Tag Archives: Social Media

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S; ARE WE FOOLING OURSELVES WHEN WE SAY UNIVERSAL VALUE’S?

06 Sunday Sep 2020

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2019: The Year of Disconnection., 2020: The year we need to change., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change., COVID-19, Digital age., Disconnection., Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., How to do it., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Imagination., Modern Day Communication., Our Common Values., Post - truth politics., POST COVID-19., Purchasing Power., Reality., Religious Beliefs., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations.

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(Five-minute read) 


Never in history is such a question more important. Unfortunately, we live in a world of distractions.

In my previous post to this one, (THE HARDEST THING OF ALL TO SEE IS ALREADY THERE.)   I attempted to say that the truth has no past.

By this, I meant that the truth is reality, and therefore religion and the state must be separated.

Only then can one hope for value with the same value or worth for all, or almost all, people. A value is considered universal when it goes beyond laws and beliefs; rather, it is considered to have the same meaning for all people and does not vary according to the societies that have evolved. 

 In fact, cultural relativism is a belief that opposes the existence of universal values; proposes that a value can not be universal because it is perceived differently in each culture.

Given the ambiguity of the term, the existence of universal values ​​can only be understood as the values ​​that have to do with the basic requirements of the human being. Such as Fresh Air, Freshwater, Food, Clean Energy. 

Now with AI infiltrating our lives, it seems that the faster we travel, the importance of there place is getting lost.

It seems because there are no universal moral values, our command of science simply can not coexist with morals, and our internet fed imaginations 

We talk about the central issues of our times: A universal pandemic, an economic depression, continuing wars, climate change, migration, artificial intelligence, rising inequalities, erosion of the power of the vote, loss of individualism, loss of connection to ecosystems, to mention just a few of the problems to define any values that are universal.

We have many governments doubling down on the blame game and brinkmanship. 

We have bioengineering which alone is now much greater danger than a nuclear war. 

We have the maldistribution of wealth. 

We have world leaders unwilling to see beyond the next election. 

We have the extinction rebellion. 

We have non-transparent digital data.

We have 10.000 to 130,000 species going extinct each year.

We have a population of 7.7 billion   

We have extreme weather and biodiversity loss.

I ask myself why is it that with so many of us tryin’ to improve society, not that much changes but I hope that we don’t make changes to satisfy the noisemakers.

Rather than separating one problem from another, we need to connect them.

i.e. Climate changes to war and war to climate changes. 

The question remains.

> How do we the current guardians of the planet achieve a balance between living our lives and the life of the planet, that allows us to live them in the first place. 

 It is no longer that logic alone will solve the problems, nor protests, or political will but within functional societies, we do still have the ultimate weapon – VIEWING AND BUY POWER  and both are available in every type and form of human culture.

They must be added to the deep emotions of religion if we are to achieve change.

The life of now economies and pay later must come to an end if we are to avoid the hazards of the future. 

If Extinction Rebellion wants to be heard, it will not do so on top of bamboo towers stopping newspapers to be deliveries, or sticking themselves to windows. 

It must use social media digital platforms to encourage its supporters to use their buying power to attack profit for profit sake. 

Certain human characteristics as valuable – life regardless of whether or not it is believed in said characteristic.  

PROFIT WITHOUT CONTRIBUTION TO UNIVERSAL VALUES IS THE ENEMY. 

With these weapons, we can effect change and avoid the hazards to come.

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

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHEN IT COMES TO WORLD PROBLEMS WHY IS IT THAT WE HUMANS ARE UNABLE TO APPRECIATE THE GRAVITY THEY PRESENT.

03 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2020: The year we need to change., A Constitution for the Earth., Big Data., Capitalism, Climate Change., COVID-19, Digital age., Disconnection., Economic Depression., Environment, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., GDP., homelessness., How to do it., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Inequality, Life., Micro v Macro Economics., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Post - truth politics., POST COVID-19., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Technology., Telling the truth., The common good., The current state of our oceans., The essence of our humanity., The Future, THE FUTURE OF OUR OCEANS/SEAS, The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., Wealth., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Economic Depression., World Leaders, World Politics

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(Twenty-minute read)

As global citizens, the news is packed with statistics and updates on the challenges we face. Most of these challenges have existed from time memorial and are too large to be solved by one person at a time and if they affect huge numbers of people we are numb by their enormity.  

Photographs can be effective for a while. They capture our attention — they get us to see the reality, to glimpse the reality at a scale we can understand and connect to emotionally. But then there has to be somewhere to go with it.

“There is no constant value for human life.”

Granted that certain global issues cannot be solved by on-the-ground, grassroots-style projects like human rights, climate change, wars, etc. 

So is it a perception problem? 

No matter how hard we try we are unable to perceive the whole earth never mind the Universe as one.   

We witness this many times in history when the value of a single life diminishes against the backdrop of a larger tragedy and now we are once again witnessing it with COVID-19.

We all go to great lengths to protect a single individual or to rescue someone in distress, but then as the numbers increase, we don’t respond proportionally to that.

We don’t scale up, even when we’re capable. 

There’s a hard limit to human compassion. The human mind is not very good at thinking about and empathizing with, millions or billions of individuals. As the number of victims increases, our empathy, our willingness to help, reliably decreases.

We seem unable to prevent our past from impacting our present?

However, our current behaviors are not shaped by past events but by mass media in the form of social media which is creating self-limiting beliefs.

They appear so real to the extent that we cant hardly tell whether its a self-limiting belief or a real one, as a result, we are unable to see the world correctly, so we look on as millions die. 

Numbers simply can’t convey the costs, there’s an infuriating paradox at play.

