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Tuesday, May 21, 2019

The tyranny of ideas


Why didn't he join them, the former Essex postgraduates, who fled Britain?, W. wonders. Why did he stay behind? W. remembers a Kafka parable. - 'Where are you riding to, Master?', the servant asks. - 'I don't know. Away-From-Here, that's my destination'.
Away-From-Here: that's where the Essex postgraduates went. Away-From-Britain. That's where he should have gone, W. says: Away-From-Britain. He should have stayed overseas after his studies.
-I K

 The tyranny of ideas


No, corporate tax avoidance is not ‘legal’




A worker sorts potatoes at a market in Karachi, Pakistan. (epa-EFE/Shahzaib Akber)
New York Magazine – Intelligencer: “Jared Diamond’s new book,Upheaval, addresses itself to a world very obviously in crisis, and tries to lift some lessons for what do about it from the distant past. In that way, it’s not so different from all the other books that have made the UCLA geographer a sort of don of “big think” history and a perennial favorite of people like Steven Pinker and Bill Gates…Today, the risk that we’re facing is not of societies collapsing one by one, but because of globalization, the risk we are facing is of the collapse of the whole world.,..

I would estimate the chances are about 49 percent that the world as we know it will collapse by about 2050. I’ll be dead by then but my kids will be, what? Sixty-three years old in 2050. So this is a subject of much practical interest to me. At the rate we’re going now, resources that are essential for complex societies are being managed unsustainably. Fisheries around the world, most fisheries are being managed unsustainably, and they’re getting depleted. Farms around the world, most farms are being managed unsustainably. Soil, topsoil around the world. Fresh water around the world is being managed unsustainably. With all these things, at the rate we’re going now, we can carry on with our present unsustainable use for a few decades, and by around 2050 we won’t be able to continue it any longer. Which means that by 2050 either we’ve figured out a sustainable course, or it’ll be too late…”

 EveryCRSReport.com – Terrorism, Violent Extremism, and the Internet: Free Speech Considerations, May 6, 2019 R45713: “Recent acts of terrorism and hate crimes have prompted a renewed focus on the possible links between internet content and offline violence. While some have focused on the role that social media companies play in moderating user-generated content, others have called for Congress to pass laws regulating online content promoting terrorism or violence. Proposals related to government action of this nature raise significant free speech questions, including (1) the reach of the First Amendment’s protections when it comes to foreign nationals posting online content from abroad; (2) the scope of so-called “unprotected” categories of speech developed long before the advent of the internet; and (3) the judicial standards that limit how the government can craft or enforce laws to preserve national security and prevent violence.




Toll rises at triple rate of inflation spark calls for major rethink
Assessing Tolls
Why books don’t work, and why lectures don’t work.  Recommended

Got an industry super fund? You've benefited from a Cayman trust



150 000 litres of fake extra virgin olive oil seized from ‘well-oiled’ gang


Experts from Europol’s Intellectual Property Crime Coordinated Coalition - IPC3 supported the Italian Carabinieri and the Tribunal of Darmstadt in Germany, in the arrest of 20 individuals and the seizure of 150 000 litres of fake olive oil. The criminals, who raked in up to € 8 million every year in criminal profit, modified the colour of low quality oils to sell them on the Italian and German markets as extra virgin olive oil.

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