≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: SHOULD WE BELIEVE THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE STORY.
( A two minute read that could save your humanity)
There, not a day that Artifical Intelligence is not in the news – Social Media, Davos, TV, Magazines, Flipboard all telling us that we are going to be replaced by Robots.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Creating a common future in a fractured world.
It seems that we are all to be made redundant, to live in a world run by Algorithms that have no conscious while our imaginations run wild.
In my last post ( Soon there will be no need to wait for the return of Jesus) I said: ” If you are expecting some kind of warning when computers finally get smarter than us, think again.”
You only have to look around you to realize that if we as a species continue to ignore the warning signs life its self will be hacked.
Then the question will be who or what should own the data.
Should it be a few Corporations that live in the cloud or should data that is biological in its nature be owned by all of us?
Algorithms without any human values or responsibility for their decisions are already making decisions on our behalf.
If this continues unabated without any form of regulation we are going to have a world of vast inequality and bias.
The programmes that will drive machines like robots in the near future will carry the contamination of the values of there owners.
Our ideas about responsibility are out of date.
Does our conscious rule what we are responsible for.
If we are just biological Algorithms is it our intelligence that gives us consciously or is it our imagination that is the governor or the other way around.
A question that has many answers but would you befriend a robot that has no responsibility.
If you had Alsimers you might as there is no end point in your life.
This is why we need to ensure that all Robotics ware their nonhumanity on their sleeves so we are fully aware of what association we have with AI.
We need new stories new thinking to match the new technology,
This Fourth Industrial revolution requires a solution that is global not a race to the bottom in a fragmented world.
It’s time to get our faces out of our smartphones and become smart before it’s too late.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
If you look at the direction the world is going in life itself is about to break out of organic life into to nonorganic life.
If you were expecting some kind of warning when computers finally get smarter than us, then think again.
In reality, our electronic overlords are already taking control, and they are doing it in a far more subtle way than science fiction would have us believe.
Another word we will have different biological classes of people with new types of gods with new tec religions that produce new bodies, brains, and minds.
There will be no more going to heaven.
It is these invisible computations that increasingly control how we interact with our electronic world. There will be new stories, new thinking to match the new technologies.
Algorithms will be the new form of Communism.
These days we die not because it is in our DNA or Genes but because of Techo problems.
Calico a Google subsidiary is a research and development company whose mission is to harness advanced technologies to increase our understanding of the biology that controls lifespan.
Its ambition is to solve the problem of human health/death.
It’s all being done right before our eyes.
Algorithms can now detect personalities via human language conversation.
What’s next? Will WW3 be launched via algorithm?
Perhaps not but inequality will be the norm with Fundamentalism gone.
The power of algorithms has spread far beyond Wall Street and now touches all of us–starting with today’s young innovators.
Algorithms are doing a lot more than automating stock trades.
Most people don’t know that there are algorithms that decide how customer service calls get routed or how customer service requests will be treated. When people call these big companies like their health insurer or telecom company, they’re actually being categorized, sliced, diced and parsed by a bot.
It’s incredible to think that the words someone chooses on a given morning will forever change how that company treats him or her.
These algorithms don’t just affect people involved in computer science.
No-one would doubt that Google system has made searching a whole lot easier, but at what price? As algorithms spread their influence beyond machines to shape the raw landscape around them, it might be time to work out exactly how much they know and whether we still have time to tame them.
Algorithm change because they know they’re getting gamed.
Algorithms are aimed at optimizing everything.
They can save lives, make things easier and conquer chaos but are they putting too much control in the hands of corporations and governments, perpetuate bias, create filter bubbles, cut choices, creativity, and serendipity, and could result in greater unemployment.
How far Google’s data-crunching algorithm go in harvesting our personal data and shaping the web will be the Story of the Future and because our brains are becoming more and more reliant on the internet for memory
The Google story could well be the god of the future.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
We now have a car in space at a cost of $90 million. That’s $639.80 per pound thanks to Elon Musk’s Falcon Heavy SpaceX rocket. The next most powerful rocket, the Delta IV Heavy, runs about $350 million per launch.
It boasts 27 engines, more than any other working rocket has ever used, which together create a combined 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. Falcon Heavy is capable of taking 68 tonnes of equipment into an orbit close to the Earth.
With a world in turmoil, the new age space race is upon us.
Next, we need traffic lights.
Space debris is rapidly becoming one of the biggest problems we face – there are more than 150m objects that need tracking to ensure as few collisions with working spacecraft as possible.
