Our routine practices, unfortunately, make it difficult for us to conceptualize the magnitude of global food waste.
Everyday we hear appeals and yet there are one billion starving people in the world.
40% of all the food produced in the United States is never eaten.
In Europe, we throw away 100 million tonnes of food every year.
These are shamefully shocking facts in their own right. In a world full of hunger, volatile food prices , and social unrest, these statistics are more than just shocking when half the world’s population goes to sleep each night malnourished they are obscene.
They are environmentally, morally and economically outrageous.
Add to this that fact that obesity is rapidly growing in the western world, particularly among children, while 6 million children in the developing world die annually from undernourishment and it is a damning indictment of capitalism – the dominant ideology and economic system that has governed much of the world for the last two centuries.
The rampage of globalisation has given monopoly buying power to a few massive western multinational enterprises, who trample all over the globe sourcing farm supplies from the lowest bidders of impoverished nations.
Prices of farm produce are squeezed to such an extent that it’s more profitable to leave ‘inadequate’ quality crops in the ground to rot or to throw away than to pay the price for its air transport, storage and quality packaging to bring to western supermarkets with discerning consumers.
Today, we produce about four billion metric tonnes of food per annum. Yet due to poor practices in harvesting, storage and transportation, as well as market and consumer wastage, it is estimated that 30–50% (or 1.2–2 billion tonnes) of all food produced never reaches a human stomach.
Furthermore, this figure does not reflect the fact that large amounts of land, energy, fertilisers and water have also been lost in the production of foodstuffs which simply end up as waste. This level of wastage is a tragedy that cannot continue if we are to succeed in the challenge of sustainably meeting our future food demands.
But the problem is bigger than we think.
Here are some hard facts to swallow.
Wasting food means losing not only life-supporting nutrition but also precious resources, including land, water and energy. As a global society therefore, tackling food waste will help contribute towards addressing a number of key resource issues:
About one-third of all food produced worldwide, worth around US$1 trillion, gets lost or wasted in food production and consumption systems.
Every year, consumers in industrialized countries waste almost as much food as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (222 million vs. 230 million tons)
1.4 billion hectares of land – 28 percent of the world’s agricultural area – is used annually to produce food that is lost or wasted.
The direct economic consequences of food wastage (excluding fish and seafood) run to the tune of $750 billion annually.
The amount of food lost and wasted every year is equal to more than half of the world’s annual cereals crops (2.3 billion tons in 2009/10)
In the USA, organic waste is the second highest component of landfills, which are the largest source of methane emissions.
In the USA, 30-40% of the food supply is wasted, equaling more than 20 pounds of food per person per month.
The Food wastage’s carbon footprint is estimated at 3.3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent of GHG released into the atmosphere per year.
Much of it ends up in landfills, and represents a large part of municipal solid waste.
The water used to irrigate wasted crops would be enough for the daily needs of nine million people.
Wasted production contributes 10% to the greenhouse gas emissions of developed countries.
One hectare of land can, for example, produce rice or potatoes for 19–22 people per annum. The same area will produce enough lamb or beef for only one or two people.
The total volume of water used each year to produce food that is lost or wasted (250km3) is equivalent to the annual flow of Russia’s Volga River, or three times the volume of Lake Geneva.
Over the past century, fresh water abstraction for human use has increased at more than double the rate of population growth. Currently about 3.8 trillion m3 of water is used by humans per annum. About 70% of this is consumed by the global agriculture sector,
Indeed, depending on how food is produced and the validity of forecasts for demographic trends, the demand for water in food production could reach 10–13 trillion m3 annually by mid-century. This is 2.5 to 3.5 times greater than the total human use of fresh water today.
Considerable tensions are likely to emerge, as the need for food competes with demands for ecosystem preservation and biomass production as a renewable energy source.
Agriculture is responsible for a majority of threats to at-risk plant and animal species.
A low percentage of all food wastage is composted:
What can be done about it?
Part of the problem is poor shopping habits, but the confusion many consumers have with “use by” and “best before” food labels is also a factor. “Use by” refers to food that becomes unsafe to eat after the date, while “best before” is less stringent and refers more to deteriorating quality.
Consumer households need to be informed and change the behavior which causes the current high levels of food waste. Instead of buying packets of vegetables buy loose veg.
Boycott Supermarkets that don’t accept imperfections and nicks. There’s nothing wrong with a deformed Veg. It’s fine to eat.
Support redistribution urban food programmes.
UK supermarket chain Waitrose is attacking food waste in all parts of its business. The upmarket grocery chain cuts prices in order to sell goods that are close to their “sell by” date, donates leftovers to charity and sends other food waste to bio-plants for electricity generation.
The idea is for Waitrose to earn “zero landfill” status.
Home composting can potentially divert up to 150 kg of food waste per household per year from local collection authorities.
Buy local produced food items not those produced, transformed and consumed in very different parts of the world.
Considering that food security is a major concern in large parts of the developing world. Conflicts around the world mean there is “donor fatigue.
Food crises don’t just affect the countries where people go hungry. It’s a global challenge. Recent data shows the number of hungry in the world has fallen but still stands at 842 million people.
World Food Programme WFP operations in and around Syria are costing around $31 million a week.
Hidden Hunger is a weapon of mass destruction.
Hidden hunger weakens the immune system, stunts physical and intellectual growth, and can lead to death. It wreaks economic havoc as well, locking countries into cycles of poor nutrition, lost productivity, poverty, and reduced economic growth.
Investing in nutrition is one of the smartest development investments we can make.
The World Bank system was created as an integral element of the post-World War II Bretton Woods system of international and multilateral institutions. The Bank was designed to avoid future world wars by ensuring an open international trading system and global financial stability.
The same as the Nato and the United Nations it is another World Organisation that should be either shutdown, reinvented or amalgamated.
Like the IMF the World Bank is empowered by the governments which control it (led by the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Germany, France, Canada, and Italy — the “Group of 8,” which holds over 40% of the votes on their boards) with imposing economic austerity policies in the countries of the so-called “Third World” or “global South.”
The World Bank, the IMF and central banks such as the Federal Reserve literally control the creation and the flow of money worldwide.
They want all of us enslaved to debt, they want all of our governments enslaved to debt, and they want all of our politicians addicted to the huge financial contributions that they funnel into their campaigns.
According to the World Bank Articles of Agreement, all its decisions must be guided by a commitment to the promotion of foreign investment and international trade and to the facilitation of capital investment. Here is a dated example.
The first country to receive a World Bank loan was France. The French loan was for US$250 million, half the amount requested, and it came with strict conditions.
France had to agree to produce a balanced budget and give priority of debt repayment to the World Bank over other governments. Before the loan was approved, the United States State Department told the French government that its members associated with the Communist Party would first have to be removed. The French government complied with this diktat and removed the Communist coalition government. Within hours, the loan to France was approved.
When the Marshall Plan went into effect in 1947, many European countries began receiving aid from other sources. Faced with this competition, the World Bank shifted its focus to non-European countries.
The size and number of loans to borrowers was greatly increased as loan targets expanded from infrastructure into social services and other sectors mostly for the personal interest of larger world nations ignoring the like Vietnam because they were communist who were fighting for their lives to reject democracy from running over their country.
