An Interview With Paul Krugman: Inspiration For A Liberal Economist

Business Insider: An Interview With Paul Krugman: Inspiration For A Liberal Economist

part of its weekly series on American progressivism, The Browser interviewed Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman. The following is an excerpt of the interview, in which he discusses five books he recommends and why he counts himself as a liberal.

The Browser: I wanted to start by saying how pleased I am you call yourself a liberal, because there are a lot of people—politicians—who are reluctant to be associated with the word.

Paul Krugman: As I see it, there has been a lot of effective propaganda. As a result, a lot of people adopted the term “progressive” as a somehow less charged way of saying the same thing, which I don’t think works. I consider myself both—liberal and progressive. It’s not too different from what would be called a social democrat in Europe—you believe in a decent-sized welfare state, you believe that we are our brothers’ keepers. Of course I’m not a politician, so I can afford to label myself in a way that might lose some votes…

The first book you’ve chosen isn’t about economics at all; it’s a work of science-fiction, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. But was it part of what inspired you to become an economist?

Yes. This is a very unusual set of novels from Isaac Asimov, but a classic. It’s not about gadgets. Although it’s supposed to be about a galactic civilization, the technology is virtually invisible and it’s not about space battles or anything like that.

The story is about these people, psychohistorians, who are mathematical social scientists and have a theory about how society works. The theory tells them that the galactic empire is failing, and they then use that knowledge to save civilisation. It’s a great image. I was probably 16 when I read it and I thought, “I want to be one of those guys!” Unfortunately we don’t have anything like that and economics is the closest I could get.

I do get a sense from your columns in The New York Times that you are on a mission…

Obviously I try to do straight economics and I do it as well as I can. But this is for a purpose. That purpose is not to find better ways of making money—although I have no problem with people doing that. The purpose is actually to make a better world. So yes, I do feel that I am trying to do something that goes beyond just the analysis.

When I read your book, The Conscience of a Liberal, I came to realise that that purpose is to save the middle-class America you grew up in. Do you feel it’s under threat?

It’s not under threat—it’s actually largely, but not completely, gone. We’re trying to recapture it. We really have had a tremendous polarisation [in wealth]. People notice it every once in a while, and it comes as a huge revelation to them. So for example, in last week’s New York Times, Nicholas Kristof had a column about how maybe we’re turning into Pakistan. It’s clear that we are not at all the relatively equal middle-class society we were, and we’re getting less so. That’s something you want to try to turn around.

Your second book is An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by the 18th-century British philosopher David Hume. You read this in college and it really changed your life.

Yes. I was at that stage, a college sophomore or thereabouts, when you’re searching around, looking for belief systems. I think it’s actually a point when you’re quite vulnerable, because you are looking for someone who is going to offer you all the answers.

Some people turn to religious orthodoxy, other people turn to Ayn Rand. One of my favorite lines—and I haven’t been able to find out who came up with it—is that “There’s an age when boys read one of two books. Either they read Ayn Rand or they read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. One of these books leaves you with no grasp on reality and a deeply warped sense of fantasy in place of real life. The other one is about hobbits and orcs.”

Then I read Hume’s Enquiry, this wonderful, humane book saying that nobody has all the answers. What we know is what we have evidence for. We do the best we can, but anybody who claims to be able to deduce or have revelation about The Truth—with both Ts capitalized—is wrong. It doesn’t work that way. The only reasonable way to approach life is with an attitude of humane scepticism. I felt that a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders when I read that book.”

Read the full interview at The Browser.

Theodore Sturgeon's archive to live long and prosper in university archive

Guardian Co UK: Theodore Sturgeon's archive to live long and prosper in university archive
The University of Kansas will be hoping Theodore Sturgeon's famous maxim that "90 per cent of everything is crap" does not apply to his own work after the papers of the legendary science fiction author were donated to its library.

Sturgeon, winner of practically every science fiction prize going, was the author of more than 200 short stories and novels and a key figure of the "golden age" of science fiction. Described as "a master storyteller" by Kurt Vonnegut and an inspiration for authors including Stephen King and Ray Bradbury, he also wrote two Star Trek episodes and – together with Leonard Nimoy – is credited with inventing the Vulcan phrase "live long and prosper".

The collection donated to the University of Kansas by his family is valued at $600,000 (£375,000), and includes the original manuscript of his most famous novel More Than Human, his notes for a Star Trek episode and his correspondence with fellow authors, from Isaac Asimov to Robert Heinlein and Harlan Ellison, in which Sturgeon shared story ideas and drafts with his contemporaries.

The author's daughter Noël Sturgeon said she chose the University of Kansas because of the work of the institution's professor emeritus James Gunn, a science fiction author who created the university's Intensive English Institute on the Teaching of Science Fiction in 1975 and the Centre for the Study of Science Fiction in 1982. "Jim's long dedication to the teaching and scholarship of science fiction, and his particular interest in and support of my father's work, was the main impetus behind our choice of the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas as the home for Sturgeon's collection of papers," she said.

