Tag Archives: Capitalism

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP.

04 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in #whatif.com, Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change., Democracy, DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Education, Environment, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Google it., Google Knowledge., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Innovation., Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Politics., Post - truth politics., Purchasing Power., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., Universal Basic Income ., Wealth., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Fifteen-minute read)

“As algorithms push humans out of the job market, wealth and power might become concentrated in the hands of the tiny elite that owns the all-powerful algorithms, creating unprecedented social and political inequality.”  Yuval Noah Harari.

Is he right?

Thanks to digital data, the state is able to have visibility on its population but is unable to govern concretely. Indeed, how can effective public policies be put in place if we can not quantify the objectives to be achieved according to the realities already observed?Résultat de recherche d'images pour "social credit system"

The crucial problem isn’t creating new jobs. The crucial problem is creating new jobs that humans perform better than algorithms.

Consequently, by 2050 a new class of people might emerge – the useless class. People who are not just unemployed, but unemployable.

Technology is never the main driver of social progress. Technology is only an amplifier of human conditions.

Why then, do we keep hoping that technology will solve our greatest social ills?

Technology has done nothing to turn the tide of rising poverty and inequality.

Yuval Noah Harari sees the problem clearly, “The most important question in 21st-century economics may well be: What should we do with all the superfluous people, once we have highly intelligent non-conscious algorithms that can do almost everything better than humans?”

Software is eating the world.  More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services.

Most of what people learn in school or in college will probably be irrelevant by the time they are 40 or 50.

We need to change what we value. If we don’t our political and economic systems will simply stop attaching much value to humans. Even in an age of amazing technology, social progress depends on human changes that gadgets just can’t deliver.

What should we do?

We can’t move from the world we have to the world you want without a total paradigm shift

But what is the truth? What about reality?

Do we really want to live in a world in which billions of people are immersed in fantasies, pursuing make-believe goals and obeying imaginary laws?

Well, like it or not, that’s the world we have been living in for thousands of years already.

In order to move forward, we need to embrace technology both as a means of production and a method for producing new roles while not allowing code itself to push us into oblivion.Photo of a large monitor in a busy intersection showing images of a suspect.

The world may well be becoming more equal with more technology however rather than transferring wealth from the middle-class to the tech elite it does not distribute wealth universally.

This can only be achieved by moving to Universal assets ownership.

A Universal basic salary will only fuel consumption. 

I think most people really do want to believe that they’re contributing to the world in some way, but consumption without a purpose will indeed lead to creating a whole class of flunkies that essentially exist to improve the lives of actual rich people.

Of course, I can hear that Universal Asset ownership is a Socialist idea. But in a world that is now driven by the technology of detachment, we must find a way of engaging in sharing responsibility and rewards.

Sure there are plenty of ways to contribute to society, other than ownership, but, if we are to act as one people, we must be free to decide how and want to contribute.

Returning to the Question of DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP.

I think most people do not want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they will have to do next.

If the hegemony of Google is to be demonstrated, we must also understand that the company is filling digital governance that states are struggling to reclaim.

We’ve been taught for the last 30 to 40 years that imagination has no place in politics or economics, but that, too, is bullshit.

So here is a solution.

The trove of data generated by every digital citizen should not be held by governments or companies but by citizens themselves.

If not the digital companion whispering to our ears the next stage will be delimiting the good of the bad.

We already have social-style scores, anyone who has shopped online with eBay has a rating on shipping times and communication. There is a lot of data being collected with little protection, and no algorithmic transparency about how it’s analysed to spit out a score or ranking.

I am not advocating here China’s social credit system which is a vast plan to monitor citizens, judging citizens’ behaviour and trustworthiness. The potential for abuse is enormous. The Social Credit System is in large part a direct response to a collapse in public confidence in government officials and others in positions of authority. Résultat de recherche d'images pour "social credit system"

I am advocating a system of social credits to reward projects that reduce climate change, social inequality and that promotes free education. 

Why not use human wisdom, not machines, to move our world forward.

Democracy as we know it will not survive the Forth Technological Revolution unless we all have a stake in it other than the vote.

Looking at the state of the world the idea of a ‘useless class’ might feel abstract to most of us at the moment and will remain so until we use our buying power as our voting power to effect change.

Right now we’ve got upside down democracy where every decision has been made globally, behind closed doors by corporations. If the people see no point in a democracy, because it seems to have no relevance to their everyday lives and the situation in which they live them, they will not do anything to defend it or take part in its processes.

With Universal Asset ownership business can become part of the solution,
not part of the problem.

That’s a project we can all get behind.

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

 

 

 

 

 

Who actually is the useless class?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHAT IS THE VALUE OF A HUMAN TO DAY ?

01 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2019., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change., Democracy, Education, Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., GDP., Happiness., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The world to day., Trade Agreements., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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( Seven minuter read)

At the best of times, money is a touchy subject but when it comes to putting a value on a human there is a vast array of circumstances that all boil down to pain and pleasure.

Whatever rest assured with the Forth Industrial Revolution and Climate change we are going to learn the real value of human life. Résultat de recherche d'images pour "can we put a monetary value on ourselves" Should the value of life be variable depending on age?  UTILITARIANISM.

Have you been thinking about putting yourself up for sale lately?

Ever wonder how much money you could get on the open human market?

Money is merely an arbitrary store of value, wars and natural disasters bear witness to this fact.

In a system where capitalism is a prime determinant of value, how can we preserve what we truly value as humans, what matters to us beyond money?

No matter where we stand on the socioeconomic ladder, the future of the “normal life” doesn’t look good.

CAN WE DO ANYTHING?

Humanity is more important than money — it’s time for capitalism to get an

upgrade.

So how can we change capitalism so that it focuses on what humans really

want and need?

There have been many different forms of capitalist economies ever since money was invented around 5,000 years ago. The current form of institutional capitalism and corporatism is just the latest of many different versions with the current revolution in technology promoting another form of materialism, by and large, is a psychological trap.

Profit-seeking algorithms recognise that money is inherently neutral that it is merely a vessel for the exchange of experience between two people. Its value only becomes realized when it’s put into motion.

Technology will not be the key which frees us from this precipitous world.

Most people these days aren’t even conscious of what they’re using to determine their self-worth.

No matter how much you own, how much you buy, how much you earn, the disease of more never goes away- just look at the current state of the world.

Old-style protection of nature for its own sake has badly failed to stop the destruction of habitats and the dwindling of species. It has failed largely because philosophical and scientific arguments rarely trump profits and the promise of jobs.

In one of my recent post, I addressed the power of your back pocket – buying power as a means of effecting change. It needs to be supported by Social Credits. (See below)

Instead of having our humanity subverted to serve the marketplace, capitalism has to be made to serve human ends and goals.

Of course some time ago it dawned on someone that, by making it possible for people to buy and sell natures services, we could save the world and turn a profit at the same time. The industrial revolution of the nineteenth century. Nature by capital.

(Sorry, did I say nature? We don’t call it that any more. It is now called natural capital. Ecological processes are called ecosystem services because, of course, they exist only to serve us. Hills, forests, rivers: these are terribly out-dated terms. They are now called green infrastructure. Biodiversity and habitats? Not at all à la mode my dear. We now call them asset classes in an ecosystems market. I am not making any of this up. These are the names we now give to the natural world.)

WHAT IS NEEDED NOW IS FOR SOMEONE TO REALISE THAT:

1. Humanity is more important than money.
2. The unit of an economy is each person, not each dollar.
3. Markets exist to serve our common goals and values.

True wealth occurs when the way we spend our money is not simply compensating for how we earn it. The welfare of a nation or the world can… scarcely be inferred from a measurement of GDP.

The real value of money begins when we look beyond it and see ourselves as better, as more valuable, than it is.

Rarely will the money to be made by protecting nature match the money to be made by destroying it.

I’m talking about the development of what could be called the Natural Capital Agenda: the pricing, valuation, monetisation, financialisation of nature in the name of saving it by Social Credits.

They could put a stop to the risk of a progressive “privatisation” and “commodification” of nature.

We’re staring at trillion-dollar problems in the world with climate change, that is about to speed up and we need commensurate solutions.

One of the main problems is engaging the population of a country or countries to part take in the need to effect change.

We can harness the country’s ingenuity and energy to improve millions of lives if we could just create a way to monetize and measure goals by Social Credits.

People could buy them or win them.

For Example:

What if governments and world corporations were to introduced 100 million SCs to reduce obesity levels.

What if governments were to reward green energy projects with SCs.

What if governments were to use SCs to replace pensions/ treasury bonds.

What if countries used SCs to reflect fair trade.

What if education and reduction of inequality were promoted by SCs.

To protect the world from the despoilation and degradation which have done it so much harm. After all, it is not most environmentalists who have misunderstood the realities that come with ‘growth’ a finite Earth, but most economists.

Forget what society tells you about what it means to have succeeded, and endeavour to create your own definition of success based on those human qualities and virtues that you value most.

We are fundamentally empathetic creatures in an evolutionary process that started with blood ties, then tribes, religion, and currently nations but could extend to humans as one, then to creatures, plants and finally our planet.

The adage that money makes the world go round is the saddest reality of life.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Is the first generation of digital natives and sharing is their norm, could it be that collaborative consumption rather than consumer capitalism will be their norm?

If so, what will the next generation bring?

Time is the one resource all of us use to have, but it’s also painfully finite in nature. You can’t bank it — all you can do is invest it wisely.

Money is fluid.  Therefore, money is a reflection of the owner’s values and intentions.

We all have some sort of measuring stick that we use to determine our value as a human being.

Put another way, if we have access to all we need, would we need money?

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S : IF WE ARE TO AVOID A MELT DOWN NOT JUST BY CLIMATE CHANGE BUT BY SOCIAL MEDIA. WE ALL KNOW THAT WE NEED TO REINVENT SOCIETY REAL QUICK,

06 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by in 2018: The Year of Disconnection., Algorithms., Capitalism, Climate Change., Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Fresh Water., Humanity., Modern Day Democracy., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Poverty, Social Media, Sustaniability, Technology, The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The world to day., Trade Agreements., Unanswered Questions., War, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Politics

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(Twelve -minute read)

Most mainstream textbooks have the word “economics” in their title as if no differentiating adjective exists.

THE NASTY REALITY IS:

AS THE WORLD POPULATION GROWS IT WILL BE TO THE DETHRONEMENT OF THE PLANT AND TO THE SUSTAINABILITY OF ANY ECONOMIC SYSTEM WHETHER IT IS CAPITALIST OR OTHERWISE AS CAPITALISM HAS ALWAYS HAD A NEED FOR POVERTY TO KEEP COST DOWN.

However, through social media, the poor are no longer invisible and the consequences of this are now beginning to becoming evident.

It is a grim truism of modern life that everything from civil rights violations and health crises to environmental degradation and educational barriers are disproportionately suffered by the people least financially and socially equipped to deal with them.

Capitalism today still represented itself as freeing serfs, slaves, etc,  with freedom becoming capitalism’s self-celebration, which it largely remains today.

Yet the reality of capitalism is different from its celebratory self-image.

IT IS NOW a form of algorithmic trading in which funds trade on the small fluctuations in asset prices without ever owning the assets, with us the powerhouse in the making of fortunes that put colossal resources in the hands of a relative few, while at the same time, see others without even the means to sustain themselves.

Combined the above with climate change and poverty and THE FORTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (AS IT HAS BEEN CHRISTENED BY THE ADVANCES IN TECHNOLOGICAL) IS CREATING A CAPITALIST WORLD THAT IS REMOVING IT FROM VIEW.

