Sunday Cutdown XVIII (31 March 2024)
Clearing my inbox of stories I want to document
1) Anthropocene, Shmanthropocene
NBC NEWS: Melting polar ice is slowing the Earth's rotation, with possible consequences for timekeeping
The geology Grand Poobahs were recently unwilling to re-name our current planetary epoch the Anthropocene (Human Epoch) because he couldn’t agree on a single start date (and because it needs its evidence set in stone — literally).
And yet, the evidence gets wilder by the day.
If this doesn’t trip you out, nothing will:
Global warming has slightly slowed the Earth’s rotation — and it could affect how we measure time.
A study published Wednesday found that the melting of polar ice — an accelerating trend driven primarily by human-caused climate change — has caused the Earth to spin less quickly than it would otherwise.
The author of the study, Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, said that as ice at the poles melts, it changes where the Earth’s mass is concentrated. The change, in turn, affects the planet’s angular velocity.
Agnew compared the dynamic to a figure skater twirling on ice: “If you have a skater who starts spinning, if she lowers her arms or stretches out her legs, she will slow down,” he said. But if a skater’s arms are drawn inward, the skater will twirl faster.
Less solid ice at the poles, then, means more mass around the equator — Earth’s waist.
First, that is a fabulous analogy — the figure skater thing, because TV commentators have been explaining that bit for decades now, so it’s readily accessible to people.
Second, short of Superman going back in time by counter-spinning the planet, this feels like we’re taking humanity’s impact on the planet to an entirely new level.
The study suggests, in other words, that human influence has monkeyed with a force that scholars, stargazers and scientists have puzzled over for millennia — something long considered a constant that was out of humanity’s control.
“It’s kind of impressive, even to me, we’ve done something that measurably changes how fast the Earth rotates,” Agnew said. “Things are happening that are unprecedented.”
Don’t believe it, know it.
2) India making the list-ing
CNBC: Indian bonds are set to be added to global indexes. Here’s why it could be a gamechanger
The gist of this good news:
The decision to include Indian government bonds in two prominent global indexes recently is being viewed as a shot in the arm for the rapidly growing country and is expected to bring in billions of inflows.
India’s bonds will be added to the JPMorgan Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets (GBI-EM) in June, the Wall Street lender announced in September.
The JPMorgan inclusion is reportedly India’s first ever inclusion in a global bond index.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg Index Services’ followed suit, announcing it will be adding Indian government bonds to its Emerging Market Local Currency Government Index from Jan. 31, 2025.
Such inclusions, analysts noted, could lead to billions of dollars worth of inflows into India’s rupee-denominated government debt. As demand rises, bond yields fall, supporting the local currency.
The list of good effects at the end:
Diversifies India’s funding sources
Relieves pressure on domestic investors
Drives funding costs lower
Aids India’s fiscal position
Eliminates the need to have to issue U.S. dollar sovereign debt
Encourages further capital market development.
A very positive sign of rising India, which is good news for the world.
3) Solar power as a national security issue
FOREIGN POLICY: How Europe’s Solar Industry Can Be Saved
Just an interesting article to spot.
It starts by highlighting this EU move to increase domestic production capacity for renewables:
On Feb. 6, the European Council and European Parliament made a significant agreement in the fight against climate change. The Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA) establishes a benchmark for the European Union to manufacture 40 percent of expected demand in clean technologies by 2030.
Then it frames that development as an “energy security” (meaning national security) win.
To me, this is a second-order effect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Now, Europe doesn’t want to rely on China for energy (technology) either.
Any way you want it, that’s the way you need it.
4) America’s Lampedusa (the shortest distance between two countries)
NEWSWEEK: China Migrants Flooding US Island Raises Alarms
Lampedusa is the promised (Italian) land for African migrants crossing the Med.
No mystery why.
Bit ironic: in the Before Time, claiming islands was great. Lately, it’s mostly about fishing rights (Exclusive Economic Zones) and offshore mineral extraction.
