tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28525463393263842722024-03-13T23:16:58.753-07:00Bipartisan AllianceBipartisan Alliance, a Society for the Study of the US Constitution, and of Human Nature, where Republicans and Democrats meet.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger13099125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-42351370675892747392024-02-28T09:51:00.000-08:002024-02-28T09:51:24.178-08:00'Soberising' the enemy with a nuke or two, avoiding escalation — Leaked Russian military files reveal criteria for nuclear tactical strikes<p>Leaked Russian military files reveal criteria for nuclear strike. Max Seddon and Chris Cook in London</p><p><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f18e6e1f-5c3d-4554-aee5-50a730b306b7">https://www.ft.com/content/f18e6e1f-5c3d-4554-aee5-50a730b306b7</a></p><p><i>Doctrine for tactical nuclear weapons outlined in training scenarios for an invasion by China</i></p><p>Vladimir Putin’s forces have rehearsed using tactical nuclear weapons at an early stage of conflict with a major world power, according to leaked Russian military files that include training scenarios for an invasion by China.</p><p>The classified papers, seen by the Financial Times, describe a threshold for using tactical nuclear weapons that is lower than Russia has ever publicly admitted, according to experts who reviewed and verified the documents.</p><p>The cache consists of 29 secret Russian military files drawn up between 2008 and 2014, including scenarios for war-gaming and presentations for naval officers, which discuss operating principles for the use of nuclear weapons.</p><p>Criteria for a potential nuclear response range from an enemy incursion on Russian territory to more specific triggers, such as the destruction of 20 per cent of Russia’s strategic ballistic missile submarines.</p><p>“This is the first time that we have seen documents like this reported in the public domain,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. “They show that the operational threshold for using nuclear weapons is pretty low if the desired result can’t be achieved through conventional means.”</p><p>Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons, which can be delivered by land or sea-launched missiles or from aircraft, are designed for limited battlefield use in Europe and Asia, as opposed to the larger “strategic” weapons intended to target the US. Modern tactical warheads can still release significantly more energy than the weapons dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945.</p><p>Although the files date back 10 years and more, experts claim they remain relevant to current Russian military doctrine. The documents were shown to the FT by western sources.</p><p>The defensive plans expose deeply held suspicions of China among Moscow’s security elite even as Putin began forging an alliance with Beijing, which as early as 2001 included a nuclear no-first-strike agreement.</p><p>In the years since, Russia and China have deepened their partnership, particularly since Xi Jinping took power in Beijing in 2012. The war in Ukraine has cemented Russia’s status as a junior partner in their relationship, with China throwing Moscow a vital economic lifeline to help stave off western sanctions.</p><p>Yet even as the countries became closer, the training materials show Russia’s eastern military district was rehearsing multiple scenarios depicting a Chinese invasion.</p><p>The exercises offer a rare insight into how Russia views its nuclear arsenal as a cornerstone of its defence policy — and how it trains forces to be able to carry out a nuclear first strike in some battlefield conditions.</p><p>One exercise outlining a hypothetical attack by China notes that Russia, dubbed the “Northern Federation” for the purpose of the war game, could respond with a tactical nuclear strike in order to stop “the South” from advancing with a second wave of invading forces.</p><p>“The order has been given by the commander-in-chief . . . to use nuclear weapons . . . in the event the enemy deploys second-echelon units and the South threatens to attack further in the direction of the main strike,” the document said.</p><p>China’s foreign ministry denied there were any grounds for suspicion of Moscow. “The Treaty of Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation between China and Russia has legally established the concept of eternal friendship and non-enmity between the two countries,” a spokesperson said. “The ‘threat theory’ has no market in China and Russia.”</p><p>Putin’s spokesperson said on Wednesday: “The main thing is that the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons is absolutely transparent and is spelled out in the doctrine. As for the documents mentioned, we strongly doubt their authenticity.”</p><p>A separate training presentation for naval officers, unrelated to the China war games, outlines broader criteria for a potential nuclear strike, including an enemy landing on Russian territory, the defeat of units responsible for securing border areas, or an imminent enemy attack using conventional weapons.</p><p>The slides summarise the threshold as a combination of factors where losses suffered by Russian forces “would irrevocably lead to their failure to stop major enemy aggression”, a “critical situation for the state security of Russia”.</p><p>Other potential conditions include the destruction of 20 per cent of Russia’s strategic ballistic missile submarines, 30 per cent of its nuclear-powered attack submarines, three or more cruisers, three airfields, or a simultaneous hit on main and reserve coastal command centres.</p><p>Russia’s military is also expected to be able to use tactical nuclear weapons for a broad array of goals, including “containing states from using aggression […] or escalating military conflicts”, “stopping aggression”, preventing Russian forces from losing battles or territory, and making Russia’s navy “more effective”.</p><p>Putin said last June that he felt “negatively” about using tactical nuclear strikes, but then boasted that Russia had a larger non-strategic arsenal than Nato countries. “Screw them, you know, as people say,” Putin said. The US has estimated Russia has at least 2,000 such weapons.</p><p>Putin said last year that Russian nuclear doctrine allowed two possible thresholds for using nuclear weapons: retaliation against a first nuclear strike by an enemy, and if “the very existence of Russia as a state comes under threat even if conventional weapons are used”.</p><p>But Putin himself added that neither criteria was likely to be met, and dismissed public calls from hardliners to lower the threshold.</p><p>The materials are aimed at training Russian units for situations in which the country might want the ability to use nuclear weapons, said Jack Watling, a senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute, rather than setting out a rule book for their use.</p><p>“At this level, the requirement is for units to maintain — over the course of a conflict — the credible option for policymakers to employ nuclear weapons,” Watling added. “This would be a political decision.”</p><p>While Moscow has drawn close to Beijing since the war games and moved forces from the east to Ukraine, it has continued to build up its eastern defences. “Russia is continuing to reinforce and exercise its nuclear-capable missiles in the Far East near its border with China,” said William Alberque, director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “A lot of these systems only have the range to strike China.”</p><p>Russia was still behaving in accordance with the “theory of use” of nuclear weapons set out in the documents, Alberque said. “We have not seen a fundamental rethink,” he said, adding that Russia is probably concerned that China may seek to take advantage of Moscow being distracted “to push the Russians out of Central Asia”.</p><p>The documents reflect patterns seen in exercises the Russian military held regularly before and since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Alberque, who previously worked for Nato and the US defence department on arms control, pointed to examples of Russian exercises held in June and November last year using nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in two regions bordering China.</p><p>While Russia’s president has the sole authority to launch a first nuclear strike, the low threshold for tactical nuclear use set out in the documents conforms with a doctrine some western observers refer to as “escalating to de-escalate”.</p><p>Under this strategy a tactical weapon could be used to try to prevent Russia from becoming embroiled in a sprawling war, particularly one in which the US might intervene. Using what it calls “fear inducement”, Moscow would seek to end the conflict on its own terms by shocking the country’s adversary with the early use of a small nuclear weapon — or securing a settlement through the threat to do so.</p><p>“They talk about ‘soberising’ their adversaries — knocking them out of the drunkenness of their early victories by introducing nuclear weapons,” said Alberque. “The best way that they think they can do that is to use what they call a lower ‘dosage’ of nuclear weapons at a much lower level of combat to prevent escalation.”</p><p>Ukrainian officials argued that Putin’s nuclear threats convinced US and other allies not to arm Kyiv more decisively early in the conflict, when advanced Nato weaponry could have turned the tide in Ukraine’s favour.</p><p>Alberque said Russia would probably have a higher threshold for using tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine, which does not have its own nuclear capability or the ability to launch a ground invasion on the same scale, than against China or the US.</p><p>Russian leaders believe that, whereas a nuclear strike against China or the US could be “soberising”, a nuclear strike on Ukraine would be likely to escalate the conflict and lead to direct intervention by the US or UK, Alberque said. “That is absolutely the last thing Putin wants.”</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Additional reporting by Joe Leahy in Beijing</i></p><div><br /></div>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-16502058047851202672024-02-02T05:58:00.000-08:002024-02-02T05:58:44.954-08:00Unelected elites such as lobbyists, civil servants, journalists, and the like overestimate a lot how much the general population agrees with their own political views<p></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The
people think what I think: False consensus and unelected elite
misperception of public opinion. Alexander C. Furnas, Timothy M.
LaPira. American J of Pol Sci, January 24 2024.
<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12833">https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12833</a></span></p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Abstract:
Political elites must know and rely faithfully on the public will to
be democratically responsive. Recent work on elite perceptions of
public opinion shows that reelection-motivated politicians
systematically misperceive the opinions of their constituents to be
more conservative than they are. We extend this work to a larger and
broader set of unelected political elites such as lobbyists, civil
servants, journalists, and the like, and report alternative empirical
findings. These unelected elites hold similarly inaccurate
perceptions about public opinion, though not in a single ideological
direction. We find this elite population exhibits egocentrism bias,
rather than partisan confirmation bias, as their perceptions about
others' opinions systematically correspond to their own policy
preferences. Thus, we document a remarkably consistent false
consensus effect among unelected political elites, which holds across
subsamples by party, occupation, professional relevance of party
affiliation, and trust in party-aligned information sources.</span></span></p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">---</span></span></p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Our
tests of competing explanations for these misperceptions are robust
and consistent: Unelected political elites demonstrate a false
consensus effect in their estimates of public opinion. Simply, elites
believe that the policies they support are more popular among the
general public than they actually are, and that the policies they
oppose are less popular than they actually are. This relationship is
true regardless of the elite's party identification, professional
specialization, or information environment.</span></span></p><br /><p></p>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-79132613055136050332024-01-15T10:21:00.000-08:002024-01-15T10:21:10.014-08:00Treatment of the Taiwanese in Chinese Communist Documents and Statements: 1928-1943<div class="min-h-[20px] text-message flex flex-col items-start gap-3 whitespace-pre-wrap break-words [.text-message+&]:mt-5 overflow-x-auto" data-message-author-role="assistant" data-message-id="12a952eb-fc98-4647-ab19-ab86117a1e04" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: flex-start; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: column; gap: 0.75rem; min-height: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow-x: auto;"><div class="markdown prose w-full break-words dark:prose-invert light" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-prose-body: #374151; --tw-prose-bold: #111827; --tw-prose-bullets: #d1d5db; --tw-prose-captions: #6b7280; --tw-prose-code: #111827; --tw-prose-counters: #6b7280; --tw-prose-headings: #111827; --tw-prose-hr: #e5e7eb; --tw-prose-invert-body: #d1d5db; --tw-prose-invert-bold: #fff; --tw-prose-invert-bullets: #4b5563; --tw-prose-invert-captions: #9ca3af; --tw-prose-invert-code: #fff; --tw-prose-invert-counters: #9ca3af; --tw-prose-invert-headings: #fff; --tw-prose-invert-hr: #374151; --tw-prose-invert-lead: #9ca3af; --tw-prose-invert-links: #fff; --tw-prose-invert-pre-bg: rgba(0,0,0,.5); --tw-prose-invert-pre-code: #d1d5db; --tw-prose-invert-quote-borders: #374151; --tw-prose-invert-quotes: #f3f4f6; --tw-prose-invert-td-borders: #374151; --tw-prose-invert-th-borders: #4b5563; --tw-prose-lead: #4b5563; --tw-prose-links: #111827; --tw-prose-pre-bg: #1f2937; --tw-prose-pre-code: #e5e7eb; --tw-prose-quote-borders: #e5e7eb; --tw-prose-quotes: #111827; --tw-prose-td-borders: #e5e7eb; --tw-prose-th-borders: #d1d5db; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75; max-width: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; width: 613px;"><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.25em 0px;"><span style="color: #374151; font-family: Söhne, ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, Segoe UI, Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, Noto Sans, sans-serif, Helvetica Neue, Arial, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol, Noto Color Emoji;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Chinese Communist Party and the Status of Taiwan, 1928-1943. Frank S. T. Hsiao and Lawrence R. Sullivan. Pacific Affairs, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Autumn, 1979), pp. 446-467. Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2757657">http://www.jstor.org/stable/2757657</a></span></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--tw-prose-body); font-family: Söhne, ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; margin: 1.25em 0px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Extracts.</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--tw-prose-body); font-family: Söhne, ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; margin: 1.25em 0px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">[...]</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--tw-prose-body); font-family: Söhne, ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; margin: 1.25em 0px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Treatment of the Taiwanese in Chinese Communist Documents and Statements: 1928-1943</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--tw-prose-body); font-family: Söhne, ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; margin: 1.25em 0px 0px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">At the CCP's Sixth National Congress, held in Moscow in 1928, the Chinese Communists took the first step toward accepting Taiwan's future political autonomy by acknowledging that the Taiwanese were ethnically separate from the Han. This is evident in their explicit reference to the Taiwanese as a distinct "nationality," and, on occasion, as a separate "race" (zhongzu) or "stock" (zongzu). (Further discussion of terminological differences is presented below). The first CCP statement referring to Taiwanese focused on the "Taiwanese in Fukien." According to the Sixth Congress' "Resolution on the Nationality Problem," the Sixth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party considers that the problems of minority nationalities within Chinese territory (Mongols and Mohammedans in the North, Koreans in Manchuria, Taiwanese in Fukien, the aborigines of Miao and Li nationalities in the South, and in Sinkiang [Uighur] and Tibetan nationalities) have important significance [emphasis added]. In other words, the "Taiwanese in Fukien" were considered to be a "minority nationality" and not simply members of one provincial group residing in another province. More importantly, the Taiwanese were grouped with other minority nationalities—Mongols, Mohammedans, Miao, Uighurs, etc.—which had maintained their ethnic identity throughout the dynastic era and had been able to assert some political autonomy vis-à-vis the imperial court. This position of the Sixth Congress was reiterated in the same year by the Fifth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Youth League, which in its regulations noted that the "minority nationalities" in China included "Mongols, Koreans, Taiwanese, Annamese, etc.," and urged that local organs form national minority committees. Two years later in Kiangsi, the "Draft Constitution of the China Soviet Republic," adopted by the First All-China Soviet Congress (November 7, 1931), extended constitutional rights to these same minority nationalities. According to Item 4 of this document, all races, that is the "Han, Manchu, Mongol, Mohammedan, Tibetan, Miao, Li and also the Taiwanese, Koreans, and Annamese who reside in China, are equal under the laws of Soviet China [emphasis added]." 7 Taiwanese were seen not as Han but as a different "nationality" and even "race," who like the Koreans and the Annamese, but unlike the other minorities, came from a homeland separate from China.8 This view is strengthened by the fact that the CCP never referred to the Taiwanese as "brethren" (dixiong), or "the offspring of the Yellow Emperor," or "compatriots" (tongbao), who would de facto belong to the Han after they return to China. Indeed, a 1928 Central Committee Notice, while calling for the recovery from Japan of sovereignty over Shantung and Manchuria, failed to mention a similar goal for Taiwan in its seventeen "general goals of the present mass movement." Since the ideological perspectives <span style="color: var(--tw-prose-body);">of the early Chinese Communist elite were heavily influenced by an anti-Japanese (as well as an anti-Western) nationalism born out of the May Fourth Movement, this exclusion of Taiwan from recoverable sovereign territory of China is revealing.</span></p></div></div><div class="min-h-[20px] text-message flex flex-col items-start gap-3 whitespace-pre-wrap break-words [.text-message+&]:mt-5 overflow-x-auto" data-message-author-role="assistant" data-message-id="4acfcf24-29c3-4515-a278-9b9d0c99e287" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; align-items: flex-start; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; color: #0f0f0f; display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: Söhne, ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"; gap: 0.75rem; margin-top: 1.25rem; min-height: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; overflow-x: auto; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div class="markdown prose w-full break-words dark:prose-invert light" style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-prose-body: #374151; --tw-prose-bold: #111827; --tw-prose-bullets: #d1d5db; --tw-prose-captions: #6b7280; --tw-prose-code: #111827; --tw-prose-counters: #6b7280; --tw-prose-headings: #111827; --tw-prose-hr: #e5e7eb; --tw-prose-invert-body: #d1d5db; --tw-prose-invert-bold: #fff; --tw-prose-invert-bullets: #4b5563; --tw-prose-invert-captions: #9ca3af; --tw-prose-invert-code: #fff; --tw-prose-invert-counters: #9ca3af; --tw-prose-invert-headings: #fff; --tw-prose-invert-hr: #374151; --tw-prose-invert-lead: #9ca3af; --tw-prose-invert-links: #fff; --tw-prose-invert-pre-bg: rgba(0,0,0,.5); --tw-prose-invert-pre-code: #d1d5db; --tw-prose-invert-quote-borders: #374151; --tw-prose-invert-quotes: #f3f4f6; --tw-prose-invert-td-borders: #374151; --tw-prose-invert-th-borders: #4b5563; --tw-prose-lead: #4b5563; --tw-prose-links: #111827; --tw-prose-pre-bg: #1f2937; --tw-prose-pre-code: #e5e7eb; --tw-prose-quote-borders: #e5e7eb; --tw-prose-quotes: #111827; --tw-prose-td-borders: #e5e7eb; --tw-prose-th-borders: #d1d5db; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--tw-prose-body); line-height: 1.75; max-width: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; width: 613px;"><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em;"><span style="color: var(--tw-prose-body);">Mao Tse-tung's earliest comments on the Taiwanese came in his January 1934 "Report of the China Soviet Republic Central Executive Committee and the People's Committee to the Second All-China Soviet Congress." Commenting on various provisions in the 1931 Constitution, he said:</span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em;"><span style="color: var(--tw-prose-body);"></span></p><blockquote><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em;"><span style="color: var(--tw-prose-body);">"Item 15 of the Draft Constitution of Soviet China has the following statement: To every nationality in China who is persecuted because of revolutionary acts and to the revolutionary warriors of the whole world, the Chinese Soviet Government grants the right of their being protected in Soviet areas, and assists them in renewing their struggle until a total victory of the revolutionary movement for their nationality and nation has been achieved.</span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em;"><span style="color: var(--tw-prose-body);">In the Soviet areas, many revolutionary comrades from Korea, Taiwan, and Annam are residing. In the First All-China Soviet Congress, representatives of Korea had attended. In the present Congress, there are a few representatives from Korea, Taiwan, and Annam. This proves that this Declaration of the Soviet is a correct one." 10</span></p></blockquote><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25em;"><span style="color: var(--tw-prose-body);"></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.25em 0px;">Mao not only reaffirmed the Chinese Communist position that Taiwanese residing outside Taiwan and in China were a "minority nationality," but also implied CCP recognition and support of an independent Taiwan national liberation movement, which would be united in a joint effort with the Chinese movement, but with a different purpose, i.e., the establishment of an independent state similar to other Japanese colonies, such as Korea.</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.25em 0px;">A year later, Mao and P'eng Teh-huai manifestly dissociated Taiwan's political movement from China by incorporating it into the anti-imperialist revolution led by the Japanese Communist Party.</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.25em 0px;">According to the "Resolution on the Current Political Situation and the Party's Responsibility," passed at a meeting of the CCP Central Political Bureau on 25 December 1935, and signed by P'eng and Mao:</p><blockquote><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.25em 0px;">"Under the powerful leadership of the Japanese Communist Party, the Japanese workers and peasants and the oppressed nationalities (Korea, Taiwan) are preparing great efforts in struggling to defeat Japanese Imperialism and to establish a Soviet Japan. This is to unite the Chinese revolution and Japanese revolution on the basis of the common targets of 'defeating Japanese imperialism.' The Japanese revolutionary people are a powerful helper of the Chinese revolutionary people." 11</p></blockquote><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.25em 0px 0px;">Here Taiwanese were not considered an integral part of the "Chinese revolutionary people," but were treated as a people whose natural political role was to fight alongside the "Japanese workers and peasants" in establishing a Soviet Japan. Whether Mao and P'eng expected the Taiwanese (and Koreans) formally to join a newly-created Soviet Japan is unclear from this resolution. But nowhere in this or other documents examined by the authors did CCP leaders suggest that the Taiwanese should fight to return to their "motherland" and join Soviet China—a point they would not make until after 1943.</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgba(69,89,164,.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 transparent; --tw-shadow: 0 0 transparent; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border: 0px solid rgb(217, 217, 227); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.25em 0px 0px;">The independent character afforded the Taiwanese national liberation struggle by the CCP is most clearly stated in materials available from the period 1937 to 1941. At this time, when Mao Tse-tung stressed the "internationalist" character of the Chinese revolution, official decisions of Party organs and personal statements by CCP leaders point to Communist agreement that in the anti-Japanese struggle Taiwan possessed an independent political status. For instance, Mao's October 1938 Political Report "On the New Stage—the New Stage of Development in the Anti-Japanese National War and the Anti-Japanese National United Front," given to the CCP's Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth National Congress, extended independence to the movements of various "oppressed nationalities of Korea, Taiwan, etc." by advocating that they join the Chinese nation in common action against Japanese imperialism. 13</p></div></div><p>---</p><p>Notes</p><p>7 Item 14, however, asserts ". . . the right of self determination of the national minorities in China, their right to complete separation from China, and to the formation of an independent state for each national minority. All Mongolians, Tibetans, Miao, Yao, Koreans and others living on the territory of China shall enjoy the full right to self determination, i.e., they may either join the Union of Chinese Soviets or secede from it and form their own state as they may prefer. The Soviet regime of China will do its utmost to assist the national minorities in liberating themselves from the yoke of imperialists, the KMT militarists, t'u-ssu [native officials], the princes, lamas and others, and in achieving complete freedom and autonomy. The Soviet regime must encourage the development of the national cultures and the national languages of these peoples." Unlike Item 4, Taiwanese were not mentioned here, nor were the Manchus and Annamese. This may have been simply an oversight by the drafters of this constitution. On the other hand, since very few Taiwanese resided on China's mainland (mostly in Fukien, which was not a major part of Soviet China), and unlike the Koreans, which numbered 700,000 in 1934 (see Japan-Manchoukuo Year Book 1937, p. 48), perhaps the CCP logically excluded Taiwanese from a provision, borrowed from the U.S.S.R., which granted rights of secession, or alter- natively, created autonomous areas. Such a provision would not have been applicable to those groups which were not considered a minority within the existing political boundaries of China.</p><p>8 Throughout CCP documents from this period the Taiwanese are consistently grouped with the Koreans and Annamese. There are several possible reasons for this pattern. One is that the Taiwanese shared with the Koreans and Annamese a common bond to Chinese culture and a past inclusion in the Chinese empire at different points in history. A second is that all three areas were colonies of foreign powers which, as we shall argue below, led the CCP to grant them greater political autonomy than the minority nationalities within China, which although non- Chinese were also non-colonized peoples. A third is that Taiwan's experience with Japan made the Taiwanese less "Chinese" and more like the Koreans and Vietnamese, who combined Chinese cultural influence with their own unique identity. See, John K. Fairbank, ed., The Chinese World Order (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968).</p><p> </p>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-60559296287574704722024-01-05T06:17:00.000-08:002024-01-05T06:17:29.387-08:00People self-servingly inflate the moral value of randomly assigned personality traits they believe they possess<p>People self-servingly inflate the moral value of randomly assigned personality traits they believe they possess. Andrew J. Vonasch, Bradley A. Tookey. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 112, May 2024, 104580. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103123001373">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103123001373</a></p><p>Abstract: Are people self-serving when moralizing personality traits? Past research has used cross sectional methods incapable of establishing causality, but the present research used experimental methods to test this. Indeed, two experiments (N = 669) show that people self-servingly inflate the moral value of randomly assigned personality traits they believe they possess, and even judge other people who share those same traits as more moral, warm, and competent than those who do not. We explain various methodological challenges overcome in conducting this research, and discuss implications for both psychology and philosophy.</p><div><br /></div>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-7319736871832561352024-01-04T16:21:00.000-08:002024-01-04T16:21:55.402-08:00Reproductive Strategies and Romantic Love in Early Modern Europe<p>Reproductive Strategies and Romantic Love in Early Modern Europe. Mauricio de Jesus Dias Martins & Nicolas Baumard. Archives of Sexual Behavior, December 26 2023. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-023-02759-4">https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-023-02759-4</a></p><p>Abstract: In Western Europe, the Early Modern Period is characterized by the rise of tenderness in romantic relationships and the emergence of companionate marriage. Despite a long research tradition, the origins of these social changes remain elusive. In this paper, we build on recent advances in behavioral sciences, showing that romantic emotional investment, which is more culturally variable than sexual attraction, enhances the cohesion of long-term relationships and increases investment in children. Importantly, this long-term strategy is considered especially advantageous when living standards are high. Here, we investigate the relationship between living standards, the emotional components of love expressed in fiction work, and behavioral outcomes related to pair bonding, such as nuptial and fertility rates. We developed natural language processing measures of “emotional investment” (tenderness) and “attraction” (passion) and computed romantic love in English plays (N = 847) as a ratio between the two. We found that living standards generally predicted and temporally preceded variations of romantic love in the Early Modern Period. Furthermore, romantic love preceded an increase in nuptial rates and a decrease in births per marriage. This suggests that increasing living standards in the Early Modern Period may have contributed to the emergence of modern romantic culture.</p><div><br /></div>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-19941328764108983632024-01-04T13:44:00.000-08:002024-01-04T13:44:01.833-08:00Genetic variants underlying human bisexual behavior are reproductively advantageous<p>Genetic variants underlying human bisexual behavior are reproductively advantageous. Siliang Song & Jianzhi Zhang. Science Advances, Jan 3 2024. Vol 10, Issue 1. <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj6958">https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj6958</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Abstract: Because human same-sex sexual behavior (SSB) is heritable and leads to fewer offspring, how SSB-associated alleles have persisted and whether they will remain in human populations are of interest. Using the UK Biobank, we address these questions separately for bisexual behavior (BSB) and exclusive SSB (eSSB) after confirming their genetic distinction. We discover that male BSB is genetically positively correlated with the number of offspring. This unexpected phenomenon is attributable to the horizontal pleiotropy of male risk-taking behavior–associated alleles because male risk-taking behavior is genetically positively correlated with both BSB and the number of offspring and because genetically controlling male risk-taking behavior abolishes the genetic correlation between male BSB and the number of offspring. By contrast, eSSB is genetically negatively correlated with the number of offspring. Our results suggest that male BSB–associated alleles are likely reproductively advantageous, which may explain their past persistence and predict their future maintenance, and that eSSB-associated alleles are likely being selected against at present.</p><p><br /></p><p>---</p><p>Popular press:</p><p>Risk-Taking Behavior Linked to Persistence of Male Bisexuality Genes</p><p>Summary: A new study sheds light on the persistence of genes associated with male bisexuality in the human genome. The research suggests that these genes are linked to risk-taking behavior, which confers reproductive benefits to heterosexual men carrying them.</p><p>By analyzing data from over 450,000 participants, the study found that risk-takers tend to father more children and are more likely to carry the genetic variants linked to bisexuality. This indicates that the reproductive advantage of these genes is a byproduct of the advantage of risk-taking behavior.</p><p><br /></p><p>Key Facts:</p><p>Male heterosexuals carrying genetic variants associated with bisexuality father more children on average.</p><p>Risk-taking behavior, including unprotected sex and promiscuity, may be the underlying cause of this reproductive advantage.</p><p>The study distinguishes between genetic variants associated with bisexual behavior and exclusive same-sex behavior, with the former conferring reproductive benefits while the latter leads to fewer children over time.</p><p>Source: University of Michigan</p><p><br /></p><p>Because same-sex sexual behavior does not result in offspring, evolutionary biologists have long wondered how the genes associated with this behavior have persisted in the human genome, and whether they will remain in the future.</p><p>A new University of Michigan-led study, scheduled for publication Jan. 3 in the journal Science Advances, suggests that part of the explanation—specifically for male bisexuals—has to do with risk-taking behavior.</p><p>The U-M researchers analyzed data from more than 450,000 participants of European ancestry in the United Kingdom’s Biobank database of genetic and health information. Participants responded to a questionnaire that included the question, “Would you describe yourself as someone who takes risks?”</p><p>The U-M analysis revealed that male heterosexuals who carry the genetic variants associated with bisexual behavior, which are known as BSB-associated alleles, father more children than average. Furthermore, men who describe themselves as risk-takers tend to have more children and are more likely to carry BSB-associated alleles.</p><p>However, the authors stress that their study looks at the genetic underpinnings of same-sex sexual behavior and not the behaviors themselves, which are affected by both genetic and environmental factors.</p><p>In fact, the proportion of UK Biobank participants reporting same-sex sexual behavior has been on the rise in recent decades, likely due to growing societal openness toward it, according to the researchers.</p><p>In addition, the authors say their new results “predominantly contribute to the diversity, richness, and better understanding of human sexuality. They are not, in any way, intended to suggest or endorse discrimination on the basis of sexual behavior,” they wrote.</p><p>The new study is a follow-up to one published in May in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Song and Zhang. That study also sought to explain the persistence of genetic variants associated with same-sex sexual behavior.</p><p>In 2021, Australian biologist Brendan Zietsch and colleagues presented evidence that heterosexuals carrying same-sex-associated alleles have more sexual partners than those not carrying the variants. This could confer a genetic advantage, the authors suggested, because more sexual partners could translate into more children.</p><p>In their PNAS study, which also relied on UK Biobank data, Zhang and Song showed that while the mechanism proposed by Zietsch likely worked in pre-modern societies, it is not active today because the widespread use of contraception has decoupled the number of offspring from the number of sexual partners in heterosexuals.</p><p>The findings presented in that PNAS paper led Zhang and Song to search for other potential mechanisms for the genetic maintenance of human same-sex behavior.</p>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-76461606022849270622023-12-16T02:46:00.000-08:002023-12-16T02:46:26.967-08:00“Can’t ignore 150m conservative Americans.” I was astonished by the fury of my Times colleagues. I found myself facing an angry internal town hall.<p><a href="https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/12/14/when-the-new-york-times-lost-its-way">When the New York Times lost its way</a>. James Bennet. The Economist, Dec 15 2023.</p><p><br /></p><p>Are we truly so precious?” Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, asked me one Wednesday evening in June 2020. I was the editorial-page editor of the Times, and we had just published an op-ed by Tom Cotton, a senator from Arkansas, that was outraging many members of the Times staff. America’s conscience had been shocked days before by images of a white police officer kneeling on the neck of a black man, George Floyd, until he died. It was a frenzied time in America, assaulted by covid-19, scalded by police barbarism. Throughout the country protesters were on the march. Substantive reform of the police, so long delayed, suddenly seemed like a real possibility, but so did violence and political backlash. In some cities rioting and looting had broken out.</p><p>It was the kind of crisis in which journalism could fulfil its highest ambitions of helping readers understand the world, in order to fix it, and in the Times’s Opinion section, which I oversaw, we were pursuing our role of presenting debate from all sides. We had published pieces arguing against the idea of relying on troops to stop the violence, and one urging abolition of the police altogether. But Cotton, an army veteran, was calling for the use of troops to protect lives and businesses from rioters. Some Times reporters and other staff were taking to what was then called Twitter, now called X, to attack the decision to publish his argument, for fear he would persuade Times readers to support his proposal and it would be enacted. The next day the Times’s union—its unit of the News Guild-cwa—would issue a statement calling the op-ed “a clear threat to the health and safety of the journalists we represent”.</p><p>The Times had endured many cycles of Twitter outrage for one story or opinion piece or another. It was never fun; it felt like sticking your head in a metal bucket while people were banging it with hammers. The publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, who was about two years into the job, understood why we’d published the op-ed. He had some criticisms about packaging; he said the editors should add links to other op-eds we’d published with a different view. But he’d emailed me that afternoon, saying: “I get and support the reason for including the piece,” because, he thought, Cotton’s view had the support of the White House as well as a majority of the Senate. As the clamour grew, he asked me to call Baquet, the paper’s most senior editor.</p><p>Whether or not American democracy endures, a central question historians are sure to ask about this era is why America came to elect Donald Trump, promoting him from a symptom of the country’s institutional, political and social degradation to its agent-in-chiefLike me, Baquet seemed taken aback by the criticism that Times readers shouldn’t hear what Cotton had to say. Cotton had a lot of influence with the White House, Baquet noted, and he could well be making his argument directly to the president, Donald Trump. Readers should know about it. Cotton was also a possible future contender for the White House himself, Baquet added. And, besides, Cotton was far from alone: lots of Americans agreed with him—most of them, according to some polls. “Are we truly so precious?” Baquet asked again, with a note of wonder and frustration.</p><p>The answer, it turned out, was yes. Less than three days later, on Saturday morning, Sulzberger called me at home and, with an icy anger that still puzzles and saddens me, demanded my resignation. I got mad, too, and said he’d have to fire me. I thought better of that later. I called him back and agreed to resign, flattering myself that I was being noble.</p><p>Whether or not American democracy endures, a central question historians are sure to ask about this era is why America came to elect Donald Trump, promoting him from a symptom of the country’s institutional, political and social degradation to its agent-in-chief. There are many reasons for Trump’s ascent, but changes in the American news media played a critical role. Trump’s manipulation and every one of his political lies became more powerful because journalists had forfeited what had always been most valuable about their work: their credibility as arbiters of truth and brokers of ideas, which for more than a century, despite all of journalism’s flaws and failures, had been a bulwark of how Americans govern themselves.</p><p>I hope those historians will also be able to tell the story of how journalism found its footing again – how editors, reporters and readers, too, came to recognise that journalism needed to change to fulfil its potential in restoring the health of American politics. As Trump’s nomination and possible re-election loom, that work could not be more urgent.</p><p>I think Sulzberger shares this analysis. In interviews and his own writings, including an essay earlier this year for the Columbia Journalism Review, he has defended “independent journalism”, or, as I understand him, fair-minded, truth-seeking journalism that aspires to be open and objective. It’s good to hear the publisher speak up in defence of such values, some of which have fallen out of fashion not just with journalists at the Times and other mainstream publications but at some of the most prestigious schools of journalism. Until that miserable Saturday morning I thought I was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him in a struggle to revive them. I thought, and still think, that no American institution could have a better chance than the Times, by virtue of its principles, its history, its people and its hold on the attention of influential Americans, to lead the resistance to the corruption of political and intellectual life, to overcome the encroaching dogmatism and intolerance.</p><p>But Sulzberger seems to underestimate the struggle he is in, that all journalism and indeed America itself is in. In describing the essential qualities of independent journalism in his essay, he unspooled a list of admirable traits – empathy, humility, curiosity and so forth. These qualities have for generations been helpful in contending with the Times’s familiar problem, which is liberal bias. I have no doubt Sulzberger believes in them. Years ago he demonstrated them himself as a reporter, covering the American Midwest as a real place full of three-dimensional people, and it would be nice if they were enough to deal with the challenge of this era, too. But, on their own, these qualities have no chance against the Times’s new, more dangerous problem, which is in crucial respects the opposite of the old one.</p><p>The Times’s problem has metastasised from liberal bias to illiberal bias, from an inclination to favour one side of the national debate to an impulse to shut debate down altogether. All the empathy and humility in the world will not mean much against the pressures of intolerance and tribalism without an invaluable quality that Sulzberger did not emphasise: courage.</p><p>Don’t get me wrong. Most journalism obviously doesn’t require anything like the bravery expected of a soldier, police officer or protester. But far more than when I set out to become a journalist, doing the work right today demands a particular kind of courage: not just the devil-may-care courage to choose a profession on the brink of the abyss; not just the bulldog courage to endlessly pick yourself up and embrace the ever-evolving technology; but also, in an era when polarisation and social media viciously enforce rigid orthodoxies, the moral and intellectual courage to take the other side seriously and to report truths and ideas that your own side demonises for fear they will harm its cause.</p><p>One of the glories of embracing illiberalism is that, like Trump, you are always right about everything, and so you are justified in shouting disagreement down. In the face of this, leaders of many workplaces and boardrooms across America find that it is so much easier to compromise than to confront – to give a little ground today in the belief you can ultimately bring people around. This is how reasonable Republican leaders lost control of their party to Trump and how liberal-minded college presidents lost control of their campuses. And it is why the leadership of the New York Times is losing control of its principles.</p><p>It is hard to imagine a path back to saner American politics that does not traverse a common ground of shared factOver the decades the Times and other mainstream news organisations failed plenty of times to live up to their commitments to integrity and open-mindedness. The relentless struggle against biases and preconceptions, rather than the achievement of a superhuman objective omniscience, is what mattered. As everyone knows, the internet knocked the industry off its foundations. Local newspapers were the proving ground between college campuses and national newsrooms. As they disintegrated, the national news media lost a source of seasoned reporters and many Americans lost a journalism whose truth they could verify with their own eyes. As the country became more polarised, the national media followed the money by serving partisan audiences the versions of reality they preferred. This relationship proved self-reinforcing. As Americans became freer to choose among alternative versions of reality, their polarisation intensified. When I was at the Times, the newsroom editors worked hardest to keep Washington coverage open and unbiased, no easy task in the Trump era. And there are still people, in the Washington bureau and across the Times, doing work as fine as can be found in American journalism. But as the top editors let bias creep into certain areas of coverage, such as culture, lifestyle and business, that made the core harder to defend and undermined the authority of even the best reporters.</p><p>There have been signs the Times is trying to recover the courage of its convictions. The paper was slow to display much curiosity about the hard question of the proper medical protocols for trans children; but once it did, the editors defended their coverage against the inevitable criticism. For any counter-revolution to succeed, the leadership will need to show courage worthy of the paper’s bravest reporters and opinion columnists, the ones who work in war zones or explore ideas that make illiberal staff members shudder. As Sulzberger told me in the past, returning to the old standards will require agonising change. He saw that as the gradual work of many years, but I think he is mistaken. To overcome the cultural and commercial pressures the Times faces, particularly given the severe test posed by another Trump candidacy and possible presidency, its publisher and senior editors will have to be bolder than that.</p><p>Since Adolph Ochs bought the paper in 1896, one of the most inspiring things the Times has said about itself is that it does its work “without fear or favour”. That is not true of the institution today – it cannot be, not when its journalists are afraid to trust readers with a mainstream conservative argument such as Cotton’s, and its leaders are afraid to say otherwise. As preoccupied as it is with the question of why so many Americans have lost trust in it, the Times is failing to face up to one crucial reason: that it has lost faith in Americans, too.</p><p>For now, to assert that the Times plays by the same rules it always has is to commit a hypocrisy that is transparent to conservatives, dangerous to liberals and bad for the country as a whole. It makes the Times too easy for conservatives to dismiss and too easy for progressives to believe. The reality is that the Times is becoming the publication through which America’s progressive elite talks to itself about an America that does not really exist.</p><p>It is hard to imagine a path back to saner American politics that does not traverse a common ground of shared fact. It is equally hard to imagine how America’s diversity can continue to be a source of strength, rather than become a fatal flaw, if Americans are afraid or unwilling to listen to each other. I suppose it is also pretty grandiose to think you might help fix all that. But that hope, to me, is what makes journalism worth doing.</p><p><br /></p><p>The New York Times taught me how to do daily journalism. I joined the paper, for my first stint, in the pre-internet days, in an era of American journalism so different that it was almost another profession. Back in 1991 the Times was anxious not about a print business that was collapsing but about an industry so robust that Long Island Newsday was making a push into New York City. A newspaper war was under way, and the Times was fighting back by expanding its Metro desk, hiring reporters and opening bureaus in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.</p><p>Metro was the biggest news desk. New reporters had to do rotations of up to a year there to learn the culture and folkways of the paper. Baquet, surely among the greatest investigative journalists America has produced, was then in Metro. I was brought on as a probationary reporter, with a year to prove myself, and like other new hires was put through a series of assignments at the low end of the hierarchy.</p><p>After about six months the Metro editor, Gerald Boyd, asked me to take a walk with him, as it turned out, to deliver a harsh lesson in Timesian ambition and discipline. Chain-smoking, speaking in his whispery, peculiarly high-pitched voice, he kicked my ass from one end of Times Square to the other. He had taken a chance hiring me, and he was disappointed. There was nothing special about my stories. At the rate I was going, I had no chance of making it onto the paper.</p><p>The next day was a Saturday, and I reached Boyd at home through the Metro desk to rattle off the speech I’d endlessly rehearsed while staring at the ceiling all night. The gist was that the desk had kept me chasing small-bore stories, blah blah blah. Boyd sounded less surprised than amused to hear from me, and soon gave me a new assignment, asking me to spend three months covering the elderly, one of several new “mini-beats” on subjects the desk had overlooked.</p><p>I was worried there were good reasons this particular beat had been ignored. At 26, as one of the youngest reporters on the desk, I was also not an obvious candidate for the role of house expert on the wise and grey. But Boyd assigned me to an excellent editor, Suzanne Daley, and as I began studying the city’s elderly and interviewing experts and actual old people, I began to discover the rewards granted any serious reporter: that when you acknowledge how little you know, looking in at a world from the outside brings a special clarity.</p><p>The Times is becoming the publication through which America’s progressive elite talks to itself about an America that does not really existThe subject was more complicated and richer than I imagined, and every person had stories to tell. I wrote about hunger, aids and romance among the elderly, about old comedians telling old jokes to old people in senior centres. As I reported on Jews who had fled Germany to settle in Washington Heights or black Americans who had left the Jim Crow south to settle in Bushwick, Brooklyn, it dawned on me that, thanks to Boyd, I was covering the history of the world in the 20th century through the eyes of those who had lived it.</p><p>After joining the permanent staff, I went, again in humbling ignorance, to Detroit, to cover the auto companies’ – and the city’s – struggle to recapture their former glory. And again I had a chance to learn, in this case, everything from how the largest companies in the world were run, to what it was like to work the line or the sales floor, to the struggle and dignity of life in one of America’s most captivating cities. “We still have a long way to go,” Rosa Parks told me, when I interviewed her after she had been robbed and beaten in her home on Detroit’s west side one August night in 1994. “And so many of our children are going astray.”</p><p>I began to write about presidential politics two years later, in 1996, and as the most inexperienced member of the team was assigned to cover a long-shot Republican candidate, Pat Buchanan. I packed a bag for a four-day reporting trip and did not return home for six weeks. Buchanan campaigned on an eccentric fusion of social conservatism and statist economic policies, along with coded appeals to racism and antisemitism, that 30 years earlier had elevated George Wallace and 20 years later would be rebranded as Trumpism. He also campaigned with conviction, humour and even joy, a combination I have rarely witnessed. As a Democrat from a family of Democrats, a graduate of Yale and a blossom of the imagined meritocracy, I had my first real chance, at Buchanan’s rallies, to see the world through the eyes of stalwart opponents of abortion, immigration and the relentlessly rising tide of modernity.</p><p>The task of making the world intelligible was even greater in my first foreign assignment. I arrived in Jerusalem a week before the attacks of September 11th 2001, just after the second intifada had broken out. I had been to the Middle East just once, as a White House reporter covering President Bill Clinton. “Well, in at the deep end,” the foreign editor, Roger Cohen, told me before I left. To spend time with the perpetrators and victims of violence in the Middle East, to listen hard to the reciprocal and reinforcing stories of new and ancient grievances, is to confront the tragic truth that there can be justice on more than one side of a conflict. More than ever, it seemed to me that a reporter gave up something in renouncing the taking of sides: possibly the moral high ground, certainly the psychological satisfaction of righteous anger.</p><p><br /></p><p>Pat Buchanan during the New Hampshire primaryBut there was a compensating moral and psychological privilege that came with aspiring to journalistic neutrality and open-mindedness, despised as they might understandably be by partisans. Unlike the duelling politicians and advocates of all kinds, unlike the corporate chieftains and their critics, unlike even the sainted non-profit workers, you did not have to pretend things were simpler than they actually were. You did not have to go along with everything that any tribe said. You did not have to pretend that the good guys, much as you might have respected them, were right about everything, or that the bad guys, much as you might have disdained them, never had a point. You did not, in other words, ever have to lie.</p><p>This fundamental honesty was vital for readers, because it equipped them to make better, more informed judgments about the world. Sometimes it might shock or upset them by failing to conform to their picture of reality. But it also granted them the respect of acknowledging that they were able to work things out for themselves.</p><p>What a gift it was to be taught and trusted as I was by my editors – to be a reporter with licence to ask anyone anything, to experience the whole world as a school and every source and subject as a teacher. I left after 15 years, in 2006, when I had the chance to become editor of the Atlantic. Rather than starting out on yet another beat at the Times, I felt ready to put my experience to work and ambitious for the responsibility to shape coverage myself. It was also obvious how much the internet was changing journalism. I was eager to figure out how to use it, and anxious about being at the mercy of choices by others, in a time not just of existential peril for the industry, but maybe of opportunity.</p><p>The Atlantic did not aspire to the same role as the Times. It did not promise to serve up the news of the day without any bias. But it was to opinion journalism what the Times’s reporting was supposed to be to news: honest and open to the world. The question was what the magazine’s 19th-century claim of intellectual independence – to be “of no party or clique” – should mean in the digital era.</p><p>A journalism that starts out assuming it knows the answers can be far less valuable to the reader than a journalism that starts out with a humbling awareness that it knows nothingThose were the glory days of the blog, and we hit on the idea of creating a living op-ed page, a collective of bloggers with different points of view but a shared intellectual honesty who would argue out the meaning of the news of the day. They were brilliant, gutsy writers, and their disagreements were deep enough that I used to joke that my main work as editor was to prevent fistfights.</p><p>The lessons we learned from adapting the Atlantic to the internet washed back into print. Under its owner, David Bradley, my colleagues and I distilled our purpose as publishing big arguments about big ideas. We made some mistakes – that goes along with any serious journalism ambitious to make a change, and to embrace change itself – but we also began producing some of the most important work in American journalism: Nicholas Carr on whether Google was “making us stupid”; Hanna Rosin on “the end of men”; Taylor Branch on “the shame of college sports”; Ta-Nehisi Coates on “the case for reparations”; Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt on “the coddling of the American mind”.</p><p>I was starting to see some effects of the new campus politics within the Atlantic. A promising new editor had created a digital form for aspiring freelancers to fill out, and she wanted to ask them to disclose their racial and sexual identity. Why? Because, she said, if we were to write about the trans community, for example, we would ask a trans person to write the story. There was a good argument for that, I acknowledged, and it sometimes might be the right answer. But as I thought about the old people, auto workers and abortion opponents I had learned from, I told her there was also an argument for correspondents who brought an outsider’s ignorance, along with curiosity and empathy, to the story.</p><p>A journalism that starts out assuming it knows the answers, it seemed to me then, and seems even more so to me now, can be far less valuable to the reader than a journalism that starts out with a humbling awareness that it knows nothing. “In truly effective thinking”, Walter Lippmann wrote 100 years ago in “Public Opinion”, “the prime necessity is to liquidate judgments, regain an innocent eye, disentangle feelings, be curious and open-hearted.” Alarmed by the shoddy journalism of his day, Lippmann was calling for journalists to struggle against their ignorance and assumptions in order to help Americans resist the increasingly sophisticated tools of propagandists. As the Atlantic made its digital transition, one thing I preached was that we could not cling to any tradition or convention, however hallowed, for its own sake, but only if it was relevant to the needs of readers today. In the age of the internet it is hard even for a child to sustain an “innocent eye”, but the alternative for journalists remains as dangerous as ever, to become propagandists. America has more than enough of those already.</p><p>What we did together at the Atlantic worked. We dramatically increased the magazine’s audience and influence while making it profitable for the first time in generations. After I had spent ten years as editor, the last few as co-president, the publisher, A.G. Sulzberger’s father, also an Arthur Sulzberger, asked me to return to the Times as editorial-page editor.