The Covid-19 doesn’t just call our bluff it is questing the way we allow our society to be run.
It is bringing into sharp relief what some of us have always known to be true. Our current way of living must end.
Capitalism and the culture of hierarchy that props it up is now extremely screwed up.
The story of Capitalism up to now has been selling your labour so you don’t end up on the streets.
We should not behave to exist this way.
We come into this world kicking and screaming for our own needs while our birth’s, and our eventual departure’s, have all been turned into a product by capitalism to generate profit. We leave silent.
We live in a world where nearly everything has some kind of cost and the increased workforce automation is suggesting that things will keep getting worse.
What is considered valuable by man or the people of this world are of little or no value when one is confronted by a virus (which unfortunately some of us are witnessing this very minute) that does not discriminate any grounds.
Money, wealth, riches, gold, property, power and so on are either transitory, fading or can be destroyed in the blink of an eye and are of no value in the long term.
In the past few years, the money markets have fallen in a heap with the global financial crisis and the value of money becoming very shaky. The same can be said of shares, property and other investments. And this is nothing new for the economic cycle goes through boom and bust every seven to ten years making fortunes at one time and destroying them at other times.
However, men believe that wealth gives you the power to be able to rise above the problems and issues of the world.
How wrong he is.
The coronavirus is not the only virus we have to confront we also have to confront capitalism and the world that sustains it.
Climate Change was not enough to make the world pause.
The challenge man faces is that we think only of the here and now.
We now have a moment to consider what a rapid response to the climate emergency would look like – how we build a society that completely transforms our social order towards something that is in equilibrium with the biosphere and gives to each according to their needs.
But will more sustainable capitalism emerge from Covid-19 highly unlikely as the protection of private interest over public interest remains the same?
What the coronavirus has and is showing is that our cheapskate governments can provide far more in social programmes than they have.
While none of us can predict the future let’s hope that this time the penny drops.
The risks of Covid – 19 are now but the risks of climate change with the clock ticking needs us to wake up before the alarm goes off.
It’s not science, not protest, that will save the planet. Science alerted us to global warming but understand the nature of the world is crucial to dealing with it.
Everything has a function and our function is to fit into our world and not divorce ourselves from nature.
With the age of technology and its Algorithms working themselves into everything relentless, enabling profits to disappear far from the trickle-down effect the coronavirus is revealing heroes and villains across the world.
The markets might be paralysed with numerous industries entering a state of suspended animation the environment is getting a recovery period.
Covid -19 is showing us that on the horizon, capitalism in its current form threatens value. It is built on the premise of instant gratification.
Many businesses today are aware of this failing in mankind and play to it to great effect encouraging us to insure ourselves against the cost of living and dying but we are now trading for time and for eternity.
The corona-virus is certainly a much greater reward than the fleeting pleasures of this life.
The new WFH world that emerges from this will be intriguing – Universal Basic Income.
Should we worry about the rise of artificial intelligence or celebrate it?
Both is the answer.
We all inhabit this new regime of digital data but we don’t all inhabit it in the same way and the pursuit of rapid growth by way of technology won’t solve the huge challenges we face.
A more honest, humane approach is the answer.
If you believe the hype, technology is going to help us end global poverty, that’s easier said than done in a world where most product innovations are geared toward the rich.
The prospect of billions rising up from poverty with nothing more than gadgets is indeed a fanciful notion. This is because poverty is entirely a man-made creation. Capitalism is driven by greed, generating a power structure, which moves wealth disproportionately into the hands of the few.
But why are our societies becoming increasingly unequal, and what can we (or should we) do about it?
Forget where science ends and ideology begins it is the mechanisms behind the persistence of poverty that counts.
Technology cannot solve the problem of economic disparity.
We often believe that our digital decision-making tools, like algorithms or artificial intelligence or integrated databases, are more objective and more neutral than human beings.
Totally false.
We are building not just ill-conceived mathematical models now micromanage the economy, from advertising to prisons but also hiding the profit of multinational companies in the cloud.
We are building: A DIGITAL POOR HOUSE.
Even though we live in a hyperconnected world we are watching inequality exploding as we walk past people on the street looking at our smartphones.
The spreading of these kinds of systems is now way beyond just the public service systems that they’re in now. For example, high-frequency trading algorithms that run 99.9% of the world stock exchanges are plundering not just finite resources they are jeopardising our peaceful existence.
Feel free to ignore the weight of the evidence that is now becoming crystal-clear, so stark, that the trade-off of the growth of the economy and the survival of the planet are now intertwined. So we have to go into a mode where we are first educating the people about what’s causing this inequality and acknowledging that technology is part of that cost, and then society has to decide how to proceed.
Deep cultural and political changes are needed in order to think through these technologies in order to get to better systems.
This should apply to all technology – nanotechnology, biotech.
I also really believe we need to stop using these systems to avoid some of the most pressing moral and political dilemmas of our time, which is not just poverty but racism.
Unfortunately, we have Profit-seeking Algorithms that have no moral or ethical bases.
Algorithms — a set of steps computers follow to accomplish a task — are used in our daily digital lives to do everything from making airline reservations to searching the web. They are also increasingly being used in public services, such as systems that decide which homeless person gets housing.
AI with faceless algorithms is worsening the effects and concentrating the power of the wealthy. They are likely to dramatically increase income disparity, perhaps more so than other technologies that have come about recently.
Digital innovation in the form of profit-seeking algorithms that it’s not just going to be benefitting a small fraction of the world’s population, or just a few large corporations. is reinforcing, rather than improving, inequality.
Institutions have embraced digital technologies they are outsourcing the decision to a machine to cut costs avoiding the human costs. They say, “We have this incredible overwhelming need. We don’t have enough resources, so we have to use these systems to make these incredibly difficult decisions.”
If all the resources are automated, then who actually controls the automation?
Is it every one or is it a few select people?
My great fear with these systems is we’re actually using them as a kind of empathy override, meaning that we are struggling with questions that are almost impossible for human beings to make.
We’re smuggling moral and political assumptions into them about who should share in prosperity.
There’s already an expectation that people will be forced to trade one of their human rights, like their information or their privacy, for another human right.
The economic prosperity created by AI should be shared broadly, to benefit all of humanity otherwise they will lead to an even greater disparity between the wealthy and the rest of the world.
If AI takes away people’s jobs and only leaves wealth in the hands of those people owning the robots, then that’s going to exacerbate some trends that are already happening.
People now with “predictive data” have real concerns about informed consent. About how their data is being shared, whether it’s legal and whether it’s morally right.
Why?
Because it is impossible to work out why the algorithms had gone against them, or to find a human caseworker to override the decision.
How can we change the societal mindset that currently discourages a greater sharing of wealth? Or is that even a change we should consider?
We’re using these technologies to avoid important political decisions. Exacerbating the divides between the developed and developing world, and the haves and have nots in our society.
