The Atlantic: The Lessons of Iran's Protests

There are several reasons Iran’s economy hasn’t taken off in the way Rouhani had promised. For one, uncertainty over the fate of the nuclear agreement in the United States has given pause to U.S. companies that might otherwise want to invest in Iran; European companies are nervous that if the U.S. withdraws from the agreement, U.S. law will then target international companies that invest in Iran. The Trump administration maintains the agreement is deeply flawed, and that it does not address many concerns about Iran’s missile program, its support for militant groups, its human-rights record, and its military adventurism in Yemen, Syria, and other places—actions the U.S. says diverts money away from the Iranian public. Supporters of the nuclear agreement say the accord was not meant to address those issues. They say sanctions against Iran for those activities remain in place.

But perhaps more important than the uncertainty over the agreement are Iran’s own demographics. Half of all Iranians are under the age of 30. More people are entering the workforce each year than jobs exist or are being created. This all but ensures that a country with near universal literacy—with no gender disparity—will continue to have double-digit unemployment for the foreseeable future. [...]

The protests were able to spread because of, among other things, the penetration of the smartphone—more than 40 percent of Iranian households have access to at least one—which enabled Iranians to use messaging apps to spread the word about the demonstrations. Although the protests spread to Tehran, the capital, they never really took root there. They have also mostly fizzled out elsewhere largely because of the government crackdown. These demonstrations did not come close to the scale of the pro-democracy protests of 2009 that were crushed by the regime. They had no obvious leaders and no clear demands and, as Barbara Slavin,  director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council, wrote, they came “largely from the regime’s working-class base, not the effete wealthy of north Tehran. They are demanding cheaper food, more jobs and less government corruption.” [...]

This is ultimately what could imperil the Iranian regime. Rouhani’s economic promises have yet to materialize. This gives his government hard-line critics ammunition. The protests, as Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted in Politico, have weakened the president. Khamenei and the hardliners view Rouhani and his supporters, he wrote, as harbingers of popular insurrection. Come the next election, in 2021, Khamenei, who has ultimate say over who can run for office, might grant his imprimatur only to hard-line candidates, leading to another period of political repression and economic hardship. All this as Iran’s population continues to grow, with few new jobs, and more international isolation.

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Vox: Humans and Neanderthals had sex. But was it for love?

Since Boule’s analysis, our view of Neanderthals has shifted, from a caricature of a caveman to a remarkably sophisticated species. We’ve learned about how they built tools. That they made jewelry. That they, at times, buried their dead. We learned they were possibly stronger than us, and maybe just as smart. [...]

Neanderthal genomes recently sequenced by scientists have revealed that we humans mated with Neanderthals over thousands of years. These couplings are believed to have been rare and sporadic. But they were meaningful: Just about every human today (except those of solely African ancestry) has around 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal genes in every cell of their body. [...]

There’s a common misconception that Neanderthals were our ancestors, that we evolved from them. We did not. Neanderthals and modern humans are believed to have diverged from a common ancestor in the genus Homo sometime around 500,000 years ago. The Neanderthal ancestors moved up to Europe before us, and continued to evolve there. [...]

In 1997, Pääbo’s team became the first to extract Neanderthal DNA from a tiny slice of a 40,000-year-old humerus. That discovery kicked off the "Neanderthal genome project," an effort to decode the entirety of Neanderthals’ genetics from their fossils. In 2014, the team published an entire Neanderthal genome (sourced from the big toe of a female who lived 50,000 years ago in Siberia) in the journal Nature. [...]

"When we look at history and see what Australian aboriginals went through, what Native American people went through, what Easter Islanders went through, it’s hard to say that the Neanderthals would have been better off than these historical cases," Hawks says. "It’s probably the case that Neanderthals went through the Paleolithic version of the contacts we know about through history." (It could also be the case, Hawks says, that we just didn’t really notice Neanderthals were different from us.)

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The Guardian: The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World by Catherine Nixey

This spirit permeates Catherine Nixey’s book. In her view, the standard modern picture of the Roman empire’s conversion remains, even 200 years after Gibbon, glossed by Christian triumphalism. History, she believes, has given the Church an undeservedly easy ride. Pre-Christian Rome tends to be imagined as cruel, arbitrary and punitive; it is thought to be, in her fine phrase, “a chilly, nihilistic world”. Christianity, conversely, is painted as brave, principled, kind, inclusive and optimistic. The task she sets herself – her own melancholy duty – is to rip away this veneer and expose the error and corruption of the early Church.

