Yet another condition, spondyloarthritis, has similarities to both of the conditions we’ve covered. Patients experience continuous inflammation in the joints and at the sites where ligaments and tendons attach to bones, even without any initial injury. This leads to the flood of enzymes and degradation seen in osteoarthritis, but is driven by different inflammatory proteins called cytokines. As the enzymes eat away at cartilage, the body attempts to stabilize smaller joints by fusing them together. This process sometimes leads to outgrowths called bone spurs, which also cause intense stiffness and joint pain.
With so many factors causing arthritis, our current treatments are tailored to tackle specific symptoms rather than underlying causes. These range from promising MACI techniques, which harvest cells from small pieces of cartilage to grow replacement tissue. To a technique called microfracture, where surgeons create small holes in the bone, allowing bone marrow stem cells to leak out and form new cartilage. As a last resort, people with withered cartilage can even undergo full joint replacements.
But outside these drastic measures, the underlying drivers of autoimmune arthritis still present a unique treatment challenge. Scientists are making progress with therapies that block TNF-alpha, one of the primary proteins causing inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis. But even this approach only treats the symptoms of the condition, not the cause.
In the meantime, some of our best defenses against arthritis are lifestyle choices: maintaining a healthy weight to take pressure off joints, low-impact exercises like yoga or cycling, and avoiding smoking. These arthritis-fighting behaviors can help us lead longer lives as we continue to research cures and treatments for the huge diversity of arthritic conditions.
#TED_Ed #Animation #Science #Education #Human_Body #Health_Care #Medical_Research #Biology #Health #Medicine #Aging
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With so many factors causing arthritis, our current treatments are tailored to tackle specific symptoms rather than underlying causes. These range from promising MACI techniques, which harvest cells from small pieces of cartilage to grow replacement tissue. To a technique called microfracture, where surgeons create small holes in the bone, allowing bone marrow stem cells to leak out and form new cartilage. As a last resort, people with withered cartilage can even undergo full joint replacements.
But outside these drastic measures, the underlying drivers of autoimmune arthritis still present a unique treatment challenge. Scientists are making progress with therapies that block TNF-alpha, one of the primary proteins causing inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis. But even this approach only treats the symptoms of the condition, not the cause.
In the meantime, some of our best defenses against arthritis are lifestyle choices: maintaining a healthy weight to take pressure off joints, low-impact exercises like yoga or cycling, and avoiding smoking. These arthritis-fighting behaviors can help us lead longer lives as we continue to research cures and treatments for the huge diversity of arthritic conditions.
#TED_Ed #Animation #Science #Education #Human_Body #Health_Care #Medical_Research #Biology #Health #Medicine #Aging
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🟢How policewomen make communities safer?
#Social_Change #Women #Justice_System #Work #Feminism #United_States #Diversity #TED_Fellows #Gender
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#Social_Change #Women #Justice_System #Work #Feminism #United_States #Diversity #TED_Fellows #Gender
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🟢How policewomen make communities safer?
I've been a police officer in an urban city for nearly 25 years. That's crazy, right? And in that time, I've served in every rank, from police officer to police chief. A few years ago, I noticed something alarming.
Starting in 2014, I started monitoring recruits as they cycled through police academies in the state of New Jersey, and I found that women were failing at rates between 65 and 80 percent, due to varying aspects of the physical fitness test. I learned that a change in policy now required recruits to pass the fitness exam within 10 short workout sessions. This had the greatest impact on women. The change meant that recruits had about three weeks out of a five-month-long academy to pass the fitness exam. This just didn't make sense, though.
Police agencies and police recruits had made huge investments to get those recruits into the academy. Police recruits had passed lengthy background checks, they had passed medical and psychological exams, they had quit their jobs. And many had spent more than 2,000 dollars in fees and equipment just to get kicked out within the first three weeks?
The dire situation in New Jersey led me to examine the status of women in policing across the United States.
I found that women make up less than 13 percent of police officers. A number that hasn't changed much in the past 20 years. And they make up just three percent of police chiefs as of 2013, the last time the data was collected. We know that we can improve those rates. Other countries like Canada, Australia and the UK have nearly twice the amount of policewomen. And New Zealand is steadily marching towards their goal of recruit gender parity by 2021. Other countries are actively working to increase the number of women in policing, because they know of a vast body of research evidence, spanning more than 50 years, detailing the advantages to women in policing.
From that research, we know that policewomen are less likely to use force or to be accused of excessive force. We know that policewomen are less likely to be named in a lawsuit or a citizen complaint. We know that the mere presence of a policewoman reduces the use of force among other officers. And we know that policewomen are met with the same rates of force as their male counterparts, and sometimes more, and yet they're more successful in defusing violent or aggressive behavior overall. So there are vast advantages to women in policing, and we're losing them to arbitrary fitness standards.
The problem is, the United States has nearly 18,000 police agencies -- 18,000 agencies with wildly varying fitness standards. We know that a majority of academies rely on a masculine ideal of policing that works to decrease the number of women in policing. These types of academies overemphasize physical strength, with much less attention spent to subjects like community policing, problem-solving and interpersonal communication skills. This results in training that does not mirror the realities of policing. Physical agility is but a small component of police work. Much of an officer's day is spent mediating interpersonal conflicts. That's the reality of policing.
These are my babies. And we can reduce the disparity in policing by changing exams that produce disparate outcomes. The federal courts have stated that men and women simply are not physiologically the same for the purposes of physical fitness programs. And that's based on science.
Respected institutions that law enforcement deeply respects, like the FBI, the US Marshals Service, the DEA and even the US military -- they rigorously test fitness programs to ensure they measure fitness without gender-disparate outcomes. Why is that? Because recruiting is expensive. They want to recruit and retain qualified candidates. You know what else the research finds? Well-trained women are as capable as their male counterparts in overall fitness, but more importantly, in how they police.
