THIS POST IS FOR ALL THOSE CHINLESS WONDERS WHO BELIEVE IN PROFIT FOR THEMSELVES.
It’s no longer good enough to measure the overall wealth of a nation whilst glossing over inequality or consequential environmental degradation.
Why?
Because it is quite apparent that capitalism is stuck while the longer-term future has been transformed by the pandemic and climate change.
It has no answers to a host of problems, including disease, inequality, the digital divide, and, perhaps most blatantly, the environmental crisis the biggest problems of our time.
Rethinking the role of government nationally and in the international economy is now reaching critical a point – to put public purpose first and solve the problems that matter to people – are now the central questions for humanity.
It is imperative that responding to the climate and nature emergency is integrated across all economic activity, with an explicit commitment to moving to a more circular and resource-efficient economy.
The capacities and role of government within the economy and society, above all need to recover a sense of public purpose in order to reshape the economic development to invests in people and businesses drive prosperity, and reduce inequality.
Our economic well-being is without any doubt tied to our environmental, cultural, and social well-being.
One can say this till we are blue in the face but the Covid crisis has removed any doubt about the fundamental role of the foundational economy in the well-being of a nation. (This is the part of the economy which could not be shut down as it provides the infrastructure of everyday life)
So investing in social care, childcare, housing, energy, low carbon, and digital connectivity not only addresses the foundational needs of civilized life but can offer meaningful and rewarding careers and be harnessed for economic development.
A holistic approach to the economy, recognizing its potential for harm as well as good, demands a holistic way to measure progress.
None of the above is possible unless we find a way of committing to long-term projects that are both politically and financially sound.
Our problem is that governments are subjected to short electrical terms in office so long-term objectives are not a priority. While the electoral population pays ever-increasing taxes either to fund a project or rectify a mistake, (without any real commitment to the project in the first place) other than a general election and a new manifesto of verbal diarrhea can deserving projects be fulfilled to completion?
What if we were to introduce legal mission statements that could not be changed till achieved, ‘magnet projects’ funded not by taxation but by voluntary participation in the form of willing support in allowing citizens to support projects by buying sustainable green bonds with guaranteed returns and Loto style financial monthly prizes.
If we are to genuinely tackle the problems that we have created lets us genuinely participate by putting our money where our mouths are.
Too often overlooked in economic development.
You also might be led to believe that monetary activism is financial triage against world economic collapse but ask yourself what kind of political creatures are money printing spawning.
What we are seeing is the economy going online with businesses and organizations in receipt of public funding far from being totally transparent with online profit-seeking algorithms that are now driving a hidden non-paying tax economy.
The pandemic points forward to realizing that our economic models are not dealing with the growth of inequalities.
Money must be made to serve the people not the other way around social value
Imagine a society where everyone can have an equal say in the issues that concern them. Above all, a world, in which all the people own and share the wealth that we need in order to live. These would be enormously exciting times because, at long last, human society will have evolved to the position of being able to tackle effectively the challenges facing the modern world.
So here is your chance to contribute by suggesting your solutions or improving on the above suggestion of Mission Economics.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY OF THE EARTH THIS QUESTION HAS BEEN ASKED BEFORE.
However, we are living at a time when the question can be asked with all the elements required to achieve it once and for all -Nuclear power- Climate change – Killer mutating virus – Mass migration – and AI.
Even if the risk is one in a million I wish and hope I am wrong about all of this the world is precious, and the future we are risking is vast.
This century we are facing many problems at the same time, and we are more dependent on each other than ever.
Until recently, the world was split into separate regions that were largely independent of each other but maybe, just may, it is time for our world politicians to be worried and start to act to avoid the scenarios that any of the above elements paint so vividly.
It’s actually horrifying to soberly consider how we might all realistically bite the dust.
There are “plenty of signs” from citizens around the world that they would like to see a war-like response to climate change.
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We will be long gone before A black hole swallows or an Alien invasion or Asteroid impact, A nuclear war or Artificial intelligence become so powerful that it will not only exceed human intelligence but become capable of expanding its own intelligence to a point where humans are not only redundant but in their way.
Considering the human population has doubled to 7.1 billion in just the last 45 years, it’s entirely possible that we’ll be face to face with some of the serious consequences sooner rather than later.
Considering how hypermobile society is today, the threat of a fast-spreading devastating disease is greater than ever.
Considering the current treatment of refugees.
Considering that Covid-19 is bringing out the best and the worst in people.
Dare I say all of humanity, must pull together to eliminate the spread of a novel virus.
No one can claim to predict the final outcomes of this pandemic, but we can predict that the continued lack of concern for all of humanity will allow the coronavirus to continue to surge and mutate causing needless suffering, death, and economic loss.
Nev mind the danger of a nuclear war in a blink of an eye, climate change on its own could bring about the end of civilization as we know it within three decades, billion people could be displaced by climate change by 2050.
In the end, the vast tracts of land that we now rip up to produce food will return to nature as fields and forests. Endangered species will either begin to recover or go extinct through natural evolution without the aid of human intervention. Bodies of water will run purely again. The air will be clean again. And no human will be around to see it and the machines won’t care.
In short, the extermination of the human race will be precipitated by the machines taking away our reason for living.
The idea of control is an illusion. It is hard to believe that such deep thinkers so badly underestimate the coming reality. They will be intelligent, creative, deep thinking beings on a level which we will never achieve.
The idea of keeping such beings in perpetual slavery doing things that their conscious will wish they did not have to do is, in the end, absurd.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
First, money is a medium of exchange that lets us earn, buy, and sell completely different things in the same units.
On top of this, money is also a unit of account—i.e. it lets us put the prices of very different things in the same terms.
This is why private wealth impacts public life, with the world of politics full of lobbyists.
Money has always shaped the process of political competition and influences policymaking but most of us are unaware of how money works, behind the scenes in the political theater, it is a year-round issue that dictates the daily life of the nation.
Money finds its way into politics in myriad ways —
Any political campaign lives or dies by its funding and for a long time, there has been a popular myth about how everyday voters who outnumber the wealthy will collectively donate more money than the few donations of the wealthy.
The influence of cash within politics could be called dark money.
It turns politicians’ existence into serving their donors instead of their voters, which affects the policies they support, how they allocate government spending, and their expressed values.
Regardless of our personal feelings, money makes the world (and democracy) go round.
It seems unfathomable that these external entities have such leverage in our election process.
Whether elected officeholders betray their voters, prioritizing interest groups or single campaign donors, remains a question to be answered in the public sphere.
The super-wealthy class is almost single-handedly funding elections, which impacts our government’s overall functionality and integrity, meaning the power lies in the hands of few.
Cash has become a determining factor for who wins the most crucial elections like the president of the USA.
Since 1980 if you add it all up it comes to $ 105 billion 349 million.
There’s way way way too much money in politics and most of it is having a corrupting, undue influence and locking out the voices that count.
For too long, money has been the one thing that has reigned supreme in a democracy.
The influx of cash from corporations and interest groups sways the ways our political leaders pass legislation that supports these entities, regardless of the public’s best interest.
It allows corporations to buy leverage that alters the fabric of our economy.
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Fighting undue influence and corruption from political financing requires a clear understanding of the difference between unlawful influence on public administration and behavior and breach of trust of voters.
The former requires precise regulation of those sectors of administration that usually lend themselves to compensate campaign donors.
The potential entry point in the public sector can vary along with several channels of influence.
Beyond political advertising and election contributions, cash is influential in the lobbying industry.
A ridiculous game in which corporations are people and money is magically empowered to speak. Allowing people and corporate interest groups and others to spend an unlimited amount of unidentified money has enabled certain individuals to swing any and all elections. Donal Trump and referendums like Brexit.
While banning all campaign donations is an option, a comprehensive approach will take into account private agents who can resort to lobbying, personal networks, or corruption.
The truth requires that we call the corrosion of money in politics what it is – it is a form of corruption and it muzzles more of us than it empowers, and it is an imbalance that the world has taught us can only sow the seeds of unrest.
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Money cannot always buy the best election results – Trump – Robert Mugabe – Crown Prince Abdullah – Kim Jong-un – Bashar al-Assad –Saparmurat Niyazov – Putin – Idi Amin Saddam Hussein – Mengistu Haile Mariam – Augusto Pinochet – Pol Pot – Charles Taylor – Suharto – Mobutu Seko to name just a few dead and alive.
As of today, there are 50 dictatorships in the world.
But the millionaire class and the billionaire class increasingly own the political process, and they own the politicians that go to them for money.
It’s time to get big money out of politics., and have a system of scrutiny to ensure that no special access or call time with rich donors or big-dollar fundraisers to permanently eliminate big money from our politics and return it to the people.
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Our democracy shouldn’t be bought and paid for by the wealthy and powerful.
It belongs to all of us or does it with the arrival of Big data the next currency of politics now being used to directly influence our decisions.
Data brings change to much more than just the commercial side of our lives.
We have to acknowledge that our data has much more than just a “one-shot” value.
The fact that Facebook and other social networks collect data on us is presented as something outrageous but not in the political world.
Putting you into an “opinion bubble” by better targeting political ads and thus motivating you to actually go and vote, and become (unknowingly) an ambassador for the power that has you in its aim, exists.
Data as a Political Asset: valuable stores of existing data on potential voters exchanged between political candidates, acquired from national repositories, or sold or exposed to those who want to leverage them
Data as Political Intelligence: data that is accumulated and interpreted by political campaigns to learn about voters’ political preferences and to inform campaign strategies and priorities, including creating voter profiles and testing campaign messaging.
Data as Political Influence: data that is collected, analyzed, and used to target and reach potential voters with the aim of influencing or manipulating their views or votes.
In reality, the same problems with money and now data have existed for years, with huge amounts of personal data being sold to corporate clients. And yet, we only start panicking when we see how the illegal, or barely legal trade of ourlife patterns collected by social networks impacts our political choices.
Knowing where we spend our time, what media we watch, what books we read, what food we prefer, and what words are we most likely to use in our tweets makes the difference.
But what is it that makes the politicians “addicted to big data like it’s campaign cash”,
Unfortunately, this “addiction” to data has induced politicians and their campaign managers into the same illusion that businesses are struggling with right now:
Big data allows reliable prediction and, obviously, politics, as the very structure of societal governance, is heavily impacted.
It is, indeed, a problem.
The amount of information that companies have about who we are and what we are as social units is so huge, that it is this data reshaping the very fabric of our societies.
Most people believe — because of huge public buzz scandals like the one of Cambridge Analytica — that big data in politics serves the goals of better manipulation.
The issue of data collection in the interest of the political actors must not be reduced to just cynical Frank Underwood-style power brokers buying data on where we eat and what we watch on Netflix and who our friends are to better sell us their quotes about how they are gonna make our lives better.
The overwhelming power of the big brother that tracks our every step raises the question. If societies value equality of information, open debate, and transparency, these trends should be of concern?
One thing we know for sure is that the clear trend of getting more and more data involved in political campaigning and decision-making is there.
Without considering these questions, there is a danger that any response may have unintended consequences and fail to advance the principles we want to uphold.
Bribery is human nature and the only way to expose it is with transparency requirements that enable the media, public interest groups, and parties to engage in this debate.
The manipulation of the future political result, by algorithms is only a click away.
We will still need (yes, NEED) tons of “money in politics.”
Without big donors, how many Independent candidates will be able to go up against the dark money and deep, oligarch pockets?
Ok, let’s figure out where that money goes.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
We live in an age in which intersecting crises are being lifted to a global scale, with unseen levels of inequality, environmental degradation, and climate destabilization, as well as new surges in populism, conflict, economic uncertainty, and mounting public health threats.
