Science

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Dare we hope? Here’s my cautious case for climate optimism | Rebecca Solnit

      by

      That we are living in science fiction was brought home to me last week when I put down Kim Stanley Robinson’s superb climate-futures novel The Ministry for the Future and picked up Bill McKibben’s New Yorker letter on climate, warning of the melting of the Thwaites Glacier, “already known as the ‘doomsday glacier’ because its collapse could raise global sea levels by as much as three feet”. Where we are now would have seemed like science fiction itself 20 years ago; where we need to be will take us deeper into that territory.Three things matter for climate chaos and our response to it – the science reporting on current and potential conditions, the technology offering solutions, and the organizing which is shifting perspectives and policy. Each is advancing rapidly. The science mostly gives us terrifying news of more melting, more storms, more droughts, more fires, more famines. But the technological solutions and the success of the organizing to address this largest of all crises have likewise grown by leaps and bounds. For example, ideas put forth in the Green New Deal in 2019, seen as radical at the time, are now the kind of stuff President Biden routinely proposes in his infrastructure and jobs plans.It’s not easy to see all the changes – you have to be a wonk to follow the details on new battery storage solutions or the growth of solar power in cheapness, proliferation, efficiency and possibility, or new understanding about agriculture and soil management to enhance carbon sequestration. You have to be a policy nerd to keep track of the countless new initiatives around the world. They include, recently, the UK committing to end overseas fossil fuel finance in December, the EU in January deciding to “discourage all further investments into fossil-fuel-based energy infrastructure projects in third countries”, and the US making a less comprehensive but meaningful effort this spring to curtail funding for overseas extraction. In April, oil-rich California made a commitment to end fossil fuel extraction altogether – if by a too-generous deadline. A lot of these policies have been deemed both good and not good enough. They do not get us to where we need to be, but they lay the foundation for further shifts, and like the Green New Deal many of them seemed unlikely a few years ago.We have crossed barriers that seemed insurmountable at the end of the last millenniumThe US itself has, of course, made a huge U-turn with a presidency that has begun by undoing much of what the previous administration did, reregulating what was deregulated, restarting support for research, and rejoining the Paris climate accords. The Biden administration is regularly doing things that would have been all but inconceivable in previous administrations, and while it deserves credit, more credit should go to the organizers who have redefined what is necessary, reasonable and possible. Both technologically and politically far more is possible. There are so many moving parts. The dire straits of the fossil fuel industry is one of them – as the climate journalist Antonia Juhasz put it recently: “The end of oil is near.”The organization Carbon Tracker, whose reports are usually somber reading, just put out a report so stunning the word encouraging is hardly adequate. In sum, current technology could produce a hundred times as much electricity from solar and wind as current global demand; prices on solar continue to drop rapidly and dramatically; and the land required to produce all this energy would take less than is currently given over to fossil fuels. It is a vision of a completely different planet, because if you change how we produce energy you change our geopolitics – for the better – and clean our air and renew our future. The report concludes: “The technical and economic barriers have been crossed and the only impediment to change is political.” Those barriers seemed insurmountable at the end of the last millennium.One of the things that’s long been curious about this crisis is that the amateurs and newcomers tend to be more alarmist and defeatist than the insiders and experts. What the climate journalist Emily Atkin calls “first-time climate dudes” put forth long, breathless magazine articles, bestselling books and films announcing that it’s too late and we’re doomed, which is another way to say we don’t have to do a damned thing, which is a way to undermine the people who are doing those things and those who might be moved to do them.The climate scientist Michael Mann takes these people on – he calls them inactivists and doomists – in his recent book The New Climate Wars, which describes the defeatism that has succeeded outright climate denial as the great obstacle to addressing the crisis. He echoes what Carbon Tracker asserted, writing: “The solution is already here. We just need to deploy it rapidly and at a massive scale. It all comes down to political will and economic incentives.” The climate scientist Diana Liverman shares Mann’s frustration. She was part of the international team of scientists who authored the 2018 “hothouse Earth” study whose conclusions were boiled down, by the media, into “we have 12 years”.The report, she regularly points out, also described what we can and must do “to steer the Earth System away from a potential threshold and stabilize it in a habitable interglacial-like state. Such action entails stewardship of the entire Earth System – biosphere, climate, and societies – and could include decarbonization of the global economy, enhancement of biosphere carbon sinks, behavioral changes, technological innovations, new governance arrangements, and transformed social values.” It was a warning but also a promise that if we did what science tells us we must, we would not preserve the current order but form a better one.Another expert voice for hope is Christiana Figueres, who as executive secretary of the United Nations framework convention on climate change negotiated the Paris climate accords in 2015. As she recently declared: “This decade is a moment of choice unlike any we have ever lived. All of us alive right now share that responsibility and that opportunity. The optimism I’m speaking of is not the result of an achievement, it is the necessary input to meeting a challenge. Many now believe it is impossible to cut global emissions in half in this decade. I say, we don’t have the right to give up or let up.” She speaks of how impossible a treaty like the one she negotiated seemed after the shambles at the end of the 2009 Copenhagen meeting.Each shift makes more shifts possible. But only if we go actively toward the possibilities rather than passively into the collapseThe visionary organizer adrienne maree brown wrote not long ago: “I believe that all organizing is science fiction – that we are shaping the future we long for and have not yet experienced. I believe that we are in an imagination battle …” All these voices have taken the side of hope in the imagination battle, offering choices and possibilities and the responsibilities that come with those things, as does the actual science fiction in The Ministry for the Future, which takes a turn for the utopian by the end. When I began reading it, apocalyptic news seemed to chime in with the novel. But as I finished it I ran across stories about Scotland’s plans to rewild much of its land, which could have come from the book. And I saw the astonishing news that on the afternoon of Saturday 24 April, California got more than 90% of its energy from renewables.That we cannot see all the way to the transformed society we need does not mean it is impossible. We will reach it by not one great leap but a long journey, step by step. If we see how impossible our current reality might have seemed 20 years ago – that solar would be so cheap, that Scotland would get 97% of its electricity from renewables, that fossil fuel corporations would be in freefall – we can trust that we could be moving toward an even more transformed and transformative future, and that it is not a set destination but, for better or worse, what we are making up as we go. Each shift makes more shifts possible. But only if we go actively toward the possibilities rather than passively into the collapse. More