The change will only occur when policymakers and voters understand the true scale of the problem. This is hard when we live in an era that likes to celebrate digitisation — and where the elites are usually shielded from the consequences of those algorithms.
Restoring human dignity to its central place has the potential to set off a profound rethinking of economic priorities and the ways in which societies care for their members, particularly when they are in need. If enough of us want to change the status quo for good, then with our collective creativity, with our hunger to solve really hard problems, we will find technology an incredibly powerful tool in our arsenal.
Technology can move commodities (food, jobs, wealth) from areas of surplus supply to regions with under-served markets.
Technology can only help us if we chose to make the best use of it.
Computing has long been perceived to be a culture-free zone — this needs to change.
Today more people have access to a cell phone than a toilet.
I use that metaphor specifically because I think that these systems, although we talk about them often as disruptors, are really more intensifiers and amplifiers of processes that have been with us for a long time, at least since the 1800s.
At a time of unprecedented global challenges platforms like Google Facebook, Twitter and there like must be made to use the power of their platforms to stop the DIGITAL POOR HOUSE instead of hoarding profits with profit-seeking algorithms.
If not because bias has been a historical norm, it because us the users of your platform will develop self-defence.
So, next time if you think AI is not affecting you, take out your smartphone.
If Twitter’s not your choice of poison, maybe it’s Facebook or Instagram, or Snapchat or any of the myriad of social media apps out there they are all affecting your decisions and our lifestyles every day.
They are all tailored according to what we are likely to respond to. specifically designed to attract the attention of its members – and so inevitably to confirm them in their opinions and prejudices, with several extra bills to pay in order to remain a normal citizen.
Its a ‘mean’ not the ultimate solution.
AI has become so successful in determining our interests and serving us ads that the global digital ad industry has crossed trillions.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
These days in the higher ethylene of the political world it seems you must be an accomplished liar and not a far-seeing planner to be successful.
With the advent of social media people’s day-to-day exposure to political discussion and disagreement has increased dramatically.
However what is worrying is that technology in the form of social media, the smartphone is continuing to create a contemporary problem that large sections of the public want ‘democracy’ but without the ‘politics.
As a result, were are seeing fake news driving populist politics that has no longterm objectives.
There is nothing new about fake news it has been prevalent down the ages but the days when a lot of us believe that many of the major world events that are shaping our destinies occur because somebody or somebodies have planned them that way are all but disappeared.
However, with the media making very little effort to explain political decisions, rather than just jumping on any perceived gaffe or conflict ‘democracy’ remains an incredibly positive notion.
With the public no longer thinking about the world within the silos of government departments governments need to engage people in solutions rather than top-down ‘vote for us and we’ll provide the answers.
Younger people don’t just copy their parents’ tribal loyalties. Voting is more like shopping, with preferences changing on a quim of twitter on social media.
Unfortunately, our present-day political system has not yet caught up, it offers limited choice. What happens in between elections is for all attentive purposes driven by the smartphone that are monitored by unregulated algorithms owned by you know who.
What is been ignored is that this digital space in all its diversity represents a huge opportunity with the power to engage people in new ways. Online participation in local decision-making is one possibility. This would involve citizens outside election time-.
So we need to understand all the ways people behave and respond in the digital space and set clear and realistic goals for what they hope to accomplish.
However, people are now becoming slow and slower to engage with the internet due to the lack of security/ privacy/and a source of truth.
Why?
Because Capitalism is spending billion on digital marketing each year, and for good reason. Digital media has enormous power to reach and influence people. Over 2 billion people—about one-third of the global population—now access the Internet.
We all know if we are to avoid extinction due to climate change which poses real risks to our collective future we need a green energy transformation.
The problem is that behind a veneer of objectivity, Capitalism as always sees an opportunity to make a profit – Carbon Credits for instance, with more and more consumerism products being promoted as good for the environment
With all the political goodwill the transfer to low carbon emission can only be achieved by offering citizens a means to get involved other than protesting.
How can this be done?
We must allow people to exercise democratic control over their money, finance, working conditions and environment ie De-politicising decision-making by limiting capitalism’s worst failing- profit for profit sake.
To have authentic democracy!
Citizens must be afforded the opportunity to get involved not just politically, but financially by creating Green Energy European Bonds that cannot be traded.
These bonds will allow citizens to regain control over unaccountable ‘technocrats’, complicit politicians and shadowy institutions.
They can be sold like lotto tickets. Forging a common agenda.
Emancipating citizens from all levels of government from bureaucratic and corporate power. Allowing direct investment into shared, green prosperity.
Politics has never been popular and never will be:
The more disengaged, the less likely that political parties will deliver.
We’re able to measure things in a way that we’ve never been able to measure them before. So why not measure the wealth of a nation by the financial investment support it gets from its citizen’s. Rather than encompassing every possible thing that can go under the rubric of “green.
I suppose my goal here is to propose something vague enough that no one will object to it.
Have you wondered how you got to where you are today?
Greed.
Is technology taking control of our lives or our destiny?
Yes. We’ve ditched reality.
The very data on which we measure the economy is disconnected from
the reality, with political leaders using high soaring” words “which often
imbibe emptiness.
Communication and leadership are key elements in elections these days
but you can’t sell a bad product, can you?
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
These days we are allowing Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook do whatever the hell they want. The US sees them as winner-takes-all markets as the law of the capitalist jungle; the EU sees them as an intrinsic threat to consumers.
Because four companies dominate our daily lives unlike any other in human history: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. They have aggregated more economic value and influence than nearly any other commercial entity in history.
Because the concentration of wealth leads to concentration of power. Their massive size and unchecked power have and are throttling competitive markets and are keeping the economy from doing its job—namely, to promote a vibrant democracy.
Because all of them have managed to preserve their monopoly-like powers without heavy regulation.
Because they have effectively ripped the heart out of the journalism, publishing, music, and entertainment industries but, even worse, they are demolishing the ranks of both corporate middle-management and entry-level service jobs and crushed commercial real estate and retail shopping malls, all for the enrichment of a very few.
Because they’re tracking your movements — or, even better, getting you to track yourselves for them, whether it’s “checking in” on Facebook or leaving your cell phone switched on while you travel (and who doesn’t?).
Because as we have seen the harvesting of the personal data use for political purposes.
Because the amount of money they generate, and the volume of content they accumulate, most of it provided voluntarily by you, for free, is stupefying.
Because with the coming of 5G technology they will have too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy.
Because using black-box algorithms to surface content to users they will have control over the way we use the Internet.
Because they are exploiting their monopoly power to stifle competition; they are spreading fake news; their fantastically rich owners portray themselves as right-on yet go to a great deal of trouble to minimise their corporate tax bills; they are ripping the heart out of communities through the closure of brick-and-mortar retailers.
Because social media is an increasingly key part of how we communicate. Yet legally, nothing stops Facebook from simply banning users from its platform, for any reason it wishes.
Because we’re heading for an Orwellian nightmare the shape of which is just now becoming apparent with climate change is being turned into a product.
