When people are paid by results their attitudes change

In reading about child motivation I have often come across the thesis that motivating children by means of rewards was not only not more effective, but might actually discourage them from the desired behaviour in general. But it is interesting to see that the same conclusion can apply to adults as well, and even more specifically, adults in the domain of economics, where rationality is still, even if bounded, largely assumed.

See full post HERE

The term sets the terms

Occupy language: the struggle over meaning - a good article by Dan Gillmor on how we need to be more aware of how the words used by media and politicians often convey inappropriate and manipulative connotations.

http://gu.com/p/33htv

Tax and Grover Norquist

"Grover Norquist hails victory after supercommittee deal fails"
article in the guardian : http://gu.com/p/33hha

There really is little hope for US politics if one party remains committed to a decades old pledge not to use one of the fundamental tools of governmental economic policy. While I can appreciate (but not agree with) that some Americans are passionate about smaller government, unless they advocate no government it is lunacy to restrict it in such a way. In changing (and serious) times how can historical existing tax policies be kept in place when might be no longer applicable, and if the only option is to cut them, which would happen in boom times, then how to adapt to bust times?

Of course principle is important in politics, and if republicans favour lower taxes that's their right, but absolutism , literally backed by a "pledge", has no place in a democracy, where  compromise is a necessity.

And of course I personally believe tax is a cornerstone of civil society. If taxes are low, or non-existent, then citizens feel less concerned with government, since impacts them less day to day, and governments then feel less accountable. No taxation without representation, and vice-versa. Taxis what binds a nation together , otherwise it really is as Margret Thatcher said, just a collection of individuals.

More needed, less planned...sounds familiar...

Rich nations 'give up' on new climate treaty until 2020

http://gu.com/p/33g4b

Given how much "the can" has been kicked down the road in the euro crisis, despite its immediate and palpable danger, hardly surprising that the climate can is also getting a good kicking, since even though more threatening (the warnings from the scientific community are ever more worrying, especially regarding the closing "window of opportunity" to make any impact), less tangible.

It seems that in world affairs, as in crime, humans are deterred not by the magnitude of the penalty, but how real they feel the danger of getting caught is, and climate change is too unreal in day to day life, yet....

Occupy : better not anti-capitalism

Some interesting points about how divergent and varied "capitalism" really is in different countries, and how being against its worse elements can be to promote its better ones. Occupy cannot be dismissed as merely "anti" :

Anti-capitalist? Too simple. Occupy can be the catalyst for a radical rethink | Ha-Joon Chang | Comment is free | The Guardian

The occupy movement as catalyst we

Anti-capitalist? Too simple. Occupy can be the catalyst for a radical rethink | Ha-Joon Chang | Comment is free | The Guardian

3D printing, throw away culture and home manufacturing

Could 3D printing end our throwaway culture (by allowing replacement parts to be made by the user even if the producer doesn't provide them)?

Beyond that, what does it mean for the future of manufacturing, given that the possibili ty of goods being "printed" at home? Could there be (distant) future where for simple goods you could buy & download the design and print off at home? And even perhaps using recycled old products of one's own?

Endless possibilities, and aleady impressive realities, as discussed in this article:

http://gu.com/p/33da8

if politicians aren't allowed to admit errors, how can they correct them

Jenni Russell's article about Theresa May's (UK minister) problems with admitting a mistake highlights something important and paradoxical about modern politics - the combination between wanting a human leader, but also an infallible one. As the power of the label 'flip-flopper' shows in the US, there is little that can do more damage to a politician's reputation than admitting a mistake, or performing a u-turn

the full article is  (here) and some comments of mine are in a separate post in the current affairs section here

To debate religion, we must first find out what people believe

 Julian Baggini is doing an interesting series of articles in the Guardian's CiF (comment is free) belief section, and this one raises a very important point, namely that a lot of debate invokes the kind of believer/non-believer out there, with very little empirical evidence to back it up. This raises the risk of stereotypes and anecdotes being treated as fact, and with movements being epitomised by their more vocal , radical (and hence less representative) members.

His full article is :  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/nov/14/debate-religion-what-people-believe?INTCMP=SRCH

The nocebo effect

Even a psychological silver lining has it's cloud; the free lunch of the placebo effect seems to be unfortunately mirrored in the fraudulent lunch cheque of the 'nocebo' whereby for example knowledge of possible side-effects might increase their occurrance. But what is the alternative, keeping patients in ignorance?  http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/nov/13/nocebo-pain-wellcome-trust-prize

The fall of Rome, and the rise of the technocrats...

Interesting article in the Observer on the backstory to Italy's current predicament :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/12/silvio-berlusconi-italy-change-rules

And, while it's hard to see the departure of Berlusconi as a blow to democracy, there is something slightly worrying about how the reigns of power seem to be falling into the hands of unelected officials. The only consolation is that it's better than elected populists I suppose, but I still am reminded of George Pompidou's quote:

"There are three roads to ruin; women, gambling and technicians.
The most pleasant is with women, the quickest is with gambling,
but the surest is with technicians"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/13/europe-rise-technocracy-editorial

 And (added 15 november) : http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/14/technocrats-europe-bad-politics-economics

Friends on the net, and on the brain

Am very interested in the psychology  behind modern technolgoy, and the developments, adaptations (or lack of) that will go with it. As part of the cross over generation, who can remember a time BC (Before always Connected) probably my age group is best placed to analyze it, since even if in the box now, we were once outside.
So will try to accumulate (and then comment on) articles such as the following :

