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Chartbook #197: The Ukraine-Aid Reality Gap [Adam Tooze, Chartbook]

By William McClain
In Adam Tooze [Chartbook]
February 27, 2023
296 views
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  • There is a gap between collective awareness of major social, environmental, political and economic problems and the resources mobilized to meet them. This gap can be interpreted as a problem of hypocrisy, policy, or perception (a “reality gap”).
  • The Kiel Institute has tracked €143.6 billion of financial, humanitarian, and military aid committed to Ukraine between January 24, 2022 and January 15, 2023. Poland is contributing the most in proportional terms (2.1% of GDP), followed by the US and Germany (0.375% of GDP).
  • The US and Germany are not contributing as much as they have in past military-economic efforts. Furthermore, their contributions to Ukraine are less than their contributions to other emergencies.
  • Ukraine is in need of $3.5 billion per month. The US and Europe have committed to providing enough to cover that, but payments do not arrive in a steady or reliable fashion.
  • The gap between declared intentions and actual delivery of aid to Ukraine is vast. This raises questions of cynicism, incompetence, and a “reality gap”.
  • The course of the war in 2023 is highly uncertain. If Russia does not crumble, the “reality gap” may close in the direction of greater financial and military aid.
  • Chartbook Newsletter is free to readers around the world. It is sustained by voluntary subscriptions from paying supporters. Subscribe now to join the group of supporters.

Published February 25, 2023
Visit Chartbook to read Adam Tooze’s original post Chartbook #197: The Ukraine-Aid Reality Gap

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The Secrets in Our Skies [Adam Popescu, The Free Press]

By William McClain
In [The Free Press]
February 27, 2023
270 views
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  • First things first—what are the odds China is behind all this? – High. China is known for sending balloons into near space, and the U.S. Air Force chose not to fire a missile at any of the 366 unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) that were detected in 2022. The first UAP, which was shot down off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, was confirmed to be a Chinese spy balloon.
  • Is there any chance the three mystery crafts were not spying on America? – No. China has significant influence over any private enterprise, and the Chinese government is not a democracy. The balloons were likely dispatched by a Chinese company that is an extension of the Chinese military intelligence regime.
  • So what, exactly, were the balloons looking for? – The balloons were likely looking to take lateral images of ground installations, gauge weather patterns, and enhance communications. They can also stay airborne for years at a time, broadcasting data back home in real time.
  • So why didn’t the president just tell us the whole, unvarnished truth? – The guiding philosophy in Washington is to avoid a direct conflict with China, and the federal government’s silence on this story reflects a broader reticence to communicate plainly and candidly about national security, American airspace, or UAPs. The Chinese likely wanted to see what the U.S. response would be.
  • What does China likely make of our response to its flying objects? – China likely sees this as a way to erode our unity, and the balloons have cast a spotlight on a gaping hole in our national discourse. There was predictable partisan sniping and hysteria, and China likely views this as further confirmation of our national decline.

Published February 25, 2023
Visit The Free Press to read Adam Popescu’s original post The Secrets in Our Skies

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What Psychology Can Teach Us About George Santos [Maria Konnikova, The Atlantic]

By William McClain
In [The Atlantic]
February 27, 2023
312 views
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  • George Santos, the freshman Republican representative from Long Island, lied on his résumé – his educational history was made up, he had no attendance at Horace Mann, Baruch, or NYU, and he had no college degree. He also lied about working for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.
  • The term “con artist” is used to describe someone who misrepresents something or lies – but for con artists, lying is a way of being, and it reaches past exaggeration or misrepresentation into a prevailing disconnect from reality.
  • Con artists tend to exhibit some combination of the so-called dark triad of personality traits – psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. Narcissism is the trait that exemplifies the psychology of the con, and explains the hubris behind a pyramid of lies as high as Santos’s.
  • Narcissism breeds a self-reinforcing cycle – the more a person misrepresents themselves and cons others for their own gain, the more entitled they feel to keep going.
  • Con artists know how to pick the right victims and the right venue – and then how to sell their story most effectively. Santos chose well – politics is an area where shades of gray are the norm, and he ran uncontested in a district with little competition.
  • We tend to trust people who appear and act similarly to us – Santos claimed to be Jewish when he ran against Jewish opponents, and used emotion to get people to put their trust in him.

