Online platforms like Reddit are increasingly becoming popular for individuals sharing personal experiences of leaving behind social, ideological, and political groups. Specifically, a series of "ex-" subreddits on Reddit allow users to recount their departures from commitments such as religious affiliations, manosphere communities, conspiracy theories or political beliefs, and lifestyle choices. Understanding the natural process through which users exit, especially from problematic groups such as conspiracy theory communities and the manosphere, can provide valuable insights for designing interventions targeting disengagement from harmful ideologies. This paper presents an in-depth exploration of 15K exit stories across 131 subreddits, focusing on five key areas: religion, manosphere, conspiracy theories, politics, and lifestyle. Using a transdisciplinary framework that incorporates theories from social psychology, organizational behavior, and violent extremism studies, this work identifies a range of factors contributing to disengagement. The results describe how disengagement from problematic groups, such as conspiracy theories and the manosphere, is a multi-faceted process that is qualitatively different than disengaging from more established social structures, such as religions or political ideologies. This research further highlights the need for moving beyond interventions that treat conspiracy theorizing solely as an information problem and contributes insights for future research focusing on offering mental health interventions and support in exit communities.
Shahrooz Nemati, Rahim Badri Gargari, Mahsa Rasi
et al.
Abstract This study investigates the effectiveness of a social-emotional skills training program on emotional dysregulation and psychological distress among students with Specific Learning Disorders (SLD). The quasi-experimental design involved 32 fourth- to sixth-grade students diagnosed with learning disorders, who were individually randomly assigned to an experimental group receiving the intervention or a control group. The training, implemented in a school setting, consisted of 12 sessions focused on enhancing self-awareness, emotional regulation, and social skills. Pre- and post-test assessments measured outcomes using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and an emotional dysregulation questionnaire. Results indicated statistically significant improvements in both psychological distress (p < 0.001, η² = 0.661) and emotional dysregulation (p < 0.001, η² = 0.717) in the experimental group. These findings suggest that social-emotional skills training effectively mitigates the psychological challenges faced by students with SLD, enhancing their emotional and social competencies. The study underscores the necessity of integrating social-emotional learning programs in educational settings to support the well-being and academic success of children with learning disorders.
On May 21, 2025, the New Tretyakov Gallery held a panel discussion titled Commonwealth of Museums: How Common Values Are Refracted in the Diversity of Cultures of the CIS Countries as part of the Intermuseum Festival. In an interview with one of the participants of the event, Masud Kimovich, the director of the Samarkand State Museum-Reserve, the role of museums in culture acquisition was discussed. Samarkand has held UNESCO World Heritage Site status since 2001. The Samarkand Museum-Reserve is a large institution whose history dates back to the second half of the 19th century, and today the museum-reserve includes 11 museums, 3 historical monuments, and 2 exhibition areas. Its museum collection is one of the greatest in Central Asia and is constantly expanding. Religious books in the museum’s holdings provide valuable material for theological researchers. The treasures of Samarkand attract an increasing number of tourists, who visit the museum each year, especially during the spring and autumn high seasons. The majority of visitors are domestic tourists, many of whom come on pilgrimages to holy places and to visit significant architectural monuments of the city. Russian tourists are most numerous after local tourists, as of May 2025. Foreign tourists mostly come from neighboring countries, such as Russia, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan and predominantly travel on their own, so the museum marketing team must work in the field to attract them. In contrast, tourists from distant countries often travel in groups, with their time and itinerary strictly limited. After the reconstruction of the Imam al-Bukhari mausoleum complex near Samarkand is completed, a new influx of pilgrims from Muslim countries is expected. Moreover, in recent years, Samarkand has become an international venue for receiving foreign guests of the highest rank. This is a demanding and important task, but Samarkand possesses all the necessary infrastructure and experience. Modern times force museum employees to constantly seek to improve their knowledge and be more creative.