The amount of kerosene in three Falcon 9 rockets is roughly 440 tonnes and RP-1 has a 34% carbon content, which is a lot of carbon dioxide when burnt.
However this amount of carbon is a drop in the ocean compared to global industrial emissions as a whole, but if the SpaceX’s plan for a rocket launch every two weeks comes to fruition, this amount of carbon (approximately 4,000 tonnes per year) will rapidly become a bigger problem.
Now for a bit of history:
For the 1967 Apollo mission to the moon, Saturn V rocket’s first stage carried 203,400 gallons of kerosene fuel and 318,000 gallons of liquid oxygen, totaling over 500,000 gallons of fuel for getting out of the atmosphere alone. The second stage carried another 260,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and 80,000 gallons of liquid oxygen. The third stage carries 66,700 gallons of liquid hydrogen and 19,359 gallons of liquid oxygen.
All told the rocket that achieved one small step for a man and one giant leap for mankind held just under 950,000 gallons of fuel.
Falcon 9’s first stage uses 39,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and almost 25,000 gallons of kerosene, while the second stage uses 7,300 gallons of liquid oxygen and 4,600 gallons of kerosene. Combined, it makes lean mean 75,900 gallons of fuel.
On the other hand.
The Saturn V’s first stage lasted 180 seconds So. The first stage consumed 1,400,000 pounds of RP-1 and 3,178,000 pounds of LOX.
That’s 4,578,000 pounds of the expanded chemical in total.
The mass of most rockets is more than 95% fuel.
Let me congratulate Mr. Musk and remind him of his own words ” Only a carbon tax—not innovation, conservation, or renewable energy—will accelerate the transition from carbon-producing fossil fuels to sustainable energy.”
My point is:
Perhaps it might have been better putting his energy and all that energy into something with a bit more imagination.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SEE TROUBLE FOR IRELAND ON THE HORIZON
( A three-minute read)
IT IS APPARENT TO ANYONE THAT DOES NOT HAVE SAWDUST BETWEEN THEIR EARS THAT OUT OF THE CUSTOM UNION MEANS A HARD BORDER BETWEEN IRELAND AND NORTHERN IRELAND.
“Let’s make a deal first, and we can figure out the details later.” Is bull shit.
British negotiators refusal to tackle and solve the question of the border during these talks is tragic.
Failing to address issues surrounding the border question can have ugly and unforeseen long-term consequences.
Had the British government taken direct responsibility for drawing the border in 1921 and sought to respect the wishes of local communities regarding which state they wanted to join, it is quite possible that the Troubles would never have broken out.
Instead of taking the Good Friday Agreement and the opportunity to remove the root cause of the Northern Irish conflict they paid the DUP billions to support a minority government.
In order for the UK to enact its post-Brexit immigration policies and leave the single market, it must be able to control its borders.
This said it is impossible to overstate the horror with which such a wall between the north and south would be greeted.
The arbitrary line of partition London imposed on the Free State in 1920 helped to spark the Troubles and is still a lingering grievance.
The Good Friday Agreement was seen as answering the question of whether the island of Ireland could be reunited once and for all, establishing as it did that Northern Ireland would only rejoin the South if a majority of citizens voted in a referendum or plebiscite for the option. With nationalists being demographically subordinate in Stormont, the simple mathematics meant it would never happen.
But here’s a sentence I never thought I’d utter: for the first time in my lifetime, a united Ireland is now credible – and perhaps inevitable.
Whether you believe that England is going to somehow negotiate a deal better than the remaining countries already have it is turning a blind eye to politics in Northern Ireland.
This was epitomized in the Brexit campaign, during which Northern Ireland was scarcely mentioned despite being the only part of the UK which shares a land border with another EU country. The Leave campaign also appeared to have no knowledge of or interest in what would happen to the border between North and South of Ireland.
Northern Ireland receives millions in funding from the EU for cross-community peace projects between Catholic and Protestant communities, but the loss of this money, or where replacement funding might come from, doesn’t appear to have been calculated into the Leave campaign’s financial deliberations over the cost of Brexit.
Northern Ireland voted to remain, but, like Scotland, is now finding it will be dragged out of it anyway thanks to Welsh and English voters.
Almost a year on from the EU referendum, we’re no wiser as to the future of the Northern Irish border.
May has continuously obfuscated as to how, where or why a border will be erected between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Despite the British Government’s insistence on batting away the question, it must be urgently addressed.