Published February 25, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Maria Konnikova’s original post What Psychology Can Teach Us About George Santos

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Democracy Has a Customer-Service Problem [Brian Klaas, The Atlantic]

By William McClain
In [The Atlantic]
February 27, 2023
261 views
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  • Input Legitimacy vs. Output Legitimacy: Democracy requires two forms of legitimacy to survive: input legitimacy (processes and procedures) and output legitimacy (government effectiveness).
  • Output Legitimacy is Falling: Only 41% of Americans are satisfied that democracy is working well, and only 39% have faith in the U.S. government to solve domestic problems.
  • Politics of Resentment: People are less likely to rally to defend democracy if they believe the system is failing them, which can lead to a “politics of resentment”.
  • Distant Power Centers: Many people feel that the sources of power—both public and private—are far away and unresponsive, and that when something goes wrong, they’re on their own.
  • Compensate for Mistakes: Companies that engage in predatory billing should face serious fines, and corporations that steal people’s time through their own mistakes should be forced to compensate them.
  • Make it Easier to Cancel Services: Regulators should ensure that it is as easy to cancel a service as it is to sign up for it.

Published February 25, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Brian Klaas’s original post Democracy Has a Customer-Service Problem

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February 24, 2023 [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American]

By William McClain
In Heather Cox Richardson [Letters from an American]
February 27, 2023
249 views
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  • Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the United Nations Security Council Ministerial Meeting on Ukraine Sovereignty and Russian Accountability one year and one week ago that Russia was planning to invade Ukraine.
  • Seven days later, Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
  • Russia has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian men, women, and children; uprooted more than 13 million people from their homes; destroyed more than half of the country’s energy grid; bombed more than 700 hospitals, 2,600 schools; and abducted at least 6,000 Ukrainian children.
  • The world community has come together to stand behind Ukraine and the principles of the United Nations Charter that make all countries safer and more secure.
  • Any peace must honor Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty, which Putin has rejected.
  • The Biden administration today announced $2 billion in military aid to Ukraine, while the G7 has increased its 2023 support for Ukraine to $39 billion.
  • Russia’s deputy chair of security council, former president Dmitry Medvedev, said today that Russia planned to “push the borders of threats to our country as far as possible, even if these are the borders of Poland.”
  • Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky said: “Victory will be inevitable. I am certain there will be victory.”

Published February 25, 2023
Visit Letters from an American to read Heather Cox Richardson’s original post February 24, 2023

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Giant Zombie Atoms of the Cosmos [Katia Moskvitch, Nautilus]

By William McClain
In [Nautilus]
February 27, 2023
265 views
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  • On Aug. 6, 1967, Jocelyn Bell discovered a series of sharp pulses coming from a distant galaxy every 1.3 seconds. This “scruff” was an unknown type of astronomical object, later named a pulsar.
  • A neutron star is the densest object made of ordinary matter, just a whisker away from a black hole. It is created when an ordinary star is sufficiently massive, eight to 15 times as massive as the sun, has exhausted all its nuclear fuel and collapses to extreme densities.
  • Physicists think a neutron star is sort of like an egg, with a crust, an outer core, and an inner core. The outer crust is made of iron nuclei, the outer core is a liquid consisting mainly of neutrons, and the inner core is an enigma with matter different to neutrons and protons.
  • To describe the squeezability of the inner core, physicists formulate a so-called equation of state. This equation of state relates density to pressure and predicts a certain relationship between the neutron star’s size and mass.
  • Astronomers have a battery of techniques to measure the mass and radius of neutron stars. These include pulsar timing, studying how deformable neutron stars are when they collide, and studying the aftermath of a neutron star collision.
  • The discoveries of neutron stars heavier than two solar masses indicate that the matter inside the inner core can’t be very jelly-like. Nuclear experiments and observations of gravitational waves, radio pulses, and X-rays are used to determine the equation of state.

