“How could you leave me for such a long time?” Emily said emotionally as she tightly embraced Han Shuo with all her strength after throwing herself into his arms.

Having received Han Shuo’s nourishment and transformed by the Rebirth Pill, Emily’s skin became fairer and more tender. It was as though she had grown younger in those five years. She had risen to become a dark sacred magus. A mysterious, charming quality naturally emanated from her body. Her fiery eyes that gazed at Han Shuo were radiating soul-hooking beauty.

Gently patting on Emily’s back, Han Shuo too was feeling very emotional. He put on a tender face and softly consoled her.

“Where have you been all these years? The Church of Light said you were dead. We were very worried for so long, no clue if you were alive or dead…” Although Emily, Phoebe, and Fanny scoffed at the Church of Light’s statement in the public, in their hearts, however, they were extremely distressed. Now that she was in Han Shuo’s arms, she finally stopped feigning grit and revealed her weak side.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry!” Han Shuo tenderly soothed Emily in his embrace. His heart was crammed with remorse.

While Han Shuo consoled her, hasty, disordered footsteps approached, as though unwilling to wait a second longer.

Two charming faces stained with tears simultaneously fell into Han Shuo’s sight. Phoebe and Fanny arrived hand in hand. When their eyes saw the tall silhouette, they couldn’t move their gazes away.

At the next moment, the two were in the air and soaring towards Han Shuo, throwing themselves at Han Shuo’s chest. Fanny hugged Han Shuo by the crook of his arm and softly sobbed. Meanwhile, Phoebe hammered on Han Shuo’s chest with her fists. She seemed to be relieving her emotions of seeing Han Shuo again in this way.

Just like Emily, Phoebe and Fanny had somehow become more and more beautiful. Owing to their great leap in strength, a stern and imposing quality naturally emanated from their bodies.

The three women who received the most public attention in Lancelot Empire were all weeping before Han Shuo at this moment, expressing the excitement in their hearts through their own unique ways.

Han Shuo’s heart ached a little as he looked at his three women. The scenes of their past activities vividly replayed in his mind. He was inexplicably sorrowful...

“Alright alright, I have returned, haven’t I?” Han Shuo wiped away the tears on their faces, flustered. He smiled and said, “If those handsome, young, talented men of Lancelot Empire knew that the three of you inviolable goddesses actually have such a weak side as you do now, who knows what would be running through their minds!”

After fiercely pounding Han Shuo, Phoebe resentfully glared at Han Shuo and furiously said, “What have you been doing the last five years? Why there hasn’t been a peep of news from you? Didn’t you know how worried we were?”

Han Shuo forced a smile and nodded. He reached out to straighten out the messy hair above Phoebe’s forehead and helplessly said, “There’s nothing I could do about it. I was countless material planes away. It’s impossible to transmit any message to any of you!”

Upon hearing those words, the ladies were shocked more than they were sentimental. Their bright eyes lit up as they simultaneously cried out, “What?!”

“Five years ago, I was schemed against and fell into another material plane. In that material plane, I had to go through many trials and tribulations before finally finding a way home,” Han Shuo slowly explained.

“What exactly happened?” Even the experienced and knowledgeable Emily couldn’t be more astonished by Han Shuo’s words. Her umber brows were slightly trembling as she anxiously asked.

“It’s a long story!” Han Shuo began to narrate a brief course of events to these three women who were in such intimate proximity to him.

As his experiences were overwhelmingly thrilling and exciting, and all three ladies cared deeply about him, even though Han Shuo wasn’t a storyteller with marvelous play of words, the three listeners were taken on an emotional roller coaster. They would be exhilarated at one moment but absolutely frightened the next. Myriads of emotions appeared on their faces.

“The Church of Light is just shameless and despicable!” Phoebe was enraged. She clenched her teeth and said fiercely, “We want revenge!”

“Don’t worry, their days are numbered,” when recalling the past events, Han Shuo too found it hard to repress the wrath in his heart. He said coldly, “Not just the Church of Light, but even that Primordius Dragon will suffer the price for his conducts and deeds!”

“Bryan, you, you said you have become a god?” Emily was stunned by that last sentence of Han Shuo’s and gazed at him, shivering.

Han Shuo put on a dashing smile and proudly answered, “That’s right. Profound Continent may be big, but I reckon that there aren’t many existences here who could stop me.”

Han Shuo had in fact been rather modest in his remarks. Given his current strength, he was basically unchallengeable on Profound Continent. Be it the Church of Light or the Shrine of Ice, those organizations were nothing in his eyes. Based on his understanding of the Profound Continent, that Primordius Dragon he once met in the depths of the Dark Forest ought to be the mightiest being on Profound Continent.

However, the Primordius Dragon was merely a lowgod cultivating in earth elemental energy. Han Shuo, who owned three souls, could easily prevail against him with just the two of his lowgod avatars.

Although the Profound Continent was big, it was yet extremely difficult to find an expert who could fight Han Shuo on equal footing!

“A god? What, what kind of a realm is that?!” Phoebe murmured and looked at Han Shuo in disbelief after recovering herself from rage.

“I, I can’t believe it!” Fanny, tightly holding to Han Shuo’s arm, had her beautiful eyes filled with intense amazement. She simply did not know what to do but to stare at Han Shuo.

The reactions of the three ladies were in fact within Han Shuo’s expectations. With one thought, the Domain of Divinity was deployed. In an instant, the surrounding space around them was distorted by the edictal force of destruction and all elemental energies disappeared without a trace.

“What’s happening, what’s happening?!”

“Oh my god! My energy! I have no energy!”

Before the three ladies even reacted, loud shouts of panic rang outside. Those members of the Dark Mantle affected by the Domain all wore terrified faces, shouted without restraint, and made a racket.

To all those who had any accomplishment in their cultivation, the experience of discovering the energy they relied upon for survival had suddenly disappeared was beyond frightening. Even the Abyssal Demons who had frequently entered the Domains of Divinity of their former Demon Kings would still feel frightened to find themselves in one again, let alone these people who had only experienced this for the first time.

“This is the distinctive property of a Domain of Divinity. Against a god, those who haven’t attained godhood, no matter their strength, would be dead without a doubt!” Han Shuo explained gladly as he looked at the ladies who were all extremely uncomfortable.

“That’s terrifying!” the three ladies were aghast. They had enjoyed powerful and prominent statuses in Lancelot Empire and felt as though they had suddenly turned into lambs waiting to be slaughtered, not an ounce of strength left. The feeling of helplessness and defeat rose in their hearts when they were inside the Domain.

Han Shuo smiled and withdrew his Domain of Divinity. The elemental energy around them returned to normal.

Immediately, the three ladies sensed their energies had returned. They couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief. Their uneasy minds were calmed. The clamorous crowd of Dark Mantle members outside was rowdy with shock and astonishment, spiritedly discussing the strange phenomenon. Although some hypothesized that it was merely an illusion, the great majority of them understood it was nothing imaginary. Their boisterous discussions had led them nowhere near the actual answer.

The three ladies’ gazes towards Han Shuo were filled with admiration and were greatly awed by the power Han Shuo demonstrated.

Han Shuo put on a faint smile before withdrawing a piece of green crystal from his space ring. He took Fanny’s hand and placed the crystal in her hand before saying in a deep voice, “This piece of crystal contains a great amount of the element of death. I will teach you a method that will allow you to absorb the element of death from the crystal into your body. This will make you form the body of element and cause your strength to advance greatly.”

This piece of death element crystal was what Han Shuo had previously obtained from the divine body of a basegod in Netherworld. That person’s soul was stolen by Han Shuo and transformed into his avatar cultivating the energy of death. The essence of that basegod’s physical body congealed to form this death element crystal.

Back then, Han Shuo had gifted Phoebe with the divine weapon ‘Starry Sky’ and Emily with the Origin Crystal of Darkness. After five years, both Emily and Phoebe became sacred-grade experts. Among them, as Emily had repeatedly received wonderful treasures from Han Shuo, her strength advanced at an even more astonishing rate. Based on Han Shuo’s observations, she was on the verge of breaking through to the realm of demigod.

But Fanny did not receive any treasures from Han Shuo. Even the Origin Crystal of Death was given to Little Skeleton who also cultivated in the elemental energy of death. Therefore, she was still a mere necromancy grand magus at present.

“For, for me?” Fanny was extremely surprised. Her two hands were trembling as she held the green crystal, sensing the enormous amount of the elemental energy of death contained within. She was so happy and overjoyed at the unexpected gift that she was at a loss for words.

Every cultivator would want to advance further. During these years, Fanny had always felt rather inferior when she saw Phoebe and Emily grow stronger and stronger but she couldn’t catch up to them no matter how hard she tried. This made her very much frustrated.

She is Han Shuo’s woman too! She did not want to be any inferior to the others!

However, as her aptitude in necromancy was limited, lacking the guidance of a good mentor and not obtaining much benefit from Han Shuo, she hadn’t been making significant progress.

“Of course it’s for you!” Han Shuo affirmed. He then extended a hand and pressed it gently on her back. With his mouth placed next to Fanny’s ear, he whispered, “Listen and feel very carefully. This is a cultivation method for the body that originated in the Abyss realm. Try to master it. Once you’ve absorbed the element of death in that piece of crystal, you will be able to form a body of element!”


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Carbon pricing and the journey towards an 'energy constrained world'

Carbon pricing and the journey towards an 'energy constrained world'

energy system
Shutterstock chaiviewfinder

It's not often that you see an oil executive and a climate change analyst nodding in agreement. But at last week's Shell Energy Summit, climate researcher and author Mike Berners-Lee reached an agreement with Shell's integrated gas and new energies director, Maarten Wetselaar, when they were each asked what the most significant step forward in the global fight against climate change would be.

Both, without missing a beat, replied "a price on carbon."

But if a universal price on polluting externalities remains sensible in the eyes of a classical economist, politically, the practical question of how to engineer a price on carbon is trickier than ever. Only last month in Oregon, Republican senators sparked a democratic crisis when they fled the state to avoid having to vote on a carbon emissions bill they feared the Democrats would win. It looked as if advocates for carbon pricing were heading for victory, but then the GOP simply packed in the debate and headed for the state line.

Without a quorate assembly the bill — or any bill for that matter — could not be considered. Worse still for supporters of carbon pricing mechanisms, the gambit appears to have worked. The Republicans only resumed their seats in the State Senate after the bill was killed from the voting schedule.

The Oregon standoff is an extreme example, but it is part of a wider trend whereby carbon pricing routinely faces a fierce pushback from certain quarters. And yet, many businesses, including plenty of carbon-intensive firms, are reluctant to give up on a policy tool that could provide one of the most effective means of driving down emissions and mobilizing investment in clean infrastructure, especially when global emissions keep inching upwards.

Speaking alongside Berners-Lee and Wetselaar last week, Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at the University of Manchester, offered a stark assessment on the scale of the decarbonization challenge. "Since 1990 and the first IPCC report, emissions are now 67 percent higher," he said. "They went up last year by 1.6 percent; they are probably going to go up by the same amount this year." As such, the world has just 18 years left at the current rate of emissions growth before it blows the remaining carbon budget deemed to be compatible with limiting temperature increases to 1.5C, he warned.

The only way to successfully tackle this emissions growth is at the global systemic level, Berners-Lee argued. "There are some realities we need to face keenly in the eye here, and one of them is that going forwards if we want to live well and have quality of life, and we want our kids to have quality of life, and people around the world to have quality lives, we need to stop that energy growth which has been going on since year dot," he said. "For the first time humans need to learn to live within an energy constrained world."

As if this historic challenge were not daunting enough, he quickly added that constraining energy use cannot come from saving energy alone.

Designing ever more efficient cars, white goods and homes will not be sufficient, he stressed. "Efficiency is part of the dynamics of growth — of our economy, of our energy system and by default on its own what it leads to …  is a growth in resource use, not a reduction in it," he explained. "And it leads to an even greater increase in our productivity. So it's not that efficiency is bad, it's just that we absolutely have to bank the savings. And if we don't do that, efficiency gets us nowhere."

It will take some form of global system to ensure any savings in emissions reduction are banked, Berners-Lee added. "When we look at the global carbon curve, there is not that faintest jot of evidence that humans have noticed climate change yet," he reflected. "It is going up exactly, and I choose my words carefully, exactly as if humans had not noticed climate change was an issue. And I'm not saying that to be depressing, but that tells us that we need to interrupt the dynamics of emissions growth at the global systems level. So we need a global constraint to leave the fuel in the ground."

This global constraint could take a number of forms, but Shell, along with a band of oil majors and most classical economists, would argue a global price on carbon represents the most effective means of getting a grip on growing energy demand. In a capitalist society, price signals can have a huge impact and pricing carbon, so the argument goes, should force companies and individuals to cut their emissions in the most economically efficient manner possible.

But there have been problems with this argument, not least the political feasibility of bringing economic theory into policy life. Wetselaar offered a candid assessment of why the introduction of any kind of "forcing mechanism" to drive emissions reduction is so difficult. "A politician in an honest speech would say, 'I know what to do, but I don't know how to do it and get re-elected,'" he argued. "That is the point which is holding back regulatory action."

The result is that carbon pricing regimes remain far from universal, and in countries or regions where a carbon price has been implemented, prices generally have been far too low to force the rapid and radical shifts in energy consumption or emissions that are required to deliver on the goals of the Paris Agreement. One notable exception is provided by the United Kingdom, where the carbon price floor has proved instrumental in largely forcing coal power off the electricity grid far faster than anyone expected.

The debate is further complicated by the fact some green campaign groups are ambivalent or even critical towards carbon pricing policies, arguing they can be used as a fig-leaf for otherwise inadequate decarbonization efforts. They point out that in order to reach net zero emissions by mid-century, the world will have to redesign vast swathes of infrastructure, from transport to electricity grids and buildings. As such, it is questionable whether a carbon price alone can reshape the policy and regulatory landscape aggressively enough to force through changes in how economies power themselves.

Nevertheless, without a carbon price the other actions needed to drive emissions reductions will be slow to emerge, Wetselaar argued. "As long as we don't price carbon in some way, it will be very difficult to get the rest [of decarbonization] to work within society as we have wired it," he warned.

It is a compelling argument, especially when you consider the way carbon pricing has worked in the United Kingdom and arguably has helped to drive the surge in clean energy investment across much of the EU. Putting a price on carbon tilts the economics in favor of cleaner technologies. Getting a sufficient price on carbon in the energy sector should start to enable not just increasing levels of renewables, but also the widespread adoption of likely essential carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. As Shell CEO Ben van Beurden warned earlier in the day, currently, without a sufficient carbon price or other regulatory signals CCS remains a critical and proven technology without a viable business model.

But many academics remain wary of any attempt to position carbon pricing as a silver bullet for the climate crisis, arguing that even if it makes economic sense, high carbon prices could result in significant unintendend, and largely negative, consequences.

"I'm concerned about the price mechanisms," said Anderson. "I'm not saying they don't have a role to play — in the power sector they certainly have a role — but in the economy this vision that you apply a carbon tax and let the system run misunderstands what we are trying to do here. If we are serious about the Paris Agreement, we will need very, very high carbon prices to force people who have high disposable incomes to change their behaviors." Prices at the requisite level could price the poorest people out of key services such as energy and transport, he warned, a doubly unfair outcome given poorer individuals tend to have lower carbon footprints.

Instead, Anderson favors a fee-and-dividend model, where the richest — and highest emitting — 10 percent of society pay very high rates of tax on their activities, helping to subsidize those at the poorer end of the spectrum. "So the fee and dividend model is that you put a very high carbon tax on and then you re-distribute that money equally to the whole population," Anderson said.

A frequent flier levy could follow a similar model, with the vast majority of passengers facing negligible carbon taxes for the one flight they take each year, while the small minority who account for the bulk of the flights by taking multiple flights a year see carbon tax rates increase sharply.

But whether the optimum approach is a global cap-and-trade scheme, national carbon taxes with border adjustment tariffs to ensure a level playing field, fee-and-dividend, or a combination of various mechanisms, one thing remains clear: an energy-constrained world would require a fundamental shift in how energy is generated and consumed. And that shift could mean that for those in the West, lifestyles would have to change to embrace lower levels of consumption.

Is the public really ready for what could be characterized as "energy rationing"? Despite recent polls suggesting that in the United Kingdom, at least, support for climate action is at record levels, the panel was skeptical about whether the public is ready to accept any major lifestyle changes in the name of decarbonization.

