Category Archives: The Future

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT WORLD ORGANISATIONS . PART FOUR- THE THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF)

18 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by in The Future, The world to day., Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations.

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It would be foolish to assume that the world has entered an “end of crises” stage in its history.

Today, with the Web we should all beware of the challenges facing our existence, but are our World Organisations up to speed.

This series of post examines the biggest and there is none more powerful than this one. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) — yet few know how it works.

It’s the must powerful because the economic and financial linkages which bind us together have brought substantial benefits to people around the world, but they have also had destabilizing effects.

The IMF works actively with the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and other international bodies that share an interest in international trade.

Because we live in an increasingly globalized world and the expansion of the role of markets and their increasing globalization will continue to transform the international economy.

As the Second World War ends, the job of rebuilding national economies begins.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was founded in 1945 on multilateral principles, which stood in sharp contrast to the unilateralism and beggar-thy-neighbour policies of the 1930s.

Also known as the Fund, it was conceived at a United Nations conference convened in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, in July 1944.

The 44 governments represented at that conference sought to build a framework for economic cooperation that would avoid a repetition of the vicious circle of competitive devaluations that had contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

To Day the IMF’s primary purpose is to ensure the stability of the international monetary system—the system of exchange rates and international payments that enables countries (and their citizens) to transact with each other.

Also to serve three related purposes.

First, it would operate as a forum for multilateral economic cooperation, in recognition of the fact that one country’s policies affect other countries. Second, it would help countries to identify and adopt the macroeconomic policies that would help them to achieve and maintain high levels of employment and real income. Third, the Fund would provide temporary financial support, under appropriate safeguards, to help members address balance of payments difficulties without resorting to measures that could damage national or international prosperity.

The primary source of the IMF’s financial resources is its members’ quotas, which broadly reflect members’ relative position in the world economy.

Currently, total quota resources amount to about SDR 238 billion (about $334 billion).

With its near-global membership of 188 countries, the IMF is uniquely placed to help member governments take advantage of the opportunities—and manage the challenges—posed by globalization and economic development more generally.

The IMF tracks global economic trends and performance, alerts its member countries when it sees problems on the horizon, provides a forum for policy dialogue, and passes on know-how to governments on how to tackle economic difficulties.

However it has difficulty conforming to the new global power balance.

The US holds 16.7 percent of the voting power in the Fund, which gives it an effective veto over any major changes in its structure and activities. China meanwhile has a 3.8 percent voting share, not far from Italy’s, which has an economy one-fifth the size.

Its Managing Director Christine Lagarde is one of the few woman in the world of power.Afficher l'image d'origine

  • Headquarters: Washington, D.C.
  • Executive Board: 24 Directors representing countries or groups of countries
  • Staff: Approximately 2,630 from 147 countries
  • Total quotas: US$334 billion (as of 9/4/15)
  • Additional pledged or committed resources: US $903 billion
  • Committed amounts under current lending arrangements (as of 8/27/15): US$164 billion, of which US$145 billion have not been drawn (seetable).
  • Biggest borrowers (amount outstanding as of 9/3/15): Portugal, Greece, Ukraine, Ireland
  • Biggest precautionary loans (amount agreed as of 9/3/15): Mexico, Poland, Colombia, Morocco

Since the debt crisis of the 1980’s, the IMF has assumed the role of bailing out countries during financial crises (caused in large part by currency speculation in the global casino economy) with emergency loan packages tied to certain conditions, often referred to as structural adjustment policies (SAPs). It now acts like a global loan shark, exerting enormous leverage over the economies of more than 60 countries.

These countries have to follow the IMF’s policies to get loans, international assistance, and even debt relief. Thus, the IMF decides how much debtor countries can spend on education, health care, and environmental protection.

Unlike a democratic system in which each member country would have an equal vote, rich countries dominate decision-making in the IMF because voting power is determined by the amount of money that each country pays into the IMF’s quota system.

It’s a system of one dollar, one vote.

The U.S. is the largest shareholder with a quota of 18 percent. Germany, Japan, France, Great Britain, and the US combined control about 38 percent.

The disproportionate amount of power held by wealthy countries means that the interests of bankers, investors and corporations from industrialized countries are put above the needs of the world’s poor majority.

The IMF is funded with taxpayer money, yet it operates behind a veil of secrecy.

Members of affected communities do not participate in designing loan packages. The IMF works with a select group of central bankers and finance ministers to make polices without input from other government agencies such as health, education and environment departments.

The institution has resisted calls for public scrutiny and independent evaluation.

IMF loans and bailout packages are paving the way for natural resource exploitation on a staggering scale. It does not consider the environmental impacts of lending policies, and environmental ministries and groups are not included in policy making.

The focus on export growth to earn hard currency to pay back loans has led to an unsustainable liquidation of natural resources. For example, the Ivory Coast’s increased reliance on cocoa exports has led to a loss of two-thirds of the country’s forests.

The IMF routinely pushes countries to deregulate financial systems.

The removal of regulations that might limit speculation has greatly increased capital investment in developing country financial markets. More than $1.5 trillion crosses borders every day. Most of this capital is invested short-term, putting countries at the whim of financial speculators. The Mexican 1995 peso crisis was partly a result of these IMF policies.

When the bubble popped, the IMF and US government stepped in to prop up interest and exchange rates, using taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street bankers. Such bailouts encourage investors to continue making risky, speculative bets, thereby increasing the instability of national economies.

During the bailout of Asian countries, the IMF required governments to assume the bad debts of private banks, thus making the public pay the costs and draining yet more resources away from social programs.

Is the IMF Obsolete?. Several years ago, even asking such a question would have seemed absurd.

Yet today, with the narrowing of risk spreads in an era of increasingly interconnected markets and more efficient risk management, is the IMF’s role still relevant? Has the rise of Asia, with its reliance on self-insurance by reserve accumulation since 1998, shown the Fund the door?

So is it time for it to consolidate merging with the World Bank. But that might make for conflicting irrelevant missions.

The IMF has thrived over the years by constantly reinventing itself to meet the evolving needs of global financial governance.

The United States, European Union, Japan, and China can do pretty much as they please—in terms of fiscal stance, interest rates, or exchange rates—either cooperating or not as suits their tastes.

For the big boys, the IMF can be no better than a scholarly scold.

A useful role, to be sure, but not a task that justifies a staff of thousands.

The IMF has lost a clear sense of mission and purpose, and it has lost the support of many members. Members have built reserves and made other arrangements to avoid borrowing from the IMF.

The new world order needs a credible, independent global institution to guide it, and make all the other entities—such as a revamped (and constantly reforming) G8 and G20—effective.

The IMF should be a natural to lead this new world order, but unfortunately there is no sign they are really seizing the moment.

Never in the history of the world has a bureaucracy on its own shut itself down. Could this be the first time? Should it be?

On the one hand, globalization and the rapid growth of emerging markets allow prosperity to be shared more broadly. On the other, many countries remain mired in poverty. There are also moves worldwide toward stronger regionalism in political, monetary and trade relations. Global trends toward democracy, broader participation in decision-making, and a growing prominence of civil society groups within and across borders have highlighted the importance of participatory process and outreach in decision-making.

With its near universal membership, it is the only organization that maintains regular discussions on economic policies with almost all countries. It has the capacity to conduct comprehensive economic policy analysis at the global, regional and country levels. And its members are committed to providing information and engaging in peer review.