Published February 24, 2023
Visit Nautilus to read Katia Moskvitch’s original post Giant Zombie Atoms of the Cosmos

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Issue 10: One word—plastics. [Sam Bowman, Works in Progress]

By William McClain
In [Works in Progress]
February 27, 2023
187 views
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  • The latest issue of Works in Progress—our tenth—is out today. Find it here.
    • Our lead essay explains how France’s fertility shift changed the face of European geopolitics—and explains what caused it.
    • The issue also includes pieces on: reducing reliance on diesel generators in Africa; building roads out of plastic; why we feel empathy for other species; rolling out green energy and other infrasturcture faster; why plutonium gets a bad rap; and using prediction markets to tax bullshit online.
    • Our cover art comes from Rav Rieck, an illustrator and story artist based in Tokyo. You can find more of his work here.
  • At the beginning of the eighteenth century, and for the previous thousand years, France was the China of Europe.
    • For much of that time, it had a quarter of the continent’s population, and even by 1700 had four times the population of England.
    • How differently world history would have panned out, historian *Guillaume Blanc *writes, if France hadn’t also experienced by far Europe’s earliest and most pervasive demographic transition, with first elites and then everyone else reducing their fertility towards just above replacement levels.
    • By the 20th century, France had only about as many people as England, and fewer than Germany.
    • But such a slowdown also meant France could keep pace with a newly-industrialising England, by having fewer mouths to feed.
    • If France’s birth rate had kept pace with England’s, there would be 250 million Frenchmen alive today.
  • Isn’t it weird that we love and care for animals, but also eat them?
    • Many people would struggle to hurt animals that they readily eat.
    • It turns out this isn’t a modern pathology: hunters around the world, whether in Western societies or living as hunter gatherers, express empathy for their prey.
    • This is no random coincidence, argues evolutionary biologist* Cody Moser*. Around the world, hunters use mimicry while hunting—something that sets humans apart from practically every other hunting species.
    • Getting into the heads of our prey made us better hunters. But we caught feelings in the process.
    • The art for this piece comes from Qianhui Yu, an illustrator based in the UK. You can find more of her work here.
  • The power is probably out now in Nigeria — according to one data source, the power is only on for about 7 hours every day.
    • And many sub-Saharan African countries face extremely unreliable power too.
    • The problem is simple, says Open Philanthropy’s *Lauren Gilbert*: African power suppliers are prevented from charging enough for power to break even.
    • Because they lose money when they supply power, they try to cut costs by reducing supply, keeping them bumping along until the next state bailout.
    • To tackle this, Western NGO efforts often focus on building mini-grids off the central network.
    • These efforts do not hurt, but it would be better to fix the underlying problem, and focus on making it possible to charge higher marginal prices and greater supply without hurting the people the caps are intended to help.
  • Proposals for major infrastructure projects in the UK require literally thousands of documents, totalling hundreds of thousands of pages.
    • The same is true across much of the developed world.
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MAGA Is the Mullet of Politics [David A. Graham, The Atlantic]