We know that we must protect the Earth but are unwilling to pay the cost of doing so.

Our problem is to replace the false beliefs we acquired with the right one.

Which issues are the most urgent?

And can one person, really, truly, make that much of a contribution?

Here are some of the major issues all global citizens should be aware of if not there are living in coco land. 

FOOD.

One in nine people in the world goes hungry each day.  

It has been estimated that if women farmers could be given the same resources as men, millions of more people could be fed. 

How can it be 2020 and people are still going hungry?

Nutritious food is often more expensive. Visit your local supermarket and compare the price of a punnet of strawberries to a chocolate bar. 

Even though approximately 12.9% of the world is undernourished, about 30% of the adult population is overweight.

HEALTH.

In a world of more than 1 billion people living in extreme poverty (less than $1.25 per day) and 2.2 billion living on less than $2 per day (2011 data)

The reality is far more complex. Untold hundreds of millions of people lack access to essential health services, in fact over half of the world population do not have basic health care. We are a long way from the universal right to health.

Communicable diseases were responsible for 71%  of deaths, and low-income countries are the most severely affected. 

EDUCATION. 

It’s estimated that approximately 600 million children are not mastering basic mathematics and literacy while at school. 

HABITAT AND BIODIVERSITY LOSS. OCEAN CONSERVATION

The earth is full. Full of our waste, full of our demands.

The economy is now bigger than the earth, unimaginable, unattainable, and unsustainable. There is no infinite growth possible on a finite planet because nature sets the rules and individual issues mean nothing if they are not attached to nature.  

There are countless studies and evidence all around you indicating that the coming crises are inevitable.

If an economy grows at 2% per year, it will double in 35 years. 

Imagine twice as much human economic activity as we now have. Can our planet sustain this? Do we need to do this? Why would we want to? Why are we doing this?

Even though a lot of us know that it makes no sense to try to grow endlessly and outstrip the only planet we have. 

What if anything can be changed? 

We all know that the road to global decarbonization must involve renewable energy.

Although the Paris agreement’s goals are aligned with science, alarming inconsistencies remain between science-based targets and national commitments.

Its a no-brainer in the current emerging global political climate.

Rather than tackle mitigation measures economies are now due to Covid-19 returning to pumping more not less carbon into the atmosphere.

Climate stabilization must be placed on par with economic development, human rights democracy, and peace.       

From a money perspective, we can’t help it—we live in a grow-or-die system.?

Currently, we have a system that provides humans to have an innate cost/benefit assessment tool called the smartphone operating at all times. 

Here are a few suggestions.

It is now vital that we consider the motivation and funding sources of those who are shaping our worldview. 

Money must be created without debt so it doesn’t force us to grow and consumer beyond our means.

New Money must no longer enter circulation as credit, that is, as debt.

It will simply be money spent into circulation by the government as a permanently circulating exchange medium to enable the country’s economy to function.

This money will be equity on the national balance sheet and be our commonwealth.

It will replace bank-created debt-money ending the privilege of commercial banks to create and issue what we use as money.

Then we have trillions in the form of pension investment funds that are nontransparently invested. If we demanded that these funds were moved from fossil fuel industries to green energy industries whose returns are going to be massive we would be reducing carbon emissions by millions of tonnes.

Next, we have the advertising industry.

All advertising that does not promote sustainability should be curtailed by law.  We must turn the direction of humanity towards thriving not consumption for profit.  

With the coming economic depression, we do have room for growth—the growth of community cohesion and commons conservation. We can grow our efforts to educate our children, care for our people, and care for the planet. We can grow into a more just, caring, sustainable society. 

Because we are careering into a world of a few haves and billions of have -not.

Access to information owned by Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple, to name a few, must become transparent and available to all as the interactions of all our individual worldviews shape the condition of humanity.

Lastly, we must address inequality.   

There are now 65.3 million people displaced from their homes worldwide.

Think about that number: 65.3 million. Can you even imagine it?

It’s now or never that we make a profit for profit’s sake contribute to a World Aid fund.

(see previous posts)

As Mahatma Gandhi put it, “Earth has enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”

We can’t eat drink or shit data.

 

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

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. IS SOCIAL MEDIA BECOMING JUST A PHONY WAR.

11 Wednesday Dec 2019

Posted by in Social Media

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(Twelve-minute read) 

Of course, it is being blamed for eroding trust, but trust isn’t something that can be immediately forged; it must be built over time.

Social Media, on one hand, has tremendous power for good but it also causes a breakdown of trust casting a negative net far and wide. 

The real power of Social Media is its decentralized nature.

Random stories, true or not, posted on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, can achieve sudden popularity and notoriety by touching the minds and hearts, not just millions, but tens and hundreds of millions of people.

So is Social Media the perfect mechanism for spreading emotionally powerful messages designed to generate an epidemic of fear even when the content is totally and obviously false, who cares?

This is why dictatorships cannot tolerate Social Media. Autocratic governments can’t control the content or who receives it.

There is no easy fix.

The issues involved are complex.

In little more than a decade, the impact of social media has gone from being an entertaining extra to a fully integrated part of nearly every aspect of daily life for many.

Yet one thing is certain, developing trust is contingent upon authentic communication and algorithmic mechanical content has no authenticity.

They are destroying our ability to create and consume valuable content.

What qualifies as “valuable content” is, of course, subjective.

For a piece of content to qualify as valuable, it must be relevant.

Valuable content isn’t static. 

Content that isn’t useful isn’t valuable.

Doesn’t that sound like Social Media should support and enhance the idea of democracy, that more people will be exposed to more diverse news and therefore more intelligent overall?

Certainly, that is the idealistic view.

