Showing 1 - 9 of 9
Innovation no fix for urban transport ills
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 03/07/2018
» Urban transportation is undergoing a revolution. Offerings such as Uber and Lyft, as well as car- and bike-sharing services are widely believed to reduce congestion and generally make urban dwellers more mobile; driverless cars are expected to provide further benefits. Yet the notion that these innovations always make things better is far from a given: The new services are a net good only if they complement traditional public transportation systems rather than compete with them.
Secretive Russian billionaire vents to US conservatives
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 13/03/2018
» It's not every day that a Russian billionaire submits a op-ed piece to the Daily Caller, the conservative US website. When the billionaire in question is as media-shy as Oleg Deripaska, something extraordinary is going on. As the unfortunate recipient of an oversized role in the "Trump-Russia" scandal, he has had enough and is not quite sure how to defend himself.
Stock market is a lot like bitcoin now
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 08/02/2018
» Just as President Donald Trump had nothing to do with the stock market's rise, despite the almost 60 boastful tweets he has posted about it since being elected, he has nothing to do with the recent stock crash. Instead, praise the machines -- and blame them, too.
The cyber whodunnit and the global blame game
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 21/12/2017
» The US government has officially attributed to North Korea the WannaCry ransomware attack, which encrypted hundreds of thousands of computer drives around the world in May, 2017. And yet as with a series of other highly public cyberattack attributions, little evidence for the claim was made public. It's time for the cybersecurity world to follow the advice of the Rand Corporation and set up an unbiased international consortium that would seek to attribute attacks based on a common set of rules.
Coup against Mugabe is really nothing to celebrate
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 17/11/2017
» As leader of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe has survived longer than Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao in China. If it's coming to an end -- which seems likely given his apparent inability to emerge from house arrest after the military took charge -- it's worth reflecting on the mistakes he made to end such a remarkable run.
Russia has no reason to undermine Qatar
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 09/06/2017
» The ubiquitous "Russian hackers" are now accused of providing the spark for a diplomatic fire between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. While the facts in the case remain in the shadows, it's hard to understand why it would be in Russia's interest to undermine Qatar.
Happy nations don't only focus on economic growth
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 22/03/2017
» The Socialist candidate for the French presidency, Benoit Hamon, says he doesn't believe in the "myth" and "quasi-religion" of growth -- it's part of the "consumerist, productivist and materialist model" of development, he argues.
Merkel, Juncker fight the dreamers
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 08/07/2016
» It is increasingly clear that the European Union (EU) is about to waste the crisis brought on by the UK's withdrawal vote. The leaders of the nation states have no stomach for any meaningful reform of EU institutions, the bureaucrats in Brussels are forced to take a back seat, and federalist dreamers are unceremoniously shunted aside.
If you expect it, it's not a 'Black Swan'
News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 11/05/2016
» It's the bread and butter of pundits to speculate what the world might look like after a relatively improbable but potentially disruptive event, like the UK's exit from the European Union or a Donald Trump victory in the US presidential election. The perceived probability of these "black swan" events is pretty high, after all, and contingency plans may be in order. It's useful, however, to remember how the author of The Black Swan, Nassim Taleb, framed it in his 2007 book: