By Angus Deaton Economics has achieved much; there are large bodies of often-nonobvious theoretical understandings and of careful and sometimes-compelling empirical evidence. The profession knows and understands many things. Yet today we are in some disarray. We did not collectively predict the financial crisis and, worse still, we may have contributed to it through an overenthusiastic… Read More In Economics, do we know what we’re doing?
Amy Hawkins At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common. But in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valour in cyberspace. Last month a patriotic blogger… Read More China Nobel Laureate for literature becomes a target in nationalist slander campaign
Electoral Bonds Tracker चुनावी चंदे का भांडा फोड़ A cursory glance at the data reflects a pervasive decay of democratic ethics of the political party in power… The quid pro quo trends appear to be coming out now despite the limited information shared in the data. Remember, the BJP is the largest beneficiary of the… Read More Electoral Bonds: Is India’s Democracy on Sale? / Ravish Kumar: चुनावी चंदे का भांडा फोड़
NB: My deepest condolences to Mrs Lalita Ramdas and Admiral Ramdas’ three daughters and his extended family. He was a great, humane, and courageous soul. Peace loving and democratic people all over the world are indebted to him. May he rest in peace. Dilip The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) expresses its deepest… Read More CNDP Statement on Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas (1933-2024). Rest in Peace
GAZA casualties live statistics United Nations Documentation on the Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem Settler Extremists plan to defiantly settle in Gaza Israeli settlers in the illegally occupied territories continue to wreak havoc on the Palestinian residents, stealing their land, demolishing their homes, assaulting them on a daily basis, and stealing their live-stock.… Read More Israeli settler extremists plan to defiantly settle in Gaza
Analysis shows how jets and tanks are being kept fuelled despite interim ICJ ruling warning Israel to prevent genocidal acts Nina Lakhani Israeli jets and tanks bombarding Palestinians are being fuelled by some of the world’s most profitable fossil fuel companies – and US tax-payers, according to research. Israel relies on crude oil and refined… Read More How the global oil industry is fueling Israel’s war on Gaza
Neurological conditions ranging from migraine to stroke, Parkinson’s disease and dementia, are now the leading cause of ill-health worldwide, causing 11.1 million deaths in 2021, research has revealed. The number of people living with or dying from disorders of the nervous system has risen dramatically over the past three decades, with 43% of the world’s… Read More Neurological conditions now leading cause of ill-health worldwide, finds study
Averroes (Ibn Rushd; 1126–1198) was one of the greatest polymaths of the ancient Islamic world, whose practice expanded into philosophy, theology, astronomy, physics, linguistics and more Averroism’, ‘radical Aristotelianism’ and ‘heterodox Aristotelianism’ are nineteenth- and twentieth-century labels for a late thirteenth-century movement among Parisian philosophers whose views were not easily reconcilable with Christian doctrine. The… Read More Who Was Averroes?
The French political philosopher was both mouthpiece and model for the best defense of liberalism. Paul T. Wilford, Ethan Cutler March 01, 2024 NB: The final paragraph of this review contains these lines: ‘As Mark Lilla notes in his preface to Aron’s lecture, the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine may be a wake-up call: “Sometimes it… Read More Raymond Aron’s Liberal Virtues
Real intelligence requires critical thinking and causal reasoning. LLMs cannot acquire these skills by finding statistical patterns in words they don’t understand. By Gary Smith and Jeffrey Funk It has been almost 70 years since the term “artificial intelligence” was coined at a 1956 Dartmouth College summer workshop. The conference was convened by the mathematician… Read More When It Comes to Critical Thinking, AI Flunks the Test
After the truth-shower 