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Are we confusing money with well-being? New Zealand's leaders believe so.
New Zealand's recent budget policy puts the health and well-being of its citizens over economic growth.

- Economists and politicians have traditionally focused on economic growth to set policy and measure how citizens fare.
- New Zealand has become the first country to put well-being, not growth or production, at the center of its economic policy.
- Calls for "purposeful capitalism" are emerging in other countries, including the United States.
Politicians love to flaunt economic growth. A healthy gross domestic product (GDP) means an economy is doing well, which means the country is doing well, which means its citizens are doing well. It's all thanks to sagacious policy crafted by our savvy political leaders.
That's the rosy narrative anyway. In truth, GDP measures the average of per capita output in an economy overall, but tells us little about the prosperity of individual citizens.
For example, GDP can increase in tandem with income inequality. Social mobility can be quashed even within a prosperous economy. Corruption can take root in rich countries. And production measurements can ignore consequences such as environment degradation.
Some economists argue that our love affair with GDP needs to end and be replaced with more robust economic measurements. As Nobel Prize laureate Michael Spence told The Atlantic:
"Many of us think we would benefit from a multi-dimensional approach that captures things people care about. Missing from [economic] growth are many things: health, distributional aspects of growth patterns, sense of security, freedoms of various kinds, leisure broadly defined, and more."
New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has taken up that call. Last month the island nation unveiled its new well-being budget, a policy designed to put the health and happiness of its citizens at the economic fore.
Happiness as a benchmark of success
Prime Minister-designate of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern before her swearing in. Photo credit: Governor-General of New Zealand/Wikimedia Commons
New Zealand's new economic policy will shift away from growth and production as a measure of economic success. As noted in New York Times, its new focus will be on "goals like community and cultural connection and equity in well-being across generations." While other countries have reconsidered traditional economic metrics, New Zealand is the first to initiate such a wellbeing-guided policy.
"This is not woolly, it's critical," Ardern said at the World Economic Forum's 2019 meeting in Davos. "This is how we bring meaning and results for the people who vote for us. It's not ideological either. It's about finally saying this how [sic] we meet expectations and try and build trust back into our institutions again, no matter where we are in the world."
The revised policy sets five priorities for New Zealand's governmental spending: thriving in the digital age; improving mental health services; reducing child poverty; developing a low-emission, sustainable economy; and addressing inequality, especially among the country's Maori and Pacific Island peoples.
The new policy has earmarked nearly NZ$2 billion for mental health services. (New Zealand has one of the highest teen and young adult suicide rates among Western democracies.) Resources have also been designated for child poverty and long-term shelter for the homeless, more than NZ$1 billion and NZ$200 million respectively.
Of course, not every New Zealander is onboard with the budget's new direction. "New Zealanders won't benefit from a government that is ignoring the slowing economy and focusing instead on branding," Amy Adams, a lawmaker in the opposition National Party, said in a statement to the Times. "We're facing significant economic risks over coming years, but this government is focusing on a marketing campaign."
A well-being paradigm shift?
As noted by the World Economic Forum, it will take years for New Zealand to refine its goals and then quantify the results, but other countries' well-being experiments will help us gather data in the meantime.
The United Arab Emirates employs a Minister of State for Happiness and a National Program for Happiness and Well-Being. The program sets benchmarks for happiness and fosters conditions of well-being that allow employees to thrive within the country's economy.
Elsewhere, Bhutan uses a Gross National Happiness index to evaluate its citizens well-being and incentivize policymakers. The index measures nine categories, among them health, education, time use, living standards, and community vitality.
Neither country has budgeted for well-being as New Zealand has, and they still use the GDP growth standard. But both have supplemented traditional economics with more purposeful economic thinking.
Capitalism: the root of all happiness

Can a more purposeful capitalism take root in the United States and other Western democracies? That answer will depend on a whole host of variables, among them New Zealand's successes and failures. However, there are already calls for similar changes to take place stateside.
In his book The War on Normal People, Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang laid the foundation for what he calls "human-centered capitalism." Yang wants to establish a universal basic income that gives Americans over the age of 18 $1,000 a month, no strings attached. Yang's so-called "freedom dividend" is the centerpiece of his policy, but his aim is wider is scope. He wants the market to support human experiences it previously undervalued, such as the arts, parenting, teaching, the environment, community connections, and disenfranchised groups.
"We must make the market serve humanity rather than have humanity continue to serve the market. We must simultaneously become more dynamic and more empathetic as a society," Yang writes.
Similarly, the Green New Deal supports a multiplex of ideas that would feel at home with a wellbeing-based capitalism. To name a few: universal health care, a right to affordable housing, the restoration of Glass-Steagall, and debt relief for students and homeowners.
New Zealand is a small island nation — and so out of the way that it's often forgotten by mapmakers. Yet, it could be the start of some big changes in how we measure progress and happiness.
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How New York's largest hospital system is predicting COVID-19 spikes
Northwell Health is using insights from website traffic to forecast COVID-19 hospitalizations two weeks in the future.
- The machine-learning algorithm works by analyzing the online behavior of visitors to the Northwell Health website and comparing that data to future COVID-19 hospitalizations.
- The tool, which uses anonymized data, has so far predicted hospitalizations with an accuracy rate of 80 percent.
- Machine-learning tools are helping health-care professionals worldwide better constrain and treat COVID-19.
