Future justice has an economic dimension because economic decisions made today will have an impact on the level of wellbeing achievable by people in the future. For example, decisions today to use less of our non-renewable natural resources, such as coal and oil, will influence how much of these resources will be available for people to use in the future
The year 2010 was climatically distinctive. Globally, it was one of the two hottest years in the 150-year (surface thermometer) record. It was also a tumultuous year of extreme weather events — in North America, much of Europe, and in the greater Eurasian region where the combination and scale of flooding (Pakistan and China), landslides (China), extreme heat-waves (Russia, China, Vietnam), and wild fires (Russia) during August was, literally, extraordinary
Traditionally, genetic tests have been firmly placed within a clinical context — clinicians order tests to gather information to help or confirm diagnosis of a condition in a person who is showing symptoms, to predict whether a person with a family history will develop a late-onset condition when the test results can be accurately interpreted (e.g. Huntington disease), or to identify carriers of recessive conditions in a family (e.g. cystic fibrosis)
For the artists involved, the staging of a theatre play requires what surgeons and philosophers call a suture. A stitching on, in a physical sense, of what it is saying, the world it is conjuring up. Without this personal connection, drama is a just jumble of vocalised third-person sentiments and self-conscious arm waving. Add the human element, via the suture, and the activity is transformed
Despite being home to one of the oldest cultures in the world, Australia likes to think of itself as being young. When Australians travel overseas they marvel at ‘the history’ of the places they visit: the architecture, the art, and the customs that were all there before Australia was colonised, before it became a nation
I don’t know that it’s making any difference, is it? And if it is making a difference, how do we begin to quantify the difference it’s making? It’s rather like prayer. How can we know? Without poetry and drama and novels and music and art we know ourselves to be poorer. We know such things as these enrich our existence
Decisions that affect our lives in both trivial and important ways are increasingly being made by algorithms. These algorithms, especially those derived using artificial intelligence (AI), are often inscrutable — at least, they are for now. If we want to hold people and organisations to account for their decisions, and if they want people to have trust in their decisions, we will need to be able to explain why a decision was made. How will we achieve explainable decision making?
I grew up in Legoland writ large. Big brick veneer houses on small blocks treed with conifers and covered with tan bark. It was a happy place, but Wantirna, in Melbourne’s outer east, can’t be mythologised like Green Valley. I wanted out
As part of every course we teach on leadership in public health, we aim to get our students to think about leadership of their own lives. We ask them to imagine the world in five or ten years and to think about what sort of person do they want to be? What sort of life do they want to be leading? And then what sort of leader would they like to be? And each time we ask (now over 30 times), I also do the exercise. And each time I come up with the desire to be a more generous, less egotistical person, and to lead a more balanced life
...NCDs are closely related to human behaviour. We are what we eat. We are also what we drink, smoke and exercise. And these behaviours are very much part of the prevailing culture of a nation, or a community or a family. They are also highly changeable, for better or worse