For centuries, judges settled cases by asking God to help honest people win duels or complete impossible tasks like touching hot metal without getting burned.
Yet in many ways, given the limitations of the time, they could offer the best path for resolving a dispute, despite the potential for abuse.
It’s a trite point, but worth considering: Many aspects of our legal system could seem equally absurd to historians hundreds of years from now.
incremental moves towards police militarization do increase the risk of disproportionately harmful outcomes
Source: Three very good reasons Americans should worry about the militarization of the police — Quartz
Manufacturers have made it increasingly difficult for individuals or independent repair people to fix electronics. A growing movement is fighting back
The idea of planned obsolescence is nothing new. But the use of “repair prevention” as a method of making products obsolete is growing
Related to all this is the growing problem of e-waste. The inability to repair a product shortens its lifespan and adds to the number of electronics winding up in landfills.
Right to repair advocates blame the manufacturers. Apple, for example, was found to have funded lobbying efforts to kill the Fair Repair bill in New York.
Source: The Fight for the “Right to Repair” | Innovation | Smithsonian
By ignoring illegitimate policing, America has also failed to address the danger this illegitimacy poses to those who must do the policing.
Source: Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Near Certainty of Anti-Police Violence – The Atlantic
No one knows exactly how many jobs automation will claim. Oxford University researchers guess 47% of U.S. jobs (pdf) are at risk. The OECD, an international economic group, estimates only 9% of jobs are under threat in member nations.
Whatever the number, the effects will fall disproportionately on those with low incomes, according to Furman. The Council of Economic Advisers ranked the occupations in the Oxford University study to see where automation was likely to strike first.
