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Amazon Walks a Political Tightrope in Its Union Fight - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...amazon-union-politics.html science government politics economics
shared by lucieperloff on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • It backs a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage. It has pledged to meet all the goals of the Paris climate agreement on reducing emissions. It has met with the administration to discuss how to help with the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
  • staying on the good side of Washington’s Democratic leaders while squashing an organizing effort that President Biden has signaled his support for.
  • Approval would be a first for Amazon workers in the United States and could energize the labor movement across the country.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Labor leaders and liberal Democrats have seized on the union drive, saying it shows how Amazon is not as friendly to workers as the company says it is.
  • Lawmakers and regulators — not competitors — are some of its greatest threats, and it has spent significant time and money trying to keep the government away from its business.
  • I think the narrative is cooked now on their status as a monopoly, their status as an abusive employer and their status as one of the biggest spenders on lobbying in Washington, D.C.”
  • we’ve been surprised by some of the negative things we’ve seen certain members say in the press and on social media,”
  • In February, Mr. Biden appeared in a video that didn’t mention Amazon explicitly but was seen as a clear sign of support to the union.
  • We really think we are an example of what a U.S. company should be doing for its employees.”
  • They have also attacked Mr. Bezos, the richest person in the world by some measures, for his personal wealth.
  • In the final quarter of last year, Amazon paid Jeff Ricchetti $60,000, according to disclosure forms he filed with the government.
  • He has deep relationships with Mr. Biden’s inner circle, and has played in a garage band with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
  • Amazon has promoted the $15-an-hour minimum in ads in publications frequently used to reach government officials, including Politico and The New York Times. Its lobbyists have pushed for a federal law raising the wage.
  • When professors at Georgetown and New York Universities asked Americans in 2018 which institutions they had the most confidence in, only the military ranked higher than Amazon
  • That absolutely includes the Amazon workers in Alabama, just like workers in Washington State and across our country.”
  • “I often say we are the Bernie Sanders of employers, but that’s not quite right because we actually deliver a progressive workplace to our constituents,”
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Will a Student Loan Debt Crisis Sink the U.S. Economy? - 1 views

knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/...student-loan-debt-crisis
shared by caelengrubb on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Student debt has more than tripled since 2004, reaching $1.52 trillion in the first quarter of 2018, according to the Federal Reserve — second only to mortgage debt in the U.S. College costs have outpaced the Consumer Price Index more than four-fold since 1985, and tuition assistance today is often harder to come by, particularly at schools without large endowments.
  • About 44 million graduates hold student debt, and today’s graduates leave school holding promissory notes worth an average of $37,000, raising concerns that the burden is creating a cascade of pressures compelling many to put off traditional life milestones
  • The storyline, as it has emerged, is that college debt delays buying a house, getting married, having children and saving for retirement, and there is some evidence that this is happening.
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  • But the truth is more nuanced, and, statistically at least, the question of how burdensome student debt is and the extent to which it is disrupting major life events depends on a number of factors, including when you graduated from college with debt.
  • For those who graduated with debt as the economy was crashing, it was a double-whammy, said Keys, “so you’re seeing delayed marriage, delayed child-bearing, which are at least in part a function of the ongoing damage from the Great Recession.
  • Before the Great Recession, student debt levels were below auto loans, credit card debt and home-equity lines of credit in the ranking of household debt. Since then, student loan debt has surpassed these other debts
  • A $1,000 increase in student loan debt lowers the homeownership rate by about 1.5 percentage points for public four-year college-goers during their mid 20s, equivalent to an average delay of 2.5 months in attaining homeownership,
  • Individuals who attain higher education average higher salaries, which translates into a higher tax base. With higher levels of education attainment, there is also less reliance on social welfare programs, as individuals who attain higher education are more likely to be employed, less likely to be unemployed, and less likely to be in poverty. Higher levels of education are also associated with greater civic engagement, as well as lower crime.”
  • In 2014, the largest chunk of student debt — nearly 40% — belonged to people owing between $1 and $10,000.
  • The bigger problem, Webber said, comes when students take out loans and then don’t graduate from college
  • Nationally, 60% of people who start at a four-year institution wind up graduating within the next six years
  • There are other ways in which all debt is not created equal. “Many of the people who have the largest loans and are the most likely to default are also the people who got the worst credentials and poorest quality training when they graduated or potentially didn’t even graduate
  • But although $1.5 trillion is a big number, it may not be an unreasonable amount given the value it is creating
  • In 2002, a bachelor’s degree holder could expect to make 75% more than someone with just a high school diploma, and nearly a decade later that premium had risen to 84%
  • A bachelor’s degree is worth about $2.8 million over a lifetime, the study also found.
  • Australia has a system that links the repayment of loans with the tax system. “Income-driven repayment options have been created in the U.S.,” said Perna, “but these options are more cumbersome and administratively complex than in Australia and some other nations. By linking the amount of the monthly payment to an individual’s income, income-driven repayment options can help to protect borrowers against the risk of non-repayment. But a more seamless system wouldn’t require borrowers to annually report their income to the U.S. Department of Education
  • “Promise” or “free tuition” programs cropping up in some states are also worth examining
  • “Right now there is, frankly, very little accountability that schools have; they practically have no skin in the game. If students default on their loans, there is no bad effect for the school.”
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Insider Trading - Econlib - 0 views

www.econlib.org/...InsiderTrading.html
shared by caelengrubb on 27 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Insider trading” refers to transactions in a company’s securities, such as stocks or options, by corporate insiders or their associates based on information originating within the firm that would, once publicly disclosed, affect the prices of such securities.
