tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2820930305822482152024-02-17T03:49:12.691-05:00Secret PeaceJesse Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04416451641028275034noreply@blogger.comBlogger160125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-54006696097059176922018-12-04T02:19:00.002-05:002018-12-04T02:21:00.887-05:00Giving Thanks ... the Secret Peace continues<p>It's the week after Thanksgiving, and there's a lot to be thankful for in our world.</p>
<p>When I published <i>The Secret Peace</i> in 2009, the headlines looked bad. The world was mired in the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression. But all the underlying data, the long-term data, told a different story: Sure, the world is a terrible place, but it used to be much worse. Slowly, inexorably, through the cumulative day-to-day efforts of millions of people, it keeps getting better.<p>
<p><b>Today, it seems like the headlines are even worse.</b> Clearly, not everything gets better all the time, and history repeats itself - or echoes itself, at least. But the spiral of repetition also rises up, if slowly. <i><b>Nothing </b></i>I have seen in the past decade has changed my mind about the overall Secret Peace thesis - not when you look at the world as a whole.</p>
<p>I've posted on this blog for 10 years now, whenever I find positive articles - hidden gems that are often overlooked because they're not as immediate, salacious, or urgent. These articles aren't "positive" in that they're uplifting slice-of-life stories, like a dog rescuing a kidney donor or schoolkids punching cancer. Those type of stories - while fine and even necessary - are just as anecdotal as the many negative stories the media often covers: plane crash, school shooting, wildfire, shark attack, political scandal. And anecdotal evidence is never going to give us a true sense of the state of the world.</p>
<p>Rather, the best articles I've found tend to have clues that corroborate particular long-term positive trends. Indeed, almost all positive change tends to be very long-term, and that makes it very hard to see.<p>
<p>I've taken a hiatus from writing here for a while, and this post wraps that up more formally. I've had too many other busy strands of life going on. But I hope you'll continue to keep an eye out for these type of articles yourself, while treating the "regular" news with a bit more skepticism. Look at what you're reading and watching, and try to get just the facts. If you want some opinions, too, look for them from both sides of the aisle. <a href="https://www.adfontesmedia.com/intro-to-the-media-bias-chart/">This extremely useful chart</a> is the best guide I've found to help us all control our media diet.</p>
<p>I've rounded up a last batch of Secret Peace articles for now - each with a statistic to make us stop and think:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>"Every day, the number of people around the world living in extreme poverty (less than about $2 a day) goes down by 217,000."</b>
<ul><li>- <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/opinion/sunday/2017-progress-illiteracy-poverty.html">Why 2017 was the best year in human history</a> - Nicholas Kristoff, NY Times</li></ul></li>
<li><b>"Since 2000, global malaria deaths have declined by 60 percent. Since their peak a decade ago, AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 45 percent."</b>
<ul><li>- <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/never-forget-that-we-live-in-the-best-of-times-5n97c9xs0">Never forget that we live in the best of times</a> - Philip Collins, The Times (UK)</li></ul></li>
<li><b>"The essential finding of Steven Pinker’s 2011 book <i>The Better Angels of Our Nature</i> seems to have been largely accepted: that we are living in history’s most peaceful era, with violence of all kinds – from deaths in war to schoolyard bullying – in steep decline."</b>
<ul><li>- <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/jul/28/is-the-world-really-better-than-ever-the-new-optimists">Is the world really better than ever?</a> - Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian</li></ul></li>
<li><b>"Mass school shootings are incredibly rare events. ... Shooting incidents involving students have been declining since the 1990s. ... More kids are killed each year from pool drownings or bicycle accidents."</b>
<ul><li>- <a href="http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/26/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/">Schools are safer than they were in the 90s ...</a> - Allie Nicodemo and Lia Petronio, Northeastern</li></ul></li>
<li><b>"Sharkey, studying the crime decline in six American cities, concludes, 'As the degree of violence has fallen, the gap between the neighborhoods of the poor and nonpoor has narrowed.'"</b>
<ul><li>- <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/the-great-crime-decline">The Great Crime Decline</a> - Adam Gopnick, The New Yorker</li></ul></li>
<li><b>"American gun ownership drops to lowest rate in nearly 40 years."</b>
<ul><li>- <a href=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/29/american-gun-ownership-is-now-at-a-30-year-low/?utm_term=.0a9c69d352a4">American gun ownership drops ...</a> - Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post</li></ul></li>
<li><b>"Ethiopia and Eritrea Declare an End to Their [two-decade-long] War."</b>
<ul><li>- <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/09/world/africa/ethiopia-eritrea-war.html">Ethiopia and Eritrea Declare an End to Their War</a> - Selam Gebrekidan, New York Times</li></ul></li>
<li><b>"Fewer Americans dying of cancer."</b>
<ul><li>- <a href="x">Cancer is the No. 2 cause of death in the U.S., but the overall number of new cases dropped 1 percent per year between 2008 and 2014. This is partially due to the continued decrease in smoking rates in the U.S.</a> - The Week, June 15, 2018</li></ul></li>
</ul>
<p>2018 is the 10th-year anniversary of posting on this blog. I want to extend a heartfelt thanks to everyone who has taken the time either to read my book, or read these articles here, share, and comment. One exciting final trend to mention is that there are now enough people writing about positive trends that our group has a label: the "New Optimists". Personally, I'm optimistic that this group will continue to grow.</p>Jesse Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04416451641028275034noreply@blogger.com84tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-86910359234234979992017-08-06T13:32:00.001-04:002017-08-06T13:35:54.330-04:00The Continuum of Hate<p>I was speaking with a good friend who was lamenting how much kids today are overly sensitive and "snowflakes" and too easily offended. He doesn't believe in "microaggressions" and thinks a lot of comments today are blown out of proportion. This person is by all accounts very tolerant and kind, and probably not someone who would ever actually offend all those sensitive snowflakes.</p>
<p>This isn't an uncommon point of view. And it's logical. Particularly if you grew up in an earlier time, it seems weird that a lot of our public discourse and media focus has suddenly shifted to picking apart words and endless offend-and-apologize cycles. Aren't there more important things to focus on?</p>
<p>But I think this point of view is based on a misunderstanding, and one that the other side [mine] hasn't done a good job of communicating - if they even understand it themselves.</p>
<p>This misunderstanding is that we shouldn't fight offensive comments because they hurt people and are the worst evil in and of themselves, but because they are the <b>underlying root</b> of the worst evils. Which means that fighting them is a way - perhaps the only long-term way - to fight bigger things like hate crimes, domestic violence, rape, and murder based on racism and sexism.</p>