To finance more loans, the Bank used the global bond market to increase the capital available to the bank.
One consequence of the period of poverty alleviation lending was the rapid rise of third world debt.
From 1976 to 1980 developing world debt rose at an average annual rate of 20%.
During the 1980s, the bank emphasized lending to service Third-World debt, and structural adjustment policies designed to streamline the economies of developing nations.
UNICEF reported in the late 1980s that the structural adjustment programs of the World Bank had been responsible for “reduced health, nutritional and educational levels for tens of millions of children in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.”
And it left millions of families poor and children unprotected subject to Mason sponsored Child Sex trafficking.
Beginning in 1989, in response to harsh criticism from many groups, the bank began including environmental groups and NGOs in its loans to mitigate the past effects of its development policies that had prompted the criticism.
It also formed an implementing agency, in accordance with the Montreal Protocols to stop ozone-depletion damage to the Earth’s atmosphere by phasing out the use of 95% of ozone-depleting chemicals, with a target date of 2015.
Less recently, a project in Seychelles to promote local tourism by the name of project MAGIC was launched in 2010. Its successor project TIME was scheduled to be launched in 2012. Nothing more of it was heard of it since and was a project that at least to me makes no sense in its disclosure.
Traditionally, based on a tacit understanding between the United States and Europe, the president of the World Bank has always been selected from candidates nominated by the United States. In 2012, for the first time, two non-US citizens were nominated.
In 1991, the bank announced that to protect against intentional deforestation, especially in the Amazon, it would not finance any commercial logging or infrastructure projects that harm the environment.
About that time, in order to promote global public goods and free trade commercial market, the World Bank tried to control communicable disease created by laboratories in Intelligence agencies around the world, but could not stop the tragic effects of Ebola.
Since then, in accordance with its so-called “Six Strategic Themes,” the bank has put various additional policies into effect to preserve the environment while promoting development.
The World Bank is best known for financing big projects like dams, roads, and power plants, supposedly designed to assist in economic development, but which have often been associated with monumental environmental devastation and social dislocation.
In recent years, about half of its lending has gone to programs indistinguishable from the IMF’s: austerity plans that “reform” economic policies by suffocating the poor and inviting corporate exploitation.
The World Bank Group is the second largest public development institution in the world. Reform is long overdue. However, the most influential players are the finance ministers of the G8 countries, above all the US Treasury which sees no need for reform.
In 1992, an internal World bank review found that more than a third of all Bank loans did not meet the institution’s own lending criteria.
Unlike the United Nations, where each member nation has an equal vote, voting power at the World Bank and IMF is determined by the level of a nation’s financial contribution. Therefore, the United States has roughly 17% of the vote, with the seven largest industrialized countries (G-8) holding a total of 45%.
Because of the scale of its contribution, the United States has always had a dominant voice and has at all times exercised an effective veto. At the same time, developing countries have relatively little power within the institution, which, through the programs and policies they decide to finance, have tremendous impact throughout local economies and societies.
The global rise in prosperity and personal freedoms over the past 65 years has been an immense human achievement despite a string of horrible regional conflicts and pockets of terrible suffering.
However we are now facing the latest “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” — climate change, food security, infectious disease and urban youth unemployment — are rapidly approaching. It is hard to believe that the seven billion people living in 200 nations on earth today will be successful in holding them off without strong truly global institutions.
Its time to make our global institutions look and feel more global.
If we ask the question are these institutions ready to meet the challenge? The answer from most analysts is “No.”
While the WTO is based in Geneva, Switzerland, both the IMF and the World Bank are headquartered in Washington, D.C. The time has come to move at least one of them out of the United States.
The almost universal perception that there is no significant difference between the IMF and the World Bank. They work so closely together and have so many overlapping activities that they look like conjoined twins.
Their missions, however, are fundamentally different. Separation could make each one more effective.
Because the World Bank’s operations are overwhelmingly in developing countries, a case can be made for moving the World Bank to Africa, Asia or Latin America.
The biggest obstacle to moving the World Bank out of Washington is the veto power that only the United States wields. So re-locating the World Bank is a political non-starter.
By enhancing the Bank’s legitimacy, it would help to make the World Bank more effective in meeting the global challenges that are likely to become more difficult in the years to come.
The huge gap between the world’s richest and poorest countries remains one of the great moral dilemmas for the west. It also presents one of the greatest challenges for development economics. Do we really know how to help countries overcome poverty?
At least a billion people on the planet live in desperate circumstances resembling conditions that prevailed hundreds of years ago. Our failure to alleviate their plight is morally reprehensible. But where, exactly, are the greatest concentrations of poor people? Data is hard to come by and even harder to interpret. How can one compare cost-of-living indices in different periods when new goods are constantly upending traditional consumption models?
Consider the impact of cell phones in Africa, for example, or the internet in India.
The World Bank investment policy consolidates the position of the corrupt, inefficient and undemocratic regimes of many developing countries.
The Bank has evinced willingness to deal directly with almost any government without sensitivity to their human rights record.
Given that developing countries are both shareholders and clients in the Bank, the agencies are unlikely to admit that loans to a particular regime will not achieve any benefit until a reformed government achieves power.
The negotiation process between the Bank and the regime is invariably closed and the circulation of Bank reports restricted to the participants.
The poor are disenfranchised from the very institution supposed to support their development.
It is not necessary to deny that some of the infrastructure projects supported by the IBRD, from the road-building schemes in the 1980s to the dam construction programmes of the 1990s, failed to reduce poverty and caused a degree of environmental damage.
Only 3% of the Bank portfolio is set aside to protect against the loss of revenue from defaulting debtors.
Faced with mounting attacks from all sides, the IMF and World Bank are scrambling to assuage critics. On Apr. 10, the IMF set up an independent review board to evaluate its policies. The World Bank is pushing an initiative to combat the global scourge of AIDS. And both are working on a new strategy for fighting global poverty. But in the end, more radical reforms may be needed to get the demonstrators off the streets and the politicians off the two agencies’ backs.
The IMF — along with the WTO and the World Bank — has put the global economy on a path of greater inequality and environmental destruction.
Over the past decade an estimated 3.4 million people have been displaced by bank-funded projects.
There’s always a price tag for development. But the question is: Who should pay the price?
Should poor people be the ones who sacrifice when the government tries to do a big project? Even the World Bank says the budget for a project should include money to cover people’s losses.
The World Bank’s role in the global climate change finance architecture has also caused much controversy. Civil society groups see the Bank as unfit for a role in climate finance because of the conditionalities and advisory services usually attached to its loans.
The Bank’s undemocratic governance structure – which is dominated by industrialised countries – its privileging of the private sector and the controversy over the performance of World Bank-housed Climate Investment Funds
The World Bank working in partnership with the private sector may undermine the role of the state as the primary provider of essential goods and services, such as healthcare and education, resulting in the shortfall of such services in countries badly in need of them.
As an increasing shift from public to private funding in development finance has been observed recently, the Bank’s private sector lending arm – the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – has also been criticised for its business model, the increasing use of financial intermediaries such as private equity funds and funding of companies associated with tax havens.