  • Corporate insiders are individuals whose employment with the firm (as executives, directors, or sometimes rank-and-file employees) or whose privileged access to the firm’s internal affairs (as large shareholders, consultants, accountants, lawyers, etc.) gives them valuable information.
  • Famous examples of insider trading include transacting on the advance knowledge of a company’s discovery of a rich mineral ore (Securities and Exchange Commission v. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co.), on a forthcoming cut in dividends by the board of directors (Cady, Roberts & Co.), and on an unanticipated increase in corporate expenses (Diamond v. Oreamuno).
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  • Such trading on information originating outside the company is generally not covered by insider trading regulation.
  • Insider trading is quite different from market manipulation, disclosure of false or misleading information to the market, or direct expropriation of the corporation’s wealth by insiders.
  • Regulation of insider trading began in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, when judges in several states became willing to rescind corporate insiders’ transactions with uninformed shareholders.
  • One of the earliest (and unsuccessful) federal attempts to regulate insider trading occurred after the 1912–1913 congressional hearings before the Pujo Committee, which concluded that “the scandalous practices of officers and directors in speculating upon inside and advance information as to the action of their corporations may be curtailed if not stopped.”
  • The Securities Acts of 1933–1934, passed by the U.S. Congress in the aftermath of the stock market crash, though aimed primarily at prohibiting fraud and market manipulation, also targeted insider trading.
  • As of 2004, at least ninety-three countries, the vast majority of nations that possess organized securities markets, had laws regulating insider trading
  • Several factors explain the rapid emergence of such regulation, particularly during the last twenty years: namely, the growth of the securities industry worldwide, pressures to make national securities markets look more attractive in the eyes of outside investors, and the pressure the SEC exerted on foreign lawmakers and regulators to increase the effectiveness of domestic enforcement by identifying and punishing offenders and their associates operating outside the United States.
  • Many researchers argue that trading on inside information is a zero-sum game, benefiting insiders at the expense of outsiders. But most outsiders who bought from or sold to insiders would have traded anyway, and possibly at a worse price (Manne 1970). So, for example, if the insider sells stock because he expects the price to fall, the very act of selling may bring the price down to the buyer.
  • A controversial case is that of abstaining from trading on the basis of inside information (Fried 2003).
  • There is little disagreement that insider trading makes securities markets more efficient by moving the current market price closer to the future postdisclosure price. In other words, insiders’ transactions, even if they are anonymous, signal future price trends to others and make the current stock price reflect relevant information sooner.
  • Accurately priced stocks give valuable signals to investors and ensure more efficient allocation of capital.
  • The controversial question is whether insider trading is more or less effective than public disclosure.
  • Insider trading’s advantage is that it introduces individual profit motives, does not directly reveal sensitive intercorporate information, and mitigates the management’s aversion to disclosing negative information (
  • Probably the most controversial issue in the economic analysis of insider trading is whether it is an efficient way to pay managers for their entrepreneurial services to the corporation. Some researchers believe that insider trading gives managers a monetary incentive to innovate, search for, and produce valuable information, as well as to take risks that increase the firm’s value (Carlton and Fischel 1983; Manne 1966).
  • Another economic argument for insider trading is that it provides efficient compensation to holders of large blocks of stock
  • A common contention is that the presence of insider trading decreases public confidence in, and deters many potential investors from, equity markets, making them less liquid (Loss 1970).
  • Empirical research generally supports skepticism that regulation of insider trading has been effective in either the United States or internationally, as evidenced by the persistent trading profits of insiders, behavior of stock prices around corporate announcements, and relatively infrequent prosecution rates (Bhattacharya and Daouk 2002; Bris 2005).
  • Despite numerous and extensive debates, economists and legal scholars do not agree on a desirable government policy toward insider trading. On the one hand, absolute information parity is clearly infeasible, and information-based trading generally increases the pricing efficiency of financial markets. Information, after all, is a scarce economic good that is costly to produce or acquire, and its subsequent use and dissemination are difficult to control. On the other hand, insider trading, as opposed to other forms of informed trading, may produce unintended adverse consequences for the functioning of the corporate enterprise, the market-wide system of publicly mandated disclosure, or the market for information.
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When is science credible? - OpenAIRE Blog - 0 views

www.openaire.eu/...when-is-science-credible
shared by katedriscoll on 28 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • The overarching goal of science is to deepen our understanding about the world we live in, and then to use this understanding, for example, to address social or medical problems. However, in order to pursue those goals effectively and efficiently, the scientific findings we base our actions on have to be credible. But how can we assess the credibility of research? Is a going through peer review enough, or being published? What if the study made it into in a “high-ranking” journal? Is that enough to deem findings credible?
  • Curate Science is committed to rewarding positive scientific behaviors, but does not punish questionable research practices or lower levels of transparency. Researchers are encouraged to adopt open and transparent practices, but to do so  at their own pace. LeBel explains, “we make it easy to get the most credit possible for conducting and reporting one's research only a little bit more transparently. That is, as transparent as you currently have time for and/or are comfortable with. For example, if you're uncomfortable publicly posting your data for an article, you could still earn credit by publicly posting your code and linking to it on Curate Science” (Only 1 transparency component is required for being added to the database).
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'People were excited': Paxton Smith on her valedictorian speech for abortion rights | T... - 1 views

www.theguardian.com/...ban-speech-texas-valedictorian Texas abortion
shared by ilanaprincilus06 on 05 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Texas’s new “heartbeat” measure ranks among the most extreme abortion bans in the US, blocking the procedure as early as six weeks into a pregnancy – before many women and girls even know they’re pregnant.
