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Digital inclusion for Indigenous communities is important. It’s so important, in fact, that the government has made it one of the targets under the Closing The Gap plan. The goal is:

by 2026, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have equal levels of digital inclusion.

Digital exclusion is the continuing unequal access and capacity to use digital technology that is essential to participate fully in society.

It severely stifles Indigenous creativity. It restricts access to essential tools, skills and platforms that are crucial for digital expression and innovation.

For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, this exclusion leads to missed opportunities, particularly in areas linked to economic prosperity, such as employment and education. As the government’s policy focus is on economic empowerment, this is a major barrier.

Measuring progress towards the 2026 deadline is challenging because there are simply no recent data.

But given how big the gap was to start with, the lack of importance based on gathering relevant data and the insufficient government action since, we know the target is highly unlikely to be met.

Read more:
‘Digital inclusion’ and closing the gap: how First Nations leadership is key to getting remote communities online

What’s being done?

To support the goal, the First Nations Digital Inclusion Plan offers a comprehensive strategy focused on three key pillars:

access (to telecommunication services, devices, and data)
affordability (the cost of services, devices, and data)
ability (skills, attitudes, and confidence with technology).

Focused mostly on remote communities, initiatives such as the Australian Digital Inclusion Index highlight persistent challenges across all three areas.

Although digital inclusion is an urgent issue in remote areas, research also shows Indigenous populations face widespread digital exclusion across the nation, regardless of remoteness.

Some 84.6% (832,800) of Indigenous people live in non-remote areas. Many of these people are also excluded.

The First Nations Digital Inclusion Plan is the government’s guiding document to get more Indigenous people online.
ROUNAK AMINI/AAP

Last year, the government established an advisory group to drive progress.

It has developed a “road map”. This involves travelling to Indigenous communities across Australia to ensure their diverse needs, aspirations and environments are fully considered.

Despite these ongoing government initiatives and policies, efforts to close the digital divide for Indigenous peoples remain insufficient. As technology continues to advance, Indigenous communities are left in an increasingly precarious situation.

The rise of artificial intelligence

The government’s current plans do not explicitly address the role of artificial intelligence (AI). This oversight is particularly concerning given the rapid advancement of AI technologies.

A recent report on adult media literacy in Australia reveals 48% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants do not understand what AI is or the risks and opportunities it presents. This knowledge gap could further exacerbate the digital divide and deepen existing inequalities.

AI presents both opportunities and challenges. When led by Indigenous people, it holds transformative potential across multiple sectors.

It could enhance learning tailored to Indigenous knowledge systems, help in the revitalisation and preservation of languages, and improve healthcare delivery. It could also empower Indigenous businesses by optimising operations and market reach.

Read more:
AI affects everyone – including Indigenous people. It’s time we have a say in how it’s built

Indigenous people are already collaborating on research that combines Indigenous knowledge with AI to support land-management practices.

There are very few Indigenous-led AI projects underway nationally, but there’s great potential. With Indigenous people helping develop AI, these technologies could contribute to meaningful, self-determined growth across Indigenous communities.

But only if we’re included.

Avoiding exploitation

Indigenous digital exclusion, especially in policy development and regulation, can result in AI being used by non-Indigenous people to tell our stories without our permission.

They can profit from appropriation of our culture, including art and languages.

The government needs to adopt a more comprehensive and forward-thinking approach. This should involve expanding the scope of digital inclusion initiatives beyond the current limited focus to encompass Indigenous communities across the entire country.

The development of Indigenous-led digital literacy programs that respect learning styles and culture is also essential.

The government should incorporate AI and other emerging technologies into planning to ensure Indigenous communities are not left behind.

Establishing long-term partnerships with technology companies, educational institutions and Indigenous organisations to create sustainable digital inclusion programs is vital.

The focus should be on creating Indigenous-led opportunities that leverage digital technologies for economic empowerment without exploiting or harming.

Underrepresented in tech

One barrier to this is there are very few Indigenous peoples involved in the tech industry, especially in decision-making roles and policy development.

As of 2022, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people accounted for less than 1.4% of tech workers. There urgently needs to be more support to boost this figure.

That’s because technology like AI presents potential careers for Indigenous people.

Currently however, Indigenous peoples are not employed in the industries involved in AI. Of the global study of people working in this specific industry, Indigenous participation was not noted.

The fact the government recognises digital inclusion as a national priority is a positive step. The current approach, however, is piecemeal and limited. We need a more holistic strategy.

By developing more inclusive, technologically advanced policies led by Indigenous people, the government can ensure they are not left behind in the digital age. We need to be at the decision-making table.

Closing the digital divide requires a multifaceted, long-term commitment from government. This means a national strategy recognising the diverse needs and aspirations of Indigenous communities across the country.

By harnessing the full potential of digital technologies, including AI, and addressing the unique challenges faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the government can create lasting positive change and truly empower Indigenous communities in the digital era. Läs mer…

King Charles and Queen Camilla will visit Australia from Friday on a five-day tour of Canberra and Sydney.

The king will be the second ruling British monarch to visit Australia, after Queen Elizabeth II’s 16 visits over 57 years.

These visits showcase Australians’ evolving relationship with the monarchy and our colonial past.

Changing attitudes

An estimated 75% of Australians greeted Elizabeth on her first tour in 1954, at events that celebrated Australia’s growth as a prosperous nation.

Queen Elizabeth II, fourth from left on dais, with other members of the royal family watch a re-enactment of the landing of Captain Cook in Sydney, 1970.
AP Photo

Historical milestones remained central to the queen’s subsequent visits.

In 1970, she attended the re-enactment of Captain Cook’s arrival at Botany Bay. This included depictions of shooting at First Nations actors.

The queen’s 1986 visit included signing the Australia Act that severed Britain’s formal powers over Australia.

Her 1988 visit coincided with the Australian bicentenary of the arrival of the First Fleet carrying convicts and officials from Britain. But by this time, many Australians had lost their royal fervour.

Her final tour, in 2011, came 12 years after Australia had attempted to become a republic by referendum.

The queen’s death in 2022 not only reignited questions over the future of the monarchy in Australia, it instigated a public discussion over the monarchy’s role in imperial colonialism.

Genocide in Australia?

