Change the Conversation

A unique Santa Fe tradition, the 88th burning of Zozobra or Old Man Gloom took place on September 6, 2012.

‘Zozobra,’ Mexican philosophers have some advice

Francisco Gallegos, Wake Forest University. Carlos Alberto Sánchez, San José State University. Ever had the feeling that you can’t make sense of what’s happening? One moment everything seems normal, then suddenly the frame shifts to reveal a world on fire, struggling with pandemic, recession, climate change and political upheaval. That’s “zozobra,” the peculiar form of anxiety that comes from being unable to settle into a single point of view, leaving you with questions like: Is it a lovely autumn day, or an alarming moment of converging historical catastrophes? As scholars of this phenomenon, we have noted how zozobra has spread in U.S. society in recent years, and we believe the insight of Mexican philosophers can be helpful to Americans during these tumultuous times. Ever since the conquest and colonization of the valley of Mexico by Hernán Cortés, Mexicans have had to cope with wave after wave of profound social and spiritual disruption – wars, rebellions, revolution, corruption, dictatorship and now the threat of becoming a narco-state. Mexican philosophers have had more than 500 years of uncertainty to reflect on, and they have important lessons to share. Zozobra and the wobbling of the world The word “zozobra” is an ordinary Spanish term for “anxiety” but with connotations that call to mind the wobbling of a ship about to capsize. The term emerged as a key concept among Mexican intellectuals in the early 20th century to describe the sense of having no stable ground and feeling out of place in the world. This feeling of zozobra is commonly experienced by people who visit or immigrate to a foreign country: the rhythms of life, the way people interact, everything just seems “off” – unfamiliar, disorienting and vaguely alienating. According to the philosopher Emilio Uranga (1921-1988), the telltale sign of zozobra is wobbling and toggling between perspectives, being unable to relax into a single framework to make sense of things. […]

Entitled:How Male Privilege Hurts Women

Kate Manne was dubbed “the philosopher of #MeToo” for her timely and widely read analysis of misogyny, 2017’s “Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny.” Now, Manne tackles male entitlement in her second book, “Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women.” The book was released Aug. 11. Manne, an associate professor of philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences, defines misogyny as the hostility women and girls face – the “law enforcement” branch of patriarchy, as she calls it – which serves to enforce gendered norms, even in supposedly post-patriarchal societies. In “Entitled,” she addresses the gendered norms and expectations that misogyny polices and enforces: how the resulting social dynamics constrain possibilities for people, and how boys and men unfairly benefit from this system. “While ‘Down Girl’ was a ‘crossover’ book, intended for both an academic and wider readership, ‘Entitled’ is squarely a trade book, aimed at a general readership,” said Manne. “I hope that people can get a basic grip on my views about misogyny and male entitlement by reading ‘Entitled,’ as well as some of the thoughts I’ve had since ‘Down Girl’ was published.” Under a framework of male entitlement, Manne argues, women are expected to give feminine goods (sex, care, nurturing and reproductive labor) while not taking masculine goods (power, authority and claims to knowledge). Within this system, women are deprived of entitlement to both feminine-coded and masculine-coded goods. “This results in inequalities that range from a woman not receiving adequate care for her pain, to her not being able to take up traditionally male positions of power, to her not being granted her rightful authority to speak about subjects in which she is expert,” Manne writes. In nine chapters, Manne elaborates on the many spheres in which male entitlement hurts women and girls. The entitlement to admiration that […]

The Inventor

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley depicts Theranos founder and former CEO Elizabeth Holmes as a bewitching sociopath. Holmes wanted to revolutionise health care by providing a simple and cheap way to perform blood tests using only a finger prick. In 2003, she founded Theranos, with a vision of the company’s machines in every home in America. But, as the Wall Street Journal’s John Carreyrou revealed in 2015, Holmes created an intricate web of deception. Even as machines found their way into chemists and were being used by medical insurance companies, they never actually worked. Holmes put patients’ lives at risk and cost investors millions of dollars. The documentary is compelling viewing, but as it enters a very slim field of movies about female entrepreneurs it is worth questioning the impact of the stories we choose to tell. Fall from grace The journey Holmes took from young idol to spectacular failure is a story about systemic issues and the sometimes toxic culture of the world of start-ups. Prior to the scandal breaking, Holmes was celebrated in the media. She was portrayed as a Stanford University dropout with a vision for changing the world. She raised hundreds of millions of dollars from powerful men in a start-up landscape known for its discriminating funding practices.https://www.youtube.com/embed/wtDaP18OGfw?wmode=transparent&start=0 She made the cover of Forbes magazine in 2014 as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. Holmes represented a heady mix of tech, science and business. She was the golden girl of the start-up world. This made her fall from grace even more spectacular. But compare Holmes’ portrayal with another well known example of a deceitful male entrepreneur: Jordan Belfort, the “wolf of Wall Street”. Belfort ran an elaborate crime scheme linked to manipulating the stock market and was jailed for 22 months for securities fraud. Nonetheless, his autobiography and Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film adaptation depict Belfort’s story […]

Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know: And Many Others You Will Find Interesting

by Marian L Tupy and Ronald Bailey Think the world is getting worse? You’re wrong: the world is, for the most part, not getting worse. But 58 percent of people in 17 countries that were surveyed in 2016 thought the world is either getting worse or staying the same rather than getting better. Americans were even more glum: 65 percent thought the world is getting worse and only 6 percent thought it was getting better. The uncontroversial data on major global trends in this book will persuade you that this dark view of the prospects for humanity and the natural world is, in large part, badly mistaken. World population will peak at 8 to 9 billion before the end of this century as the global fertility rate continues its fall from 6 children per woman in 1960 to the current rate of 2.4. The global absolute poverty rate has fallen from 42 percent in 1981 to 8.6 percent today. Satellite data show that forest area has been expanding since 1982. Natural resources are becoming ever cheaper and more abundant. Since 1900, the average life expectancy has more than doubled, reaching more than 72 years. Of course, major concerns such as climate change, marine plastic pollution, and declining wildlife populations are still with us, but many of these problems are already in the process of being ameliorated as a result of the favorable economic, social, and technological trends that are documented in this book. You can’t fix what is wrong in the world if you don’t know what’s actually happening. Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know is easily to understand providing entertaining access to surprising facts to know how the world is really faring.

Germany set to trial Universal Basic Income scheme

Starting this week, 120 Germans will receive a form of universal basic income every month for three years. The volunteers will get monthly payments of €1,200, or about $1,400, as part of a study testing a universal basic income. The study will compare the experiences of the 120 volunteers with 1,380 people who do not receive the payments. Supporters say it would reduce inequality and improve well-being, while opponents argue it would be too expensive and discourage work. Germany is about to become the latest country to trial a universal basic income, starting a three-year study of how it affects the economy and recipients’ well-being. As part of the study, 120 people will receive €1,200, or about $1,430, each month for three years — an amount just above Germany’s poverty line — and researchers will compare their experiences with another group of 1,380 people who will not receive the payments. The study, conducted by the German Institute for Economic Research, has been funded by 140,000 private donations. All participants will be asked to complete questionnaires about their lives, work, and emotional state to see whether a basic income has had a significant impact. Universal basic income is the idea that a government should pay a lump sum of money to each of its citizens, usually once a month, regardless of their income or employment status, effectively replacing means-tested benefits. Its proponents argue that it would reduce inequality and improve well-being by providing people more financial security. Its opponents say it would be too expensive and discourage people from going to work. The idea has gained traction in recent years amid financial crises and growing inequality in some Western countries. Jürgen Schupp, who is leading the study, told the German newspaper Der Spiegel that it would improve the debate about universal basic income […]

Jumpstarting a resilient economy

We are at a critical juncture in determining the future stability and health of the world’s economies. How businesses and governments choose to emerge from the Covid-19 crisis will either revert to the short-sighted economic practices of the past or accelerate the transition to a more sustainable, low-carbon economy that is more resilient and better equipped to mitigate and combat future crises. Although the pandemic has brought tremendous hardship, the leaders of today have been afforded a once-in-a-century opportunity to rebuild a better, smarter, more sustainable future. Covid-19 has exposed our fragility to global disruptions, yet the threats that lie ahead from climate change and human encroachment on natural ecosystems could produce shocks of even greater magnitude, spanning even longer time frames. The findings of a special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reads like a plot one might expect in a Hollywood movie, but are in fact clear projections of our current trajectory: the triggering of tipping points, resulting in widespread famine, the collapse of industries, and the displacement of millions of people. Rapid digitisation presents an opportunity to transform operational efficiencies. As with any complex and consequential problem, there is no single solution. In order to usher in a sustainable future for people, planet, and profit alike. We must not only invest public funding in greener technologies, but also match financial support with policies and practices that incentivize innovation and the adoption of efficiency-enabling technologies. Previous economic downturns have ended with a rebound in emissions. This time, we have the unique opportunity to decouple emissions from the resurgence of industry and transportation. For instance, market mechanisms, such as a price on carbon, use the power of the market to incentivize organisations to shift to cleaner technologies and away from fossil fuels, and encourage enterprises to adopt digital tools […]

Facebook and Google used to be the future of news

Given the recent commentary about the reforms proposed for the news media sector, you would be forgiven for thinking Google and Facebook are the only game in town. The planned reforms arose from last year’s Digital Platforms Inquiry by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which focused squarely on the corporate behaviour of these two tech behemoths. It is clear Google and Facebook will be the first platforms regulated under the draft mandatory code that will potentially force them to pay for content produced by Australian news media companies. The move is a response to what the ACCC describes as “a significant bargaining power imbalance […] between Australian news media businesses and Google and Facebook”. This idea that news companies are essentially stuck with Google and Facebook, for better or worse, is a common view. Yet while that might have been true a few years ago, media companies are realising there are other ways to cultivate readers, and there’s no need to be beholden to tech platforms that generate clicks but don’t want to pay for the privilege. In the mid-2010s, many news companies seemed to follow Facebook’s every move. When Facebook promoted video, the media invested in video. When it down-ranked clickbait headlines, content writers frantically altered their style to maintain their presence in the news feed. Newsrooms have had a similarly dependent (albeit less direct) relationship with Google. The focus on adapting to Google and Facebooks’s algorithms completely changed newsroom practices over the past decade, as journalists have weighed editorial considerations against audience metrics. Is this still the case? This dependency developed at a time when major platforms, particularly Facebook, were engaging substantially with the distribution of news. But in recent years this trend has declined, as governments have begun to regulate platforms in response to concerns over “fake news”. Facebook performed perhaps the most public pivot, changing its algorithm in January 2018 […]

