Articles from Club Troppo
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I’ve mentioned Edward Broughton Covid and the lessons of the Dreyfus affair
One can tell many stories of how current times resemble some earlier historical period. The conflict between nationalism and internationalism, as personified by the controversies surrounding Brexit and Trump, has been seen as somewhat of a re-run of the conflict between fascism and socialism in the 1930s. The conflict between the West and radical Islam made many think of the crusades. The covid pandemic and its effects has been likened to the Plague, the Spanish Flu and the Asian Flu.
Constant distractions are leading to major declines in top-level reasoning. What to do?
Till 20 year ago, IQ scores in the West were increasing about 3 points per decade ever since the 1920s, a phenomenon known as the “Flynn effect”. That rise in IQ test scores, which have an average of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, was attributed to improved schooling, improved nutrition, and the increased demands of the workplace. In recent decades that steady increase has turned into a sharp decrease.
The descent into Darkness of the UK and Victoria. Quo Vadis?
[Bottom line: the conflicting forces now being created in the UK and Australia are truly frightening.]
Will busy offices return eventually? Of course they will.
[message: the “stay at home” firms will see their bored and lonely good young staff jump ship to the hip, drunk, snorting, and cavorting hard-work hard-play offices everyone loves to complain about.]
In London, the estimate from Transport for London is that 72% is still not back at the office this week, which is why the coffee clubs, eateries, bars, and restaurants are still empty and central London feels like a ghost town.
Expected and Unexpected Winners in the West from the covid hysteria.
[micro-trigger alert: dark humour ahead]
The top prize for economic winners in the covid hysteria goes to the pharmaceutical companies who were quickest to jump on the covid-vaccine business. They are already selling billions of unproven vaccines that will now clearly arrive too late to have noticeable benefits anyway.[1]
Professor Foster’s cost-benefit analysis for the Victorian parliament.
[below the exact text (with different font/highlight) as Gigi Foster’s submission to the Victorian parliamentary library in mid-August here.
Sparkling rapid chess
In the Age of COVID chess has been reinvented. In March (I think it was) the Candidates Tournament was dramatically ended a few rounds in and everyone wondered “what next”. Enter Magnus Carlsen entrepreneur. With his star power, he has been getting himself a piece of the action. He owns something like 11 percent of Chess 24 a website which provides information and live televised commentary on chess as it happens. It does so on a freemium model.