Tag Archives: TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: WHERE IS TECHNOLOGY GOING?

24 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Modern day life., Technology, The Future, Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World

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( If you own a Smartphone this is a disturbing  seven minute read)

I am sure because the major predecessor system to technology is organic life many questions as to the effects of technology have been asked.down the centuries.

I am also sure that in the end, history will record that human evolution is directly correlated to technology evolution. Evolution has a bias and that is to survive.
Can we see the direction of technology in the direction of life and evolution?

Many argue that technology has mostly caused a positive effects to our lives but I beg to differ.

Because to days technology has forces us to redistribute our time. Because we have become so heavily involved in what’s going on somewhere else and not so involved in our immediate environment we can barely fight back.  We just do whatever technology wants us to.

Today’s society is becoming more and more addicted to technology that people are not appreciating what the world has to offer.

The more advanced technology becomes, the more it seems to have control over our lives.

So, looking at the evolution of life and the long-term histories of past technologies, what is the long-term trajectories of the technium?

What does technology want? 

In general the long-term bias of technology is to increase the diversity of artifacts, methods, techniques. More ways, more choices.

Over time technological advances invent more energy-efficient methods, and gravitate to technologies which compress the most information and knowledge into a given space or weight. Also over time, more of more of matter on the planet will be touched by technological processes.

Knowledge is at the tip of our fingers.

Technology impacts a million basic things that we take for granted every day.

But is this really good for us?

Many including me will argue that technology is making us dumber. ( See previous posts)

We can no longer remember much because we store everything we need to remember on our phone or look it up when needed. Nowadays, people are becoming too reliant on their phones and other technology that they don’t realize what they are missing.

Our absurd addictions to technology, social media and our smartphones is starting to affect our brains.  Technology has brought us to the point where we can become so socially awkward that we would consider a relationship with a robot in the not so distant future.

It is increasing so much that you don’t even realize what you are trusting on!

We can’t control it anymore. Every minute of our lives we are distracted by an electronic device. The more automated we become, the more technology takes over our lives both now and in the future.

It is obvious that over time technologies will require more surrounding technologies in order to be discovered and to operate; some technologies becoming eusocial – a distributed existence – in which they are inert when solitary.

Also, technologies tend toward ubiquity and cheapness with new levels of complexity (though many will get simpler, too).

In the long run, technology increases the speed at which it evolves and encourages its own means of invention to change.

It aims to keep the game of change going.

What this means is that when the future trajectory of a particular field of technology is in doubt, “all things being equal” you can guess several things about where it is headed:

•The varieties of whatever will increase. Those varieties that give humans more free choices will prevail.

•Technologies will start out general in their first version, and specialize over time. Going niche will always be going with the flow. There is almost no end to how specialized (and tiny) some niches can get.

•You can safely anticipate higher energy efficiency, more compact meaning and   everything getting smarter.

•All are headed to ubiquity and free. What flips when everyone has one? What     happens when it is free?

•Any highly evolved form becomes beautiful, which can be its own attraction.

•Over time the fastest moving technology will become more social, more co-           dependent, more ecological, more deeply entwined with other technologies. Many   technologies require scaffolding tech to be born first.

•The trend is toward enabling technologies which become tools for inventing new technologies easiest, faster, cheaper.

•High tech needs clean water, clean air, reliable energy just as much as humans   want the same.

These are just some of the things technology wants.

Technology isn’t done transforming the world’s landscape. As a whole it is not just a jumble of wires and metal but a living, evolving organism that has its own unconscious needs and tendencies. By aligning ourselves with the long-term imperatives of this near-living system, we can capture its full gifts.

We don’t always have to do what technology wants, but I think we need to begin with what it wants so that we can work with these forces instead of against them.

Are we prepared?  I think not.

We are still in a very early evolutionary state of this technology we call ‘society’.

Humans can be seen as dumb cogs:

It is only on the scale of statistics with millions of particles that a particle’s choice shapes up as a predictable radiation half-life. But even individual human wants and desires average out to weirdly predictable laws in aggregate.

The question is, if the earth (nature, human society topped with technology) is a body of a ‘technium’, who will she communicate, who will she mate?

AI already exists and its name is “Progress”.

It exists now in an embryonic state. It is dependent on nourishment through its virtual umbilical cord from its nurturing mother which is human civilization. The Singularity will be the moment of its birth, but it is already alive.

It is on the threshold of taking on a life of its own. It is beyond our control and it is hurtling the human race towards a singularity that will cause the overthrow of humanity by an AI.

