Are we all getting more stupid? (Don’t all,shout “yes” at once!)

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For the period of about a century, average IQ scores in wealthy nations kept rising by about three points a decade. This “Flynn effect” is thought to be the result of improvements in social conditions like public health, nutrition and education, and has been seen in many countries, from the Netherlands to Japan.

But by 2004, researchers had begun to notice what seems to be a reversal of this trend, with average IQ scores going into decline. “The drop is around 7 to 10 IQ points per century,” according to Michael Woodley of the Free University of Brussels (VUB) in Belgium. Some researchers believe this can be explained by the controversial fertility hypothesis: that the most educated women in Western countries have been having fewer children than the rest of the population, and this is lowering IQs.

But it’s difficult to investigate hypotheses like this. Part of the problem is that IQ tests have changed over time. Now Robin Morris of King’s College London and his colleagues have found a way to get around this. They have broken down old IQ tests into different categories that are easier to compare. Morris’s team looked through more than 1750 different types of IQ test from 1972 onwards for two sub-groups of tests: those that measure short-term memory, and those that assess working memory – the ability to hold in your head information for processing, reasoning and decision-making.

When they looked at how people performed on these kinds of tests throughout time, the team saw a clear pattern. While short-term memory scores have risen in line with the Flynn effect, working memory ability appears to have declined. Then researchers spotted something no one had noticed before – an increase in the proportion of people sitting tests who were aged 60 or older. Working memory is known to decline with age, while short-term memory is usually preserved. In their study, Morris’s team write that the over-60s may be partly responsible for the decline in working memory scores in more developed nations. Researchers agree that stronger and more specific tests of this idea, looking at elements of intelligence whose decline with age are well established, such as processing time and reaction speed. Until then though we are warned that the whole concept of reversing IQs should be treated with scepticism. (Sally Adee, New Scientist, Sept 16, 2017)

So apparently the answer is that maybe we are not, after all seeing a decline in IQ. Or, at least, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. As a non-scientist I suspect that if you are only looking at the results of intelligence tests you are probably skewing the data, because these tests are predominantly taken by young people to find out what their aptitudes are, for career purposes – and very useful too. But now lifetime employment is disappearing, older people are trying to find out what their aptitudes are in turn, in which direction they should go in middle age. Another point: people are generally living longer anyway, and this must be having an overall effect. Moral: before you waste a lot of time on expensive studies, just use old guys with Arts degrees to employ some common sense.

Democracy is built on national pride?

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“Warnings about resurgent nationalism come thick and fast these days. Frans Timmermans, first vice-president of the European Commission, denounced it in a recent speech, arguing that true patriots are Europeans. The international lawyer Philippe Sands did likewise in an article that linked neo-Nazis, white supremacists, the Daily Mail and Brexit to the “poison of slow-burning nationalisms”.

“What’s striking about such diatribes, beyond their occasionally hysterical tone, is the way they conflate bigotry and extremism with national pride, as if fondness for one’s country of birth is inherently dubious. “Statehood,” wrote Sands, is the “most fake of constructs.” To him, maybe. For most of us it is the basis of popular democracy, the “only framework powerful enough to handle the big issues” – defence, taxation, infrastructure – in a responsive manner. To support or acquiesce in collective projects, people need to feel a sense of shared culture with the others involved. They do feel that at a national level; they don’t, whatever the liberal elite may like to think, at a European one.” (Rupert Cogan, Spiked).

I disagree. It was nationalism that fueled both World Wars. “Land of Hope and Glory” is a great tune from a great composer, but the composer himself, aghast at the words put to the music, was outspoken about the power of words and music to promote nationalist fervour and the devotion to an Empire that arguably had become too big, unwieldy, and prey to nationalist leaders. It is a noxious mix of tribalism, religion and nationalism that fuelled the rise of Hitler nd is now fuelling the horrible treatment of the Burmese moslems – one could go on. All over the world, and for decades, politicians have been using the nationalism card to their own ends. The EU does not prevent the exercise of democracy; it simply tries to regulate the shysters and crooks in aid of a level playing field.

In praise of Colin Kaepernick

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Just a short one today, I’ll be back with my usual-length posts on Sunday. Also note that I know virtually nothing about the NFL. 

For those of you who don’t know, Kaepernick is an American football player, who has recently caused controversy by kneeling when the national anthem is played at football games. Trump has come out strongly against him, arguing that everyone should stand for the anthem out of respect for the country. Kaepernick chose to kneel as a protest against the plight of African Americans, but for his critics, politics is no reason for what they perceive to be an unpatriotic gesture.

