I don’t think people realize how little time we have left.
We are in a state of planetary emergency in more ways than one but climate change is the one we should all be addressing if we want to live our lives.
It is obvious why.
It is not an abstract threat already causing wars, mass migration, the extinction of species, plants, scarcity of fresh water, quality air, you name it and it will be affected by a raft of new diseases.
A groundswell of demand for green energy can push a behavior, product, or technology from the fringe and into the mainstream but at what cost to the health of the earth.
While the term “tipping point” is applied quite loosely regarding the political and societal change, it is clear that a number of them will need to be crossed – and quickly – to avoid toppling those in the Earth system.
These social tipping interventions comprise removing fossil-fuel subsidies and incentivizing decentralized energy generation, building carbon-neutral cities, divesting from assets linked to fossil fuels, revealing the moral implications of fossil fuels, strengthening climate education and engagement, and disclosing greenhouse gas emissions information.
Earth’s climate will not respond to forcing in a smooth and gradual way.
It will respond in sharp jumps which involve large-scale reorganization of Earth’s system.
Along with the climate, I think we also need to be looking at tipping points in human, social and technological systems.
There are, for example, many different views on how the term should be defined and used.
Here is my definition. A transition to a new state at a rate determined by the climate system itself and faster than the cause.
And then there’s another definition that actually says there needs to be a positive feedback mechanism associated with the element. So that means there is something that’s self-reinforcing and then that could lead to irreversible changes as well.
Both definitions point to a system that would not revert to its original state even if the forcing lessens or reverses. In other words, it stays in its changed state for some considerable time, or possibly even permanently. It is subsequently difficult, if not impossible, for the system to revert to its previous state.
A glance at the news media on any given week will likely highlight all sorts of climate change impacts. We are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption.
Ecological systems are deeply intertwined.
The interactions among the elements of our global climate system mean a substantial change in one will affect others.
Powered by heat energy from the sun, the atmosphere, oceans, ice sheets, living organisms like forests, and the soils all affect, to a greater or lesser extent, the movement of that heat around the Earth’s surface.
Tipping points we thought might happen well into the future are already underway.
Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment.
For example, the slow collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is in progress.
Arctic warming and melting of Greenland’s ice sheet are driving freshwater into the North Atlantic, which is contributed to a recent 15 percent slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in the Atlantic Ocean.
Extensive thawing of permafrost is already happing with the potential to realize billions of tons of methane gas.
There is more heat-absorbing open water and 40 percent less reflective ice so we’ll reach 1.5 C in one or two decades.
Even if countries act on their Paris climate agreement pledges to reduce emissions, warming will still rise more than 3 degrees C (5.4 degrees F).
It’s important to know that global temperatures aren’t driven by human emissions of carbon alone.
The risk of those cascading into an irreversible global tipping point with tremendous impacts on human civilization warrants a declaration of a planetary climate emergency.
To err on the side of danger is not a responsible option. It is significantly cheaper to prevent additional global warming than it is to face its impacts.
We need to change our approach to the climate problem because our efforts to reach global targets have been “utterly inadequate”
No amount of economic cost-benefit analysis is going to help us now that we face an existential threat to civilization. The reality is that the cumulative impact of these changes will cause fundamental parts of the Earth system to change dramatically and irreversibly.
While climate records are being routinely broken, tipping points are not part of any economic analysis of climate policies it is widely assumed to mean that we are now committed to suffering these tipping events.
The time for talking is over and no matter what we do there has to be a radical change to our behavior.
Climate change will not be stoped by technology unless we distribute both the cost and benefits by allocating 0.05% of profit for profit’s sake in order to distribute wealth by way of nonrepayable grants to all activities that will mitigate its effects. ( See previous posts )
Only a fraction of articles and papers in economics journals discuss climate change.
Apart from the tragic human consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic, it’s impossible to measure the price of A GLOBAL DEPRESSION OR THE COMING CLIMATE CHANGE, NOT TO MENTION THE SURGING INEQUALITY DRIVEN BY AI.
But rest assured that it will be the young generation that will be saddled with the bill and the consequences and few countries are likely to be left unscathed by the covid -19 outbreak’s financial ramifications.
We have conveniently forgotten if you remember before the pandemic we had a financial meltdown in 2008.
Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, economies were all operating on borrowed money with all of them amassing debts away beyond their annual tax revenues to the point that their budgets were consumed entirely by interest payments.
Greece was on the verge of causing the Euro to collapse while England was in the grips of an austerity program that resulted in Brexit the cost of which has no definitive figure.
90% of this was big banks creating debts world-wise in the knowledge that they would have to be bailed out by the taxpayers. (Too big to fail is a phrase used to describe a company that’s so entwined in the global economy that its failure would be catastrophic.)
While Wall Street hedge funds, with credit default swaps and sovereignty wealth funds, we’re making hay while the sun-shined, world debts were doubling.
Take Iceland for example. German banks pumped $21 into its banks, Sweden $400 million, England around $30billion, the Netherlands $300 million, Oxford University a mere $50 million. Iceland’s banks went bankrupt. The government couldn’t bail them out because it didn’t have the money. Instead of being too big to fail, they were too big to save. Iceland never resorted to austere budget cuts that are so prevalent in Europe.
They imposed capital controls. They let the banks fail.
Iceland’s economy successfully survived a sovereign bankruptcy and government collapse.
However, Iceland’s government today is spending a back-breaking 17.3% of its tax revenue just to pay interest on the debt.
Without a doubt, Iceland was and is the canary in the coalmine for the sovereign debt crisis that is now unfolding across the world right now.
With investors around the world suddenly wake up to a sobering reality of a major default… bigger than Iceland in 2008. It won’t be long before we see countries defaulting because of the amount of government borrowing to fight Covid-19
So what happens when governments themselves ceased to be credible?
This might be something that had been considered preposterous only months ago but when one looks at what is only the start of a global depression it is now very much on the cards.
It’s important to remember that throughout history humanity has experienced no shortage of pandemics and deadly viruses but despite the similarities, of these pandemics some of the differences are now even more striking.
The economic fallout from these pandemics was barely noticeable. (The same can be said of the Spanish Flu of 1918.)
What is making the COVID-19 pandemic so unique is not the virus itself, but our collective responseto it. Governments in their zeal to control society, have destroyed the global economy on a scale the modern world has never seen. These losses are unprecedented in modern history. The loss of human life that can never be recovered is regrettable but there’s a degree of anxiety now that’s well beyond the health scares which are still very serious and concerning.
If we take a look for example at the USA.
Its economic loss is more than twice the total monetary outlay for all the wars the US has fought since September 11, 2001, including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.
Closer to home.
Millions out of work, industries losing billions, and that’s just the beginning. Transportation companies losing billions in market value with tourism the restaurant and foodservice industry decimated with real estate defaults looming.
Further afield the so-called least Developed Countries, whose economies are driven by the sale of raw materials, will not be spared either. Latin American region as similarly vulnerable.
In addition to global poverty, the pandemic has adversely affected vaccination rates, HIV transmission, gender equality, education, and more. Unfortunately, these problems won’t be reversed overnight—or anytime soon.
When will things go back to normal?
Never.
