When Your Safety Becomes My Danger (Ep. 432) - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "LEVITT: The real idea is that not only did it make it harder to steal your car, but it was really, really visible and the thieves were supposed to see those Clubs.
The hope was that if thieves could see the Club, they wouldn’t bother to break your window in the first place.
LEVITT: Now, that’s a great idea from the perspective of the person who doesn’t want their car stolen. But it turns out to not be such a great idea from the perspective of the neighbor of the person who has the Club. Because if you think about the decision that a potential auto thief looks at, they see a whole block of cars lined up and maybe there’s one car they want a little bit more than another one. But if it’s got a Club — well, it’s not like they go and say, “I don’t want to be an auto thief, I’m going to go work at McDonald’s instead.” They say, “Well, I’m going to steal the next car.” So, if it prevents my car from being stolen, it means that someone else’s car is more likely to be stolen. From a social perspective, the Club is no good. The Club is really just about how you transfer the risk that you bear onto your neighbors. And that’s what economists call a negative externality. That’s when a decision that I make has a negative impact on another person who doesn’t get to be part of that decision. My neighbors don’t get directly compensated when I buy the Club. They get directly hurt by the fact that the Club is shifting crime from me to them."
By this logic, crime prevention advice is immoral since you will never be able to get everyone to follow it. So we shouldn't try to prevent crime. This can apply on levels higher than an individual level too - if police patrol one neighbourhood more, criminals can just go to another one
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Have the Taliban changed? - "‘A young Talib sent me a message on WhatsApp and asked, could you please follow me on Twitter? It was of course a useful suggestion for my work. But what about their work? What are they doing on social media? What is the strategy now for Islamist fighters infamous for smashing televisions, and hanging cassette tapes from trees when they ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s? The world has changed. And the Taliban have too, at least when it comes to matters like this. So when journalists descended on the biggest ballroom in Qatar, for the start of historic Afghan talks, the Taliban media team was there too. All men, bearded and turbaned, young and old, carrying cameras, smartphones and tripods. There was one interaction which caused a little buzz on social media, this new generation with competing visions of a postwar future. A young Taliban supporter, Mohammed, who describes himself as a peace activist, made a beeline for the youngest member of the government's negotiating team, Khalid Noor. He's the 25 year old son of a very rich and powerful ex commander. Men they called warlords in Afghanistan. Mohammed confronted him with questions, insisting they speak in English. I wanted him to answer in English he told me later, because he was educated in the UK, and I wanted to see how educated he really was. And then there was Farhanaz [sp?]. She's a forthright female journalist who made a statement by wearing jeans to the opening ceremony. She stood squarely in front of a Taliban official with her head and smartphone held high to interview him about peace and women's rights. Another female Afghan reporter, in headscarf, bright tunic, white trainers, also conducted an interview face to face with their chief spokesman. He answered all their questions. But why did he lower his gaze? Why don't they look at us, the female journalist demanded? Well, Taleb explained it to me. The Holy Quran, he said, tells us to avert our gaze with young women. But sometimes when it's *necessary* for our cause, we can look more directly. I kept running into this media team. So one time we sat down to discuss social media. It's allowed within Islamic law, I was told. Social media on your mobile phone isn't permanent, they explained, you can turn off your phone and as they put it, it's not there anymore. By way of comparison, there are no photographs in their printed material. That's too permanent and thus unacceptable in their strict interpretation of Islam which forbids the making of imagery. But what about all those television interviews for a group which once hated television? Well, I was told live interviews are best, better than pre recorded. Since this new strategy was rather fluid, I hasten to add that there was no consensus among clerics on some of these issues. It was a gray area, and it's easier to work in the gray they said, beyond the black and white'...
‘Coronavirus has supposedly disappeared from Yemen. At least that's what my friends tell me and clearly what many people now believe. There is no Corona here, one mine in the city of Thais [sp?] told me. He was doing some filming for me and I asked him to wear a face mask. My friend in Aden told me of the pressure she is put under not to wear a face covering. When she does wear one, the children on the street run after and tease her shouting Corona Corona... A friend of mine is fond of quoting an old Yemeni saying that I used to find morbid and strange. *Something*. Death will come tomorrow, she would casually say, but I have finally come to understand. Death is no stranger to Yemenis. And accepting it frees you from worrying about what's beyond your control and helps you to live each day as it comes’"
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Mozambique: the birth of a new conflict - "Even the powerful mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, a vocal long standing feminist, has found herself in trouble. In her successful reelection campaign earlier this year, Madam Hidalgo pledged to transform the city into a feminist capital, with plans for increased services in education and health care, specifically aimed at women and girls, along with robust support for victims of domestic violence. But now two of her deputy mayors, both of whom she'd personally supported, have been forced to resign within weeks of each other over allegations of sexual abuse"
Male feminists strike again!
