The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Transcript:
David Thornburg on the Evolving Classroom
David Thornburg: Traditional classrooms, the kinds that I certainly grew up in, really don't reach every child. Not because of teachers, not because of anything the teacher's doing so much as the actual physical structure of the room. The idea that children learn best by sitting in uniform rows facing the front of the room, has been known to be ineffective for some learners since the 1300s, as a famous painting that shows what a real classroom looked like at the University of Bologna. And when you look at it, you laugh, because there's students sleeping, there's students talking to each other, and there's the poor professor in the front of the room trying to give a lecture hoping that everyone's learning something. So our motivation was to say if the structure of the classroom is at fault, what new structures could we design that might be better?
David: My name's David Thornburg. And right now we're located in Recife, Brazil. But we also live in the United States, and we split our time between the two countries. My background is in science and engineering, mathematics, education, and in particular, the role that technology might play in support of students learning. The Holodeck, which takes its name from science fiction, is basically an empty room that can become anything you want when you turn the computers on. So walls, which are normally white, can suddenly become viewports into outer space. They could become views out of a submarine window. They could become almost anything based on what the computer software is telling it to do. The Holodeck is based on the idea of inquiry-driven, project-based learning. They're actually engaged in a mission, and the outcome of that mission is unclear. And a consequence of that is the students are so engaged that they tend to remember what they learned in that environment for a far longer period of time than most kids remember their learning in a traditional classroom environment. The first mission that we created was a Mission to Mars to explore whether or not Mars has or had life. Interesting question. Scientists are unclear. I really like having students explore things for which tools like Google can be a terrific resource, but that they're not going to provide a closed answer. If people already know the answer, and it can be looked up on Google, why ask the question? Let's ask them real questions that scientists are asking themselves these days? And that gives them a sense also of the reality of science. It's messy. It's unclear. There are differing points of view. What I see happening now, though, is a consumer-driven revolution, in that the students themselves are taking control of their informational tools. Students are bringing their own smart phones to school. They're bringing their own tablets to school with every expectation that they will be allowed to use these devices in the school's network. The challenges that I see are two-fold. One of them is students may know how to use these tools mechanically, but it doesn't mean that they know how to judge the value or accuracy of the information that they're finding, and they need responsible adults to teach them. If you start with four levels of data, information, knowledge, and understanding, data and information are the sorts of things that Google can provide for you. Teachers don't have to provide that stuff anymore. Historically, they provided a lot of it. But how nice to liberate teachers and say, "Now, you can focus on knowledge and understanding, that's where the real payoff comes." I've been telling kids that in 1492 Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue," why on earth waste time presenting that, but instead focus on what were the kinds of challenges that Columbus had with his crew to entice them to go beyond the site of land? Now that's a very different kind of question. And one that teachers don't often get to ask, because they spend so much time on the trivial stuff that can be looked up. The value of the question for the kids is it gets them thinking about topics in a deep way. If history teachers only get to spend time teaching the rough outlines of history in terms of events, the meaning behind those events is amazingly lost! To me the real power of technology in the classroom comes when we use it to do things we couldn't do before at all. Not just to do old things differently. So technology is important in education to the extent that allows them to achieve educational goals in some powerful new ways.
Source: www.edutopia.org
In this blog, teachers, students and all those who have some kind of interest in the English language will find useful, interesting, curious and funny things to be used in their classes or for their personal enjoyment.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Sunday, January 6, 2013
GRDSGN/INTAFF-TED Talks-Ronny Edry:Israel & Iran: A love stroy?
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Transcript:
On March 14, this year,I posted this poster on Facebook.This is an image of me and my daughterholding the Israeli flag.I will try to explain to you about the context of whyand when I posted.
A few days ago, I was sitting waitingon the line at the grocery store,and the owner and one of the clientswere talking to each other,and the owner was explaining to the clientthat we're going to get 10,000 missiles on Israel.And the client was saying, no, it's 10,000 a day.(Laughter)
("10,000 missiles") This is the context. This is where we are now in Israel.We have this war with Iran coming for 10 years now,and we have people, you know, afraid.It's like every year it's the last minutethat we can do something about the war with Iran.It's like, if we don't act now, it's too late forever,for 10 years now.
So at some point it became, you know, to me,I'm a graphic designer, so I made posters about itand I posted the one I just showed you before.Most of the time, I make posters, I post them on Facebook,my friends like it, don't like it,most of the time don't like it, don't share it,don't nothing,and it's another day.So I went to sleep, and that was it for me.And later on in the night, I woke upbecause I'm always waking up in the night,and I went by the computer and I see all these red dots,you know, on Facebook, which I've never seen before.(Laughter)And I was like, "What's going on?"So I come to the computer and I start looking on,and suddenly I see many people talking to me,most of them I don't know,and a few of them from Iran,which is -- What?Because you have to understand,in Israel we don't talk with people from Iran.We don't know people from Iran.It's like, on Facebook, you have friends only from --it's like your neighbors are your friends on Facebook.And now people from Iran are talking to me.
So I start answering this girl, and she's telling meshe saw the poster and she asked her family to come,because they don't have a computer, she asked her familyto come to see the poster, and they're all sitting in the living room crying.
So I'm like, whoa.I ask my wife to come, and I tell her, you have to see that.People are crying, and she came, she read the text,and she started to cry.And everybody's crying now. (Laughter)
So I don't know what to do, so my first reflex,as a graphic designer, is, you know, to show everybodywhat I'd just seen, and people started to see themand to share them, and that's how it started.The day after, when really it became a lot of talking,I said to myself, and my wife said to me,I also want a poster,so this is her. (Laughter)Because it's working, put me in a poster now.
But more seriously, I was like, okay, these ones work,but it's not just about me, it's about people from Israelwho want to say something.So I'm going to shoot all the people I know, if they want,and I'm going to put them in a poster and I'm going to share them.
So I went to my neighbors and friends and studentsand I just asked them, give me a picture, I will make you a poster.And that's how it started. And that's how, really,it's unleashed, because suddenly peoplefrom Facebook, friends and others,just understand that they can be part of it.It's not just one dude making one poster,it's -- we can be part of it, so they start sending me picturesand ask me, "Make me a poster. Post it.Tell the Iranians we from Israel love you too."It became, you know, at some point it was really, really intense.I mean, so many pictures, so I asked friendsto come, graphic designers most of them,to make posters with me, because I didn't have the time.It was a huge amount of pictures.So for a few days, that's how my living room was.
And we received Israeli posters, Israeli images,but also lots of comments, lots of messages from Iran.And we took these messages and we made posters out of it,because I know people: They don't read, they see images.If it's an image, they may read it.
So here are a few of them.
("You are my first Israelian friend. I wish we both get rid of our idiot politicians, anyway nice to see you!")
("I love that blue. I love that star. I love that flag.") This one is really moving for me because it's the storyof a girl who has been raised in Iranto walk on an Israeli flag to enter her school every morning,and now that she sees the posters that we're sending,she starts -- she said that she changed her mind,and now she loves that blue, she loves that star,and she loves that flag, talking about the Israeli flag,and she wished that we'd meet and come to visit one another,and just a few days after I posted the first poster.
The day after,Iranians started to respond with their own posters.They have graphic designers. What? (Laughter)Crazy, crazy.So you can see they are still shy, they don't want to show their faces,but they want to spread the message.They want to respond. They want to say the same thing.So. And now it's communication.It's a two-way story. It's Israelis and Iranianssending the same message, one to each other.
("My Israeli Friends. I don't hate you. I don't want War.")
This never happened before, and this is two peoplesupposed to be enemies, we're on the verge of a war,and suddenly people on Facebook are starting to say,"I like this guy. I love those guys."And it became really big at some point.
And then it became news.Because when you're seeing the Middle East, you see only the bad news.And suddenly, there is something that was happeningthat was good news. So the guys on the news,they say, "Okay, let's talk about this."And they just came, and it was so much,
I remember one day, Michal,she was talking with the journalist, and she was asking him,"Who's gonna see the show?" And he said, "Everybody."
So she said, "Everybody in Palestine, in where? Israel?Who is everybody?" "Everybody."
They said, "Syria?" "Syria."
"Lebanon?" "Lebanon."At some point, he just said, "40 million people are going to see you today.It's everybody." The Chinese.And we were just at the beginning of the story.
Something crazy also happened.Every time a country started talking about it,like Germany, America, wherever,a page on Facebook popped up with the same logowith the same stories, so at the beginningwe had "Iran-Loves-Israel," which is an Iraniansitting in Tehran, saying, "Okay, Israel loves Iran?I give you Iran-Loves-Israel."You have Palestine-Loves-Israel.You have Lebanon that just -- a few days ago.And this whole list of pages on Facebookdedicated to the same message,to people sending their love, one to each other.
The moment I really understood that something was happening,a friend of mine told me,"Google the word 'Israel.'"And those were the first images on those daysthat popped up from Googlewhen you were typing, "Israel" or "Iran."We really changed how people see the Middle East.Because you're not in the Middle East.You're somewhere over there, and then you want to see the Middle East,so you go on Google and you say, "Israel,"and they give you the bad stuff.And for a few days you got those images.Today the Israel-Loves-Iran pageis this number, 80,831, and two million people last weekwent on the page and shared, liked, I don't know,commented on one of the photos.
So for five months now, that's what we are doing,me, Michal, a few of my friends, are just making images.We're showing a new realityby just making imagesbecause that's how the world perceives us.They see images of us, and they see bad images.So we're working on making good images. End of story.
Look at this one. This is the Iran-Loves-Israel page.This is not the Israel-Loves-Iran. This is not my page.This is a guy in Tehran on the day of remembranceof the Israeli fallen soldierputting an image of an Israeli soldier on his page.This is the enemy.What?
("Our heartfelt condolences to the families who lost their dearests in terror attack in Bulgaria")
And it's going both ways.It's like, we are showing respect, one to each other.And we're understanding. And you show compassion.And you become friends.And at some point, you become friends on Facebook,and you become friends in life.You can go and travel and meet people.And I was in Munich a few weeks ago.I went there to open an exposition about Iranand I met there with people from the pagethat told me, "Okay, you're going to be in Europe,I'm coming. I'm coming from France, from Holland,from Germany," of course, and from Israel people came,and we just met there for the first time in real life.I met with people that are supposed to be my enemiesfor the first time. And we just shake hands,and have a coffee and a nice discussion,and we talk about food and basketball.And that was the end of it.Remember that image from the beginning?At some point we met in real life, and we became friends.
And it goes the other way around.Some girl that we met on Facebooknever been in Israel, born and raised in Iran,lives in Germany, afraid of Israelisbecause of what she knows about us,decides after a few months of talking on the Internetwith some Israelis to come to Israel,and she gets on the plane and arrives at Ben Gurionand says, "Okay, not that big a deal."
So a few weeks ago, the stress is getting higher,so we start this new campaigncalled "Not ready to die in your war."I mean, it's plus/minus the same message,but we wanted really to add some aggressivity to it.And again, something amazing happened,something that we didn't have on the first wave of the campaign.Now people from Iran, the same ones who were shyat the first campaign and just sent, you know,their foot and half their faces,now they're sending their faces, and they're saying,"Okay, no problem, we're into it. We are with you."Just read where those guys are from.And for every guy from Israel,you've got someone from Iran.Just people sending their pictures.Crazy, yes?
So --(Applause)
So you may ask yourself, who is this dude?
My name is Ronny Edry, and I'm 41, I'm an Israeli,I'm a father of two, I'm a husband,and I'm a graphic designer. I'm teaching graphic design.And I'm not that naive, because a lot of the timeI've been asked, many times I've been asked, "Yeah, but,this is really naive, sending flowers over, I mean — "
I was in the army. I was in the paratroopers for three years,and I know how it looks from the ground.I know how it can look really bad.So to me, this is the courageous thing to do,to try to reach the other side before it's too late,because when it's going to be too late, it's going to be too late.And sometimes war is inevitable, sometimes,but maybe [with] effort, we can avoid it.Maybe as people, because especially in Israel,we're in a democracy. We have the freedom of speech,and maybe that little thing can change something.And really, we can be our own ambassadors.We can just send a message and hope for the best.
