Category: News

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The Indicator from Planet Money - The dawn of search engines

Today on the show, we bring you a special episode from the Understood feed at CBC podcasts. It's an excerpt from a series called Who Broke the Internet hosted by Cory Doctorow. The four part series details his criticisms on the state of the modern internet and what we can do about it.

From his conversations with Eric Corly the publisher of 2600, an iconic hacker magazine, best known under his hacker name Emmanuel Goldstein, to Clive Thompson a tech and culture writer to Steven Levy the author of "In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes our Lives" this excerpt digs into how search engines started.

You can listen to more of the podcast here.

Related episodes:
The hack that almost broke the internet (Apple / Spotify)

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Consider This from NPR - Misinformation channels to the Oval Office

President Trump's spreading of the false claim that South Africa is perpetrating a genocide against its white inhabitants is just the latest example of misinformation making its way from corners of the internet into presidential statements or even policy.

This isn't the first time that a falsehood that began on the fringes of the right-wing made its way to the Trump White House. NPR's Scott Detrow and Lisa Hagen examine how these beliefs have been able to reach the Oval Office.

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Consider This from NPR - The Supreme Court’s Trump Dilemma

The Supreme Court has become the focal point of the legal battle over President Donald Trump's executive authority – and presidential power more broadly.

Few reporters are as prepared as NPR's Nina Totenberg to report on this unique moment.

Over the last fifty years, Totenberg established herself as the preeminent Supreme Court reporter in America. She's broken countless stories – including allegations of sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas during the justice's 1991 confirmation hearings.

For this week's Reporter's Notebook host Scott Detrow speaks with Totenberg about this crucial moment in the court's history and consequential cases she has covered over the years.

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Audio Mises Wire - Is Culture Degeneration Biological or Ideological?

Why do cultures degenerate? At the recent Natal Conference, Robin Hanson cites biological and evolutionary factors. However, if one looks to Mises and the Austrians, we look squarely at human action that begins with the human mind and purposeful action.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/culture-degeneration-biological-or-ideological

 

 

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Audio Mises Wire - Price Controls and Drug Shortages in France: A Textbook Case of the Evils of Interventionism

France is facing critical shortages of a number of drugs, and one need look no further for a cause than a price control regime. Naturally, the French media and government blame capitalism and look to double down on the intervention that has causes this crisis.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/price-controls-and-drug-shortages-france-textbook-case-evils-interventionism

 

 

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More or Less: Behind the Stats - Is the UN underestimating the global fall in fertility?

Every two years, the UN release their predictions for the future population of humanity ? currently expected to peak in the 2080s at around 10.3 billion people.

One of the things they use to work this out is the fertility rate, the number of children the average woman is expected to have in her lifetime. When this number falls below 2, the overall population eventually falls. In this episode of More or Less, we look at the fertility estimates for one country ? Argentina. The graph of the real and predicted fertility rate for that country looks quite strange.

The collected data ? that covers up to the present day ? shows a fertility rate that?s falling fast. But the predicted rate for the future immediately levels out. The strangeness has led some people to think that the UN might be underestimating the current fall in global fertility.

To explain what?s going on we speak to Patrick Gerland, who runs the population estimates team in the United Nations Population Division.

Presenter / producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Sue Maillot Editor: Richard Vadon

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Consider This from NPR - Can Trump suspend habeas corpus?

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem got a pop quiz at a senate hearing this week. The question came from Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan, of New Hampshire.

Hassan asked Noem to to explain habeas corpus.

For the record, habeas corpus is the legal principle, enshrined in the Constitution, that protects people from illegal detention.

The reason that this bit of Latin is under discussion – is because the Trump administration says it's considering suspending habeas corpus.

This core constitutional protection has been an obstacle to the President's mass deportation plan.

Habeas corpus is a principle that's hundreds of years older than America itself.

What would it mean if the President suspended it? And could he, under the Constitution?

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