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Category: economics – Page 52

Spin glasses are alloys formed by noble metals in which a small amount of iron is dissolved. Although they do not exist in nature and have few applications, they have nevertheless been the focus of interest of statistical physicists for some 50 years. Studies of spin glasses were crucial for Giorgio Parisi’s 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The scientific interest of spin glasses lies in the fact that they are an example of a complex system whose elements interact with each other in a way that is sometimes cooperative and sometimes adversarial. The mathematics developed to understand their behavior can be applied to problems arising in a variety of disciplines, from ecology to machine learning, not to mention economics.

Spin glasses are , that is, systems in which individual elements, the spins, behave like small magnets. Their peculiarity is the co-presence of ferromagnetic-type bonds, which tend to align the spins, with antiferromagnetic-type bonds, which tend to orient them in opposite directions.

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Many fear that future automation may turn out to be the bane of civilization rather than its liberator. How do we ensure we take the path to a prosperous world and not one of ruin?

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Listen or Download the audio of this episode from Soundcloud: Episode’s Audio-only version: https://soundcloud.com/isaac-arthur-148927746/automated-economies-unemployment.
Episode’s Narration-only version: https://soundcloud.com/isaac-arthur-148927746/automated-econ…ation-only.

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Continue reading “Automated Economies & Unemployment” | >

Other tech companies are not far behind.

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com Inc., has achieved the unenviable milestone of being the first public company to lose a trillion dollars in market valuation, Bloomberg.

How has Amazon stock fared in 2022?

Sundry Photography/iStock.

Continue reading “Jeff Bezos’ Amazon becomes the first public company to lose

Other tech companies are not far behind.

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com Inc., has achieved the unenviable milestone of being the first public company to lose a trillion dollars in market valuation, Bloomberg.

How has Amazon stock fared in 2022?

Sundry Photography/iStock. trillion in market value” | >

SAN FRANCISCO — Two weeks after closing a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, Elon Musk painted a bleak financial picture for the social media company and outlined a series of changes for employees in his first companywide emails to staff.

In two emails sent to workers late on Wednesday, Mr. Musk said the economy was challenging. He added that he planned to end Twitter’s remote work policy and wanted employees to renew their focus on generating revenue and fighting spam.

“Sorry that this is my first email to the company, but there is no way to sugarcoat the message,” Mr. Musk, 51, wrote in one email. “The economic picture ahead is dire.” Twitter was too heavily dependent on advertising and vulnerable to pullbacks in brand spending, he added, and would need to bolster the revenue it gets from subscriptions.

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Are online classes the great equalizer?🤣

New psychology findings suggest that attractive students earn higher grades in school, but for female students, this beauty premium disappears when classes are taught remotely. The findings were published in the journal Economic Letters.

A large body of research suggests that physical appearance has an impact on a person’s success. For example, attractive people tend to earn more money and report higher life satisfaction than less attractive people. Interestingly, scholars have yet to agree on the explanation behind this beauty premium.

One account suggests that the beauty advantage can be explained by discrimination. For example, employers may inherently favor attractive over unattractive workers. Another perspective suggests that beauty is a productivity-enhancing attribute. This view suggests that attractiveness lends itself to higher productivity, for example, through increased self-confidence.

Continue reading “Attractive female students no longer earned higher grades when classes moved online during COVID-19” | >

Plastic waste is clogging up our rivers and oceans and causing long-lasting environmental damage that is only just starting to come into focus. But a new approach that combines biological and chemical processes could greatly simplify the process of recycling it.

While much of the plastic we use carries symbols indicating it can be recycled, and authorities around the world make a big show about doing so, the reality is that it’s easier said than done. Most recycling processes only work on a single type of plastic, but our waste streams are made up of a complex mixture that can be difficult and expensive to separate.

On top of that, most current chemical recycling processes produce end products of significantly worse quality that can’t be recycled themselves, which means we’re still a long way from the goal of a circular economy when it comes to plastics.

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“We face two global crises in housing and climate change.”

Southern California met its first-in-the-world 3D-printed zero net home thanks to Mighty Buildings. As part of a 40-unit community in Desert Hot Springs, these 3D-printed houses also draw attention to environmental and economic strategies.

“We are excited to be the first company in the world to complete what we believe to be the sustainable housing standard of the future,” said Mighty Buildings CEO Slava Solonitsyn, as per Dezeen.

Mighty Buildings.

Continue reading “This company built a 3D-printed net zero house to decrease carbon dioxide” | >

FOR as long as internal combustion has ruled the roads, vehicles have been fitted with just three basic types of engine: four-stroke, two-stroke, and rotary.

Each differs from the next with regard to its power density and fuel economy, but the general premise of each is very similar. Air and fuel go in, get ignited, and push the piston (or rotor) which in turn rotates the crankshaft creating motion.

It’s a simple enough process, and through well over 100 years of fettling and refining, petrol engines have become ever more potent, economical, and advanced.

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Do you want to live a better, healthier and longer life? Me too.

Lets go back to 1937, when Albert Szent-Györgyi won a Nobel Prize for his discovery of ascorbic acid—vitamin C—that enables the body to efficiently use carbohydrates, fats, and protein (I use it a lot during cold and flu season, you?). It was a massively consequential discovery, as it not only saved and extended countless lives, but it also contributed to the foundations of modern nutrition. Szent-Györgyi, himself, was blessed with a long life; he died in 1986 at the age of 93. But he might just as well be known for what he said on his 90th birthday: “I wish I could be 75 again!”

No doubt, that comment elicits more than a few eyerolls today. Especially since the CDC has recently downgraded American life expectancy to just 77 years. But could 75 someday be the new 40—an age by which, like Szent-Györgyi, we’re only hitting our stride? Well, if the burgeoning activity of the life extension industry is any indication, we may actually be on the cusp of making it so—and enjoying life to the fullest right up to the extended end. Which brings us to the morbid thought of mortality—that end state most of us seek to delay, if not dodge.

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What we now witness is what might be called Geopolitical Decentralization. Akin to the Web3 decentralization meta-trend in information and communication technologies, we are moving away from the centralized global control by one country, away from the U.S. hegemony on a global scale. With the Russia-Ukraine war, the U.S. apparently loses its status as a global superpower. This is an entirely natural geopolitical and socio-economic evolution, seemingly predetermined for a civilizational development. Mirroring each other, our technologies go in lockstep with socio-economic and geopolitical processes.

Place has always mattered when it comes to economics—and it will matter more than ever in the coming post-neoliberal world, writes Rana Foroohar.

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