UnHerd: The truth about GDP figures

In a fascinating paper they compare the official GDP figures to their “core GDP” measure and find that the choice of method makes a big difference to the relative sizes of the western and non- western economies. For instance, according to the official figures the non-West only overtook the West in the middle of 2000, but according to the core GDP figures the cross-over took place much earlier – at some point before 1990 (when the comparison starts).

Choice of statistical method doesn’t change how rich or poor people actually are, but the authors observe that the bias to the West does impact on “our perception of growth in the world” and also on the weight of western influence in global institutions like the World Bank and the IMF. [...]

In fact, taking rent out of GDP would remove some deeply perverse incentives for policy-makers. Ever wondered why government does such a bad job of solving the housing crisis? Well, if it did a better job, and rental values came down, GDP would take a corresponding hit.

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Aeon: Believing without evidence is always morally wrong

In ‘The Ethics of Belief’ (1877), Clifford gives three arguments as to why we have a moral obligation to believe responsibly, that is, to believe only what we have sufficient evidence for, and what we have diligently investigated. His first argument starts with the simple observation that our beliefs influence our actions. Everyone would agree that our behaviour is shaped by what we take to be true about the world – which is to say, by what we believe. If I believe that it is raining outside, I’ll bring an umbrella. If I believe taxis don’t take credit cards, I make sure I have some cash before jumping into one. And if I believe that stealing is wrong, then I will pay for my goods before leaving the store.[...]

The most natural objection to this first argument is that while it might be true that some of our beliefs do lead to actions that can be devastating for others, in reality most of what we believe is probably inconsequential for our fellow humans. As such, claiming as Clifford did that it is wrong in all cases to believe on insufficient evidence seems like a stretch. I think critics had a point – had – but that is no longer so. In a world in which just about everyone’s beliefs are instantly shareable, at minimal cost, to a global audience, every single belief has the capacity to be truly consequential in the way Clifford imagined. If you still believe this is an exaggeration, think about how beliefs fashioned in a cave in Afghanistan lead to acts that ended lives in New York, Paris and London. Or consider how influential the ramblings pouring through your social media feeds have become in your very own daily behaviour. In the digital global village that we now inhabit, false beliefs cast a wider social net, hence Clifford’s argument might have been hyperbole when he first made it, but is no longer so today.[...]

While Clifford’s final argument rings true, it again seems exaggerated to claim that every little false belief we harbour is a moral affront to common knowledge. Yet reality, once more, is aligning with Clifford, and his words seem prophetic. Today, we truly have a global reservoir of belief into which all of our commitments are being painstakingly added: it’s called Big Data. You don’t even need to be an active netizen posting on Twitter or ranting on Facebook: more and more of what we do in the real world is being recorded and digitised, and from there algorithms can easily infer what we believe before we even express a view. In turn, this enormous pool of stored belief is used by algorithms to make decisions for and about us. And it’s the same reservoir that search engines tap into when we seek answers to our questions and acquire new beliefs. Add the wrong ingredients into the Big Data recipe, and what you’ll get is a potentially toxic output. If there was ever a time when critical thinking was a moral imperative, and credulity a calamitous sin, it is now.

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Deutsche Welle: Majority of Germans want Chancellor Angela Merkel to complete term

The poll showed that a vast majority of voters want Merkel to complete her tenure, which ends in 2021. More than three-quarters of her party voters feel she should continue. More than half of the supporters of environmentalist Greens, socialist Left Party and center-left SPD also agree. [...]

The voters were not that generous to Merkel's Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, who is stepping down as the head of CDU's Bavarian sister party, the CSU. Nearly three in every four voters feel that Seehofer should also quit his job in the federal government.

The polls put Merkel ally and CDU Secretary General Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer ahead in the race for CDU leadership. Kramp-Karrenbauer has the backing of 46 percent of her party voters. She was followed by Friedrich Merz, a financial manager who has spent the past nine years out of politics, who polled 31 percent. Jens Spahn, the 38-year-old health minister and a Merkel critic, managed just 12 percent. [...]