In order for the UK to enact post-Brexit immigration policies and leave the single market, it must be able to control its borders; a physical fence or wall is the only realistic option.
In effect, a border will fence off Northern Ireland, making its own tiny country, with one million residents penned in together with no option of traveling, working or visiting the other three-quarters of the island as easily as they are accustomed.
With Sinn Fein just one seat short of being the largest party at Stormont, reunification is by no means imminent.
The next election is likely to see them returned as the largest party, barring major events to stop their momentum.
A united Ireland is no longer hypothetical or absurd, but a credible option that must be considered seriously by both the Irish and British governments.
For the first time in my lifetime, the Irish question is no longer a question of if, but of when. Unfortunately, the DUP would never agree such a deal and they have the power to bring down the minority UK government.
There is more at stake than just the border in the north.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chunked in the bin.
≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHAT IS THE STANDING OF DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD TO DAY AND IS IT SOCIAL MEDIA THAT IS ALIENATING US FROM THE VOTE.
Democracy has many strengths, including the capacity for self-correction, but the question is can it survive social media.
The word ‘democracy’ has its origins in the Greek language. It combines two shorter words: ‘demos’ meaning whole citizen living within a particular city-state and ‘kratos’ meaning power or rule.
Democracy of sorts had existed for centuries but there is no absolute definition of democracy. The term is elastic and expands and contracts according to the time, place and circumstances of its use.
Meaningful democracy only arrived at a national level in 1906, when Finland became the first country to abolish race and gender requirements for both voting and for serving in government.
Even in established democracies, flaws in the system have become worryingly visible and disillusion with politics is rife. Yet just a few years ago democracy looked as though it would dominate the world. The combination of globalization and the digital revolution has made some of democracy’s most cherished institutions look outdated.
It is far short of the settled, comfortable state of maturity that many of its early adherents expected (or at least hoped) it would be able to claim after decades of effort.
Just a few years ago, Facebook and Twitter were hailed as tools for democracy activists, enabling movements like the Arab Spring to flourish.
Today, the tables have turned as fears grow over how social media may have been manipulated to disrupt the US election, and over how authoritarian governments are using the networks to clamp down on dissent.
They are fast becoming tools for social control.
So has democracy’s global advance come to a halt, and may even be in reverse.
The notion that winning an election entitles the majority to do whatever it pleases no longer holds water.
Since the dawn of the modern democratic era in the late 19th century, democracy has expressed itself through nation-states and national parliaments. People elect representatives who pull the levers of national power for a fixed period. But this arrangement is now under assault from both above and below.
From above, globalization has changed national politics profoundly.
From below Modern technology is implementing a new modern version with national politicians surrendering more and more power to Social Media.
For example over trade and financial flows, to global markets and supranational bodies, and may thus find that they are unable to keep promises they have made to voters.
International organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, and the European Union might have extended their influence, but they no longer have the power to implement what they preach.
There is a compelling logic too much of this:
The fragility of the United Nations influence elsewhere has become increasingly apparent with the state of the world.
How can anyone Organisation or a single country deal with problems like climate change or tax evasion?
National politicians have also responded to globalization by limiting their discretion and handing power to unelected technocrats in some areas. The number of countries with independent central banks, for example, has increased from about 20 in 1980 to more than 160 today.
So is the power now in the hands of multi Clongormentts like Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Mircosoft etc.
Certainly, the perception that democracy in decline has become more widespread than at any time during the past quarter-century. Erosion of freedom over the past few years, adopting smarter methods for m of subversion
There are four main sorts of Democracy.
Direct democracy
Representative democracy
Constitutional democracy
Monitory democracy
A liberal democracy (that is, one that champions the development and well-being of the individual) is organised in such a way as to define and limit power so as to promote legitimate government within a framework of justice and freedom.
Social media is a double-edged sword it allows us to speak truth to power but on the other hand, it allows power to manipulate public opinion and polarize the electorate.
Citizens use it to speak truth to power, and authoritarian governments use it to spread misinformation.
Twitter users got more misinformation, polarizing and conspiratorial content than professionally produced news.”
They fake petition signatures. They skew poll results and recommendation engines.
Rather than a complete totalitarianism based on fear and the blocking of information, the newer methods include demonizing online media and mobilizing armies of supporters or paid employees who muddy the online waters with misinformation, information overload, doubt, confusion, harassment, and distraction.”
And yes, governments are increasing their efforts to censor the internet, but that’s because they recognize that the internet poses a threat to their control.
Every authoritarian regime has social media campaigns targeting their own populations.
