Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jared Bahir Browsh, Assistant Teaching Professor of Critical Sports Studies, University of Colorado Boulder

Many of America’s iconic holiday candies have Philadelphia or Pennsylvania roots – like Peeps on Easter, Reese’s peanut butter cups on Halloween, and a good, old-fashioned Whitman’s Sampler box of chocolates on Valentine’s Day.

As a Philadelphian and a cultural historian who teaches students about the history of American corporations, the role of the city in the nation’s food history often comes up in my class.

Philadelphia was one of the largest port cities in the U.S. through the early 20th century. Sugar and other candy ingredients were readily available from Delaware River docks. Improvements to sugar refining made the product significantly cheaper during the first half of the 19th century, while the Second Industrial Revolution, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, expanded transportation and trade.

This led to a dramatic increase in candymakers and confectioners in Philadelphia. Many, like Whitman’s Chocolates, one of the oldest still in existence, were concentrated in the Old City neighborhood.

Old City was also home to the oldest candy distributor in the country. Casani Candy Company was founded in 1865. While the company now operates across the Delaware River in Pennsauken, New Jersey, it continues to distribute hundreds of products, including Asher’s candy, which was founded in Philadelphia in 1892.

A box of chocolates

The company that would become Wilbur’s Chocolate was founded in 1865 by Henry Oscar Wilbur and Samuel Croft. After several moves, and a split between the founders in 1884, Wilbur opened a new facility in 1887 at the corner of Third and New streets, where the Chocolate Works condominiums are located today.

There, they began production of their famous Buds, made by pouring hot liquefied chocolate into molds that resembled flower buds.

Phillip Wunderle, maker of gumdrops and other candies, set up shop in North Liberties, just north of Old City, in 1871. An employee of Wunderle Candy Company named George Renninger is often credited with the invention of candy corn, the iconic Halloween staple. However, it would be a decade before this sugary treat, also called “chicken feed,” became popular.

Wunderle also employed a salesman who would go on to become a candy legend: Milton Hershey.

In 1900, Hershey revolutionized the chocolate industry by introducing the Hershey Bar, the first mass-produced milk chocolate in the United States. Seven years later, the Hershey Company introduced a bite-sized, teardrop-shaped chocolate similar to Wilbur’s buds. Legend has it that the name, Hershey’s Kisses, originated from the sound of the machine that manufactured the candies, but there were several other candies with the name that predate Hershey’s.

As Hershey grew more successful, Whitman’s looked for a way to maintain its market share. Whitman’s advertised heavily after the Civil War, and by the end of the 19th century, promoted its products with suggestive ads that linked chocolate with romance.

In 1912, Whitman’s introduced its Sampler box. It became a Valentine’s Day staple, especially after it became available in a heart-shaped box – a marketing stunt that English chocolate brand Cadbury reportedly started in 1868.

Chewing gum and movie snacks

The candy market in Philly – and nearby Hershey, Pennsylvania – continued to grow during the Roaring ‘20s.

A former dairy manager at Hershey named H.B. Reese built his own candy factory in Hershey in 1926, and two years later, he introduced his famous Peanut Butter Cups. Reese’s merged with Hershey’s in 1963 and later introduced their popular candy in different holiday shapes, like Easter eggs, Christmas trees and Valentine’s Day hearts.

Another company now owned by Hershey is York Peppermint Pattie, a chocolate-covered soft mint candy introduced in 1940 in a town 40 miles south of Hershey.

Back in Philadelphia, Frank H. Fleer, an inventor of Chiclets, the peppermint- flavored candy-coated gum, founded his confectionery company in 1885 in the Fairmount neighborhood. Fleer sold the invention to the Trenton, New Jersey-based American Chicle Company in 1914. In 1923, Fleer Corporation first included sports cards with its candy, and in 1928, company accountant Walter Diemer helped perfect the formula for Dubble Bubble, the first bubble gum.

Meanwhile, Goldenberg Candy Company, which was founded in Philadelphia in 1890, introduced their Peanut Chews in 1917 as an energy source for troops during World War I. Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews are now owned by Just Born, which makes the popular Easter candy Peeps and has its headquarters in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. However, Peanut Chews are produced out of a facility in the Holmesburg section of Northeast Philadelphia.

Further establishing southeast Pennsylvania as the chocolate capital of America was the emergence of Philadelphia-based Blumenthal Brothers Chocolate Company in 1909. Beginning in the mid-1920s, it began producing candy for movie concessions after being approached by Philadelphia concessions entrepreneur Jacob Beresin when some theaters placed a ban on popcorn in the 1920s, which was considered too messy. Blumenthal’s Goobers, Raisinets and Sno-Caps are still popular movie snacks, and a sweet complement to date night.

The post-World War II era brought a number of business and market changes that led many of these candy companies to move out of Philadelphia.

Yet vestiges of Philadelphia’s candy dominance can still be found around the city. For unique handmade candy this Valentine’s Day, Philly residents can visit Shane’s Confectionery, which is arguably the oldest, continuously operated candy shop in America. (There’s some debate to that claim because the space has been a candy shop since 1863, but Shane’s didn’t open until 1910.) And stop back in March to pick up some “Irish Potatoes” – coconut cream rolled in cinnamon – for St. Patrick’s Day.

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, or sign up for our Philadelphia newsletter on Substack.

Jared Bahir Browsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Philadelphia was once a sweet spot for chocolatiers and other candymakers who made iconic treats for Valentine’s Day and other holidays – https://theconversation.com/philadelphia-was-once-a-sweet-spot-for-chocolatiers-and-other-candymakers-who-made-iconic-treats-for-valentines-day-and-other-holidays-274714

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Margret Grebowicz, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, Missouri University of Science and Technology

Americans love dogs.

Nearly half of U.S. households have one, and practically all owners see pets as part of the family – 51% say pets belong “as much as a human member.” The pet industry keeps generating more and more jobs, from vets to trainers, to influencers. Schools cannot keep up with the demand for veterinarians.

It all seems part of what Mark Cushing, a lawyer and lobbyist for veterinary issues, calls “the pet revolution”: the more and more privileged place that pets occupy in American society. In his 2020 book “Pet Nation,” he argues that the internet has caused people to become more lonely, and this has made them focus more intensely on their pets – filling in for human relationships.

I would argue that something different is happening, however, particularly since the COVID-19 lockdown: Loving dogs has become an expression not of loneliness but of how unhappy many Americans are with society and other people.

In my own book, “Rescue Me,” I explore how today’s dog culture is more a symptom of our suffering as a society than a cure for it. Dogs aren’t just being used as a substitute for people. As a philosopher who studies the relationships between animals, humans and the environment, I believe Americans are turning to dogs to alleviate the erosion of social life itself. For some owners, dogs simply offer more satisfying relationships than other people do.

