Author: john

So the state of California is defending an asinine law before the US Supreme court that would allow the state to ban violent videogames. Via Geekology, it appears the deliberations are not going well for the state. Some excerpts from the transcript:J…

But hey, when you’re wrong 70% of the time you’re right 30% of the time, right?Jesus, this is going to be a long four years.Also, what Chet said.Okay, drinking now.

But hey, when you’re wrong 70% of the time you’re right 30% of the time, right? Jesus, this is going to be a long four years. Also, what Chet said. Okay, drinking now.

Boy, Europe and America’s inability to make nice with Turkey is world-historical stupid.
“China must tax carbon”. Of course, once China does that we’ll find another reason to do nothing.
I have, on occasion, spouted off about parents who seem to be terrified about the world outside their doors. Chalk this up to that.
Speaking of China, looks like the regime continues to rotate in new talent in an orderly manner.
Saudis tentatively modernizing gender roles.
Genes are left wing. (Basically, heredity explains close to nothing about real world outcomes. Environment explains much, much more.)
West Virginia coal country has enormous geothermal potential.

Boy, Europe and America’s inability to make nice with Turkey is world-historical stupid.“China must tax carbon”. Of course, once China does that we’ll find another reason to do nothing.I have, on occasion, spouted off about parents who seem to be terrified about the world outside their doors. Chalk this up

A decent short piece in Good Magazine makes the argument that the middle class is basically doomed from a combination of automation and offshoring, with automation (and personal robotics in particular) posing a growing threat to the service jobs we’ve tried to insulate from offshoring: Here’s the thing, though: The

A decent short piece in Good Magazine makes the argument that the middle class is basically doomed from a combination of automation and offshoring, with automation (and personal robotics in particular) posing a growing threat to the service jobs we’ve tried to insulate from offshoring:

Here’s the thing, though: The erosion of the middle class is a phenomenon that’s bigger than the Great Recession. Middle-range jobs have been getting scarcer since the late 1970s, and wages for the ones that are still around have remained stagnant.

In his report, Autor says that a leading explanation for the disappearance of the middle class is “ongoing automation and off-shoring of middle-skilled ‘routine’ tasks that were formerly performed primarily by workers with moderate education (a high school diploma but less than a four-year college degree).” Routine tasks, he explains, are ones that “can be carried out successfully by either a computer executing a program or, alternatively, by a comparatively less-educated worker in a developing country.”

The culprit, in other words, is technology. The hard truth—and you don’t see it addressed in news reports—is that the middle class is disappearing in large part because technology is rendering middle-class skills obsolete….

On the low end of the spectrum, we have physical jobs that we can’t automate yet (yard work, for example). On the high end of the spectrum, we have creative and cognitive jobs that we can’t automate yet (law and management, for example). But as technology advances, and it certainly will, more people are going to be elbowed out of the workforce.

We may be heading toward a future with plentiful high-end jobs and plentiful low-end jobs, and not much in the middle. What if only doctors, lawyers, engineers, and managers can live a decent life, buy a house or apartment, and pay for their children to get specialized degrees?

Early Warning had a good point about the recent news that Google has working robot cars: Google has (presumably accidentally) put 3.6 million jobs at risk. (A lot of people employed driving people or things from one place to another.)

Now, robot cars are pretty awesome and I sure hope I can afford a robot butler/chef/babysitter someday. But we’re well past the point where glib assurances that technology would create more jobs than it destroyed will suffice.

At a certain point, we need to rethink the bargain we’ve made in society, and need to make sure there’s enough middle-wage jobs out there. This presumes we need a wage policy, where instead of trying to stream high school students in to careers we think (maybe) will be income-stable for a decade or two, we instead adopt a more general, economy-wide principle that tries to push wages up (gasp!) even if bankers freak out about mild inflation at first.

This will probably be the only thing I write about Toronto’s municipal elections in this space. We in this city are currently contemplating a race in which we’ve got the choice between Rob Ford, a right-wing hard conservative who would fit in nicely w…

This will probably be the only thing I write about Toronto’s municipal elections in this space. We in this city are currently contemplating a race in which we’ve got the choice between Rob Ford, a right-wing hard conservative who would fit in nicely with the old Mike Harris crew; George

Hope you’re all stuffed with Turkey and whatnot. I had a lovely weekend with friends, family and all. Then I sat down to read an article (via Yglesias, of course) about Israel. There are so many things to say about “Why Israelis Don’t Care About Peace with Palestinians” by Karl Vick, but this part in particular was deeply troubling, and familiar:

“There was a time when people felt guilty about the Tel Aviv bubble,” says Shavit. “Then it turned out the bubble was pretty strong. The bubble was resilient.” Indeed, there are times when you can think most of the nation is within it. Polls are clear on the point. In a 2007 survey, 95% of Israeli Jews described themselves as happy, and a third said they were “very happy.” The rich are happier than the poor, and the religious are happiest of all. But the broad thrust, so incongruous to people who know Israel only from headlines, suits a country whose quality of life is high and getting better.

But wait. Deep down (you can almost hear the outside world ask), don’t Israelis know that finding peace with the Palestinians is the only way to guarantee their happiness and prosperity? Well, not exactly. Asked in a March poll to name the “most urgent problem” facing Israel, just 8% of Israeli Jews cited the conflict with Palestinians, putting it fifth behind education, crime, national security and poverty. Israeli Arabs placed peace first, but among Jews here, the issue that President Obama calls “critical for the world” just doesn’t seem — critical.

Frankly, I don’t see a lot of room for Canadians to scold the Israelis on their “bubble”. The Middle East peace process, at least, is unlikely to lead to (for example) a global food shortage and massive famines.

Canada’s bubble–and the lack of urgency towards global climate change and shutting down the tar sands–is far more damning, frankly.

Hope you’re all stuffed with Turkey and whatnot. I had a lovely weekend with friends, family and all. Then I sat down to read an article (via Yglesias, of course) about Israel. There are so many things to say about “Why Israelis Don’t Care About Peace with Palestinians” by Karl

Okay, based on my entirely-scientific and not at all shoddy survey of each and every one of the Internets, I am the only one who read this story and thought the homeowner was a fucking goof:OBION COUNTY, Tenn. – Imagine your home catches fire but the l…

Okay, based on my entirely-scientific and not at all shoddy survey of each and every one of the Internets, I am the only one who read this story and thought the homeowner was a fucking goof: OBION COUNTY, Tenn. – Imagine your home catches fire but the local fire department