To quote the New York Times: “Since then, similar comprehensive research has been blocked, in part by tenants’ advocates who believe the findings would be “politicized” and become a referendum on rent control…”
According to John Kelly of Mashed Radish , the word “hassle” may have originated from a blend of words that represent small, intense repeated actions, such as haggle and tussle or harass and hustle. To call something a hassle is to say it requires an annoying amount of time and energy while engaged in a series of small, intense actions. For example…
“Accepted theories are the best explanations available so far for how the world works. They have been thoroughly tested, are supported by multiple lines of evidence, and have proved useful in generating explanations and opening up new areas for research. However, science is always a work in progress, and even theories change.” - How Science Works.
“The simplified, linear description of the scientific method implies that science concludes … but in reality, scientific conclusions are always revisable if warranted by the evidence. Scientific investigations are often ongoing, raising new questions even as old ones are answered.” — Excerpt from How Science Works (my italics).
Perceived control also influences how people feel when exposed to others who are "higher" than them on some metric. Studies on social comparison have found that "upward comparison" (comparing oneself to "higher" others) was "debilitating only when accompanied by low perceived control".
“When inequality loses its association with hope and instead becomes interpreted as a signal of a rigged society, higher inequality relates to lower well-being.” - Buttrick, N. R., S. J. Heintzelman, et al. (2017). Inequality and well-being.
The California legislature recently passed Assembly Bill (AB) 2098, which would “designate the dissemination of misinformation or disinformation related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, or ‘COVID-19’ as unprofessional conduct”. AB2098 has been signed by the governor and is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2023. Here are some excerpts from the new law…
The first thing I noticed was that CCDH conflated “disinformation” and “misinformation”. Standard definitions distinguish them: disinformation is deliberate and malicious, whereas misinformation does not imply an intention to deceive, being simply false or inaccurate information.
I want to know about studies that are reassuring as well as alarming. I don’t need to be a true believer unwilling to question articles of the faith to be very worried about climate change. So why should anyone else?
Countries that consume a lot of energy tend to have large populations, advanced economies, or both. However, high country-level energy consumption may be coupled with low per capita consumption, because some countries are populous but still developing and largely rural, as is the case with India and Brazil.
Per Part II of this series, atmospheric CO2 keeps rising at a steady pace. Lack of progress in the atmosphere most likely reflects lack of progress on the ground (allowing for some lag time and other complications). But some parts of the planet are doing better than others. Take a look…
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is Earth’s most important greenhouse gas, responsible for about two-thirds of the total heating influence of all human-produced greenhouse gases (Lindsey/NOAA Climate.gov, 2022). The last time atmospheric CO2 amounts were this high was more than 3 million years ago during the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period when global surface temperature was 2.5–4°C (4.5–7.2°F) warmer than during the pre-industrial era and sea levels were at least 16 feet higher than they are today.
So are we making much progress in reining in atmospheric CO2?…
Total CO2 emissions are driven by four fundamental factors: 1) population; 2) average emissions per person; 3) energy intensity; and, 4) carbon intensity.
Then again, false equivalence is much more than a matter of flawed reasoning or cognitive bias. Comparisons reflect an understanding of how the world works, what leads to what and over what time frame. A problematic comparison may stem from empirical error, logical error, or both. But people rarely hold themselves to some scientific standard of accuracy. Sometimes a comparison is made to serve a larger point and it’s not really advancing the conversation by nitpicking minor errors.
“If every unemployed person in the country found a job, we would still have 4 million open jobs” - Stephanie Ferguson/US Chamber of Commerce, October 31, 2022
The clearance rate for violent and property crimes has been stagnant in the US for the past 50 years, hovering around 46% and 17%, respectively, during 1971–2019. As follows: …
Ok, so fear of getting caught deters crime more than fear of the legal consequences after getting caught. That makes sense, given that the former is a more immediate concern than the latter. But then, if getting caught were never followed by serious consequences, it would cease being a threat. Consequences still matter.
As a former member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the following excerpt from The Economist piqued my curiosity: “…the actual Democratic Socialists of America, an influential pressure group whose rose logo can be spotted in hipster-ish corners of Brooklyn and Washington DC, aspire for a future of “popular control of resources and production, economic planning [and] equitable distribution”. It is not a message tailored to win in Miami.” …Whoa – that’s a lot more hardcore than the DSA I used to know! So, what else does the DSA want?
The surprise here (at least for me) is the number of respondents who considered "obeying their rulers” as essential to democracy. I didn’t think democracies had rulers, which per Dictionary.com are sovereigns who exercise “supreme” authority, such as monarchs and emperors. Then again, meaning is much bigger than a dictionary definition. The discordant survey responses may have simply reflected different ideas about what a ruler is and does. Perhaps some respondents saw rulers as “those who make laws” and concluded that a citizenry that obeys laws is indeed essential for a functioning democracy. Which is not unreasonable.
I would have thought there’d be a closer relationship between type of government (e.g., democratic versus autocratic) and perceived freedom of choice and control. True, a greater percentage of US and Canadian respondents reported high levels of freedom, but more than 40% of respondents in China, Iran, and Myanmar reported high levels of freedom as well. And not even a quarter of the Japanese respondents felt substantially free. Obviously, perceived freedom of choice and control has other feeder streams than form of government.