Theorists examining the relationship between mental health and religion such as Harold Koenig robustly differentiate these domains of human behavior. Other clinical practitioners such as Kin Cheung Lee propose interpretations where these domains are substantially identified. Similar to Lee, researchers Koneru Ramakrishna Rao, Padmal de Silva, and Padmasiri de Silva approach the Theravāda tradition of Buddhism from psychological and clinical perspectives, yet like Koenig these authors also differentiate the goals associated with the domain of mental health from the goals associated with the domain of religious practice. These researchers integrate the religio-philosophical psychology found in the ancient Pāli canon of Buddhist texts with modern theories of psychology and clinical psychotherapy such as those proposed by Sigmund Freud, Marie Jahoda, Les Greenberg, and positive psychology. The current essay explores the works of Rao, de Silva, and de Silva as resources that help differentiate mental health and religion—or, more broadly speaking, that help clarify the distinction between health and holiness.
AlphaGo plays chess and Go in a creative and novel way. It is natural for us to attribute contents to it, such as that it doesn't view being several pawns behind, if it has more board space, as bad. The framework introduced in Cappelen and Dever (2021) provides a way of thinking about the semantics and the metasemantics of AI content: does AlphaGo entertain contents like this, and if so, in virtue of what does a given state of the program mean that particular content? One salient question Cappelen and Dever didn't consider was the possibility of alien content. Alien content is content that is not or cannot be expressed by human beings. It's highly plausible that AlphaGo, or any other sophisticated AI system, expresses alien contents. That this is so, moreover, is plausibly a metasemantic fact: a fact that has to do with how AI comes to entertain content in the first place, one that will heed the vastly different etiology of AI and human content. This chapter explores the question of alien content in AI from a semantic and metasemantic perspective. It lays out the logical space of possible responses to the semantic and metasemantic questions alien content poses, considers whether and how we humans could communicate with entities who express alien content, and points out that getting clear about such questions might be important for more 'applied' issues in the philosophy of AI, such as existential risk and XAI.
Ronna Sari Daulay, Meldyana Priadina Siregar, Hadi Saputra Panggabean
This research aims to analyze the forms of innovation in the teaching of Kitab Kuning in Islamic boarding schools (Pesantren) to strengthen religious literacy. The study employs a library research approach, utilizing literature sources such as journals, books, dictionaries, documents, magazines, and other references. The research method involves a literature review. The results indicate that Pesantren is capable of producing students proficient in Arabic language and fundamental knowledge of religious studies. Various innovations can be implemented to enhance religious literacy, such as the use of technology through e-learning and online forums. Additionally, innovations in teaching models or methods, such as the ArRumuz method, which facilitates quick reading of religious texts, and problem-based learning methods, involving the study of issues in society, can contribute to strengthening religious literacy. Moreover, innovations in extracurricular activities, including programs like Qira’atul Kutub tutoring, Qira’atul Kutub study sessions, and achievement award and art performance programs, are also noteworthy.
Objetivou-se avaliar a religiosidade dos profissionais de saúde que atuaram na linha de frente da pandemia da COVID-19. Este é um estudo transversal, quantitativo, descritivo e analítico, desenvolvido com profissionais de saúde por meio de uma pesquisa online utilizando a ferramenta Google Forms. Utilizou-se um questionário contendo dados sociodemográficos, clínicos e do trabalho, além da Escala de Religiosidade da Duke – DUREL. Participaram 100 profissionais da saúde, com média de idade de 33,3±8,3 anos, sendo a maioria do gênero feminino (81,0%). Em relação à Escala de Religiosidade da Duke – DUREL, a subescala correspondente à religiosidade organizacional computou a mediana de 4 pontos, considerada baixa religiosidade; a subescala de religiosidade não organizacional, computou 3,5 pontos, definida como alta; e a religiosidade intrínseca, 6 pontos, considerada alta. Os resultados do estudo mostraram que os profissionais de saúde que atuavam na linha de frente da COVID-19 possuíam religiosidade organizacional baixa, religiosidade não organizacional alta e religiosidade intrínseca alta
Resumo: Neste artigo, objetivamos, por um lado, analisar as reflexões teóricas de Haroldo de Campos sobre a tradução como transcriação a partir da prática transcriadora apresentada pelo poeta. Por outro, apresentaremos as peculiaridades do texto de Nietzsche enquanto estabelece uma ligação ente pensamento e vida, forma e conteúdo, escrita e sangue, visando a verificar em que medida os textos dele não remetem os leitores a uma criação paralela e autônoma, ainda que recíproca, indo ao encontro da perspectiva proposta por Haroldo de Campos no que concerne à tradução e no que tange à busca da criação de novas linguagens para expressar novos conteúdos.
