The story of the “Atlantis of the North Sea” is one about our impermanence and ultimate futility against the elements. But within it also lies a warning of our potential future in an age of climate change.
‘Editor’s Picks’ Podcast (August 28, 2023) – Three essential articles read aloud from the The Economist. This week, why China’s economy won’t be fixed, America’s corporate giants are fighting back against disrupters (10:15) and the challenge of making wine in Palestine (21:50).
‘Editor’s Picks’ Podcast (August 21, 2023) – Three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, is Germany once again the sick man of Europe? Also, China’s disillusioned youth (10:50) and why AI could make it less necessary to learn foreign languages (17:35).
For generations, the Chinese Communist Party has held on to power partly through an implicit bargain with its citizenry: Sacrifice your freedoms, and in exchange, we’ll guarantee ever-rising living standards.
That deal has not held up for today’s youths.
Until quite recently, China’s young people seemed poised to take on the world — and many of them appeared to believe they would. They’ve shown a streak of hyper-nationalism, stoked by the country’s leadership and reinforced by China’s growing economic and geopolitical strength.
China’s Gen Z came of age, after all, in the wake of the country’s accession to the World Trade Organization and amid a rapid rise in incomes.
President Xi Jinping has said young people must learn to “eat bitterness” (an idiom that roughly means to toughen up by enduring hardship). Today’s youths, leaders say, are not too good for manual labor or moving to the countryside — experiences Xi and his generation once had to endure.
China’s resilience after the financial crisis, particularly relative to the sluggish recovery across most of the West, suggested China and its citizens had nowhere to go but up. Political dysfunction in many of those same Western democracies, expertly exploited by Chinese propaganda, reinforced this perception.
‘Editor’s Picks’ Podcast (August 14, 2023) – Three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, why Biden’s China strategy isn’t working, Saudi Arabia’s plan to dominate global sport (10:20) and how green is your electric vehicle, really? (17:55).
Harper’s Magazine – September 2023: This issue features Justin E. H. Smith’s Elegy for Gen X; Zadie Smith and the Gen X novel; The Rise and Fall of an Iranian Exile and John Jeremiah Sullivan plumbs the Depths…
‘Editor’s Picks’ Podcast (1843 magazineAugust 7, 2023): A special edition of Editor’s Picks from The Economist’s summer double issue. This week, we take a deep dive into how Ukraine’s virtually non-existent navy sank the Moskva, Russia’s flagship in the Black Sea.
‘Editor’s Picks’ Podcast (July 31, 2023) – Three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week:what to do about overstretched CEOs, how to better predict the weather (9:00) and we meet Myanmar’s Gen Z guerrillas (15:00).
‘Editor’s Picks’ Podcast (July 24, 2023) – Three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week:a report on the technology behind babymaking, why optimism about the world economy might be premature (10:30), and what the hype over Barbenheimer says about the movie industry (16:17).
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