Category Archives: WHAT IS TRUTH

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. HUMANITY MUST NOW COME FIRST.

16 Monday Sep 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change., Dehumanization., Democracy, Environment, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Google Knowledge., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern day life., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The state of the World., The world to day., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Politics

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( Seventeen-minute read)

The world has been so depleted and is being so depleted even at this moment, that the future sustenance and stability for humanity is now imperilled.

Your future and your destiny will not be determined within the next decades. It will be determined now.

It will be determined by humanity’s wisdom or by its ignorance.

The future and fate of humanity will be decided in the years to come, and it will be determined by how humanity responds to the great change that is coming over the horizon in the form of climate change to the world.

No religion nor religious institution as it stands today can prepare humanity for the complexities of life in the universe or what humanity must know to preserve human freedom and sovereignty within this world.

It is what humanity must do to prepare both collectively and individually for climate change and our collective inability to regulate AI.

But because humanity as a whole is dull and ignorant, self-absorbed and unresponsive to a changing world we are still writing ourselves out of the script.

Our universities for years have taught classical/neoclassic/neoliberal economics; like these theories are unmovable divine pillars of reality.

Therefore, while most people see we need a more reasonable and democratic version of our current extreme capitalism, the dominant discourse insists the story not be changed at all. The dominant political narrative of our times is that we must live as individuals crushed between market and state. The relationship between the individual and the state boils down to a zero-sum game where everyone one eventually looses. The state is a pure and simple force.

With the effects of climate change (to come) people are waking up to the deception, let’s hope we can do right, because on all fronts of civilization as we know it time is running out.

We have political failure everywhere leading to the malfunctioning of our altruistic nature.

There is a disconnect between mass (commercial) media, even political science and common sense or popular wisdom.

Sounds to cynical?

Let me oil up my bow.

Present-day political failures are at heart of our problems.

Why?

Because there is a failure of imagination when it comes to the societal structure we evolved to live in and that our brains are still programmed for.

Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, etc.

These new organizations are actually not creating a dream environment of maximum social cooperation.

They are instead removing people’s needs to fulfilling each other’s needs!

Gnawing away our collective and individual identity our senses of belonging to a community for the sake of profit.

We need politics of belonging, but the trouble is, it requires a moral, ethical and educated populations which we don’t have and are now with AI are more than likely than ever never going to have.

As we rely on more and more Algorithms to make decisions without a discussion of facts and morals, against a background of pure data narrative can lead society to dark places.

We are unaware of what I call honest pricing that shows the cost of profit for profit sake to the environment.

If we were to charge fees proportional to harmful impacts on the environment, we would create a monetary representation of the value of natural resources.A Brazilian protester stands before gunfire during protests against corruption and police brutality.

So overcoming the material world would be the first step to a sustainable world-shifting us into a new reality.

We are left with the ever-present questions.

Do we give a toss and if so what can be done about it?

What roles do religion and our deepest beliefs play in contemporary life?

What lifestyles are we adopting in an increasingly technological world?

What is the balance of power–and the balance of trade?

What is the pattern of war and peace?

What are the issues facing local and regional communities, and what issues must we confront on a global scale?

What do we remember about our collective past, and how do we see the future?

Have the great issues that preoccupied people since the beginning of time taken new, distinctive forms after more than a hundred years of the fastest technological and cultural change in the history of the planet?

What challenges remain intractable?

What emerging solutions seem to offer the greatest promise?

Social media is full of video on the state of the world.

The need for clear-headed prioritisation of resources to tackle real, not imagined problems.

Despite that long record of success, agricultural production is stressed by floods, deforestation, drought, urbanization (land-devouring cities), and a growing appetite for resource-intensive meat.

More than 150 million people worldwide are at risk from rising sea levels and extreme storms that cause coastal flooding.

In the past 50 years, thanks to education and technology, more than 2 billion people joined the middle class, swelling the human footprint of nearly 50 per cent. At the same time, millions of acres of cropland have been devoured by population growth.

Today more than 6 billion people live in cities—about 70 per cent of the world’s population, roughly double the proportion of a half-century ago.

The Arctic may hold 22 per cent of the world’s undiscovered conventional oil and natural gas resources. Melting ice is liberating immense oil and natural gas reserves.

Although mounting worldwide energy demand continues to stress the environment, it has powered large-scale development of renewable energy.

Artificial intelligence will soon dominate the Earth—it could take decades, it could take millennia. At that point, AI will also take control of the Earths process. Refashioning the planet in ways that are optimal for synthetic life but quite possibly deadly for us.

You can’t help but wonder where it will lead. It’s a very dodgy future.

It may be true that the cosmos started with the Big Bang, some 14 billion years ago, but it took an awfully long time for the consequences of the Big Bang to settle down.

To have an optimistic view is the only one worth having.Our world relies on vast global networks.

So may you recognize that you as an individual must make these decisions and not simply rely upon others to make them for you.

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

 

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT MODERN DAY POLITICS.

02 Monday Sep 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Algorithms., Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit., Dehumanization., Democracy, DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Elections/ Voting, England., English parliamentary proceedings., European Elections., European Union., First past the post., Modern Day Communication., Modern Day Democracy., Our Common Values., Political voting systems., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Social Media, The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What needs to change in European Union., What Needs to change in the World, World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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(Five-minute read) 

My vote makes no difference is plausibly a part of the modern-day phenomenon of algorithm analyse voting that has lead to both the election of Donal Trump and Boris Jonhson.

It is resulting in the loss or deliberate yielding up of decision-making power by national governments to other organisations with Social media platforms both domestic and international— Like Facebook, Twitter,  etc. 