Because this isn’t just abstract concern about what could possibly happen in the future – market power of this magnitude isn’t unprecedented.
Because with a sprawling array of loosely related businesses under one roof they are becoming worldwide conglomerates.
Because no one or any company is now going to penetrate online shopping or the search market.
Google, Amazon, and Facebook are colossal companies. Together they make up almost 10% of the S&P 500. Together, they have a market capitalization of the GDP of France.
These are the 3rd-, 4th-, and 6th-largest companies on earth. Combined, they are worth over $2 trillion. And they’ve grown 470%, 175%, and 95% over the past five years.
Because they will take our choices away.
Because they’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else.
Because country and companies that dominate technology will gain more power with time and 5G technology, gene editing, nanotechnology, creating what only can be called a profitable circle of global oligopolies.
Because they will soon be introducing their own cyber currencies.
Because our existing computers can’t even scratch the surface of what quantum computers will be able to do via the cloud quantum computers will. Those who own this technology will make supremacy an arbitrary goal.
Such computing power will change the way we do business and the security we have in place to safeguard data, how we fight disease and invent new materials, and solve health and climate problems.
Just like humans, artificial intelligence machines powered by the insights from quantum commercialising technology computers that will learn from experience and self-correct.
They’ll be able to use quantum simulations to design entirely new molecules for use in medicine making it possible for chemists to determine viable drug options quicker. Instead of troubleshooting issues bit by bit as we do now with classical computers, they will allow for a person’s genes to be sequenced and analyzed much more rapidly tackling the entire problem at once.
How do they do it?
By creating what we now perceive to be free platforms run by algorithms.
( To Big Tech, you’re not the customer, you’re the product they’re selling to others:)
Google offers a vast bounty of free services in order to maximize its data collection and optimize its advertising capabilities. Similarly, Amazon is credibly accused of hurting suppliers, hurting competitors, and even hurting its own employees — but nobody can deny that it’s a cheap and convenient way to shop for a staggering array of things.
Amazon is keeping tabs on you, monitoring your purchases, pushing other products on you and, in the form of the hideous Alexa, listening in on you while you sleep. Throw in the electronic snooping of Facebook, Google and your iPhone.
We know the problems; they’re easy to diagnose, however shaping the solutions is going to be more difficult.
So what if anything can be achieved to restrain their coming power?
The difficulty lies in defining what the real harmful effect is of these companies and establishing a causal link between their creation, their products, behaviour, and trends such as populism, depression, and manipulation. The contribution to society of these companies’ products is not as black and white as some would like them to be.
We’re heading down an entirely new field of physics, and by its very nature, there will be discoveries, innovations and solutions we have never dreamed of yet.
However we’re living in a capitalists world we should be empowering people to choose where to sell their information, personal data so it would no longer be monopolised by the tech giants.
Competition authorities need to move beyond a reliance on prices towards an analysis of the impact of takeovers and mergers on societal welfare.
As we grapple with how best to protect ourselves against the risks of new, disruptive technologies, policymakers need to understand the roles that ethics and law can and should play.
If human rights are at risk, and existing law is found wanting, we may need new, legally enforceable rights and mechanisms to grapple with emerging technologies. Citizens should not need to rely on the “ethical conscience” of tech companies to know their fundamental rights are protected. Ethics are laudable—but sometimes they are not enough.
At their core, Google’s mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” and while Facebook’s goal was to “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together” are both truly admirable and few people would disagree with them but ethical promises made by tech companies are not good enough.
Instead of adding value to our societies, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Microsoft, Apple have sucked the data out of us.
They or at least their free platforms which have become essential to daily life should be regulated as public utilities.
Failing to do so risks a backlash which will be bad for everyone.
Why?
Because there is one indisputable fact.
In front of every great fortune lies a great crime, Immense wealth translates automatically into environmental impacts regardless of the intentions of those who possess it.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Google does the same by using algorithms to decide what comes up on an internet search. They hardly pay any taxes and their business practices and technology will help crush industries and companies left and right.
“platform utility.” A platform utility would be barred from owning any of the participants on the platform.
Most mainstream textbooks have the word “economics” in their title as if no differentiating adjective exists.
THE NASTY REALITY IS:
AS THE WORLD POPULATION GROWS IT WILL BE TO THE DETHRONEMENT OF THE PLANT AND TO THE SUSTAINABILITY OF ANY ECONOMIC SYSTEM WHETHER IT IS CAPITALIST OR OTHERWISE AS CAPITALISM HAS ALWAYS HAD A NEED FOR POVERTY TO KEEP COST DOWN.
However, through social media, the poor are no longer invisible and the consequences of this are now beginning to becoming evident.
It is a grim truism of modern life that everything from civil rights violations and health crises to environmental degradation and educational barriers are disproportionately suffered by the people least financially and socially equipped to deal with them.
Capitalism today still represented itself as freeing serfs, slaves, etc, with freedom becoming capitalism’s self-celebration, which it largely remains today.
Yet the reality of capitalism is different from its celebratory self-image.
IT IS NOW a form of algorithmic trading in which funds trade on the small fluctuations in asset prices without ever owning the assets, with us the powerhouse in the making of fortunes that put colossal resources in the hands of a relative few, while at the same time, see others without even the means to sustain themselves.
Combined the above with climate change and poverty and THE FORTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (AS IT HAS BEEN CHRISTENED BY THE ADVANCES IN TECHNOLOGICAL) IS CREATING A CAPITALIST WORLD THAT IS REMOVING IT FROM VIEW.
DRIVEN BY CONSUMPTION PRODUCING ALGORITHMS JUST FOR PROFIT FOR THE ONE PERCENTERS, WHILE OUR GOVERNMENTS ACT LIKE THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE TO GROWTH AT ALL COSTS.
Wherever you look you will see that enormous gap between rich and poor growing and this gap between rich and poor is now threatening to destroy us and the world we all live in.
To those who think capitalism and inequality need each other.
Capitalism requires inequality of wealth, runs this right-of-centre argument, to stimulate risk-taking and effort; governments trying to stem it with taxes on wealth, capital, inheritance and property kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
It took war and depression to arrest the inequality dynamic, along with the need to introduce high taxes on high incomes, especially unearned incomes, to sustain social peace.
Now the ineluctable process of blind capital multiplying faster in fewer hands is underway again and on a global scale with self-serving greed in the form of profit-seeking algorithms.
Anyone with the capacity to own in an era when the returns exceed those of wages and output will quickly become disproportionately and progressively richer- APPLE, MICROSOFT, E BAY, AMAZON- and when we buy their products online are in fact vote for them and their system.
The mass of employees are not free inside capitalist enterprises to participate in the decisions that affect their lives (e.g., what the enterprise will produce, what technology it will use, where production will occur, and what will be done with the profit workers’ efforts help to produce). In their exclusion from such decisions, modern capitalism’s employees resemble slaves and serfs.
