakistan and especially prevent it from annexing the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan.
Iran-Arab Spring: For the record. The head of the parliamentary Committee for National Security and Foreign Policy said on 12 May that the Iranian government was not dynamic in supporting regional uprisings. Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Iran's diplomatic system was not active enough initially but that the activity has started and Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has begun his regional visits. Although the government's steps to aid regional uprisings were delayed, Boroujerdi said it is good that such measures have started.
Comment: Iran was caught by surprise by the Arab cell-phone uprisings so much so that it was unable to support Shiite risings in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia as well as in Bahrain. Boroujerdi primarily was referring to these two regions, implying that Iran missed an opportunity to spread the dominion of Shia Islam to the western banks of the Persian Gulf.
The statement is an admission of an intelligence failure in Iran, coupled with hubris. No secular Arab uprisings, including in Syria, have looked to Iran for guidance. Even the Alawite Baathists of Syria have little use for the wisdom of Persian ayatollahs.
One of the key things we've been noting over the past few months is how many more people are beginning to recognize the benefits of having systems and services that really are more distributed and decentralized, rather than very centralized. The problems with centralized systems should be obvious: not only are there single points of failure where a single mistake can knock out the entire system, but it also puts a single party in control as well. And that can lead to problems, say, when it comes to handing over private information to the government (or companies) without proper legal process.
Among the areas that have grown up with very centralized systems are various social networks, such as Facebook. In response, there's definitely been a call for alternative, more open and more distributed social networking systems, such as Diaspora, which has received a ton of hype, but still has a long, long way to go.
But could another player enter the space and have the infrastructure in place to make it work? It appears that BitTorrent is betting yes. The company is launching its new, much more user friendly Chrysalis interface for its software, which really goes a long way in moving the software towards being a media manager program:
The essay below is an updated and edited version of a post I wrote here a few years ago, 