If the liberal world order is indeed coming apart under pressure from
the authoritarians, the future of democracy will be deeply affected.
Social media firms are “largely immune from responsibility” in the legal sense, but that “in the court of public opinion it is a different matter, and future US/EU legislation seems likely if they don’t address these issues in a meaningful way.
So what is the answer?
Is social media basically good, or does it have a “negative impact on society”
There are no gatekeepers when you publish via your social profile, (outside of each platform’s terms of use) – you can write anything and anyone has the chance to view it.
Social Media has truly democratized media and given everyone a medium through which to be heard.
It has also opened the system up to those who would exploit it to push their own agendas. The platforms are now looking to police this, but it’ll likely always play a part.
To make democracy work, we must be participants, not simply observers.
One who does not vote has no right to complain.
Here are a few questions to mull over.
What can be done to fight citizens’ political alienation and distrust?
Are representative democracy and greater public participation the answer or do we need to think beyond current practices?
How can the cultural and historical factors involved and reflected in present developments help us look into the future?
What knowledge is needed to understand and inform decision-making in the future?
Which values are and which values must be at the base of decision-making?
If we are indeed heading for a Smartphone Algorithms Democracy:Who, or What will be in control.
The algorithms behind social media platforms convert popularity into legitimacy, creating echo chambers, overwhelming the public square with multiple, conflicting assertions.
Today, social media acts as an accelerant, and an at-scale content platform and distribution channel, for both viral “dis”-information (the deliberate creation and sharing of information known to be false) and “mis”-information.
“Populist” leaders use these platforms, often aided by trolls, “hackers for hire” and bots, on open networks such as Twitter and YouTube.
Sometimes they are seeking to communicate directly with their electorate. In using such platforms, they subvert established protocol, shut down dissent, marginalize minority voices, project soft power across borders, normalize hateful views, showcase false momentum for their views, or create the impression of tacit approval of their appeals to extremism.
And they are not the only actors attempting to use these platforms to manipulate political opinion — such activity is now acknowledged by governments of democratic countries.
In addition, advanced methods for capturing personal data have led to sophisticated psychographic analysis, behavioral profiling, and micro-targeting of individuals to influence their actions via so-called “dark ads.” to self-censor or opt out of participating in public discourse.
Currently, there are few options for redress. At the same time, platforms are faced with complex legal and operational challenges with respect to determining how they will manage speech, a task made all the more difficult since norms vary widely by geographic and cultural context.
Every democracy needs its justice system, so we must “catch up with the modern world”, to cope with the social media.
In reality, old power structures still have power, they just have it in new spaces.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the Bin.
≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY SAY’S: HERE IS WHY BRITAIN SHOULD NOT BE GRANTED A TRANSITION PERIOD BUT A TWO YEAR MORATORIUM RE ENACTING THE FINAL AGREEMENT.
( A FIVE MINUTE READ OF HARD FACTS.)
A transit period is going to lead to a massive EU and British taxpayers loss.
Instead what is needed is a moratorium on the implementation of the final deal, not a flexible transit deal, which will see circumstances changing on both sides.
The issue the UK needs to decide is how to deal with the over 750 international agreements, including trade deals the EU already has. During the transition or indeed a moratorium, the UK will be bound by them, meaning it will have to collect tariffs and make sure EU standards are upheld at its borders.
However, the third partners will have a say in how much the UK can benefit from those existing deals.
It is blatantly obvious that these 750 trade deals are EU international agreements that benefit the members of the EU.
London will have to decide whether to ask the EU to help in rolling over these existing agreements. This should not stop the UK from being able to negotiate their own trade deals during the transition or moratorium period, but these agreements cannot come into force unless the EU-27 agrees or the moratorium expires.
WHY?
Because it will be politically very sensitive both in England and the EU, making any kind of compromise especially difficult.
Because as the realities hit home England will (as it is its right) endeavour to reinterpret what it has agreed, as will the EU.
Because while trade talks could begin alongside the formal exit negotiations, EU law means that they cannot be concluded until the UK officially exited the EU.
The UK would then revert to being a “third country”.
This would imply the UK would face a period in which it is outside the EU but does not have a new trade deal with the single market. In this case, it would have to rely on World Trade Organization (WTO) rules until the final deal is concluded.
So England does have the right to set the groundwork for a free trade agreement between it and other nations.
It is reasonable to expect that countries with a vested interest in maintaining trade links with the UK may wish to begin informal negotiations.
Under EU law, the bloc cannot negotiate a separate trade deal with one of its own members, as rules have to apply to all member states equally. Similarly, individual member states cannot make trade deals with individual member states, with third countries on their own.
This suggests that, because the UK will remain a full member of the EU throughout the negotiating period set out in Article 50, it could only formally sign trade deals with other countries once it has left.
The UK could insist it has a different legal status now that it notified the EU of its intention to leave. However, there is no legal precedent for such a situation, as Article 50 has never been triggered before.
Since the UK is going to be in a different situation, it could be argued the normal rules can’t really apply and the UK should be able to have informal trade negotiations that could be enforced from the day it leaves, but this is largely hypothetical at the moment.
As for whether the UK could open informal trade talks with non-EU countries like India or China, the UK could make the same legal argument about the change in its status. But we have no way of knowing whether the UK could successfully argue this position regarding trade with EU or non-EU countries.
I say “First, you exit and then you negotiate the new relationship, whatever that is”
What a future trade deal with the EU might look like, and how long it will take to conclude, will be a matter for Parliament and the next prime minister.
Reality Check:
So when the BBC news stated recently that Theresa May has done a trade deal with China is this false News or is Britain in breach of the Lisbon Treaty, and if so should negotiations be suspended.
Today we learn that THE CHINESE prime minister has hailed a new high point in UK-China relations after Theresa May signed a cooperation agreement on trade and investments.
Dress it up how you like this is a blatant breach of EU Laws.
≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: IS OUR HISTORY AN ADEQUATE GUIDE TO OUR PRESENT-DAY CIRCUMSTANCES.
( A Ten-minute read)
We all know that the world’s problems are complex, but what in the first place is it exactly that makes a problem complex when the solution is known.
You could say there are many reasons, and you would be right.
The problem is ignored, misunderstood, tampered with, to complex to understand etc,
So is it that our history is now so complicated that it cannot teach us anything.
Indeed understanding complexity an inconvenient oxymoron.
The word itself is generally used to characterize something with many parts where these parts interact with each other. It is difficult to understand the whole without understanding the motion/behaviour of every single one of the components.
I suppose in the end the complex thing about complexity is it is constantly in competition with other complex systems.
Complexity breed complexity.
We see and witness this every day with Capitalism versus the core values of life, none more so than with Climate Change and Poverty that are interconnected to all the woes of our world.
The climate is probably the most complicated system in the world and maybe only a fraction of the many problems that we face in the world, but no matter how you look at it, the climate has plague human civilisation and is entrenched throughout human history.
The problem is that all of us take it for granted and have little understanding of its effects other than it governs all of us for better or worse.
Ignore it at your peril.
So will Social media change the course of history? Will it make the world a better place? Can it force all of us to realise that if we want a world we must as a unity world address what is becoming more and more evident day by day that if we continue to ignore the scientific warnings we are heading for a world that will not be livable on for and species, man or mouse?
It has the power to do so, but only if it expresses the majority in a unified outcry.
Two hundred or so years ago we had Slavery. These days you would say that it is all but eradicated.
Today we are causing inescapable devastating changes to the ecology of the earth.
Let’s awaken our conscience. With every passing year, the environment is getting degraded.
In the foreseeable future.
Scientists have estimated that over two-thirds of flora and fauna that once inhabited the Earth are now extinct.
However, we all know the problems that climate change will bring and once started will be unstoppable for all intuitive purposes other than building defences and moving.
There will be little or no point in saving National Parks with Elephants, Tiger, Silverback Apes unless we save the termite, the ant, the butterfly, the trees, the plants unless we save the environment as a whole.
Everything is interconnected – especially the environment which is connected to all forms of HUMAN LIFE, RICH OR POOR, INTELLIGENT OR IGNORANT, VIRTUAL OR REAL.
Unfortunately for the planet ( On which all life exists, ) we are the only species with the ability to effect change. All others are only interested in their own existence.
Our present dilemma is the lack of Collectivism driven by the Smartphone and Algorithms. Both technologies are concealed from us the truth, creating a sea of irrelevance, with a captured Culture of short-term Pleasure.
We are becoming oppressed by data. A society drugging ourselves.
In 20/25 years we are going to see a major change due to climate change which will be swift and big. There will be no room for I am all right Jack politics of the Donald Trumps of this world.
Something is rotten in the state of technology where there is little social conscience. Fake news and disinformation are just a few of the symptoms. But the problem is far more fundamental. These powerful algorithmic engines that run platforms are black boxes of profit.