So the speeding train of capitalism is “back on track,” resuming its rush toward stone walls of excess debt, stagnant mass incomes, capital relocating overseas, etc.
YOU CAN WATCH THIS PROCESS IN REAL TIME WITH BREXIT, OR AMERICA FIRST.
In Britain, it may be true that the top 1% pays a third of all income tax, but income tax constitutes only 25% of all tax revenue: 45% comes from VAT, excise duties and national insurance paid by the mass of the population.
As a result, the burden of paying for public goods such as education, health and housing is increasingly shouldered by average taxpayers, who don’t have the wherewithal to sustain them. Wealth inequality thus becomes a recipe for slowing, innovation-averse, rentier economies, tougher working conditions and degraded public services.
All in all, you could say that no real changes have been made in global capitalism OTHER THAN IT IS NOW RUN BY ANALYSING ALGORITHMS THAT RECOMMEND WHERE, WHEN AND HOW WITH TO SATISFY SHORT TERM PLEASURE.
UNFORTUNILTY it is simply depriving us and our children of fundamental rights of a decent & caring society, fearless & dignified living, by a deprivation of the material conditions for the reproduction of society, and a failure to develop the full capabilities of human beings.
OF COURSE, our collective sense of justice is outraged as we are witnessing in the recent Paris Riots, the Climate Change Conference in Poland sponsored by coal trying to set rules to govern pledges that will be broken as soon as the ink dries and the ongoing Brexit charade which has nothing to do with peoples wellbeing.
Where does all of this leave us other than with an ominous sense of impending implosion reverberates throughout the world with national politics and culture waning no one seems to know or care.
Our TV screens with Christmas coming we are bombarded with the worst images of Capitalism – advertisers promoting materialism, alongside appeals to donate money to save everything from children in Yemen too abandoned animals.
While it is heartbreaking the worst part is that our governments are complicit.
Despite the famine, despite the bombing of a busload of school kids in Yemen countrieslike the US, UK, France, and Canada are still supplying the Saudis with hundreds of billions of dollars in tanks and missiles.
However, it has little effect as we look on from a distance sitting at home before our own little stages our TV’s, our I Pads, our Smartphones, our courtyards of miracles where an image sweeps across the previous one without trace.
Everything is on a reduced scale, even emotions.
That’s the trouble with shadow political power structures. Their true shape and purpose stay hidden while they capture democracy.
From all this, we shall draw some conclusions, in the absence of any convincing certainties one has to pretend that we shall solve Climate Change (that is going to drive more inequality and eventually the extinction of our biodiversity, followed by us due to the lack of fresh water or clean air.) and currents world conflicts that are only the tip of the coming wars over diminishing natural resources.
What needs to happen?
Let’s put the plant first before space exploration, before material productivity consumption, before cultural identity, before consumerism, before America first, before Brexit isolation, before trade deals, before nuclear power, before religious beliefs, before skin colour, before short-term pleasure, before us.
Let’s go for a diverse economic system where toxic wealth inequalities are less indulged rather than a monopolised marketplace.
Let’s enshrine Water and Fresh air into all our actions.
Any of the above can now only be achieved by using the power of Social media which is being used in ways that shape politics, business, world culture, education, careers, innovation, and more.
THE PROBLEM WITH SOCIAL MEDIA THAT IS HAVING A REAL IMPACT ON SOCIETY IS THAT IT IS LEADERLESS.
On one hand, it generates insights, stimulates demand, and create targeted product offerings but when people are presented with the option of ‘liking’ a social cause, they use this to opt out of actually committing time and money.
Social sharing has encouraged people to use computers and mobile phones to express their concerns on social issues without actually having to engage actively with campaigns in real life.
On the other hand, it without social media, social, ethical, environmental and political ills would have minimal visibility.
Increased visibility of issues has shifted the balance of power from the hands of a few to the masses.
Capitalism understands the above more than our world organisation or governments.
Social networks feed off interactions among people, they become more powerful as they grow. Each person with marginal views can see that he’s not alone. And when these people find one another via social media, they can do things — create memes, publications and entire online worlds that bolster their worldview, and then break into the mainstream.
Social networks are helping to fundamentally rewire human society.” Because social media allows people to communicate with one another more freely, they are helping to create surprisingly influential social organizations among once-marginalized groups – Popularism- Short-term politics with no long-term aspirations promoting social ills.
Across the globe, mobile devices dominate in terms of total minutes spent online. This puts the means to connect anywhere, at any time on any device in everyone’s hands.
Their support is limited to pressing the ‘Like’ button or sharing content.
Is it not time that we demand that our internet platforms introduce a dislike button.
So far humans have had a monopoly on decision making but we are sleepwalking with Data Analyzing algorithms eroding our societies that have the sole purpose of predicting our next purchase or move.
Artificial intelligence in its current form is mostly harmless but that’s not going to last.
Fueled by powers of machine learning with no end in sight it is encroaching into to our homes without human examples or guidance, without any knowledge of the domain beyond basic rules of promoting profit.
WHAT IF ANYTHING CAN BE DONE?
We need to ensure that Ai Systems are provable safe and beneficial, and unbias regardless of how intelligent they become.
Imagine the havoc and harm they will inflict with greater power, scope and social reach.
When developers are at a loss to explain the behaviour of their creations we will then need Ai to explain to humans why they reached certain decisions, or what their conclusions actually mean.
At the moment we are seeing poorly thought out systems released into the world without any real ethical or safety standards. Governments and our out of date international world organisation have a role to play, by introducing and enforcing standards and regulations.
Changing present capitalist corporate culture won’t be easy, but it needs to start at the top.
Just look at biotechnology some research findings are too dangerous to share with the public.
It is time we all grew up and accept some responsibility for Artifical Intelligence impact on the world.
Why?
Because AI is poised to be one of the most daunting challenges our species have ever faced, decoupling us from human speed and timelines, operating beyond human levels of control and comprehension.
AT THE MOMENT IT IS RATHER THAN TURNING THE ATHOMISPHRIC DOWN IT IS CONTRIBUTING (IN MOST OF ITS FORM) TO TURN IT UP.
On a deeper level, the idea of self-referential feedback may be crucial not only in the evolution of life but for its origin as well.
It may even be that the algorithmic nature of cellular automata could be the key to removing a major barrier to explaining life’s origin — defining what life is, to begin with.
It’s pretty hard to explain the origin of something if you don’t know what it is.
When the environment changes, the rules for surviving may change as well. Life’s activity generates feedback that influences the rules of life.
You can’t blame scientists for conceiving of the universe in terms familiar from their everyday life. That’s just the way that thinking works, whether it’s about the laws of nature or anything else. And you have to admit that nowadays computers have invaded everyday life so thoroughly that it’s only natural for scientists to think about nature in a computational way.
If the world is a computer, life is an algorithm, so all algorithms and how they
work, and for what reasons, should be made public to ensure both social and
“environmental justice.”