  • doesn’t include exceptions for rape or incest and allows private citizens to enforce its provisions through what could be a torrent of expensive and time-consuming lawsuits.
  • “I cannot give up this platform to promote complacency and peace when there is a war on my body and a war on my rights. A war on the rights of your mothers, a war on the rights of your sisters, a war on the rights of your daughters,”
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  • The school district’s board president told the Lake Highlands Advocate that Smith’s speech had not been submitted or approved and that her actions were “unexpected and not supported”
  • “It kind of makes me sad that this is a universal issue,” she said. “This is one of those times where it’s getting a voice, and it hasn’t really had a voice that’s very big before.”
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Under Biden, Diplomacy Is an Attractive Career Again - The New York Times - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...-service-state-department.html government politics bias prejudice diversity psychology knowledge
shared by lucieperloff on 28 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • The steady erosion of traditional American diplomatic principles under the Trump administration had taken a toll, he added.
  • Their colleagues in China were mysteriously falling sick.
  • But when President Biden was elected, Mr. Luce said he was encouraged by the new president’s embrace of diplomacy, along with his nominations for senior foreign policy posts. Mr. Luce took the Foreign Service exam in February.
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  • And despite the rising interest, applicants have signaled the agency must tackle racism and improve diversity in the United States’ diplomatic ranks.
  • Applications to the school’s graduate programs, including its masters of science degree in foreign service, jumped 40 percent this cycle,
  • Foreign Service officers — who undergo a rigorous selection process that includes written exams, oral assessments, security checks and medical clearances — pledge to be nonpartisan as they become the machinery of foreign policymaking that political appointees rely on for expertise and continuity between administrations.
  • During Mr. Trump’s tenure, his administration installed an “America First” policy, prioritizing domestic interests over foreign policy concerns and minimizing the importance of day-to-day diplomatic work.
  • “That undercuts not only morale but also a policy process that depends on apolitical experts airing contrary views, however inconvenient they may be to the politically appointed leadership,
  • “This is a critical time in terms of America’s role in the world. We need a strong, diverse and talented pool of people from which to select our newest diplomats and aid officers.”
  • It “has been a difficult few years,” he said. “You are the face of America, and it matters.
  • In the time between Mr. Biden’s election and his inauguration, the group grew by over 2,000 members,
  • How could he promote American values abroad when they were being upended at home, he wondered.
  • “President Trump was very unusual,” Mr. Whittier said. “That’s what completely put me off of joining the Foreign Service.”
  • The Biden administration said that tackling the lack of diversity in the diplomatic corps would be a priority.
  • When she brought up issues to State Department officials, they advised her against speaking out and transferred her to Mexico City, she said.
  • she felt the “new administration brings a lot of hope to people who were marginalized in the past.”
  • “When you see more faces that look like you,” she said, “I think it definitely will bring more people to work in public service.”
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The oldest living Marine, a North Carolina woman, has died at age 107 - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html oldest marine passed
shared by jmfinizio on 17 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Dorothy "Dot" Cole was the oldest living US Marine veteran when she died on January 7. She was 107 years old.
  • Cole decided she would take a stance to support her country after Japanese forces launched a surprise attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii on December 7, 1941.
  • "There were women volunteering with the Red Cross and knitting while sitting in church, so I thought I had to do something,
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  • She was 28 years old in 1943 when she became among the first wave of women to join the Marine Corps Women's Reserve
  • She attained the rank of sergeant before leaving the Marines.
  • The Marine Corps eventually saw its first female pilot in 1995, according to Military Times. All jobs in the military, including combat roles, were opened to women in 2016.
  • "She would want to salute all of the veterans for all the service that they've done and also the police and firemen,"
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Trump Impeached By House Over Capitol Insurrection : House Impeachment Vote: Live Updat... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...ng-insurrection-at-u-s-capitol Trump Impeachment House of Representatives
shared by ilanaprincilus06 on 14 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to impeach President Trump for "high crimes and misdemeanors" — specifically, for inciting an insurrection against the federal government at the U.S. Capitol.
  • Trump has now become the first U.S. president to be impeached twice.
  • Ten Republicans broke party ranks to vote in favor of impeachment
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  • The House voted 232-197 to impeach Trump
  • "Today in a bipartisan way, the House demonstrated that no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States,"
  • If the Senate votes to convict Trump — an outcome that is far from certain — he likely would be barred from holding any federal office again.
  • "President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government, threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of government
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How the web distorts reality and impairs our judgement skills | Media Network | The Gua... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...internet-confirmation-bias judgement social media the internet confirmation bias
shared by ilanaprincilus06 on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • IBM estimates that 90% of the world's online data has been created just in the past two years. What's more, it has made information more accessible than ever before.
  • However, rather than enhancing knowledge, the internet has produced an information glut or "infoxication".
  • Furthermore, since online content is often curated to fit our preferences, interests and personality, the internet can even enhance our existing biases and undermine our motivation to learn new things.
    • ilanaprincilus06
      ilanaprincilus06 on 03 Nov 20
       
      When we see our preferences constantly being displayed, we are more likely to go back to wherever the information was or utilize that source, website, etc more often.
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  • these filters will isolate people in information bubbles only partly of their own choosing, and the inaccurate beliefs they form as a result may be difficult to correct."
  • the proliferation of search engines, news aggregators and feed-ranking algorithms is more likely to perpetuate ignorance than knowledge.
  • It would seem that excessive social media use may intensify not only feelings of loneliness, but also ideological isolation.
    • ilanaprincilus06
      ilanaprincilus06 on 03 Nov 20
       
      Would social media networks need to stop exploiting these preferences in order for us to limit ideological isolation?
  • "What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact."
