Cash is no longer king, but we still need it

In an increasingly digital world, cash seems like an unnecessary anachronism. But there are actually compelling reasons not to abandon cash completely.

Paper money accounts for just 20% of all financial transactions these days, down from 54% just 15 years ago. A fifth of Canadians no longer carry any cash around with them. But if we were to go completely digital, as some would have us do, we would probably regret it. 

The Canadian government's Bill C-2, designed to make money laundering more difficult, would actually make the use of cash in general more difficult, by making large cash payments, donations and deposits illegal, and banning the use of "night drops" of business' cash earnings (which actually puts the businesses at higher risk). That has many people upset for a variety of reasons. It's also another step towards a completely cashless society, which, it is argued, would be a mistake.

First off, cash is not reliant on electricity, a communications network, or a secure payments system. The increasing prevalence of wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural (and unnatural) disasters puts the whole system needed for digital transactions at risk. Case in point, back-to-back typhoons decimated the infrastructure of the Philippines just last month,.and the resulting devastation was made much worse by the breakdown in its financial system. Point-of-sale machines went down, e-wallets became useless, cellphones died, and Filipinos had no way to spend their money, even to buy a loaf of bread, in the county's almost-completely-digital financial system. A similar thing happened in China's Hainan province the previous year.

Digital finances are also vulnerable to hacking by malcontents and hostile countries. After Russia invaded Ukraine, physically and digitally, in 2022, cash use in Ukraine (and several other nearby countries) spiked, as the inhabitants worried that Russia would come for their life savings through cyber-attacks. And don't even get me started on the now regular hacking of bit-coins and other supposedly secure crypto-currencies.

Some people like cash because it offers an easy way to budget, and a hard cap on what they can spend, while credit cards and online transactions open up their entire borrowing limit, risking gross overspending.

Some 12% of Canadians don't even have a credit card at all, and rely on cash to survive. Victims of domestic abuse are encouraged to keep a stockpile of cash, just in case they are cut off from their funds. First Nations reserves pretty much run on cash, and many older people the world over use nothing else. Even many small businesses prefer cash, as it avoids those steep credit card fees.

I don't use much cash myself, particularly since the pandemic, when a lot of old habits bit the dust. But I always have some on hand, just in case. 

On the virtues of solitude

Finally, an article extolling the merits of solitude! I'm not one of the world's great socializers. I like my "me time", always have done. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a complete misanthrope: I do socialize, although it's usually my wife (or a third person) that initiates it. But solitude has earned a bad rap in recent years, and that seems a shame to me.

The main reason, of course, is the veritable explosion of research and media coverage on loneliness. We are told that loneliness is approaching epidemic levels, and that social isolation increases the risk of premature death by 25%, worse than drinking six alcoholic drinks a day, or 15 cigarettes!

But, as this article stresses, loneliness is not solitude. You can be lonely in a crowded room. People, generally speaking, don't choose to be lonely. Solitude, however, is a deliberate choice to be on your own for a while, to step off the social "stage", with all its stresses, preconceptions and rules, to spend some quiet time alone. Solitude is often thought of as a punishment (time-out for an unruly toddler, solitary confinement for a recalcitrant prisoner) but it can also be a reward: the gift of some "me time" and relaxation.

It doesn't have to involve a two-hour walk in the woods; it can just be 15 minutes snatched away from the social whirlwind. It doesn't have to be structured meditation on a yoga mat; it can just be time spent idly day-dreaming (there's an increasing body of research around letting your mind wander too). Read a book, listen to music, knit, go for that two-hour walk in the woods, whatever works for you. Don't use it to catch up on emails or special media, though - that's not solitude. And don't be alone ALL the time; that's not healthy.

There's even some research to show that some solitude can be beneficial. The "deactivation effect" helps us to calm down by taking the edge off our more intense emotions. It may even serve to recharge our "social batteries", making subsequent social interactions more positive and enjoyable. It presents an opportunity for self-discovery and reflection, and it can be an incubator for problem-solving and creativity.

So, don't be brow-beaten into going to a party you will probably hate. Don't give in to expectations and assumptions that entertaining and mingling is civilized, and time spent alone is depressing and misanthropic. It can actually be quite nice.

One of the world's weirdest plants

It looks like a kid's plasticine model of a fungus, ornpossibly some kind of sex toy, but it's actually one of the world's weirdest plants. This is balanophora fungosa. It doesn't really have a common name, although it's sometimes called fungus root. It's said to smell like mice!

It's pretty rare, growing only in the steamy subtropical mountains of Taiwan and parts of Japan. It has some close relatives in South Asia, South-East Asia, Australia and some Pacific Islands. It's actually an angiosperm, or flowering plant, related to, you know, daisies, roses and such like, but it's very different from daisies and roses in several respects.

