Category Archives: Digital age.

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHY IS THE WORLD IN THE STATE IT IS?

24 Sunday Jul 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., Biotechnology., Climate Change., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Genetic engineering, Human Collective Stupidity., Imagination., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Reality., State of the world, Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Unanswered Questions., Wars, What is shaping our world., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, World View.

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( Twenty minute read) 

Following on from the posts under the heading of what shaped the world lets look at the state of the world as it is to day.

The world is becoming increasingly interconnected and interdependent, with ever more political, social, cultural, financial and commercial relations transgressing nation state borders but the convergence of issues facing the earth are now so interrelated that most of them cannot be fully understood out of context.

The recent pandemic served to prove our fragility and our interconnectedness.

When we start thinking about constructing a model of the world it’s better to say that while you are living in the world, it’s fairly difficult to judge it objectively or even understand all of its moving parts.

In addressing that issue I will note that many of today’s issues have legacies 100 years old and will not be addressed in this post.

If anything has brought us together over the last year and a half, it is our feeling of vulnerability about the present and uncertainty about the future.

Now urgent action, taken together, is needed to change course and reimagine our futures and this action must encompass an ethic of care, reciprocity, and solidarity.

But to translating and contextualizing these actions in a collective effort it requires a synopsis of the current state of the world.

It is only when the mess it is presented as a whole not news flashes that we have any concept of the state of the planet. 

The whole structure of today’s world, much of it inherited from an earlier era, is up for serious discussion.

Thinking of the present state of the world its remarkable what can be achieved when leaders are prepared to lead.

To achieve the maximum benefits from the extraordinary possibilities that artificial intelligence (AI) and Robots will usher in tomorrow. 

                            _______________________________

There are many factors behind what I call ‘the disillusioned society’ but greed and fear, two of the ancient enemies of human kind are the big drivers of Earth’s ecological and human systems which are now in severe crisis.

Climate change is a trend that affects all trends- economic trends, security trends. Everything will be impacted. And it becomes more dramatic with each passing year.

Our throwaway society, which in part drives markets and GDP, is continuing to damage the environment. 

A key decision to changing our thinking and attitudes to polluting activities and endless growth is to dump Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the universal measure of progress. It is a totally inadequate measure of societal progress.Who is more powerful – states or corporations?

That said here is an overview of the current state of the world. 

Only 2.5% of the world’s water is fresh—the water on which the world’s terrestrial life depends. Around 70% of this fresh water is frozen in ice or permafrost. An estimated 4 billion people, nearly two-thirds of the world population, experience severe water scarcity during at least one month of the year.

Agriculture accounts for 70% of all freshwater withdrawals globally, a ratio that’s only going to increase – to an estimated 85% – as the population grows and agricultural production rises to meet it (by an estimated 50% before 2050).

About 43% of over 7,000 of the world’s languages are endangered. Just 23 languages are spoken by more than half of the world’s people, inhabiting upwards of 85% of the land surface of the globe.

In 2015, an estimated 2.1 billion people lacked access to safely managed drinking water services and 4.5 billion lacked access to safely managed sanitation services. Over 80% of all wastewater returns to the environment without being treated.

Population, pollution, greenhouse gases and deforestation are creating never before seen changes in Earth’s living systems—including a cultural and species extinction rate that is the highest in the planet’s history.

Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases, mainly as the result of human use of fossil fuels, have been determined to be the predominant cause of earth’s changing climate.

Sea levels are already rising by 2mm a year—faster than during the past 5,000 years.

Evidence is growing that the thermohaline circulation, driven by temperature and salinity, could be slowed or stopped by cold fresh water inputs to the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans.

Our oceans are full of plastics. Sea ice and glaciers are melting throughout the globe. More than 93% of the enhanced atmospheric heating since the 1970s has been absorbed by the ocean.  

Over 90% of plastics produced are derived from virgin fossil feedstocks—about 6% of global oil consumption. This is equivalent to the total oil consumption of the global aviation sector.

Over 70,000 new chemicals have been brought into commercial production and released to the environment in the last 100 years.

An estimated 75% of the Earth’s land surface has been degraded through human activities, negatively impacting the well-being of at least 3.2 billion people, pushing the planet towards a sixth mass species extinction, and costing more than 10% of the annual global gross product in loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

The failure to reduce world hunger is closely associated with the increase in conflict and violence in several parts of the world. In addition, gains made in ending hunger and malnutrition are being eroded by climate variability and exposure to more complex, frequent and intense climate extremes. Approximately one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption—nearly 1.3 billion tonnes—gets lost or wasted every year.

In 2020, nearly 144 million children under 5 suffer from stunting (under height), 47.0 million children under 5 were wasted (underweight) , and of those, 14.3 million were considered severely wasted.

Industrialized civilization is still dependent upon cheap and reliable fossil fuel energy. There is a limited amount of fossil fuel. It is not “renewable” and there is no known way to make more.

The current humanitarian crisis in Ukraine may be in the spotlight right now however there are currently 27 ongoing conflicts.

A quarter of the entire global population lives in conflict-affected areas. 84 million people were forcibly displaced because of conflict, violence, and human rights violations. This year, it is estimated that at least 274 million people will need humanitarian assistance.

The cost of war is almost unfathomable.

Just imagine what the world could do with that money if conflicts were to end worldwide. 

Conflict drives 80% of humanitarian needs and in 2016, the cost of conflict globally stood at an astonishing $14 trillion. That’s enough to end world hunger 42 times over.

Nearly 11 years after it started, the Syrian refugee crisis remains the largest displacement crisis worldwide (13.2 million, including 6.6 million refugees and more than 6 million internally displaced people). At least 2 million people are living in tented camps with limited access to basic services.

Lasting more than 60 years, the conflict in Myanmar (previously called Burma) remains the longest ongoing civil war in the world.

The recent takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban after 20 years of US-led conflict more than half of the country’s estimated 40 million population face “extreme levels of hunger, and nearly 9 million of them are at risk of famine.

Wars are constantly in the news. 

While we tend to hear more about refugees there are actually twice as many internally displaced persons around the world. In 2013, for instance, there were 16.7 million refugees and 33.3 million internally displaced persons. it’s easy to dismiss them and forget that we’re talking about individual people whose lives have been completely disrupted.

The World Bank and the IMF can pursue their loans in perpetuity, regardless of the loans having been given to dictators or incompetent borrowers, and regardless of whether the money actually benefited the poor.

The current depletion of biological diversity and, in particular, the prospect of severe depletion, if not virtual elimination of tropical forests, wetlands, estuaries and coral reefs that have been the “engines of biodiversity” for hundreds of millions of years, may have profound effects on the evolutionary processes that have previously fostered re-diversification.

Before 1961, the entire Earth satellite population was just over 50 objects. Since 1957, about 9,600 satellites have been launched and about 5500 are still in space—and 2300 of these are still functioning. The total mass of all space objects in Earth’s is more than 8800 tonnes. Earth’s orbit is now cluttered and dangerous with: ~34,000 objects bigger than 10 cm; ~ 900,000 objects from 1cm to 10 cm; and 128,000,000 objects from greater than 1 mm — 1 cm.

By the time you finish reading this paragraph, four acres of rainforests in Brazil (i.e. about three football fields) will be replaced with farmland, largely to grow cattle and animal feed.

The commercial exploitation, militarization and weaponization of space around the earth is ongoing.

Space Tourism is just getting started but the impact of bioengineering is what is going to have profound impacts on society in the near future.

The development of bioengineering issues in tandem with overlapping

technological areas such as artificial intelligence are what is going to shape

the world for the next generations, if climate change does bot wipe us of the

globe.

(Biotechnological discoveries are increasingly facilitated by automated and roboticides, private ‘cloud labs)

These issues will shape the future of bioengineering and must shape modern discussions about its political, societal and economic impact.

Technology is in the infancy of creating a world state. 

                                   ————————————-

The Bioengineering Technologies to Look Out for in the Next Decade – The Wire Science

Bioengineering is a discipline that applies engineering design and principles

to biological systems. Some examples of this fusion are artificial organs or

limbs, the genetic synthesis of new organisms, gene editing, the

computerized simulation of surgery, medical imaging technology and

tissue/organ regeneration.

