Surely its time for all of us to stop acting as though we are all independent of Life.
To see the future first you have to be able to imagine it.
People might be beginning to understand but the clock is running out faster and faster which is being signaled by nature year after year while banks are commercializing its very existence.
Including us, none of the worlds in the universe are immune to natural limits.
If we and our politicians are still dragging our feet in another ten, twenty, thirty years we will have degrees of climate change that we will simply not be able to manage. The whole world will be in trouble.
As all the bad things re climate change are coming true assisted by the inertia of AI which is getting build into the system this time we will not be able to rely on coal to generate energy,
The chances of Technology (In the form of Algorithms) tackling inequality or driving sustainability are dismal in the extreme. (See previous postings)
The coming global problems that are going to be created by technology are obvious to see, lack of meaningful employment with the resulting immigration causing civil unrest and a return to Nationalism.
Just look at the results of Paris Climate Agreements being adhered too.
A complete allusion due to the rise of Nationalism.
Why?
Because of nationalism, we are now beginning to address the world problems on all the wrong levels.
We need to be looking forward not backward. Make America great, or Brexit Britain the two current prime examples.
We are now all living with technology and no government can control it.
Now more than ever the global capitalistic economy with national politics does not work.
Basic human needs are changing and even if we manage to establish a Basic Wage for all it will not solve who lives or dies.
Human stupidity or violence should never be underestimated. There is no post-truth fake news it has been with us for thousands of years.
No one has the time to analyze all the information that AI is producing other than another machine to make a judgment.
( I often feel that we should all be changing Facebook, Twitter, Google and the like for the information we are supplying them with.)
We have out of date Organisations that are incapable of making anything stick.
So I hear you saying what can be done.
First and for most, we must apply a World Aid Commission on all Profit-seeking Algorithms, on all high-frequency trading, on all sovereign wealth funds acquisitions, on all foreign exchange transaction over $50,00, on all world Lotto prize money etc. (See previous postings)
Then we must create a technology storm room where all programmes relating to technology in all its forms are held with access to all in sundry.
Of course, this is pie in the sky as it will never happen.
Since the dawn of history, the human has not been able to share for the common good of all, but there is one thing that might focus our minds sooner than extinction and that is the price of oil as it runs out.
New media such as Social Media seems to be driving a return to a more pluralistic communication System and Social movement activists may be seen as consumers of these new media, and for this very reason find attention for their demands.
But this, in fact, is open to différent types of interprétation.
So where are we?
As F.M. Powicke said: ” Political and social history are in my view aspects of the same process. Social Life loses half its interest, and political movements lose most of their meaning if they are considered separately”
Social media with its networks and its rules petitions and false news that go beyond democratic representation and is achieving exactly what Powicke rightly identified.
Social left politics is in disarray, Right-wing politics on the rise, Liberal politics in the pockets of Economic growth and the technologic revolution.
It is, therefore, time for in-depth research on the interactions between movement organizations and the society of social media that goes beyond the analysis of media bias.
In course of constructing the political landscape of these movements, if there is going to be any chance. We must not allow the world to be governed by the altar of profit, whether its Apple, Microsoft or some other monopoly platform.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
Perhaps the biggest issue in the June 23 referendum was the question of whether 43 years in the EU have helped or hurt the UK economy. Of course, the referendum completely ignored that when Britain joined the EEC as it was known then as the sick man of Europe.
One can not know exactly how much the EU directly benefited Britain, but a 10 percent rise in prosperity is a reasonable estimate.
I would like some political ( descendants of the two world wars) to tell me or explain to me why now in a world that is in turmoil Britain wants to turn itself into a hermit kingdom squandering its wealth and ingenuity for an idealised notion that you are still a mighty power that the nations of the world want to trade with on your terms.
Governments and Countries can’t be run like businesses.
Societies are built on a commitment to social and economic justice, not by the free market, but by equality of opportunity.
From the outside, the whole Brexit process has highlighted your indifference to seeing that there are going to to be enormous repercussions due to a fog of denial and self-delusion.
Today one in 20 UK residents was born in another EU country.
Some Eurosceptics say Britain stands a better chance of growth if it looks beyond the sluggish economies of the EU. But this is a claim about the future, predicated on trading relationships that do not yet exist, rather than an analysis of the past.