On the eve of Charles’ coronation in 2023, Indigenous leaders from 12 settler states including Australia and New Zealand cosigned a letter calling on the new monarch to apologise for the genocides that British colonisation brought to their territories.

Australia was settled in the name of the Kingdom of Great Britain. Did that settlement result in genocide?

Recent research led by Ben Kiernan for The Cambridge World History of Genocide has investigated this question using the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as a framework.

The convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

The term “genocide” itself is modern; coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944. The colonisation of Tasmania by the British provided Lemkin with one of the clearest examples.

The prosecution of crimes before 1951 is not permissible under the convention, which provides a definitional framework to evaluate past events as constituent acts of genocide.

The Cambridge World History of Genocide Volume II and Volume III demonstrate how settlers and government agents committed acts of genocide against First Nations Australians from the beginning of settlement to the late 20th centuries.

All parts of Australia are considered. Acts conforming to the convention’s clauses include killing, forcibly removing children and inflicting destructive conditions.

Australian historian Lyndall Ryan’s chapter, Frontier Massacres in Australia, draws on her research for a Massacre Map showing how British troops and settlers committed more than 290 massacres across Australia between 1794 and 1928.

These massacres killed more than 7,500 Aboriginal people.

Ryan found the massacres were not sporadic and isolated – they were planned and sanctioned killings, integral to the aims of the Australian colonial project.

Rebe Taylor’s chapter on genocide in Tasmania details a pattern of government-sanctioned mass killings in a colony where an estimated 6,000 Palawa (Tasmanian Aboriginal) people were reduced to about 120 by 1835.

Raymond Evans shows how as colonisation moved northward in Australia, massacres increased in size.

Evans documents killings that persisted into the 1940s, postdating the 1928 Coniston massacre widely regarded as the last frontier slaughter.

These findings are underscored by Tony Barta’s insight that colonists’ destructive actions constitute a record of genocidal intent “more powerful than any documented plot to destroy a people”.

Research by Anna Haebich documents the taking of Indigenous children during the 19th century.

Joanna Cruikshank and Crystal Mckinnon explain how these state-sanctioned removals in the 20th century were intended to eliminate First Nations people from Australia’s national life.

The 1997 Bringing Them Home report, commissioned by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, concluded the “Australian practice of Indigenous child removal involved […] genocide as defined by international law”.

A significant moment of resistance

The colonial governor of Tasmania began to exile Palawa people from their land in 1829.

More than 200 survivors of the “Black War” were removed to Flinders Island and subjected to life-threateningly harsh conditions. High death rates were caused by ill-treatment, disease and insufficient care.

In 1846, the Palawa petitioned Queen Victoria to honour the agreement made when they were removed: that in exchange for temporarily leaving their country, they would regain their freedom.

In this bold petition, Tasmanian Aboriginal people initiated a historic appeal to the British monarchy.

Aware of Queen Victoria’s sovereign authority across the vast British Empire, this action marked a significant moment in their continued resistance to genocide.

An acknowledgement of wrongs

British sovereignty over Australia was imposed without the required consent of its First Nations. The result has been continued dispossession and suffering.

Despite the Crown’s deferral of power to its parliament, the call for an apology from the king has immense symbolic importance.

It is rooted in the desire for acknowledgement of wrongs. These include genocide and the continuing destructive effects of colonisation across Australia. Läs mer…

Stop motion films are by their nature a remarkable feat. When you know a movie has been carefully crafted, over several years and through thousands of photographs of handmade sets and characters, this alone makes it a delight to watch.

But when the story is also deep, thought-provoking and at times laugh-out-loud funny, this takes the medium to a whole new level. Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail is such a film.

Told through stop motion animation using clay (otherwise known as claymation), the film is a tactile experience in which everything you see has been made by human hands. This provides a warmth that is exacerbated by Elliot’s very human story of identity.

The film explores how it can be difficult to find your way in life, particularly when you’re different – and that it is, in fact, OK to be different.

Grace Pudel, the protagonist, is a snail enthusiast and we follow her as she navigates the many challenges that emerge in her life. Grace’s narration is raw and honest, and we can’t help but feel a deep connection with her.

The story is so human and so very moving – and to be told through human-made characters perfectly rounds off the experience.

Grace is a hoarder of ornamental snails, romance novels and guinea pigs.
Madman Entertainment

A win at Annecy

In June, I was fortunate enough to help facilitate an animation study tour in France with students from the University of Newcastle. It was there we saw the world premiere of Memoir of a Snail at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the pre-eminent festival for animated film.

The story clearly resonated with the audience, who sat captivated throughout its 90-minute runtime. They laughed and cried in unison as one engaged mass of humanity – culminating in a long and enthusiastic standing ovation.

We were even lucky enough to bump into Elliot and his crew, and our students spoke with him about his journey in making Memoir of a Snail. The film went on to win the festival’s prestigious Cristal award for best feature.

More than 7,000 individual items were handcrafted by various artisans, with most objects made from clay, wire, paper, paint and silicon.
Madman Entertainment

While claymation is generally viewed as a medium aimed at young audiences, Memoir of a Snail tells a wholly unique adult story.

Much of its sophistication lies in its ability to effortlessly touch on many complex topics through a mixture of humour and emotion. Indeed, this approach to storytelling has become Elliot’s calling card.

The film’s themes include identity, loneliness, alcoholism, cultism, hoarding, suicide, homosexuality, bullying, ageing, family, fat fetishism, grief and death. The story cleverly pulls you into deep thought, before surprising you with a hilarious gag.

Grace (voiced by Sarah Snook) strikes up friendship with an eccentric elderly woman named Pinky (Jacki Weaver).
Madman Entertainment

Elliot’s dark and captivating aesthetic

When introducing the film at Annecy, Elliot explained how his team’s limited budget led to a heavy reliance on narration, with limited walking and dialogue shots. Yet these constraints seemed to enhance the team’s creativity rather than stifle it.

Elliot has a history of working around such limitations to bring his unique aesthetic to life. His first film Uncle (1996) was shot on 16mm black-and-white film, while his other short Cousin (1999) was shot on colour – but with a muted palette of grey tones.

This palette has carried through Elliot’s work and is present in Memoir of a Snail. His version of the Australian landscape isn’t orange and sun-bleached. Rather, it is grey, overcast and drab – a dark world resembling the work of Eastern European animators such as Jan Švankmajer.

