If you are one of those people who I call shadow people don’t bother reading this post in order to press the like button. However if you’re a real person all suggestions or comments will be appreciated.
We all know that there is the governments of more than 190 nations gathering in Paris to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change. The aim is to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and thus avoiding the threat of dangerous climate change.
The crunch Paris climate conference is from 30 November to 11 December.
Will it achieve anything worth while other than the usual media hype.
I think not. Why? Because the very thing that caused the problem is not there and it will in the long run ignore any agreement.
With global population rapidly marching toward 11 billion and with it the demand for food, health services, energy and security, we need to reexamine the models that have gotten us to this point.
Currently, our planet is on track to fly past the 2 degrees Celsius warming that scientist have repeatedly warned marks the safe range for humans on this planet. Beyond this point, we will only see the outcome of these challenges become more severe and an increased potential of no return.
“Global climate change is not a man-made. “It is a capital-made problem.”.
Over the last 40 years, global wealth has become a more concentrated problem.
During this time, we saw a massive expansion in our planet’s destruction and disruption; global carbon emissions grew by 75 percent; deforestation rates climbed to 17 percent in the past 50 years.
Clearly, the neoliberal economic growth model being promoted as a road to economic development is not distributing our gains in wealth to the majority, but to an elite minority at the expense of the planet’s future habitability.
Global emission have also grown 70% since 1970.
Economic Research estimates that for every 1 degree Celsius in additional warming, violent crimes such as assault, murder and rape will increase by 2.4 percent, while larger conflicts such as riots, ethnic violence, political instability and gang activity will increase by 11.4 percent.
Economically, 5 percent of the global market economy is at risk currently due to climate change. This is not accounting for damages due to increased intensity of weather events, of which 80 percent will be felt by poorer Southern Hemisphere countries.
Put in plain and simple language: Limitless production and consumption is not possible on a finite planet.
We have the chance to change this paradigm through new technologies, new business models and new financial structures which redevelop the role business plays in society.
In this challenge, we need to account for not just the natural limits of our planets, but also for the injustice and inequality generated by our current economic paradigm by responding with a collaborative spirit.
We need: A new economy.
As investors, we need to review the business and financial models that we promote.
Just building a clean tech innovation economy is not enough.
Complete change will not happen overnight.
It will not be built on the back of one investor or one innovative entrepreneur.
It will be something that business owners, investors, political leaders, consumers and entrepreneurs must all have to work together toward.
What explains our collective failure on climate change?
Why is it that instead of dealing with the problem, all we seem to do is make it worse?
The answer is simple
ITS THE CAPITALISM GOD OF PROFIT.
WHICH IS NOT compatible with the actions needed to combat climate change.
Capitalism isn’t helping. In fact, it can’t help the cause, but it can pay to rectify it. .
“You might be able to argue that the economic costs of taking action are greater than allowing climate change to play out for a few more decades …
“But most people don’t actually like it when their children’s lives are ‘discounted’ in someone else’s Excel sheet, and they tend to have a moral aversion to the idea of allowing countries to disappear because saving them would be too expensive.” Naomi Klein.
She prompts an ideological solution. We all stop being greed bad boys.
Free market cannot accomplish what needs to be done.
We need to think differently, radically differently” for changes to be even remotely possible.
Can, as Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1967, a “radical revolution of values” shift our society from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society?
We need to take our smartphones to the streets in massive demonstrations demanding action.
We’re too selfish, we’re too greedy — is that this idea of the “we” of who we are that has to changed. Which of course is impossible.
There is only one solution.
Pledges, New Global Agreements, Discussions, Hand Shakes, you name it are useless.
Capitalism must be made to pay by placing a World Aid Commission of 0.05% on all Stock Exchange transactions over $20,000, on all High Frequency Transaction, on all Foreign Exchange Transaction over $20,000, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions.
This will crate a perpetual World Aid Fund.
No other solution will work as no one wants to Pay the Bill.
If you have any suggestions (if you think that the contents of this post are worthy) as to how we can bring the suggestion to the attention of the delegates in Paris I am all ears.
Time spent looking at a cellphone is time spent oblivious to the world.
Humanity’s first steps into the digital world could be lost to future historians.
We faced a “forgotten generation, or even a forgotten century.” through “bit rot,” when old computer files become useless junk.
There is a sense of powerlessness and fatalism about TECHNOLOGY.
If consciousness or HISTORICAL intelligence are lost, it might mean that value itself becomes absent from the universe.
We are nonchalantly throwing all of our data into what could become an information black hole without realising it.
Ancient civilizations suffered no such problems, because histories written in cuneiform on baked clay tablets, or rolled papyrus scrolls, needed only eyes to read them.
To day “intelligence” is related to statistical and economic notions of rationality – colloquially, the ability to make good decisions, plans, or inferences. To study today’s culture, future scholars will be faced with PDFs, Word documents, and hundreds of other file types that can only be interpreted with dedicated software and sometimes hardware too.
From This to This
Most of the images we take today are uploaded straight from a digital camera or a phone, with the picture never actually existing as a physical artifact.
The significance of documents and correspondence is often not fully appreciated until hundreds of years later.
We’ve learned from objects that have been preserved purely by happenstance that give us insights into an earlier civilisation,”
We need history to embrace new values and institutions in pursuit of a just, fulfilling, and sustainable civilization not a “digital black hole”.
In fact, due to the intricate disconnectedness of production and economies around the world today, our technological civilization is perhaps more prone to a sudden collapse than other societies through history.
When you think about the quantity of documentation from our daily lives that is captured in digital form, like our interactions by email, people’s tweets, and all of the world-wide web the more important it is that we create legal permissions to copy and store software before it dies.
So digital objects we create today can still be rendered far into the future.
Deciding on the best format to preserve them for the next hundred years relies on anticipating what technology is likely to still be available in the future.
Computer hard disks can hold vast amounts of digitised information, but everything is lost if it fails or is wiped.
How do we preserve our interaction on Facebook, Twitter, comment threads and citizen journalism across the web?
In fact, due to the intricate disconnectedness of production and economies around the world today, our technological civilization is perhaps more prone to a sudden collapse than other societies through history. Plenty of once-great civilisations have collapsed, and our current industrialised society is by no means invulnerable –
Who will decide what worth keeping and where will we preserve a core kernel of human knowledge.
The significance of documents and correspondence is often not fully appreciated until hundreds of years later.
Even though Wikipedia represents a vast repository of information, it is not structured in a way that would guide a post-catastrophe society through stages of recovery.
Google certainly is not.
It has already changed the world by altering the way we interact with technology and there can be no questions its long-term ambitions.
Its mission is to collect information which you will have to buy with a google wallet.