As a non-American, I have a few thoughts here. Firstly, I think the act of singing the national anthem before a sporting event is bizarre and unnecessary. I understand it’s a tradition that has continued since WW2, when the government instilled patriotism into public life to shore up support for the war effort. I don’t believe there’s anything immoral with it. But such ostentatious displays of nationalism are a little crass and excessive in my view. So if Kaeperick disapproved of this habit because of its anachronistic nature, I would totally agree with him.

My second point is that patriotism, however at times admirable, should never be mandatory. The idea of coerced allegiance to any political entity is an extremely authoritarian one. Dictators, populists and other strong-men often portray their opponents as unpatriotic in order to delegitimise them. So no one’s patriotism should ever be questioned when they are making a statement about domestic policy, as Kaepernick is in this instance.

Kaepenick’s detractors have failed to properly engage with why he has chosen to protest. Rather than focusing on the act of kneeling, which after all is only symbolic and isn’t hurting anyone, they should enquire as to what his motivations are, not simply dismiss him as unpatriotic. The fact is, Kaepernick has a point. Although a lot of progress has been made in terms of advancing civil rights since the 1960s, that progress has slowed down in recent years. Many Americans assume that the country has already made all the changes necessary to achieve racial equality, and that race relations are now a non-issue. Kaepernick is trying to highlight how African Americans are still poorer, less well educated and more likely to be the victims of violence than the population at large. As well as racist attitudes persisting amongst a notable minority of Americans, many more are indifferent to the needs of black people, subordinating them to the needs of the general public, rather than recognising that blacks have legitimate interests as a group.

Ultimately, Kaepernick’s actions ought to be uncontroversial, regardless of your views on race or patriotism. He hasn’t broken the law, or encouraged any illegal behaviour. He is simply drawing attention to what he believes is an important issue, using a means he knows will draw attention. If others happen to disagree with his views, that’s fine. But in a free society, everyone should be able to express themselves how they choose, however unpatriotic their expressions may seem to be. On a broader note, I think unconditional patriotism is quite a dangerous idea. Loving your country regardless of the actions of its leaders is stupid. Instead, patriotism should be qualified: how well does the country treat vulnerable people? How does it look after its children, the elderly or the sick? Does it defend itself effectively against foreign intrusion? Does it encourage entrepreneurship and innovation? Does it allow for free expression and religious practice? For Kaepernick, America is failing in its basic duties towards its citizens. I’m not American, so I can’t determine whether he is right or not. But objectively speaking, there is a lot of discontent in the country. If peaceful expressions of that discontent are treated with repulsion and disgust by the political elites, then America has a grim future.

I never thought I would agree with Kim Jong Un

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Thus Kim, in translation: “After taking office Trump has rendered the world restless through threats and blackmail against all countries in the world. He is unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command of a country, and he is surely a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire, rather than a politician. His remarks which described the U.S. option through straightforward expression of his will have convinced me, rather than frightening or stopping me, that the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last.”

The statement ends with an unspecified threat from Kim Jong Un to make Trump “pay dearly” and “face results beyond his expectation.” He goes on: “I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire,” he says (thus illustrating his superior grasp of the English language – the journalist at NPR, who filed the report, had to look up the meaning of “dotard!”. But thank you NPR News).

Actually, I disagree with Kim on the dotard comment. The US President is not a dotard; he is a self-absorbed, insecure child with an emotional age of eight, or maybe ten, who sits at the back of the classroom and throws paper darts at his fellow pupils, that is, anyone who is deemed to have even the slightest idea what they are supposed to be doing.

Can we trust these new technologies?

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Last century, we trusted machines to do things for us; this century, we’re starting to trust them to decide things for us.  Humans have a notoriously patchy record when it comes to decision-making. But relying on technological systems to make decisions for us – especially when risks are involved and our safety is at stake – could have major consequences.

Soon we will have artificial intelligence in self-driving cars and trucks automatically adding together every mile driven, identifying every hazard and every accident avoided or not, and building up, in huge  orders of magnitude, more experience than any human driver.  Soon there will be clear distinctions between what’s correct and what is not in all sorts of areas, such as medical diagnostics and financial analysis.

There is rarely perfection in everything, and certainly no software is perfect, as Microsoft daily proves. Not even a super-machine can think of every eventuality or interact 100% accurately all the time.  But what is more worrying still is the trusting-ness of human nature and the reluctance of humans to admit making mistakes until it is too late and lives are lost.

