THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WHERE DID THE WORD NIGGER COME FROM?

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(Five-minute read) 

No American minority group has been caricatured as often or in as many ways as Black people.

On this date, we look at the history of the word “nigger” in America, a word that still sits at the center of anti-Black verbal distortions.

Nigger is one of the most notorious words in American culture.

Some words carry more weight than others. But without trying to exaggerate, is genocide just another word? Pedophilia? Clearly, no and neither is nigger.

Over time, racial slurs have victimized all racial and ethnic groups; but no American group has endured as many racial nicknames as Blacks: coon, tom, savage, pickaninny, mammy, buck, samba, jigaboo, and buckwheat are some.

Words like nigger, kike, spic, and wetback come from three categories: disparaging nicknames (chink, dago, nigger); explicit group devaluations (“Jew him down” or “niggering the land”); and irrelevant ethnic names used as a mild disparagement (“jewbird” for cuckoos having prominent beaks or “Irish confetti” for bricks thrown in a fight.)

No matter what their origins are, let me state clearly that all remain a derogative name no matter what color they refer to. 

Many of these slurs became fully traditional pseudo-scientific, literary, cinematic, and everyday distortions of African Americans, and these caricatures, whether spoken, written, or reproduced in media and material objects, reflect the extent, the vast network, of anti-Black prejudice.

They are all terms of exclusion, verbal reasons for discrimination. Whether used as a noun, verb, or adjective, they strengthened the stereotype of the lazy, stupid, dirty, worthless nobody.

No other American surname carries as much purposeful cruelty. It is used to offend other ethnic groups. Jews are called White-niggers; Arabs, sand-niggers; Japanese, yellow-niggers. 

Nigger is the ultimate American insult;

Americans created a racial hierarchy with whites at the top and Blacks at the bottom.

The American hierarchy was set up by an ideology that justified the use of deceit, exploitation, and intimidation to keep Blacks in their place.

Nearly every major societal establishment is the USA offered legitimacy to the racial hierarchy.

Ministers preached that God was white. Scientists measured Black skulls, brains, faces, and genitalia, seeking to prove that Whites were genetically superior to Blacks. 

The entertainment media, from vaudeville to television and film, portrayed Blacks as docile servants, happy-go-lucky idiots, and dangerous thugs, and they still do this today.

The criminal justice system sanctioned a double standard of justice, including its unspoken approval of mob violence against Blacks and there is still a similar double standard today.

The negative portrayals of Blacks were both reflected in and shaped by everyday material objects: toys, postcards, ashtrays, detergent boxes, fishing lures, and children’s books. These items, and countless others, portrayed Blacks with bulging, darting eyes, fire-red oversized lips, jet-Black skin, and either naked or poorly clothed. 

Yet, the word nigger has not left and its relationship with anti-Black prejudice remains symbiotic, interrelated, and interconnected. Ironically, it is co-dependent because a racist society created nigger and continues to feed and sustain it. But, the word no longer needs racism, or brutal and obvious forms, to survive. The word nigger today has its own existence.

The word, nigger, endures because it is used over and over again, even by the people it insults.

This is not surprising in a racial hierarchy four centuries old, shaping the historical relationship between white-European Americans and African Americans.

There are so many contradictions behind this word. I think the word should be banned and should be illegal. At least then it would be consigned to the world of verbal diarrhea.  A protester stands near a memorial following a day of demonstrations in a call for justice for George Floyd

Any discussion of racism needs to examine the roots of racism in order to understand it and to struggle against it effectively. There are basically three explanations for the existence of racism.

The dominant view.

Is that racism is an irrational response to the difference which causes some people with white skin to have hateful attitudes to people with black skin.

The second view is that racism is endemic in white society and that the only solution is for black people to organize “themselves separately from whites ” in order to defend themselves and to protect their interests. 

The third view is that racism based on a materialist perspective, which views racism as a historically specific and materially caused phenomenon.

My view is that racism is a product of capitalism.

It grew out of early capitalism’s use of slaves for the plantations of the New World, it was consolidated in order to justify western and white domination of the rest of the world and it flourishes today as a means of dividing the working class between white and Muslim or black, and native and immigrants or asylum seekers.

Racism is commonly assumed to be as old as society itself.

However, this does not stand up to historical examination. Racism is a particular form of oppression: discrimination against people on the grounds that some inherited characteristic, for example, skin color, makes them inferior to their oppressors.

Anti-semitism is another variety of racism. It has taken different forms over the centuries, being justified on religious grounds during the middle ages.

The term foreign workers are another form of racism labeling.

Racism and discrimination have been used as powerful weapons encouraging fear or hatred of others in times of conflict and war, and even during pandemics and the resulting economic downturns.

The abiding question is what can be done. They say educations is the solution.

I say all the education will not cure such an ingrained problem, only the removal of the obvious inequalities within society will have any hope of us seeing each other as equal.       

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHAT IS CREATIVITY AND WHY WILL WE NEED IT NOW?

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(Four-minute read) 

“Creativity is a combinatorial force: it’s our ability to tap into our ‘inner’ pool of resources – knowledge, insight, information, inspiration and all the fragments populating our minds – that we’ve accumulated over the years just by being present and alive and awake to the world and to combine them in extraordinary new ways.” — Maria Popova, Brainpickings.

It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life.

The current COVID-19 pandemic is propelling us to get out of commodity hell into a new age of creativity.

Creativity is the Most Crucial Factor for Future Success.

It is critical to economic growth and solving the problems of the planet.

Creativity begins with a foundation of knowledge, learning a discipline, and mastering a way of thinking.

The longer the list of ideas, the higher the quality of the final solution.

Unfortunately, all the creativity in the world without financial support to achieve sustainability that does not address the problems as a whole will only achieve further inequality.

In seeking a transition to sustainability as the organizing principle in a new world order, a piecemeal approach—emphasizing some aspects,
while neglecting others—is unlikely to yield effective, lasting results.

It requires a fundamental shift in consciousness as well as action. It calls for a fresh vision, a new dream, and new approaches for shaping evolving new realities.

We can no longer rely on governments of countries to come together on the one problem the world has that is going to affect us all for generations.

We can no longer expect us, humans, because of the or indeed without the internet to act as one.

We can no longer watch our world plundered for the sake of short term profit.

We can no longer demand change when we are unwilling to change.

WHY?

Because when one looks over the neighbor’s wall we see 

If we want a Tiger, the Amazon, Clean Air, Fresh Water, Green Energy, and Sustainable Eco-Systems, a Future, it can only be achieved in an invisible manner.

No one wants to pay for it and we know that nothing comes for free.

Widespread use of the term sustainability has led today to a growing ambiguity with the employed within a very broad spectrum of meaning, often to the point of trivialization.

The principles of sustainability are articulated in a general fashion but can receive specific operational meaning in relation to particular cases, for example, sectors of the economy, development issues, business strategies, investment guidelines, or initiatives taken by individuals.

By their very nature, sustainable principles are influenced by language, logic, and action all forcing separation, discrimination, and choice, resulting in the artificial distinction and sequencing of the five principles.

When in fact they interacting and co-defining one another.

To restore rigor to the ideas underlying the concept of sustainability we should (We have the technology) create a World Aid Fund by placing a commission on all transactions and activities that don’t contribute to the principles. ( See previous posts) 

This would raise trillions to tackle not just climate change but all other problems, infusing a common purpose, provide a common foundation, and stimulate common resolve.

All distribution of the funds would be on a grant base.

To avoid political interference and lobbying the fund revenue would be granted on a project summit bases on an annual draw of all projects deemed worthy.

To ensure that the grants are used for the purposes they are intended the fund would be open to total transparency.

It is of course totally logical that in order to establishment of such a fund a pilot scheme would have to be implemented to iron out any problems. 

The European Union has just agreed on a massive financial package to enable its members to recover for CORVID-19. 50% of this package is to be granted.

Just think what it would do if none of this money had to be borrowed in the first place.  

The concept is systemic in nature, meaning that each domain affects all the others and is affected by each in return, all are reduced to mere technicalities, an invisible fund of trillions.

Where do you find creativity?

The answer: Anywhere if you know where and how to look, in a space you yourself make.

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: I THINK ITS TIME WE TALKED ABOUT WHERE WE GO FROM HERE.

 

( Seven-minute read) 

A conversation has to start somewhere so let’s start by imagining that we are looking out of the window of the International space station at Earth.

We can see that it is enormous but have no real sense of its size in relation to the Universe.

We know that it is covered in living organisms but can see no evidence of life.

We know it is spinning and traveling at speed but have no sense of movement or gravitational balance. 

We see that it is round with colors, blue-white, yellow, and green.

It conveys a sense of wonder. Earth is our home planet.

It’s a little bit heartbreaking that we are looking at it through defunct human-made objects that contain toxic and hazardous materials.

IT IS SAID TO UNDERSTAND WHERE WE ARE YOU HAVE TO LOOK INTO THE PAST AND LEAR FROM THE MISTAKES MADE. 

THE ONE GLARING MISTAKE IS THE CONTINUING DISCONNECTION BETWEEN  NATURE AND HUMANITY IT HAS CREATED A WORLD WHERE BOTH ARE STRUGGLING TO EXIST. 

So lets with a broad brush look at the present position. 

Before we arrived nature governed, then along came the farmer, nature was harnessed to serve ownership, power, wealth, for the few, leading to greed, wars, inequality, racism, countries, and politics you name it, with one little industrialized country wanting it all at any cost.

So we formed the United Nations to sort it all out. 

So we ended up with a world of short term thinking, with long term prospects getting worse. After decades of verbal an invisible virus has brought us to an impasse either continue inflicting suffering, or change course to a sustainable world. 

Unfortunately, sustainability is misunderstood as it can only come if the world act as one.  The likely hood of that happing is zero.   

You only have to look at the differences in the ambition of countries with no vaccine on the horizon, to reopen their economies which are all heading into the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression.

So to avoid influences like panic and fear over the imperfections in our socio-economic realities we must first get a grip on Media platforms to tell the truth as their factuality paralyzes decision-makers. 

There will be no quick solutions as here is going to be financial uncertainty for months if not years.

Governments up to now have and are spending billions to stave off the inevitable which is millions unemployed, and businesses small and large going bust.

With stimulus packages drying up, things will get worse before they can get better. 

Obviously, we can’t simply re-open things all at once, or you’ll be sending off all us out to re-expose themselves to the threat and the likelihood of the second wave of COVID-19, and this might happen sooner than later with countries lifting restrictions both on movement and opening businesses.

Downplaying the severity of COVID-19 does nothing to help the problem, which is a very real threat to the health and safety of us all. Governments should not let economics become the prime driver, especially if it means risking people’s health and lives, which are far more important than their livelihoods.

We need to save people’s lives to keep the economy running. If economics remains our focus, everything will die.

We need a detailed plan.

Not something that’s hinted at.  Not “as soon as we can.” Not “we have a good idea.”

WE NEED CREATIVITY. NOT DIGITAL SLAVERY.  

What is the plan?

The European Union has laid out a vision for a green future with a financial package to promote it. 

The USA Donald Dump is slashing environmental protections.

While China can’t wait to return to Manufacturing.

All aware of the fact that about half the world’s poor reside in fragile and conflict-affected situations today. If current trends continue, by 2030, areas that are fragile/hit by conflict will account for just 10% of the global population but as many as two-thirds of the world’s poor…where COVID -19 has only just started to spread.