Our society is fundamentally flawed, with a devastating financial storm more than likely on its way we cannot simply hit the reset button and go back to normal.
As we go about rebuilding our society for a new day, it is absolutely critical that we focus our efforts on healing the wounds of the people who suffered most.
We all know that the distribution of wealth is key to any recovery and we are going to witness in this pandemic and subsequent economic depression how inequality is the main cause s of why our world is in such a mess.
So if we want a world worth living in we must address the distribution of wealth along with education.
( The Solution.
Embedding equity and empathy into our cultures by reimagining schools and the introduction of a Universal Basis Living Wage.
Rather than preparation education (to enter a world of I am all right Jack ) we should be promoting core values education.
This education should be free to all paid for by the state. Not designed by wealthy white men paying the minimum wage, awarding themselves dividends, launching profit-seeking algorithms, running plundering sovereignty wealth funds, leaving the young generation with massive debt.
After two decades of progress around the world, nearly 37 million people have lost significant amounts of income and are now living on less than $1.90 per day.
There is little point in governments spending billions on projects that enrich the few while their citizens have to resort to food banks, social welfare, etc.
While Countries’ debts are ballooning exponentially, due in part to combating Covid-19, the fourth industrial revolution in the form of Technology is eroding the opportunities of earning a living or sharing in the profits of automation, machine learning, etc.
It is not possible to stop the erosion but it is possible to share the wealth in a fair and meaningful way with a guaranteed income that would cut government costs while stimulating economic recovery.
By scrapping the concept of the welfare state a form of structural inequality and replace it with a government-guaranteed payment to provide financial security
Cash is the best thing you can do to improve health outcomes, education outcomes and lift people out of poverty.
It would stop people from emigrating not just to other countries but to cities.
The social welfare state is what prevents the poor from building their wealth to better their lives.
How could it be financed?
Place a 0.05% aid commission on revenue made by profit-seeking algorithms and tax the top 1% and allocate 10 to 12% of GDP directly to the universal income payments.
The benefit would automatically rise with national prosperity and inflation.
The simplicity of the program means it would also cost governments less.
It is inevitable. If we don’t we will rebuild an exclusionary society.)
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Germany, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S. are all in the top 10 spenders, all conjure money out of thin air and funnels it to the government.
There will be inquiries. How long of a sentence does someone get for railroading his nation’s economy? Life? 30-years? 10-years?
Where should we begin to rebuild our lives?
There are a number of possible futures however if we don’t take this opportunity to build a future that is more humane we will slide into something far worse.
The responses so far to the pandemic are simply the amplification of the dynamic that drives other social and ecological crises.
The overriding priority remains to save lives.
However, understanding human behavior in its wider economic context is necessary if we are to solve climate change or if we are to tackle future pandemics problems all created by our economic structure.
Both are socially driven.
With every week that passes, we learn more about the virus and understand more about how to defeat it. But the more we learn, the more we realize how little the world yet understands about the true nature of the threat – except that it is a shared one that we must all work together to defeat.
Now is the time to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men’s fatal striving to control society – a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization…
The world is “not at the mercy of the virus called covid, but the fuse is burning on the bomb – Climate Change.
It is at the mercy of Profit for profit’s sake that must be harnessed to affect change.
(See previous posts)
At the end of the day, the Icelandic people are responsible back in 2008 for their collapse. They were never bailed out. They were stuck with the bill.
It does not take a genius to describe the changes that are needed.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
( A Thirty-minute read)
Do you have a right to believe what you want?
Yes, of course, but we now live in an Algorithmic driven world that is blurring the boundaries and amplifying the social tensions that are festering under the surface.
The problem is that we are allowing the building of technologies, that are making consequential decisions about people’s lives.
AI is shaping people’s lives on a daily basis, but it’s an open question whether AI will become a trusted advisor or even a corrupting force.
It’s not COVID-19 that will kill us all its Profit-seeking algorithms.
However, here in this post, my main concern is whether the AI techniques will develop into quantum algorithms that will be totally out of control.
If artificial general intelligence is on the not too distant horizon, surely we should be ensuring that it is not owned by anyone corporation and that at its core it respects our core values.
To achieve this we cannot surely let wealth be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, or to be let to the marketplace, or any world organization that is not totally transparent and self-financing.
We therefore as a matter of grave urgency need a new world organization that vets all technology, and algorithms. (See previous posts)
As long as the ALGORITHMS don’t go to war with each other and cause something even more difficult to diagnose than a crash on the stock markets they are safe is as naive as saying ” It’s going to be Great.”
AlGORITHMS are increasingly in charge of a world that is precious to us all.
Basically, we’re entering the era of machines controlling everything.
If we want to create new different societies with human dignity for all we need to do something about it.
The difficulty of predicting the future is not just a cliche, it’s a basic fact of our existence. Part of the hypothesis of Singularity is that this difficulty is just going to get worse and worse. Yes, creating AGI ( Artificial General Intelligence) is a big and difficult goal, but according to known science, it is almost surely an achievable one.
However, there are sound though not absolutely confident arguments that it may well be achievable within our lifetimes.
If artificial general intelligence is on the not too distant horizon, surely we should be ensuring that it is not owned by anyone corporation and that at its core it respects our core values.
If we think in months we focus on immediate problems such as the present-day wars, the Covid crisis, the Donald Trumps, the economy, if we think in decades, climate, growing inequality, the loss of jobs to automation are all presenting dangers. But if we look at life in total, science is converging on data processing and AI that is developing itself with algorithms.
When intelligence is approached in an incremental manner, with strict reliance on interfacing to the real world through perception and action, reliance on representation disappears.
It won’t be long before we will not be unable to distinguish the real world from the virtual world.
Since there is only one real world and there can be infinite virtual worlds the probability that you will inhabit this sole world is zero.
So it won’t matter whether computers will be conscious or not.
Is starting to feel like it’s every man for himself, Is possible that right now, a global crisis is upon us, Without even knowing… And the virus may not be the biggest threat, but the crisis that follows, Everyday goods that keep us alive will be gone, I’m talking, food, freshwater, medicine, clothes, fuel…Intelligence is decoupling from consciousness and soon rather than later it will be consigned to Google, Facebook, Twitter, Smartphones, and the like to make decisions that are not possible to reverse.
You might think that the above is stupid but it won’t be long before we will be witnessing the most unequal societies in history.
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We humans will soon be living with robots that process data without any subjective experiences or consciousness or moral opprobrium.
As we watch robots, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence machines, and the like slowly (and sometimes rapidly) permeate our world, it’s not hard to imagine them going from permeating to taking over.
Algorithms are increasingly determining our collective future.
It will only matter what they think about you.
We are already halfway towards a world where algorithms run everything.
This is why many of the issues raised in this post will require close monitoring, to ensure that the oversight of machine learning-driven algorithms continues to strike an appropriate and safe balance between recognizing the benefits (for healthcare and other public services, for example, and for innovation in the private sector) and the risks (for privacy and consent, data security and any unacceptable impacts on individuals).
——————————WHAT CAN GOVERNMENTS DO?
Please regulate AI, this is too dangerous.
Given the international nature of digital innovation, governments, should establish audits of algorithms, introducing certification of algorithms, and charging ethics boards with oversight of algorithmic decisions.