Elliot’s other films include Brother (2000), the Oscar-winning short film Harvie Krumpet (2003) and his first feature film Mary and Max (2009).

His works present tortured individuals – outsiders, misfits and oddballs – living in dark, suburban worlds. Behind the funny-looking faces and humorous vignettes lie deeper afflictions that become clear as the characters struggle through their lives.

More than 1,000 plasticine mouths had to be made so the characters could talk.
Madman Entertainment

A gentle vulnerability shines through

Elliot brings a naivety to the narration, where a simple statement of facts couches a deeper meaning. As the audience, we uncover mixed feelings of humour, dread and empathy for the tortured blobs of clay before us.

The characters stand, blinking, looking back at us while the narrator describes their situation. They feel vulnerable, as though asking for our help as they stand silently, trapped in Elliot’s bleak world.

Grace falls into dark spiral after she is separated from her twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) at a young age.
Madman Entertainment

Memoir of a Snail maintains a strong sense of materiality, as evidenced by fingerprints left on clay and brush strokes on painted backgrounds. Elliot’s self-described “chunky wonky” aesthetic abides by the rule that nothing in the world is straight.

Almost everything in Elliot’s animated world is overtly handmade, presenting a kind of nostalgic and childlike innocence you’d expect from a school project. This helps add weight and authenticity to the film.

The 3D work intersects with thoughtfully crafted 2D items such as handwritten title cards and signs.
Madman Entertainment

Elliot’s world is created “in-camera”, which means no digital effects were used. Water, for example, was created using cellophane, while droplets were painstakingly animated with blobs of glycerine, one frame at a time.

Welcome relief in a hyper-digital world

Lately, Australian animation has found an international audience and this has emboldened Australian animators to tell Australian stories. Bluey, for instance, has struck a chord with viewers globally because of – and not despite – its uniquely Australian voice.

It took eight years to create Memoir of a Snail, which seems like a lifetime in today’s world. Witnessing such dedication may inspire audiences to think more deeply about animation as an art form and about film-making itself.

Elliot’s handmade style is a nice counter to the digital and visual effects that seem ever-present in media today.
Madman Entertainment

Memoir of a Snail is a testament to stop motion’s power to move people. Elliot himself pointed out how stop motion seems to be experiencing a renaissance, with Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022), Phil Tippett’s Mad God (2021), Henry Selick’s Wendell & Wild (2022) and Chris Butler’s Missing Link (2019) all serving as recent examples of stop motion features.

I hope Memoir of a Snail helps sustain this interest. In an age of automation and artificial intelligence, the film is a welcome return to the human experience. Thought-provoking, funny and wholly unique in its story and visual style, it’s well worth the watch.

Other voice actors on the production include Eric Bana, Nick Cave and Tony Armstrong.
Madman Entertainment

The author would like to thank Daisy De Windt for her contributions to this article. Läs mer…

A weight-loss drug more effective than Ozempic and Wegovy has recently been approved in Australia.

The drug, tirzepatide, is sold under the brand name Mounjaro and affects feelings of hunger and fullness, as well as changing how the body processess food. (In other countries, tirzepatide is also sound under the brand name Zepbound.)

So how does tirzepatide work and differ from Ozempic? And with a price tage of $315–$645 per month for the starting dose, why is it so expensive?

How does it work?

Think of tirzepatide as a master key that unlocks two important doors in your body’s weight control system. It mimics two hormones: GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) and GIP (glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide).

When you eat, your body naturally releases GIP and GLP-1 hormones. These hormones play crucial roles in regulating appetite, food intake and blood sugar levels. Tirzepatide mimics and amplifies the effects of these hormones.

By mimicking the GLP-1 and GIP hormones, tirzepatide makes people feel fuller with smaller meals. This can reduce the overall food intake and lead to weight loss over time.

It also helps your body process sugar more effectively and slows down how quickly food leaves your stomach. This results in eating less, feel satisfied for longer and having healthier blood sugar levels.

How does it compare with Wegovy/Ozempic?

Tirzepatide (Mounjaro) and semaglutide (Wegovy/Ozempic) are similar in many ways. Both are injectable medications used for weight loss and work by mimicking hormones that regulate appetite and blood sugar.

The key difference is that tirzepatide acts on two hormone receptors (GIP and GLP-1), while semaglutide only acts on one (GLP-1). This dual action is thought to be why tirzepatide shows slightly better results for weight loss in clinical trials.

Clinical trials have shown participants lost an average of 25% of their body fat in the first year of treatment with tirzepatide. This is when combined with lifestyle counselling from a health-care professional who encouraged a healthy and reduced-calorie diet (500 calories less per day compared to patient’s diet at the beginning of the study) and at least 150 minutes of physical activity per day.

This compares with an average of 15% weight loss in the first year for semaglutide, also alongside a reduced-calorie diet (a 500 calorie-deficit per day) and increased physical exercise (150 minutes per week).

For a person weighing 120kg, this might mean the difference between losing 30kg with tirzepatide versus 18kg with semaglutide. But of course, with both drugs, some people will lose less weight than the average, some will lose more, and some may not respond to the drug at all.

What are the side effects of tirzepatide?

Like any medication, tirzepatide has side effects. The most common are nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and constipation. These could feel like a mild tummy bug and are similar to those seen with semaglutide.

For most people, these side effects are manageable and often improve over time.

There are also some rarer, more serious risks to consider. These include inflammation of the pancreas and gallbladder problems. There is also a potential increased risk for thyroid cancer, although this has only been seen in lab rats so far, not humans.

As with Ozempic and Wegovy, when you stop taking tirzepatide, its effects stop. Most people regain some, if not all, of the weight they lost.

People often regain some or all of the weight they lost after stopping the medication.
/John Hanson PyeShutterstock

Who can access tirzepatide?

In Australia, tirzepatide is approved for use in adults with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, or a or BMI of 27 or above if you have a weight-related health condition such as diabetes. It can only be prescribed by a doctor, after you have tried other weight-loss methods.

But it’s not suitable for everyone. It shouldn’t be used in pregnancy and may not be suitable for people with certain medical conditions and those with a history of eating disorders.

If you’re considering tirzepatide, it’s important to discuss the benefits and risks for your personal health situation with your doctor.

Why is it so expensive?

Tirzepatide typically costs around A$345 per month for the starting dose. This can escalate to $645 per month for the ongoing “maintenance” dose if a higher dose is necessary for diabetes and/or weight management. This puts the drug out of reach for most people.

Tirzepatide, sold as Mounjaro in Australia, is only available on private prescription and is not subsidised by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). This means you pay the full cost of the medication without any government support.

However, the United Kingdom recently announced it would add tirzepatide to the National Health Service in a phased approach over the next three years, so it’s possible we might see it subsidised in Australia in the future.

Developing new drugs is a costly business. Companies spend billions on research, clinical trials, and getting regulatory approvals. They then set high prices to recoup these costs and make a profit.

The patent for tirzepatide lasts until 2036. So we won’t have any cheaper generic versions for more than a decade. Läs mer…

Pharmac’s decision to fund continuous glucose monitors and automated insulin delivery systems for the approximately 18,000 people who currently live with type 1 diabetes in Aotearoa New Zealand is good news.

The decision comes after years of advocacy from patient groups and clinicians.

But there are problems within the broader system – particularly around workforce shortages – that mean full patient access to training on how to use the insulin pumps will likely take years.

Failing to address these issues will also perpetuate health inequities for Māori and Pacific people, who are less likely to have used the monitor and pump in the past, and may have to wait longer for training. These delays could mute the positive effect of Pharmac’s funding decision.

A complex balance

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder that causes a person’s pancreas to stop producing insulin. This all-important hormone is needed to move glucose into every cell in the body.

Without insulin, the cells (and the person) “starve”. While the current approach to the management of type 1 diabetes – finger pricking to test blood glucose levels and injecting insulin – works, it’s complex.

Inject too much insulin and you’ll get low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia). This leaves a person with type 1 feeling shaky and weak, or possibly even in a coma. Don’t inject enough and you have ongoing high blood sugar (hyperglycaemia). This leads to long-term health complications.

Figuring out the right amount of insulin is elusive. Needs constantly vary according to time of day, diet, exercise, illness, caffeine, alcohol, stress and other factors. This can take a toll psychologically and physiologically.

Modern solutions

Continuous monitors track blood glucose levels 24 hours a day through a sensor just under your skin, replacing finger-prick testing. They are widely funded and used overseas.

The monitors alert users to low blood glucose and have significantly reduced hospitalisations for people with type 1 diabetes.

Combining the monitors with a pump and appropriate algorithm automates the delivery of insulin when glucose levels rise higher than a patient’s target range – significantly reducing the day-to-day burden of treatment.

But the continuous monitors and insulin pumps are expensive.

Prior to Pharmac’s decision, the monitors were completely unfunded. Prices ranged between NZ$2,600 and $4,800 per year. Insulin pumps were funded, but only for a small group of people.

This created an ever-widening equity gap. Māori and Pacific people with type 1 diabetes were less likely to access monitors and pumps. They were also more likely to have recurrent hospitalisations for diabetes-related events.

A workforce shortage

When compared with other countries, New Zealand has been slow to fund the monitors.

Unfortunately, the diabetes workforce is also significantly understaffed when compared to international guidelines.

There is a shortage of all qualified health care professionals for type 1 diabetes including endocrinologists, nurse practitioners, diabetes nurse specialists, dietitians, psychologists, social workers and podiatrists.

To meet international recommendations, New Zealand would have to more than double the clinical workforce.

Most people with type 1 diabetes will be able to rapidly access the monitors because these can be prescribed through GPs as well as by diabetes specialists. However, insulin pumps and automated insulin delivery will only be accessible through specialists.

While insulin pumps offer advantages for managing glucose levels, learning to use the device takes time and requires support from clinicians. This will likely be a problem, particularly for those who already have challenges accessing healthcare services in this country.

The current approach to the management of type 1 diabetes – finger pricking and injecting insulin – works but can be complex.
mthipsorn/Getty Images

An equity issue

Māori and Pacific people with type 1 diabetes are less likely to be current insulin pump users. This means there is a clear risk of workforce shortages causing those who would benefit most from automated insulin delivery to be among the last to have access.

Increasingly, evidence on continuous glucose monitors and automated insulin delivery shows they improve managing type 1 diabetes for everyone.

Monitor use has been shown to reduce the differences in the management of glucose levels between Māori and non-Māori children with type 1 diabetes.

Automated insulin delivery can also be an effective tool for children and adolescents with very high-risk glucose levels.

So, thank you Pharmac. Funded devices are a game changer. New Zealand has moved from an outdated, inequitable system of technology funding in type 1 diabetes to a progressive and fair system. But so much more needs to be done to support everyone with this disease. Läs mer…

Just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China announced to much fanfare a “no-limits friendship” with Russia, suggesting a future of close collaboration in trade, energy and, perhaps most importantly, security.

Now, more than two years into the war, the meaning and interpretation of this “no-limits” commitment has evolved.

There has been much debate in Chinese society in recent months about Beijing’s alignment with Moscow. While some have advocated for a more formal alliance with Russia, others have taken a more cautious stance.

In sharp contrast to 2022, China’s growing wariness is increasingly being discussed in the open, even among those who were previously censored. In early 2022, for instance, a joint letter by six Chinese emeritus historians opposing Russia’s invasion was censored by the government. The scholars were also warned.

Now, however, it appears the government is seeking to balance its relationships with both Russia and the West. Beijing may not want to be seen as a “decisive enabler” of the war.

For example, the once-prominent “no-limits” friendship language quietly vanished from a Sino-Russian joint statement in May.

And Beijing’s response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit that month was notably subdued. Putin ingratiated himself with Xi, saying they were “as close as brothers”. Xi’s response was more perfunctory – he called Putin a “good friend and a good neighbour”.

When they met in May, Xi was less effusive towards Putin than he has been in the past.
Sergei Bobylev/Pool Sputnik Kremlin/AP

Scholars are also articulating their concerns about China’s political and economic investments in Russia, both publicly and privately.

Shen Dingli, a leading scholar of Chinese security strategy at Fudan University in Shanghai, said China doesn’t want to be seen as collaborating with Russia against Ukraine or any other country.

