Category Archives: Modern day Slavery

THE BEADY ASK’S THE QUESTION TO WHICH THERE IS NO ANSWER: WHERE IS THE WORLD GOING?

11 Saturday Jul 2020

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2020: The year we need to change., A Constitution for the Earth., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change., COVID-19, Digital age., Disconnection., Economic Depression., Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., G20., G7., GDP., How to do it., Human values., Humanity., Inequality., Life., Micro v Macro Economics., Modern day Slavery, Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The current state of our oceans., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Trade Agreements., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., Wealth., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Economic Depression., World Economy.

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(Twenty-minute read) 

The answer lies basically in this question -why is it that governments can afford a fighter plane, but teachers need to hold a bake sale to buy school supplies.

Understanding how the balance of payments work is key to understanding the monetary leverage that one country holds over another. Based on the modern method of money creation, the functionality of the balance of payments is really a zero-sum game.

Wealth used to be defined as the accumulation of human time and labor.

This is why human time and labor are consolidated under ideologies (eg. Socialism, democracy, communism, etc.), which are framed with borders around cultures, religions, and historical significance. Time and labor are consolidated as a measure of GDP.

World GDP can now be considered the measurement by which human time and labor are used to manage the debt which is a product of the money creation process.

As Yanis Varoufakis says ” It is pointless to continue to do macroeconomics analysts focusing on a single country”  “It is not any more trading volumes or fiscal data it is the ebb and flow of financial capital”

There was or there is no need for the Coronavirus to expose still more flaws in economic structures. Inequality is to be seen in foodbanks, people sleeping on the street, the color of your skin, not least the increasing precarity of work, owing to the rise of the gig economy and a decades-long deterioration of workers’ bargaining power.

A Clap will not save nine, but thanks to Covid-19 the bastions of global Capitalism are on hold.  

There has never being a more important time to effect change to Capitalism.

So will or can we use the current state of emergency to start building a more inclusive and sustainable economy.  

If we don’t, we will stand no chance against the major crisis – an increasingly uninhabitable planet – and all the smaller crises that will come with it in the years and decades ahead.

Capitalism is facing at least three major crises.

A pandemic-induced health crisis that is rapidly igniting an economic crisis with yet unknown consequences for financial stability and all of this is playing out against the backdrop of a climate crisis that cannot be addressed by “business as usual.”

The COVID-19 crisis is exacerbating all these problems with governments playing a leading role, in delivering immediate solutions in the short term. However, the solutions are still not designed in such a way as to serve the public interest over the long term, and therefore they will not lay the foundation for a robust and inclusive recovery.

With reports on the seriousness of the coronavirus evolving each day if not each hour, the eyes of commerce are on epidemiology.

The effort to develop a COVID-19 vaccine could become yet another one-way relationship in which corporations reap massive profits by selling back to the public a product that was born of taxpayer-funded research.

The ongoing coronavirus crises are forcing governments to cash out in order to keep businesses, workers, and their economies afloat, but extending loans to businesses at a time when private debt is already historically high. Flooded the world with liquidity without directing it toward good long term investment opportunities like renewable green energy will result in the money ended up back in a financial sector that was (and remains) unfit for purpose.

The ability of companies to service any of this debt is debatable never mind the economies of countries.   

This time, rescue measures absolutely must come with conditions attached, bailouts should be designed to steer larger companies but to reward value creation instead of value extraction, preventing share buybacks, and encouraging investment in sustainable growth and a reduced carbon footprint.

It was the high private debt that caused the global financial crisis in 2008. The result of this has been to erode the very public-sector institutions that we need to overcome crises like the coronavirus pandemic.

On top of these self-inflicted wounds, an overly “financialized” business sector has been siphoning value out of the economy by rewarding shareholders through stock-buyback schemes.

If one really looks at Capitalism at its basic modeling – its beating heart is profit for profit sake.

To day’s Capitalist Economics is set up with this mantra, not to serve people’s needs, or to protect the environment, or to spread the rewards, rather to enslave people to the world of consumption- produce something at the lowest cost to produce the highest profit.     

Apart from the tragic human consequences of the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic, the economic uncertainty it has sparked will likely cost the global economy trillions in 2020, the UN’s trade and development agency, UNCTAD, said on Monday.

What is clear is that if politics and trade wars emerged as uncertainties in recent years, now a third leg in the stool holding up global confidence has suddenly gone wobbly.

It is also clear this is going to be a slow-rolling, highly consequential event, that has all the ingredients required for internal strife in many countries.

It is clear that if we keep exploiting wildlife and destroying our ecosystems, then we can expect to see a steady stream of these diseases jumping from animals to humans in the years ahead.

It is clear that we need to invest in ending the over-exploitation of wildlife and other natural resources, farming sustainably, reversing land degradation, and protecting ecosystem health. 

It is clear that the virus is already robbing the world of carbon reduction and it’s only a matter of time before climate change dwarfs the impact of COVID-19.

It is clear that all country’s fates are intertwined.

It is clear that if there is some message here, it’s that this is totally predictable other than without proper oversight, that AI may replicate or even exacerbate human bias and discrimination, cause potential job displacement, and lead to other unintended and harmful consequences.

It is clear given the growing importance of this powerful technology, AI regulation should not be designed in a haphazard manner. As governments struggle to keep up with the unprecedented speed and scale of technological change, companies are facing a crisis of trust amid the growing “techlash” and are increasingly being called on to self‑regulate the technology they are developing and deploying.

It is clear despite vast efforts worldwide to address the symptoms of the coronavirus pandemic, the root causes have been largely ignored, to rebalance the needs of people, the planet, and animals.

It is clear that there’s a lot still to learn about the virus – and therefore how extensive its impact on the global economy could become. Some of the most basic aspects of the virus remain unknown. It all depends on the eventual scale of the epidemic, and at any given point, no one has been able to say whether it has peaked. We don’t know whether it will burn out, like SARS, or come back seasonally like the flu.

It is clear that the impact on markets not to mention human behavior is far from normal never mind the new normal. We are operating in the uncharted territory and the stark reality is that we as a species are unable to act as one. 

It is clear that the last thing we need to hear from brands is that we all in this together. They are simply trying to remain relevant and in demand. They need to rethink engagement data-driven empathy no longer cuts the ice. 

It is clear that Humanity must become the killer app.

It is clear that we’re living in a world of transparency and in such a world inequality cannot be tolerated.

It is clear that nowadays, it is no longer enough for a business to figure out how it was going to turn a profit. The social goals of the business – are not mere “add-ons or marketing ploys” they must be “part of the DNA of the business.”

It is clear that an unregulated algorithm-driven world will put its riches into the hands of the few. 

The problem that we have is not globalization it is a lack of global governance, a lack of means to address global issues.

To solve social problems such as pollution, poor nutrition, and poverty, climate change, you name it there is only one solution.

At the end of Yanis Varoufakis, The Combination That Changed Capitalism Forever, he promotes the establishment of what he calls a political movement that he calls a progressive international movement that is globally and act like activists locally by using purchasing power, he also puts forward a vision of Capitalism where there is no stock exchange, replaced by private ownership and Greene every bonds backed by treasuries.

The green energy bonds are a must So the young generation is able to buy into the process that creates their destiny. 

Purchasing power as an economic power to effect change, unfortunately, is visible and like all things that are visible will not work due to greed, cultural differences, etc.     

THE SOLUTION MUST BE INVISIBLE AND APPLICABLE WORLDWIDE.  

To create a perpetual ongoing fund that spread the cost fairly to tackle climate change and inequalities worldwide. 

Make a profit for profit sake pay by placing a 0.005% commission on all, Hight frequency trading, on all foreign exchange transactions over £50 thousand, on all sovereign fund acquisitions, on all gambling and world lottos, on all consumption advertising, on all dividend payments.   

Profit for a Purpose- with-Purpose.

Nearly a third of the world’s oceans and land areas could be placed under environmental protections without harming the global economy.

You cannot put a price tag on nature, but a recent independent report, commissioned by the Campaign for Nature charity, found about $140bn (£110bn) a year would be required by 2030 to place 30% of land and sea under protection.

Achieving the target of 30% protection would lead to increased economic output of between $64bn and $454bn a year.

The benefits to humanity are incalculable and the cost of inaction is unthinkable. 

To younger generations, the state of the planet is even more alarming but if they
don’t get their proveable faces out of their smartphones and their fingers out of where the light shines we all going to witness horrors unimaginable. 

It is clear that a coalition of old folks in the establishment won’t cut it.

All our efforts have to be inclusive, integrating all stakeholders, the earth and all that live, grow, and die on it.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE : LOOKS AT WHAT IS NOW BEEN CALLED THE NEW NORM.

26 Friday Jun 2020

Posted by in 2020: The year we need to change., Climate Change., COVID-19, Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Economic Depression., Environment, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Human values., Humanity., Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, POST COVID-19., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Technology., Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., TRACKING TECHNOLOGY., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, Viruses., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Economy.

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(Fifteen-minute read) 

While the pandemic continues to turn the world upside down, new realizations are beginning to dawn on us, there’s no going back to normality.

There is no doubt that we are getting close to the “new abnormal”.

We are all in this together and no one really knows what the future holds but you only have to look at the advertising industry to see what is coming. 

We are now in a digital dance in which the use of surveillance and testing to find and control outbreaks will eventually determine who gets to make or earn a living or not.

Under the cloak of preventing the virus from spreading governments are either already deploying, or actively considering, surveillance technology of such intrusiveness that it would have caused outrage and furious protests even a month ago. 

As the human and economic impact unfold, how massive this change will become is still unclear.

Indeed, it is a real question as to whether normal or abnormal can be sensibly used at all, given their tremendous baggage and built-in biases and the general confusion they create.

However, there are a few new norms becoming clearer.

The current devastating pandemic is likely to happen again and again and the digital dance to avoid the next outbreak will not be to the tune of governments, but two powerful global corporations laying down the law to territorial sovereigns and restructuring the economic order. 

Whole industries grossing billions of dollars are built on the words “normal” and “abnormal” and on the ideas of “well” and “disordered.”

It is therefore inconceivable that the right thing can be done and that the situation can change. Given that even the best and the brightest in the field of advertising are attached to an illegitimate naming game, from Bio this and Bio that there is probably no hope for change other than COVID free. 