DRIVEN BY CONSUMPTION PRODUCING ALGORITHMS JUST FOR PROFIT FOR THE ONE PERCENTERS, WHILE OUR GOVERNMENTS ACT LIKE THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE TO GROWTH AT ALL COSTS.Poverty has always accompanied capitalism (as Thomas Piketty's work documents yet again).

Wherever you look you will see that enormous gap between rich and poor growing and this gap between rich and poor is now threatening to destroy us and the world we all live in.

To those who think capitalism and inequality need each other.

Capitalism requires inequality of wealth, runs this right-of-centre argument, to stimulate risk-taking and effort; governments trying to stem it with taxes on wealth, capital, inheritance and property kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

It took war and depression to arrest the inequality dynamic, along with the need to introduce high taxes on high incomes, especially unearned incomes, to sustain social peace.

Now the ineluctable process of blind capital multiplying faster in fewer hands is underway again and on a global scale with self-serving greed in the form of profit-seeking algorithms.

Anyone with the capacity to own in an era when the returns exceed those of wages and output will quickly become disproportionately and progressively richer- APPLE, MICROSOFT, E BAY, AMAZON- and when we buy their products online are in fact vote for them and their system.

The mass of employees are not free inside capitalist enterprises to participate in the decisions that affect their lives (e.g., what the enterprise will produce, what technology it will use, where production will occur, and what will be done with the profit workers’ efforts help to produce). In their exclusion from such decisions, modern capitalism’s employees resemble slaves and serfs.

So the speeding train of capitalism is “back on track,” resuming its rush toward stone walls of excess debt, stagnant mass incomes, capital relocating overseas, etc.

YOU CAN WATCH THIS PROCESS IN REAL TIME WITH  BREXIT, OR AMERICA FIRST.

In Britain, it may be true that the top 1% pays a third of all income tax, but income tax constitutes only 25% of all tax revenue: 45% comes from VAT, excise duties and national insurance paid by the mass of the population.

As a result, the burden of paying for public goods such as education, health and housing is increasingly shouldered by average taxpayers, who don’t have the wherewithal to sustain them. Wealth inequality thus becomes a recipe for slowing, innovation-averse, rentier economies, tougher working conditions and degraded public services.

All in all, you could say that no real changes have been made in global capitalism OTHER THAN IT IS NOW RUN BY ANALYSING ALGORITHMS THAT RECOMMEND WHERE, WHEN AND HOW WITH TO SATISFY SHORT TERM PLEASURE.

UNFORTUNILTY it is simply depriving us and our children of fundamental rights of a decent & caring society, fearless & dignified living, by a deprivation of the material conditions for the reproduction of society, and a failure to develop the full capabilities of human beings.

OF COURSE, our collective sense of justice is outraged as we are witnessing in the recent Paris Riots, the Climate Change Conference in Poland sponsored by coal trying to set rules to govern pledges that will be broken as soon as the ink dries and the ongoing Brexit charade which has nothing to do with peoples wellbeing.

Where does all of this leave us other than with an ominous sense of impending implosion reverberates throughout the world with national politics and culture waning no one seems to know or care.

Our TV screens with Christmas coming we are bombarded with the worst images of Capitalism – advertisers promoting materialism, alongside appeals to donate money to save everything from children in Yemen too abandoned animals.

While it is heartbreaking the worst part is that our governments are complicit.

Despite the famine, despite the bombing of a busload of school kids in Yemen countries like the US, UK, France, and Canada are still supplying the Saudis with hundreds of billions of dollars in tanks and missiles.

However, it has little effect as we look on from a distance sitting at home before our own little stages our TV’s, our I Pads, our Smartphones, our courtyards of miracles where an image sweeps across the previous one without trace.

Everything is on a reduced scale, even emotions.

That’s the trouble with shadow political power structures. Their true shape and purpose stay hidden while they capture democracy.

From all this, we shall draw some conclusions, in the absence of any convincing certainties one has to pretend that we shall solve Climate Change  (that is going to drive more inequality and eventually the extinction of our biodiversity, followed by us due to the lack of fresh water or clean air.) and currents world conflicts that are only the tip of the coming wars over diminishing natural resources.

What needs to happen?

Let’s put the plant first before space exploration, before material productivity consumption, before cultural identity, before consumerism, before America first, before Brexit isolation, before trade deals, before nuclear power, before religious beliefs, before skin colour, before short-term pleasure, before us.

Let’s go for a diverse economic system where toxic wealth inequalities are less indulged rather than a monopolised marketplace.

Let’s enshrine Water and Fresh air into all our actions.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of social media icons"

Any of the above can now only be achieved by using the power of Social media which is being used in ways that shape politics, business, world culture, education, careers, innovation, and more.

THE PROBLEM WITH SOCIAL MEDIA THAT IS HAVING A REAL IMPACT ON SOCIETY IS THAT IT IS LEADERLESS.

On one hand, it generates insights, stimulates demand, and create targeted product offerings but when people are presented with the option of ‘liking’ a social cause, they use this to opt out of actually committing time and money.

Social sharing has encouraged people to use computers and mobile phones to express their concerns on social issues without actually having to engage actively with campaigns in real life.

On the other hand, it without social media, social, ethical, environmental and political ills would have minimal visibility.

Increased visibility of issues has shifted the balance of power from the hands of a few to the masses.

Capitalism understands the above more than our world organisation or governments.

Social networks feed off interactions among people, they become more powerful as they grow. Each person with marginal views can see that he’s not alone. And when these people find one another via social media, they can do things — create memes, publications and entire online worlds that bolster their worldview, and then break into the mainstream.

Social networks are helping to fundamentally rewire human society.” Because social media allows people to communicate with one another more freely, they are helping to create surprisingly influential social organizations among once-marginalized groups – Popularism- Short-term politics with no long-term aspirations promoting social ills.

Across the globe, mobile devices dominate in terms of total minutes spent online. This puts the means to connect anywhere, at any time on any device in everyone’s hands.

Their support is limited to pressing the ‘Like’ button or sharing content.

Is it not time that we demand that our internet platforms introduce a dislike button.

So far humans have had a monopoly on decision making but we are sleepwalking with Data Analyzing algorithms eroding our societies that have the sole purpose of predicting our next purchase or move.

Artificial intelligence in its current form is mostly harmless but that’s not going to last.

Fueled by powers of machine learning with no end in sight it is encroaching into to our homes without human examples or guidance, without any knowledge of the domain beyond basic rules of promoting profit.

WHAT IF ANYTHING CAN BE DONE?

We need to ensure that Ai Systems are provable safe and beneficial, and unbias regardless of how intelligent they become.

Imagine the havoc and harm they will inflict with greater power, scope and social reach.

When developers are at a loss to explain the behaviour of their creations we will then need Ai to explain to humans why they reached certain decisions, or what their conclusions actually mean.

At the moment we are seeing poorly thought out systems released into the world without any real ethical or safety standards. Governments and our out of date international world organisation have a role to play, by introducing and enforcing standards and regulations.

Changing present capitalist corporate culture won’t be easy, but it needs to start at the top.

Just look at biotechnology some research findings are too dangerous to share with the public.

It is time we all grew up and accept some responsibility for Artifical Intelligence impact on the world.

Why?

Because AI is poised to be one of the most daunting challenges our species have ever faced,  decoupling us from human speed and timelines, operating beyond human levels of control and comprehension.

AT THE MOMENT IT IS RATHER THAN TURNING THE ATHOMISPHRIC DOWN IT IS CONTRIBUTING (IN MOST OF ITS FORM)  TO TURN IT UP.

On a deeper level, the idea of self-referential feedback may be crucial not only in the evolution of life but for its origin as well.

It may even be that the algorithmic nature of cellular automata could be the key to removing a major barrier to explaining life’s origin — defining what life is, to begin with.

It’s pretty hard to explain the origin of something if you don’t know what it is.

When the environment changes, the rules for surviving may change as well. Life’s activity generates feedback that influences the rules of life.

You can’t blame scientists for conceiving of the universe in terms familiar from their everyday life. That’s just the way that thinking works, whether it’s about the laws of nature or anything else. And you have to admit that nowadays computers have invaded everyday life so thoroughly that it’s only natural for scientists to think about nature in a computational way.

If the world is a computer, life is an algorithm, so all algorithms and how they

work, and for what reasons, should be made public to ensure both social and

  “environmental justice.” Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of computer algorithms"

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: ” THE TIME WILL COME WHEN WE REALIZE THAT WE ARE NOT ABLE TO EAT MONEY.”

28 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by in Capitalism, Climate Change., Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Paris Climate Change Conference 2015, Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., Wealth., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Politics

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WE SHOULD BE ALL FAMILIAR WITH THE ABOVE QUOTATION.

It is a “Native American saying”.

“Canada, the most affluent of countries, operates on a depletion economy which leaves destruction in its wake. Your people are driven by a terrible sense of deficiency. When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.”

When one stands back from one’s self the above sums up the present state of our world.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "THE TIME WILL COME WHEN WE REALIZE THAT WE CANNOT EAT MONEY"

Present needs and present gains was the rule of action—which seems to be a sort of transmitted quality which we in our now enlightened time have not wholly outgrown, for even now a few men can be found who seem willing to destroy the last tree, the last fish and the last game bird and animal, and leave nothing for posterity, if thereby some money can be made.

We are unable to change as we have turned everything into commodities to make material profit or power.

WHY?

Because most are suffocating in a sea of debt, unable to extricate themselves from the shackles of an abhorrent situation inherently created by the consumptionism and consumerism that grips much of the world’s population.

We are, in effect, products of our own society, now being exploited by AI for profit.

What is needed is a World Conference of every nation to enshrine in law the protection of Clean Air, Freshwater, the protection of the environment and ecosystems that we all rely on for life on the planet.

The richer we are and the more we consume, the more self-centered and careless of the lives of others we appear to become.

Our erroneous belief that we are more concerned about manmade climate change than the people of other nations informs the sentiment, often voiced by the press and politicians, that there’s no point in acting if the rest of the world won’t play its part.

Only when the crisis causes or exacerbates an acute disaster – such as the floods – is there a flicker of anxiety, but that quickly dies away.

Sustaining interest in this great but slow-burning crisis of climate change is a challenge no one seems to have mastered.

For years we’ve been told that people cannot afford to care about the natural world until they become rich; that only economic growth can save the biosphere, that civilisation marches towards enlightenment about our impacts on the living planet.

The results suggest the opposite.

The more we consume, the less we feel. And maybe that doesn’t just apply to guilt.

Perhaps that’s the point of our otherwise-pointless hyperconsumption: it smothers feeling. It might also be the effect of the constant bombardment of advertising and marketing. They seek to replace our attachments to people and place with attachments to objects: attachments which the next round of advertising then breaks in the hope of attaching us to a different set of objects.

Even if you somehow put aside the direct, physical impacts of rising consumption, it’s hard to understand how anyone could imagine that economic growth is a formula for protecting the planet.

So what we seem to see here is the turning of a vicious circle.

The more harm we do, the less concerned about it we become. And the more hyperconsumerism destroys relationships, communities and the physical fabric of the Earth, the more we try to fill the void in our lives by buying more stuff.

This is an almost inevitable result of a society that has become restructured around shopping, fashion, celebrity and an obsession with money.

How we break the circle and wake people out of this dream world is the question that all those who love the living planet should address.

There is only one easy answers.

We must make Greed in all its forms of profit for profit sake pay. ( See previous Posts – A world Aid commission )

Agreement’s like the Paris Climate Change promises are not worth the paper there are written on without the necessary finance to create a change of mind.

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

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S ​ IS CAPITALISM ABOUT TO GO UNDERGROUND​ AND BECOME INVISIBLE.

