#public-policy — Public Fediverse posts

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/24410/ Bricks vs clicks: The case for an online sales tax #Policy #PublicPolicy #research #SmallBusiness

📍 Save the date for our next #CPCCGWebinar with Susan Harkness, Professor of #PublicPolicy at the University of #Bristol on 15 October.

Susan will discuss research examining non-resident fathers' involvement in their children's lives, focusing on #childmaintenance, contact and #sharedcare. What do changing patterns of post-separation #parenting mean for the design of child maintenance and #socialsecurity policy,?

Register to join us online - all welcome: https://www.cpc.ac.uk/activities/event_calendar/1006/CPC_CG_Webinar__Susan_Harkness

#demography

“Unless you strip bodies of their corporeal nature and impart corporeal nature to incorporeal beings, nothing you expect will take place”*…

In 1965, Hubert Dreyfus wrote the first widely-considered critique of artificial intelligence, Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence, a report for RAND. He updated and expanded the work for broad publication in 1972 as What Computers Can’t Do (which was further updated and revised for two subsequent reissues) and a “sequel,” Mind Over Machine (in 1986). For a precis of Dreyfus’ views on AI, see here.

His invocation of alchemy resonates still, for example in the estimable Henry Farrell‘s consideration of Adam Becker‘s (great) recent book More Everything Forever…

Adam Becker’s “More Everything Forever” begins by describing the ideas of Eliezer Yudkowsky, an AI guru who Sam Altman thinks deserves a Nobel Prize. Yudkowsky’s ambitions for humanity include “[p]erfect health, immortality,” and a future in which “[i]f you imagine something that’s worse than mansions with robotic servants for everyone, you are not being ambitious enough.” According to Yudkowsky and his peers, a “glorious transhumanist future” awaits us if we get AI right, although we face extinction if we get it wrong.

“AI” and “transhumanist” are new terms for rather older ambitions. As the seedy occultist Dr. Trelawney remarks in Anthony Powell’s 1962 novel, “The Kindly Ones,” “[t]o be forever rich, forever young, never to die … Such was in every age the dream of the alchemist.” Renaissance alchemists won the support of monarchs like Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor who squandered his realm’s money on a futile quest to discover the Philosopher’s Stone. Now, as Becker explains, AGI, or artificial general intelligence, has become the means through which philosophers might transubstantiate our mundane reality into a realm in which the apparently impossible becomes possible: living forever, raising the dead, and remaking the universe in the shape of humanity.

These ideas would be a curiosity, if they weren’t reshaping the world, and policymakers’ understanding of national security…

[Farrell explains, elaborating on the beliefs in play and explaining how they played in the Biden Administration (which, he argues, largely internalized them) and now in Trump’s…]

… The Biden administration’s policies rested on risky bets. AI may not be the universal solvent for vexing and complex technological problems promised by Altman, Amodei, and their peers. Some (including most members of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, as well as myself and colleagues) believe that current approaches will not lead to anything like self-improving AGI anytime soon. As DeepSeek’s success in building AI models suggests, semiconductors may not provide the chokehold on AI that American policymakers believed.

In any event, the Trump administration has seemingly opted for a different approach, replacing a grand plan for a global AI order with a loose approach based on the ever-shifting convergence between notions of American greatness and the particular interests of well-connected companies. This currently involves leveraging control of technology to maintain American domination, cutting deals with Gulf states, while trying to cut China out. When Trump toured the Gulf states with an entourage of tech CEOs, he offered access to top-end semiconductors in exchange for promises of massive investment, graciously accepting a jet plane, and a large-scale money transfer routed, with fees, through his family stablecoin.

This emerging blend of imperium, magical technology, and self-dealing too is reminiscent of the Renaissance. The English wizard John Dee, who claimed to have turned mercury into gold in the presence of Rudolf II, is also credited with coining the term “British Empire.” As a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I, he combined alchemical experiment and indirect conversation with angels with more mundane plans to extend British power across the Atlantic and enrich himself.

The alchemists’ quest for immortality and universal transformation is again entangled with the struggle among empires. The dreams of perfect health, the conquest of death, and mansions with robot servants that Becker describes inspire visions of a radically transformed far future and a near present in which America can use advanced technologies to bolster its power. Such visions stem from an ideology of salvation that has indeed fueled important technological advances but may be quite wrong about where those advances will bring us.