Combine this with Ngo’s, quangos, the law courts, business corporations, central banks, the E.U., the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and its no wonder that many are no longer content as voters to be the foot soldiers of a social or religious bloc.

They want to make a difference individually and although in a mass democracy this may lead to inevitable frustration, few would want to return to a time of extreme political polarisation or digital dictatorship. 

The symptoms of short term popularism driven by social media platforms and the smartphone are leading to a no-deal Brexit are the same worldwide. 

Denunciations of the system, citizen disengagement from mainstream parties, electoral volatility and/or apathy, the rise of dissenting movements that appeal to large numbers who are, or feel themselves to be, disfranchised or ignored by an establishment dominated by uncontrollable and often faceless forces are replacing old political systems. 

Hence the perception that parties and politicians are no longer willing or able to represent their voters, that they are “all the same” and that politics has become an irrelevant smokescreen for the machinations of special interests and lobby groups.

When relatively few people are losing out—these changes may not seem to matter much. They may even seem desirable: “pooling of sovereignty,” removal of political interference from civil society, increasing checks on the executive by domestic and international courts, subsidiarity in decision-making, encouragement of inward investment, and so on.

This creates a political and administrative burden that can neither manage nor surrender—a great cause of popular discontent.

Not so, of course, when things suddenly go wrong.

One has only to look at England:

A combination of capitalism and socialism in a highly centralized system without a nationally elected government makes England today a very unusual place.

This oddity has opened up a constitutional free-for-all.

However, national identity, not administrative or economic efficiency, is the core of both devolution and independence— and the rest is window-dressing with the past affecting us all in more complex and deep-seated ways than in countries that have experienced violent historic ruptures.

Community loyalties, however deep-rooted, are not permanent.

Whatever happens in England, there will remain the question of how to govern a big, growing, diverse, crowded, and increasingly self-conscious England.

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

 

 

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT BORIS JOHNSON RIGHT HAND MAN DOMINIC CUMMING’S.

31 Saturday Aug 2019

Posted by in Articular 50., Brexit Language., Brexit Party., Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit., English parliamentary proceedings., First past the post., Heredity Monarchy., Political voting systems., Populism., Reality., The Obvious., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH

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(Eighteen-minute read)

Dominic Cummings’ writings are a window into the world of the special adviser now shaping Johnson’s premiership, Brexit and the U.K.’s future.

He is described as the back-office mastermind to Johnson’s front-of-house showman during the EU referendum campaign.

Politicians don’t get to choose which votes they respect. That’s the critical issue.

Dominic Cummings

We all know that politicians are surrounded by people who are long on views but short on actionable advice. Very many people in politics have opinions, hardly any have plans.

So is Cumming’s merely the latest in a long line of geniuses to run things for the Conservatives in 10 Downing Street?

There is one thing for certain Britain is now being hurtled along by a manic fantasist and a Machiavellian aide – neither of whom was actually elected by the people – in their helter-skelter, do-or-die dash to be rid of the unelected Brussels technocrats they are shaping the Britain of the future with more than a hint of Trumpian logic.

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As an online writer, Mr Cumming’s is a believer in the military principle of Auftragstaktik — the idea that leadership means giving subordinates a crystal-clear strategic goal. He describes himself as “not a Tory, libertarian, ‘populist’ or anything else” never missing an opportunity to apply the lessons of science to political decision-making.

Donald Trump said that Boris Johnson is the “right man for the job” for delivering Brexit.

He obviously does not know the English version of  Mr Cumming’s but who could blame him as almost no one is on his level.

The whole discussion on Brexit is so full of empty epithets and silly name-calling, lie piled onto lie… claptrap on claptrap…Almost nothing can be taken at face value. Almost everything is a damned lie.

Mr Jonhson and his right-hand man Cumming’s are now set on undermining authentic community self-help organizations with money for fake government services, and eventually, they will undermine private industry with regulations, minimum wages, taxes, with rules and tariffs that small, low-cost, marginal businesses can’t afford.

The European Union might well have its core value in Peace but it also created a market who’s purpose was not just trading but to protect the public by preventing politicians from bankrupting the nation.

If England falls out of the European Union without a deal never before in the history of the UK will its economy see little growth at such a high cost?

Dominic Cummings was found to be in contempt of Parliament earlier this year for refusing to give evidence to MPs investigating ‘fake news’.

While working for then Education Secretary, Michael Gove a few weeks prior to leaving his post as Special Advisor, he published a 251-page manifesto explaining why Gove had got almost every policy wrong.

As recently as last month, he wrote a 10,000-word blog post calling for a Whitehall ‘revolution’. He has also criticised the “Kafka-esque” influence of senior Civil Servants on elected politicians, as it limits the potential for immediate reform.

To successfully leave on the 31st October, Boris Johnson will have to override the house of commons, and with Cummings as his advisor, it’s plausible he may just do it.

Cummings and his leader Mr Johnson are now seeking to close the bunker Parliament and limit its range of discussion.

Mr Dominic Cummings is a restless risk-taker.David Levenson/Getty Images

Even if England gets rid of Boris, et al, what of the future over and above the impact of Brexit?

Will we see more of this “First Past the Post” democratic deficit leading to a bunch of narcissistic liars, or total incompetents, running the country on behalf of a minority of voters?

The Church of England is inseparable from the development of the English nation, monarchy, language, people, culture and more: they have co-evolved for five centuries. Until recently, to be Church of England was simply to be born English.

Where is its voice?

To put it another way, the legacy of King Henry VIII and his determination to assert English independence in both politics and religion (which were hardly separable in his time) seems perversely durable and stubborn to this day.

With Brexit fast approaching, reliable information is now crucial before a coup d’état by an unelected Prime Minister.