We discuss David Bohm's dual contributions as a physicist and thinker. First, de Grijs introduces Bohm's universe, with an emphasis on the physical quest that led Bohm to the elaboration of an original cosmology at the nexus of science and philosophy. Next, Costache takes his cue from de Grijs' explorations by highlighting the affinity between Bohm's scientific cosmology and patristic ideas that are central to the Orthodox worldview. It is our hope that this approach will stir the interest of Bohm scholars in the Orthodox worldview and also lead Orthodox theologians to nurture an appreciation for Bohm's cosmology.
Much has been discussed in the philosophy of science about how we should understand the scientific enterprise. On the one hand, scientific realists believe that empirically adequate theories can be supplemented by interpretations that can mirror reality-as-it-is; on the other hand, anti-realists argue that this is not the case, as long as scientific theories make sufficiently accurate experimental predictions the addition of narratives is irrelevant for the scientific enterprise, and regarding narratives, it is preferable to remain agnostic. In this paper, we argue that realism was never really at stake in this debate.
El movimiento de ‘retorno a Kant’ del siglo XIX se constituye en sus orígenes a través del rechazo a la filosofía especulativa de Hegel. Por diversos motivos que no han sido debidamente clarificados aún, este movimiento filosófico culmina su derrotero a principios del siglo XX afirmando la necesidad de una renovación del hegelianismo. El objetivo del presente estudio es explicar los motivos y las consecuencias de la transformación progresiva del neokantismo de Baden en una variante de neohegelianismo.
Palabras clave: Neokantismo, escuela de Baden, Hegel, Windelband, Kroner, filosofía de la historia.
The extravagances of quantum mechanics never fail to enrich daily the debate around natural philosophy. Entanglement, non-locality, collapse, many worlds, many minds, and subjectivism have challenged generations of thinkers. Its approach can perhaps be placed in the stream of quantum logic, in which the "strangeness" of quantum mechanics is "measured" through the violation of Bell's inequalities and, from there, attempts an interpretative path that preserves realism yet ends up overturning it, restating the fundamental mechanisms of QM as a logical necessity for a strong realism.
This study aimed to systematize the diverse and rather controversial findings of empirical research on the relationship between the temperament and academic achievement of school children, as well as to determine the average effect size between these variables. We included 57 original studies of published and unpublished research conducted in 12 countries between 1985 and 2019, with cumulative sample size of 79,913 (varying from 6333 to 14,126 for links between particular temperament dimensions and specific domains of achievement). A random-effects and mixed-effects model was fitted to the data for the central tendency of the temperament–achievement relation and for analyzing moderators, respectively. The high heterogeneity of studies was tackled by selected specific moderators, namely, education level, transition status, family’s socio-economic level, and sources of report on achievement and temperament. The main findings of this meta-analysis affirmed the positive association of effortful control (EC) and inverse relationship of negative affectivity (NA) with a child’s academic performance, together with no apparent trend of surgency (SU) in this relationship; additionally, the sources of report significantly moderated the link between temperament and academic achievement.
