Tag Archives: Inequility

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: ALGORITHMS ARE RUNNING OUR LIVES.

06 Friday Sep 2019

Posted by in Algorithms.

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(Twenty-minute read)

So should we be more wary of their power?

Their lack of accountability and complete opacity is frightening.

Some time ago I advocated that there should be a legal requirement that all software programmes/ algorithms be subject to regulation to create an oversight that would assess the impact of algorithms before it becomes alive.

Other words a virtual total transparent deposit world bank where the original programmes are held and vetted to comply with the core principals of humanity.

That, by itself, is now a tall order that requires impartial experts backtracking through the technology development process to find the models and formulae that originated the algorithms.

Who is prepared to do this? Who has the time, the budget and resources to investigate and recommend useful courses of action?

This is a 21st-century job description – and market niche – in search of real people and companies outside political manipulation. In order to make algorithms more transparent, products and product information circulars might include an outline of algorithmic assumptions, akin to the nutritional sidebar now found on many packaged food products, that would inform users of how algorithms drive intelligence in a given product and a reasonable outline of the implications inherent in those assumptions.

At the moment they perform seemingly miraculous tasks humans cannot and they will continue to greatly augment human intelligence and assist in accomplishing great things.  Also, our accelerating code-dependency will continue to drive the spread of algorithms; however, as with all great technological revolutions, this trend has a dark side.

There is no argument that the efficiencies of algorithms will lead to more creativity and self-expression.

However, to days algorithms are primarily written to optimize efficiency and profitability without much thought about the possible societal impacts of the data modelling and analysis.

Humans are considered to be an “input” to the process and they are not seen as real, thinking, feeling, changing beings.

This is creating a flawed, logic-driven society and that as the process evolves – that is, as algorithms begin to write the algorithms – humans may get left out of the loop, letting “the robots decide.

Algorithms will capitalize on convenience and profit, thereby discriminating [against] certain populations, but also eroding the experience of everyone else. The goal of to days algorithms is to fit some of our preferences, but not necessarily all of them: They essentially present a caricature of our tastes and preferences.

The fear is that, unless we tune our algorithms for self-actualization, it will be simply too convenient for people to follow the advice of an algorithm (or, too difficult to go beyond such advice), turning these algorithms into self-fulfilling prophecies, and users into zombies who exclusively consume easy-to-consume items.

It is not possible to capture every data element that represents the vastness of a person and that person’s needs, wants, hopes, desires. When you remove the humanity from a system where people are included, they become victims.

Dehumanization by algorithms has now spread to our police forces, to our legal systems, to our health care and social services, our politics – Brexit, Donal Trump.

So let’s ask a few questions.

Who is collecting what data points?

Do human beings the data points reflect even know or did they just agree to the terms of service because they had no real choice?

Who is making money from the data?

How is anyone to know how his/her data is being massaged and for what purposes to justify what ends?

Companies platforms like Google Facebook, Twitter,  seek to maximize profit, not maximize societal good. Worse, they repackage profit-seeking as a societal good.

There is no transparency, and oversight is a farce.

We see already today is that, in practice, stuff like ‘differential pricing’ does not help the consumer; it helps the company that is selling things, etc.

With it, all hidden from view individual human beings will be herded around like cattle, with predictably destructive results on rule of law, social justice and economics.

There is at the moment only an incentive to further obfuscate the presence and operations of algorithmic shaping of communications processes. The fact the internet can, through algorithms, be used to almost read our minds means [that] those who have access to the algorithms and their databases have a vast opportunity to manipulate large population groups.

Our Economies are increasingly dominated by a tiny, very privileged and insulated portion of the population, largely reproduce inequality for their benefit. Criticism will be belittled and dismissed because of the veneer of digital ‘logic’ over the process.

I will always remain convinced the data will be used to enrich and/or protect others and not the individual. It’s the basic nature of the economic system in which we live.

Algorithms have the capability to shape individuals’ decisions without them even knowing it, giving those who have control of the algorithms an unfair position of power.

The overall impact of ubiquitous algorithms is presently incalculable because the presence of algorithms in everyday processes and transactions is now so great, and is mostly hidden from public view. Our algorithms are now redefining what we think, how we think and what we know.

We need to ask them to think about their thinking – to look out for pitfalls and inherent biases before those are baked in and harder to remove.

Should we be allowing ourselves to become so reliant on them – and who, if anyone, is policing their use?

Will the net overall effect of algorithms be positive for individuals and society or negative for individuals and society?

If every algorithm suddenly stopped working, it would be the end of the world as we know it.

We have already turned our world over to machine learning and algorithms.

The question now is, how to better understand and manage what we have done?

What are the implications of allowing commercial interests and governments to use algorithms to analyse our habits:

The main negative changes come down to a simple but now quite difficult question:

How can we see, and fully understand the implications of, the algorithms programmed into everyday actions and decisions?

The rub is this: Whose intelligence is it, anyway?

Algorithms are aimed at optimizing everything. Our lives will be increasingly affected by their inherent conclusions and the narratives they spawn.

By expanding collection and analysis of data and the resulting application of this information, a layer of intelligence or thinking manipulation is added to processes and objects that previously did not have that layer.

The internet runs on algorithms and all online searching is accomplished through them.

Email knows where to go thanks to algorithms. Smartphone apps are nothing but algorithms. Computer and video games are algorithmic storytelling. Online dating and book-recommendation and travel websites would not function without algorithms. GPS mapping systems get people from point A to point B via algorithms.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is nought but algorithms.

The material people see on social media is brought to them by algorithms.

In fact, everything people see and do on the web is a product of algorithms.

Every time someone sorts a column in a spreadsheet, algorithms are at play, and most financial transactions today are accomplished by algorithms. Algorithms help gadgets respond to voice commands, recognize faces, sort photos and build and drive cars. Hacking, cyberattacks and cryptographic code-breaking exploit algorithms.

In the future algorithms will write many if not most algorithms.

The rise of increasingly complex algorithms calls for critical thought about how to best prevent, deter and compensate for the harms that they cause …. Algorithmic regulation will require world government uniformity, expert judgment, political independence and pre-market review to prevent – without stifling innovation – the introduction of unacceptably dangerous algorithms into the market.

The usage of algorithms and analytics in society is exploding:

From machine learning recommender systems in commerce, to credit scoring methods outside of standard regulatory practice and self-driving cars.

We now spend so much of our time online that we are creating huge data-mining opportunities with algorithms programmed to look for “indirect, non-obvious” correlations in data and over time, if not already will create or exacerbate societal divides.

Algorithms are increasingly determining our collective futures. “Bank approvals, store cards, job matches and more. Google’s search algorithm is now a more closely guarded commercial secret than the recipe for Coca-Cola),

The problem is how the rules are set: it’s impossible to do this perfectly.

The questions being raised about algorithms at the moment are not about algorithms per se, but about the way, society is structured with regard to data use and data privacy.

Humans are seeing as causation when an algorithm identifies a correlation in vast swaths of data.

This transformation presents an entirely new menace: penalties based on propensities.

The possibility of using big-data predictions about people to judge and punish them even before they’ve acted. Doing this negates ideas of fairness, justice and free will.

Parole boards in more than half of all US states use predictions founded on data analysis as a factor in deciding whether to release somebody from prison or to keep him incarcerated.

We risk falling victim to a dictatorship of data, whereby we fetishise the information, the output of our analyses, and end up misusing it.

They can and will become an instrument of the powerful, who may turn it into a source of repression, either by simply frustrating customers and employees or, worse, by harming citizens.

The idea that the world’s financial markets – and, hence, the wellbeing of our pensions, shareholdings, savings etc – are now largely determined by algorithmic vagaries is unsettling enough for some. In currency trading, an algorithm lasts for about two weeks before it is stopped because it is surpassed by a new one.

We’re already halfway towards a world where algorithms run nearly everything.

As their power intensifies, wealth will concentrate on them.

Advances in quantum computing and the rapid evolution of AI and AI agents embedded in systems and devices in the Internet of Things will lead to hyper-stalking, influencing and shaping of voters, and hyper-personalized ads, and will create new ways to misrepresent reality and perpetuate falsehoods.

Climate change is becoming visible while the profits of the capitalist world are going underground thanks to Algorithms.

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

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS: ARE WE LOOKING NOT JUST AT THE BEGINS OF A FAILED STATE BUT THE FINAL DEATH THROBS OF A EMPIRE

26 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit., Capitalism, Climate Change., Democracy, Environment, European Commission., European Union., Fourth Industrial Revolution., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Life., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Reality., Social Media, Sustaniability, The essence of our humanity., The new year 2109, The Obvious., The Queen., The state of the World., The world to day., Twitter, Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What needs to change in European Union., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Fifteen-minute read)

The British Empire was the largest in history existing from the sixteenth century into the twentieth century.

Unfortunately, it squandered all that it acquired on a victorian class system.

Queen Elizabeth II

It killed with famine, sword and fire more people than Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Hitler or Stalin.

In the defence of its imperial interests, it precipitated in two World Wars.

Now it is presiding with “Mad cow disease” it’s very own self-destruction.

At stake are fundamental ideas about British sovereignty and whether in a

a progressively globalized world in which some claimed that the individual

the nation-state was becoming unviable with the can sovereignty in its

existing forms remain intact.

Queen Elizabeth II in 1992, referred to the year as the royal family’s “annus horribilis.”

SHE WAS WRONG.

Why?

Because along came a five-year austerity plan aimed at reducing the country’s massive deficit, which had been fueled by bank bailouts and stimulus spending in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and resultant recession which resulted in 52 per cent of voters opting to leave the EU, (making the United Kingdom the first country to ever do so)

Manufactured by Magie Thatcher who turned the market into replacing society as the model of state governance. 

Not surprising as worldwide political culture has in fact transformed from one based on class to a new sort of populist, demotic politics, shaped at least as much by the mass media, especially the popular press, as by the politicians.

A sort of firestorm has broken out not just in Brazil but all over the world.

Why?

Because the relationship between public culture and consumer capitalism, while the very Earth itself is struggling with climate change has been close, in many ways the one constantly trying to outguess the other.

This game of one-upmanship, marked by ironic knowingness, has been labelled “postmodern, Brexit or Donal Trump trade wars”.

It points to the growing understanding of the relative nature of truth, itself a reaction against the prevailing supposedly “modern” certainties of the 20th century (reason, freedom, humanity, and truth itself), which indeed have often had and are having appalling outcomes.

However, it is a sign of the times that these antifundamentalist currents, themselves critical of much of Western culture, emerged at much the same time as new fundamentalisms emerged in the forms of American neoconservatism and certain strains of radical Islam. The ferment of intellectual and cultural changes involved are inextricable from the massive changes underway in the transition to the novel forms of society made possible by new information technologies.

What the Smartphone and Social Media have and are doing since the 1960s onward for Africa are also unravelling England and the EU with the perception of poor economic performance and calls for the modernization of not just for British society and the British economy but the EU and the world at large.

Both England and the European Union need to reform.

Optimism only carries you so far.

History rhymes rather than repeats are what is required.

A society where elites are widely loathed, where the political parties are polarized by demographic echoes is on the brink of collapse.

Why?

Now as then — much more now than then, in fact — there is a pervasive mistrust of institutions, a sense that governments are rotting from the head down.

The abject failure of rulers in improving human values has resulted in a downgrading of human to sub-human levels with a race to expect dishonest money is the net result of the ultimate degradation of society.

How do you trick someone into giving you something they have?

First, you offer them something worthless, while convincing them that actually much better than what they have. Second, you convince them that what they do have is worthless.

This is a typical approach used by both con artists and governments.

These huge scams are just diversions from the ultimate crime Climate change.

Our survival instinct has to quickly override our conditioned naiveté and passivity that has been bred into us. We are not just threatened as countries but as species at the same time.

A twitter/ facebook driven world will be a world of shallow values- unravelling our societies.

The thin veneer of civilization that we all depend upon on a daily basis is disappearing at a staggering pace and its not just the melting of ice.

The question now is.

Do we follow the trodden path where we only find all the grass eaten?

Creativity and imagination are what is needed as we are not getting across the problems of probability.

How we discuss and what we discuss is vital.

We must know the facts. We need a world brain bus.

Who is more likely to embrace the marginalized, to work for the disenfranchised?

Who will work for those of all backgrounds, all races and ethnicities, all religions, sexual preferences, gender identities?

Who will work to promote respect and equality for all people in the World?

Who sends a message that I want our children to believe in?

The rich and the poor, the entitled and the marginalized—they all make up the threads that a country needs to weave a unified society. When not include we weaken the material that fabricates our entire fabric of the world.

There has never been such a thing as an empire only a company called East India Company merchants. The British Empire did not exist in the Middle Ages. In the early Middle Ages, England was part of other empires: 

The British Empire was a commercial, not a military or political one.

Originally, holding an empire was about power. Throughout history, kings and queens have invaded territories in order to gain strength and power. With colonies, a country gains space, a larger army, more trade markets and the chance to make money out of whatever resources are on offer in them.

The formation of the empire was thus an unorganized process based on piecemeal acquisition, sometimes with the British government being the least willing partner in the enterprise.

An ‘Empire’ is a group of countries ruled over by a single monarch or ruling power. An empire doesn’t need an ’emperor’. The British Empire comprised of Britain, the ‘mother country’, and the colonies, countries ruled to some degree by and from Britain.

(British Empire, a worldwide system of dependencies—colonies, protectorates, and other territories—that over a span of some three centuries was brought under the sovereignty of the crown of Great Britain and the administration of the British government.)

To this day Britain’s ‘cultural imperialism’, suggesting that it was based on nationalism and racist scorn for other people.

With a handshake and the commitment “On the word of an Englishman,”
Captain James Cook claimed it for the British crown.In the century 1815–1914, 10 million square miles of territory and 400 million people were added to the British Empire. By the British Empire Exhibition of 1924, Britain was the ‘Mother Country’ of a worldwide empire which covered a fifth of the land in the world, and Britannia ‘ruled the waves’.

Sorry but Empires have benefited no one nor will any future trade deals that are not attached to sustainability do anything to resolve Climate change.

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

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: HAVE HUMANS ANY VALUE IN TODAY’S WORLD.

06 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Artificial Intelligence., Climate Change., Dehumanization., Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., GDP., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Our Common Values., Post - truth politics., Reality., Robot citizenship., Social Media, Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Fifteen-minute read)

THIS IS A DIFFICULT SUBJECT:

In today`s tormented world, we trade off meeting one value over another.

To know your value today you need “kaleidoscope thinking,” the ability to see alternative angles and perspectives and to create new patterns of thinking that propel innovation.

However, we think of this it is what we need to do with our lives – create a value.

For better or worse we’re all habitual self-evaluators.

I’m only as good as my last achievement or success.

In a recent Beady Eye post we look at what it is to be human which with technology is going to become more and more complicated.

The value of human life is the same as it’s always been…priceless.

All down throughout history, we see that it has an arbitrary value.

Genghis Khan in his day killed 10% of the existing world population. The “Fat Man” bomb dropped on Nagasaki the end of 1945 killed from 39,000 to 80,000. Hiroshima death toll at around anything from 140000 to 90,000.

Climate change has the potential to kill us all within seven years so perhaps it is not a good time to be thinking we have a value.

Anyway vastly increased access to transportable information it makes it both easier and more difficult to define value.

Technology will not only shape the way they live and work but also created a whole new set of beliefs, fears and aspirations. These values, in turn, will affect our approach to the global challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

But it’s more than just the way we use technology.

Our value will be invested in “psychological self-determination.” self-acceptance.

Our desire in regard to participation, expression, identity, and quality of life—all values which are espoused by organizations, but largely ignored in practice as organizations continue to focus on reducing fixed labour costs and increasing profits.

Your fate is now inextricably bound to the collective success of global giants like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon all the way down to the bottom line.

Technology is creating a new gender gap as young men and women value their role differently in their lives.

This is a total disaster, all our fault willing allowing our private data to be harvest every moment of our living lives. 

The next generation will be the first generation to be worse off than their parents, yet they are still expected to pick up the tab for the planet’s problems, including an ageing population, global debt and climate change.

So let’s look at a few of the things we might use to find a value today.

How should we set a value upon each other?

FROM A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW:

If one takes a dispassionate look at religion it is mostly concerned with texts, scriptures, dogma, and trying to validate events within the history of that religion.

All of this is already reinforced by the law of the land right?

No Geographical Boundaries.

FROM A SOCIAL MEDIA POINT OF VIEW:

Figures of daily traffic pulled by these sites are enough, for anyone to realize the power and influence that social media commands over inhabitants of our world, both virtual and physical. Power and importance of social media in today’s world are such that it has been included in the curriculum of almost any kind of school all over the globe.

No Geographical Boundaries.

FROM A MONETARY VIEW.

You don’t have to look far: Inequality

FROM A GOVERNMENT VIEW.

A lot of the world is make-believe. We’re only aware of a fraction of what’s going on.

GDP before looking after its people.

FROM A HEURISTIC BELIEF.

I’m worthwhile merely because “I am I, I exist, and I am alive”

(A heuristic is a mental shortcut that allows an individual to make a decision, pass judgment, or solve a problem quickly and with the least amount of mental effort. As humans move throughout the world, they must process large amounts of information and make many choices within limited amounts of time. When information is missing, or an immediate decision is necessary, heuristics act as “rules of thumb” that guide behaviour down the most efficient pathway.)

Thoroughly rejects the belief that my worth has anything to do with my performances, achievements or successes in life! It asserts “a bad act is not a bad me, nor is a good act a good me.”  It implies that there are no bad people, no evil people; only bad behaviours or evil behaviours.

This belief is not without boundaries.

FROM A SOCIAL CONTRACT VIEW THAT BINDS US:

Means society must reserve the right of forced hospitalization, incarceration, even capital punishment for those with markedly diminished levels of rational autonomy, which is the essence of sanity in a world where evolution and consensus dictate that life is better than death, sanity is better than insanity, health is better than disease, love is better than hate, good is better than evil, and so forth!

FROM A CAPITALISTIC/ SOCIALIST/COMMUNIST VIEW:

Their work is worthwhile and that their efforts are being recognised, and value similar things in an employer brand to a consumer brand.

FROM A MORAL VIEW:

Beware of transgressing the other person’s morals, as this is particularly how they will value you.

FROM A NEBULOUS QUANTUM FUTURE VIEW:

Two states at the one time. Where is the value that?

Woman using the instagram app

If we truly saw the value of people.

I am worthwhile because I exist, I am I, and I am alive.”

I will repeat this powerful new mantra to live by in hope of it finding an audience willing to adopt it as a mantra capable of creating a healthy transformation by coming alive within us.

So valuating yourself will be only an intrinsic value that climate

change will expose. 

Perhaps most telling, try Googling it. What is my value?

You probably get an answer from an Algorithm.

Mouse over the value to see the full definition. Worthless. 

Don’t take your values to heart as Facebook wants to develop brain-reading technology. The consequences of which will be serious for all our values with our interiors becoming a thing of the past, rubbing out the distinction between mind and machine.

Sometimes values can be complementary and sometimes they can compete with each other.

You have to value your life for someone else to value it and need to value others for them to value yours.

There is only one overall value for all humans or forthcoming robots to pursue.

To create a clean and sustainable world for the generations that follow us.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WILL POPULISM BE THE ULTIMATE STRESS TEST OF REPRESENTATIVE POLITICS.

19 Sunday May 2019

Posted by in 2019., Democracy, European Elections 2019, European Union., Humanity., Inequality, Modern Day Democracy., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Reality., Social Media, The common good., The far-right., The new year 2109, The Obvious., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What needs to change in European Union., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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(Twenty-minute read)

Is democracy unravelled in the face of nationalism, racism, violence and populism? It seems even with the publicly supported compromise between countries and political parties are unable to cooperate to deliver anything.

If one takes a look at the world today 9/11 and the “war on terror” helped bring the idea of a “clash of civilisations” between Islam and the west to the forefront of political debate leaving all the rest in the dustbin of democracy.

As a result in the last few years, a new kind of far-right activism has emerged.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of far right"

This new activism, comprised largely of online anger and offline protest, crosses borders, yet is heavily nationalist and growing.

In Britain, its icons tend to be entrepreneurial social media personalities, celebrities of a sort, who use their following to exert pressure on mainstream politics.

Nobody in England embodies the dynamics of this new movement more than Mr Fraieg with his tutor in the USA Mr Dump who both gave support to Yaxley-Lennon better known as Tommy Robinson. ( The founder of the founder and former leader of the English Defence League (EDL) now the voice of UKIP which was founded by Nigel Farage, has today more than 950,000 followers.)

We all know that Data-driven algorithms exert great influence on the political world by analyzing our voting potential.  By logging what we do, where we do it, how we do it, with whom we do it, – Facebook- Twitter – Social Media, TV, U Tube, Google.

The marketplace of ideas, with the best arguments, no longer win out.

Even more worrying is the extent to which it is “normalising” extreme right-wing ideas and ideologies helping to form governments rooted in racism and fear of others – with anti-establishment crusader, online propagandists attracting large amounts of the wrong type of money and attention.

Throwing its opponents into a fierce disagreement about how to respond with the potential to have quite dangerous and dire consequences.

Indeed, one of the goals of right-wing extremists has always been to appear “normal”.

But all of this is not inevitable, and it can be stopped if we recognise that keeping the far right out of power is only one part of the problem.

We need a better understanding of what “free speech” is and is not.

There is still no public control or oversight of what we should regard as our platforms.

The logical consequence of free speech at any cost is that someone will soon be successful in rallying together enough impressionable voters to form an electable far-right party.

It has happened before and it will happen again.

The accusation of betrayal by the elites is central to the way that far-right movements operate with single-issue campaigns mostly conducted via social media without any commitment to wider political action.

For many years, far-right views were outside the acceptable bounds of debate and should be denied a platform.

But the breaking down of these boundaries presents a dilemma: what does the anti-fascist principle of “no platform” mean when a far-right activist has their own independent platform anyway?

The majority of their supporters, have no formal political affiliation and answered to no party hierarchy.

The ideas of extreme right-wing movements are dangerous, as they are not institutional actors.

While only a few years ago such groups would have been widely reviled, in today’s more populist atmosphere, such views are now more mainstream, sideling voters from the political movements that were originally created for their benefit.

For me Far Right is a slippery term and one that people should rarely if ever, apply to their own politics. In everyday use, it describes a range of extreme nationalist activity.

For instance: Stephen Bannon, a white nationalist who has said the west is at the start of a civilisational war with Islam.

Luckily different currents within the far right do not always get on and may also see one another as enemies.

So far it is not a cohesive movement. Their various aims are profoundly undemocratic: A majoritarianism defined by race, ethnicity or religion, and the violent exclusion of internal and external enemies.

The best defence is a political movement that has anti-racism at its core and seeks to give people greater democratic control over the way their society is organised and run.

However in recent years, pushed by the election of Donald Trump in the US, and political changes in Europe, we have seen the breaking down of the taboo that kept far-right political ideas largely outside mainstream culture.

This can be rectified. It is mostly the result of technological change, which can be fixed by regulating social media companies.

In order to win political power, for any group, it should first be necessary to push for wider cultural acceptance of the ideas that underpinned their movements.

This is not to say that the claims being made by activists and the views of people who might support the far right should be ignored – either in political debate or in everyday life.

But the question is how these issues are presented, and how they are challenged: who is speaking, and why, matters as much as whether or not an issue is in the news.

Big media organisations must be aware that legitimisation of the far right is not acceptable. They cannot normalise nor be seen to give permission to what are, in truth, hateful ideas and ideologies.

They are most effective when unaffiliated and unaccountable, disavowed by politicians and commentators who echo his views but wish to look respectable.

But the greater danger is in the cumulative effect of the various types of far-right activism – political parties, websites, social media personalities, funding and coordination from wealthy US thinktanks and entrepreneurs – on the political mainstream.

