How to Buy Happiness

“As economists have repeatedly shown, well-being rises with income at low socioeconomic levels because it alleviates the problems of poverty. People can erase calorie deficits, educate their kids, and go to the doctor—in other words, they can lower their unhappiness. Even if you live above the poverty line in a rich country, you might have experienced this sort of transition in early adulthood. When I could finally afford to see a dentist at age 25 after ignoring my cavities for six years, it was a huge relief. (My lack of dental care might also have been partly due to misplaced spending priorities, however—I don’t recall ever being without cigarettes during those lean years.)”

How to Buy Happiness
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/04/money-income-buy-happiness/618601/
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Two centuries of rapid global population growth will come to an end

“The world enters the last phase of the demographic transition and this means we will not repeat the past. The global population has quadrupled over the course of the 20th century, but it will not double anymore over the course of this century.

The world population will reach a size, which compared to humanity’s history, will be extraordinary; if the UN projections are accurate (they have a good track record), the world population will have increased more than 10-fold over the span of 250 years.

We are on the way to a new balance. The big global demographic transition that the world entered more than two centuries ago is then coming to an end: This new equilibrium is different from the one in the past when it was the very high mortality that kept population growth in check. In the new balance it will be low fertility keeps population changes small.”

Two centuries of rapid global population growth will come to an end
https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth-past-future
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Regulating Technology Firms in the 21st Century - Yang2020 - Andrew Yang for President

“The most concerning of all is the effect technology and social media platforms are having on our kids. Technology, smartphones, and tablets are ubiquitous. Our kids have access to them from infancy. They’re getting hooked, from a young age, on apps and platforms that function as dopamine slot machines, potentially destroying the psyches of a generation. It’s affecting our kids’ mental and physical health, contributing to obesity, sleep deprivation, posture issues, stunting social skills, and blurring the lines between real and virtual relationships. It’s time to take action.”

Regulating Technology Firms in the 21st Century - Yang2020 - Andrew Yang for President
https://www.yang2020.com/blog/regulating-technology-firms-in-the-21st-century/
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Amazon Is Working on a Device That Can Read Human Emotions

“Amazon’s work on a wearable device underscores its ambitions of becoming a leading maker of both cutting-edge speech recognition software and consumer electronics. The Echo smart speaker line and embedded Alexa voice software have popularized the use of voice commands in the home. The company has also added voice control to Fire-branded video streaming devices for television, as well as tablets.”

Amazon Is Working on a Device That Can Read Human Emotions
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/amazon-is-working-on-a-wearable-device-that-reads-human-emotions
via Instapaper