So I want to ask Michal, my wife, to come with meon the stage just to make with you one image,because it's all about images.And maybe that image will help us change something.Just raise that. Exactly.And I'm just going to take a picture of it,and I'm just going to post it on Facebookwith kind of "Israelis for peace" or something.
Oh my God.Don't cry.
Thank you guys.(Applause)
Transcript:
On March 14, this year,I posted this poster on Facebook.This is an image of me and my daughterholding the Israeli flag.I will try to explain to you about the context of whyand when I posted.
A few days ago, I was sitting waitingon the line at the grocery store,and the owner and one of the clientswere talking to each other,and the owner was explaining to the clientthat we're going to get 10,000 missiles on Israel.And the client was saying, no, it's 10,000 a day.(Laughter)
("10,000 missiles") This is the context. This is where we are now in Israel.We have this war with Iran coming for 10 years now,and we have people, you know, afraid.It's like every year it's the last minutethat we can do something about the war with Iran.It's like, if we don't act now, it's too late forever,for 10 years now.
So at some point it became, you know, to me,I'm a graphic designer, so I made posters about itand I posted the one I just showed you before.Most of the time, I make posters, I post them on Facebook,my friends like it, don't like it,most of the time don't like it, don't share it,don't nothing,and it's another day.So I went to sleep, and that was it for me.And later on in the night, I woke upbecause I'm always waking up in the night,and I went by the computer and I see all these red dots,you know, on Facebook, which I've never seen before.(Laughter)And I was like, "What's going on?"So I come to the computer and I start looking on,and suddenly I see many people talking to me,most of them I don't know,and a few of them from Iran,which is -- What?Because you have to understand,in Israel we don't talk with people from Iran.We don't know people from Iran.It's like, on Facebook, you have friends only from --it's like your neighbors are your friends on Facebook.And now people from Iran are talking to me.
So I start answering this girl, and she's telling meshe saw the poster and she asked her family to come,because they don't have a computer, she asked her familyto come to see the poster, and they're all sitting in the living room crying.
So I'm like, whoa.I ask my wife to come, and I tell her, you have to see that.People are crying, and she came, she read the text,and she started to cry.And everybody's crying now. (Laughter)
So I don't know what to do, so my first reflex,as a graphic designer, is, you know, to show everybodywhat I'd just seen, and people started to see themand to share them, and that's how it started.The day after, when really it became a lot of talking,I said to myself, and my wife said to me,I also want a poster,so this is her. (Laughter)Because it's working, put me in a poster now.
But more seriously, I was like, okay, these ones work,but it's not just about me, it's about people from Israelwho want to say something.So I'm going to shoot all the people I know, if they want,and I'm going to put them in a poster and I'm going to share them.
So I went to my neighbors and friends and studentsand I just asked them, give me a picture, I will make you a poster.And that's how it started. And that's how, really,it's unleashed, because suddenly peoplefrom Facebook, friends and others,just understand that they can be part of it.It's not just one dude making one poster,it's -- we can be part of it, so they start sending me picturesand ask me, "Make me a poster. Post it.Tell the Iranians we from Israel love you too."It became, you know, at some point it was really, really intense.I mean, so many pictures, so I asked friendsto come, graphic designers most of them,to make posters with me, because I didn't have the time.It was a huge amount of pictures.So for a few days, that's how my living room was.
And we received Israeli posters, Israeli images,but also lots of comments, lots of messages from Iran.And we took these messages and we made posters out of it,because I know people: They don't read, they see images.If it's an image, they may read it.
So here are a few of them.
("You are my first Israelian friend. I wish we both get rid of our idiot politicians, anyway nice to see you!")
("I love that blue. I love that star. I love that flag.") This one is really moving for me because it's the storyof a girl who has been raised in Iranto walk on an Israeli flag to enter her school every morning,and now that she sees the posters that we're sending,she starts -- she said that she changed her mind,and now she loves that blue, she loves that star,and she loves that flag, talking about the Israeli flag,and she wished that we'd meet and come to visit one another,and just a few days after I posted the first poster.
The day after,Iranians started to respond with their own posters.They have graphic designers. What? (Laughter)Crazy, crazy.So you can see they are still shy, they don't want to show their faces,but they want to spread the message.They want to respond. They want to say the same thing.So. And now it's communication.It's a two-way story. It's Israelis and Iranianssending the same message, one to each other.
("My Israeli Friends. I don't hate you. I don't want War.")
This never happened before, and this is two peoplesupposed to be enemies, we're on the verge of a war,and suddenly people on Facebook are starting to say,"I like this guy. I love those guys."And it became really big at some point.
And then it became news.Because when you're seeing the Middle East, you see only the bad news.And suddenly, there is something that was happeningthat was good news. So the guys on the news,they say, "Okay, let's talk about this."And they just came, and it was so much,
I remember one day, Michal,she was talking with the journalist, and she was asking him,"Who's gonna see the show?" And he said, "Everybody."
So she said, "Everybody in Palestine, in where? Israel?Who is everybody?" "Everybody."
They said, "Syria?" "Syria."
"Lebanon?" "Lebanon."At some point, he just said, "40 million people are going to see you today.It's everybody." The Chinese.And we were just at the beginning of the story.
Something crazy also happened.Every time a country started talking about it,like Germany, America, wherever,a page on Facebook popped up with the same logowith the same stories, so at the beginningwe had "Iran-Loves-Israel," which is an Iraniansitting in Tehran, saying, "Okay, Israel loves Iran?I give you Iran-Loves-Israel."You have Palestine-Loves-Israel.You have Lebanon that just -- a few days ago.And this whole list of pages on Facebookdedicated to the same message,to people sending their love, one to each other.
The moment I really understood that something was happening,a friend of mine told me,"Google the word 'Israel.'"And those were the first images on those daysthat popped up from Googlewhen you were typing, "Israel" or "Iran."We really changed how people see the Middle East.Because you're not in the Middle East.You're somewhere over there, and then you want to see the Middle East,so you go on Google and you say, "Israel,"and they give you the bad stuff.And for a few days you got those images.Today the Israel-Loves-Iran pageis this number, 80,831, and two million people last weekwent on the page and shared, liked, I don't know,commented on one of the photos.
So for five months now, that's what we are doing,me, Michal, a few of my friends, are just making images.We're showing a new realityby just making imagesbecause that's how the world perceives us.They see images of us, and they see bad images.So we're working on making good images. End of story.
Look at this one. This is the Iran-Loves-Israel page.This is not the Israel-Loves-Iran. This is not my page.This is a guy in Tehran on the day of remembranceof the Israeli fallen soldierputting an image of an Israeli soldier on his page.This is the enemy.What?
("Our heartfelt condolences to the families who lost their dearests in terror attack in Bulgaria")
And it's going both ways.It's like, we are showing respect, one to each other.And we're understanding. And you show compassion.And you become friends.And at some point, you become friends on Facebook,and you become friends in life.You can go and travel and meet people.And I was in Munich a few weeks ago.I went there to open an exposition about Iranand I met there with people from the pagethat told me, "Okay, you're going to be in Europe,I'm coming. I'm coming from France, from Holland,from Germany," of course, and from Israel people came,and we just met there for the first time in real life.I met with people that are supposed to be my enemiesfor the first time. And we just shake hands,and have a coffee and a nice discussion,and we talk about food and basketball.And that was the end of it.Remember that image from the beginning?At some point we met in real life, and we became friends.
And it goes the other way around.Some girl that we met on Facebooknever been in Israel, born and raised in Iran,lives in Germany, afraid of Israelisbecause of what she knows about us,decides after a few months of talking on the Internetwith some Israelis to come to Israel,and she gets on the plane and arrives at Ben Gurionand says, "Okay, not that big a deal."
So a few weeks ago, the stress is getting higher,so we start this new campaigncalled "Not ready to die in your war."I mean, it's plus/minus the same message,but we wanted really to add some aggressivity to it.And again, something amazing happened,something that we didn't have on the first wave of the campaign.Now people from Iran, the same ones who were shyat the first campaign and just sent, you know,their foot and half their faces,now they're sending their faces, and they're saying,"Okay, no problem, we're into it. We are with you."Just read where those guys are from.And for every guy from Israel,you've got someone from Iran.Just people sending their pictures.Crazy, yes?
So --(Applause)
So you may ask yourself, who is this dude?
My name is Ronny Edry, and I'm 41, I'm an Israeli,I'm a father of two, I'm a husband,and I'm a graphic designer. I'm teaching graphic design.And I'm not that naive, because a lot of the timeI've been asked, many times I've been asked, "Yeah, but,this is really naive, sending flowers over, I mean — "
I was in the army. I was in the paratroopers for three years,and I know how it looks from the ground.I know how it can look really bad.So to me, this is the courageous thing to do,to try to reach the other side before it's too late,because when it's going to be too late, it's going to be too late.And sometimes war is inevitable, sometimes,but maybe [with] effort, we can avoid it.Maybe as people, because especially in Israel,we're in a democracy. We have the freedom of speech,and maybe that little thing can change something.And really, we can be our own ambassadors.We can just send a message and hope for the best.
So I want to ask Michal, my wife, to come with meon the stage just to make with you one image,because it's all about images.And maybe that image will help us change something.Just raise that. Exactly.And I'm just going to take a picture of it,and I'm just going to post it on Facebookwith kind of "Israelis for peace" or something.
Oh my God.Don't cry.
Thank you guys.(Applause)
BIOTECH-TED TAlks-Hadyn Parry:Re-engineering mosquitos to fight disease
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Transcript:
So I'd like to start by focusing onthe world's most dangerous animal.
Now, when you talk about dangerous animals,most people might think of lions or tigers or sharks.But of course the most dangerous animalis the mosquito.The mosquito has killed more humansthan any other creature in human history.In fact, probably adding them all together,the mosquito has killed more humans.And the mosquito has killed more humans than warsand plague.
And you would think, would you not,that with all our science, with all our advances in society,with better towns, better civilizations, better sanitation,wealth, that we would get better at controlling mosquitos,and hence reduce this disease.And that's not really the case.If it was the case, we wouldn't havebetween 200 and 300 million cases of malaria every year,and we wouldn't havea million and a half deaths from malaria,and we wouldn't have a diseasethat was relatively unknown 50 years agonow suddenly turned intothe largest mosquito-borne virus threat that we have,and that's called dengue fever.
So 50 years ago, pretty much no one had heard of it,no one certainly in the European environment.But dengue fever now, according to the World Health Organization,infects between 50 and 100 million people every year,so that's equivalent to the whole of the populationof the U.K. being infected every year.Other estimates put that number at roughly doublethat number of infections.And dengue fever has grown in speed quite phenomenally.In the last 50 years, the incidence of denguehas grown thirtyfold.
Now let me tell you a little bit about what dengue fever is,for those who don't know.Now let's assume you go on holiday.Let's assume you go to the Caribbean,or you might go to Mexico. You might go to Latin America,Asia, Africa, anywhere in Saudi Arabia.You might go to India, the Far East.It doesn't really matter. It's the same mosquito,and it's the same disease. You're at risk.And let's assume you're bitten by a mosquitothat's carrying that virus.Well, you could develop flu-like symptoms.They could be quite mild.You could develop nausea, headache,your muscles could feel like they're contracting,and you could actually feel like your bones are breaking.And that's the nickname given to this disease.It's called breakbone fever,because that's how you can feel.