According to the poll, if federal elections were held this Sunday, 23 percent of Germans would vote for the Greens. More than a quarter said they would vote for CDU/CSU.

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Forbes: The Brutal Reality Of Brexit

For Brexiters and Remainers alike, this is the worst of all possible solutions. But horrible though it is, this deal satisfies the conditions set by Mrs. May in her Lancaster House speech. It also satisfies the EU’s conditions. No other proposal achieves this. It is, therefore, the best deal available. The U.K. Government has struck a deal that allows Britain to have its cake and eat it - but the cake tastes so disgusting that no-one wants to eat it.

The hard-Brexit European Research Group (ERG) seems to think that if it succeeds in replacing Mrs. May with a hard Brexiter, he or she could negotiate a deal more to its liking. On the other side of the political divide, the Labour party seems to think that if it succeeds in replacing Mrs. May with Jeremy Corbyn, he will be able to negotiate a deal more to its liking.

Both are deluded. The EU has no incentive whatsoever to renegotiate any of the deal. The road to this point has been long and painful, and the U.K. government has negotiated in bad faith throughout, repeatedly saying one thing to the EU then the opposite to its own politicians and the British press, and hurling insults when things don’t go its way. There is very little goodwill left on the EU side, and negotiation fatigue has well and truly set in. [...]

But if there is no second referendum – and at present neither the Government nor the Labour party seem to be seriously considering it – then Parliament must decide whether a complete break with the EU in the interests of sovereignty, even at the cost of a deep economic recession, is better or worse for the British people in the longer term than “frozen Brexit”. Or, of course, whether it is best to call the whole thing off.

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Scientific American: Why Don’t We Forget How to Ride a Bike?

As it turns out, different types of memories are stored in distinct regions of our brains. Long-term memory is divided into two types: declarative and procedural.

There are two types of declarative memory: Recollections of experiences such as the day we started school and our first kiss are called episodic memory. This type of recall is our interpretation of an episode or event that occurred. Factual knowledge, on the other hand, such as the capital of France, is part of semantic memory. These two types of declarative memory content have one thing in common—you are aware of the knowledge and can communicate the memories to others. [...]

One of the most famous studies showing the separate memory systems was that of an epileptic named Henry Gustav Molaison (aka H. M.). In the 1950s he underwent the removal of portions of his brain, including large parts of his hippocampus. After the operation doctors found that although the number of seizures had decreased, H. M. was unable to form new memories. Many of his memories of the time before the operation were also erased. [...]

Even with traumatic brain injury the procedural memory system is hardly ever compromised. That’s because the basal ganglia, structures responsible for processing nondeclarative memory, are relatively protected in the brain’s center, below the cerebral cortex. However, it’s not clear, beyond brain damage, why procedural memory contents are not as easily forgotten as declarative ones are. According to one idea, in the regions where movement patterns are anchored fewer new nerve cells may be formed in adults. Without this neurogenesis, or continuous remodeling in those regions, it’s less likely for those memories to get erased.

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Politico: Trump administration slaps sanctions on Saudis over Khashoggi’s death

The Treasury Department designated the officials for sanctions over what it called “serious human rights abuse,” freezing any U.S. assets and barring American citizens from engaging in business with them. The announcement named royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani and said he led the team that flew into Istanbul just hours before Khashoggi entered the consulate there for paperwork relating to his planned marriage. Al-Qahtani was fired from his post in late October. [...]

Human rights groups, however, expressed outrage that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is close to presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, was left out of the sanctions.

Members of Congress and many in Washington named the crown prince as the orchestrator of the alleged operation to kill Khashoggi, while the Trump administration said it needed more time to investigate and gather all the facts. Trump himself expressed ambivalence over jeopardizing weapons sales with the Saudis by taking tough action in response to Khashoggi’s death.[...]

The Trump administration had been previously quick to slap sanctions on international actors, including in Nicaragua, Myanmar and the Gambia, using the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which gives the president broad sanction powers to punish human rights violators. In a statement Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signaled the administration might not be done responding to the death of Khashoggi, who was living in Virginia at the time of his death.

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