Companies – Page 66

Yes, we still have to work – Asia Times

On: July 29, 2024

In: Asia

“I may live badly, but at least I don’t have to work to do it!” — Slacker

In my roundup last week, I flagged some disappointing results for a basic income experiment. When people got US$1,000 a month, 2% of them stopped working. That’s a significant amount, considering that $1,000 a month is not enough to really support anyone by itself.

It suggests that a much larger universal basic income (UBI) would cause a much larger percentage of people to stop working. That would increase the costs of the program, and probably doom it politically — the idea of having the government pay a large portion of the citizenry not to work is likely to be very unpopular.

When I posted the result on ~~Twitter~~ X, however, I got some interesting reactions. A number of people told me — often in angry, indignant terms — that paying people to take leisure is the whole point of basic income, and is a good and desirable thing. Here are just a few examples:

From an economic standpoint, this argument is unpersuasive. Yes, taking more leisure time is valuable — even if you drop out of the labor force entirely, you’re still presumably doing something you like with all those spare hours.

But the benefit of that leisure has to be weighed against the cost of the lost production when the people stop working, plus the monetary cost of providing the UBI in the first place, and the deadweight loss of whatever taxes you had to use to transfer the money.

A welfare program that causes a significant number of people to stop working entirely is unlikely to pass any reasonable cost-benefit analysis. But what’s interesting here is the deep antipathy to the idea of work that seems to have taken root among some on the political left.

Not everyone on the left, of course — back in the late 2010s there were fierce battles between supporters of UBI and supporters of a federal job guarantee. But I notice a bunch of leftist types these days basically saying that work — or at least, most work — is useless and pointless and should be abolished.

A prime example was the late David Graeber, whose 2018 book “Bullshit Jobs” was something of a sensation. Although Graeber doesn’t support his argument very well — his list of “bullshit” jobs includes such obviously useful things as pizza delivery, dog washing, and corporate law¹ — the notion that a large percentage of jobs could be eliminated without reducing real economic value appealed to a lot of people.

For less erudite and scholarly examples of leftist types who decry the idea of work, check out r/antiwork.

I admit that I’m not a scholar of the history of leftist thought, but this feels like a vibe shift compared to the socialists of a century ago. Obviously, socialists in the early 20th century wanted workers’ lives to be less back-breaking and toilsome, but “worker” was also an identity that socialists deeply valued and viewed as their core support group.

The Labor Theory of Value held that things were only valuable to the degree that it took work to create them (that theory is wrong, but it demonstrates what 20th century socialists cared about). Lenin vilified the bourgeoisie as being “those who shirk their work”, and the Soviet constitution declared that “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.”

For much of the 20th century, the great political struggle of the left was to reward workers more for their labor — to raise wages and benefits, to give workers more control over companies, and to raise the status and political power of workers as a group.

The people who designed the American welfare state took great pains to avoid the right’s accusation that they were paying people not to work; as a result, US government programs are full of work incentives.

What has changed? The standard answer to that question will be something along the lines of “kids these days are just lazy”, but that’s completely unsatisfying to me — even if it’s true, which I doubt, it doesn’t really answer the question. Laziness does not appear out of the void; there must be some cause.

In fact, the simplest answer is that nothing has really changed. The people who thump their copies of “Bullshit Jobs” and post on r/antiwork and troll anyone who questions UBI are probably a small minority of Americans (and many of them are not Americans at all).

After all, the share of Americans who say they’re satisfied with their jobs has been rising pretty steadily since 2010:

The argument that Americans are trapped in jobs they hate and from which they need to be liberated by basic income is looking weaker by the year.

As for the fraction of Americans who do think work is bullshit, it’s probably not too hard to come up with plausible explanations for them either. Working-class people are undoubtedly annoyed by low wages, despite the fact that real wages have been rising at the bottom of the distribution for a decade now.

Working for $16 an hour is better than working for $12.50², but it’s still not amazing, and low-paid workers still tend to get treated poorly in many workplaces. I’m sure that fuels plenty of online complaints.

Most of those workers would probably rather just get paid more and get treated better, but I’m some would accept a UBI-supported life of leisure as an alternative.

Among educated Americans, however, I suspect there’s another factor at work: elite overproduction. In the 1990s and 2000s, smart young Americans were told that a college education was the ticket to a career that wasn’t just high-paying, but also deep, fulfilling and meaningful.

