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Tag Archives: Community cohesion

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: HOW WOEFUL HEINOUS,UNPARDONABLE, DISTASTEFUL,TO SEE ANTONIO GUTERRES THE UN SECRETARY-GENERAL HAVING TO BEG FOR FUNDS.

08 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Sustaniability, The Future, The Obvious., The Refugees, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Aid., World Organisations., WORLD POVERTY WHERE'S THE GLOBAL OUTRAGE

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Capitalism and Greed, Climate change, Community cohesion, Distribution of wealth, Earth, Technology, The Future of Mankind, United Nations, World aid commission

 

( A three-minute read that could save millions of lives)

If you ever wanted proof that Capitalism is driven by greed just watch what can only be described in the above words the recent plea made by António Guterres to the International community for funds to tackle the declared famine in parts of Nigeria, South Sudan, and looming in Somalia, Nigeria and Yemen.africa

The estimated number of affected children is now 450,000, with 14 MILLION PEOPLE needing humanitarian assistance across the region.

Five years ago, more than a quarter of a million lives were needlessly lost, 130,000 of them children. We simply cannot have a repeat of that tragedy. The only way to prevent this devastating loss of life is for donors and international leaders to act now.

Global hunger levels are at their highest for decades. There are currently 70 million people in need of food aid. The reality of life for a fifth of the world’s people, on a planet which produces enough food to satisfy everyone is that humanitarian aid to Africa has been shrinking.

Rich countries have been giving money to poor ones for many decades and for many reasons — from geopolitics to post-colonial guilt to altruism so there is little point here in reiterating the reasons why the world is in such a mess.

What is needed in the long run is a fully funded Humanitarian Affairs United Nations.  Not a begging Institution.

Rather than boasting our compassion with wasteful foreign Aid there is only one course of action:

To make the Greed / Profit for profit’s sake segment of Capitalism system Pay.

This can be achieved with modern-day technology by Placing a World Aid commission of 0.05% on all. High frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange transactions over $ 50,000. on all Sovereign Wealth Funds acquisitions, on all gambling winnings.

This would create a Perpetual fund of billions.

The real question, though, is (with climate change and technology) is whether aid will remain relevant, and if so how.

The answer boils down to this: solutions.

Governments in developing countries will seek assistance only when they have a problem that they cannot solve by themselves.

They know how to build schools, hospitals or ports, and can pay for them. But they will look for other countries’ experiences when reforming educational curricula, designing health insurance systems, or regulating private suppliers of infrastructure.

They will want to avoid the mistakes of others, and learn from their successes.

At times, they may ask for support in implementing particularly tricky projects, mostly as a way to keep graft, pollution or displacements at bay.

This can only be achieved if the United nations see themselves more as partners than as donors. This will stop Aid countries of exporting their own way of thinking.

Donors would be sought after, rather than just accepted.

They will be those that can deliver ideas, experiences, expertise, lessons, evidence, and data.

In other words, what will make future aid relevant will be knowledge, not dollars.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of aid of the future"Development aid will be a more difficult business — for you will need to operate at the technical cutting-edge — but a more useful one.

To the extent that there are internal leaks in Africa–As a first order of priority, the leaks should be plugged to ensure that the little aid that comes in, stays.

In politics, no good deed ever goes unannounced.

It’s is very hard to feel hungry and not to be able to do anything about it.

Contributors to United Nations aid and development programs have provided slightly more than half of the $800 million requested in 1999 for African countries suffering from “complex emergencies”–the term applied when war and failed institutions, often combined with a natural disaster, leave vast numbers of people homeless and starving.

The reasons for the decline are not hard to find.

Donor nations are and will be more so under pressure to attend to problems at home rather than foreign assistance that is wasted by bloated aid agencies pouring money into the pockets of corrupt African governments, senseless civil wars, wasteful military expenditures, capital flight, and government wastes–Pouring in more foreign aid makes little sense.

However if asked we all want a more prosperous and equal world that will serve everyone’s best interests.

To create a less threatening world beyond our borders we must tackle inequality head on. 

We are on track for a tipping point of Inequality with the web only speeding up this process through digitization and universal access. We’ll be postulating about social media’s impact on the more long-term future of the world.

Aid can be fearful of the future – but it can also be a force for good.

No transformation will occur overnight.

The debate on aid comes down to lack of imagination. We have cemented in our minds the idea of a hierarchy in the world’s nations: the developing world is below us and we need to help them, preferably to our advantage. But we do not want them to rise above us.

Catastrophe evokes a human response to help fellow creatures.

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

Here is who to donate to:  UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), Care, Oxfam, British Red Cross, Cafod, Tearfund, Christian Aid, World Vision, WFP, Unicef.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT THE RISE OF POPULISMS.

07 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Brexit., Donald Trump Presidency., European Union., Modern day life., Politics., Populism., Social Media., Technology, The world to day., Twitter, Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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Community cohesion, European Union, Populism., The Future of Mankind

( A Popular Four minute read)

It is important to understand this topic since it is apparent that the consequences of the rise of populism continue to play out and they are likely to be profound.

Afficher l'image d'origine

Populist forces have already proven decisive for the outcome of the British referendum on membership in the European Union, and the election of Donald Trump as the President of the United States.

Populists support charismatic leaders, reflecting a deep mistrust of the ‘establishment’ and mainstream parties who are led nowadays by educated elites with progressive cultural views on moral issues.

Since about 1970, affluent Western societies have seen growing emphasis on post-materialist and self-expression values among the younger birth cohorts and the better educated strata of society.

This has brought rising emphasis on such issues as environmental protection, increased acceptance of gender and racial equality, and equal rights for the LGBT community.

In recent decades, however, in Western democracies the backlash against cultural change has become increasingly prominent. Throughout advanced industrial society, massive cultural changes have been occurring that seem shocking to those with traditional values.

Moreover, immigration flows, especially from lower-income countries, changed the ethnic makeup of advanced industrial societies.

The newcomers speak different languages and have different religions and lifestyles from those of the native population—reinforcing the impression that traditional norms and values are rapidly disappearing.

All of the above combined were reinforcing each other in part, with long-term processes of generational change during the late twentieth century have catalyzed culture wars, and these changes are particularly alarming to the less educated and older groups in Western countries.

It therefore would be a mistake to attribute the rise of populism directly to economic inequality alone. The rise of populist parties reflects, above all, a reaction against a wide range of rapid cultural changes that seem to be eroding the basic values and customs of Western societies.

On one hand this cultural shift has fostered greater approval of social tolerance of diverse lifestyles, religions, and cultures, multiculturalism, international cooperation, democratic governance, and protection of fundamental freedoms and human rights. Social movements reflecting these values have brought policies such as environmental protection, same-sex marriage, and gender equality in public life to the center of the political agenda, drawing attention away from the classic economic redistribution issues.

But the spread of progressive values has also stimulated a cultural backlash among people who feel threatened by this development.

Less educated and older citizens, especially white men, who were once the privileged majority culture in Western societies, resent being told that traditional values are ‘politically incorrect’ if they have come to feel that they are being marginalized within their own countries.

As I have said, as cultures have shifted, now a tipping point appears to have occurred with the election of Donald Trump who exploited this change as did the Brixit supporters.

Britain’s decision to withdraw from the EU threatens to reenergize populist forces across Europe with France next on the list with Madame Le Pen. Afficher l'image d'origine Perhaps the most widely held view of mass support for populism is the economic insecurity perspective–emphasizes the consequences of profound changes transforming the workforce and society in post-industrial economies.

If the cultural backlash argument is essentially correct, then this has significant implications; the growing generational gap in Western societies is likely to heighten the salience of the cultural cleavage in party politics in future, irrespective of any improvements in the underlying economic conditions or any potential slowdown in globalization.

Alternatively, the cultural backlash thesis suggests that support can be explained as a retro reaction by once-predominant sectors of the population to progressive value change.

Populist leaders like Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Norbert Hoffer, Nigel Farage, and Geert Wilders are prominent today in many countries, altering established patterns of party competition in contemporary Western societies. The net result is that Western societies face more unpredictable contests, anti-establishment populist challenges to the legitimacy of liberal democracy, and potential disruptions to long-established patterns of party competition.

Education also proves significant, with populist parties winning greater support from the less educated sectors of the population.

Anti-immigrant attitudes, mistrust of global governance, mistrust of national governance, support for authoritarian values, and left-right ideological self-placement.

All cultural indicators that are significantly linked with populist voting and the coefficients. Not surprisingly, given populist xenophobic rhetoric, members of ethnic minorities are less inclined to support Populist parties.