UK trade with EU partners grew faster after 1973 than it did with the remaining countries in the European Free Trade Association, the grouping to which Britain previously belonged.
For almost half a century, Britain has benefited from greater openness to world markets, which has fostered economic dynamism. Economists have demonstrated that the main cause of that change was membership of the EU, which brought with it gains from trade, foreign direct investment, competition, and innovation.
This is what Britain is turning it back on.
The UK is one of the largest recipients of research funding in the EU. Over the period 2007 – 2013 the UK received €8.8 billion
Many Eurosceptics raged against the UK’s annual £18bn transfer to the EU.
Nigel Farage has claimed that being in the bloc costs Britain £55m a day — more than £20bn a year.
But the UK’s net transfer to the EU falls far short of such claims.
A rebate secured by Margaret Thatcher in 1984 reduced the bill and London sent £13bn to Brussels in 2015. Against that, the UK received £4.5bn from the EU in regional aid and agricultural subsidies, and the private sector received a further £1.4bn direct from the EU budget.
That takes the net cost of membership to about £7bn, less than half a percent of national income — about £260 a year for each British household.
Another often-quoted figure — the reported £33bn cost of regulation — comes from an impact assessment by Open Europe, a think-tank, of 100 EU rules.
But it is based on only one side of the balance sheet.
The benefits of the regulations are “much higher” than the costs and “clearly not all of [the costs] would disappear after Brexit”.
Most economists have little doubt that Britain’s membership of the EU has translated into more trade.
For crying out loud it’s not Isolation that Britain needs but a large dose of common sense and cooperation.
Get a grip.
It is time for young of the nation to unbottling their responsibilities to England by demanding a re-run of the Referendum without the pursuit of personal pleasure.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
If you look at the direction the world is going in life itself is about to break out of organic life into to nonorganic life.
If you were expecting some kind of warning when computers finally get smarter than us, then think again.
In reality, our electronic overlords are already taking control, and they are doing it in a far more subtle way than science fiction would have us believe.
Another word we will have different biological classes of people with new types of gods with new tec religions that produce new bodies, brains, and minds.
There will be no more going to heaven.
It is these invisible computations that increasingly control how we interact with our electronic world. There will be new stories, new thinking to match the new technologies.
Algorithms will be the new form of Communism.
These days we die not because it is in our DNA or Genes but because of Techo problems.
Calico a Google subsidiary is a research and development company whose mission is to harness advanced technologies to increase our understanding of the biology that controls lifespan.
Its ambition is to solve the problem of human health/death.
It’s all being done right before our eyes.
Algorithms can now detect personalities via human language conversation.
What’s next? Will WW3 be launched via algorithm?
Perhaps not but inequality will be the norm with Fundamentalism gone.
The power of algorithms has spread far beyond Wall Street and now touches all of us–starting with today’s young innovators.
Algorithms are doing a lot more than automating stock trades.
Most people don’t know that there are algorithms that decide how customer service calls get routed or how customer service requests will be treated. When people call these big companies like their health insurer or telecom company, they’re actually being categorized, sliced, diced and parsed by a bot.
It’s incredible to think that the words someone chooses on a given morning will forever change how that company treats him or her.
These algorithms don’t just affect people involved in computer science.
No-one would doubt that Google system has made searching a whole lot easier, but at what price? As algorithms spread their influence beyond machines to shape the raw landscape around them, it might be time to work out exactly how much they know and whether we still have time to tame them.
Algorithm change because they know they’re getting gamed.
Algorithms are aimed at optimizing everything.
They can save lives, make things easier and conquer chaos but are they putting too much control in the hands of corporations and governments, perpetuate bias, create filter bubbles, cut choices, creativity, and serendipity, and could result in greater unemployment.
How far Google’s data-crunching algorithm go in harvesting our personal data and shaping the web will be the Story of the Future and because our brains are becoming more and more reliant on the internet for memory
The Google story could well be the god of the future.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
( A twelve-minute read that could be the answer to Poverty)
You don’t have to be Einstein to recognize that inequality in all its forms is what wrong with our world. It haunts every minute of our lives no matter who you are, however ‘Ending world poverty is an unrealistic goal’
It is policy not aid which matters most in today’s world.