And I am no different. I live with three dogs, and my love for them has driven me to research the culture of dog ownership in an effort to understand myself and other humans better. By nature, dogs are masters of social life who can communicate beyond the boundaries of their species. But I believe many Americans are expecting their pets to address problems that they cannot fix.

Dogs over people

During the pandemic, people often struggled with the monotony of spending too much time cooped up with other humans – children, romantic partners, roommates. Meanwhile, relationships with their dogs seemed to flourish.

Rescuing shelter animals grew in popularity, and on social media people celebrated being at home with their pets. Dog content on Instagram and Pinterest now commonly includes hashtags like #DogsAreBetterThanPeople and #IPreferDogsToPeople.

“The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog” appears on merchandise all over e-commerce sites such as Etsy, Amazon and Redbubble.

One 2025 study found that dog owners tend to rate their pets more highly than their human loved ones in several areas, such as companionship and support. They also experienced fewer negative interactions with their dogs than with the closest people in their lives, including children, romantic partners and relatives.

The late primatologist Jane Goodall celebrated her 90th birthday with 90 dogs. She stated in an interview with Stephen Colbert that she preferred dogs to chimps, because chimps were too much like people.

Fraying fabric

This passion for dogs seems to be growing as America’s social fabric unravels – which began long before the pandemic.

In 1972, 46% of Americans said “most people can be trusted.” By 2018, that percentage dropped to 34%. Americans report seeing their friends less than they used to, a phenomenon called the “friendship recession,” and avoid having conversations with strangers because they expect the conversation to go badly. People are spending more time at home.

Today, millennials make up the largest percentage of pet owners. Some cultural commentators argue dogs are especially important for this generation because other traditional markers of stability and adulthood – a mortgage, a child – feel out of reach or simply undesirable. According to the Harris Poll, a marketing research firm, 43% of Americans would prefer a pet to a child.

Amid those pressures, many people turn to the comfort of a pet – but the expectations for what dogs can bring to our lives are becoming increasingly unreasonable.

For some people, dogs are a way to feel loved, to relieve pressures to have kids, to fight the drudgery of their job, to reduce the stress of the rat race and to connect with the outdoors. Some expect pet ownership to improve their physical and mental health.

And it works, to a degree. Studies have found dog people to be “warmer” and happier than cat people. Interacting with pets can improve your health and may even offer some protection against cognitive decline. Dog-training programs in prisons appear to reduce recidivism rates.

Unreasonable expectations

But expecting that dogs will fill the social and emotional gaps in our lives is actually an obstacle to dogs’ flourishing, and human flourishing as well.

In philosophical terms, we could call this an extractive relationship: Humans are using dogs for their emotional labor, extracting things from them that they cannot get elsewhere or simply no longer wish to. Just like natural resource extraction, extractive relationships eventually become unsustainable.

The late cultural theorist Lauren Berlant argued that the present stage of capitalism creates a dynamic called “slow death,” a cycle in which “life building and the attrition of life are indistinguishable.” Keeping up is so exhausting that, in order to maintain that life, we need to do things that result in our slow degradation: Work becomes drudgery under unsustainable workloads, and the experience of dating suffers under the unhealthy pressure to have a partner.

Similarly, today’s dog culture is leading to unhealthy and unsustainable dynamics. Veterinarians are concerned that the rise of the “fur baby” lifestyle, in which people treat pets like human children, can harm animals, as owners seek unnecessary veterinary care, tests and medications. Pets staying at home alone while owners work suffer from boredom, which can cause chronic psychological distress and health problems. And as the number of pets goes up, many people wind up giving up their animal, overcrowding shelters.

So what should be done? Some philosophers and activists advocate for pet abolition, arguing that treating any animals as property is ethically indefensible.

This is a hard case to make – especially with dog lovers. Dogs were the first animal that humans domesticated. They have evolved beside us for as long as 40,000 years, and are a central piece of the human story. Some scientists argue that dogs made us human, not the other way around.

Perhaps we can reconfigure aspects of home, family and society to be better for dogs and humans alike – more accessible health care and higher-quality food, for example. A world more focused on human thriving would be more focused on pets’ thriving, too. But that would make for a very different America than this one.

Margret Grebowicz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Americans are asking too much of their dogs – https://theconversation.com/americans-are-asking-too-much-of-their-dogs-256768

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Nareman Amin, Assistant Professor of Contemporary Islam, Michigan State University

Fifteen years ago, Egyptians from all walks of life took to the street to demand “bread, freedom, social justice.” They were protesting the oppressive 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt had been under martial law for 31 years. This meant that political opposition was silenced, and opponents were often imprisoned and tortured. Police brutality was the norm.

Egypt’s economy was also weak and relied heavily on foreign aid and loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Even though the country’s per capita gross domestic product was growing, almost 25% of the population was living in poverty by 2011.

Neighboring Tunisia had toppled its dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, on Jan. 14, 2011, after 28 days of protest. The Tunisian revolution’s success led to a wave of uprisings against corruption, injustice and economic inequality across the region, including the January 2011 revolution in Egypt.

For many who joined the movement in Egypt, there was a newfound sense of unity, equality and nationalism. Egyptians young and old, Muslim and Christian, rich and poor, man and woman, stood arm-in-arm for 18 days, until Mubarak resigned on Feb. 11, 2011.

Mubarak’s resignation signaled to many Egyptians the power of common will and determination.

Slowly, however, political divisions set in. While there were exciting voting opportunities that seemed free and fair for the first time in modern Egyptian history, there were many disappointments in this nascent and short-lived democratic experiment.

In my recently published book, “Is God for Revolution? Affect, Youth and Islam,” I investigate these political changes, but through the lens of religion.

Islam in Egypt

Egypt is a Muslim-majority country. Islam can be felt, seen and heard in every corner of the nation: The melodic call to prayer rings out five times a day to remind Muslims to stop what they are doing and turn their attention to God in worship.

Minarets of mosques and domes of churches dot the sepia-toned Egyptian sky. The Quran plays in shops, taxi cabs and on radios and television in local cafes. Most women wear veils as part of a religious obligation; men grow long beards, which they believe to be a prophetic tradition.

Scholars of Islam like Saba Mahmood, Charles Hirschkind, Aaron Rock-Singer and others have noted a resurgence in these physical aspects of Islamic piety since the 1970s. Some of these scholars attribute it to Islamic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, established by Hasan al-Banna in 1928 as a response to the cultural and political incursions of the British occupation.