There is no centralized control to Social media so there are endless ways that your data is being mined on a regular basis to feed Artifical Intelligence algorithms that are conditioning consumers with algorithm content.

But does that actually happen?

The reading audience determines what’s considered valuable content.

Better education should lead to better opportunities for all people.

If the audience wants short-form content, platforms believe it’s their duty to give it to them.

  • Tweets are limited to 280 characters maximum.
  • Instagram Stories currently max out at 15 seconds, video posts at 60 seconds.
  • Snapchat Stories are capped at 60 seconds.

My question is why are these platforms not smacking the viewer over the head with hard-hitting messages that clearly states what the content is and where it comes from.

IE it has been posted by an unidentifiable source or individual it might encourage him or her to dig deeper.

Of course, you can use social media to give quick-hitting answers to burning questions while linking to long-form content.

Google’s algorithms work under the assumption that blog posts worth reading must contain at least 2,000 words.

Longform content tends to spread the message out, allowing the reader to become more and more emotionally invested over time.

In this environment, it’s no secret that short-form content is increasingly prevalent and popular.

how can we feel we have “independent thinking”?

Have we been herded into a collective bounded and defined by fear?

How is this a society that functions as a true democracy?

In fact, bad actors have an advantage because they are not constrained by legal, ethical or moral considerations. They can direct their money, knowledge, and power toward totally selfish goals.

From the perspective of a bad actor, Social Media, as a decentralized, “free” messaging channel, is actually the most powerful and cost-effective tool for manipulation they have ever had.

What do we do to change the direction of decline? 

How can we have rational discourse about our differences, to learn mutual respect?

How can we support more positive, life-affirming messaging? Regardless of the stories we tell, how can we commit to the narrative of Social Media as a means of increasing the state of well-being of society?

Each of us has a voice. Use it wisely!

The way that prominent social media platform companies, particularly Facebook, are currently operating and are financed is inherently undemocratic.

Facebook adds 500,000 new users every day, that’s 6 new profiles every second!

No other platform enables target groups to be so directly contacted and motivated towards interaction.

There are some 680 million Twitter users. 

The question is, are we at a point where the social media organizations and their activities should be regulated for the benefit of all.

Digital technologies have become pervasive.

Of course, many have begun to believe that the biggest challenge around the impact of social media may be the way it is changing society. The “attention-grabbing algorithms underlying social media… propel authoritarian practices that aim to sow confusion, ignorance, prejudice, and chaos, thereby facilitating manipulation and undermining accountability.

Facebook and Twitter and they’re like maybe gone in 10 years, but there will be something else.

Do we want to try to put the genie back in the bottle? Can we? Does social media definitely have a future?

Social connections are fabrics of society. 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: IS IT TIME TO REGULATE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS WITH LAWS.

25 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Algorithms., Democracy, Digital Friendship., Elections/ Voting, Facebook., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Google, Humanity., Modern Day Democracy., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Politics., Reality., Social Media, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Twitter, Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, World Politics

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(Ten-minute read) 

The beady eye is far from the first voice to ask this question and it certainly will not be the last.

We might even come to “question whether we still have free will.

There is no doubting that the social web has created amazing opportunities to learn, discover, connect, but its downside as it penetrates our daily lives is becoming more and more prevalent in the creation of our future lives and the societies we live in.

If the public discussion is shifting increasingly to online fora, and those fora are having more and more influence over democracy it becomes increasingly important to apply principles to them. 

Honest political debate is essential for the health of a democracy.  

If discussions of import move into space where they can be readily censored, then we will simply no longer live in a society with a free exchange of ideas, because the playing field will always be tilted.

One only has to look at how social media platforms are amplifying what is wrong with the world.  

While we all reveal a huge amount of personal information online we are losing the ability to determine honest facts that democracy depends.

Basically, companies that run social media platforms are monopolies or near-monopolies in their areas of operation, and the only way we can achieve the desired outcomes is through clear, effective legal regulations. 

We can’t always control how others use their platforms but we can apply the same regulations that govern all other forms of Media.

The public cannot rely on these company’s self-regulation, because self-regulation raises more questions than it answers.

The fact is that the formation of a platform takes place in a vacuum, whereas the formation of any competitors do not, so they cannot be considered parallels in any way. 

If we take companies like Facebook and Google they both derive most of their revenue from advertising. They essentially constitute a duopoly because they have access to the best data about individuals. Every memory, picture, emoji, song, video, link, gripe, fear, hope, want, dream and bad political opinion posted is mined and monetized as data.

As a result of their algorithms, they are creating and reinforcing divided and insular online communities that do not interact with people or information with which they disagreed.

At the end of the day, how Facebook and Google conduct their businesses undermines privacy and raises questions about ethical behaviour in the uses of our information and their role in society.

The Internet is a “utility” like water or electricity. It is essential to modern life, not an optional subscription service.

Determining how to regulate Facebook or any other platform may first require some kind of definition of what it is.

Facebook brags about connecting us to our family and friends — but it also about directly influencing the outcomes of elections across the globe.

It sits on top of industries including journalism, where it, together with Google, essentially controls the distribution channels for online news and, in effect, the way people discover information about politics, government and society.

They ( Google, Facebook, Twitter,etc) have figured out how to take advantage of this dynamic to distribute false information about political candidates and hot-button political issues in order to drive up traffic and advertising revenue.

Protecting our community is more important than maximizing their profits.

They are given protections that no one can sue them for any reason — that is Google and Facebook nither are responsible for the fake news that appears on their sites.

They are completely shielded from any responsibility for the content that appears on their service.

Changes to legal protection (which has been interpreted by judges to provide a safe harbour for online platforms even when they pay to distribute others’ content and decline the option to impose editorial oversight) would likely be devastating to online platforms like Google and Facebook and would transform the way people interact across the entire internet.