03 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by in Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Capitalism, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Our Common Values., Technology, The common good., The Internet., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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( A five-minute read)

At the moment with AI and its algorithms, the forces of change driven by machines that use them are unpredictable.

Previous industrial revolutions changed human labor with machinery this time it’s our mental functions that are being replaced.

Our ability to make predictions and make decisions are more and more being controlled by our general acceptance of allowing our living data to be analyzed by computers.

AS A  RESULT, IT IS PLAIN TO SEE THAT CAPITALISM IS MAKING A TRANSITION TO AN ECONOMY DRIVEN BY SMART MACHINES BASED ON ALGORITHMS THAT ARE BASES ON BIG DATA.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of capitalist economy"

This process owned by monopolies on internet platforms is rampant and unregulated.

When it should be subject to careful oversight by a new world governing body that ensures transparency, responsibility, with the right framework to make decisions as to whether all our common values are being protected.

Should we be concerned?

Yes, we should be.

We are already living in an economic system that is not working for people with the gaps of inequality becoming wider and wider. As each and every day goes by with our politicians turning a blind eye to the long-term social effects.

We are seeing the rise of short-term populist politicians who are in effect ( and more than likely than not in denial) representing to days social media’s bad side which is run on monopoly platforms.

The overriding aim of these present-day monopolies is to make a profit.

Therefore, theoretically, a capitalist free-market economy may not be ideal for the future AI and robot world, for capitalism is primarily driven by human greed.

Don’t expect these tech overlords who invent and own robots or AI to share the benefits with the rest of us.

Governments cannot afford to let selfish profit-seeking big corporations rule the roost.

If we are not vigilant the one percent of the world upper class- those in control of the robots will build empires that will govern and dictate the AI and robot economy.

For the present, there is little concern that we are in danger of becoming technological slaves, but the concept of self is almost lost.

Without technology and our mobile phones, in particular, we feel naked, stripped and alone. Vacations now include a laptop. What’s a trip without photos that we immediately upload to Facebook and Instagram? It’s like it didn’t happen, at least if we don’t share them in real-time.

Human- level Ai might well be centuries away but it is no wonder that there have been voices calling for taxes on AI and robots, so as to use the money collected to make society more egalitarian.

However, this is not the ultimate solution, because big sleazy corporations can always find ways to avoid paying tax. Therefore, we may need a fundamental change in our economic structure and society.

If the government is going to have to look after the millions of idle human workers deprived of any means to support themselves and their families after they are replaced by AI and robots.

Perhaps a sort of planned economy is one of the answers?

IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of capitalist economy"

A business must have a conscience as well as a counting algorithm.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHAT DO HEATHROW- GATWICK- THAMES WATER- BLACK CABS, AND 73-89-355-361 OXFORD STREET HAVE IN COMMON.

30 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit.

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( A Fifteen-minute read)

THEY ARE ALL OWNED BY SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS.

While Dads Army negotiates the UK way out of the EU, 97 sovereign investors — state pension funds, central banks, and government ministries are collectively holding $12tn of  British assets.

The invisible hand of capitalism has the UK by the short and hairs.

We are a stone throw away from a crucial point in the current Brexit negotiation, should those who own Britain be nervous.

Given the uncertainty over taxes on imports and market access, when you wake up one morning and your investment is worth 20 percent less than the previous day, that’s going to have an impact on investors who are starting to question the future of Britain as an ‘investment hub’ in Europe.

The gap between the rhetoric of the economic recovery and Brexit negotiations is beginning to make the young of Britain to reject the status quo.

We live in an era where heated rhetorical battles are fought over terms that have lost clear meaning.

It is this morass rhetorical debate that defines what is wrong not just with Brexit but what is wrong with capitalism and socialism.

There is no need for a referendum or survey to tell you the truth. You don’t need jargon or ideology for a case against the status quo.

Surely it’s time for England to focus its imagination on not making the past more beautiful than it ever was, rather than imagining a better future by focusing on what is truly critical.

The creation of real stakeholders in the country. Not just the rich but among it’s poor.

The big misconception of the EU is that it has to do with money.

All knowledge centers must be connected together to imagine a world in new and exciting ways.

Walling yourselves in for personal security and economic security will be a disaster in waiting.

Before Brexit barely a day went by without a major multi-billion dollar fund from one petro-state or another making some splashy acquisition.

You could say that London financial center for all attentive purposes turned a blind eye to – from  – why – where or how the money was acquired.

Chinese: firms bought up British assets worth $11.3bn (£9bn) last year and have spent nearly $50bn in the last decade on acquisitions into the country.

Norway:  It bought 73-89 Oxford Street — a development currently under construction — for £276.5 million and spent a further £124 million buying 355-361 Oxford Street.

The Norwegian fund — which is worth roughly £720 billion — already had a significant footprint in London, and owns a 150-year lease on roughly 25% of Regent Street, another of London’s most recognizable shopping streets.

The fund also owns parts of New Bond Street, properties on Savile Row, the street famous across the world for its tailors.

Outside London, it owns half of Sheffield’s Meadowhall shopping center.

As well as spending £400 million in London, the Norwegian fund bought a €1 billion (£850 million) office development in Paris and spent around $665 million (£534 million) on office spaces across New York, Washington DC, and San Francisco. It also purchased two further UK properties for a combined £5.7 million, with one retail unit, and one described as being used for “logistics.”

It also has 70 percent stake in five properties in Tokyo, Japan.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund, known as PIF, is turning the PIF into a global giant by giving it ownership of state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco, which is preparing for what could be the world’s biggest IPO.

The PIF is also behind several large real estate developments in the kingdom, including a new city called Neom that will be built on the Red Sea Coast, an entertainment city on the edge of Riyadh and another tourism project on the Red Sea.

The fund is also an investor in some of the kingdom’s largest firms, including Saudi Telecom Co., Saudi Arabian Mining Co., and National Commercial Bank. It also took a 16.32 percent stake in Almarai Co., the country’s biggest dairy producer, last year as the government supports national companies and develops them into regional and global leaders.

