0:03

The Economist Hello

0:11

and welcome to the Intelligence for the Economist.

0:13

I'm Ora Ogimbi. And I'm

0:15

Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide

0:18

a fresh perspective on the events shaping

0:20

your world. An

0:25

uncomfortably large share of the internet's

0:27

infrastructure is run by volunteers. It's

0:31

a vulnerability that has existed since it was

0:33

created. Why won't the rich

0:35

tech companies just do something about it?

0:40

And bankers and accountants think about careers

0:42

on an up or out basis. You

0:45

rise through the ranks to this level in this

0:47

amount of time, or you're out. But

0:49

research suggests a more enlightened

0:51

way to navigate, move across

0:53

sometimes. Not just up. First

1:02

up though. In

1:10

Brazil, something's popping up in troubling numbers

1:12

that hasn't been seen since the COVID-19

1:15

pandemic. Emergency field hospitals.

1:21

Since bringing people in droves to

1:23

these open air medical facilities is

1:25

again a virus. Not

1:27

COVID, but dengue. Transmitted by

1:29

mosquitoes. Denge fever will

1:32

just put you on your back. It

1:34

started with just this feeling of lethargy.

1:36

I just didn't have any energy to

1:38

get up and do anything. Peter

1:41

Granitz, one of our producers, learned several

1:43

years ago that the symptoms can vary

1:45

hugely. Many infections show none

1:47

at all. Unlucky your victims

1:50

get something called break bone fever.

2:00

the flu. This is not strep throat

2:02

and I could not eat anything

2:04

for days. And

2:06

then I had a rash on my body. I could

2:09

not take enough over-the-counter pain

2:11

medicine to deal with the pain.

2:13

I fancied myself kind of strong, kind of tough. I

2:16

was completely wiped out and nothing was doing it.

2:20

The unluckiest patients develop hemorrhagic

2:22

fever and die. It's

2:24

estimated that globally, dengue takes at least 40,000

2:27

lives each year. Those

2:30

field hospitals are a response to a

2:32

staggering surge in cases. A

2:34

couple decades ago, Latin America had

2:36

about a half million cases annually.

2:39

Last year, four and a half

2:41

million. So far this year, nearly

2:43

six. And it's still eight.

2:48

In Brazil, fumigation efforts have been hugely

2:50

increased. But higher tech solutions are going

2:52

to be needed and more countries should

2:55

get ready to fight this same battle.

2:58

Dengue case numbers are rising really sharply this

3:00

year. But this is part of a broader

3:02

trend. We seem to be breaking new records

3:05

in terms of case numbers each year. Kate

3:09

Barker is a principal economist with our

3:11

sister company, the Economist Intelligence Unit. In

3:14

Latin America, it's finding it very difficult to do

3:16

very much about it, partly because

3:19

there's no particular treatment for the disease.

3:21

To date, there hasn't been a very

3:23

decent vaccine. And also climate change means

3:25

that we're seeing lots more of these

3:27

dengue carrying mosquitoes around. We

3:30

started off talking about Brazil, but this sounds like

3:32

a much bigger problem than just Brazil's. Yes,

3:35

that's right, Jason. It's spreading really

3:37

fast in other countries as well.

3:39

We're seeing lots of cases in

3:41

Argentina, in Mexico, Central America and

3:43

the Caribbean. And that's particularly

3:45

worrying because these countries don't normally see cases

3:47

until later in the year. So I

3:50

think the concern there is that this is

3:52

just a precursor to a much worse wave

3:54

in the summer. And also, interestingly, it's

3:56

also showing up in countries that don't

3:58

normally see the disease. tool like Uruguay

4:01

and Chile and that's very much related

4:03

to the issue of climate and the

4:05

fact that these countries are seeing more

4:07

tropical weather where there were lots more

4:10

mosquitoes circulating. And just to

4:12

put things into a kind of perspective here

4:14

we've talked certainly about other diseases on the

4:16

show like malaria like COVID. When it comes

4:18

to spreads, long-term impacts, how do these things

4:20

compare? Well I think we have

4:22

a certain similarities. That was the first thing

4:25

that struck me really seeing the field hospitals

4:27

in Brazilia. You know it looked just like

4:29

COVID and I think that fear too of

4:31

catching something that's spreading really quickly and the

4:33

fact that yes you protect yourself by wearing

4:35

insect repellent but as we all know when

4:37

we've used it sometimes you just get bitten

4:39

anyway. It's also similar to COVID in that

4:42

people can come down with a really bad

4:44

case of it like we heard Peter describe

4:46

but also you get lots of people who

4:48

don't get symptoms at all. And also like

4:51

COVID you can catch dengue again and

4:53

that's because there are four strains of it. You

4:56

can't catch the same strain again but you

4:58

can catch one of the others. And

5:00

it's worth pointing out some people do die

5:02

from it. They're the severe form of the

5:04

disease called dengue hemorrhagic fever and

5:07

if you've already had dengue before and you end

5:09

up catching another strain of it your

5:11

risk of contracting this severe form is much

5:13

higher. And so what

5:16

can governments do about this? What is

5:18

the public health policy response? Well

5:20

I think the difficulty is that governments

5:22

really have very few short-term fixes available

5:25

to them. As I mentioned there hasn't

5:27

previously been a very effective vaccine. One

5:30

was rolled out back in 2015 called Dengvaxia but

5:34

it was subsequently found that it only works

5:36

if a person has definitely had one of

5:38

the dengue strains before. If they haven't it

5:40

actually makes them more vulnerable to catching the

5:42

severe dengue. So obviously you

5:45

know it's far from ideal it's not

5:47

really used very much anymore. Now

5:49

the potentially good news is that there

5:51

are several second generation vaccines that have

5:53

been in development in the last couple

5:55

of years and one from a Japanese

5:57

firm that's promising. It's called Kyudenga. It

6:00

doesn't seem to have the same issues that Dengvaxia had,

6:02

but the problem is that it's new,

6:05

it's not being manufactured in particularly high

6:07

quantities. And there's another vaccine also

6:09

that's worth mentioning that's in the final phases

6:11

of tests, but even if it all goes

6:13

well, it won't be available until next year

6:15

at the earliest. So I think the bottom

6:18

line is that these vaccines won't do anything

6:20

to curb the current epidemic. So in

6:22

terms of addressing the outbreak, we've

6:24

seen local governments resorting to fumigation

6:26

by public health workers, these teams

6:28

of people decked head to toe

6:30

in white suits, spraying insects aside

6:32

around. But I think the

6:35

problem is that it's incredibly difficult to spray

6:37

in every single nook and cranny where mosquitoes

6:39

might be lurking. You kind of

6:41

feel looking at the pictures, they're fighting a losing

6:43

battle, it seems. I know it's a very sort

6:45

of low tech way of tackling a rapidly

6:48

spreading disease. There are

6:50

also some more interesting higher tech examples

6:52

of dealing with the epidemic. Such

6:55

as? Well, one thing they've

6:57

been trying in parts of Asia is

6:59

infecting mosquitoes with a bacteria called Wolbachia

7:01

that essentially makes it much less likely

7:04

that mosquitoes will transmit dengue. Essentially,

7:06

this done in a science

7:08

lab, injecting Wolbachia into mosquito

7:10

eggs, then the mosquitoes are

7:13

reared, and then the modified adult mosquitoes

7:15

are released into the local population. And

7:17

essentially the idea is that they start to outnumber

7:20

dengue spreading ones. It's been tested

7:22

and rolled out in some places, including Singapore,

7:24

to some success. Now, Singapore's case

7:26

is quite interesting in terms of it

7:28

is very much the gold standard in

7:30

terms of how it deals with dengue,

7:33

which is also endemic in that country.

7:35

They're also very advanced in terms of

7:37

using data analytics to check where dengue

7:39

cases are cropping up, where mosquitoes are

7:41

swarming, and they use all of this

7:43

information to then spray insecticide preemptively. So

7:45

the idea is that they detect these

7:47

epidemics before they spiral out of control.

7:50

And so I think it's very interesting

7:52

and useful lesson for Latin America. I

7:54

think the problem is that It's really

7:56

very expensive to do that. Singapore spends a

7:58

lot of money on its... They control programs

8:00

and and the bottom line think is

8:03

very much that Latin America lacks the

8:05

kind of funds to replicate those programs

8:07

that Singapore users. And you hinted

8:09

earlier that the climate change is not always something to

8:11

do with this person. Might make this worse in the

8:13

future. When. I think they

8:15

were to trans say explain the surge

8:17

in day as fast as definitely. Climate

8:20

deniers, mosquitoes spies in hot humid climates.

8:22

And what we see this past year

8:24

is that more places in Latin America

8:27

as seeing these sorts of took conditions

8:29

a warmer winters will simply wrong. Biggest

8:31

on jumping say much says these mosquitoes

8:34

aren't necessary been killed all sides a

8:36

winter I mustn't thera to trends. the

8:38

other one is rising urbanization. Since then

8:41

she's the fact that there were lots

8:43

more potential victims in. Densely populated areas

8:45

like cities means that case of

8:47

us can by really fast. And.

