Harvard’s Admissions Is Challenged for Favoring Children of Alumni After the Supreme Court banned race-conscious affirmative action, activists filed a complaint, saying legacy admissions helped students who are overwhelmingly rich and white. ......... It’s been called affirmative action for the rich: Harvard’s special admissions treatment for students whose parents are alumni, or whose relatives donated money. And in a complaint filed on Monday, a legal activist group demanded that the federal government put an end to it, arguing that fairness was even more imperative after the Supreme Court last week severely limited race-conscious admissions. ........ the college’s admissions policies discriminated against Black, Hispanic and Asian applicants, in favor of less qualified white candidates with alumni and donor connections. .......... “Your family’s last name and the size of your bank account are not a measure of merit, and should have no bearing on the college admissions process.” ......... In a statement after the Supreme Court decision, President Biden said he would ask the department to examine “practices like legacy admissions and other systems that expand privilege instead of opportunity.” .......... an increasing share of the public — 75 percent — believed that legacy preferences should not be a factor in who was admitted to college. ......... Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, tweeted that if the Supreme Court “was serious about their ludicrous ‘colorblindness’ claims, they would have abolished legacy admissions, aka affirmative action for the privileged.” ............ a typical white legacy applicant’s chances of being admitted increase fivefold over a typical, white non-legacy applicant. ............ In its decision on race-conscious admissions, some Supreme Court justices criticized legacy admissions. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, in an opinion concurring with the court’s majority, took aim at preferences for the children of donors and alumni, saying: “They are no help to applicants who cannot boast of their parents’ good fortune or trips to the alumni tent all their lives. While race-neutral on their face, too, these preferences undoubtedly benefit white and wealthy applicants the most.” .......... Colorado adopted a law in 2021 banning legacy admissions in public universities ............... Selective private universities, in particular, have been slow to eliminate legacies, with M.I.T., Johns Hopkins University and Amherst College among a few elite schools that do not use them. .......... Amherst announced that the number of first-generation students in the school’s fall class would be higher than ever — 19 percent — while the number of students who were legacies had declined to 6 percent. Previously, legacies had made up 11 percent of the class. .
We Have a Dopamine Problem The neurochemical has become a boogeyman for people worried about addiction and indulgence. But the real story is a lot more complex. ...... According to books, articles and social media posts, our urge for a quick dopamine hit is why we crave cookies and spend too much time on Instagram. If we keep giving in to these desires, the rationale goes, we’ll never be able to stop ourselves. .......... “Dopamine Nation.” Consequently, we’re all at risk for “compulsive overconsumption.” ......... “dopamine fasting” ....... The premise is that modern-day entertainments rewire the brain so that slower-paced pastimes are no longer pleasurable. ......... Parents are even advised to prevent children from experiencing spikes in dopamine (meaning not to let them play video games or eat junk food) lest the insatiable need for the neurotransmitter increase bad behavior. .......... the biggest misconceptions about the neurotransmitter and what the research shows. ........... Food, sex, drugs and social interactions all set off releases of dopamine in the brain, suggesting the neurochemical is linked to any feel-good outcome. ........... Dopamine causes the wanting of something and the motivation to go and get it, not the enjoyment of it. ........... Animals from honeybees to humans developed dopamine systems to motivate them to seek out food and sex in order to survive and procreate. ............ Dopamine is also essential for learning. In this context, the key element that causes dopamine neurons to fire is surprise, regardless of whether the outcome is rewarding or disappointing. ............ Because of dopamine’s role in motivation and learning, the worry is that highly stimulating activities will hijack the neurotransmitter system, such that it no longer works for smaller, everyday rewards. For someone hooked on video games, the thinking goes, Monopoly might be less rewarding. ......... the amount of dopamine released in response to video games, pornography, social media and junk food is substantially lower than that released in response to addictive drugs. .............. Taking a break from video games or social media can be a good idea if you want to spend more time on other pursuits. But that’s not because you need to reset your dopamine system ............ Although activities like gambling, watching pornography and playing video games don’t stimulate as much dopamine release as drugs do, they can lead to patterns of behavior similar to those seen in substance use disorder — namely, continuing the activity despite severe negative consequences. ............... Most people are not losing their jobs or relationships or experiencing negative health impacts because of these activities. Roughly 2 to 3 percent of people who watch pornography report being addicted to the behavior. Similarly, 2 to 3 percent of people who play online games qualify as having internet gaming disorder. .......... As with most things related to health, the key is moderation. You don’t have to deny yourself pleasure to be a good or healthy person. ......... And while dopamine is involved in addiction, compulsions to use drugs or masturbate are more complicated than a single neurotransmitter. ........ These types of compulsive behaviors are also often accompanied by other mental illnesses or extreme stress during childhood. .