“We envision a marketplace for payment instruments, commerce and loyalty services”
It’s not hard to envision a fully intact ecosystem of Google offerings with location-based mobile ads driving tracked incremental revenue via etail integrated mobile commerce, or via sales that are picked up in-store, via mobile payment.
“Now toss in Google Offers, NFC and QR codes for trigger point marketing, and the fact that Google already has the accounts open and the pot gets even richer.”
Personally I have little time for Banks but I would rather have a bank to provide a of mobile wallet products, not technology companies that can disappear into the cloud.
If Google was to make a move into supporting bank-branded wallets we would all become Googlefyed.
Google has far more on its plate than just financial services.
It’s a major player in telecommunications with its Android smart phone platform. It’s made forays into thermostats, home security and satellite imaging.
So it’s not just words and images that we risk losing for ever it’s the “grey literature” of official reports, briefings and policy statements that are only published online also risk being lost to the future?
Bit rot, a digital dark age is on the horizon unless we store information in DNA.
“It is very possible that … one machine would suffice to solve all the problems … of the whole [world]” – Sir Charles Darwin, 1946.
“Technology gives us the facilities that lessen the barriers of time and distance – the telegraph and cable, the telephone, radio, and the rest.” – Emily Greene Balch.
Perhaps The ETHEREUM IS THE ANSWER.
Importantly, because there is not a company or indeed any entity in charge of or controlling Ethereum, the cost of running the infrastructure doesn’t have to include any profit margin.
It might allow us to push the boundary on what the digital realm can cover.
Of all mankind’s ostensible insoluble problems, one has remain the most vexing, interesting and important, the problem of death itself.
The denial of death is one of humanity’s deepest motivations.
In the decades to come we may see, one universe, one humankind, one religion, that unites us all but in the end we all share the same destiny – that just as surely as we are alive, so we die.
Death reminds us of our human vulnerability in spite of all our technological advances.
It is an integral part of our lives that gives meaning to human existence.
All that you are, and all that you’ve done and been is culminated in your death.
But now it is turning into a technical problem?
In recent years, medical technology has advanced rapidly. It has been suggested that methods such as nanotechnology, cell rejuvenation, and gene therapy might result in a significant increase in the human lifespan.
In theory, with the help of medical technology, it could be possible to keep living for hundreds or thousands of years, even eternally.
The whole brain definition of death is an unwieldy, historical compromise which will unravel as 21st century technologies permit the repair, replacement and manipulation of body, and especially brain, tissue.
We would basically be left with suicide, illnesses, accidents, famine, and homicides. Another words the like hood of dying from some disease or virus will be highly unlikely.
Even if it seems a distant goal the quest of immortality is very much on the cards.
The (current) essence of being human is to be mortal, immortals would necessarily be a different type of being and therefore have a different identity.
To control human destiny, with the dream of conquering death would raise profound questions.
You are not obliged to entertain all thought experiments, no matter how implausible, but if technology will make our current ethical views inadequate within some finite, foreseeable period of time, we should adjust our thinking, and law, to a more solid footing.
Our current concepts of death don’t very well address the status of a person who might eventually be brought back to life.
When and if these remediative technologies come available, there will be tremendous material interests at stake. These technologies will develop just as the industrialized world shifts to increasing proportion of elderly.
Nanotechnology is developing a bionic immune system, and by the year 2050 we could reach a mortal state.
Research is also being conducted on the creation of computer chip matrices into which nerves can grow, and which could permit two-way communication between neurons and computers.
Such computer-brain interfaces raise the possibility that computer technology may also be developed to remediate neural capacities.
Already advances are being made in electronic prosthetics for sight and hearing, from cochlear implants to optic nerve interfaces.
Computer engineers are also developing biological computing and storage media3, and software that learns, suggesting a future convergence between organic computing, neural network software and neural-computer interfaces.
Personhood in a cybernetic medium is a common, but minority, position in the field of artificial intelligence and cognitive science.
Most cognitive scientists accept the materialist assertion that mind is an emergent phenomenon from complex matter, and that cybernetics may one day provide the same requisite level of complexity as a brain.
Of course, those who embrace the possibility of self-aware machine minds do not necessarily want to see them be developed, or grant them “human rights” once they do develop.
Another technology that may eventually challenge our death concepts is cryonic suspension, the freezing of heads, or whole bodies, for eventual reanimation.
Barring the end of civilization as we know it, technology will eventually develop the capacity to remediate severe brain injuries, and perhaps even translate human thought into alternative media.
So you are can begin to see that we will be forced to acknowledge that the destruction of the “integrative” functions of the body is an inadequate definition of death, since the social person will remain intact.
When we get to the point where neurological functions can be controlled, designed and turned on and off, the illusory sense of continuous self-identity will become more obvious.
Once we cast off this fundamental predicate of Enlightenment ethics, the existence of an autonomous individual, we are beyond the ethical frameworks of contemporary bioethics.
It might be necessary that old people had a duty to die.
We soon have to answer the question: Is there can only be one death.
There are ethical worldviews that do not have the autonomous individual at their core, from the Democracy to Communism.
By the time we have developed adequate frameworks based on our cherished liberal democratic values it will be too late.
After more than a century of looking for it, brain researchers have long since concluded that there is no conceivable place for such a self to be located in the physical brain, and that it simply doesn’t exist. Luckily if we wished to cure death, there is absolutely no scientific evidence that we might be able to do that even in the distant future.
But don’t be fooled. Have a look,
//youtu.be/u_Vpy3xs0cE
The only modern ideology that still awards death a central role is nationalism. “The Glorious Dead.”
Warfare has been the crucial defining element for Britain and its empire in the 20th century. There have been only two years since 1945 that a serving member of the armed forces has not been killed.
The Cenotaph (literally “empty tomb” in Greek) May they rest in Peace.
Out of the seven billion people in the world how many really understand quantum mechanics, cell biology, or macroeconomics?
Knowledge is power.
The real test of knowledge is not whether it is true, but whether it empowers us. Consequently, these days truth is a poor test for knowledge. The test seems to be utility. A theory that enables us to do new things constitutes knowledge.
Knowledge is a the root of many (dare I say most) challenges we face in a given day and I have to admit I could do with a large refresher course.
Once you get past basic survival we’re confronted with knowledge issues on almost every front.
These days most of us are becoming reliant on Google it.
But when you get an answer is that answer universal knowledge or is it Google cods wallop.
It’s not possible to completely shed all our lenses which color our view of things and so it’s not possible to be certain that we’re getting at some truth “out there.” If all beliefs are seen through a lens, like Google how do we know the postmodernists beliefs are “correct?”
In order to have certainty, postmodernists claim, we would need to be able to “stand outside” our own beliefs and look at our beliefs and the world without any mental lenses or perspective.
If we do not fully understand what it is, will we not fully understand ourselves either?
But then again knowledge — can ever be fully understood.
