Capitalism

GUEST AVAILABILITY: ‘Dark Future’ Co-author and Contributor Can Explain ‘The Great Reset’ and Agenda of Powerful Global Elites

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, July 25, 2023

The elites behind these proposals even plan to impact the way people across cultures and the planet understand what it means to be human and to have free will.

Key Points: 
  • The elites behind these proposals even plan to impact the way people across cultures and the planet understand what it means to be human and to have free will.
  • According to the leaders of The Great Reset and Great Narrative movements, by the year 2030, your world will be fundamentally transformed.
  • They also outline the dangers and opportunities associated with these disruptions and provide a plan to protect individuals and families from losing their liberty.
  • “Artificial intelligence, central bank digital currencies, bioengineering, and other innovations are all being developed in ways that restrict or eliminate your liberties.

Blame capitalism? Why hundreds of decades-old yet vital drugs are nearly impossible to find

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, July 20, 2023

Past public ire over high drug prices has recently taken a back seat to a more insidious problem – no drugs at any price.

Key Points: 
  • Past public ire over high drug prices has recently taken a back seat to a more insidious problem – no drugs at any price.
  • Patients and their providers increasingly face limited or nonexistent supplies of drugs, many of which treat essential conditions such as cancer, heart disease and bacterial infections.
  • The American Society of Health System Pharmacists now lists over 300 active shortages, primarily of decades-old generic drugs no longer protected by patents.

A generic problem

    • The problem boils down to the nature of the pharmaceutical industry and how differently the markets for brand and generic drugs operate.
    • Perhaps the clearest indication of this is the fact that prices of brand drugs in the U.S. are among the highest in the developed world, while generic drug prices are among the lowest.
    • But once the patent expires, the drug becomes generic and any company is allowed to manufacture it.

Outsourced production creates more supply risks

    • One of the consequences of generics’ meager margins is that drug companies outsource production to lower-cost countries.
    • While overseas manufacturers often enjoy significant cost advantages over U.S. facilities, such as easy access to raw materials and lower labor costs, outsourcing production at such a scale raises a slew of issues that can hurt the supply.
    • The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the country’s reliance on foreign suppliers – and the risks this poses to U.S. consumers.
    • To ensure domestic supplies, the Indian government restricted the export of medications, disrupting the global supply chain.

Low profits hurt quality

    • Manufacturing drugs to consistently high quality standards requires constant testing and evaluation.
    • A company that sells a new, expensive, branded drug has a strong profit motive to keep quality and production high.
    • That’s often not the case for generic drug manufacturers, and this can result in shortages.
    • Thus, any hiccup in production or shutdown due to quality issues can affect the entire market.

Repatriating the drug supply

    • It is hard to quantify the impact of drug shortages on population health.
    • However, a recent survey of U.S. hospitals, pharmacists and other health care providers found that drug shortages led to increased medication errors, delayed administration of lifesaving therapies, inferior outcomes and patient deaths.
    • Whether this approach is feasible on a broader scale is uncertain, but, in my view, it’s a good first attempt to repatriate America’s drug supply.

Can you trust AI? Here's why you shouldn't

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, July 20, 2023

It doesn’t take much to make it lambaste the other tech giants, but it’s silent about its own corporate parent’s misdeeds.

Key Points: 
  • It doesn’t take much to make it lambaste the other tech giants, but it’s silent about its own corporate parent’s misdeeds.
  • When Alexa responds in this way, it’s obvious that it is putting its developer’s interests ahead of yours.
  • To avoid being exploited by these systems, people will need to learn to approach AI skeptically.
  • Many apps and websites manipulate you through dark patterns, design elements that deliberately mislead, coerce or deceive website visitors.

In the dark

    • For that AI digital assistant to be truly useful, it will have to really know you.
    • Leave aside the hallucinations, the made-up “facts” that GPT and other large language models produce.
    • We expect those will be largely cleaned up as the technology improves over the next few years.

Making money

    • They’re being offered to people to use free of charge, or at very low cost.
    • And, as with the rest of the internet, that somehow is likely to include surveillance and manipulation.
    • Or the candidate who paid it the most money?

Trustworthy by law

    • We believe that people should expect more from the technology and that tech companies and AIs can become more trustworthy.
    • The AIs of the future should be trustworthy.
    • For all its technological wizardry, the AI tool may be little more than the same.

Fraser Institute News Release: Sweden isn’t socialist, despite what socialist advocates outside the country may claim

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, July 20, 2023

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 20, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Despite mischaracterizations by advocates of socialism outside of Sweden, the country is not socialist.