Salafis are another group who urged people to be good Muslims by believing in Allah – the Arabic word for God – and looking and acting the part as well. The Salafis believe they follow the Islam of the “pious predecessors,” or salaf – that is, the generations during and immediately following the life of the Prophet Muhammad.

The Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis offered social services for the poor and preached their versions of Islam widely.

The research

I lived in Egypt between 2007 and 2012 and visited every summer until 2018, when I formally began conducting interviews for this book.

In 2018 and 2019, I spoke with 61 middle- and upper-middle class Muslim Egyptians who were in their early- to mid-20s when the Egyptian uprising began in 2011. Most interviewees were from big cities like Cairo and Alexandria, but some also grew up in smaller villages and towns across Egypt.

For them, the revolution and the social and political freedoms it came with offered them a space to question everything in their lives, including how they relate to the Islamic teachings they grew up with and heard from Muslim parents and preachers.

For example, many of the interviewees came to believe that there are many paths to gaining God’s favor. Some turned to Sufism, or mystical Islam, for answers. Others left Islam altogether.

My interviewees all grew up with the sights and sounds of Islam surrounding them. Their parents and schools also taught them an Islam that highlighted both belief in God and physical practices like the veil, beards and prayer. For many of the people I spoke to, these rituals and visible markers of Islam were no longer as important as they had been raised to believe.

Heidi, a human rights activist, explained that the revolution was an eye-opener, especially for women. She explained that, after the revolution, she took off the veil and now places more importance on the ethical and spiritual rather than the ritualistic aspects of Islam.

“The revolution broke the fear barrier we had of thinking for ourselves … including about religion,” she said.

Similarly, Hasan, a tech entrepreneur, who once used to be conservative in his understanding of what makes one a good Muslim, told me that after the uprising, he came to believe that “religion is not one single path, and that no one action can take you to heaven.” He became more accepting of the different ways people relate to Islam.

Some of my interviewees turned to Eastern practices like yoga and meditation, sometimes even mixing them with Sufism or Islamic mysticism. I spoke to Sonia, an Egyptian American Muslim woman who received training in various wellness methods like pranic healing, breath work and meditation, and I attended her sessions online during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In post-revolution Egypt, she held sessions in yoga studios in which she guided practitioners through traditional breath work and meditation. She asked practitioners to chant the names of Allah in Arabic: al-Nur (the Light) and al-Rahman (the Merciful), in sync with their rhythmic, conscious breathing.

In these spaces, one would find energy crystals, and incense wafting in and out of the room. Attendees, both Muslim and non-Muslim, would sit in a semicircle around Sonia, trying to reach something transcendent, spiritual, maybe even universal.

Not all my interviewees approved of this spiritual practice. Basim, an entrepreneur, felt that practices like Sonia’s were not Islamic; they were a mishmash of Eastern practices that pull on the Islamic tradition selectively for marketing purposes.

Sonia, however, felt that people should not be judged for how they choose to build a connection with God or something transcendent.

Other interviewees left Islam altogether. Six of the people I spoke to had become atheist or agnostic. There were atheists in Egypt before 2011, but shortly after the uprising, more people became vocal about their lack of belief. The media widely reported on what it framed as a worrying trend in society.

Why did this happen?

The revolution opened a space for people who may never have come together to join one another in protest. Once Mubarak fell, people found unprecedented freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom to take part in politics.

Among those who openly joined the political scene after Mubarak’s removal were the Muslim Brotherhood and political arms of the Salafis, who made considerable political gains in 2011 and 2012.

In June 2012, Muhammad Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood became the first democratically elected president of Egypt. But just a year into his administration, Mursi was deposed by the military. People who staged demonstrations and sit-ins to protest his deposition were violently removed from public squares and killed.

Religion in post-revolution politics

How religion was used in the political processes led almost all my interviewees to rethink matters of faith, practice and religious authority.

Data from the Arab Barometer, which conducts public opinion surveys in the Middle East, shows similar trends over the past decade. In 2011, when respondents were asked if Egypt would be better off if religious people held public office, 53% disagreed. By 2022, the figure had risen to 80%. Views on religious practice also indicated a change.

At the very beginning of the 2011 movement, for example, many of the Islamic scholars my interviewees followed argued that revolting against a ruler, no matter how unjust, is a sin and forbidden in the Islamic tradition. Later, when Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood came to power, most of my interviewees were shocked that many of these Islamist politicians played the political game, which meant lying and reneging on promises made.

When Mursi became president, his supporters compared his rule with that of the prophet. Others used offensive language to describe political opponents who did not share their political vision.

My interviewees believed that these behaviors were antithetical to the ethical and moral codes of the Islamic tradition that these Islamists and their supporters preached for years prior to the uprising and their political ascent.

Things came to a head when Mursi was deposed through a violent coup. The country was divided between those who praised the military for restoring order and stability in Egypt and those who decried the move as a massacre that ushered in the end of the democratic experiment.

All my interviewees were horrified by the massacre, leading a few to question why a just God would allow hundreds of innocent people to be killed in such a way. Worse yet was that some of the religious scholars who forbade people from protesting against Mubarak in 2011 urged people to protest against Mursi in 2013, with a few even condoning the massacre or at least staying silent in the face of renewed oppression.

The Egyptians I interviewed witnessed all these events and reacted emotionally to them. And because religion was at the center of these political processes in ways that almost all my interviewees viewed as hypocritical and opportunistic, my interviewees wanted to break away from the version of Islam that the Islamists and their supporters represented.

Fifteen years on, though the political and economic aims of the 2011 movement have not been realized, the social afterlives of a revolution live on.

Nareman Amin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Fifteen years after Egypt’s uprising, how faith and politics reshaped a generation – https://theconversation.com/fifteen-years-after-egypts-uprising-how-faith-and-politics-reshaped-a-generation-274430

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Cara Ocobock, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame

The Winter Olympics and Paralympics are upon us once again. This year the games come to Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, where weather forecasts are predicting temperatures in the upper 30s to mid-40s Fahrenheit (1 to 10 degrees Celsius).

These temperatures are a good deal warmer than one might expect for winter, particularly in a mountainous area. They’re warm enough that athletes will need to adjust how they are preparing their equipment for competition, yet still cold enough to affect the physiology of athletes and spectators alike.

As a biological anthropologist and a materials scientist, we’re interested in how the human body responds to different conditions and how materials can help people improve performance and address health challenges. Both of these components will play a key role for Olympic athletes hoping to perform at their peak in Italy.

Athletes in the cold

The athletes taking part in outdoor events are no strangers to cold and unpredictable weather conditions. It is an inherent part of their sports. Though it is highly unlikely the athletes this year will be exposed to extreme cold, the outdoor conditions will still affect their performance.

