True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.Karl Popper, quoted in The Times
Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who find it.” Andre Gide(The Week 21 March 2020)
Air pollution
Air pollution from burning fossil fuels is responsible for more than 4m premature deaths around the world each year and costs the global economy about $8bn a day, according to a study from Greenpeace. Puts the effects of the virus into proportion somewhat. Separately, analysis by the World Wildlife Fund estimates that loss of nature will wipe £368bn a year off global economic growth by 2050. Pollution leads, among other things, to a loss of the habitats which provide homes for marine life, supports fisheries and gives natural protection against flooding and erosion. (Guardian 12 Feb 2020)
My take: Now, suddenly, the air is more breathable, and the seawater in Venice is apparently clearer than anyone has seen it for decades. Where I live we are on the flight path into the, very busy, local airport. Flights normally end and around 11p.m and start again at 6 a.m. The racket is constant, although one tunes it out. I rely on the first flights of the day to get me up at crack of dawn; I am now over-sleeping without the noisy “alarm”. In addition, the traffic is reduced on the street where we live. The main, and best, result is a freshness and clarity of air which hits you on leaving the house. One can also park the car more easily, as well. Two silver linings to the crisis, even if we are not using the car.
Offer a compliment, or give the bad news first?
Question to agony aunt: “When giving negative feedback, is it better to start with the admonition and end with a compliment, or vice versa?”. (Gillian Peall, Macclesfield, Cheshire, UK)
First answer: “Definitely give the compliment first. Knowing you have done something right may make the negative feedback more acceptable. Giving the bad news first can make the compliment seem patronising or condescending.” (Julia Barrett, Oakhill, Somerset, UK)
Second answer: “When I ran my company, I used a technique called sandwich criticism. You start by commenting on something good about the person, then move to the negative and finish on a positive. If you start with a negative, a person’s defences go up and they can hardly hear anything else you say. This is also true about the use of “but” or “however” as they are triggers for defensive behaviours. There are those who say that this method is rather stale and can sound contrived, but it is up to you to make sure that it isn’t. (Ron Dippold, San Diego, California)
Third answer: “It depends on the severity of the issue, and the sensitivity of the recipient. A repeat bad actor will grasp any compliment as a straw to continue their behavior, so it may be counterproductive.
“For best results, the answer is to do both, also known as bookending. Offer a compliment, give the admonition, describe what bad effects it has for them and other people, then end with the positive benefits of fixing the issue.”. (Robert Willis, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada)
Fourth answer: “Various studies have found that employees want more feedback, not less. A global survey by OfficeVibe in 2016 found that 82 per cent of employees appreciate feedback, whether it is positive or negative. Standard advice used to be to “sandwich” negative feedback between positive comments. This has been shown to be less than effective: employees quickly recognise that the positives are only window dressing and so all comments are considered dubious and disingenuous.
”Tactful honesty is the best approach. Being direct and polite makes employees feel respected. Constructive criticism offers both a critique and a solution. Research shows that people don’t quit jobs, they quit managers. Learning appropriate people skills can go a long way“. (Tim Lewis, Landshipping,Pembrokeshire, UK)
Fifth answer: The classical sandwich of praise, criticism, praise often fails as the employees cotton on. Asking the employee if they are open to feedback and then asking them for comments on their own behaviour or performance, good or bad, is more productive. (Terry Gillen, Tring, Hertfordshire, UK)
Sixth answer: “Neither. The problem with mixing praise and criticism is that the feedback becomes “contaminated”, causing confusion. A more effective approach is to begin with an objective acknowledgement with which both parties can agree. Then state clearly the change you want, and finally provide a reason to make the change.
”As I said to my son once when he was very young and angry with me: “When you speak to me like that, I have difficulty listening to you. If you take a few deep breaths and say it again in your normal tone of voice, I promise I’ll listen.”. (Simon Phillips, London, UK)
Seventh answer: I’ve spent countless hours in training sessions on giving feedback. One thing seems clear: the order in which you give feedback doesn’t really matter. What’s important are your intentions and soft skills.