Bioengineering brings with it both huge potential for good, and risks to

regulate. Like any other technology, bioengineering has damaging potential,

whether it be through misuse, weaponization or accidents. This risk can

create significant threats with large potential consequences to public health,

privacy or to environmental safety.

We need critical thinking to understand what they are, what their impact is and how they are related, with ethical and regulatory frameworks, climate change, inequalities, technological convergence and the misuse of technology, in order to drive informed policy decisions.

Below is by no means a comprehensive list. 

<5Years 5–10 Years >10 Years
Artificial photosynthesis and carbon capture for producing biofuels Regenerative medicine: 3D printing body parts and tissue engineering New makers disrupt pharmaceutical makers
Enhanced photosynthesis for agricultural productivity Microbiome-based therapies Platform technologies to address emerging disease pandemics
New approaches to synthetic gene drives Producing vaccines and human therapeutics in plants Challenges to Taxonomy-Based description and management of biological risk
Human genome editing Manufacturing illegal drugs using engineered organisms Shifting ownership models in biotechnology
Accelerating defense agency research in biological engineering Reassigning codons as genetic firewalls Securing the critical infrastructure needed to deliver the bioeconomic
  Rise of automated tools for biological design, test and optimisation  
Biology as information science: impacts on global governance
Intersection of information security and bio-automation
Effects of the Nagoya Protocol on biological engineering
Corporate espionage and bio crime

Additions.  

  • Using Bioengineering Instead of Animals
  • Using Bioengineering Instead of Plants
  • Using Bioengineering to Create Eco-friendly Materials
  • Using Bioengineering for Greenhouse Gas Sequestration and Removal DNA technology, makes insulin much more accessible to people with diabetes by producing human insulin using bacteria instead of animals.
  • Veggie burgers using bioengineered yeast.
  • Altered yeast to produce collagen, the animal protein that is the main component of leather. 
  • To produce anti-malarial compounds. (Every year, 200 million people are affected by malaria.)
  • Bioengineered yeast to make beer and palm oil.
  • Genetically engineered bacteria that reduce the need for nitrogen fertilizers.
  • Biodegradable product that eliminates both the unsustainable practices
  • Manufacturing biosynthetic indigo could reduce the use of petroleum and the release of toxic chemicals by a factor of five
  • Genetically engineer microbes to actually pull greenhouse gases – such as CO2 and methane – from the air. 
  • Use bacterial fermentation to turn that methane into a biodegradable polymer called poly hydroxy alkanoate (PHA).
  • To  provide nutritious and non-toxic feedstock for farmed fish that doesn’t require overfishing AND removes CO2 from the atmosphere. 

                          ———————————————-

What happens if a world state is reached?

It is natural at this point to ask whether a world state would be desirable— But quite clearly many areas of social life still remain outside state control.

First, all states are sovereign, which means that both domestically and internationally they recognise no jurisdiction superior to their own.

Secondly, all states are equal and should therefore be accorded equality of treatment before the law. 

A world state would not be a utopia in which there was nothing left to struggle over.

But once a world state has emerged those struggles will be domesticated by enforceable law, and so for purposes of state formation will be no longer important. Rather than a complete end of history, therefore, it might be better to say that a world state would be the end of just one kind of history. Even if one telos is over, another would be just beginning.

At the micro-level world state formation is driven by the struggle of individuals and groups for recognition of their subjectivity.

At the macro-level this struggle is channelled toward a world state by the logic of anarchy, which generates a tendency for military technology and war to become increasingly destructive.

The process moves through five stages, each responding to the instabilities of the one before — a system of states, a society of states, world society, collective security, and the world state. Human agency matters all along the way, but is increasingly constrained and enabled by the requirements of universal recognition.

The struggle for recognition is about the constitution of individual and
group identities and thus ultimately about ideas,

Hobbes (1968) justified the state on the grounds that only through
obedience to a common power could individuals escape a ‘nasty, brutish, and short’ life in the state of nature. A common power is necessary because of the physical equality and vulnerability of human beings — since even the weak can kill the strong, it is in everyone’s interest to accept the security provided by a state.

With the transfer of state sovereignty to the global level individual recognition will no longer be mediated by state boundaries, even though as recognized subjects themselves states would retain some individuality (particularism within universalism).

The question remains, however, whether a world state would be a stable
end-state, or be itself subject to instabilities that ultimately undo it.

Since even a world state would remain an at least partially open system, such
shocks could cause it to fall apart.

Equilibria are always vulnerable to exogenous shocks.

Going forward You have to be able to hold two ideas in your head at once: the world is getting better and it’s not good enough”. (Dr. Hans Rosling.)

But we must keep trying. The past is not coming back. The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.

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

 

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT HOW THE MICROCHIP IS SHAPING THE WORLD.

15 Friday Jul 2022

Posted by in 2020: The year we need to change., Artificial Intelligence., Dehumanization., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Humanity., Nanotechnology, Reality., Speed of technology., State of the world, Technology v Humanity, The Microchip., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., What is shaping our world., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Seven-minute read)

How Has The Microchip Changed The World?

The impacts of the microchip have been enormous.

They are either the savior of the world or the annihilator. 

It would not be an exaggeration to say the world would not be able to continue without the Chip that drives technology. 

They are around us everywhere.  Our phones, of course, our laptops, our iPads – all of those things we’re now surrounded by this technology.

More than likely.

THEY WILL END UP BEING IMPLANTED IN OUR BODIES IF WE ARE TO STAY OR EVER LEAVE THIS PLANET.

THEY ARE NOT ONLY SHAPING THE PLANET BUT OUR EXPLORATION OF THE UNIVERSE (WITH THE JAMES WEBB TELESCOPE RECENTLY SENDING THE DEEPEST PENETRATION PICTURE OF SPACE.) 

                      ————————   

Despite being a piece of real estate no larger than a fingernail, the modern microchip is home to billions of transistors, miles of metallic interconnects, and layers of structures stacked on top of each other like skyscrapers.

Overall, a microchip is a structure that stands in abject defiance of the second law of thermodynamics: It creates a region of extreme order from a whole lot of chaos, and that does require a lot of energy.

One or more microchips run every one of the 40 billion connected devices currently in use—a figure that’s expected to jump to 350 billion by 2030.

Every time we make a Zoom call, between our personal devices, routers, data centers, satellites, and peripheral devices, at least a quintillion microchips were called to work.

Unfortunately, these chips consume an immense amount of resources and generate truckloads of waste.

The microchip is essentially made from sand—albeit sand that has been melted, purified, and refined until it is over 99.9999 percent pure silicon.

The arduous task of turning these disc-shaped, purple-colored wafers into microchips and memory devices falls on the fabs,(a fab or fabs is a term commonly used to describe a fabrication plant responsible for making semiconductor devices) which are high-tech facilities scattered across the world, with the majority in Southeast Asia.

A “fab” that processes 50,000 wafers—the silicon platform on which chips are built—per month consumes over 1 TWh of electricity a year.

That’s as much power as is required by a city of 100,000 residents.

Moreover, a rough estimate pegs the water consumption of a fab at over 19 million liters per day. That’s the amount of water consumed by a city of 60,000—for a whole year! In addition, these facilities utilize tons of chemicals, most of them expensive and toxic, and generate tons of waste, which include greenhouse gases like SF6, CF4, NF3, and C4F8.

There are over 1,000 semiconductor fabs operating globally today.

They make $450 billion worth of microchips a year and generate 50 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.

This complex semiconductor fabrication process is nestled at the heart of an elaborate web of international assembly lines. The company that makes the wafers and the fabs that create the microchips can be located in different parts of the globe. The assembly of the actual device likely takes place in a different company at a third location, and the end user could be anywhere in the world.

This means that the company whose name is on the final product might have very little control over the conditions and practices of the fabs.

Further, different parts of the semiconductor lifecycle are regulated by different environmental legislation, making not just the implementation of sustainability efforts, but also the tracking of their environmental footprints, complicated.

The elements of lithography, sand and silicon crystals, sit atop a silicon wafer

Given the size of the microchip, these numbers seem extraordinary.

However, this could very well be the price that we pay for the complexity of a chip, and the comfort it brings into our lives.

                       ———————————–

Advances in the technology sector have seen revolutionary gadgets surfacing because of this little mysterious device.

