Category Archives: Technology v Humanity

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. IS THE WORLD SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL ?

10 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change.,  Attention economy, Human Collective Stupidity., Human values., Humanity., Inequality, Olympic circus., OLYMPICS GAMES., Our Common Values., Poverty, Religion., Religious Beliefs., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Truth, Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Twenty-minute read) 

 

To quote:

Stephen Hawking

“Ever since the dawn of civilization, people have not been content to see

events as unconnected and inexplicable. They have craved an understanding

of the underlying order in the world. Today we still yearn to know why we are

here and where we came from. Humanity’s deepest desire for knowledge is

justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less

than a complete description of the universe we live in.”

                                               —————–

Humans have – over time – developed a vast global network of social structures which

collectively organize the functioning of the entire species. 

But we remain unable to live in harmony either with each other and with nature, so we

all understand that on some levels that the world is spinning out of control and there’s

nothing we can do about it.

Why?

Because we have created a living system of greed/profit/ inequality/ and religious

beliefs that are now all but un-reversible and that will follow us where ever we go.

It has been the way of the world ever since the dawn of man that he who dominates is the one who controls.

About 85 percent of the world’s population identifies with a religious group.

Religion and humankind have gone hand in hand ever since the concept of a being and still, the fight for supremacy goes on:

Christianity, Daoism, Confucianism, Judaism, Buddhis, ISLAM, Santería, Hinduism, Vodou, Yoruba Religion, Cambomblé.

“When religion ruled the world it was called the Dark Ages”. 

“If you think it doesn’t still rule the world you’re kidding yourself.”

From fundamentalist terrorists to gay civil rights it seems religion still dictates people’s beliefs and therefore the laws that are put into place the world over.

Religions create unity, yes but they also create Separatism which we are becoming painfully aware that.

Although our religions gave us a starting place for thinking about how our world functions, they no longer serve us in that process; and in fact, have left a trail of destruction in their historic path.

The goal of Islam is to rule the entire world and submit all of mankind to the faith of Islam. The goal of Christianity was and still is similar without the need for Jihads.   

People need to stop using religion as a crutch for their conscience.

                                              ————

Back to the world spinning out of control.

It is not that the world itself is all of suddenly spinning on its axis, it is us who are still unable to live with each other in a sustainable respectful manner that is spinning out of control.  

However, those of us who recently watched the Para Olympics and the closing ceremony in Japan surely realize that the world we live in is connected in more ways than one.

By now, we’re all familiar with the tech world circle-jerk about how we’re connecting the planet and the world is getting smaller and we’re all becoming one big kumbaya global community and how this is amazing because starving babies in Mozambique and Suriname can each have their own iPad, and blah, blah, blah, the internet is cool.

On the other hand, we have also witnessed the tragedies of current wars affecting the world and people in the future.

People will probably point to the 9/11 terrorist attacks as the inflection point where the US began its slow descent from global dominance.

That the American Dream is now essentially just another form of what psychologists call “The Just World Hypothesis.”American Dream Homeless Man

                                           ————————

Don’t get me wrong, the rise of the internet and social media has accelerated social progress in many ways.

By nearly every objective measure, the world is a better place than it has ever been in modern history.

So why doesn’t it feel that way?

Could it be that a transition of power is soon to happen?

It is an old saying that knowledge is power and if so our world is rapidly becoming a world driven by the power of data. 

Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until  2021.  That’s something like five exabytes of data.

While technology is neutral, people are not ready for what’s coming.

Technology might be giving a chance for humans to maintain their presence but without education that imparts knowledge, it is inevitable, that those who indirectly or directly have the data will control power in the world. 

                                          ———————-

This is both good and bad.

Because outrageous news and information spread faster and further than any other form of information, dominating our daily attention. 

On the one hand, we become aware of some of the grossest injustices in our society as soon as they happen. On the other hand, all we hear about are the grossest injustices in our society as soon as they happen.

The sickest and most grotesque finds its way to the top of the nation’s consciousness, dominating our attention and the news cycle, dividing and recruiting us into its ever more polarized camps.

But the world isn’t worse.

It’s just that we’re more aware of all of the bad things than ever before.

Cameras, the internet, and most importantly, social media. This is what’s new.

                                         ———————-

In the attention economy, people are rewarded for extremism.

Thomas Davenport, a professor and former researcher at McKinsey and Accenture, wrote a book called Attention Economy in 2001.

In it, he wrote “As the theory of the economics of attention, user’s attention is a scarce resource that multiple information competes for. With the development of the Internet, especially the explosion of online social media, netizens (online citizens) receive redundant messages from various online channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and online forums, which results in extremely severe information overload problem”

So in the attention economy, anyone trying to connect with an audience must treat the user’s time as the ultimate resource.

For example: 

The idea is that many products work together so people never have to leave the ecosystem because it has everything you need.

Attention in technology is the currency in the double-sided marketplace of consumer products.

The seller gives access to technologies (apps, social media, digital products) in exchange for the buyer (users/people) spends their time and attention to access products.

Everyone online seems to solicit our attention, how do we decide who to give it to?

People have a limited amount of attention to spend and as attempts are made to control the spending of attention a person’s willpower diminishes.

So should we be asking  “Are products giving enough in return for the attention they take?” Should all tech companies be paying us for the data they collect and sell rather than we value your privacy or this site contains cookies. 

While social media platforms and TV stations are rewarded for indulging their worst biases and stoking other people’s worst fears. They are rewarded for portraying the world as a place that is burning to the ground, whether it’s because of the Taliban, or police violence, or Islamic terrorism, or low interest rates. 

And this constant awareness of every fault and flaw of our humanity, combined with an inundation of doomsayers and narcissistic nihilists commanding our attention space, is what is causing this constant feeling of a chaotic and insecure world that doesn’t actually exist. 

We are going crazy?

Each one of us, individually, capsized in the flood of negativity, we are ready to burn down the very structures on which the most successful civilizations in human history have been built. Exaggerating all that is wrong and minimizing all that is right.

It’s for this reason that I’ve started to remove myself from digesting news and information through social media. Nothing will replace face-to-face interaction.

Ever since the dawn of time; this has never been more true than today no!

                                       ————————

Freedom can only exist when you are willing to tolerate views that oppose your own when you’re willing to give up some of your desires for the sake of a safe and healthy community when you’re willing to compromise and accept that sometimes things don’t go your way and that’s fine.

In a weird sense, true freedom doesn’t exist.

Because the only way for human rights to persist is for everyone to collectively agree to accept that things don’t have to go their way 100% of the time.

A free and functioning democracy demands a populace that can sustain discomfort, that can tolerate dissatisfaction, that can be charitable and forgiving of groups whose views stand in contrast to one’s own, and most importantly, that can remain unswayed in the face of some violent threat.

In a culture where your worth as a human being is tied to your level of socioeconomic success, this can’t be achieved. 

By the time you reach adolescence, you are subjected to live’s first traumas and failures. You recognize that the world isn’t fair. Things go wrong sometimes. Bad things happen to good people and vice versa. And in many ways, you’re not as great as you had always thought or believed.

