The only certainty about the war over Ukraine is that all existing certainties have been shattered.
If one listens to main media it would be fair to say that it is in a warp way encouraging Mr Putin to use nuclear weapons, ( not that he needs encouragement )
So how worried should you be? How does this end?
It is difficult to see how Putin “wins.” But he cannot accept defeat.
As long as there is no direct conflict between Russia and NATO then there is no reason for this crisis, bad as it is, to descend into a full-scale world war.
Is this true?
It’s always hard to predict what Mr. Putin is going to do, and anyone who says they know him really well … would not be telling you the complete truth.”
The hard facts are that this has now developed into a NATO backed war.
So what are the likely outcomes?
The spectrum of possible outcomes ranges from a volatile new cold or hot war involving the United States, Russia, and China; to a frozen conflict in Ukraine; to a post-Putin settlement in which Russia becomes part of a revised European security architecture.
That is as honest an assessment as anyone who isn’t Vladimir Putin can give you.
But the wild card here is the state of Putin’s mind.
The whole idea after the Second World War was we’re going to try to set up a system whereby we live in a world in which big countries cannot just decide we’re going to send in our military and take this territory that belongs to this other country has never worked.
There is almost zero mutual trust remaining between Russia and the West.
While the conflict is tragic for the Ukrainian people, it’s unlikely to lead to World War III because, at the moment, it appears that no world leaders want it to escalate to that degree, and efforts are being made to make sure fighting stays within Ukraine’s borders.
There are three major factors that make Europe today different from in the 1930s and ’40s and could prevent World War III.
The first is the NATO alliance.
The second factor is the presence of nuclear weapons.
The third is that the Ukraine is not a NATO member, so there is no formal obligation to come to its defence.
Where is this war going to go is however the big question keeping the world on edge:
It is fair to say that China or the USA would not allow their countries to be surrounded by nuclear missiles.
So be in now doubt that intellectual laziness, historical amnesia and dishonesty will take lives in the years to come.
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.” – Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) or to quote the late Norman Mailer, “Whatever else it is, history is a bitch.”
There is a saying that nothing unites a country better than being invaded by an enemy but Putin’s actions have far-reaching implications for global politics and democracy.
This is a dangerous backdrop against which to have a blazing public row over who is to blame for the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.
Europeans need to ask themselves hard questions. Are they willing to confront Russia? Is Russia going to challenge the borders of NATO? And how should Europe respond?
The immediate question is how to diminish Russia’s ability to threaten its neighbours.
The West’s political, economic, and military posture toward Russia is obviously in a state of flux at the moment. As a result unlike the Soviet Union, Russia is no longer a global competitor to the United States and there is no strong ideological component that unifies and divides the international community with regard to Russia.
Rather, what we see is a revisionist Russia (with somewhat limited capabilities to project force beyond its borders) that is challenging core principles of the international community.
So we have a long and potentially very unsettled period ahead of us that no radiation will cure.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Mutual understanding is the most important value anyone can have today, right after our need for food, shelter, and health but when it comes to a worldview our understanding appears to be a widening misunderstanding of where we are going.
We witnessed what the Covid pandemic did and what the current wars are doing. Understandable to some extent on one hand, but on the other, completely ununderstandable.
Why?
We have yet to understand that the world we live in is no longer available for making a short-term profit for the few to the detriment of the many and the planet.
Society now exists in an arc of tension towards that which is not, or is not yet.,
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It’s so difficult to agree on what understanding is it is almost impossible to mitigate the confusion – by embracing the fact that not only is “understanding” borderline indescribable, but it is also impermanent because understanding is evasive, constantly changing, and as dynamic as our own imaginations.
The challenge is to develop a way of thinking that builds critically upon the initial negative standpoint, a way of understanding that negates the untruth of the world.
Millions of war refugees are loses themselves for the sake of others. In doing so become enslaved and miserable to the most capricious of all gods. WAR?
If hope is not grounded firmly in that same bitterness of history, it becomes just a one-dimensional and silly expression of optimism.
We can’t get there with science/technology and wars alone.
It is going to take more the purposes of God.,
In a world full of suffering beyond comprehension/understanding I don’t think any of us can fully understand anything and are not meant to.
However, understanding is the only melting pot of wisdom, a gateway to:
Knowledge: The collective information and facts acquired through education or experience. Knowledge is awareness.
To gain knowledge, one has to spend time and effort to know things by reading, listening, seeing, experiencing, studying, and getting familiar with certain things. Without interest or passion, one can hardly acquire knowledge.
Wisdom: The quality of having good judgment based on knowledge.
To gain wisdom, one has to have knowledge first, and then use conviction to make a good judgment out of that knowledge.
Understanding: The ability to understand one’s knowledge and choices. It is the realization of your decision. It is knowledge and wisdom put into action.is the ability to understand one’s knowledge and choices. It is the realization of your decision. It is knowledge and wisdom put into action. If knowledge is power and wisdom is your choice to use that power, understanding is the execution of your choice to use that power. We develop understanding when we practice what we preach.
To gain understanding, one has to have both knowledge and wisdom first, and then put them into action.
Insight: The capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of one’s knowledge and choices.
To gain insight, one has to have all of the above: knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.
Do they all mean the same thing?
Obviously not but they all need each other.
So is there such a thing, such as a worldview.?
A worldview or world-view is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual’s or society’s knowledge and point of view. A worldview can include natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics.
Simply it is the principle of treating others no differently than you would like to be treated yourself.
There is no such thing as a view from nowhere: We are not data crunching reason machines, but experience the world through the lens of our past, our communities, and our deep values.
Why is it important to understand worldview?
Understanding our own and others’ worldviews can help build empathy, self–awareness, and understanding in our increasingly diverse societies.
Why?
Because there is no such thing as a neutral perspective on society or a neutral education.
Young people need to learn to interrogate the default secular assumptions of society as much as the assumptions of religious traditions, and a worldview approach would encourage this.
The worldview should not be seen as a focus on the content to be taught but as a way of framing how that content is introduced to the students.
Greater knowledge of religions would still be a key aim of the subject; as it is important for those of us with a Christian worldview to fight for the hearts and minds of people in order to build a society of equality.
It should be one of the most compelling and socially meaningful segments of the school day, helping pupils grow as citizens equipped for the world as it is now – this requires a shift from the current “world religions” information-based paradigm to a focus on worldviews, which means a more nuanced study of the lived experiences of people of different religions and beliefs.
Unfortunately the above is only words. We simply cannot oversee all the variables and possible outcomes of events but the human brain is more productive when it is given time to learn what distracting information it can disregard. Even with this shift from curriculum, instruction, and teacher actions, and toward data, assessment, and learning, there remains uncomfortable murkiness.
Currently, because life emerged from non-life and more complex life forms evolved from less complex one’s reality and humankind’s true values are formed by an impenetrable mess of Human beliefs.
These beliefs are Theism. Pantheism.Christianity. Spiritism. Buddhism. Postmodernism. Atheism. Humanism. Judaism. Islam. Naturalism. Agnosticism. Existentialism. Marxism. Polytheism. Hinduism. Taoism. New Age Consciousness. Animism. Thousands of Religions.
Nothing in this post has changed the horrors of the society in which we live. How many children have died needlessly since I started to write it? How many have since you began to read it?
Theism – is the most widely accepted worldview in the United States, with approximately 67% of Americans identifying as Christians, 2% as Jewish, and 1% as Muslim. Even so, few Americans have consciously developed a specific worldview, and many of them embrace various aspects of pantheism, naturalism, humanism, and postmodernism.
Pantheism – is the dominant worldview throughout Asia, and polytheism is prevalent in areas of the world that are predominantly tribal. Many aspects of pantheism and polytheism overlap, so the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably.
Only the spiritual dimension exists. All else is an illusion. In spiritual reality, Brahman is eternal, impersonal, and unknowable. It is possible to say that everything is a part of God, or that God is in everything and everyone. Humankind is one with ultimate reality. Thus man is spiritual, eternal, and impersonal. Man’s belief that he is an individual is an illusion.
Christianity – An infinite, personal God exists. He created a finite, material world. Reality is both material and spiritual. The universe as we know it had a beginning and will have an end. Humankind is the unique creation of God. People were created “in the image of God,” which means that we are personal, eternal, spiritual, and biological. The truth about God is known through revelation. The truth about the material world is gained via revelation and the five senses in conjunction with rational thought. Moral values are the objective expression of a supernatural and absolute moral being and therefore remain constant over time.
Spiritism – The world is populated by spirit beings who govern what goes on. Gods and demons are the real reason behind “natural” events. Material things are real but have spirits associated with them and, therefore, can be interpreted spiritually. Humankind is a creation of the gods like the rest of the creatures on earth. Tribes or races often have a special relationship with some gods who protect them and can punish them. The truth about the natural world is discovered through the shaman figure who has visions telling him what the gods and demons are doing and how they feel. Moral values take the form of taboos, which are things that irritate or anger various spirits. Taboos are different from the idea of “good and evil” because it is just as important to avoid irritating evil spirits as it is good ones.
Buddhism – Truth is an experience of unity with “the oneness” of the universe. Truth is beyond all rational description. Rational thought as it is understood in the West cannot show us reality. Ultimate reality is impersonal, so pantheistic thinkers believe that there is no real distinction between good and evil. “Unenlightened” behavior is that which fails to understand essential unity.
Postmodernism – Reality must be interpreted through our language and cultural “paradigm.” Therefore, the reality is “socially constructed.” Humans are nodes in a cultural reality—they are a product of their social setting. The idea that people are autonomous and free is a myth. Truths are mental constructs meaningful to individuals within a particular cultural paradigm. They do not apply to other paradigms. Truth is relative to one’s culture. Values are part of our social paradigms as well. Tolerance, freedom of expression, inclusion, and refusal to claim to have the answers are the only universal values.
Atheism – The material universe is all that exists. Reality is “one- dimensional.” There is no such thing as a soul or a spirit. Everything can be explained on the basis of natural law. Humankind is the chance product of a biological process of evolution. Man is entirely material. The human species will one day pass out of existence. Truth is usually understood as scientific proof. Only that which can be observed with the five senses is accepted as real or true. No objective values or morals exist. Morals are individual preferences or socially useful behaviors. Even social morals are subject to evolution and change.
Humanism – emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and relies on rationalism and evidence over the transcendent or supernatural. Humankind is part of nature and has emerged as the result of a continuous evolutionary process. His total personality bears the imprint of the social and cultural society surrounding him. The truth may be found through science (critical thinking and empiricism) and philosophy. Values are derived and steadily improved from a philosophy of utilitarianism, ethical naturalism, or evolutionary ethics.
The problem with all of them is that when confronted with the armed struggle they accept from the beginning of a war that it is necessary to adopt the methods of the enemy in order to defeat the enemy:
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Even now, many people realize that there is something seriously wrong with the present system (wars, poverty, pollution, inequality, etc.) However, it is the awareness and understanding of an alternative to this which is missing.
Capitalists in their present form had no economic interest in maintaining those, who worked for them. The vast majority are forced by their circumstances, to become economic slaves to the rich minority.
Employment is accurately described as being exploitation since the value of what the workers produce in the form of goods and services is much greater than the value of the wages/salaries which they receive. (Considering that the richest 10% of the world population earns 52% of the global income, while the poorest 50% of the population earns just 8%.) The surplus-value is pocketed by the capitalist class and is a very important source of the wealth of the ruling class.
The notion of cohesive communities and societies, and their role alongside globalization, privatization, and financialization in restoring trust in capitalism. But if the current system is so bad, what are the alternatives? Is there a way to reach an acceptable standard of living for all people without depleting natural resources and degrading habitat?
Within the confines of the capitalist system, it’s necessary to completely change the economic system.
Many ideas of alternative economic models have popped up over the years, which questions the constant need for growth that capitalism has embedded in the economic system.
Instead of focusing on profits and consumption, the emphasis is on social and environmental well-being as ways to attain a good life for people. We need to rethink the way we organize our economy and undergo a transformation in our way of life.
Societies need to use fewer natural resources and have different lifestyles than today.
Production and consumption need to be reduced so we have a society that supports each other and only takes what we need.
I’m probably not the only one feeling like this is too idealistic, but at the same time, I think some form of sufficiency thinking is necessary to get back in line with the resources that are available on planet Earth.
A common sense of solidarity among all humans seems a bit naïve in light of both history and current events. But with the plight, our economic system is pushing us and our environment to Wars and to Extension of the very environment that we are all relying on.
Alternatives are desperately needed.
Why?
Because continuous growth would lead to a stagnant, not reducing, ecological footprint.
Basically, a shift in not only people’s behavior but also their values can only be achieved by the introduction of a universal basic income.
People should learn to live with less and appreciate the value of “conviviality” and non-economic values.
This is no easy feat and has of course invited skepticism from others.
However to grasp the core or essence of the state of the world to date there has been no decoupling on the global scale, and both emissions and GDP are still growing.
We have to lower carbon emissions much faster than we are likely to be able to change the economic system. Even with a world governed by technology the interconnected global nature of the abundant world is coming to an end.
There are so many moving parts in learning what should be a relatively simple relationship between us and the earth perhaps the most powerful thing that you can do to combat the slippery notion of understanding is to use your buying power to Understand and know are interchangeable.
Not to settle for just paraphrasing understanding and a worldview in overly-simple words and phrases like “they get it” or “proficiency.
Really understand, ‘internalize knowledge in a world view of I’m all right Jack are not founded on religious beliefs, political ideologies, and greed.
The Earth belongs to all of us.
If you want it to remain so now is the time to play an important role in the evolution of a more intelligent world and inspire a shift in the way we see the planet.
It is not possible to calculate the value of life.
“If we can get people to go beyond the aesthetics,” says Astronaut Grant, “and contemplate exactly what it is they’re seeing – and consider what that means for our planet.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Do not read this if you are depressed or are easily depressed.
If you do read it try not to click the moron like button, but comment.
We, humans, believe that we are the most intelligent beings on the planet.
We believed that are superior to the animals due to our exclusive ability to reason.
In simple terms, this comes about when we select only the ‘survivors’ – those that outperformed the rest, whether people, machines, or companies – and come to conclusions based on their attributes, without looking more broadly at the whole dataset, including those with similar characteristics that failed to perform as well.
Our collective ingenuity has got us into the mess of Climate Change and now a Pandemic that is not just killing us but shining a light on our collective stupidity.
The Earth’s carrying capacity could absorb our endless acts of stupidity.
So to answer this question one could go back over the history of humanity and pick out numerous examples since man emerged from his cave.
From the Nuclear bomb to stepping on the moon. From Michelangelo to Albert Enstine. From the Stone age to the Tec age we have put greed and power before looking after what we had in the first place – Earth.
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As there is no escaping our interconnected world in this post I want to address the origins of Planetary realism when it comes to that interconnection.
Why?
Because we are now engaged in two possible futures for the world, the worst or the best.
Are we going to continue shooting ourselves in the foot?
or
Are we going to recognize that Human DNA is too similar to split us into subspecies or races of stupidity?
Can we act like one?
I firmly believe we know enough to solve our problems, I just doubt we have the collective will to work together to get the job done. We should be much better than our collective selves.
We have to start accepting our common vulnerability and therefore our common interest instead of just National Interests which is paramount to decisions that have to be on a global scale.
When the stakes are high, we want those making decisions – whether they be machines or human, to be correct, trustworthy, and responsible.
However, now we are handing these decisions more and more to machine learning algorithms and neural nets.
We implicitly grant artificial intelligence a degree of agency that not only overstates its true abilities but robs us of our own autonomy... It is always humans who choose whether or not to abdicate this authority, to empower some piece of technology to intervene on our behalf. It would be a mistake to presume that this transfer of authority involves a simultaneous absolution of responsibility. It does not.
Perhaps technology can be correct. But can it be trustworthy and responsible?
While it’s hard to judge even if another person is trustworthy or responsible, it may be even harder to judge something that thinks in such radically different ways as humans.
We once viewed ourselves as the only creature with emotions, morality, culture, which is not true, they can be found in the animal kingdom.
Confucius:
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”
This is to say that intelligence is the ability to recognize our weaknesses and one of our greatest weaknesses is the impenetrable barrier now being created right in front of our eyes between Artificial Intelligence and Capitalist Greed.
If we measure the IQ of AI it would be against its capabilities of reasoning and its problem-solving ability and nothing else.
Rational thinking and intelligence don’t tend to go hand in hand.
This measurement doesn’t measure curiosity or creativity.
Unlike the robotic world, people desperately believe they’re smart because they desperately want to see themselves as smart and sometimes because they really can’t tell.
Most of us measure our IQ as being five points higher than it actually is.
