Category Archives: New Utopia

China is planning to land a spacecraft and rover on Mars this month.

If it succeeds, it will become just the third nation to safely touch down on the Red Planet after Russia and the United States.

China's Tianwen-1 orbiter joined spacecraft from five other space agencies circling Mars in February.

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Since then, Tianwen-1has been mapping thesurface of Mars and getting ready to land its first rover, Zhurong, named after an ancient god of fire.

While the exact landing date is unclear, i's likely to be mid this month,according to reports from Chinese state media.

China'sMars exploration program may beless mature than NASA's, but the Tianwen-1 mission will makea significant contribution to the science community, saidDavid Flannery of Queensland University of Technology, who works on NASA's Perseverance mission.

"It is a capable mission that has some really ambitious science goals," hesaid.

It's also an important stepping stone to more sophisticatedmissions, in the same way that early NASAmissions such as Pathfinder, which landed the first rover Sojourner in 1997,paved the way for the US Mars program, he said.

Supplied: CNSA

All going to plan, Zhurong willjoin three other spacecraft from NASAincluding Perseverance, which landed in February.

But landing on Mars isnotoriously tricky.

"Landing isthe most technically challenging part, it's where most missions fail," Dr Flannery said.

Weighing about 240 kilograms,the car-sized rover has six wheels and is covered by four solar panels, making it look like a "blue butterfly".

Reuters: Tingshu Wang

Onboard are six instruments, including cameras designedto map the terrain, sensors that analyse the chemistry of soil and rocks, ground-penetrating radar that will search for signs ofice water beneath the surface, a weather station, and a magnetic field detector.

While most of these instruments are analogous to those found on NASA rovers, the magnetic field detectorcouldyield some exciting new science, Dr Flannery said.

"This is the first magnetometer sent to the surface of Mars," Dr Flannery said.

The magnetometer on the rover will work with the magnetometer on the Tianwen-1 orbiter to measure Mars' magnetic field.

"One of the big questions in planetary science is, 'What happened to Mars in the past? Why is it so desolate?'" he said.

"One of the ways you can answer that question is by measuring the magnetic properties of rocks that recorded the state of the planetary magnetic field as they were deposited."

The spacecraft will land somewhere in the southern part of a vast plain known as Utopia Planitia.

The 3,300-kilometre-wide plainis the largest impact crater on Mars.

Viking 2, one of NASA's earliest missions, landed in the northern part of the craterin 1976.

NASA/ABC

The region is one of the easiest places on Mars to land, Dr Flannery said.

"The way to reduce the risk is to choose a landing site where you have very few objects that would cause a problem to land on," he said.

The southern part of Utopia Planitia is mostly flat and smooth with a few sand dunes and boulders.

Supplied: CNSA

The plain is also one of the lowest areas on Mars, so there is more atmosphere to help slow down the spacecraft as it descends.

But a safe entry is not the only reason to target this region.

There may also bevast amounts of water ice under apartof the plain, according to mapping by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

"This is essentially a site that would be suitable for China's first human mission to Mars," Dr Flannery said.

Landing on Mars is known as the "seven minutes of terror" for a reason.

Remnants of China's biggest rocket crashinto the Indian Ocean, with the bulk of its components destroyed upon re-entry into the atmosphere, according to media reports.

The spacecraft is on its own from the timeit enters the thin Martian atmosphere travelling at supersonic speeds, until it reaches the surface seven minutes later.

The time delay between Earth and Mars means no-one knows whether it has safely touched down or crashed aka terrabraked until after it hashappened.

NASA recently landed its latest rover Perseverance on the Red Planet using a series of choreographed steps and technologies that included parachutes, rockets and a sky crane.

But China's landing sequence will be slightlydifferent.

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For a start, it is detaching from an orbiter 70 kilometres above the surface (Perseverance didn't have an orbiter).

Protected by a cone-shaped heat shield, it will hurtle towards the surface at supersonic speeds before deploying a giant parachute to slow it down.

Then the final stage will rely on rocketsto lower it to the ground, and a system of cameras andlidar navigationto try to avoid obstacles as it's coming in.

Technology used in the landing is based on China'ssuccessful human spaceflight and lunar missions, space journalist Andrew Jones said.

The heat shield and parachute technologiesare used in their Shenzhou space flight program, which has sent six crewed missions into space since 2003.

The enginesand navigation systems are similar to those used in its three successfulChang'e lunar missions.

"They haven'ttested this altogether, but they have had the experience of dealing with these technologies," Mr Jones said.

Getty Images: Barclay Media

If the spacecraftsurvives the landing, then the plan is to roll theZhurong rover off the lander a few days later so it can begin its 90 (Martian) day trip across the surface.

Releasing the rover and navigating across the Red Planet is"no trivial task,"Dr Flannery said.

Meanwhile, the orbiter will continuecircling Mars, acting as a communications relay station for at least one Martian year.

When it comes to Mars, there are no guarantees.

While NASA has successfully landed six spacecraft and a helicopteron Mars since 2003,other spacecraft such as the European Space Agency's (ESA) Schiaparelli lander have failed.

Even though this is China's first attempt to land on Mars, it's already proven it has technological clout when it comes to space missions.

It's the only nation to havelanded on the Moon three times in the past decade, and to have pulled off a complex mission to bring backthe firstrocks from the Moon's surface in more than 40 years.

"What they are doing is extremely challenging and impressive," Mr Jones said.