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
Here we all are bombarded by false news, algorithms for profit, advertisements to consume more and more, living in economies that must grow in order to feed the stock exchange that is plundered by algorithms for profit.
And we ask why is it that the world cannot take climate change seriously.
BECAUSE IT IS TURNED INTO A COMMODITY – CARDON CREDITS.
Other than the worthless Paris Climate pledges that are not worth the paper they are written on the world is still in denial with these pledges that will not mobilize nations nor people or make a dent in the mood of complacency.
When we conceal the linkage between global warming and natural disasters, golden opportunities are lost.
Why the disconnect?
Although there are of course many possible reasons, certainly one of them is the shortage of attention given to climate change by the mainstream media.
Many natural disasters such as the wildfires and hurricanes are covered extensively by the national news media but with little or no mention of global warming. Thus, many viewers fail to connect the dots.
In national mainstream news reports about natural disasters, global warming is systematically backgrounded, most often not even mentioned at all.
Headline stories capture the attention of countless citizens and could have educational value re climate change.
The world’s leading climate scientists have warned there is only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.
Perhaps if every television channel worldwide were obliged under law to allocate one weather forecast a month sole to the effects of climate change it might create some political will worldwide.
There is no point in one country or one industry reducing carbon emissions to comply with the Paris agreement pledge to keep temperatures between 1.5C and 2C.
There is a growing recognition that 2C is dangerous with 1.5C now becoming just a political concession.
Increasingly visible damage caused by climate change will shift opinion but too late to do anything about it.
The likely rise in climate-driven refugees or the danger of tipping points that could push the world on to an irreversible path of extreme warming is becoming more and more evident year by year.
Climate change is already happening.
Insects, which are vital for pollination of crops, and plants are almost twice as likely to lose half their habitat at 2C compared with 1.5C. Corals would be 99% lost at the higher of the two temperatures, but more than 10% have a chance of surviving if the lower target is reached.
Although unexpectedly good progress has been made in the adoption of renewable energy, deforestation for agriculture was turning a natural carbon sink into a source of emissions.
Carbon capture and storage projects, which are essential for reducing emissions in the concrete and waste disposal industries, have also ground to a halt.
Oceans are already suffering from elevated acidity and lower levels of oxygen as a result of climate change.
Sea ice-free summers in the Arctic is attracting oil exploration. Britain is pushing ahead with gas fracking, Norway with oil exploration in the Arctic, and the German government wants to tear down Hambach forest to dig for coal.
Reforestation is essential to all of them as are shifts to electric transport systems and greater adoption of carbon capture technology.
However, relying on the untried technology of solar radiation modification and other forms of geoengineering could have negative consequences.
The short of it?
Carbon pollution and climate change mean both more floods and droughts – making it harder and harder for farmers to grow good quality, nutritious food.
The short of it?
There are no jobs on a dead planet.
The short of it?
The time to start solving this problem is now.
For years, fossil fuel companies and utilities have been dumping CO2 into our atmosphere, changing our climate while we pay the cost.
The ones causing the climate crisis should be the ones paying for it. This would require carbon prices that are three to four times higher than for a 2C target. But the costs of doing nothing would be far higher.
We can find billions and billions to pay our sportsmen and woman, our politicians, our lotto winners, our arms and space exploration, the list is endless.
No matter how we frame or present the arguments if we want a world worthwhile living on there is only one solution we must tap into greed, (See previous posts on a World Aid Commission)
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
In a world where nearly 20 people are forcibly displaced every minute by violence, war and persecution ARE WE KIDDING OURSELVES TO THINK THAT TECHNOLOGY WILL SOLVE THE WORLD PROBLEMS.
One in every 113 people on the planet is now a refugee AND THAT IS WITHOUT CLIMATE CHANGE THAT IS GOING TO BE THE BIGGEST MOTIVE TO BECOME ONE.
At the moment ( According to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR) it might be true to say that out of the 65.6 million 40.3 million – are people displaced within their own country.
Here are below are four UNHCR videos that should be shown on World TV, across Social Media, in every school to every man woman and child.
How much stuff do we really need to lead a normal life?
Not as much as you might think.
Automation, digital platforms, and other innovations are changing the fundamental nature of work.
You could say that: The world of work is in a state of flux.
There is growing polarization of labor-market opportunities between high- and low-skill jobs, unemployment and underemployment especially among young people, stagnating incomes for a large proportion of households, and income inequality.
However the field of robotics promises to be the most profoundly disruptive technological shift since the industrial revolution.
The development of automation enabled by technologies including robotics and artificial intelligence brings the promise of higher productivity (and with productivity, economic growth), increased efficiencies, safety, and convenience. But these technologies also raise difficult questions about the broader impact of automation on jobs, skills, wages, and the nature of work itself.
Somehow, we believe our livelihoods will be safe. They’re not:
Every commercial sector will be affected by robotic automation in the next several years. We have yet to reach the full potential of digitization across the global economy.
More than half the world’s population is still offline.
Greater interaction will raise productivity but require different and often higher skills, new technology interfaces, different wage models in some cases, and different types of investments by businesses and workers to acquire skills.
In a recent report, the World Economic Forum predicted that robotic automation will result in the net loss of more than 5m jobs across 15 developed nations by 2020, a conservative estimate. 40–50% of all jobs will be taken by robots in the next twenty years.
By 2025, average salaries in the robotics sector will increase by at least 60% – yet more than one-third of the available jobs in robotics will remain vacant due to shortages of skilled workers.
Developments in motion control, sensor technologies, and artificial intelligence will inevitably give rise to an entirely new class of robots aimed primarily at consumer markets. For example “Create Your Taste” kiosk – an automated touch-screen system that allows customers to create their own burgers without interacting with another human being.
The thing is: we’ve heard this all before. Time and time again, we underestimate capitalism’s extraordinary ability to come up with new meaningless jobs. (It’s 37% in the UK right now, but it could be 50%, 60% or even 100% in the future.)
Unless we update our ideas about what ‘work’ even is. The rise in the total of those employed is governed by Parkinson’s Law, and much the same whether the volume of work, were to increase, diminish or even disappear.
Labor which was once the capital of working men will be longer true.
Again: it’s not about the technology, it’s about the choices we make as a society.
When it comes to universal basic income: we don’t have to wait for the robots. We are more than rich enough to do it right now – in fact, we should have done it forty years ago!
Technology is not destiny, education is.
Everything depends on the choices that we make as a society.
If history is any precedent, we already know the answer.
MOST OF US ARE NOW SURROUNDED WITH A PORTION- DISTORTED EMBARRASSMENT OF NOT JUST FOOD BUT GOVERNMENT SIZE.
It’s time for taxpayers to remind themselves just how much the cost of government to run us is..
Let’s take the cost of running the UK as an example.
The House of Commons with 650 Mbps at £76,000 pa costing the tax payer £156 million a year.
Add in the £6.4m pa given to opposition parties (Short Money), and support items like IT, and the overall total for each MP goes up to £242,000 pa.