Other teenagers, particularly teenagers who are pampered and learn most of what they know about the world through TV or the internet, don’t handle it so well.

The world doesn’t conform to their small-minded belief system and instead of blaming the belief system, they blame the world. And that blaming doesn’t turn out well for anybody.

That things are not just. That we cannot fully control our destiny.

The question is how well we will adapt and mature to this new reality.

Will we accept it and modify our ethos to match the 21st century?

Or will we become petulant and angry and scapegoat the cognitive dissonance of our national consciousness away?

Viewing every opportunity in front of you as something you’re going to fail at before you even try. This is because you have low self-esteem and your attitude and beliefs are only going to perpetuate it.

It’s time to let go and rise above the outdated and cruel exploits of our past that we inherited from our ancestors, and realize that the early misinterpretations of our world do not have to define the future of humanity.

It has long ceased to amaze me what humans are capable of doing to each other, but working together makes anything possible. 

We have reached a time in our history where the misunderstandings of the past must be reconciled and the truth about the origins of our early beliefs must be revealed.

It’s time that our world’s religions face the tragic horrors of their past and make honest progression towards love and kindness for all of humanity.

Finally: 

The present state of the planet is not going to change because all of a sudden we are all beating our chests chanting Maya cupula May cupula. 

It is not going to change because we all agreed it has to be in a forthcoming Climate change conference. It is not going to change because we wish it to do so. 

Actions are the only way it has any hope of changing.  These are enormous and will take years if not decades to achieve.

But here is one action that could be achieved in your lifetime.   

As we witness in both the Para Olympics and the Olympics competition is a gift and as a gift, it is given unconditionally, with nothing expected in return.

Although the Olympics and the Para Olympics shine a light on what is best in humanity’s endeavors, it suffers from the backdrop of a world full of poverty, inequality, and the like. With countries spending millions to host the games or allocating funds to win gold medals when these funds could be used to alleviate foodbanks, social care, health care, etc.  

This unnecessary enormous cost of staging the games could be wiped out if the Olympic Games were permanently held in the country of their origins Greece.  

There is no reason that the countries of the world could not build a permanent Olympic stadium in Greece. 

Such a move would save 3.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) = equal to the annual emissions from about a million cars.

Even setting aside the carbon footprint question it would scrap the bigger-is-better ethos that cities still cling to when they find themselves on the global stage. Which in most cases up to now leave behind multipurpose, venues that become useless eyesores after the games conclude.

We need a radical rethink of how the games are run if we want them to be compatible with our definition of sustainability. 

The green games for a blue planet could be established permanently In Greece.   

How do we get to net-zero emissions?

This question will define the global economy for the next century.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. THE FUTURE ISN’T SOMETHING THAT SHOWS UP FULLY FORMED.

02 Thursday Sep 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., A Constitution for the Earth., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Dehumanization., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Inequality, Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Purpose of life., Robot citizenship., Speed of technology., Survival., Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., 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., World Leaders, World Organisations.

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( Seven-minute read) 

I don’t know if like me you are getting sick to death of hearing and reading the following phrases: 

WE NEED TO. WE VALUE YOUR PRIVACY, WHAT LESSON SHOULD WE LEARN. LET ME BE VERY CLEAR. 110 PERCENT.  ETC.

Unfortunately, we treat the future like a distant colonial outpost devoid of people where we can dump ecological degradation, technological risk, nuclear waste, and the public debt, and that we feel at liberty to plunder as we please. 

If you have a young child, she or he will likely talk to computers — naturally, as he or she does with you — for the rest of his or her life and the computer will not need to or learn lessons.  

We are standing on the precipice of life-altering technologies, but unable to break free from a continuous cycle of surprise and fear because we can’t come together to address collectively the existing problems not to mention what is awaiting us all down the road.

Global warming is the greatest existential challenge of our age, requiring massive societal changes to mitigate and adapt to it.

However, there is another threat that is being ignored to our peril.  

With politicians (the vast majority of whom do not have any background in science or technology) unable to look past the next election, making important policy decisions with little regard to how they will affect the planet and country 20, 50, or 100 years from now.

This is why Governments need to set up a Department for the Future, depoliticized technology and science. 

The citizens of tomorrow are granted no rights. There are no government departments or world organization bodies to represent their concerns or potential views on decisions today that will undoubtedly affect their lives.  

Representative – democracy systematically ignores the interest of future people. 

The world is presently experiencing a new form of colonization not by wars but by Digital Data, combined with climate change.   The Digital Divide: A Technological Generation Gap

This colonization is presently happing between China and the USA.



                                               —————–

The “Digital Divide,” is the gulf between those with access to both the necessary technology and the information accessible with it and those who do not.

The immediate concern is that those with the technology will acquire the necessary skills for the twenty-first century and those without will not, further widening the economic chasm between the lower-income strata and those who manage the data.

Technology has an obsoleting impact on those without the proper skills and, with the speed at which the technology changes, it is very difficult – near impossible for some – to keep current. 

This will become even more of a concern when the wealthier private and public school systems began to acquire personal computer networks and internet connections while schools in poorer neighborhoods will not.

Those who grow up with technology assimilate it into themselves;

“WE value your Privacy “

                                   —————————

There will constantly be new tools – the cloud, big data, location analysis, etc. – and ones of which we have not yet heard.

In A Data-Driven World, it will be too late unless we establish an organization

that can understand the context of all Future interactions. 

Those who do not embrace them may be ambushed by them and by a younger generation pushing them out the door.Shutterstock

When it comes to Robots. 

The Three Laws are:

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

By Isaac Asimov in his 1942 short story “Runaround.” 

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: IF WE CONTINUE IN THE SAME DIRECTION AS WE ARE NOW, THE CONSEQUENCES WILL BE UNPREDICATABLE/ DISASTOROUS AND CONFLICT RIDDEN.

20 Friday Aug 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., A Constitution for the Earth., Artificial Intelligence., Civilization., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Genetic engineering, Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Imagination., Modern day life., Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Purpose of life., Speed of technology., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., Uncategorized, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, WORLD POVERTY WHERE'S THE GLOBAL OUTRAGE

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( Seven-minute read) 

We all know that we must shift the direction of the way we live life on Earth.

Sadly, this does not seem to be the case and hence, social conflict and civil unrest seem inevitable.

We all know that what is needed is a coordinated global response and bipartisan domestic response not just to the current pandemic but also to tackle climate change.

As Schwab writes: “The new technology age if shaped responsively and responsibly, could catalyze a new cultural renaissance that will enable us to feel part of something much larger than ourselves – a truly global civilization.


Yes, we are in a fourth industrial-technological revolution with regulators guilty of sleeping by allowing AI to develop financial weapons of mass destruction turning the world into a digitalized market for the sake of short-term profit.

Today, 43% of the world’s population is connected to the internet, mostly in developed countries.

Each time you run a Google search, scan your passport, make an online purchase, or tweet, you are leaving a data trail behind that can be analyzed and monetized. Computers are already making decisions based on this information.

In less than 10 years computer processors are expected to reach the processing power of the human brain.  Socialism for the Rich and Capitalism for the Poor.