- Do you genuinely want to help the other person by kindly indicating where improvements could be made?
- Are you sensitive to the other person’s feelings? Can you see their point of view or sense when someone is becoming defensive? If the conversational flow needs to change, do you have the words ready to effect that change? Can you be funny or engaging? Can you use eye contact and friendly body language to reassure?
“If you can master such skills, the order in which you deliver feedback becomes irrelevant.” (Pauline Grant, Business psychologist, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, UK)
And from the agony aunt: ”Please consider carefully if feedback is needed at all. If someone has behaved in a way you judge to be substandard or inappropriate, check first how they view the situation. Ask questions – real, open questions – and listen to the answers.
”Mostly we know when we have made a mistake, and someone else pointing it out is at best unnecessary and at worst deeply patronising. If they don’t know that they have made a mistake, it may be that a conversation is appropriate. The result will tell you if your feedback is likely to be helpful. Finally, being open and humble will always help with the outcome.”
The Shame of Child Poverty
The plight of impoverished children anywhere should evoke sympathy, exemplifying as it does the suffering of the innocent and defenseless. Poverty among children in a wealthy country like the United States, however, should provoke. shame and outrage as well.
Unlike poor countries (sometimes run by leaders more interested in lining their pockets than anything else), what excuse does the United States have for its striking levels of child poverty? After all, it has the world’s 10th highest per capita income at $62,795 at and a gross domestic product (GDP) of $21.3 trillion. Despite that, in 2020, an estimated 11.9 million American children — 16.2% of the total — live below the official poverty line, which is a paltry $25,701 for a family of four with two kids. Put another way, according to the Children’s Defense Fund, kids now constitute one-third of the 38.1 million Americans classified as poor and 70% of them have at least one working parent — so poverty can’t be chalked up to parental indolence. (Rajan Menon, Tom Dispatch 3 Feb 2020).
My take: I regret to say that this situation is not going to change anytime soon. The country is firmly in the grip of those whose dearest wish is to emulate the group of billionaires, who pay, in terms of taxable percentage of wealth, less than their secretaries, chauffeurs and gardeners. It’s going to take a sea change in the attitude to American capitalism and social fairness before any kind of leveling out occurs, however careful and gentle. And this has to start with a change of heart among the evangelical christians and the hard-heads at Fox News. If these people soften their hearts and realize that the country is headed in quite the wrong direction, resulting in decline, not greatness, then America could be equitable and fair.
Yes, this is, unapologetically, is a political statement, but not a party political statement. There is no reason on earth why the champions of uncompromising capitalism cannot moderate their opposition to, say healthcare, to mention just one vital issue. If we don’t start treating one another with consideration the results are not worth contemplating. Epicurus ( plus a host of other wise people) would agree; there is nothing wrong with compromise and a feeling of community.
Why Americans are dying young
IAmericans’ lives are getting shorter. A new study has shown that life expectancy in the US, which rose steadily over the past half-century, has now fallen for three years running. The downward trend is the result of an alarming hike in mortality rates among those between the ages of 25 and 64. Americans in the prime of adult life are increasingly succumbing to so-called “deaths of despair”, through drug or alcohol abuse, suicide, obesity and chronic stress. This phenomenon was once thought to be limited to rural white America, but the new study shows that it has spread to the suburbs and cuts across gender, racial and ethnic lines. In the words of the lead author of the report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Steven H. Woolf, the rise in premature deaths is evidence that, in America today, “there’s something terribly wrong”.
The opioid epidemic is one of the main culprits, said Joel Achenbach in The Washington Post. Mortality from drug overdoses among working-age women in the US jumped by an astonishing 486% between 1999 and 2017; among men in the same period, it increased by 351%. Obesity has also played a big part. “The average woman in America today weighs as much as the average man half a century ago, and men now weigh about 30 pounds more.” But the problem is much wider than that. Mortality has increased across 35 causes of death. Whether as a result of economic hardship, stress, the lack of universal healthcare, loneliness or family breakdown, people just aren’t looking after themselves properly, and are making destructive life choices.