But that’s only part of the bill: we also need to add in the costs of running the Commons itself. According to the HoC Administration Resource Accounts 2006-07, those costs total £210m, which is a further £325,000 per MP.
Oops I nearly forgot the gold-plated final salary pension guaranteed by taxpayers.
The official cost of MPs’ pensions is under 12 per cent of their salary, after 11 per cent contributions from MPs themselves. This adds up to total pay and pension for an MP of £85,000 (their £76,000 salary and £9,000 pension).
So with 650 MPs, that means each one costs us £85,000 pa in salary, pension contributions and employment taxes. Those troublesome “staffing allowances” cost us an additional £57.9m pa- £90,000 for each MP. Then there’s incidental expenses, additional cost allowances, and travel expenses, totaling a further £30.7m (£48,000 each).
Then you have 814 unelected Peers in the House of Lords at £83,000 pa. Costing the tax payer £67,932,000 a year plus £462,510 in tax-free expenses. Members can claim £300 or £150 for every day they attend the House and undertake parliamentary work. The dining rooms and bars are all subsidised by the taxpayer.
Baroness Smith of Gilmorehill, who has claimed £220,000 of expenses over her 27 year career on the red benches, has never spoken in a debate.
The total cost of members’ allowances and travel is around £20 million per annum.
So reducing the size of the House by about 250 members would represent a significant saving to the taxpayer.
Then you have the Civil Service 418,343, (316,792 full-time and 101,551 part-time.) Gross annual earnings (excluding overtime or one-off bonuses) for Civil Service employees is around £25,350, pa.
You dont have to ask why people are lying on the floors of hospital corridors.
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‘What do you do when there is nothing left to do?’
What should a government faced with an unmanageable level of unemployment do when conventional policy has failed to resolve the issue?’
Perhaps then a seemingly radical solution, such as universal basic income (UBI), becomes plausible. Universal Basic Income (UBI), a form of social security paid to individuals, not households. It is paid to everyone.
It would give individuals the freedom to say ‘yes’ to jobs. Individuals will not have to do that which they do not wish to do. Fewer people will engage in menial and unsatisfying work. Employers may be forced to increase the wages for underpaid or unpaid jobs.
UBI creates a floor (minimum level) on the income distribution curve, alleviates poverty, and gives bargaining power to the ones who have it least.
Forgetting about work for a moment (if you can), think about what you should do when your physiological needs are no longer a concern. If you’ve had a passion at the back of your mind then you might finally pursue it. If, on the other hand, you’ve passed life going from one kind of busy to another, then you might have missed opportunities to reflect and figure out what you would like to be doing. The cost of failure may have been too high if it meant putting you or your family’s livelihood at risk.
Assuming UBI ensures a basic livelihood for everyone in a community, do these citizens have a duty to give back by working? Do individuals have a duty to accept paid, available employment?
I would say Yes: Individuals should have a duty to do something, providing it is socially beneficial. There was something about people helping each other for its own sake that makes for a good society. A society is not well-functioning if it’s members are not interested in actively improving each other’s well-being.
Caring for the those who cannot care for themselves (such as the elderly, children and disabled). One could volunteer for various causes they care about, whether they be social, environmental, tech-related or so on.
Your recognition that you have alleviated the suffering of others might make you feel like you have done something meaningful.
UBI provides the opportunity for you to try contributing to your community in different ways. This freedom lets you find a way to contribute that is most satisfying for yourself.
It would remove fear replacing it with dignity.
UBI would also reduce the cost of citizens relying on the state for assistance.
There are many pending environmental crises hanging over us, but human wastefulness can be avoided. Can you imagine a world of 7.6 billion people no longer struggling for food or shelter and now focused on bettering the world for their children? That’s universal basic income. That’s a legacy we can all leave.
So why is it not being done?
Because it would downsize our consumerism lifestyle and remove inequality.
There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
I can hear you saying where will the money come from?
Vat, Negative Interest rates, Earnings from investments, Decreasing militry spending, Sovereign wealth funds, etc.
It would ensure that the distribution of the fruits of technology advancement are distributed fairly.
As Jeremy Howard said: ” In a post-scarcity world , why hold back wealth from people just because they can’t provide labor inputs just to create wealth.”
All human comments and suggestions appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin>
I have posted on this subject before with little reaction.
There is often an implicit connection between discourses of the future and notions of technology, so that if we see a television programme with a title such as Click or Tomorrow’s World we expect that the topic will be technology.
The single most astonishing point about technologies is that they can move from being emblematic of an almost unreachable future to becoming so taken for granted that it feels like a personal slight when they do not work.
In this way technology in and of itself becomes a symbol of being modern is one of the reasons it becomes expressive of, rather than distinct from, cultural values.
Perhaps this is the reason that the relationship between social media and the conceptualisation of the future is still blurred and will remain so.
New technology does not just change the manner in which people go about their everyday lives: It also facilitates our imagination of the future.
All the above speak to a new, imagined future that strives towards idealism. However within the vast field of technology the consequences of AI there are a few devices and algorithms that will battle it out over the next twenty odd years for supremacy.
Will it be Smartphones, or Smart Wearable or Cryptocurrency that will augment reality.
All need software in the form of algorithms to run.
AI algorithms will make the physical and digital world interchangeable.
Practically every non- iPhone smartphone relies on an Android operating system?
One way or the other we are entering an age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away.
Not surprising.
So it’s not Social media technology platforms like Facebook or Twitter and the others ( that talks a lot about connectivity but not accountability) that will change the world but the power of ever where at once.
That requires total knowledge on all aspects of life.
Google or should I say the Google Cloud is trying to achieve this.
Which is possibly both the best and the worst thing that could happen.
So let’s look at a few of the top combats in the world of technology in no particular order.
( Obviously it would take page after page to give a comprehensive insight so I am only going to give a few lines to each.)
Microsoft Corporation:(LinkedIn -Skype – Mojang – Yammer- Hotmail)
It operates through the following segments:
Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing.
Market Cap As of May 2017
$507.5 Billion
Microsoft could be worth $1 trillion by 2020 — if not sooner. It is moving further and further into a digital landscape for everything from movies, music, books, games and software.
Twitter: Owned mostly by Venture Capitalist:
An online breaking news and social networking service. Using Twitter bots, (live streaming video.) With 450 million monthly active users it is ranked the eleventh most visited website. It has mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows 10, Windows Phone,BlackBerry, and Nokia S40.
Capable of influencing public opinion about culture, products and political agendas by automatically generating mass amounts of tweets through imitating human communication. World leaders and their diplomats have taken note of Twitter’s rapid expansion and have been increasingly utilizing Twitter diplomacy. Television programs use it to amplify their programs.
It could become the emergency communication system for track epidemics or sensor for automatic response to natural disasters.
Amazon:
The largest Internet retailer in the world. The company is now worth more than $560 billion. Electronic commerce and cloud computing company.