However, with legal protection, sites like these could be held responsible for libellous comments posted by readers, Google could lose lawsuits over potentially false or defamatory information surfacing in search results, and Facebook could be sued for any potentially libellous comment made by anyone on its platform against any other person.

The legal bills to defend against libel and defamation claims would be enormous.

We all need protection and the ability to request platforms to provide us with control over online information by making it accessible and removable at an individual’s request.

The government, on the other hand, has a regulatory intent to protect citizens from content that is obscene or violent.

Should Facebook and their like be regulated?

A question that is never going to end. 

However, until we recognize that there is no fool-proof safeguard to keep horrific content away from the eyes of children we rely on huge fines to the detriment of us all. 

Till then with all internet platforms deflecting criticism, social media will be more psychologically damaging than anyone expected. 

We need a radical shift in the balance of power between the platforms and the people.

It is beyond comprehension that we tolerate the present position.

Or is it? When you see the below.   

Would you ever be prepared to use a nuclear weapon?

This question is increasingly put to politicians as some kind of virility test.

The subtext is that to be a credible political leader, you must be willing to use an indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction.

We should be baulking at the casual way in which political discourse on this topic has developed which is politically unacceptable and morally despicable. 

If a mainstream politician unblinkingly said that they would use chemical weapons against civilians there would be uproar. If a self-proclaimed candidate for prime minister boasted that they would commit war crimes, it would be a national scandal. Nuclear weapons should be seen no differently. 

It’s time that nuclear advocates spelt out the reality of what their position means.

The human race is so good at speaking, it’s lost the art of listening.

It might be easy to brush away the febrile atmosphere online as a nasty byproduct of free expression: I don’t want Facebook having everyone’s verified identities. I do want their platform and other platforms to be held responsible legally for content that is false, racest, hateful, rightwing fascist propaganda.  

I do know that if the big platforms, as they already do in part, forced some verifiable information to back up use, we could tame this wild west with legal requirements

I’ll give up on the consensus-building when I can open a platform knowing who to hold legally responsible.  


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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WITH THE SATURATION OF THE WEB BY GREEDY ALGORITHMS ARE WE SEEING THE END OF CHOICE.

20 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Dehumanization., Democracy., Digital Friendship., Education, Elections/ Voting, Fake News., Fourth Industrial Revolution., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Modern Day Democracy., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Post - truth politics., Reality., Robot citizenship., Social Media, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World

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(Seven-minute read) 

The degree of choice on the web can be overwhelming, but who, exactly, is making the “Choice”

Has The web has been highjacked by Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Social Media and their like?

Why?

Besause they are absorbing their users’ personal data and feeding greedy algrithms who in the end are disempowered by isolation from the wider web. 

(By clicking continue below and using our sites or applications, you agree that we and our third party advertisers can:)

Greedy algorithms can be characterized as being ‘short-sighted’, and also as ‘non-recoverable’. The choice made by a greedy algorithm may depend on choices made so far, but not on future choices or all the solutions to the subproblem.

It is important, however, to note that the greedy algorithm can be used as a selection algorithm to prioritize options within a search, or branch-and-bound algorithm. They iteratively make one greedy choice after another, reducing each given problem into a smaller one.

They can make commitments to certain choices too early which prevent them from finding the best overall solution later.

Without any accountability, they are drastically changing the ways we conduct our daily lives.

There are a few variations to the greedy algorithm:

  • Pure greedy algorithms.
  • Orthogonal greedy algorithms.
  • Relaxed greedy algorithms.
  • It’s no wonder that Berners-Lee isn’t particularly pleased with the way things have gone with his creation.

With Social networks, slowly algorithms are growing more and more powerful and their predictions growing more accurate. It won’t be long before we could see living, breathing, as the choices of a greedy algorithm.  

In other words, a greedy algorithm never reconsiders its choices. 

The web is cleaving into the haves and have-nots of news readership. Wealthy readers will pay to opt-out of advertising; less privileged readers will have to stick with news that’s ad-supported.

For example, take Google, one of the leaders in using big data and algorithms to support human decision-making. Google has developed both a hiring algorithm and a retention algorithm it analyzes candidates against this profile to make hiring decisions.

Algorithms to develop lists of “flight risks” — that is, people who are likely to leave their jobs soon. 

Amazon’s Choice” algorithm, which leverages a machine learning model to discern what products a customer most likely wants. Amazon Alexa and other voice assistants are drastically changing the ways consumers encounter products.

Customers are no longer putting themselves in front of physical products before purchasing them.

As more users are turning to voice ordering through the Amazon Alexa platform and its competitors we are losing control over our personal data. 

Hopefully, Amazon’s algorithms are capable of remaining unbiased.

(We can make whatever choice seems best at the moment and then solve the subproblems that arise later.) 

On top of all of this, we have all become blind to the damage that the internet can do to even a well-functioning democracy. Brexit/ USA.

It might be true that around the world, social media is making it easier for people to have a voice in government — to discuss issues, organize around causes, and hold leaders accountable, but these governments are winning elections by false news, echo chambers where people only see viewpoints they agree with — further driving us apart.

Social media can distort policymakers’ perception of public opinion.

If there’s one fundamental truth about social media’s impact on democracy it’s that it amplifies human intent — both good and bad.

Unprecedented numbers of people channel their political energy through this medium, it’s being used in unforeseen ways with societal repercussions that were never anticipated. 

So it is inevitable that Facebook to influence public sentiment — essentially using social media as an information weapon.

Some 87% of governments around the world have a presence on Facebook.

And they’re listening — and responding — to what they hear.

Misinformation campaigns are not amateur operations.

