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Jordan is spectacular, safe and friendly – so where are the tourists?

With tourism to the Middle East in decline, visiting Jordan’s mesmerising sights is now a solitary experience. But the silence and emptiness only add to their allure

Click to view the original at theguardian.com

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A Simple Explanation of How Shares Move Around the Securities Settlement System

I explained here how money moves around the banking system and how the Bitcoin system causes us to revisit our assumptions about what a payment system must look like. In this post, I turn my attent…

Click to view the original at gendal.me

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What if jobs are not the solution but the problem? – James Livingston | Aeon Essays

Economists believe in full employment. Americans think that work builds character. But what if jobs aren’t working anymore?

Click to view the original at aeon.co

Hasnain says:

"So the impending end of work raises the most fundamental questions about what it means to be human. To begin with, what purposes could we choose if the job – economic necessity – didn’t consume most of our waking hours and creative energies? What evident yet unknown possibilities would then appear? How would human nature itself change as the ancient, aristocratic privilege of leisure becomes the birthright of human beings as such?"

Posted on 2016-11-27T05:15:22+0000

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Elephants are now being born without tusks because of poaching

An increasing number of African elephants are now born tuskless because poachers have consistently targetted animals with the best ivory over decades, fundamentally altering the gene pool. In some areas 98 per cent of female elephants now have no tusks, researchers have said, compared to between two...

Click to view the original at independent.co.uk

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Heroin Addiction's Fraught History

The United States has long condemned opiates and stigmatized those who use them, even when the drugs were as legal—and popular—as Tylenol.

Click to view the original at theatlantic.com

Hasnain says:

"Bayer advertised liquid heroin as the best cure for your child’s bronchitis. At a time when tuberculosis was responsible for 1 in 4 of all deaths , heroin was said to ensure an immaculate bill of respiratory health. Meanwhile its relatives—morphine, codeine, and the rest—were among the primary “treatments” for several conspicuously incompatible ailments: diarrhea, insomnia, psychosis, pneumonia, alcoholism. "

Posted on 2016-11-20T18:08:50+0000

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Who Will Command The Robot Armies?

When John Allsopp invited me here, I told him how excited I was discuss a topic that's been heavy on my mind: accountability in automated systems.

Click to view the original at idlewords.com

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Is Physical Law an Alien Intelligence? - Issue 42: Fakes - Nautilus

Perhaps Arthur C. Clarke was being uncharacteristically unambitious. He once pointed out that any sufficiently advanced technology…

Click to view the original at nautil.us