Links - 31st January 2020 (2)

Reparations, systemic racism, and white Democrats’ new racial liberalism - "there is a tendency well-known to political scientists for public opinion to move in the opposite direction of the person who occupies the White House. The change, however, appears to predate Trump and, in fact, to have relatively little to do with the calendar of presidential politics. Instead, polling from the Pew Center shows that as late as 2014, most Americans believed there was no longer any need for the country to make changes to address black-white inequality. Consequently, few people believed discrimination was the main barrier to black upward mobility. These numbers then started to change rapidly, with the shift driven overwhelmingly by a change in the views of self-identified Democrats... “even prior to Ferguson, people take cues from elites,” and Democratic elites were beginning to signal to the rank and file that they should take systemic racism concerns more seriously. Obama’s 2012 observation that “if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon” is just one small example of how elite actors have helped push a shift in whites’ perception of race. And the shift, once underway, became mutually reinforcing. Liberal white audiences became increasingly interested in black intellectuals’ conceptions of race and racism in America. Back in April 2015, the social justice group Race Forward produced a series of videos starring Jay Smooth trying to explain the concept of “systemic racism” to a mass audience. Hillary Clinton used the term in a February 2016 speech... “Clinton talked a lot more about racial justice issues during the 2016 campaign than Obama did during his campaigns”... throughout the 1980s, ’90s, and 2000s, most white Democrats thought African Americans’ lack of individual initiative was the main source of racial inequality in America. The notion that Obama’s ascension to the presidency would usher in a “post-racial” era of American life, of course, proved false... white Democrats dramatically shifted their views of the centrality of racial discrimination in American life after the election of a black man to the highest office in the land... Back in 1996, the Democratic Party platform read like something out of a Trump campaign ad. “In 1992, our borders might as well not have existed,” the document states. “Drugs flowed freely. Illegal immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned the very next day to commit crimes again.” Bill Clinton went on to run for reelection boasting about his crackdown at the border. Even by 2008, when Democrats substantively supported a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants, the platform was still framed around enforcement-first themes, intoning that “we cannot continue to allow people to enter the United States undetected, undocumented, and unchecked.” On criminal justice, the 2008 platform led with a promise to be “tough on violent crime,” while by 2016, it opened by committing the party to “ending mass incarceration” and explicitly denounced the war on drugs while calling out “the discriminatory treatment of African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and American Indians.” Perhaps the clearest sign of the shift, however, is the completely upturned politics of reparations... “racial resentment,” as used by political scientists, is a term of art that largely measures political views rather than any kind of interpersonal animosity... Trump is not to blame: Democrats themselves have moved the goalposts in terms of what kind of racial views one is expected to affirm as a good liberal... To the extent that white liberals now see racism as an enormous looming challenge for the country in a way they did not in the relatively recent past, Trump is very much the personification of that challenge. And thus, given the perfect enemy, it’s perhaps not surprising that much of the newly woke attitude is, in crucial respects, a bit vague in its precise policy implications... But it’s clear that getting rid of Trump is a key part of the story"
"Racial resentment" is basically measuring whether you adhere to the liberal party line. So if you disagree with it, you have "racial resentment". Ergo, you're racist

NETS Services Will be Available Outside Singapore For the First Time - "Singapore consumers can now use the NETSPay app to make e-payments when they travel overseas; this is made possible through the joint partnership between NETS and global payment network UnionPay.The enhanced NETSPay app comes with a new wallet feature that enables consumers to top up and pay for purchases at over 7.5 million UnionPay QR code merchants globally via QR codes"

Kirsten Han - A man said this, so maybe he won't be accused of... - "The lack of equitability and Government attention in these issues encourage discontented Singaporean men to support policies that can give them an advantage – discriminatory measures such as employment policies that favour citizens and that place the burden of child-rearing primarily on women. Such measures are particularly unfair to women, as they too may suffer from the invisible costs of conscription – while their husbands are away for reservist duties, married women may have to juggle work and family responsibilities even more.Our current NS policies are thus a millstone around the neck of equality between different groups, making true equality an impossible goal. It contributes to the persistence of the idea that women are the ‘weaker sex’, to whom certain roles like being home-makers are naturally given. First-generation PRs may also continue to face some level of discrimination in our society.Such issues are divisive and potentially unhealthy for the creation of a harmonious society"
The original article, "Is National Service Doing Us a Disservice?", has gone down the memory hole both on Yahoo and on http://www.inconvenientquestions.sg
Interestingly, this mirrors Hillary's claim that women are the primary victims of war

When Will Vasalgel Be Available? The Non-Hormonal Male Birth Control Could Be Out In 3-5 Years - "If you haven't already heard the exciting news, a new non-hormonal, long-acting form of male birth control may be closer than ever. In a study recently published in Basic and Clinical Andrology, potentially reversible male birth control Vasalgel, was found to be successful in preventing conception in groups of sexually mature rhesus monkeys for over one year, which is huge because vasectomies are generally more complicated for monkeys than humans. With the success they found, that only means good things for developers as they move closer to human clinical trials... "Vasalgel is revolutionary because men have no highly effective, long-acting but reversible way of controlling their own fertility," Lissner says. "Sometimes people perceive it as a war of the sexes, but it doesn't have to be that way. Women have birth control options now. If men have options too, you're really set."...
Sperm are too big to get through the gel barrier. So, the sperm end up being reabsorbed by the body"

Millennials Love ROM’s Friday Night Live Party! - "Curious to find out why young Torontonians love FNL so much, we went to a ROM Friday party. One young man said it was wild to be able to grab a beer, see the dinosaurs and share the moment with friends. Another guest said: “Once you graduate, you start going to work, and you stop learning. At FNL you always learn something, it gives you a good feeling.” Someone else mentioned that they hadn’t been to the ROM since being a kid, and they loved coming back as a young adult.Other people felt that FNL parties were more fun [than going out to a nightclub] because people are more approachable. The exhibitions and artifacts act as natural conversation starters – and you just don’t get that in a basic bar environment. The interesting thing about our conversations with millennials was how enthusiastic they were about being at the museum at night."