Now the odd thing is, is that once you've been bittenby this mosquito, and you've had this disease,your body develops antibodies,so if you're bitten again with that strain,it doesn't affect you.But it's not one virus, it's four,and the same protection that gives you the antibodiesand protects you from the same virus that you had beforeactually makes you much more susceptible to the other three.So the next time you get dengue fever,if it's a different strain, you're more susceptible,you're likely to get worse symptoms,and you're more likely to get the more severe forms,hemorrhagic fever or shock syndrome.So you don't want dengue once,and you certainly don't want it again.
So why is it spreading so fast?And the answer is this thing.This is Aedes aegypti.Now this is a mosquito that came, like its name suggests,out of North Africa, and it's spread round the world.Now, in fact, a single mosquito will only travelabout 200 yards in its entire life. They don't travel very far.What they're very good at doing is hitchhiking,particularly the eggs.They will lay their eggs in clear water, any pool, any puddle,any birdbath, any flower pot,anywhere there's clear water, they'll lay their eggs,and if that clear water is near freight, it's near a port,if it's anywhere near transport,those eggs will then get transported around the world.And that's what's happened. Mankind has transportedthese eggs all the way around the world,and these insects have infested over 100 countries,and there's now 2.5 billion people living in countrieswhere this mosquito resides.
To give you just a couple of exampleshow fast this has happened,in the mid-'70s, Brazil declared, "We have no Aedes aegypti,"and currently they spend about a billion dollars nowa year trying to get rid of it, trying to control it,just one species of mosquito.Two days ago, or yesterday, I can't remember which,I saw a Reuters report that saidMadeira had had their first cases of dengue,about 52 cases, with about 400 probable cases.That's two days ago.Interestingly, Madeira first got the insect in 2005,and here we are, a few years later,first cases of dengue.So the one thing you'll find is that where the mosquito goes,dengue will follow.Once you've got the mosquito in your area,anyone coming into that area with dengue,mosquito will bite them, mosquito will bite somewhere else,somewhere else, somewhere else,and you'll get an epidemic.
So we must be good at killing mosquitos.I mean, that can't be very difficult.Well, there's two principle ways.The first way is that you use larvicides.You use chemicals. You put them into water where they breed.Now in an urban environment, that's extraordinarily difficult.You've got to get your chemical into every puddle,every birdbath, every tree trunk.It's just not practical.The second way you can do itis actually trying to kill the insects as they fly around.This is a picture of fogging.Here what someone is doingis mixing up chemical in a smokeand basically spreading that through the environment.You could do the same with a space spray.This is really unpleasant stuff,and if it was any good, we wouldn't have this massive increasein mosquitos and we wouldn't have this massive increase in dengue fever.So it's not very effective, but it's probablythe best thing we've got at the moment.Having said that, actually, your best form of protectionand my best form of protection is a long-sleeve shirtand a little bit of DEET to go with it.
So let's start again. Let's design a product,right from the word go, and decide what we want.Well we clearly need something that is effectiveat reducing the mosquito population.There's no point in just killing the odd mosquito here and there.We want something that gets that population right the way downso it can't get the disease transmission.Clearly the product you've got has got to be safe to humans.We are going to use it in and around humans.It has to be safe.We don't want to have a lasting impact on the environment.We don't want to do anything that you can't undo.Maybe a better product comes along in 20, 30 years.Fine. We don't want a lasting environmental impact.We want something that's relatively cheap, or cost-effective,because there's an awful lot of countries involved,and some of them are emerging markets,some of them emerging countries, low-income.And finally, you want something that's species-specific.You want to get rid of this mosquito that spreads dengue,but you don't really want to get all the other insects.Some are quite beneficial. Some are important to your ecosystem.This one's not. It's invaded you.But you don't want to get all of the insects.You just want to get this one.And most of the time, you'll find this insectlives in and around your home,so this -- whatever we do has got to get to that insect.It's got to get into people's houses, into the bedrooms,into the kitchens.
Now there are two features of mosquito biologythat really help us in this project,and that is, firstly, males don't bite.It's only the female mosquito that will actually bite you.The male can't bite you, won't bite you,doesn't have the mouth parts to bite you.It's just the female.And the second is a phenomenonthat males are very, very good at finding females.If there's a male mosquito that you release,and if there's a female around, that male will find the female.
So basically, we've used those two factors.So here's a typical situation,male meets female, lots of offspring.A single female will lay aboutup to 100 eggs at a time,up to about 500 in her lifetime.Now if that male is carrying a genewhich causes the death of the offspring,then the offspring don't survive,and instead of having 500 mosquitos running around,you have none.And if you can put more, I'll call them sterile,that the offspring will actually die at different stages,but I'll call them sterile for now.If you put more sterile males out into the environment,then the females are more likely to find a sterile malethan a fertile one, and you will bring that population down.So the males will go out, they'll look for females,they'll mate. If they mate successfully, then no offspring.If they don't find a female, then they'll die anyway.They only live a few days.
And that's exactly where we are.So this is technology that was developedin Oxford University a few years ago.The company itself, Oxitec, we've been workingfor the last 10 years, very much on a sort of similardevelopment pathway that you'd get with a pharmaceutical company.So about 10 years of internal evaluation, testing,to get this to a state where we think it's actually ready.And then we've gone out into the big outdoors,always with local community consent,always with the necessary permits.So we've done field trials now in the Cayman Islands,a small one in Malaysia,and two more now in Brazil.
And what's the result?Well, the result has been very good.In about four months of release,we've brought that population of mosquitos— in most cases we're dealing with villages hereof about 2,000, 3,000 people, that sort of size,starting small —we've taken that mosquito population downby about 85 percent in about four months.And in fact, the numbers after that get,those get very difficult to count, because there just aren't any left.So that's been what we've seen in Cayman,it's been what we've seen in Brazilin those trials.
And now what we're doing is we're going through a processto scale up to a town of about 50,000,so we can see this work at big scale.And we've got a production unit in Oxford,or just south of Oxford, where we actually produce these mosquitos.We can produce them,in a space a bit more than this red carpet,I can produce about 20 million a week.We can transport them around the world.It's not very expensive, because it's a coffee cup --something the size of a coffee cupwill hold about three million eggs.So freight costs aren't our biggest problem. (Laughter)So we've got that. You could call it a mosquito factory.And for Brazil, where we've been doing some trials,the Brazilian government themselves have now builttheir own mosquito factory, far bigger than ours,and we'll use that for scaling up in Brazil.
There you are. We've sent mosquito eggs.We've separated the males from the females.The males have been put in little potsand the truck is going down the roadand they are releasing males as they go.It's actually a little bit more precise than that.You want to release them so thatyou get good coverage of your area.So you take a Google Map, you divide it up,work out how far they can fly,and make sure you're releasing such that you getcoverage of the area, and then you go back,and within a very short space of time,you're bringing that population right the way down.
We've also done this in agriculture.We've got several different species of agriculture coming along,and I'm hoping that soonwe'll be able to get some funding together so we can get backand start looking at malaria.
So that's where we stand at the moment,and I've just got a few final thoughts,which is that this is another way in which biologyis now coming in to supplement chemistryin some of our societal advances in this area,and these biological approaches are coming inin very different forms,and when you think about genetic engineering,we've now got enzymes for industrial processing,enzymes, genetically engineered enzymes in food.We have G.M. crops, we have pharmaceuticals,we have new vaccines,all using roughly the same technology, but with very different outcomes.And I'm in favor, actually. Of course I am.I'm in favor of particularly where the older technologiesdon't work well or have become unacceptable.And although the techniques are similar,the outcomes are very, very different,and if you take our approach, for example,and you compare it to, say, G.M. crops,both techniques are trying to produce a massive benefit.Both have a side benefit,which is that we reduce pesticide use tremendously.But whereas a G.M. crop is trying to protect the plant,for example, and give it an advantage,what we're actually doing is taking the mosquitoand giving it the biggest disadvantage it can possibly have,rendering it unable to reproduce effectively.So for the mosquito, it's a dead end.
Thank you very much. (Applause)
Transcript:
So I'd like to start by focusing onthe world's most dangerous animal.
Now, when you talk about dangerous animals,most people might think of lions or tigers or sharks.But of course the most dangerous animalis the mosquito.The mosquito has killed more humansthan any other creature in human history.In fact, probably adding them all together,the mosquito has killed more humans.And the mosquito has killed more humans than warsand plague.
And you would think, would you not,that with all our science, with all our advances in society,with better towns, better civilizations, better sanitation,wealth, that we would get better at controlling mosquitos,and hence reduce this disease.And that's not really the case.If it was the case, we wouldn't havebetween 200 and 300 million cases of malaria every year,and we wouldn't havea million and a half deaths from malaria,and we wouldn't have a diseasethat was relatively unknown 50 years agonow suddenly turned intothe largest mosquito-borne virus threat that we have,and that's called dengue fever.
So 50 years ago, pretty much no one had heard of it,no one certainly in the European environment.But dengue fever now, according to the World Health Organization,infects between 50 and 100 million people every year,so that's equivalent to the whole of the populationof the U.K. being infected every year.Other estimates put that number at roughly doublethat number of infections.And dengue fever has grown in speed quite phenomenally.In the last 50 years, the incidence of denguehas grown thirtyfold.
Now let me tell you a little bit about what dengue fever is,for those who don't know.Now let's assume you go on holiday.Let's assume you go to the Caribbean,or you might go to Mexico. You might go to Latin America,Asia, Africa, anywhere in Saudi Arabia.You might go to India, the Far East.It doesn't really matter. It's the same mosquito,and it's the same disease. You're at risk.And let's assume you're bitten by a mosquitothat's carrying that virus.Well, you could develop flu-like symptoms.They could be quite mild.You could develop nausea, headache,your muscles could feel like they're contracting,and you could actually feel like your bones are breaking.And that's the nickname given to this disease.It's called breakbone fever,because that's how you can feel.
Now the odd thing is, is that once you've been bittenby this mosquito, and you've had this disease,your body develops antibodies,so if you're bitten again with that strain,it doesn't affect you.But it's not one virus, it's four,and the same protection that gives you the antibodiesand protects you from the same virus that you had beforeactually makes you much more susceptible to the other three.So the next time you get dengue fever,if it's a different strain, you're more susceptible,you're likely to get worse symptoms,and you're more likely to get the more severe forms,hemorrhagic fever or shock syndrome.So you don't want dengue once,and you certainly don't want it again.
So why is it spreading so fast?And the answer is this thing.This is Aedes aegypti.Now this is a mosquito that came, like its name suggests,out of North Africa, and it's spread round the world.Now, in fact, a single mosquito will only travelabout 200 yards in its entire life. They don't travel very far.What they're very good at doing is hitchhiking,particularly the eggs.They will lay their eggs in clear water, any pool, any puddle,any birdbath, any flower pot,anywhere there's clear water, they'll lay their eggs,and if that clear water is near freight, it's near a port,if it's anywhere near transport,those eggs will then get transported around the world.And that's what's happened. Mankind has transportedthese eggs all the way around the world,and these insects have infested over 100 countries,and there's now 2.5 billion people living in countrieswhere this mosquito resides.
To give you just a couple of exampleshow fast this has happened,in the mid-'70s, Brazil declared, "We have no Aedes aegypti,"and currently they spend about a billion dollars nowa year trying to get rid of it, trying to control it,just one species of mosquito.Two days ago, or yesterday, I can't remember which,I saw a Reuters report that saidMadeira had had their first cases of dengue,about 52 cases, with about 400 probable cases.That's two days ago.Interestingly, Madeira first got the insect in 2005,and here we are, a few years later,first cases of dengue.So the one thing you'll find is that where the mosquito goes,dengue will follow.Once you've got the mosquito in your area,anyone coming into that area with dengue,mosquito will bite them, mosquito will bite somewhere else,somewhere else, somewhere else,and you'll get an epidemic.