  • Recent studies show that although most people consume information that matches their opinions, being exposed to conflicting views tends to reduce prejudice and enhance creative thinking.
  • the desire to prove ourselves right and maintain our current beliefs trumps any attempt to be creative or more open-minded.
  • "our objects of inquiry are not 'truth' or 'meaning' but rather configurations of consciousness. These are figures or patterns of knowledge, cognitive and practical attitudes, which emerge within a definite historical and cultural context."
  • the internet is best understood as a cultural lens through which we construct – or distort – reality.
  • we can only deal with this overwhelming range of choices by ignoring most of them.
  • trolling is so effective for enticing readers' comments, but so ineffective for changing their viewpoints.
  • Will accumulating facts help you understand the world?
    • ilanaprincilus06
      ilanaprincilus06 on 03 Nov 20
       
      We must take an extra step past just reading/learning about facts and develop second order thinking about the claims/facts to truly gain a better sense of what is going on.
  • we have developed a dependency on technology, which has eclipsed our reliance on logic, critical thinking and common sense: if you can find the answer online, why bother thinking?
  • it is conceivable that individuals' capacity to evaluate and produce original knowledge will matter more than the actual acquisition of knowledge.
  • Good judgment and decision-making will be more in demand than sheer expertise or domain-specific knowledge.
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In Some Countries, Facebook's Fiddling Has Magnified Fake News - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...acebook-news-feed-changes.html
shared by runlai_jiang on 15 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • In Some Countries, Facebook’s Fiddling Has Magnified Fake News
  • SAN FRANCISCO — One morning in October, the editors of Página Siete, Bolivia’s third-largest news site, noticed that traffic to their outlet coming from Facebook was plummeting.The publication had recently been hit by cyberattacks, and editors feared it was being targeted by hackers loyal to the government of President Evo Morales.
  • But it wasn’t the government’s fault. It was Facebook’s. The Silicon Valley company was testing a new version of its hugely popular News Feed, peeling off professional news sites from what people normally see and relegating them to a new section of Facebook called Explore.
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  • Facebook said these News Feed modifications were not identical to those introduced last fall in six countries through its Explore program, but both alterations favor posts from friends and family over professional news sites. And what happened in those countries illustrates the unintended consequences of such a change in an online service that now has a global reach of more than two billion people every month.
  • The fabricated story circulated so widely that the local police issued a statement saying it wasn’t true. But when the police went to issue the warning on Facebook, they found that the message — unlike the fake news story they meant to combat — could no longer appear on News Feed because it came from an official account.Facebook explained its goals for the Explore program in Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bolivia, Guatemala and Serbia in a blog post in October. “The goal of this test is to understand if people prefer to have separate places for personal and public content,” wrote Adam Mosseri, head of Facebook’s News Feed. “There is no current plan to roll this out beyond these test countries.”
  • The loss of visitors from Facebook was readily apparent in October, and Mr. Huallpa could communicate with Facebook only through a customer service form letter. He received an automatic reply in return.
  • ech giant may play in her country.“It’s a private company — they have the right to do as they please, of course,” she said. “But the first question we asked is ‘Why Bolivia?’ And we don’t even have the possibility of asking why. Why us?”
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Why Is Language Important to Culture? - 0 views

www.brighthubeducation.com/...nguage-is-important-to-culture Language Culture Importance
shared by marleen_ueberall on 15 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • Why Is Language Important?
  • It is a uniquely human gift which lets us communicate and differentiates us from primates.
  • language is much more than just a means of communication. It is also an inseparable part of our culture.
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  • different cultures have a predominant fashion in which they use their language and they have differences which cannot be underestimated.
  • one of the most well known linguists in the world, argues that all languages are dialects of one language, which is the human language. He says that even though they appear very different, they are in fact very similar.
  • there is no doubt that language and culture are closely connected.
  • In Thai language there are twelve forms of the pronoun “you", which depend of factors such as status or level of intimacy.
  • We are encouraged to be direct and to speak our mind.
  • Asian cultures use an indirect style of communication. Words such as “perhaps" and “maybe" are used much more frequently than “yes", “no" or “for sure".
  • Personal and Contextual Styles
  • Two of the most frequently used words in our culture are “I" and “you".
  • American culture is not very formal, so it is appropriate to say “you" to your boss, to the President, to a stranger, to your spouse or to your child.
  • Direct and Indirect Styles
  • The style of language is focused on speaker and depends on someone’s status and identity.
  • Japanese pay a lot of attention to someone’s status and they use linguistic forms called honorifics, which are used according to the rank of the person who is speaking
  • Untranslatable Words
  • Many people don’t realize that there are plenty of words that cannot be translated from one language to another simply because they don’t exist in another language.
  • The word “shopping", which describes one of the most favorite activities of Americans, doesn’t exist in some other languages (such as for example in Russian) as a noun.
  • Another interesting example is the word “ilunga".
  • Republic of Congo and is considered to be the most untranslatable word in the world.
  • a person who is ready to forgive any transgression a first and a second time, but never for a third time.
  • Language Is Changing Along with the Culture
  • he and his were used generically in English language.
  • Since the United States and most of the English-speaking Western Europe are becoming less and less male-dominant cultures, the grammar rules have been changed and new gender agreement rules were created.
  • Fifty years ago nobody was suspecting that one day in the United States the words “mother" and “father" would become controversial and that some schools would agree to change them both to “parent".
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IDEA Public Schools headed for Houston with high acceptance rates - and plenty of skept... - 0 views

www.houstonchronicle.com/...lege-kids-Houston-15074039.php
shared by tongoscar on 22 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • Lopez’s mother and father gave up their jobs as an accountant and civil engineer, respectively, as they moved from Mexico to Texas’ Rio Grande Valley several years ago. Now, she works as an administrative assistant and he labors as a mechanic — the cost of giving their children an American education.