For one thing, it contains no chlorophyll.and.so does not grow by photosynthesis like most plants. It also lacks a conventional root system, instead attaching itself to the roots of nearby treees and stealing its nutrients parasitically (although it does still retain some plastids, the organelles that normal plants use to enable photsynthesis).

The plant can also reproduce without fertilization, which is very rare in the plant world, using a process known as "facultative aganospermy" - essentially, it clones itself. This can be useful, but it also leave it highly vulnerable to habitat loss, as it is very dependent on specific confutions and tree hosts.

It does technically have flowers and seeds, some of the smallest flowers and seeds in the plant world. Thousands of tiny female flowers are contained the bulbous structure at the top, with a much smaller number of male flowers are at its base.

So, yes, pretty weird. And, of course, given its very specific habitat and the encroachment of humans, it's endangered.

The world's most populous cities

I'm sure that, just a few short years ago, Mexico City was the biggest city in the world (by population). Well, fast forward to 2025, and Mexico City is the 15th largest city!

Today the world's most populous cities are all in Asia:

• Jakarta, Indonesia: 41.9 million
• Dhaka, Bangladesh: 36.6 million
• Tokyo, Japan: 33.4 million
• New Delhi, India: 30.2 million
• Shanghai, China: 29.6 million
• Guangzhou, China: 27.6 million
• Cairo, Egypt: 25.6 million
• Manila, Philippines: 24.7 million
• Kolkata, India: 22.6 million
• Seoul, South Korea: 22.5 million

(Cairo is the only non-Asian city in the top 10.)

Iran is moving its capital city

Iran is in the process of moving its capital city. Tehran, a city of 9 million inhabitants (15 million in the entire metropolitan area) is now widely considered to be unsustainable.

Tehran has been the capital of Iran/Persia since 1786, but it is by no means the original capital. In fact, Tehran is the 32nd location of the country's capital throughout its long and turbulent history. Now, though, an acute water shortage ("water bankruptcy") due to its rapidly-draining underground aquifers, regular earthquakes, and the compressing and sinking land it is built on (it is sinking at an alarming 35cm a year!) has led to President Pezeshkian's decision that the whole capital city should be moved nearly 2,000km to the under-developed and remote Makran coast in the far south of the country. The idea has been in the air for at least 25 years, but never acted on.

Climate change (particularly in the form of failed rains) is, of course, part of the reason, but experts say that land, water and and waste-water mismanagement, overpopulation, air pollution, power shortages, and rampant corruption, has made the natural crisis much worse. The Makran region is known for its harsh climate and difficult terrain, and it is by no means certain that such a move will in fact be viable, but the writing is on the wall and the President is finally admitting that they now have little choice in the matter. 

Moving a whole megacity and all its administrative, commercial and government functions is expected to cost the country north of $100 billion. Estimates for the time required vary between 25 and 100 years! But what else to do?

How the internet can help heat our homes

Scandianvia comes up with another environmental first: Finland is using waste heat from internet and data centres to heat entire towns.

The increasingly large and numerous data centres that dot our landscape to accommodate the burgeoning demand for internet, and particularly AI, services pump out a lot of waste heat. The Finnish town of Mäntsälä plans on utilizing that heat with a district heating system that captures the heat and using it to heat homes in the town.

What a neat solution, and how very Scandinatvian!

Should we be worried about trans women in sports?

The issue of transgender women in sports keeps raising its head from time to time. My wife's personal trainer has been banging on to her about it for years now. Right wingers like Donald Trump and Danielle Smith raise the issue whenever they remember. (I'm not totally sure why it's mainly a right-wing issue.) JK Rowling contunues to dismay her otherwise loyal following every now and then by bringing the matter up.

The latest blow-up occurred when Skate Canada, Canada's national skating body (and independent of the federal government), announced that it will stop holding major national and international events in the province of Alberta due to Alberta's recently-legislated ban on transgender women competing in women's sports in the province, as the ban contravenes Skate Canada's "national standards for safe and inclusive sports".

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who went to the lengths of using the notwithstanding clause to get her legislation passed (as it would otherwise have contravened the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms), of course shot back that she thought that Skate Canada's decision was "disgraceful" and that she expects "they will apologize and adjust their policies" once they realize the error of their ways. (As it happens, there are no upcoming national or international events scheduled to take place in Alberta for the foreseeable future.) 

Smith also said that the decision was "offside with the international community, including the International Olympic Committee, which is moving in the same direction as Alberta". This is disingenuous, shall we charitably say, as is so much that Danielle Smith says. In fact, the IOC is just in the process of reviewing its position on female sports, and has made no pronouncements either way. Currently, it leaves specific rules to to the various international federations for individual sports, although there are rumours that it may be moving towards some kind of ban later next year, although whether that will be a blanket ban or something based on testosterone counts is not clear. The International Paralympic Conmittee will probably come to very different conclusions.

