In the early hours of Monday, 6th February, two earthquakes of magnitude(s) 7.8 and 7.5 took the lives of over 44,000 people (as of writing) in Turkey and Syria have inundated news feeds worldwide. Now, with the aftershocks (of a 6.4 magnitude) felt early on Monday evening, the devastation has only grown. Southern Turkey and Northern Syria sit on the East Anatolian fault line between the Anatolian and Arabian plates. These plates moved in what is known as a "left-lateral" motion, creating a chasm with either side moving leftwards away from the existing fault line— with rupture lines cutting straight through settlements and even buildings. Two fault lines– the North and East Anatolian fault lines– run across Turkey. This has made the nation prone to earthquakes for centuries. The worst one in recent memory is the 7.6 magnitude earthquake in 1999 that hit the northern province of Izmit. The recent disaster occurred in the region opposite Izmit and borders Syria. The Turkish areas worst impacted by the quake were densely populated with Syrian Refugees, who were housed in shoddily constructed and generally neglected buildings. Infrastructure affected within Syrian borders was also poorly constructed and weakened by years of conflict. However, as the dust settles, critics consider whether the scale of suffering could have been lessened beyond the epicentre. The magnitudes of the earthquakes alone were cause for severe destruction. Yet, with more information regarding years of corruption and ignorance of safety regulations on the part of the Turkish government, many are asking the question: How man-made was this natural disaster? With developments in modern architecture and safety regulations, in a known seismic hotspot, buildings should have been built to ensure the safety of their residents. It is estimated that over 3450 buildings have collapsed in southern Turkey. Most of the buildings in the region appear to have been built with weak concrete and little to no seismic reinforcement. Turkish seismic codes are up to standard and should have protected most buildings from collapsing if followed. The issues lie with the structural integrity of these buildings. In fact, viral videos show the structural collapse of buildings in what experts call a "pancake mode". This type of structural collapse is top-down, meaning the upper floors collapse on the lower floors, crushing them in the process. This is one of the most dangerous forms of structural collapse as it causes the most damage and can complicate rescue efforts with people trapped under piles of rubble. In Turkey's case, this could've been what made this natural disaster one of the deadliest in recent history. The buildings most prone to destruction were 'soft story structures' most commonly found in nations like Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Turkey. Soft story buildings are large structures with multiple floors but with an open plan at the bottom which usually acts as a garage or extra space for a garden, small business or additional homes. These buildings are an easy solution for countries with large populations and overcrowding. However, they do an abysmal job of withstanding medium to powerful earthquakes as the lower floors are made of brittle concrete and have fewer walls or pillars that are not connected to walls which weakens the structural integrity of the building. The lowest floor cannot support the heavier ones above it in the case of an earthquake where the entire building shakes, and the bottom floor collapses under the weight of the more serious upper floors trapping and crushing people amid all the debris. This is what took place in both the earthquakes of 1999 and 2023, which suggests that the Turkish government had prior warning of the damage such buildings could cause. A report released after the 1999 earthquake claimed that 85-90% of all buildings that collapsed were soft-story structures, exacerbating the fatalities of the disaster. In the aftermath, the Turkish government reformed building safety codes. However, they were not adequately enforced due to corruption— ignoring expert recommendations, President Erdogan's government approved 7.4mn applications in 2018-19, providing 'amnesty' to buildings that had breached a broad set of basic licensing, design, and safety rules. According to the environment ministry, this scheme raised $4.2bn in registration fees. Before the earthquake, another round of similar 'amnesty' was being deliberated in the Turkish parliament. Moreover, most buildings in Turkey were built before the 1999 disaster, so they could only be strengthened and protected retroactively. Retroactive fittings for soft story buildings are possible such as reinforced steel columns and walls and steel bolts and braces attached to the foundation of the buildings. So, if the structure is shaken, the lower floor stands firmly in support. Unfortunately, retroactive fittings are costly, with the world bank estimating the scale of retrofitting that needs to take place amounting to $465bn. This is simply not feasible for a nation likely Turkey, which likely had more pressing issues to solve on its priority list, not to mention the monumental costs of such a mammoth task. Moreover, the BBC found residential buildings shown on video collapsed in a pancake manner, were recently built and advertised to be up to the most recent building and earthquake safety regulations. These buildings would not have had to be fitted retroactively as constructed newly. Their collapse cannot be blamed on expenses but simply corruption by the builders and government regulators. It is clear that despite being a well-known seismic hotspot, Turkey was severely unprepared for this disaster. The government and building corporations' blatant disregard for public safety has cost people their lives. While an earthquake of such a magnitude and scale was bound to leave disaster in its wake, the scale of suffering could have been lessened had the Turkish government, with all the resources at its disposal, prioritised the people who elected them to power over greed. Unfortunately, this tragedy is the perfect example of innocent people facing the consequences of a government that will look the other way as long as it turns a profit.

The recent arrest of Andrew Tate has made headlines in the mainstream media- informing more people of the actions of the ‘king of toxic masculinity.’ Social media has been bombarded by content relating to Andrew Tate since August 2022 but recently greater realisation of the negative impact his words and actions are having on the wider population (specifically men) can be seen. Whilst his controversial views may be used as a source of entertainment for some, others truly respect and idealise his views causing a progressive society to move backwards. Tate has used the internet as a source of income through the introduction of ‘The War Room,’ now called ‘The real world,’ the Hustlers university and finally, the fame that he has gained from social media particularly TikTok. The War Room is essentially a cult for men where violence is encouraged and men are taught to internalise patriarchal views, but it is disguised under its description of being ‘a global network in which exemplars of individualism work to free the modern man from socially induced incarceration.’ All these platforms share offensive and patriarchal views about a woman’s role in society and advice on what it means to be a ‘man’ teleporting us back to the mid-19th century. However, the biggest concern raised is regarding the influence Tate’s online presence is having on children who have access to these platforms. An article by BBC suggests schools are having to tackle with the knock-on effects of Tates misogynistic and toxic views. Teachers report that they have seen an increase in strong words such as ‘rape’ being used without children understanding the seriousness of the word. The Guardian also reported about a boy praising Andrew Tate in a school in the UK and when asked if he understood Tates views, his response was ‘well, men are better than women, so he’s right’ while his friends nodded in agreement. This shows how a few seconds worth of video is teaching that it is acceptable to spread factually incorrect information on the internet. Tate’s influence has catalysed the misogynistic views amongst the youth today. We need to educate young men on the importance of equality and open their eyes regarding the mistreatment of women in our society rather than encouraging the warped view that Tate has presented. During a PM questioning, Labour asked Rishi Sunak what schools can do to prevent the ‘brainwashing’ of students by Tate. In response, we were directed to the Online Safety Bill which imposed an age limit to protect children from accessing these materials online. However, the lack of implementation of this bill can be seen very clearly illustrating how the gravity of the situation is underestimated and not taken seriously. Platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and YouTube do not thoroughly check the age of their users undermining the effectiveness of the bills in reducing the exposure of sensitive content to children. Additionally, banning Andrew Tate from social media platforms does little to reduce his influence as most of his content is recreated and duplicated through fan accounts. An article on Global Network on Extremism and technology suggests that Tate is already seen as a ‘reversed hypermasculine hero’ who is building a loyal following by capitalising on ideas of ‘manhood’ and ‘masculinity.’ This shows how the algorithm is not only favouring his content on these platforms but, giving him the power to direct his audience to platforms where he is not banned, namely, Twitter and Rumble. Furthermore, the issues lie not only with the misogynistic views but also with the neoliberal work culture that Tate is encouraging. Tate is advertising an unhealthy lifestyle to individuals by encouraging them to disregard their mental health and focus all their energy on finding ways to make more money. He is promoting the hustle culture and suggests anyone that is not rich is ‘lazy’- a view that is not only outdated but also very harmful. With a nation which is finally acknowledging mental health as being a serious concern, this view is negatively impacting decades worth of work to move society in a more inclusive and progressive direction. This article was written in collaboration with Maya Patel and Iman Irfanullah.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the end of the Cold War and lifted previous restrictions for capitalist nations, allowing them to shift focus from ideological conflicts with their communist adversary and instead address their own issues. If the United States and other developed capitalist nations had taken advantage of this opportunity to establish an international economic and political system based on principles such as fair trade agreements that support development in emerging countries, the world would have greatly benefited. Instead, the developed countries used this opportunity to create a global trade regime that primarily served their own corporate and financial interests, at the expense of the poorest nations in the Third World. It is ironic that three decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, economist Joseph Stiglitz had to concede in a 2019 article published in The Guardian: “…we need to dismiss the view that because the US won the Cold War, America's economic system had triumphed. But it was not so much that free-market capitalism had demonstrated its superiority but that Communism had failed”. Joseph Stiglitz's aforementioned article, titled 'Neoliberalism must be pronounced dead and buried. Where next?', served as a virtual obituary for the ideology, as it proclaims its demise. In the article, Stiglitz declares, “the neoliberal experiment - lower taxes on the rich, deregulation of labour and product markets, financialization, and globalisation - has been a spectacular failure”. The 2008 financial crisis exposed the shortcomings of America's position as a global economic leader, damaging its soft power in the process. It is now widely recognized that the American capitalist system benefits only a small elite, leaving a majority of citizens in poverty. If both communism and capitalism have been shown to be ineffective, the question arises: What kind of economic system is most beneficial for human well-being? Efforts are being made within progressive capitalist circles to find alternatives to the centre-right economic paradigm of neoliberalism within the framework of capitalism. Different capitalist models such as far-right nationalism, centre-left reformism, and progressive capitalism are being reevaluated to determine if they can produce better outcomes than neoliberalism. However, of these alternatives, only the 'progressive capitalism' model remains relevant today, as the other two models remain tied to ideologies that have, or should have, been discarded. For instance, the centre-left, which tries to give neoliberalism a human face, attempts to update the policies of the 20th century like those of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair for the 21st century, only making minor revisions to the current modes of financialization and globalization. At the extreme end, the clique of nationalist-right-wingers represented by Donald Trump subscribed to a fascist-like ideology that blamed immigrants and foreigners for all of the US's problems. These neo-fascist cliques inflict on humankind the kind of evil that goes far beyond what has hitherto been perpetrated by the neoliberal economic agenda. The 'progressive capitalist' camp advocates for a new interpretation of Keynes's ideas, maintaining that the state needs to have a larger role in the economy in order to achieve both economic growth and social equality. The progressive capitalists are merely seeking an alternative to American-style capitalism by examining the various forms of democratic market economies like the social democracies of Sweden and Norway, which appear to them to be achieving faster economic growth and better living standards for their citizens. However, social democracy represents an insufficiently radical solution to the problems of modern capitalist societies. It is unlikely that the revised Keynesian ideas would ever be allowed to be implemented by the powerful private interests who are completely opposed to the idea of Keynesian-style state intervention in capitalist market economies. Therefore, there is a need to go beyond Neo-Keynesianism and search for another alternative economic model that establishes a fundamentally different economic agenda. The ideal future direction for economics could be to completely abandon the market economy model and create a technologically advanced version of a centrally-planned, command economy model. It is possible to construct a democratically planned economy based on modern computer technology - it would be both more economically stable and morally superior to free market economies. In a command economy model, a central agency (the government), instead of the free market, controls the means of production. The 'cyber command economy' model involves creating centralized, non-market-directed economic plans that aim to balance the physical quantities of available inputs with desired outputs to decide on investment and resource allocation in the economy. Even though the command economy model is often associated with Soviet-style communism, it does not necessarily have to be linked solely to extreme-left ideologies. In current American-style capitalism, a small group of financial capitalists and corporations exerts a level of control over their economy and government that exceeds the influence that the communist bureaucracy ever had on the Soviet economy. In reality, market economies often have a much higher degree of top-down control (by the power elite) than the general public realizes. Bernie Sanders sarcastically points out that in many ways, America is a socialist country, but the issue is that it has socialism only for the wealthy and rugged individualism for the poor. For example, the financial responsibility of paying Walmart workers is passed on to the public because the government provides Walmart workers with Medicare and food stamps, while the wealthiest family in America (the Walton family, which owns Walmart) becomes richer by not paying its workers a living wage. The former command economies of the Soviet era faced persistent problems with supply. The crude 'material balance' method used in Soviet-type planning (STP) caused inefficiency and led to a strong bias towards underproduction, resulting in a shortage of consumer goods. Neo-Marxist economist Alec Nove in his book 'The Economics of Feasible Socialism' estimated that without the advanced computing technology available today, creating a comprehensive and balanced plan for Ukraine alone would have required the work of the entire world's population over a 10 million-year period. However, the difficulties that plagued Soviet-type planning can now be overcome with advancements in information and communications technology. Nevertheless, the same technological advancements that could improve the command economy model also present a risk of abuse by corporate interests in capitalist economies. Large technology corporations like Amazon, Google, and Facebook gather huge amounts of data on individuals, known as Big Data, and use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to process it. They then misuse the information to increase their own market power at the expense of customers. These companies can use this data to engage in price discrimination by determining how much each customer values different products and is willing to pay for them. As a result, those who value a product more or have fewer options are charged more. If used correctly, the information obtained from Big Data could provide many positive opportunities such as customized healthcare to meet the diverse needs of people. Instead, AI and Big Data are being utilized by large technology companies to capture a larger portion of the value that society produces, leaving most people worse off. Despite these challenges, the advanced computational infrastructure available today can assist in processing and interpreting vast amounts of data and statistics using mathematical optimization methods, computer algorithms, and artificial intelligence, to achieve optimal outcomes from economic planning. It has the potential to make the modern command economy model highly efficient. For example, Google is able to solve systems of linear equations that are far larger than those required for large-scale economic planning. In fact, modern computational planning can provide an alternative to the traditional market system. The command economies enabled by computational planning would be vastly different from their earlier versions, therefore it would be appropriate to create new terminology to reflect their enhanced capabilities. They could be referred to as 'cyber command economies' or 'command economies on steroids'. The command economy model was a 20th-century concept that required 21st-century computer technology to succeed. Although we now have the technology to support an efficient command economy, the current oppressive political climate is preventing the idea of a 'cyber command economy' from becoming a reality. However, any transition from capitalism to a 'cyber command economy' would follow a similar path as the transition from feudalism to capitalism - it would happen gradually and not all at once. We are already seeing some aspects of the 'cyber command economy' emerge within capitalism, but capitalist features still predominate, just as early capitalism still featured remnants of feudalism. Eventually, capitalist features will fade away and the vision of the 'cyber command economy' will be realized. This article was written by Sharmista (Sherry) Lakkineni.