One concern is dehydration, which can be less noticeable, as sweating is typically less frequent and intense in cold conditions. However, cold temperatures also mean lower relative humidity. This dry air means the body needs to use more of its own water to moisten the air before it reaches the delicate lungs. Athletes breathing heavily during competition are losing more body water that way than they would in more temperate conditions.

When cold, the body also tends to narrow its blood vessels to better maintain core body temperature. Narrower blood vessels lose less heat to the cooler air, but this results in the body pushing more fluid out of the circulatory system and toward the kidneys, which then increases urine output.

Though the athletes may not be sweating to the same degree as they would in warmer temperatures, they are still sweating. Athletes dress to improve their performance and protect themselves from cold. The layers of clothing and material used in conjunction with the heat produced from physical activity can lead to sweating and create a hot, wet space between the athlete’s body and what they are wearing.

This space is not only another site of water loss, but also a potential problem for athletes who need to take part in different rounds or runs for their competition – for example, the initial heats for skiing or snowboarding.

These athletes are physically active and working up a sweat, and then they wait around for their next heat. During this waiting period, that damp layer of sweat will make them more vulnerable to body heat loss and cold injury such as frostbite or hypothermia. Athletes must stay warm between rounds of competition.

Science of winter apparel

Staying warm is all about materials selection and construction.

Many apparel companies adopt a three-layer system approach to keep wearers warm, dry and comfortable. Specifically, there is a bottom layer – in direct contact with the skin – that is typically composed of a moisture-wicking synthetic fabric such as nylon or a natural fabric such as wool.

The second layer in winter apparel is an insulating one that is generally porous to trap warm air generated by the body and to slow heat loss. Great options for this are down and fleece.

The final layer is the external protection layer, which keeps you dry and protected from the elements. This layer needs to be waterproof and breathable to keep the inner insulating layers dry but to simultaneously let out sweat. Polyester and acrylic are good options here, as they are lightweight, durable and resist moisture.

The gear athletes wear can be customized to their needs. For example, the synthetic fabrics used on the innermost layer are versatile, and engineers can introduce new properties and functionalities for users. Adding a specific coating to a fabric like nylon can give it new properties – such as wind and water resistance.

Frequently, both the synthetic fibers and the coatings materials scientists add to them are made up of polymers, which are long chains of molecules. They can be human-made and petroleum-based, like polyethylene trash bags, polyester and Teflon. But polymers can also be natural and derived from nature. Your DNA and the proteins in your body are examples of polymers.

In addition to polymer technology, conventional battery-powered heating jackets are also an option.

Smart materials

As an added bonus, there is also a class of smart materials called phase change materials that are made of polymers and composite materials. They automatically absorb excess body heat when too much is created and release it again to the body when needed to passively regulate your body temperature. These materials release or take in heat as they transition between solid and liquid states and respond to the body’s natural cues.

Phase change materials are less about warming you up. Instead, they work by keeping your temperature balanced.

While these aren’t commonly used in the gear athletes wear, NASA has been experimenting with them for a long time, and many commercially available products leverage this technology. Cooling fabrics, such as bedding and towels, are often made of phase change textiles because they do not overheat you.

Risks to the rest of us

Athletes are not the only ones at risk for cold injury.

While most of us will be watching the Games with the comfort of indoor heating, thousands of people and support staff will be watching or working those outdoor events in person. Unlike the athletes, these individuals will not have the added benefit of their bodies producing extra heat from exercise. The nonathletes in attendance will be at greater risk in the cold.

If you’re planning to spectate or work at an event this winter, drink more water than usual and time your bathroom breaks accordingly. Plan to wear several layers of clothing you can add and remove as needed, and pay special attention to the more vulnerable parts of the body, such as the hands, feet and nose.

Colder temperatures elicit a variety of metabolic responses in the body. One example is shivering, caused by tiny muscle contractions that produce heat. Your body’s brown adipose tissue – a type of fat – also becomes active and produces heat rather than energy.

Both of these processes burn extra calories, so expect to be more hungry if you’re out in the cold for a while. Trips to the bathroom or to get food are a welcome opportunity to warm up – especially those hands and feet.

It is easy to think of Olympians as exceptional athletes at the mercy of Mother Nature’s cold wrath. However, both the human body’s natural physiology and the impressive advances scientists have made in winter apparel technology will keep these athletes warm and performing at their best.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Winter Olympians often compete in freezing temperatures – physiology and advances in materials science help keep them warm – https://theconversation.com/winter-olympians-often-compete-in-freezing-temperatures-physiology-and-advances-in-materials-science-help-keep-them-warm-275070

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Charlie Hunt, Associate Professor of Political Science, Boise State University

Many Americans report frustration with the two-party system, in which the Democratic and Republican candidates are seen as the only viable options for elective office.

But an alarming trend in many state legislative elections is lowering the bar even further, to something more like a one-party system. In dozens of states, an increasing number of state legislative seats are going completely uncontested by one of the two major parties.

State legislatures play a crucial role in American governance. As congressional gridlock has intensified over recent decades, state governments have increasingly picked up the slack on policymaking.

Yet in many states, competition over who serves in these legislatures has deteriorated significantly.

The result is a genuine crisis for political representation, policy innovation and candidate recruitment.

Scale of the problem

In many cases, one of the only two viable parties can’t field enough candidates for the state legislature to mount a credible challenge to the other, more dominant party.

While uncontested seats for Congress remain relatively rare – approximately 3% to 4% of U.S. House districts in recent cycles were uncontested – the phenomenon has become endemic in state legislatures. In recent election cycles, between 30% and 50% of lower-chamber state legislative seats nationwide went uncontested by one of the two major parties.

Even more astounding is the lack of competition in individual states, some of which see far less competition than others. Some states, like Michigan and Minnesota, regularly field candidates for both parties in nearly all their state legislative races.

Massachusetts is a different story: In their lower legislative chamber, more than half the races have gone uncontested by one of the two major parties in every election since at least 2010. In the 2024 elections, four out of every five seats went uncontested in races for the Massachusetts House. In Mississippi, out of the 174 seats in the state Legislature, only 25 of them – 14% – had actual contests with both parties participating.

In practice, this means that for many state legislative chambers each election cycle, the party that will control the majority in the next legislative session – a major prerequisite for governing and passing legislation – is literally a foregone conclusion. In these chambers, one party or the other has fielded candidates for less than half of the legislative seats.

In other words, it’s mathematically impossible for that party to win a majority, even if its candidates win every seat they compete in.

In the 2022 cycle, for example, simple majorities were guaranteed for either the Democrats or Republicans in 22 chambers across 16 states. In some of these cases, one party was guaranteed a veto-proof majority – meaning that party had enough lawmakers to override a governor’s veto if necessary – before a single vote had even been counted in the election.

