We're live now as usual, we'll wait just a second to make sure that we get everybody moved from one session room to another to that looks good. I think I think we're all here. So welcome back to the next talk, the fourth talk of today. I am pleased and honored to present Sarah Davies who is a professor of techno science materiality and digital cultures I just said super cool job title at at the University of Vienna, and I'll be talking to us about academic Twitter social media practices and the enactment of contemporary academic work so more picking back up on some of these social media from earlier in the day I'm really excited to see to see how this how this unfolds thanks so much please please take it away. So thank you. Um, so of course I want to start by saying thank you to Charles for organizing such a fantastic conference I've really been enjoying listening to engaging with works that I would not normally come across. This has been very enlightening for me. I particularly enjoyed the visualizations yesterday. I'm really beautiful. I sadly cannot compete, I have no visualizations, but I do have grumpy cow. So I offer that to you, as at least some kind of visual entertainment for this talk. Okay, so I am as you saw on the first slide based in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Vienna, and I want to talk to you about work that is looking at broadly a digitization within scientific practice, and particularly thinking about social media and what is happening in some of these social media spaces. So in the sense of where I will be going. I want to essentially make two arguments, and I will do this in four parts. So the arguments that I want to share with you to suggest. Firstly, I want to start by saying that we cannot clearly distinguish between epistemic and other kinds of practices, including digital practices. I think that there is continuity between epistemic work and the other kinds of work, the other kinds of activities that go on within the university within academia. And I will of course say more about that in a moment. The other argument, the other claim that I want to just to make is that academic social media in actually academy in particular ways. So this is from looking at social media from looking at Twitter specifically, we see imaginations performances of the University of research and academic life that are done in specific kinds of ways and again, I will flash those, those ways out for you in a moment. So my, the things I want you to take home from this presentation, and we'll do this in four parts. Firstly, it's starting by thinking about some background digital practices and the contemporary academy. I will briefly introduce the study on which I'm drawing. I'll then talk about empirical findings from that. And I want to circle back to some of these wider claims or discussions that I want to speak to. So to look at the more specific empirical findings in the context of thinking about digital science. Charles I should have said this to you before I really encourage a strongly interventionist approach in timekeeping on your part. I'm afraid I'm not quite sure how long this will take. I'm happy to give you I'm happy to give you a warning or two not a problem. That would be great. Thank you. So what is my starting point here. I'm coming from science and technology studies STS. Really, I think a fairly unproblematic claim in that domain is that we cannot readily distinguish between epistemic and other kinds of practices. Such production is always entangled with other ways of being other kinds of contexts and cultures, such as different kinds of value systems or different forms of sociality. So this is my starting point. This particular and drawing on work within STS that has been concerned with the conditions of contemporary academic work. The contemporary university and has thought about how these conditions are interacting with shaping epistemic practice and knowledge production in all kinds of different ways. And there has been work that has looked at new regimes of accountability and evaluations that are emerging, the way in which we are work is measured performance is evaluated. So that's one, one way that perhaps goes into shaping the conditions of work and the way in which we can produce knowledge. And at the same time, there are also things like the rise of internationalization, increasing precarity in academic labor, and very particular and distinct imaginations of what it means to be a good academic, and to have a good or right kind of academic career that come perhaps from policy and funding frameworks. So all of these things make up the context in which we live and work within the Academy, and I would suggest a shaping how we can produce knowledge, and also the kind of knowledge that is that comes out of universities. The way of thinking about this is using the concept of epistemic living spaces, which was developed by two of my colleagues here in Vienna, Ilyfeld and Max Vochler. And with this notion of the epistemic living space, they really try to make clear the constant intertwining of epistemic with other kinds of aspects of academic experience. And as they say, by epistemic living space, we mean a researcher's perceptions and narrative reconstructions of all the structures, context, rationales, actors and values, which mode guiding to limit their potential actions. And this kind of process of molding guiding delimiting. This is about what these researchers know what they imagine being able to know, as well as how they act in social context. So again, just to make the point one more time. This means that within STS recently, a central question has been how are the conditions of academic life intertwined with its products. How research is epistemic living spaces, changing and developing within the current way that the Academy is developing is managed is organized and sort of out. So what does this, how does this relate to the digital. And of course, digital practices and digital science, a one key aspect of contemporary academic experience. And this means I would argue that when we think about digital science. We should be concerned with the full range of the diverse ways that digital practices are present within academia. We should think about digital science. We should think about digital methods, but we should see those within a wider context in which diverse forms of digital practices present diverse forms of other kinds of social and cultural practices for also present. What does this mean in practice what am I interested in specifically. To take an example from my own work, my own experience. This means that I think we should consider the way in which digital tools and methods involved in epistemic practice and a knowledge production. For me, for instance, I use the qualitative analysis software Max QDA. This is one way in which my knowledge, my knowledge making my research is shaped and structured and develops. So we should think about these tools and methods. We should also I think think about consider the way in which interactions are structured through digital platforms, such as the one that we are on right now. The way in this is the ways in which this may be shaping how we engage with each other how we collaborate. So for instance, if this is a screenshot from a research group meeting that I'm involved in. What difference does that make to the way in which we as colleagues interact and produce knowledge together. So my great job title includes the word materiality. I also want to suggest then that as we think about these digital platforms as we think about digital tools, we should also see them within particular material contexts. So this is my desk at which I am currently standing. So when we investigate digital practices, we should see them as particular configurations of devices and bodies and spaces. Again, we should contextualize digital practices and digital methods within the space in which researchers are working. Finally, or one other example of what it means to think about digital science in this broader context is to include social media practices. So to acknowledge that much research engagement, but also much sense making about the contemporary digital economy goes on through social media to different kinds of platforms and ways of contacting and being in touch with each other.  If we draw this together, the central question that I am concerned with, not only in this talk but as a part of a broader research agenda is how to develop diverse digital practices intersect to instantiate the contemporary conditions and knowledge of academic life. So what are the interactions between all these different engagements with the digital that I've just talked about, and the kind of knowledge that is made, as well as the experience of being being a researcher. In the context of this presentation here. I want to narrow down on a more specific aspect of this to drill down a little bit into social media practices as an example of this wider engagement with the diverse and kind of multifarious aspects of digital science. So here I want to ask the question, what can social media practices tell us about the contemporary conditions and knowledge products of academic life. The way that I will reflect on this question is using a data set from academic Twitter that was drawn from almost exactly a year ago. So here I am using the pandemic or specifically the first months of the pandemic as a moment of crisis or breakdown that allows us to study exactly what it is that is framed as in crisis or breaking down. So the pandemic can be understood as a lens through which to consider what we see as normal, what is being disrupted. And I am interested in how academia and academic life were performed on academic Twitter during, as I say the early months of the pandemic. I take an analytical approach that is ethnographically oriented. So I'm interested in actor terms and meanings engaging with the ways in which particular cultures and making sense of particular things. So this is qualitative research and I view social media material as kind of records of digital practices. In practice, this means that I am working with a relatively small data set from Twitter. It had to be relatively small because I wanted to do fine grained qualitative analysis. So a year ago, I used the tool Tweet Archive to download tweets and to create a data set of tweets that use the hashtags academic Twitter or academic chapter, and which were published between March and July. So this data set was then curated to focus on tweets that were popular that had been favorited 25 or more times, and that focus particularly on the pandemic. And this data set which came to between three and 400 tweets. I'm afraid I can't remember the exact number right now. We're subject to a thematic analysis so looking at patterns and themes, as well as a more focused multimodal analysis where I was interested in the use of images and memes and video and also something about contextualization of particular tweets. I should acknowledge right at the start that this is a data set that is limited along multiple dimensions. It was a response to a particular moment, and actually to my own observations of the way in which social media was being used this time a