In short, Populist support is greatest among the older generation, men, the less educated, ethnic majority populations, and the religious.

Given that populism does not appear to be waning in contemporary democracies let me ask these questions.

Under what circumstances are populist claims viewed as credible or not by their target audiences?

What accounts for temporal fluctuations in particular forms of populism within specific countries—and possibly across democracies in general?

Which groups are included in the category of the virtuous people and which elites (and associated groups) are vilified as morally suspect?

How is this classification process shaped by the broader political context (e.g., the position of the populist actors in the political field, the relative consolidation of political coalitions, the ability of mainstream actors to employ populist language)?

Populism which can be found on all sides of the political landscape is a thin-centered ideology. Driven by modern-day technology interlinkages of Smartphones, Social Media,  Facebook, Twitter and the lack of long-term political aspirations it fill the void between the political space and the need for more equality in opportunity for all.

The burning question of today is, shall we drop all other reform issues and run to meet the populist with open arms? or is the Populist platform almost too absurd to merit serious discussion.

I fear not.

Remember that The National Socialist German Worker’s Party founded in Germany in 1919 and brought to power in 1933 under Adolf Hitler was a fascist populist party.

Call it what you want, Authoritarianism, Elitism, Nationalism, Populism, Trumpism it must never be allowed power on its own.

Trump’s rhetorical is unmoored from any sense of reality whatsoever and there is nothing he says than can be taken at face value.

It is intellectual dishonesty.

A better way to describe populism I think would be cosmopolitan socialists.

Its followers see see themselves in opposition to elites of all kinds with the main bone of contention being a system corrupted by economic elites.

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THE BEADY EYE SAYS: CAPITALISM’S IS DRIFTING TOWARDS A CULTURAL APOCALYPSE.

30 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Artificial Intelligence., Donald Trump Presidency., European Union., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Social Media., Sustaniability, Technology, The Future, The USA., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations., World Politics

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Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism and Greed, Capitalism vs. the Climate., Community cohesion, Distribution of wealth, European Union, Globalization, Inequility, Technology, The Future of Mankind, THE UNITED NATIONS, Visions of the future.

( A two-minute follow-up read to the Post ” What is happening to what we call common values.)

Afficher l'image d'origine

Perhaps with the election of Donald Trump it has already happened.

Why?

Because capitalism has and still is creating an explosion in economic and geographic inequality which is now fueled by commercial Artificial Intelligence.

The tragedy is that our World leaders and World Organisations seem inapt to do anything about it.

The main lesson for European and the rest of the world is clear:Afficher l'image d'origine

As a matter of urgency globalization must be fundamentally reorientated.

Trade agreements must be revisited to become a means in the service of higher ends.

They must include quantifying and binding measures to combat the digital fiscal and climate dumping.

They must have a prosecutor capable of enforcing what is agreed.

Its time to change the political discourse on globalization, trade is a good thing, but fair and sustainable development also demands public services, infrastructure, health and education. These demand fair taxation systems

If we fail to deliver these the ludicrous fantasy of Trumpism testosterone imperialism will win with the dignity of world leaders reduced to one’s shopping choices.

Here are a few other thought as to why:Afficher l'image d'origine

Because: Globalisation it is being replaced in economic by Artificial Intelligence calculation to satisfy consumer demands.

Because: With Trump closing of the USA will change the domination of the capitalism globe.  It will now exist for a Chinese Communist party that gives delocalised capitalist enterprise cheap labour to lower prices.

Because:  Technology – along with its turbo economic disruption is causing what seems to me to be the hastening of both a cultural and environmental apocalypse.

Because:  Digital consumerism makes us too passive to revolt or save the world. Humans have been transferred into desirable readily exchangeable commodities. Culture appears more monolithic than ever. Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, are now presiding over unprecedented monopolies.

Because: The Internet discourse has become tighter, more coercive.

Because:  Human personality is being corrupted by false news creating false consciousness that there is hardly anything worth the name anymore.

Because:  Common Values are scarcely signifies any more – than white skin, white teeth and freedom from odour and emotions.

Because:  Popularising, is a failure of the US and the EU to democratise in an attempt to create a one-dimensional society.

Because:  Social Media operates on an eternal feeding loop.

Because:  Our world organisations are out of date.

Because: Trade agreements aren’t worth the paper they are written.

Because: If we destroy or Atmosphere , or Seas, or Fresh Water all for the sake of profit, there is little reason to believe in a Christian or Muslim God or for that matter any other Gods that will make a difference.Afficher l'image d'origine

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS: WHAT IS HAPPENING TO WHAT WE CALL COMMON VALUES?

29 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Artificial Intelligence., Donald Trump Presidency., England EU Referendum IN or Out., European Union., Google it., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Politics., Technology, The Future, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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Artificial Intelligence., Community cohesion, Digital Divide., European Union, Our Common Values., Technology, The Future of Mankind, Visions of the future.

 

(A twelve-minute read if you value your time)

For some naive reason I thought this would be an easy subject to write on.Afficher l'image d'origine

After all, we all value fresh air, clean water, and the other essential to living- Life.

If we remove our personal values and look at our shared convictions regarding what we believe is important and desirable , of course, we are left with valuing the right things and surely they are common values but the term “values” means different things in different contexts.

So much so that we are no longer connected by Our Common Values.

In reality we understand that our choices are always significantly limited, and that our values shift over time in unpredictable ways.

This is especially true with emerging technologies, where values that may lead one society to reject a technology are seldom universal, meaning that the technology is simply developed and deployed elsewhere. In a world where technology is a major source of status and power, that usually means the society rejecting technology has, in fact, chosen to slide down the league tables.

Take for instance choice.

To say that one has a choice implies, among other things, that one has the power to make a selection among options, and that one understands the implications of that selection. Obviously, reality and existing systems significantly bound whatever options might be available. In 1950, I could not have chosen a mobile phone:

So it is premature to say that we understand how to implement meaningful choice and responsible values when it comes to emerging technologies.

Technology is changing far faster than the institutions we’ve traditionally relied on to inform and enforce our choices and values.

However current progress in meeting the profound challenges that humanity must confront falls far short of what is needed.

Combined with the need for a new understanding about the way that people think raises complex ethical questions concerning our common values makes it a complex subject to address.Holistic Approach

So let’s try and address it under these broad headings.

The Rule of Private Gain. If you are the only one personally gaining from the situation, is it is at the expense of another?  If so, you may benefit from questioning your ethics in advance of the decision.

If Everyone Does It. Who would be hurt? What would the world be like? These questions can help identify unethical behaviors.

Benefits vs. Burden. If benefits do result, do they outweigh the burden?

Or we can bury our heads in the sand, and insist on the sanctity of Enlightenment reason.

Or we can respond to the new understanding of how decision-making processes work, by demanding that there is public scrutiny of the effect that particular communications, campaigns, institutions and policies have on cultural values, and the impact that values, in turn, have on our collective responses to social and environmental challenges.

The first thing that struck me, is that these days there is no such thing as value-neutral policy.

Often, if the facts don’t support a person’s values, “the facts bounce off”

If you need an example you need to look no further than what we are witnessing with president-elect Mr Donald Trump and the English vote to leave the European Union.

President Trump has little understanding that American Values that crossed the Atlantic with those who sailed from Europe and Slaves from Africa to help create the USA.

Their values have stood the test of time till now.

Mrs May on the other hand carrying the cultural and historical baggage of an Empire that supplied the slaves  and is now reaping the reward of leaving the European Union’s blueprint for success which relies not only on securing economic prosperity but also on consensus on core values common to all the EU Member States.

( In the EU the original emphasis on economic development and environmental protection has been broadened and deepened to include alternative notions of development (human and social) and alternative views of nature (anthropocentric versus egocentric). Thus, the concept maintains a creative tension between a few core principles and an openness to reinterpretation and adaptation to different social and ecological contexts.

The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.)

She is now clasping hands with a country that is also denuding itself of core values.

Many studies have established substantial correlations between people’s values and their corresponding behaviours.

Unfortunately our troubled world is no longer affected by common values, they being manipulated by simply flooding the public with as much sound data as possible on the assumption that the truth is bound, eventually, to drown out its competitors.

If, however, the truth carries implications that threaten people’s cultural values, then… [confronting them with this data] is likely to harden their resistance and increase their willingness to support alternative arguments, no matter how lacking in evidence” (Kahan, 2010: 297).

The idea that people can be ‘nudged’ into new forms of behaviour by having their brains massaged in a certain way, is built on the premise that we are not rational beings to be engaged with. It’s very foundation is the elite’s view of us, not as people to be talked to, argued with and potentially won over, but problematic beings to be remade” (O’Neill, 2010; emphasis in original).

Values have a profound impact on a person’s motivation to express concerns about a range of bigger-than-self problems. Indeed, they are values that must be championed if we are to uncover the collective will to deal with today’s profound global challenges.

Undoubtedly these are values that have been weakened – and often even derided – in modern culture. They are not, for example, values that are fostered by treating people as if they are, above all else, consumers. 

As humans our biological tendencies push us towards both altruism and selfishness, artificial intelligence is removing any sense of common values.

While humans are capable of displays of enlightened self-interest, we cannot hope that individuals will subjugate their own self-interest to the pursuit of the greater common good. The best for which we can hope, therefore, is to exploit those instances where self-interest and the common good happen to coincide – often called ‘win-win’ scenarios.

It also seems clear to me that, in trying to meet these challenges, civil society organisations must champion some long-held (but insufficiently esteemed) values, while seeking to diminish the primacy of many values which are now prominent – at least in Western industrialised society.

Values are also shaped by people’s experience of public policies.

It is therefore crucial to ask: which values does society accentuate?

People’s motivation to engage with political process, and to demand change, is shaped importantly by their values.

Civil society organisations must strive for utmost transparency about the effect of communications and campaigns in shaping public attitudes.

Bolder leadership from both political and business leaders is necessary if proportional responses to these challenges are to emerge, but active public engagement with these problems is of crucial importance.

This is partly because of the direct material impacts of an individual’s behaviour (for example, his or her environmental footprint), partly because of lack of consumer demand for ambitious changes in business practice, and partly because of the lack of political space and pressure for governments to enact change.

This will require a change in societal values, and commitments by wealthier nations to assist others in the protection of wilderness resources of global concern.

One hundred years from now, when historians look back on this period of history, what will they think of the wilderness debate?

Will it be irrelevant to them or will it represent a vital component of a societal watershed of thought that changed the way in which society viewed itself and its relationship to Planet Earth?

Some values are mutually consistent, others tend to act to oppose one another. Activating a specific value causes changes throughout the whole system of that person’s values; in particular, it has the effect of activating compatible values and suppressing opposing values.

The implication of this is that business practice, government policy and civil society communications and campaigns must take responsibility not just for their ‘material impacts’ (what they achieve ‘on the ground’), but also for the effect they have on dominant cultural values.

It is often argued that, because a problem – climate change, for example – is of urgent concern, there ‘is not enough time’ for systemic responses.

This is a suspect argument: it seems at least as likely that appeal to ‘easy wins’ on climate change will actually serve to help defer ambitious action until it becomes “too late” for this to be taken effectively.

We must build a visual and compelling vision of low-carbon heaven.

It seems that one way in which values become strengthened is through their repeated activation.  This may occur, for example, through people’s exposure to these values through influential peers, in the media, in education, or through people’s experience of public policies.

The future is already through technology bring means that devalue that past and are, to a large extent, unconscious of the present. The Internet, the Smart Phone, artificial Intelligent Apps are all contributing to this.

This means that we value and collect more material objects. It also means we give higher priority to obtaining, maintaining and protecting our material objects than we do in developing and enjoying interpersonal relationships.

Even the gloomiest of assessments of human nature lead to the conclusion that we should be working to mitigate unhelpful aspects of our biology through cultural interventions.

This constitutes a timely opportunity to further reflect.

Man always kills the thing he loves.

In the United States, people consider it normal and right that Man should control Nature, rather than the other way around.

Up to the election of Mr Trump:  Equality was, for Americans, one of their most cherished values. This concept is so important for Americans that they have even given it a religious basis.

To prevent the silent creeping erosion of our European project it has to be more focused on essentials and on meeting the concrete expectations of its citizens. I am convinced that it is not the existence of the Union that is object to but the way it functions.

Institutions that examine power and responsibility, and audit their ethical decisions regularly, develop employees that function with honesty and integrity and serve their institution and community.

It is imperative that we appreciate that each person’s intrinsic values are different. Because values are so ingrained, we are not often aware that our responses in life are, in large part, due to the values we hold and are unique to our own culture and perspective.

What is ethically responsible is not just fixation on rules or outcomes.

Rather, it is to focus on the process and the institutions involved by making sure that there is a transparent and workable mechanism for observing and understanding the technology system as it evolves, and that relevant institutions are able to respond to what is learned rapidly and effectively.

Indeed, much of what we do today is naive and superficial, steeped in reflexive ideologies and overly rigid worldviews. But the good news is that we do know how to do better, and some of the steps we should take. It is, of course, a choice based on the values we hold as to whether we do so.

The values that must be strengthened – values that are commonly held and which can be brought to the fore – include: empathy towards those who are facing the effects of humanitarian and environmental crises, concern for future generations, and recognition that human prosperity resides in relationships – both with one another and with the natural world.

In making judgements, feelings are more important than facts.

Can you imagine big business embracing humility as a core value?

If wilderness is to exist into the future. (It is a finite resource.  It is a non-renewable resource.  It is a non-substitutable resource. It is an irreversible resource. It is a common resource.) Has the time come for us to govern ourselves? Our experience and conceptualisations are not random; they are stored in structured forms in long-term memory.

Values have been defined as psychological representations of what we believe to be important in life.

To be ethically successful, it is paramount that we understand and respect how values impact our social environment. How we perceive ourselves and operate within our environment is of such importance that institutions establish rules of ethical behavior that relate to practice.

Political leaders have profound influence over people’s deep frames, in important part through the policies that they advocate.

Values can be both activated (for example, by encouraging people to think about the importance of particular things), and they can be further strengthened, such that they become easier to activate by education which has an important impact on their value.

Afficher l'image d'origine

A final thought: We all value our own lives, it is how we conduct that life that gives value to it. It has no meaning without values.

No individual man or woman and no nation must be denied opportunity to benefit from development whether its technological or otherwise that exceeds our humanity.

A digital divide threatens us all, both rich and poor, it is also testing our values.

Are we all googling while Rome Burns.?

Technology has a multiplying power. Websites have become multi media platforms and Television stations are now media centers where the evening news broadcast is secondary to the accompanying pod casting blogging with interactive forms as Twitter, Face Book, etc.

Use them to put the flames out. Values offer focus amidst the chaos.Afficher l'image d'origine

If you got this far I value your time and comments not your like clicks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE SAYS: IF MACHINES ARE TO INTERACT WITH HUMANS IN A INTELLIGENT WAY, THEY NEED TO HAVE COMMONSENSE KNOWLEDGE.

31 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Communication., Facebook, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Innovation., Modern Day Communication., Social Media., Technology, The Future, The Internet., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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Artificial Intelligence., Big Data, Commonsense., Community cohesion, Globalization, SMART PHONE WORLD, Visions of the future.

 

( A Questioning read of six to five minutes)

Can machines achieve “common sense” in the near future?

We have no clue right now how to go about solving this problem.Afficher l'image d'origine

We are living in a world where common sense ironically is very uncommon.

When you look at the way Artificial Intelligence is destroying what is left it is hard to even define it.

We have to force our ideas to conform to the evidence of reality rather than the other way around.

Commercial Algorithms for profit and big data are creating a world of insecurity with false news destroying the very fabric of society by removing basic knowledge about how the world of human beings works.

Common sense is not rule-based. It is not entirely logical. It is a set of heuristics almost all human beings quickly acquire. Commonsense knowledge encompasses facts that people know and use in their daily lives. It is assumed to be known by average people, therefore it is not verbally communicated most of the time.

Much of the interaction in this digital world happens at a distance, which can diminish the rules of cause and effect, action and consequence. Additionally, much of digital life takes place under the cloak of anonymity, making it easier to participate in unethical and even illegal behaviors.

Common sense, by contrast, is regarded – or rather, it is often disregarded – as a low-level, practical, ‘everyday’ phenomenon, hardly noticed, except when its absence is suddenly revealed in the actions of an otherwise apparently intelligent, capable adult.Afficher l'image d'origine

It not necessary for us to understand how the software works for the software to be effective.

The universe doesn’t care about our common sense.

With enough data, enough computing power and trial and error, there is no telling what we can find.

A world where brains have been replaced with digital computers.

In some sense, this is what software is all about: extending our intelligence.

What is this “intelligence” we are talking about?

Is AI using nonstandard logics natural deduction, to predict the future of a sequence from observation of its past.

Is there commonsense reasoning in AI- what role of logic is there in AI?

Is there such a thing as AI Philosophy?

Will it be genetically engineered intelligence.?

Though I don’t know much about biology, I doubt that any brain runs at twice the speed of another brain.

Is it logic of obligation and permission;

What facts are observed by AI and how are these facts represented in the memory of a computer, smart phone, iPad?

What rules (if any) permit legitimate conclusions to be drawn from these facts?

Humans up to now are the source of commonsense rules with memory as a constraint.Afficher l'image d'origine

We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start with? Even this is a difficult decision.

We call our phones “smart”, don’t we?

Lots of people want to judge machine intelligence based on human intelligence.

Your intelligence is actually an aggregate of your brain with your environment and the tools and ideas around you. Tools extend our intelligence… with computers and robots being obvious examples. They can always extend your memory with external support (in this case, use a pen and paper, or just Google) and all it might do is slow you down. Except for storage capabilities (memory) and speed, all hardware is equivalent.

I am not sure understanding language and common sense are the same thing. For example, many human beings are illiterate and yet they can be said to have common sense.

Do machines really offer: a new kind of intelligence, a new form of common sense.  It is not necessary for the software to play at “human level”.

By definition, digital media is participatory. To adults it looks like a brave new world – but to kids, it’s “just life.”

Digital life describes the media world our kids inhabit 24/7 – online, on cell phones and mobile devices, and anywhere media is displayed.

The users create the content, and anything created in this digital life becomes instantly viral, scalable, replicable, and viewable by vast, invisible audiences.

This implies an educative process rooted in, and respectful of, people’s lived experience. Unfortunately this is not so. We now have instant gratification, irrelevant of where or how we get it.

As sensing technologies become increasingly distributed and democratized, this dynamic new world requires new comprehension and communication skills, as well as new codes of conduct, to ensure that these powerful media and technologies are used responsibly and ethically.

We all know about Artificial Intelligence.

But is Common sense and the Plane Truth being replaced by machines, simple facts, plain arguments, simplistic assumptions with reliable, independent data have all but disappeared.

The chaotic and contradictory nature of ‘common sense’,  makes it impossible for Machines to evaluate. They are programmed by humans and therefore will never be able to predict their future performance without prejudice and let their feelings decide for themselves.

To achieve any common sense we will need a database containing all the general knowledge that most people possess, represented in a way that it is available to artificial intelligence programs that use natural language or make inferences about the ordinary world. Such a database is a type of ontology of which the most general are called upper ontologies.

” Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.” Rene Descartes (1596-1650) French philosopher and mathematician.

Le Discours de la method (1637) long-term goals of Artificial Intelligence research. Commonsense reasoning is relevant for many applications, including systems in which robots and humans interact.

To maintain a sophisticated civilization, we have to keep out-innovating our problems. You may have heard that our civilization is not sustainable. We burn too much fossil oil, we pollute too much, there are too many of us, and so on. This is all true. If we are going to keep on surviving, let alone get better, we need to keep on getting smarter even if our brains are standing still biologically at a rate that exceeds our growing problems.

I am generally favorable to any biological technology that can enhance intelligence.

I also think that any long-term intelligence improvement strategy has to take into account that we are become hybrids, part machine, part human beings…The line between digital life’s perils and possibilities is thin.

I am still waiting for a chip that will give me access to the web at the speed of the thought.

The question is whether Gramsci’s distinction between good sense and common sense will be predicated on an irredeemably hierarchical conception of knowledge. One data base against another – Google vers Facebook. Commonsense rule extraction requires minimal human interaction.

Endowing computers with common sense is one of the major problems facing the world.

The relationship between ethics, common sense, and rationality is not just simply feeds books and articles into the computer and has it understand them.

We are if you look at the present state of the Planet we are far from broad deep and robust commonsense reasoning.

Unfortunately, at some point in our lives we give into the fast paced world around us and disregard the faculties of our own mind.

While everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, don’t just turn your brain off and not think about it.  I’m not saying one person or another is right, or wrong.  I’m simply saying that you need to free your mind from the dogma that holds you down from seeking the principles and truths that govern these areas of life.

If we dont start to veting all technology that is not for the betterment of humankind we will have such a fucked up world with some people desperately unrehearsed that the rest of us can forget it.

( See previous posts: Re the need to give all technology a bill of health)

All comments welcome. All like clicks chucked in the bin.

 

 

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THE BEADY EYES: 2017 WILL BE THE YEAR WHEN DEMOCRACY WILL BE UNDER ATTACK FROM ENTRENCHED POWER MORE THAN EVER.

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Brexit., Capitalism, Climate Change., European Commission., European Union., Humanity., Modern Day Democracy., Modern day life., Politics., Social Media., Sustaniability, Technology, The Future, The Internet., The New year 2017, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations.

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Artificial Intelligence., Community cohesion, European leaders, Internet, People of the Earth, SMART PHONE WORLD, The Future of Mankind, The New year 2017, Visions of the future.

 

As Digital technologies and digital communications are permeating every aspect of life we seem to be living in both a hopeful but also difficult times.

The instinctive tendency to categorise the world into “us”and “them” is becoming more and more difficult to overcome but traditional power structures are changing.

Current institutions and political systems are out of date.

People are taking matters into their own hands and are taking the initiative to organise public affairs themselves. On the one hand, this is because they are losing confidence in politics; and on the other hand, it is because some issues are simply not being dealt with by governments any more. Afficher l'image d'origine

Thanks to the internet, artificial intelligence, google, facebook, twitter, globalisation, and or inability to plan for the long term future the relations between culture and power IS BREAKING DOWN world wide.

The new terrain of global governance by artificial intelligence is making up its own rules on the fly or going about its activities without even any regard for rules of procedure.

It is amply clear by now that the so-called digital divide cannot be bridged through technological means alone, as it must be understood within broader systems of entrenched social and economic exclusion.

It is then timely for a broader range of other social groups, particularly those most adversely affected by globalisation, to re-think how they believe global governance should work.

Our present global structure of patriarchy and capitalist greed with all its connectivity is still a long way off establishing a new world with justice and freedom at its core.

For example:

The Syrian Civil war precipitated by drought in the region. The Iraq, the Iran, Yemen, Afghanistan

Nuclear power plants require grid-tied electricity, cooling water and people getting paychecks. Without all these, they melt down, thus immersing all life on earth in ionizing radiation.

1 in 3 women across the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime.

That’s ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS.

We’re driving to extinction at least 150 species each day.

There’s more. Much more. The violence of poverty, racial violence, gender violence, violence caused by corruption, occupation and aggression, violence caused by environmental disasters, climate change and environmental plunder.

We seem to be living as if there is no future but the one we are creating.

There is nothing guaranteed but our willingness to live as pioneers of a new consciousness and way.

The past five or six years have seen an explosion of political initiatives around the globe in which tech-minded actors of various kinds (including geeks, hackers, bloggers, tech journalists, digital rights lawyers, and Pirate politicians) have played leading parts.

(Not forgetting capitalist greed in all its forms.)

There is a terrible irony in the assumption that we can transcend our parochial tendencies with artificial intelligence.

There is growing public awareness of the concentration of economic power in the world. The richest 85 people in the world, who could fit onto a single double-decker bus, have just as much wealth as the poorest half of world.

Absolute universalism, is impossible. Morality cannot be everywhere at once.

So culture and power is breaking down.

Perhaps it is time to have a data-based approach and ranking of universal values.

This will not work.

Because culture is a key arena for struggles and has provided dynamism and force to the most effective social movements; and one could argue is the most important area for work if we are to really embed and sustain transformative practices in our communities and states over the long-term.

We are fast approaching foregoing the unrealistic concern of respecting different cultures with their moral diversity at any cost because of the economic exploitation globally enforced by imperialist and capitalist states that place profit over people.

We must start thinking of what a post-venture capitalism age of socio-technical innovation might look like, and how it could contribute to democratic renewal in different cultural contexts.

Digital rights are not only human rights, as we often hear in net freedom circles: digital rights are social rights.

Politics, or rather political parties, seem to have an inherent tendency to close in on themselves – maybe in search of traditional forms of certainty, and linked to this predictability and with it a controlling, monopolistic conception of agency.

Its back to I am alright Jack.

The Election of Donald Trump, the English referendum on in or out European Union are shining examples.Afficher l'image d'origine

Afficher l'image d'origineBoth driven by genuine and false concerns. Both altering millions of Europeans to the way Europe is run and to how the USA                                     might be run.

Both models of politics have been based on nation-specific political parties. Both with consensus-centred policies that have reproduced the crisis now faces in 2017 in the United states which will push Europe into a path that will lead to disintegration with each needing to take a new look at the current rules of engagement in international affairs.

Europe can only work if we all work for unity and commonality, and forget the rivalry between competences and institutions. Europeans want common decisions followed by swift and efficient implementation.

At the moment it is viewed as a cartel:

The Eurozone may be supremely powerful as an entity but where no one is in control.

The whole Euro currency project disempower almost every player that has anything to do with democratic legitimacy. It created a monetary union that was designed to fail and which guaranteed untold hardship for the peoples of Europe. ( see previous post)

The nation-state is dead and democracy in the EU has been replaced by a toxic algorithmic depoliticisation that, if it is not confronted, will lead to depression, disintegration and possibly war.

While politics (the ability to decide which things ought to be done) is confined to the level of the nation-state, power (the ability to get things done) has shifted to a supra-national level.

The concept of sovereignty doesn’t change, but the ways it is applied to multi-ethnic and multi-jurisdictional areas like Europe has to be rethought.

There is no point in a slew of treaties, organisations and agencies that form the scaffolding of the emerging global governance structure regulating and superintending everything from nuclear weapons to the fishing of halibut, and all of them embody election less intergovernmentalism.

What European citizens need much more is that someone governs. That someone responds to the challenges of our time.

The Council is the heart of the problem.

The Council operates as a senate-like legislative chamber, yet there are no elections to this body. It is as if you were permitted to vote for your local MP, but there were never any general elections.

Unless institutional bodies can be censured or dismissed as a body by one common parliament, you don’t have sovereign democracy. So that should be the objective in Europe.

The sovereignty of parliaments has been dissolved by the Eurozone and the Eurogroup; the capacity to fulfil one’s mandate at the level of the nation-state has been eradicated and therefore any manifestos addressed to citizens of a particular member state become theoretical exercises.

If we want a Commission that responds to the needs of the real world, we should encourage Commissioners to seek the necessary rendez-vous with democracy.

But a vision alone will not suffice.Afficher l'image d'origine

(Each is a famous European then whose reach extended much further than their time or their geography, and helped to shape the world we live in today.)

The European Union was never meant to be the beginning of a republic or a democracy where ‘we, the people of Europe’ rule the roost.

When democracy produces what the establishment likes to hear then democracy is not a threat, but when it produces anti-establishment forces and demands, that’s when democracy becomes a threat.

The left has for decades, perhaps hundreds of years, argued that one day, global democracy would be achieved, but until now this has always been something for the far-off future, an abstract dream.

In the era of globalisation, the steady removal of decision-making from democratic chambers by EU elites is serving as a blueprint for post-democratic governance around the world.

The question is how can we harness the discontent it is creating?

Gone is the elites view that elections cannot be allowed to change established economic policy. In other words, that democracy is fine as long as it does not threaten to change anything!

The network of post-democratic intergovernmental structures must be replaced with true global democracy.

If not achieved we will have disintegration and a bleak future.

The central question of the debate will be how to share power, build alliances and establish not only a genuine dialogue, but an equitable distribution of responsibilities between the State, market and ‘community’ at the local, national and European level.

Most of all, at a time when the world seem beset by multiple crises and the disturbing rise of reactionary forces, it seems apt to remember what Antonio Gramsci once wrote: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new is yet to be born. And in the interregnum, a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

How ultimately can social movements assert their own power through cultural forms to reject the dangerous symptoms of morbidity and bring the new into being?

What role has the technology industry played in reinforcing power or confronting power?

How has the concentrated power in the ‘Silicon Valleys’ of the world used cultural exchange and shaped culture to further increase their power – and the power of other elites?

How can we build a culture that reinforces values of the commons, solidarity, and harmony with nature?

With what can we replace the legal, political and international processes that have facilitated this power grab. Rather than an ideology that has been designed to benefit certain interests.

Cultural hegemony has also sustained powerful structures from the military through to the banking sector. However, power only becomes hegemonic when it is reinforced continuously through cultural processes that make the exercise of power seem ‘natural’ and irreversible.

The idea you can have the Single Market without political union clashes with the political reality that the only way to have free trade these days is by having common legislation on patents, industry standards, competition rules etc.

Now is the time to begin discussing what global democracy would look like concretely and to start to build it. The network of post-democratic intergovernmental structures must be replaced with true global democracy.

We could start with the United Nations. It has more than 30 affiliated organizations — known as programs, funds, and specialized agencies — with their own membership, leadership, and budget processes. (see previous posts)Afficher l'image d'origine

After World War II, the most powerful governments created the UN Security Council with special seats for themselves.

The option is to rebuild the UN system, giving economic, environmental, and social decision-making the same legal mandatory status as decision-making in the Security Council, so that multilateralism could govern globalisation;

The innovations, enhanced by the new information and communication technologies, of the new movements (culturally rooted in the 1960s’ break of the historic bond between knowledge and authority), has been an ability, creatively to deal with uncertainty, to let go of control without losing the possibility of collaborative agency on the basis of shared principles and a broadly agreed purpose.

It does not matter how wealthy, successful, or famous one has been on earth.  All the money and prestige in the world will be useless on your departure.

Merry Christmas.

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT THE FUTURE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION.

27 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in England EU Referendum IN or Out., European Commission., European Union., Politics., Unanswered Questions.

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Community cohesion, European leaders, European Union

 

( A seven Minute read)

The Post aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the context of the European Union in the 21st century. 

Instead of a core group of like-minded countries coming together to embrace closer integration, one country is pulling way, opening the door for others to do the same. 

The question is whether the U.K. would remain sanguine about a more tightly integrated EU once it became a reality or see it as a threat.

Afficher l'image d'origine

The question of the aims, depth and institutional implications of the integration process has become far more pressing now that England has vote to leave.

Nobody would seriously argue that the EU doesn’t need to evolve in order to survive, but Europe is again inching toward the two-speed reality.Afficher l'image d'origineWe all know that Artificial Intelligence, Climate Change, Current Wars, along with a host of other Scientific advancements are not only changing the World but the way we live.

This crisis has also created an opportunity to re-examine the foundations of the European economic and social model and to develop them further. Patching and mending only makes the situation worse.

The crisis gives us the opportunity to rethink the European Union for the 21st century. If the Union fails, Europe will soon be reduced to a shadow of its former historical self.

The current debate about the future of Europe and the European Union has revealed a conflict of interpretation.

It suffers from a lack of creativity. For the most part it is characterized by generalized aspirations – “more Europe”, “genuine EMU” – which are too abstract to contribute usefully to an informed argument about the future direction of the EU.

While there is  a “perfectly credible” case for a second EU referendum, (if the British people decide that, having seen what it means, the pain gain cost-benefit analysis doesn’t stack up) it appears that the EU is making  no attempt to offer Reforms that would reverse the English electrical decision.   “There is no idea what Brexit really means,” The vote to withdraw is not irrevocable.

It must base its offer to England on an inclusive and positive vision of the UK’s role in a reformed EU.

Perhaps it is because the UK now accounts for less than 1 per cent of the world’s population and less than 3 per cent of global income (GDP). This is no time to revert to Little England and I have not heard to date any good alternatives to membership.

One way or the other just what is the future of the European Union?

Constructive engagement is vital when Europe confronts threats from Islamist extremism, migration, Russian aggrandisement and climate change. These can only be tackled collectively .

The fundamental question is whether Brexit will strengthen the integration among the remaining 27 members or throw the EU into a kind of paralysis wondering what has gone wrong and motivated Britain to leave.

If an unreformed Europe, threatened by social decline, continues along its present path, it risks becoming an elite project that benefits only a minority at the expense of the majority.

It needs effective action, but also truly democratic. It must chart a course for a European Union built on democracy, solidarity and justice.

Many people feel that they have little or no influence on the conditions that govern European policy-making. Participation in the last European elections fell to 43% of eligible voters. But the seemingly general disinterest in Europe only reflects the lack of confidence that Europe’s citizens have in the power of the European Parliament to change things.

Now there is a young generation growing up in Europe without prospects, for whom the European promise has not been redeemed, and who are losing faith in a European solution to the crisis. Also many people no longer realize what they owe to peace in Europe, the common market and open borders.

The EU today is no longer synonymous with growing prosperity, rising incomes, more jobs and greater security. In the short-term the drift towards break-up must be halted, because it is leading us in the wrong direction and making long-term solutions impossible.

When contemplating the future process of integration we must be prepared to jettison prejudices and reservations, but also any harmonistic illusions.

For me the Future of the EU is about is all about shaping perceptions.

When you get right down to it, the European Union is simply the system we’ve built to agree how to handle issues that affect us all.

The EU is far from perfect, but if it needs fixing, it should be fixed, not dismantled.

As troubled as Europe is, reform is an ongoing process, not a one-off event.

Logically it is not difficult to grasp that as industrialization fades away and globalization crowds out the nation state, the political engineering to frame industrialization loses its luster. Nowadays the nation-state is squeezed between on the one hand globalization and on the other hand people’s wish to be closer to the decision-making of relevance of their daily life such as the environment, education, health.

The emphasis must be to move away from Independent economic growth, individual cultural identity, to a shared Union.  Solidarity, benevolence, and cohesion are still there but if Union shows any weakness in its forthcoming Brexit negotiations we will see a knock on effects.

This is, however, only the tip of the iceberg.

Below lurks the challenge of living up to its fundamental values confronted with the combination of demography, migrants/refugees, search for an economic and a social model that serves all.

The key invention of pooling sovereignty has weathered the test of time, but most of the remaining principles need retooling or to be replaced by new principles intercepting changes and new trends.

None of this can be achieved without a major shift to transparency whether England leaves or stays. It can only be achieved with reform. With a new model — commitment to the goal of ‘an ever closer union among the people’s of Europe’.

It does not necessarily imply the disappearance of nation-states only their status and influence will be curbed and power transferred either ‘upwards’ to a changed EU or ‘downwards’ to regions or other local communities.

A multilayered political system will emerge.

Either you are member of the EU, committed to solidarity, coherence, common decision-making, and common policies or you are not.

It must link innovation, qualitative growth and less use of resources to make the EU more competitive by tapping into the vast global market for new industries reaping the benefit of spinoffs, and delivering a better environment for citizens.

It must find a way for the Euro to reflect the individuality economies of its members.

Unless this is done the risk that the system cracks are high and the responsibility for letting this happen rests with Europe and the US. Unless the US and Europe can find common ground the prospect of chaos and infighting is too high for comfort.

The partnership albeit still existing at least on paper has slipped down the list of priorities with the Election of Mr D Trump.

The disturbing factor is the absence of confronting the issues among European politicians and Europeans buying into populism.

EU membership needs to take account of the changing geopolitical environment, the new and growing threats to all EU Member States.

North Africa poses a potential problem with its high population combined with low growth per capita and behind the curtain millions of people from countries south of Sahara look to Europe as the savior.

The prospect of seeing EU external border extended to Syria and Iran with the threat of Turkey opens its european gates to immigrants if it is going to be a member is produces nervousness among Europeans.

It must offer the Uk some key reforms in return for a rerun of the recent referendum.

A vote to remain in the EU, on the back of the renegotiation, could thus allow the UK to take the lead in arguing for a more flexible, dynamic and multi-layered EU in which all Member States, not just the UK would have an interest.

It must create more with less, deliver greater value with less input, using resources in a sustainable way, while minimizing waste and environmental impact. For this strategy, protection of the environment and resource efficiency is vital to its continuation.

It must still works as a problem grinder when a member state tables a problem asking for help. But with one proviso: to share benefits and burdens and not just scraping a lot of money together irrespective of repercussions on the EU or other member states.

Freedom and self-determination will only be possible in the future if these countries and their citizens are prepared to accept a greater degree of responsibility for each other than in the past. If they can be persuaded of this, then the European idea can regain its appeal for future generations and become the foundation on which to build a new, united Europe for the 21st century.

It must create a sufficiently strong increase in living standards to compensate for loss of cultural identity.

Things are no longer what they used to be. If members do not feel committed to a common course they will consider withdrawal.

To do so, the European Parliament should be made more representative, but by increasing the role of citizens and national parliamentarians in the EU structures the EU can be made more open to bottom-up influence.

Multiple levels of engagement should be created so as to give citizens the maximum capability to engage with the EU’s structures. Such a structure would not be perfect. No democratic structure is. But it remains the best way of creating a more democratic European Union.

These problems must be tackled alongside attempts to stabilise economic growth. This can only be done by political leaders genuinely reforming.

The euro zone will not be immune from England’s exit shock and other members, goaded by a belligerent far right, may seek to trigger exit votes. Tensions appear to be spreading throughout Europe. We see far-right movements in countries like Italy, France, Austria and Germany, and worrying signs of racially driven attacks.

In today’s globalized world, where emerging nations such as India, China, Brazil and others are getting ready to shape the political, economic and social destinies of our planet alongside the USA, and to some extent in competition with it, the nations of Europe, which are very small by comparison, can only safeguard their political self-determination, their prosperity and their social achievements by joining forces and standing together on all the key issues. That will require a new step towards European unification, and a strengthening of the capacity of the European Union and its members to take effective action at every level.

Disengagement turned into anger.

For years the bloc has lurched from one crisis to the next, promising time and again to heed the growing mistrust of its 500 million citizens, only to return to the business of internal squabbling as another emergency emerges on the continent.

If the EU is truly a democracy then the best way of closing the gap between citizens and institutions is to empower the people.

To the many of whom see the bloc less as a utopian project and more as a means to an end.

The EU is not going away, however it is time to – Reform or die!Afficher l'image d'origine

There are now 751 MEPs in the European Parliament. 

The European Parliament’s budget for 2015 is €1.795 billion. The general breakdown is:
34% – staff, interpretation and translation costs
23% – MEPs’ expenses covering salaries, travel, offices and staff
12% – buildings
25% – information policy, IT, telecommunications
6% – political group activities

The EU’s national governments unanimously decided in 1992 to fix permanently the seat of the EU institutions. The official seat and venue for most of the plenary sessions is Strasbourg, Parliamentary Committees and Political Group meetings are held in Brussels and administrative staff are based in Luxembourg. Any change to this current system would need to be part of a new treaty and unanimously agreed by all Member States.

Here is the first reform;

Stop ripping off the taxpayer, with the  EU Parliament ‘travelling circus’.  It’s an outright waste of money, unjustifiable to the European taxpayer, and its wrong.

Between 3,000 and 4,000 people, among them roughly 800 MEPs, their assistants, employees and interpreters move 400 kilometres from Brussels to Strasbourg. Their workspaces are empty for 317 days per year.

It costs taxpayers an estimated €200 million per year.

Just send the bill to M Hollande who can pass it on to the French taxpayer, annually and inflation adjusted. Everyone in France will then be less unhappy about this charade.

An After thought:

Coming up with a unified foreign policy is perhaps the E.U’s greatest challenge of all for its future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS: WHY IS THE WORLD IN SUCH A MESS.

21 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Humanity., Modern Day Democracy., Sustaniability, The Future, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations., World Politics

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Capitalism, Capitalism and Greed, Community cohesion, Distribution of wealth, FOUNDATIONS /FORUM THINK TANKS, High - Frequency Trading, Inequility, Sovereign wealth fund, The Future of Mankind

I AM SURE LIKE ME YOU CAN RATTLE OFF HUNDREDS OF REASONS.Afficher l'image d'origine

But the world is that what humans have made out of it.

Five centuries of European colonialism and global culture-trashing, and the remaking of the world in the economic interests of competing empires, cannot be undone by a single institution and a cluster of lofty ideals.

The world, as it now exists, was largely shaped by the colonial powers, which divided the world among themselves, carving out states without any consideration for existing ethnic, religious or cultural realities.

And after the colonial era collapsed, these carved-out political entities, defining swatches of territory without any history of national identity, suddenly became the Third World and floundered in disarray.

It was inevitable that to keep these artificial countries alive, and avoid their disintegration, strongmen would be needed to cover the void left by the colonial powers. The rules of democracy were used only to reach power, with very few exceptions.

Values and ideas which were considered universal, such as cooperation, mutual aid, international social justice and peace as an encompassing paradigm are also becoming irrelevant.

Whatever noble attempts at eliminating war the powers that be made in the wake of World War II — Europe’s near self-annihilation — didn’t cut nearly deep enough.

These attempts didn’t set about undoing five centuries of colonial conquest and genocide. They didn’t cut deeper than national interest. If something grows too big, then it destroys itself from the inside.

The existing problem with the EU as shown by the recent English Referendum. Attempts to create regional or international alliances to bring stability have always been stymied by national interests.

But why is it like this? Why are humans using their capacity of higher intelligence so negatively?