All aware of the fact that climate change is ticking time bomb. Fiercer weather and worsening wildfires drove more than 20 million people a year from their homes over the last decade. (The next climate change world meeting is postponed until 2021 with little time left to avert climate catastrophes, with the whole question now not urgent with countries reverting to domestic problems, reducing international cooperation. Greenhouse gasses emissions will increase as they pivot back to burning fossil fuels.)

All aware that global emissions need to fall by 7.6% every year until 2030 to limit global temperature rises to 1.5° C.

All aware that pollution continues unabated. In 2016, 44.7 million metric tonnes of e-waste was generated. This is equivalent to almost 4,500 Eiffel Towers!

All aware that more than 470 million people worldwide are currently unemployed or underemployed.

All aware that the world resources such as – freshwater, fresh air are finite.

All aware that 212.4 million suffering from diabetes worldwide unaware of their condition.

All aware that the digital age is widening inequalities.

All aware that the next pandemic is only around the corner. 

All aware that current conflicts/wars are a combination of a lack of resources fueled by the connectivity of the internet. 

All aware that rising sea levels will result in mass immigration.

All aware that almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population. 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population.

All aware that this is the only planet humans can live on. 

All aware of the need for social safety net programs.

All aware that I am all right jack does not work.

Its no wonder we want to go to where the sun does not shine but watch out for the tracking APP> 

In the end, the only way to effect change that has to be invisible is the creation of a World AId Fund. (See previous Posts)

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS. DO YOU KNOW WHAT A VIRUS IS?

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(Three-minute read) 

 


No, I am not talking about a computer virus, but viruses that do not discriminate whether you are a robot or not.  
Viruses are by far the most abundant biological entities on Earth and they outnumber all the others put together.

So let’s try and put them into layman’s terms.

They are neither dead nor alive!

They are non-cellular organisms, which are enclosed in a protective envelope or protein coat – capsid and have a nucleic acid core comprising of DNA or RNA.

The presence of spikes helps in attaching the viruses to the host cell.

They do not grow, neither respire nor metabolize, but they reproduce.

They are considered both as living and non-living things.

They are inactive when they are present outside of host cells but become active within host cells. They cause several infections and reproduce within the host cell by using the enzymes and raw materials.

They can be transmitted by several methods, airborne, contaminated water, or food, sexual contact with the infected person, transfusion, biting. 

In a nutshell, a virus is a non-cellular, infectious entity made up of genetic material and protein that can invade and reproduce only within the living cells of bacteria, plants, and animals.

A virus cannot replicate itself outside the host cell. Therefore, it enters and attaches itself to a specific host cell, injects its genetic material, reproduces by using the host genetic material, and finally, the host cell splits open, releasing the new viruses.

Viruses can also be crystallized, which no other living organisms can do.

It is these factors that lead to viruses being classified in the grey area – between the living and non-living. During this stage, they remain dormant, until they enter another host, restarting the cycle all over.

They give us everything from the common cold, influenza, chickenpox, and cold sores to serious diseases such as rabies, Ebola virus disease, AIDS (HIV), avian influenza, and SARS, COVID -19 all caused by viruses.

The ability of viruses to cause devastating epidemics in human societies has led to the concern that viruses could be weaponized for biological warfare. 

Viruses infect all cellular life and, although viruses occur universally, each cellular species has its own specific range that often infects only that species. 

There are billions of them, most unknown.

In the evolutionary history of life, it is unclear where they come from because they have no fossils. However, in evolution, viruses are an important means of horizontal gene transfer, which increases genetic diversity.

They are a life form evolving through natural selection and are found wherever there is life.

They are transmitted from nearly every life form to another.

They are now recognized as ancient and as having origins that pre-date the divergence of life into the three biological domains. ie Bacteria – Archaea -Eukaryote.

I can hear you saying what is the difference from one domain to another.

Fortunately, I don’t have the knowledge or space to answer but below might help. 

Bacteria and Archaea – The Major Differences

Basis Archaea Bacteria
Reproduction and Growth Asexual Reproduction, by the process of fragmentation, budding and binary fission Asexual Reproduction. Eubacteria produces spore to stay latent for several years.
Cell Membrane Pseudopeptidoglycan Lipopolysaccharide/ Peptidoglycan
Metabolism Activity Methanogenesis Autotrophy, Aerobic, and Anaerobic Respiration, Fermentation, and Photosynthesis.
RNA Consists of three RNA Consists of single RNA
Thriving Habitat Can sustain in extremely harsh environment such as oceans, hot springs, marshlands, hot springs, and gut of humans They are generally found in soil, organic matter, earth’s crust, water, bodies of animals and plants, radioactive wastes, hot springs, etc.

There are four different types of viruses:

Animal viruses.

Plant viruses.

Insect virus.

Bacteriophage.

(The virus which infects bacterial cells is known as

bacteriophage.)

And one other that is not yet listed. 

Donald Trump wearing a suit and tie: President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 5, 2020, before boarding Marine One for a short trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and then on to Phoenix, Ariz.

So here is the Question:

Maybe someone can answer this very confusing question with some layman’s clarity. 

Which came first Bacteria or the VIruses?  

Currently, there are three hypotheses for the origin of viruses, all of which presume either bacteria came first, or they arose at the same time since viruses require a host.

Since viruses do not leave fossils, and their origin goes back to the dawn of life on earth, about 3.5-3.8 billion years ago you would think that they came first, but bacteria were around at the same time. 

They are both the first two branches in the tree of life.

Virus and bacteria share a common ancestor – a fully functioning, self-replicating cell that lived around 3.4 billion years ago, shortly afterlife first emerged on the planet.  

Bacteria became more complex while the virus became simpler as they developed from cells, therefore they should be less diverse because cells would contain the entire range of genes available to viruses.

The biggest difference between viruses and bacteria is that viruses must have a living host – like a plant or animal – to multiply, while most bacteria can grow on non-living surfaces.