    • 213 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      In space, no one will hear Bezos and Musk’s workers call for basic rights | Robert Reich

      by

      Elon Musk’s SpaceX just won a $2.9bn Nasa contract to land astronauts on the moon, beating out Jeff Bezos.The money isn’t a big deal for either of them. Musk is worth $179.7bn. Bezos, $197.8bn. Together, that’s almost as much as the bottom 40% of Americans combined.And the moon is only their stepping stone.Musk says SpaceX will land humans on Mars by 2026 and wants to establish a colony by 2050. Its purpose, he says, will be to ensure the survival of our species.“If we make life multi-planetary, there may come a day when some plants and animals die out on Earth but are still alive on Mars,” he tweeted.Bezos is also aiming to build extraterrestrial colonies, but in space rather than on Mars. He envisions “very large structures, miles on end” that will “hold a million people or more each”.Back on our home planet, Musk is building electric cars, which will help the environment. And Bezos is allowing us to shop from home, which might save a bit on gas and thereby also help the environment.But Musk and Bezos are treating their workers like, well, dirt.Most workers won’t be able to escape into outer space. A few billionaires are already lining upLast spring, after calling government stay-at-home orders “fascist” and tweeting “FREE AMERICA NOW”, Musk reopened his Tesla factory in Fremont, California before health officials said it was safe to do so. Almost immediately, 10 workers came down with the virus. As cases mounted, Musk fired workers who took unpaid leave. Seven months later, at least 450 Tesla workers had been infected.Musk’s production assistants, as they’re called, earn $19 an hour – hardly enough to afford rent and other costs of living in northern California. Musk is virulently anti-union. A few weeks ago, the National Labor Relations Board found that Tesla illegally interrogated workers over suspected efforts to form a union, fired one and disciplined another for union-related activities, threatened workers if they unionized and barred employees from communicating with the media.Bezos isn’t treating his earthling employees much better. His warehouses impose strict production quotas and subject workers to seemingly arbitrary firings, total surveillance and 10-hour workdays with only two half-hour breaks – often not enough time to get to a bathroom and back. Bezos boasts that his workers get $15 an hour but that comes to about $31,000 a year for a full-time worker, less than half the US median family income. And no paid sick leave.Bezos has fired at least two employees who publicly complained about lack of protective equipment during the pandemic. To thwart the recent union drive in Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon required workers to attend anti-union meetings, warned they’d have to pay union dues (untrue – Alabama is a “right-to-work” state), and threatened them with lost pay and benefits.Musk and Bezos are the richest people in America and their companies are among the country’s fastest growing. They thereby exert huge influence on how other chief executives understand their obligations to employees.The gap between the compensation of CEOs and average workers is already at a record high. They inhabit different worlds.If Musk and Bezos achieve their extraterrestrial aims, these worlds could be literally different. Most workers won’t be able to escape into outer space. A few billionaires are already lining up.The super-rich have always found means of escaping the perils of everyday life. During the plagues of the 17th century, European aristocrats decamped to their country estates. During the 2020 pandemic, wealthy Americans headed to the Hamptons, their ranches in Wyoming or their yachts.The rich have also found ways to protect themselves from the rest of humanity – in fortified castles, on hillsides safely above smoke and sewage, in grand mansions far from the madding crowds. Some of today’s super rich have created doomsday bunkers in case of nuclear war or social strife.But as earthly hazards grow – not just environmental menaces but also social instability related to growing inequality – escape will become more difficult. Bunkers won’t suffice. Not even space colonies can be counted on.I’m grateful to Musk for making electric cars and to Bezos for making it easy to order stuff online. But I wish they’d set better examples for protecting and lifting the people who do the work.It’s understandable that the super wealthy might wish to escape the gravitational pull of the rest of us. But there’s really no escape. If they’re serious about survival of the species, they need to act more responsibly toward working people here on terra firma. More

    • 88 Shares119 Views

      in World Politics

      Bill Gates and the Zero-Sum Vaccination Game

      by

      The debate is raging once again about the true origin of COVID-19. Was it zoonotic, originating in a bat cave and then infecting exotic meat in Wuhan’s wet market as the majority of scientists claimed throughout 2020? At the approach of the November election, US President Donald Trump preferred to believe the pandemic was a plot to destroy his presidency conducted by a man he previously called an intimate “friend,” China’s President Xi Jinping. The virus was already spreading when Trump explained to World Economic Forum in Davos the nature of his relationship with Xi: “He’s for China, I’m for the US, but other than that, we love each other.”

      Four months later, Trump began contradicting scientists and blaming Xi’s China by claiming “that the virus originated in a laboratory and was accidentally released.” In September, he preferred to suggest to his voters that COVID-19 was the result of an Asian conspiracy designed to undermine his presidency. This sparked a wave of anti-Asian attacks in the US that have continued to this day.

      Prominent scientists today recognize that Trump’s initial assessment may have been right. Their colleagues who dismissed the idea of an accidental release of the virus from a Wuhan laboratory were either misled or disingenuously defensive of an equally unproven thesis. The scientists may have been impelled to reject the suspicion of a laboratory accident not only out of a lack of direct evidence, but also out of fear of the political blame game the president was beginning to exploit to distract attention from his own failure to respond appropriately to the crisis.

      Trump obviously preferred to see the war against a virus as a PR opportunity to bolster his image as a fearless leader. Allowing politicians to place blame on China, even for an accident, might have become as dangerous for the world as the virus itself, adding to the reigning misery rather than resolving the mystery of the origin of the disease.

      Wealth Inequality Breeds Health Inequality

      READ MORE

      Science itself and its public image have taken a hit from this ongoing catastrophe. The honored, if not revered Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted to prioritizing the distribution of masks among the medical community above the general public at a time when little was still known about how contagious COVID-19 was and how it spread. Political leaders across the globe, including Trump, all found themselves in a thankless position as they were required to demonstrate their leadership with insufficient knowledge of the nature of the challenge and a penury of material means to confront it.

      Many deserve to share the blame for a situation that, despite progress with vaccines, is still in many ways worsening. But, as Alexander Zaitchik exposes in an important article in The New Republic, the person perhaps most to blame for our global failure to respond effectively is neither a scientist nor a politician. His name is Bill Gates.

      Most rational people would reason that a global crisis requires a global response. Most realists recognize that in a civilization dominated by sovereign nation-states, summoning a unified response to any global crisis will never be easy. Humanity’s quasi-universal awareness of the problem of global warming over the decades demonstrates the difficulty of mobilizing humankind to implement even a minimalist response.