We are being ushered into a world where AI models offer new and useful means to summarize the information of the world and draw nonobvious connections across it, but can also weave new syncretic religious beliefs together from the myriad human sources that they summarize. In the early 20th century, Weber argued that rationalized Calvinism had led to the defeat of the old gods and the inexorable disenchantment of a world dominated by bureaucracy and organized capitalism. In the early 21st, just the opposite is happening as AI draws open the gate for the return of the fantastical. Yudkowsky’s eschatology is just one of the prophetic visions attendant on AI. The practical changes that AI will bring to bureaucracy and markets will go hand in hand with religious ecstasy and fervor, as some people come to believe that they can speak to God through the machine, while others use it to elaborate their own extended fantasies about politics. As Becker’s book shows, technology is not just an abstract force changing the world, but a mirror in which human beings see their dreams and ambitions made manifest. We’re starting to discover what that looks like at scale.

Eminently worth reading full: “What AI debates have to do with alchemy,” from @himself.bsky.social.

Then consider this, from Nicklas Lundblad, a senior exec at Deep Mind, Google, Stripe, and elsewhere, recently turned public policy Fellow. In a piece adapted from a lecture in a series of talks on the philosophy of artificial intelligence that he gave at Mid-Sweden University), he puts Dreyfus’s thought into context, tracing the history of arguments with/against it over the years, as both technology and thinking about technology advanced. He concludes…

… So, we may say, what is Dreyfus answer?… That he is obsessed with showing that machines are incapable of being human?

In fact, his conclusion, already in 1965 – and then repeated in the 1972 book – is much more interesting. Here is how Dreyfus concludes his critique:

If the alchemist had stopped poring over his retorts and pentagrams and had spent his time looking for the deeper structure of the problem, as primitive man took his eyes of the moon, came out of the trees, and discovered fire and the wheel, things would have been set moving in a more promising direction. After all, three hundred years after the alchemists we did get gold from lead (and we have landed on the moon), but only after we abandoned work on the alchemic level, and worked to understand the chemical level and the even deeper nuclear level instead.

Dreyfus’ answer is not to get stuck in the question of what computers can’t do – but to reject even that last piece of thick ontology and ask if we are making a fundamental conceptual mistake. He suggests that we find what is to intelligence as chemistry is to alchemy and look for another set of concepts, another language, to describe what we are doing.

We would, in Dreyfus view, be much better of trying to build alien intelligence or replicate animal intelligence or even jettisoning the idea of intelligence entirely in favour of a new concept – perhaps something like cognicity – that removes the Difference from the research program.

Dreyfus recommendations would imply that we should drop the benchmarks that distract us and instead focus on simpler, thinner ontologies around tasks and interactions. What we need, he would suggest, is a conceptual shift into that simpler ontology – at least if we want to make real progress.

The shift into modern machine learning seems to prove that when the thicker ontology was abandoned we did discovered things obscured by the idea of man as a symbolic animal.

What if we abandon both the idea of man and machine?…

Also worthy of a full review: “Reading Dreyfus,” from @nicklaslundblad.

* Zosimos of Panopolis, an alchemist (and Gnostic mystic)

###

As we think about transmutation, we might recall that it was on this date in 1954 (only 11 years before Dreyfus wrote Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence) that IBM introduced the “IBM 608,” the first calculating machine to use only solid-state transistors instead of vacuum tubes (thus needing only about 5% of the power to perform the same operations). The machine was housed in several large cabinets and could be purchased for $83,210 (or rented for $1,760 per month)… that’s just over $1,000,000 on an inflation-adjusted basis (or about $22,000 per month). It used more than 3,000 germanium transistors and could store 40 nine-digit numbers and perform 4,500 additions per second, among other operations.

source

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/18757/ Healey declares ‘state of emergency’ on rising energy costs | Massachusetts #Bill(law) #CentralHeating #Energy #Energy&Utilities #EnergyEconomics #governor #heat #HeatingOil #Iran #LowIncomeHomeEnergyAssistanceProgram #Massachusetts #MauraHealey #petroleum #poverty #PublicPolicy #SustainableEnergy #utilities

Brexit has cut UK exports to the EU by 14.5 per cent, costing the economy £18.1bn a year, finds IPPR

New research from IPPR has found that: Reduced goods exports to the EU due to Brexit have cost…
#Economy #EconomyofEU #EconomyoftheEU #EUeconomy #Europe #policy #publicpolicy #research
https://www.europesays.com/3287237/

https://www.europesays.com/3287237/ Brexit has cut UK exports to the EU by 14.5 per cent, costing the economy £18.1bn a year, finds IPPR #Economy #EconomyOfEU #EconomyOfTheEU #EUEconomy #Europe #policy #PublicPolicy #research