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, US: the Covid Campaign - "‘Our coach was circumnavigating around about and I distinctly recall the sense of time slowing down as I watched another Belgian bus, which had just joined the roundabout, approaching from the right, and with ghastly inevitability, glide into our side. Luckily, brakes had been applied, and there were no injuries, just a lot of shrieking. What it was, was a brutal introduction to that hallowed rule of Continental driving - that priorite a droite. PAD. Priority to those coming from the right. There's a lot about priorite a droite when you take the French driving test, inevitably so, because it's completely illogical and against every instinct, and so has to be hammered hard into the brain of every learner, so that he or she never makes the mistake our coach driver made in 1970. It's shocking the first time you see it in action. A car, oblivious to the danger piling out in front of you from a side road or even an alley, forcing you on the main road to brake heavily. And if you hit him, or if the person behind you hits you, it's not his fault. It's yours. It doesn't take long before you're being very, very careful about streets on the right. Incidentally, I looked into the history of the PAD, and it goes back to the 1920s. Before that the rule was that the bigger road had right of way over the lesser road. But that proved dangerous, because often you couldn't tell which was the more important road. So in 1937 it was written into the French code de la route where, despite a lot of grumblings, it's been ever since.’"
Yet when you enter a roundabout in France you're told to give way
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, The King and Thais - "They no longer fear the monarchy as their parents do. They see no reason why they should. Since his accession to the throne four years ago, King Vajiralongkorn has amassed far more power than his father, taking personal control of military units and a vast sovereign wealth fund, and even rewriting parts of the Constitution. The protesters want an accountable monarchy with limits on its power and its spending. They cannot see why that's unreasonable. Just by demanding a conversation, they've shattered a powerful taboo. The government has no answer to this, except more threats, more arrests, more media censorship - tactics from a different era. And they're not working’...
'Ordinary people may not think much in terms of geopolitics, but they seized the new opportunities abroad. In the 90s, when a new wave of immigrants started to leave China for the USA, the national TV sensation was a long series called a Beijing native in New York. It began with this line: if you love him, send him to New York, for it’s heaven. If you hate him, send him to New York too, for it's hell. Too many Chinese people. America held a contradictory sort of fascination, like it was magnetic'"
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Tensions in rural South Africa - "‘The EFF claims to speak for South Africa's marginalized impoverished black population, above all, for the unemployed. And it thrives on moments of racial tension, highlighting, you might say exploiting the very real divisions that still haunt this nation, a generation after the end of racial apartheid. ‘‘We are here to protest white arrogance and white supremacy’"
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Voting Early in the US Elections - "Seychelles has achieved global acclaim for ingeniously swapping foreign debt for promises to protect its unique marine environment. At the same time, it's a quite international ignominy for having the highest per capita rate of heroin addiction in the world. One in 20 Seychellois are hooked on the drug. Somewhat late in the day the outgoing administration started seriously to tackle the issue. But one of the greatest challenges facing the new government, the incoming party's leader told me: we'll be assuming power with no agreements of understanding with the country's drug dealers whose criminal activities, a tragically large local employer, represent a parallel economy, easily matching the size of the government's own annual budget. The difference between the Seychelles paradise portrayed in Sunday travel supplements and selfies and the troubled Republic I now know is stark. For many years and quite probably entwined with the drug trade to some extent, the dark history of political oppression, the murders, the torture and corruption were a sinister, yet unspoken shame carefully concealed to protect the country's tranquil public image. Tourists and tunafish are all there is... In Seychelles, everyone and no one is famous, such is its size. You might easily follow a secretary of state queuing at the supermarket checkout, buy the morning’s catch from a chart topping rapper or spot the evening TV news anchor in the rearview while waiting at one of the two traffic lights in the tiny capital Victoria. Everyone has a cousin in prison, an Auntie who owns a takeaway, a nephew enslaved to opiates, or a neighbor in a national sports team"
