Could Public Opposition to Life Extension become Lethal?

This about Futurism, tagged , , , , , was written by for on November 18, 2013

I have managed to find 3 polls querying people on their attitudes towards radical life extension. By far the most comprehensive one is PEW’s August 2013 Living to 120 and Beyond project. The other two are a poll of CARP members, a Canadian pro-elderly advocacy group, and by Russia’s Levada Center. While PEW and Levada polled a representative sample of their respective populations, the average age of the CARP respondents was about 70 years.

On the surface, public opinion is not supportive of life extension. 38% of Americans want to live decades longer, to at least 120, while 56% are opposed; 51% think that radical life extension will be a bad thing for society. Only 19% of CARP responents would like to take advantage of these treatments, and 55% think they are bad for society. Though a somewhat higher percentage of Russians, at 32%, want to live either “several times longer” or “be immortal” – as opposed to 64% who only want to live a natural lifespan – their question is phrased more positively, noting that “youth and health” would be preserved under such a scenario.

For now, these figures are a curiosity. But should radical life extension cease being largely speculative and move into the realm of practical plausibility – Aubrey de Grey predicts it will happen as soon as middle-aged mice are rejuvenated so as to extent their lifespans by a few factors – public opinion will start playing a vital role. It would be exceedingly frustrating – literally lethal, even – should the first promising waves of life extension break upon the rocks of politicians pandering to the peanut gallery. This is a real danger in a democracy.

Still, there are three or four strong arguments for optimism in those same polls:

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Were the 2013 Moscow Elections falsified?

This about Politics, tagged , , , , , was written by for on September 10, 2013

1. The CEC results

Here they are. The turnout was 32%.

  • Sergey Sobyanin – 51.37%
  • Alexei Navalny – 27.24%
  • Ivan Melnikov – 10.69%
  • Sergey Mitrokhin – 3.51%
  • Mikhail Degtyaryov – 2.86%
  • Nikolai Levichev – 2.79%
  • Invalid ballots – 1.53%

2. Pre-elections opinion polls:

Navalny’s support – among those who indicated a clear preference for one candidate or another – rose from the single digits in June to around 20% on the eve of the elections (Levada, VCIOM, FOM, Synovate Comcon). All the polls – even including the SuperJob poll that only queried active workers, aka excluded pro-Sobyanin pensioners – gave Sobyanin more than 50% in the first round.

His actual result massively exceeded expectations. By common consensus, this was because the “party of the couch” won; although close to 50% of Muscovites were saying they were going to vote, only 32% ended up doing so. These were mainly Sobyanin supporters who were, nonetheless, loth to shift their butts to vote for an uninspiring if competent technocrat who had ran a most lacklustre campaign.

3. Election observers

In the SMS-ЦИК program, accredited election observers would send text messages from their polling stations with numbers from the protocols at their precinct. They could then be compared with the official CEC numbers.

And Sobyanin’s result here was 49.52%.

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OPEN DISCUSSION: The Moscow Elections, 2013

This about Politics, tagged , , , , was written by for on September 5, 2013

A couple of polls to provide the fodder for the subsequent discussions.

Feel free to provide an exact figure (to one decimal place) for Navalny’s percentage share in the comments and we can have a little competition along the lines of the one we had for the Presidential elections.

Background – Sobyanin vs. Navalny in Figures (July 23 summary); last Levada poll; last WCIOM poll; last FOM poll and prediction; last Synovate Comcon poll.

Discussion thread at The Russia Debate forum – The Moscow Elections, 8 Sept 2013.

Poll #1:

moscow-elections-predictions-1

Poll #2:

moscow-elections-predictions-2

The Racists Aren’t Where the Prof Said They’d Be

This about Human Biodiversity, tagged , , , , was written by for on September 4, 2013

A few months late, but worth posting anyway.

racial-tolerance-map-hk-fix (from Washington Post)

The results are based on the latest “wave” of the World Values Survey, a very interesting project that tracks sociological data across countries – and which I will likely post more about in the future.