Oscar Wilde’s famous comment:-

“There are two kinds of tragedy. One is not getting what you want. The other is getting it”.

If Mr Johnston refused to step down in a no-confidence vote scenario England is not looking at a deal or no deal but it is looking at   “the gravest constitutional crisis since the Civil War.

Surely its time for a written constitution.

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

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: THESE DAY’S IS THERE ANYTHING SUCH AS POLITICAL SCIENCE.

30 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., Democracy, DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Elections/ Voting, England EU Referendum IN or Out., European Elections 2019, Fake News., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Reality., Robot citizenship., Social Media, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What needs to change in European Union.

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( Twenty-minute read)

 

Call it what you want:

Political Science,  Political theory, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Political Methodology. It all leaves you scratching your head and wondering what is Political Science exactly?

Political Science is a social science that focuses on government institutions and political behaviour, but how exactly did it come about?

When one watches gatherings such as the G7/8 of world leader one would have to ask where are we going.

Every major media outlet has a political scientist on call to commentate about likely voter reactions to the candidates’ stances on hot-button issues.

The behavioural models that political scientists create can practically forecast the outcome of an election before a single vote has been cast.

However in the 21st, it means “democracy”, is the crowd-sourcing of politics run by algorithms.

So political science is governed by five myths:

That it is possible to study politicsn> That it is scientific > That it is possible to study politics separated off from economics, sociology, psychology and history > That the state in our democratic capitalist society is politically neutral, that is available as a set of institutions and mechanisms to whatever group wins the election > That political science, as a discipline, advances the cause of democracy.

For me it is “superficial and trivial”, and that concept formation and development is “little more than hair-splitting and jargon”

These days we are told if something can’t be measured, then that’s not it, and if an event didn’t happen twice, then it didn’t happen.

One way or the other all the more interesting questions falling outside the bounds of scientific investigation, the internet age is gradually forcing itself upon our leaders but it is unlikely to make them reconnect with voters “less because they see the light, and more because they are beginning to feel the heat”.

For all the talk about politics, political science has never decided what exactly it should study.

The result is that many trivial matters receive an inordinate amount of attention and many important ones go untreated like climate change.

In short, political science seems to have turned around the order in which any person not trained in the discipline would try to answer the questions.

We will soon learn that political science is not about the real world but only about those features of the world that can be studied by methods deemed to be scientific.

“What should I study?” and “How should I study it?”.

What has political science found out about the political sphere that we didn’t know before, or that isn’t abysmally trivial?

It makes even the worst real-world inequalities acceptable (not worth bothering about) by rendering them irrelevant to the task at hand. Guess to whose benefit?

Few things are more important to the legitimation of capitalist rule than the assurance given by political science that the dictatorship of the capitalist class in which we live is really a democratic state of the whole people.

If political science really wishes to advance the cause of democracy (as one of the myths of our discipline already has it doing), we should help people understand that the main barrier to democracy today is capitalism.

Given the importance of the capitalist context for everything that goes on inside it, this is also a first step toward making our research truly scientific, that is capable of uncovering how the state and politics really work, and how—with the democratization of undemocratic capitalist relations of production, distribution and exchange—they might yet come to work for everyone.

Now here is a non-trivial agenda worthy of political science that aspires to advance the cause of democracy through the use of scientific

The rational choice carries the miniaturization of political science one step further by dismissing what people actually do politically and concentrating on their decisions to do it,

We see news reports, headlines in the papers and if one checks the details you find that the headlines are misleading or half-truths.

I accept that all news, in whatever medium, is subject to some editorial bias but the days of reporting the facts dispassionately are gone due to social media.

Take Brexit for example:

Parties that had strong collective identities are now falling asunder all being lead by popularism into political cul-de-sacs. The loyalty and cohesion of political parties now depend much more on short term smartphone mass memberships.

The results are tragi-comedy modernisation and public mistrusted.

This is what motivated the In or Out referendum not an understanding of the long term consequences.

Annexing subjects like the European Union affects all lives in countless ways –

I don’t think that any political science predicted a Party without power or fame the Brexit Party. It now represents a piece of evidence about how the ground is shifting.

Thus to ask today, in the middle of Mitteleuropa, where political science has been heading is also to ask whether the new beginnings of the discipline in Eastern Europe should or should not follow the path entered by our “big brother,”

The digital revolution will do to grand planners in the West what the collapse of Communism did to socialist planners in the old Soviet bloc”.

THE PROBLEM IS:

Are we somehow going to see sense and see through the lies?

How have rampant inequalities shaped electoral campaigns and promises?

We don’t need political science to say that global climate change is real.

If you don’t believe it you’re anti-facts.

THE ONLY SOLUTION IS, to open up politics with the right of “recall” against MPs with whom constituents were dissatisfied.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: ARE WE LOOKING NOT JUST AT THE BEGINS OF A FAILED STATE BUT THE FINAL DEATH THROBS OF A EMPIRE

26 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit., Capitalism, Climate Change., Democracy, Environment, European Commission., European Union., Fourth Industrial Revolution., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Life., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Reality., Social Media, Sustaniability, The essence of our humanity., The new year 2109, The Obvious., The Queen., The state of the World., The world to day., Twitter, Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What needs to change in European Union., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Fifteen-minute read)

The British Empire was the largest in history existing from the sixteenth century into the twentieth century.

Unfortunately, it squandered all that it acquired on a victorian class system.

Queen Elizabeth II

It killed with famine, sword and fire more people than Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Hitler or Stalin.

In the defence of its imperial interests, it precipitated in two World Wars.

Now it is presiding with “Mad cow disease” it’s very own self-destruction.

At stake are fundamental ideas about British sovereignty and whether in a

a progressively globalized world in which some claimed that the individual

the nation-state was becoming unviable with the can sovereignty in its

existing forms remain intact.

Queen Elizabeth II in 1992, referred to the year as the royal family’s “annus horribilis.”

SHE WAS WRONG.

Why?

Because along came a five-year austerity plan aimed at reducing the country’s massive deficit, which had been fueled by bank bailouts and stimulus spending in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and resultant recession which resulted in 52 per cent of voters opting to leave the EU, (making the United Kingdom the first country to ever do so)

Manufactured by Magie Thatcher who turned the market into replacing society as the model of state governance. 

Not surprising as worldwide political culture has in fact transformed from one based on class to a new sort of populist, demotic politics, shaped at least as much by the mass media, especially the popular press, as by the politicians.

A sort of firestorm has broken out not just in Brazil but all over the world.

Why?

Because the relationship between public culture and consumer capitalism, while the very Earth itself is struggling with climate change has been close, in many ways the one constantly trying to outguess the other.

This game of one-upmanship, marked by ironic knowingness, has been labelled “postmodern, Brexit or Donal Trump trade wars”.

It points to the growing understanding of the relative nature of truth, itself a reaction against the prevailing supposedly “modern” certainties of the 20th century (reason, freedom, humanity, and truth itself), which indeed have often had and are having appalling outcomes.

However, it is a sign of the times that these antifundamentalist currents, themselves critical of much of Western culture, emerged at much the same time as new fundamentalisms emerged in the forms of American neoconservatism and certain strains of radical Islam. The ferment of intellectual and cultural changes involved are inextricable from the massive changes underway in the transition to the novel forms of society made possible by new information technologies.

What the Smartphone and Social Media have and are doing since the 1960s onward for Africa are also unravelling England and the EU with the perception of poor economic performance and calls for the modernization of not just for British society and the British economy but the EU and the world at large.

Both England and the European Union need to reform.

Optimism only carries you so far.

History rhymes rather than repeats are what is required.

A society where elites are widely loathed, where the political parties are polarized by demographic echoes is on the brink of collapse.

Why?

Now as then — much more now than then, in fact — there is a pervasive mistrust of institutions, a sense that governments are rotting from the head down.

The abject failure of rulers in improving human values has resulted in a downgrading of human to sub-human levels with a race to expect dishonest money is the net result of the ultimate degradation of society.

How do you trick someone into giving you something they have?

First, you offer them something worthless, while convincing them that actually much better than what they have. Second, you convince them that what they do have is worthless.

This is a typical approach used by both con artists and governments.

These huge scams are just diversions from the ultimate crime Climate change.

Our survival instinct has to quickly override our conditioned naiveté and passivity that has been bred into us. We are not just threatened as countries but as species at the same time.

A twitter/ facebook driven world will be a world of shallow values- unravelling our societies.

The thin veneer of civilization that we all depend upon on a daily basis is disappearing at a staggering pace and its not just the melting of ice.

The question now is.

Do we follow the trodden path where we only find all the grass eaten?

Creativity and imagination are what is needed as we are not getting across the problems of probability.

How we discuss and what we discuss is vital.

We must know the facts. We need a world brain bus.

Who is more likely to embrace the marginalized, to work for the disenfranchised?

Who will work for those of all backgrounds, all races and ethnicities, all religions, sexual preferences, gender identities?

Who will work to promote respect and equality for all people in the World?

Who sends a message that I want our children to believe in?

The rich and the poor, the entitled and the marginalized—they all make up the threads that a country needs to weave a unified society. When not include we weaken the material that fabricates our entire fabric of the world.

There has never been such a thing as an empire only a company called East India Company merchants. The British Empire did not exist in the Middle Ages. In the early Middle Ages, England was part of other empires: 

The British Empire was a commercial, not a military or political one.

Originally, holding an empire was about power. Throughout history, kings and queens have invaded territories in order to gain strength and power. With colonies, a country gains space, a larger army, more trade markets and the chance to make money out of whatever resources are on offer in them.

The formation of the empire was thus an unorganized process based on piecemeal acquisition, sometimes with the British government being the least willing partner in the enterprise.

An ‘Empire’ is a group of countries ruled over by a single monarch or ruling power. An empire doesn’t need an ’emperor’. The British Empire comprised of Britain, the ‘mother country’, and the colonies, countries ruled to some degree by and from Britain.

(British Empire, a worldwide system of dependencies—colonies, protectorates, and other territories—that over a span of some three centuries was brought under the sovereignty of the crown of Great Britain and the administration of the British government.)

To this day Britain’s ‘cultural imperialism’, suggesting that it was based on nationalism and racist scorn for other people.

With a handshake and the commitment “On the word of an Englishman,”
Captain James Cook claimed it for the British crown.In the century 1815–1914, 10 million square miles of territory and 400 million people were added to the British Empire. By the British Empire Exhibition of 1924, Britain was the ‘Mother Country’ of a worldwide empire which covered a fifth of the land in the world, and Britannia ‘ruled the waves’.

Sorry but Empires have benefited no one nor will any future trade deals that are not attached to sustainability do anything to resolve Climate change.

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

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S; HAS HUMAN STUPIDITY GOT IT ORIGINS IN INBREEDING.

24 Saturday Aug 2019

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., Climate Change., Dehumanization., Environment, Evolution, Google, Google Knowledge., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Twenty-minute read)

IF ADAM AND EVE EVER EXISTED THEY WERE AS THICK AS THE WALL.

The consequences of which were passed from generation to generation making our brains the single biggest threat to the planet.

There is a multitude of reasons why people are so stupid.