Microchip technology has modified existing patterns of human activities such in personal, social, political, and economic spheres.

Microchips are clearly being utilized for several other purposes.

In military applications, the microchips were used to build the Minuteman II missile in the 1960s. To add to that, a Z-40 semi-automatic pistol with a microchip embedded in its grip was released to avoid the use of the pistol by any unauthorized user.

In Industrial applications, scientists have employed the use of a microchip-based technology to detect the type and the progression of cancer in patients. Because of this technology, patients can now be informed of their prognosis within a few hours.

Chip improvements have led to increased computing power and incredible memory function.

Microchips have enabled applications like on-device artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual augmented reality to come to life.

Gains in data transfer such as 5G connectivity have been enhanced by the microchip technology.

Microchip technology has made huge advances in technology.

Objects and devices such as communication devices, vehicles, personal entertainment devices, GPS tracking devices, weapons, identification cards, micro-ovens, supercomputers, and many other applications use microchipMicrochips’ distinctive mode of collecting data and transmitting data to its exact destination has made information easier to handle.

The epic and revolutionary manufacturing techniques of microchips have created a storm of microchip-embedded devices that affect our daily lives, both positively and inevitably negatively  

Regardless of the industry, modern electronics use thousands, millions, or even billions of semiconductors on a single chip.

As a result, today as consumers demand more electronics, one of the most important components of any circuitry has become something of a scarcity. is that there is a massive shortage.

This has happened over the past year, largely due to a significant shortage of the most basic building block of technology:

Semiconductors.

                     ——————————

It is likely that microchip manufacturing will continue to be a major consumer of electricity, water, and chemicals.

So in shaping our world we could ensure that the energy is supplied by renewables, that the water is recycled, and the chemicals are processed without damage to the environment. In other words, we must be relentless in our efforts to make microchips more sustainable. And we should never forget that the comforts of modern life gifted by these wonder chips come at the expense of a vast amount of resources.

Microchips act as a key unit for programming the conversion of the car industry to electric cars, which is increasingly dependent on electronics, the lithography industry, the smartphone industry, and the internet to name just a few of the trillion applications over the past several decades.

The microchip industry filled by the need for big science is growing exponentially year on year. 

The problem is embedding them in objects is one thing, deciding in which devices to embed them and what systems to build around them is another matter altogether.

Laws governing their application are literally in human hands for now but not much longer.  

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. WE ARE NOW ENETERING A PERIOD WITHOUT THE ABILITY TO TRULEY EXPERENCE WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE..

28 Saturday May 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., Artificial Intelligence., Communication., Desensitization., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Digital Friendship., Disconnection., Freedom of Speech, Future Education., Google Knowledge., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Imagination., INTELLIGENCE., Life., MISINFORMATION., Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, Our Common Values., Purpose of life., Real life experience's, Robot citizenship., Social Media, Social Media Regulation., State of the world, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Unanswered Questions., Universal values., VIRTUAL REALITY., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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Ten minutes read.

AS YOU KNOW IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO EXPERIENCE EVERYTHING LIFE HAS TO OFFER. EVEN IF IT WAS POSSIBLE THERE ARE MANY EXPERIENCES WE WOULD WISH TO AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

SUCH AS THE LATEST MASS KILLINGS IN TEXAS, THE CURRENT WARS, POVERTY, BEING BURIED ALIVE, RAPED, JAILED FOR LIFE, CANCER, AND GOING BLIND NOT TO MENTION A SELECTION OF DISEASES. 

The list is endless, but there is another aspect of the matter.

Every genuine experience has an active side that changes to some degree the objective conditions under which experiences are had and I believe that experiences are the basis upon which society progresses.

Experience does not go on simply inside a person they influence the formation of attitudes of desire and purpose, but they do not define a society as either developed or civilized.

However, it is experience alone that guides decisive action through hands-on. They teach you how to apply learnings to produce favorable outcomes regardless of any concepts you might have learned.

In a world that values differentiation more than anything else, experience lets you craft your own story while the rest of the people stick to an old and obsolete script.

Experience gives you access to a huge network of people who have been there and done that but the most valuable contribution of experience comes from the self-awareness it gives you.

Experience vs education is a constant battle.

A mixture of experience and education is the best. But the stats beg to differ.

                             ************************

Across the globe, mobile devices dominate in terms of total minutes spent online. As a result influence, Social media. It is now being used in ways that shape politics, business, world culture, education, careers, innovation, and more to rewire human society. 

Because social networks feed off interactions among people, they become more powerful as they grow. Enabled people of all ages to just google things, not actually try to remember or memorize information.

The phones have become our masters. It was intended to make our lives easier in terms of communication, now it has become an extension of our hands.

Unregulated Social media is promoting social ills.

LIVING IN SYSTEMS THAT ARE PREVENTING US FROM BECOMING WHO WE TRULY ARE. WE ARE LOSING OUR INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE CULTURE LIVING IN A WORLD WHERE EXPERIENCING REAL LIFE IS BECOMING VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE. Where Most Needed

 As a result, the real problems of the world are being ignored. 

Increased visibility of issues has shifted the balance of power from the hands of a few to the masses but this awareness is not translating into real change because people are given options that absolve them from the responsibility to act. Injustice is one of the biggest issues in today’s society, there are many consequences.

Technology is anything that makes life simpler but the cellphone as a branch of technology is destroying us.

We need to think much deeper and critically to be certain that we have the authority over our own lives. When you’re not in a room with someone, it can be hard to express your personality and how you could fit into a new environment.

Let’s start with a few quotes.  

“Without sensibility, no object would be given to us, and without understanding, none would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind”.

“Experience arises together with theoretical assumptions, not before them, and an experience without theory is just as incomprehensible as is (allegedly) a theory without experience.”
Paul Karl Feyerabend, Against Method pg 151. Against Method (1975)

“Experience by itself teaches nothing…Without theory, experience has no meaning. Without theory, one has no questions to ask. Hence without theory, there is no learning.”
W. Edwards Deming, The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993)

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes. Oscar Wild

                              ******************************

There is so much more to life than what you experience right now.

Here are a few reasons why you should value experience over education. 

Experiencing’ attaches itself to nothing while at the same time being everything.

Experiencing’ does not get concerned about not remembering. ‘Experiencing’ has no need to remember.

Experiencing’ holds nothing yet is aware deeply of everything.

When we realize there is nothing to capture we relax in the awareness of just ‘experiencing’. 

Experiencing ‘experiencing’ is the Fullness. When ‘It’ Is all here where else could we go?!

Answering interview questions with no experience can be a daunting prospect.

Everyone has to start somewhere in a world where doing is highly valued. It’s one of the most well-known conundrums of the career world. No experience, no job. No job, no experience.

EVIDENCE THAT OUR CULTURE IS IN DECLINE.

This becomes obvious to those who are willing to actually travel the world learning about the cultures of others.  They gain a more reliable picture of life as it is lived.

The most important thing that one can do to rise above the insanity of this world, is to be willing to get educated by those who have zero financial interest in their taking their stand for what they believe.

Just because you don’t have ‘direct’ experience, it doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to offer.

It’s been said that information is power. Without a means of distributing information, people cannot harness its power. Ultimately, sharing is about getting people to see and respond to content. 

Birds of a feather tend to hang out in the same ponds. And the best way to prove you’re a duck is to spend as much time as possible in the right pond.

History does not lie – it is just that the masses do not know their history.

There is a line by Verlaine that I will not remember again.
There is a street nearby that is off-limits to my feet.
There is a mirror that has seen me for the last time.
There is a door I have closed until the end of the world.
Among the books in my library (I’m looking at them now)
Are some I will never open.
This summer I will be fifty years old.
Death is using me up, relentlessly.
—from Inscriptions (Montevideo, 1923) by Julio Platero Haedo

Where are?

Stormzy wore a flat jacket in (2019) at Glastonbury, and Abba appeared digitally yesterday.

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over. Larkin 

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

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. WE ARE CREATING A DANGEROUS DIGITAL INVISABLE WORLD?

