UN Human Development Report presentation

Submitted by cuz on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 16:12

Below is the text of the comments I made at the book launch for the UNDP's 2011 Human Development Report on sustainability and equity. I prepared my remarks expecting primarily an audience of students. Instead, I offered them to an audience in which the 30-odd ambassadors to Korea probably outnumbered the students. I'm sure it's not what they were expecting!

Practically Useless:
The 2011 UNDP Human Development Report

Good afternoon, Your Excellencies, Ms. Degryse-Blateau, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. It is a genuine honor to have this opportunity to speak with you today about the 2011 Human Development Report, Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All. This is not just because a good friend of mine worked on the report in New York City and not only because I am a strong supporter of the capabilities approach but also because sustainability and equity are two areas of vital concern to me and bringing the two together is an important undertaking.

This is my first time speaking before such a dignified audience, so I hope that my reflections on the report are not inappropriate. If they are, I hope they will at least be thought-provoking, as that is one role an academic can play.

Pareto Optimal Thanksgiving

Submitted by cuz on Fri, 11/25/2011 - 08:22

 [From Three-Toed Sloth via MetaFilter]

"They've traded more for cigarettes / than I've managed to express"; or, Dives, Lazarus, and Alice

Let us consider a simple economy with three individuals. Alice is a restaurateur; she has fed herself, and has just prepared a delicious turkey dinner, at some cost in materials, fuel, and her time.

Dives is a wealthy conceptual artist1, who has eaten and is not hungry, but would like to buy the turkey dinner so he can "feed" it to the transparent machine he has built, and film it being "digested" and eventually excreted2. To achieve this, he is willing and able to spend up to $5000. Dives does not care, at all, about what happens to anyone else; indeed, as an exponent of art for art's sake, he does not even care whether his film will have an audience.

Huddled miserably in a corner of the gate of Dives's condo is Lazarus, who is starving, on the brink of death, but could be kept alive for another day by eating the turkey. The sum total of Lazarus's worldly possession consist of filthy rags, of no value to any one else, and one thin dime. Since, however, he is starving, there is no amount of money which could persuade Lazarus to part with the turkey, should he gain possession of it.

Broken

Submitted by cuz on Mon, 11/21/2011 - 09:05

Yes, I know the site is broken. Some update has wrought havoc on my site. However, my second daughter arrives today, so this may persist a while.

America's man (?) in Cambodia

Submitted by cuz on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 18:02

Today for poverty class, we read about corruption. Here is an article on Brett Sciarioni, a power broker in Phnom Penh.

Foreign Aid: A Fool’s Errand?

Submitted by cuz on Thu, 10/27/2011 - 19:31

[Yinseo Cho offers up this provocative recent talk by Stephen Krasner of Stanford at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies as it directly relates to the most recent IDC 518 class.]

Urban OS

Submitted by cuz on Sat, 10/01/2011 - 09:28

According to the BBC,  Living PlanIT is developing an urban operating system that coordinates building temperatures, traffic signials, waste management, and so on.

Mincome

Submitted by cuz on Sat, 09/24/2011 - 21:19

In A Town without Poverty?, The Dominion offers a summary from a preliminary study of an period of four or five years in Dauphin, Manitoba during the early 1970s in which people in the town were guaranteed a minimum income (mincome). Apparently the results were favorable...from a health and wellbeing perspective. It's unclear if the program saved money or not, but it apparently reduced hospitalization and improved the lives of many.

New magazine about cities

Submitted by cuz on Fri, 09/16/2011 - 08:38

The Atlantic has lauched The Atlantic Cities. It's about cities.

Water bottle light bulb

Submitted by cuz on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 17:44

This Youtube video shows a brilliant approach to introducing solar lighting to dark homes (in Indonesia or the Philippines, I believe). It's low-cost, simple technology that refracts solar light (during the day, of course) into the homes.

Truly and righteously screwed

Submitted by cuz on Fri, 09/09/2011 - 16:35

Mark Edmundson has written a compelling essay on why college students should want a substantive education and how they should go about getting one. (Courtesy A&L Daily.)

So, if you want an education, the odds aren’t with you: The professors are off doing what they call their own work; the other students, who’ve doped out the way the place runs, are busy leaving the professors alone and getting themselves in position for bright and shining futures; the student-services people are trying to keep everyone content, offering plenty of entertainment and building another state-of-the-art workout facility every few months. The development office is already scanning you for future donations. The primary function of Yale University, it’s recently been said, is to create prosperous alumni so as to enrich Yale University.

So why make trouble? Why not just go along? Let the profs roam free in the realms of pure thought, let yourselves party in the realms of impure pleasure, and let the student-services gang assert fewer prohibitions and newer delights for you. You’ll get a good job, you’ll have plenty of friends, you’ll have a driveway of your own.

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