things with a zero marginal cost still can work in the capitalist construct -- but as resources instead of products.
Group items tagged
Syntrophy emerges spontaneously in complex metabolic systems - 0 views
-
By exchanging resources, the members of a microbial community can survive in environments where individual species cannot. Despite the abundance of such syntrophy, little is known about its evolutionary origin. The predominant hypothesis is that syntrophy arises when originally independent organisms in the same community become interdependent by accumulating mutations. In this view, syntrophy arises when organisms co-evolve. In sharp contrast we find that different metabolism can interact syntrophically without a shared evolutionary history. We show that syntrophy is an inherent and emergent property of the complex chemical reaction networks that constitute metabolism.
Unspeakable Realities Block Universal Health Coverage In America - 0 views
-
"When it seems like people are voting against their interests, I have probably failed to understand their interests. We cannot begin to understand Election 2016 until we acknowledge the power and reach of socialism for white people. Americans with good jobs live in a socialist welfare state more generous, cushioned and expensive to the public than any in Europe. Like a European system, we pool our resources to share the burden of catastrophic expenses, but unlike European models, our approach doesn't cover everyone."
Resources-jeannelking.com - 0 views
Techdirt Reading List: Postcapitalism: A Guide To Our Future | Techdirt - 0 views
Refugees a Burden? Trump Says Yes; Research Says Otherwise - 0 views
-
At least a dozen local, regional, and global analyses published in the last five years provide credible evidence that refugees and migrants offer long-term economic benefits for their new communities. J. Edward Taylor, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis, and director of the Rural Economies of the Americas and Pacific Rim Program, led two such studies, from Rwanda and Uganda, finding that every dollar spent by governments and organizations on refugee aid is multiplied as added income.
-
This “spillover,” as economists call it, accrues when refugees buy goods and services from local vendors and producers. In Rwanda, each additional refugee resulted in an added $205 to $253 to the economy each year. In Uganda, each refugee dollar spent generated an additional $1 to $1.50 in local income. Spillover benefits are higher when refugees receive cash transfers instead of food aid. In fact, the World Food Program promotes a program doing just this in part because it also allows refugees to make their own market choices.
-
But the overall finding offered a powerful message, Parsons said: “It implies that we have nothing to fear from accepting refugees, as long as appropriate mechanisms and support programs are in place to help people resettle and integrate.”
http://www.crypto.com/papers/blaze-govtreform-20171129.pdf - 0 views
-
I offer three specific recommendations: * Paperless DRE voting machines should be immediately phased out from US elections in favor of systems, such as precinct-counted optical scan ballots, that leave a direct artifact of the voter's choice. * Statistical "risk limiting audits" should be used after every election to detect software failures and attacks. * Additional resources, infrastructure, and training should be made available to state and local voting officials to help them more effectively defend their systems against increasingly sophisticated adversaries.
Living The Good Life In A Non-Growth World: Investigating The Role Of Hierarchy, Part 2 - 0 views
-
Humanity's most pressing need is to learn how to live within our planet's boundaries - something that likely means doing without economic growth. How, then, can we create a non-growth society that is both just and equitable? I attempt to address this question by looking at an aspect of sustainability (and equity) that is not often discussed: the growth of hierarchy. As societies consume more energy, they tend to become more hierarchical. At the same time, the growth of hierarchy also seems to be a key driver of income/resource inequality. In this essay, I review the evidence for the joint relation between energy, hierarchy and inequality. I then speculate about what it implies for achieving a sustainable and equitable future.
Setting the bar for variational quantum algorithms using high-performance classical sim... - 0 views
-
The IBM Quantum team envisions a future where quantum computers interact frictionlessly with high performance computing resources, taking over for the specific problems where quantum can offer a computational advantage. Pushing the envelope of classical computing is crucial to this goal, especially as we develop new quantum algorithms and try to understand which problems are worth tackling with a quantum computer.
Subpolar marginal seas play a key role in making the subarctic Pacific nutrient-rich - 0 views
-
group of researchers from three Japanese universities has discovered why the western subarctic Pacific Ocean, which accounts for only 6 percent of the world's oceans, produces an estimated 26 percent of the world's marine resources.
