Life, Death and World Inequality

Life expectancy around the world has increased substantially since 1970. In contrast, consump-tion per capita has fallen in some countries, remained stagnant, or sharply increased in others.What are the welfare gains of the systematic increase in life expectancy around the world? Howdoes a "full measure" of per capita income, one that adjusts for life expectancy, compare tostandard measures of world inequality that only consider income? This paper documents howstandard models used to answer these questions give rise to a number of predictions that areinconsistent with well-documented evidence, particularly on the value of statistical life. It thenproposes a generalized model with non-separable preferences that exhibits a low elasticity ofintertemporal substitution and a low degree of mortality aversion. The non-separable modelreverts the counterfactual predictions of the standard model, and it also provides plausiblemeasures of changes in welfare and inequality around the world.Welfare; life expectancy; value of statistical life; mortality risk aversion; Epstein-Zin-Weil pref- erences; AIDS.

Looking and listening : music and sound as visual trope in Ukiyo-e

The word ukiyo-e comes from a combination of “Ukiyo” , which means “floating world,” and “e” , which means picture or image. So, ukiyo-e offer both a description of the world of Edo (present-day Tokyo)—in particular the pleasures, foods, daily life, and culture on offer there—and the heavy bustle of the city, at that stage the largest and most densely populated in the world (with over a million inhabitants by the eighteenth century). These prints present fantastical exaggerations of life and often insert historical and mythical characters into contemporary contexts. Ukiyo conjures up a sense of the cultural pursuits, pastimes, and pleasures that grew up to serve a growing merchant class. Furthermore, ukiyo contains within it the idea of a carefree existence; of living for the moment and relishing the aesthetic aspects of life. This attitude, prevalent in the urbane richness of Edo, is encapsulated in the dominant aesthetic known as “iki” . It was hedonistic and largely indifferent to status or rank, though the city itself was governed elsewhere by strict hierarchy. The “floating world” was also a world of the theater and of music, but, crucially, this was a world accessible though money. This aesthetic, then, and the ways in which it was embedded within daily life and attitudes to nature, is central to the identity of the pictures that imagined ukiyo. Referring to a set of new fashions and voguish practices—urbane and cultured—ukiyo-e thus characterize the ways in which music, among many other themes, figured in Edo life

Modern mathematical science and technology: Formalisation of the life world

In this dissertation, I offer a critical examination of modern science with a particular stress on the changes that the modern scientific project inaugurated. The focus is how modern science has radically changed the way we think about the world. I draw upon several phenomenological thinkers who have considered the changing nature of modern science and its relation to our present day thinking. I begin by exploring the key differences between the Ancient Greek and modern scientific understanding of mathematics, geometry, and idealisation. Specifically, I discuss the reversal of Platonic geometry carried out by Galileo Galilei and the formalisation of Galilean physics achieved by Isaac Newton. In addition, I outline the key methodological features of modern science, which include indirect mathematisation and perfect causality, as well as the role of experimentation in the modern scientific project. Theory is central to modern science in its function of opening certain regions of things, while delimiting others. Thereby, I discuss how theory prescribes what counts as facts for science and experimentation, in advance. Finally, I consider the pervasiveness of instrumental reasoning in modern science and technology. I conclude with a discussion of the institutional setting of modern science and its participation in business, governance, and power relations in these domains

Origin of Life

The evolution of life has been a big enigma despite rapid advancements in the fields of biochemistry, astrobiology, and astrophysics in recent years. The answer to this puzzle has been as mind-boggling as the riddle relating to evolution of Universe itself. Despite the fact that panspermia has gained considerable support as a viable explanation for origin of life on the Earth and elsewhere in the Universe, the issue remains far from a tangible solution. This paper examines the various prevailing hypotheses regarding origin of life like abiogenesis, RNA World, Iron-sulphur World, and panspermia; and concludes that delivery of life-bearing organic molecules by the comets in the early epoch of the Earth alone possibly was not responsible for kick-starting the process of evolution of life on our planet.Comment: 32 pages, 8 figures,invited review article, minor additio

The Development and Failure of Social Norms in Second Life

This Note analyzes the development and efficacy of social norms in maximizing the welfare of participants in the virtual community of Second Life. Although some of these norms developed appropriately in response to the objectives and purposes of this virtual world, Second Life is so thoroughly steeped in conditions that have impeded the development of successful social norms in other communities that any system of social norms in Second Life will ultimately fail. Because social norms will likely,fail to successfully maximize resident welfare, regulatory schemes imposed both by the operators of the virtual world and by real-world governing institutions are needed to enhance the functioning of this particular alternative reality inhabited by millions

The Development and Failure of Social Norms in Second Life

This Note analyzes the development and efficacy of social norms in maximizing the welfare of participants in the virtual community of Second Life. Although some of these norms developed appropriately in response to the objectives and purposes of this virtual world, Second Life is so thoroughly steeped in conditions that have impeded the development of successful social norms in other communities that any system of social norms in Second Life will ultimately fail. Because social norms will likely,fail to successfully maximize resident welfare, regulatory schemes imposed both by the operators of the virtual world and by real-world governing institutions are needed to enhance the functioning of this particular alternative reality inhabited by millions

Resisting Marriage and Renouncing Womanhood: The Choice of Taiwanese Buddhist Nuns

The traditional Chinese perception of Buddhist monastics is that they choose to renounce the world out of desperation — after failing in the world such that their only options are suicide or the monastery. That this perception of the monastic life persists in Taiwan today is evident in monastics’ own descriptions of their families’ responses to their choice as well as in several recent scandals related to monastic life. Despite the widespread negative perception of monastics, increasing numbers of women are choosing this life. Drawing on extensive fieldwork with relatively new monastics, the author explores the choice Buddhist nuns make to renounce the world they know (and the possibility of leading lives like their mothers, sisters, and friends) and instead embrace the monastic life despite its negative image. The author argues that the nuns’ choice is but a contemporary manifestation of a long-standing tradition of marriage resistance in Chinese culture and explains that, in the process of rejecting their lives as wives and mothers, Taiwanese Buddhist nuns reject their identities as women altogether