Wandering in strange lands

From the acclaimed cultural critic and New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing comes this powerful story of her journey to understand her northern and southern roots, the Great Migration, and the displacement of black people across America. Between 1916 and 1970, six million black Americans left their rural homes in the South for jobs in cities in the North, West, and Midwest in a movement known as The Great Migration. But while this event transformed the complexion of America and provided black people with new economic opportunities, it also disconnected them from their roots, their land, and their sense of identity, argues Morgan Jerkins. In this fascinating and deeply personal exploration, she recreates her ancestors’ journeys across America, following the migratory routes they took from Georgia and South Carolina to Louisiana, Oklahoma, and California. Following in their footsteps, Jerkins seeks to understand not only her own past, but the lineage of an entire group of people who have been displaced, disenfranchised, and disrespected throughout our history. Through interviews, photos, and hundreds of pages of transcription, Jerkins braids the loose threads of her family’s oral histories, which she was able to trace back 300 years, with the insights and recollections of black people she met along the way—the tissue of black myths, customs, and blood that connect the bones of American history. Incisive and illuminating, Wandering in Strange Lands is a timely and enthralling look at America’s past and present, one family’s legacy, and a young black woman’s life, filtered through her sharp and curious eyes.

Resetting the way we teach science is vital for all our futures

COVID-19 has forced more than 1 billion students and youth out of school, triggering the world’s biggest educational technology (edtech) implementation in history, almost overnight. Schools and universities are scrambling to redesign their teaching and learning to allow for students of all ages to study from home. While this raises huge practical and logistic issues for students, teachers and parents (especially women), it opens up a world of opportunities to reimagine what learning looks like in the 21st century. The pressures that individuals, organisations and societies face in this crisis are accelerating the Fourth Industrial Revolution, blurring the boundaries between the physical, digital and biological worlds. Are our educational systems preparing students for a world driven by disruptive scientific and technological advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, clean energy, or quantum computing? Are we encouraging students to think critically about how science, technology and innovation can help address – or aggravate – economic, geopolitical, environmental or societal challenges? In many industries and countries, the most in-demand occupations or specialties did not exist 10 or even five years ago, and the pace of change is set to accelerate. Up to 65% of children entering school today will have a job that does not yet exist. Our educational systems around the world were failing before COVID-19 and will continue to fall behind unless we change the way we teach and learn science. Education can no longer be about transferring explicit knowledge across generations. According to the OECD 2030 Future of Education and Skills Project: “We need to replace old education standards with an educational framework that combines knowledge with the 21st century skills of creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration.” This won’t be achieved by simply moving classes from the chalkboard to a Zoom call, but radically transforming the way we teach and learn science and technology skills, from one-way content dissemination and memorisation […]

Viruses like SARS-CoV-2 may have been circulating in bats for decades

Research has concluded that the lineage from which SARS-CoV-2 came has been circulating among bats for decades. The researchers found that the virus which causes Covid-19 diverged from other bat viruses about 40-70 years ago. They warn SARS-CoV-2 is likely to include other viruses with the ability to infect humans. The lineage that gave rise to the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that is responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic, has been circulating in bats for decades, researchers report. They also warn it likely includes other viruses with the ability to infect humans. The discoveries, which researchers made by reconstructing the evolutionary history of SARS-CoV-2, have implications for the prevention of future pandemics stemming from this lineage. “Coronaviruses have genetic material that is highly recombinant, meaning different regions of the virus’s genome can be derived from multiple sources,” says Maciej Boni, associate professor of biology at Penn State. “This has made it difficult to reconstruct SARS-CoV-2’s origins. You have to identify all the regions that have been recombining and trace their histories.” A SARS-CoV-2 ‘family tree’ The team used three different bioinformatic approaches to identify and remove the recombinant regions within the SARS-CoV-2 genome. Next, they reconstructed phylogenetic histories for the non-recombinant regions and compared them to each other to see which specific viruses have been involved in recombination events in the past. They were able to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships between SARS-CoV-2 and its closest known bat and pangolin viruses. The researchers found that the lineage of viruses to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs diverged from other bat viruses about 40-70 years ago. Importantly, although SARS-CoV-2 is genetically similar (about 96%) to the RaTG13 coronavirus, which was sampled from a Rhinolophus affinis horseshoe bat in 2013 in Yunnan province, China, the team found that it diverged from RaTG13 a relatively long time ago, in […]

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