He also quoted Fu Cong, China’s former ambassador to the European Union, who said last year the “no-limits” [friendship] is “nothing but rhetoric”.

And in August, after Putin referred to China as an “ally” during a visit to far-eastern Russia, Chinese scholars promptly sought to clarify this statement to prevent any misunderstanding China wants a formal alliance with Russia.

These statements carry weight. In many respects, leading Chinese scholars at the government-affiliated universities act as propagandists to convey and justify the government’s stance on issues. As a result, subtle shifts in their commentary provide insights into the strategic mindset in Beijing.

Why China is rethinking its ‘no-limits’ friendship?

There are three elements driving this re-evaluation of the Russia-China alignment.

First, there is growing scepticism of Russia’s state capacities. The mutiny by the Wagner Group last year and Ukraine’s recent incursion into Russia’s Kursk region have prompted critical reassessments in Beijing of Russia’s political stability and military preparedness, as well as the growing anti-war sentiment in Russia.

As Feng Yujun, director of Fudan University’s Russia and Central Asia Study Centre, argued, the Wagner rebellion was a reflection of Russia’s internal conflicts and domestic security challenges. He noted every time Russia has faced both internal and external crises in history, its regimes have become less stable.

More recently, Feng has been even bolder, predicting Russian defeat in Ukraine. He argued China should keep its distance from Moscow and resume a policy of “non-alignment, non-confrontation and non-partisanship”.

Second, China’s sluggish economy and its underwhelming trade with Russia have further exposed how dependent both countries are on the West.

While Russia-China trade reached a record US$240 billion (A$360 billion) in 2023, it has slowed so far this year, as Chinese financial institutions have sought to limit connections with Russia.

The relationship still heavily favours Beijing. Russia accounts for only 4% of China’s trade, while China accounts for nearly 22% of Russia’s trade.

Many Chinese experts are now warning against an over-dependence on Russia, instead calling for more cooperation with neighbouring countries. This echoes a recent concern Russia has been using its natural resources as a bargaining chip to extract greater benefits from China.

Russia’s value as a military ally

Finally, there are rising Chinese concerns its international outlook does not align with Russia’s.

Zhao Long, deputy director of the Shanghai Institute of International Relations, says there is an important difference in how they view the world:

Russia wants to destroy the current international system to build a new one. China wants to transform the current system by taking a more prominent place in it.

Shi Yinhong, a strategist at Renmin University in Beijing, has highlighted an unbridgeable gap preventing a stronger China-Russia alliance. He says there’s a deep mutual mistrust on regional security. Russia has never promised support for China in the event of a conflict over Taiwan, just as China has avoided involvement in the war in Ukraine.

As Russia’s war in Ukraine reaches a stalemate, its value as a military ally is increasingly being questioned in China.

Recently, Feng Yujun warned China risks being led by the nose by Russia, despite being the stronger economic partner. He says every time China has attempted an alliance with Russia in history, it has had negative consequences for China.

Consequently, it is crucial for China to maintain its long-term partnership with Russia without undermining its constructive relationship with the West.

Russia has arguably benefited from the current competition between the US and China, as it has sought to exploit the rivalry for its own benefit. But this has also led to uncertainty in the China-Russia relationship.

As another analyst, Ji Zhiye, argues, relying too heavily on Russia will leave China isolated and vulnerable. And this is not a position China wants to be in. Läs mer…

In my research focused on early farmers of Europe, I have often wondered about a curious pattern through time: Farmers lived in large dense villages, then dispersed for centuries, then later formed cities again, only to abandon those as well. Why?

Archaeologists often explain what we call urban collapse in terms of climate change, overpopulation, social pressures or some combination of these. Each likely has been true at different points in time.

But scientists have added a new hypothesis to the mix: disease. Living closely with animals led to zoonotic diseases that came to also infect humans. Outbreaks could have led dense settlements to be abandoned, at least until later generations found a way to organize their settlement layout to be more resilient to disease. In a new study, my colleagues and I analyzed the intriguing layouts of later settlements to see how they might have interacted with disease transmission.

Modern excavations at what was once Çatalhöyük, where inhabitants lived in mud-brick houses that weren’t separated by paths or streets.
Murat Özsoy 1958/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Earliest cities: Dense with people and animals

Çatalhöyük, in present-day Turkey, is the world’s oldest farming village, from over 9,000 years ago. Many thousands of people lived in mud-brick houses jammed so tightly together that residents entered via a ladder through a trapdoor on the roof. They even buried selected ancestors underneath the house floor. Despite plenty of space out there on the Anatolian Plateau, people packed in closely.

Homes at Çatalhöyük were so tightly packed that people entered through the roof and even buried some ancestors beneath the floor.
Illustration by Kathryn Killackey and The Çatalhöyük Research Project

For centuries, people at Çatalhöyük herded sheep and cattle, cultivated barley and made cheese. Evocative paintings of bulls, dancing figures and a volcanic eruption suggest their folk traditions. They kept their well-organized houses tidy, sweeping floors and maintaining storage bins near the kitchen, located under the trapdoor to allow oven smoke to escape. Keeping clean meant they even replastered their interior house walls several times a year.

These rich traditions ended by 6000 BCE, when Çatalhöyük was mysteriously abandoned. The population dispersed into smaller settlements out in the surrounding flood plain and beyond. Other large farming populations of the region had also dispersed, and nomadic livestock herding became more widespread. For those populations that persisted, the mud-brick houses were now separate, in contrast with the agglomerated houses of Çatalhöyük.

Was disease a factor in the abandonment of dense settlements by 6000 BCE?

At Çatalhöyük, archaeologists have found human bones intermingled with cattle bones in burials and refuse heaps. Crowding of people and animals likely bred zoonotic diseases at Çatalhöyük. Ancient DNA identifies tuberculosis from cattle in the region as far back as 8500 BCE and TB in human infant bones not long after. DNA in ancient human remains dates salmonella to as early as 4500 BCE. Assuming the contagiousness and virulence of Neolithic diseases increased through time, dense settlements such as Çatalhöyük may have reached a tipping point where the effects of disease outweighed the benefits of living closely together.

A new layout 2,000 years later

By about 4000 BCE, large urban populations had reappeared, at the mega-settlements of the ancient Trypillia culture, west of the Black Sea. Thousands of people lived at Trypillia mega-settlements such as Nebelivka and Maidanetske in what’s now Ukraine.