And even if that was true for the median college graduate, there were plenty for whom things didn’t turn out that way. The college wage premium has shrunk over time. Many humanities and social science majors turned out to be less useful for employment after the busts in the law and journalism professions. And academia is basically full.

If you went into $30,000 of debt for a state university, and now you’re facing the prospect of living out your life as an insurance assessor or a human resources compliance officer, perhaps you think a shabby life of leisure — paid for by all your classmates who struck it rich — doesn’t sound too bad.

Social media might be bad for work ethic

But on top of all that, it’s also possible that Americans have gotten lazier — or in less condescending econ terminology, there may have been a shift in the preference for leisure.

One of the most interesting economic facts of the last few decades is that Americans have gotten steadily richer since the 1980s, but haven’t really reduced the amount they work since then:

Many people — including John Maynard Keynes — think that as people get richer, they should work less. But in fact, as real wages go up, the incentive to work more hours actually increases, because each additional hour of work lets you buy more stuff. So it’s not clear whether people should work less or work more as they get richer.

Until the 1980s, Americans chose to work less as they got richer. But since then, increased income has had basically no effect on how much Americans work. There are several possible reasons for this.

One possibility is that work itself has become more meaningful, fulfilling, and fun. Another is that the invention of new stuff to consume – better TVs, cars, video games, vacations, elective health procedures, etc. – has kept people working hard in order to afford it all.

But if it’s the latter, then the invention of new free forms of consumption — Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and so on — could reduce the incentive to work.

If the way I have fun is by buying a boat and sailing it up and down the coast while drinking Clase Azul and watching TV on a big screen, then sure, I might work 50-hour weeks in order to afford all that.

But if the way I have fun is by going on X and arguing with Elon Musk, and watching TikToks of college kids complaining about cultural appropriation, then why am I busting my butt at work?

Of course, that’s theoretical. The cold, hard data says that Americans are working just as much as ever before…or does it?

Data on labor hours comes from two places: A) asking businesses how long their employees worked, and B) asking people how many hours they worked.

But neither of those is likely to capture actual time-on-task very well. If people browse social media on their smartphone in their cubicle, that’s going to be counted as “work” in the government numbers, even though in reality that’s leisure.³

Before the internet, smartphones, and social media, goofing off at work was probably both more boring and harder to get away with; now, people bring their whole social lives to the office in their pockets.

All day long, whenever I check Twitter, there are a ton of people talking who list high-paying jobs in their bio. And yet there they are, gabbing away on the internet instead of doing those jobs!

If lots of people are taking stealth leisure via social media use during “work” hours, then this might be satisfying the increased demand for leisure time due to a shift in consumption preferences toward social media.

This might increase job satisfaction — because work now involves a lot more goofing off — while also making many jobs feel like “bullshit.” Because if you’re actually getting paid to do a couple hours of work and six hours of arguing on the internet every day, why are you even clocking in to the office or logging onto the company Slack?

The robot fantasy

I did notice one other very common argument among the people who had no problem with UBI discouraging work. A whole bunch of people said that since jobs are going to be automated away anyway, people are going to have more leisure time whether they want it or not. And so, they argue, at least UBI will regular folks well-fed during their new leisurely obsolescence:

I can’t tell you with certainty that this won’t happen, but I can tell you with certainty that it hasn’t happened. Among those who are too young to retire and mostly too old to still be in school, the percentage of people with jobs is as high as it has ever been:

There’s just no sign of mass technological unemployment, either in the US or anywhere else.

Now it could be that this is about to change. Sometimes the economy really does encounter a sudden break point where all the old certainties get tossed out and a new reality takes hold.

The Industrial Revolution is a good example of this. Maybe the invention of “Artificial General Intelligence” is right around the corner, and will replace the bulk of the work that normal humans can possibly do, leaving a world in which only the most brilliant AI engineers, savviest and boldest entrepreneurs, and most well-heeled financiers can make a living.

I encounter a surprisingly large number of people in the San Francisco tech industry who believe that this is going to happen. They might be right — Daron Acemoglu agrees with them — but I suspect they’re overgeneralizing from their own experience.

Everyone likes to marvel at how billion-dollar software companies have been created with just a handful of employees. If you see that kind of thing all day, you very well might start to think that labor is obsolete!

But if you look at the overall economy, you’ll see that the fraction of output that gets paid to labor has fallen by only a couple of percentage points since the dawn of the information age:

(And part of this fall is just the increase in land rents from our national failure to build housing.)

