Links, Wednesday 25th May

Psilocybin (magic mushrooms) show immense promise as a treatment for depression, but research is being hindered by utterly excessive regulatory hurdles: “It cost £1,500 to dose each person, when in a sane world it might cost £30.” Guardian

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Interesting piece, which you could interpret as representing a sort of "left-wing libertarianism". It argues that economic growth has come about through improvements in *cooperation* (as opposed to competition), and that this cooperation is supported by making sure that everyone is given the opportunity to cooperate, and also a stake in the eventual economic fruits of cooperation. This means access to basic rights and dignity, but also some measure of economic distribution.

Much to agree or disagree with, thoughts welcome.

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I do wonder about the value of yet another report like this. Any policy maker who has seriously looked at the issue must, by now, realise that taking in refugees (and any category of migrant, more broadly) is good for economic growth. Some of them choose to misrepresent that fact, but they are aware it is a fact. Immigration politics have nothing to do with economics and everything to do with racism (sometimes dog-whistled down to "cultural issues").

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Social mobility in most Western countries is much lower than official statistics would appear to indicate

"It's not unusual for the child of an economically successful professional to attend an elite educational institution and then move into an artistic or academic or nonprofit career or political career that might still involve traveling in elite circles but at a much lower salary level than his father's. If the professional's grandson then also attended an elite college and moved into a high-paying career in business and law, statistics would show a great deal of economic mobility while common sense would indicate three generations' worth of a high-status family."

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The Nigerian dominance of high-level scrabble, and the wisdom in playing shorter words.

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Trees 'sleep' at night

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Thoughts?

"Much better than attempting to judge who other people are is to simply stipulate that attendees identify as queer, or a woman, or femme (depending on your goal), and assume they know better than you who they are. We must remove ourselves as the judge of someone else’s gender, presentation, or sexuality and accept that they will seek out and go to spaces which match who they are. And, frankly, even if a small number of attendees are lying about their identity, these few folks will be held to the same standards of behavior as the rest of the attendees, and may ultimately learn more about how to move differently in the world." The Toast

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This is great, and functions more generally as a demolition of TERFs who describe themselves as "gender critical" while working relentlessly to police people's bodies and gender expression.

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Heh :D

Links, Tuesday 17 May

So here's a conundrum for the digital age. What colour emoji should a white person use? (I agree with the comment in the article that it feels weird to affirmatively choose the white one instead of the "Simpsons yellow" default). Maybe the fault is still in the way the choices are presented though?

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It's really fucking gross that people (disproportionately young, working class black men) in Washington state are still being arrested for selling cannabis - a substance that it is now completely legal to own. Even by the law's own logic, what they are doing is now simply a tax offence.

There's some good discussion in here also of the economics of black markets, and how clever tax policy can effectively drive them out. But this really raises the question again of what these aforementioned working class people who depend on selling cannabis are supposed to do when that happens? It's already been observed that the legalised cannabis industry is extremely white and setting up is usually dependent on having capital and the ability to navigate bureaucracy.

Just IMAGINE if the state offered support in the form of capital and training to low-level cannabis dealers working the black market who wanted to take their business legitimate. Imagine an approach to drug legalisation that actually took seriously the economic needs of the people who are currently making a living from selling drugs.

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Oh god, I just hurt myself from laughing so hard. Send help.

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This is incredibly important and the headline in fact understates the conclusions: Dieting not only fails to help people lose weight in the long term, but it actually *CAUSES* weight gain by altering our body's inbuilt system of weight regulation. Moreover, actual health outcomes are incredibly poorly correlated with being 'overweight' - it's far more important to exercise and eat healthy foods, which you can do at any weight.

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"In countries where abortions are legal on a woman’s request, 34 women in every 1,000 have one. In countries where abortions are always illegal or legal only if a woman’s life is in danger, 37 women in every 1,000 have one. The slight increase in rates where abortion is illegal may be due to these countries also tending to have more restricted access to contraception which increases conception rates." Independent

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*snickers*

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A potentially effective new treatment for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

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A really good example of how differences in pay are mostly driven by pure sexism... Athletes on the US national men's football team are paid *5 times* as much as the athletes on the women's team, despite the women winning more games, drawing more viewers and making more money for the federation.

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Guys, I just realised that I may be a mutant (two copies of the recessive version of the ABCC11 gene). People have commented that I don't seem to have much body odour, and my earwax seems to be 'dry' as far as I can tell.

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And now we know

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This story is incredible and kind of horrifying. The US came very class to instituting a universal basic income as far back as 1970, with wide support, under the guidance of president Nixon (!). And yet a wave of misinformation and anti-poor moralising killed the initiative. What a missed opportunity!