As the World Bank and the IMF are regarded as experts in the field of financial regulation and economic development, their views and prescriptions may undermine or eliminate alternative perspectives on development.
There are also criticisms against the World Bank and IMF governance structures which are dominated by industrialised countries.
The World Bank hasn’t even adopted specific human rights policies, and doesn’t recognize that it has organizational responsibilities to abide by international human rights law.
Before I sign off on this post I should mention the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) established on 17 May 1930, is the world’s oldest international financial organisation. The BIS has 60 member central banks, representing countries from around the world that together make up about 95% of world GDP.
The BIS was created out of the Hague Agreements of 1930 and took over the job of the Agent General for Repatriation in Berlin. When established, the BIS was responsible for the collection, administration and distribution of reparations from Germany – as agreed upon in the Treaty of Versailles – following World War I. The BIS was also the trustee for Dawes and Young Loans, which were internationally issued loans used to finance these reparations.
After World War II, the BIS turned its focus to the defense and implementation of the World Bank’s Bretton Woods System. Between the 1970s and 1980s, the BIS monitored cross-border capital flows in the wake of the oil and debt crises, which in turn led to the development of regulatory supervision of internationally active banks.
The BIS has also emerged as an emergency “funder” to nations in trouble, coming to the aid of countries such as Mexico and Brazil during their debt crises in 1982 and 1998, respectively. In cases like these, where the International Monetary Fund is already in the country, emergency funding is provided through the IMF structured program.
The Bank for International Settlements is an organization that was founded by the global elite and it operates for the benefit of the global elite, and it is intended to be one of the key cornerstones of the emerging one world economic system.
Its head office is in Basel, Switzerland and there are two representative offices: in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China and in Mexico City.
The mission of the BIS is to serve central banks in their pursuit of monetary and financial stability, to foster international cooperation in those areas and to act as a bank for central banks.
Given the continuously changing global economic structure, the BIS has had to adapt to many different financial challenges. However, by focusing on providing traditional banking services to member central banks, the BIS essentially gives the “lender of last resort” a shoulder to lean on. In its aim to support global financial and monetary stability, the BIS is an integral part of the international economy.
The BIS is a global center for financial and economic interests. As such, it has been a principal architect in the development of the global financial market. Given the dynamic nature of social, political and economic situations around the world, the BIS can be seen as a stabilizing force, encouraging financial stability and international prosperity in the face of global change.
In the old days World Bank and maybe in the future will act as a lender of last resort to the banking sector during times of bank insolvency or financial crisis.
As the face of hunger has changed, so has its address.
The Wealth of Nations and the inheritance for humankind and all forms of life rest with World Organisation that are out of date – this should explain to many as to the disappearance of an equal World.
Money Talks as is evident with the latest Trade deal TTPI.
However, in today’s modern economy we are witnessing a rapidly expanding array of services with mobile technologies as their backbone, but what a World we are making. Our priorities are driving by growth at all costs, and a media owned by our Capitalist culture. We produces 1.3 billion metric tons of garbage each year, and that number is expected to double by 2025.
Is it not time that we the guardians of the Planet got together to shut some doors by tabling a peoples UN resolution to place a World Aid Commission on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions (over $20,000) and on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions ( See previous posts)
The chances of this ever happening are minuscule as self-interest is deep rooted.
Last week, Donald Trump submitted his financial disclosure to the Federal Election Commission. In it, he lists his various properties and other holdings and totals them up for a net worth of more than “TEN BILLION DOLLARS.”
Trump World Tower Trump: Trump owns it.
Trump Towers Istanbul: Trump does not own it, but he licenses his name out to it, as he does with many properties. In the past, he has said that this arrangement “could be interpreted to be a form of ownership in the building.” The final word on the issue is probably the legal disclaimer on his website.
Miss USA Pageant: Trump owns it, but NBC refused to air it after his comments on immigration.
Central Park Carousel New York: Trump owns Trump Carousel LLC, the company that operates the Central Park Carousel in New York City. According to the financial disclosure he made to the Federal Election Commission, he made $589,000 from this icon of innocence.
Wollman Rink in Central Park: Trump owns it. Well, kind of. Trump built it and operates it. You can read the story of its construction in Donald’s own words.
Donald J. Trump State Park: Trump bought 436 acres of land 45 miles from Manhattan to build a private golf course, but nearby towns did not grant him approval, so he donated it to the state. Although New York closed the park in 2010, signs along the nearby highway still direct visitors there.
Trump Taj Mahal: Trump Taj Mahal is a property of Trump Entertainment Resorts, which Donald Trump no longer owns. He has sued to have his name removed from it.
A company that sells Trump-branded vodka and energy drinks in Israel: Trump owns it. Its name is a full sentence: Trump Drinks Israel LLC.
Trump mattresses: Trump owns a mattress brand. But Serta, the exclusive distributor,recently terminated its business relationship with him.
He’s licensed his name to no less than 17 different kinds of products, from clothing and perfume to vodka and mattresses, as well as glassy high-rise towers as far afield as Istanbul and the Philippines. He is paid for the use of his name, but does not invest any of his own capital. Trump sometimes manages these projects, as he did in the case of Trump Soho, and always takes a licensing fee of $5 to $10 million. He pocketed more than $3.2 million in royalties for his clothing line, which is sold at Macy’s, between 2005 and 2007.
He does not believe in global warming, for example, because he did not experience in everyday life:
“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.”
He is convinced that there is a link between vaccination and autism. It communicates whenever he can about the dangers of combination vaccines, although there is no scientific evidence to that effect.
“I’m not contra vaccinations for your children, I’m in one massive contra em dose. Spread them out over a period of time autism Will & drop!”
During his nomination speech of June 16, he said want to build a wall 3 000 km along the border with Mexico.”Mexico brings us drugs, crime and rape. “”Blacks who count my money! I hate the idea. The only people I want to see my money count are small men wearing yarmulkes every day engage in hyperbole, shade the truth and deliver outright misstatements.
Women’s British Open golf tournament is set to open at Trump Turnberry Resort, owned by Donald Trump; successful staging of the tournament would increase Turnberry’s chances of being awarded the men’s event sometime after 2018.
Long time enmity between Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch has led to Murdoch’s leveraging his media empire to tear down Trump.
What has Trump done with his life to merit running the US?
He is a master of self-aggrandizement, but his companies have declared bankruptcy 4 times, most recently 2009. His only foray into politics was his blatantly racist, nativist attacks on President Obama.
His current wife, Melania Knauss, is a former model of Slovenian origin, who created a jewelry line to care, but spends most of his time waving at his side. He married her without being totally sure she loved him really – which shows where their priorities are.
Hundreds of pages of sworn testimony by Donald J Trump in lawsuits in past decade stemming from soured real estate deals shows his tendency to top the true 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
Does he own Hilary Clinton? Not yet.
He vowed: “Nobody would be tougher on ISIS than Donald Trump ”Politicians, “ later described as “stupid”, “do not lead us to the promised land” You might say who gives a crap? Certainly not ISIS.