The nature of knowledge is answerable to intuitions. This means that what may count as knowledge for you may not count as knowledge for me. An other words what you know may not be something I know even though we have the same evidence and arguments in front of us.
The bottom line is that “universal knowledge” – something everybody knows—may be very hard to come by.
I think, therefore I am.
Truth, if it exists, isn’t like this.
Truth is universal. It’s our access to it that may differ widely.
Okay, a definition is tough to come by.
But philosophers have been attempting to construct one for centuries. Over the years, a trend has developed in the philosophical literature and a definition has emerged that has such wide agreement it has come to be known as the “standard definition.”
As with most things in philosophy, the definition is controversial and there are plenty who disagree with it. But as these things go, it serves as at least the starting point for studying knowledge.
The person believes the statement to be true
The statement is in fact true
The person is justified in believing the statement to be true
Belief:
They’re in your head and generally are viewed as just the way you hold the world (or some aspect of the world) to be.
It implies that what you think could be wrong. In other words, it implies that what you think about the world may not match up with the way the world really is and so there is a distinction between belief and the next item in our list.
People will generally act, according to what they really believe rather than what they say they believe
Truth:
Truth is not in your head but is “out there.”
When you believe something, you hold that or accept that a statement or proposition is true. It could be false that’s why your belief may not “match up” with the way the world really is.
Justification:
If the seed of knowledge is belief, what turns belief into knowledge?
This is where justification comes in (some philosophers use the term “warrant” to refer to this element). A person knows something if they’re justified in believing it to be true (and, of course, it actually is true).
Justification is hard to pin down because beliefs come in all shapes and sizes and it’s hard to find a single theory that can account for everything we would want to claim to know. Even so, justification is a critical element in any theory of knowledge.
So.
Everyone comes to belief with a cognitive structure that cannot be set aside.
Our cognitive structure serves as a lens through which we view the world. Because of this, knowledge is said to be perspectival or a product of our perspective.
Since the evaluation of our beliefs is based on our cognitive lens, it’s not possible to be certain about any belief we have. This should make us tentative about truth claims and more open to the idea that all of our beliefs could be wrong.
Truth emerges in the context (or relative to) community agreement. For example if the majority of scientists agree that the earth is warming and that humans are the cause, then that’s true. Notice that the criteria for “truth” is that scientists agree.
Are you now any more knowledgeable. Google it and see.
There is one thing without doubt:
The fact that you are a thinking things.
In order to doubt you have to think. (The very reason that it’s not possible to doubt something without thinking about the fact that you’re doubting it). Thinking then you must be a thinking thing and so it is impossible to doubt that you are a thinking being.
If you know it all leave a comment, otherwise press the like button. Ignorance is bliss.
Some further reading and viewing>
Knowing how to Google something is not enough. 2014/09/02
Google is a business. 2015/03/02
The Imparting and Acquiring of knowledge. 2015/03/03
But what is the most powerful technology on Earth?
You may think of a B-2 bomber, or a nuclear reactor, or maybe even far-reaching social media platforms.
But there is only one technology known to man that can heal itself, adapt to its environment, sustain itself for decades, replicate, and evolve:
The living organism.
Biological systems have the ability to do things that no human-made machine or chemistry can begin to approach: the ability to replicate, to learn, to scale from one to billions, to adapt, and to evolve.
By gaining control over biological systems and their biochemical pathways — and designing new pathways by rewriting the DNA “software” in cells — synthetic biologists are ushering in the “Biological Age.”
Creating substances with not only superior electrical, optical, and mechanical properties, but with properties that we have never seen before in man-made materials: materials that can regenerate, that respond to the environment, that learn and evolve.
We’re “on the cusp of revolutionary change” coming much “sooner than you think.”
Sugar-fueled biological actuators for hybrid robotics are on the horizon, all grown in “living foundries.
You might think that this is science fiction but it is becoming tangible due to the rapid, simultaneous development of genome-scale engineering tools, enormous data sets of genome sequences, new imaging and analytical capabilities, and the convergence of advances in information science and engineering with biology..
While it’s difficult, if not impossible, to predict future consumer applications.
If we could harness the power of biology in a predictable manner, then we could create living materials that perform functions seamlessly, cheaply, and with very low energy requirements, like walking, talking, dancing, killing, Robots.
A goal along these lines, of course, raises a lot of questions:
Better for whom? Better in what way? For biological humans? For all conscious beings? If that is the case, who or what is conscious?
Evolutionary biological changes move every which way with no apparent direction.
Yet, we continue nonetheless to see a movement toward greater complexity and greater intelligence, indeed to evolution’s supreme achievement of evolving a neocortex capable of hierarchical thinking we are now on the verge of creating a “post human” stage of civilization.
This stage may be only a few decades away.
Unfortunately if all the AI systems decided to go on strike tomorrow, our civilization would be crippled: Primitive human societies might then remain on Earth indefinitely but not to worry we’ll be uploading our entire MINDS to computers by 2045 and our bodies will be replaced by machines within 90 years.
The simple act of connecting with someone via a text message, e-mail, or cell-phone call uses intelligent algorithms to route the information. (The number of people using Twitter and Facebook daily is around 1,138,000,000)
So a digital brain will need a human narrative of its own fictional story so that it can pretend to be a biological human.
I could at this stage give your brain a more ambitious goal, such as contributing to a better world which is badly needed considering that we are well on the way to extinction. However there is no justification for thinking that our own species will be especially privileged or protected from future technological disasters.
We tend to view the existence of our race as constituting a great ethical value when in fact our existence in a biology sense it is not worth the steam off our piss.
Why?
Because in the future almost every product we touch will be originally designed in a collaboration between human and artificial intelligence and then built-in automated factories.
Because we will continue to pollute our planet and the sky’s above to appease the Stock Exchange.
Because there will be many ways in which humanity could become extinct before reaching post humanity by wiping out what we should be rely on.
Perhaps the most natural interpretation of disaster is that we are likely to go extinct as a result of the development of some powerful but dangerous technology to combat climate change. We would do well to remember Robert Oppenheimer words when he first viewed an atomic explosion ” Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”
Extinction might be the best option.
It is not clear that creating a new human race is immoral.
As non biological brains become as capable as biological ones of effecting changes in the world—indeed, ultimately far more capable than unenhanced biological ones—we will need to consider their moral education.
The question is can they have any morals and if so what left of us will have to dumb itself down considerably. For any post human stage system that displayed the knowledge of Watson, (Watson is technology that works to understand us) for instance, would be quickly unmasked as non biological.
So what does the Future of Tech Robots.
The power of computing doubles, on average, every two years quoting the developments from genetic sequencing and 3D printing. Technological singularity is the development of ‘super intelligence’ brought about through the use of technology.
Itself imply that we are likely to go extinct soon, and we are unlikely to reach a post human stage.
