Just a few years ago talk of robots taking over was all the rage. Thanks to robots, humans would no longer have to work unless they wanted to. Some typical headlines:
When Robots Take All the Work, What'll Be Left for Us to Do? (Wired/2015)
Robots will take over most jobs within 30 years, experts warn (The Telegraph/2016)
Robots will eliminate 6% of all US jobs by 2021, report says (The Guardian, 2016)
After two years of growth, global emissions were unchanged at 33 gigatonnes in 2019 even as the world economy expanded by 2.9%. This was primarily due to declining emissions from electricity generation in advanced economies, thanks to the expanding role of renewable sources (mainly wind and solar), fuel switching from coal to natural gas, and higher nuclear power generation.
In the real world, we talk more of causes than rules, but the process of establishing a causal relation is similar to that of validating a rule: seek cases that disconfirm the proposition that x causes y. In other words, find cases of x without y and y without x (the equivalent of turning over the D and 7 cards in the Wason task).
“Crime is opportunistic. If there’s no opportunity, there’s no crime” Criminologist Richard Rosenfeld, quoted by Alec MacGillis in The Dollar-Store Deaths/The New Yorker, July 6 & 13, 2020.
…I’d start that investigation with Utah’s COVID-19 Response, which even Dr. Fauci has praised. Utah’s Covid infection mortality rate approaches flu levels (around .1%) when you factor in CDC's estimate that Covid-19 infections could be 10 times higher than confirmed cases. Yes, the state is relatively young, affluent, compliant and healthy. Then again, Salt Lake City is a big city and it has weathered the Covid-19 storm rather well.
Mmmmm…I had naively thought Americans were more criminally-inclined than Europeans, or at least more violent. We’re actually middle-of-the-road, crime-wise. And we’re not more violent, just more homicidal, at least when compared with the larger European countries like France and the United Kingdom.
The environmental impact of cattle farming is particularly devastating for the planet, both directly (grazing) and indirectly (feed crops). According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock farming is responsible for 14.5% of the world's greenhouse emissions, of which 65% comes from beef and dairy cattle. Even sustainable cattle grazing “threatens wildlife and takes an enormous toll on habitats, and won’t fix the climate crisis animal agriculture creates”. Without intensifying production, sustainable cattle farming is little more than virtue display.
Not everyone needs a four-year college degree to get into the middle class (although it certainty helps). There are plenty of occupations that don’t require a degree, in which a good portion of the workers earn enough to be classified as “middle-class”. I’m not saying these occupations pay well right off the bat, but they do have the potential to pay experienced workers at least $40,000 a year - which was the median annual wage in 2019.
All the above adaptations would be good ideas even if the climate were not warming. Meaning that even climate change skeptics could get behind these adaptations because they address current threats to humanity and the environment. As documented in The Environmental Concerns of Climate Change Skeptics, beliefs about climate change and caring about the environment are not strongly correlated.
The number of new cases have been rising in California , Florida, and Texas. This increase in new cases probably reflects the expansion of Covid testing over the past six weeks, as well as the easing of lockdown. It’s unclear why New York cases have plummeted in the last few weeks. Despite the increase in Covid cases, new deaths have been fairly flat or falling…
I’m only doing excerpts, because the Executive Order is very long and full of legalese filler. If you want to read the whole thing, go here.
Law enforcement is about enforcing laws, which means to compel compliance with laws, typically through warnings, citations or arrests. While it’s a great idea to have social workers accompany cops on some calls, e.g., responding to mentally impaired or homeless individuals, it’s not a social worker’s job to enforce laws. That’s what the police do. Still, the “defund the police” people have a point: a lot of illegal activity is minor and does not require an armed response.
The Adult Student Basic Income (ASBI) would effectively address poverty, volatility of income, job instability, and insufficient social mobility without discouraging labor market participation and at minimal expense to most taxpayers. I had previously envisioned the ASBI would be $1000/month, but the post-pandemic federal budget is going to be under a lot of strain for several years and something’s got to give. So let’s reduce that to $900 a month.
…projects that GDP will decline by 5.6% from October 1, 2019 to September 30, 2020. If that happens, this year's decline would be the largest since GDP fell by 11.6% in 1946. A deep recession will further increase the size of the federal budget deficit since lower economic activity will reduce tax revenues and increase some federal expenditures, such as unemployment benefits.
I’m not saying the optimists are right, but scientists are moving quickly. Already there are 124 Covid-19 vaccines in development , with ten vaccines in clinical trials. These are:
Criminal justice is not about revenge, retribution, or righting historic wrongs. It’s about enforcing laws and maintaining public safety. Incarceration is not about making someone pay for their crimes or answer for the sins of their economic class, gender or race. Rather, the purpose of incarceration is to:
Deter criminal behavior
Protect society through temporary incapacitation of criminal offenders
Discourage recidivism
Let’s take these one at a time.
So what should be the point of comparison for questions of race, ethnicity and arrest-related deaths? The answer matters, because it sheds light on the nature of the problem…which in turn leads to better ideas on how to fix it.
Ok, let’s get this straight: US debt has skyrocketed and interest payments on the debt will crowd out other federal expenditures, all the while the US tax base becomes increasingly shaky and federal outlays on medical services will continue growing for the foreseeable future. It’s all too much, but I’m going to try to fix the situation, starting with the US healthcare system. The challenge: cut healthcare expenses while expanding coverage and maintaining quality. This actually is doable. Consider that at least 20% of US healthcare spending is unnecessary due to…
The virus is still leaving death and devastation in its wake. Let’s hope the summer weather tempers its spread and by the fall a vaccine is ready for widespread testing.
So what are we going to do with all that empty retail space? The obvious answer is to re-purpose the space for non-retail. Here are thirteen possibilities: