Category Archives: COVID-19

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. IS IT TIME TO STOP ANONYMITY ON THE INTERNET.?

20 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., Artificial Intelligence., Communication., COVID-19, Dehumanization., Democracy., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Disconnection., Fake News., Freedom, Freedom of Speech, How to do it., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Modern Day Communication., Our Common Values., Post-Covid-19, Social Media, Social Media Regulation., Technology, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Internet., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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( Ten-minute read) 

Since the internet was in its infancy, the rights of users to use it to express their opinions were sacrosanct.

However, there is a price for “free” internet, and that we’ve given up more of ourselves than we ever intended to.

Concern already exists that Facebook and similar social media platforms act as echo chambers that validate opinions we already hold – fuelling precisely the type of extreme views that Facebook says it has a right to edit.

Might this new position simply result in more fake news?

The Internet has and is empowering masses of people by access to world-wide information sources, education, and communication but what is now considered permissible and acceptable online is shifting.

The question is with this newfound freedom, that is influencing every aspect of our lives for good or bad, should we be requiring people to register their identity when using the internet.?

If so how.

It would be true to say as we have become constantly connected, none of us are as anonymous as we think.

George Orwell presciently realized that if citizens don’t know what is true and what is false, they can’t make a judgment about what to object to in their lives.

Is it time to introduce an online digital passport to eradicate individual desires, such as credulity, abuse, gender-swapping, exploration, radicalizing, hacking, trolling, spreading false news, promoting popularism groups, bullying, racism, the list is endless? 

( Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says. 

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; the right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.”

The GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 give internet users the right to privacy and the right to withhold their personal details.

The Malicious Communication Act 1988 and the Communications Act 2003 make it possible to prosecute “trolling” – and many other forms of online harassment are also now covered by the legislation. )

Platforms on the internet avoided liability by claiming they were “mere conduits” of these views and not “publishers” of them.  The argument goes that this includes protection for freedom of expression by the right to remain anonymous online.

So which should remain enshrined: freedom of speech or freedom from abuse?

The world feels smaller and we’ve celebrated this but in any human population, there will be people with irreconcilably different understandings of the truth.

Repressing speech has costs, but so does allowing it.

The world, however, has changed, and many of us may be in the time warp of old values. Human beings are poor witnesses, easily misled by a personal bias, profoundly influenced by their social environment.

As products of their society, social media and journalists are no exceptions. 

The world is now a much more dangerous place, not because of Covid -19 which is plunging it into a Depression with social media exposing a system of governance corseted by greed – profit before the people. Then, on the other hand, social media is like cancer at the heart of societies spreading the news, not what the facts are, but what men wish to see.

The press once seemed to have a conscience, thanks to history’s painful social conflicts and questions of war and peace.

Social media is not concerned with any historical lessons it being a wildfire of the short-term reactions of unfounded populism without any in-depth investigative journalism.      

It is becoming impossible to distinguish between paid news and actual, unbiased news.

You could say that the world has more pressing problems.

However, our current and future problems, like the internet, are all interconnected.

Shifting trends and the advancement in communication technology require a re-examination of the underlying principle and its application in new contexts.

There are attempts to get some control.

Free-speech advocates typically claim that the value of unfettered expression outweighs any harm it might cause, offering assurances that any such harm will be minimal.

Because like several other precious freedoms, free speech must be placed outside the reach of political exigency.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, it is impossible to pass binding regulations or laws that don’t restrict the sanctity of free speech.

Free speech or the freedom of expression is the modern civilization’s most precious gift to human society but it can’t be reaffirmed by drowning out its opponents.

                                                         ————

The issuing of Digital Passports could not be left to the whim of Facebook or any other internet providers.

Also “Digital identity solutions leave us open to data exploitation with the valuable data from these solutions (being) used for other purposes, so governments could not be involved in their issuing other than making supporting laws with large fines. 

The most obvious hitch in this plan is that not everyone has a smartphone,

With the current Pandemic and vacations, there will be an attempt to introduce Covid-19 free digital health certification (Of course, this would only be applicable to people with smartphones.) and they could become a prerequisite for some activities.

But for now, we’re many steps removed from that kind of streamlined process even becoming possible. Widespread adoption of so-called immunity passports would require a level of coordination and organization uncharacteristic of any country’s response to COVID-19 so far.

So here is the challenge. 

Is it possible to create a Digital Passport that is unhackable, that can be applied for online, that would combine your present Passport information, that you could use to vote, to register an internet identity, and carry your medical history. 

People would only accept such a thing if it commands public trust.

As evidence with the recent election in the USA entrusting your democracy to a black-box proprietary system that is subject to hacking, glitches, and errors, but NOT subject to scrutiny, analysis, or independent verification, is the surest and quickest way to lose your democracy. 

However, creating an internet user register could be possible not only authenticating the user but making it more transparent and ensure that users have the right to remedy when wrong decisions are made.

As for platforms, they know what they need to do because civil society has told them for years.

Just in case they have not got the message they should ensure that the decisions they make about speech are in line with global human rights standards, rather than making the rules up as they go.

 

 All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. IF YOU LOOK AROUND YOU AT THE PRESENT STATE OF THE WORLD YOU SHOULD NOT BE FORGIVEN FOR FEELING DISPARE.

17 Sunday Jan 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change., COVID-19, Dehumanization., Digital age., Disaster Capitalism., Earth, How to do it., Human values., Humanity., Imagination., Inequality., Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Poverty, Robot citizenship., Social Media Regulation., Stimulus package., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., Universal Basic Income., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Aid.

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(Fifteen-minute read) 

As we floundering around in the midst of COMPOUNDING PANDEMICS that are far from over, the future is not here yet.

With our planet is crying out, our political leaders are like fish out of water, apart from the obvious, it seems that we have lost the plot. Compounded by ignorance, short term self-interest, the pursuit of wealth, and political interests, any actions that are vital for survival are stymieing by the lack of conciliation. 

Climate Change, Biodiversity, Artificial Intelligence, Poverty and Inequality, Population all on the top of the list. All of them are presenting overwhelming challenges ahead.

There is no way of sugar-coating any of these threats, they have no borders.

We are brought up with other people’s perceptions of life.  

Not until we develop enough, intellectually, can we change those perceptions, and even then it can be difficult to change our perceptions about the world until we start to really question it.

Anything else is a blatant lie.

With millions of dead and millions more death to come, we can only prevent any one of them from coming to fruition if we take all of them especially the environmental threat seriously.

With large swaths of people still dealing with entrenched inequalities, it is no wonder we are unable to see the above threats as reality. 

If there was ever a time to join together it is now.

We all have an identity and cultural distinctiveness, but if we bound together in a common cause, we could accomplish spectacular things.

To do this we must first start to see ourselves as HUMAN BEINGS, and the planet earth as HOME, not our individual countries.  

                                                   ————

I am sure you will agree that the world order is destined to change and it’s urgent that humanity gets a way to preserve what’s left on Earth. 

In this regard, technology is not a destiny jobs will be for robots and life for people.  

The problem is who is the owner of the robots and how do we ensure that we all benefit. 

At the moment there are millions wasting their time in useless jobs to scratch a living.  Rest assured that capitalism will come up with millions of more useless jobs. 

                                                 ————

Unfortunately, we are not able to act as one, and even if we could there would be no point in becoming mindless drones with no culture.

There would be no point in living because it’ would be all just be one culture with no distinct forms. 

The raw reality exposed by the current pandemic is that everyone is only just a human unable to act as one due to greed-driven by unregulated social media and profit-seeking algorithms.

                                                  ———– 

The big question is what can be done?

SOLUTIONS WITHOUT FUNDING, ABOUND ON TED TALKS. 

We know that poverty is one of the main driving forces when it comes to any long term perspective to protecting the earth.

Poverty is not due to a lack of knowledge. POVERTY IS CREATED BY SCARCITY, not a personality defect as Maggie Thatcher once said.

As George Orwell said  “Poverty annihilates the Future “

 You would think by now we would have figured out the reasons for its existence.  

ALMOST EVERYTHING NEEDED FOR LIFE IS MADE SCARCE BY APPLYING CAPITALIST PROFIT, TURNING ALMOST EVERYTHING INTO A PRODUCT TO BE TRADED.   

SO WHEN ONE IS UNABLE TO ACQUIRE WHAT IS NEEDED DUE TO THE LACK OF CASH YOU HAVE POVERTY.   If we genuinely ask why do the poor make so many bad decisions THIS IS THE MAIN REASON. 

Till now we have ignored the symptoms of poverty to our cost, and now to the chilling silence of Earth protests, we find ourselves unable to enjoy the Earth we live on. 

To date, we have created World organizations without the power of funding that vents verbal warnings,  that no one takes heed of unless it is in their own interest to do so

Take Co2 admissions. We continue to pump Co2 into our shared atmosphere.  (Earth isn’t the only planet in our solar system with an atmosphere, it is the only one in which we humans can survive.) 

It is blatantly obvious that we are not able through our global conversation whether they are online or not due to profit-taking we are not able to establish any solidarity. 

A lot of religious people mentioned that there is a leader who is going to save this world and stands for oppressed, poor, and homeless people.

While we are waiting we need to be more creative in our imagination if we want to match the relentless progression of biodiversity loss, climate change, and the other problems facing us all that are going to drive the Scarcity market.   

 A basic income is an idea that has and is being kicked from pillar to post for years.

Free money for everybody.

Not the welfare state but AN INCOME FOR ALL –  UNCONDITIONAL YOU DO WHAT YOU WANT WITH IT.

Where will the cash come from?

( See previous posts. A World Commission of 0.05%)

Of course, no one or anybody is going to take on or take down the holy grail of profit for profit’s sake.

After all, we live in societies that have allowed themselves to be subsumed by greed with ethics still being sacrificed on the altar of turnover and growth at all costs- GDP.

What is truly galling though is how the rot persists, where people cannot see the direct causal link, to overconsumption prompted by the advertising industries.

Profit is not intrinsically bad, but profit for profit’s sake alone is not just bad it’s unimaginably damaging.

Profit has to be extracted in such a way that every partner in the supply chain profits; from the workers to the shareholders, from the local community through to the nation itself.

That means creating a system where people are empowered to speak, where processes are so transparent that nothing can be hidden and where part of those profits is reinvested into those communities to sustain growth and development for generations to come.

So before we find ourselves teetering over the edge of the precipice. We need to speak truth to power when we start to feel discomfited, not when we have already entered the realm of cognitive dissonance or, worse, open and cynical collusion in the Bell Pottinger mode.

We have been gifted by the current pandemic which is yet to reach its apogee. It is daring us not to be paralyzed by our past.

It is offering a chance to find and resolve, to do things differently.

To call out the emperors of technology, when they stride about us in their unabashed nudity to put sustainability at the core of their online and off-line operations. 

They are now the praetorian guard of citizen and corporate activists and it is essential in this post-covid-19 economic depression that society should be saved from exploitation.

Unfortunately, they are unable to regulate themselves. This can be done only when the state interferes with total transparency. 

Is it not time that all non-essential products are labeled with their carbon footprint. 

What is Cash but transparency, in its naked form, creating fair competitions.   

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

while we pump CO2 in

https://youtu.be/aIL_Y9g7Tg0

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. IN ORDER TO BECOME PROACTIVE AND NOT REACTIVE WE NOW SHOULD BE BUILDING A NEW LIST OF GLOBAL PRIORITIES.

12 Tuesday Jan 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., Capitalism, Civilization., Climate Change., COVID-19, Dehumanization., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Disaster Capitalism., Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., How to do it., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, Our Common Values., Post-Covid-19, Reality., Robot citizenship., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Technology., Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, Viruses., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Ten-minute read) 

Why?

We cannot come back from Extinction.

BECAUSE  The world we now have is a tragic begging world. 

WE MUST BECOME PROACTIVE, NOT REACTIVITY.

Because humanity is entering a new age, where we are faced with not only existential risks from our natural environment but by those of our own creation. 

Two hundred years ago we didn’t understand the basic causes of a Pandemic. 

Because the world is now so interconnected (with a vastly increased population than any time in our history) pandemics have more opportunities not only to spread new diseases but to originate new sources.

Because we are reaching “The Precipice”  a time where we’ve reached the ability to pose an existential risk to ourselves, which is substantially bigger than the natural risks, the background that we were facing before.  

Because we need to understand our vulnerability and determine what steps must be taken to end this pandemic. 

Because just a few years ago more than one bomb was created.

One in the hands of a few decision-makers that could destroy civilization the other the Internet, not in the hands  

The current bombs are created by our continuing abuse of the planet we live on. They are not in the hands of deranged dictators or impeached presidents but in the hands of a system of exploitation called capitalism now becoming more and more driven by profit-seeking algorithms.   

Because we think everyone’s interests matter equally, approaches to improving the world should be evaluated mainly in terms of their potential for long-term impact.

Because there are vast differences between the effectiveness of working on different global problems we need better global prioritization.

Because as technology improves and the world economy grows or shrinks, it is getting easier to cause destruction on an ever-larger scale.

(New transformative technologies may promise a radically better future but also pose catastrophic risks.)

Because Covid-19 is showing us that there are many available avenues for improving the world, in terms of social value.

Because now there is much uncertainty around the value of specific options.

Because not enough cause prioritization is done, from the perspective of total social welfare.

The reasons are endless.

However to build the new field of ‘global priorities’ and to try to work out which global problems are most pressing and make progress on foundational questions about how best to address them we need to start understanding that just as the fate of gorillas currently depends on the actions of humans, the fate of humanity may come to depend more on the actions of machines than our own.

Rapid progress in machine learning has raised the prospect that algorithms will one day be able to do most or all of the mental tasks currently performed by humans. This could ultimately lead to machines that are much better at these tasks than humans.

(New transformative technologies may promise a radically better future but they also pose catastrophic risks. How one might design a highly intelligent machine to pursue realistic human goals safely is very poorly understood.)

Comparing global problems involves lots of uncertainty and difficult judgment calls.

If AI research continues to advance without enough work going into the research problem of controlling such machines, catastrophic accidents are much more likely to occur. Nonetheless, work on mitigating many risks remains remarkably neglected. 

Prioritization research appears to be in its infancy. With common prioritize interventions almost zero it remains impossible to assume some common world values.

Why is this? 

Once again the reasons are numerous – but they can be encapsulated in the word inequality, in all its forms.  

Causes have to be made before developing a deep understanding of an area that required prioritization – climate change for example.

Covid-19 is shining a light on the need to develop world health versus biological research – which received very little attention up to now. 

While billions are spent making AI more powerful, there are fewer than 100 people in the world working on how to make AI safe. 

AI could lead to extremely positive developments, presenting solutions to now-intractable global problems, but they also pose severe risks.

Humanity’s superior intelligence is pretty much the sole reason that it is the dominant species on the planet. If machines surpass humans in intelligence, then common beliefs could easily originate from websites.

This is why it is necessary that we create a list ranking of which problems we think are most pressing for people.  That promotes civilizational resilience, mitigating great power conflict, or laying the foundations for the governance of outer space. 

If you have read this post you could not be blamed for thinking that the idea of creating a new list of global problems is worthless. BUT ALL THE TALK, AND AGREEMENTS IN THE WORLD ARE WORTHLESS UNLESS THEY ARE FUNDED TO BECOME PROACTIVE.  

( See previous posts recreating such a fund – 0.005% world Aid Fund, before the current third revolution of Artificial Intelligence, invents the machine with intelligence that far surpasses our own.)

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. LET’S PUT COVID-19 DEATHS IN CONTEXT TO THE 20TH CENTURY ?

08 Friday Jan 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Civilization., COVID-19, Denial of Death., Humanity., Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The state of the World., The world to day., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World

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(Four-minute read) 

Yes, as humans we face natural disasters and pandemics but neither can hold a candle to the carnage that humans inflict on each other. 81.5 billion people died because of war, 800,000 because of disaster, less than 5 billion from all diseases including cancer.

You could say that religion is the biggest killer of all but would be wrong, even ignoring the big epidemics, the death toll through the years from things like Cholera, Malaria, and yearly flu outbreaks, Smallpox, The Black Death, The Plague of Justinian, HIV, 1918 Influenza, TB, Polio have no connection to religious belief.

Almost three-quarters of deaths are from non-communicable diseases, with obesity and diet amongst the most significant contributors. Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of early deaths across the globe.

You could also say that the world’s health lies outside of the control of the individual; war, conflict, or environmental factors, which is also untrue. 

What is true is that Climate Change will be the all-encompassing killer.

Death by many cuts. 

 

The world population has increased from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.7 billion today.

Global deaths from COVID-19 passed 776,000 in mid-August 2021 with 7.7 billion of us it has the potential to get rid of a lot of us. 

The annual mortality rate for the seasonal flu is about 0.01% or 12,000-61,000 deaths per year.

To get some perspective and context here are some of the main killers the world has seen.  

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide—about one-third of the planet’s population—and killed an estimated 20 million to 50… 5.26% of an estimated global population of 950 million, died.  The pandemic lasted for two years.

 



The Irish Famine. 

Around a million. 

 Genghis Khan

40 million deaths.

Genocide.

The Armenian Genocide (800,000 to 1,500,000), The Assyrian Genocide (150,000 to 300,000), and the Greek Genocide (289,000 to 750,000) combined with the Great Famine of Mount Lebanon (200,000).

The Cambodian Civil War.

Pol Pot, Around 2 million people.

Ranavalona I of Madagascar

Around 5 million to 2.5 million

The Congo

10 million deaths

Japan.

Millions. 

Hitler Germany The Nazi Holocaust.

17 million.

China. 

The Nationalist government of China is responsible for between 6 and 18.5 million deaths. Mao Zedong Chairman Mao Catastrophes alone 15 million.

Stalin.

From 4 to 10 million. Stalinism killed more soviets than Nazism: a total of 12 million death of soviets were attributed to the Nazis, while up to 25 million deaths in total were by Stalin’s orders.

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people.

The British Empire killed with famine, sword, and fire more people than

Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Hitler or Stalin.

It must be said that many empires behaved this way, and the British are not an exception. Most large empires will have blood on their hands to varying degrees, whether it is through conquest, colonization, the implementation of the rule, control of the colony, or suppression of the people and opposition.

Inevitably, given that the British Empire was the largest in history and that it existed from the sixteenth century into the twentieth century, the activities and policies of the Empire would have resulted in the deaths of many people – or perhaps it saved more people than it extinguished. 

I doubt you could put an exact figure on it because there’s no systematic way of knowing the real number in our modern days – either way, it has a gritty past. 

9/11, Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, Isis, and recent conflicts, such as those in Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, and Libya, yet to be counted. 

Road traffic.  According to the World Health Organization, caused an estimated 1.35 million deaths worldwide in 2016. That is, one person is killed every 25 seconds.

Illicit drugs are drugs.

Who knows how many. Directly and indirectly – it is over 750,000 per year. 

Murder.

The murder rate is 7.6 for every 100000 people globally. Think this works out to be around 6 million homicides per year globally.

Poverty.

Around 18 million die from poverty.  

The ice age.

It killed an estimated 75 million people, including 30 to 60 percent of Europe’s population.

If you are reading this consider yourself lucky.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. IF WE HAD TO CREATE AN ALTERNATIVE TO CAPITALISM WHAT WOULD IT BE CALLED.

05 Tuesday Jan 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., A Constitution for the Earth., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Civilization., Climate Change., COVID-19, Dehumanization., Disaster Capitalism., Disasters., Disconnection., Earth, Evolution, Foreign Aid., G20., G7., GDP., Green Energy., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Post - truth politics., POST COVID-19., Reality., Stimulus package., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, Universal Basic Income ., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations.

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(Ten-minute read) 


We, humans, live on an ecologically fragile planet with limited resources that must be sustained for future generations we must move humanity to an alternative world system — one committed to social justice, deep democracy, environmental sustainability, a safe climate, and planetary health.

The COVID-19 pandemic contains the fuel for social change – verbal with little imagination as to what to change. 

History tells us that social changes can occur quickly once economic, political, social structural, and environmental conditions have reached a tipping point.

Humanity is now obviously at a crossroads or perhaps several crossroads: one is business-as-usual which is sure to result in dystopia; another is a shift to some variant of green capitalism, which is gaining considerable support; and finally an eco-socialist vision that, while muted at this time, will hopefully become stronger as the need for it becomes more apparent to the mass of humanity.

Thanks to Covid -19  the world is off-balance – and it will remain so for years to come.

Far from settling into a ‘new normal’, we should expect a COVID-19 domino effect, triggering further disruptions – positive as well as negative ­– over the decade ahead.

It has underscored the interconnectedness of our natural, social and economic systems, and provided a stark reminder of the scale of systemic risks that can build up when we allow weaknesses and negative impacts to accumulate over time.

Continuation on the current pathway will, over time, only lead to deeper and deeper crises, including an ever-escalating climate change crisis, the result of growing greenhouse emissions spewed by the capitalist treadmill of production and consumption.

Combating both climate change and global capitalism go hand-in-hand however the raw truth is that Capitalism will certainly not consciously permit the eventual demise of global capitalism and the emergence of an ecosocialist world system promoted by many. 

In previous posts, I have advocated that without funding all alternatives will fail whether they are green capitalism and existing climate regimes, including the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, which is not sufficient to mitigate climate change in any serious way.  

How can we expect the system that created the problem to solve the problem?

Despite the daunting difficulties that much of humanity currently faces, and will continue to face over the course of this century capitalism today continues unabated to pump Co2 into the atmosphere and will continue to do so after the Climate Summit this year in Scotland.  (By the deadline of December 31, 2020, only 70 out of 192 countries had presented their new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs): the individual commitments made to fight against climate change.)

One doesn’t have to have to be a delegate to this summit to know that if we manage to get on top of the current Pandemic which is bleeding the coffers of countries endeavoring to save their economies the emissions will triple on returning to anything that looks like normal. 

Of course, we will be told that we have learned the lesson that Green is the way forward.  It is true to say that the construction of ecosocialism needs to be based upon a commitment to a long-term sustainable balance between sociocultural systems and the natural environment but it is also true to say that the capitalist world system continues to self-destruct due to its exploitative, oppressive, socially unjust, and environmentally unsustainable practices – this will continue with artificial intelligence to plunder the earth for a profit with machining mining called data, fed to machine unregulated algorithm, making us all but powerless. 

Ecosocialism constitutes a vision against the mal-distribution of resources on a global scale that capitalism produces is bound to keep alive, notions of social justice and equality, deep democracy, and socialism in oppressed classes.

It is only by spreading the cost of change fairly that we can reinvent capitalism.

We could adopt a universal wage and let people fend for themselves but this won’t change our habits.  

It is time to envision future scenarios and strategies for achieving an alternative world system.

Once again here’s how. 

Because we live in different cultures, transparency is vital to address the main problem –  Inequality in all its forms. 

To do this the cost of change has to be spread fairly.

This can only be achieved by making a profit for profit sake contribute.

Not by taxation, IMF loans, foreign aid, or begging charity aid programs. 

The UN is now relied upon by the international community to coordinate humanitarian relief operations due to natural and man-made disasters in areas beyond the relief capacity of national authorities alone.

We currently have the technology that maximizes profit and future profit, like high-frequency trading that runs 90% of world stock exchanges. 

THERE IS NO REASON NOT TO PLACE A WORLD AID COMMISSION OF 0.05% ON ALL ACTIVITIES THAT ARE NOT SUSTAINABLE TO CREATE A PERPETUAL FUND TO TACKLE CLIMATE CHANGE AND OTHER PRESSING WORLD PROBLEMS.

ALL OF ITS AID WOULD BE GRANTED NON-REPAYABLE. 

THIS FUND COULD BE ADMINISTERED BY ELECTED MEMBERS. 

ALL PROJECTS OTHER THAN DISASTER RELIEF WOULD BE SUBJECT TO APPROVAL AGAINST A WRITTEN EARTH CONSTITUTION THAT TRULY ALIGNS MARKETS WITH THE NATURAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SYSTEMS ON WHICH WE ALL DEPEND.   

It is about building real resilience, driving equitable and sustainable growth, and reinventing capitalism itself.

PROJECTS THAT MEET THE REQUIRED PERMATERS WOULD THEN BE ELIGIBLE FOR FUNDING.

TO AVOID CORRUPTION AND LOBBYING ALL APPROVED PROJECTS ARE PLACED IN A TELEVISED YEARY DRAW. 

50,000 – 100,000

100,000 – 250,000

250,000 – 500,000

500,000 – 1 MILLION

1 MILLION AND GREATER.  

Here is a suggestion that could be funded. 

Products Labeling. 

Marketers use labeling for their products to bring identification to impart information to the consumer about the product.  They allow customers to know about the item and give necessary messages including ingredients, instructions, and uses. 

Why not their carbon footprint with a symbol showing their contribution to Carbon emissions. 

Human and nonhuman, have a natural right to sustenance.

( See the previous posts on a world aid commission.)

All human comments and imagination appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY SAYS; THE TIME HAS COME TO COMMENCE CREATING A NEW IDOLOGY TO LIVE ON AND WITHIN EARTH.

03 Sunday Jan 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2020: The year we need to change., 2021. The year for change., A Constitution for the Earth., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Civilization., Climate Change., COVID-19, Disaster Capitalism., Earth, Environment, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Fresh Water., How to do it., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Inequality, Life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Pandemic, Paris Climate Change Conference 2015, Political Trust, Politics., Populism., Post-Covid-19, Privatization, Reality., Sovereign wealth fund, Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., Trade Agreements., Truth, Truthfulness., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., Wealth., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Economy., World Leaders

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( A seven-minute read) 


IF THERE IS ANYTHING TO LEARN FROM COVID IT IS THAT WE HUMANS MUST CHANGE THE WAY WE LIVE COLLECTIVELY AND INDIVIDUALLY ON THIS PLANET.

CURRENTLY, WE ALL LIVE WITHIN IDEOLOGIES THAT ARE BROKEN.

SOME VISIBLE SOME NOT. 

(An ideology (/ˌʌɪdɪˈɒlədʒi/) is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially as held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which “practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones.” Wikipedia. 

There are many different kinds of ideologies, including political, social, epistemological, and ethical.

  • “We do not need…to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities. The need for a sense of universal responsibility affects every aspect of modern life.” — Dalai Lama.
  • “The function of ideology is to stabilize and perpetuate dominance through masking or illusion.” — Sally Haslanger
  • “[A]n ideology differs from a simple opinion in that it claims to possess either the key to history or the solution for all the ‘riddles of the universe,’ or the intimate knowledge of the hidden universal laws, which are supposed to rule nature and man.” — Hannah Arendt)

At the root of all these ideologies is the value of money.

HOW IT IS ACQUIRED AND DISTRIBUTED IS WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED.

A religion may present a vision of a just society, but it cannot easily have a practical political program with or without money.  

All idea systems have a class basis. This class bias is defined by the acquisition of wealth in one form or another – assets, power, etc. Nither however can any longer dominate the state through an appeal to the populace, and then use the powers of the state to control both the economy and the private lives of the citizen’s work.

No longer can politics itself, acquire certain ideological characteristics whose true nature is concealed.

All forms of isms that belong to the 19th or 20th century may suggest that ideologies are no older than the word itself—that they belong essentially to a period in which secular belief increasingly replaced traditional religious faith.

So let’s ask the question.   

Where are we?

In terms of truth we now in a world both connected and disconnected in the extreme sense of the word connected.

IT IS CLEAR THAT THE WORLD NEEDS TO MOVE BEYOND SLOGANS.

A system that rewards those with capita while taxpayer’s money is used to support food banks for those out of work is not sustainable.

The economic injustices are plain to see with historic debt the inheritance of the young along with irreversible climate change and biodiversity collapse.

We now need an ism that shifts human values to a different set of values by placing the earth’s healthy existence at the forefront of all our values.

WE MUST NOT ONLY CONFRONT OUR MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF THE NATURAL WORLD WE MUST USE KNOWLEDGE NOT AS A MEANS TO CREATE WEALTH BUT AS A GLOBAL UNDERSTANDING WHERE WE ARE AT. 

WE CAN NO LONGER STAND BYE AND WATCH BIG TECH MONOPOLIES COMPANIES SWALLOW WHAT IS LEFT OF COMPETITION.

WE CAN NO LONGER STAND BYE AND WATCH A MARKET PLACE THAT CREATES WINNERS AND LOSERS ON THE BASES OF WEALTH. 

WE CAN NO LONGER WATCH WORLD ORGANISATIONS GOVERNED BY VETOES.

WE ALL DEPENDENT ON EACH OTHER AND OTHERS AND MUST COLLABORATE WITH ALL THAT SURROUNDS US.  

No longer is it possible for any system whether it’s socialism, communism, anarchism, fascism, nationalism, liberalism, and conservatism to be FREE OF INTERFERENCE FROM ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, MACHINE LEARNING, AND UNCONTROLLED ALGORITHMS.

THESE TECHNOLOGIES IN THEIR PRESENT STATE ARE SIGNALING THAT INTERPRETATIONS OF IDEOLOGIES ARE OUT OF DATE. 

You only have to look at the world to see the inequalities created by the pursuit of growth at any cost. This pursuit has turned all of earth’s resources into products to produce more products sold in a marketplace governed by short term profit. 

No longer is it possible to take fresh air, fresh water for granted. 

If we don’t want a world where from birth to death is viewed as an opportunity to exploit our weaknesses and essential needs to live out our lives in the first place,  we need AN NEW IDOLOGIE CALLED REALISM, NOT ESCAPISM, NOT APATHY, OR ANY MONOTHEISM, OR NEOREALISTS

“ Rather a collective meanings that constitute the structures which organize our actions.”

There is only one solution.

That is as advocated by this blog in several posts to Harness PROFIT FOR-PROFIT SAKE.

High-frequency trading with algorithms, sovereign wealth funds buying earth resources – land, water, energy, futures/ hedge funds – betting on demand, currency exchanges manipulating value, trade deals excluding fair trade, the list is endless. 

ALL ACTIONS THAT ARE NOW REQUIRED TO CHANGE COURSE REQUIRE FUNDING.

A 0.05% WORLD AID COMMISSION ON ALL ACTIVITIES THAT ARE NOT SUSTAINABLE WILL CREATE A PERTUTIAL FUND OF TRILLIONS TO CREATE A WORLD THAT’S WORTH LIVING ON.  

There is one thing for certain change is happing but the window for change is closing.

Climate change is not something that might happen in the future. 

We need a new relationship, to a more sustainable relationship with the natural world.

Creative imagination is what’s required so if you read this post let’s hear your comments.  

 https://youtu.be/GCwHki1q_I8

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social unrest in the long tall grass while a few billionaires laugh there a way to the bank 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE THE TOP CURRENT THREATHS TO HUMANITY?

12 Saturday Dec 2020

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2020: The year we need to change., A Constitution for the Earth., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Civilization., Climate Change., COVID-19, Digital age., Disaster Capitalism., Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Green Energy., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, Nuclear power., Our Common Values., Politics., POST COVID-19., Reality., Robot citizenship., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Truthfulness., Unanswered Questions., Universal Basic Income., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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(Fifteen-minute read) 

There is a  radical difference between conventional threats and emerging threats which are posing a strategic challenge that must be met with a strategic response. 

On one hand, it would be fair to say that Human advances have got us into the mess, but the question is the technology capable of getting us out of the mess. 

Globalization, complexity, our relatively unsophisticated mechanisms for sharing information and making sense out of changes that we barely perceive, much less understand, all assure that any major threat — and especially non-state threats such as infectious disease – covid -19. 

So let’s look at a few things that stick out like sore thumbs when it comes to technology. 

The fear that technology could cause humanity’s downfall as such offers some terrifying scenarios that could befall our species. 

The risk of the creation of some new super virus or bug in a lab that we are unable to control if it were to escape into the wild isn’t any longer beyond the realms of impossibility. 

It means we must apply technology in ways responsive to our most immediate and frequent threats and must balance our use of technology with the intelligence cycle:

If we do not harness the fourth industrial revolution to the benefit of all we will turn the planet once more back into a snowball Earth.

We must develop reliable capabilities for developing technology advancement.

No government, no international organization, and certainly no corporation, can be relied upon to seek out and act on the truth, or even to act in the public interest.

So in my view, the greatest threat we face is unregulated software that is driving our lives. It is one of the greatest problems afflicting modern society, not because of human intelligence, but because we are allowing profit-seeking algorithms to dominate consumption.

Current economic policy is short-term creating a non-saving society for the rainy day.

One only has to look at the effects of the covid pandemic to see that a redistribution of wealth is required urgently if we are to have any chance of a caring society.

The current threats.       

Take for example. 

Cyber malware.

What is malware?  How dangerous is it? 

It is a contraction of malicious software that exploits your digital life, by mining your personal data either to profit directly or sell on the information. It comes in the form of a virus embedded in a piece of software and can spread from one file to another or computer. 

There are several types of malware.

A worm. Does not need to be triggered. It automatically propagates itself. 

A Trojan. Can be a good-looking App that will wreak havoc. 

A Ransom.  Pay up before everything is deleted.

They can be weaponized to have real-world consequences. Over fifteen Iranian facilities were attacked and infiltrated by the Stuxnet worm.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) disclosed on Wednesday that it has suffered a cyber-attack, leading to unauthorized access to documents relating to a Covid-19 vaccine.

Now imagine the threat to the stability of critical infrastructures around water, electricity, and gas that are vital to the running of nations.

The next has to be Climate change.

The main problem here is that no one whats to foot the bill. ( See previous posts) 

To achieve long-term and profound progress in environmental governance, policy focus needs to be complemented by intensified efforts to strengthen the rule of environmental law not just shallow promises coming out of Climate Conferences. 

To do so, the capacity of international courts to pronounce judgments on environmental matters, the clarity, and scope of environmental legal principles, and compliance with and implementation of judgments must be further strengthened with a constitution for the whole of the Earth. 

What’s at stake here are basic rights to life and health so the pursuing of climate policies that violate the right to life must have genuine consequences if we are to keep global warming to 2°C.

Climate change crossing borders with impunity.

Next: Poverty.

 The gap between rich and poor is now a pandemic.

No single factor can account for the large disparities in economic development among the countries of the world. Nor is the relative influence of any particular factor likely to remain the same over time.

While such things as technology and natural resources are obvious factors in economic development, they are plundered for profit’s sake by high-frequency trading run by unregulated data mining algorithms. 

However, there is no denying the fact that the rich are becoming richer and the poor are becoming poorer.

This is happing not because of human intelligence but can be attributed to numerous factors such as social immobility, globalization, more advanced technology, and taxation.

Current economic policy is dominated by short-term thinking so there is a serious lack of savings for the rainy day. 

The COVID-19 pandemic will and is widening the gap between the rich and the poor, especially in the emerging online markets and developing economies.

Next. 

Nuclear Armageddon.

The threat of nuclear Armageddon has receded these days replaced by Climate Change.

Still, it’s a worrying thought alongside artificial intelligence, biotechnology warfare it is and remains inconceivable to our comprehension other than an instant self ext to our existence.

Next 

Enslavement by self-replicate robotic robots created by nano-sized technology.

It may well be a piece of code – not a nuclear weapon or infectious disease or indeed climate change  – that brings about humanity’s downfall.

Next

The needs of 7 billion people. 

Precious resources:

https://www.theworldcounts.com/embed/challenges/5?background_color=white&color=black&font_family=%22Helvetica+Neue%22%2C+Arial%2C+sans-serif&font_size=14

As our culture advanced and our species invented many things that will make our lives easier, our demand for raw materials increased by leaps and bounds. We get these resources from the other. The problem is, we’re using too much and without care. Our planet just can’t keep up with our ever-increasing demands.

Finally:  With quality education becoming more and more expensive only an investment in people and not profit has any hope.  

Our demand for knowledge shows no sign of abating.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

about fostering opportunity

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHY DO WE HUMANS FIND IT DIFFICULTY TO ACCEPT THE TRUTH.

18 Wednesday Nov 2020

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2020: The year we need to change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Climate Change., COVID-19, Digital age., Disconnection., Donald John Trump, How to do it., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., POST COVID-19., Robot citizenship., Social Media, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Truthfulness., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World

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(Eighteen-minute read) 

This is a question not easy to answer.

Why?

Because facts and truth are closely related.

The truth takes into consideration feelings and beliefs, whereas they have no place in fact.

A fact is something that is true everywhere and for everyone.

Facts do not change according to region, caste, culture, religion, etc.

That is not to say that facts from the past have been overturned and proven to be false and that some facts from today will be proven false tomorrow- History is written by the Victor.  We no longer know when a fact is going to be true for eternity.

Some of them will. 

Take for example you have to be born to experience death.  Currently true.

However, with the arrival of Artificial Intelligence – it appears that not just robots but humans will have both life and death capable of independence, separable from one another. 

This is not quite yet a scientific fact” but we could be standing on thin ice. 

So what makes a fact a fact?

Facts are hardcore and hence they cannot keep constantly changing; a fact remains a fact until proven otherwise. A fact states something that has actually occurred or happened, but we have no idea what’s outside the visible universe.   

A matter of seeing is believing I suppose. 

The truth is often considered to have a grander scope than facts.

However, something that is true for one person may not be true for everyone.

 Is this true? 

With the arrival of the Internet, the world has shrunk but unfortunately, we are all now on different platforms of truth. 

For example. Facebook discovered that warning users that an article was false caused people to share that article even more.

It seems that the closer you get to the truth, the further you get from the world.

In other words, while you can get people to understand the facts, the facts don’t always matter.

Unfortunately, we don’t care about the truth as much as we typically think our highly social brains make discerning truth more difficult than we might hope because we often protect our previous beliefs rather than face inconvenient truths.

Why?

It’s because we’re all viscerally connected to truth on a fundamental, physical, and spiritual level. It’s part of who we are and like a virus, we instinctively reject dishonesty.

We learn to put on a mask (personality), to present an acceptable display, and hopefully, nobody will see the truth. That process spreads to other aspects of our lives, many times unknowingly.

To think about the future, you have to know about the present

– Prof. Hans Rosling, TEDtalks 2014

My understanding, in a nutshell, is that a hypothesis gets upgraded to a theory (closest you can get to fact) not possibly by chance occurrence. This is evidence that it is true, and will remain true until (if it ever happens) new evidence that disproves it comes to light.

Valid does not equate to true.

Sometimes theories are inducible and then prove by deduction,i.e gravity.

So why do we argue so much when facts about contentious topics are readily available?

If the data are gathered, shouldn’t we all be reaching the same conclusions?

Obviously not. 

Presenting people with information about an issue in a nuanced way, rather than presenting them with pro-con arguments laid out in a simplified manner, leads people to have more complex and satisfying conversations about contentious issues.

True.

But our ears are dull of hearing, and our eyes have closed thanks to algorithms that control what we hear or see.  They warp our perception of reality and reasoning by creating social media echo chambers.

We can share our worldview like never before, yet we often feel worlds apart when assessing our shared reality. Social media typically does not promote positive interactions.

Complacency lures in the comfort of our smartphones or our living room couch and sadly, we’re always the first victims of our lies because we have to believe them first before we can convince others to do so.

The result is that the difference between fact, truth, and opinion becomes blurred. 

What can be changed? 

Any sane person, regardless of nationality, color, or political stance, would aim for the first – truth and facts.

So why don’t we just get indisputable facts on the table? 

Reaching the correct answer required participants to think carefully about the data.

We often reason with desired conclusions in mind and selectively recruit our mental faculties towards reaching those conclusions.

However if the people most capable of accurately interpreting data are at least as biased as the rest of us, how can we hope to find common ground on our most pressing and divisive issues?

Climate Change – Inequality, Covid-19, you name it. It’s hard to find the truth because there is so much falsehood out there making so much noise that the truth gets drowned out.

Everyone wants to be right, but practically speaking it’s usually more important for us to be socially accepted and internally consistent in our beliefs.

To divert from this human automation, we have to make a deliberate choice.

We have to actively decide to put on the brighter light and accept that doing so will sometimes help us in the longer run. Until we find systematic ways to improve our reasoning, we can all take steps towards improving political discourse by making efforts to challenge our personal beliefs and biases. Our values are more meaningful than their political utility, so if you stumble into a heated debate remember that the search for community, happiness, and truth transcends partisan boundaries. 

Without being honest with ourselves we’ll never be honest with others.

Living in our own little world of self-created lies and avoiding the truth of our life experience takes great energy-producing even greater amounts of stress.   

The first lie is the one we tell ourselves. It’s usually, “It didn’t happen” or “It didn’t happen like that.”

Sometimes it’s hard to find the truth because for too many people nowadays truth does not matter, only power.  Donald Trump. 

We have a natural instinct to search for answers and make sense of things.

These phenomena can be described by many different words 

Ondinnink, Qualunquismo, Zlatwic, 

We are constantly bombarded by messages by well-meaning NGOs who desperately try to help people living in poverty. At the same time media throw in a mix of news full of disasters and war, and then they host huge charity shows on TV ever so many times a year.

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

John Adams, 2nd President of the United States of America

Life is making mistakes and that’s the truth.

Here is what Alex Google might tell you. 

  • Something that actually exists; reality; truth: Your fears have no basis in fact.
  • Something is known to exist or to have happened: Space travel is now a fact.
  • Truth is known by actual experience or observation; something is known to be true: Scientists gather facts about plant growth.
  • Something said to be true or supposed to have happened: The facts given by the witness are highly questionable.
  • Law. Often, facts. An actual or alleged event or circumstance, as distinguished from its legal effect or consequence. Compare the question of fact, the question of law.