      In his article, “How Bill Gates Impeded Global Access to Covid Vaccines,” Zaitchik narrates a depressing story that began in February 2020, when the nature of the COVID-19 threat had become clear. In conformity with its mission, the World Health Organization (WHO) coordinated a “research and innovation forum to mobilize international action” aimed at combating the spreading epidemic. It sought to “maintain broad and open channels of communication, since collaboration and information-sharing minimize duplication and accelerate discovery.”

      Collaboration and sharing of science would be critical to any effective response. With most research publicly funded — a point Mariana Mazzucato made this week — it specifically recommended patent pooling. Zaitchik notes that optimism was still possible: “Battle-scarred veterans of the medicines-access and open-science movements hoped the immensity of the pandemic would override a global drug system based on proprietary science and market monopolies.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Proprietary science:

      An oxymoron to the extent that “science” simply means human knowledge and cannot be owned or commodified.

      Contextual Note

      The WHO was thus prepared to play the role assigned to its mission as stated in its constitution: “The health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent upon the fullest co-operation of individuals and States.” Aware of the challenge lying ahead of them, the team began to prepare its campaign. Alas, it hadn’t counted on the intervention of the globe’s self-appointed Mr. World Health, Bill Gates, whose title derives from his contributing billions of dollars to the causes he believes in (the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested $1.75 billion in the development and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine). Among them is the most sacred of all causes: intellectual property. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      Zaitchik describes in detail how Gates — a man with no skills in science, security or politics — has positioned himself to dictate to the world how contemporary science will affect every human being’s security. The key, following the logic of all capitalistic projects, is the management of scarcity. Without scarcity, industry cannot survive and prosper. Little does it matter that because of scarcity many humans simply will not survive.

      Before Gates’s intervention, the group sought “to create a voluntary intellectual property pool inside the WHO.” In so doing, they demonstrated their naivety: “That pharmaceutical companies and their allied governments would allow intellectual property concerns to slow things down — from research and development to manufacturing scale-up — does not seem to have occurred to them.” But that is exactly what happened, thanks to Gates’s overpowering voice (measured by billions of dollars rather than decibels) and his “reputation as a wise, beneficent, and prophetic leader.” When the dust cleared, what emerged was “a zero-sum vaccination battle that has left much of the world on the losing side.”

      Zaitchik documents the ensuing catastrophe due largely to “Gates’s dedication to monopoly medicine” and his “unwavering commitment to drug companies’ right to exclusive control over medical science and the markets for its products.” No one other than powerful governments can hope to compete with Gates’s cash reserves. But Gates’s own government, in Washington, DC, — whether under a Democrat or a Republican president — would never compete as a matter of principle. Competition is a private game. No other government in the world has the power to compete. The US government, like Gates himself, appears addicted to “politically constructed and politically imposed monopolies.”

      Historical Note

      The egregious oxymoron “proprietary science” would have seemed strange to the ears of anyone living before the industrial revolution. Were he alive today and imbued with modern economic culture, the 15th-century German printer, Johannes Gutenberg, would be claiming a percentage of every book, journal or magazine produced thanks to his invention of the printing press. Instead, Adolph II of Nassau, Archbishop of Maintz rewarded Gutenburg — the Bill Gates or Elon Musk of his day — for his innovation “with the title of ‘Gentleman of the Court’.” He also received “a court outfit, a stipend and two tonnes of grain and wine, tax-free.” The wine can be explained by the fact that Gutenberg’s inspiration for the printing press came from observing a wine press.

      Gates deserves to be similarly honored for his invention of MS-DOS. Rather than the billions extracted from the Earth’s entire population thanks to his skill at monopoly creation and predatory business practices, he should have received from the governor of the state of Washington an appropriate title (“Gentleman of the coding room”), a flashy suit of clothes with a matching raincoat (for Seattle weather), a generous stipend (a million of two per year would be appropriate) and maybe an unlimited supply of canned foods, since he is a believer in and expert practitioner of canned economic and scientific wisdom.

      As many of the rest of us queue up for one of the competing vaccines that promise to bail us all out — despite their disparities in performance adding to the confusion created by the incompetence of competitive governments — we should reflect on what all this tells us about an economic system whose vaunted efficiency Gates believes in and practices while using his money and clout to impose it on an unwilling world.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in World Politics

      Science’s Problem With Money, Media and Politics

      by

      In a fascinating interview with The Guardian’s Andrew Anthony, media-friendly physicist Michio Kaku reveals more than he may have intended about both science and politics when he explains how political funding of the science of fundamental research takes place today. The champion of string theory complains about the difficulty scientists have as they set out to solve the biggest theoretical questions about the origin and structure of the universe due to the incomprehension of prominent politicians. He describes the fate of a plan 30 years ago to build an installation even “bigger than the Large Hadron Collider,” currently the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, which the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) launched in 2008.

      The Loneliness of Matt Gaetz

      READ MORE

      Kaku recounts what he refers to as “a big shock in the 1990s when we physicists proposed the super collider.” The scientists saw it as a chance for the United States to take a commanding lead in the realm of experimental particle physics. With the Cold War over, astute politicians might have viewed it as an important element of what Joseph Nye calls “soft power,” an essential element of diplomacy and influence for any nation intending to exercise global leadership. The richest country in the history of the world, with no ideological or economic rival to challenge its hegemony, could certainly have afforded to support the advance of theoretical physics.

      The collider project was planned to be built in Dallas, Texas. All it required was funding by the federal government. Kaku explained how the scientists’ hopes were dashed: “What went wrong? On one of the last day[s] of hearings, a congressman asked: ‘Will we find God with your machine? If so I will vote for it.’ The poor physicist who had to answer that question didn’t know what to say.” Congress rejected the project, opening the opportunity for Europe to assume leadership in the exploration of particle physics.

      Kaku regrets that glorious period called the Cold War, when scientists had a simple solution to obtain funding for any project requiring extravagant spending. “During the 60s, all we had to do was go to Congress and say one word: Russia. Then Congress would say two words: How much? Those days are gone.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      How much?

      A common question relating to the evaluation of quantity that our modern capitalist society tends to apply exclusively to amounts of money

      Contextual Note

      The usual answer to the question, “How much?” is now expressed as an amount of money. Money has also become the unique measure of quality. We live in a “how much” world. Everything has a price, which we need to know because price is the sole indicator of worth.