"Even in a 2050 world with carbon capture and storage to help us out, we do need to really reshape society," said Rebecca Heaton, head of sustainability and policy at Drax Group and a member of the U.K. Committee on Climate Change. "I don't know if people realize the changes they are going to have to make to their daily lives. So far it's been mainly the electricity sector which has decarbonized — that doesn't affect you on a daily basis."

The big unknown for the net zero transition is how will the public respond as more visible changes start to occur. "We're going to have to decarbonize heat — that's going to involve heat pumps, that's going to involve things outside of our homes that might make a bit of a noise," continued Heaton. "We probably shouldn't be flying as much, and if we fly we are going to have to pay more tax, and we're going to have to learn to cope with electric cars. And we're probably going to have to do some behavioral change around eating as well."

According to Anderson, delivering social change on the scale needed to cut the carbon impact of developed societies will require a fundamental shift in collective thinking. Western society currently teaches people to aspire to more carbon-intensive lifestyles — a bigger house, a more powerful car, a larger wardrobe, he noted. "The higher the income means broadly the higher the carbon footprint," he said. "And so there is a real issue here that we have to rethink our values as a society. Why is it that the people who are generally lower emitters and lower consumers, why are they valued so much less and why are they not held up as good examples? Whereas the people that have a high carbon footprint, they are the ones that reap the rewards of our society."

Expecting people to voluntarily run against the grain of such cultural and societal norms in order to cut carbon emissions seems a big ask. And even if the United Kingdom can engineer a net zero transition, it will count for little unless emerging economies all aorund the world quickly emulate it. All of which helps to explain why so many companies, academics and politicians repeatedly come back to the idea of constraining energy use by harnessing the pricing and market-based mechanisms that have driven the climate crisis in the first place. If climate change is a market failure, then why not focus on trying to correct that failure?

Constraining energy use and global emissions at a global systemic level may be hugely challenging — it may not even be appropriate — but it is radical. And at this stage in the world's faltering decarbonization journey, radical solutions must be part of the debate.

The BusinessGreen Powering Progress Together Hub is supported by Shell. All the hub's content is editorially independent, unless stated otherwise.

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HEPHAISTOS Research team

Activity reports

Overall Objectives

HEPHAISTOS has been created as a team on January 1st, 2013 and as a project team in 2015.

The goal of the project is to set up a generic methodology for the design and evaluation of an adaptable and interactive assistive ecosystem for the elderly and the vulnerable persons that provides furthermore assistance to the helpers, on-demand medical data and may manage emergency situations. More precisely our goals are to develop devices with the following properties:

they can be adapted to the end-user and to its everyday environment

they should be affordable and minimally intrusive

they may be controlled through a large variety of simple interfaces

they may eventually be used to monitor the health status of the end-user in order to detect emerging pathology

Assistance will be provided through a network of communicating devices that may be either specifically designed for this task or be just adaptation/instrumentation of daily life objects.

The targeted population is limited to frail people for the sake of simplicity this population will be denoted by elderly in the remaining of this document although our work deal also with a variety of people (e.g. handicapped or injured people, ...) and the assistive devices will have to support the individual autonomy (at home and outdoor) by providing complementary resources in relation with the existing capacities of the person. Personalization and adaptability are key factor of success and acceptance. Our long term goal will be to provide robotized devices for assistance, including smart objects, that may help disabled, elderly and handicapped people in their personal life.

Assistance is a very large field and a single project-team cannot address all the related issues. Hence HEPHAISTOS will focus on the following main societal challenges:

mobility: previous interviews and observations in the HEPHAISTOS team have shown that this was a major concern for all the players in the ecosystem. Mobility is a key factor to improve personal autonomy and reinforce privacy, perceived autonomy and self-esteem

managing emergency situations: emergency situations (e.g. fall) may have dramatic consequences for elderly. Assistive devices should ideally be able to prevent such situation and at least should detect them with the purposes of sending an alarm and to minimize the effects on the health of the elderly

medical monitoring: elderly may have a fast changing trajectory of life and the medical community is lacking timely synthetic information on this evolution, while available technologies enable to get raw information in a non intrusive and low cost manner. We intend to provide synthetic health indicators, that take measurement uncertainties into account, obtained through a network of assistive devices. However respect of the privacy of life, protection of the elderly and ethical considerations impose to ensure the confidentiality of the data and a strict control of such a service by the medical community.

rehabilitation and biomechanics: our goals in rehabilitation are 1) to provide more objective and robust indicators, that take measurement uncertainties into account to assess the progress of a rehabilitation process 2) to provide processes and devices (including the use of virtual reality) that facilitate a rehabilitation process and are more flexible and easier to use both for users and doctors. Biomechanics is an essential tool to evaluate the pertinence of these indicators, to gain access to physiological parameters that are difficult to measure directly and to prepare efficiently real-life experiments

Addressing these societal focus induces the following scientific objectives:

design and control of a network of connected assistive devices: existing assistance devices suffer from a lack of essential functions (communication, monitoring, localization,...) and their acceptance and efficiency may largely be improved. Furthermore essential functions (such as fall detection, knowledge sharing, learning, adaptation to the user and helpers) are missing. We intend to develop new devices, either by adapting existing systems or developing brand-new one to cover these gaps. Their performances, robustness and adaptability will be obtained through an original design process, called appropriate design, that takes uncertainties into account to determine almost all the nominal values of the design parameters that guarantee to obtain the required performances. The development of these devices covers our robotics works (therefore including robot analysis, kinematics, control, ...) but is not limited to them. These devices will be present in the three elements of the ecosystem (user, technological helps and environment) and will be integrated in a common network. The study of this robotic network and of its element is therefore a major focus point of the HEPHAISTOS project. In this field our objectives are:

to develop methods for the analysis of existing robots, taking into account uncertainties in their modeling that are inherent to such mechatronic devices

to propose innovative robotic systems

evaluation, modeling and programming of assistive ecosystem: design of such an ecosystem is an iterative process which relies on different types of evaluation. A large difference with other robotized environments is that effectiveness is not only based on technological performances but also on subjectively perceived dimensions such as acceptance or improvement of self-esteem. We will develop methodologies that cover both evaluation dimensions. Technological performances are still important and modeling (especially with symbolic computation) of the ecosystem will play a major role for the design process, the safety and the efficiency, which will be improved by a programming/communication framework than encompass all the assistance devices. Evaluation will be realized with the help of clinical partners in real-life or by using our experimental platforms

uncertainty management: uncertainties are especially present in all of our activities (sensor, control, physiological parameters, user behavior, ...). We intend to systematically take them into account especially using interval analysis, statistics, game theory or a mix of these tools

economy of assistance: interviews by the HEPHAISTOS team and market analysis have shown that cost is a major issue for the elderly and their family. At the opposite of other industrial sectors manufacturing costs play a very minor role when fixing the price of assistance devices: indeed prices result more from the relations between the players and from regulations. We intend to model these relations in order to analyze the influence of regulations on the final cost

The societal challenges and the scientific objectives will be supported by experimentation and simulation using our development platforms or external resources.

In terms of methodologies the project will focus on the use and mathematical developments of symbolic tools(for modeling, design, interval analysis), on interval analysis ( for design, uncertainties management, evaluation), on game theory (for control, localization, economy of assistance) and on control theory. Implementation of the algorithms will be performed within the framework of general purpose software such as Scilab, Maple, Mathematica and the interval analysis part will be based on the existing library ALIAS, that is still being developed mostly for internal use .

Experimental work and the development of our own prototypes are strategic for the project as they allow us to validate our theoretical work and to discover new problems that will feed in the long term the theoretical analysis developed by the team members.

Dissemination is also an essential goal of our activity as its background both on the assistance side and on the theoretical activities as our approaches are not sufficiently known in the medical, engineering and academic communities.

In summary HEPHAISTOS has as major research axes assistance robotics, modeling (see section ), game theory, interval analysis and robotics (see section ). The coherence of these axis is that interval analysis is a major tool to manage the uncertainties that are inherent to a robotized device, while assistance robotics provides realistic problems which allow us to develop, test and improve our algorithms. Our overall objectives are presented in and in a specific page on assistance


Cy Vance’s Proposal to Backdoor Encrypted Devices Is Riddled With Vulnerabilities

Less than a week after the attacks in Paris — while the public and policymakers were still reeling, and the investigation had barely gotten off the ground — Cy Vance, Manhattan’s District Attorney, released a policy paper calling for legislation requiring companies to provide the government with backdoor access to their smartphones and other mobile devices. This is the first concrete proposal of this type since September 2014, when FBI Director James Comey reignited the “Crypto Wars” in response to Apple’s and Google’s decisions to use default encryption on their smartphones. Though Comey seized on Apple’s and Google’s decisions to encrypt their devices by default, his concerns are primarily related to end-to-end encryption, which protects communications that are in transit. Vance’s proposal, on the other hand, is only concerned with device encryption, which protects data stored on phones.