<p>Many of the people fighting these offensive comments and microaggressions understand this concept, but many others are just offended personally as well. We should fight them for both reasons.</p>
<p>A problem that arose in recent decades with the exposing of the worst horrors of racism and sexism is that it let society group the people who committed those horrors as officially "racist" or "sexist". Meaning, no one else is. Now, we all instinctively view people as either "racist" or not, and either "sexist" or not. This isn't helpful, because it allows us to excuse ourselves into the "not" category as long as we aren't actively raping and killing people. Instead, we are <b>all</b>, any of us that have been raised on this planet, racist and sexist to some degree. Unfortunately, this makes rooting out the problem much harder.</p>
I created the below list, which I dramatically call the Continuum of Hate. It's a spectrum with five categories of racist/sexist things, ranging from mild at the top to horrible at the bottom. You could imagine it horizontally, too, if you want.</p>
<h3>Continuum of hate</h3>
<ol><li><b>Unconscious bias</b></li>
<ul><li>over-emphasis of differences</li>
<li>gender assumptions of our language</li>
<li>assumptions of gender differences</li>
<li>internal stereotypes</li>
<li>snap judgements</li></ul>
<li><b>Microaggression</b></li>
<ul><li>comments</li>
<li>interruptions</li>
<li>preferences</li>
<li>jokes</li>
<li>exclusion</li></ul>
<li><b>Discrimination</b></li>
<ul><li>strict gender roles</li>
<li>hiring discrimination</li>
<li>limited opportunities</li>
<li>voting rights</li>
<li>active hatred</li></ul>
<li><b>Harassment</b></li>
<ul><li>slurs</li>
<li>graffiti/vandalism</li>
<li>catcalling/street harassment</li>
<li>sexual harassment</li>
<li>police brutality</li></ul>
<li><b>Violence</b></li>
<ul><li>domestic violence</li>
<li>sexual assault</li>
<li>rape</li>
<li>slavery</li>
<li>murder, lynching</li></ul>
</ol>
<p>So instead of an underlying id of "racism" or "sexism" in people's minds that then comes out in <b>all</b> of those above things, the items at the beginning/top of the spectrum are the causes themselves of the things at the end/bottom.</p>
<p>Children start with no bias and no assumptions. All of the unconscious bias of adults, media, and society that kids are exposed to leads to continuing that unconscious bias in them. As they're exposed to any item on this list, it can reinforce the hatred. And for every incident of severe violence, there are thousands of small microaggressions, so they're exposed to a lot more of those. Then, depending on the amount of this reinforcement, it can lead to conscious bias, and eventually lead to the other items in the list.</p>
<p>Earlier waves of feminism and racial justice fought to bring awareness to and end the dire items at the end of the spectrum, and they were partially successful. But in addition to continuing that work, the goal of today's current wave of feminism and other social justice movements, often by young people, is not just because they are each offended personally (although they are and should be), but also because they believe that addressing and solving the small things at the top of the list is the only way to eventually end the larger ones.</p>
<p>And the solution to solving the ones at the top is to bring awareness to them, and increase empathy.</p>
---
<p>On the other hand, when all is said and done, we don't need to understand all of this theoretical stuff in order to motivate ourselves to use the right words and not offend people. The motivation should be simply: not wanting to hurt people. The only thing it costs you is your word choice. When it's that easy to change something, why would you ever want to knowingly hurt people?</p>Jesse Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04416451641028275034noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-57186839174260866052017-07-29T16:44:00.002-04:002017-07-29T16:44:50.445-04:00Hawaii leads the way with renewable energy AND universal basic income<p>One of the positive benefits of having such an absurdly regressive federal government in place right now is that it has spurred the states to take matters into their own hands. This, of course, is closer to what the US was founded on, and throughout its history the states have often pioneered initiatives that have then spread nationally.</p>
<p>So, Hawaii is going nuts right now. Not one but TWO amazing explorations.</p>
<p>First there's Universal Basic Income. This is an idea that's been picking up speed recently. It's not that Hawaii has suddenly implemented it, but they've become the first state to start evaluating what it would mean and what it would take to put it in place. <a href="https://futurism.com/hawaii-becomes-the-first-state-to-pass-a-bill-in-support-of-universal-basic-income/">You can read more here about Hawaii's steps, and about the fascinating concept of UBI in general.</a></p>
<p>Then there's energy. The Hawaii legislature right now is considering a bill that would require all transportation in the Aloha state to run on renewable energy by 2045. Hawaii's climate is very sensitive to the changes from climate change, and because of their remote location they also spend billions on imported oil. This push would address both those major issues.</p>
<p>And that's just ground transportation. A bill is already in law in the state that all electricity must be generated by renewable means by 2045. The law passed last July. With an abundance of water and a sunny environment, Hawaii is primed to harness renewable energy in many ways.</p>
<p>Even better, officials in the state say that the goal could actually be reached ahead of schedule, as early as 2040. Personally, I think it will be sooner, as it's hard to accurately predict and account for the snowballing effects of leaps in technology.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pyO3kRPSwRM/WK9PzvjlyEI/AAAAAAAABrY/O5Dea242-w07EzK7h_AvwIQRkWAzPQTuQCLcB/s1600/hawaii.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pyO3kRPSwRM/WK9PzvjlyEI/AAAAAAAABrY/O5Dea242-w07EzK7h_AvwIQRkWAzPQTuQCLcB/s400/hawaii.jpg" width="400" height="267" /></a></div>
<p><a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/hawaii-renewable-energy-2045/">Read more here om Global Citizen.</a></p>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-47945835875303527792017-07-07T03:11:00.002-04:002017-07-07T03:11:45.113-04:00The innovation of green roofs<p>I've been in the Javits Center a ton of times (yes, mostly for Comic-Con) but never knew they had implemented a green roof a few years back. Our NYC apartment actually looks down on a really cool green roof, of the new Stuyvesant Town management office. Check out this NPR video to see how turning roofs green can benefit cities in lots of surprising ways.</p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7CV8SFyGvQc?rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Jesse Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04416451641028275034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-45221790959944392762017-06-24T23:40:00.003-04:002017-06-24T23:43:49.666-04:00Looking at life expectancy in detail<p>The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/09/health/blacks-see-gains-in-life-expectancy.html">New York Times</a> published this U.S. life expectancy chart in an article a year ago:</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin1xGP4ZsuI4RnLe59FfcVTyd-sKJXdOPeJ_QsvG7x5zvsBM5_ohv66Up1RobRwqv6L0XSCnutgH7GTEpcU9dc0Arv5cAk7ZyPn2K_UnjhnhsuMGEPJAYVdfHoIA5bjBNeqRXFRgrtvIW5/s1600/life.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin1xGP4ZsuI4RnLe59FfcVTyd-sKJXdOPeJ_QsvG7x5zvsBM5_ohv66Up1RobRwqv6L0XSCnutgH7GTEpcU9dc0Arv5cAk7ZyPn2K_UnjhnhsuMGEPJAYVdfHoIA5bjBNeqRXFRgrtvIW5/s400/life.PNG" width="400" height="273" data-original-width="720" data-original-height="491" /></a></div>