8:49

If you think about the nature cities in

8:52

that's America yes he knew they were modern

8:54

pass but there's also a fair share of

8:56

poor areas places when buildings have makes a

8:58

flat these for example well made more to

9:01

can pool in a some people don't have

9:03

plumbing so they still water in these huge

9:05

open tax outside. Grounds

9:08

the mosquitoes passing over. My concern

9:10

is that even though there are

9:12

some encouraging signs intensive better vaccines

9:15

that the public awareness of the

9:17

disease to this is completely outpaced

9:19

by. Climate Change and urbanization and

9:21

see the each year we'll see more

9:23

areas affected, more people infected and governments

9:26

in Latin America. We on the fact

9:28

that attempts at dealing with. Thanks.

9:31

Very much. people

9:52

and most of their time on

9:54

line on to talk for other

9:56

instagram is where it's up or

9:59

any number other sites and apps. But

10:02

whatever your choice of platform, behind it

10:04

all is the plumbing of the internet, code

10:06

that routes data and protects your

10:09

sensitive information and financial details. The

10:12

Economist Explains is a series of

10:14

short, sharp articles answering

10:16

questions about our world. Questions

10:19

like, why is this

10:21

vital software that runs our lives maintained

10:24

by a community of enthusiastic

10:26

volunteers? The

10:29

control and running of the internet's infrastructure

10:31

has always been decentralised basically since it

10:33

was created a decade ago. Chris

10:38

Dokal Walker writes about technology for the

10:40

Economist. There's

10:42

been a regular sort of uneasy

10:44

truce between the state-backed enterprises that

10:46

helped bankroll the internet and the

10:49

businesses that have capitalised on its

10:51

success, and the

10:53

academics and hobbyists who have tended

10:55

to be involved in keeping the

10:57

plumbing going. So, although those hobbyists

10:59

have a really vital role in

11:01

keeping the internet online, it

11:04

is an underlying challenge for them

11:06

and they can't always be relied on

11:08

to keep it going constantly. Let's

11:11

take a step back a little bit. How are

11:13

these hobbyists keeping the internet's

11:15

plumbing going? Every time

11:18

that you click on a website, enter

11:20

some text into a text box if

11:22

you're buying something or even frankly if

11:24

you're just using an app. There's

11:26

lots of stuff going on behind the scenes

11:29

that is powered by software tools. That

11:31

is often developed for free by those

11:34

hobbyists who make the underlying code publicly

11:36

available through what's called the open source

11:38

community. And the idea behind that is

11:41

if people can see this code they

11:43

can then look for any issues and

11:45

maintain it. And if anything were to

11:47

go wrong, or frankly if hackers

11:49

were to try and target it, then you want to

11:52

try and stay one step ahead. So those

11:54

open source volunteers, they're trying to keep it up to

11:56

date, they're trying to keep it bug free, and most

11:58

of all they're trying to to keep it secure.

12:01

Which you say a community of volunteers

12:04

can't be relied on to do. Absolutely

12:06

not. These tools that

12:09

are built by one or

12:11

two people and maintained by

12:13

potentially less than a dozen

12:15

are keeping huge multi-billion dollar

12:17

businesses online. The

12:19

individuals who first created it didn't imagine

12:21

that would be the case. And so

12:24

suddenly the pressure gets much greater on

12:26

them. Life also can get in the

12:28

way. Maybe you started a project in

12:30

your teenage years and you now have

12:33

several kids and many, many other responsibilities.