The value of forecasting
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTA0Njk2OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzM2NDQzOH0.rid9regiDaKczCCKBsu7wrHkNQ64Vz_XcOEZIzAhzgM/img.jpg?width=980" id="2bb93" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="31345afbdf2bd408fd3e9f31520c445a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1546" data-height="1056" />Northwell emergency departments use the dashboard to monitor in real time.
Credit: Northwell Health
<p>One unique benefit of forecasting COVID-19 hospitalizations is that it allows health systems to better prepare, manage and allocate resources. For example, if the tool forecasted a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations in two weeks, Northwell Health could begin:</p><ul><li>Making space for an influx of patients</li><li>Moving personal protective equipment to where it's most needed</li><li>Strategically allocating staff during the predicted surge</li><li>Increasing the number of tests offered to asymptomatic patients</li></ul><p>The health-care field is increasingly using machine learning. It's already helping doctors develop <a href="https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2020/06/09/dc19-1870" target="_blank">personalized care plans for diabetes patients</a>, improving cancer screening techniques, and enabling mental health professionals to better predict which patients are at <a href="https://healthitanalytics.com/news/ehr-data-fuels-accurate-predictive-analytics-for-suicide-risk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">elevated risk of suicide</a>, to name a few applications.</p><p>Health systems around the world have already begun exploring how <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7315944/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">machine learning can help battle the pandemic</a>, including better COVID-19 screening, diagnosis, contact tracing, and drug and vaccine development.</p><p>Cruzen said these kinds of tools represent a shift in how health systems can tackle a wide variety of problems.</p><p>"Health care has always used the past to predict the future, but not in this mathematical way," Cruzen said. "I think [Northwell Health's new predictive tool] really is a great first example of how we should be attacking a lot of things as we go forward."</p>Making machine-learning tools openly accessible
<p>Northwell Health has made its predictive tool <a href="https://github.com/northwell-health/covid-web-data-predictor" target="_blank">available for free</a> to any health system that wishes to utilize it.</p><p>"COVID is everybody's problem, and I think developing tools that can be used to help others is sort of why people go into health care," Dr. Cruzen said. "It was really consistent with our mission."</p><p>Open collaboration is something the world's governments and health systems should be striving for during the pandemic, said Michael Dowling, Northwell Health's president and CEO.</p><p>"Whenever you develop anything and somebody else gets it, they improve it and they continue to make it better," Dowling said. "As a country, we lack data. I believe very, very strongly that we should have been and should be now working with other countries, including China, including the European Union, including England and others to figure out how to develop a health surveillance system so you can anticipate way in advance when these things are going to occur."</p><p>In all, Northwell Health has treated more than 112,000 COVID patients. During the pandemic, Dowling said he's seen an outpouring of goodwill, collaboration, and sacrifice from the community and the tens of thousands of staff who work across Northwell.</p><p>"COVID has changed our perspective on everything—and not just those of us in health care, because it has disrupted everybody's life," Dowling said. "It has demonstrated the value of community, how we help one another."</p>Octopus-like creatures inhabit Jupiter’s moon, claims space scientist
A leading British space scientist thinks there is life under the ice sheets of Europa.
Jupiter's moon Europa has a huge ocean beneath its sheets of ice.
- A British scientist named Professor Monica Grady recently came out in support of extraterrestrial life on Europa.
- Europa, the sixth largest moon in the solar system, may have favorable conditions for life under its miles of ice.
- The moon is one of Jupiter's 79.
Neil deGrasse Tyson wants to go ice fishing on Europa
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-media_id="GLGsRX7e" data-player_id="FvQKszTI" data-rm-shortcode-id="f4790eb8f0515e036b24c4195299df28"> <div id="botr_GLGsRX7e_FvQKszTI_div" class="jwplayer-media" data-jwplayer-video-src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/GLGsRX7e-FvQKszTI.js"> <img src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/thumbs/GLGsRX7e-1920.jpg" class="jwplayer-media-preview" /> </div> <script src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/GLGsRX7e-FvQKszTI.js"></script> </div>Water Vapor Above Europa’s Surface Deteced for First Time
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9c4abc8473e1b89170cc8941beeb1f2d"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WQ-E1lnSOzc?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>What can Avicenna teach us about the mind-body problem?
The Persian polymath and philosopher of the Islamic Golden Age teaches us about self-awareness.
The incredible physics behind quantum computing
Can computers do calculations in multiple universes? Scientists are working on it. Step into the world of quantum computing.
- While today's computers—referred to as classical computers—continue to become more and more powerful, there is a ceiling to their advancement due to the physical limits of the materials used to make them. Quantum computing allows physicists and researchers to exponentially increase computation power, harnessing potential parallel realities to do so.
- Quantum computer chips are astoundingly small, about the size of a fingernail. Scientists have to not only build the computer itself but also the ultra-protected environment in which they operate. Total isolation is required to eliminate vibrations and other external influences on synchronized atoms; if the atoms become 'decoherent' the quantum computer cannot function.
- "You need to create a very quiet, clean, cold environment for these chips to work in," says quantum computing expert Vern Brownell. The coldest temperature possible in physics is -273.15 degrees C. The rooms required for quantum computing are -273.14 degrees C, which is 150 times colder than outer space. It is complex and mind-boggling work, but the potential for computation that harnesses the power of parallel universes is worth the chase.
The scent of sickness: 5 questions answered about using dogs – and mice and ferrets – to detect disease
Could medical detection animals smell coronavirus?