What is and isn’t behind lack of competition

Several factors contribute to the prevalence of uncontested races, including the individual decision-making processes of potential candidates.

Running for office requires substantial investments of time and money, as well as major sacrifices of privacy and, in many cases, public and personal reputation. Even many individuals who are interested in serving decide that the cost isn’t worth it, especially when winning isn’t a guarantee.

The calculus is even more straightforward in heavily partisan districts, where the other party’s presidential candidate may have won by 40 or 50 percentage points in a previous election. Here, even well-qualified candidates face near-certain defeat. It’s easy to see why would-be candidates might reasonably decide to opt out.

Structural explanations for this lack of competition are more complex. For example, gerrymandering – the practice of drawing district boundaries to favor one party – is frequently cited as the main culprit.

But while gerrymandering does occur and merits concern, the evidence suggests it is not the principal driver of uncontested seats. Many states with independent redistricting commissions, such as Idaho, have experienced high rates of non-contestation despite having drawn competitive districts. Meanwhile, many states where legislatures control redistricting, such as Minnesota and Florida, maintain robust competition.

The phenomenon is also not correlated with whether a state is red, blue or somewhere in between, indicating that partisan control of redistricting alone cannot explain the trend.

Two complementary factors are more likely important. First, geographic partisan sorting – the concentration of politically like-minded people in communities – has accelerated over the past three decades. Democrats have consolidated in urban centers while losing ground in rural areas, particularly in the South and Midwest. This residential sorting creates naturally uncompetitive districts regardless of how boundaries are drawn.

Second, state and local party organizations have experienced significant decline in power and influence, particularly in states where one party holds an overwhelming advantage. These organizations historically served as recruitment and support networks for candidates challenging incumbent officeholders.

Without robust local party infrastructure, even qualified potential candidates in minority parties lack the resources and institutional backing necessary to mount viable campaigns.

Competition is fundamental to a functioning democracy

Regardless of underlying causes, the consequences of uncontested races extend beyond the immediate lack of choice on the ballot.

When one party faces no meaningful electoral threat, research shows that policy innovation and responsiveness suffers. Dominant parties lack incentives to develop proposals that address the concerns of all constituents, or to engage seriously with opposition ideas.

More fundamentally, the prevalence of uncontested races raises questions about democratic legitimacy. Elections serve not merely as mechanisms for selecting officeholders, but as opportunities for citizens to evaluate governance and hold officials accountable. When voters face no choice – when a candidate wins by default and not by persuasion – the basic requirements of democratic representation go unmet.

Obstacles to renewed competition

Reversing this trend requires overcoming significant practical obstacles.

Recruiting qualified candidates to run for office is famously difficult; recruiting them for seemingly unwinnable seats is nearly impossible. And convincing national party organizations, interest groups and donors to invest resources in what they see as “hopeless” races is equally challenging.

But the consequences are too significant to ignore, and go beyond democracy or policy considerations.

State legislatures serve as the primary training ground for candidates who later seek higher office. When parties and their candidate talent decline to compete in entire states, they forfeit not only immediate electoral contests, but also the opportunity to cultivate future leaders at the federal level.

Competition cannot be superficially manufactured, and both the causes of and solutions to its recent decline are complex. Both, however, must be reckoned with. Without real competition, elections risk going from true exercises in popular sovereignty to a mere administrative formality.

Charlie Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. There’s a competition crisis in America’s state legislatures – and that’s bad for democracy – https://theconversation.com/theres-a-competition-crisis-in-americas-state-legislatures-and-thats-bad-for-democracy-273436

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Mark Robert Rank, Professor of Social Welfare, Washington University in St. Louis

Few ideas are as central to the nation’s identity as that of the American Dream.

With the 250th birthday of the United States coming up in July 2026, it’s worth stepping back to examine a concept essential to the nation’s self-image.

The term “American Dream” was actually coined in the 1930s by historian James Truslow Adams. Ever since the establishment of the Colonies, however, America has been viewed as a land where individual and collective hopes and aspirations can be realized.

From the idea of America as a shining “city on a hill” to the Declaration of Independence’s guarantee of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” the nation has been premised on high aspirations. The concept of the American Dream has epitomized these hopes, and it continues to be present throughout our cultural landscape.

As a social scientist, I set out to explore what Americans thought about the American Dream in today’s society. I interviewed scores of people, from an elderly man sleeping on the street to a billionaire entrepreneur.

I wanted to know exactly how they defined the American Dream – and whether it has become harder to achieve today than in the past.

Defining the dream

From pickup trucks and lawn tractor ads to the labeling of undocumented immigrant children as Dreamers, references to the American Dream in contemporary life are ubiquitous. Washington, D.C., is now home to a brand-new, US$500 million museum, the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, devoted to celebrating the idea and its history.

It turns out that for most people I interviewed, the American Dream consists of three basic ideas.

The first is what might be called an economic bargain: If you work hard and play by the rules, you should expect to have a financially secure life. This includes owning a home, being able to afford raising kids and retiring in comfort.

Second, the American Dream is centered on hope and optimism. It is about personal progress and the belief that the nation’s best days lie ahead. It’s the idea that each generation should do better than the previous one, and that upward economic mobility is essential for bringing this about.

The third and final idea people expressed was having the freedom to pursue their hopes to reach their full potential. For many, this is the epitome of the American Dream.

At its best, the U.S. is seen as allowing individuals the freedom to live the life they want. Liberty and rugged individualism have been hallmarks of America since its beginnings, so it should come as no surprise that they are also central to the American Dream.

Economically more elusive?

Given this, has the American Dream become more or less difficult to achieve over time? Unfortunately, for a growing number of Americans, it appears to be more difficult.

First, the goal of leading an economically secure life in exchange for hard work has become more elusive. Data from the Census Bureau indicates that median wages for full-time male workers have essentially flatlined since 1973. The economy has been producing more low-wage and part-time jobs. Many of these lack benefits, such as health insurance.

Less-skilled workers, such as truck drivers and postal clerks, have actually lost ground in terms of income. At the same time, housing, medical care, child care and higher education costs have dramatically increased over the past 40 years.

What about upward mobility and the hope for each generation to do better economically than the previous one? There is some evidence that one reason the middle class is shrinking is that more people have entered upper-income tiers.

Still, younger generations will actually earn, on average, less as adults than their parents did. This is the first time in U.S. history that this is the case. The formerly taken-for-granted idea of generational progress and moving forward appears to have stalled.

Upward economic mobility for lower-income workers has also slowed over the past 50 years, making it harder to climb the ladder of opportunity.

Dissatisfied, not dreaming

Finally, what about personal freedom? Survey data indicates that greater numbers of Americans feel they have less control over their lives and futures than in the past.

