This question tends to arise in the face of a moral dilemma or existential crisis but in this world of technology, social media, and advanced scientific discoveries, it’s important to keep asking this crucial question.
Are humans really biologically and socially different from the rest of the created world?
The physical similarities between humans and other mammals are quite plain. We are made of the same flesh and blood; we go through the same basic life stages but how is the value of a human determined?
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One of the key characteristics that make us human appears to be that we can think about alternative futures and make deliberate choices accordingly.
But we are living in an age that makes defining what makes humans human tricky, not because we are both unique and paradoxical but because technological advancements are changing our very existence.
While we are the most advanced species intellectually, technologically, and emotionally—extending human lifespans, creating artificial intelligence, traveling to outer space, showing great acts of heroism, altruism and compassion—we also have the capacity to engage in primitive, violent, cruel, and self-destructive behavior.
It is particularly challenging to name all of the distinctly human traits or reach an absolute definition of “what makes us human” for a species as complex as ours.
So we remain even in this age of modernity and intellectual freedom, no closer to any concrete answers.
It is our intellect that transcends us from simply existing.
Apart from the obvious intellectual capabilities that distinguish us as a species, humans have several unique physicals, social, biological, and emotional traits which are also changing.
Not too long ago as a species we humans used storytelling for communicating and transmitting our ideas. Now we use smartphones and internet platforms without much consideration for what effect they are having on our minds.
(The mind consists of the intangible realm of thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and consciousness.)
We assume that others have minds somewhat like ours—filled with beliefs and desires—but we can only infer those mental states. We cannot see, feel, or touch them. We largely rely on language to inform each other about what is on our minds.
Our memories are stored in the Cloud adding to the data collected by machine learning algorithms that shape them into products.
(Memory allows human beings to make sense of their existence and to prepare for the future, increasing their chances of survival, not only individually but also as a species.)
“As far as we know, humans have the unique power of forethought to think consciously: The ability to imagine the future in many possible iterations and then to actually create the future we imagine.
This awareness gives meaning to humanity and the awareness of our mortality. We are human because of our reason.
We are determined and capable of knowledge, and the ability to act on it, without depending on anyone else, even religion or some divine intervention but we are not self-sufficient. We need others.
because of this, we interact with the world based on our perception of it.
Regardless of one’s religious beliefs and thoughts about what happens after death, the truth is that, unlike other species who live blissfully unaware of their impending demise, most humans are conscious of the fact that someday they will die.
The story of what made us human is probably not going to focus on changes in our protein building blocks but rather on how evolution assembled these blocks in new ways by changing when and where in the body different genes turn on and off.
Species evolve to fit the particular environment that they are occupying at a given time, not to “advance” to a different evolutionary stage.
So us of us who are alive today with this realization yet to come are the guinea pigs of the future. In the meantime, we can only be human in society not driven by machine learning harvesting data but by the planet, we live on.
It will be a big moment in what truly makes us human when we do so.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Technology is often touted as the savior that will rescue us from our misbegotten ways, redeem us, and put us on the track to utopia. Then there are the dystopian views, where the future is dominated by technology that either rule over us or saps us so completely of our humanity that we might as well be a bunch of gadgets ourselves.
There are countless challenges today both environmental and not.
Mostly, we see the world through a set of layers. These layers are made up of our emotions, past experiences, and beliefs, and whichever perception is held by most, is popularly deemed as the reality.
Among contemporary scientists and philosophers, the most popular solution to the mind-body problem is probably materialism.
According to neuroscience, the contents of your head are comprised of 86
billion neurons, each one linked to 10,000 others, yielding trillions of
connections.
Materialists aspire to explain feelings and experiences in terms of the chemistry of the brain. It is broadly agreed that nobody has the slightest clue as yet how to do it, but many are confident that we one day will.
For human beings to survive, they need to produce and reproduce the material requirements of life.
But, the real reality is different and it’s above any perception.
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THERE ARE NO UNIQUE VOICES ANYMORE.
Here we are once again with another verbal diarrhea conference at the Summit of America’s with the president of the USA delivering a version of his domestic economic pitch promising leaders from Latin America that the United States is committed to helping the region combat crime, corruption, and its economic struggles.