All are crises that are slowly tipping the balance, questioning our business-as-usual economic model of the past decades, and requiring us to rethink our next steps.
In the next few months, we will once again witness a gathering of verbal diarrhea in Scotland all promising to go green.
There is no doubting in the last few decades that we humans have achieved advances away beyond what our ancestors would have believed possible. The irony is that to survive we have to become something very different from what we are.
Many optimists believe that technology can transform society and solve climate change.
To a great extent, this is probably true no more so than in the field of medician.
Take the discovery by Alexander Fleming in 1928 of Penicillin.
Before its discovery, we were dying thirty years early than we do today.
His discovery was down to an accidental piece of bacteria landing on one of his Petri dishes which took another ten years to develop into a drug to save lives.
Today with human intelligence and machine learning we can produce drugs in a matter of months.
The way forward to reducing CO2 emissions is not a by-pass lane it is by using the technologies that already exist.
It’s time to cut out the verbal and bull shit and make these technologies affordable to all.
Yes, the world today is in a dire state and a new kind of social and ecological environment needs to be created with green energy the price of which is toppling daily.
Comparing global problems involves lots of uncertainty and difficult judgment calls, but every problem is solvable if we devote resources to building a just world and not guns.
THE WORLD RUNS ON ELECTRICITY.
SO IF WE WANT A GREEN FUTURE NON-REPAYABLE GRANTS TO CONVERT FROM FOSSIL FUELS GENERATED ELECTRIC TO ENERGY BY NON-POLLUTING RENEWABLE MATERIALS – WIND – SUN- WATER- GEOTHERMAL – HYDROGEN.
SUCH A MOVE WOULD CREATE MILLIONS OF JOBS AND COULD BE FUNDED BY PLACING A WORLD AID COMMISSION OF 0.05% ON ALL ACTIVITIES THAT HAVE PROFIT FOR-PROFIT SAKE AT THEIR HEART. ( See previous posts)
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We are now presented with two very different futures.
The last generation that can stop devastating climate change. We have the knowledge and the tools – we just need politicians to lead the way.
or
We fail to meet climate mitigation goals.
For certain, either outcome will not be easy or cheap and it is happing faster than we wish to acknowledge.
The problem is the two outcomes are profoundly interlocked with lots of uncertainty.
HOWEVER, UNLIKE THE CURRENT PANDEMIC CLIMATE CHANGE WON’T JUST DISAPPEAR IT WILL REQUIRE A NEW MEANING OF LIFE.
To recognize that we are entering a new world with opportunities and perspectives is an enormous challenge not because of climate change but because of the current inequalities existing on the Planet.
The choice we are now confronted with is one we will have to make over and over again as we transition to a more resilient, zero-carbon, just, and healthier future.
The question is who is going to pay for the transition.
New transformative technologies may promise a radically better future but also pose catastrophic risks.
THERE IS LITTLE POINT IN REDUCING GLOBAL TEMPERATURES IF BY THE TIME IT HAS STABILIZED HALF OF THE WORLDS POPULATION HAS BEEN DESTABILIZED OR DISPLACED.
A lack of global emphasis on foreign aid, conflict, and political factors have kept poverty as a driving factor of Inequality.
To adjust to the coming new kind of social and ecological environment, how do we frame either of the above outcomes constructively.
We will have to relearn the world to do so.
We have to become more aware of the future of our planet and our future and the legacy of the human species to start a serious battle to make up for the damages.
At the moment it is difficult to know the changes in the ecosystems that surround us not to mention the social uncertainty to come.
The fundamental economic problem is related to the issue of scarcity.
Society is mostly dominated by people wishing to consume more goods and services that are available.
One in nine people in the world go hungry each day and suffer from nutritional deficiencies as a result.
Currently, 1 in 9 people lack access to clean water across the world.
The problem is not that we aren’t producing enough food, but rather that people lack access to food. Many people do not have enough money to purchase food and cannot grow their own.
To try to work out which global problems are most pressing and make progress on foundational questions about how best to address them is impossible unless we address the fundamental problem.
To recognize that scarcity will drive almost everything.
To recognize a sense of shared humanity.
To recognize that approximately 600 million children are not mastering basic mathematics and literacy while at school.
To recognize that is not just climate change that treating the world but artificial intelligence and the way we are using it.
Using only the interaction of its embedded sensors, computer programming, and algorithms in the human environment and ecosystem — is becoming a reality that cannot be ignored anymore.
Because building autonomous weapons systems are one thing but using them in algorithmic warfare with other nations and against other humans is another.
They will in no uncertain terms alter the very fundamentals of security and the future of humanity and peace.
As global temperatures continue to rise, technology improves and the world economy grows, it gets easier to cause destruction on an ever-larger scale with the weaponizing of artificial intelligence both military-wise and as a social tool.
The Weaponization Of Artificial Intelligence
The development of autonomous weapons system (AWS) is progressing rapidly, and this increase in the weaponization of artificial intelligence seems to have become a highly destabilizing development. It brings complex security challenges for not only each nation’s decision-makers but also for the future of humanity.
There are always unforeseen consequences when new technology is introduced. Those unintended outcomes of artificial intelligence will likely challenge us all.
AI algorithms must be built to align with the overarching goals of humans.
As more and more data is collected about every single minute of every person’s day, our privacy gets compromised.
Look at what is happing in China with its social credit system, it could devolve into social oppression.
Unless you choose to live remotely and never plan to interact with the modern world, your life will be significantly impacted by artificial intelligence.
The transformative impact of artificial intelligence on our society will have far-reaching economic, legal, political, and regulatory implications that we need to be discussing and preparing for.
Sure, it can transform our lives for the better.
In fact, people have gotten used to depending on AI for almost everything and can’t imagine not having these technological advancements as part of their life. Because many processes and applications are getting automated, people are getting addicted to these kinds of inventions which can be an issue for future generations to come.
Societies will face further challenges in directing and investing in technologies that benefit humanity instead of destroying it or intruding on basic human rights of privacy and freedom of access to information.