Amazon announced that it would acquire Whole Foods, a high-end supermarket chain with over 400 stores, for $13.4 billion.
eBay Inc: (PayPal)
There are now literally millions of items bought and sold every day on eBay, all over the world. For every $100 spent online worldwide, it is estimated that $14 is spent on eBay. What’s more, eBay doesn’t care who you are, where you live, or what you look like:
The race is on to control mobile payments and the upside remains enormous:
Apple:(Shazam – Emagic- Siri – Beats Electronics – Next Inc.- Novauris-PrimeSense -The Bottom Line – Invest in Yourself.)
Quarterly revenue of $52.6 billion 2017.
Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS.
Facebook:(Whats App and Instagram Oculus VR.)
A publicly traded company worth more than $500 billion.
More than two billion monthly users. It is developing a new social platform in virtual reality called Facebook Spaces, which it believes will form the foundation for the future of communication.
Tencent and Alibaba: aren’t far from the half-trillion dollar mark either.
These are the main contenders as we know them to-day
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So the Question is:
Which one if any of the above will be the top dog by 2025.
Will it be : ( All knowledge, All Gossip, All purchases, All Apps/ Software)
At this point you will have noticed that I have left out the company mentioned in Title of this posting.
While in the future devices may be more ubiquitous in all corners
of the globe, inequality will therefore remain in terms of the services
available in certain locations and the lack of attention paid to the needs
and desires of certain populations.
Companies like Amazon and Google will be fighting to lock you into one voice ecosystem. You may have to declare your allegiance for Alexa, Siri, Cortana or Google Assistant.
One could say that:
Amazon represents de-socialising of commerce. Face book represents self ego. Twitter represents myths and gossip. Apple represents profit. E bay represents selling and buying of stuff, Google represents doming down.
All are represented on Social Media which is being used in ways that shape politics, business, world culture, education, careers, innovation, and more.
Social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have increasingly been adopted by politicians, political activists and social movements as a means to engage, organize and communicate with citizens.
So is the power and the winner going to be Social Media which is owned by the Internet.
I think Not.
In short, one consequence of this prediction is that the very idea of ‘social media’ might gradually disappear; instead we simply have an increasingly diverse set of media and increasingly sophisticated exploitation of the possibilities these media have created, including other trends such as obtaining information, sharing information or making communication more visual.
Social media is slowly killing real activism and replacing it with ‘slacktivism, and we all know where that might lead us. Awareness is not translating into real change. Support is limited to pressing the ‘Like’ button or sharing content which absolve them from responsibility to act.
The role of social media as symbolic of the future may already be in decline.
“The election of Donald J. Trump is perhaps the starkest illustration yet that across the planet, social networks are helping to fundamentally rewire human society.”
The one I left out, with 65% of all online searches – is Google.
Google has expanded far beyond its original claim to fame as a search engine.
Google and their competitor platforms are programming the world for profit. The reach of this technology giant is so vast it is hard to imagine an area of modern life it has not touched.
Alphabet owns Google, as well as many other companies. However, Google itself owns companies.
Google has reorganized itself into multiple companies, separating its core Internet business from several of its most ambitious projects while continuing to run all of these operations under a new umbrella company called Alphabet.
Google owns more than 200 companies, including those involved in robotics, mapping, video broadcasting, telecommunications and advertising.
Simply put, the company has been visionary in recognizing the income potential for information products.
Their profit seeking algorithms ensuring that every recommendation, from whether you should buy this or that, stay here or there, fly or drive, connect to this or that, live or die, will earn them a few cents.
By 2025 all will be connected to the Cloud. With one winner.
The Google Monopoly.
Once a Google client always a Google client.
How do you stop using Google?
Already impossible.
Move and your G Mail becomes blocked mail.
Say anything on you website that smacks about google, you site gets flooded with google ads.
It is becoming more and more difficult for anyone to extricate themselves from the clutches of any of its platforms as deactivating means little or nothing.
Social media apps ensure you are still engaged and if they don’t work your friends and family smartphones are searching for you nonstop supplying little hits of dopamine. ( Someone likes you photo or you are mentioned in their contact. It’s a social validation feedback loop..exploiting a vulnerability in humans psychology.)
Will Social Media destroy or rain back Google dominance?
The whole Social media thing is turning into an addictive cancer effecting our brains and tearing our emotions and attentiveness a sunder which in turn is encouraging self-segregation and exacerbating social divides.
Every facet of our life is touched or being integrated by the social media today.
In this sense social media has become an instrument of democratic renewal.
On the other hand it is evident that this uncensored and unmonitored medium of communication is exposing us all to a gradual breakdown of social cohesion and the destruction of our traditional value systems.
Though the advantages of social media are emphasized quite often, as opposed to its negative aspects which are very rarely discussed.
I feel that this will change in the coming years.
All said, social media is here to stay. The power of social media is exponential. Numbers tell the story.
Just as difficult as forecasting the future is knowing the present.
After all not everything moves over time to become more functional
or efficient.
It is obviously going to be hard to predict the future for something as
dynamic as social media. How can we know what social media has already become for oil workers in Alaska, tribal people in Amazonia and the nouveau riche of Moscow?
Unless we take responsibility to ensure that our understanding of social media and its impacts are constantly evaluated with what’s happening in the world. Once we appreciate that knowing social media is not an exercise in delineating the properties of a set of platforms, but rather of acknowledging what the world has already turned these into, by way of content, the immensity of the problem is revealed.
So it will be important to continue monitoring and exploring the extent to which collective action is individualised through social media use.
= Can the use of social media for campaigning help to bring about genuine and lasting empowerment; or does it serve largely to re-inforce pre-existing relationships?
= Is social media a means of building dialogue and consensus in diverse communities or does its use encourage increased fragmentation or, alternatively, a homogeneity of interests?
= Can meaningful impact measures be developed that can be used by small, under-resourced organisations at local level (or indeed within larger voluntary organisations)?
Social media is seen in much of the literature as a means of promoting dialogue beyond the mainstream media. Voluntary and community groups have been criticized, however, for using social media as little more than a means of broadcasting.
Why might this be the case – and does it matter?
Social media expands our capacity but, it does not change our
essential humanity.
It is used to repair the rupture sustained by separated transnational families or for overcoming previously frustrated desires to share photographs more easily.
It allows couples living in different countries who ‘sort of’ live together online;
Soon, however, things move on to new realms.
Should a clear relationship be expected between the (apparently empowering) use of social media in mobilizing large national and global movements, and its use at the micro-political neighborhood level.
An increasing number of social media platforms can be aligned with the diversity of the social groups to which we might want to relate.
Social media however has little impact on the overall outcomes in terms of empowerment, equalities or social justice.
However powerful and important the advent of social media has become, it would be hard to place it ahead of the impact and significance of smartphones, within which social media platforms may often be seen as just another kind of app.
It is smartphones that facilitate social media’s importance as a mix of polymedia, making clear the range of media possibilities as they lie side by side within one easily accessible device.