12:36

We know that there have been some people

12:38

who have been responsible for maintaining these

12:40

tools who have said this is negatively

12:42

affected their mental health. And so the

12:44

lack of upkeep on that can be

12:46

a real danger to internet users. In

12:49

what way? What has gone wrong? So

12:51

Synopsys, which is a cybersecurity firm,

12:53

analyzed software across 17 different industries

12:56

and they found that around about three

12:58

quarters of the code they reviewed was

13:00

vulnerable to hackers or had been previously

13:03

exploited. Now I reported

13:05

on a story 10 years ago for

13:07

another publication of a flaw in OpenSSL,

13:09

which is an encryption software company used

13:11

to keep huge amounts of the internet

13:14

secure. Basically your passwords or your purchases

13:16

whenever you go onto a website. Problem

13:19

was it didn't work. There was

13:21

this vulnerability called Heartbleed. A

13:23

new online security bug dubbed Heartbleed

13:25

had top websites like Yahoo, Facebook

13:28

and Google scrambling to make their

13:30

sites secure. Usernames, passwords, credit card

13:32

numbers, home addresses, phone numbers and

13:34

all kinds of information could be

13:37

stolen. The underlying issue

13:39

was that essentially the internet was being

13:41

protected by two guys named Steve. They

13:44

had admitted and they knew that there were

13:46

some issues with this, but they've got too

13:48

big for them to maintain. So

13:50

software was really vulnerable to bad actors

13:52

and that was a warning shot almost

13:55

a decade ago. But this

13:57

has continued ever since Just

13:59

last month. we had eggs You

14:01

Tills which is a tool designed

14:04

to compress and decompress. States are

14:06

on the Linux operating system that

14:08

keeps a lot of key things

14:10

running so power plant systems or

14:12

air traffic control systems know. A

14:14

volunteer we learned had managed to

14:17

smuggle malware into the code that

14:19

allowed hackers to then send the

14:21

salaries command. That could in fact

14:23

of cause some big issues. Curse.

14:26

Spc season go on. For years

14:28

haven't been any attempts to increase

14:30

the maintenance and security of the

14:32

Infinite. Some for success. There

14:35

have, but they haven't always been ceaseless

14:37

successful. or and that's a big problem

14:39

around. About six months after the hardly

14:41

this you a decade ago, I caught

14:44

up with one of those two Steve's

14:46

because in the initial reporting of that

14:48

story and ask him what he needed

14:50

in, he said probably about a million

14:52

dollars to actually pay people full time

14:55

to maintain this code base. Now we

14:57

got that. He got big tech funding

14:59

from the likes of Google and others

15:01

to develop a more stringent, more full

15:03

time, more professionalized, Way of keeping

15:06

this software secure. But

15:08

the problem is the headlines go

15:10

away. The focus is no longer

15:12

on that issue and so that

15:15

funding that interest can sometimes subside

15:17

in reality will be easier probably

15:19

to actually build stuff from scratch.

15:21

We've still relying on t bits

15:23

of infrastructure that was perhaps first

15:26

conceived of maybe sixty years ago

15:28

to run key parts of the

15:30

internet's but the issue is we

15:32

built so much on top of

15:34

the internet. infrastructure is way too

15:37

deeply embedded to rebuild completely. And

15:39

know to miss lane sense of

15:41

exists for anyone companies to finance

15:43

to complete overhaul of the and

15:45

snap kind of just trundling along

15:48

and the wheels are almost falling

15:50

off but not quite Now there

15:52

is some help on the horizon.

15:54

The Open Source Security Foundation isn't

15:56

developer community does trying to make

15:58

the internet more the cure but

16:01

the problem is and they say

16:03

this themselves. take join some all

16:05

keen on building big shiny skyscrapers.

16:08

says. The tech companies won't build

16:10

percent success. Is there any

16:12

hope? For instance, currencies be

16:14

improve. If. We know that

16:16

big tech companies aren't really going to

16:19

focus our attention. On the plumbing

16:21

because the to focus on the skyscraper

16:23

then we can at least get them

16:25

to pay for the staffing to ensure

16:27

that the pipes are safe but that

16:29

does require some significant things top and

16:31

not don't Currently when he francis tech

16:33

companies to come together and have never

16:36

and high competition with one another My

16:38

mean that we need to government's involves

16:40

to try and compel him to do

16:42

so. We're seeing a lot of anti

16:44

tank regulation at the minute and this

16:46

might be one step towards thoughts but

16:48

the problem is they need tools to.

16:50

Be consistent funding needs. Really pay attention

16:52

to this all the time for ah,

16:55

than just when something goes wrong. Please

16:57

thank you. Same as dissonances. The.

17:13

Conventional way to think about career success

17:15

is one direction only which has to

17:17

move up, but actually there is another

17:19

types of courage attack trying to move

17:21

sideways. And

17:23

to Palmer Rights Bartleby or column on the

17:25

world of Work. If. You

17:27

move laterally in your career. you

17:29

can earn more and be more

17:32

successful later and people don't tend

17:34

to think in those terms when

17:36

they encapsulate who envisage career success.