Toronto ranked worst city for commuting in North America: study - "Toronto is often cited as among the world’s very best cities in which to live, but a new study suggests Canada’s most populous urban centre lags far behind when it comes to commuting.A report released by U.K.-based business solution company Expert Market reveals Toronto is the worst in North America when it comes to commuting times and sixth worst in the world... The top five worst cities for commuting are Rio de Janeiro, followed by Bogota, Sao Paulo, Istanbul and Salvador... the top five best cities for commuting are Nice, Cuenca, Bilbao, Toulouse and Catania... an average commuter in Toronto spends 14 minutes waiting for a bus or a train each day. But even worse, the average person spends a staggering one hour and 36 minutes for their daily commute with an average journey distance of 10 kilometres... Vancouver is ranked 33rd as the top Canadian city with the best commuting, followed by Ottawa at 38th and Montreal and 46th."

Roland Bartetzko's answer to Why don't soldiers wear sneakers? - Quora - "When I first encountered soldiers wearing sneakers on the front-line, I was looking down on them. I thought that a professional soldier should only go with boots into combat.I quickly learned and changed my mind. During the Siege of Mostar, almost every soldier I met wore sports shoes, at least in summer. It wasn't that our military couldn’t provide better footwear for its soldiers: we had excellent US-made combat boots. However, the problem was that it was simply too hot for them... Especially in urban combat, sneakers have an advantage. They are lighter, have better shock absorption (your spine and kneecaps will be grateful) and are much easier to get off your feet.On the downside, they provide less ankle protection (although this is not true for all of them) and less insulation."

VCE authorities apologise for phantom robot - "THE VCE exam body has apologised and promised no students will be disadvantaged after a doctored image depicting a giant robot assisting socialist revolutionaries in 1917 was accidentally used in a history exam.It is the second year in a row the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has been forced to apologise following debacles in the end-of-year exams. New guidelines governing the use of internet-sourced material in exams will also be issued after an altered version of the artwork Storming the Winter Palace by Nikolai Kochergin appeared in the VCE History: Revolutions exam... History Teachers Association of Victoria acting executive officer Ingrid Purnell said it was disappointing the image had got through when teachers spent a lot of time making sure students critically examined and evaluated visual sources of evidence."

Black Friday sparks worldwide backlash from politicians, activists - "Research by a U.K. consumer association found that 61% of goods advertised in Black Friday deals last year were cheaper or about the same price both before and after the event.That echoes similar warnings in other countries. Russia’s consumer watchdog issued a long statement with tips on how to avoid getting fooled, like checking whether prices were raised before Friday to make deals look good or whether delivery costs are inflated... In Italy, for example, Black Friday falls outside the season’s strictly defined schedule for when the winter shop sales can be held. This year, sales cannot be held from Dec. 5 until Jan. 4, when stores are allowed to clear out stock. The fashion industry has warned that can hurt smaller retailers in a country that relies on them heavily.A French legislative committee passed an amendment Monday that proposes prohibiting Black Friday because it causes “resource waste” and “overconsumption.”"

(PDF) Genome‐Wide Association Study of Latent Cognitive Measures in Adolescence: Genetic Overlap With Intelligence and Education - "Individual differences in executive functions (EF) are heritable and predictive of academic attainment (AA). However, little is known about genetic contributions to EFs or their genetic relationship with AA and intelligence. We conducted genome-wide association analyses for processing speed (PS) and the latent EF measures of working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC) in 4,611 adolescents from Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. While no loci reached genome-wide significance, common genetic variants explained 30% of the variance in WM and 19% in PS. In contrast, we failed to find common genetic contributions to IC. Finally, we examined shared genetic effects between EFs, and general intelligence, AA and ADHD. We identified significant genetic correlations between WM, intelligence, and AA. A more specific pattern was observed for PS, with modest genetic overlap with intelligence. Together these findings highlight diversity in the genetic contributions to specific cognitive functions and their genetic relationship with educational and psychiatric outcomes."
I know someone who claimed she could trained any kid to get into the Gifted programme. I told her to start a school advertising this, and she would be rich

IntellectualFrogLegs on Twitter - "Trump is having a blast...  lol...
1 tweets out Rocky photo
2 press goes nuts
3 hops on unmarked plane to Afghanistan
4 sends fake motorcade to golf club
5 press goes nuts again, says he's golfing
6 feeds troops in Afghanistan
7 press...crickets"

Look at these cows wearing VR headsets - ""American farmers install automatically rotating brushes in the stalls, which replace the masseur's cows. In Europe, they use robotic systems to ensure maximum free movement of livestock on the farm. In Russia, Moscow suburbs in particular, manufacturers install sound equipment for broadcasting classical music, the relaxing effect of which positively affects milk output... The VR headsets aim to extend that effect by making cows think that they're in their happy place—specifically, a "unique summer field simulation." And apparently it's working, as the initial test found "a decrease in anxiety and an increase in the overall emotional mood of the herd.""

Scientists discover how to 'upload knowledge to your brain' - "They studied the electric signals in the brain of a trained pilot and then fed the data into novice subjects as they learned to pilot an aeroplane in a realistic flight simulator.The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, found that subjects who received brain stimulation via electrode-embedded head caps improved their piloting abilities and learnt the task 33 per cent better than a placebo group... Meanwhile, a recent study found that intelligent people are more easily distracted at work"