RSA: A Brief History of Tomorrow | Yuval Harari

A Brief History of Tomorrow with bestselling author Yuval Harari. What is the next stage of human evolution? How will we protect this fragile planet and humankind itself from our own destructive powers?We are delighted to be welcoming Yuval Noah Harari - bestselling author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – for his second much-anticipated RSA appearance. Where Sapiens was a wide-ranging exploration of humankind’s history, in his new work Homo Deus he envisions our future: a not-too-distant world in which we face a new set of challenges and possibilities.

With his trademark blend of science, history, philosophy and every discipline in between, Harari will investigate the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century – from overcoming death to creating artificial life.

IFLScience: Costa Rica Has Been Running On 100% Renewable Electricity For 76 Days... And Counting

Ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause for Costa Rica – this Central American nation has been running on 100 percent renewable electricity for at least 76 consecutive days. This follows on from 150 other days already this year wherein it has only used geothermal and hydrothermal power generation. Last year, a whopping 300 days were fossil fuel-free in terms of electricity generation. [...]

Normally, about 7 percent of its electricity is generated by fossil fuels. Fortunately, particularly heavy rains recently have supercharged the nation’s four huge hydroelectric dams recently, rendering fossil fuel combustion unnecessary. (Weirdly, the surge in rainfall may be attributable to climate change itself.) [...]

Iceland – a far wealthier (GDP $47,500 per person) but far less populous (323,000) country, is comparable in terms of how it produces energy. Like Costa Rica, it has almost no need for other power sources, including wind, nuclear, biomass or fossil fuels.

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Jacobin Magazine: Lessons From the Arab Spring

a three-cornered struggle: not a binary confrontation between revolution and counter-revolution, as in most revolutionary upheavals in history, but a triangular conflict between one revolutionary pole and two rival counter-revolutionary camps — the regional ancien regime and its reactionary antagonists — both equally inimical to the emancipatory aspirations of the “Arab Spring.” [...]

The restrained nature of US intervention has been denied by some on the global left that see the country’s revolution as being tainted by complicity with US imperialism. Many have tacitly or openly supported Russia, Iran, and Assad on anti-imperialist grounds as a result.

Achcar chides them for their dehumanization of the Syrian people: “When disastrous failures of imperialism happen at the cost of terrible human tragedies, there can be no schadenfreude from a truly humanist anti-imperialist perspective.”

Achcar also subtly draws out how the regime has manipulated and tacitly supported jihadist groups to position them as its “preferred enemy,” allowing Assad to rally segments of both the domestic population and outside powers to his side. [...]

Achcar also credits Syrian Kurds for their gender politics, characterizing them as “the most progressive force to emerge to this day in any of the six countries that were scenes of the 2011 uprising.” He contrasts the Kurds’ strategically organized resistance to the participants in the early Syrian uprising, who failed to develop “an effective organization” and relied too heavily on “an improvised network facilitated by the use of social media.” [...]

Achcar also doesn’t seriously examine the relatively progressive elements of Islamism — like Egypt’s Abdel Mouneim Aboul-Fouteh, who together with Sabbahy garnered some 38 percent of the vote in the first round of the 2012 Egyptian elections. Finally, and perhaps most importantly for understanding the global effects of the Arab revolutions, Achcar’s critique of the limits of spontaneous organizing is only offered in passing.

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Al Jazeera: How Israel aims to redefine 'ethnic cleansing'

In it, Netanyahu argues that a Palestinian demand to dismantle Jewish settlements amounts to the "ethnic cleansing" of some 650,000 Jews living in the occupied territories, in violation of international law.

"The Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: no Jews," he says in the short video posted on Facebook last Friday. "There's a phrase for that: It's called ethnic cleansing."

Netanyahu's aim was not hard to decipher. He wants yet another obstacle in the way of Palestinian efforts to seek international backing for statehood. It comes as pressure mounts separately from France and Russia for the Israeli government to re-engage in peace talks. [...]

Amal Jamal, a politics professor at Tel Aviv University, told Al Jazeera that Netanyahu's video should be understood as the flipside of his earlier precondition for peace talks: that the Palestinians recognise Israel as an exclusively Jewish state.

That demand was intended as a trap for the Palestinian leadership, especially given that Israel includes 1.7 million Palestinian citizens who already suffer rampant and institutionalised discrimination.

In Friday's video, Netanyahu again exploited the existence of this large minority of Palestinians inside Israel to advance his right-wing agenda. He explicitly equated the settlers in the occupied territories with Israel's Palestinian citizens, saying neither is "an obstacle to peace". [...]

"Neither Lieberman nor Bennett have gone as far as Netanyahu has now in suggesting that the evacuation of any settlement is ethnic cleansing," Jamal said. "That will strengthen him with his power base on the right."

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The Guardian: Croatia’s election is a warning about the return of nationalism to the Balkans​

On Sunday, Croats went to the polls in a snap election, returning the ruling nationalist party HDZ as the biggest party, but changing nothing. Just 53% of all Croats voted: the likely outcome is a coalition of the same old “centrist” parties – nationalists and social democrats. On the face of it, the country faces the same old problems. Unemployment at 16%, rising to 40% among the young; debt at 90% of GDP; the coast dependent on tourism, the interior sending migrant workers to Germany and Austria by the coach load.