The IMF is the only global multilateral institution that brings officials with monetary and financial responsibilities together to monitor international developments and to respond when problems arise.

It was taken for granted that one of the world’s largest international institutions, and certainly one of its most important, would forever be part of the economic and political landscape.

Now, this isn’t the case.

In the USA Congress has refused thus far to approve the Administration’s request for $18 billion to help replenish the IMF’s resources, which have been severely depleted by the various Asian rescue packages the Fund arranged earlier this year.

A shortage of resources is one reason (but certainly not the only one) why the Fund didn’t offer to provide Russia more money during late summer (after arranging a package in July).

Even if the US Congress eventually approves the $18 billion the acrimonius debate over the IMF’s funding and future this time does not augur well for approval of additional funding in the future.

In 2014, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was established as a rival to the IMF and World Bank.

In July 2014 the BRICS nations (Brazil,Russia,India,China,and South Africa) announced the BRICS CONTINGENT RESERVE ARRANGEMENT (CRA) with an initial size of US$100 billion. A framework to provide liquidity through currency swaps in response to actual or potential short-term balance-of-payments pressures.

Some experts voiced concern that the IMF was not representative, and that the IMF proposals to generate only US$200 billion a year by 2020 with the SDRs as seed funds, did not go far enough to undo the general incentive to pursue destructive projects inherent in the world commodity trading and banking systems—criticisms often levelled at the World Trade Organisation  and large global banking institutions.

The greatest amount currently on loan is to Mexico, and then Greece. But when you look at the loan as a percentage of GDP, Liberia then Iceland are the highest with 8.5% and 7.4% respectively.

The greatest amount to be paid back per member of the population is Iceland ($2,828.67 per person) and Ireland ($2,619.14 per person).

The IMF has made €2.5 billion of profit out of its loans to Greece since 2010. If Greece does repay the IMF in full this will rise to €4.3 billion by 2024.

Out of its lending to all countries in debt crisis between 2010 and 2014 the IMF has made a total profit of €8.4 billion, over a quarter of which is effectively from Greece.

All of this money has been added to the Fund’s reserves, which now total €19 billion. These reserves would be used to meet the costs from a country defaulting on repayments. Greece’s total debt to the IMF is currently €24 billion.

The International Monetary Fund is meant to be the firefighter of the world economy. Recently, though, it is China that has responded to the ringing of alarms. First, it lent Argentina cash to replenish its dwindling foreign-exchange reserves. Next, with the rouble crashing, China offered credit to Russia. Then Venezuela begged for funds to stave off a default. Strategic interests dictate where China points its financial hose: these countries supply it with oil and food.

 If a government anywhere goes bust, it now has an alternative to the IMF.

Whether the IMF truly benefits the international economy is the subject of considerable debate. Much of the criticism centers on the IMF’s requirements to adopt certain economic policies in order to receive IMF loans, which may encourage poor countries to neglect social concerns in order to comply.

The IMF’s role grows more controversial. It gets a reputation – as a rich bully – bursting into emerging market economies, telling them how to live their life.

If you don’t pay back the IMF, the lender of the last resort to the world, then no one will lend you money. I mean really, no one. Ultimately they paid the IMF in full. Everyone pays. If you want to play in the international economy, if you want to have credit, if you want to have any kind of normal relationship with the outside world, you need to have a normal relationship with the IMF.

Through its notorious structural adjustment programs (SAPs), it has imposed harsh economic reforms in over 100 countries in the developing and former communist worlds, throwing hundreds of millions of people deeper into poverty.

Its fingers and those of the World Bank are all over the (The Trans-Pacific Partnerhsip and The EU trade and investment deal with the US – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – or TTIP.) both of which are quickly becoming the subject of increased interest and criticism. These two trade deals – the former being discussed between the US and Europe, and the latter between the US and Asian nations including Japan and South Korea – stand to change the face of global trade.

This agreement includes Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam to start. Eventually, its advocates hope, it will include every nation on the Pacific rim, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Mexico, Russia, and China.

The TPP is also a profoundly anti-democratic agreement which signs away our right to govern our own economy. Taken to its logical conclusion, this all ultimately amounts to the idea that the profitability of investments must be the supreme priority of state policy–overriding health, safety, human rights, labor law, fiscal policy, macroeconomic stability, industrial policy, national security, cultural autonomy, the environment, and everything else.

Who would fall for a brazen scheme that strengthens protection under the guise of free trade?

You’ve probably heard the old saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.

It is the holy grail, the fundamental principle that underpins much of modern economic thinking.

It may be too late to stop the TPP but we need to think beyond the narrow circle of its signatories.

Just to add to the mind-boggling complexity, ask yourself this: If you own a business and want to trade with Japan, should you access the recently inked Australia Japan deal? Or should you go with the TPP?

The TPP is being driven by America. Like most of these deals, it is politically driven. Fearful of China’s rise, America wants to corral its allies under a trade umbrella. In the process, it also wants to further the interests of American corporations and American workers.

It wants copyright laws and patents tightened and extended. These are agreements that offer protection to corporations and investors, usually justified on the grounds that innovation requires a reward not us the people.

When it comes to economic benefits, both of these Agreements can be and will be downright harmful.

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THE BEADY EYE LOOK AT WORLD ORGANISATIONS. PART TWO- IS NATO RELEVANT.

14 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Environment, European Union., Politics., The Future, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., War, World Organisations.

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In the past 60 plus years, many changes have taken place with society, technology and governments but world peace is for the most part pie in the sky.

It is true that their have been no major global conflicts in the latter half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.

So is Nato still relevant?  Or is it just a pension club for the military old boys.

Since 1999 Nato has struggled in performing ever mission it has launched- Bosnia, Kosova, Afghanistan.

When Estonians pulled the Nato emergency chain on a cyber attack it was left with a lukewarm response raising the question what constitutes an attack on a country that Nato will react to.

What would happen if a war started, or the market crashed? I don’t think that NATO would fight a war together ( Including USA and Canada there are currently 28 member states) to be honest.

The conflicting priorities of Europe and the USA and the absence of a common foe all point to the need for Nato to be refilled into either a new European defense force or into the United Nations as a total peaceful organisation. Since the end of the cold war, NATO and the UN have become nearly interchangeable.

However some still say that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) is more relevant than it has been for years even if many of its members are moving further away from meeting their defense spending obligations.An Italian sailor from the frigate "Alieso" removes a cover from a cannon in the Black Sea port of Varna, Bulgaria, March 9, 2015.

The end of the Cold War and, consequently, the absence of the Soviet threat, did not render NATO ( The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) obsolete. There is no Warsaw Pact anymore, so why is there NATO?

The Alliance is now expanding like crazy. Faster than EU itself.

This means they either feel their power is crumbling and need more power, more allies, or the simple fact NATO has no more meaning.

It is the last surviving relic of the Cold War and is now the centerpiece of US-European relations. It has served as an integrating mechanism for Europe for more than sixty-five years.Afficher l'image d'origine

Here what it cost to-day.