Thinking AI might work in the same way as a human brain is not only misleading but dangerous.
Up to now AI only takes orders and does not think by itself so there is a massive disconnect from biological networks. They, that is AI lacks some crucial components essential to navigating the real world…. they do recreate something like human intelligence that has the ability to analyze all matters from multiple angles while not or never will be prepared to take on responsible decision making.
In short, Dunning and Kruger discovered that the less intelligent you are, the more confident you’re likely to be that you know what you’re doing and the more likely you are to be wrong. Being unsure, in this context, is often a mark of intelligence.
Without being curious, an intelligent person won’t ever use their intelligence to learn and form new ideas.
At the same time, a person without curiosity it seems, be less likely to question themselves or the world around them in the first place. As a result, it seems they would also be unlikely to ever use what intelligence they had to learn new things and question their own misperceptions.
But AI is learning to manipulate human behavior, creating more problems for the world.
Of course, there is just one thing that nags away at the average man or woman in the street in amongst all this academic and government research and analysis, how safe is AI going to be for me – can I trust big business and government to behave ethically?
It is already exploiting vulnerabilities in ways people make choices. Click like and the AI steer you towards particular actions by filtering your choices.
WE now have “behavioral modification empires.”
The purpose of organizations such as Google and Facebook ceased to be building connections, and instead became about adapting your habits and thought patterns in the name of profit.
With so much misguided thought and active disinformation online, it has become difficult for people with insight worth sharing to do so. Behind the anonymity of the web, anyone can claim to be an expert. When everybody is an expert, nobody is.
In other words, the AI learns how people make choices.
Broad, anonymous social networks breed collective stupidity.
This has enormous ramifications for the future as AI could be used to steer people away from stupid choices or to make them.
AI can outwit us on the virtual battlefield so let’s not put them in charge of the real thing.
This is already happing with drones that identify, track and kill people without any human intervention. They have no moral capability to decide who lives or who dies, no empathy no compassion.
However, if a machine can beat us at a game does it make them more intelligent than us?
Despite the many warning raised not only will we see robots fighting wars they will be planning them too.
David Dunning and Justin Kruger, “The miscalibration of the incompetent stem from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.”
This goes directly into how people view themselves and their abilities. For instance, most people think they’re above average when that literally cannot be true.
In any leadership role, you’ve got to establish trust.
It’s trusting that the person is going to do things and trusting that they’re telling the truth and being upfront and honest.
But how you go about doing that virtually is a little different – it’s a different skill set.
We have seen that Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter transform Donald Trump into one of the worst presidents of the USA and a proud country England into a whaling nation of Nigel Farage has beings.
Because of our collective stupidity, social media transformed both into remote winners with lies.
Therefore it is reasonable to say that with the current Coivd-19 Pandemic that hopefully, people are now more likely to be seen based on what they actually do, not based on who they are.
Why?
Because they simply don’t translate into anointing leaders by virtual leadership.
Neither of them got better at the skills, such as reasoning from given data. Indeed smart people are more prone to silly mistakes because of blind spots in how they use logic.
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Considering the benefits accruing from AI.
Let’s start with how much data we produce globally.
It’s about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data produced every day in the world.
Next, if you Googled “how much energy do Google’s servers use?”
Unsurprisingly, it’s a lot. An estimate in 2017 claimed that the amount of power required to run Google’s servers is 2.26 million megawatts per year – enough to keep 200,000 homes going for the same time.
Facebook, in contrast, uses a wee bit more than Google, at about 3.43 million megawatts per year. Between them and Google they could power over 20% of the houses in Scotland.
When we come to the internet as a whole, it uses a bit more than 10% of the world’s energy consumption.
All electricity generation systems have a ‘carbon footprint’, that is, at some points during their construction and operation carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted. Then again all electricity generation technologies emit CO2 at some point during their life cycle. None of these technologies is entirely ‘carbon-free’.
While the energy involved in all bitcoin transactions in one year is 77.78 terawatt-hours – equivalent to the entire electrical consumption of Chile.
It’s no wonder that even without co2 emissions have climate change.
We are going to have to find a way to generate more electricity to power the economies and societies of the future, but in a manner that doesn’t wreck the planet.
There is a saying that “Mad dogs and English men go out in the noonday sun.”