What would be left of humanity would be zombies or “shadow-people” – humans simulated only at a level sufficient for the fully simulated people not to notice anything suspicious.
HOWEVER ALL IS NOT LOST
This possibility of a post human stage is compatible with us remaining at, or somewhat above, our current level of technological development for a long time before going extinct.
We are still lacking a “theory of everything”, but we cannot rule out the possibility that novel physical phenomena, not allowed for in current physical theories, may be utilized to transcend those constraints.
If we could create quantum computers, or learn to build computers out of nuclear matter or plasma, we could push closer to the theoretical limits. At our current stage of technological development, we have neither sufficiently powerful hardware nor the requisite software to create conscious minds in computers.
Simulating the entire universe down to the quantum level is obviously in feasible, unless radically new physics is discovered.
As we gain more experience with virtual reality, we will get a better grasp of the computational requirements for making new worlds appear realistic to their visitors.
These shortcomings will eventually be overcome.
At the moment the amount of computing power needed to emulate a human mind can be roughly estimated. Memory seems to be a no more stringent constraint than processing power.
Our current understanding impose theoretical limits on the information processing attainable in a given lump of matter. We can with much greater confidence establish lower bounds on post human computation, by assuming only mechanisms that are already understood.
One candidate is molecular nanotechnology, which in its mature stage would enable the construction of self-replicating nanobots capable of feeding on dirt and organic matter – a kind of mechanical bacteria. Such nanobots, designed for malicious ends, could cause the extinction of all life on our planet.
So we are able to gain an insight into how an apparently purposeless and directionless process can achieve an apparently purposeful result in one field (biological evolution) by looking at another field (thermodynamics).
In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between both.
As you cannot create energy or destroy it and energy can only move from a state of higher activity to one lower activity it stands to reason that biological evolution, simple put, is descent with modification.
To acknowledge that history is not deterministic is to acknowledge that it is just a coincidence that most of us believe in nationalism, capitalism, and human rights. There is no proof that history is working for the benefit of humans.
Now you might think that all of this is hog wash, but every point in history is a crossroads and sometimes history- or the people who make history – takes unexpected turns.
How we using and develop Technology will determine the forming any new Monotheism Global Society.
Are we heading towards ecological disaster or technological paradise? Both do not seem bound by any deterministic laws.
You may rest assured that when Cognitive computers and Quantum computers get together with Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality along with the Arms race, biochemical pathways will not enhance human well-being.
Because human brains suffer from minimal development.
Instead of concentrating on developing technologies beneficial to mankind we are developing autonomous weapons with no accountability to select, to kill, or destroy ( which means no deterrence of future crimes, no retribution for victims, no social condemnation, no meaningful human control)
Individual humans like me are far too ignorant and weak to influence the course of history to my own advantage. It for some mysterious reason like all of us follows one path then another like a gene that has no awareness, or consciously seek to survive.
The next effort of science will be to create a new body for the human being. It will have a perfect brain-machine interface to allow control and a human brain life support system so the brain can survive outside the body.
A computer environment into which human minds can be uploaded.
These are daunting challenges, to say the least.
Each will require the commitment and individual efforts of literally billions of our fellow humans, as well as many careful, specific programs put into effect by entire populations. But there is one action that we must take, individually and as a world, if any of the others are to be successful. It directly contradicts some of our deepest evolutionary programming, but if we are to survive as a species, we must stabilize or even reduce population size.
God forbid. Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.
However it is conceivable to imagine history going on for generations upon generations while bypassing the Scientific Revolution as modern culture and science have to rely on religious and ideological beliefs to justify and finance its existence and scientific research.
So the below fellows might be the very thing to complete the Job. Rid the world of the very thing that is destroying it.
One last thought try not to join the shadow people by pressing the like button. Leave a comment. When you comment, you inspire, when you press the like button you expire.
If the shoe was on the other foot we be howling blue murder.
I always thought any one fleeing a war was called a Refugee not an Immigrant. Many important issues depend greatly on definitions of who is a migrant.
The vicious civil war in Syria has triggered a huge exodus. Afghans, Eritreans and other nationalities are also fleeing poverty and human rights abuses. All created by us in the first place.
There is no such thing as an EU or European immigration policy.
Immigration has become a toxic political issue; especially as high levels of unemployment and the economic crisis have fueled a growing anti-immigration sentiment across Europe.
Throughout history, people have migrated from one place to another.
People try to reach European shores for different reasons and through different channels. They look for legal pathways, but they risk also their lives, to escape from political oppression, war and poverty, as well as to find family reunification, entrepreneurship, knowledge and education.
Every person’s migration tells its own story.
Since the beginning of the year some 153,000 migrants have been detected at Europe’s external borders.
Faced with that influx, Europe is currently the most dangerous destination for irregular migration in the world, and the Mediterranean Sea the world’s most dangerous border crossing.
With nationalist parties ascendant in many member states and concerns about Islamic terrorism looming large across the continent, it remains unclear if political headwinds will facilitate a new climate of immigration reform.
Hungary has urged its EU partners not to send back migrants who have traveled on from Hungary. And it plans to fence off the whole border with Serbia.
The UK has high levels of opposition to immigration. Opposition to the arrival of immigrants in the UK is far from new. People in Britain are more likely than the people of other nations to view immigration negatively – to see immigration as a problem rather than an opportunity, and to view the immigrant population as already too large.
This is not surprising, given that members of the public are often not well-versed in the details of policy in any area.
After months of argument EU leaders agreed to triple funding for Triton, to some €120m (£86m) – taking it back to the spending levels of Italy’s Mare Nostrum.
A drop in the Ocean.
A portfolio of policies is required to reduce irregular migration, certainly including border control, but combined with addressing the root causes of conflict and poverty, combating smuggling and trafficking, effective migration management and return, and the regulation of labor markets.
More restrictive policies will only narrow options for desperate people and drive more of them into the arms of migrant smugglers and traffickers.
Experience around the world demonstrates that border control is not a silver bullet. In the absence of a coordinated EU approach, migrants — and their smugglers — will continue to target countries like Greece, Italy, and Spain as entry points;
They will remain clandestine even if they may have a strong asylum claim;
They will continue to work in the informal labor market or turn to crime to survive; and their rights will not be recognized or respected.
The downside of making policy on immigration in this environment strongly outweighs the upside.
There is no political space to promote liberal policies on migration; while politicians at least behind closed doors know that restrictive policies are unlikely to work.
In the absence of a reasoned debate, a comprehensive policy response, a coordinated EU approach, and the political courage to confront irregular migration, Europe’s immigration nightmare has only just begun.
This is an opportunity for the EU to face up to the need to strike the right balance in its migration policy and send a clear message to citizens that migration can be better managed collectively by all EU actors.
