THE GOLEM LEGEND AND THE ENIGMA OF FACEBOOK

We are easily misguided as to the true nature of Facebook, and tend to treat it simply as a powerful technological instrument in the service of human intentions. We can, however, gain a better picture of it through recourse to the Jewish tradition of the golem, an image of human beings, created by them in a re-enactment of their own creation by God. It turns into a magic servant in modernity with an inherent dynamic running between its human and its subhuman characteristics. This dynamic is the main cause behind its becoming uncontrollable. In like manner, what is subhuman in Facebook serves its masters and functions under their total control, but also empowers Facebook's increasingly human operation, an algorithm-based capability which raises growing doubts about what counts as human. Facebook implies the crisis of humanity which coincides with the “death of God,” that is, the obsolescence of the idea of a divine creator.     

The Rate and Characteristics of Suicide Attempters in the Native Hawaiian Adolescent Population

Native Hawaiian high school students, N = 1779, were surveyed for symptoms of psycho-pathology and suicide attempts in the previous 6 months. Seventy-seven (4.3%) of the students reported making a suicide attempt. There were no significant differences in prevalence rates for males and females. Depression, anxiety, aggression, substance abuse symptoms, and low family support, but not peer support, were significantly correlated with suicide attempts. On logistic regression, depression, substance abuse, and family support independently predicted attempts. The lack of gender difference may indicate a cultural characteristic of the Hawaiian population that differentiates it from mainstream American populations but likens it to the Native American population.     

Effects of gender marking in pronominal coindexation.

The naming latency of a pronoun was measured when a single previously presented name in a discourse either agreed or did not agree with the pronoun in gender and person. An effect of agreement was found both under conditions in which subjects were likely to have engaged in strategic processing of the pronoun (Experiment 1) and under conditions in which this was unlikely (Experiment 3). The effect of gender agreement was also investigated when two noun phrases were present in the discourse. The results continued to show an immediate effect of gender agreement (naming latencies increased when a pronoun did not agree with one of two previously presented nouns) under experimental conditions likely to engender strategic processing (Experiment 2). This last effect was not significant under experimental conditions that were not likely to engender strategic processing (Experiment 3). The results are discussed in terms of models of the process of identifying the referent of a pronoun in a discourse.