We may believe that a machine “knows” more than we do, or can access information we can’t. We’ll need to bring a healthy scepticism into interactions with them.  We will definitely have to figure out how to identify and adapt to situations where our machines are in over their metaphorical heads, and hit the brakes for them.  (based on an article by Jamais Cascio, distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future, in New Scientist. Sept 2017.  Heavily edited for length)

Stop messing about with the way teachers teach!

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Scientia potestas est – knowledge is power – is an idea so famous that it is known by even those with very little of it. Yet too many on the Left disregard it. Like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who held that teaching children knowledge corrupts their innate values, they view the teaching of facts as “right-wing, regressive and redundant”. All facts and figures, as they see it, are subjective, open to debate, and of their age; it’s far better to arm children with skills such as critical thinking that can stand the test of time.

Wrong. With no respect for what’s actually the case, everything “is up for grabs”. No wonder there’s been a surge in conspiracy theories in recent years; no wonder Donald Trump can lie with impunity. The sidelining of knowledge erodes faith in experts and accredited sources of information, leaving people vulnerable to manipulation by dangerous populists. The Tories’ education policy is flawed in many ways, but let’s at least applaud them for their championing of a knowledge-based curriculum. (Richard Russell, The Guardian)

The fact is that we need children both to absorb facts and to develop critical thinking. The two are not mutually incompatible. But we keep dickering with the way teachers teach. Every new Minister of Education wants to make his or her mark with new curriculums, additions and exceptions. The fact is that you can have a knowledge-based curriculum that also allows for critical thinking. Here is a rather obvious example in European history, if you want to get pupils to write an essay:

Fact: Napoleon and Hitler both invaded Russia.
Critical thought: why have successive Tsars, Putin included, been paranoid about Western “plotting”? Use your knowledge of geography, American politics, the expansion of the EU and NATO etc to illustrate your essay.

Good point – any answers?

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To The Sunday Telegraph
There must be something seriously wrong with Britain’s education system if we have shortages of doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, electricians, plumbers and bricklayers when nearly 50% of our teenagers are going to university. What are they all studying?
Professor Ronald C. Denney, Sevenoaks, Kent

Arming the police

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One of President Obama’s better decisions, says Adam Bates, was banning the federal government from distributing surplus military equipment to local police forces. The move followed the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, where the police were condemned for their heavy-handed military response. The bad news, though, is that the Trump administration has now rescinded that ban, freeing the police once again to stock up on high-calibre firearms, grenade launchers, bayonets and camouflage uniforms. The all too predictable consequence will be more violence and more casualties. A study earlier this year unambiguously showed that, after receiving military gear, police departments were more likely to kill civilians (as well as dogs). Law enforcers always justify their need for this kit by citing rare cases such as terrorist attacks and mass murders, but the problem is that they inevitably resort to them in other situations, too. Witness the way that Swat raids have “ballooned from hundreds per year to tens of thousands”; or the way officers have slipped into using mobile phone trackers, bought with counter-terrorism grant money, for everyday police work. “It turns out that having a hammer really does make everything look more like a nail.”. (Adam Bates,  Newsweek)

This report is true and justified, but in a sense tends to trivializes the problem.  There are far too many – 712 this year – unprovoked deaths of (mainly) innocent people, most of whom are black, hispanic or mentally ill.  Instead of using a Taser or manhandling a suspect, all too many policemen reach first for their guns.  The other day I wrote something sympathetic about the fear all too many jittery policemen must feel, given the number of guns in circulation.  Thus does the notoriously misinterpreted  Second Amendment have the effect to putting guns in the hands of too many crazies and idiots while simultaneously taking away our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  America is in danger of becoming a police state where someone exceeding the speed limit can be gunned down.  The police are losing the support and respect of the public and seem to be totally indifferent to the fact.  Indeed, their mindset is defensive- aggressive, if that isn’t a tautology. It does not bode well for the furure.

Nation Down To Last Few Grown-Ups

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“According to recent data, the grown-up population has plummeted dramatically since 1950, when a Census count found that more than 24 million Americans could both admit when they were wrong and respect a viewpoint other than their own. Today, only one in three million citizens can provide thoughtful advice to a fellow human being instead of immediately shifting the topic to endless chatter about themselves, or what they had for lunch.

“Experts confirmed that the mass extinction of grown-ups has coincided with the rapid expansion of other demographic groups, including people who seek medication for every problem they encounter, 33-year-olds who play endless video games on their cellphones, personal injury litigants, and parents who try to become friends with their own children.

