Category Archives: #whatif.com

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: WE NEED MORE DREAMS THAN MEMORIES .

18 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by in #whatif.com, Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Education, Environment, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Google, Google Knowledge., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Innovation., Life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, 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 the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Politics

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(Six-minute read)

Why?

As we journey toward the undiscovered country called the future we are witnessing a world of terror, violence, greed, exploitation, pollution, and algorithm annihilation wreaking havoc in our world.

It’s no wonder in the face of such horror. that most of us feel minuscule and completely powerless.

But the world is glittering with possibility which can’t afford to wait for a generational change.

We’re clearly at a moment of great global transition and transformation as we attempt to help solve massive emerging issues we need more dreams than memories.

Help the world and the world will help you back.

In addition to globalization, technology, social changes and government policies that have all been instrumental in determining who benefits and who loses out from global economic integration in past decades we now have giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era.

These titans—Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft—look unstoppable.

We can dream of a world rich enough to pay everyone a living wage as a birthright, of thriving human creativity, and of thrilling new ways for humans to build on and collaborate with machine intelligence but are we fooling ourselves.

There are no quick answers.

It may take a revolution in education; we may even need to rethink capitalism itself.

Certainly, we’ll need ideas to address the growing inequality that is driving so much of the anger we see in the world.

It seems clear now that millions of people around the world are rejecting a global order that they feel was foisted on them and has given them nothing.

We need to give a platform to dreamers and reformers who are thinking outside the box as the current system is in danger of breaking.

One in every nine people goes to bed hungry each night.

Up to one-third of the food produced around the world is never consumed.

Every 10 seconds, a child dies from hunger.

We are witnessing a massive shift of humanity unlike any seen before.

Today more than 68 million people around the world are displaced from their homes.

If you compare your size to the size of the universe, you almost don’t exist.Image associée

As Martin Luther King, Jr said, “We must learn to live together as brothers, or perish together as fools.”

What happens to society when the focus of culture is on the self and its icon, the “selfie”?

And what happens to morality when the mantra is no longer “We’re all in this together”, but rather “I’m free to be myself”?

What happens when Google filters and Facebook friends divide us into non-communicating sects of the like-minded?

What could possibly be gained from ignoring the global view, that, the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is the sole reason that humankind’s ecological footprint is larger than Earth itself?

I would like people not to be satisfied with the current ecological footprint and try to come up with measures that really track the water, soil and all the ways we degrade ecosystems in a way that would become management metrics.

The dream of one world is not threatening, but beautiful.

Once one person does the “impossible”, thousands of people follow only because their mind starts believing it’s possible.

It means you must take the time to:

a) Define your values and guiding principles.

b) Understand your nature and individuality.

Define the experiences you want to have in life. Then, do everything you can to realize those experiences.

Try and leave this world a little better than you found it.

We must start extending our sense of shared identity to all of humanity.

We’re battling here for the survival of an idea on which the world’s future depends, the idea of humanity as one connected family.

But how do we get there?

First and foremost we must start breaking the cycle of poverty.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "what does the world need more than anything"

So let’s seek out those with compelling ideas to offer here other than like clicks and abuse.

The key may be to stop framing this dream as a top-down system driven by faceless global elites who tell us all what to do, but instead as a flourishing of human possibility that’s happening right here on the ground.

Ideas can’t be contained by borders.

Most countries are in ecological deficit.

We have technologies that can inflict global harm, our very survival now depends on it.

The potential and pitfalls for digital identity must be addressed. Holding the earth

All comments appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHAT IS REALITY?

11 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by in #whatif.com, Algorithms., Reality., Technology, The Future, The Obvious., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH

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(Twelve-minute disturbing read)

Dig deep enough into the fabric of reality and you are left with the above question.

The story of our recent technological development has been one of ever-increasing computational power. At some future time, we will surely begin to simulate everything, including the evolutionary history that led to where we are.

But in our increasingly digital, algorithm-driven world what is a reality.