</p><p>His offer, I thought, would give me the chance to do the kind of journalism I loved with more resources and greater effect. The freedom Opinion had to experiment with voice and point of view meant that it would be more able than the Times newsroom to take advantage of the tools of digital journalism, from audio to video to graphics. Opinion writers could also break out of limiting print conventions and do more in-depth, reported columns and editorials. Though the Opinion department, which then had about 100 staff, was a fraction the size of the newsroom, with more than 1,300, Opinion’s work had outsized reach. Most important, the Times, probably more than any other American institution, could influence the way society approached debate and engagement with opposing views. If Times Opinion demonstrated the same kind of intellectual courage and curiosity that my colleagues at the Atlantic had shown, I hoped, the rest of the media would follow.</p><p>No doubt Sulzberger’s offer also appealed not just to my loyalty to the Times, but to my ambition as well. I would report directly to the publisher, and I was immediately seen, inside and outside the paper, as a candidate for the top job. I had hoped being in Opinion would exempt me from the infamous political games of the newsroom, but it did not, and no doubt my old colleagues felt I was playing such games myself. Fairly quickly, though, I realised two things: first, that if I did my job as I thought it should be done, and as the Sulzbergers said they wanted me to do it, I would be too polarising internally ever to lead the newsroom; second, that I did not want that job, though no one but my wife believed me when I said that.</p><p><br /></p><p>It was 2016, a presidential-election year, and I had been gone from the Times for a decade. Although many of my old colleagues had also left in the interim and the Times had moved into a new glass-and-steel tower, I otherwise had little idea how much things had changed. When I looked around the Opinion department, change was not what I perceived. Excellent writers and editors were doing excellent work. But the department’s journalism was consumed with politics and foreign affairs in an era when readers were also fascinated by changes in technology, business, science and culture.</p><p>The Opinion department mocked the paper’s claim to value diversity. It did not have a single black editor. The large staff of op-ed editors contained only a couple of women. Although the 11 columnists were individually admirable, only two of them were women and only one was a person of colour. (The Times had not appointed a black columnist until the 1990s, and had only employed two in total.) Not only did they all focus on politics and foreign affairs, but during the 2016 campaign, no columnist shared, in broad terms, the worldview of the ascendant progressives of the Democratic Party, incarnated by Bernie Sanders. And only two were conservative.</p><p>This last fact was of particular concern to the elder Sulzberger. He told me the Times needed more conservative voices, and that its own editorial line had become predictably left-wing. “Too many liberals,” read my notes about the Opinion line-up from a meeting I had with him and Mark Thompson, then the chief executive, as I was preparing to rejoin the paper. “Even conservatives are liberals’ idea of a conservative.” The last note I took from that meeting was: “Can’t ignore 150m conservative Americans.”</p><p>I was astonished by the fury of my Times colleagues. I found myself facing an angry internal town hall, trying to justify what to me was an obvious journalistic decisionWith my Opinion colleagues, I set out to deal with this long list of needs. I restructured the department, changing everybody’s role and, using buyouts, changing people as well. It was too much, too fast; it rocked the department, and my colleagues and I made mistakes amid the turmoil, including one that brought a libel suit from John McCain’s vice-presidential running-mate, Sarah Palin, dismissed twice by a judge and once by a jury but endlessly appealed on procedural grounds. Yet we also did more in four years to diversify the line-up of writers by identity, ideology and expertise than the Times had in the previous century; we published more ambitious projects than Opinion had ever attempted. We won two Pulitzer prizes in four years – as many as the department had in the previous 20.</p><p>As I knew from my time at the Atlantic, this kind of structural transformation can be frightening and even infuriating for those understandably proud of things as they are. It is hard on everyone. But experience at the Atlantic also taught me that pursuing new ways of doing journalism in pursuit of venerable institutional principles created enthusiasm for change. I expected that same dynamic to allay concerns at the Times.</p><p>In that same statement in 1896, after committing the Times to pursue the news without fear or favour, Ochs promised to “invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion”. So adding new voices, some more progressive and others more conservative, and more journalists of diverse identities and backgrounds, fulfilled the paper’s historic purpose. If Opinion published a wider range of views, it would help frame a set of shared arguments that corresponded to, and drew upon, the set of shared facts coming from the newsroom. On the right and left, America’s elites now talk within their tribes, and get angry or contemptuous on those occasions when they happen to overhear the other conclave. If they could be coaxed to agree what they were arguing about, and the rules by which they would argue about it, opinion journalism could serve a foundational need of the democracy by fostering diverse and inclusive debate. Who could be against that?</p><p>Out of naivety or arrogance, I was slow to recognise that at the Times, unlike at the Atlantic, these values were no longer universally accepted, let alone esteemed. When I first took the job, I felt some days as if I’d parachuted onto one of those Pacific islands still held by Japanese soldiers who didn’t know that the world beyond the waves had changed. Eventually, it sank in that my snotty joke was actually on me: I was the one ignorantly fighting a battle that was already lost. The old liberal embrace of inclusive debate that reflected the country’s breadth of views had given way to a new intolerance for the opinions of roughly half of American voters. New progressive voices were celebrated within the Times. But in contrast to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, conservative voices – even eloquent anti-Trump conservative voices – were despised, regardless of how many leftists might surround them. (President Trump himself submitted one op-ed during my time, but we could not raise it to our standards – his people would not agree to the edits we asked for.)</p><p>About a year after the 2016 election, the Times newsroom published a profile of a man from Ohio who had attended the rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, at which a white nationalist drove his car into a crowd of protesters, killing one. It was a terrifying piece. The man had four cats, listened to National Public Radio, and had registered at Target for a muffin pan before his recent wedding. In exploring his evolution from “vaguely leftist rock musician to ardent libertarian to fascist activist” the article rang an alarm about how “the election of President Donald Trump helped open a space for people like him”.</p><p><br /></p><p>The profile was in keeping with the Times’s tradition of confronting readers with the confounding reality of the world around them. After the 9/11 attacks, as the bureau chief in Jerusalem, I spent a lot of time in the Gaza Strip interviewing Hamas leaders, recruiters and foot soldiers, trying to understand and describe their murderous ideology. Some readers complained that I was providing a platform for terrorists, but there was never any objection from within the Times. (Nor did it occur to me to complain that by publishing op-eds critical of Hamas the Opinion department was putting my life in danger.) Our role, we knew, was to help readers understand such threats, and this required empathetic – not sympathetic – reporting. This is not an easy distinction but good reporters make it: they learn to understand and communicate the sources and nature of a toxic ideology without justifying it, much less advocating it.</p><p>Today’s newsroom turns that moral logic on its head, at least when it comes to fellow Americans. Unlike the views of Hamas, the views of many Americans have come to seem dangerous to engage in the absence of explicit condemnation. Focusing on potential perpetrators – “platforming” them by explaining rather than judging their views – is believed to empower them to do more harm. After the profile of the Ohio man was published, media Twitter lit up with attacks on the article as “normalising” Nazism and white nationalism, and the Times convulsed internally. The Times wound up publishing a cringing editor’s note that hung the writer out to dry and approvingly quoted some of the criticism, including a tweet from a Washington Post opinion editor asking, “Instead of long, glowing profiles of Nazis/White nationalists, why don’t we profile the victims of their ideologies”? The Times did profile the victims of such ideologies; and the very headline of the piece – “A Voice of Hate in America’s Heartland” – undermined the claim that it was “glowing”. But the Times lacked the confidence to defend its own work. (As it happens, being platformed did not do much to increase the power of that Ohio man. He, his wife and his brother lost their jobs and the newly married couple lost the home intended for their muffin pan.)</p><p>I felt some days as if I’d parachuted onto one of those Pacific islands still held by Japanese soldiers who didn’t know that the world beyond the waves had changedThe editor’s note paraded the principle of publishing such pieces, saying it was important to “shed more light, not less, on the most extreme corners of American life”. But less light is what the readers got. As a reporter in the newsroom, you’d have to have been an idiot after that explosion to attempt such a profile. Empathetic reporting about Trump supporters became even more rare. It became a cliché among influential left-wing columnists and editors that blinkered political reporters interviewed a few Trump supporters in diners and came away suckered into thinking there was something besides racism that could explain anyone’s support for the man.</p><p>I failed to take the hint. As the first anniversary of Trump’s inauguration approached, the editors who compile letters to the Times, part of my department, had put out a request to readers who supported the president to say what they thought of him now. The results had some nuance. “Yes, he is embarrassing,” wrote one reader. “Yes, he picks unnecessary fights. But he also pushed tax reform through, has largely defeated isis in Iraq,” and so forth. After a year spent publishing editorials attacking Trump and his policies, I thought it would be a demonstration of Timesian open-mindedness to give his supporters their say. Also, I thought the letters were interesting, so I turned over the entire editorial page to the Trump letters.</p><p>I wasn’t surprised that we got some criticism on Twitter. But I was astonished by the fury of my Times colleagues. I found myself facing an angry internal town hall, trying to justify what to me was an obvious journalistic decision. During the session, one of the newsroom’s journalists demanded to know when I would publish a page of letters from Barack Obama’s supporters. I stammered out some kind of answer. The question just didn’t make sense to me. Pretty much every day we published letters from people who supported Obama and criticised Trump. Didn’t he know that Obama wasn’t president any more? Didn’t he think other Times readers should understand the sources of Trump’s support? Didn’t he also see it was a wonderful thing that some Trump supporters did not just dismiss the Times as fake news, but still believed in it enough to respond thoughtfully to an invitation to share their views?</p><p>And if the Times could not bear to publish the views of Americans who supported Trump, why should it be surprised that those voters would not trust it? Two years later, in 2020, Baquet acknowledged that in 2016 the Times had failed to take seriously the idea that Trump could become president partly because it failed to send its reporters out into America to listen to voters and understand “the turmoil in the country”. And, he continued, the Times still did not understand the views of many Americans. “One of the great puzzles of 2016 remains a great puzzle,” he said. “Why did millions and millions of Americans vote for a guy who’s such an unusual candidate?” Speaking four months before we published the Cotton op-ed, he said that to argue that the views of such voters should not appear in the Times was “not journalistic”.</p><p><br /></p><p>Conservative arguments in the Opinion pages reliably started uproars within the Times. Sometimes I would hear directly from colleagues who had the grace to confront me with their concerns; more often they would take to the company’s Slack channels or Twitter to advertise their distress in front of each other. By contrast, in my four years as Opinion editor, I received just two complaints from newsroom staff about pieces we published from the left. When I was visiting one of the Times’s West Coast bureaus, a reporter pulled me aside to say he worried that a liberal columnist was engaged in ad hominem attacks; a reporter in the Washington bureau wrote to me to object to an op-ed piece questioning the value of protecting free speech for right-wing groups.</p><p>This environment of enforced group-think, inside and outside the paper, was hard even on liberal opinion writers. One left-of-centre columnist told me that he was reluctant to appear in the New York office for fear of being accosted by colleagues. (An internal survey shortly after I left the paper found that barely half the staff, within an enterprise ostensibly devoted to telling the truth, agreed “there is a free exchange of views in this company” and “people are not afraid to say what they really think”.) Even columnists with impeccable leftist bona fides recoiled from tackling subjects when their point of view might depart from progressive orthodoxy. I once complimented a long-time, left-leaning Opinion writer over a column criticising Democrats in Congress for doing something stupid. Trying to encourage more such journalism and thus less such stupidity, I remarked that this kind of argument had more influence than yet another Trump-is-a-devil column. “I know,” he replied, ruefully. “But Twitter hates it.”</p><p>The bias had become so pervasive, even in the senior editing ranks of the newsroom, as to be unconscious. Trying to be helpful, one of the top newsroom editors urged me to start attaching trigger warnings to pieces by conservatives. It had not occurred to him how this would stigmatise certain colleagues, or what it would say to the world about the Times’s own bias. By their nature, information bubbles are powerfully self-reinforcing, and I think many Times staff have little idea how closed their world has become, or how far they are from fulfilling their compact with readers to show the world “without fear or favour”. And sometimes the bias was explicit: one newsroom editor told me that, because I was publishing more conservatives, he felt he needed to push his own department further to the left.</p><p>Even columnists with impeccable leftist bona fides recoiled from tackling subjects when their point of view might depart from progressive orthodoxyThe Times’s failure to honour its own stated principles of openness to a range of views was particularly hard on the handful of conservative writers, some of whom would complain about being flyspecked and abused by colleagues. One day when I relayed a conservative’s concern about double standards to Sulzberger, he lost his patience. He told me to inform the complaining conservative that that’s just how it was: there was a double standard and he should get used to it. A publication that promises its readers to stand apart from politics should not have different standards for different writers based on their politics. But I delivered the message. There are many things I regret about my tenure as editorial-page editor. That is the only act of which I am ashamed.</p><p>As I realised how different the new Times had become from the old one that trained me, I began to think of myself not as a benighted veteran on a remote island, but as Rip Van Winkle. I had left one newspaper, had a pleasant dream for ten years, and returned to a place I barely recognised. The new New York Times was the product of two shocks – sudden collapse, and then sudden success. The paper almost went bankrupt during the financial crisis, and the ensuing panic provoked a crisis of confidence among its leaders. Digital competitors like the HuffPost were gaining readers and winning plaudits within the media industry as innovative. They were the cool kids; Times folk were ink-stained wrinklies.</p><p>In its panic, the Times bought out experienced reporters and editors and began hiring journalists from publications like the HuffPost who were considered “digital natives” because they had never worked in print. This hiring quickly became easier, since most digital publications financed by venture capital turned out to be bad businesses. The advertising that was supposed to fund them flowed instead to the giant social-media companies. The HuffPosts and Buzzfeeds began to decay, and the Times’s subscriptions and staff began to grow.</p><p>I have been lucky in my own career to move between local and national and international journalism, newspapers and magazines, opinion and news, and the print and digital realms. I was even luckier in these various roles to have editors with a profound understanding of their particular form and a sense of duty about teaching it. The wipeout of local papers and the desperate transformation of survivors like the Times have left young reporters today with fewer such opportunities.</p><p>Though they might have lacked deep or varied reporting backgrounds, some of the Times’s new hires brought skills in video and audio; others were practised at marketing themselves – building their brands, as journalists now put it – in social media. Some were brilliant and fiercely honest, in keeping with the old aspirations of the paper. But, critically, the Times abandoned its practice of acculturation, including those months-long assignments on Metro covering cops and crime or housing. Many new hires who never spent time in the streets went straight into senior writing and editing roles. Meanwhile, the paper began pushing out its print-era salespeople and hiring new ones, and also hiring hundreds of engineers to build its digital infrastructure. All these recruits arrived with their own notions of the purpose of the Times. To me, publishing conservatives helped fulfil the paper’s mission; to them, I think, it betrayed that mission.</p><p>And then, to the shock and horror of the newsroom, Trump won the presidency. In his article for Columbia Journalism Review, Sulzberger cites the Times’s failure to take Trump’s chances seriously as an example of how “prematurely shutting down inquiry and debate” can allow “conventional wisdom to ossify in a way that blinds society.” Many Times staff members – scared, angry – assumed the Times was supposed to help lead the resistance. Anxious for growth, the Times’s marketing team implicitly endorsed that idea, too.</p><p>As the number of subscribers ballooned, the marketing department tracked their expectations, and came to a nuanced conclusion. More than 95% of Times subscribers described themselves as Democrats or independents, and a vast majority of them believed the Times was also liberal. A similar majority applauded that bias; it had become “a selling point”, reported one internal marketing memo. Yet at the same time, the marketers concluded, subscribers wanted to believe that the Times was independent.</p><p>When you think about it, this contradiction resolves itself easily. It is human nature to want to see your bias confirmed; however, it is also human nature to want to be reassured that your bias is not just a bias, but is endorsed by journalism that is “fair and balanced”, as a certain Murdoch-owned cable-news network used to put it. As that memo argued, even if the Times was seen as politically to the left, it was critical to its brand also to be seen as broadening its readers’ horizons, and that required “a perception of independence”.</p><p>Perception is one thing, and actual independence another. Readers could cancel their subscriptions if the Times challenged their worldview by reporting the truth without regard to politics. As a result, the Times’s long-term civic value was coming into conflict with the paper’s short-term shareholder value. As the cable networks have shown, you can build a decent business by appealing to the millions of Americans who comprise one of the partisan tribes of the electorate. The Times has every right to pursue the commercial strategy that makes it the most money. But leaning into a partisan audience creates a powerful dynamic. Nobody warned the new subscribers to the Times that it might disappoint them by reporting truths that conflicted with their expectations. When your product is “independent journalism”, that commercial strategy is tricky, because too much independence might alienate your audience, while too little can lead to charges of hypocrisy that strike at the heart of the brand.</p><p>To the horror of the newsroom, Trump won the presidency. Many Times staff members – scared, angry – assumed the Times was supposed to help lead the resistanceIt became one of Dean Baquet’s frequent mordant jokes that he missed the old advertising-based business model, because, compared with subscribers, advertisers felt so much less sense of ownership over the journalism. I recall his astonishment, fairly early in the Trump administration, after Times reporters conducted an interview with Trump. Subscribers were angry about the questions the Times had asked. It was as if they’d only be satisfied, Baquet said, if the reporters leaped across the desk and tried to wring the president’s neck. The Times was slow to break it to its readers that there was less to Trump’s ties to Russia than they were hoping, and more to Hunter Biden’s laptop, that Trump might be right that covid came from a Chinese lab, that masks were not always effective against the virus, that shutting down schools for many months was a bad idea.</p><p>In my experience, reporters overwhelmingly support Democratic policies and candidates. They are generally also motivated by a desire for a more just world. Neither of those tendencies are new. But there has been a sea change over the past ten years in how journalists think about pursuing justice. The reporters’ creed used to have its foundation in liberalism, in the classic philosophical sense. The exercise of a reporter’s curiosity and empathy, given scope by the constitutional protections of free speech, would equip readers with the best information to form their own judgments. The best ideas and arguments would win out. The journalist’s role was to be a sworn witness; the readers’ role was to be judge and jury. In its idealised form, journalism was lonely, prickly, unpopular work, because it was only through unrelenting scepticism and questioning that society could advance. If everyone the reporter knew thought X, the reporter’s role was to ask: why X?</p><p>Illiberal journalists have a different philosophy, and they have their reasons for it. They are more concerned with group rights than individual rights, which they regard as a bulwark for the privileges of white men. They have seen the principle of free speech used to protect right-wing outfits like Project Veritas and Breitbart News and are uneasy with it. They had their suspicions of their fellow citizens’ judgment confirmed by Trump’s election, and do not believe readers can be trusted with potentially dangerous ideas or facts. They are not out to achieve social justice as the knock-on effect of pursuing truth; they want to pursue it head-on. The term “objectivity” to them is code for ignoring the poor and weak and cosying up to power, as journalists often have done.</p><p>And they do not just want to be part of the cool crowd. They need to be. To be more valued by their peers and their contacts – and hold sway over their bosses – they need a lot of followers in social media. That means they must be seen to applaud the right sentiments of the right people in social media. The journalist from central casting used to be a loner, contrarian or a misfit. Now journalism is becoming another job for joiners, or, to borrow Twitter’s own parlance, “followers”, a term that mocks the essence of a journalist’s role.</p><p>This is a bit of a paradox. The new newsroom ideology seems idealistic, yet it has grown from cynical roots in academia: from the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth; that there is only narrative, and that therefore whoever controls the narrative – whoever gets to tell the version of the story that the public hears – has the whip hand. What matters, in other words, is not truth and ideas in themselves, but the power to determine both in the public mind.</p><p>By contrast, the old newsroom ideology seems cynical on its surface. It used to bug me that my editors at the Times assumed every word out of the mouth of any person in power was a lie. And the pursuit of objectivity can seem reptilian, even nihilistic, in its abjuration of a fixed position in moral contests. But the basis of that old newsroom approach was idealistic: the notion that power ultimately lies in truth and ideas, and that the citizens of a pluralistic democracy, not leaders of any sort, must be trusted to judge both.</p><p>Our role in Times Opinion, I used to urge my colleagues, was not to tell people what to think, but to help them fulfil their desire to think for themselves. It seems to me that putting the pursuit of truth, rather than of justice, at the top of a publication’s hierarchy of values also better serves not just truth but justice, too: over the long term journalism that is not also sceptical of the advocates of any form of justice and the programmes they put forward, and that does not struggle honestly to understand and explain the sources of resistance, will not assure that those programmes will work, and it also has no legitimate claim to the trust of reasonable people who see the world very differently. Rather than advance understanding and durable change, it provokes backlash.</p><p>The impatience within the newsroom with such old ways was intensified by the generational failure of the Times to hire and promote women and non-white people, black people in particular. In the 1990s, and into the early part of this century, when I worked in the high-profile Washington bureau of the Times, usually at most two of the dozens of journalists stationed there were black. Before Baquet became executive editor, the highest-ranked black journalist at the Times had been my old Metro editor, Gerald Boyd. He rose to become managing editor before A.G. Sulzberger’s father pushed him out, along with the executive editor, Howell Raines, when a black reporter named Jayson Blair was discovered to be a fabulist. Boyd was said to have protected Blair, an accusation he denied and attributed to racism.</p><p>The accusation against Boyd never made sense to me. In my experience he was even harder on black and brown reporters than he was on us white people. He understood better than anyone what it would take for them to succeed at the Times. “The Times was a place where blacks felt they had to convince their white peers that they were good enough to be there,” he wrote in his heartbreaking memoir, published posthumously. He died in 2006 of lung cancer, three years after he was discarded.</p><p>Illiberal journalists are not out to achieve social justice as the knock-on effect of pursuing truth; they want to pursue it head-on. The term “objectivity” to them is code for ignoring the poor and weak and cosying up to powerPay attention if you are white at the Times and you will hear black editors speak of hiring consultants at their own expense to figure out how to get white staff to respect them. You might hear how a black journalist, passing through the newsroom, was asked by a white colleague whether he was the “telephone guy” sent to fix his extension. I certainly never got asked a question like that. Among the experienced journalists at the Times, black journalists were least likely, I thought, to exhibit fragility and herd behaviour.</p><p>As wave after wave of pain and outrage swept through the Times, over a headline that was not damning enough of Trump or someone’s obnoxious tweets, I came to think of the people who were fragile, the ones who were caught up in Slack or Twitter storms, as people who had only recently discovered that they were white and were still getting over the shock. Having concluded they had got ahead by working hard, it has been a revelation to them that their skin colour was not just part of the wallpaper of American life, but a source of power, protection and advancement. They may know a lot about television, or real estate, or how to edit audio files, but their work does not take them into shelters, or police precincts, or the homes of people who see the world very differently. It has never exposed them to live fire. Their idea of violence includes vocabulary.</p><p>I share the bewilderment that so many people could back Trump, given the things he says and does, and that makes me want to understand why they do: the breadth and diversity of his support suggests not just racism is at work. Yet these elite, well-meaning Times staff cannot seem to stretch the empathy they are learning to extend to people with a different skin colour to include those, of whatever race, who have different politics.</p><p>The digital natives were nevertheless valuable, not only for their skills but also because they were excited for the Times to embrace its future. That made them important allies of the editorial and business leaders as they sought to shift the Times to digital journalism and to replace staff steeped in the ways of print. Partly for that reason, and partly out of fear, the leadership indulged internal attacks on Times journalism, despite pleas from me and others, to them and the company as a whole, that Times folk should treat each other with more respect. My colleagues and I in Opinion came in for a lot of the scorn, but we were not alone. Correspondents in the Washington bureau and political reporters would take a beating, too, when they were seen as committing sins like “false balance” because of the nuance in their stories.