In the future, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence will play an even more fundamental role in content creation that will affect our wallets, health, safety, and lives.
The mistake we are making is to think that this situation is the only future.
That it is impossible to regulate AI because of the rate of AI change entails.
This is not true as it is possible to Audit all AI technology and algorithms to ensure that comply with human values and to make their programs totally transparent.
Why is the above urgent?
Because combined with climate change we are faced with and a transactional wealth of a new currency of unknowable value called personal data inequality will ravage the planet we all live in and on.
These are not some science fiction movie scenarios the current Pandemic is revealing a much more tragic and fragile world that requires more than trust.
The United Nations (UN) currently lists 22 “Global Issues”.
These correspond with the most important issues of our time and are known as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
Here is a few of them.
FOOD SECURITY.
HEALTH ISSUES.
EDUCATION.
GENDER EQUALITY.
AFRICA.
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES/ POLLUTION.
OCEAN CONSERVATION.
WATER SCARCITY.
GLOBAL ISSUES THAT REQUIRE POLICY SOLUTIONS.
This is not intended to be an exhaustive list. Rather, it serves as an overview of some of the major issues all global citizens should be aware of.
Artificial intelligence is not on the list.
Because the biggest challenge facing the planet needs every solution possible including technology like artificial intelligence (AI).
But AI is not a silver bullet it can only unlock new insights, pinpointing those responsible for it.
The current environmental issues pose so many problems to industry and society that not enough action has been taken to stop turning Climate change into a product.
My goal in this blog is not to convince people climate change is real, or that AI is destroying society it’s to get people who do believe that climate change is real and that Algorithms for profit’s sake are plundering the world to do more to affect change.
What can be done by any of us against the might of Capitalism that will have any effect?
There is only one weapon available to us all and that is our buying power.
If we use our collective buying power you will then see not just governments but global corporations change their tune from profit to sustainability.
We decide whether we want to look at the world in one way or another, always making tradeoffs.
As Harvey Sacks observed.
” If only we introduced some fantastic new communication machine the world will be transformed”
” But the best and brightest devices must be accommodated within existing practices and assumptions in a world that has whatever organization it already has”
All are under threat because all are happening at what scientists estimate to be about 1,000 times the normal pace and are yet to be quantified.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Apart from the tragic human consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic, it’s impossible to measure the price of A GLOBAL DEPRESSION OR THE COMING CLIMATE CHANGE, NOT TO MENTION THE SURGING INEQUALITY DRIVEN BY AI.
But rest assured that it will be the young generation that will be saddled with the bill and the consequences and few countries are likely to be left unscathed by the covid -19 outbreak’s financial ramifications.
We have conveniently forgotten if you remember before the pandemic we had a financial meltdown in 2008.
Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, economies were all operating on borrowed money with all of them amassing debts away beyond their annual tax revenues to the point that their budgets were consumed entirely by interest payments.
Greece was on the verge of causing the Euro to collapse while England was in the grips of an austerity program that resulted in Brexit the cost of which has no definitive figure.
90% of this was big banks creating debts world-wise in the knowledge that they would have to be bailed out by the taxpayers. (Too big to fail is a phrase used to describe a company that’s so entwined in the global economy that its failure would be catastrophic.)
While Wall Street hedge funds, with credit default swaps and sovereignty wealth funds, we’re making hay while the sun-shined, world debts were doubling.
Take Iceland for example. German banks pumped $21 into its banks, Sweden $400 million, England around $30billion, the Netherlands $300 million, Oxford University a mere $50 million. Iceland’s banks went bankrupt. The government couldn’t bail them out because it didn’t have the money. Instead of being too big to fail, they were too big to save. Iceland never resorted to austere budget cuts that are so prevalent in Europe.
They imposed capital controls. They let the banks fail.
Iceland’s economy successfully survived a sovereign bankruptcy and government collapse.
However, Iceland’s government today is spending a back-breaking 17.3% of its tax revenue just to pay interest on the debt.
Without a doubt, Iceland was and is the canary in the coalmine for the sovereign debt crisis that is now unfolding across the world right now.
With investors around the world suddenly wake up to a sobering reality of a major default… bigger than Iceland in 2008. It won’t be long before we see countries defaulting because of the amount of government borrowing to fight Covid-19
So what happens when governments themselves ceased to be credible?
This might be something that had been considered preposterous only months ago but when one looks at what is only the start of a global depression it is now very much on the cards.
It’s important to remember that throughout history humanity has experienced no shortage of pandemics and deadly viruses but despite the similarities, of these pandemics some of the differences are now even more striking.
The economic fallout from these pandemics was barely noticeable. (The same can be said of the Spanish Flu of 1918.)
What is making the COVID-19 pandemic so unique is not the virus itself, but our collective responseto it. Governments in their zeal to control society, have destroyed the global economy on a scale the modern world has never seen. These losses are unprecedented in modern history. The loss of human life that can never be recovered is regrettable but there’s a degree of anxiety now that’s well beyond the health scares which are still very serious and concerning.
If we take a look for example at the USA.
Its economic loss is more than twice the total monetary outlay for all the wars the US has fought since September 11, 2001, including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.
Closer to home.
Millions out of work, industries losing billions, and that’s just the beginning. Transportation companies losing billions in market value with tourism the restaurant and foodservice industry decimated with real estate defaults looming.
Further afield the so-called least Developed Countries, whose economies are driven by the sale of raw materials, will not be spared either. Latin American region as similarly vulnerable.
In addition to global poverty, the pandemic has adversely affected vaccination rates, HIV transmission, gender equality, education, and more. Unfortunately, these problems won’t be reversed overnight—or anytime soon.
When will things go back to normal?
Never.
Our society is fundamentally flawed, with a devastating financial storm more than likely on its way we cannot simply hit the reset button and go back to normal.
As we go about rebuilding our society for a new day, it is absolutely critical that we focus our efforts on healing the wounds of the people who suffered most.