20 Thursday Jan 2022

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2022: The year we need to change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Civilization., Dehumanization., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Digital Friendship., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Human Collective Stupidity., Human values., Humanity., Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, Our Common Values., Post-Covid-19, Robot citizenship., Speed of technology., Technology, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Internet., THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., TRACKING TECHNOLOGY., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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( Fifteen-minute read) 

We all know that there is an invisible world and that today it is undeniably digital.

This invisible world is becoming both powerful and dangerous leading to digitalizing without a system of oversight of the way we operate in the world, resulting in not just hidden powers but a decoupling between human rights and democracy.

On one hand, digital democracy, or eDemocracy, uses the internet, social media, and technology to improve our democratic systems of governance. 

On the other with our electronic overlords, ( Smartphones, Pads, Apple watches, TV, Web Services), this world of invisibility is been driven by non-accountable, non-transparent commerce, operating profit-seeking algorithms, with self-learning data collection codes, that no one comprehends.

As our day-to-day lives are increasingly immersed in technology, it is easy to lose perspective on things that matter. 

The capitalist world of profit and power is disappearing underground.

New technologies – from social media and GPS systems to artificial intelligence and digital twins – make the planet we inhabit unrecognizable from even 20 years ago and it’s only going to get faster, changing how we live.

The rise of the sharing economy, online marketplaces, and digital platforms are shattering old barriers and reducing the distances between industries, societies, and places, all of which are without adequate regulations are vanishing from scrutiny and accountability. 

                             ——————

While it’s true that today, leaders need to deal with unprecedented changes and an unpredictable and challenging future due to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Climate change, and the covid pandemic they need to be more agile, to deal with sudden changes and challenges that any one of these will bring.  

Why?

Because the status quo as the inertia of past success can be crippling for the future.

The paradox of leadership lies in staying focused on the present, while also visualizing the future and creating a roadmap to reach it.

This is a major problem requiring Statmanship on a global scale.

                                —————–  

Why is all of this happening now?

What’s interesting about this question is, there’s no answer to that question.

What I think is so true about that is, with technology even nonconformists are conforming.

Why?

Because these days it’s difficult to not see how real the invisible world is affecting our lives and the systems that govern life.

Today, with the covid pandemic’s we see it is very rare that you find someone that’s not influenced by anyone else.

You don’t have to be a digital native to behave like one.

It’s the invisible world we want to connect with in order to maintain the magic in life.

Why?

Because a world without emotions will be a sterile world.

Yes, the invisible world is real.

It is the limited life of a limited mind.

Increasingly, this limited value is delivered through new cross-sector, outcome-based propositions, rather than traditional sector-specific products and services.

We have all experienced trying to get to speak to a human to solve a problem with a service – press one press two – listen to music – you inquiry- will be answered – press 3 if – till you give up.

If you can spell it you can’t enter it. A society that is dependent on technology can create inequality.

                                           ————-

To stop this invisible world people must take ownership of things as the digital world is not about technology, but people.

At a time when geopolitical tensions are on the rise are at their highest level this century.  And this turbulence is escalating.  Even nuclear non-proliferation can no longer be taken for granted.

At the same time, we see trade and technological conflicts that fracture world markets, undermine growth and widen inequalities.

And all the while, our planet is on fire.  The climate crisis rages on.

With Climate Change, we are risking a ‘great fracture’ between world powers, each with their own internet and AI strategy, as well as dominant currency, trade, and financial rules, and contradictory geopolitical and military views.

With dwindling natural resources, an unstable world climate, viruses on the rampart, not to mention the effects of pandemics on world trade, inequality, the world does not need politicians that do not think of the next election but statesmen of the next generation.      

 It is crucial to ensuring a united world.

Those yet to be connected remain cut off from the benefits of this new era and remain further behind. People need money to access the internet and buy the latest devices.

By 2050 there will be 9 billion people to feed, clothe, transport, employ and educate.

Maybe that’s not really bad when you think of what’s coming next. You couldn’t call it a fully digital world yet. It’s not even close.

However, there’s room to dream about building the world we want, instead of the one we’re turning into. 

As we pursue unlimited growth, our limitless consumption threatens to crowd out everything else on Earth. We are warming the climate, overspending our financial resources, requiring more fresh water than we have, increasing income inequality, diminishing other species, and triggering shockwaves whenever we can’t cope with a problem. Billions are committed to a growth-driven world economy.

Our world is full of screens. We keep them in our hands, purses, and pockets, next to our beds while we sleep, and surround ourselves with screens on our desks and countertops. Our TV sets are morphing into interactive screens as we put them online so they display everything for free.

What if that networked system brought everyone the world’s best services, resources, and knowledge-based on what we do, as a normal part of everyday life?

                                           ————————

The top-down approach is no longer sustainable in the Economic/ Power/ or Democracy Capital Accountability. Leadership needs to be vigilant and create a long-term sustainable value proposition for all stakeholders.

The same technologies are giving rise to new business models, with organizations using digital to create and monetize new forms of value. Disruptions in the digital world occur at a phenomenal rate.

They have the power to impact the way entire industries operate reshaping entire industries with profit-seeking algorithms.

Although giving up your data was once an afterthought when gaining access to the newest internet services such as Facebook there aren’t many great options available to limit what is seen and known about you online.

YOU BECOME A DIGITAL FORM OF YOURSELF IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD OF THE INTERNET.  

How do we define what a digital human is?

Worthless, a form of entertainment to have conversations with yourself without being able to show emotion and behavior as a real human. 

So, is the invisible world the real world?

Hard to say, but I think it’s what makes the visible world worth living in.

When someone dies, the essence of that being merely inhabited that form – the life within the form was always invisible.

Digital leaders will have the power to shape the future of our world.

When we want to believe, there is still time to interrupt the announced disappearances of so many plant and animal species which, if we are not careful, will lead to our own end.

This situation cannot go on. It is our common duty to avoid it.

While risks intersect and technologies develop quickly, too often our institutions for governing international security remain reactive and slow-moving.

ALL HUMAN COMMENTS ARE APPRECIATED. ALL LIKE CLICKS AND ABUSE CHUCKED IN THE BIN.

THE BEADY EYE SAYS : WE ALL WANT IT BUT NO ONE WANT TO PAY FOR IT.

10 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2022: The year we need to change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Digital age., Green Bonds., How to do it., Human values., Money in Politics., Our Common Values., Purchasing Power., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., United Nations, What Needs to change in the World

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(Three-minute read) 

After twelve years and 10 billion in six months’ time (if everything works ) we are going with the help of the James Webb Infrared Space Telescope peer into the past to see our future.

Unless you happen to live on one of the plants that the telescope will exam you will have noticed that this planet is in trouble sustaining the life it has on it at present. 

World conferences after world conferences have proposed solutions to climate change which in the long run are going to cost trillions with no one wanting to pay for it. 

THE REASONS FOR THIS REST IN MULTIPLE BARRIERS. TO MANY TO ADDRESS HERE OR IN ANY FUTURE CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCES.

LEAVING THESE PROBLEMS ASIDE.

HERE IS AN IDEA THAT PROVIDES AN FAIR WAY OF ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM OF – WHO SHOULD CARRY THE CAN.

The world as we know it is a product that is in the process of being digitalized by technology and the current pandemic. 

What is needed to tackle Climat Change is a perpetual fund that does not have to beg, which allows everyone to contribute according to their means.

                                 —————— 

Every country has government-operating lotteries and bonds.

There is around 160 Lottery in the world offering billions in prizes. They offer a one-off chance with a lottery ticket to win with the ticket becoming a worthless sheet of toilet paper after the draw, raising billions in revenue.

So what is there to stop the United Nations from creating and underwriting its own World Green Bonds, with guaranteed interest and lotto-style cash prizes drawn every month.

A new Green asset class in global capital markets could emerge.

(A government bond is a type of debt-based investment, where you loan money to a government in return for an agreed rate of interest. This makes bonds a fixed-income asset. Once the bond expires, you’ll get back to your original investment.)

To compete with the Lotto.

The UN Green Bonds could be issued with 8 years of tenure and 5 years of lock-in. (Premature redemption requests will not be allowed)

The bond can be bought by acquiring coupons that add up to a bond.

These coupons can be purchased both online and offline at the same price as a lotto ticket. 

On reaching one hundred coupons an investor gets an acknowledged receipt of the purchase and a bond.  Then he receives the soft copy of the certificate to his/ her registered email address, a few days later a certificate bond gets issued.