It is still unclear whether encryption played any role in the Paris attacks, though we do know that the attackers were using unencrypted SMS text messages on the night of the attack, and that some of them were even known to intelligence agencies and had previously been under surveillance. But regardless of whether encryption was used at some point during the planning of the attacks, as I lay out below, prohibiting companies from selling encrypted devices would not prevent criminals or terrorists from being able to access unbreakable encryption.

Vance’s primary complaint is that Apple’s and Google’s decisions to provide their customers with more secure devices through encryption interferes with criminal investigations. He claims encryption prevents law enforcement from accessing stored data like iMessages, photos and videos, Internet search histories, and third party app data. He makes several arguments to justify his proposal to build backdoors into encrypted smartphones, but none of them hold water.

Before addressing the major privacy, security, and implementation concerns that his proposal raises, it is worth noting that while an increase in use of fully encrypted devices could interfere with some law enforcement investigations, it will help prevent far more crimes — especially smartphone theft, and the consequent potential for identity theft. According to Consumer Reports, in 2014 there were more than two million victims of smartphone theft, and nearly two-thirds of all smartphone users either took no steps to secure their phones or their data or failed to implement passcode access for their phones. Default encryption could reduce instances of theft because perpetrators would no longer be able to break into the phone to steal the data.

Technical Concerns: Data Security, Widespread Vulnerabilities, and Privacy

Vance argues that creating a weakness in encryption to allow law enforcement to access data stored on devices does not raise serious concerns for security and privacy, since in order to exploit the vulnerability one would need access to the actual device. He considers this an acceptable risk, claiming it would not be the same as creating a widespread vulnerability in encryption protecting communications in transit (like emails), and that it would be cheap and easy for companies to implement.

But Vance seems to be underestimating the risks involved with his plan. It is increasingly important that smartphones and other devices are protected by the strongest encryption possible. Our devices and the apps on them contain astonishing amounts of personal information, so much that an unprecedented level of harm could be caused if a smartphone or device with an exploitable vulnerability is stolen, not least in the forms of identity fraud and credit card theft.

We bank on our phones, and have access to credit card payments with services like Apple Pay. Our contact lists are stored on our phones, including phone numbers, emails, social media accounts, and addresses. Passwords are often stored on people’s phones. And phones and apps are often full of personal details about their lives, from food diaries to logs of favorite places to personal photographs. Symantec conducted a study, where the company spread 50 “lost” phones in public to see what people who picked up the phones would do with them. The company found that 95 percent of those people tried to access the phone, and while nearly 90 percent tried to access private information stored on the phone or in other private accounts such as banking services and email, only 50 percent attempted contacting the owner.

Vance attempts to downplay this serious risk by asserting that anyone can use the “Find My Phone” or Android Device Manager services that allow owners to delete the data on their phones if stolen. However, this does not stand up to scrutiny. These services are effective only when an owner realizes their phone is missing and can take swift action on another computer or device. This delay ensures some period of vulnerability. Encryption, on the other hand, protects everyone immediately and always.

Additionally, Vance argues that it is safer to build backdoors into encrypted devices than it is to do so for encrypted communications in transit. It is true that there is a difference in the threats posed by the two types of encryption backdoors that are being debated. However, some manner of widespread vulnerability will inevitably result from a backdoor to encrypted devices. Indeed, the NSA and GCHQ reportedly hacked into a database to obtain cell phone SIM card encryption keys in order defeat the security protecting users’ communications and activities and to conduct surveillance. Clearly, the reality is that the threat of such a breach, whether from a hacker or a nation state actor, is very real.

Even if companies go the extra mile and create a different means of access for every phone, such as a separate access key for each phone, significant vulnerabilities will be created. It would still be possible for a malicious actor to gain access to the database containing those keys, which would enable them to defeat the encryption on any smartphone they took possession of. Additionally, the cost of implementation and maintenance of such a complex system could be high.

Privacy is another concern that Vance dismisses too easily. Despite Vance’s arguments otherwise, building backdoors into device encryption undermines privacy. Our government does not impose a similar requirement in any other context. Police can enter homes with warrants, but there is no requirement that people record their conversations and interactions just in case they someday become useful in an investigation. The conversations that we once had through disposable letters and in-person conversations now happen over the Internet and on phones. Just because the medium has changed does not mean our right to privacy has.

Policy Concerns: Criminal Use, Essential to the Economy, and International Trends

In addition to his weak reasoning for why it would be feasible to create backdoors to encrypted devices without creating undue security risks or harming privacy, Vance makes several flawed policy-based arguments in favor of his proposal.

He argues that criminals benefit from devices that are protected by strong encryption. That may be true, but strong encryption is also a critical tool used by billions of average people around the world every day to protect their transactions, communications, and private information. Lawyers, doctors, and journalists rely on encryption to protect their clients, patients, and sources. Government officials, from the President to the directors of the NSA and FBI, and members of Congress, depend on strong encryption for cybersecurity and data security. There are far more innocent Americans who benefit from strong encryption than there are criminals who exploit it.

Encryption is also essential to our economy. Device manufacturers could suffer major economic losses if they are prohibited from competing with foreign manufacturers who offer more secure devices. Encryption also protects major companies from corporate and nation-state espionage. As more daily business activities are done on smartphones and other devices, they may now hold highly proprietary or sensitive information. Those devices could be targeted even more than they are now if all that has to be done to access that information is to steal an employee’s smartphone and exploit a vulnerability the manufacturer was required to create.

Vance also suggests that the US would be justified in creating such a requirement since other Western nations are contemplating requiring encryption backdoors as well. Regardless of whether other countries are debating similar proposals, we cannot afford a race to the bottom on cybersecurity. Heads of the intelligence community regularly warn that cybersecurity is the top threat to our national security. Strong encryption is our best defense against cyber threats, and following in the footsteps of other countries by weakening that critical tool would do incalculable harm.

Furthermore, even if the US or other countries did implement such a proposal, criminals could gain access to devices with strong encryption through the black market. Thus, only innocent people would be negatively affected, and some of those innocent people might even become criminals simply by trying to protect their privacy by securing their data and devices.

Finally, Vance argues that David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression and Opinion, supported the idea that court-ordered decryption doesn’t violate human rights, provided certain criteria are met, in his report on the topic. However, in the context of Vance’s proposal, this seems to conflate the concepts of court-ordered decryption and of government-mandated encryption backdoors. The Kaye report was unequivocal about the importance of encryption for free speech and human rights. The report concluded that:

Additionally, the group of intelligence experts that was hand-picked by the President to issue a report and recommendations on surveillance and technology, concluded that:

[R]egarding encryption, the U.S. Government should:

The clear consensus among human rights experts and several high-ranking intelligence experts, including the former directors of the NSA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and DHS, is that mandating encryption backdoors is dangerous.

Unaddressed Concerns: Preventing Encrypted Devices from Entering the US and the Slippery Slope

In addition to the significant faults in Vance’s arguments in favor of his proposal, he fails to address the question of how such a restriction would be effectively implemented. There is no effective mechanism for preventing code from becoming available for download online, even if it is illegal.

One critical issue the Vance proposal fails to address is how the government would prevent, or even identify, encrypted smartphones when individuals bring them into the United States. DHS would have to train customs agents to search the contents of every person’s phone in order to identify whether it is encrypted, and then confiscate the phones that are. Legal and policy considerations aside, this kind of policy is, at the very least, impractical. Preventing strong encryption from entering the US is not like preventing guns or drugs from entering the country — encrypted phones aren’t immediately obvious as is contraband. Millions of people use encrypted devices, and tens of millions more devices are shipped to and sold in the US each year.

Finally, there is a real concern that if Vance’s proposal were accepted, it would be the first step down a slippery slope. Right now, his proposal only calls for access to smartphones and devices running mobile operating systems. While this policy in and of itself would cover a number of commonplace devices, it may eventually be expanded to cover laptop and desktop computers, as well as communications in transit.