But even thoughmany of the technologies have been tested for lunar missions, Mars presents different challenges: it has a thin atmosphere, a different gravity field, is much further away, and there isa lag in communications of between 12 and 20 minutes.

"They are dealing with something they haven't dealt with before," Mr Jones said.

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If something does go wrong,there is no backup rover, he added.

"I was wondering if there was going to be a backup mission to this rover, just like there is normally a backup to the lunar missions, but it turns out there isn't, so this is their only chance."

But even if things don't go to plan, they will still learn valuable lessonsfor future missions, such as a planned sample return in 2028 or 2030, he said.

"Even ifthe landing fails, they will learn a lot about what it takes to land on Mars."

For example, he said, the ESA has used data from the failed 2016 mission to inform the Rosalind Franklin rover mission that's due to launch in2022.

"It wouldbe a disappointment [if the landing fails], but I don't think it wouldbe a major blow," Mr Jones said.

"It's very challenging, so I don't think their Mars exploration plans are dependent on this landing."

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China's Tianwen-1 mission getting set to try and land Zhurong rover on Mars - ABC News

To the editor:

As our country divides ever farther apart we see the impact of this oppressive ideology, which is not about addressing social justice and overcoming systemic racism. Set aside their narrative and examine the underlying history of this movement to better understand the radical agenda that seeks to undermine our country.

Cultural Marxism was born out of Marxs economic theory that the working class would eventually rise up and overthrow the hated bourgeoisie. The global worker uprising never happened, except in Russia, which never became utopia, only a murderous dictatorship.

Italian Antonio Gramsci and Hungarian Georg Lukacs (both Communists) theorized that Western values were too deeply entrenched and Christianity too strong, so Western culture and religion had to be destroyed. Their ideas appeared in the 1920s, arguing that the rise of a successful Communist takeover necessitated undermining the pillars of society including Christianity, family, truth, law, patriotism and national unity, sexual restraint, language and tradition, among others.

A group of German Marxists, influenced by this thinking, established the Institute for Social Research, popularly known as The Frankfurt School. The group relocated to New York with Hitlers rise to power, taking positions at Columbia University. The term Critical Theory was first used in 1937, a social theory that harshly criticizes a culture, brutally and unremittingly, in order to change it. After WWII, most of this group returned to Germany, but Herbert Marcuse stayed in New York, becoming a powerfully influential voice of the left over the following decades. Stoking grievances would unite disaffected groups into a powerful, angry force. In his 1965 essay, Repressive Tolerance, he argued for toleration of all leftist ideas and movements while prohibiting ideas and movements from the right. Sound familiar?

Success in this long march through the institutions requires destruction of said cultural institutions, opening the way for political takeover. This began with academia and the media. Radical students in the 1960s moved into teaching and journalism. By the 1980s, critical theory dominated higher education, and this philosophy now infects big business, government, public employee unions, K-12 education, and even the military. In our post-modern era, truth is one of the pillars they redefined, claiming it is rooted in historical and social conditions, based on narrative and feelings, not objective facts. How else could adherents defend 2+2=5? Political correctness describes a method of controlling social discourse in order to shape the culture.

Just as Hitler used race as a key fault line to stoke grievances and build hatred, race is exploited in our country for the same end. Identity politics brings other groups into the fold based on gender, sexual orientation and others. Vocal and sometimes violent proponents of this movement include Antifa, which traces its roots to German Communists in the 1930s, and Black Lives Matter, founded by trained Marxists. Today, Antifa fights against liberal democracy and capitalism. The latter group has scrubbed some of the more offensive notions from its website to disguise their real mission of upending society. Do not be misled by lofty platitudes of these groups and others. The endgame is an oppressive socialism.

This destructive ideology is best shown by the countless examples of CRT nonsense brought into public and even some private schools. For example, Philadelphia Public Schools now teach kindergartners that America is built on a pyramid of hate culminating in genocide. Really? Parents and grandparents, be aware of indoctrination that may be taking place in schools and speak out against it. Red flags include descriptions such as diversity, equity and inclusion or similar phrases. If, on the other hand, you believe all white people are racists and 6-year-olds should be taught they are either an oppressor or oppressed, you support these initiatives.

Don Stuart, Nashville

Send letters to newsroom@bcdemocrat.com by noon Thursday before the date of intended publication (noon Wednesday on holiday weeks). Letters must be signed by the author and include the writers town of residence and a contact method in case of questions.

Letters are the opinions of the writer. They are not verified facts.

Only one letter every two weeks, per writer, to allow for diversity of voices in the opinions section. Please be considerate of sharing space with other letter-writers and keep your comments concise and to the point. Avoid name-calling, accusations of criminal activity and second- and third-hand statements of fact.

The rest is here:

Letter: 'Origins of wokeness/critical race theory (CRT)' - Brown County Democrat

Its happening. America is reopening, and like a sprawling field of bright red poppies the post-Covid consumer is bursting with a renewed self-expression and ready to dance again experts say. Which is great news for the economy and business owners, except for one thing, finding willing workers is tough right now.

Back to the Future office

As the massive U.S. Covid-19 vaccination roll-out campaign to date has already inoculated more than 100 million Americans, Harvard Business School Online sponsored a recent survey which asked 1500 home-bound workers how they felt about going back to the office after one year (March 2020 March 2021). Turns out the results didnt surprise anyone. 81% said they prefer a hybrid schedule or not going back at all. And only 18% said they wanted to return to the office full time. Thats less than 1 out of 5. Why? Too many workers adjusted to a life working from home, and they like it. And many simply dont want their old jobs back. At least not the old way and are asking themselves: Why risk going back, getting sick when Im safer at home and still getting paid?