The UK will need inward investment, particularly when it leaves the EU. The main problem is that these funds are lack transparency.

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) remain, significant investors, with the assets of the top 10 now amounting to c.$5.5trn.

At the macroeconomic level, the rise of SWFs illustrates the seriousness of current-account imbalances in the global economy that have their origin in the managed exchange rates operated by some of the countries in surplus.

The accumulation of reserves for investment by SWFs should not become an end in itself. 

A more specific concern raised by SWF investment in equities relates to the opaque way in which some SWFs function and their possible use as an instrument to gain strategic control. This concern sets them apart from other types of investment funds. More specifically, there is unease that – whatever the original motivation – SWF investment in certain sectors could be used for ends other than for maximizing return.

For example, investment targets may reflect a desire to obtain technology and expertise to benefit national strategic interests, rather than being driven by normal commercial interests in expansion to new products and markets.

By the same token, holdings could influence decisions by companies operating in areas of strategic interest or governing distribution channels of interest to the sponsor countries.

More generally, business and investment decisions could be influenced by the political interest of the SWFs owners.

Although in most cases, SWFs are portfolio investors and have avoided taking controlling stakes or seeking a formal role in decision-making in companies, concerns have been raised about the possibility of SWFs seeking to acquire controlling stakes in companies.

National security considerations have been acknowledged by some SWFs owners, who request clarity and certainty about investments that can be made and which areas might be “off-limits” to SWFs.

Since SWFs are managed independently from a country’s foreign exchange reserves, they are excluded from transparency mechanisms.

While they have existed for more than fifty years, over the past decade they have rapidly expanded to become a source of investment of systemic importance. They can offer a source of investment and market liquidity at a time of real pressure. Yet, as state-owned investment vehicles, some can raise questions about the risk that these investments may interfere with the normal functioning of market economies.

The longer-term impact of Brexit cannot yet be seen but you may rest assured that it will have its pro and cons when it comes to SWF who sole purpose is to generate income.

However, they are only part of the mix when it comes to who owns what in the UK there is another Sovereign wealth fund called the crown.  

The monarchy is still one of Britain’s most valuable institutions, with a value of £57 billion to the UK.

The 89-year-old’s estimated personal fortune, largely inherited from her family, is about US$425 million ($673 million), according to an analysis by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That’s a mere 3 percent of the wealth of the richest Briton, Gerald Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster.

THIS IS SOME OF WHAT IT OWNS.

The Crown Jewels 140 ceremonial objects boasting a spectacular 23,578 precious gemstones

The Queen privately owns an 18,433-hectare estate called the Duchy of Lancaster.

It is administered separately from the Crown Estate. Part of that is the Savoy Estate, a stretch of prime real estate in central London which houses the iconic Savoy Hotel.

Sandringham House, an 8,000-hectare estate in Norfolk.

Balmoral Castle, 20,000-hectare Scottish estate.

The Duchy of Lancaster also holds around a dozen historic properties, including Lancaster Castle and Pickering Castle in Yorkshire.

The Duchy delivers an annual income of around £18 million ($25.5 million), which is paid directly to the ruling monarch.

Regent Street & St James’s Market, London: The Crown Estate owns the entirety of Regent Street in London, one of the UK’s best-known shopping streets. It also owns prime retail property across the UK in locations including Oxford, Exeter, Nottingham, Newcastle, Harlow, and Swansea.

The Crown Estate owns around 106,000 hectares of farmland across the UK.

The Crown owns the rights to salmon fishing and gold mining in Scotland.

Windsor Castle & Great Park, Berkshire: The 6,400-hectare Windsor estate in Berkshire is part of the Crown Estate’s portfolio.

The Crown Estate holds around 11,000 hectares of forestry in areas including Berkshire, Somerset, and the Cairngorms in Scotland.

The Crown Estate owns a £1.1 billion offshore energy empire which includes 30 wind farms.

The Crown Estate announced in June last year that it returned a record £328.8 million ($464 million) to the Treasury in 2016 as the value of the overall estate rose to an astonishing £13.1 billion ($18.5 billion).

England might do well to pay attention to Micheal Collins words.

I quote.

” The object in building up the country economically must not be lost sight of. The object is not to be able to boast of enormous wealth or of a great volume of trade for their own sake. It is not to show a great national balance sheet, nor to point to people producing wealth with the self- obliteration of a hive of bees. The real riches of the Irish nation will be the men and woman of the Irish Nation the extent to which they are rich in body and mind and character.”

Or perhaps both the EU and England should take a feather out of the way E Bay Works.

You are only as good as your product and feedback. E Bay did not just create an online market it created a self-governing community.

Apple has shifted its tax liability in the UK to Ireland.

Amazon dominates retail in the UK.

Google dominates the browser market

There are currently no less than 97,000 properties owned by foreign firms in England and Wales.

The NHS is increasingly being infiltrated by American health providers.

The major public utilities – energy, railways, and water – are all to a significant degree foreign-owned

Nuclear power stations are owned and managed by the French company EDF (something the French would never allow in their own country) and that Hinckley Point C is a joint French/Chinese project.

If there anything to be learned from the above it is that we have a clash of mindsets: one pragmatic, the other dogmatic.

Neither understands the other.

Those incompatibilities are being played out today in front of our very eyes in the phony war over the negotiation. The EU is still of the belief that it runs the negotiation. It will not show flexibility because that’s not how it works. The UK, on the other hand, will not do as it’s told. That’s not how the UK works.

It will not comply with the EU’s negotiation strategy of meekly signing up to a large financial settlement before being fobbed off with a lousy trade deal. The UK would rather be damaged than humiliated by the EU.

The EU believes it will win because it refuses to believe the UK will walk. It will sign whatever is put in front of it. But this is to make the exact mistake that it has always made; it’s a misjudgment of how UK politics work.

The clearest indictment of the status quo is the status quo itself.