Add the coming World economic depression, with unemployment and climate migration one thing is clear, slowing the pace of climate change and adapting to its impacts, must become a central organizing principle of society at all levels, from local to global through national and regional.

The declarations of climate emergency must start meaning that, rather than being just an additional agenda item for busy executives and politicians.

Why? 

Because climate change and the erosion of wildlife habitats will ensure a ready supply of zoonotic viruses.

Up to now, the emphasis is on lifting the lockdown has centered solely on the necessity of bringing the economy out of its cryogenic chamber to take in the world it has inherited.

We’re all online now, new conformity which is developing a serious digital divide between the young and older generations. And if the impact of Covid19 is another step in the collapse of modern societies, then it is likely it will have been another climate-driven step in that collapse.

The new normal, in other words, change what was wrong but keeps what was right with the old normal.

But if the old normal was wrong, then why did we call it normal?

The word “normal” appears straightforward enough it possesses a certain kind of authority or “power to divide and distinguish things” since a person’s mental model of “what is normal?” is tremendously influenced by how society and its institutions define “normal.”

But like many of our words, as soon as we begin thinking about it, it starts to fall apart at the seams. The fact with which we started our process of categorization becomes the standard or norm, and everything that diverges from that norm is not just different but abnormal and therefore less than normal.

Our concept of normal pulls double duty; it tells us that what is, ought to be.

Nor can it mean “free of discomfort,” as if “normal” were the equivalent of oblivious.

Normality forces upon us are that “in most cases, no formal rules or standards indicate what conditions are normal” In the absence of such rules, those who wish to identify normality will normally turn to one of three different definitions.

The first is the statistical view, “where ‘the normal’ is whatever trait most people in a group display”. Normal is what is typical, what most people do – which means it is impossible for any individual to be normal.

Second, the norm provided a concrete standard that, if followed, allowed the user to reproduce a specific pattern. Normal-as-ideal, then, might be in harmony with normal-as-ubiquitous, but it might be quite different.

What is normal for a human being, then, are all those behaviors that make it fit to thrive in its particular niche. The capacity to feel shame when betraying a loved one is normal in this scheme, as is the desire for one’s offspring to survive.

When it comes to defining normality, we start with what we think is normal before even considering what is abnormal with all three above end up sliding into each.

The new normal will mean that most of us will go back to most of what we were doing before the pandemic struck (1), but that our societies will make changes for the better (2), which will end up being good for the survival of our communities (3).

The question, then, is why would you use the word “normal” at all? 

Normal is safe. It’s familiar. In the face of fear, people long to go back to a time before the fear set in.

Covid-19 causes us to experience a great deal of anxiety, and then we imagine a carefree time before these feelings set in. We don’t begin with normality and then categorize those instances where it is transgressed.

If we begin with all of those things that we instinctively feel are “abnormal” and then try to find comfort by erecting a norm that resolves our anxieties. We then locate this norm “in the past”, which gives us the benefit of claiming the norm as our own. This, after all, may seem easier to attain than one that requires all the hard work of creation.

It is not something we need to build from scratch; all that is necessary is that we return home to it.

We will all continue to face daunting challenges for which we are not prepared. Modern medicine, as advanced as it is, is still, in the grand scheme of things, relatively young.

We’re not sure what exactly the future will look like – which is why we prefer to discuss it in the familiar terms of the good ole’ days – but we know that it’s coming to greet us.

Bergson used the term élan vital to describe the mysterious impulse toward an open future that seems to animate all life. In fact, this impulse is what life is. Life, says Bergson, “since its origins, has been the continuation of one and the same impetus which separates itself into diverging lines of evolution”.

If we are careful two huge tech companies that control mobile phone technology will enable governments to build and deploy proximity-tracking apps on every smartphone in the world.

 Your online appointments for everything IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER.  

Here is a shortlist of Normal abnormalities in the world. 

  • 640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3)
  • 750 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5)
  • 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7)
  • In developing countries, some 2.5 billion people are forced to rely on biomass—fuelwood.
  • The wealthiest 20% of the world accounted for 76.6% of total private consumption. The poorest fifth just 1.5%. In other words, about 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s financial assets
  • A quarter of humanity — live without electricity.
  • 51 percent of the world’s 100 hundred wealthiest bodies are corporations.

A strong economy in a nation doesn’t mean much when a significant percentage (even a majority) of the population is struggling to survive.

THE NEW NORM.

Thinking about it, I much prefer the new COVID-19 normal, as I am certain you do too. After all, it has, in some bizarre way, opened our eyes to the infinite treasures that lie within us and in front of us, that we may have been too numb to notice until now.

What was once the unknown and frightening becomes your new normal.

We can make the new normal any way we want providing we make it GREEN. 

If “the new normal” means giving up to technology then THE NEW NORMAL MUST BE REJECTED WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.

These temporary measures are just that; temporary. They need to be observed, but NOT FOREVER. New normal or not, every day really is a miracle.

The new normal that activity tracks your steps, whether you are black or white, rich or poor, left or right-wing, gay or straight, Muslim or other, Facebook or Twitter, contaminated or not, is irrelevant to living life and appreciating the world we all live on. 