Think of apps that track how much you eat, sleep, and exercise, and being able to ask a doctor a question by simply tapping it into your smartphone.

In the future, will it ever be possible to be offline anymore?

So are the technologies that surround us tools that we can identify, grasp and consciously use to improve our lives? Or are they more than that: powerful objects and enablers that influence our perception of the world, change our behavior, and affect what it means to be human?

It is therefore worthwhile taking some time to consider exactly what kind of shifts we are experiencing and how we might, collectively and individually, ensure that it creates benefits for the many, rather than the few.

                                 ———————————

At the heart of discussions around emerging technologies, there is a critical and central question: what do we want these technologies to deliver for us?

The fourth Industrial revolution is widely taken to be the shift from our reliance on animals, human effort, and biomass as primary sources of energy to the use of fossil fuels and the mechanical power this enabled.

It however can also be described as the advent of “cyber-physical systems” involving entirely new capabilities for people and machines.

It represents entirely new ways in which technology becomes embedded within societies and even our human bodies -. examples include genome editing, new forms of machine intelligence, breakthrough materials, and approaches to governance that rely on cryptographic methods such as the blockchain. It’s just not very evenly distributed.

More people in the world have access to a mobile phone than basic sanitation.

The complexity of these technologies and their emergent nature makes many aspects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution feel unfamiliar and, to many, threatening.

Indeed, it is certain that the governments know this, but instead of helping the poor they are making it harder for them to survive and it is certain that sooner or later when the bubble burst, there will be few survivors.

Added to this is the humungous amounts of money governments are borrowed to keep the government running in the absence of real economic growth.

Since the financial crash and before interest rates were kept at near-zero levels for most of the decade in the run-up to the crisis with the West governments encouraging speculation and risk-taking.

                             _________________________

Currently, there are three big areas of concern: Inequality, Security, and Identity.

Inequality.

62 individuals controlled more assets than the poorer 3.6 billion people combined, half the world’s population.

Unequal societies tend to be more violent, have higher numbers of people in prison, experience greater levels of mental illness, and have lower life expectancies and lower levels of trust.

An important potential driver of increased inequality is our reliance on digital markets – increase unemployment.

Security.

The combination of the digital world with emerging technologies is creating new “battlespaces”, expanding access to lethal technologies and making it harder to govern and negotiate among states to ensure peace.

The technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution also offer expanded capabilities for waging war which is increasingly accessible to both state and non-state actors, such as drones, autonomous weapons, nanomaterials, biological and biochemical weapons, wearable devices, and distributed energy sources

It’s not a question of if non-state actors will use some form of neuroscientific techniques or technologies, but when, and which ones they’ll use. 

Identity, voice, and community.

Already, digital media is increasingly becoming the primary driver of our individual and collective framing of society and community, connecting people to individuals and groups in new ways, fostering friendships, and creating new interest groups. Furthermore, such connections transcend many traditional boundaries of interaction.

Unfortunately, expanded connectivity does not necessarily lead to expanded or more diverse worldviews.

Emerging technologies, particularly in the biological realm, are also raising new questions about what it means to be human.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is the first where the tools of technology can become literally embedded within us and even purposefully change who we are at the level of our genetic makeup.

The very reason why people are residents in taking the covid jab.

Martin Nowak, a professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard University, stated that cooperation is “the only thing that will redeem mankind”.

If we have the courage to take collective responsibility for the changes underway and the ability to work together to raise awareness and shape new narratives, we can embark on restructuring our economic, social, and political systems to take full advantage of emerging technologies.

This can only be achieved through the ideology of.  Live and let live. 


In 1969 a man stood on the moon. 

The U.S. Has Only Been At Peace For 21 Years Total Since Its Birth.

This means that for 222 out of 239 years – or 93% of the time – America has been at war. The only time the U.S. went five years without war (1935-40) was during the isolationist period of the Great Depression.

It’s no wonder that the world is Fucked up. 

One only has to look at the current withdrawal from Afghanistan to see the benefits of War.  

This has important implications for how policymakers ought to treat future wars that are inevitable as the world struggles to feed its present direction of economic growth at whatever cost. 

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

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. CAN WE ADAPT TO LIVING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE?

12 Thursday Aug 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Cop26., Earth, Enegery, Human Collective Stupidity., Humanity., Inequality, Modern day life., Our Common Values., Post-Covid-19, Reality., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Ten -minute read) 

It’s time to cut out the bullshit and get a grip when it comes to climate change.

The effects of human activities on Earth’s climate to date are now irreversible on the timescale of human lifetimes.

So the key question is, what will our emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants be in the years to come?

The simple reason for this is that it is impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy just how much greenhouse gases are going to be released in the next few centuries, and just how much this is going to affect the climate.

Electrical Cars, Solar Panels, Wind turbines, and technology might all help reductions in carbon emissions but they are all products.  They all use the earth’s finite resources to produce profit for companies that created the world of Profit for Profit’s sake that has to lead us down the slippery path to climate change.  

In my opinion, any new normal ( which is going to be far from normal ) has to hold fossil burning industries accountable or nationalizing them till we reach a point where sustainable energy generates higher financial returns than coal and oil. 

 The harsh reality of climate change is now playing out in real-time before our very eyes, with some of the negative changes already locked into the climate system, while global efforts to reduce carbon emissions are not moving fast enough to avoid irreversible damage to the planet.

Any solutions are going to take years to have any effect so we need to adapt: or, in other words, get used to the realities of this new, heated-up, wet, violent, world.  

We all know that the climate challenges we are facing on the planet transcend national boundaries.

At present we being told that’s, it’s not too late to stop the forthcoming climate changes totally making our planet unlivable if we move to clean energy. 

However clean energy is only one part of the challenge because the inequalities in the world demand a fundamental overhaul of existing social, political, and economic norms.

It is this new perception that needs to be contagious so it is adopted globally.

The shocking truth is that climate change has only just begun.

In other words, whatever the mitigation efforts of future civilizations, climate change is here to stay.  Regardless of future emission trends, the CO2 footprint from our brief passage on Earth is going to remain in the climate system and impact the well-being of all terrestrial life forms for what could almost be considered an eternity.

In the last year, we are seeing with the current Covid pandemic that we live in a world where HARMONIZATION of any actions is impossible.  

We will witness this in the forthcoming Cop-out / Cop26 summit. 

The above perception is highly unlikely to happen.

Why?

Because the climate change problems will probably worsen before — or indeed if — it gets better, no one wants to bear costs of change that will fall on  – the poor.

Long before this ever happens, humanity must prepare itself for an inland retreat and a constant battle against rising seawater that will continue for hundreds and hundreds of years into the future. 

We are incredibly adaptable, but at the psychological level, there’s going to be tremendous disruption among families, societies, nations, etc. when change occurs.

Anything that helps an organism survives in its environment is an adaptation.

Adaptation is an acknowledgment that this.

Some of that change is a given, but not all of it.

For example:

Loss of traditions, habitat, and cultural heritage, and the distress that comes with moving away from the land where your ancestors are buried, where you’ve lived all your life.  Not to mention the extinction of species, animals and plants, and coral reefs, and all kinds of living things, those we depend on and those with which we simply share ecosystems.