The Basic necessities such as food shelter are what’s needed, not Aircraft carriers.

Britain has suffered from decades of under-investment in public infrastructure.

Britain has deep structural problems. Manufacturing has been hollowed out. The gap between the richest and poorest parts of the UK is wider than in any other major EU country.

An excessive reliance on consumer spending focused on the bigger picture:

The only choice in a subsequent referendum that would be acceptable to many citizens is that between what the UK and EU actually agree in the withdrawal agreement and no deal whatsoever.

There is today, a very real risk of a no-deal outcome. This would be a traumatic and disruptive exit and bad for both sides. We have to hope this doesn’t happen.

Each side truly believes the other is deluded.

We cannot retreat from the world. We have to make sure that we get the best of our imaginations – while not letting our imaginations get the best of us.

Another vote is inevitable.

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: ARE WE IN AN AGE OF OVERPRODUCTION OF THE FALSE -V- TRUTH WHICH CANNOT BE CONSUMED.

26 Saturday May 2018

Posted by in Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Capitalism, Environment, Evolution., Fake News., Google it., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Modern day Hero., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Religion for a digital age., Robot citizenship., Technology, The cloud., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Politics

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( A six-minute read )

Modern day technology with its Artificial Intelligence does not point in any single direction. However, the gap between words and deeds is growing.

In times such as ours where there is a slow disengagement of truth, we need to be reminded that our central calling, our main task on the planet, is survival, which with the ever-growing use of AI gives rise to a host of new ethical problems and dilemmas.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of technology in the future"

With most of us chocking on non-truths, new technologies, and AI, the earth and our living conditions on the planet are worsening faster than ever.

Both AI and technology are begging for attention in order to be harnessed to our common values rather than profit for profit sake.

This is a debate that is only just beginning.

Since time memorial man does not seem to be able to ” help ” his selfishness, the desire to stand out.

They say that we are stuck with our character, we can’t evolve beyond it or without it.

So let’s not ask what is wrong with modern-day society, but ask where it is leading us?

It seems to me that we are living in a period where the overproduction of truth and non-truth cannot be consumed.

We are tranquilized with trivial.

We can’t control our own actions and there is no control over the actions of others.

So are we going to end up living with an inner sense of chaos that robot will not have?

At the moment we are split in two we have the awareness of our splendid uniqueness, but yet we end up feeding worms.

However, if the fear of death is removed by Technology we will lose the ability of our self- preservation.

( Anxiety is something we all share, now more than ever – normality is a neurosis.)

Then it will become impossible for us to have the ability to organize our own perceptions and our relationships to the world.

If we remove the idea of death, we remove what it means to live.

So is technology and AI going to create a greater social- historical truth, by omitting religious and spiritual ideas for our lives?

To do so it must replace what in our conscious life is called fear.

Our present-day fears are fashioned out of the ways in which we perceive the world. So we continue to design societies of symbolic action systems with structures of statuses ( Likes, Hits, Followers, Tweets, Posts, ) and roles, customs, and rules for behavior designed to service vehicles for earthly heroism. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the cultural hero-system if frankly, magical, religious, primitive or secular, scientific, technological driven or not.

The question is how conscious are we of what we are doing to earn our feeling of heroism?

Is there a need to create a larger theoretical structure to society?

Or is it too late as there is no harmony that unites different positions so that the sterile and ignorant polemics can be abated.

The crises of modern society are precise that the youth no longer feel heroic in the plan for action that their culture has set up.

We have been unable to this day to give an overall sense of heroism to any present-day capitalist industrial society mainly because of inequality.

As profit for profit sake dons the cloak of AI it is disguising the way society sets up its hero system with virtual reality and false promises.

Indeed it will not be far into the future when Robots will invent reasons for anxiety even where there is none to allow humans to exist.

The fear of death is a biological and evolutionary problem. It is an expression of the instinct of self-preservation, which functions as a constant drive to maintain life and to master the dangers that threaten life.

If AI removes the fear of death what will our mental functions be- will it be just living in the moment.

All historical religious address themselves to how to bear the end of life.

If we remove death, our biology and evolution must transfer into Trans-humans.

Will we really be able to call such hypothetical trans-humans “human” at all?Image associée

We must be more realistic about our situation in nature.

(Just look at Donal Trump who has more trouble with his lies than others.)

If we don’t do so we are we all going to end up as children living in others dependence – or on Artificial Intelligence.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: WHICH TWENTIETH- CENTURY INVENTION HAS HAD THE MOST IMPACT ON OUR DAILY LIVES.

04 Friday May 2018

Posted by in Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Capitalism, Climate Change., Energy, Environment, Evolution, Facebook, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Innovation., Nuclear power., Our Common Values., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The Obvious., The world to day., Twitter, Unanswered Questions., War, Where's the Global Outrage., WiFi communication.

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(Six-minute read)

Perception is at the heart of this question and of course, there are hundreds of inventions that could and should be mentioned if we had the time and space.

We began the 20th century with the infancy of airplanes, automobiles, and radio. We end the 20th century with spaceships, computers, smartphones, AI and the wireless Internet all being technologies we now take for granted.

However, the world is steeped in poverty with precious little in the way of humanitarian advancement. Image associée

HERE IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER IS MY LIST AND WHY.

The credit card:

Part of the fabric of modern day life. Credit no longer the prerogative of the elite. The ultimate symbol of the triumphant Anglo-American consumer culture. The modern manifestation of money. Allowed modern Banks to transcend national boundaries. Guarantees payment of debts.

Microchip: Fiber Optics: Microprocessor: Windows 

Created the Credit Card. The Internet and the World Wide Web.

Artificial Fertilizers: 

Enabled the further expansion of agriculture and pollution.

Internal combustion engine:

The why is obvious:

The pneumatic tire:

Did more for the engine.

The condom/ Birth pill. 

The why is obvious.