The problem is that ordinary joe soap is becoming more and more detached from the political area paying more and more taxes in order to live a decent life while feeling shut out of the system.

With the views of the far right how taking advantage of wider political failures all fueled by food banks, benefits cuts, homeless, job insecurity, pension erosion shifting the mainstream debate in its favour. Its public messages are focusing on popular fears about identity and economic security.

IE: Europe is overrun by Muslim immigrants; liberal elites have allowed all this to happen.

So far no alternative vision has won out.

Simply pointing out their factual mistakes is insufficient they must be challenged, locally and internationally, before it starts to do serious damage.

Why?

Because we are mechanistically sleepwalking towards an inability to effectively confront problems such as Brexit, Inequality and Climate Change.

There is only one way to get the voters to engage with the modern world and that is not by voting every five years as an expression of free will. 

It is offering the citizens of a country to own some of its prosperity by:

ISSUING CITIZENS GUARANTEED (NON-TRANSFERABLE BONDS.)

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "picture of bonds certificate"

These bonds could be bought for as little as a Dollar to as much as?

They could mature in as little as a year or?

They could be inherited but not sold.

They could be for every environmental, health, or whatever project that is not for profit for profit sake.

They will engage people in the direction of a country countermanding

negativity, allowing all citizens no matter what their political views,

creed, or colour to take pride in their nation.

They will countermand inequality and stop the rise of the far right.

THEY WOULD IF ADOPTED BY DIEM 25 FORFILL MOST IF NOT ALL OF ITS POLITICAL ASPERATION FOR EUROPE.

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

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. THE SOONER WE ALL COME TO REALIZE THAT THERE IS NO NEGOATING WITH THE PHYSIC OF CLIMATE CHANGE THE BETTER.

18 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in Climate Change.

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(Four-minute read)

Most of us sit in front of our TV sets and watch the devastation of Fire’s, Hurricanes, Floods, Droughts, Heatwaves, Bleaching coral reefs, Ice Melting, Nature destruction, and forget about it in the morning.

THE SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE IS IN FACT JUST A CLICK OF A BUTTON AWAY.

Climate Change Environment Green Carbon

You would think that by now we should all be waking up to climate change and instead of blaming everything, realise that the hard fact is that the chemistry of climate change cannot be changed no matter what action we or the world does.

What we have done and now do in life echos in climate changer. On a human scale, inequality and climate change are going to mess together so the blame games will achieve nothing.

Climate activists will achieve nothing except resentment.

The Paris Climate promises are achieving little or nothing.

As they turn climate change into profit, technological fixes or geoengineering will not stop it.

Unfortunately: IT TAKES YEARS FOR TREES TO GROW AND OVERALL HUMAN HISTORY WE ARE INCAPABLE OF ACTING AS ONE.

It’s becoming plain that not only are we affecting the other living things with which we share the planet, we’re also altering the physical systems of the planet itself.

In every respect, the world we inhabit will henceforth be the world we have made.

We can’t keep using the atmosphere as a free waste dump for carbon and expect to have a safe climate no matter what. Many aspects of climate change and associated impacts will continue for centuries, even if anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are stopped.

When we insert ourselves so deeply into the workings of a planet, we are unlikely to be able to predict all of the consequences of our actions.

If you take seriously the amount of harm that unchecked global warming will cause, if you recognize that these harms will fall disproportionately on the global poor, if you acknowledge that these populations are not only the least equipped economically to cope with climate change but are also the least implicated in the rise of greenhouse gases in the first place, and if you concede the undeniable reality that conventional strategies for reducing the harms of climate change are not being implemented quickly enough, then there seems to be a strong moral case for doing something dramatic.

THE INEVITABLE REALITY IS AS NO ONE IS WILLING TO PAY AND THERE CAN BE NO SOLUTION WITHOUT TRILLIONS.

However, rest assured;

BY THE TIME WE HAVE MILLIONS OF CLIMATE REFUGEES LIFE AS WE KNOW IT WILL BE DISRUPTED BEYOND REPAIR.

It is already shaking up social, health and geopolitical balances in many parts of the world. The scarcity of resources like food and energy gives rise to new conflicts.

CLIMATE CHANGE CANNOT BE HALTED BY PUTTING SOLAR PANELS ON ONE HOUSE AT A TIME OR PLANTING A TREE, OR DRIVING ELECTRICAL CARS, OR EATING LESS MEAT, OR REDUCING OUR OVERCONSUMPTION/POPULATION OR BY US AS INDIVIDUALS- ONLY SLOWED.

SO HERE IS A SOLUTION TO CONSIDER. BEFORE WE ARE  GENETICALLY ENGINEER INTO PRODUCTS.

WHY NOT MAKE PROFIT FOR PROFIT SAKE GENERATE A SELF PERPETUATING FUND OF TRILLIONS TO REDUCE CO2 EMISSIONS WORLDWIDE.

THIS CAN BE ACHIEVED WITH THE CLICK OF A BUTTON BY APPLYING A 0.005% WORLD AID COMMISSION ON ALL HIGHT FREQUENCY TRADING, ON ALL SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS ACCUSATIONS, ON ALL FOREIGN EXCHANGE TRANSACTIONS OVER $50,000, ON ALL WORLD LOTTOS AND GAMBLING WINS, ON ALL PROFITSEEKING ALGORITHMS, ON ALL PRODUCTS CONTAINING PALM OIL.

WITH THIS FINANCIAL CLOUT WE COULD TRANSFER WORLD ENERGY TO GREEN ENEGERY, CREATE MILLIONS OF JOBS WORLDWIDE REDUCING INEQUALITY, BOOST OUR ECONOMIES AND REVERS THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE DAMAGE.Climate Change Weather Environment Green

I believe that humans have the ability as a species to change this planet for the better I just hope we can achieve that before it is too late.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’ S: WHICH GLOBAL ISSUE SHOULD WE BE WORKING ON TO HAVE THE GREATEST IMPACT?

