The Prosperity of Vice: A Worried View of Economics (MIT Press)

Daniel Cohen

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Philippe Askenazy , Four Blind Decades: Philippe Le Corre and Alain Sepulchre: China's Offensive in Europe, Brookings Institution, Alessandra Russo, The Untranslatable Image: Vincent Normand, Psychoacoustic Tarab: Nicolas Lainez , ed. Alain Touraine , Society as Utopia. Oxford University Press, Wolf, Michaela and Alexandra Fukari eds.

Emmanuelle Saada, Law in the Time of Catastrophe. Alain Testart , What is a gift? Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 3, To explain this apparent contradiction, Cohen posits that happiness is driven not by wealth per se , but by envy. The wealthiest in society are happy not because they are rich, but because someone else is poor. Cohen somewhat facetiously suggests that the rich should spend as much time with the poor as possible to benefit from this psychological boost.

Cohen is keen to draw a distinction between growth and wealth however. In terms of happiness, growth is actually a good thing as it enables individuals to fulfil their aspirations and satisfy their addiction to consumption. It is better therefore to live in a rapidly growing poor country than a stagnant rich one. But ultimately growth itself comes at a steep price — an ecological one.

Whether the planet can cope is far from clear, as is the question of whether mankind will do anything about it. The author does offer some grounds for hope, arguing for example that growth will enable more goods to be produced at a lower cost; both economic and ecological.

The MIT Press

It does suffer from a notable lack of structure that leaves it feeling somewhat rushed. This theme is eventually taken up, but not until the final section. Culture is part of the solution to finding common ground between wealthy and impoverished and all in-between. Vernacular architectures are expressions of the people and culture in a particular locale, in particular climates.

This is epidemic in scale. Regulators, police organisations and liability experts responsibly caution that we cannot let driverless technology get in front of safety. However, like with all epidemics, we also have a responsibility to realise the full potential of cures as soon as possible.

While we must be prudent, we also must not let those with vested interests in human driven cars slow progress. We must work together to safely accelerate the realisation of driverless vehicles. Reaching this imperative one-day sooner could save over 3, lives! Vishaan Chakrabarti, Associate Professor of Practice at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation The major new challenge for the fields of architecture and urbanism will be to build what I call the "Public Metropolis," which means cities that are more ecologically sound, more equitable, more humane in their deployment of technology, more intense in their creation of new infrastructure, and more fervent in their roles as beacons for a free, diverse and open global society in a time when nativism and fascism are on the rise.

The debate of whether to build dense, transit-based cities as the most environmentally sound growth model in a world in which billions are reaching the middle class is largely settled: Great civic architecture for both public and private projects will be pivotal to this question by enabling the creation of new cultural buildings, commercial projects, and infrastructures that read and write with the specifics of a place, so that we maintain local identities in a global world.

Lucy Jones, Science Advisor for Risk Reduction for the United States Geological Survey We do a great job as a society of funding and supporting innovative research — we really admire that aspect of it. What we do a very bad job at is making the interface between that esoteric research and how people can actually use the information.

People want predictions for earthquakes. But people have to understand the scientific process. Rochelle Kopp, founder and Managing Principal of Japan Intercultural Counseling I would say that one of the biggest challenges for the 21st Century as relates to Japan and Asia, and indeed the rest of the world, is related to questions of immigration which includes refugee issues.

These have of course received a lot of attention in the media, but the discussions are often stuck at a basic level, and governmental policies and programs are often not sufficiently addressing the issues. Specifically as for Asia: Japan, as well as Korea and China, are rapidly ageing and thus there will be increasing demand for labor in those countries, whereas many surrounding countries have surplus amounts of labour.

Part of the debate around immigration and acceptance of refugees, both in Japan and other countries, relates to how to integrate people from another culture into a society. This is my field, of cross-cultural communication and understanding. There is a lot of room for further application of the lessons of the cross-cultural field in areas outside of business where they are most often being utilised today , to help countries address issues related to immigrants and refugees.

All of these places are becoming organised. Today, virtually every neighbourhood is organised. Business improvement districts in particular are making leaps and bounds in the management of our society and they are recognising and working with technology firms to far better understand how these places work.

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The next big technological jump is a software jump: The issue is coming up with software that will create the mega database that will understand every part of the built environment at the place level, and eventually, the metropolitan level. Right now conclusions are based on guestimations, like ridership. All those tools will help place managements. This is a new field of place management. Edward Paice, Director, Africa Research Institute In Africa, very rapid urban growth — spatial and demographic — is occurring without adequate planning or, in many locations, any planning at all.

Urbanisation in Africa is occurring in its own distinctive fashion and there are significant variations within and between countries. But one common feature is that the economies of nearly all towns and cities are predominantly informal.

Susan Emanuel Translations - CV

The creation of long-term, decent jobs by the state and private enterprise is woefully inadequate; industrialisation remains for the most part absent. For African urbanisation to become a positive economic and social development, as opposed to a ticking time-bomb, urban planning needs to incorporate total populations, not simply the rich and middle classes; this is the only way that the economic potential of the majority can be harnessed for the national good.