Perhaps it is because the human race in its state of development and as a whole, is still nearer to the animal behavior than to advanced capabilities.

Just look at the choice of the next President of the USA governed by Money.

The problem with the United Nations is that it’s a unity of entities defined by their hatred of one another and committed to the perpetuation of “the scourge of war.

Is it because Capitalism has not taken care of our fellow human beings?

We have become consumer and have lost the instinct to take care of our fellow human beings?

There is one part of the population who have overweight and are sick because of too much food and an other part who are starving to death, often living one beside the other.

Just look at the current refugee crises.

Instead of setting up properly manned entry points we allow people smugglers to pray on the vulnerable, close borders, and watch people drowning.  A sure recipe for terrorism.

How can we find a way out of the mess?

Obviously religious and spiritual rules made up by humans doesn’t protect humanity from being distinguished.

Our ” way of life” our behavior, our goals and values are making is blind, are confusing us and driving us more and more into disease and depression.

There are people calling for a solution.

They are expecting help from their authorities, they expect to be healed by doctors or they ask for help and solutions from their government. What an illusion!

As long as they are dependent and not capable to look through the game of this world, they will not be able to make decisions for themselves. They will stay in dependency, manipulated from the more clever…

There’s always money to wage war and build weapons.

The recent Vote by 300 odd English MP to renew Trident.

The contractors are adept at playing the game. Jobs link arms with fear and patriotism and the next war is always inevitable. And it’s always necessary, because we’ve created a world of perpetual — and well-armed — instability.

While on the other hand we have out of date world organisations that beg for funds.

We won’t begin creating global peace until we learn how to bypass nationalism and the single, unacknowledged agreement binding nation-states to each other: the inevitability of war.

We are left with the two greatest  international enemies – the environment and the global economy – unfortunately we are so selfish – so naive – we do not want to face the reality of what we have done to the planet and each other in the name of progress. We are in denial. We are addicted to antisocial behavior – propelled by fear.

All our problems are as a result of our moral and ethical collapse and only finding and using a simple international moral and social code of love and cooperation will enable us to survive and save us from ourselves. We are not talking about religion here. Morality and ethics existed before religion and it is that version of them that we want and need.

We can accept that one can be proud of one’s country and support its activities and ideals without feeling the need to bomb or subvert the country next door. The only people who would seriously disagree are psychotics and psychopaths or their minions. For example, governments.

To allude to globalisation is idiotic without capping Greed and reversing Inequality.

We now live in a world of  technologically based society.  Information is power and money. This is why we are all being Googlefied, Twittered to feed the Internet of Everything.

We only can expect that help will show up, when we start to help ourselves!

As the human race keeps on making steps in technology & science, the Smart Phone is the Pandora box of the future. Re shaping the World.

Science has made huge steps, society has not.

Society is crucial to the well-being of all of us.We need to open the doors to new exciting boundaries.

Here are my top six.

Improve Education World wide. Eliminate Racism. Resource Efficiency.Eliminate Hunger.Environmental awareness.Overcome Religion.

To achieve any of the above needs funding by placing a world aid commission of 0.05% on all activities that are for profit sake only.

On all High frequency trading, on all Foreign Exchange transactions over 20,000 dollars, on all Sovereign wealth funds acquisitions. on all Lotto wins over a 1 million.

This would create a perpetual fund from Capitalism greed to address the world’s inequality.Afficher l'image d'origine

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS: Is François Hollande Re-Electable?

29 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in France., French Politics.

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Community cohesion, Distribution of wealth, French poltics, The French forthcoming Presidential Election 2017

(One minute read)

At the moment, it seems as if he had only one overriding goal:

The most unpopular French leader in postwar history.

To run for re-election in 2017 — despite everything.

He still has 18 months left to shed his reputation as the most hapless president of the Fifth Republic.Afficher l'image d'origine

When government spending accounts for nearly 60% of the economy, the private sector goes about business in a straight jacket faithfully following rules, regulations and edicts handed down from socialist leaning politicians and professional bureaucrats.

The idea that France will crawl out of its economic coma is sheer fantasy– a virtually impossible mission.

The elite of the bureaucrats and politicians, including Mr Hollande attended the Ecole Nationale d’Administration which manufactures a ruling class with a firm political grip on the country.

About 5 million Frenchmen are now out of work,a figure that would have been much higher had the French statistics office not revised its method of calculation.

His achievement that Le Pen has managed to turn the Front from a protest party into a real political force. Instead of opposing Le Pen’s nationalism, he has continued the policies of his predecessor, Sarkozy, a policy of empty promises and hollow words.

The Front National now has twice as many seats in the European Parliament as his own Socialist Party.

In a perfect world both Hollande and Cameron will be prosecuted by the ICC for destabilizing Libya and Syria, killing 300,000 Syrians, making millions refugees, and causing the terrible refugee/migrant crisis in Europe.

By tying his reelection bid so clearly to the unemployment rate, which has risen almost uninterrupted for the past 33 months, Hollande has given himself an exit.

HERE ARE A FEW HARD FACTS WHY FRANCE IS IN SUCH A MESS.

Every year thousands of foreigners are tempted to set up a business in France. Unfortunately, what were dreams often turn into nightmares and the number of foreigners who have succeeded in business is remarkably low.

Even for the French, setting up a business is renowned to be incredibly tough.

Compared to the U.K. and the U.S. there is an enormous amount of complicated paperwork, not just to set up the company, but also to run it afterwards, never mind to close it.

The only solution is to “waste” money on lawyers and accountants in the hope that they do a good job, or do the best you can yourself.

Apart from the natural drawbacks of cultural and language differences, foreigners have an enormous disadvantage when it comes to the limited extent of their contacts:

French business thrives on personal contacts. “Most deals are done as a result of friendship rather than the quality or price of a product.”

Unfortunately, foreigners are unlikely to have networks here, so unless you have the means to recruit someone with hundreds of pals in high up places you may find it very difficult to expand the scope of your business beyond the Anglophone community.

Something else to bear in mind is that successful businessmen in France are regarded by the public with a mixture of awe, jealousy and suspicion.

This might explain why France is so short of people raring to create their own companies and so full of people dying to get careers in the civil service.

Unfortunately it also means that as an employer you’re never right. Employees who are sacked are always right, as is the “fisc” (or tax office).

If your company eventually fails, you may well end up being responsible for the liabilities, even though the structure of the company appeared to offer “limited liability.”

In spite of all this, LIVING IN FRANCE unearthed a few survivors.

“I think it’s extremely important to know French people, to have French friends who can help you to approach the system with the right attitude.” It is all about understanding the system, trying to cooperate with the authorities and filling out the forms correctly.

In France paperwork is much more important THAN EARNING A LIVING.

Without serious labor reforms and easier entry into the marketplace by French entrepreneurs and policies that make it better for them to be in France and not emigrate elsewhere for better business tax climate, he is wasting his time and the French public’s as well.

I would describe him as tactician president so well suited for internal party politics and so inadequate as a leader will avoid any meaningful reform and claim that success as his own.

He has become a joke.

He keeps making promises which have no chance of ever materializing, refuses to see reality even when it hits him in the face and his administration is the most incompetent since World War II. Piketty, the famous economist, is so disgusted with him (the way we all are here in France) that he turned down the Legion of Honor.

Pathetic president, government. The country slides further towards Greece.

France needs a President without tunnel vision.

Hell will freeze over before the French established order cedes real support to its home-grown, fledgling commercial talent/wealth creators. That’s why most leave.

Tow the line i.e. ‘do as you’re told and work for the government (social elite), or we’ll have ya’ is the French way of things. Great, if you’re one of them.

France tolerates no-one that sits outside the narrow confines of centrist power. No Second Chamber, no Religion, increasingly no EU and definitively not the lowest of the low, some maverick start up businessman with big ideas.

The climate in France is revolutionary – at least according to commentators in parts of the French media.Afficher l'image d'origine

Polls show that there is now a general “ras l’bol” (fed-upness) in France with successive governments’ inability to solve France’s massive problems.

A beautiful country where everything is Interdire ( Prohibited)

France won’t be saved by bureaucracy nor by Le Pen (The Front National created by Jean-Marie Le Pen), which used Vichy legislation as a blueprint for its own anti-immigration programme.

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S : WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

28 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in European Union., Humanity., Life., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Community cohesion, European identities., European leaders, European Union, Identity, The Future of Mankind, World aid commission

 

( Five minute read:)

How often have you heard this question.

It is mostly posed with a form of some aggression.

Not so here.