  • “Sacrifices like that mean so much to me that I feel the need to pay it back by getting accepted into college,” said Lopez, now a senior.
  • Now, as the organization aims to double in size over the next three years, IDEA will debut in the Houston area this August. The network plans to open two campuses in the boundaries of Houston and Spring ISDs, with each site eventually housing two schools that serve students from prekindergarten to 12th grade. By 2025, IDEA plans to establish eight more campuses that ultimately will enroll about 15,000 children living near the region’s lowest-rated traditional public schools.
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  • Lopez has reached those goals this school year, earning acceptance letters from Louisiana State University, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. He is poised to join an IDEA Public Schools senior class that, if history holds, will send nearly all graduates on to college.
  • “They market that every kid gets accepted and goes to college, and in a perfect world, that seems right,”
  • By virtually any measure, IDEA ranks among the best-scoring districts serving predominantly Hispanic and lower-income children.
  • IDEA’s results have coincided with an educational revival in the Rio Grande Valley, once considered one of the state’s lowest-performing regions. All 14 of IDEA’s neighboring districts serving at least 10,000 students earned A or B grades last year under the state’s academic accountability system. Several reported some the state’s highest math and reading test scores among poor children.
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Less money can mean more contentment, study says - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html
shared by katherineharron on 19 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • People at the lower end of the income scale take more pleasure in their relationships and enjoy caring for and connecting with others, according to a study published Monday in the journal Emotion.
  • "People who are poorer are more reliant on others to get by," said Paul Piff, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of California, Irvine. "They really prioritize relationships because of their reduced resources, and so they are more likely to really focus on emotions that bind them to one another and find satisfaction and delight in relationships through compassion and love."
  • For the new study, "We break happiness down into all of its emotional components: all the different kinds of positive emotions we want to experience on a daily basis," he said.
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  • "As income increases, as you rise in the rankings of household income, your tendencies -- or daily experiences -- of pride, amusement, contentment go up, and your experience of compassion and love and awe go down," Piff said. Enthusiasm was the one emotion unaffected by wealth, with both rich and poor experiencing the same level.
  • "But of course these aren't absolute differences; it's not the case that wealthy people don't feel any compassion or any love," Piff said. "It's just that wealth sort of buffers you from experiencing as much of it as perhaps you should or as other people do."
  • "There is a very large literature showing happiness and life satisfaction is related to income," he said. One example is this study that found higher income increases access to social support, self-esteem and opportunities and so enhances happiness.
  • The holiday season gets "people to think about the larger communities that they're a part of and the important people in their lives," he noted. But sometimes we think, "If only we could have more money!" Then, we believe, we could get all the things we want and achieve all those things we think are meaningful or important, he explained.
  • "Even in the absence of wealth, you can still extract all kinds of meaning and all kinds of happiness and all kinds of joy by reminding yourself and surrounding yourself with all the people you love," Piff said.
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L.A. and California Economy Strong, But Might Take Small Hit from Coronavirus | Califor... - 0 views

www.apparelnews.net/...-strong-might-take-small-hit-c
shared by tongoscar on 22 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • California’s gross domestic product is forecasted to grow 2.0 percent in 2020 and 1.6 percent in 2021, according to the forecast. Los Angeles County’s gross domestic product is forecasted to grow 1.8 percent in 2020 and slow down to 1.6 percent in 2021. The 10-county Southern California region is forecasted to grow at 1.8 percent over the next two years.
  • The economies of Los Angeles County and California have a lot to celebrate, according to speakers at the LAEDC’s forecast-release event, which was held at the Sheraton Grand Los Angeles at The Bloc retail center in downtown Los Angeles. California ranks as the number-one region for investment in new and emerging companies, according to figures that the LAEDC quoted from the Dow Jones VentureSource website.
  • The coronavirus will probably cause pain for the California and Los Angeles economies, mostly in the short term, said Stephen Cheung, executive vice president of the LAEDC and president of the World Trade Center Los Angeles.
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  • Panic over the coronavirus outbreak has caused the cancellation of at least two apparel trade shows and for major companies such as Apple, which has lowered its earnings forecast for the second quarter of its 2020 fiscal year.
  • Apparel businesses will have to move quickly to replenish inventories. They might choose to manufacture goods in Mexico or countries in the Central American Free Trade Agreement,said Mercedes Gonzalez, director of Global Purchasing Companies, who frequently travels to Latin America.
  • There are possibilities that Los Angeles and American manufacturers could receive a boost from companies looking for new factories. Daniel Antonio, founder of the Los Angeles–headquartered Dirtymilk label, had taken his manufacturing to Los Angeles after a few years of making it in China. “We’re not going back to China. We were victims of the trade war,” he said of Dirtymilk. “Then, next thing you know, you have this outbreak. It’s affecting a lot of people.”
  • “If they weren’t already here, they’re not coming here. They’re looking for other places overseas,” Antonio said. “Vietnam is a major factor right now. A lot of people are talking about Pakistan and Turkey.”
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Singapore's climate change plan needs more ambition | ASEAN Today - 0 views

www.aseantoday.com/...hange-plan-needs-more-ambition
shared by tongoscar on 20 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Each person in Singapore produces more greenhouse gas emissions than their counterpart in Indonesia, China or the United Kingdom. The city-state may be responsible for just 0.11% of total global emissions, but Singapore ranks 27th out of 142 countries in terms of per capita emissions.