year ago. And it means the terms that I focused on or that I came to focus on academic Twitter and academic chapter. This is the kind of community within Twitter but of course excludes other communities. The hashtag black in the ivory tower for instance, and also PhD chat. So this is a very kind of delimited data set that has been subject to fine grained analysis. So I don't want to make too, too strong claims for this. It's about the way in particular group within the Academy choose to speak to each other. So, there are problems also with using material from Twitter, without any kind of informed consent procedure. In the past, I think this kind of social media material has been treated as in the public domain, but more recently this has been prioritized, rightly so I think. So here I don't want to directly quote too much. I will reference only a content that I view as viral that has achieved kind of hundreds and thousands of likes or favorites. Otherwise, I tend to paraphrase the material that I'm drawing on. So what comes out of this data set as I say I was interested in how academia, how academic life with being performed discussed represented within this material. I'm curious about both the themes and patterns that emerged, as well as the way in which these themes and patterns were instantiated through for instance, the use of visuals. So the first kind of theme or idea I want to to mention is the notion of disruption. Of course, I think this is not so surprising to us. This is something that probably we all remember. And is definitely true far beyond academia. So a lot of the content was talking about disruption chaos crisis. But the interesting question becomes then what is it that is being disrupted. What is the normality that is being disturbed through the pandemic and the various lockdowns and other effects that I had. The second kind is a picture of normal academic life being disturbed through things like home working and homeschooling, also through the sudden removal of conferences, and the lack of face to face contact so this was something, something that was seen as normal, valuable in academic life that was being stopped disruptive. What is more surprising or more interesting is that there was also a sense that what was being disrupted by the pandemic was production, essentially productivity. So one thing that people spoke about was a concern often that being productive being efficient and effective this was being disrupted through working from home not being able to access the lab for instance. So there's a sense that normality at least should aspirationally involve being productive, kind of systematic and efficient continuous production of data sets or texts or results of some kind. But I think what is also interesting is that this, these notions of productivity or complaints about these disruptions were articulated in particular ways, often using humor and jokes and memes so this wasn't something that was simply described. It was instantiated through these kinds of forms and genres. And this does particular work in terms of, in terms of the language in terms of the way in which these subjects approached the use of this kind of light hearted ironic attitude. This both somehow reinforces particular imaginations of academic life, while also being able to gently subvert and distance oneself from them. So this is just one example for you one additional bit of visual stimuli simulation. This was definitely something that went viral in terms of popularity and reach, I guess, many of you may well be familiar with it. The interpretation of what is known as the unfinished horse drawing meme applied to teaching university teaching in 2020 so the sudden move to remote learning, I guess, many of us had to go through a year or so ago. So this meme really catches I think these dynamics that there is humor is some kind of ironic reflection on the fact that you may have had grand plans for the semester, but these have just kind of fallen to pieces and become more and more rudimentary. So here you exactly see this reference to kind of academic ideals. All of our teaching should look so to speak like the back end of that horse. It should be this polished, effective dynamic form. This idea is being referenced but you also have a kind of acknowledgement of the ways in which these are not being lived up to. So it's a first theme is something about the normality that is being disrupted. The second theme is one that's the focus is on care and portrays the academy as a space that is deficient in care, essentially. This material frequently features expressions of compassion, emotional honesty care, and also involves offers or requests for support, empathy, or advice. Again, this was a very popular tweet, advising faculty members to check in on your PhD students. If they live alone, we supervise other closest they have to a family. So encouragement to express care to look after people. And what you get from these kinds of expressions, these kinds of articulations of care is essentially that they this encouragement to care is required. So academic life, normal academic life is lacking in these kinds of activities, these kinds of neutral support and encouragement. So by referencing care so much, you build up a picture of the university as not often, including that or needing some stimulation for that to happen. The next jokes and means were perhaps unsurprisingly less important less dominant. Instead, content had quite a distinctive emotional repertoire. So you have not only these articulations of care, compassion, the desire to look after each other, but you also saw things like gratitude celebration and motivational language. These are a couple of examples, not from my data set, things that I have taken from more recent tweets. Again, I have been a favorited many times that captures some of this kind of some of this style, some of this way of talking and interacting. So at piece of advice, we're all smart here distinguish yourself by being kind, and also kind of acknowledging and celebrating the decision that the decision to quit academia, maybe a good one. So again, I did like encouragement, focusing on the right kind of interpersonal relationships. These are exemplary of the way in which these tweets in my data set. Also, the language that they used. Let you know you've about about 20 minutes left in the whole session for a time point. This is my last empirical point. So, suggesting a kind of deficiency of care. There was another theme, which was more kind of politically conscious. And this came through as the promotion of or discussion of critique. This also drew attention to inequity and injustice. This wasn't just about caring. It was about pointing out the different kinds of structures that was seen as responsible for this inequity. So for instances came through in things like the different access that students had to technology for home learning and diverse home situations. These were major challenges of working and teaching from home cases where mainstream media focused on work by men ignoring women and during attention to the ways in which casual academic staff were particularly badly affected. Interestingly, the notion of productivity also reemerged here because these ideas of the necessity or the importance of productivity was seen as a key site where inequity became apparent. In the sense that if you are living in a situation where you have a very poor internet connection where you're caring for for many people where you're trying to homeschool your your children. You're simply not able to view the pandemic as a holiday from the lab and be super productive and effective. This is a thread of critique and this material performs the Academy as being flawed not only through this deficiency of care, but through a kind of entanglement with wider social inequality. Okay, so very very briefly, I want to circle back around to the wider context with which I started. I want to sum up for you that the themes that I've talked about, and also the ways in which they were instantiated in the material. So I think what we can say then is this material does sell it tell us something about how the conditions of academic life are enacted by this specific community, and also the styles and norms through which they, they talk about academic life. The Academy is framed as deficient in care as focusing perhaps too much on productivity and as being entangled in social inequity. And it does this using these kinds of particular emotional repertoire, as well as this distanced ironic humor. So this is something about the kind of very specific and detailed work that is done in this particular social media space. As I say I also wanted to start to think about what this means for how we think about digital science, digital research, digital researchers, more generally. I don't have any answers. I only really have more questions in thinking about this. The first of which is how do these kinds of practices relate to other digital practices in science or more specifically, how do these genres and norms, the ways in which people interact and talk, how do they travel, how do they intersect with other kinds of spaces and interactions within academia. I think we should also reflect on if the Academy is enacted in these ways as oriented to productivity is deficient in care. What does this mean then for this question of knowledge production, how does it conditions, or how do these trade conditions come to matter in terms of the kind of knowledge that can be produced, the ways in which it is done so, and the kinds also of relationships that are in collaborations that become possible. And finally, just to reflect a bit on this use of productivity as a central frame in this academic practice becomes about producing things, often things that are evaluatable, right, that can be used to produce metrics whether that is an H index, or a positive 10 year review evaluation. So if we think about this notion of productivity is somehow dominating people's experiences or how they talk about the university. Again, what does this mean. What does it mean for knowledge production. What does it mean for what is not being valued what is not being encouraged or allowed to be visible within the university. I apologize for the rushed presentation and the lack of cat memes. I very much look forward to questions and comments. Fantastic. Thank you so much. One question already here I have, I have a lot of my own but I'll start not not not that way. So first we're the just a bit of a data set clarification so we're the tweets only in English and also do you have an idea of their geographic distribution. I think they were only in English. So the hashtags that I use academic Twitter and academic chapter, obviously in English, sometimes other. I mean if you look, if you look now at those hashtags, occasionally, people will use those and tweet in other languages, but at least in the data set that I was looking at which had these 25 or more favorites. So they were more kind of visible. They were all in in English. Oh and geographic. I'm afraid that is of course in the giant Excel spreadsheet that I have, but I haven't looked at this at all systematically. My impression, or my. Yeah, yeah, my impression from the data is that it was largely kind of US based with a few with a few other places included but this is not from any kind of systematic analysis. Did you look into a question from from rose Trump is this did you look into gender with the care tweets of the of the tweet authors or is that too hard with the data set you have. I mean no, I haven't. Again, it would be possible, but I haven't got to that kind of stage of the analysis. Yes, I would also. Yeah, I can also kind of send out a plea. I am a ethnographer a qualitative researcher by training and background. And this has been even this kind of analysis working with material downloaded has been a learning curve for me, and I have felt very limited by my kind of lack of methodological expertise. If people have ideas they want to share with me, or interested in collaborating I would be really delighted to to hear from you because this has been something that I, you know I have this I think very rich material but it's been hard for me to, to know how to work with this, for instance in looking at these categories, most systematically. That's actually a nice segue into it so so I wanted to ask a slightly slightly broader question, just because I imagine that I'm not the only person who's in who's in the something like the following position so there are interesting questions that I think I might be able to to get interesting and analytic traction on using social media data. What have been some of the kind of unexpected troubles that you've run into what's what are what are if someone's thinking about picking up an analysis like this and I think this might be especially valuable feedback from you as you say you're coming to this as well from sort of the outside. I wonder what I wonder what kinds of things you ran into that you weren't expecting or or along those lines. Yeah, I mean one piece of advice is not to do this in a pandemic on the spur of the moment. I mean I really would have benefited from more research and thought in advance, I had to kind of develop a method very quickly. So of course I think there are lots of resources out there. This has surprised me. Again, coming from a qualitative background, naively, I just thought, Okay, there will be this tool and it will magically download all this data and it will be very tidy in this beautiful spreadsheet and and then I'll just put it into another software. And it will just be very smooth and seamless. I mean this relates a bit to the presentation, I think, yesterday about masking and matter data, because I was really surprised I have to admit how much curation this material required and how much work it was to get a data set that it was, it was kind of standardized and possible to work with and didn't crush my computer when I opened the Excel file. So this is something definitely that surprised me and I, yeah. I just want to, there's actually, this isn't even really a question I just want to list that there's really cool stuff happening in the chat so let me just kind of share what people are saying so yeah rose. Sorry, Arlie, Arlie Bilbo picked up with saying, yeah demographics of the care that is that would be super interesting, especially if you were doing a kind of comparative approach for instance with, say the black and the ivory hashtag or the native Twitter hashtag right to see if there's, there's interesting shifts going on across those different communities. So Petrovic adds adds that that that also might be an interesting way to to assess if the data sets somehow biased by by by language by geography by scientific field if there's ways that these that these that these categories are cross cutting. And, and Arlie Bilbo adds there was a really cool conversation about fatherhood happening in one of our zoom breakout rooms during our social hour last night. Apparently, I missed that unfortunately, but yeah, but they're, she says I bet they're really mentioned this ever was mentioning trends happening. So, so that that that yeah I think there's there's there's an appetite for this. And that's, I think I think it's really it's really interesting to really interesting to see what may be possible with it. A more, a more precise question here here as well. Another follow up from rose who says, I forgot, oh says first of all I forgot to say really nice work. And then adds, I'd be interested if you've got me opinion about maybe if there's stuff that doesn't get said in the tweets that doesn't get tweeted about like quiet thanks to great universities that extended deadlines are made clear clear decisions early right where people maybe feel awkward about saying that out loud. Yes, thank you. Really nice points. I mean, actually, thanks is one thing that I think does come up a lot because of the genre norm norms about gratitude and motivation and positivity. And people do in this material anyway, kind of say thanks to the supervisor or to acknowledge the good work that a particular institution is doing, but I think more broadly, one thing that is extremely interesting is how these norms. There's an instance around the use of humor and this ironic distance, and also this repertoire that is all about gratitude and positivity, and thanks and care. I mean, these norms do I think shape what is what is sayable. Again, this is not something I've been able to develop. But I am curious for instance in the comparison between coffee room conversation in a department or a university, how does that look different. What is talked about differently in these different kinds of spaces. I mean one thing that is interesting also this critique notion. This is generally, again in this material critiques that is directed at the superstructures of institutional life. So it is about the university the government's Trump, you know, really kind of quite high level critique about inequity. What happens much less. And this might also be to do with the fact that I'm looking at frequently favorited treats. And much less is kind of personal complaints, like my department X has treated me why really badly and I'm pissed off. I mean this doesn't appear so much. So I also think there's something about these norms that perhaps being presenting yourself as complaining or it is satisfied that somehow doesn't fit into what is the standard practice within the space. Yeah that that actually connects to something that I was that I was wondering about that I have no clear opinion on this but I wonder how to. So of course, especially Twitter I feel like you know Twitter culture is sort of infamous right that there are there are some of these norms are platform organic instead of being academia organic and then trying to think about, you know, disentangling those in these in these kinds of contexts. This especially occurred to me with you know the first the first set of points about about the kind of. We have to be lighthearted semi funny but ironically detached from everything and I was sort of thinking to myself like, yeah so like when you tweet about anything that's sort of how you have to be right that's sort of what everyone is expecting a view. So I wonder about about that about that interface. I wonder also about how to separate those those variables for lack of a better way to put it. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how to separate them essentially but I would agree this is a genre that is about Twitter. It's a genre as much as academia. And this again is partly why I'm interested, or I'm very curious about the ways in which these social media forms of interaction and now becoming part of other spaces right. So for instance I think we use the language of hashtags outside of Twitter. Now, people, you know, uses ironically hashtag whatever. There are some lines being on and offline. This of course is a much bigger kind of linguistic project. But it's one thing that I'm curious about in the context of academia specifically. Do we now start to do our coffee room conversations now start to take on some of these dynamics that come from social media. Yeah, I'm not sure. This is very much a kind of speculative and open question. Really, yeah, yeah, that's a that's a really provocative way to think about it. These, the, the, the living spaces cross cross cutting and interacting. Oh yeah and actually and Stefan Hesbuergen adds that some of these social media norms in particular about about certain kinds of, of, I don't know where the tape delay is but I assume he's mentioning sort of direct attack on your university for instance. These are some of the things that are enshrined in universities or social media policies that are regulating the behavior of employees, at least on occasion, I don't know, I don't, I probably know how widespread those are, but. Yeah, I mean I think they are increasingly widespread I have to say I'm not sure what I'm not sure about is how enforced they are. Yeah, you're right this could involve yeah this could result in a hesitation about being too, too specific. Let me see if there are any other. Let the let the tape delay run run down again for a second and see if there are any other comments, questions. I have too many I'll, I'll, I'll help myself to one more. Let me say that. How to put it to what extent could you use sort of see. It's a better way to phrase this sorry. How driven was the academic discussion by the sort of blow by blow day to day. Today X country closed its borders, why country, you know, why university shut down etc etc was the was the cycle sort of news forced in that way or was there was it more kind of organically arising from the academic community. I would say, and again, in this data set there was more kind of organic and more at a matter level. It was kind of people commenting on experiences of disruption rather than the kind of step by step processes of disruption. And this I would just say and acknowledge again is another kind of gap in my analysis because I haven't looked in any detail at the kind of temporal aspects and, and the way in which particular themes emerge, partly because it's a kind of small data set and I'm not sure there's enough to, to look at that. It should be extremely interesting to do so. But I think this is also perhaps something about this, this, these norms. So, rather than just reporting what is happening, you have to make some kind of, again, this ironic distance commentary.  So it is at this kind of level and somewhat taking for granted the actual step by step development of the pandemic. Yeah, the library take out theme song from the Duke University Libraries, absolute jam, if you haven't seen it, it's a, it's a jam. And yeah, that kind of that kind of that kind of production it really it really is something with that we are we are at time so thank you very much this is a fantastic talk I'm really interested to see. I can't see what what what what else you're going to be able to do with this data set I think it's a really cool opportunity. As you say it's a it's a great moment and I will have a lot a lot to learn from and I think. So thank you so much for sharing it with us. Yeah, thank you so much and thank you everybody for their comments. With that, we have a 10 minute break now so I'll see you back in 10 minutes for the last for the last block of two talks. Okay, so I can leave right.


page and hopefully we'll be able to get replies from our speakers after they leave us, so we'll do the best we can with that. Let's start with a question from our audience today for Professor Collier. Can you comment on Thomas Piketty's proposal in Capital in the 21st Century that the best way to combat growing inequality is to develop transparency and then institute a progressive tax on capital? Okay, thanks. So first of all, let's start with transparency of wealth. And I think that's really important. It's something I've also been fighting for. It's very pertinent for Africa. When crooks loot Africa's wealth, they don't keep it under the bed. What they do is they go to London, they go to lawyers, and the lawyers set up what's called shell companies. And the feature of a shell company is that the true ownership of the company cannot be discovered. True ownership is called the beneficial ownership, legalese. And then, having gone to the lawyers, they nip around the corner to the bankers and they set up a bank account in an offshore bank, Cayman Isles or something like that. And they've got two layers of secrecy. The banks in the Cayman Isles won't say who owns the bank account. And the company, you can't discover who owns the company. And so the crook who's pocketed public money cannot be apprehended. That money cannot be tracked. And so one of the things I've been fighting for is to flush out true beneficial ownership. Britain's prime minister until a month ago, David Cameron, also believed passionately in this. And so he changed the law in Britain. And now there is, for the very first time, and we're an absolutely pioneer country in the world here, there is a compulsory public register for all companies which must show the true beneficial ownership. Cameron fell sufficiently strongly about this, that when it was Britain's turn for the G8 three years ago, he actually brought me to the closing lunch of the leaders. So there was President Obama, Chancellor Merkel and so on. And me and Cameron said, explain to them what matter, you know, why this matters. And I did. And I have to say President Obama came up to me at the end and said, you know, I believe in this. I said, take it to Delaware. America really needs to change your laws to flush out beneficial ownership. This is something that you can't do it. I'm not an American citizen, but you can, you are. And with social media nowadays, you can ignite a network which actually delivers this. What's happened is a disgrace. Cameron also brought together, for the first time ever, all the heads of the 18 overseas territories, the British overseas territories where these banks are. And essentially he read the riot act. So you've got to be transparent. Now some of the overseas territories have become the most transparent on Earth. And so you've got really absolute cutting edge transparency leaders like Bermuda alongside gangster places like the Cayman Isles. That has got to be fought as well. So how do you do it? Well, if you've got a company that's registered with a bank account in the Cayman Isles, you know of such a thing. What's it doing? Why is it there? You know? So please do something about that. The same battle I've already spoken about on land ownership in Africa, which again needs a torch shined on it. As to the tax on wealth, I'm wary of the rhetoric of vilifying the rich, to be honest.   And so it's not a productive distinction. But let's try using the distinction between the deserving and the undeserving on the rich. There it's got some mileage. I agree. Here, here. Is my thing on? Is my phone on? Can you hear me? You all? You can hear me. Paul, in your talk, the one word that I missed and I kept missing it and I was anxious to hear it, it would have made my heart so much fuller is the market. You talk a lot about organizations and I agree with what you say. You need incentives and I especially agree. I've written three long books on it which you'll hear about this afternoon on ethics and the conversation in the society about what's honorable and what's not. I think that's the heart of your argument and it's crucial. I agree with it. Go, Paul. But what I didn't hear is the role of markets and freedom in markets. Freedom to start a shop at the corner. Freedom, I mean look in South Africa is the only African country that I know it all well. In South Africa to start a company you need the permission of a foreigner. Let's talk about a foreigner. Foreigners who want to invest in South Africa would love to start companies in South Africa have to go through a bureaucracy and it takes years to get permission to open a factory or something which is crazy. So how about that? How about the market? Let's hear it now. Mark, it's really matter. And let me put my money where my mouth is. I'm working with the new head of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation which is the private sector arm of the World Bank. And pro bono, I should hasten to that. But what I'm working, his mission, he's redefined the mission of the IFC as creating markets in countries where they don't exist. What's the RSP? The RSP? IFC, International Finance Corporation. So the mission of that organization is going to be creating markets where they're currently missing. Well, by the way, creating markets, you mean some guy from the World Bank is going to go to say, hey look, I'll create a market? No, no, no. Don't just let people do it. So it's partly a regulatory issue. It's partly encouraging proper reputable firms to go and do business in places that at the moment they'd rather not go to. You know, that's to put the cap in charge of the canaries, I'm afraid. So, you know, we might not agree on this, but I'd want the canaries to sing by themselves. But okay. I think there's a role, there's a role, markets are public entities. Oh, yeah. I don't think so. I think they're the spontaneous order that comes from people making deals. But I agree with so much of what you say that I don't want to undermine. So what is the, you know, you're talking about the productivity of the firm and the lack of productivity with the artisan. So what is the role, or what role does foreign investment play, foreign firms coming into a country? I mean, does that become an island and with very little spillover effects or there are ways that there are spillover effects so you get the knowledge to deal with complexity, spills over into the local entrepreneurs. Let's take an example of Bangladesh where we can see this has happened over the years. So Bangladesh has got a huge garments industry, huge, many, many billions of dollars of exports. It's played a vital social role because it provided jobs for young women. And that changed the power relationships within the family. Sunday night I was having dinner with young Bangladeshi friends and they were saying, you know, this was the key dynamic in Bangladesh which changed gender relationships. So the first garment factories that went to Bangladesh were foreign firms. At the end of the first year they had a very high quit rate amongst their workforce because a lot of the workers said, we can do this. And they did. A pioneer firm that hits the right thing is hugely social beneficial. It generates imitation. And that is a big social benefit. It's not a benefit to the firm. That, dear tree, if you'll permit me, is why we need IFC to help catalyze things. The pioneers don't want to go on pioneer because they don't reap the benefits. Well, maybe. Let's talk about one thing. Maybe as good as I'll get. I'll settle for maybe. Can I follow up? One thing I believe we agree all is the question of productivity. As you said in the beginning, the task of economics is to increase the productivity of the common people. And I think there is not disagreement here. We all want to be more productive. We all want to increase our leverage. But here's a question that puts productivity and markets together. So in this country, the past 40 years, I believe, productivity, this is the United States, has increased 70%. Wages have risen only 9%. So while productivity is actually rising, it seems it's not equally shared by everybody who's reaping the benefits. And so I'm wondering in this conversation here, international investments, markets and so on, are there any lessons for us how we can think about not only increasing productivity, but also increasing people's shares in what they achieve, what they accomplish? And what are the hurdles for that? Why is it that there's this incredible gap between the rise in productivity and the actual rise in wages? That's America's problem, but it's not yet Africa's problem. Africa hasn't yet had the incredible increase in productivity. So my answer is, you know, let's get there. Can we learn something from Africa, though? Is there something for us that we could perhaps copy? I don't think you want to copy very much of what's been going on in Africa. Music, music. Yes, I'm sorry, that is absolutely quite right. There's a lot of wonderful cultural stuff in Africa, but I wouldn't copy the politics and I wouldn't copy the economics. Well, I would copy the economics. I wish Britain had copied Botswana. So let me, as a Chicago economist on the board, I need to follow up. I think Deirdre sort of stole my thunder today. So I want to say this was a real treat. I think the presentation was just excellent. When I think about development, I think about property rights, I think about corruption, I think about agglomeration economies, I think about education, I think about non-pecuniary factors, and you fluidly touched on all of those. In a very cogent way, it was really remarkable. It was a tour de force, I think. So I want to thank you for the talk. It was excellent. You clearly thought deeply about these issues, very, very deeply. Now, if you were in charge of the aid from the U.S. that went over to Africa, how would you allocate that to ensure the obstacles that you've mentioned here? Many of them are obstacles, and to me, aid can help set up markets to overcome those obstacles. I think after you earn surplus, the government decides how to allocate it. I think you should always differentiate those. They're linked, but you should differentiate them to start. How would you think about using aid today to overcome these obstacles that you've put forward for us? Yeah. Okay, you both probably find this a heresy, right? But Africa is desperately short of effective private organizations. The firms in Africa, there are very few firms that do scale and specialization. The quickest way to get them is to bring those firms in. Pretty sensibly, the world's firms are not queuing up to get on planes to go. There are firms that are queuing up to get on planes to go. They're the crooks. You can make money in Africa. There's an easy way, right? It's plunder, right? That's why we want to close off the beneficial ownership loopholes and that sort of stuff to close that option down. But that still leaves the problem of getting the good firms, the reputable firms, to come to places where there's not a lot of money to be made. IFC takes equity in reputable firms that go into difficult places. The rate of return on that equity at the moment is negative. And so there's a problem. Until firms come into these places, they'll stay fragile and poor. If they go in, enough of them, it will break the trap. But it won't be they that benefit. They'll have a huge public good role. And so I believe there's a need to use public money to incentivize private firms. Now, that's got to be very carefully done, very carefully done. But it could be designed in such a way that it was incentive-compatible. At the moment, we lack the international architecture in public finance to make that link possible. The only country that's been doing that has been China. And some of what China has done in Africa is terrible. Some of what it's done is pretty dramatically good. And we need to get into that game with clean rules. When I hear the phrase public-private cooperation, I hear it in my ears as public-private conspiracy. I mean, if you haven't got Swedish standards of public administration or Minnesotan standards of public administration, and it's no accident that the Swedish flag is around here all the time, then public-private collaborations are going to be your crooks, aren't they? By the cooperation that I mean, it's a partnership between International Finance Corporation, which is a properly scrutinized global public entity. It's reputable. It's reputable. And Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. It's reputable. Okay, I agree. And that partnership would be above question, but it would be competent. And the core skills that MMM has built over the years are desperately needed in environments that the MMM board quite sensibly says, let's not bother. I suggest you don't use any corporations from Illinois. I'm say sorry. Unfortunately, the economic problem of the scarcity of time plagues us once again if we're going to stay on schedule.  We will continue this afternoon. John List will be on stage at one o'clock. There will be music for you beginning about 22 or quarter to. Thank you, and we hope to see you this afternoon.


