Articles By: Cosmo

Cosmo graduated from Oxford University in 2008 with a Double First-Class Degree in Classics, having majored in Philosophy and Ancient History. He has since worked as a researcher for the Beckley Foundation, and designed and run this website...

Mexican Drug Policy Reform Movement Takes Shape

Mexican Drug Policy Reform Movement Takes Shape
The Beckley Foundation’s tour of North and South America with the Global Cannabis Commission is having a big effect. Mexico in particular is taking the lead in pushing for a paradigm shift in international drug policy. International Conference in Mexico City Provides Hope, Inspiration to a Budding...
March 1st, 2010 | Health & Happiness | Read More

The Men Who Really Stare At Goats

The Men Who Really Stare At Goats
Three years in the making, Jon Ronson’s “Crazy Rulers of the World” explores the apparent madness at the heart of US military intelligence. With first-hand access to the leading players in the story, Jon Ronson examines the extraordinary and plain bizarre national secrets at the core...
February 11th, 2010 | Social Insight | Read More

Why Was Cannabis Made Illegal?

Why Was Cannabis Made Illegal?
Howard Marks, Mr. Nice, considers why his favourite past-time was outlawed in 1928 after 86 million years of cannabis being legally available… (The video’s not perfect quality, but its still worth a watch)
February 11th, 2010 | Drug Policy | Read More

Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate

Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate
New Study Calls for a More Rational Approach to Cannabis Control ‘That which is prohibited cannot easily be regulated’ A new book published by the Beckley Foundation and Oxford University Press has concluded that cannabis prohibition policies have comprehensively failed and that a new approach...
February 4th, 2010 | Drug Policy | Read More

Can we crack the Consciousness Puzzle?

Can we crack the Consciousness Puzzle?
CONSCIOUS experience is at once the most familiar thing in the world and the most mysterious. There is nothing we know about more directly than consciousness, but it is extraordinarily hard to reconcile it with everything else we know. Why does it exist? What does it do? How could it possibly arise from...
January 28th, 2010 | Extended Mind | Read More

Quining Qualia

Quining Qualia
Dan Dennett’s seminal argument about the properties conscious experience is a must-read for anyone interested in the question of whether the mind/conscious experience is reducible to purely physical/scientific terms. You may not think he’s right, but he’s certainly worth a read… 1....
January 26th, 2010 | Science of the Mind | Read More

The Abolition of Man

The Abolition of Man
It came burning hot into my mind, whatever he said and however he flattered, when he got me home to his house, he would sell me for a slave. —John Bunyan C.S.Lewis’ famous and prophetic essay about man’s realationship with nature and technology. `Man’s conquest of Nature’...
January 26th, 2010 | Social Insight | Read More

Psychedelic drugs could heal thousands

Psychedelic drugs could heal thousands
There is a horrible sense of meaninglessness and chaos that comes from the extreme loneliness of being cut off. Trauma, whether sustained in the family, or in the military during combat, renders millions feeling unsafe, insecure, mistrustful, and in the end isolated, lonely and desperate. Judith Lewis...
January 20th, 2010 | Altered States | Read More

Is the US Government covering up the truth about UFOs?

Is the US Government covering up the truth about UFOs?
The Disclosure Project is an organization that alleges the existence of a US government cover-up of information relating to unidentified flying objects (UFOs). The Project claims that UFOs are spacecraft piloted by intelligent extraterrestrial life, a fact that the United States government is keeping...
January 20th, 2010 | Big Ideas | Read More

Jimmy Carter: Gaza must be rebuilt now

Jimmy Carter: Gaza must be rebuilt now
December 30, 2009 We can wait no longer to restart the peace process. The human suffering demands urgent relief. It is generally recognised that the Middle East peace process is in the doldrums, almost moribund. Israeli settlement expansion within Palestine continues, and PLO leaders refuse...
January 14th, 2010 | Social Insight | Read More
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »