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Simon Kuper

Friday 19th of April 2024

Advertising Another popular misconception is that newspapers tailor editorial lines to suit advertisers. … Generally, advertising matters less to newspapers since ad spending migrated online. In 2020, for the first time on record, US newspapers' revenues from circulation  exceeded advertising, reports Pew Research. Ads increased only in cable television, Fox’s domain. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, April 13, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Aging As populations age, there are more and more people living alone with their television sets. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, January 20-21, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Aging Higher voting rates by older people make the ballot box a “time machine”: it reflects the US of a decade ago. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, February 27, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Books From 2007 to 2017 American authors’ median income dropped by more than half to $6,080. That’s in the world’s biggest book market, includes earnings from sidelines such as speaking, and excludes the one in four published writers whose total book income in 2017 was $0. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, September 9, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Books Most titles nowadays are chosen for search engine optimisation. If War and Peace  appeared today, someone at the publishers might insist on renaming it Dating Hot Russian Women. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, September 9, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Cities Modern “megacities” (defined as places with at least 10 million inhabitants) are the biggest human settlements in history, and growing every day. The world had ten megacities in 1990, 33 in 2018 and will have 43 by 2030, says the United Nations. Over a third of their population growth will be in India, China and Nigeria. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, June 2, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Cities Our great, global cities are turning into vast gated citadels where the elite reproduces itself. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, June 14, 2103 © 2018 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus Just between June and November [2021], 163,000 Covid-19 deaths in the US alone could have been prevented by vaccination, estimates the Kaiser Family Foundation.  That’s nearly double all the American deaths in war in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq combined — and the unvaccinated continue to die, pointlessly. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, January 13, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy Any American watching Israel's turmoil  must recognise the parallels between the two countries — not just today, but stretching back to the founding of both states. Israel and the US are two improbable creations that went on similar journeys. Both may soon end with the dismantling of democracy. …  Both states hit identity crises when the ethnic  majority realised it risked becoming a minority. … It’s often said nowadays that Israel can be a Jewish state or a democracy, but it can't be both. Similarly, the US can be a white-ruled ethnostate or a democracy, but not both. Simon Kuper, Financal Times, August 3, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy It’s often said nowadays that Israel can be a Jewish state or a democracy, but it can't be both. Similarly, the US can be a white-ruled ethnostate or a democracy, but not both. In both countries, about half the dominant ethnic group is tempted by an ethnostate. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, August 3, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Elites When elites leave their homelands, they typically go to stable countries with long-term horizons. In good times, the rich want a weak state with low tax and little regulation, but in bad times they prefer strong states. That's why the countries with the highest influx of foreign brains per capita are Aus- tralia, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and Canada, according to the Fund for Peace. The safe haven of the American super- -rich in case the US collapses is social democratic New Zealand. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, July 29, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Global warming Even a billion humans cutting their emissions  wouldn’t achieve anything significant, with seven billion others getting richer and emitting more. Obsessing about personal footprints also plays into the strategy of fossil-fuel  producers, which love to cast climate change as an individual moral responsibility. In reality, we can reach Net Zero only by transforming collective energy, and industrial and agricultural systems. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, November 23, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Global warming We know the maximum heat at which human beings can survive, the so-called wet bulb temperature of 35C [95F], which is calculated depending on the local mix of heat and humidity. Currently, fewer than one million people live in areas that average 38-45C [100.4-113F] in the shade during the hottest month, estimates the Inter-  national Organization for Migration (IOM). That number will reach 30 to 60 million by 2100, even if we limit average global temperature rises to 1.5C [2.7F]. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, June 23, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Global warming Years ago, Roger Pielke Jr, political scientist at the University of Colorado,  formulated the Iron Law of Climate Policy: “When policies on emissions reductions collide with policies focused on economic growth,  economic growth will win out every time.” That law still holds, and not because our leaders are bad people or in hock to fossil-fuel lobbies. It holds because economic growth is what electorates want. We vote for emissions. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, November 11, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Globalization The biggest economic winners of the last 40 years were highly skilled natives living in superstar cities. They risk becoming the biggest losers of the next era. To quote the scary new mantra: if you can do your job from anywhere, someone anywhere can do your job. Lesser-skilled workers in western countries have been through this already, when jobs in factories, call centres and back office were offshored. Parisian graphic designers and New York bankers may be about to find out what that feels like. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, March 25, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Globalization Global remittances to low- and middle-income countries hit a record $554bn last year, double the figure for 2007, and more than the annual global total of foreign direct investment, says the World Bank. That figure is projected to plunge 20 per cent this year. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, September 24, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Government Governments deal with “wicked problems” that can't be solved (or even fully understood): social injustice, hostile powers or climate change. The “solutionism” of Silicon Valley rarely works in politics. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, March 10-11, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Immigration The question is why Norwegians would want to come to America today, except as aid workers. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, October 1, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Incels In the US in 2019, 28 per cent of young men hadn’t had sex with a woman in a year,  up from about 10 per cent a decade earlier, reports the General Social Survey run from the University of Chicago. In a national survey of Japanese aged 18-34 in 2016, 42 per cent of men reported being virgins. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, September 7, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Internet The average person is online for six hours 58 minutes a day, or 40 per cent of their waking time, estimates a report by GWI,  Hootsuite and We Are Social.  You can do your job, conduct relationships and entertain yourself online, all for the cost of a phone.  And that's before virtual reality takes off. Beat that, so-called “real” life. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, May 19, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Leftists There’s always a category of leftist who sees voting as a form of self-expression akin to writing a song, rather than the way to choose who gets power. These people often feel only a perfunctory animus against the right, which barely intrudes on their field of vision. They get much more het up about the centre-left, which they are always running up against in big cities, university campuses and, above all, on social media. In the US, the natural home for such people is the Green party, which functions as a vehicle for marginal narcissists to siphon votes from Democrats so that Republicans can win world-changing elections. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, August 31, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Nationalism Today’s far right and far left share an outlook: hatred of one’s own nation, at least in its current incarnation, and the search for a better foreign country to love. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, April 13, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
News For all the angst about polarisation and disinformation, something very different is in fact going on in news consumption: the mass-media age is ending.  We’re returning to a time when most people get almost no news. Growing numbers of citizens are oblivious to current affairs, much like most ordinary Britons before  the first popular newspaper, the Daily Mail, appeared in 1896 … We marvel at Russians, switched off and immobilised while their government commits horrors. That could be us very soon. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, March 21, 2023 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Polarization Everyone rightly laments polarisation, but what's often overlooked is that it's creating a novel sense of belonging and identity, in societies that were getting scarily atomised. … The new political tribes can provide a stronger identity than nation or even family, as witness the quarrels in American homes when liberal kids  visit Trumster parents at Thanksgiving. These conflicts are stressful. But the upside is belonging. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, January 20-21, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Polarization The identity battle is especially intense because multiple identities stack up on top of each other. Most Republicans are simultaneously white, rural, older and Christian, and so are their neighbours. Democrats are their opposites. It's now possible simply to look at photo- graphs of people and predict with some confidence which party they support. Once Americans join one of these tribes, they generally adopt all of its views so as not to be ostracised. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, February 27, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Polarization Many voters dislike their own party, but detest the other one. For Republicans, there's something else driving their radicalisation: they are a white tribe that fears demographic extinction. “A majority of infants born [in the US] today, are non-white,” notes [Ezra] Klein [author of Why We're Polarized ]. The most common age for white Americans is 58; for Hispanics, it's 11, says economist Jed Kolko. Many Republican regions are depopulating. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, February 27, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Populism How can nativist populists be beaten? Before anyone dismisses the label as meaningless, let’s define it.  Populists divide the world into a “pure people” and a “corrupt elite”, says Cas Mudde. Nativists add the notion that “the people” are the majority ethnic group: Hindus in India, whites in the US. … Anti-populists need to tell a new version of the people-versus-elite story, but casting  themselves as the heroes. For American Demo- crats opposing Trump, that story should be: everyone in this country is born equal; we all belong here and we support democracy. … The strongest political value available to anti-populists is decency. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, April 11, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Populism  They endlessly retell the story of the people  against the elite — an echo of Marx’s account of “proletarians” and “capitalists”. …  The thing to grasp about the populist story is  that it’s just that: a story, laden with values. It’s not a collection of facts or policies. That means it cannot be defeated by rival facts or policies. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, April 11, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Poverty Being poor is like trying to climb out of a pit while roped together with your family. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, September 24, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Power The US is going through the most awkward phase in the life cycle of an empire. Its relative power in the world is somewhat down from its all-time peak, but its burdens aren’t. It must prioritise, and at the same time daren't. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, October 17, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Progress  We've quietly ditched the idea of progress. Perhaps high-income countries don't need it any more. The new human mission, both global and personal, is avoiding disaster. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, May 19, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Public discourse In my own sector, punditry, the man from a high-status country — above all, until now, the US or UK — is invited to explain the world. The man from a low-status country gets to explain his country. The woman from a low-status country is at best invited to explain the situation of women in her country.  Similar dynamics have played out over Ukraine. Traditionally, it was Russians or high-status westerners who got to interpret the country to the world. Even now, Ukrainian views risk being dismissed as partial or emotional. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, July 21, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Public discourse Use slides or videos to give people a break from looking at your face. But don’t fill the slides with large slabs of text. Your mouth is for words, and slides are for pictures. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, April 28, 2022, some advice to presenters at conferences © 2022 Kwiple.com
Reading In the 2021 international Pisa survey, 49 per cent of students agreed that “I read only if I have to”, 13 percentage points higher than in 2000. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, October 19, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Selfie Any monk still producing calligraphy after 1492 probably sensed he was working in an outdated medium. I write texts of more than 30 words, so I now feel the same. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, October 19, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Selfie My life mantra is that the solution to most human problems is earplugs, and nothing could induce me to attend the “happy hours” in the canteen. No doubt I am unusually misanthropic, but it turns out that few people meet anybody at a WeWork. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, April 6, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Perhaps Johnson’s best legacy will, perversely, be rule breaking. Like Donald Trump, he has acted like a burglar testing the locks of the country’s constitution. Unlike US Republicans, the Commons could now add the missing bolts by restricting political donations and defining the consequences if a PM misleads parliament or breaks the law. Boris Johnson portrayed by Simon Kuper in Finacial Times, February 3, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Social media The cliché used to be that people had moved to social media for news. Well, they have moved to social media, but increasingly not for news.  After all, why let journalists you don’t trust tell you about politicians you don’t trust? Meta says news now accounts for under 3 per cent of what users see on its biggest platform, Facebook. Instagram, too, has deprioritised news. TikTok won’t even show political adverts. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, March 21, 2023 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Social media In an era of social media and nonstop news from endless outlets, the politicians who get the most attention are those who create unusual, supposedly “authentic” characters for themselves. This system rewards narcissists and what the philosopher Harry Frankfurt calls “bullshitters”: people distinct from liars in that they have no interest in what's true or not. They just say what sounds good. Their high verbal intelligence reduces their need for analytic intelligence. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, July 2, 2020,  on the rise of the attention economy and mediagenic rightwing nationalists  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Socio-economic mobility Canada, in fact, is the most socially mobile developed country, says the OECD: nearly three-quarters of Canadians aged 25 to 64 were in a different social class than their parents between 2002 and 2014. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, August 1, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Socio-economic mobility  [I]n countries without elite universities, it's rare for one class to capture the national heights: careers are decided more in adulthood, by which time people's trajectories depend slightly more on their achievements than on their parents. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, August 1, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Spies [T]he attack on the superannuated minor double agent [Sergei] Skripal is chiefly a public statement. Russia is telling Britons: we can kill with impunity in your country, and it's telling powerful Russians in Britain, we can kill you. Because spies fascinate the public, the message is heard. … Russia's paranoia-creation has become more deliberate. Russian espionage – like so much else in Russian behaviour abroad – is morphing into a branch of public relations. Nowadays, Russian spies are meant to be seen. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, March 22, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union For Europeans, today's America serves a useful function: a model for how not to run your society. The US has already demonstrated how easy it is to lurch into plutocracy, or to split a country into two hostile tribes. Now it is offering another cautionary lesson: how to let Russian interference succeed  by turning it into a partisan issue. Most Republicans are acting as if the problem isn't Russian meddling in the 2016 election but the FBI's handling of it. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, Feb. 8, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Success Garlanded go-getters like Midgley are walking arguments against success. There's a lesson for us all here. It's worth asking every morning: am I Thomas Midgley? Should I go to work today, or will the world be better off if I stay in bed playing League of Legends  in my underwear? “Did little damage” is a good line to have on one’s tombstone. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, December 11/12, 2021 [Midgley invented leaded gasoline, which ended “knocking” in engines but killed millions, and chlorofluorocarbon, used in air conditioning but depleted ozone in the upper atmosphere] © 2021 Kwiple.com
Thinking People who lose reading skills also lose thinking skills. Their need for simplicity is met by  politicians offering “simplism”: the ideology of simple answers for complex problems.  Simplism is sold under euphemisms such as “common sense”, “moral clarity” and “telling it straight”. The chief simplist, Donald Trump, speaks at the level of a fourth-grader. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, October 19, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Ukraine War But other global threats haven't gone away since this war began. We're just ignoring them. In an age of constant crisis, the urgent shoves aside the important, which in our case is climate change. I don't see how we fix this. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, March 24, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
 
Ukraine War  The Russian army’s incompetence in Ukraine  may only heighten dangers. Six weeks ago,  Putin thought he had a strong military. Now,  to adapt the cold war jibe about the USSR, Russia looks like Burkina Faso with nukes plus a brutal artillery. That could encourage Putin to use his one unbeatable weapon: nuclear. We may, God forbid, start getting used to isolated nuclear attacks, after which we move on, like after the atomic bombs of 1945. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, March 24, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com