None of the solutions so far even begin to address the possibility of an impending mental health crisis due to the upheaval associated with managed retreat and other forms of climate migration.

How do you convince a community that their home will not be habitable?

How do you make room for rural refugees to live in a crowded city?

Climate mitigation is hard, and we are running out of time to do it, but I would argue that adaptation in its absence will actually be a million times harder.

Without substantial cuts to our collective carbon imprint, many more lives will be lost trying to adapt to a changing environment, and countless more will be made meaningfully worse.

Why wouldn’t we do what we can to avoid that?

The long course of human evolution shows that climate disruption, which is what we’re going through right now and in the foreseeable future, is associated with the demise of ways of life.

As difficult as it may be, there is a vast scale of loss associated with climate change that one has to try to comprehend and accept in order to understand the urgency of the situation.

THE NEED FOR HARMONIZATION to anticipate the actual and expected effects of climate change and take appropriate action to prevent or minimize the impacts.

How will we feel when the air inside feels tinny and canned when all of this feels like our future?

The two main responses so far to climate change are Mitigation and Adaptation – they must go hand in hand. 

Adaptation can be planned in advance but it must go beyond just development to include the global food system, which encompasses production, and post-farm process such as processing, and distribution is also a key contributor to emissions. And it’s a problem for which we don’t yet have viable technological solutions.

Food is responsible for approximately 26% of global GHG emissions.  So we will need a menu of solutions: changes to diets; food waste reduction; improvements in agricultural efficiency; and technologies that make low-carbon food alternatives scalable and affordable.

Methane warms the world twenty times faster than carbon.

Junk-food chains, including KFC and Pizza Hut, McDonald’s have spread around the world.

Take McDonald’s. 

  • It has about 28,000 restaurants worldwide, opening around 2,000 new ones each year

The food industry spends billions a year in advertising and promotion to persuade people to eat more food.

In short, then, this is another example of wasted wealth, wasted capital, wasted labor, and wasted resources.Climate Change What Happens after 2100

On top of all this while the earth warms up it has the capability of releasing 1.5 trillion tons of organic carbon twice as much as Earths, atmosphere currently holds.

The planet is the ultimate ‘global commons’. It belongs to neither a particular individual nor a particular nation. Nor does it belong to a single generation such as us, our children, or our grandchildren.

Instead, it belongs to all living creatures both alive now and in the future. Just as all of humanity is connected ‘horizontally’ across the globe, so too are all past and future life forms bound ‘vertically’ in a continual unfolding of the story of life.

So when you buy something, you buy something that lasts; you buy it because you really need it and want to take care of it. It is none other than this consideration for future human beings and other life forms that should form the yardstick by which we set our mitigation targets — not merely what is politically and economically feasible for the industrialized world today.

Yet the political and economic institutions of our civilization are fixated on enjoying the present and unable to account for the consequences of our actions on tomorrow.

Corporations and governments are forever borrowing from the future in order to improve the present.

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

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. OUR WORLD IS ON FIRE IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE.

08 Sunday Aug 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Communication., Cop26., CORONA VIRUS., Environment, Human Collective Stupidity., Human values., Humanity., Inequality., Natural World Disasters, OLYMPICS GAMES., Post-Covid-19, Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Five-minute read) 

While we watched a postponed Olympics game unfold in Japan with barely one in 10 Japanese wanting it to happen, a pandemic is exposing gaps with graphic honesty in a  world that has long been overdue for systemic reform of its economic, social, and technological structures.

All require a global-to-local response and long-term thinking; all need to be guided by science and need to protect the most vulnerable among us, and all require the political will to make fundamental changes when faced with existential risks.

Beyond the obvious short-term impacts of climate change and Covid (such as loss of life, a profound hit to economic and social activity), both are casting a long shadow into the future. 

If we remain passive and ununited to the emerging risks, we may lose a historical opportunity to shape the new normal that we want, rather than the one we would be left with.

At the moment the economic risks dominate perceptions, with a prolonged global recession a top concern.

However, if either Covid-19 or Climate change eclipses sustainability on the public agenda where are we then.

What we will be left with are critical non-economic risks concerning the sustainability of life on earth and all that live on it.

On the environmental front, even with an expected 8% drop in global emissions for this year, the world would still miss the 1.5°C targets to avoid a planetary catastrophe.

If we are to truly recover from the pandemic and its impacts, then it will not be about putting things back together to how they were –we are in the midst of a historic event that will change many aspects of our world.

The long-term societal impacts of both, such as an exacerbation of inequality and changes in consumer behaviors, the nature of work, and the role of technology – both at work and at home – will change our way of life forever, for us as individuals, as a workforce, and as a society.

We were unprepared for Covid that was predictable. We are not preparing for Climate change that will create substantial societal consequences for the long term, now being felt by people worldwide. 

There is one thing for certain our attitudes towards traveling, commuting, and consumption will change employment prospects.

So what lessons can we distill, that can feed into your own future scenario, resilience, and business continuity planning?

Profit for profit’s sake will have to be regulated.

No longer can businesses plunder the earth for finite resources to produce worthless short-term material satisfaction. We know that we will have to build back better and address deep systemic vulnerabilities that have been allowed to develop over the last decades.

  • Left unchecked, there is a real risk that inequalities and social deprivation will increase

Therefore, the challenge to return to the ‘new normal’ is as much a psychological as an economic choice.

The timing and speed of the economic recovery, dependent as it is on solving the health crisis, is likely to exacerbate inequality, mental health problems, and lack of societal cohesion. It is also likely to widen the wealth gap between young and old and pose significant educational and employment challenges that risk a second lost generation.

A golden rule of politics is that the timing of a decision is almost as important as the decision itself.

“Timing is everything”, but it is also the element that is hardest to get right.

Of course, we need to focused on the climate, sustainability, and on societal risks, such as inequality, mental health, the lack of social cohesion and inclusion. If we do not do this, then the gaps in inequality – especially financial – are likely to remain and increase destroying all efforts of a green economy, a sustainable economy, or any other form of the economy whether it is socially driven or ever man for himself.   

We are already seeing record levels of unemployment due to lockdown measures, to control transmission and are re-learned hard lessons, particularly that social deprivation determines health outcomes.

So it is time for preparation, for a world of shocks which is likely urging to ramp up economic activity, regardless of impact, to recover at any cost.

Much depends on what governments, societies, and businesses will do next. This should be a long-term change in attitude in the historic public vs private debate.

I urge you to take the time to weigh the potential risks and benefits based on your situation before making a decision you could regret for the rest of your life.

We must draw on all our strengths to build back a better world.

 It’s time for all avenues of communication to be taking the lead.

The New Normal is knocking at the door and the door is already open.

Change is simple and it’s not easy.

Step 1: Do you want to change?

Step 2: Do you know how to change?

Step 3: Are you willing to give a change time?

Anyone who has ever changed has gone through the process. We need all three steps, and if we miss one, we get none.

The new normal in the end will look like we want it to look.

The life you thought was boring, is the life you’re hoping to get back to right now.”