Science fiction futures are fun to imagine, but as things stand right now, pretty much every American company still needs lots of labor from lots of human workers.

If all the janitors, food service workers, farmers, construction workers, checkout clerks, receptionists, security guards, cooks, warehouse workers, food delivery people and other working-class people in the economy vanished tomorrow, advanced technological society would simply collapse, and those software engineers and entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who didn’t starve to death would find themselves scratching out a meager living from unforgiving soil in short order. Economics bloggers would not be spared.⁴

A less colorful way of saying this is that labor and capital might have become a tiny bit more substitutable over the last few decades, but they’re still mostly complements.

Personally, I like the idea of unconditional cash benefits. They have much to recommend them over other forms of welfare — they’re easy to administer, simple to navigate, relatively free of perverse incentives, and have the potential to be broadly popular. I supported the expanded Child Tax Credit, which is the closest thing we’ll get to a federal basic income in the near future.

But at the same time, I think the intellectual culture around UBI has become a bit weird and dysfunctional. It seems like a strange alliance between rich nerds who think that anyone with an IQ of less than 130 is either economically useless or soon will be, and downwardly-mobile overeducated elites who feel like normie middle-class jobs are beneath them.

Neither of those attitudes makes much sense to me; neither the dream of a world free of workers nor the dream of a world free of work is particularly useful right now. Human labor is still incredibly valuable, and figuring out how to make human workers more capable is still how most value is created.

And for that reason, we should focus policy on rewarding human labor more, and be wary of economic philosophies that claim that most human beings would be better off as glorified pets.

Update: I should have mentioned this in the post, but unpaid work like child care and housework is no less valuable than the paid kind — and society seriously undervalues it.

But in the recent big UBI experiment, detailed surveys of the cash recipients found that they didn’t spend more time on these unpaid tasks — or on things like community engagement, caring for others, or self-improvement — after getting UBI. I should have been more explicit about that!

Notes:

1. But what about “econ blogger”, you ask? Surely that is a bullshit, useless job? Ahh, but if not for us econ bloggers, someone somewhere might make actual policy based on something David Graeber wrote. And just think how much economic value that would destroy!

2. Assuming both numbers are adjusted for inflation, which in this case they are.

3. Note that this might help explain the productivity slowdown! If people today spend an hour more out of every workday goofing off on social media rather than doing work, compared to 2005, this increased “stealth leisure” could mask increasing productivity from new information technologies. So far I haven’t seen anyone investigate this possibility.

4. In fact, this is a joke from the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series.

This article was first published on Noah Smith’s Noahpinion Substack and is republished with kind permission. Read the original here and become a Noahopinion subscriber here.

Chinese EVs and the race for autonomous AI – Asia Times

By: Bolen C

On: July 29, 2024

In: Asia

In 2015, the Chinese government announced the strategic industrial development policy known as Made in China 2025. Of the ten key industries targeted, new energy vehicles (NEVs) have arguably achieved the greatest success, changing the dynamics of the global auto industry and thoroughly alarming US and European governments.

They have also attracted the attention of US scientist and Pattern Computer CEO Mark Anderson, who sees an unprecedented challenge to Western supremacy in the technologies that support China’s hyper-competitive electric vehicle (EV) industry. Pattern Computer is a machine learning and AI company headquartered in the state of Washington.

In an essay entitled “THE RACE FOR AUTONOMOUS AI: The Key to Global Technical and Economic Dominance,” which appeared in the July 7 edition of his Strategic News Service Global Report on Technology and the Economy, Anderson identified the EV as an enabler for critically important technologies.

In his view, the winner of the race to lead the global EV market “will, in one product, gain leverage or domination in:

autonomous AI
light-weighting new materials
advanced manufacturing
lidar/radar
computer vision
advanced computing software and hardware
advanced chips
batteries
energy grid redesign
charging-station design and control
broadband realtime networking
data collection/management technologies
(and of course) the data itself collected around the world
oh yeah, and money – lots of it.”

Electric vehicles, therefore, are not just a “like to have” but a “must have” industry.

Autonomous AI is at the top of the list because it could deliver what OpenAI/ChatGPT promises to deliver but can’t – advanced general intelligence (AGI). ChatGPT and models like it are “for tasks that are language-related – only.”

