This is the first installment of a once-monthly series called Calmly Considered, in which Allan Bevere and I will be discussing topics related to faith and economics. In this episode, we discuss Peter Oakes' Empire, Economics, and the New Testament. We barely scratch the surface but hopefully some meaningful dialog.
Jul 13, 2021
Jun 20, 2020
Confederate Monuments Are A Rewrite of History, Not A Remembrance
Confederate monuments were the product of a campaign to rewrite history, not to preserve it.
There were few Confederate monuments thirty years after the Civil War ended in 1865. The placement of monuments came in two waves, the first much larger than the second. One wave began at the turn of the last century, and the other began about 1956 (See chart).
Source: There are certain moments in US history when Confederate monuments go up
First Wave
The first sustained wave of monument placement began in the late 1890s, peaking in 1911 and then tapering off to a lower placement rate in the 1920s and early 1930s. Why this spike?
By the 1890s, Confederate veterans were dying off, and Southern elites feared younger generations would lose the “right” perspective on the history of the Civil War. The “Lost Cause” movement began to take root in the South as a response. The mission was to recast the Confederacy as a heroic and just attempt to preserve the Southern way of life while minimizing the experience and impact of slavery.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy was born in 1894. Organized by daughters and granddaughters of the Southern elite, they set out to promote the Lost Cause narrative through textbook writing, children’s programs, and the erection of monuments promoting the Lost Cause. Their financial and political clout gave them considerable influence, especially in the formerly Confederate states.
In 1896, the Supreme Court handed down its Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling, institutionalizing the Separate but Equal doctrine. By 1914, Less than twenty years later, all Southern states and most Northern cities had enacted laws segregating people.
1925 Klan march in Washington DC
From 1902 to 1907, Tom Dixon wrote a popular trilogy of novels 1902-1907, targeting the “unfair” treatment of the South in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” fifty years earlier. The middle novel, “The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan,” inspired D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” in 1915, glorifying the Klan and employing deeply racist troupes. It was the first true blockbuster movie. Not coincidentally, 1915 was the birth of the Second Ku Klux Klan. By 1922, the Klan had a million members, possibly as many as five million by 1925, and millions more in sympathy. Lynching was prevalent throughout this period, as were race massacres like the Red Summer of 1919 and the Tulsa massacre of 1921.
Second Wave
The United Daughters of the Confederacy began to lose steam in the 1920s, and from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, monument erection mostly subsided. But another smaller spike developed from about 1956-1965. What happened here?
In 1954, in Brown vs. the Board of Education, the Supreme Court overruled Plessy vs. Ferguson, effectively delegitimizing segregation. The Civil Rights Movement came into its own at the time. Up went more monuments to persevere the ethos of the Lost Cause and white supremacy, dropping off after 1965 and the passage of civil rights legislation. The financial and political clout to promote these efforts was not as powerful by this date.
Conclusion
The great majority of Confederate monuments were never a product of some high-minded project to help us holistically remember the past. They were the product of a concerted effort to rewrite the past with the Lost Cause narrative. They were integral to waves of white supremacy that swept America, attempting to whitewash the past and intimidate people of color. They have no business standing in places of honor in our public spaces. Their removal aids in the remembrance of history, not its neglect.
View this video for a short history of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and their role in promoting the Lost Cause and Confederate monument placement.
Nov 06, 2019
The Keynesian Revolution and Our Empty Economy: We're All Dead - Book Review
The Keynesian Revolution and Our Empty Economy: We're All Dead (Quotes are from the e-book version.)
Is economics value-free? Can it be? In the nineteenth century, economics emerged alongside other social sciences, aspiring to apply the scientific method to study human behavior. Economists distinguish positive and normative economics - positive being descriptive and normative being prescriptive. The latter requires value judgments, making it beyond the realm of science. While an economist may wish to offer their perspective on what should be done, economics eschews prescriptive behavior. But is that the way economics works?
In The Keynesian Revolution and Our Empty Economy: We're All Dead, Dr. Victor Claar, professor of economics at Florida Gulf Coast University, and Dr. Greg Forster, Director of the Okonomia Network at Trinity International University, argue the story economists tell about themselves does not match reality. Simply reading the book title, one might assume this is another installment in the ongoing battle between Keynesianism economics and other economic theories. It is not. The authors say something transformative happened in the 1930s with the rise of John Maynard Keynes' economics, misshaping the discipline. Virtually the entire discipline (including the free-market Chicago school and Austrian economics) battles about a means to an end from within the Keynesian framework. The authors conclude with thoughts on a reforming agenda but first take us on a rich historical journey.
"Economics" Before the Nineteenth Century
Until the nineteenth century, "economics" was part of moral philosophy - political economy. Philosophers and theologians made normative appeals for economic behavior. Human existence has ultimate purposes. They inseparably connected their normative prescriptions to teleological realities. The authors identify a succession of three ethical paradigms related to economic thought over the millennia.
Nature paradigm – Classical philosophy. "What sets classical thought apart is the idea that nature has purposes, and human excellence is fulfilling those purposes." Wisdom comes from correctly understanding nature and its purposes. From this wisdom, we shape our daily affairs, including economic activity.
God paradigm – Judeo-Christian theology. "It began with the assumption that human beings are created by and under the authority of God and are placed both within and over nature by God. Their economic needs and behaviors are structured by God's design in creation and are being restored to that design through the redemption of the world in Christ, so conformity to God and his purposes was their standard for economic thought."
Reason paradigm – Born in Enlightenment philosophy. "It began with the assumption that human beings are rational, and their economic needs and behaviors can be understood and arranged rationally, so conformity to reason and its purposes (they understood 'reason' to include moral reason, including teleology or purposes) was their standard for economic thought."
Claar and Forster revisit these three historic paradigms throughout the book, demonstrating their normative and teleological components in contrast with Keynes emerging philosophy in the 1930s. The authors identify a fourth paradigm with Keynes, the Consumption paradigm. So how did the Consumption paradigm emerge?
The Beginning of Modern Economics
As scholars labored to establish economics in the late nineteenth century, there was substantial intra-disciplinary conflict about how to proceed; differing on what roles historicism, theory, and science should play. (The book gives some great history.) John Neville Keynes, John Maynard Keynes' father, assumed the role of peacemaker. He popularized the "positive versus normative" frame and worked to move scholars beyond endless squabbling toward productive research, thereby gaining credibility for the discipline.
Despite these ambitions, economics was not born in a vacuum. From the 1890s to World War I, societal gatekeepers saw themselves as stewards of a moral and cultural order, envisioning evermore progress and human improvement in keeping with the Reason paradigm. Decades before, John Stuart Mill had introduced homo economicus, human beings as rational, utility-calculating machines. Mill and these later economists retained at least a sense of the progress teleology, even as they began to apply the scientific method to evaluating behavior. Homo economicus was a knowingly simplified anthropology, but with research, one might imagine revision and nuance could be brought to bear over time. A variety of social changes in the years before and through World War I rocked confidence in the progress narrative, leaving the discipline adrift. Enter John Maynard Keynes.
The Keynesian Revolution
We frequently view John Maynard Keynes as a tedious academic. In reality, Keynes was a core member of the highly influential Bloomsbury Group in London, a collection of intellectuals and artists including Leonard and Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, Clive and Vanessa (Woolf) Bell, Duncan Grant, and Lytton Strachey. In Keynes's words, they embraced an "immoralist" philosophy devoted to pursuing pleasure. "Though they weren't sure what the highest forms of pleasure might be, their sense was that they could be found only among their greatest loves—in intimate relationships and in things like the arts, theater, and music—rather than in more pedestrian forms of enjoyment."
The Bloomsbury Group was disdainful of traditional values. This included values like diligence, frugality, and self-control, found in the Reason paradigm. Wealth accumulation and consumerism were dehumanizing influences obstructing the pursuit of pleasure. However, they believed only a select few could pursue pleasure as they envisioned. A materialistic bourgeois existence was the best for which the rest of humanity could hope. It was the task of the elite to shepherd the masses toward this end as the elite went about their higher pursuit of pleasure. Claar and Forster walk us through how Keynes' economics reflects this philosophy, but I will jump to a couple of takeaways for the sake of brevity.
The most revolutionary effect of Keynes' influence is his reshaping of means and ends. Mill introduced homo economicus as a rudimentary construct to aid in economic inquiry, not a characterization of human essence. Within Mill's construct was an assumption that we will rationally discern and pursue certain ends. Reason is the means for choosing between various courses of action to achieve those ends. These ends include teleological ends.
Keynes retains the idea of homo economicus but with substantial revision. With Keynes, there is no teleological purpose to guide economic behavior. "Animal spirits" drive human behavior, not reason, in pursuit of meaningful action. Reason is how each individual can best satisfy animalistic desires. Consumption to meet these desires takes center stage. For Keynes, homo economicus is not simply a methodological construct. It is an anthropological given. We must base economic policy on this premise.
In the General Theory [Keynes seminal book), economics abandons its nineteenth-century ambition to moral neutrality. It no longer seeks a place alongside chemistry and physics as a detached, disinterested, purely positive observer. It becomes, once again, a practical discipline with a moral vision.
But now the moral vision is radically different. Instead of the virtue, piety, or the progress of humanity, the moral vision of the General Theory is an animalistic homo economicus whose only economic goal is to satisfy his own consumption appetites. …
Another aspect of Keynes' influence is his introduction of "the economy." Before Keynes, economics was microeconomics. It was focused on how individuals, firms, and other players make decisions. Keynes introduced macroeconomics, focusing on the aggregate economic phenomenon for a nation or other large societal entity - money supply, interest rates, aggregate employment, gross domestic product, etc. Macroeconomics dominated the discipline to the point that when people hear "economics" today, they think of macroeconomic concepts.
For Keynes, "The economy" is a machine-like entity employed by elites like himself and members of the Bloomsbury Group in transmuting humanity to an elevated state. Keynes was sympathetic to socialist aims, but he writes:
It is not the ownership of the instruments of production which it is important for the State to assume. If the State is able to determine the aggregate amount of resources devoted to augmenting the instruments and the basic rate of reward to those who own them, it will have accomplished all that is necessary.
The authors note:
Keynes shares Marx's goal of giving the state control over our economic lives, which is to say, over all the most intimate and important decisions we make. He just thinks the state can accomplish this control without seizing ownership of assets.
The authors paraphrase Keynes' view this way:
In an ideal state, we would 'transmute' human nature, raising people not to care how much money they end up with after playing the "game" of money-making. However, for now we need to keep the game going. If we stop, we'll have nothing to eat; the economy runs not on productive work but on satisfying consumer appetites. Thus it is the responsibility of government to keep the game going. Keeping the game going involves all the players being highly motivated and playing to win—"strongly addicted to the money-making passion." The wise and prudent statesman will therefore "manage" human nature, keeping it in a state of socially beneficial greed , rather than attempt to "transmute" it toward real selflessness, at least so long as we live in the current state and not the ideal state.
Keynes has a vision of where he wants to take feckless humanity. His superior wisdom and that of people like his Bloomsbury peers will lead us there. Pragmatically, it must be done with manipulation. Moreover, some will never be transmuted. Keynes had an answer for that. He was chair of the British Eugenics Society from 1937-1944. He deemed eugenics to be the most important branch of sociology.
Keynesianism and Its Rivals
Claar and Forster explain Keynes was not particularly eloquent in expressing his ideas. Articulate acolytes popularized his economic constructs. For decades, Paul Samuelson, Nobel economist and author of the leading economics textbook, was probably the most important figure in advancing Keynesian ideas. However, these advocates made substantial qualifications to give us what we know as Keynesianism today.
The Keynesian advocates muted Keynes' crusading vision and reclaimed the idea of economics as a value-free science. However, they continued to embrace the view that people are bundles of appetites driven by animal spirits – Keynes' version of homo economicus. The goal should be to maximize consumption, enabling people to satisfy their appetites. Economists should guide the economy machine in these pursuits. This was the Consumption paradigm. It effectively institutionalized Keynes's homo economicus while eschewing teleological judgments.
The Chicago School (and the older but smaller Austrian School) emerged as the primary competition to Keynesian economics, rejecting Keynesian interventionism in favor of free market systems. They resisted "economics" as purely about large aggregate concepts and called for greater attention to microeconomic decision-making. Claar and Forster write:
However, the attention-grabbing conflict between these schools conceals a deeper uniformity. Both counter-revolutions accept most of the key elements of the Consumption paradigm. Most importantly, they accept Keynes' redefinition of the purpose of economic systems: to maximize consumption possibilities. They also accept Keynes' redefinition of Mill's homo economicus, which lay at the heart of the new focus on maximizing consumer satisfaction—they accept the instrumental rather than substantive understanding of rationality, and they accept the reversal of the relationship between gaining wealth and enjoying wealth.
The Keynesian constructs became so dominant that even schools that emerged to challenge aspects of Keynesian economics have internalized core Keynesian concepts.
The Consequences
The consequences extend well beyond an intra-disciplinary dispute. To a degree unparalleled by other social sciences, economics has succeeded in exerting influence over public policy and commerce, which has had ripple effects on other societal institutions. With varying degrees of resistance, homo economicus is largely how we institutionally treat our existence.
The problem, the authors would argue, is that we are not homo economicus. Human beings are meaning-makers. We see ourselves inside teleological narratives. We want not only to experience pleasure but also to participate in activities with lasting significance. We have not only consumption preferences but also production preferences. The impact of homo economicus is a world with greater prosperity, but that is largely vacant of meaning. In an existential sense, "we are all dead." This lack of meaning has people restless and increasingly impatient with societal institutions. A consequence is the rise in populism ranging from Donald Trump to Bernie Sanders, amassing power by feeding on palpable anger and frustration.
The empty economy produces polarization, because our daily economic activities no longer convey meaning and purpose (leaving us to seek those things in extreme movements) and because our daily economic activities no longer establish shared, public moral commitments (leaving us convinced we have no common ground with our neighbors).
A Way Forward
"What would it look like to study economics on the assumption that people really do have higher purposes in life, but that we need not agree about everything concerning those purposes?"
The authors argue that the way forward is to escape the Consumption paradigm with its "animal spirits" anthropology and revisit teleological and anthropological assumptions. We may not thoroughly agree on every value across nations and cultures or even within them, but our values have much more in common than we may think. Some things are good whether everyone chooses to do them.
* People have production preferences as well as consumption preferences, including a desire to participate personally in the production of the intrinsically good. A sustainable economic life must account for both types of preferences (production and consumption) at the individual and cultural level.
* Production preferences can also be understood as stewardship preferences, meaning a desire to leave the world with more intrinsic good than it had when we arrived. A sustainable economic life must account in complex ways with the long-term time frames within which people make cost-benefit calculations, at the individual and cultural level.
* People are substantive reasoners who have the right and responsibility to discern the intrinsic good for themselves and participate personally in its production. A sustainable economic life must make this personal process of discernment and participation, not impersonal aggregate metrics, the goal of economic policy and discourse.
To conclude the book, the authors write:
In the long run, we are all dead—but life will go on when we are gone. We all know this, and in our economic lives we do not always behave as shallow, short-term consumers who don't care what we leave behind. If the discipline of economics wants to understand economic behavior as it really is, it must come to terms with the moral reality of human life. To ignore normative and teleological realities is to ignore the human, and to ignore the human is strange way to conduct a scientific study of how humans behave.
If we do not care what kind of world we are leaving, our economic systems will continue to be wracked by moral anxiety and the outrage it produces. Nationalists and socialists have their own reasons for wanting to block any movement toward a moral renewal that would restore confidence in our systems, but the rest of us should be seeking such a renewal with all the energy that the urgency of our situation demands. A return to economic vitality must begin with a restoration of confidence in our economic systems and practices, on the basis of a sustainable moral consensus for a pluralistic society.
We love economics. We love it because it matters—a lot. Tough new questions that overturn old certainties are already being asked in the discipline. We look forward to finding out what comes next.
Assessment
In short: teleology matters. Claar and Forster pack a lot into this book. My summary only scratches the surface. It is well worth the read for economists and those who think more broadly about economics and values. While I work to be conversant with economics and the history of economic thought, I am not an expert in either of these fields. People with better bona fides must evaluate the veracity of details presented in this book. Yet based on what I know, the overall argument rings true.
The history of how the Consumption paradigm came to dominate economics - with economists simultaneously fixating on consumption and claiming to be value-free - is helpful. There is no way to do social science without anthropological models and value assumptions. Economics is no exception. Homo economicus may be useful as a methodological tool for aspects of economic research, but it is insufficient as a model for grasping the complexities of human decision-making. I do not think that economics has so much rejected teleology, as it has uncritically embraced a teleology that is inadequate and subhuman.
I sense a discussion has been building on this topic in recent years. As with other social sciences, there seems to be an ongoing clash between those pursuing a grand unified theory and those who prefer more modest research into micro-level behavior from which larger models of human behavior can be derived. Unlike other social sciences, economics is unique in that "economics" and the concept of "the economy," a machine that can be directed toward particular ends by skillful elites, has gained considerable credibility in broader society. That likely makes challenges to macroeconomic models more difficult, but the importance of economics in policymaking also underscores the importance of getting underlying models of humanity right.
The book's most critical point is that "we are all dead." Human beings have a desire for the transcendent, to be a part of something meaningful, to pass on a legacy. Teleology matters. To use the authors' words, there is a production preference and a consumption preference. The Consumption paradigm is dehumanizing in that it robs people across economic strata of meaning-filled work. Resurrection of meaning in daily life will have to come from moral institutions outside of economics, but we cannot realize that ambition of understanding human decisions without economics. If economics is a study of human behavior, can it be said to be to accomplish its mission if it ignores the production preference aspects of human decision-making?
I appreciate the authors' advocacy for finding common ground on teleology across human cultures. Maybe a first step is for those of us invested in moral institutions to clarify our own values. As someone who has invested decades of service to Mainline Protestantism, it strikes me that there is a profound need for Christian theology to engage economics genuinely and respectfully and to move away from what all too often is a sophomoric and adversarial posture. Repeatedly, I encounter theologians and Christian thought leaders pontificating on economic issues, demonstrating they have not made the most rudimentary attempts to grasp basic economic concepts or represent those concepts faithfully. Theologism is all too common, but that is a conversation for another day. For now, we have this thought-provoking tome by Claar and Forster as a point of engagement. It is well worth the read.
Mar 09, 2017
Were Slaves Immigrants?
Were Slaves Immigrants? Yes. If that answer troubles you, please hear me out.
This week, Ben Carson touched off a firestorm when he referred to slaves as immigrants. (Barak Obama has done the same several times.) The uproar has been that equating slavery and immigration minimizes the horrors of slavery. I have engaged in several social media discussions on this topic. At the crux of the matter is volition. Are people brought to a place against their will immigrants? Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Immigrant - “a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence.”
Volition is not part of the definition. As any demographer will tell you, populations grow (or decline) via three factors: births, deaths, and migration. When looking at a particular locale, people who come to that locale are immigrants. People who go from that locale to another are emigrants. Births and immigration grow the population. Deaths and emigration shrink it. It is a closed system. Volition is not part of the equation.
I agree with concerns about minimizing slavery, and I worry that statements by Carson and Obama risk doing that. As Jemar Tisby writes, a generous reading of Carson’s characterization is that “African slaves endured unimaginable hardship to carve out a life for themselves and their descendants.” I think that was indeed the intent, but it is challenging. Framing slaves as rough equivalents of people who bought a ticket on a boat to come to America in search of a better life minimizes slavery. Both were immigrants but with very very different stories. The desire to present African Americans as other than simply victims while embracing the horrors of slavery is a tough needle to thread in the space of a few words, as both these men were trying to do.
Dec 12, 2016
The Future of the American Dream
For most Americans today, there has been a presumption that our children's lives will be more prosperous than ours. The American Dream, whatever particularities might include, has always included this assumption. It is virtually a social contract. Is the idea that most of our children will have a more prosperous life than we did really valid?
Robert Gordon, economic historian at Northwestern University, released a book earlier this year, The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War. Gordon's mammoth tome documents changes in American living standards over the past 150 years. His research leads him to conclude that not all innovations significantly improve living standards. From 1870-1970, a wave of technological and social innovation emerged that radically improved worker productivity, improving our living standards. There has been innovation since 1970, but most of it, apart from communication and entertainment, has been an extension and a deepening of the innovations before 1970. The period from 1870 to about 1920 was a period of development and implementation of innovations that began to have a full impact after 1920. Gordon estimates the average annual growth rate in output per hour like this:
1890-1920 = 1.50%
1920-1970 = 2.82%
1970-2014 = 1.62%
For those familiar with American history, you will remember that income inequality was relatively high going into the 1920s. Inequality shrank steadily and substantially over the next fifty years until the mid-1970s. This corresponds with Gordon's estimates of rapidly improving worker productivity. Since the 1970s, there has been slower growth, which is more related to capital investment than improving worker productivity. We have seen income inequality grow since the 1970s.
Gordon is doubtful that we will ever again have a convergence of innovation as we had from 1870-1970. This and certain demographic headwinds will make sustainable high growth improbable for present generations. I hope to write more about this in the coming days, but this graphic posted by William Easterly on Twitter caught my eye. It comes from an article by David Leonhardt, The American Dream, Quantified at Last. I take it as more evidence consistent with Gordon's thesis.
Dec 11, 2015
Minimum Wage, Nativism, and the Illiberal Roots of Progressivism
Virginia Postrel has an interesting article at Bloomberg, "Progressive and Racist. Woodrow Wilson Wasn't Alone," a book review of Thomas Lenoard's Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics and American Economics in the Progressive Era. Here are a few key quotes:
The progressives believed, first and foremost, in the importance of science and scientific experts in guiding the economy, government, and society. Against the selfishness, disorder, corruption, ignorance, conflict and wastefulness of free markets or mass democracy, they advanced the ideal of disinterested, public-spirited social control by well-educated elites. The progressives were technocrats who, Leonard observes, "agreed that expert public administrators do not merely serve the common good, they also identify the common good." Schools of public administration, including the one that since 1948 has borne Woodrow Wilson's name, still enshrine that conviction.
Later, she writes:
Advocates similarly didn't deny that imposing a minimum wage might throw some people out of work. That wasn't a bug; it was a feature -- a way to deter undesirable workers and keep them out of the marketplace and ideally out of the country. Progressives feared that, faced with competition from blacks, Jews, Chinese, or other immigrants, native-stock workingmen would try to keep up living standards by having fewer kids and sending their wives to work. Voilà: “race suicide.” Better to let a minimum wage identify inferior workers, who might be shunted into institutions and sterilized, thereby improving the breed in future generations. ...
... Clark's theory is now a foundation of mainstream labor economics. In his day, however, it was highly unpopular. "A key element of resistance," writes Leonard, "was that many progressives were reluctant to treat wages as a price," rather than a right of citizenship and social standing. Informed by their beliefs in scientific racism, most progressives preferred wages to favor some groups over others: men over women, whites over blacks, and most prominently, native stock over immigrants.
Although they generally assumed black inferiority, progressives outside the South didn't worry much about the "Negro question." They were instead obsessed with the racial, economic, and social threats posed by immigrants. MIT president Francis Amasa Walker called for "protecting the American rate of wages, the American standard of living, and the quality of American citizenship from degradation through the tumultuous access of vast throngs of ignorant and brutalized peasantry from the countries of eastern and southern Europe," whom he described in Darwinian language as "representing the worst failures in the struggle for existence."
So restricting immigration was as central to the progressive agenda as regulating railroads. Indeed, in his five-volume History of the American People, Wilson lumped together in one long paragraph the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act as "the first fruits of radical economic changes and the rapid developments of trade, industry, and transportation" -- equal harbingers of the modern administrative state. With a literacy test and ban on most other Asian immigrants enacted in 1917 and national quotas established in 1924, the progressives bequeathed to America the concept of illegal immigration.
The first paragraph is the preface for what follows. It relates to why I eschew the label "progressive" despite sympathizing with some aspects of what today's progressives espouse. In my estimation, "progressivism," then and now, contains substantial hubris - believing that we are justified in moving heaven and earth to bring about a brave new world through dispassionate logic, science, and a superior moral locus. Institutions and practices that have emerged through time as practical ways of making the world work be damned! I believe most change should be modest reform, not revolution. It is in this sense that I would claim the term conservative. We want to conserve the good as we seek improvement. We aren't that smart, and we aren't that noble when it comes to redesigning the world.
The minimum wage piece is particularly interesting. While the impact of minimum wage increases is notoriously complex and difficult to summarize with precision, most economists agree that substantial increases in the minimum wage dampen job growth over time. Some studies show, just as the early progressives logically surmised, that increased minimum wages negatively impact the employment of minorities, particularly young black men.
I am going to read this book!
Sep 28, 2015
Aug 04, 2015
The US really has 11 separate 'nations'
Business Insider: This map shows the US really has 11 separate 'nations' with entirely different cultures
"In his fourth book, "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures in North America," award-winning author Colin Woodard identifies 11 distinct cultures that have historically divided the US.
"The country has been arguing about a lot of fundamental things lately including state roles and individual liberty," Woodard, a Maine native who won the 2012 George Polk Award for investigative reporting, told Business Insider.
"[But] in order to have any productive conversation on these issues," he added, "you need to know where you come from. Once you know where you are coming from it will help move the conversation forward."
Here's how Woodard describes each nation: ..."
May 19, 2015
Sep 12, 2014
Jul 31, 2014
24 Books That Forecasted The Future
Business Insider: 24 Books That Forecasted The Future
Jun 26, 2014
May 29, 2014
Apr 01, 2014
Demography Links
1. Washington Post: Robert Samuelson: America’s demographic denial
... For proof, see Paul Taylor’s new book, “The Next America.” Taylor oversees many of the Pew Research Center’s opinion surveys. His masterful synthesis of polls shows that three familiar mega-trends lie at the core of America’s political and social stalemate. First, immigration. By 2050, immigrants and their U.S.-born children are projected to represent 37 percent of the population, slightly higher than in 1900, when the country last experienced mass immigration. ...
... Second, family breakdown. In 2011, unmarried women accounted for 41 percent of U.S. births, up from 5 percent in 1960. The trend affects all major groups. The rate is 29 percent for whites, 53 percent among Hispanics and 72 percent among African Americans. Although 60 percent of single mothers have live-in boyfriends, half of these relationships end within five years. Single parenthood’s stigma is gone. ...
... Finally, aging. Every day 10,000 baby boomers turn 65. The retiree flood is swamping the federal budget. ...
2. Economist: How divorce and marriage compare internationally
3. NPR: Walking Down The Widening Aisle Of Interracial Marriages
... More than 5.3 million marriages in the U.S. are between husbands and wives of different races or ethnicities. According to the 2010 Census, they make up between opposite-sex couples, marking a 28-percent increase since 2000. ...
4. Pew: Record share of wives are more educated than their husbands
5. NPR: Older Americans' Breakups Are Causing A 'Graying' Divorce Trend
For baby boomers, divorce has almost become, like marriage, another rite of passage. The post-World War II generation is setting : Americans over 50 are twice as likely to get divorced as people of that age were 20 years ago. ...
6. Atlantic Cities: The Developing World's Urban Population Could Triple by 2210
... A new working paper (PDF) by my colleagues Brandon Fuller and Paul Romer of NYU’s Marron Institute projects that the world’s urban population will reach 9.8 billion people by 2210, with nearly 87 percent of the 11.3 billion people on Earth living in cities. That urban population will be split unevenly, with just 1.2 billion people living in the cities of what we now think of as developed countries, and a whopping 8.6 billion making their homes in the cities of the developing world. These projections, based on UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Data, are some of the largest that I’ve seen to date. ...
7. Conversable Economist: U.S. Teen Birthrate Plummets
8. The Diplomat: Japan's Demographic Crisis: Any Way Out?
... However positive the macroeconomic outlook for the Japanese economy and however successful Abe might be at normalizing Japan’s military stance, Japan isn’t back — its falling birthrate and shrinking population will significantly damage its international competitiveness. Japan’s population fell by a record 244,000 last year, further evidencing that this trend is accelerating. Is it all doom and gloom for Japan from here on out or is there a possible way out? ...
... The immigration solution to demographic problems presents a novel scenario for Japan, which has traditionally been ethnically homogenous despite its high level of integration with the global economy. According to the Japanese government, the number of foreign residents in Japan is slowly but surely rising. Should the government’s plan to add an additional 200,000 immigrants per year succeed, Japanese society will begin to look very different within a decade, raising possible national identity issues. Currently, less than 2 percent of Japan’s population is non-ethnically Japanese. Should immigrants comprise a greater percentage of the whole, the idea of Japan will have to change, incorporating its new residents into the fold. That change won’t be easy, but it might be necessary to avert the alternative scenario: a country that shrinks its way into ruin.
9. USA Today: 'Do it for Denmark' ad encourages Danes to have more sex
... Denmark has the lowest birth rate in 27 years, according to the "Do it for Denmark" campaign the travel company launched Wednesday. "The Danish government has not found a solution," the ad says. "But there has to be one."
That solution, according to the company, is to travel, see your partner in the light of a different city and get romantic.
The ad claims that Danes have 46% more sex on vacation and that 10% of all Danish children are conceived on getaways. It's unclear where these stats came from, so take them with a grain of salt. ...
10. Atlantic: There's Something About Cities and Suicide
As more people move to a city, you’d expect about a one-to-one increase in shirts being worn, for instance, or the number of house keys issued. If something doubles as population doubles, that’s not surprising. What is unusual, though, is when something grows faster or slower than a population. That means people seem to be doing more or less of it, on average, and that could signal an interesting societal quirk. ...
... The authors found that if they doubled the size of a Brazilian city, car-crash deaths would also double, as predicted. But the rate of murder would grow by 135 percent—that is, homicides would more than double.
The rate of suicides, meanwhile, increased slower than population growth, rising just 78 percent when population went up by 100. A similar trend was true among the U.S. counties. There seems to be something about big cities that makes murder more likely but suicide less so. ...
11. New York Times: Why Black Women Die of Cancer
SINCE the early 1970s, studies have shown that black Americans have a higher death rate from cancer than any other racial or ethnic group. This is especially true when it comes to breast cancer. A study published last week in the journal Cancer Epidemiology found that, in a survey of 41 of America’s largest cities, black women with breast cancer are on average 40 percent more likely to die than their white counterparts.
The principal reason for this disparity is the disconnect between the nation’s discovery and delivery enterprises — between what we know and what we do about sick Americans. ...
12. Christian Science Monitor: Why African-Americans are moving back to the South
... The Coxes' decision is one unfolding in African-American households across the nation. After decades of mass exodus, blacks are returning to the South in one of the most notable migrations of the new century.
It's a subtle but significant shift that experts say provides not only a snapshot of the changing economics and sociology of the nation but of an emerging new South and, in some cases, of a growing disillusionment with the urban North. ...
13. New York Times: Population Growth in New York City Is Reversing Decades-Old Trend, Estimates Show
New York City may be an expensive place to live. Jobs are not easy to find, even as the city rebounds from the recession. And the public transit system is not always reliable or comfortable.
But despite the challenges of city living, the city’s population is growing in ways not seen in decades.
For the third consecutive year, New York City last year gained more people than it lost through migration, reversing a trend that stretched to the mid-20th century. ...
14. Business Insider: How The American Population Changed In One Year
15. Carpe Diem: Today’s new homes are 1,000 square feet larger than in 1973, and the living space per person has doubled over last 40 years
16. Watch as 1000 years of European borders change
17. Business Insider: Here's What The World Would Look Like If It Were Divided Into Regions Of 100 Million People
18. Business Insider: 6 Land Transformations That Are Changing The World (GIFs)
As the global population grows past seven billion, our cities continue to expand, increasing the need for natural resources while simultaneously decreasing the supply.
Google's Earth Engine team created these time-lapse maps to illustrate a few of the trends reshaping the world right now. ...
19. Aljezzera America: How the north ended up on top of the map
Why do maps always show the north as up? For those who don’t just take it for granted, the common answer is that Europeans made the maps and they wanted to be on top. But there’s really no good reason for the north to claim top-notch cartographic real estate over any other bearing, as an examination of old maps from different places and periods can confirm. ...
... The McArthur map also makes us wonder why we are so quick to assume that Northern Europeans were the ones who invented the modern map — and decided which way to hold it — in the first place. As is so often the case, our eagerness to invoke Eurocentrism displays a certain bias of its own, since in fact, the north’s elite cartographic status owes more to Byzantine monks and Majorcan Jews than it does to any Englishman.
There is nothing inevitable or intrinsically correct — not in geographic, cartographic or even philosophical terms — about the north being represented as up, because up on a map is a human construction, not a natural one. Some of the very earliest Egyptian maps show the south as up, presumably equating the Nile’s northward flow with the force of gravity. And there was a long stretch in the medieval era when most European maps were drawn with the east on the top. If there was any doubt about this move’s religious significance, they eliminated it with their maps’ pious illustrations, whether of Adam and Eve or Christ enthroned. In the same period, Arab map makers often drew maps with the south facing up, possibly because this was how the Chinese did it. ...
Feb 24, 2014
Social Science and Culture Links
1. Two informative articles in Forbes: A Tale Of Two Incomes: How To Handle Having More Money Than Your Friends and A Tale Of Two Incomes: How To Handle Having Less Money Than Your Friends
2. New Yorker: Why Your Name Matters
... The effects of name-signalling—what names say about ethnicity, religion, social sphere, and socioeconomic background—may begin long before someone enters the workforce. In a study of children in a Florida school district, conducted between 1994 and 2001, the economist David Figlio demonstrated that a child’s name influenced how he or she was treated by the teacher, and that differential treatment, in turn, translated to test scores. Figlio isolated the effects of the students’ names by comparing siblings—same background, different names. Children with names that were linked to low socioeconomic status or being black, as measured by the approach used by Bertrand and Mullainathan, were met with lower teacher expectations. Unsurprisingly, they then performed more poorly than their counterparts with non-black, higher-status names. Figlio found, for instance, that “a boy named ‘Damarcus’ is estimated to have 1.1 national percentile points lower math and reading scores than would his brother named ‘Dwayne,’ all else equal, and ‘Damarcus’ would in turn have three-quarters of a percentile ranking higher test scores than his brother named Da’Quan.’ ” Conversely, children with Asian-sounding names (also measured by birth-record frequency) were met with higher expectations, and were more frequently placed in gifted programs.
The economists Steven Levitt and Roland Fryer looked at trends in names given to black children in the United States from the nineteen-seventies to the early aughts. They discovered that names which sounded more distinctively “black” became, over time, ever more reliable signals of socioeconomic status. That status, in turn, affected a child’s subsequent life outcome, which meant that it was possible to see a correlation between names and outcomes, suggesting a name effect similar to what was observed in the 1948 Harvard study. But when Levitt and Fryer controlled for the child’s background, the name effect disappeared, strongly indicating that outcomes weren’t influenced by intrinsic qualities of the name itself. As Simonsohn notes, “Names tell us a lot about who you are.” ...
3. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Living with Discrimination Can Take a Toll on Health
"... The researchers wrote, "the anticipatory nature of vigilance sets it apart from traditional notions of perceived racial discrimination. For decades, a large body of scientific and lay literature has provided evidence of the pervasive consequences of interpersonal and societal discrimination. In qualitative studies, social scientists often report on the way Blacks continually think about the potential for discrimination."
"Overall, the work shows that in cases where racism-related vigilance is low or absent, Blacks and Whites have similar levels of hypertension. But when people report chronic vigilance, the rates in Blacks rise significantly. They rise a little in Hispanics, but not at all in Whites," Hicken explains." ...
4. Carpe Diem: Women earned a majority of 2012 doctoral degrees in 33 STEM fields, can we stop calling it a ‘national crisis’?
5. Gruntled Center: Men and Women Work the Same Total Hours (There is no 'Second Shift')
This is a finding reported in the excellent new book, The XX Factor, by leading British economic researcher Alison Wolf.
She says of all that she reports in this book, this fact is the one she expects readers to have the hardest time believing. The belief that men and women now work equally outside the home, and then women come home to an unbalanced 'second shift' is very widespread, especially in the U.S. ...
6. The Atlantic: Why Don't More Women Want to Work With Other Women?
... Pew asked 2,002 people if they would prefer to work with men or women. Most—78 percent of men and 76 percent of women—said they didn't care. But for the 22 percent who did have a preference, "it’s men who get the nod from both sexes by about a 2-1 margin," Pew's Rich Morin writes. In fact, more women said they'd rather work with men than men did. ...
7. The Mercury: As Cohabitation Gains Favor, Shotgun Weddings Fade
... The share of unmarried couples who opt to move in together after a pregnancy surpassed what demographers call “shotgun marriages” for the first time over the last decade. That’s according to a forthcoming paper from the National Center for Health Statistics. ...
8. New York Times: The Childless Plan for Their Fading Days
... Ms. Tint’s situation is one that more and more elderly people will face over the next few decades as fewer women choose to have children. According to an August 2013 report from AARP, 11.6 percent of women ages 80 to 84 were childless in 2010. By 2030, the number will reach 16 percent. What’s more, in 2010, the caregiver support ratio was more than seven potential caregivers for every person over 80 years old. By 2030, that ratio is projected to decline to four to one. By 2050, it’s expected to fall to three to one. ...
... “Many people are extending the notion of family itself, to nieces and nephews, cousins and so on,” he continued. “But it’s also expanding to ‘pseudo kin’ of friends and neighbors. We see this in the L.G.B.T. community, many of whom have been alienated from their families.”
“While it’s great to have kids who are available to help, there are a lot of complications with having kids around,” said Audrey K. Chun, a doctor who is also a medical director at the Martha Stewart Center for Living at Mount Sinai Hospital, in New York. “A lot of the dynamics, decisions that have to be made around the end of life, disagreements that arise between siblings, what mom or dad may have wanted, can be very emotional. Many of my patients without kids are interested in not wasting resources at the end of life — when it’s their time, they don’t want unnecessary suffering, or to be a burden on society. They want to die naturally. Because they don’t have children to advocate for them, they’re much more open and direct about that.” ...
9. The Guardian: This column will change your life: gut feelings
... But how many of us would embark on a serious relationship based on a shared passion for The Shining? When it comes to judging character, we prefer to believe gut instinct beats box-ticking. "We have a deep-seated need to feel that we can judge character," Jason Dana, of Yale University, told the Boston Globe recently. But many studies suggest we can't – and a new paper co-authored by Dana is especially damning. ...
... Technically, the problem with unstructured interviews (or dates) isn't that they're insufficiently informative. It's that they're too informative. Bombarded by data, we seek refuge in "sensemaking", clinging to stories that seem to render things clear. But those stories might include racist or sexist stereotypes about who's good at what. Or they might be the seductive stories of candidates skilled at interviews, yet rubbish at the job itself. "Because of sensemaking," the researchers write, "interviewers are likely to feel they are getting useful information from unstructured interviews, even when they are useless." Settling on a coherent story feels good, but that doesn't mean it's accurate.
This gap – between what our guts say and what the data says – will only grow wider. As Big Data quantifies more of our lives, we'll increasingly face dilemmas: if your instincts tell you to date or hire Person A, but the metrics point to Person B, whom will you choose? ...
10. Associated Press: Accident rates improving for older drivers
... Today's drivers aged 70 and older are less likely to be involved in crashes than previous generations, and less likely to be killed or seriously injured if they do crash, according to a study released Thursday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
That's because vehicles are getting safer and seniors are generally getting healthier, the institute said. ...
11. Conversable Economist: How Pedestrian Countdown Signals Cause Auto Accidents
Pedestrian countdown signals at crosswalks show how much time is left before the light turns yellow, thus letting pedestrians know if they should rush to cross the street--or perhaps wait for the next light. But when these signals were introduced in Toronto, the rate of rear-end auto accidents was higher at the intersections with pedestrian signals compared to neighboring intersections. ...
... In short, the pedestrian countdown signals were good for pedestrians. But some of the drivers were watching the signals, trying to squeeze through before the light changed, and rear-ending other cars.
There's are some narrow lessons here about pedestrian countdown signals and a broader lesson about how information works. Here are two narrow lessons, which come out of a more detailed analysis of the data: "The first is cities might benefit from installing countdowns at historically highly dangerous intersections and from not installing them at historically safe intersections. The second conclusion is that while countdowns can improve safety in historically dangerous cities, they may be detrimental to safety in historically safe ones." Also, instead of having a pedestrian countdown signal that is visible to cars, it might make more sense to have a verbal countdown that could only be heard by pedestrians. ...
According to new research, people living in poor countries have a greater sense of meaning in their lives than those living in wealthy countries.
These new findings, published in the Association for Psychological Science’s academic journal “Psychology Science,” suggest that this greater sense of life meaning stems from residents’ strong family ties and solid connections to religious tradition. “Thus far, the wealth of nations has been almost always associated with longevity, health, happiness, or life satisfaction,” Shigehiro Oishi, a professor at the University of Virginia and original publisher of this study, said. “Given that meaning in life is an important aspect of overall well-being, we wanted to look more carefully at differential patterns, correlates, and predictors for meaning in life.” ...
13. Huffington Post: 13 Predictions About The Future That Were Spectacularly Wrong
While humankind has made great leaps in science and technology, we have yet to master the art of prophecy. It turns out that predicting the future is tricky business, but time and again, we insist on doing so.
In the spirit of learning from our foolishness, we've partnered with Hendrick's Gin to take a peek into the lofty predictions that turned out to be terribly, spectacularly wrong. ...
14. Washington Post: 40 more maps that explain the world
Maps seemed to be everywhere in 2013, a trend I like to think we encouraged along with August's 40 maps that explain the world. Maps can be a remarkably powerful tool for understanding the world and how it works, but they show only what you ask them to. You might consider this, then, a collection of maps meant to inspire your inner map nerd. I've searched far and wide for maps that can reveal and surprise and inform in ways that the daily headlines might not, with a careful eye for sourcing and detail. I've included a link for more information on just about every one. Enjoy.
This one is one interesting example:
15. Huffington Post: Ancient Town Discovered In Israel Is 2,300 Years Old, Archaeologists Say
On the outskirts of Jerusalem, archaeologists have discovered the remains of a 2,300-year-old rural village that dates back to the Second Temple period, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced. ...
16. Scientific American: 4,600-Year-Old Step Pyramid Uncovered in Egypt
The pyramid, which predates the Great Pyramid of Giza, is one of seven for which its function remains a mystery. ...
17. Discovery: 11,000-Year-Old Settlement Found Under Baltic Sea
Evidence of a Stone-Age settlement that may have been swallowed whole by the Baltic Sea has resurfaced near Sweden, revealing a collection of well preserved artifacts left by nomads some 11,000 years ago. ...
18. Listverse: 10 Lesser-Known Ancient Roman Traditions
Depending on your personal view, ancient Rome was responsible for giving the modern world a number of traditions, including various legal ideas, democracy, and some of our religious celebrations. However, there are still many ancient Roman traditions that are slightly obscure, mostly relegated to the dustbin of history. Here are some lesser known ones. ...
19. Huff Post: CNN Morality Poll Reveals Surprising Trends In America
A recent CNN poll demonstrates the rapidly increasing support for the legalization of marijuana in America, but the survey also revealed American attitudes about the morality of various other actions.
Opinions on behaviors like drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana, cheating on taxes, and adultery have shifted since a similar poll was conducted by Time Magazine in 1987. ...
Science and Technology Links
1. The Atlantic: What Americans Don't Know About Science
On a recent survey, just 74 percent of Americans said that the Earth revolves around the sun. ...
... As you'll see, in the words of the report, "many Americans provide multiple incorrect answers to basic questions about scientific facts." Then again, "residents of other countries, including highly developed ones, appear to perform no better."...
... Finally, the report shows us that for at least some of the questions, Americans may be answering not based on knowledge, but on belief. As shown above, only 48 percent of Americans responded "true" to the statement "Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals." But if the question was reframed slightly, far more people responded with "true." Given the statement "according to the theory of evolution, human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals," 72 percent answered "true." (Emphasis mine.) A similar pattern happens with the Big Bang question. When the statement is simply "The universe began with a huge explosion," 39 percent responded "true." When it is "according to astronomers, the universe began with a huge explosion," 60 percent said "true." This seems to indicate that many Americans are familiar with the theories of evolution and the Big Bang; they simply don't believe they're true.
2. The Atlantic Cities: Pre-Fab Houses to Help the Homeless
3. Foreign Affairs: Networking Nature: How Technology Is Transforming Conservation
Conservation is for the first time beginning to operate at the pace and on the scale necessary to keep up with, and even get ahead of, the planet’s most intractable environmental challenges. New technologies have given conservationists abilities that would have seemed like super powers just a few years ago. We can now monitor entire ecosystems -- think of the Amazon rainforest -- in nearly real time, using remote sensors to map their three-dimensional structures; satellite communications to follow elusive creatures, such as the jaguar and the puma; and smartphones to report illegal logging.
Such innovations are revolutionizing conservation in two key ways: first, by revealing the state of the world in unprecedented detail and, second, by making available more data to more people in more places. Like most technologies, these carry serious, although manageable, risks: in the hands of poachers, location-tracking devices could prove devastating to the endangered animals they hunt. Yet on balance, technological innovation gives new hope for averting the planet’s environmental collapse and reversing its accelerating rates of habitat loss, animal extinction, and climate change. ...
4. Real Clear Science: Science Opinions Cross Partisan Lines
... Our results indicate that, more than political party identification, ideology or religious beliefs, an individual’s beliefs about science and society had the strongest influence on their support for stem cell research. It was also possible to identify distinct segments who differ substantially in what they thought about science’s social implications. Traditional political labels do not easily define these groups.
Based on our data we classify the US public in four categories:
Scientific optimists: These comprise about a third of the public. They believe strongly in the link between science and social progress. They are likely to support most scientific advances and three quarters of this group are in favour of embryonic stem cell research. Optimists are on average highly educated, financially well off and disproportionately white. They are split almost evenly along political lines, with slightly more Democrats among them. In terms of political ideology, they are the most moderate in their outlook.
Scientific pessimists: This group comprises just under a quarter of the public. They have strong reservations about the moral boundaries that might be crossed by scientists and believe science may lead to new problems. They are the most likely to oppose advances in biomedical research, with only 40% in favour of stem cell research. Compared to optimists, this group scores much lower on average in terms of educational attainment and income. More tend to be female and from a minority background. Pessimists split evenly along party lines, but tend to be disproportionately either moderate or conservative in their ideological outlook.
The conflicted: This group represents another quarter of the public. They view science in both optimistic and pessimistic terms. Though they are socially similar to the Pessimists in their background, they tend to be older on average than members of other segments. They appear open to accepting the arguments of scientists and advocates who emphasise the benefits of research. By 2010, more than 60% of this segment had come to favour embryonic stem cell research.
The disengaged: About 15% of the public lacks strong beliefs about how science might impact society. As a result, they are likely to be the most susceptible to shifts in opinion driven by political messages. For example, between 2008 and 2010, support for embryonic stem cell research among this group increased by 20 percentage points. ...
5. CBR: So what is nanotechnology anyway?
Nanotechonology is one of the current buzzwords of science today, and deals with technology on the 'nano' scale. What's the nano scale!? The nano scale is small that you can't see it with a regular microscope; in fact, a nanometre is one-billionth of a metre. A regular atom is about one-tenth of a nanometre in diameter.
At this scale, scientists are able to manipulate atoms themselves, and that leads to the creation of all sorts of fascinating and interesting materials. One prime example is that of a carbon nanotube, which is made my rolling a sheet of graphite molecules into a tube. The right combination of nanotubes can create a structure that is hundred of times stronger than normal steel but only one-sixth the weight. This is just one example of the practical use of nanotechnology.
A concise actual definition for nanotechnology, found here, is: "The design, characterization, production, and application of structures, devices, and systems by controlled manipulation of size and shape at the nanometer scale (atomic, molecular, and macromolecular scale) that produces structures, devices, and systems with at least one novel/superior characteristic or property."
What is nanotechnology used for? ...
6. Nano Werk: Nanotechnology is getting closer to 3D nanoprinting
Fabrication of three-dimensional (3D) objects through direct deposition of functional materials – also called additive manufacturing – has been a subject of intense study in the area of macroscale manufacturing for several decades. These 3D printing techniques are reaching a stage where desired products and structures can be made independent of the complexity of their shapes – even bioprinting tissue is now in the realm of the possible.
Applying 3D printing concepts to nanotechnology could bring similar advantages to nanofabrication – speed, less waste, economic viability – than it is expected to bring to manufacturing technologies.
In addition, pre-patterned micro- or nanostructures could be used as substrates, allowing researchers to realize unprecedented manufacturing flexibility, functionality and complexity at the nanoscale.
Researchers in Korea have now shown that nanoscale 3D objects such as free-standing nanowalls can by constructed by an additive manufacturing scheme. Even without the motion of the substrate, nanojets are spontaneously laid down and piled to yield nanowalls. ...
7. BBC: Tiny motors controlled inside human cell
For the first time, scientists have placed tiny motors inside living human cells and steered them magnetically. ...
8. Extreme Tech: This single-atom engine breaks the laws of physics, could drive progress in quantum computing
A new invention from Germany’s University of Mainz is not only the world’s smallest engine by an enormous margin, it may have broken a theoretical limit for engine efficiency. The device, a so-called “atomic engine,” produces power thanks to the movements of just a single atom trapped and manipulated. It’s an incredible achievement that, while not particularly useful for engineering in the short term, could revolutionize our understanding of the quantum world. Plus, it’s really neat. ...
9. Re/Code: 3-D Printing’s Next Frontier: Mass Customization
The next evolution of 3-D printing may well be what some call “mass customization,” where customers get to contribute to the design process of a product like a necklace, an orthotic footbed, headphones or a toy. By printing one piece at a time, it can fit the buyer’s identity, shape or preference, and their input becomes part of the creation process.
At a basic level, mass customization is kind of like the next level of printing a face on a mug. Now, you could make the mug from scratch with a relief of the face laid into the material like a sort of personal Mount Rushmore. Or you could dream bigger.
Unlike traditional factories, which are optimized for making large quantities of the same thing and so have minimum orders and set-up costs, 3-D printers create individual objects by painstakingly layering material on top of itself.
As Shapeways marketing director Carine Carmy put it to Re/code, “The printer doesn’t care whether it’s 1,000 of one thing or one of 1,000 things.” ...
10. Huff Post Tech: 3D Printing Has Started A Revolution
... Few companies grasp the coming upheaval. Perhaps because 3D printing, an innovation that can come across as a curiosity, is propelling this disruption. Yet, these printers, which churn out objects by laying thin layer after thin layer of metal, plastics or other materials on top of each other, won't tip the scale alone.
It's their collision with two other disruptive technologies -- intelligent robotics and open source electronics -- that will bring an end to the era of big and complex global supply chains. Together, they're going to usher in the digitalization of manufacturing, by creating flexible, fast, local supply chains underpinned by software. ...
11. Scientific American: Robotic Surgery Opens Up
If the open-source approach to building robot surgeons can cut costs and improve performance, patients will increasingly find them at the other end of the scalpel ...
12. The Skin Gun
Remarkable advancement in treating burn victims.
13. Huff Post Impact: This New Product May Drastically Change The Battlefield For The Better
U.S. combat troops may soon benefit from faster and more effective relief from gunshot wounds on the battlefield.
The U.S. Army has requested expedited approval from the FDA for XStat, a new product that has the potential to decrease troop casualties during warfare. The product acts as a modified syringe -- injecting specially coated sponges into deep tissue wounds to stop hemorrhaging, Popular Science reports. ...
14. Business Insider: Number Of Test-Tube Babies Born In US Hits Record Percentage
NEW YORK (Reuters) - More test-tube babies were born in the United States in 2012 than ever before, and they constituted a higher percentage of total births than at any time since the technology was introduced in the 1980s, according to a report released on Monday. ...
15. Huffington Post: What Percentage Of Our Brains Do We Actually Use? Popular Myth Debunked In TED-Ed Video
It's commonly said that we humans use only about 10 percent of our brains, with some people attributing Einstein's brilliance to his ability to stretch that paltry figure to 15 percent.
But in the video above, neurologist Dr. Richard Cytowic debunks these familiar notions, arguing that brain regions once believed to be "silent" are actually humming with activity.
What exactly do these "silent" regions do? According to Cytowic, they're intimately involved with our ability to plan, make decisions, adapt to evolving situations, and reason abstractly. And evidence suggests that at any moment up to 16 percent of our brain cells are active. ...
16. Associated Press: Ancient baby DNA suggests tie to Native Americans
NEW YORK (AP) -- The DNA of a baby boy who was buried in Montana 12,600 years ago has been recovered, and it provides new indications of the ancient roots of today's American Indians and other native peoples of the Americas.
It's the oldest genome ever recovered from the New World. Artifacts found with the body show the boy was part of the Clovis culture, which existed in North America from about 13,000 years ago to about 12,600 years ago and is named for an archaeological site near Clovis, N.M. ...
17. Live Science: Mother Lode' of Amazingly Preserved Fossils Discovered in Canada
A treasure trove of fossils chiseled out of a canyon in Canada's Kootenay National Park rivals the famous Burgess Shale, the best record of early life on Earth, scientists say. ...
18. Christian Science Monitor: When nearly everything on Earth died in the blink of an eye
Scientists have determined that the Permian extinction – the greatest mass die-off in the history of our planet so far – lasted just 60,000 years, an instant in geological time. ...
19. Newser: Source of Stonehenge's Rocks Pinpointed
For nine decades, it's been established that many of Stonehenge's smaller rocks hail from the Preseli Hills in Wales. Now, a newly published study says that we've been wrong about an outcrop that has been accepted as a specific source since 1923. And the new research, published in February's issue of Journal of Archaeological Science,suggests the rocks—known as bluestones, of which there are many types—may not have been transported there by humans at all. As head researcher Dr. Richard Bevins explains, in 1923, geologist H.H. Thomas identified Carn Meini as the source of spotted dolerite bluestones, but a new analysis of the rocks' chemical makeup has fingered Carn Goedog as the true home of at least 55% of those used at Stonehenge, reports Planet Earth. ...
20. USA Today: Genetically engineered crops in nearly 12% of fields
Even as some U.S. consumers reject foods containing ingredients from genetically modified plants, farmers continue to embrace the technology. In 2013, crops grown from seed engineered to withstand weed killers, kill pests or resist diseases made up 11.7% of fields planted worldwide, a report released Thursday says. ...
21: BBC News: Genetically modified potatoes 'resist late blight'
British scientists have developed genetically modified potatoes that are resistant to the vegetable's biggest threat - blight....
22. My Science Academy: Scientists resurrect extinct frog that gives birth through its mouth
Scientists have resurrected an extinct frog species, that gives birth through its mouth, by transplanting its DNA into the eggs of another frog species.
23. Scotsman: Ten myths concerning nuclear power
Civil nuclear power’s historical links with nuclear weapons (and Chernobyl, Fukushima and suchlike) colours our perceptions of this important source of energy. We don’t eschew high explosives for their many valuable uses because they can kill people when abused. We keep driving cars despite the daily death toll.
The fruits of technology always present us with the Faustian dilemma of use for good or evil. The safe application of knowledge depends on the effectiveness of democracy, regulation and governance. Civil nuclear power suffers from its unfamiliarity to the public. This needs correcting by its promoters and by those in a position to influence public attitudes; they need to engage effectively with the public and encourage nuclear opponents to adopt an objective approach to the evidence.
1. Too dangerous? Objective examination of accident statistics for all fuels for deaths per unit of energy transformed shows that civil nuclear power generation has the best safety record. That includes the consequences of Chernobyl and Fukushima.
2. Causes cancer? Risks of cancer due to exposure to radiological hazards from civil nuclear power are extremely low, much lower than the risks from granite in Aberdeen, or from the use of diagnostic and therapeutic radioactivity in medicine (risks which are still heavily outweighed by the benefits). Scientists recognise that nuclear radiation limits are actually set lower than necessary. ...
Feb 12, 2014
Religion Links
1. Business Insider: A Fascinating New Poll Shows That Americans Are Losing Faith In God
A new Harris Poll released today reveals that only 74% of Americans believe in God, an 8% decline since 2009.
Before today, U.S. adults had remained fairly consistent in their religious beliefs — 82% of U.S. respondents previously reported that they believed there was a God since 2005.
In another decline, only 54% of Americans are now "absolutely certain" in God's existence, a 12% decrease over the last decade. ...
2. Daily Mail: The Bible-ignorant [British] youngsters who can't tell Noah from Adam: Third of children didn't know Nativity story came from Holy Book
- One in three Britons didn't know where story of birth of Jesus could be read
- Some 54 per cent of children never read Bible stories by adults, study found
- Campaigners now fear the religion is in a state of permanent retreat
3. Christian Newswire: 92% of Americans Own a Bible but Only 16% Read it Daily
4. Religion News Service: Respect for clergy drops, but among Republicans, not so much
(RNS) Clergy used to rank near the top in polls asking Americans to rate the honesty and ethics of people in various professions. This year, for the first time since Gallup began asking the question in 1977, fewer than half of those polled said clergy have "high" or "very high" moral standards.
But opinions on clergy differed markedly by party, with Republicans viewing them far more favorably than Democrats.
Overall, 47 percent of respondents to the survey gave clergy "high" or "very high" ratings, a sharp drop in confidence from the 67 percent of Americans who viewed them this way in 1985.
Among Republicans, 63 percent gave clergy one of the two top ratings for ethics, compared with 40 percent of Democrats. ...
5. Economist: All about Adam
A furious—and political—debate about the origins of mankind ...
... A quest for certainty is an American tradition. Old World believers often inherit religion passively, like a cultural artefact. Americans, an individualistic bunch, are more likely to switch churches or preachers until they find a creed that makes sense to them. They admire fundamental texts (the constitution, for example) that plain citizens may parse for immutable truths.
At the same time, the literalist faith is in crisis. Young Americans are walking away from the stern denominations that have held such sway over post-war American life, from Billy Graham's crusades to the rise of the religious right. After they hit 18, half of evangelical youngsters lose their faith; entering a public university is especially perilous. As a generation, millennials (those born between the early 1980s and 2000s), are unimpressed by organised anything, let alone organised religion. Many young adults told the Barna Group, an evangelical research outfit, that they felt stifled by elders who demonised secular America. Young Christians are more accepting of gay rights than their elders. In a challenge to creationists, a quarter of young adults told Barna's study that their churches were "anti-science".
The seeming paradox of a strong faith in crisis is explained by rigidity: that which cannot bend may break instead. ...
6. The Dish: The Language Of Certainty In Atheism
7. Faith & Leadership: Mainline Protestants and disruptive innovation
Mainline Protestants can still have an exciting and life-giving future -- if they learn the lessons of disruptive innovation from the steel industry and other organizations, say three Christian institutional leaders. ...
8. Call & Response Blog: Denominational leaders as bridge-builders
... The image of a bridge was one powerful expression of the issues they face now and anticipate facing in the future. But what most struck me were the ways in which, rather than despairing of their bridging roles, these leaders accepted the challenges and articulated the issues with clarity and grace.
First, they understood themselves as being "bridgers" who manage polarity and tension between people, issues or factions in the denomination. ...
... Second, these leaders saw their role as being a bridge to support systems and resources for congregations that are disbursed. ...
... Third, guest Marlon Hall, Houston pastor, filmmaker and leader of the Awakenings Movement, helped the gathered denominational leaders think about the ways in which they are a bridge between "the powerful and the engaged," between the status quo and disruptive innovation. ...
9. Religion News Service: Why evangelicalism needs controversies like Duck Dynasty
10. Pew Forum: Religious Hostilities Reach Six-Year High
11. Associated Press: Evangelicals mass in Peru amid boom
... Evangelicals have seen the most growth in Lima's teeming working class districts but more and more converts are coming from Peru's highlands thanks to proselytizing radio stations emerging in recent years in the region, said Rev. Juan Carlos Perez, a local leader of the Movimiento Misionero Mundial church. ...
... Peru and its capital remain bastions of Roman Catholicism. About three in four Peruvians identify themselves as Catholics. But evangelicals are on the rise, jumping from 5.2 percent of the population in 1981 to 12.5 percent in 2007, the last year for which government census figures are available.
Perez claims evangelicals now account for at least 20 percent of Peru's 30 million people, which would give it one of Latin America's highest growth rates. ...
12. Time: It's Social Ties—Not Religion—That Makes the Faithful Give to Charity
... Having found that religion and charity go hand-in-hand, Robert Putnam and I sought to understand why. The answer might surprise you. We initially thought that religious beliefs must foster a sense of charity—whether inspiration from biblical stories like the Good Samaritan or, perhaps, a fear of God's judgment for not acting charitably. However, we could find no evidence linking people's theological beliefs and their rate of giving—which also helps to explain why the "religion effect" varies little across different religions. The rates for charitable giving according to the Jumpstart survey are: 61 percent of Black Protestants; 64 % of Evangelical Protestants; 67 % of Mainline Protestants, 68 % of Roman Catholics, and 76 % of Jews. By contrast, only 46 % of the not religiously affiliated made any charitable giving.
Rather than religious beliefs, we found that the "secret ingredient" for charitable giving among religious Americans is the social networks formed within religious congregations. The more friends someone has within a religious congregation, the more likely that person is to give time, money, or both, to charitable causes. In fact, even non-religious people who have friends within a religious congregation (typically, because their spouse is a believer) are highly charitable—more so than strong believers who have few social ties within a congregation. ...
13. Christianity Today: Who Owns the Pastor's Sermon?
Church or pastor? When sermons become books that make millions in royalties, the answer is important.
Spoiler: Copyright law favors churches.
14. Jesus Creed: Who "attended" those earliest churches?
On the basis of a new approach at looking how to discern the social makeup of the earliest Christian house churches, one based more on housing space occupied than on ideal social types, Peter Oakes has offered to us a new way of thinking more realistically and concretely about who was in the earliest house churches. His book is called Reading Romans in Pompeii. ...
... The earliest churches, then, are not made up of pietists who wanted to study the Bible but ordinary Romans from all sorts of backgrounds, needs, yearnings, and connections — each bringing to the table different ears for the gospel. ...
... Undoubtedly, one the best books on Paul/Romans I've read in a long, long time. Oakes combines judicious historical sensitivities with solid exegetical insight, all wrapped into a proper caution that is not always observed among those who use social evidence.
15. The Bible and Culture: Social Description in Early Christianity
Here is an excellent post from Larry Hurtado reminding us that it is wrong to say that early Christianity was largely made up of impoverished slaves, women, minors, and the rural poor. This, is a complete myth. See below. ...
... Here's a sample from Meeks's now-classic work, The First Urban Christians (pp. 72-73): "the most active and prominent members of Paul's circle are people of high status inconsistency . . . They are upwardly mobile, their achieved status is higher than their attributed status." That is, e.g., people involved in trade, business, etc., whose energy and abilities enabled them to acquire a social status that they didn't inherit or have by way of being born into a traditional elite class.
There's much, much more to note. But this will do, hopefully, to steer interested readers toward a more accurate, less simplistic, view of the social makeup of the earliest circles of Christian believers.
16. Why are the virgin birth, empty tomb and resurrection controversial? - N. T. Wright
17. Euangelion: Sin and Death in Eastern Orthodox Theology
I introduced a nice book about Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology
... Thus, the most significant consequence of the Fall in light of the resurrection is the presence of death. So, according to Louth, it is Christ's conquest of death in his resurrection means that death rather than sin is central to the Orthodox understanding of the consequence of Adam's disobedience (70). ...
... Second, Louth presents the story of Adam is more the story of "everyman" than a story of the "first man". While not denying the latter, he says the Father's were interested in the former. In this sense the story is mythical. ...
... The more I think about it, I'm beginning to find these to be a more satisfying explanation than my inherited tradition. ...
Me too.
18. BioLogos: Long Life Spans in Genesis
... There are 30 age numbers we can get from Genesis chapter 5—three numbers for each of ten patriarchs: the age when a son was born, the number of years the patriarch lived after the son was born, and the total number of years the patriarch lived. For example, "When Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of… Seth. The days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were 800 years… Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years" (Genesis 5:3-5). We get similar accounts of Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah (though for Noah we have to go to Genesis 9:29 to see how old he was when he died).
The first thing more careful observation reveals about these 30 numbers is that all of them end with the digits 0, 2, 5, 7, or 9. You might not think that is too remarkable until you realize that it eliminates half of the possible numbers. It is like seeing a list of 30 numbers that are all even. We wouldn't think that was a random distribution of numbers. In fact, the odds of getting all thirty numbers to end with just these "approved" digits in a random distribution of ages are about one in a hundred million.[1] That should make us suspicious that Genesis 5 is merely giving a historical report. Something else must be going on here. ...
19. The Cultural Cognition Project - Yale Law School: Have Republicans changed views on evolution? Or have creationists changed party? Pew's (half-released) numbers don't add up ...
... Right away when I heard about the Pew poll, I turned to the results to see what the explanation was for the interesting -- truly! -- "shift" in Republican view: Were Republicans changing their positions on creationism or creationists changing their party allegiance?
And right away I ran into this logical inconsistency.
Surely, someone will clear this up, I thought.
But no.
Just the same predictable, boring "ha ha ha ha!" reaction.
Why let something as silly as logic get in the way of an opportunity to pound one's tribal chest & join in a unifying, polarizing group howl?
20. Huffington Post: Three Reasons Why Evolution Will Never Convince a Creationist
1) Evolution is not, strictly speaking, mentioned in the Bible, so a Creationist is not inclined to trust it. ...
2) People tend to assume that the two realms of science and faith must be in opposition to one another, or that when one is "right" on an issue the other cannot hold any merit in the conversation. ...
3) Starting from the "evolution" perspective is always taken to be challenging what is found in Genesis 1-3. Perhaps this seems obvious to you. But if that is where a person representing evolution starts, she or he has lost the Creationist from the get-go.
None of this way of approaching the conversation addresses the content of the Bible and the type of writings we find in them. This is, it seems to me, the central issue.
21. Spirit, Science, and Metaphysics: Scientists Claim That Quantum Theory Proves Consciousness Moves To Another Universe At Death
A book titled "Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the Nature of the Universe "has stirred up the Internet, because it contained a notion that life does not end when the body dies, and it can last forever. The author of this publication, scientist Dr. Robert Lanza who was voted the 3rd most important scientist alive by the NY Times, has no doubts that this is possible. - See more at: http://www.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/scientists-claim-that-quantum-theory-proves-consciousness-moves-to-another-universe-at-death/#sthash.m65dCbI8.dpuf
A book titled "Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the Nature of the Universe" has stirred up the Internet, because it contained a notion that life does not end when the body dies, and it can last forever. The author of this publication, scientist Dr. Robert Lanza who was voted the 3rd most important scientist alive by the NY Times, has no doubts that this is possible. ...
Feb 06, 2014
Feb 03, 2014
Economics Links
1. Brookings: Prospects for Ending Extreme Poverty by 2030
2. Carpe Diem: World trade and output both reached new all-time record highs in November and are nearly 10% above previous peaks
3. PBS Newshour: More than 200 million people were unemployed in the world in 2013
Worldwide, the number of unemployed people rose by 5 million in 2013 to 202 million, according to the International Labor Organization’s Global Employment Trends report. The global unemployment ratio of youth to adults has reached a new high. The jobless rate for 15- to 24-year-olds hit 13.1 percent in 2013 (or 74.5 million), nearly three times the adult rate.
The organization predicts unemployment will worsen, with 215 million jobless by 2018. Roughly 40 million net jobs will be added each year, the ILO estimates, but that won’t be enough to absorb the 42.6 million people expected to enter the labor force each year. ...
4. Conversable Economist: Limited U.S. Power in a Globalizing Economy
Just to be clear, the U.S. economy is not becoming a economic minnow like Belize or Burundi. But 65 years ago, as the high-income countries climbed out of the wreckage left by World War II and today's emerging economies had not yet engaged in the global economy, the U.S. economy had an extraordinary time of dominance. For a time in the 1960s, it was common to hear that the planned economy of the USSR would outstrip the U.S. economy. In the 1970s and into the 1980, Japan was going to rule the world economy. Around 2000 and the launch of the euro, there was talk about the economic rise of the European Union. But now, we are seeing the rise of a multipolar and distributed world economy, with faster growth happening in the emerging economies, but with stronger linkages of trade and global supply chains reaching across the world economy. The U.S. can certainly be an active and leading participant in shaping the world's economic future. But neither the U.S., nor some combination of high-income countries around the world, has the power to dictate what configurations will emerge.
5. Business Insider: Here's A Chart Of Interest Rates Going Back To 3000 BC
6. PBS: Is the famous ‘paradox of choice’ a myth? Barry Schwartz
"Paradox of choice" is tha notion that too many choices become overwhelming and make life decisions less satisying.
... Often people choose on the basis of essentially irrelevant features of plans, just because the relevant features are too complex to evaluate. Has anyone ever suggested that the sensible alternative to too many options is a single option? Absolutely and unequivocally not. Psychology has known about “single option aversion” for a half century. With too few options, there is the risk that none will be satisfactory, whereas with too many, there is the risk of paralysis, confusion and dissatisfaction.
The trick is to find the middle ground — the “sweet spot” — that enables people to benefit from variety and not be paralyzed by it. Choice is good, but there can be too much of a good thing. Adam Grant and I recently published a paper suggesting that this “too much of a good thing” phenomenon is pervasive in psychology. ...
