Sunday, February 02, 2020
Networks and Power | Niall Ferguson
•Jan 6, 2020
“This time is different.”
Historians: “Ha.”
“The Net is net beneficial.”Historian Niall Ferguson:
“Globalization is in crisis. Populism is on the march. Authoritarian states are ascendant. Technology meanwhile marches inexorably ahead, threatening to render most human beings redundant or immortal or both.
How do we make sense of all this?”
Ferguson analyzes the structure and prospects of “Cyberia” as yet another round in the endless battle between hierarchy and networks that has wrought spasms of innovation and chaos throughout history.
> He examines those previous rounds (including all that was set in motion by the printing press) in light of the current paradoxes of radical networking enabled by digital technology being the engine of massive hierarchical companies (Facebook, Amazon, Google, Twitter, and their equivalents in China) and exploited by populists and authoritarians around the world. > He puts the fundamental question this way:
- “Is our age likely to repeat the experience of the period after 1500, when the printing revolution unleashed wave after wave of revolution?
- Will the new networks liberate us from the shackles of the administrative state as the revolutionary networks of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries freed our ancestors from the shackles of spiritual and temporal hierarchy?
- Or will the established hierarchies of our time succeed more quickly than their imperial predecessors in co-opting the networks, and enlist them in their ancient vice of waging war?”
_________________________________________________________________ Niall Ferguson is currently a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and visiting professor at the New College of the Humanities.
His books include : http://www.niallferguson.com/books
"The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook" (2018);
"Civilization: The West and the Rest" (2012); and
"The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World" (2009). "Networks and Power" was given on November 19, 02018 as part of Long Now's Seminar series.
The series was started in 02003 to build a compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking from some of the world's leading thinkers.
The Seminars take place in San Francisco and are curated and hosted by Stewart Brand.
To follow the talks, you can: Subscribe to our podcasts: http://longnow.org/seminars/podcast Explore the full series: http://longnow.org/seminars More ideas on long-term thinking: http://blog.longnow.org The Long Now Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to fostering long-term thinking and responsibility.
Changing American Demographics: The Impact on Change
We are all too often left in a hazy daze of overload hitting us all the time from everywhere.
Is there any real nitty-gritty to get down to in all the shifts of public consciousness and public confidence in the basic roots of any democracy enabled by a phrase "We The People" ?
Rights that are inalienable in what is now a strange land - The Home of The Free and The Land of The Brave.
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Let's use an article by Stef W. Knight
What Matters 2020
The demographic shifts disrupting the political world
Here are five of the biggest demographic trends shaping politics
Photo Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Here are five of the biggest demographic trends shaping politics
Photos: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images, Banaras Khan/AFP via Getty Images, and Alfredo Estrella/AFP via Getty Images
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1. The liberal youth revolution
Millennial and Gen Z Americans are sticking with the Democratic Party as they move through adulthood. They're embracing "liberalism" and AOC-branded "socialism."
If Democrats could only get them to the polls, they'd gain political power for the foreseeable future. . .
2. Older generations' growing voting power
The share of the electorate from older, more conservative generations is growing as the massive baby boomer generation ages and life expectancy rises.
3. A shrinking white America
America's majority minority future has elevated identity politics and immigration: 2020 will be the first time Hispanic voters make up the electorate's largest minority group.
4. The great rural exodus
The world is urbanizing, bringing housing, health care, transportation and energy concerns. Meanwhile, rural America is in the middle of a downward spiral.
5. Dying religion
Around a quarter of Americans are now unaffiliated with religion as the white Christian population — which is largely Republican — declines, according to Pew Research.
> YOU ARE INVITED TO READ MORE DETAILS IN THE ARTICLE LINK TO AXIOS . . .
"We Are Not Amused". . . or are we really? / When Everything Fails, Try Humor ...Seriously?
If you watched and binged on all the drama from both The House managers and the Trump Attorney Team, just one vote separated an even 50-50 draw to allow witnesses.
Muzzled with the imposition of imprisonment if they didn't stay silent, during breaks to the Cloak Room or caught in the hallways and basement, they kept the media machine fed.
Only 2 Republicans broke rank. That wasn't enough
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He could only maintain order and read out-loud mostly loaded questions submitted by either side.
In the course of the trial days John Roberts admonished both sides just once, and one time refused to read a submitted question that would have exposed the name of a protected witness.
Outside of the Senate, the defendant in the impeachment trial, Donald Trump, took to Twitter to add his own invective off-the-official-record that was streaming in the 24-hour news cycle.
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ARE
WE
LEFT
WITH ??
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SNL cold open imagines Trump impeachment hearings as a Judge Mathis-style reality courtroom drama
Cecily Strong portrays John Bolton.
It should come as no surprise that the impeachment proceedings have been something of a boon for “Saturday Night Live.”
Instead, we got the impeachment cleverly reimagined as a soap opera and a short trip to literal hell (i.e. Satan’s joint) with attorney Alan Dershowitz, as portrayed by Jon Lovitz.