It's interesting Hey guys Jeremy here and a very special video here now You're probably wondering for the title what this movie is Well, actually the director of this film Matt frame contacted me because he saw the review that Mark and I did about Friday the 13th part 3 and he said well this movie is a parody of that film and the entire Friday franchise So you want to watch it and I should sure so I watched it And it is by far the most bizarre thing I have seen in a long time. The film is a hyper excited absolutely bat shit crazy sort of homage Lampoon and parody of the original Friday the 13th movies I got a lot of the references thankfully from starting this sort of review marathon thing I got a lot of the references that were in this film and some of them are pretty funny And there's a lot of jokes that I actually thought I'm pretty surprised that worked the film is about a campsite area called camp meth It's being reopened several years after the serial killer legend.  There's a one point where a musical number just appears out of nowhere And it's a dude talking about how he wants to bash people's heads in and whatnot and he's Walking around in a purple clown suit. I was nothing but Amazed I literally just stared at the screen with my mouth For the entire sequence and said well you don't see that every day the film definitely reminds me of two very specific Film directors the first being James Gunn's early work James Gunn's early work was absolutely bizarre very weird Very over-the-top silly movies So this film definitely follows in that sort of idealism just obviously on a cheaper budget and just way more batshit crazy It also reminds me of Freddie got fingered. I hope they aren't offended by the reference But I actually got a lot of that just from how this film goes off on a tangent Several times throughout just something very bizarre and something very random appears But what you can definitely see from this film it was all done in good fun You can tell that everyone is having a absolute blast with this because this is just so crazy and just so funny and Just so ridiculous Admittedly some people will definitely not enjoy this I know a few friends who would watch this for about five minutes and be like yeah, no I'm not watching the rest of it But for people who enjoy and can appreciate films being made on short budgets films being made just for the sake of having a Fun time and making a fun movie Definitely will appreciate this.  So that's my shout out for these guys in their film I was very thankful and very appreciative for them allowing me to watch this film It's about to start its festival circuit right now. So I wish them all the best you can definitely see that they worked hard at this while having a good time and The homages will definitely be seen by fans of Friday movies and oddly enough There's a weird reference to Silent Night Deadly Night 2. I'm correct So again, thank you to Matt frame for allowing me to watch this movie it definitely is a weird good bad movie and I will definitely not forget ever watching this film. So again good on you guys, and I wish you all the best


The US federal government spends about $800 billion a year on means-tested programmes in the war on poverty. That's about $12,000 for every man, woman and child in the bottom 20% of income. $48,000 for a family of four. Every year. How is there any poverty left? Okay guys, there's nothing left to say. Thanks for watching my video and take it easy. Haha, I was only joking. I bet you didn't see that coming. How wacky and uncharacteristic of me. So, let's get to business, and let's ask the big question. What is welfare? Of course, what we're told is that welfare is a social safety net, taking from the rich to give to the poor like a noble Robin Hood. This becomes harder to see when you make a point of who is undertaking this action, which is of course the government. In order for this Robin Hood narrative to work, there's one condition that needs to be met, that the government is a separate group from the rich. But how could that ever be the case? If the rich are too selfish and evil to help the poor and the government is divinity on earth here to bridge that gap seemingly out of the good of their hearts, wouldn't it be the case that in order to do that, they would have to either not be part of the rich or would have to do it entirely with their own money instead of somebody else's? We immediately know that these could not be farther from the truth, as the biggest proponents of the social safety net are obscenely rich. They don't use their own money, but worst of all, they are granted the most privileged of all social safety nets, the power of politics. Let's look at the net worth of a few examples here. According to Forbes, Elizabeth Warren had a net worth of $12 million in 2019. When he was the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn had a yearly income of £143,000 per year and a net worth of approximately £3 million. Bernie Sanders has a similar net worth to Corbyn. What is notable about these two is that they've amassed this by essentially only ever being politicians for their entire working lives, a job which is supposed to be a representative of the people with that high of a salary. Just in true-dose net worth is approximately $12 million. Hillary Clinton has a net worth over $100 million. Tony Blair has a net worth of $60 million. These people I've listed are certainly not billionaires, but all of these are huge amounts of wealth to be held by people who constantly demonise the wealthy. In my opinion, the funniest of all is Corbyn, the man of the tagline for the many, not the few, when he is certainly one of the few. Why do they do it? Why would these rich want to take from the rich and give to the poor? The answer is of course incredibly obvious. Either they won't at all despite what they say because you know politicians don't often do what they say they will or their own money will remain completely untouched by it.  Those who control the level of taxes are in control of their own revenue stream. If they sign a bill increasing property taxes to increase welfare, why wouldn't they immediately sign a bill that increases their salary proportionally or even greater than? Nobody is going to vote against a pay rise. Because of course any time taxes are raised for any reason, a little bit more gets skimmed off for the pencil pushes to give themselves a pat on the back. And beneath this, there's an even more sinister argument that welfare doesn't actually do anything to help society's poor but is in fact a trap designed to keep the poor where they are and reliant on the government, remaining a constantly reliable voter base for more government power and control of the economy. When you look at just how completely ineffective most welfare measures are, it becomes difficult to argue against. As we all know what the definition of insanity is. Remember the quote I opened the video with. If the answer is just to throw more money at the problem, which is already receiving a ridiculous amount of money, what makes you think a little tweak here and there is going to make any sort of a difference? The fact is that anti-poverty measures don't reduce poverty. Increases to the standards of living across all classes reduces poverty. And this is only achieved by economic growth through letting the market work. When you move money from one pocket to the other, you are no wealthier for it. There is no more wealth to go around as a result. The easiest measure to understand is the minimum wage, which is absolutely a form of welfare. We all know what would happen if the listed politicians raised the minimum wage as much as they would like. Lots of people would go unemployed for a while and then everything would just become proportionately more expensive because of the new inflation. So not only is nobody better off, you make people unemployed and immensely worse off while the market needs to adjust to the change in purchasing power. Labour is just as affected by supply and demand as any other service and a minimum wage is a price control just like any other. Any form of competent economist must know what happens when you create a price ceiling. You remove the equilibrium and price out people who would have otherwise been willing to accept a higher quantity at a higher price. You literally make it impossible for firms to hire as many workers as they would like, making the firms worse off and the potential workers extremely worse off. But the MMT economists always point to one instance when a raise in minimum wage didn't do this despite all of the other empirical examples to the contrary. But regardless, empirical evidence means nothing if you can't present an a priori reason as to why it happened and unsurprisingly all of their attempts fall flat because it's just sheer probability. So other than the absurd notion that you can wave a magic wand and just make people earn more money with no consequence the typical idea of welfare is receiving money from the government if you are below a desired level of income. This presents a whole new host of problems. As I've detailed before, if somebody earns $500 a month and is provided $500 from welfare, if they then get a pay rise of $100 and their welfare is cut by $100 as a result, you've condemned this person to essentially a tax rate of 100% which is just mental. Then if people are given money universally as in UBI, you haven't created any wealth at all because all goods are just as scarce as they were before and all you achieve is massive inflation. It doesn't matter if you have an extra one grand in your bank account if there is no more actual stuff to spend it on because supply will meet the new demand and prices will just increase until equilibrium has once again reached. The common argument against inflation from this method is that the money wouldn't be withdrawable or will have some sort of similar catch. If that's the case, then you haven't really received any more money at all because you're ignoring the very thing that money is. It's a medium of exchange. If you can't exchange it for what you choose then it's not your money. I feel like this is just common sense that a child could grasp and I'm frankly amazed that I need to say this to adults. Now the most common way that welfare has done is that