Europe does not have a diagnosis problem. It has a calendar problem

At the FT-Connect Europe Forum, much of the discussion centred on a question that goes far beyond telecommunications:…
#Europe #EU #EU2024-2029 #publicpolicy
https://www.europesays.com/europe/151426/

Europe does not have a diagnosis problem. It has a calendar problem

At the FT-Connect Europe Forum, much of the discussion centred on a question that goes far beyond telecommunications:…
#Spain #ES #Europe #Europa #EU #Telefónica #EU2024-2029 #PublicPolicy
https://www.europesays.com/spain/94839/

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/8537/ Dance selected for Hunt Institute program on education policy | Local News #DecisionMaking #Education #EducationPolicy #FederalPolicy #Policy #Politics #PublicPolicy

Brown University Costs of War Project

'Military spending produces an average of 5 jobs per $1 million. The same investment in other sectors creates more employment - nearly 13 jobs in education, 9 in healthcare, and 7-8 in infrastructure and clean energy'

#usPol #publicPolicy #defense #militaryIndustrialComplex

https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu

Public Information Should Be Public

https://inkwell.social/michael/public-information-should-be-public-321954

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/5865/ McKone: When healthcare policy becomes personal #CenterForHealthcareQualityAndPaymentReform #clinics #DaryleVoss #FederalFunding #FederalPolicy #government #Healthcare #Hospitals #Insurance #IntegrisHealth #JulieMcKone #Medicaid #medicare #MercySouthernOklahomaCommunities #Oklahoma #OklahomaCity #OklahomaFamiliesForAffordableHealthcare #OklahomaPolicyInstitute #OpEd #Policy #PrescriptionDrugs #PublicPolicy

https://www.europesays.com/unitedstates/3873/ The fake L.A. mayor poll adds to challenges facing the public opinion industry #attitude #CharlesFranklin #ChristianGrose #OnlineSurvey #people #Poll #polling #Polls #pollster #PublicOpinion #PublicOpinionIndustry #PublicPolicy #question #respondent #result #USSenate #wisconsin

RE: https://tiggi.es/@ahto/117349888873372135

This is a lengthy but very carefully considered wholistic reflection on AI in education

I don't know the exact specialty of the author but feel comfortable asserting some flavour of computer science which lends a depth and richness to these insights that is sometimes absent – it's really worth a read

#ai #genAI #pedagaogy #higherEd #evidenceBasedPractice #publicPolicy

'you are dealing with a student who is hooked to an addictive system that they are using to try to learn and you are telling them to not use it - you will unfortunately observe withdrawal symptoms'

Sumit Agrawal and Dr. M.S. Sahoo argue for a National Regulatory Commission.

India's new tribunals law hands tribunal selection and performance oversight to a National Tribunals Commission, not parent ministries.

A similar commission for regulators would insulate them from their ministries while ensuring accountability and independent oversight of their performance.

https://www.newindianexpress.com/opinion/2026/Sep/21/at-arms-length-from-regulators

#India #Regulation #PublicPolicy

'he was the most high-profile Labour politician to eloquently diagnose the causes of Britain’s widespread sense of political disenchantment and economic injustice, something that Starmer had never managed to do...a small group of economists in London began working together to persuade him that, were he to become leader, he should make the unaffordability of everyday life his focus'

#ukPol #britPol #labour #socialDemocracy #publicPolicy

https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/sep/24/labours-last-chance-the-people-shaping-andy-burnhams-grand-plans-for-britain

How can institutions learn and adapt in times of rapid technological change? In
Science 's new Expert Voices series, Urs Gasser will regularly share insights on governance, #AI, law, and #publicpolicy: https://t1p.de/vo0f3

📷Science Magazine

More Americans lose SNAP as Congress weighs food stamps’ future | Local https://www.diningandcooking.com/us/30265/ #Bill(law) #cost #economy #EconomyOfTheUnitedStates #GovernmentFinances #Idaho #IdahoDining #IdahoFood #IdahoGroceryStores #IdahoRestaurants #Legislation #PublicPolicy #SupplementalNutritionAssistanceProgram #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesCongress #UnitedStatesFarmBill

Football, Alcohol, Public Safety, and Public Health – A Biblical and Evidence-Based Examination of Andy Burnham’s Position

Football, Alcohol, Public Safety, and Public Health – A Biblical and Evidence-Based Examination of Andy Burnham’s Position

.

https://www.kohathite.com/2026/09/football-alcohol-public-safety-and.html

🇫🇷 New report tackles problem of governments' overreliance on consulting firms

Growing government dependence on consulting firms risks high costs and transparency issues, as highlighted by France's past criticism of McKinsey ties under Macron.

