These days I often come across the idea that the brain is some kind of machine, e.g., prediction machine, simulation machine, meaning-making machine, decision-making machine, computation machine. And there’s still a lot of push-back against the idea of being a machine.
However, some risk factors are only causal in the presence of other risk factors. In many cases, no single factor is necessary or sufficient to cause an outcome. Causality lies in how the factors interact with each other. In other words, it’s all in the mix. Take illegal behavior….
The studies and density advocates are assuming that driving and residential energy use will continue to rely on energy sources that emit greenhouse gases. But what about remote work, online shopping, electric vehicles, renewables, smart nuclear, and carbon-capture? Aren’t these (and other) technological developments going to change the equation in the not-so-distant future? As within a decade or so?
Actually, a good number of Americans still want to live in cities. But that doesn’t mean they want to live in high-density urban areas. After all, most American cities have car-friendly residential neighborhoods, which aren’t all that different from suburbs.
Ok, electric vehicles clearly emit less over their lifecycle than conventional gas-only cars, at least in Europe and except for Germany. What’s wrong with Germany, anyway? In a word: coal.
Mmmm. What’s up with Germany and the Nordic countries? These historically protestant countries seem to have lost their work ethic - as opposed to China, the Philippines, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Russia and Ukraine. Let’s dig deeper…
Despite California large and growing economy, the state’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been declining steadily since 2007 - thanks in large part to the passage of Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32), otherwise known as the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. AB32 required the state to adopt a plan to limit GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. It achieved that goal four years early. These four charts pretty much tell the tale…
10. Theme: Sweeping generalizations about how clueless people are.
Illustration: “Most people struggle to define the system that dominates our lives. But if you press them, they’re likely to mumble something about hard work and enterprise, buying and selling. This is how the beneficiaries of the system want it to be understood.”
Alternative: People who don’t believe as I do may still have valid points, or not.
“Grasslands evolved with bison, pronghorn and other animals whose hooves and grazing open new areas for plants to grow. The above-ground stems of prairie grasses and flowers rebound quickly after they’ve been eaten, much as pruning backyard trees or shrubs creates healthier plants. When managed carefully, domestic animals such as cattle or sheep can have the same positive impact on grassland ecosystems.” - Pulse of the Heartland by Brianna Randall/National Wildlife Magazine, October-November 2021
Countries that have way more excess deaths than Covid-19 deaths are almost assuredly undercounting Covid deaths. For example, the excess death rates in Russia and Serbia are more than three times their official Covid death rates over roughly the same period. Some countries, such as Russia, have been seriously undercounting Covid deaths for a long time and appear uninterested in correcting their records. Others may be motivated to correct their records but the task is just too daunting to undertake, or at least complete.
I’m going to assume that reducing the Black-white homeownership gap is a worthy goal mainly because homeownership provides a way to build wealth and increase residential stability. For many, homeownership is also a great source of pride, pleasure, and purpose. That said, homeownership is not for everyone, especially those just a few paychecks away from being broke. Helping such individuals buy a home is doing them no favor if they later lose the home to foreclosure or are forced to sell at a loss.
Two principles inform this post: 1) don’t assume you know what other people think; and 2) if you want to better understand what people think, start with what they say. In that spirit, here is how the bans are worded in each of the eight states that prohibit teaching what is often described as “critical race theory”:
The gap in Black-white homeownership rates recently reached 30.1% in the U,S., its highest level in 50 years and larger than when race-based discrimination against homebuyers was legal. Jung Hyun Choi of The Urban Institute has identified three factors that explain most of this gap. They are…
Do these two studies confirm that body cameras have “done nothing” to stop police violence? If so, are these two studies representative of most research on the effect of body cameras on police use of force? How would one know? My Google Scholar search for “body cameras police ‘use of force’ ” got me 21,000 hits. I didn’t check them all, but the first ten looked legit. Hmmm...perhaps the two studies are so convincing, one can simply ignore the other 20,998 (give or take)?
One-sided books and opinion pieces do not meet this standard. Yet the Lancet’s editors are looking the other way. Why? Probably because the journal’s mission is not just to publish some of the best science in the world but also to “transform society” and be “a platform to advance the global impact” of the research it publishes. Unfortunately, pursuing the truth and advancing a cause require different mindsets. As Dhruv Khullar put it in The New Yorker…
It’s not exactly surprising that unarmed police are less likely to kill than armed police. But that’s not what the authors are saying. They’re saying that police killings inevitably happen more in countries with armed police, simply because the police are armed. They do not acknowledge that police killings are also rare in several countries that do arm their police. For instance…
The authors of the above study define police violence as “police-related altercations leading to death or bodily harm”. Of the three non-governmental databases they use to estimate the true extent of police violence in the USA, Fatal Encounters (FE) is by far the biggest. Here is more on the FE data, provided by the authors in their Supplementary Material…
Create incentives and remove disincentives for affordable housing alternatives in the private rental and owner-occupied sectors. People will resist moving out of social housing without having a decent place to move to…Overcome the potential employment disincentives created by hard income limits for tenancy. Instead, allow tenants to remain in social housing as they climb the socioeconomic ladder, setting rents proportional to the household’s income at all levels while ensuring rent increases are always much less than any increase in income. As tenants’ rents increase, they will eventually approach market-rate levels, creating an incentive for the better-off tenants to transition out of social housing.
Social housing is rental housing provided at sub-market rates and allocated according to specific rules of eligibility for prospective tenants. Most social housing developments target vulnerable communities, such as refugees, the elderly, disabled persons, and low-income households (OECD, 2020). Social housing used to be called “public housing” in the US, but that term became associated with all sorts of bad things so it’s gotten a name change. No matter what you call it, new social housing is back on the policy to-do list in many countries, especially those with a dearth of affordable housing.
Not all low-income households having rent trouble are good candidates for social housing. Some are just going through a rough patch or are young adults living on the wild side. Some are students with excellent job prospects once they finish school. Others simply wouldn’t be interested or have decent options if things really get bleak, like move back in with the folks for a year or two. The individuals most likely to benefit from social housing are those with few options, who have serious barriers to decent-paying work, such as disability, or are single parents with limited earning capacity. But social housing isn’t the only solution for these individuals. There are plenty of other safety net programs that might be a better fit for them, from food stamps to tax credits to housing vouchers. (And if I had my way, an Adult Student Basic Income. But that's another story). Social housing is an expensive and risky investment that should only be considered as a last resort for the chronically cost-burdened.