payments are segmented so that you get a little bit for food, a little bit for clothes, a little bit for medicine, a little bit for unemployment and so on. What this creates is an absolute administrative nightmare and is the biggest factor for why the great experiment of the welfare state is such an enormous money pit as we've already seen. Every little piece of welfare in this system will have its own department with local offices, administrators, bookkeepers, cleaners, support staff and so on answering to a regional department with all of those same employees answering to a national department with all those same employees. All of these people need salaries so that's one hell of a budget to try and maintain and with the power of jurisdiction comes even more ways to be absurdly wasteful with money with use it or lose it budgets which only incentivize a race to spend as much money as you can as quickly as you can. All the while we must remember that every last piece of this comes from the taxpayer. It's money that the taxpayer could have otherwise kept in order to create more wealth for themselves and everybody else in the economy. Now finally let's talk about the public's perception of welfare particularly the ever so altruistic middle classes despite all the problems I've shown are the receivers of welfare better off for it. Their instinctual answer is of course yes because where would they possibly be without it? A good question but let's rephrase it like this if people weren't taxed for welfare would they choose to give their money to welfare charities? Hmm in my experience when you ask people this you get back a very assertive and angry no. Interesting so I ask well wouldn't you and predictably they will say yes I would. My final question to them is so are you some sort of saint given to earth by the grace of god or would most people actually be decent enough to do the same? The conversation usually ends there or the person goes into a megalomaniacal fit whilst calling me the evil one. Yeah I know it's easy for me to portray a strawman argument in this way however I have done this exact thing countless times with similar results and it introduces my next point. Why wouldn't the rich which undoubtedly includes the politicians take it upon themselves to carry out their grand plans? With money like theirs they could devote vast assets to real businesses in order to expand the division of labour provide jobs create further specialization all of which contribute enormously to the massive decrease in poverty that the world has experienced since the end of socialism in the late 20th century. After all this is how the vast majority of the one percent gets rich they spend money to make money by investing and not by hoarding wealth as the left likes to tell you. The only reason a politician wouldn't put their wealth into business to create more wealth for themselves and others is that it must be more profitable to pursue politics. Politicians are granted literal exemption from insider trading laws like the notable US senators who withdrew their stock holdings when they found out before everyone else when the coronavirus lockdowns would be. They're afforded the wealth of political power which means they do not actually see consequences for their actions and in the worst case it simply grants them absolute power and we all know what that does to people. These are all essentially utilitarian arguments they don't get into the moral argument that of course taxation is theft. If there is something that people want to pay for they will pay for it if that is a social safety net I don't understand how you could possibly make the argument that people wouldn't pay for it people obviously want a social safety net what we don't want is a monopoly on the social safety net because the people who love the social safety net so much are the biggest proponents of monopoly despite claiming louder than everyone else how much they hate monopolies why do they hate monopolies because they are ineffective they're greedy they're wasteful and they prevent innovation yeah that's absolutely right so why do you make these things a monopoly by giving them to the government and taxing people taking away their money without their consent putting it places that they wouldn't have anyway therefore interrupting the market and attempting to redistribute wealth when you're just moving numbers around on a screen it's literally a redistribution of wealth normally from the taxpayer to the politician not from the rich to the poor and what is the point in redistributing wealth if you're not helping to create more wealth when there is more wealth to go around everyone is better off regardless of where they stand if you leave the market alone everyone will be better off and nobody will experience violence from the monopoly of the government so i'll end it here for the time being but this is of course a huge topic that i could and certainly will come back to several more times but for now take it easy


This paper discusses the problem of selecting an optimal subset of operators from a larger pool of candidates to complete a mission efficiently. It focuses on unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, performing firefighting tasks and compares two different approaches, one based on deterministic algorithms and another using stochastic algorithms. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of both methods, showing that the stochastic approach can be used to optimize the mission while maintaining a reasonable level of accuracy. Additionally, the paper proposes a framework for UAV firefighting missions, develops deterministic and stochastic algorithms for resource allocation, and introduces time-efficient search schemes. These techniques are applicable to a wide range of UAV applications, including healthcare, surveillance, and security operations, as well as other areas where resource allocation is important, such as wireless communication and smart grids. This article was authored by Sohail Rizak, Costas Ideas, Anzarma Mood, and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


وأقول في القرآن ما جاءت به آياته فهو الكاريم المنزال وأقول قال الله جل جلاله والمصطف الهدي ولا أتأوله الحبد لله رب العالمين له الحمد الحسن والثناء الجميل واشدوى الله إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له بقول الحق وهو يهدي السبيل واشدوى الن محمد عبده ورسوله صلى الله عليه وعليه وعلى آله وأصحابه والتابعين لهم بحسان إلى يوم الدين أما بعد إن شاء الله تعالى انتريز تفسير سشن we're going to take the آيات إنسورة المائدة والله تبارك وتعالى هيسيس واتلو عليهم نبأ بني آدم بالحق إذ قربى قربانا فتقبل من أحدهما ولم يتقبل من الآخر قال لأقتول النك قال إنما يتقبل الله من المتقين لإن بسط إلي يدك لتقتلني ما أنا بباصط يدي إليك لأقتلك إن أخاف الله رب العالمين إن أريد أن تبو أبي إثمي وإثمك فتكون من أصحاب النار وذلك جزاء الظالمين فطوعت له نفسه قتل أخيه فقتله فأصبح من الخاسرين فبعت الله راب يبحث في الأرض ليريه كيف يواري سوء تأخيه قال يا ويلة أعجزت أن أكون مثل هذا الغراب فأواري سوء تأخيه فأصبح من النادمين من أجل ذلك كتبنا على بني إسرائيل أنه من قتل نفسا بغير نفس أو فساد في الأرض فكأنما قتل الناس جميعا ومن أحياها فكأنما أحيا الناس جميعا ولقد جاءتهم رسلنا بالبيهناتي ثم إن كثيرا منهم بعد ذلك في الأرض لمسرفون الله تعالى يبدأ بقول واتلو عليهم يعني أن واتلو عليهم is read on them محمد أقصص يا محمد the word أتلو means read on them recite on them what خبر ابني آدم the word نبأ it means خبر the story the news of the children of آدم now ابني آدم is the two sons of آدم ابنه جريل الطبري وان ابنه كثير رحمه م الله بوثهم they transmitted it in جماع a consensus that these are two of the sons of آدم عليه السلام because sometimes the word ابنه can be used for your grandson okay or you can refer to as your own father or you can you can say my father and refer to as your granddad the Arabs do that but here by unanimous agreement that ابنه جريل الطبري transmitted when he said اجمعوا أهل الأخبار والسير والعلمي بالتأويل على أنه مكانه ابني آدم لصلبه وفي أحد آدم وزمانه so he transmits اجمع from who أهل الأخبار أهل السير the scholars of the seerah the scholars of knowledge the scholars of تفسير that these are two sons of آدم عليه السلام and they are directly from آدم that he's two sons وفي أحد آدم وزمانه and they were also at the time of آدم عليه السلام this all happened at the time of آدم عليه السلام it wasn't after he passed away and died ابن كثيراً ديضحاً هيساد فهذه أقوال المفسرين في هذه القصة وكلهم متفقون that all of them are in agreement على أن هاذين ابناء آدمة that these two are أن هاذين that these two that the eye is talking about are what ابناء آدمة that the two sons of آدم لصول به كما هو ظاهر القرآن as the ظاهر of the Quran shows وكما نطق به الحديث and also as the حديث stated which حديث is he referring to he mentions it في قوله the statement of the Prophet ﷺ when he said إلا كان على ابن آدمة الأولي that what is upon the son of آدم the first one كفل من دمها and anyone who murdered today or anytime in islamic history or even before islamic history or even after that from the day that one of the children of آدم committed this crime and started it off that day onwards he is going to receive a sin for it every time somebody commits he is going to receive a sin for it why لأنه أول من سن القطل because he is the first one who paved the path for murdering and killing then إبلو كثيرس finishes off by saying و هذا ظاهر جليون so this is clear that the آيات that we're going to be insha'Allah تعالى commenting on is referring to the two sons of آدم عليه السلام okay brothers and sisters who is it that الله تعالى تعالى told our Prophet ﷺ to read these verses on and to tell them the story of these verses it was the Jews الله told the Prophet ﷺ to go and what read these verses on the Jew and there's a reason why this is the case the reason is because as we're going to see or if you look at the آيات before that الله تعالى تعالى mentions that the Jews refused to go into بيت المقدس when they were commanded to go into it they refused to follow Allah's command سبحانه وتعالى الله told them to go in and they refused to go into it now that they refuse to go into it and they didn't adhere to the statement of الله تعالى الله is trying to tell them a story of someone they resemble in this issue were committed that same crime who did a crime as well disobeyed الله تعالى didn't give any weight to the statement of الله تعالى didn't يعني also this