This is also, however, a book for the 21st century. What concerned Gibbon was the clash between faith and reason; for Nixey, the clashes are physical ones. This is, fundamentally, a study of religious violence. Her cover displays a statue of Athena deliberately damaged: its eyes have been gouged and its nose smashed, and a cross has been etched into its forehead. The story of this defacement is told in her prologue and reprised in her final words. The events happened in Palmyra in the late fourth century, when some of the oasis city’s magnificent temples were repurposed as sites of Christian worship. Her choice to begin in Palmyra is, of course, a careful one. When she speaks of the destruction wrought on the architecture of the Syrian city by “bearded, black-robed zealots”, the reader thinks not of marauding fourth-century Christian fundamentalists but of television images from recent history. “There have been,” she writes, and “there still are … those who use monotheism and its weapons to terrible ends.” What is revealing about that last sentence is not the connection she draws between savage practices in Christian late antiquity and in the name of Islamic State but the phrase “monotheism and its weapons”. Many modern commentators like to speak of religious terrorism as a horrific distortion of religious truth; for Nixey, monotheism is always weaponised and waiting only for someone to pull the trigger. [...]

Even more than the physical violence, it is the cultural devastation that draws Nixey’s eye. Early in the book, she describes how she was brought up in her youth to think of late-antique and medieval Christians as enlightened curators of the classical heritage, diligently copying philosophical texts and poems throughout the ages so that they were saved from oblivion. Her views in this matter have evidently shifted somewhat over time. In this book, early Christians are much more likely to close down the academies, shut temples, loot and destroy artwork, forbid traditional practices and burn books. Rather than praising Christians for preserving slivers of classical wisdom, she argues, we should acknowledge how much was knowingly erased.

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TED Talk: Why I'm done trying to be "man enough" | Justin Baldoni

Justin Baldoni wants to start a dialogue with men about redefining masculinity -- to figure out ways to be not just good men but good humans. In a warm, personal talk, he shares his effort to reconcile who he is with who the world tells him a man should be. And he has a challenge for men: "See if you can use the same qualities that you feel make you a man to go deeper," he says. "Your strength, your bravery, your toughness: Are you brave enough to be vulnerable? Are you strong enough to be sensitive? Are you confident enough to listen to the women in your life?"

Vox: Takeout creates a lot of trash. It doesn't have to

Our single-use items aren't helping the fight against climate change but there are easy hacks to reduce and reuse.

Climate Lab is produced by the University of California in partnership with Vox. Hosted by conservation scientist Dr. M. Sanjayan, the videos explore the surprising elements of our lives that contribute to climate change and the groundbreaking work being done to fight back. Featuring conversations with experts, scientists, thought leaders and activists, the series demystifies topics like nuclear power, food waste and online shopping to make them more approachable and actionable for those who want to do their part. Sanjayan is an alum of UC Santa Cruz, a Visiting Researcher at UCLA and the CEO of Conservation International. 

Slate: The Pakistan Problem

It was also something that gave us another kind of access, which was a physical access of routes through Pakistan into Afghanistan, which is still very important today. So the opposing argument is basically: Why are you doing this? Don’t you still need access into those routes into Afghanistan if you are actually increasing the number of troops like you said? If you don’t do it through Pakistan, you have to do it through Central Asia, which is a lot more expensive and requires balancing the relationship and dynamic with Russia, which opens up this whole other weird can of worms. The Obama administration didn’t want to deal with Russia and only did it for a certain amount of time. So I guess you could argue that, because of the Trump administration’s relationship with Russia, they see this as not really an issue, because they can get the material there. This is the No. 1 issue: How are you going to support the war in Afghanistan now? [...]

But I don’t actually agree with the whole thing and don’t think that in the long-term it is a good strategy because of our interest in Afghanistan and the region as a whole. We need to figure out a way to have this relationship besides threatening to cut off aid and cutting it off until they check some box somewhere. Trump is actually being pretty consistent with the Bush administration policy and the Obama administration policy. Nobody found a good way to work with Pakistan, and that is underlying all of this. We have lots of relationships with other countries where we don’t agree on everything, and we figure out a way to meet somewhere—not in the middle, but somewhere, and we hash it out. [...]

You're right, though. Those are the answers. I think that a lot of folks, including Pakistanis often, would go to the United States to do this, because we gave the most money, or we had the most at stake. But guess what? It's not that anymore. The Chinese have a lot at stake now. The Russians actually have a lot at stake. Saudi and Iran have a lot at stake too, especially because of what's happening in the Middle East and how they're using South Asia as their strategic bet to engage each other, and Pakistan is smack dab in the middle of that. I actually think that there are more stakeholders now than there were when 9/11 happened, and we should see that as an opportunity. I don't think the Trump administration is at all going to be interested in doing any of that. That's not really a priority for them. It's the opposite. They want to pull out.