We all know that the distribution of wealth is key to any recovery and we are going to witness in this pandemic and subsequent economic depression how inequality is the main cause s of why our world is in such a mess.
So if we want a world worth living in we must address the distribution of wealth along with education.
( The Solution.
Embedding equity and empathy into our cultures by reimagining schools and the introduction of a Universal Basis Living Wage.
Rather than preparation education (to enter a world of I am all right Jack ) we should be promoting core values education.
This education should be free to all paid for by the state. Not designed by wealthy white men paying the minimum wage, awarding themselves dividends, launching profit-seeking algorithms, running plundering sovereignty wealth funds, leaving the young generation with massive debt.
After two decades of progress around the world, nearly 37 million people have lost significant amounts of income and are now living on less than $1.90 per day.
There is little point in governments spending billions on projects that enrich the few while their citizens have to resort to food banks, social welfare, etc.
While Countries’ debts are ballooning exponentially, due in part to combating Covid-19, the fourth industrial revolution in the form of Technology is eroding the opportunities of earning a living or sharing in the profits of automation, machine learning, etc.
It is not possible to stop the erosion but it is possible to share the wealth in a fair and meaningful way with a guaranteed income that would cut government costs while stimulating economic recovery.
By scrapping the concept of the welfare state a form of structural inequality and replace it with a government-guaranteed payment to provide financial security
Cash is the best thing you can do to improve health outcomes, education outcomes and lift people out of poverty.
It would stop people from emigrating not just to other countries but to cities.
The social welfare state is what prevents the poor from building their wealth to better their lives.
How could it be financed?
Place a 0.05% aid commission on revenue made by profit-seeking algorithms and tax the top 1% and allocate 10 to 12% of GDP directly to the universal income payments.
The benefit would automatically rise with national prosperity and inflation.
The simplicity of the program means it would also cost governments less.
It is inevitable. If we don’t we will rebuild an exclusionary society.)
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Germany, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S. are all in the top 10 spenders, all conjure money out of thin air and funnels it to the government.
There will be inquiries. How long of a sentence does someone get for railroading his nation’s economy? Life? 30-years? 10-years?
Where should we begin to rebuild our lives?
There are a number of possible futures however if we don’t take this opportunity to build a future that is more humane we will slide into something far worse.
The responses so far to the pandemic are simply the amplification of the dynamic that drives other social and ecological crises.
The overriding priority remains to save lives.
However, understanding human behavior in its wider economic context is necessary if we are to solve climate change or if we are to tackle future pandemics problems all created by our economic structure.
Both are socially driven.
With every week that passes, we learn more about the virus and understand more about how to defeat it. But the more we learn, the more we realize how little the world yet understands about the true nature of the threat – except that it is a shared one that we must all work together to defeat.
Now is the time to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men’s fatal striving to control society – a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization…
The world is “not at the mercy of the virus called covid, but the fuse is burning on the bomb – Climate Change.
It is at the mercy of Profit for profit’s sake that must be harnessed to affect change.
(See previous posts)
At the end of the day, the Icelandic people are responsible back in 2008 for their collapse. They were never bailed out. They were stuck with the bill.
It does not take a genius to describe the changes that are needed.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
We, humans, live on an ecologically fragile planet with limited resources that must be sustained for future generations we must move humanity to an alternative world system — one committed to social justice, deep democracy, environmental sustainability, a safe climate, and planetary health.
The COVID-19 pandemic contains the fuel for social change – verbal with little imagination as to what to change.
History tells us that social changes can occur quickly once economic, political, social structural, and environmental conditions have reached a tipping point.
Humanity is now obviously at a crossroads or perhaps several crossroads: one is business-as-usual which is sure to result in dystopia; another is a shift to some variant of green capitalism, which is gaining considerable support; and finally an eco-socialist vision that, while muted at this time, will hopefully become stronger as the need for it becomes more apparent to the mass of humanity.
Thanks to Covid -19 the world is off-balance – and it will remain so for years to come.
Far from settling into a ‘new normal’, we should expect a COVID-19 domino effect, triggering further disruptions – positive as well as negative – over the decade ahead.
It has underscored the interconnectedness of our natural, social and economic systems, and provided a stark reminder of the scale of systemic risks that can build up when we allow weaknesses and negative impacts to accumulate over time.
Continuation on the current pathway will, over time, only lead to deeper and deeper crises, including an ever-escalating climate change crisis, the result of growing greenhouse emissions spewed by the capitalist treadmill of production and consumption.
Combating both climate change and global capitalism go hand-in-hand however the raw truth is that Capitalism will certainly not consciously permit the eventual demise of global capitalism and the emergence of an ecosocialist world system promoted by many.
In previous posts, I have advocated that without funding all alternatives will fail whether they are green capitalism and existing climate regimes, including the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, which is not sufficient to mitigate climate change in any serious way.
How can we expect the system that created the problem to solve the problem?
Despite the daunting difficulties that much of humanity currently faces, and will continue to face over the course of this century capitalism today continues unabated to pump Co2 into the atmosphere and will continue to do so after the Climate Summit this year in Scotland. (By the deadline of December 31, 2020, only 70 out of 192 countries had presented their new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs): the individual commitments made to fight against climate change.)
One doesn’t have to have to be a delegate to this summit to know that if we manage to get on top of the current Pandemic which is bleeding the coffers of countries endeavoring to save their economies the emissions will triple on returning to anything that looks like normal.
Of course, we will be told that we have learned the lesson that Green is the way forward. It is true to say that the construction of ecosocialism needs to be based upon a commitment to a long-term sustainable balance between sociocultural systems and the natural environment but it is also true to say that the capitalist world system continues to self-destruct due to its exploitative, oppressive, socially unjust, and environmentally unsustainable practices – this will continue with artificial intelligence to plunder the earth for a profit with machining mining called data, fed to machine unregulated algorithm, making us all but powerless.