quality of hasid having hasid for someone is a trait known by the Jews if you look at the Quran الله تعالى تعالى he mentions that the Jews they don't want the Muslims to remain as Muslims and be upon their religion the reason why hasid and because of jealousy in their hearts towards the Muslims they see the way the Muslims are and the lifestyle that they have and the happiness الله has given them and that is a prophet from them يعني came from the Arabs and all of that they had hasid in their hearts towards him and the reason why one of the children of Adam chose to kill his brother as we're going to see is because of hasid it's because of what it's because of hasid that which is famous is famous is that the name of one of them is هبيل and the other one is قابل this is common and it's famous these names if you look at it it's stated in it but there's no evidences from the hadith of the prophet where he states قابل and هبيل okay it's taken from the قصص and the stories of so the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was instructed by الله تعالى to read this story on the Jews and other than them that this story is true and it happened لا لبس فيه ولا كذب there's no lie about it this is the truth it happened it took place and the story is mentioned without any additional information that didn't exist it's exactly how it happened and how it took place so what is the story the story is that one of them or both of them they put forward a قربان they both put forward something in which they were trying to get closer to الله by it سبحانه وتعالى and الله accepted it from one of them and he didn't accept it from the other one they both came out two brothers they put something forward to الله تبارك وتعالى trying to get closer to him by it it was accepted from one and it wasn't accepted from the other now the one that he got accepted from he's happy that الله accepted it from him but the other one who he'd never got accepted from he got angry something entered his heart has it entered his heart so he came to his brother and he said to him قال العقل تولنك I'm going to kill you I will kill you after he saw that his brother's one got accepted this is what he said to him he said to him I'm going to kill you and the reason why he said that was حسد أخه he had حسد towards his brother and the thing that he promised his brother was what فتوعده بالقتل he promised him and he said I'm going to kill you the rebrother responded he didn't say I'm going to kill you and if you kill me I'm going to do this to you he didn't say that he said قال إنما يتقبل الله من المتقين he said الله تبارك وتعالى he accepts from the one who is pious الله سبحان وتعالى when it comes from an action that a person does الله accepts it from the one who is pious two people do an action one it will be accepted from him another one it will not be accepted from him why because this one came with sincerity he did it for الله سبحان وتعالى's sake he did it in accordance to the command that الله تبارك وتعالى gave الله will accept it from him this is also a refutation on the خوارج and the مرجع two deviated groups the two deviated groups okay which is what the خوارج the way it's a refutation on them is as you know brother and sisters the خوارج believe anyone who does a major sin is a disbeliever and the action of that person is يعني whatever good they do it will never be accepted from them because they're a disbeliever if you disobey الله تبارك وتعالى in anything الله سبحان وتعالى will never accept it from you because you're a disbeliever but this shows that if a person does an action even if he's a sinner in other things but if he does an action with what with تقوى he does that that particular action he does it with sincerity he does it in the way that الله sanctioned and commanded it that particular action that الله will accept it from him that's what the آية شوة الله accepts it from a person who does what he does in a highest way and that's the way that the story goes because remember he's basing on that particular action that he did he said I did this action with sincerity of course and I did it in accordance to how الله sanctioned it and you on the other hand didn't okay so that's what he said then he went on to saying to him what does it mean لائم بسطة it means if you open يعني مدتة you open your palm towards me إليya to me يدك يوحان you open your palm to what لتقطولني تكلمي لتقطولني دا لام إنه إسلام التعليل لأجلي أن تقتلني you're doing it just to kill me ما أنا بباسطين I am not one that's going to open his palm يديا لأقتلك يدي إليك لأقتلك I'm not going to open my palm and I'm not going to intend to kill you I'm not going to do this صنيعك الفاسط your corrupt action your evil intent I'm not going to do something like that وانا ما هو مهم that we learned from it brothers and sisters أن أخبار الناس aren't our teachers الناس who are bad they don't teach us how we should carry ourselves in the way that we should be في إسلام we don't learn from our enemies our enemies learn from us and here this is what he was teaching him he's got a moral standard he's this is who he is this is how great a noble this individual is this other person can say what they want acting whatever way they want your morality your your nobility your righteousness is consistent that's why he said to him what he said to him لإن بصط إليه if you open your palm يديا يدي إيدك يوحان لتقتولني تكلمي والله ما أنا ببصط يدي إليك لأقتلك I'm not going to open my palm to kill you I'm not going to retaliate I'm not going to respond to your evil with another evil no I'm not going to do that why there's a reason why I'm not going to be able to do that because I have something you don't have that's basically what he's saying I have something that you don't have here which is I am scared of Allah I don't want to go to Allah يوم القيامة and I'm someone who killed you I'm not going to do that I am scared of Allah is anger وعقاب الله and Allah's punishment and that's what I'm scared of I can't do that to him سبحانه وتعالى الله is the king of all kings الله is the creator of everything الله is the one who bore us into this world so he's the one who sanctioned for us not to do such a thing I'm going to follow him سبحانه وتعالى I fear him if I go against him I'm scared what he might do to me the other one didn't have that even after he heard this it didn't move him and then he said also there's something else I want which is which is also a refutation on who it's also a refutation on the people who go against أهل السنة believed that the person has humans have a choice humans have a what they have so he's saying to him I want what is it that I want I want you to carry the burden of your sin and I want you to also carry the burden of my sin and that you meet الله تعالى with both of those sins إني أريد I want you to return back to الله تعالى I'm carrying you take the burden of of this sin of mine the sin of killing me and the sins that you've also committed in the past the things that you did before I want those two to all collected to you and be placed on you that's what I want and guess what فتكون من أصحى من نار and that you you become from what you become from the سكان الجحيم this the residence of the hellfire who stay in the hellfire I want you to be from those people because that is the punishment of every transgressor and every criminal anyone who transgresses that's the before them that's the punishment for them that's what I want you to be after hearing all of that his heart didn't move and some people are like that the reminder doesn't benefit them you can talk to them you can advise them it doesn't benefit to them if الله so good in some people he would have made them hear the message and he would have penetrated through and it would have touched their hearts and they would have if الله wanted some people they're out out out there the reminder it doesn't benefit them all day you can talk there's a seal on their hearts they can't hear the truth when it comes so الله تعالى he told us فطوعة نفسه means he's nefs beautified for him فسولت له نفسه his nefs beautified it for him وسهلت عليه and it made it easy for him once it beautified it to him it said really that's just mine I'm just kidding no problem he said it's easy just do this and that's what shaitan does for allah brothers it beautifies something to you and makes this thing seem very easy and then later you realize what you just did was something very serious that's what happened to him it got beautified for him it made it seem easy to him and then he killed his brother okay he killed his brother and then then he started to regret what he did he obeyed this nefs that's within us that calls us to evil وما أبرق نفسي there's that evil nefs that's in a lot of us that calls us to the evil he chose to obey it and straight away look what happened straight away he became from those they found that any destruction was for him he was now in a state of loss in this world that's what's happened to him and that's how he's going to be remembered and also in hereafter وليذلك عبدالله ابن مسعود الرضي الله تعالى عنه he mentioned that the prophet ﷺ he said لا تقتلوا نفسه بلما there's no individual who's killed unjustly there is not a person who murders a person إلا كان على ابني آدم الأول كفل من دمها except this one this evil one that killed his brother here he's going to take a burden of it يوم القيامة ويل لأنه أول من سنة القتل because he was the first person who what who sanctioned he's the first person who paved this path of killing and brother and sister is a benefit that we take from here which is if you start off a sin remember this you're going to take not only the sin of you doing this crime but every single person who comes after you who followed you on this path will take your sin that's why Allah has said in the ayah يحملون أو زارهم كاملة يوم القيامة ومن أو زار الذين يضلونهم بغير علم ألا سامعين زيرون you're going to take your sin and you're going to take the sin of every single person you've misguided with you the word كفل من دمها it means اما ضعف من إثمها اما جزء نصيب كما يكتب المشارق الأنوار by قادر عيادن لا نكتب فيه شرح سحر مسلم عنده قلت أخيه they said that he carried his brother on his shoulder because remember he's the first one who's done this before he doesn't know what's happened now he just knows that his brother is no longer alive but he doesn't know what to do after this there's