#EU #France #PublicPolicy #Consulting

https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/business/20260922-new-report-tackles-problem-of-governments-overreliance-on-consulting-firms

For anyone unfamiliar, Beth Mole is the senior health reporter for Ars and has a PhD in microbiology which lends a depth and richness to her reporting that is rare (she also has an affection for punning)

'the Department of Health and Human Services told Ars Technica that “CDC has not yet finalized procurement decisions for COVID-19 vaccines through the Vaccines for Children and Section 317 programs.” The department...declined to answer the question of why there was a delay in the decision. But the statement suggested that Trump officials were questioning whether children should get the vaccine'

#rfk #publicHealth #vaccines #usPol #publicPolicy

https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/09/rfk-jr-s-cdc-isnt-letting-states-order-covid-19-shots-for-kids-blocking-access/

Digital India: When Digitization Does Not Translate into Better Governance.

https://technologytrends60.wordpress.com/2026/09/22/digital-india-when-digitization-does-not-translate-into-better-governance/

“The Homes of Tomorrow Are Already Built”: European Citizens’ Initiative for the Right to Housing Opens Signature Collection

Centre Cumbernauld, Scotland, 2026. Image © Milāna Rudenko Published on September 21, 2026 Share Share Facebook Twitter Mail…
#Europe #EU #ADNews #AdaptiveReuse #affordablehousing #Archis #Architecture #EuropeanCommission #EuropeanUnion #HabitatforHumanity #HouseEurope! #housing #housingcrisis #publicpolicy #renovation #Reuse
https://www.europesays.com/europe/142877/

Fatima Payman

'I know it would please the Prime Minister if I had a bunch of lazy incompetents in my office, but would that be fair on my constituents? Ultimately it comes down to equity. Remember when the Labor Government were spruiking their industrial relations reforms? *‘Same job, same pay!’*
But for the staff in my office it’s harder job, less pay'

#labor #ausPol #publicPolicy

https://thepoint.com.au/opinions/260921-i-knew-i-would-be-punished-for-crossing-the-floor-i-didnt-expect-my-staff-to-be

I have a bit of a mind-crush on Daniela Gabor

'The prospect of carbon shock therapy has made it more urgent than ever for states to scale up their planning capacity and establish a high-capital discipline, transformative public investment alternative: the big green state. This, we argue, is the pathway for the Santa Marta countries to achieve the decarbonized sovereignty imperative—the strategic pursuit of decarbonization as a matter of national security'

#fuelCrisis #middleEast #publicPolicy #socialDemocracy #economics

https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/against-carbon-shock-therapy/

This more than a year old but very good

'Aligning climate action with military armament risks fomenting nativism in an era of increasing climate-driven migration and far-right ascendency. Yet “energy security” is an intrinsic component of Europe’s new “security-security” goals. If “security” is going to dominate the next phase of the European project, how will climate and social agendas be fought for?'

#europe #euPol #defense #publicPolicy

https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/europe-enters-its-metal-era/

'Palantir’s expansion in the UK has been rapid. A decade ago the firm was largely unknown here. It now holds public contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds in everything from financial regulation to local government...Organised opposition to Palantir has increased in Britain, but Labour ministers continue to stress the importance of its technology to the running of a modern state'

#surveillanceState #publicPolicy #technology #ukPol #britPol

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n13/peter-geoghegan-and-lucas-amin/this-looks-absolutely-rubbish

- Redesigning the Federation: Administrative Federalism and the Future of Governance in Pakistan

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/71284362/redesigning-the-federation-administrative-federalism-and-the-future-of-governance-in-pakistan

#SSACPakistan #PolicyBrief #AdministrativeFederalism #GovernanceReform #Pakistan #PublicPolicy #StateCapacity #FutureOfPakistan

The federal government says communities should have meaningful input into #DataCentre development.

But the public apparently wasn't consulted when those principles were written.

