Monthly Archives: September 2017

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS OUT OF CONTROL AND WILL IF LEFT TO ITS SELF DESTROY WHAT IS LEFT.

29 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Life., Our Common Values., Technology, The Future, The Obvious., Unanswered Questions., Where's the Global Outrage.

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(If you want a future worth living here is a crucial half an hour read)

Most of us know that we are in the middle of a technological upheaval that will transform the way society is organized and the beast we are unleashing can be used for good and bad.

Long before what Elon Musk and Mr Hawking predict there is a much more immediate threat when it comes to AI. Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of iflytek"The holy grail of AI the microchip will surpass the power of the human, creating a whole new world of Quantum computing, one in which machines think and work in ways indiscernible to the human brain.

Rest assured that Capitalism will concentrate AI global wealth to a few and the disparity effects will be sever and this will happen faster and faster with a massive dislocation in the lower skills in society.

Just imagine an AI that learns to navigate the web environment.

It will not be Twitter voting in Donald Trumps or Social media promoting Populist Parties it will be an army of AI bot web trolls harassing what we now call Social Media to the point that there will be no true public opinion worth its salt.

Putin recently said AI leaders will rule the world. He is right. It will create even larger power inequality.

We are well on the way to one way flow of technology with Data as the rocket engine.

We are already using AI without even knowing it.

The Capitalistic world will come under bigger AND BIGGER cyber security issues, with terrorist acquiring clandestine powers that will be unverifiable.

So I ask the question are we prepared for AIs that start building their own normative systems – their own rules about what is acceptable and what is unacceptable for a machine.

Remember using your face to unlock your smart phone is unlocking your mind. A world with facial ID software is one that will spiral out of control.

Gay, Straight, Terrorist, Left or Right, Lidel or Sainsburys, Male or Female, Criminal or not, Rich or Poor.

Regardless of what we do, what’s clear, is that if we want technology to do what we want it to do we need for all technological advancements to be vetted by an Self Financing, Transparent, Independent World Organisation, other than the United Nations.

The United Nations recently opens a new talking shop center in the Netherlands to monitor artificial intelligence and predict possible threats.

“Artificial Intelligence has both the potential to accelerate progress towards a dignified life, in peace and prosperity, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

When in fact it also has the potential to destroy what is left of our world.

The United nations Technology for Development (UN CSTD) acknowledges that many technological and development gaps still remain. A Joke.  Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of AI"

The real question is not the gaps but who or what should take control and overlook its development.

It is my contention that the UN is total the wrong Organisation to provide a neutral platform for international dialogue, which can build a common understanding of emerging technologies.

However it is best placed to set up a totally independent Organ separate from the UN that is responsible to the people of the world not to the 5 stock piles of nuclear weapons or the developing technology.

The opportunity to use AI to solve some of the world’s grandest challenges cannot be left to Government Regulation, The Free Market, The arms race, or to Capitalist Greed especially in the form of multi global monopoly corporations, like Apple, Microsoft to name but two.

Why?

Here are a few reasons:

Because algorithms know pretty well what we do, what we think and how we feel—possibly even better than our friends and family or even ourselves.

In fact, we are being remotely controlled ever more successfully in this manner. The more is known about us, the less likely our choices are to be free and not predetermined by others.

It won’t stop there.

Some software platforms are moving towards “persuasive computing.”

In the future, using sophisticated manipulation technologies, these platforms will be able to steer us through entire courses of action, be it for the execution of complex work processes or to generate free content for Internet platforms, from which corporations earn billions.

The trend goes from programming computers to programming people.

These technologies are also becoming increasingly popular in the world of politics.

Under the label of “nudging,” and on massive scale, governments are trying to steer citizens towards healthier or more environmentally friendly behavior by means of a “nudge”—a modern form of paternalism.

This appears to be a sort of digital scepter that allows one to govern the masses efficiently, without having to involve citizens in democratic processes.

The magic phrase is “big nudging”, which is the combination of big data with nudging.

To many, believe that this could overcome vested interests and optimize the course of the world?

If so, than citizens could be governed by a data-empowered “wise king”, who would be able to produce desired economic and social outcomes almost as if with a digital magic wand.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of iflytek"

Nobody knows how the digital magic wand, that is to say the manipulative nudging technique, should best be used. What would have been the right or wrong measure often is apparent only afterwards.

Artificial intelligence is no longer programmed line by line, but is now capable of learning, thereby continuously developing itself.

Algorithms can now recognize handwritten language and patterns almost as well as humans and even complete some tasks better than them. They are able to describe the contents of photos and videos. Today 70% of all financial transactions are performed by algorithms.

News content is, in part, automatically generated. This all has radical economic consequences: in the coming 10 to 20 years around half of today’s jobs will be threatened by algorithms. 40% of today’s top 500 companies will have vanished in a decade.

One thing is clear: the way in which we organize the economy and society and the world will change fundamentally.

The automation of society is next.

With this, society is at a crossroads, which promises great opportunities, but also considerable risks. If we take the wrong decisions it could threaten our greatest historical achievements.

Every minute we produce hundreds of thousands of Google searches and Facebook posts. These contain information that reveals how we think and feel.

It is estimated that in 10 years’ time there will be 150 billion networked measuring sensors, 20 times more than people on Earth. Then, the amount of data will double every 12 hours. Many companies are already trying to turn this Big Data into Big Money.

Do we want to live in a point scoring loyalty citizen card China / Singapore world.

Today, Singapore is seen as a perfect example of a data-controlled society. What started as a program to protect its citizens from terrorism has ended up influencing economic and immigration policy, the property market and school curricula.

According to recent reports, every Chinese citizen will receive a so-called ”Citizen Score”, which will determine under what conditions they may get loans, jobs, or travel visa to other countries. This kind of individual monitoring would include people’s Internet surfing and the behavior of their social contacts.

With consumers facing increasingly frequent credit checks and some online shops experimenting with personalized prices, we are on a similar path in the West.

It is also increasingly clear that we are all in the focus of institutional surveillance. This was revealed in 2015 when details of the British secret service’s “Karma Police” program became public, showing the comprehensive screening of everyone’s Internet use.

Is Big Brother now becoming a reality?

Everything started quite harmlessly.

Search engines and recommendation platforms began to offer us personalized suggestions for products and services. This information is based on personal and meta-data that has been gathered from previous searches, purchases and mobility behavior, as well as social interactions.

We don’t want A.I. to engage in cyber bullying, stock manipulation or terrorist threats;

We don’t want Governments to release A.I. systems that entrap people into committing crimes.

We don’t want autonomous vehicles that drive through red lights, or worse, A.I. weapons that violate international treaties.

We don’t want – My A.I. did it. Should not excuse illegal behavior. 

We don’t want A.I. systems producing fake tweets, producing fake news videos.

We don’t want A.I.  weaponizing, any A.I. must have an impregnable “off switch.” It should be illegal to buy, sell or manufacture weaponized AI.

We don’t want AI High Frequency Trading, Unregulated  Drones, Unregulated Genetic Engineering  or AI Biological Weapons.

We don’t want A.I. be let out into the wild.

We don’t want  A.I. Amazon Echo — a “smart speaker” present in an increasing number of homes — is privy to, or the information that your child may inadvertently divulge to a toy such as an A.I. Barbie.

We don’t want seemingly innocuous A.I. housecleaning robots create maps of our homes.

WE DO WANT.

A.I. system to clearly disclose that it is not human.

A.I. system subject to the full gamut of laws that apply to its human operator. This rule would cover private, corporate and government systems.

A.I. systems clearly labeled as such.

A.I. system that cannot retain or disclose confidential information without explicit approval from the source of that information.

Elon Musk recently urged the nation’s governors to regulate artificial intelligence “before it’s too late.”

He is too late, the A.I. horse has left the barn, and our best bet is to attempt to steer it. We must make the right decisions now, not to-morrow.

An AI Future: It’s Not What You Think.

It will not share the same sense of human empathy.

The emergence of a super intelligence / or full autonomy human fallibility must be taken out of the equation.

It will not supplement natural intelligence, you will not be able to upload your brain to the internet. It’s time to dispel these Myths…a set of relatively small failures combined together to create a catastrophe is on the horizon.

Look at the latest research from cognitive science, translate that into an algorithm, and add it to an existing system.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of iflytek"

We are trying to engineer AI without understanding intelligence or cognition first. But as AI designs get even more complex and computer processors even faster, their skills will improve. That will lead us to give them more responsibility, even as the risk of unintended consequences rises. We know that “to err is human,” so it is likely impossible for us to create a truly safe system.

We have not yet come up with a clear idea of what we want AI to do or become. This must be achieved as a matter of grave urgency as today.

Whoever gets to level 6 automation first decides for everyone else what the rules are. Otherwise known as the “Golden Rule for AI”, that is, who owns the Gold, therefore rules!

Can we avoid being wiped off the face of the Earth by machines we helped create?

Diversity has a value all in itself, and that the universe is so ridiculously large that humankind’s existence in it probably doesn’t matter at all.

Fortunately, we need not justify our existence quite yet.

Saying we embrace diversity and actually doing it are two different things—as are saying we want to save the planet and successfully doing so.

We all, individually and as a society, need to prepare for that nightmare scenario, using the time we have left to demonstrate why our creations should let us continue to exist.

If we don’t find a way to distribute our wealth better, we will have fueled capitalism with artificial intelligence laborers serving only very few who possess all the means of production.

Once a new technology is introduced it can’t be uninvented.

If we think in terms of decades then Global warming, inequality and the disruption to the global job market by AI loom large.

AS STATED BY YUVAL NOAH HARARI IN HIS CLOSING OBSERVATIONS IN HIS BOOK HOMO DEUS  ( which I quote here below and recommend to all)

” If we take the really grand view of life, all other problems and developments are overshadowed by three interlinked processes.

1) Science is converging on an all-encompassing dogma, which says that organisms are algorithms, and life is data processing.

2) Intelligence is decoupling from consciousness.

3) Non- conscious but highly intelligent algorithms may soon know us better than we know ourselves.

These three processes raise three key questions.

  1. Are Organisms really just algorithms, and is life really just data processing?

2. What’s more valuable- intelligence or consciousness?

3. What will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better that we know ourselves? ”

Concentration of wealth leads to concentration of power combined with AI that naturally lends itself to a winner takes all.

All human comments appreciated by a human, all like clicks whether generated by AI or not chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. ITS TIME FOR THE UNITED NATIONS TO STAND ON ITS OWN FEET.

26 Tuesday Sep 2017

Posted by in United Nations

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( A FIFTEEN MINUTE READ)

You only have to look at the state of the World that we all live on to know what is coming needs to be addressed.

For more than 70 years, world leaders have gathered before the United Nations General Assembly to speak and to be heard.

Recent remarks by President Trump and Mrs T May during the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly showed that the General Assembly is in need of revitalization in order to stop rhetoric that clearly breached the core principle of the United Nations aspirations, Peace in the world.

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "how is the current united nations president"

The United Nations Emblem

The design is “a map of the world representing an azimuthal equidistant projection centred on the North Pole, inscribed in a wreath consisting of crossed conventionalized branches of the olive tree, in gold on a field of smoke-blue with all water areas in white. The projection of the map extends to 60 degrees south latitude, and includes five concentric circles”

The “UN” stands for the united nations. Nations meaning just that…all of the nations on our GLOBE.  The olive branches signify peace.

It is easy to call for reforms and to threaten withholding funds or for that matter to stir up what is already a threat to world peace by making promises of total nuclear destruction.

On the other hand it is right to call on the Organisation to reform so that it can addresses the world it now exist in.

So is the UN still a force for global good, or is it another of those world organisations that is out of date.

If one looks beyond the organisation’s flaws and points to the importance of the UN on the global stage there is no doubt providing aid to the more than 55 million refugees in 123 countries is good.

The UN is a large employer but it can only operate if it receives sufficient funds.

To turn it from a begging organisation to an organisation with clout to handle the worlds coming problems due to Climate Change, Artificial Intelligence the UN needs a source of unlimited funding, so that is not attached , or reliant on any donator Country. (See previous posts)

To have any chance of being relevant in a world that is changing it must remove the United Nations Security Council “power of veto” wielded solely by the five permanent members (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States), that enabling them to prevent the adoption of any “substantive” resolution.

At this point in the post it is worth mentioning how we got the UN in the first place.

After two major wars, it was relatively easy to get smaller nations and middle powers to give up a level of sovereignty while providing little to no recourse in return. At the same time, a carrot needed to be used to lure the major world powers to the table. In an effort to give these countries a reason to come to the table — and, in effect, subjecting themselves to the will of the other major powers — they were given the power to stop substantive resolutions that might impinge on their interests from passing.

It is important to remember that the United Nations is an institution that largely owed itself to American foreign-policy thought and, as such, it was understandably influenced a great deal by how America perceived the world to be (and, just as importantly, how America perceived the world would be).

This was centered around the idea that the post-war system was going to be predicated on the idea that each of the four major players of the Allied powers– the United States, the Soviet Union, the British Empire, and the Republic of China– were going to be responsible for looking after their respective sections of the world and trying to prevent smaller conflicts from growing into larger conflicts.

In order to entice countries to join everyone agreed that decisions would require unanimity. This was, as one might guess, an astoundingly stupid decision since it meant that anything of substance was really hard to pass and remains so to the present day.

With or without the veto power the Security Council would continue to be the ultimate authority in the UN.

If somehow the veto power were taken away I personally doubt that any state would leave especially if the organisation became self financing.

If the US left, suddenly all their diplomatic power in the UN would be diminished and they run the risk of it being dominated by China or Russia.

I would say that the UN’s existence has become far more integrated and involved than the League of Nations and even with the US leaving would continue to be so important that it would not be the end of it.

It has become too useful and with almost 200 members interacting not just on security issues but environment, social, economic, refugees, labour, health, trade etc.. it has become far too important not to reform. 

The UN already does pass lots of resolutions that states such as China and the US ignore anyways, and removing the veto power would hardly change that.

Bilateral treaties and multilateral between states are not upheld because of the UN or because of the veto power, but because of the principle of pacta sunt servanda (agreements must be kept). Multilateral treaties as well as UN resolutions have vast exception mechanisms in order to get states to agree to them, and getting rid of the veto power again would not change that.

It is difficult to assess or speculate towards any consequences of removing the veto power as the process of how it happens needs to be known. If done in agreement the UN would probably continue to live on, most likely becoming more focused on negotiations and dealings with states on the Security Council to ensure that whatever proposed resolutions are passed/blocked.

Many different scenarios could be created that could change the outcome, but one thing is certain.  If the UN wants to live up to its Legitimacy it must be able to override concerns of Sovereignty which will come to the forefront in the next hundred years or so.

This can only be achieved when it becomes an Organisation that truly representative the people’s of the world, is totally transparent and Self financing.

Here is what it looks like to-day.

At the moment it’s better for the U.N. if the permanent members keep their veto power and continue funding the U.N. (particularly, the U.S., since it supplies approximately 22% of the U.N. budget at the current time).

(In 2000, the UN employed 33,049 people. In December 2016, the latest figures provided by the UN, 76,234 people were employed by the organisation – that’s more than double. Those figures don’t include people working on the UN’s peacekeeping operations.

The largest part of the total is the secretariat – the UN’s bureaucracy. That’s more than trebled in size since 2000 – from 13,164 to 39,651. But recently it’s been getting smaller. The secretariat has shrunk every year since 2010.

UNICEF, which provides aid to children, employed 13,093 people in December and has seen staff numbers rise by more than 75% since 2000.

Numbers in the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees have grown by nearly 160% from 4,142 to 10,763.

The biggest percentage change was the International Court of Justice – it has nearly four times as many staff as it did in 2000, although it still only employs 107 people.

