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CLARIN

Facebook Doomsday Suicide Group Raises Alarms On Argentina's Mystical Mountain

Online nvitation was for Dec. 21, the Mayan calendar's fateful day...

At the summit of Mt Uritorco
At the summit of Mt Uritorco
Lucas Cruzado

CORDOBA – It was circulating on social media before finally reaching the desks of Capilla del Monte police: an anonymous person on Facebook was inviting people to "a spiritual magical suicide on December 21 at 21:12 on Uritorco Mountain.”

The invitation received (virtual) RSVPs from about 150 people. Following this, the owners of the mythical Cordoban mountain shut the site and banned access on Dec. 21 – 21-12 – a key day in the Mayan calendar representing the end of a cycle.

The closure will occur just days before the city and Cordoba region, in the center of Argentina, are due for a tourism boom with the arrival of around 15,000 people.

"The truth is that we have been working on the issue ever since we learned about it. We are concerned that while it may be a joke, you never know what could happen," Rafael García Pérez, the manager of Uritorco Mountain told Clarín.

The Uritorco is 1979-meters high and became internationally famous when, in Jan. 1986, a flash of light left a 120 x 70 meter mark on one side. Since then, there have been numerous UFO and alien sightings, attracting many New Age tourists.

The event created on the social networking site is called "Massive Magical Suicide 21/12/2012." On the page, the following can be read: "To all the believers, beings and warriors of the light, I invite you to a spiritual suicide en masse in Uritorco, Cordoba, Argentina. We will abandon our unclean flesh and transport our spirit through the inter dimensional portal at 21 hours, 12 minutes on 21/12/2012 and from this will be created an army of light that will save humanity ... in this change of era."

Mass meditations are not cancelled

Notified about the invitation, in which 150 people clicked that they would be "attending" the event, the Anchorena family, private owners of the mountain, contacted their lawyer, who advised them not to open on that day. The mayor of Capilla del Monte, Gustavo Sez, has himself organized meetings on the issue. The biggest worry is that in a town of just 16,000 inhabitants, the number of people in the streets would double in just a few hours.

"We do not want to be too careless or contribute to any action that may serve such ideas, however crazy they sound," said Rafael García Pérez, adding that, "the priority is to protect every visitor."

Sources close to the Anchorena family told Clarín that "there is a 95% chance that we will decide not to open. We are awaiting formal notification of the municipality to inform the tourism office."

The family insider added: "Surely they will ask the authorities to help us block all access to the mountain, including for all the various alternative paths that exist to go up to the top. However, the bar-restaurant at the bottom will stay open." Other activities planned for during the day, including the mass meditations, will take place as schedule.

So far, the creator of the group -- posting under the pseudonym "Ente EBR" -- has not been identified. On the Facebook page, there are images of the universe and statements like "The world will end on 21/12. What will you do?” There are various links and also, a lot of jokes.

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Future

AI Is Good For Education — And Bad For Teachers Who Teach Like Machines

Despite fears of AI upending the education and the teaching profession, artificial education will be an extremely valuable tool to free up teachers from rote exercises to focus on the uniquely humanistic part of learning.

Journalism teacher and his students in University of Barcelona.

Journalism students at the Blanquerna University of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.

© Sergi Reboredo via ZUMA press
Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ - Early in 2023, Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates included teaching among the professions most threatened by Artificial Intelligence (AI), arguing that a robot could, in principle, instruct as well as any school-teacher. While Gates is an undoubted expert in his field, one wonders how much he knows about teaching.

As an avowed believer in using technology to improve student results, Gates has argued for teachers to use more tech in classrooms, and to cut class sizes. But schools and countries that have followed his advice, pumping money into technology at school, or students who completed secondary schooling with the backing of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have not attained the superlative results expected of the Gates recipe.

Thankfully, he had enough sense to add some nuance to his views, instead suggesting changes to teacher training that he believes could improve school results.

I agree with his view that AI can be a big and positive contributor to schooling. Certainly, technological changes prompt unease and today, something tremendous must be afoot if a leading AI developer, Geoffrey Hinton, has warned of its threat to people and society.

But this isn't the first innovation to upset people. Over 2,000 years ago, the philosopher Socrates wondered, in the Platonic dialogue Phaedrus, whether reading and writing wouldn't curb people's ability to reflect and remember. Writing might lead them to despise memory, he observed. In the 18th and 19th centuries, English craftsmen feared the machines of the Industrial Revolution would destroy their professions, producing lesser-quality items faster, and cheaper.

Their fears were not entirely unfounded, but it did not happen quite as they predicted. Many jobs disappeared, but others emerged and the majority of jobs evolved. Machines caused a fundamental restructuring of labor at the time, and today, AI will likely do the same with the modern workplace.

Many predicted that television, computers and online teaching would replace teachers, which has yet to happen. In recent decades, teachers have banned students from using calculators to do sums, insisting on teaching arithmetic the old way. It is the same dry and mechanical approach to teaching which now wants to keep AI out of the classroom.

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