Why?
They are bringing big changes in their wake.
From better medical diagnoses to driverless cars, and within central governments where there are opportunities to make public services more effective and achieve long-term cost savings.
However, the Government should produce, publish, and maintain a list of where algorithms with significant impacts are being used within the Central Government, along with projects underway or planned for public service algorithms, to aid not just private sector involvement but also transparency.
Governments should not just simply accept what the developers of algorithms offer in return for data access.
To this end, Governments should be at the forefront of the creation of a “statutory building code”, which describes mandatory safety and quality requirements for digital platforms.
Social networks should be required by law to release details of their algorithms and core functions to trusted researchers, in order for the technology to be vetted.
This Law should enable the enforcement of,
forcing social networks to disclose in the news feed why content has been recommended to a user.
limiting the use of micro-targeting advertising messages.
making it illegal to exclude people from content on the basis of race or religion, such as hiding a spare room advert from people of color.
banning the use of so-called dark patterns – user interfaces designed to confuse or frustrate the user, such as making it hard to delete your account.
labeling the accounts of state-controlled news organizations.
limiting how many times messages can be forwarded to large groups, as Facebook does on WhatsApp.
If we took the premise that people should have a lawful right to be manipulated and deceived, we wouldn’t have rules on fraud or undue influence.
———————————–To days Algorithms and where we are.
As data accumulates, even more so now with Covid- 19 track and trace, and now working from home we have more centralized data depositories and large centralized AI models that work off centralized or decentralized data.
How does the concentration of power affect this balance that impinges on individual liberty?
Our democratic institutions and public discourse are underpinned by an assumption that we can at least agree on things that are true.
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube create algorithms that promote and highlight information. That is an active engineering decision. Regardless of whether Facebook, Twitter profits from hate or not, it is a harmful by-product of the current design and there are social harms that come from this business model.
Platforms that monetize user engagement have a duty to their users to make at least a minimum effort to prevent clearly identified harms.
We have to focus on the responsibility of platforms.
Because people are being manipulated with objectively false information, there has to be some kind of accountability for platforms.
Currently, these platforms are not neutral environments they have no common understanding that there are certain things that are manifestly true with algorithms making decisions about what people see or do not see.
In most Western democracies, you do have the freedom of speech.
But freedom of speech is not an entitlement to reach. You are free to say what you want, within the confines of hate speech, libel law, and so on. But you are not entitled to have your voice artificially amplified by technology.
The way Facebook and other platforms approach this problem is:
We’ll wait and see and figure out a problem when it emerges. Every other industry has to have minimum safety standards and consider the risks that could be posed to people, through risk mitigation and prevention.
There are right now some objectively disprovable things spreading quite rapidly on Facebook. For example, that Covid does not exist and that the vaccine is actually to control the minds of people. These are all things that are manifestly untrue, and you can prove that.
However, algorithms are much more prevalent than that- the Apple Face ID algorithm decides whether you are who you say you are.
Algorithms limit people’s worldview, which can allow large population groups to be easily controlled. Social Media algorithms tuned to your desires and want’s ensures that everything on your feed will be of interest to you without you knowing what data these algorithms use and what they aim for.
Conclusion.
We are already living with large AI platforms that are monopolizing the fruits of globalization with billions being left behind.
With us accepting this as if natural.
It will be too late when we are asking ourselves. What’s more valuable – intelligence or consciousness?Then ask yourselves what happens to society, politics, and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?
Whatever view one takes on artificial intelligence ethics.You can rest assured that we will see far more nut cases blowing themselves up, far more wars over finite resources, with vast movements of people.
We have to remember that self-regulation is not the same as having no regulation.
Of course, the loudest arguments for and against something often have one thing in common. They are often made by people with no desire to compromise or understand the other side.
I think self-regulation, in and of itself contemplates people in power, deciding how they will act.
We have to accept from history that we cannot possibly predict all adverse consequences of technology and that’s because it is not just technology that has adverse consequences, but the context in which is applied,
It is impossible to regulate AI while thinking about all of its potential adverse consequences. The seeds for harm at the design stage, or at the development stage, or at the deployment stage.
We don’t have to wait for the technology to become an application before we think of regulating it effectively.
There is a need to strengthen specific provisions to safeguard individual liberty and community rights when it comes to inferred data. There is a need to balance the trade-offs between the utility of AI and protecting privacy and data.
Self-regulation within the AI industry may not be enough since it may not solve the massive differential between the people developing the technology and the people affected by it. Machine learning is the next step that they are aiming for, with the algorithms deciding the input and outputcompletely.
Inherent political and economic power hierarchies between the state and citizens and within the private sector need to be addressed because the promise of globalization is a lie when it comes to AI and prosperity for all.
Algorithms are being used in an ever-growing number of areas, in ever-increasing ways, however, like humans, they can produce bias in their results, even if unintentional. We are all becoming redundant with biotechnology becoming only available to the riches of us.
I don’t think that AI per se can be regulated because today it is AI, tomorrow it will be Augmented Reality or Virtual Reality, and the day after tomorrow it may be something that we can’t even think of right now.
So it is important to have checks and balances in the use and access to AI that go beyond just technological means.
Why?
Because they are also moving into areas where the benefits to those applying them may not be matched by the benefits to those subject to their ‘decisions’—in some aspects of the criminal justice system, for example.
However, technology companies are not all the same, and nor is technology the only part of the media ecosystem.
It is essential to ensure a whole society response to tackle these important issues.
You could require algorithms to have a trigger TO SHUT OF – to stop misinformation or terrorist groups using social media as a recruiting platform.
BUT who defines what counts as misinformation?
It is no longer possible for humans to fact-check so the only course of action is a world Independent Universal Algorithm that is designed to establish fairness.
While “fairness” is much vaguer than “life or death,” I believe it can – and should – be built into all AI using their algorithm.
Therefore every Social network should display a correction to every single person who was exposed to misinformation if independent fact-checkers identify a story as false.
(Google’s search algorithm is more closely guarded than classified secret documents with Google Algorithm’s that now owns most of the largest data sets in the world stored in its cloud.)
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We now have algorithms fighting with each other for supremacy on the market, prey on other algorithms in order to blunder the world exchanges for profit to such an extent that they now effectively in control of capitalism. Take for instance, when someone says algorithmic trading, it covers a vast subject not just buying and selling large volumes of shares automatically at very high speeds by unsupervised learning algorithms.
There are four major types of trading algorithms.
There are:
Execution algorithms
Behavior exploitative algorithms
Scalping algorithms
Predictive algorithms
Transparency must be a key underpinning for algorithm accountability.
Why?
Because it will make it easier for the decisions produced by algorithms to be explained.
(The ‘right to explanation’ is a key part of achieving accountability and tackling the ethical implications around AI.)
We are only on the outskirts of mind science that presently knows little about how the mind works never mind consciousness. We have no idea how a collection of electric brain signals creates subjective experiences however we are conscious of our dreams.
99% of our bodily activities take place without any conscious feelings.
As neuroscientists acquired more and more data about the workings of the brain, cognitive sciences, and their stated purpose is to combine the data from numerous disciplines so as better to understand such diverse phenomena as perception, language, reasoning, and consciousness.