</p><p>My fellow editorial and commercial leaders were well aware of how the culture of the institution had changed. As delighted as they were by the Times’s digital transformation they were not blind to the ideological change that came with it. They were unhappy with the bullying and group-think; we often discussed such cultural problems in the weekly meetings of the executive committee, composed of the top editorial and business leaders, including the publisher. Inevitably, these bitch sessions would end with someone saying a version of: “Well, at some point we have to tell them this is what we believe in as a newspaper, and if they don’t like it they should work somewhere else.” It took me a couple of years to realise that this moment was never going to come.</p><p>More than 30 years ago, a young political reporter named Todd Purdum tremulously asked an all-staff meeting what would be done about the “climate of fear” within the newsroom in which reporters felt intimidated by their bosses? The moment immediately entered Times lore. There is a lot not to miss about the days when editors like Boyd could strike terror in young reporters like me and Purdum. But the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction that editors now tremble before their reporters and even their interns. “I miss the old climate of fear,” Baquet used to say with a smile, in another of his barbed jokes.</p><p>During the first meeting of the Times board of directors that I attended, in 2016, Baquet and I hosted a joint question-and-answer session. At one point, Baquet, musing about how the Times was changing, observed that one of the newsroom’s cultural critics had become the paper’s best political-opinion columnist. Taking this musing one step further, I then noted that this raised an obvious question: why did the paper still have an Opinion department separate from the newsroom, with its own editor reporting directly to the publisher? If the newsroom was publishing the best opinion journalism at the paper – if it was publishing opinion at all – why did the Times maintain a separate department that falsely claimed to have a monopoly on such journalism?</p><p>Everyone laughed. But I meant it, and I wish I’d pursued my point and talked myself out of the job. This contest over control of opinion journalism within the Times was not just a bureaucratic turf battle (though it was that, too). The newsroom’s embrace of opinion journalism has compromised the Times’s independence, misled its readers and fostered a culture of intolerance and conformity.</p><p>The Opinion department is a relic of the era when the Times enforced a line between news and opinion journalism. Editors in the newsroom did not touch opinionated copy, lest they be contaminated by it, and opinion journalists and editors kept largely to their own, distant floor within the Times building. Such fastidiousness could seem excessive, but it enforced an ethos that Times reporters owed their readers an unceasing struggle against bias in the news. But by the time I returned as editorial-page editor, more opinion columnists and critics were writing for the newsroom than for Opinion. As at the cable news networks, the boundaries between commentary and news were disappearing, and readers had little reason to trust that Times journalists were resisting rather than indulging their biases.</p><p>The publisher called to tell me the company was experiencing its largest sick day in history; people were turning down job offers because of the op-ed, and, he said, some people were quittingThe Times newsroom had added more cultural critics, and, as Baquet noted, they were free to opine about politics. Departments across the Times newsroom had also begun appointing their own “columnists”, without stipulating any rules that might distinguish them from columnists in Opinion. It became a running joke. Every few months, some poor editor in the newsroom or Opinion would be tasked with writing up guidelines that would distinguish the newsroom’s opinion journalists from those of Opinion, and every time they would ultimately throw up their hands.</p><p>I remember how shaken A.G. Sulzberger was one day when he was cornered by a cultural critic who had got wind that such guardrails might be put in place. The critic insisted he was an opinion writer, just like anyone in the Opinion department, and he would not be reined in. He wasn’t. (I checked to see if, since I left the Times, it had developed guidelines explaining the difference, if any, between a news columnist and opinion columnist. The paper’s spokeswoman, Danielle Rhoades Ha, did not respond to the question.)</p><p>The internet rewards opinionated work and, as news editors felt increasing pressure to generate page views, they began not just hiring more opinion writers but also running their own versions of opinionated essays by outside voices – historically, the province of Opinion’s op-ed department. Yet because the paper continued to honour the letter of its old principles, none of this work could be labelled “opinion” (it still isn’t). After all, it did not come from the Opinion department. And so a newsroom technology columnist might call for, say, unionisation of the Silicon Valley workforce, as one did, or an outside writer might argue in the business section for reparations for slavery, as one did, and to the average reader their work would appear indistinguishable from Times news articles.</p><p>By similarly circular logic, the newsroom’s opinion journalism breaks another of the Times’s commitments to its readers. Because the newsroom officially does not do opinion – even though it openly hires and publishes opinion journalists – it feels free to ignore Opinion’s mandate to provide a diversity of views. When I was editorial-page editor, there were a couple of newsroom columnists whose politics were not obvious. But the other newsroom columnists, and the critics, read as passionate progressives.</p><p>I urged Baquet several times to add a conservative to the newsroom roster of cultural critics. That would serve the readers by diversifying the Times’s analysis of culture, where the paper’s left-wing bias had become most blatant, and it would show that the newsroom also believed in restoring the Times’s commitment to taking conservatives seriously. He said this was a good idea, but he never acted on it. I couldn’t help trying the idea out on one of the paper’s top cultural editors, too: he told me he did not think Times readers would be interested in that point of view.</p><p>As the Times tried to compete for more readers online, homogenous opinion was spreading through the newsroom in other ways. News desks were urging reporters to write in the first person and to use more “voice”, but few newsroom editors had experience in handling that kind of journalism, and no one seemed certain where “voice” stopped and “opinion” began. The Times magazine, meanwhile, became a crusading progressive publication. Baquet liked to say the magazine was Switzerland, by which he meant that it sat between the newsroom and Opinion. But it reported only to the news side. Its work was not labelled as opinion and it was free to omit conservative viewpoints.</p><p>This creep of politics into the newsroom’s journalism helped the Times beat back some of its new challengers, at least those on the left. Competitors like Vox and the HuffPost were blending leftish politics with reporting and writing it up conversationally in the first person. Imitating their approach, along with hiring some of their staff, helped the Times repel them. But it came at a cost. The rise of opinion journalism over the past 15 years changed the newsroom’s coverage and its culture. The tiny redoubt of never-Trump conservatives in Opinion is swamped daily not only by the many progressives in that department but their reinforcements among the critics, columnists and magazine writers in the newsroom. They are generally excellent, but their homogeneity means Times readers are being served a very restricted range of views, some of them presented as straight news by a publication that still holds itself out as independent of any politics. And because the critics, newsroom columnists and magazine writers are the newsroom’s most celebrated journalists, they have disproportionate influence over the paper’s culture.</p><p>And yet the Times insists to the public that nothing has changed. By saying that it still holds itself to the old standard of strictly separating its news and opinion journalists, the paper leads its readers further into the trap of thinking that what they are reading is independent and impartial – and this misleads them about their country’s centre of political and cultural gravity. “Even though each day’s opinion pieces are typically among our most popular journalism and our columnists are among our most trusted voices, we believe opinion is secondary to our primary mission of reporting and should represent only a portion of a healthy news diet,” Sulzberger wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review. “For that reason, we’ve long kept the Opinion department intentionally small – it represents well under a tenth of our journalistic staff – and ensured that its editorial decision-making is walled off from the newsroom.”</p><p>I came to think of those caught up in Slack or Twitter storms as people who had only recently discovered that they were white and were still getting over the shockWhen I was editorial-page editor, Sulzberger, who declined to be interviewed on the record for this article, worried a great deal about the breakdown in the boundaries between news and opinion. At one town hall, he was confronted by a staffer upset that we in Opinion had begun doing more original reporting, which was a priority for me. Sulzberger replied he was much less worried about reporting in the Opinion coverage than by opinion in the news report – a fine moment, I thought then and think now, in his leadership. He told me once that he would like to restructure the paper to have one editor oversee all its news reporters, another all its opinion journalists and a third all its service journalists, the ones who supply guidance on buying gizmos or travelling abroad. Each of these editors would report to him. That is the kind of action the Times needs to take now to confront its hypocrisy and begin restoring its independence.</p><p>The Times could learn something from the Wall Street Journal, which has kept its journalistic poise. It has maintained a stricter separation between its news and opinion journalism, including its cultural criticism, and that has protected the integrity of its work. After I was chased out of the Times, Journal reporters and other staff attempted a similar assault on their opinion department. Some 280 of them signed a letter listing pieces they found offensive and demanding changes in how their opinion colleagues approached their work. “Their anxieties aren’t our responsibility,” shrugged the Journal’s editorial board in a note to readers after the letter was leaked. “The signers report to the news editors or other parts of the business.” The editorial added, in case anyone missed the point, “We are not the New York Times.” That was the end of it.</p><p>Unlike the publishers of the Journal, however, Sulzberger is in a bind, or at least perceives himself to be. The confusion within the Times over its role, and the rising tide of intolerance among the reporters, the engineers, the business staff, even the subscribers – these are all problems he inherited, in more ways than one. He seems to feel constrained in confronting the paper’s illiberalism by the very source of his authority. He is sensitive about the idiosyncratic way he reached the pinnacle of American news media, via his family’s control of the paper’s voting stock. Once, when I told him we were preparing an editorial series on nepotism within the Trump White House, he was quick to note that the Times was in a glass house when it came to such criticism.</p><p>The paradox is that in previous generations the Sulzbergers’ control was the bulwark of the paper’s independence. For this publisher, it seems also to be a vulnerability. He noted in the Columbia Journalism Review that he is “a wealthy white man who succeeded a series of other wealthy white men with the same first and last name.” His background, he wrote, may make him “uniquely, perhaps even comically, unpersuasive” in the debate over journalistic principles. That confession read like throat-clearing before his lengthy exposition of “independent journalism”, and it is right for people to be aware of the blinders and biases created by their upbringing. But if he is going to instil the principles he believes in, he needs to stop worrying so much about his powers of persuasion, and start using the power he is so lucky to have.</p><p>Tom Cotton had written two op-eds for us in Opinion, making the case for buying Greenland and defending Trump’s decision to assassinate the head of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, General Qassem Suleimani. Adam Rubenstein, a rising talent in Opinion, had helped edit the second of these pieces. Rubenstein had brought in dozens of op-eds by then that reflected a variety of voices, ideas and politics, and had received a note of praise from Sulzberger himself, for a piece by a former congressman, Joe Walsh, a Tea Party favourite who had called for a primary challenge to Trump. But Rubenstein had a background in conservative journalism, and within the Times his work in soliciting pieces from conservatives had put a target on his back.</p><p>Cotton’s office pitched a piece about Twitter’s curation of its platform. Cotton had tweeted that Trump should call out troops to stop the “anarchy, rioting and looting” if “local law enforcement is overwhelmed”, and Twitter had threatened to censor his account. Jim Dao, the op-ed editor, was more interested in the substance of the tweet and, via Rubenstein, asked Cotton to write an op-ed about that.</p><p>That was the right thing to do. Trump was starting to call for the use of troops, and on May 31st the mayor of Washington, DC, had requested that the National Guard be deployed in her city. After police gassed protesters before Trump posed for a photo in Lafayette Square on June 1st, the editorial board, which I led, weighed in against that use of force and Trump’s “incendiary behaviour”, and the op-ed team had pieces planned for June 3rd arguing he did not have a sound basis to call out federal forces and would be wrong to do so. In keeping with the basic practice of the op-ed page, which was created to present points of view at odds with Times editorials, Dao owed readers the counter-argument. They also needed to know someone so influential with the president was making this argument, and how he was making it.</p><p>I knew the piece was coming, and that Dao had asked for substantive revisions to the first draft. At the time, Rubenstein was assisting me with research for a daily newsletter I was writing, and I asked him when we met on the morning of June 3rd to make sure Cotton was distinguishing clearly between rioters and protesters. He did: “A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants,” Cotton wrote. From Cotton’s perspective, it was leftist elites who were confusing the two. In the op-ed, he decried any “revolting moral equivalence of rioters and looters to peaceful, law-abiding protesters”.</p><p>Rubenstein also told me that in one draft Cotton had linked disapprovingly to a tweet from a Times reporter that could be read as expressing support for the rioters. I told Rubenstein to make sure that this link was removed. I had prohibited criticising any work, including any social-media activity, from the newsroom, unless I ran the idea by a senior newsroom editor first.</p><p>Shortly after we published the op-ed that Wednesday afternoon, some reporters tweeted their opposition to Cotton’s argument. But the real action was in the Times’s Slack channels, where reporters and other staff began not just venting but organising. They turned to the union to draw up a workplace complaint about the op-ed. At least one of the reporters who covered news media took a strong position in this internal debate: “Amplifying a message that argues for MORE force only puts our own people in harm’s way, and undermines the paper’s commitment to their safety,” this reporter argued to colleagues in Slack, going on to offer suggestions for how the union should attack the op-ed: “I think it’s good that a lot of us will put our names on a strong condemnation.”</p><p>Their work does not take them into shelters, or police precincts, or the homes of people who see the world very differently. It has never exposed them to live fire. Their idea of violence includes vocabulary. The next day, this reporter shared the byline on the Times story about the op-ed. That article did not mention that Cotton had distinguished between “peaceful, law-abiding protesters” and “rioters and looters”. In fact, the first sentence reported that Cotton had called for “the military to suppress protests against police violence”.</p><p>This was – and is – wrong. You don’t have to take my word for that. You can take the Times’s. Three days later in its article on my resignation it also initially reported that Cotton had called “for military force against protesters in American cities”. This time, after the article was published on the Times website, the editors scrambled to rewrite it, replacing “military force” with “military response” and “protesters” with “civic unrest”. That was a weaselly adjustment – Cotton wrote about criminality, not “unrest” – but the article at least no longer unambiguously misrepresented Cotton’s argument to make it seem he was in favour of crushing democratic protest. The Times did not publish a correction or any note acknowledging the story had been changed.</p><p>Seeking to influence the outcome of a story you cover, particularly without disclosing that to the reader, violates basic principles I was raised on at the Times. I asked the Times if the media reporter’s behaviour was ethical. The spokeswoman, Ms Rhoades Ha, did not answer the question but instead wrote in an email that the reporter was assigned to the story after posting the messages in Slack and the “editors were unaware of those Slack messages”. The reporter, apparently asked by the Times to write to me, immediately followed with an email that said: “In the heat of the moment, I made comments on an internal Slack channel that, as a media reporter, I should not have” but that “the factual reporting I contributed to the story is not at issue.” (I am not naming this journalist because I do not want to point the finger at a single reporter when, in my view, an editor should be taking responsibility for the coverage.) Ms Rhoades Ha disputes my characterisation of the after-the-fact editing of the story about my resignation. She said the editors changed the story after it was published on the website in order to “refine” it and “add context”, and so the story did not merit a correction disclosing to the reader that changes had been made.</p><p>I asked if it was accurate and fair to report that Cotton called for “the military to suppress protests against police violence”, as the June 4th story still does. In response, Ms Rhoades Ha supplied an opinion from a Times lawyer which noted that Cotton called for a military presence to “deter lawbreakers”. The lawyer argued that because some protesters violated curfews, failed to get permits or disperse when police ordered them to, they could be considered “lawbreakers”, just like the rioters and looters Cotton explicitly referred to. I followed up, saying I was seeking an editorial rather than a legal opinion, and asking again whether the Times believed its characterisation of Cotton’s argument was not just accurate, but fair. Ms Rhoades Ha again referred me to the lawyer’s opinion.</p><p>She also defended the Times more broadly: “The New York Times believes unequivocally in the principle of independence, as has been demonstrated consistently by our journalism before and since that episode. There are countless examples of the Times standing strong against pressure and protest, whether from governments, companies, politicians, activist groups or even internally. In the case of the Tom Cotton op-ed, the handling of such a sensitive piece, specifically the decision to rush it into publication without key leaders having read it because it was “newsy”, made it unusually vulnerable to attack. Good principles, as the Cotton op-ed demonstrated, cannot be an excuse for bad execution.”</p><p>In retrospect what seems almost comical is that as the conflict over Cotton’s op-ed unfolded within the Times I acted as though it was on the level, as though the staff of the Times would have a good-faith debate about Cotton’s piece and the decision to publish it. Instead, people wanted to vent and achieve what they considered to be justice, whether through Twitter, Slack, the union or the news pages themselves. Engaging with them at all was a mistake. That first night after the op-ed was published, when I called Baquet, his sage advice was to say nothing. Give it time, he said. Let this play out. The publisher disagreed. He thought we needed to say something that night explaining why we chose to publish the piece, and so we kept heaping more logs on the fire.</p><p>My colleagues in Opinion, together with the pr team, put together a series of connected tweets describing the purpose behind publishing Cotton’s op-ed. Rather than publish these tweets from the generic Times Opinion Twitter account, Sulzberger encouraged me to do it from my personal one, on the theory that this would humanise our defence. I doubted that would make any difference, but it was certainly my job to take responsibility. So I sent out the tweets, sticking my head in a Twitter bucket that clangs, occasionally, to this day. At the publisher’s direction, I then wrote an explanation of the decision to publish the op-ed for the next day’s edition of the Opinion newsletter. Reading that piece now, I think it holds up. It was not defensive and it dealt with the strongest criticisms. It concluded with a sentiment that I’ve always thought journalists should bring to all their work, and which I intended as an invitation to debate. (“It is impossible to feel righteous about any of this. I know that my own view may be wrong.”) But no one took me up on that.</p><p>What is worth recalling now from the bedlam of the next two days? I suppose there might be lessons for someone interested in how not to manage a corporate crisis. I began making my own mistakes that Thursday. The union condemned our publication of Cotton, for supposedly putting journalists in danger, claiming that he had called on the military “to ‘detain’ and ‘subdue’ Americans protesting racism and police brutality” – again, a misrepresentation of his argument. The publisher called to tell me the company was experiencing its largest sick day in history; people were turning down job offers because of the op-ed, and, he said, some people were quitting. He had been expecting for some time that the union would seek a voice in editorial decision-making; he said he thought this was the moment the union was making its move. He had clearly changed his own mind about the value of publishing the Cotton op-ed.</p><p>Times readers are being served a very restricted range of views, some of them presented as straight news by a publication that still holds itself out as independent of any politicsI asked Dao to have our fact-checkers review the union’s claims. But then I went a step further: at the publisher’s request, I urged him to review the editing of the piece itself and come back to me with a list of steps we could have taken to make it better. Dao’s reflex – the correct one – was to defend the piece as published. He and three other editors of varying ages, genders and races had helped edit it; it had been fact-checked, as is all our work. But I resisted, worried that we had put Sulzberger in a hard position. In Opinion we had grown accustomed to the wrath of our colleagues, but this time the publisher was in the line of fire as well.</p><p>I told myself there was nothing false about this. There isn’t an article out of the many thousands I have written or edited that I do not think, in retrospect, could have met a higher standard in some way – and Cotton’s op-ed is no exception. And I thought that by saying we could have somehow made the piece better, we would dispel the heat within the Times but affirm the principle that it was the kind of piece we should publish. This was my last failed attempt to have the debate within the Times that I had been seeking for four years, about why it was important to present Times readers with arguments like Cotton’s. The staff at the paper never wanted to have that debate. The Cotton uproar was the most extreme version of the internal reaction we faced whenever we published conservative arguments that were not simply anti-Trump. Yes, yes, of course we believe in the principle of publishing diverse views, my Times colleagues would say, but why this conservative? Why this argument?</p><p>Most of the union’s assertions were wrong, but in going back over the piece the fact-checker did find a minor error. Cotton had accidentally left some words from a legal opinion in quotation marks that he should have put in his own voice. Dao also dutifully itemised language that we might have softened, and said the headline, “Send in the Troops” should in retrospect have been made more palatable, if duller. I doubt these changes would have mattered, and to extract this list from Dao was to engage in precisely the hypocrisy I claimed to despise – that, in fact, I do despise. If Cotton needed to be held to such standards of politesse, so did everyone else. Headlines such as “Tom Cotton’s Fascist Op-ed”, the headline of a subsequent piece, should also have been tranquillised.</p><p>As that miserable Thursday wore on, Sulzberger, Baquet and I held a series of Zoom meetings with reporters and editors from the newsroom who wanted to discuss the op-ed. Though a handful of the participants were there to posture, these were generally constructive conversations. A couple of people, including Baquet, even had the guts to speak up in favour of publishing the op-ed. Two moments stick out. At one point, in answer to a question, Sulzberger and Baquet both said they thought the op-ed – as the Times union and many journalists were saying – had in fact put journalists in danger. That was the first time I realised I might be coming to the end of the road. The other was when a pop-culture reporter asked if I had read the op-ed before it was published. I said I had not. He immediately put his head down and started typing, and I should have paid attention rather than moving on to the next question. He was evidently sharing the news with the company over Slack.</p><p>If he had followed up, or I had, I might have explained that this was standard practice. Dao’s name was on the masthead of the New York Times because he was in charge of the op-ed section. If I insisted on reviewing every piece, I would have been doing his job for him – and been betraying a crippling lack of trust in one of the papers’ finest editors. After I departed, and other Opinion staff quit or were reassigned, the Times later made him Metro editor, a sign of its own continued confidence in him. Every job review I had at the Times urged me to step back from the daily coverage to focus on the long term. (Hilariously, one review, urging me to move faster in upending the Opinion department, instructed me to take risks and “ask for forgiveness not permission”.)</p><p>It was important to me to read pieces in advance that might cause an uproar, and I had asked Dao and his deputy to alert me to any they thought would be particularly sensitive, but they did not think the Cotton piece rose to that level. I had also instituted an “if-you-see-something-say-something” policy in Opinion as a whole. Nobody raised a red flag with me. To be clear – I don’t fault anyone for this; I mention it only as an index of how much easier it was to judge in hindsight, after publication, when a piece was explosive. In any event, if anyone had raised an alarm, I might have edited the piece differently, but that would not have changed the outcome. Given the pieces we had already published and planned to publish opposing the position Cotton argued, we would still have published it – it was, in my view at the time, the kind of viewpoint the Sulzbergers had said they wanted to see also represented in the Times. And the critics would hardly have been mollified had it been more persuasive.</p><p>I learned when these meetings were over that there had been a new eruption in Slack. Times staff were saying that Rubenstein had been the sole editor of the op-ed. In response, Dao had gone into Slack to clarify to the entire company that he had also edited it himself. But when the Times posted the news article that evening, it reported, “The Op-Ed was edited by Adam Rubenstein” and made no mention of Dao’s statement. One of the ironies of this episode was that it was not any newsroom reporter but Rubenstein who wound up receiving death threats because of the Cotton op-ed, and it was the newsroom that put him in harm’s way. I would put Times Opinion’s standards for the editing of Cotton’s op-ed up against the Times newsroom’s standards for its coverage of the op-ed any day of the week.</p><p>By unhappy – but, really, also quite funny – coincidence, a meeting of the entire company had been scheduled over Zoom for the next morning. The plan had been for the newsroom to talk about its coverage of the protests. Now the only subject was going to be the op-ed. Early that morning, I got an email from Sam Dolnick, a Sulzberger cousin and a top editor at the paper, who said he felt “we” – he could have only meant me – owed the whole staff “an apology for appearing to place an abstract idea like open debate over the value of our colleagues’ lives, and their safety”. He was worried that I and my colleagues had unintentionally sent a message to other people at the Times that: “We don’t care about their full humanity and their security as much as we care about our ideas.”</p><p>One of the ironies was that it was not any newsroom reporter but a comment editor who wound up receiving death threats, and it was the newsroom that put him in harm’s wayLike his cousin, the publisher, Dolnick is a smart guy with a good heart, and I know he meant well. But I was staggered by his email, by how different his conception was of the role of journalism, and of my own commitment to it. Did he really think I saw this as an academic exercise, or some kind of game? My mother survived the Holocaust in Poland, and it took years for her and the remnant of our family to be admitted to the United States. Did he really think I believed ideas had no consequences for people’s lives? I guess I was also fed up. I wrote to the publisher, who had been copied in on Dolnick’s note.