It’s the powerful combination of humanity and values that count. We are living in a world of continuous change “Technology Rules The World.”

The new norm requires that we consider our systems as a platform for scaling value.

An investment that needs to be made by leadership. The time has passed for small commitments, hyperbole, and delays in embracing sustainable investing.

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

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S : WE KNOW THE RIGHT WAY TO GO BUT WHY IS IT SO HARD? IS IT BECAUSE IMAGINATION IS DISAPPEARING.

09 Saturday May 2020

Posted by in 2020: The year we need to change., Big Data., COVID-19, Dehumanization., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Digital Friendship., Disconnection., Economic Depression., Emergency powers., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Freedom, GPS-Tracking., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Imagination., Inequality, Innovation., Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Reality., Robot citizenship., Sustaniability, Technology, Technology v Humanity, The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Tracking apps., TRACKING TECHNOLOGY., 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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(Twenty-minute read) 

If ever there was a need for imagination when this pandemic is over or is eventually under control, hopefully, imagination is going to play a massive role in redesigning not just our societies but the way we live and die on this planet.

The responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are simply the amplification of the dynamic that drives other social and ecological crises.

If we have learned anything from Covid-19 is that global problems require global solutions, whether it is a pandemic, hunger, or access to quality education, reversing climate change, poverty, and inequality, you name it.

Imagination allows us to engage in thinking about alternatives and there is no doubt that we will need some radical changes.

Here I am referring to creative imagination the role it plays in our thinking.

The key point is that in using a term such as ‘imagining’, I am not just referring to some mental activity, but also evaluating that activity in some way, with all its relations and ramifications.

So here is your chance to submit you imagine creative ideas.

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

Where to start? 

Unfortunately, this pandemic is a present-day dystopia.

It’s not the stuff of science fiction set in some distant future or on another planet it’s damage is ongoing and will only get worse as it continues.

To understand the “real world” one has to experience it not imagine it.

At the moment there is a lot of rhetoric about using a tracking App to monitor the spread of COVID_19. In other words, unregulated squealing Apps (that are owned by private corporations) that Id people that have or had the virus. 

 We recently celebrated VE day that won us freedom at the cost of millions of lives. 

In my view, such a tracking proposition is not far removed from what the Nazis did in identify Jews by marking them with a yellow star. 

It is imperative that we in their honor that we now don’t rubbish there sacrifice by becoming Data slaves. 

(As I have said in the previous post, to ensure tracking does not outlive the effort against COVID-19. Both the technology and related policies and procedures should ensure the deletion of data when there is no longer a need to hold it.)

When people feel that their phones are antagonistic rather than helpful, they will just turn location functions off or turn their phones off entirely.

Imagine living under a Chines automatism system run by a Donal Dump.

Such techniques violate some of the core values of liberal democratic regimes.)

Up to now, we thought that Capitalist Globalization was the bee’s knees when in fact it increased inequalities and undermined democracy.

Now we realize that ecological transition IS more than NECESSARY with a bottom-up economy to protect the world and not the top-down begging world we have a the moment.  

However, the big problem remains the same.

How to distribute the gains of any economy. and now the losses.  

Technology will treat people as units and as such the relentless growth and accumulation of wealth and power for the few, will continue to grow. 

Cutting-edge technologies are now powered by artificial intelligence and are fundamentally shifting the distribution of power between people who provide data and entities that can make sense and use of these data.

It will become a battle between protecting individual rights and confronting an existential threat to our collective right to health, to a basic living wage. 

Of course, all of this data helps epidemiologists model the movement and the future of the virus but beyond the privacy and data rights, there are questions of biases and discrimination built into the algorithms that power the technology. 

Machines will never be made to think like people.

We have for decades underpaid the people that we now call essential workers as interchangeable units.

Currently, the AI field is mostly controlled by corporate interests. 

As global COVID-19 cases continue to rise, the unmatched connectivity that defines our era serves as both bane and blessing. 

Let’s ask the question one more time, in taking advantage of big data to create databases to track and predict infectious risk, should we be enforcing social- distancing by squealing on each other?

If you are at risk, the odds change rapidly, you become in favor of sharing or donating data.

There’s really no way to stop the movement of microbes and we need to realize that now our citizens really need to realize that.

Mapping potential carriers with big data notwithstanding privacy concerns, analysis of personal, travel, and other data like clinical data allow accurate predictive modeling.

Imagine if we created a society where everything is predicted and determined by big data. Its presence depends on “symbolic function”, the ability to pretend that one object is another thing entirely.

It will be a massive mistake.

So is technology an imaginary friend or foe?

Will we lose that human touch?

There’s no doubt that the coronavirus pandemic has changed daily life.

But what changes will last? How will we live when it’s all over? 

Even now, when we’re seeing a massive, rapid change in most walks of life — inspired by a push in science or technology, or nudged by a freak, global health emergency — it’s hard to find sound prophecy. And that’s despite access to mountains of data.

Who would have imagined that global consumerism could be crushed by the wheels of its own industry … quite so suddenly.

But perhaps this is the kind of tipping point that we secretly crave — a slowing of society.