Antibiotics cannot kill viruses but they can kill most bacteria and we have spent trillions trying to kill bacteria. 

Hundreds of millions of viruses can be found in one square meter; the same space holds tens of millions of bacteria.

Bacteria are living organisms but opinions vary on whether viruses are.

A virus is an organic structure that interacts with living organisms.

virus is acellular (has no cell structure) and requires a living host to survive and reproduce by injecting their own DNA into the host.

Bacteria are alive. Viruses, on the other hand, hang around outside the body for hours, even days till the get the opportunity to become alive. 

It is unlikely the debate over which evolved first; viruses or bacteria will ever be settled. Because the history and the proofs of origin have faded with time.

So infections caused by harmful bacteria can almost always be cured with antibiotics and some viruses can be vaccinated against, most, such as HIV and the viruses which cause the common cold, are incurable.

The only virus that man has particularly partially conquered to date is Polio, Measles, and Chickenpox. The rest some of which you will never hear off are Ebola, Zika, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Marburg hemorrhagic fever, Lassa fever, MERS and SARS coronavirus diseases, Nipah and Rift Valley fever, Chikungunya, Thrombocytopenia, Smallpox, and the new contender Covid-19. 

Are all killers. 

So let’s get to the point.

I have often wondered with us spending trillions on killing bacteria does bacteria passed on its mutations to mutating Viruses.

We told to wash our hands with soap because it dissolves the fat membrane of a virus killing it– or rather, we should say it becomes inactive as viruses aren’t really alive.

Now I am not advocating a Donal Dump that we should be all shallowing Parazone that kills all known cling on’s.

 Most bar soaps are considered harmless (nontoxic) and most people usually recover after swallowing soap. We swallow millions of capsules in our lifetime so why not a soap capsule.  

We are still in an arms race against many diseases, but we stand at a unique period in human history where it’s possible to imagine a day when we have conquered the disease. 

Here’s a quote from “The Matrix”  It’s from Agent Smith (An entity the “I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we are the cure.”

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: IS COVID-19 GOING TO BE THE STRAW THAT WILL BREAK THE CAMELBACK OF-DEMOCRACY.

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( Two Minute read)

TRACE AND TRACK.

We all know that with the technology that we have today that we and our habits are been constantly monitored.

What we don’t appreciate is that this data is non-regulated, its use, and by whom it is all but invisible.

When Governments introduce a tracking App surely it should ring alarm bells to the erosion of Democracy.

There is no argument to saving lives is a given but the argument here is that with so safeguards, transparency, or legal rights over the storage and eventually removal of this data. (Centrally as in the case of England.)

It will turn us into digital slaves. 

Since the arrival of the internet power has become invisible, with corporate-owned software running everything from the stock exchanges, to regime change.

Facebook and Twitter are partly responsible for the election of a USA president Mr. Donald Dump, the Arab Rising, the Brotherhood in Egypt, the false news, etc.

Surely to many of our forebears gave their lives for us now to throw away what is left of our freedom to create an autocratic regime.

If we want to live in a society like China these tracking Apps will get us there sooner than you think.

If you look at China its Communist Party is planning to implement a single citizen score using opaque algorithms that are largely political.

In fact, China’s social credit scoring is best understood not as a single system but as an overarching ideology: Its government agencies compile and share data on judgments against individuals or companies.

Default on your debts, and you will be put on the “List of Untrustworthy Persons.” Blacklisted individuals cannot make “luxury purchases,” such as high-speed rail and air tickets or hotel rooms.

The ripple effect on every part of your life becomes a multiplier on punishments. Warning, these people who are on the blacklist. When a blacklisted person crosses certain intersections in Beijing, facial-recognition technology projects their face and ID number on massive electronic billboards.

As you see in Hong Kong the government eager to quash free speech and root out dissenters.

The tracking apps may well help to break the chain of infections, but with dedicated watchers to record deeds and misdeeds it will lead to socially engineer behavior by ascribing a number to citizens.

Good deeds gain points; bad deeds lose them, with perks and hardships attached and it won’t be long before they take a broad range of behaviors both financial and social, all underwritten by an invisible web of Big Data.

Everything becomes negotiable, no one will make a decision.

Businesses need to keep in constant touch with the government in order to stay in the business.

What harm could there be?”

Where will it extend to next?

Now it the time to ensure that your hard-won freedom is not sacrificed but protected.

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THE BEADY EYE SAYS. WE WILL NEVER HAVE A PERFECT WORLD, BUT WE DO STILL HAVE A WORLD OF INDESCRIBABLE BEAUTY.

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(Ten-minute read) 

There is no such thing as a perfect world here or anywhere else especially when it is inhabited by a species that thinks that it can survive at the cost of all that surrounds it.

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

This is true if you can behold what you are looking at while accepting that it can’t be perfect in the true sense of the earthly word. 

We might be living in history’s most peaceful era, with violence of all kinds – from deaths in wars to mass shootings, streets stabbings, in a world as interconnected and algorithmically driven that it could simply spiral out of control with an invisible virus that could kill untold numbers worldwide. 

In some sense, unlike our precedents who had gods for everything, from Wars to Famines we live a great deal of our lives in a reality of only what is visible but there is more and more becoming invisible. 

If all this were really true, it would suggest that an overwhelming proportion of the energy we dedicate to debating the state of humanity – all the political outrage, the warnings of imminent disaster, the exasperated op-ed columns, all our anxiety and guilt about the misery afflicting people all over the world – is wasted.

This is not an irrational thought.

Perhaps we should have or will have enough good reason to assume things will continue to improve but when you live in a world where everything seems to be getting better, yet it could all collapse tomorrow, “it’s perfectly rational to be freaked out,” by COVID-19.

It wasn’t so long ago that dogs gnawed at the abandoned corpses of plague victims in the streets of European cities.