From the Guardian today :
"A quarter of a century ago, before Facebook, back in the day when you had to be indoors to phone somebody, we had an average of three friends each. The study – by Time Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS for short, and I'd definitely like to be her friend, she sounds fun) defined friends as close confidantes, people to whom you can tell anything. And now, when we're Facebooked and Twittered up to our eyebrows, when we feel as if we've spent 40 days and nights in the desert after a half hour on the underground, how many friends do we have (expectant drumroll…)? Two. Not 857, after all. (And while we're here, "friended" is not really a verb.)"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/08/social-networking-close-friends


From Scientific American recently (although the link to social networking is really just correlative currently, not causative) :
 "A recent study showed that certain brain areas expand in people who have greater numbers of friends on Facebook. This was welcome news for online social network addicts, particularly teenagers : "Mom, I'm not just on Facebook; I'm doing my temporal lobe calisthenics."
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=your-brain-on-facebook&WT.mc_id=SA_CAT_SP_20111108

Monbiot on the 1%...and trickle down

One silver lining to the ongoing economic crisis is that equality, and the failure of 'trickle-down' models, is rising on the public agenda. More and more of what I read recently convinces me that this is perhaps the most important topic, if the world is to move into a true post-boom and bust phase.

So nothing particularly new in George Monbiot's latest column (here), but saying things that always need to be heard, for example :

Between 1947 and 1979, productivity in the US rose by 119%, while the income of the bottom fifth of the population rose by 122%. But from 1979 to 2009, productivity rose by 80%, while the income of the bottom fifth fell by 4%. In roughly the same period, the income of the top 1% rose by 270%.

Which shows that indeed something has been tricking down from the top onto the rest of society in the post-80s 'boom', but it wasn't wealth.

But before this is dismissed as standard leftwing moans about the fabled 'growth creators' (who just need to be left alone more to achieve such wonderous prosperity that there'll be more than enough to go around), there are 2 fundamental points to be bear in mind :

• at the end of the day, it is in everyone's, even those at the top's, self-interest to have a fully functioning society, which doesn't crash regularly or have extreme levels of internal conflict in between. This is not about pie-in-the-sky idealism, it is about pragmatic self-concern.
• there are more ways to achieve a balanced and equal economy than just tax re-distribution, as the case of Japan shows (high equality, relatively low amount of redistribution via tax).  Indeed even within the US, the states of Massachusettes and Vermont represent extremes of the level of tax-burden within the US, but both have similar levels of equality.

The point is that notions of economic equality are not just old politics in a new situation, they are fundamental to the new politics that is needed (from both left and right) to solve old and reoccurrent problems.

the rise of the right in Europe...

"The far right is on the rise across Europe as a new generation of young, web-based supporters embrace hardline nationalist and anti-immigrant groups, a study has revealed ahead of a meeting of politicians and academics in Brussels to examine the phenomenon."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/06/far-right-rise-europe-report

What is particularly depressing/annoying is the rise of the right among the young, and not simply for economic reasons. One would have hoped the young to be more idealistic, but unfortunately this means can follow malign ideologies as well.

I know for example the far right FPO in Austria gets over 30% of the youth vote, but just ~10% of the full vote. What is especially despicable is this would be a generation who has had it so much better than any other. Ignorance in bliss....

Ben Goldacre on 8 years of bad science

It's a pity Ben Goldacre is stopping his column  on dodgy science for a while, but he leaves us with a brief summary of what we need to watch out for   http://gu.com/p/336bv

Syria and Iran: the great game

Intriguing, but depressing, article by Alastair Crooke :
http://gu.com/p/3364q

The body politic

Since despite it's complexity, world politics is determined as much by the character of  leaders (even those who aren't characters), maybe is interesting to see their accidental expressions caught on camera

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/gallery/2011/nov/04/g20-euro

Though that said, who wouldn't be caught out with an odd expression at some stage when under the microscope 24/7...

India developing Thorium nuclear plants - real/false dawn in the East?

Many positive things in this article - a 'developing' country trying to take the lead in eco-technology, and of course the possibility of a 'safer' kind of nuclear power.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/01/india-thorium-nuclear-plant
And apart from that, a branching of nuclear development has to be a good thing, since from what I gather the history behind which nuclear reactors are most used currently is as much political as anything. For example it is claimed that promising research on Thorium was abandoned in the 50s and 60s in favour of uranium, partly because the technology supported nuclear weapon programs. And I also heard recently that even the style of reactor in Fukishima (which needed active cooling and would not shut itself down safely in case of problems) is predominant nowadays due to safer reactor designs being sidelined in the 60s.

BUT  - here is another article from earlier this year that claims Thorium is not as promising as it seems:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/23/thorium-nuclear-uranium
Still, hopefully India's efforts will at least cast some light on the real potential if any,given what seems to be the historically entrenched politics and propaganda in this industry.

Governments turn to hacking techniques for surveillance of citizens

While expected (and necessary) that government surveillance goes cyber, slightly unsettling to see it as such a burdgeoning private industry; and although having email hacked, or being spied on via your phone or computer webcam is no more a violation than the police searching your home and placing bugs, think reasonable to worry that the ease with which this can now be deployed might open the door to abuses (or at least excessive usage). Especially when read things like "the venture capital-backed company boasts that its technology can be used "country-wide" to monitor more than 100,000 targets simultaneously, and cannot be detected by anti-virus software" .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/nov/01/governments-hacking-techniques-surveillance

Did the UK reach "peak stuff" even before the recession?

Why is UK consumption falling since 2001, I.e. even during the booming noughties? Does this suggest growth is actually compatible with less consumption?
Some interesting stats and points raised in this article:
http://gu.com/p/332m3