I spoke with The Energy Mix about that contradiction, the lack of measurable accountability in Ottawa's principles, and something we're largely ignoring: cumulative impacts.

https://www.theenergymix.com/no-public-input-on-ottawas-public-input-principles-for-data-centre-development/

#DataCentres #Canada #PublicPolicy #Municipalities

A quotation from Molly Ivins

   It’s tacky to start playing the blame game before the dead are even counted. It is not too soon, however, to make a point that needs to be hammered home again and again, and that is that government policies have real consequences in people’s lives.
   This is not “just politics” or blaming for political advantage. This is about the real consequences of what governments do and do not do. And about who winds up paying the price.

Molly Ivins (1944–2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (2005-09-09), “Katrina and You,” Texas Observer

More about this quote: wist.info/ivins-molly/86067/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #mollyivins #katrina #HurricaneKatrina #government #policy #politics #publicpolicy

Oregon food pantries report rising need after SNAP cuts | News https://www.diningandcooking.com/us/11140/ #EconomyOfTheUnitedStates #FoodBank #LocalNews #NonstopLocal #Oregon #OregonDining #OregonFood #OregonGroceryStores #OregonRestaurants #PublicPolicy #SupplementalNutritionAssistanceProgram #UnitedStates #WashingtonNews

'consumers are using cleaner energy and bringing down their bills at a time when the cost of living is a constant concern...But such a massive, ungovernable influx of energy carries risks, too—the world’s power infrastructure was not designed for solar self-generation—and investment, pricing models, and even the security of supply could be affected as a result'

#renewables #solar #publicPolicy #greenEnergy

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/09/offensively-cheap-solar-power-is-looking-up/

RE: https://hcommons.social/@kfitz/117268980188009477

‘Any framing about what higher is or has been that misses the big public investment post-WW2 and then massive disinvestment starting in the 1980s which spirals into rising costs and student debt is disingenuous at best’

#publicPolicy #genAi #higherEd

Ageing populations are not just a social issue — they’re an economic force. Our new piece on the Silver Economy explains how demographic transition is reshaping consumption patterns and pension systems worldwide. Valuable reading for executives, policymakers and financial planners. Read the full article: https://wix.to/sBtHSnM

#PublicPolicy
#SilverEconomy
#MarketStrategy
#PensionReform
#FinancialPlanning
#DemographicTransition

Broad tax reform belongs at the centre of Canada’s growth agenda
#Canada #Economy #TaxReform #EconomicGrowth #Productivity #Investment #EconomicResilience #PublicPolicy #Politics #TaxPolicy #Taxes #CRA #FiscalPolicy #The14Media
https://the-14.com/broad-tax-reform-belongs-at-the-centre-of-canadas-growth-agenda/

RE: https://mas.to/@thecontinent/117253179327056947

'In response to Namibia’s refusal to share its national health data, the United States will stop funding its HIV-response programme from 2027'

There's a lot of interesting material in this issue but I'm curious how many folks might believe that the Australian Gvt are not under the same pressure to surrender protected datasets on Australian populations (albeit with a different set of coercions)

#ausPol #publicPolicy

subject to the cloud act...?

seems likely

'Unnamed companies are looking at setting up six data centres in Tasmania, a document tabled by the state government in parliament reveals'

#genAI #tasmania #publicPolicy #datacentres #polycrisis

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-09/six-new-confidential-data-centre-proposals-tasmania-revealed/107131974

Whoever owns the compute owns the world?

In my latest post, I argue that governments should own or co-own part of the infrastructure behind AI. Regulation and taxation matter, but neither gives us the control we need.

We Need Public Ownership of AI Infrastructure
https://marcpuricelli.cv/posts/we-need-public-ownership-of-ai-infrastructure.html

#AI #DigitalSovereignty #PublicPolicy

'University of Melbourne architect and the lead author of the study, said animals were seeking out buildings as substitute habitats as their natural homes and hollows disappeared'

#polycrisis #clusterfuck #habitat #publicPolicy

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/06/possums-in-the-roof-koalas-in-bed-study-shows-how-animals-resort-to-australian-homes-after-habitat-loss

'mental health is the stepsister of the healthcare system. It’s not right. But because we cant see it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And the medical healthcare system doesn’t want to recognize and pay for mental healthcare apart from giving out drugs to make them go away'

#mentalHealth #publicPolicy #publicHealth

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/05/lindsay-clancy-murder-trial-retrial

Politics today feels less about solving public issues and more about winning battles. Deep ideological divides turn debates into hostility, eroding trust in democratic institutions and making compromise nearly impossible.

• Focus on facts, not personal attacks.
• Prioritize community progress over party loyalty.

Are we using politics to build societies, or just dividing ourselves?

#Politics #Democracy #PublicPolicy #CivilDiscourse #Mastodon