“We will introduce a new approach to managing migration and sharing responsibility across the hemisphere.” A load of verbal bollix but it raises the question are we now heading into globalization vs regionalization?
If so why?
Because of the pandemic and the ongoing wars, today’s great powers have little choice but to spend their way to political stability, which is unsustainable, and or try to control knowledge that is unattainable due to technology.
Because the internet is currently eliminating the middleman the Politicians who are in a representative democracy hence the shift to direct democracy – Popularism – with power now resides with those best able to organize knowledge.
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While the Earth, the planet, will continue to go its way regardless of what happens on the surface we are unable to act collectively and never will be able to do so.
We live toward incredible times where the only constant changes and the rate of change are increasing so fast that there seems to be no meaning to life.
Not until we eradicate poverty, establish free education, set aside ideological differences, change our primary focus to the long-term care of nature and people, remove profit for profit sake Algothrims, and create a World Aid Fund that we all can invest in. (See previous posts)
Not until when we are able to separate our own perception from reality we can take the necessary measures to be happy.
Not until we all realize that we are with Climate Change currently headed to a sixth mass extinction event and that this possibility alone needs to bond our collective conscious into acting like one.
Unfortunately, I believe, that if we aren’t now past the point of recovery, if we don’t act soon, civilization and human habitation here will be untenable.
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There’s no going back we are now stuck in a sad chamber of denial as those who are in power hopelessly try to ward off the apocalypse by promoting unsustainable economic growth. Our TV screens are inundated with appeals for help, while the cost of everything from health care, housing education, energy, etc is rising more than one can earn.
We must unplug our brains from smartphones and start working together in large numbers, as part of a coordinated effort to achieve change.
Like Evolution Migration goes both ways – out and in.
Rests assured if we continue to ignore the climate the earth will force us to go only one way, with the world passing through a nuclear war if we continue to ignore the warning signs.
If this happens humans will finally have little to no reason to fight.
What’s the point?
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As the Fourth Industrial Revolution forces us to think about where today’s innovations are taking us, when it comes to what our world will look like, in the medium-term – how we will organize our cities, where we will get our power from, what we will eat, what it will mean to be a refugee – it gets even trickier.
I predict the internet will go spectacularly supernova and fifty years from now catastrophically collapse.
With the world’s superpowers thrown into chaos as they come to grip with new powers, financial slowdowns, and emerging economies it will be the start of Apple’s path to world domination.
National leaders will find themselves under increasing pressure from their people, putting a strain on inter-country relationships.
The main political tendency will be away from multinational solutions to a greater nationalism driven by divergent and diverging economic, social and cultural forces with technology and political alining against Mega Power. With countries looking at solving their own problems before looking outward the Climate will continue to heat up.
Nations will increasingly adopt protectionist policies as well as look at ways of further securing borders, something which has already begun to take place as Europe grapples with the biggest refugee crisis since World War II.
Rising military costs, declining oil prices, and internal issues will all weaken Russia further with its inability to control the federation creating a vacuum. It is unlikely that the Russian Federation will survive in its current form.
While it remains a major economic, political and military power, the United States will “be less engaged than in the past”, with the powerhouse learning some vital lessons from history.
China will continue to be a major economic force but will not be the dynamic engine of global growth it once was,
The EU will remain hostage to the economic wellbeing and competitive environment in which it operates.
Nation-states created by the west will collapse.
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We all want to know the future unfortunately in a supposedly thriving economy we are now facing inflation as the real cost of living.
Trickle-down economics does not work.
Social media is not simply a more sophisticated platform. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, and Snapchat WhatsApp have turned into a gallery of Frankenstein’s monsters.
They are a new kind of assault on who we are, not just what we think.
“Like” button for Facebook
To have great predictions, these corporations have had to amass vast quantities of data on each of us – what is sometimes called “surveillance capitalism”, trading in human futures, herding us into our echo chambers of self-reinforcing information.
In doing so we lose more and more sense of the real world and of each other. With it, our ability to empathize and compromise is eroded.
We live in different information universes, chosen for us by algorithms whose only criterion is how to maximize our attention to advertisers’ products to generate greater profits for the internet giants.
