The Atlantic: The Hidden Economics of Porn

Humans have been creating images of sex and genitalia for millions of years, but it is only in the past few centuries—since the 1600s, according to historians—that these representations started meeting academics’ preferred definition of pornography, which involves both the violation of taboos and the intention of arousal. The first efforts to make money off of this new endeavor could not have come long after that. [...]

Shira Tarrant: It's hard for several reasons. Official records are hard to come by. Many productions don't even keep official records, and there are very few researchers looking at the economic side of porn, because a lot of times for academics and researchers, pornography is viewed as a sort of LOL, to-the-side kind of thing, rather than the very serious financial and economic matter that it is. This is true for the industry's revenues, but also for pay rates for individual actors. So those numbers get a little fuzzy, even though the industry is willing to say that it's suffering from piracy and after the Great Recession, and things like that. [...]

Making ethical decisions about pornography means knowing where your porn comes from and the labor conditions under which it was made. Those are the sorts of questions that economists are concerned with. If we're willing to be concerned about those issues when it comes to sneakers or food, then we need to transfer those concerns to the adult industry as well. [...]

Tarrant: I like the comparison that you use—that the algorithm is not unlike algorithms that Amazon or Netflix use, or the ads on Facebook based on your browser history elsewhere. Again, there's that part of their rational brain that turns off and they think that pornography is this whole other kind of experience that is unlike the rest of their consumer history online. It starts with how pornography is keyworded. So, people put in search terms, but those search terms aren't all that original, really. Because where do we learn the search words that we're looking for? It's sort of a chicken-and-egg problem. And so porn gets keyworded in very stereotyped, often sexist, often racist ways, and also just with a narrow-minded view of sexuality.

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The Atlantic: How Cubans Live as Long as Americans at a Tenth of the Cost

Many consider it more than decent. After a visit to Havana in 2014, the director-general of the World Health Organization Margaret Chan called for other countries to follow Cuba’s example in health care. Years before, the World Health Organization’s ranking of countries with “the fairest mechanism for health-system finance” put Cuba first among Latin American and Caribbean countries (and far ahead of the United States).

Cuba has long had a nearly identical life expectancy to the United States, despite widespread poverty. The humanitarian-physician Paul Farmer notes in his book Pathologies of Power that there’s a saying in Cuba: “We live like poor people, but we die like rich people.” Farmer also notes that the rate of infant mortality in Cuba has been lower than in the Boston neighborhood of his own prestigious hospital, Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s. [...]

The difference comes back to the basic fact that in Cuba, health care is protected under the constitution as a fundamental human right. The U.S. protects unlimited firearms and freedom from quartering soldiers but does not guarantee health care. Instead we compromise, taking inefficient and expensive half-measures to rescue people in serious peril. [...]

It’s largely done, as the BBC has reported, through an innovative approach to primary care. Family doctors work in clinics and care for everyone in the surrounding neighborhood. At least once a year, the doctor knocks on your front door (or elsewhere, if you prefer) for a check-up. More than the standard American ritual of listening to your heart and lungs and asking if you’ve noticed any blood coming out of you abnormally, these check-ups involve extensive questions about jobs and social lives and environment—information that’s aided by being right there in a person’s home.

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Quartz: The key difference between populism and fascism

Brexit, Donald Trump’s US presidential election, the ascent of France’s Marine Le Pen, Italy’s Five Star Movement: The whole Western world appears to be in the thrall of populists. For many, this seems like a bit of a dejà vu, evoking the 1920s and 1930s, with their looming threat of fascism.

There are, indeed, similarities between today’s political landscape and what Europe experienced in the buildup to World War II, as well as with other times when populism eventually turned into fascism—such as Francoist Spain, or Peronist Argentina. But while fascism usually is rooted in populism, starting with populism doesn’t inevitably mean you’ll wind up with fascism. [...]

The adoption of violence to impose fascist authority is a key element of fascism both as a movement and as a regime, says Finchelstein. It expresses itself as street violence first, and then through the militarization of government. Fascist leaders take power not just through popular support, but thanks to the action of squads that violently attack opponents, and that are then incorporated into the running of the state as paramilitary formations.

On the other hand, Finchelstein explains, “populism combines low level actual violence with high level rhetorical violence,” applying it to “an authoritarian way of understanding democracy.” In that is another important distinction between fascism and populism: “fascism is never a democracy, while populism undermines democracy, but doesn’t remove it.”

