The End Of a Zero Sum World

Jack Dikian

January 2012

When I was reading basic economics at school many years ago, trying to cram the relationships of Phillips curves and the thoughts of Keynes. An element which was essentially a given, unstated, and probably too subtle for a high-school economics curriculum was the notion of the zero-sum-world. I guess a quirk of greater global policy making, general global trends, the state of emerging nations and a balancing of respective individual nation needs provided for a win-win framework.

A zero-sum world is that situation in which [all] participant's or nation’s gain or loss off a utility is exactly balanced by the gains and losses of utility of nations. That is, when the sum of total gains and total losses sum to zero.

The Economists (Nov 22nd 2010 The World In 2011 print edition) suggests how in the process of large economies grappling with recent threats of a depression some international politics have soured. Look at Europe for example.

20 years of good times and global economic integration, post the cold war, had helped create a “win-win world” with all the major economies having reason to be satisfied. The United States was enjoying its “unipolar moment”; the European Union was expanding and prospering; China and India felling themselves getting richer and more powerful.

It is possible after a long period of co-operation, competition and rivalry are returning to the international system. A win-win world is giving way to a zero-sum world. According to the Economists the 3 most important symptoms may include:

· Worsening relations between the United States and China.

· Arguments within the EU

· Difficulty progressing big items such as climate change and nuclear proliferation.

Psychology of Gift-Giving

Jack Dikian

December (Xmas day) 2011

Christmas, a worldwide festival marked by a gush of shopping, a large proportion of which is for gifts. It’s appropriate therefore to look at the psychology of giving and receiving gifts.

The Australian Retail Association for example is predicting a 2.4 per cent increase in consumer spending in the three weeks after Christmas. NSW consumers alone are expected to spend $4.37 billion.

Christmas is, after all, according to [some] spiritual teachings a time for the planet's 2.3 billion Christians to celebrate the conviction that Jesus Christ is himself a gift, offered for the redemption of all. A time when carols tell of 3 wise men bringing gifts of gold, frank-incense and myrrh to a baby born 2,000 years ago.

Christian Smith, a Notre Dame University sociology professor who carried out work studying generosity says people give for many different reasons, not all of them wonderful.

People give for strategic, impulsive, sentimental, habitual and ideological reasons, as well as out of guilt. Studies show people who are religious respond to their faith's life-is-a-gift teachings by being more magnanimous, both to their own spiritual organization and beyond.

In addition, research reveals generosity is good for you, with seniors who volunteer living longer. People who give more, says Smith, are "happier, healthier and doing better in life."

And gift giving is not confined to us Human. University of Washington bird expert John Marzluff has discovered that crows and other birds give trinkets or food. They do so to inspire loyalty, Marzluff says, and like us, for the enjoyment of it.

Paul Zak, founder of Claremont Graduate University's Center for Neuroeconomics Studies, has discovered gift-giving goes up with levels of oxytocin - the hormone produced in the pituitary gland that is released during child-birth, and as people bond.

Zak's team gave an oxytocin nasal spray to half the subjects playing a game that required deciding whether to give money away. The oxytocin dose increased their generosity by 80 per cent.

Researchers, as well as Smith also know that people who have more money often give less. Such research feeds the cynicism associated with Charles Dickens' classic story A Christmas Carol, supporting the Scrooge theme that the rich are often more grasping and fearful.

The French deconstructionist Jacques Derrida, argued a gift is not a gift if there is any expectation of receiving anything in return, even a "thank you." While there's no doubt gifts can be used to manipulate people, gifts may be more so about cementing relationships.

Every Australian Counts Campaign

Jack Dikian

November 2011

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) could well be a transformational reform that would entitle all people with a disability in Australia to the support and services they need, regardless of how they acquire their disability.

The Scheme is gradually taking shape and like all large initiatives there are many questions facing its architects. How, for example, will it be funded, who will service the scheme, and from a clinical perspective – what kind of assessments will be used, etc.

At a lunch on November 9 hosted by Independence Australia, a panel including John Della Bosca of the NDIS, Alan Woodroffe from the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) and Kevin Andrews of the Liberal Party answered lingering questions such as will everyone on the waiting list now receive a funding package, and so forth.

John Della Bosca, the campaign director of the NDIS, noted that talk need to occur between different levels of government before the “NDIS becomes inevitable” and “It’s always inevitable that governments change and I’m heartened by the fact that there’s strong support for the scheme in the opposition as well as government.”

The very next day, at a conference (Australasian Society for Intellectual Disability) I attended and spoke at, John Della Bosca gave a keynote address discussing the Every Australian Counts Campaign for an NDIS. The Campaign calls for all Australians to stand up and say that people with a disability, their families and carers in this country deserve better and that it’s time for change.

The Every Australian Counts Campaign website asks us to join the campaign to make sure that the Federal Government implements the recommendations of the Productivity Commission and introduces the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The site provides ways we can all help – follow link below.

http://everyaustraliancounts.com.au/take_action/

A mutant version of the H5N1 virus

Jack Dikian

December 2011

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, also known as "bird flu", A(H5N1) or simply H5N1, is a subtype of the influenza A virus which can cause illness and even death in humans and many other animal species.

A Dutch research team led by Ron Fouchier at Rotterdam's Erasmus Medical Centre announced that they have created a mutant version of the H5N1 bird flu virus that could for the first time be spread among mammals.

The team had discovered that transmission of the virus was possible between humans and can be carried out more easily than first thought. A team of virologists at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Tokyo have also reportedly showed similar results.

In the meantime, a US government's science advisory committee has urged the US journal Science and the British journal Nature to withhold key details so that people seeking to harm the public would not be able to manufacture the virus that could cause millions of deaths. Both Science and Nature said they were considering the US government's non-binding request.

It is likely that the virus is contagious among humans for the first time, and could trigger a lethal pandemic if it emerged in nature.

Scream

Jack Dikian

December 2010

Watching a show about the famous painting The Scream promoted me to add to the already widely interpreted image representing the universal anxiety of modern man.

THE DIGITAL STORY OF NATIVITY

Jack Dikian

December 2011

The Nativity of Jesus, or simply The Nativity, refers to the accounts of the birth of Jesus in two of the gospels and in various apocryphal texts.

New Testament accounts of the Nativity of Jesus appear only in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew. There has been debate among scholars as to whether these two accounts can be partially reconciled or if they are totally contradictor.

Regardless of these accounts, one thing is for certain, the digital account of the story of nativity, as it had never been told back then.

Click or copy/paste the following link, it’s vey good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZrf0PbAGSk