The great lie is that social media shows us the world. Brings us closer together. Little wonder that lies spread, and inflates, to pickle our minds and our own prejudices.
Facebook, Google, Twitter, strap us into a single-seated algorithms theatre without any windows or doors. It is an infinite blend of your personal likes and dislikes scraped off the internet.
How will we be able to measure the impact of the above?
Google is more powerful than most states on the planet presenting a threat to liberal democracy in as far as the preservation of the rights of the individual’s data is the property of private corporations or the state.
No one should now douth that these platforms impact and shape public discourse, and shape society at large, distracting attention away from of core values TOWARDS social INSTABILITY.
Facebook and Google, Apple, U Tube, and their like are powerful monopolies almost void of any regulation.
Algorithmic accountability should not mean that a critical mass of human suffering is needed to reverse the damage they are inflicting on us and the generations to come.
It will be too late to measure their impact, except when we feel its harms.
With climate change, there will no gradually decay.
The Paris Climate Change Agreement is not an inspirational rallying cry or a recipe for bold action. It serves better as the motto for the tortoise than the hare.
It appears at this moment in history as in the past centuries that we humans do have not the ability to turn long-term thinking into action without creating a war.
There will be no solution till we give Eco Systems a Monetary and Rights value.
Shallow Paris Climate agreement promises are already worthless.
Why?
Because without removing or at least making the one thing that is driving Climate change and poverty – Greed to pay there will be no marked improvement in any future or present world problems.
We can all wail like I am doing here till the cows come home.
Without independent financial clout to effect change, we are pissing against the wind. ( See previous posts)
The solution to climate change and poverty is not just money.
Free energy would go a long way to saving the environment.
A basic wage, generated from greed/ profit for profit sake, would reduce the inequalities of the world and have a profound effect on the climate.
Both are a simple solution to a complex world problem.
It is Crystal Clear that if we do not do something to protect the Enviorment we all Fucked.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASKS. SHOULD THE EU GRANT A TRANSITION PERIOD TO THE UK
( A one-minute read)
UK government wants the EU to give it a transition period even if talks on the future relationship break down.
Britain and the EU will have to overcome some key sticking points regarding transition before they can move onto the question of the future relationship.
The question is can you have one foot in the door and the other outside.
All logic tells one that this is not possible.
What is possible is that any final agreement carries a watertight moratorium granting a suitable implementation period of let’s say two or three years.
Such a moratorium would allow the dust to settle while ensuring that the final agreement is not watered down.
It would save taxpayer on both sides unnecessary further costs due to changing circumstances on both sides.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin
≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WITH SO MANY WARS IN THE WORLD WHY IS ENGLAND TURNING ITS BACK ON THE ASPIRATION OF A UNITED PEACEFUL EUROPE. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY CURRENT WARS WE HAVE IN THE WORLD.
As you read this, there are more than 40 conflicts unfolding in countries around the world. You could not be blamed for thinking that most of the world is in conflict.
They all seem to overflow into one great swam of human misery that occupy our News on a daily basis.
These days wars are more to do with identity based in historical, geographical, political, social, cultural and economic realities.
The EU endeavors to appease these differences, however the European Community needs to stop worry about protecting yesterday’s accomplishments rather than facing tomorrow’s challenges.
THIS IS HIGHLIGHTED BY ENGLAND PENDING DEPARTURE LEADING TO THE QUESTION:
DOES A DEFINABLE, IF NASCENT EUROPEAN IDENTITY EXIST OR IS IT LIKE ALL OTHERS.
It should come as no great surprise that most EU citizens regard themselves as belonging within a number of culturally defined groups and do not normally feel that these overlapping identities are incompatible.
As we are now witnessing with England’s departure and the divide between northern Europe and the Southern Europe.
The critical moments that lead to war are those when one or more identities take precedence over the others. So the objective of the EU must be to reach a stage at which regional, national, European and other identities are regarded as compatible rather than competitive.
This stage has not yet been reached and it may be argued that reaching this plateau is the major challenge which the Union faces in the next century.
It is extremely difficult to construct a European cultural project which embraces both the differences in European cultures and their common roots but in a world now driven more and more by technology that must be the objective, not isolation.
Europe is by far the most peaceful region in the world. Yet the continent is not immune to war – Britain, France, Belgium and others are heavily involved in external conflict in the Middle East, and face a growing threat to peace from international terrorism.
It is not inevitable that the logic of unity and interdependence will prevail and there is a consequent danger of a return to a dangerously fragmented Europe with potentially devastating consequences.