Truth, on the other hand, is a true state of a certain matter, person, place, thing or event. Truth is considered to be more archaic than fact. It is more subjective than resolute fact. Dictionary.com defines ‘truth’ as:

  • The true or actual state of a matter: He tried to find out the truth.
  • Conformity with fact or reality; verity: the truth of a statement.
  • A verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like: mathematical truths.
  • The state or character of being true.
  • Actuality or actual existence.
  • An obvious or accepted fact; truism; platitude.
  • Honesty; integrity; truthfulness.
  • (Often initial capital letter) ideal or fundamental reality apart from and transcending perceived experience: the basic truths of life.
  • Agreement with a standard or original.
  • Accuracy, as of position or adjustment.
  • Archaic. Fidelity or constancy.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin

 

 

 

 

 

 

we repress the truth and our feelings about it with a lie to keep the pain at bay.



how do we communicate truthfully





It was like waking up to Hell.

We avoid these realizations


 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. WE ARE MOVING INTO A NEW PHASE OF THE ALGORITHMIC REVOLOUTION.

02 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by in Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Civilization., COVID-19, Digital age., Fourth Industrial Revolution., How to do it., Human values., Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., President of the USA., Robot citizenship., Technology v Humanity, Technology., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., VALUES, WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Six-minute read) 


With the current pandemic and economic depression, algorithmic entanglement will stratify the populations of countries with barely a question asked.

Now is the time to challenge and examine their underpinnings, by introducing a software program to examine every algorithm in order to establish whether it is a friend or foe. They must be audited yearly to log and access the contents of their programs, and to be issued with health certificates.

Are AI Algorithms Dangerous

It is not possible to go back to test or analyze why decisions are made by algorithms. 

They are learning from the environment surrounding them and once they learn we have no way of knowing to any degree – what rules and parameters they are following at which point we have no way of controlling them or knowing how they react with other algorithms.

You only have to look at the stock exchanges, where they are already trying to outwit search other.

So you can be certain that there is going to be a stock exchange crash not caused by the Economic Depression but rather algorithmic greed for profit.  

At the moment it seems that while they are out of sight they are out of mind.

But as we are going to see with any covid-19 vaccine and its distribution, algorithms will create their own rules and inevitably polarize society as a whole.

Where the decision is taken by an algorithm (as to who gets vaccinated or how safe it is when the algorithm could be hacked.) is at stake. Apportioning responsibility to any particular segment of code will be almost impossible. 

Because they have no knowledge of what they are even being judged on, they will look for supremacy over each other. 

Neither the companies using them nor the people making them take responsibility for how they can wreck lives and reinforce stereotypes.

The people making the algorithms don’t take responsibility for users of their code and the people using algorithms place responsibility on the creators.

Self – regulation is no longer viable because the larger the environment into which they are embedding themselves, the more unpredictable they will become. 

Indeed software engineers will soon be extinct.

America’s 45th president likes to tweet.

He does this because he sees it as a way to bypass the ‘dishonest media’. Regardless of how you may want the world to be, the learnings from bulk text feeds are as close as we can really get to how the world actually is.


We must open our eyes to the power of algorithms and how dangerous they can be when unchecked.

These issues are not strange. The software can play you for a fool, but we’re still in the early stages however, they are as of now present in our lives making idiotic shopping recommendations, misclassifying pictures, and doing other senseless things.

History is not a predictor of the future – but knowledge can be – we can’t rely solely on mining historic data to draw conclusions; we need to incorporate expert knowledge.

We are Tick Tocking and Clicking our way to no return.  

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S YOU CAN’T FIGHT THE POWER YOU DON’T SEE.

01 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by in 2020: The year we need to change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., COVID-19, Democracy, Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Facial Recognition., Fourth Industrial Revolution., GPS-Tracking., Honesty., Human values., Humanity., Inequality, International solidarity., Life., Modern day Slavery, Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Reality., Technology v Humanity, Technology., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Tracking apps., TRACKING TECHNOLOGY., Truth, Truthfulness., Twitter, Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations., World Politics

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(Five-minute read) 

The present Covid-19 Pandemic might be warping our sense of reality however there is another pandemic that is shaping and will shape our future reality.

We – in many ways, things are way better than they were thanks to technology.

We can work from anywhere because we have the Internet and we have Zoom and all of those platforms.

If you are able to say technology, on the whole, has done well, it probably means you’re in a fairly privileged position.

There’s still a huge digital divide.

Even – there are billions of people who don’t have access to the Internet. 

 

On paper, algorithms sound like the pinnacle of efficiency, but as they’ve become more ubiquitous, there’s a difference between potential and reality both must be separate for the survival of democracy and the forthcoming distribution and administration of any covid-19 vaccine worldwide.  

 The reality is that Algorithms will be used to distribute and decide who will get the Covid-19 vaccination.

When it arrives algorithms will continue to reflect the biases that it has been and is being trained into machines that are learning a representation of the world that is skewed.

Some will say that Data is neutral. It’s just numbers. It’s just data but the past dwells within our algorithms and the flaws that are in our technology are what’s the algorithm’s information it’s taking in.

I am not just talking about the U.S. presidential election in a few day’s time.

We have already seen artificial intelligence being used in voting or politics how they extend beyond the realm of computer vision.

If we’re defining success by how it’s looked like in the past and the past has been one where men like Donal trump were given an opportunity to Twitt falsehoods, spreading them with the aid of Facebook and others it’s no wonder who gets hired or fired?

Do you get that loan? Do you get insurance? Do you and I pay the same price for the same product purchased on the same platform?

Automating inequality.

Before a human looks at your resume, it gets vetted by algorithms written by software engineers who are involved in the system (without changing the system itself he the engineer is still going to reproduce algorithmic bias and algorithmic harms.)

Any sorts of algorithmic tools that are intended to be used, again, have to be verified for nondiscrimination before it’s even adopted.

We now have an AI system – right? – that can classify skin cancer as well as the top dermatologists but to change society to change what AI is learning in order to create what can be realized is going to be trusted into our lives by the inevitable economic depression.

So a Covid-19 vaccine is going to transfer real power into the world of Data and we can’t fight the power you don’t see, you don’t know about.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.