<p>In my book, I had published a similar chart showing the shrinking life expectancy gap between classes in Britain, and we see the same trend here. The gap between white and black life expectancy in the U.S. is now 3.4 years, down from 7 in 1990, and even wider going back farther.</p>
<p>While the article highlights a lot of interesting small trends, and the current patterns, my book prefers to look at larger trends. And it's not hard to see what's going on here, in the 116 years shown. In 1900, whites had a life expectancy of about 50, and blacks about 35. Today, that's 79 and 75.6.</p>
<p>What's incredible to me is how little the world's largest events matter in the long term. Look at the trauma of 1918. It was a terrible time for millions of people, but in terms of life expectancy, it didn't stop the trend from continuing right back up as if the Spanish Flu and WWI had never happened. Same thing for WWII, the Great Depression, and Vietnam. On this chart - obviously removed from the terrible human impact on the millions of people it represents - those were all just blips temporarily slowing down an unstoppable trend./p>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-70328310995777973902017-05-31T21:51:00.001-04:002017-05-31T21:52:01.656-04:00Tesla finishes its positive feedback loop<p>I recently finished the Elon Musk biography, and I recommend it to everyone to understand what I think is perhaps the most innovative and positive trend happening in this country today, at a time when many other trends seem to be heading backwards.<p>
<p>This video introduces Tesla's new solar roof panels. These are ingenious. Tesla has solved the main drawback of solar panels on people's roofs: They're ugly. Not these - they blend in as regular roofs while also looking even more beautiful.</p>
<p>The positive energy flywheel that the company has created takes energy from the sun through the roof tiles, stores it in Tesla's home batteries, and then charges its cars from the batteries. That leaves us with perfectly renewable energy powering the cars, with zero emissions. Watch the video below to find out more.</P>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tgmk6G7uh0M?rel=0&showinfo=0?ecver=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Jesse Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04416451641028275034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-11546641881168258672017-04-16T21:16:00.000-04:002019-04-16T00:03:13.171-04:00More and more of the world is protected<p>I looked at the stats of how much of the world was protected in my 2010 book, The Secret Peace, and that trend has continued. Today, almost <b>13% of all the world's land is officially protected</b>, according to the <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ER.PTD.TOTL.ZS?end=2014&start=1990&view=chart">World Bank</a>.</p>
<p>That may not sound like a lot, but it's <b>25 million square miles</b>, and more importantly, it's up from only 6% in 1990.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd5OiSB9PH0PcDBjDqkuFQLwwjaHDwbMasVNq1CvmA4mJZ-MECLLeRBONu3sw8QoJAE2sm-haCrroxxT7O2JhksVc5qBROszEaCTrWFA3_crt-KvyJ67HtKzp9is-FitAa8AKOtoFTEciW/s1600/world.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd5OiSB9PH0PcDBjDqkuFQLwwjaHDwbMasVNq1CvmA4mJZ-MECLLeRBONu3sw8QoJAE2sm-haCrroxxT7O2JhksVc5qBROszEaCTrWFA3_crt-KvyJ67HtKzp9is-FitAa8AKOtoFTEciW/s400/world.jpg" width="400" height="146" data-original-width="1000" data-original-height="366" /></a></div>
<p>What's interesting too is to see the breakdown by country. Some have made incredible strides, and nearly EVERY ONE has made gains since 1990. Below is a sample of several countries I found exceptional, with some of the most impressive gains.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCmW6Pb2HFmEH0o4XDM_AscD-yV_IsoyFuGAhykUOHQjbf2cHu1gJ0I9me0iKpLcskTHxi54Lz-eIC_FKY66LFuv34QHORHzA4mg5Uu2SZT2LKA4Zo8g_i1Q6od00kHwKuzZiNaoHvW8J6/s1600/australia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCmW6Pb2HFmEH0o4XDM_AscD-yV_IsoyFuGAhykUOHQjbf2cHu1gJ0I9me0iKpLcskTHxi54Lz-eIC_FKY66LFuv34QHORHzA4mg5Uu2SZT2LKA4Zo8g_i1Q6od00kHwKuzZiNaoHvW8J6/s400/australia.jpg" width="400" height="146" data-original-width="1000" data-original-height="366" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwBNLa1GPNHEBm4gCtl7bzm67FtOAPZaRkdq9yHudWoQwGQGHp9IOsE_iAi1Y4aGpZZUC-p3mFVcxsXJqPeFavQX_xyEwJcwvGofa4zHgkfBfvw6Qk4flcuJEdPb4aT7yPT2Pmqtu3WIyZ/s1600/belgium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwBNLa1GPNHEBm4gCtl7bzm67FtOAPZaRkdq9yHudWoQwGQGHp9IOsE_iAi1Y4aGpZZUC-p3mFVcxsXJqPeFavQX_xyEwJcwvGofa4zHgkfBfvw6Qk4flcuJEdPb4aT7yPT2Pmqtu3WIyZ/s400/belgium.jpg" width="400" height="146" data-original-width="1000" data-original-height="366" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYbZR5Xp0gfUqZXETInYALBoZ4k9-jsRtHWA3mzw_Gj4mlB72XSE0-GG1LI5GUzbR0NKtYttbetsGrJG3o7szwHnOZgx5Qf9XwF0CzhrGj96e_sdZbz6ZUiA9WVkL8l8MFbbCLUU1zbPcv/s1600/brazil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYbZR5Xp0gfUqZXETInYALBoZ4k9-jsRtHWA3mzw_Gj4mlB72XSE0-GG1LI5GUzbR0NKtYttbetsGrJG3o7szwHnOZgx5Qf9XwF0CzhrGj96e_sdZbz6ZUiA9WVkL8l8MFbbCLUU1zbPcv/s400/brazil.jpg" width="400" height="146" data-original-width="1000" data-original-height="366" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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<p>These trends are likely to continue, slow but steady. However, I think we're on the cusp of several technological breakthroughs that could accelerate them even more. Consider the following clues:</p>
<ol>
<li>Online shopping is replacing a lot of retail stores, especially big malls. This requires warehouses, but those take up less room than retail.</li>
<li>3D printing may lead to more goods being produced on demand as they're ordered, eliminating the need for storing excess goods. This is already true of print-on-demand books.</li>
<li>When self-driving cars take off, they will eventually start replacing car ownership. People will be able to call a car, just like Lyft or Uber, at a lower cost since there are no drivers. These cars will not need to rest and can function 24 hours a day (perhaps shipping goods when passenger demand is low). We start to need fewer and fewer parking spaces. New shopping centers and offices will be built with numbered drop-off points, rather than huge parking lots.</li>
<li>In addition, if Amazon succeeds at using delivery drones at scale, that's even fewer trucks on the road.</li>
<li>Thanks to Tesla, energy-efficient electric cars will soon expand to a massive scale. Since these cars will also have the ability to be self-driving, even if that's not "turned on" yet, it will accelerate the switch to self-driving cars.</li>
<li>As they have for 200 years, crops will continue to get more efficient and produce higher yields, accelerated by more acceptance of GMOs, finally.</li>
<li>Vegetarianism has been another slow-burning trend in the developed world, and as the world eats less meat, less land is needed for livestock, which is much less efficient than crops.</li>
<li>And even though the developing world is eating more meat, lab-grown meat is on the cusp of being released commercially. If it takes a while to catch on with consumers used to "real" meat, that might not be the case with other, newly meat-eating consumers. Lab-grown meat is real meat, indistinguishable from other meat, but using a lot fewer resources to produce and not harming any animals, to boot.</li>
</ol>
<p>Those are all trends leading to less and less land needed by humans and their voracious needs. This frees up more land that, even if not officially preserved yet, may start to revert to a natural state. It'll be interesting to continue to track these trends in the years to come.<p>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-7162206925168515632017-03-31T21:51:00.001-04:002017-03-31T21:53:30.939-04:00A controversial suggestion: Let's stop hitting children<p><b>Good-bye, spanking. Like all types of violence throughout the world, the physical discipline of children is declining.</b></p>
