Category Archives: World View.

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT THE STATE OF THE WORLD. THE GOOD. THE BAD. AND THE UGLY.

31 Monday Oct 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., Aid, Civilization., State of the world, Technology v Humanity, The Microchip., The state of the World., The world to day., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Twitter, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World View.

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( Fifteen minute read)

We all know that Global leaders face formidable challenges, from dizzying technological progress and geopolitical tension to climate change to growing inequality but ours is an age of culture wars, identity politics, nationalism and geopolitical rivalry, all driven by smartphones.

An age of division, within and among countries with a global downturn that has meant that many of the foundation stones that we used to mark adulthood no longer exist.

This means international treaties and agreements must be framed or reworked to be sensitive to these requirements, including those relating to trading rules, investment agreements, intellectual property regimes and not world aid budgets becoming trickles of political conscious. 

Monetary and financial policies need to be reoriented, to encourage greater inclusion of those excluded and to make the financial system one that provides financial security.

Of course the likely hood of achieving any of this in our life times is zero, and will remain so, till our goals in education changes from  needles consumption towards non-material goals, to protect the earth which we all rely on for life.

Indeed extreme wealth now needs to be eliminated and replaced by extreme generosity.

Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the survival of an overarching concept of “one world” seemed at least conceivable, however difficult. But wars are transformative. The primacy of economics can no longer be assumed.

While technology continues its transformative march the Earth’s ecological and human systems are in severe crisis.

Although there is a wealth of information available, much of it is fragmented and the convergence of issues facing the earth are so interrelated that most of them cannot be fully understood out of context.10 Things Going On In The World Right Now That You Need To Know About

So here is some of that context:

THE UGLY:

33% of the world’s people live under authoritarian, non-democratic regimes.

On any given day at any given moment in your life, there are at least 15 wars and armed conflicts actively going on all around the world. Most are dismissed, forgotten, ignored and under-reported while the world stays busy looking the other way.

Civilians are being murdered, tortured and displaced due to terrorism, government instability and human rights violations. When these wars are completely forgotten and ignored, each and every death is even more tragic.

Over 100 million people live in slums.

3 billion of the world’s people (one-half) live in ‘poverty’ (living on less than $2 per day).

Poor countries (which contain 4/5th’s of the world’s people) pay the rich countries an estimated nine times more in debt repayments than they receive in aid

The richest 1% of the world’s people earned as much income as the bottom 57%. The wealth of the world’s 7.1 million millionaires ($27 trillion) equals the total combined annual income of the entire planet.

17 million people, including 11 million children, die every year from easily preventable diseases and malnutrition.

Nearly 160 million children are malnourished worldwide.

1.1 billion do not have safe drinking water. By 2025, at least 3.5 billion people or nearly 2/3rd’s of the world’s population will face water scarcity.

3.4 million people died prematurely as a result of outdoor air pollution.

The development and release of genetically engineered organisms and their products has proceeded globally at a rapid rate.

Millions of patents are in process and all living creatures are considered potential candidates for genetic modification and cultivation as bio-factories for human purposes and profit.

An estimated 27 million people are enslaved around the world, including an estimated 20 million people held in bonded labour (forced to work in order to pay off a debt, also known as ‘debt bondage’)..

700,000 people annually, and up to 2 million, mostly women and children, are victims of human trafficking worldwide (a modern form of slavery — bought, sold, transported and held against their will in slave-like conditions)..

About 246 million, or 1 out of 6, children ages 5 to 17 worldwide are involved in child labour.

275 million children never attend or complete primary school education. 870 million of the world’s adults are illiterate.

Half of the forests that originally covered 46% of the Earth’s land surface are gone.

Between 10 and 20 percent of all species will be driven to extinction in the next 20 to 50 years. 60% of the world’s coral reefs, which contain up to one-fourth of all marine species, could be lost in the next 20-40 years.

Bee numbers decreasing worldwide,

Global warming is expected to increase the Earth’s temperature by 3C (5.4F) in the next 100 years.

There are over 45 million refugees and internally displaced people in the world.

Desertification and land degradation threaten nearly one-quarter of the land surface of the globe.

Over 70,000 new chemicals have been brought into commercial production and released to the environment in the last 100 years.

Higher sea level (a consequence of climate change), particularly in low lying areas, will contaminate groundwater by pushing to the surface toxic substances that have been underground for many years.

THE BAD:.

Global co-operation remains essential. However deep the rifts become, we share this planet. We still need to avoid cataclysmic wars, economic collapse and, above all, destruction of the environment. None of this is at all likely without at least a minimum level of co-operation. Yet is that at all likely?  No.

Given the immense political and organisational challenges, the chances that humanity will prevent damaging climate change are slim.

The whole human race will run out of ‘Patience’ 

Smartphone is now ‘the place where we live’ however free speech is a power now being bought by the rich – Twitter – Elton Musk who will not ensure that unless it is controlled it will be offensive to someone.

Microchip technology has modified existing patterns of human activities such as personal, social, political, and economic spheres.

However making the production process safer for the environment might be the hardest problem they have faced.

Every microchip is a metropolis.

Unfortunately, like every city, these chips consume an immense amount of resources and generate truckloads of waste. The microchip is essentially made from sand—albeit sand that has been melted, purified, and refined until it is over 99.9999 percent pure silicon. Overall, a microchip is a structure that stands in abject defiance of the second law of thermodynamics: It creates a region of extreme order from a whole lot of chaos, and that does require a lot of energy.

The comforts of modern life gifted by these wonder chips come at the expense of a vast amount of resources.

One or more microchips runs every one of the 40 billion connected devices currently in use—a figure that’s expected to jump to 350 billion by 2030.

They have created a storm of microchip embedded devices which affect our daily lives.

There is enough depleted uranium in the world.

THE GOOD:

Even though it may feel there hasn’t been much uplifting news lately, there are still a lot of reasons to be optimistic.

The smartphone is changing the world, its vastly different uses are reducing corruption, enabling transparency, making it possible to document both good and evil political debate.

We’re close to eradicating some diseases, a vaccine against Malaria is one step closer.  Cancer deaths are dropping.

More and more people are moving to alternative media sources in order to find truth. We are seeing this happening in real time.

There is amazing amounts of information are at everyone’s fingertips, and instantaneous communication to almost anywhere is essentially free. We all live our lives awake and a sleep, in small bubble of self  awareness, unaffected or detached or deceived by a politically noxious combination of lies as to what is happing around us, till it comes home to roost, then its to late.

The word apocalypse has its roots in the Latin word apocalypses, meaning to uncover. That is what we are experiencing right now—the uncovering or revealing of the truth. The sooner we all come together to embrace this, the sooner it will become our reality.

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Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHY IS THE WORLD IN THE STATE IT IS?

24 Sunday Jul 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., Biotechnology., Climate Change., Digital age., DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Genetic engineering, Human Collective Stupidity., Imagination., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Reality., State of the world, Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Unanswered Questions., Wars, What is shaping our world., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, World View.

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( Twenty minute read) 

Following on from the posts under the heading of what shaped the world lets look at the state of the world as it is to day.

The world is becoming increasingly interconnected and interdependent, with ever more political, social, cultural, financial and commercial relations transgressing nation state borders but the convergence of issues facing the earth are now so interrelated that most of them cannot be fully understood out of context.

The recent pandemic served to prove our fragility and our interconnectedness.

When we start thinking about constructing a model of the world it’s better to say that while you are living in the world, it’s fairly difficult to judge it objectively or even understand all of its moving parts.

In addressing that issue I will note that many of today’s issues have legacies 100 years old and will not be addressed in this post.

If anything has brought us together over the last year and a half, it is our feeling of vulnerability about the present and uncertainty about the future.

Now urgent action, taken together, is needed to change course and reimagine our futures and this action must encompass an ethic of care, reciprocity, and solidarity.

But to translating and contextualizing these actions in a collective effort it requires a synopsis of the current state of the world.

It is only when the mess it is presented as a whole not news flashes that we have any concept of the state of the planet. 

The whole structure of today’s world, much of it inherited from an earlier era, is up for serious discussion.

Thinking of the present state of the world its remarkable what can be achieved when leaders are prepared to lead.

To achieve the maximum benefits from the extraordinary possibilities that artificial intelligence (AI) and Robots will usher in tomorrow. 

                            _______________________________

There are many factors behind what I call ‘the disillusioned society’ but greed and fear, two of the ancient enemies of human kind are the big drivers of Earth’s ecological and human systems which are now in severe crisis.

Climate change is a trend that affects all trends- economic trends, security trends. Everything will be impacted. And it becomes more dramatic with each passing year.

Our throwaway society, which in part drives markets and GDP, is continuing to damage the environment. 

A key decision to changing our thinking and attitudes to polluting activities and endless growth is to dump Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the universal measure of progress. It is a totally inadequate measure of societal progress.Who is more powerful – states or corporations?

That said here is an overview of the current state of the world. 

Only 2.5% of the world’s water is fresh—the water on which the world’s terrestrial life depends. Around 70% of this fresh water is frozen in ice or permafrost. An estimated 4 billion people, nearly two-thirds of the world population, experience severe water scarcity during at least one month of the year.

Agriculture accounts for 70% of all freshwater withdrawals globally, a ratio that’s only going to increase – to an estimated 85% – as the population grows and agricultural production rises to meet it (by an estimated 50% before 2050).

About 43% of over 7,000 of the world’s languages are endangered. Just 23 languages are spoken by more than half of the world’s people, inhabiting upwards of 85% of the land surface of the globe.

In 2015, an estimated 2.1 billion people lacked access to safely managed drinking water services and 4.5 billion lacked access to safely managed sanitation services. Over 80% of all wastewater returns to the environment without being treated.

Population, pollution, greenhouse gases and deforestation are creating never before seen changes in Earth’s living systems—including a cultural and species extinction rate that is the highest in the planet’s history.

Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases, mainly as the result of human use of fossil fuels, have been determined to be the predominant cause of earth’s changing climate.

Sea levels are already rising by 2mm a year—faster than during the past 5,000 years.

Evidence is growing that the thermohaline circulation, driven by temperature and salinity, could be slowed or stopped by cold fresh water inputs to the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans.

Our oceans are full of plastics. Sea ice and glaciers are melting throughout the globe. More than 93% of the enhanced atmospheric heating since the 1970s has been absorbed by the ocean.  

Over 90% of plastics produced are derived from virgin fossil feedstocks—about 6% of global oil consumption. This is equivalent to the total oil consumption of the global aviation sector.

Over 70,000 new chemicals have been brought into commercial production and released to the environment in the last 100 years.

An estimated 75% of the Earth’s land surface has been degraded through human activities, negatively impacting the well-being of at least 3.2 billion people, pushing the planet towards a sixth mass species extinction, and costing more than 10% of the annual global gross product in loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

The failure to reduce world hunger is closely associated with the increase in conflict and violence in several parts of the world. In addition, gains made in ending hunger and malnutrition are being eroded by climate variability and exposure to more complex, frequent and intense climate extremes. Approximately one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption—nearly 1.3 billion tonnes—gets lost or wasted every year.

In 2020, nearly 144 million children under 5 suffer from stunting (under height), 47.0 million children under 5 were wasted (underweight) , and of those, 14.3 million were considered severely wasted.

Industrialized civilization is still dependent upon cheap and reliable fossil fuel energy. There is a limited amount of fossil fuel. It is not “renewable” and there is no known way to make more.

The current humanitarian crisis in Ukraine may be in the spotlight right now however there are currently 27 ongoing conflicts.

A quarter of the entire global population lives in conflict-affected areas. 84 million people were forcibly displaced because of conflict, violence, and human rights violations. This year, it is estimated that at least 274 million people will need humanitarian assistance.

The cost of war is almost unfathomable.

Just imagine what the world could do with that money if conflicts were to end worldwide. 

Conflict drives 80% of humanitarian needs and in 2016, the cost of conflict globally stood at an astonishing $14 trillion. That’s enough to end world hunger 42 times over.

Nearly 11 years after it started, the Syrian refugee crisis remains the largest displacement crisis worldwide (13.2 million, including 6.6 million refugees and more than 6 million internally displaced people). At least 2 million people are living in tented camps with limited access to basic services.

Lasting more than 60 years, the conflict in Myanmar (previously called Burma) remains the longest ongoing civil war in the world.

The recent takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban after 20 years of US-led conflict more than half of the country’s estimated 40 million population face “extreme levels of hunger, and nearly 9 million of them are at risk of famine.

Wars are constantly in the news. 

While we tend to hear more about refugees there are actually twice as many internally displaced persons around the world. In 2013, for instance, there were 16.7 million refugees and 33.3 million internally displaced persons. it’s easy to dismiss them and forget that we’re talking about individual people whose lives have been completely disrupted.

The World Bank and the IMF can pursue their loans in perpetuity, regardless of the loans having been given to dictators or incompetent borrowers, and regardless of whether the money actually benefited the poor.

The current depletion of biological diversity and, in particular, the prospect of severe depletion, if not virtual elimination of tropical forests, wetlands, estuaries and coral reefs that have been the “engines of biodiversity” for hundreds of millions of years, may have profound effects on the evolutionary processes that have previously fostered re-diversification.

Before 1961, the entire Earth satellite population was just over 50 objects. Since 1957, about 9,600 satellites have been launched and about 5500 are still in space—and 2300 of these are still functioning. The total mass of all space objects in Earth’s is more than 8800 tonnes. Earth’s orbit is now cluttered and dangerous with: ~34,000 objects bigger than 10 cm; ~ 900,000 objects from 1cm to 10 cm; and 128,000,000 objects from greater than 1 mm — 1 cm.

By the time you finish reading this paragraph, four acres of rainforests in Brazil (i.e. about three football fields) will be replaced with farmland, largely to grow cattle and animal feed.

The commercial exploitation, militarization and weaponization of space around the earth is ongoing.

Space Tourism is just getting started but the impact of bioengineering is what is going to have profound impacts on society in the near future.

The development of bioengineering issues in tandem with overlapping

technological areas such as artificial intelligence are what is going to shape

the world for the next generations, if climate change does bot wipe us of the

globe.

(Biotechnological discoveries are increasingly facilitated by automated and roboticides, private ‘cloud labs)

These issues will shape the future of bioengineering and must shape modern discussions about its political, societal and economic impact.

Technology is in the infancy of creating a world state. 

                                   ————————————-

The Bioengineering Technologies to Look Out for in the Next Decade – The Wire Science

Bioengineering is a discipline that applies engineering design and principles

to biological systems. Some examples of this fusion are artificial organs or

limbs, the genetic synthesis of new organisms, gene editing, the

computerized simulation of surgery, medical imaging technology and

tissue/organ regeneration.

Bioengineering brings with it both huge potential for good, and risks to

regulate. Like any other technology, bioengineering has damaging potential,

whether it be through misuse, weaponization or accidents. This risk can

create significant threats with large potential consequences to public health,

privacy or to environmental safety.

We need critical thinking to understand what they are, what their impact is and how they are related, with ethical and regulatory frameworks, climate change, inequalities, technological convergence and the misuse of technology, in order to drive informed policy decisions.

Below is by no means a comprehensive list. 

<5Years 5–10 Years >10 Years
Artificial photosynthesis and carbon capture for producing biofuels Regenerative medicine: 3D printing body parts and tissue engineering New makers disrupt pharmaceutical makers
Enhanced photosynthesis for agricultural productivity Microbiome-based therapies Platform technologies to address emerging disease pandemics
New approaches to synthetic gene drives Producing vaccines and human therapeutics in plants Challenges to Taxonomy-Based description and management of biological risk
Human genome editing Manufacturing illegal drugs using engineered organisms Shifting ownership models in biotechnology
Accelerating defense agency research in biological engineering Reassigning codons as genetic firewalls Securing the critical infrastructure needed to deliver the bioeconomic
  Rise of automated tools for biological design, test and optimisation  
Biology as information science: impacts on global governance
Intersection of information security and bio-automation
Effects of the Nagoya Protocol on biological engineering
Corporate espionage and bio crime

Additions.  

  • Using Bioengineering Instead of Animals
  • Using Bioengineering Instead of Plants
  • Using Bioengineering to Create Eco-friendly Materials
  • Using Bioengineering for Greenhouse Gas Sequestration and Removal DNA technology, makes insulin much more accessible to people with diabetes by producing human insulin using bacteria instead of animals.
  • Veggie burgers using bioengineered yeast.
  • Altered yeast to produce collagen, the animal protein that is the main component of leather. 
  • To produce anti-malarial compounds. (Every year, 200 million people are affected by malaria.)
  • Bioengineered yeast to make beer and palm oil.
  • Genetically engineered bacteria that reduce the need for nitrogen fertilizers.
  • Biodegradable product that eliminates both the unsustainable practices
  • Manufacturing biosynthetic indigo could reduce the use of petroleum and the release of toxic chemicals by a factor of five
  • Genetically engineer microbes to actually pull greenhouse gases – such as CO2 and methane – from the air. 
  • Use bacterial fermentation to turn that methane into a biodegradable polymer called poly hydroxy alkanoate (PHA).
  • To  provide nutritious and non-toxic feedstock for farmed fish that doesn’t require overfishing AND removes CO2 from the atmosphere. 

                          ———————————————-

What happens if a world state is reached?

It is natural at this point to ask whether a world state would be desirable— But quite clearly many areas of social life still remain outside state control.

First, all states are sovereign, which means that both domestically and internationally they recognise no jurisdiction superior to their own.

Secondly, all states are equal and should therefore be accorded equality of treatment before the law. 

A world state would not be a utopia in which there was nothing left to struggle over.

But once a world state has emerged those struggles will be domesticated by enforceable law, and so for purposes of state formation will be no longer important. Rather than a complete end of history, therefore, it might be better to say that a world state would be the end of just one kind of history. Even if one telos is over, another would be just beginning.

At the micro-level world state formation is driven by the struggle of individuals and groups for recognition of their subjectivity.

At the macro-level this struggle is channelled toward a world state by the logic of anarchy, which generates a tendency for military technology and war to become increasingly destructive.

The process moves through five stages, each responding to the instabilities of the one before — a system of states, a society of states, world society, collective security, and the world state. Human agency matters all along the way, but is increasingly constrained and enabled by the requirements of universal recognition.

The struggle for recognition is about the constitution of individual and
group identities and thus ultimately about ideas,

Hobbes (1968) justified the state on the grounds that only through
obedience to a common power could individuals escape a ‘nasty, brutish, and short’ life in the state of nature. A common power is necessary because of the physical equality and vulnerability of human beings — since even the weak can kill the strong, it is in everyone’s interest to accept the security provided by a state.

With the transfer of state sovereignty to the global level individual recognition will no longer be mediated by state boundaries, even though as recognized subjects themselves states would retain some individuality (particularism within universalism).

The question remains, however, whether a world state would be a stable
end-state, or be itself subject to instabilities that ultimately undo it.

Since even a world state would remain an at least partially open system, such
shocks could cause it to fall apart.

Equilibria are always vulnerable to exogenous shocks.

Going forward You have to be able to hold two ideas in your head at once: the world is getting better and it’s not good enough”. (Dr. Hans Rosling.)

But we must keep trying. The past is not coming back. The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.

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

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHERE DO YOU THINK THE WORLD IS GOING

20 Monday Jun 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., Climate Change., Consciousness., Cry for help., Environment, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., How to do it., Human Collective Stupidity., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Life., Modern Day Democracy., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Populism., President of the USA., Purpose of life., Reality., State of the world, Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Truth, Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World View.

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Twenty-minute read.

Does our perception of the world reflect reality?

We hardly see the world as it is.

Technology is often touted as the savior that will rescue us from our misbegotten ways, redeem us, and put us on the track to utopia. Then there are the dystopian views, where the future is dominated by technology that either rule over us or saps us so completely of our humanity that we might as well be a bunch of gadgets ourselves.

There are countless challenges today both environmental and not.

Mostly, we see the world through a set of layers. These layers are made up of our emotions, past experiences, and beliefs, and whichever perception is held by most, is popularly deemed as the reality.

Among contemporary scientists and philosophers, the most popular solution to the mind-body problem is probably materialism.

According to neuroscience, the contents of your head are comprised of 86

billion neurons, each one linked to 10,000 others, yielding trillions of

connections.

Materialists aspire to explain feelings and experiences in terms of the chemistry of the brain. It is broadly agreed that nobody has the slightest clue as yet how to do it, but many are confident that we one day will.

For human beings to survive, they need to produce and reproduce the material requirements of life.

But, the real reality is different and it’s above any perception.

THERE ARE NO UNIQUE VOICES ANYMORE. 

Here we are once again with another verbal diarrhea conference at the Summit of America’s with the president of the USA delivering a version of his domestic economic pitch promising leaders from Latin America that the United States is committed to helping the region combat crime, corruption, and its economic struggles.

“We will introduce a new approach to managing migration and sharing responsibility across the hemisphere.”  A load of verbal bollix but it raises the question are we now heading into globalization vs regionalization?

If so why?

Because of the pandemic and the ongoing wars, today’s great powers have little choice but to spend their way to political stability, which is unsustainable, and or try to control knowledge that is unattainable due to technology. 

Because the internet is currently eliminating the middleman the Politicians who are in a representative democracy hence the shift to direct democracy – Popularism – with power now resides with those best able to organize knowledge.

                                         

                                          ———————-

While the Earth, the planet, will continue to go its way regardless of what happens on the surface we are unable to act collectively and never will be able to do so.

We live toward incredible times where the only constant changes and the rate of change are increasing so fast that there seems to be no meaning to life.

Not until we eradicate poverty, establish free education, set aside ideological differences, change our primary focus to the long-term care of nature and people, remove profit for profit sake Algothrims, and create a World Aid Fund that we all can invest in. (See previous posts)

Not until when we are able to separate our own perception from reality we can take the necessary measures to be happy.

Not until we all realize that we are with Climate Change currently headed to a sixth mass extinction event and that this possibility alone needs to bond our collective conscious into acting like one.  

Unfortunately, I believe, that if we aren’t now past the point of recovery, if we don’t act soon, civilization and human habitation here will be untenable.

                                      ————————

There’s no going back we are now stuck in a sad chamber of denial as those who are in power hopelessly try to ward off the apocalypse by promoting unsustainable economic growth. Our TV screens are inundated with appeals for help, while the cost of everything from health care, housing education, energy, etc is rising more than one can earn.

We must unplug our brains from smartphones and start working together in large numbers, as part of a coordinated effort to achieve change. 

Like Evolution Migration goes both ways – out and in. 

Rests assured if we continue to ignore the climate the earth will force us to go only one way, with the world passing through a nuclear war if we continue to ignore the warning signs.

If this happens humans will finally have little to no reason to fight.

What’s the point? 

                                           ————————
China faces further economic slowdown, according to future predictions.

As the Fourth Industrial Revolution forces us to think about where today’s innovations are taking us, when it comes to what our world will look like, in the medium-term – how we will organize our cities, where we will get our power from, what we will eat, what it will mean to be a refugee – it gets even trickier. 

I predict the internet will go spectacularly supernova and fifty years from now catastrophically collapse.

With the world’s superpowers thrown into chaos as they come to grip with new powers, financial slowdowns, and emerging economies it will be the start of Apple’s path to world domination. 

National leaders will find themselves under increasing pressure from their people, putting a strain on inter-country relationships.

The main political tendency will be away from multinational solutions to a greater nationalism driven by divergent and diverging economic, social and cultural forces with technology and political alining against Mega Power. With countries looking at solving their own problems before looking outward the Climate will continue to heat up.

Nations will increasingly adopt protectionist policies as well as look at ways of further securing borders, something which has already begun to take place as Europe grapples with the biggest refugee crisis since World War II.

Rising military costs, declining oil prices, and internal issues will all weaken Russia further with its inability to control the federation creating a vacuum. It is unlikely that the Russian Federation will survive in its current form.

While it remains a major economic, political and military power, the United States will “be less engaged than in the past”, with the powerhouse learning some vital lessons from history.

China will continue to be a major economic force but will not be the dynamic engine of global growth it once was,

The EU will remain hostage to the economic wellbeing and competitive environment in which it operates.

Nation-states created by the west will collapse. 

                                          ———————–

We all want to know the future unfortunately in a supposedly thriving economy we are now facing inflation as the real cost of living.

Trickle-down economics does not work. 

Social media is not simply a more sophisticated platform. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, and Snapchat WhatsApp have turned into a gallery of Frankenstein’s monsters.

They are a new kind of assault on who we are, not just what we think.

“Like” button for Facebook

To have great predictions, these corporations have had to amass vast quantities of data on each of us – what is sometimes called “surveillance capitalism”, trading in human futures, herding us into our echo chambers of self-reinforcing information.

In doing so we lose more and more sense of the real world and of each other. With it, our ability to empathize and compromise is eroded.

We live in different information universes, chosen for us by algorithms whose only criterion is how to maximize our attention to advertisers’ products to generate greater profits for the internet giants.

Apps allowing us to hail a taxi or navigate our way to a destination are undoubtedly useful tools. But being able to find out what our leaders are really doing – whether they are committing crimes against others or against us – is an even more useful tool. In fact, it is vital if we want to stop the kind of self-destructive behaviors.

Advertisers have been playing with our brains in sophisticated ways for at least a century. And social atomization – individualism, selfishness, and consumerism – have been a feature of western life for at least as long. These aren’t new phenomena. It’s just that these long-term, negative aspects of western society are growing exponentially, at a seemingly unstoppable rate.

We live in a world in which a tree is worth more, financially, dead than alive.

For so long as our economy works in that way, and corporations go unregulated, they’re going to continue to destroy trees, kill whales, mine the earth, and to continue to pull oil out of the ground, even though we know it is destroying the planet and we know it is going to leave a worse world for future generations.

We are more profitable to a corporation if we’re spending time staring at a screen, staring at an ad, than if we’re spending our time living our life in a rich way.

Is the human race capable of pro-actively defining, harnessing, and expressing a collective consciousness, without the need for tragic experiences?

Much of the problem is around our inability to define collective consciousness. Who are we? Who do we want to be in the future? 

I think it is time to act.

Our paths have never been so clear. More than ever, science can tell us what different socioeconomic-emissions paths will mean in terms of future temperature.

Which will humanity choose?

The world is getting smaller every day. There is only one world, and it’s made of consciousness. Matter is what consciousness does. 

NO MANDATES. A long-standing issue is that the accords generally have no clear mechanisms for mandating that countries carry out their promises. World pressure and ethical considerations have to drive most of the agreements.

So, lots of promises, but no guarantee that countries will honor them.

“Once we have ruled out the impossible, what remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

Is the nature of global collective consciousness, yet another thing, such as climate change, that the population of this planet is going to happily sleepwalk towards, as it shrugs its collective shoulders and says, “Well, you know, sniff, what can you do?”

Drones hold potential for many environmental benefits but nature’s technologies and designs are more often than not far superior to our own. 

 Computers in our pockets offer huge conservation potential. 

 

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

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS : THE SOVEREIGHTY OF NATIONS ARE NO LONGER ABSOLUTE.

21 Thursday Apr 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., Climate Change., Human Collective Stupidity., Humanity., Purchasing Power., Purpose of life., State of the world, Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Ukraine/ Russia., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World View.

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(Eighteen-minute read) 

As the current Ukrainian/Russian conflict demonstrates.  

There is no formal definition of sovereignty or a sovereign nation defined in international law or contained in a single treaty.

We are now supposed to be physically, politically, and economically one world with nations so interdependent that absolute national sovereignty of nations is no longer possible.

What is Sovereignty? - Definition & Meaning - Video ...

Which came first, the nation or the nation-state?

While some European nation-states emerged throughout the 19th century, the end of World War I meant the end of empires on the continent. They all broke down into a number of smaller states.

However, not until the tragedy of World War II and the post-war shifts of borders and population resettlement did many European states become more ethnically and culturally homogeneous and thus closer to the ideal nation-state.

                           ———————–

The concept of a nation-state is notoriously difficult to define and there is no better example of this than England.

Once called England it became Great Britain when Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales joined, then the whole nation became known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Now after Brexit, it is referred to by the media as the Four Nations. 

Theoretically, Sovereignty means the “absolute and indivisible” authority and power of the State and its government. Through Sovereignty, the government has complete control over what is going on within its territorial boundaries and internationally, it indicates certain equality between nations.

Sovereignty has for a really long time been considered the fundamental pillar of the international system. Of course, this no longer holds true as right now the problem with sovereign nations is that each time a country joins an international organization or signs a Treaty, it restricts its freedom of action and thus gives up a part of its sovereignty or independence, even if only a small part.

So the concept of sovereignty does not work out perfectly in real life, it is outmoded and a rather ambiguous conception in the present-day civilization.

Does this hold true?

