A recession trifecta is a real possibility in the very near future. Unimaginable climate conditions are no longer something imaginable in the future – in India and Pakistan they are today’s tragic reality. Putin has given NATO a future. As an antidote to connected isolation, shared rituals and narratives and temporal stability could give a sense of community back its future. Solitude is not loneliness.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Kenneth Rogoff, The Growing Threat of Global Recession
(Project Syndicate, 26 April 2022)
Every day, the risks of a global recession trifecta are rising with the increasing likelihood of a recession in Europe, the US, and China. In addition, a recession in one region raises the odds of a recession in the others. In the US, consumer prices are currently increasing at their fastest rate for 40 years, making prospects of a soft landing without a big hit to growth increasingly remote. In Europe, the war is greatly amplifying the continent’s risks and vulnerabilities. In China, it is more and more difficult to sustain positive growth in the face of draconian lockdowns. But with a bit of luck, the risk of a synchronized global downturn will recede by late 2022 (metered paywall – reads in 6-7 min).
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Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Shah Meer Baloch, ‘We are living in hell’: Pakistan and India suffer extreme spring heatwaves
(The Guardian, 2 May 2022)
A tragic reminder of what’s already happening and a warning of what’s to come in terms of extreme weather. (Kim Stanley Robinson describes such a scenario in his novel The Ministry for the Future.) Over the past few weeks, India and Pakistan have been the hottest places on Earth, suffering temperatures hitting 50C (122F) and above, unprecedented for this time of year. Locals have been driven into their homes, unable to work, and facing critical shortages of water and power. Crop yields have been devastated. A Pakistani minister warned that his country was facing an “existential crisis” (free access – reads in 6-7 min).
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Thomas Meaney, How Putin’s invasion returned Nato to the centre stage
(The Guardian, 5 May 2022)
At a time when NATO’s role has become a topic of furious debate, this long read (about 15 min.) does a great job at explaining what we talk about when we talk about NATO – an alliance of 30 nation-states committed to free institutions bound together by article 5 of its charter (its members will collectively defend any member that is attacked, albeit conditionally). Throughout its history, NATO suffered many existential crises, but Putin has single-handedly revived its fortunes, with Finland and Sweden now eager to join. “The old sheriff of the cold war has regained its focus, and, to the surprise of many, has proved itself to be a remarkably spry and capable force in the fight against Russia” (free access).
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Nathan Gardels, The Antidote To Digital Disconnectivity
(Noéma, 22 April 2022)
The information age is full of paradoxes: the more we are informed, the more disoriented we become; the more we connect, the more divided we are; the faster the network speed, the shorter our attention span becomes. And so on! After observing that we cannot forge a public sphere out of influencers and followers, Byung-Chul Han (a South Korean-born German philosopher) provides the antidote that includes rituals, shared narratives, context and temporal stability. These are all missing from the connected isolation of digital disconnectivity and constitute the antidote to its corrosion of community (free access – reads in 8-10 min).
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Jonny Thomson, Solitude is not loneliness. Here’s the key philosophical difference.
(Big Think, 8 April 2022)
The philosopher Schopenhauer argued that solitude is an opportunity for introspection, imagination, creativity, and contemplation, but the balance between solitude and loneliness is a knife’s edge. “There is no sure-fire way to tell the two apart. Solitude is often a chosen state, while loneliness is forced.” The former is a conscious retreat into ourselves while the latter is the feeling of absence and emptiness – it’s like looking at a hole (free access – reads in 4-5 min).
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