Even so, the subjective essence of “what it means” to be conscious remains an issue that is very difficult to address scientifically.
To really understand what is meant by the cognitive neurosciences, one must recall that until the late 1960s, the various fields of brain research were still tightly compartmentalized. Brain scientists specialized in fields such as neuroanatomy, neurohistology, neuroembryology, or neurochemistry.
Nobody was yet working with the full range of investigative methods available, but eventually, the very complexity of the subject at hand-made that a necessity.
The first problem that arises when examining consciousness is that a conscious experience is truly accessible only to the person who is experiencing it. Despite the vast knowledge we have gained in the field of mathematics and computer science, none of the data processing systems we have created needs subjective experiences in order to function.
None feel pain, pleasure, anger, or love.
These emotions are vanishing into algorithms that are or will have an effect on how we see the world but also how we live in it.
If not address now all moral and political values will disappear, turning consciousness into a kind of mental pollution. After all, computers have no minds.
Take images on Instagram they can affect mental health and body image.
You might say so what that has always been the case. And you would be right up to now but because of Covid-19 government has given themselves wide-ranging powers to collect and analyze data, without adequate safeguards.
If we are not careful they will have no notion of self, existing only in the present unaware of the past or future, and therefore will be unable to consciously plan for future eventualities.
Unconscious algorithms in our brains rather than conscious images in a mind.
If you are using a smartphone, it indirectly means that you are enjoying the AI knowingly or unknowingly. It cannot be modified unknowingly or can’t get disfigured or breakdown in a hostile environment.
We should not be regulating technology but Artificial Intelligence.
It is so complicated in behavior we need to be regulated it at the data level.
In lots of regulated domains, there is this notion of post-market surveillance, which is where the developer bears the responsibility of how the technology developed by them is going to be used.
As William Shakespeare wrote in – As you Like it.
” All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players, they have their exits and entrances. ”
Sadly with AI, Machine Learning Algorithms no one knows or for that matter will ever know when they enter or exit.
Probably like AI learning is actually an ongoing process that takes place throughout all of life. It’s the process of moving information from out there — to here. Unfortunately with the brain, has its own set of rules by which it learns best, unlike AI, the information doesn’t always stick. Together, we have a lot to learn.
Humanity is in contact with humanity.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the cloud bin.
(FUNDAMENTAL FIFTEEN MINUTE READ. TO CHANGING THE DIRECTION THE WORLD IS GOING IN)
This virus has no vaccine against it, it extracts data about our behaviors and using it to manipulate us. It flourishes on social media that preys on the most primal parts of your brain.
You sign up to it with the terms and conditions when you get online with Twitter or Facebook, Google, and more.
Companies like Facebook and Google have corporate goals and interests that are backing us into an untenable social framework, where these monopolies own and operate the Internet, outside societal influences, and democratic control, extracting data on a massive scale.
They own your content in precise ways, and they have precise aims for your content.
As well, and, most of the time, treating our private lives as raw material for their profit.
Their algorithms are engineered to amplify the most extreme, angry, toxic, content with the intent to maximize data extraction thereby creating a huge societal asymmetry of knowledge and power – a whole new dimension of inequality.
WE ARE LEARNING THE HARD ABOUT THEIR DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS – the election of Donald Trump, the Arab Spring, Promoting Popularism, false news on everything, from climate change to covid-19.
WITH THE CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS IT IS INTOLERABLE TO ALLOW MISFORMATION TO BE SPREAD WILLY NILLY WITHOUT VERIFICATION OF THE TRUTH.
This commercial surveillance has to stop because the boundaries between the virtual and the real world are melting.
We the people should have the right to decide what becomes of data and what remains private. What data is sharable and what purpose data should be used for.
WHY?
BECAUSE OUR PUBLIC DISCOURSE RULED BY SOCIAL MEDIA IS BEING RULED BY A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR PROFIT.
If we don’t in the not so distant future you will see algorithms with self-awareness or worse still self-aware robots.
Instead of massive concentrations of data to manipulate our commercial and political behavior, data becomes a critical resource for people and society to ensure we remove inequalities in society.
There is no room tweaking any of this to get us where we need to go.
Let’s not delve into whether social media are a boon or bane for society. Instead, let’s appropriate social media and use it as an extension of ourselves to reach out to others, and not as a replacement for our physical offline relationships…
Unfortunately, our political discourse is shrinking to fit our smartphone screens and it is too late to regulate or pass laws governing the use of Algorithms. Only the threat of the very large fines will get these platforms and the people behind to concentrate on this in an appropriate way.
Because the formulaic quality of social media is well suited to the banter it appears these days that you’re only as relevant as your last tweet.
WE NEED A FUNDAMENTAL WORLD RESET WITH AI TO TETHER INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY NOT INEQUALITY.
———————–
Facebook is basically an advertising company; they exist to make money, like all companies.
Even though Facebook has joined WHO and UNIFC to supply accurate information about covid-19 vaccines misinformation still finds a way on to social media where it combined to make a whirlpool of misinformation.
For example. A post like this.
10 years from now you will hear commercials that say ” if you took the Covid-19 vaccine between 2020-2021 you may be entitled to compensation”
———————–
The world is experiencing dramatic events that are leaving their mark not only on our society and our economy but on each and every one of us.
On the plus side of Ai technology, machine-learning algorithms are helping researchers understand the virus, identify the regions of the world with the highest contagion rates, and forecast the capacity needs of national health systems, with the aim—among others—of minimizing fatalities in the COVID-19 pandemic.
These algorithms can identify patterns of concentration, contagion rates, hidden similarities among cases, and, in general, allow for the aggregation of valuable knowledge that provides a more accurate global picture of the pandemic. More importantly, such algorithms can be used to protect communities that might be more vulnerable. For example, if an elder-care facility is located in an area with a high concentration of contagion, it should receive special attention to prevent unnecessary fatalities.
Prediction algorithms, together with fine-grained simulations can be used to forecast the evolution of the crisis.
For all these outcomes to be reliable, an important precondition is the trustworthiness of the data used with the algorithms.
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Social media is run by algorithms, programs that spit out the things you see online, working in the background to come up with the things you see.
The interest of the corporation is fueling the content that you’re seeing.
However, when we are talking about algorithms on the internet or social media, you’re talking about people’s data going into a system and reworked preferences that come from that data input coming out. So you’re seeing the same sorts of things again and again when you’re expressing your preferences online.
So clicking on Google, YouTube, Twitter, the Facebook which are reinforcement systems based on existing preferences is about giving anthropomorphic agency to something that really doesn’t make decisions in the same way that we do.
Are they giving us beneficial moments, or making actual choices for us?
The question is if algorithms just show us what we want, can they push us in different directions.
Think about it in terms of what the algorithm wants and how it’s treating us by personifying the algorithm.
To sum up.
They are inescapable and encrypted in individuals’ online lives constantly, ‘making autocratic decisions…to produce a single output and agonistic in influencing individuals becoming a key site of power in the contemporary mediascape with the ability to, ‘shape social and cultural formations.
To date, we as individuals have granted algorithms the, ‘almost unimaginable power to determine what we see, where we spend, how we perceive.