Increasingly the web will become profoundly useless unless we demand the Web we want from Governments and the Monomorphic platforms that dominate it today. 

We are all part of the web so what we endorse must be questioned as to the transparency as to where the information comes from in the first place.

Today the bulk of people who are or not doing this are isolated from each other by Apps.

The like button is not a public metric for the popularity of content. It is a flattener of credibility.

There is no point waking in the morning with Alexa telling you what to do, where to go and what it has bought and who to vote for.  

Even if social media could be cured of its outrage -enhancing effects it is undermining democracy.

Even though we have unprecedented access to all that was ever written and digitized we are less familiar with the accumulated wisdom of humanity becoming more and more misguided. 

The Web is now a global experiment that will test the very foundation of our global communities

There can not be self -governance for the web.

Fake news, Racism, Pornographic content and unfounded crap should be removed by not allowing anything to be posted without a traceable verified name or source.  

Are you sure you want to post this? It is your choice and your choice alone.

Perhaps its time we all franchise our data as we are entering into a continuous partnership so both parties need to be confident it’s the right fit. It’s all a choice. Just do something about it- YOU CAN, what is true technology integration? 

How we are going to learn content is one of the ways forward.

In fact, everywhere we look we are starting to be presented with more choices.

Resolve to avoid false comparisons on the web is not possible so the future of the web is all about choice but it is important to understand the paradox of choice.

Choice without education or choice with education.

you ultimately do have to choose. so be the difference that

makes the difference. 

 

Events change our perception and our perspective changes

with experience but at least let our choices about Our lives

which are constantly in flux be our choices. 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: HAS FRIENDSHIP CHANGE. WHAT IS FRIENDSHIP THESE DAYS?

08 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Artificial Intelligence., Communication., Digital Friendship., Education, Emotions., Facebook, Happiness., Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Reality., Social Media, Technology, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World

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(Twenty-minute read)

The dawning of the digital age has not just changed communication, facilitating individual and group interaction in previously unimaginable ways it has fundamentally changed human relationships, or more specifically, the establishment of fraternity amongst people?

The internet has made it so you don’t need to physically see people feel close to them.

I miss those days of pre-digital friendship.

Thirty years ago we asked what we would use computers for.

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Facebook. Twitter. SecondLife. “Smart” phones. Robotic pets. Robotic lovers.

Now the question is what don’t we use them for.

Technology promises to let us do anything from anywhere with anyone and the introduction of social media platforms has changed the “friendship playing field”.

The way friendships are played out in the digital world is changing how young people express themselves, how they define ‘good’ friendships and interact with each other.

Now, through technology, we create, navigate, and perform our emotional lives.

In a surprising twist, relentless connection leads to a new solitude.

We turn to new technology to fill the void, but as technology ramps up, our emotional lives ramp down. At the threshold of “the robotic moment,” our devices prompt us to recall that we have human purposes and, perhaps, to rediscover what they are.

The huge role that technology plays in supporting young people’s friendships, with over half (55%) saying they interact online with their closest friends several times an hour and 63% saying they are closer to their friends because of the internet.

The basic components of friendship USE TO BE interdependence and voluntary participation but technology is now embedded throughout our relationships.

So the question is.  Has friendship changed because technology changed it? Or both?

The popular platforms 8-17-year-olds are using to chat to their friends on a daily basis are YouTube (41%), WhatsApp (32%), Snapchat (29%), Instagram (27%) and Facebook or Facebook Messenger (26%)

Technology provides an important way for them to support their peers who are going through difficult times with Social media providing a vehicle of self-promotion, a means of fixing an idea of yourself in the social sphere, without people actually knowing you at all.

Has it made friendship less personal, less connective, less real?

The distinction in the online world is that the effort it takes to present ourselves in a certain way is much less.

Not to mention the fact that technology has allowed us to maintain friendships that might have otherwise waned when time, distance, and the constant demands of parenting take hold.

The lines between real friendships and fleeting acquaintances have become

blurred in the virtual world, not just but also because of many Social media

users showcase more than 1000 friends on their profiles, while the realistic

maximum number of people we are able to maintain relationships with lies at

150 people.

Our brains are just not wired to cope with.

——————

True friendships are hallmarked by each member’s desire to engage with the other – it’s about a mutual interest in one another’s experiences and thoughts, as well as a sense of ‘belongingness’ and connection, there’s no telling when and where a friendship will develop.

The cornerstone of friendship isn’t the public nature of the relationship, but the private connection of it and that private uniqueness hasn’t been eliminated; it just looks different now.

The Internet is undoubtedly an invaluable link between people separated by distance. But this link must be built on a stronger foundation of intimacy and familiarity and a balance of online and offline interactions will pave the way to better relationships in the world.

We “met” through a mutual friend on Twitter.

(Posts Tagged With friendship in the digital age,

 “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.” is number five.)

Sexual online meetings themselves may be a replacement for deeper longings in couples. It may be an extension of particular needs not being met within the relationship.

They find that the relationship to their primary partner is more undervalued than in the past and that traditional definitions of intimacy are vaguer. They explain that couples who once experienced a secure relationship now struggle with the new –often ambiguous– rubrics surrounding agreed-upon Internet conduct.

Young people also need to be empowered to take control of their digital wellbeing, by recognising their emotions and the way that their use of digital technology can impact on their self-esteem and mood so that they are able to implement strategies to achieve a healthy relationship with technology.

Social exclusion can have just as much of a damaging impact on young
people but may not be easy to detect and manage in digital spaces.

Facebook has completely redefined the definition of a friend.

It wont be long before we could be seeing the following.