Not everyone working for the UN will be a staff member.

For example, Unops, the UN’s project management service, employs fewer staff than it did in 2000. But it hires people for particular jobs on consultancy contracts – and those people aren’t counted.

In total, around 4,500 people are currently working for Unops – but only 843 of those are staff.)

The regular budget is agreed for two-year blocks – for 2000-01, it was a little over $2.5bn (£1.9bn at today’s rates). For 2016-17, it’s just over $5.4bn – a rise of roughly 119%, not adjusted for inflation. Not quite 140%, but still a significant increase in cash terms.

The regular budget isn’t the whole story, though. It doesn’t include the cost of peacekeeping operations. A sum of $2.7bn was set aside for those in the year 2000-01, compared with $6.8bn for 2017-18 – an increase of 148% in cash terms.

There are other costs at the UN, which fall outside both of those budgets.

There’s the cost of running the UN’s special tribunals when they’re in session – most recently examining alleged war crimes and genocide in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

And the UN spent an extra $1.9bn outside the regular budget on refurbishing its headquarters between 2002 and 2013.

The World is bigger than 5. nuclear stockpiles.  

Most current world problems have their roots in inequality caused by greed.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of famines"

Take Yemen for example it is in the grip of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

What can be done to bring an end to the war in Yemen? And is the international community ignoring what is happening on the ground?

Nothing can be achieved, unless the United Nations taps into Greed to fund itself. 

Apart from current wars it is more than shameful that in the 21st century with all our technology, globalization, and so-called International community we have not one, not two, nor three, but four famines. That we continue to destroy the planet for shot term gain to the point that there will be no need for nations never mind United Nations.     Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of famines"

It must pass a people’s resolution to place a World Aid Commission of 0.05% (See previous posts)

All comments or sharing of this post appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.

 

http://players.brightcove.net/665003303001/SJg0bzqkZ_default/index.html?videoId=5579866419001&autoplay

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: IS IT NOT TIME TO CALL A SPADE A SPADE WHEN IT COMES TO ENGLAND DEPARTURE FROM THE EU.

23 Saturday Sep 2017

Posted by in Articular 50., Brexit v EU - Negotiations.

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( A ten minute read)

Should the EU agreed to a transit exit period of two years? Which ultimately kicks Brexit down the road.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of the uk negoiators re brexit"

Should a time-limited prolongation of Union acquis be considered, this would require existing Union regulatory, budgetary, supervisory, judiciary and enforcement instruments and structures to apply.

For the most part there is a shared interest in continuing arrangements, since many nations will not want to lose preferential access terms to the UK.

So yes the EU should grant more time provided the UK continues to meet its obligations.

It is obvious that a clean break without any transit arrangements would be better for both. God forbid we start going down the road of one set of rules for the transit and another set to leave. 

Why ?

Because without England clearly identifying what it wants it to do we are opening a Pandora box.

It is the UK that wants to leave the EU not the other way around.

As I have already said in previous posts only the Lawyers will make hay, never mind the terms for the fish.  They will love a transit period with Tax payers money on both sides flowing into their coffers.  The longer the better.

The EU has it hands tied when it comes to any negotiation because it must reflect the fact that the advantages of EU membership are not available to outsiders.

It may be possible for the EU and UK to collaborate on finding a smooth transition at the WTO. But it will require consensus at some point, a vulnerability open to exploitation. Britain’s most important external agreements — nuclear, airline access, fisheries and financial services are either entirely, or in large part, handled by the EU.

Even if England creates a new trade department, the task of negotiating new free-trade deals and maintaining existing ones will require a huge amount of money and manpower. The civil service and ministers are not even close to being ready to negotiate, let alone implement, new global trading relationships.

The nearest precedent you can think of is a cessation of a country.

Britain will find itself at the diplomatic starting line, with the status quo upended and all sides reassessing their interests. After Brexit the UK will lose more than 750 international arrangements.  Even if it were simple to renegotiate these arrangements, it will open a bureaucratic vortex, sapping energy and resources, creating a huge legal tangle.

The big question is, how will the UK’s political system react once the realization has sunk in about how little the EU will ultimately offer?

What Mrs May really wants is an association agreement.

There is a strong political case for such an association agreement, also from an EU perspective. But I fear that the idea is time-inconsistent. There is no Goldilocks “creative solution”, or a sector-by-sector approach.

Therea

There is no way that the EU will agree freedom of movement for aircraft, for example, but not for passengers.

Businesses need to prepare. Two more years before having to move key employees to European capitals.

The EU only knows a very limited number of external relationships. There is the European Economic Area, the so-called Norway option full EU access in exchange for accepting all EU rules. It’s a member of the European Economic Area (EEA), which means full access to the single market but being under all EU rules.

The other is a customs union agreement — the Turkey option.

The EU will not offer the UK the “Swiss option”. It regrets having offered it to Switzerland.  Then there is the Canada option – It took hundreds of skilled negotiators, dozens of video conferences and seemingly endless days in Brussels to produce the 1,600-page text. Some seven years after Canada and the EU began negotiating a trade deal, the future of the agreement remains shrouded in doubt. The agreement – which has yet to be ratified.

This leaves a single option: a free-trade agreement.

On top of all this the EU is only just starting to talk about institutional reform.

And how can they deal seriously with a government in which the foreign secretary might at any moment move to topple the prime minister to further his own career?

To continental ears, Mrs May’s call for a unique economic partnership sounds suspiciously like another, albeit subtler, attempt for Britain to have its cake and eat it — to retain the privileges but not the responsibilities of EU membership.

The British now believe they have made reassuring noises on money, security and citizens’ rights. But the insistence that the UK will leave the customs union means that it will be hard to point to progress on another issue that the EU deems critical: the Irish border.

The future relationship will need to be based on a balance of rights and obligations. It will need to respect the integrity of the Union’s legal order and the autonomy of its decision-making.

History has the habit of repeating itself,  Britain has been a torn in the side of the EU ever since it joined and English treaties have proven themselves over its history to be not worth the paper they are written on.

Get rid of the Nigel Farage’s, Renew your membership, i.e. stay and fight your quarter, otherwise a Clean Brake would be best for all. Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of eu democracy"

All comments appreciated all like clicks chucked in the bin.

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: WHY DOES THE UNITED NATIONS TOLERATE SPEECHES THAT ARE IN BREECH OF ITS CHARTER.

22 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., Climate Change., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Nuclear power., The Future, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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 UNITED NATIONS CHARTER.

Chapter I

                            PURPOSES AND PRINCIPLES

  • To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
  • To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
  • To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
  • To be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

The Rt Hon Theresa May MPRésultat de recherche d'images pour "Donald trump recent speech at the un"

A charter represents a document that describes a project, its rationale, its goals and its participants. The purpose of a charter aims at aligning the expectations of all the contributors so that their energy focuses on the project’s priorities.

The Charter is not to be confused with The Universal Declaration of Human rights adopted after World War 11. It is perhaps the closest thing we have to a global Constitution- categorically states that the right to life is humanity’s fundamental value. Death is a crime.

It would appear that from the speeches given by either of the above that they DO NOT fully comprehended the above charter.

In his Sovereignty – centric speech Mr Trump threatened to totally destroy North Korea, called Iran a corrupt dictatorship whose main export is violence.

While Mrs May in her speech threatened withdrawal of funds.

This is not the first time not will it be the last that a World leader has used the UN to criticize other nations. Mr Bush with the axis of evil. Mr Khrushchev trumping the table and calling Filipino some obnoxious name in Russian.

Both Mr T and Mrs M appear to think that the yard stick to measure a nation’s success is GDP. This kind of thinking is driving humankind to make happiness a second goal for the twenty-first century which is highly unlikely unless inequality, war, and climate change disappear.

Surely the UN is not the platform for sovereign selfish nations to be expressing treats to other nations. Stirring up hornets nest is not what the world needs.

Here a few examples from each of their recent addresses to the UN.

MR D Trump first:

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. “Rocket Man” is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”

” It has just been announced that we will be spending almost $700 billion on our military and defense.”

Then a raft of contradictions:

” In America, we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to watch.”

” We are celebrating the 230th anniversary of our beloved Constitution, the oldest constitution still in use in the world today. This timeless document has been the foundation of peace, prosperity and freedom for the Americans, and for countless millions around the globe whose own countries have found inspiration in its respect for human nature, human dignity and the rule of law.”

“But we can no longer be taken advantage of, or enter into a one-sided deal where the United States gets nothing in return.”

“As long as I hold this office, I will defend America’s interests above all else.”

“The United States is one out of 193 countries in the United Nations, and yet we pay 22 percent of the entire budget and more. In fact, we pay far more than anybody realizes.”

“The United States of America has been among the greatest forces for good in the history of the world and the greatest defenders of sovereignty, security and prosperity for all. Now we are calling for a great reawakening of nations, for the revival of their spirits, their pride, their people and their patriotism.”

“Our hope is a word and (sic) world of proud, independent nations that embrace their duties, seek friendship, respect others and make common cause in the greatest shared interest of all, a future of dignity and peace for the people of this wonderful Earth.”

“This institution was founded in the aftermath of two world wars to help shape this better future. It was based on the vision that diverse nations could cooperate to protect their sovereignty, preserve their security and promote their prosperity.”

The success of the United Nations depends upon the independent strength of its members.

“We do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties: to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation.”

“Today, if we do not invest ourselves, our hearts and our minds in our nations – if we will not build strong families, safe communities and healthy societies for ourselves – no one can do it for us.”

“This is the beautiful vision of this institution, and this is the foundation for cooperation and success. Strong, sovereign nations let diverse countries with different values, different cultures and different dreams not just coexist, but work side by side on the basis of mutual respect. Strong, sovereign nations let their people take ownership of the future and control their own destiny, and strong, sovereign nations allow individuals to flourish in the fullness of the life intended by God.”

We want harmony and friendship, not conflict and strife. We are guided by outcomes, not ideology. We have a policy of principled realism rooted in shared goals, interests and values.

And just as the founders of this body intended, we must work together and confront together those who threaten us with chaos, turmoil and terror.

“We will fight together, sacrifice together and stand together for peace, for freedom, for justice, for family, for humanity and for the almighty God who made us all.”

“Are we still patriots? Do we love our nations enough to protect their sovereignty and to take ownership of their futures? Do we revere them enough to defend their interests, preserve their cultures and ensure a peaceful world for their citizens?”

The UN relies on the independent strength of its members.

Theresa May:

“We face challenges that go right to the heart of who we are as nations.”

“I believe that the only way for us to respond to this vast array of challenges is to come together and defend the international order that we have worked so hard to create and the values by which we stand. For it is the fundamental values that we share, values of fairness, justice and human rights, that have created the common cause between nations to act together in our shared interest and form the multilateral system. And it is this rules-based system which we have developed, including the institutions.”

This statement in the light of Brixit is total hogwash and on we go.

“Indeed, the defining purpose of the UN Charter is to maintain international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among nations, to achieve international cooperation in solving problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character; and to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of those common ends.”

“An outward-looking global Britain and the second biggest funder of the UN the UK will remain committed to spending 0.7% of GNI on development and humanitarian support. And that is why we will remain generous in our funding but set aside 30% to be paid only to those parts of the UN that achieve sufficient results.”

It is true to say that the UN needs reform, but it can only become relevant if it is financed to tackle world problems. ( See previous posts)

Both Speeches ignore Climate Change and the need to address inequality that is the spawning bed of all terrorism, driven by the technology of the smart phone.

The world is changing and we don’t have to be prophets to see if we as its intelligent guardians don’t address its underling problems there will be problems that will put all our technology, all our unsustainable greed, all our power of destruction, into the shade.

All comments appreciated, all like clicks chucked in the bin.

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: WHAT SHOULD YOU EXPECT TO PAY FOR YOUR FUNERAL AND BURIAL EXPENSES.

20 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by in Burial., Death

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( A seven minute read)

Why haven’t we evolved immortality?

Switch off those genes that lead to death. Weed out those genes that cause ageing. It’s an Evolution oversight.

Religion asserts that we humans are subjects to a system of moral laws that we did not invent and that we cannot change, revealed by different prophets.

If and when science makes significant progress in the war against death, the real war will shift from religions (That would be quite a surprise. If it were true, it would be the most important discovery in the entire history of philosophy. Death is the thing most of us dread above all else. This attitude is nearly universal across all cultures and eras.) to parliaments, courthouses, and streets. It will trigger bitter political conflicts.

Can millions of years of conditioning of man’s consciousness be removed?

‘Conditioning’ isn’t a genetic disorder. It occurs, only after birth, most of us think it’s a bad thing to die but no one minds being dead.

The dead never complain.

Human beings are conditioned, though the levels vary. Hence, their behaviors also vary and the possibilities of conflicts are there. Hence, there is no point in blaming others, even if they are not able to correct themselves, so when I point out that there is little point in reminding you that all of you going to die there is vast silence on the subject.

To be dead is not to exist at all, and there’s nothing unpleasant about that.

Our loathing of death is all a mistake. Our own death does not affect us while we’re alive only the expectation or fear of death can affect us, but not death itself. Our own death does not affect us while we’re alive.

However The Funeral Time Bomb’ awaiting us all is repugnant.

Faced with the choice between dying now and being brutally tortured for 10 years and then dying, we ought to be completely indifferent. That’s what it would mean for death to be nothing to us. Yet if we know anything about what’s good or bad, we know that it’s good to be spared pointless suffering. And since death can bring this about, there must be something good about death.

This however is not the main subject of the post rather the rising cost of dying:

No one really wants to think about their own funeral, but like it or not, this event typically ranks among the most expensive purchases a consumer makes in their lifetime.

Socrates said and I quote,

“Wherefore, be of good cheer about death and know of a certainty that no evil can happen to a good man either in this life or after death. The hour of my departure has arrived and we go our separate ways – I to die and you to live.”

Sure, death is a one-off expense (unless you believe in reincarnation) but it can easily set you back more than ten grand.

People are living longer, so the cost of dying is steadily increased.

There is little analysis about what is driving these costs and how they are likely to shift over future generations. We could reach an impasse where funerals become unaffordable for the vast majority of households.

If you pop your clogs without a plan in place, you could leave friends and relatives picking up the tab. If death puts us beyond harm’s reach, it must also put us beyond the reach of any benefit.Rising costs: The average cost of a funeral as risen by 80 per cent since 2004

There are big differences in the cost of a funeral depending on where you live. Of course, your final send-off doesn’t have to be an extravagant affair. The most crucial factor is whether you opt for a burial or cremation.

It is estimated that in the UK over the next 20 years the number of deaths is likely to rise by 20%. By the end of 2015 the last of the baby boomers will turn 50, and the oldest among them will turn 70.

The Increasing numbers of deaths are potentially a game changer for the
funeral industry by 2020 the spending on funerals in the UK will be around £3.7bn with UK funeral debt reaching a quarter of a billion by the mid-2030s.

Funeral homes run a business out of death to make profit with insurance companies pushing for people to take out burial policies in the hope you will have paid more than the cost. Funeral director fees make up the majority of the cost. Cremation now cost £683 on average and burial fees £1,645.

Is it time for Funeral expenses be capped and should grave management be change to a lease holding system?

Should governments offer pre-paid plan funeral trusts that are set aside for your death, regardless of whether you stop contributing.

As life and death depend on each other, you can’t have one without the other, should it be law to set up a savings account or pool of money clearly earmarked for funeral costs.

Mankind has acquired ‘knowledge’ about all matters in the universe, but may not have acquired enough ‘Knowledge about the Knowledge itself, per se’.

From birth man is struggling to avoid death any cost,.our survival instinct is deeply inserted in our brains. Only one moment of voluntary exit from intellectual arena is enough for consciousness to get liberated for ever.