The journey from Virtual Reality to Reality itself is looking possible. In the wake of all Artifical intelligence development, it’s not doubtful that this level of immersion will be achieved.

The illusion becomes the prevailing reality.

An algorithm-oriented way of thinking that is quickly spreading throughout all fields of natural and social sciences and percolating into every aspect of our everyday life will have an enormous impact what is a reality.

Under the conceptual metaphor of “everything as algorithms,” which means learnings from one domain could theoretically be applied to another, thus accelerating scientific and technological advances for the betterment of our world, will lead to the reality of the world disappearing.

As a result of this takeover of algorithms in all domains of our everyday life, non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms may soon know us better than we know ourselves, therefore luring us in an algorithmic trap that presents the most common-denominator, homogenized experience as the best option to everyone.

However, when data is selected and coded with unchecked bias, the algorithms become biased too.

So it not hypothetical to say we will reach a point when AI will present its result as the only viable choice, the only true narrative based on data then there can be no such thing as reality.

We cannot say that reality is a fact.

Why?

Just because sufficiently many people believe in something does not make it real. As the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick put it, the reality is that which, if you stop believing in it, does not go away. Because it is in a constant state of expansion, it isn’t what it seems.

Nothing is real until it is observed, or measured. So, is really built on emptiness?

How do many possibilities become one physical reality?

Is there an external reality that exists independently of our observations creating matter as derivative from consciousness.

Why?

Because the human brain is incapable of churning out anything beyond what we put in?

However, as we are made of essentially the same genetic material and receive essentially the same sensory inputs so one’s own consciousness is all there is.,

Then the world is also subject to our collective perception. Thus we form our world together, from one infinite moment to the next.

Does reality come down to information?

What do we mean by ‘know’?”

Will superintelligence be a reality unknowable by us?

If it acquires all the knowledge of the world and us it will have fundamental ramifications for our concept of reality. The nature of reality will have two perceptual realms. Virtual reality will quite simply be able to take you places you have never gone before.

Virtual reality will become more sensory oriented in the future. Once it begins catering to the senses, like what we feel body-wise, temperature-wise, and smell, the reality factor of virtual reality becomes stronger and the virtual piece begins to fade.

By 2050, you won’t be able to tell the difference between the “real” and the “virtual” world.

Our language is subject to change so our reality is subject to change also.

More than a decade ago, the first real smartphone hit the market and made screens an essential ingredient in our lives. As a result, it has changed how we communicate, work, travel, purchase and more.

A platform shift of what is real is imminent. Do we make real, or does it make us?

No matter how intelligent we or our robots might get, neither will find the source of reality as it is in constant transition.Where-is-Augmented-and-Virtual-Reality-Technology-Headed

SOME MIGHT WILL SAY THAT REALITY IS THE CENTER OF A BLACK HOLE.

A “gravitational singularity” which in many ways represents all that we still don’t know about the universe.

Surrounding each black hole, meanwhile, is an invisible boundary known as the “event horizon” that essentially marks the point of no return.

They, however, are processes so it’s conceivable, that living matter might be able to exist within a black hole without being consigned to that harsh and eternal oblivion.

It’s almost impossible to guess what it would really be like inside a

black hole.

‘No One Really Knows’

Black holes do not seem to me to be a thing or a place but a transition.

This raises an interesting question as to the matter being spewed out to the other side of what. Einstein space-time?

The black hole/ big bang events are just another of the realities. Both have to have atoms to happen and none of us, although we like everything, are made of atoms which are 90% made up of empty space know what occupies this space.

In the end, the only place we have any chance of determining reality is where there is no temperature- vibrations – gravity- matter-energy-vacuum- atomless- lightless- timeless all totally unobservable.

All human comments appreciated. All abuse and like clicks chunked into the bin.

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHEN THIS BRIXIT MAYHEM IS ALL OVER. THERE WILL BE QUESTIONS GALORE AS TO HOW IT ALL HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE. ANOTHER FACE BOOK VICTORY.