But its still not a utopia. Rumblings can be heard and widening cracks seen in the stay-at-home castle wall fortress. Lack of social interaction among peers, reduced networking options, and Zoom fatigue are among the growing issues that have only recently given some restless home-gamers second thoughts, and thus willing to hear a good back-to-the-office pitch.

To make matters worse adding to the widespread labor shortage are millions of laid off cave-dwellers suffering from the same maladies. Paid more at home collecting pandemic unemployment and stimulus checks, these unemployed hordes have shown little interest in getting back to work while the free money rolls in. And its expected to stay that way unless employers can grab their attention.

So, what do workers want post-Covid?

For starters they want every employer to recognize and have adapted their business practices to take every reasonable safeguard and precaution to protect employees from Covid. Anything less is a non-starter bringing into focus for employers a resounding obvious truth to a post-Covid workforce. After a year at home, employed or unemployed, workers need some serious motivation. And if youre an employer desperately in need of staffers to service increasing sales post-Covid the message is loud and clear, go big or go home. Sound familiar?

In January 1914, in an all-out effort to stem worker turnover at the plant in Dearborn, Michigan and to incentivize new workers to join the payroll, Henry Ford doubled his automobile assembly line workers daily wage from less than $2.50 to $5.00/day. A shocking increase at the time. But it worked. Fast forward a hundred years later in April 2021 Jack Flanigan owner of the famous Crab Shack restaurant near Savannah, Georgia is so desperate for workers as the local news there reports that hes offering new staff a $3,000 sign-on and stick around bonus. They need workers he says. And its working. In fact, new sign-on bonuses are popping up everywhere, on job boards too. ZipRecruiter for example saw a 50% increase in April topping 2.5 million help wanted listings with the search title: Covid sign-on bonus. SimplyHired saw a similar increase in the last 30 days.

With countless more Covid incentive stories emerging each day, pulling together the latest insights suggest that having the right new incentives can help motivate a growing restless home-bound couch-dweller back on his feet and rearing to go if you need one. But as every situation is different youll have to find your sweet spot by experimenting in what specifically works for your business model and the competitive landscape. Nevertheless, according to my research some companies are pulling out all the stops, while others are still asking employees what they want. The resulting middle ground incentive programs being tossed about by employers to lure workers back will give you some idea of what youre up against:

Essentially, employers will need to throw a lot of money at workers in the short term. Trouble is for some industries like food, hospitality and travel that already report being hit hard by lockdowns and worker shortage problems simply cant afford to pay more in wages and benefits. Pre-Covid pressures to increase minimum wage levels across many states to $15/hr aka to a living wage was tough enough. Couple that with a new return-to-work post-Covid additional cash bonus requirement and the resulting double whammy may be the final straw and force many companies to cut hours, or shutter permanently.

As of now, finding enough workers is a growing challenge across all industry segments and may get worse before things settle back down in 2022 economists forecast. And hopefully not because of a recession. Until then it makes sense to stay well informed and act decisively. If you need workers now, be creative about how to attract them. Also be sure to consider often over-looked employee candidates including those with minor criminal offenses (background check exceptions), immigrants that require employer-sponsored work visas, and older workers. By contrast these are each among the eager prospects, able and willing.

When the music stops

Alternatively, you could try and wait it out, because you figure, at some point when the music stops and the Covid cash machine runs dry millions of current consumer couch potatoes, like hibernating bears after a long cold winter, will need to find work if they want to eat, consequently flooding the job market in mass. And thus, this begs the final question; how can we get a better sense of when the gravy train will actually run out of steam and compel these sleepy bears to re-enter the labor force in America?

A quick look at the free stimulus cash flow checks distributed to families and workers since the pandemic began may provide the answer. To-date as of May 2021 Americans impacted by the virus have received 3- waves of stimulus checks from the government worth trillions of dollars.

The first wave of $1,200 checks per adult (more with dependents) was sent out April 2020 after the CARES act passed. This followed by the second wave of $600 checks for adults starting in December 2020. And finally, most recently on March 10th 2021 Congress passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, a third wave of Covid stimulus payments of up to $1,400 per adult earning less than $80,000/yr.

While state unemployment checks keep rolling in

Adding more money to the mix significantly each state is currently piling on the unemployment benefits to millions of workers impacted by Covid. Normally unemployment benefits last for 26 weeks. But many can apply for a Pandemic Unemployment Assistance extension which can add an additional 29 weeks. All told collectively given federal and state assistance workers have about one year of paid time off with many earning as much or more at home than they earned at work. So, when will it end? Lets do the math.

If workers were laid off last summer in 2020, and the cash runs out roughly 12 months later they might need to jump back into the job market very soon. In fact, recent weekly jobless claims dropped to a new record pandemic low, suggesting that workers are slowly coming back. Something to think about as employers consider which re-hire or new-hire incentives will catch their eye.

