INVENIRE

In Australia, debate is raging over the status of Australia Day, the country's national day. Celebrated on the 26th of January, Australia Day marks the anniversary of the arrival of Admiral Arthur Phillip on the continent, and the beginning of British colonialism in Australia. Given the inherently colonial flavour of the holiday, the celebration has garnered opposition, with many Aboriginal Australians advocating that the Australian government "Change the Date". Although it represents the interests of a historically marginalised group (Aboriginal Australians), the Change the Date movement now exercises a notable amount of power over Australian cultural institutions. Earlier this week, Cricket Australia announced that they would no longer be referring to cricket matches happening on Australia Day as "Australia Day" games. Although Australians still  largely favour celebrating Australia Day on the 26th of January , the decision of Australian cultural institutions ...

Americans love their Constitution. Its longevity and liberal emphases have given it an untouchable status in American politics. In no other country is so much political debate dedicated to the founding document. Even in Britain, with the debate regarding Brexit, the word "unconstitutional" has been the reserve of academics and judges. One of the aspects of the US Constitution praised most often is the separation of powers between the three branches of American government - legislative, executive and judicial. By ensuring that various elected bodies constantly check and evaluate each other, it is believed that the American people are protected against tyranny. Because of the checks and balances of the Constitution, many Americans will be surprised to learn where the real seat of power in their nation lies. It is not in the Capitol building, nor in the White House, nor in the Supreme Court: the real heart of American power is in Silicon Valley, in the hands of the ever-dominant...

As much as we value should value logic and the scientific method, we must recognise that politics is not the reason-driven battle that we often treat it as. At the ballot box, and in Parliament, we are emotional actors. While ideological discussion is important, the work of every economics professor in the country is no match for the emotive rhetoric that politics is built upon. This phenomenon is only exacerbated by the democratic nature of modern politics. The more accessible political discussion is, the less rooted in science and philosophy it becomes. There are two primary strains to political activism. Both have the aim of communicating political messages implicitly, though they vary slightly in method. The foremost strain is the aesthetic strain of politics. By associating certain politicians and their viewpoints with certain visual representations, one can either bring a set of ideas into the forefront or leave it for disrepute. A clear example of how the aesthetics phenomenon m...

 The 2020 Presidential Election is set to be the most expensive and most soughtly contended of all time. The incumbent has spent the past four years in the White House after a shock victory in 2016. His opponent, a veteran politician and the right-hand man of Obama, is projected, by most major pundits and news outlets to be the forty-sixth President of the United States, and by a comfortable margin. The Economist's  election forecast data , predicts, as of the 29th of October, that Biden will win the Electoral College with 350 votes to Trump's 188. FiveThirtyEight has projected a  347-191 victory for Biden. With respect to the noteworthy events of the year thus far, Invenire predicts a 279 to 259 victory for Trump (270 Electoral College votes are required to win the Presidency). In particular, Invenire believes that Trump will retain the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, despite it being Biden's home state. Map-maker courtesy of 270towin.com Arizona Once considered to be a re...

More than eight months after Britain's first case of COVID-19, the country is still under acute restrictions. More than 700,000 have contracted the disease and more than forty thousand have died. With the highest case-fatality rate in Europe  and the eighth highest in the world,  it is widely accepted that the country's response to the virus has been a failure. However, many have erroneously concluded that the solution to the problem is a set of even more punishing restrictions. In response to the months of lockdown, political debate has erupted. A recent poll, courtesy of Sky News/You Gov, found that 67% of the country were in favour of a strict two-week lockdown. Any attempt to regress the country back into lockdown must be resisted; not only least because it is impractical, but because it is a poor response to the pandemic. In Wales, First Minister Mark Drakeford and his Labour Government have come under increasing scrutiny for their draconian response to the lockdown. Indi...

The Western world has rejected oligarchic and autocratic governmental structures. Foolishly, we have pushed them aside, denouncing them as immoral, favouring liberal democracies instead. Contradicting nearly all history, we view these two conditions (wealth and democracy) as inseparable. When we look to the poorest regions of the world, this ill-found sentiment is only reaffirmed; it is easy to look to a despot in Africa and shout, "Look! You need democracy to succeed." However, a simple review of the histories' of developed countries tells otherwise. Despite its seemingly successful practice in the Global North, democracy hinders the development of the Global South. Foremost, we must address the most obvious contention: it is true that nations like Taiwan, New Zealand and Norway are both developed and democratic. Furthermore, it is true that there are nations like North Korea and Chad that are both poor and under authoritarian regimes. However this correlation is mislead...

Intelligence is one of the most misunderstood concepts imaginable. Contrary to popular belief, intelligence is not too complex to be summarised; researchers found a method of doing so over a century ago. It is not easily changeable after childhood and is largely inherited. Lastly, intelligence has important ramifications, ranging from life expectancy to criminality. Although there are myriad types of intelligence tests, researchers in this field have observed that the level of correlation between intelligence tests that purport to measure different aspects of cognitive ability is high. This correlation was labelled g and is now what scientists are referring to when discussing intelligence. G was first proposed by English psychologist Charles Spearman, in his paper "General Intelligence" Objectively Determined and Measured. Spearman examined the results of various tests of both crystallised and fluid intelligences and noted a significant correlation between seemingly unrelate...