The above posts forgot the word "legitimate" before "monopoly": a state is defined as the entity that has the legitimate monopoly on violence within a defined geographic area. A state can cease to have the legitimate monopoly before they cease to have the monopoly.
The New Yorker prefers insure to ensure. They have a unique house style. I commented on another thread about alternative spellings like vender instead of vendor, too.
That M-W entry literally says they're different words with different meanings:
> They are in fact different words, but with sufficient overlap in meaning and form as to create uncertainty as to which should be used when.
> We define ensure as “to make sure, certain, or safe” and one sense of insure, “to make certain especially by taking necessary measures and precautions,” is quite similar. But insure has the additional meaning “to provide or obtain insurance on or for,” which is not shared by ensure.
To be fair, I use “ensure” myself, but it’s just one of several quirky elements of the New Yorker’s style, along with the diaeresis on repeated vowels with different sounds (like in reëmerge or coöperate), several uncommon spellings, and unusual conjoinings like “teen-ager” and “per cent.” It’s part of the charm, I suppose
But in this future, why will “the most compelling motivations, the clearest explanations, and the most useful maps between intuitions, theorems, and applications” be necessary? Catering to hobbyists?
Most mathematicians don't understand the fields outside of their specialization (at a research level). Your assumption that intuition and applications are limited to hobbyists ignores the possibility of enabling mathematicians to work and collaborate more effectively at the cutting edge of multiple fields.
Very far in the future when AI runs everything, of course math will be a hobby (and it will be great! As a professional programmer I'm happy that I now have a research-level tutor/mentor for my math/physics hobby). In the nearer term, it seems apparent to me that people with stronger mental models of the world are able (without even trying!) to formulate better prompts and get better output from models. i.e. as long as people are asking the questions, they'll do better to have some idea of the nuance within the problem/solution spaces. Math can provide vocabulary to express such nuance.
In addition to the already-stated causes of government issuing currency necessary to meet war spending and the fact that war spending produces destruction of economic capability rather than development, wars tend to introduce trade barriers and divert resources away from productive tasks. Whether barriers are legal (tariffs, embargoes), or simply higher premiums due to increased risk, less trade happens, which raises prices (inflation). Economists also really hate number-go-down even when down is good, so policy is oriented towards making sure deflation never gets a chance in the interwar development periods.
Only half of the incidents listed were actually full-scale wars (WWI and II). The other two incidents are an oil shock and a pandemic.
The commonality between all four of these incidents is that they correspond to severe supply shocks:
- During WWI and WWII, industrial supply was rerouted by force to the war effort, leaving normal consumer demand unfulfilled.
- During the oil crisis of the 70s, a critical energy input to the American economy massively increased in price due to sanctions placed on America.
- During the COVID-19 pandemic, a significant chunk of workers were paid not to work, as a form of deliberate supply destruction to avoid the spread of a novel coronavirus.
In a "normal" economy, supply is flexible enough that you can print money and nobody even notices. The supply curve is smooth and gradual, so prices only rise a little. When supply is constrained, however, prices rise to whatever value is necessary to curtail demand, because they have to. The supply curve is a brick wall.
Weapons cost ALOT and do very little to increase the future economy.
It's the issue Russia is facing right now in Ukraine. Even if Putin wanted to stop, his economy has turned entirely wartime, when it ends the country crashes on itself.
Crashes? How is that possible. You could take the money spent on bombs and do anything with it including helicopter money or digging holes and it would be better spent.
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