Germany Is Learning a Hard Lesson when the German government set out the country’s first national security strategy in June, it set off a flurry of coverage .......... For the first time in the postwar period, Germany is paying proper attention to the rest of the world. .......... Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sharply revealed some of Germany’s blind spots. Why, many asked, was Russia the prime focus of Germany’s indemnification efforts for post-Soviet states? Why was Ukraine neglected? ........... Prime Minister Narendra Modi was one of the first world leaders to be hosted by Mr. Scholz, and they’ve since met frequently. ........... Countries like India don’t have the same view of the war and are reluctant to join the Western alliance supporting Ukraine, fearing the economic toll of alienating Russia. But sensitivity to historic injustices is just as much part of their reasoning. In many of the countries Germany hopes to woo, postcolonial resentment runs deep. And Germany, for all its overtures, is seen as part of the colonizing West. ............ That has been a bit of a shock. Germany simply does not perceive itself as a former colonial power. It’s true that compared with the British, French, Spanish and Dutch Empires, Germany’s started later and was smaller in scope. But the German Empire occupied vast lands mostly in the southwest and east of Africa, as well as in the Pacific. It was in one of its colonies that it committed the first officially recognized genocide, of the Herero and Nama people. ........... It took place in today’s Namibia from 1904 to 1908. German colonial authorities forced insurrectionists — including women and children — into the desert, where many died of starvation and dehydration. Others were detained in concentration camps under catastrophic conditions. Altogether, tens of thousands were murdered. It wasn’t until 2021 that Germany recognized the murder as genocide, offered an apology to Namibia and agreed to pay $1.35 billion in aid. ................
the monstrosity of the Holocaust, in its mind-blowing magnitude and singularity, has effaced from public memory the other atrocities Germany committed
............. in 2021, nearly a third of German residents were first- or second-generation migrants, compared with about a fifth in 2011 .In the Age of A.I., Tech’s Little Guys Need Big Friends Creating a new A.I. system requires lots of money and lots of computing power, which is controlled by the industry’s giants. .
Monday was unofficially the hottest day since records began — until Tuesday, that is. The global average temperature on July 4 hit 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit (17.18 degrees Celsius)........ "it is an indication that climate change is reaching into uncharted territory" ........ World registers hottest day since records began — with fresh highs expected in the coming weeks
Some Data: Stability took 100,000 GB of images and compressed the learnings into a 2GB file, which acts as the foundation of the model........ > We could soon get it to 100MB or below. This means you can have a private version of GPT on your phone, without the internet, very soon!
If you have all of the world's knowledge, compressed into a small file on your mobile phone, without the internet, how would it change the world?
........... I'll start with one - Education in the remote parts of th world without internet access. Just a tab loaded with the AI in the hands of each kid. Their own private tutor. .Let this blow your mind today https://t.co/G4z9WxtWWv @EMostaque with @PeterDiamandis
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) July 5, 2023
We need new technical breakthroughs to steer and control AI systems much smarter than us.
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) July 5, 2023
Our new Superalignment team aims to solve this problem within 4 years, and we’re dedicating 20% of the compute we've secured to date towards this problem.
Join us! https://t.co/cfJMctmFNj