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South Africa is weird. Mass murderer attends a session at a literary festival where the authors are discussing his crimes. He ends up sitting next to the sister of one of his victims. He cries, she cries. She starts a conversation with him.

What do you all think of this bit?

"If you walk, talk and drink in the same space as Neil Barnaard, FW de Klerk, Pik Botha and their ilk, add Eugene de Kock to your list. He was their foot soldier. He took the proverbial bullet. Apartheid was prime evil; De Kock was simply its loyal servant. "

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"Tragically, the history of South African slavery has been all but forgotten. Few know that, upon landing at the Cape of Good Hope, slaves were stripped of everything — even their names. As property, many were renamed after the calendar month in which they arrived." Vimeo

Links, Tuesday 10th May

Incredible to see the structural changes in the US economy over the last 70 years - the rich do increasingly well out of economic upturns, everyone else gains less and less (and have actually lost out during the most recent).

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"The story of the spinach myth is itself apocryphal. It’s true that spinach isn’t really all that useful as a source of iron, and it’s true that people used to think it was. But all the rest is false: No one moved a decimal point in 1870; no mistake in data entry spurred Popeye to devote himself to spinach; no misguided rules of eating were implanted by the sailor strip. The story of the decimal point manages to recapitulate the very error that it means to highlight: a fake fact, but repeated so often (and with such sanctimony) that it takes on the sheen of truth." Five38

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"Last October, Uber published data from New York showing that even as driver numbers had doubled, and fares had fallen, “partners” were earning 6.3% more per hour than they were the year before... The only trouble with “Uber math” is how it feels to be part of the labour force that delivers it." Guardian

This reminds me a little of something I posted a while ago about management-via-AI... The problem isn't so much that it doesn't *work*, from a purely economic standpoint, but that it often feels profoundly alienating to be asked not to exercise autonomy or judgement.

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Really good that this is appearing in a high-profile publication like the New York Times. It's not a perfect article, and there's the usual attempt at 'balance, but I think actually just enough to hoist antis by their own petard. When presented in any sort of neutral way, it is very obvious that proponents of decriminalisation have the better side of the argument, and that does come through here.

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"Google is sufficiently confident about its technology that its staff have discussed launching a fully autonomous taxi service in Mountain View as soon as next year, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. The service may initially be restricted to Google employees, which might get around any legal and regulatory issues." FT

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There doesn't seem to be robust evidence that offering people more choices makes them less likely to make a decision, and there are many circumstances where it makes them *more* likely to make a decision.

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"Usually when I talk about oppression, I emphasize impact over intention – because no matter how well-meaning someone is, they can still cause harm. Maybe we should consider the same emphasis when we’re trying to stop oppression. Regardless of our intentions, sometimes the only impact of calling someone out is that we get to feel like we punished them for what they did wrong." Everyday Feminism

Links, Tuesday 3rd May

This may come across as a bit of petty trolling of pet owners, but I think it actually goes to something quite deep, i.e. that we humans so often like to pretend that the emotions of other animals aren't 'real' in the same way ours are. And that our feelings about a given situation somehow 'overwrite' whatever they're feeling about it. So hugging a dog (or stroking a cat) is framed as a lovely, warm experience for both parties, even if the animal is actually stressed and merely tolerating it.

(This, incidentally, is also the way that more privileged people are trained to think about the emotions of more marginalised people. Many authors have drawn attention to the ways in which objectification and subjugation in human society are patterned on our collective treatment of animals)

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"We found that spanking was associated with unintended detrimental outcomes and was not associated with more immediate or long-term compliance, which are parents' intended outcomes when they discipline their children," IFL Science

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Grim

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Surprise, surprise! UK immigration officials have been unlawfully deporting Eastern European women - many of them sex workers - since 2012.

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As a form of labour comes to be considered "women's work", pay and conditions tend to decrease. So it's no surprise that academics have been increasingly relegated to precarious adjunct roles as the proportion of women in academia (particular in the humanities) increases.

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So the Copyright Term Extension Act in the US is sometimes called the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act" because a) Disney lobbied intensively for it; and b) it maintains the character of Mickey Mouse as the exclusive intellectual property of Disney for some time to come.

Question: when was the last time you saw a film produced by the Disney Corporation in which Mickey Mouse was actually featured as a character? Would you say that Disney is making effective use of its exclusive control over this major piece of our common cultural heritage?