I've been a police officer in an urban city for nearly 25 years. That's crazy, right? And in that time, I've served in every rank, from police officer to police chief. A few years ago, I noticed something alarming.
Starting in 2014, I started monitoring recruits as they cycled through police academies in the state of New Jersey, and I found that women were failing at rates between 65 and 80 percent, due to varying aspects of the physical fitness test. I learned that a change in policy now required recruits to pass the fitness exam within 10 short workout sessions. This had the greatest impact on women. The change meant that recruits had about three weeks out of a five-month-long academy to pass the fitness exam. This just didn't make sense, though.
Police agencies and police recruits had made huge investments to get those recruits into the academy. Police recruits had passed lengthy background checks, they had passed medical and psychological exams, they had quit their jobs. And many had spent more than 2,000 dollars in fees and equipment just to get kicked out within the first three weeks?
The dire situation in New Jersey led me to examine the status of women in policing across the United States.
I found that women make up less than 13 percent of police officers. A number that hasn't changed much in the past 20 years. And they make up just three percent of police chiefs as of 2013, the last time the data was collected. We know that we can improve those rates. Other countries like Canada, Australia and the UK have nearly twice the amount of policewomen. And New Zealand is steadily marching towards their goal of recruit gender parity by 2021. Other countries are actively working to increase the number of women in policing, because they know of a vast body of research evidence, spanning more than 50 years, detailing the advantages to women in policing.
From that research, we know that policewomen are less likely to use force or to be accused of excessive force. We know that policewomen are less likely to be named in a lawsuit or a citizen complaint. We know that the mere presence of a policewoman reduces the use of force among other officers. And we know that policewomen are met with the same rates of force as their male counterparts, and sometimes more, and yet they're more successful in defusing violent or aggressive behavior overall. So there are vast advantages to women in policing, and we're losing them to arbitrary fitness standards.
The problem is, the United States has nearly 18,000 police agencies -- 18,000 agencies with wildly varying fitness standards. We know that a majority of academies rely on a masculine ideal of policing that works to decrease the number of women in policing. These types of academies overemphasize physical strength, with much less attention spent to subjects like community policing, problem-solving and interpersonal communication skills. This results in training that does not mirror the realities of policing. Physical agility is but a small component of police work. Much of an officer's day is spent mediating interpersonal conflicts. That's the reality of policing.
These are my babies. And we can reduce the disparity in policing by changing exams that produce disparate outcomes. The federal courts have stated that men and women simply are not physiologically the same for the purposes of physical fitness programs. And that's based on science.
Respected institutions that law enforcement deeply respects, like the FBI, the US Marshals Service, the DEA and even the US military -- they rigorously test fitness programs to ensure they measure fitness without gender-disparate outcomes. Why is that? Because recruiting is expensive. They want to recruit and retain qualified candidates. You know what else the research finds? Well-trained women are as capable as their male counterparts in overall fitness, but more importantly, in how they police.
❤5
The law-enforcement community is admittedly experiencing a recruitment crisis. Yet, if they truly want to increase the number of applicants, they can. We can easily recruit more women and reap all those research benefits by training well-qualified candidates to pass validated, work-related, physiologically-based fitness exams, as required by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
We can increase the number of women, we can reduce that gender disparity, by simply changing exams that produce disparate outcomes. We have the tools. We have the research, we have the science, we have the law. This, my friends, should be a very easy fix.
Thank you.
#Social_Change #Women #Justice_System #Work #Feminism #United_States #Diversity #TED_Fellows #Gender
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We can increase the number of women, we can reduce that gender disparity, by simply changing exams that produce disparate outcomes. We have the tools. We have the research, we have the science, we have the law. This, my friends, should be a very easy fix.
Thank you.
#Social_Change #Women #Justice_System #Work #Feminism #United_States #Diversity #TED_Fellows #Gender
🎙Join ➣ @TEDTalksLearning ☜
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🟢The Chemistry Of Cookies
#TED_Ed #Animation #Science #Chemistry #Bacteria #Food
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#TED_Ed #Animation #Science #Chemistry #Bacteria #Food
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🟢The Chemistry Of Cookies
In a time-lapse video, it looks like a monster coming alive. For a moment, it sits there innocuously. Then, ripples move across its surface. It bulges outwards, bursting with weird boils. It triples in volume. Its color darkens ominously, and its surface hardens into an alien topography of peaks and craters. Then, the kitchen timer dings. Your cookie is ready. What happened inside that oven? Don't let the apron deceive you! Bakers are mad scientists. When you slide the pan into the oven, you're setting off a series of chemical reactions that transform one substance, dough, into another, cookies. When the dough reaches 92 degrees Fahrenheit, the butter inside melts, causing the dough to start spreading out. Butter is an emulsion, or mixture of two substances that don't want to stay together, in this case, water and fat, along with some dairy solids that help hold them together. As the butter melts, its trapped water is released. And as the cookie gets hotter, the water expands into steam. It pushes against the dough from the inside, trying to escape through the cookie walls like Ridley Scott's chest-bursting alien. Your eggs may have been home to squirming salmonella bacteria. An estimated 142,000 Americans are infected this way each year. Though salmonella can live for weeks outside a living body and even survive freezing, 136 degrees is too hot for them. When your dough reaches that temperature, they die off. You'll live to test your fate with a bite of raw dough you sneak from your next batch. At 144 degrees, changes begin in the proteins, which