Ultimately, public health is a political choice. A choice we are now confronted with, and one we will have to make over and over again as we transition to a more resilient, zero-carbon, just, and healthier future.

 Hopefully, hold on to that sense of shared humanity. 

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

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS; IS THIS OUR BRAVE NEW WORLD?

26 Monday Jul 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Climate Change., Disaster Capitalism., Earth, Enegery, Human Collective Stupidity., International solidarity., Modern day life., OLYMPICS GAMES., Our Common Values., Reality., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Ten-minute read) 

We are at a pivotal moment in human history not because we still don’t really know where we come from, or if we are alone in the Universe, or do we really matter. 

It is, of course, impossible to put into a sentence or a paragraph what is wrong with the world never mind the Universe.  

But it’s possible to describe our world in a word.  Beautiful and we humans occupy an extraordinary place in it. 

The strange fact is that in this age of information when data is our currency of communication, most of us have no idea how to picture the world never mind the universe. 

The last time the Western culture shared a coherent understanding of our world I would say, was away back in the middle ages, when Galileo discovered that we were not the center of the universe. 

Now with climate change and the current Pandemic, it is as if we have just started to see the world in color,  and that changes, not just what is far away, but what’s right here. 

This discovery of the state of our plant challenges us to reframe everything and there is little point in learning a lot of science unless you can do something valuable in life with that knowledge.

                                                       ——–

There is only one image of our world that shows us this.

The photo shows no countries on our planet, only landmass, oceans, and clouds. 

Our endless preoccupation with nations and racial or ethical groups is completely misleading our intuitions.

This image shows our glorious plant in its true state without language in all its forms, cultural identification, religious beliefs, all are just tools, to shepherding ourselves successfully through the coming state of the world 

This is going to require tremendous creativity, combined with more than a large dose of common sense, which unfortunately down the centuries and now is lacking in the collective management of our planet Earth.  

                                                          ————–     

However, we live in a world where all information is freely available at the click of a mouse, so what has changed?

We’re seeing a lazy entitlement wash over the world where everyone feels as though they deserve what they want from their government the second they want it, without thought of repercussions or the rest of the population.

It seems like people don’t actually want democracy anymore, they want a dictator who agrees with them.

The sickest and most grotesque NEWS TOPPING THE CHART, dominating our attention and the news cycle, dividing and recruiting us into its ever more polarized camps, giving us a skewed view of how other people in the world really think, act, and live.

It seems like our new brave world is JUGED by a group of people that represents 0.01%, who take refuge in their own precious identity politics with us buying more and more into a worldview that is disconnected from cold data and hard facts?

The impact of the pandemic is showing despite loud warnings that continuing economic growth is incompatible with sustainability.

                                      ——————–

So let’s take a look at the state of the world.

Even if we did stand on the moon it is a sad read and any solutions will not be found in religious beliefs or technology or in politics but in learning from history.  

There have been over 250 major wars in the world since World War II, in which 23 million people have been killed., tens of millions made homeless, and countless millions injured and bereaved. Over 37 (or 42) million people have by killed by wars in the 20th century. Three times more people have been killed in wars in the last 90 years than in all the previous 500.

Over 35 major conflicts are going on in the world today.

There are approximately 30,000 nuclear warheads in the world today.

Current global military spending is approximately $800 billion per year; more than the total annual income of the poorest 45% of the global population.

Genocide and other mass murders killed more people in the 20th century than all wars combined.

33% of the world’s people live under authoritarian, non-democratic regimes. 35% of the world’s people live in countries in which basic political rights and civil liberties are denied.

 1/3rd of the world’s labor force is unemployed or underemployed.  

1 out of 6, children ages 5 to 17 worldwide are involved in child labor.

3 billion of the world’s people (one-half) live in ‘poverty.’

Women account for 70 percent of the world’s people who live in absolute poverty.

800 million people lack access to basic healthcare. 

1.1 billion do not have safe drinking water. By 2025, at least 3.5 billion people, or nearly 2/3rd’s of the world’s population will face water scarcity. 

870 million of the world’s adults are illiterate.

Over 100 million people live in slums.

The richest 1% of the world’s people earned as much income as the bottom 57%.

The wealth of the world’s 7.1 million millionaires ($27 trillion) equals the total combined annual income of the entire planet.

Poor countries (which contain 4/5th of the world’s people) pay the rich countries an estimated nine times more in debt repayments than they receive in aid.

Half of the forests that originally covered 46% of the Earth’s land surface are gone.

Between 10 and 20 percent of all species will be driven to extinction in the next 20 to 50 years.

60% of the world’s coral reefs, could be lost in the next 20-40 years.

More than 20 percent of the world’s known 10,000 freshwater fish species have become extinct.

Desertification and land degradation threaten nearly one-quarter of the land surface of the globe.

Global warming is expected to increase the Earth’s temperature by 3C (5.4F) in the next 100 years.

An estimated 40-80 million people will be forcibly evicted and displaced from their lands.

                                               —————-

The reality no matter how one looks at it, is that the old assumptions that provided the unifying ideas within our cultures are eroding because of our technological advancement, and although we are seeing what may prove to be the emergence of a new worldview consensus based on the Critical Theory it has not solidified its hold on society as yet.

With technology and Algorithms, our cultures have and are continuing to accept the idea that objective truth is inaccessible and that truth itself is, therefore, relative and personal, but how we conduct ourselves is just as important — even more important is how we do it sustainably and so far we have made a great job of it.

The world is now facing a collision of not just climate change but is colliding with finite resources in a much that the current economic growth could end or totally collapse in the not-so-distant future.  

                                              —————

But a free and functioning democracy demands a populace that can sustain discomfort, tolerate dissatisfaction, be charitable and forgiving of groups whose views stand in contrast to one’s own, and most importantly, that can remain unswayed in the face of some violent threat.

The words ” We Need” are only words.  They should be replaced the words ” Action Now” 

Why?

Because we also need to be clear in our own hearts and minds about the solution to the world’s problems. If we are to do anything we must break the alignment between theological advancement –  climate change and pollution. 

The world is at a crossroads as the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the global economy have combined with increasing polarization and highly charged elections.  

                                                    —————

So what will we do? 

Probably have a conference.

But if you could change the world, what would you do?

We live our entire lives as aspiring presidents, aspiring movie producers, aspiring artists, aspiring authors, aspiring human rights activists, aspiring world-renowned scientists, and aspiring thought leaders while we sit in front of our TV screens, walk around glued to Smartphones, or Ipads that fed us pictures of climate change, wars, the covid pandemic, racism, political/economical collapse.

All Encouraging us on one hand, to think that the world is more violent than it really is while on the other hand promoting the glamorous life of people that believe that they are better off than we are;

What I fear is that we’re seeing now is a loss of that ability to handle discomfort and dissatisfaction.

What I would do is help people think for themselves.

Amazon Owner Jeff Bezos Travels Into Space  

While governments introduce more and more taxes to pay for inequality/economic growth charities competing to raise funds to save almost everything, from adopting everything from a child to a fish or animal to a plant, in the real world.

Taxes form a key ingredient in the social contract between citizens and the economy but How taxes are raised and spent can determine a government’s very legitimacy. 