Why?
Because the politics of inequality in the future will be as important as the economics of the Future.
Relative poverty is unpreventable without tackling inequalities.
The aspirations of delivering a world where the quality of education, healthcare and national infrastructure available to every person is sufficient to bestow on them meaningful hope and ambition is hopefully the aim of “development”. I emphasize the word hopeful.
In a world in which a billion people live on $1.26 a day, with climate immigration increasing and technology Algorithms blundering the world’s wealth.
We’re going to have to realize sooner than later that if we are to avoid or end violent conflicts ( That these days has inequality as their triggers) there is only one course to follow and that is to spread the wealth of the world fairly.
Poverty is a perception – it is a status which is bestowed on people who have relatively little – even in societies of plenty. Just look at the prevailing political view on aid to middle-income countries that contain hundreds of millions of desperately poor people.
We all know that the chances of ending poverty altogether are zero.
It would potentially cost some of the world’s biggest businesses billions and would need to be agreed by a group of world leaders who, if they all went out to dinner, would be sat around the table with their calculators out arguing about how to split the bill.
In a world driven by Greed, Advertising, and now more and more by filtered Social Media, we are becoming increasingly desensitized to the blight of others.
For those working in organisations that are dependent on official development assistance, it is hard to talk about ending their dependency, but the 21st century demands the challenge is not ducked.
Too much negativity and accusation of not making any progress with aid money. Comments like Shit Holes, which imply that aid is no longer necessary are undermining our Aid agencies, which are becoming an increasingly endangered species.
So if we accept that we won’t be satisfied if we overcome absolute poverty, where do we go next?
The closer we get to ending extreme poverty, the harder it is going to be to do it.
Imagine how different the world would be if the focus of aid spending was not “ending $1.25 dollar a day poverty” but “creating a fairer and more equitable world”.
Relative poverty will always exist and it should always be at the forefront of efforts to improve our world because it demands more than the bare minimum solution, or Asshole Trumps.
Decisions taken on tax regimes, remittance flows and trade concessions are now not the fastest route to assist poor countries in their development. Inequality is at the root of the reasons why.
So in this world of inequalities is there any way of assisting development in a meaningful way.
Gadgets like tablets, smartphones and not-so-smart phones are multiplying five times faster than we are, with our population growing at a rate of about two people per second, or 1.2% annually.
The world is home to 7.2 billion gadgets, and they’re multiplying five times faster than we are.
The Mobile phone has done more for Africa than all Aid. No other technology has impacted us like the mobile phone.
The number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to pass the five billion mark by 2019. In 2016, an estimated 62.9 percent of the population worldwide already owned a mobile phone.
The mobile phone penetration is forecasted to continue to grow, rounding up to 67 percent by 2019.
By 2019, China is expected to reach almost 1.5 billion mobile connections and India almost 1.1 billion.
The number of smart phone users worldwide is expected to grow by one billion in a time span of five years.
It’s not that every person in the world has a mobile device, far from it; more than half of the population don’t have a mobile phone.
There are around 250 million machine-to-machine connections.
That may only be a fraction of the total number of mobile connections, but it was enough to knock us people off our perch in the man vs machine superiority stakes.
Just imaging what would happen if we were to equip everyone in the world (of voting age) with a mobile phone that could receive a basic income on a monthly basis.
Each phone with its unique pin.
With a phone that supplies a basic income we would witnessing a transformation in the way people relate to their governments.
A game-changer.
Not just a safer way to store money, but to reduce the need for Aid, to cut out corruption, to empower the poor, to eradicate inequality, to encourage closing the digital divide with the rest of the world. To give a sense of a future, information, opportunity and choice. To lift young people are currently trapped in poverty, often exacerbated by the need to contribute to their family incomes.
Explosive growth in mobile broadband use across continents would improve transparency and give a voice to citizens.
They would have a major economic, social and political impact.
So instead of the World Bank, the IMF, the Warren Buffets, the Bill Gates, the Mark Zckerbergs, the UN, Oxfam, the WTO, technology has the potential to lift people out of poverty.
