The power and importance of hope. The power of geo-economics. US tariffs on China: meanings and implications. Does ‘entropy’ characterise the new world ‘order’? The new Google AI tool set to change the ‘world order’ of the internet.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Nicholas Kristof, The Case for Hope
(The New York Times, 9 May 2024)
How to replace the despair permeating much of the world with guarded hope? The columnist who’s been covering ‘misery’ for 40 years sees both reasons for hope and the need for hope. Many things could go very wrong (from nuclear annihilation to unmanageable carbon emissions), but he argues that “we have the good fortune to be part of what is probably the greatest improvement in life expectancy, nutrition and health that has ever unfolded in one lifetime.” In his opinion (and talking about the US), “the current malaise is distorting our politics and our personal behaviors, adding to the tensions and divisions in society.” Yet, we are all endowed with strength and hope, that, “if we recognize it and flex it, can achieve the impossible” (gifted article, reads in about 10 min).
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Krysten Crawford, The power of ‘geoeconomics’ to make sense of a turbulent world
(SIEPR (Stanford University), 22 February 2024)
Three months old but as relevant as ever. In this short interview, Maggiori (an economist who co-authored a new paper on geoeconomics) explains how economic power is now used to achieve geopolitical goals. This is not a new phenomenon (the Romans, the Medicis, and various colonial powers used economic tools as carrots and sticks to get others to do what they wanted during their respective rules), but today the US and China use economic coercion on multiple fronts, like the US-led sanctions against Russia and China’s massive funding of power plants, airports, and other infrastructure projects around the world. The paper provides a useful framework to make sense of what’s going on (free access, 6-7 min).
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Atlantic Council experts, What to know about Biden’s new tariffs on Chinese EVs, solar cells, and more
(New Atlanticist, 14 May 2024)
An American perspective on the recent US decision to impose punitive tariffs on a range of US Chinese goods. Four experts decipher what’s behind the move and what to expect next. It will probably compel the Chinese industry to shift production to places such as Southeast Asia and Mexico. The big question is about the EU: what is it going to do? The intra-EU politics of industrial policy is much more complicated than in the US, which further limits its scope of action (free access, reads in 6-7 min).
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Parag Khanna, The Coming Entropy of Our World Order
(Noéma, 7 May 2024)
Not everybody will agree with it, but this is an article that provides much food for thought. When nationalism, rivalry and fragmentation are the order of the day, how do we reconcile an increasingly fractured order with an increasingly planetary reality, asks Khanna. He doesn’t believe in grand visions and “parsimonious frameworks”, but rather, thinks that the most accurate description of today’s world is “high entropy” – a notion that infers disorder and a lack of coherence. As he states, “geography is being reprogrammed before our eyes as the world devolves into a networked archipelago of functional hubs with varying degrees of control over hinterlands near and far” (free access, reads in 12-15 min).
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Lauren Goode, It’s the End of Google Search as We Know It
(Wired, 14 May 2024)
Google just announced a major update to its search engine, with an outcome that could significantly reduce the amount of traffic that websites receive. As one expert observes, this amounts to “a change in the world order.” The update will indeed alter search and the way we interact with the internet. It will alter the web economy and will also cut out the middleman, with sites that that rely on traffic (like Wikipedia and news organizations) buckling under the “zero click” effect (metered paywall, reads in 6-8 min).
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