Apps allowing us to hail a taxi or navigate our way to a destination are undoubtedly useful tools. But being able to find out what our leaders are really doing – whether they are committing crimes against others or against us – is an even more useful tool. In fact, it is vital if we want to stop the kind of self-destructive behaviors.
Advertisers have been playing with our brains in sophisticated ways for at least a century. And social atomization – individualism, selfishness, and consumerism – have been a feature of western life for at least as long. These aren’t new phenomena. It’s just that these long-term, negative aspects of western society are growing exponentially, at a seemingly unstoppable rate.
We live in a world in which a tree is worth more, financially, dead than alive.
For so long as our economy works in that way, and corporations go unregulated, they’re going to continue to destroy trees, kill whales, mine the earth, and to continue to pull oil out of the ground, even though we know it is destroying the planet and we know it is going to leave a worse world for future generations.
We are more profitable to a corporation if we’re spending time staring at a screen, staring at an ad, than if we’re spending our time living our life in a rich way.
Is the human race capable of pro-actively defining, harnessing, and expressing a collective consciousness, without the need for tragic experiences?
Much of the problem is around our inability to define collective consciousness. Who are we? Who do we want to be in the future?
I think it is time to act.
Our paths have never been so clear. More than ever, science can tell us what different socioeconomic-emissions paths will mean in terms of future temperature.
Which will humanity choose?
The world is getting smaller every day. There is only one world, and it’s made of consciousness. Matter is what consciousness does.
NO MANDATES. A long-standing issue is that the accords generally have no clear mechanisms for mandating that countries carry out their promises. World pressure and ethical considerations have to drive most of the agreements.
So, lots of promises, but no guarantee that countries will honor them.
“Once we have ruled out the impossible, what remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
Is the nature of global collective consciousness, yet another thing, such as climate change, that the population of this planet is going to happily sleepwalk towards, as it shrugs its collective shoulders and says, “Well, you know, sniff, what can you do?”
Drones hold potential for many environmental benefits but nature’s technologies and designs are more often than not far superior to our own.
Computers in our pockets offer huge conservation potential.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
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.
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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.
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
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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?!
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.
Faith in the future is justified when investments succeed in improving the future.
Every country is a work in progress but there are gaping holes where the leadership should be.
Politicians are hanging on to power instead of working for the construction of a better world. We are getting “selfish politicians and cynicism” instead of the statesmen needed to challenge the current crisis all over the world.
We now have a US President who does not know what the word genocide means and a Uk Prime Minister that lies to his Parlement and a Putin that has lost the plot.
The idea that the Prime Minister or president “runs a country” is just nonsense.
The lack of thought invested in the future is a real and pressing problem.
Today’s politicians play on our inherent, false phobia of the word fear; they milk it for every vote it’s worth.
This creates a natural void between the average citizen and the ruling class.
The only difference perhaps is that nowadays we put a camera on them 24/7, and we expect them to give an answer to a problem mere minutes after some event occurred.
In the past, politicians probably had more time to think, and far less time to speak (or at least, fewer things they said were being recorded). As a result, modern politicians seem to make more mistakes.
I fear it will take a terrifying depth of crisis before there comes a point when this isn’t enough anymore and they will have to face their people with the big picture – which is to ask how much do we want to survive?
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Statesmanship is fleeting, and we don’t really appreciate it until it’s gone.
We desperately need a statesman—but, sadly, all I can hear are politicians.
If the world ever needed a Stateman it is now.
Real statesmen rise above the tawdry political arguments of the day to the much higher realm of political strategy, what is right for the nation, right for everyone, and betters the human condition.
The statesman shuns media campaigns, opting for the power of the written and spoken word. He is an accomplished public speaker that looks over the horizon for future requirements.
Statesmanship and ethics are inseparable. We need a lot of both. We’ve already got a lot of politicians. We need a lot more statesmen. Making no private promises, granted no special favors, and received no personal gifts which would compromise his official integrity.
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What are the differences between a Statesman and a Politician?
Not all politicians are statesmen.
Statesmen spend the money, borrowing what’s necessary, to grow the country, restore confidence in the government and the future, and prevent devastating wars—even if the benefits of their actions are not immediate and measurable, but spread instead over many generations.
Politicians, by contrast, “save money now” to “enhance today’s surplus” or “decrease today’s deficit”—even if “saving money” means leaving embassies unprotected from terrorist bombs, and our intelligence establishment less capable and integrated than it could have been.