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This sounds about right to me

Links, Wednesday 27th April

I cannot think of a more comprehensive indictment of government policy in the democratic era :( :(

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:D

"The crew travelled in a Soyuz craft designed in the 60s. Once there, contact with Earth was limited to a few hours a day. Most disconcertingly, perhaps, the morning alarm was the same as the emergency siren. “You’d wake up unsure if it was time to get up or if you were leaking oxygen. It got us out of our sleeping bags pretty quick.”" Guardian

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If only multinational companies were so susceptible to shame...

"For five years, real-estate developer Prahul Sawant ignored government orders to pay his taxes. Then the drummers showed up, beating their instruments and demanding he cough up the cash. Neighbors leaned out windows and gawked. Within hours, a red-faced Mr. Sawant had written a $945 check to settle his long-standing arrears."

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*rant*

I get very annoyed at the way the terms "addict" and "addiction" are thrown around. These are *not* simply synonyms for dependency. We are ALL dependent on various things, for various reasons. If you live in a city without public transport infrastructure, you are dependent on access to car. Probably most of the people I know are, to a greater or lesser degree, dependent on alcohol to have a good time in certain sorts of social situations. If you are a human being (or a guinea pig) you are, uniquely among the mammals, dependent on a dietary source of vitamin C. Dependency, in itself, is neither good nor bad.

"Addiction" refers to a dependency that is, for one or another reason, socially stigmatised and possibly criminalised. To be labelled an "addict" is to be singled out for abuse, often at the hands of the state. But, just to reiterate, dependence on any given substance is, in itself, neither good nor bad.

So, while it does suck that you find yourself eating more sugar or playing more video games than you would like, you are not an "addict" because of this. And it's actually kind of offensive to appropriate a bit of terminology that is implicated in the oppression of incredibly marginalised people to describe your utterly different experience.

*end rant*

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Slapping my forehead so hard right now

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I predicted something much like this happen, playing with my toy bulldozers as a child

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Google Books gets the legal go-ahead to resume scanning!

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"He said [Robert] Moses didn’t want poor people, particularly poor people of color, to use Jones Beach, so they had legislation passed forbidding the use of buses on parkways.

Then he had this quote, and I can still hear him saying it to me. “Legislation can always be changed. It’s very hard to tear down a bridge once it’s up.” So he built 180 or 170 bridges too low for buses." Gothamist

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Good piece on the connections between feminism and vegetarianism, and how the vegetarian movement has increasingly succumbed to patriarchal ideas and messaging.

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:( :( :(

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"In fact, the consistent demand for products like soap on the illicit market can make it as good as stealing cash. Tide laundry detergent has widely been reported as a favorite target of drug gangs." Priceonomics

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Dinosaur feathers!

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"The state has capitulated. Ruling elites in rural areas have captured the state in their own ways, often working in tandem with capital and representatives of political parties at local, regional and national levels. The consequences are devastating for ordinary citizens: crumbling houses due to mining on their doorsteps to which they have never consented, revenue that should be going into community development funding lavish lifestyles for a few, and much more. Those who call for accountability pay the price." Groundup

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"You have to wonder, what was the reason for creating a new permit, when these people were already in possession of a permit in the first place. Well, join the dots and the picture becomes clearer. The Minister makes new regulations for new permits, VFS rakes in the cash, the Gupta’s and the Zuma’s laugh their way to the bank." Tourism Update

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So good :)

"Women’s politics should not – and, in my opinion, does not – revolve around defending the snaps women take of themselves on nights out. Yes, as a black woman, it can feel political to love my appearance in a world that constantly tells me to hate the way I look. However, the implication that my politics end there perpetuates the sexist idea that my appearance, and how much I care about it, can be a basis for dismissing the rest of what I have to say."

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So important

"The pour creates trust: here is a system that understands residents’ needs. This system loosens them from their drinking friends. It keeps them away from Listerine. Without the pour, they would stay outdoors, begging or stealing, in danger of losing their feet to frostbite. Indoors, they take their medicine, see their doctors and mental health workers, eat actual food, re-establish contact with their families. Giving free booze to homeless alcoholics sounds crazy. But it may be the key to helping them live a stable life." Guardian

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"Technology is a thing that men do. And as bodyhacking has become technology (which it wasn’t always) it’s become the realm of men." Fusion

Links, Sunday 17th April

Shameful

"in 2014 and the first half of 2015, the [South Africa] Department of Home Affairs turned down 81% of refugee applications, compared with the international average of 21%"

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Another political activist in South Africa has been assassinated D:

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Very difficult ethical case - deliberately stunting the growth of severely disabled children so that they can more easily be cared for at home. Any thoughts?