Key Points: 
  • VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 20, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Despite mischaracterizations by advocates of socialism outside of Sweden, the country is not socialist.
  • And in fact, it has a long history of comparatively small government, open markets, and competition.
  • The new book, to be fully released next month, documents Sweden’s history of relying on markets and competition rather than government.
  • And with low taxes, minimal regulation, and free and open trade, it also had the third-freest economy in the world.

American College Students' Survey Reveals Campus Climate of Viewpoint Suppression

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Viewpoint Diversity and Speech Regulation: Delve into the diversity of opinions in classrooms and gauge student sentiment on regulating speech on campus and within classes.

Key Points: 
  • Viewpoint Diversity and Speech Regulation: Delve into the diversity of opinions in classrooms and gauge student sentiment on regulating speech on campus and within classes.
  • Global Perspectives and Future Outlook: Evaluate how college education impacts students' world perspectives, opinions about America, views on future prospects, and their perceived ability to contribute to society.
  • Capitalism and Socialism: Investigate students' attitudes towards capitalism and socialism and evaluate classroom influence on these views.
  • The survey results indicate a significant disparity between how students view the future of the world and the U.S. compared to their futures.

Did the Anthropocene start in 1950 – or much earlier? Here's why debate over our world-changing impact matters

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, July 18, 2023

The Anthropocene is the proposed new geological epoch defined by humanity’s impact on the planet.

Key Points: 
  • The Anthropocene is the proposed new geological epoch defined by humanity’s impact on the planet.
  • In short, Ellis believes pinning the start of our sizeable impact on the planet to 1950 is an error, given we’ve been changing the face of the planet for much longer.
  • The disagreement speaks to something vital to science – the ability to accommodate dissent through debate.

What’s the debate about?

    • Since most people aren’t scientists, we rely on the scientific community to hash out debate and present the best explanations for the data.
    • His resignation letter is explosive:
      It’s […] [im]possible to avoid the reality that narrowly defining the Anthropocene […] has become more than a scholarly concern.
    • It’s […] [im]possible to avoid the reality that narrowly defining the Anthropocene […] has become more than a scholarly concern.
    • With the people gone, the trees regrew during the 17th century and covered the villages and cities, expanding the Amazon rainforest.

Why we should welcome honest disagreement in science

    • He’s not alone – other group members and experts have also worked to refute the epoch idea.
    • As philosopher of science Karl Popper and others have argued, productive scientific debate can only occur if there’s space for dissent and alternative perspectives.
    • Ellis clearly believes the Anthropocene group has gone from debate to group think, which, if true, would challenge the free exchange at the heart of science.
    • Bad faith actors seized on perceived issues in the emails and used them to claim anthropogenic climate change was fabricated.

What does this tension mean for the Anthropocene?

    • The epoch versus event debate doesn’t mean we’re off the hook in terms of our impact on the planet.
    • This is a complex story and we should not expect science to simplify it for political or other reasons.

Actors are demanding that Hollywood catch up with technological changes in a sequel to a 1960 strike

Retrieved on: 
Monday, July 17, 2023

For the first time since 1960, actors and screenwriters are on strike at the same time.

Key Points: 
  • For the first time since 1960, actors and screenwriters are on strike at the same time.
  • Screenwriters, who have been on strike since May 2, have similar concerns.
  • Premieres are being canceled, and Emmy-nominated actors aren’t campaigning for those prestigious TV awards.

Rewind to the rise of TV

    • The first hit shows on TV aired in the mid-1940s, but actors initially earned far less from television than movies.
    • Around 1960, with the advent of hits like “Leave It to Beaver,” “Beverly Hillbillies” and “Bonanza,” TV became very profitable.
    • Actors demanded that their craft be compensated for TV shows about as highly as for their film appearances.
    • Residuals are a form of royalty paid to actors when movies and TV shows air on television after their initial run.

Fast-forward to 2023

    • People consume different types of media through subscriptions and streaming technology than they do while watching broadcast TV and cable television.
    • Actors and writers are concerned that their compensation hasn’t kept up with this transformation.
    • And the actors who are on strike argue that the formulas in place since 1960 to calculate residuals don’t work anymore.

Ejecting regularly scheduled shows

    • That’s because streamers started making shows with lower budgets, as it costs less to produce fewer episodes.
    • Since actors are typically paid per episode in which they perform, their salaries have dropped by virtue of having fewer appearances in even the most popular shows.
    • Another change has to do with the question of whether particular shows will keep going.
    • And their contracts often stop them from working on other shows between seasons.

Will AI erase actors?

    • Without a contract that says otherwise, once a studio films an actor, it can potentially use the actor’s likeness in perpetuity.
    • It is dystopian.” Until now, actors and writers say, the studios have refused to negotiate over AI with actors or writers.
    • But both unions see AI as a threat to their members’ livelihoods, a point SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher made on MSNBC.