But going forward? Bit of a burden, right?
Well, Guam is becoming America’s Lampedusa in the West Pac: shortest route to America for fleeing Chinese.
The insult to injury?
They’re coming most immediately from the Northern Mariana Islands — another US territory that officially joined the US the year I got married (1986).
If American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands were combined into a single U.S. state, the total population would be around 250,875 people. The combined land area of these three territories would be approximately 492 square miles. This would make it one of the smallest states in terms of land area, slightly larger than Rhode Island. Population-wise, it would also be the smallest states — roughly half the size of Wyoming at 580k.
I’d like to see a US state in the Western Pacific. Great signal to the Chinese. End tiered membership and tiered citizenship.
One person, one vote.
No taxation without representation.
5) Looming job loss in the US military
DEFENSE NEWS: The robots are coming: US Army experiments with human-machine warfare
INTERESTING ENGINEERING: US Forces drill with Ghost drones, robot dogs to sync battle signals
Look at this picture and tell me which of the two military assets can be lost without any political blowback:
Same thing here:
The quote says it all:
The demonstration was a glimpse of the Army’s future, according to top officials. Gen. James Rainey, who leads Army Futures Command, expects the service’s future force to be so integrated with machines that humans will face a much lower risk.
“We will never again trade blood for first contact,” he frequently says, promising to deploy robots instead.
Therein begins the Military Singularity, because that line is going to keep being pushed deeper into the conflict spectrum, from first contact to major combat to …
For now, the US military touts “humans and drones fighting as one.”
But guess what?
Once figured out as an operational asset, there’s no training costs for those dog robots. No food costs. No medical costs. No retirement costs.
Eventually it becomes robots and drones fighting as one — the new jointness.
6) Why capitalism ain’t enough on climate change
TIME: Capitalism Can’t Solve Climate Change
Arrived at this discussion point time and again with Corps of Cadets at Virginia Tech on Thursday: How are we going to get investors to take the risk of directing capital flows to vulnerable states in your Middle Earth?
Short answer is, it won’t happen without political interventions.
But America has a long history of such political interventions when it comes to encouraging the conditions by which state accession was achieved — largely in the form of frontier integration.
Today, emerging markets are the frontiers of globalization, so same concepts and dynamics apply.
Here, the same basic argument is used for the clean energy transition:
The world is failing on the energy transition for reasons that strike at the heart of capitalist economies, and which will therefore be very difficult to surmount. The core issue here is easy to state. Most countries are relying predominantly on the private sector to drive faster renewables investment; private firms invest on the basis of expected profits; but profitability in renewables is rarely attractive.
Stick with an approach to climate change mitigation in which the private sector continues to be seen as the savior, and we are setting ourselves up to continue to fail.
You have government to do things that markets cannot do or cannot do well enough. Governments can and should prime the pump, and then step back and let the private sector work its magic.
So, intervene early and often and then let things mature on their own.
It’s much like parenting.
It’s also a good mindset for America in terms of competing with China across the Global South. If we continue to lead with Official Developmental Aid (ODA) and sanctions, we’re going to lose every relevant macro-economic transition stemming from the emergence of a global majority middle class.
This ain’t about socialism or any other of those oft-tossed epithets.
This is about winning or losing.
7) It is fair to say that Israel is trying
NEWSWEEK: Israel Has Created a New Standard for Urban Warfare. No One Will Admit It
When I wrote about the US military splitting into two types of forces — one focused on classic defense (Leviathan Force) and the other on security operations (SysAdmin Force), I argued that the two would have a very different relationship with international law. Basically, the Leviathan faces no constraints (total war) while the SysAdmin must go above and beyond in respecting any and all such legal restrictions.
What we have in the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) right now in Gaza is an attempt to exert force like the Leviathan (as close to total destruction as one can get) while acting like the SysAdmin (supreme care in avoiding civilian casualties during the operations themselves).