Many people will struggle to deal with an increasing rate of change and, as a result, suffer a social or personal shock. Whether we survive the shock depends on how well we adapt.

What complicates things is that no two societies are ever fully the same.

We’re seeing that friction today, between so-called “forces” and “anti-forces.” The push and pull of people and places adapting this way or that way. But it’s nigh impossible to predict how much of that change, and its effect on daily life, will remain, and how much — or what — will change back.

Whatever happens, it won’t be on a massive scale because our regular behavior will start to reemerge.

Who will benefit more?

We might discover that work is not really part of your life or something you like to do, but something you must do exactly seven hours and 42 minutes a day. And then your real life starts.

This Pandemic will not be a ‘one-off’ event. 

Now is the time to start investing in spare capacity, in people and equipment, to cope with such events. 

( See post on setting up World Aid Depots)  

We must envision a path that allows humans to flourish by asking: how can we protect people financially, should widespread technological unemployment happen even sooner than we anticipated?

A realization among some that the dominant ways of knowing and organizing, which characterize our modern techno-industrial cultures, cannot handle the realities of living, complex, relational, human, and non-human systems.

This may help bring into focus the need to update the conceptual foundations of our cultures.

But can tech solve everything?

That raises the question of whether privacy isn’t just a cultural construct.

If your health depended on it, wouldn’t you share your data willingly?

So we need to say goodbye to our concepts of data security.

Data security is something for healthy people.

On the other hand fear of infection is limiting “in-person” interactions, forcing us deeper into an “increasingly chilling use of online systems and all-electronic communication.

Change depends on how we see ourselves as individuals and groups living through the now.

The internet might just be facilitating.

But it’s still about the real world and a reminder that you can’t eat anything on your computer screen.

In the next Pandemic and the forthcoming Depression, there will be nowhere to hide” from economic collapse in our networked world. 

Take video conferencing.

It’s fine as an exception, but as a rule, it fails to fully translate subtle forms of communication — body language below the head and shoulders. All sound is normalized, mics get muted, along with nervous hands or a lost, downward gaze.

In the end, previous pandemics have profoundly re-shaped society and despite huge advances in medical knowledge, we are once again forced to respond in much the same ways as we did to previous pandemics.

Until a worldwide vaccine we’re really back to what our ancestors would have had in terms of dealing with this kind of disease – just stay away from each other in an effort to slow down its spread.

What we’re doing now is keeping it running at any cost.

However, it is obvious that the right path in tackling both COVID-19 and climate change is much easier if you reduce nonessential economic activity.

There is now an opportunity to change course, the earth must be respected.

So imagination without reality is the osmotic membrane between matter and mind, the antechamber between outside and inside, the free zone between the laws of nature and the requirements of reason.

Without, it indicates a lack of commitment to the truth or existence of what is thought of by the person or persons who invented big data. Thinking of something that is not present to the senses without commitment to its truth or falsity a Digital prison. 

Up to now, we live in a world of the short-term profit-driven corporate world, with the support of the trillion-dollar advertising industry and complicit governments who have fetishized economic growth.

If technology dominates us, not only is the whole struggle to imagine a world of equal opportunities betrayed but the opportunity is lost.

So it’ll only be when it’s all over that we’ll have the luxury of telling the story as a neatly bound series of logical events.

The impacts we’ll see from this is going to be far greater than what happened before. Whether imagery is a form of imagination, and whether supposition is a form of imagination as quick as you can imagine there is a depression of historic proportions coming.

Imagination makes our world an even more spectacular place.

We imagine even when we don’t think that we are imagining.

Everything that humans have achieved has started with the glimmer of imagination.

It is, in sum, the pivotal power in which are centered those mediating, elevating, transforming functions that are so indispensable to the cognitive process that philosophers are reluctant to press them very closely.

Why does it seem to diminish over time for all but the most creative among us?

My own ability to imagine up a story or new world seems far weaker than it used to be. Or is it?

It fails to exclude such things as remembering.

We can leave a legacy worthwhile.   So comment. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: EVERYBODY SHOULD WATCH THE BELOW VIDEOS, BECAUSE THE INTRODUCTION OF TRACKING UNDER THE CLOAK OF PREVENTING THE SPREAD OF COVID-19 WILL TURN INTO MORE THAN WHAT YOU THINK.

05 Tuesday May 2020

Posted by in 2020: The year we need to change., Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., CORONA VIRUS., COVID-19, Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Fourth Industrial Revolution., GPS-Tracking., Human values., Modern day Slavery, Our Common Values., Political Trust, Post-Covid-19, Reality., Survival., Technology v Humanity, The common good., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., TRACKING TECHNOLOGY., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, WiFi communication., World Economy., World Leaders

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(Two-minute depressing read)

This is a very dangerous situation.

With the economies melting all around the world, countries nearing bankruptcy, the world is becoming ripe for a one-world currency, controlled by unregulated AI tracking.

We are still living as if nothing is going to happen and losing sight of what is important.

If we are not vigilant COVID -19 is going to turn us all into trackable slaves with no recourse as to who, what, or how, any of this collected information is used.

We have been so conditioned by television, the internet, smartphone, magazines, billboards, etc, we are inclined to just take things for granted.