By William McClain
In [The Atlantic]
February 27, 2023
231 views
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  • National Attention is Turning to East Palestine Train Derailment – The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio has become a proxy battle for existing political divides and a lens to reveal the failings of both the Democratic and Trump-era Republican parties.
  • Trump, Regan, and Buttigieg Visit East Palestine – In the past 10 days, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, former President Donald Trump, and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg have all visited the town.
  • East Palestine as a Symbol of White Working-Class Abandonment – Trump-era Republicans, like Ohio’s newly elected senator, J. D. Vance, have embraced East Palestine as an example of how the Democratic Party has abandoned white working-class areas of the industrial Midwest.
  • Late Response from Media and Democratic Establishment – Some factions of conservative media have accused the mainstream press and Democratic establishment of ignoring the story, though in fact Fox News was just as late as its competitors.
  • No Initial Fatalities, Uncertain Environmental Effects – Unlike some other recent rail catastrophes, no one died in the initial derailment and fire. The longer-term environmental effects are still uncertain.
  • MAGA Republicans Offer Wrong Solutions – The MAGA Republicans have offered little hope to the crisis with wrong solutions and policy ideas.
  • Biden’s Stimulus Won’t Make a Dent – Biden’s enormous stimulus plans may reshape the American economy but are unlikely to make much of a dent in small, depressed towns like East Palestine.
  • Promise of Recovery, But Thriving is Remote – Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw has promised to help East Palestine recover and thrive, but this may be a promise he can’t keep.

Published February 24, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read David A. Graham’s original post MAGA Is the Mullet of Politics

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Q&A: Frozen embryos, third-hand smoke, miscarriage, left-handedness, and stretching [Emily Oster, ParentData]

By William McClain
In Emily Oster [ParentData]
February 27, 2023
232 views
Q
  • Are there drugs in the frozen embryo transfer process that would legitimately interfere with breastfeeding? – The drugs that are typically used in these cycles could affect your breast milk supply. However, considering how far along you are in breastfeeding, the effects are likely to be small. It will certainly be recommended that you stop breastfeeding, though, just because we do not have much data about this situation.
  • Would breastfeeding, given my period has been back for 12 months, lower my chances of successful implantation? – We can extrapolate the answer to this question from the question of getting pregnant while nursing in general. In general, breastfeeding acts as birth control by preventing ovulation. Breastfeeding is not contraindicated during pregnancy, including early pregnancy (i.e. implantation). So this is fine.
  • If I do have to defer implantation, is there any reason for me to stick to my “I don’t want to be pregnant after 40,” given they are eggs from a younger age? – No. In the immortal words of Matthew McConaughey in *Dazed and Confused*: “That’s what I love about these high school girls [read here: frozen embryos], man. I get older, they stay the same age.” You’ve got a little breathing room.

Published February 24, 2023
Visit ParentData to read Emily Oster’s original post Q&A: Frozen embryos, third-hand smoke, miscarriage, left-handedness, and stretching

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Chartbook #197: The Ukraine-Aid Reality Gap [Adam Tooze, Chartbook]

By William McClain
In Adam Tooze [Chartbook]
February 27, 2023
174 views
C
  • The Main Criticism – The main criticism I have heard is that I’m just another old man (I’m 59) shaking his fist and complaining about “kids these days,” when in fact “the kids are alright.”
  • Self-Reported Depression and Anxiety – Section 1 of the Collaborative Review summarizes self-report surveys that have been conducted at regular time intervals since 2010 or earlier. Do members of Gen Z *say* that their mental health is declining? Yes, in every study we can find.
  • Self-Harm – If Phillips and Friedman were correct that “the kids are alright” and the appearance of an epidemic is an illusion based on Gen Z’s “more honest relationship with their mental health,” then we would not see any change in objective measures of mental health, such as hospitalizations for self-harm, or deaths by suicide. But in fact, we do see such changes.
  • Suicide – Section 3 of the Collaborative Review doc presents the most tragic data of all: a large increase in the number of completed suicides. For suicide, the rates are always higher for boys and men. Girls and women make more suicide attempts, but they are more likely to use reversible means.
  • Conclusion – The evidence that this time is different is very strong. In 2010 there was little sign of any problem, in any of the long-running nationally representative datasets (with the possible exception of suicide for young teen boys). By 2015 the teen mental health was a 5 alarm fire, according to all the datasets that Jean Twenge and I can find. The kids are not alright.

Published February 24, 2023
Visit Chartbook to read Adam Tooze’s original post Chartbook #197: The Ukraine-Aid Reality Gap

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