“We’d like to say a big ‘thank you’ every time you recommend a friend to us by rewarding you with a retail shopping voucher £250 will be paid for a friend.

Two in five adults (40%) first look at their phone within five minutes of waking up, climbing to 65% of those aged under 35. Similarly, 37% of adults check their phones five minutes before lights out, again rising to 60% of under-35s.

The average amount of time spent online on a smartphone is 2 hours 28 minutes a day. This rises to 3 hours 14 minutes among 18-24s.

A decade of change in digital communications.

Infographic timeline showing notable events and products or services launched between 2007 and 2018. 2007: first iPhone released; Amazon Prime launched. 2008: first Android smartphone; up to 50 Mbit/s broadband launched; Spotify and Amazon Kindle launched. 2009: Ashton Kutcher becomes first person to amass one million followers; YouTubers Fred becomes first to reach one million subscribers; WhatsApp launched. 2010: National launch of fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband; iPad goes on sale in the UK; 3DTV and Instagram launched. 2011: Snapchat launched. 2012: 4G mobile service launched in UK by EE; completion of digital switchover; Netflix and Candy Crush launched. 2013: Chromecast launched. 2014: Netflix begins streaming content in 4K; Amazon Prime Video and FireTV launched. 2015: Apple iWatch makes debut; Samsung VR headsets on sale; Facebook Live launched. 2016: Friends Reunited, pioner of social networking, closes; Amazon Echo launched. 2017: Sonos (with Amazon Alexa built in) released; Google Home launched. 2018: Share of digital radio listening exceeds 50%; 78% of adults have a smartphone; Apple HomePod and YouTube Premium launched.

It is said that in the course of a normal life one is lucky to have a handfull of friends.

Now its social mobile, analytics, and cloud all want to be your friend.

When we think about social, the key is to consider why social is happening, rather than think of it as just a set of tools.

For example, Facebook, Twitter, and so on are tools, but why people use them is much more important. The same was true with the internet when we first started using that — that was a tool, but what it did to the lives of normal people in terms of access to information, increased freedom, etc., was much more important.

Mobile is a similar shape to social in that it’s the why as to why people use mobile devices as opposed to anything structural about the devices themselves.

The idea behind big data is that you can derive understanding about behaviour through statistical analysis of clumps of data. You can then take that understanding and implement some form of control to either get more of what you want, or get less of what you don’t want.

Finally, we come to the cloud.  This is really about how companies buy. There are all sorts of reasons to like outsourcing IT functions to the cloud, whether it’s just outsourcing compute power into a load of servers that you run as if they were your own, or buying functionality on an SaaS basis ( Software as a service)

Is cloud necessary for digital?

To an extent, it likely does not. However, as a fashion/trend, it’s clearly important, and a lot of the tools and services involved in digital are unlocked as part of a cloud-based approach, hence it’s likely important.

It’s a sociological change, rather than a technical one.

You can see that by the fact that this is generally all about the “why” this is happening — why are customers using social, why are they using mobile, why big data is showing the trends that it is, why are companies able to buy and use consumer products, and why is running systems in the cloud easier.

Because they all your Friend without you knowing and couldn’t care less who or how they share that friendship with or what they do with it.  Google it.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S; IS THE NEW GREEN DEAL PRIMARILY A PETTY-BOURGEOIS ATTEMPT TO RESCUE CAPITALISM BY THE METHODS OF SOCIAL REFORMISTS UNDER THE CLOAK OF CLIMATE CHANGE?

09 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Climate Change., Democracy, DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Environment, European Union., Fake News., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Inequality, Modern Day Democracy., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Purchasing Power., Social Media, Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Internet., The Obvious., The world to day., Twitter, Unanswered Questions., Wealth., WHAT IS TRUTH, What needs to change in European Union., World Politics

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(Twenty-minute read) 

In politics, nothing happens by accident.

These days in the higher ethylene of the political world it seems you must be an accomplished liar and not a far-seeing planner to be successful.

With the advent of social media people’s day-to-day exposure to political discussion and disagreement has increased dramatically.

However what is worrying is that technology in the form of social media, the smartphone is continuing to create a contemporary problem that large sections of the public want ‘democracy’ but without the ‘politics.

As a result, were are seeing fake news driving populist politics that has no longterm objectives. 

There is nothing new about fake news it has been prevalent down the ages but the days when a lot of us believe that many of the major world events that are shaping our destinies occur because somebody or somebodies have planned them that way are all but disappeared.

However, with the media making very little effort to explain political decisions, rather than just jumping on any perceived gaffe or conflict ‘democracy’ remains an incredibly positive notion. 

With the public no longer thinking about the world within the silos of government departments governments need to engage people in solutions rather than top-down ‘vote for us and we’ll provide the answers.

Younger people don’t just copy their parents’ tribal loyalties. Voting is more like shopping, with preferences changing on a quim of twitter on social media.  

Unfortunately, our present-day political system has not yet caught up, it offers limited choice. What happens in between elections is for all attentive purposes driven by the smartphone that are monitored by unregulated algorithms owned by you know who.

What is been ignored is that this digital space in all its diversity represents a huge opportunity with the power to engage people in new ways. Online participation in local decision-making is one possibility. This would involve citizens outside election time-.

So we need to understand all the ways people behave and respond in the digital space and set clear and realistic goals for what they hope to accomplish.

However, people are now becoming slow and slower to engage with the internet due to the lack of security/ privacy/and a source of truth.

Why?

Because Capitalism is spending billion on digital marketing each year, and for good reason. Digital media has enormous power to reach and influence people. Over 2 billion people—about one-third of the global population—now access the Internet.

We all know if we are to avoid extinction due to climate change which poses real risks to our collective future we need a green energy transformation.

The problem is that behind a veneer of objectivity, Capitalism as always sees an opportunity to make a profit – Carbon Credits for instance, with more and more consumerism products being promoted as good for the environment 

With all the political goodwill the transfer to low carbon emission can only be achieved by offering citizens a means to get involved other than protesting.

How can this be done?

We must allow people to exercise democratic control over their money, finance, working conditions and environment ie De-politicising decision-making by limiting capitalism’s worst failing- profit for profit sake.

To have authentic democracy!

Citizens must be afforded the opportunity to get involved not just politically, but financially by creating Green Energy European Bonds that cannot be traded.  

These bonds will allow citizens to regain control over unaccountable ‘technocrats’, complicit politicians and shadowy institutions.

They can be sold like lotto tickets. Forging a common agenda.

Emancipating citizens from all levels of government from bureaucratic and corporate power. Allowing direct investment into shared, green prosperity.

Politics has never been popular and never will be:

The more disengaged, the less likely that political parties will deliver. 

We’re able to measure things in a way that we’ve never been able to measure them before. So why not measure the wealth of a nation by the financial investment support it gets from its citizen’s. Rather than encompassing every possible thing that can go under the rubric of “green.

I suppose my goal here is to propose something vague enough that no one will object to it.

Have you wondered how you got to where you are today?

Greed.

Is technology taking control of our lives or our destiny?

Yes.  We’ve ditched reality.

The very data on which we measure the economy is disconnected from

the reality, with political leaders using high soaring” words “which often

imbibe emptiness.

Communication and leadership are key elements in elections these days

but you can’t sell a bad product, can you? 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT MODERN DAY POLITICS.

02 Monday Sep 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Algorithms., Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit., Dehumanization., Democracy, DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Elections/ Voting, England., English parliamentary proceedings., European Elections., European Union., First past the post., Modern Day Communication., Modern Day Democracy., Our Common Values., Political voting systems., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Social Media, The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What needs to change in European Union., What Needs to change in the World, World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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(Five-minute read) 

My vote makes no difference is plausibly a part of the modern-day phenomenon of algorithm analyse voting that has lead to both the election of Donal Trump and Boris Jonhson.

It is resulting in the loss or deliberate yielding up of decision-making power by national governments to other organisations with Social media platforms both domestic and international— Like Facebook, Twitter,  etc. 

Combine this with Ngo’s, quangos, the law courts, business corporations, central banks, the E.U., the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and its no wonder that many are no longer content as voters to be the foot soldiers of a social or religious bloc.

They want to make a difference individually and although in a mass democracy this may lead to inevitable frustration, few would want to return to a time of extreme political polarisation or digital dictatorship. 

The symptoms of short term popularism driven by social media platforms and the smartphone are leading to a no-deal Brexit are the same worldwide. 

Denunciations of the system, citizen disengagement from mainstream parties, electoral volatility and/or apathy, the rise of dissenting movements that appeal to large numbers who are, or feel themselves to be, disfranchised or ignored by an establishment dominated by uncontrollable and often faceless forces are replacing old political systems. 

Hence the perception that parties and politicians are no longer willing or able to represent their voters, that they are “all the same” and that politics has become an irrelevant smokescreen for the machinations of special interests and lobby groups.

When relatively few people are losing out—these changes may not seem to matter much. They may even seem desirable: “pooling of sovereignty,” removal of political interference from civil society, increasing checks on the executive by domestic and international courts, subsidiarity in decision-making, encouragement of inward investment, and so on.

This creates a political and administrative burden that can neither manage nor surrender—a great cause of popular discontent.

Not so, of course, when things suddenly go wrong.

One has only to look at England:

A combination of capitalism and socialism in a highly centralized system without a nationally elected government makes England today a very unusual place.

This oddity has opened up a constitutional free-for-all.

However, national identity, not administrative or economic efficiency, is the core of both devolution and independence— and the rest is window-dressing with the past affecting us all in more complex and deep-seated ways than in countries that have experienced violent historic ruptures.

Community loyalties, however deep-rooted, are not permanent.

Whatever happens in England, there will remain the question of how to govern a big, growing, diverse, crowded, and increasingly self-conscious England.

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

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: THESE DAY’S IS THERE ANYTHING SUCH AS POLITICAL SCIENCE.

30 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., Democracy, DIGITAL DICTATORSHIP., Elections/ Voting, England EU Referendum IN or Out., European Elections 2019, Fake News., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Reality., Robot citizenship., Social Media, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What needs to change in European Union.

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( Twenty-minute read)

 

Call it what you want:

Political Science,  Political theory, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Political Methodology. It all leaves you scratching your head and wondering what is Political Science exactly?

Political Science is a social science that focuses on government institutions and political behaviour, but how exactly did it come about?

When one watches gatherings such as the G7/8 of world leader one would have to ask where are we going.

Every major media outlet has a political scientist on call to commentate about likely voter reactions to the candidates’ stances on hot-button issues.

The behavioural models that political scientists create can practically forecast the outcome of an election before a single vote has been cast.

However in the 21st, it means “democracy”, is the crowd-sourcing of politics run by algorithms.

So political science is governed by five myths:

That it is possible to study politicsn> That it is scientific > That it is possible to study politics separated off from economics, sociology, psychology and history > That the state in our democratic capitalist society is politically neutral, that is available as a set of institutions and mechanisms to whatever group wins the election > That political science, as a discipline, advances the cause of democracy.

For me it is “superficial and trivial”, and that concept formation and development is “little more than hair-splitting and jargon”

These days we are told if something can’t be measured, then that’s not it, and if an event didn’t happen twice, then it didn’t happen.