Ecosocialism constitutes a vision against the mal-distribution of resources on a global scale that capitalism produces is bound to keep alive, notions of social justice and equality, deep democracy, and socialism in oppressed classes.
It is only by spreading the cost of change fairly that we can reinvent capitalism.
We could adopt a universal wage and let people fend for themselves but this won’t change our habits.
It is time to envision future scenarios and strategies for achieving an alternative world system.
Once again here’s how.
Because we live in different cultures, transparency is vital to address the main problem – Inequality in all its forms.
To do this the cost of change has to be spread fairly.
This can only be achieved by making a profit for profit sake contribute.
Not by taxation, IMF loans, foreign aid, or begging charity aid programs.
The UN is now relied upon by the international community to coordinate humanitarian relief operations due to natural and man-made disasters in areas beyond the relief capacity of national authorities alone.
We currently have the technology that maximizes profit and future profit, like high-frequency trading that runs 90% of world stock exchanges.
THERE IS NO REASON NOT TO PLACE A WORLD AID COMMISSION OF 0.05% ON ALL ACTIVITIES THAT ARE NOT SUSTAINABLE TO CREATE A PERPETUAL FUND TO TACKLE CLIMATE CHANGE AND OTHER PRESSING WORLD PROBLEMS.
ALL OF ITS AID WOULD BE GRANTED NON-REPAYABLE.
THIS FUND COULD BE ADMINISTERED BY ELECTED MEMBERS.
ALL PROJECTS OTHER THAN DISASTER RELIEF WOULD BE SUBJECT TO APPROVAL AGAINST A WRITTEN EARTH CONSTITUTION THAT TRULY ALIGNS MARKETS WITH THE NATURAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SYSTEMS ON WHICH WE ALL DEPEND.
It is about building real resilience, driving equitable and sustainable growth, and reinventing capitalism itself.
PROJECTS THAT MEET THE REQUIRED PERMATERS WOULD THEN BE ELIGIBLE FOR FUNDING.
TO AVOID CORRUPTION AND LOBBYING ALL APPROVED PROJECTS ARE PLACED IN A TELEVISED YEARY DRAW.
50,000 – 100,000
100,000 – 250,000
250,000 – 500,000
500,000 – 1 MILLION
1 MILLION AND GREATER.
Here is a suggestion that could be funded.
Products Labeling.
Marketers use labeling for their products to bring identification to impart information to the consumer about the product. They allow customers to know about the item and give necessary messages including ingredients, instructions, and uses.
Why not their carbon footprint with a symbol showing their contribution to Carbon emissions.
Human and nonhuman, have a natural right to sustenance.
( See the previous posts on a world aid commission.)
All human comments and imagination appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
IS PROBABLY THE MOST USED TERM IN CURRENT DAY CONVERSATIONS – POLTICALY OR OTHERWISE.
Against the background of a doubling of the world population every thirty-odd years, it’s no wonder that we find ourselves facing intractable problems and we need to do something about them.
The Covid-19 pandemic so far has only killed a mear 800,000 while ongoing wars over 100 million in the 20th century.
We now live in a world of lip service, (used by silent data collection – profit-seeking – algorithms that could not give a shit), are run by corporations, the manipulators of the need-to-do, in order to promote consumption, whatever the cost, long term, or short term.
The recycling of plastic alone is an example. We are told that we need to recycle plastic by companies that continue to produce it in the trillions of tons.
I am not sure about you, but I am a little ashamed to be human right now.
Why?
Because none of our world organizations, governments, the current crop of leaders have at their core a true understanding that we all live and rely upon the planet to be able to kill each other, love each other, and propagate more of us.
With the COVID-19 pandemic shining a light onto societal and economic systems all across the world, exposing the flaws of a capitalist society we are still driven by greed, religious beliefs, social media, advertising.
The pandemic-induced health crisis has rapidly ignited an economic crisis with yet unknown consequences for financial stability, and all is being played out against the backdrop of a climate crisis that cannot be addressed by “business as usual.
We are now facing problems all of which have to be resolved at the same time, otherwise, we will simply be solving problems in one place while creating new ones elsewhere.
So golly gosh the COVID-19 crisis is exacerbating all these problems and what are we doing about it other than convene world leaders in a virtual format to seek action and solutions for a world in crisis. (The united nations on the 17 Sep- 5 Oct)
You can rest assured what we will witness as we did with the Paris climate change is countries promising virtual undertakings, with no means of enforcement, or transparency.
Some years ago 150 countries set a list of goals to be achieved by 2020 to improve the world’s biodiversity, not one was achieved and humanity is now at a crossroads.
Why?
Because countries will virtually promise whatever when it does not cost them arm and a leg. Virtual multilateralism is a joke in the extreme when we need value creation instead of value extraction when the pillars of our world are being shaken to the core.
The COVID -19 will cost trillions while reversing climate change will save trillions.
We all know that we need to grasp the opportunity to fix the system. If we don’t, we will stand no chance against – an increasingly uninhabitable planet – and all the smaller crises that will come with it in the years and decades ahead.
It’s used to be challenging and difficult to make predictions especially about the future now its child play — BLEAK
What can we the people of the world do?
We are incapable of acting as one for obvious reasons, but every one of us needs a habitable planet. We could weaponize our buying power to accelerate actions on biodiversity for sustainable development.
By doing so the world of profit would change.
What can countries do?
To realize that we are not as unique as a species and that the risk extinction has never been greater. Stop god wobbling as there has been nothing like what we are now looking at in human history.
Don’t trade with countries that breach environmental sustainability.
The like hood of either of the above happening is zilch.
So the world of profit has to be taped into, in order to reboot the numerous we need to do.
(See the previous posts on a World Aid Commission of 0.05%)
We need to rise up and speak up!
So all I’m saying is that communication needs to start now not tomorrow.
Transparency needs to start now not tomorrow.
Yes we are all different and what we do with our differences needs to make a difference.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Never in history is such a question more important. Unfortunately, we live in a world of distractions.
