Why Letting Your Mind Wander Is Good For You
While it is certainly not inevitable that children lose their sense of wonder as they grow up, and while adults are in principle as capable of experiencing wonder as children, it is to be expected that, as the world becomes more and more familiar to children as they age, they will experience wonder less readily. – Psyche
Habemus Taoiseach: Ireland has a new government at last
Last Friday evening, as white smoke wafted from the chimney above Ireland’s parliament building, Leinster House in Dublin, the Ceann Comhairle (Speaker) came out onto the steps and announced to the assembled throng in Kildare Street, ‘Habemus Taoiseach’ (We have a prime minister). Continue reading
India Bans Chinese Social Media Apps
India has banned video-sharing social network TikTok and messaging platform WeChat along with 57 other Chinese developed apps over national security and privacy concerns, as tensions between the two countries continue to rise. – The Hollywood Reporter
This model forecast the US's current unrest a decade ago. It now says 'civil war'
'Collapse happens slowly and then very suddenly'
In fact, the present disorder was forecast as far back as 1991. In the book Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World, Professor Goldstone used an early version of his model to predict the rise of a leader similar to President Trump.
It came down to population changes, Professor Goldstone argued. The American population surged after World War II — the Boomer generation born in a time of relative peace and plenty. As this massive cohort aged and accrued wealth, they could make the country vulnerable to political crisis. But this would only happen, he wrote, if the elites did three things: tighten up the path to mobility to favour themselves and their children (like increasing the cost of university); dampen wage growth and claim a greater share of economic gains for themselves; and resist taxation so that government is starved of needed revenues.
As it turned out, this is exactly what would happen over the following three decades.
Hamilton Lessons The Big PictureEmployment won’t recover for a decade, CBO says Politico. Well, the Obama Alumni Association has form; the last time, it took a decade, too. For some definition of “recover.”
Pay cuts are becoming a defining feature of the coronavirus recession WaPo
The Fullest Look Yet at the Racial Inequity of Coronavirus NYT. Erasing class.
Generation Z Is Bearing the Economic Brunt of the Virus Bloomberg. Ditto.