Health programs:  Military: Social Security: Interest on the national debt: Education programs:  Food and agricultural benefits: Pensions. Government machinery.

                               —————————-

Our new world now needs solidarity more than ever to make the world a better place.

Presently in a year when the world is fighting a pandemic, the Olympics in Japan will once again show us what we are capable of in sport to bring our true authentic selves to every situation.  ( See:  Post –  The Olympics games show be permanently hosted in Greece.)  

It represents a true coming together not separation, in a true spirit of humanity.

Without this coming together there will be no new world but a world run by algorithms that will not treat us as equal.

But how can you take on the problems of the world when there’s so much to do already?

In science, we have been staggered by revelation after revelation that things are not what we previously thought them to be, and beneath each layer of reality we have unpeeled lies another.  It is not hard to piece together all this information to comprehensively picture what the end times will look like.

 If so, what are we to do about it?

The only way to beat the attention economy is to opt out of it.

As the growth models of countries cannot be sustained Countries need to overcome political hurdles to invest in infrastructure and human capital.

How?

One way is to publish the information about political capture so that the public can hold politicians to account for reforms.

Because the only way for human rights to persist is for everyone to collectively agree to accept that things don’t have to go their way 100% of the time.

Freedom can only exist when you are willing to tolerate views that oppose your own when you’re willing to give up some of your desires for the sake of a safe and healthy community when you’re willing to compromise and accept that sometimes things don’t go your way and that’s fine.

Finally, we must accept that world problems will always be with us.

The world has woken up to the need to curb emissions and invest in climate resilience.
But we all need to move faster down this path, we now have less than 100 days to go until the UN climate summit, Cop26 arrives in Glasgow.

Five years on from the Paris Agreement, and with countless evidence that the climate crisis is worsening, the negotiations will focus on nationally determined contributions to stop the world from warming above 1.5 degrees. But as the countries confer with each other, it will be the people of the world who have the most to say: we need action, need more of it, and need it now.

They will not address nature and climate as one. 

HOW CAN YOU GET INVOLVED? 

We know that the production of energy is the biggest contributor to global warming.

If we want action not promises to reduce carbon emissions in twenty years in thirty years there is no reason that non-repayable grants could be made available to everyone to convert to green energy by installing solar panels.

So why not use the tools that are available to demand our governments to do so on

Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Emails to  cop26@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.    

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

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. JUST WHAT IS AN mRNA VACCINE IN LAYMAN TERMS?

14 Monday Jun 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Civilization., Covid-19 Vaccines., Genetic engineering, Humanity., Life., mRNA vaccine and a traditional vaccine., Pandemic, POST COVID-19., Survival., Technologically Enabled Genetics., Technology v Humanity, The Obvious., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., Unanswered Questions., Vaccines., What Needs to change in the World

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(Five-minute read) 


Now before I start trying to answer this question I wish to make it crystal clear that I am no doctor, scientist, or professor of Epidemiology.


Over my life, I have visited countries that have to require one to be vaccinated for everything from Yellow fever to you name it.

The one thing that is stopping some people from getting vaccinated is not understanding how mRNA technology works and its long term effects ( Yet to be seen)

So I am going to try to explain in layman terms the difference between an mRNA vaccine and a traditional vaccine.

There are three sorts of vaccines.   

Live, attenuated vaccines are the closest to a natural infection. They contain a weakened version of a living virus or bacteria

Subunit vaccines contain only parts of a virus or bacteria instead of a whole pathogen.

Inactivated vaccines contain an inactivated or dead version of a virus or pathogen.

Most vaccines up to now work by presenting your body with a weakened or dead version of a virus or some of the proteins found on the surface of the virus.

By showing the virus or parts of the virus to your immune system, the vaccine teaches your body to recognize the pathogen and turns on the production of antibodies, which are proteins that attach to the virus and allow killer immune cells to gobble it up.

In other words, traditional vaccines teach the immune system to make memory cells.

So if you are exposed to a virus at a future date, the immune system has the ability to rev up the production of antibodies rapidly and fight off the pathogen again.

                                              —————

The coronavirus pandemic infected millions of people in a matter of months and vaccines usually take years, and sometimes even decades, to develop, test, and approved for public use. 

For example: 

Smallpox – several centuries.

Plague – to date no vaccine.

Typhoid – around thirty years.

Yellow Fever – around thirty years.

Influenza –   around thirty years – ineffective today because of seasonal changes.

Measles/ Mumps –  around eleven years.

Anthrax  – around 58 years

Polo-  around sixty years. 

Chicken Pox – around thirty year

Shingles – around forty years. 

Hepatitis B –  around twenty-four years.

mRNA vaccines have existed for more than 10 years and have been used with the Ebola and Zika viruses. What is new is in terms of how widely it’s being used on the market.

When the COVID-19 epidemic arrived, never before in modern history, has the entire world and all of the governments in the world banded together to get a vaccine to market so quickly.

Researchers worldwide sprang into action to identify and insert the correct genetic code into the mRNA platform.

                              ——————————

This of course raised questions. 

How a vaccine can get put together in such a short time? 

Were corners cut?  

Is the trial period too short? 

Will there be side effects in years to come? 

These are questions that can not fully answer.  Time will tell. 

In layman’s terms, the technologies already existed, and with vast amounts of money made available to produce a vaccine, it happened in months not years. 

The result was mRNA vaccines which use what is called RNAi research that is widely used by researchers to silence genes in order to learn something about their function.

The result is siRNAs that can be designed to match any gene, can be manufactured cheaply, and can be readily administered to cells.

In other words, a cellular mechanism that uses the gene’s own DNA sequence of the gene to turn it off.

However, RNAi is much more than a research tool that encompasses an array of ancient and sophisticated cellular mechanisms that regulate a variety of biological functions. 

The advantage of RNAi is the ability to design precisely targeted medicines for almost any gene, regardless of the function of the gene.

So each different vaccine aims to use a slightly different approach to prepare your immune system to recognize and fight SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

                                              —————–

Think of your DNA  as the “instruction manuals” in genes that tell a living thing—what to do.  

The mRNA helps cells to read those instructions. It is synthetic there is no COVID virus in this vaccine.

You can not get COVID-19 from the vaccine as mRNA vaccines never enter the nucleus of the cell, where our DNA is stored. Rather than presenting your body with the dead virus or parts of the virus, mRNA vaccines show your body the blueprint needed to make a viral protein.

The difference with mRNA vaccines is that it gives a recipe to our immune system. 

Your body uses this blueprint to make the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins without including any part of the virus itself.

However, unlike less virulent or killed vaccines, the person is not infected with a virus, not even one that’s been weakened or killed.

mRNA is a small fragile fragment of genetic information that’s rapidly broken down within the bloodstream and within cells.

                                      ———————-

Finally, the world will need several different vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic as the virus mutates.

Of course in the short term, there are billions to be made by not sharing. But in the long term, it is taxpayers’ money that has helped the development of the vaccine.  

At the moment we have a handful of drugmakers dominating the global coronavirus vaccine race. 

To fight a global pandemic these companies must be made to share or waiver any patents, along with sharing the manufacturing process worldwide.

The Data from all Vaccines must be shared.  

While world governments must remove any trade barriers blocking the production of the vaccine. 

So far 75% of the world’s Covid -19 vaccines have been distributed in just 10 countries. 

It is a glaring fact that we are not going to end this pandemic anywhere until we do it everywhere. 

It is also a glaring fact while the virus spreads Covid mutants will evolve to trick our immune systems.

It is also a glaring fact that unless Inequality is tackled on a world basis we humans will struggle with any future pandemics that are coming with climate change.  

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

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS : IT IS NO LONGER WHO YOUR ARE ITS WHERE YOU ARE.

08 Tuesday Jun 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Biometric technology., Civilization., Covid Passports., Covid. Passports/ Digital ID., Dehumanization., Digital age., Emergency powers., Facial Recognition., GPS-Tracking., Human Collective Stupidity., Human values., Immunity passports., Modern day Slavery, Morphological identifiers., Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Six-minute read)

“Who are you?” What are you? Where do you come from? Are you contagious or not?

Freedom in modern society has come to become a loaded term.

The current covid pandemic is showing us that we are living in an infinitely

connected world and most of us are using biometric technologies every day.

 

However, the whole concept of authority when it comes to freedom seems to

be in conflict with the principles of self-determination.

As a result, Biometric technology is now going beyond human ability and will be used for many more physical and behavioral characteristics to identify them.

The implementation of digital IDs/Passport systems carries far-reaching implications for individuals with access to services and livelihoods so the question of what is meant by freedom is now in the hands of Artificial Intelligence.  

Mostly we don’t notice these limitations because we’ve been programmed to not even think about being released from them.

It turns out that our freedom to make even the simplest of choices may not just be more limited than we think—it may not exist at all.  

You could say so what! we are already tracked.

I have no prejudice to those that are, but no pass should assume everyone is because society takes that as one meaning only.

The part of our minds we identify as “us”—is now powerfully influenced by technology. 

It really is an indignity to have to carry a document that explains the difficulties one might have. Proving one’s identity is one thing knowing where you are in another sort of measurement without the same level of reliability.

The difficult truth is that “we” aren’t free even from our unconscious selves. 

The argument is that Biometrics is the most suitable means of identifying and authenticating individuals in a reliable and fast way through unique biological characteristics. But the question is. 

Should people be informed about the use of these technologies as a biometric template is a representation of an individual’s unique traits?

As biometric characteristics are immutable, when a biometric template is stolen, that characteristic is compromised for good.

Biometric templates cannot be updated or renewed.

Biometric identification is a computer-controlled analysis that identifies an individual by measuring some biological traits scanned by sensors and matching them with the data stored in a database. 

So should we have the power to apply for the Canceling of Biometric ID that allows us to revoke a compromised biometric template as if it was a stolen password?

                                         __________________


Biometric identification schemes and “immunity passports” are already being rolled out.

Programs for tracking tracing and surveilling the entire population are already being beta-tested and the digital payment infrastructure; the system of financial exclusion that will allow governments to turn off our access to the economy at will is being put into place. 

This is not about the world that we are living in but about the one that we are being thrust into.

Biometrics perceives human beings as subjects of biometric data collection, which offends human dignity. Not only dehumanizes the person, but also infringes bodily integrity, leading to human indignity.

Biometrics severely infringes privacy.

It is way more complicated than tracking your online activity or placing cookies on your phone or computer. Business organizations have already been collecting biometric data of their users and the fate of this data remains uncertain.

Biometrics is a technology-based identification and authentication approach, which may require several other systems to work together to stay operational. Despite all technological advancements, downtimes and system failures are still a reality.

If you have made it this far, it is incumbent on you to help inoculate those around you against the corrupt ideology of morphological identifiers before our ability to speak out against this agenda is taken away for good.

Morphological identifiers are another thing altogether and time is not on our side.

Why? 

Because not everyone in the target population can be fit for biometric identification, which will lead to discrimination and exclusion.

Morphological identifiers will be used to find out subconscious emotional structures behind everyday human experience and behavior.

95% of all purchase decisions are made subconsciously deep down in customers’ minds.

                                     ——————–

Both forms of ID will result in discrimination on a global scale.

What would you do if being in a continuously authenticated state is a necessity?

The day is not far when your car and even the refrigerator will be able to identify you as you hold the handle to open the door.

To quote  Jonathan Haidt’s metaphor from his book The Happiness. 

Hypothesis—needn’t only be made to do “our” bidding against its will, but that we can also train it to want what we want. Perhaps then the greatest potential for freedom lies in creating as much unity between our conscious and unconscious selves as possible.

So, you may be asking yourself at this point, “well if I can’t choose for myself how to live my life, how am I free?”

In answering remember that freedom and opportunity are not the same.

We cannot properly assess the quality of our freedom until we have established whether and to what extent the choices we make are based on adequate understanding.

Freedom is something we say we want, but what sort of freedom would be worth wanting?

Take freedom of movement for instance.

With a growing disregard for individual and collective abilities to properly understand those choices and their broader context by allowing the introduction of Biometric identification schemes we are in fact allowing the erosion of whats is left of Freedom. 

Liberty means being free to make your own choices about your own life, that what you do with your body and your property ought to be up to you. Other people must not forcibly interfere with your liberty, and you must not forcibly interfere with theirs.

Across the years of wars around the world, no single issue unites people more than freedom and no other issue is more important but it remains hard to see just what freedom a human being is supposed to possess.

No matter.  There is one certainty and that is a world without freedom is too cruel to live in.  Of course, freedoms aren’t absolute.

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

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. THE CLIMATE CRISES IS NO LONGER A LOOMING THREAT IT IS ARTFICAL INTELLIGENCE.

29 Saturday May 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change Summit Scotland 2021, Dehumanization., Digital age., Enegery, Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Green Energy., How to do it., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Modern Day Communication., Modern day life., Post - truth politics., POST COVID-19., Purchasing Power., Reality., Renewable Energy., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Eight-minute read) 

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) 

                                  _______________________ 

 

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.

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN THAT THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FREEDOM ? WE ARE NOT FREE AND NEVER WILL BE. .

22 Saturday May 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Dehumanization., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Facebook, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Freedom, Human values., Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, Pandemic, Reality., Robot citizenship., Survival., Technology v Humanity, The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Internet., The Obvious., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , TRACKING TECHNOLOGY., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Twelve-minute read) 

People think they’re free, but in reality, they don’t even understand freedom.

To live a free life, you must first be free.

Rousseau notes that the real mystery of freedom is how we can be in chains and still regard ourselves as free (Rousseau: 181).

And Kant’s argument provides us with a formidable justification for assuming that freedom is the necessary and indispensable condition of human existence given that man has the capacity to act upon the commands of reason: that is the categorical imperative.

If the will is subject to extraneous circumstances or influences it ceases to express itself freely in our actions. In this scheme of things, freedom can only be preserved if the moral laws that individuals endorse and accept as their guidance are such that they can accept them voluntarily (Kant: 57-58).