  • In 2015, Singapore pledged to reduce its emission intensity, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions for every dollar of gross domestic product (GDP), by 36% from 2005 levels come 2030. The city-state also committed to stabilising and capping its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.  
  • Countries are expected to update their climate pledges by the end of this year but do not necessarily have to submit completely new ones.
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  • Singapore’s climate pledge in 2015 was deemed a “stretch target” that would not be easily met, as efforts towards sustainable development in the country were still in their nascent stages.
  • Singapore has installed large-scale floating solar panels in its reservoirs and coastal shorelines. Efforts are also being made towards making 80% of the buildings in the country green by 2030. Come 2040, only 10% of rush-hour commutes in Singapore will be made via private transportation.
  • Protecting Singapore against climate change will be costly. Up to S$100 billion will be poured into measures to cope with rising sea levels caused by climate change. Prevention is better than cure. Singapore, and countries around the world, must identify their vulnerabilities and undertake the actions required to defend their long-term national interests. But these measures should not become a substitute for ambitious efforts to reduce emissions and prevent temperatures from rising wherever possible.
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The US was once the uncontested world leader in science and engineering. That's changed... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html
shared by katherineharron on 19 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • he United States was once the dominant, global leader in science and engineering, but that ranking has dropped as other countries invest in research and development, according to a new report.
  • The findings were presented this week in the State of US Science and Engineering 2020 report, compiled and published by the National Science Board and the National Science Foundation. The report is published every two years and submitted to Congress."Our latest report shows the continued spread of [science and engineering] capacity across the globe, which is good for humanity because science is not a zero-sum game," said Diane Souvaine, National Science Board chair, in a statement. "However, it also means that where once the US was the uncontested leader in S&E, we now are playing a less-dominant role in many areas."
  • "Federal support of basic research drives innovation. Only the federal government can make a strategic, long-term commitment to creating new knowledge that [could] to lead to new or improved technologies, goods or services," said Julia Phillips, chair of the National Science Board's science and engineering policy committee. "Basic research is the 'seed corn' of our US S&E enterprise, a global competitive advantage, and the starting point for much of our GDP growth since World War II."
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  • "The United States has seen its relative share of global S&T [science and technology] activity flatten or shrink, even as its absolute activity levels kept rising," the authors wrote in the report. "As more countries around the world develop R&D and human capital infrastructure to sustain and compete in a knowledge-oriented economy, the United States is playing a less dominant role in many areas of S&E [science and engineering] activity."
  • "Research is now a truly global enterprise. Opportunities are everywhere and humanity's collective knowledge is growing exponentially," Souvaine said. "To remain a leader, we need to tap into our American 'can do' spirit and recommit to strong partnerships among government, universities and industry that have been the hallmarks of our success. I believe we should react with excitement, not fear, because we are well positioned to compete, collaborate and thrive."
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In race for coronavirus vaccine, hurled insults and the wisdom of Spider-Man - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html
shared by katherineharron on 27 May 20 - No Cached
  • Ethicists and physicians are concerned that, amid a desire to put an end to the Covid-19 pandemic, developers of drugs and vaccines have become overly enthusiastic about the chances their products will work.
  • Oxford has recently walked back some of its optimism, but for months, it set a tone that its vaccine was the most promising, without any solid evidence that this was based in fact.
  • Third, one leader in the Oxford team has gone so far as to denigrate other teams trying to get a Covid vaccine on the market, calling their technology "weird" and labeling it as merely "noise." Such name-calling is highly unusual and aggressive among scientists.
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  • "At this point, the Oxford researchers have no idea whether they have something or not," Offit said. "You just get so tired of this 'science by press release.' "
  • There are currently 10 vaccines in human clinical trials worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Four of the teams are in the United States: Moderna, Pfizer, Inovio and Novavax.
  • Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel referred to the results as "positive interim Phase 1 data" and that "the Moderna team continues to focus on moving as fast as safely possible to start our pivotal Phase 3 study in July."
  • Moderna is collaborating on its vaccine development with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of NIAID, said while Moderna's numbers were limited, "it was good news" and he was "cautiously optimistic" about the vaccine.
  • Inovio and Moderna have said they expect their large-scale clinical trials, known as Phase 3 trials, to last around six months. Pfizer hasn't given a timetable for its Phase 3 trial.
  • "I've not seen anyone wrap up a Phase 3 trial in a month to six weeks," said Dr. Saad Omer, a Yale University infectious disease expert who's done clinical trials on polio, pertussis and influenza vaccines. "We need to benchmark this against realistic expectations."
  • "As vaccine researchers like to say, mice lie and monkeys exaggerate," Offit said.
  • One big stumbling block for any vaccine trial is that Covid-19 infection rates in many areas of the world are flattening out or declining.
  • The Oxford vaccine uses what's called an adenovirus vector. Adenoviruses cause the common cold, but in this case, the adenoviruses are weakened and modified to deliver genetic material that codes for a protein from the novel coronavirus. The body then produces that protein and, ideally, develops an immune response to it.
  • "Compared to previous vaccines, this method is more robust, more versatile, and yet, equally efficient," according to the blog, which notes that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested $53 million in a German biotech company that specializes in RNA vaccines.
  • Inovio's technology uses a brief electrical pulse to deliver plasmids, or small pieces of genetic information, into human cells. Inovio says those cells then produce the vaccine, which leads to an immune response.
  • On April 19, the BBC's Andrew Marr said he asked Gilbert "if it's guaranteed that a workable vaccine can actually be produced."