So we must be good at killing mosquitos.I mean, that can't be very difficult.Well, there's two principle ways.The first way is that you use larvicides.You use chemicals. You put them into water where they breed.Now in an urban environment, that's extraordinarily difficult.You've got to get your chemical into every puddle,every birdbath, every tree trunk.It's just not practical.The second way you can do itis actually trying to kill the insects as they fly around.This is a picture of fogging.Here what someone is doingis mixing up chemical in a smokeand basically spreading that through the environment.You could do the same with a space spray.This is really unpleasant stuff,and if it was any good, we wouldn't have this massive increasein mosquitos and we wouldn't have this massive increase in dengue fever.So it's not very effective, but it's probablythe best thing we've got at the moment.Having said that, actually, your best form of protectionand my best form of protection is a long-sleeve shirtand a little bit of DEET to go with it.
So let's start again. Let's design a product,right from the word go, and decide what we want.Well we clearly need something that is effectiveat reducing the mosquito population.There's no point in just killing the odd mosquito here and there.We want something that gets that population right the way downso it can't get the disease transmission.Clearly the product you've got has got to be safe to humans.We are going to use it in and around humans.It has to be safe.We don't want to have a lasting impact on the environment.We don't want to do anything that you can't undo.Maybe a better product comes along in 20, 30 years.Fine. We don't want a lasting environmental impact.We want something that's relatively cheap, or cost-effective,because there's an awful lot of countries involved,and some of them are emerging markets,some of them emerging countries, low-income.And finally, you want something that's species-specific.You want to get rid of this mosquito that spreads dengue,but you don't really want to get all the other insects.Some are quite beneficial. Some are important to your ecosystem.This one's not. It's invaded you.But you don't want to get all of the insects.You just want to get this one.And most of the time, you'll find this insectlives in and around your home,so this -- whatever we do has got to get to that insect.It's got to get into people's houses, into the bedrooms,into the kitchens.
Now there are two features of mosquito biologythat really help us in this project,and that is, firstly, males don't bite.It's only the female mosquito that will actually bite you.The male can't bite you, won't bite you,doesn't have the mouth parts to bite you.It's just the female.And the second is a phenomenonthat males are very, very good at finding females.If there's a male mosquito that you release,and if there's a female around, that male will find the female.
So basically, we've used those two factors.So here's a typical situation,male meets female, lots of offspring.A single female will lay aboutup to 100 eggs at a time,up to about 500 in her lifetime.Now if that male is carrying a genewhich causes the death of the offspring,then the offspring don't survive,and instead of having 500 mosquitos running around,you have none.And if you can put more, I'll call them sterile,that the offspring will actually die at different stages,but I'll call them sterile for now.If you put more sterile males out into the environment,then the females are more likely to find a sterile malethan a fertile one, and you will bring that population down.So the males will go out, they'll look for females,they'll mate. If they mate successfully, then no offspring.If they don't find a female, then they'll die anyway.They only live a few days.
And that's exactly where we are.So this is technology that was developedin Oxford University a few years ago.The company itself, Oxitec, we've been workingfor the last 10 years, very much on a sort of similardevelopment pathway that you'd get with a pharmaceutical company.So about 10 years of internal evaluation, testing,to get this to a state where we think it's actually ready.And then we've gone out into the big outdoors,always with local community consent,always with the necessary permits.So we've done field trials now in the Cayman Islands,a small one in Malaysia,and two more now in Brazil.
And what's the result?Well, the result has been very good.In about four months of release,we've brought that population of mosquitos— in most cases we're dealing with villages hereof about 2,000, 3,000 people, that sort of size,starting small —we've taken that mosquito population downby about 85 percent in about four months.And in fact, the numbers after that get,those get very difficult to count, because there just aren't any left.So that's been what we've seen in Cayman,it's been what we've seen in Brazilin those trials.
And now what we're doing is we're going through a processto scale up to a town of about 50,000,so we can see this work at big scale.And we've got a production unit in Oxford,or just south of Oxford, where we actually produce these mosquitos.We can produce them,in a space a bit more than this red carpet,I can produce about 20 million a week.We can transport them around the world.It's not very expensive, because it's a coffee cup --something the size of a coffee cupwill hold about three million eggs.So freight costs aren't our biggest problem. (Laughter)So we've got that. You could call it a mosquito factory.And for Brazil, where we've been doing some trials,the Brazilian government themselves have now builttheir own mosquito factory, far bigger than ours,and we'll use that for scaling up in Brazil.
There you are. We've sent mosquito eggs.We've separated the males from the females.The males have been put in little potsand the truck is going down the roadand they are releasing males as they go.It's actually a little bit more precise than that.You want to release them so thatyou get good coverage of your area.So you take a Google Map, you divide it up,work out how far they can fly,and make sure you're releasing such that you getcoverage of the area, and then you go back,and within a very short space of time,you're bringing that population right the way down.
We've also done this in agriculture.We've got several different species of agriculture coming along,and I'm hoping that soonwe'll be able to get some funding together so we can get backand start looking at malaria.
So that's where we stand at the moment,and I've just got a few final thoughts,which is that this is another way in which biologyis now coming in to supplement chemistryin some of our societal advances in this area,and these biological approaches are coming inin very different forms,and when you think about genetic engineering,we've now got enzymes for industrial processing,enzymes, genetically engineered enzymes in food.We have G.M. crops, we have pharmaceuticals,we have new vaccines,all using roughly the same technology, but with very different outcomes.And I'm in favor, actually. Of course I am.I'm in favor of particularly where the older technologiesdon't work well or have become unacceptable.And although the techniques are similar,the outcomes are very, very different,and if you take our approach, for example,and you compare it to, say, G.M. crops,both techniques are trying to produce a massive benefit.Both have a side benefit,which is that we reduce pesticide use tremendously.But whereas a G.M. crop is trying to protect the plant,for example, and give it an advantage,what we're actually doing is taking the mosquitoand giving it the biggest disadvantage it can possibly have,rendering it unable to reproduce effectively.So for the mosquito, it's a dead end.
Thank you very much. (Applause)
MD&ENT-TED Talks-Don Levy: A cinematic journey through visual effects
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Transcript:
The filmmaker Georges Méliès was first a magician.Now movies proved to be the ultimate medium for magic.With complete control of everything the audience can see,moviemakers had developed an arsenal of techniquesto further their deceptions.
Motion pictures are themselves an illusion of life,produced by the sequential projection of still frames,and they astonished the Lumière brothers' early audiences.Even today's sophisticated moviegoersstill lose themselves to the screen,and filmmakers leverage this separation from realityto great effect.Now imaginative people have been having fun with thisfor over 400 years.Giambattista della Porta, a Neapolitan scholarin the 16th century, examined and studied the natural worldand saw how it could be manipulated.Playing with the world, and our perception of it,really is the essence of visual effects.So digging deeper into thiswith the Science and Technology Councilof the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciencesreveals some truth behind the trickery.
Visual effects are based on the principles of all illusions:assumption, things are as we know them;presumption, things will behave as we expect;and context in reality,our knowledge of the world as we know it,such as scale.
Now a fourth factor really becomes an obsession,which is, never betray the illusion.And that last point has made visual effectsa constant quest for perfection.So from the hand-cranked jump cut early days of cinemato last Sunday's Oscar winner, what follows are some stepsand a few repeats in the evolution of visual effects.I hope you will enjoy.
Isabelle: "The filmmaker Georges Mélièswas one of the first to realize thatfilms had the powerto capture dreams."
(Music) ["'A Trip to the Moon' (1902)"]
["2011 Restoration of the Original Hand-Tinted Color"]
["'2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968)"]
["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]
["'Avatar' (2009)"] First doctor: How are you feeling, Jake?
Jake: Hey guys.["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]
Second doctor: Welcome to your new body, Jake. First doctor: Good.
Second doctor: We're gonna take this nice and easy, Jake. First doctor: Well, do you want to sit up? That's fine.
Second doctor: And good, just take it nice and slow, Jake.
Well, no truncal ataxia, that's good. First doctor: You feeling light-headed or dizzy at all?Oh, you're wiggling your toes.
["'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' (1972)"]
Alice: What's happening to me?
["'Alice in Wonderland' (2010)"]
["Academy Award Nominee for Visual Effects"]
["'The Lost World' (1925)"]
["Stop Motion Animation"]
["'Jurassic Park' (1993)"] [Dinosaur roars]
["CG Animation"]
["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]
["'The Smurfs' (2011)"]
["Autodesk Maya Software - Key Frame Animation"]
["'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' (2011)"]
Chimpanzee: No! ["Academy Award Nominee for Visual Effects"]
["'Metropolis' (1927)"]
(Music)
["'Blade Runner' (1982)"]
["Academy Award Nominee for Visual Effects"]
["'The Rains Came' (1939)"] Rama Safti: Well, it's all over.
Maharaja: Nothing to worry about, not a thing.
['Academy Award for Special Effects - (First Year of Category)"](Explosion)
["'2012' (2009)"] Governor: It seems to me that the worst is over.
["CG Destruction"]
["'Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' (2003)"]
["Massive Software - Crowd Generation"]
["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]
["'Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ' (1925)"]
["Miniatures and Puppets Bring the Crowd to Life"]
["'Gladiator' (2000)"]
["CG Coliseum and Digital Crowds"]
["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]
["'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2' (2011)"]
["Academy Award Nominee for Visual Effects"]
["Produced in conjunction with the Academy's Science and Technology Council."]
(Applause)
["'It is today possible to realize the most impossible and improbable things.' — Georges Méliès"]
Don Levy: Thank you.
Transcript:
The filmmaker Georges Méliès was first a magician.Now movies proved to be the ultimate medium for magic.With complete control of everything the audience can see,moviemakers had developed an arsenal of techniquesto further their deceptions.
Motion pictures are themselves an illusion of life,produced by the sequential projection of still frames,and they astonished the Lumière brothers' early audiences.Even today's sophisticated moviegoersstill lose themselves to the screen,and filmmakers leverage this separation from realityto great effect.Now imaginative people have been having fun with thisfor over 400 years.Giambattista della Porta, a Neapolitan scholarin the 16th century, examined and studied the natural worldand saw how it could be manipulated.Playing with the world, and our perception of it,really is the essence of visual effects.So digging deeper into thiswith the Science and Technology Councilof the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciencesreveals some truth behind the trickery.
Visual effects are based on the principles of all illusions:assumption, things are as we know them;presumption, things will behave as we expect;and context in reality,our knowledge of the world as we know it,such as scale.
Now a fourth factor really becomes an obsession,which is, never betray the illusion.And that last point has made visual effectsa constant quest for perfection.So from the hand-cranked jump cut early days of cinemato last Sunday's Oscar winner, what follows are some stepsand a few repeats in the evolution of visual effects.I hope you will enjoy.
Isabelle: "The filmmaker Georges Mélièswas one of the first to realize thatfilms had the powerto capture dreams."
(Music) ["'A Trip to the Moon' (1902)"]
["2011 Restoration of the Original Hand-Tinted Color"]
["'2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968)"]
["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]
["'Avatar' (2009)"] First doctor: How are you feeling, Jake?
Jake: Hey guys.["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]
Second doctor: Welcome to your new body, Jake. First doctor: Good.
Second doctor: We're gonna take this nice and easy, Jake. First doctor: Well, do you want to sit up? That's fine.
Second doctor: And good, just take it nice and slow, Jake.
Well, no truncal ataxia, that's good. First doctor: You feeling light-headed or dizzy at all?Oh, you're wiggling your toes.
["'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' (1972)"]
Alice: What's happening to me?