“Instead of – or in addition to – the AGI hunt,” writes Anderson, “let’s focus on autonomy. After all, a compute system that can perform successfully on its own, without human guidance, may be the ultimate intended purpose of AGI in any case.”

“As with AGI,” he continues, “no one has yet succeeded in the hunt for autonomy, although it is likely that Elon Musk and Tesla have pressed the limits of the types of tools (neural networks, or NNs) they’re using.” Tesla has been troubled by numerous accidents, allegations of false advertising and the delayed launch of its robotaxi.

After noting that China appears to have surreptitiously acquired its autonomous driving technology from Tesla, Anderson asks, “What is China doing to cement a victory in this race for global domination in dozens of top technology categories?”

The answer, he writes, is “Everything it can, including:

• Conducting the world’s largest experiment in driverless cars, in Wuhan, operated by Baidu – about to jump from 800 to 1800 robotaxis

• Having cities designate special test areas for autonomy testing

• Censoring / deleting any news of deaths and accidents by autonomous vehicles

• Having passed laws preventing any autonomy data from leaving China, with the intention of keeping foreign automakers from benefiting cross-border

• Setting up ‘research’ stations on autonomy in Silicon Valley – a typical move for stealing IP in the past, as in the case of the destruction of Motorola

• Providing low- to zero-cost loans to virtually all EV companies, including those losing money (which is the majority)

• Picking favorites early – such as Huawei, Baidu, and BYD – and providing additional permitting and financial subsidies as needed

• Moving fast into the EU market, before the EU and Germany can work out a response, and working hard to delay such discussions

• Quickly building new plants in Eastern Europe, Mexico and the US, to get inside tariff borders before these ‘victim markets’ can respond to the current export onslaught of subsidized EVs”

In other words, China is serious about EVs in a way that makes US President Joe Biden’s efforts to promote them look pathetically inadequate and Donald Trump’s plan to undo them ill-conceived and dangerously ignorant.

“Today,” says Anderson, “there are something like 300 car companies in China, with about 100 making some form of EVs, essentially all of them subsidized…” Keeping in mind that the US and EU also subsidize their EV industries (and that Tesla pads its income statement with sales of carbon credits), let’s put this statement in context.

As pointed out in Automobile History on the history.com website: “Thirty American manufacturers produced 2,500 motor vehicles in 1899, and some 485 companies entered the business in the next decade.” The number of US automakers then dropped to 253 in 1908 and 44 in 1929, when about 80% out of a total of 5.3 million vehicles were produced by the “Big Three” – Ford, General Motors and Chrysler.

In 2019, according to Bloomberg, there were some 500 EV makers in China. Now, five years later, consulting firm AlixPartners says there are 137 Chinese EV brands, of which 19 should be profitable by the end of the decade. The South China Morning Post writes “just 19,” but it would be more to the point to say “perhaps as many as 19.”

China’s national industrial policy has simply replicated the venture capital free-for-all and winnowing-out process that characterized the US auto industry in its formative years.

From 2019 to 2023, China’s NEV production (including battery EVs, hybrids and a small number of hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles) rose from 1.2 million to 8.9 million units, accounting for about 30% of the nation’s total motor vehicle production.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China accounted for nearly 60% of worldwide new EV registrations (including hybrids) in 2023. Europe accounted for just under 25% and the US for about 10%, IEA data shows.

Furthermore, the IEA notes that: “The year 2023 was the first in which China’s New Energy Vehicle (NEV) industry ran without support from national subsidies for EV purchases, which have facilitated expansion of the market for more than a decade.”

Having achieved sufficient economies of scale, Chinese automakers no longer need them. According to Dialogue Earth, local subsidies and tax breaks are also likely to be phased out as government policy shifts “from carrot to stick.”

As for autonomous driving, recall that in 2019 Tesla sued one of its Chinese engineers for allegedly stealing its Autopilot source code and taking it with him to Xpeng. And that two other Tesla engineers also defected to Xpeng, which is known as China’s “Tesla clone.”

Furthermore, in Anderson’s estimation, “At a time when very few car companies worldwide have anything approaching even fault-ridden autonomous driving software, China suddenly now has about 30 EV companies with this ability.” Including Huawei, which provides autonomous driving technology to several Chinese automakers.

But it is not just the Chinese. Earlier this year, Volkswagen (VW) and Xpeng agreed to a “strategic technical collaboration” for the rapid development of “intelligent connected” EVs for the Chinese market. VW owns 4.99% of Xpeng.