This Certified Bond is then eligible to enter the yearly draw to win 20 million. The coupon is dated and numbered entering a Cash prize monthly or weekly draw like the lotto.   

Like the Lotto is the prize is not won it rolls over to the next draw with an additional 20 million. 

The owner submits the certified bond online with his chosen lotto numbers.

If the investor does not win the additional value from holding the green asset bond derives from enhanced transparency and association with a green project financed by the bond.

                                            —————–

The role of the UN would be to the underwriter.

To evaluate financial risks, rates, and rules for a loan or investment for a project that meets certain pre-established environmental criteria.

Surety for bonds issues could be not just governments. Digital monopolies like Facebook, Net Flick, Apple, Microsoft, Drug Companies, etc. could be the financial Surety anchors.  

                                          ————— 

As world economies feel the negative effects of the pandemic the threat of inflation is gathering pace.  On the other hand, Green conversion is also gathering pace.

This idea would let all of us invest digital, or not in the future while earning a fixed interest from that investment and if lucky win a cash prize.

Europe has fostered an engaged and active green bond market so why not for the whole world.  

All comments are appreciated. All creative suggestions to improve on the idea are welcome. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. 2022 WILL BE THE YEAR OF DIASTER CAPITALISM.

31 Friday Dec 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2022: The year we need to change., Climate Change., Digital age., Disaster Capitalism., Disasters., Environment, Extermination., Fourth Industrial Revolution., How to do it., Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Imagination., Inequality., Life., Money in Politics., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Privatization, Purpose of life., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Transition period or Implication period., Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., Wealth., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Aid., World Economy., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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( Fifteen-minute read) 

When I first started looking at disaster capitalism, it was in the context of warfare and counter-terrorism, now it’s privatized exploitation of  Pandemics and Climate Change. 

During a major crisis, regular people are understandably focused on the everyday challenges of surviving. They rarely can also worry about private industries pushing local policy proposals that might negatively impact their lives never mind cashing in on Pandemics and Climate change.

Pandemics might be avoidable in the future but what is unavoidable is a Future Climate that stands to send more unprecedented emergencies, inconsistency, and destruction our way.

(Though it’s still feasible to prevent the planet from becoming completely uninhabitable, saying its crunch time is a massive understatement.)

They both provide the very conditions that give rise to disaster capitalism, which is developing more frequently with more companies and wealthy ‘Philanthropists’ seeing both as a growth sector, not to mention Sovernity Wealth Funds which are investing in everything from drinking water to you name it.

Why? 

Because they stand to make substantial financial returns for their beneficiaries and if managed properly could be contributing to sustainable development in a meaningful way. However, a deeper understanding of the drivers and influences of investor organizations is required to mobilize their capital effectively. 

Globally, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are a major source of capital that has the potential to invest for the long term in sectors that desperately need it. While Philanthropists donations usually only represent 0.05% of the billion accumulated.

(A fraction of the spoils of neoliberal tech capitalism, in the name of generosity, do not try to address the problems of wealth inequality which is created by a social and an economic system that allowed those spoils to accrue in the first place. They are small contributions to a large problem that were created by the success of the industry he or she is involved in.)

List of Top 8 World's biggest Philanthropists in 2021                                ————————-

Let’s put a magnifying Glass Philanthrocapitalism.

Philanthropy serves to legitimize capitalism, as well as to extend it further and further into all domains of social, cultural, and political activity.

Now don’t get me wrong.

Their donations are welcome, however, they are not the simple act of generosity they pretend to be. In this greedy world, it is good to see wealthy individuals repaying to help fix problems that their companies have often caused in the first place.

The risk of philanthrocapitalism is a takeover of charity by business interests, such that generosity to others is appropriated into the overarching dominance of the CEO model of society and its corporate institutions.

Today, large organizations can amass significant economic and political power, on a global scale, and essentially, what we are witnessing is the transfer of responsibility for public goods and services from democratic institutions to the wealthy, to be administered by an executive class.

When this happens what we witness is, on one hand, is exploitative of labor practices or corporate malpractice being swept under the carpet while the donator is accruing significant commercial, tax, free publicity, and political benefits.

Democracy is sacrificed on that altar of executive-style empowerment. 

The nature of this apparent charity should be openly questioned from the outset.

Because this reformulation of generosity – in which it is no longer considered incompatible with control and self-interest – is a hallmark of the “CEO society”: A society where the values associated with corporate leadership are applied to all dimensions of human endeavor.

What it does suggest, however, is that when it comes to giving, the CEO approach is one in which there is no apparent incompatibility between being generous, seeking to retain control over what is given, and the expectation of reaping benefits in return.

  What can be done?

As historian Mikkel Thorup explains, philanthrocapitalism rests on the claim that “capitalist mechanisms are superior to all others (especially the state) when it comes to not only creating economic but also human progress, and that the market and market actors are or should be made the prime creators of the good society”.

Now take Climate change which is going to take trillions to combat.

As global warming augments cycles of fire, flood, hurricanes, and viral mutations, we learn to live in anticipation, from emergency to emergency, sometimes even before the deaths have occurred.

Disaster capitalism and philanthrocapitalism will not work to revert the outcomes of Climate Change nor will technology, the unloving God. 

Why? 

Because Capitalism has turns everything including us into a product to be traded, resulting in most of the wealth in the world now owned by 1% of its population. 

Before ( not too long ago ) there were Markets now we have Market Societies thanks to the buying of shares and trading them, complements of the British Indian Company.  So a society that is organized around the principle that companies should not be prevented from making things that kill people must also accept as ‘normal’ that many people will die in large numbers from these things.

 But what makes something a disaster?

Certainly what makes a disaster is when the victim is humanly itself.

From epidemiological forecasters to genetic epidemiologists and computational and zoonosis biologists — are the new oracles upon whose prophecies financial markets rise and fall but the awaiting climate disaster will expose a world characterized by gross inequality that is getting worse and worse, year by year.

From the perspective of disaster capitalism, we might say that what makes COVID-19 a disaster is its arrival in woefully underinsured countries, unhealthy populations.

If we had a healthier population, would COVID-19 be considered a disaster? Possibly or perhaps not. To be sure, the virus is deadly, but like other disasters, the actual arrival of COVID-19 magnifies pre-existing vulnerability in ways that also figure in the calculus of disaster capitalism.

The uneven way the climate crisis will continue to impact certain countries. If private interests are already prepped to engage in disaster capitalism, those devoted to building a better world should be prepared with alternatives.

There is no such thing as a ‘natural disaster.’ There is also no such thing as a natural or certain response. But there is preparedness.

THE PROBLEM IS THAT WITH CAPITALISM IT IS UNABLE TO TACKLE SITUATIONS THAT ARE NOT TRADABLE.

As money materialized from fresh air the essentials for life will be traded – freshwater- energy- food- healthcare – education – data – etc. 

We must arm ourselves with knowledge, and laws that ensure transparency. 

What we have at the moment is the transfer of power to technology which we know sweet fuck all about with no regulations. 

Unrivaled power.

One only has to look at Jeff Bezos, the Bransons, the Mark Zuckerberg’s, Apple, Google, etc.

We all work for one or the other for free while they entertain themselves blasting off to space with friends and worthless actors in giant phallic symbols of power. 

However, the real story will unpack differently long before anyone lives on another planet. It will be how our mental well-being – is impacting every facet of our lives.

The total mortality from COVID-19 on a global scale is as yet unknown, but we have been thinking of it as a disaster for weeks now.

What exactly is the disaster, then?

Pandemics have become a dominant framework through which government and financial resources are mobilized in Global Health.

There’s been a lot of dithering about whether or not COVID-19 is a disaster, meanwhile, inequality is growing, and both corporations and the wealthy find ways to avoid the taxes that the rest of us pay.

There is the virus, and then there is the societal reaction of bringing our entire fiscal and economic infrastructure to a near-complete standstill.

Morbid diseases that persist as chronic forms for years but eventually kill more people to seem less like disasters.

It’s not a moment to sort of sit on the sidelines and hope for the best.