7. TED: Paul Piff - Does money make you mean?
"It's amazing what a rigged game of Monopoly can reveal. In this entertaining but sobering talk, social psychologist Paul Piff shares his research into how people behave when they feel wealthy. (Hint: badly.) But while the problem of inequality is a complex and daunting challenge, there's good news too. (Filmed at TEDxMarin.)"
8. Forbes: Downton Abbey Makes A Powerful Case For Economic Freedom
... One of the great things about Downton Abbey is that it allows fans to escape their worries and fantasize about life on a luxurious estate in early 20th century England. But the truth is, few of us could tolerate what we’d be forced to live with, and live without, in that world. ...
9. Carpe Diem: The middle class is shrinking ... because they are moving into the upper class! Census data on income distribution reveal evidence of rising income levels for a rising share of American households
10. AEI: This chart shows how tough it is for the poor to recover from a bad start in life
11. Business Insider: Millennials Are The Most Financially Conservative Generation Since The Great Depression
... According to a new report from investment banking company UBS, Millennials are the most financially conservative generation to come around since the Great Depression. The report, which focused on investors between the ages of 21 and 36, found that Millennials are risk averse when it comes to investing — dedicating 52% of their investment portfolios to cash, compared to 23% cash for other investors. They are also more likely to believe that working hard (69%) and living frugally (45%) puts you on the path to success rather than long-term investing (28%). ...
12. NPR: The Middle Class Took Off 100 Years Ago ... Thanks To Henry Ford?
January 1914 was a frigid month in Detroit — much like January 2014 has been, but nonetheless thousands lined up in the bitter cold outside to take Henry Ford up : $5 a day, for eight hours of work in a bustling factory.
That was more than double the average factory wage at that time, and for U.S. workers it was one of the defining moments of the 20th century. Five dollars in 1914 translates to roughly $120 in today's money. While many economists say today's employers could take some pointers from Ford, they also say 2014 is a totally different world for U.S. businesses and workers. ...
... "It was mainly to stabilize the workforce. And it sure did," Kreipke says. "And raised the bar all over the world."
He says to understand why Ford thought this was a smart move in January 1914, you have to go back to another huge shift that happened a few months earlier: By 1913, Model T production totaled 200,000 — a feat made possible by the creation of the first moving assembly line. Conveyor belts transported small parts to workers, each of whom performed a specific task.
This tremendously sped up production, but Ford still had a problem: While he had standardized production, he hadn't standardized his workforce. Now, he didn't need particularly skilled workers; he just needed ones who would do the same repetitive, specialized tasks hour after hour, day after day.
Kreipke says there was chronic absenteeism and lots of worker turnover. So Ford gambled that higher wages would attract better, more reliable workers. ...
... "Today, overwhelmingly employers view the lowest wage as the most competitive wage," Shaiken says.
These days, global supply chains feed a hypercompetitive auto industry where no one wants to give up even an inch of ground, and keeping up with technology takes precedent over stabilizing the workforce. This just isn't Henry Ford's economy anymore, Shaiken says.
"There are very real economic pressures out there that push down on wages," he says. "So it's not a simple story, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a core truth into what Ford found." ...
13. Business Insider: An Economist Explains Why Wage Growth Is Poised To Take Off
14. Conversable Economist: U.S. Household Finances Rebound
15. Greg Mankiw: Does income inequality increase mortality?
Angus [Deaton] writes the following (emphasis added):
Darren Lubotsky and I 7 have investigated the relationship between income inequality, race, and mortality at both the state and metropolitan statistical area level. In both the state and the city data, mortality is positively and significantly correlated with almost any measure of income inequality. Because whites have higher incomes and lower mortality rates than blacks, places where the population has a large fraction of blacks are also places where both mortality and income inequality are relatively high. However, the relationship is robust to controlling for average income (or poverty rates) and also holds, albeit less strongly, for black and white mortality separately. Nevertheless, it turns out that race is indeed the crucial omitted variable. In states, cities, and counties with a higher fraction of African-Americans, white incomes are higher and black incomes are lower, so that income inequality (through its interracial component) is higher in places with a high fraction black. It is also true that both white and black mortality rates are higher in places with a higher fraction black and that, once we control for the fraction black, income inequality has no effect on mortality rates, a result that has been replicated by Victor Fuchs, Mark McClellan, and Jonathan Skinner9 using the Medicare records data. This result is consistent with the lack of any relationship between income inequality and mortality across Canadian or Australian provinces, where race does not have the same salience. Our finding is robust; it holds for a wide range of inequality measures; it holds for men and women separately; it holds when we control for average education; and it holds once we abandon age-adjusted mortality and look at mortality at specific ages. None of this tells us why the correlation exists, and what it is about cities with substantial black populations that causes both whites and blacks to die sooner.
In a review of the literature on inequality and health, I note that Wilkinson's original evidence, which was (and in many quarters is still) widely accepted showed a negative cross-country relationship between life expectancy and income inequality, not only in levels but also, and more impressively, in changes. But subsequent work has shown that these findings were the result of the use of unreliable and outdated information on income inequality, and that they do not appear if recent, high quality data are used. There are now also a large number of individual level studies exploring the health consequences of ambient income inequality and none of these provide any convincing evidence that inequality is a health hazard. Indeed, the only robust correlations appear to be those among U.S. cities and states (discussed above) which, as we have seen, vanish once we control for racial composition. I suggest that inequality may indeed be important for health, but that income inequality is less important than other dimensions, such as political or gender inequality.10
16. Pew Research: There's More to the Story of the Shrinking (Gender) Pay Gap
17. The Daily Beast: No, Women Don’t Make Less Money Than Men
... In its fact-checking column on the State of the Union, the Washington Post included the president’s mention of the wage gap in its list of dubious claims. “There is clearly a wage gap, but differences in the life choices of men and women… make it difficult to make simple comparisons.” ...
... Much of the wage gap can be explained away by simply taking account of college majors. Early childhood educators and social workers can expect to earn around $36,000 and $39,000, respectively. By contrast, petroleum engineering and metallurgy degrees promise median earnings of $120,000 and $80,000. Not many aspiring early childhood educators would change course once they learn they can earn more in metallurgy or mining. The sexes, taken as a group, are somewhat different. Women, far more than men, appear to be drawn to jobs in the caring professions; and men are more likely to turn up in people-free zones. In the pursuit of happiness, men and women appear to take different paths.
But here is the mystery. These and other differences in employment preferences and work-family choices have been widely studied in recent years and are now documented in a mountain of solid empirical research. By now the President and his staff must be aware that the wage gap statistic has been demolished. This is not the first time the Washington Post has alerted the White House to the error. Why continue to use it? ...
18. Atlantic: How When Harry Met Sally Explains Inequality
A new study says that educated people marrying each other has increased inequality by 25 percent.
19. Reuters: The real future of U.S. manufacturing
... The assertion that the United States, or any nation, requires continued investment in the technologies that will drive future production is indisputable. On that score, at least, the Obama White House is fighting the proverbial good fight.
The contention, however, that these technologies and the factories that harness them for production will be sources of well-paid, solidly middle-class jobs, is flawed. In our political debates, we maintain the comforting fiction that a manufacturing revival can and will go hand-in-hand with a jobs revival. Yet, as Obama’s initiative shows, the two can be — and increasingly are — uncoupled.
The issue is not the hollowing-out of manufacturing as defined by less production. Yes, many less expensive, simpler products are now made more cheaply elsewhere and are unlikely to be made in the United States anytime soon — even with the “on-shoring” of manufacturing. Though China ceases to be the place of low-cost production, Vietnam, the Philippines and who knows where else (even Mexico) will be more attractive for apparel, furniture, electronics and anything plastic for a long time to come.
The high-end production that these new U.S. innovation hubs seek to promote is indeed in demand around the world. It is something where, as yet, China and other low-cost manufacturing centers have not excelled. This is why China actually imports considerable billions of higher-end equipment – particularly from Japan and Germany. So it is true that the United States could have a competitive advantage, especially given the plethora of research universities and the wealth of highly-educated talent that can be used for just this type of production.
But all this is not the same as a job creator for a workforce of at least 120 million and counting in nation of more than 320 million people. These high-tech factories might employ hundreds of people in conjunction with industrial robots, using sophisticated software systems for design and production. These factory workers bear little resemblance to the 1950s line workers doing rote tasks. They are more like Silicon Valley engineers or lab technicians. These are high-skill jobs — and not nearly as plentiful as the factory jobs of the past. ...
Related: Bloomberg - Factory Jobs Are Gone. Get Over It
... In 1953 manufacturing accounted for 28 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. By 1980 that had dropped to 20 percent, and it reached 12 percent in 2012. Over that time, U.S. GDP increased from $2.6 trillion to $15.5 trillion, which means that absolute manufacturing output more than tripled in 60 years. Those goods were produced by fewer people. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of employees in manufacturing was 16 million in 1953 (about a third of total nonfarm employment), 19 million in 1980 (about a fifth of nonfarm employment), and 12 million in 2012 (about a tenth of nonfarm employment).
Service industries—hotels, hospitals, media, and accounting—have taken up the slack. Even much of the value generated by U.S. manufacturing involves service work—about a third of the total. More than half of all people still employed in the U.S. manufacturing sector work in such services as management, technical support, and sales. ...
20. PBS: Paul Soloman on Man vs the Machine: Will Human Workers Become Obsolete?
21. Huff Post: The End of Capitalism
Interesting thoughts. I don't know if he has it just right, but I do think he is correct that we may be on the verge of something as transformative to capitalism as industrialization was to agricultural societies:
... The location of creation has switched. Under industrial capitalism, machines operating centrally created riches. James Watt perfected his steam engine, but then the machines took on a life of their own - the machines themselves, and machine-like corporations built around them, churned out money. People danced around the edges, enlarging and improving the machines, putting them together in large mills or mines to turbo-charge productivity, adapting their pace of work to that of the machines. The machines and the capitalists were in charge.
Now it is not machines or their owners, but creative individuals who are center-stage. People not only invent new technology - they are the new technology. As sociologist Manuel Castells says, "For the first time in history, the human mind is a direct productive force ... Computers, communication systems, and genetic decoding and programming are all amplifiers and extensions of the human mind."
In the West, knowledge has become personalized. Open innovation requires it. The effect of open innovation is to transfer initiative and wealth from established corporations to new ones, and from shareholders to individuals. From thought to action, individuals are at the heart of creation, including wealth creation. Every element of the unique human personality takes part in creation - intellect, imagination, emotion, calculation, empathy, and the ability to evoke enthusiasm from other seriously talented people. Each person does it their way. Steve Jobs may not have been the nicest person in Silicon Valley, but he got amazingly talented people to distort reality and create previously unimaginable products. The individual is everything.
In all kinds of ways, therefore, we are moving away from capitalism, from an economy centered on capital and large, established, hierarchical corporations. But we are not moving from private hierarchy to public hierarchy, from capitalism to socialism or communism. Free enterprise is alive and well - arguably too alive and well. The new system is even more market-oriented than capitalism, and much more decentralized. It is as decentralized as any system can possibly be, because it is decentralized to individuals, and above all to a tiny minority of new superstar individuals. Welcome to the personalized economy. ...
22. Carpe Diem: Cash for kidneys will solve the organ shortage, save money spent on dialysis, and then we’ll wonder why it took so long
(Not necessarily agreeing here. Just reporting.)
Economists Gary Becker and Julio Elias make the case in today’s WSJ that a market for organs and donor compensation of about $15,000 would eliminate the growing kidney shortage. As the chart above shows, the kidney waiting list has nearly doubled from 50,000 in 2001 to almost 99,000 today, while the number of annual kidney transplant operations has increased only slightly from 14,279 in 2001 to fewer than 17,000 in 2013. Over the last eight years, kidney transplants have remained stuck at slightly below 17,000 per year, while the kidney waiting list has swelled by almost 30,000. Therefore, there an additional 30,000 patients today (99,000) than in 2006 (69,600) competing for the same number of transplants. And that’s why, as Becker and Elias point out, the average waiting time for a kidney has increased to 4.5 years from 2.9 years a decade ago. The authors argue that “Paying donors for their organs would finally eliminate the supply-demand gap.”
Isn’t donor compensation immoral? No, according to Becker and Elias (emphasis added: ...
Feb 01, 2014
Science and Technology Links
I've gotten very behind on my links pages. Here is my attempt to catch up on science and technology links. Sorry for the length, but there is some good stuff here. I'll have another post with environment links shortly.
1. Ancient Origins.net: Entire Neanderthal genome finally mapped – with amazing results
This incredible research has revealed the following:
- There is now conclusive evidence that Neanderthals bred with Homo sapiens – a fact disputed for many years. Some scientists claimed the two species had never even met.
- Ancient human species, including Neanderthals, Denisovans and Homo sapiens mated with each other, resulting in an incredibly complex family tree.
- The Denisovans share up to 8 percent of their genome with a "super achaic" and totally unknown species that dates back around 1 million years.
- The results conflict with the theory that modern humans arose completely from one "out of Africa" migration more than 60,000 years ago that spread worldwide without mating with other early humans.
- About 1.5 to 2.1 percent of the DNA of all people with European ancestry can be traced to Neanderthals.
- Proportions of Neanderthal DNA are higher among Asians and Native Americans, who also have small percentages of Denisovan DNA.
- 6 percent of the genome of Australian Aborigines and indigenous Papua New Guineans belong to the Denisovan species.
- The Han Chinese, native to East Asia, and the Dai people of southern China are related to both Neanderthals and Denisovans.
- Some indigenous people from Brazil, such as the Karitiana, are not only related to both Neanderthals and Denisovans, but they show relatively high genetic contributions from the Denisovans.
- Only 87 genes responsible for making proteins in cells are different between modern humans and Neanderthals. Intriguingly, some of the gene differences involve ones involved in both immune responses and the development of brain cells in people.
- Somewhere within these 87 genes may lay the answer to why Neanderthals and Denisovans became extinct.
- And least consequential of all, the Neanderthal woman's parents were related, possibly half-siblings, or an uncle and niece. As evolutionary biologist Mattias Jakobsson stated, the incest finding "is more of an anecdote". The results from one individual cannot be applied to an entire species, in the same way that the recent discovery of an incest family in Australia does not apply to the whole of the human race.
Here are a few of the findings:
- There is now conclusive evidence that Neanderthals bred with Homo sapiens – a fact disputed for many years. Some scientists claimed the two species had never even met.
- Ancient human species, including Neanderthals, Denisovans and Homo sapiens mated with each other, resulting in an incredibly complex family tree.
- The results conflict with the theory that modern humans arose completely from one "out of Africa" migration more than 60,000 years ago that spread worldwide without mating with other early humans.
- Proportions of Neanderthal DNA are higher among Asians and Native Americans, who also have small percentages of Denisovan DNA.
2. Science: How Farming Reshaped Our Genomes
Before farming began to spread across Europe some 8500 years ago, the continent's occupants were hunter-gatherers. They were unable to digest starch and milk, according to a new ancient DNA study of a nearly 8000-year-old human skeleton from Spain. But these original occupants did already possess immune defenses against some of the diseases that would later become the scourge of civilization, and they apparently had dark skin. The findings are helping researchers understand what genetic and biological changes humans went through as they made the transition from hunting and gathering to farming. ...
3. Atlantic: Male and Female Brains Really Are Built Differently
By analyzing the MRIs of 949 people aged 8 to 22, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania found that male brains have more connections within each hemisphere, while female brains are more interconnected between hemispheres. ...
... By analyzing the subjects' MRIs using diffusion imaging, the scientists explored the brains' fiber pathways, the bundles of axons that act as highways routing information from one part of the mind to the other. After grouping the image by sex and inspecting the differences between the two aggregate "male" and "female" pictures, the researchers found that in men, fiber pathways run back and forth within each hemisphere, while in women they tend to zig-zag between the left, or "logical," and right, or "creative," sides of the brain.
Because female brains seem to have a stronger connections between their logical and intuitive parts, "when women are asked to do particularly hard tasks, they might engage very different parts of the brain," said Ragini Verma, an associate professor of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the authors of the report. "Men might over-engage just one part of the brain."
This could mean, for example, that men tend to see issues and resolve them directly, due to the strong connections between the "perception" and "action" areas of their brains, while women might be more inclined to combine logic and intuition when solving a problem. ...
4. Atlantic Cities: How Far You Could Get From New York in One Day, From 1800 to Today
5. Huff Post Tech: Everything From This 1991 Radio Shack Ad You Can Now Do With Your Phone
6. Huff Post Tech: Isaac Asimov's Predictions For 2014 From 50 Years Ago Are Eerily Accurate
Fifty years ago, American scientist and author Isaac Asimov published a story in The New York Times that listed his predictions for what the world would be like in 2014.
Asimov wrote more than 500 books in his lifetime, including science fiction novels and nonfiction scientific books, so he was well-versed in thinking about the future.
In his article, called "Visit to the World's Fair of 2014," Asimov got a whole bunch of his guesses right -- and his other predictions are making us a little envious of his imagined future. ...
7. Huff Post Tech: This 1981 News Report About The Internet Is Adorable, But Totally Wrong
As you might have guessed, they get virtually nothing right. Memes, cat videos, Miley Cyrus, even Facebook -- all are mysteries to the people of the past. Take a look and glory in your superiority. But beware - the world of 2034 is laughing at you behind your back.
8. New York Times: Technology Is Not Driving Us Apart After All
... Hampton found that, rather than isolating people, technology made them more connected. "It turns out the wired folk — they recognized like three times as many of their neighbors when asked," Hampton said. Not only that, he said, they spoke with neighbors on the phone five times as often and attended more community events. Altogether, they were much more successful at addressing local problems, like speeding cars and a small spate of burglaries. They also used their Listserv to coordinate offline events, even sign-ups for a bowling league. Hampton was one of the first scholars to marshal evidence that the web might make people less atomized rather than more. Not only were people not opting out of bowling leagues — Robert Putnam's famous metric for community engagement — for more screen time; they were also using their computers to opt in. ...
…this was Hampton's most surprising finding: Today there are just a lot more women in public, proportional to men. It's not just on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. On the steps of the Met, the proportion of women increased by 33 percent, and in Bryant Park by 18 percent. The only place women decreased proportionally was in Boston's Downtown Crossing — a major shopping area. "The decline of women within this setting could be interpreted as a shift in gender roles," Hampton writes. Men seem to be "taking on an activity that was traditionally regarded as feminine."
Across the board, Hampton found that the story of public spaces in the last 30 years has not been aloneness, or digital distraction, but gender equity. "I mean, who would've thought that, in America, 30 years ago, women were not in public the same way they are now?" Hampton said. "We don't think about that."...
9. Space.com: Scale of Universe Measured with 1-Percent Accuracy
WASHINGTON — An ultraprecise new galaxy map is shedding light on the properties of dark energy, the mysterious force thought to be responsible for the universe's accelerating expansion.
A team of researchers working with the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) has determined the distances to galaxies more than 6 billion light-years away to within 1 percent accuracy — an unprecedented measurement. ...
10. Atlantic: Almost No Americans Die From Lightning Strikes Anymore—Why?
In the lightning-death literature, one explanation has gained prominence: urbanization. Lightning death rates have declined in step with the rural population, and rural lightning deaths make up a far smaller percent of all lightning deaths (see figure at right). Urban areas afford more protection from lightning. Ergo, urbanization has helped make people safer from lightning.
11. Huff Post Science: Creationist Beliefs Linked To Personality Type In New Survey Of Churchgoers
... A new study suggests that people who believe in creationism are more likely to prefer to take in information via their senses versus via intuition. In contrast, religious believers who see the Bible's creation story as symbolic tend to be more intuitive. ...
12. Atlantic: Why Has Republican Belief in Evolution Declined So Much?
There's been a drop of more than 10 points—to just 43 percent—in the last four years. ...
... What does that leave? Maybe the gap represents an emotional response by Republicans to being out of power. Among others, Chris Mooney has argued that beliefs on politically contentious topics are often more rooted in opposition to perceived attacks than anything else—an instance of "motivated reasoning." Given that Democrats have controlled the White House and Senate since 2009, this could be backlash to the political climate, though it will be hard to tell until Republicans control Washington again.
Of course, motivated reasoning might help explain why many Democrats also believe in evolution.
13. Business Insider: MakerBot Launches' Mini' 3D Printer For Consumers For The Same Price As A Laptop
MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis unveiled the "MakerBot Replicator Mini Compact 3D" today, a smaller, cheaper, simpler 3D printer that he believes will finally make all consumers want to start extruding corn-based plastic in their own homes, and printing objects on demand. ...
14. Mashable: The Answer to Affordable Housing Could Lie Within a 3D Printer
... The process involves a giant robot with a hanging nozzle and a flexible arm on a gantry-type crane — the whole rig is known as a "contour crafter" — above the foundation. The contour crafter then proceeds to layer concrete based on a computer-generated pattern. The layers eventually take shape into walls, embedded with all the necessary conduits and passages for electricity, plumbing and air conditioning.
The research team envisions a future where contour crafters could be used for disaster relief to build emergency housing and to create affordable housing for those who are displaced, homeless or in desperate living conditions. ...
15. Business Insider: Biotech Firm: We Will 3D Print A Human Liver In 2014
2014 could be a landmark year for an amazing medical technology: human organs built by 3D printers.
San Diego biotech firm Organovo promises that its "bioprinting" technology will successfully print a human liver by the end of 2014, the company told Computerworld's Lucas Mearian. ...
16. Conservable Economist: First Burger Grown from Stem Cells Served in London
"On August 5, 2013, the first hamburger grown from stem cells in a laboratory, and not in a cow, was served in London. ... If this technology continues to evolve and is deployed at scale, it will have significant social, cultural, environmental, and economic implications." Carolyn Mattick and Brad Allenby launch the discussion in "The Future of Meat," in the Fall 2013 Issues in Science and Technology.
To be sure, the technology isn't quite ready for fast food. "From an economic perspective, cultured meat is still an experimental technology. The first in vitro burger reportedly cost about $335,000 to produce and was made by possible by financial support from Google cofounder Sergey Brin." Mattick and Allenby discuss a number of technological challenges.
But the potential for altering the environmental footprint of meet the global demand for meat is remarkable. ...
17. Project Syndicate: The GMO Stigma
... In September, an eminent group of scientists called upon the scientific community to "stand together in staunch opposition to the violent destruction of required tests on valuable advances, such as golden rice, that have the potential to save millions" of people from "needless suffering and death." But this passionate appeal fails to address the fundamental problem: the unfounded notion that there is a meaningful difference between "genetically modified organisms" and their conventional counterparts.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThe fact is that GMOs and their derivatives do not amount to a "category" of food products. They are neither less safe nor less "natural" than other common foods. Labeling foods derived from GMOs, as some have proposed, thus implies a meaningful difference where none exists – an issue that even regulators have acknowledged.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphHumans have been engaging in "genetic modification" through selection and hybridization for millennia. Breeders routinely use radiation or chemical mutagens on seeds to scramble a plant's DNA and generate new traits.
CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphA half-century of "wide cross" hybridizations, which involve the movement of genes from one species or genus to another, has given rise to plants – including everyday varieties of corn, oats, pumpkin, wheat, black currants, tomatoes, and potatoes – that do not and could not exist in nature. Indeed, with the exception of wild berries, wild game, wild mushrooms, and fish and shellfish, virtually everything in North American and European diets has been genetically improved in some way. ...
18. New York Times: Is Moore's Law Over? Designing the Next Wave of Computer Chips
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Not long after Gordon E. Moore proposed in 1965 that the number of transistors that could be etched on a silicon chip would continue to double approximately every 18 months, critics began predicting that the era of "Moore's Law" would draw to a close.
More than ever recently, industry pundits have been warning that the progress of the semiconductor industry is grinding to a halt — and that the theory of Dr. Moore, an Intel co-founder, has run its course.
If so, that will have a dramatic impact on the computer world. The innovation that has led to personal computers, music players and smartphones is directly related to the plunging cost of transistors, which are now braided by the billions onto fingernail slivers of silicon — computer chips — that may sell for as little as a few dollars each.
But Moore's Law is not dead; it is just evolving, according to more optimistic scientists and engineers. Their contention is that it will be possible to create circuits that are closer to the scale of individual molecules by using a new class of nanomaterials — metals, ceramics, polymeric or composite materials that can be organized from the "bottom up," rather than the top down. ...
19. Business Insider: Here's Why 'The Internet Of Things' Will Be Huge, And Drive Tremendous Value For People And Businesses
The Internet Of Things represents a major departure in the history of the Internet, as connections move beyond computing devices, and begin to power billions of everyday devices, from parking meters to home thermostats.
Estimates for Internet of Things or IoT market value are massive, since by definition the IoT will be a diffuse layer of devices, sensors, and computing power that overlays entire consumer, business-to-business, and government industries. The IoT will account for an increasingly huge number of connections: 1.9 billion devices today, and 9 billion by 2018. That year, it will be roughly equal to the number of smartphones, smart TVs, tablets, wearable computers, and PCs combined. ...
20. Extreme Tech: Cold fusion tech picked up by major US partner, prepares for launch in the American and Chinese energy markets
... Cold fusion, also known as low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), is a technology that promises to create huge amounts of green energy from very cheap fuel. In the case of Rossi's E-Cat (Energy Catalyser), nickel and hydrogen are fused into copper — a process that has 10,000 times the energy density of gasoline, and 1,000 times the power density. For more background information on cold fusion/LENR, and why it's safer and cleaner than normal nuclear reactors, read our previous E-Cat story. Suffice it to say, the scientific community's main contention is whether this reaction is actually possible or not. Rossi says he's found a special catalyst that makes it possible; lots of other scientists, though, claim it's hogwash. (Read: 500MW from half a gram of hydrogen: The hunt for fusion power heats up.) ...
21. Real Clear Science: Debunking Myths on Nuclear Power
... There are five declared and four other nuclear-armed countries (assuming Israel's warheads detonate). There are 31 nations with nuclear power stations (and 58 with research reactors). Only seven of the nine nuclear-armed countries have civilian power programs.
All of the technical factors can be circumvented with sufficient time and money. Uneconomic fuel cycles can be run and warheads built with high levels of radioactivity. However, no country has developed indigenous nuclear weapons after deploying civilian nuclear power stations.
Historically, if a country wants to produce a nuclear bomb, they build reactors especially for the job of making plutonium, and ignore civilian power stations.
22. Breaking Energy: Terawatt Era: Solar Technology's Next 40 Years
... Whereas the past 4 years saw an incredible halving of cost seven times, this will not continue. There may only be one halving left to achieve. The action will be in deployment, and it will be phenomenal. The next 40 years should see seven doublings of in-place capacity. In Solar 1.0, the megawatt-era has given way to today's gigawatt-era. In the next 40 years the gigawatt-era will give way to the terawatt-era. By 2054 we should see over 17 terawatts of solar capacity in place around the world, which would equate to more than 10% of global energy demand at that point. At an average installed cost of $1/watt (which we will have passed by then), this represents a $17 trillion opportunity. ...
23. Wired: Watch: How Super-Efficient Nanomaterials Could Herald a Design Revolution
The Great Pyramid of Giza is 174 meters tall and weighs 10 megatons. The Eiffel Tower is over twice that height but weighs just five and half kilotons–some 10 times lighter. The difference, according to materials scientist Julia Greer, is that "elements of architecture" were introduced into the design that allowed it to be stronger and more lightweight while using far less materials. Where the pyramids are four solid walls, the Eiffel Tower is more skeletal in structure–and vastly more efficient as a result. ...
Jan 21, 2014
Jan 11, 2014
Demography Links
1. New York Times: Why Are Americans Staying Put?
... “This decline in migration has been going on for a long time now, through all sorts of ups and downs in the housing market,” said Greg Kaplan of Princeton University, who, along with Sam Schulhofer-Wohl of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, has studied the issue in depth. But even with the pressure of high housing costs in many areas, Americans are moving less, Kaplan said. “That might explain why people are moving from San Francisco to, I don’t know, Houston,” he said. “But you’ve seen a decline in migration from Texas to California as well as California to Texas.”
This is not a short-term supply-and-demand issue or a side effect of a slow-growth economy or a shift in demographics. The change is deeper. Kaplan and Schulhofer-Wohl have won applause from other economists for developing a novel theory to explain this creeping inertia: labor markets in the United States have simply become more homogeneous. Earnings have become more similar across the country, meaning there is less incentive to move from one place to another in search of a raise. The country has also become less diverse, work-wise. Pick any two cities, and chances are they offer a more similar mix of jobs than they did 20 or 50 years ago. We have become less a nation of Pittsburghs and more a nation of Provos. ...
... Even so, many economists believe that if Kaplan and Schulhofer-Wohl’s narrative is right, there is reason to suspect that a less-mobile populace might not mean a less-dynamic economy. Workers haven’t stopped moving because housing prices or other financial or social concerns are holding them back. They’ve stopped moving because they just don’t see the need to. “Whether it’s a good thing depends on why,” Kolko said. “If your job prospects don’t depend on having to move someplace else, the decline in mobility might be a good thing.”
2. The Atlantic: Stuck: Why Americans Stopped Moving to the Richest States
... "Americans are moving far less often than in the past, and when they do migrate it is typically no longer from places with low wages to places with higher wages," Tim Noah wrote in Washington Monthly. "Rather, it’s the reverse." Why America lost her wanderlust is not entirely clear—perhaps dual-earner households make long moves less likely; perhaps the Great Recession pinned underwater homeowners on their plots—but those still wandering a ren't going to the right cities. ...
... Americans aren't simply moving to the states with the lowest unemployment (Oregon, Tennessee, and North Carolina all have jobless rates above the national average). More importantly, we aren't moving to states with the best records for low-income families getting ahead. In fact, we're often fleeing the best places for a upwardly mobile middle class. ...
... This doesn't make much sense if you envision American families rushing to the most promising metros. It does make sense if you see American families rushing to the most affordable homes. ...
3. Huffington Post: U.S. Population Grows At Slowest Rate Since The Great Depression
... The U.S. population grew by just 0.72 percent in the year ended July 1, 2013, the Census Bureau reported Monday. That’s the slowest growth rate since 1937. Population growth has hovered at super-low levels for the past few years, according to William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan research organization. The trend is "troubling," Frey said, and is due largely to the weak economy. ...
4. New Geography: The Geography Of Aging: Why Millennials Are Headed To The Suburbs
One supposed trend, much celebrated in the media, is that younger people are moving back to the city, and plan to stay there for the rest of their lives. Retirees are reportedly following suit. ...
... But a close look at migration data reveals that the reality is much more complex. The millennial “flight” from suburbia has not only been vastly overexaggerated, it fails to deal with what may best be seen as differences in preferences correlated with life stages.
We can tell this because we can follow the first group of millennials who are now entering their 30s, and it turns out that they are beginning, like preceding generations, to move to the suburbs. ...
5. Business Insider: Female Mortality Rates Are One Of The Strangest And Most Disturbing Trends In The United States
Change in female mortality rates from 1992–96 to 2002–06 in US counties
6. Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States
Here you will find one of the greatest historical atlases: Charles O. Paullin and John K. Wright's Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States, first published in 1932. This digital edition reproduces all of the atlas's nearly 700 maps. Many of these beautiful maps are enhanced here in ways impossible in print, animated to show change over time or made clickable to view the underlying data—remarkable maps produced eight decades ago with the functionality of the twenty-first century.
7. Forbes: What Would The U.S. Be Like If We Had 124 States?
8. NPR: Overweight People In Developing World Outnumber Those In Rich Countries
... "Over the last 30 years, the number of people who are overweight and obese in the developing world has tripled," says , of the Overseas Development Institute in London.
One-third of adults globally are now overweight compared with fewer than 23 percent in 1980, the report . And the number of overweight and obese people in the developing world now far overshadows the number in rich countries. ...
9. Economist: The high rate of suicide in Asia
10. PBS Newshour: Japanese population declined by record number in 2013
The Japanese population, which has been shrinking for the last couple of years, declined by a record 244,000 people in 2013, according to health ministry estimates.
If the current trend persists, the BBC reports the country will lose a third of its population in the next 50 years. ...
11. Real Clear World: Easing China's One-Child Policy Won't Stop Demographic Decline
In an attempt to mitigate a near-certain demographic future of rapid aging, shrinking labor force and critical gender imbalance, the Chinese government has adjusted its one-child policy. The decision demonstrates that, irrespective of a nation's politico-economic system, governments cannot avoid demography's juggernaut consequences. This mid-course correction in population policy will have marginal effect as China is aging at a much faster pace than occurred in other countries. This, along with a shrinking workforce and critical gender imbalance, will increasingly tax the government. ...
(Related: New Geography: China Failing its Families)
12. Business Insider: These Facebook Maps Reveal Migration Trends Around The World
... The maps use two simple data points offered up by its 1 billion users — where you live and your hometown — to draw a map of how groups of people migrate from place to place. The Facebook Science team was looking specifically for “coordinated migration,” when a significant proportion of a population from one city moves collectively to another city. This could be the result of economics, wars, natural disasters or even state policies. ...
13. Atlantic Cities: Our Favorite Maps of 2013
Dustin Cable's stunning Racial Dot Map actually put every person in America (308,745,538 of us) on a map as individual dots of different colors.
14. Business Insider: Where Drivers Drive On The Left And Where They Drive On The Right
15. Top Public Health Risks
Dec 30, 2013
How far you could get from New York in one day—back in the day
Quartz: How far you could get from New York in one day—back in the day. (1800 vs. 1934)
We like to think of the 20th century as a time of unprecedented change. But was the change of the 19th century even more profound? Geology and evolution changed our perception of deep history. People and information were liberated to move across the land at speeds faster than a horse. Human productivity exploded. Some would make the case that most change since that time has merely been an extension of nineteenth century changes from the ancient order of things. The map is a great illustration of the radical change that happened in transportation.
Dec 27, 2013
Dec 16, 2013
Dec 11, 2013
Nov 27, 2013
Religion Links
1. A federal Judge Declares Tax Exclusion For Clergy Housing Payments Unconstitutional. Peter Reilly makes the economic and legal case for preserving the exclusion, In Defense Of Special Tax Treatment For Clergy:
... Section 107 is best analyzed by reviewing the historical context surrounding the development of Section 107 of the Internal Revenue Code, the clergy housing allowance. Section 107 is only one part of the larger statutory framework of exclusions for employees who receive employer-assisted housing due the requirements of the job and for the convenience of their employers. See Joint Committee on Taxation, General Explanation of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, (JCS-10-87) May 4, 1987, at {54}(in amending I.R.C. 265(a) “Congress concluded that it was appropriate to continue the long-standing tax treatment…claimed by ministers and military personnel who receive tax-free housing allowances”).
Current tax policy lightens the tax burden of the taxpayers who receive qualifying employer-assisted housing. See Sections 107 (clergy housing), 119 (general housing), 134 (military housing), and 911(a)(2) (foreign housing). Congress created these tax-free housing allowances within its discretion and to demonstrate a willingness to give tax breaks to classes of taxpayers who have little choice about their personal living space. Whether the employer provides a cash allowance or a home, each benefit serves the same purpose; that is, often the employer’s needs affect the living space needs of its employees. Many times, these classes of employees frequently relocate, thus preventing them from settling down and hindering long term close friendships. Further, the employers frequently require them to use their homes to conduct employer business. Additionally, the employee’s place of service may not be desirable. These employees must reside where their employer requires and must frequently use their residence for employer business. Some employees sacrifice amenities that most citizens take for granted, such as long term stability in one locale and privacy. ...
2. Eleven Myths About Going to Seminary
1. YOU HAVE TO BE GOOD TO GO TO SEMINARY.
2. SEMINARY AND DIVINITY SCHOOLS ARE EXPENSIVE.
3. YOU HAVE TO HAVE IT ALL FIGURED OUT BEFORE YOU ARRIVE AT SEMINARY.
4. YOU HAVE TO HAVE DECIDED TO GO TO SEMINARY EVEN BEFORE YOU WENT TO COLLEGE....
3. 10 Facts About The Transforming Global Religious Landscape
1. Religious 'Nones' Are Third-Largest Group
2. China Has Huge Population Of Religiously Unaffiliated
3. Most People Are Part Of Religious Majorities In Their Countries
4. Hindus Are Highly Geographically Concentrated
5. Most Countries Have A Majority Religion
6. Christianity Is A Majority In Over 100 Countries
7. Oldest And Youngest Religions
8. The World's Only Jewish Majority Country
9. Christianity Dominates A Majority Of The World's Regions
10. Religious Nones Still Believe
4.Who's a Jew? Few American Jews say it's a matter of belief
WASHINGTON (RNS) In the most comprehensive study of American Jews in 12 years, a strong majority said being Jewish is mostly about ancestry or culture, not the religious practice of Judaism.
"A Portrait of Jewish Americans," released Tuesday (Oct. 1) by the Pew Research Center, shows strong secularist trends most clearly seen in one finding: 62% of U.S. Jews said Jewishness is largely about culture or ancestry; just 15% said it's about religious belief. ...
... The current "remarkable receptivity to Christ" across the entire spectrum of Indian society, which had been traditionally among only lower castes and marginalized communities, is one of five dominant themes identified by Indian anthropologist Prabhu Singh that define today's India and its missional challenges. ...
... "With more than 71 million claiming Christianity, India is now the eighth largest Christian nation in the world," said Dick McClain, president and CEO of The Mission Society, publisher of "Unfinished." "Yet with 456 languages and more than 2,611 distinct people groups, India still has more people groups unreached with the gospel than any other nation -- 88 percent of its population. ...
6. Study Theology, Even If You Don't Believe in God
This lost liberal art encourages scholars to understand history from the inside out.
7. Peter J. Leithart on The End of Protestantism
The Reformation isn’t over. But Protestantism is, or should be.
When I studied at Cambridge, I discovered that English Evangelicals define themselves over against the Church of England. Whatever the C of E is, they ain’t. What I’m calling “Protestantism” does the same with Roman Catholicism. Protestantism is a negative theology; a Protestant is a not-Catholic. Whatever Catholics say or do, the Protestant does and says as close to the opposite as he can. ...
... Protestantism ought to give way to Reformational catholicism. Like a Protestant, a Reformational catholic rejects papal claims, refuses to venerate the Host, and doesn’t pray to Mary or the saints; he insists that salvation is a sheer gift of God received by faith and confesses that all tradition must be judged by Scripture, the Spirit’s voice in the conversation that is the Church.
Though it agrees with the original Protestant protest, Reformational catholicism is defined as much by the things it shares with Roman Catholicism as by its differences. Its existence is not bound up with finding flaws in Roman Catholicism. ...
8. If it is not ‘mainline,’ what is it?
Is there a better name for mainline Protestants? How about vintage Protestants? Or the VPCC—Vanishing Progressive Christian Church? Or the Legacy Church? ...
... Religion News Service took up the challenge, inviting votes and comments in an informal survey. More than 200 people voted. The comments ranged from theological to historical, serious to snarky.
“Liberal Church” led with 24 percent of the votes. Some liked the social and political connotation, but others used liberal as a slam on a church they regard as too loose on doctrines of sin and salvation. Merritt said October 15 that she preferred a different spin on liberal: “Liberationist Church,” because “it taps into the good news that our beliefs lead us to seek liberation for all the oppressed, to expand freedom for all.”
Next, at 17 percent, were those who said labels just don’t work for religious distinctions anymore. National surveys find growing numbers just want to call themselves “Christian.”
“Oldline” was favored in 6 percent of the votes. “Grandma’s Church” drew 3 percent. It has the ring of truth: mainline churches have the greatest percentage of members age 65 and older of any Christian tradition.
Most folks—46 percent—preferred their own picks. ...
9. Sermons stretch as biblical literacy wanes
Religious literacy is declining as "nones" rise, forcing changes in how churches — and even comedians and filmmakers — relate to their intended audiences. ...
... “One of the results of biblical illiteracy is that sermons are, for the first time in centuries, getting longer,” said Brett Younger, associate professor of preaching at the McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta.
“Precisely because people have not grown up with the stories, many preachers see their job as explaining the text rather than helping worshippers experience the hope of the story,” he told ABPnews in an e-mail.
Brandon Hudson said his preaching has changed to accommodate visitors and newcomers who grew up without church. ...
10. Watch Out, Pastors: Millennials Are Fact-Checking Your Sermons
But the most interesting finding: Nearly 4 out of 10 practicing Christian millennials are fact-checking their pastor's sermons. Notes Barna:
The one-way communication from pulpit to pew is not how Millennials experience faith. By nature of digital connectedness, Millennial life is interactive. For many of them, faith is interactive as well—whether their churches are ready for it or not. It's an ongoing conversation, and it's all happening on their computers, tablets and smart phones. What's more, many of them bring their devices with them to church. Now with the ability to fact-check at their fingertips, Millennials aren't taking the teaching of faith leaders for granted. In fact, 14% of Millennials say they search to verify something a faith leader has said. A striking 38% of practicing Christian Millennials say the same.
11. New Study: Three-Quarters of American Giving Goes to Religion
Americans give a lot of money to religion—but not in the ways we usually think. ...
... Unlike previous data sets, the current study captures a wider swath of religious giving—not just that to churches, synagogues, mosques, and the like, but to religiously-affiliated organizations like Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army. When that larger group is included, 73%—almost three quarters—of American giving goes to religious organizations.
This point is significant for several reasons. First, it highlights the importance of religion in American philanthropic life. ...
Second, and relatedly, this data shows just how much of America’s tax deductions are a boon to religious organizations. ...
Third, it’s these “religiously-identified organizations” —RIO’s in the hideous acronymization of Washington—that are at the center of the current controversy over religious exemptions to civil rights laws. ...
12. Tithing, church giving dips; sign of the economy or value of charity?
Tithing and church giving in general has taken the most prolonged dip since the Great Depression. Is the economy to blame or perhaps a failure to teach that tithing and giving is an integral part of the spiritual life? ...
13. What archaeology tells us about the Bible
A contentious dig in Israel delves into the kingdoms of David and Solomon, stirring a debate over the veracity of the biblical record.
14. Biblical Credibility and Joshua 10: What Does the Text Really Claim?
... The lexical issues remain vexing and problematic, but they can be addressed. Even if we acknowledge that we have not yet sorted out the lexical details, the presence of terms such as “stop,” “stand” and “wait” gain new possibilities in light of the language of celestial omens and the fact that the context is one that is just right for an ominological application (i.e., on the brink of battle). Certainly a reading of the text in light of omens is more likely for an ancient text than a reading in light of physics.
It should be noted that the text does not suggest the astronomical phenomena were unique; instead, verse 14 says plainly that what was unique was the Lord accepting a battle strategy from a man (“the Lord listened to a man”). A Mesopotamian lamentation (first millennium) shows this same type of terminology for divine judgment when it speaks of heavens rumbling, earth shaking, the sun laying at the horizon and the moon stopping in the sky, and evil storms sweeping through the land. Joshua’s knowledge of the Amorites’ dependence on omens may have led him to ask the Lord for one that he knew would deflate their morale—for the opposition to occur on an unpropitious day.
15. Who “attended” those earliest churches?
On the basis of a new approach at looking how to discern the social makeup of the earliest Christian house churches, one based more on housing space occupied than on ideal social types, Peter Oakes has offered to us a new way of thinking more realistically and concretely about who was in the earliest house churches. His book is called Reading Romans in Pompeii. ...
... The earliest churches, then, are not made up of pietists who wanted to study the Bible but ordinary Romans from all sorts of backgrounds, needs, yearnings, and connections — each bringing to the table different ears for the gospel. ...
Nov 19, 2013
Social Science and Culture Links
1. 7 Cool Political Maps That Show How Old Historical Events Still Haunt The World Today
One example from Poland:
The orange regions are the Powiats (counties) won by the socialist Civic Platform, while the blue are the Powiats won by the conservative Law and Justice platform:
...overlay this map of the old border of Imperial Germany and Imperial Russia over the map, as David G.D. Hecht did for the Big Think strange maps blog:
2. Life as a Teenager in 1994, 2014, and 2034 – What a difference a generation makes! – Part 2
Lengthy article documenting changes in the recent past and projecting the future.
3. 15 Trends That Are Shaping The Future
4. Only Half Of Americans Know Their Neighbors' Names
5. The New Golden Age of Archaeology Is Right Now
... A fellow at National Geographic and an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Parcak often tells her students, "A picture is worth a thousand words. A satellite image is worth a million dollars." She's a space archaeologist, part of a growing community of specialists who use satellite imagery and remote sensing technology to find ancient sites once invisible to the naked eye. ...
6. America's Civil War: Unnecessary But Transformational
... Was the conflict necessary to end slavery? Writes Goldfield: “there may have been other means to achieve that noble end. In fact, the United States was the only country to require a civil war in order to abolish slavery.” In every other nation except Haiti slavery was eliminated peacefully.
Why, then, civil war? Goldfield looks beyond the conventional wisdom. For instance, he points to evangelical Christianity in stoking America’s political fires. He explains: “The elevation of political issues into moral causes poisoned the democratic process. Just as evangelicals did not distinguish between the Catholic Church and Catholic immigrants, so they did not separate the sin of slavery from the slaveholder. In a crusade, the enemy is the infidel, and eventually both sides viewed the other as apostates to God and the constitution.”
Of course, other factors also radicalized the political debate. But evangelical Christians split along sectional lines, many giving their loyalty to politics before the Gospel. ...
7. Libertarians By the Numbers: A Demographic, Religious and Political Profile
8. The Backfire Effect shows why you can't use facts to win an argument
"Never let the facts get in the way of a good story" isn't just a maxim for shady politicians and journalists. It's also the way people often live their lives. One study indicates that there may even be a "backfire effect," which happens when you show people facts that contradict their opinions. ...
9. Americans' Belief That Gov't Is Too Powerful at Record Level
10. American view on legalizing Marijuana
11. Turning Education Upside Down
Three years ago, Clintondale High School, just north of Detroit, became a “flipped school” — one where students watch teachers’ lectures at home and do what we’d otherwise call “homework” in class. Teachers record video lessons, which students watch on their smartphones, home computers or at lunch in the school’s tech lab. In class, they do projects, exercises or lab experiments in small groups while the teacher circulates.