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, US election: Georgia, the new swing state? - "‘International assassination is a nasty business and the Islamic Republic of Iran stands accused. It targets critics and enemies anywhere in the world and has been implicated in attacks from Argentina to the Netherlands. Iranian nationals have been arrested in Belgium, Denmark, Germany and France, accused of plotting bombings or murder of Iranian dissidents living in Europe’"
It's only bad when Israel does it. When Israel is accused, they are guilty, but when Iran is accused, it's a Western Islamophobic plot
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Diwali in India during the pandemic - "‘A taxi driver in Milan called Claudio told me, Amsterdam was born that way, reminded me of an urban myth that cycling is simply part of the Dutch DNA. Actually, in the 1960s and 70s, the Dutch capital had some of the most dangerous roads in Europe. In 1971, more than 400 children were killed on them. *Marcia Something*, a young mum was one of the rebel leaders who rose up against the car centric city. Marcia joined hands with parents on street corners in a protest they called ‘Stop the child murder’. They fought hard for the type of infrastructure that enables everyone to cycle and now provides a model for governments across the globe... Cycling also means I don't feel like a hypocrite. I can teach my four year old about climate change without contributing to the problem"
Apparently having kids doesn't lead to any carbon emissions
Adventure & Opportunity: Female Transatlantic Travellers | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra - "‘Nobody would travel in steerage unless they had to. But then most of these people only going one way. They weren't planning to come back unless they were wealthy enough to make it into first or second class.’
‘But of course, some people did have to make that journey back very sadly if they were turned back by by immigration control.’
‘That's very true. And we forget about this, we hear about Ellis Island, which was the reception center in New York. And it is an island just off the island of Manhattan, where the first and second class passengers will be taken off by tender, or they will be, the ship will be brought alongside the the berth and they will be allowed off. But the third class passengers, if they wanted to enter America, they had to be processed through Ellis Island, which was a giant complex, staffed by immigration officials. And everyone’s papers had to be checked, their baggage had to be checked. They were also checked as well to make sure that they that they were healthy. If they had any communicable diseases, or if they appeared to be feeble or too old to work, they might be sent back. And this was of course, calamitous. Families might be separated... they would have invested everything they had in making this one great trip. On the other hand, if you did get through the process in Ellis Island, people have reported on you. You go through everything, you'd changed your money, you get a new, you get a little visa, you get given a name, your entry’ recorded. And then there is a door which says push for New York’"
Of course the liberals who love to quote the "Give me your tired" poem to criticise modern American immigration policy for not being open borders pretend that everyone was allowed in
Comment from elsewhere: "My personal favorite in regards to what I call English Lit Gaslighting 101, is the "give me your poor tired masses" that ignores the whole "“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” sentence that precedes it."
The Russian Revolution: Everything You Wanted To Know | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra - "‘Whether we should think of October as a coup rather than a revolution.
‘Yeah. I don't see why we have to choose between the two. The Bolsheviks, after it had taken place, of course called it a revolution but they also called it in Russian, a *something*, which is usually translated as a coup. Because there was no doubt about it, that in order to get rid of Kerensky, they had to take military action. They had to eject him from the Winter Palace, proclaim that they had toppled him. But they also argued that they were the largest force now, in the Soviets. The Soviets were elected by the workers and the soldiers. And so to that extent, they were reflective of the, the movement of popular opinion in the country. So there was something in that. There wasn't enough in that, of course, because when it came to the Constituent Assembly elections in November, the Bolsheviks got at most a quarter of the popular vote, which is hardly a ringing endorsement. But there was a lot of support for the Bolsheviks in the October seizure of power. And that's why people say oh, it was a popular revolution. That's an exaggeration. But merely to say that it was a tiny little group of conspirators who launched an armed coup d'etat, that's an exaggeration too. It's, it's a mixture of the two. And certainly, when they came to power, they issued decrees that were a radical break, a revolutionary break with what had gone on before. They said, to the peasants, go get the land. They said, to the Germans and the Austrians, we're not gonna fight anymore. We want the war to be over. And, and we're not going to launch any offensive. They said to the owners of large scale industry, we want your factories, we want your plants. So that, there's another aspect of something that's more than just a seizure of power by a tiny clique’"