You could not vote for better as he is not running for president he is simply doing what he always does: Promote the Donald. Generate headlines. Get people talking. Regardless of how many planes or buildings he has, Trump has made one thing clear over the years, which accounts for a significant portion of his wealth: he knows how to stay in the spotlight.
≈ Comments Off on The Beady eye looks at the Quantum Leap.
We are only at the beginning of this journey and if you are like me the very word Quantum Mechanics /Physics not to mention Quantum Computing, sends me in a dizzy.
I have little or no concept of quantum other than entanglement occurs when two particles become related such that they can coordinate their properties instantly even across a galaxy.
Think of wormholes in space or Star Trek transporters that beam atoms to distant locations.
Quantum mechanics posits other spooky things too: Particles with a mysterious property called superposition, which allows them to have a value of one and zero at the same time; and particles’ ability to tunnel through barriers as if they were walking through a wall.
All of this seems crazy, but it is how things operate at the atomic level: the laws of physics are different.
So or what it’s worth. Here is what I have learnt.
Quantum computing will lead to breakthroughs in science, engineering, modeling and simulation, financial analysis, optimization, logistics and national defense applications.
It is likely that building a quantum computer will lead to unforeseen technologies and transform our understanding of the possibilities and limits of computation.
Despite the incredible power of today’s supercomputers, there are many complex computing problems that can’t be addressed by conventional systems. The huge growth of data (“Big Data”) and our need to better understand everything from the universe to our own DNA leads us to seek new tools that can help provide answers.
If we really could build a magic computer capable of solving an NP-complete problem, a decision problemin a snap, the world would be a very different place: An NP problem contains problems for which a computer can quickly check a proposed solution.
Imagine a computer that can teach your mobile phone to recognize any object it sees, or that can trawl through millions of social media posts to identify a potential terrorist.
The spy world, in particular, is looked to quantum computing for its use in encryption and code breaking – a mainstay of the intelligence business.
The technology sounds like a science-fiction caricature. It is based on a novel type of superconducting processor that uses quantum mechanics to massively accelerate computation. A quantum computer taps directly into the fundamental fabric of reality so how about conducting virtual experiments.
The question is has it being done.
To my mind a computer without any limitations would get boring pretty quickly.
We could ask our magic computer to look for whatever patterns might exist in stock-market data or in recordings of the weather or brain activity. Unlike with today’s computers, finding these patterns would be completely routine and require no detailed understanding of the subject of the problem.
The magic computer could also automate mathematical creativity which would be a transformation in the ways computers are thought about.
So what might be the benefits.
Quantum computers could solve multiple problems at the same time.
We would have really accurate weather forecasting: Quantum computing could analyse all that data at once and give us a better idea of when and where bad weather will strike. We’d have advanced notice of major storms like hurricanes and the extra prep time could help save lives.
More efficient drugdiscovery:
A quantum computer would be able to map out trillions of molecular combinations and quickly identify the ones that would most likely work, significantly cutting down the cost and the time of drug development.
No more traffic nightmares:
Beefing up military and defence:
Satellites are constantly collecting tons of images and video. A quantum computer would sort through that mountain of data and direct your car.
Secure, encrypted communication:
If a third-party intercepts the key then, thanks to the weird magic of quantum mechanics, it becomes useless and no one can read the message.
Accelerating space exploration:
Astronomers have discovered nearly 2,000 confirmed planets outside our solar system using the Kepler space telescope. A quantum computer could tackle more data in any given telescope view, spot more exoplanets, and help quickly identify which ones have the most potential to harbour life.
It could even uncover exoplanets that Kepler missed during its first run through older images.
Quantum computing could streamline both air traffic and ground-based traffic control because they’re so good at quickly calculating the optimal route.
Machine learning and automation:
It sounds super creepy, but like humans, quantum computers can learn from experience. They can self correct. For example, a quantum computer could actually modify the code of a program that keeps messing up.
The security of every Internet transaction would be broken if a quantum computer were to be built.
Not much more is known about what could be done with a practical quantum computer.
Except: A classical computer would have to run for thousands of years to compute the quantum equations of motion for just 100 atoms. A quantum simulator could do it in less than a second. Problems that would take a state-of-the-art classical computer the age of our universe to solve, can, in theory, be solved by a universal quantum computer in hours.
The quest to harness the computational might of quantum weirdness continues to occupy hundreds of researchers around the world.
Physicist Richard Feynman once famously said: “If you think you understand quantum physics, you don’t understand quantum physics.”
As technology shrinks to nanoscale levels, quantum effects need to be dealt with whether we want them or not. It would be a revolution not unlike the early days of computing. A game changer for humanity.
If quantum computers promised such godlike mathematical powers, maybe we should expect them on store shelves at about the same time as warp-drive generators and anti gravity shields.
There is a long ways to go before any of the above are available.
Not so; In 2013 Google, NASA and USRA created the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab and installed a D-Wave Two™ quantum computer at the NASA Ames Research Center.
It is the most advanced quantum computer in the world but is not an universal quantum computer.
There you have it.
If you are any the wiser let me know as we need to be preparing for the spooky technology future we are rapidly heading into.
If you could go back in time say 150,000 years, your closest living relatives would be apes, with no imagination.
Returning to now.
It is our imagination that created the world we live in. The ability to create an imagined reality out of words enabled large numbers of strangers to cooperate effectively.
Without it we would all still be on all fours with no prospects, no desires, no communication, no history, no religion, no reality.
Why?
Because all myths, all stories, all technology, all capitalism or any other system, religion or organisation, would not have materialized without imagination.
All of it required imagination.
Our collective Imagination has being both our nemesis and friend since millennium. The immense diversity of imagined realities that we have invented are now our cultures, which are for ever-changing, turning into History.
It has put us on top of the food chain. It has created countries, google, human rights, limited companies, in fact our continuing existence and earth health depends on it.
The problem is imagination is driven by education and equal opportunity not just by DNA or Genes.
Coming climate could change all that. Ever event in history occurred against the background of some climate change.
Not a single thing in this world is eternal.
It exist in your imagination.
No one could have imagined the rapid changes we now see.
The big question is. Can we adapt our social behavior to the rapidly changing challenges.
Trade may seem a very pragmatic activity. There is no other animal other than ourselves that engage in trade. Trade cannot exist without trust and our trade is bases money, banks, all of which are figment of our imagination with little or no permanent value.
We are not exempt from biological laws and we are only held together by mythical glue.
It is this that has made us masters of creation.
To days affluent societies are in a plague of greed, which is rapidly spreading to the rest of the world. Our imaginations are being stunted by the internet of everything to the point of self-interest which is destroying the very reasons for having an imagination in the first place.
There is hardly an activity or emotion that is not mediated by a mind-blowing collection of objects or possibilities.
Our imaginations are being manipulated, commercialized, at the expense of generation to come.
Indeed if AI obtains imagination never mind intelligence we can kiss our species goodbye. Why ? Because it does not take much imagination what the world would be like without humans.
No Pollution, No Wars, No Greed, No Jealousy, No God, No Mohammad , No Corruption, No Murder, no Poverty, no Inequality. Imagine that. We should spend more time on the question.