["'Alice in Wonderland' (2010)"]
["Academy Award Nominee for Visual Effects"]
["'The Lost World' (1925)"]
["Stop Motion Animation"]
["'Jurassic Park' (1993)"] [Dinosaur roars]
["CG Animation"]
["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]
["'The Smurfs' (2011)"]
["Autodesk Maya Software - Key Frame Animation"]
["'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' (2011)"]
Chimpanzee: No! ["Academy Award Nominee for Visual Effects"]
["'Metropolis' (1927)"]
(Music)
["'Blade Runner' (1982)"]
["Academy Award Nominee for Visual Effects"]
["'The Rains Came' (1939)"] Rama Safti: Well, it's all over.
Maharaja: Nothing to worry about, not a thing.
['Academy Award for Special Effects - (First Year of Category)"](Explosion)
["'2012' (2009)"] Governor: It seems to me that the worst is over.
["CG Destruction"]
["'Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' (2003)"]
["Massive Software - Crowd Generation"]
["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]
["'Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ' (1925)"]
["Miniatures and Puppets Bring the Crowd to Life"]
["'Gladiator' (2000)"]
["CG Coliseum and Digital Crowds"]
["Academy Award Winner for Visual Effects"]
["'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2' (2011)"]
["Academy Award Nominee for Visual Effects"]
["Produced in conjunction with the Academy's Science and Technology Council."]
(Applause)
["'It is today possible to realize the most impossible and improbable things.' — Georges Méliès"]
Don Levy: Thank you.
INTAFF/FIN-TED Talks-Adam Davidson:What we learned from teetering on the fiscal cliff
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Transcript:
So a friend of mine who's a political scientist,he told me several months agoexactly what this month would be like.He said, you know, there's this fiscal cliff coming,it's going to come at the beginning of 2013.Both parties absolutely need to resolve it,but neither party wants to be seen as the first to resolve it.Neither party has any incentive to solve it a second before it's due,so he said, December, you're just going to see lots ofangry negotiations, negotiations breaking apart,reports of phone calls that aren't going well,people saying nothing's happening at all,and then sometime around Christmas or New Year's,we're going to hear, "Okay, they resolved everything."He told me that a few months ago. He said he's 98 percent positive they're going to resolve it,and I got an email from him today saying, all right,we're basically on track, but now I'm 80 percent positivethat they're going to resolve it.
And it made me think. I love studyingthese moments in American historywhen there was this frenzy of partisan anger,that the economy was on the verge of total collapse.
The most famous early battle was Alexander Hamiltonand Thomas Jefferson over what the dollar would beand how it would be backed up, with Alexander Hamiltonsaying, "We need a central bank, the First Bank of the United States,or else the dollar will have no value.This economy won't work,"and Thomas Jefferson saying, "The people won't trust that.They just fought off a king. They're not going to accept some central authority."This battle defined the first 150 years of the U.S. economy,and at every moment, different partisans saying,"Oh my God, the economy's about to collapse,"and the rest of us just going about, spending our buckson whatever it is we wanted to buy.
To give you a quick primer on where we are,a quick refresher on where we are.So the fiscal cliff, I was toldthat that's too partisan a thing to say,although I can't remember which party it's supporting or attacking.People say we should call it the fiscal slope,or we should call it an austerity crisis,but then other people say, no, that's even more partisan.So I just call it the self-imposed, self-destructivearbitrary deadline about resolving an inevitable problem.And this is what the inevitable problem looks like.So this is a projection of U.S. debt as a percentageof our overall economy, of GDP.The light blue dotted line representsthe Congressional Budget Office's best guessof what will happen if Congress really doesn't do anything,and as you can see, sometime around 2027,we reach Greek levels of debt,somewhere around 130 percent of GDP,which tells you that some time in the next 20 years,if Congress does absolutely nothing,we're going to hit a moment where the world's investors,the world's bond buyers, are going to say,"We don't trust America anymore. We're not going to lend them any money,except at really high interest rates."And at that moment our economy collapses.But remember, Greece is there today.We're there in 20 years. We have lots and lots of timeto avoid that crisis,and the fiscal cliff was just one more attemptat trying to force the two sides to resolve the crisis.
Here's another way to look at exactly the same problem.The dark blue line is how much the government spends.The light blue line is how much the government gets in.And as you can see, for most of recent history,except for a brief period, we have consistently spentmore than we take in. Thus the national debt.But as you can also see, projected going forward,the gap widens a bit and raises a bit,and this graph is only through 2021.It gets really, really ugly out towards 2030.
And this graph sort of sums up what the problem is.The Democrats, they say, well, this isn't a big deal.We can just raise taxes a bit and close that gap,especially if we raise taxes on the rich.The Republicans say, hey, no, no, we've got a better idea.Why don't we lower both lines?Why don't we lower government spending and lower government taxes,and then we'll be on an even more favorablelong-term deficit trajectory?And behind this powerful disagreement betweenhow to close that gap,there's the worst kind of cynical party politics,the worst kind of insider baseball, lobbying, all of that stuff,but there's also this powerfully interesting,respectful disagreement betweentwo fundamentally different economic philosophies.
And I like to think, when I picture how Republicanssee the economy, what I picture is just some amazinglywell-engineered machine, some perfect machine.Unfortunately, I picture it made in Germany or Japan,but this amazing machine that's constantly scouringevery bit of human endeavor and taking resources,money, labor, capital, machinery,away from the least productive parts and towards the more productive parts,and while this might cause temporary dislocation,what it does is it builds up the more productive areasand lets the less productive areas fade away and die,and as a result the whole system is so much more efficient,so much richer for everybody.And this view generally believes that there is a role for government,a small role, to set the rules so people aren't lyingand cheating and hurting each other,maybe, you know, have a police force and a fire departmentand an army, but to have a very limited reachinto the mechanisms of this machinery.
And when I picture how Democrats and Democratic-leaningeconomists picture this economy,most Democratic economists are, you know, they're capitalists,they believe, yes, that's a good system a lot of the time.It's good to let markets move resources to their more productive use.But that system has tons of problems.Wealth piles up in the wrong places.Wealth is ripped away from people who shouldn't be called unproductive.That's not going to create an equitable, fair society.That machine doesn't care about the environment,about racism, about all these issuesthat make this life worse for all of us,and so the government does have a role to take resourcesfrom more productive uses, or from richer sources,and give them to other sources.And when you think about the economy through these two different lenses,you understand why this crisis is so hard to solve,because the worse the crisis gets, the higher the stakes are,the more each side thinks they know the answerand the other side is just going to ruin everything.
And I can get really despairing. I've spent a lotof the last few years really depressed about this,until this year, I learned something thatI felt really excited about. I feel like it's really good news,and it's so shocking, I don't like saying it, because I thinkpeople won't believe me.But here's what I learned.The American people, taken as a whole,when it comes to these issues, to fiscal issues,are moderate, pragmatic centrists.And I know that's hard to believe, that the American peopleare moderate, pragmatic centrists.But let me explain what I'm thinking.
When you look at how the federal government spends money,so this is the battle right here,55 percent, more than half, is on Social Security,Medicare, Medicaid, a few other health programs,20 percent defense, 19 percent discretionary,and six percent interest.So when we're talking about cutting government spending,this is the pie we're talking about,and Americans overwhelmingly, and it doesn't matterwhat party they're in, overwhelmingly likethat big 55 percent chunk.They like Social Security. They like Medicare.They even like Medicaid, even though that goes to the poor and indigent,which you might think would have less support.And they do not want it fundamentally touched,although the American people are remarkably comfortable,and Democrats roughly equal to Republicans,with some minor tweaks to make the system more stable.
Social Security is fairly easy to fix.The rumors of its demise are always greatly exaggerated.So gradually raise Social Security retirement age,maybe only on people not yet born.Americans are about 50/50,whether they're Democrats or Republicans.
Reduce Medicare for very wealthy seniors,seniors who make a lot of money. Don't even eliminate it. Just reduce it.People generally are comfortable with it, Democrats and Republicans.
Raise medical health care contributions?Everyone hates that equally, but Republicansand Democrats hate that together.
And so what this tells me is, when you look atthe discussion of how to resolve our fiscal problems,we are not a nation that's powerfully divided on the major, major issue.We're comfortable with it needing some tweaks, but we want to keep it.We're not open to a discussion of eliminating it.
Now there is one issue that is hyper-partisan,and where there is one party that is just spend, spend, spend,we don't care, spend some more,and that of course is Republicanswhen it comes to military defense spending.They way outweigh Democrats.The vast majority want to protect military defense spending.That's 20 percent of the budget,and that presents a more difficult issue.I should also note that the [discretionary] spending,which is about 19 percent of the budget,that is Democratic and Republican issues,so you do have welfare, food stamps, other programsthat tend to be popular among Democrats,but you also have the farm bill and all sorts of Department of Interiorinducements for oil drilling and other things,which tend to be popular among Republicans.
Now when it comes to taxes, there is more disagreement.That's a more partisan area.You have Democrats overwhelmingly supportiveof raising the income tax on people who make 250,000 dollars a year,Republicans sort of against it, although if you break it out by income,Republicans who make less than 75,000 dollars a year like this idea.So basically Republicans who make more than 250,000 dollars a year don't want to be taxed.Raising taxes on investment income, you also seeabout two thirds of Democrats but only one third of Republicansare comfortable with that idea.
This brings up a really important point, which is thatwe tend in this country to talk about Democratsand Republicans and think there's this little groupover there called independents that's, what, two percent?If you add Democrats, you add Republicans,you've got the American people.But that is not the case at all.And it has not been the case for most of modern American history.Roughly a third of Americans say that they are Democrats.Around a quarter say that they are Republicans.A tiny little sliver call themselves libertarians, or socialists,or some other small third party,and the largest block, 40 percent, say they're independents.So most Americans are not partisan,and most of the people in the independent campfall somewhere in between, so even though we havetremendous overlap between the views on these fiscal issuesof Democrats and Republicans,we have even more overlap when you add in the independents.Now we get to fight about all sorts of other issues.We get to hate each other on gun controland abortion and the environment,but on these fiscal issues, these important fiscal issues,we just are not anywhere nearly as divided as people say.
And in fact, there's this other group of peoplewho are not as divided as people might think,and that group is economists.I talk to a lot of economists, and back in the '70sand '80s it was ugly being an economist.You were in what they called the saltwater camp,meaning Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley,or you were in the freshwater camp, University of Chicago,University of Rochester.You were a free market capitalist economistor you were a Keynesian liberal economist,and these people didn't go to each other's weddings,they snubbed each other at conferences.It's still ugly to this day, but in my experience,it is really, really hard to find an economist under 40who still has that kind of way of seeing the world.The vast majority of economists -- it is so uncoolto call yourself an ideologue of either camp.The phrase that you want, if you're a graduate studentor a postdoc or you're a professor,a 38-year-old economics professor, is, "I'm an empiricist.I go by the data."And the data is very clear.None of these major theories have been completely successful.The 20th century, the last hundred years,is riddled with disastrous examplesof times that one school or the other tried to explainthe past or predict the futureand just did an awful, awful job,so the economics profession has acquired some degree of modesty.They still are an awfully arrogant group of people, I will assure you,but they're now arrogant about their impartiality,and they, too, see a tremendous range of potential outcomes.
And this nonpartisanship is something that exists,that has existed in secretin America for years and years and years.I've spent a lot of the fall talking to the three majororganizations that survey American political attitudes:Pew Research,the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center,and the most important but the least knownis the American National Election Studies groupthat is the world's longest, most respected poll of political attitudes.They've been doing it since 1948,and what they show consistently throughoutis that it's almost impossible to find Americanswho are consistent ideologically,who consistently support, "No we mustn't tax,and we must limit the size of government,"or, "No, we must encourage government to play a larger rolein redistribution and correcting the ills of capitalism."Those groups are very, very small.The vast majority of people, they pick and choose,they see compromise and they change over timewhen they hear a better argument or a worse argument.And that part of it has not changed.What has changed is how people respond to vague questions.If you ask people vague questions, like,"Do you think there should be more government or less government?""Do you think government should" — especially if you use loaded language --"Do you think the government should provide handouts?"Or, "Do you think the government should redistribute?"Then you can see radical partisan change.But when you get specific, when you actually askabout the actual taxing and spending issues under consideration,people are remarkably centrist,they're remarkably open to compromise.