This week was no different. Given the news from Washington, D.C., is arguably petering out, the show imagined “The Trial You Wish Had Happened,” a spoof on daytime courtroom reality shows. In fact, Judge Mathis (Kenan Thompson) presided over this satirical trial in which witnesses actually testified. . .
The funniest moment came courtesy of a besuited Pete Davidson, who rode in on a hoverboard, vape in hand, as Hunter Biden.
> He admitted he’s now “on the board of a Brazilian money-laundering company called Nepotismo.”
> When asked he if only got the job because of his father, former vice president Joe Biden, Davidson’s character responded, “That’s right. I’ve been selling Biden steaks from my office at the top of Biden Tower and letting foreign leaders stay at Biden-A-Lago.
Oh, no, wait. That’s the president’s sons! Ya burnt!”
. . . the sketch was a long windup to Alec Baldwin’s Trump appearing — coming into the courtroom with a walker, a reference to Harvey Weinstein showing up at his own trial with one — to say that “I’m guilty, but it ain’t no thang!”
“Ladies and Gentlemen of this government place, what I’ve learned from this trial is that clearly nothing I do or say has any consequence, so I’d like to come clean about everything.
- The call with the Ukraine wasn’t perfect; it was illegal. And, frankly, it was a butt dial.
- Also I watch CNN all the time, and it’s awesome,” he said before adding that he hates Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arkansas and West Virginia (“Sorry, West Carolina.”)
- He admitted to cheating at “golf, taxes, wives, elections, bathroom scales.”
- He added that he’s 475 pounds in reality and doesn’t need the walker but likes that it makes it easy to be lazy.
- Finally, he’s thrilled to now be best friends with McConnell.
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It helps people understand - without having to deal with the hard stuff
"Since October, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been demonstrating against the government over corruption, high unemployment and foreign interference . . .
Saturday, February 01, 2020
Turning More Jobs Into GIGS > Moving Disrupted
The future of moving
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Moving companies, a $25 billion business in the U.S., look like an upcoming target for disruption.
Why it matters: Technology has made dozens of tasks easier: We can use GPS for road trips instead of printing out directions, we can order our groceries online and get them delivered, and we can even meet our spouses on apps. But moving still sucks.
The big picture: As we've reported, Americans are generally moving less. But young people — especially those living in cities — are bucking this trend.
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- "The share of 25- to 34-year-olds who have lived in their current home for less than two years rose from 33.8% in 1960 to 45.3% in 2017," per Zillow.
- "Younger folks are moving a lot more often and longer distances," says Ryan Carrigan, co-founder of moveBuddha, a platform that compares moving company prices for customers. "We’re like city-hoppers."
- What's happening: There is a slew of inefficiencies within the moving industry. For example, there are more than 8,000 moving companies in the U.S. because most of them only serve small regions.
"Moving forever has been really hard to expand in the country because managing the labor is so difficult," Carrigan says. So people looking to move across the country have to work with multiple firms.
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THE BOTTOM LINE
"Uber-izing moving will continue to be a very interesting trend," Carrigan says.
"It’s the standard tech story: using tech to cut out the cost, the middle man."
- Yes, but: The Uber model also turns jobs into gigs. If it takes over the moving industry, scores of full-time movers may be pushed to bid for work.
Go deeper: Where American city-dwellers want to move
A Media Lesson: First The Data / Then An Explantion
Data: 2019 Federal Election Commission filings.
Donations do not include funds from political committees or the candidates themselves. Chart: Danielle Alberti/Axios
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Donations do not include funds from political committees or the candidates themselves. Chart: Danielle Alberti/Axios
First Glance
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Stef W. Kight
LINK > AXIOS
LINK > AXIOS
The 2020 Democratic candidates winning the money game
Skip Ahead > The other side: The billionaires are playing a whole different game. 99.9% of all the money brought into Bloomberg's campaign came from Bloomberg himself, with the remaining 0.1% came from a category titled "Other Receipts (Dividends, Interest, etc)." In just over one month, he spent more than two times as much as Sanders in all of 2019. He also spent more than the Trump campaign did all last year...
Skip Ahead > The other side: The billionaires are playing a whole different game. 99.9% of all the money brought into Bloomberg's campaign came from Bloomberg himself, with the remaining 0.1% came from a category titled "Other Receipts (Dividends, Interest, etc)." In just over one month, he spent more than two times as much as Sanders in all of 2019. He also spent more than the Trump campaign did all last year...
What to watch: Biden has raised and spent less money than other frontrunners, and he is starting off 2020 with the least amount of money on hand out of the top 5 candidates. But he has remained the candidate to beat in national polls since even before he announced his candidacy.
- While money can't buy you the White House, Bloomberg has surpassed Buttigieg in national polls just two months after officially announcing his presidential bid — squeaking into the top four, according to Real Clear Politics.
- Businessman Yang managed to out-raise and out-spend Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who snatched one of the New York Times' endorsement. But Yang's standing in the polls has changed little — he failed to qualify for the last Democratic debate and is starting the year off with less money than any other candidates Axios analyzed.
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