(A ONE MINUTE READ)

With this deal the Tories have wilfully imperilled three decades of Irish-British peace, of good relations between Ireland and Britain, and risked plunging IRELAND back into a new era of conflict.

The Conservative Party, a wink-and-a-nod acknowledgement which will give 17th century Protestant fundamentalism a platform to preach its archaic world-view in the 21st century.

From opposing civil rights to denying climate change, the creationist-believing Ulster Trumps have been offered a warm welcome in Downing Street.

The Tories will now need to seek the approval of the DUP, so the DUP will need to seek the approval of the UDA, UVF and RHC.

Its simply staggers belief.

During the Troubles had connections to multiple Ulster militias.

The DUP are the most arrogant, duplicitous, hypocritical bunch of charlatans to ever enter electoral politics. They have a line of scandals and corruption as long as you like, and every one of their scandals would end careers in GB but they get away with it because of the extremely tribal nature of NI politics.

Everyone knows how horrible the IRA is, but most have heard nearly nothing about the Loyalist paramilitaries, who actually targeted mostly civilians and killed more civilians than the IRA over the course of the Troubles.

They also initiated the violence that started the Troubles. The IRA was inactive and had no popular support until the Loyalist groups began killing innocent people for being Catholic.

There is no excuse for what the IRA did, but even less for what some of the Loyalist terrorists did.

Yet people don’t even know what they did…and that is not an accident.

( A two-minute read)

The idea that the DUP IS NOW IN POWER in Westminster WITH MRS TERRORIST MAY should worry us all.

With strong historical links with Loyalist paramilitary groups Mrs May AND HER new-found friends SHOULD BE ON THE TOP OF THE ENGLISH TERRORIST SUSPECTS LIST. 

Specifically, the terrorist group Ulster Resistance was founded by a collection of people who went on to be prominent DUP politicians. Peter Robinson, for example, who was DUP leader and Northern Ireland’s first minister until last year, was an active member of Ulster Resistance.

One of the things the group did was collaborate with other terrorist organisations such as the Ulster Volunteer Force to smuggle arms into the UK, including RPG rocket launchers.

The Tories to end an election campaign which they spent attacking Corbyn for his alleged links to former Northern Irish terrorists by going into coalition with a party founded by former Northern Irish terrorists is a deep irony.

The DUP also fights hard against women’s right to choose to have an abortion, making them the biggest pro-forced pregnancy party in the UK. The results in Northern Ireland are utterly grim for the many women each year who need an abortion

They are climate change deniers, using their role in government in Northern Ireland to set up a subsidy scheme for biofuels, which gave those who bought into it more money than they had to pay out. The Northern Irish exchequer ended up paying out around half a billion pounds to those who knew about the scheme, leading to a scandal known as ‘cash for ash’, and a major investigation into whether DUP staff and supporters personally benefitted.

They have fought to stop equal marriage, making Northern Ireland the only part of this archipelago without equal relationship rights.

The party backed Brexit.

We don’t know what the DUP will demand from the Tories in exchange for supporting them but if the Queen had any decency she would have shown the door of Buckingham palace to Mrs May and her new friends before she sells arms to the IRA.

THE REVERENT Ian Paisley must be chuckling in his grave.

( A ten minute read)

Too often technology is discussed as if it has come from another planet and has just arrived on Earth.

I have dedicated quite a few posts to the need for a New World Organization to vet all Technology, Software, AIs, prior to their release into the world, to ensure that they all complied with our core human values. (see previous posts)

So where do you fit into all of this TECHNOLOGY:

The ways that we as users and consumers experience devices will change greatly; every touch, scroll, pinch, zoom, tap, click and so on will be rich with unique animations and feedback – attention devoted to the most minute of interactions may well  create far more engaging experiences for us all but the whole notion of an organized professional ethics is an absurdity when it comes to AI.

This is why it is so vital to think about humanity’s new agenda. 

No one is an expert on seeing the full picture. Different fields of technology are now effecting other fields. Artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, big data, genetics, you name it.  No one understands the System any more so no one can stop it. Nobody can can absorb all the latest scientific discoveries.

Nobody has the slightest clue where we are heading in such a rush.

Never mind the expense of loosing our identity, or privacy, the world around us is changing – there is no doubt about that – yet the inexorable march of time and technology is at times so profound, so alien, and so overwhelming, that we often retreat to our safe spaces – of comfort and ritual and practice – rather than embracing those changes head-on as they come.