Nato                         2014 Actual         2014                2015              2015

  • Member State        Expenditure       % of GDP      Project Exp        % of GDP
  1. Bulgaria              $604 million              1.3           $565 million        1.16
  2. Canada              $14.3 billion              1             $12.2 billion          null
  3. Estonia               $430 million              2             $461 million          2.05
  4. France                $40.90 billion            1.5          $41.2 billion          1.5
  5. Germany             $44.3 billion             1.14         $41.72 billion        1.09
  6. Hungary              $1.03 billion             0.79          $0.79 billion          0.75
  7. Italy                    $17.3 billion             1.2            $16.3 billion         null
  8. Latvia                  $252 million            0.9            $283 million          1
  9. Lithuania             $359 million             0.78            $474 million        1.11
  10. Netherlands         $8.7 billion             1                $9 billion              null
  11. Norway                $5.8 billion              1.58           $6.8 billion           1.6
  12. Poland                  $10.4 billion           1.9             $10.4 billion         1.95
  13. Romania               $2 billion                1.4         Not yet announced   1.7
  14. UK                        $55 billion              2.07            $54 billion           1.88
  15. US                       $582.4 billion          3.6              $585 billion          3.1
  16. Turkey                   Not known
  17. Albania                         “
  18. Czech Rep                    “
  19. Denmark                      “
  20. Greece                         “
  21. Iceland                        “
  22. Luxembourg                 “
  23. Poland                          “
  24. Slovakia                       “
  25. Slovenia                       “
  26. Portugal                       “
  27. Spain                           “
  28. Belgium                         “

Unfortunately the US funding of  Nato has it wrapped around its finger. It funds between one-fifth and one-quarter of Nato’s budget.

The civil budget for 2015 is € 200 million. The civil budget provides funds for personnel expenses, operating costs, and capital and programme expenditure of the International Staff at NATO Headquarters.

The military budget for 2015 is €1.2 billion. This budget covers the operating and maintenance costs of the NATO Command Structure. It is composed of over 50 separate budgets, which are financed with contributions from Allies’ national defence budgets (in most countries) according to agreed cost-shares.

While there is stagnation in military expenditure from the larger military powers in NATO — the UK, France, Germany, and Canada — that has led to several smaller NATO states to increase their funding. Not coincidentally, some of them would be front line states in a future military conflict between Russia and the NATO alliance.

NATO was founded to promote democratic values and encourage cooperation on defense and security issues. What started as a good idea that was backed by powerful nations, now is not the case.

With Russia involvement in Syria not to mention the Ukraine the real question is: Do we need what I see as a duplication Organisation that appears determined, for the first time in its history, to intervene beyond its borders.

Operational partnerships, such as the one Nato established with Australia in Afghanistan, are an additional source of personnel and resources for Nato-led operations.

Even militarily it does not make sense to have an European Union relining on an Organisation that has as its linchpin of the alliance Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which states that “an armed attack against one or more of them [NATO members] in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all” and that all members are obliged to assist the state(s) under attack.

Article 5 has been invoked only once in NATO’s history, after the terrorist attacks against the US homeland on September 11, 2001.

It says it committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes.

NATO provides security to the world because of their rules and regulations that prevent war. Considering those FACTS it is foolish to say that NATO is not relevant.

No wars have taken place in any country that is part of NATO after they joined.

It is supposed to act under resolutions that are carried out under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty – NATO’s founding treaty – or under a UN mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organizations.

So tell me what irresolution was passed about ring fencing Russia with rockets.

NATO’s incessant push to the east is an attempt to reinstate a Berlin Wall that spans the entire western border of Russia. This has no place in a peaceful world.

It’s no wonder that Russia is worries about that, as well as the new identity and tasks that NATO has awarded itself.

Russia opposes expansion mainly because she fears that the West is trying to isolate her in the corner of Europe, deprive her of her privileged relationship with her former satellites and undermine her national interests. This is why she is so fiercely opposing enlargement to include the Baltic States and Ukraine. NATO is viewed by Russia as nothing more than the club wielded by capitalist sharks.

Without a unified military force Europe (an area of the world that for many centuries was the most warlike on the globe) relies on the Nato. The dissolution of which without a replacement would leave the Continent without the existence of a military option to ensure stability within in its borders.

There is one thing for sure in light of NATO’s character as a political forum of democratic nations, expansion to incorporate those states that had authoritatively been excluded from it and pushed into the arms of the Soviet Union seems a logical consequence.

It can no longer be seen merely as a military Alliance with a defensive character, but as a political one as well, gathering the nations that share common democratic values and respect for human rights and the rule of law. However this is a new world where NATO seems confrontational and counter productive with limited capability to undertake even crisis management operations.

One of the major problems with the preceding league of nations, was the lack of ‘teeth’.

Instead of focusing on the rapidly declining interstate conflicts (as a result of interdependence), maybe Nato should be focusing more on threats such as cyber warfare, terrorism, and piracy, and vetting refugees.

It would be impossible to think a couple of decades ago that the Americans and the Russians might sit at the same table and plan common military operations.

You would think that Nato which is deeply involved in the Syrian war and the United Nations would be encouraging such a move to avoid Turkey being dragged into the War.

Instead Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary-general, said that the organisation intended to “send a clear message” to show that the world’s most powerful military alliance was prepared to act in defence of its citizens. “Nato will defend you, Nato is on the ground, Nato is ready,” he said.

Nato says it is prepared to send troops to Turkey to defend its ally after violations of Turkish airspace by Russian jets,

Then all hell breaks loose as if this was the ultimate pretext for a NATO-Russia war.

But wait; NATO is actually too busy to go to war. The priority, until at least November, is the epic Trident Juncture 2015; 36,000 troops from 30 states, more than 60 warships, around 200 aircraft, all are seriously practicing how to defend from the proverbial “The Russians are Coming!”

Russia’s spectacular entry into the war theater threw all these elaborate plans into disarray.

Surely, there are differences between the US and Russia, but these can be overcome step by step with constructive dialogue and mutual understanding. They are no longer afraid of each other. They do have their differences, as it is natural that they should.

As events in the Ukraine, Syria and now Turkey are tragically demonstrating Nato could become a source of potential danger for the entire world.

The World has enough problems this is not a time for Nato saber-rattling.

Finally it is otter stupidity to think that if a nuclear device designed to emit an EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) were detonated about 300 miles over EUROPE ( most of Europe as we now know it would be gone) that Nato or the USA would do anything other than issue wet wipes.

Also one may wonder why Turkey — a country that is about 2,000 miles to the east of the Atlantic Ocean — finds itself in an entity called the “North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The answer is the roots of accepting non-North Atlantic nations into NATO, mainly Greece and Turkey lies at the heart of the Truman Doctrine — extending military and economic aid to states vulnerable to Soviet threat / expansion. NATO membership should guarantee, in essence, that Turkey would not become a Soviet ally.

Moving forward means dissolving what does not work and finding what will work.

The next two decades will make or break humanity.

Perhaps Nato should stand down as a military force and take up the mantel of fighting Climate Change.

Finally how can we have an ordered world where Russia and China are excluded from the police force?

If Nato is to be relevant it could start by building a world environmental police force.

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THE BEADY EYE ASK THE QUESTION DO WE REALLY CARE.

25 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by in Humanity., Politics., Technology, The Future, Unanswered Questions.

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UNFORTUNATELY THE SAPIENS REGIME ON EARTH HAS SO FAR PRODUCED LITTLE THAT WE CAN BE PROUD OF.

Time and time again massive increases in human power has not improved the well-being of individual humans and has caused immense misery to other animals.

In the last few decades we have made some progress as far as human condition is concerned , with reductions in world wars, plagues, and famines.

But we remain unsure of our goals and remain as discontented as ever.

No body seems to know where we are going. We are more powerful than ever before, but have little idea what to do with the power.

