COP load of this
As COP29, the latest round of international climate negotiations, struggles in Azerbaijan, Feedback watches bemused from afar. We have previously covered several COPs and are still on most of the relevant mailing lists. So, as I write this on November 18th, we know that the Climate Action Network's Fossil of the Day is South Korea. That's because South Korea single-handedly blocked a deal by high-income countries to end oil and gas subsidies. Yes, that's enough.
Holding a conference dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in a country as heavily dependent on fossil fuel exports as Azerbaijan was always likely to backfire. Feedback believed that diplomacy was about understanding other people's motives, but apparently no one could reconcile what the Azerbaijani government wanted. Soon, President Ilham Aliyev announced that oil and gas “gift from god'', the country's chief negotiator was photographed saying in his opening speech. Apparently they are arranging it A meeting to discuss fossil fuel trading.
Then the conference actually started – or rather, it didn’t really start. On the first day, work stalled within the first hour as several countries objected to the rest of the meeting's agenda. This is how I spent my first day Renegotiating the agendawhile the delegates sat around with nothing to do. Still, climate change is not an urgent problem.
Feedback would like to think things are only uphill from here, but the experience of the past decade suggests otherwise. And I still get shivers when I think about the last night of one of the COPs we attended. It was well past the evening, so the agreement was signed and the party was supposed to start. But then we see young diplomats carrying stacks of take-out pizza boxes into the negotiating room, and we realize that even in the best case scenario, we'll be there until the early hours of the morning. I noticed. Feedback does not endorse this experience or any cases of caffeine addiction associated with it.
Find your inner villain
News Editorial Assistant Alexandra Thompson calls our attention to a brilliantly titled paper about the psychology research repository PsyArXiv.What it means to be a true badass: An experimental investigation of a commonplace concept.”. Its authors, Briana Nguyen and Michael Prinzing, set out to explain what we mean when we say someone is a “bad person.” It's not clear, since both Genghis Khan and Malala Yousafzai could be called villains, but “they are about as different as you can imagine,” they say. Well, quite a bit.
Researchers used a series of online surveys to find out what kinds of people were counted as bad guys and what kinds of people were not. From this, it became clear that “badass'' is a two-layered concept. It has a superficial meaning of being physically strong or having a “fearsome presence.” But there's also a deeper inner meaning about “moral resilience and courage.”
According to the author, Yousafzai embodies this inner evil, while Khan embodies more of the external evil. Feedback is less certain. We read a biography of Khan by John Mann, and he showed remarkable courage in a difficult situation. Still, the distinction between inner and outer badasses sounds plausible.
Feedback sometimes enjoys this kind of research, which delves into the subtle meanings of everyday terms, in quiet moments. A classic example is Harry Frankfurt's book About bullshit. Frankfurt was a philosopher who distinguished between lying (telling a falsehood with the purpose of clearly misleading someone) and bullshit (telling a lie, regardless of its truth or falsity, in order to serve one's own purpose).
About bullshit is useful to read because it explicitly states what we all implicitly understand. Once the concept is clear, it's easier to find examples, which is why June's paper was frankly titled.ChatGPT is bullshit“It's also great to have a term that is accurate and allows for the overused swear words. We think Frankfurt was the worst.
emu in flight
On November 15th, CBS News published twowild and untrainedAn emu (are there other types?) has escaped in South Carolina. They had apparently escaped three months earlier, but their escape didn't garner any attention until 43 monkeys escaped from a medical research facility in the same state. As of November 18th, Six of the monkeys remained at large.. Faced with hordes of marauding monkeys on the run, journalists began looking for similar stories and found (or rather, didn't find) rogue emus.
Feedback doesn't get any lower than at your local police department.Not EMU-SED“However, we would like to reiterate the following point. matthew downhour About Blue Sky: “Okay, if you didn't want them to get out of control and be irresponsible, why did you name them like that?“?That's a good question because the emus' names are Thelma and Louise.
If US authorities are unable to recapture the bird, they may take notes from the Australians. fought a famous short war against wild emus in 1932. surely, The emu decisively won the conflict.But failure is the best teacher.
Have a story for feedback?
You can email your article to Feedback at feedback@newscientist.com. Please enter your home address. This week's and past feedback can be found on our website.
Source: www.newscientist.com