If human and chimp DNA is 98.8 per cent the same we as a species with 1.2% differences are our own benchmark for how intelligent we can be which is restrained by our relative inability to perceive the natural world.

The sciences of genetics and archaeology are not able to show how our ancestors transitioned from animal self-interest to human as there are no skeletons to probe for DNA. If evolution’s real, how come no one has ever found any transitional forms between bananas and monkeys.

In the absence of evidence, our images of Adam and Eve are left to the imagination of artists. While western imagery is dominant in depicting Adam and Eve in other parts of the world they could like God be Black, Arab, or Hispanic.

We were stupid a long time ago, we are still stupid, and yet we continue to reproduce enormously successfully. Stupidity may, in fact, help our ability to reproduce quite a bit.

None of us would put up with each other for a moment if it weren’t for the saving graces of stupidity and bonding. Perhaps it is this lack of intelligence that has led us to the most idiotic example of our stupidity – Self-inflicted extinction with climate change.

I’ve spent my whole life assuming we were getting smarter and we’d become a rational species before we made ourselves extinct.

Up until a century ago, the world was safe because there wasn’t enough of us, and the Earth’s carrying capacity could absorb our endless acts of stupidity.

The once-mighty homo sapiens might well end up back in the cave where he once resided. After all, the human mind is perfectly flawed we don’t even know if our logic is even logical.

I hope I am proven wrong. We should be much better than our collective self.

By now the majority of us should know that the byproducts of billions of human lives are overwhelming the ecosystem.

Rising CO2 levels is just one of many indicators that we are self-destructing.

The environment is falling apart right before our very eyes, but we can not add 2 + 2 together to see that our lifestyles have to change drastically — yesterday. Not just yesterday, more like 20 years ago.

We might have some grasp of the environmental catastrophe now in progress, but we really like lovely looking perfect grass, so we fertilize and poison our plot of land, and it looks great.

Unfortunately, 100 million other people do the same thing and the results are a catastrophe for the water table and for insect populations.

But hey, our lawn looks great. It’s just this one lawn after all…

Many among us can’t get over their tribal instincts. It’s pretty obvious that’s there is an unresolvable conflict between democracy and theocracy. As long as billions are oppressed by political and social injustice then we haven’t developed a practical political system to support humans on Earth.

Technology is increasing equality sharply.

Drug-resistant diseases are on the rise, and the global spread of dangerous diseases because of transportation and warming climates indicate the revenge of mother nature is near.

More recently, we thought we could save ourselves, especially with science and technology.   However, most people live with their heads in the sand, cramming their minds with useless knowledge while ignoring all the dying canaries falling from the sky.

I firmly believe we know enough to solve our problems, I just doubt we have the collective will to work together to get the job done.

We have to figure out how the fuck to get along with each other, so we invent laws, and philosophy, and literature, and justice, and commerce and a whole bunch of other stuff.

We do all this smart shit to survive, not because God loves smart shit.

We think we rule the earth because we are smart.

We do not rule the earth, and evolution does not select for smartness, it selects for survival. Cockroaches rule the earth and they are smart enough not to think it’s because they have big brains.

Your social brain, on the other hand, relies on other people instead of reality, which inclines your Social Brain to dramatic outbursts of complete fucking idiocy.

We expect better from ourselves – but that’s only because we’re stupid.

Furthermore, your brain will know the one thing it’s been longing to know all the time, which is what it’s supposed to do about this insanity, this stupidity.

Which is acknowledge it, name it, identify it, and oppose it – no wonder why the fuck it’s there. But at the end of the day, because we only have ourselves to compare to as of yet, we don’t really have an answer.

One can only hope that we have only just begun to crack the depths of knowledge and that there is an endless trove waiting for future generations.

We can now create worlds within our own to interact with and to manage and design intelligently.

So what!

We’ve been creating simulations in our minds since the dawn of man. Thought operates by breaking reality up into conceptual objects, and our creativity operates by rearranging the conceptual objects in our minds.

These mental simulations form the essence of human brilliance. However, the very same process of conceptual division which makes us brilliant also makes us insane.

We ignore the threat of climate change because we are living in a wishful thinking dream world that seems best described as a form of mental illness.

We have lost our common sense and replaced it with stupidity. Knowing the truth, seeing the truth but believing in lies. 

Is stupid only a result or a player?

Genes inherited from Adam and Eve are perhaps a virus which is now being spread by the Smartphone, Google, Artifical Intelligence, Brazil’s Bolsonaro and Donal Trump. The virus may cause changes in the way genes to manifest in portions of the brain in charge of memory and some of the other higher functions of the brain.

The Idiot Box makes sure its a player.

Adam and Eve might have started out ignorant, as thick as the wall, not stupid, they were made stupid by education.

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

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S; THE SENSE OF INSECURITY IS NOW UNIVERSAL, EVEN IF COUCHED IN A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE.

09 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by in Life., Our Common Values., Post - truth politics., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The cloud., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders

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(Twenty-minute read)

There is a putrid stench fermenting just beneath the surface of 21st-century society.

Will this change in the next 150 years?  Probably not.

To be able to understand the future, you must know the past.

So what has taken us to where we are today and what has changed along the way?

The world has changed a lot in the last 150 years, but we humans are driven by the same basic needs as we were 150 years ago, food, sleep, sex, the feeling of being appreciated and loved.

However, it seems these days that there is this omnipresent feeling that the world is going fucking crazy.

You would think by now we would all realize that we have to live together. That we are all racist following policies that encourage racism, inequality, that waste of half of the food produced worldwide resulting in wars.

But the world isn’t as bad as it was a century ago.

