How Austerity Kills – NYTimes.com

How Austerity Kills – NYTimes.com To test our hypothesis that austerity is deadly, we’ve analyzed data from other regions and eras. After the Soviet Union dissolved, in 1991, Russia’s economy collapsed. Poverty soared and life expectancy dropped, particularly among young, working-age men. But this did not occur everywhere in the former Soviet sphere. Russia, Kazakhstan [...]

Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class – Salon.com

Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class – Salon.com The interesting thing about it is that people advertise, “Oh, what an incredible life. She’s this incredibly lucky person who’s worked really hard.” And that’s all true. She’s in her 20s, and it’s great that she’s found this success, but what this success is that [...]

A conversation with Elon Musk

Google Search Terms Can Predict the Stock Market | Surprising Science

Google Search Terms Can Predict the Stock Market | Surprising Science The changes in the frequency of some of these words, it turns out, are very useful predictors of whether the market as a whole—in this case, the Dow Jones Industrial Average—will go down or up (the Dow is a broad index commonly considered a [...]

Bitcoins are About to Reinvent Banking in Africa | ICT Works

Bitcoins are About to Reinvent Banking in Africa | ICT Works Bitcoins, however, are uniquely portable. They are accepted around the world, instantly. BitInstant has opened 700,000 locations to buy Bitcoins across the US, Brazil and Russia. Adoption in China is spiking. BitcoinTrading.com has a list of several hundred online merchants that accept Bitcoins, and [...]

The Knowledge Economy’s Two Classes of Workers

Guest Post: The Knowledge Economy’s Two Classes of Workers | Zero Hedge So here’s my summary: Management only exists to compensate for its own poor hiring decisions. The Internet makes it easier to locate and then work with capable partners. Therefore, the need for management will shrink – at least for some types of businesses [...]

Why The Future Will Be Much Better Than You Think – Forbes

Why The Future Will Be Much Better Than You Think – Forbes Our next force is money—a lot of money—being spent in a very particular way. The high-tech revolution created an entirely new breed of wealthy techno-philanthropists who are using their fortunes to solve global, abundance-related challenges. Bill Gates is focused on eliminating malaria; Naveen Jain is crusading against [...]

In Praise of Idleness By Bertrand Russell (1932)

In Praise of Idleness By Bertrand Russell Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have [...]

A Town Without Poverty?: Canada’s only experiment in guaranteed income finally gets reckoning | The Dominion

A Town Without Poverty?: Canada’s only experiment in guaranteed income finally gets reckoning | The Dominion In the period that Mincome was administered, hospital visits dropped 8.5 per cent. Fewer people went to the hospital with work-related injuries and there were fewer emergency room visits from car accidents and domestic abuse. There were also far [...]

Better Than Human | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Better Than Human | Gadget Lab | Wired.com We have preconceptions about how an intelligent robot should look and act, and these can blind us to what is already happening around us. To demand that artificial intelligence be humanlike is the same flawed logic as demanding that artificial flying be birdlike, with flapping wings. Robots [...]