A clear and well implemented framework for legal pathways to entrance in the EU (both through an efficient asylum and visa system) will reduce push factors towards irregular stay and entry, contributing to enhance security of European borders as well as safety of migratory flows.
The EU is facing a series of long-term economic and demographic challenges. Its population is ageing, while its economy is increasingly dependent on highly-skilled jobs. It is going to need thousands of immigrants if it going to survive Climate Change.
We need a new model of legal migration:
A summer of “Europe’s shame” headlines looms. The politicians may well lose control as events dictate political outcomes.
Give a door to Humanity a try rather than the I’am all right Jack Economy.
May all of those that have lost their lives in vane rest in peace.
There go I but for the grace of The European Union should be our Mantra.
The Internet’s impact on culture, business, and politics is vast, for sure.
It is becoming a bigger part of our lives everyday, making life more convenient but also taking away the human element of living in the moment and making relationships more superficial.
But where actually is it take us?
To answer that question is difficult, because the Internet is not simply a set of interconnecting links and protocols connecting packet switchednetworks, but it is also a construct of imagination, an inkblot test into which everybody projects their desires, fears and fantasies. Some see enlightenment and education. Others see pornography and gambling. Some see sharing and collaboration; others see e-commerce and profit.
The purpose of this post however is not to highlight all that the Internet has achieved or all that it will achieve.
It is to ask the question is it good for a Democratic World.?
We know that it is exposing Capitalism for what it is and Communism for what it wants, along with the comity of Nations. It is making us ask what a well-functioning democratic order requires.
It is creating a world people’s voice that could be manipulated in the extreme.
You might think with all the other problems the world faces this it is of little importance. You would be wrong as it is shaping the Future.
As a result of the Internet and other technological developments, many people are increasingly engaged in a process of “personalization” that limits their exposure to topics and points of view of their own choosing.
The growing power of consumers to “filter” what they see and the servers to dish up what they want you to see is from the standpoint of democracy, a mixed blessing.
But in a heterogeneous society, such a system requires something other than free, or publicly unrestricted, individual choices. Without shared experiences, a heterogeneous society will have a more difficult time addressing social problems and understanding one another.
People should be exposed to materials that they would not have chosen in advance.
As a matter of technological feasibility, our communications market is moving rapidly toward this apparently utopian picture which is a far cry from reality.
It is happening on the Internet where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and we the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.
We are moving into “Corporatism which is the halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism.
Consider this: It is estimated that the 2016 presidential election in the USA could cost as much a $5 billion, more than double what was spent getting Obama re-elected in 2012.
We are allowing ourselves to become fearful, controlled, pacified zombies, Screen watchers.
The internet is introducing a system of perfect individual control reducing the importance of the “public sphere” and of common spaces in general. It is increasing people’s ability to wall themselves off from topics and opinions that they would prefer to avoid.
I am sure that if new technologies diminish the number of common spaces, and reduce, for many, the number of unanticipated, unchosen exposures, something important will have been lost.
Because the Internet has changed the quantity and range of information available to citizens, it directly influences how societies evaluate government performance—in all parts of the globe.
It is Changing Democratic Attitudes throughout the World.
It is altered the informational relationship between governments and their citizens.
In how information is packaged, how that information can be physically transmitted and the networks that determine who can send and receive those transmissions. This has meant the largest decentralization in communication capacity and increase in expressive capacity that we have ever seen in human history—particularly in nations where access to political information tended to be very limited, often due to strict government censorship of traditional media.
Thus, the expansion of the Internet has significant ramifications on the amount and type of information that individuals use to evaluate their governments.
The global nature of the Internet opens a larger window for individuals to better view how governments function in other countries, particularly the advanced democracies that are most visible on the Internet. This provides users with a more realistic and globally consistent scale by which to make comparative evaluations about how well their own government functions.
As a result, the Internet is playing a central role in shaping the political evaluations and resultant satisfaction that citizens have toward their governments.
This is significant because the impetus to act politically—from day-to-day civic activities to the more extreme cases of protest and revolution—begins in the minds of men and women.
An understanding of this mix will permit us to obtain a better sense of what makes for a well-functioning system of free expression and to address the serious dangers that are hidden within the Internet.
For example the creation of perfect and splendid isolation, or a process of getting over disagreements, or the undermining our values to the detriment of the all of us.
The reasons why the Internet is supposed to strengthen democracy include the following.
1.The Internet lowers the entry barriers to political participation.
2. It strengthens political dialogue.
3. It creates community.
4. It cannot be controlled by government.
5. It increases voting participation.
6. It permits closer communication with officials.
7. It spreads democracy world-wide.
In contrast, the Internet, far from helping democracy, is a threat to it precisely because the Internet is powerful and revolutionary, it also affects, and even destroys, all traditional institutions–including–democracy.
To deny this potential is to invite a backlash when the ignored problems eventually emerge.
So why will there be problems?
Because more than half of communications traffic is data rather than voice.
Because it has been liberated from the terror of the PC as its gateway into the world of Smart Phones.
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.
Because a politically disenfranchised digital underclass is emerging.
Because with the commercialization of the Internet things previously unreachable are now available through our personal computers.
Because cars will be chatting with highways. Suitcases will complain to airlines. Front doors will check in with police departments. Pacemakers will talk to hospitals. Television sets will connect to video servers. Keeping this aggregated information in the cloud allows researchers and developers to examine the data and identify “digital bio markers” to inform prevention, diagnoses and treatment in a constellation of brain and mental disorders that are now mostly defined by subjective symptoms.
Because it is making Politics More Expensive and Raise Entry Barriers.
Because it is making reasoned and informed political dialog more difficult.
Because it disconnects as much as it connects.
With the increase of smartphones in recent years many have all griped about the narcissism of people who spend all their time on social networks, text messaging at a dinner table or taking photos of the food they eat.
Because it is facilitating the International Manipulation of Domestic Politics.
Because it will essentially making the world a global village with vast deserts of highly visible inequalities which would not be possible without the internet.
And this is why ubiquitous, scalable technology such as the Internet must be part of the solution if we are to avoid an information-choked societies.
Because it is creating a mental fog or scrambled thinking in a kind of weird, impersonal cyber way.
Constant multitasking is taking its toll.
Although we think we’re doing several things at once, multitasking, this is a powerful and diabolical illusion. Ironically, multitasking makes us demonstrably less efficient. The flow of information can be overwhelming and lead to “paralysis by analysis.” Chronic multi-tasking can make us less productive, not more. Increased choices and uncertainty can lead to increased stress and anxiety.
Because it is causing fragmentation, increasing cost, and declining value of “hard” information. Our brains are busier than ever before. We’re assaulted with facts, pseudo facts, jibber-jabber, and rumour, all posing as information.
Make no mistake: email-, Facebook- and Twitter-checking constitute a neural addiction.