If you think life is a good thing, you have to see death as desirable as well.

Thinking Outside the Box.

Alternative burials could be promoted.  We are well-aware that even in death we still cause an adverse impact on the environment. Why not memorialize your loved ones through any of the below biodegradable and eco-friendly options?

Green burial maintains a healthy balance between the earth’s natural processes and the human life cycle.

  • Scattering of ashes in the wind.
  • Resomation has been praised by some as the most environmentally friendly way to be buried.
  • Urn burias at sea are possible at almost all of the coasts of the North- and Baltic-Sea.
  • Urns can be buried in special forest areas.
  • Get Public Parks and Golf courses to offer green burial.
  • Forget tombstones and cemeteries. An Italian company has created a beautiful and eco-friendly alternative.( picture below)

All comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE SHINES A LIGHT ON A WORLD WHERE NEARLY 20 PEOPLE ARE FORCIBLY DISPLACED EVERY MINUTE.

16 Saturday Sep 2017

Posted by in Humanity., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Post - truth politics., Refugees., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Aid., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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(A shameful twelve minute read)

We got it all wrong when it comes to helping Refugees.

They are not invisible people.

Camps are the wrong way to help today’s refugees.

We cannot turn our backs on the ten million people who have been forced to flee their homes. Every decent society knows this and knows that it’s our moral duty to come up with a workable way of helping the refugees.

So here’s the crucial question: what, beyond safety itself, are the critical elements of normality for any refugee?

The entire international refugee support system has presumed that the answer is food and shelter.

But is this really the right response in 2017?

The system was designed to cope with the displaced of post-war central Europe, many of them Germans who had fled the Russians, or Jews freed from the concentration camps.

Refugees nowadays do not have the luxury of a short-term solution. The problems they are fleeing are likely to last for a very long time. Imagine yourself in their position, displaced with your family. Would you really resign yourself to years in a refugee camp, living off food tokens, housed in a converted container?

UNHCR, and its penumbra of similar organisations, are designed for care.

Like all welfare programmes, theirs treats people as passive recipients. Inadvertently, it infantilises.

That so many refugees forgo this care, preferring the struggle of earning a living beneath the official radar of regulations that prohibit it, is testimony to the heroism of the human spirit. We shouldn’t, even with the best intentions, crush that spirit. We should do what we can to make autonomy less grim.

The key confusion has been to conflate refugees with migrants.

Refugees, by definition, are people who didn’t choose to be migrants: they wanted to live at home but their home became unsafe. Migrants are people who seek a better life. Migrants go to honeypots — dream locations can readily be ranked by their desirability.

Refugees do not go to dream locations; they are seeking proximate havens. All of the top ten destinations for refugees are themselves countries of emigration. All are poor countries in disorderly neighborhoods.

So this is the real answer for refugees, not tents and food but autonomy and community. It’s what you would want in their position.

In asking the development agencies to scale-up and integrate the new mechanisms for generating jobs for refugees with those for speeding post-conflict recovery, it would at last become possible to meet our true international duty of rescue. In the process we should free ourselves from the lazy trap of fitting the present into the past.

But try telling that to the current wave of some 65.6 million people around the world that have been forced from home from today’s wars and conflict zones. 65.3 million people on the run – most are now crammed into often squalid and unsafe camps as they wait in increasing desperation for a home, somewhere.

65.6 million is according to the UNHCR the latest figures (which should be taken with a dose of salt as many nations are not equipped with refugee registers or effective data collection procedures. It excluded people who were displaced by natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes, which separately uprooted at least 19 million people in 2015.

To put this number into perspective, one in about every 113 people in the world is currently a refugee. This means that of the 7 billion people on earth, over 65 million of them are living as refugees –– forced to leave their homes. The numbers are so breathtaking that they take a while to settle into the mind.  This is the largest number ever recorded – and a testament to massive failures of both the international community and the United States in dealing with this crisis.

(There are also 10 million stateless people who have been denied a nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment and freedom of movement.)

I say the US, because it is the worst offender. It led the invasion of Iraq in 2003 without a legitimate casus belli. It set in motion the events that produced the Arab Spring resulting in immense forcible displacement in the region.

Just compare this 65 million with one of the greatest humanitarian crises in history — when a shattered Europe at the end of the Second World War had to resettle a staggering 16 million displaced persons.

A horrifying number certainly, but only a third as many as we have now.

The fact that the average amount of time people worldwide are living in displacement is now a staggering 17 years suggest that something is going terribly wrong in how we’re dealing with this issue.

In this climate, it is not surprising that there is animosity towards refugees by so many people.  There has been a perceptible rise in racist and xenophobic acts in many nations, sometimes fueled by politicians and the media. The political reality suggests most countries will remain reluctant to house all but a very small minority of those displaced by violence.

We now live in a world where nearly 20 people are forcibly displaced every minute and we have seen anything yet. Wait till uninhabitable regions due to climate change then we will have millions turning into billions.

Combined this with the violence in the Middle East and North Africa, with nine civil wars now going on in Islamic countries between Pakistan and Nigeria and half of the 23 million population of Syria been forced from their homes, plus 2.6 million Iraqis displaced by Islamic State – Isis – and 1.5 million people displaced in South Sudan.

Religious, ethnic and separatist conflicts are tearing countries apart.

Nationalism and socialism no longer provide the ideological glue to hold together secular states or to motivate people to fight.

Wars are currently being waged in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, south-east Turkey,Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and north-east Nigeria and none of them show any sign of ending. sanliurfa-syrians-getty.jpg

Europeans were jolted by pictures of the little drowned body of Alyan Kurdi lying on a beach in Turkey and half-starved Syrians crammed into Hungarian trains.

What is to be done to stop these horrors? Perhaps the first question is how we can prevent them from getting worse, keeping in mind that five out of the nine wars have begun since 2011.

Let me begin by attempting to demonstrate why the refugee question must be addressed:

The waves of refugees now are just the leading edge of a global catastrophe, just watch as global warming takes its toll in the coming years.

The core problem remains the amount of violence we have in too many areas of the world. Until we figure out how to isolate wars and cut off their oxygen — as was done eventually in the Balkans in the 1990s — we will only delude ourselves in thinking our era grows less violent.

There is a danger that by attributing mass flight to too many diverse causes, including climate change, political leaders responsible for these disasters get off the hook and are free of public pressure to act effectively to bring them to an end.

Not an easy delusion to maintain as 48 million people call out to us from refugee camps that now seem as much prisons as safe havens. 

It is better first to be informed and draw an opinion, rather than only to be opinionated. Half of refugees worldwide are children.

But why has this topic been so often ignored, or if mentioned, referred to as a “taboo”?

The fact is that world media in all its forms is dissenting us all to the point that refugees from war-torn countries are considered collateral damage, making good news footage.

World leaders can no longer watch passively as so many lives are needlessly lost.

We must be smart about finding solutions to help refugees.

We must find humane and dignified means to ensure refugees don’t risk their lives and those of their families by resorting to ruthless traffickers.

We must open designated channels of entry and offer tagged shelter under repatriation once its is safe to do so.

We must stop the world media spreading a climate of xenophobia.”

We must stop the growing resistance from nations to providing asylum for refugees.

We must stop spreading (due to political rhetoric) painting refugees as terrorists or beggars. “Refugees… don’t bring danger” but “flee from dangerous places.

 

The world governments will resist doing anything until such time as it is profitable to do so. This will be too late.

One of the more comforting claims in recent years is that the world is a less violent place than the blood-soaked centuries gone by. Bull shit.

The modicum of UNHCR support before abandonment, puts a spotlight of Shame on our world!

I have this awful feeling of deja vu. One begging UN resolution after another.

However there are the beginnings of an awakening about all this. In October the World Bank approved its first refugee loan — for job generation for Syrian refugees in Jordan.

Perhaps if the top five Tech Conglomerations were to charge a cent on all like clicks, on all shared photos, on all sales, all up loads, on all searches, on all tweets, on all e mails, on all Skype calls, they could save the world from melt down.  This combined with a 0.05% world aid commission,( See previous posts) would create a perpetual fund of trillions to address inequality that leads to all our troubles.