VW also plans to form a 50-50 joint venture with Rivian Automotive of the US “to build on Rivian’s industry-leading software and electrical architecture to create best-in-class software-defined vehicle technology platform.”

In Japan, Toyota, Honda, Sony and a start-up called Turing are all working on software-defined and autonomous vehicles. Honda’s Traffic Jam Pilot, which was launched last March, “helps mitigate driver fatigue and stress while driving in a traffic jam.” As explained on the company’s website:

“While driving on an expressway, if the vehicle gets caught in traffic congestion, under certain conditions, the system takes control of acceleration, braking and steering while monitoring the vehicle’s surroundings on behalf of the driver. Without the need to operate the vehicle to follow the vehicle in front, stop and resume driving, the driver can watch television/DVD on the navigation screen or operate the navigation system to search/set a destination.”

The system determines the vehicle’s position using external and cameras, radar and LIDAR sensors, a Global Navigation Satellite System, high-definition maps, and an internal camera that monitors the driver.

Turing, a start-up with the mission “We Overtake Tesla,” goes a step further. Believing that “what is necessary for autonomous driving is not good eyes, but a good brain,” the company is developing AI that “directly issues driving instructions from camera images… without using many sensors or high-precision maps.”

Inspired by English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing, the Japanese company aims to develop an autonomous driving system that thinks and acts like a human being. As explained by TechTarget, “Turing proposed that a computer can be said to possess artificial intelligence if it can mimic human responses under specific conditions.”

In summary, Anderson states that “Autonomy – on the land, in and under the sea, and in the air – is a pragmatic goal of AI that will replace the fantastical dreams of AGI rather quickly, as the latter technology becomes well accepted as a language aid, but not for use in trust-based situations.

“True autonomy will require… a complete, demonstrable lack of hallucinations and other unavoidable failure modes. Autonomy, and not ChatGPT, will become the ultimate ‘Turing test’ for advanced AI.”

As Anderson implies, there is more to this than China leading the new industrial revolution. Dr. Paul Kallender, defense expert at Japan’s Keio Research Institute, suggests that we “re-imagine the EV as an autonomous weapons system operating in a total surveillance information environment.”

It depends on a dozen advanced technologies with dual civilian-military applications that must perform flawlessly in difficult and dangerous environments.

Follow this writer on X: @ScottFo83517667

Australia fears American abandonment … but should it? – Asia Times

By: Bolen C

On: July 29, 2024

In: Asia

In any presidential year, the Australian media – including social media – will suddenly generate a vast army of instant experts on American politics, all with a take you just have to read or hear.

They’ll cover everything from laws governing electoral delegates in Arizona to the impact of demographic change on voting patterns in western Pennsylvania. In the 2024 US presidential year, when so much is at stake, that ramps right up.

Allan Behm’s The Odd Couple, a study of the Australia–America relationship that also serves as a meditation on both countries, could hardly be more timely. It belongs to a rather different tradition than that of instant analysis with newly acquired (and dubious) “expertise.”

Behm is a considered and reflective commentator. An experienced former diplomat, public servant and (Labor) political adviser who now works at the Australia Institute, he is qualified to offer both well-informed critique and constructive suggestions for the relationship.

He has a way with words and is widely read, displaying a formidable cultural range that can take in the Argonauts, Davy Crockett and the Lone Ranger, the foundational documents of the United States, novels and poems from the 19th century, big thick books of political history and international relations, and much in between.

The result is a valuable contribution to discussion of the Australia–America relationship. The quality of this debate here is poor.

There are too many commentators with too much skin in the game, too many with warm recollections of their last trip to that conference in Aspen, or who are waiting in hope or expectation for their invitation to the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue.

The dissidents are there, but they struggle to exercise influence in a public culture dominated by a news empire controlled by (American) Citizen Murdoch.

There are some who do a good job of questioning many of the pieties about the alliance. They include James Curran (a University of Sydney history professor and the Australian Financial Review’s foreign editor), Hugh White (former senior public servant and Australian National University academic) and Behm’s colleague at the Australian Institute, Emma Shortis.

You will also find penetrating critics further to the left, in magazines such as Arena: Guy Rundle, Clinton Fernandez and David Lee. They tend to treat the US as an empire, and Australia as a compliant sub-empire.