For more than 20 years, Gallup has asked the question, “In this country, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your freedom to choose what you do with your life?” The percentage of Americans reporting being satisfied has dropped notably over the past two decades. In 2007 it was 87%, but by 2024 it had fallen to 72%. For women, the number was even lower, declining from 85% in 2007 to 66% in 2024.

By comparison, the average for the wealthiest countries in the Gallup survey was 86%. Consequently, on all three counts it appears that the American Dream is becoming harder to achieve.

An aspirational hope

These trends are important for making sense of the polarization and general negativity found in America today. Too many Americans feel that they’ve been left behind and that the American Dream has become a distant reality.

For these Americans, the words of the late comedian and social commentator George Carlin ring true: “It’s called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”

Yet the American Dream is a powerful metaphor and aspiration that continues to inspire many in this country. Among those I interviewed, there was a strong consensus that it represents the very best of what America has to offer.

There is no other country that has quite the equivalent of the American Dream. As the nation enters its next 250 years, working toward reestablishing the concept as a reality for millions of people who have fallen behind may be vital to maintaining the essence of the American promise.

Mark Robert Rank does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What is the American Dream, and has it become harder to achieve in recent years? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-american-dream-and-has-it-become-harder-to-achieve-in-recent-years-271607

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Eve Bohnett, Assistant Research Scholar, Center for Landscape Conservation Planning, University of Florida

In late 2025, Interpol coordinated a global operation across 134 nations, seizing roughly 30,000 live animals, confiscating illegal plant and timber products, and identifying about 1,100 suspected wildlife traffickers for national police to investigate.

Wildlife trafficking is one of the most lucrative illicit industries worldwide. It nets between US$7 billion and $23 billion per year, according to the Global Environment Facility, a group of nearly 200 nations as well as businesses and nonprofits that funds environmental improvement and protection projects.

People buy and sell a wide range of items, including live animals, plant powders and oils, ivory carvings and musical instruments.

Historically, enforcement has been largely reactive. There is so much global trade that fewer than 1 in 10 international cargo shipments of any kind are physically inspected. Traffickers also avoid detection by using false or generic names instead of proper species identification, employing coded language in online listings, rerouting shipments and shifting to different messaging platforms when enforcement pressure increases. Emerging digital tools are helping authorities link online monitoring, legal reference tools and on-the-ground investigations.

As a researcher at the University of Florida working at the intersection of conservation science and applied technology, I observed these advancements firsthand at an international meeting of governments and partner organizations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, often known by its acronym, CITES. This treaty – the cornerstone for international regulation of trade in endangered plants and animals – is enforced by national customs and wildlife agencies.

AI and digital tools for inspection

A huge challenge for officials seeking to prevent wildlife trafficking is knowing where to look – and then figuring out what they’ve found.

Cargo screening: Advanced X-ray screeners, similar to those used in airport security but designed for cargo, are being paired with software that helps spot unusual shapes or materials inside packages.

Trials conducted at major ports and mail processing centers in Australia have detected animals concealed in various kinds of shipments. The software does not identify species but highlights anomalies, helping inspectors decide which packages deserve closer inspection.

Assisted identification: A software program supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences uses artificial intelligence to help identify the species of animals or animal parts found in shipments. Inspectors can use chatbot-style interfaces to describe what they have found to a system trained on technical documents with detailed descriptions of a wide range of species.

This type of work can help inspectors tell the difference between closely related species whose legal protections differ. For example, trade of African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) is strictly regulated. There are different, often less stringent protections for similar-looking species, such as the Timneh parrot (Psittacus timneh) and the brown-necked parrot (Poicephalus fuscicollis).

Portable DNA testing: Enforcement efforts don’t always happen in offices and labs. One company aims to provide small, handheld kits that can detect up to five species in about 20 or 30 minutes without needing traditional lab equipment. The kits show their results on a simple strip that changes color when the DNA of a particular species appears in a sample. Conceptually, it’s similar to a pregnancy test, which changes color when a hormone is detected.

Timber identification: Handheld scanners use software to quickly identify timber species by examining the internal cellular structure of the wood. This can help to distinguish protected hardwoods from legal alternatives in regions where illegal logging is widespread, such as South America, Southeast Asia and Africa.

Background research and risk profiling

Even before wildlife-related items appear at national borders, there can be signs of illegal trafficking that technology can help identify.

Monitoring online trade: Large volumes of wildlife trafficking now occur through online transactions. To avoid detection, sellers often use vague descriptions or coded language, such as listings that omit species names entirely or use emojis instead of words. Others hide key details in images or brief text that say little about what is being sold, even just showing a photo with no description.

Anti-trafficking organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund collaborate with tech companies to scan online listings using AI and content moderation tools. Between 2018 and 2023, the tech companies blocked or removed more than 23 million listings and accounts related to protected species, including live reptiles, birds and primates, and elephant products.

Early warnings from paperwork: Shipping documents often provide early warning signs of illegal trade. Wildlife enforcement officers, transport sector personnel, government tax officers and others are using new software tools to analyze millions of manifests and permits, looking for species names that aren’t usually traded on particular routes; shipments that are unusually heavy or underpriced; and complex routing through multiple transit countries. Instead of inspecting shipments at random, these systems help enforcement agencies identify the consignments most likely to contain illegal materials.

Navigating wildlife trade laws: Enforcement officers have to navigate vast legal complexity. New tools seek to compile laws from multiple countries, helping inspectors understand regulations across export, transit and destination nations.

Using trade data to identify other species to monitor: Researchers at the University of Oxford have developed a method that uses wildlife trade records to identify thousands of highly vulnerable endangered species that could benefit from stricter international trade protections and stronger law enforcement to limit exploitation.

Taken together, these devices and systems extend – but do not replace – human expertise. They help officers decide which shipments or sites to focus on, identify what they find, and share information internationally. No single technology will end wildlife trafficking, but these digital tools can enable a shift from reactive enforcement toward proactive, coordinated action, helping authorities keep pace with adaptive criminal networks.

Eve Bohnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. New technologies are stepping up the global fight against wildlife trafficking – https://theconversation.com/new-technologies-are-stepping-up-the-global-fight-against-wildlife-trafficking-272137

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Mary Magnuson, Associate Science Editor, The Conversation

Thousands of the world’s best athletes will flock to Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy in February 2026 for the 25th Winter Olympics. While sports fans are focused on the athletic feats of the Olympians, science enthusiasts can also have fun watching them.

Lots of winter sports are governed by unique laws of physics – from skaters speeding across the ice to skiers and snowboarders seemingly floating through the air. The artificial snow that athletes ski or board over is an engineering feat. The Winter Olympics even have math: Mathematicians have found that luck plays a larger role in hockey games than in other sports, such as baseball, basketball and football.