17:38

As studies show that if you

17:41

do move sideways and can help

17:43

organizations because it up some attention,

17:45

it also helps employs themselves. you

17:49

say studies show how do these studies show

17:51

us so there are various ones there's a

17:53

study by donald so of m i t

17:55

and a bunch of his coauthors the by

17:58

said he looked at the factors that predict

18:00

higher retention and

18:03

benchmark it to pay. The assumption being that

18:05

pay is something that people value and that

18:07

is a lever that employers can pull. And

18:09

they found that the chance to move sideways

18:12

within a firm was two and a half

18:14

times more important than pay as

18:16

a predictor of workers' willingness to stay at a

18:18

firm. So that's just from the

18:20

retention point of view. Then there's another paper

18:23

which shows that lateral moves don't

18:25

just benefit the organization, but that

18:27

employees who've moved sideways were more

18:29

likely to be promoted, more likely to

18:32

enjoy higher wage growth later in their

18:34

careers than employees who did not move

18:36

sideways. So you can move up even

18:39

if you move laterally. And then there

18:41

are others that show that good management

18:43

and lateral moves seem to go hand in

18:45

hand. So there's a recent paper by Virginia

18:47

Minnie of the Institute for Fiscal

18:49

Studies, which is a think tank here in

18:51

Britain, that looked at

18:53

the arrival of successful bosses

18:56

within teams and showed

18:58

that people who were good at managing were

19:00

associated with jumps in intra-company transfers.

19:02

And some of those were up, but a

19:04

lot of them were horizontal. And

19:06

again, people who moved sideways seem to do better

19:09

in their careers later. So

19:11

the take-home here is to keep the

19:13

ambition under wraps a bit and eventually

19:15

your ambitions shall be fulfilled. Yes,

19:18

I think that's right. I guess

19:20

it's a way of thinking about

19:22

career paths slightly differently. So it's not a

19:25

ladder, it's more sideways. And in

19:27

the process of researching this, I was

19:29

desperately searching for animals that moved sideways.

19:31

And it turns out there are

19:33

very few. There are sidewinders, but the one I

19:35

alighted on was a crab. So be more crab.

19:38

And keeping with that, though, for a lot of people,

19:40

that's not going to be satisfying, falling around as it

19:43

were in the dirt. Yes,

19:45

but I think actually lateral moves, as

19:47

you can tell from the research about

19:49

retention, is satisfying for a

19:51

number of reasons. So even if you're not

19:53

career-minded, if you're not sort of plotting your

19:55

way in this slightly meandering process to the

19:58

top, moving sideways. delivers

20:00

benefits. So one is that it's a

20:02

good way of learning new skills. Another

20:05

is that you form contacts

20:07

more naturally with other people in the

20:09

organization rather than just sitting in one

20:11

department and not moving. The

20:13

other is that it's stimulating. So people like

20:16

to stay in jobs when

20:18

they are given what are known sometimes

20:20

as just right tasks. So you're not

20:22

being tested in a way that is

20:25

completely beyond your capabilities, but you are

20:27

being tested. And one of the

20:29

reasons why people leave jobs is because they're

20:31

doing the same thing, they know exactly how

20:33

to do it, and they're bored out of

20:35

their minds. And it turns out that people

20:38

really, really, really don't like being bored, at

20:40

least not for very long periods on end.

20:42

Mason- If in fact it's so

20:44

clear that this is good both for employers and

20:46

employees, it sounds like the sort of thing that

20:48

could be maybe should be written into company policy

20:50

here and there. Paul- Yeah, I think

20:52

it's the kind of thing where employers

20:55

who are more forward-thinking have already realized

20:57

this. And so large employers

20:59

in particular have more freedom of maneuver

21:01

here. There are just that many more

21:03

opportunities that they can open up to

21:05

their employees. So they have things which

21:07

are often called internal talent marketplaces where

21:09

you can see what else is going

21:11

on in a firm, you can make

21:13

those sideways moves. And some of those

21:15

marketplaces, by the way, select on skill

21:17

rather than experience. So they really are

21:19

agnostic to where you've been in terms

21:22

of the organization. Smaller employers

21:24

will have more trouble doing this, just

21:26

there isn't the same range of opportunities.

21:28

But even for them, I think one

21:30

of the issues is can you change

21:32

mindsets? So for managers, there is a

21:34

tendency to hoard talent. If you've got

21:36

a good person on your team, you

21:38

want to keep them. And that's

21:40

not necessarily good for them or for

21:42

the organization. So that needs to change.

21:44

And then for the employee, him or

21:46

herself, there needs to be

21:49

this change in vocabulary and

21:51

mindset, which says, I don't

21:53

have to just move up, I can

21:55

move to the side, and it can pay off.

21:57

So I don't know exactly what that language. would

22:00

be but whereas we talk a

22:02

lot about scaling ladders, climbing poles,

22:05

moving on up, we need something a little

22:07

more crab-like so making a meteoric scuttle might

22:09

be the way to think about your career

22:12

going forward. Right, onward

22:14

and overword. Andrew, thank you very much

22:16

indeed. Thank you Jason. That's

22:33

all for this episode of The Intelligent. As

22:36

always, you can let us know what you think of the show by

22:39

reaching out at podcasts at eponymous.com

22:42

and we'll see you back here tomorrow. you

22:59

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