      Finding God is one of the rare activities that the congressman in question apparently deemed worthy of being thought of as “priceless.” After finding the Americas, Europeans eventually put the resources of an entire continent in their hands to exploit in any way they deemed profitable, from extracting gold and silver to founding the Federal Reserve and launching McDonald’s.

      Embed from Getty Images

      If today’s Americans financed a collider capable of finding God, that would eventually put the divinity in their hands. At the very least, it would help to validate the claim — repeated by American schoolchildren every day as they  recite the pledge of allegiance — that the US is “one nation under God.” In the event that the projected super collider did find the Godhead, Congress might once again revise the wording of the pledge, this time to one nation alongside God.

      Kaku sums up the lamentable plight of the entire scientific community. “We have to sing for our supper,” he says. And as the well-known proverb explains, “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” Kaku had a symphony in mind when his colleagues sought funding for the super collider in Dallas. Politicians will always prefer something with a lilt, like “Home on the Range.” Science is justified when it creates economic activity resulting in the production of both merchandise and jobs. It has no (monetary) value when it simply seeks to reveal the mysteries of the universe.

      Kaku imagines how scientists schooled in rhetoric could have responded to the congressman who was ready to fund a glimpse into the face of God: “We should have said, this is a Genesis machine that will create the conditions of the greatest invention of all time — the universe. Unfortunately, we said Higgs boson. And people said, $10bn for another subatomic particle?” No shopping mall in the 1990s — not even Amazon today — can foresee making a profit from selling Higgs bosons. However, if a boson could be presented as a non-fungible token (NFT), that might be worth considering.

      What does this tell us about the status of science in the post-industrial society? If scientists spend their time singing for their supper, much of the science that emerges may reflect the taste of those who call the tune. Even theoretical scientists may allow themselves to be distracted by the interests of those who pay for their research and their meals. 

      Kaku cites the important role played by politicians, who — as everyone knows — spend 50% of their time, if not more, fundraising, soliciting cash from people with serious economic interests that may be threatened by certain scientific truths. Add the two sources of pressure together and there may be cause for concern about the fate of scientific truth in our popular culture.

      But it doesn’t stop there. There is a third factor of distortion: the media. Scientific stories concerning everything from dietary advice to solving the climate crisis or understanding what preceded the Big Bang make for popular reading and viewing. Commercial media pursue anything that draws people’s attention, including crackpot scientific theories or sensationalistic interpretations of authentic scientific discoveries.

      A breaking story originating with the highly suspect Daily Mail but dutifully relayed by the supposedly “respectable” web portal and news aggregator MSN is a case in point. It informs its readers about former CIA Director James Woolsey’s “‘openness’ to the possibility of alien life.” The story is related to the promotion of Woolsey’s new book in which the head of an agency dedicated — as everyone should know by now — to lying makes the oh-so-credible claim that “Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK on the orders of the Kremlin.”

      .custom-post-from {float:right; margin: 0 10px 10px; max-width: 50%; width: 100%; text-align: center; background: #000000; color: #ffffff; padding: 15px 0 30px; }
      .custom-post-from img { max-width: 85% !important; margin: 15px auto; filter: brightness(0) invert(1); }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-h4 { font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-h5 { font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
      .custom-post-from input[type=”email”] { font-size: 14px; color: #000 !important; width: 240px; margin: auto; height: 30px; box-shadow:none; border: none; padding: 0 10px; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-pen-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center right 14px; background-size:14px;}
      .custom-post-from input[type=”submit”] { font-weight: normal; margin: 15px auto; height: 30px; box-shadow: none; border: none; padding: 0 10px 0 35px; background-color: #1878f3; color: #ffffff; border-radius: 4px; display: inline-block; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-email-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 14px center; background-size: 14px; }

      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox { width: 90%; margin: auto; position: relative; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label { text-align: left; display: block; padding-left: 32px; margin-bottom: 0; cursor: pointer; font-size: 11px; line-height: 18px;
      -webkit-user-select: none;
      -moz-user-select: none;
      -ms-user-select: none;
      user-select: none;
      order: 1;
      color: #ffffff;
      font-weight: normal;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label a { color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input { position: absolute; opacity: 0; cursor: pointer; height: 100%; width: 24%; left: 0;
      right: 0; margin: 0; z-index: 3; order: 2;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:before { content: “f0c8”; font-family: Font Awesome 5 Free; color: #eee; font-size: 24px; position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; line-height: 28px; color: #ffffff; width: 20px; height: 20px; margin-top: 5px; z-index: 2; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:before { content: “f14a”; font-weight: 600; color: #2196F3; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:after { content: “”; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:after { position: absolute; left: 2px; width: 18px; height: 18px; margin-top: 10px; background: #ffffff; top: 10px; margin: auto; z-index: 1; }
      .custom-post-from .error{ display: block; color: #ff6461; order: 3 !important;}

      The Daily Mail, MSN and Woolsey himself have collaborated to offer this wonderful insight into the connection between politics and cosmology. It’s the kind of “science” the public loves to access. They have also collaborated to make sure that Russia is part of the story.

      In the interview with The Guardian, Kaku evokes both the problem related to popularizing science, with the risk of being misunderstood, and his own “openness” to the existence of alien life, which is based on his understanding of the scope and complexity of the universe and his knowledge of the laws of physics rather than the anecdotal reports of strange phenomena cited by Woolsey. Kaku knows that, as a public figure present in the media, his discourse consists of playing a delicate game in an economic and political system whose rules he understands, but which he must not violate.

      Historical Note

      All this highlights the fact that US political culture has created a curious relationship in its dominant ideology between science, God and a nation deemed “exceptional.” It is a relationship that, as Michio Kaku reminds us, somehow depended on the perception of a threat called Russia to bring things comfortably together. He evokes the magical period where the universally imposed paranoia of communist Russia (the Soviet Union) made it possible for all Americans to agree on sharing a common religion defined in opposition to Marxist atheism. All that was required was to feel that we were all “under God.” This idea suggested to school children reciting the pledge that the American God would look after all of them.

