Every time I go to read an article at @TheNewEuropean, instead of showing me the article, they accuse me of running an ad blocker. This is false, and a little insulting. And it’s a bit annoying that I can’t read their articles. But, oh well. I’ll make do as best I can without reading the latest from @paulmasonnews.
Tag: security
2022-08-24 15:20
Simulating a free college education by lending students money to pay to institutions, and then forgiving (part of) that debt is second-best compared to just providing a free college education. But it is much better than trapping another generation in debt peonage.
2022-07-02 7:38
“Those applying for a gun licence must also … declare their social-media accounts for review.” http://espresso.economist.com/d66a1a0b677b9f693c310e2fb2748a54
I would support a wide variety of restrictions on gun rights, but this seems squarely to violate 1st Amendment rights.
Questions about “guaranteed jobs”
Some decades back I read a pretty good book that advocated for a “guaranteed job” for anyone who wanted one as a better solution to poverty than a “citizen wage” (or any sort of welfare assistance). I don’t remember all the details in the book, but the advantages primarily had to do with preserving the existing social structures around employment.
One question I always struggled with had to do with the strength of the guarantee. Suppose a few percent of the people with such jobs have (as I do) seasonal depression such that they cannot be productive during the winter months. Would the job guarantee permit them to simply show up and get paid, even though they can’t get any work done until spring?
This particular for-instance matters to me, as one who suffers from SAD, but it’s a broader problem—lots of people have some sort of condition, medical or otherwise, that makes them unproductive for long stretches of time. Do they get to keep their guaranteed job? How can you tell them from malingerers? Does it matter? How do you deal with workplace tensions when many perceive their coworkers as not doing their fair share of the work?
These sorts of issues are why I’ve always come down on the side of a universal basic income as a better way to reduce both poverty and the abuses that come along with having a few rich people and a vast class of precarious workers. But I’m willing to give alternatives serious consideration, as long as they work for people like me.
2022-01-11 06:52
As a big ol’ security geek from way back, I find this fascinating:
They showcase instances of spiral letterlocking among the queens and posit that the method “spread across European courts through royal correspondence.”
Source: How European Royals Once Shared Their Most Important Secrets – The New York Times
2021-10-31 06:04
When climate-change deniers want to spend more and more on border security, it’s a clear sign that they know perfectly well that climate change is happening.
“The debt pearl-clutchers are right: We are saddling our children and grandchildren with a bill they won’t be able to pay. But that bill doesn’t come from minting the money we need to save our species and civilization from the emergency on its doorstep – it comes from the false economy of skimping on climate and buying guard labor instead.”
Source: Pluralistic: 26 Oct 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
2021-07-05 06:50
After more than a year in which essentially every payment I made was via a credit card, I’m about ready to switch back to cash—for reasons closely associated with the points made in this article:
“How soon before paywalls go up around the public spaces we are used to crossing unhindered, before services that once seemed available to all on equal terms become subject to priority tiers?”
Source: Subscriber City — Real Life
2021-06-30 06:14
Edward Snowden came up with a great title for his blog: “Continuing Ed.” It follows on very nicely from his book “Permanent Record.”
“What is wrong with you people? All you want is intrigue, but an honest-to-God, globe-spanning apparatus of omnipresent surveillance riding in your pocket is not enough? You have to sauce that up?”
Source: Conspiracy: Theory and Practice – Continuing Ed — with Edward Snowden
2021-01-17 06:42
A fascinating article! For a movement geek like me, a veritable rabbit warren of links to follow.
“the origins of today’s self-care industry are deeply embedded in the Black Power movement of the 1960s and ’70s, in underserved communities across the country.”
2021-01-10 12:48
A hundred-odd members of Congress did not understand this. I wonder if they understand it better now.
“An elected institution that opposes elections is inviting its own overthrow.”