What’s new is the return of nationalism. By 2013, Croatia’s conservative nationalist politicians had made enough liberal noises to convince Brussels they could meet the basic criteria for EU membership. Since then, they’ve been sucked into the surge of nationalist rivalry that’s gripped the Balkans. Just across the mountains lies Republika Srpska – the Serb enclave created in the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Dayton Agreement in 1995, after a bitter civil war. Republika Srpska’s leaders are threatening to hold a referendum on independence, which would blow up the deal that has brought peace to the region for 20 years. [...]

If the EU is to live up to the hope and trust placed in it by young people in the Balkans, it needs to start by being firm with the incoming Croatian government. All cultural nods and winks towards the fascist regime in the second world war must go. Ultimately, the EU must be prepared – as it has threatened with Poland and Hungary but not done – to trigger the Article 7 processes that can see member countries warned over inadequate rule of law, and ultimately be suspended from membership, or see their voting rights curtailed.

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The Atlantic: Fighting Terrorism With a Credit Card

If a war costs trillions of dollars, and no one pays for it, what is its true cost? Since the 9/11 attacks, America has poured $3.2 trillion into its wars, according to a new study from Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. The estimate includes what the U.S. government has spent or pledged to spend through 2016 on homeland security, medical and disability care for wounded veterans, and the military and diplomatic campaigns against terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria.

When you factor in the interest America owes on the money it has borrowed to finance these wars, the number rises to almost $3.7 trillion. When you add in likely expenses for 2017 and spending obligations to veterans over the next four decades, the total increases to nearly $4.8 trillion. [...]

And for 15 years now, the United States has been putting these wars on a credit card. Past U.S. wars were largely “pay as you go” affairs for which the government raised taxes, slashed non-military spending, borrowed money from the American public by selling war bonds, or chose some combination of these and other options, according to Neta Crawford, the author of the study and a political scientist at Boston University. The George W. Bush administration, by contrast, cut taxes in 2003, engaged in deficit spending after using up a budget surplus that it inherited from the Clinton administration, and sold only a small number of war bonds. (The Obama administration has taken a similar approach, though taxes have risen for people earning more than $400,000.) [...]

The government is acting as if this debt can be passed on indefinitely, she said, but it could actually constrain the government in the future from providing basic services and responding to emergencies. As Alan Viard, an economist who served in the Bush administration, once put it, “When you borrow to pay for the war, you feel it less. But if you do borrow, it may be future needs you’re sacrificing. There’s always a sacrifice.” [...]

“I’d also like us to really evaluate whether or not perpetual war is making us safer,” she continued. “If all of this actually made us safer, then maybe I’d have less of a problem with it.” It’s not clear, she said, that this is the case.

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Reuters: Chinese gay activist challenges homosexuality 'disorder' textbooks

A gay Chinese student activist on Monday lodged a suit against the Ministry of Education over school textbooks describing homosexuality as a mental disorder, the latest step by China's small but growing gay rights movement.

It is not illegal to be gay in China and these days many large Chinese cities have thriving gay scenes, though there is still a lot of family pressure to get married and have children, even for gay men and women. [...]

However, Chinese universities continue to use textbooks that contain terms such as "disorder" and "impediment" to refer to homosexuality, research the Gay and Lesbian Campus Association of China carried out in 2014 found.

Qiu Bai, 21 and a media studies student at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, told Reuters she came across similar materials when she turned to the books in her university library after beginning to question her own sexual orientation. [...]

The Ministry of Education did not send a lawyer to Monday's hearing, and representatives declined to answer reporters' questions. The ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

While the fact that the case has finally come to court is seen by many as a victory in itself, Qiu, who wants the ministry to recall the textbooks, said she was disappointed by the ministry's attitude.

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Vox: Do presidential debates matter? Here's the political science evidence.

Now, the effect of general election debates has been overhyped by some. There’s little historical evidence that they’ve ever swung polls by more than a few percentage points. General election debates aren’t like primary debates — there are strong partisan loyalties, the vast majority of debate viewers have already made up their minds about who they’re voting for, and few are willing to change their minds because of what happened in one debate. [...]

Now, there’s one caveat: It’s probably not always the debates themselves that are moving polls here. Many other things happen between the start of debate season and the end. For instance, Barack Obama’s bump of 3 points or so during the 2008 debate season may have owed more to the unfolding economic crisis than his debate performances. [...]

Overall, it seems that debates likely haven’t changed the outcome of any recent election except, perhaps, for 2000, which was so close that any number of things could be said to have made the difference. Still, it’s certainly possible that a movement of a few points could tip a close election in the future. [...]

Furthermore, though the debates themselves will last for just 90 minutes, the spin war in the media over who won will last for days. And some political scientists have found that watching media coverage of the debate can do a great deal to shape perceptions about what actually happened.

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