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

The violence is not new; it’s the cameras that are new.

Cameras, the internet, and most importantly, social media.

This is what’s new.

This is what’s different.

How we’re getting information, what information is reaching us, and most importantly, what information and views we are most rewarded for sharing.

We feel desensitized and dejected from the seemingly constant carnage raging across the planet.

The internet has generated a platform where apocalyptic beliefs are celebrated and spread, and moderation and reason is something that becomes too arduous and boring to stand.

It is what is causing this constant feeling of a chaotic and insecure world that doesn’t actually exist. And then: it’s this feeling that is the cause of the renewed xenophobia and nationalism across the western world.

It’s this feeling that has consumed the consciousness of millions of people and caused them to look at their country through the lens of a surreal world exaggerating all that is wrong and minimizing all that is right.

Despite living with more safety and wealth and access to information than anyone in human history, we feel as though the world is going crazy and something drastic must be changed.

By now, we’re all familiar with the tech world circle-jerk about how we’re connecting the planet and the world is getting smaller and we’re all becoming one big Kum Ba Ya global community and how this is amazing because starving people in Yahem to a mass shooting in El Paso can each have their own iPad, and blah, blah, blah, the internet is cool.

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

On the other hand, the rise of the internet and social media has accelerated social progress in many ways. It’s helped herald a breakthrough in LGBT rights, it’s raised awareness about discrimination against women and minorities, and fomented the populist overthrow of a number of repressive governments worldwide.

Activists and concerned citizens can quickly mobilize to spread the word and hold the appropriate authorities accountable for change.

This is our brave new world.

When all information is freely available at the click of a mouse, our attention naturally nosedives into the sickest and most grotesque we can find, ignoring the reality of climate change.

To protect ourselves from the overreaching judgments of others, we consolidate into our own clans and tribes, we take refuge in our own precious identity politics and we buy more and more into a worldview that is disconnected from cold data and hard facts.

We become only exposed to the most extreme negative aspects of certain groups of people, giving us a skewed view of how other people in the world really think, act, and live. We demonize each other.

We judge groups of people by their weakest and most depraved members.

Take Brexit, for example, presently being sold as taking back sovereignty to gain freedom from the EU.

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

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

Instead,

I am attempting to go back to learning about the world only through long-form journalism that has been thoroughly researched and vetted before being published.

I’m exercising the muscles in my brain responsible for focus, depth, and concentration. I’m stretching out my logic, trying to challenge my own beliefs and always holding on to a healthy amount of doubt.

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

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

They want a freedom to express themselves but they don’t want to have to deal with views that may upset or offend them in some way. They want a freedom to enterprise but they don’t want to pay taxes to support the legal machinery that makes it possible. They want a freedom to elect representatives to the government but they don’t want to compromise when they’re on the losing side.

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

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

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

The choice is, do you and I consume what is here now and change the planet to something unknown and different for the next generations?

Or do you and I slow our consumption to a regenerative rate, ensuring the same planet we live on now is here for the generations to come?

This is a personal choice.

It isn’t something an outside party, such as the government is going to fix.

You and I are the consumers. You and I are the ones making the choices.

What choice will you and I make in the future? They will be governed by Climate change.

You will not find these choices in the cloud.

I believe in the next ten years, science will prove that too much technology (e.g. heads always in our phones) is actually a negative thing for the mind and longevity.

I believe we’ll be forced by climate change to find a sustainable balance between technology use and real-life experiences.

All too often, problems being solved in tech are first world problems.

Many of us forget that there are some huge global problems, particularly in the developing world, that need to be solved for the benefit of us all.

But we have to take charge soon and make it so.

UNFORTUNATELY, OUR HISTORICAL FOOTPRINT TELL US THAT THIS IS A TOTAL IMPOSSIBILITY.

Society will tear itself apart! The root causes will remain the same.

We have no clue about what we are doing, but we are the best at

telling others what to do!

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

THE BEADY EYE’S : OPEN LETTER TO THE IRISH MINISTER

06 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Backstop., Climate Change., Environment, European Union., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Ireland, Modern day life., Open Letter., Paris Climate Change Conference 2015, Politics., Reality., Social Media, Sustaniability, Taoiseach: Leo Varadkar, The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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Dear Taoiseach,

Is this the only reply you are capable of.

(The Department of Taoiseach:)

I acknowledge receipt of your email to the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar T.D.

Is mian liom a admháil go bhfuarthas do ríomhphost chuig an Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar T.D

While I appreciate that it is not possible to reply to everyone this is what is wrong with Politicians, hiding behind the unnamed relying on Algorithms.

So in the vain hope of attracting your attention, I am publishing the letter in my Flipboard Magazines. With a request that my reader past it on.

I have also sent this letter to the Irish Times in the hope they might publish it.

 

 

The  letter:

16/07/2019

Dear Taoiseach,

I write as a man from the land of the Green.

In my life, I have had the great gift of travelling a great deal of the world both by land and sea.

We have recently celebrated the first man on the moon some fifty years ago.

Then as a much younger man, I watched Armstrong place his foot with the famous words.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Never did I think that our world so full of life and beauty might become the dust that his boot stood on.

Every human being has a relationship with plastic but unfortunately not ever one has a relationship with nature that is now facing a crisis that requires once again International recognition of the Unity of the Globe that the moon landing did all those years ago.

This is where Ireland under your leadership has a moral duty to call on all nations of the world to attend a unity of the global conference, in the Emerald Isle the land of forty shades of green.

The Paris Climate change conference achieved shallow unbinding promises.

The clock is ticking until the next US election starting in November 2020 with the winner inaugurated on Wednesday, January 20, 2021.