<p>In the United States, for example, 94 percent of parents endorsed hitting kids in 1968, but only one-half approved by 1999. Similar decreases occurred in countries as diverse as Austria, Sweden, Kuwait, Germany, and New Zealand. (In Sweden, the drop preceded the law against hitting kids.)</p>
<p>Why is this? The author of <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2011/12/spanking_is_on_the_decline_why_.html">this Slate article</a> posits that it's due to increased education, specifically education and tactics now more widely disseminated on the most effective ways to parent. This is good, because, lest anyone still think otherwise, we now have reams of evidence that spanking and physical punishment backfires spectacularly.</p>
<p>For example, in The Week from May 13, 2016, it mentions that a new metastudy "has found physical discipline actually makes children more defiant and more likely to have later alcohol, drug, and mental health problems. After examining the findings of 75 studies involving more than 160,000 children, a team of researchers found that children who are routinely disciplined with an open-handed smack on the bottom - a spanking - have behavior problems similar to those of children who are physically abused. In fact, the more kids are spanked, the more likely they are to develop low self-esteem and become aggressive, antisocial, and rebellious, the meta-analysis reveals. "Spanking does the opposite of what parents usually want it to do," the study's co-author says."</p>
<p>The article went on to conclude, "The researchers suggest that parents use non-physical forms of discipline, and rely on positive reinforcement of desirable behavior, which research shows is far more effective than punishment."</p>
<p>Here is a picture of my child, who has never been spanked:</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M5BDwLgh000/WN8IEstlyeI/AAAAAAAABuo/4y22xcM0KJI_9lZtQSMVUXx_bHfQw4d_gCLcB/s1600/32708322243_7d28f3b13e_k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M5BDwLgh000/WN8IEstlyeI/AAAAAAAABuo/4y22xcM0KJI_9lZtQSMVUXx_bHfQw4d_gCLcB/s400/32708322243_7d28f3b13e_k.jpg" width="400" height="300" /></a></div>
<em>
<p>Other sources:</p>
<p><a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/27/the-connections-between-spanking-and-aggression">http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/27/the-connections-between-spanking-and-aggression</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/spanking.aspx">http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/spanking.aspx</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.quora.com/Why-is-hitting-a-child-as-a-form-of-discipline-considered-a-thing-to-despise-in-the-West/answer/Andrew-Weill">https://www.quora.com/Why-is-hitting-a-child-as-a-form-of-discipline-considered-a-thing-to-despise-in-the-West/answer/Andrew-Weill</a></p></em>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com42tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-86571291980046617522017-02-23T15:45:00.001-05:002017-02-23T15:45:41.857-05:00Kids these days ... have better hearing?<p>Do you wear headphones or earbuds? Are you concerned at all about their effect on your hearing? Maybe somewhere in the back of your mind you remember that they're bad?</P>
<p>Well, despite recent fears over increased headphone use, not to mention loud concerts and movies, not to mention urban life and honking and who knows what else, hearing loss is actually declining in the U.S.</p>
<p>As the <i>New York Times</i>, reports, "The paper, published in the journal <i>JAMA Otolaryngology — Head & Neck Surgery</i>, used data from the National Health and Nutrition Survey, which periodically administers health tests to a representative sample of the population. The investigators ... compared data collected between 1999 and 2004 with data from 2011 and 2012, the most recent available."</p>
<p>What's impressive is not only did hearing loss decrease from 15.9% of the population to 14.1% in less than a decade - that's 5 million people fewer - but that this is part of a continuing trend since the 1950s.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/health/hearing-loss-united-states.html">Read more here.</a></p>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-89194656673425440472017-01-16T18:13:00.000-05:002017-01-16T18:13:25.184-05:00Hey, remember that whole Ebola thing?<p><b>Remember when Ebola was going to kill us all?</b> Well, besides the fact that that didn't happen and the virus stayed largely contained within a few West African nations, a new vaccine promises to even more easily defeat the disease whenever a new outbreak arises. Do you remember headlines like these?</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vUuGF3JqC9A/WH1R7eyvRbI/AAAAAAAABm4/FQ3hcCRDcCA9P8akW9m_IBTk949FlmLsQCLcB/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vUuGF3JqC9A/WH1R7eyvRbI/AAAAAAAABm4/FQ3hcCRDcCA9P8akW9m_IBTk949FlmLsQCLcB/s400/1.jpg" width="320" height="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZktEmRqhZE8/WH1SMkSqOnI/AAAAAAAABnA/ECJuU5UUm78ZSbhyuIDYiP33O45zWFMKwCLcB/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZktEmRqhZE8/WH1SMkSqOnI/AAAAAAAABnA/ECJuU5UUm78ZSbhyuIDYiP33O45zWFMKwCLcB/s400/3.jpg" width="300" height="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RYpUo1201Rg/WH1SArnwH0I/AAAAAAAABm8/jNNdsH3nJl823b2FHH0leGN_AU_06xhDwCLcB/s1600/2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RYpUo1201Rg/WH1SArnwH0I/AAAAAAAABm8/jNNdsH3nJl823b2FHH0leGN_AU_06xhDwCLcB/s400/2.png" width="400" height="271" /></a></div>
<p>That last one warns about a possible death toll of 1.4 million. Care to guess how many lives the outbreak actually claimed? 11,000. To put that in perspective, here's a pie chart showing 11,000 out of 1.4 million.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zZ-mFyxD0yk/WH1TFVYp4bI/AAAAAAAABnE/St96EqvcvYYxFN4gmV_LtOXt3qsPq6LtgCLcB/s1600/pie.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zZ-mFyxD0yk/WH1TFVYp4bI/AAAAAAAABnE/St96EqvcvYYxFN4gmV_LtOXt3qsPq6LtgCLcB/s400/pie.PNG" width="400" height="397" /></a></div>
<p>None of this means that it wasn't terrible that 11,000 people died. Nor was it bad to treat the outbreak seriously and marshal all forces against it - indeed, that was what was successful. But keep this in mind the next time headlines look scary - whether about Ebola, Anthrax, Killer clowns, or even terrorism. <p>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-31206195051257317022016-12-25T23:55:00.002-05:002016-12-26T12:48:55.533-05:00Believe it or not, 2016 was one of the best years ever<p>This year, it seems like all the end-of-year roundup stories are particularly negative. It turns out that rock stars are not immortal, and most of the people in my internet circles were not thrilled with the outcome of the presidential election. But at the end of each year there's always a small fringe counter-movement of articles explaining that the world is actually getting better, and 2016 is no exception. If you're among those who think 2016 in America was bleak (and I certainly am disappointed by a lot of events as well), remember that the rest of the world still marches forward. Here are some of these positive summaries from this year.</p>
<p><a href="http://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-charts/">This article from <i>Our World in Data</i></a> has been making the rounds quite a bit. It uses several charts that are near-identical to the ones from my book. Updated to 2015, it's nice to see that these trends from my book are all continuing as predicted. The article provides a convenient infographic that's easy to share. It's clever to cage it in a frame of "if the world was 100 people", which makes it easier to understand the scope of the progress.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AvsSr0lKlGA/WGCfigA4aPI/AAAAAAAABlI/vIloxbdZRcI--4osS1zUuqznzk71_p-MACLcB/s1600/poverty.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AvsSr0lKlGA/WGCfigA4aPI/AAAAAAAABlI/vIloxbdZRcI--4osS1zUuqznzk71_p-MACLcB/s400/poverty.PNG" width="400" height="246" /></a></div>