Of course we humans want certain things from the technium, but at the same time there is an inherent bias in the technium outside of our wants. Beyond our desires, there is a tendency within the technium that – all other things being equal — favors a certain solutions. Technology will head in certain directions because physics, mathematics, and realities of innovation constrain possibilities.

What are the most awesome technology creations that have changed the world that we live in?  It’s impossible to list them all.

Let’s start to see where we are going with some of the below Technological inventions.

Fibre optic technology. Graphene. Cellphone technology. Personal Computing. Microchip technology. Smartphone and tablet technology. Nano Robots. Satellite Communications. Solar Cells. The Internet of Things. Transistors. 3D Printing technology. Space flight. Nuclear power. Artificial intelligence. Organ transplants. Digital media. Genetic engineering. 

It is obvious that most are only at their beginning such as Drones and Robots, 3D Printing and Artificial Intelligence and Machinery that can fix itself.

You could write a litany on any one, but for the sake of this post I am going to look at one in particular.  The Smart Phone.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of smartphones"

It is already changing the landscape.

Let’s look at the direction of smart phone technology, the ways smart phone technology changes society, understand the impact of change and manner in which we live our lives, and how smartphones could potentially create hazardous situations.

t1larg.smartphones. unaware

To understand the direction of Smartphone technology we must first except that smartphones phones come with many benefits i.e. they can be used as a library, they can multitask etc. but they can also influence your social life negatively.

Given that the society is heading towards a smart phone world, it is apparent that individuals will be investing more time to their screens tweeting and engaging in Facebook forums than meeting one on one with friends and colleagues.

That is so because increased number of smartphones will share similar mobile applications hence the ability to interact freely with social mates. This also poses a danger to relationships between individuals. Despite individuals being able to make an array of friends and engage in different relationships at a particular time the intensity of those relationships cannot be quantified as some persons in the social media are imposters.

From the above scenarios, it is apparent that despite relating with different people in different social platforms, no real oral communication is enhanced.

Smart phones have been a source of satisfaction to all social platform i.e. Twitter,Facebook, communication requirements. However, the negative effects of these social networks come with serious repercussions to the user.

There are three major areas that are vastly affected by smart phones, and they are business and socialization and wars.

Having said that, because technology explosion cannot be controlled, individuals need to acquire these new gadgets but not let their lives be controlled fully by these objects.

This implies that technology is rapidly changing to match the needs of humanity.

We live in a world today that relies on data communications. Smartphones can assist users in many different ways when it comes to data needs. Since the Smartphone has come into existence, it has constantly evolved into an improving piece of technology. This is something that will always occur in regards to smartphones, because companies have to either keep up or get left behind.

As far as smart phones are revolutionizing the mode of communication and enhancing the levels of interaction between remote and urban people, they are alienating and limiting people interactions, creating inequalities across the globe.

Despite being of importance uniting distant individuals,smart phones have helped extend the gap between close individuals while increasing distance between them.

From the aforementioned, it is apparent that the coming into force of smart phones has hampered oral communication greatly.

In my considered opinion, despite bringing with it advanced computing capability, in the ethic aspect, it is not of much importance to get a smart phone. This is because it will help one distant him/herself from close persons,jeopardized social engagement

Smartphones are addictive phones.

Giving the rapid expansion of the technology industry society is now consuming a lot of technology.

Has their influence and effects now gone to far?

Are they to blame for the deteriorating education levels. Bringing with it advanced learning engines i.e. in build educational information, smart phones is a threat to traditional learning with is heavy influences on individual level of personal development.

At the moment it is evident that not much weight is attached to social media statements as compared to physical statements.  Few individual take social media interactions seriously, this is despite the existence of individuals who value social opinion that a real one. 

Looking back at history, when a type of technology loses its usefulness, we put it aside for something better.

It’s not really our fault. 

There seems to be no doubt then that technology has taken over our lives and many may say for the worse.

I really don’t think that electric cars, VR goggles and new, improved selfie sticks are the true measure of man’s technological progress as a species.

Can a ‘like’ really represent popularity and how others perceive you?’

It is only when we forget that it is us who should be controlling technology and not technology that should be controlling us that we should worry. We have to be accountable to society and ourselves. Or else the very fabric of trust that holds society together can and will fall apart. 

All comments welcome. All like clicks chucked in the bin.

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THE BEADY SAYS: HUMANITY IS TURNING INTO AN ALGORITHM.