Just think of the influence of such a world meeting would have on the election of new USA president and its policies re Climate Change.

If you want to leave a legacy to be remembered by other than the backstop/Brexit what better opportunity to promote the Green.

This gathering should have not just world leaders but leading Industrials, representatives from world organisations and the young that are going to inherit the earth.

Its sole purpose is to present the facts from all side and recognize the need for the world to act as one and achieve a just climate change program that is binding and fully financed – a moon landing moment.

The venue could be at Croke Park.

Ireland could lead by example such as banning combustion engines from its major city centre once a month, declaring clear skies once a month, granting long term repayable governments grants to green energy initiatives like solar panels.

For every participant in attendance.

Ireland could plant a tree to offset their travelling carbon footprint.

Yours Faithfully,

Robert de May Dillon.

Contact Details.

Tel No.  0565416843.

E-Mail. bobdillon33@gmail.com

Address. Moulin de labarde, L’Abbey Nouvelle, 46300 Lot France.

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: HAVE HUMANS ANY VALUE IN TODAY’S WORLD.

06 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Artificial Intelligence., Climate Change., Dehumanization., Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., GDP., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Our Common Values., Post - truth politics., Reality., Robot citizenship., Social Media, Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Fifteen-minute read)

THIS IS A DIFFICULT SUBJECT:

In today`s tormented world, we trade off meeting one value over another.

To know your value today you need “kaleidoscope thinking,” the ability to see alternative angles and perspectives and to create new patterns of thinking that propel innovation.

However, we think of this it is what we need to do with our lives – create a value.

For better or worse we’re all habitual self-evaluators.

I’m only as good as my last achievement or success.

In a recent Beady Eye post we look at what it is to be human which with technology is going to become more and more complicated.

The value of human life is the same as it’s always been…priceless.

All down throughout history, we see that it has an arbitrary value.

Genghis Khan in his day killed 10% of the existing world population. The “Fat Man” bomb dropped on Nagasaki the end of 1945 killed from 39,000 to 80,000. Hiroshima death toll at around anything from 140000 to 90,000.

Climate change has the potential to kill us all within seven years so perhaps it is not a good time to be thinking we have a value.

Anyway vastly increased access to transportable information it makes it both easier and more difficult to define value.

Technology will not only shape the way they live and work but also created a whole new set of beliefs, fears and aspirations. These values, in turn, will affect our approach to the global challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

But it’s more than just the way we use technology.

Our value will be invested in “psychological self-determination.” self-acceptance.

Our desire in regard to participation, expression, identity, and quality of life—all values which are espoused by organizations, but largely ignored in practice as organizations continue to focus on reducing fixed labour costs and increasing profits.

Your fate is now inextricably bound to the collective success of global giants like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon all the way down to the bottom line.

Technology is creating a new gender gap as young men and women value their role differently in their lives.

This is a total disaster, all our fault willing allowing our private data to be harvest every moment of our living lives. 

The next generation will be the first generation to be worse off than their parents, yet they are still expected to pick up the tab for the planet’s problems, including an ageing population, global debt and climate change.

So let’s look at a few of the things we might use to find a value today.

How should we set a value upon each other?

FROM A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW:

If one takes a dispassionate look at religion it is mostly concerned with texts, scriptures, dogma, and trying to validate events within the history of that religion.

All of this is already reinforced by the law of the land right?

No Geographical Boundaries.

FROM A SOCIAL MEDIA POINT OF VIEW:

Figures of daily traffic pulled by these sites are enough, for anyone to realize the power and influence that social media commands over inhabitants of our world, both virtual and physical. Power and importance of social media in today’s world are such that it has been included in the curriculum of almost any kind of school all over the globe.

No Geographical Boundaries.

FROM A MONETARY VIEW.

You don’t have to look far: Inequality

FROM A GOVERNMENT VIEW.

A lot of the world is make-believe. We’re only aware of a fraction of what’s going on.

GDP before looking after its people.

FROM A HEURISTIC BELIEF.

I’m worthwhile merely because “I am I, I exist, and I am alive”

(A heuristic is a mental shortcut that allows an individual to make a decision, pass judgment, or solve a problem quickly and with the least amount of mental effort. As humans move throughout the world, they must process large amounts of information and make many choices within limited amounts of time. When information is missing, or an immediate decision is necessary, heuristics act as “rules of thumb” that guide behaviour down the most efficient pathway.)

Thoroughly rejects the belief that my worth has anything to do with my performances, achievements or successes in life! It asserts “a bad act is not a bad me, nor is a good act a good me.”  It implies that there are no bad people, no evil people; only bad behaviours or evil behaviours.

This belief is not without boundaries.

FROM A SOCIAL CONTRACT VIEW THAT BINDS US:

Means society must reserve the right of forced hospitalization, incarceration, even capital punishment for those with markedly diminished levels of rational autonomy, which is the essence of sanity in a world where evolution and consensus dictate that life is better than death, sanity is better than insanity, health is better than disease, love is better than hate, good is better than evil, and so forth!

FROM A CAPITALISTIC/ SOCIALIST/COMMUNIST VIEW:

Their work is worthwhile and that their efforts are being recognised, and value similar things in an employer brand to a consumer brand.

FROM A MORAL VIEW:

Beware of transgressing the other person’s morals, as this is particularly how they will value you.

FROM A NEBULOUS QUANTUM FUTURE VIEW:

Two states at the one time. Where is the value that?

Woman using the instagram app

If we truly saw the value of people.

I am worthwhile because I exist, I am I, and I am alive.”

I will repeat this powerful new mantra to live by in hope of it finding an audience willing to adopt it as a mantra capable of creating a healthy transformation by coming alive within us.

