Links, Tuesday 16th May

"In a study led by Raymond Mar, voracious readers of fiction were better than lighter consumers of fiction at making nuanced social judgments based on limited information—for example, deciphering complex emotions by looking at photographs of people’s eyes, and using subtle cues in videos of social interactions (such as guessing who was the child of the two adults in the video based on body language, tone of voice, and other nonverbal information). Heavy readers of expository nonfiction showed the opposite pattern, performing worse than lighter readers of nonfiction." Nautilus

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Gosh, I wonder how legit this is?

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What is this witchcraft? Could it be that housing costs in London are going... down?

"The average monthly rent in the capital dropped from £1,297 a year ago to £1,203 in March 2017... In March alone, typical rents in the capital fell 6%, it added."

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Interested to hear the view of other people training in/practicing/receiving counselling

"My gut reaction to the alert was skepticism—as it almost always is, to this day, when the program’s algorithms contradict my instincts. There must be a mistake in the software, I thought. June had repeatedly told me that therapy was helpful. At the beginning of our next session, I asked her how she was doing. Looking into the corner of the room, she replied that the skills I was teaching her were useful; but this time, I persisted: “I’m glad to hear the skills are helpful, but how are you doing?” June was silent for a while and shifted in her chair, clearly uncomfortable. I felt my own anxiety rise, and resisted the urge to change the subject. “Take your time,” I said. “There’s no rush.” After a period of silence, June looked me in the eye for perhaps the first time ever and said, “I’m sorry, but I think I’m worse. I just don’t want you to think it’s your fault; it’s mine. You’ve been really helpful.” June was deteriorating, but I never would have seen it without the program." Atlantic

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Interested to hear people's thoughts on this, as I can see the general point about not doing your politics through state (or university) authorities, but also thinking maybe it's sometimes necessary?

"Rather than using Halloween to educate the community about how victims of sexist and racist oppression may find certain costumes offensive, the Diversity Office instead issued a mechanical and lengthy checklist to guide the behavior of the campus community from above. What is most disturbing about this top-down approach is the assumption that university (or government) administrators should be the principal source of corrective action in matters that do not involve individual or institutional discrimination. In the last analysis, university administrations will prioritize the institution’s peace and reputation over ensuring racial and gender justice."

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I'm somewhat skeptical about all of these claims, and about the impact of micro-targeting generally. It may have changed the result of the Brexit referendum, given the small margin, but loads of other factors still got things to the point where it was so close. Worrying nevertheless

"This is Britain in 2017. A Britain that increasingly looks like a “managed” democracy. Paid for by a US billionaire. Using military-style technology. Delivered by Facebook. And enabled by us."

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This is actually a very good point, and not something I've seen addressed in the political philosophy literature

"I therefore think there is a sort of deflection that goes on with defenses of wealth. If we find it appalling that there are so many rich people in a time of need, we are asked to consider questions of acquisition rather than questions of retention. The retention question, after all, is much harder for a wealthy person to answer. It’s one thing to argue that you got rich legitimately. It’s another to explain why you feel justified in spending your wealth upon houses and sculptures rather than helping some struggling people pay their rent or paying off a bunch of student loans or saving thousands of people from dying of malaria. "

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This is actually a very useful distinction: segregated bike lines are good on high-speed roads with loads of car traffic, but actually make things *worse* on low-traffic, low-speed roads

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A detailed review of pretty much *all* the means currently available to us to prevent climate change. Some of the most important things we could be doing are: educating women and girls, providing family planning, phasing out hydrofluorcarbons in air conditioners, switching to plant-based diets.

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Interesting suggestion

"After polling people from 32 countries to learn how much they felt various feelings should be expressed openly, the authors found that emotional expressiveness was correlated with diversity. In other words, when there are a lot of immigrants around, you might have to smile more to build trust and cooperation, since you don’t all speak the same language." Atlantic

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How Prevent is enabling and spreading Islamophobia. Some truly shocking examples

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"Differentiation [between Israel and the occupied territories] creates an illusion of US castigation, but in reality it insulates Israel from answering for its actions in the occupied territories, by assuring that only settlements and not the government that creates them will suffer consequences for repeated violations of international law. Opponents of settlements and occupation, who would otherwise call for costs to be imposed on Israel, instead channel their energies into a distraction that creates headlines but has no chance of changing Israeli behaviour. It is in this sense that the policy of differentiation, of which Europeans and US liberals are quite proud, does not so much constitute pressure on Israel as serve as a substitute for it, thereby helping to prolong an occupation it is ostensibly meant to bring to an end." Guardian