24 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Facebook, Google it., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Technology, The Future, The Internet., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, WiFi communication.

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( One Minute read)

We are just an accident of creation an algorithm of evolution and technology is only created by our minds, with our imaginations.Afficher l'image d'origine

The Internet allows for our humanity in modern-day times to interconnect and promote globalization and information sharing.

Without imaginations, no technology would have been created and with the decoupling of intelligence and consciousness our time is coming to an end.

Soon we have an algorithm that will figure out.

“Why was God a Man?” “Why we have such a heartless world”. 

We  are just at the start of this process and there is nothing we can do to stop it.  Data- driven technologies are going to rule the roost. From your birth to your demise.

Smart phones and Social Media are eroding the very concept of individuality which is the start of disintegrating from within.

We will live for longer, but as Dataists, run by an unchallenged high priestly caste with all the knowledge,  Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft.

Technology, a word with Greek origins, is defined as, “the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area”. 
Technology to-day is a word used to collectively describe or portray the advancements abilities,creations, undertakings, views, and knowledge of a singular group of persons: we as human-kind.

We are being reduced to the mentality of Chickens.

Technology… is a queer thing.
“It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other.”
C.P. Snow

“Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.” 

R. Buckminster Fuller

 However, the decision to use it proficiently in proper perspective is one’s
’own decision and choice. 
If technological advancements are put in the best uses, it further inspires the development in related and non-related areas but at the sametime its negative use can create havoc in the humanity or the world.
Technology has, and will, change the moral fabric of humanity; it is up to the present generation to heed this warning and not allow such societal travesties of immense proportions ever to occur.
Again Technological Advancements will continue to advance rapidly as we move into the next millennium. What is important is to ensure that these advances benefit humanity as a whole.
And what exactly is the “Singularity” supposed to be?
It’s a future mythological moment when machine (artificial) intelligence becomes more “intelligent” than human intelligence.

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The Beady Eye looks at what is wrong with Modern day Education.

05 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by in Education, Sustaniability, Technology, The Future

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Every person is an individual; they think differently, so wouldn’t it make sense that they all learn differently?

Consumerism tells us that in order to be happy we must consume as many products and services as possible.

Unfortunately the modern world does little to combat this. However more and more spheres of activity are being shaken out of their complacent ways.

Education is one of these spheres that needs to be redefined. We are fast approaching a new Singularity: when all the concepts that give meaning to our world – me, you, men, woman, love, hate-will become irrelevant.

So the big question for all of us is-what we want to become.

A question that dwarf the debates that currently preoccupy all of us.

After all if we don’t come to grips that we all live on the one planet and that all of to days debates between today’s religions, ideologies, nations, classes, will in all likelihood disappear along with all of us.  If we don’t learn to educate for sustainability rather than consumption and Slavery to information and knowledge owned by Google a by-product of capitalism.

There is little point in going to Space, or anywhere else if we are represented by Artificial Intelligence.

It is not a lack of education, but a lack of creativity, and an inability to independently think for ourselves that is the problem with Modern day Education.

For nearly a century, societies have believed that higher education is necessary for success, but the opposite is true with the modern version of education.

For instance, most of the high-tech companies were created by high school dropouts, who dream’t of doing something that nobody else had done.

You won’t find such inventive and pioneering attitudes in those who have been through school, college, and then university.  Students are trained to only strive for self-limiting ‘reachable goals’. 

For a lot of people out there, it is time to realize that creative, independent, free thought is more important than anything they can learn at any university.

To teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.”

“I never let my schooling interfere with my education.” — Mark Twain

So let’s have a look with the Beady Eye. (This is a “think piece” intended to stimulate thought and discussion, rather than a scholarly manuscript.) We just didn’t have time to address every social issue that surrounds education.

The term education is derived from Latin word educere, educare, and educatum which means ‘to learn’, ‘to know’, and to ‘lead out’. Education is an act or process of imparting or acquiring general or particular knowledge or skills, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.

But rest assured that nobody cares about learning when they can’t even feed themselves.

In the primitive era indigenous education is said to be the significant resource for development, but in recent times it is said that modern education is the significant resource for material wealth. 

There is no argument that both types of education play a significant role in development of our world and that both type are precious tools to life, to put one’s potentials to use.

But how do we explain the fact that those who had spent the most time in college are also the most unsuccessful.

It is due to what we think education is for in the first place.

Technology enthusiasts have long heralded the power of technology—from the printing press, to blackboards, to the laptop—to transform education.