If disease was a factor in dispersal millennia before, how were these mega-settlements possible?

Geophysical plot of Nebelivka settlement shows its circular layout, divided into neighborhoods.
Duncan Hale and Nebelivka Project, CC BY-NC

This time, the layout was different than at jam-packed Çatalhöyük: The hundreds of wooden, two-story houses were regularly spaced in concentric ovals. They were also clustered in pie-shaped neighborhoods, each with its own large assembly house. The pottery excavated in the neighborhood assembly houses has many different compositions, suggesting these pots were brought there by different families coming together to share food.

This layout suggests a theory. Whether the people of Nebelivka knew it or not, this lower-density, clustered layout could have helped prevent any disease outbreaks from consuming the entire settlement.

Archaeologist Simon Carrignon and I set out to test this possibility by adapting computer models from a previous epidemiology project that modeled how social-distancing behaviors affect the spread of pandemics. To study how a Trypillian settlement layout would disrupt disease spread, we teamed up with cultural evolution scholar Mike O’Brien and with the archaeologists of Nebelivka: John Chapman, Bisserka Gaydarska and Brian Buchanan.

Simulating socially distanced neighborhoods

To simulate disease spread at Nebelivka, we had to make a few assumptions. First, we assumed that early diseases were spread through foods, such as milk or meat. Second, we assumed people visited other houses within their neighborhood more often than those outside of it.

Would this neighborhood clustering be enough to suppress disease outbreaks? To test the effects of different possible rates of interaction, we ran millions of simulations, first on a network to represent clustered neighborhoods. We then ran the simulations again, this time on a virtual layout modeled after actual site plans, where houses in each neighborhood were given a higher chance of making contact with each other.

Simulations of disease spread at Nebelivka, for three different levels of cross-neighborhood interaction. On the map at bottom, the houses are colored by neighborhood. The parameter q captures how often household members visit neighborhoods outside their own (from left to right, rarely to frequently). More mixing results in more spread of infection.
Simulations by Simon Carrignon.

Based on our simulations, we found that if people visited other neighborhoods infrequently – like a fifth to a tenth as often as visiting other houses within their own neighborhood – then the clustering layout of houses at Nebelivka would have significantly reduced outbreaks of early foodborne diseases. This is reasonable given that each neighborhood had its own assembly house. Overall, the results show how the Trypillian layout could help early farmers live together in low-density urban populations, at a time when zoonotic diseases were increasing.

The residents of Nebilevka didn’t need to have consciously planned for their neighborhood layout to help their population survive. But they may well have, as human instinct is to avoid signs of contagious disease. Like at Çatalhöyük, residents kept their houses clean. And about two-thirds of the houses at Nebelivka were deliberately burned at different times. These intentional periodic burns may have been a pest extermination tactic.

Re-creation of a Trypillian house-burning, with additional straw and wood necessary to burn hot enough to match archaeological evidence.
Arheoinvest/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

New cities and innovations

Some of the early diseases eventually evolved to spread by means other than bad foods. Tuberculosis, for instance, became airborne at some point. When the bacterium that causes plague, Yersinia pestis, became adapted to fleas, it could be spread by rats, which would not care about neighborhood boundaries.

Were new disease vectors too much for these ancient cities? The mega-settlements of Trypillia were abandoned by 3000 BCE. As at Çatalhöyük thousands of years before, people dispersed into smaller settlements. Some geneticists speculate that Trypillia settlements were abandoned due to the origins of plague in the region, about 5,000 years ago.

The first cities in Mesopotamia developed around 3500 BCE, with others soon developing in Egypt, the Indus Valley and China. These cities of tens of thousands were filled with specialized craftspeople in distinct neighborhoods.

This time around, people in the city centers weren’t living cheek by jowl with cattle or sheep. Cities were the centers of regional trade. Food was imported into the city and stored in large grain silos like the one at the Hittite capital of Hattusa, which could hold enough cereal grain to feed 20,000 people for a year. Sanitation was helped by public water works, such as canals in Uruk or water wells and a large public bath at the Indus city of Mohenjo Daro.

These early cities, along with those in China, Africa and the Americas, were the foundations of civilization. Arguably, their form and function were shaped by millennia of diseases and human responses to them, all the way back to the world’s earliest farming villages. Läs mer…

As Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo (Jokowi) prepares to leave office, Indonesia is still routinely lauded as one of Asia’s most important democracies. Jokowi was first elected, in 2014, on the promise of breaking with the old Jakarta elite and making government more responsive to ordinary people.

He was backed by many ardent supporters of Indonesia’s Reformasi movement. This movement had brought down the authoritarian leader, Suharto, in 1998 and pushed a transition to democracy in the years that followed.

But Jokowi has overseen a serious period of democratic backsliding.

Democratic decline

Under his watch, the Indonesian government has hobbled democratic control institutions. This includes Indonesia’s once-lauded Corruption Eradication Commission, abbreviated as KPK.

Security agencies such the army and the police have begun to resume a political role.

The government has banned major Islamic organisations.

Civil society groups speak of a dramatically narrowed civic space. They complain, for example, about the government’s increasing reliance on the Electronic Information and Transactions Law to prosecute critics of the government for defamation and its growing willingness to use violent means to respond to protests.

Jokowi’s opponents in the political elite are routinely investigated for corruption and other alleged wrongdoing.

In last February’s presidential election, there were widespread reports the police and other agencies were pressuring community leaders to mobilise the vote for Jokowi’s preferred candidate, Prabowo Subianto.

How and why does Jokowi leave this legacy?

How did a man who was once seen as a “new hope” for Indonesian democracy end up here?

The answer is part of a global story that has become broadly familiar in recent years.

These days, it is generally not unelected coup leaders who destroy democracy. Experiences like those of Thailand and Myanmar in recent years are, happily, no longer typical.

Instead, elected populist leaders hollow democracy out from within. They do so by hobbling institutions, such as anti-corruption commissions, which are meant to check executive power.

Jokowi has, in my view, followed this pattern.

Unlike many populists, Jokowi never peppered his early speeches with angry denunciations of his opponents as traitors. He never tried to whip up vitriol against vulnerable minorities.

