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Education Globalization Innovation Reading Technology

Latest Read: How Markets Fail

How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities by John Cassidy. John is a staff writer at The New Yorker and teaches at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. This book was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in General Nonfiction.

How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities by John Cassidy

John has certainly written a very well structured book on economic markets divided into three parts: Utopian Economics, Reality-Based Economics, and The Great Crunch. This provides necessary insights to the very long history of economics. In addition, John shows how they have repeatedly failed from the 1700s to the the 2008 economic crisis.

I certainly enjoyed John sharing multiple points of historic economic failures via the insights of all economic experts at the time.

Utopian Economics

John places part one into a Utopian view. He reveals how attempts to link the macro and micro divisions of the economic model result in errors. At the same time it may not really apply across today’s COVID, gig economy.

Repeatedly the economic experts in the 1800s were very wrong. This view really cannot translate today across the globalized world. He also views the economic crisis of 2008 as a drastic market failure. The development and repair were excluded by the systems of the dominant economic paradigm of the past three decades.” John certainly illustrates how utopians believed in the infallible invisible hand of the market via Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill.

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Education Milwaukee Reading

Latest Read: Evicted

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond. Matthew is a sociologist at Princeton University. He is also the principal investigator of the Eviction Lab.

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

Evicted was the 2017 winner of the Pulitzer Prize, In addition, Time Magazine named Evicted one of the ten best nonfiction books of the decade.

Matthew follows eight families across greater Milwaukee who indeed are struggling to live in apartments. For many readers, Evicted should dramatically change our country’s limited understanding of real poverty, impacting both Caucasian and African American families. One can only imagine the acceleration of evictions since COVID derailed the economy.

It is certainly remarkable to be living in Milwaukee and being able to see the apartments around the greater Milwaukee area in person on trips. Some small cities outside Milwaukee including Cudahy are also written into family stories.

Furthermore, Matthew documents that a common notion is that rent should equate to 30 percent of income. However multiple stories of families reveal they are spending up to 80 percent of income on rent. This certainly leaves so many with almost no money for food, clothing, or basic amenities.

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Education Reading

Latest Read: Unraveling Bias

Unraveling Bias: How Prejudice Has Shaped Children for Generations and Why It’s Time to Break the Cycle by Christia Spears, professor of developmental psychology at the University of Kentucky. In addition, her work on the impact of gender stereotypes on children and adolescents has been published widely including a blogging post for Psychology Today called Beyond Pink and Blue.

Unraveling Bias: How Prejudice Has Shaped Children for Generations and Why It’s Time to Break the Cycle

Christia provides insights to the ‘how and why’ biases are developed and specifically at what age levels deeper, rigid perceptions are established. Of course, it is important to understand how this exposure to bias will impact diversity.

One of the impactful areas for childhood development involves how children internalize non-verbal cues. At this junction, the non-verbal cues will reveal bias even when a conversation regarding a type of bias is not communicated.

In addition, these children ultimately see adults around them (family, a parent’s co-worker, or adult social relationships) and learn how to react.

In addition, perhaps to no surprise, Unraveling Bias reveals how children impacted by bias, specially discrimination will score lower on tests and have higher dropout rates.

Students also battle depression, low self esteem, higher drug use, and even higher thoughts of suicide. This will certainly increase additional health issues as they grow up.

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Education Reading Technology Vietnam War

Latest Read: The Kill Chain

Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins by Andrew Cockburn. Andrew is a British journalist and the Washington DC editor of Harper’s Magazine and has written extensively about US military issues.

The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

This book reveals the evolution of drone and air technology warfare. The US military strategy has certainly shifted to developing assassination machines since World War II. In addition, Andrew writes admirably about the US defense industry’s long desire to fight wars after Vietnam with advanced air technology.

The opening chapter documents human error by pilots of a MQ-1 Predator flown during Operation Noble Justice that mistakenly killed several Afghan civilians. Accordingly, Afghanistan President Hamid Kaarzai protested to President Bush.

Indeed, upon review by US military, payments to families of the dead included $5,000. Andrew is revealing this event was simply apart of a long history of hardware and human flaws regarding drone and airborne attacks. From the QH-50C drone to today’s modern Predator, drone technology continues failing to yield results from very lofty ambitions. The long and disappointing development of the Predator is very interesting. Andrew reveals much as political forces, not military or intelligence pushed this drone technology.

In addition, the 2010 leak of a drone footage in Baghdad that killed two Reuters journalists in 2007 were the result of remote pilots mistakenly viewing footage and acting upon false information. Audio statements included the idea that the Reuters journalists were carrying long rifles. Upon review, the two were in fact, carrying digital cameras.

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Education Reading Technology

Latest Read: This Machine Kills Secrets

This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World’s Information by Andy Greenberg. Andy a senior writer at Wired magazine and previously wrote for Forbes. This Machine Kills Secrets is a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection.

This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World's Information by Andy Greenberg

Andy is focusing on politically motivated whistleblowing resulting in data leaks of state secrets. In addition, stories of famous hackers including WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, L0pht, and Anonymous. A core understanding of cypherpunks and hacktivists is necessary. The bulk of the book is about WikiLeaks.

Perhaps Andy’s timing was unknowingly off by less than on year after publication. Edward Snowden had not yet leaked his trove of data.

However Andy begins with the long, famous history of The Pentagon Papers. Perhaps the most important takeaway is the timeframe of Daniel Ellsberg. I very much appreciated the efforts Andy shared that Daniel confronted in 1969

The key element not be overlooked is the use of technology. In 2022, technology used to leak the Pentagon Papers is in fact a common part of everyday life. A second factor is where Andy looks at Daniel’s vast role in the conduct of the war while at RAND, and his deep knowledge.

In contrast, Assange just wants anyone with access to sensitive data to steal and share it. WikiLeaks somewhat began under the principle of “principled leaking,” that allowed globally connected individuals to use the metaphors of a wiki to fight corruption. Yet the scale and impact of technology has greatly changed this landscape:

One of Manning’s Lady Gaga CDs offered enough capacity to have stored the Pentagon Papers about fifty times over, and the laser head that wrote to those discs could have accomplished in a minute or two what required a year of off-and-on work for Ellsberg and his photocopier.
p.39

Chaos pure and simple

Now add the ability for Putin’s old KGB to manipulate WikiLeaks. In fact, Assange drove WikiLeaks to become a source for classified documents:

The other goal in WikiLeaks’ game—or perhaps just a bonus perk for a fire-starter like Assange—was its potential for explosive chaos.
p. 219

This should not be understated: The goal Assange wanted to create was indeed chaos. Putin saw an opportunity.