09 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., Climate Change., Education, Environment, Evolution, Fresh Water., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality., Life., Our Common Values., Poverty, Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders

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(Ten-minute read)

By not be able to coordinate any universal action we now pose the greatest threat to our own survival.

Future civilisation might well create a world without need or want, and make mindblowing intellectual and artistic achievements but in this new age, what should be our biggest priority as a civilisation be?

We could build a far more just and virtuous society but if we let civilisation end, then none of this can ever happen.

An overwhelming amount of political attention goes on concrete issues that help the present generation in the short-term since that’s what gets votes but at the cost of future generations that have no way to stand up for their interests, whether economically or politically.

You might be surprised if you ask the above question using AI.

Climate change comes some way down the list.

Natural risks are still quite small in absolute terms.

The risks from nuclear weapons are greater than all the natural risks put together. So, it seems like the chance of a massive climate disaster created by CO2 is perhaps similar to the chance of a nuclear war.

Since these risks are caused by humanity, they can be prevented by humanity, but what stops us is the difficulty of coordinate action.Image associée

Take Artificial Intelligence.

(There is a 50% chance we will develop high-level machine intelligence in 45 years, and 75% by the end of the century.)

It is difficult to predict what something smarter than us would do.  A sufficiently powerful system might be difficult to control, and so be hard to reverse once implemented.

What’s less appreciated is that new technologies will present further catastrophic risks.

Like genetically engineer a virus that’s as contagious as the Spanish Flu, but also deadlier, and which could spread for years undetected. That would be a weapon with the destructive power of nuclear weapons, but far harder to prevent from being used.

So, let’s ask the question again.

What should be our biggest priority as a civilisation be?

(The flippant answer is we first have continued to exist so that we’ll have the chance to solve all our other problems.)

Improving technology? Helping the poor? Changing the political system? Free Education? Geo-engineering?- to mention a few.

Most of the best ways to tackle these risks are not easily taken by for-profit entities because the beneficiaries live in the future and can’t pay you.

For instance, a better-educated population would probably elect more enlightened leaders (cough). Improve the decision-making ability of people and institutions, this would help to make society, in general, more resilient, and solve many other problems.

However, in order for education to achieve anything, it would have to be on a very large scale to have any noticeable effect.

Improving technology holds the possibility of enormous gains, but also enormous risks.

Avoid accidents from AI systems are the most neglected of all risks.

More to the point, no matter what you think has happened in the past, if we look forward, improving technology, political organisation and freedom gives our descendants the potential to solve our current problems, and have vastly better lives.

Then, among the catastrophic risks, climate change gets the most attention, while issues like pandemics and AI are the most neglected.

An issue can be big but comparatively well-known and crowded, like climate change, or it can be small but neglected, like land use zoning reform.

In most countries, there is no government agency that naturally has mitigation of these risks in its remit.

So, even if we only focus on the impact on the present generation, these

catastrophic risks are one of the most serious issues facing humanity.

Probably part of the reason most people aren’t immediately ready to jump into action is that there appear to be so many problems and no simple solution presents itself for any of them.

One approach is to address each risk directly. Or rather than try to reduce each risk individually, we can try to make civilisation generally better at managing them – if we could all coordinate — if every nation agreed to contribute its fair share to reducing climate change, then all nations would benefit by avoiding its worst effects.

Unfortunately, such an approach in our capitalist consuming world is pie in the sky.

The truth is we only do so out of self-interest.

As we are witnessing with the Paris Climate Agreement made on 12 December 2015 when it comes down to the nitty gritty no one wants to pay either in the short term or long term.

It would be great if we could make the government have more concern for future generations.

To enable a universal action it has to be unseen and paid for by all without knowing. 

You only have to look at the reaction of the yellow jackets movement spontaneous calls to protest against the increase of the internal consumption tax on energy products. A rebellion of the provincial under-classes that typifies the 21st century (web-populism, fake news and a visceral, exaggerated hatred of both media and political elites).

Like the 5Star Movement in Italy, they started as an internet rebellion against representative democracy.

We all live in an apocalyptic bubble of social media- SO IF WE ARE TO GENUINELY TACKLE ANY OF THE WORLD PROBLEMS IT REQUIRES A PERPETUAL FUND THAT GENERATES ITS FUNDS FROM PROFIT FOR PROFIT SAKE NOT INCREASED TAXES.

(SEE PREVIOUS POSTS)

Such a fund would turn the United Nations from a begging organisation into a world organisation with clout.

AI CALCULATES 19% chance of extinction before 2100.

It’s possible to grow the capacity of a community faster than you can grow your individual wealth or career capital. WE NEED TO USE OUR BUYING POWER TO EFFECTS CHANGE.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "images of global issues"

Why?

Because we will need to change our way of thinking and the extent of how we consume resources.

To achieve food and water security. To stop HABITAT AND BIODIVERSITY LOSS AND OCEAN DESTRUCTION – TO CREATE A MORE MODERN AND EFFECTIVE UN. 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP.

04 Thursday Apr 2019

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

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(Fifteen-minute read)

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

Is he right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What should we do?

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

But what is the truth? What about reality?

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

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

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

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

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

A Universal basic salary will only fuel consumption. 

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

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

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

Returning to the Question of DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP.

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

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

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

So here is a solution.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s a project we can all get behind.

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

 

 

 

 

 

Who actually is the useless class?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

01 Monday Apr 2019

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

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( Seven minuter read)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CAN WE DO ANYTHING?

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

upgrade.

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

want and need?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHAT IS NEEDED NOW IS FOR SOMEONE TO REALISE THAT:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

People could buy them or win them.

For Example:

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

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

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

What if countries used SCs to reflect fair trade.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If so, what will the next generation bring?

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: ITS TIME FOR THE SOCIAL SECTOR TO MOVE BEYOND THE US-VERSUS THEM.

28 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by in #whatif.com, Capitalism, Climate Change., Environment, Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern Day Democracy., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Purchasing Power., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Trade Agreements., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What needs to change in European Union., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics, World Trade Organisation

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(Twelve-minute read)

There is no point at shaking our fists at corporations whose drive is to maximize profits at the expense of communities.