So what we have, then, when you think about the fiscal cliff,don't think of it as the American people fundamentallycan't stand each other on these issuesand that we must be ripped apartinto two separate warring nations.Think of it as a tiny, tiny number of ancient economistsand misrepresentative ideologues have captured the process.And they've captured the process through familiar ways,through a primary system which encouragesthat small group of people's voices,because that small group of people,the people who answer all yeses or all noeson those ideological questions,they might be small but every one of them has a blog,every one of them has been on Fox or MSNBC in the last week.Every one of them becomes a louder and louder voice,but they don't represent us.They don't represent what our views are.
And that gets me back to the dollar,and it gets me back to reminding myself thatwe know this experience.We know what it's liketo have these people on TV, in Congress,yelling about how the end of the world is comingif we don't adopt their view completely,because it's happened about the dollarever since there's been a dollar.We had the battle between Jefferson and Hamilton.In 1913, we had this ugly battle over the Federal Reserve,when it was created, with vicious, angry argumentsover how it would be constituted,and a general agreement that the way it was constitutedwas the worst possible compromise,a compromise guaranteed to destroy this valuable thing,this dollar, but then everyone agreeing, okay,so long as we're on the gold standard, it should be okay.The Fed can't mess it up so badly.But then we got off the gold standard for individualsduring the Depression and we got off the gold standardas a source of international currency coordinationduring Richard Nixon's presidency.Each of those times, we were on the verge of complete collapse.And nothing happened at all.Throughout it all, the dollar has beenone of the most long-standing,stable, reasonable currencies,and we all use it every single day,no matter what the people screaming about tell us,no matter how scared we're supposed to be.
And this long-term fiscal picture that we're in right now,I think what is most maddening about it is,if Congress were simply ableto show not that they agree with each other,not that they're able to come up with the best possible compromise,but that they are able to just begin the processtowards compromise, we all instantly are better off.The fear is that the world is watching.The fear is that the longer we delay any solution,the more the world will look to the U.S.not as the bedrock of stability in the global economy,but as a place that can't resolve its own fights,and the longer we put that off, the more we make the world nervous,the higher interest rates are going to be,the quicker we're going to have to face a dayof horrible calamity.And so just the act of compromise itself,and sustained, real compromise,would give us even more time,would allow both sides even longer to spread out the painand reach even more compromise down the road.
So I'm in the media. I feel like my job to make this happenis to help foster the things that seem to lead to compromise,to not talk about this in those vague and scary termsthat do polarize us,but to just talk about it like what it is,not an existential crisis,not some battle between two fundamentally different religious views,but a math problem, a really solvable math problem,one where we're not all going to get what we wantand one where, you know, there's going to be a little pain to spread around.But the more we address it as a practical concern,the sooner we can resolve it,and the more time we have to resolve it, paradoxically.Thank you. (Applause)
Transcript:
So a friend of mine who's a political scientist,he told me several months agoexactly what this month would be like.He said, you know, there's this fiscal cliff coming,it's going to come at the beginning of 2013.Both parties absolutely need to resolve it,but neither party wants to be seen as the first to resolve it.Neither party has any incentive to solve it a second before it's due,so he said, December, you're just going to see lots ofangry negotiations, negotiations breaking apart,reports of phone calls that aren't going well,people saying nothing's happening at all,and then sometime around Christmas or New Year's,we're going to hear, "Okay, they resolved everything."He told me that a few months ago. He said he's 98 percent positive they're going to resolve it,and I got an email from him today saying, all right,we're basically on track, but now I'm 80 percent positivethat they're going to resolve it.
And it made me think. I love studyingthese moments in American historywhen there was this frenzy of partisan anger,that the economy was on the verge of total collapse.
The most famous early battle was Alexander Hamiltonand Thomas Jefferson over what the dollar would beand how it would be backed up, with Alexander Hamiltonsaying, "We need a central bank, the First Bank of the United States,or else the dollar will have no value.This economy won't work,"and Thomas Jefferson saying, "The people won't trust that.They just fought off a king. They're not going to accept some central authority."This battle defined the first 150 years of the U.S. economy,and at every moment, different partisans saying,"Oh my God, the economy's about to collapse,"and the rest of us just going about, spending our buckson whatever it is we wanted to buy.
To give you a quick primer on where we are,a quick refresher on where we are.So the fiscal cliff, I was toldthat that's too partisan a thing to say,although I can't remember which party it's supporting or attacking.People say we should call it the fiscal slope,or we should call it an austerity crisis,but then other people say, no, that's even more partisan.So I just call it the self-imposed, self-destructivearbitrary deadline about resolving an inevitable problem.And this is what the inevitable problem looks like.So this is a projection of U.S. debt as a percentageof our overall economy, of GDP.The light blue dotted line representsthe Congressional Budget Office's best guessof what will happen if Congress really doesn't do anything,and as you can see, sometime around 2027,we reach Greek levels of debt,somewhere around 130 percent of GDP,which tells you that some time in the next 20 years,if Congress does absolutely nothing,we're going to hit a moment where the world's investors,the world's bond buyers, are going to say,"We don't trust America anymore. We're not going to lend them any money,except at really high interest rates."And at that moment our economy collapses.But remember, Greece is there today.We're there in 20 years. We have lots and lots of timeto avoid that crisis,and the fiscal cliff was just one more attemptat trying to force the two sides to resolve the crisis.
Here's another way to look at exactly the same problem.The dark blue line is how much the government spends.The light blue line is how much the government gets in.And as you can see, for most of recent history,except for a brief period, we have consistently spentmore than we take in. Thus the national debt.But as you can also see, projected going forward,the gap widens a bit and raises a bit,and this graph is only through 2021.It gets really, really ugly out towards 2030.
And this graph sort of sums up what the problem is.The Democrats, they say, well, this isn't a big deal.We can just raise taxes a bit and close that gap,especially if we raise taxes on the rich.The Republicans say, hey, no, no, we've got a better idea.Why don't we lower both lines?Why don't we lower government spending and lower government taxes,and then we'll be on an even more favorablelong-term deficit trajectory?And behind this powerful disagreement betweenhow to close that gap,there's the worst kind of cynical party politics,the worst kind of insider baseball, lobbying, all of that stuff,but there's also this powerfully interesting,respectful disagreement betweentwo fundamentally different economic philosophies.
And I like to think, when I picture how Republicanssee the economy, what I picture is just some amazinglywell-engineered machine, some perfect machine.Unfortunately, I picture it made in Germany or Japan,but this amazing machine that's constantly scouringevery bit of human endeavor and taking resources,money, labor, capital, machinery,away from the least productive parts and towards the more productive parts,and while this might cause temporary dislocation,what it does is it builds up the more productive areasand lets the less productive areas fade away and die,and as a result the whole system is so much more efficient,so much richer for everybody.And this view generally believes that there is a role for government,a small role, to set the rules so people aren't lyingand cheating and hurting each other,maybe, you know, have a police force and a fire departmentand an army, but to have a very limited reachinto the mechanisms of this machinery.
And when I picture how Democrats and Democratic-leaningeconomists picture this economy,most Democratic economists are, you know, they're capitalists,they believe, yes, that's a good system a lot of the time.It's good to let markets move resources to their more productive use.But that system has tons of problems.Wealth piles up in the wrong places.Wealth is ripped away from people who shouldn't be called unproductive.That's not going to create an equitable, fair society.That machine doesn't care about the environment,about racism, about all these issuesthat make this life worse for all of us,and so the government does have a role to take resourcesfrom more productive uses, or from richer sources,and give them to other sources.And when you think about the economy through these two different lenses,you understand why this crisis is so hard to solve,because the worse the crisis gets, the higher the stakes are,the more each side thinks they know the answerand the other side is just going to ruin everything.
And I can get really despairing. I've spent a lotof the last few years really depressed about this,until this year, I learned something thatI felt really excited about. I feel like it's really good news,and it's so shocking, I don't like saying it, because I thinkpeople won't believe me.But here's what I learned.The American people, taken as a whole,when it comes to these issues, to fiscal issues,are moderate, pragmatic centrists.And I know that's hard to believe, that the American peopleare moderate, pragmatic centrists.But let me explain what I'm thinking.
When you look at how the federal government spends money,so this is the battle right here,55 percent, more than half, is on Social Security,Medicare, Medicaid, a few other health programs,20 percent defense, 19 percent discretionary,and six percent interest.So when we're talking about cutting government spending,this is the pie we're talking about,and Americans overwhelmingly, and it doesn't matterwhat party they're in, overwhelmingly likethat big 55 percent chunk.They like Social Security. They like Medicare.They even like Medicaid, even though that goes to the poor and indigent,which you might think would have less support.And they do not want it fundamentally touched,although the American people are remarkably comfortable,and Democrats roughly equal to Republicans,with some minor tweaks to make the system more stable.
Social Security is fairly easy to fix.The rumors of its demise are always greatly exaggerated.So gradually raise Social Security retirement age,maybe only on people not yet born.Americans are about 50/50,whether they're Democrats or Republicans.
Reduce Medicare for very wealthy seniors,seniors who make a lot of money. Don't even eliminate it. Just reduce it.People generally are comfortable with it, Democrats and Republicans.
Raise medical health care contributions?Everyone hates that equally, but Republicansand Democrats hate that together.
And so what this tells me is, when you look atthe discussion of how to resolve our fiscal problems,we are not a nation that's powerfully divided on the major, major issue.We're comfortable with it needing some tweaks, but we want to keep it.We're not open to a discussion of eliminating it.
Now there is one issue that is hyper-partisan,and where there is one party that is just spend, spend, spend,we don't care, spend some more,and that of course is Republicanswhen it comes to military defense spending.They way outweigh Democrats.The vast majority want to protect military defense spending.That's 20 percent of the budget,and that presents a more difficult issue.I should also note that the [discretionary] spending,which is about 19 percent of the budget,that is Democratic and Republican issues,so you do have welfare, food stamps, other programsthat tend to be popular among Democrats,but you also have the farm bill and all sorts of Department of Interiorinducements for oil drilling and other things,which tend to be popular among Republicans.
Now when it comes to taxes, there is more disagreement.That's a more partisan area.You have Democrats overwhelmingly supportiveof raising the income tax on people who make 250,000 dollars a year,Republicans sort of against it, although if you break it out by income,Republicans who make less than 75,000 dollars a year like this idea.So basically Republicans who make more than 250,000 dollars a year don't want to be taxed.Raising taxes on investment income, you also seeabout two thirds of Democrats but only one third of Republicansare comfortable with that idea.
This brings up a really important point, which is thatwe tend in this country to talk about Democratsand Republicans and think there's this little groupover there called independents that's, what, two percent?If you add Democrats, you add Republicans,you've got the American people.But that is not the case at all.And it has not been the case for most of modern American history.Roughly a third of Americans say that they are Democrats.Around a quarter say that they are Republicans.A tiny little sliver call themselves libertarians, or socialists,or some other small third party,and the largest block, 40 percent, say they're independents.So most Americans are not partisan,and most of the people in the independent campfall somewhere in between, so even though we havetremendous overlap between the views on these fiscal issuesof Democrats and Republicans,we have even more overlap when you add in the independents.Now we get to fight about all sorts of other issues.We get to hate each other on gun controland abortion and the environment,but on these fiscal issues, these important fiscal issues,we just are not anywhere nearly as divided as people say.