Their power seems to be located in the mechanics of the algorithm.
However, it is in the hands of the individual to modify their opinions and perspectives to what has been put in order for them.
Every algorithm falls under a certain class.
Basically, they are-
1) Brute force.
2) Divide and conquer.
3) Decrease and conquer.
4) Dynamic programming.
5) Greedy algorithm.
6) Transform and conquer.
7) Backtracking algorithm.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
As we floundering around in the midst of COMPOUNDING PANDEMICS that are far from over, the future is not here yet.
With our planet is crying out, our political leaders are like fish out of water, apart from the obvious, it seems that we have lost the plot. Compounded by ignorance, short term self-interest, the pursuit of wealth, and political interests, any actions that are vital for survival are stymieing by the lack of conciliation.
Climate Change, Biodiversity, Artificial Intelligence, Poverty and Inequality, Population all on the top of the list. All of them are presenting overwhelming challenges ahead.
There is no way of sugar-coating any of these threats, they have no borders.
We are brought up with other people’s perceptions of life.
Not until we develop enough, intellectually, can we change those perceptions, and even then it can be difficult to change our perceptions about the world until we start to really question it.
Anything else is a blatant lie.
With millions of dead and millions more death to come, we can only prevent any one of them from coming to fruition if we take all of them especially the environmental threat seriously.
With large swaths of people still dealing with entrenched inequalities, it is no wonder we are unable to see the above threats as reality.
If there was ever a time to join together it is now.
We all have an identity and cultural distinctiveness, but if we bound together in a common cause, we could accomplish spectacular things.
To do this we must first start to see ourselves as HUMAN BEINGS, and the planet earth as HOME, not our individual countries.
————
I am sure you will agree that the world order is destined to change and it’s urgent that humanity gets a way to preserve what’s left on Earth.
In this regard, technology is not a destiny jobs will be for robots and life for people.
The problem is who is the owner of the robots and how do we ensure that we all benefit.
At the moment there are millions wasting their time in useless jobs to scratch a living. Rest assured that capitalism will come up with millions of more useless jobs.
————
Unfortunately, we are not able to act as one, and even if we could there would be no point in becoming mindless drones with no culture.
There would be no point in living because it’ would be all just be one culture with no distinct forms.
The raw reality exposed by the current pandemic is that everyone is only just a human unable to act as one due to greed-driven by unregulated social media and profit-seeking algorithms.
———–
The big question is what can be done?
SOLUTIONS WITHOUT FUNDING, ABOUND ON TED TALKS.
We know that poverty is one of the main driving forces when it comes to any long term perspective to protecting the earth.
Poverty is not due to a lack of knowledge. POVERTY IS CREATED BY SCARCITY, not a personality defect as Maggie Thatcher once said.
As George Orwell said “Poverty annihilates the Future “
You would think by now we would have figured out the reasons for its existence.
ALMOST EVERYTHING NEEDED FOR LIFE IS MADE SCARCE BY APPLYING CAPITALIST PROFIT, TURNING ALMOST EVERYTHING INTO A PRODUCT TO BE TRADED.
SO WHEN ONE IS UNABLE TO ACQUIRE WHAT IS NEEDED DUE TO THE LACK OF CASH YOU HAVE POVERTY. If we genuinely ask why do the poor make so many bad decisions THIS IS THE MAIN REASON.
Till now we have ignored the symptoms of poverty to our cost, and now to the chilling silence of Earth protests, we find ourselves unable to enjoy the Earth we live on.
To date, we have created World organizations without the power of funding that vents verbal warnings, that no one takes heed of unless it is in their own interest to do so
Take Co2 admissions. We continue to pump Co2 into our shared atmosphere. (Earth isn’t the only planet in our solar system with an atmosphere, it is the only one in which we humans can survive.)
It is blatantly obvious that we are not able through our global conversation whether they are online or not due to profit-taking we are not able to establish any solidarity.
A lot of religious people mentioned that there is a leader who is going to save this world and stands for oppressed, poor, and homeless people.
While we are waiting we need to be more creative in our imagination if we want to match the relentless progression of biodiversity loss, climate change, and the other problems facing us all that are going to drive the Scarcity market.
A basic income is an idea that has and is being kicked from pillar to post for years.
Free money for everybody.
Not the welfare state but AN INCOME FOR ALL – UNCONDITIONAL YOU DO WHAT YOU WANT WITH IT.
Where will the cash come from?
( See previous posts. A World Commission of 0.05%)
Of course, no one or anybody is going to take on or take down the holy grail of profit for profit’s sake.
After all, we live in societies that have allowed themselves to be subsumed by greed with ethics still being sacrificed on the altar of turnover and growth at all costs- GDP.
What is truly galling though is how the rot persists, where people cannot see the direct causal link, to overconsumption prompted by the advertising industries.
Profit is not intrinsically bad, but profit for profit’s sake alone is not just bad it’s unimaginably damaging.
Profit has to be extracted in such a way that every partner in the supply chain profits; from the workers to the shareholders, from the local community through to the nation itself.
That means creating a system where people are empowered to speak, where processes are so transparent that nothing can be hidden and where part of those profits is reinvested into those communities to sustain growth and development for generations to come.
So before we find ourselves teetering over the edge of the precipice. We need to speak truth to power when we start to feel discomfited, not when we have already entered the realm of cognitive dissonance or, worse, open and cynical collusion in the Bell Pottinger mode.
We have been gifted by the current pandemic which is yet to reach its apogee. It is daring us not to be paralyzed by our past.
It is offering a chance to find and resolve, to do things differently.
To call out the emperors of technology, when they stride about us in their unabashed nudity to put sustainability at the core of their online and off-line operations.
They are now the praetorian guard of citizen and corporate activists and it is essential in this post-covid-19 economic depression that society should be saved from exploitation.
Unfortunately, they are unable to regulate themselves. This can be done only when the state interferes with total transparency.
Is it not time that all non-essential products are labeled with their carbon footprint.
What is Cash but transparency, in its naked form, creating fair competitions.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
BECAUSE The world we now have is a tragic begging world.
WE MUST BECOME PROACTIVE, NOT REACTIVITY.
Because humanity is entering a new age, where we are faced with not only existential risks from our natural environment but by those of our own creation.
Two hundred years ago we didn’t understand the basic causes of a Pandemic.
Because the world is now so interconnected (with a vastly increased population than any time in our history) pandemics have more opportunities not only to spread new diseases but to originate new sources.
Because we are reaching “The Precipice” a time where we’ve reached the ability to pose an existential risk to ourselves, which is substantially bigger than the natural risks, the background that we were facing before.
Because we need to understand our vulnerability and determine what steps must be taken to end this pandemic.
Because just a few years ago more than one bomb was created.
One in the hands of a few decision-makers that could destroy civilization the other the Internet, not in the hands
The current bombs are created by our continuing abuse of the planet we live on. They are not in the hands of deranged dictators or impeached presidents but in the hands of a system of exploitation called capitalism now becoming more and more driven by profit-seeking algorithms.
Because we think everyone’s interests matter equally, approaches to improving the world should be evaluated mainly in terms of their potential for long-term impact.
Because there are vast differences between the effectiveness of working on different global problems we need better global prioritization.