The world is changing faster than ever before with levels of social inequality spiralling out of control, with most of the world’s problems resulting from this, in one way or another.

The story we have been telling ourselves about our origins is wrong and perpetuates the idea of inevitable social inequality.

There is a fundamental problem with this narrative.

It isn’t true.

Civilization meant many bad things (wars, taxes, bureaucracy, patriarchy, slavery…) but also made possible written literature, science, philosophy, and most other great human achievements.

Civilization’ does not come as a package.

Unfortunately most see civilization from their smartphones and TV sets hence inequality, as a tragic necessity.

Once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there one can imagine overthrowing capitalism or breaking the power of the state, but it’s very difficult to imagine eliminating ‘inequality’.

In fact, it’s not obvious that doing so would even mean since people are not all the same and nobody would particularly want them to be.

Against a background of limited resources GDP growth is still seen as the ultimate political ambition.

‘Inequality’ is a way of framing social problems appropriate to technocratic reformers, the kind of people who assume from the outset that any real vision of social transformation has long since been taken off the political table.

With billions of people hyper-connected to each other in an unprecedented global network, it allows for an almost instantaneous and frictionless spread of new ideas and innovations. Combine this connectedness with rapidly changing demographics, shifting values and attitudes, growing political uncertainty, and exponential advances in technology, and it’s clear the next decade is setting up to be one of historic transformation.

The tech invasion has already taken over retail and advertising – and now invading forces have their eyes set on healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and education, banking.

It is time we turn the page on an approach to “the economy” under which communities are passive recipients, relegated to react to its ups and downs.

If we really want to understand how it first became acceptable for some to turn wealth into power, and for others to end up being told their needs and lives don’t count, it is here that we should look.

For instance, almost everyone nowadays insists that participatory democracy, or social equality, can work in a small community or activist group, but cannot possibly ‘scale up’ to anything like a city, a region, or a nation-state.

But the evidence before our eyes, if we choose to look at it, suggests the opposite.

Popolourism or people power can take many forms depending on what kind of change you’re looking to achieve and who has the power to make that change happen — whether it’s a government, company, community or individual.

There are many ways to influence governments and politicians, all of which can shift laws, policies and regulations.

Governmental and political structures are complex and vary widely across the globe and local laws can restrict the ability of organisations to engage in politics but there is one universal power that we have not yet tapped into.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "purchasing power pictures"

That is the power of Purchase Power.

The social sector has focused for years on government as its mechanism for change, but it’s business that has the biggest potential impacts on the social and environmental crises of our time.

Some of the deepest challenges facing our democracy have to do with the interaction between money and politics.

Yet civically minded citizens have limited options: call your MP, join a one-off protest action, donate to our advocacy organization. Too often, the options posed don’t translate into tangible benefits for one’s own community.

By making every purchase a civic opportunity, we can put communities back behind the wheel of their own economic destiny.

If we really want to see change when we open up our wallets to purchase the necessities and extra goodies in our lives, we should be more conscious of what or who we are supporting.

Purchasing power is social impact power.

With purchasing power, we can help business leaders to deliver social benefits while also meeting their bottom line, creating local markets that reward those who do.

People, given a path that does not set them back economically, will make choices as consumers that do good for their world. And, just as important, business leaders will as well.

By pooling our purchasing power, people and communities can do more than gain access to services they want at lower cost; they can unlock the ability of business–and I believe, whole market sectors–to be drivers of social good.

I believe people and communities have a more powerful tool in where what, and when they use their purchasing power.  For creating social benefits they care about, one that requires no sacrifice but instead aligns with their own economic interest as consumers:

Collective purchasing power.

Just imagine if the money we routinely spend on food, clothes, gifts, and even indulgences were turned into an untapped superpower to force change.

We’re at a moment of crisis in Communities–especially low-income neighbourhoods–are no longer being meaningfully engaged by the global economy, income inequality has never been higher, and our expulsion of finite fossil fuels into the atmosphere has us all on a crash course for disaster.

Although no generation behaves the same as the last.

How can we jumpstart a new, clean economy that truly lifts up those who need it most?

As new technologies are created at a faster and faster pace – and as they are adopted at record speeds by markets – it’s fair to say that the future is coming at a breakneck speed.

The definition of wealth itself is taking on a new meaning, with millennials leading a charge towards sustainable investing rather than being entirely focused on monetary return.

Global warming is here.

Humanity has dallied so long that avoiding the worst impacts will now require extremely sharp emissions cuts and the hotter it gets, the harder it gets to adapt.

THE TECH TO PULL CARBON OUT OF THE ATMOSPHERE IS STILL UNPROVEN.

The world has now amassed $247 trillion in debt, including $63 trillion borrowed by central governments: How we view money – and how that perception evolves over time – is an underlying factor that influences our future.

The population tidal wave in the coming decades will completely reshape the global economy. Rapid urbanization will translate into the growth of megacities, holding upwards of 50 million people.

While Amazon and Apple are worth over $1 trillion, Jeff Bezos has a $100+ billion fortune, and the current bull market is the longest in modern history at 10 years.

WITH MORE AND MORE PROFIT SEEKING ALGORITHMS THE FORCES BEHIND CHANGE ARE NOT ALWAYS EVIDENT TO THE NAKED EYE.

We now seem to be trapped in a trade paradox in which politicians give lip service to free trade, but often take action in the opposite direction.

Underrepresented populations have enormous influence as consumers.

Here are a few suggestions for conscious consumerisms.

Why not follow Bogota the Capital of a poor country and ban cars from our city centre on Sundays.

With the speed at which technology now moves, expect our energy infrastructure and delivery systems to evolve at an even more blistering pace than we’ve experienced before.

Why not allow and assist communities to set up there own solar farms.

Why not lobby Apple with there RECENTLY ANNOUNCED new credit card to allocate the cash back to charities.

Why not designate one day of the year as a world day of no online purchases.

Why not promote public asset ownership.

Why not apply a 0.05% world aid commission on all High-Frequency trading, on all Sovergen wealth fund accusations, on all foreign exchange transactions over 50,000 $, on all Lotto wins to create a perpetual World Aid fund.