How can this be done? Firstly, citizens have to be involved. Community participation in slum redevelopment initiatives has proven to be a far more productive and cheaper way of going about things than imposing ill-conceived, expensive schemes from above. Secondly, the technology exists to facilitate the rapid planning required — for example, data collection with mobile phones and satellite imagery have already been beneficial. Thirdly, urban-dwellers everywhere — voters — can mobilise even more effectively to ensure that their elected representatives deliver more.

We are seeing this occurring in more and more towns and cities and it is a very positive development for cities, for infrastructure development and for democracy. Even in autocracies there is always room for citizens to organise and thereby secure services or rights that they have been denied.

The final, essential, component is political will. This has been conspicuously lacking, but more determined and competent mayors and city leaders are emerging and the power of example is considerable. The majority of Africans will live in towns and cities by Management consultancies and international financiers routinely claim that rapid urbanisation is one of the great pluses in the investment case for Africa.

As things stand, this is hyperbolic nonsense.

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For towns and cities to drive economic growth and livelihood improvement, more imaginative and effective urban planning and management are imperative; and the provision of public goods must replace a narrow focus on the wellbeing of elites. Automation — as we move towards automated, electric vehicles, need to consider the effect on employment and wider implications of how we access mobility. Travelling on busy roads at peak hours could become the preserve of those who can afford to pay — how does that affect commuting etc; how will this change urban planning etc.

AI — automated vehicles are one application of AI but what are the wider implications for employment need for universal basic income? Many extoll the potential of technology to overcome that problem.

Whatever technology may accomplish, we will still need to think about how space is used: Going into the future, urban space still needs to be designed to maximize places for people to congregate, which are key to building social connections, fostering a sense of belonging, and encouraging community efficacy. Space for human connection is often not considered at all against technological solutions in cities. Without the design of places to support a social dimension, cities will not thrive regardless of how much technology we attempt to integrate, design for, and adopt.

Public health outcomes increase when isolation diminishes and people connect. We save billions in environmental costs if we plan for places that encourage people to spend time outside. We even reduce economic limitations in labor markets when we plan for places that allow people to shorten their commute distances and have access to stores, schools, and other daily services.

It's always fun to consider panaceas that can theoretically solve age-old problems in this case, growing populations with increasing travel needs. However, not nearly enough attention is given to the social impacts of these new solutions. We must carefully consider how they may change the physical shape and design of our cities in the future.

Most importantly, we must be aware of how they might isolate us. After all, by limiting our ability to socialize, technology may only generate new problems to replace the ones it "solved. Nicholas Agar, professor of ethics at the Victoria University of Wellington Recent advances in gene editing suggest a future in which we can radically upgrade human genomes. But a rush to enhance ourselves may erase aspects of our humanity that proper reflection reveals as valuable.

Proper reflection on what about us we might want to preserve takes time — it should draw on a wide range of perspectives about what it means to be human. Luke Alphey, visiting professor, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford Agricultural pest insects, and mosquitoes transmitting diseases, are long-standing problems for which we still have no satisfactory solution, indeed the problems are becoming more pressing. Modern genetics can potentially provide powerful new means for controlling these ancient enemies with greater effectiveness and precision — for example minimal off-target effects on the environment — than currently-used methods.

Gene drives are just one aspect of this, but perhaps encapsulate some of the issues. One gene drive system, involving inserting into mosquito cells a large amount of foreign to the mosquito DNA in the form of an intracellular bacterium Wolbachia , has entered field trials in several countries. Potential applications of genetic methods in public health and conservation biology, for example, have very little in common with GM crops; lumping them together risks poor debate, poor policy and — in my view — potential delay or loss of huge human and environmental benefits.

Genetics and health care play a role, but social, environmental, and behavioral factors have far greater impact on the whole health of a population. Some examples of social service investments include job training, supportive housing, and nutritional support — all of which have traditionally had an underestimated focus of attention.

Health and social services should be better integrated toward the achievement of common metrics, like lower rates of smoking, obesity, and depression. More research is needed, to measure the health care cost savings of early childhood education or income support programs, and to identify the most sustainable integrated models. A challenge moving forward is how to best engage the public with this fundamental science that really can positively impact human life and the world we live in. The GRIN technologies — the genetics, robotics, information and nano revolutions — are advancing on a curve.

Meanwhile, we humans are trying to process this exponential change with our good old v. With precious little help at all from those creating this upheaval. Folk are not stupid. They can clearly detect the ground moving beneath their feet, and that of their children and jobs and futures. When the ground moves beneath her feet, any sane primate looks for something apparently solid to hold onto. So what are we doing?

These guys are not stupid.

Humans require meaning as surely as food. The days when scientists could not [care] about the impact of their work on cultural, values and society are over. Are you intentionally trying to create supermen? Get out of your silo. And then invite the most interesting ones into your lab with the goal of them becoming partners. One example of this was the scientist who was spending her life finding the biomarkers for a disease for which there was no cure. Mercifully, her lab was among the first to start systematically bringing in partners from entirely outside.

Might it be possible for you to find it interesting to search for a biomarker for a disease to which there is a cure? Culture moves slower than does innovation. Deal with it, or watch the collapse of the Enlightenment as they ever increasingly come at you with torches and pitchforks — and correctly so.

Mary Shelley knew her humans. My wife and I used to raise border collies. Border collies make terrible pets. You can not give an intelligent species nothing to do.

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