What can the decline of the Roman Empire and the end of European feudalism tell us about COVID-19 and the future of the West?
Category: economics – Page 88
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World Economic Forum.
Saving $100 billion in lost productivity over the next decade.
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The 2021 Space Renaissance Congress Acta is now online, and the voting session for the new President and Board of Directors is now open.
Dear SRI friends and supporters.
Two key milestones of our 3rd World Congress are now accomplished.
**1) The complete acta of the presented papers and speeches** is now online, for all of us to be viewed and reviewed. https://2021.spacerenaissance.space/index.php/2021-space-ren…ress-acta/
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How do the big tech giants compare to entire countries? Here’s how Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon’s market caps stack up against national GDP.
Experts are excited by the concept of microreactors because nuclear facilities have historically relied on economies of scale — a paradigm this tech could reverse.
“Microreactors promise to turn this paradigm on its head by approaching cost competitiveness through technological learning,” Alex Gilbert from the nuclear power think tank Nuclear Innovation Alliance, told CNBC.
Oklo’s “fast reactor” plant uses energy from already-spent nuclear reactor fuel, technology that has been around since the 1950s, according to CNBC.
Livestreaming is a trillion-dollar industry in China, where social networking and entertainment meet marketing and e-commerce. China’s retail economy has become influencer-driven, with almost all online consumers buying products based on recommendations by their idols. That trend has enabled livestreaming and video platforms like Kuaishou and Douyin, which cultivated a roster of hugely popular influencers, to participate in the e-commerce market through partnerships with the online sales platforms.
Many people and businesses would not have survived the pandemic if it were not for the gig economy, says the co-founder of Asia Innovations Group, the start-up behind the live-streaming platform Uplive.
Ut ohh.
The middle and working classes have seen a steady decline in their fortunes. Sending jobs to foreign countries, the hollowing out of the manufacturing sector, pivoting toward a service economy and the weakening of unions have been blamed for the challenges faced by a majority of Americans.
There’s an interesting, compelling and alternative explanation. According to a new academic research study, automation technology has been the primary driver in U.S. income inequality over the past 40 years. The report, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, claims that 50% to 70% of changes in U.S. wages, since 1980, can be attributed to wage declines among blue-collar workers who were replaced or degraded by automation.
## GENERAL FUSION (VANCOUVER) • JUN 16, 2021.
# General Fusion to build its Fusion Demonstration Plant in the UK, at the UKAEA Culham Campus.
*Unlike conventional nuclear power, which involves fission or splitting atoms, the emerging fusion technology promises clean energy where the only emission would be helium, and importantly, no radioactive waste.*
New partnership between General Fusion and UKAEA is a landmark collaboration in the development of fusion, a technology for the world’s low-carbon future.
VANCOUVER, Canada and LONDON, United Kingdom (17th June 2021 BST): The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and General Fusion have announced an agreement under which General Fusion will build and operate its Fusion Demonstration Plant (FDP) at UKAEA’s Culham Campus. General Fusion will enter into a long-term lease with UKAEA following construction of a new facility at Culham to host the FDP. The FDP will demonstrate General Fusion’s proprietary Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) technology, paving the way for the company’s subsequent commercial pilot plant. General Fusion will benefit from the cluster of fusion supply chain activities in the UK, centered on UKAEA’s globally recognized expertise and presence in the field.
If you walk down the street shouting out the names of every object you see — garbage truck! bicyclist! sycamore tree! — most people would not conclude you are smart. But if you go through an obstacle course, and you show them how to navigate a series of challenges to get to the end unscathed, they would.
Most machine learning algorithms are shouting names in the street. They perform perceptive tasks that a person can do in under a second. But another kind of AI — deep reinforcement learning — is strategic. It learns how to take a series of actions in order to reach a goal. That’s powerful and smart — and it’s going to change a lot of industries.
Two industries on the cusp of AI transformations are manufacturing and supply chain. The ways we make and ship stuff are heavily dependent on groups of machines working together, and the efficiency and resiliency of those machines are the foundation of our economy and society. Without them, we can’t buy the basics we need to live and work.
Smart strategies like this can help workers learn to embrace technological change. If the government helps people plan their next move if and when they’re no longer needed in their current job, workers will be able to roll with the economy’s punches more easily. Combined with national health insurance, education and retraining assistance — and a robust unemployment insurance system — it could make terror of job loss a thing of the past.
The U.S. government must assuage people’s anxiety about technology upending their working lives, in part by helping them forge new career paths.