Worse still we seem to be more irresponsible than ever, wreaking havoc on the world and nature while seeking little more than self-satisfaction which we never find.

I am sure like me that you are finding it difficult if not impossible to assimilate never mind keep up with all that is presently taking place in world.

Mass migration, climate change, return to the dark ages ISIS, not to mention wars, terrorists, cheat, (Volkswagen) Countries going broke, Designer drugs, Space exploration, the Web/Internet/Apps.

THE FACT IS THAT WE ARE THE TERROR OF THE ECOSYSTEM and it seems lost on us due to short-term profit and greed.

Most of our world organisations with the advance of technology are out of date, underfunded and unrepresentative of humanity and the planet and in need of radical overhauls, but it is of little concern to the populist at large.

However the good news is that in the back ground there is a revolution going on that is changing the way we live and is going to change evolution itself.

Once more we are being presented with opportunities that are opening up so quickly they are outpacing our collective capacity for making wise and far-sighted decisions.

Presently, only a tiny fraction of these opportunities have being realized.

We are releasing ourselves from the shackles of biology.

We are beginning to re shape our minds and our bodies.

If you think that the mapping the first genome require fifteen years and three billion dollars that to day a persons DNA can be mapped within a few weeks for a mere few hundred bucks which means nothing to most people, but soon we will be able to know what you will die from other than accident or bullet.

The road to designer medical care is well on the way for those that can afford it.

Our social media is blinding us to the true consequences of supplementary devices we now use to live our lives.

Or is it telling us that we are standing on the brink of becoming true cyborgs.

Like storing or brains in the cloud, having inorganic features that are inseparable from our bodies that are modify our abilities, our desires, personalities, and identities.

Do we care that bio-engineering could resurrect the Neanderthals. No

Do we care that we are braking the laws of natural selection with impunity by producing a rabbit that glows.  No

Do we care that we can produce mice that grow human ears, or change sex through hormonal treatment, or creating computer versus that are self learning, or bring back extinct creatures. Are these examples not the first steps of genetically engineer that are changing an individual abilities but also their social structure.  No

Tinkering with or genes won’t necessarily kill us.

But we might be fiddle with Homo Sapiens to such an extent that we will be no longer be Homo Sapiens.

Do we care that the Defense Advance research project Agency in the US is developing cyborgs out of insects? No

Do we care that computer algorithms are running the stock exchange or selecting target for drones, running our economies, teaching the next generation? No

What if we have quantum computer power?  Our successors will then function on a different level of consciousness.  Not  to worried we are human.

The Good news. If indeed we become cyborgs with some thing beyond consciousness that we cannot conceive, it seems doubtful that Christianity or Islam will be of much interest to us or our current social organisation of Communist or Capitalist, or which gender we are.

At this point you might think why worry we are only upgrading into a different type of human being.

Even though the implications of creating a mind inside a computer is far more dramatic than anything we have seen to date there is a great and urgent danger that our complacency which is hidden by science under the umbrella of The Gilgamesh Project (that justifies everything that science does by labeling it as curing diseases and saving human lives) is going to be nonrecoverable in the near future.

In my view its time we decide what we want to want by influencing the direction that scientists are taking.

If what is happening is allowed to continue and continue it will without imaginative social policies blight our society and there will be millions of people living wretchedly lives and reacting accordingly.

Globalization, technological changes, and governments policies have produced a class structure with a tiny plutocracy of billionaires, corporations and algorithms that are doing away with people.

We need a politics of time.

We need to scrap the United Nations and replace it with a new fully funded¨( see previous post) World People Protection Organisation that reflects the needs of the planet and all that live on it.

We must realize before its to late that the growing structural inequality is socially unsustainable. A basic world wage would be a good start. ( See Post We don’t live in a digital world the washing machine has changed lives more than the internet)

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT LIFE.

23 Wednesday Sep 2015

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“ FOLLOW YOUR BLISS AND THE UNIVERSE OPENS DOORS FOR YOU WHERE THERE WERE ONLY WALLS”

Everything has being figured out except how to live.

Life exists in individual moments and it is up to us make sure that those moments are vast, interconnected and grand.

To make a masterpiece out of life. One that we would live again and again for all eternity. This is what we should strive for.

I love this idea, essentialising our lives, of italicising our experiences, of turning our story into thus story, of seeing the universe in the pacific and sort of align ourselves with the archetype of the Hero’s journey, of trying to see a departure from the ordinary in every single instant. A chance to learn something new, a chance to leverage obstacles and learn from them and met people along the way that can teach us something.

Transcend your own limitations, as Stephen Johnston says, “ the world is full of clues and you can read your way through it.” If you are able to turn your life into an art piece. If you are able to turn your narrative into a non-narrative, then you become that Hero; you become the God of your life. It is the archetype of every Film. It’s the Joseph Campbell Hero’s journey.

The problem is that Capitalism has turned life into Consumerism. If people are richer and healthier, then they must be happier.

But social, ethical and spiritual factors have as great an impact on our happiness as material conditions.

Perhaps in this time of modern technology we are beginning to see alienation and meaninglessness replacing prosperity.

So what is happiness? What is it that really makes people happy? What do we measure?

A few weeks ago I wrote a post on Desire.

We all desire to be happy but is it just something we feel inside us.  A sense of either immediate pleasure or long-term contentment.

Or is it the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.

It is quite obvious that money does indeed bring happiness, but only up to a point and beyond that point it has little significance.

Are people happier when living in democracies or dictatorships or living married or single?

Has the democratization process of the last decades contributed to the happiness of humankind or has it had an opposite effect with more divorce?

Questionnaires correlate happiness with various objective factors. But if it is inside who can it be measured ?

Illness decreases happiness.

Family and community have a great impact on happiness.    

The importance of human expectations has far-reaching implications for happiness.

Our intolerance of inconvenience and reliance on technology may well lead to discontent on a massive scale.

Through advertising and mass media we are depleting the reservoirs of global contentment by pasting our expectations on to the material conditions of others.

Face book is becoming the giant billboard of life with the smart phone the messenger of contentment and discontentment.

Supposing science did come up with cures for all diseases and an effective anti ageing therapies and regenerative treatments the immediate result will be an unprecedented epidemic of anger and anxiety.

Those that cannot afford the treatments which will be the vast majority will be beside themselves with rage.

So lets ask the question once more, – what is happiness?

Winning the lotto – No.

Because people are made happy by one thing and one thing only

A PLEASANT SENSATION FROM WITHIN.

There is no happy genetic line. Happiness is enjoyed for a momentary rush that does not last for ever. When you get what you desire you not any happier.

Happiness consists in seeing one’s life in its entirety as meaningful and worthwhile. Our values make all the difference.

If we have a why to live such as a belief of everlasting bliss in the life thereafter perhaps the trick is in synchoronising one’s personal delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective delusions of the capitalist world.  So we are in line with the narratives of the people around us you can convince yourself that your life has a meaning.

Quite a depressing conclusion. Does happiness really depend on self- delusion?

Perhaps its time for Capitalism to have some Liberalism with Socialism before we are all swallowing pills.

The relentless pursuit of happiness may be misguided.

With the current revolution of technology and the arrival of Artificial Intelligence we humans are going to discover that it is not so important that our expectations are fulfilled.

The Question will be do we understand the truth about ourselves before it too late.

What influences the happiness and suffering of individuals is within our grasp and we had better start grasping it.