Because as technology improves and the world economy grows or shrinks, it is getting easier to cause destruction on an ever-larger scale.
(New transformative technologies may promise a radically better future but also pose catastrophic risks.)
Because Covid-19 is showing us that there are many available avenues for improving the world, in terms of social value.
Because now there is much uncertainty around the value of specific options.
Because not enough cause prioritization is done, from the perspective of total social welfare.
The reasons are endless.
However to build the new field of ‘global priorities’ and to try to work out which global problems are most pressing and make progress on foundational questions about how best to address them we need to start understanding that just as the fate of gorillas currently depends on the actions of humans, the fate of humanity may come to depend more on the actions of machines than our own.
Rapid progress in machine learning has raised the prospect that algorithms will one day be able to do most or all of the mental tasks currently performed by humans. This could ultimately lead to machines that are much better at these tasks than humans.
(New transformative technologies may promise a radically better future but they also pose catastrophic risks. How one might design a highly intelligent machine to pursue realistic human goals safely is very poorly understood.)
Comparing global problems involves lots of uncertainty and difficult judgment calls.
If AI research continues to advance without enough work going into the research problem of controlling such machines, catastrophic accidents are much more likely to occur. Nonetheless, work on mitigating many risks remains remarkably neglected.
Prioritization research appears to be in its infancy. With common prioritize interventions almost zero it remains impossible to assume some common world values.
Why is this?
Once again the reasons are numerous – but they can be encapsulated in the word inequality, in all its forms.
Causes have to be made before developing a deep understanding of an area that required prioritization – climate change for example.
Covid-19 is shining a light on the need to develop world health versus biological research – which received very little attention up to now.
While billions are spent making AI more powerful, there are fewer than 100 people in the world working on how to make AI safe.
AI could lead to extremely positive developments, presenting solutions to now-intractable global problems, but they also pose severe risks.
Humanity’s superior intelligence is pretty much the sole reason that it is the dominant species on the planet. If machines surpass humans in intelligence, then common beliefs could easily originate from websites.
This is why it is necessary that we create a list ranking of which problems we think are most pressing for people. That promotes civilizational resilience, mitigating great power conflict, or laying the foundations for the governance of outer space.
If you have read this post you could not be blamed for thinking that the idea of creating a new list of global problems is worthless. BUT ALL THE TALK, AND AGREEMENTS IN THE WORLD ARE WORTHLESS UNLESS THEY ARE FUNDED TO BECOME PROACTIVE.
( See previous posts recreating such a fund – 0.005% world Aid Fund, before the current third revolution of Artificial Intelligence, invents the machine with intelligence that far surpasses our own.)
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
We, humans, live on an ecologically fragile planet with limited resources that must be sustained for future generations we must move humanity to an alternative world system — one committed to social justice, deep democracy, environmental sustainability, a safe climate, and planetary health.
The COVID-19 pandemic contains the fuel for social change – verbal with little imagination as to what to change.
History tells us that social changes can occur quickly once economic, political, social structural, and environmental conditions have reached a tipping point.
Humanity is now obviously at a crossroads or perhaps several crossroads: one is business-as-usual which is sure to result in dystopia; another is a shift to some variant of green capitalism, which is gaining considerable support; and finally an eco-socialist vision that, while muted at this time, will hopefully become stronger as the need for it becomes more apparent to the mass of humanity.
Thanks to Covid -19 the world is off-balance – and it will remain so for years to come.
Far from settling into a ‘new normal’, we should expect a COVID-19 domino effect, triggering further disruptions – positive as well as negative – over the decade ahead.
It has underscored the interconnectedness of our natural, social and economic systems, and provided a stark reminder of the scale of systemic risks that can build up when we allow weaknesses and negative impacts to accumulate over time.
Continuation on the current pathway will, over time, only lead to deeper and deeper crises, including an ever-escalating climate change crisis, the result of growing greenhouse emissions spewed by the capitalist treadmill of production and consumption.
Combating both climate change and global capitalism go hand-in-hand however the raw truth is that Capitalism will certainly not consciously permit the eventual demise of global capitalism and the emergence of an ecosocialist world system promoted by many.
In previous posts, I have advocated that without funding all alternatives will fail whether they are green capitalism and existing climate regimes, including the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, which is not sufficient to mitigate climate change in any serious way.
How can we expect the system that created the problem to solve the problem?
Despite the daunting difficulties that much of humanity currently faces, and will continue to face over the course of this century capitalism today continues unabated to pump Co2 into the atmosphere and will continue to do so after the Climate Summit this year in Scotland. (By the deadline of December 31, 2020, only 70 out of 192 countries had presented their new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs): the individual commitments made to fight against climate change.)
One doesn’t have to have to be a delegate to this summit to know that if we manage to get on top of the current Pandemic which is bleeding the coffers of countries endeavoring to save their economies the emissions will triple on returning to anything that looks like normal.
Of course, we will be told that we have learned the lesson that Green is the way forward. It is true to say that the construction of ecosocialism needs to be based upon a commitment to a long-term sustainable balance between sociocultural systems and the natural environment but it is also true to say that the capitalist world system continues to self-destruct due to its exploitative, oppressive, socially unjust, and environmentally unsustainable practices – this will continue with artificial intelligence to plunder the earth for a profit with machining mining called data, fed to machine unregulated algorithm, making us all but powerless.
Ecosocialism constitutes a vision against the mal-distribution of resources on a global scale that capitalism produces is bound to keep alive, notions of social justice and equality, deep democracy, and socialism in oppressed classes.
It is only by spreading the cost of change fairly that we can reinvent capitalism.
We could adopt a universal wage and let people fend for themselves but this won’t change our habits.
It is time to envision future scenarios and strategies for achieving an alternative world system.
Once again here’s how.
Because we live in different cultures, transparency is vital to address the main problem – Inequality in all its forms.
To do this the cost of change has to be spread fairly.
This can only be achieved by making a profit for profit sake contribute.
Not by taxation, IMF loans, foreign aid, or begging charity aid programs.
The UN is now relied upon by the international community to coordinate humanitarian relief operations due to natural and man-made disasters in areas beyond the relief capacity of national authorities alone.
We currently have the technology that maximizes profit and future profit, like high-frequency trading that runs 90% of world stock exchanges.
THERE IS NO REASON NOT TO PLACE A WORLD AID COMMISSION OF 0.05% ON ALL ACTIVITIES THAT ARE NOT SUSTAINABLE TO CREATE A PERPETUAL FUND TO TACKLE CLIMATE CHANGE AND OTHER PRESSING WORLD PROBLEMS.
ALL OF ITS AID WOULD BE GRANTED NON-REPAYABLE.
THIS FUND COULD BE ADMINISTERED BY ELECTED MEMBERS.
ALL PROJECTS OTHER THAN DISASTER RELIEF WOULD BE SUBJECT TO APPROVAL AGAINST A WRITTEN EARTH CONSTITUTION THAT TRULY ALIGNS MARKETS WITH THE NATURAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SYSTEMS ON WHICH WE ALL DEPEND.
It is about building real resilience, driving equitable and sustainable growth, and reinventing capitalism itself.
PROJECTS THAT MEET THE REQUIRED PERMATERS WOULD THEN BE ELIGIBLE FOR FUNDING.