The library's head Beth Whittaker called the donation an "extraordinary gift" and said it would ensure "that Sturgeon's profound literary and cultural legacy will be available to new generations of scholars, writers and readers". Sturgeon died in 1985.



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Book Review: The Astounding, The Amazing, and The Unknown

Geeks of Doom: Book Review: The Astounding, The Amazing, and The Unknown
The Astounding, The Amazing, And The Unknown is a vibrant, highly suspenseful race to solve a Nikola Tesla mystery, defeat the Nazis, and help end World War II. In a desperate attempt to make that happen, the U.S. Navy forms a team of some of the best and brightest imaginations from the world of popular science fiction pulp magazines of their time. The team includes Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Walter Gibson (of The Shadow fame), and a pre-Scientology L. Ron Hubbard, all of whom were regular contributors to the pulps named in the title of this book.

Using equal parts imagination and scientific research, the team attempts to accomplish their government-mandated goal of thwarting the enemy by creating death rays and invisibility cloaks for naval ships. In the midst of their research, the group stumbles upon an unconfirmed experiment of Tesla’s that may have either led to free electricity across America or a super-bomb capable of completely obliterating a whole country half a world away, as well as an old rivalry between two scientists that may have led to murder. It’s up to the team to sort out the mystery and complete Tesla’s experiment before the military shuts down the project altogether or someone else shuts them up permanently.

Told as a story within a story by one of the members of two groups of scientists and writers comprised of fictionalized versions of well-known figures, including Albert Einstein, The Astounding, The Amazing, and The Unknown is an exciting tale weaved around historical events during World War II. The blending of fact and fiction and real people as characters was a little confusing to me at first, as I’m new to this mash-up style. The beginning of the story seemed to be a red herring, as the setup in the opening pages didn’t lead where I thought it would. By the time we return to those fully fleshed-out characters some 400 pages later, I had to go back and reread the beginning to figure out who was who, what the setup for the story was, and which character was telling it.

Putting all that aside, author Paul Malmont has written an energetic adventure with just enough science to feed my inner geek without reminding me what a poor science student I was in high school. The characters are so richly drawn, I’d completely forgotten to care who among them were once living, breathing people.

The Astounding, The Amazing, and The Unknown is the follow-up to Malmont’s debut novel, The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril, by all accounts another

Our nation has a proud heritage for mankind

Whenever the Star Spangled Banner is sung - only one stanzas are sung - it has four.

In the piece referenced by author Schley below, Isaac Asimov wrote an essay, published in March 1991, which has all four stanzas and explains the meaning of each.

Of course today the last stanza isn't too popular as it refers to God (and yes, Asimov was an atheist and he didn't have a problem with it) and to...manifest destiny, I suppose - but remember that it's original meaning, the original cause they were fighting for, was the 1815 war against England.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation,
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n - rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto--"In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

www.ocala.com: Our nation has a proud heritage for mankind

by Emory Schley
Monday, we celebrate our nation’s founding 235 years ago. A lot of history has been made since then: the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Spanish-American War, two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, multiple conflicts in the Middle East, the invention of aviation, telephones, the telegraph, movies, electric light bulbs, television, nuclear power, trips to the moon and back, satellites that have revolutionized our lives, masers and lasers, space shuttles and more medical discoveries per decade than there are dollars in your wallet.

Through it all, Americans have been a proud people, comprised mainly of the castoffs of other nations around the world. So much history in such a short span of time makes the mind numb with disbelief when you start thinking about the impact the United States has had on the rest of the world.

And the proudest accomplishment of all is a Constitution that guarantees freedom for all, a condition far more appreciated by immigrants than natural-born citizens, unfortunately.

One of those immigrants, the late Dr. Isaac Asimov, in an attempt to get Americans to more fully appreciate their history, penned one of the most moving pieces I’ve ever read. It’s available at many sites on the Internet, but here’s just one where you can find it: http://www.purewatergazette.net/asimov.htm

I liked it so much, I’ve downloaded it to my computer and read it from time to time, just so I don’t forget ... Call it up and read it for yourself before Monday rolls around; you’ll be glad you did. I can think of no more appropriate piece for the upcoming holiday!

PROUD HERITAGE: Florida Highlands’ Al Simpkins wrote: “I had the honor of being chosen to go on the Honor Flight last September. I watched this video and came to this conclusion: Our younger generations do not know, and probably do not care, and are too busy on cellphones and iPads. etc. to CARE what is the reason for their being here now to ENJOY all this FREEDOM!

“They don’t get it in school!