The expansion of this kind of policy is even more worrisome when taking into account the speed at which technology evolves and becomes widely adopted. Ten years ago, the iPhone did not even exist. Who is to say what technology will be commonplace in 10 or 20 years that is not even around today. There is a very real question about how far law enforcement will go to gain access to information. Things that once seemed like merely science fiction, such as wearable technology and artificial intelligence that could be implanted in and work with the human nervous system, are now available. If and when there comes a time when our “smart phone” is not really a device at all, but is rather an implant, surely we would not grant law enforcement access to our minds.

*          *          *

Policymakers should dismiss Vance’s proposal to prohibit the use of strong encryption to protect our smartphones and devices in order to ensure law enforcement access. Undermining encryption, regardless of whether it is protecting data in transit or at rest, would take us down a dangerous and harmful path. Instead, law enforcement and the intelligence community should be working to alter their skills and tactics in a fast-evolving technological world so that they are not so dependent on information that will increasingly be protected by encryption.

About the Author(s)

Robyn Greene


Matava Fiji Resort

in Kadavu Island, Fiji

Matava offers a unique blend of eco lodges and luxury - all set against the brilliantly contrasting backdrops of sun-soaked beaches sand rocky shores, crystal clear water and pristine, untouched wilderness, full of friendly local communities. It is the ultimate environmentally friendly island getaway in the South Pacific - your own piece of Paradise in Fiji. Explore the Great Astrolabe Reef on the resort's private expedition boats, feast on gourmet meals with superb wines to match, relax and enjoy the peace and quiet of this tranquil and stunningly beautiful location.

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Matava has won many awards for their responsible tourism policies; such as Silver in the Best for Local Sourcing category at the World Responsible Toursim Awards, the AON Fiji Excellence in Tourism Award in the category "Sustainability" as a result of their policies on sustainability and the environment, and the first in the Asia Pacific region to receive the PADI Green Star award for their sustainable and eco-conscious environmental activites and business practices.

Community Connection

Matava's dedication to Responsible Tourism is the driving force behind their Environmental Policy and their initiatives that support the local community. They strive to spread the financial benefits amongst local people and operators by providing employment and leadership opportunities for local people. In addition to buying locally, they also encourage travelers to buy local crafts and support local skills, but never to buy products that exploit wildlife or harm the environment. Matava works to limit the negative impacts on the daily lifestyles of local people not involved with Matava adventures and respect their local customs and culture. They are also committed to giving back to the communities and regions they visit by supporting many school, aid, development, and conservation projects in these areas.

Environmental Engagement

It is the resort's policiy to minimize their impact on the environment and to promote and support ecologically sound conservation measures in their community. They do this by doing tours in smaller groups so that they can minimize their carbon footprint. They also use solar panels to power all lighting in the Oceanview accomodation, the main bure, and the resort office. Their solar panels also heat up the water that is used in the resort. The new Oceanview bures that they are building, are all being equiped with solar energy systems.
Matava Eco lodge also mimizes the need to import vegetables with associated transportation carbon emissions by maintaining a large organic garden in the resort grounds. In addition, they supply local village farmers with seeds and then purchase the fruit and vegetables from them. Their food waste is used to feed local pigs and they compost as much waste as possible for their organic farm.
They have also left areas of land around the resort uncultivated to encourage the growth of native wild flowers and ferns. Part of the resort's shore is naturally a mangrove shoreline and has been left untouched. Mangroves prevent erosion and provide santuary to juvenile fish.

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Will Amgen win another injunction against Regeneron’s Praluent?

Zachary Silbersher

Amgen ($AMGN) is about to square off once again against Regeneron ($REGN) and Sanofi over whether Praluent® should be pulled from the market.  Having prevailed at another jury trial earlier this year showing that Amgen’s PCSK9 protein patents are both valid and infringed, Amgen has renewed its bid for a court order enjoining Praluent® from the market.  The injunction hearing is scheduled for June 2019.  Over two years ago, Amgen prevailed after an earlier injunction hearing where the court ordered Praluent® to be barred from the market.  Will Amgen be able to prevail again?

In March 2016, Amgen and Regeneron conducted an injunction hearing before the Honorable Sue L. Robinson of the District of Delaware.  Several months later, Judge Robinson issued a brief order agreeing with Amgen that an injunction should issue against Praluent®.  That order was quickly appealed to the Federal Circuit.  The Federal Circuit concluded that the jury improperly invalidated the patents.  As a result, the appellate court vacated the injunction and remanded the case back to the Delaware court to hold another trial on Regeneron’s liability.

Because the Federal Circuit vacated the earlier injunction due to the jury’s determination on liability, the Court did not reach a full analysis of Judge Robinson’s prior entry of the injunction.  One may be inclined to take from that Amgen can easily sail through to another injunction.  In other words, having now corrected the prior deficiencies with the liability ruling, Amgen is more likely to prevail again on winning an injunction.

Yet that is not necessarily so.  Rather, for a number of reasons, the landscape has changed in the past three years, and the old injunction decision will not necessarily read through to a new one.

First, Judge Robinson has now retired, and the case is now being heard by a different judge, namely, the Honorable Richard G. Andrews.  The decision whether to grant an injunction is typically subject to a fair amount of discretion by the court.  Thus, whatever views we can glean from Judge Robinson’s prior injunction decision issued cannot necessarily handicap the upcoming decision because it will be decided by a different judge.

Next, an important difference between today’s injunction decision and the one from three years ago is that both Praluent® and Amgen’s drug Repatha® have now been on the market for three years.  During the last hearing, the drugs had only entered the market a matter of months before.  There is now considerably more data regarding how the drugs are faring in the market among doctors and how they are arguably impacting one another.

During the 2016 injunction hearing, Amgen and Regeneron focused many of their arguments on dosing differences between Repatha® and Praluent®.  Regeneron argued at length that Praluent® comes in lower-dosages that allows doctors to titrate down to the therapeutic LDL levels, which could not be done with Repatha®’s single, high-dose formulation.  Amgen disputed this by arguing that there was no data showing that lowering LDL levels too far could be detrimental.

Now, however, the companies have three years of market-data at their disposal.  The principle disagreement is now whether or not the presence of Praluent® in the marketplace has irreparably harmed the market for Repatha®.  Amgen argues that it expected to be first-to-market with the first PCSK9-inhibitor drug, but was usurped by Praluent®.  As a result, rather than being the only PCSK9-inhibitor on the market, Repatha® has been forced to compete in a two-player market, which has resulted in price erosion and loss of market share.  This has been caused by insurers and formularies pitting the two companies against each other.  Combined with Regeneron’s alleged aggressive pricing tactics, Amgen argues that its market share for Repatha® has been irreparably harmed.

Amgen also argues that, because of competition with Praluent®, Amgen has had to offer significant rebates to payers.  These rebates lower the net cost of the drug, but Amgen claims that the rebates have (counter-intuitively) also reduced demand for its drug.  That is because the rebates are to the payers, whereas the actual consumers of the drug do not realize or “see” any price reductions.

At the heart of this debate is the fact that neither Repatha® nor Praluent® have performed as well in the market as expected.  Amgen blames the presence of Praluent® for that.  Yet, Regeneron argues that Repatha®’s disappointing sales have to do with factors unrelated to Praluent®.

Namely, Regeneron argues that payers are concerned about the high costs of the PCSK9-inhibitors and have questioned their cost-effectiveness.  As a result, payers have erected utilization management, prior authorizations and other barriers to coverage of both drugs, Repatha® but also Praluent®.  Regeneron’s basic point is that, given the inherent concerns with PCSK9-inhibitors and the costs, payers would have negotiated price discounts and barriers to coverage for Repatha® whether or not Praluent® was on the market.

This dispute will likely form the focus of the upcoming injunction hearing.  As the market is aware, there are clearly factors at play that have mitigated the success of PCSK9-inhibitors.  While those factors were hypothetical three years ago, today they are more evident.  Amgen faces the following challenge to winning an injunction, namely, pinning Repatha®’s disappointing sales almost solely on the presence of Praluent®.  That is not necessarily a hurdle faced three years ago

Another factor that will be different in the upcoming injunction hearing relates to the public interest.  Even though the Federal Circuit’s remand of this case in 2017 did not turn Judge Robinson’s injunction analysis, the Court did comment on it.  That comment changes the burden for both parties in ways that did not exist three years ago.