Statesmen see far into the future and know that good investments pay for themselves over and over again, for generations.
Politicians tend to be penny wise and pound foolish—or perhaps more accurately, present-wise and future-foolish. They are in a “bubble” shuffling portfolios amongst themselves. They have no real-world experience. They go straight from education into politics via internships. They have no choice but to find a way to get people’s attention, in preparation for the next election and fear is one of the best attention-getters of all.
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In this age of media coverage, the problem we have is twofold what to believe and what not to believe.
The Underworld of the huge overarching media presence means that politics is not in control because no system is in control or in a position to lead society.
Take the war in Ukraine for example.
Can The West Stop Russia by Strangling its Economy? No
They only reflect liberal frustration over the West’s limited power to
prevent Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Why?
Because in 2001, the incident of 9/11 changed the whole scenario of the world. US started its War against Terror and announced that it will target anyone, anywhere, who threats the US security and its citizens. Under this US invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya and attacked Daesh in Syria without facing any opposition from other countries at United Nation Security Council (UNSC).
After 30 years, of peace now Russia led by President Putin has challenged the new world order in Eastern Europe, by accepting two eastern regions of Ukraine (Donetsk and Lugansk) as independent regions and allowing its forces to invade Ukraine on Feb 24, 2022.
It’s clear that Russia is not dependent on the west as the west is dependent on Russia. So there is something amiss with a black-and-white view of the situation in Ukraine.
Since the end of the Cold War, the West has refused to make any concessions to Russia’s security concerns. Neither NATO nor the Western powers, in general, have been willing or able ‘to empathize with the Russian perspective on this crisis’.
Moscow is repeating that it will withdraw its troops from Ukraine only if Ukraine recognizes Crimea as a part of Russia and two eastern regions, Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states, moreover Ukraine makes the constitutional amendment that it will not join NATO.
The truth is that after fighting alone and not getting ground or air support from the West ( because of the fear of a nuclear war) Ukraine has only one option left to compromise and accept the Russian demands for the sake of their and our survival.
Ukraine must learn from Afghanistan’s lessons, and not allow big powers to play a proxy war in its country.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will lead to a new world order with an era of grinding compromise. The “new world order” is going to be dominated by Russia and China. Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi are writing their own rules.
The real danger is that the global balance of power is not just being recast, but gradually unraveling. History shows that changes to the balance of power rarely occur without serious conflict.
We must do what we can to contain Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. But we also need to be clear-eyed about it and face the costs.
Economics can’t be separated from politics, and neither can be separated from history.
One lasting story of this war could be the way that Europe uses it to launch its next stage of integration.
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We cannot continue to fight each other in useless wars.
Take Climate Change.
The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, called the recent IPCC report on the climate crisis a “code red” for humanity. “We are on the verge of the abyss,” he said.
You might think those words would sound some kind of alarm in our society.
Since no one treats the crisis like a crisis, the existential warnings keep on drowning in a steady tide of greenwash and everyday media news flow.
The facts are crystal clear, but we just refuse to accept them. We refuse to acknowledge that we now have to choose between saving the living planet or saving our unsustainable way of life.
Because we want both. We demand both. But the undeniable truth is that we have left it too late for that.
And no matter how uncomfortable that reality may seem, this is exactly what our leaders have chosen for us with their decades of inaction. Their decades of blah, blah, blah. In short, we are totally failing to even reach targets that are completely insufficient in the first place.
Science doesn’t lie, nor does it tell us what to do.
But it does give us a picture of what needs to be done. We are of course free to ignore that picture and remain in denial. Or to go on hiding behind clever accounting, loopholes, and incomplete statistics. As if the atmosphere would care about our frameworks. As if we could argue with the laws of physics.
The climate and ecological emergency are, of course, only a symptom of a much larger sustainability crisis. A social crisis. A crisis of inequality that dates back to colonialism and beyond. A crisis is based on the idea that some people are worth more than others and, therefore have the right to exploit and steal other people’s land and resources.
It’s all interconnected.
It’s a sustainability crisis that everyone would benefit from tackling. But it’s naive to think that we could solve this crisis without confronting the roots of it. Inequality.