(Image: Flickr/ Gage Skidmore, Illustrations by Will Allen) When she’s not busy listing her items of clothing on Facebook marketplace or getting her staff to buy her groceries, Arizona’s senior senator is busy making enemies of everyone. For the past two years Kyrsten Sinema has endlessly frustrated Biden’s aspirations to transform America – becoming her party’s true limiting factor in the Senate. She has killed numerous policies she’s on record supporting and limited others for no good reason. All these legislative antics have played out in the shadow of Sinema’s deafening silence, as a result few seem to know the senator or the grand ideology that guides her. Entering the 118th Congress the task of decoding Kyrsten Sinema and her set of beliefs hasn’t gotten any easier. She’s severed ties with her former party and is staking what little political capital she thinks she has left on the enigmatic title of political independent. Somewhat ironically, to understand Sinema's and her idiosyncratic politics you need to look at Sinema herself and the impossible position she’s place herself in. When Biden assumed the Presidency, he did so with the governing trifecta and the power to pass long dreamed of Democratic policy goals. One person critical in facilitating this trifecta was Kyrsten Sinema, a first term Democrat from Arizona elected in 2018. Without her the Biden Presidency would never have passed items like the child tax credit (which cut child poverty in half) or confirmed the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. Paradoxically, Sinema’s presence was also the undoing of vast swathes of a once bold Democratic agenda. She spent two years wreaking havoc on the very issues she’d signed up to support and her constituents sent her to Congress to realise. Sinema ended up tanking vast swathes of the Biden Presidency. For two years the equally divided Senate which required her vote to pass any legislation handed Sinema such immense power, and she used it. (Image: Flickr/ Gage Skidmore, Illustrations by Will Allen) Her perchance for saying ‘no’ to her own party can be traced back to an intra-party fight over raising the minimum wage in the first reconciliation package. Sinema, of course, wasn’t the only Democrat who voted to kill the minimum wage hike, multiple centrist Democrats stuck knives into the provision, yet none were performed with relish of Sinema’s tone-deaf theatrics. Prior to giving what would become an infamous thumbs-down – to a policy she had long been on record supporting – Sinema served cake on the Senate floor. The let-them-eat-cake moment was quickly seized upon by critics, less so were her motives for opposing the raise. The Senator, who grew up in poverty, stated she only said no because she was a stickler for the Senate’s arcane procedural rules. As the Biden Presidency rolled on Sinema’s obstruction only became more painful to her party’s legislative dreams. When Biden unveiled his ill-fated social spending program ‘Build Back Better’, Joe Manchin drew the ire of the Democratic caucus for bringing down the landmark bill in spectacular public fashion. Yet, Sinema played an equally important role tearing apart the proposed legislation – she just did so privately, refusing to negotiate in public. When Manchin finally agreed to move forward with the remains of 'Build Back Better', in what would become the Inflation Reduction Act, Sinema remained unmoved she was still a ‘no’. To quash her opposition Democrats had to watch as she stifled the popular prescription drug price cap plan in the Inflation Reduction Act. Even Joe Manchin, arch conservative in the Democratic caucus, was irked calling out “a senator from Arizona who basically didn’t let us go as far as we needed to go with our negotiations and made us wait two years.” Sinema didn’t stop there, she also went to the mat to strip out an end to the gratuitous carried-interest loophole – a provision which lets the richest Americans pay virtually no tax on their Wall St. riches. To this day this request remains her most puzzling; few (if any) in congress would go to the hilt to defend this loophole, but Sinema did – placing the landmark bill and her political future at risk, for no apparent end. Why she chose to protect private-equity lobbyists while downgrading Americans’ access to affordable prescription drugs remains elusive. Coincidentally, as she insisted on these tweaks her campaign check book was being lined by the pharmaceutical industry and lobbyists like Dan Mahoney were flattering her in state op-eds. Sinema is in corporate America's good books. Her campaign has drawn huge donations from lobbyists and corporations that admire her use of the word 'no'. Yet, money likely isn't her guiding principle, she could rake in far more money pleasing the small-dollar donors of the Democratic Party by supporting Biden's legislation - which makes her actions all the more confusing. (Image: Flickr/ Gage Skidmore, Illustrations by Will Allen) As a result of this endless obstruction, Arizona’s senator has become what can only be described as a lightning rod for Democratic dissatisfaction. A fact which is only compounded by the fact Sinema is not a forthcoming politician (at all), refusing to entertain questions regarding why she engages in the legislative battles she does. She is renowned for airing constituents, refusing meetings, ghosting emails, and even cutting all contact with the very progressive groups who aided her narrow victory in 2018. Disgruntled by her silence some have sought answers. In 2021 a group of students from Arizona tried to understand their senator’s opposition to the ‘Build Back Better’ legislation her obstruction would eventually help kill. Yet rather than give a straight answer to the very people who knocked on doors for her, Sinema locked herself in a bathroom. Such an act would have undoubtedly drawn the ire of a young Kyrsten Sinema who spent her time calling out self-obsessed politicians only interested in obtaining power. Sinema is a famously private person. A fact which has only made her actions more bemusing as America tried to guess the motives behind her obstruction. (Image: Flickr/ Gage Skidmore, Illustrations by Will Allen) This brings us to the enigma of Sinema today. Sinema is not only hated by the progressive and Democratic circles she once pinned her political ideology to. Arizonians’ Democrat, Republican and Independent alike have a strong distaste for their senior senator. Polling gives tell-tale insight to Sinema’s standing in her state – among those she needed to win in a Democratic primary she received a net unfavourable rating of -57 percentage points (by contrast Democrat Mark Kelly has a +68 favourable rating from the same pool of voters). In short, Sinema is underwater with every kind of voter. Where she draws her biggest support from is Republican voters, a laughable fact considering her former self lambasted Joe Lieberman for seeking their support – “He seems to want to get Republicans voting for him—what kind of strategy is that?”. Her new status as an independent strikes a blow to what was once inevitable: the imminent unseating at the hands of her own party. Sinema who has an eye on re-election knows 2024 brings a brutal slate of Senate elections for the Democratic party, one only made impossibly harder by her move. If she runs, Democrats can either attempt to unseat her in a high stakes three way race with potentially disastrous consequences or they can swallow a poison pill and endorse her candidacy. Sinema will be remembered for her endless use of the word ‘no’, but for what reason? Her enigmatic obstruction burned all bridges with the very electoral base and party that allowed her accent into elected office. Sinema boxed in by her own actions has only one option, to go to war with her former party and hope she can survive the battle. Independence is a political power move, one which reveals what might be her true guiding principle – Sinema herself.