So far it has done little to impact educational processes and outcomes.

A young girl is using her mobile phone to send an SMS message in Urdu to her teacher. The girl is part of a Mobilink-UNESCO program to increase literacy skills among girls in Pakistan.  It is not. Why?  Because the education is in English (which is deemed to be the only language to learn if you want to understand the Modern Capitals World) not her language.

She is being turned into one of the ultra-conformists that Google and modern schools seek to mass-produce.  She will become one of the ones that couldn’t make it in the real world – her world.

No human beings are able to survive properly without education. Untrue.

The training of a human mind is not complete without education. Untrue.

Only because of education a man is able to receive information from the external humanity, to notify him with past and receive all essential information concerning the present. Untrue.

What is true is that indigenous educating in ones native tongue has created culture for millennium. In so doing ensuring their survival as a culture. Indigenous means originating in and characteristic of a particular region or country. It can also mean native, innate, inherent, or natural, produced, growing, or lliving, naturally in a country or climate; not exotic; not imported.

In the absence of writing, indigenous people depended on the power of their memories to facilitate the retention and transmission of all learned ideas to future generations.

Now its the power of Google, Facebook and the Smart Phone that is dumming us all down to a click for knowledge.

The debate is whether the power of mobile phone technology, will help hurdle several education barriers by finding new ways to support learning for rural girls or boys in insecure areas.

The point here is that we must protect verity, not to become copies of each other.

WHAT IS MODERN EDUCATION:

It is education that is synonymous with colonial, western or Christian education. Modern education can be understood as a by- product of the capitalist regime the terror of the ecosystem.

With the rapid expansion of information communication technologies around the globe, there is a high level of misdirected interest in harnessing modern technology to help advance the education status of some of the world’s poorest people at the cost of loosing their cultural values.  

Indigenous education was for everyone in the community and existed for the purpose of strengthening the community while Modern education is for everyone in the society for the purpose of strengthening the society.

Indigenous education taught children their own indigenous culture based within their own society while Modern education brings in cultures from another societies. 

The potential of technology to help improve education has significance beyond teaching children reading and math.

Quality education plays an important role in promoting economic development, improving health and nutrition and reducing maternal and infant mortality rates.

We look back on our past, and learn from our experiences.

There are many forms of Education.

Visual learning: Power point presentations, videos, and word documents.

Auditory learning has the most basic tool to learn- your voice. Through speaking and lectures.

Tactile learning involves physical hands-on activities, and therefore can take several forms.

Special attention, programs for students who need extra help to learn.

Education is in upheaval, with free online classes proliferating, tuition surging and public universities struggling. Perhaps worst of all, too many students leave school with high debt and no degrees. The endless chase for prestige and the resort-like marketing of college has nothing to do with Education.

Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are just one of these upheavals.

Others include initiatives to grant credit for “competency” in skills rather than time spent in class; digital systems to help match students to the right colleges and guide them to the most efficient course of study to obtain a degree; and hybrid learning environments at schools.

When  ‘cloud computing’, ‘m-learning’, or ‘total cost of ownership’ are introduced into the conversation no one knows where education is going.

Therefore, education has become a basic principle to measure the labor market on the basis of essential skills and the ability to appropriate them through suitable communication. The knowledge gained through education enables individuals’ potential to be optimally utilized owing to training of the human mind. Employment in the contemporary world is based on education, as employees must possess the required skills that correspond with the current technology to perform their tasks.

It is said that Information Communication Technology (ICT). (ICT refers to technologies that provide access to information through  telecommunications). is generally used to describe most technology uses and can cover anything from radios, to mobile phones, to laptops combined with technology holds great promise in helping bring quality learning to some of the world’s poorest and hardest to reach communities.

It does nothing to teach common culture and values. Other than through this type of education that Technological advancement has been realized enabling communication and production of cost-effective products and services to the society at large.

Education is an important tool that is applied in the contemporary world to succeed, as it mitigates the challenges which are faced in life. Untrue.

Everyone is an expert in something. A modern-day form of segregation.

In many ways, higher education is like any industry that has produced its product a particular way for a long time and is suspicious of anything new.

Teaching skills require a shift away from designing curricula based on topics and subjects and toward creating experiences where learners can choose their own objectives.”You can’t make socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone is interdependent.”

— John Dewey, Father of Modern Education

Indeed, in some of the most remote regions of the globe, mobile phones and other forms of technology are being used in ways barely envisioned in the United States or Europe.

