Good evening.
The US Federal Reserve lowered its benchmark interest rate and the market went down anyways. Rate cuts won’t fix public confidence or the real problems in the economy. What markets really need is for Trump to take coronavirus more seriously.Quartz
10-year US Treasury bond yields fell below 1% for the first time ever. The Fed’s emergency rate cut seemed to accelerate an investor flight to safety that causes bond prices to climb and yields to fall to historic lows. This is what it looks like when Wall Street’s fear outpaces its greed.CNN
A costly technology outage
Americans cast some ballots
Need to Know: Coronavirus
Chinese citizens are racing against censors to preserve coronavirus memories. One example is a project on Github that collects personal narratives and Chinese news reports about the disease, to keep the content alive beyond the Great Firewall.Quartz
On the docket at the US Supreme Court
The hottest seat in Washington this week is at the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, the court will hear a highly anticipated case about a Louisiana abortion law that will test conservative justices' commitment to precedent.Quartz
A signature Obama-era financial achievement is under threat. US president Donald Trump's most recent appointment to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, does not approve of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau —and now he can do something about it.Quartz
Today the US Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in a case about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The agency designed to protect Americans from predatory lenders is in need of help. And it's not likely to get it from Brett Kavanaugh.
I'm heading out to the hearing now and eager to see
Today the US Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in a case about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The agency designed to protect Americans from predatory lenders is in need of help. And it's not likely to get it from Brett Kavanaugh.
I'm heading out to the hearing now and eager to see how the former DC Circuit Court judge who already opined on a similar matter handles the issues as a high court justice today.
The 2020 Pritzker Architecture Prize
Beyond student debt
How can the world become better educated without so much student debt? Given the growing reliance on student loans and dwindling vocational schooling options, millions of people are trapped in debt with sub-standard training and limited prospects. Quartz's latest field guide explores student debt and its alternatives. ✦Quartz
Coren does a great job describing the landscape of change that higher education is going through. I'm particularly concerned that universities are often not adjusting to the fact that content is no longer the differentiator among educational institutions. Content is ubiquitous.
No matter whether the
Coren does a great job describing the landscape of change that higher education is going through. I'm particularly concerned that universities are often not adjusting to the fact that content is no longer the differentiator among educational institutions. Content is ubiquitous.
No matter whether the institution is online, or is a coding boot camp, or an Amazon campus, it's incumbent upon the instructors to give students the transferable skills for the information age.
Today, people need to know how to discriminate among sources of content, to judge possible bias, to consume and summarize and share information, to work collaboratively in teams, to ask the right questions, to problem-solve. Passively listening to lectures and memorizing in the short-term for exams are not skills that serve anyone.
Few classrooms actively and quantifiably teach team problem-solving skills, or the nuances of giving and receiving feedback that improve the product. These metacognitive and "metabehavioral" skills are the ones that will differentiate the employee, who generally has to learn much of the content on the job in any case.
And these skills can be assessed, and students and instructors can be evaluated on our success in achieving progress. (We're working on these assessments and teaching skills Arizona State University, where I am on faculty, and at Beagle Learning, where I am a co-founder.)
Let's prepare our students for those many jobs they will be in that don't even exist today. That kind of preparation requires a level of recognition of the world we are in that often does not exist in university faculty. So in the end, perhaps that is the question: how can we drive change in higher education? Does it require extinction of a class of colleges and universities, or can we better serve our society?
It's remarkable that industries and universities have finally started to acknowledge the change required in education.
The change that lots of online entrepreneurs have been promoting for years — Gary Vaynerchuck, Russell Brunson, Grant Cardone, T. Harv Eker, Tai Lopez, not to mention lots of others
It's remarkable that industries and universities have finally started to acknowledge the change required in education.
The change that lots of online entrepreneurs have been promoting for years — Gary Vaynerchuck, Russell Brunson, Grant Cardone, T. Harv Eker, Tai Lopez, not to mention lots of others — all of them have been talking about the lifelong learning and selling online courses (except for Gary, I believe).
I think we will soon see corporations offering online courses and bootcamps — both to create additional revenue streams and invest into potential future employees 🤔 Just like Facebook already does, as mentioned in this great article.