With countries now endeavoring to kick start their economies, lurking behind everything else is our collective inability to act as one, to appreciate or understand that we all live on the same planet with all of its invisibility.  

Rational optimism holds that the world will pull out of the current crisis, but what if it’s the very strength of democracy – and our complacency about its capacity to withstand almost anything – that augurs its eventual collapse. 

We have created – the very engine that is so complex, volatile, and unpredictable that catastrophe might befall us at any moment. If it happens no one will remember the internet.

The worlds we live in are now so self-centered that we see charities begging to save everything from donkeys to starving children, all saturated in a media-era, that is constantly misleading us, with an advertising industry promoting unsustainable consumption for profit.   

Digital technology has unquestionably helped fuel a worldwide surge in economic growth but it has turned us into digital slaves detached from a genuine knowledge of how our world works and concern for the future.  

In these hyper-connected times, our addiction to bad news just leads us to vacuum up depressing or enraging stories from across the globe, whether they threaten us or not, and therefore to conclude that things are much worse than they are.

We live now in the Age of the Take, in which a seemingly infinite supply of blog posts, opinion columns, books, and TV talking heads compete to tell us how to feel about the news. (Including this blog.)

While the usual intractable political disagreements about the state of the planet improvements in sanitation and life expectancy we can’t prevent rising sea levels from destroying your country.

This shouldn’t really come as a surprise:

The internet economy is fuelled by attention, and it’s far easier to seize someone’s attention with emotionally charged argument than mere information – plus you don’t have to pay for the expensive reporting required to ferret out the facts.

Or, worse, is the internet with its social media platforms now counterproductive, insofar as a belief that things are irredeemably awful seems like a bad way to motivate people to make things better, and thus in danger of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The point is that if something does go seriously wrong in our societies, it’s really hard to see where it stops.

We are not merely ignorant of the facts; we are actively convinced of depressing “facts” that aren’t true.

You might argue that comparing the present with the past is stacking the deck.

Of course, things are better than they were. But they’re surely nowhere near as good as they ought to be.

Humanity indisputably has the capacity to eliminate extreme poverty, end famines, or radically reduce human damage to the climate. But we’ve done none of these, and the fact that things aren’t as terrible as they were in 1800 is arguably beside the point.

If you start from the fact that plague victims once languished in the streets of European cities, it’s natural to conclude that life these days is wonderful. But if you start from the position that we could have eliminated famines, or reversed global warming, the fact that such problems persist may provoke a different kind of judgment.

They’d say, the world’s getting better, but it doesn’t feel like that around here.

For people to feel deeply uneasy about the world we inhabit now, despite all most indicators pointing up, seems to be reasonable, given the relative instability of the evidence of this progress, and the [unpredictability] that overhangs it.

And I would say, ‘Yes, but this isn’t the whole world!

Should we be a  little bit cheered by the fact that really poor Africans are getting a bit less poor? There is a sense in which this is a fair point. But there’s another sense in which it’s a completely irrelevant one.

When we don’t see the progress we have made, we begin to search for scapegoats for the problems that remain.

Progress isn’t inevitable, progress is problem-solving but not problem solving that addresses the whole problem.  

Everything really is pretty fragile and it is now beyond a doubt that the world is going into an economic depression. The pandemic has exposed our failings in many ways with the need to reverse that last four decades of the prevailing policies of growth at any cost.

Observations alone, however, will not bring transformation.

God forbid we should be naive to think that once ideas are discussed and made popular they will permeate policymaking and bring about change. In reality in a pandemic it is more than likely with a world economic depression the first thing that happens is not a radical reengineering of the economy. 

What happens is, what is dispensable, how many death can we afford before the economy suffers? Is the loss of life at a level acceptable to big business and the government?

So we will for the foreseeable future lurch forward with broken economies while millions are made scapegoats. Yes, your data will be centralized. The data doesn’t lie. Just look at the numbers, whatever happens, things could always, in principle, have been worse.

If we are not vigilant history shows, that whatever horrors the crises expose they will be covered up in the shattered aftermath.   

It took millions and millions of lives to win your freedom so why should we give it up to AI apps that are non-transparent, non-regulated, owned by you-know-who. 

To save lives Yes. To control lives NO.

We should look at things like climate change and nuclear war and pandemics as problems to be solved, not apocalypses in waiting. But they aren’t newsworthy. And you’ll rarely see a headline about a bad event that failed to occur.

Nature might be healing and the green deal looks like to way to go but a sustainable world requires that we address the world as a whole not just piecemeal solving one problem after another. 

There can be no sustainability with economies that don’t have their activities vetted against the knock-on effects they have on the whole ecosystem of our planet.    

Can this be achieved?

As I have said our problem is that we humans cannot act as one or see ourselves as a whole, inhabiting a planet that is interconnected to each and every one of us.

We will never be able to do so. 

How do we overcome this problem before the damage may not be repairable?

It has to achieve by invisibly means and on a sufficiently long timescale.

There is no reason with the computer power now at our disposal that we could not tap into the greed( profit for profit sake) by placing a world Aid commission of 0.005% on all activities that are not contributing to the health of our planet. ( See previous posts) 

Frankly, we have the knowledge so our prevailing mood of despair is irrational, and a bit self-indulgent.

Stay Alert. 

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

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THE BEADY EYE SAYS: WE HAVE THE DREADED C – WORD AND SOON WE WILL HAVE THE DREADED R-WORD WHICH WILL TURN INTO THE DREADED D- WORD.

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(Four-minute read)

Unless you already live in a cave or you are a complete and total mindless follower of the establishment media, you should be able to see very clearly that our society is more vulnerable now than it ever has been. Just as the course of the virus is uncertain, so too is its likely economic impact.

The reality is that very many people will be caught totally unaware and totally unprepared when the Economic Depression befall our generation…

Although we have all seen recessions most of us have little or no concept of an economic Depression.