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THE BEADY EYE WRITES AN OTHER OPEN LETTER TO THE PARIS SUMMIT ON CLIMATE CHANGE.

31 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Environment, European Union., Humanity., Natural World Disasters, Politics., Sustaniability, The Future, Where's the Global Outrage.

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31st August 2015.

Dear Delegate,

When policies on emissions reductions collide with policies focused on economic growth, economic growth will win out every time.

There is no point in spending a lovely week in Paris talking about what should be done about Climate change and coming up with an agreement to cut emissions by placing A Price Tag on carbon.

The true financial costs of climate change is away beyond any price tag or unenforceable agreement.

What value do we place on the ocean’s coral reefs and the myriad animals they support, and how do we weigh their loss against other values? What price tag do you put on a species of bird or fish or mammal which, once gone, will never return?

How does humanity weigh moral accountability if our own carbon emissions contributed to that destruction?

Isn’t it about a sustainable planet? A sustainable and biologically diverse planet?

Most likely our descendants will be left to adapt to a warmer world where greater climatic uncertainties, depleted resources and human migrations, amongst other, will be the norm.

If climate change affects not only a country’s economic output but also its growth, then that has a permanent effect that accumulates over time, leading to a much higher social cost of carbon than any price tag agreed.

The economic damage caused by a ton of carbon dioxide emissions – often referred to as the “social cost” of carbon – will actually be far higher than any of us can imagine.

There is no solution to an event that is all ready taking place.

There can only be a change to the event or a confinement to the end result.

If there is no solution to how the world is going to finance this change your and you fellow delegates might as well go home and bask in the sunshine of an agreement that is as porous as the paper it is written on.

In his fascinating book “Catastrophe: Risk and Response”, published in 2004, Richard Posner argues that we do not do enough to hedge against catastrophic risks such as climate change, asteroid impacts or bioterrorism.

In light of the “competition” of existential risks, how much should humanity invest in the mitigation of climate change?

The answer is:  Human extinction is a risk we all share—and it would be an unprecedented event that can happen only once.

Growth at all costs is the mantra of the technological world we live. Climate policies that require public sacrifice and limiting economic growth are doomed to failure.

Believe in the current pledge-and-review mechanism is a farce.

From current projections we know that climate change will pose a serious challenge by 2040 for many organisations. Putting a true economic cost on these risks can act as a catalyst to taking action today in order to help organisations better prepare for the future.

There is only one way to achieve this and that is the creation of a World Aid Commission or tax on profit   for profit sake.

Would you rather have a one percent tax increase on everyone in the country or kill one percent of the population?  This will not work as the cost of collection and administration, or culling, would out weigh any benefits.

The solution is a Universal 0.05% commission on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions (over $20,000) on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions and on all Drilling Wells.  

This will create a perpetual Fund to tackle the world problems.  

 

The expected loss to society because of catastrophic climate change is so large that it cannot be reliably estimated.

Climate policies should flow with the current of public opinion rather than against it, and efforts to sell the public on policies that will create short-term economic discomfort. People are willing to bear costs to reduce emissions, but they are only willing to go so far.

The Dangerous Underestimation of Climate

Change’s Cost and the

financing of any agreement is self-evident.

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THE BEADY EYE TAKES A LOOK AT WHAT HUMANITY HAS ACHIEVED TO DATE.

28 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by in Environment, Humanity., Sustaniability, Technology, The Future

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The most accurate simulation of the human brain ever has been carried out, but a single second’s worth of activity took one of the world’s largest supercomputers 40 minutes to calculate.Men’s and women's brains are wired differently

SO LET’S HAVE A LOOK AT WHAT WE HAVE ACHIEVED SINCE WE CAME DOWN OUT OF THE TREES AND STOOD UPRIGHT.

( I am sure there will be many gaps in what I write here so you will have plenty of ammunition to comment. Those of you who are shadow people lead by the like button feel free to press it. )

Right: On your marks we off.

At first we were of no significance till we discovered that we could walk up right, discovered fire, tools, and language. We became foragers/ hunters with no hierarchy spreading all over the world providing there was a land bridge developing new weapons and new clothing due to climate change and perhaps unfriendly rivals.

All that changed when we began to devote our efforts to manipulating the lives of animals and plants. The Farmer had arrived. More babies to be fed, so we burnt down forests and planted wheat thus becoming wheat slaves living in settled artificial enclaves dedicated to growing wheat.

Because of this we discovered writing and numbers, money and religion.

This lead to placing a material value not just on possession but on ourselves resulting in a conscious effort to create laws, customs, procedures, to run societies.

By this time with the human brain going into hibernation due to all the information that needed to be stored we are well on the way to creating religious gods, empires, armies, taxes, etc  Thus the arrival of bureaucracy, rulers, social division, ruling classes, slaver, gun power, the wheel and sea worthy ships.

Of course building, pollution, masculine dominance and exploration were now in full swing and it’s not long before the world is dividing into Empires of different cultures, different languages, different belief, most still using their legs and horses with the odd set of wheels to get around.

The Roman empire broke up, the Mongol empire went to pieces, the Chines empire built a wall, America and Europe did not know each other existed. Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world.

90% of humans lived in a single mega world ; the world of Afro- Asia the rest lived in America, central America, the Andean world, the Australian world, islands of the Pacific.

They were all swallowed up by the Afro-Asian world.

Resources were plentiful. Till along came How Much is it.  Money the foundation of Greed and cooperation between strangers drastically reducing diversity. The first step to we becoming US against the Rest.

The European Industrial Imperial steamroller gradually obliterated our uniqueness.

The Spanish quashed the Inca, Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigate the globe, Marco Polo gave the Vatican a Chines map of America, they sending Columbus off to discover it, while Queen Vic with the help of Darwin, Livingstone, Nelson, expanded the British Empire with ball and chain, cannon.

At this stage there is no evidence that history is working for the benefit of humans. Science, engineering, flight, medical advances, power, religious rightness, profit, wealth, corruption, greed and reckless plundering of the earths resources, ignorance, and credit now come into play.

Empirical observations are being put together with the help of mathematical tools.

All of this cost money and it did much more than just charting the universe, mapping the planet and cataloging the animals than did Galileo, Columbus and Darwin. If there had being no funds or these geniuses and they had not being born we would be still waiting on some others to do so.

Of course none of the above is in strict chronological order and I have left out, Michelangelo Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, William Shakespeare, Bach, Confucius, Aristotle, Newton, to mention a few but I hope you get the gist.

I grow sick and tired of all the same old lies
I might be a little young, so what’s wrong?
You don’t have to be old to be wise

— Judas Priest

Anyway it is suffice to say that European imperialism was entirely unlike all other imperial projects.