This, of course, does not imply that a state can exert dominance over other states or its subjects but many states find themselves being under the economic, ideological, and cultural control of developed countries which poses a major challenge to the sovereignty of the states.

                               —————–

It is first important to understand what sovereignty actually is.

For me, there are two degrees of sovereignty; individual sovereignty & absolute sovereignty. 

Individual sovereignty is the right and the ability to govern one’s actions independently.

Absolute sovereignty is a state of being where all illusions have fallen away; where fear no longer exists…Absolute sovereignty cannot be taught, it can only be realized.

While National sovereignty which used to mean national independence has to be viewed against the background of modern states in a world governed more and more by Technology.

Boutros Ghali, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations very rightly remarked that: “The time of absolute sovereignty and exclusive sovereignty…has passed; its theory was never matched by reality”

So due to the emergence of globalized technology, the notion that the state’s decisions and laws can be sacrosanct has lost relevance in today’s world.

External, as well as Internal Sovereignty, cannot be viewed as final, since international law and sovereignty imply each other. However, sovereign nation-states will be with us for the foreseeable future, even if their influence over some areas of policy will be much less than in the past.

                       ———————-

Is national sovereignty an obligation as well as an entitlement?

A government that will not perform the role of a government forfeits the rights of a government. 

Unfortunately, this is the position of the Ukrainians in the Russian conflict.

Ukraine became an independent country in 1991 after the fall of the USSR. Independence was gained through a series of referendums with conflicting results.

On 17 March 1991, the Soviet Union held a referendum in all of the republics asking the people whether they were interested in remaining a part of the Soviet Union or gaining independence.

More than thirty-one million people or around 83.5 percent of the electorate in Ukraine participated in the referendum with ninety percent of voters supporting the preservation of the USSR.

Just nine months after the March referendum, another was held on 1 December 1991.

The question posed to the Ukrainian people was: “Do you support the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine?” Around 84.2 percent of the country participated with ninety-three percent voting in favor of Ukrainian independence from the USSR; in direct contradiction to what was decided earlier in the year.

Support for this measure was lowest in Crimea which in 2014 was re-taken by Russia, followed by Lugansk, and Donetsk which are the regions that President Putin has recognized as independent states this week.

However, the divides between citizens who have greater loyalty to Russia and Europe continue to cause conflict.

Ukraine is a multi-ethnic state, which provides some context to the ongoing issues being seen in the country. The majority, seventy-seven percent, of those who live in Ukraine identify as ethnically Ukrainian while seventeen percent identify as Russian.

So Ukraine’s government has been on a pendulum essentially since it gained its independence.

The people will elect a president closer to Russia, then one closer to Europe, and in between corruption in the government goes unchecked. The situation Ukraine currently finds itself seems to suggest that these issues will continue and could lead to greater internal violence as factions become increasingly polarized and armed by the West. 

Providing the war remains non-nuclear we may see another civil war taking place at the end of this war. This will be the long-term result of the Russian/ Ukraine war. 

Because we have designed a world around pay as you go for all aspects of life including our own funerals countries will best protect and further their interests by not hesitating to exercise some of their sovereignty collectively to achieve their aims. 

                            ————

In the meantime, the real war is being ignored. 

Humanity survived the cold war because no one pushed the button and it will survive the Russian Invasion of Ukraine but it will not survive Climate Change, the button has been pushed again and again.

With refugees arriving, governments are spending billions on emergency-level funding and infrastructure to meet what they view as a crisis of national security. But in the case of climate change, there’s no equivalent sense of immediacy, no sense of priority commensurate with the dangers it poses to our future ability to feed ourselves, defend our largely coastal settlements, insure our homes, and maintain national security and keep our children safe from harm.

Those who lead us and have power over our shared destiny are now ignoring global warming to the point of criminal negligence.

As a culture and a polity, when it comes to climate change, have we arrived at a point where we are now expected – even trained – to abandon hope and submit to the inevitable?

The need to fight issues such as environmental protection, security of human rights, eradicating terrorism, war, poverty, and hunger, are once more on the back burner. 

We’re making a pig’s breakfast of responding to what is now a crisis of clean energy. Reopening oil exploration, moving to new nuclear power stations, etc while the heat at both ends of the planet this week has scientists straining for adjectives. 40°C above normal in Antarctica, 30°C hotter than usual in the Arctic.

The prospect of inexorable loss, unstoppable chaos, certain doom is robbing people of hope, white-anting the promise of change.

Business as usual is not just delinquent, it’s unforgivable.

                         —————–

The Beady Eye voice is just a little twitter in a world of governments and corporations ensnared in a feedback loop of “common sense” and mutual self-preservation that is little more than a bespoke form of nihilism.

Ideology, prestige, assets, and territory are now tacitly understood to be worth more than all life, human or otherwise. And the four great capacities of humanity to solve a crisis – ingenuity, discipline, courage, and sacrifice – seem to be reserved for more important enterprises.

The future, by all accounts, can wait. Because there’s something bigger at stake here than culture, wars, and the mediocrity of so-called common sense.

It’s the soil under our feet, the water we drink, the air we breathe. 

( Nine out of ten people worldwide already breathe polluted air — according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO). Besides, the WHO attributes around seven million deaths a year to global environmental pollution.)

The time for action is limited: Because if the end of the world really is threatening us, there is still enough time to panic before we bomb ourselves back into a Stone Age climate.

So what can be done?

The smartphone has done more for poor countries than all the foreign aid packets.  Real power now resides with the people, the citizens of the state as is the theory of ‘Popular Sovereignty.

Let’s give our grief and fury some shape and purpose and reclaim our future together.

Enough cowardice. Enough bullshit. Time for action. 

Consumer sovereignty must take back the Monopoly Markets.

( One could argue that new innovations were not driven by consumer sovereignty because consumers cannot demand something that they do not know they want.)

If producers market a new product that does not catch on, then the consumer has exercised their influence by not purchasing. Equally, a new product or service with long market longevity is the result of consumer demand.

