Programmable Money South Korea’s COVID-19 stimulus payments were programmed to expire in Aug 2020, and could only be spent at qualifying shops. Australia’s cashless welfare card [currently in pilot stages] cannot be withdrawn as cash, nor used at alcohol, tobacco and gambling joints.
Monzo, a UK-based digital-first mobile baking app, supports IFTTT recipes. This enables budgeting logic, “If I spend at KFC, then move $5 to my penalty pot”....
On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs Capitalism is meant to eliminate bullshit jobs, yet layoffs tend to fall on people making, moving, fixing and maintaining things, but not on the salaried paper pushers that effectively work 15 hours a week.
From a political standpoint, a happy productive population with free time on their hands is mortal to the ruling class. Moreover, work is considered a moral value in itself....
When it comes to STEM diversity goals, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) tends to be excluded from the URMs under discussion, e.g. .
However, AAPI as a blanket term obscures the struggles of member groups, e.g. \(62\%\) of AAPI adults aged 24 and older have an associate’s degree or higher, compared to 28% of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders of the same age. AA comprises \(\approx 50\) ethnic groups, while PI has \(\approx 20\)....
Societal Preference for STEM Over the Liberal Arts Not everyone can [wants to?] take the sciences, but they were pushed out of their passions into applicable degrees like Business and Communications.
The initially high economic return to applied STEM degrees declines by more than 50% in the first decade. People who major in LA don’t get first jobs that are as lucrative, but they do catch up.
Governments tend to claim a shortage of STEM workers (who are valued for innovation and national defense), and allocate funds for increasing the student pipeline....
Criticism/Defense Of Billionaire Philanthropy Taxes will probably not go to the same causes, e.g. reforming the bail system, grassroot efforts for migrants, etc.
Admittedly, these are things that the government should be doing, but it seems that the government doesn’t do enough. Furthermore, some of these issues so politicized, e.g. immigrants, that government support can be fickle.
Foundations are more effective than governments as they do their due diligence, e....
The Proper Use of Humility Confessing your fallibility but doing nothing about it braggery, not humility. Designing fail-safe machinery is good humility. Dismissing evidence for evolution because we can’t really know for sure that evolution is correct is misplaced humility.
The Third Alternative Sometimes we justify questionable policy by claiming its absence is undesirable, e.g. believing in Santa makes children behave nicely, and therefore Santa-ism is the best of all possible alternatives....