So here we are. WE CREATED THE WORLD THAT YOU SEE AROUND YOU.
After numerous wars and two million years of being marginal creatures, thirteen odd billion years after the big bang we have arrived at the Capitalist creed OF THE FREE MARKET and a belief that Science which is about 500 years old can solve all our problems.
The question is how many people want to live in a world that you see around you.
We need to ignite a second cognitive revolution. It is unclear whether bio engineering could really resurrect Neanderthals. Tinkering with our genes won’t necessarily kill us. But we might fiddle to such an extent that we would no longer be Homo sapiens.
ayn rand apollo 11 human achievement day
In a previous post I asked what do we want to become. A human who stood on the moon and saw a dying world that could be so beautiful if we learned to share.
                                               Paradise Lost or Found.
Unlike other animals, we humans need to create the means for our physical survival as well as our spiritual well-being. We need to figure out how to acquire food, build shelters, cure illnesses, build cities, travel to the Moon, and create everything that deserves the label “civilization.”
Take a moment to look around you. Reflect on your own achievements and take pride in them. Reflect on the virtues that have allowed you to achieve the things you value.
The potential for human achievement is endless, but only if we truly value achievement and appreciate that the achievements we create in our modern world are manifestations of the moral virtues we each create in our character. Not Twitter, not Face book, not the internet, or the web of everything, not Google, not Apple.
If there’s one thing that many science and reality-minded people tend to do quite a bit, it’s over analyze every little detail.
The answer is right in front of your eyes . Open them.
We must tap Greed by creating a World Aid Fund by placing 0.05% commission on all High Frequency Stock Exchange Transactions, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over $20.000. on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions, on all new Drilling wells. ( See previous Posts)

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S IT TIME FOR CAPITALISM TO PAY.

18 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Environment, Humanity., Politics., Sustaniability, The Future, Where's the Global Outrage.

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If you are one of those people who I call shadow people don’t bother reading this post in order to press the like button. However if you’re a real person all suggestions or comments will be appreciated.

We all know that there is the governments of more than 190 nations gathering in Paris to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change.  The aim is to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and thus avoiding the threat of dangerous climate change.

The crunch Paris climate conference is from 30 November to 11 December.

Will it achieve anything worth while other than the usual media hype.

I think not.  Why?  Because the very thing that caused the problem is not there and it will in the long run ignore any agreement.

 

With global population rapidly marching toward 11 billion and with it the demand for food, health services, energy and security, we need to reexamine the models that have gotten us to this point.

Currently, our planet is on track to fly past the 2 degrees Celsius warming that scientist have repeatedly warned marks the safe range for humans on this planet. Beyond this point, we will only see the outcome of these challenges become more severe and an increased potential of no return.

“Global climate change is not a man-made. “It is a capital-made problem.”.

Over the last 40 years, global wealth has become a more concentrated problem.

During this time, we saw a massive expansion in our planet’s destruction and disruption; global carbon emissions grew by 75 percent; deforestation rates climbed to 17 percent in the past 50 years.

Clearly, the neoliberal economic growth model being promoted as a road to economic development is not distributing our gains in wealth to the majority, but to an elite minority at the expense of the planet’s future habitability.

Global emission have also grown 70% since 1970.

Economic Research estimates that for every 1 degree Celsius in additional warming, violent crimes such as assault, murder and rape will increase by 2.4 percent, while larger conflicts such as riots, ethnic violence, political instability and gang activity will increase by 11.4 percent.

Economically, 5 percent of the global market economy is at risk currently due to climate change. This is not accounting for damages due to increased intensity of weather events, of which 80 percent will be felt by poorer Southern Hemisphere countries.

Put in plain and simple language: Limitless production and consumption is not possible on a finite planet.

We have the chance to change this paradigm through new technologies, new business models and new financial structures which redevelop the role business plays in society.

In this challenge, we need to account for not just the natural limits of our planets, but also for the injustice and inequality generated by our current economic paradigm by responding with a collaborative spirit.

We need: A new economy.

As investors, we need to review the business and financial models that we promote.

Just building a clean tech innovation economy is not enough.

Complete change will not happen overnight.

It will not be built on the back of one investor or one innovative entrepreneur.

It will be something that business owners, investors, political leaders, consumers and entrepreneurs must all have to work together toward.

What explains our collective failure on climate change?

Why is it that instead of dealing with the problem, all we seem to do is make it worse?

The answer is simple

ITS THE CAPITALISM GOD OF PROFIT.

WHICH IS NOT compatible with the actions needed to combat climate change.

Capitalism isn’t helping. In fact, it can’t help the cause, but it can pay to rectify it. .

“You might be able to argue that the economic costs of taking action are greater than allowing climate change to play out for a few more decades …

“But most people don’t actually like it when their children’s lives are ‘discounted’ in someone else’s Excel sheet, and they tend to have a moral aversion to the idea of allowing countries to disappear because saving them would be too expensive.” Naomi Klein.

She prompts an ideological solution.  We all stop being greed bad boys.

Free market cannot accomplish what needs to be done.

We need to think differently, radically differently” for changes to be even remotely possible.

Can, as Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1967, a “radical revolution of values” shift our society from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society?

We need to take our smartphones to the streets in massive demonstrations demanding action.

We’re too selfish, we’re too greedy — is that this idea of the “we” of who we are that has to changed.  Which of course is impossible. 

There is only one solution.

Pledges, New Global Agreements, Discussions, Hand Shakes, you name it are useless.

Capitalism must be made to pay by placing a World Aid Commission of 0.05% on all Stock Exchange transactions over $20,000, on all High Frequency Transaction, on all Foreign Exchange Transaction over $20,000, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions.

This will crate a perpetual World Aid Fund.

No other solution will work as no one wants to Pay the Bill.

If you have any suggestions (if you think that the contents of this post are worthy) as to how we can bring the suggestion to the attention of the delegates in Paris I am all ears.

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS INTO THE COMING DIGITAL BLACK HOLE OF HISTORY.

17 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by in Education, Google Knowledge., History., Privatization, Sustaniability, Technology, The Future, The Internet.

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Time spent looking at a cellphone is time spent oblivious to the world.

Humanity’s first steps into the digital world could be lost to future historians.

We faced a “forgotten generation, or even a forgotten century.” through “bit rot,” when old computer files become useless junk.

There is a sense of powerlessness and fatalism about TECHNOLOGY.

If consciousness or HISTORICAL intelligence are lost, it might mean that value itself becomes absent from the universe.

We are nonchalantly throwing all of our data into what could become an information black hole without realising it.

Ancient civilizations suffered no such problems, because histories written in cuneiform on baked clay tablets, or rolled papyrus scrolls, needed only eyes to read them.

To day “intelligence” is related to statistical and economic notions of rationality – colloquially, the ability to make good decisions, plans, or inferences.  To study today’s culture, future scholars will be faced with PDFs, Word documents, and hundreds of other file types that can only be interpreted with dedicated software and sometimes hardware too.

 From This to This      

Most of the images we take today are uploaded straight from a digital camera or a phone, with the picture never actually existing as a physical artifact.

The significance of documents and correspondence is often not fully appreciated until hundreds of years later.

We’ve learned from objects that have been preserved purely by happenstance that give us insights into an earlier civilisation,”

We need history to embrace new values and institutions in pursuit of a just, fulfilling, and sustainable civilization not a “digital black hole”.

In fact, due to the intricate disconnectedness of production and economies around the world today, our technological civilization is perhaps more prone to a sudden collapse than other societies through history.

When you think about the quantity of documentation from our daily lives that is captured in digital form, like our interactions by email, people’s tweets, and all of the world-wide web the more important it is that we create legal permissions to copy and store software before it dies.

So digital objects we create today can still be rendered far into the future.

Deciding on the best format to preserve them for the next hundred years relies on anticipating what technology is likely to still be available in the future.

Computer hard disks can hold vast amounts of digitised information, but everything is lost if it fails or is wiped.

How do we preserve our interaction on Facebook, Twitter, comment threads and citizen journalism across the web?