So given all the dire warnings from either side about the security of Europe if Britain leaves the EU, does the IEP foresee a change in the region’s fortunes in the event of Brexit?
In the short-term it’s unlikely to have an effect.
The longer-term ramifications, more for Britain than for [the rest of] Europe, would probably depend on what the economic outcome of a British exit would be. If there’s a further deterioration in the economy in England we may well witness an increase in violence.
This is a country that is full of places of worship that are thronged with glorification of war, saturated with historical blood, building two new aircraft carriers, while its people are on trolleys in hospitals.
Leaving the EU for all the wrong reasons, expecting to retain all the advantages of being in the EU but none of the responsibilities and costs.
A self-inflicted position.
At the moment they have the best trade deal possible – the best one imaginable – which is a customs union and access to the European Single Market and the European Economic Area.
We are now further away from world peace than at any time in the past 10 years – and it’s creating a global ‘peace inequality’ gap.
There are now just 10 countries which can be considered truly at peace – in other words, not engaged in any conflicts either internally or externally, completely free from conflict.
The lack of a solution to the refugee crisis and an increase in deaths from major terrorist incidents have all contributed to the world being less peaceful in 2016.
Many of the conflicts don’t get the media or policy attention of the wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan or Ukraine, and they may not have the same geopolitical or economic importance.
All wars need arms so who is supplying the arms:
Fueling the deadly conflicts for profit.
War kills. And war sells.
Where do nations from every corner of the planet look when they want to increase their arsenals?
Ten countries are responsible for the vast majority of all major arms exports, accounting for 90 percent of global sales with the United States, the world’s largest arms dealers.
The world’s top six major arms exporters are the United States, Britain, Russia, Germany, France and China. Together, they account for 74 percent of the total volume of exports.
Sales are in the region of $31.bn
If you don’t believe me here below is a link to interactive map.
The map is part of a series of articles from IRIN around the concept of forgotten wars.is an interactive map of the current conflicts in the world.
It examines the root causes, human cost and potential for peace of conflicts in Myanmar, Casamance, South Kordofan, southern Thailand, and Mindanao in the Philippines.
The map marks each conflict with a red dot.
It is sized to represent how long the battle has been going on, with the
larger dots representing those that have lasted the longest.
To see more about each conflict, click on the dot.
This brings up a fact box explaining the nature of the conflict, when it began and how many deaths have resulted from it.
Syria has been embroiled in civil war, that is also the biggest and most complex proxy war the world has witnessed.
Mexico’s drug war, fueled by 54 ruthless cartels lust for territory, cash, power and violence has slaughtered as many as 85,000 people since 2006.
Mali, AL-Qaeda took root in the country’s north. Around 4,000 people have been killed in Mali since 2012.
Afghanistan, Taliban and IS.
Iraq, the 2003 US-led Iraq war killed up to a million Iraqis, gave birth to Islamic State.
The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have been going for well over a decade, then it spilled into Syria in 2011, and afterwards into Libya and Yemen.
Yemen, AL-Qaeda and IS have fighters in Yemen, over 7,600 people have been killed in the past two years.
Pakistan, since the 9/11 outrage in 2001, war has been raging between the Taliban, IS.
Lebanon, Nearly a quarter of Lebanon’s population is made up of Syrian refugees and sectarian division has risen as IS battles with the Shia militant group Hezbollah.
Libya, 35,000 people have been killed since the Arab Spring uprising.
Democratic Republic Of Congo, more than 70 groups are fighting despite the presence of 20,000 UN troops.
Somalia, Al-Shabaab had 9,000 fighters in Somalia. IS has a foothold in Somalia and is trying to recruit Al-Shabaab fighters.
India,a fragile ceasefire since 2003 with Kashmir, but still exchange fire across the contested border.
South Sudan, over 50,000 people have been killed and more than 1.6 million displaced since war broke out in 2013. It has raged for more than 60 years.
Egypt, at war against Islamist militants in the Sinai.
Central African Republic, 6,000 people have been killed in the Central African Republic, with 25 per cent of the 4.6 million population displaced.
Ukraine, Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
Nigeria, 50,000 people have died in the war between regime forces and Islamic State-affiliates Boko Haram.
Israel -Palestine, has forced tens of thousands of Arabs from homes in land grabs.
Turkey, fighting the Kurdish Workers Party the PKK, is hostile to the Kurdish Democratic Unity Party’s armed wing, the YPG, but has good relations with the Kurdish Peshmerga of Northern Iraq. The Turkish and Syrian Kurds are fighting IS and others in Syria but are against the Turkish government.