Political history of Investment Zones Similar to the Enterprise Zones promoted by Thatcher and Osborne, the Investment Zones announced by Kwarteng in September were sold as a way to promote growth in the UK. The basic idea behind the zonal policy is that of offering tax breaks in certain geographical areas to provide incentives for firms to move to areas where there aren't a lot of opportunities. However, these plans by Kwarteng were modified by Hunt to focus more on ‘growth clusters’ instead of promising it will aid development. Further, the scale of the project has been vastly cut with Hunt aiming to ‘catalyse a limited number’ of areas whilst the original plan – under Liz Truss – was for 100 or 200 of these zones. More importantly, by focusing on the zones for innovation and research, Hunt has improved upon previous policies. Place-based policies (like the one under Truss by Kwarteng) are notoriously high-cost ‘solutions’, even discounting the short-term tax breaks. Estimates suggest that bidding for the three Levelling Up funds cost local governments £63 million. Instead of being borne by the Treasury, already struggling local authorities are usually expected to pay for this. Another major issue with place-based policies is that they encourage companies to move locations. By incentivising this, they displace economic activity from one area to another and so its impact is often overestimated. Enterprise Zones in the 80s and 90s created 58,000 new jobs but over 40% of those jobs were from companies who relocated to enjoy tax breaks. Similarly, for the 2011 Enterprise Zones, the Treasury predicted the creation of 54,000 new jobs by 2015, but by 2017 there were only 17,500 new jobs, out of which more than 30% were due to relocation. They also only created a fourth of what the Treasury has estimated, creating questions about the significance of tax cuts in the first place. Reforming Investment Zones? Levelling up should be a long-term priority for the government to ensure that areas of the country grow together and to provide being around the country with the same opportunities and improve jobs and living standards. It is also important for the government to expand what is seen as levelling up to include disparities in average life expectance, well-being and education instead of purely targeting corporate endeavours. Further, the problem of uncertainty stemming from Brexit and subsequent failures from governments has created an unpredictable environment for investors, who desire stability. To see a boost in investment, there needs to be more certainty to support long-term industrial strategies. Hunt’s reformed vision for these Zones is closer to what many papers suggest is the best way of increasing investment. Focussing investment in a few areas is better than a thin, even spread to start off. The Levelling Up White Paper named Glasgow, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands as Innovation Accelerators. It would be more advisable to give adequate funding to these areas rather than too little too many areas and failing to provide any material changes. Hunt was also right in suggesting making use of local universities as it links with the larger idea of Investment Zones needing to be better connected to the local systems. Some research has suggested that less productive regions of the UK, are more specialised in areas relevant to achieving net-zero, meaning that this could be an opportunity to level up and generate growth as well as address environmental issues and funding technology. Along with universities, Zones need to utilise other major firms in the area and wider research institutes. There is, however, a larger issue with this form of Investment Zones. The What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth concluded that whilst Investment Zones brought increased activity to the area, due to this largely being due to the displacement of jobs elsewhere, it is unlikely to lead to UK growth. Further, tax cuts and deregulation might not lead to new practices as it makes it cheaper to conduct business and might lead to low-wage jobs expanding instead of lifting areas out of deprivation. Under Kwarteng’s plan, along with tax incentives, there were lower employer National Insurance Contributions, lower business rates for new buildings, deductions in corporation tax, looser planning rules etc. By making deregulation and tax cuts the major incentive, the previous government ignored a lot of evidence suggesting that Research and Development activity is more reliant on skilled labour than lower costs. More interestingly, however, were the plans for local growth funds where mayoral authorities would receive a ‘local growth settlement’. IfG research has suggested that the funding model for mayoral combined authorities are more effective in long-term planning and coordinated policy and certainty through its competitive bidding process. Whilst Hunt’s U-turn on Truss’ investment zones is a better policy, the government needs to make plans for these Zones to be as innovative as the technology they are hoping to create. Certainty and agreement about a long-term vision will be more of an incentive to businesses than tax cuts. Perhaps it is time to escape the political rut of recycling tried, tested and failed ideas purely due to its neoliberal stance, especially on a bipartisan issue.

On Wednesday 27th October, Oregon Senator and chair of the Senate Finance Committee Ron Wyden unveiled his plans for a new tax that targets the ultra-wealthy. This controversial plan was proposed as an alternate way of funding President Biden’s goliath $1.75 trillion ‘Build Back Better’ package. Dubbed the ‘Billionaire’s tax’, this plan would require individuals with an annual income of over $100 million, or those who hold over $1 billion in assets for three years, to pay a 23.8% capital gains tax on the appreciation of their publicly traded assets. If this were to be implemented, even though it would affect just 700 people, it is projected to raise between $200 billion and $250 billion before the spending plan finishes. Although this is the current rate of capital gains tax for those with this level of wealth, the marked difference is that this measure would tax assets every year, regardless of whether or not they were recently sold. Under current US law, a gain can only be taxed if it is ‘realised’ by the owner when they sell an asset. It is this mass of unutilised potential, namely the tax from unrealised gains, that has created so much controversy. Democrats suggest that the taxing of unrealised gains is a simple issue of fairness. For example, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pays himself a salary of $81,840 a year – a minute fraction of his $193 billion net worth – whilst still owning and accruing on the majority of his wealth that is tied up in Amazon stock, which, therefore, goes untaxed. This is a common loophole used by billionaires in the US to minimise their tax and is the reason the 25 richest Americans pay, on average, 15.8% less than the typical US worker. This damning statistic has pushed President Biden to increase tax on the richest Americans as part of his mission to reduce inequality and improve infrastructure. There is, however, heavy debate over whether Wyden’s plan is the best way to implement this goal and, if it is, whether it’s even possible. Perhaps the biggest hurdle the Democrats must overcome to pass this bill is that of legality. Many have suggested that taxing such a small subset of people in this way is unconstitutional. It has been highlighted that it may violate Article 1 Section 9 of the constitution, which states income taxation is prohibited unless ‘in proportion to the census’. With this, the Supreme Court is likely to face a stream of cases in which they would need to decide whether taxing a group of just 700 is constitutionally acceptable, and then whether unrealised gains can be classified as income tax. If the Supreme Court was to rule on either of these issues then the bill would need to be heavily altered, if not abandoned in its entirety. Although Wyden argues the plan is indeed constitutional as it calls for “annually taxing income from capital gains” (part of the tax code), for the bill to succeed, it would need votes from every Democratic Senator and almost every Democrat in the House. So far, this seems unlikely. Joe Manchin, West Virginia Senator, has been one of the most vocal critics of the bill, suggesting that it unfairly targets people that “have contributed a lot to society” and “create lots of jobs and invest a lot of money”. Whilst Democrats on the Finance Committee expressed surprise at Manchin’s position, it is likely he is not alone, and the Democrats may struggle to pass this bill relying solely on partisan support. Perhaps less surprisingly, Republicans, and the billionaires the tax will affect, have also expressed their doubts. Elon Musk, who could owe as much as $50 billion under the new proposal, recently took a dig at the proposal on Twitter. In response to a user who suggested that, if the bill passed, it could open up the potential for tax hikes targeted at middle-class Americans, he agreed, stating: “Exactly. Eventually, they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you”. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was also quick to oppose the idea. He described the tax as a “hairbrained scheme” designed to target those “who have invested wisely” and “compensate those who have invested poorly”. Although some may agree, Musk and McConnell fail to acknowledge the reason such a bill has been proposed; billionaires, even if they have invested wisely, are not paying their fair share of tax, whereas middle-class Americans are. If the proposal can be pushed through in the face of such opposition and legal hurdles, the impacts will be far reaching. With a projected revenue of $250 billion over 10 years, most of this money will likely go towards economic recovery in the post COVID-19 world and investing in Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ plan. In this way, it seems the bill would be an effective form of relief for everyday Americans whose livelihoods and wellbeing were hit particularly during the pandemic. It would also be a significant step forward in ensuring America’s billionaires, who saw their net worth increase by $1trillion during the pandemic, finally pay their share. There is, however, notable scepticism over whether this tax could be genuinely effective, or whether billionaires would find further loopholes to taxation, greatly damaging the US economy as a consequence. Mitt Romney, Senator of Oregon, suggested that the bill had the potential to push innovation overseas and cause billionaires to pull their money from the stock market. Instead, they would then invest money into property or art rather than continuing to invest in projects that would create jobs and build the economy. In this way, the bill could have the opposite effect of its intended purpose, ensuring billionaires continue to be just as well off whilst jeopardising the stability and security of everyday Americans. Critically, however, all potential consequences, good or bad, are simply hypothetical unless the Democrats are able to push the bill over the line before the end of the session.