It’s naïve to cling to the image of the early Internet – – nonprofit, cooperative, and free.
You might say that the CONTROVERSY ITSELF is superficial; as the obvious reality is the internet and technology are not only here to stay, but constantly evolving and permeating more of our lives.
The real conversation should be how we can best use the Internet in smarter ways that help us to monitor and enhance the brain, and how can we actively prepare to manage information overload.
“Big Data” applications are becoming available and capable of helping personalize brain health tools at the individual level, based on both past data and information gathered over time. This, in turn, is already changing research and preventive health practices. Tablet-based screenings can be instrumental in diagnoses of Alzheimer’s and MCI.
Mobile devices are already entering the sports world, with cognitive tests for concussions. Institutions like AAA have begun large-scale web-based assessments and cognitive training that works on driver’s cognitive skills in order to become safer (and less expensive to insure) drivers.
Now, every new technology presents a fair set of challenges. It is important to note that these are quasi-universal features of modern life, not the type of conditions of disorders that our medical system is set up to address.
There is talk about how social networks and new devices like the Google Glass visor have diluted privacy, smart phone apps “turning us into sociopaths” and the danger of turning over our daily routines to new technology like Apple’s Siri digital assistant.
The trick will be in properly preparing and guiding people to adapt to the mental demands of a modern society. Fortunately it is us, not the Internet, who have a plastic and resilient brain.
My conclusion is that information does not necessarily weaken Democracy or the state but electronic voting will not strengthen democracy as it will be manipulated by Big data.
So is the internet good for the brain?
If the analytical and collaborative power of the internet is used properly to monitor and enhance brain functionality in a cost-effective, scalable manner the answer can be a resounding “yes”
At the moment it is having a negative impact on our societies having a polarizing effect on democracies. Although it has the capacity to bring people together, too often the associations formed online comprise self-selecting groups with little diversity of opinion.
Free speech on the Internet is not enough to ensure a healthy democracy. The conception of free speech emerging in today’s communications market emphasizes “an architecture of control…by which each of us can select a [customized] free-speech package.”
Google News feed filters out the information we receive. It is a product of what information we demand.
We should create twenty-first-century equivalents of the kinds of public spaces and institutions where diverse people will congregate.
If we are to avoid western democracy being hobbled by disengagement, falling turnout, and disconnection with citizens we must counter the growing power of consumers to “filter” what they “see” will create information ghettos and isolated citizens.
The Internet changes expectations. The Avaaz 41 million-strong online internet community is a prime example.
It lowers the economic and information cost of group formation and the internet lends itself to this type of direct connection, and hence is likely to create demands for more direct forms of democracy. But the way the Internet empowers people – by giving them huge choice over the information they receive – can make them less likely to engage in a free debate of ideas.
Why?
Because there will be neither leaders nor agendas to make Governments sit down with their detractors.
Citizens can use new media to avoid, rather than embrace, new ideas or common experiences.
The Internet, as a highly democratic and participatory medium, can perform democratic wonders. But the bien pensant e-Democracy consensus is wrong and dangerous if it thinks this will happen automatically. All of these facets are critical if we are to thrive at a human.
Last week, Donald Trump submitted his financial disclosure to the Federal Election Commission. In it, he lists his various properties and other holdings and totals them up for a net worth of more than “TEN BILLION DOLLARS.”
Trump World Tower Trump: Trump owns it.
Trump Towers Istanbul: Trump does not own it, but he licenses his name out to it, as he does with many properties. In the past, he has said that this arrangement “could be interpreted to be a form of ownership in the building.” The final word on the issue is probably the legal disclaimer on his website.
Miss USA Pageant: Trump owns it, but NBC refused to air it after his comments on immigration.
Central Park Carousel New York: Trump owns Trump Carousel LLC, the company that operates the Central Park Carousel in New York City. According to the financial disclosure he made to the Federal Election Commission, he made $589,000 from this icon of innocence.
Wollman Rink in Central Park: Trump owns it. Well, kind of. Trump built it and operates it. You can read the story of its construction in Donald’s own words.
Donald J. Trump State Park: Trump bought 436 acres of land 45 miles from Manhattan to build a private golf course, but nearby towns did not grant him approval, so he donated it to the state. Although New York closed the park in 2010, signs along the nearby highway still direct visitors there.
Trump Taj Mahal: Trump Taj Mahal is a property of Trump Entertainment Resorts, which Donald Trump no longer owns. He has sued to have his name removed from it.
A company that sells Trump-branded vodka and energy drinks in Israel: Trump owns it. Its name is a full sentence: Trump Drinks Israel LLC.
Trump mattresses: Trump owns a mattress brand. But Serta, the exclusive distributor,recently terminated its business relationship with him.
He’s licensed his name to no less than 17 different kinds of products, from clothing and perfume to vodka and mattresses, as well as glassy high-rise towers as far afield as Istanbul and the Philippines. He is paid for the use of his name, but does not invest any of his own capital. Trump sometimes manages these projects, as he did in the case of Trump Soho, and always takes a licensing fee of $5 to $10 million. He pocketed more than $3.2 million in royalties for his clothing line, which is sold at Macy’s, between 2005 and 2007.
He does not believe in global warming, for example, because he did not experience in everyday life:
“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.”
He is convinced that there is a link between vaccination and autism. It communicates whenever he can about the dangers of combination vaccines, although there is no scientific evidence to that effect.
“I’m not contra vaccinations for your children, I’m in one massive contra em dose. Spread them out over a period of time autism Will & drop!”
During his nomination speech of June 16, he said want to build a wall 3 000 km along the border with Mexico.”Mexico brings us drugs, crime and rape. “”Blacks who count my money! I hate the idea. The only people I want to see my money count are small men wearing yarmulkes every day engage in hyperbole, shade the truth and deliver outright misstatements.
Women’s British Open golf tournament is set to open at Trump Turnberry Resort, owned by Donald Trump; successful staging of the tournament would increase Turnberry’s chances of being awarded the men’s event sometime after 2018.
Long time enmity between Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch has led to Murdoch’s leveraging his media empire to tear down Trump.
What has Trump done with his life to merit running the US?
He is a master of self-aggrandizement, but his companies have declared bankruptcy 4 times, most recently 2009. His only foray into politics was his blatantly racist, nativist attacks on President Obama.
His current wife, Melania Knauss, is a former model of Slovenian origin, who created a jewelry line to care, but spends most of his time waving at his side. He married her without being totally sure she loved him really – which shows where their priorities are.
Hundreds of pages of sworn testimony by Donald J Trump in lawsuits in past decade stemming from soured real estate deals shows his tendency to top the true 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
Does he own Hilary Clinton? Not yet.
He vowed: “Nobody would be tougher on ISIS than Donald Trump ”Politicians, “ later described as “stupid”, “do not lead us to the promised land” You might say who gives a crap? Certainly not ISIS.