It is the Smartphone that drives social media input and out put.
Will that will be the One Winner, changing our sense of collective memory, creating a new form or combination of internal and external faculties for retaining information.
As Smartphones become smarter, they may well accelerate the dissolving of social media into this wider array of communicative possibilities.
The increasing ubiquity of the smart phone is the catalyst for more general usage of social media. Recognizing that this may not necessarily impact on any other aspect of inequality should not prevent us from recognizing that there is in one aspect an increasing and significant equality:
The more individuals live within culturally imposed constraints on communication, the more a new technology may mean that what was previously forbidden now becomes possible.
This fluid mix of communicative forms suits the way users flow between activities such as talking, gaming, texting, masturbating, learning and purchasing. The social connection is more important than how well a platform meets their needs.
Comparative anthropology creates particular varieties of knowledge of both breadth and depth. What makes these essential within the context of our complex modern world, however, is that these are forms of understanding based on empathy.
Merely having a smart phone provides a significant change with respect to the capacities of its owner.
——
What happens to our online materials at death.
Finally: Capitalism can never be ethical.
There are no laws requiring Google to be fair.
If we don’t open our eyes soon technology ( whether it’s Google, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon Inc or some equivalent service) is going to F—k us all from some Cloud or other that is just over the horizon.
Just look at the annual release of new smartphones.
Of course there are other things in the long tall grass waiting to caught us by the short and hairy and most have being around for yonks. War, Natural Disasters, Greed, Inequality and the like.
My advice is to beware of the man with a smartphone. Because knowledge is not knowledge until someone else knows that one knows.
Google it.
All human comments much appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
To be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
A charter represents a document that describes a project, its rationale, its goals and its participants. The purpose of a charter aims at aligning the expectations of all the contributors so that their energy focuses on the project’s priorities.
The Charter is not to be confused with The Universal Declaration of Human rights adopted after World War 11. It is perhaps the closest thing we have to a global Constitution- categorically states that the right to life is humanity’s fundamental value. Death is a crime.
It would appear that from the speeches given by either of the above that they DO NOT fully comprehended the above charter.
In his Sovereignty – centric speech Mr Trump threatened to totally destroy North Korea, called Iran a corrupt dictatorship whose main export is violence.
While Mrs May in her speech threatened withdrawal of funds.
This is not the first time not will it be the last that a World leader has used the UN to criticize other nations. Mr Bush with the axis of evil. Mr Khrushchev trumping the table and calling Filipino some obnoxious name in Russian.
Both Mr T and Mrs M appear to think that the yard stick to measure a nation’s success is GDP. This kind of thinking is driving humankind to make happiness a second goal for the twenty-first century which is highly unlikely unless inequality, war, and climate change disappear.
Surely the UN is not the platform for sovereign selfish nations to be expressing treats to other nations. Stirring up hornets nest is not what the world needs.
Here a few examples from each of their recent addresses to the UN.
MR D Trump first:
“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. “Rocket Man” is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”
” It has just been announced that we will be spending almost $700 billion on our military and defense.”
Then a raft of contradictions:
” In America, we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to watch.”
” We are celebrating the 230th anniversary of our beloved Constitution, the oldest constitution still in use in the world today. This timeless document has been the foundation of peace, prosperity and freedom for the Americans, and for countless millions around the globe whose own countries have found inspiration in its respect for human nature, human dignity and the rule of law.”
“But we can no longer be taken advantage of, or enter into a one-sided deal where the United States gets nothing in return.”
“As long as I hold this office, I will defend America’s interests above all else.”
“The United States is one out of 193 countries in the United Nations, and yet we pay 22 percent of the entire budget and more. In fact, we pay far more than anybody realizes.”
“The United States of America has been among the greatest forces for good in the history of the world and the greatest defenders of sovereignty, security and prosperity for all. Now we are calling for a great reawakening of nations, for the revival of their spirits, their pride, their people and their patriotism.”
“Our hope is a word and (sic) world of proud, independent nations that embrace their duties, seek friendship, respect others and make common cause in the greatest shared interest of all, a future of dignity and peace for the people of this wonderful Earth.”
“This institution was founded in the aftermath of two world wars to help shape this better future. It was based on the vision that diverse nations could cooperate to protect their sovereignty, preserve their security and promote their prosperity.”
The success of the United Nations depends upon the independent strength of its members.
“We do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties: to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation.”
“Today, if we do not invest ourselves, our hearts and our minds in our nations – if we will not build strong families, safe communities and healthy societies for ourselves – no one can do it for us.”
“This is the beautiful vision of this institution, and this is the foundation for cooperation and success. Strong, sovereign nations let diverse countries with different values, different cultures and different dreams not just coexist, but work side by side on the basis of mutual respect. Strong, sovereign nations let their people take ownership of the future and control their own destiny, and strong, sovereign nations allow individuals to flourish in the fullness of the life intended by God.”
We want harmony and friendship, not conflict and strife. We are guided by outcomes, not ideology. We have a policy of principled realism rooted in shared goals, interests and values.
And just as the founders of this body intended, we must work together and confront together those who threaten us with chaos, turmoil and terror.
“We will fight together, sacrifice together and stand together for peace, for freedom, for justice, for family, for humanity and for the almighty God who made us all.”
“Are we still patriots? Do we love our nations enough to protect their sovereignty and to take ownership of their futures? Do we revere them enough to defend their interests, preserve their cultures and ensure a peaceful world for their citizens?”
The UN relies on the independent strength of its members.
Theresa May:
“We face challenges that go right to the heart of who we are as nations.”
“I believe that the only way for us to respond to this vast array of challenges is to come together and defend the international order that we have worked so hard to create and the values by which we stand. For it is the fundamental values that we share, values of fairness, justice and human rights, that have created the common cause between nations to act together in our shared interest and form the multilateral system. And it is this rules-based system which we have developed, including the institutions.”
This statement in the light of Brixit is total hogwash and on we go.
“Indeed, the defining purpose of the UN Charter is to maintain international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among nations, to achieve international cooperation in solving problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character; and to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of those common ends.”
“An outward-looking global Britain and the second biggest funder of the UN the UK will remain committed to spending 0.7% of GNI on development and humanitarian support. And that is why we will remain generous in our funding but set aside 30% to be paid only to those parts of the UN that achieve sufficient results.”
It is true to say that the UN needs reform, but it can only become relevant if it is financed to tackle world problems. ( See previous posts)
Both Speeches ignore Climate Change and the need to address inequality that is the spawning bed of all terrorism, driven by the technology of the smart phone.
The world is changing and we don’t have to be prophets to see if we as its intelligent guardians don’t address its underling problems there will be problems that will put all our technology, all our unsustainable greed, all our power of destruction, into the shade.
All comments appreciated, all like clicks chucked in the bin.
So reducing the size of the House by about 250 members would represent a significant saving to the taxpayer.
