Utopia, you are standing in it!

With holidays abroad still a major challenge due to the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, Dr Paul Hunneyball, assistant editor of our Lords 1558-1603 project, considers the risks associated with travel overseas four hundred years ago…

One of the standard clichés of life a few centuries ago is that people tended not to travel very far. While this was broadly true for the bulk of the population, there were in fact more opportunities to explore the world than we generally assume. By the early seventeenth century enterprising mariners and merchants were crossing the Atlantic, and reaching as far afield as Russia and India, in addition to more routine contacts with most coastal areas of continental Europe. For several decades, England had permanent garrisons in the Netherlands, which generated a great deal of traffic across the North Sea. For the privileged classes, the option of foreign travel for cultural or educational purposes…

The latest issue of Science Advances has a provocative and clever piece of research aimed at answering a long-standing question—one considered by Charles Darwin himself: are the facial expressions associated with human emotions universal across all cultures? And, if so, is that the result of evolution? The paper suggests that, at least for a limited set of emotions, the answer is yes to both questions. You can read the paper by clicking the screenshot below, or reading the pdf here.The full reference is at the bottom.

Cowen and Keltner note that there have been a fair number of attempts to answer this question, all involving going to remote areas where there is little contact with Westerners, and seeing if people in those areas match photos of Western expressive signals (joy, anger, sympathy) with similar words in their native language. The results have been mixed. That, one would think, already…

The reign of James I

Queen Elizabeth I died aged 70 on 24 March 1603. She had resisted marrying a husband or bearing an heir throughout her reign and now died childless. King James VI of Scotland was chosen to inherit the crown of England, ascending the throne at the age of 37, having himself ascended the Scottish throne while still a child aged 13 months, after his mother, Mary Queen of Scots was forced to abdicate in his favour.

James had been brought up by four regents and umpteen guardians, and had survived the poisonous faction-fighting of the Scottish court for 20 years since coming of age.

Kidnapping Scottish kings was almost constitutional practice and James himself was abducted twice. (p.79)

Upon hearing he’d inherited the throne of England, James hastened south to Scotland’s rich, sunny neighbour and never went back. Unfortunately, he brought quite a few Scottish aristocrats…

Yesterday, in Part I of this series, we enjoyed a video from the U.K.-based Centre for Economic Education, about how capitalism lifted the world from deprivation and oppression (also see videos by Don Boudreaux and Deirdre McCloskey).

Today, in Part II of the Case for Capitalism, here’s a video from CEE that explains how markets provide you a cup of coffee.

An obvious takeaway from the video is that consumers benefit from global markets, which hopefully helps to explain why free trade is desirable.

But there are four other messages that are even more widely applicable.

1. Capitalism is based on competition, but also should be understood as a system of cooperation.
2. Voluntary exchange means that both buyers and sellers expect to benefit from a transaction.
3. Prices should be set by unfettered markets rather than politicians, regulators, or bureaucrats.
4. Our prosperity is a result of the invisible hand

The latest issue of Science Advances has a provocative and clever piece of research aimed at answering a long-standing question—one considered by Charles Darwin himself: are the facial expressions associated with human emotions universal across all cultures? And, if so, is that the result of evolution? The paper suggests that, at least for a limited set of emotions, the answer is yes to both questions. You can read the paper by clicking the screenshot below, or reading the pdf here.The full reference is at the bottom.

Cowen and Keltner note that there have been a fair number of attempts to answer this question, all involving going to remote areas where there is little contact with Westerners, and seeing if people in those areas match photos of Western expressive signals (joy, anger, sympathy) with similar words in their native language. The results have been mixed. That, one would think, already…

ChildLine : Coming Out Stories

In the third of my posts on the NSPCC, child protection charity, I looked at Coming Out Stories, involving three females and one male. Callum is a gay male. One of the females identifies as assexual, one bisexual and , despite watching this, and transcribing it, I still don’t know what the final girl identifies as. 😳. This is a video about coming out and , as far as I can tell, Maja didn’t actually come out as anything! What was noticeable was, out of the three females, not one came out as Lesbian.

Here is a link to the youtube https://youtu.be/wzw6rGDMqX0

Here is a transcript: ChildLine Coming Out stories Transcription

First question is directed at Calum. He is given, by far, the most air time in this piece. He was aware of his sexuality at a young age and began talking…

Freedom for Faith have posted this submission on the provisions of a Private Member’s Bill (sponsored by the Hon Mark Latham) being considered in the NSW Parliament at the moment. The Bill would plug a gap in NSW discrimination law by making religious belief or activity a prohibited ground of discrimination in NSW. The Bill is one that ought to receive serious consideration from the Parliament, and the submission (prepared for Freedom for Faith by Dr Alex Deagon, Senior Lecturer in Law at the Queensland University of Technology) should be very helpful in that process.