All it would really take is one – one world leader or one high-income nation or one major TV station or leading newspaper who decides, to be honest, to truly treat the climate crisis as the crisis that it is. One leader who counts all the numbers – and then takes brave action to reduce emissions at the pace and scale the science demands. Then everything could be set in motion towards action, hope, purpose, and meaning.
Who will that leader be?
Ask any hundred people to define a good leader and how many definitions do you think we’d hear?
The leaders of the free world just serve to reassure people that there is someone in charge, someone with a plan while high technology is creating the way we think and feel.
We have to get used to living in a world without leaders.
We must understand that global warming is a true threat.
We have to become conscious of environmentally friendly measures of living.
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This is where we are at the moment.
I and you are going to see a lot of the long-term effects of what’s happening now with Climate change.
Time will tell if great statemen will return to power and change the direction in which current politicians are leading the world.
Without leaders, there is little alignment and hardly any coordinated moving together towards common goals. Without leadership, there is hardly a chance for fair distribution of wealth nor for peace.
This doesn’t mean that leadership as such grants these values but without leadership, it’s probably impossible to enjoy them at all.
Three-quarters of the world could not give a dame about the war in Ukraine, Syria, and Yemen, or any of the other wars.
Only resistance from within Russia can shorten the conflict.
Brussel is pretty much kowtowing to the gazillion of different demands of basically all European leaders and interest groups, resulting in policies that are confused, contradictory, and ultimately useless.
European leaders with the outbreak of war in Ukraine are reduced to the role of extras.
Unfortunately, we lack business statesmanship in the advertising Industry promoting more and more consumption for short-term profits with the media whose role seems to be to stop the shaping of modern statesmen.
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There is only one choice that is to declare war on Climate change.
All human comments are appreciated. All lie clicks and abuse are chucked in the bin.
The UK was recently given the title of the most crowded country in Europe with a population of nearly 65,000,000 it is the 10th largest source of migrants to the rest of the world.
This is a country that made its wealth on the back of slavery and is now intending to provide those deemed to have arrived unlawfully with a one-way ticket to Rwanda.
SHAME ON YOU Britain.
In an effort to curtail human trafficking it is resorting to the same despicable trade of human trafficking it wants to stop.
Priti Patel the daughter of a Ugandan-Indian family should know that refugees are among the most vulnerable people in the world.
Your indifference is the engine of entropy that is shining a light on Britain’s apathy to the plight of refugees.
Anti-immigration sentiment existed in Britain long before the referendum.
On June 23, 2016, Britain held a referendum to determine the future of its relationship with the European Union. “Immigration” was the single strongest issue driving Brits to vote for Leave and fundamentally reshaping the language of “immigration.”
In reality, the UK’s membership in the EU would have very little effect on the country’s responsibilities concerning the refugee crisis, as the UK had already opted out of common EU asylum policies and instead was bound only by a distinct set of international conventions.
The relentless (negative) coverage of the refugee crisis in the media brought the topic of immigration to unprecedented national salience for the British public.
By blurring the boundaries between EU and non-EU, economic and humanitarian, and legal and illegal migration it has not isolated itself from the Leave campaign. It not only stripped humanity from the crisis but also misled voters by implying that the forces guiding and controlling both the refugee crisis and internal EU migration were the same and could both be solved by leaving the EU.
Without using the terminology of “refugee,” the umbrella term “migrant” instead of “refugee” to refer to people fleeing war zones, has resulted in sending a strong message that Britain is not a country to migrate to.
The UK’s referendum to leave the EU was an unequivocal demonstration of the anti-establishment sentiments, xenophobia, populism, and Euroscepticism.
( There has always been an intersection between populist politics and media discourse, and there is strong evidence that fear-based messages appear during important political and electoral markers, like elections.)
We must hope that the Priti Patel deal with Rwanda falls on the sword of justice and that decency people in the UK make their voices heard.
Now more than ever UNHCR’s role in Britain must come to the fore. Promoting accession to, and implementation of, refugee conventions and laws.
Ensuring that refugees are treated in accordance with internationally recognized legal standards;
Ensuring that refugees are granted asylum and are not forcibly returned to the countries from which they have fled;
Promoting appropriate procedures to determine whether or not a person is a refugee according to the 1951 Convention definition and/or to other definitions found in regional conventions;
Seeking durable solutions for refugees.