come mostly from the eggs in your dough. Eggs are composed of dozens of different kinds of proteins, each sensitive to a different temperature. In an egg fresh from the hen, these proteins look like coiled up balls of string. When they're exposed to heat energy, the protein strings unfold and get tangled up with their neighbors. This linked structure makes the runny egg nearly solid, giving substance to squishy dough. Water boils away at 212 degrees, so like mud baking in the sun, your cookie gets dried out and it stiffens. Cracks spread across its surface. The steam that was bubbling inside evaporates, leaving behind airy pockets that make the cookie light and flaky. Helping this along is your leavening agent, sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda. The sodium bicarbonate reacts with acids in the dough to create carbon dioxide gas, which makes airy pockets in your cookie. Now, it's nearly ready for a refreshing dunk in a cool glass of milk. One of science's tastiest reactions occurs at 310 degrees. This is the temperature for Maillard reactions. Maillard reactions result when proteins and sugars break down and rearrange themselves, forming ring-like structures, which reflect light in a way that gives foods like Thanksgiving turkey and hamburgers their distinctive, rich brown color. As this reaction occurs, it produces a range of flavor and aroma compounds, which also react with each other, forming even more complex tastes and smells. Caramelization is the last reaction to take place inside your cookie. Caramelization is what happens when sugar molecules break down under high heat, forming the sweet, nutty, and slightly bitter flavor compounds that define, well, caramel. And, in fact, if your recipe calls for a 350 degree oven, it'll never happen, since caramelization starts at 356 degrees. If your ideal cookie is barely browned, like a Northeasterner on a beach vacation, you could have set your oven to 310 degrees. If you like your cookies to have a nice tan, crank up the heat. Caramelization continues up to 390 degrees. And here's another trick: you don't need that kitchen timer; your nose is a sensitive scientific instrument. When you smell the nutty, toasty aromas of the Maillard reaction and caramelization, your cookies are ready. Grab your glass of milk, put your feet up, and reflect that science can be pretty sweet.
#TED_Ed #Animation #Science #Chemistry #Bacteria #Food
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In a time-lapse video, it looks like a monster coming alive. For a moment, it sits there innocuously. Then, ripples move across its surface. It bulges outwards, bursting with weird boils. It triples in volume. Its color darkens ominously, and its surface hardens into an alien topography of peaks and craters. Then, the kitchen timer dings. Your cookie is ready. What happened inside that oven? Don't let the apron deceive you! Bakers are mad scientists. When you slide the pan into the oven, you're setting off a series of chemical reactions that transform one substance, dough, into another, cookies. When the dough reaches 92 degrees Fahrenheit, the butter inside melts, causing the dough to start spreading out. Butter is an emulsion, or mixture of two substances that don't want to stay together, in this case, water and fat, along with some dairy solids that help hold them together. As the butter melts, its trapped water is released. And as the cookie gets hotter, the water expands into steam. It pushes against the dough from the inside, trying to escape through the cookie walls like Ridley Scott's chest-bursting alien. Your eggs may have been home to squirming salmonella bacteria. An estimated 142,000 Americans are infected this way each year. Though salmonella can live for weeks outside a living body and even survive freezing, 136 degrees is too hot for them. When your dough reaches that temperature, they die off. You'll live to test your fate with a bite of raw dough you sneak from your next batch. At 144 degrees, changes begin in the proteins, which come mostly from the eggs in your dough. Eggs are composed of dozens of different kinds of proteins, each sensitive to a different temperature. In an egg fresh from the hen, these proteins look like coiled up balls of string. When they're exposed to heat energy, the protein strings unfold and get tangled up with their neighbors. This linked structure makes the runny egg nearly solid, giving substance to squishy dough. Water boils away at 212 degrees, so like mud baking in the sun, your cookie gets dried out and it stiffens. Cracks spread across its surface. The steam that was bubbling inside evaporates, leaving behind airy pockets that make the cookie light and flaky. Helping this along is your leavening agent, sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda. The sodium bicarbonate reacts with acids in the dough to create carbon dioxide gas, which makes airy pockets in your cookie. Now, it's nearly ready for a refreshing dunk in a cool glass of milk. One of science's tastiest reactions occurs at 310 degrees. This is the temperature for Maillard reactions. Maillard reactions result when proteins and sugars break down and rearrange themselves, forming ring-like structures, which reflect light in a way that gives foods like Thanksgiving turkey and hamburgers their distinctive, rich brown color. As this reaction occurs, it produces a range of flavor and aroma compounds, which also react with each other, forming even more complex tastes and smells. Caramelization is the last reaction to take place inside your cookie. Caramelization is what happens when sugar molecules break down under high heat, forming the sweet, nutty, and slightly bitter flavor compounds that define, well, caramel. And, in fact, if your recipe calls for a 350 degree oven, it'll never happen, since caramelization starts at 356 degrees. If your ideal cookie is barely browned, like a Northeasterner on a beach vacation, you could have set your oven to 310 degrees. If you like your cookies to have a nice tan, crank up the heat. Caramelization continues up to 390 degrees. And here's another trick: you don't need that kitchen timer; your nose is a sensitive scientific instrument. When you smell the nutty, toasty aromas of the Maillard reaction and caramelization, your cookies are ready. Grab your glass of milk, put your feet up, and reflect that science can be pretty sweet.
#TED_Ed #Animation #Science #Chemistry #Bacteria #Food
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🟢Kids are speaking up for the environment. Let's listen
#Climate_Change #Environment #Technology #Nature #Art #Countdown
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#Climate_Change #Environment #Technology #Nature #Art #Countdown
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🟢Kids are speaking up for the environment. Let's listen
My name is Olafur Eliasson. I'm an artist. I work with natural phenomena, the weather, climate, environment and our future, one could say.