In just a single minute on the web 216,000 photos are shared on Instagram, a total of £54,000 ($83,000) sales take place on Amazon, there are 1.8 million likes on Facebook and three days worth of video is uploaded to YouTube.

All suggestions and comments appreciated. All like click chucked in the bin till they are chargeable.

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: CAPITALISM HAS IT ASS OVER TIT.

14 Thursday Sep 2017

Posted by in Capitalism, Our Common Values., Post - truth politics., Social Media, Sustaniability, The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World

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( A twelve-minute read.)

What is the problem with capitalism?

A question that has preoccupied its existence.

The answer is that there is nothing in its internal logic to interrupt its momentum – to stop it eating its way through our planet, and ultimately collapsing our global ecosystems.

We all know that capitalism has brought with it historically unprecedented material advances. But today it is more obvious than ever that the imperatives of the market will not allow capital to prosper without depressing the conditions of great multitudes of people and degrading the environment throughout the world.

After years of ill-health, capitalism is now in a critical condition.

Growth has given way to stagnation; inequality is leading to instability; and confidence in the money economy has all but evaporated.

We have now reached the point where the destructive effects of capitalism are outstripping its material gains.

No ‘developing’ economy setting out on the capitalist road today, for example, is likely to achieve even the contradictory development that England underwent and is now dismantling.

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of capitalism"

There is a growing disparity between the material capacities created by capitalism and the quality of life it can deliver.

This is visible not only in the growing gap between rich and poor but also, for instance, in the deterioration of public services in the very countries – such as the US and UK – where the principles of the capitalist market are most uninhibited.

Capitalism was born at the very core of human life, in the interaction with
nature on which life itself depends, and the transformation of that interaction by agrarian capitalism revealed the inherently destructive
impulses of a system in which the very fundamentals of existence are subjected to the requirements of profit.

In other words, the origin of capitalism revealed the essential secret of capitalism.

To day Capitalism is incapable of promoting sustainable development,
not because it encourages technological advances that are capable of straining the earth’s resources but because the purpose of capitalist production is exchange value not use value, profit not people. 

Whatever capitalism may do to enable the efficient use of resources, its own imperatives will always drive it further. Without constantly breaching the limits of conservation, without constantly moving forward the boundaries of waste and destruction, there can be no capital accumulation.

There is, in general, a great disparity between the productive capacities of capitalism and the quality of life it delivers.

Why?

Because the ethic of ‘improvement’ in its original sense, in which production is inseparable from profit, is also the ethic of exploitation, poverty, and homelessness.

The world is changing and the only profits matter approach to business is becoming harder to justify and get away with. The old style of the end justifies the means and the purpose of business is profit is dying.

The transparency of social media and the advent of the global economy, driven by Artificial Intelligence is demanding a change to how Capitalism works.

We are on call 24/7 through email and smart phones which is causing the line between money as the great motivator or happiness to blur.

The attempt to achieve material prosperity according to capitalist principles is increasingly likely to bring with it the negative side of the capitalist contradiction, its dispossession and destruction, more than its material
benefits – certainly for the vast majority.

The system’s contradictions have always gone far beyond the vagaries of economic cycles.

The use of wealth to create more wealth is coming to an end and will be hopefully replaced with intrinsic rewards than by pure financial ones. If values are not lived and only decorate the walls they can become a demotivating factor.

Life would indeed be nasty, brutish, and short if it were solitary, fortunately for all of us, in capitalist society it isn’t.

The beautiful thing about capitalism is that it’s ultimately based on
voluntary exchange for mutual benefit.

So why does it not get sufficient credit for the amazing value it has created.

Because the destructive effects of capitalism have constantly reproduced themselves, its positive effects have not been nearly as consistent since the system’s moment of origin.

So where does this leave us?

Unfortunately there will be no escape from exploitation. Increasingly significant numbers are not so much oppressed by capitalism as they are excluded by it.

The market can no longer act as a regulator of the economy as it becomes digitized. To guarantee some rationality, some correspondence between what people want and what is produced we all Technology to be verified in order to ensure it is complying with core human values. (See previous Posts)

While capitalist discipline celebrates consumption, not all of its subjects are rightly called consumers. To the contrary, many who are subject to its discipline do not so much struggle to consume and accumulate as merely survive, which suggests that capitalism works to deform humanity.

Capitalism has so construed the market that humans interact agonistically, competitively.

All of us, winners and losers, consumers and excluded, compete for resources, for market share, for a living wage, for a job, for the time for friendship and family, for inclusion in the market, and so forth.

Capitalism is now in the process of becoming invisible on the surface.

First, it is computerized and robotized, not to lessen everyone’s work time, but instead to raise profits by reducing payrolls.

Second, it exploited low-wage immigrant labor to offset wage increases won by years of labor struggles.

Third, it moved production to lower-wage countries such as China, India, Brazil and others.

Fourth, it divided and weakened the labor unions, political party groups and other organizations that pursued labor’s interests.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer capitalist cell.

As a result, inside nearly every country of the global capitalist system, the rich-poor divide deepened.

Can anything be done?

Not much.

Capitalism makes a virtue of what an earlier era denounced as a vice, pleonexia or greed – a restless, possessive, acquisitive drive, but which today is celebrated as the aggressive, creative, entrepreneurial energy that distinguishes homo economicus.

Capitalism is bad for those who succeed by its standards as well as for those who fail by them.

In fact, in many countries today, and for much of human history, it has been widely understood that those who are rich are rich because they took from others, and especially because they have access to organized force—in today’s terms, the state.

Such predatory elites use this force to gain monopolies and to confiscate the produce of others through taxes. They feed at the state treasury and they benefit t from state-imposed monopolies and restrictions on competition. It’s only under conditions of capitalism that people commonly become wealthy without being criminals.

It fails not simply on the grounds of what it fails to do but because of what it succeeds in doing: distorting human desire and relations.

It is often unclear what exactly is being condemned when it comes to Capitalism.

The term “capitalism” refers not just to markets for the exchange of goods and services, which have existed since time immemorial, but to the system of innovation, wealth creation, and social change that has brought to billions of people prosperity that was unimaginable to earlier generations of human beings.

The above may be true but it is now being exploited by what I call the fearsome five empty calorie connections” Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter.

Even if they remain in possession, or indeed outright ownership, of the means of production – they are subject to the demands of competition, increasing productivity, capital accumulation, and the intense exploitation of
labor.

In this barren space, they and us are now locked in competition and struggle for scarce resources.

If you have got this far I can hear you saying come to the point.

What might be the alternatives to capitalism look like?

Capitalism is a cultural system and not simply an economic one, it cannot be explained by material factors alone.

It is now obvious, that the value Capitalism created is at a cost, which we are now reaping:  Our environment, (Climate change) our core values, (We all have a core value in the unknown.) our Humanity all of which have been and are being hijacked by Greed/Profit and now technological progress.

Even if capitalism succeeds in reducing poverty, it is still wrong on account of its distortion of human desiring and human relations, rendering them antagonistic, competitive.

Over the last century, capitalism has repeatedly revealed its worst tendencies: instability and inequality. Inequality has proved to be an inherent trend of capitalism. Resting everything on self-interest is relying on a very incomplete theory of human nature.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of capitalism"

Now that the capital markets are run by Algorithms and the world has an apparent love-hate relationship with the economic social system, capitalism, is it not time to create a new model of Capitalism.

“Conscious Capitalism.” or Social-Capitalism the seeds of which can be seen in countries like Sweden, Norwegian.

The first principle is that business has the potential to have a higher purpose that may include making money, but is not restricted to it.

Truly moving beyond capitalism means breaking from the employer-employee core relationship.

It means no longer assigning a relatively tiny number of people inside each enterprise to the employer position of exclusively making the sorts of decisions.