What do we want to become?
Is it Humans that are sued by digital beings, subject to a superior consciousness yet to be invented.
You and I will never leave this earth other than in our imaginations and this earth would be sterile if imagination did not exist. Each of us explore only a tiny fraction of our horizon possibilities.
There will never be a single natural way of life, because of imagination.
Should Britain quit the European Union? Or should it stay?
What should the EU demand from the UK?
Voters will be asked “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?”
From now until the referendum there is going to be a lot of derisive media coverage, media hype, political clatter with mountains of disinformation to say the least.
Before it all gets into top gear here are what I consider to be the main arguments for and against.
At the moment Britain lives the status quo of EU membership.
Now that the empire really is gone and the UK is no longer a financial or military superpower, the question of decline has taken on a melancholic air.
Nostalgia grips the British imagination.
Like Tony Blair, Cameron is still in love with the idea of a globe bestriding, quasi-imperial Britain and it was this that fired British military involvement in Libya as well as his desire (wrecked by Labour) to take action in Syria.
Is it not time for Britain to acknowledge its history by becoming a nation with a responsibility to the Future of all.
On the European side.
It’s a tumultuous times for Europe. In the midst of its biggest ever financial crisis in the form of Greece’s potential default, battling an ongoing migrant catastrophe which has seen thousands of people drown trying to reach European shores.
The truth is that the world at large doesn’t just matter when it comes to international politics its all about TTIP and the TTP the workings of the global economy — in harness with the policies of successive governments — they are going to leave communities shorn of employment and identity.
So lets first put the case for England to say – Yes.
The business community will come out overwhelmingly in favor of continued membership. However unpopular some in business – notably the banks will induce fear of exit. So in reality it will be the economy that will decide the outcome of the Referendum.
The UK now accounts for less than 1 per cent of the world’s population and less than 3 per cent of global income (GDP). Each year that goes by, these numbers shrink a little.
The single market, gives British business access to the entire EU with its 500 million consumers. The EU accounts for nearly 20 per cent of world GDP. The EU, economy is six times the size of British economy.
There are one million Brits living in Spain, 330,000 living in France, and 65,000 in Cyprus. There are also 330,000 in Ireland. If Britain kicked EU citizens out of the UK, the EU would probably retaliate. That could be over a million returning immigrants.
Contrary to what the British think EU membership doesn’t cost much.
England’s annual budget contribution, after taking account of money transferred back to the UK, is £8.3bn. That’s around half a per cent of its GDP, or £130 per person.
The EU is England biggest trading partner, accounting for 52% of its trade a mire £400 bn per year, which far outstrips the estimated £12bn spent (net)on the EU each year.
The Center for Economics and Business Research found that in 2011, 4.2 million jobs in the UK were associated with exports to the EU. This is a massive 13.3% of the UK workforce, and it amounted to an estimated £3,500 per head of the population in 2011.
London, ( although it exists in another dimension to the rest of the country) needs the EU to remain one of the world’s financial centers.
The average age of the European immigrant population in Britain was 34 in 2011, compared with 41 for the native population which leave me at a lost to understand all the moaning about EU immigrants. They are cost-effective since they normally arrive after being educated. And, since most of them are of working age, England does not pay much for their pensions or healthcare, either.
British relationships with the US and the EU have always been separate from one another, especially in connection with the war against terrorism.
A yes vote will have an effect on the future direction of British foreign policy orientating it towards its European neighbors rather than America. It would also have a serious impact on British influence internationally.
Leaving could spell disaster, potentially costing millions in job losses and adverse trade impacts.
A yes vote could see the slow demise of Sterling. It certainly will see the demise UKIP.
Leaving would have a negative impact on foreign investment per person per consumers.
If the British left the EU they will have to pay more for visas, unless they created their own agreements with different countries.
Now the other Option. Out.
A desire to keep foreigners out of Britain is the main reason why the electorate may want to quit the EU entirely.
The free movement of EU member state citizens has resulted in out-of-control immigration into the UK, they claim, with people from poorer EU nations seeking to take advantage of the British health service and welfare payments.
Of course there is the option of out and staying in the single market.
That may be feasible.
After all, Norway has access to the single market without being in the EU.
But there is a big disadvantage:
Norway has to apply all the rules of the single market without any vote on what those rules are. If Britain was in the same position, it really would be subservient to Brussels. Quite apart from the blow to its sovereignty, the rules would be written without taking account of its interests and so could easily harm its citizens.
The two other main examples are Switzerland and Turkey. Unfortunately, they don’t have full access to the market and they still have to follow some of the rules, without a vote on them.
Out means it isn’t part of the CAP.
It will have to renegotiate all of its trade agreements.
Why would any other country feel the need to deal with England directly?
Faced with the rapid, ongoing expansion of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), among others, even with the USA special relationship it could kiss it ass goodbye. It would be like a feather weight getting into the ring with a heavy weight. Knocked out before the bell rang for round one.
In China the UK is not a big power. In the eyes of the Chinese it is just an old European country apt for travel and study.
It could rely on its membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to ensure access to markets. The snag is that, although the WTO has made progress in opening up trade, it has not secured anything like free trade in manufacturing – let alone services, which account for more than three-quarters of its GDP.
What will The EU Demand?
This is the question no one asking.
The growth of euroscepticism across Europe means the elites won’t be able to bamboozle the people into agreeing more transfers of power to Brussels, as they have done in the past.
Will Britain have to forsake its opt-outs from the Maastricht Treaty 1992
Currently, four states have such opt-outs: Denmark (four opt-outs), Ireland (two opt-outs), Poland (one opt-out) and the United Kingdom(four opt-outs).
If so could Sterling be phased out. Highly unlikely.
Conclusion:
The eurosceptic view can be summarised in three phrases:
Our plight is dire.
Attempting to reform the EU is futile.
The prospects outside are golden.
The single market is based on what are known as the “four freedoms”. These were contained in the Treaty of Rome that set up the forerunner to the EU in 1958: the free movement of goods, services, capital and people.
This is one of the most important charters for freedom the world has ever seen.
The eurozone probably won’t rush towards so-called political and fiscal union. Political union is also unnecessary because the main problem with the periphery is one of competitiveness.
Centralising power and giving hand-outs won’t solve that.
The solution, rather, is to restore competitiveness and boost productivity by freeing up markets. This is not a pleasant process, but it is beginning to happen in places such as Greece and Spain.
Will the EU allow a half-way houses that give some access to the single market but without following all the EU’s rules.
Peripheral countries have to solve their own problem.
This list leads to three further questions.
Can Britain win the unanimous agreement of other governments?
Do any of the changes require treaty amendment, which is hard for some other countries to do? And will they persuade British voters to stay in the EU?
The answer to the first is that most of the changes are quite modest, so they should not be too difficult to agree.
The second is harder, since at least three of the proposals—the benefits change, an opt-out from ever closer union and a mechanism to safeguard non-euro members—could require a new treaty to guarantee their effectiveness. There may be scope for a legal fudge that stops short of full treaty change, similar to protocols adopted in the past to satisfy Danish and Irish demands after their voters rejected previous treaties. Or there could be a “post-dated cheque”: a promise to incorporate changes into the EU treaties whenever they are next revised, for instance if a new country joins the club.