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Jacobin Magazine: A Second Chance

However, in spite of the setback, government and FARC negotiators managed to quickly make changes to the agreement, and it was signed in Bogotá’s Teatro Colon on November 24. While Uribe’s Democratic Center party has maintained its opposition, the new deal will be ratified by Congress, where Santos’s ruling coalition has a commanding majority. Uribe’s populistic and often truth-distorting campaign managed to derail the previous version but it appears that the new deal will pass a congressional vote on December 1.

It is a pity, then, that the new version is in many ways a worse deal.

Businessmen who funded the right-wing paramilitaries, who have crushed Colombian trade unions, displaced millions of peasants from their land, and have been responsible for the vast majority of civilian deaths in the conflict, will now be shielded from prosecution. While the previous deal allowed for the redistribution of idle land from ranchers to peasants, such moves will now be illegal.

Foreign judges in the transitional justice system will not have sentencing power, only acting as advisers to Colombian judges. And the government will be able to employ the dangerous practice of aerial fumigation to combat coca cultivation. These changes make the transitional justice system less effective and more open to corruption, endanger the health of Colombians living in coca-producing areas, and fail to address Colombia’s appalling inequality and uneven distribution of farm land.

Nonetheless, this deal is still better than the return to conflict which many feared.  With thousands of FARC fighters awaiting demobilization, any delay could prove costly and lead to more breakaway groups such as FARC’s first front, who rejected the peace process and are still engaged in fighting.

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Atlas Obscura: Stunning Photos of Switzerland’s 'Ghost Cats'

Since then, Geslin has notched up about 30 precious sightings, ranging from distant glimpses to, on one memorable occasion, a mother leading her three cubs to feed within meters of his hide. This total might seem a modest return for six years of searching—six years of pursuing every clue, staking out every hideaway, and sitting in hides for 96 hours at a stretch. But few people anywhere have enjoyed such success.

Having spent years photographing big cats around the world, Geslin was amazed to find how little was known about the one living on his own doorstep. His book, Lynx: regards croisés (“different perspectives”), published in France in 2014, is the first full photographic study of this species in the wild, and testament to his extraordinary dedication and perseverance.

Just a few decades ago, such a project would have been impossible. The lynx had not been seen in Switzerland since 1904. Once common across much of Europe, it had also disappeared from France, Germany, and many other former strongholds. By 1940, the continent’s entire population had fallen to an estimated 700 animals, confined largely to the wildest reaches of Scandinavia. This sorry tale mirrored that of the lynx’s fellow large carnivores, the wolf, wolverine, and brown bear. All had declined dramatically in Europe, victims both of ruthless persecution— either for sport or because, as hunters of wild game and occasional livestock killers, they were viewed as competition—and the relentless destruction of their natural habitats. [...]

But while the animal slips under the radar of most of its human neighbors, the foresters are beginning to notice a difference, with roe deer populations thinning out and forests showing signs of regeneration. It is not simply that lynx keep deer numbers down. After all, there are only so many deer a handful of lynxes can catch and eat. It is also that the herbivores’ behavior changes when a predator is around. They gather in smaller numbers and, ever alert to possible attack, become more mobile, less inclined to linger in feeding areas. Just the scent of a lynx’s territorial markings on a trailside tree trunk can be enough to keep them on the move. Park rangers, Geslin reports, wish more of the cats could be introduced. “They tell me that since we’ve had lynx they never have any problems.” 

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Al Jazeera: Fillon's victory: A political earthquake in France

The outcome of the Republican primaries revealed a desire among the French people for new faces. Although Fillon started his political career more than 40 years ago, he is ironically considered a newcomer because he was kept in the shadows during the Sarkozy administration. [...]

Fillon's victory is the result of his capacity to create a grassroots movement among The Republicans that supported concrete and radical policy options over the populistic speeches of his former boss, Sarkozy.

It also revealed a determination among Republican sympathisers to elect a candidate who focuses on the party's core values of economic liberalism and social conservatism, rather than on building a bipartisan and moderate platform, as Juppe tried. [...]

On the other hand, Marine Le Pen and the National Front were rooting for the more moderate Alain Juppe to win, allowing the National Front to attract the more conservative Republicans. The choice of Fillon is far less convenient for both Hollande and Le Pen.