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Quartzy: Dating preferences among men and women are looking increasingly similar

However, there has been a tectonic shift in gender roles over the past 50 years. As recently as the 1980s, female flight attendants in the United States could be fired if they got married, and women’s right to vote wasn’t universally enforced in Switzerland until 1990. Wouldn’t we expect these changing relationship mores to make a dent in the mating preferences of straight men and women? Or are we still at the mercy of our biological destiny, as evolutionary psychologists claim?

The results from the research are clear: mating preferences among men and women look increasingly similar. The trend is directly tied to increasing gender equality, as women gain greater access to resources and opportunities in business, politics, and education. In more gender-unequal nations, such as Turkey, women rate the earning potential of partners as twice as important compared with women in the most gender-equal nations, such as Finland. As with Josh and Mia, Finnish men are now more likely than Finnish women to select partners based on their high level of education. [...]

To be fair, evolutionary psychologists acknowledge that cultural factors and local customs can affect how people choose their partners. But gender equality isn’t considered to be one of these factors, since even in relatively gender-equal societies, the gap between men and women’s preferences is only reduced, not eliminated. However, the counter-punch is that evidence of a lingering gap actually supports our case: the difference is only narrowed to the extent that gender equality is attained. Getting rid of it entirely would require complete gender equality, which doesn’t yet exist.

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Jacobin Magazine: The Radical Paris Agreement

Stopping climate change requires both state power and international cooperation. Regarding the former, the contemporary left seems broadly in agreement: Christian Parenti persuasively argues in Dissent that “it is this society and these institutions that must cut emissions.” Likewise, Alyssa Battistoni opens Jacobin’s recent climate-focused issue by explicitly rejecting the idea that we should wait for the revolution to deal with climate change. Instead, the Left should secure “more democratic political control over industry, technology, and infrastructure; more conscious intention about how we build our world, why, and for whom.” [...]

Yet this internationalist commitment is rarely matched with an equivalent enthusiasm for the actually existing mechanism for interstate cooperation: the Paris Climate Agreement (PA). On the contrary, the Left holds a uniformly negative view of the agreement, in arguments that range from trenchant critique to outright hostility. [...]

Most importantly, while targets are nationally determined, the agreement makes it clear that no country may reduce a target once it has been set. Parties must “maintain” the target they have set (Article 4.2) and submit a new one every five years (Article 4.9). Each new target must reflect both a “progression” from the existing one and the country’s “highest possible ambition” in light of its national capacity (Article 4.3). Countries may revise their target at any time “with a view to enhancing [the target’s] level of ambition” (Article 4.11). No country can go backward: the world cannot afford it, and the PA doesn’t allow it.  [...]

The most the Paris Agreement can do is to make these investments rational — no small thing at all. Crucially, however, it can only do this if it has a credible chance of matching what the science requires. Interpretations that bolster its odds are available but, thanks to recent events, far from entrenched. If it becomes clear that the Paris Agreement will not create the kind of international solidarity necessary, statist thinking will take us to some very dark places indeed.

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Jacobin Magazine: Behind the Iran Protests

Iran’s rate of inflation has fluctuated immensely in the past decade, and now stands at 17 percent. Scandals involving corrupt politicians and businessmen embezzling millions of dollars have erupted over and over again, angering citizens who are living month to month. Although Iran has a generally low rate of poverty, 4.7 percent in 2016-17, unemployment, particularly for youth and women, is above 30 percent. This, coupled with unfulfilled economic expectations — especially regarding the foreign investments that were supposed to flow after the signing of the Iran nuclear deal — were a powder keg. Rouhani and his administration hinged their strategy to improve the economy on sanctions relief and European investment in the country. Given Donald Trump’s promise to “rip up the nuclear deal,” foreign banks are now reticent to fund investment in Iran, and European companies are wary of entering a market that may be sanctioned further by the US Treasury.  [...]

It’s hard to overstate the factionalism of Iranian politics. Long a feature of the Islamic Republic, differing factions within the Islamic Republic have often publicly fought and debated one another on policies and directions for the country. During Rouhani’s terms as president, the hard-line elements in the regime have attempted to create obstacles for him and his administration at every turn. Especially since their embarrassing loss in the May presidential elections, hard-liners have attacked Rouhani at every opportunity. For his part, Rouhani has attempted to curtail the economic power of hard-line institutions and has sought to push the Revolutionary Guards out of politics, with little success.

In the middle of this fight, former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made a surprise comeback. In November 2017, Ahmadinejad started issuing provocative statements against corruption and began to ask why, if the country’s money belonged to the people, the government was targeting funding for the people’s welfare. Using social media as his main tool of communication, Ahmadinejad issued threats against Iran’s judiciary, challenged Iran’s supreme leader by not backing down when asked to, and revived the populist message of his presidency, attacking the rich and corrupt. On Wednesday, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps announced that “a former leader of the country” had provoked people to protest. Some in Iran are now reporting that Ahmadinejad is being investigated.

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