To help our readers follow both the sports and the science while watching the Games this year, The Conversation U.S. has compiled a set of stories from our archive.

1. The physics of ski jumping

Olympic ski jumping is not for the faint of heart. Athletes plummet down a jump about 300 feet (100 meters) tall, before taking off into the air. They then can fly more than the length of a football field before touching down.

As physicist Amy Pope wrote in her article, three key physics concepts allow them to float through the air: gravity, lift and drag.

The regulations around the sport reinforce these ideas. Athletes must wear form-fitting suits to ensure they’re not getting even a little extra lift from any loose or flapping cloth. The skis athletes use must have a length proportional to their height and weight, as well.

“By turning their skis and bodies into what is essentially a wing, ski jumpers are able to fight gravity and stay airborne for five to seven seconds,” Pope wrote.

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Read more:
Ski jump: Flying or falling with style?

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2. The physics of sliding sports

Unlike the ski jumpers, athletes in Olympic sliding sports – luge, bobsled and skeleton – don’t get any air, but they reach a more blistering speed while ripping down the icy track, around 90 miles per hour (145 kilometers per hour).

But just like ski jumping, gravity plays a part in sliding sports. As physicist John Eric Goff described in his article, it acts as the thrust sending them down the track. Sliders also wear skintight suits, which help them gain more speed by slicing through the air. Unlike the ski jumpers, they’re attempting to avoid drag and will lie as flat as possible on the sled. Bobsledders turn using steering controls, while luge and skeleton athletes turn using subtle body movements.

“All of these subtle movements are hard to see on television, but the consequences can be large – oversteering may lead to collisions with the track wall or even crashes,” wrote Goff. “Though it may appear that the riders simply slide down the icy track at great speeds after they get going, there is a lot more going on.”

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Read more:
The high-speed physics of how bobsled, luge and skeleton send humans hurtling faster than a car on the highway

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3. The mathematics of hockey

As hockey players slide across the ice, they’re contending with similar forces, such as friction and drag. However, there’s also another concept at play on the rink: luck.

Mark Robert Rank is a social scientist who wrote a book about luck. In his research, he found that compared to other popular team sports, luck plays a larger role in a hockey team’s likelihood to win a game.

“Anyone who has ever watched a professional hockey game can grasp the randomness that’s taking place on the ice. Skates or sticks often randomly deflect shots when players cross in the path of a puck’s trajectory. Pucks can take strange bounces as they travel across the rink. Goalies might just happen to be in the right place at the right time,” Rank wrote.

While Rank focused on National Hockey League games in his studies, Olympic athletes may see a similar effect as they take to the ice in Italy.

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Read more:
The luck of the puck in the Stanley Cup – why chance plays such a big role in hockey

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4. The engineering behind fake snow

While the Winter Olympics normally take place in countries that receive a sizable snowfall, the host city can’t always count on Mother Nature to create prime conditions for competition. It’s now commonplace for skiers and boarders to compete on artificially generated snow, and Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo will be no exception.

Engineering a phenomenon as intricate and delicate as snow isn’t easy, as atmospheric scientist Peter Veals explained in his article. Natural snowflakes are delicate, pronged crystals that fit together only loosely. Their structures create a light, airy texture.

Artifical snow is created by blowing pressurized water into cold air, where it quickly freezes into little icy droplets. These droplets don’t take on the same structure as natural snowflakes and end up packing together tightly.

An athlete’s preference might depend on their sport – dense artificial snow might serve a slalom skier carving tight turns more than a jumper who wants a fluffy cushion of powder to land on.

“Artificial snow often feels hard and icy. Fresh natural ‘powder’ snow, on the other hand, provides skiers and snowboarders an almost weightless feeling as they soar down the mountainside,” Veals explained.

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Read more:
Olympic skiers and snowboarders are competing on 100% fake snow – the science of how it’s made and how it affects performance

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5. Psychological biases

In many Winter Olympics sports, athletes take turns, competing in a set order. As psychologist Robin Kramer explained in his article, the first and last events in a sequence tend to stick out more in your brain. You might remember the first snowboarder to drop into the half pipe more clearly than the sixth, for example.

And you’re more likely to judge a performance based on how you judged the previous one in the sequence.

Even Olympic judges aren’t immune to these decision-making effects. Some sports have pushed for computer analysis for judging to reduce human biases. But usually it’s impossible to entirely remove the human elements of scoring.

“Realizing that athletes could win or lose Olympic medals based upon where in a sequence they compete is both surprising and worrying,” Kramer wrote. “With more research into these biases, we can figure out how to prevent them from influencing important outcomes like who goes home with the gold.”

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Read more:
Our psychological biases mean order matters when we judge items in sequence

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This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

– ref. From ski jumps and sliding bobsleds to engineering snow, here are 5 essential reads on the science of the Winter Olympics – https://theconversation.com/from-ski-jumps-and-sliding-bobsleds-to-engineering-snow-here-are-5-essential-reads-on-the-science-of-the-winter-olympics-274805

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Casey Fiesler, Associate Professor of Information Science, University of Colorado Boulder

A little over a year after TikTok temporarily went dark in the United States and users were greeted with a message explaining that “a law banning TikTok has been enacted,” those same U.S. users opened the app to find a pop-up message requiring them to agree to new terms before they could continue scrolling.

The new terms of service and privacy policy went into effect on Jan. 22, 2026, following the app’s sale from ByteDance to TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, a majority American-owned company that reportedly will control U.S. users’ data and content and the app’s recommendation algorithm.

People see this kind of pop-up all the time, and according to research, the “biggest lie on the internet” is that people ever read anything before clicking “agree.” But given many users’ unease about the ownership change – including fears of swapping Chinese surveillance for U.S. surveillance – it is unsurprising that this time, people paid attention. Screenshots of legal language spread quickly online, accompanied by warnings about sweeping new data collection.

I’m both a TikTok content creator and a tech ethics and policy researcher who has studied website terms and conditions, especially whether people read them (they don’t) and how well they understand them (they also don’t). When I saw the outrage on social media, I immediately dove down a terms of service and privacy policy rabbit hole that had me tumbling into the wayback machine and also looking at similar policies on other apps and TikTok’s policies in other countries.

In the end, I discovered that in the most widely shared examples, the language that sounded most alarming had either hardly changed at all or described practices that are fairly standard across social media.

Some changes aren’t really changes

Consider the list of “sensitive personal information” in TikTok’s new privacy policy, which includes items like sexual orientation and immigration status. Many users interpreted this list as evidence that TikTok had begun collecting more personal data. However, this exact same list appeared in the previous version of TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy, which was last updated in August 2024. And in both cases, the language focuses on “information you disclose” – for example, in your content or in responses to user surveys.