When deciding whether to grant a permanent injunction, courts consider four factors: whether the patentee will suffer irreparable harm, whether the patentee can be adequately compensated with money damages, the balance of hardships between the parties, and whether an injunction serves the public interest.  Judge Robinson found only two of those factors weighed in favor of an injunction (irreparable harm and inadequacy of money damages) and one of them (public interest) actually weighed against granting an injunction.  (The fourth factor, balance of hardships, was deemed neutral by Judge Robinson.)

The Federal Circuit deemed this to be error.  It held that an injunction cannot issue if the court finds the public interest would be disserved.  Thus, on its second attempt, Amgen faces a higher burden to winning an injunction against Praluent®.  If it cannot convince the court that the public interest will not be disserved by enjoining Praluent®, (which Amgen failed to do last time,) then it will not be entitled to an injunction.

Importantly, on the issue of public interest, Judge Robinson found that having a diversity of life-saving drugs on the market benefits the public interest.  As a result, she found that pulling a life-saving drug from the market, namely, Praluent®, would disserve the public interest.  Presumably, if that same finding carries over to the upcoming injunction hearing, that might mean Amgen necessarily cannot win an injunction.

Yet, during appeal, the Federal Circuit handicapped Judge Robinson’s prior analysis.  It found that there cannot be a per se rule that pulling a life-saving drug necessarily harms the public interest, because otherwise, that would categorically bar a permanent injunction against any life-saving drug deemed to infringe a patent.  Thus, on this next round, Regeneron will have to work a little harder to demonstrate that pulling Praluent® from the market harms the public interest.

 On this point, Amgen argues that, because the two drugs are deemed substitutable by the FDA (since they are approved for the same indications), payers do not feel compelled to cover both drugs.  Thus, Amgen argues that the public will not be disserved by an injunction because Repatha® can do whatever Praluent® can do.

Yet, that may no longer be true due to recent developments.  On April 27, 2019, after briefing on the injunction was closed, Regeneron notified the court that Praluent® had received FDA approval for a new indication, namely, to reduce the risk of unstable angina requiring hospitalization in adults with established cardiovascular disease.

Importantly, Repatha® is purportedly not approved for that indication.  This may undercut many of Amgen’s arguments because Regeneron can now argue that if Praluent® is pulled from the market, certain patients will be deprived of possibly the only treatment for certain life-threatening conditions.  (Amgen has responded to this development, but that response remains under seal for now.)

Overall, the companies heavily dispute whether there are any significant clinical differences between Repatha® and Praluent®.  The fact is, they are not the same protein.  And so, it is not surprising that one drug may have benefits not shared with the other.  Judge Robinson was previously persuaded that enough differences between the drugs exist that the public interest would not be served by enjoining Praluent®.  Whether Judge Andrews feels the same way remains to be seen, yet this will likely be a significant factor in the court’s ultimate decision.

The injunction hearing itself is scheduled for June 2019.  (The hearing is actually spread out over several days between June 6 and June 21.)  At the hearing, Judge Andrews may make comments or questions indicating issues he perceives to be important to whether Praluent® should be enjoined from the market.


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Why Edmund Burke is a philosopher for our troubled times

His work can help us negotiate a path between the extremes of radical right and revolutionary left.

Across the West, the old centre is coming apart. A decade of financial disruption, austerity and stagnant wages has produced a popular rejection of market fundamentalism. Weaker civic ties have left many people feeling dispossessed.

Part of the revolt against the elite liberal consensus comes from economic and cultural insecurity. It is fuelling support for anti-establishment insurgents on the fringes and in the mainstream of Western politics. The centre has not held.

Many in the governing elite still believe that Brexit, the election of Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn’s triumph are just headwinds. These will not blow the ship of liberal globalisation off course for long. But Trump and Corbyn defeated their party establishment. They enlisted mass support by discarding the dominant Davos dogma of low wages, industrial decline, job-exporting trade deals and never-ending foreign wars. Their politics threatens the bipartisan consensus around free trade and the promotion of liberal democracy. This consensus has been at the heart of the postwar settlement and the liberal world order after 1989.

Since then, there has been a series of setbacks – from the Iraq invasion to the financial crash – that are symptoms of a deeper and different kind of crisis. It is not cyclical because it is not a periodic setback in a linear history of progress. And we are not facing the terminal crisis of an entire system. We are witnessing a new kind of crisis. Liberalism erodes the foundations on which it rests. It brings about economic injustice and divisions in society that are threatening the social contract between the people and their representatives. That is the bedrock of the Western liberal tradition. The elites fail to understand that Trump and Corbyn are a consequence, not the cause, of the failure of liberalism.

Why liberalism has failed

Those progressive liberals on the left and the right – from Tony Blair to David Cameron – who complain about populism forget their own role in the present predicament. First, they fused politics with the media. They circumvented parliamentary democracy in favour of a more direct communication with the people mediated mostly by Rupert Murdoch and the Daily Mail. The writer Anthony Barnett is right to describe this system of government as a form of manipulative populism. It represents a political tactic exemplified by New Labour’s culture of spin and George Osborne’s “Project Fear” in the EU referendum campaign. Both were roundly repudiated.

Now the label “populist” is used for political movements with popular backing for ideas of which liberal elites disapprove. By pursuing an ultra-liberal project to which “there is no alternative”, the Western political class has sown the seeds of its downfall. The electoral success of Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron shows how liberal leaders can defeat their anti-liberal foes. But the rising tide of discontent suggests that the liberal centre ground is hollow.

Since antiquity, philosophers have cautioned against the slide of democracy into oligarchy, demagogy and tyranny. Today, this warning applies to liberalism and the dangers that it poses to democratic rule.

Liberalism, far from defending open markets, maintains old monopolies and creates new cartels. Ten years after the financial crisis, banking conglomerates are still “too big to fail”. In 2017, two-thirds of the sectors of Western economies exhibit a greater concentration of ownership and control than in 1997. This is affecting prices, consumer choice and the quality of products and services from banking and water to food.

Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are modern-day plutocracies with dominant market positions. They take over their online competitors and the non-digital retail world. By managing access to information and knowledge, Facebook and Google exercise control over public debate in ways that could threaten not just open markets but also free speech. Plutocratic power undermines economic competition and democracy.

This drift towards oligarchy also reveals how liberalism is a catalyst for demagogy. Liberal thought rests on the assumption that only liberalism can free us from the tyranny of “the good” – the imposition of a single conception of goodness, truth and beauty. The liberal tradition with its securing of individual rights has certainly provided more freedom from oppression.

Yet the price we pay is replacing substantive notions of the good with empty free choice. Liberty is now the absence of constraints on individual desire except for the law and private conscience. Legal permissions are given to some, while others feel they are arbitrarily refused. Without any sense of the good we share in common with others, liberal freedom cannot decide between what should be allowed and encouraged and what should not.

When rival rights and freedoms collide, power decides. And it is the liberal state that rules over individuals. Thomas Hobbes’s great book Leviathan sums this up. Liberal freedom to choose is manipulative, because the conditions under which choice is exercised are not up for debate.

Liberalism claims to offer security by guarding us against alien elements – the bigot, the racist, the welfare-scrounger and those deemed deficient in “entrepreneurship”. For liberals, human beings are rational, self-owning individuals who owe nothing to society. The name for this liberal philosophy, first developed by Hobbes and John Locke in the 17th century, is possessive individualism.

Liberalism also separates fact from value and privileges the views of the enlightened elites over the common sense of the people. That is why liberal democracy is caught between the factual truth of technocrats and the emotive “post-truth” of the so-called populists. For liberals, everything can be debated publicly – including the personal, private sphere – except the dangers of liberalism.

The liberal practice of oligarchy and demagogy ends up undermining the principles of liberality on which liberalism rests, including free inquiry, free speech and tolerance. Liberal politics thereby produces the threats that it supposedly protects us from – ideological tyranny and the closing down of argument. University “safe spaces” and echo chambers on social media leave people unprepared to deal with views other than their own. The result is a political culture that is increasingly narcissistic and unable to form broad alliances.

Paradoxically, liberalism brings about the kind of intolerant illiberalism that it ascribes to all non-liberal positions. What liberals demonise as populism is in large part a backlash against the liberal hollowing out of democracy.