One way or the other all the more interesting questions falling outside the bounds of scientific investigation, the internet age is gradually forcing itself upon our leaders but it is unlikely to make them reconnect with voters “less because they see the light, and more because they are beginning to feel the heat”.

For all the talk about politics, political science has never decided what exactly it should study.

The result is that many trivial matters receive an inordinate amount of attention and many important ones go untreated like climate change.

In short, political science seems to have turned around the order in which any person not trained in the discipline would try to answer the questions.

We will soon learn that political science is not about the real world but only about those features of the world that can be studied by methods deemed to be scientific.

“What should I study?” and “How should I study it?”.

What has political science found out about the political sphere that we didn’t know before, or that isn’t abysmally trivial?

It makes even the worst real-world inequalities acceptable (not worth bothering about) by rendering them irrelevant to the task at hand. Guess to whose benefit?

Few things are more important to the legitimation of capitalist rule than the assurance given by political science that the dictatorship of the capitalist class in which we live is really a democratic state of the whole people.

If political science really wishes to advance the cause of democracy (as one of the myths of our discipline already has it doing), we should help people understand that the main barrier to democracy today is capitalism.

Given the importance of the capitalist context for everything that goes on inside it, this is also a first step toward making our research truly scientific, that is capable of uncovering how the state and politics really work, and how—with the democratization of undemocratic capitalist relations of production, distribution and exchange—they might yet come to work for everyone.

Now here is a non-trivial agenda worthy of political science that aspires to advance the cause of democracy through the use of scientific

The rational choice carries the miniaturization of political science one step further by dismissing what people actually do politically and concentrating on their decisions to do it,

We see news reports, headlines in the papers and if one checks the details you find that the headlines are misleading or half-truths.

I accept that all news, in whatever medium, is subject to some editorial bias but the days of reporting the facts dispassionately are gone due to social media.

Take Brexit for example:

Parties that had strong collective identities are now falling asunder all being lead by popularism into political cul-de-sacs. The loyalty and cohesion of political parties now depend much more on short term smartphone mass memberships.

The results are tragi-comedy modernisation and public mistrusted.

This is what motivated the In or Out referendum not an understanding of the long term consequences.

Annexing subjects like the European Union affects all lives in countless ways –

I don’t think that any political science predicted a Party without power or fame the Brexit Party. It now represents a piece of evidence about how the ground is shifting.

Thus to ask today, in the middle of Mitteleuropa, where political science has been heading is also to ask whether the new beginnings of the discipline in Eastern Europe should or should not follow the path entered by our “big brother,”

The digital revolution will do to grand planners in the West what the collapse of Communism did to socialist planners in the old Soviet bloc”.

THE PROBLEM IS:

Are we somehow going to see sense and see through the lies?

How have rampant inequalities shaped electoral campaigns and promises?

We don’t need political science to say that global climate change is real.

If you don’t believe it you’re anti-facts.

THE ONLY SOLUTION IS, to open up politics with the right of “recall” against MPs with whom constituents were dissatisfied.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE’S : OPEN LETTER TO THE IRISH MINISTER

06 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by in 2019: The Year of Disconnection., Backstop., Climate Change., Environment, European Union., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Ireland, Modern day life., Open Letter., Paris Climate Change Conference 2015, Politics., Reality., Social Media, Sustaniability, Taoiseach: Leo Varadkar, The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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Dear Taoiseach,

Is this the only reply you are capable of.

(The Department of Taoiseach:)

I acknowledge receipt of your email to the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar T.D.

Is mian liom a admháil go bhfuarthas do ríomhphost chuig an Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar T.D

While I appreciate that it is not possible to reply to everyone this is what is wrong with Politicians, hiding behind the unnamed relying on Algorithms.

So in the vain hope of attracting your attention, I am publishing the letter in my Flipboard Magazines. With a request that my reader past it on.

I have also sent this letter to the Irish Times in the hope they might publish it.

 

 

The  letter:

16/07/2019

Dear Taoiseach,

I write as a man from the land of the Green.

In my life, I have had the great gift of travelling a great deal of the world both by land and sea.

We have recently celebrated the first man on the moon some fifty years ago.

Then as a much younger man, I watched Armstrong place his foot with the famous words.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Never did I think that our world so full of life and beauty might become the dust that his boot stood on.

Every human being has a relationship with plastic but unfortunately not ever one has a relationship with nature that is now facing a crisis that requires once again International recognition of the Unity of the Globe that the moon landing did all those years ago.

This is where Ireland under your leadership has a moral duty to call on all nations of the world to attend a unity of the global conference, in the Emerald Isle the land of forty shades of green.

The Paris Climate change conference achieved shallow unbinding promises.

The clock is ticking until the next US election starting in November 2020 with the winner inaugurated on Wednesday, January 20, 2021.

Just think of the influence of such a world meeting would have on the election of new USA president and its policies re Climate Change.

If you want to leave a legacy to be remembered by other than the backstop/Brexit what better opportunity to promote the Green.

This gathering should have not just world leaders but leading Industrials, representatives from world organisations and the young that are going to inherit the earth.

Its sole purpose is to present the facts from all side and recognize the need for the world to act as one and achieve a just climate change program that is binding and fully financed – a moon landing moment.

The venue could be at Croke Park.

Ireland could lead by example such as banning combustion engines from its major city centre once a month, declaring clear skies once a month, granting long term repayable governments grants to green energy initiatives like solar panels.

For every participant in attendance.

Ireland could plant a tree to offset their travelling carbon footprint.

Yours Faithfully,

Robert de May Dillon.

Contact Details.

Tel No.  0565416843.

E-Mail. bobdillon33@gmail.com

Address. Moulin de labarde, L’Abbey Nouvelle, 46300 Lot France.