We all appreciate with the current pandemic that some are making hay while the sun shines, at our expense. Unfortunately, there is little point in getting the Jabs, to extend your time on earth if the earth itself is dying and what remains is been turned into trading products.

You’ve got to fight for your vision of for-profit corporate solutions that may succeed in creating company profits but ultimately fail in terms of democracy, fairness, and justice.

Conclusion:  

To address the problems with greed and power create, we must create equality and this can not be done in a Profit-seeking Capitalist way of trading our way out of the pending disasters.  Wall Street will never close.  

So here is an idea that might help.

Non-Trading Capitalism.  

Green non-tradable bonds to be issued online at a global scale, with guaranteed percentage returns, with a yearly prize draw.

Or

Place a 0.05% World Aid Commission on all tradable financial instruments. (see previous posts) 

Either of the above could be implemented with the click of a switch ensuring a perpetual source of disaster non-profitable funding. 

Both would create trillions and allow fairness and involvement of us all.

It is perhaps worth remembering that capitalism, like its alternatives, is an adaptation to circumstances. It is not a virtue, not a standard for judgment, not a measure of right or nobility. It’s just another ‘ism’

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

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. IS SLAVERY DEAD? NOT BY A LONG SHOT, WE ENTERING A NEW WORLD OF SLAVERY.

20 Saturday Nov 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Covid - Passports., Dehumanization., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Human values., Humanity., Modern day Slavery, Modern Day Slavery., Our Common Values., Post-Covid-19, Reality., Robot citizenship., Technology v Humanity, The Future, THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., TRACKING TECHNOLOGY., Unanswered Questions., Vaccines., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Twenty-minute read) 

NOT BY A LONG SHOT.

When you hear the word slavery, it conjures images of shackles, mistreated people of color, forced to work.

This image was once a true, vivid picture;

However, the term slavery has broadened, and now slavery comes with many more definitions creating a new image for the vile term slavery.

THERE IS A NEW, MODERN, INVISIBLE SLAVERY THAT ENSLAVES PEOPLE AND THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW IT ! !! AND MOST OF US CHOSE THIS FORM OF SLAVERY. 

This new strain is much more virulent and deadly adding hundreds of thousands of new slaves to the mix every minute of the day  – Algorithms Slavery. A hidden world programming its self. 

Slaves are cheap these days.

There are an estimated as high as 45.8 million people in modern slavery around the world. More than in the 18th century at the height of the transatlantic slave trade. 

Simply knowing the statistic that 45.8 million individuals are enslaved in our world is not enough to put an end to the malpractice of modern-day slavery.

We all can and should play a part in the international advocacy for the freedom and rights of all, not only as fellow human beings but also as concerned community leaders and consumers in the global economy.

They’re the step-by-step instructions working quietly behind the scenes of everyday life; in internet search engines, satnavs, air traffic control, and food delivery services.

Companies and governments increasingly rely upon algorithms to make decisions that affect people’s lives and livelihoods – from loan approvals to recruiting, legal sentencing, and college admissions – from internet search results to product recommendations, dating matches, and what content goes up on our social media feeds. 

Slavery today includes:

10 million children.

24.9 million people in forced labor.

15.4 million people in forced marriage.

4.8 million people in forced sexual exploitation.

Human trafficking and slavery are the fastest-growing illegal activities in the world today. 

Keep the National Human Trafficking Resource Center’s 24/7 confidential hotline handy.

Saving this number in your contacts and using it whenever suspicious of having seen a victim of human trafficking is one of the easiest and most effective ways to aid law enforcement officials in uncovering exploitation, bringing traffickers to justice, and victims to freedom and restoration.

                                                ——————

Algorithms have been rising fast and saturating our modern world.

We should not take the path of least resistance by sitting in judgment on the past while ignoring the injustices of our day.

Most algorithms in the world today are created and managed by for-profit companies, and many businesses regard their algorithms as highly valuable forms of intellectual property that must remain in a “black box.”

Every time a site is opened we are confronted with an Agreement Templates a choice to Agree or not.  Many websites prompt you to agree to their terms of use before you can register on the website or even use it.

There are two different types of website agreements: browsewrap and clickwrap.

A browsewrap agreement is connected to the main page of the product by a hyperlink. The hyperlink leads to another webpage that will have the terms and conditions of the agreement detailed.

A clickwrap agreement is designed to ensure that the user has a chance to see the terms of use and they must also actively agree to the terms in order to agree. (This one is more legally binding.) 

But are not transparent as they do not reveal the source code, inputs, and outputs of the algorithm that is running the site. 

Without this transparency, the question is how can they be legally binding. 

Specifically, machine learning algorithms – and deep learning algorithms in particular – are usually built on just a few hundred lines of code. The algorithm’s logic is mostly learned from training data and is rarely reflected in its source code. Which is to say, some of today’s best-performing algorithms are often the most opaque.

This is the new form of slavery.  Now being promoted by track and trace, with the current Coivid pandemic digital certifications that no one knows how or who will control, the data that they are now producing and in the future. 

 It suggests that technical transparency – must become law.

Essentially such laws would mandate that users be able to demand the data behind the algorithmic decisions made for them, including in recommendation systems, credit, and insurance risk systems, advertising programs, and social networks.

In doing so, it tackles “intentional concealment” by corporations.

But it doesn’t address the technical challenges associated with transparency in modern algorithms. Here, a movement called explainable AI (xAI) might be helpful.

However, this approach merely shifts the burden of belief from the algorithm itself to the regulators.

In the world of data analytics, it’s frequently assumed that more data is better.

But I firmly believe that the resistance to getting vaccinated is founded on this dilemma of trust.

Risk management, data itself is often a source of liability. That’s beginning to hold true for artificial intelligence as well.

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

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT THE ROLE OF MONEY IN POLOTICS.

05 Friday Nov 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Big Data., Corruption., Democracy, Digital age., Emergency powers., Facebook, First past the post., How to do it., Human Collective Stupidity., Modern Day Democracy., Money in Politics., Political Trust, Politics., Post - truth politics., Reality., Robot citizenship., Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS MONEY?, What Needs to change in the World

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(Eighteen-minute read) 

First, money is a medium of exchange that lets us earn, buy, and sell completely different things in the same units.

On top of this, money is also a unit of account—i.e. it lets us put the prices of very different things in the same terms.

This is why private wealth impacts public life, with the world of politics full of lobbyists. 

Money has always shaped the process of political competition and influences policymaking but most of us are unaware of how money works, behind the scenes in the political theater, it is a year-round issue that dictates the daily life of the nation.

Money finds its way into politics in myriad ways — 

Any political campaign lives or dies by its funding and for a long time, there has been a popular myth about how everyday voters who outnumber the wealthy will collectively donate more money than the few donations of the wealthy.

The influence of cash within politics could be called dark money.

It turns politicians’ existence into serving their donors instead of their voters, which affects the policies they support, how they allocate government spending, and their expressed values.

Regardless of our personal feelings, money makes the world (and democracy) go round.

It seems unfathomable that these external entities have such leverage in our election process.

Whether elected officeholders betray their voters, prioritizing interest groups or single campaign donors, remains a question to be answered in the public sphere. 

The super-wealthy class is almost single-handedly funding elections, which impacts our government’s overall functionality and integrity, meaning the power lies in the hands of few.

Cash has become a determining factor for who wins the most crucial elections like the president of the USA. 

most expensive presidential campaign

 

Since 1980 if you add it all up it comes to $ 105 billion 349 million.   

There’s way way way too much money in politics and most of it is having a corrupting, undue influence and locking out the voices that count.

For too long, money has been the one thing that has reigned supreme in a democracy.  

The influx of cash from corporations and interest groups sways the ways our political leaders pass legislation that supports these entities, regardless of the public’s best interest.

It allows corporations to buy leverage that alters the fabric of our economy.

                              ———————————

Fighting undue influence and corruption from political financing requires a clear understanding of the difference between unlawful influence on public administration and behavior and breach of trust of voters.

The former requires precise regulation of those sectors of administration that usually lend themselves to compensate campaign donors.

The potential entry point in the public sector can vary along with several channels of influence.

Beyond political advertising and election contributions, cash is influential in the lobbying industry. 

A ridiculous game in which corporations are people and money is magically empowered to speak. Allowing people and corporate interest groups and others to spend an unlimited amount of unidentified money has enabled certain individuals to swing any and all elections.  Donal Trump and referendums like Brexit.