A recession persists for 2 or more years.

Its starting gun is.

Two consecutive negative quarters of GDP over 6 months. A rise in unemployment of around 2%.Falls in GDP, Stock Markets, Real Estate prices, Exports/Imports, Real income, Savings rates, Industrial production, Corporate investment, Wholesale/retail sales, Interest rates falling. 

A Depression is altogether another kettle of fish.

Depression means the downturn has lasted a much longer time—usually years—with a much deeper impact.

I am not being alarmist but it’s time to start calling the current situation what it is: A Depression and it will drag on for many years.

True, that this one will not be a full replay of the Great Depression, but that’s cold comfort considering it lasted some 23 years.

Its starting gun is.

When GDP experiences a serious decline greater than 10%.

The Unemployment Rate spikes dramatically sometimes up to 25-40% in some sectors. Credit Liquidity dries up. Banking and Financial Crises rock the world.
Corporate and personal bankruptcies escalate. Corporate and personal bankruptcies escalate. Sovereign Debt Defaults and Bank closures cause a flight to cash, gold, or silver. International commerce and trade are curtailed as Trade Wars break out.
Desperate Currency Devaluations between nations result in a desperate “race to the bottom.” Entrenched Price Deflation replaces concerns over Inflation or Stagflation.
Civil strife sees law and order break down, crime and rioting escalate. Political tensions result in wars and a break down in societies.

Running the money printing presses day & night will not stop a Global Economic Depression. 

Unemployment in both the United States and Europe remains disastrously high. Leaders and institutions are increasingly discredited. And democratic values are under siege. 

It’s no wonder that working-class person is scared to death they’re going to lose their house, and scared to death they’re going to lose their job and it may prove almost impossible to find another quickly.

So here are a few beady eye possible suggestions:

The sad truth is that the vast majority of people would last little more than a month on what they have stored up in their homes. 

Falling asset values and falling wages or income are a killer if you’re lumbered with high debt and interest repayments. Cash Is King in a Deflationary Environment.

Now is the time for preparation to form buying Co-ops/ Neighborhood Aid associations, Growing clubs. 

The greatest responsibility for healthcare will have to be taken on by community-based organizations and family networks, which would provide services more efficiently than the formal health system. 

Everything comes to an end, including Depressions

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

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. NOW MORE THAN EVER IT’S IMPORTANT TO MOVE PEOPLE BEYOND JUST DREAMING INTO DOING.

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(Fifteen-minute read) 

It is now or never to stop dreaming.

No one has the ability to control the outcome of the ovarian lottery, and whether you were born into a life of privilege or disadvantage this COVID-19 business is beginning to ask us all questions about the Capitalist system that has and is failed us.

The one thing that this crisis is doing is making more space to acknowledge that our losses and our failures aren’t our individual faults.

This is now blatantly and brutely clear.

Let’s start with a few very basic questions.

Do people exist to serve the economy, or should the economy exist to serve people?

Can we create an economy that operates on anti-capitalist principles, rather than for private profit? 

With COVID-19, it turns out that we’ve created a whole society with culture and institutions around the idea that people exist to serve the economy.

And now millions of people are waking up to the reality that that’s a misplaced priority.

What we need is a money system that actually is connecting real resources with real needs, creating real community wealth at the community level.

That requires a financial system that is rooted in the community and accountable to community interest and that operates by life values rather than financial values.

The biggest problem with our current financial system is that it’s very short-term obsessed.

So we need to change that whole culture. And that means changing what we measure and that now will come with either rewards or unintended consequences of all of us.

Without fundamentally changing as to how we see the economy the current system which is organized around financial values over life values will continue. 

If we don’t take the same attitude toward nurturing the human life cycle as we do toward saving the environment from global warming and industrial pollutants were fooling ourselves. 

WHAT WE ARE NOW WITTISING ARE COUNTRIES STRUGGLING TO RESTART THEIR ECONOMIES AS IF NOTHING HAS HAPPENED. RETURNING TO WORK WITHOUT ANY NEW VISION AS TO HOW TO CHANGE THE SYSTEM. 

So our era is intensifying the almost daily choice for each of us – faced with a moment of unknowing, a new challenge, do I:

In other words, we all facing a lethal challenge with a profound urge to survive and yet without any guarantee of success.

This current ruthless system where the individual desire to succeed overrule all common sense to look after the real rewards of the value of life has kept us up to now quiet about our countries failures.

There are still nurturant values: Freedom, opportunity and prosperity, fairness, open two-way communication, community building, service to the community, and cooperation in a community, trust, honesty.

The world is a dangerous place and it always will be, so let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

We’ve come a long way but the question remains do our lives have any meaning, any purpose?
Every life has two bookends—the day we’re born and the day we die.

Each of us is born with tremendous potential, but ironically, we often end our lives much like we began—weak and helpless and if we are to learn anything from this pandemic it is that the meaning of life is a demanding question, and many dismiss it as simply unanswerable.

The truth of the matter is that every stage of life is equally significant and necessary. 

Where do you fit into this story of human life?

In general, worldview has been most influenced by religion and science.

The belief system determines what we think is possible, and what we think is possible influences the results we create or allow in life.

If you think that you are connected with all of life, you will be more apt to steward your environment with care and treat others with compassion. However, if you think that only your race or social class should rule, your behavior will most likely be very brutal.

On a larger scale, however, our beliefs are predominantly determined by those who control our access to information (media) and our social structures, (including schools), because these institutions dictate what beliefs and behaviors are rewarded and which are punished.

So the prevailing worldview of the 21st century, in which war is considered a viable or necessary means of problem-solving, that starvation is inevitable for some people on this planet, and that it is right for some people to tax and control others against their will, is the result of a well-organized elite who own the systems through which information and values are disseminated.

We are careening into a world of a few haves and billions of suffering have-nots.