Radical right, revolutionary left

It is not just liberalism that is being rejected. The political traditions that were dominant for much of the 19th and 20th centuries are dissolving. In the US and Britain, conservatives’ reputation for being competent and reliable lies in tatters. Their economic model of free-market capitalism is broken. Continental European social democrats and socialists have, on the whole, abandoned their traditional working-class supporters in favour of a largely urban metropolitan electorate. Their social model of multiculturalism divides society. And everywhere the liberal obsession with the identity politics of minority groups excludes a majority from the political mainstream.

None of the ideologies has much to say about what people share as citizens, or what binds them together as nations and cultures. The radical right and the revolutionary left have stepped into this void. Trump wants protectionist borders in order to have more “neoliberalism in one country”. The Tory arch-Brexiteers have similar plans for a low-regulation, low-tax economy boosted by free trade deals with the other countries of Anglo-Saxondom. So far, “America first” and “Take back control” serve oligarchic interests with more than an undertone of nationalism.

Corbynism is fusing 20th-century-style statism with 21st-century digital platforms. It offers a future for the new, networked generation of globally mobile cosmopolitans. The rest will subsist on a universal basic income funded by taxing tech and other big companies. Automation and artificial intelligence promise to create a “post-capitalist” economy without work or workers.

For all their differences over open borders and multiculturalism, the radical right and the revolutionary left share a certain anti-liberal outlook. First, both clamour for more central state intervention to shield citizens from the effects of globalisation. They combine protectionism with welfare to restore national sovereignty. Second, both invoke the supposed will of “the people” in ways that are reminiscent of 1930s authoritarianism. This poisonous propaganda ignores people as they are in their families, localities and workplaces.

Third, both demonise their political opponents while rejecting any criticism of their leader as acts of sacrilege and blasphemy. In a divided era when politics needs common ground more than ever, the extremes preach puritanism. Finally, both view human beings merely as bearers of individual rights and economic laws. They value technological forces far more than human creativity or real political agency.

This deterministic world-view is of a piece with top-down authoritarian control. Power is exercised by the leadership and patrolled by a praetorian guard – Breitbart News at the service of Trump and the vanguard of Momentum around Corbyn. Democracy is good as long as dissent is directed at the enemy.

There is a double convergence at work in Western politics. The liberal centre converged around variants of individualism. Now the anti-establishment insurgents are converging around variants of statism. Neither can be mapped according to the old opposition of left and right because both view politics as oscillating between two binary poles: either the isolated individual with her rights and liberties, or the collective power of the state to secure or override them.

Burke and the new times

Born in Ireland, Edmund Burke (1729-97) served as an MP for almost 30 years and was a prolific writer – a philosopher in action. As a critic of both rationalism and revolution, Burke can also be considered a thinker for the new times. Ours is an age when the radical right and the revolutionary left are determined to overthrow the established liberal order that is reminiscent of the ancien régime. Burke rejected monarchical absolutism, but he was equally critical of the French Revolution and the tyranny that followed it.

Burke renewed Aristotle’s idea of a middle way between the extremes of despotism and mob rule. These are perennial problems that we encounter nowadays with the behaviour of the “alt-right” movement around Trump and some members of Momentum and other left-wing groups. Political leaders should be judged by whether they practise the virtues of courage and prudence. Courage is the middle way between the vices of cowardice and recklessness of which the ruling elites are often guilty.

Far from moralising, Burke thought human beings capable of both vice and virtue. The role of politics is to limit as much as possible the vices of greed and selfishness. It is also to encourage the social virtues of generosity, loyalty and duty that nurture the way we live in society. Appeals to the abstract ideals of liberté and égalité ring hollow. They overlook the relationships with our family, friends or fellow citizens, which provide substance to otherwise vacuous values.

Burke rejected the possessive individualism of liberal thinking in favour of social freedom. True liberty is secured by what he called “the equality of restraint”, not empty free choice. Freedom and equality require lived fraternity among citizens who have common needs. But the dominant political traditions have abandoned any sense of interpersonal solidarity. They have instead embraced the impersonal forces of collective state control and atomised market exchange that undermine society.

Conceptualising capitalism

The collusion of state and market in dispossessing people is something that Burke conceptualised more than two centuries ago. The French Revolution did not simply involve terror: it also gave rise to capitalism in France based on expropriation, speculation and dispossession.

First, the revolutionaries converted the confiscated property of the Crown and the Church into money, which was lent to the state. The money became public debt contracted by the government to wage war. This created a new class of “monied interest” that charged usurious interest rates, making money out of money and generating speculative profits.

Then the state taxed the people and robbed them of their assets to service the growing mountain of public debt financed by private creditors. State agents and private speculators formed what Burke described as an “ignoble oligarchy”.

What this shows is that the capitalist system does not primarily substitute one set of property relationships or one dominant class for another. Then as now, capitalism is driven by speculative capital. It ends up dissolving real value into nominal wealth because it is disconnected from the production of value or shared ownership. Burke called this “paper-money despotism”, and our economy built on debt and easy credit bears a certain resemblance.

Affection and attachment

There are other lessons from Burke’s political economy. His emphasis on covenantal ties between generations can help us think through the growing economic injustice between young and old today. Society is not a contract of individuals. It is a partnership between the living, the dead and those yet to be born. This conception balances individual rights with mutual obligations and contributions with rewards.

Today, we have a culture of entitlement that does just the opposite. Workers who have contributed a lifetime receive “nothing for something” – the same meagre Jobseekers’ Allowance as the young or new migrants who get “something for nothing”. Justice without compassion is empty, just as compassion without justice is blind. The path towards greater economic justice involves a renewed balance of interests among the generations and the building of a common good. Covenants endow social relations with meaning that is missing from Hobbes’s and Locke’s idea of the social contract because it ignores our social nature. Human beings are not atomised agents maximising their utility. And they are not anonymous carriers of historical laws.

We are born into social relations, “the little platoon we belong to in society”, as Burke put it, and these are the first objects of our affections. We learn to love and care for close family, extended family and friends. This love creates a sense of attachment and belonging that extends to our fellow citizens and humankind – the strangers in our midst who become part of our communities.

Liberalism and its enemies have little to say about our social nature. We are embodied beings who are embedded in relationships and institutions. They command affection and forge attachment as they are rooted in people’s identity and interests.

These “public affections”, as Burke terms them, are indispensable to the good functioning of the rule of law. They build the trust and co-operation on which a prosperous market economy and a vibrant democracy depend. Burke’s appeal to love and affection reflects the primacy of relationships over impersonal mechanisms.

Cultural association

This primacy of relationships extends from the domestic arena to international relations. The strongest partnerships that nations forge come not through treaties or trade but through cultural association. These social bonds take generations to develop. Britain, post-Brexit, risks tearing up the fabric of mutual ties with its continental European partners by privileging a free trade deal over cultural exchange and influence.

In Europe, people are connected across different cultures through shared customs and habits of life. This is true of nations as much as of individuals. These customs involve high cultural traditions of philosophy, literature, religion and the arts. They also include popular culture that is reflected in food, music, clothes, architecture and the tales of Tolkien or the Brothers Grimm. National identities differ, but Europeans have more in common than divides them.

Europe, like other civilisations, is what Burke called a commonwealth of cultures – an association of nations and peoples with a shared history and destiny. Today, social exchange and a common cultural inheritance are as necessary to promote peace and partnerships as political diplomacy or the use of military force. After Brexit, Britain faces a stark choice. It can pursue global free trade that will reinforce economic and social discontent at home, or it can help to build a new cultural alliance spanning the US, Europe and the countries of the Commonwealth.

Burke is often portrayed as an apologist of empire but that ignores his fight against American and Irish oppression and the exploitation of India. International politics has to involve a search for shared interest based on what he called “our common humanity”. On that basis, he condemned sectarianism at home and colonial injustice abroad.

Signs of the times

We live in troubled times. A sense of anger and abandonment is spreading. People feel humiliated, unable to live the lives they hope for and powerless to shape the forces that dominate them and those they care about most. Politics should be about nurturing a feeling of fraternity. A middle path of courage and prudence can renew the democratic promise of making people partners in power.

Adrian Pabst, with John Milbank, is the author of “The Politics of Virtue” (Rowman & Littlefield)


Writing a Japanese Lantern Poem

Writing a Japanese Lantern PoemA lantern poem is a type of descriptive poetry that originates from Japan. Another is the Haiku poem. A lantern poem is quite similar in format to a Haiku poem. Both types of poetry are short and rely on a syllable structure where the poet uses a limited number of syllables in each line. The Haiku poem uses a syllable structure of five, seven, five syllables for a total of three lines. The Lantern poem uses five lines with a syllable structure of one, two, three, four and one syllables per line. The lantern poem is also a considered a shape poem where the final shape emerges as a lantern when the words are centered to middle.