<p>The article also focuses on why we don't know this. Why isn't there a front-page headline today that reads "<b>The number of people in extreme poverty fell by 130,000 since yesterday</b>"? It's because the media is obsessed with single dramatic events and with negative news. (That headline could have been repeated <b>every single day </b>since 1990!)</p>
<p>Here's also an <a href="http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/12/22/14042506/steven-pinker-optimistic-future-2016">interview with Steven Pinker</a>, who can always be counted on to spread the optimist message. Although he clarifies, as I do in my book as well, that it's not really "optimist" as much as "realist", big-picture instead of in-the-moment, statistical instead of anecdotal.</p>
<p>I also stumbled upon <a href="https://www.quora.com/Liberals-why-don%E2%80%99t-you-want-America-to-be-great-again/answer/Jeremy-Fridy">this great answer by Jeremy Fridy on Quora</a> to the snarky question, "Liberals, why don't you want America to be great again?" He points out several facts about the state of the US today: that violent crime is at a 50-year low, abortion is at a 40-year low, the economy has grown and budget deficit shrunk in the past 7 years, and that Obama is leaving office with a higher approval rating than even Reagan.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NdXAq9EOeGE/WGChjVdCX6I/AAAAAAAABlY/YgfS2pYCB1slRIxHILs4JeYajJkEVZHtQCLcB/s1600/card.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NdXAq9EOeGE/WGChjVdCX6I/AAAAAAAABlY/YgfS2pYCB1slRIxHILs4JeYajJkEVZHtQCLcB/s400/card.jpg" width="400" height="200" /></a></div>
<p>Finally, here's a monster of a rebuttal to 2016-pessimism, <a href+"https://medium.com/@angushervey/99-reasons-why-2016-has-been-a-great-year-for-humanity-8420debc2823#.6chp3s8rb">99 Reasons 2016 was a Good Year</a>, on Medium. There are endless (well, 100) successes in conservation, global health, economics, fighting climate change, decreasing violence, generosity, and more. Did you hear that <b>global carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels did not grow at all in 2016?</b> It’s the third year in a row emissions have flatlined. Probably not.</p>
<p>Fingers crossed for a 2017 that reports more diligently on the trends that matter most.</p>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-10207528240318289452016-12-12T23:08:00.000-05:002016-12-12T23:08:52.544-05:00More surprising health inventions<p>A few months ago I reported on new glasses that let color-blind folks see in full color. Now, there are two more inventions just this month that have the potential to help many people.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mYmCe8ulT0M/WE9zjLfDGsI/AAAAAAAABkY/kMx0gS1Wr9okNzDHRquuZojBooSTIc-uACLcB/s1600/skin.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mYmCe8ulT0M/WE9zjLfDGsI/AAAAAAAABkY/kMx0gS1Wr9okNzDHRquuZojBooSTIc-uACLcB/s320/skin.PNG" width="320" height="189" /></a></div>
<p>The first is a "stem-cell gun" (I didn't make that up) that uses your own cells to create new skin on your body. This could drastically change the way we treat the victims of serious burns. Because brand new skin is growing, there aren't even any scars. <a href="http://mashable.com/2016/11/29/skingun/#eaScCTyux5qz">You can learn more here.</a></p>
<iframe width="400" height="500" frameborder="0" src="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38208814/embed"></iframe>
<p>The other invention is a pen that counterbalances the shaking effects of Parkinson's disease, allowing patients to write again. You can watch the example of a graphic designer who had lost the ability to draw or even write her own name. <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38208814">Learn more here.</a></p>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-72194525038328428002016-10-01T15:03:00.002-04:002016-10-01T15:03:58.430-04:00Online dating brings Americans together<p>From <i>The Week</i>: "Decades of research have shown that people tend to pair off with partners who are similar to them in terms of race, education, or religion, which often reinforces divisions between social groups. But a recent study suggests that the rise of online dating is breaking down some of those barriers.</p>
<p>"Americans in the survey who met through friends or school were the most likely to date someone similar to them. <b>Meeting online, however, was 'associated with more racial and ethnic mixing than any other venue.'"</b></p>
<p>Thank you, online dating! In this time when the media relentlessly focuses on the divisions between Americans - whether racial, economic, or political - it's good to see that under the surface some forces are secretly pushing back. And the result should be significant - <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/one-third-u-s-marriages-start-online-dating-study-article-1.1362743">it's estimated</a> that up to <b>one-third of all marriages today</b> are of people who met online. And, to top it off, these people tend to be<b> slightly happier </b>in their marriages.</p>
<p>Here's an example (it's me and my wife):</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_QcyZkAo154/V_AIflGXUpI/AAAAAAAABds/9ytrMUV_ZP8q8QCTqX5VHBoOtwxMTEugACLcB/s1600/wedding.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_QcyZkAo154/V_AIflGXUpI/AAAAAAAABds/9ytrMUV_ZP8q8QCTqX5VHBoOtwxMTEugACLcB/s400/wedding.PNG" width="400" height="370" /></a></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-35372201481351735902016-09-30T23:21:00.001-04:002016-09-30T23:21:49.006-04:00Incomes rise and poverty drops in the U.S.<p>I usually try not to put too much into short-term economic data, preferring long-term trends. But this news seems significant considering we are only a few years out from what was very nearly a second Depression.</p>
<p>The economy's slow improvement is finally showing clear dividends. The Census Bureau recently reported that 2015 was the first year since 2008 that the poverty rate fell significantly and incomes rose for most American households. According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/14/business/economy/us-census-household-income-poverty-wealth-2015.html">this article</a>, the "median household’s income in 2015 was $56,500, up 5.2 percent from the previous year — the largest single-year increase since record-keeping began in 1967."</p>
<p>Last year, 3.5 million Americans were able to lift themselves over the poverty line. That's a 1.2 percentage point decline in the poverty rate, the largest drop since 1999. That drops the poverty rate down to 13.5% of the population. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/business/economy/millions-in-us-climb-out-of-poverty-at-long-last.html">You can read more here</a>.</p>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-70175543282653151752016-08-31T23:33:00.002-04:002016-08-31T23:40:46.907-04:00Welcome to World Peace (well, half)<p>This week, the government of Columbia reached a peace treaty with FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, whom they had been fighting for 52 years. The end of any conflict is a milestone, but this one is exceptional:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>This ends the last war in the Western Hemisphere. Half the world is now free of war.</b> This does not mean there is not still violence, and crime, and strife, of course, but this is a milestone occurring for the first time in modern history ... and perhaps all of human history.</li>
<li>We should also consider that the Eastern Hemisphere is not completely war-torn, despite our daily headlines. Europe remains free of war. East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, Oceania - all war-free. In fact, all of the outright war in the world is localized in one large strip stretching from central Africa through the Middle East to Pakistan. Objectively, this is still a lot of war ... unless you compare it to any other point in human history.<br>