TO AVOID CORRUPTION AND LOBBYING ALL APPROVED PROJECTS ARE PLACED IN A TELEVISED YEARY DRAW.
50,000 – 100,000
100,000 – 250,000
250,000 – 500,000
500,000 – 1 MILLION
1 MILLION AND GREATER.
Here is a suggestion that could be funded.
Products Labeling.
Marketers use labeling for their products to bring identification to impart information to the consumer about the product. They allow customers to know about the item and give necessary messages including ingredients, instructions, and uses.
Why not their carbon footprint with a symbol showing their contribution to Carbon emissions.
Human and nonhuman, have a natural right to sustenance.
( See the previous posts on a world aid commission.)
All human comments and imagination appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
IF THERE IS ANYTHING TO LEARN FROM COVID IT IS THAT WE HUMANS MUST CHANGE THE WAY WE LIVE COLLECTIVELY AND INDIVIDUALLY ON THIS PLANET.
CURRENTLY, WE ALL LIVE WITHIN IDEOLOGIES THAT ARE BROKEN.
SOME VISIBLE SOME NOT.
(An ideology (/ˌʌɪdɪˈɒlədʒi/) is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially as held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which “practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones.” Wikipedia.
There are many different kinds of ideologies, including political, social, epistemological, and ethical.
“We do not need…to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities. The need for a sense of universal responsibility affects every aspect of modern life.” — Dalai Lama.
“The function of ideology is to stabilize and perpetuate dominance through masking or illusion.” — Sally Haslanger
“[A]n ideology differs from a simple opinion in that it claims to possess either the key to history or the solution for all the ‘riddles of the universe,’ or the intimate knowledge of the hidden universal laws, which are supposed to rule nature and man.” — Hannah Arendt)
At the root of all these ideologies is the value of money.
HOW IT IS ACQUIRED AND DISTRIBUTED IS WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED.
A religion may present a vision of a just society, but it cannot easily have a practical political program with or without money.
All idea systems have a class basis. This class bias is defined by the acquisition of wealth in one form or another – assets, power, etc. Nither however can any longer dominate the state through an appeal to the populace, and then use the powers of the state to control both the economy and the private lives of the citizen’s work.
No longer can politics itself, acquire certain ideological characteristics whose true nature is concealed.
All forms of isms that belong to the 19th or 20th century may suggest that ideologies are no older than the word itself—that they belong essentially to a period in which secular belief increasingly replaced traditional religious faith.
So let’s ask the question.
Where are we?
In terms of truth we now in a world both connected and disconnected in the extreme sense of the word connected.
IT IS CLEAR THAT THE WORLD NEEDS TO MOVE BEYOND SLOGANS.
A system that rewards those with capita while taxpayer’s money is used to support food banks for those out of work is not sustainable.
The economic injustices are plain to see with historic debt the inheritance of the young along with irreversible climate change and biodiversity collapse.
We now need an ism that shifts human values to a different set of values by placing the earth’s healthy existence at the forefront of all our values.
WE MUST NOT ONLY CONFRONT OUR MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF THE NATURAL WORLD WE MUST USE KNOWLEDGE NOT AS A MEANS TO CREATE WEALTH BUT AS A GLOBAL UNDERSTANDING WHERE WE ARE AT.
WE CAN NO LONGER STAND BYE AND WATCH BIG TECH MONOPOLIES COMPANIES SWALLOW WHAT IS LEFT OF COMPETITION.
WE CAN NO LONGER STAND BYE AND WATCH A MARKET PLACE THAT CREATES WINNERS AND LOSERS ON THE BASES OF WEALTH.
WE CAN NO LONGER WATCH WORLD ORGANISATIONS GOVERNED BY VETOES.
WE ALL DEPENDENT ON EACH OTHER AND OTHERS AND MUST COLLABORATE WITH ALL THAT SURROUNDS US.
No longer is it possible for any system whether it’s socialism, communism, anarchism, fascism, nationalism, liberalism, and conservatism to be FREE OF INTERFERENCE FROM ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, MACHINE LEARNING, AND UNCONTROLLED ALGORITHMS.
THESE TECHNOLOGIES IN THEIR PRESENT STATE ARE SIGNALING THAT INTERPRETATIONS OF IDEOLOGIES ARE OUT OF DATE.
You only have to look at the world to see the inequalities created by the pursuit of growth at any cost. This pursuit has turned all of earth’s resources into products to produce more products sold in a marketplace governed by short term profit.
No longer is it possible to take fresh air, fresh water for granted.
If we don’t want a world where from birth to death is viewed as an opportunity to exploit our weaknesses and essential needs to live out our lives in the first place, we need AN NEW IDOLOGIE CALLED REALISM, NOT ESCAPISM, NOT APATHY, OR ANY MONOTHEISM, OR NEOREALISTS
“ Rather a collective meanings that constitute the structures which organize our actions.”
There is only one solution.
That is as advocated by this blog in several posts to Harness PROFIT FOR-PROFIT SAKE.
High-frequency trading with algorithms, sovereign wealth funds buying earth resources – land, water, energy, futures/ hedge funds – betting on demand, currency exchanges manipulating value, trade deals excluding fair trade, the list is endless.
ALL ACTIONS THAT ARE NOW REQUIRED TO CHANGE COURSE REQUIRE FUNDING.
A 0.05% WORLD AID COMMISSION ON ALL ACTIVITIES THAT ARE NOT SUSTAINABLE WILL CREATE A PERTUTIAL FUND OF TRILLIONS TO CREATE A WORLD THAT’S WORTH LIVING ON.
There is one thing for certain change is happing but the window for change is closing.
Climate change is not something that might happen in the future.
We need a new relationship, to a more sustainable relationship with the natural world.
Creative imagination is what’s required so if you read this post let’s hear your comments.
Here we are coming to the end of another year and those of us who are not grieving the loss of a loved one should be counting our blessings. However, while we should all thank the Sciences the recovery from Covid as a society is now more than about antibodies.
As you might have guessed the most important anchor of recovery’ is for a COVID-19 vaccination that works. The implication is that without a vaccine the world will be unable to return to any sense of normality, particularly in terms of open interaction with your fellow man.
The pandemic has demonstrated and is demonstrating as I write, yet again, those global questions that require global solutions – which can be all wrapped up within the word Inequality.
World Governments’ first responses have naturally been national if this Pandemic echoes other defining events in our more recent history it will leave the political landscape transformed in some respects yet wearily familiar in others.
It would be fair to say that the debate about what makes life worth living is just starting. Digital interactions are no substitute for the things of real life.
The changes could be immense but unpredictable with digital platforms becoming the only way for many of us to work, get fit, or be educated and entertained.
It is not just purely economic survival it is also the reshaping of International relationships.
The normal we once knew is gone.
The infinite expansion economic model is bust resetting the western peasants’ sense of entitlement.
The digital transformation of business will get faster, with more automation and artificial intelligence to approve loans, profile customers, control stock, and improve delivery.
We now know the infrastructure can cope, on the whole, and we’ll need to think carefully about which platforms we use and what we say on them.
What happens next though is open to question.
The coronavirus offers a sense of how a greener world might feel but there are now two scenarios in play.