(In private corporations the employers are the boards of directors selected by the major shareholders. In state or public enterprises of the traditional socialist economies, the employers are state officials.)

Instead of either kind of employer-employee relationship, system change installs a different core relationship inside enterprises. A different group of people — all workers in the factory, office or store — democratically makes those same decisions. The rule is “one worker, one vote,” and in general, the majority decides. The difference between employer and employee dissolves.

Every business has the potential for a higher purpose. And if you think about it, all the other professions in our society are motivated by purpose, beyond a narrow interpretation of purpose as restricted to maximizing profits.

I think that capitalism and business should fully reflect the complexity of
human nature.

Capitalist interaction is highly structured by ethical norms and rules. Indeed, capitalism rests on a rejection of the ethics of loot and grab, the means by which most wealth enjoyed by the wealthy has been acquired in other economic and political systems.

Capitalist contradictions are increasingly escaping all our efforts to control
them. The hope of achieving a humane, truly democratic, and ecologically sustainable capitalism is becoming transparently unrealistic.

In the midst of the descending darkness of capital, the difference this time is that we know what happened last time.

Postmodern society thwarts our innate desire to participate politically. Just voting in an election every few years, marching once in a while, or signing petitions on Avaaz or MoveOn doesn’t count for much.

We need new avenues for passionate participation – not just in elections every few years, but continuously.

A more generous, egalitarian, patient, deliberate, and accountable form of capitalism must begin with incisive and interdisciplinary social inquiry, without which policy change cannot be successful.

All suggestions all comments appreciated, all like clicks chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: WAKE UP-THE PARIS CLIMATE CHANGE AGREEMENT IS A JOKE.

09 Saturday Sep 2017

Posted by in HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Paris Climate Change Delegates., Post - truth politics., Social Media., Sustaniability, Technology, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders

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( A One minute Read)

Wake up. The Paris Climate Change Agreement which covers the period 2020 to 2030, : A system of voluntary, unenforceable pledges relies on peer pressure for ambitious commitments and the “naming and shaming” of countries that drag their feet, is a JOKE. It’s just worthless words. All major industrialized countries are failing to meet the pledges they made to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.

Climate change is an issue of huge public interest.

One of the biggest problems that the world is facing aside from the economic pitfalls is the unprecedented occurrences of natural calamities. Not only does a calamity bring about massive death and destruction to the country, but it also causes great financial issues.

The exit of the United States could multiply those troubles, or it could provide an opportunity to fix the looming problem of incredible goals.

Time has nearly run out for limiting warming to 2 °C. “If we wait until 2020, it will be too late.”

The talks were rigged to ensure an agreement is reached regardless of how little action countries plan to take. The final submissions are not enforceable, and carry no consequences beyond “shame” for noncompliance — a fact bizarrely taken for granted by all involved.

Demonstrating, yet again, the utter folly of an approach that is attempting to save the world by putting it on a collective energy diet.

Every major climate change initiative to date has gone up in smoke.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which sought to cut emissions 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, was doomed from the start.

The 2009 Copenhagen conference to hammer out a Kyoto sequel was an even bigger debacle.

The carbon market is a concept based on “polluter pays” and cap-and-trade principle. The objective is to reduce gas emissions through the use of market law. It assembles voluntary organizations that exchange the rights to issue carbon dioxide.

During the year, if a company manages to emit less than the allowable amount, it can sell the remainder to another company. This transaction doesn’t change the total emissions of the group. Therefore, one company must emit a lower-than-allowable amount in order for another company to emit more.

It works pretty much like the stock exchange. The problem with this system is that it needs rigid regulations and enforcement in order to have a large impact. There is no law limiting the amount of carbon emissions by a company. The carbon market is purely based on volunteerism, which works well for the companies already involved. This system was at the heart of Kyoto.

 

We watch large global corporations make billions, we watch governments spend billions on arms, we watch drug companies make trillions, energy giants make trillions,we watch Google/Alphabet/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon/ Facebook/Twitter/Algorithms plunder the world, while the United Nations has to beg for funds.

So where are we.

We either spend trillions and sacrificing millions of jobs, to reduce the average global temperature. Or Spend trillions on mopping up disasters and stopping mass immigration.

Or

Place a world aid commission on all Transactions that are Profit for Profit sake, on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions of $50,000, on all Sovereignty Funds Acquisitions, on all form of online Gambling. Creating a perpetual fund to address the problem and reduce inequality.

Ban all air/road/sea traffic one day a month.

Even if the always-wrong climate change computer models turned out to be right, no one wants to pay the cost.

Recent images bear little resemblance to reality;

Bangladesh underwater, Mexico shaking, Vast areas on fire, West Indies blown away, Wars a bucket full and inequality rampant. Résultat de recherche d'images pour "the top world forest fires"

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of the latest hurricane"

May all those caught up in any of the above survive.

 

Stupidity consists in wanting to come to a conclusion.

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THE BEADY EYE SAYS: WE LIVE IN A WORLD OF LIP SERVICE.

08 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by in Capitalism, Climate Change., Environment, Evolution, Google, Humanity., Life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Social Media, Sustaniability, Technology, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations.

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( A three-minute read)

We live in a world where turning on the news every day means getting updated on the latest tragedy and not just finding out what the weather will be like tomorrow.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of the living world"

2017 is a year of unrelenting misery and fear. We live in a world where people feel more afraid of someone with a gun than protected.

We live in a world where text messages surpass face to face conversations.

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We live in a world run by Algorithms. In a world where if you didn’t snap chat it or post it to Facebook, “it didn’t happen”.

We live in a world that has so many people without the words, “thank you” in their vocabulary.

We live in a world where people would rather sit in the comfort of their anguish and anxiety than take a small step to a better life.

What happened to the world where everyone minded their own damn business?

What happened to the world where people actually knew their neighbors, and didn’t fear them? What happened to the world where people got together and lost track of time because they didn’t have their phone attached to their hip?

What happened to the world where people could voice their opinion without getting hate mail? What happened to the world as one nation?

We live in a world where our self-esteem is managed by the amount of “likes” on our selfies and statuses.

I don’t need to tell you world news is pretty grim right now – if you use social media, it’s nigh on impossible to avoid articles about bubbling permafrost, drug-resistant gonorrhoea, and deadly obesity treatments.

And that’s just the science headlines.

We live in a world with rampant inequality due to capitalist greed, void of any common values.

We live in a world with global environmental changes locked into our future, with hidden threats to sustainability,not just because of migration that is just beginning due to lack of fresh water.

Stop, take a step back and think.

Isn’t it absurd that we, 7 billion of us living in the same planet, have grown further apart from each other? What sense does it make to turn your back on the thousands, maybe millions, of people living around you.

If we want wars we have all the ingredients.

We live in a world where our i pads and cell phones get thinner and our bodies get thicker.

We live in a world where people pass each other on the street and can’t even smile back.

We live in a world where people dish hatred out on a serving platter.

We live in a world where our world organisation called the United nations s just a gossip shop that has to beg for funds. Unable to cuts through the rhetoric because of

We live in a world where people take more than they give. We live in a world where people have completely forgotten what they were given knees for.

What happened to our world?

Most of us haven’t quite realized there is something extraordinary happening. I want to see it through a child’s eyes again.

Why is the world-changing?

We live in a world where  because we are too afraid of hurting kid’s feelings instead of teaching them the value of hard work. You get a participation trophy for merely showing up.3278764814_4d666f44ee_o-crop

We live in a world of lip service.

We are reaching our limits. It’s time for people to switch on the blender, stirring events in the non-human part of the world into their everyday lives, and see what happens.

Google might knows our names but it knows Sweet Fanny Adam about the natural world. The rest of the living world can get along without us, but we can’t get along without them.

Perhaps all living things comprise one biological entity, one large functioning ecosystem (life-force) with planet Earth as skeleton if so we had better learn quick that a skeleton earth whether it is due to Climate change, Nuclear war, or Algorithms will be worthless.