The third question is the biggest unknown. But Mr Cameron is gambling that, fresh from his unexpected election victory, he can persuade voters that it is better to have the devil they know than the devil they don’t. After all, a similar tactic favouring the status quo worked in the Scottish independence referendum last September—but it was a close-run thing.
England must look beyond vulgar economics and celebrate the EU as a zone of peace not just a lucrative market. It must lift the referendum debate beyond cost-benefit analysis to matters of principle. Exit need not be a disaster, true, but even the faint prospect of net economic loss will chill the blood of the undecided.
The EU represents not just an economic bloc but also offers multiple opportunities for study, research, culture and retirement. Moreover, it operates to secure peace within Europe and is a force for projecting a European view into the world polity.
If it end up option out a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU would be a joke. Plenty of bigger economies don’t have an FTA with the EU.
Anyway, it’s also the terms that matter: not all FTAs are the same. As regards time frames, the EU deals with Singapore and South Korea took several years to negotiate: these kinds of arrangements are incredibly complicated. What happens in the meantime? The out lobbyist don’t say because they don’t know.
I would place my stake on the public voting to remain in the club.
If the British people are to be asked to vote for EU exit they deserve to be given a proper explanation of what happens next.
It is high time for the Brits to realise that they aren’t alone and to accept the other 27 Member States into their reality, mentality, and allow them into their hearts.
Mr. Farage is not hitting the mark head-on, but is going around the issue, as most political remarks go. Such arguments as ‘wanting the country back’ and ‘immigrants are taking over’ are not interpreted correctly.
Migration, or better yet immigration, of people to other countries is no cause to throw a fit. Migrants, are the labor force behind some countries, and the UK is surely one of them.
In the end no matter what ice cream you lick we all belong to the one family. This banal fact used to be one of history’s most closely guarded secrets.
So for those of you who will have a vote.
Before you vote have a look at the world. Not the world of materialism created by Economics, Trade Packs and the like, rather the world you currently live in. Ask yourself what can you do to improve it. Live on a Isolated Island or Contribute.
As to whether marriage or divorce is on the agenda for the UK and EU, only time will tell. There is no concrete reason for the EU and the UK to part.
An organization is only as strong as the humans within it.
The Current Capitalist global political economy which you can see all around you is on the point of no return.
Our world Organisations creak with overburden demands, lack of funds, and self -control, and taciturnity of action.
Capitalism cannot expand as it did in the past as it has consolidated wealth into the hands of a tiny global elite. It is losing its hold on the imagination of large numbers of people who are not benefiting from this global system. The system is seizing up.
Yet the global capitalist system that I condemn has also produced incredible advances in life expectancy, raised hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, and showered the world in technology innovation.
In all directions, the stage is set for a great planetary debate that will define the dawning Age of Technology – one that will inevitably be focused on how to implement the principle of sharing into world affairs.
If we truly believe in equality, we need to organise ourselves with a clear sense of equality.
The secrets of sustainability and well-being in society lies not in the Technology but in the imbalance in living standards and life opportunities between the global North and South – and between rich and poor within every country to varying degrees – is a crisis that lies at the heart of all world tensions.
Nothing will change unless our collective cognition’s change.
Sustainability cannot be achieved by simply switching technologies. The future will happen anyway but just look at the tragic cost of human life, injury and exploitation we are witness to every day. Also, the cost to the planet from pollution and water use.
How can we keep ourselves and our organizations in tune with the exponentially expanding needs, problems, and opportunities posed by the world around us?
Business practices have worsened. Consumerism has reached a cruel momentum speed.
However if we collectively decide that we don’t accept what we and they are doing we can have a future for all.
It seems to me that Capitalism with its ideology of the trickle down effect has lost the plot and is being exposed as a lie.
With the Elite corrupted, the ordinary Joe soap doesn’t seem to come into the equation until after it’s produced, if you get what I mean.
The Imbalances in our Capitalist Societies are forcing people to live with chronic debt a form of social and political control.
No one or any Organisation on its own can handle, Aging, diversity, intellectual capital, technology, generations, education, personalization, human ingenuity, continuous improvement, ethics, planetary security, polarization, interdependence, personal meaning, poverty, and careers, just to mention a few.
Our smartphones have become Swiss army knife–like appliances that include a dictionary, calculator, web browser, email, Game Boy, appointment calendar, voice recorder, guitar tuner, weather forecaster, GPS, texter, tweeter, Facebook updater, and flashlight. They’re more powerful and do more things than the most advanced computer at IBM corporate headquarters 30 years ago.
Clearly, our prevailing socio-economic structures in no way reflect the inner connectedness and equality of human beings across the world.
If we take Climate change; it might turnout to be our Savior.
It can only be tackled by an equitable “global” climate deal that can tackle the climate crisis effectively; a deal that clearly spells out the commitments of each and every player.
The possibilities of this happening in a world where it is seldom mentioned that around 40,000 people are still dying in poverty each day from largely preventable causes – mainly due to lack of access to sufficient food, clean water, adequate shelter and health care, are Zero.
Although we live in a bounteous world that has more than enough wealth and resources available for everyone to meet their essential needs (a fact that can no longer be taken for granted), this wealth divided reality makes a mockery of ageless teachings on right human relations and our innate spiritual unity.
We’re assaulted with facts, pseudo facts, jibber-jabber, and rumour, all posing as information. Trying to figure out what you need to know and what you can ignore is exhausting. This is the very reason that our World Organisations are far from embodying the spiritual impulse toward planetary synthesis, wholeness and union.
So let me state one hard fact; There will be no solution without Money.
Economic relationships between rich and poor countries remain predicated on the opposing objects of national self-interest, aggressive competition and materialistic acquisition.
International travel, trade and telecommunications may have led to a growing understanding that we are part of a global community, yet economic globalisation in its present form is failing to promote and safeguard the needs of humanity as a whole.
It does not seem realistic to think that certain specifics issues, such as environment and labour standards, should be considered as negotiating positions which are defended exclusively by developed countries. This reality is so out of touch with basic moral values, let alone spiritual law or divine principles.
Drastic changes are now needed to prevent increased turmoil and catastrophe in the years ahead.
The implications for our competitive, profit-driven institutions and outmoded ideologies are all-encompassing, yet nothing less will suffice to guarantee an end to poverty and the inauguration of a viably spiritual mode of global economic organisation.
The environmental crisis is waking us up to a new ethic based on the sacredness of nature and all living beings, and the need for simpler lifestyles that respect planetary boundaries and the rights of future generations.
These issues should be of common concern, protecting global interests, however difficult it has been to realise this obvious truth in our structures of international relationship: That a more equitable sharing of wealth, technology, skills and knowledge is the fundamental basis of a just and peaceful world order.
What have we got instead is a world full of many organizations that exist to make a profit.
Each organization exists for a purpose: to bring something to the world, make it available to people, and enable those people to capitalize upon it. Whether for profit or not, all organizations seek to sustain themselves, so they can continue bringing their things to the world.
Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.
The lavish lifestyles of the affluent nations are effectively financed by the poverty of the majority world, while a wholly inadequate overseas aid system and philanthropic activity masks the systemic injustices of the global economy. After centuries of colonialism and the exploitation of weaker populations by the more powerful, wealth and resources continue to be extracted from developing countries through illicit financial flows, profit repatriation, corporate tax abuses, unjust debt servicing and other means.
Governments have to acknowledge that the natural resources and produce of the world belongs to no one nation but must be shared by all, as embodied in the wise pooling and distribution of essential resources for the benefit of everybody.
Rich nations in particular have to understand that they cannot remain islands of prosperity in a sea of deprivation, and that a more equitable sharing of wealth, technology, skills and knowledge is the fundamental basis of a just and peaceful world order.
The major spiritual lesson for humanity in the twenty-first century could not be simpler or more urgent in this regard, however the difficult has been to realise this obvious truth in our structures of international relationship.
In an era of email, text messages, Facebook and Twitter, we’re all required to do several things at once. But this constant multitasking is taking its toll we are all become increasingly out of touch with our fast-changing world.
Many injustices have been spawned, from large-scale atrocities, to out-of-touch campaigns and services, no longer serving those they began operating in the names of.
Ensuring that all of those involved have an equal voice in shaping what we do is not just working as it ignored the needs and demands of society to navigate through the one accelerating constant–change.
Organizations change directions repeatedly in order to sustain themselves.
One way to clarify what the intentions of man is to go back in history to the beginning of your existence. What was written then about the purpose being pursued? With long-lived organizations, this original purpose surely shifts.
Here is the wish of most of us.
I wish that we lived in a functioning democracy where real electoral and social reform is possible.
As long as corporate power has a stranglehold on our institutions and our government, including our mass media, it will do what it’s designed to do and that is to exploit until exhaustion or collapse.
In all my reading, one of the most simple, yet profound ideas I discovered was that principles (or certain natural laws or rules) govern how and why things happen in all of life. This truth is well accepted in the fields of physical science, but unfortunately less so in other areas of study.
In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths or first principles upon which all subsequent reasonings must depend.
It boils down, in its essence, to the basic idea that all men are free to choose liberty and life, or captivity and death. Sadly, too many of us have been trained and conditioned to wait – perpetually – for someone else to rescue us. We are being acted upon by the pressure of expectations outside ourselves. Too often, we fail to question our day-to-day assumptions.
We live at a time when the dominant social paradigm actually undermines the philosophical revolution that enabled us to become the most free, prosperous, and generous people in modern times.
Right I can hear you saying. We have heard it all before. What is the solution. It’s not Communism, it’s not Socialism, it’s a mix of all three with God is a Capitalist.
So why does this matter to you or anyone else? Answer. In a nutshell, it means everything if we as a planet of humans are to remain so.
There is only one solution we must make Capitalism contribute by placing a 0.05% World Aid Commission on all High Frequency Trading, on all Sovereign Wealth Fund Acquisitions and on all Foreign Exchange Transactions ( Over $20,000).
Imagine if the world map was redrawn not based on territories and treaties, but money and power.
This might be the best way to control the populations of the world.
It’s Not A ‘Law Of Capitalism’ That You Pay Your Employees As Little As Possible.
It is a choice.
Its a Fight Against Wage Slavery and Corporate Greed.
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.
One company’s “wages” are other companies’ revenues.
Once you understand that “wages” become “revenues,” you can begin to understand what has happened to our economy over the past 30 years.
“Wages” aren’t just an expense line on a single company’s income statement.
Why?
Because the employees who are paid those wages use the wages to buy things–houses, food, clothing, cars, vacations, you name it. And in buying those things, they create revenue for other companies.
So, when wages go down as a percent of the economy, companies may get more profitable, but the employees paid those wages (or not paid any wages worth while if they are on No Hours Contracts at the Minimum Wage) have less money to spend. And that lack of spending power eventually hurts the revenue growth of most companies in the economy.
You don’t have to be a Professor of Economics to understand that producing stuff that the majority of the population can not afford leads to discontent all around.
The more income becomes concentrated at the very top of the economy, the less money is spent on the goods and services produced by the economy.
Because the people who spend most of the money–the average English or American–have less to spend the economy becomes greedier.
We are all being royally screwed over by bureaucrats, with their luncheons, their hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden parachutes.
Our companies have become extraordinarily profitable. But they have become extraordinarily profitable at the expense of their rank-and-file-employees, who have not shared in this prosperity and do not have much money to spend.
Only the companies’ owners have benefited with their shareholders developing a warped consensus that the only value that companies create is financial (cash) and that the only thing managers and owners should ever worry about is making more of it.
As a result, although our companies are extraordinarily profitable they are growing slowly.
Why?
Because the middle class–which contributes most of the work and most of the spending in our economy–has not shared in our companies’ prosperity.
The trend reflects growing concerns about the disproportionate spread of low-wage jobs in the U.S. and English/European economy, creating millions of financially strained workers and putting too little money in consumers’ pockets to spur faster economic growth.
Now you might think that all of this is hog wash but lets return to opening remarks of this post .
If we were to take the World according to Monsanto.
Seed can be owned as their property, royalties can be collected. We will depend on them for every seed we grow of every crop we grow. If they control seed, they control food, they know it – it’s strategic. It’s more powerful than bombs. It’s more powerful than guns.
If we take Google.
Every day that goes by Google becomes both more powerful.
Through G Mail Google stores and never deletes your email.
They catalog it and can do a LOT with that data. With time google can write robots to parse the data to find out every bit of data about you, who you know, what you talk about, etc.
G mail bundled with Orkut Google really has a solid grip on your social network with more detail and structure than email alone. Google knows who joebob62@aol.com really is, where he lives, what his pass times are, etc and can link it up with your email conversations. Now to get even further into your life they have the Google Desktop Search which has already been called on being invasive bypassing security on people’s PC’s and cataloging files that it shouldn’t.
Certain industries dominate the global business landscape.
It is no surprise that banks and diversified financials still dominate thanks to their outsize revenues and massive total assets. The next three biggest industries are oil & gas (125 companies), insurance (114), and utilities (110). In terms of growth, the semiconductor industry leads all sectors in sales (up 11%); diversified financial companies in aggregate have an astounding 90% growth rate in profit; construction leads asset growth (up 18%).
Are we worried, not on you nanny.
Is the “commodity super cycle” nearing the end? All evidence seems to point to “yes.”
We have Governments elected to represent the people who are selling of your country assets for short-term profit to prop-up their shrinking economies. ( see previous posts)
We have world organisations that are total out of date, overburdened with bureaucrats, void of funds.
We have Media run by computers.
We have Sovereign Wealth Funds plundering the Earth for resources such as water, energy, land.
We have an English General Election in the next two days with the present Government that bailed out the Banks with Billions of tax payers money, now offering the share back to the tax payer at a discount. Somebody explain.
It’s no better across the pond.
In the USA they have turned war into profit. There are over 100,000 private contractors to run everything from security detail to weapons training to air surveillance of your enemies.