I was very inspired by youth movements, how young people actually have organized themselves in order to be heard. For some time now, I have in fact collaborated with young people -- they are the artists as well, in this case -- to make a project "Earth Speakr," where we, the grown-ups, can listen to them. So join me in listening to them talking about the environment, and about the climate, about the future, and see what they have to say.
Girl 1: With "Earth Speakr," I can share my voice to anything I see. It's a platform for us to speak up and for the world to hear us. I could put a face on anything around me and say my message. Hey, excuse me, I can see you.
(Recorded voice) Hey, excuse me. I can see you.
Kids can be the experts. When we come together, we can find the answers. All you have to do is listen.
Boy 1: Fight for our future.
(Italian) Help me to live 1,000 years more.
(German) I am hungry!
Boy 2: It's our future, and it's getting hotter.
(Recorded voice) It's our future, and it's getting hotter. If I see a message I like, I can share it with my friends and family.
Girl 2: It's so cool because we can share our voices, we can hear others, and that's how we know that we're not alone in this fight. And if enough of us make messages, then the grown-ups will have to listen to us. Then we can really make a change in the world.
(Polish) I was so dry before I got watered!
(Portuguese) Hello! My message would be that all houses should have solar panels!
(French) Hey, I am Willy from the Earth!
Girl 3: Imagine every place being as green as me. This can be your future.
OE: See? Their imagination is just so inspiring, I think, and gives me hope also, frankly speaking. So in "Earth Speakr," only kids can speak, and the grown-ups are listening, right?
Of course, I still have an ask for you, as a grown-up, go and make a Speakr message with a kid and send it out into the world. Make sure that the kid feels "Wow! Somebody's listening to me." Because if we do that, I think the future might be shaping in the right direction.
Thank you.
#Climate_Change #Environment #Technology #Nature #Art #Countdown
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My name is Olafur Eliasson. I'm an artist. I work with natural phenomena, the weather, climate, environment and our future, one could say.
I was very inspired by youth movements, how young people actually have organized themselves in order to be heard. For some time now, I have in fact collaborated with young people -- they are the artists as well, in this case -- to make a project "Earth Speakr," where we, the grown-ups, can listen to them. So join me in listening to them talking about the environment, and about the climate, about the future, and see what they have to say.
Girl 1: With "Earth Speakr," I can share my voice to anything I see. It's a platform for us to speak up and for the world to hear us. I could put a face on anything around me and say my message. Hey, excuse me, I can see you.
(Recorded voice) Hey, excuse me. I can see you.
Kids can be the experts. When we come together, we can find the answers. All you have to do is listen.
Boy 1: Fight for our future.
(Italian) Help me to live 1,000 years more.
(German) I am hungry!
Boy 2: It's our future, and it's getting hotter.
(Recorded voice) It's our future, and it's getting hotter. If I see a message I like, I can share it with my friends and family.
Girl 2: It's so cool because we can share our voices, we can hear others, and that's how we know that we're not alone in this fight. And if enough of us make messages, then the grown-ups will have to listen to us. Then we can really make a change in the world.
(Polish) I was so dry before I got watered!
(Portuguese) Hello! My message would be that all houses should have solar panels!
(French) Hey, I am Willy from the Earth!
Girl 3: Imagine every place being as green as me. This can be your future.
OE: See? Their imagination is just so inspiring, I think, and gives me hope also, frankly speaking. So in "Earth Speakr," only kids can speak, and the grown-ups are listening, right?
Of course, I still have an ask for you, as a grown-up, go and make a Speakr message with a kid and send it out into the world. Make sure that the kid feels "Wow! Somebody's listening to me." Because if we do that, I think the future might be shaping in the right direction.
Thank you.
#Climate_Change #Environment #Technology #Nature #Art #Countdown
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👍6❤3
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🟢The true cost of gold
#Business #Corruption #Education #Africa #History #Money #Government #Animation
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#Business #Corruption #Education #Africa #History #Money #Government #Animation
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🟢The true cost of gold
Gold is one of Earth’s most valuable resources, with one kilogram regularly valued at over 55,000 US dollars. In 2020, Mali produced an estimated 71.2 tons of gold. But Mali only saw $850 million from gold in 2020, when that amount is worth billions, not to mention that the country likely produced much more than the reported 71.2 tons. The situation isn’t unique: a number of other gold-rich countries in Africa, including Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Niger also aren’t seeing the income they should, given the price of gold. The force behind this is greed on an individual, corporate, and national scale, and a corrupt system that perpetuates itself.
Although Mali has abundant gold, the country lacks the infrastructure to mine and export it. So the government allows multinational corporations to apply for licenses to mine gold in exchange for taxes paid to Mali’s government. These taxes should, theoretically, finance development, like building the infrastructure to mine gold, improve the economy, and provide citizens with public goods like healthcare and education. Tax money alone isn’t enough to do these things, of course: a government also has to be invested in its people’s well-being, and government corruption can prevent progress. But without adequate funds, even the best intentioned government doesn’t stand a chance of improving circumstances for its citizens.
Foreign corporations exploit Mali’s need for tax revenue to get the government to sign on to very unfavorable yet perfectly legal contracts. For example, one such contract stated that no corporate taxes would be owed for the first five years, costing Mali millions in tax revenue. Meanwhile, mining licenses sometimes allow these corporations to take samples of gold out of the country without registering them or paying taxes on them. These should be small amounts of gold used to test for quality, but the license doesn’t limit the size of samples, so this creates a loophole where corporations export large amounts of gold without paying any tax.
The multinational corporations are also evading taxes they are legally required to pay. They filter profits through a labyrinth of tax havens that’s difficult to trace. Or they exaggerate their expenses so they end up owing very little in taxes. For instance, a corporation in Mali uses a subsidiary in Ireland to manage its operations and another subsidiary in the Netherlands to license its brand name. The corporation in Mali pays management fees to the Irish subsidiary and pays intellectual property license fees to the Dutch company, all for enormous sums. These costs are deducted from overall profits, leaving the amount subject to taxes at a bare minimum.