Lantern Poem Format:

line one: one syllable

line two: two syllables

line three: three syllables

line four: four syllables

line five: one syllable (synonym of or related to the first line)

Black Bear

meat, plants

grubs and berries

One of the beauties of the Lantern poem is the length. The length is short and requires few words to complete. Therefore, children of all ages may have great success in composing a lantern poem. In addition, the lantern poem can be used as a means to briefly explain a topic. So, instead of having students use a traditional narrative format, if using a lantern poem, they will have to be extra thoughtful about word choice. This can end up being a great lesson on how to use impactful words that show depth in meaning instead of writing for length.

I tried out this poem type with my students who range in age from seven through nine years old. We focused on North American forest animals, which has been a research focus for our class. I asked them to focus in on one part of their research such as what their animal eats or the habitat because of the limited words. Many of my students adored the quick, expressive format. After completing their assigned topic, many students went on to write additional lantern poems using their favorite topics to write about such as: family members, friends, and hobbies.

Writing a Japanese Lantern Poem

More topic ideas: rocks, fossils, animals, plants, fall leaves, winter snowflakes and since it’s very close to Thanksgiving how about: I’m thankful for …

Want to write a Japanese Lantern Poem yourself? Download and print an easy template here.

Lantern Poem Resources:

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OTTAWA—Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer delivered a climate change plan with no targets for emissions reductions Wednesday, focusing on tax credits and research investments instead of a national carbon price.

The Conservatives claim their plan will give Canada its “best chance” at reaching the Paris climate agreement targets by 2030, but provided no details on how much they expect their plan to reduce emissions.

Under the Conservative plan, companies will still be forced to pay for their pollution, but consumers will not pay a fuel levy directly at the cash register or gas pump as they do under the federal carbon price.

The party would put a cap on industrial emissions, forcing companies that emit more than 40 kilotonnes per year to pay unspecified amounts into research and development initiatives that are certified by the federal government. Examples in the plan include funding divisions of private companies that develop emissions-reducing technology, and paying into green technology programs at Canadian universities.

“You cannot tax your way to a cleaner environment. Instead, the answer lies in technology,” Scheer said as he unveiled his environmental plan in Chelsea, Que.

The Conservative plan reiterated their commitment to the Paris Agreement, an ambitious international pledge to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5 C by 2030. But Scheer’s plan lacks any detail about how much it will reduce Canadian emissions, despite recognizing climate change as a real and present danger that’s contributed to by human activity.

The environment and how best to fight climate change are expected to be major talking points in the upcoming federal campaign, with the Liberal government pitching its national carbon price and rebate system as the most cost efficient way to curb greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

The Conservatives have long opposed any type of carbon pricing — despite most economists agreeing such a tax would be the cheapest and most effective way to curb greenhouse gas emissions — casting the Liberal carbon price as nothing more than a cash grab that will make gasoline and consumer goods more expensive.

But while the Conservatives point out existing measures proposed by the Liberal government — including the carbon price — would not meet the Paris targets, they provided no accounting for how their plan would do better. Their cap on industrial emissions would replace the Liberals’ carbon price for heavy polluters, which puts a price on emissions that exceed levels based on the average emissions per unit of production in each industrial sector.

The Conservatives and NDP have repeatedly attacked this part of the federal carbon price as an unfair break for big business.

The Conservative plan would scrap the fuel levy altogether and simply set an emissions cap that would require any company emitting more than 40 kilotonnes of greenhouse gases per year to make investments in green technology. The party says it would establish an “auditing function” to make sure major emitters are complying.

Canadians renovating their homes would also be eligible for up to 20 per cent off their income tax for “green” renovations between $1,000 and $20,000. The party estimates the program would work out to a maximum of $2,850 in savings per year and cost the government $900 million per year.

Scheer would introduce a “green patent credit” that would reduce the corporate tax rate to five per cent “on income that is generated from green technology and patented in Canada.”

The party would also commit $250 million for a venture capital fund for green technology companies. The plan says this would “leverage” $1 billion in private sector money for the development of green tech in Canada.

Scheer said his party would take a more global focus in the fight against climate change. Pointing to how Canada is responsible for less than 2 per cent of global emissions, the Conservative leader said his party would support the export of Canadian liquified gas, which he argued could replace more emissions-heavy sources like coal in other countries.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna scoffed at the Conservative proposals, calling the measures a “fake plan” that includes no details or any attempt to account for how it will reduce emissions. She also defended her government’s carbon price as the best way to signal to the free market that there is a cost to pollution that causes global warming.

Alexandre Boulerice, the NDP’s environment critic, questioned how the proposed cap on heavy emitters will reduce pollution if companies can simply apply to invest the penalties for excess emissions into their own research and development departments.

“We thought it wouldn’t be good, but we didn’t think that it would be this bad,” he said. “It’s absolutely not credible. There’s no chance they would meet the objectives of the Paris accord.”


A new LIMRA study reveals that 45 percent of retirees still have their assets in their retirement savings plans with their employers, most frequently in their 401(k) plans, and almost a fifth of retirees own three or more IRAs in their households.

The online survey of retirees was conducted in October 2010. Qualified respondents were aged 55 to 79; had been retired for at least one year and had not worked for pay within the past year; and had household incomes of at least $35,000. Furthermore, qualified respondents were personally involved in making decisions about their household savings and investments.

“While many retirees may think retaining multiple retirement plans or IRAs is a good diversification plan, doing so can make it difficult to measure whether their investments are effectively aligned with their retirement goals,” said Jafor Iqbal, associate managing director of LIMRA Retirement Research. “Consolidating assets under one professional manager or institution gives retirees access to information and guidance, typically at a lower cost, to help make the most out of a retirement plan.”

Among the survey respondents, 23 percent said they have relationships with insurance companies.  The mass affluent retirees with assets of $100,000 to $500,000 are more likely to have relationships with insurance companies than any other market segments.  However, as a whole, retirees have only 9 to 10 percent of their assets invested in products and services offered by insurance companies.

With more than $400 billion in the annual IRA rollover market, it is important that insurers understand what motivates retirees and pre-retirees to rollover or consolidate their money with a financial firm.

Provide online resources.  According to LIMRA consumer surveys, retirees start to think about the decision of what to do with their retirement plan balance well in advance of retirement.  Providing online resources like retirement calculators and checklists can help insurance companies develop relationships with employees approaching retirement and build brand awareness.

Be responsive and ready to react quickly. Once they retire, those that do roll over their assets move their money fast. Earlier LIMRA research shows majority of retiree assets leave their employer-sponsored plans within the first 12 months of their retirement.

Provide a comprehensive plan which creates a retirement income stream and addresses other risks retirees face.  Retirees and pre-retirees will typically need to make a series of retirement-related financial decisions starting at age 59 ½, the age at which they can withdraw from their tax-qualified assets without penalty, to age 70 ½, when they must take IRS required minimum distributions (RMD) from their qualified savings. In between, they have to evaluate when to take Social Security benefits and enroll in Medicare and its supplements. All of these financial decisions can be part of a retirement plan.  LIMRA research shows that many investors are buying guaranteed income annuity products at these key age-based financial decision points.

Reach out to pre-retirees and establish a relationship before they enter retirement.  Existing relationships are critical to securing rollover business. A financial planner or advisor is often the first person retirees or pre-retirees consult regarding the rollover decision if they have an existing relationship. If possible, offering personalized investment guidance can be a way for companies to strengthen relationships and increase their chances of retaining assets.

Offer guidance about taxes and other required distributions. Retirees both under and over age 70 need help managing their retirement plan assets to ensure they comply with all legal requirements.  Sixty percent of retirees above age 70 who are taking withdrawals are only doing so to meet IRS required minimum distributions and they often take withdrawals through systematic withdrawal plans. The current research finds that most retirees get help from a financial professional or a phone representative to set up the plan.

 “Bottom line, insurers need to do a better job communicating with their clients and prospects before they retire, when they are still making decisions on how to invest their money in retirement,” Iqbal noted. “The difference between capturing the assets and losing them to a competitor is whether you are with your clients when they have to cross some of the financial decision points before and during retirement.”