Normally, the military is accountable to the government.
Not so with private security companies. Private firms like Black Water and Dyn Corp have graciously offered to fill in the gaps.
Privatization is all the rage.
What we need is for the people of the earth to be represented, with sustainability, not greed.
This will never be achievable so why not make Greed contribute. ( See 0.05% WORLD AID COMMISSION)
Of course this in not the whole story.
There is the power of the Mobil Phone yet to be exploited by us not the other way around. There is spending power probable more powerful than the vote.
“For the first time in many years, the people who put fuel in jets might just be able to buy a ticket on one.”
A 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked the south-central Asian country of Nepal last Saturday, causing an estimated 5,000 deaths and widespread devastation.
More than 90 percent of natural disaster-related deaths occur in developing countries, where poverty and lack of resources exacerbate the suffering.
The biggest obstacles for charities working in Disaster areas is : Roads and other infrastructure are often destroyed, so charities can’t get supplies to those in need, even with your donations.
This is why you should not trash your old Mobile phone.Send them to ( See Below)
The power of mobile devices to coordinate is paramount.
The media show heart-wrenching images of disaster beyond anything most people have seen or could even begin to imagine. People want to help; it is human nature to want to help. And many aid agencies offer just that opportunity as they fundraising for relief efforts. But if we give to them, does it actually make a difference?
The answer is yes, but disaster relief is notably less effective than many other forms of aid. ( See previous posts)
Are you not ashamed to see the head of the U.N. Disaster Relief Organization appealed for food, medical supplies every time there is a natural disaster.
Why not establish Swat life boat centers around the world. Fully equipped fully funded. Recent Disasters have shown the need for an international system to coordinate major rescue and relief efforts.
Whenever a disaster strikes, it seems that the job of relief and reconstruction goes to some agency run by someone well-connected politically and staffed by well-meaning people with little formal knowledge in the field of disaster relief.
Universities should have a discipline known as disaster relief and reconstruction.
Experts would teach courses in evacuation, emergency healthcare, debris removable, providing temporary shelter and other phases of disaster relief.
The emotional and sensationalized climate of disaster response has prevented the adoption of a cost-effectiveness approach in decision-making. It requires putting the needs of others ahead of your own emotional needs.
When catastrophe strikes, people rush to donate to help the victims. But disaster relief is rarely cost-effective.
What would be cost-effective is a 0.05% Aid Commission on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions (over $20,000) and on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions.
This would create a perpetual fund of billions.
It would be Capitalism biggest glorious moment in its history: To assist man kind and the planet we all live on. ( See Previous Posts)
International Offices
WORLD VISION INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE OFFICE
1 Roundwood Avenue Stockley Park Uxbridge, Middlesex UB11 1FG, UK
WORLD VISION BRUSSELS AND EUROPEAN UNION REPRESENTATION IVZW
The internet is not keeping everyone informed, nor will it.
It is, in fact, magnifying problems of information inequality, misinformation, polarisation and disengagement.
The world is dividing into those who seek the news and a growing number who skim it.
A generational change in the way we consume the news is already well under way.
Who cares?
If you extrapolate from the number of smartphones globally, the total addressable market for news by 2020 is around 5 billion people worldwide.
The future of news will be determined by social media platforms. Citizen reporting and blogging have opened up the world to millions of people.
Thanks to the rise of social media, news is no longer gathered exclusively by reporters and turned into a story but emerges from an ecosystem in which journalists, sources, readers and viewers exchange information.
This is facilitating an easy slide into probabilistic “truth.”
On the Internet, there is no limitation to the number of outlets or voices in the news chorus. Therefore, quality can easily coexist with crap. There is no baseline of reliability or verification of the material that is circulated in Social Networks?
(Verification is vital in order to report accurately and not risk loosing trust and credibility – something that is at stake when faked, manipulated or untrue events or stories are reported by established and generally trusted media brands.)
People say access to the news has never been better. It’s easier than it’s ever been to know what’s going on in the world. It is true that there is ever more data, more opinion, more freedom of expression, but it’s harder to know what’s really going on.
The problem of how to distinguish good information from bad. That problem has been with us since we started communicating.
So even though we have a new technology where information comes to us instantly over the wires… the art and science of journalism is becoming really important to separate the news from the increasing amount of noise generated in the online world, where it can be difficult to know who or what to believe.
It is an environment where unconfirmed information can go viral, where opinions are an increasing part of the news business . . . an environment where anybody can be his or her own journalist, and publish content on the web.
People are increasingly unsure of the facts and unclear what they mean.
Unfortunately what many people don’t understand is the ethical obligation to do everything they can to get the facts right.
For example, the British think 24% of the population are immigrants (almost twice the actual figure of 13%) and believe that nearly 24% of the working age population are unemployed (the real figure is 7%).
As technology continues to evolve faster and faster, the information gap between younger people, poorer people and some ethnic minority groups, on the one hand – and older people, richer people and some groups of white people, on the other – is widening.
In a world where everyone can report on news, the internet is bypassing the professional reporter. The breaking of news is no longer solely going to be the domain of news organisations. Smartphones, tablets and social media have changed how we consume and share the news.
So the question is should the news medium, as ever, be shaping the message?
Big news organizations turning to algorithms to create content.
The AP — which is an investor in Automated Insights — already uses Wordsmith to generate stories on corporate quarterly earnings reports. Meanwhile, automated content competitor Narrative Science provides similar services to publications such as Fortune and Big Ten Network. A Los Angeles Times journalist used custom software to auto-generate a story minutes after an earthquake hit Los Angeles last year.
But is anyone actually reading any of this machine generated content?
Automated Insights generated over one billion pieces of content in 2014 alone, most of this verbiage isn’t meant for a mass audience but it begs the question— How will news organisations report and tell stories and, what, indeed, will count as a story? What’s really going on. What it really means. What really matters.
There was a time when the news industry could help determine the kind of connected society we are. Not any more. Audience are picking up information in different ways. IE by Tweeting and Facebook to mention just two.
In a democracy, news is an essential public service but we are well on the way to personalised news services.
Social media and weblogs are becoming more important as additional sources for media coverage.
We are all practicing investigative journalism.
While Television news puts a premium on dramatic pictures, telegenic politicians and snappy soundbites. Computers can do what journalists used to, namely compile the football results, produce travel news bulletins and write-up company results stories.
The coverage of politics, economics, and sports will remain important, however coverage of art and culture is become less important. Google News which offer free access to newspaper headlines, snippets of text, thumbnail pictures and direct links to newspaper articles is engaging in transformative use of the news content.
Nine out of ten of us have no idea of the quality of the news report.
One day you might even have your own personal robot journalist, filing daily stories just for you on your fitness tracking data and your personal finances.
CNN The 24-hour news network has signed a research agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration that will “advance efforts” to bring more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into its news gathering and reporting process.
The key skill and market of the future will not be in collecting information, it will be in limiting it to what is true.
The World Bank, the IMF and central banks such as the Federal Reserve literally control the creation and the flow of money worldwide.
We should spend more time on the question.
bobdillon33blog 