</p><p>“I know you don’t like it when I talk about principles at a moment like this,” I began. But I viewed the journalism I had been doing, at the Times and before that at the Atlantic, in very different terms from the ones Dolnick presumed. “I don’t think of our work as an abstraction without meaning for people’s lives – quite the opposite,” I continued. “The whole point – the reason I do this – is to have an impact on their lives to the good. I have always believed that putting ideas, including potentially dangerous one[s], out in the public is vital to ensuring they are debated and, if dangerous, discarded.” It was, I argued, in “edge cases like this that principles are tested”, and if my position was judged wrong then “I am out of step with the times.” But, I concluded, “I don’t think of us as some kind of debating society without implications for the real world and I’ve never been unmindful of my colleagues’ humanity.”</p><p>Sulzberger did not reply. But in the end, one thing he and I surely agree on is that I was, in fact, out of step with the Times. It may have raised me as a journalist – and invested so much in educating me to what were once its standards – but I did not belong there any more.</p><p>In retrospect, it seems clear that I was done by then. The executive committee gathered that morning to prepare, and for the first time I was not invited to join them. They had solicited questions in advance, and I got a glimpse at the list only as the company-wide meeting was about to start. I did not hear from Sulzberger, but the speechwriter who drafted many of his remarks, Alex Levy, contacted me just before the meeting began to tell me to use whatever question I got first to apologise, and at some point to acknowledge my privilege.</p><p>A Zoom call with a couple of thousand people is a disorienting experience, particularly when many of them are not particularly mindful of your “full humanity”. I do not recommend it. As my first turn to speak came up, I was still struggling with what I should apologise for. I was not going to apologise for denying my colleagues’ humanity or endangering their lives. I had not done those things. I was not going to apologise for publishing the op-ed. Finally, I came up with something that felt true. I told the meeting that I was sorry for the pain that my leadership of Opinion had caused. What a pathetic thing to say. I did not think to add, because I’d lost track of this truth myself by then, that opinion journalism that never causes pain is not journalism. It can’t hope to move society forward.</p><p>Baquet spoke movingly about how, as a black man, he was vulnerable in ways a white man was not when he left his apartment wearing a hoodie and a mask, to ward off covid. Speaking into the void, via the unblinking eye above my computer screen, I said I knew, as a white man, I was in a very different position. When I stepped out into the street, I was protected by my privilege. But I added that I did know what it was like to be a reporter out in the field, alone, surrounded by armed, hostile people. I knew what it was like to be shot at, and to see a fellow journalist shot in front of me. And so I took to heart the criticism that I’d endangered my colleagues. I’d been raised – raised at the Times – to believe the best way to confront ideas that some people might consider dangerous was to bring them out into the open. But I recognised that many of my colleagues thought that was wrong. And I said I would like to debate with them whether it was time to discard the old approach, and, if that was the case, what role opinion journalism should have at the Times.</p><p>As I look back at my notes of that awful day, I don’t regret what I said. Even during that meeting, I was still hoping the blow-up might at last give me the chance either to win support for what I had been asked to do, or to clarify once and for all that the rules for journalism had changed at the Times.</p><p>But no one wanted to talk about that. Nor did they want to hear about all the voices of vulnerable or underprivileged people we had been showcasing in Opinion, or the ambitious new journalism we were doing. Instead, my Times colleagues demanded to know things such as the names of every editor who had had a role in the Cotton piece. Having seen what happened to Rubenstein I refused to tell them. A Slack channel had been set up to solicit feedback in real time during the meeting, and it was filling with hate. The meeting ran long, and finally came to a close after 90 minutes.</p><p>A Zoom call with a couple of thousand people is a disorienting experience, particularly when many of them are not particularly mindful of your “full humanity”. I do not recommend itOne last dismal task lay ahead. I had agreed to take the rare step of posting an “Editor’s Note” on the Cotton op-ed describing what was supposedly wrong with it, and the publisher had asked a newsroom editor to draft it for him. Although I had urged Dao to come up with “process” criticisms, I tried to insist, as did Dao, that the note make clear the Cotton piece was within our editorial bounds. Sulzberger said he felt the Times could afford to be “silent” on that question. In the end the note went far further in repudiating the piece than I anticipated, saying it should never have been published at all. The next morning I was told to resign.</p><p>What an intense period that was, inside the Times and across America. In spring 2020 covid-19 chased people into their homes in fear, and then, as spring turned to summer, the murder of George Floyd brought many of them out into the streets in anger. Or maybe the emotions were the other way around. We were also angry at the virus, and at the government’s handling of it, and at our employers; and we were afraid of the police, or of the rioters, or of white people or black people, Democrats or Republicans. It was a terrible moment for the country. By the traditional – and perverse – logic of journalism, that should also have made it an inspiring time to be a reporter, writer or editor. Journalists are supposed to run towards scenes that others are fleeing, towards hard truths others need to know, towards consequential ideas they would prefer to ignore.</p><p>But fear got all mixed up with anger inside the Times, too, along with a desire to act locally in solidarity with the national movement. That energy found a focus in the Cotton op-ed. Scattered as we were by covid, none of us at the Times could speak face to face, and nobody was thinking very clearly. That seems understandable, given the frantic pile-up of circumstances. It would be reasonable now for all of us – me, Sulzberger, the journalists who were declaring their fright on Twitter – to look back, shake our heads and say that was a crazy time, and we all made some mistakes.</p><p>But the Times is not good at acknowledging mistakes. Indeed, one of my own, within the Times culture, was to take responsibility for any mistakes my department made, and even some it didn’t. To Sulzberger, the meltdown over Cotton’s op-ed and my departure in disgrace are explained and justified by a failure of editorial “process”. As he put it in an interview with the New Yorker this summer, after publishing his piece in the Columbia Journalism Review, Cotton’s piece was not “perfectly fact-checked” and the editors had not “thought about the headline and presentation”. He contrasted the execution of Cotton’s opinion piece with that of a months-long investigation the newsroom did of Donald Trump’s taxes (which was not “perfectly fact-checked”, as it happens – it required a correction). He did not explain why, if the Times was an independent publication, an op-ed making a mainstream conservative argument should have to meet such different standards from an op-ed making any other kind of argument, such as for the abolition of the police. “It’s not enough just to have the principle and wave it around,” he said. “You also have to execute on it.”</p><p>To me, extolling the virtue of independent journalism in the pages of the Columbia Journalism Review is how you wave a principle around. Publishing a piece like Cotton’s is how you execute on it. As Sulzberger also wrote in the Review, “Independent journalism, especially in a pluralistic democracy, should err on the side of treating areas of serious political contest as open, unsettled, and in need of further inquiry.” It matters that conflicting views do not just appear before different audiences in politically rivalrous publications or cable news networks, but instead in the same forum, before the same readers, subject to the same standards for fact and argumentation. That is also, by the way, an important means by which politicians, like Cotton, can learn, by speaking to audiences who are not inclined to nod along with them. That was our ambition for Times Opinion – or mine, I guess. Americans can shout about their lack of free speech all they want, but they will never be able to overcome their differences, and deal with any of their real problems, if they do not learn to listen to each other again.</p><p>If Sulzberger must insist on comparing the execution of the Cotton op-ed with that of the most ambitious of newsroom projects, let him compare it with something really important, the 1619 Project, which commemorated the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans in Virginia. Like Cotton’s piece, the 1619 Project was fact-checked and copy-edited (most of the Times newsroom does not fact-check or copy-edit articles, but the magazine does). But it nevertheless contained mistakes, as journalism often does. Some of these mistakes ignited a firestorm among historians and other readers.</p><p>And, like Cotton’s piece, the 1619 Project was presented in a way the Times later judged to be too provocative. The Times declared that the 1619 Project “aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding”. That bold statement – a declaration of Times fact, not opinion, since it came from the newsroom – outraged many Americans who venerated 1776 as the founding. The Times later stealthily erased it from the digital version of the project, but was caught doing so by a writer for the publication Quillette. Sulzberger told me during the initial uproar that the top editors in the newsroom – not just Baquet but his deputy – had not reviewed the audacious statement of purpose, one of the biggest editorial claims the paper has ever made. They also, of course, did not edit all the pieces themselves, trusting the magazine’s editors to do that work.</p><p>If the 1619 Project and the Cotton op-ed shared the same supposed flaws and excited similar outrage, how come that one is lauded as a landmark success and the other is a sackable offence? In asking this, I am not running down the 1619 Project. It was excellent, above all because it made arguments readers should hear and consider. And to be clear: unlike Sulzberger, I do not see any equivalence between any huge project like that and a single op-ed piece. The parallel is absurd. I am comparing them only to meet Sulzberger on his terms, in order to illuminate what he is trying to elide. What distinguished the Cotton piece was not an error, or strong language, or that I didn’t edit it personally. What distinguished that op-ed was not process. It was politics. It is one thing for the Times to aggravate historians, or conservatives, or even old-school liberals who believe in open debate. It has become quite another for the Times to challenge some members of its own staff with ideas that might contradict their view of the world.</p><p>The lessons of the incident are not about how to write a headline but about how much the Times has changed – how digital technology, the paper’s new business model and the rise of new ideals among its staff have altered its understanding of the boundary between news and opinion, and of the relationship between truth and justice. Ejecting me was one way to avoid confronting the question of which values the Times is committed to. Waving around the word “process” is another.</p><p>What still seems most striking about the Cotton episode is how out of sync the leaders of the paper were with the ascendant, illiberal values within it. Cotton’s essay brought into focus conflicts over the role of journalism that had been growing within the Times for years, and that the leadership has largely ducked away from. Is it journalism’s role to salt wounds or to salve them, to promote debates or settle them, to ask or to answer? Is its proper posture humble or righteous? As journalists trained in what was once the conventional way, with the old set of principles, Sulzberger, Baquet and I reacted similarly to Cotton’s essay: here’s a potentially consequential idea from an influential voice. It may make readers uncomfortable, and they should know about it and evaluate it partly for that very reason.</p><p>What still seems most striking about the Cotton episode is how out of sync the leaders of the paper were with the ascendant, illiberal values within itTimes colleagues who were frightened or angry about the piece had the opposite view: that readers should not hear Cotton’s argument. To expose them to it was to risk that they might be persuaded by an elected politician.</p><p>As he asserts the independence of Times journalism, Sulzberger is finding it necessary to reach back several years to another piece I chose to run, for proof that the Times remains willing to publish views that might offend its staff. “We’ve published a column by the head of the part of the Taliban that kidnapped one of our own journalists,” he told the New Yorker. He is missing the real lesson of that piece, as well.</p><p>That op-ed was a tough editorial call. It troubles my conscience as publishing Tom Cotton never has. But the reason is not that the writer, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the deputy leader of the Taliban, kidnapped a Times reporter (David Rohde, now of nbc, with whom I covered the Israeli siege of Jenin on the West Bank 20 years ago; he would never be afraid of an op-ed). The case against that piece is that Haqqani, who remains on the fbi’s most-wanted terrorist list, may have killed Americans. It’s puzzling: in what moral universe can it be a point of pride to publish a piece by an enemy who may have American blood on his hands, and a matter of shame to publish a piece by an American senator arguing for American troops to protect Americans?</p><p>As Mitch McConnell, then the majority leader, said on the Senate floor about the Times’s panic over the Cotton op-ed, listing some other debatable op-ed choices, “Vladimir Putin? No problem. Iranian propaganda? Sure. But nothing, nothing could have prepared them for 800 words from the junior senator from Arkansas.” The Times’s staff members are not often troubled by obnoxious views when they are held by foreigners. This is an important reason the paper’s foreign coverage, at least of some regions, remains exceptional. It is relatively safe from internal censure. Less than four months after I was pushed out, my former department published a shocking op-ed praising China’s military crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong. I would not have published that essay, which, unlike Cotton’s op-ed, actually did celebrate crushing democratic protest. But there was no internal uproar.</p><p>The opportunity the Times threw away in repudiating the Cotton piece goes deeper than a setback to Sulzberger’s hopes that the paper will be seen as independent by anyone disinclined to nod along with its representation of reality. What seems most important and least understood about that episode is that it demonstrated in real time the value of the ideals that I poorly defended in the moment, ideals that not just the Times’s staff but many other college-educated Americans are abandoning.</p><p>After all, we ran the experiment; we published the piece. Was any Times journalist hurt? No. Nobody in the country was. In fact, though it is impossible to know the op-ed’s precise effect, polling showed that support for a military option dropped after the Times published the essay, as the Washington Post’s media critic, Erik Wemple, has written. If anything, in other words, publishing the piece stimulated debate that made it less likely Cotton’s position would prevail. The liberal, journalistic principle of open debate was vindicated in the very moment the Times was fleeing from it. Maybe if the Times would put more trust again in the intelligence and decency of Americans, more Americans would again trust the Times. Journalism, like democracy, works best when people refuse to surrender to fear. ■</p><p><i>James Bennet is The Economist’s Lexington columnist</i></p>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-24467516457845751282023-11-02T10:38:00.002-07:002023-11-02T10:38:23.130-07:00The arbitrariness of the SEC's misguided enforcement-driven approach to crypto + federal bank regulators, [& their] State-level counterparts, abusing their supervisory authority to label businesses unworthy of having a bank account and worked in secret to purge disfavored lines of commerce from the financial system<p>Overdue: Statement of Dissent on LBRY. Commissioner Hester M. Peirce. SEC, Oct 27 2023. <a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723">https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723</a></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;">The Commission has brought many troubling crypto enforcement actions, but the LBRY, Inc. (“LBRY”) case has especially unsettled me. A statement on the case is overdue. I did not support bringing the case, but have been unable to speak publicly about my concerns while the case has been in litigation. Last week, after losing in federal district court on the question of whether the sale of LBRY tokens was an unregistered securities offering, LBRY announced that it will not move forward with an appeal of the decision.<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[1]</a> Instead, the company will shut down and its assets will be placed in receivership and used to satisfy its debts, including the civil money penalty owed to the Commission.<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[2]</a> Are investors and the market really better off now after the Commission’s litigation contributed to the demise of a company that had built a functioning blockchain with a real-world application running on top of it? <b>This case illustrates the arbitrariness and real-life consequences of the Commission’s misguided enforcement-driven approach to crypto</b>.</p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;">One does not have to dig deep to find fraudulent crypto projects that sold tokens with promises that they did nothing to fulfill. This sad reality makes the Commission’s decision to bring a case against LBRY especially puzzling. LBRY’s approach was more conservative than the approach many other projects took.<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[3]</a>Here, the blockchain was up and running at the time most tokens were sold, and the Commission’s complaint did not allege, and the court did not find, evidence of fraud. LBRY built a blockchain to facilitate data sharing, afford greater control to content creators, and make censorship more difficult. LBRY created a popular platform on the blockchain for sharing videos and other media.<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[4]</a> The open-source LBRY blockchain was available for anyone else to use.<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[5]</a> Why go after a company that sold a token for a functioning blockchain with an established use when we could have pursued plenty of other projects that were outright frauds and did not attempt to comply with the securities laws? To make matters worse, the Commission took an extremely hardline approach in this case. For example, <b>after winning on summary judgment, the Commission sought monetary remedies of $44 million </b>and asserted that LBRY’s offer to burn all tokens in its possession was not sufficient assurance that LBRY would not violate the registration provisions in the future.<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[6]</a> The Commission’s requested remedies were entirely out of proportion to any harm. Indeed, the court stated during the remedies hearing that “the absence of fraud allegations, [and] the fact that there was some measure of uncertainty” regarding the application of the securities laws when LBRY commenced its offering were facts that “should be taken into account when considering a penalty.”<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[7]</a> <b>After the remedies hearing, the Commission pared its penalty request back to a significantly lower $111,614, which the court approved</b>.<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[8]</a></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;">The application of the securities laws to token projects is not clear, despite the Commission’s continuous protestations to the contrary. There is no path for a company like LBRY to come in and register its functional token offering.<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[9]</a> Even if a company did manage to register its token offering, it would not be a particularly useful effort. Compliance with the securities laws is important because we want to ensure that people buying securities receive accurate and reliable information so they can assess the risks and rewards of an investment. Here, LBRY made significant disclosures outside of the registration process—disclosures that the Commission did not allege were fraudulent or misleading—and there is little to indicate that LBRY’s disclosures did not provide token purchasers with information adequate to assess whether the tokens were a good fit for them.<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[10]</a> The time and resources we expended on this case could have been devoted to building a workable regulatory framework that companies like LBRY could have followed. Then the market could have decided LBRY’s fate.</p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;">Even if, as the judge ruled here, the offering of tokens should have been registered, our scorched earth approach in remedying the violation was completely out of proportion to any investor harm. How does the result in this case protect LBRY investors, who likely would have preferred that the company continue to exist to support the blockchain, which is still in its infancy? The judge did not rule on whether the token itself was a security or on the status of secondary sales of LBRY tokens,<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[11]</a> which means that the LBRY blockchain may live on, but its path forward is difficult. The Commission’s action forced a group of entrepreneurs to abandon what they built. <b>Our disproportionate reaction in this case will dissuade people from experimenting with blockchain technology</b>, which LBRY aptly describes as “technology that enables dissent.”<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[12]</a> A government of a free people should welcome dissent and the technologies that enable it.</p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;">Earlier this year, LBRY tweeted: “It’s the year 2028, hundreds of thousands of Americans have been jailed for using illegally cryptocurrency instead of CBDCs, and Hester Pierce [<i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">sic</i>] is still just writing dissenting memos.”<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[13]</a> Although I will be tending bees, not writing dissents, in 2028, I think often about the crux of that criticism and ask myself: “What could I do to help prevent another group of people with a big idea for changing the world from going through what LBRY has over the past several years?” I have not come up with an answer to that question; however, I urge people who have suggestions about how the Commission can right its course on crypto and innovation more broadly, to send them my way.<a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[14]</a></p><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><hr align="left" size="1" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: rgb(179, 179, 179); border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; color: #b3b3b3; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; height: 0px; margin: 20px 0px;" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #101f36; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[1]</a> The End of LBRY, Oct. 19, 2023, <a href="https://odysee.com/@lbry:3f/theendoflbryinc:d?fbclid=IwAR1bBr_IiP-iP9F3hapkGWcn0D0rOpMG9B8mxN2L73DkJDA77B24uNGt52I" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">https://odysee.com/@lbry:3f/theendoflbryinc:d?fbclid=IwAR1bBr_IiP-iP9F3hapkGWcn0D0rOpMG9B8mxN2L73DkJDA77B24uNGt52I</a>.</p></div><div id="ftn2" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #101f36; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[2]</a><i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Id</i>. (“LBRY must die, there is no escaping this. It has lost a judgment to the federal government, has several million dollars in debts, and has pledged to shut down.”).</p></div><div id="ftn3" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #101f36; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[3]</a> <i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">See, e.g.</i>, DAO Today with Alexa Mil Podcast (Dec. 27, 2022), at approximately minute 12 (comments of Jonathan Schmalfeld) (“Lots of people looked at LBRY as doing things the right way. They weren’t doing the ICO. When they released the fully developed platform. The tokens were consumptive. There was an actual use for them on release date. They did a traditional investment raise. They brought on shareholders. They used securities and venture investing. And they didn’t sell tokens as part of that. There wasn’t any kind of pre-token rounds as part of that. And then they waited a year until after the platform was actually working and functional and there was a good amount of videos on there.”).</p></div><div id="ftn4" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #101f36; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[4]</a><i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">See</i> Odysee, <a href="https://help.odysee.tv/category-basics/whatisodysee/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">https://help.odysee.tv/category-basics/whatisodysee/</a> (last visited Oct. 24, 2023). LBRY subsequently transferred this platform to its Odysee subsidiary.</p></div><div id="ftn5" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #101f36; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[5]</a> <i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">See</i> LBRY, <a href="https://lbry.com/faq/what-is-lbry" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">https://lbry.com/faq/what-is-lbry</a> (last visited Oct. 24, 2023) (describing the LBRY protocol). As the district court noted when it granted summary judgment to the Commission, it was “generally uncontested” that “(1) LBC is a utility token designed for use on the LBRY Blockchain, and (2) some unknown number of purchasers of LBC acquired it at least in part with the intention of using it rather than holding it as an investment.” <i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SEC v. LBRY, Inc</i>., 639 F.Supp.3d 211, 220 (D.N.H. 2022).</p></div><div id="ftn6" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #101f36; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[6]</a> Commission’s Opposition to LBRY’s Motion to Limit the Commission’s Remedies at 9-11, 13-15, <i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SEC v. LBRY, Inc</i>., No. 21-cv-260 (D.N.H. Dec. 19, 2022), ECF No.94 (requesting $22 million in disgorgement and a $22 million civil money penalty).</p></div><div id="ftn7" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #101f36; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[7]</a>Transcript of Motions Hearing Before the Honorable Paul J. Barbadoro at 50, <i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SEC v. LBRY, Inc</i>., No. 21-cv-260 (D.N.H. Jan. 30, 2023), ECF No. 105; <i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">see also id</i>. at 17 (“Let’s be fair here. You are not alleging that LBRY engaged in any fraudulent activity, first. Second, although I held that LBRY had fair notice sufficient to allow for the enforcement of the Securities Act against it for those offerings, the fact of the matter is that this was one of the first non-fraud cases that did not involve an initial coin offering . . .”); <i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">and</i> <i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">id</i>. at 51 (“You have to go back to the time this action was filed. This was relatively early on in the development of the SEC’s position with respect to crypto offerings . . .”).</p></div><div id="ftn8" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #101f36; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[8]</a>Commission’s Supplemental Brief on Remedies at 3-4, <i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SEC v. LBRY, Inc.</i>, No. 21-cv-260 (D.N.H. May 12, 2023), ECF No. 107 (requesting a $111,614 civil money penalty and withdrawing the request for disgorgement); <i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SEC v. LBRY, Inc.</i>, 2023 WL 4459290 *5 (D.N.H. July 11, 2023) (imposing $111,614 civil money penalty).</p></div><div id="ftn9" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #101f36; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[9]</a> <i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">See, e.g., </i>Rodrigo Seira, Justin Slaughter, and Katie Biber, <i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Current SEC Disclosure Framework Is Unfit for Crypto </i>(Apr. 20, 2023), <a href="https://policy.paradigm.xyz/writing/secs-path-to-registration-part-iii" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">https://policy.paradigm.xyz/writing/secs-path-to-registration-part-iii</a> (“As we have shown above, the current securities framework was tailor-made to regulate fundraising by centralized legal entities issuing securities, such as a company selling shares to the public in its ‘IPO.’ However, crypto assets differ fundamentally from securities and therefore raise different investor disclosure considerations.”).