Critics remind Australians that the alliance’s risks and costs are only magnified by the reflexive “follow the leader” approach to US policy pursued by Australian policy-makers. But compared with the chorus of pro-alliance commentators, the critics exercise limited influence with a political class whose timidity is one of Behm’s themes.

Australia’s “international policies have been characteristically defensive and deferential to the interests of others,” he judges.

‘Half a dissident’

Behm is only half a dissident: he does not reject the alliance. Each nation needs the other and their relationship is broadly complementary. Take out the US, and Behm can imagine only a bleak future for Australia: “Without America, Australia would be alone, adrift on its continent in a region that it does not understand and with which it has no affinity.”

It is a rather pessimistic summation of Australian capacity – perhaps too much so – but “fear of abandonment” is a familiar theme in Australian foreign policy.

Behm does not like visceral identity politics, but he does like a politics and diplomacy in which national actors have a strong and coherent sense of identity. He would like Australia to have a Bill of Rights, as the US does, but admires the shared commitment of the US and our country to the rule of law.

Many of the alliance’s benefits – strategic, economic and cultural – are set out in The Odd Couple, but Behm worries Australians have done too little either to evaluate the dangers and losses, or to extract the full benefit they could gain from the relationship.

Perhaps oddly for a book on this theme appearing at this moment, AUKUS, the security agreement between Australia, the UK, and the US, does not figure as a major topic. There is more on the economy: Behm draws attention to how the relationship helped Australia in the global financial crisis but harmed it via the Howard-era free trade agreement.

That agreement, Behm suggests, has undermined multilateralism, given the US sway over our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and handed US companies new opportunities to constrain Australian policy-making. Behm believes the massive increase in two-way foreign direct investment between the two countries this century had very little to do with the free trade agreement.

Behm is also a critic of US adventurism in war and Australia’s supine behavior in following the leader, notably in Vietnam and Iraq. These failures, among others, were the result of Australia’s inability to articulate a strong sense of its own national identity or interests. It has too often, and too readily, subordinated itself to the much larger and more powerful country.

He would like Australia to be more like Israel and Taiwan in the dogged pursuit of its interests with US policymakers, especially in working the Congress. Behm thinks we should invest more in diplomacy, recognizing that power depends on culture, persuasion and a strong sense of national selfhood.

It is not only about military firepower (including that of nuclear-powered submarines). He would like to see “a bit of jostling in the relationship”, less deference.

Behm’s argument that the relationship with the US is multifaceted is hardly new, but it is worth reiterating and updating. He has chapters dealing with the law, economics, culture, war and peace. All contain valuable insights, although the chapter on culture was the least focused – and (though this Gen-X reviewer surprises himself in saying so) a little hard on the Baby Boomers.

Deeper insecurities

Two themes are either absent or lightly touched on. Behm says little about intelligence sharing. And he touches only lightly on religion, which is surely central to any understanding of the American experience in general, and of the twists and turns of its politics in recent decades.

Behm is interested in the common histories of the US and Australia as settler societies founded on the dispossession of, and violence towards, Indigenous peoples. He detects a fundamental insecurity at the heart of each nation, based on this original sin.

The apparently “boundless self-belief” of the Americans with their claims to exceptionalism, and Australia’s “brasher kind of larrikinism” each express a “much deeper insecurity born of a shared inability to ‘belong to’ – as distinct from ‘to own’ – the continents on which they live.”

It is to Behm’s credit that he is not afraid of this kind of ambitious generalization. That said, it carries the risk of inviting objection from the measurers and straighteners who review books.

For example, I can’t help but suspect some complexity is being brushed over a little too lightly when I read: “The simple fact is that Australians no longer trust their governments. Nor do they trust one another.”

The most serious of our recent crises, the pandemic, surely revealed that, when the chips are down, Australians do largely trust their governments – and one another, too.

Behm gets the occasional historical detail wrong. The Myall Creek massacre was in 1838, not 1832, and Australia had no federal election in 1932. We are told at one point: “At the end of World War II, coal and iron ore declined as key exports.” In fact, neither had ever been key exports. But these are minor matters.

Behm has an intelligent understanding of the past, which he applies to a wise, witty and subtle analysis. The Odd Couple is a welcome contribution to a domain of public debate in Australia where too many people think it’s best simply to keep a lid on their opinions.

