Freeman Dyson has some cool ideas

I'm a few weeks behind on posting because I'm planning my upcoming wedding, so sorry about that. This article appeared two weeks ago in the NYT magazine. Freeman Dyson is one of the world's foremost physicists and a famously creative thinker. He has some good ideas that parallel some of my thoughts in the Secret Peace.

For example, he says, "The purpose of thinking about the future is not to predict it but to raise people’s hopes.”

A large part of the article is about the environment, specifically global warming. Unlike the growing consensus, Dyson thinks global warming isn't a problem. He's not a denier; he knows it's happening, and knows it's man-made. He just doesn't think it will be a big problem, and that it's being blown out of proportion.

I totally agree. Global warming is real and is a problem, and if we had no other problems to worry about, global warming would be worth devoting all our resources to. But there are worse things in the world.

When people say global warming will have "bad" consequences, do they mean harmful to humans, or harmful to nature? I believe protecting nature is important, but humanity must take precedence. The wholesale slaughter of nature is useless and should be condemned, but as for preserving species and climates exactly as they are now, is that intrinsically necessary? Nature is ever-changing with or without us.

Helping the environment is not a bad thing, but I believe the motives to do so should dovetail with helping people. Improving air quality increases our health, developing new fuel sources will take oil money away from dictators, and so on.

Here's the logic:

1. Global warming is only a potential problem, it's not a full-blown problem yet.
2. It might not turn out to be as drastic as we think.
3. even if it is drastic, it might be drastic in a good way.
4. even if it is drastic and bad, though, we can find ways to deal with it.
5. even if we can't deal with it, we have plenty of worse problems right now to deal with regardless. These problems are real, rather than potential; and more easily solvable, because we already have experience toward solving them.

Protecting the existing biosphere must take a back seat to addressing the evils of war, poverty, and inequality. These should demand our immediate attention.

It's not easy to get nuclear weapons

I've got a section in my book about how it's much harder for terrorists to get nuclear weapons than you might think. Here's some more interesting info, from the New York Times: It's also really hard for countries to become nuclear.



This beautifully-designed diagram (click to see it bigger) shows how countries have influenced other countries' proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Very few countries have developed the bomb by themselves in a vacuum. Most have relied on shared information or espionage. Despite over 60 years of existence, only 9 countries have the bomb (represented by the circles above). Since its creation by the U.S., those other 8 countries relied on scientists that migrated or shared information legally or illegally.

Also, a surprising number of countries have started nuclear programs and then stopped: South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Argentina, Brazil, Iraq, and Libya. (And former soviet republics Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine voluntarily gave up their weapons and transferred them to Russia.) These are the hexagons in the chart. Very few countries, in fact, even want nuclear weapons - they're expensive and draw too much heat from the international community.

The threat of nuclear proliferation is real - the boxes in the chart are Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Syria, which are all possibly working on weapons programs, and Iran is a major threat - but it's not an epidemic, as press articles may sometimes imply.

The Coup de Grace to coups

This great chart from The Economist sums it up - in the '60s through '80s there were an average of 12 military coups or attempted coups a year. 1963 alone saw 25! That's what happens when large swaths of the world (namely Africa and Latin America) tumultously decolonize and don't yet have the capability for stable democracy - they become susceptible to violent military takeovers. But that's been declining, and around 1992, it really started improving fast - especially without the United States and Russia bankrolling distant rebellions against each other. In 2007 there was only one effort. Looks like governments and their peoples have grown less willing to recognize those who shoot their way into office, preferring to use the ballot box instead.

The Top Ten reasons there won't be a Depression

"Worst economic crisis since the Great Depression" is a phrase getting tossed around a lot these days. While it does seem to be technically accurate, I recently read two books on the Great Depression and New Deal and was surprised to learn two things. One: the reasons for the Depression seem frighteningly similar to some of the reasons for the current economic crisis. That scared me, but then I realized that Two: the reaction, response and consequences are going to be totally different. Here are 10 reasons (counting up to the most important) why the current crisis, as bad as it may become, won't hold a candle to the Great Depression.

10) Information flow: during the Great Depression, investors rarely had accurate information about companies. At best, it was very delayed. The government didn't even have an accurate estimate of GDP. Today, of course, we're swimming in data.

9) 2-income families: women work now. If a husband loses his job, the family still has an income. Not so in the 1930s. (Which put a lot more social and psychological pressure on the man to support his family, as well.)

8) Diversification of labor: when 30% of the country is employed in agriculture, and there is a Dust Bowl (partly because of poor agricultural practices), lots of people are out of work. Comparatively, today only 3% of the nation is employed as farmers, and we're still feeding everyone. So in general, if any one industry crashes, today it affects a smaller number of people. I heard yesterday that the unemployment rate just jumped to 6.7%; this is still lower than most countries have during good times. During the Depression, the US unemployment rate at its height was 26%.

7) Global cooperation. In particular, the economic integration of Europe through the EU enables a high level of coordinated action. Not so much cooperation in the 1930s, to say the least.

6) Our government's willingness to act has been impressive so far. Even if they make mistakes, they’re working on it. Compare this to Hoover, who took public pride in not doing anything: the markets will take care of themselves, after all.

5) To continue that thought, president-elect Obama's getting ahead of the game and doing lots of work before his "100 days" even begins. From the New York Times: “President-elect Barack Obama promised Saturday to create the largest public works construction program since the inception of the interstate highway system a half century ago … Mr. Obama began highlighting elements of the economic recovery program he is trying to fashion with Congressional leaders in hopes of being able to enact it shortly after being sworn in on Jan. 20.”