This article has been written by contributor James Baldwin Two years have passed since the resounding election victory of Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party, in which the party promised to ‘Get Brexit Done’ and ‘Unleash Britain’s Potential’, just two of the catchiest phrases from the divisive campaign. In the word count afforded, this report will assess ‘Johnsonism’ and the Prime Minister’s success so far, both against his own standards and against wider expectations. Despite Brexit dominating the public debate, Mr. Johnson, a mere three months after being awarded his 80-seat majority, was faced by the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, prompting his tenure to be faced overwhelmingly with this. Covid has been a prime example of this Government’s record, and has revealed the issues of government failure within the administration. When the British Government enacted a national lockdown in March 2019 in an attempt to quell a rise in infections, their response was notably slow, especially when compared to other nations. A level of understanding in response to the lack of decisiveness prior to the first lockdown is appropriate. But it is an indictment on the administration that the mistake was made thrice over. Prior to the November lockdown, there was advice from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and the opposition Labour Party to enter a ‘circuit-breaker’ lockdown. The government refused, before conceding two weeks later; resulting in gross levels of infections and deaths. The government repeated the error just a month and a half later, maintaining a complex, and ever changing, tiered system and dithering over whether to put the United Kingdom into a third lockdown. It eventually did so, two weeks after SAGE had informed Mr. Johnson that tougher restrictions would be necessary. Successes in fighting the pandemic have become more apparent, however. The UK’s fast vaccine roll-out at the start of 2021 was the envy of the international community, and may have helped the country resist a fourth wave of infections at current - removing the need for the imposition of any, nevermind tighter, restrictions. The continued success remains to be seen and is already under pressure from the announcement of 28th November in which the government has introduced some minor new restrictions. In any sense, the initial handling of the pandemic demonstrates clear failings. Covid-19 held Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union out of the headlines for months, an impressive feat after years of Brexit-centricity. Brexit has, however, still lurked in the background, and has without question been central to the government’s agenda. With ‘Get Brexit Done’ the administration's initial mantra, it must be noted that to a slight degree this was completed. The UK withdrew almost immediately after Mr. Johnson led his party to a majority in the 2019 general election. Yet, Brexit remains an ongoing issue for the Johnson administration. The deal forged with the EU has not yet proven to work to the UK’s advantage. Take Northern Ireland. Just months after signing the Northern Ireland Protocol - established in order for the UK to enact a ‘hard’ Brexit whilst complying with the Good Friday Agreement - the administration has now requested re-negotiation. Currently it has suggested that the UK may enact Article 16 of the protocol, suspending key parts of agreement. The peace process in Northern Ireland, as has been witnessed recently, is highly fragile and it will not take much to upset this. Ironically, economic benefits of Brexit have been seen in Northern Ireland, where certain businesses are taking advantage of the country’s unique status as a member of the UK and EU’s Customs Unions. Nonetheless, navigating the UK’s early post-Brexit days will continue to be a difficult task, not just for Mr. Johnson, but future administrations as well. The administration must compromise and work with the EU to find a secure settlement for both sides. Failing to do this so early on after negotiations does not reflect well on the Johnson administration. Finally, we move to the recent budget announcement. Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, presented a big-state conservatism in his Budgets which have redefined the political lines. High spending will remain a characteristic of the government, whilst tax receipts will rise to their highest since the 1950s. Mr. Johnson’s legacy appears to aim at not just a clean break from the EU, but in a clean break from the last decade of conservatism, where low taxes and low spending characterised what has become known as the austerity government. Spending is projected to increase in real terms across all departments. The NHS will see the biggest boost, having received a 40% increase from its levels in 2010 - more than any other department. However, the government also needs to address the crunch issues faced by the NHS, especially staff shortages. Education has also received a boost in spending. But, it will only hit 2010 spending levels by 2024-25 and has failed to specifically address how it will meet the fallout in education from the pandemic. Contradictions in tackling the climate emergency persist, despite strong and welcome rhetoric from the government. Amid a host of progressive policies surrounding green investment, Mr. Sunak announced a cut to Air Passenger Duty for domestic flights. Meanwhile, cutbacks were announced to the sustainable high-speed train service High Speed 2. The government, therefore, appears to be subsidising consumers to emit more Carbon Dioxide by flying across Britain as opposed to travelling by rail. This also derails attempts to level-up the North, which is worth an article in itself. Nonetheless, in tackling climate change, Mr. Johnson has taken a leading role worldwide, with the UK’s pledges being some of the world’s most progressive. The Johnson administration has had a rather eventful two years at the helm of British politics. Covid-19 will continue to challenge them between now and the next general election, as will Brexit. Recent and relative success in tackling the virus has bode well for the Government’s popularity. But the Prime Minister has not been associated with much success so far: Brexit is far from finalised; Covid-19 has assaulted public finance; and a cost of living crisis is on the horizon. A tough two years lie ahead, and any notion of unleashing Britain’s potential remains to be seen.

Liz Truss took just 45 days to prove that a leader without long-term answers is a leader unfit for office. Whilst her disastrous mini-budget is widely recognised as the catalyst for her demise, Truss’ history of failing to acknowledge future realities should have sounded alarm bells that her appointment to office was destined to fail from the start. In no area is Truss’ fantasy-land of no consequences clearer than her stance on environmental policy - both prior to, and during her premiership. Her actions have not just reflected a disregard for the environment, but a series of active attempts to reverse the already lacklustre progress that Britain has made to combat climate change. Truss’ voting record prior to becoming Prime Minister includes opposition to a catalogue of progressive amendments to the 2021 Environment Bill. Examples include voting against reducing the permitted carbon dioxide emission rate of new homes, and against a requirement for ministers to have due regard to the target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 when taking actions. The now former Prime Minister also has a history of attacking renewable energy efforts. Whilst in the position of Environment Secretary under David Cameron’s government, Truss repeatedly expressed her dislike for solar panels, labelling them “a blight on the landscape” and making unsubstantiated claims that they harmed food production. She put action behind these words, by cutting subsidies for solar farms. Whilst scientists around the world shouted from the rooftops that switching to renewable energy is a vital step required to combat climate change, Truss chose to plug her ears and promote continuing to burn through finite energy resources. During her time as Environment Secretary, she also volunteered her own department for substantial funding cuts, emphasising her history of concerning herself with short-term financial and economic benefits for the wealthy, at the expense of long-term climate security. Now, Truss might have lasted just six weeks in office, but she certainly maximised that time to regress as much UK climate action as she could manage. Starting with the announcement of her cabinet, Truss filled environmental positions with Conservative politicians whose voting records reflected consistent opposition to progressive climate policies, making abundantly clear her desires to have no barriers to tearing down legislation designed to protect the environment. Jacob Rees-Mogg was selected to fill the role of Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and tasked with taking on the UK Energy Brief. Rees-Mogg blamed “climate alarmism” for high energy prices and claimed that scientists’ projects for future changes to the climate cannot be deemed realistic, because the meteorologists’ weather forecasts are not always correct. Earlier this year, he said that the government wanted to extract “every last drop” of oil and gas from the North Sea. The Business Secretary has also labelled the reopening of shale gas sites as “quite an interesting opportunity” and likened fracking to “a rock fall in a disused coal mine”. Yet such unsubstantiated claims and rhetoric designed to downplay the climate crisis were not deemed a cause for concern by our former Prime Minister - rather they came as music to her ears. Shortly after making her cabinet appointments, Liz Truss announced her plans to reverse a fracking ban. This is in spite of insufficient scientific data to track earthquakes caused by the drilling and limit the risk of their destruction, documented in a leaked government report obtained by The Guardian. This plan to reverse fracking also served to be one of the final straws in Conservative confidence in Liz Truss’ leadership. A crunch vote in the Commons on Truss’ fracking plans descended into chaos, with multiple MPs alleging bullying and manhandling, and more than 40 voting against Truss. From this moment, it was clear that even her own party members were concerned over the lack of long-term planning that was evidenced by proposing to lift the fracking ban. The following day, Liz Truss announced her resignation. However, it only takes a brief glance over Liz Truss’ history in politics to see that, just like Jacob Rees-Mogg, she too has a history of ignoring expert advice, as soon as it did not fit in with her short-term goals. Whilst she was Environment Secretary, Liz Truss allowed farmers to dredge watercourses running through their land without any regulation, in spite of expert advice warning her against this course of action. An Environment Agency report which had specifically explained how this can increase flood risk and lead to the destruction of river ecology was mysteriously removed from government websites. Another disastrous cabinet appointment for the environment can be seen in Truss’ decision to select Ranil Jayawardena to head the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The new secretary of state for the environment has a consistent record of voting against measures to protect the environment, including opposing government support for renewable energy projects. Jayawardena’s own East Hampshire constituency has been subjected to untreated sewage being pumped into its rivers for an average of 11 hours every day - amounting to over 4,000 hours of sewage discharge in 2021. Having surrounded herself with climate-sceptics, Truss quickly set to work dismantling environmental policy. Her government granted itself the ability to revoke or alter the 570 EU environmental laws that currently still apply to the UK. They had originally been upheld after Brexit as a part of a promise made by former Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, that leaving the Union would not lead to a weakening of UK environmental law. But Truss faced a problem. An influential figure whom she could not remove for their position of power: King Charles III. The monarch and long-term climate activist, who had reportedly wished to deliver a speech at Cop27, cancelled his plans to attend after she intervened to advise him to stay away. When the King’s commitment to environmental endeavours is so clear, Truss’ decision to advise him against attending highlighted her desire to silence the UK’s acknowledgement of the disastrous long-term realities that the climate crisis threatens. Conversative MP Tobias Ellwood, tweeted his disapproval for Truss advising the King against attending Cop27, saying that he hoped common sense would prevail and that as a “globally respected voice on the environment”, the King’s attendance “would add serious authority to the British delegation”. Meanwhile, Stanley Johnson, staunch Conversative Party politician and father of Boris Johnson warned that Truss’ plans put the environment at risk. He stated: “The mad dash for growth may seem essential now – but come 10 years from now, when we find that some of our key wildlife sites, our key landscape areas have been put at risk, we'll think differently about it.” As the speed at which our planet is being ravaged by devastating and increasingly irreparable climate destruction, Liz Truss really utilised her six weeks in power to put the UK’s pedal to the metal. However, whilst her reckless short-term approach to governing certainly set-back the UK’s already weak environmental commitments, Truss’ failure to hold on to the position of Prime Minister has at least set an example which makes it abundantly clear that realistic long-term vision is a non-negotiable trait in a leader.

Don’t be fooled by the shambles of a Tory government, they all want to take our Human Rights. On 19th October, former PM, Liz Truss appointed a new Home Secretary, Graham Shapps to replace Suella Braverman, who replaced Priti Patel in September. Whilst desperately clinging to her position as PM, Liz Truss was committed to withdrawing the UK from the European Court of Human Rights. The national mourning of Queen Elizabeth II provided Truss impunity in covertly passing the Policing, Crime, and Sentencing Act, which, amongst other things, criminalises the way of life of Gypsie and Roma travellers, and makes loud protests illegal. Truss’s ambitions were contingent on the regressive Bill of Rights proposed as a replacement for the Human Rights Act during Boris Johnson’s tenure. The Conservative Party seems intent on attacking human rights and this will have catastrophic consequences for everyone in the UK. Particularly pernicious is the legislation that has been passed and proposed over the last two years that aims to despicably erode the rights of refugees and people seeking asylum in the UK. In June 2021, former Home Secretary, Priti Patel, proposed the Nationality and Borders Bill. This bill, described by the United Nations as “almost neo-colonial” in its oppressive and racist formulation, proposed criminalising refugees arriving in the UK through clandestine routes and detaining people seeking asylum in camps. Despite breaching international law, this gratuitous piece of legislature received Royal Assent in April this year. Since being passed, the government has been attempting to deport refugees to camps in Rwanda, having already paid £120 million to the Rwandan government. Thus far, the Home Office has been prohibited from carrying out any deportations, with the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) blocking the first planned deportation flight in June 2022. However, this policy has displaced survivors of genocide housed in hostels in Rwanda, such as the Hope Hostel. It is hard to imagine how this legislation could be made worse. However, when Suella Braverman replaced Patel as Home Secretary, she immediately announced her plans to initiate an even more aggressive attack against refugees and people seeking asylum. Her vision was to implement a complete ban on any person from claiming asylum if they arrived in the UK “illegally”. She also constructed a plan to increase the use of detention facilities and to introduce legislation to prevent the ECHR, or any other group motivated by morality, from blocking deportations of refugees and people seeking asylum. Revealing just how insipidly depraved and warped her motivations were, Braverman stated that sanctioning deportations of refugees to Rwanda was her “dream” and her “obsession”. Braverman has also described the British Empire as a “force for good”. However, on October 19th, Braverman publicly announced her resignation as Home Secretary. Braverman admitted that she committed a technical infringement of ministerial rules by sending an official policy document from her personal email and therefore felt duty-bound to resign. Former minister advisor, Dominic Cummings described this as a “laughable” excuse, explaining that it is commonplace for MPs to use their personal emails and work emails interchangeably, leaving open the question as to the real motivation behind Braverman’s sudden resignation. Demonstrating the sincerity (as in, lack thereof) of Braverman’s remorse, she was quick in vying for the role of Prime Minister after the resignation of Liz Truss. Even after only three months as Home Secretary, Braverman’s contemptible legacy condemns the most vulnerable sects of society to silently suffer exploitation and violence. She oversaw that modern slavery was reclassified as an “immigration and asylum issue”, making it even harder, if not impossible, for victims of modern slavery to access support and protection. But for Braverman, this suffering was not enough to satisfy her assiduous craving for cruelty. In her resignation letter, Braverman lamented the failure of Truss to commit to her manifesto pledges (and fulfil Braverman’s dreams) of introducing stricter measures to “[reduce] overall migration numbers and stopping illegal migrants”. In response, Truss thanked Braverman for her time in office, lauding Braverman’s “steadfast commitment to keeping the British people safe”. Braverman and Truss remain mutually connected by a steadfast commitment to racism and xenophobia. A desperate and increasingly unpopular Prime Minister replaced Braverman with one of her (many) nemesis MPs, former transport secretary Graham Shapps. Shapps previously stood in the leadership campaign following the resignation of Boris Johnson but dropped out to endorse Rishi Sunak’s campaign. Continuing his opposition to Truss, at the Conservative Party conference earlier this month Shapps spoke with acerbity about Truss and her political agenda and has, of particular note, condemned Truss’ decision to drop the 45p tax cuts. However, with Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister, Braverman has been thrown another life to get her initial plans up and going again. It seems as if the worst is yet to come. One can only imagine how far she will go and her next steps. But we cannot let that happen. Human Rights protect us all and we must stand together to oppose any attempts to erode them.