13 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2018: The Year of Disconnection., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Brexit., Democracy, Facebook, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Life., Modern Day Communication., Modern Day Democracy., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Reality., Social Media, Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Twitter, Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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(Seven-minute read)

Facebook is more powerful than a nation-state.

Facebook is in the business of exploiting your data.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of the erosion of democracy"

Platforms like Facebook enable people’s data to be used in ways that take power away from voters and give it to data-analyzing campaigners.

Unfortunately, it seems that none of us sees this. We don’t hold media technology firms accountable for degrading our public conversations.

With only months to go before Britain exits the European Union, the English government is in meltdown oblivious to what is happening in the world beyond and how it connects to Britain

All eyes are transfixed on the EU exit sign.

Critically, both for the EU and England it’s what happened on Social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook that will remain the biggest question of all after Brexit.

Both Twitter and Facebook have become a giant funnel not just for dark ads, but for dark money that evades election finance laws and the control of money spent during elections is the very basis of our electoral laws.

If we are now failing to recognise the above we are failing to appreciate how social media is breaking our democracy.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of the erosion of democracy"

While we all are all burying our heads in the sand of smartphone it is obvious that Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter are the perfect cover for something far more chilling controlling the expression of public opinion in the political debate.

Although Twitter and Facebook are categorised as social networking services, in fact, they are as different as chalk and cheese. And, of the two, Twitter is more important in one respect: its impact on the arena in which societies discuss their political issues.

Twitter also has the capacity to turn “ordinary” people into broadcasters, a development whose implications we are only just beginning to digest. Yellow Jackets, Brixiters who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?

Technologies such as Twitter, which offer real-time tracking of public opinion, are the visible foundations of the Arab Spring, Donald Trump’s election, Brexit and the Yellowjackets.

Democracy and the rule of law are been subverted in plain sight.

If you look at the USA Twitter is the de facto newswire for the planet, which means that a company that can regulate expressions of opinion might be very powerful indeed.

And that should make us nervous.

So is there anything that can be done?

No much unless we pass laws regulating these platforms and make them responsible for what is posted on their platforms.

One of the most striking aspects of the epoch-making Brexit is (as with the Syrian War the Iraq, and Yemen war) is the way many MPs cited the emailed opposition of their constituents to armed intervention as a reason for voting against the proposed action.

Thus, it is evident that we are all increasingly embracing the importance of social media and its value in modern human communication.

However, this trend can only be assumed as the beginning of an envisioned well connected and digital adept world.

So recent history has evidenced that Social Media is a potent tool with transformational abilities to shape and influence the way in which people communicate and share information.

One of the qualities that define Social Media is its ability to transcend beyond borders, without observing spatial distance that exists between and amongst the geographies.

In addition, social media connects individuals on a semi-personal level, while allowing instantaneous feedback and dialogue.

But, this does not rule out the possible abuse of such innocent yet powerful platforms of communications.

Different sectors ranging from government to business also embeds and encourages the embracement of social media platforms into their processes in order to enhance organisational efficiency.

We might be gradually realising the significance of social media for democratic benefits that it is seen as an agent of public discourse and a driver of public participation and freedom of speech amid political and democratic uncertainty.

It might be rising the political and democratic consciousness but the power of social media in the political and democratic dispensation cannot be underestimated.

Is social media damaging democracy? Yes, but we can also use social media to save democracy.

We have to stop governments from colluding with an omniscient surveillance superpower but use it as their eyes to see the inequalities we all live in.

THERE IS NOT THE TIME FOR COUNTRIES TO BE MOVING TO ID ISOLATION IF WE ARE TO HARNESS TECHNOLOGY TO SERVE THE WORLD.

Just as there is nothing inevitable about democratic survival, neither is the demise of democracy guaranteed.

These changes are especially likely to go unnoticed when popularly elected leaders twist laws to their advantage or frame attacks on checks and balances as populist reforms limiting the power of elites.

Civil society must reclaim its rightful place by demanding genuine participation in governance, including decisions on peace initiatives, environmental protection and trade and investment agreements.