“Maybe before I join the thousand WW2, Korean and Vietnam vets leaving us every day, some pride and remembrance and positive actions will come from this type of video if they see it. Enjoy and pass it on. Especially to them. There may be hope yet!”

You can see the video at video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2487638612433437293&q=Veterans#

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Asimov in the News: Atheists say the nastiest things

Below is an opinion piece which chooses to take a statement of Asimov's out of context:

Isaac Asimov expresses his disgust for “these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly… (Isaac Asimov, Prolific Science Fiction Author)

Asimov is not talking about Christians per se, he is talking about the Creationists who wanted the theory of evolution taken out of schools in Kansas, or who insisted that Creationism be taught right alongside as a science itself.

(As for "atheists say the nastiest things, having some religious type go up to a gay individual and tell them that they are an abomination in the sight of God, surely that's pretty nasty...)

East Texas Review, Opinion Piece: Atheists say the nastiest things

By Gary Hardaway

I’ve just written an e-book with the above title, taking some atheists to task for their really bad manners. Almost all of those cited are intellectuals, most dead – like Darwin, Marx, Freud, and John Dewey – but a few still alive, like Christopher Hitchens, author of the nasty attack on believers: god Is Not Great; How Religion Poisons Everything.

Some of my friends have sent encouraging blessings, but not all. One good friend wondered why I would alienate atheists instead of showing love and kindness. It’s a good question, one that I constantly wrestled with as I wrote.

The Bible has a lot to say about the gentler approach. “A soft answer turns away wrath.” “The Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.” “Let your conversation be always with grace . . .” If we are insulted or threatened, we are instructed not to insult or threaten back. We are to lay aside malice and bitterness and rancor.

So, is it wrong to frankly and directly confront insults and ridicule?

We know that Jesus certainly excoriated certain enemies, calling them “hypocrites,” “blind fools,” “sons of hell,” “snakes,” “vipers,” and, in advance of his own death, murderers. As I wrote, I tried hard to avoid this style of condemnation, because, unlike Jesus, I’m not qualified to hurl these accusations at anyone.

The apostle Paul, very disgusted with a certain group of unsavory people, wrote his friend Titus that these folks were “always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.” He told Titus to “rebuke them sharply.”

My motivation springs from another passage Paul wrote to the Corinthians. “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” A few points to notice.

• We demolish arguments, but we don’t assault people. We explain and discuss, treating people with respect.

• We expose pretensions. This means unmasking phony-balony talk that distorts or ridicules or sneers at God’s character.

• We don’t take ridicule or mocking personally. Our self-esteem is not the issue. We’ve got more important business: to explain and discuss the reasons for our faith.
Some atheist intellectuals are awfully arrogant and produce a lot of nonsense. They scoff and mock; they rave and rage against God or his believers. Freud belittles religious believers as psychological infants. A professor I once encountered alleged that Christians are brainwashed robots. It’s quite common to see the devout labeled irrational, stupid, or ignorant.

Consider a couple of examples:
As for the Christian theology, can you imagine anything more appallingly idiotic than the Christian idea of heaven? What kind of deity… would be capable of creating angels and men to sing his praises day and night to all eternity? [What] inane and barbaric vanity. (Alfred North Whitehead, British Mathematician/Philosopher)

Isaac Asimov expresses his disgust for “these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly… (Isaac Asimov, Prolific Science Fiction Author)

Unfortunately, ideas and attitudes like this powerfully impact the general culture, including educators and our educational institutions. To fail to respond is to surrender the field without a whimper. These pretensions against God deserve animated rejection.

If we run into someone who repeats this blather, we have to decide on our next move. At times simply walking away is the better option. Or we may point out that it’s impossible to converse with somebody heaping abuse on us.

That being so, it’s appropriate to ask, “Why are you so angry? Why so disrespectful? If we’re going to continue this conversation you’ll have to stop trash talking. Then we can have some good dialogue.”

We can speak gently, yet firmly; respectfully, yet confrontationally when necessary. We don’t have to accept abuse without a murmur.

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Remembering Martin H. Greenberg, the Green Bay Packager

JSOnline (Milwaukee): Remembering Martin H. Greenberg, the Green Bay Packager

Martin H. Greenberg edited and organized so many collections and anthologies of science fiction, fantasy, mystery and other writing, he was sometimes called the Green Bay Packager.

Greenberg, a retired University of Wisconsin-Green Bay professor, died June 25 at age 70. While still teaching at the university, he began a sideline of editing anthologies and packaging books, working with some of the biggest names in popular fiction, including Isaac Asimov, Tom Clancy, Stephen King and Sue Grafton.

"He helped publish more than 2,500 books, including novels, anthologies, and nonfiction works," according to a statement in the obituary that his family published in the Green Bay Press Gazette.