These companies also buy gold on the black market. Local, small-scale miners often operate without a license, so the government is unaware of how much gold they mine. Corporations buy gold from these miners, avoiding the cost of mining the gold themselves, and pay the miners far below market value. Then they turn around and tell the government they incurred huge expenses mining gold they didn’t mine at all. There’s no way for Mali’s revenue authority to verify this information, causing the country to lose even more tax money.
Similarly, corporations pay corrupt government officials to help them smuggle gold across borders, primarily to the United Arab Emirates, rather than operating through legal channels. In 2016, Mali reported around $200 million of exported gold, but the UAE reported receiving slightly over $1.5 billion of imported gold from Mali that same year. The gold is then sold to European, American, and Asian markets from the UAE, with no questions asked about its origins. Similar patterns can be seen with gold-rich countries across Africa, indicating that gold smuggling is happening on a massive scale, without ever being subject to taxes.
Gold is one of Earth’s most valuable resources, with one kilogram regularly valued at over 55,000 US dollars. In 2020, Mali produced an estimated 71.2 tons of gold. But Mali only saw $850 million from gold in 2020, when that amount is worth billions, not to mention that the country likely produced much more than the reported 71.2 tons. The situation isn’t unique: a number of other gold-rich countries in Africa, including Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Niger also aren’t seeing the income they should, given the price of gold. The force behind this is greed on an individual, corporate, and national scale, and a corrupt system that perpetuates itself.
Although Mali has abundant gold, the country lacks the infrastructure to mine and export it. So the government allows multinational corporations to apply for licenses to mine gold in exchange for taxes paid to Mali’s government. These taxes should, theoretically, finance development, like building the infrastructure to mine gold, improve the economy, and provide citizens with public goods like healthcare and education. Tax money alone isn’t enough to do these things, of course: a government also has to be invested in its people’s well-being, and government corruption can prevent progress. But without adequate funds, even the best intentioned government doesn’t stand a chance of improving circumstances for its citizens.
Foreign corporations exploit Mali’s need for tax revenue to get the government to sign on to very unfavorable yet perfectly legal contracts. For example, one such contract stated that no corporate taxes would be owed for the first five years, costing Mali millions in tax revenue. Meanwhile, mining licenses sometimes allow these corporations to take samples of gold out of the country without registering them or paying taxes on them. These should be small amounts of gold used to test for quality, but the license doesn’t limit the size of samples, so this creates a loophole where corporations export large amounts of gold without paying any tax.
The multinational corporations are also evading taxes they are legally required to pay. They filter profits through a labyrinth of tax havens that’s difficult to trace. Or they exaggerate their expenses so they end up owing very little in taxes. For instance, a corporation in Mali uses a subsidiary in Ireland to manage its operations and another subsidiary in the Netherlands to license its brand name. The corporation in Mali pays management fees to the Irish subsidiary and pays intellectual property license fees to the Dutch company, all for enormous sums. These costs are deducted from overall profits, leaving the amount subject to taxes at a bare minimum.
These companies also buy gold on the black market. Local, small-scale miners often operate without a license, so the government is unaware of how much gold they mine. Corporations buy gold from these miners, avoiding the cost of mining the gold themselves, and pay the miners far below market value. Then they turn around and tell the government they incurred huge expenses mining gold they didn’t mine at all. There’s no way for Mali’s revenue authority to verify this information, causing the country to lose even more tax money.
Similarly, corporations pay corrupt government officials to help them smuggle gold across borders, primarily to the United Arab Emirates, rather than operating through legal channels. In 2016, Mali reported around $200 million of exported gold, but the UAE reported receiving slightly over $1.5 billion of imported gold from Mali that same year. The gold is then sold to European, American, and Asian markets from the UAE, with no questions asked about its origins. Similar patterns can be seen with gold-rich countries across Africa, indicating that gold smuggling is happening on a massive scale, without ever being subject to taxes.
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All of this creates a vicious cycle, forcing a continued reliance on the corporations that helped create the situation in the first place. More than half of Mali’s citizens live below the international poverty line, while their nation’s wealth lines the pockets of foreign corporations and corrupt officials.
#Business #Corruption #Education #Africa #History #Money #Government #Animation
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#Business #Corruption #Education #Africa #History #Money #Government #Animation
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🟢The original ring of power
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🟢The original ring of power
A ring with supernatural abilities tempts its beholder with power. But there are no hobbits, dwarves, or Valkyries in this tale. In fact, the legend of the Ring of Gyges appeared long before those characters were ever committed to paper: more than 2,000 years ago, in the Greek philosopher Plato’s “Republic.” The story surfaces as the philosopher, Socrates, and his student, Glaucon, discuss why people act justly. Is it because it’s what’s right? Or because it’s a convention that’s enforced through punishment and reward? Playing devil’s advocate, Glaucon argues against Socrates and recounts the following story...
Long ago, a shepherd named Gyges was tending his flock when an earthquake struck, ripping an opening to the ground. The chasm drew Gyges in. There, his eyes alighted upon a bronze horse, the doors to its central chamber ajar. Peering inside, Gyges discovered the corpse of a giant. On its finger, a golden ring, which Gyges pocketed before retracing his steps. Later, he sat among the other shepherds, fiddling with the mysterious ring when, suddenly, after absentmindedly twirling its stone, he became invisible. When he turned the stone back in the opposite direction, he reappeared. Emboldened by the ring’s powers, new possibilities bloomed before him, and a sordid plan hatched in his mind. Gyges became a messenger to the king of Lydia, and, inside the palace, used the ring to prowl undetected. He seduced the queen and convinced her to betray her husband. And soon Gyges, once a humble shepherd, had murdered the monarch and claimed the kingdom.