The definition of a refugee is someone who:
“Owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”
It cost Australia more than £5 billion since 2013 to send 3,127 people to Papua New Guinea and Nauru as part of a similar policy.
The realities of conflict, violence, and persecution continue to cause displacement.
THERE GO I BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
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.
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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.
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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.
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To stopthis 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?
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
With the continuation of the covid pandemic, this is going to become the big question because the two are intertwined.
If this pandemic drags on, which appears it will do with new variants, the degree of economic harm will become extreme, resulting in a different kind of “ailment” worse than the one we’re supposedly trying to “cure.”
Either way, the current shackling of the economy cannot be allowed to drag on much longer, or we will find ourselves in a full-blown global depression — and then more people will die.
However, if you combine the pandemic with the other major crises Climate Change the Environment wins hands down.
Why?
Because in the long run if the environment is not protected it will inevitably lead to the depletion of economic resources and the destruction of the earth and human life.
In this world, humans are not here for only survival there are many other aspects that are necessary for the lives of humans. The economy is not, and never was intended as, “an end in itself”.
Everything that belonged to humans came from the environment but we can live without an economy, but not without our environment!
We’re all in this together.
There’s just enough truth to that to convince the average citizen — but the more insidious (and, I believe, likely intended) effect is to promote public docility;
To persuade us to go along with any and all directives issued by the authorities.
An economy is good only insofar as it satisfies our needs for freedom to enjoy the actuality of living, not valuing profit over life itself. On the physical level, human lives literally depend on the economy; not only for paying the bills and preparing for retirement but for healthcare itself.
With no economy, there is no point in having a good environment. everything in the history of the world created by humans came from the environment.
A “healthy” economy is an indicator of a “healthy” society. They live side by side.
If the goal of government policy is only “to slow the spread of infections”“
If you think the economy is more important than the environment, try holding your breath while counting your money.” — Guy McPherson.
The cure shouldn’t be worse than the disease. Government handling of any public emergency — if those in power are rational and just — will be balanced with their handling of the economy.
Pope Francis said on Sunday that people are more important than the economy, as countries decide how quickly to reopen their countries from coronavirus lockdowns.
What do you think the economy is?
It is people but unfortunately, with our present system of capitalist economies, people do not benefit equally from its growth. Essential workers versus the unemployed, shareholders versus self-employed, foodbanks versus dialing a meal, the list is endless however without humans, how can we hope to repair anything?
To remove these inequalities is impossible but an economy based on universal basic income for all would allow people to look after themselves rather than state handouts.
Providing inflation was controlled it would go a long way to leveling up.
Instead, the possibility of dictatorial governments using technology data is now on the cards. This fear is exacerbated by the average person’s lack of reflection on just what “the economy” is, and what it means to both individual freedom and the public good.
History has shown us we shouldn’t underestimate the threat to our liberty arising from the government’s response to Covid. There’s no reason to assume that after the pandemic — if there is an “after” — all democratic governments will voluntarily relinquish their newly acquired power.
Sure the government’s first obligation is to ensure people can survive both Climate change and the virus but without the means to change the way we live our lives it will be meanless.
So it’s time for the media to make the cost of human life better understood.
It’s time for the advertising industry to stop promoting consumption for profit.
It’s time to regulate Profit for-profit technology such as non-transparent Algorithms.
Either we are really all in this together or we are not.
Of course, together will remain only words till we address the weakness which is at the heart of any nation-state project ( Like the current Vaccination program)
The vast majority are unable to participate because of a lack of compensation, by the capacity ( notably economic) of the capitalist system to ensure that everybody enjoys certain equality of access to material well-being. A Basis Universal income would rectify that.
Modern societies can easily get by without cultural integration, tolerating a situation of competitive pluralism of values without automatically sinking into anarchy feared by the sociological tradition of inequality, if given the means to do so.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse are chucked in the bin.
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.
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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.
With or without technology there will always be inequalities in the world.
So why do we keep trying to solve poverty with technology?
Because this way of thinking is so ingrained that is adopted by organizations that fight poverty—which often refashion themselves to resemble technology startups.