Did you know the sun produces the equivalent of 38,460 SEPTILLION watts – that’s 3.846 x 1026 watts) PER SECOND. That’s almost enough to power a Metallica gig.
So you would think that it is a no-brainer that we have solar panels to enable everyone to use this source of energy by giving nonrepayable grants to every home to install them. To stop Co2 emissions. We have to fit our species into the energy flow of its biosphere.
That is the meaning of life in case you are so stupid still looking for a meaning.
Instead, we have Paris Climate change conferences promises and the forthcoming Glasgow Zome dribble turning CO2 into a product – for profit.
One thing is certain:
The original purpose of the internet has been lost. It set the stage for a technological revolution that could harness human intelligence and advance our shared knowledge.
Its click-baiting algorithms and lack of regulation have brought with them chaos.
As social media came to dominate the landscape, it made using the internet for the purpose of collective intelligence increasingly difficult.
The rise of social media was supposed to bring us closer together but instead, I argue, it has done the opposite.
A system based on generating clicks and interactions has created an environment for the outlandish and bizarre to flourish, with expertise falling by the wayside. With so much content being generated, how can experts possibly stand out from the crowd?
Machines and AI are great, but we have to retain some capacity to think for ourselves.
No matter how algorithms are retrained they will continue to impact the millions who use them.
The results will be that AI over time, will not categorize people into races on traits it thinks are most important – but into stupid or clever.
For obvious reasons, this year is different.
The pandemic has, of course, transformed how most workplace in-person teams are now all or partially digital operations in the wake of the pandemic, removing Joe Soap from any say about the Future.
At the moment we have a warlike philosophy – if we continue to develop AI it might not overtake our individual stupidity but our collective stupidity, putting our very existence in danger.
Tech should never be any more than a tool that helps us to bring out the best in humanity. Many of the issues we throw billions at and attempt to solve with technology could be easily achieved if we were able to better utilize our collective intelligence.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
They say we have free will, but there are many types of tyrannies in our world.
You could describe our hand-held devices which are keeping us connected to anything, anytime, anywhere as one.
We now use our hand-held devices for almost everything. More importantly, they use us for everything.
The extreme availability of information has not led to a more enlightened population, but to more confusion.
Connectivity is both a blessing and a curse.
It has become the pathway for almost all we do as we have become helpless without technology and the need for immediate data at our fingertips. But this is taking its toll.
The number of times we look at our phones daily would shock you: some studies say 50 times, others as many as 75 to 150 times. Most of our e mails are reactionary.
Information technology is all-pervasive in production and consumption.
Each time we look at the phone, we look away from what we should be or were focused on. Our collective ability to stay focused on anything is destroyed.
How does this connect to Growth.
It is too simplistic to attribute all of our economic problems to government: indeed, that sort of reasoning is counterproductive: it absolves everyone else responsibility.
Although part of the responsibility lies with forces that are outside a government, a significant share rests with the attitudes, preoccupations, we have to Artificial Intelligence that is now analyzing our every movement to the extent that advertising is becoming personalized.
I’m not saying that growth is bad but growth that destroys value just for profit is cancer that is driving inequality with a tendency to cluster around the short-term, issues while ignoring reality is going to bite us all.
I want to begin by touching on a crucial economy-wide factor
in the erosion of our economic strength which fosters short-term
thinking.
Advertising:
It is a major driver of unnecessary consumption.
This hasn’t always been the problem. Advertising use to inform you of the useful qualities of an object. Now it manipulates your emotions like anxiety and promises to improve social acceptance or class distinction.
It is now with a frenzy of social media advertising attaching its self to saving the world that is driving consumption to new dizzying heights.
Growth for growth’s sake, is an ugly word with even uglier connotations when it is using social media in the form of algorithms FOR PROFIT, regardless of the cost.
So what is driving it:
In the information age, time is compressed and events are squeezed into ever-decreasing periods.
We have governments encouraging a restless, fleeting mode of being, and a superficial, hurried culture, which is inimical to fundamental values.
They encourage growth programs, the benefits of which are available immediately, but the costs of which appear only at a later stage. They are less interested in public investments that have to be financed now but do not payoff adequately before the next election.
It’s as if human progress depends on economic progress.