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kFEuuHMvvtA/V8eirPhTc4I/AAAAAAAABcI/oQD7NFYUoPYRibn_-kauzFhC-mynV1esACLcB/s1600/chart.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kFEuuHMvvtA/V8eirPhTc4I/AAAAAAAABcI/oQD7NFYUoPYRibn_-kauzFhC-mynV1esACLcB/s320/chart.png" width="320" height="159" /></a><br><i>source: <a href="https://medium.com/@angushervey/the-decline-of-war-8760f9a5b5ce#.tdz37bcrg">Angus Hervey</a></i>
</li>
<li>As the ever-reliable <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/opinion/colombias-milestone-in-world-peace.html?_r=0">Steven Pinker writes</a>, "Today, there are no military governments in the Americas. No countries are fighting one another. And no governments are battling major insurgencies. ... This progress of an entire hemisphere toward peace follows the path of other major regions of the world."</li>
<li>This war lasted <b>52 years</b>. This is older than 75% of our population. If a war like this, and a conflict like the one in Northern Ireland for example, can reach peace, then surely any conflict can. These are fights that people called intractable, for decades. Surely this must give renewed hope to other seemingly unsolvable conflicts, like India/Pakistan, Shia/Sunni, and particularly Israel/Palestine.</li>
<li>What's next? After we stop all wars in the world, can we move on to smaller forms of violence? Ending all terrorism? All gang war? All murder? All crime? ... Or, we can work on all those things at once, since all those trends are declining as well.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DpEdkvVqI5A/V8ehfivkiZI/AAAAAAAABcA/oLXKKTmZ2i4MP73e6pLrgO_3Rw_vfBZAACLcB/s1600/globe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DpEdkvVqI5A/V8ehfivkiZI/AAAAAAAABcA/oLXKKTmZ2i4MP73e6pLrgO_3Rw_vfBZAACLcB/s320/globe.jpg" width="320" height="256" /></a><br><i>There is no war visible in this photo.</i></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-44331105651224567322016-07-31T23:55:00.001-04:002016-07-31T23:57:08.346-04:00Oh, you know what else is fixed now? Color blindness.<p>A company named <a href="http://enchroma.com/">EnChroma</a> claims to have invented a pair of glasses that cures color blindness. The many videos of patients seeing the full range of color for the first time are extremely moving:<p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/R2_vq7IOsog?rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>I was a little skeptical, but it all seems to check out. You can read this <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/sethporges/2015/04/28/can-these-glasses-really-fix-color-blindness-we-put-them-to-the-test/#3fd845294d5a">Forbes article</a> in which the author tested the glasses.</p>
<p>The author leaves with the conclusion that these are a luxury item; expanding the browns he's always seen to more vibrant reds is not life-changing enough to justify the high cost of the glasses.</p>
<P>While that's probably a good assessment today, now that we've invented the technology, it's only a matter of time before the cost comes down. Not only that, but we could see this technology embedded in contact lenses or even expanded in other ways. Centuries ago, regular corrective glasses seemed like a luxury item; indeed, they still are in many parts of the world, but that area is shrinking. And contact lenses were much more indulgent when I was young, now they're more commonplace. I'm eager to see this technology spread in the coming years.</p>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-23593948552842551992016-06-15T21:51:00.001-04:002016-06-15T21:51:41.684-04:00100-Year-Old Runs Directly Into Your Heart<p>One of the underlying premises of my book <i>The Secret Peace</i>, one of the reasons why I felt it was needed, was that it's way too easy for all of us to rely on anecdotes and personal evidence when deciding to be optimists or pessimists. I wanted something that tallied tons of data, that looked beyond individual stories to see trends that our human brains are unfortunately designed to miss.</p>
<p>HOWEVER ... sometimes, you just need a good pick-me-up. This story here doesn't prove any larger trend about the world, other than that people are amazing. And sure, I guess that's the most important thing.</p>
<p>Read <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/at-100-still-running-for-her-life/?emc=eta1&_r=0">this article about New Yorker Ida Keeling</a>, and the hardships she has overcome, and how she found her passion for running again late in her life. And when we say late, we mean it. <b>Ida is 100 years old.</b></p>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-8453796461906080732016-05-15T01:40:00.002-04:002016-05-15T01:40:47.449-04:00Book Review: The Most Good You Can Do by Peter Singer<P>Effective altruism is the practice of donating money based on where it will do the most good in the world. Research shows that currently only a small amount of the world's charity is donated this way. Most people donate money based on emotional appeal (look at this photo of a sick child) or personal connection (their alma mater, a friend's fundraiser), and limited to their own locale or country.</p>
<P>The concept of effective altruism appeals to me a lot because it is like a turbo boost to the Secret Peace. The main thesis of my book is that the world slowly and inexorably gets better just due to people going about their lives, since most people contribute to civilization in some small way. If people were to <i>actively </i>try to make the world a better place - and of course many people do this - it would speed along this process. And if those people were able to focus their energy in the most effective way, on the world's most dire but solvable problems, well, then you get that turbo boost.</p>
<P>So, the more people that buy into effective altruism, the better. And it doesn't take a lot. It just means that whatever amount of money you normally donate to charity, try to donate it to the best places. There are organizations that rank charities (such as <a href="http://www.givewell.org/">GiveWell</a>) and can recommend the best ones. (Singer makes the good point that the frequent criteria "What % of your money is wasted on overhead?" is not as important as "Is our work actually effective?") And, if you don't already donate a good chunk of your income to charity, try to donate a little more. Because I can tell you, if you're reading this, there is definitely someone out there who needs it more than you.</p>
<P>Unfortunately, if the goal is to get more people to do this, I don't know that Singer's book is the one to do it. It's just not inspiring. It has a little more of a lecturing tone, sadly. My main concern with this book is not its noble intention, but that Singer's philosophical habit of arguing via anecdotes and hypothetical examples is contrary to the ethical altruists' aims of focusing on hard data.</p>
<P>Singer's focus on elevating animals to human status is also distracting in the book. I get that this is his famous thing, but it's just a separate issue. It's trying to do two things at once. I agree with his focus on empathy and a lot of his writing in this regard, such as the expanding circle, but here it's overreach.</p>
<P>I was hoping for more of a focus on comparing the different topics we could be spending resources on and ranking them. Instead, we get similar arguments for the main idea, repeated. The book is not structured well.</p>