Clintondale was the first school in the United States to flip completely — all of its classes are now taught this way. Now flipped classrooms are popping up all over. Havana High School outside of Peoria, Ill., is flipping, too, after the school superintendent visited Clintondale. The principal of Clintondale says that some 200 school officials have visited. ...
12. These Are The College Majors With The Smartest Students
13. First Children Are Smarter—but Why?
One mysterious finding—and seven theories
14. Top 5 Regrets of the Dying
- I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
- I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
- I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
- I wish that I had let myself be happier.
Nov 08, 2013
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 10, 2013
Science and Technology Links
1. Scientists Should Engage in Policy, Carefully
... There is a helpful way of looking at how scientists give advice to policymakers. In Roger Pielke’s book, The Honest Broker, he suggests that there are four ways scientists can choose to engage in the policy process. First, they can act as a “pure scientist” who publishes papers, and even if their work has relevance to a policy issue, they leave it for others to find and use the results. Second, they can act as “science arbiters”, who answer specific factual questions posed by decision-makers. Third, they can become an “issue advocate”, who decide for themselves on the “right” policy decision and become advocates for the “solution”, sometimes closing down the scope of choices available to policymakers. Finally, they can act as “honest brokers”, who aim to expand and clarify the scope of options and choices available to decision-makers, stepping back, leaving it to the policymaker to use this evidence to decide what to do.
On the matter of these four ways, scientists might reflect on where they sit on particular issues when speaking with policy-makers, journalists and even friends. Do they make up their minds about what should happen and advocate their version? Are they even aware when they, as Martin Rees puts it, are “acting as citizens”, or do they slip into territories that involve aspects beyond science and speak about them with the kind of authority they use when speaking about science?
Scientists get excellent training in how to be scientific – in logic, rational thinking and how to aim for objectivity. They don’t however get much training in reflecting on their behaviour or language, or really thinking through the boundaries of where scientific evidence comes up against other, murkier areas such as ethics and economics. Scientists rarely get training in how to give advice to policymakers. They may just be thrown into doing it, having observed how other scientists behave. ...
2. Colorized American Civil War Photos Beautifully Bring Past To Life
Two professional colorists have combined their skills with photographs and fascination with the American Civil War to create a remarkable series of color photographs from the era. ...
Brought to life: Lewis Powell (pictured) conspired with John Wilkes Booth to kill President Lincoln - Powell's job was to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward, a job at which he failed.
3. On Climate Change, Economics Trumps Science
... Look, for instance, at the cases of China and India.
These two countries have resolutely rejected all demands that they adopt binding limits on their emissions. Yet Beijing is fully aware of the threat posed by climate change; in fact, it has plans for massive public-works projects to adapt to it. New Delhi, even if it has less capacity for large-scale public works, is also fully aware of the threat posed by climate change.
These countries' assessments of climate science do not conflict with those of the IPCC. But Beijing and New Delhi apparently prefer to adapt to climate change instead of investing in high-cost efforts to prevent it. Moreover, in making this choice, the politicians may have a better grasp of the big picture than the scientists do. ...
4. Death in the digital age: Are you prepared?
When 15-year-old Eric Rash committed suicide in 2011, his family and friends wanted to know why.
In a bid to find answers, they went to Eric's Facebook account, and after failing to guess his password, appealed to the social media giant to grant them access.
Facebook refused.
Giving unauthorised access to someone other than the account holder, the company said, was against its privacy policy.
The Rashes, who live in Virginia, tried to fight their case in court, but soon found there just wasn't any legislation that covered the management of "digital assets".
The family's tragic battle is just one of many examples in which the internet has been shown to be woefully unprepared for dealing with death. ...
5. New Disney technology can add texture to completely smooth touch screens
6. New App Lets You Settle Check Before Sitting Down
If you’ve ever had a great dinner ruined by the awkwardness of splitting (or not splitting) a check, you might want to check out Cover, a new app launching today in New York City.
Here’s how Cover works: you enter your credit card information into the app, walk into a participating restaurant, check in, set the tip percentage, the number of diners and then let your server know you’re using it.
When you’re done eating, you just walk out and Cover processes the bill. Simple as that. ...
Sep 26, 2013
What the right keeps missing about the recovery
James Pethokoukis: What the right keeps missing about the recovery
The center-right community continues to make two big mistakes when thinking and talking about the US economy.
First, too much negativity and pessimism. Yes, this is an historical weak recovery when measured by GDP or jobs. But a pair of economic reports out today offer optimism. Unexpectedly low weekly initial jobless claims means the monthly average has fallen its lowest level since early June 2007. Monthly payrolls gains should accelerate. ...
.. Second, too much blame on Obamanomics. Again, little doubt tax hikes, poorly designed stimulus, and sweeping regulatory efforts like Obamacare have been terribly anti-growth. You also have the opportunity cost from not following pro-growth policies such as cutting corporate taxes and reforming entitlements.
But that’s not the whole story. Pew Research notes that at 42 months and counting, the current job recovery is slowest since Truman was president. But as the above chart shows, the previous two recessions also had long jobless recoveries: ...
... We can do better than easy answers and reflexive gloominess.
Sep 25, 2013
Sep 03, 2013
What was the Great Divergence?
Economist: What was the Great Divergence?
"A FEW centuries ago it would have been difficult to tell Europe apart from the rest of the world—in economic terms, at least. Indeed, half a millenium ago Europe might justly have been considered a laggard. The three inventions which, in the words of Karl Marx, "ushered in bourgeois society" were not invented in Europe. Gunpowder, the compass and the printing press were probably all invented in China.
But by the 19th century, things were rather different. Western Europe and parts of North America had become fabulously wealthy. Almost everywhere else was horribly poor. Economic historians refer to this as the "Great Divergence". ..."
I'll add that failure to seriously wrestle with what is going on here and incorporating that into theological implications for work, addressing poverty, and general ethics, is one of the biggest reasons the church finds itself unable to address current issues constructively. Ideologies of Western supremacy or Western exploitation as the driving features are insufficient.
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 17, 2013
Saturday Links
Pickings have been slim this week, and I'm late getting the links posted. Hopefully, we will get back on track this week.
1. Hidden environmentalists: India's waste pickers
In Pune, India, a city that suffered a waste disposal crisis in 2010, an alliance of waste pickers has established an inclusive, sustainable model for solid waste management that presents a potential blueprint for the future.
... They formed SWaCH – India's first wholly-owned cooperative of self-employed waste pickers. Since 2005, SWaCH has worked in partnership with city authorities, providing door-to-door collection for a small fee and – unlike other contractors that favor landfills and incineration units – recycling and composting the city's rubbish.
However, as Vishnu, head of operations, explains, it is an initiative driven primarily by social, rather than environmental forces. Before SWaCH, waste pickers rummaged through landfills to find scraps to sell. "They were not working in a clean area – there are snakes and pigs and dogs. And they were not getting enough sellables to sustain their families." By incorporating waste pickers into the municipal mechanism for waste collection and formalizing what had previously been a completely unregulated economy, SWaCH has provided increased economic security and social uplift for thousands of families in Pune. ...
2. Discover asks How Many People Ever Lived?
While I was writing The Cancer Chronicles, I came to a point, early on, where I wondered how many people had ever been alive in the world. The best answer I could find came from a study by an organization called the Population Reference Bureau: 108 billion.
I was stunned by the magnitude of the number. It is still common to hear that more people are alive today than have ever lived. Or an even more extreme claim: that 75 percent of everyone who ever walked the earth is living today. But that is not even close to being correct. By the Population Reference Bureau's reckoning, the proportion of living to dead is only about 6 percent. ...
3. The Rise Of The Renting And Sharing Economy Could Have Catastrophic Ripple Effects
... "The potential impacts of renting/leasing as a long-term trend, though, are worrisome: Renting and sharing could lead to lower home sales (and, subsequently lower home values and net worths), as well as lower auto and retail sales," write the strategists. "The ripple effects could also be catastrophic: Adjusting to a consumer who does not necessarily buy, but rather rents, would necessitate a shift in production, sales, and even employment structures. Everything interesting in economics happens at the margin, so if the nth consumer chooses to rent an apartment instead of buying a house or making do with a car-share program instead of purchasing a new vehicle, then demand for new houses and cars drops."...
4. Lawrence Berkeley National Labs: Solar Costs Continue To Fall
... Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (LBNL) recently released their report summarizing the trends in installed costs of solar installations from 1998 to 2012. They looked at over 92,000 installations over the past two years, and found that the cost dynamics continue to move strongly downward.
Some of the main findings:
Installations in the U.S. more than quadrupled from 2009 to 2012, going from 7,000 megawatts to 31,000.
Costs continue to fall at a healthy clip, with the most recent year-over-year declines of 14% for systems less than 10 kilowatts (kW), 13% for systems in the 10 – 100 kW range, and 6% for systems larger than 100 kW. Median installed prices were $5.3, $4.9, and $4.6 per watt respectively. LBNL attributes these declining U.S. prices mainly to falling module prices, which accounted for 80% of the total price drop.
The trend in 2013 appears to be continuing. The initial data available from the California Solar Initiative shows prices falling by 10-15% in the first six months of this year.
LBNL did note that the module prices appeared to be stabilizing in 2013, but the report also commented that experience from other countries suggests the price declines can and will continue. The median installed price of small residential PV systems last year (without tax) was $2.6 in Germany (fully half the price in the U.S.), $3.1 in Australia, and $3.1 per watt in Italy.
Many of these additional gains will come about as a result of reductions in soft costs, as permitting becomes streamlined, and companies develop more efficient customer acquisition and financing tools. ...
5. Germany Fights Population Drop
... In its most recent census, Germany discovered it had lost 1.5 million inhabitants. By 2060, experts say, the country could shrink by an additional 19 percent, to about 66 million. ...
... Germany, however, an island of prosperity, is spending heavily to find ways out of the doom-and-gloom predictions, and it would seem ideally placed to show the Continent the way. So far, though, even while spending $265 billion a year on family subsidies, Germany has proved only how hard it can be. That is in part because the solution lies in remaking values, customs and attitudes in a country that has a troubled history with accepting immigrants and where working women with children are still tagged with the label "raven mothers," implying neglectfulness.
If Germany is to avoid a major labor shortage, experts say, it will have to find ways to keep older workers in their jobs, after decades of pushing them toward early retirement, and it will have to attract immigrants and make them feel welcome enough to make a life here. It will also need to get more women into the work force while at the same time encouraging them to have more children, a difficult change for a country that has long glorified stay-at-home mothers....
... Demographers say that a far better investment would be to support women juggling motherhood and careers by expanding day care and after-school programs. They say recent data show that growth in fertility is more likely to come from them. ...
6. A Surprising Map of the World Shows Just How Big China's Population Is
In order to comprehend what it means for one country to have one-fifth of the world's population, this nifty map (from the indispensable @Amazing_Maps on Twitter) divides the world into five regions, each with the same population of China.
Jul 20, 2013
Saturday Links
1. Public Religion Research Institute: Survey | Do Americans Believe Capitalism and Government are Working?: Religious Left, Religious Right and the Future of the Economic Debate
2. Gallup reports Sub-Saharan Africa Is Wildly Optimistic About Its Future
3. U.S. could lead world oil production by 2017, study says
Domestic shale oil production could shoot up to 5 million barrels per day by 2017, making the United States the top oil producing country in the world, according to a researcher at Harvard Kennedy School.
4. Will Europe Hit a Demographic Tipping Point?
... In 1968 Paul Ehrlich’s doomsday tome The Population Bomb predicted mass starvation and civilizational collapse in much of the world due to overpopulation. But the more serious problem – particularly in traditionally higher-income countries – today is actually too few, not too many new people. The pivot to seeing this as the problem has come through something very basic: pension math. Across the developed world, public pension systems built on the assumption of continued population growth are now facing an actuarial day of reckoning as the bills come due while birth rates have plummeted.
A society needs a total fertility rate – that is, the average number of children born to each woman – of 2.1 just to maintain its population without immigration. Some European countries like France (2.03) and the UK (1.98) are in reasonably good shape, but they are the exception. The total fertility rate in Greece is 1.43, in Germany 1.36, in Spain 1.36, in Portugal 1.30, and in Poland 1.30. Much of southern and central Europe hovers near the so-called “lowest-low” rate of 1.3 in which the population is naturally being cut in half every 45 years.
Simple birth rates alone have caused some to posit a societal going out of business sale in Europe. However, just as extrapolation of high population growth rates in the past led to wildly alarmist claims that proved false, so today we must be careful about not proclaiming Europe is doomed. But with the population on tap to be halved every generation, the runway to turn things around is difficult to conjure. And while we’ve seen many countries make the shift from high to low birth rates, there isn’t a huge track record of success in the other direction. ...
5. Hunger Makes People Work Harder, and Other Stupid Things We Used to Believe About Poverty
The article includes this interesting graph:
6. Forget Microlending. India Needs Basic, Competent Credit Reporting - Businessweek
Development economists talk a lot about credit. Figure out a way to get it to people in a developing economy, rather than just large companies or the state itself, and you can encourage small-scale risk-taking. Microlending offers very small loans to individuals, often $100 or less. The idea won Muhammad Yunus a Nobel Prize in 2006. More recently, microfinance and mobile banking have offered ways to save and insure on a small scale, allowing people take risks with their own money. Speaking in Mumbai earlier this month, K. C. Chakrabarty, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, offered an additional way to expand credit: better credit reporting. No shepherds with phones, no happy mothers of four with new sewing machines. Just credit reporting, plain old attention to detail, and administrative competence.
7. Why We Need to Treat America's Poorest Neighborhoods Like Developing Countries
The article includes maps showing life expectancy across several metropolitan areas. Here is the one for my hometown, Kansas City.
8. Racial Disparities in Life Spans Narrow, but Persist
The gap in life expectancy between black and white Americans is at its narrowest since the federal government started systematically tracking it in the 1930s, but a difference of nearly four years remains, and federal researchers have detailed why in a new report.
9. The Unsettling Link Between Sprawl and Suicide
A new scientific working paper (spotted by Tim De Chant of Per Square Mile) contends that as population density decreases, the suicide rate among young people increases. This effect becomes particularly pronounced below 300 inhabitants per square kilometer — roughly the density of San Diego County.
10. Big Data, for Better or Worse: 90% of World's Data Generated Over Last Two Years
11. The one event that destroyed the PC industry
12. Tweets that got people arrested
13. Religion & Wikipedia: The 'Edit Wars' Rage On
Scientists have analyzed page edits in 10 editions of Wikipedia to determine the topics most often fought over by editors of the open encyclopedia. The most debated topics included many religious subjects, like Jesus and God, according to research done by Taha Yasseri, Anselm Spoerri, Mark Graham, and János Kertész.
Rather than merely citing pages that changed a lot, they identified pages involved in "edit wars," that involved editors making changes that were almost instantly undone by another contributor. This proved the best method of finding controversial pages, as pages often updated could simply belong to a rapidly changing field or topic. However, pages with words and phrases constantly removed and reinserted indicated a passionate disagreement surrounding the issue at hand.
The most controversial pages across all ten editions of Wikipedia were:
- Israel
- Adolf Hitler
- The Holocaust
- God
Other controversial subjects were Jesus, the Prophet Muhammad, and Christianity.
14. The curious case of the fall in crime
... Cherished social theories have been discarded. Conservatives who insisted that the decline of the traditional nuclear family and growing ethnic diversity would unleash an unstoppable crime wave have been proved wrong. Young people are increasingly likely to have been brought up by one parent and to have played a lot of computer games. Yet they are far better behaved than previous generations. Left-wingers who argued that crime could never be curbed unless inequality was reduced look just as silly.
There is no single cause of the decline; rather, several have coincided. Western societies are growing older, and most crimes are committed by young men. Policing has improved greatly in recent decades, especially in big cities such as New York and London, with forces using computers to analyse the incidence of crime; in some parts of Manhattan this helped to reduce the robbery rate by over 95%. The epidemics of crack cocaine and heroin appear to have burnt out.
The biggest factor may be simply that security measures have improved. Car immobilisers have killed joyriding; bulletproof screens, security guards and marked money have all but done for bank robbery. Alarms and DNA databases have increased the chance a burglar will be caught. At the same time, the rewards for burglary have fallen because electronic gizmos are so cheap. Even small shops now invest in CCTV cameras and security tags. Some crimes now look very risky—and that matters because, as every survey of criminals shows, the main deterrent to crime is the fear of being caught. ...
15. By 2030, Half of All Colleges Will Collapse
Jul 13, 2013
Saturday Links
I skipped Saturday Links last week due to the holiday weekend. I'm catching up this week.
"... Selke, now 36, is part of a vanguard of young Christians who believe that God uses not only the church and formal ministry but every sphere of society, including business and free markets, to advance his work of shalom. Selke parlayed his experience analyzing companies, creating spreadsheets, and evaluating profitable opportunities for an investment bank into helping social entrepreneurs—people who create organizations in order to benefit society.
In 2010, Selke co-founded Hub Ventures, an accelerator in San Francisco investing in entrepreneurs launching companies that produce a social good. The 12-week program provides up to $20,000 in seed funding, mentorship, workshops, and access to investors in exchange for an average of a 6 percent ownership stake. What separates Selke's program from other business accelerators en vogue in Silicon Valley is the focus on "entrepreneurs building technology solutions for a better world," Selke says. ..."
2. The Global Low Fertility Panic: Just a Phase?
"...Our new book, The Global Spread of Fertility Decline: Population, Fear, and Uncertainty (Yale University Press, 2013) analyzes these trends and the demographic, political and economic consequences and uncertainties as low fertility has become a global phenomenon. Like other facets of globalization, low fertility rates are by no means universal: High fertility persists in sub-Saharan Africa and in parts of the Middle East, but elsewhere low fertility is more the rule than the exception. These underlying trends in childbearing mean that in the near future the rate of population growth both in Europe and Asia are likely to decline. The world is not on a path of unrestrained demographic growth, as some believe. People all over the world have hit the brakes.
Thirty years ago only a small fraction of the world's population lived in the few countries with fertility rates substantially below the "replacement level" - the rate at which the fertility of a hypothetical cohort of women would exactly replace itself in the next generation - normally set at 2.1 children per woman for populations with low mortality conditions. Fast forward to 2013, with roughly 60 percent of the world's population living in countries with such below-replacement fertility rates.
The consequences of these changes are striking. ..."
3. Immigration and Entrepreneurship
According to a Small Business Administration-commissioned report in 2012 by Robert W. Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the business ownership rate is higher for immigrants than the native-born, with 10.5 percent of the immigrant work force owning a business compared with 9.3 percent of the native-born work force.
4. Graft Is On The Rise Around The World
5. Job-Stealing Robots Go Global
Asian workers have scored some victories in rising wages, but many are learning something the West has known for some time: Employers will seek out the cheapest labor on offer, and machines are even cheaper than an underpaid human. In the late 20th century, manufacturing jobs shifted from America to China, then from China to Southeast Asia, and now even those are being automated.
For America, at least, this trend shouldn't be so disconcerting. After all, it's developed economies like ours that are designing the robots Nike is now using. Low-wage manufacturing jobs are drying up, but they're being replaced by jobs in building, operating, and repairing the tech in question. Increasingly, companies will be likely to "onshore" these jobs to America, when shipping and distribution becomes much easier and cheaper. Manufacturing, it seems, will come full circle.
6. Economist Mark Perry with a provocative claim: Yes, the middle-class has been disappearing, but they haven't fallen into the lower-class, they've risen into the upper-class
7. Co.exist with what they see as 4 Bogus Claims About Why Walmart Can't Pay A Living Wage (I'm not in full agreement but they make they present their side articulately.)
8. Gallup Has Never Seen So Many Americans Sitting Out Of The Stock Market
9. K-State study: Arguments about money best predictor of divorce
"Results revealed it didn't matter how much you made or how much you were worth," Britt said in the university statement. "Arguments about money are the top predictor for divorce because it happens at all levels."
She said couples should seek a financial planner as part of premarital counseling, and talk about finances.
10. How the Dismal Science Got Its Name (It had nothing to do with Thomas Malthus or scarcity ... or even with students who have suffered through Econ 101 classes.)
11. Matt Ridley writes I may follow the crowd, but not because it's a crowd
"... My friend objected that I seemed to follow the herd on matters like the reality of evolution and the safety of genetically modified crops, so why not on climate change? Ah, said I, but I don't. I agree with the majority view on evolution, not because it is a majority view but because I have looked at evidence. It's the data that convince me, not the existence of a consensus. ..."
12. Dan Lewis debunks the myth that the end of the telegraph is here: The Spread of a False Fact
13. PC sales see 'longest decline' in history
Global personal computer (PC) sales have fallen for the fifth quarter in a row, making it the "longest duration of decline" in history.
14. Time of 'Incredible Violence': Historian Gives Readers Glimpse of Medieval Life
15. Farming Got Hip In Iran Some 12,000 Years Ago, Ancient Seeds Reveal
Archaeologists digging in the foothills of Iran's Zagros Mountains have discovered the remains of a Stone Age farming community. It turns out that people living there were growing plants like barley, peas and lentils as early as 12,000 years ago.
The findings offer a rare snapshot of a time when humans first started experimenting with farming. They also show that Iran was an important player in the origin of agriculture.
16. LGBT group finds acceptance at evangelical college
"... Fuller's community standards states that "sexual abstinence is required for the unmarried" and marriage is between one man and one woman.
Nevertheless, Fuller's decision not to push back against OneTable is a critical step toward acceptance for gay evangelical students, said Justin Lee, the executive director of the Gay Christian Network, which tracks the burgeoning movement. An increasing number of young people have been coming out on Christian campuses nationwide, whether they are accepted or not, and Fuller's move acknowledges that and provides a touchstone for students who would otherwise keep their sexuality a secret, he said. ..."
17. New generation activists build bridges
A traditional organizing approach makes opponents into 'enemies,' but a new crop of union and other activists is using love and empathy to create alliances and new possibilities.
Jun 29, 2013
Saturday Links
1. The Myth of a Stagnant Middle Class
A favorite "progressive" trope is that America's middle class has stagnated economically since the 1970s. One version of this claim, made by Robert Reich, President Clinton's labor secretary, is typical: "After three decades of flat wages during which almost all the gains of growth have gone to the very top," he wrote in 2010, "the middle class no longer has the buying power to keep the economy going."
This trope is spectacularly wrong. ...
... Americans are also much better able to enjoy their longer lives. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, spending by households on many of modern life's "basics"—food at home, automobiles, clothing and footwear, household furnishings and equipment, and housing and utilities—fell from 53% of disposable income in 1950 to 44% in 1970 to 32% today.
One underappreciated result of the dramatic fall in the cost (and rise in the quality) of modern "basics" is that, while income inequality might be rising when measured in dollars, it is falling when reckoned in what's most important—our ability to consume. Before airlines were deregulated, for example, commercial jet travel was a luxury that ordinary Americans seldom enjoyed. Today, air travel for many Americans is as routine as bus travel was during the disco era, thanks to a 50% decline in the real price of airfares since 1980. ...