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*Applauds*

"Wikimedia and Facebook have given Angolans free access to their websites, but not to the rest of the internet. So, naturally, Angolans have started hiding pirated movies and music in Wikipedia articles and linking to them on closed Facebook groups, creating a totally free and clandestine file sharing network in a country where mobile internet data is extremely expensive."

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:D

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Increasing quinoa consumption in Europe and North America is actually good for people in quinoa-producing countries (which is kind of the commonsense view, despite warnings to the contrary)

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"He sets aside $10,000 per fellow for trips that are often the first time participants have left the state or the country. But fellows must agree to partner with someone they have either tried to kill or who attempted to kill them." Wash Post

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Nudges for doctors

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"If these kinds of relatively small countries were acting to undermine the integrity of the global pharmaceutical patent system, they would be stopped. But political elites in powerful countries allow them to undermine the integrity of the global corporate tax system — even when Ireland was desperately in need of bailout funds from the European Union, it was not forced to change its corporate tax system — largely because the wealthy and powerful want the global corporate tax system undermined." Vox

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Quite a balanced article on the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelics

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"One study out of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital in 1999 found that 6-month-old boys were more likely to show “facial expressions of anger, to fuss, to gesture to be picked up” and “tended to cry more than girls.”“Boys were also more socially oriented than girls,” the report said — more likely to look at their mother and “display facial expressions of joy.”... many boys, especially early and middle adolescents, develop deep, meaningful friendships, easily rivaling girls in their emotional honesty and intimacy.

But we socialize this vulnerability out of them. Once they reach ages 15 or 16, “they begin to sound like gender stereotypes... They start using phrases such as ‘no homo’ … and they tell us they don’t have time for their male friends, even though their desire for these relationships remains.” NY Times

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Would be interesting to see statistics about typical 'use effectiveness' (though there's also a notoriously large gap between ideal and actual use effectiveness with the pill, so it's worth comparing apples with apples)

"If it is practised perfectly, fertility awareness can be almost as effective as the pill at preventing pregnancy. In 2007, a group of German scientists published a multi-year study of 900 women in the Oxford-based, peer-reviewed journal Human Reproduction. They found that, under conditions of “perfect use,” only 0.6% of the patients practising FAM became pregnant over the course of a year." Guardian

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This will undoubtedly be the first commercial application for autonomous vehicles

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Civil asset confiscation creates really terrible incentives for the police and prosecutors, and is horribly unjust. People accused of crimes often lose far more money than they would in fines, yet there is no need to meet the burden of proof for criminal conviction.

"[Proceeds of Crime Act] often skews police priorities, incentivizing and targeting sex work premises that they see as easy hits to boost their resources rather than the small proportion where sex workers are at risk of harm or coercion,"

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Good overview of some of the discussions happening around the universal basic income in UK policy circles at the moment.

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"This paper studies the impact of the early adoption of one of the most important high-technology machines in history, the public mechanical clock, on long-run growth in Europe... We find significant growth rates between 1500 and 1700 in the range of 30 percentage points in early adoptor cities and areas." Stanford

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As pointed out by the amazing Laura of the ECP, this editorial from the Guardian is astonishing. Horrible as it is, I think it's nevertheless kind of useful to see this reasoning laid out explicitly.

The editorial basically acknowledges that sex workers have more or less unanimously called for decriminalisation, and that it's the best option for making sex work safer - kudos for being evidence-led, at least - but nevertheless rejects decriminalisation on the extremely vague grounds that sex work is "inherently exploitative". The imagined "we" who comprise the reading public are assumed to have a stake in the sexual decisions of certain people, and that "we" therefore have a legitimate right to interfere with those decisions, even against the will of the people concerned. We've seen this sort of reasoning before, in various configurations, although the precise convolutions needed to justify it changes over time.

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"A woman has no right to end a pregnancy, at any gestation, anywhere in the UK. A woman who does so without the permission of two doctors can go to prison, and a young mother from Durham is currently in jail for just that. Other countries do not imprison women for abortion. It’s time to ditch this anachronistic, paternalistic law, regulate abortion like all other healthcare procedures, and trust women with their own bodies." Guardian

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Heh, I cannot think of a more fitting tribute for Antonin Scalia than "ASSoL" :D

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The utter pointlessness of spending government money to destroy a crop that is totally harmless and also the only means of subsistence for desperately poor people.

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This is your brain on drugs (actually)

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Skimming is a useful skill, but true speed reading is basically not a thing

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“[There is] clear, credible and largely unchallenged evidence from the expert witnesses of wrongdoing at DSEI and compelling evidence that it took place in 2015," Independent