      The problem with this new theology is that the idea of God in his heaven hovering over the territory of the United States depended for its coherence on the existence in people’s minds of a hell represented by Russia. With the end of the Cold War in 1991, Russia was no longer the enemy. Liberated from communism, it had become a laboratory for American free market ideology. That was until Satan reappeared in the person of Vladimir Putin and Russiagate emerged to restore order.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in World Politics

      Is India’s Vaccine Diplomacy a Good Idea?

      by

      In terms of numbers, India ranks the third worst after the US and Brazil when it comes to COVID-19 infections. At the time of publishing, the country has recorded over 12.3 million confirmed cases and more than 163,000 deaths. The BBC reports that India is facing a “severe, intensive” second wave of the pandemic. The situation in states like Maharashtra, Gujarat and Punjab has reached alarming proportions.

      How Did India Combat COVID-19 in 2020?

      Last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a stringent lockdown that brought economic activity to a shuddering halt. This lockdown led to a dramatic contraction of India’s GDP by 23.9% in the April-June 2020 quarter. The economy recovered somewhat in later quarters, but it experienced a recession in the 2020-21 financial year for the first time in 25 years.

      Arguably, the lockdown was a success in preventing a rapid spread of COVID-19 last year. In percentage terms, India did not do too badly. After all, it has nearly 1.4 billion people in contrast to the US population of 330 million. The daily new cases in India dramatically declined until recently when the second wave hit the country. Thanks to a young population and public health measures, India experienced a remarkably low mortality rate.

      What’s Behind Chile’s Vaccination Success?

      READ MORE

      India has low per capita income and poor health care facilities. So, its achievement in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak has been hailed by many public health experts, including the World Health Organization (WHO). In January, India launched a massive vaccination program to fight the pandemic. This was possible because the country has a track record of mass vaccination and massive vaccine production.

      Indian manufacturers supply more than 60% of the world’s vaccines against diseases like polio and measles. Early on, the country began mass production of two COVID-19 vaccines: Covishield and Covaxin. The Serum Institute of India (SII), which partnered with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, had already produced and stocked approximately 70 million Covishield doses even before India granted emergency approval to their vaccine. 

      On January 16, India launched an ambitious plan to vaccinate around 300 million people by June. The world’s largest vaccination program focused first on those with high vulnerability to the coronavirus. First on the list were health care workers. They were followed by those who were 65 years or older. This ensured that the vaccine was not monopolized by the richest sections of Indian society. 

      As vaccinations have increased, the Modi government has eased restrictions in the country. Crowds have gathered at large weddings, sporting events and festival celebrations. The government lifted restrictions to stimulate economic activity. A poor country like India with a large population could not afford a lockdown for too long. However, the easing of restrictions has not only led to increased economic growth, but also rising cases of COVID-19 infections. India faces a tough balancing act between stimulating economic activity and curtailing a pandemic.

      India’s Vaccine Diplomacy

      During the pandemic, India has embarked on an ambitious foreign policy initiative. Modi announced the Vaccine Maitri initiative to supply COVID-19 vaccines to other nations only four days after India began domestic vaccinations. With the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines, India has shipped approximately 61 million doses to 84 countries, which have included free batches. It has pledged 200 million doses for the WHO’s COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) initiative to ensure vaccines for 92 low and middle-income countries.

      Embed from Getty Images

      India began its vaccine diplomacy by distributing doses to its immediate neighbors: Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The country has also exported vaccines to faraway places such as the Caribbean, where the likes of Barbados, Dominica and Jamaica have benefited from Indian aid. Leaders of countries such as Brazil and Antigua and Barbuda have publicly thanked Modi for his country’s generosity.

      As per some foreign policy experts, India’s vaccine distribution is a diplomatic masterstroke. It helps the country gain goodwill and increase its soft power. It could lead to a more peaceful neighborhood. In the future, India might win much support, strengthen its claim to a permanent seat at the UN Security Council and emerge as a great world power.

      Vaccine diplomacy might be giving a rare chance to counter China, which has launched the Belt and Road Initiative to increase its global footprint. For decades, China has backed Pakistan and, for the last few years, has increased its presence in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. With Chinese influence growing in India’s closest neighbors, the country has understandably become anxious.

      In June 2020, Chinese and Indian troops engaged in a bloody hand-to-hand combat with many dying in the process. Since that clash, relations between India and China have been fraught. India has banned over 200 Chinese apps and restricted Chinese investment into the country. COVID-19 has given a unique opportunity to India — the “pharmacy of the world” — to compete with China. By shipping vaccines to low and middle-income countries, India is gaining influence at the Chinese expense whose vaccines have been questioned by Western media.

      Rich countries have failed poorer ones because they have focused on domestic programs. Unlike India, the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom are focused completely on vaccinating their domestic populations. India’s generosity is unique and might lead to long-term gains.

      Masterstroke or Distraction?

      However, there is a counterargument that India has been premature in kicking off vaccine diplomacy. It did so before setting its own house in order. According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, as of April 2, India has administered nearly 69 million doses, fully inoculating only 9.6 million people. That is just 0.71% of its population. India’s focus should have been getting every one of its citizens vaccinated instead of basking in complimentary tweets from foreign leaders. Such goodwill might turn out to be very transient. 

      Recently, India has slowed down its vaccine exports and speeded up its vaccination program. The government has now enrolled private hospitals in its vaccination drive, and everyone above the age of 45 is now eligible for the vaccine. Modi himself got vaccinated on March 1, boosting public faith in COVID-19 vaccines and increasing their uptake nearly four-fold. It seems that the government is paying attention to its critics.

      Time will tell whether India’s vaccine diplomacy was a bold masterstroke or an unwise distraction. It reveals that there are no easy choices for any nation during a raging pandemic.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 138 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump coronavirus coordinator, Deborah Birx, takes job at air purifier business