In its harsh logic of eradicating Gaza as a threat vector, this is essentially ethnic cleansing with a human face.
Understand: that’s not the same as genocide, so those charges are wrong. Ethnic cleansing is about ridding an area of a certain undesirable people by destroying their homes and communities, driving them off and — yes — killing those who put up a fight.
And that’s a close-enough description of what Israel is doing to Palestinians in Gaza — again, because they want that threat vector gone, gone, gone, and they don’t care what it costs them.
Hamas knew it was going to get a big response — an over-reaction that would shock the world, and they’re getting it.
On Israel’s part, it is a bizarre effort in many ways: operating like a police force in preparation and follow-up while blasting away murderously in the ops themselves and then basically taking their leave of the aftermath (i.e., the extreme suffering of those who remain in-place, refusing to abandon the place).
It’s like offering superb medical care to the inmate on death row. In the end, you still want them gone, gone, gone.
From this nuanced and yet still troubling expert opinion piece:
The Israel Defense Forces conducted an operation at al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip to root out Hamas terrorists recently, once again taking unique precautions as it entered the facility to protect the innocent; Israeli media reported that doctors accompanied the forces to help Palestinian patients if needed. They were also reported to be carrying food, water and medical supplies for the civilians inside.
None of this meant anything to Israel's critics, of course, who immediately pounced. The critics, as usual, didn't call out Hamas for using protected facilities like hospitals for its military activity. Nor did they mention the efforts of the IDF to minimize civilian casualties.
In their criticism, Israel's opponents are erasing a remarkable, historic new standard Israel has set. In my long career studying and advising on urban warfare for the U.S. military, I've never known an army to take such measures to attend to the enemy's civilian population, especially while simultaneously combating the enemy in the very same buildings. In fact, by my analysis, Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history—above and beyond what international law requires and more than the U.S. did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I have no doubt that this analysis is spot-on and the praise legitimate. And I credit the Israelis for making the effort.
But it is also clear that Israel is methodically wiping out Gaza as an entity, letting the chips fall where they may with those Palestinians still in-theater.
So we are left with this dichotomy: 1) extreme care exhibited around the operations and 2) firm determination as to its execution and cruel indifference as to its follow-on effects.
8) Somebody’s going to be left holding this bag
CNN: Trump’s Truth Social is now a public company. Experts warn its multibillion-dollar valuation defies logic
It is the perfect metaphor for Trump’s appeal and rise: an amazing sales job promoting something of clearly shallow value.
This is vaporware shamelessly brought to market: it will never be what it is claiming to be.
If it was just this at stake, it’d be super-fun to watch: the age-old con job.
Instead, I fear that Millennials, Zs, and Alphas are going to be left holding the bag that is one-helluva-messed-up America.
9) Organized religion in America is bleeding subscribers
NPR: People say they're leaving religion due to anti-LGBTQ teachings and sexual abuse
The trajectory is clear:
People in the U.S. are leaving and switching faith traditions in large numbers. The idea of "religious churning" is very common in America, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
The reasons are clear:
As for why people leave their religions, PRRI found that about two-thirds (67%) of people who leave a faith tradition say they did so because they simply stopped believing in that religion's teachings.
And nearly half (47%) of respondents who left cited negative teaching about the treatment of LGBTQ people …
Other reasons cited for leaving: clergy sexual abuse and over-involvement in politics.
Yup, that would be #1, #2, and #3 for me alright.
Church stops being the safe harbor from the cruel world. Instead, it echoes the cruel world.
10) All together now: China needs to boost domestic demand
SALTWIRE: China told it faces 'fork in the road' as officials meet CEOs
The chorus grows louder:
China needs to "reinvent itself" with economic policies to speed resolution of its property market crisis and boost domestic consumption and productivity, the International Monetary Fund's Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Sunday.
"China faces a fork in the road — rely on the policies that have worked in the past, or reinvent itself for a new era of high-quality growth," Georgieva said in remarks to a meeting of senior Chinese officials and executives from global companies.
