Vast New Study Shows a Key to Reducing Poverty: More Friendships Between Rich and Poor – The New York Times, August 1, 2022
Over the last four decades, the financial circumstances into which children have been born have increasingly determined where they have ended up as adults. But an expansive new study, based on billions of social media connections, has uncovered a powerful exception to that pattern that helps explain why certain places offer a path out of poverty. For poor children, living in an area where people have more friendships that cut across class lines significantly increases how much they earn in adulthood–more than any other factor, including school quality, family structure, job availability or a community’s racial composition. The study found that if poor children grew up in neighborhoods where 70% of their friends were wealthy — the typical rate of friendship for higher-income children — it would increase their future incomes by 20%, on average.
The ‘Shamanification’ of the Tech CEO – Wired, July 2022
Why does success in tech require deprivation? This is what the anthropologist who wrote this article explores. From fruit-only diets to dopamine fasting, Silicon Valley founders flaunt self-deprivation like a misguided pursuit of wellness. But there’s more to it. These self-denial fads are often touted as biohacking innovations, but they are part of a larger pattern: “the self-shamanification of tech CEOs.” Like shamans, modern tech executives promise control over the uncertain.
‘Quiet Quitting’: Why Doing the Bare Minimum at Work Has Gone Global – The Guardian, August 6, 2022
The meaninglessness of modern work – and the pandemic – has led millions to question their approach to their jobs. Gen Zs are behind a new movement they’re calling “quiet quitting” on TikTok. The idea: you don’t resign, you reject the idea of always going above and beyond at work and the hustle culture mentality. Quiet quitting means doing just enough at work to keep up. Enlightened companies are designing jobs that deliver more than just a fair wage: they’re giving people real control over their work and a sense of being valued and respected.
Revealed: How Climate Breakdown Is Supercharging the Toll of Extreme Weather––The Guardian, August 4, 2022
An analysis of hundreds of scientific studies demonstrates beyond any doubt how humanity’s vast carbon emissions are provoking more frequent and deadly climate related disasters, all happening with a rise of just 1 degree Celsius in the planet’s average temperature. Most scientists now agree that the role of global heating in supercharging extreme weather is occurring at “astonishing speed.” As temperatures rise further, it’s essential to understand that the damage will be exponential, not linear.
Want to Do More Good? This Movement Might Have the Answer–– Time, August 10, 2022
This is about William MacAskill’s latest book, What We Owe the Future. The greater good has been the philosopher’s focus for more than a decade, since he helped start the effective altruism (EA) movement, which is about “doing good better” by aiming to use evidence and reason to find the best ways of helping others, and to put those findings into practice. EA holds that we should value all lives equally and act on that basis. It is the antithesis of the old do-gooder’s credo “Think global, act local.”
A Striking Stat
Only 21% of global employees report being engaged at work; only 33% of workers are thriving in their overall wellbeing.