We are not isolated from the world around us by the boundaries of our bodies. Modern science has blurred the lines of the individual by shedding light on how interdependent life is. We are dependent on microbes. In essence, all life is connected to other life because we all exist in the same space.  If you don’t like bacteria, you’re on the wrong planet.”

When it comes to making sense of the incomprehensible we can only place our trust in tales of the imagination.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "videos of the living world"

The problem is that no one is will to bear the cost not even earth so why not make Greed pay. ( See previous Posts)

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: ARE WE BEGINNING TO THINK THE UNTHINKABLE.

07 Thursday Sep 2017

Posted by in HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Life., Post - truth politics., Terrorism., The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders

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( A ten minute read.)

The empty brain:

No one really has the slightest idea how the brain changes after we have learned to sing a song or recite a poem. But neither the song nor the poem has been ‘stored’ in it.

The human brain isn’t really empty, of course. But it does not contain most of the things people think it does – not even simple things such as ‘memories’.

For more than half a century now, psychologists, linguists, neuron scientists and other experts on human behavior have been asserting that the human brain works like a computer.

However the state of our understanding today of an integrated plan of brain function remains incomplete. The brain consists of at least several hundred distinct cell types whose complete classification is still at present elusive.Blog post featured image

Ever since man walked out of Africa, developed different cultures and different languages we have being using his brains to kill.

To date we have burnt more neurons on self-destruction than survival.

Step back and view our species objectively from the outside, the way a zoologist would carefully observe any other animal, or see us the way every other creature perceives human beings.  The brutal reality could not be more evident or more horrifying.

We are the most relentless yet oblivious killers on Earth. 

Our violence operates far outside the bounds of any other species.  Human beings kill anything.  Slaughter is a defining behavior of our species.  We kill all other creatures, and we kill our own. We kill strangers. We kill people who are different from us, in appearance, beliefs, race, and social status.  We kill ourselves in suicide.  We kill for advantage and for revenge, we kill for entertainment:

I would venture to say that there has not been one day — not one single day — since the beginning of recorded history when one human being has not killed another. And I don’t mean by accident. I mean deliberately. With purposeful intent.

Not one.

Single.

Day.

…in thousand and thousands of years.

So is violence in our genes.  As Mr Darwin put it; Survival of the Fittest. Evolution requires a struggle to survive, so killing is a must.

Just look at the twentieth century, numerous people were killed in the Armenian Genocide in Turkey, the Jews suffered in the II World War, Ethnic massacres happened in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia.

Today, several Islamic terrorist groups like ISIS and Boko Haram are butchering people in the name of Islam, while thousands of Rohingya Muslims flee Myanmar due to ethnic cleansing the shadow of a nuclear war ( that will bring equality to all, save us all from climate change and mass migration, ) can be summed up in one word: BRAINLESS.  Brain

Yet there’s no reason to assume that our empty brains will be adequate vessels for the voyage towards that answer.

Humanity has been trying to figure out how to bring an end to war since living beings evolved into self-consciousness on this planet. This effort now involves thousands of researchers, consumes billions of dollars in funding, and has generated a vast literature consisting of both technical and mainstream articles and books.

This latest up tick in the hostilities between these parties is almost irrelevant at this stage. Each side, of course, insists that it is only defending itself. And it is. Seen from each side’s point of view, all each side is doing is defending itself. Aggression is always called defense. Unfortunately every religion thinks it is the right one.

All that matters today is what it would take to end the killing, to end the aggression and counter-aggression that is threatening to embroil a whole region — and even, conceivably, the entire world at some level, if not directly — in a war that could prove unspeakably tragic for the entire human race, turning anyone that survives into an atheist, as there will be no invisible means of support as everything will glow.

But if there is a biological explanation for something, it is impossible to hold someone responsible for it. This is simply untrue.

This is a question that has been asked for many centuries. The Greeks philosopher Plato explained violent behavior by the fact that humans had a dual character because of their greedy nature. The Church always blamed the devil for possessing violent people.

Branding behaviors as incurable is hogwash fortuitously most humans are endowed with a sense of disgust but our kinship is often exploited by nations and religions, not surprisingly they are two institutions that are responsible for most, if not all, wars.

There is no satisfying answer to the question of why we go to war other than it feels good to protect our kinship.

All behavior is the product of the brain, and the brain is a product of genetics and the environment. Genes change at a glacial pace.  But territory and society shift constantly and they are molded by man.

So here is what we are not born with: information, data, rules, software, knowledge, lexicons, representations, algorithms, programs, models, memories, images, processors, subroutines, encoders, decoders, symbols, or buffers – design elements that allow digital computers to behave somewhat intelligently. Not only are we not born with such things, we also don’t develop them – ever. We never did, never will.

We don’t store words or the rules that tell us how to manipulate them. We don’t create representations of visual stimuli, store them in a short-term memory buffer, and then transfer the representation into a long-term memory device. We don’t retrieve information or images or words from memory registers.

The idea that memories are stored in individual neurons is preposterous:

Given this reality, why do so many scientists talk about our mental life as if we were computers?

Now here is the good or bad news.

Computers do all of these things, but organisms do not. Computers really do operate on symbolic representations of the world. They really store and retrieve. They really process. They really have physical memories. They really are guided in everything they do, without exception, by algorithms.

Uncontrolled Algorithms will kill us. Now more people have mobile phones than have toilets.

Everything we know about the universe tells us that reality consists only of physical things: atoms and their component particles, busily colliding and combining.

If a smartphone could be conscious, and were it to ultimately prove that the one thing the human mind is incapable of comprehending is itself.

Since anything at all that matters, in life, only does so as a consequence of its impact on conscious brains, could you ever know that it was true?'Because it is limited in characters, texting discourages thoughtful discussion or any level of detail, and its addictive problems are compounded by its hyper-immediacy.'

Our smartphones have become Swiss army knife–like appliances that include a dictionary, calculator, web browser, email, Game Boy, appointment calendar, voice recorder, guitar tuner, weather forecaster, GPS, texter, tweeter, Facebook updater, and flashlight.

The future of the brain and the implications on ethics and human behavior is now in the hands of Algorithms.

Speculating about the ‘algorithms’ of the brain, how the brain ‘processes data’, and even how it superficially resembles integrated circuits in its structure is now all the rage.

In 2013 the European Commission awarded neuron scientist Henry Markram $1.3 billion to pursue an audacious goal: building a simulation of the human brain. It is now in disarray. There’s a fly in the ointment. Although we think we’re doing several things at once, multitasking, this is a powerful and diabolical illusion.

It is the ultimate empty-caloried brain candy.

Instead of reaping the big rewards that come from sustained, focused effort, we instead reap empty rewards from completing a thousand little sugar-coated tasks.

We are sacrificing efficiency and deep concentration. Each time we check a Twitter feed or Facebook update, we encounter something novel and feel more connected socially (in a kind of weird, impersonal cyber way) and get another dollop of reward hormones.

It is the dumb, novelty-seeking portion of the brain driving the limbic system that induces this feeling of pleasure, not the planning, scheduling, higher-level thought centres in the prefrontal cortex. Make no mistake:  texting, email-, Facebook- and Twitter-checking constitute a neural addiction to brainless thought.

Because it is limited in characters, it discourages thoughtful discussion or any level of detail. Texting discourages thoughtful discussion or any level of detail, and its addictive problems are compounded by its hyper-immediacy.

Faulty conclusion: All entities that are capable of behaving intelligently are information processors.

It is safe to say that we aren’t completely doomed to continue killing each other, as the advancement of culture appears not to be having a civilizing effect on us.

The enormous industry of print and broadcast journalism serves predominantly to document our killing.

You know who to write to. Write to them. You know whom to contact. Contact them. Right now. Our world’s leaders need someone to lead them. We thought they were going to lead us, but they can’t. Or won’t. So we need to lead them.

With the amount and duration of wars happening right now in 2017, it’s hard not to get desensitized to death and violence. It really is. That means we have to work harder to stay informed.

Remember the killing fields of Cambodia.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of killing fields cambodia"