The endangered demographic, which is reportedly distinguished from other groups by numerous unique traits, including foresight, rationality, understanding of how to obtain and pay for a mortgage, personal responsibility, and the ability to enter a store without immediately purchasing whatever items they see and desire, is likely to disappear by 2050.

“The Census Bureau chief commented “Unfortunately, we’ve only recently noticed this terrible trend, perhaps because of this group’s unusual capacity to endure hardships with quiet dignity instead of whining loudly to draw attention to themselves. If nothing is done, these individuals, with their special ability to consider the long-term consequences of their own behavior and act accordingly, will be wiped-out completely”.

“Anthropologists who have lived among level-headed adult populations and documented their lifestyles have found that mature adults occasionally put the greater good ahead of their own interests and remain calm when something doesn’t go their way.  “Imagine confronting a problem directly instead of pointing a finger, cowering in fear, or pretending it just isn’t happening,” one added. “This is how these people actually live, if you can believe that.”

“Many of these social scientists have called for a complete record to be made of the declining population’s customs, worrying that knowledge of how to dress for a job interview or when to rotate one’s tires could soon be lost to civilization forever. Future generations, they soberly note, will likely go their whole lives never knowing a grown-up person.

When contacted for comment, Colorado resident Ray Vogel, a grown-up, told reporters he was resigned to his group’s fate.  “We recognize that our time has come and gone, and we’re prepared to let nature run its course,” said the 54-year-old, who has a well-funded 401(k) and has never taken out a high-interest loan to purchase a Jet Ski. “I’m just grateful my two children didn’t turn out patient and considerate like me. They’d never be able to get anywhere in today’s world.”. According to Vogel, the nation’s remaining grown-ups have drafted a letter to be read by the rest of us when they are gone that implores us to make “good decisions” in their absence and explains how to reignite the pilot light on the hot-water heater should it go out. The note is also said to include some money, which we are firmly instructed to use only in case of a real emergency.  (Originally written years ago, shortened now for the benefit of us all with short attention spans, and as relevant now as it was then).

We don’t have the capacity to arrange 40 free trade agreements

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The British government has been caught on a petard of its own making, a total inability to think through the implications of Brexit. Only now is reality dawning: if you want to maintain the support of industry you have to keep all the 40 Free Trade Agreements arranged by the EU. Britain does not have the capacity to negotiate new free-trade agreements . It doesn’t have the experienced negotiators, for a start and hasn’t struck an independent trade arrangement for forty years. And, in any case, it takes an age to negotiate an FTA.

The obvious answer, viewed with a shudder by the Ra-Ra nationalists, is to stay in the single market and the customs union (or don’t leave at all!).  But if you do that you have to accept hordes of young, educated, trained Continentals who, guess what?, take British jobs.

But unless trade is fixed and arranged the corporations, which support and fund the Tory Party, will lose confidence, all the more so if well- trained young people are expelled or not allowed into the country.  But if they are allowed in then the rank and file Brexit voter will be furious.  Thus has the right-wing. zenophobic crowd positioned themselves,  totally voluntarily, between a rock amd a hard place.

Epicurus believed in moderation as a guiding principal in life.  Those who are advocating Brexit at all are, in my opinion, misguided, but those who want to throw caution to the winds and advocate a hard Brexit (just getting out. Period) are dangerous and immoderate.  Spoiled children is a more unkind epithet.

Thought for the day

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Progressives should never talk about “tax reform” and never accept this phrase as a basis for debate. Progressives champion “tax fairness”, not “reform”. The one sets us up for victory, the ofher defeat (Bernie Horn, Public Leadership Institute, Sept 13, 2017)

Government research on energy storage: some good news for a change

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One of the challenges confronting the successful use of renewable energy, especially sunlight, is the storage of power. Now the US Department of Energy recently developed a brand new battery technology. The Energy Department’s research arm, called Arpa-E, was started in 2009 under Obama’s economic recovery plan to fund early- stage research into the generation and storage of energy too risky and expensive for the private sector to undertake. The new technology has been tested, it works and it will be made available commercially in due course.

So much practical research and development is done with public money, and it is remarkable that Arpa- E , which is now turning to the technology of tracing natural gas leaks,  better biofuels and personal control of energy use by consumers, is proving so effective and quick to produce results. It gives the lie to those who want to reduce the size and scope of government. If it were not for government working for us all, regardless of wealth, we would not have numerous pharmaceutical drugs, the internet and other innovations.  Private industry commercialises most of the technical advances, but seldom has the money or technical expertise to do the basic research.  The poor, beleaguered government departments, criticised, cut back on staff, deprived of adequate funds, and now run largely by political know-nothings at the top, should be honoured by us all, regardless of political leanings,  even if rather too much of their work is for the military.

