Issue #21 · October 25th, 2017 · View in your browser

Why is it that Italy has avoided djihadist terrorism? The simple answer would be that the Mafia has kept Islamic terrorists from installing a solid foundation. This idea is not far from the truth but the problem is that the Mafia is more active in the south, whereas most Muslims live in the north. It's indirectly because of the Mafia though: the Italian police might be better than its European neighbours at tracking down tight-knit groups. Judges are also quite eager to issue warrants for wiretaps or for electronic surveillance. The third factor the article points out is that for a long time, Al-Qaeda has used Italy as a logistical base for their operations, so the country was safe because they needed it to be. Things are ought to be changing now, though. ISIS has been inciting “lone wolves” to act. [Economist]

How you talk may be as important as what you say — especially for your love life. Researchers from USC recorded 134 couple therapy sessions for over two years. They extracted the content of the conversations as well as pitch, variation in pitch and intonation. They then trained a machine-learning algorithm to work out a relationship between these vocal features and the outcome of therapy. The AI was nuanced: it didn't just analyse shouting or raised voices but also the interplay of conversation, who spoke when and for how long, etc. They then gave the videos to experts, who based their assessment on tone, content and body language and were correct 75.6% of the time. Only using vocal characteristics, the AI was right 79.3% of the time. Crazy. We can conclude that there are things ciphered in (pun intended) our communication that even experts cannot understand. A corollary would be that this shows how digital communication is a very delicate matter, as the additional meaning conveyed by tone does not exist. We simply cannot write like we speak. [The Next Web]

Some 60-80 feet below ground, in the continental United States, you can find 90 missileers who are sitting on alert. The missileers are the U.S. Air Force Nuclear and Missile Operations Officers. And most of them are women — even though the U.S. Army has a better record at gender equality than other institutions, it's still rare to have more women than men for a given position. Their mission is to make sure that American nuclear weapons are ready to be launched, 365 days a year, 7 days a week, 24/24. "We defend the United States with combat-ready nuclear forces, and, on order, we'll conduct global strike," says Colonel Cathy Barrington, operations group commander of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. You'll read an interesting tale of community in an albeit rather sordid context. [Marie Claire]

Social media is a threat for democracy. Or so argues James Williams, an ex-Googled who now works to free our minds and time from digital services. The ideal of democracy assumes a set of given capacities such as the capacity for complex thinking and decision-making. But as our phones keep us looking and tapping, they wear down our willpower — by having us make more decisions. It was shown that repeated distractions lowered people's IQ by up to 10 points, which is more than twice the drop you get from long-term marijuana use. He also says that a common denominator across populism-trending Western liberal democracies is that social media is amplifying the effect of right-wing sentiment, by making it simpler to be impulsive. It echoes how radio helped Hitler rise to power. Williams also talks about the freedom of attention as an opposition to freedom of information (something we never thought we'd need, as we lived in an information-scarce world) and how personal responsibility is not a key factor. Digital ethics is surely a good job market right now. [Nautilus]

For some bewildering reason, George W. Bush is having some sort of revival thanks to the American left. Jeet Heer's piece in The New Republic is an interesting press review of that matter. Last week, Bush made a speech denouncing Trumpism. They loved it. But in it, he said: “We have seen the return of isolationist sentiments—forgetting that American security is directly threatened by the chaos and despair of distant places, where threats such as terrorism, infectious disease, criminal gangs and drug trafficking tend to emerge.” Let's remember that Bush thought invading Iraq would spread democracy in the region. Let's also remember that Daesh had its infancy in Iraqi prisons set up by the Americans. (For a reminder, read Martin Chulov's account of the birth of ISIS.) How can the supposed sophisticated American left praise Bush when he is a murderer who did not pay for his crimes? Is it simply (and perhaps understandably) because they need to let some steam out in this Trump-ridden world? What can we do to help? [The New Republic]

What if Kim Jong Un had a very rational explanation for his flamboyant behaviour? This is the thesis of Tyler Cowen's October 17th column for Bloomberg. He argues that Kim will outlast many a-U.S. presidents and that in the long-run, North Korea's natural enemy is China. So right now, it makes sense to threaten to U.S., it shows that he is ready to talk about going nuclear to the Chinese — in other words, by standing up to the most powerful country in the world, he shows that he can stand up to anyone. One clear counter-argument is that we often over-estimate the intelligence of world leaders, and that people are not generally so rational. But, even though he was considered a weak successor to his father, Kim still managed to retain some love from the population (they're not all evenly misinformed); he developed intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities much faster than what people expected and he brought surprising growth rates to the economy. Maybe it's not all so bad after all.  [Bloomberg]

*Thanks and have a nice day, 

Ulysse*