Of course, we still have a right to our own opinions. 

However, with a blink of an eye, our world is changing.

Are we about to see the end of the covetous age when people thought about ME, ME, ME!.

Because tracking data is going to create a world of the Have and Have not.

Why?

Whatever about you I don’t want to live in a world of Social Stratification. In a society that is categorized into groups of people depending on whether they are COVID_19 free or not.

IT IS BAD ENOUGH AS IT IS WITH RACISM, RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY, WALL BUILDING, ETC.

We have for years listened to the current rhetoric that deals with wealth alone creating preconceived notions surrounding those of lower socioeconomic class.

We hear about wealth inequality, and lawmakers push policies designed to redistribute wealth, usually by increasing taxes on the successful to support programs for those that have less. Redistributing that wealth doesn’t help solve the issue because it destroys the very thing you are trying to preserve, the focus should be the equality of ability and opportunity. 

The 1 percent vs. the 99 percent.

Either way, the theme is simple: Someone has something, and others don’t. 

All of this is going to get worse if we allow unregulated tracking which will result in a world where everyone is afraid of commitment.

With the coming, economic depression I don’t want to live in a world of ignorance before the Next Pandemic arrives. 

What is needed is more transparency not less so we can know that the second coming is ‘at the door.’

So what if anything should we be doing. What is needed is a de stimulating package to secure the future. 

We should as it is obvious to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

We should be preparing for the impacts of climate change.

We should be restoring the vitality of natural systems

We should be increasing local, regional, and national self-sufficiency.

We should be developing a circular economy.

We should be more socially responsible.

We should be all working together. 

We should be achieving all of them at the same time.

We should not have a mindset of we’ll do whatever it takes. 

We should not allow the introduction of unregulated tracking. 

I can hear you saying that we are all already tracked. 

This is true and perhaps a well-designed tool could offer public health benefits, but a poorly designed one could pose unnecessary and significant risks to privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. 

For there to be trust.

The tool must protect privacy, be voluntary, and store data on an individual’s device rather than in a centralized repository.

Even then there will still need to be strict policies to mitigate against overreach and abuse.

The data should not be used for purposes other than public health — not for advertising and especially not for any punitive or law enforcement purposes.

Rather than identify the people who own the phones, apps based on the protocol could use identifiers that cannot easily be traced back to phone owners. 

Then how does the tool define an epidemiologically relevant “contact”?

The public needs to know if it is a good technological approximation of what public health professionals believe is a concern. Otherwise, the tool could be collecting far more personal information than is warranted by the crisis or could cause too many false alarms.

Another issue is whether phone users control when to submit their proximity logs for publication to the exposure database.

Also, when users share their proximity logs, what will they reveal?

Both the technology and related policies and procedures should ensure the deletion of data when there is no longer a need to hold it. To ensure tracking does not outlive the effort against COVID-19.

When people feel that their phones are antagonistic rather than helpful, they will just turn location functions off or turn their phones off entirely.

In the coming weeks and months, we are going to see a push to reopen the economy — an effort that will rely heavily on public health measures that include contact tracing.

Obviously, you’d have absolutely no civil liberties, freedoms, or powers, if you are deceased.

The COVID-19, however, has set in motion a paradigm shift in how nations prioritize and conceptualize personal freedom. So if the virus weren’t scary enough, its potential ramifications for privacy and civil liberties make it even scarier.

We all live here because Earth is the only planet known to humans that sustain life.

The signs of the end are prevalent.

I think it’s time that more people open their eyes to the problems of our society and acknowledge that we do, in fact, have a problem.

Yet these impacts will be trivial compared to the likely economic and social disruption if we continue to destroy the environment.

Short term thinking is prevailing. The sort of thinking that will condemn us to a very risky future. 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: AT THE MOMENT THERE IS A LOT OF HYPE THAT AFTER THE CORONA VIRUS PANDEMIC IS OVER THE WORLD WILL HAVE CHANGED.

29 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2020: The year we need to change., CORONA VIRUS., COVID-19, Emergency powers., Fourth Industrial Revolution., GPS-Tracking., Human values., Inequality., Lock Down., Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, Pandemic, Post - truth politics., Post-Covid-19, Reality., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, World Politics

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(Fifteen-minute read) 

Obviously, where will we be in six months, a year, 10 years from now is unknown but what Covid-19 is throwing into sharp relief is just how false our beliefs about markets are. 

We all know what is needed and one could compose a list as long as your arm but all are connected to where and what we live on the Earth.

In the face of Covid-19, this has never been more obvious.

“We’re all in this together and nobody has a clear answer to a way out.”

However, when all of this is over together in lockdown will become more than an appropriate word in more ways than we might like.  

As with sheep, it is easier to control a flock when they are enclosed. 

There is a chance that the herd scenario will be the most dangerous scenario, with profound implications for all. 

Big untransparent data is a minefield to the civil liberties we enjoy at the moment.

We won’t be clapping when the freedom of choice disappears. 

So as responses to the virus evolve, how might our economic futures develop?