At minimum, the kind of short-term oriented cycle in which we find ourselves behaves as though tomorrow is forever. And, in fact, a series of tomorrows will create a forever — a very predictable one — and not a very desirable or promising one.
Rewards which are heavily focused on short-term results, even if they make some financial sense, often do not deliver the economic promise or the synergy which is anticipated.
Perhaps it is true that the landmarks in human progress — in the arts, science, government, or elsewhere — have rarely been reached in societies in which the economy was unable to free most of its members from a daily obsession with subsistence needs.
On the contrary, wherever the economy is feeble or stagnant for
a prolonged period, where most people see their basic material
needs as unfulfilled and the prospects for improvement as
unlikely, the result is almost invariably either a dull fatalism
or political upheaval, neither of which is likely to be favorable
to liberty and freedom.
However we are now looking at a unremitting focus on economic growth. The drive to achieve growth at practically any cost and to the exclusion of all other measures of prosperity.
This focus on GDP growth as the prime measure of economic success is out of date. It’s not how big it is that counts, it’s what you do with it.
The distance to the future – is no longer the next election, it will be how much you are willing to pay the Cloud for information. The cumulative effects of almost five decades of constantly accelerating reliance on government regulation to address social inequities and problems is coming to an end.
The linkage between ownership and participation is changing.
Social Media is not just eroding the meaning of democracy but effecting our critical thinking skills. Polluted with consumption advertising it is adding to global inequality.
While there are hundreds of different marketing strategies, only one can bring in consistent sales from day one. Social media advertising. This is why global social ad spending doubled from $16 billion in 2014 to $31 billion in 2016 and is projected to increase another 26% in 2017.
One of the fascinating things about social advertising is that there is virtually no limit to your ability to scale.You don’t have to wait for someone to search for your targeted keywords. You don’t have to wait for someone to run your promotion or read your blog.
( For Instance:
With more than 2 billion monthly users, Facebook hosts over a quarter of the world’s population, providing advertisers with an unparalleled opportunity to reach virtually anyone and everyone. It provides free lead magnet like:
Whitepapers
Ebooks
Product coupons
Sitewide discounts
Limited-time offers
Giveaways
Free shipping
These leads can then be nurtured with a targeted autoresponder. Offering free products, download-ables and predictable discounts and coupons for her audience. Doing so has earned Facebook more than $1,000,000 in annual sales in just 2 years. Facebook allows more advanced targeting than any other advertising platform on earth. Advertisers can target by location (within a 5-mile radius), job description, interests, past activity, and many other incredibly valuable criteria.
Instagram now boasts more than 500 million monthly active users and commands one of the highest audience engagement rates in social media, 58% higher than Facebook and 2000% higher than Twitter.
Twitter with 328 million monthly active users, it remains one of the most popular social media platforms. Brands don’t need to pay in order to reach their followers, which enhances the platform’s value even when running paid ads.
Pinterest: With 175 million monthly users is highly targeted toward women with an 81% female user base.
LinkedIn : Where you tend to find the highest average disposable income, has an estimated 227 million monthly active users.
Snapchat Advertising:310 million users.
All Social advertising is incredibly measurable.)
(You can, in fact, control when you choose to look at your hand-held device.)
In light of this one easy solution to over-consumption would be to ban advertising- at least in pubic places and on Social Media where Profit seeking Algorithms are used.
Much of’ the crippling of our economic systems can find its roots in Algorithms for profit. (see previous posts)
The consequences of elected government’s short-range perspective are not difficult to understand. They are seen as having succeeded in undermining the economy through overbearing regulation, tolerance of inflation, indifference to the cost of environmental and social programs, and a pervasive anti-business attitude.
Government thus diminishes the private sector’s sense of responsibility —
both in economic and ethical terms — for its own conduct and for its own performance.
While I appreciate that degrowth will not happen as quickly as we need it to do and it will take generations to move our collective consciousness on most issue, we don’t have that kind of time any longer.
Technology that ostensibly should help people save time, has instead led to a situation where time is scarcer than ever.
When an exponential growth curve becomes vertical, time has ceased to exist as duration.”life stands still at a tremendous speed”, with serious consequences for culture, intellectual life and the very fabric of society.
What we do not know today is what it will take to send us to
the pumps.
The struggle now concerns the right to be unavailable, the right to live and think more slowly.