Frank Bongiorno is Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Equinix acquires land to expand digital infrastructure in Malaysia

By: Mary Blight

On: July 29, 2024

In: Technology

New land will expand Equinix’s ecosystem for service providers and enterprises
This follows the launch of Equinix’s International Business Exchange in Johor & KL

Kamarul Ariffin Abdul Samad, CEO, Cyberview Sdn. Bhd., exchanging documents with Cheam Tat Inn, managing director of Equinix Malaysia, at the document exchange ceremony between Equinix and Cyberview.

In the rapidly growing digital landscape, Malaysia is experiencing a surge in demand for data centers across various industries. Recognising this potential, Equinix, Inc., a digital infrastructure company, has announced a US$5 million (RM23 million) investment to acquire land from Cyberview Sdn Bhd in Cyberjaya, expanding its data center capacity in Malaysia.

Following the launches of its International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) in Kuala Lumpur (KL1) and Johor (JH1), the additional land will be instrumental in addressing the rising demand for reliable, high-performance data center services in Malaysia and the broader Southeast Asian region, the company said in a statement.

Malaysia’s data center market is rapidly expanding due to its strategic location, supportive government policies, and increasing demand for digital infrastructure. As Southeast Asia becomes a significant hub for digital transformation, Malaysia is emerging as a key player, aspiring to transform into a digitally-driven, high-income economy. Factors such as geopolitical stability, a skilled workforce, improved connectivity, and a focus on renewable energy sources are propelling the data center market, which is expected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 14% and reach an estimated US$3.97 billion (RM18.4 billion) by 2029.

Located in Malaysia’s Global Tech Hub of Cyberjaya, Kuala Lumpur, the acquired land is less than one kilometre from the existing KL1 facility. With a total area of 14,300 square metres, the newly acquired land will serve as a strategic complement to KL1, enabling Equinix to further enhance its ecosystem in Malaysia to cater to a wide range of network and cloud service providers, as well as enterprises spanning various industries.

Amirudin Shari, Chief Minister of Selangor, participated in the document exchange ceremony between Equinix and Cyberview. At the ceremony, he said, “Selangor aims to accelerate the pace of digitising our economy, and data center are a key component of the digital economy backbone. Equinix’s investment, renowned for its global expertise in building resilient digital infrastructure and fostering a robust network ecosystem, is poised to contribute significantly to the adoption of cloud technology by Malaysian companies.”

“Malaysia boasts a substantial Internet user base, with a staggering 96.8% of the population actively engaging in various digital activities such as video streaming, online shopping, online banking, and gaming. Consequently, businesses operating in Malaysia are increasingly seeking secure and scalable data center services and access to digital ecosystems to meet the demands of this tech-savvy consumer base. Equinix’s unique positioning and competitive edges make it the company of choice,” said Cheam Tat Inn, Managing Director, Equinix Malaysia.

Meanwhile, Kamarul Ariffin Abdul Samad, CEO of Cyberview, said, “The digital economy contributes 23% to the country’s GDP and with Cyberjaya having the highest concentration of tech companies in Malaysia, the city plays a pivotal role in contributing to the growth of Malaysia’s digital economy. Last year alone, Cyberjaya saw a rapid increase in data center investment and today, with the land expansion of Equinix, this is a testament to Cyberview’s commitment to fostering innovation and ensuring that Cyberjaya continues to be the preferred investment location for tech companies.”

Equinix currently has two data centers in Malaysia, JH1 and KL1. JH1 offers 500 cabinets and 1,960 square metres of colocation space, while KL1 will provide 900 cabinets and 2,630 square metres of colocation space once fully built. These facilities have already attracted various network, content, fintech, gaming, and AI companies to deploy their IT infrastructure.

In Asia-Pacific, the company currently has 56 data centers located in key metropolitan areas across Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore. Its global presence with 260 data centers across 71 metropolitan areas continues to support over 10,000 leading businesses worldwide.

Sustainable Brands Kl ‘24 agenda and speakers announced

By: Mary Blight

On: July 29, 2024

In: Technology

Ninth edition to focus on tech and AI for sustainability
Will feature hands-on workshops, in addition to plenary and panel sessions

Sustainable Brands Kl ‘24 agenda and speakers announced

The Sustainable Brands Kuala Lumpur Conference 2024 (SB’24 KL) will be held this August 13 and 14. An annual event since 2015, and held under the auspices of Sustainable Brands Worldwide, SB’24 KL will be held at the Sime Darby Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur with the theme of ‘Technology and AI in service of Sustainability and Regeneration’.