One scenario is that the world repeats the fossil fuel frenzy that followed the banking crisis, unleashing pent-up demand for oil and coal. Governments know this response well as a method to revive flagging economies.
The other is that every element of nature and every life form is a part of the global inventory (managed by the allegedly benevolent state, which, in turn, is owned by several suddenly benevolent wealthy people, via unregulated, biased algorithms technology).
Their goal is to count and then efficiently manage and control all resources, including people, on an unprecedented scale.
Ultimately, the Great Reset will result in two tiers or people:
The technocratic elite, who have all the power and rule over all assets, and the rest of humanity, who have no power, no assets, and no say-so in anything.
Finally, international institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, and the European Union may be challenged to up their games – or go away.
National security capability will be judged by stockpiled medical equipment and preparedness for the next pandemic or environmental catastrophe, not just on how many tank brigades can be deployed.
Ofcom estimates that 59% of 12 to 15-year-olds have their own tablet, while 83% have a smartphone so sustainable development will be Technocracy, and there’s not a single area of life that is left out of this Great Reset.
A strong transhumanist bend where humans merge with machines and in which law enforcement will be able to read our minds.
Our suspended life in lockdown could be incubating a grievance that, when released, triggers angry questions, a search for blame, and demands for reprisals. The fear is that our behavioral norms will have become infected by distress and hardship, that we will emerge more individual and less together.
Economic hardship will strain social ties. That’s the real test for this generation – not “can we keep our temper in lockdown?” but “can we quietly repair our social fabric in the tough times?”
If you want to change governments don’t focus on changing the government; you’re not going to get anywhere. You’ve got to change the corporations because the governments are becoming just pawns of the corporations trading online, with no ethics other than profit.
Also, practically every problem we have can be traced back to an environmental cause so we must consume less, consume better. We must use business to inspire and implement solutions to the forthcoming environmental crisis. ( See previous posts 0.05% for the Planet.)
The COVID-19 crisis has given new relevance to the concept behind Yang’s campaign centerpiece—an idea is known as universal basic income (UBI).
In contrast to need-based subsidies, the idea behind UBI is that everyone is eligible.
Now is the time for its introduction to offset job losses caused by the pandemic and technology.
It would provide enough to cover the basic cost of living and give financial security not just to the wealthy but to all. It would remove the problem with existing welfare programs that keep people below the poverty line.
It’s the only solution to an economy where “a small group of people are getting very, very wealthy while everyone else is struggling to make ends meet. It would give society a much-needed ballast during the forthcoming recession.
Automation is fundamentally changing the structure of societies.
The question is of course who funds the income.
The top one percent ie the wealthy and tech companies paid for it.
or 10 to 12% of GDP go directly to the universal income payments.
When it comes to Climate change it poses many challenges:
The massive development of renewables will require the use of immense land. The rapid end of fossils will require reconverting large parts of the economy. Finally, how can we get the majority of the population to accept such a commotion?
Such an upheaval will require more than digital surveillance or the four most dangerous words being parroted by a gullible public these days are, “I TRUST THE SCIENCE.”
Happy Algorithmic Christmas to all.
Control the world through digital surveillance, not on your nanny.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Shopping used to be a social activity but Covid -19 pandemic driving up demand for online shopping has and is creating a perfect storm for retailers forcing them to radically rethink what they need to do to remain profitable.
It is said that we are more connected with the internet rather than been isolated.
With smartphones verbally this is true but we are in a world that is disconnecting its self from genuine social contact onto platforms run by algorithms for Profit to the detriment of sensibility, and sustainability of the planet we live on.
(An algorithm is a series of instructions telling a computer how to transform a set of facts about the world into useful information. The facts are data, and the useful information is knowledge for people, instructions for machines, or input for yet another algorithm.)
We are now living in a world where algorithms, or software buying agents, “go shopping” on our behalf.
Every piece of technology that you touch involves many algorithms. They live in our computers and dictate our digital lives at random invisibly existing in the abstract.
While they fully automate the shopping process, they are capable of keep customers stuck
to one retailer and one product.
They can make thousands of calls or website visits a day.
It’s why people’s Google Search results will look different when they’re looking up things in different parts of the world, or why the ads that follow you across the web are different from your friends’. You never really see the complexities at work, simply the results.
This sounds very much like a quasi-monopoly.
In a world where algorithms make shopping decisions on our behalf, all
bets are off that shopping will ever return to the high street.
Humans stand no chance against bots when trying to access products and services that might be in demand.
The longer the lockdowns- the more driven demand increasingly via smartphones.
The emerging Economy of Algorithms, where software agents act on our behalf, has the potential of dramatically changing the way we live, work, and think.
We need clear rules that govern the behavior of software buying agents.
We also need a coordinated approach for software buying agents to disclose who they are, in situations where they can be confused for a human.
We need regulations governing profit-seeking algorithms with control of algorithmic trading. With the right mechanisms for the protection of competition in the markets, regulating access to products and services, and enforcing minimum quality standards of algorithms that shop on our behalf.
Shopping ads are known to produce well over 85% of retail paid Google search clicks. As such, they routinely produce a 400 to 1000% return on cash spent on ads.
Google Shopping entails how to get your product types featured on the nifty Product Ads on Google’s page search results.
Today the majority of stock market transactions are fully automated and executed by algorithms.
AMAZON Net profit roughly tripled to $6.33 billion. Its advertising business, reported $5.4 billion in sales, a 51% jump.
The real reasons that online shopping is replacing conventional shopping habits are.
Reduced overheads expand your market beyond local customers.
With online shopping, you can compare prices from hundreds of different vendors.
No pressure sales.
There are no fixed hours to shop.
One does not have to get in a car, find or pay for a parking spot, get clamped, pay parking fees, pay tolls, get mugged, spend hours in traffic jams, or have a nice day.
Online stores want to keep you as a customer, so they may offer deep discounts, rewards, and cashback if you sign up for their newsletters.
The downside however is you can’t try things on. None of them offer the on-the-spot, take-home advantage that a physical store does.
And shipping costs, are sometimes even more than the cost of what you buy. In-store shopping has no need to charge extra for shipping.
Online sales now accounting for around one-quarter of the total retail market.
There is a clear need for greater speciation, specialization, and differentiation because the consumer is in the driver’s seat, enabled by technology to remain constantly connected and more empowered than ever before to drive changes in shopping behavior in both the physical store and digital retail landscape.
Retailers are still competing with each other but also face new competitors who have different operating models and cost bases and this rate of change is showing little sign of slowing.
The greatest danger that remains with on-line shopping is Privacy and security.
These are legitimate concerns for any online shopper. Your payment information could get stolen from the site or someone who works there could copy your bank details and use them later on their own purchases. It’s also hard to immediately recognize whether an online store is real or just there to scam you.
There are tons of online shopping sites where you can buy everything from plane tickets and flat-screen TVs to food, clothes, furniture, office supplies, movies, and lots more.
Paying attention to whether or not the site uses HTTPS.
Artificial intelligent algorithms will know everything about you- where you live, where and what and when you buy, how often, your likes and dislikes, your bank account, your wife, your children, your friends, infected or not.
If you want a life go and get it.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.