There is no reason that a mobile money basic income could not be achieved with the application of a world aid commission of 0.05%. ( See previous posts)
Applying such a commission: (On all profit seeking Algorithms, on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over $50,000, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds acquisitions, to mention just a few of the existing Capitalist instruments that are solely designed for Profit.) would create a perpetual Fund of trillions.
Traditional banking is out of reach for many people in rural areas of developing countries, but mobile is bringing people into the financial system in droves. Financial inclusion, starting with a humble savings account, enables people to start businesses, invest in education and weather bad times.
Mobile still has hurdles to jump before it can reach all the lives of people most in need of the technology: Namely, reliable, affordable energy and comprehensive network coverage. However you can rest assured if aid was directed to placing a communication satellite in orbit to service Africa or Latin America cell, phone use could help developing the countries within these Continents to plan electrical infrastructure.
There are in the world already a enough used mobile phones to supply most of Africa ( Pop. 1,273,903, 985)
Unfortunately there seems to be a major barrier to people turning in their old phones to be recycled.
To give a couple of examples, a recent survey found that 63% of Canadians have an unused phone at home. And in the UK alone, people are holding on to an estimated 76.8 million unused phones.
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.
” Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth on a finite planet is either a madman or an economist” I would add technology in the form of profit seeking Algorithms.
Infinite growth might have seemed possible when Captain Cook was around, unfortunately it no longer holds.
However we are all still lead to believe that GDP marks human progress.
Our world is rapidly changing. Markedly defined by the Internet.
We are now standing on the threshold of divorce between Money and State with natural systems under enormous pressure which I am sure I don’t have to high light here.
With the planet groaning, ever trade deal is a new frontier of accumulation a form of World GDP exploitation that was and still is promoted by the help of the World Bank, and the IMF.
We are now at a stage where GDP growth is beginning to create more poverty, and inequality than it eliminates.
Unfortunately the resources of the world have been exploited both for debt and profit rather than sustainability, and as long as GDP growth remains the main objective of Globalization we will see more and more countries going into irreversible debt, and war over freshwater, air, and energy.
These profound changes are emboldened by the evident failures on both levels of political control: Technological Regulations/ Laws and the growing power of monopoly platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, the Cloud etc.
Don’t worry say’s technology we can decouple sustainability and material throughput.
A beguiling vision of a future lightweight economy.
Facebook and the Cloud are gathering an unprecedented amount of power and allowing their business practices to be a disruptive force for democracy.
All pointers signaling the widespread decay of the economic and political frameworks in which our institutions operate.
With profit seeking algorithms rich countries are in fact increasing consumption, still producing stuff and by 2030 it will be in the 100 billion tons.
There is also a growing belief as we convert to renewable energies and begin to use negative – emissions technologies that we can change the damage to the climate.
However if we continue to ignore that energy use is only part of the problem.
It is what we are doing with it is the problem.
Polluting our sea, chopping down our forests, producing cement, creating land fills with waste, eroding our land, all contributing more and more greenhouse gases. Switching to clean energy will do nothing to slow this down.
The problem is much deeper than we are willing to admit.
We need a new consciousness for a different world.
Our crucial first step would be to get rid of GDP as a measure of economic growth/progress and well-being.
We need to have an open discussion about what we really value.
We are all aware of the individual problems, but the main problem remains the same – Inequality due to the distribution and exploitation of the world’s wealth.
Any rich country that has food banks, people sleeping on the street, is for me a failed state.
I have written many a post with a solution that to date has fallen on deaf ears.
it is my conviction that at this point and time its impossible to correct the imbalances of Capitalism. We can only ensure that Capitalism pays for the damage by introducing a World Aid Commission.
0.05%
On all High Frequency trading, on all Sovereign Wealth Fund Accusations,on all Foreign exchange transactions over $50,000, on all Social Media platforms postings, on all Bitcoin’s, and other digital currency transactions.
This fund would be a perpetual source of money.
It could replace the begging Organisations.Re Establish the United Nations an effective world organisation that could address and react to world needs, where ever, when ever.
It could be managed under the UN umbrella, provided it was totally independent/ transparent of any lobbing and political veto interference.
Its funds could be granted with no repayments requirements.
It would change the world for the better, by spreading its wealth where it is needed most.
Of course the problem remains as to how we get our Capitalist Master to implement such a course of action.