This is a “distinctly American phenomenon”, said Jorge L. Ortiz in USA Today. The US has the worst midlife mortality rate among 17 high-income countries, despite spending more than any other nation on healthcare. When it comes to life expectancy, other wealthy countries “left the US behind in the 1980s” and have widened the gap ever since. Average longevity in Japan is 84.1; in France, 82.4; in Canada, 81.9; in the UK, 81.2. In America, by contrast, it has fallen to 78.6.
We need to tackle this disparity, for the sake of creating a happier, healthier country, and because our economic well-being depends on it. If we don’t fix it, we’ll all pay the price. (The Week, 7 Dec 2019)
Heartlessness
Part of Associate Editor, Jeremy Warner’s, article for the Daily Telegraph on 3 March read as follows:
“In the First World War outbreak there was thus a lasting impact on supply, with many families suffering the loss of the primary bread-winner. This is quite unlikely to occur this time around. Not to put too fine a point on it, from an entirely disinterested economic perspective, the Covid-19 might even prove mildly beneficial in the long term by disproportionately culling elderly dependents”.
Formulated in semi-technical and anodyne terms for the most part (‘a lasting impact on supply’, ‘mildly beneficial’, neat opposition between ‘bread-winner’ and ‘dependents’), the piece tries to look neutral. But the word ‘cull’ is truly shocking – and resonates in a paper that actively advocates the culling of badgers and deer.
Warner is a senior editor, not a stringer or occasional contributor. The strong association between the Telegraph, Tories and the prime minister is well known in the UK. The average age of the paper’s readership is 61. It maintains an almost inflammatory right-wing editorial policy about the EU, the National Health Service, economics and tax policy – in fact, most political issues. Culling elderly dependents is about par for the course. Getting people to follow the strong advice of health professionals, and looking out for vulnerable neighbours, are not a priorities. The irony is that the readership represents a population most likely to die from the virus and to the slashing of health spending beloved of conservative policies in past years.
It is strange how people seem to vote for and support those who in reality threaten their health and economic stability. Were Epicurus alive today he would be wanting to protect the old, the vulnerable and the poor, who are as entitled to health, peace of mind and a pleasant life as the well-off.
Fifty years of environmental regulations scrapped
The following are just a few of the reversals of environmental protection laws in the last three or so years.
1. Pulling out of the Paris climate accord.
2. Easing of the regulation of methane emissions.
3. Scale-back of requirements for storing and releasing waste from coal-fired power plants
4. Increase in allowable levels of the herbicide Atrazine for use with crops and lawns.
5. Blocking of stricter efficiency requirements for common light bulbs.
6. Rescinding of the Clean Water Act for streams and wetlands
7. Reduction of the acreage of protected land in the US.
8. Opening of more than 180,000 acres of national forest to logging
9. Global emissions of HFC23 ( hydrofluorocarbon gas), a chemical expelled from cooling systems, and 12 times more potent than carbon dioxide, are increasing at an all- time record rate
If you agree with these measures you are not an Epicurean! If you still feel global climate change is a scam and you should be allowed to trash the natural world at will, well, words fail me…..
Epicureanism in practice
My wife and I qualify for being in the “vulnerable” section of the population, owing to our ages. Over the last two or three days, kind neighbors have come to our front door and have offered to run any errands we need in order to avoid us endangering ourselves in crowded food stores and long payment lines.
Isn’t that wonderful and heart-warning ? Community solidarity and caring for others!
The reality, in a large city, is that ownership of houses in our neighborhood changes rapidly, and we have lost track of exactly who some of our neighbors are. We do, of course, know the people who have come to our door, and bless them for that! Party politics are being ignored in the cause of common good. May this caring spirit continue and expand everywhere!