</p></div><div id="ftn10" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #101f36; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[10]</a><i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">See, e.g., </i>Coinbase, <i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Re: Petition for Rulemaking – Digital Asset Securities Regulation</i> at 5-6 (Jul. 21, 2022), <a href="https://www.sec.gov/rules/petitions/2022/petn4-789.pdf" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.sec.gov/rules/petitions/2022/petn4-789.pdf</a> (“The SEC disclosure regime has historically focused on ensuring that investors have material information necessary to make an informed investment decision. Current disclosure requirements, however, do not cover a number of features unique to digital assets that would undoubtedly be considered important when making an investment decision. For example, investors would likely find information about the risk of a network attack, what kind of governance rights are embedded in which tokens, who has the ability to change the code underlying the assets or the network, and other features that do not exist with respect to traditional securities to be material. Additionally, investors would benefit from comparable disclosures across each digital asset security to assist in identifying differences among investment opportunities.”).</p></div><div id="ftn11" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #101f36; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[11]</a><i style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SEC v. LBRY, Inc</i>., 2023 WL 4459290, *3 (D.N.H. July 11, 2023).</p></div><div id="ftn12" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #101f36; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[12]</a> The End of LBRY, Oct. 19, 2023, <a href="https://odysee.com/@lbry:3f/theendoflbryinc:d?fbclid=IwAR1bBr_IiP-iP9F3hapkGWcn0D0rOpMG9B8mxN2L73DkJDA77B24uNGt52I" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">https://odysee.com/@lbry:3f/theendoflbryinc:d?fbclid=IwAR1bBr_IiP-iP9F3hapkGWcn0D0rOpMG9B8mxN2L73DkJDA77B24uNGt52I</a>.</p></div><div id="ftn13" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #101f36; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[13]</a>LBRY Inc, LLC (@LBRYcom), X (Feb. 9, 2023, 4:39 PM), <a href="https://twitter.com/LBRYcom/status/1623798813881163778" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">https://twitter.com/LBRYcom/status/1623798813881163778</a>. Public blockchains eliminate the need for reliance on a central intermediary, which makes censoring information stored on a blockchain more difficult.</p></div><div id="ftn14" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-lbry-102723#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">[14]</a><a href="mailto:CommissionerPeirce@sec.gov" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Email suggestions to [</a>...].</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;">---</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">And before... Operation Choke Point 2.0: The Federal Bank Regulators Come For Crypto. Cooper & Kirk, Layers. Mar 2023. <a href="https://www.cooperkirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Operation-Choke-Point-2.0.pdf">https://www.cooperkirk.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Operation-Choke-Point-2.0.pdf</a></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">[As summarized by Alex Tabarrok, Mar 30 2023, <a href="https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/03/the-government-conspiracy-against-crypto.html">https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/03/the-government-conspiracy-against-crypto.html</a>]</span></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">Recent stories in the financial press have uncovered a coordinated campaign by prudential bank regulators to drive crypto businesses out of the financial system. Bank regulators have published informal guidance documents that single out cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency customers as a risk to the banking system. Businesses in the cryptocurrency marketplace are losing their bank accounts, or their access to the ACH network, suddenly, and with no explanation from their bankers. The owners and employees of cryptocurrency firms are even having their personal accounts closed without explanation. And over the past two weeks, federal regulators have shut down a solvent bank that was known to be serving the crypto industry and, although it is required to resolve banks through the “least cost resolution” to the Deposit Insurance Fund, the FDIC chose to shutter rather than sell the part of the bank that serves digital asset customers, costing the Fund billions of dollars.</span></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">This pattern of events is not random, and we have seen it before. This is not the first time that f<b>ederal bank regulators, working with their State-level counterparts, have abused their supervisory authority to label businesses unworthy of having a bank account and worked in secret to purge disfavored lines of commerce from the financial system</b>. Beginning in 2012, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System carried out a coordinated campaign to weaponize the banks against industries that had fallen out of favor with the administration—including gun stores, pawn shops, tobacco stores, payday lenders, and a host of other brick and mortar businesses. That campaign was called Operation Choke Point.</span></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">Our firm successfully challenged Operation Choke Point, and it was brought to a halt. The current bout of regulatory overreach against the crypto industry is illegal for much the same as reason as its predecessor. Specifically:</span></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">• Operation Choke Point 2.0 deprives business of their constitutional rights to due process in violation of the Fifth Amendment. It is well settled that when a federal agency attaches a derogatory label to an individual or business, and this stigmatizing label causes the business to lose a bank account or broadly precludes them from the pursuit of their chosen trade, the agency has violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, unless if first afforded the individual or business a right to be heard. This is precisely what the federal bank regulators responsible for Operation Choke Point 2.0 have done and continue to do by labeling crypto businesses a threat to the financial system, a source of fraud and misinformation, and a risk to bank liquidity.</span></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">• Operation Choke Point 2.0 violates both the non-delegation doctrine and the anticommandeering doctrine, depriving Americans of key structural constitutional protections against the arbitrary exercise of governmental power.</span></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">• By leveraging their authority over the banks to acquire the power to pick and choose the customers whom the banks may serve, the bank regulators have exceeded their statutory authority. The bank regulators are charged with supervising the safety and soundness of the banks; their effort to anoint themselves the gatekeepers of the financial system and the ultimate arbiters of American innovation and American economic life cannot be permitted to stand.</span></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">• The federal bank regulators are also refusing to perform their non-discretionary duties when doing so will benefit the cryptocurrency industry. State banks that are statutorily entitled to access the federal reserve system are being denied their rights solely because they serve the crypto industry. The federal bank regulators are not free to pick and choose which statutory obligations they duties they wish to perform.</span></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">• The federal bank regulators are evading the notice and comment rulemaking requirements of the administrative procedure act by imposing binding requirements on the banking industry through informal guidance documents. This is undemocratic, since it deprives the public of the right to comment on proposed rules, and it also runs contrary to the principle of judicial review, since courts lack the power to review “informal” agency actions.</span></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">• Finally, the federal bank regulators are acting in an arbitrary and capricious fashion by failing to adequately explain their decisions, by failing to engage in reasoned decision making, and by failing to treat like cases alike. It is difficult to imagine a more arbitrary and capricious agency action than simultaneously placing a solvent bank into receivership solely because it provided financial services to the crypto industry, while permitting insolvent institutions not tied to the crypto industry to continue operating.</span></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">...The persistent unwillingness of the nation’s bank regulators to follow the law and obey the Constitution calls out for Congressional action. Cracks are starting to form in the American financial system as its regulators increasingly abuse their power to achieve aims outside their authority and beyond their competence....We therefore urge Congress to perform its oversight role and hold these agencies to account.</span></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></p></div></div>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-48479514660235954302023-10-21T22:00:00.000-07:002023-10-22T09:07:16.944-07:00Check Rolf Degen's Twitter page to get great summaries of Psychology papers<p><br /></p><p> Check Rolf Degen's takes! <a href="https://twitter.com/DegenRolf">@DegenRolf</a></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-53428264360068701472023-10-17T07:37:00.004-07:002023-10-17T07:39:36.591-07:00The observed effect sizes of cash transfers on cognitive performance (short-term 2-5 wk, long-term 12-13 mos) were roughly three and four times smaller than suggested by prior non-randomized research <h1 class="Head u-font-serif u-h2 u-margin-s-ver" id="screen-reader-main-title" style="--sd-ui-line-height: calc(1em + 10px); box-sizing: border-box; color: #1f1f1f; font-family: ElsevierGulliver, Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Arial Unicode MS", serif; font-size: 1.6rem; font-weight: 400; line-height: var(--sd-ui-line-height) !important; margin-bottom: 16px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 16px !important; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word;"><span class="title-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Does alleviating poverty increase cognitive performance? 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margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">d</span></span></span></button><span face="ElsevierSans, Arial, Helvetica, Roboto, "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif" style="color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 0.8rem;">,</span><span face="ElsevierSans, Arial, Helvetica, Roboto, "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif" style="color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 0.8rem;"> </span><button class="button-link button-link-primary" data-sd-ui-side-panel-opener="true" data-xocs-content-id="au5" data-xocs-content-type="author" style="appearance: button; border-color: initial; border-radius: 0px; border-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #1f1f1f; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-variant-numeric: lining-nums; line-height: var(--sd-ui-line-height); margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; transition: border-bottom-color 0.3s ease 0s, color 0.3s ease 0s;" type="button"><span class="button-link-text" style="border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: border-bottom-color 0.3s ease 0s; vertical-align: middle;"><span class="react-xocs-alternative-link" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-thickness: 1px; text-underline-position: from-font;"><span class="given-name" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Péter</span> <span class="text surname" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Szécsi</span> </span><span class="author-ref" id="baff5" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">e</span></span> <span class="author-ref" id="baff1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">a</span></span></span></button><span face="ElsevierSans, Arial, Helvetica, Roboto, "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif" style="color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 0.8rem;">,</span><span face="ElsevierSans, Arial, Helvetica, Roboto, "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif" style="color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 0.8rem;"> </span><button class="button-link button-link-primary" data-sd-ui-side-panel-opener="true" data-xocs-content-id="au6" data-xocs-content-type="author" style="appearance: button; border-color: initial; border-radius: 0px; border-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #1f1f1f; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-variant-numeric: lining-nums; line-height: var(--sd-ui-line-height); margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; transition: border-bottom-color 0.3s ease 0s, color 0.3s ease 0s;" type="button"><span class="button-link-text" style="border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: border-bottom-color 0.3s ease 0s; vertical-align: middle;"><span class="react-xocs-alternative-link" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-thickness: 1px; text-underline-position: from-font;"><span class="given-name" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Christopher</span> <span class="text surname" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Blattman</span> </span><span class="author-ref" id="baff6" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">f</span></span></span></button><span face="ElsevierSans, Arial, Helvetica, Roboto, "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif" style="color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 0.8rem;">,</span><span face="ElsevierSans, Arial, Helvetica, Roboto, "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif" style="color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 0.8rem;"> </span><button class="button-link button-link-primary" data-sd-ui-side-panel-opener="true" data-xocs-content-id="au7" data-xocs-content-type="author" style="appearance: button; border-color: initial; border-radius: 0px; border-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #1f1f1f; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-variant-numeric: lining-nums; line-height: var(--sd-ui-line-height); margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; transition: border-bottom-color 0.3s ease 0s, color 0.3s ease 0s;" type="button"><span class="button-link-text" style="border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: border-bottom-color 0.3s ease 0s; vertical-align: middle;"><span class="react-xocs-alternative-link" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-thickness: 1px; text-underline-position: from-font;"><span class="given-name" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Julian C.</span> <span class="text surname" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Jamison</span> </span><span class="author-ref" id="baff7" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">g</span></span></span></button><span face="ElsevierSans, Arial, Helvetica, Roboto, "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif" style="color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 0.8rem;">,</span><span face="ElsevierSans, Arial, Helvetica, Roboto, "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Arial Unicode MS", sans-serif" style="color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 0.8rem;"> </span><button class="button-link button-link-primary" data-sd-ui-side-panel-opener="true" data-xocs-content-id="au8" data-xocs-content-type="author" style="appearance: button; border-color: initial; border-radius: 0px; border-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #1f1f1f; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-variant-numeric: lining-nums; line-height: var(--sd-ui-line-height); margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; transition: border-bottom-color 0.3s ease 0s, color 0.3s ease 0s;" type="button"><span class="button-link-text" style="border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: border-bottom-color 0.3s ease 0s; vertical-align: middle;"><span class="react-xocs-alternative-link" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-thickness: 1px; text-underline-position: from-font;"><span class="given-name" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Margaret</span> <span class="text surname" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sheridan</span> </span><span class="author-ref" id="baff8" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 12px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">h.</span></span></span></button></p><p>Cortex, Oct 2023. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010945223002241">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010945223002241</a></p><div><h2 class="section-title u-h4 u-margin-l-top u-margin-xs-bottom" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #1f1f1f; font-family: ElsevierGulliver, Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Arial Unicode MS", serif; font-size: 1rem; font-weight: 400; line-height: var(--sd-ui-line-height) !important; margin-bottom: 16px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 32px !important; margin: 32px 0px 16px; padding: 0px;">Abstract</h2><div id="abssec0010" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #1f1f1f; font-family: ElsevierGulliver, Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Arial Unicode MS", serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p id="abspara0010" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 16px; padding: 0px;">In this Registered Report, we investigated the impact of a cash transfer based poverty alleviation program on cognitive performance. We analyzed data from a randomized controlled trial conducted on low-income, high-risk individuals in Liberia where a random half of the participants (n = 251) received a $200 lump-sum unconditional cash transfer – equivalent approximately to 300% of their monthly income – while the other half (n = 222) did not. We tested both the short-term (2–5 weeks) and the long-term (12–13 months) impact of the treatment via several executive function measures. The observed effect sizes of cash transfers on cognitive performance (<em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">b</em> = .13 for the short- and <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">b</em> = .08 for the long-term) were roughly three and four times smaller than suggested by prior non-randomized research. Bayesian analyses revealed that the overall evidence supporting the existence of these effects is inconclusive. A multiverse analysis showed that neither alternative analytical specifications nor alternative processing of the dataset changed the results consistently. However cognitive performance varied between the executive function measures, suggesting that cash transfers may affect the subcomponents of executive function differently.</p><h2 class="article-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 22px; font-weight: 400; line-height: var(--sd-ui-line-height); margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px;">Significance Statement</h2><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p id="p0020a" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 16px; padding: 0px;">Prior non-randomized studies observed that alleviating poverty can largely improve the cognitive functioning of the poor by unburdening their cognitive bandwidth. Based on that, they also argued that unconditional cash transfers can be effective at breaking poverty traps. We tested this account both in the short- and the long-term in a randomized controlled trial using a one-off cash transfer – equivalent approximately to 300% of the participants' monthly income. Although we observed a small effect of receiving cash transfers both one month and a year after the treatment, cash transfers, in our study, did not significantly increase the cognitive performance of the poor. These findings suggest that the positive effects of poverty-alleviation policies on cognition are smaller than previous non-randomized research suggested.</p></div></div></div>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-29860370746651422192023-10-17T07:18:00.005-07:002023-10-17T07:19:24.373-07:00Several studies that claim heat suppresses economic growth fall apart under scrutiny; but the debunker thinks it is astonishing "that eminent economists, in universities with vast resources available to marshal evidence, chose to ignore [his] critique"<p>Climate Change and ‘Poor’ South Korea. By David Barker</p><p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/debunking-study-saying-climate-change-hurts-economic-growth-16e07ec3">https://www.wsj.com/articles/debunking-study-saying-climate-change-hurts-economic-growth-16e07ec3</a></p><p>A study claims heat suppresses economic growth. It falls apart under scrutiny.</p><p>The WSJ, Oct. 12, 2023</p><p>[Temperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Comment on Dell, Jones, and Olken <a href="https://econjwatch.org/File%20download/1287/BarkerSept2023.pdf?mimetype=pdf">https://econjwatch.org/File%20download/1287/BarkerSept2023.pdf?mimetype=pdf</a>]</p><p>Climate change hurts the economy, according to a celebrated 2012 paper by economists Melissa Dell, Benjamin Jones and Benjamin Olken. That paper is in the top 1% of all academic economics publications by citation count, and it has received glowing coverage in the media. The authors teach at Harvard, Northwestern and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, respectively, and have received some of the highest awards in the profession. I took a closer look at their study, and it doesn’t hold up.</p><p><br /></p><p>The study claims that higher temperatures suppress economic growth in poor countries. The claim falls apart when you look at their definitions. The authors study the period 1961-2003 and assign each country a binary designation as “poor” or “rich” based on whether their per capita gross domestic product was below or above the median for countries in 1960.</p><p><br /></p><p>But some countries faced drastic changes in fortune at the time.</p><p><br /></p><p>South Korea is “poor,” according to the authors. In reality, it was very poor in the early 1960s and then became very wealthy. When I simply reclassified South Korea as poor from 1961-76 and rich from 1977-2003, the study’s results nearly disappeared. When I allowed classifications of all countries to change when they moved either above or below median GDP per capita, the results disappeared completely. Any study with results that collapse after such a simple specification change shouldn’t be published in a peer-reviewed academic journal.</p><p><br /></p><p>I also found that unusual economic circumstances greatly influenced countries’ results. Per capita GDP in Rwanda dropped by 63% in 1994, the year of the genocide. That year happened to be warmer than average, tricking the model into showing that high temperatures cause GDP to fall. Dropping 16 unusual country/year observations out of 4,924 eliminated the main effect the study reported. Other seemingly arbitrary aspects of their technique, when changed, weakened or eliminated their results.</p><p><br /></p><p>I extended their data from 2003 to 2017 and added additional countries to the sample. I found again that correctly classifying countries as poor or rich eliminated their results. Going back to their original data source, I discovered that monthly temperatures are available, although they used only annual temperature data. If high temperatures really reduce GDP growth, it seems likely that this effect would be greatest in the warmest months of the year. I found no evidence to support that hypothesis in the original or the extended data. I also used a completely different set of data on GDP by country and found no effect of temperature on growth.</p><p><br /></p><p>Climate activists need evidence that high temperatures reduce economic growth to advance their policies. Responsible economists have found that high temperatures have only small effects on the level of GDP. If temperatures rise as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects—assuming no CO2 mitigation at all—then according to responsible economists, global GDP in 2100 will be about 2.6% lower than if there was no temperature increase. With normal economic growth, GDP per capita in 2100 will be five times today’s level. A 2.6% reduction in GDP in 2100 would mean GDP growth of 4.9 times instead of 5—hardly a catastrophe. But if researchers claim to show that higher temperatures will affect the rate of GDP growth, then the effects of heat by the year 2100 could be significant. That is why pro-climate researchers are so desperate to find an effect of temperature on growth.</p><p><br /></p><p>Econ Journal Watch, which published my debunking, contacted the authors and gave them an opportunity to respond to my work. They declined. [Reviewer: <i>Same happened with previous papers in which this author claimed to have debunked other papers</i>]</p><p><br /></p><p>It is astonishing that eminent economists, in universities with vast resources available to marshal evidence, chose to ignore my critique. But the mainstream media will ignore anything that reveals the weaknesses of climate research, and academic journals will continue to publish shoddy research that confirms the dogma of climate hysteria.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Mr. Barker runs a real-estate and finance company. He has taught economics and finance at the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa and worked as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.</i></p><div><br /></div>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-91364405327203750682023-10-16T00:06:00.009-07:002023-10-16T07:50:25.670-07:00Pacifist ChatGPT-3.5 on Christian Wolff's views of civil war. Reflection about corruption of truth.<p><b style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Question</b><span style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 10pt;">... Summarize Ch Wolff's position on civil war in Jus Gentium</span></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Answer</b>... Christian Wolff, a prominent 18th-century German philosopher, addressed the concept of civil war in his work "Jus Gentium." Wolff's position on civil war can be summarized as follows:</span></span></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Wolff viewed civil war as a significant breach of the social contract and a breakdown of the rule of law within a society. He believed that the natural state of humanity was to live in a state of peace and that the fundamental purpose of political authority and government was to maintain that peace and order. Civil war, according to Wolff, was a grave threat to this essential objective.</span></span></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Wolff argued that civil war was a manifestation of a failure of government, where a breakdown in the administration of justice, protection of rights, and maintenance of public order led to internal conflicts. He emphasized the importance of legitimate authority in preventing civil war, and he advocated for the establishment of just and effective legal systems as a means to prevent such conflicts.</span></span></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">In Wolff's view, civil war was destructive not only in terms of human lives and property but also because it hindered the development of human society and prosperity. He believed that societies could only flourish when governed by just laws and institutions, and civil war posed a direct threat to this development.</span></span></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Overall, Wolff's position on civil war can be characterized as a rejection of such conflicts and a call for the establishment and maintenance of lawful and just governance to prevent them. His ideas were rooted in the broader Enlightenment emphasis on reason, order, and the rule of law as the foundations of a well-functioning society.</span></span></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">---</span></span></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 10pt;">More than a bit inaccurate. The breach was in rebellion, a form of unjust war: 1010, "</span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rebelles</span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 10pt;"> dicuntur fubditi, qui arma injufta fumunt adverfus Rectorem civitatis"; also 1011, "rebellio bellum civile non est [...] </span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 10pt;"><i>nec </i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"><i>fubditi bellum civil excitantes funt rebelles</i>.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 10pt;">" But just revolt against the prince was civil war and could be justified: 1011, "</span><i><span style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Bellum </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 10pt;">vero </span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 10pt;"><i>civile </i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 10pt;">dicitur , quo jufta arma adverfus Rectorem civitatis fumunt fubditi."</span></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">As expected, trash in, trash out.</span></span></p><p class="western" style="line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-66957524627156828682023-10-15T10:55:00.004-07:002023-10-15T11:07:21.696-07:00[M]any witches she knew were talking about the degree program, announced last week, and were thinking about enrolling<p>Bad times in several fronts:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Christina Oakley Harrington, a retired academic of medieval history and the founder of Treadwell’s, a London bookstore specializing in literature on magic and spiritualism, said that many witches she knew were talking about the degree program, announced last week, and were thinking about enrolling.</p></blockquote><p>This gal tries to deflect criticism:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">“Not because they’re idiots and think it’s going to teach them how to wave a magic wand and do a spell,” Dr. Oakley Harrington said. “They’re people who have just a huge curiosity about the world and the way we perceive the seen and the unseen worlds.”</p></blockquote><p>, but she doesn't succeed, IMHO.</p><p>Also, this guy adds:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Magic is sometimes thrown around as a synonym for false thinking, said Prof. Jeffrey J. Kripal, who helped to create the Rice University certificate program. “People have been practicing magical rituals and thinking about the world in magical terms much longer and deeper than the world religions,” Dr. Kripal said.</p></blockquote><p>The pirates at Exeter Univ. even promise careers, "The recent surge in interest around topics pertaining to magic and occultism means that many of these professions have experienced a similar surge in demand for this expertise.":</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmBUHTec9VKDjo3T77c_OrsCBQUyiOX81hTWAKVd-37r1r34Cjk07zoL0qzTENCec_RQrCSDFEdhFmfCz66QVm5jY809lLUvPNGTcDl28l3AzZHobcE6w8PNHj9prDHhvqg0tx_rwbRa--8FsplQtqPX1ix2IpC9tv-YHath5gFwO0OW3zkw-ycoFjVRP9" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="687" data-original-width="1458" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmBUHTec9VKDjo3T77c_OrsCBQUyiOX81hTWAKVd-37r1r34Cjk07zoL0qzTENCec_RQrCSDFEdhFmfCz66QVm5jY809lLUvPNGTcDl28l3AzZHobcE6w8PNHj9prDHhvqg0tx_rwbRa--8FsplQtqPX1ix2IpC9tv-YHath5gFwO0OW3zkw-ycoFjVRP9=w640-h302" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>In:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>The New York Times, Oct 13 2023: A U.K. University Will Confer a New Title: A Master’s Degree in the Occult. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/world/europe/exeter-university-magic-degree.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/world/europe/exeter-university-magic-degree.html</a></p><p>The postgraduate degree, to be offered at the University of Exeter starting next year, will focus on the history of magic, folklore and rituals.</p></blockquote><div><br /></div>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-2850926838578145052023-10-15T08:38:00.008-07:002023-10-16T07:44:57.397-07:00 The Washington Post & Gavin Schmidt on Sept 2023 temps<p>1 Honesty at the WaPo...: A sudden spike in global warmth is so extreme, it’s mysterious, Oct 13 2023, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/10/13/explaining-record-september-global-extreme-heat">https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/10/13/explaining-record-september-global-extreme-heat</a>.</p><p>2 but, as expected because of our constitutional glitches, Gavin Schmidt, on this summer's "extreme" (we don't know!!!) temps breaks things with the hind legs:</p><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">'“It is indeed hard to give a good and informed answer to why this is happening — possibly for the first time.'</p></blockquote><p>FIRST TIME? You are so good that you didn't have until now a hard time giving a good why? This guy went to the lawmaker for decades, it seems, saying he has good and informed answers to the whys he was working on...</p><p>Reminds me of Paul Krugman:</p><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">On election night 2016, I gave in temporarily to a temptation I warn others about: I let my political feelings distort my economic judgment. A very bad man had just won the Electoral College; and my first thought was that this would translate quickly into a bad economy. I quickly retracted the claim, and issued a mea culpa. (Being an old-fashioned guy, I try to admit and learn from my mistakes.) [Can the Economy Keep Calm and Carry On? Paul Krugman. The New York Times, Jan 01 2018, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/opinion/can-the-economy-keep-calm-and-carry-on.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/opinion/can-the-economy-keep-calm-and-carry-on.html</a>]</p></blockquote><p>Check other amusing comments at <a href="https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/01/this-man-is-superhuman-and-very-rarely.html">https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/01/this-man-is-superhuman-and-very-rarely.html</a>.<br /></p><p>Until election night 2016, an economist's record was flawless :-) :-) :-). Amazing.</p><p><br /></p><p>Gavin, honey, the tenor f your remarks is totally expected, but nauseating the same, n'kay?</p><div><br /></div><div><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Update</b>:
as of Oct 16 2023, he didn't update his X/Twitter account with
<b><i>his own</i></b> contribution to the WaPo.</span></span></p>
</div>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-65570475639922268472023-09-21T23:47:00.003-07:002023-09-21T23:47:25.359-07:00Chicago was once the "City of the Big Shoulders," the "Freight Handler to the Nation"<p>Chicago was the "City of the Big Shoulders" in 1914, the "Freight Handler to the Nation" [1]:</p><p><b></b></p><blockquote><b>Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog <b>Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the </b><b>Nation.</b></b></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Now, the supermarkets leave the city ("Grocery store closures," says his press statement), so the mayor wants the city to own a supermarket:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>"All Chicagoans deserve to live near convenient, affordable, healthy grocery options," said Mayor Brandon Johnson in a statement [2]. "A better, stronger, safer future is one where our youth and our communities have access to the tools and resources they need to thrive. My administration is committed to advancing innovative, whole-of-government approaches to address these inequities. I am proud to work alongside partners to take this step in envisioning what a municipally owned grocery store in Chicago could look like."</p><p>"The impact of inadequate food retail reaches beyond food access. Grocery stores serve as anchors in communities by employing community members and acting as a catalytic business for nearby commercial activity. Grocery store closures, especially in areas that rely on one grocery store provider, force residents to leave their neighborhoods and spend money outside of their communities to find healthy, affordable, enjoyable food options."</p></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>---</p><p>Notes</p><p>1 Carl Sandburg's Chicago (1914): <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/12840/chicago">https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/12840/chicago</a></p><p><br /></p><p>2 Mayor Johnson Announces The Exploration Of A Municipally Owned Grocery Store: Exploring a municipally owned grocery store is part of the Johnson administration’s goal of promoting food equity and accessibility for all Chicagoans. Sep 13 2023. <a href="https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/mayor/press_room/press_releases/2023/september/MayorJohnsonAnnouncesTheExplorationOfAMunicipallyOwnedGroceryStore.html">https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/mayor/press_room/press_releases/2023/september/MayorJohnsonAnnouncesTheExplorationOfAMunicipallyOwnedGroceryStore.html</a></p>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-80949713592930240182023-09-11T13:44:00.001-07:002023-09-11T13:44:10.687-07:00Hopelessly optimistic despite the known evidence... "the remarkable durability of that error paints a more pessimistic picture of human reasoning than we were initially inclined to accept"<p>We knew this already, although we didn't pay attention, and Tversky & Kahneman certified this before 1974 (Nobel for Kahneman in 2000+ for that work)... The formation and revision of intuitions <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027723000148">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027723000148</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Conclusion by these intelligent scholars... "the remarkable durability of that error paints a more pessimistic picture of human reasoning than we were initially inclined to accept"</p><p><br /></p><p>Abstract: This paper presents 59 new studies (N = 72,310) which focus primarily on the “bat and ball problem.” It documents our attempts to understand the determinants of the erroneous intuition, our exploration of ways to stimulate reflection, and our discovery that the erroneous intuition often survives whatever further reflection can be induced. Our investigation helps inform conceptions of dual process models, as “system 1” processes often appear to override or corrupt “system 2” processes. Many choose to uphold their intuition, even when directly confronted with simple arithmetic that contradicts it – especially if the intuition is approximately correct.</p><div><h2 class="u-h4 u-margin-l-top u-margin-xs-bottom" id="st0040" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: ElsevierGulliver, Georgia, "Times New Roman", STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", Arial, Helvetica, "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Arial Unicode MS", serif; font-size: 1rem; font-weight: 400; line-height: var(--sd-ui-line-height) !important; margin-bottom: 8px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 32px !important; margin: 32px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;">5 Concluding remarks</h2><p id="p0555" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: ElsevierGulliver, Georgia, "Times New Roman", STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", Arial, Helvetica, "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Arial Unicode MS", serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; padding: 0px;">When we began studying the bat and ball problem, we assumed respondents missed it because they didn't bother to check. Accordingly, we assumed that they'd be able to solve it if we directed their attention to the features of the problem that differentiate it from the problem we thought they were unwittingly solving instead (bat and ball “lite”) or to the constraint the typical answer violates (that the prices differ by 100).</p><p id="p0560" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: ElsevierGulliver, Georgia, "Times New Roman", STIXGeneral, "Cambria Math", Arial, Helvetica, "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Microsoft Sans Serif", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Arial Unicode MS", serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; padding: 0px;">We discovered instead that many respondents maintain the erroneous response in the face of facts that plainly falsify it, even after their attention has been directed to those facts. Although subjects' apparent sensitivity to the <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">size</em> of the heuristic error merits further research, the remarkable durability of that error paints a more pessimistic picture of human reasoning than we were initially inclined to accept; those whose thoughts most require additional deliberation benefit little from whatever additional deliberation can be induced.</p></div>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-72717181483346873152023-08-31T07:37:00.005-07:002023-08-31T07:40:42.182-07:00Governmental chutzpah at a maximum: Before, insulation was a must, for the homeowner and for the planet; now, to qualify for a heat pump grant you don't need to install loft or cavity wall insulation<p>Press release: Boost to heat pump rollout with plans for cheaper and easier installation. Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Lord Callanan, August 31 2023. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/boost-to-heat-pump-rollout-with-plans-for-cheaper-and-easier-installation">https://www.gov.uk/government/news/boost-to-heat-pump-rollout-with-plans-for-cheaper-and-easier-installation</a></p><p><i>Simplified approach to qualifying for a heat pump grant could save consumers time and money, and variable grants will improve access.</i></p><p>Excerpts (my emphasis):</p><p></p><blockquote><p>"Homeowners and small businesses could find it cheaper and easier to install heat pumps under new proposals set out today [...].</p><p>Proposed measures could mean varying the levels of grants that are made available, depending on the customer’s property type or existing fuel source.</p><p>This would make heat pump installations more affordable for even more households and small businesses, enabling them to benefit from low-cost and low-carbon heating.</p><p>Households could also save time and money through a simplified approach to qualifying for a heat pump grant by ***removing the need to install loft or cavity wall insulation first***.</p><p>These changes will help more homes and businesses move away from costly foreign fossil fuels and onto cleaner, cheaper homegrown energy [...] </p></blockquote><blockquote><p>[...]</p></blockquote><blockquote><p>However, to make sure that new homes are zero carbon ready we plan to set the performance standard of the Future Homes Standard at a level which will effectively preclude new homes being built with fossil fuel heating."</p></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>---</p><p>My comments & my emphasis:</p><p>1 It is sad that the governments put in writing with such ease that they will set performance standards "***at a level which will effectively preclude*** new homes being built with fossil fuel heating," regardless of what the citizen wishes;</p><p>It is amazing that, first, your needs or preferences play no part at all on your future, and second, this is done with so much peace of mind and comfort by the bureaucrats.</p><p>2 It seems the writer have great confidence in our inability to sum two and two, but we all realize that this plan is an admission that the costs of those systems the lawmaker favors are higher than the old systems' costs. All this gibberish of moving "away from costly foreign fossil fuels and onto cleaner, cheaper homegrown energy" is just that.</p><p>You need to add costs in the future gas boilers (via the new performance rules) & reduce costs in the newest systems because if not the citizen and the builders would not make the transition, which will make homes more expensive.</p><p>3 Also, supposedly the insulation that until now was mandatory to have had installed before qualifying for the taxpayer discounts (vouchers) was a consumer protection and and environmental must. But now, at the stroke of a pen, with no new law, the requirement is cancelled. What about those non-insulated homes that will make costlier the heat? And what the excess energy spent means to Pachamama's health?</p><p>4 In addition, what happens to the grantees that first insulated their homes? Will the taxpayer compensate them for the unnecessary costs?</p><p>5 And last... Will someone's head roll for the past lies about how cheaper it was to be to transition to the new systems?</p><p><br /></p><p>But this is how we humans are. Even more when in power and have the others' lives and freedom at our disposal to play with them, as if we were gods.</p>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-75555550155714215602023-08-15T11:28:00.002-07:002023-08-15T11:28:10.839-07:00The main reason why people—even introverted people—feel most authentic when they act extraverted is that it feels good<p></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 10pt;">Why
is authenticity associated with being and acting extraverted?
Exploring the mediating role of positive affect. Joshua A.
Wilt,Jessie Sun,Rowan Jacques-Hamilton & Luke D. Smillie. Aug 13
2023. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2023.2246672">https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2023.2246672</a></span></p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Abstract:
Extraversion is linked to higher levels of authenticity. Why? Across
four studies, we examined positive affect as a potential mediator. In
Study 1 (N = 205), we tested our mediation model at the trait
level. Then, focusing on the within-person state level: Study 2
(N = 97) involved a 10-week lab-based experience sampling
protocol; Study 3 (N = 147) involved a preregistered week-long
daily-life experience sampling protocol; and Study 4 (N = 129)
involved a two-week naturalistic experience sampling protocol. In all
four studies, positive affect explained moderate to high proportions
of the effects of extraversion on authenticity (Study 1 = 29%,
Study 2 = 38%, Study 3 = 87%, Study 4 = 86%). We discuss
several theoretical interpretations.</span></span></p><br /><p></p>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-61297530624850506962023-08-14T12:40:00.000-07:002023-08-14T12:40:03.811-07:00Many studies tout interventions as effective when all that was observed was a rise in self-reported desire to learn more about how to reduce suicide or general knowledge about it; there is scant evidence that most suicide prevention strategies are effective, and the public doesn’t know<p><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">McCaffree, Kevin. 2023. “Pulling Back the Curtain on Suicide Research: Understanding Why People Die by Suicide Is a Harder Problem to Solve Than Most Social Scientists Admit.” SocArXiv. August 13. </span><a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/vs8f4">https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/vs8f4</a></p><h4 class="p-v-md f-w-md" style="background-color: #fcfcfc; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-top: 15px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Abstract</span></h4><p class="abstract " style="background-color: #fcfcfc; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve-breaks; word-break: break-word;">Suicide researchers often present their research in misleading ways to the public. In this short piece, I pull back the curtain on this behavior and explore why it might occur, and what might be done to improve our knowledge on this critically important issue.</p>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-4960636176205940652023-08-14T12:38:00.009-07:002023-08-15T11:24:11.246-07:00Chapter 9 - On the Randomness of Suicide<p>Chapter 9 - On the Randomness of Suicide. C. A. Soper , Pablo Malo Ocejo and Matthew M. Large. <span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health</span><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">, pp. 134 - 152</span></p><div class="doi-data" data-v-dabdc7c6="" style="align-items: center; background-color: #f3f3f3; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; font-family: "Noto Sans", sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; justify-content: space-between; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div data-v-dabdc7c6="" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">DOI: <a class="app-link app-link__text app-link--accent" data-v-ca289a7e="" data-v-dabdc7c6="" href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009030564.011" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #006fca; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="text" data-v-ca289a7e="" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; 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color: #333333; font-family: "Noto Sans", sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span data-v-dabdc7c6="" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Cambridge University Press</span></div><div data-v-dabdc7c6="" style="background-color: #f3f3f3; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Noto Sans", sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span data-v-dabdc7c6="" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Print publication year: 2022</span></div><h2 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "noto sans", Helvetica, Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: large; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></h2><h2 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "noto sans", Helvetica, Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: large; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;">Summary</h2><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Noto Sans", sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="abstract" data-abstract-type="normal" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;">Converging theoretical and empirical evidence points to suicide being a fundamentally aleatory event – that risk of suicide is opaque to useful assessment at the level of the individual. This chapter presents an integrated evolutionary and clinical argument that the time has come to transcend efforts to categorise peoples’ risk of taking their own lives. A brighter future awaits mental healthcare if the behaviour’s essential non-predictability is understood and accepted. The pain-brain evolutionary theory of suicide predicts <span class="italic" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">inter alia</span> that all intellectually competent humans carry the potential for suicide, and that suicides will occur largely at random. The randomness arises because, over an evolutionary timescale, selection of adaptive defences will have sought out and exploited all operative correlates of suicide and will thus have exhausted those correlates’ predictive power. Completed suicides are therefore statistical residuals – events intrinsically devoid of informational cues by which the organism could have avoided self-destruction. Empirical evidence supports this theoretical expectation. Suicide resists useful prediction at the level of the individual. Regardless of the means by which the assessment is made, people rated ‘high risk’ seldom take their own lives, even over extended periods. Consequently, if a prevention treatment is sufficiently safe and effective to be worth allotting to the ‘high-risk’ subset of a cohort of patients, it will be just as worthwhile for the rest. Prevention measures will offer the greatest prospects for success where the aleatory nature of suicide is accepted, acknowledging that ‘fault’ for rare, near-random, self-induced death resides not within the individual but as a universal human potentiality. A realistic, evolution-informed, clinical approach is proposed that focuses on <span class="italic" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">risk communication</span> in place of risk assessment. All normally sapient humans carry a vanishingly small daily risk of taking their own lives but are very well adapted to avoiding that outcome. Almost all of us nearly always find other solutions to the stresses of living.</p></div></div>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-63893048791992364382023-08-14T12:34:00.002-07:002023-08-14T12:34:05.572-07:00Democratic Republic of Congo: CMOC, the Chinese operator of the Tenke-Fungurume mine, agreed in April to pay $800mn to the government to settle a tax dispute (plus an export ban for the previous 10 months)<p>The new commodity superpowers. Leslie Hook in London, Harry Dempsey in Lualaba Province, and Ciara Nugent in Buenos Aires. Financial Times, Aug 8 2023</p><p><i>In the first part of a series, countries that produce the metals central to the energy transition want to rewrite the rules of mineral extraction</i></p><p><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0d2fba79-940f-4a28-8f4f-68f1e755200f">https://www.ft.com/content/0d2fba79-940f-4a28-8f4f-68f1e755200f</a></p><p><br /></p><p>The red-brown landscape of Tenke-Fungurume, one of the world’s largest copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is covered by tens of thousands of dusty sacks.</p><p>The bags stacked up by the roadside and piled next to buildings contain a stash of cobalt hydroxide powder equivalent to almost a tenth of the world’s annual consumption — and worth about half a billion dollars.</p><p>The haphazard stockpiles of this bright green powder, a key ingredient in electric car batteries, point to how the DRC, the world’s largest producer of cobalt, is starting to flex its muscles when it comes to the metals needed for the energy transition.</p><p>CMOC, the Chinese operator of the Tenke-Fungurume mine, agreed in April to pay $800mn to the government to settle a tax dispute which had seen the company slapped with an export ban for the previous 10 months.</p><p>And now the DRC government is undertaking a sweeping review of all its mining joint ventures with foreign investors. “We’re not satisfied. None of these contracts create value for us,” says Guy Robert Lukama, head of the DRC’s state-owned mining company Gécamines. He would like to see more jobs, revenue and higher-value mineral activities captured by the DRC.</p><p><br /></p><p>The new energy order</p><p>At the entrance to his office, a cabinet display of highly mineralised rocks makes his point about the riches on offer. Lukama also advocates government intervention to keep cobalt prices high: “Excess of supply needs to be organised properly. Some export quotas will be useful,” he says. </p><p>The DRC is far from alone. As the world moves from an energy system built on fossil fuels to one powered by electricity and renewables, global demand for materials such as copper, cobalt, nickel and lithium is transforming the fortunes of the countries that produce them.</p><p>The mining of certain metals is highly concentrated among just a few countries. For cobalt, the DRC accounts for 70 per cent of global mining. In nickel, the top three producers (Indonesia, the Philippines and Russia) account for two-thirds of the market. While for lithium, the top three producers (Australia, Chile and China) account for more than 90 per cent. </p><p>Demand is only going to grow in coming years. Under current plans, none of these key commodities will have enough operating mines by 2030 to build the infrastructure necessary to limit global warming to 1.5C above preindustrial levels, according to the International Energy Agency.</p><p>By the end of this decade, the nascent lithium market needs to triple in size, while copper supply will be short by 2.4mn tonnes, it says. </p><p>The growing demand for these commodities is starting to shake up both the economics and the geopolitics of the energy world.</p><p>The supply chains for some of these metals are becoming entangled in the rising tensions between the west and China, which dominates processing capacity for lithium, cobalt and rare earths and is considering restricting exports of some materials. Governments from Washington to Brussels to Tokyo are assessing where they can reliably source critical minerals without going through Beijing’s orbit.</p><p>This shift is also transforming some smaller and historically under-developed countries into commodity superpowers. And their governments are now intent on rewriting the rules of mineral extraction.</p><p>Many are trying to capture more of the value of their minerals, by doing more processing and value-added manufacturing domestically. Some are also attempting to control the supply, by nationalising mineral resources, introducing export controls, and even proposing cartels.</p><p>Where once some of these resource-rich countries were victims of exploitation that can date back to colonial times, now they are becoming empowered to take back control of their fates.</p><p>Just in the past 12 months, Zimbabwe and Namibia banned exports of raw lithium; Chile increased state control over lithium mining; while Mexico plunged its nascent lithium industry into uncertainty with a new review of mining concessions. Meanwhile, Indonesia added export controls on bauxite (a key ingredient in aluminium) to its pre-existing ban on exports of raw nickel ore.</p><p>“Every government will seek a deal with the mining industry that’s a fair one, that is a winner for the country and the winner for the industry,” says Jakob Stausholm, chief executive of Rio Tinto, which has itself recently been to the negotiating table in Chile and in Mongolia.</p><p>While he dismisses the idea that rising “nationalism” is behind this, he does acknowledge there has been a change. “It’s probably going to be more and more difficult just to mine and extract and export; very often a nation wants to have some processing facilities associated with the mining.”</p><p>The subtle shift in power towards the producers of sought-after battery metals is similar to other commodities shifts of the past, like the rise of coal during 19th century or the rise of tin during the 20th. But how far will producers go to take advantage of this moment? And how long can they make it last?</p><p><br /></p><p>Indonesia’s opportunity</p><p>The poster child for harnessing value from materials is Indonesia, which produces nearly half of the world’s nickel, a key ingredient in electric car batteries.</p><p>Years of export controls on raw nickel have already succeeded in building an extensive domestic smelting industry, as well as battery plants and several electric vehicle factories. </p><p>After the country banned exports of raw nickel in 2014, it attracted more than $15bn of foreign investment in nickel processing, primarily from China. Today Indonesia has banned exports of everything from nickel ore to bauxite, with an export ban on copper concentrate coming into effect next year.</p><p>Not everyone agrees with these policies, however: the EU has challenged them at the World Trade Organization and won an initial hearing. Indonesia is appealing against the verdict.</p><p>But government officials say the country’s efforts to build domestic industry and encourage manufacturing are straight from the same playbook that western countries used a century ago.</p><p>“This is not something we are doing out of the blue,” says Investment Minister Bahlil Lahadalia. “We are learning from our developed country counterparts, who in the past have resorted to these unorthodox policies.”</p><p>He points to the way the UK banned exports of raw wool during the 16th century, to stimulate its domestic textile industry. Or the US, which used high import taxes during the 19th and 20th centuries to encourage more manufacturing to take place domestically.</p><p>Lahadalia wants to take things one step further, by creating an Opec-style cartel to keep prices high for nickel and other battery materials. “Indonesia is studying the possibility to form a similar governance structure [to Opec] with regard to the minerals we have,” he says.</p><p>Whether or not that happens, the rise of nickel has certainly given Indonesia a higher profile. When President Joko Widodo, or “Jokowi” as he is typically known, visited the US last year, he met both President Joe Biden in Washington and Tesla CEO Elon Musk in an out-of-the way stopover in Boca Chica, Texas.</p><p>Jokowi later said he encouraged Musk to build Tesla’s entire supply chain in the country, “from upstream to downstream.”</p><p><br /></p><p>Window of opportunity</p><p>Not every country will follow the same trajectory as Indonesia, however.</p><p>A new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency finds that metals producers will be able to wield influence in the short term, while production is concentrated and demand is growing, but they are unlikely to have the kind of lasting geopolitical power enjoyed by oil and gas producers.</p><p><br /></p><p>One challenge is that battery metals like lithium are well distributed around the globe — at least in terms of geological reserves, if not in actual mine production. Today’s high lithium prices are making it efficient to develop deposits that were previously too expensive to access, and fuelling the broader expansion of hard-rock lithium mining in places like China and Australia.</p><p><br /></p><p>An example of how mineral production can shift is lithium mining in South America. Chile is today the region’s dominant producer, but neighbouring Argentina, which has more business-friendly mining policies, could eventually overtake it.