The main fact exposed in our societies by COVID-19 is that so many people work pointless jobs because, they make lots of money we have lots of consultants, huge advertising industry and a massive financial sector. Meanwhile, we have a crisis in health and social care, where people are often forced out of useful jobs they enjoy because these jobs don’t pay them enough to live.

In a society where exchange value is the guiding principle of the economy, the basic goods of life are mainly available through markets. This means you have to buy them, and to buy them you need an income, which comes from a job.

In other words, people are compelled to work in pointless jobs.

This is partly why so many countries were so ill-prepared to respond to Covid-19.

There are a number of possible futures, all dependent on how governments and society respond to coronavirus and its economic aftermath.

So, will, we take the opportunity of prioritization of one type of value over others.

(This dynamic has played a large part in driving global responses to Covid-19.)

First, it is quite hard to make money from many of the most essential societal services.

The best-paid jobs only exist to facilitate exchanges: to make money. They serve a no wider purpose to society.

We need a very different kind of economics if we are to build socially just and ecologically sound futures.Civil liberties under attack during COVID-19

From an economic perspective, there are four possible futures:

Descent into barbarism, robust state capitalism, radical state socialism, or a transformation into a big society built on mutual aid run by unregulated AI. 

If we want to be more resilient to pandemics in the future (and to avoid the worst of climate change) we need a system capable of scaling back production in a way that doesn’t mean loss of livelihood or our civil liberties. 

From the economic point of view, this has to be is a Green sustainable Economy because the challenge of producing less is also central to tackling climate change.

(Coronavirus, like climate change, is partly a problem of our economic structure. Although both appear to be “environmental” or “natural” problems, they are socially driven.)

From an individual point of view, the solutions are not so clear.

Should we give up our liberties for the common good?

When faced with a complete lack of evidence about a tracking policy’s long term effects crisis situations afford the state the opportunity to stretch its power into areas of life that were before beyond its reach.

Politics is plagued by a do-something bias and this question is unanswerable because we cannot know how much the forcible suppression of civil society will cost and we won’t know the benefits.

The actions of governments if not reversed when the pandemic is over or under control to date if not reversed are of magnitude more dangerous than this virus.

Thinking critically we are now confronted nonetheless with the question of who gets to make such a decision on tracking, the government on a compulsory law backed bases or the individual on a voluntary base.  

It’s a social theory question, not a medical one: how does a comparatively tiny group of people at the top of government acquire the right to make this call for all other people. How could anyone or any group attain to such a power?

This leads us to some troubling questions.

For example, What kinds of communicable diseases function to void one’s right to free movement? How deadly does the disease have to be? How contagious? 

It is not worth giving up for a problem that has existed even before our time.

After giving up this right, what other rights will follow?

Where will be the balance? Do we become mindless government slaves?

Where is the line between where our right to choose is more important than the government’s right to impose their standards on us? Even if it’s for our own good?

Governments don’t give us our rights. Our rights are ours.

If we let freedom and liberty slip away a little at a time, then we are a people who don’t deserve to be free.

Just as the government has a duty to serve us, we as a people have a duty to defend our freedom and to understand and appreciate the rewards of being a free and open society. If we as a people fail in our duty to protect our freedom, then we no longer deserve to be a free people.

Once you give up even just a little, it is unlikely you will ever get them back. The individual is all that matters when it is you.

Philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote, “Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of great fear.”

These times of crisis are when we must be vigilant, guarding our rights and liberties, watchful of overreach, as transparency of who, what, and how we are governed will disappear into big data run by algorithms that learn from each other owned by god only knows.   

Will the world change as we are told?  Will the draconian laws revert?  

Will this happen?

More than likely not to all three.  

Why?

Because we are in a capitalist system that cannot or is unable to manage greed, inequality, and profit for profit sake.

Because businesses, of course, want to be able to meet demand when the economy picks back up again. But, if things start to look really bad, then they won’t. So, more people lose their jobs or fear to lose their jobs. So they buy less. And the whole cycle starts again, and we spiral into an economic depression.

Because we are now facing a serious recession if not a global depression.

Our modern generations have lost so much of the sensibility, practicality, frugality, and “know-how.”  Very few of us alive today have experienced an economic depression.

The fan is spinning and something very brown is beginning to hit the economies of the world at some point they will be unable to sustain themself.…so be preemptive.

Preparing for that eventuality now is really the only way to be ready when we will actually need to be much more self-reliant for our food.

A full-on economic collapse isn’t simply a disaster threat we should look out for, if you can’t appreciate what you have, you’ll never be content even if you exceed every goal you set for yourself.

Initially, chaos will reign but people will start banding together and not spending money. Debt will become a dirty word. You can’t eat money or your smartphone so start digging your garden. Get your village to open communal gardens.

Before you throw something away as it could be re-purposed.

The prescription for solving this is simple – the government spends, and it spends until people start consuming and working again. 

However, it is my belief that this type of intervention won’t work here because we don’t want the economy to recover (at least, not immediately). 

Businesses exist to make a profit. If they can’t produce, they can’t sell things. This means they won’t make profits, which means they are less able to employ you. 

What is needed is an “anti-wartime” economy and a massive scaling back of production.

A key task for us all is demanding that emerging social forms come from an ethic that values care, life, and democracy. The central political task in this time of crisis is living and (virtually) organizing around those values.