SO I SUPPOSE THE BEST PLACE TO START WITH THIS POST IS WITH WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, AS YOU LIKE IT.

“ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE, AND ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN MERELY PLAYERS; THEY HAVE THEIR EXITS AND THEIR ENTRANCES, AND ONE MAN IN HIS TIME PLAYS MANY PARTS.”

We all have roles to play in our lives and these change as we move through it.

Do you find yourself thrashing against the tide of human indifference and selfishness? Are you oppressed by the sense that while you care, others don’t?

That, because of humankind’s callousness, civilisation and the rest of life on Earth are basically stuffed?

Many of those who dominate public life have a peculiar fixation on fame, money and power. Their extreme self-centeredness places them in a small minority, but, because we see them everywhere, we assume that they are representative of humanity.

“It’s all about political opportunism and humanitarian posturing,”Afficher l'image d'origine

With the best will in the world it is unlikely that you will turn out as an adult with no unhelpful of unintended modifications – or what is called “conditioning”.

The true YOU is the one that finds life fulfilling in a deep sense rather than theoretically good on a purely intellectual level.

The personality is not YOU, you have a personality, so if you want your “self” to be aware of itself, you will have a long wait!

However, you, as an independent observer of your own internal processes, can become aware of what your personality is up to, how it is behaving and the impact on yourself and others.

As Fritz Perls said:

“Truth can be tolerated only if you discover it yourself because then, the pride of discovery makes the truth palatable.”

These days with technologies we hardly understand where we going never mind how we are.

It’s the culture.

Technology isn’t a section in the newspaper any more.

I think people are tired of complexity and they’re hungering for clarity, a simpler time.

The more we do things, the more they become a habit and the more that we think in the same way, the more these patterns of thought and behaviour become our identity.

The more that we depend on the masks and the safer that we feel as a result of wearing them, the greater the risk and uncertainty we feel of taking off our mask and interacting openly, honestly and authentically.

With the massive economic and cultural transformation driven by Silicon Valley are we no longer in control of who we are?

mask masks incertitude life

However if the personality is our sense of identity, but is not us, then who are we?

Our personality is like a piece of armour which is at the same time our greatest shield and also potentially our greatest prison. It enables us to deal with the outside world, but it can also insulate us from it – and from other people.

We are also not our personality, which has in large part been forged as a result of the experiences of surviving and protecting ourselves in the real world.

Take for instance, Politicians. given their image-conscious online life in the public eye  .

Most millennials still worry about attaching themselves with a click to the wrong clique or hashtag:

“It heightens the level of uncertainty, anxiety and risk aversion, to know that you’re only a bad day and half a dozen tweets from being fired.”

Smart phones are dominating our sense of identity and we will if not careful end up feeling lost when they end.

You need to find an internal source for our identity, not an external one.

The old verities of who you are now seem quaint, but many millennials are now paralyzed by all their choices.

There was a time that we understood that not everyone was destined for greatness.

If you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll lose out to those guys who can wire computers to make bets on Wall Street faster than the next guy to become instant multimillionaires.

Or losers who have soured our sturdy and spiritual DNA with too much food, too much greed, too much narcissism, too many lies, too many spies, too many fat-cat bonuses, too many cat videos on the evening news, too many Buzzfeed listicles like “33 Photos Of Corgi Butts,” and too much mindless and malevolent online chatter?

Our quiet traditional virtues bow to our noisy visceral divisions, while churning technology is swiftly remolding the national character in ways that are still a blur.

Boldness is often chased away by distraction, confusion, hesitation and fragmentation. Or are we forever smaller, stingier, dumber, less ambitious and more cynical?

Have we lost control of our not-so-manifest destiny?

Misanthropy grants a free pass to the grasping, power-mad minority who tend to dominate our political systems. If only we knew how unusual they are, we might be more inclined to shun them and seek better leaders. It contributes to the real danger we confront: not a general selfishness, but a general passivity.

We’re a little bit scared of our own shadow. And, sadly, we see ourselves as a people who can never understand one another. We’ve given up on the notion that we can cohere, by holding together people with deep differences.

We’ve broken Iraq, liberating it to be a draconian state-run on Sharia law, full of America/ English-hating jihadists who were too brutal even for Al Qaeda.

We have to re earn greatness.

But that’s going to be hard to restore in the world today.

Young people are more optimistic than their rueful elders, especially those in the technology world. They think of themselves as global citizens but are more interested in this moments of crazy opportunity.

With awareness comes freedom.

As you become aware of your fixed attitudes, beliefs and values that may no longer be useful to you and you begin to understand that there were good reasons for you to have adopted them, you can begin to see that it is neither good nor bad that this is the way life is – and the way that you are – it is just a natural consequence of living the human experience.

The authentic self is the true self underneath all the conditioning that has been acquired through life’s experiences.

Being in touch with our true selves is about getting real, not living in a fantasy of who we could or should be, but living with what is.

Life has become more complex but we hardly ever notice it because technology has made complexity simpler than ever. Who you are and where you are is tracked and sold on to ever is interested. The Private who is dead and gone.

The only knowledge we need to have is the knowledge of where to find stuff.

Humans today are like most smartphones and tablets – their ability to solve problems depends not on the knowledge they can store but on their capacity to connect to a place where they can retrieve the answer to find a solution.

Technology will continue to evolve and the gap between what can be solved with and without it will only increase. That is, we will become more and more dependent of technology and the only intellectual disadvantage will be the inability (or unwillingness) to learn to use it.

One could also imagine that this IT-overload may prove too much for some — In short, people who are able to keep up with technology will outsmart those who don’t (even more than they do now).

So perhaps there is no need to know how you are but more importantly where you are.

Too much Google, too much Face Book, Twitter, clicking from one site to another, or for that matter reading with out pause, constitutes a kind of scattering, a distraction, an agitation of the mind.

Our reliance on Google Search, is resulting in unrealistic self-confidence in our cognitive abilities.

That’s right, we are all plagiarising the internet without even realising it.

You might think that all is this is just hog wash but in a few hundred years from now most of us will not know the meaning of the word where and if we don’t know where we are from there is little chance of knowing who you are.

If we look at western Europe it appeared that we are not building anything, but merely trying to hang on to something we have inherited, but don’t necessarily value.Afficher l'image d'origine

With the immigration and refugee influx this will have to change.

What is the narrative that drives what we are building in Europe… and who is creating that narrative?  Not us.

We have derived a narrative from a century of conflict, and the received narrative is shaped around not fighting with each other. Fully understandable. But, for my children’s generation the wars of the twentieth century are as remote as the Battles of Agincourt or Waterloo.

This is why I wonder if Europe needs a new driving narrative that helps us consciously shape who and what we want Europe to become.

The old narrative of solidarity no longer applies.

We have Razor Wire replacing open frontiers. The Dutch reverting to extracting gold fillings and the Belgians wanting concentration Camps in Greece never mind what ‘solidarity’ means to young unemployed people in Greece or Spain.

So, the questions remain.

Who do we think we are and what do we want Europe to become? And who will shape the narrative for a new generation?

Billions of decent people tut and shake their heads as the world burns, immobilised by the conviction that no one else cares.

Attitudes of fear and paranoia adopted by many have led to an increasingly hostile global environment.

Cherished and treasured human values are trampled beneath a host of vitriolic “we’re better than you” convictions. Our world is sick, however, facing political and environmental disaster on an unprecedented scale.

Many of the problems plaguing us stem directly from deeply-held convictions of social differentiation and exclusion, rooted in philosophies that justify heinous acts in the service of a ‘greater good’. We are what we do. We have to start doing better.

We have to start somewhere. Why not a World Aid Commission Of 0.05%. ( see previous Post.)

In this century we have had only three brief moments when a majority of us said they were satisfied with the way things were going:

Have a go at naming them.

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All comments and contributions much appreciated

  • THE BEADY EYE’S OPEN LETTER TO THE CHAIRMAN OF THE TOP TEN TECH COMPANIES. April 20, 2018
  • THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: DEMOCRACY IS NO LONGER ABOUT THE RIGHT VS THE LEFT ITS ABOUT THE SANE VS THE MINDLESS. April 17, 2018
  • THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: THE WORLD IS SICK, SICK AND GETTING SICKER. April 12, 2018
  • THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: IT’S TIME TO ESTABLISH A GLOBAL REGISTRATION FOR ALGORITHMS April 7, 2018
  • THE BEADY EYE’S: LETTER FROM THE OCEANS OF THE WORLDS TO ALL THOSE ON LAND. April 5, 2018

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