In a 2001 article, the Journal Sentinel's Dave Tianen described the range of Greenberg's many entertaining fiction collections:

"The books Greenberg has published cover an enormous range of topics and interests. A sampling of titles includes 'Alien Pregnant By Elvis,' 'Election Day 2084: Science Fiction Stories About the Future of Politics,' 'Single White Vampire Seeks Same,' 'Weird Tales from Shakespeare' and 'Sherlock Holmes in Orbit'."

As anthologist and book packager, Greenberg might conceive the concept for a collection, seek stories that fit the concept, negotiate the necessary permissions with the authors and other rights holders, and see the book through to publication. He often worked with co-editors, some of whom were big-name writers in their fields. According to a Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America post, Greenberg and Asimov edited more than 120 anthologies together.

In his academic career, Greenberg was a political scientist with a specialty in terrorism and national security.

Surprisingly, for a guy who was involved in so many books it would take a supercomputer to compile his bibliography, Greenberg told Tianen he worried about coming up dry:

"I was always scared I'd run out of ideas. A lot of it is simply reading the news, trying to stay a little bit attuned to pop culture. My youngest daughter, Madeline (14 in 2001), tries to make her old father hip. She's a reader and she loves science fiction conventions."

"The most remarkable thing about Marty," writer and frequent collaborator Mike Resnick posted on Facebook, "is that he sold over 2,000 anthologies and packed some 700 novels without making a single enemy along the way."


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Asimov in the news: Beam it down, Scotty

The Economist: Beam it down, Scotty
THE idea of collecting solar energy in space and beaming it to Earth has been around for at least 70 years. In “Reason”, a short story by Isaac Asimov that was published in 1941, a space station transmits energy collected from the sun to various planets using microwave beams.

The advantage of intercepting sunlight in space, instead of letting it find its own way through the atmosphere, is that so much gets absorbed by the air. By converting it to the right frequency first (one of the so-called windows in the atmosphere, in which little energy is absorbed) a space-based collector could, enthusiasts claim, yield on average five times as much power as one located on the ground.

The disadvantage is cost. Launching and maintaining suitable satellites would be ludicrously expensive. But perhaps not, if the satellites were small and the customers specialised. Military expeditions, rescuers in disaster zones, remote desalination plants and scientific-research bases might be willing to pay for such power from the sky. And a research group based at the University of Surrey, in England, hopes that in a few years it will be possible to offer it to them.

This summer, Stephen Sweeney and his colleagues will test a laser that would do the job which Asimov assigned to microwaves. Certainly, microwaves would work: a test carried out in 2008 transmitted useful amounts of microwave energy between two Hawaiian islands 148km (92 miles) apart, so penetrating the 100km of the atmosphere would be a doddle. But microwaves spread out as they propagate. A collector on Earth that was picking up power from a geostationary satellite orbiting at an altitude of 35,800km would need to be spread over hundreds of square metres. Using a laser means the collector need be only tens of square metres in area.

Dr Sweeney’s team, working in collaboration with Astrium, a satellite-and-space company that is part of EADS, a European aerospace group, will test the system in a large aircraft hangar in Germany. The beam itself will be produced by a device called a fibre laser. This generates the coherent light of a laser beam in the core of a long, thin optical fibre. That means the beam produced is of higher quality than other lasers, is extremely straight (even by the exacting standards of a normal laser beam) and can thus be focused onto a small area. Another bonus is that such lasers are becoming more efficient and ever more powerful.

In the case of Dr Sweeney’s fibre laser, the beam will have a wavelength of 1.5 microns, making it part of the infra-red spectrum. This wavelength corresponds to one of the best windows in the atmosphere. The beam will be aimed at a collector on the other side of the hangar, rather than several kilometres away. The idea is to test the effects on the atmospheric window of various pollutants, and also of water vapour, by releasing them into the building.

Assuming all goes well, the next step will be to test the system in space. That could happen about five years from now, perhaps using a laser on the International Space Station to transmit solar power collected by its panels to Earth. Such an experimental system would deliver but a kilowatt of power, as a test. In 10-15 years Astrium hopes it will be possible to deploy a complete, small-scale orbiting power station producing significantly more than that from its own solar cells.

Other researchers, in America and Japan, are also looking at using lasers rather than microwaves to transmit power through the atmosphere. NASA, America’s space agency, has started using them to beam energy to remotely controlled drones. Each stage of converting and transmitting power results in a loss of efficiency, but with technological improvements these losses are being reduced. Some of the latest solar cells, for instance, can covert sunlight into electricity with an efficiency of more than 40%. In the 1980s, 20% was thought good.

Whether the Astrium system will remain a specialised novelty or will be the forerunner of something more like the cosmic power stations of Asimov’s imagination is anybody’s guess. But if it comes to pass at all, it will be an intriguing example, like the geostationary communications satellites dreamed up by Asimov’s contemporary, Arthur C. Clarke, of the musings of a science-fiction author becoming science fact.


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