The Guardian: Shrinking the world: why we can't resist model villages

Bekonscot is the oldest continuously open miniature village in the world. Almost 16 million people have visited since 1929, and about 15,000 call in each month. In an age of Netflix, Fortnite and artificial intelligence, we may regard it as remarkable that such a thing has not only endured, but thrived and even expanded. How can one possibly explain the appeal? Nostalgia, certainly, but there are numerous bigger, shinier miniature worlds that Bekonscot has inspired – what about them? Is there something else at play? Something utopian perhaps, or something darker for our troubled and unstable times? [...]

But things have changed. It is not really the 1930s we see, but a vision of what we hope the 1930s were like (the early 1930s, before the nervousness). For several decades, Bekonscot tried to keep pace with modern life; there were some brutalist constructions placed among the mock-Tudor semis, diesel railways replaced steam, and on the airfield modern jets (including Concorde) made an appearance. New adverts for the latest products began to appear alongside older ones for Colman’s mustard. But then, with the pace of life accelerating, and the historical integrity of Bekonscot looking increasingly confusing, the people who ran the place decided that the model should go back to its roots. So the modern world was banished, or at least repainted. [...]

Our fascination with miniature objects has been with us since cave paintings, and we will never tire of bringing things down to size in an effort to better appreciate them. The model village has just become the model world. There are few things that Instagram likes more than human giants in a concentrated landscape of Big Ben, Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty. Almost every country offers its own model world these days, and all provide a strategically idiosyncratic combination of nationalistic pride and towering hubris. [...]

But why go to all the trouble to visit these places if you can just go to Mini-Europe in Belgium and see almost everything in one go? One reason for not going to Mini-Europe is because Mini-Europe is terrible, and you must avoid it even if you have absolutely nothing else to do. Mini-Europe is what happens when a civic amusement is designed by a committee on which all the creative and sensible members have consistently called in sick, perhaps only too aware of what was being constructed on their watch. One is greeted at the entrance of Mini-Europe by a person dressed as a giant orange turtle administering unwanted hugs, and it’s all grimness from there. One walks past a soulless array of more than 300 buildings from all the countries in the European Union, including such cheering resin randomness as the Rock of Cashel in Tipperary, Anne Hathaway’s cottage in Stratford and a North Sea oil platform.

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Vox: Intellectual humility: the importance of knowing you might be wrong

To do this, she, along with some colleagues, started up something called the Loss of Confidence Project. It’s designed to be an academic safe space for researchers to declare for all to see that they no longer believe in the accuracy of one of their previous findings. The effort recently yielded a paper that includes six admissions of no confidence. And it’s accepting submissions until January 31.[...]

The project is timely because a large number of scientific findings have been disproven, or become more doubtful, in recent years. One high-profile effort to retest 100 psychological experiments found only 40 percent replicated with more rigorous methods. It’s been a painful period for social scientists, who’ve had to deal with failed replications of classic studies and realize their research practices are often weak.[...]

Instead, it’s a method of thinking. It’s about entertaining the possibility that you may be wrong and being open to learning from the experience of others. Intellectual humility is about being actively curious about your blind spots. One illustration is in the ideal of the scientific method, where a scientist actively works against her own hypothesis, attempting to rule out any other alternative explanations for a phenomenon before settling on a conclusion. It’s about asking: What am I missing here? [...]

Here’s the deep lesson to draw from all of this: Much as we might tell ourselves our experience of the world is the truth, our reality will always be an interpretation. Light enters our eyes, sound waves enter our ears, chemicals waft into our noses, and it’s up to our brains to make a guess about what it all is.

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Quartz: Being single in your 30s isn’t bad luck, it’s a global phenomenon (November 13, 2018)

“One of the global trends that was really seen throughout many of the papers was the delay in marriage, especially among more educated classes of people, and especially for women,” she says. The trend showed up in papers from Jordan, China, the US, Rwanda, and Guatemala, and the list went on. (The papers are yet to be published, but some have been reviewed by Quartz.)

Diane Singerman, associate professor in the department of government at American University, Washington DC, coined the term “waithood” in 2008 after studying young people in the Middle East. In her conception, the term relates to both genders and is at root economic. In many places—such as Egypt, where some of Singerman’s research has focused—marriage is just too expensive for young people to manage, while having kids outside of that formal union isn’t yet socially acceptable. This kind of waithood can hit young men hard: A youth bulge across large parts of the world, high rates of unemployment, and low wages combine to hold men back from relationships (especially in places where high dowry payments are expected), and therefore from starting families. Even in places where it is possible to become a parent without an expensive wedding, fertility rates are falling: Inhorn mentions Greece, Spain, and France as facing age-related fertility problems, in part because young people can’t afford the trappings of adulthood, like their own place to live.[...]

In a range of places where women are able to access education and careers they have begun to do so with zeal, often overtaking their male counterparts. One key metric is attainment at university, where women globally are becoming the majority of students, both applying in greater numbers, as in Sweden, and completing more degrees, as in South Africa. While both men and women can experience waithood, the situation of singledom becomes more pressing for women as biological imperatives loom. Most people, globally, want children, and men can become fathers at later stages of life. But even with advances in fertility, there are clear indicators about the increased difficulties women can face getting pregnant later in life.

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SciShow Psych: How to Keep Power from Going to Your Head

The famous British historian Lord Acton once said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And science tends to agree, but how we can prevent power from going to our heads?

Vox: Why monks had that haircut

What was the deal with that monk haircut? In this episode of Vox Almanac, Phil Edwards explores the history and controversy behind the style.