Perhaps Bitcoin’s ability to promote the divorce between Money and State, might be a place to start.
All suggestions appreciated.
All human comments appreciated. All Like clicks chucked in the bin.
We live in a world that is being connected and disconnected at the same time.
Two related facts.
But don’t worry we now have Algorithms that both filter and recommend.
All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last.
The reality is that there’s no way of knowing where our generation is going in terms of technology and our reliance on it.
The year 2018 will be the year in which human interaction decreases the more technology increases. While social media fosters an environment of connectedness and belonging in the digital world, it also forces a disconnect between people in the real world.
With false news and social media, words are on their last legs, with print for the high jump, we will have more arse holes 2018 twittering shaping the world.
Where two or three words gather together there is a great danger that thought might be present. However we once again don’t have to worry because we have the option to log off and unplug anytime we want, so it’s up to us to decide if we want to engage with the actual world or the virtual one.
Technology may well be is a societal advancement that has enabled our generation to do things previous generations never would have thought possible.
However:
The biggest problem we have is accepting each other’s differences.
“Technology makes us forget what we know about life.”
82 per cent of smart phone users said they rarely (if ever) powered off their phones last year, while less than 43 per cent of 13- to 18-year-olds saw any value in ever going unplugged.
Why?
This is the Eternal Question to which there is no answer, and yet the only one that has to be asked.
Take a look around you.
Every day we becoming more and more desensitized. Save this Save that while saving the planet is being left to technology.
Rapid progress in machine learning has raised the prospect that algorithms will one day be able to do most or all of the mental tasks currently performed by humans.
But the real problem is how one might design a highly intelligent machine to pursue realistic human goals safely.
This is very poorly understood.
Even if advanced machine intelligence does not get ‘out of control’, it is likely to be very socially disruptive and it is more likely it could be used as a destabilizing weapon of war.
It seems that most of us are in a mental wasteland inhabited by those upon whom the portcullis ( A sudden blotting out of all normal thought) has fallen.
How did we get to a place where the content on our phones is more interesting than the world around us?
In today’s society, scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram has taken precedence over the real events scrolling through our daily lives.
Being “connected” to machinery 24/7 is affecting our ability to connect with our lives and the people around us.
Mechanical devices bait us into a make-believe life, as we are slowly being pulled away from a sense of who we are and what really matters.
Modern life is making us lonelier.
It’s not the technology that’s the problem; it’s us for abusing it.
We’ve become more and more antisocial by relying on technology too heavily.
Maybe if we look up and away from the flashing images and colors on our most recent Safari search, we will actually enjoy the company of those around us. So instead of counting the number of likes, count the memories in your life, because at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
For the foreseeable future, it won’t be possible to take people out of the decision-making process, but the year 2018 will with the power of Profit Seeking Algorithms push us further down the road of hypnotic trance.
Technology is a valuable tool when used correctly. However, the law has to catch up with privacy and safety issues, not mention profit seeking algorithms.
We’ve all heard about the power of algorithms—but Algorithms to Live is in my book to be avoided at all costs, if we are to value what is vital to us all.
They are creating a world of such inequality that the scariest thing is the immense possibilities of these unregulated Algorithms will turn us and all that is necessary for a sustainable life into commodities to be exploited.
What can be done:
Education, Education is the only solution.
By this I mean education not for the market place but for the foundation of knowledge. Not just a narrow streamlined pipeline of mundane thoughts which doesn’t let you think outside the box and do things on your own.
Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Ecology, to name a few.
Dramatic changes are inevitable, we need to accept the fact on ground level that our education models are broken and paralyzed.
Perhaps we might well need computer algorithms to select the best candidate?
There’s no magic formula, freedom and dignity will not be found on social media, nor computed by algorithms.
There are too many parts of today’s conversations that can not be translated through technology.
Tearing apart the nation states and the world with ALGORITHMS is a
Disaster waiting to happen. No Robot with a brain full of algorithms is
going to have the the ability of an artist to have human empathy and an
appreciation of history; while also having the savvy self-awareness to
understand that their work merely takes its place in a greater culture
at large. Such art brings comfort in our modern secular world: where
spirituality seems to live in a foreign universe of yesteryear.