Instead, he positioned himself as a leader who was uniquely able to understand and to embody the aspirations of ordinary people.

His trademark campaign method was known as blusukan. He would drop by unexpectedly at a marketplace, for example, to chat with ordinary people about prices and other everyday matters.

Jokowi has positioned himself as a man of the people.
BahbahAconk/Shutterstock

A former mayor, he was interested in the nitty gritty of governance, such as how to improve transport services or upgrade parks. He was less interested in “abstract” notions like human rights.

The implications of this philosophy only became apparent after Jokowi was elected president.

He retained his belief in his own unique ability to understand the aspirations of ordinary citizens, which had been long neglected by elite politicians.

He maintained a single-minded focus on what ordinary Indonesians wanted – improved living standards and better social welfare. And he used polls to regularly monitor public opinion.

For Jokowi, maintaining popular support and satisfying public demands was the essence of democracy. He was not interested in institutions that place limits on governmental power, which are arguably just as important to a functioning democratic system.

For example, his government enacted legal amendments that significantly weakened the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

Late last year, the Constitutional Court – headed by his brother-in-law – changed the the rules on candidate age limits to allow Jokowi’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to stand for the vice presidency. Many Indonesians viewed this as a transparent – and successful – attempt to manipulate a key control institution for the purpose of maintaining Jokowi’s dynastic grip on power.

Even so, as Jokowi leaves office, he does so a very popular politician.

A protester holds up a poster with a defaced image of Joko Widodo during a rally demanding a fair presidential election in February 2024.
Slamet Riyadi/AP

Prabowo as president

Jokowi hands power to a man with an even more chequered democratic history.

Prabowo Subianto is a former general with a record of alleged human rights abuses dating back to the late Suharto period. (Although, like other senior military officers accused of responsibility for the Suharto regime’s well-documented record of human rights abuses, he was never convicted of any crimes). Prabowo was close to the heart of that regime: indeed, he used to be Suharto’s son-in-law.

Prabowo has promised he would provide the strong hand the country needed.
Algi Febri Sugita/Shutterstock

Prabowo has since reinvented himself as a fun-loving grandfather figure and Jokowi’s greatest fan, capitalising on the president’s own popularity.

In fact, Prabowo used to be among Jokowi’s greatest rivals before becoming his defence minister in 2019.

In previous elections, Prabowo presented himself as a firebrand populist who angrily denounced his opponents for allegedly selling Indonesia out to foreigners. He promised he would provide the strong hand the country needed to become truly great.

We don’t know yet what kind of president Prabowo will be. His early political socialisation, as a leading elite figure close to the heart of the Suharto regime, suggests his instincts are likely to be deeply authoritarian.

He inherits from Jokowi a country in which democratic institutions have already been seriously undermined, and a series of lessons in how to weaken them further. Läs mer…

The world is witnessing some of the highest levels of conflict in decades, with more than 110 armed conflicts occurring across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Europe.

The impact of these wars on children is vast and multifaceted. The trauma inflicted is enduring and will shape the rest of their lives — and by extension, the societies in which they, and we live.

As researchers who study how public policies can intervene to reduce adverse outcomes for children, we contend that wars are not bound by geography. Airstrikes terrorize children in conflict zones, while those living in the nations involved in these conflicts also experience trauma in the form of poverty, neglect, and discrimination.

Children as collateral — and targets

In the first decade of the 21st century, civilians accounted for 90 per cent of deaths in armed conflicts. Of these casualties, a significant number were children.

Modern conflicts are markedly lop-sided where often only one combatant has fighter jets, tanks, and explosives. Entire cities become war zones where children are not just caught in the crossfire, but are deliberately targeted.

War is the ultimate abuse of children’s rights. According to the United Nations there were a record 32,990 grave violations against 22,557 children in 26 conflict zones, in 2023. “The highest numbers of grave violations occurred in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, Nigeria and Sudan.”

The United Nations Children’s Fund and other global humanitarian organizations have raised the alarm, saying women and children “are disproportionately bearing the burden” of the violence.

Rohingya refugee children play at a hand water pump at Balukhali Refugee Camp in Bangladesh in August 2018.
(AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

Beyond direct violence, children are subjected to the toxic stress of war. Suspended supply chains and agricultural production leave besieged populations vulnerable to acute and chronic malnutrition, with devastating consequences for children’s growth, immune and metabolic systems, and cognitive development. The destruction of schools, hospitals, and homes compounds the trauma, while attacks on humanitarian assistance eliminate any respite.

The disruption of vaccination programs allows preventable diseases to proliferate. Polio, once on the verge of global eradication, is spreading in Gaza. The direct targeting of sanitation and water treatment facilities creates conditions ripe for cholera outbreaks. Mpox, a deadly virus that causes painful blistering rashes, kills children at a far higher rate than adults and is prevalent in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The situation is particularly dire for infant and maternal health. Pregnancy in war zones is associated with fewer live births, increased preterm delivery, and low birth weight. War-generated pollution has been linked to birth defects. The fallout reaches beyond the war zone. A study found greater incidents of pregnancy complications and birth defects in the children of U.S. war veterans.

Children play chess at ‘The Soga Chess Club’ of the internally displaced persons camp in Kanyaruchinya, Democratic Republic of Congo, July 29, 2024.
(AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)

The psychological toll of war

Witnessing constant violence, death and destruction can permanently change how a child’s brain develops. Research has shown that trauma in early childhood particularly affects the areas of the brain responsible for stress responses. This means that children who experience war are more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, and stress disorders.

As they grow into adulthood, these mental health issues can manifest in more profound ways, increasing the likelihood of depression and even neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Extreme stress also affects parenting, putting children at risk for maltreatment and neglect. Even when the fighting stops or families leave combat zones, parental substance abuse or deteriorating mental health can leave children vulnerable. Studies have documented increased physical and emotional mistreatment among the children of returning U.S. military personnel.

The experiences of trauma are cumulative and far-reaching, not only affecting children’s immediate mental health, but also their ability to form relationships, learn, and thrive later in life.

Impact on education

Armed conflicts devastate the critical infrastructure needed to support healthy child development. Children can spend months fleeing war zones or sheltering against bombardment disrupting their education. Schools are often destroyed or repurposed. Teachers are displaced or killed. For many, attending school is simply too dangerous, leaving millions of children without basic education, significantly reducing their future opportunities.