This paper examines the nexus between digital financial inclusion (DFI) and levels of bank risk-taking, using a sample of 283 commercial banks (Islamic and conventional) from six countries over the period 2011 to 2019 and deploying panel-corrected standard errors, two-stage least squares-instrumental variables and dynamic panel two-step generalized method of moments estimators. The findings suggest that Islamic banks take more risks than their counterpart conventional banks. The empirical evidence also indicates that an increase in the DFI index score reduces the overall level of bank risktaking and increases that of banking stability for commercial and conventional banks compared to Islamic ones. A strong association between DFI and bank risk-taking suggests that DFI not only reduces the default risk, leverage risk and portfolio risk of banks, but also increases financial mobility in the sample countries. Consequently, an inclusive digitalised banking industry ensures sustainable economic growth, which is likely to help maintain financial sustainability in times of crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Our results are shown to be robust by various robustness checks. The study contributes to both the Islamic and conventional banking, as well as the digital financial inclusion, literature. The findings of the study provide various policy implications for policymakers and standard-setters in the countries examined.
Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the results of all meta-analyses on anomalous cognition conducted between 1989 and 2021 in order to find moderators associated with greater effect sizes. Method: We included all meta-analyses of studies related to anomalous cognition published up to 2021. Results: Our dataset, accumulated over more than 80 years of investigation, refers to 11 meta-analyses related to six different states of consciousness. The evidence clearly shows that anomalous cognition seems possible and its effects can be enhanced by using a combination of some non-ordinary or altered states of consciousness (e.g., dreaming, ganzfeld, etc.), coupled with free-response procedures, or neurophysiological dependent variables. These conditions facilitate an alternative form of cognition seemingly unconstrained by the known biological characteristics of the sense organs and the brain. Conclusion: The accumulated evidence expands our understanding of the mind-brain relation and the nature of the human mind.
Overproduction, consumerism and commodity fetishism — it seems like these tendencies are omnipotent and omnipresent in the modern world. The difference between the society criticized by Marx and the reality encompassing us is that in the postmodern societies, it is the information and images that serve as an object of consumption and consequently commodity fetishism. In other words, the service sector produces images that become the means of mediation. In the article, the author looks into the work of Stanislaw Lem Futurological Congress and contemporary French movie The Congress following the same plot. The analysis being founded on the theories of Guy Debord, Slavoj Žižek and Karl Marx, as well as the recent investigations of a journalist Naomi Klein, the author uncovers implicit consequences of the consumerist way of life, imposed on us by the capitalist system as well as media and transnational companies. Arguing, after Žižek, that the criticism of late-capitalism is directly linked to the understanding of the human psyche’s recesses, the article attempts to explain the consumer turning into a marionette of large businesses. This position is further strengthened by the natural necessity for an individual to embrace the system’s core impositions, in particular, to recognize the non-existing authenticity behind a brand. The tendency further leads to the alienation from real merit and overconfidence in the fairness inherent in the existing system. Overproduction and the ubiquitous loss of Walter Benjamin’s Aura result in actual poverty behind the mask of abundance, nature of the art and authenticity becoming extinct. This leads to the natural drive to substitute the lost identity for the (re-) invented one and manifest individualities, sometimes aggressively and vigorously. As Lem’s characters balance on the verge between reality and hallucinations, modern-day consumers lose the established coordinate system, distracted by the absolute and seemingly non-restricted liberty of choice, the virtual reality permitting to act out any repressed impulses and instincts fully and with impunity. Citing Debord, ‘the poverty unites everyone involved in the spectacle and its controversies’. The author is of the opinion that Lem’s Futurological Congress aims at forewarning the reader from the possibility of the imaginary system progressing irreversibly, the idea further reflected in the movie. There is no hope for a society abandoning the boundaries of reality and moral guidelines for good. The analysis could possibly describe the broadening sphere of influence of the multinational corporations and contribute to the lively discussions on the digital divide and the social networks’ actual/ impact on society.