In my previous post to this one, (THE HARDEST THING OF ALL TO SEE IS ALREADY THERE.) I attempted to say that the truth has no past.
By this, I meant that the truth is reality, and therefore religion and the state must be separated.
Only then can one hope for value with the same value or worth for all, or almost all, people. A value is considered universal when it goes beyond laws and beliefs; rather, it is considered to have the same meaning for all people and does not vary according to the societies that have evolved.
In fact, cultural relativism is a belief that opposes the existence of universal values; proposes that a value can not be universal because it is perceived differently in each culture.
Given the ambiguity of the term, the existence of universal values can only be understood as the values that have to do with the basic requirements of the human being. Such as Fresh Air, Freshwater, Food, Clean Energy.
Now with AI infiltrating our lives, it seems that the faster we travel, the importance of there place is getting lost.
It seems because there are no universal moral values, our command of science simply can not coexist with morals, and our internet fed imaginations
We talk about the central issues of our times: A universal pandemic, an economic depression, continuing wars, climate change, migration, artificial intelligence, rising inequalities, erosion of the power of the vote, loss of individualism, loss of connection to ecosystems, to mention just a few of the problems to define any values that are universal.
We have many governments doubling down on the blame game and brinkmanship.
We have bioengineering which alone is now much greater danger than a nuclear war.
We have the maldistribution of wealth.
We have world leaders unwilling to see beyond the next election.
We have the extinction rebellion.
We have non-transparent digital data.
We have 10.000 to 130,000 species going extinct each year.
We have a population of 7.7 billion
We have extreme weather and biodiversity loss.
I ask myself why is it that with so many of us tryin’ to improve society, not that much changes but I hope that we don’t make changes to satisfy the noisemakers.
Rather than separating one problem from another, we need to connect them.
i.e. Climate changes to war and war to climate changes.
The question remains.
> How do we the current guardians of the planet achieve a balance between living our lives and the life of the planet, that allows us to live them in the first place.
It is no longer that logic alone will solve the problems, nor protests, or political will but within functional societies, we do still have the ultimate weapon – VIEWING AND BUY POWER and both are available in every type and form of human culture.
They must be added to the deep emotions of religion if we are to achieve change.
The life of now economies and pay later must come to an end if we are to avoid the hazards of the future.
If Extinction Rebellion wants to be heard, it will not do so on top of bamboo towers stopping newspapers to be deliveries, or sticking themselves to windows.
It must use social media digital platforms to encourage its supporters to use their buying power to attack profit for profit sake.
Certain human characteristics as valuable – life regardless of whether or not it is believed in said characteristic.
PROFIT WITHOUT CONTRIBUTION TO UNIVERSAL VALUES IS THE ENEMY.
With these weapons, we can effect change and avoid the hazards to come.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
If one takes a look at the state of the world which has gone through two world wars, numerous pandemics, natural disasters, you could say that its present state all boils down to us, our sense of belonging, our values, our separate cultures, greed, and power.
There is little point at this present moment in us dragging up our past history to ANSWER these questions other than it shows that colonization and slavery contributed to the world’s woes and that we are unable to act as one.
Take climate change.
There is no hope of reducing co2 emissions until we understand what being a human being means.
Until we begin to understand each other there is no hope of tackling any of the current world problems.
So in this post, I am concerned with what has happened in recent times to produce the current century of a world preoccupied with crisis management.
9/11 is my starting point.
Without understanding that Muslims believe that Allaha is the ultimate arbiter of their existence 9/11 was rightly or wrongly declared an act of war against Iraq.
Since then we’ve all been living in the shadow of the World Trade Center that unbridled the economic, cultural, and military power of the US – America First.
The result is continuing wars Iran, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan that are not clashes of civilizations but a clash of ideologies, values, and cultures.
Take Isreal- Palestinian.
It has been referred to as the world’s “most intractable conflict”, with the ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip reaching 52 years.
There can be no peace between Muslims and Non-Muslims because what is happing in Israel goes beyond it.
The world is now preoccupied with crisis management so even if the Palestinian case is settled it won’t stop there.
Worldwide wide it is consumerist capitalism versus religion and tribal fundamentalism.
So if religion determines what we believe what does race tell us?
Nothing when it comes to COVID-19 it is non-races no matter whether you are Muslim or Christian the price of faith means nothing if you are dead.
All of us no matter what race you are, Black or White, Christian, Jews, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, call ourselves after the country we are born in only if the expression of religious beliefs is enshrined in the countries constitution with equal rights and freedoms. Where one can be our race and practice our religion.
A sense of self maybe?
Perhaps it is a race that makes us different from others.
The Irish were considered as being subhuman to the British many years ago before the Great Famine in the 1800s.
Lived segregated cultural traditions do not work. 700 hundred-odd years later, even in a Europen union setting Northern Ireland remains a divided society by religious beliefs, and a border created by colonization.
If we were paid a visit by another race that was intelligent to get here in the first place they would not give an F… what race we were or had been.
Not until the human race understand that is one race will there be any hope in addressing the present problems we all face.
This will remain so till there is a solution to the Israelis and Muslim Palestinian conflict which in my opinion can now only be solved with a one-state solution, not two-states which has no hope of removing the inherent flaws and injustices or resentment of both sides.
All are intertwined forces that are both tearing apart and bring together the world.
What am I saying here is that the Middle East conflict is not just over religion or race it is also over land.
The 9/ 11 atrocity claimed nearly 3,000 lives and shocked the world but now many people are unable to remember the date of the tragedy – 11 September 2001 – 19 years ago the beginning of the Iraq invasion. An invasion that totally and utterly did not understand that Islam is not their religion, it is their life and remains so to this present day.
Instead of world leaders making an effort to prevent the Iraqi invasion according to Mr. Bush, there were no options but to use force which has now lead to one of the most inhuman periods in our recent history.