Higher ed has moved off-campus. From coding bootcamps in San Francisco to workshops in Amazon warehouses, non-traditional classrooms seem to offer a fast track to better employment. But, “the promise and peril for students are great,” writes Quartz reporter Michael J. Coren. This week’s field guide for members explains why. ✦Quartz
The race to zero emissions
Hydrogen is so hot right now. A new plant in the Netherlands will turn wind power into renewable hydrogen (RH2), cutting seven megatons of CO2 annually. Elsewhere, renewed interest propelled stocks in the hydrogen economy after decades of disappointing results.Quartz
Electric vehicles have been endorsed by a group of climate scientists. The Union of Concerned Scientists found that journeys with companies like Uber and Lyft “result in an estimated 69% more climate pollution on average than the trips they displace.”Quartz
The global problem of sexual abuse
Psychedelic therapy has a sexual abuse problem. MDMA is about to be legalized as a medical drug, but the practise is risky for patients who are high and vulnerable. The treatment doesn’t have the same protections in place as mainstream therapy.Quartz
This investigation exposes psychedelic therapy's major problem with sexual abuse. This has been an issue for decades - back when MDMA was legal in the '80s, several therapists were sued and faced allegations. Now that MDMA therapy is in advanced clinical trials, a therapist in one of those trials had
This investigation exposes psychedelic therapy's major problem with sexual abuse. This has been an issue for decades - back when MDMA was legal in the '80s, several therapists were sued and faced allegations. Now that MDMA therapy is in advanced clinical trials, a therapist in one of those trials had a sexual relationship with a PTSD patient. He didn't have a license to practice at the time. But women in the field say their experiences and concerns are routinely dismissed, and the organization behind the clinical trials wants some therapists to be able to practice without a license. MDMA therapy looks set to be legalized very soon, but patients are all too vulnerable to these risks.
As if Alcohol hasn’t contributed to sexual abuse if not much worse. It’s time to legalize psychotropic drugs.
The business of selling financial advice
Beyond China’s “re-education” camps
Mounting instability in Ethiopia
What’s Modi up to?
India’s most tech-savvy prime minister hints at quitting social media... Narendra Modi tweeted that he was “thinking of giving up” his Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube accounts. Indian media went into a tizzy with speculation on what the announcement could mean.Quartz
...and he'd be giving up quite a lot. Modi is not only on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. He also has a presence on Stumbleupon, Weibo, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Flickr, and vernacular-language social network ShareChat.Quartz India
This is very hard to believe.
In a country that is home to the world's second-largest internet userbase, a politician who is not on social media can become pretty irrelevant. Apps like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are strong tools in the hands of influential people, especially, someone like Modi
This is very hard to believe.
In a country that is home to the world's second-largest internet userbase, a politician who is not on social media can become pretty irrelevant. Apps like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are strong tools in the hands of influential people, especially, someone like Modi who does not interact with the media frequently or freely.
Is it all just a gimmick? For a leader who refuses to hold press conferences and mainly engages with his electorate through social media, it would be rather counterintuitive to go offline for good. Set in the backdrop of the recent Delhi riots, this move would perhaps only further Modi’s image as an aloof leader.Quartz
We’re obsessed with ghost ships
Ghost ships are modern miracles, curious rebels, and the stuff of romantic imagining. Beyond folklore like the Flying Dutchman, real, massive, unmanned vessels remind us that the oceans are wilder and larger than we can fathom. Appearing suddenly on the high seas, stuck in some kind of undead state, they often warn against the dangers of greed, rivalry, or ego—and they could be relegated to history soon.Quartz
Anchors up!
The latest climate commitment from an oil company calls for more drilling
QuartzThere’s already more than 65 songs with “coronavirus” in the title on Spotify
QuartzArchitecture’s most prestigious prize has been awarded to two women
Quartz at WorkThe market doesn’t need a rate cut—it needs Trump to take coronavirus more seriously
QuartzICE wants to use facial recognition to track people threatening its agents online
QuartzRobinhood joins the list of spectacular financial technology failures
QuartzRunners overwhelmingly chose Nike’s Vaporfly shoes in the Olympic marathon trials
QuartzNeil Gorsuch is gunning for most irreverent Supreme Court justice
QuartzA vote on gerrymandering in Virginia could be more important than its Democratic primary
QuartzEthiopia is adding four more official languages to Amharic as political instability mounts
Quartz Africa