      by

      Dr Deborah Birx, the former Trump White House coronavirus taskforce coordinator, is taking a private sector job, joining a Texas manufacturer that says its purifiers clean Covid-19 from the air within minutes and from surfaces within hours.Birx will join Dallas-based ActivePure as chief scientific and medical adviser, she and the company said on Friday.An expert in global health, Birx came to the White House in 2020 to help lead the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic.But she was criticised for not standing up to former president Donald Trump as he played down the virus, predicted it would disappear, and questioned whether ingesting bleach could help cure infected Americans.[embedded content]While her friend and former mentor, Dr Anthony Fauci, was promoted to become a top medical adviser to Joe Biden, Birx did not get a job in the new administration.“The Biden administration wanted a clean slate,” she told Reuters in an interview. “I understand that completely.”Birx left government earlier this week.She and Fauci, she said, asked themselves regularly what could have been done differently over the last year.“When you have the 100,000 people we lost over the summer, and the 300,000 people we lost over the fall-winter surge, you have to ask yourself and have to know that it didn’t go as well as it should have,” she said.“All of us are responsible for that.”The coronavirus has killed more than 530,000 people in the United States, more than any other country.Birx said she was still processing regrets and steps she could have taken to do be more effective.“I’m trying to rank order them,” she said. “We have to be willing to step back and really analyse where we could have been and why we weren’t more effective.”Birx said she remained concerned about the level of testing in the country, but she praised the new administration for modelling mask-wearing and other behaviours that help to combat the virus.Trump, a Republican, eschewed masks.“I think the messaging has been very good, very consistent,” she said of the Biden team. “That’s really important when you’re asking people to change their behaviours.”In addition to her role at ActivePure, Birx has also joined the George W Bush Institute as a global health fellow and the biopharmaceutical company Innoviva as a board member, she said. More

    • 63 Shares99 Views

      in World Politics

      The Science of Rebuilding Trust

      by

      During his inauguration, President Joe Biden appealed to us, American citizens, repeatedly and emphatically, to defend unity and truth against corrosion from power and profit. Fortunately, the bedrock tensions between unity, truth, power and profit have newly-discovered mathematical definitions, so their formerly mysterious interactions can now be quantified, predicted and addressed. So in strictly (deeply) scientific terms, Biden described our core problem exactly right.

      Can We Build Social Trust in an Online World?

      READ MORE

      I applaud and validate President Biden’s distillation of the problem of finding and keeping the truth, and of trusting it together. Human trust is based on high-speed neuromechanical interaction between living creatures. Other kinds of trust not based on that are fake to some degree. Lies created for money and power damage trust most of all.

      A Moment of Silence

      As Biden showed in his first act in office, the first step toward rebuilding is a moment of silence. Avoiding words, slowing down, taking time, breathing, acknowledging common grievances and recognizing a common purpose are not just human needs, but necessary algorithmic steps as well. Those are essential to setting up our common strategy and gathering the starting data that we need to make things right.

      The next step, as Biden also said, is to recognize corrupting forces such as money and power — and I would also add recognition. The third step, as I propose below, is to counter those three forces explicitly in our quest for public truth, to do the exact opposite of what money, power and careerism do, and to counter and reverse every information-processing step at which money, power and recognition might get a hold.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Instead of using one panel of famous, well-funded experts deliberating a few hours in public, employ a dozen groups of anonymous lone geniuses, each group working separately in secret for months on the same common question. Have them release their reports simultaneously in multiple media. That way, the unplanned overlap shows most of what matters and a path to resolving the rest — an idea so crazy it just might work.

      Since I’m describing how to restore democracy algorithmically, I might as well provide an example of legislation in the algorithmic language too. To convey data-processing ideas clearly, and thereby to avoid wasting time and money building a system that won’t work, technologists display our proposals using oversimplified examples that software architects like myself call “reference implementations” and which narrative architects like my partner call “tutor texts.”

      These examples are not meant to actually work, but to unambiguously show off crucial principles. In the spirit of reference implementations, I present the following legislative proposal, written to get to the truth about one particular subject but easily rewritten to find the truth about other subjects such as global warming or fake news: The Defend the Growing Human Nervous System With Information Sciences Act.

      The Defend Act

      Over centuries, humankind has defended its children against physical extremes, dangerous chemicals and infectious organisms by resolute, rational application of the laws of nature via technology and medical science. Now is the time to use those same tools to defend our children’s growing nervous systems against the informational damage that presently undermines their trust in themselves, their families and their communities. Therefore, we here apply information science in order to understand how man-made communication helps and hurts the humans whom God made.

      The human race has discovered elemental universal laws governing processes from combustion to gravitation and from them created great and terrible technologies from fire and weapons to electricity grids and thermonuclear reactions. But no laws are more elemental than the laws of data and mathematics, and no technologies more universal and fast-growing than the mathematically-grounded technologies of information capture, processing and dissemination. Information science is changing the world we live in and, therefore, changing us as living, breathing human beings. How?

      The human race has dealt with challenges from its own technologies before. Slash-and-burn tactics eroded farmland; lead pipes poisoned water; city wells spread cholera; radioactivity caused cancer; refrigerants depleted ozone. And we have dealt with epidemics that propagated in weird and novel ways — both communicable diseases spread by touch, by body fluids, by insects, by behaviors, by drinking water, by food, and debilitating diseases of chemical imbalance, genetic dysregulation, immune collapse and misfolded proteins. Our science has both created and solved monumental problems.

      But just as no technology is more powerful than the information sciences, when deployed against an immature, growing, still-learning human nervous system, no toxin is more insidious than extractive or exploitive artificial information.

      The Defend the Growing Human Nervous System With Information Sciences Act aims to understand first and foremost the depth and texture of the threat to growing human nervous systems in order to communicate the problem to the public at large (not to solve the problem yet). This act’s approach is based on five premises about the newly-discovered sciences of information.

      .custom-post-from {float:left; margin: 0 10px 10px; max-width: 50%; width: 100%; text-align: center; background: #000000; color: #ffffff; padding: 15px 0 30px; }
      .custom-post-from img { max-width: 85% !important; margin: 15px auto; filter: brightness(0) invert(1); }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-h4 { font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-h5 { font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
      .custom-post-from input[type=”email”] { font-size: 14px; color: #000 !important; width: 240px; margin: auto; height: 30px; box-shadow:none; border: none; padding: 0 10px; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-pen-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center right 14px; background-size:14px;}
      .custom-post-from input[type=”submit”] { font-weight: normal; margin: 15px auto; height: 30px; box-shadow: none; border: none; padding: 0 10px 0 35px; background-color: #1878f3; color: #ffffff; border-radius: 4px; display: inline-block; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-email-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 14px center; background-size: 14px; }