What to do now

My advice is simple. Pay now or pay later. But dont just sit on your hands. If you need more staff now and you dont offer any incentives at all, how will your employees respond to a market awash with grass-is-greener temptations from other employers? Still. At some point within the next 12-24 months labor markets and back-to-work hybrid models which are running by trial-and-error right now will identify key trends and best practices including which incentives do work and which dont. Until then, re-define post-Covid what your company will need to win the day, not just today but in 3 years post-Covid time. Paying up now for the best people who can demonstrate a strong commitment to your companys mission and passion for quality customer service is always a good thing. These workers are an investment, not a transaction. Make that clear and you will attract better long-term workers, not the ones looking for flashy over-the-top car-dealer bonus incentives to get off the couch and drag themselves back to work. Remember. What comes around goes around.

Make sense?

Written by Rick Andrade.

Read more:

Where is Everybody? Are Big Incentives the Only Way to Attract Good Workers Post-Covid? - CEOWORLD magazine

EXCLUSIVE: HBO Max and U.S. distributor and sales firm Utopia have acquired rights to well-received Sundance Film Festival title Were All Going To The Worlds Fair.

The coming-of-age horror-drama follows teenager Casey who becomes immersed in an online role-playing horror game, wherein she begins to document the changes that may or may not be happening to her.

The film, which will have its NY premiere later this month at the New Directors/New Films festival, is the narrative feature debut of writer-director Jane Schoenbrun. Utopia will release the film in U.S. theaters early next year and HBO Max has licensed U.S. streaming rights.

With an original score by Alex G, the movie stars Anna Cobb and Michael J Rogers alongside a number of performers appearing in various real and staged YouTube videos, including Theo Anthony, Evan Santiago, and the ASMR content creator Slight Sounds.

Related Story'Doctor Who' Star David Tennant Joins 'The Amazing Maurice'; HBO Max Greenlights Spanish-Language Original 'Garca'; Channel 4 Axes 'The Circle' - Global Briefs

Carlos Zozaya and Sarah Winshall produced the film, with cinematography by Daniel Patrick Carbone and Abby Harri serving as co-producer and casting director.

The deal was negotiated by Danielle DiGiacomo for Utopia and Chris Grunden for HBO Max with CAA Media Finance on behalf of the filmmakers.

Utopia is honored to be partnering with Jane Schoenbrun on the release of their first feature, Sundance standout Were All Going To The Worlds Fair, a chillingly immersive and emotional journey into the all-encompassing universe of the internet. We cannot wait for audiences to enter into the riveting cinematic world that Jane has built, said Danielle DiGiacomo, Head of Content for Utopia.

I am so honored to be working with the smart and lovely team at Utopia, and to be bringing my first film to streaming via HBO Max. Were All Going To The Worlds Fair is a deeply personal film that was made with a lot of love by a small group of artists and friends, and to know itll have a proper chance to find its audience with the help of these great companies is so exciting to me, added Jane Schoenbrun.

Utopias previous acquisitions have included TIFF comedy Shiva Baby, Cannes title Mickey And The Bear and Errol Morriss American Dharma.

More:

HBO Max & Utopia Pick Up Sundance Coming-Of-Age Horror Were All Going To The Worlds Fair - Deadline

Among all species, it is perhaps only humans who create habitats that are not fit to live in. Stephen Marshall

Its a damning statement but one that can be reasonably argued to be true. We dont have the best track record in creating lasting and sustainable habitats, especially if one considers cities built in the past century.

The next 50 years will demand a new model of urban development. For a more sustainable future in a world of climate change, 21st-century cities must be based on models of adaptation that learn from natural systems. We now have the digital modelling technology to design such cities, rather than the fixed urban form that now dominates our world.

Read more: Future cities: new challenges mean we need to reimagine the look of urban landscapes

We are witnessing firsthand the destructive impact of an urban model that dates back to the early 1900s. The automobile was seen as the future of city planning. The city itself was designed like a machine: finite, predictable, perfect and, of course, shiny!

The ideal or utopian city, put forward as a visionary model for the 20th century, changed the course of city planning. It abandoned the traditional urban fabric of the previous five millennia for a modern urban order in which the car took centre stage. Car manufacturers even invested in 20th-century city design in the continuous pursuit of Utopia.

One of the most influential architects and urban planners of the 20th century, Le Corbusier, did not shy away from the role the automobile would play in city design. He even pursued sponsorship from companies like Citroen, Michelin and Peugeot to realise his vision. The motor must save the great city, he wrote.

The vision for this city followed similar patterns: separated pedestrians and vehicles, sprawling low-rise suburbs and scattered open spaces of inordinate sizes sound familiar?

Most important to this model was the concept of repetition. If it works in Chicago, it will work in Chandigarh.

As the utopian urban movement dominated, Utopia turned out to be not necessarily a good thing. As early as the 1960s this had become clear through the works of critics like Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander. As Jacobs wrote:

Le Corbusiers dream city was like a wonderful mechanical toy. But as to how the city works, it tells nothing but lies.

Read more: What might Jane Jacobs say about smart cities?

Cities throughout the world, across a range of scales and locales, exemplify this. Brasilia (Brasil), Detroit (USA), Milton Keynes (England), Norilsk (Russia) the list goes on were designed as modernist visions of a single, finite solution. However, this vision quickly unravelled. Overpopulation, climate change, diminishing resources, rampant commercialisation and demographic change have destabilised the urban fabric of modernist cities.

This unfortunately did not deter the continued planning and construction of this universal city. All too often the urban pattern was repeated blocks distributed across a grid with little adjustment to the local ecology or environment. Factor in a rapidly changing climate and exponential population growth and mobility, and these cities no longer seem utopian.