Interesting observations:

(1) The West in general is the world’s least “racist”* region – regardless of what some ideologues wish to argue. Regarding the US in particular, even many European countries – widely considered to be more “liberal” – would balk at the affirmative action policies in place there.

(2) France is a curious exception, though not perhaps altogether surprising in light of the popularity of the National Front. A far right party enjoying the support of about a third of the population is, indeed, pretty unique for a developed country. Is it something specific about the French? Or have they just had more opportunities to get fed up with multi-culturalism in general?

(3) Rates of consanguineous marriage (and associated clannishness) all correlate closely with rates of “racism.” Compare the map above with the map below of the rate of consanguineous marriage – considering the inherent vagueness of the questions asked in the WVS, the fact that the territories of the former Caliphate, India, and Indonesia are clearly delineated is nothing short of remarkable.

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Sobyanin vs. Navalny, in Figures

This about Politics, tagged , , , , was written by for on July 23, 2013

There has been some confusion about Navalny’s poll ratings due to the varying timing, phrasing, and options in the polls on the matter. The Russian Spectrum tries to clear things up.

Navalny Gaining, Sobyanin Dominant

Below is a summary of comparable polls on this subject by date from two of Russia’s three biggest polling agencies: The private Levada Center, and state-owned pollster VCIOM.

Levada, June Levada, 4-8 July VCIOM, 9-10 July VCIOM, 20-21 July
Sobyanin 68.2% 81.0% 78.3% 77.1%
Navalny 4.5% 9.5% 11.6% 12.9%

The Levada polls asked, “Which of the following candidates are you prepared to vote for in the Moscow mayoral elections of 8th September?” It divided the respondents into three groups: “All Muscovites,” “… of which prepared to vote,” and “… of which have made their decision.” Though figures were given for all three, I am listing only the first group (“all Muscovites”) to make the Levada figures comparable to all the other polls, which had no such division.

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Sobyanin Beating Navalny in Moscow

This about Politics, tagged , , , , was written by for on July 18, 2013

With the registration period over, there are now six candidates left to compete for the position of Mayor of Moscow in the coming city elections. Who will Muscovites vote for?

Moscow on the Eve of the City Elections

Which of the following candidates are you prepared to vote for in the upcoming Moscow elections on 8 September?

     Out of all Muscovites

      …who intend to vote

 … & have made their choice

June

 July June July June

July
Sergey Sobyanin

45

 34 61 53 67

78
Alexei Navalny

3

 4 3 5 3

8
Ivan Melnikov (KPRF)

–

 2 – 4 –

6
Sergei Mitrokhin (Yabloko)

1

 1 2 2 2

3
Sergey “Pauk” Troitsky

1

 1 1 1 2

1
Nikolai Levichev (Fair Russia)

–

 <1 – <1 –

1
Mikhail Degtyaryov (LDPR)

–

 <1 – 1 –

1
Alena Popova

–

 <1 – 1 –

1
Gleb Fetisov

–

 <1 – <1 –

1
Svetlana Peunova

–

 <1 – <1 –

1
will spoil ballot

2

 2 1 1 1

1
hard to say

18

 42 9 33  –

–
won’t participate

14

 14 – –  –

–

Eurasian Integration Is A Liberal Project Opposed By Neocon Bolsheviks

This about Geopolitics, tagged , , , , was written by for , on July 10, 2013

My latest for VoR/US-Russia Experts panel. Hope you like the title. 🙂

The political fragmentation of the Soviet Union was one of the major contributing factors to the “hyper-depression” that afflicted not only Russia but all the other constituent republics in the 1990’s. The Soviet economy had been an integrated whole; an aircraft might have its engines sourced from Ukraine, its aluminium body from Russia, and its navigational ball-bearings from Latvia. Suddenly, border restrictions and tariffs appeared overnight – adding even more complexity and headaches to a chaotic economic situation. Although the region was in for a world of hurt either way, as economies made their screeching transitions to capitalism, disintegration only served to further accentuate the economic and social pain. In this respect, Putin was correct to call the dissolution of the Soviet Union one of the 20th century’s greatest geopolitical tragedies.

