2:00PM Water Cooler 12/6/2024 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Bird Song of the Day

Northern Mockingbird, Ensenachos, Sancti Spíritus, Cuba. “One singing in trees out back of 3400 building.”

In Case You Might Miss…

1. Krugman hangs up his keyboard.
2. UnitedHealthcare shooting: Details continue to emerge.
3. Inequity aversion solely in humans?

Politics

“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Biden Administration

“Biden is considering preemptive pardons for officials and allies before Trump takes office” [Associated Press]. “President Joe Biden is weighing whether to issue sweeping pardons for officials and allies who the White House fears could be unjustly targeted by President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, a preemptive move that would be a novel and risky use of the president’s extraordinary constitutional power. The deliberations so far are largely at the level of White House lawyers. But Biden himself has discussed the topic with some senior aides, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday to discuss the sensitive subject…. While the president’s pardon power is absolute, Biden’s use in this fashion would mark a significant expansion of how they are deployed, and some Biden aides fear it could lay the groundwork for an even more drastic usage by Trump. They also worry that issuing pardons would feed into claims by Trump and his allies that the individuals committed acts that necessitated immunity.”

Trump Transition

“Hegseth says he won’t withdraw as he struggles as Trump’s Defense pick” [Politico]. “Pete Hegseth spent this week attempting to woo senators — and others — as he fought to remain Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of Defense. He met with wary and supportive lawmakers, his lawyer tried to shoot down misconduct allegations and even his mother went on Fox to defend her son…. But without [Jodi] Ernst, who serves on the Armed Services Committee and is a veteran and sexual assault survivor, along with other skeptical Republicans like Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, Hegseth’s confirmation appears in jeopardy.” And: “‘I’m a different man than I was years ago, and that’s a redemption story that I think a lot of Americans appreciate, and I know from fellow vets that I’ve spent time with, they resonate with that as well,’ Hegseth said in response to the allegations. ‘You fight, you go do tough things in tough places on behalf of your country, and sometimes that changes you a little bit.’” • Honey, I’ve changed!

“Trump aides say Pete Hegseth still has a chance to be confirmed as defense head” [Guardian]. “Trump himself has not expended any real political capital by calling holdouts on Hegseth’s behalf, the Trump aides working on his nomination have, both with senators and inside Trumpworld to ensure he has the president-elect’s backing. Hegseth’s team, which includes aides who are close to the vice-president-elect JD Vance and Trump’s eldest son Don Jr, represent a particularly powerful group that has the ability to reach Republican senators and the Trump inner circle. The trickiest hurdle for Hegseth, the people said, appears for now at least to be convincing Republican senator Joni Ernst to back his nomination or ensuring her resistance does not embolden her close colleagues in the Senate to vote against him. Ernst, an Iowa Republican and combat veteran who has spoken about being sexually assaulted herself, had a closed-door meeting with Hegseth on Wednesday but did not offer her endorsement when she emerged, as well as in an interview on Fox News the following morning. For a number of our senators, they want to make sure that any allegations are cleared, and that’s why we have to have a very thorough vetting process,” Ernst told Fox News, agreeing with the host Bill Hemmer that she had not reached a ‘yes’ on Hegseth. The continued resistance from Ernst sparked complaints from Trump’s team at Mar-a-Lago, where the transition operation is headquartered, that Ernst was content to sink Hegseth’s nomination because she was interested in the job herself.”

“Project 2025 pressuring US Republican senators to confirm Pete Hegseth as defence chief” [Associated Press]. “The think-tank behind Project 2025, the conservative blueprint linked to US president-elect Donald Trump, is launching an effort to back Trump’s imperilled selection for secretary of defence in its latest attempt to wield influence in the incoming Republican administration. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said on Thursday that his group will spend US$1 million to pressure senators unwilling to back Pete Hegseth, whose nomination to lead the Pentagon has come into question over his views on women serving in combat and reports about his personal behaviour.” • South China Morning Post rips an AP story from the wire….

* * *

“Trump Names David Sacks as White House AI and Crypto Czar” [Bloomberg]. “Donald Trump says he is selecting venture capitalist David Sacks of Craft Ventures LLC to serve as his artificial intelligence and crypto czar, a newly created position that underscores the president-elect’s intent to boost two rapidly developing industries. ‘David will guide policy for the Administration in Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency, two areas critical to the future of American competitiveness. David will focus on making America the clear global leader in both areas,’ Trump said Thursday in a post on his Truth Social network. Trump said that Sacks would also lead the Presidential Council of Advisors for Science and Technology.” • The United States is already a world leader in fraud, so what exactly is Sacks going to do that’s different?