2. Grow, Baby, Grow! GMOs And the Future of Industry
... We can imagine a future in which GMO agriculture is producing a whole range of things we now think of as industrial products and chemicals. Over the 21st century we seem headed for dramatic, and even mind-blowing, progress in gene technology. It's not too much to think that this revolution will be as big in the future as IT is today. This will be a much more efficient way to create a complex array of substances without the kind of environmental impact that refineries have today. Solar power's future may be much less about replacing oil as a way of producing electricity than about circumventing traditional industrial processes: the fusion of the factory and the farm may be the chief technological business of the new century.
This whole process opens the door to a huge reduction in the costs, economic and environmental, of producing the materials we need for civilized life. It will further reduce the need for human employment in the extractive, refining and processing industries. It will also represent a growing challenge to countries with extraction based economies, much as the development of synthetic rubber was a challenge for rubber tree plantations in places like Malaysia and Brazil. Like all truly powerful new technologies, this one is going to cause massive social change and upheaval in all kinds of hard-to-predict ways. ...
3. Economists Have A One-Page Solution To Climate Change
... "If you let the economists write the legislation," Jacoby says, "it could be quite simple." He says he could fit the whole bill on one page.
Basically, Jacoby would tax fossil fuels in proportion to the amount of carbon they release. That would make coal, oil and natural gas more expensive. That's it; that's the whole plan. ...
4. World GDP Change, 1998 to Present
5. 24/7 Wall St has great piece on the oldest U. S. company logos. The oldest?
6. Why Machines That Can Do Human Things Won't Replace Us Anytime Soon
I believe the answer lies in a fundamental understanding (or lack thereof) of what automated technology is supposed to do for us as a society. In a nutshell, it's like this: Automated technologies are supposed to help human beings become better human beings, not help machines become better human beings.
7. 60% Of Self-Proclaimed Vegetarians Ate Meat Yesterday
A poll conducted by CNN surveyed 10,000 Americans about their eating habits, and roughly 6% of the respondents self-identified as vegetarians. The researchers then asked individuals to describe their eating habits, and 60% of the "vegetarians" reported having eaten meat within the last 24 hours.
Okay, that could've have been a fluke (or just a really, really dumb sample group). Then the U.S. Department of Agriculture conducted a similar study. This time, they telephoned approximately 13,000 Americans, and 3% claimed to be vegetarians. When they followed up a week later, 66% of the self-proclaimed veggie-lovers had eaten meat the day before.
8. New Online Christian Magazine Offers Funding for Entrepreneurs
New Christian entrepreneur magazine goes live online with plans to offer seed funding for new startups and small businesses.
The online format of hot new Christian entrepreneur publication G-Code Magazine has gone live featuring an exclusive interview with Christian music artist and songwriter Cornell Jermaine, and a mission to provide startup capital to at least 100 new small businesses in the next 18 months.
9. Things for United Methodist laity to unlearn — from a layperson's POV
1. While our church leaders, Pastor, church staff, are responsible to give vision, direction and guidance, they are not charged with keeping us happy. ...
2. The church building does not belong to us; it is an asset for ministry.....
3. Worship on Sunday is not entertainment, and we are not the audience. Worship is a time for us to gather, hear God's word, get filled up, and go in the power of the Spirit to change the world. ...
4. There are a lot more of us (laity) than there are of them (clergy). Why did we ever decide sharing the Gospel was only for the 'professionals'? ...
10. Two Paths for Charitable Giving: From the Head or From the Heart
Mr. Friedman said donors who give emotionally were like people who spend money on an expensive dinner. "It's too focused on the donor so it will naturally not be focused on the most effective causes," he said. "It's being directed by some other criteria. There is nothing wrong with that. I describe it as consumption."
Mr. Tempel said that it was fine to ask organizations to be accountable, but that it could go too far. "People who follow their head looking at return on investment — they will be most disappointed if they have unrealistic expectations on what is possible," he said. "Some things are just difficult to deal with, like solving illiteracy in a community."
11. Pew Research with an interesting piece on Americans' reading habits over time
The population of e-book readers is growing. In the past year, the number of those who read an e-book in the past year increased from 16% of all Americans ages 16 and older in December 2011 to 23% in November 2012. At the same time, the percentage of Americans who read a printed book in the previous 12 months fell from 72% of the population in 2011 to 67% in 2012.
12. Just in case you have been living under a rock, the Supreme Court made same big decisions this week. One Catholic leader, Msgr. Charles Pope, has an interesting response to the decisions on gay marriage:
Msgr. Charles Pope lamented that since 1969, when it became easier to divorce, contraception became widely available and now that the legal standing of gay marriages had been put on equal footing of those of heterosexual couples, that the word 'marriage' no longer has resonance within the Catholic faith.
It is a simple fact that word “marriage” as we have traditionally known it is being redefined in our times. To many in the secular world the word no longer means what it once did and when the Church uses the word marriage we clearly do not mean what the increasing number of states mean.
The pastor of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian then went on to suggest that the Catholic church drop the word marriage altogether and use "Holy Matrimony" in its place.
I propose that we should exclusively refer to marriage in the Church as “Holy Matrimony.” According to this proposal the word marriage would be set aside and replaced by Holy Matrimony. It should be noticed that the Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to this Sacrament formally as “The Sacrament of Matrimony.”
13. How Much Time Do Pastors Spend Preparing a Sermon? The median time spent in preparation is 13-15 hours.
14. What Happened to the Mysterious Humans of the Sahara 7,000 Years Ago?
Jun 26, 2013
Jun 22, 2013
Saturday Links
1. Climate change: A cooling consensus
... Mr Cohn does his best to affirm that the urgent necessity of acting to retard warming has not abated, as does Brad Plumer of the Washington Post, as does this newspaper. But there's no way around the fact that this reprieve for the planet is bad news for proponents of policies, such as carbon taxes and emissions treaties, meant to slow warming by moderating the release of greenhouse gases. The reality is that the already meagre prospects of these policies, in America at least, will be devastated if temperatures do fall outside the lower bound of the projections that environmentalists have used to create a panicked sense of emergency. Whether or not dramatic climate-policy interventions remain advisable, they will become harder, if not impossible, to sell to the public, which will feel, not unreasonably, that the scientific and media establishment has cried wolf.
Dramatic warming may exact a terrible price in terms of human welfare, especially in poorer countries. But cutting emissions enough to put a real dent in warming may also put a real dent in economic growth. This could also exact a terrible humanitarian price, especially in poorer countries. Given the so-far unfathomed complexity of global climate and the tenuousness of our grasp on the full set of relevant physical mechanisms, I have favoured waiting a decade or two in order to test and improve the empirical reliability of our climate models, while also allowing the economies of the less-developed parts of the world to grow unhindered, improving their position to adapt to whatever heavy weather may come their way. I have been told repeatedly that "we cannot afford to wait". More distressingly, my brand of sceptical empiricism has been often met with a bludgeoning dogmatism about the authority of scientific consensus. ...
2. The 40 Biggest Economies In The World
3. How the world's population has changed
4. Americans are giving less money to God
Americans donated $316 billion to charitable causes in 2012, a 3.5% increase from 2011, a new report by the Giving USA Foundation found. But while charitable donations to education increased 7% to $41 billion, religious donations dropped slightly (by 0.2%) to $101.54 billion. "Americans continue to be the most generous people in the world, despite discretionary income percentages nearing all-time lows," says Eileen Heisman, CEO of the National Philanthropic Trust. But donors are writing the checks to different recipients.
5. I'm not endorsing this analysis, but here is The Capitalist's Case for a $15 Minimum Wage.
6. Gil Press says The 'End Of Innovation' Crowd Doesn't Get IT
In one camp are economists such as Robert Gordon and Tyler Cowen that tell us that we have reached "a technological plateau." We are experiencing today the waning of the economic impact of the technological revolutions of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The IT revolution, they argue, is different from earlier technological revolutions in its more limited impact on productivity growth and standards of living.
In the other camp are economists such as Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, who recently told the graduating class at Bard College:"…innovation, almost by definition, involves ideas that no one has yet had, which means that forecasts of future technological change can be, and often are, wildly wrong. A safe prediction, I think, is that human innovation and creativity will continue; it is part of our very nature. Another prediction, just as safe, is that people will nevertheless continue to forecast the end of innovation."
7. How Technology Is Changing The Future Of Capitalism From Competing To Sharing
Can't get a loan from a bank to start your business? You can create a Kickstarter and raise all the money you need from the people who'd be interested in your product in the first place.
It's amazing to see the ways people are coming up with to better take advantage of the web to collaborate on and share the things that we used to have to pay for ourselves.
8. U.S. for first time in 50+ years a net gasoline exporter
9. U.S. Sustains Support For Small Modular Nuclear Reactors
Despite the political fallout from the Fukushima crisis, the U.S. Department of Energy remains committed to commercializing small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) technologies.
10. Houses that flip and fold into place
Turns out, prefab may be the most environmentally friendly way to build a house. When a house is built in a factory there's less waste -- materials can be precision measured and cut -- plus a prefab structure can be erected within a couple of weeks -- avoiding months and months of workmen driving greenhouse gas spewing trucks to the site. One speaker at Fortune's Brainstorm Green conference earlier this year, Bill Haney -- founder and CEO of Blu Homes, cited another advantage of prefab housing: "No one can build a traditional house on time or on budget. Psychology Today cited a study that said it's more painful to build a house than it is to have a loved one die."
Haney has added a high-tech element to his prefab green houses. Applying technology developed at MIT, Blu Homes designs its modern structures using steel frames that fold on hinges much like a card table. Today, most prefab homes must be delivered at great expense on wide-load trucks that are too big to travel on many roads and have to be accompanied by escort cars. A Blue Home, by contrast, can be folded up to fit on an 18-wheeler, allowing the house to be shipped relatively cheaply and easily from the company's factory in Vallejo, Calif.
11. 71% Of Millennials Want Their Co-Workers To Be A 'Second Family'
12. Demographic Changes Impact Religious Institutions
13. A fascinating piece on Why Men Die Younger Than Women: The 'Guys Are Fragile' Thesis
14. Scientists discover why leprosy disappeared from Europe
The material they found was "a mixture of human DNA, microorganisms and contaminating DNA from other bones and surrounding soil," said Cole, but they were able to fully reconstruct a 600-year-old strain of leprosy and map its genome, only to find that it is essentially identical to living leprosy infecting people in the developing world today.
Cole told NPR, "If the explanation of the drop in leprosy cases isn't in the pathogen, then it must be in the host, that is, in us."
The scientists believe that a certain gene that makes people highly resistant to leprosy spread through the population of Europe, gradually conveying a kind of mass immunity.
15. World's last telegram to be sent next month
16. Top 10 People with Only One Known Photograph
17. Psychologist Analyzes Superheroes
18. Joel Willitts on "Storied Typology" – A possibly more biblical way of thinking about the relationship between the OT & NT
Admittedly, I'm just beginning to work this out, but if we think of Bible as Story and we read the earlier bits as indispensible building blocks in the narrative development toward its resolution than there's no need to denigrate the earlier in view of the later bits of the story. Each part has its place in the story bringing it to its final act, although even this analogy must be carefully delimited. Because "final" in this sense does not mean "The End, but a new stage of the story. So because of the earlier blocks of the story, later scenes and characters become "narratological necessities" (to quote my good friend Daniel Kirk). Furthermore, if there is something of an "incompleteness" to the earlier parts of the story, it is incomplete only as earlier scenes are incomplete without subsequent ones. It is correct then to see the Bible's story as progressive. In Stephen Wellum's words, "it is a word-act revelation that is progressively given" (Kingdom Through Covenant, 90). Instead of using the label "progressive revelation" it may be more useful in stressing the storied nature of the development to call it "storied revelation"- Scripture is a story that unfolds. All of this, of course assumes that God has generated His Story and that story is contained in the Old and New Testaments of the Christian canon.
Jun 15, 2013
Saturday Links
1. More deaths than births among whites
Last year, more people who are white and not Hispanic died than were born, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. That group is still the USA’s largest but its share of the total has been shrinking for years.
2. Human Population Growth Creeps Back Up
Earth's human population is expected to coast upward to 9.6 billion by 2050 and 10.9 billion by 2100, up from 7.2 billion people alive today, a United Nations agency has projected.
The U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs yesterday released revised numbers for the coming century, raising median estimates for population growth in 2050 and 2100. The agency's prior best guess had humanity at 9.3 billion in 2050 and 10.1 billion in 2100. ...
3. New homes still getting bigger
At 2,306 square feet, the typical new home is about 50% larger than its 1973 counterpart while the typical family is 10% smaller and the typical household 15% smaller. The Census Bureau defines a family as two or more people living in the same home who are related by birth, marriage or adoption. A household consists of anyone living in a home regardless of their relationship.
4. American Suburbia Is Shrinking For The First Time Ever
The population of rural and small-town America contracted over the past two years for the first time on record as young people left to search out work in the cities and birth rates fell, according to official data.
An analysis of US Census Bureau data by the Department of Agriculture found that although population growth in America’s rural heartland has risen and fallen for decades with changes in the US economy, the pace of decline accelerated in the years 2010-2012. And for the first time, the so-called “natural increase” in population – total births minus deaths – was insufficient to offset the loss from those migrating away.
5. Business Insider says Online Courses Have Reached A Turning Point That Should Scare Colleges but Mashable says Millennials Prefer Traditional Classrooms Over Online Ones.
6. NYT: Data Reveal a Rise in College Degrees Among Americans
7. Homeschooling Growing Seven Times Faster than Public School Enrollment
A recent report in Education News states that, since 1999, the number of children who are homeschooled has increased by 75%. Though homeschooled children represent only 4% of all school-age children nationwide, the number of children whose parents choose to educate them at home rather than a traditional academic setting is growing seven times faster than the number of children enrolling in grades K-12 every year.
8. The Wedding Industry’s Pricey Little Secret
In 2012, when the average wedding cost was $27,427, the median was $18,086. In 2011, when the average was $27,021, the median was $16,886. In Manhattan, where the widely reported average is $76,687, the median is $55,104. And in Alaska, where the average is $15,504, the median is a mere $8,440.
And speaking of weddings, here is an excellent piece on the economics of wedding dresses.
9. Why Men Still Are Still Scared To Take Paternity Leave
But even when offered paternity leave, studies show most men won’t take it. A 2012 study of tenured track college professors found that only 12% of fathers took paid parental leave when it was offered compared with 69% of mothers. When new dads in the study did take paternity leave, many were still involved in projects at the office.
10. Dads, Feel Your Babies Kicking With Huggies Pregnancy Belt
11. Online Petitions Combat Corruption Abroad
According to Change.org, 44% of international petitions among the 100 largest petitions on the site target government corruption. In stark contrast, none of the petitions among the 100 largest campaigns that originated in the U.S. focus on corruption.
12. Wanting Expensive Things Makes Us Happier Than Actually Buying Them
The evidence is unequivocal: Money makes you happy. You just have to know what to do with it.
So what should you do with it?
Stop buying so much stuff, renowned psychologist Daniel Gilbert told me in an interview a few years ago, and try to spend more money on experiences.
13. Nuclear power seemed to be back in the news this week. New Yorker says Time to Go Nuclear, New Geography says No Solar Way Around It: Why Nuclear Is Essential to Combating Climate Change, and The Energy Collective had a great piece The Bigger Picture: Nuclear Energy vs. Fossil Fuels.
14. Nicaragua Congress approves ocean-to-ocean canal plan
15. China's Plan To Build The World's Tallest Skyscraper In 90 Days Is 'Revolutionary'
16. Singapore's Vegetable Towers
With more than 5 million people crammed into 274 square miles, commercial land values in Singapore are among the highest in the world. Therefore, the island nation needs to get creative when it comes to growing food in a limited space.
17. US breweries have exploded, from 89 in the late 1970s to more than 2,400 today, a 2,600% increase
18. The 'Star Trek' Medical Scanner Is About To Become A Reality
The small device is similar to the medical tricorder scanners featured in Star Trek, and is used by simply placing it against your forehead.
A few seconds later you can see your blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen levels, respiratory rate, and body temperature.
The Scout then records and stores the information on your smartphone, allowing you to track your vitals or share them with a doctor.
19. The Economy Is Not 'Only Creating Bad Jobs'
While not strong, the pace has not been any weaker than the pace for wages in the fixed-weighted employment cost index—the ECI. That pattern disproves the widespread impression that mainly “bad” below-average-wage jobs are being created. Average hourly earnings would be declining relative to wages in the ECI if job growth were disproportionately weighted toward below-average-wage jobs.
20. A Christian Walmart for the poor? Willow Creek's new care center
Consider the Chicago-area Willow Creek Community Church, one of the bigger "brands" in the non-denom world, which just built a new "care center" where those in need can come and "shop" for food, children's clothing, even eyeglasses. It's 60,000 square feet are laid out, according to the Chicago Tribune, "less like a thrift shop or food pantry, and more like an upscale mall, complete with cheery colors, welcoming seating areas and designer lighting," according to the Chicago Tribune. Clients pay something if they are able--$5 to visit the children's "boutique," for example, or a $20 copay for an eye exam.
Consider the Chicago-area Willow Creek Community Church, one of the bigger "brands" in the non-denom world, which just built a new "care center" where those in need can come and "shop" for food, children's clothing, even eyeglasses. It's 60,000 square feet are laid out, according to the Chicago Tribune, "less like a thrift shop or food pantry, and more like an upscale mall, complete with cheery colors, welcoming seating areas and designer lighting," according to the Chicago Tribune. Clients pay something if they are able--$5 to visit the children's "boutique," for example, or a $20 copay for an eye exam. - See more at: http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/201306/christian-walmart-poor-willow-creeks-new-care-center-27430#sthash.OhuyPOdG.dpuf
A Christian Walmart for the poor? Willow Creek's new care center - See more at: http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/201306/christian-walmart-poor-willow-creeks-new-care-center-27430#sthash.OhuyPOdG.dpuf
The Economy Is Not 'Only Creating Bad Jobs'
The Economy Is Not 'Only Creating Bad Jobs'
Jun 14, 2013
Jun 04, 2013
May 18, 2013
Saturday Links
1. I loved this map: Dialect Map Of U.S. Shows How Americans Speak By Region
2. What's Driving the Rise in Suicide Among Middle-Aged Men?
... The suicide stats from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that middle-aged men (35 to 64) living in the American West are more likely to commit suicide than men living elsewhere in the United States, and that suicide has risen fastest over the last decade in a Western state, Wyoming, as Richard Florida pointed out here last week. ...
... And over the last two decades, it's men without college degrees who have ended up most disconnected from the core institutions of work, marriage, and civil society. Guess who is most likely to kill themselves? Men without college degrees. In fact, according to recent research by sociologist Julie Phillips and her colleagues, suicide has surged in recent years (this research covers the period up to 2005) among precisely this group of less-educated middle-aged men, even as suicide remained essentially stable among middle-aged men with college degrees over this period. ...
3. America's New Manufacturing Boomtowns
Conventional wisdom for a generation has been that manufacturing in America is dying. Yet over the past five years, the country has experienced something of an industrial renaissance. We may be far from replacing the 3 million industrial jobs lost in the recession, but the economy has added over 330,000 industrial jobs since 2010, with output growing at the fastest pace since the 1990s. ...
4. I had some personal identification with this article: Michael's Still the Top Name for New York Babies, and There Are Reasons
... But about this Michael thing. Were it not for 1964, when John briefly ascended in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, Michael would have been the New York chart-topper every year since 1956, when it upended Robert.
You might think that with that kind of stranglehold on the local name rankings, Michael would dominate the top spot nationwide. During the last half of the 20th century, you would have been right. But in 1999, Jacob wrestled the title from Michael and has held it ever since. Michael has now fallen to eighth in the national baby-name rankings.
That statistic, though, does not get at how deeply disparate the results are. In a large handful of states, Michael barely cracked the top 40. In Nebraska it was No. 37, right behind Bentley. The name was 36th in Iowa, 35th in Vermont and 31st in North Dakota, well behind the very New Yorkish pairing of Henry (No. 23) and Hudson (No. 24). In Utah, where Samuel and Jackson placed 6th and 7th, Michael was 28th.
Aside from New York, only New Jersey and Delaware have maintained their enthusiasm for Michael. ...
5. A fascinating map of the world's most and least racially tolerant countries
6. WHO data shows narrowing health gap
...The number of under-fives dying fell from 12 million in 1990 to less than seven million in 2011, the data shows.
But that will not be enough to reach the 2015 Millennium Development Goal. ...
7. NPR on Stay-At-Home Dads, Breadwinner Moms And Making It All Work
... The Census Bureau finds that about , though that's doubled in a decade. But Stephanie Coontz of the Council on Contemporary Families calls the figure vastly underreported. It doesn't include who do some work yet are their children's primary caregivers, a trend that cuts across class and income. ...
8. AT&T Predicted The Future In These 1993 Ads
In 1993, AT&T released a series of commercials grouped by the theme "you will."
They were all about things people would be doing in the future.
Unlike most futuristic concepts, these turned out to be surprisingly accurate. True, there are no far-out ideas like flying cars, but there is plenty of great stuff that was mind-blowing in 1993.
Today, most of this stuff is commonplace.
Revisiting these predictions is a good reminder of how far we've come in a very short period of time. ...
... "Have you ever borrowed a book from thousands of miles away?"
"Cross the country without stopping for directions,"
"Sent someone a fax from the beach?"...
9. Sign me up! This Flying Car Concept Takes Off And Lands Like A Helicopter
10. Is Organic Food All It's Cracked Up To Be?
Bottom line: From a scientific perspective, there doesn't seem to be a clear answer on whether organic or traditionally-grown foods are "better."
Healthwise, the studies don't support the idea that in general organics contain fewer pesticides, are healthier or taste better, but this varies from crop to crop.
There are certain nasty environmental effects of factory farming — like dead zones — that could be less likely with organic and smaller-scale farming, but those farming techniques mean less productivity — and less food to feed the world.
If you have a large food budget and worry about the environmental impacts of factory farms, organic may be the way to go. But, if you have a limited budget and were just trying to ingest fewer pesticides, it might not be worth the money to go organic.
It largely comes down to an individual's values, budget, and taste buds.
11. Forbes says It's About Time Walmart Waged An Ad Campaign Like This One. I think they are right.
12. From a Forbes commentary, Sorry Global Warmists, But Extreme Weather Events Are Becoming Less Extreme
- New Records for Lack of Tornadoes
- New Records for Lack of Hurricanes
13. Scientific American reports that Minoan Civilization Originated in Europe, Not Egypt
When the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans discovered the 4,000-year-old Palace of Minos on Crete in 1900, he saw the vestiges of a long-lost civilization whose artefacts set it apart from later Bronze-Age Greeks. The Minoans, as Evans named them, were refugees from Northern Egypt who had been expelled by invaders from the South about 5,000 years ago, he claimed.
Modern archaeologists have questioned that version of events, and now ancient DNA recovered from Cretan caves suggests that the Minoan civilization emerged from the early farmers who settled the island thousands of years earlier. ...
14. Why do I hear Indiana Jones theme music? A Fabled Lost City Might Be Hiding Under This Remote Honduras Jungle
New pictures claim to show the possible architectural remains of Ciudad Blanca, a mythical "White City" rumored to be buried somewhere deep in the forests of eastern Honduras.