You could not vote for better as he is not running for president he is simply doing what he always does: Promote the Donald. Generate headlines. Get people talking. Regardless of how many planes or buildings he has, Trump has made one thing clear over the years, which accounts for a significant portion of his wealth: he knows how to stay in the spotlight.
In our contemporary world it is very rare that we are asked to talk about what lies at the heart of our actions. Instead we hide behind statistics, data, policy statements etc, few of which actually touch other people’s hearts and minds.
To days debates between today’s religions, ideologies, nations and classes will in all likelihood disappear along with Homo Sapiens so it is naive to imagine that we simply hit the brakes on climate change and all will be honky dory.
We are more powerful than ever before, but have very little idea what to do with all that power. We seem to be more irresponsible than ever. We are accountable to no one, and consequently wreaking havoc on or fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction.
There is nothing more dangerous than a dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want?
The real question is not what do we want to be come? but ‘what do we want to want’.
We all know that we must move away from our excessive and selfish lifestyle.
So as you prepare to come to Paris I would like to ask you to think about your personal role, and answer a simple, but profound, question:
Why do I care?
In making climate change and the protection of our beautiful planet a personal issue of your own beliefs and values you will come to the Cop primarily as a conscious human being not just a representative of a Government or agency.
Since time memorial we have all been led to believe that our current lifestyle is the most satisfying, but as you know in reality it is based on egoistic and unjust exploitation of resources and of human capital. It has led to a lifestyle based on selflessness and if left unchecked it will take us to an irreversible process of self-destruction.
We all know that opportunity for an agreement will be beset by challenges.
The question at the heart of any forthcoming Agreement surely most be > Who is going to pay for it.
It will not be the present exclusively profit-focused, job-oriented, planet threatening, income-wealth, gap-widening civilization.
It will not be the free-market capitalism even thought private investors stand to lose $4.2tn (£2.7tn) on the value of their holdings from the impact of climate change by 2100 even if global warming is held at plus 2C, a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has warned.
It will not be cash strapped world Governments.
It will not be a single global tax or regulatory scheme whether they live in a capitalist or communist society.
It will not be Industry reverting the trend of economic development and investment by coupled its insensible greed for profit with carbon emissions.
There is little point in agreeing a new climate change targets if there is no compassionate response to climate change requires for us to help the world’s poorest gain access to sustainable energy solutions so that they can improve their lives while avoiding the dirty energy path that developed countries followed.
There is little point in making the Agreement an Internationally legally binding treaty when there is no way of enforcing its terms or applying penalties for breach thereof.
There is little point in countries submitting their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. The very reference to Intended expresses the get out clause.
By far the biggest obstacle to any agreement will be how countries will finance the move to a low-carbon global economy.
Even if one of these above problems were politically feasible, air is vital to a healthy economy. Which it isn’t. It is the people who want to breathe clean air. Climate pollutants, on the other hand, are everywhere. They are a waste product of nearly every aspect of modern life, and they are not limited to carbon; methane, soot and nitrous oxide all contribute to rising temperatures.
The present generation of young people is the forerunner of the generation of the most powerful generation in human history because of the enormous technology in their hands. We have to get them engaged in creating the world they wish to live in, and pass on to the next generation.
The sooner the socially committed players take charge of technology, the faster the world Social business is a new variety of business which delinks itself from any desire to make personal profit, where economic prosperity isn’t defined by constant reckless growth. We need to develop social systems that encourage people to put aside short-term personal gain in favor of long-term societal and environmental interests.
It is not just yours it is our collective moral responsibility to act. We must act because we care. With that comes a different way of thinking about both mitigating and adapting to climate change, from the roads to the treetops.
We seemingly need to get as close to demise as possible to be able to see things clearly. We’re already running up to and beyond the biophysical boundaries that enable us to exist. Given the pace of change, we can no longer exclude the possibility of reaching critical tipping points that could abruptly and irreversibly change living conditions.
It is only a mobilization of conscience on a global scale that will enable humanity to meet this great challenge confronting us.
We are already seeing promising signs such as the joint announcement by the US and China in Beijing in November 2014 and the decision of the European Council a few weeks before. Together these cover around 50% of world emissions.
Realistically we all know that if either China or the USA were to discover new reserve of Oil, Gas, or Coal they would not leave it in the ground.
So where are we?
The first and only scientific fact to know about climate change is that carbon is (almost) forever.
The Paris agreement for what its worth will come into effect in 2020. To Late.
At this meeting, more than 190 States will discuss a possible new global agreement you have to reach a universal agreement to limit the global warming to 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. To Late.
Countries have to agreed that there will be no back-tracking in these national climate plans, meaning that the level of ambition to reduce emissions will increase over time. Not Possible. Look at the United Nations a gossip shop with no money controlled by Veto.
Countries have been invited to submit their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions to the new climate agreement to be concluded in December, in Paris. This approach represents a concession to political and diplomatic realities, as well as to the limits of international agreements in influencing countries’ behavior in an area so vital to their interests.
The climate change issue is driven more by national than by international politics, so the agreement needs to allow states to determine the content of their own commitments.
So far 21 out of the 194 attending have submitted their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. Bravo.
You might well ask at this point what is the solution.
There is only one solution and that is the creation of a World Aid Commission of 0.05% (for sake of argument) On all Stock Exchange Transactions with a higher commission on a High Frequency Trades, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over $20,000, on all Sovereignty Wealth Funds Acquisition., on all Drilling Wells.
This is the only viable solution to make Profit and Greed pay.
This would create a perpetual World Aid Fund with unlimited funds to tackle Climate Change, Inequality of Opportunity, Education and Disaster Aid.
It will create incentives and spread the funding through out the world by harnessing the very problem that has created the position we now find ourselves in.
Why will it work?
Because ( if firm action is not taken at the forthcoming climate change talks in Paris and the Earth’s temperature warms by a further 5C) investors are facing losses of almost $7tn at today’s prices.
Because democratizing our energy supply can be achieved by this fund in making non repayable grants available to the worlds citizens to install solar power. There’s something special about solar. Not just because it’s genius technology but because, it puts the power to act in millions of hands.
The energy and climate debate is very political and bogged-down by big vested interests.
Because it would solve Climate change which does not have the time or money to be reverted. Ever four days we add a million more people to the planet scuttling our rosy dreams of sustainability.
The definition of success in Paris has been widely misunderstood, and as a result there is a risk that success may be viewed as failure.
Before I wish every success here is a small practical step. Let the summit ask all major TV Media Channels weather forecasts carry a section on the effects of climate change.
The citizens of the world will be watching you.
Yours Sincerely,
The Founder and writer of the Beady Eye.
PS. There is no need for you to respond to this open letter I along with millions that are currently signing online petitions in support of the Earth which has no voice other than climate Change trust you.