Just how true in the world of Algorithms, Data collection, Social Media, Search Platforms, Track and Trace, Potential Covid Passports, Smartphones with around-the-clock electronic surveillance to name just a few, remains to be seeing.     

In fact, there is no such thing as freedom. 

Is there a statement more likely to provoke consternation from people than to submit that there is no such thing as freedom?

I think not.

The modern political theory holds that “freedom” is something available to all but in the technology world and post-pandemic world, there is no such thing as freedom in the absolute sense since everyone views freedom differently.

Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?

The dictionary definition of freedom is; The power or right to act, speak or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint and the power to determine action without restraint.

In other words, we have full control over the things that we choose to do.

This is simply not true.

A democratic constitution will not state that each of us is free, what it says is that we have the right to certain freedoms which the constitution is supposed to protect.  

We are simply part of a system of rules that gives us certain rights referred to as freedoms.

So what have we got? 

  • Free means that we freely make the choices we make and are thus are morally responsible for our choices. In addition, we may be held legally accountable for the choices we make.
  • Or does it mean I am stronger than you, so I will retain my freedoms at your expense by the use of force?

There is no such thing as “freedom” because it can’t be defined objectively.

Why? 

Because too many people in the world live with the constraints of poverty, poor access to health care and education, and a structural lack of opportunity.

None of us were representation or were participants in the writing of the rules of the social contract of the Internet.

In the face of such a common reality, is it reasonable to speak of free will as a tool to change lives?

At the most, we might be able to argue that in such circumstances a person is constrained but not determined.

We are free to stop eating but we are not free to stop breathing.

                                             ————–

The truth is that our rights, beliefs, and actions are determined by our biology, neurology, life context, nature, experiences, and interpretation of our experiences.

In psychological terms, free will means that we understand the history of our determinedness; how we have come to be what we are. 

However, the scope of your individual rights has one primary limit: it ends where the rights of another begin.

Apply that universally and you have the basis for all rights.

Instead of using the word “freedom” as an entity all in itself (which does not exist) should we be using rights?

Each culture defines rights differently based on the ethos of the various cultures.

“Rights” are simply arbitrary policies set up by individual societies to meet the needs of the citizens. Different people and different individuals differ on what they believe is a right.

Again, a subjective phrase depending on what is morally right.

It is my belief, and it is a belief shared by many, that these are rights that should be observed, and that the infringement upon these rights of any entity, whether it be government or individual, should be stopped.

So rights are freedoms with the caveat that it’s morally correct to collect Data without our express permission to do so in the first place. A Liberty which is taken for granted.

Take  “Liberty” an abstract word that doesn’t have an absolute definition.

The word simply means whatever it is accepted to mean even if one’s man’s desired Liberty is perceived as infringing on another man’s Liberty.

Freedom, use to be the ability to legally do or think anything that does not infringe upon the rights of another human being whether or not the action or thought is popular or under a certain prevailing viewpoint.

Freedom does happen, in the brain but one’s perception of freedom changes when one can not see the freedom one owns. So freedom these days still exists though it may seem as though it is not all that it is cracked up to be.

Not any longer. To access platforms one has to agree with an untransparent Algorithm that runs that platform.  

Is this morally wrong? 

How do you define “morally wrong” when everyone has a different moral belief?

The problem is that data collection is now the holy grail and the fewer people in a country feel they have been severely limited in their freedom, the less free the country is as a whole.

“Freedom is nothing left to lose”

The current Pandemic has and is highlighting how freedoms that are taken for granted can be reversed. 

As long as the masses do what the elite tells them to do, then they are free.

What then is freedom? 

The power to live as one wishes. – Marcus Tullius Cicero.

The moment we let go is the moment we find freedom. – Rebekah Stephenson.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. – Martin Luther King.

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom assumes responsibility and most people are afraid of that. – Sigmund Freud.

Freedom is the power to choose our own chains. – Jean Jacques Rousseau.

It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. – Tyler Durden.

Money doesn’t buy you freedom, but freedom cannot be achieved without money either. Money doesn’t work for you, you work for money – you’re a slave for money.

                                          __________________

The role of the internet and social media offered the possibility of retrieving a common space and a way for people to share and connect and to be free. 

It was a chance to build an economy that wasn’t based purely on the extraction of resources and capital.

But that’s not what happened.

Instead, digital technology is used to double down on industrialism and it has evolved in everything from the spread of terrorist propaganda to the rise of authoritarianism.

At some point, technology ceased to be a tool to help us get what we want and instead became the only thing we actually want.

Technology is everywhere, and we’re all more or less dependent upon it — so how do we escape the pitfalls?

We’re talking about algorithms here. They live with us, even if we don’t see them.

We stopped using technology and it started using us.

We’re all hostage to our technologies, or we’re simply at the mercy of this system.

We’re being steamrolled by our devices, and the result is a kind of emotional slavery turning crucial decisions about people’s lives over to machines to translate the data into action.

We now live in a consumer democracy that restricts human connection and stokes “whatever appetites guarantee the greatest profit.”

Algorithms are behind the digital services that we consult daily. They are modifying the opinion of their users based on their psychological profiles and they are increasingly being extended to all businesses.

Take a platform like Facebook, and Facebook is using data from your past to dump you into a statistical bucket. Once they know what bucket you’re in, they do everything to keep you in that bucket and to make you behave in ways that are more consistent with all the things about that bucket.

The lifeblood of data science is turning what left of our identity into  “filtered freedom”  “predictive algorithms freedom”  “governance algorithm” “risk reports algorithms, Google search algorithms,  all effectively destroying human autonomy.

With a growing dependence on automated systems that are taking humans and transparency out of the process?

Where are our digital rights? 

How to confront the use of algorithms.

George Orwell once predicted that those who control the information hold the power.

This is more true today than it ever was!

How do you win against a computer that is built to stop you?

How do you stop something that predetermines your fate? 

There must be total and full transparency with all algorithms subject to auditable accountability. 

I can’t control other people, but I can control my choices.  

One of the things we need to make really clear about algorithms — is that they are hand-tailored to a particular decision.

Kant notes that man may come to approve of various rules of social co-operation for a variety of reasons, some of them ethically more obscure than others.

Algorithms are not just doing our thinking for us they are fucking up the world.

AI algorithms are worthless without a dataset to work on.

Because of this, the usefulness of an AI algorithm is intrinsically tied to the availability of high-quality data. In this regard, AI algorithms are fundamentally different from other types of software, whose code is valuable on its own without any additional data.

This is why you see companies like IBM buying Weather Channel’s data operations not because it wanted to know if it’s going to rain, but because climate change is going to be the number-one factor driving global GDP the data will allowing it to do everything from predicting winter energy demand to forecasting crop yields.

Google, Facebook, and others hold similar advantages in their respective areas, possessing vast quantities of consumer and social-media data that can be used to train highly valuable AI tasks, from sentiment analysis for marketing to object-recognition for photos to natural language processing for user interfaces.

For AI tech companies with large treasure troves of data, the sky is the limit, and rest assured it is not to stimulate broad societal benefits but to cash in on your freedoms.

Freedom is to remember your humanity what you do with what’s been done to you.  

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