Wagner’s Law and Larry Summers

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Wagner’s Law is the simple idea that as an economy develops, state spending as a proportion of that economy rises. This is due to the electorate demanding a standard of social services the market cannot provide. With a society’s increasing wealth, widespread destitution, inadequate pensions, a lack of good schools and a backward military become intolerable. In the absence of an expanding government, a large proportion of the country’s wealth would be concentrated in the hands of a select few, while the levels of quality of life and standard of living increase at a far slower rate. In every developed nation, industrialisation was accompanied by a demand for social insurance provision, even in the United States where an explicitly socialist political movement failed to gain traction.

The economist Larry Summers has updated Wagner’s Law for the situation facing the present-day United States. He argues that the combination of an ageing population, increasing inequality, the rising cost of government-provided services (healthcare, education) and the need to match the defence spending of other world powers- all means that the Federal Government must increase in size. http://larrysummers.com/2017/09/12/leading-with-tax-cuts-is-dangerous-policy/. For Summers’ defenders at the New York Times, even if one of his factors can be dismissed, his overall case is overwhelming. None of this is to say that capitalism itself has had its day, but that the wellbeing of the capitalist economy will come to depend more heavily on the state due to these insurmountable structural changes.

When applied to the United States specifically, Wagner’s Law is very useful. The United States does spend less of its GDP on social services, even if its military spending is higher. As a result, absolute poverty is far worse than the country’s GDP per capita would suggest. America is the only country in the world not to have universal healthcare, and the generosity of its state-run pension and retirement schemes is unusually low. Republicans have long misled working class Americans, promising them better public services and lower taxes at the same time. When this contradiction at the heart of the Republicans’ appeal becomes apparent, demand for greater state spending will grow. We’re already seeing this in healthcare, where the Affordable Care Act is far more popular than any Republican alternative.

However, Wagner’s Law has some crippling limitations, both in theory and in practice. In theory, the idea of a perpetually expanding state is just as deluded as the 19th century ideal of perpetually expanding empire. Eventually, the state will run out of room to grow. This can be seen in France, where state spending has increased well beyond the point where it is genuinely useful. Much of what the French state spends goes on overly-generous public sector pay and pension schemes that do little to better the lives of the French people as a whole.

I strongly disagree with the application of Wagner’s Law to military spending. If anything, the amount we need to spend on the military has been reduced. America spends vast sums of money on conventional warfare- tanks, helicopters, etc, but there is very little evidence to suggest that this is making the country safer. Rather than spend money on traditional weapons and vehicles, military spending should be reduced and focused more on intelligence, cyber security and counter-terrorism. Israel is an excellent example of how this can be done; the country spends far less of its GDP on the military than it used to, despite facing far more conventional threats than the US. In America, military spending is increasing pork-barrel spending. Representatives from various states and districts lobby for military spending for their area, even if they know it comes at the expense of the country at large.

The belief that Wagner’s Law makes more federal spending inevitable is rather weak in my view, largely due to America’s federal system of government. Because it administers such a large area, federal spending on social security is always going to be considerably more inefficient than in the European countries American social democrats wished their country would emulate. For Europeans, it would be a bit like if the European Union tried to run health insurance- it would probably end badly. Rather, Americans- Democrats especially- ought to have more faith in the power of local government to deliver results. We’re already seeing the positive effects of California’s concerted efforts to improve their environment, in contravention to current federal EPA policy. I think a high degree of pragmatism as to which level of government administers the welfare state is needed, if people’s basic needs are to be met in the long term.

In terms of political strategy, Democrats should view Republican proposals for tax reform with an open mind, even if a crude  across the board rates reduction should be opposed. There’s nothing progressive about having an excessively complicated tax code. On the contrary, the lack of comprehensive tax reform has allowed large corporations to exploit loopholes, while smaller businesses must pay the high headline rates. Passing tax reform is far harder than changing tax rates, so Democrats should be prepared to compromise and vote for tax reform, even if the initial rates are lower than they would ideally like. Then, in the event of a Democratic presidency and Congress, those rates can always be raised if they see fit. Moreover, even if Democrats embrace Wagner’s Law regarding America’s particular situation, the conclusions of the law should not detract from ordinary voters’ concerns about government waste and mismanagement. The appeal of fiscal conservatism often lies in the view that government can’t spend money as well as individuals, however well intentioned government programmes may be. This has particular appeal in a large and inefficient country like the United States, so Democrats should ensure that taxpayers’ money is well spent before demanding more money from their constituents.