In particular, Fillon's strong conservatism is reflected in his ideas on social policies. His Catholic background and hardliner position with regards to same-sex marriage, immigration and - even at times - abortion rights have made him the preferred candidate of a traditionalist and religious electorate that Le Pen was hoping to grab.

On many societal issues, Fillon appeared as a milder, more reasonable version of Le Pen which could be very challenging for her presidential hopes.

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The Intercept: Trump May Not Be Anti-Gay, But Much of His Senior Staff Is

Early in his career, Pence advocated siphoning off government money for HIV treatment and instead putting it toward gay “conversion therapy.” He has urged Congress to “oppose any effort to put gay and lesbian relationships on an equal legal status,” and as recently as last year, Pence signed a license-to-discriminate bill that allowed business to refuse service to LGBT people.

Trump’s pick for attorney general – Sen. Jeff Sessions – has a voting record rated “zero percent” by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights group. Sessions voted for a failed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the policy that did not allow gay people to serve openly in the military. He also opposed expanding the definition of a hate crime to include LGBT people. [...]

Trump also named Betsy DeVos — a billionaire Republican donor and anti-gay activist — as education secretary. DeVos’s family, which includes Blackwater founder Eric Prince, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to anti-gay groups, including groups that advocate for “conversion therapy.”

Trump’s top White House adviser Steve Bannon is the former chairman of Breitbart News Network, which has published headlines like “Gay Rights Have Made Us Dumber, It’s Time to Get Back in the Closet,” and “Day Of Silence: How The LGBT Agenda Is Hijacking America’s Youth.” [...]

Not all of the voices in Trump’s inner circle oppose LGBT rights. Rudy Giuliani — considered a possible pick cabinet pick — came out in support of gay marriage in 2015, and officiated a gay wedding the following year. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Trump’s original transition chair, was the second governor to sign a ban on gay “conversion therapy,” acknowledging that sexuality is not a choice.

Some conservative LGBT advocates have defended Trump by arguing that he has no personal anti-gay animus. Joseph Murray, the administrator for the group LGBTrump, wrote a column arguing that Trump “does not fit the LGBT left narrative,” because he has involved several gay people in his transition team.

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Politico: May’s pre-Brexit expats plan nixed by Merkel

The German chancellor’s polite but firm “Nein” when the two leaders met in Berlin on November 18 dashed the British prime minister’s hopes of a quick, informal deal to reassure expatriates on both sides of the Channel that they will not lose out when Britain leaves the EU, three people familiar with the matter said. [...]

A senior European Commission official had quietly encouraged the initiative in a private capacity, both to improve mutual understanding with London and to avoid any suggestion that European citizens were being taken hostages in the negotiations. If the EU were to say it was ready to safeguard the position of Britons living in Europe, it would gain the moral high ground in the talks, the argument went. [...]

But Merkel had already put paid to the British bid by then, sticking to her mantra that there can be no pre-negotiations before Britain tenders its formal notice of intention to leave the Union, setting in motion a two-year countdown to its withdrawal. [...]

The tactical thinking behind the German rejection speaks volumes about the depth of mistrust between Berlin and London, and about Merkel’s determination to put preserving the unity of the other 27 EU members ahead of the future relationship with a departing Britain.

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Motherboard: Aliens Are Probably Everywhere, Just Not Anywhere Near Humans

Using the new Kepler data, astrobiologist Amri Wandel did some calculations to estimate the density of life-bearing worlds in our corner of the universe. The exciting news is there are probably millions to billions of biotic planets in the Milky Way.

But before we start packing our bags, a sobering reality check: Our corner of the cosmos may be dark. Wandel’s math shows the closest life-bearing world is ten to a hundred light years distance from Earth. And that’s just to find a world that harbors single-celled life. The closest intelligent aliens may be thousands of light years further. [...]

There are a lot of assumptions here: For one, that alien biology will have comparable physical requirements to our own. If biotic life isn’t limited to Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone—a restriction that precludes the icy moons Europa and Titan—the number of life-harboring worlds could actually be much higher.

It’s important to bear in mind that Wandel came to his estimates by updating just one Drake equation parameter: The number of potentially habitable worlds. His new calculations say nothing about the probability of finding life on a “potentially habitable” world. This remains the key missing factor for constraining the distance to our closest alien neighbors.

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