It is becoming abundantly clear that humanity’s relationship both with nature and technology needs to be undertaken by cooperative, collective action at all levels – local, regional, and global.  

Our products are becoming increasingly anonymous, autonomous, automated and homogenous, but we’re still to see a push back from the users. The significance of trust in digital products has yet to be fully realized. With growing concerns over security and data we are loosing sight of what Technological AIs are doing to society and the world as a whole.

Dozens  if not hundreds of virtual machine brains are making decisions inside AI Algorithms for you, and every other facet of your daily lives. 

Artificial General Intelligence is still the stuff of science fiction — but lesser, more practical AI’s, virtual assistants and digital concierges are right at our doorstep — most notably Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Echo, Alexa, Cortana, Google Now, Jibo, M, Clara, Amy and S Voice.

These personal “intelligent” assistants are entering our lives at a staggering pace — everyone that owns a smart phone has access to at least one of these AIs, and the world is coming to terms with the reality that AI is here to stay. As we begin to welcome multiple AIs into our lives, we’re beginning to find that our intelligent helpers aren’t being so “helpful” with one another.

Why?

Because these smart helpers are not designed to negotiate any division of labor amongst one another, leading to redundancy, contradiction, and overall dysfunction when their original purpose was to simplify things.

The world of apps and services is becoming increasingly more granular with us the users left in the dark — powerless and confused — caught between seams.

Are we going to be forced to interact with content in a fixed order along a linear path or are going to see the intelligence of the user being given more paths to navigate through, more decisions to make throughout each process, and more divergent ways to complete each touchpoint other than LIKE.

Every time we open Facebook or visit LinkedIn, we are subconsciously engaging in dozens of microinteractions—many invisible, too small to even notice.

We’re moving towards further atomization of microinteractions, where individual interactions are being broken down into even smaller segments within a greater interaction.

Over half the world’s population is now online and the enormous influx of new users will bring about a disproportionate amount of digital-novices, such as the elderly and the Global South. Unfortunately, the people of these nations also bear the brunt of some of the greatest challenges facing the international community in the next millennium: poverty, environmental degradation, human and civil rights abuses, ethnic and regional conflicts, mass displacements of refugees, hunger, and disease.

It won’t be long before we’ll be passively engaging in thousands of micro-mini interactions every time we take out our phones: with conflicting messages exist for us to truly communicate our message and see it implemented in the workforce. Even worse, our message is becoming abstracted, reduced to bullet points and slide shares, our ideas included solely for the benefit of others’ SEOs.

Designers will find new ways to capitalize on newfound user-engagement, both in terms of designing new features around these “interactions within interactions”, as well as devising new interfaces for the abundance of new interactions that the apps of tomorrow will bring!

Where the real paradigm shifting trends of tomorrow lie in wait, is anyone’s guess. It is not enough to look in front of you—you must look ahead to the future.

All of this is giving  birth to a new era of mobile friendliness and device agnosticism, and the web as a whole experienced. A shift in consciousness as sites became easier to use, apps became more intuitive to navigate, and services became all the more delightful and engaging to interact with.

You could say that we live in a time of exceptional opportunity, a time of rapid scientific, medical and technological advances.

BUT ARE WE?

LET ME ASK YOU THIS:

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A SINGLE SYSTEM COULD MAKE USE OF COUNTLESS SPECIALIST SYSTEMS IN THE HANDS OF A SINGLE INVESTOR.

THE ANSWERS ARE CATASTROPHIC ON ALL FRONTS.

BACK TO NOW.

That social media is mobilizing citizens to take political action while technological advances are driving down the price of solar power and creating new market opportunities THAT WILL DEVASTATE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES.

Reality is that Extreme global poverty persists, with 702 million people (9.6 percent of the world’s population) estimated to be living on less than US$1.90 a day.

Of the world’s poor, 72 percent (960 million) live in middle-income countries, where they do not experience the benefits of growth and lack access to opportunities and resources, including education, health care, financial services and formal employment—all of which limits socio-economic mobility.

Inequality is fueling violent conflict and political instability. Today’s conflicts are increasingly complex and harder to resolve, and they have a disproportionate impact on civilians.

Current patterns of economic growth are unsustainable and contribute to the acceleration of climate change, posing huge risks for the planet, including its people and their prosperity.

It is increasingly likely that the combined effects of rapid population growth in high-risk areas, environmental degradation and the impacts of climate change will increase the frequency and scale of environmental migration and displacement.