OK, a list of what is wrong will go from here to eternity, so before you read this post take a look at the two U tube videos below, and then do something.
If you Goggle the question you will quickly find that there’s no shortage of people who know what is wrong with the world.
The most frequently cited reason is probably the decline of religion, specifically the religion of the person writing it.
Second to “the fall of religion” the most popular answer is probably “religion.” But there are other themes too: lack of respect for elders, unregulated capitalism, greed, alcohol, the economy, the rich, attachment, premarital sex, liberals, the unemployed, pride, lawyers, apathy, Starbucks, Mc Donalds.
Googling the question myself, they all sounded more like symptoms to me.
If certain behaviors are widespread and problematic, whatever causes them must be a bigger, more fundamental problem. Right? Maybe not.
Most people cannot even intelligently discuss the pressing issues of our day.
For me it is that we are too ignorant to open our minds to the problems around us. To selfish to open our hearts to what else is out in the world. To indoctrinated to accept an opinion other than our own, deaf to other people’s voices, blind to the pain and suffering we see in the streets and scared to do anything about it.
Our planet is now slowly dying and we are the reason to blame for its slow demise.
We fill her oceans with black poison. We fill her skies with acid. We cut down all the trees she spent years to grow. We cover her soil with blood and we use her as our own personal dump.
Worst of all we just sit back and watch as it falls apart.
Why?
Because as the twenty-first century unfolds, immensely powerful currents of capitalism, labour, and information turn and shape the world with a growing disregard for the boards and opinions of states.
So the world we see in front of our eyes is not governed by any particular state, organisation or ethic group, but by greed and profit. All run by the stock exchanges and algorithms
What is left is mindless adoption of technology as the end-all-be-all solution to humanity’s problems rather than global cooperation to the appearance of essentially global problems.
I think most people would not say there isn’t something wrong.
But if we’re going to regard the world as if there’s something wrong with it, shouldn’t we be able to identify it, at least with ballpark-level precision?
Here the Beady eye list of what is wrong. Feel free to add.
Climate Change: Overpopulation: Thirst: Poverty: Inequality of opportunity: Equal rights: A lack of Education: Terrorists: Atomic arsenals: Corruption: Distribution of Wealth: Religious Extremists: Political Extremists of Far Left & Far Right: Lying Politicians:Racists: Class structure: Reality TV: Farmer Subsidies: Sexists: Bestiality: High Cost of Space Programmes: Hopeless addiction to entertainment, technology, and celebrity gossip: Soulless of suburbs, sprawls, and office parks create stress, malaise, and depression: The existence of Hollywood, which poisons the world’s culture by normalizing narcissism, consumerism, and bad movies: Pervasive politically correct environment where dissenting thought is labeled sexist, racist, or homophobic: Treatment of smartphones as both friend and passionate lover, which replaces time spent in face-to-face interactions with real friends and lovers: Universities that serve as liberal brainwashing factories instead of palaces of wisdom, enlightenment, and masculinity: Disposable culture where still-functional items are thrown away instead of being repaired or reconditioned: Competitive conversation culture where people talk about themselves instead of listening. Contemplative silences are looked upon as boring or even creepy: Rule by an oligarchy that spies on citizens who don’t even care about its government’s illegal acts because they are too busy playing Candy Crush: Homosexuality openly embraced and displayed in public around children who don’t yet understand the nature of human sex: Complete ignorance of world affairs by citizens due to being comically manipulated by media propaganda. Russia bad! Saudi Arabia good!: People who can no longer handle original thoughts without being offended or“triggered.”: Militarization of police whose monopoly on violence allows them to taze and kill with impunity: Welfare state that redistributes money from hard-working provider men to a growing population of single mothers who are subservient to the state instead of husbands: Calling corporate customer service and having to converse with robots: People who favor tweets for no apparent reason:
Out of date World Organisation are in need of radical reform.
For some reason THE US GOVERNMENT still thinks they should have to take care of the whole planet. The U.S. national debt is over 14 times larger than it was back in 1981:
OPEC nations are going to bring in over a trillion dollars from exporting oil this year:
So where do we stand in regard to Solutions.?
I would really love to hear your answer to that question, in the comment section below. Whatever comes to mind. The question does presume that there is actually something wrong with the human world. If you think there isn’t, please say so too.
I know it’s a pretty broad question, and any answer is welcome. There’s no need to do up an essay or anything, but you’re welcome to. I know Raptitude readers are a thoughtful bunch and I just want to know what kinds of ideas you people have in your minds about what’s wrong with this world.
Here are few Solutions:
Make education FREE not a product.
Place a World Aid commission of 0.05% on all High Frequency Trading, on all Sovereign wealth Funds Acquisitions, on all Foreign Exchange transactions over 20,000 dollars, creating a perpetual World aid fund. ( See previous posts) This would close down all need for Charity.
The poverty trap,” “the ladder of development”—go limp under the magnifying glass of actually being tested.
Leaders who lack wisdom approach problems with linear vision – thus only seeing the problem that lies directly in front of them and blocking the possibilities that lie within the problem. As such, they never see the totality of what the problem represents; Problem solving is the greatest enabler for growth and opportunity.
Out of this fund make available non repayable solar-panel grants. The direction to go is obvious: toward energy independence. THIS IS WHAT THE PARIS CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT IN PARIS SHOULD BE LOOKING AT. (https://youtu.be/qlTA3rnpgzU Probably, a key factor, if not the key factor, in solving our environmental problem is time.
2.5bn people still lack basic sanitation and diarrhoea is the second largest killer of children. 1.1 billion people, or 15 percent of the world’s population, practice open defecation.
Parts of the world could see a supply-demand gap of up to 65% IN WATER RESOURCE BY 2030. Currently, more than one billion people don’t have access to clean water. And with 70 percent of the world’s freshwater used for agriculture, water’s critical role in food production must be considered as climate and resource conditions change.
Reform the United Nations giving equal rights to all Nations.
Legalism of Soft Drugs would reduce the prison population.
Re Introduce National Service to deliver dignity not war.
People think about their own perceived world and part of the challenge is to get people out of that world.
The question now for all of us in the 21st century is will we realize that this is indeed an urgent problem and take bold enough action in sufficient time? The answer to this question is yet to be given.
Here lies the land of technology opportunity, a place where the upside of technology benefits is enormous and world changing.” We’re just the technologists. And actually I think those questions are for society as a whole.” Wrong.
What would happen if we applied our knowledge and skills in these pockets with the resources, creativity and speed of giants like Google and Apple? Let’s give it a try. Let’s encourage our biggest companies to tackle some of the world’s biggest problems. Let’s apply technology tools like hackathons and lab days and rapid prototyping toward solving social and environmental issues. Let’s do some good.”
From This to This 
bobdillon33blog 