In fact, due to the intricate disconnectedness of production and economies around the world today, our technological civilization is perhaps more prone to a sudden collapse than other societies through history. Plenty of once-great civilisations have collapsed, and our current industrialised society is by no means invulnerable –

Who will decide what worth keeping and where will we preserve a core kernel of human knowledge.

The significance of documents and correspondence is often not fully appreciated until hundreds of years later.

Even though Wikipedia represents a vast repository of information, it is not structured in a way that would guide a post-catastrophe society through stages of recovery.

Google certainly is not.

It has already changed the world by altering the way we interact with technology and there can be no questions its long-term ambitions.

Its mission is to collect information which you will have to buy with a google wallet.

“We envision a marketplace for payment instruments, commerce and loyalty services”

It’s not hard to envision a fully intact ecosystem of Google offerings with location-based mobile ads driving tracked incremental revenue via etail integrated mobile commerce, or via sales that are picked up in-store, via mobile payment.

“Now toss in Google Offers, NFC and QR codes for trigger point marketing, and the fact that Google already has the accounts open and the pot gets even richer.”

Personally I have little time for Banks but I would rather have a bank to provide a of mobile wallet products, not technology companies that can disappear into the cloud.

If Google was to make a move into supporting bank-branded wallets we would all become Googlefyed.

Google has far more on its plate than just financial services.

It’s a major player in telecommunications with its Android smart phone platform. It’s made forays into thermostats, home security and satellite imaging.

So it’s not just words and images that we risk losing for ever it’s the “grey literature” of official reports, briefings and policy statements that are only published online also risk being lost to the future?

Redstone Computer Tertiary Memory.PNG

Bit rot, a digital dark age is on the horizon unless we store information in DNA.

“It is very possible that … one machine would suffice to solve all the problems … of the whole [world]” – Sir Charles Darwin, 1946.

“Technology gives us the facilities that lessen the barriers of time and distance – the telegraph and cable, the telephone, radio, and the rest.” – Emily Greene Balch.

Perhaps The ETHEREUM IS THE ANSWER.

Importantly, because there is not a company or indeed any entity in charge of or controlling Ethereum, the cost of running the infrastructure doesn’t have to include any profit margin.

It might allow us to push the boundary on what the digital realm can cover.

But this is a what if for the history books.

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT DEATH

14 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by in Humanity., Technology, The Future

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Of all mankind’s ostensible insoluble problems, one has remain the most vexing, interesting and important, the problem of death itself.

The denial of death is one of humanity’s deepest motivations.

In the decades to come we may see, one universe, one humankind, one religion, that unites us all but in the end we all share the same destiny – that just as surely as we are alive, so we die.

Death reminds us of our human vulnerability in spite of all our technological advances.

It is an integral part of our lives that gives meaning to human existence.

All that you are, and all that you’ve done and been is culminated in your death.

But now it is turning into a technical problem?

In recent years, medical technology has advanced rapidly. It has been suggested that methods such as nanotechnology, cell rejuvenation, and gene therapy might result in a significant increase in the human lifespan.

In theory, with the help of medical technology, it could be possible to keep living for hundreds or thousands of years, even eternally.

The whole brain definition of death is an unwieldy, historical compromise which will unravel as 21st century technologies permit the repair, replacement and manipulation of body, and especially brain, tissue.

We would basically be left with suicide, illnesses, accidents, famine, and homicides. Another words the like hood of dying from some disease or virus will be highly unlikely.

Even if it seems a distant goal the quest of immortality is very much on the cards.

The (current) essence of being human is to be mortal, immortals would necessarily be a different type of being and therefore have a different identity.

To control human destiny, with the dream of conquering death would raise profound questions.

You are not obliged to entertain all thought experiments, no matter how implausible, but if technology will make our current ethical views inadequate within some finite, foreseeable period of time, we should adjust our thinking, and law, to a more solid footing.

Our current concepts of death don’t very well address the status of a person who might eventually be brought back to life.

When and if these remediative technologies come available, there will be tremendous material interests at stake. These technologies will develop just as the industrialized world shifts to increasing proportion of elderly.

Nanotechnology is developing a bionic immune system, and by the year 2050 we could reach a mortal state.

Research is also being conducted on the creation of computer chip matrices into which nerves can grow, and which could permit two-way communication between neurons and computers.

Such computer-brain interfaces raise the possibility that computer technology may also be developed to remediate neural capacities.

Already advances are being made in electronic prosthetics for sight and hearing, from cochlear implants to optic nerve interfaces.

Computer engineers are also developing biological computing and storage media3, and software that learns, suggesting a future convergence between organic computing, neural network software and neural-computer interfaces.

Personhood in a cybernetic medium is a common, but minority, position in the field of artificial intelligence and cognitive science.

Most cognitive scientists accept the materialist assertion that mind is an emergent phenomenon from complex matter, and that cybernetics may one day provide the same requisite level of complexity as a brain.

Of course, those who embrace the possibility of self-aware machine minds do not necessarily want to see them be developed, or grant them “human rights” once they do develop.

Another technology that may eventually challenge our death concepts is cryonic suspension, the freezing of heads, or whole bodies, for eventual reanimation.

Barring the end of civilization as we know it, technology will eventually develop the capacity to remediate severe brain injuries, and perhaps even translate human thought into alternative media.

So you are can begin to see that we will be forced to acknowledge that the destruction of the “integrative” functions of the body is an inadequate definition of death, since the social person will remain intact.

When we get to the point where neurological functions can be controlled, designed and turned on and off, the illusory sense of continuous self-identity will become more obvious.

Once we cast off this fundamental predicate of Enlightenment ethics, the existence of an autonomous individual, we are beyond the ethical frameworks of contemporary bioethics.

It might be necessary that old people had a duty to die.

We soon have to answer the question: Is there can only be one death.

There are ethical worldviews that do not have the autonomous individual at their core, from the Democracy to Communism.

By the time we have developed adequate frameworks based on our cherished liberal democratic values it will be too late.

After more than a century of looking for it, brain researchers have long since concluded that there is no conceivable place for such a self to be located in the physical brain, and that it simply doesn’t exist. Luckily if we wished to cure death, there is absolutely no scientific evidence that we might be able to do that even in the distant future.

But don’t be fooled. Have a look,

//youtu.be/u_Vpy3xs0cE

The only modern ideology that still awards death a central role is nationalism.                          “The Glorious Dead.”  Résultat de recherche d'images pour "we shall remember them"

Warfare has been the crucial defining element for Britain and its empire in the 20th century. There have been only two years since 1945 that a serving member of the armed forces has not been killed.

The Cenotaph (literally “empty tomb” in Greek)  May they rest in Peace. 

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The Beady Eye looks at “biology as technology”

11 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Big Data., Environment, Humanity., Sustaniability, Technology, The Future, Where's the Global Outrage.

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Artificial intelligence is all around us.

But what is the most powerful technology on Earth?

You may think of a B-2 bomber, or a nuclear reactor, or maybe even far-reaching social media platforms.

But there is only one technology known to man that can heal itself, adapt to its environment, sustain itself for decades, replicate, and evolve:

The living organism.

Biological systems have the ability to do things that no human-made machine or chemistry can begin to approach: the ability to replicate, to learn, to scale from one to billions, to adapt, and to evolve.

By gaining control over biological systems and their biochemical pathways — and designing new pathways by rewriting the DNA “software” in cells — synthetic biologists are ushering in the “Biological Age.”

