A newsletter from Europe

My June newsletter

I’m not a great traveller, at least as academics go. I’m in Europe at the moment, my second visit since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic (which is now, I guess, better described as endemic disease). Most of the people in my little subfield of decision theory (where we look at unforeseen contingencies aka “unknown unknowns” or “black swans” are based here. And, while I’m a big fan of remote work, catching up occasionally in person, to work with co-authors, or at small workshops can be really productive.

I went first to Alicante in Spain, for a meeting of contributors to a handbook on “prospect theory”, developed by Kahneman and Tversky, which helped get the whole field started, and got them an Economics Nobel (posthumously in Tversky’s case, which is highly unusual). I contributed enough to get a footnote in their Nobel citation, which is as close as I am ever likely to get to the much-desired late-night phone call from Stockholm.

Now I’m in Grenoble in France, where I’m talking about how to think about an uncertain world without the postulate of the excluded middle (if a proposition is not true/provable, its negation must be). The basic idea is simple, but I’ve had to learn a bunch of new math to work it out, and I may have deal with the dauntingly abstract ideas of category theory (don’t ask!)

Before that I spent a fair bit of May digesting the rather surprising results of the Australian election, eventually producing this analysis.

I wedged my Europe visit between two sporting fundraisers. The day before I left I ran 21.1 km in Runaway Noose to raise money for the Melanoma Foundation. The run was enjoyable and the fundraising was highly successful, With some late donations, I ended up bringing in $2140 to help the fight against this terrible disease.

Two days after I get back to Oz on 13 Juene, I’ll be taking in the Brissie to Bay ride for Multiple Sclerosis Queensland, aiming to do 130km. You’ll be getting an appeal for contributions soon.

Newspaper articles

David Littleproud cites nuclear energy disagreement as major factor in Coalition split Conversation 20 May

Childcare is just the latest failure of Australia’s privatisation push. It’s time for an ideology overhaul Guardian 16 May

Letter to The Economist

US–Australia alliance wanes under Washington’s whims East Asia Forum 21 Mat

Media

My May media report is here (password quiggin). Thanks as usual to Alysha Hiluevo for preparing this.

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