Lunch at the Labs

Various web links I found to be of interest recently.

• The New China Scare: Why America Shouldn't Panic About Its Latest Challenger

  Fareed Zakaria

  By comparison, today's China is a remarkably responsible nation on the geopolitical and military front. It has not gone to war since 1979. It has not used lethal military force abroad since 1988. Nor has it funded or supported proxies or armed insurgents anywhere in the world since the early 1980s. That record of nonintervention is unique among the world's great powers. All the other permanent members of the UN Security Council have used force many times in many places over the last few decades--a list led, of course, by the United States.

  China has also gone from seeking to undermine the international system to spending large sums to bolster it. Beijing is now the second-largest funder of the United Nations and the UN peacekeeping program. It has deployed 2,500 peacekeepers, more than all the other permanent members of the Security Council combined. Between 2000 and 2018, it supported 182 of 190 Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on nations deemed to have violated international rules or norms. Granted, the principles anchoring Beijing's foreign policy today-"respect for sovereignty," "territorial integrity," and "nonintervention"-are animated in large part by a desire to fend off Western interference. Yet they highlight a remarkable shift from a radical agenda of revolution to a conservative concern for stability.

• Trump shouldn't get credit for the economic rebound. Neither should Biden

  Opinion by Lakshman Achuthan and Anirvan Banerji

  The economy is like a supertanker -- it generally takes time for it to change direction. But sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, policymakers will take credit for a cyclical shift that was a year or more in the making. Of course, presidents, Congress and the Fed can nudge the economy in a particular direction, but the results typically take shape with long lags.

• Criticism of Israel In Not Antisemitism

  Why I Signed the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, Barry Trachtenberg in Jewish Currents

  In contrast to my concerns regarding the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, the JDA repudiates notions of Jewish exceptionalism by locating antisemitism squarely as an ideology of hatred that is equivalent to and as pernicious as racism. The JDA's first guideline states unequivocally that, "It is racist to essentialize (treat a character trait as inherent) or to make sweeping negative generalizations about a given population. What is true of racism in general is true of antisemitism in particular." By drawing this comparison with racism, the JDA pushes back against the misguided belief about antisemitism that it is a unique and unparalleled form of hatred, as exceptional as Jews themselves. Not only does this belief strip anti-Jewish hatred from its historical context and make it much harder to combat, it gives rise to the notion that antisemitism is a permanent, almost natural, feature of our world and thus cannot be undone.

• Sleeping less than 6 hours a night in midlife raises risk of dementia 30%, study finds

  "However, this study cannot establish cause and effect," said Denning, who was not involved in the study. "Maybe it is simply a very early sign of the dementia that is to come, but it's also quite likely that poor sleep is not good for the brain and leaves it vulnerable to neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's disease."

• Pricey Protocol Not Proven to Prevent or Reverse Alzheimer's, Says UCSF Neurologist

  But endorsement of these claims is frequently based on three published papers -- all of which share the hallmarks of second-rate science, according to a cognitive neurologist at UC San Francisco.
  ...
  The Bredesen protocol is propounded in his 2017 bestseller and can be accessed for $1,399, which includes protocol assessments, lab tests and contact with practitioners, who provide the regimen for additional fees. Online support and cognitive games are available for an additional monthly charge.

• Against alcohol

  Alcohol use is one of the top five causes of disease and disability in almost all countries in Europe. In the UK, alcohol is now the leading cause of death in men between the ages of 16 and 54 years, accounting for over 20 per cent of the total. More than three- quarters of liver cirrhosis deaths, 7 per cent of cancer deaths and 25 per cent of injury deaths in adults under 65 years of age in Europe in 2004 were estimated to be due to alcohol. According to the government, alcohol is the third leading risk factor for death and disability after smoking and obesity. That's a pretty scary list, right?

• Observing the Bystander Effect

  Skeptoid Podcast #749

  Some research has found that crowds are apathetic and don't render assistance; some has found the opposite.

• The Case Against Shakespeare

  The Bard has had 400 years in the limelight. It's time our academic obsession came to an end.

  Shakespeare is the curriculum's Moby Dick. We need a harpoon. More than any other experience, the yearly dissection of Shakespeare turns kids off literature.
  ...
  Today's students aren't so much studying Shakespeare as learning to do linguistic and cultural archaeology. Or autopsies. Shakespeare is used for purposes of literary "dissection" and "analysis." That means spotting metaphors and similes, like those kindergarten puzzle games where you find the bananas hiding in the picture. It's like pulling the wings off flies to see how they work. Or studying a joke to understand why it's funny.

• Jerry's SEINFELD Apartment Was Physically Impossible

  Jerry's Hallway Can't Exist.