Potential Wars:
North Korea, technically, it has never stopped being at war with the South since 1953.
East China sea, South China Sea.
Will any end soon. Not likely.
This autocracy must stop.
The shelf-life of weapons is often longer than the governments and situations they were sold to.
Britain – is now the world’s second largest arms exporter after America – around 120,000 people are employed in weapons dealing.
Two-thirds of UK weapons have been sold to Middle Eastern countries.
If Europe is to escape the cauldron of fragmentation and national strife our shared bonds of European identity must be more broadly defined, given concrete expression and have the flexibility necessary to create an outward-looking and self-confident union of people’s.
The logic of global socio-economic interdependence that spells integration and the logic of ethnicity and nationality that demands separation both apply.
If England leaves the EU without a satisfactory solution to the Irish Border it could reignite one of the longest conflicts in the world going back 700 years.
To make the Irish less Irish backfired once and it will again.
With the coming Climate Change, doubts about the science are being replaced by doubts about the motives of scientists and their political supporters.
Once this kind of cynicism takes hold, is there any hope for the truth?
Climate change deniers argue they are only trying to discover the truth.
We should all be sceptical about that.
No Technology, No Artificial Intelligence, No inequality adjustment, No Frontiers, No Nuclear weapons, No alliances, not anything is going to stop migration.
Where will the next War be?
It will be between the countries relying on the Nile for power and water.
The toll of decades-long conflicts – from Colombia to the Ogaden, from Kashmir to Western Sahara – will be just as devastating for the people who do not live there.
All of the above presupposes that the development of Europe’s cultural identity is a worthy and attainable goal.
Europe, when you think about it, is a pretty small place. Jump on a plane in London and you can be all the way across the continent, in big old Russia, within just a few hours.
Europe stresses the importance of a continuing dialogue between the present and the past.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
As I understand it your stated aim for the continuing Brexit negotiations is to secure the exact same economic benefits that England now enjoy’s in the EU.
I regret to inform you that you and your Government is labouring under the misapprehension that it will be able to secure a free trade agreement (FTA) outside of the single market that not only covers goods (like the FTA Canada has with the EU) but most services too.
It almost unheard of to have a FTA – one that sits outside of the single market. Because it would have to be approved by 42 regional and national Parliaments in the EU and domestic political objections in other states would stand in the way.
The FTA Canada has with the EU took seven years to negotiate.
You can only have this if you remain in the single market.
Perhaps it is time for you and Government to refresh your thinking on what is the Single Market.
( The single market provides for tariff-free trade between EU countries and a common framework of rules including employment rights, competition policy, consumer and environment protections. EU countries come together through the customs union and apply the same tariffs to goods from outside the union. Non-EU countries participate in both bodies and doing so is the best way of retaining the benefits of EU membership while being outside the EU.)
You will not be able to enjoy these economic benefits outside of the single market and the customs union. Yet you and your ministers keep insisting otherwise.
The reality is if the EU give England any special arrangements, other third countries with whom they have agreements will demand the same too.
For example, just in case you were not paying attention.
Norway has already warned that giving into UK demands for a special trade deal allowing different UK sectors to participate in the single market without being part of it would force Norway to rip up its own agreement with the EU. Not to Mention Ireland.
It is sad as the reality of Brexit becomes clear, to see such a great country unable to change its mind.
You and your ministers keep talking about the desire for a “deep and special partnership” and a “bespoke” UK deal.
Unfortunately time is running out to set out what you believe that bespoke agreement would look like because your Cabinet cannot agree on it.
It is time to do the right thing.
To request in the forthcoming negotiations a stay of execution for a period of six, seven years that will allow your government in the House of Commons an opportunity to debate among yourselves what kind of arrangements is wanted between the European Union and the United Kingdom.
I believe you made a profound mistake in pressing the Article 50 button without working out so many of these details, now there is simply not sufficient time to agree a properly bespoke deal.
While I fully appreciate you inherited the situation if you want to stay in power you should be in the long run open to the electorate to take a different view on whether you and the Government should press on with this process.
A moratorium might salvage the wreckage that is coming out of the Article 50 process and allow you to enjoy the Bayeux Tapestry and weave a country that works for everybody.
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Let me congratulate Mr. Musk and remind him of his own words ” Only a carbon tax—not innovation, conservation, or renewable energy—will accelerate the transition from carbon-producing fossil fuels to sustainable energy.”
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