While banning all campaign donations is an option, a comprehensive approach will take into account private agents who can resort to lobbying, personal networks, or corruption.

The truth requires that we call the corrosion of money in politics what it is – it is a form of corruption and it muzzles more of us than it empowers, and it is an imbalance that the world has taught us can only sow the seeds of unrest.

                                               —————

Money cannot always buy the best election results – Trump – Robert Mugabe – Crown Prince Abdullah – Kim Jong-un – Bashar al-Assad –Saparmurat Niyazov –  Putin – Idi Amin Saddam Hussein – Mengistu Haile Mariam – Augusto Pinochet – Pol Pot – Charles Taylor – Suharto – Mobutu Seko to name just a few dead and alive.

As of today, there are 50 dictatorships in the world.

But the millionaire class and the billionaire class increasingly own the political process, and they own the politicians that go to them for money.

It’s time to get big money out of politics., and have a system of scrutiny to ensure that no special access or call time with rich donors or big-dollar fundraisers to permanently eliminate big money from our politics and return it to the people.

                                —————-

Our democracy shouldn’t be bought and paid for by the wealthy and powerful.

It belongs to all of us or does it with the arrival of Big data the next currency of politics now being used to directly influence our decisions.

Data brings change to much more than just the commercial side of our lives.

We have to acknowledge that our data has much more than just a “one-shot” value.

The fact that Facebook and other social networks collect data on us is presented as something outrageous but not in the political world.  

Putting you into an “opinion bubble” by better targeting political ads and thus motivating you to actually go and vote, and become (unknowingly) an ambassador for the power that has you in its aim, exists. 

Data as a Political Asset: valuable stores of existing data on potential voters exchanged between political candidates, acquired from national repositories, or sold or exposed to those who want to leverage them

Data as Political Intelligence: data that is accumulated and interpreted by political campaigns to learn about voters’ political preferences and to inform campaign strategies and priorities, including creating voter profiles and testing campaign messaging.

Data as Political Influence: data that is collected, analyzed, and used to target and reach potential voters with the aim of influencing or manipulating their views or votes.

In reality, the same problems with money and now data have existed for years, with huge amounts of personal data being sold to corporate clients. And yet, we only start panicking when we see how the illegal, or barely legal trade of our life patterns collected by social networks impacts our political choices.

Knowing where we spend our time, what media we watch, what books we read, what food we prefer, and what words are we most likely to use in our tweets makes the difference.

But what is it that makes the politicians “addicted to big data like it’s campaign cash”,

Unfortunately, this “addiction” to data has induced politicians and their campaign managers into the same illusion that businesses are struggling with right now:

Big data allows reliable prediction and, obviously, politics, as the very structure of societal governance, is heavily impacted.

It is, indeed, a problem.

The amount of information that companies have about who we are and what we are as social units is so huge, that it is this data reshaping the very fabric of our societies.

Most people believe — because of huge public buzz scandals like the one of Cambridge Analytica — that big data in politics serves the goals of better manipulation.

The issue of data collection in the interest of the political actors must not be reduced to just cynical Frank Underwood-style power brokers buying data on where we eat and what we watch on Netflix and who our friends are to better sell us their quotes about how they are gonna make our lives better.

The overwhelming power of the big brother that tracks our every step raises the question.  If societies value equality of information, open debate, and transparency, these trends should be of concern?

One thing we know for sure is that the clear trend of getting more and more data involved in political campaigning and decision-making is there.

Without considering these questions, there is a danger that any response may have unintended consequences and fail to advance the principles we want to uphold.

Bribery is human nature and the only way to expose it is with transparency requirements that enable the media, public interest groups, and parties to engage in this debate.

The manipulation of the future political result, by algorithms is only a click away.

We will still need (yes, NEED) tons of “money in politics.”

Without big donors, how many Independent candidates will be able to go up against the dark money and deep, oligarch pockets?

Ok, let’s figure out where that money goes. 

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

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. IS DAN BROWN DISCRIPTION OF EVOLOUTION IN HIS BOOK ORIGIN TRUE.?

24 Sunday Oct 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., Artificial Intelligence., Dehumanization., Digital age., Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Genetic engineering, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Imagination., Life., Natural selection., Purpose of life., Reality., Speed of technology., Survival., Sustaniability, Technologically Enabled Genetics., Technology v Humanity, Technology., The essence of our humanity., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, 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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(Twelve-minute read) 

 All organisms share a few fundamental desires: to survive, to grow.

It is only on the scale of statistics with millions of particles that a particle’s choice shapes up as a predictable radiation half-life. But even individual human wants and desires average out to weirdly predictable laws in aggregate.

If a little one-celled protozoan – a very small package – can have a choice, if a flea has urges, if a starfish has a bias towards certain things, if a mouse can want, then so can the growing, complexifying technological assemblage we have surrounded ourselves with.

Its complexity is approaching the complexity of a microscopic organism.

This tissue consists (so far) of billions of dwellings, millions of factories, billions of hectares of land modified by plant and animal breeding, trillion of motors, thousands of dammed rivers and artificial lakes, hundreds of millions of automobiles coursing along like cells, a quadrillion computer chips, millions of miles of wire, and it consumes 16 terawatts of power and None of these parts operate independently.

No mechanical system can function by itself.

Each bit of technology requires the viability and growth of all the rest of the technology to keep going and there is no communication without the nerves of electricity.

This whole grand system of interrelated and interdependent pieces forms a very primitive organism-like system. Call it the technium as in Dan Brown’s book.

The technium is the sphere of visible technology and intangible organizations that form what we think of as modern culture.

It is the current accumulation of all that humans have created. For the last 1,000 years, this technosphere has grown about 1.5% per year. It marks the difference between our lives now, versus 10,000 years ago.

Our society is as dependent on this technological system as nature itself.

Yet, like all systems, it has its own agenda. Like all organisms the technium also wants.

Of course, we humans want certain things from the technium, but at the same time, there is an inherent bias in the technium outside of our wants.

What this means is that when the future trajectory of a particular field of technology is in doubt, “all things being equal” you can guess several things about where it is headed:

The varieties of whatever will increase.

Technologies will start out general in their first version, and specialize over time. We can safely anticipate higher energy efficiency, more compact meaning, and everything getting smarter. All are headed to the ubiquity and free. Over time the fastest moving technology will become more social, more co-dependent, more ecological, more deeply entwined with other technologies. Many technologies require scaffolding tech to be born first. The trend is toward enabling technologies that become tools for inventing new technologies easiest, faster, cheaper.

This is what is suggested in the final chapters of Origin. 

                                              ————————

The origin of us, the modern humans (Homo sapiens), has been a topic of debate for a long time, with the place of origin of humans being great controversial, but where it is going will be more controversial. 

Dan Brown’s book (Origin) advocates that our species has reached or will reach its biological pinnacle in the no so distant future when it will be no longer capable of changing.

Maybe not.  As we are now all so mixed we block evolutionary change and are driving our evolution towards bio-engineer people. 

Evolution is the outcome of the interaction of mutation, genetic recombination, chromosomal abnormalities, reproductive isolation, and natural selection.

We become living computers. 

But it does not mean an improvement in our lot. 

At the end of the day, you’re going to view the events in your day the way you want to not the way they truly are.

THE QUESTION HE ASKS IS ARE we’re all going to be small SPECKS on the tablets of history.  

 

Human Evolution generally depends on natural selection, random genetic drift, mutation, population mating structure, and culture but the faster things die the faster they “mutate” or evolve.

Single-celled organisms evolved into more complex multicellular life, and then man gradually evolved from some unknown mammalian ancestor and reached the pinnacle of evolutionary fabric.

The ways we connect, grow, and develop as individuals are also undergoing rapid and profound changes with future generations raising their kids into a world of default connectedness (technological, emotional, cognitive), in which transparency and integrity become the easiest paths to a fulfilling life.

At the moment all arguments are based on the same tenets of Natural selection.

We don’t always have to do what technology wants, but I think we need to begin with what it wants so that we can work with these forces instead of against them.

High tech needs clean water, clean air, reliable energy just as much as humans want the same.

At the moment we are destroying the planet’s ecosystem.