A large part of humanity still doesn’t have it. Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of the erosion of democracy"

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. #WHAT IF.COM THE EUROPEAN UNION ISSUED GREEN ENERGY TREASURY BONDS.

06 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by in #whatif.com, Climate Change., Environment, European Commission., European Union., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Modern Day Democracy., Natural World Disasters, Nuclear power., Our Common Values., Politics., Reality., Social Media, Sustaniability, Technology, The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Twitter, Unanswered Questions., What needs to change in European Union., What Needs to change in the World, World Leaders, World Organisations.

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We are all realizing that climate change needs to be addressed.

Technology, governments, and world organisations will contribute but if we the citizens of the earth only pay lip attention like our politicians that are more concerned about the latest twitter we have a recipe for disaster.

Changing our habits one by one will take a lifetime.

So # What if.com has a suggestion that could be adopted by the Europen Union or for that matter any country.

We all know that energy is essential to us all and that we have the green technology to wean us off fossil fuels.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of energy conservation"

The problem is it the replacement.

Pounds of CO2 emitted per million British thermal units (Btu) of energy for various fuels:

Coal (anthracite) 228.6
Coal (bituminous) 205.7
Coal (lignite) 215.4
Coal (subbituminous) 214.3
Diesel fuel and heating oil 161.3
Gasoline (without ethanol) 157.2
Propane 139.0
Natural gas 117.0

THERE ARE THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF SMALL TOWNS AND VILLAGE ALL OVER EUROPE.

 #WHATIF.COM SUGGESTION.

WITH SOME CREATIVE INITIATIVES FROM OURSELVES, OUR GOVERNMENTS AND WITH HELP FROM THE EU THESE VILLAGES AND TOWNS COULD BECOME SELF-SUFFICIENT IN ENEGERY.

Nuclear energy, wind turbines, are not wanted for obvious reasons. Of all the long-term solution to reduce carbon emissions solar energy is the prefered option.

So until we crack fusion there is endless energy to be had from the sun.

There is no reason for half a dozen major energy companies that have come to dominate the market to offer repayable grants to every community to establish utility-scale energy co-ops to run small solar farms.

These co-ops can be funded in several ways.

By:  The issuing of EU environmental green bonds.

By:  A solar levy that could be progressively applied to bigger electricity bills.

BY: Customers who can either purchase a share of a solar garden and own that portion of the overall array or they can lease energy from the solar system and, in a sense, replace their monthly utility payments with monthly community solar payments that are typically at a lower price.

By: National grids paying for the excess energy generated with these payments guaranteed for 20 years.

WHEN ONE LOOKS AT SOLAR ENERGY WE SEE INDIVIDUAL HOUSES WITH SOLAR PANELS AND MORE THAN LIKELY ARE ASKING THE QUESTION WHY SHOULD WE BE PAYING FOR AFFLUENT RICH PEOPLE INDULGING IN GREEN CRAP?

OF COURSE, BIG ENERGY COMPANIES DONE WANT TO LOSE THEIR REVENUE BASE. However, increasing the amount of electricity storage has huge value to the National Grid because it helps balance variable supply and erratic demand.

Also, batteries will help the grid adjust to the big new challenge posed by the need to charge electric vehicles. ( Given these services, shouldn’t solar batteries be subsidised?)

Furthermore, it would make all of us and countries self-sufficient in green energy, weaning us off government support.

Solar farms at the utility scale would typically be at least 1 megawatt (MW), which is a power plant capable of supplying some 200 households. The needed kilowatt hours of energy can be established from the existing energy bills and work backwards to get a number of panels needed for the array.

A smaller solar farm only requires a few acres of land with a panel cleaned – and a powered robot.

Solar will get there and private money will eventually fill the gap, but it may not get there nearly as fast as needed without some creative thinking.

Just imagine what this would do not to just the reduction of carbon emissions, but to new employment opportunities, the cost of manufacturing, the sale of electric vehicles, the quality of the air we breathe to mention a few of the benefits.

There is not a village or town that would turn own such an opportunity.