Worldwide, one in every 122 persons is now either a refugee, internally displaced or seeking asylum.

This is a staggering statistic.

In Jordan, for example, one in every 13 people is a Syrian refugee. In Lebanon, one in five persons are refugees.

For millions of people in developing countries, the effects of climate change, such as changing weather patterns and rising sea levels, directly jeopardize their livelihoods, health and security.

The United Nations’ global humanitarian appeal has almost quadrupled in the last 10 years, rising from US$5.9 billion to US$20.1 billion.

We will soon HAVE TO LOOK at the world in a whole new—and much more accurate—way.  A future born of new ideas as to how we create a world that is peaceful, prosperous, just and inclusive—a world where human rights are protected for all. We must urgently address climate change and support inclusive clean growth, including through support for clean energy and sustainable agriculture.

We must protect human rights, including for women and refugees, while promoting accountable governance, peaceful pluralism and respect for diversity.

We must generate new opportunities for youth, so that their despair does not become a risk for global stability and security. And we must continue to respond to human suffering and instability brought on by crisis and disaster, including the hardships facing refugees and displaced populations.

The challenges are clear.

Our collective challenge lies in giving practical expression to this fundamental understanding. For better or worse, weather is an integral part of our world. It impacts our every experience, however subtle, and is thus an omnipresent variable in the way we experience everything else in our lives – including the apps on our phones.

Unsustainable consumption coupled with a record human population and the uses of inappropriate technologies are causally linked with the destruction of the world’s sustainability and resilience. Widening inequalities of wealth and income.

The world-wide disruption of the physical climate system and the loss of millions of species that sustain life are the grossest manifestations of unsustainability.

We must find ways to protect and conserve as large as possible a fraction of the tens of millions of plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms that make up the living fabric of the world.

We depend on them for the maintenance of the sustainable properties of the earth and for virtually every facet of our existence, and yet we have recognized only a very small fraction of them up to the present date.

If we don’t save them now, we clearly will not be able to save them later.

Up to now we’ve had a very fixed view of ourselves but globalization has expanded a country’s presence beyond its physical borders. No developing country has been able to reduce poverty without sustainable economic growth.

AI for Profit is going to ensure that they remain so.

This is where we fit into technology by developing an algorithm that can translate information culled from depth maps of virtual surfaces into dynamic tactile experiences. Another words real-time maps on our flat screen that show the state of the world.

The dramatic climate shifts of the near-future will bring about extreme environmental conditions that necessitate the need for ever more vigilant weather tracking maps.

In view of the persistence of poverty, the widening of economic and social inequalities, and the continued destruction of the environment is it not sensible that we get a handle on Technology before it condemns us all to slavery.

The evidence is that technology is destroying jobs and indeed creating new and better ones but also fewer ones.

Only through the empowerment and education of women and children throughout the world will we be able to attain a world that is both just and sustainable. We have a clear moral obligation to do this, and will benefit greatly by succeeding in this goal.

This will not be achieved by AI or technology.

So I leave you with these two further questions:

Who Will Own the Robots?

If the rewards of new technologies go largely to the very richest, as

has been the trend in recent decades, then dystopian visions could

become reality. The rapid advances in automation and digital

technology provoke social upheaval by eliminating the livelihoods of

many people, even as they produce great wealth for others?

——–

How can we get better at sharing the wealth that technology creates?

No one knows the answer.

As Algorithms become more intelligent and more powerful it is not only the the financial industry that will require safeguards against exploitation and risk, we all will.

But the machines are tools, and if their ownership is more widely shared, the majority of people could use them to boost their productivity and increase both their earnings and their leisure. If that happens, an increasingly wealthy society could restore the middle-class dream that has long driven technological ambition and economic growth.

If you want to get your head around any of this I would recommend that you read: Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari ISBN 9781910701874.

All comments appreciated. All like click chucked in the Bin

In the Spring of 1949, only 67 years ago the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington.

To day it has 28 member countries and is one of the longest surviving collective defence organizations of the world.

The Alliance has undergone a transformation, adapting to the new circumstances and should 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.

If you are like me I could not name the 28 countries that make up Nato membership.

However I would say that I am not far wrong in saying that it’s an US lead organisation that to day acts as a thorn in Putin’s side. Nor could I name it present Commander without Googling.

The supreme Allied Commander is an Army General named Curtis Michael ” Scap” Scaparrotti according to Google.

