A look at interesting articles, features and opinion pieces that have caught my attention since I last posted here…
The UK media has been consumed by speculation over what rules Dominic Cummings broke in his trip to Durham. Unfortunately this attention has left the government off the hook for the bigger picture. John Burn-Murdoch and Chris Giles estimate that the UK has suffered the second-highest rate of deaths from the
coronavirus pandemic after Spain according to excess mortality figures:
Many politicians have claimed their decisions have been driven by science. In Israel epidemiologists have been sidelined which has apparently led to government forecasting to be well off target according to reporting from Meirav Arlosoroff:
All their models were based on mathematical assumptions on the rate of contagion that in the end proved wrong. To their immense disappointment, it turns out the coronvirus is a biological phenomenon that doesn’t fit the rules of mathematics. The bastard killer didn’t study math at an advanced level and to the shock of those doing the calculations tended to change its behavior over time. Why? Maybe because of the change in temperature, maybe because of genetic diversity. The bottom line is all the models predicted a rise in cases with the end of the lockdown and yet the opposite has occurred.
Sweden is continuing to prove an interesting source of discussion with its more liberal approach to quarantining and social isolation. Like many countries, the jury is still out and what was right and wrong on its approach as Sam Bowman and Pedro Serodio explore:
Ultimately, Sweden shows that some of the worst fears about uncontrolled spread may have been overblown, because people will act themselves to stop it. But, equally, it shows that criticisms of lockdowns tend to ignore that the real counterfactual would not be business as usual, nor a rapid attainment of herd immunity, but a slow, brutal, and uncontrolled spread of the disease throughout the population, killing many people. Judging from serological data and deaths so far, it is the speed of deaths that people who warned in favour of lockdowns got wrong, not the scale.
I’ve lived in London for the last 20 years where I have seen countless changes and endless waves of gentrification. The Economist looks at whether coronavirus is going to put a stop on its outsize role in the UK economy:
London is unlikely to slip back into the dismal state it was in before the mid-1980s. It is likely to remain richer and more productive than the rest of Britain. It will remain Europe’s most powerful magnet for talented immigrants. Still, its pulling power is likely to wane. If that happens, Britain’s economy will probably suffer. But a less centralised country, in which opportunity was more evenly distributed, might be a better place in other ways.
Coronavirus has caused further distress to pubs which were already declining in Britain. It was apparently a rather different story after the Black Death swept through the country according to Richard Collett:
By the 1370s, though, the Black Death had caused a critical labor shortage, the stark consequence of some 50 percent of the population perishing in the plague. Eventually, this proved a boon for the peasantry of England, who could command higher wages for their work and achieve higher standards of living. As a result, the alehouses that were simply households selling or giving away leftover ale were replaced by more commercialized, permanent establishments set up by the best brewers and offering better food.
Intergenerational equity has many different facets but economics is one of the areas where inequities can most clearly be seen. Many of us grew up with the expectation that our situation would be better than that of our parents. Reporting from Andrew Van Dam in the US (situation may well be different in emerging markets) paints a different picture for millennials whose poor showing is now being compounded by the coronavirus pandemic:
Donald Trump has at times been a savvy user of social media, using it galvanising his political base and often paying little heed to the facts. Twitter calling out one of his tweets recently which has brought an inevitable backlash from Trump but Peter Baker and Daisuke Wakabayashi speculate this could be counterproductive for the US president:
But the logic of Mr. Trump’s order is intriguing because it attacks the very legal provision that has allowed him such latitude to publish with impunity a whole host of inflammatory, harassing and factually distorted messages that a media provider might feel compelled to take down if it were forced into the role of a publisher that faced the risk of legal liability rather than a distributor that does not.
In a sign of changing times, China now exports more to South East Asia than it does to USA as trade tension rise according to reporting from Dan Kopf:
Ben Smith posits that new tools such as Cameo, Substack and Patreon are making it much easier for creators, celebrities and opinion makers to earn a comfortable living off a small but passionate audience:
In fact, in this new economy, some people may be able to make a living off just 100 true fans, as Li Jin, a former partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, argued recently. Ms. Jin calls this new landscape the “passion economy.” She argues that apps like Uber and DoorDash are built to erase the differences between individual drivers or food delivery people. But similar tools, she says, can be used to “monetize individuality.”
I moved to New Zealand when I was 7, living there for 17 years (1982-1999) but don’t think I ever felt the sense of national identity that many of my Kiwi friends did. That being said, I definitely think the country matured in the time I was there and think this process continues. This ode to New Zealand and Jacinda Ardern from Umair Haque had me feeling a tad ‘homesick’
When I say “new leader of the free world,” I don’t just mean Jacinda Ardern. I mean New Zealand. As a society. New Zealand is a textbook example of what it means to be a thriving, functioning, modern society in the 21st century. It is a leader in that sense. It ranks seventh in the Social Progress Index — and is going to rise far higher after Coronavirus, easily cracking the top five or three. America, meanwhile, ranks a dismal…26th. And it’s going to plummet. There’s something special about New Zealand, happening in it, right about now. The world should pay attention.
There was a lot of noise recently of Rutger Bregman’s story of 6 Tongan boys stranded on a deserted island, providing a counterpoint to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Meleika Gesa provides a more nuanced view of the story pointing to the importance of the boys upbringing and questions who owns the story:
The original article could’ve done more for the six men. The story should have been told by a Tongan. The story should have been told by the men themselves and their families. This is their story, will always be their story. The article doesn’t mention how the boys felt or why they made the choices they made. It lacked their perspective. It lacked the very Tongans the story was about, with the exception of Mano. But even then, Mano was sidelined. He deserves to share his story how he would want to.
Another story of resilience comes from Marga Griesbach’s life which saw her survive her survive the Holocaust in an account relayed by Rebecca Traister:
In late September, the SS told prisoners they were seeking volunteers to work on a job outside the camp. “I said to my mother, ‘Let’s try to be sent away to work.’ Because I can’t go on here.’ ” Therese worried that her daughter’s emaciated frame would keep her from being chosen for the job. “She put the lipstick on my cheeks,” Marga said, “and some on her cheeks, to make her look younger, and make me look older and healthier.”
If you are looking for some aural inspiration, Open Culture’s list of podcasts is well worth a trip with many that are already on my subscribe list.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for something for your reading list, you could do worse than reading John Lanchester’s The Wall (unless what you want is something more escapist).
Finally, if you’re looking for something more calming, O Street’s Roadliners video could be just the trick.
Header image: Concentric Eccentric Circles by Felice Varini at the fortress of Carcassonne in 2018. More photos of the installation here.