<P>And while I agree with 90% of Singer's utilitarian leanings, I disagree that the logical end of the super effective altruist is taking a job you loathe or job that hurts others, just to make enough money to help <i>more </i>others. The ends can not justify the means. We have to approach the problem from both sides, and every part of our lives should be consistently ethical.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Chj8JZ3gjl8/VzgL1R8LD3I/AAAAAAAABQU/NEnCBcCPJf8IEkIho-KehybOcJQLZd_nACLcB/s1600/singer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Chj8JZ3gjl8/VzgL1R8LD3I/AAAAAAAABQU/NEnCBcCPJf8IEkIho-KehybOcJQLZd_nACLcB/s320/singer.jpg" /></a></div>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-82735956391138873912016-03-31T23:51:00.001-04:002016-03-31T23:53:38.518-04:00How many languages will you soon be able to speak?<p>In an <a href="http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/could-language-barrier-actually-fall-within-next-10-years">article on the great IFL Science</a>, David Arbesu talks about an area in which technology is quickly advancing: translation. He basically rebuts the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>'s Alec Ross, who argues that within a decade, we'll be able to talk to someone in a different language using small earpieces and microphones - and presumably an app on our phones. (I mentioned the leaps of progress we've made towards this direction in my book, too.) But Arbesu argues that this will never come to pass, for no matter how good computer translation might get, it will never quite pick up the ineffable nuance of human speech.</p>
<p>It's true that live translation is a tough problem that has vexed many and won't be easily overcome. But I have faith. Sure, computers will need to get semantically smarter, but they're headed in this direction. Have you tried <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_Lens">Word Lens</a>? It's an app that has been out for at least five years now, which translates written text live as you point your phone camera at things. It's particularly useful for reading signs when in another country (probably not while driving). It's clunky, but it works, and is there any way to imagine a world in which this technology does not improve?</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--zznGH33YCQ/Vv3wKHhIY8I/AAAAAAAABMg/68kKEOKDnW0dNRklyc-UXvbbmdMwtrb-A/s1600/wordlens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--zznGH33YCQ/Vv3wKHhIY8I/AAAAAAAABMg/68kKEOKDnW0dNRklyc-UXvbbmdMwtrb-A/s320/wordlens.jpg" /></a></div>
<P>I always regretted not becoming fluent in a second language. I wasn't able to muster the will to get far past rudimentary French and Spanish lessons. Of course, there are many benefits to learning other languages, but the petty part of me is looking forward to saying "See? I didn't need to do this! I told you so" on this one. I'm really looking forward to where this technology is going to go.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NC11Yn3jubU/Vv3wXDctJpI/AAAAAAAABMk/yY-09__HwjstevbVjkPogIzNPIf3wyGGQ/s1600/babel.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NC11Yn3jubU/Vv3wXDctJpI/AAAAAAAABMk/yY-09__HwjstevbVjkPogIzNPIf3wyGGQ/s200/babel.png" /></a></div>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-28855010440252647312016-02-29T22:49:00.002-05:002016-02-29T22:51:05.714-05:00Landmark Environmental Deal<p>I saw a video clip someone Facebooked recently showing how bad Beijing's smog is. It was a hyperbolic news segment that noted that "this is what an average day looks like here" while also mentioning at the end that they filmed on the record worst day of the year.</p>
<p>China has a real pollution problem, and it's terrible, but it doesn't worry me. That's a soluble problem. It's one we've solved before. As an Occupy Democrats post put it, "Woah! Think Beijing is smog-choked? Well NYC used to be just as bad. Many Americans have forgotten just how smoggy many of our cities were until Nixon signed the Clean Air Act in 1970. It took some time to really get off the ground, but its positive effects today are crystal clear."</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iJKaqDeEQjQ/Vnuv3Ql_gvI/AAAAAAAABCc/oPeVnhhPC_U/s1600/smog.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iJKaqDeEQjQ/Vnuv3Ql_gvI/AAAAAAAABCc/oPeVnhhPC_U/s400/smog.PNG" /></a></div>
<p>The people of China have been desperate to climb out of poverty, so they made a <i>choice </i>to sacrifice the environment in the short-term. Just like developed countries around the world, once their citizens acquire a certain amount of wealth, they will start to prioritize a cleaner environment, and then take the steps to make it happen. (This is, of course, a simplification. Not everyone in China was able to participate in that choice. It's a choice they've made as a society, and not a democratic one.)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/12/smog-photos-1970s-america">Here are some more photos of smoggy 1970s America.</a> </p>
<p>Of course, this argument only holds water if there are no long-term negative externalities to this much pollution. As we know now, there are, of course: 1) the pain and death directly caused by air pollution and 2) climate change.</p>
<p>The first point is terrible but needs to be compared to the pain and death caused by poverty. I haven't done that math, but again, economists would say that millions of people are <i>choosing </i>the former over the latter. They would rather have pollution than poverty. The alternative to pollution in China is not just beautiful blue skies and scenic rural landscapes. It's the poverty that comes with those, until the country is able to eventually afford to adjust its development in a cleaner direction.</p>
<p>The second point, climate change, we're finally starting to see some action on. That's why it was reassuring to see the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/world/europe/climate-change-accord-paris.html?_r=0">landmark Paris deal two months ago</a>. It's not the final step, but it's still a step in the right direction.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DBc0W_hl4QE/VnuxaFxIIaI/AAAAAAAABCo/y-oIVC2vido/s1600/climate2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DBc0W_hl4QE/VnuxaFxIIaI/AAAAAAAABCo/y-oIVC2vido/s400/climate2.PNG" /></a></div>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-78164563565827711842016-01-24T23:50:00.000-05:002016-01-29T23:51:59.385-05:00One round of Global Goals done, now it's time for the next<p>The reason that I called my book The <b><i>Secret </i></b>Peace is that while the world has been making unprecedented progress, many of us remain completely unaware of this transformation. As <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/opinion/nicholas-kristof-the-most-important-thing-and-its-almost-a-secret.html?_r=0">Nicholas Kristoff reports</a>:</p>
<blockquote>One survey found that two-thirds of Americans believed that the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has almost doubled over the last 20 years. Another 29 percent believed that the proportion had remained roughly the same.</blockquote>
<blockquote>That’s 95 percent of Americans — who are utterly wrong. In fact, the proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty hasn’t doubled or remained the same. It has fallen by more than half, from 35 percent in 1993 to 14 percent in 2011 (the most recent year for which figures are available from the World Bank).</blockquote>
<p>A big driver of this change has been the UN Millennium Development Goals, which helped focus aid efforts and countries' priorities to focus on what matters most. Each country had specific targets in eight different topic areas. This creates hundreds of individual goals, and not all of them were met. But, against seemingly-impossible odds, the majority were.</p>