Glaucon tells this story to illustrate how people can apparently benefit by acting unjustly. After all, wouldn’t any rational person act like Gyges if presented the opportunity to get what they desired without consequence?
Exploring this argument, Glaucon breaks all good things into three classes. The first kinds, we desire for their own sake, like the experience of harmless pleasure. The second, we want only for the value they bring, though they may be onerous, like exercise or medicine. The third class comprises things we desire for their own sake and the value they offer, like knowledge and health. Glaucon argues that justice belongs to the second class of good: it’s a burden that nevertheless brings rewards. The only reason anyone conducts themselves virtuously, he reasons, is due to external influences. So it’s appearing— not actually being— virtuous that matters.
Socrates, as written by Plato, disagrees, countering that justice belongs to the third class of good, offering both extrinsic and intrinsic benefits. Socrates argues that the human soul has three parts: reason, spirit, and appetite. Reason guides an individual to truth and knowledge, and is influenced by either spirit or appetite. Spirit is righteous, ambitious, and the source of bold action, while appetite consists of baser, bodily desires.
To Socrates, the philosopher is led by reason, and their spirit keeps their appetite in check, making them the most just and the happiest. Even without consequences for self-serving wrongdoings, they wouldn't commit them. Meanwhile, the tyrant succumbs to appetite and acts unjustly. So, while Gyges may have attained power and wealth, Socrates implies that his soul would be in disharmony. He’d be enslaved to his own base desires rather than guided by reason and wouldn't be truly happy.
Before Plato penned this discussion, Chinese philosopher Confucius similarly reasoned that by simply acting justly, one also benefits oneself. After, modern Western philosophers voiced varying beliefs. Thomas Hobbes, for instance, argued that the state of nature is violent and selfish. Justice, therefore, is imposed by authority. John Locke, in contrast, asserted that people are naturally obligated to act justly and they agree to participate in civil society to secure their natural rights.
A ring with supernatural abilities tempts its beholder with power. But there are no hobbits, dwarves, or Valkyries in this tale. In fact, the legend of the Ring of Gyges appeared long before those characters were ever committed to paper: more than 2,000 years ago, in the Greek philosopher Plato’s “Republic.” The story surfaces as the philosopher, Socrates, and his student, Glaucon, discuss why people act justly. Is it because it’s what’s right? Or because it’s a convention that’s enforced through punishment and reward? Playing devil’s advocate, Glaucon argues against Socrates and recounts the following story...
Long ago, a shepherd named Gyges was tending his flock when an earthquake struck, ripping an opening to the ground. The chasm drew Gyges in. There, his eyes alighted upon a bronze horse, the doors to its central chamber ajar. Peering inside, Gyges discovered the corpse of a giant. On its finger, a golden ring, which Gyges pocketed before retracing his steps. Later, he sat among the other shepherds, fiddling with the mysterious ring when, suddenly, after absentmindedly twirling its stone, he became invisible. When he turned the stone back in the opposite direction, he reappeared. Emboldened by the ring’s powers, new possibilities bloomed before him, and a sordid plan hatched in his mind. Gyges became a messenger to the king of Lydia, and, inside the palace, used the ring to prowl undetected. He seduced the queen and convinced her to betray her husband. And soon Gyges, once a humble shepherd, had murdered the monarch and claimed the kingdom.
Glaucon tells this story to illustrate how people can apparently benefit by acting unjustly. After all, wouldn’t any rational person act like Gyges if presented the opportunity to get what they desired without consequence?
Exploring this argument, Glaucon breaks all good things into three classes. The first kinds, we desire for their own sake, like the experience of harmless pleasure. The second, we want only for the value they bring, though they may be onerous, like exercise or medicine. The third class comprises things we desire for their own sake and the value they offer, like knowledge and health. Glaucon argues that justice belongs to the second class of good: it’s a burden that nevertheless brings rewards. The only reason anyone conducts themselves virtuously, he reasons, is due to external influences. So it’s appearing— not actually being— virtuous that matters.
Socrates, as written by Plato, disagrees, countering that justice belongs to the third class of good, offering both extrinsic and intrinsic benefits. Socrates argues that the human soul has three parts: reason, spirit, and appetite. Reason guides an individual to truth and knowledge, and is influenced by either spirit or appetite. Spirit is righteous, ambitious, and the source of bold action, while appetite consists of baser, bodily desires.
To Socrates, the philosopher is led by reason, and their spirit keeps their appetite in check, making them the most just and the happiest. Even without consequences for self-serving wrongdoings, they wouldn't commit them. Meanwhile, the tyrant succumbs to appetite and acts unjustly. So, while Gyges may have attained power and wealth, Socrates implies that his soul would be in disharmony. He’d be enslaved to his own base desires rather than guided by reason and wouldn't be truly happy.
Before Plato penned this discussion, Chinese philosopher Confucius similarly reasoned that by simply acting justly, one also benefits oneself. After, modern Western philosophers voiced varying beliefs. Thomas Hobbes, for instance, argued that the state of nature is violent and selfish. Justice, therefore, is imposed by authority. John Locke, in contrast, asserted that people are naturally obligated to act justly and they agree to participate in civil society to secure their natural rights.
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The allegory of the ill-gotten magical ring that lures its wearer towards their darkest desires continues to inspire. So if the ring of Gyges fell into your hands, what would you do?
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🟢Why do we feel nostalgia?
#Consciousness #History #Personality #Psychology #Sociology #Education #TED_Ed #Animation #Brain #Memory
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🟢Why do we feel nostalgia?