However, I can imagine singular threads of the future rolling out positive — a massive, continuous, cheap, real-time connection between all humans, or total genetic control over crop plants, or synthetic solar fusion energy — but it is hard to see how all these threads weave into the other threads of climate change, population decrease, habitat loss, human attention overload, robot replacement, and accelerating AI.

Why?

Because we have no shared positive vision of tomorrow. Given what is happening today we are unable to imagine it.

Because power and money are transferring to algorithms like BitCoin and thousands of interconnected computers.

Because there is also a belief that life cannot be trusted.

In this stage, blame is placed on other individuals, society, government, nature, disease, etc., and other elements believed to be outside of one’s conscious control and influence. Control is often motivated by fear and survival. The enemy is perceived as a threat, and because of this, people believe they are morally justified to kill, eliminate or repress that enemy.

It is true as our digital trails become stronger and stronger, that Humanity is entering a Transformation Age, a new era of human civilization.

Recent breakthroughs in the field of quantum physics are revealing that consciousness is primary to our experience of reality, yet there remains no consensus as to the nature of consciousness itself nor to the nature of reality.

Yes, an inescapable dystopian future is entirely possible, but not inevitable because imagination has been unleashed upon the world in a literal sense. 

How the human brain without a chip will evolve over the next million years is anyone’s guess. 

Just in case we get it wrong here is the Human code.

A1 B2 C3 D4 E5 F6 G7 H8 I9 J10 K11 L12 M13 N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE THE MOST DIFFICULT THINKS FOR HUMAN TO UNDERSTANDS?

20 Wednesday Oct 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Dehumanization., Digital age., Disconnection., Evolution, Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., INTELLIGENCE., Life., Purpose of life., Technology v Humanity, THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., Unanswered Questions.

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(Six-minute read) 

Of course, various people can be expected to have various answers to this question.

They all depend on when in our history as a species the question is asked, however, we can’t understand that which is beyond our knowledge still stands.

This question is like asking me to tell you everything I don’t know.

So in this post, I am going to try and address the usual problems with understanding. 

Even trying to define what we mean by “reality” is fraught with difficulty.

Philosophers devote their life’s work to developing and defending definitions of reality and other indeterminate concepts however one could tweak their definitions by equating reality with what appears to be a sufficiently large group of people. But just, because sufficiently many people believe in something, does not make it real.

Let’s just say that we behave in certain ways, merely because our brains act according to physical laws – Reality is that which, if you stop believing in it, does not go away. Things that we do not want to regard as real can be stubborn, as anyone who has ever been trapped in a nightmare knows.

Perhaps Penrose offers the best dictionary definition of “reality” as a starting point for understanding.

Whatever kind of reality you think you’re living in, you’re probably wrong.

                                            ————

My vote goes to Ourselves.

But “Know thyself,” turns out to be ridiculously complex.

We humans seem to be only just beginning to understand that we all live on one planet.

To understand that in a couple of billion years the sun will explode and your contribution will be ash. 

That we are completely, totally, and utterly alone in this piece of space called the solar system is beyond our understanding.

Let’s start with the nature of reality.

The brain operates with electrochemical signals from which it extracts patterns and assigns meaning, creating your subjective world. The brain doesn’t know or care where the data comes from; it just figures out what to do with it, and it does it efficiently.

Therefore all the sensors that we know and love, like our eyes and our ears and our fingertips, are merely peripheral plug-and-play devices.

Our common-sense notion of reality is that our eyes, ears, nose, and fingertips pick up objective reality, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

The interaction between what’s “out there” and our sensory organs isn’t the whole picture, either because the brain has no direct access to the outside world. Smells, sounds, and colors do not actually exist in the outside world they are locked in silence and darkness inside your skull.

At birth, we have no natural concept of reality. The slice of our ecosystem we can detect—or biological umwelt—(the world as it is experienced by a particular organism) is created by an interaction between the outside world, our sensory organs, and our “pink computational material.”

Ask the questions.

Eagleman says. “Your neurons require other people’s neurons to thrive and survive,” “Who you are has everything to do with who we are.”

So what can we know about the nature of reality?

We must first confront our utter lack of in-the-moment awareness regarding how our umwelt shapes and constrains what we know as reality.

However, we go about our lives as though we are operating in an objective reality.

The function of the brain, it turns out, is dependent upon input. In other words, feed the brain with enough shit for long enough and it will start believing that it is true/real.

Fortunately, the reality we experience is constrained by our biology.

Michael May who lost his sight at 3 years old from a chemical explosion says

 “Vision isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be if—a big if—you have developed the other blindness skills to make you a fully actualized person”

Just as May and other blind people can operate in a reality devoid of the light waves in the range received by the human eye, we are all able to operate in a reality devoid of the radio waves, microwaves, X-rays, and gamma rays that are passing through our bodies all the time.

We are unaware of them because we are “blind” to them—our sensory receptors are incapable of receiving them. 

“Over seven billion human brains traffic the planet today. Although we typically feel like independent operators, each of our brains operates in a rich web of interaction with one another—so much so that we can plausibly look at the accomplishments of our species as the deeds of a single, shifting, meta-organism.” —The Brain: The Story of You, Dr. David Eagleman

In particular, there is the question of the reality of our minds.

Should we not include a conscious experience as something real?

And what about concepts, such as truth, virtue, or beauty?

In fact, every process in the universe can be reduced to interactions between particles that produce binary answers: yes or no, here or there, up or down. That means nature, at its most fundamental level, is simply the flipping of binary digits.

Conscious mental experience, accordingly, has no further reality than that of the material underlying its existence; though not yet properly understood, it is merely an “epiphenomenon”, having no additional influence on the way that our bodies behave beyond what those physical laws demand.

For example, Quantum Physics uses the knowledge that our brains cannot understand such as something not existing until it is observed! where is the logic in that?

                                          ————

Take Religious beliefs -thoughts.

Quite a lot of religious concepts are so counter-intuitive that their respective religions just refer to them as mysteries and don’t even bother to try to explain them…..

‘Gods’ were of our own creation – because we couldn’t comprehend that we are completely, totally, and utterly alone in this piece of space called the solar system. It’s just us humans and everything else on this planet.

Or that we are completely, totally, and utterly not alone in the piece of space called the Milky Way Galaxy and or the greater globular cluster. Another life is statistically just too relevant to ignore.

Take Time itself the fourth dimension of reality. 

There is never enough time in the day. 

Defined by Physicists as the progression of events, from the past to the present and into the future. It’s not as you know something we can see, touch, or taste, but we can measure its passage. In the natural world, it has only one direction, called the arrow of time – irreversible it cannot move backward’s.  

However, Astronauts on the International Space station jump forward in time on returning from space.  

To reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics, either time does not exist, or else it is not fundamental in nature. 

We cannot have any perception of the immediate present, without some memory of the past and some expectation of the future to give it context.

The universe is timeless. 

                                     ————————————

A few others could be added to the list of not understanding. 

Take Distance. 

The infinite distance of the Universe or multiple universes.

Take Massive data.

Analyzed by machine learning or algorithms.

Without computer programs to analyze massive data, we may never be able to discover new ideas because of our limitations. 

Take Art.  

What is art?

It’s completely subjective, for one thing. I may look at something and view it as art, where someone else would pick it up and eat it without thinking twice about it.

Take Music.

What is music?

It’s basically just talking while inflecting your voice in different pitches.

The Internet.

What the heck is the internet?

Language.

What IS language?? 

Love.

What is love? 

There are so many different types of love, that it’s hard for us to even understand where it comes from. 

Why?  Because you have to love yourself first before you can receive it. 

La vie?

We kill, murder, steal, lie, cheat, destroy.

We destroy not only ourselves, but the very planet we call home.

What is life? Take Wars. Death makes no sense.  

Take field forces like gravity.

It affects particles at an infinite distance, imagine their interactions!!

They change Every. Single. Instant.

What good would it be to describe a state of the Universe if, by the time you even began to do so, the state has changed drastically?

And, assuming you are actually a part of this Universe as you do that, you would also manipulate particles thus changing the state.

So there is no link between input and outcome.

Perhaps this is why the initiators of a cooperative or an ecosystem must create incentive and control systems that function stably over the long term.

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