And in fact, there's this other group of peoplewho are not as divided as people might think,and that group is economists.I talk to a lot of economists, and back in the '70sand '80s it was ugly being an economist.You were in what they called the saltwater camp,meaning Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley,or you were in the freshwater camp, University of Chicago,University of Rochester.You were a free market capitalist economistor you were a Keynesian liberal economist,and these people didn't go to each other's weddings,they snubbed each other at conferences.It's still ugly to this day, but in my experience,it is really, really hard to find an economist under 40who still has that kind of way of seeing the world.The vast majority of economists -- it is so uncoolto call yourself an ideologue of either camp.The phrase that you want, if you're a graduate studentor a postdoc or you're a professor,a 38-year-old economics professor, is, "I'm an empiricist.I go by the data."And the data is very clear.None of these major theories have been completely successful.The 20th century, the last hundred years,is riddled with disastrous examplesof times that one school or the other tried to explainthe past or predict the futureand just did an awful, awful job,so the economics profession has acquired some degree of modesty.They still are an awfully arrogant group of people, I will assure you,but they're now arrogant about their impartiality,and they, too, see a tremendous range of potential outcomes.
And this nonpartisanship is something that exists,that has existed in secretin America for years and years and years.I've spent a lot of the fall talking to the three majororganizations that survey American political attitudes:Pew Research,the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center,and the most important but the least knownis the American National Election Studies groupthat is the world's longest, most respected poll of political attitudes.They've been doing it since 1948,and what they show consistently throughoutis that it's almost impossible to find Americanswho are consistent ideologically,who consistently support, "No we mustn't tax,and we must limit the size of government,"or, "No, we must encourage government to play a larger rolein redistribution and correcting the ills of capitalism."Those groups are very, very small.The vast majority of people, they pick and choose,they see compromise and they change over timewhen they hear a better argument or a worse argument.And that part of it has not changed.What has changed is how people respond to vague questions.If you ask people vague questions, like,"Do you think there should be more government or less government?""Do you think government should" — especially if you use loaded language --"Do you think the government should provide handouts?"Or, "Do you think the government should redistribute?"Then you can see radical partisan change.But when you get specific, when you actually askabout the actual taxing and spending issues under consideration,people are remarkably centrist,they're remarkably open to compromise.
So what we have, then, when you think about the fiscal cliff,don't think of it as the American people fundamentallycan't stand each other on these issuesand that we must be ripped apartinto two separate warring nations.Think of it as a tiny, tiny number of ancient economistsand misrepresentative ideologues have captured the process.And they've captured the process through familiar ways,through a primary system which encouragesthat small group of people's voices,because that small group of people,the people who answer all yeses or all noeson those ideological questions,they might be small but every one of them has a blog,every one of them has been on Fox or MSNBC in the last week.Every one of them becomes a louder and louder voice,but they don't represent us.They don't represent what our views are.
And that gets me back to the dollar,and it gets me back to reminding myself thatwe know this experience.We know what it's liketo have these people on TV, in Congress,yelling about how the end of the world is comingif we don't adopt their view completely,because it's happened about the dollarever since there's been a dollar.We had the battle between Jefferson and Hamilton.In 1913, we had this ugly battle over the Federal Reserve,when it was created, with vicious, angry argumentsover how it would be constituted,and a general agreement that the way it was constitutedwas the worst possible compromise,a compromise guaranteed to destroy this valuable thing,this dollar, but then everyone agreeing, okay,so long as we're on the gold standard, it should be okay.The Fed can't mess it up so badly.But then we got off the gold standard for individualsduring the Depression and we got off the gold standardas a source of international currency coordinationduring Richard Nixon's presidency.Each of those times, we were on the verge of complete collapse.And nothing happened at all.Throughout it all, the dollar has beenone of the most long-standing,stable, reasonable currencies,and we all use it every single day,no matter what the people screaming about tell us,no matter how scared we're supposed to be.
And this long-term fiscal picture that we're in right now,I think what is most maddening about it is,if Congress were simply ableto show not that they agree with each other,not that they're able to come up with the best possible compromise,but that they are able to just begin the processtowards compromise, we all instantly are better off.The fear is that the world is watching.The fear is that the longer we delay any solution,the more the world will look to the U.S.not as the bedrock of stability in the global economy,but as a place that can't resolve its own fights,and the longer we put that off, the more we make the world nervous,the higher interest rates are going to be,the quicker we're going to have to face a dayof horrible calamity.And so just the act of compromise itself,and sustained, real compromise,would give us even more time,would allow both sides even longer to spread out the painand reach even more compromise down the road.
So I'm in the media. I feel like my job to make this happenis to help foster the things that seem to lead to compromise,to not talk about this in those vague and scary termsthat do polarize us,but to just talk about it like what it is,not an existential crisis,not some battle between two fundamentally different religious views,but a math problem, a really solvable math problem,one where we're not all going to get what we wantand one where, you know, there's going to be a little pain to spread around.But the more we address it as a practical concern,the sooner we can resolve it,and the more time we have to resolve it, paradoxically.Thank you. (Applause)
Saturday, January 5, 2013
INTAFF-Two U.S. Policymakers Take on U.S.-China Policy
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Two U.S. Policymakers Take on U.S.-China Policy
by Elizabeth C. Economy
January 4, 2013
U.S. Secretary of Navy Ray Mabus inspects a guard of honour during a welcoming ceremony at the Chinese PLA Navy Headquarters in Beijing on November 27, 2012
(Jason Lee/Reuters)
One of the most enjoyable aspects of Dan Blumenthal and Phillip Swagel’s new book on U.S.-China relations, An Awkward Embrace, is its lack of nuance. The authors—both of whom have served in the U.S. government and now share an affiliation with the American Enterprise Institute—clearly define U.S. interests with regard to China and address directly the opportunities (great) and challenges (greater) that China presents to those interests. They are equally no-nonsense in their prescriptions for U.S. policy, which they see as necessarily proceeding on two separate economic and security tracks (given the relative greater opportunity for successful cooperation on the economic than on the security front). Most important, Blumenthal and Swagel accomplish what many analysts attempt and most fail—to provide a road-map for U.S. policymakers in managing the relationship with China.
Still, after finishing the book, I found myself with a number of additional questions for the authors. I reached out to Dan, and he graciously agreed to respond. What follows is our online exchange.
Liz: You argue that the United States has two key and enduring strategic objectives: preventing the “domination of Asia by a hostile power or coalition,” and “nurturing a prosperous, peaceful and free Asia.” What are the two or three most important steps the United States should take to achieve these goals?
Dan: First, the United States should do what it can to ensure the strength of its allies and the durability of its alliances. Second, the United States should continue to engage in intense diplomacy with China, particularly on clear mutual interests such as structural reform of both economies.
Liz: What does it mean for China to become a “responsible stakeholder?” How well is it doing? How, if at all, should we be accommodating Chinese interests in emerging international regimes, such as cybersecurity?
Dan: Then Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick defined what it means to be a responsible stakeholder very well in 2005. He defined it, though, in very American-terms, by outlining what it means to be a 21st century great power in a liberal order created by the West. The tough challenge for China is that great powers in the 21st century have been less respectful of sovereignty, intervening in the affairs of others for humanitarian reasons, or because of state failure that can lead to terror havens or proliferation problems. China seems to be more of a late 19th century or Cold War power—sovereignty is sacrosanct to them. But China is still deciding what kind of power it wants to be. The established powers have been very accommodating of China, pushing for its inclusion in most international institutions. But the fact is that China will not be included in every institution because at times its interests and values diverge from ours.
Liz: Are there issue areas where the United States and other countries need to become responsible stakeholders as well? Can we learn from China?
Dan: In terms of the great powers, America has concerns with how responsible or irresponsible Russia is. In terms of the grand strategic questions—in particular, how to exercise power in the 21st century—the United States is not all that concerned with the behavior of other great powers aside from China. The authoritarian nature of China’s system is what concerns us, as it increases the likelihood that China will be less respectful of international rules than would democracies.
We can learn from the Chinese people. The Chinese people are very entrepreneurial and have pulled themselves out of poverty to accomplish great things. There is much to learn from how the Chinese people achieved that.
Liz: You highlight three domestic issues that drive China’s behavior in the Asia Pacific: nationalism, regime insecurity, and a zero-sum view of international politics. What factors—internal or external—might lead to an evolution in Chinese thinking and behavior?
Dan: The three drivers of China’s competitive behavior—the book points to cooperative behavior as well—are nationalism, regime insecurity and a view of international politics as highly competitive. These domestic drivers are linked to one another. The Party is scared of its own people. It makes sense, then, that it is also suspicious of great powers such as the United States. For example, many Chinese leaders believe, no matter what we say, that we are trying to contain China’s rise. Nationalism is a useful shield against insecurity. When it wants to, the Party can co-opt much of the public by propagandizing that they are still victims of a rapacious and aggressive West led by the United States. Nationalism of this kind can serve as a great distraction from the manifold problems that Party should be insecure about. Finally, CCP politics is a high stakes game, with the losers often humiliated, or destroyed in some way. This brand of politics is externalized, at times, in China’s dealings with the world. The source China’s current views are inherent in the nature of its domestic political system. If the regime was bolstered by a firmer form of legitimacy than one based on its performance or righting of past wrongs, its perceptions of the world would change.
Liz: Do you think conflict between the United States and China is inevitable or is there important common ground yet to be found and exploited?
Dan: Nothing in international relations is pre-ordained. An opportunity for common ground is keep a watchful eye on the battles inside China for its soul—whether it is between private entrepreneurs and the state, or between brave reformists and the security forces. The U.S. has little influence over how that battle unfolds. But it can both keep its powder dry and seek opportunities to work with China, particularly during those times when the liberals and reformers gain the upper hand. We need intense and multidimensional diplomatic engagement with China. All great powers have an interest in persuading China that the world order is flexible enough to accommodate it should it play by the rules. But all powers will also prepare for other outcomes.
Liz: Many Chinese analysts are expressing their concern that the U.S. pivot or rebalancing is emboldening actors in the region, such as the Philippines, Vietnam, and Japan, to take provocative actions in territorial disputes. Is there any cause for such concern? What role should the United States play as these conflicts continue to develop?
Dan: I would put Japan in its own category—it is a very strong country with a very strong armed forces. It will stand up for itself. The more dangerous scenarios is what might ensue if Japan loses its confidence in the U.S. alliance. That could be very destabilizing. Japan is in a separate category for another reason: Chinese have been fed a steady diet of anti-Japanese education for quite a long time. In that sense, the Party has boxed itself in; it cannot ever be seen as backing down from Japan. The U.S. should show no split at all between itself and Japan, and it should encourage the Chinese to change its anti-Japan propaganda. If Japan feels secure in the alliance, it will be more constructive when it comes to disputes with China.
Vietnam also has a history of standing up for itself when it comes to China (and the United States), and it will continue to do so. The question for Washington is whether or not we want to influence that process. I think the answer is yes. We have a better chance to avoid conflict if our friends old and new do not feel that they are standing up to China by themselves.
The Philippines, frankly, is too weak to do any harm to China. We have an interest in the Philippines prospering as a democratic ally. We also have an interest in it being able to defend its own territory in accordance with hundreds of years of maritime international law.
All of these countries have experienced the horrors of war and imperialism. They want, as we do, an Asia that can grow and prosper without coercion and intimidation. Our job for the foreseeable future is to provide Asia with the breathing space to continue in that endeavor.