Half of UK 10-year-olds own a smartphone
Fifty per cent of the UK’s 10-year-olds owned a smartphone in 2019, according to a report by media regulator Ofcom. The number of young phone owners doubled between the ages of nine and 10, which Ofcom dubbed “the age of digital independence”. In addition, 24% of 3 and 4-year-olds had their own tablet, and 15% of them were allowed to take it to bed ( oh, dear! Ed)
Ofcom’s annual report looks at the media habits of children, and the types of devices they are using. The 2019 study was based on more than 3,200 interviews with children and parents around the UK. Among other things, it found that more older children were using social media to express their support for social causes and organisations, with 18% having shared or commented on a post, and one in ten having signed an online petition. (which is great! Ed)
Other key findings for 2019 included:
- 48% of girls aged 5-15 played online games, compared with 71% of boys. Boys spent twice as long playing, clocking up 14.5 hours per week, compared with 7.5 for girls
- Snapchat and Facebook remained the most popular social media platforms of older children, but 62% were also using WhatsApp (up from 43% in 2018)
- 99% of children aged 5-15 used a TV set, 27% used a smart speaker and 22% used a radio
- 80% of the children in the report watched video-on-demand, and 25% watched no live broadcast TV at all. One nine-year-old girl told researchers: “I don’t really like the TV because you can’t pick what channels are on it”.
Ofcom also interviewed parents about their concerns. It found that 45% of parents thought the benefits of children using the internet outweighed the risks, but there was an increase the number of parents who worry about young people seeing hateful content online and material that might lead children to self-harm.
Just under half (47%) of the parents spoken to were worried about pressure to spend money within games, especially on loot boxes, where the reward is not clear before purchase. And 87% of parents with children aged between 5 and 15 had sought advice about how to keep them safe online, and there are many more conversations about staying safe online across the country. ( An edited version of an article by Zoe KleinmanTechnology reporter, BBC News)
My comment: I fear that these phones are often a parental cop-out; that is, you give them this “toy” to keep them quiet and occupied, but the question is what are are really seeing on these websites, and how is it affecting their confidence and self-image, not to mention their view of the adult world?
For a start Snapchat, Facebook , Whatsapp and the rest should be held to account for all sleazy content, violence, threats, grooming and exploitation. If they can’t police their offering they should get a proper jobs! I think this situation is very unhealthy, mentally and physically , too – they should be doing less sedentary activities.
Can planting trees save civilization?
Recently, the World Economic Forum launched 1t.org, a plan to plant a trillion trees. Even Donald Trump, who has withdrawn the US from the Paris agreement, has backed the initiative.
But can trees store enough carbon to buy us time to act on climate change?
A recent paper said 0.9 billion hectares could lock up 205 gigatonnes of CO2. Including land-use change, such as forests being cleared for farming, but the research was criticized because some think the research makes it seem like trees can do more than they can, exaggerates the amount of usable there is, and how much carbon could be stored. In response. A more feasible amount of CO2, it is claimed, could be 3 to 4 gigatonnes a year.
However, the research has prodded Shell Oil to spend $300m over 3 years on re-afforestation to generate carbon credits for itself and others. Whether this can make a real dent in climate change is another matter. Emissions have to be cut as well, and trees have to be planted at the right place and time. The species also have to be suitable for the climate and the soil where they are planted. The subject is very complicated owing to the huge variety of, say, oaks, birches and other species.
In order to lock up CO2 for centuries local people have to support the effort, understand the value of trees, have a say when and where the trees are planted, and protect the trees once they are planted. There is an idea that there is lots of underused land, which is a myth.
Lastly, if the CO2 locked away is to be accounted for properly, we will need to monitor reforestation for a long time. That is tricky. Deforestation is easy to spot – satellites show areas turning from green to brown. But they find it hard to detect new trees, which for the first few years will be tiny saplings hard to discern from space. Higher resolution images may help.
Meanwhile de-forestation is getting worse. Between 2014 and 2018 the world has lost forests the size of the whole UK , especially in the Amazon and Australia (Adapted from an article New Scientist 29 Feb 2020).
My comment: We are talking about nothing other than mankind’s continued peaceful and pleasant life of the planet, because there is no other suitable nearby planet to evacuate to. There are far too many people who claim this is all a lefty, made-up fuss, just as corona virus is a “short interlude” and will be over when the weather warms. How do we get our neighbours on the same page for the sake of our children and grandchildren? Repeated storms, fires, and medical emergencies beckon.