</p><p>Argentina’s 23 provinces control their own natural resources and have enthusiastically courted mining business. With roughly $9.6bn of lithium investment announced in the past three years, and 38 projects in the pipeline, officials say Argentina’s production should go up six-fold over the next five years.</p><p>“Investment in lithium has never stopped and I think that has to do with the fact that we are open to private investment, and with uncertainty about the policies being rolled out in other countries,” says Fernanda Ávila, Argentina’s mining minister.</p><p>Argentina’s position as an anomaly among South American lithium-holding countries has helped it attract investment, even as it has dried up in other sectors of the economy amid triple-digit inflation.</p><p>While some politicians in South America’s “lithium triangle” — Chile, Argentina and Bolivia — have floated the idea of an Opec-style lithium cartel, Ávila is less than enthusiastic about the idea. Although “we have a very good relationship with our neighbouring countries”, she says, “that’s not a topic that’s on the agenda.”</p><p>This is another reason why producing battery metals is different from producing oil: it is very hard to form a successful cartel.</p><p>During the 20th century, several key commodities were controlled by cartels. Tin was managed through the International Tin Council from the 1950s to the 1980s — and Indonesia, Bolivia and the then Belgian Congo were all producer members. Likewise coffee producers banded together in a cartel during the 1960s and ‘70s; and natural rubber producers maintained a cartel until the 1990s.</p><p>John Baffes, head of the Commodities Unit at the World Bank, who has studied these groups, says successful cartels have three characteristics: a small number of producers, who share a well-defined objective, over a short timetable.</p><p>He thinks it will be difficult for battery metals producers to form cartels. “You may have some countries that come together, to create an environment that may be beneficial for them, such as keeping prices high,” says Baffes. “But that will be the seeds of failure, because more entities will come in, from outside of the group.”</p><p>The speed at which battery technologies are evolving, and their ingredients changing, could also undercut efforts at cartelisation.</p><p>Unlike oil, which is very hard to replace as a fuel source, battery metals have a much higher risk of substitution. The laboratories developing new battery chemistries are constantly evolving their formulas to use less of the metals that are expensive or hard to acquire.</p><p>This is already starting to happen with cobalt, which carmakers are trying to reduce in their batteries due to its high cost, as well as concerns about human rights in the DRC.</p><p>In a cautionary tale of how quickly the demand outlook can change, the use of cobalt-free batteries in China has surged from 18 per cent of the EV market in 2020, to 60 per cent this year, according to Rho Motion, an EV consultancy. Manganese-rich batteries are also on the horizon, which could further reduce cobalt use.</p><p><br /></p><p>“One of the consequences of the rise in non-cobalt batteries is that shortages previously forecast for cobalt for around 2024 and 2025 may not materialise,” says Andries Gerbens, a trader at Darton Commodities. “It may suggest cobalt prices remain lower.”</p><p><br /></p><p>The recent fall in prices of cobalt, nickel and lithium could damp efforts by producer countries to extract more rent and build up domestic manufacturing. After cobalt and lithium experienced a huge price rally in 2021 and 2022, driven primarily by demand from electric vehicle batteries, the market this year has been much calmer.</p><p>A slowdown in China’s production of electric vehicles, combined with an increase in production of cobalt hydroxide and lithium carbonate, has brought their prices down 30 per cent and 40 per cent, respectively, during the first six months of the year, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. </p><p>Veteran miners say this cycle has played out many times before. Resource nationalism tends to increase when commodity prices are high, or when elections are approaching, says Mick Davis, founder of Vision Blue Resources and former chief executive of Xstrata. </p><p>During these times, “[politicians] inevitably try to capture more of the rent than they initially envisioned and agreed,” says Davis. “The result always ends in tears. It means that the development of their mineral resources takes longer and longer to happen.”</p><p><br /></p><p>Carpe diem</p><p>Yet while the cycle still allows producer countries to flex their powers, they are intent on seizing the moment however they can.</p><p>Earlier this year Chile, the world’s second-largest lithium producer, announced a plan to semi-nationalise the industry: it will give greater control of two giant lithium mines in the Atacama Desert to a state mining company when the current contracts end in 2030 and 2043, with both those projects and all future ones becoming public-private partnerships.</p><p><br /></p><p>Chilean President Gabriel Boric said the plan to increase state control of lithium is the best chance Chile has to become a “developed economy” and to distribute wealth in a more just way. “No more ‘mining for the few’. We have to find a way to share the benefits of our country among all Chileans,” he said. </p><p><br /></p><p>And many producers are succeeding in taking steps up the value chain, in a bid to create sustainable economic growth. In the DRC, construction of the country’s second copper smelter is under way near the Kamoa-Kakula copper mine.</p><p>Chile, meanwhile, is offering preferential prices on lithium carbonate to companies who set up value-added lithium projects in the country. The first taker is China’s BYD, one of the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturers, which announced in April that it would build a lithium cathode factory in northern Chile, with 500 jobs expected in the investment phase.</p><p>Argentina is set to open a small lithium ion battery factory — Latin America’s first — in September, with a larger plant to follow next year. Owned by state energy research company Y-TEC, the plant in the province of Buenos Aires will use lithium mined in Argentina by US firm Livent to produce the equivalent of 400 EV batteries a year.</p><p>Indonesia’s attempts to build out an electric vehicle industry are bearing fruit at an even larger scale. Earlier this year, Ford announced an investment in a multibillion-dollar nickel processing facility. This summer, Hyundai broke ground on a battery plant, its second manufacturing facility in the country.</p><p>As the energy transition starts to recast the systems of power and wealth that dominated the 20th century, the new battery metals producers are just getting started. Many see this shift in the power dynamic as a welcome change.</p><p>“It is absolutely essential that we rewrite the legacy of the mining industry, so that mineral rich countries can capture more of the economic value,” says Elizabeth Press, director of planning at Irena, and author of the report on critical minerals. “We see a greater awareness from both sides that things cannot continue as they were."</p>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-77125699869075661442023-07-17T06:54:00.003-07:002023-07-17T11:32:56.913-07:00People underestimated how often their romantic partner toyed with the idea of breaking up the relationship<p>When one's partner wants out: Awareness, attachment anxiety and accuracy. Kenneth Tan, Laura V. Machia, Christopher R. Agnew. European Journal of Social Psychology, July 5 2023. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2969">https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2969</a></p><p>Abstract: Can a person tell whether their romantic partner wants to break up and, if so, how is such accuracy associated with their own attachment anxiety? We examined these questions by proposing and assessing the construct of perceived partner dissolution consideration (PPDC), including its validity. We then assessed the extent to which partners were accurate in their perceptions of each other's dissolution consideration, focusing on the perceiver's attachment anxiety as a potential moderator. Specifically, in two studies involving couples, dyadic analyses of couple data showed that couple members significantly underestimated (negative mean-level bias) partner dissolution consideration and also projected their own dissolution consideration onto their partners. Couple members higher in anxiety were particularly accurate (tracking accuracy) in their assessments of dissolution consideration. Implications for partner perceptions and judgements of dissolution consideration on relationship functioning are considered.</p><div><br /></div>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-47339987048375928492023-07-15T03:20:00.000-07:002023-07-15T03:20:07.082-07:00People cling to ideas they already know at the expense of fresh ideas, regardless of the true quality of the idea<p>Greul A, Schweisfurth TG, Raasch C (2023) Does familiarity with an idea bias its evaluation? PLoS ONE 18(7): e0286968, Jul 5 2023. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286968</p><p><br /></p><p>Abstract: Although many organizations strive for radical or disruptive new ideas, many fall short of their goals. We propose that a primary reason for this failure is rooted in the individuals responsible for innovation: while they seek novel ideas, they prefer familiar ones. While prior research shows that individuals are biased against ideas with high objective novelty, it has overlooked the role of subjective novelty, i.e., the extent to which an idea is novel or unfamiliar to an individual idea evaluator. In this paper, we investigate how such subjective familiarity with an idea shapes idea evaluation in innovation. Drawing on research from psychology and marketing on the mere exposure effect, we argue that familiarity with an idea positively affects the evaluation’s outcome. We present two field studies and one laboratory study that support our hypothesis. This study contributes to the understanding of cognitive biases that affect innovation processes.</p><p><br /></p><div><h2 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.25rem; font-weight: 400; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Discussion</h2><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.p1" name="article1.body1.sec8.p1" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Idea evaluation is a crucial step in the innovation process. Understanding the factors that systematically influence evaluation outcomes beyond true quality is key to reducing evaluation errors. We found that familiarity (the opposite of subjective novelty) positively affects idea evaluation–individuals assess ideas more positively if they have been exposed to them before.</p><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.p2" name="article1.body1.sec8.p2" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Our recent study is in line with existing research on the mere exposure effect, a psychological phenomenon where repeated exposure to a stimulus leads to a more positive attitude towards it [<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref020" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">20</a>,<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref032" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">32</a>]. Like previous researchers, we find that familiarity, achieved through repeated exposure to a stimulus, increases individuals’ positive evaluations. This reinforcement of earlier findings underscores the robustness of the mere exposure effect across different domains.</p><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.p3" name="article1.body1.sec8.p3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">What our study adds to this body of knowledge is the application of the mere exposure effect to idea evaluation. We found that individuals evaluate ideas more favorably when they have been exposed to them before. This suggests that the mere exposure effect, previously studied in the context of objects, people, and organizations, extends to abstract concepts such as ideas.</p><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.p4" name="article1.body1.sec8.p4" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Our recent study extends the body of knowledge on biases in the idea evaluation process, particularly focusing on how the familiarity of ideas influences their assessment. We found that individuals assess ideas more positively if they have been exposed to them before. We built on the body of knowledge on biases in the idea evaluation process, which has pointed out that the uncertain nature of the idea evaluation process renders idea evaluation inaccurate. Since the true value of an idea is unknown, evaluators rely on other cues that are available, but that may introduce error and bias into idea evaluation. Existing literature has investigated different factors that represent relevant (and biasing) cues in idea evaluation [<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref015" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">15</a>], e.g., characteristics of the idea creator [e.g., <a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref024" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">24</a>–<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref026" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">26</a>], the idea evaluator [e.g., <a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref009" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">9</a>,<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref014" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">14</a>,<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref024" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">24</a>,<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref025" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">25</a>,<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref027" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">27</a>,<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref028" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">28</a>], the idea evaluation context [e.g., <a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref004" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">4</a>,<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref009" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">9</a>,<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref029" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">29</a>,<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref031" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">31</a>], and the evaluation target [e.g. <a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref002" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">2</a>–<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref004" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">4</a>]. Our paper speaks to this last strand of research and demonstrates that familiarity, the opposite of subjective novelty, positively affects idea evaluation. This suggests that the mere exposure effect is applicable to idea evaluation processes, introducing a new perspective to the existing cues evaluators use.</p><div class="section toc-section" id="section1" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 18px 0px; padding: 0px;"><a class="link-target" id="sec019" name="sec019" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;" title="Implications for research"></a><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1rem; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Implications for research</h3><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.sec1.p1" name="article1.body1.sec8.sec1.p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Our findings inform prior literature in several ways. First, we contribute to the research into idea evaluation in innovation in general [e.g. <a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref002" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">2</a>,<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref009" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">9</a>,<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref015" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">15</a>] by shedding light on familiarity (or its conceptual opposite, subjective novelty) as an independent driver of individuals’ evaluation decisions. Idea familiarity is likely to be ubiquitous in organizational innovation processes, since new ideas evolve over time and are likely to be discussed repeatedly in partly overlapping groups. This makes prior idea exposure a key variable that has to date been largely overlooked in the research.</p><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.sec1.p2" name="article1.body1.sec8.sec1.p2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Second, we add to the body of research that has focused on collective/objective novelty, which describes a relationship between an idea and a collective, such as a firm, a panel, a body of knowledge, or a social system [<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref002" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">2</a>,<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref012" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">12</a>,<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref013" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">13</a>]. Drawing on [<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref010" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">10</a>], we have extended the prevailing notion of novelty by highlighting the subjectivity of idea novelty or familiarity [<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref009" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">9</a>]. Subjective novelty describes the relationship between an idea and an individual idea evaluator; thus, it differs between individuals.</p><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.sec1.p3" name="article1.body1.sec8.sec1.p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Third, our findings that more familiar ideas are less likely to be devalued than unfamiliar ideas also bears on literature whereby individuals tend to reject ideas if they feel uncertain in evaluation situations [<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref023" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">23</a>]. Following this literature, uncertainty reduction may be a principal mechanism whereby idea familiarity leads to increased liking.</p><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.sec1.p4" name="article1.body1.sec8.sec1.p4" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Finally, we suggest that familiarity is an underappreciated mechanism that explains some well-known phenomena. For instance, the not-invented-here syndrome [<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref005" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">5</a>,<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref043" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">43</a>] may partly be driven by a familiarity effect, since individuals are more likely to be familiar with internal than with external ideas and therefore positively inclined toward the former and biased against the latter. Also, organizational myopia leading to the lack of ability to come up with breakthrough ideas may be partly rooted in the fact that decision-makers favor familiar ideas over unfamiliar ones [<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref044" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">44</a>].</p></div><div class="section toc-section" id="section2" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 18px 0px; padding: 0px;"><a class="link-target" id="sec020" name="sec020" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;" title="Implications for practice"></a><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1rem; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Implications for practice</h3><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.sec2.p1" name="article1.body1.sec8.sec2.p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Our study has important implications for practitioners. The bias toward familiar ideas that we have uncovered harms innovation success in organizations as it counteracts the goal to find, select, and implement highly novel ideas. Firms find it hard to overcome this bias, since it is often individual decision-makers who decide about the fate of ideas.</p><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.sec2.p2" name="article1.body1.sec8.sec2.p2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Based on our research, we advise that managers be more aware that they are subject to familiarity bias. It can be counteracted by putting evaluation panels in charge of particularly important decisions and by job rotation as it can offset the biasing effect of individual idea familiarity. Finally, distributed idea evaluation (e.g., internal crowdfunding [<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref025" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">25</a>]) is gaining in popularity as a new tool in the decision-making toolbox. It helps to overcome individual level familiarity biases, as long as subjective familiarity with an idea is differently distributed across evaluators: A more diverse group of evaluators is likely to have a broader range of familiarities with different ideas, reducing the overall bias in the decision-making process.</p><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.sec2.p3" name="article1.body1.sec8.sec2.p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Viewed from a different angle, our findings also add to the toolbox of influence tactics [<a class="ref-tip" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286968#pone.0286968.ref003" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit;">3</a>], since employees can use sequences of prior exposure with ideas to convince supervisors of their ideas.</p></div><div class="section toc-section" id="section3" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 18px 0px; padding: 0px;"><a class="link-target" id="sec021" name="sec021" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;" title="Limitations and future research"></a><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1rem; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Limitations and future research</h3><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.sec3.p1" name="article1.body1.sec8.sec3.p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">This study has several limitations, which also open up directions for future research.</p><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.sec3.p2" name="article1.body1.sec8.sec3.p2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">First, we did not consider boundary conditions to our findings. Familiarity and subjective novelty may have differential effects depending on other key variables. That is, we would expect that familiarity’s effects may depend on the context (e.g. high vs. low uncertainty), the idea type (e.g. ideas with high vs. low collective novelty), the idea source (e.g. is the ideator inside or outside the firm), and evaluator characteristics (e.g. high vs. low openness to new experiences). Future research could benefit from investigating these contingencies.</p><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.sec3.p3" name="article1.body1.sec8.sec3.p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Second, we did not measure the de facto mediating process by which idea familiarity leads to higher idea evaluation. We shed light on a number of potential candidates that may drive idea familiarity’s effects on idea evaluation, such as fluency or reduced uncertainty. We encourage researchers to be more explicit about the respective path and to identify under what conditions each path is likely to operate.</p><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.sec3.p4" name="article1.body1.sec8.sec3.p4" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Third, we have investigated familiarity’s effects for single exposures only. For repeated exposure, familiarity’s effects may weaken or may even reverse. When we entered the quadratic term of familiarity in our factorial survey study, we found significant decreasing returns for familiarity, but the effect remained positive over the full range of responses. Future research should investigate whether this positive effect turns negative and leads to reduced evaluation for very high exposure levels.</p><a class="link-target" id="article1.body1.sec8.sec3.p5" name="article1.body1.sec8.sec3.p5" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e0577; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: underline;"></a><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Fourth, the field studies were conducted within a large automotive firm, which might limit the generalizability of the results to other industries and organizations. Future research should replicate the study in different industries and organization types, which will help validate the findings and increase the generalizability of the results.</p></div></div>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-64030476539875750652023-07-14T14:42:00.001-07:002023-07-14T14:42:09.083-07:00Combining Human Expertise with Artificial Intelligence: Unless the documented mistakes can be corrected, the optimal solution involves assigning cases either to humans or to AI, but rarely to a human assisted by AI<p>Combining Human Expertise with Artificial Intelligence: Experimental Evidence from Radiology. Nikhil Agarwal, Alex Moehring, Pranav Rajpurkar & Tobias Salz. NBER Working Paper 31422, Jul 2023. <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w31422">https://www.nber.org/papers/w31422</a></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arimo, "Lucida Grande", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">While Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms have achieved performance levels comparable to human experts on various predictive tasks, human experts can still access valuable contextual information not yet incorporated into AI predictions. Humans assisted by AI predictions could outperform both human-alone or AI-alone. We conduct an experiment with professional radiologists that varies the availability of AI assistance and contextual information to study the effectiveness of human-AI collaboration and to investigate how to optimize it. Our findings reveal that (i) providing AI predictions does not uniformly increase diagnostic quality, and (ii) providing contextual information does increase quality. Radiologists do not fully capitalize on the potential gains from AI assistance because of large deviations from the benchmark Bayesian model with correct belief updating. The observed errors in belief updating can be explained by radiologists’ partially underweighting the AI’s information relative to their own and not accounting for the correlation between their own information and AI predictions. In light of these biases, we design a collaborative system between radiologists and AI. Our results demonstrate that, unless the documented mistakes can be corrected, the optimal solution involves assigning cases either to humans or to AI, but rarely to a human assisted by AI.</span></p><p><br /></p>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2852546339326384272.post-23822000360732576952023-07-13T05:08:00.002-07:002023-07-13T05:19:25.526-07:00Observations of a wild colony of macaques over three years show same-sex sexual behavior among males is widespread and may be beneficial<p>Jackson Clive, Ewan Flintham, Vincent Savolainen. Same-sex sociosexual behaviour is widespread and heritable in male rhesus macaques. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2023; DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02111-y</p><p>Abstract: Numerous reports have documented the occurrence of same-sex sociosexual behaviour (SSB) across animal species. However, the distribution of the behaviour within a species needs to be studied to test hypotheses describing its evolution and maintenance, in particular whether the behaviour is heritable and can therefore evolve by natural selection. Here we collected detailed observations across 3 yr of social and mounting behaviour of 236 male semi-wild rhesus macaques, which we combined with a pedigree dating back to 1938, to show that SSB is both repeatable (19.35%) and heritable (6.4%). Demographic factors (age and group structure) explained SSB variation only marginally. Furthermore, we found a positive genetic correlation between same-sex mounter and mountee activities, indicating a common basis to different forms of SSB. Finally, we found no evidence of fitness costs to SSB, but show instead that the behaviour mediated coalitionary partnerships that have been linked to improved reproductive success. Together, our results demonstrate that SSB is frequent in rhesus macaques, can evolve, and is not costly, indicating that SSB may be a common feature of primate reproductive ecology.</p><p>---</p><p>Popular version: Imperial College London. "Study shows same-sex sexual behavior is widespread and heritable in macaque monkeys." ScienceDaily, July 10 2023. <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230710113924.htm">www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230710113924.htm</a></p><div><p style="background-color: white; border-radius: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">The team investigated several of these theories with their data, finding that, for this colony of macaques, SSB in males was strongly correlated with 'coalitionary bonds'. This means male pairs that regularly engage in SSB were more likely to back each other up in conflicts, providing them with an advantage in the group.</p><p style="background-color: white; border-radius: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><strong style="border-radius: 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">Heritable behaviours</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; border-radius: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">The researchers also investigated whether SSB led to any fitness cost -- a reduction in the amount of offspring they have. In fact, they found the opposite -- males that engaged in SSB may be more successful in reproducing, potentially due to the benefits provided by more coalitionary bonds.</p></div>BipartisanAlliance2http://www.blogger.com/profile/06913755969225831932noreply@blogger.com0