Known as "tonsure," the typical monk hairstyle has many variations throughout religions. The particular hairstyle worn by Christian monks has its own variations and controversies as well. Three different types of tonsure were popular: a coronal tonsure, a Pauline tonsure, and a third Celtic tonsure that came to represent the differences between the Roman Catholic and Celtic Catholic church.

The winding path of this tonsure is a new way to look at the division within the religion and the unpredictable ways something like hair can represent faith.

FiveThirtyEight: America’s Electoral Map Is Changing (Dec. 17, 2018)

But when you focus on how predictably Republican or Democratic a district is, you may miss the fact that a district’s partisanship can — and does — change over time. To better understand how partisanship is shifting at the district level, we looked at each House election since 2012 and calculated the difference between each party’s share of the two-party vote — that is, each party’s votes as a share of all the votes cast for one of the two major parties, disregarding any votes for third parties, independent candidates or write-ins.2 (We excluded any districts that had been redrawn at any point since 2012 election, which meant ignoring all of Pennsylvania, for example, as its districts were redrawn by a court earlier this year.3) Overall, we were able to calculate the margin of victory for 371 districts in at least one of the four election cycles. [...]

Only two districts in our data set flipped from Democrats to Republicans this year.4 One of those districts, the Minnesota 8th, had been represented by Democrats for 68 of the last 70 years. [...]

We grouped districts into percentiles by what percentage of the population of adults over 25 had a bachelor’s degree, and then selected the top 10th percentile and the bottom 10th percentile.5 Districts in the top 10th percentile took a limited swing to the right in 2014, then moved to the left in each subsequent election. In 2018, this group swung to the left by an average of 18 points, which far outpaced the national average of a bit under 5 points. Overall, out of the 38 districts in the top 10th percentile for residents with a bachelor’s degree, the number of Republican-controlled districts has winnowed from 17 to just seven.

But the story is less clear-cut in districts in the bottom 10th percentile for population with a bachelor’s degree — 14 went Democratic this year and 16 went Republican. And that’s due in part to the role race can play in determining how a district votes. While there is evidence that white voters without a bachelor’s degree have swung right in recent years, we haven’t seen the same movement among nonwhite voters without a bachelor’s degree. Of the districts in the bottom 10th percentile by education, 31 were majority white, six were majority nonwhite and one was about evenly split.6 They span a pretty broad spectrum, from New York’s 15th Congressional District, which is 82 percent nonwhite, to Kentucky’s 5th, which is 97 percent white. [...]

The idea that partisanship is increasingly driving Americans’ political behavior is, of course, true. But leaving it at that skims over some interesting aspects of the landscape today. Distinct groups of people, living in distinct parts of the country, are shifting their preferences and shifting the electoral map along the way. In 2016, Democrats lost in places that, four years before, they would never have imagined they could lose. In 2018, the same thing happened to Republicans. In all likelihood, 2020 will bring its own surprises. Will recent racial, class and regional trends continue? If they do, we could be looking at a new American political map before too long.

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Politico: Michel Barnier back pushing his vision for EU’s future

The former French minister, European commissioner, and national and European parliamentarian, who has been center stage throughout the 18 months of Brexit negotiations with London, published an opinion piece outlining his priorities for the bloc in 2019.

The English-language article comes days after Barnier discussed his vision for Europe in a piece for Le Monde.

While German conservative Manfred Weber is the candidate for European Commission president of Barnier's European People's Party, the French politician's persistent speechmaking and tweeting on European topics have done nothing to quash rumors that he is interested in another EU top job after Brexit negotiations conclude. [...]

Barnier took a centrist path on migration: "Our response cannot be based on fears and myths, but nor can we ignore national debates and identities," he wrote. "In addition to consolidating the EU’s Frontex border-management system and creating common hotspots at our external borders and beyond, we must also harmonize national-level migration and asylum policies as much as possible," he added.

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Quartz: Women in Saudi Arabia must now be informed if they’ve been divorced

Starting today (Jan. 6), courts must notify women by text message about rulings confirming their divorce. Knowing about their marital status will help women protect rights such as alimony, and ensures powers of attorney issued before the divorce aren’t misused. The text message will include the divorce certificate number and the name of the relevant court where women can pick up the documentation. They can also find out about their marital status through a website.

The new measure comes amid social and economic reforms pushed in recent years by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman as part of his Vision 2030 plan. In June 2018, the country lifted its ban on women driving, a major milestone. Other measures have included a relaxation of women’s strict dress code, allowing women to vote and stand as candidates in municipal elections, and decreasing the influence of the male guardianship system, which requires a woman to obtain the consent of a male relative for major decisions.

But there’s still a long way to go. By most standards, Saudi society remains incredibly repressive toward women. The guardianship system still prevents women from doing a number of important tasks on their own, including filing for divorce. Also among them, according to the BBC, are opening a bank account, getting married, applying for a passport, and starting certain businesses.

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Vox: There will be more non-Christians in the new Congress than ever before

The new House and Senate will have the highest number of non-Christian members of any modern Congress, according to data compiled by the Pew Research Center, edging out the 111th when Democrats had full control of Capitol Hill.

A full 63 members — almost all Democrats — adhere to a faith other than Christianity or don’t adhere to any faith at all. [...]

According to Pew, 61 Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate are not Christian, while only two Republicans are not — both of whom are Jewish. Most of the Democratic non-Christians are Jewish as well (32), and there are a handful of Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims. Nearly 20 Democratic members declined to name their religion — a new high, per Pew’s data — and newly elected Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) said she is unaffiliated.

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