Girls are more likely to be kept out of school to fill in for absent or deceased adults. Those separated from their family are at increased risk for gender violence, exploitation, and teen pregnancy, further entrenching cycles of poverty and inequality that are difficult to break even after the conflict ends.

A BBC news report about a school in Yemen destroyed during the war.

Children in other countries also suffer, as public revenues are diverted from schools, health care, and other poverty-reduction measures to finance the machinery of war.

The long-term societal impact is profound. Education is one of the strongest tools for reducing violence and rebuilding societies. Yet tragically, less than three per cent of humanitarian aid funding goes towards education in war zones.

Read more:
The war in Gaza is wiping out Palestine’s education and knowledge systems

Breaking the cycle of violence

Despite the enormous challenges, there are pathways to reduce the harm inflicted on children. Humanitarian organizations work to provide safe spaces for children to play, learn, and heal.

These interventions, while often simple, are crucial for giving children a sense of normalcy during chaos. Supporting caregivers is another essential element, as the mental health of parents and guardians directly affects their children’s well-being.

While invaluable, these efforts are only band-aid solutions. The international community must increase funding for child protection and education in humanitarian responses and undertake serious action to eliminate the causes of war. Läs mer…

Nearly 50,000 dockworkers from the International Longshoremen’s Association went on strike across the United States Eastern Seaboard in October. The strike, which lasted three days, ended on Oct. 3 after a tentative wage agreement was reached between the union and the United States Maritime Alliance.

Yet the agreement doesn’t resolve the union’s concerns over automation. For dockworkers, machines like automated stacking cranes pose a direct threat to job security. The union is still aiming to prohibit the operators of U.S. marine terminals from automating cargo handling.

However, this trend is not isolated to the shipping industry. In retail, frictionless stores are reducing the need for cashiers, while self-driving trucks are poised to replace drivers, at least on some routes.

The dockworker strike may have been resolved for now, but it was neither the first, nor will it be the last, showdown between labour and automation.

Indian communism

May 1 saw rallies take place all over the world, celebrating the labour movement and commemorating American workers who, in 1886, marched in Chicago for an eight-hour workday.

May Day holds particular significance in the southern Indian state of Kerala, a heartland of Indian communism. It had one of the earliest democratically elected communist governments in the world. In 1957, the Communist Party of India won the Assembly election in Kerala, setting a precedent for parliamentary communism in the country.

Read more:
May Day 2024: Workers on a warming planet deserve stronger labour protections

But, on May 1, 2018, the state government in Kerala led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) abolished a practice that even it deemed far too proletarian — the nokku kooli.

Commonplace until recently, nokku kooli literally translates to “wages for looking on.” It was a practice where private individuals and businesses were forced to compensate worker unions for using industrial equipment towards productive ends, even if no labour was done.

For instance, a construction company moving material using cranes was still expected to pay wages at negotiated or union mandated rates to the workers who would have otherwise been needed to load and unload goods.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan addresses an election campaign in Kochi, Kerala, India, on March 27, 2021.
(AP Photo/R S Iyer)

Describing this extortionary practice, Keralan writer Paul Zacharia once wrote:

“The revolution in Kerala says the worker must be paid even if he doesn’t work. That is a kind of workers’ paradise even Marx did not anticipate.”

Widespread opposition to this practice eventually led to its 2018 abolition. In 2022, the High Court declared it “illegal and unconstitutional.”

A cautionary tale

The origins of nokku kooli stem from opposition to automation. As India’s economy liberalized and rapidly industrialized in the late 20th century, Kerala’s labour unions correctly identified mechanization as a threat to their jobs.

In response, powerful unions backed the nokku kooli system, with the government turning a blind eye. The system ensured workers would still receive a share of the economic pie, even as technology rendered their labour increasingly unnecessary.

Kerala’s nokku kooli practice, however, serves as a cautionary tale. What may have started as a natural immediate response of organized labour facing a rapid industrial transition eventually became increasingly extortionary, with predictable and damaging economic consequences.

In the decades that followed, the state’s reputation for militant trade unionism hindered its ability to attract private investment. Kerala experienced labour shortages in several sectors, while workers in automated roles, such as loading and unloading, continued to expect compensatory wages for little effort.

Same old fears

Today, fears of automation causing job losses are still prompting calls for policy fixes. Bill Gates and others have called for a “robot tax” — a tax on automation.

The revenue from such a tax would offset reduced income tax collections. Proponents argue it could be invested in worker retraining programs or for income replacement. These proposals mirror the spirit of nokku kooli: businesses should compensate workers, directly or indirectly, when machines replace their jobs.

Cranes that usually ran day and night were shut down during a strike by International Longshoremen’s Association members at the Bayport Container Terminal on Oct. 1, 2024, in Houston.
(AP Photo/Annie Mulligan)

This speaks to a tension between short- and long-term approaches in addressing the impacts of technological disruption. Short-term fixes, like a robot tax, may mitigate immediate job losses and give workers a safety net.

However, some economists argue this is a misguided response to a “techno-panic” and risks stifling innovation, which could reduce productivity and hinder companies that rely on efficiency to stay viable in a global market.

Moreover, safety nets such as replacement incomes for displaced workers can also have unintended consequences in the long run, as seen in Kerala. While easing the transition, these measures risk creating a dependent workforce disincentivized to adapt to new economic realities.

Short-term fixes better than none

Still, perhaps short-term fixes — even ones that may eventually need undoing — are better than entirely ignoring the immediate and real impacts on workers, or offering glib solutions such as asking displaced industrial workers to learn to code.

Globalization’s benefits were unevenly distributed across the world, and widening inequality is argued to be a driver of sociopolitical polarization. As automation advances, the same risk looms large.

We still lack mechanisms to adequately redistribute economic gains due to technological innovation. Ignoring the disruptive impacts, however transitory, could still leave entire segments of the workforce behind, compounding inequality and social unrest.

In the end, the lesson from Kerala might not just be about avoiding excess. It is also a reminder that policies that no longer work can, and should, be undone. As we embrace technological progress, we must not risk losing sight of the real people whose livelihoods are at stake in the here and now. Läs mer…