Xi has it within his powers to set this path in motion: announce that he’s stepping down and that the next generation of leaders needs to step up with new ideas and policies.
That alone would pry open the pocketbooks of Chinese consumers, who otherwise see only retrenchment and increasingly ideological rigidity on the current path.
The China Dream no longer features a happy ending.
This is the moment of truth for the CCP: if it wants China’s middle class to spend the nation’s way out of this ongoing slump, it has to propose a future that that middle class sees as revolving around its needs, wants, and desires — to include continued incrementalism toward a more open political system.
Otherwise, that middle class is going to continue saving up for the bad times they are certain will come with Xi’s unlimited rule.
They will also “vote” their displeasure by refusing to have children.
11) The boo-hoo factor on old buildings in a rising economic giant
SCMP: Why are India’s monuments disappearing? – ‘a bit of an epidemic’
This story reminds me of those about Beijing clearing out these historic but rickety neighborhoods in anticipation of the 2008 Olympics there.
The outside world tends to want to romanticize the “rising” nation’s past, arguing to preserve, preserve, and preserve, while, for the most part, the locals are all-in on revitalizing through redevelopment.
India is a stunningly old civilization on par with China, and there is an amazing wealth of old buildings that have reached monument status.
But India is also rising, and when that happens, priorities change.
India’s population surge in recent years has fuelled demand for new buildings and infrastructure, leading developers to encroach on heritage sites or even demolish them, according to heritage experts.
Many monuments have been destroyed during road widening and the building of highways or had their structures torn down by residents who used the rubble as building materials.
So why aren’t all these old-buildings-equal-monuments protected?
The reasons include:
Not enough money
Not enough staff
Weak conservation methods
Poor management, and — most tellingly
“Lack of connection between the monuments and local communities.”
Risers tend to move fast and break things — including buildings old enough to qualify as monuments to its past.
Unless the locals can’t live without it, outsiders (who’ve often done no better back home) need to let it go.
12) Parsing the rise of “Some Other Race”
WAPO: U.S. updates how it classifies people by race, ethnicity for first time in decades
The development long in the making:
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget announced Thursday it would combine questions about race and ethnicity on federal forms and encourage people to select multiple options if applicable. The government also will add “Middle Eastern or North African” (MENA) as a new category for the combined question, which will include seven total choices.
The changes mark the first time since 1997 that the OMB has revised a policy on the federal collection of such data.
“This is truly a momentous day,” said Meeta Anand, senior director for census and data equity at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a national coalition of over 200 civil rights groups. The combined question, she added, is “one of the biggest changes we’ve ever seen.”
Despite that lead citation, the move is primarily a response to the growing ranks of an ethnicity (Latino) that America has long treated like a race, when, of course, Latinos now encompass pretty much all races when you consider the length and breadth of the Western Hemisphere and how we’ve blended the major races of the Eastern Hemisphere — over here — for half a millennia now, “thanks” to European colonialism.
The problem was this:
Advocates have especially pushed for a combined question on race and ethnicity, with research showing that the separate questions have hindered data collection among Latino respondents.
“Since many Latinos do not see themselves in any of the race categories under the current standards, a large proportion (nearly 44 percent) select ‘Some Other Race’ or skip the race question entirely,” Anand’s group said last year in a document outlining its case for a combined question.
The 2020 Census marked the first time that “Some Other Race” rose to the second-largest racial group in the United States.
“Some Other Race.”
“Unchurched.”
“Unaffiliated.”
“Independent.”
Notice how those terms keep popping up more and more, reflecting a growing gap between, on the one hand, outdated and out-of-touch measures and institutions, and, on the other hand, the far more complex identity and demand patterns of our modern society?
People are being driven out, left behind, marginalized, diminished, constrained, etc. … until the market reshapes itself into something more appropriate.
That’s not civilizational decay. That’s a lack of civilizational evolution to keep pace.
Stopping the clock never works. Picking up the pace of adaptation does.