There are competing stories about when the internet came into being, who made it, whether it could only be made in America, and where the internet ends and the world wide web begins. These competing stories are evident in online forums such as the HTTP co-inventor Vint Cerf’s post on Quora, and media articles from… [Read more]
Category: Economics (Page 1 of 2)
Industries do well insofar as they create value for consumers and producers (Mazzucato 2018). States celebrate businesses that grow and create wealth; sometimes states subsidise them and support them into continued success. For example, more global money still goes to uphold oil companies than goes to renewable firms (Mazzucato 2021). In states’ and companies’ industrial… [Read more]
The addictive properties of drugs, gambling machines, algorithm-led compulsions, and policies that permit them have ramifications. The narrative that industries and marketist governments uphold where individuals are free to make their own mistakes, fails to hold up in the light of the evidence. This free-choice narrative in, for instance, the UK Gambling Act 2005 permits… [Read more]
The UK is in a housing crisis. Wages are out of tandem with house prices. People are stuck in rent-reliance on the promise of one day buying their own mortgage. Were grocery prices like house prices, £450 would be the price of a week’s supermarket shop for a family of four. Some answers to this… [Read more]
Climate change kills 200 species every day. Contrary to voices like Naomi Klein calling for complex solutions to a complex problem, a carbon tax is the most effective and parsimonious solution to global warming. All the democratic and widespread media talk does is induce a bystander effect whereby no worldwide solution is enacted. When the… [Read more]
The term ‘development’ implies betterment through change. Some aspects of development – like clean drinking water and reduced child mortality – are inarguable. The tasks of mitigating poverty and reducing violent corruption in developing countries are also admirable. The implication of betterment, however, becomes problematic when basic necessitates are met and pains relieved. When the… [Read more]
The type of rationality assumed in economics is limited. One can generate solutions to theoretical problems, but the actual human behaviour is far messier. Each human has limits. Limits around what information is available, their own mind in processing that information, and the amount of time they have to think it through. Herbert Simon coined… [Read more]
Politics and economics are sometimes called ‘social science’ or ‘political science’ by higher education institutions even, but as the economist and, World Bank Adviser, Ha-Joon Chang says, the rules of these are value-judgments mostly based on precedent. The value of screen digits, for example, which can be deleted or bills that can be burned does… [Read more]
The Singularity is the exciting term for when artificial intelligence rivals human intelligence. It is used in dystopian fictions time again as a source of entertainment, but it is a possible, many argue a probable, reality. Indeed, the most basic artificial intelligence runs the online web and stock markets. The development of more intelligent artificial… [Read more]
As machines outperform their human counterparts and take their jobs unemployment will rise to such an extent that solutions, like universal basic income or universal basic services, will become a necessity. In Roald Dahl’s Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Charlie’s father loses his job to a toothpaste machine but happily becomes the engineer to fix… [Read more]