The problem with a city detached from its context one that is generic, repetitive and built around vehicle traffic is that it resists adaptation. After all, it was not designed to adapt it is visionary, a fixed solution to an ever-changing problem.

Unfortunately for us, the problem has been changing at an alarming rate. The original solution is becoming ever more problematic.

The paradox is that repetitive urban form seems to be the quickest solution for the rapid growth of urban populations globally, unfortunately with dire impacts. Cities are a leading source of carbon emissions that have made them increasingly vulnerable to climatic events, with rising sea levels threatening coastal cities around the world. In some cases, failed cities lie completely abandoned such as in Spain or China.

Read more: Townsville floods show cities that don't adapt to risks face disaster

However, some cities examples include Shibam in Yemen, Fes el Bali in Morocco or the Hutongs in Beijing have evolved over many centuries as they adapted to changes in their environment and climate. These cities survived in the face of changing conditions. They were built on a model of continuous change.

Unfortunately, changing the built forms and spatial patterns of a city is a slow process. The evolving cities described above managed this by being able to change at a rate that matched changes in local climatic conditions. Today, the pace of global climate change makes it almost impossible for mature cities to adapt.

We need a more sustainable model of urban development.

Read more: What next after 100 Resilient Cities funding ends?

Technological advances in computation and data analysis allow us to create digital simulations of the evolution of cities over centuries. It is now possible to understand the inherent complexity of these systems. We can then replicate the conditions that result in an adaptive city as a whole.

These computational models draw on concepts from the natural world. They learn from how species adapt to their environment and how evolution enables adaptation. The result is urban models based on variation instead of repetition.

Research in this field by the likes of Michael Weinstock, Mike Batty and many others has increased over the past decade. This work builds on the criticisms made by Jacobs and Alexander in the 1960s, but is now supported by advanced technologies and digital simulations.

The stresses on future cities demand an approach that enables them to adjust to rapid change. Up to now, we have designed a city that is geared towards permanent configurations. Its the opposite of what is required in a world going through radical changes across multiple frontiers.

Originally posted here:

Farewell the utopian city. To cope with climate change we must learn from how nature adapts - The Conversation AU

In 2016, the president of Lyft, John Zimmer, offered a rosy and ambitious vision of technological progress, predicting that soon most of his companys customers would be cruising around in autonomous taxis. Car ownership would decline dramatically, he said, as people would be able to summon robo-taxis on demand, all paid for by the mile or via a Netflix-style subscription. (Dont drive very often? Use a pay-as-you-go plan for a few cents every mile you ride, he wrote. Take a road trip every weekend? Buy the unlimited mileage plan. Going out every Saturday? Get the premium package with upgraded vehicles.) The idea was utopia: Eliminating parking spots would make room for more public space, and taxis themselves would be hybrid office-entertainment venues, ferrying blissful passengers safely between destinations. This wasnt just remaking transportationit was transforming society. (Transportation doesnt just impact how we get from place to place. It shapes what those places look like, and the lives of the people who live there.) All this would happen by 2021, he predicted.

None of it has come to be, obviously. Last week, Lyft announced that it had sold its autonomous vehicles division to Toyota for $550 million. Waymo, Googles self-driving division, just shuffled its executive leadership. Late last year, Uber sold its self-driving arm to a start-up. In a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Tesla acknowledge it may never reach its ambition of fully self-driving cars. Across the industry, autonomous vehicle efforts have proven to be stubbornly difficult to bring to fruition, consuming billions of R&D dollars and thousands of engineering hours. Meanwhile, the infrastructure needed to support autonomous carsgovernment investment in roads, highways, communications, along with proper regulatory oversightremains inadequate to the challenge. Additional issues present themselves around the law, consumer trust, and even the computational limits of deep learning and artificial intelligence. Despite these enormous obstacles, tech leaders preach continued faithand venture capital investmenthaving spent the last decade promising that our blissful self-driving future is just around the corner.

At a time when fighting climate change and providing alternate forms of mobility should be core parts of urban and transport policy, we seem to be going backward. The federal government has largely left it to states to regulate autonomous vehicles, leaving a patchwork of laws that companies like Tesla, which has taken an incrementalist approach to rolling out self-driving features in a series of software updates, have exploited to do what they want. What little federal policy remains seems ineffective: The recent Biden stimulus plan laid out huge investments in electric vehicles, rather than placing a renewed emphasis on public transport.

See the article here:

Autonomous Vehicles Aren't the FuturePublic Transportation Is - The New Republic

Now let us look at Marxs labour theory of Value that he borrowed from David Ricardo [1772-1823] and adopted for his own purposes. And how it leads to exploitation of man and hence makes overthrow of the superstructure of Capitalism desirable. [The base is to be carefully preserved in order to keep producing platitude.]

In Marxs earlier formulation of his theories, then based in metaphysics, Commodities have both a use value and an exchange value. Use value is easily explained in relation to the actual use the commodity is put to. What explains exchange value and how does that make it possible for somebody to accumulate exchange value through the operation of the market?

David Ricardo in his labour theory of value, posits that the exchange value of any commodity is simply the number of socially necessary hours of labour needed to produce it. [Liberal theory thinks use value is already in the exchange value as part of it and hence need not be separately tracked.] The more labour required, the higher the exchange value. Marx latched on to this explanation by Ricardo to reformulate his theory of exploitation of labour under capitalism.

The accumulation of exchange value as surplus is then explained in terms of extortion of labour from the laborer, by exchanging his means of subsistence for hours of labour in excess of those needed to produce those means.