Nuclear Power:

Nuclear power has long provoked ardent policy fights, historically centered on the perceived safety or danger of splitting atoms to keep consumers’ refrigerators running.

Today, it’s not local or environmental opposition but economics that’s crippling nuclear power.

It may be very difficult to meet international carbon-cutting goals without the widespread addition of nuclear plants.

This still leaves the problem of waste, and a choice between nuclear waste—deadly but the concentrated poison that lasts thousands of years—and fossil-fuel waste—invisible, diffuse carbon pollution that in sufficient amounts will transform the Earth for thousands of years.

While nuclear waste is nasty stuff, so are the conventional pollutants of fossil-fuel burning.  Nuclear power avoids air emissions of over one million tons of sulfur dioxide and 650,000 tons of nitrogen oxides each year, as well as significant particulate emissions.

Since CO2 emissions persist for many years in the atmosphere emissions cuts made today are worth more than the same cuts made down the road.

The best invention may be Toyota’s Hybrid.

AK-47 Kalashnikov: M16: 

The twenty century can be characterized by mass warfare and mass killing- two world wars, Stalin’s purges, the Holocaust, Hiroshima, Cambodia’s killings fields, Rwanda the list goes on.

No firearm of any kind has killed more people.

It is the weapon of choice for terrorists, rebels with 75 million in circulation around the world accounting for 20% of the entire global stock of firearms. Every year, small arms kill between 20,000 and 100,000 people in the world’s conflicts. AK-47s Kalashnikov accounts for a high proportion – and quite possibly the majority – of this human toll. In the 68 years since the first prototype was made, the AK-47 has probably dealt death to millions.

A Kalashnikov AK-47 rifle in the hands of a herdsman in Sudan

This is the decade of AI  (run by the Algorithm) I PAD, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook. Social Media. 3d Printing.

Will there use glorify peace? Not on the evidence so far.

Feel free to add yours and why.

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

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: ARE WE KIDDING OURSELVES GROWTH AT ALL COSTS.

01 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by in 2018: The Year of Disconnection., Arms Trade., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change., Democracy, Environment, European Union., Fake News., Google it., Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Paris Climate Change Conference 2015, Poverty, Social Media., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The Future, The Obvious., The Refugees, The world to day., TTIP. Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, Universal Basic Income, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Aid., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics, WORLD POVERTY WHERE'S THE GLOBAL OUTRAGE

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( A one minute read)

In a world where nearly 20 people are forcibly displaced every minute by violence, war and persecution ARE WE KIDDING OURSELVES TO THINK THAT TECHNOLOGY WILL SOLVE THE WORLD PROBLEMS.

One in every 113 people on the planet is now a refugee AND THAT IS WITHOUT CLIMATE CHANGE THAT IS GOING TO BE THE BIGGEST MOTIVE TO BECOME ONE.

At the moment ( According to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR) it might be true to say that out of the 65.6 million 40.3 million – are people displaced within their own country.

Here are below are four UNHCR videos that should be shown on World TV, across Social Media, in every school to every man woman and child.

 

 

 

 

 

What can be done?

See the previous post on a World Aid commission.

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S IT IS TIME TO RETHINK OUR MEASUREMENT OF ECONOMIC GROWTH.

27 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by in 2018: The Year of Disconnection., Capitalism, Fourth Industrial Revolution., GDP., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Sustaniability, Technology, The cloud., The common good., The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., Wealth., What Needs to change in the World

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( A three-minute read)

Right now one of the reasons our economies have to grow is because of debt.

The global economic system runs on money that is itself debt.

GDP (gross domestic product) has outlived its usefulness as a metric of economic size and is it stoking social and environmental crisis by encouraging growth at any cost.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "picture of gdp per capita"

The kind of statistics we’ve used in the past just isn’t working anymore.

With the planet warming and some resources already exploited to near-exhaustion, including many fisheries, with technology removing trade agreements, (as companies and customers increasingly transact their lives in the cloud not to mention blockchains) we need something that accounts for such factors.

GDP can no longer measure the distribution of wealth within a country.

Even where there is growth, disenchantment with how it is shared out can be seen vividly in Brexit-bound Britain. Notably, So, while its total value can go up, gains are all too often skewed to top earners. Those lower down the ladder can fall further behind in relative terms.

It does not encompass the black market, omitting a huge source of activity and income in many developing countries, including in Africa and Latin America.

We’ve got to find another mechanism to include much bigger parts of the population, and use different metrics to measure the success of a country.

So, what are the alternatives to GDP?

The WEF this week proposed a broader measure of growth called.

The Inclusive Development Index (IDI) is an annual assessment of 103 countries’ economic performance that measures how countries perform on eleven dimensions of economic progress in addition to GDP. It has 3 pillars; growth and development; inclusion and; intergenerational equity – sustainable stewardship of natural and financial resources.

However for this to truly work countries would need to be liberated from the pressures to exploit their citizens in the hunt for income to repay debts and we would need to remove the creation of debt- based money.

Another word we would have to cancel the debt of sovereign nations and move the creation of money away from the state.

Of course in a capitalist world, this is unrealistic.

China alone owns– $1.168 trillion as of January 2018 of U.S. debt.

However, the European Union which is in need of reform could do a lot to liberate its members from the tyranny of growth.

Some creative long-term thinking is needed.

It could actively downgrade consumption, by banning advertising on mobile phones, I pads and Public place, all of which use manipulation of emotions.

It could write off a reasonable chunk of the Greek debt by spread it among its members in return for solar power.

It could turn the euro into real money by insisting that all banks in the European Union hold at least 50% reserves against money lent. 90% of the money circulating in our economies is created out of thin air.  Banks lend it into existence.

It could create a basic minimum income by taxing all profit-seeking Algorithms.

It could tax plastic and sugar.

It could stop the farcical traveling circus which sees the European Parliament move between Brussels and Strasbourg every month.

It could set an example for the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, we are all to busy with I am alright Jack isolation syndrome – its grow or collapse.

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