“Trump names ICE chief and makes another round of immigration announcements” [Politico]. “Trump said he was nominating Rodney Scott as commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Scott served for almost three decades in the Border Patrol, and as the chief of the agency during the last year of the Trump administration and beginning of the Biden administration. He helped implement Trump’s Remain in Mexico Policy, Title 42 and Safe Third Country agreements. Trump also announced he was tapping Caleb Vitello, who’s currently the assistant director of the Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to serve as acting director of ICE.”

2024 Post Mortem

“5 Takeaways From the 2024 Elections Now That They’re Finally Over” [Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine]. “[T]otal GOP control of the federal government probably won’t last more than two years, and there are no particular signs of an electoral realignment down ballot. Republican triumphalism and Democratic despair are equally unmerited from the perspective of the election itself.” And concluding: “So the smart expectation going forward is continued partisan polarization and highly contested elections, not some red apocalypse.” The ever-level-headed Kilgore is always worth a read. This, however, caught my eye: ” The GOP gains among Democratic “base” constituencies (especially Latinos and young voters) that received so much attention this year are most easily explained by short-term reaction to deeply negative economic perceptions rather than some fundamental alienation from the Democratic Party that we can take for granted going forward.” • I’m not so sure. I keep going back to that extraordinary map of counties showing shifts to blue, or red. And almost the entire country was red. That universality argues to me that there’s something deeper going on than “short term reaction,” and I’d speculate it’s a reaction to PMC governance as such. This codes as wokeness, of course, but the PMC is more than our national HR department. The also extraordinary outpouring of reactions to the Thompson shooting fit into this speculation (which probably won’t be leveraged by Republicans, and can’t be by Democrats (“I can’t cut my throat two ways,” as Toby Esterhase remarks somewhere in Tinker, Tailor)). But by somebody?

Campaign Finance

“Elon Musk donated more than $250mn to Donald Trump’s campaign, electoral filings show” [Financial Times]. “Elon Musk donated more than $250mn to Donald Trump’s election campaign, including at least $75mn in the final weeks before the vote, US electoral filings have revealed.” • At some point, Musk’s gonna forget that Trump is the President, not him…

Our Famously Free Press

“Paul Krugman retires as Times columnist” (press release) [The New York Times Company]. “Paul is an important figure in the recent history of Times Opinion. Time and again, he took on the big fights, grappled with policy deeply and seriously, held the powerful to account and spoke hard truths — sometimes as a lonely voice arguing unfashionable positions. He was a strong, clear, early opponent of the American invasion of Iraq and spent years shining a light on the lies and consequences involved with that war. He was a principled critic of George W. Bush’s leadership and many of his policy priorities and, with lucid prose, helped readers understand the implications of the Bush tax cuts and his proposed privatization of Social Security. And Paul was plenty tough on Bush’s successor, too: Barack Obama hadn’t even taken office in 2009 when Paul memorably took apart the president-elect’s prescription for the Great Recession: ‘The economic plan he’s offering isn’t as strong as his language about the economic threat,’ Paul wrote. “In fact, it falls well short of what’s needed.’” • After election 2000, Krugman was one of the very few major figures, on either side of the aisle, willing to call out Bush (Al Franken, amazingly, being the only other I can recall. The Democrats were absolutely supine). I was living in Philly at the time, and when I would go into Barnes and Noble, I would be confronted with a stacks upon stacks and shelf after shelf of pro-Bush books; I performed a small act of resistance by turning the visible books over to hide the covers. Krugman (and Franken) are the only voices from that time I remember, and Krugman deserves credit for that (no matter his subsequent evolution and the problems with mainstream economics generally).

“Putin’s Pals Say Tucker Carlson Is Acting as a Secret Back-Channel to Trump” [The Daily Beast]. • And this is bad why? Who do we want for the job? Vicky Nuland?

The Wizard of Kalorama™

“Obama calls political ‘divisiveness’ one of the ‘greatest challenges of our time’” [Politico]. “Former President Barack Obama called out divisiveness and polarization as ‘one of the greatest challenges of our time,’ as he avoided any specific political references in his first public remarks since the election….. ‘It’s about recognizing that in a democracy, power comes from forging alliances and building coalitions… not only for the woke, but also for the waking,’ Obama told the crowd of about 650 participants at the Obama Foundation event on Chicago’s South Side, just a few miles from where Obama’s presidential center is under construction.” • I wonder how many of the 650 “participants” were from the neighborhood. Anyhow, as far as “divisiveness and polarization” and polarization, I have not forgotten or forgiven how, 2024 – 2008 = 16 years ago, at Daily Kos, “You’re a racist” was literally the second move in the Obot script. Like calling somebody a fascist, calling somebody a racist is a bell you can’t unring. They didn’t learn a thing, did they?

Realignment and Legitimacy

Like baseball card collection, but of oligarchs:

Besides Donald Trump, Elon Musk and his fellow DOGE head Vivek Ramaswamy, at least 11 billionaires will be serving key roles in the administration.

Whether it acts as a government for billionaires could test and potentially tarnish his populist legacy. https://t.co/29dm9mSJ3s pic.twitter.com/x4pm6Dc0Sn

— Axios (@axios) December 6, 2024

Mix ’em! Match ’em! Share ’em with your friends! There are, says UBS, about 2700 billionaires in the world, and we have 11 of them in the Trump administration, a not negligible absolute numbers. It’s interesting to have oligarchs working directly in government, rather like the boss firing the managers and coming onto the shop floor because of course they can do it better. The press coverage will naturally be sycophantic….

“A Bipartisan Slippage in Standards” [Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal]. “It is embarrassing as a citizen to see the president of the United States pardon his son, and in such an all-encompassing way, for any legal transgression going back nearly 11 years, which feels like a concession to the assumption that his more interesting law-stretching or -breaking may be yet unknown. The president had promised frequently and explicitly that he wouldn’t pardon his son, that he’d play it straight and let the course of justice play out. Which means he knew it was important to people, to how they viewed him, and so he lied to reassure them. All this did what others have said: lowered trust in political leaders, made the cynical more cynical…. The pardon struck me as a bitter action, too. A president who cared about public opinion, or even that of his own party, wouldn’t have done it, or quite this way. It’s the president flipping the bird to an ungrateful (and also rather decadent!) nation that coldly turned on him after a single debate, and then elected that tramp Donald Trump—they deserve what they get… As to the Politico report that the White House is considering pre-emptive pardons for officials not yet even accused or convicted of breaking the law, wow. If that is true it makes you wonder. What have our leaders been up to the past four years that they require such unprecedented forgiveness? Even with fears of a vengeful Trump Justice Department, pre-emptive pardons are an excessive move. Now to the incoming administration’s slippage of standards, the exotic cabinet picks that veer from ‘that’s a stretch’ to ‘that’s insane.’ The more exotic nominees—Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Health and Human Services, Pete Hegseth at Defense, Kash Patel at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mehmet Oz at Medicare and Medicaid Services—don’t have backgrounds that fit the jobs. Taken together they look like people who want to blow things up.” You say “blow things up” like that’s a bad thing. And finally: “Too many of the Trump nominees have said, one way or another, that they intend to take out the deep state, but they should start explaining exactly what they mean. The deep state isn’t really a conservative insight, and it isn’t a new one.” • It’s an earworm, not to be explained.

Syndemics

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

Origins Debate

“Wuhan lab samples hold no close relatives to virus behind COVID” [Nature]. “After years of rumours that the virus that causes COVID-19 escaped from a laboratory in China, the virologist at the centre of the claims has presented data on dozens of new coronaviruses collected from bats in southern China. At a conference in Japan this week, Shi Zhengli, a specialist on bat coronaviruses, reported that none of the viruses stored in her freezers are the most recent ancestors of the virus SARS-CoV-2. Shi was leading coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a high-level biosafety laboratory, when the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in that city. Soon afterwards, theories emerged that the virus had leaked — either by accident or deliberately — from the WIV. Shi has consistently said that SARS-CoV-2 was never seen or studied in her lab. But some commentators have continued to ask whether one of the many bat coronaviruses her team collected in southern China over decades was closely related to it. Shi promised to sequence the genomes of the coronaviruses and release the data. The latest analysis, which has not been peer reviewed, includes data from the whole genomes of 56 new betacoronaviruses, the broad group to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs, as well as some partial sequences. All the viruses were collected between 2004 and 2021.” • Big if true. Seems a little late.

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Employment Situation: “United States Unemployment Rate” [Trading Economics]. “The unemployment rate in the United States went up to 4.2% in November of 2024 from 4.1% in the prior month, in line with market expectations.”

Manufacturing: “FAA administrator says Boeing still not producing MAX planes after strike” [Reuters]. [FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker] said Boeing’s plan is to slowly restart production later this month and he plans another meeting in January as the company ramps up…. He declined to say when he thought the FAA would restore Boeing’s ability to produce more than 38 planes per month, but said he would be surprised if it was less than multiple months before they get close to the 38 maximum…. Whitaker, who announced another audit of Boeing in October, has said it could take five years for Boeing to reform its safety culture, but noted the planemaker has deployed a new parts management system and improved training, adding, ‘What I saw this week was really what I expected to see.’ He wants Boeing to adopt an effective Safety Management System, which are a set of policies and procedures to proactively identify and address potential operational hazards. ‘We haven’t seen evidence of it working the way it’s supposed to work, where your risk assessment is driving your behavior,’ Whitaker said. The National Transportation Safety Board has also said Boeing’s SMS failed to catch problems years earlier.” And: “Whitaker said he has had some preliminary conversations with the Trump transition team and plans more, adding it was too early in the conversation to say if he expects to remain in the job.” • Nice little litmus test.

Manufacturing: “Boeing pauses surveillance plan to track employees at the office” [Seattle Times (PI)]. “Hours after The Seattle Times asked Boeing about a program to install digital surveillance sensors in its Everett offices, the company said it has ‘paused our pilot program at all locations and will keep employees updated.’ Boeing began Monday installing ‘workplace occupancy sensors’ in the main Everett office towers that use motion detectors and cameras mounted in ceiling tiles above workstations, conference rooms and common areas. The sensors are intended to gather information that’s then analyzed using artificial intelligence to feed data to Boeing real estate and facilities managers about how many people are coming to the office and using specific spaces, and for how long. For people already concerned about how their internet and cellphone use can be tracked outside work, this new form of workplace surveillance proved unwelcome, despite Boeing’s insistence that it doesn’t invade anyone’s personal privacy. The plan was outlined to employees last week and one was creeped out enough at the prospect to share the PowerPoint presentation with The Seattle Times. ‘It scared me to my core,’ said the employee, who declined to provide their name. ‘What you can see is, to say the least, evil.’ Whether from such reactions or from the press inquiry on Thursday, Boeing has backed off for now.’ And: “Boeing’s presentation gave employees fulsome assurances that the ‘sensors do not capture any identifiable information.’” • Of course, of course. Is it possibly that Ortberg is evem worse than Calhoun?

Tech: “Why is printer ink so expensive?” [Digital Rights Bytes]. “Printer companies have several methods to make it hard for you, and for competitors, to replace their expensive first-party cartridges… Competition: The printer companies have a very concentrated market—an oligopoly. After gobbling one another up, only five major companies are left standing. Legal: Printer companies rely on a mix of “intellectual property” (IP) laws to block third parties from reverse engineering their printers …. Technical: Ink cartridges from the big companies often now include microchips designed to stop you from using third-party ink. It’s possible to make a program that lies to your printer on your behalf, so that a $5 third-party ink cartridge tells your printer, “Yup, I’m an HP ink cartridge.” But printer companies also exploit their devices’ always-on network connections to push “updates” to your printer that cause them to reject third-party ink cartridges from companies that have braved the legal risks to provide you with cheaper ink.” And; “So why do printer companies charge so much for ink? .”

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 54 Greed (previous close: 55 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 67 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Dec 6 at 1:41:43 PM ET.

Healthcare

More on the UnitedHealth shooting. I tried to cut out as much duplication as possible:

“Hunt for the gunman who killed UnitedHealthcare’s CEO reveals new clues about movements in New York” [Associated Press]. “Investigators believe the suspect may have traveled to New York last month on a bus that originated in Atlanta, one of the law enforcement officials said…. Investigators have learned the man lowered his mask at the front desk of the hostel because he was flirting with the woman who checked him in, one of the law enforcement officials told the AP, leading to a photo of his face. The woman told investigators that during that encounter she asked to see his smile and he pulled down his mask [amateur], the official said. Investigators believe the suspect used a fake New Jersey identification card when he checked in at the hostel, the official said.” • I would like to know what kind of mask; I’ve seen “ski mask” specified, but it’s hard for me to imagine checking in wearing a ski mask, even in a very rough hostel.

“Search continues for gunman who killed UnitedHealthcare CEO in New York” [WaPo]. “Police reiterated on Thursday that they believe the attack was premeditated, which raised questions about how and why the shooter was able to locate Thompson — who was staying in a different hotel — at that specific time and place. While Wednesday’s investor conference had been announced last month, the location was not specifically included in that information.” Oh. Oligarchs settling their differences, then? But: “New York is teeming with surveillance cameras, and footage from one obtained by The Washington Post appeared to show that about a half-hour before the shooting, the individual later identified as a person of interest exited the 57th Street station for the F Train and headed down Sixth Avenue toward the Hilton. Images released by police also seemed to show that person had used cash to buy something at a Starbucks before the shooting.” And: “Investigators are waiting for DNA test results on items they think may have belonged to the shooter — a water bottle and a cellphone abandoned near the crime scene, according to the official.” So, amateur?

“Was Brian Thompson’s Killer a Hit Man? Unlikely, Experts Say” [New York Times]. “[David Shapiro, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, and a former F.B.I. special agent] added: ‘In terms of a professional hit man, that seems unlikely. It would be very hard to get somebody to do something like this. It’s very high risk.’” And: “the shooter left a trail of clues.” Besides the Starbucks and the hostel: “After the shooting, the police found not only the shell casings but also a cellphone that they are examining. None of this looks like the work of a professional, the experts said.” And: “‘I think he planned this as meticulously as his abilities allow,’ said [Michael C. Farkas, a defense attorney who has worked as a New York City homicide prosecutor]. ‘And he’s probably intelligent enough to know the odds of evading capture indefinitely are not in his favor,’ he said. ‘He clearly wanted to send a message, and he is trying to get away.’” •

“Hit Men Aren’t What You Think” [Slate]. “The thing that struck me was the fact that he knew where [Thompson] was going to be and when he was going to be there. Generally, you get that information by observing the individual. You find their schedule and their routine, and then you intercept them somewhere along the line on their routine. This was obviously not a routine setting. So he had to have some reason to believe that Thompson was going to be coming out of that door at an approximate time to be able to lay in wait. Because it’s Manhattan, standing around waiting risks the likelihood of being challenged by a cop or security guard coming by, which suggests that he had reason to know when the guy was going to be coming out. It suggests some sort of inside information.”

“Online sleuths are racing to catch the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s killer” [WaPo]. “The early evidence shared by police has largely been composed of images from New York’s vast infrastructure of surveillance cameras, a mix of public and private recording devices that investigators routinely access to identify and track criminal suspects throughout the city. In 2021, as part of a crowdsourcing project, volunteers with the human-rights group Amnesty International counted more than 25,000 cameras on buildings, poles and streetlights across New York City. Stanford University researchers that year estimated that New York’s camera density was nearly four times higher than Los Angeles. The murder scene’s location in one of Manhattan’s busiest districts probably ensured the man was recorded from many angles, said Ralph Cilento, a former commander of detectives with the New York police who retired in 2021 and now teaches police science at John Jay College. ‘Midtown is like the Iron Dome of cameras,’ Cilento said, referencing the rocket-repelling air-defense system that blankets the Israeli skies. ‘You cannot get into Manhattan at all now without being caught on camera.’ But finding and gathering all that visual evidence can require considerable effort — and take more time than some sleuths on social media are prepared to give. ‘They will track the guy all the way through the city,’ he said, but “it’s extraordinarily tedious work.’”

“The spotlight is on health insurance companies. Patients are telling their stories of denied claims, bankruptcy and delayed care” [Yahoo News]. “For many, the cost of life-saving care is too high, and medical debt is the No. 1 cause of bankruptcy in America. That is to say nothing of the emotional labor of navigating the complex system. With Thompson’s killing and the Anthem policy, there’s been widespread response with a similar through line: a pervasive contempt for the state of health insurance in the United States. The most illustrative reactions, though are the personal ones, the tales of denied claims, battles with insurance agents, delayed care, filing for bankruptcy and more.” • Interesting to see “emotional labor” sneak in there; I would say it’s labor, first and foremost.

News of the Wired

“No evidence for inequity aversion in non-human animals: a meta-analysis of accept/reject paradigms” [Proceedings B]. The Abstract: “Disadvantageous inequity aversion (IA), a negative response to receiving less than others, is a key building block of the human sense of fairness. While some theorize that IA is shared by species across the animal kingdom, others argue that it is an exclusively human evolutionary adaptation to the selective pressures of cooperation among non-kin. Essential to this debate is the empirical question of whether non-human animals are averse towards unequal resource distributions. Over the past two decades, researchers have reported that individuals from a wide range of taxa exhibit IA; tasks where participants can reject or accept a given distribution of rewards delivered the bulk of this evidence. Yet these results have been questioned on both conceptual and empirical grounds. In the largest empirical investigation of non-human IA to date, we synthesize the primary data from 23 studies using accept/reject tasks, covering 60 430 observations of 18 species. We find no evidence for IA in non-human animals in these tasks. This finding held across all species in the dataset and pre-registered subsets (all species reported to exhibit IA, primates reported to exhibit IA, chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys). Alternative interpretations of the data and implications for the evolution of fairness are discussed.” • Hmm. People with pets, do you agree?

Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From SV:

SV writes: “Olive orchard near Corning CA. The offramp Billboard reads: THE OLIVE PIT.”

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