As climate inaction from political leaders around the world persists, the onus has fallen upon climate-conscious members of the general public to shed light on the reality of the environmental crisis and to campaign for urgent change. Yet, rather than taking heed of their warnings, and using their positions to implement more robust and ambitious policies, political figures are stopping at nothing in their attempts to silence the activists. A new report issued by Global Witness, in partnership with The Guardian, uncovered the murders of more than 1700 environmental defenders in the past decade, including over 200 in 2021. This is not just a series of tragic events: it is a calculated pattern of exterminating those who demand governmental action and accountability on the climate crisis. This problem is not going away; rather it is gaining momentum, as the annual number of murders of climate activists has begun to consistently exceed 200 in recent years. The majority of these murders are concentrated in Asia, Central and South America, and a vastly disproportionate number of the victims are indigenous people, defending land that was stolen from their ancestors. Yet these murders are not making the headlines. These people are being killed as silently as possible, keeping the general public unaware of both the enormity of the climate crisis and the reality of the suppression of activists. The news tends to stay concentrated in the activists’ surroundings, spreading waves of fear across some of the most disproportionately impacted victims of climate change. The murders not only ensure that the individual activist is silenced, but also act as a deterrent to intimidate their communities into silence. It is hard to recognise the gravity and reality of the murders without learning of the lives behind these numbers. Global Witness sheds light on the stories of some of the targeted murder victims: In Colombia, Sandra Liliana Peña, who governed a Nasa Indigenous community, openly spoke out against the growth of illegal crops in her area. As she prepared to travel to meet with local government officials, she was forced out of her home and shot dead. In Nairobi, Kenya, Joannah Stuchbury became a figure well-known for her work to defend the Kiambu Forest, as she confronted those orchestrating deforestation in the area. She received many death threats before the day of her murder, but was issued no protection. That day, branches were placed in front of her car, deliberately obstructing it and thus forcing her to get out. She was later discovered dead in the vehicle, with the engine still running. In Brazil, land rights defender Fernando Araújo was killed in his own home. Fernando had witnessed the 2017 massacre of ten landless activists in Pau D’Arco, and was testifying in the investigation. His voice threatened to hold accountable the police officers who inflicted the massacre. No one has been arrested for his murder. Each addition to the murder toll represents the loss of an individual committed to protecting the land upon which we all rely. An individual killed in order to be silenced. In failing to hold accountable the perpetrators of these attacks, these governments and legal systems are acting as enablers. Indeed, many of the murders have been carried out by people in roles that are supposed to uphold justice, like the many police officers who also work as private militias. Whilst murders of environmental activists are not being reported on UK soil, the current government is passing through a wave of measures designed to restrict the right to protest and environmental defenders are being imprisoned for their activism. The ‘Public Order Bill’ is currently working its way through parliament, with draft legislation having already gained the approval of the House of Commons. This draconian bill sets out plans to severely restrict the rights of activists, criminalising a wide range of methods of public protest. Climate protests would not be carried out if those in political power were listening to climate science and taking action. But instead of accepting responsibility, our government is putting measures in place to take away the platforms for people protesting for a better, more just world. The UK government is tightening the rope around the neck of the democratic right to protest, as the world accelerates towards climate catastrophe, when the future of our planet is dependent on the challenging of current governmental policy. The proposal for such restrictions was not present in the 2019 Conservative Election Manifesto, and it is now being quietly moved through parliament, reflecting this government’s intent to abuse its power, in order to silence activists. Meanwhile, on a global scale, the tool of social media, which has become so vital in the worldwide dissemination of information, is also playing a role in silencing messages and information about the climate. Environmental activists are reporting a decrease in activity on their accounts across multiple different online platforms, whenever their posts contain environmental buzzwords. These reports are in line with claims from people posting about a range of different social and political issues that they are being deplatformed when their content challenges right-wing politics. The science tells us that we are rocketing towards catastrophic environmental damage, which threatens the future of the generations to come. Whilst governments around the world continue to under-deliver on already weak environmental policies, we are reliant on the brave voices of scientists and climate activists. The silencing of these voices puts us on a fast track to irreparable global disaster.

Editorial by Ruoshan Zhang Originating from the Chinese company, Bytedance, Tiktok had gained rising popularity worldwide after merging with a dance-based platform Music.ly. Centered around video sharing, the app contains fundamentally different designs compared to other social media platforms that results in unique impacts on the receiving audience. Bhandari and Bimo [1]proposed that the interaction seen on Tiktok is not between users and their social network, but rather between users and what is known as a “self -algorithmic version of the self”. Opening the app leads users to a personalized stream of videos. Because of this innovative algorithm, the attention that Tiktok has received is unprecedented. Statistics [2] revealed that it was the most downloaded app in 2021 and reached one billion users by the end of the year, outbeating historically popular media apps such as instagram and snapchat. [3]Further records showed that an average person from Generation Z opens the app at least 19 times per day, and that each spends on average 90 minutes. Because of the immeasurable extent to which Tiktok is integrated throughout every corner of people’s lives, its impacts on cognitive and sociocultural behavior should be carefully considered. This article provides a psychosocial analysis into the impacts that Tiktok has on the wide scope of culture, including examinations on its positive impacts on the perpetuation of culture, and negative impacts on cultural lag and sociocultural issues such as appropriation. Proponents of the argument posit [4] that Tiktok allows for the perpetuation of a culture by serving itself as an accessible platform that enables the micro strengthening of enculturation to macro level of culture consolidation. Enculturation [5]is the process by which one comes to attain norms of a culture through observational learning and interactions with gatekeepers. Because enculturation requires exposure to all aspects of a culture, an individual is engaged in shaping schematic processes throughout childhood and extends into adulthood. However, tiktok may effectively accelerate enculturation by proliferation of the multidimensional aspects within a culture. Taking music as an example, one way that tiktok has inherently emphasized its growth is through the background music feature. A report [6]suggested that 63.8% of the popular songs found on Spotify charts are due to the “organic posting by the artist and other users on Tiktok rather than influencer campaigns or paid aids.” Data from the MRC research [7] further suggested that “75% of TikTok users say they discover new artists through TikTok.” The easy accessibility and high permeability of the platform allows emerging artists or small business owners to leave a major impact simply by associating the appropriate music with a specific brand or skit. A greater impact on culture is Tiktok’s effective socio-technological contribution on cultural activism. Cervin and Marín-LIadó [8](2022) defined a new form of activism particularly associated with Tiktok known as “playful activism”. Their multimodal analysis on a sample of widely viewed #freepalestine TikTok suggested that Young Palestinians used this network to construct their opinions on politics through playful performance. More importantly, this type of social activism has allowed them to spread political messages among the youth audience much more than original advertisement campaigns. As a result, those who were previously uninterested or had no previous knowledge were actively engaging and participating, creating a humanitarian and solidarity network for the betterment of palestinian culture. In the scope of future orientation, Tiktok serves as a contributing factor in increasing cultural lag. Cultural lag is a theoretical phenomenon describing when advancements in material culture progresses faster than non-material culture. Because of the entertaining focus, users on tiktok tend to utilize the app as a tool to gain relaxation and stress-relieve. A study [9] revealed that entertainment gratification and affect was the primary driver behind all passive, participatory and contributory consumption behaviors on Tiktok. Specifically, data reported [10]that the second most viewed content category is “Dance” with 150.3 billion hashtag views, with approximately 60% [11]of its viewers being teenagers and young adults. It appears that for individual content variation, the majority of users focus on surface level elements (dance, TV show recommendations, make up etc.) for the purpose of entertainment. As much as this has a mediating effect on stress and mental health issues in general, it drives attention away from societal issues or historically-inherited beliefs. In simple language, more cognitive importance is placed on the breadth of surface culture than the depth of deep culture. Another study [12]supported this relationship by suggesting that those who choose to quit Douyin (Chinese Tiktok) are mostly motivated by the fear of addiction and the perception of deemed low-quality content, providing evidence for the idea that tiktok content exposes users to surface level elements. Those who use Tiktok to stay updated to current social affairs may claim the concept of cultural lag as untrue. However, its relevance in cultural lag is highlighted in the fact that cultural