Will BRICS Smash the Dollar?

Donald Trump’s legal troubles, the possibility that Joe Biden will face an impeachment inquiry, and other stories related to the upcoming presidential election, caused the American media to miss a story of potentially greater significance. This was the decision of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), who formed their alliance to challenge US political and economic dominance, to induct six new countries into their group: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

QJAE: An Austrian View on Risk and Its Quantification: A Reply to Hering, Olbrich, and Rapp

Abstract: Hering, Olbrich, and Rapp (2021) pointed out limitations to the risk-adjusted method proposed in Kruk (2020) and advised using scenario analysis as an alternative. Based on their reply, some additional improvements of the method can be proposed, such as using the time-dependent discount rate. Business practitioners value the simplicity of the risk-adjusted net present value method.

Joanna Turowska is a PhD student at the Cracow University of Economics.

JLS: Should the State Prohibit the Production of Artificial Persons?

ABSTRACT: This article argues that criminal law should not, in general, prevent the creation of artificially intelligent servants who achieve humanlike moral status, even though it may well be immoral to construct such beings. In defending this claim, a series of thought experiments intended to evoke clear intuitions is proposed, and presuppositions about any particular theory of criminalization or any particular moral theory are kept to a minimum.

Bartlomiej Chomanski is an assistant professor of philosophy at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland.

The Pentagon Wants To Affirm Your Gender Transition. But Not if You’re Avoiding the Draft

The costumed bureaucrats at the Pentagon we call “generals” have spent much of the last decade enthusiastically assisting three different administrations in “affirming” military employees who “transition” or consider themselves transgender. Openly identifying as transgender has been permitted in the US military since 2016 under the Obama administration.

Civilian Control, Unicorns, and Other Bedtime Stories: The Military Does What It Wants

The fundamental problem with purchasing protection from the boogeyman is that it’s impossible to assess the quality of your purchase: If the boogeyman doesn’t attack, it appears your protection succeeded. If he does, it appears you needed to purchase even more. And that, dear readers, is why the military cannot be controlled by civilians or anyone else, for that matter. In the most basic sense, people without guns cannot control people with them; everything else is merely a self-deception.