In the late 17th century, a medical student named Johannes Hofer noticed a strange illness affecting Swiss mercenaries serving abroad. Its symptoms, including fatigue, insomnia, irregular heartbeat, indigestion, and fever were so strong, the soldiers often had to be discharged. As Hofer discovered, the cause was not some physical disturbance, but an intense yearning for their mountain homeland. He dubbed the condition nostalgia, from the Greek "nostos" for homecoming and "algos" for pain or longing. At first, nostalgia was considered a particularly Swiss affliction. Some doctors proposed that the constant sound of cowbells in the Alps caused trauma to the ear drums and brain. Commanders even forbade their soldiers from singing traditional Swiss songs for fear that they'd lead to desertion or suicide. But as migration increased worldwide, nostalgia was observed in various groups. It turned out that anyone separated from their native place for a long time was vulnerable to nostalgia. And by the early 20th century, professionals no longer viewed it as a neurological disease, but as a mental condition similar to depression. Psychologists of the time speculated that it represented difficulties letting go of childhood, or even a longing to return to one's fetal state. But over the next few decades, the understanding of nostalgia changed in two important ways. Its meaning expanded from indicating homesickness to a general longing for the past. And rather than an awful disease, it began to be seen as a poignant and pleasant experience. Perhaps the most famous example of this was captured by French author Marcel Proust. He described how tasting a madeleine cake he had not eaten since childhood triggered a cascade of warm and powerful sensory associations. So what caused such a major reversal in our view of nostalgia? Part of it has to do with science. Psychology shifted away from pure theory and towards more careful and systematic empirical observation. So professionals realized that many of the negative symptoms may have been simply correlated with nostalgia rather than caused by it. And, in fact, despite being a complex emotional state that can include feelings of loss and sadness, nostalgia doesn't generally put people in a negative mood. Instead, by allowing individuals to remember personally meaningful and rewarding experiences they shared with others, nostalgia can boost psychological well-being. Studies have shown that inducing nostalgia in people can help increase their feelings of self-esteem and social belonging, encourage psychological growth, and even make them act more charitably. So rather than being a cause of mental distress, nostalgia can be a restorative way of coping with it. For instance, when people experience negative emotional states, they tend to naturally use nostalgia to reduce distress and restore well-being. Today, it seems that nostalgia is everywhere, partially because advertisers have discovered how powerful it is as a marketing technique. It's tempting to think of this as a sign of us being stuck in the past, but that's not really how nostalgia works. Instead, nostalgia helps us remember that our lives can have meaning and value, helping us find the confidence and motivation to face the challenges of the future.
#Consciousness #History #Personality #Psychology #Sociology #Education #TED_Ed #Animation #Brain #Memory
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In the late 17th century, a medical student named Johannes Hofer noticed a strange illness affecting Swiss mercenaries serving abroad. Its symptoms, including fatigue, insomnia, irregular heartbeat, indigestion, and fever were so strong, the soldiers often had to be discharged. As Hofer discovered, the cause was not some physical disturbance, but an intense yearning for their mountain homeland. He dubbed the condition nostalgia, from the Greek "nostos" for homecoming and "algos" for pain or longing. At first, nostalgia was considered a particularly Swiss affliction. Some doctors proposed that the constant sound of cowbells in the Alps caused trauma to the ear drums and brain. Commanders even forbade their soldiers from singing traditional Swiss songs for fear that they'd lead to desertion or suicide. But as migration increased worldwide, nostalgia was observed in various groups. It turned out that anyone separated from their native place for a long time was vulnerable to nostalgia. And by the early 20th century, professionals no longer viewed it as a neurological disease, but as a mental condition similar to depression. Psychologists of the time speculated that it represented difficulties letting go of childhood, or even a longing to return to one's fetal state. But over the next few decades, the understanding of nostalgia changed in two important ways. Its meaning expanded from indicating homesickness to a general longing for the past. And rather than an awful disease, it began to be seen as a poignant and pleasant experience. Perhaps the most famous example of this was captured by French author Marcel Proust. He described how tasting a madeleine cake he had not eaten since childhood triggered a cascade of warm and powerful sensory associations. So what caused such a major reversal in our view of nostalgia? Part of it has to do with science. Psychology shifted away from pure theory and towards more careful and systematic empirical observation. So professionals realized that many of the negative symptoms may have been simply correlated with nostalgia rather than caused by it. And, in fact, despite being a complex emotional state that can include feelings of loss and sadness, nostalgia doesn't generally put people in a negative mood. Instead, by allowing individuals to remember personally meaningful and rewarding experiences they shared with others, nostalgia can boost psychological well-being. Studies have shown that inducing nostalgia in people can help increase their feelings of self-esteem and social belonging, encourage psychological growth, and even make them act more charitably. So rather than being a cause of mental distress, nostalgia can be a restorative way of coping with it. For instance, when people experience negative emotional states, they tend to naturally use nostalgia to reduce distress and restore well-being. Today, it seems that nostalgia is everywhere, partially because advertisers have discovered how powerful it is as a marketing technique. It's tempting to think of this as a sign of us being stuck in the past, but that's not really how nostalgia works. Instead, nostalgia helps us remember that our lives can have meaning and value, helping us find the confidence and motivation to face the challenges of the future.
#Consciousness #History #Personality #Psychology #Sociology #Education #TED_Ed #Animation #Brain #Memory
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Forwarded from اپلای فنلاند 🇫🇮 مهاجرت مازیار
⏰️در فنلاند امنیت اونقدر بالاست که یه نفر یه چیزی رو گم کرده و سالها همونجا در مکان عمومی مونده و اینقدر کسی بهش دست نزده که پاکت پلاستیکی پوسیده! این ویدیو رو ببین تا باور کنی:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cy5ysISionN/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cy5ysISionN/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
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🟢Can the economy grow forever?
