Kaotično umikanje ZDA iz Afganistana in nepripravljenost EU držav na ameriški umik bodo povzročile podobne težave, kot smo jih bili deležni leta 2015. Grozi nam podoben migrantski val. In Erdogan bo spet gate keeper.

V nekaterih državah bo to krojili volilne rezultate, morda bo celo centralna tema v naslednjih mesecih. In potem Bog nas obvaruj desničarskih jastrebov.

President Joe Biden was unapologetic yesterday in the face of cross-aisle criticism of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Kabul. Yet as Samy Adghirni reports, that defiance hasn’t stopped European allies from laying the blame on Washington, even as they conceded to being similarly caught out by the Taliban’s lightning victory.

Ni nam treba pogledati do Afganistana, da bi se zgražali nad talibanskimi metodami. Doma jih imamo v izobilju.

Odličen povzetek @pseudoerasmus politične zgodovine Afganistana od 1970-ih let naprej, medetničnih bojev za oblast in pakistanskega odločilnega vpliva, in kako so se v ta dizaster nato najprej zapletli Sovjeti in nato še Američani ter si oboji polomili zobe. Afganistan je bolj kompleksna zgodba, kot se zdi.

Afghanistan enters the news cycle, and there are always people rehashing the 1980s….

Periodic reminder:

Taliban ≠ the mujahiddin of the 1980s.

If anything, the Taliban have just driven from power the remnants/descendants of the mujahiddin/ex-communist coalition of the 1990s

Just to illustrate the complexities of the factional history… a simplified outline:

In 1973, the ethnically Pashtun monarchy was overthrown in a bloodless coup by the cousin of the last king, who declared a republic and wanted a faster modernisation of the country.

In 1978, this cousin prince-president was then overthrown in a bloody coup by a group of *radical* communists, who were composed of mostly ethnic Pashtuns.

But their tribal and social origins were different. The monarchy was founded on a confederation of southern tribes from around Kandahar (like the Taliban at the beginning). The communists were primarily from the ‘eastern’ tribes near the northern Pakistani border.

The radical communists (Khalq) attemped a rural revolution. They always do. Naturally this disturbed the fragile equilibrium in which the monarchy had been modernising the cities but had left the countryside — ironically their base of support esp the rural Pashtun tribes — alone.

Naturally attempted rural reforms created a backlash. (This was exploited by Pakistan, which was only responding in kind: after the king was overthrown, the Afghan govt shored up domestic support by making irredentist-separatist claims against the Pashtun provinces of Pakistan.)

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Dober povzetek začetka Bidenovih težav. Bloomberg:

Suddenly, it all seems to be going wrong for Joe Biden.

Instead of the “summer of freedom” he promised pandemic-weary Americans in June, the U.S. is being ravaged by a surge in Covid-19 infections, fueled by the delta variant and continued vaccine skepticism, particularly in rural areas.

The president’s economic agenda faces an uncertain fate in the House amid a revolt from moderate Democrats demanding quicker action on a bipartisan infrastructure package, and a partisan showdown over raising the federal borrowing limit looms large in September.

Biden’s plans to mark the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by having secured an end to America’s longest war are now certain to be overshadowed by an unfolding foreign policy disaster and humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

Desperate scenes played out at Kabul’s international airport today as thousands rushed to exit Afghanistan after Taliban leaders took control of the capital, with reports saying at least five people were killed.

Just last month, Biden defended his decision to follow through on the Afghanistan military pullout agreed to by his predecessor, Donald Trump, calling it “highly unlikely” that “there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country.”

It’s now clear how wrong that prediction was.

As Nick Wadhams writes, the miscalculation amounts to a spiraling political calamity — at home and abroad — for a president who had vowed to be a sure-handed steward of U.S. foreign policy, an error that’s likely to be a stain on Biden’s legacy no matter what happens now.

Ko sem prebiral ta pregledni članek o “degrowth” (“odrasti” po naše, kar je, mimogrede, grozen termin) Johna Cassidyja v New Yorkerju med je vedno znova presunjalo, kako hudiča se pri nas ne najde noben novinar, ki bil sposoben napisati tako čudovito recenzijo strokovnih pogledov na eno najbolj aktualnih dilem sodobnega časa. Cassidy je odlično povzel različne strokovne poglede, zakaj je strategija visoke gospodarske rasti problematična iz okoljskega vidika in vidika neenakosti ter jo nato soočil z dejavniki, ki že itak znižujejo to rast (omejenost virov, šibka demografska rast, spremenjene preference ljudi in razlike v produktivnosti med industrijskim in storitvenim sektorjem). Pokazal je, da se “degrowth” itak že dogaja oziroma smo prešli v fazo počasne rasti (“slow growth”) in da to ni nič slabega.

Pri slednjem se je naslonil na knjigo “Fully Grown: Why a Stagnant Economy Is a Sign of Success” mojega priljubljenega razvojnega ekonomista Dietza Vollratha (University of Houston). Vollrath pravi, da sta dve tretjini upočasnitve v rasti posledica manjše demografije (slednja pa je posledice boljšega ekonomskega položaja, emancipacije in možnosti kontroliranja nosečnosti / rojstev). Gospodarska rast je namreč produkt rasti prebivalstva (delovne sile) in produktivnosti. Slednja pa je v dobršni meri upadla zato, ker se je po eni strani produktivnost v industriji tako povečala, da je mogoče z manj inputi proizvesti bistveno več proizvodov, na drugi strani pa so se spremenile preference ljudi, ki danes v svoji potrošni košarici zajemajo večji delež storitev kot proizvodov. In ker se je delež storitev v BDP (kjer je produktivnost nizka in počasi ali sploh ne raste) povečal na 70 do 85%, seveda posledično tudi produktivnost celotnega gospodarstva počasneje raste. In ko to počasnejšo rast prebivalstva pomnožite z zelo počasi napredujočo produktivnostjo gospodarstva, dobite seveda, da se gospodarska rast v razvitih državah trendno znižuje od nekadanjih 3-4% proti 1%.