It is no longer possible – and in some cases, even desirable – to restore much of the productive capacity lost in that period. Nonetheless, renewed economic integration across the Eurasian space – with its attendant promise of less red tape (and hence lower opportunities for corruption), significantly bigger markets offering economies of scale, and the streamlining of legal and regulatory standards – is clearly a good deal for all the countries concerned from an economic perspective. There is overwhelming public support for the Common Economic Space in all member and potential member states: Kazakhstan (76%), Tajikistan (72%), Russia (70%), Kyrgyzstan (63%), Belarus (62%), and Ukraine (56%). The percentage of citizens opposed doesn’t exceed 10% in any of those countries. A solid 60%-70% of Ukrainians consistently approve of open borders with Russia, without tariffs or visas, while a further 20% want their countries to unite outright; incidentally, both figures are lower in Russia itself, making a mockery of widespread claims that Russians harbor imperialistic, “neo-Soviet,” and revanchist feelings towards “their” erstwhile domains.

This I suppose brings us to Ariel Cohen, neocon think-tanks, Hillary “Putin has no soul” Clinton, and John “I see the letters KGB in Putin’s eyes” McCain. They studiously ignore the fact that the Eurasian Union is primarily an economic association, and not even one that insists on being exclusionary to the EU. They prefer not to mention that the integration project has strong support in all the countries involved, with Russia not even being the most enthusiastic about it – which is quite understandable, considering that as its richest member it would also be expected to provide the lion’s bulk of any transfer payments. In this respect, it is the direct opposite of the way the Soviet Union was built – through military occupation, and against the will of the vast majority of the Russian Empire’s inhabitants. Though expecting someone like McCain, who one suspects views the “Tsars” and Stalin and Putin as matryoshka dolls nestled within each other, to appreciate any of that is unrealistic and a waste of time.

Enough with entertaining the senile ramblings from those quarters. Integration makes patent economic sense; it enjoys broad popular support throughout the CIS; and there are no global opponents to it – official China, for instance, is supportive – barring a small clique of prevaricating, anti-democratic, and perennially Russophobic ideologues centered in the US and Britain. Neither the West nor any other bloc has any business dictating how the sovereign nations of Eurasia choose to coordinate their economic and political activities.

Translation: Muscovites Aren’t Hot for Navalny

This about Politics, tagged , , , , was written by for on July 10, 2013

Moskovsky Komsomolets’ Dmitry Katorzhnov takes a walk around Moscow to ask people what they feel about Navalny. The impressions he gets don’t promise anything good for his campaign.

MK’s Poll: Most Muscovites don’t Want to Vote for Navalny

Half of the respondents do not intend to go to the polls anyhow.

On Wednesday, July 10 Alexey Navalny will carry a Moscow City Election Committee paper for registering himself as an independent candidate. His powerful support organization is already prophesying his victory at the polls. The opinions of Muscovites themselves is not so clear. “MK” has talked to passers-by about Navalny and his chances of winning.

For this simple experiment, we took a completely non-representative sample of 36 people. They were all doing something: one was walking along the street, another was hurrying home, another was buying an ice cream at a kiosk. There was no filtering of the respondents: amongst them were young and old, poor and rich, men and women.

The results:

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Russia’s Best Leader was… Brezhnev!

This about History, tagged , , was written by for on May 23, 2013

In a recent poll conducted by the Levada Center, Leonid Brezhnev was revealed to be Russians’ favorite ruler of the 20th century. Do you see his era as a Golden Age, or as a zastoi?

Russian Attitudes to Former Heads of State

best-russian-leaders-poll

Russia is Now an Internet Society

This about Society, tagged , , , was written by for on May 21, 2013

The Russian Spectrum presents the results of Levada, FOM, and VCIOM polls over the past dozen years showing the rapid digitization of Russian society.

The Internet in Russia

The three questions used were all similar: “Do you use the Internet, and if so how frequently?”

russian-internet-penetration-2001-2013

Also in the latest Levada poll: “Do you use the Internet, and if so for what purpose?”

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