4) Even with last year’s bump in food prices, commodities are a ton cheaper now than then. We also have a lot more infrastructure, such as our highway system, and people just have a lot more “stuff” too. The average middle-age man in the 1920s could afford just 6 outfits, and ate a lot fewer calories a day (this sounds like a good thing, but it wasn’t.) We have refrigerators, microwaves, and air conditioners. Health care expenses will be one of the major pains that people feel during a recession today, but the quality of health care during the Great Depression was laughable even for the rich. Believe me, it’s better now.

3) Other emerging economies, particularly China and India, spread the problem thinner. The US generates a smaller percentage of world GDP now. While our growth might slow from 3% to 1%, even the worst prediction has China slowing from like 10% to 5%, still pretty amazing. And the government of China has shown initiative and willingness to address the economic crisis so far.

2) 75 years of learning from other financial crises. We've been here before. 8 recessions since WWII, if I'm not mistaken. And we've always pulled out of it. The average length of those recessions, in fact, is only 10 months.

1) Roosevelt was smarter than us. We were stupid enough to repeat another financial mess. But like some sort of cigarette-smoking Hari Seldon, he (and the rest of the government over the years) figured that might happen. The New Deal put programs in place not only to mitigate the Depression, but to prevent future ones. We’ve got the FDIC, Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance, just to name the big ones that come to mind. Imagine living in a world without those.

So, calm down everyone! It might be bad, but it could be worse. A lot worse.

Obama and everyone else - I can't keep up

I have a chapter in my book entitled Equality. It mainly focuses on gender equality worldwide, as well as race relations in America. It will come to no shock to anyone that after Tuesday night it needs updating. But what amazing times we live in, in that the past couple years I've been working on the book, I've had to keep updating and updating the chapter - almost too fast for me to keep up. It seems we barely saw the first black Secretary of State before seeing the first female black Secretary of State, too. Then Hilary get within spitting distance of a major party Presidential nomination, the first woman to do so. This is not to mention a large number of countries electing women presidents, often for the first time: Germany, Chile, South Korea, Jamaica, Ireland, Liberia, Argentina, India, and maybe Israel. And then we saw the first African-American actually get the US nomination. And then we saw the first woman get a vice-presidential nomination. And now Obama will be president. It's been pretty amazing watching this constantly-surprising period of oneupsmanship in breaking gender and racial barriers.

Is Wealth a Cure for Caste Bias?

Basically, yes. Although this NY Times article definitely includes counterpoints and caveats, the gist of it is that as India pulls its poor out of poverty and into a broader middle class, the tragic biases in its millennia-old caste system are evaporating. There is debate on whether the primary cause is economic liberalization or something else, but the fact remains that it is happening:

The survey, financed by the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania, finds that Dalits are far less likely to be engaged in their traditional caste occupations — for instance, the skinning of animals, considered ritually unclean — than they used to be and more likely to enjoy social perks once denied them. In rural Azamgarh District, for instance, nearly all Dalit households said their bridegrooms now rode in cars to their weddings, compared with 27 percent in 1990. In the past, Dalits would not have been allowed to ride even horses to meet their brides; that was considered an upper-caste privilege.

Mr. Prasad credits the changes to a booming economy. “It has pulled them out of the acute poverty they were in and the day-to-day humiliation of working for a landlord,” he said.

To prove his point, Mr. Prasad recently brought journalists here to his home district. In one village, Gaddopur, his theory was borne out in the tale of a gaunt, reticent man named Mahesh Kumar, who went to work in a factory 300 miles away so his family would no longer have to live as serfs, tending the animals of the upper caste.

When he was a child, Dalits like him had to address their upper-caste landlords as “babu-saab,” close to “master.” Now it is acceptable to call them “uncle” or “brother,” just as people would members of their own castes.

Click here for the full article, by Somini Sengupta.

Democracy on the March

Hardly a day passes without some nugget of news about increasing democracy in a far-flung country. Here are five examples from the past couple months alone.

1. The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has had a century of royal rule, but they just held elections for the first time. Their King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, voluntarily abdicated and declared the country a constitutional monarchy, with a popularly elected parliament. Most Bhutanese liked their king, but he simply explained that no nation should be in the hands of one person, and that the changeover should happen while the country is peaceful.
2. The tiny island nation of Tonga is having a similar experience, with their king due to forfeit most of his powers to parliament by 2010.
3. Turkmenistan’s infamous dictator, Saparmurat Niyazov, died in 2007 and the new ruler has been slowly but surely dismantling the cult of personality around the former ruler. A giant, rotating, gold-plated statue of Niyazov has been removed from the capital, the names of the months have been restored after Niyazov named them after himself and his mother, Internet access is increasingly allowed, and the ban on car radios might even be lifted (Niyazov banned them because they annoyed him.)
4. Even Cuba, long held tightly in the hands of Fidel Castro, has been slowly allowing freedoms under their new ruler, Fidel’s brother Raúl. “Socialism means social justice and equality, but equality of rights, of opportunities, not of income,” he announced, dramatically reversing his brother’s philosophy. Ordinary Cubans can now own mobile phones, televisions, and computers for the first time, and farmers can decide for themselves what to plant.
5. Lastly, the Summer Olympics have shown a spotlight on China’s worst anti-democratic impulses, such as its stifling of dissent, but a recent New York Times headline reports that “Despite flaws, rights in China have expanded.” China is a significantly more open place than it was a generation ago, with its citizens able to choose where to live, own some property, travel abroad, and gain access to technology.