Testing for the corona virus: my experience
I returned with my wife by air from Florida, coughing a bit and feeling unwell and having sat next to an oriental gentleman who boarded the plane wearing an elaborate mask – then took it off ( I have no evidence that he was sick, but it spooked me nonetheless).
Two days later I was due to attend physical therapy at the local hospital. On entering the hospital I was greeted by a member of staff. Spontaneously, without thinking (but feeling weak, disoriented and generally lousy) I asked whether the hospital was now testing for the corona virus. Better safe than sorry, I thought, but realizing It could be a total red herring. The staff member personally accompanied me to the appropriate department, where I was seen by a doctor ten minutes later.
After about 15 minutes a nurse then came in and inserted a probe up my nostrils as far as it would go, twice. I was very painful and unexpected. She told me she needed samples, one for pneumonia and influenza (results almost immediate), and the second for the corona virus. The nurse told me that everyone cried out – the quick procedure is very uncomfortable.
Later that afternoon the doctor herself phoned me at home to say I was clear of pneumonia and flu, and was to return home and self- pisolate as if I actually had the virus.
That was this on Tuesday. Yesterday, Thursday, the doctor phoned to say I had no sign of the corona virus.
I tell this story just so that you know how the medics proceed, but also to praise the amazing, polite, quick and efficient service. Part of the quick response was probably owing to my age, but I am still quietly astonished, given all the adverse commentary. The national system might freaky, but in this case I cannot praise the system enough.
The 20-second hand wash
All my other drafts are a bit anodyne at the moment, whereas you, dear reader, are undoubtedly tuned in The Virus. I thought the following was quite useful, and I haven’t seen it in detail elsewhere: The way to wash your hands.
”Many people don’t wash their hands correctly. They may think 10 seconds is enough. No. They may just rub a little soap between the palms and ignore other parts of the hand. And if you do a slipshod job, the coronavirus pathogens will still be on your hands when you’re done. And if you touch your hands to your face — as humans do about 200 times a day — those pathogens can infect you via eyes, nose or mouth.
”It doesn’t matter whether the water is warm or cold, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains on its website. And antibacterial soap works just as well as regular soap. But running water is key, since standing water could be contaminated.
”You need to clean the areas between your fingers, as well as your thumb and the backs of your hands, Dr. Mark Gendreau, the chief medical officer at Beverly Hospital in Massachusetts, told NPR: Scratch your palms in order “to scrub the fingertips and to get some soap under the initial part of the nail,” he adds.
”Wash for at least 20 seconds — singing the “Happy Birthday” song twice or the alphabet song at a reasonable pace will usually get you to that benchmark. (Maxwell Posner & Elena Renken, NPR News, March 7, 2020).
If you feel like singing at all.
Corruption in Eastern Europe
The EU is turning a blind eye to a giant “scam” in eastern Europe, says The New York Times. Hungary’s nationalist PM, Viktor Orbán, was the first to spot the opportunity: his government sold huge tracts of state-owned land to oligarchs and political allies, ensuring their support by enabling them to claim vast sums in EU agricultural subsidies each year. It’s “galling” that Orbán blames the EU for “every imagined indignity” while “milking billions” to prop up his illiberal rule. Across the region, these subsidies have become “a lavish slush fund for political insiders”.
Companies owned by the Czech PM Andrej Babiš pocketed $42m from farm subsidies last year; in Bulgaria, just 100 “land barons” picked up 75% of the country’s agricultural subsidies in 2016; in Slovakia, an “agricultural Mafia” has pushed small farmers off their land.
What really grates is that EU bureaucrats know all about these practices, but won’t act. They believe interfering with subsidies provided under the Common Agricultural Policy would be seen as infringing on national sovereignty. Unfortunately, this approach has failed to stop the corrupt and powerful enriching themselves with public money. (The New York Times)
My comment: This is not news and is not confined to Eastern Europe. Rich Brits are doing exactly the same thing. Mr.Rees-Mogg, an ardent Brexiteer, prominent Tory and very rich, owns huge country estates and claims off the very organization (the EU) that he effects to despise. Having made a fortune he has “had his meal”, is sated in profit and is happy to leave the EU. Be sure, nonetheless, that the British government will continue to reward him and other large landowners, as before. All this is horrendously unEpicurean. Corruption always is.
Rules of life
Question:
”I’m in my late 20s and I’m feeling more and more constrained by rules. From the endless signs that tell me to ‘stand on the right’ on escalators or ‘skateboarding forbidden’ in public places to all those unwritten societal rules such as the expectation that I should settle down, buy a house and have a family. Do we really need all these rules, why should I follow them and what would happen if we all ignored them?” Will, 28, London.
Answer:
We all feel the oppressive presence of rules, both written and unwritten – it’s practically a rule of life. Public spaces, organisations, dinner parties, even relationships and casual conversations are rife with regulations and red tape that seemingly are there to dictate our every move. We rail against rules being an affront to our freedom, and argue that they’re “there to be broken”.
But as a behavioural scientist I believe that it is not really rules, norms and customs in general that are the problem – but the unjustified ones. The tricky and important bit, perhaps, is establishing the difference between the two.
A good place to start is to imagine life in a world without rules. Apart from our bodies following some very strict and complex biological laws, without which we’d all be doomed, the very words I’m writing now follow the rules of English. In Byronic moments of artistic individualism, I might dreamily think of liberating myself from them. But would this new linguistic freedom really do me any good or set my thoughts free? (from “Life’s Big Questions”, answered by the BBC’s “The Conversation”).
My comment: Written and unwritten rules are what allow us all to live together, however uneasily, without constant bickering and even violence. Just as generosity, politeness and consideration – Epicurean virtues – grease the wheels of human interaction, so do rules, such as the side of the road you drive on (to be rather obvious), and thanking people who kindly help us (not always so obvious) – these allow us to conduct our daily lives as seamlessly as possible, without constant bickering and raised blood pressure. I’m glad there is a rule that jails those who cheat and steal things that don’t belong to them.
We should be glad to have the rules, inconvenient though some may be. Does the reader have any rules he or she cherishes – or heartily dislikes?
Gender bias
Almost 90% of people are biased against women, according to a new index that highlights the “shocking” global backlash to gender equality. The UN Development Programme (UNDP), which produced the findings, is calling on governments to introduce legislation and policies that address engrained prejudice. Despite progress in closing the equality gap, 91% of men and 86% of women hold at least one bias against women regarding politics, economics, education, violence or reproductive rights. It found that almost half of people feel men are superior political leaders and more than 40% believe men make better business executives. (Guardian, 4 March 2020).
No one purporting to follow the ideas of Epicurus should be gender- biased. Period. As for men being better political leaders and business executives, that is total nonsense.
But by coincidence I was having a conversation with my wife about the difficulties of trying to run a business employing roughly 50-50 men and women, something I know about personally (now history). We had a policy of giving three weeks paid sick leave a year to all employees, full of part-time. We were always stretched, and if anyone was away sick, their work had to be done by someone, adding to the stress. (I remember confronting one female employees who took her precise three weeks paid sickness allowance every year, and who told me to my face that it was “part of her holiday entitlement”. This was cheeky and ridiculous, but nothing to do with gender).
What was more troublesome was that the women were constantly staying away from work because children were on holiday or were sick, or some older relative needed their help. This was a daily event for one employee or other. Who will it be today? (They also had more genuine sickness absences, although that was not their fault.)
I realize that society still expects women to be the nurturers and home keepers, and that makes doing a full- time job difficult to navigate. But constant absences are also resented by the people in the company who have to fill in for them. Because this resentment, if openly expressed, sounds mean and petty, most people grumbled to themselves and sighed. But it is a problem feminist activists and elevated employees on the UNDP do not address and can be a real human problem. It was regarded as unfair on women and men who had no children or elderly relatives. I resented it myself, to be honest.