no knowledge or someone who he takes from so they said he carried his brother on his shoulder and then الله تبارك وتعالى he doesn't know what to do his brother so الله تبارك وتعالى sent to him فبعث الله ورابا فبعثه he means الله was sent to him specifically was specifically sent for him ورابا a crow يبحثوا في الارضي the word يبحث it means that it was he was digging into the earth okay the reason why this crow was doing that was to show him كيف يواري سو أتاخي so he can teach him how to bury his brother الله تبارك وتعالى يحفروا في الارض يبحثوا في الارضي it was digging والسبب why this crow was doing it was because the crow itself was bearing another crow that died so he saw it he looked and then it came to him oh why don't I do exactly what that crow is doing okay and that's another thing where humans we learn from one another we copy one another it affects the surroundings and the environment and the places where in brother and sisters don't you ever think to yourself it doesn't have an effect on you of course it does have an effect to you just by looking at someone and the way they do things we take it down and we start doing that sometimes we do it even without intentionally doing it so that's what happened he saw it and he did that he saw the crow doing it and he said oh wow and why don't I do it this is the this is the response he gave he said he said am i so weak that i can't even become like the crow okay can i not have done that can i not just follow him why should i not and what's stopping me from doing it and he mentioned he says when he killed his brother he didn't know how to bury him because his brother was the first human being to ever die to be ever killed actually they say he was the first human to actually even die there wasn't just the first one to be killed the first to be killed when he was but he was also the first human to die so he didn't know what to do with him okay so that's why he was sent this crow to show him the way to do things and and sometimes some people might not know but it comes under full pondering and contemplating over the creation of الله sometimes these things that he do and the way that see some of these animals are if you just look at and you ponder over it shocking an amazement do you guys know brothers and sisters when you look at the animal kingdom such as for example insects don't even go too far there are insects we're talking about here how smart and clever they are how they do thing the way that they handle things there's a bird called the eagle that eats monkeys it's an eagle it's actually an eagle it's a monkey and it eats subhan Allah and rams and goats and and cows even subhan Allah even human beings if you can take it or take it subhan Allah the thing that shocked me the most about it is that it will sometimes take a goat the eagle is not strong enough to carry the goat for so long so what does it do it lifts the goat from a place when it takes it into the sky it drops it of course the goat is not going to be able to it will die as soon as it hits the ground and that's how it goes and it eats it and the way to deal with things you don't you don't have the ability to carry it and you're not strong as like a lion and in the instincts of praying and being the predator and here being the prey and the way the animals know how to function in the kingdom if you look at the answer the way they take يعني اوامل from one another and they work together just literally sit down and just watch it if you can't go and watch the wildlife animals when they spoken about you'll be shocked how the answer are very shocked the way they work together the way they do it single line and they do things together it's shocking so it comes under the verse of Allah where Allah mentions the believers they look at the signs that Allah the things Allah created around them the stars the animals and they ponder over it and they take lessons from it so this is what happened in the situation he looked at the crow and saw what the crow is doing and then he said to him and then he said to him and then he said to him like am I unable to follow this crow and do exactly as this crow does is that how weak I am what is it that he regretted he regretted it now no longer is his brother و لذلك الشيخ من عثيمي رحمه الله he says و هذا القاتل و على عجزه عن مواراته سوءة أخيه فجمعا ندم لأمرين جميعا و لذلك الشيخ من عثيمي رحمه و لذلك الشيخ من عثيمي رحمه و لذلك الشيخ من عثيمي رحمه و الله تعالى يقول من أجل ذلك كتبنا كتبنا على بني إسرائلة يعني حكمنا على بني إسرائلة و ندخلت بنتظر بنتظر بنتصرائلة و أنه من قتل نفسا starts from a monk kills a soul بغير نفسا بغير نفسا or they do it out of corruption on this earth و كأنما قتلنا سجابان it's like they killed all mankind لأن هذه السؤال التي نحصل علىها right now الله يقول أجلي داليكا لأن ما يحدث بين أطفال آدم حسنًا one brother killing his other brother ظلمان وعردوانا and he did it oppressively and in just he did it in ظلم and in just manner الله says حكمنا على بن إصلاعيلة we prescribed we ordained upon بن إصلاعيلة who ever from amongst them he goes and he kills a person with no reason no justified reason من قصاصين because there are reasons which are allowed for example capital punishments okay kills manslaughter in those intimates يعني killing people he'll be killed for it okay oh فسادين في الأرض or he's causing corruption on this earth if someone kills another person he should be killed for it قصاصاً and also if he brings mischief on this earth like for example highway robbery وإخافة السبيل يعني يعني كقطع الطريق وإخافة السبيل he brings he's terrorizing the people he's causing mischief on the earth he's killing many people he should be killed for it as well ومن أحياها فكأنما أحيا الناس جميعاً and any individual ممعنى ومن أحياها هي إميز من حرم قتل من حرم الله تعالى anyone who prohibits killing innocent people stands against that says i'm not going to tolerate anyone killing an innocent person and also doesn't go forward in doing so and he doesn't ever go forward in doing such an evil act that person it's like he's given life to the whole entire human race it's like he's given it to it الله says it has come our with our messengers have come with clear cut evidences our prophets our messengers they came with clear cut proofs to better israel and also after them and before them all the prophets they came with what البراهيل الظاهرة clear proofs in which no proof can somebody try to bring after that after all of the prophets what they came with the hujaj they came with all of that which the prophets and the messengers came with that being said there are those who are what acting upon this on this earth since in a position to guidance following their desires doing there are still people like that who do not want to follow what الله sanctioned and that's always going to be the case i'm going to stop there insha'Allah with anything which i have said that was wrong and incorrect this is for be a shaitan and for allah his messenger are both free from it سبحانك اللهم بحمده أشهد والله إله إلا الله استغفرك واتوب إلي رمضان with amu make this the best رمضان you've ever had by joining our exclusive online community with regular private classes digital resources weekly accountability sessions and daily Quran gatherings this is one opportunity you definitely do not want to miss so sign up now at amu.org forward slash رمضان and we look forward to welcoming you on the other side


Welcome folks, we have the Dow Industrial Straighten up 141, NASDAQ is down 55, S&Ps off 8, you have the major indices out here folks not holding price, the bottom line you came down on Friday with volume, you try to get higher today with light volume, we're going south, Dow is leading us down, the bottom line Dow had a nice pop out here today up almost 300, you're up 131, the Dow showed us basically as soon as you got back inside 35,000 and right now you're at 34,738, that's saying the Dow wants to run down to the lower end of the consolidation which is 33,271, so if you take a look at that consolidation folks whatever you own look at June 18th because that's where I think we're going. Gold contract up about 90 trade at 1794, we have silver down 16 cents at 2374, now gold is still in an ABC structure on the way up, silver rejected lower price this morning that wants higher price also, oil is up 82 cents, $70.55 a barrel notes and bonds, that's the ever ready bounty, has been out there for a long period of time, the 10 year right now is yielding 1.32, 10 year up 4 ticks, 30 year up 15, and King dollar, King dollar up 96 ticks, that being said King dollar hasn't been able to hold price, would you have a King dollar, King dollar tested it's high two weeks ago, rejected higher price, came down, got a little pop last week, we tested the pop this morning, looks like good old King dollars and ABC structure on the way down, it's a potential one that's for sure, so I suspect King dollar is going to go after the 91,947 again and we'll see where this shakes up, my larger take is that we're going to the bottom of the consolidation which is the 989,535, we're going to take a look at the note and bond market, you're going to see inside the note and bond market just won't crack man, that's the bottom line, you know when we do look at rates around the world folks okay, we're at high rates, right now still at 1.32, yielding, France is still at a negative rate, Netherlands is at a negative rate, Switzerland's been at a negative rate for a long period of time, but the bottom line is that they still are at a negative rate, when you go over to the 10 year, bottom line has done 713,000 contracts out here, that's not a lot of contract volume but guess what, you're holding in price, so that is saying higher prices are coming at us, market wise out here, lower prices are coming at us, right now you got the Dow, up 107, Nasdaq's down 75, S&P's off 11, stay right there folks, come right back, the reality is that navigating finance


The Old Testament Book of Ezra picks up Israel's history 50 years after Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylon. Ezra, a great scribe, teacher, and priest, takes us through the two journeys that allow the exiled Jews to return. Return to rebuild the temple, their nation, and rebuild their lives. Set in about 446 B.C., these 10 chapters that are the Book of Ezra paint a picture of resilience and action to praise a life in God.