No ‘pause’ for widening inequality gap

    • The gulf between what actors and top executives earn is a major difference between today’s actors and writer strikes and the 1960 strikes.
    • In 1965, executives made 15 times the average salary of their workers.
    • By 2021 those top execs were earning 350 times more than the average worker – including actors.

Watching union action on repeat

    • From Starbucks baristas to Amazon’s union organizers to the workers planning the pending UPS strike, more and more Americans are fighting for higher wages and more control over their schedules.
    • In fighting threats to their livelihoods, actors and screenwriters are the latest example of a national movement for stronger labor rights.

Novata Announces B Corp Certification

Retrieved on: 
Monday, July 17, 2023

Novata , an innovative technology platform and public benefit corporation that provides the private markets with a comprehensive Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) data solution, today announced its certification as a B Corporation (B Corp).

Key Points: 
  • Novata , an innovative technology platform and public benefit corporation that provides the private markets with a comprehensive Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) data solution, today announced its certification as a B Corporation (B Corp).
  • To become a Certified B Corporation, companies undergo B Lab ’s rigorous review of the impact of their operations and business model on their workers, customers, communities and environment, and must score a minimum of 80 points on the B Impact Assessment.
  • “Since Novata’s founding as a public benefit corporation, we have been committed to operating as a responsible organization and aligning with B Corp principles," said Alex Friedman, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at Novata.
  • "We are proud to be B Corp certified, which is a natural next step in our company’s journey.

Unpacking the controversy behind Roger Waters' latest tour

Retrieved on: 
Friday, July 7, 2023

“I will not be cancelled,” roared the former Pink Floyd singer Roger Waters at a recent concert in Birmingham, part of a European tour mired in controversy.

Key Points: 
  • “I will not be cancelled,” roared the former Pink Floyd singer Roger Waters at a recent concert in Birmingham, part of a European tour mired in controversy.
  • There have been police investigations in Berlin, demonstrations in Britain and accusations of fostering hatred against Jews, but Waters has remained defiant.
  • At the centre of the uproar has been onstage imagery, particularly an SS-style leather trenchcoat emblazoned with quasi-fascist crossed hammer symbols which Waters has worn while brandishing a prop machine gun.

An increasingly strident position

    • Context is key, particularly Waters’ political trajectory since recording The Wall, and stances that have become progressively more strident and extreme.
    • Although anti-war themes have infused his writing since his earliest compositions in the late 1960s, his anti-capitalism and critique of western imperialism have taken on an increasingly conspiratorial bent, overshadowing any message of peace.
    • Animals was based on George Orwell’s anti-Stalinist fable Animal Farm, which Waters reconfigured into a commentary on how industrial capitalism had debilitated British society.
    • But Orwell – himself no fan of capitalism or imperialism – was alive to the risks of giving succour to your enemy’s enemy.

Veering towards conspiracy theories

    • Charges of antisemitism land more heavily in light of all this recent controversial commentary from Waters.
    • While criticism of Israel is of course not necessarily antisemitic, that doesn’t mean, as he appears to contend, that it can’t be.
    • He may be right that the origins of his show lie in antifascism, but not in assuming that’s the end of the matter.

Why the super-rich may take more risks than the rest of us

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, June 29, 2023

It turns out there is a good deal of research on why rich people take risks that encompasses a number of areas of psychology.

Key Points: 
  • It turns out there is a good deal of research on why rich people take risks that encompasses a number of areas of psychology.
  • The study nevertheless showed that people on these compratively higher incomes were typically extroverts and, importantly, tolerant of risk.
  • That means they might indeed be more drawn to thrill seeking and risk-taking, in terms of adventuring and extreme sports.
  • If taking risks is a part of the personality of the rich, it will be a relatively normal experience in their everyday engagement with the world.
  • This may explain why many rich people end up becoming risk-takers, whether it is in their genes or not.

Authenticity

    • So, when I do find myself engaging in something potentially risky, outside my normal habitus experience, I feel very uncomfortable.
    • For the risk averse, “living life to the full” does not require base-jumping or free-climbing – these things are inconsistent with their experience.
    • Driving fast cars, skiing and skydiving are normal expressions of this sort of risk acceptance for a lot of people.
    • After all, our species has relied on a mix of the two to flourish: both explorers and risk assessors.

Eudaimonia

    • From heavily branded handbags and sleek sportscars to expensive activities, it’s what we do and what many of us value.
    • Epicurus, his contemporary, argued that pleasurable living is the most authentic way to describe eudaimonia.
    • As such, I would argue that rich, risk-taking people are simply consuming in a way that satisfies them as much as possible in terms of eudaimonia.