No, in ta nižja rast, do katere je prišlo po evolutivni poti, je po mnogih ocenah skladna z okoljskimi omejitvami in klimatskimi cilji. Pri čemer pa lahko strukturo rasti primerno sooblikujemo z ekonomskimi politikami, kot so ogljični davek (tudi ogljične carine) in povečane investicije v bolj zelene tehnologije, kar financiramo prav iz virov ogljičnih davkov. Panika “zelenih marksistov” je torej odveč, treba je uporabiti zdrav razum in pametne politike. Pri tem pa se morajo zagovorniki ničelne rasti zavedati, kaj to pomeni za revnejše ljudi. Ničelna rast pomeni, da se revni predeli sveta ne morejo izkopati iz revščine, na kar opozarja tudi Branko Milanović v “Degrowth: Solving the Impasse by Magical Thinking“. V zadnjih dveh desetletjih se je število ljudi, ki so živeli v absolutni revščini, zmanjšalo iz dveh milijard na vsega 700 mio ljudi. Predvsem po zaslugi hitrejše rasti na Kitajskem in Indiji. Milanović tudi pravi, da če s strategijo ničelne rasti ne želimo revnih za večno pustiti v prekletstvu revščine, bi morali dohodke globalno bolj enakomerno porazdeliti, torej jih vzeti prebivalcem v razvitih državah in jih preusmeriti tistim v nerazvitih. Kar pa je seveda politično nemogoče. Zato je strategija degrowtha zgolj magično razmišljanje brez realne logike.

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V Bloombergu:

A third shot is coming. U.S. regulators authorized giving an extra dose of Covid-19 vaccine to the most vulnerable people, but it’s a decision that comes with a price, as it could further exacerbate vaccine inequality across the world. Australia is facing its worst crisis since the pandemic began, while Austin, Texas, has warned residents the situation there is dire. Contrast that with the U.K., which is slowly emerging from the latest wave even after the government pushed ahead with an almost full reopening. Sam Fazeli explains in Bloomberg Opinion, the fast-spreading delta variant has increased infection risk among children, and the world apparently needs quicker—not more—antigen tests. 

America’s biggest hunt. Six thousand miles from Wall Street, in the ancient Silk Road city of Almaty, lies a little-known financial empire. Inside a members-only club, two cockatoos keep watch. Above a bronze samovar, a flat screen television shows the corporate crest: a green “F” on a green shield. Few can explain how this obscure brokerage in Kazakhstan has outrun Wall Street firms. But outrun them it has. —David E. Rovella

The dramatic unravelling of the situation in Afghanistan puts U.S. President Joe Biden’s reputation for foreign-policy expertise at risk, Jonathan Bernstein writes in Bloomberg Opinion. In another black eye for the U.S., the International Monetary Fund is handing a $1 billion lifeline to Belarus’s authoritarian regime.

Humanity is facing a climate “code red,” the United Nations said in a withering assessment of the challenges ahead. The past decade was probably hotter than any period in the past 125,000 years, and mankind is undoubtedly the culprit. Infernos like the Dixie Fire are now the new normal for California.

Spodaj je recenzija knjige “Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men” (Caroline Criado Perez), ki je sicer še nisem prebral, me je pa ta recenzija spodbudila, da jo bom. V glavnem, teza knjige je, da so ženske v tem moško-dizajniranem svetu preprosto nevidne. Ni podatkov o njih. Ker primanjkuje statističnih podatkov, ločenih po spolu, se tudi dizajnerske rešitve ne razlikujejo, amapk so prilagojene unisexu. Seveda moškemu. Zato je večina stvari preprosto dizajnirana za moške. Začenši že od tega, da najprej počistijo sneg na cestah kot na pločnikih, ker so se pač moški vozili z avti na delo, ženske, ki so po pločnikih vodile otroke v šolo, pa so lahko pač malce počakale. In tako je ostalo. Podobno je na drugih področjih, pri dizajnu avtomobilov itd. In tega se sploh ne zavedamo.

No, v resnici na ljubo se je po seksualni revoluciji iz 1960-ih let svet postopoma spremenil, sploh pa v zadnjih dveh, treh desetletjih. Danes se stvari dizajnirajo ne samo za ženske, pač pa tudi glede na različne spolne orientacije znotraj spolov. In večja kot je reprezentiranost žensk in različnih spolnih orientacij na vodilnih mestih v gospodarstvu, kulturi in politiki, bolj bodo te razlike izginjale. Nekateri bodo sicer jamrali čez poženščen ali celo LGBT svet, ampak to pač vse bolj odraža dejansko heterogenost sveta, v katerem živimo. Nadaljujte z branjem→

Jasmina Držanič

O popravnem izpitu, da distopija ne bo trajala dolgo

V prejšnjem delu sem omenila, da smo na robu distopije. V tem delu pa navajam en (po mojem prezrti) razlog zanjo in ugibam o koncu distopije.

Problem prenizko postavljenega cilja

Nalezljiva bolezen je tista, ki se iz enega kliconosca prenese na drugega. Če lahko en kliconosec okuži več kot eno osebo, pomeni, da se bo okužba začela eksponentno širiti. Ocena tega, koliko povprečno okuži en kliconosec , se imenuje reprodukcijsko število R₀ od vrednosti tega je potem odvisno, kakšna eksponentna rast se lahko zgodi.

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