      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox { width: 90%; margin: auto; position: relative; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label { text-align: left; display: block; padding-left: 32px; margin-bottom: 0; cursor: pointer; font-size: 11px; line-height: 18px;
      -webkit-user-select: none;
      -moz-user-select: none;
      -ms-user-select: none;
      user-select: none;
      order: 1;
      color: #ffffff;
      font-weight: normal;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label a { color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input { position: absolute; opacity: 0; cursor: pointer; height: 100%; width: 24%; left: 0;
      right: 0; margin: 0; z-index: 3; order: 2;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:before { content: “f0c8”; font-family: Font Awesome 5 Free; color: #eee; font-size: 24px; position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; line-height: 28px; color: #ffffff; width: 20px; height: 20px; margin-top: 5px; z-index: 2; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:before { content: “f14a”; font-weight: 600; color: #2196F3; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:after { content: “”; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:after { position: absolute; left: 2px; width: 18px; height: 18px; margin-top: 10px; background: #ffffff; top: 10px; margin: auto; z-index: 1; }
      .custom-post-from .error{ display: block; color: #ff6461; order: 3 !important;}

      First of all, there is an urgent global mental-health crisis tightly correlated over decades with consuming unnatural sensory inputs (such as from TV screens) and interacting in unnatural ways (such as using wireless devices). These technologies seem to undermine trust in one’s own senses and in one’s connections to others, with the youngest brains bearing the greatest hurt.

      Second, computer science understands information flowing in the real world. Numerical simulations faithfully replicate the laws of physics — of combustion, explosions, weather and gravitation — inside computers, thereby confirming we understand how nature works. Autonomous vehicles such as ocean gliders, autonomous drones, self-driving cars and walking robots, select and process signals from the outside to make trustworthy models, in order to move through the world. This neutral, technological understanding might illuminate the information flows that mature humans also use to do those same things and which growing humans use to learn how to do them.

      Third, the science of epidemiology understands the information flows of medical research. Research has discovered and countered countless dangerous chemical and biological influences through concepts like clinical trials, randomization, viral spread, dose-response curves and false positive/negative risks. These potent yet neutral medical lenses might identify the most damaging aspects of artificial sensory interactions, in preparation for countering them in the same way they have already done for lead, tar, nicotine, sugar, endocrine disruptors and so on. The specific approach will extend the existing understanding of micro-toxins and micro-injuries to include the new micro-deceptions and micro-behavioral manipulations that undermine trust.

      Fourth, the mathematics of management and communication understands the information flows of businesses. The economic spreadsheets and prediction models that presently micromanage business and market decisions worldwide can, when provided with these new metrics of human health and damage, calculate two new things. First, the most cost-effective ways to prevent and reduce damage. Second, such spreadsheets can quantify the degree to which well-accepted and legal practices of monetized influence — advertising, branding, lobbying, incentivizing, media campaigns and even threats — potentially make the information they touch untrustworthy and thereby undermine human trust.

      America has risen to great challenges before. At its inception, even before Alexis De Tocqueville praised the American communitarian can-do spirit, this country gathered its most brilliant thinkers in a Constitutional Convention. In war, it gathered them to invent and create a monster weapon. In peace, it gathered them to land on the Moon. Over time, Americans have understood and made inroads against lead poisoning, ozone destruction, polluted water, smog, acid rain, nicotine and trans-fats. Now, we need to assemble our clearest thinkers to combat the deepest damage of all: the damage to how we talk and think.

      Finally, we humans are spiritual and soulful beings. Our experiences and affections could never be captured in data or equations, whether of calorie consumption, body temperature, chemical balance or information flow. But just as we use such equations to defend our bodies against hunger, hypothermia or vitamin deficiency, we might also use them to defend against confusion, mistrust and loneliness, without in the process finding our own real lives replaced or eclipsed. In fact, if the human nervous system and soul are indeed damaged when mathematically-synthesized inputs replace real ones, then they will be freed from that unreality and that damage only when we understand which inputs help and hurt us most.

      Informational Threat

      The Defend Act tasks its teams to treat the human nervous system as an information-processing system with the same quantitative, scientific neutrality as medicine already treats us as heat-generating, oxygen-consuming, blood-pumping, self-cleaning systems. Specifically, teams are to examine human informational processing in the same computational terms used for self-driving vehicles that are also self-training and to examine our informational environments, whether man-made or God-made, in the same terms used for the “training data” consumed by such artificial foraging machines.

      An informational threat such as the present one must be met in new ways. In particular, the current threat differs from historic ones by undermining communication itself, making unbiased discussion of the problem nearly impossible in public or in subsidized scientific discourse. Thus, the first concern of the Defend Act is to insulate the process of scientific discovery from the institutional, traditional and commercial pressures that might otherwise contaminate its answers. Thus, the act aims to maximize scientific reliability and minimize commercial, traditional and political interference as follows.

      The investigation will proceed not by a single dream team of famous, respected and politically-vetted experts but by 10 separate teams of anonymous polymaths, living and working together in undisclosed locations, assembled from international scientists under international auspices; for example, the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will collaborate with the World Health Organization.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Each team will be tasked with producing its best version of the long-term scientific truth, that is of the same truth each other team ought to also obtain based on accepted universal principles. Teams pursuing actual scientific coherence thus ought to converge in their answers. Any team tempted to replace the law of nature with incentivized convenience would then find its results laughably out of step with the common, coherent consensus reported by the other teams.

      Choosing individual team members for intellectual flexibility and independence, rather than for fame or institutional influence, will ensure they can grasp the scope of the problem, articulate it fearlessly and transmit in their results no latent bias toward their home colleagues, institution, technology or discipline.

      Each team will contain at least two experts from each of the three information-science fields, each able to approximately understand the technical language of the others and thus collectively to understand all aspects of human informational functionality and dysfunctionality. To ensure the conclusions apply to humans everywhere, at least one-third of each team will consider themselves culturally non-American.

      Each team will operate according to the best practices of deliberative decision-making, such as those used by “deliberative democracy”: live nearby, meet in person a few hours a day over months in a quiet place and enjoy access to whatever experts and sources of information they choose to use. Their budget (about $4 million per team) will be sufficient for each to produce its report in one year, through a variety of public-facing communications media: written reports, slide decks, video recordings, private meetings and public speeches. Between the multiple team members, multiple teams and multiple media, it will be difficult for entrenched powers to downplay inconvenient truths.

      Released simultaneously, all public reports will cover four topics with a broad brush:

      1. Summarizing the informational distractions and damage one would expect in advance, based only on the mathematical principles of autonomous navigation mentioned above, including not only sensory distractions but also the cognitive load of attending to interruptions and following rules, including rules intended to improve the situation.

