Does money make us selfish?

Philip Goodchild on money, trust, and self-interest

Limits to globalisation and the loss of faith

The contemporary rise of populism may be explained as a product of the process of globalisation against which it reacts. For globalisation rests upon a faith in the future, and limits to globalisation necessitate a change in faith. It is proposed that the nature of this faith in the future can be illuminated by the dynamics of a credit crisis, such as the Great Financial Crisis of 2007–8. According tonew economic theory, economic growth is driven by the rate of credit creation, and economic downturns result from a failure in mutual confidence. There are both mathematical and external limits to economic growth. The first result of approaching such limits is an attempt to retain one!s share of resources with the rise of populism. A subsequent result may well be a return to religion in currently secular countries

Zakaj je filozofija z bogom sklepala takšne kompromise?

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Cityscapes without figures: geophysics, computing and the future of urban studies

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Interpreting Spatial Language in Image Captions

The map as a tool for accessing data has become very popular in recent years, but a lot of data do not have the necessary spatial meta-data to allow for that. Some data such as photographs however have spatial information in their captions and if this could be extracted, then they could be made available via map-based interfaces. Towards this goal, we introduce a model and spatio-linguistic reasoner for interpreting the spatial information in image captions that is based upon quantitative data about spatial language use acquired directly from people. Spatial language is inherently vague, and both the model and reasoner have been designed to incorporate this vagueness at the quantitative level and not only qualitatively

Definition of a temporal distribution index for high temporal resolution precipitation data over Peninsular Spain and the Balearic Islands: the fractal dimension; and its synoptic implications

Precipitation on the Spanish mainland and in the Balearic archipelago exhibits a high degree of spatial and temporal variability, regardless of the temporal resolution of the data considered. The fractal dimension indicates the property of self-similarity, and in the case of this study, wherein it is applied to the temporal behaviour of rainfall at a fine (10-min) resolution from a total of 48 observatories, it provides insights into its more or less convective nature. The methodology of Jenkinson & Collison which automatically classifies synoptic situations at the surface, as well as an adaptation of this methodology at 500 hPa, was applied in order to gain insights into the synoptic implications of extreme values of the fractal dimension. The highest fractal dimension values in the study area were observed in places with precipitation that has a more random behaviour over time with generally high totals. Four different regions in which the atmospheric mechanisms giving rise to precipitation at the surface differ from the corresponding above-ground mechanisms have been identified in the study area based on the fractal dimension. In the north of the Iberian Peninsula, high fractal dimension values are linked to a lower frequency of anticyclonic situations, whereas the opposite occurs in the central region. In the Mediterranean, higher fractal dimension values are associated with a higher frequency of the anticyclonic type and a lower frequency of the advective type from the east. In the south, lower fractal dimension values indicate higher frequency with respect to the anticyclonic type from the east and lower frequency with respect to the cyclonic type

On the Origins of Modern Debt and Value: Revisiting Friedrich Nietzsche and William Petty

The pursuit of self-interest can lead to market failure when there is a lack of trust. Where Hume and Nietzsche located the origin of trust in the capacity to make promises - debts conceived in terms of values – this article explores the origins of modern distrust and its concomitant pursuit of selfinterest. Examining the market economies of the 16th and 17th centuries in England, one finds these were characterised by a shortage of coins so had to rely effectively on trust. Wealth consisted largely of ‘credit’ or trustworthiness, for this was the basis for access to goods and services with a promise of later payment. As such, wealth was not a possession but a reputation, and the pursuit of reputation took precedence over the pursuit of possessions. Since default on a debt could easily spread by contagion, the basis for collective welfare was personal morality. The key question, then, is how this conception of credit came to be replaced by one equivalent to debt, given a precise value and time for repayment. It will be argued that in this context the best way to prove one’s creditworthiness was to pay on time with the debt issued by a sound institution such as the Bank of England or the Exchequer. The financial revolution in England had the effect of turning the pursuit of ‘credit’ into the pursuit of wealth, where debts assumed the money functions of means of payment, unit of account, and store of value. The result was a transformation of morality: pursuit of self-interest, in the form of an ability to pay in money, became the basis for personal morality, while money became the measure of valu