So, is this a real issue? Or is it just a straw man/woman, one that the right wing loves to mobilize every now and then to placate its more militant members? How many people does it affect anyway? Well, San Francisco's Office of Transgender Initiatives has produced its own handy summary of the situation. And yes, I know they have their own axe to grind, or at least their own confirmed views, but at least they are attempting to create some perspective on a very divisive issue.

First off, an estimated 1% of the US population identify as transgendered (more than I would have thought), and I assume a similar proportion in Canada and western Europe. Very few of them, though, have any interest in sport: 0.002% of college athletes are trans, and less than 0.001% of Olympians. This is a vanishingly small percentage to have engendered such a maelstrom of political attention. 

It certainly seems to have attracted significantly more attention than much more worrying and prevalent problems like sexual abuse of women in sport. It has also led to some unfortunate incidents like schoolkids in Florida and several other states being subjected to genital inspections.

It's not a new issue, either. Renee Richards, a trans woman, was competing in tennis back in the 1970s (she never actually won anything). Veronica Ivy became track cycling champion in 2018, although only for an advanced age bracket. Laurel Hubbard competed in Olympic weightlifting in 2020, but, despite all the media attention, she didn't win anything either.

There is also some confusion about cisgender athletes being accused of being transgendered. This is often due to high testosterone levels, but is sometimes just based on their rather masculine appearance. Perhaps the most famous is Caster Semenya, the successful South African middle distance runner who has won several World Championships and a gold medal in the 2016 Olympics. She is not transgender, though, she just has very high natural levels of testosterone, as some women do. In 2019, World Athletics required her to take medications to suppress her natural testosterone in order to compete (she refused, and sued World Athletics for discrimination). 

There are others: Imane Khelif, a cisgender female boxer from Algeria, who was accused of being transgender and hounded out of the sport; Dutee Chand, an Indian athlete who was excluded from selection for her butch appearance, despite not being trans; and at least five other African runners who were all withdrawn from their events for their high natural testosterone levels and/or their masculine appearance.

So, what does the evidence from scientific studies show us? 

A 2021 study in the journal Sports Medicine concluded that there is no scientific evidence to support policymakers' attempts to ban transgender women in sports. A 2024 study, partly funded by the IOC and published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that trans women have little physical advantage, and may actually have several disadvantages, when competing with cisgender women:

• Trans women performed worse than cis women in tests measuring lower body strength.
• Trans women performed worse than cis women in tests measuring lung function.
• Trans women had a higher body fat mass and a weaker hand grip strength than cis men.
• Trans women's bone density (linked to muscle strength) was about the same as that of cis women, not better.
• Trans women's hemoglobin profile (also a factor in athletic performance) was also about the same as that of cis women, not better.

All this to say that the issue of trans women in sports is probably much more about politics than it is about sports.

Gen Z protests coupled with social media is becoming a powerful force for change

The Gen Z protests across the developing world are becoming 2025's Arab Spring.

In a bunch of countries, from Nepal to the Philippines to Peru, Indonesia, Madagascar, Bulgaria and Morocco, young people have been leveraging social media to foment what can only be described as revolution. And very successful they have been too.

In Nepal, in response to government corruption, wealth inequality, and a clampdown on social media, young people took to the streets, organizing through platforms like Discord, Reddit, TikTok and Instagram. The protests turned violent after some poor decisions by security forces, but ultimately the social media ban was overturned, the unpopular prime minister resigned, and the young people got to choose his replacement through a poll on Discord (a popular gaming platform). Extraordinary scenes, indeed.

Just a few days later, young people in Madagascar protested against chronic water and power shortages, high unemployment, and underfunded universities. Once again, the protests turned violent and several people were killed. But, in the end, the unpopular president fled, and the military took control of the country. This may not play out quite so well for the protestors, but the power of young voices amplified by social media is undeniable.

Elsewhere, Gen Zers have been galvanized against different local problems - parliamentary salaries, corruption and a police crackdown in Indonesia; pension plans, extortion and crime in Peru; public services, unemployment and government spending decisions in Morocco; flood control projects and corruption in the Philippines; corruption, taxes and social sevices contributions in Bulgaria. But many of the protest strategies are similar, and many of them have even taken to using a common symbol - a pirate with a toothy grin and straw hat, taken from a Japanese manga series. 

The protests are a weird mix of the playful and the deadly earnest, but they have been undeniably effective. However, whether these young people know what they want now (as opposed to what they don't want from before) is an open question.