Marx thus makes the case that the existence of any & all surplus value must necessarily be explained in terms of labour used but not paid for.

Marxs assumption is without basis under free market conditions and fully true only under slavery. Hegel would argue even against such an assumption under slavery. But nevertheless, Marx assumes such exploitation of labour as the basis of his new theory of human nature that triggers history to overthrow Capitalism.

Marxs assumption that only labour produces any value flies in the face of his own assertion that accumulated knowledge is a key part of his productive forces. Nor does Marx give much thought to how to value the store of accumulated knowledge that actually and visibly drives history in our everyday experience.

Stop for a moment to think where this complication or contradiction comes from. As I noted earlier, Marxs very definition of labour is metaphysical in which any and everything I do is labour, and there is no other way in which I can interact with this world or others like me, save through my labour.

So, if I work for 1 day on the shop floor, I get a wage to fill my belly. But if I decide not to work, go hungry, in order to make a widget that helps me do my job better, I neither get a wage, nor any extra reward for inventing the widget, and have to go hungry. Which fool will argue that, under such conditions, Mans store of accumulated knowledge will grow, and grow inevitably [and for free] as Marx assumes?

We see precisely this killing off of innovation at work in modern socialistic societies, where rate of innovation falls off steeply compared to Capitalistic societies. This mixing up of concepts about labour, and what it is utilized for - direct for production, or saved to add to accumulated knowledge, lies at the heart of the flaw in Marxs thought.

There are other deep philosophical issues that arise with respect to store of accumulated knowledge and Capital itself [assuming Capital itself is nothing but saved labour] when you bring the time dimension into the matrix of productive forces and try to balance inter-generational equity.

This is true not only of Marxs ideas but also those of the liberal theories. There is this notion of unearned gains when wealth passes from one entrepreneur to his progeny. Or windfall profits to certain types of property holders when technology changes, completely revising the valuation matrix in society.

On the negative side, changes in store of accumulated knowledge render whole industries obsolete making large number of workers redundant, and destroying enormous amounts of accumulated wealth/capital. Material forces not only create value but also destroy value, and if one looks at history, value destroyed as redundant far exceeds the value currently in use. Pause to think. Unlike Marx assumes, Capitalism destroys a considerable amount of wealth and property even as it creates it through changes in accumulated knowledge. Marx gives no thought to this aspect at all.

Nor is liberal theory free from flaw. Under Capitalism, the historical claims of Capital are preserved over future labour of others not yet born. In a sense, there is more notional wealth in this world than the labour required to meet those claims!! If you look at rich nations today, you find enormous amounts wealth, but a declining work force, that cannot meet the claims on its output by accumulated wealth over a life time. Such wealthy nations have to perforce import labour from abroad, either directly or through import of goods and services. What is true of nations today can be true of the world tomorrow because accounting for wealth is deeply flawed.

And yet we see people go hungry and without jobs. To explain this curious phenomenon of paper or notional wealth require a book. So, I will leave it here as a contradiction that bedevils both Marxist thought & Capitalism.

So, Marxs simplistic but critical assumption that all value comes from labour is deeply flawed and misleading. The reality should give more weight to store of accumulated knowledge and once you recognize that, the entire Marxist theory of base + superstructure driving history, and constituting consciousness, becomes inconsistent needing complete revision.

SUMMING UP

He did a phenomenal job of restoring man to the centre of our philosophical attention through his concept of labour. This place had been lost to machines, technology, and deified history. Marx brought focus back to man, which is why he proved so popular.

Unfortunately, he couldnt resurrect the individual that Renaissance, and Kant had created; but Hegel had lost in his Theory of History. Marx promised to restore the Kantian man through Communism to his free creativity, but his thoughts about labour were to prove deeply flawed. You cannot sink, reduce, and submerge a creative individual into mere labour, and nothing but labour, and expect to restore him to full free creativity. The two are mutually exclusive. But Marx did not return to the metaphysical problem he had defined away in his conception of labour. He just kept waiting a life time for history to prove him right.

Also, as we saw, production of goods and services in plentitude necessary to transcend capitalism, requires growth in accumulated knowledge that comes from saved labour. A right to private property arises when I forego my meal in order to save my labour in making a widget. It is not a fetish for property that drives me, but the need to creatively address my problem in enhancing my productivity. So Marx rather long a dreary fascination with fetishes and false consciousness was as misplaced as the Buddhist thought that the world is Maya and should be forsaken. Hardly a constructive way to engage with the world although conceptually, it a thought pregnant with meaning.

Lastly, Marxists of all kinds have misrepresented Marx in order to use his philosophy as an intellectual manual to overthrow the existing order. Marx spent most of his life waiting for the revolution. But it never came. 175 years after Marx, we still wait for it.

My guess is we are missing the revolution even as we wait for it because a revolution happens each day I skip my meal and wage in order to make a widget or think of a new way to teach maths to school kids. They are tiny, ubiquitous, and everywhere, if only we know how to look for them. The bigger economic problem is how to recognize and reward them under any economic arrangement. Even Capitalism is yet to find an efficient way of doing so.

Marxs friend, philosopher, and guide, and later publisher of all of Marxs unpublished works, warned Marx to rethink his revolution because even in his life time, instead of collapsing through overproduction as Marx kept predicting, Capitalism was thriving as it found new markets vertically in increasing demand, or horizontally through imperialism. With oil, entirely new markets were created in transportation. Friedrich Engel therefore asked Marx to rethink his revolution as Capitalism kept creating it own demand for goods and services, instead of collapsing under the weight of over-production. But Marx I guess was too exhausted to do so.