<p>The world has agreed on a new set of goals, the Global Goals. These 17 goals are even more ambitious - but achievable. It's a good idea for us all to familiarize ourselves with them, to be aware of the progress most of the world is focusing on.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview/post-2015-development-agenda.html">Read more here.</a></p>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-24671973260103827392016-01-10T13:13:00.000-05:002016-01-13T21:20:08.661-05:00Progress in Southeast Asia<p>Two recent incredible developments in Southeast Asia. First, ten countries recently signed a pact to form a European-Union-style organization. The countries - Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam - have a population of over 600 million, which is more than the EU itself.</p>
<p>Obviously there are always pros and cons to such an arrangement, but history shows that closer economic ties between countries lead to more development and less conflict overall.</p>
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<p>In more immediate, concrete news, the military dictatorship in Myanmar was recently defeated in a fair election and seems due to concede power to a more democratic system. The <i>New York Times</i> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/world/asia/myanmar-elections-aung-san-suu-kyi.html?_r=0">reports</a>:</p>
<blockquote>The official results are still being tabulated, but all signs so far point to that rarest of things: an authoritarian government peacefully giving up power after what outside election monitors have deemed a credible vote.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Analysts and Myanmar’s citizens are still coming to grips with the results. But the outcome appears to stem from the simple fact that veneration for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was underestimated and the ruling party’s strength overestimated.</blockquote>
<blockquote>In the days before the elections, the ruling party organized large convoys of tractors to ride through the countryside. Thousands of farmers, wearing T-shirts given out by the party, chanted slogans and waved party flags. Wedding bands performed patriotic songs.</blockquote>
<blockquote>But that show of support was misleading. Many of the farmers said they had taken part in the rallies because they were paid, but when it came time to stamp their ballots, they voted for the National League for Democracy.</blockquote>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-47542206401972633092015-12-24T10:32:00.001-05:002015-12-24T10:32:39.198-05:00Everyday interactions<p>One of my friends posted this on Facebook recently and I thought it was very in the spirit of this blog:</p>
<blockquote>Last night while taking the "G" train in Brooklyn, I observed New Yorkers interacting with one another. There was a Japanese-American woman talking to her infant child in a pram and standing next to her were three smartly dressed business men. The men began to interact with the baby and appeared to be competing to see who would be the first to make the baby laugh. On the opposite side were four teenage girls laughing and talking about their afternoon school concert. When we reached the end of the subway line and everyone departed the subway car, I saw one of the teenage girls walk over to the mother with the baby to help her lift and carry the baby pram up a flight of stairs.</blockquote>
<blockquote>My experiences with New Yorkers are no different then my experiences with folks from anywhere else. In lieu of recent horrible remarks made about certain ethnic groups, I want to mention that the teenage girl and one of the business men were of Middle-Eastern descent.</blockquote>
<blockquote>After spending the day with my three month old grandson, it was delightful to watch the three handsomely dressed adult men trying to make a baby laugh in a loud subway car and heartwarming to see the teenager reach out to help carry a stranger's baby pram up a flight of stairs. There is so much goodness in the world.</blockquote>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-60099111028592200722015-12-22T18:05:00.001-05:002015-12-22T18:05:56.724-05:00What do you wish for this year?<p>The holiday season and New Year are the traditional time to re-examine what we want in our lives. When you're thinking about which gifts you want and what gifts to buy your loved ones, keep in mind that everyone's deep, core desires are basically the same - all around the earth.</P>
<p>Here's a heartwarming <i>Wait But Why</i> video that proves that point well.</p>
<iframe width="540" height="304" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aPzD4AOVT2U?rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Jesse Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04416451641028275034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-282093030582248215.post-89931003864564051522015-11-30T23:39:00.001-05:002015-12-22T18:05:27.626-05:00Are terrorists going to kill us all?<p>It's easy to be worried when shockingly dangerous events happen. From 2002 to today, an average of 31 Americans were killed by terrorists each year. Well sure, you say, I purposely excluded 2001. Ok fine, including 2001, it's an average of 270 Americans a year.</p>
<p>270 Americans a year sounds like a lot until you realize that:</p>
<ul><li>11,000 Americans are murdered by guns every year (excluding accidents and suicides)</li>
<li>33,000 Americans are killed in car accidents every year</li>
<li>38,000 Americans are killed by accidental poisoning every year</li>
<li>58,000 Americans die due to a diet too low in fruits and vegetables every year</li>
<li>90,000 Americans die due to alcohol every year</li>
<li>467,000 Americans die due to smoking every year.</li></ul>
<p>There needs to be a way to advocate for fewer resources to fight terrorism without sounding like an advocate for zero resources to fight terrorism. We should put up a fight proportionate to the problem. We should definitely have lots of money and teams of experts devoted to fighting terrorism, and we should have <strong>even more</strong> devoted to fighting, say, car accidents.</p>
<p>We also need news headlines that reflect, not distort, life's true risks. Not only is violence not likely to kill us, it's less likely <b>than it's ever been</b>.</p>
<p><b>So remember, the next time you see someone who you suspect may be a terrorist, play it safe by not accepting any cigarettes from them.</b></p>
<p>Here are some illuminating charts:</p>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeGFFmyHLP2Qi-4FCMvY2Dc5b3hwc3qIZyUTCtni2dDgW-US4jK9Q0YEGZv1BAHMA6_hT4p9qg7VtvwARMieUCKp7CaXW-xc4ZzK10RE5gAF4zofmT9cTtCj-sTBFNJQFmNOISyTpQghDt/s1600/causesdeath.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeGFFmyHLP2Qi-4FCMvY2Dc5b3hwc3qIZyUTCtni2dDgW-US4jK9Q0YEGZv1BAHMA6_hT4p9qg7VtvwARMieUCKp7CaXW-xc4ZzK10RE5gAF4zofmT9cTtCj-sTBFNJQFmNOISyTpQghDt/s400/causesdeath.png" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEcEAfwPnxK5ab273DiyCDoI1sN42XP79z5eV13WTEW_zyNbneXpttVYuemI5xbICxrUzLEV_ZEB-7pG36v0tA3U9agwibiYT7VDqdmBj-pmzIaBETAc8wg1aUINak_HdzJbcNCJePL7cT/s1600/deaths.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEcEAfwPnxK5ab273DiyCDoI1sN42XP79z5eV13WTEW_zyNbneXpttVYuemI5xbICxrUzLEV_ZEB-7pG36v0tA3U9agwibiYT7VDqdmBj-pmzIaBETAc8wg1aUINak_HdzJbcNCJePL7cT/s400/deaths.PNG" /></a></div>
<p>Sources / related articles:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/10/1/9437187/obama-guns-terrorism-deaths">Deaths from gun violence vs. deaths from terrorism, in one chart</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-things-most-likely-to-kill-you-in-one-infographic-2015-2?r=UK&IR=T">The things most likely to kill you in one infographic</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/smoking-high-blood-pressure-overweight-preventable-causes-death-us/">Smoking, high blood pressure and being overweight top three preventable causes of death in the U.S.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/the_world_is_not_falling_apart_the_trend_lines_reveal_an_increasingly_peaceful.html">The World Is Not Falling Apart</a></p>
Jesse Richardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04416451641028275034noreply@blogger.com0