  • "Nobody can be absolutely sure it's possible. That's why we have to do trials. We have to find out. I think the prospects are very good, but it's clearly not completely certain,"
  • "It certainly worked in monkeys," Oxford's Hill told CNN's Burnett May 15. "That was quite an impressive impact and that was our first try, if you like, with a standard dose, a single dose of vaccine."
  • "I buy that this is a pandemic and we may need to show progress and show steps, and I'm OK with making forecasts if decision makers want that, but do it with a level of uncertainty, because that's what's warranted," said Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health.
  • "Now researchers can't wait to step out to the microphone -- and there are so many microphones out there -- to say, 'I've got it! This looks really good!' " Offit said.
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Twitter admits bias in algorithm for rightwing politicians and news outlets | Twitter |... - 1 views

www.theguardian.com/...g-politicians-and-news-outlets algorithm bias right-wing political twitter social media technology research
shared by Javier E on 28 Oct 21 - No Cached
  • Twitter has admitted it amplifies more tweets from rightwing politicians and news outlets than content from leftwing sources.
  • The study compared Twitter’s “Home” timeline – the default way its 200 million users are served tweets, in which an algorithm tailors what users see – with the traditional chronological timeline where the most recent tweets are ranked first.
  • The research found that in six out of seven countries, apart from Germany, tweets from rightwing politicians received more amplification from the algorithm than those from the left; right-leaning news organisations were more amplified than those on the left; and generally politicians’ tweets were more amplified by an algorithmic timeline than by the chronological timeline.
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  • Under the research, a value of 0% meant tweets reached the same number of users on the algorithm-tailored timeline as on its chronological counterpart, whereas a value of 100% meant tweets achieved double the reach. On this basis, the most powerful discrepancy between right and left was in Canada (Liberals 43%; Conservatives 167%), followed by the UK (Labour 112%; Conservatives 176%). Even excluding top government officials, the results were similar, the document said.
  • Twitter said it wasn’t clear why its Home timeline produced these results and indicated that it may now need to change its algorithm.
  • The post acknowledged that it was concerning if certain tweets received preferential treatment not as a result of the way in which users interacted, but because of the inbuilt way the algorithm works.
  • “Algorithmic amplification is problematic if there is preferential treatment as a function of how the algorithm is constructed versus the interactions people have with it. Further root cause analysis is required in order to determine what, if any, changes are required to reduce adverse impacts by our Home timeline algorithm,” the post said.
  • Twitter said it would make its research available to outsiders such as academics and it is preparing to let third parties have wider access to its data, in a move likely to put further pressure on Facebook to do the same.
  • The Twitter study compared the two ways in which a user can view their timeline: the first uses an algorithm to provide a tailored view of tweets that the user might be interested in based on the accounts they interact with most and other factors; the other is the more traditional timeline in which the user reads the most recent posts in reverse chronological order.
  • The study compared the two types of timeline by considering whether some politicians, political parties or news outlets were more amplified than others. The study analysed millions of tweets from elected officials between 1 April and 15 August 2020 and hundreds of millions of tweets from news organisations, largely in the US, over the same period.
  • Twitter added that it was preparing to make internal data available to external sources on a regular basis. The company said its machine-learning ethics, transparency and accountability team was finalising plans in a way that would protect user privacy.
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(3) Algorithms Didn't Kill Hipsters; Poptimism Did - 0 views

screentime.thebulwark.com/...-didnt-kill-hipsters-poptimism optimism taste omnivores art hipster nerd algorithm
shared by Javier E on 30 Apr 23 - No Cached
  • I don’t think it is algorithms per se that have killed hipsters so much as the all-encompassing imperative of poptimism.
  • At its core, poptimism is the idea that because a thing is popular, that means that it is good and should be celebrated.
  • Poptimism has spread beyond music and is at least part of the reason why, for instance, you see constant demands that comic book movies get best picture nominations.
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  • poptimism has intertwined with a variety of cultural omnivorism that encourages people to embrace the most popular fare from all genres. And this is where the algorithm comes in: it feeds people a steady drip of the most popular things and assures you you’re good for enjoying a diverse array of sameness.
  • But, and this is important, taste distinctions still matter. Social rank demands fealty to certain ideals of taste, even if artistry isn’t the taste that matters. “Omnivorism, for all of its rejections of ‘taste,’ still presupposes that cultural choice can change society,” Marx writes. “Consumerism can support allies, shame enemies, and deny prestige and financial support to oppressors.”
  • In the modern cultural landscape, “the hipster” has been replaced by what might be called “der kommisar,” and der kommisar has a few general rules for how to appreciate culture:
  • 1.     Artists should create content that promotes progressive political views and reveals unconscious biases against oppressed groups.2.  Gatekeepers should work to represent minority voices by elevating minority artists.3.     Consumers should only buy artworks and goods with progressive values that are created by upright individuals.4.     Majority groups should never profit on styles or stories that originate within minority groups.5.     Critics should decanonize antiprogressive artists and their works, and question aesthetics associated with high-status distinction.*
  • “art should avoid being for art’s sake when social equity is at stake.” The quality of artistry matters less than supporting artists who think the right things and say the right things
  • I don’t think you can really understand much of the last decade or so of cultural writing—or, for that matter, cultural production—if you don’t understand this dynamic and how poptimism, omnivorism, and identity politics have all spun together to change, at the very least, how people talk publicly about the art they consume
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Opinion | Elon Musk, Geoff Hinton, and the War Over A.I. - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...i-safety-ethics-effective.html ai threat faction technology research language
shared by Javier E on 28 Sep 23 - No Cached
  • Beneath almost all of the testimony, the manifestoes, the blog posts and the public declarations issued about A.I. are battles among deeply divided factions
  • Some are concerned about far-future risks that sound like science fiction.