So valuating yourself will be only an intrinsic value that climate

change will expose. 

Perhaps most telling, try Googling it. What is my value?

You probably get an answer from an Algorithm.

Mouse over the value to see the full definition. Worthless. 

Don’t take your values to heart as Facebook wants to develop brain-reading technology. The consequences of which will be serious for all our values with our interiors becoming a thing of the past, rubbing out the distinction between mind and machine.

Sometimes values can be complementary and sometimes they can compete with each other.

You have to value your life for someone else to value it and need to value others for them to value yours.

There is only one overall value for all humans or forthcoming robots to pursue.

To create a clean and sustainable world for the generations that follow us.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHAT IT IS TO BE HUMAN?

01 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by in Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Dehumanization., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Humanity., Life., Our Common Values., Reality., Robot citizenship., Technology, The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Twenty-minute read)

Answering this question is not as straightforward as it might appear.

There are billions of us alive all consciousness of each other but unable to explain why.

Perhaps this is why religions were created.

Consciousness is everything people experience.

However, there are different levels of consciousness and they can be related to other global changes in conscious level. All are private and inaccessible to observers.

(Conscious level (how conscious one is) and conscious content (what one is conscious of) are related to each other.)

So at what is a structure complex enough to become conscious.

Why am I human instead of a particle?

If we are particles we are no longer dealing with a purely material theory of consciousness because the source of the conscious particles cannot itself be material.

Its source requires an immaterial intervention.

I will return to consciousness later in the post.

The role that technology plays in human life is becoming an increasingly urgent question not just in tackling climate change but what will be considered in the future to be human.

Where we’re headed and what it will mean for humanity is a question seldom discussed.

Bioelectric implants, genetic modification packages, the ability to tamper with our very biology —  there won’t be enough time to adjust or to reassess who we are and what it means to be human.

Our technology is developing so much faster than our culture and our institutions, and the gap between these things can only grow so far before society becomes dangerously unstable.

It’s hard to really know what we are becoming because so many of these changes are unforeseen or unpredictable.

At the moment computers and robots interact with the world without being conscious.

Are we at risk or are we becoming semi-machines who are like the marionettes of our own moment-to-moment experiences?

We’re losing our ability to be in the world in a way that isn’t mediated by some electronic appendage.

The more we live through screens, the more we are living in a narrow bandwidth, an abstract world that’s increasingly artificial the more we are becoming non-human.

The virtual world might be safe and controllable, but it’s not rich and unpredictable in the way the real world is.

What is all this doing to our habits, to our cultural sense of who we are?

With synthetic biology, which is basically human beings redesigning their biological structure we are distant to lose our connection to reality altogether.

Why?

Because it’s about us modifying our very genetic code which is extremely dangerous if it’s not controlled and safeguarded.

Intelligence is the most powerful instrument around.

If you’re embodying that kind of intelligence in increasingly sophisticated machines we will be coming to depend on them more and more over time.

(What worries me is that we’re headed in the direction of building AI technologies that are at the human level and, eventually, far beyond that.)

If AI becomes so intelligent that they can perform an infinite variety of tasks across domains of activity. We’ll continue to make them smarter and more capable and more powerful until we reach a point at which they start to learn on their own and start to modify themselves. Once that happens, they’ll be fully unpredictable — and then who the hell knows what happens next.

Any fool on the street can tell you that with nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, machine learning, bioengineering, brain implants, quantum computers, algorithms, robots that technology is changing at a whiplash-inducing pace.

So because there is no widely accepted theory about what happens in the brain to make consciousness possible what is it about being human that really matters?

Back to look at Consciousness.

Nothing has authority over it but is it what makes us human.

Nothing is above it. Nothing rules it.

Since everything exists within it, it does not exist within anything.

Since it is not dependent on anything, it is eternal, it is outside of realms of being and time.

In fact, consciousness actually exists independently and outside of the brain as an inherent property of the universe itself like dark matter and dark energy or gravity. It is not dependent on anything. No one can envision it. No one can comprehend it. Neither physical nor unphysical it is beyond knowledge.

It simply apprehends itself.

The brain does not create or produce consciousness; rather, it filters it.

This implies a very real and direct connection between the brain, human consciousness and the existence of the Universe — that they are fundamentally inseparable at the quantum level.

Consciousness permeates reality.

Rather than being just a unique feature of human subjective experience, it’s the foundation of the universe, present in every particle and all physical matter.

Who or what counts as human?

It’s well-known that the Nazis considered Jews to be non-human creatures.

All the questions we currently face can be traced to this, larger, underlying question. What is Human?

If one says that all and only Homo sapiens are humans, one is expressing a preference about where the boundary separating humans from non-humans should be drawn.

What sort of evidence can settle the question?

There’s something about us that is the opposite of artificial. It’s the opposite of something made.

This raises the below questions.

What genetic engineering stuff promises to bring down the line is human beings who are tailored to particular purposes, either by themselves over time or by other human beings.

We becoming products or commodities, and products or commodities are subordinated to particular functions or purposes.

All the values that give our lives meaning are at risk.

What becomes of autonomy? What becomes of free will?

All these questions are on the table.

By the year 2500, people will not need to be exactly like they are now so it stands to reason that semi humans will break the bonds that hold our present-day society together. They will shatter our sense of identity so quickly that it creates a kind of existential chaos.

So what are these technologies adding to the human experience and, more importantly, what are they subtracting from the human experience?

We live in a world of wonder and mystery, and the more we discover, the more there seems to be to find out but should we be more worried about the world we’re creating?

The artificial kind of worlds.

.This post is compliments of the FRIGHTLY SORRY<SORRY<SORRY. CLUB.

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