The Disease Control and Prevention Department has said that 40 million Americans have lost some hearing because of excessive noise, half of them, owing to leaf- blowers, machinery, generators, sirens, rock concerts, listening to music with headphones and the volume too loud. 25% of Americans aged 20 to 69 have some hearing loss, or have …
“I’m baffled by the present obsession with transgender issues. I appreciate that everyone’s different and am happy for individuals to arrange their physiology, desire and role in whatever permutation they fancy”. But why should society be required to reform its language, its census forms and its lavatories around an “ever-growing taxonomy of genders” – “bi-gender”, …
Continue reading ‘There are other, bigger issues than gender’ »
“Zero tolerance has been a huge mistake. “Here’s a political slogan I’d get behind, “Zero tolerance for zero tolerance.” “For decades, political leaders have embraced zero-tolerance policies “as a response to all social ills: crime, drugs, sexual violations – even misbehaving schoolchildren”. In every case, the indiscriminate rigidity of this “deeply misguided approach” has backfired. …
Robots are the great bogeymen of the 21st century. With their superhuman strength and non-stop work ethic, many feel they are gunning for our jobs. But these fears may be overblown. The first comprehensive look at automation on the German economy suggests that robots created more jobs than they destroyed. People’s fears have been stoked …
Continue reading ‘Robots don’t take people’s jobs – they make new ones’ »
The nicest Olympics ever might not last beyond Tokyo. While Japan is a relatively uncontroversial host country (COVID-19 snafus notwithstanding), U.S. lawmakers have already started to call for moving the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics out of China in protest of the country’s treatment of its Uyghur minority population. Though it’s unlikely (but not unthinkable) that …