Yes, climate change is caused by certain gases absorbing heat. But that’s a very shallow explanation. To really understand climate change, we need to understand the social reasons that keep us emitting greenhouse gases.

The dominant idea of the current system we live in is that “exchange value” is the same thing as “use value” and currently, the primary aim of the global economy is to facilitate exchanges of money. 

However, Governments are now providing people with an income in order to stop them from going to work reducing people’s dependence on a wage to be able to live.

This is viewed both by the market and governments as a temporary necessity to keep their economic where-with-all to deliver a good quality of life, so it must be protected. 

The market will always return to normal after short periods of crisis.

We do not have the right “mindset” in order to adopt the protection of life as the guiding principle of our economy. The use of profits as the primary way of organizing an economy can only continue if it is used to remove inequality on all fronts.

If it delivers a good quality of life, for all so it must be protected.

Barbarism is the future if we continue to rely on exchange value as our guiding principle and yet refuse to extend support to those who get locked out of markets by illness or unemployment.

It describes a situation that we have not yet seen.

Citizens no longer rely on employers as intermediaries between them and the basic materials of life.

We must be careful to avoid authoritarianism and massive austerity after the pandemic has peaked that will only consolidate wealth into tracking apps.

We can expect the lure of tracking citizens to infect politicians. The ideals of democracy will be surrendered to the relative security of authoritarianism. 

Likewise with Covid-19. Yes, the direct cause is the virus. But managing its effects requires us to understand human behavior and its wider economic context.

It is hard to believe but there was a time when computers didn’t control every aspect of the world, just like it is hard to believe that the world survived before electricity.

Nowadays it is hard for most to believe that people lived without cellphones.

I believe that sooner or later we will be facing a Greater Depression. While I certainly ‘hope’ not, logic is telling me that it is inevitable.

I do believe when things change, people will change also because it will become necessary. 

Which of the overwhelming number of urgent global issues should I focus my attention on first? 

Maybe you can’t save the world, but you can save your backyard.

Imagine what would happen if we all did the same?

Rather than waiting for the elected leaders to listen to your concerns, the quickest and most effective way of making a difference is to do it yourself.

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


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: WHAT IS SLAVERY NOW? IT’S NOT LOCKDOWN DUE TO A PANDEMIC. IT’S NOT ISOLATION. IT IS STILL AN EUPHEMISMS FOR FORCED BONDAGE.

17 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by in Modern day Slavery

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( FIVE MINUTE READ)

Every 30 seconds, someone is abducted into slavery. That means, by the time you are done reading this blog article, there will be 4-5 more slaves in the world. This equates to 5.4 victims of modern slavery for every 1,000 people in the world.

It exists today in over 130 countries with billions in profits linked to forced labor. Modern slavery is very cheap. The average cost of a slave today is $90. Compare that to 1809 when average the price was $40,000

So what’s the connection to you?

At the moment you hear the world will never be the same due to COVID-19.

I am sure the same was said after world war one, world war two, and all previous pandemics.

Slavery is not simply a thing of the past.

As you read this post, you are probably using a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. Each device requires minerals – including gold. Perhaps the gold in your electronic device was mined by slaves.

Slave-owners often use euphemisms instead of the term “slavery” to avoid getting caught. Such euphemisms include domestic servitude, debt bondage, bonded labor, attached labor, restavec (a French word that means “one who stays with”), forced labor and indentured servitude.

The other forms of forced labor and servitude in the world today may share some slave‐like properties, and are no doubt as pernicious in their victimization and exploitation, indeed may in some cases be even more brutal than some high-end forms of sexual slavery, but they are not slavery, which is quite distinctive in its perfidy and its social, economic, cultural and psychological attributes and consequences.

Inflating these already horrendously high figures by conflating slavery with all forms of human domination and forced labor, however well-meaning, and whatever the rhetorical payoffs, simply invite skepticism and the charge of waging moral crusades undermining the desperately needed effort to abolish, once and for all, these evils from the world.

Although slavery is illegal in every country in the modern world there are at any given time, an estimated 40.3 million people worldwide are in modern slavery. And it is still as brutal and inhuman today as it was in history.

Human Trafficking is ranked as the 3rd largest international crime industry – just behind Drugs and Arms Trafficking.

The complexity of the crimes makes it very difficult to quantify the scale of those living in modern-day slavery but it is estimated that 800,000 people are illegally trafficked across international borders every year.

Nowadays slavery doesn’t only come in the obvious form in which one person owns another person (which is traditionally called ‘chattel slavery’).

Migrant workers often become bonded labor to pay off those who smuggled them to the new country – they dare not break free for fear of being deported. Passports are confiscated from migrant workers to keep them in bondage.

In fact, 65% of the world’s slaves are in a forced labor situation.

I’m not sure what the average price of a slave is today, but it can’t be more than fifty or sixty dollars.

Almost half of the world’s slaves are found in India.

Every item we buy has a back story some good some bad.

Just think when we come out of this current Pandemic with a world economically on its knees what it is going to mean for those who have to earn a living to stay alive.

We might not be transporting slaves but if we don’t question where and who or what produced it, we will be contributing not to a global recovery but too enhanced slavery.

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