He ruffly has access to 3 million active duty troops, 24,000 military aircraft, 800 oceangoing warship, not forgetting a standing command structure of over 10,000 professionals in Europe. All useless against a cyber attack.

The point of the alliance was to deter Soviet aggression by guaranteeing that an attack on any NATO nation would be taken as an attack on all NATO nations.

These days it is seen as a good way to become connected to the US, Canada, and countries of the EU.

The world has seen many changes since the inception of NATO. It has served to symbolize the connection between North America and Western Europe.

The risks that the world must face today are connected primarily with proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the possibility of a rogue state or even a non-state entity acquiring such weapons.

To the view of NATO “from the other side.”

NATO appears determined, for the first time in its history, to intervene beyond its borders, even militarily, in those cases where atrocities are being committed, as was the case in Yugoslavia, in order to promote peace and stability. The intervention in Kosovo demonstrated to the world that the Alliance was ready, without a specific mandate from the U.N. Security Council, to carry out a large-scale military confrontation.

In 1990, the then 14 European members of NATO spent around $314 billion on defense collectively.

In 2015, the alliance’s now 26 European members are expected to spend around $227 billion on defense. So while European membership in NATO has nearly doubled since 1990, defense spending by Europeans has gone down by 28 percent since then.

In a few months we face a conundrum with Trump’s recent statements on the U.S. contribution to NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.“we are getting ripped off by every country in NATO, where they pay virtually nothing”

The question is will Nato stay relevant to world peace.

NATO can remain a vital part of our international security apparatus only if we are careful about what we want it to be and do.

We should start by looking at our global security needs, asking what instruments best meet those needs, rather than looking at NATO and asking what role we might devise for it.

We also must engage our allies in meaningful conversation about where NATO fits into their national priorities.

Finally, we have to consider the outlook of NATO’s neighbors, friend and foe.

International terrorism represents a growing concern to the western world, while drug trafficking in Asia is rampant.

In addition, ethnic conflict in Europe, as is witnessed right now in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, is a destabilizing factor with possible spillover effects for other countries.

All these threats are new and NATO has had to take them into consideration when drafting its new strategic Concept in 1999.

Since then the United Nations has hitherto failed to carry out its primary function namely to maintain peace and security and to facilitate the peaceful settlement between nations.

The reasons for this failure is because the five principal powers who are permanent members of the Security Council have the right to veto their decisions.

The primary aim of the Atlantic Alliance on the other hand is based on the elementary principal underlying most societies, namely, the incontestable right of self-defence. .

This right in an International field can only be exercised by collective action guaranteed by a treaty of mutual assistance, and organised in advance.

NATO’s essential purpose is to safeguard the freedom and security of its members through political and military means.

So how does Nato act as a preventive to war.

It is the world’s largest power, establishing the hegemony  of the allied west over the rest of the world.

Article 5 of the Treaty NATO’s founding treaty – states that an armed attack against one or more of them all be considered an attack against them all.  Or under a UN mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organizations.

The end of the Cold War and, consequently, the absence of the Soviet threat, did not render NATO obsolete.

international reality has changed between 2001 and 2015

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.

Russia however 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.

Permanent peace cannot be achieved only by confrontational methods and for sustainable peace reconciliation is important in conflict ridden countries.

For NATO, failure in Afghanistan will raise doubts on its ability to successfully complete a mission.

It’s certainly false to say that most of the other NATO members pay “virtually nothing.” The Us annual direct contribution is under $500 million a year.“The volume of the US defense expenditure effectively represents 73 per cent of the defense spending of the Alliance as a whole,”Trump has raised the specter of America puling out of the military alliance if the Europeans don’t pick up a bigger share.

On paper, members say they will put at least 2 percent of their GDP into their militaries. In practice, only five do: the United States, the United Kingdom, Greece, Estonia and Poland.

By NATO’s count, total defense spending of all NATO members stood at about $900 billion in 2015 in current dollars. The United States’ share was about $650 billion. Do the math, and the percentage comes to about 72 percent.

there is no easy way to separate America’s military spending in Europe from its global military strategy.

that NATO’s military resources defy easy description. There are two ways to quantify them and both are incomplete.

The statistics show the military spending of the NATO countries from 2009 to 2016. The military expenditure of Germany in 2010 totaled up to 40.66 billion U.S. dollars.The statistic shows the U.S. military spending in the years 2000 to 2015. In 2000, the U.S. military spending was about 301.7 billion U.S. dollars.