Every generation logically thinks doom is here. The world ought to have ended soon after Buddha discovered that it was an illusion. It never did. My guess is that even if Communism were ushered in by some magic, as Herman Hesse imagined in his book the Glass Bead Game, Nietzsches Will to Power thesis will ensure we will invent a new game of life to transcend even the Communist utopia, if it were at all desirable.

Marx didnt reckon with what creativity can do when Man mixes it with his labour and nature. John Locke invented labour as one of Mans rights. Marx tried to sink and submerge Man in the narrow concept of his labour. Not a very wise thing to do even if your intentions are noble as Marxs undoubtedly were.

Man is much more than his labour.

Much much more.

Man is creative; and much much more than just an artifact of his history.

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A critique: Where Marx (1818-1883) was right and why he was wrong on the demise of capitalism - National Herald

Coldplay just released their new single, Higher Power. While that seems to indicate the band has a new album on the way, they havent officially announced one yet although Chris Martin has done everything he can to let fans know that one is more than likely on the way.

Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland spoke to Capital Breakfast With Roman Kemp this morning (as NME notes), and when asked about the possibility of a new album, Martin chose his words carefully. That said, he did everything but directly say the band has a record coming, saying, Were not supposed to say, but there wont not be one. Buckland added, Weve recorded more than one song.

Elsewhere, Martin spoke with Apple Musics Zane Lowe, and while he didnt talk about the album that doesnt officially exist, he did speak about his willingness to experiment musically, saying, I think that every artist is completely intertwined with whats happening culturally and whats happening technologically around them, you know? So when the delay pedal came through, whoever invented that, then you had all these amazing delay pedal records. So weve existed in the band concurrently with the barriers between types of music coming down which for us is the biggest blessing in the world. When we started, it was like, Youre a white indie band and this is urban radio and this is alternative radio and basically old fashioned racist statements. Of course we fit in a box at the beginning, and then right now in 2021, everyones doing everything. You can like Olivia Rodrigo as much as you like AC/DC and no one thinks thats weird, and thats musical utopia for me. [] Its miraculous. So why would you want to stay in one box?

Coldplay is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

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Coldplay Says There 'Won't Not Be' A New Album On The Way - UPROXX

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Its appropriate that Mothers Day weekend brings a wealth of major music releases from women, including Miranda Lamberts west Texas adventure, the first solo album by Hearts Nancy Wilson, Bebe Rexhas long-awaited sophomore release and a Judy Collins hybrid dip into both present and past...

Album of the Week: Miranda Lambert follows a Grammy Award win for Best Country Album (Wildcard) with something new -- and different. For The Marfa Tapes (Vanner/RCA Nashville), she teams with pals Jack Ingram and Jon Randall to write and record in the high desert Texas town of its title, sounding as good stripped down as Lambert does in a full-scale Nashville production.

Album Title of the Week: Aly & Aj, a touch of the heat gets you up on your feet gets you out and then into the sun (self-released)

Did Ya Know?: When Tony Joe White died in 2018 he left behind acoustic demos that the Black Keys Dan Auerbach and some Nashville pals fleshed out into a full-bodied finale, Smoke From the Chimney (Easy Eye Sound).

New & Noteworthy

Judy Collins, White Bird -- Anthology of Favorites (Wildflower/Cleopatra)

Sarah Jarosz, Blue Heron Suite (Rounder)

Leftover Salmon, Brand New Good Old Days (Compass)

Monsta X, Flavors of Love (Universal)

Van Morrison, Latest Record Project, Volume 1 (Exile/BMG)

RagnBone Man, Life By Misadventure (Best Laid Plans/Columbia)

Bebe Rexha, Better Mistakes (Warner)

Sufjan Stevens, Convocations (Asthmatic Kitty)

Weezer, Van Weezer (Crush Music/Atlantic)

Nancy Wilson, You and Me (Carry On Music)

Also Out

The Accidentals, Time Out (self-released)

Steve Almaas, Everywhere Youve Been (Whippowill)

Arielle, Analog Girl in a Digital World (self-released)

The Aristocrats, FREEZE! Live in Europe 2020 (BOING)

Ashe, Ashlyn (Mom+Pop)

Daniel Bachman, Axacan (Three Lobed)

The Bamboos, Hard Up (BMG)

Mandy Barnett, Every Star Above (BMG)

Benjamin Jayne, Theater (WhatAboutMusic)

Natalie Bergman, Mercy (Third Man)

Blue Cactus, Stranger Again (Sleepy Cat)

Baily Bryan, Fresh Start (300 Entertainment)

Quintin Copper & Nas Mellow, April Dreams (Sonar Kollektiv)

Graham Costello, Second Lives (Gearbox)

CVLT on the SVN, We Are the Dragon (Napalm)

Diamante, American Dream (Anti-Heroine)

The Damn Truth, Now or Nowhere (Spectre Musique/Sony)

Doss, 4 New Hit Songs (Lucky Me)

Tommy Emmanuel, Accomplice Series Vol. 1 (CPG Sounds)

False Memories, The Last Night of Fall (Frontiers)

Tim Foljahn, I Dreamed A Dream (Cart/Horse)

Fried Monk and Beautiful Fortune, Here As One (self-released)

Ghost Iris, Comatose (Long Branch)

GoGo Penguin, GGP/RMX (Blue Note)

Noah Haidu, Slowly: Song For Keith Jarrett (Sunnyside)

Todd Michael Hall, Sonic Healing (Rat Pak)

Highlight, The Blowing (Kakao Entertainment)

Iceage, Seek Shelter (Mexican Summer)

Benjamin Jayne, Theater (WhatAboutMusic)

India Jordan, Watch Out! (Ninja Tune)

KALI, Circles (Nettwerk)

Ted Russell Kamp, Solitaire (Continental)

Kayak, Out of This World (InsideOut)

Sophia Kennedy, Monsters (City Slang)

Lipstick Jodi, More Like Me (Quite Scientific)

LOrange & Namir Blade, Imaginary Everything (Mellow Music Group)

Man On Man, Man On Man (Polyvinyl)

Mara TK, Bad Meditation (Extra Soul Perception)

Mia Joy, Spirit Tamer (Fire Talk)

Mighty Mighty Bosstones, When God Was Great (Hellcat/Epitaph)

Chloe Moriondo, Blood Bunny (Public Consumption/Fueled By Ramen)

Maria Muldaur with Tuba Skinny, Lets Get Happy Together (Stony Plain)

New Order, Education Entertainment Recreation (Live at Alexandra Palace) Rhino/Warner)

Night Beats, Outlaw R&B (Fuzz Club)

NoMBe, Chromatopia (Th3rd Brain)

Opium Moon, Feast of Sevens (Six Degrees)

Procol Harum, Missing Persons (Alive Forever) (Esoteric Antenna/Cherry Red)

Ritual Cloak, Divine Invasions (Bubblewrap Collective)

Salem, Salem II (Roadrunner)

Maia Sharp, Mercy Rising (Crooked Crown)

David Shaw, David Shaw (Yokoko/C3)

Slow Leaves, Holiday (Birthday Cake)

Sonic Haven, Vagabond (Frontiers)

Mark Spiro, Traveling Cowboys (Frontiers)

Squid, Bright Green Field (Warp)

Stone Whiskey, Rebels of the Sun (self-released)

Sumo Cyco, Initiation (Napalm)

Skuli Sverrisson and Bill Frisell, Strata (Newvelle)

Teke::Teke, Shirushi (Kill Rock Stars)

Alfie Templeman, Forever Isnt Long Enough (Chess Club)

Tommys Rocktrip, Beat Up By Rock N Roll (Frontiers)

Travis Tritt, Set In Stone (Big Noise Label Group)

Sam Valdez, Take Care (B35CI)

Various Artists, Deewee Compilation: Foundations (Deewee)

Geoff Westen, Random Acts of Music (Disturbing Music)

Jesse Keith Whitley, Breakin Ground (Benny & the Big Guy)

Remi Wolf, We Love Dogs! (Island)

Pete Yorn, The Rooftop EP (Sony)

From The Vaults

Johnny Ace, The Johnny Ace Collection 1952-55 (Acrobat)

Alphaville, Afternoons in Utopia (Deluxe Edition) (Rhino)

Kenny Chesney, Here and Now (Deluxe) (Warner Music Nashville)

Alex Chilton, Boogie Shoes: Live on Beale Street (Ominvore)

Erasure, Chorus (Deluxe Edition) (Mute)

Al Hibbler, The Singles Collection 1946-59 (Acrobat)

Goldie Hill, The Goldie Hill Collection 1952-62 (Acrobat)

It Bites, The Tall Ships, Map of the Past (InsideOut)

Lulu, Gold (Crimson/Demon)

Jane Morgan, The Jane Morgan Collection 1946-62 (Acrobat)

Red Nichols, The Red Nichols Collection 1926-32 (Acrobat)

Angel Olsen, Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories (Jagjaguwar)

Billy Joe Royal, The Very Best of Billy Joe Royal: All the Hits + Rarities (Classics France)

Save The World, One (Frontiers)

Staind, Live: Its Been Awhile (Yapem/Alchemy)

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Miranda Lamberts The Marfa Tapes tops this weeks new releases - cleveland.com

League of Legends first animated series is coming to Netflix. League of Legends Arcane will hit the streaming service sometime later this fall, according to a new teaser trailer released on Monday.

The teaser may be just a few seconds long, but it already seems to reveal a few things about what the shows plot could include. The trailer opens with a fight between Vi, Jinx, who are already familiar parts of the League of Legends universe, and a mysterious third character who seems to skate on walls, and another with lightning powers and some kind of staff weapon.

While we already knew from the series first teaser that it would probably be about the origins of Jinx and Vi, it seems this new character could be part of the reason the two eventually became enemies.

Along with their story, well also probably get some backstory of Runeterras two competing twin cities, Piltover and Zaun which might be the green-light soaked city we see at the end of the teaser. Both cities are obsessed with technology, but while Piltover is a steampunk utopia, Zauns unchecked experimentation led to a much darker outcome.

If the series is set around these two cities, then its also possible we could see appearances from recognizable characters like Viktor, Warwick, Caitlyn, or any of the other dozen or so champions from the region.

League of Legends Arcane will be produced by Riot Games in partnership with Fortiche Productions, which it has worked with on several cinematics and music videos in the past. The series will debut on Netflix later this fall.

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League of Legends Arcane, Riots new animated show, coming to Netflix - Polygon