You’re more than a number.
how the mythical and quotidian usually overlap to
the point where the two become indistinguishable.
So join a club and organizations to make real friends.
Happy New year.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
It would be fair to say that most of us live in a cloud of our own importance.
However that cloud is disappearing into any other cloud which we are all creating with little or no control.
Our Ideology of normative beliefs, conscious and unconscious ideas, that are individual, group or society are under attack by this cloud. The reality is that temporary outages and slower-speed broadband that are a minor nuisance today can and will become a critical issue.
It represents the consummate disruptor to structure; a pervasive social and economic network that will soon connect and define more of the world than any other political, social, or economic.
It is the first mega trend of the twenty-first century, one that will shape the way we will address virtually every challenge we face for at least the next 100 years.
It is where we will all live, work, and play in the coming decades.
The Cloud is where your kids go to dive into online play. It’s where you meet and make friends in social networks. It’s where companies find the next big idea. It’s where political campaigns are won and lost.
You might think that this is all hog wash.
( But it appears that New Zealand does not have any politicians with brains of their own that they can rely on.
It has just recently appointed the worlds first AI virtual politician with the wonderful name of SAM. “Sam your man ” with a memory of an elephant he never forgets. ” Sam considers everyone’s position when making decisions.”
Well F… me Nick Gerristen ( The creator of Sam) there is a lot of bias in the cloud and AI algorithms are riddled with it.
You say “SAM is an enabler.” I agree. Make sure you feed it as no doubt Google will want to buy it. I see you love BIG ideas, so perhaps you should introduce Sam to Sophia and you might have a bunch of little Samson’s.
Make sure he knows all about NXT Fuels, and by all means give him a bash. I am sure the Maori would be delighted. By the way, being a politician I would have named it, Ākina. ( A Māori word meaning a call for bold action. It also conveys a spirit of watchful and active encouragement, helping others to identify pathways through their challenges.)
Back to the more serious subject:
It is time that we started to recognize some of the risks associated with this cloud technology, so as to avoid the possibility of future issues being decided by Sam and his like, who are servants of the hardware and software resources made available on the Internet as managed third-party services.
The world and us who live on it are becoming highly dependent on our Internet providers, so much so that it wont be long before we will have a fully cloud-based world.
Since no proper standards for cloud computing are set yet, it becomes almost impossible for anyone to ascertain the quality of services they have been provided with. So in the near future we will not be able to make wise decisions while choosing your personal service provider.
This, in turn, enables providers to charge customers fees proportional to their network, storage, and processing utilization.
Most issues start from the fact that the user loses control of his or her data, because it is stored on a computer belonging to someone else.
Many cloud providers can share information with third parties if necessary for purposes of law and order even without a warrant.
Although cloud computing enhances content accessibility, this access is “increasingly grounded in the virtually monopolistic privatization of the cloud which provides this access”.
This access, necessarily mediated through a handful of companies, ensures a progressive privatization of global cyberspace.
So we must ask the question why are we and our governments sustaining the quasi-monopolies that filter what we see depending on commercial and ideological interests they have.
The legal and regulatory landscape around cloud computing is by no means static. There are new laws being proposed that could change the responsibilities of both cloud computing tenants and providers.This creates new challenges in understanding how laws apply to a wide variety of information management scenarios.
As with all things surrounding profit it’s inevitable that some could will burst or simply stop providing the service if they deem it isn’t profitable for them. Often, large companies will enter the market but leave it once the expected profit doesn’t materialize. If this is the core business of the cloud supplier, it might be willing to continue operating for longer with a smaller profit.
Surely if we use a cloud infrastructure sourced from a cloud services provider, we must impose all legal or regulatory requirements that apply to any enterprise.
THIS WITH SELF LEARNING ALGORITHMS IS NOT POSSIBLE.
THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY OF ACHIEVING ANY CONTROL:
All technology must be vetted to ensure it complies to humanity core values.
It should be compulsory for it to carry a ATR World Certificate.
Accountable, Transparent, Reversible.
If we are to have any hope of tackling any of Social, Political, Economic and Environmental Issues That Affect Us we need a beanie Cloud not a cloud for profit.
All human comments 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.
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So reducing the size of the House by about 250 members would represent a significant saving to the taxpayer.
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