Why not ask people outside Super Markets not to buy products that are housed in non-recyclable plastic.

There are many facets of change that will impact our shared future.

For community-driven economic transformation, someone has to pay for all of this change, and it is still going to be us in the form of targeted advertising.

So let advertising in all its forms Pay.

The wealth landscape is not all just about billionaires and massive companies – it is changing in other interesting ways as well.

The full impact of Millennials purchasing power and brand preferences will come into full effect in 2020 when their purchasing power is projected to reach $1.4 trillion.

Eventually, our descendants will be unrecognizable.

In our consumer culture what will have an immediate beneficial effect is a bottom-up approach through purchasing power which hurts the bottom line.

Finally. I am not the first or will I be the last to recognise the above.

Portable Purchasing Power

Today’s mobile advertising industry is growing exponentially. More devices

mean more sales, more opportunities to force change with what, where, and

how you buy.

Image associée

The world we want is in our hands. Buy the changes you want to see. 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: WE ALL KNOW WHY THE WORLD IS IN SUCH A MESS.

29 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Capitalism, European Union., Fourth Industrial Revolution., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality., Life., Modern Day Democracy., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Reality., Social Media., The common good., The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., Wealth., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., WORLD POVERTY WHERE'S THE GLOBAL OUTRAGE

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(Ten-minute read)

Looking at the world right in front of our eyes it would be fair to say that it is currently falling asunder while we all turn inwards in the fourth technological revolution that is not just undermining world institutions but creating social inequality that is linked to racial inequality, gender inequality, and wealth inequality, not to mention world conflicts.

This is a ringing indictment of our global economic system and there is no justifying it.

So the question is as it has been for the last couple of decades is there enough being done to bring about a more equitable distribution of income on a global scale.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of inequality and poverty"

The answer is a resounding No. To the extent that it is now hard to imagine any kind of economic miracle that could shrink the worldwide income gap.

Where is global inequality going?

By 2030 the richest 1% will own two-thirds of global wealth.

World lottos, created new billionaire every two days.

The world’s 10 richest billionaires, according to Forbes, own $745 billion in combined wealth, a sum greater than the total goods and services most nations produce on an annual basis.

Between 2009 and 2017, the number of billionaires it took to equal the wealth of the world’s poorest 50 per cent fell from 380 to 42.

But more than 65 per cent of the world’s millionaires continue to reside in Europe or North America. 

WHAT IF ANYTHING CAN BE DONE ABOUT THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH – OR RATHER THE LACK OF IT.

It’s true that wealth inequality has always existed, no matter what the design of the society. Whether capitalist or communist, democratic, autocratic, or plutocratic, it will exist.

Yet many of the extremes we see today are avoidable.

Income disparities have become so pronounced poor health and poverty go hand-in-hand.

It is tempting to see the rising concentration of incomes as some sort of unstoppable force of nature, an economic inevitability driven by globalization and technology.

There is nothing inevitable about untrammelled inequality.

It is the result of an unlevel playing field, the direct consequence of certain government policies.

There is no longer any simple solution.

Nowhere has the distribution of the pie become more equitable.

Increasing the incomes of low-wage workers produces stronger beneficial economic ripple effects than boosting bonuses for the rich.

Excluding Quantitative easing, 97% of money has been created through lending. When somebody borrows money – even just by spending on a credit card – new money is created. No wonder our economy is so geared around finance.

Yet we penalise labour and subsidise both debt and the ownership of assets.

The question is, how fast can developing countries grow in the future? The answer, unfortunately, is not fast enough.

The richest 1 per cent of humanity reaped 27 per cent of the world’s income between 1980 and 2016. The bottom 50 per cent, by contrast, got only 12 per cent.

If you ever wanted to understand where climate change came from, why there are so many wars and the unrest we are witnessing the above figures say it all.

This will only get worse in the near future with the most powerful force driving the distribution of income on a worldwide scale will be raw economic growth:

Will poor countries make sufficient progress relative to their rich peers to bring more balance to the distribution of global income?

Or will rising inequality within countries dominate?

It depends on three forces: countries’ economic and population growth, as well as the evolution of inequality within them.

This is no longer true. The forth Industrial technological revolution is going to require more aggressive redistribution through taxes and transfers.

Why because social inequality is now very different from economic inequality, though the two are linked.

Areas of social inequality include access to voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, the extent of property rights and access to education, health care, quality housing, travelling, transportation, vacationing and other social goods and services. In the quality of family and neighbourhood life, occupation, job satisfaction, and access to credit.

All of these areas are now been data mined for profit by you know who with us supplying the data scot free.

We all know that more inequality means less wealth for everyone. .. but are we seeing countries deciding to push vigorously back against inequality. No

Ballooning wealth inequality is a threat to society.

globalization has also upended the agricultural and manufacturing sectors in many countries.

“In every country, just about, the disproportionate economic clout of those at the top has provided these individuals with wildly disproportionate influence on their countries’ political life and on its media; on what policies are pursued and whose interests end up being ignored,” Obama said.

He is right!

Wealthy must contribute or be forced to the larger benefits of society.

Inequality is not inevitable – it is a political choice.

It represents social and political issues that no party or government can afford to neglect.

Foot Note: To us Europeans.

Europe, unfortunately, has not been at the forefront of this battle, at least not EU institutions.

On the contrary, it has for long remained complacent, as EU treaties require unanimity on tax matters and as the bloc includes countries such as Luxembourg that have benefitted massively from corporate and individual tax avoidance.

For decades, the EU was dominated by an unholy alliance among three types of governments: those that rejected the very principle of international tax coordination as an infringement on sovereignty; those that benefitted from tax competition; and those that used it as a way to overcome domestic reluctance to the reduction of redistribution.

For an institution that is supposed to be based on values and that hails the European social model, this is humbling, and the EU is now paying a political price for its long inertia.

Social inequality can also be established through discriminatory legislation.

Things have started to change.

Thanks to Yellow Jacks and Brexit we may witness only if we truly want it some improvements.

In the battle for fairer globalisation, with more and more Foodbanks and homeless people, it is far too early to claim victory.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of inequality and poverty"

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