May 11, 2013
Saturday Links
1. The High Calling published an article I wrote. I linked it earlier, but here it is again in an act of shameless self-promotion. It goes to some core issues I'm trying to put into a book. Six Ideas on How to Lead Congregations to Integrate Work and Discipleship
2. Should Pastors Know How Much Church Members Give?
A recent study found that churches where pastors know how much is donated and by whom were more likely to be doing well financially. However, only half of the 3,000 responding congregations (and only 39 percent of evangelical ones) told the Lake Institute on Faith and Giving that their pastors knew this information.
What experts said (starting with "yes" and moving to "no" ): ...
3. Model for megacities? Mexico City cleans up its air.
... With urbanization advancing, economies expanding, and climate change a concern, Mexico City has emerged as an unlikely environmental example for cities in developing countries suffering similar air quality issues.
Mexico City recorded only eight days with air quality considered "good" in 1992. That compares with 248 "good" air days in 2012, reflecting the success of initiatives to relocate industry, kick clunkers off the capital's streets, encourage cleaner technologies, and expand public transit and cycling options. ...
4. Unmanned Drones May Have Their Greatest Impact on Agriculture
Talk about beating swords into plowshares. The mention of drones may conjure up images of Star Wars-like spacecraft or hell-fire war machines. But the controversial technology may prove to have its greatest impact in a peaceful endeavor: farming. ...
... The market for agricultural drones lies in the technology's ability to provide farmers with a bird's-eye view of their land. Historically, farmers have walked their land to survey it—looking for areas that need more fertilizer or water. More recently many have begun using small passenger planes to look at their lots from the air. But since airplane rental and fuel costs can quickly run into five figures, there's strong demand for cheaper alternatives. ...
... "Eighty percent of the utilization, once we are allowed to have Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the national airspace, in the first 10 years is going to be in precision agriculture," said Michael Toscano, CEO of AUVSI. "You will have a situation where you can spray crops by a UAS that flies 2 or 3 feet above the plants. You can control the downwash because you can put the pesticides on the plants and not in the ground where it gets to the groundwater."
"It sounds trivial but those numbers really add up a lot," said Rory Paul of Volt Aerial Robotics. "If we could save farms 1 percent on inputs like herbicide and pesticide and increase their yields by 1 percent, you are looking at multibillion dollar savings."...
5. Fascinating piece about the The Historical Horror of Childbirth
... Such stories were not at all shocking, as a woman's chances of dying during childbirth were between one and two percent -for each birth. If a woman gave birth to eight or ten children, her chances of eventually dying in childbirth were pretty high. The infant mortality rate was even higher. The chances of a child dying before his fifth birthday were estimated to be around 20 percent, depending on the community (accurate records are scarce). In addition to the fear of death or the fear of the child dying, there was no pain relief during labor, except for whisky in some places. ...
6. "INDIA will soon have a fifth of the world's working-age population." India's moment
7. 'Late-life crisis' hits the over-60s
"Of the 33% who went through a crisis, bereavement was the most common trigger, followed by personal illness or injury."
8. Hispanic High School Graduates Pass Whites in Rate of College Enrollment
9. Atlantic Cities asks the question that has interested me for years: Why Do So Many People Think Gun Violence Is Getting Worse?
"Twenty years into this safer era, we still don't know quite how we got here. Perhaps in absence of a logical narrative, many Americans simply find it hard to believe this is true."
10. People Don't Wear A Shocking Amount Of Their Clothes.
"The average person only wears about 20% of the clothing in his or her closets. Most clothing goes unworn because it's the result of an impulse buy or doesn't fit correctly, Ray A. Smith at the Wall Street Journal reports."
11. This week was the 20th anniversary of the birth of the World Wide Web. The Day Distance Disappeared
12. Great piece! The Tech Trends to Fear the Most: It's Not All Good
13. The market 'bubble' you've never heard of: "Some economists are worried that farmland prices are nearing bubble territory. How bad can it be if no one's heard of it?"
14. Michael Barone says College Bubble Bursts After Decades of Extravagance
15. Whatever happened to these Fortune 500 companies? "Here are seven companies from the first Fortune 500 that have since been merged, split up, or put out to pasture."
16. Dwight Lee has a thought-provoking piece about The Two Moralities of Ebenezer Scrooge.
17. The global economy: Welcome to the post-BRIC world
18. Development finance in Africa
19. Toxic Waste Sites Take Toll on Millions in Poor Nations
New studies attempt to quantify just how harmful the rampant exposure to lead and other chemicals is in the developing world.
20. James Pethokoukis with a provocative article about income inequality: Why A Decline In Income Inequality Would Be Bad News
Why has income inequality been rising in advanced economies — it's not just the US, people — over the past few decades? The economic consensus mostly explains the phenomenon as a race between accelerating technological change and expanding education. And the rise of inequality shows, as JPMorgan economist Mike Feroli puts it in a new report, that the "pace of technological advance has outstripped the ability of the educational system to supply the human capital skills needed to utilize this technology, leading to out-sized earnings gains for those who have such skills (the so-called college wage premium)."...
Apr 27, 2013
Saturday Links
1. Research Digest reports that Students motivated by wealth are just as likely as others to help in an emergency
"... Seventy-eight per cent of the business students offered some kind of help to the stranger. Sixty-six per cent went so far as refusing to leave the stranger or giving him/her their mobile phone. The degree to which the students reported being wealth-driven was not associated with their levels of helping. Neither was their self-reported willingness to accept an illegal stock trading tip off. Being in a hurry also made no difference, neither did the content of the speech they were about to give. A factor that was linked with helping behaviour was "intrinsic religiosity" - that is, pursuing religion as an end in itself, not for the sake of status or other gain. ..."
2. American progressives are fond of pointing to the Scandinavian economic model as a model for the United States. As I've noted in other posts, Sweden has been moving steadily away from the model progressives champion for years. (for example, see Free Market Sweden, Social Democratic America and Are free markets the secret to Sweden's success? Now the New York Times reports that Danes Rethink a Welfare State Ample to a Fault.
... Already the government has reduced various early-retirement plans. The unemployed used to be able to collect benefits for up to four years. Now it is two.
Students are next up for cutbacks, most intended to get them in the work force faster. Currently, students are entitled to six years of stipends, about $990 a month, to complete a five-year degree which, of course, is free. Many of them take even longer to finish, taking breaks to travel and for internships before and during their studies....
... It is proposing cuts to welfare grants for those under 30 and stricter reviews to make sure that such recipients are steered into jobs or educational programs before they get comfortable on government benefits.
Officials have also begun to question the large number of people who are receiving lifetime disability checks. About 240,000 people — roughly 9 percent of the potential work force — have lifetime disability status; about 33,500 of them are under 40. The government has proposed ending that status for those under 40, unless they have a mental or physical condition that is so severe that it keeps them from working. ...
3. Business Insider has a slide presentation of graphs highlighting 12 Popular Myths About The US Economy. Here is one about the degree of the U.S. offshoring work to low wage countries.
4. Yuval Levin makes an excellent point about how conservatives frequently respond poorly with arguments against dependency when progressives talk about "community."
... We [conservatives] reach for the idea of dependency because of the kind of arguments we often respond to from the left—arguments that seem like calls for common action instead of individual action. But we should look more carefully at those arguments. The problem with the "you didn't build that" mindset, as becomes particularly clear if you read what the president said before and after that line, is not just that it denies the significance of individual initiative (though that's an important part of the problem, and our culture of individual initiative, which is far from radical individualism, is a huge social achievement in America) but also that it denies the significance of any common efforts that are not political. The president took the pose of a critic of individualism, but in fact the position he described involves perhaps the most radical individualism of all, in which nothing but individuals and the state exists in society. ...
... The utopian goal of the most radical forms of liberalism has always been the complete liberation of the individual from all unchosen "relational" obligations—obligations to the people around you that are a function of the family and community in which you live. Resentment against such obligations was a central and powerful motive in the radical late-18th century thought that gave us some (though not all) forms of modern libertarianism and the modern Left, and the defense of such obligations was central to the counter-arguments that yielded modern conservatism. ...
5. Pew Research has a report on the Public's Knowledge of Science and Technology. You can take the test here. (I got a gold star, though I confess I had two lucky guesses.) And on a related note, 4th-Grade Science Test' Goes Viral: Creationism Quiz Claims Dinosaurs Lived With People. Oye!
6. Tyler Cowen looks at two reports on Why did Cuba become healthier during the economic meltdown of the 1990s? From one report:
This "abrupt downward trend" in illness does not appear to be because of Cuba's barefoot doctors and vaunted public health system, which is rated amongst the best in Latin America. The researchers say that it has more to do with simple weight loss. Cubans, who were walking and bicycling more after their public transportation system collapsed, and eating less (energy intake plunged from about 3,000 calories per day to anywhere between 1,400 and 2,400, and protein consumption dropped by 40 percent). They lost an average of 12 pounds.
It wasn't only the amount of food that Cubans ate that changed, but also what they ate. They became virtual vegans overnight, as meat and dairy products all but vanished from the marketplace.
And this report:
During the special period, expensive habits like smoking and most likely also alcohol consumption were reduced, albeit briefly. This enforced fitness regime lasted only until the Cuban economy began to recover in the second half of the 1990s. At that point, physical activity levels began to fall off, and calorie intake surged. Eventually people in Cuba were eating even more than they had before the crash. The researchers report that "by 2011, the Cuban population has regained enough weight to almost triple the obesity rates of 1995."
7. The Coming Demographic Crisis: What to Expect When No One Is Expecting
... A strain of anti-humanism has always run through population paranoia, a notion that human beings are a problem rather than a resource. But as Jonathan Last documents in his new book What to Expect When No One's Expecting, it is not overpopulation that threatens the well-being of the human race, it is under-population. As Last writes, "Throughout recorded human history, declining populations have always been followed by Very Bad Things." Particularly for our modern, high-tech, capitalist world of consumers who buy, entrepreneurs who create wealth and jobs, and workers whose taxes fund social welfare entitlements, people are an even more critical resource. ...
8. 21 Maps Of Highly Segregated Cities In America. I remember doing a less sophisticated version of dissimilarity analysis for Kansas City back in 1988 without the benefit of a computer. Here is the map for Detroit, the most segregated city in America:
9. Christianity Today asks Who Volunteers the Most? Answer? "Graduates of Protestant high schools, apparently."
10. In 2012, America had the most energy efficient economy in US history
11. Climate change inspires a new literary genre: cli-fi. "Cli-fi, or 'climate fiction,' describes a dystopian present instead of a dystopian future. And don't call it 'science fiction.' Cli-fi is literary fiction."
12. Organic Prices: Food Label Just An Excuse To Charge More, Majority Of Consumers Say In New Poll
13. Business Insider with Ten Technologies That Will Shape the Future
14. Atlantic Cities has a great piece on the future of the payphone: The Payphone of the Future Is Calling
15. Business Insider also had a couple of very interesting retro articles: The First Email, The First Tweet, And 13 Other Famous Internet Firsts and These Huge Brands' Early Websites From The 1990s Looked Terrible.
16. Stonehenge archaeologists reveal new theory of why monument was built. "Stonehenge may have been built on a site occupied by hunters for roughly 5,000 before its construction."
17. Consciousness After Death: Strange Tales From the Frontiers of Resuscitation Medicine
Apr 11, 2013
Mar 23, 2013
Saturday Links
1. Scientific American has some interesting thoughts on How Your Language Affects Your Wealth and Health
... Different languages have different ways of talking about the future. Some languages, such as English, Korean, and Russian, require their speakers to refer to the future explicitly. Every time English-speakers talk about the future, they have to use future markers such as "will" or "going to." In other languages, such as Mandarin, Japanese, and German, future markers are not obligatory. The future is often talked about similar to the way present is talked about and the meaning is understood from the context. A Mandarin speaker who is going to go to a seminar might say "Wo qu ting jiangzuo," which translates to "I go listen seminar." Languages such as English constantly remind their speakers that future events are distant. For speakers of languages such as Mandarin future feels closer. As a consequence, resisting immediate impulses and investing for the future is easier for Mandarin speakers. ...
2. Fair Trade 2.0? Coffee's Economics, Rewritten by Farmers
3. R. J. Moeller qutoes from John Mackey's (Whole Foods CEO) new book:
"Capitalism has a purpose beyond just making money. I think the critics of capitalism have got it in this very small box. That it's all about money. It's based in being greedy, selfish and exploitative. And yet, I haven't found it to be that way. Most of the hundreds of entrepreneurs I know and have met did not start their business primarily out of a desire to make money. Not that there's anything wrong with making money. My body cannot function unless it produces red-blood cells. No red-blood cells and I'm a dead man. But that's not the purpose of my life.
Similarly, a business cannot exist unless it produces a profit . . . but that's not the only reason it exists."
4. David Henderson with thoughts on the economic impact of marriage: "Get Married and Stay Married"
When I was writing a review of Dwight Lee's and Richard McKenzie's excellent book, Getting Rich in America: 8 Simple Rules for Building a Fortune and a Satisfying Life, I called Dwight to ask a question and we got talking about Rule #5: Get Married and Stay Married. Dwight pointed out that if you follow the other 7 rules but don't get married or stay married, you have a substantial probability of building a fortune and a satisfying life. But, he said, if you don't get married and stay married, you tend not to follow at least some of the other 7 rules.
5. With more thoughts on the economic impact of marriage, Glen Reynolds reflects on The other marriage inequality
While the upscale college-educated crowd continues to marry at very high rates, marriage rates are plummeting among those further down on the socioeconomic ladder.
6. Steven Pearlstein with a thoughtful essay: Is capitalism moral?
... A useful debate about the morality of capitalism must get beyond libertarian nostrums that greed is good, what's mine is mine and whatever the market produces is fair. It should also acknowledge that there is no moral imperative to redistribute income and opportunity until everyone has secured a berth in a middle class free from economic worries. If our moral obligation is to provide everyone with a reasonable shot at economic success within a market system that, by its nature, thrives on unequal outcomes, then we ought to ask not just whether government is doing too much or too little, but whether it is doing the right things.
7. Matt Ridley with an interesting piece on how Obsidian chronicles ancient trade. This conclusion was interesting.
Instead, Dr. Butzer argues that Sargon's conquest itself caused the collapse of trade by destroying cities and disrupting what had till then been "an inter-networked world-economy, once extending from the Aegean to the Indus Valley." In other words, as with the end of the Roman empire, the collapse of trade caused the collapse of civilization more than the other way around.
8. Speaking of economic History, Rewriting Biblical history? Agriculture might be 5,000 years older than believed.
A new find suggests farmers in Bible lands built channels for irrigation long before historians thought they did, allowing for cultivated vineyards, olives, wheat and barley.
9. Americans Just Keep Driving Less And Less
10. The New York Times on New Reasons to Change Light Bulbs. (To LEDs)
11. Science 2.0 on A Biological Basis For Gender Differences In Math?
... "Educational systems could be improved by acknowledging that, in general, boys and girls are different," said University of Missouri biologist David Geary in their statement. "For example, in trying to close the sex gap in math scores, the reading gap was left behind. Now, our study has found that the difference between girls' and boys' reading scores was three times larger than the sex difference in math scores. Girls' higher scores in reading could lead to advantages in admissions to certain university programs, such as marketing, journalism or literature, and subsequently careers in those fields. Boys lower reading scores could correlate to problems in any career, since reading is essential in most jobs."
Generally, when conditions are good, the math gap increases and the reading gap decreases and when conditions are bad the math gap decreases and the reading gap increases. This pattern remained consistent within nations as well as among them, according to the work by Geary and Gijsbert Stoet of the University of Leeds that included testing performance data from 1.5 million 15-year-olds in 75 nations. ...
12. Malcolm Gladwell was half right. Professor Jonah Berger on his new book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On.
13. Scientific Explanations for Why Spoilers Are So Horrible
14. Mashable has great advice with 5 Alternatives to Unfriending Someone on Facebook
15. David Brooks with insight on How Movements Recover
... Two rival reform movements arose to restore the integrity of Catholicism. Those in the first movement, the Donatists, believed the church needed to purify itself and return to its core identity. ...
... In the fourth century, another revival movement arose, embraced by Augustine, who was Bishop of Hippo. The problem with the Donatists, Augustine argued, is that they are too static. They try to seal off an ark to ride out the storm, but they end up sealing themselves in. They cut themselves off from new circumstances and growth.
Augustine, as his magisterial biographer Peter Brown puts it, "was deeply preoccupied by the idea of the basic unity of the human race." He reacted against any effort to divide people between those within the church and those permanently outside. ....
16. A great piece by someone who considers them unaffiliated with any religion. Every Christian and congregation needs to reflect on the insignificance of the church in this writer's life. His tribe is growing: The significant insignificance of religion
Feb 23, 2013
Saturday Links
1. Christian History magazine has an entire issue devoted to Christians in the New Industrial Economy: The World Changed, the Church Responded. It is a priceless collection of essays on how various religious traditions responded to (or failed to) the challenges of the Industrial Revolution.
Issue 104 examines the impact of automation on Europe and America and the varying responses of the church to the problems that developed. Topics examined are mission work, the rise of the Social Gospel, the impact of papal pronouncements, the Methodist phenomenon, Christian capitalists, attempts at communal living and much more.
2. Orange County Register says Don't count out mainline Protestants yet.
As flocks shrink, denominations that once defined America fight to stay relevant with new ways of reaching out.
3. The Washington Post reports that Megachurches thriving in tough economic times.
"Despite the tough economy, many of the nation’s largest churches are thriving, with increased offerings and plans to hire more staff, a new survey shows.
Just 3 percent of churches with 2,000 or more attendance surveyed by Leadership Network, a Dallas-based church think tank, said they were affected “very negatively” by the economy in recent years. Close to half — 47 percent — said they were affected “somewhat negatively,” but one-third said they were not affected at all. ..."
4. Harvard Business Review: Steve Blank on Why Big Companies Can't Innovate
... It's not surprising that younger entrepreneurial firms are considered more innovative. After all, they are born from a new idea, and survive by finding creative ways to make that idea commercially viable. Larger, well-rooted companies however have just as much motivation to be innovative — and, as Scott Anthony has argued, they have even more resources to invest in new ventures. So why doesn't innovation thrive in mature organizations? ...
... First, he says, the focus of an established firm is to execute an existing business model — to make sure it operates efficiently and satisfies customers. In contrast, the main job of a start-up is to search for a workable business model, to find the right match between customer needs and what the company can profitably offer. In other words in a start-up, innovation is not just about implementing a creative idea, but rather the search for a way to turn some aspect of that idea into something that customers are willing to pay for. ...
... discovering a new business model is inherently risky, and is far more likely to fail than to succeed ...
... Finally, Blank notes that the people who are best suited to search for new business models and conduct iterative experiments usually are not the same managers who succeed at running existing business units. ...
5. A fascinating, if sobering, look at the conflict over islands off the coast of East Asia. Trouble at sea
6. The rise of post-industrial China? (Economist)
7. New Geography thinks U.S. LATE TO THE PARTY ON LATIN AMERICA, AFRICA.
"President Barack Obama's proposed tilt of U.S. priorities toward the Pacific – and away from the historical link to Europe – represents one of the most encouraging aspects of his foreign policy. Although welcome, we should recognize that this shift comes about three decades too late and that it may miss the rising geopolitical centrality of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The emergence of these longtime historically impoverished backwaters has been largely missed as American policy-makers and businesses are now obsessed with the challenges and opportunities posed by the emergence of China and, to a lesser extent, India. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, over the past decade has produced six of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies. Through 2011-15, according to the International Monetary Fund, seven of the fastest-growing countries will be African, and Africa as a whole will surpass the slowing growth rates in Asia, particularly China.
This growth has caused the region's poverty rates, still unacceptably high, to fall from 56.5 percent in 1990 to 47 percent today. Further growth will likely push poverty levels down further."
8. New Geography also asks, Is the Family Finished? Some interesting thoughts about the impact of declining birthrates in the U.S.
9. A Portrait of U.S. Immigrants
Pew Research Center has compiled key findings from a new analysis of the nation’s foreign-born population, based on U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey.
10. Marketing Daily says More Latinos See Themselves As Bicultural
With more than half the population of many U.S. cities who are multicultural and Hispanics comprising more and more of the U.S. population, when does it become meaningless and redundant to execute marketing strategy that is directed to a general market and a Latino market perceived to be homogenous?
11. Committee on Economic Development has an interesting piece looking at both the ideological and economic aspects underlying the debate about the minimum wage. Raising the Minimum Wage: “Which Side Are You On?”
"It is an easy call if you are either (a) a strict libertarian or (b) an enthusiastic advocate of the less fortunate with limited concern about the scarcity of resources. (If you belong to both of those groups, there is little advice that I can offer.) However, in between those poles of opinion, things become rather murky, rather quickly."
12. Being a Republican or a Democrat may all be in your head: Republican Brains Differ From Democrats' In New FMRI Study
... Comparing the Democrat and Republican participants turned up differences in two brain regions: the right amygdala and the left posterior insula. Republicans showed more activity than Democrats in the right amygdala when making a risky decision. This brain region is important for processing fear, risk and reward.
Meanwhile, Democrats showed more activity in the left posterior insula, a portion of the brain responsible for processing emotions, particularly visceral emotional cues from the body. The particular region of the insula that showed the heightened activity has also been linked with "theory of mind," or the ability to understand what others might be thinking. ...
... The functional differences did mesh well with political beliefs, however. The researchers were able to predict a person's political party by looking at their brain function 82.9 percent of the time. In comparison, knowing the structure of these regions predicts party correctly 71 percent of the time, and knowing someone's parents' political affiliation can tell you theirs 69.5 percent of the time, the researchers wrote. ...
13. Health Care Without the Doctors Coming to a Walmart Near You
STERLING, Va. - Perched by a computer monitor wedged between shelves of cough drops and the pharmacy in a bustling Walmart, Mohamed Khader taps out answers to questions such as how often he eats vegetables, whether anyone in his family has diabetes and his age.
He tests his eyesight, weighs himself and checks his blood pressure as a middle-aged couple watches at the blue-and-white SoloHealth station advertising "free health screenings." ...
... As Americans gain coverage under the federal health law, putting increased demand on primary care doctors and spurring interest in cheaper, more convenient care, unmanned kiosks like these may be part of what their manufacturer bills as a "self-service healthcare revolution." ...
14. Is this a case of marketing going too far? Young Japanese Women Rent Out Their Bare Legs as Advertising Space
15. Nanotechnology Rebuilds the Periodic Table
Recent developments in the field of nanotechnology might give new meaning to the phrase “nothing gold can stay.” Atoms and bonds developed not by Mother Nature, but by scientists, are gaining momentum as the building blocks for cutting-edge materials.
Using nanoparticles as “atoms” and DNA as “bonds,” Chad Mirkin, the director of Northwestern University’s International Institute for Nanotechnology, is constructing his very own periodic table. So far Mirkin has built more than 200 distinct crystal structures with 17 different particle arrangements. ...
16. ExtremeTech says NASA’s cold fusion tech could put a nuclear reactor in every home, car, and plane.
17. Atlantic Cities has some great maps showing the impact of railroads on travel time in the early 19th Century, thus shrinking the nation. A Mapped History of Train Travel in the United States
18. A soccer goalie's worst nightmare.
19. You might want to think twice before a game of horse with this cheerleader.
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