It is critical to consider this if we want to protect one another, as well as our planetary home, and to turn the direction of humanity toward thriving.

Above all what we need is. To consider the motivation and funding sources of those who are shaping our worldview.

We are at a critical crossroads where our information and our courage enables us to choose to create a thriving world based on protecting the rights of every individual or as our recent trajectory of misinformation and confusion continues to lead us into a global  Data police state – seeking daily permission to act from the dictators of one-world tyranny run by Global Data platforms. 

We must learn ethical evolution quickly…

What can be done? 

First, we must stabilize our climate. 

Our sentience, our feelings of wonder and awe emerge out of the universe… These profound feelings are not just ours; they are the universe reflecting upon itself… To live is to enter this beauty, surrounded by enchantment, summoned by magnificence.

Secondly, we must overcome the powerful addiction of our smartphones, of money, power, career, and ego needs of every type. This momentum has kept suffering alive despite the enormous changes in human existence from age to age.

Then, we must not allow Artificial Intelligence to control our minds. Rather than just doing the next centralization of power into the hands of a few as we wake up, do our own thinking, connect with others, and take action, humanity has what it takes to thrive. 

Furthermore, we must stop experience every aspect of our lives through the lens of our set of beliefs, personalized social media filters, racism, greed,.    

Which is more primary in finding our way, the rights of the individual, or the opinion of the majority about what’s good for the group?

Finally,  “Everything we need is already here and we can access it by recognizing and acting from our oneness.”
      – Kimberly Gamble

Will we do any of it? 

Not likely. 

Why?

Because we are unable to act as one.

The world’s population is expected to hit seven billion in the next few weeks.

The number of people on Earth has more than doubled in the last 50 years.

As I see it, the economy is just a social construction that lets people produce and exchange goods and services. You can’t serve a social contract. In the end, the agreed-upon valuation between sellers and buyers is all that matters.

What’s it all mean then? 

I think the worst thing we could do would be to actually throw out capitalism and I think what we…the second-worst thing we could do would be to actually fail to reform it.

We need to re-orientate capitalism and the financial markets to make them more long-term focused, not let’s put it back in a box.

There is only one way that we might act together is by creating a perpetual funded World Aid fund, ( See previous posts) with a Constitution for the Earth and the use of all technology.

Remember that the economy depends on millions of factors that can have both a positive and negative impact, while the stock market is only affected by one factor, the supply and demand of stocks.

So, again, the stock market is not the economy. And the economy is not the stock market.

GDP is not a means to a healthy economy unless it protects the smallest ant to the biggest 

All of us will be a long time dead so hopefully, your legacy will continue after your stages of life have ended.

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THE BEADY EYE. CLARIFIES THE STAY ALERT MESSAGE.

 

 

( One minute read) 

Boris Johnston Ministerial message to battle COVID-19 is now Stay alert.

This is how to do it.Corporate Scorecard

Stay:

active
bright
careful
intelligent
observant
perceptive
sharp
vigilant
wary
watchful
wired
wise
hip
jazzed
quick
ready
spirited
all ears
cagey
circumspect
clever
fast on the draw
good hands
heads up
heedful
on guard
on one’s toes
on the ball
on the job
on the lookout
on the qui vive
psyched up
switched on
wide-awake
with it.

Best of luck.

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S : WE KNOW THE RIGHT WAY TO GO BUT WHY IS IT SO HARD? IS IT BECAUSE IMAGINATION IS DISAPPEARING.

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(Twenty-minute read) 

If ever there was a need for imagination when this pandemic is over or is eventually under control, hopefully, imagination is going to play a massive role in redesigning not just our societies but the way we live and die on this planet.

The responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are simply the amplification of the dynamic that drives other social and ecological crises.

If we have learned anything from Covid-19 is that global problems require global solutions, whether it is a pandemic, hunger, or access to quality education, reversing climate change, poverty, and inequality, you name it.

Imagination allows us to engage in thinking about alternatives and there is no doubt that we will need some radical changes.

Here I am referring to creative imagination the role it plays in our thinking.

The key point is that in using a term such as ‘imagining’, I am not just referring to some mental activity, but also evaluating that activity in some way, with all its relations and ramifications.

So here is your chance to submit you imagine creative ideas.

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

Where to start? 

Unfortunately, this pandemic is a present-day dystopia.

It’s not the stuff of science fiction set in some distant future or on another planet it’s damage is ongoing and will only get worse as it continues.

To understand the “real world” one has to experience it not imagine it.

At the moment there is a lot of rhetoric about using a tracking App to monitor the spread of COVID_19. In other words, unregulated squealing Apps (that are owned by private corporations) that Id people that have or had the virus. 

 We recently celebrated VE day that won us freedom at the cost of millions of lives. 

In my view, such a tracking proposition is not far removed from what the Nazis did in identify Jews by marking them with a yellow star. 

It is imperative that we in their honor that we now don’t rubbish there sacrifice by becoming Data slaves. 

(As I have said in the previous post, to ensure tracking does not outlive the effort against COVID-19. Both the technology and related policies and procedures should ensure the deletion of data when there is no longer a need to hold it.)

When people feel that their phones are antagonistic rather than helpful, they will just turn location functions off or turn their phones off entirely.

Imagine living under a Chines automatism system run by a Donal Dump.

Such techniques violate some of the core values of liberal democratic regimes.)

Up to now, we thought that Capitalist Globalization was the bee’s knees when in fact it increased inequalities and undermined democracy.

Now we realize that ecological transition IS more than NECESSARY with a bottom-up economy to protect the world and not the top-down begging world we have a the moment.  

However, the big problem remains the same.

How to distribute the gains of any economy. and now the losses.  

Technology will treat people as units and as such the relentless growth and accumulation of wealth and power for the few, will continue to grow. 