Our buying power is the last weapon left to demand change, to the sovereignty of unified world action. 

The problem is that the English word sovereignty does not mean control. 

The collapse of the world can only be prevented if nations like the USA and China stop devouring global resources before the quality of life drops to zero.


Crazy HD Photo.

Where is your data?   It is certainly not Sovereign.  

Its time to use your phones as weapons to effect change. 

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

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHEN FORMING A WORLD VIEW WHAT IS UNDERSTANDING?

22 Tuesday Mar 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., World View.

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(Twenty-minute read) 

Mutual understanding is the most important value anyone can have today, right after our need for food, shelter, and health but when it comes to a worldview our understanding appears to be a widening misunderstanding of where we are going.

We witnessed what the Covid pandemic did and what the current wars are doing. Understandable to some extent on one hand, but on the other, completely ununderstandable.

Why?

We have yet to understand that the world we live in is no longer available for making a short-term profit for the few to the detriment of the many and the planet. 

Society now exists in an arc of tension towards that which is not, or is not yet., 

                          ————————-   

It’s so difficult to agree on what understanding is it is almost impossible to mitigate the confusion – by embracing the fact that not only is “understanding” borderline indescribable, but it is also impermanent because understanding is evasive, constantly changing, and as dynamic as our own imaginations.

The challenge is to develop a way of thinking that builds critically upon the initial negative standpoint, a way of understanding that negates the untruth of the world.

Millions of war refugees are loses themselves for the sake of others. In doing so become enslaved and miserable to the most capricious of all gods.   WAR?

If hope is not grounded firmly in that same bitterness of history, it becomes just a one-dimensional and silly expression of optimism.

We can’t get there with science/technology and wars alone.

It is going to take more the purposes of God.,

In a world full of suffering beyond comprehension/understanding I don’t think any of us can fully understand anything and are not meant to.

However, understanding is the only melting pot of wisdom, a gateway to: 

Knowledge: The collective information and facts acquired through education or experience. Knowledge is awareness.

To gain knowledge, one has to spend time and effort to know things by reading, listening, seeing, experiencing, studying, and getting familiar with certain things. Without interest or passion, one can hardly acquire knowledge.

Wisdom:  The quality of having good judgment based on knowledge.

To gain wisdom, one has to have knowledge first, and then use conviction to make a good judgment out of that knowledge.

Understanding:  The ability to understand one’s knowledge and choices. It is the realization of your decision. It is knowledge and wisdom put into action.is the ability to understand one’s knowledge and choices. It is the realization of your decision. It is knowledge and wisdom put into action. If knowledge is power and wisdom is your choice to use that power, understanding is the execution of your choice to use that power. We develop understanding when we practice what we preach.

To gain understanding, one has to have both knowledge and wisdom first, and then put them into action.

Insight:  The capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of one’s knowledge and choices.

To gain insight, one has to have all of the above: knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.

Do they all mean the same thing? 

Obviously not but they all need each other.  

So is there such a thing, such as a worldview.? 

A worldview or world-view is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual’s or society’s knowledge and point of view. A worldview can include natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics. 

Simply it is the principle of treating others no differently than you would like to be treated yourself. 

There is no such thing as a view from nowhere: We are not data crunching reason machines, but experience the world through the lens of our past, our communities, and our deep values. 

Why is it important to understand worldview?

Understanding our own and others’ worldviews can help build empathy, self–awareness, and understanding in our increasingly diverse societies.

Why?

Because there is no such thing as a neutral perspective on society or a neutral education.

Young people need to learn to interrogate the default secular assumptions of society as much as the assumptions of religious traditions, and a worldview approach would encourage this.

The worldview should not be seen as a focus on the content to be taught but as a way of framing how that content is introduced to the students.

Greater knowledge of religions would still be a key aim of the subject; as it is important for those of us with a Christian worldview to fight for the hearts and minds of people in order to build a society of equality. 

It should be one of the most compelling and socially meaningful segments of the school day, helping pupils grow as citizens equipped for the world as it is now – this requires a shift from the current “world religions” information-based paradigm to a focus on worldviews, which means a more nuanced study of the lived experiences of people of different religions and beliefs. 

Unfortunately the above is only words. We simply cannot oversee all the variables and possible outcomes of events but the human brain is more productive when it is given time to learn what distracting information it can disregard. Even with this shift from curriculum, instruction, and teacher actions, and toward data, assessment, and learning, there remains uncomfortable murkiness.

Currently, because life emerged from non-life and more complex life forms evolved from less complex one’s reality and humankind’s true values are formed by an impenetrable mess of Human beliefs.

These beliefs are Theism. Pantheism.Christianity. Spiritism. Buddhism. Postmodernism. Atheism.  Humanism. Judaism. Islam. Naturalism. Agnosticism. Existentialism. Marxism. Polytheism.  Hinduism. Taoism. New Age Consciousness. Animism. Thousands of Religions.

Nothing in this post has changed the horrors of the society in
which we live. How many children have died needlessly since I started to write it? How many have since you began to read it?

Theism – is the most widely accepted worldview in the United States, with approximately 67% of Americans identifying as Christians, 2% as Jewish, and 1% as Muslim. Even so, few Americans have consciously developed a specific worldview, and many of them embrace various aspects of pantheism, naturalism, humanism, and postmodernism.

Pantheism – is the dominant worldview throughout Asia, and polytheism is prevalent in areas of the world that are predominantly tribal. Many aspects of pantheism and polytheism overlap, so the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably.

Only the spiritual dimension exists. All else is an illusion. In spiritual reality, Brahman is eternal, impersonal, and unknowable. It is possible to say that everything is a part of God, or that God is in everything and everyone. Humankind is one with ultimate reality. Thus man is spiritual, eternal, and impersonal. Man’s belief that he is an individual is an illusion.