Creating substances with not only superior electrical, optical, and mechanical properties, but with properties that we have never seen before in man-made materials: materials that can regenerate, that respond to the environment, that learn and evolve.

We’re “on the cusp of revolutionary change” coming much “sooner than you think.”

Sugar-fueled biological actuators for hybrid robotics are on the horizon, all grown in “living foundries.

You might think that this is science fiction but it is becoming tangible due to the rapid, simultaneous development of genome-scale engineering tools, enormous data sets of genome sequences, new imaging and analytical capabilities, and the convergence of advances in information science and engineering with biology..

While it’s difficult, if not impossible, to predict future consumer applications.

If we could harness the power of biology in a predictable manner, then we could create living materials that perform functions seamlessly, cheaply, and with very low energy requirements, like walking, talking, dancing, killing, Robots.

A goal along these lines, of course, raises a lot of questions:

Better for whom? Better in what way? For biological humans? For all conscious beings? If that is the case, who or what is conscious?

Evolutionary biological changes move every which way with no apparent direction.

Yet, we continue nonetheless to see a movement toward greater complexity and greater intelligence, indeed to evolution’s supreme achievement of evolving a neocortex capable of hierarchical thinking we are now on the verge of  creating  a “post human” stage of civilization.

This stage may be only a few decades away.

Unfortunately if all the AI systems decided to go on strike tomorrow, our civilization would be crippled: Primitive human societies might then remain on Earth indefinitely but not to worry we’ll be uploading our entire MINDS to computers by 2045 and our bodies will be replaced by machines within 90 years.

Ray Kurzweil - director of engineering at Google - claims that by 2045 humans will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally immortal - an event called singularity

The simple act of connecting with someone via a text message, e-mail, or cell-phone call uses intelligent algorithms to route the information. (The number of people using Twitter and Facebook daily is around 1,138,000,000)

So a digital brain will need a human narrative of its own fictional story so that it can pretend to be a biological human.

I could at this stage give your brain a more ambitious goal, such as contributing to a better world which is badly needed considering that we are well on the way to extinction. However there is no justification for thinking that our own species will be especially privileged or protected from future technological disasters.

We tend to view the existence of our race as constituting a great ethical value when in fact our existence in a biology sense it is not worth the steam off our piss.

Why?

Because in the future almost every product we touch will be originally designed in a collaboration between human and artificial intelligence and then built-in automated factories.

Because we will continue to pollute our planet and the sky’s above to appease the Stock Exchange.  

Because there will be many ways in which humanity could become extinct before reaching post humanity by wiping out what we should be rely on.

Perhaps the most natural interpretation of disaster is that we are likely to go extinct as a result of the development of some powerful but dangerous technology to combat climate change. We would do well to remember Robert Oppenheimer words when he first viewed an atomic explosion ” Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”

Extinction might be the best option.

It is not clear that creating a new human race is immoral.

As non biological brains become as capable as biological ones of effecting changes in the world—indeed, ultimately far more capable than unenhanced biological ones—we will need to consider their moral education.

The question is can they have any morals and if so what left of us will have to dumb itself down considerably. For any post human stage system that displayed the knowledge of Watson, (Watson is technology that works to understand us) for instance, would be quickly unmasked as non biological.

So what does the Future of Tech Robots.

The power of computing doubles, on average, every two years quoting the developments from genetic sequencing and 3D printing. Technological singularity is the development of  ‘super intelligence’ brought about through the use of technology.

Itself imply that we are likely to go extinct soon, and we are unlikely to reach a post human stage.

What would be left of humanity would be zombies or “shadow-people” – humans simulated only at a level sufficient for the fully simulated people not to notice anything suspicious.

HOWEVER ALL IS NOT LOST

This possibility of a post human stage  is compatible with us remaining at, or somewhat above, our current level of technological development for a long time before going extinct.

We are still lacking a “theory of everything”, but we cannot rule out the possibility that novel physical phenomena, not allowed for in current physical theories, may be utilized to transcend those constraints.

If we could create quantum computers, or learn to build computers out of nuclear matter or plasma, we could push closer to the theoretical limits. At our current stage of technological development, we have neither sufficiently powerful hardware nor the requisite software to create conscious minds in computers.

Simulating the entire universe down to the quantum level is obviously in feasible, unless radically new physics is discovered.

As we gain more experience with virtual reality, we will get a better grasp of the computational requirements for making new worlds appear realistic to their visitors.

These shortcomings will eventually be overcome.

At the moment the amount of computing power needed to emulate a human mind can be roughly estimated. Memory seems to be a no more stringent constraint than processing power.

Our current understanding impose theoretical limits on the information processing attainable in a given lump of matter. We can with much greater confidence establish lower bounds on post human computation, by assuming only mechanisms that are already understood.

One candidate is molecular nanotechnology, which in its mature stage would enable the construction of self-replicating nanobots capable of feeding on dirt and organic matter – a kind of mechanical bacteria. Such nanobots, designed for malicious ends, could cause the extinction of all life on our planet.

So we are able to gain an insight into how an apparently purposeless and directionless process can achieve an apparently purposeful result in one field (biological evolution) by looking at another field (thermodynamics).

In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between both.

As you cannot create energy or destroy it and energy can only move from a state of higher activity to one lower activity it stands to reason that biological evolution, simple put, is descent with modification.

To acknowledge that history is not deterministic is to acknowledge that it is just a coincidence that most of us believe in nationalism, capitalism, and human rights. There is no proof that history is working for the benefit of humans.

Now you might think that all of this is hog wash, but every point in history is a crossroads and sometimes history- or the people who make history – takes unexpected turns.

How we using and develop Technology will determine the forming any new Monotheism Global Society.

Are we heading towards ecological disaster or technological paradise?  Both do not seem bound by any deterministic laws.

You may rest assured that when Cognitive computers and Quantum computers get together with Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality along with the Arms race, biochemical pathways will not enhance human well-being.

Because human brains suffer from minimal development.

Instead of concentrating on developing technologies beneficial to mankind we are developing  autonomous weapons with no accountability to select, to kill, or destroy ( which means no deterrence of future crimes, no retribution for victims, no social condemnation, no meaningful human control)

Individual humans like me are far too ignorant and weak to influence the course of history to my own advantage. It for some mysterious reason like all of us follows one path then another like a gene that has no awareness, or consciously seek to survive.

The next effort of science will be to create a new body for the human being. It will have a perfect brain-machine interface to allow control and a human brain life support system so the brain can survive outside the body.

A computer environment into which human minds can be uploaded.

These are daunting challenges, to say the least.

Each will require the commitment and individual efforts of literally billions of our fellow humans, as well as many careful, specific programs put into effect by entire populations. But there is one action that we must take, individually and as a world, if any of the others are to be successful. It directly contradicts some of our deepest evolutionary programming, but if we are to survive as a species, we must stabilize or even reduce population size.

God forbid. Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.

However it is conceivable to imagine history going on for generations upon generations while bypassing the Scientific Revolution as modern culture and science have to rely on religious and ideological beliefs to justify and finance its existence and scientific research.

So the below fellows might be the very thing to complete the Job. Rid the world of the very thing that is destroying it. 

One last thought try not to join the shadow people by pressing the like button.  Leave a comment. When you comment, you inspire, when you press the like button you expire.

Here a few links that might open your eyes.

https://youtu.be/XNbaR54Gpj4            https://youtu.be/PVXQUItNEDQ

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