The conference will highlight how brands and organisations are utilising technology and AI to support and advance their sustainability initiatives. It will also showcase technology and tools available from tech providers both large and small, that can assist organisations in getting started and progressing on their sustainability journeys. The conference is jointly hosted by Acacia Blue and Sime Darby Property.

Sime Darby Property’s general manager of Sustainability Dr. Yasmin Rasyid said: “Sime Darby Property is redefining what it means to champion urban biodiversity. We’re not just protecting nature, we’re pioneering innovative approaches for co-existence. And to succeed, we must collaborate and the first step is by sharing the business case of our actions with peers, as we need more organisations to follow suit. Nature and urban biodiversity cannot be compromised. Conserving, regenerating, and strengthening nature and urban biodiversity are crucial collective efforts that will help reduce climate risks, improve air quality, and capture carbon. Platforms like SB’24 KL provide opportunities to amplify this message”

This year’s event will include an exciting line-up of over 30 international and local speakers delivering thought-provoking content designed to inspire participants to enhance and evaluate their own sustainability strategies and journeys.

Mahadhir Aziz, CEO of MDEC, said, “MDEC is proud to support the Sustainable Brands Kuala Lumpur 2024 Conference as it provides a vital platform for stakeholders to collaborate, share innovative solutions, and drive action towards promoting sustainability. Our support for this conference aligns perfectly with the Malaysia Digital (MD) national strategic initiative, which aims to elevate Malaysia’s position as the digital hub of Asean while fostering a sustainable and digitally empowered future for Malaysia.”

More information on SB’24KL including its full list of speakers and agenda can be found at https://sustainablebrandskl.com/ Tickets are claimable against companies’ Human Resources Development Corporation (HRDC) contributions.

Hybrids still greener, Japan seminar told

By: Barkar Nash

On: July 28, 2024

In: South-East Asia

Asean told not to fixate on EVs

TOKYO: Japan believes hybrid vehicles can provide another route for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to achieve its sustainable development goals.

Speaking during the “Economic Security and Supply Chains” seminar, Prof Yasuyuki Todo from the Faculty of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University, said Asean should be careful about relying too heavily on the electric vehicle (EV) industry.

This is because Asean primarily uses fossil fuels for energy production, so even when people use EVs, they still use precious non-renewable resources for their rides.

As such, he proposed that Asean, including Thailand, should focus on hybrid cars, as they are still much more practical than EVs for most countries in terms of reducing carbon emissions.

He also said that Thailand is beyond the stage of offering itself as a hub for car manufacturers.

“Thailand should focus more on research and development than on car productivity, as companies like Toyota already have research centres in Thailand,” according to Prof Yasuyuki.

He suggested that Thailand should focus on producing and managing energy more efficiently by leveraging existing technology to achieve the carbon neutrality and zero emissions goals it set for 2050 and 2065, respectively.

“Producing energy more efficiently is another way [to achieve sustainable development].

“So, I really hope Asean will utilise technology to boost its energy sector,” he added.

Meanwhile, in another seminar, “Towards Green Transformation”, Shinnosuke Ito, the Keidanren Environment & Energy Policy Bureau Head and Challenge Zero Promotion Office Head, said EVs are not the only way to a net zero emissions future, and there should be multiple pathways, such as focusing on hybrid cars, which are a more realistic option.

“We should not pursue EV success to the detriment of other industries. We need to allow alternatives such as hybrid cars. We need to go step by step.

“The Japanese automotive industry, including Toyota Motor Corp, also has other car lines apart from EVs. Jumping head-first into EVs is unrealistic, even for Japan,” he added.

Reiji Takehara, the Keidanren International Cooperation Bureau director, earlier explained that to transition to net zero emissions, the focus should not be entirely on EVs.

He said this is because when governments offer subsidies for EVs, the prices become more attractive for buyers, but when the subsidies stop, people will be reluctant to purchase them again.

“Although some people drive EVs in Japan, there are still too few charging stations. Besides, to reduce carbon emissions, electricity for charging EVs must be 100% generated from renewable energy,” he said.

“In Japan, we still burn fossil fuels to produce electricity, which is supplied to the country, including EV charging stations.

“Are there any countries that can boast that 100% of their electricity needs are met by renewable sources?

“I do not think so. Therefore, we should not be shortsighted,” he added.

Hybrids still greener, seminar told

By: Barkar Nash

On: July 28, 2024

In: South-East Asia

Asean told not to fixate on EVs