Multiple wheat genomes reveal global variation in modern breeding | Nature - 0 views
-
Wheat is a staple food across all parts of the world and is one of the most widely grown and consumed crops7. As the human population continues to grow, wheat production must increase by more than 50% over current levels by 2050 to meet demand7. Efforts to increase wheat production may be aided by comprehensive genomic resources from global breeding programs to identify within-species allelic diversity and determine the best allele combinations to produce superior cultivars2,8.
'Tis the Season for Shame and Judgment - The Atlantic - 0 views
-
Pandemic shaming, a national pastime since the spring, intensified in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Thousands waited in line, some for many hours, for a preholiday coronavirus test, only to be rebuked as careless, selfish violators of public-health rules. "I do want people to understand that testing on Thursday so you can party on Saturday: That doesn't work," said Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County's director of public health. "It's not effective, and you really are in some ways wasting a valuable resource." Those long lines included people whose families were begging them to visit; students whose campuses had just closed for the semester; and people who were observing state rules requiring visitors to get tested 72 hours before arriving. Yet even people who were trying to be careful weren't spared from criticism: Many news articles and comments from public officials portrayed Thanksgiving travelers, regardless of the precautions they were taking, as irresponsible people. On social media, they were maligned as #covidiots, recklessly endangering themselves and their loved ones.
Focus on Eurasia, Invest in Allies, Rethink Globalization - The American Interest - 0 views
-
We need to take a hard look at what parts of the world are critical to the security of the West and rethink how to make its alliances work again. The following geopolitical reality is still true today: The United States has to ensure that no power hostile to its interests can assert exclusive control over Eurasia, including the European rimland. Today preventing China's domination of Eurasia should be our overarching strategic objective, and to achieve this we need to focus on three fundamentals: 1) Prioritize Eurasia and stop draining our military resources in secondary theaters; 2) invest in allies who see their interests directly aligned with ours and are willing to assume the attendant risk; and 3) decouple U.S. strategic industries from China's and redefine the rules of international trade to ensure equitable competition.
Free Time? Not Likely, for Time Is Anything but Free - The New York Times - 0 views
Finding the Right Balance of Time and Money - The New York Times - 0 views
Mapping Financial Opportunity - 0 views
Living in 2050: Insights from four scenarios for Europe's future citizens - 0 views
The world is running out of sand - and there's a black market for it now - 0 views
The idea of intellectual property is nonsensical and pernicious - Samir Chopra | Aeon E... - 0 views
-
A general term is useful only if it subsumes related concepts in such a way that semantic value is added. If our comprehension is not increased by our chosen generalised term, then we shouldn’t use it. A common claim such as ‘they stole my intellectual property’ is singularly uninformative, since the general term ‘intellectual property’ obscures more than it illuminates. If copyright infringement is alleged, we try to identify the copyrightable concrete expression, the nature of the infringement and so on. If patent infringement is alleged, we check another set of conditions (does the ‘new’ invention replicate the design of the older one?), and so on for trademarks (does the offending symbol substantially and misleadingly resemble the protected trademark?) and trade secrets (did the enterprise attempt to keep supposedly protected information secret?) The use of the general term ‘intellectual property’ tells us precisely nothing.
-
Property is a legally constructed, historically contingent, social fact. It is founded on economic and social imperatives to distribute and manage material resources – and, thus, wealth and power. As the preface to a legal textbook puts it, legal systems of property ‘confer benefits and impose burdens’ on owners and nonowners respectively. Law defines property. It circumscribes the conditions under which legal subjects may acquire, and properly use and dispose of their property and that of others. It makes concrete the ‘natural right’ of holding property. Different sets of rules create systems with varying allocations of power for owners and others. Some grants of property rights lock in, preserve and reinforce existing relations of race, class or gender, stratifying society and creating new, entrenched, propertied classes. Law makes property part of our socially constructed reality, reconfigurable if social needs change.
-
‘Property’ is a legal term with overwhelming emotive, expressive and rhetorical impact. It is regarded as the foundation of a culture and as the foundation of an economic system. It pervades our moral sense, our normative order. It has ideological weight and propaganda value. To use the term ‘intellectual property’ is to partake of property’s expressive impact in an economic and political order constructed by property’s legal rights. It is to suggest that if property is at play, then it can be stolen, and therefore must be protected with the same zeal that the homeowner guards her home against invaders and thieves.
- ...2 more annotations...
https://www.thoughtco.com/ - 0 views
‹ Previous
21 - 40 of 62
Next ›
Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page