This language is in place presumably to comply with state privacy laws such as California’s Consumer Privacy Act, which includes requirements for disclosure of the collection of certain categories of information. TikTok’s new policy specifically cited the California law. Meta’s privacy policy lists very similar categories, and this language overall tends to signal regulatory compliance by disclosing existing data collection rather than additional surveillance.

Location tracking also prompted concerns. The new policy states that TikTok may “collect precise location data, depending on your settings.” This is a change, but it’s also common practice for the major social media apps.

The change also brings the company’s U.S. policy in line with TikTok policies in other countries. For example, the company’s European Economic Area privacy policy has very similar language, and users in the U.K. have to grant precise location access to use a “Nearby Feed” for finding events and businesses near them.

Though apps have other ways to approximate location, such as IP address, a user will have to grant permission through their phone’s location services in order for TikTok to access precise location via GPS – permission that TikTok has not yet requested from U.S. users. However, the new policy opens the door for users having the option to grant that permission in the future.

No news does not equal good news

None of this is to say that users are wrong to be cautious. Even if TikTok’s legal language around data privacy is standard for the industry, who controls your data and your feed is still very relevant. Uninstalls for the app spiked 130% in the days following the change, with many users expressing concern about the ties that the new owners have to President Donald Trump – notably Oracle, the company led by Trump supporter Larry Ellison.

It also didn’t help that TikTok’s first week under American ownership was a complete disaster. Severe technical problems – later attributed by TikTok to a data center power failure – happened to coincide with the new ownership announcement, fueling widespread concerns about censorship of content critical of the U.S. government. Perhaps some users remembered that Trump once joked about making the platform “100% MAGA.”

But regardless of what actually happened, at this point distrusting tech companies isn’t exactly irrational.

Clarity and trust

Conflating very real structural risks with unfamiliar sentences in legal documents, however, can obscure what is actually changing and what isn’t. The misleading information about TikTok’s policy changes that spread across social media is also evidence of a well-known design failure: Most tech policies aren’t made to be read.

My own work revealed that these documents are often written at a college or even graduate school reading level. Another analysis once calculated that if every American read the privacy policy for each website they visit for just a year, it would cost US$785 billion in lost leisure and productivity time.

So the discussion about TikTok’s policies is a case study in the deep mismatch between how tech companies communicate and how people interpret risk, particularly in an era of exceptionally low trust in both Big Tech and government. Right now, ambiguity doesn’t feel neutral. It feels threatening.

Instead of dismissing these reactions as overblown, I believe that companies should recognize that if a huge portion of their user base assumes the worst, that’s not a reading comprehension problem; it’s a trust problem. So writing data privacy policies more legibly is a start, but rebuilding any kind of inherent trust in the stewardship of that data is probably the more important challenge.

Casey Fiesler receives some direct payments from social media platforms for views on her content, including TikTok.

– ref. Fears about TikTok’s policy changes point to a deeper problem in the tech industry – https://theconversation.com/fears-about-tiktoks-policy-changes-point-to-a-deeper-problem-in-the-tech-industry-274721

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Josh Ederington, Professor of Economics, Miami University

National economies are increasingly moving in sync and responding to the same booms and busts as a result of near-instantaneous communications and interdependent global supply chains. This is a sharp change from much of the 21st century, when economies were primarily affected by economic shocks in neighboring countries.

That’s what we found in a paper published in the journal Economic Letters, in which we calculated measures of economic correlation using data on gross domestic product for 70 countries over the past 60 years. Along with fellow economic scholars Yoonseon Han and David Lindequist, we found that physical distance was indeed less important than it used to be, particularly with regard to how interconnected countries are to one another.

Specifically, we measured the extent to which countries have found their business cycles — the traditional boom-bust intervals of economic performance — in sync. For example, when there is a positive shock to production in Germany, to what extent does this affect incomes in the United States?

We were interested in whether the relationship between distance and economic correlation has changed over time.

What we found was that from 1960-1999, business cycles were strongly localized. That is, a country’s economy was much more likely to be impacted by shocks to nearby countries than by shocks in faraway countries. For example, the U.S. was more affected by economic conditions in Canada or Mexico than it was to economic conditions in the United Kingdom or South Korea.

This finding is not surprising and fits well with a long economic literature showing that countries are more likely to trade with nearby countries and that the volume of trade between two countries is a significant predictor of how synchronized their business cycles are.

However, we went on to find that this relationship between physical distance and economic correlation started to break down after 2000. Specifically, for the past 20 years, there has been no statistically significant relationship between the geographic distance between two countries and the extent to which incomes in the two countries move together — what economists refer to as their economic covariance.

Why it matters

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a number of economists, including Frances Cairncross and Thomas Friedman, popularized the idea that new technologies like the internet and containerization had led to the death of distance, in which our new lives would be increasingly globalized. They imagined a future in which these new technologies not only impacted how goods were produced — like global supply chains — but also how we work and live.

Such theories were met with some skepticism by trade researchers at the time, and not all of the predictions have come true. For example, the link between distance and trade flows has proved stubbornly persistent. Even today, the top-two trading partners of the U.S. remain Canada and Mexico. And one only has to look at housing prices in major urban centers in the U.S. to see that physical location remains highly valued to most people.

However, our research suggests that at least some of the popular predictions about the globalized economy might be coming true. For instance, the world economy appears to have made countries increasingly susceptible to global, as opposed to localized, shocks.

This was made devastatingly clear to millions of people during the pandemic, when supply chain bottlenecks reverberated across the globe, subsequently generating a worldwide rise in prices. As a result, U.S. economic and trade policy discussions have been increasingly focused on potential vulnerabilities to foreign shocks. Indeed, a new buzzword during the Biden administration was “supply chain resiliance.”

What still isn’t known

Our work provides evidence that business cycles and economic shocks have become more globalized over the past couple of decades. Many of the main economic events from 1960-2000 – like the 1980s savings and loan crisis or the 1997 Asian currency crisis – had primarily localized effects. But more recently, the principal economic events of the past two decades — like the 2008 financial crisis — have had far more global implications.

What we don’t know is whether this pattern will continue, resulting in a new era in which most of the world’s economies move in tandem. Or will a new turn toward economic nationalism lead to a reversal in which economies – and economic shocks – become more localized once again?

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Has globalization lessened the importance of physical distance? For economic shocks, new research suggests ‘yes’ – https://theconversation.com/has-globalization-lessened-the-importance-of-physical-distance-for-economic-shocks-new-research-suggests-yes-272213