Christianity –  An infinite, personal God exists. He created a finite, material world. Reality is both material and spiritual. The universe as we know it had a beginning and will have an end. Humankind is the unique creation of God. People were created “in the image of God,” which means that we are personal, eternal, spiritual, and biological. The truth about God is known through revelation. The truth about the material world is gained via revelation and the five senses in conjunction with rational thought. Moral values are the objective expression of a supernatural and absolute moral being and therefore remain constant over time.

Spiritism –  The world is populated by spirit beings who govern what goes on. Gods and demons are the real reason behind “natural” events. Material things are real but have spirits associated with them and, therefore, can be interpreted spiritually. Humankind is a creation of the gods like the rest of the creatures on earth. Tribes or races often have a special relationship with some gods who protect them and can punish them. The truth about the natural world is discovered through the shaman figure who has visions telling him what the gods and demons are doing and how they feel. Moral values take the form of taboos, which are things that irritate or anger various spirits. Taboos are different from the idea of “good and evil” because it is just as important to avoid irritating evil spirits as it is good ones.

Buddhism – Truth is an experience of unity with “the oneness” of the universe. Truth is beyond all rational description. Rational thought as it is understood in the West cannot show us reality. Ultimate reality is impersonal, so pantheistic thinkers believe that there is no real distinction between good and evil. “Unenlightened” behavior is that which fails to understand essential unity.

Postmodernism –  Reality must be interpreted through our language and cultural “paradigm.” Therefore, the reality is “socially constructed.” Humans are nodes in a cultural reality—they are a product of their social setting. The idea that people are autonomous and free is a myth. Truths are mental constructs meaningful to individuals within a particular cultural paradigm. They do not apply to other paradigms. Truth is relative to one’s culture. Values are part of our social paradigms as well. Tolerance, freedom of expression, inclusion, and refusal to claim to have the answers are the only universal values.

Atheism – The material universe is all that exists. Reality is “one- dimensional.” There is no such thing as a soul or a spirit. Everything can be explained on the basis of natural law. Humankind is the chance product of a biological process of evolution. Man is entirely material. The human species will one day pass out of existence. Truth is usually understood as scientific proof. Only that which can be observed with the five senses is accepted as real or true. No objective values or morals exist. Morals are individual preferences or socially useful behaviors. Even social morals are subject to evolution and change.

Humanism – emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and relies on rationalism and evidence over the transcendent or supernatural. Humankind is part of nature and has emerged as the result of a continuous evolutionary process. His total personality bears the imprint of the social and cultural society surrounding him. The truth may be found through science (critical thinking and empiricism) and philosophy. Values are derived and steadily improved from a philosophy of utilitarianism, ethical naturalism, or evolutionary ethics.

The problem with all of them is that when confronted with the armed struggle they accept from the beginning of a war that it is necessary to adopt the methods of the enemy in order to defeat the enemy:

                                  ——————–

airplane flies over the small planet

Even now, many people realize that there is something seriously wrong with the present system (wars, poverty, pollution, inequality, etc.) However, it is the awareness and understanding of an alternative to this which is missing. 

Capitalists in their present form had no economic interest in maintaining those, who worked for them. The vast majority are forced by their circumstances, to become economic slaves to the rich minority.

Employment is accurately described as being exploitation since the value of what the workers produce in the form of goods and services is much greater than the value of the wages/salaries which they receive. (Considering that the richest 10% of the world population earns 52% of the global income, while the poorest 50% of the population earns just 8%.) The surplus-value is pocketed by the capitalist class and is a very important source of the wealth of the ruling class.

The notion of cohesive communities and societies, and their role alongside globalization, privatization, and financialization in restoring trust in capitalism. But if the current system is so bad, what are the alternatives? Is there a way to reach an acceptable standard of living for all people without depleting natural resources and degrading habitat?

Within the confines of the capitalist system, it’s necessary to completely change the economic system.

Many ideas of alternative economic models have popped up over the years, which questions the constant need for growth that capitalism has embedded in the economic system.

Instead of focusing on profits and consumption, the emphasis is on social and environmental well-being as ways to attain a good life for people. We need to rethink the way we organize our economy and undergo a transformation in our way of life.

Societies need to use fewer natural resources and have different lifestyles than today.  

Production and consumption need to be reduced so we have a society that supports each other and only takes what we need.

I’m probably not the only one feeling like this is too idealistic, but at the same time, I think some form of sufficiency thinking is necessary to get back in line with the resources that are available on planet Earth.

A common sense of solidarity among all humans seems a bit naïve in light of both history and current events. But with the plight, our economic system is pushing us and our environment to Wars and to Extension of the very environment that we are all relying on. 

Alternatives are desperately needed.

Why?

Because continuous growth would lead to a stagnant, not reducing, ecological footprint.

Basically, a shift in not only people’s behavior but also their values can only be achieved by the introduction of a universal basic income.

People should learn to live with less and appreciate the value of “conviviality” and non-economic values.

This is no easy feat and has of course invited skepticism from others.

However to grasp the core or essence of the state of the world to date there has been no decoupling on the global scale, and both emissions and GDP are still growing.

We have to lower carbon emissions much faster than we are likely to be able to change the economic system. Even with a world governed by technology the interconnected global nature of the abundant world is coming to an end.

There are so many moving parts in learning what should be a relatively simple relationship between us and the earth perhaps the most powerful thing that you can do to combat the slippery notion of understanding is to use your buying power to Understand and know are interchangeable. 

Not to settle for just paraphrasing understanding and a worldview in overly-simple words and phrases like “they get it” or “proficiency.

Really understand, ‘internalize knowledge in a world view of I’m all right Jack are not founded on religious beliefs, political ideologies, and greed. 

The Earth belongs to all of us.

If you want it to remain so now is the time to play an important role in the evolution of a more intelligent world and inspire a shift in the way we see the planet. 

It is not possible to calculate the value of life. 

“If we can get people to go beyond the aesthetics,” says Astronaut Grant, “and contemplate exactly what it is they’re seeing – and consider what that means for our planet.  

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