progress involves understanding the core of cultural values, beliefs and future establishments rather than merely understanding what they consist of. Tiktok, being a 15-30 seconds video sharing app, allows the audience to understand WHAT is important, but not WHY. Examples include the #ice bucket challenge and #BlacklivesMatter challenge. The former involved the platform raising enough awareness on what the challenge involves, but insufficient knowledge on why challengers were pouring freezing cold water. The latter proliferated up-to-date clips about the context, but exerted media availability heuristics due to the short nature of its 15 second videos. Availability heuristics effect[13]is when people form immediate evaluations based on what information is available in front of them. In both cases, The lack of in-depth understanding of the social and historical contexts of the affairs may lead to slacktivism [14]whereby people access the information via clicking on a hashtag that takes the user to the categorized feed of content. Slacktivism places a greater emphasis on the participation in raising awareness and voicing out than concrete attempts to establish policies or solutions to these societal problems, potentially hindering the functionality to organizational change. A more notable consequence of Tiktok with regard to cultural lag is that it has created a material - dominating culture that has led to sociocultural issues. Whilst the tiktok algorithm effectively promotes surface culture in the form of music, food, fashion and cosmetics, its contribution to the heightened incentives of influencer culture potentially introduces cultural appropriation. A national analysis [15]identified the existence of an “influencer culture” whereby individual users exert commercial or non-commercial influence across the internet community. Bhandari, A., & Bimo, S. (2022) [16] further explained the formation of influencer culture using the “self-representation” theory in relevance to Tiktok. Originally, anyone’s social representation is created based on diverse cultural elements ranging from food to the sharing of experience and emotions. Whereas the tiktok self-algorithm redefines self- representation based on predetermined categorical schema for the purpose of data gathering. Hearn (2010) [17]theorized that this far-reaching form of control leads Tiktok users to be exploited for the ever-evolving forms of profit within a wider capitalist- driven economy infrastructure. Within this scope, users must follow a “datalogical turn” wherein the production of content must fit the capitalistic and societal desires to be on the collection and vast amounts of consumer data. The focus on exploiting marketing opportunities potentially leads to the oversight of sensitivity and lack of appreciation for community diversity. This was reflected in a cultural appropriation incident in 2020. Carli D’Amelio, known as the CEO of the Renegade dance, [18]has paved her wealth and fame upon sponsorships and media opportunities derived from the unprecedented attention on the dance. By the age of 15, she became arguably the most influential Tiktok user. Nevertheless, at the heart of the issue is the unrevealed fact that the dance was originally created by a dark-skinned dancer named Jalaiah Harmon. The dance was initially uploaded on Funimate before it was moved onto Tiktok where D’Amelio discovered and made the dance her own. To receive the credit she deserved, Harmon raised her voice regarding the ownership of the choreography but was ignored and even humiliated by the mass media. With this incident being one example amongst many,[19] the algorithm has been backlashed as “whitewashed” with its tendency to promote white creator idiosyncracies to achieve marketing success. Arguably, it heightens the incentives to separate power division between cultures, with white users more likely to exploit cultural elements of the ethnic minorities. In conclusion, tiktok has a positive impact on culture to the extent that they foster multidimensional aspects of surface culture, strengthening cultural growth within respective areas of music, branding, style and food. This collectively translates into macro levels of cultural engagement as a gateway to the betterment of deep culture. In the sociocultural scope, tiktok inspired the formation of a new, efficient and influencing form of playful activism, using surface culture elements to raise awareness on societal issues. This combined type of advertisement has reportedly raised important awareness among the youth generation, who are the future stakeholders of culture. However, whilst the self-algorithm has its benefits on both the evolution of surface and deep culture, it also draws a problem of a cultural lag in the way that surface culture (branding, dance, music) is currently progressing faster than that of the deep culture (religion, societal and family values etc.) due to the exploitative nature of the self-generating algorithm, providing marketing opportunities for the capitalist-driven infrastructure. The oversight of deep culture further fuels underlying issues with regard to ownership and equity as long-existing concepts of cultural appropriation. Although, regardless of the positive and negative impacts, the algorithm generating network has definitely led the generation to an era of self-exploratory and identifiable virtual world.

Widely lauded as the most significant opportunity for global collaboration to tackle the climate crisis, the COP Climate Summit is an annual series of meetings that reviews progress towards the overarching goal of limiting the impacts of climate change. Yet, despite 27 COP summits having now been held, the wealthiest nations continue to emit unsustainable levels of fossil fuels and far exceed their share of ecological resources. This begs the question: what is COP really achieving? COP has a long history of overpromising and under-delivering. The 21st COP saw the signing of the historic Paris Agreement, which set out a primary target to “limit global warming to well below 2, preferable to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels”. Yet, despite the agreement being signed by all but four governments, the current course of action is wildly off target. The big emitters appear prepared to discuss tackling the climate crisis, but remain unwilling to put action behind their words. COP enables a selective global narrative on climate change, as the voices of the biggest emitters are amplified over those who are the most heavily impacted by environmental destruction. COP27 is being sponsored by Coca-Cola, a brand which is fundamentally reliant upon fossil fuels to create their products. In 2019, the company admitted to using 3 million tonnes of plastic packaging in a year, and since then it has only increased its usage of ‘virgin’ plastic by 3.5%. Rather than funnelling its funding into researching renewable alternatives, it is spending vast amounts of money to associate the company name with climate endeavours, giving the illusion of support without any of the work to change Coca-Cola’s devastating environmental impact. Coca-Cola has a “long history of lobbying to delay and derail regulations that would prevent pollution, keeping us addicted to disposable plastic”, as identified by previous COP delegate Georgia Elliott-Smith, who openly criticised the sponsorship deal. The greenwashing and performative activism exhibited by Coca-Cola sets an example that reassures the biggest polluters that they can continue down their path of destruction of the planet for capital gain. In this light, it becomes unequivocally apparent that COP is not just enabling, but actively promoting greenwashing. The summit’s Coca-Cola sponsorship is unfortunately just the beginning of COP’s platforming and enabling major emitters. An investigation by Global Witness uncovered that at least 636 fossil lobbyists have been granted access to COP27, before even considering the number in closely related fields. This is an increase of more than 100 from COP26. By giving platform to these vast numbers of representatives who are heavily invested in delaying and reducing climate action, COP27 is drowning out those voicing the reality of our planet’s precarious position. Globally recognised climate activist Greta Thunberg refused to attend this year’s summit, after calling it an opportunity for “people in power… to [use] greenwashing, lying and cheating.” Thunberg is also among the many activists who have highlighted the irony of holding the summit in Egypt, a country notorious for violating human rights. Indeed, many prominent environmental and human rights researchers and activists have been unable to attend because they have been barred from Egypt due to their work. In a nation which is silencing challengers of its government, it cannot be surprising that the scientists and those being the most affected by the climate crisis are not being given a voice when their message does not align with the interests of those in power. The countries that are the biggest emitters are dominating discussion at COP27, but this trend is not new. Behind the show of flashy smiles put on by a sea of overwhelmingly white, male leaders, lies the reality of the exclusion of activists from nations that face some of the most severe ramifications of the climate crisis. The people who suffer the consequences of Western greed are poorly represented at COP, as their experiences would force world leaders to take accountability that they have demonstrated they are unwilling to take. Jennifer Olachi Unchendu, one of many Nigerian people struggling to access COP, told The Guardian: “voices like mine who advocate for climate justice, loss and damage finance may be seen as threats”. Many African activists like Unchendu, who are from some of the countries which have been the most devastated by the climate crisis reported struggling to gain access to COP, despite the continent being vastly disproportionately impacted, with hundreds of deaths due to floods and landslides, and approximately 37 million people facing starvation as a consequence of droughts. COP27 was dubbed ‘the African COP’, yet just a month before it commenced, just over 20% of grassroots activists received approval, whilst others reported being told there were no spaces left. Only a small minority of this percentage anticipate sourcing the funding to travel to Egypt. This apparent lack of space is in spite of the more than 600 attendance approvals made for fossil fuel lobbyists. COP27 is being held in a country which represses its citizens rights to freedom of expression and association, being sponsored by a company described as the “world’s top polluter”, and platforming the some of the biggest emitting nations and companies in the world. It would be fallacious to assert that this summit will yield significant progress in tackling the climate crisis when it is protecting the interests of those benefiting from the destruction of the planet.