Cutting-edge technologies are now powered by artificial intelligence and are fundamentally shifting the distribution of power between people who provide data and entities that can make sense and use of these data.

It will become a battle between protecting individual rights and confronting an existential threat to our collective right to health, to a basic living wage. 

Of course, all of this data helps epidemiologists model the movement and the future of the virus but beyond the privacy and data rights, there are questions of biases and discrimination built into the algorithms that power the technology. 

Machines will never be made to think like people.

We have for decades underpaid the people that we now call essential workers as interchangeable units.

Currently, the AI field is mostly controlled by corporate interests. 

As global COVID-19 cases continue to rise, the unmatched connectivity that defines our era serves as both bane and blessing. 

Let’s ask the question one more time, in taking advantage of big data to create databases to track and predict infectious risk, should we be enforcing social- distancing by squealing on each other?

If you are at risk, the odds change rapidly, you become in favor of sharing or donating data.

There’s really no way to stop the movement of microbes and we need to realize that now our citizens really need to realize that.

Mapping potential carriers with big data notwithstanding privacy concerns, analysis of personal, travel, and other data like clinical data allow accurate predictive modeling.

Imagine if we created a society where everything is predicted and determined by big data. Its presence depends on “symbolic function”, the ability to pretend that one object is another thing entirely.

It will be a massive mistake.

So is technology an imaginary friend or foe?

Will we lose that human touch?

There’s no doubt that the coronavirus pandemic has changed daily life.

But what changes will last? How will we live when it’s all over? 

Even now, when we’re seeing a massive, rapid change in most walks of life — inspired by a push in science or technology, or nudged by a freak, global health emergency — it’s hard to find sound prophecy. And that’s despite access to mountains of data.

Who would have imagined that global consumerism could be crushed by the wheels of its own industry … quite so suddenly.

But perhaps this is the kind of tipping point that we secretly crave — a slowing of society.

Many people will struggle to deal with an increasing rate of change and, as a result, suffer a social or personal shock. Whether we survive the shock depends on how well we adapt.

What complicates things is that no two societies are ever fully the same.

We’re seeing that friction today, between so-called “forces” and “anti-forces.” The push and pull of people and places adapting this way or that way. But it’s nigh impossible to predict how much of that change, and its effect on daily life, will remain, and how much — or what — will change back.

Whatever happens, it won’t be on a massive scale because our regular behavior will start to reemerge.

Who will benefit more?

We might discover that work is not really part of your life or something you like to do, but something you must do exactly seven hours and 42 minutes a day. And then your real life starts.

This Pandemic will not be a ‘one-off’ event. 

Now is the time to start investing in spare capacity, in people and equipment, to cope with such events. 

( See post on setting up World Aid Depots)  

We must envision a path that allows humans to flourish by asking: how can we protect people financially, should widespread technological unemployment happen even sooner than we anticipated?

A realization among some that the dominant ways of knowing and organizing, which characterize our modern techno-industrial cultures, cannot handle the realities of living, complex, relational, human, and non-human systems.

This may help bring into focus the need to update the conceptual foundations of our cultures.

But can tech solve everything?

That raises the question of whether privacy isn’t just a cultural construct.

If your health depended on it, wouldn’t you share your data willingly?

So we need to say goodbye to our concepts of data security.

Data security is something for healthy people.

On the other hand fear of infection is limiting “in-person” interactions, forcing us deeper into an “increasingly chilling use of online systems and all-electronic communication.

Change depends on how we see ourselves as individuals and groups living through the now.

The internet might just be facilitating.

But it’s still about the real world and a reminder that you can’t eat anything on your computer screen.

In the next Pandemic and the forthcoming Depression, there will be nowhere to hide” from economic collapse in our networked world. 

Take video conferencing.

It’s fine as an exception, but as a rule, it fails to fully translate subtle forms of communication — body language below the head and shoulders. All sound is normalized, mics get muted, along with nervous hands or a lost, downward gaze.

In the end, previous pandemics have profoundly re-shaped society and despite huge advances in medical knowledge, we are once again forced to respond in much the same ways as we did to previous pandemics.

Until a worldwide vaccine we’re really back to what our ancestors would have had in terms of dealing with this kind of disease – just stay away from each other in an effort to slow down its spread.

What we’re doing now is keeping it running at any cost.

However, it is obvious that the right path in tackling both COVID-19 and climate change is much easier if you reduce nonessential economic activity.

There is now an opportunity to change course, the earth must be respected.

So imagination without reality is the osmotic membrane between matter and mind, the antechamber between outside and inside, the free zone between the laws of nature and the requirements of reason.

Without, it indicates a lack of commitment to the truth or existence of what is thought of by the person or persons who invented big data. Thinking of something that is not present to the senses without commitment to its truth or falsity a Digital prison. 

Up to now, we live in a world of the short-term profit-driven corporate world, with the support of the trillion-dollar advertising industry and complicit governments who have fetishized economic growth.

If technology dominates us, not only is the whole struggle to imagine a world of equal opportunities betrayed but the opportunity is lost.

So it’ll only be when it’s all over that we’ll have the luxury of telling the story as a neatly bound series of logical events.

The impacts we’ll see from this is going to be far greater than what happened before. Whether imagery is a form of imagination, and whether supposition is a form of imagination as quick as you can imagine there is a depression of historic proportions coming.

Imagination makes our world an even more spectacular place.

We imagine even when we don’t think that we are imagining.

Everything that humans have achieved has started with the glimmer of imagination.

It is, in sum, the pivotal power in which are centered those mediating, elevating, transforming functions that are so indispensable to the cognitive process that philosophers are reluctant to press them very closely.

Why does it seem to diminish over time for all but the most creative among us?

My own ability to imagine up a story or new world seems far weaker than it used to be. Or is it?

It fails to exclude such things as remembering.

We can leave a legacy worthwhile.   So comment. 

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