Inequality has been growing so much that all governments and civil society speak about it with increasing worry, trying to understand its causes, but unable to find solutions, because of greed.
It is our policy on technology that drives inequality.
There is no better example of this than in the way the world is handling the current Covid pandemic unable to share the know-how to make the vaccinations.
Patents and copyrights are not guaranteed as individual rights, like the right to free speech or religion.
After all, why would a drug company pay large amounts of money to people to develop new drugs if the drugs can be copied and sold by competitors from the day they enter the market?
If it is not already obvious, patent and copyright monopolies are instruments of public policy, not acts of God.
This is why there is still not enough coronavirus vaccine to meet worldwide demand.
A year ago there was no commercial market for mRNA products.
Vaccine manufacturers long ago should have been sharing technology and expertise to boost production in the U.S. and Europe, and especially in developing countries.
The same would be true of software developers, makers of medical equipment, computer manufacturers, smartphone companies, and any other product where the cost of research and development was a substantial portion of the price of the product.
The complete elimination of patents and copyrights is of course an extreme scenario, but it is a possible policy option.
If we did choose this policy option, we would have a much more equal distribution of income, in spite of having the same technology.
In short, the fact that there was a huge increase in inequality associated with the development of technology over the last four decades was the result of policy choices, not technology.
There should be serious public debate about both how strong we want to patent and copyright protection to be and also whether they are always the best way to promote innovation and creative work, as opposed to alternatives like direct public funding.
If we acknowledge the extreme case, where we literally have no patent or copyright protection, then we have to recognize that there is nothing inherent in our technology that would cause inequality.
Few things, in principle, can’t be delivered through technology.
It is entirely our rules on technology that can cause inequality to increase.
So on one hand, technology can eradicate poverty — not by making poor people less poor, but by making it less valuable to be rich.
On the other as technology spreads, making its creators rich, but treating its users the same, we should expect more monopolies and more financial inequality.
Although it is your data you can’t pay for a better Facebook experience.
Companies are incentivized to offer a product if it makes more than it costs. And technology ends up not costing much once you’ve built it.
So, in the end, you charge people whatever they can pay and in poorer countries, people just pay and get paid less.
Times are changing from the days that growth in inequality was largely an organic process independent of government policy.
“Owning” the robot/algorithm is not a technical relationship, it is a legal one, and therefore one that depends on our laws.
The reason some people might get very rich from owning robots or algorithms is that they own patents and copyrights that are needed for the making of the robots/ algorithms.
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In the past, technological improvements would be beneficial to all:
Extreme economic inequality is corrosive to our societies.
Around 8% of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty — but do you know why?
Gender inequality, caste systems, marginalization based on race or tribal affiliations are all economic and social inequalities that mean the same thing:
You might think that poverty causes hunger (and you would be right!), but hunger is also a cause — and maintainer — of poverty. This is why now with climate change, negotiating international trade agreements behind closed doors with only bureaucrats and corporate lobbyists present has to end.
Economics should take into account ethics and the environment, and treat its claims less like invariable truths.
It goes without saying that any actions coming out of Cop 26 climate change conferences to reduce temperatures will be derailed by not just income inequality, (only the higher income household will be able to afford green energy technologies. Solar panels, electric cars, heating pumps, etc.) but by the total lack of shared responsibility to do anything about it.
Of course, there are hundreds of other elements that contribute to the problems our world is now facing.
World poverty isn’t a problem of limited resources, it is a problem of inequality and this inequality is upheld by the idea that aid creates dependence.
Climate change will drive up to 132 million more people into extreme poverty by 2030.
The pricing carbon emissions on average is at a mere $3 a tonne.
The price of inequality in all its forms is greed. There are vast fortunes to be made with Technology/ Algorithms for profit and nothing blurs ethical lines faster than greed.
So far, any decoupling has either been largely relative – in the sense of merely achieving higher rates of economic growth than gains in emissions – or achieved by shifting dirty production from one national territory to another.
And that is why, for now, global emissions are still rising.
The idea of “Just Transition” without financing is pie in the sky.
Take the aftermath of the Afghan 20-year war.
The country is now facing starvation. Why not bomb it with food.
By coming together to tackle the plague of destitution around the world, we have the opportunity to advance the human condition and eliminate global poverty in a way no one has done before.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
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