#Economics #Education #Money #Government #TED_Ed #Natural_Resources #Animation
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🟢Can the economy grow forever?
Let’s say you discover a magical gold coin that doubles every 25 years. 75 years later, you’d only have eight coins. But 1,000 years later, you’d have over a trillion. And in just 4,600 years, your gold coins would outweigh the observable universe.
This periodic doubling is an example of exponential growth, and while we’re not in any danger of discovering a real-life golden goose-coin, something almost as consequential has been growing like this for the past 200 or so years: the global economy.
Many economists think that an eternally growing economy is necessary to keep improving people’s lives, and that if the global economy stops growing, people would fight more over the fixed amount of value that exists, rather than working to generate new value.
That raises the question: is infinite growth possible on a finite planet?
We measure economic growth by tracking the total financial value of everything a country (or the world) produces and sells on the market. These products can help us meet basic needs or improve our individual and collective quality of life. But they also, crucially, take resources to invent, build, or maintain.
For example, this smartphone. It’s valuable in part because it contains aluminum, gallium, and silicon, all of which took energy and resources to mine, purify, and turn into a phone. It’s also valuable because of all the effort that went into designing the hardware and writing the software. And it’s also valuable because a guy in a black turtleneck got up on stage and told you it was.
So how do we grow the total financial value of all things? One way is to make more things. Another way is to invent new things. However you do it, growing the economy requires resources and energy. And eventually, won’t we just run out?
To answer this question, let's consider what goes into the economy and what comes out of it: its inputs are labor, capital— which you can think of as money— and natural resources, like water or energy. Its output is value. Over the past 200 years, economies have gotten exponentially more efficient at producing value.
If we, as a species, are able to keep upgrading our economies so that they get ever-more efficient, we could theoretically pump out more and more value using the same— or, let’s be really ambitious here— fewer resources.
So, how do we do that? How do we increase efficiency? With new technologies.
This is where we hit a snag.
New tech, in addition to making things more efficient, can also generate new demand, which ends up using more resources.
We’re actually not in imminent danger of running out of most resources. But we have a much bigger and more immediate problem: the global economy, and in particular those of rich countries, is driving climate change and destroying valuable natural environments on which all of us depend— soil, forests, fisheries, and countless other resources that help keep our civilization running.
So, what should we do?
This is where economists disagree.
Most economists think that new ideas will be able to fix most of these problems. They argue that, in the same way that exponentially increasing resource and energy use have fueled exponential economic growth, human ingenuity has also increased exponentially, and will rise to meet these challenges in ways that we simply can't predict. For example, between 2000 and 2014, Germany grew their GDP by 16%, while cutting CO2 emissions by 12%.
That’s impressive, but it’s not cutting emissions fast enough to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. For this reason and others, some economists think the solution is to reengineer our economies completely. They make the case that what we should really be doing is weaning ourselves from the addiction to growth and shifting to a post-growth economy.
Let’s say you discover a magical gold coin that doubles every 25 years. 75 years later, you’d only have eight coins. But 1,000 years later, you’d have over a trillion. And in just 4,600 years, your gold coins would outweigh the observable universe.
This periodic doubling is an example of exponential growth, and while we’re not in any danger of discovering a real-life golden goose-coin, something almost as consequential has been growing like this for the past 200 or so years: the global economy.
Many economists think that an eternally growing economy is necessary to keep improving people’s lives, and that if the global economy stops growing, people would fight more over the fixed amount of value that exists, rather than working to generate new value.
That raises the question: is infinite growth possible on a finite planet?
We measure economic growth by tracking the total financial value of everything a country (or the world) produces and sells on the market. These products can help us meet basic needs or improve our individual and collective quality of life. But they also, crucially, take resources to invent, build, or maintain.
For example, this smartphone. It’s valuable in part because it contains aluminum, gallium, and silicon, all of which took energy and resources to mine, purify, and turn into a phone. It’s also valuable because of all the effort that went into designing the hardware and writing the software. And it’s also valuable because a guy in a black turtleneck got up on stage and told you it was.
So how do we grow the total financial value of all things? One way is to make more things. Another way is to invent new things. However you do it, growing the economy requires resources and energy. And eventually, won’t we just run out?
To answer this question, let's consider what goes into the economy and what comes out of it: its inputs are labor, capital— which you can think of as money— and natural resources, like water or energy. Its output is value. Over the past 200 years, economies have gotten exponentially more efficient at producing value.
If we, as a species, are able to keep upgrading our economies so that they get ever-more efficient, we could theoretically pump out more and more value using the same— or, let’s be really ambitious here— fewer resources.
So, how do we do that? How do we increase efficiency? With new technologies.
This is where we hit a snag.
New tech, in addition to making things more efficient, can also generate new demand, which ends up using more resources.
We’re actually not in imminent danger of running out of most resources. But we have a much bigger and more immediate problem: the global economy, and in particular those of rich countries, is driving climate change and destroying valuable natural environments on which all of us depend— soil, forests, fisheries, and countless other resources that help keep our civilization running.
So, what should we do?
This is where economists disagree.
Most economists think that new ideas will be able to fix most of these problems. They argue that, in the same way that exponentially increasing resource and energy use have fueled exponential economic growth, human ingenuity has also increased exponentially, and will rise to meet these challenges in ways that we simply can't predict. For example, between 2000 and 2014, Germany grew their GDP by 16%, while cutting CO2 emissions by 12%.
That’s impressive, but it’s not cutting emissions fast enough to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. For this reason and others, some economists think the solution is to reengineer our economies completely. They make the case that what we should really be doing is weaning ourselves from the addiction to growth and shifting to a post-growth economy.
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