      2. Summarizing, as meta-studies, the general (and generally true) conclusions of scientifically reputable experimental studies and separately the general (and generally misleading) conclusions of incentivized studies.

      3. Providing guideline formulae of damage and therapy, based on straightforward technical metrics of each specific information source such as timing delay, timing uncertainty, statistical pattern, information format, etc., with which to predict the nature, timescale, duration and severity of informational damage or recuperation from it.

      4. Providing guidelines for dissemination, discussion and regulatory approaches most likely not to be undermined by pressures toward the status quo.

      Within two years of passing this act, for under $100 million dollars, the world will understand far better the human stakes of artificial input, and the best means for making our children safe from it again.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      We're on the verge of breakdown: a data scientist's take on Trump and Biden

      by

      Peter Turchin is not the first entomologist to cross over to human behaviour: during a lecture in 1975, famed biologist E O Wilson had a pitcher of water tipped on him for extrapolating the study of ant social structures to our own.It’s a reaction that Turchin, an expert-on-pine-beetles-turned-data-scientist and modeller, has yet to experience. But his studies at the University of Connecticut into how human societies evolve have lately gained wider currency; in particular, an analysis that interprets worsening social unrest in the 2020s as an intra-elite battle for wealth and status.The politically motivated rampage at the US Capitol fits squarely into Turchin’s theory. In a 2010 paper, Dynamics of political instability in the United States, 1780-2010,Turchin wrote that “labour oversupply leads to falling living standards and elite overproduction, and those, in turn, cause a wave of prolonged and intense sociopolitical instability.”Turchin’s Cliodynamics, which he describes as “a more mature version of social science”, rests upon 10,000 years of historical data, as such there is, to establish general explanations for social patterns. He predicts that unrest is likely to get worse through this decade, just as it has in roughly 50-year cycles since 1780.Historians don’t necessarily like the proposal, he acknowledges. “They bring general theories through the back door. Our job is to be explicit.”Explicitly, then, Turchin explains current political warfare as a battle between an overpopulation of elites to some degree exacerbated by a decline in general living standards or immiseration, and financially overextended governments. Initially, Turchin applied the theory to pre-industrial societies, but a decade ago he travelled forward in time, predicting unrest –Ages of Discord– that would intensify in 2020 and endure until reversed.“Societies are systems and they tend to change in a somewhat predictable way,” Turchin told the Observer. “We are on the verge of state breakdown where the centre loses hold of society.”In the US, he points out, there are two political chief executives, each commanding his own elite cadre, with nothing yet being done at a deep structural level to improve circumstances. “We’ve seen growing immiseration for 30 to 40 years: rising levels of state debt, declining median wages and declining life expectancies. But the most important aspect is elite overproduction” – by which he means that not just capital owners but high professionals – lawyers, media professionals and entertainment figures – have become insulated from wider society. It is not just the 1% who are in this privileged sector, but the 5% or 10% or even 20% – the so-called “dream hoarders” – they vie for a fixed number of positions and to translate wealth into political position.“The elites had a great run for a while but their numbers become too great. The situation becomes so extreme they start undermining social norms and [there is] a breakdown of institutions. Who gets ahead is no longer the most capable, but [the one] who is willing to play dirtier.”Turchin’s analysis, of course, is readily applied to Donald Trump who, spurned by mainstream elites, appealed to a radical faction of the elite and to the disaffected masses to forward his political ambition. A similar case could be made for leading Brexiteers.Similar circumstances, says Turchin, can be found with the Populares of first century Rome who played to the masses and used their energy to attain office – “Very similar to Trump, who created a radical elite faction to get ahead.”In the professor’s reading, the incoming administration, notwithstanding the diversity of its appointments, is representative of mainstream elite power. “Think of 2020 as the return of the established elite and separation of dissidents. What’s important is that the incoming administration recognises the root problem.”In recent weeks, Turchin has found himself profiled in the Atlantic (The Historian Who Sees the Future), portrayed as a mad prophet, and name-checked by the Financial Times (The Real Class War is Within the Rich).He has been uplifted by some, but pushed back against by others. “You have this veneer of complicated impressive science. But any analysis like this is only as good as the data upon which it rests,” says Shamus Khan, chair of Columbia University’s sociology department. “It’s easy to imagine that you’re a Cassandra, and forget about the million others who similarly claim that they are.”“I think he’s got a point, because a significant component of the reasonably far left are highly educated but with blocked opportunities,” says Mark Mizruchi, author of The Fracturing of the American Corporate Elite. “Where you have disjunctures is where you get political extremism. If Turchin is right, you’re going to get a lot more highly educated people facing limited career prospects. Most of those will turn left rather than right.”Dorian Warren, one of the authors of The Hidden Rules of Race: Barriers to an Inclusive Economy, says elite warfare is only one way to describe the circumstances. “Frustrated elite aspirants gets radicalised when their expectations meet the reality of a rigid hierarchy. They perceive the system as unjust, but the source of injustice is elite overproduction and too much competition.Warren points to Occupy Wall Street, which was not a working-class movement. “It was mostly disaffected, white college graduates. That was a preview of what we’re seeing now.” In the American context, Warren says, “it’s mostly white elite fighting among each other, while the elites of colour are trying to break into the hierarchy.” For the most part, Warren points out, black elites in the US refuse to participate in white elite warfare.”But the hard science of Turchin’s approach cannot explain all things. After the Great Depression in what some might call a negotiated settlement, elites negotiated a unionised settlement with the masses in a moment of enlightened self-interest.“There was an elite consensus to accept the legitimacy of unions. In the last 40 years, we’ve seen a re-fracturing of that consensus with no worry for peasants with pitchforks who might come.”Without Trump as a unifying villain, elite fracturing is likely to enter a period of multi-dimensional refracture. “The left was always fighting among itself, so in some ways, it’s reversion to normal. There’s a reckoning coming in the Republican party, too, as it turns in on itself again over how it lost power. I think we’ll see intra-elite warfare on both sides.”Warren believes we’re at a critical juncture over a new elite settlement. One reason for optimism can be found in the battle for a minimum wage or corporate support for the social justice movement – “seeds of a new settlement”.Turchin says he feels “vindicated as a scientist who proposed a theory, but I have some consternation that we have to live through this. It may not be very pretty. I’m worried about a state breakdown. Mass shootings and urban protests are the warning tremors of an earthquake. Society can survive, but problems are likely to escalate.” More