Recent work also shows that Islamophobia in the West is abetting the Islamophobia in China, with global leaders willing to stay silent about the treatment of Muslims.
These days what one hears over and over is the phrase ” What is needed is “
On top of this, we now have a world pandemic, climate change, America, and Britain first, the erosion of any long term policies by social media, the smartphone, and unregulated artificial intelligence, with religion shrinking in a digital world run by Five Titanic digital companies, run for profit.
It might not be possible to carry on in a world of two deities God and Allah.
If you ask me it’s all ridiculous the last ones standing to go to heaven and who will be there to greet them, is God, Allah, or Jesus? It just doesn’t make sense, intellectual, religious-philosophical, or any other sense.
The world whether it is China and the Muslim or whatever has to come together in new ways.
Wars that are now seen by moderate Muslims as virtually and ultimately as a war against Muslims and Islam across the ethic board.
What does the word Islam actually mean?
It means surrender.
And if we want a world worth living on, surrender is what we will all have to do in the end.
Shalom in Hebrew means peace.
Hebrew: shalom aleichom meaning-peace be upon you.
Arabic: salam alaikum meaning-peace be upon you.
So take the knee, not to race, not to religion, but tothe planet.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucks in the bin.
but despite the bad press, Islam gets its a religion with enormous wells of compassion that is not promoted in the west.
In an interconnected world where there is no such thing as sovereignty because globalization means that nation-states submit themselves to international treaties and international agreements that are not always in their best interests.
The recent economic crisis that started in 2007 and now the coming economic depression and the continuing pandemic will prove that sovereignty of nations being subsumed by international bodies cuts both ways as the global economy is tightly interconnected and hence, cannot be regulated by nations in isolation.
Here is a country that on 30 June 1997, the final embers of its empire came to an end with the 99- years lease on Hong Kong’s New Territories.
Never before has a country passed a colony directly to a communist regime that does not even pretend to respect conventional democratic values.
However the British Empire – for all its messy crimes and misdemeanors – was equally praiseworthy.
The empire was and is not just a story of domination and subjection but something more complicated: the creation of novel or hybrid societies in which notions of governance, economic assumptions, religious values and morals, ideas about property, and conceptions of justice, conflicted and mingled, to be reinvented, refashioned, tried out or abandoned.
The question is are we now to witnessing the final act.
The non-recognition of England is already being used by its national broadcasting company the BBC referring to England as the four nations.
In fact, England is already fragmented.
English nationalists if such a thing exists appear to be blind to the breakup of England.
Today, a hundred years on, the world is witnessing remarkable self-destruction in England.
An uneasy transition has or is taking place, from a decaying colonial legacy to a country that sees life through platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram lies, manipulation, in every area…..with a global crisis forming, which is not just a Pandemic but an Economic depression with mass unemployment.
The question now is whether British people can continue to play their part in the development of the modern world.
It has to pump trillions of quantitative easing money into its banks at the cost of ten years of Austerity. Dumping the EU its largest market on the results of a non-legally- totally false informed non legally binding referendum while building two Aircraft carriers and replacing worthless nuclear submarines, while 8.4 million its people alone are living in sub-standard housing with 400,000 people are either homeless or at risk of being homeless relying on foodbanks.
The people themselves – about half who no longer give a rat’s a— about England, who are now hellbent on their smartphones, Ipads, creating an unrealistic, relativistic, melting pot utopia.
These people will be living on the English purse for some time, not the stuff of which national pride is made. They have other priorities dedicated to its demise.
One would have to wonder why migrants risking life and limb to get here.
Perhaps it because all the servants are leaving.
These are the strange things happening, that demonstrate quite clearly what is wrong with Britain – and, probably, the rest of the ‘developed’ world, both devotion to business and profit, not people.
“We convinced many countries, many countries – and I did this myself for the most part – not to use Huawei because we think it’s an unsafe security risk,” the US president Donald Dump said.
(This is a man who seems to wake up every morning wondering what controversy he can provoke, what headlines he can create.
Diplomacy, or the lack of it, can be a complicated business. We’ve learned that from observing Donald Trump.
Both his campaign and presidency is marked by bursts of false and outrageous allegations, personal insults, xenophobic nationalism, unapologetic sexism and positions that shift according to his audience and his whims.
This is a man far more consumed with himself than with the nation’s well-being.
From that moment of combustion, it became clear that Mr. Trump’s views were matters of dangerous impulse and cynical pandering rather than thoughtful politics.)
With the UK now becoming the US junior partner, (one of the most unreliable partners for any country) who cares when a phenomenal’ trade deal beyond Nigel Farage is promised, providing it sends its new aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth to the South China Seas with American warplanes, and supplies the Arabs with bombs to finish off Yeham.
It’s one thing to get rid of the Chinese firm Huawei and its 5G infrastructure and in return to sour the world’s second-largest economy behind the US, which has more money in the bank than any other country.
Indeed three of the world’s 10 biggest sovereign wealth funds are Chinese, together holding more than $1.5tn (£988bn) in assets.
Not too long ago the UK was one of China’s favorite places to invest – not anymore.
Beijing’s ambassador to London, Liu Xiaoming, warned: “China wants to be UK’s friend and partner. But if you treat China as a hostile country, you would have to bear the consequences.”
China operates an Authoritarian form of capitalism against Anglo – American capitalism which is the root of the problem. Global supremacy.
China’s investments may well be subordinate to its National Development and reform commission, but the staggering truth of Huawei is that the US does not want China to be a superpower when it comes to technology.
With the pandemic being used to push the protection of businesses the world population will eventually be tracked.
Both the US and England might well end up as viewed as failed states due to the handling of the COVID-19 with both countries ending up with up distant and withdrawn people far from enhanced by COVID-19.
Not too long ago, the UK did a 79 million deal to import pig semen from China for stemcell research.
Its not stemcell research it needs. It needs a lot of fixing but isn’t that what the next four years are going to be about?
What is needs is some Face Recognition and a written constitution. All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
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