Choosing to live according to one’s own self-made conception of reality, human nature, and happiness is a recipe for tyranny.
It is about time that we ask what wireless communications and the Internet are preconditions for. They are problems need to be understood well, in order to be dealt with the political upheaval that is around the corner.
Relying on averages generate by computers is worsening inequality
within countries, and the world as a whole.
So is there anything that can be done legitimately that will have a positive effect.
Becoming more grounded in ones own true feelings and perceptions is a primary indication that one has begun to free himself from the “tyranny of the should.”
Assuring that investment in future profitability is not sacrificed on
the altar of quarterly earnings growth. Refocusing our approach to economic decision-making, to benefit all not the few.
Willingness to pay the price today for the health and vitality of the country tomorrow is the ultimate test of stewardship. To live with a view to the regime should not be supposed to be slavery, but preservation.
Finally, it is as we all know easy to point the finger, however we are the will in any form or symbol and we are identifiable as water.
However if we are to address any of our world problems and stop the self-perpetuating downward cycle, with all the suction of a whirlpool, from which there will be no escape we cannot and should not rely on technology to bail us out.
There is only one solution. Make Greed pay a World Aid commission of 0.05% ( See previous post)
Technology, if it has not yet become the de fac~o
decision- — . . . maker in the production process, has
certainly become a participant who cannot be
ignored.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
We have moved from basically a relative empty world to a relative world full of our stuff, full of man-made capital.
Our inability to grasp the new world is creating a vast vapidity and we are going to pay the price sooner than later.
With millions of people going to bed without food the age of decadence is coming to an end to be replaced hopefully by an age where money and wealth has to be shared.
The trickle down system does not work. Why! because by the time the money reaches the poor it is worth nothing.
Our so-called Capitalism of to-day that operates under a neoclassical school of economics rains supreme at the moment. Why! because it is backed by a legal system that legalizes it. However it will eventually fail because Greed is systemic within its core.
This is blatantly evident when we look at our Governments who are beholding onto corporate interests that will never serve the people. It is also evident went we look at our Banking systems, which create money from nothing and then lends it at interest. ( 97% of money is debt.) Debt is a form of slavery.
There can be also little argument that our Governments with the help of Milton Freeman, Ronald Regan, and hand bagging bashing Maggie Thatcher are now just clearing houses for the rich lobbyists that are concerns with the rich.
All three of them helped to created an Economic system that is based on what is not reality.
A dog eat dog society. Where Socially failure consumerism is now only to look good in other people eyes.
Where contrived wars on terror are promoting democracy at the point of a gun to be fought out in foreign countries and then presented to us by corporate owned media so that don’t have to experience the resulting destruction and death on our own door steps.
We have to change such veracious structure that has produced Institutions such as Goldman Sachs ( The biggest Bank robbers that pulled off the biggest hoist in the modern world: The big short with total impunity)
The more we grow the more poverty we create.
Our out dated competitive mentality will have devastating consequences. We must move from globalization back to localization. It is our relations with other people is what make us really happy re humanism our lives. As Tyler Durden said ” The thinks that you own end up owing you.”
Making your own life does not work you must have attachment out side yourself.
Internet enlightenment will play a big role in the future. The large cesspool of porn which debases us all on the internet will have to be removed. It is no wonder that Muslim fraternity consider the west full of unclean gentiles.
Passing the buck has to stop.
To improve things what we are being taught in university we will have to learn how to oppose in a constructive way, not on twitter or face book, or social media but by a collective world voice, that will have to be listen too.
Before the exhaustion of the world resources we would do well to return to Adam Smith economics to avoid morality socialism for the rich which is reflected by Scramble now the blood policy of Sovereign Wealth Funds.
The tax system is duking the world. We need a new form of capitalism where employer owned companies.
We must rise up and change the market.
What is created by human can be changed. Human beings go mad in crows and come to their senses as individuals.
Every drone kill produces five hundred so-called terrorists.
The monetary system to the world will have to be reformed.
Aid never goes to the people it goes to constructions companies and consultants on infrastructure, not the people.
So lets start by introducing a World Aid Commission of 0.05% on all Foreign Exchange Transactions ( Over $20,000) on all High frequency stock exchange transactions and on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions. Such a Commission would produce a perpetual fund of trillions to redistribute wealth around the world where needed. ( See previous postings)
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