  • Some are genuinely alarmed by the practical problems that chatbots and deepfake video generators are creating right now.
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  • Some are motivated by potential business revenue, others by national security concerns.
  • Sometimes, they trade letters, opinion essays or social threads outlining their positions and attacking others’ in public view. More often, they tout their viewpoints without acknowledging alternatives, leaving the impression that their enlightened perspective is the inevitable lens through which to view A.I.
  • you’ll realize this isn’t really a debate only about A.I. It’s also a contest about control and power, about how resources should be distributed and who should be held accountable.
  • It is critical that we begin to recognize the ideologies driving what we are being told. Resolving the fracas requires us to see through the specter of A.I. to stay true to the humanity of our values.
  • Because language itself is part of their battleground, the different A.I. camps tend not to use the same words to describe their positions
  • One faction describes the dangers posed by A.I. through the framework of safety, another through ethics or integrity, yet another through security and others through economics.
  • The Doomsayers
  • These are the A.I. safety people, and their ranks include the “Godfathers of A.I.,” Geoff Hinton and Yoshua Bengio. For many years, these leading lights battled critics who doubted that a computer could ever mimic capabilities of the human mind
  • Many doomsayers say they are acting rationally, but their hype about hypothetical existential risks amounts to making a misguided bet with our future
  • Reasonable sounding on their face, these ideas can become dangerous if stretched to their logical extremes. A dogmatic long-termer would willingly sacrifice the well-being of people today to stave off a prophesied extinction event like A.I. enslavement.
  • The technology historian David C. Brock calls these fears “wishful worries” — that is, “problems that it would be nice to have, in contrast to the actual agonies of the present.”
  • OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, both of whom lead dominant A.I. companies, are pushing for A.I. regulations that they say will protect us from criminals and terrorists. Such regulations would be expensive to comply with and are likely to preserve the market position of leading A.I. companies while restricting competition from start-ups
  • the roboticist Rodney Brooks has pointed out that we will see the existential risks coming, the dangers will not be sudden and we will have time to change course.
  • While we shouldn’t dismiss the Hollywood nightmare scenarios out of hand, we must balance them with the potential benefits of A.I. and, most important, not allow them to strategically distract from more immediate concerns.
  • The Reformers
  • While the doomsayer faction focuses on the far-off future, its most prominent opponents are focused on the here and now. We agree with this group that there’s plenty already happening to cause concern: Racist policing and legal systems that disproportionately arrest and punish people of color. Sexist labor systems that rate feminine-coded résumés lower
  • Superpower nations automating military interventions as tools of imperialism and, someday, killer robots.
  • Propagators of these A.I. ethics concerns — like Meredith Broussard, Safiya Umoja Noble, Rumman Chowdhury and Cathy O’Neil — have been raising the alarm on inequities coded into A.I. for years. Although we don’t have a census, it’s noticeable that many leaders in this cohort are people of color, women and people who identify as L.G.B.T.Q.
  • Others frame efforts to reform A.I. in terms of integrity, calling for Big Tech to adhere to an oath to consider the benefit of the broader public alongside — or even above — their self-interest. They point to social media companies’ failure to control hate speech or how online misinformation can undermine democratic elections. Adding urgency for this group is that the very companies driving the A.I. revolution have, at times, been eliminating safeguards
  • reformers tend to push back hard against the doomsayers’ focus on the distant future. They want to wrestle the attention of regulators and advocates back toward present-day harms that are exacerbated by A.I. misinformation, surveillance and inequity.
  • Integrity experts call for the development of responsible A.I., for civic education to ensure A.I. literacy and for keeping humans front and center in A.I. systems.
  • Surely, we are a civilization big enough to tackle more than one problem at a time; even those worried that A.I. might kill us in the future should still demand that it not profile and exploit us in the present.
  • Other groups of prognosticators cast the rise of A.I. through the language of competitiveness and national security.
  • Some arguing from this perspective are acting on genuine national security concerns, and others have a simple motivation: money. These perspectives serve the interests of American tech tycoons as well as the government agencies and defense contractors they are intertwined with.
  • they appear deeply invested in the idea that there is no limit to what their creations will be able to accomplish.
  • U.S. megacompanies pleaded to exempt their general purpose A.I. from the tightest regulations, and whether and how to apply high-risk compliance expectations on noncorporate open-source models emerged as a key point of debate. All the while, some of the moguls investing in upstart companies are fighting the regulatory tide. The Inflection AI co-founder Reid Hoffman argued, “The answer to our challenges is not to slow down technology but to accelerate it.”
  • The warriors’ narrative seems to misrepresent that science and engineering are different from what they were during the mid-20th century. A.I. research is fundamentally international; no one country will win a monopoly.
  • As the science-fiction author Ted Chiang has said, fears about the existential risks of A.I. are really fears about the threat of uncontrolled capitalism
  • Regulatory solutions do not need to reinvent the wheel. Instead, we need to double down on the rules that we know limit corporate power. We need to get more serious about establishing good and effective governance on all the issues we lost track of while we were becoming obsessed with A.I., China and the fights picked among robber barons.
  • By analogy to the health care sector, we need an A.I. public option to truly keep A.I. companies in check. A publicly directed A.I. development project would serve to counterbalance for-profit corporate A.I. and help ensure an even playing field for access to the 21st century’s key technology while offering a platform for the ethical development and use of A.I.
  • Also, we should embrace the humanity behind A.I. We can hold founders and corporations accountable by mandating greater A.I. transparency in the development stage, in addition to applying legal standards for actions associated with A.I. Remarkably, this is something that both the left and the right can agree on.
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