 

American cities and global climate change

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Harvey may have been unprecedented, but it wasn’t unexpected. Houston frequently experiences flooding and experts have repeatedly warned that worse could be to come as the world gets warmer.And yet Houston was shockingly unprepared, not least because its flood control directors think talk of climate change is a plot to prevent development, and its planning system fails to prevent building in the most at-risk areas.

It is only a matter of time before more “unprecedented” flooding hits the US. Next in line could be other major cities such as Miami, New York and Boston. Yet relatively little is being done. In fact, just days before Harvey struck, Donald Trump rescinded rules that mean federal infrastructure projects must take into account flood risks related to climate change.  Global warming may not have caused Hurricane Harvey to form, but it made the storm worse. Abnormally warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico fuelled the hurricane’s rapid intensification, enabling it to pump extraordinary amounts of moisture into the air over Texas.  Sea levels have risen 0.2 metres over the past century due to global warming. This also compounded the situation, slowing the drainage of flood waters and making the storm surge higher.  Finally, Harvey stalled for a long time after coming ashore, so huge amounts of rain fell in one area. This too might be linked to climate change. A growing number of studies suggest this makes weather systems more likely to get “stuck”.All these factors will conspire to increase the number and severity of extreme flooding events as global surface temperatures soar past 2°C above pre-industrial levels in the next few decades.

So who else is in the firing line? In terms of the number of people at risk, populous countries like India, Bangladesh and China naturally come top. Millions in these countries are already affected by river flooding every year. Indeed, this year, abnormally heavy monsoon rains have caused severe flooding across south-east Asia, killing at least 1200 people.However, America features prominently in a list of the coastal cities facing the biggest financial losses from flooding by 2050, according to a 2013 study. The top five are Guangzhou, Miami, New York, New Orleans and Mumbai.  In general, rich cities such as Amsterdam have much better flood protection than poorer cities in developing countries. But many wealthy American cities have low protection levels.  It is clear the US needs to do more. Part of the answer is to stop building homes in harm’s way. This is not just a problem in Houston: since the 1960s, the US has provided cheap, subsidised flood insurance that has encouraged development in high-risk areas. This scheme’s $24 billion debt is set to soar thanks to Harvey. Big infrastructure projects have a part to play, too. Massive barrier schemes similar to the one protecting London have long been considered for protecting places such as New York City, but have yet to get the go-ahead.  But it is simply not feasible to protect many areas, such as the vast swathes of Florida set to disappear under the waves over the next century. Abandoning those areas will be the only solution.  (Michael Le Page, New Scientist)

The problem is a climate of denial. “It cannot happen here; this is the United States of America”. But it can, and has. Parts of the Florida Keys were very badly affected by the recent hurricane, and yet people will still be retiring there and buying houses that should never have been built there and are just a foot or three above sea level. The most beautiful spot in Islamorada is as close to looking like a South Sea Island as you can imagine. We are still waiting to find out whether it is still in business. Last year the sandy beach was washed aeay. This year? For the owner it is a beautiful, but threatened, asset with a limited life.

Nature reserve turned over to mining

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Brazilian President Michel Temer has removed the protected status of a vast tract of the Amazon in order to open it up to mining. The national reserve – known as Renca – in the states of Amapá and Pará, covers 46,000 sq km (about the size of Denmark) and is rich in deposits of copper and gold. With Brazil emerging from a deep recession, the government insists that opening up the Amazon is necessary to attract foreign investment and boost exports – an argument that has cut no ice with environmentalists. “The abolition of Renca will wreak havoc on the forest and indigenous communities in the interests of the small group of economically powerful groups who are keeping Temer in power,” said Christian Poirier of Amazon Watch. (The Week, 1 Sept 2017).

This will also do absolutely nothing for the teeming crowds of poor people, jobless and living in the slums of the big cities, desperate people who, if they are lucky and have the money to do so, are leaving their homeland and trying to find jobs in the US or Europe.  One of the world’s most corrupt political crowd are doing this for the presumed personal and party backhanders.  It was this sort of thing that Epicurus warned us never to get involved with, but he never told us not to protest it.  Not even the last corrupt Brasilian government (as far as I know, although it wouldn’t surprise me) thought of destroying this huge area of the Amazon, and on this specious excuse. What is becoming of the world with so many disagreeable political regimes in power?