Source: www.blogs.cfr.org
Two U.S. Policymakers Take on U.S.-China Policy
by Elizabeth C. Economy
January 4, 2013
U.S. Secretary of Navy Ray Mabus inspects a guard of honour during a welcoming ceremony at the Chinese PLA Navy Headquarters in Beijing on November 27, 2012
(Jason Lee/Reuters)
One of the most enjoyable aspects of Dan Blumenthal and Phillip Swagel’s new book on U.S.-China relations, An Awkward Embrace, is its lack of nuance. The authors—both of whom have served in the U.S. government and now share an affiliation with the American Enterprise Institute—clearly define U.S. interests with regard to China and address directly the opportunities (great) and challenges (greater) that China presents to those interests. They are equally no-nonsense in their prescriptions for U.S. policy, which they see as necessarily proceeding on two separate economic and security tracks (given the relative greater opportunity for successful cooperation on the economic than on the security front). Most important, Blumenthal and Swagel accomplish what many analysts attempt and most fail—to provide a road-map for U.S. policymakers in managing the relationship with China.
Still, after finishing the book, I found myself with a number of additional questions for the authors. I reached out to Dan, and he graciously agreed to respond. What follows is our online exchange.
Liz: You argue that the United States has two key and enduring strategic objectives: preventing the “domination of Asia by a hostile power or coalition,” and “nurturing a prosperous, peaceful and free Asia.” What are the two or three most important steps the United States should take to achieve these goals?
Dan: First, the United States should do what it can to ensure the strength of its allies and the durability of its alliances. Second, the United States should continue to engage in intense diplomacy with China, particularly on clear mutual interests such as structural reform of both economies.
Liz: What does it mean for China to become a “responsible stakeholder?” How well is it doing? How, if at all, should we be accommodating Chinese interests in emerging international regimes, such as cybersecurity?
Dan: Then Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick defined what it means to be a responsible stakeholder very well in 2005. He defined it, though, in very American-terms, by outlining what it means to be a 21st century great power in a liberal order created by the West. The tough challenge for China is that great powers in the 21st century have been less respectful of sovereignty, intervening in the affairs of others for humanitarian reasons, or because of state failure that can lead to terror havens or proliferation problems. China seems to be more of a late 19th century or Cold War power—sovereignty is sacrosanct to them. But China is still deciding what kind of power it wants to be. The established powers have been very accommodating of China, pushing for its inclusion in most international institutions. But the fact is that China will not be included in every institution because at times its interests and values diverge from ours.
Liz: Are there issue areas where the United States and other countries need to become responsible stakeholders as well? Can we learn from China?
Dan: In terms of the great powers, America has concerns with how responsible or irresponsible Russia is. In terms of the grand strategic questions—in particular, how to exercise power in the 21st century—the United States is not all that concerned with the behavior of other great powers aside from China. The authoritarian nature of China’s system is what concerns us, as it increases the likelihood that China will be less respectful of international rules than would democracies.
We can learn from the Chinese people. The Chinese people are very entrepreneurial and have pulled themselves out of poverty to accomplish great things. There is much to learn from how the Chinese people achieved that.
Liz: You highlight three domestic issues that drive China’s behavior in the Asia Pacific: nationalism, regime insecurity, and a zero-sum view of international politics. What factors—internal or external—might lead to an evolution in Chinese thinking and behavior?
Dan: The three drivers of China’s competitive behavior—the book points to cooperative behavior as well—are nationalism, regime insecurity and a view of international politics as highly competitive. These domestic drivers are linked to one another. The Party is scared of its own people. It makes sense, then, that it is also suspicious of great powers such as the United States. For example, many Chinese leaders believe, no matter what we say, that we are trying to contain China’s rise. Nationalism is a useful shield against insecurity. When it wants to, the Party can co-opt much of the public by propagandizing that they are still victims of a rapacious and aggressive West led by the United States. Nationalism of this kind can serve as a great distraction from the manifold problems that Party should be insecure about. Finally, CCP politics is a high stakes game, with the losers often humiliated, or destroyed in some way. This brand of politics is externalized, at times, in China’s dealings with the world. The source China’s current views are inherent in the nature of its domestic political system. If the regime was bolstered by a firmer form of legitimacy than one based on its performance or righting of past wrongs, its perceptions of the world would change.
Liz: Do you think conflict between the United States and China is inevitable or is there important common ground yet to be found and exploited?
Dan: Nothing in international relations is pre-ordained. An opportunity for common ground is keep a watchful eye on the battles inside China for its soul—whether it is between private entrepreneurs and the state, or between brave reformists and the security forces. The U.S. has little influence over how that battle unfolds. But it can both keep its powder dry and seek opportunities to work with China, particularly during those times when the liberals and reformers gain the upper hand. We need intense and multidimensional diplomatic engagement with China. All great powers have an interest in persuading China that the world order is flexible enough to accommodate it should it play by the rules. But all powers will also prepare for other outcomes.
Liz: Many Chinese analysts are expressing their concern that the U.S. pivot or rebalancing is emboldening actors in the region, such as the Philippines, Vietnam, and Japan, to take provocative actions in territorial disputes. Is there any cause for such concern? What role should the United States play as these conflicts continue to develop?
Dan: I would put Japan in its own category—it is a very strong country with a very strong armed forces. It will stand up for itself. The more dangerous scenarios is what might ensue if Japan loses its confidence in the U.S. alliance. That could be very destabilizing. Japan is in a separate category for another reason: Chinese have been fed a steady diet of anti-Japanese education for quite a long time. In that sense, the Party has boxed itself in; it cannot ever be seen as backing down from Japan. The U.S. should show no split at all between itself and Japan, and it should encourage the Chinese to change its anti-Japan propaganda. If Japan feels secure in the alliance, it will be more constructive when it comes to disputes with China.
Vietnam also has a history of standing up for itself when it comes to China (and the United States), and it will continue to do so. The question for Washington is whether or not we want to influence that process. I think the answer is yes. We have a better chance to avoid conflict if our friends old and new do not feel that they are standing up to China by themselves.
The Philippines, frankly, is too weak to do any harm to China. We have an interest in the Philippines prospering as a democratic ally. We also have an interest in it being able to defend its own territory in accordance with hundreds of years of maritime international law.
All of these countries have experienced the horrors of war and imperialism. They want, as we do, an Asia that can grow and prosper without coercion and intimidation. Our job for the foreseeable future is to provide Asia with the breathing space to continue in that endeavor.
Source: www.blogs.cfr.org
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
The world’s most powerful people
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
The world’s most powerful people
By Ian BremmerWednesday, January 2, 2013
By Ian Bremmer
A few days ago, I took a quick, informal survey around Eurasia Group on power and global politics. The question: Who are the world's most powerful people? We're defining power as "a measure of an individual's ability to (singlehandedly) bring about change that significantly affects the lives and fortunes of large numbers of people."
Here's what we came up with:
1. Nobody -- In a G-Zero world, everyone is waiting for someone else to shoulder responsibility for the world's toughest and most dangerous challenges. The leaders you'll see named further down this list are preoccupied with local and regional problems and don't have the interest and leverage needed to take on a growing list of transnational problems.
2. Vladimir Putin -- In Russia's personalized system, this is still the person who counts. He isn't as popular as he used to be, and his country has no Soviet-scale clout or influence, but no one on the planet has consolidated more domestic and regional power than Putin.
3. Ben Bernanke -- The world's largest economy is still struggling to find its footing. To help, no one has more levers to pull and buttons to push. The world needs the U.S. economy back on its feet, and Bernanke has more direct influence than anyone else on when and how that happens.
4. Angela Merkel -- For the moment, her commitments are the glue that binds Europe. Merkel's ability to bankroll Europe's emergency funds, win concessions from the governments of cash-strapped peripherals, and maintain solid popularity at home continues to be a remarkable political and policy achievement.
5. Barack Obama -- Even at a time when Washington is focused almost entirely on Washington, the elected leader of the world's most powerful and influential country carries a lot of water. The Obama administration will watch the eurozone from the sidelines and keep commitments in the Middle East to a minimum, but America will continue to broaden and deepen security and commercial relationships in East Asia, and Obama's decisions on how far and how fast to move will be crucial.
6. Mario Draghi -- Europe's backstop. Europe's Central Bank has kept the continent's blood flowing at a crucial moment in its history, and his work is far from done.
7. Xi Jinping -- China's forward progress is the world's most important variable, and Xi Jinping is now the man behind the wheel. Over the next decade, economic and political reforms will be needed to keep China on track, and Xi will make some difficult (and profoundly important) decisions.
8 (tie). Ayatollah Khamenei -- The supreme spiritual and political authority in a country at the heart of a volatile region. Halfway through 2013, Ahmadinejad will give way to a new president, but it is still Khamenei who will decide how the international fight over Iran's nuclear program plays out -- and what the future holds for the Islamic Republic.
8 (tie). Christine Lagarde -- The world's fire marshal. Here is that rare leader whose contribution will be crucial in multiple regions at once. But nowhere will the IMF's work be more important than in keeping Europe on track.
10. King Abdullah Bin Abd al-Aziz -- King of a kingdom with a unique power to move markets. The Saudi monarch is not in the best of health, but the choices he makes in determining who lead the world's hydrocarbon powerhouse into the next generation will help shape the entire global economy for many years to come.
What do you think?
Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group.
Source: www.blog.foreignpolicy.com
The world’s most powerful people
By Ian BremmerWednesday, January 2, 2013
By Ian Bremmer
A few days ago, I took a quick, informal survey around Eurasia Group on power and global politics. The question: Who are the world's most powerful people? We're defining power as "a measure of an individual's ability to (singlehandedly) bring about change that significantly affects the lives and fortunes of large numbers of people."
Here's what we came up with:
1. Nobody -- In a G-Zero world, everyone is waiting for someone else to shoulder responsibility for the world's toughest and most dangerous challenges. The leaders you'll see named further down this list are preoccupied with local and regional problems and don't have the interest and leverage needed to take on a growing list of transnational problems.
2. Vladimir Putin -- In Russia's personalized system, this is still the person who counts. He isn't as popular as he used to be, and his country has no Soviet-scale clout or influence, but no one on the planet has consolidated more domestic and regional power than Putin.
3. Ben Bernanke -- The world's largest economy is still struggling to find its footing. To help, no one has more levers to pull and buttons to push. The world needs the U.S. economy back on its feet, and Bernanke has more direct influence than anyone else on when and how that happens.
4. Angela Merkel -- For the moment, her commitments are the glue that binds Europe. Merkel's ability to bankroll Europe's emergency funds, win concessions from the governments of cash-strapped peripherals, and maintain solid popularity at home continues to be a remarkable political and policy achievement.
5. Barack Obama -- Even at a time when Washington is focused almost entirely on Washington, the elected leader of the world's most powerful and influential country carries a lot of water. The Obama administration will watch the eurozone from the sidelines and keep commitments in the Middle East to a minimum, but America will continue to broaden and deepen security and commercial relationships in East Asia, and Obama's decisions on how far and how fast to move will be crucial.
6. Mario Draghi -- Europe's backstop. Europe's Central Bank has kept the continent's blood flowing at a crucial moment in its history, and his work is far from done.
7. Xi Jinping -- China's forward progress is the world's most important variable, and Xi Jinping is now the man behind the wheel. Over the next decade, economic and political reforms will be needed to keep China on track, and Xi will make some difficult (and profoundly important) decisions.
8 (tie). Ayatollah Khamenei -- The supreme spiritual and political authority in a country at the heart of a volatile region. Halfway through 2013, Ahmadinejad will give way to a new president, but it is still Khamenei who will decide how the international fight over Iran's nuclear program plays out -- and what the future holds for the Islamic Republic.
8 (tie). Christine Lagarde -- The world's fire marshal. Here is that rare leader whose contribution will be crucial in multiple regions at once. But nowhere will the IMF's work be more important than in keeping Europe on track.
10. King Abdullah Bin Abd al-Aziz -- King of a kingdom with a unique power to move markets. The Saudi monarch is not in the best of health, but the choices he makes in determining who lead the world's hydrocarbon powerhouse into the next generation will help shape the entire global economy for many years to come.
What do you think?
Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group.
Source: www.blog.foreignpolicy.com
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