Will a technological future fix any of this? I hope so.

The lack of clear distinctions between service and education is blatantly visible in the world.

Experience alone cannot define its educational value without understanding its relationship to the individual learner.

Designating students for separate educational paths based on their academic performance as teens or younger is a worthless use of resources.

There is hope.

We’re already starting to see how tech-savvy people are using the web, software, and devices to connect those who have with those who don’t.

Can education help fix any of this? And not just in terms of stitching together technology, neuroscience, and learning design, but also in stitching together opportunity, safety, support, and care. We can only hope so.

We have much to do.

So far the educated Sapiens regime on EARTH has produced little that we can be proud off.

Despite the astonishing things that humans are capable of doing we remain unsure of our goals and we seem to be as disconnected as ever. No one seems to know where we’re going.

Self made Gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company. Wreaking havoc all around us, yet not finding happiness. It’s time we started to reeducate ourselves. So, do we need to revert to old school education in this new age techno world?

For starters you’d have to do away with the internet and the array of electronic gadgets that are so much a part of our children’s everyday lives.

The truth, as I see it, is that we are caught in an inexorable grind of change and human evolution. Towards what, God only knows, but it will obviously influence our children’s education, and their future. Finally, regardless of how out-of-control today’s schoolchildren appear, it may well be a matter of perception coloured by the nature of our own reality as adults.

I think some people teach solely because of that very belief.

Learning is a life-long endeavor.

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The Internet is dissolving National borders. Are we heading towards Electronic Governance

23 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by in Technology

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I have a feeling that this post will require more than one visit to the keyboard.

Sorry this is rather a long-winded post.

As technology is influencing every aspect of living the problem is where to start.

I am at this very minute using technology that is advancing at such a rate it seems to have control over our lives. So let’s start by saying that I am not against Technology but I don’t want to end up with my Fridge controlling my Life. (Previous Post on Technology)

In this post I want to look at the effects of Technology on Society in general. The impact of technology on human behavior.

As the barriers to information come down, we are all already living longer, eating, drinking, going about our business differently with totally complacency as to the effects it is having or will have on our lives.

The impact of technology on society is deep. It is both positive and negative.

Is it now the principal driving force of society, determining societies mode of operation?  I would not say yes, however we are fast coming to the point of no return.  We need to protect ourselves from its negative and predatory influences before it’s too late.

The meanings assigned to technologies are determined by the norms and values of social groups which draw on the “wider context” of sociocultural and political environment.

The heterogeneous and hierarchical community of technological development functions as a mediator of social values and forces value orientation in society to change. They bring new technological constructs or their complete generation to life.

For example;

Capital mobility has increased incredibly, the economy has shifted to the service sector, innovation has become the primary source of productivity growth in relation to engineering, organizations, institutions as well as individual workers. The “technical construction of society” has become a major issue, that is social processes are mainly mediated by technological development.

The nature of economic competition has been undergoing huge changes, as more and more people think that there have been profound changes in the relation between economy and society and innovation requirements.

People start moving on a different time scale, time has been speeded up. Space has become globalized, by turning into more unified and more complex at the same time. The society’s level of being informed, with exploiting the opportunities provided by information and communication technology, has been increased dramatically.

Socio-economic processes create new virtual spaces or even real spaces are modified: the processes are arranged in new ways in the interacting local, regional, national and supranational spaces. While integration processes are considered to be a general tendency, clear attempts for isolation also appear repeatedly.

Knowledge has become the main economic source, and learning abilities and skills have become a criterion of adaptation at the levels of individuals, companies, local communities, nations, supranational organizations and the world taken as a global system.

As the internet dissolves national borders how will we help indigenous cultures co-exist with an increasingly homogenous global culture?

The internet is stripping the world of privacy. More and more people store personal information on the internet, how will we ensure that information is kept secret?

It is causing massive changes to;

Social/Isolation/Social Skills/Obesity/Depression/Sleep Habits/E Waste/Cyber-bullying/Deceit/Reality/Stress/Social Boundaries/Sexual Boundaries/Social Bonds/Distraction/Attention Span /Addiction/Lack of Empathy/Violence/Energy Consumption/Neurosis.

People fail to realize that technology is the root cause of many of our modern troubles;

The current financial crisis might not of happened but for Technology. Internet gambling has become an addiction for many. Uncontrolled Porn is debasing us all. The development of smart weapons.

I believe that people have too readily embraced technology, seeking only the benefits, and ignoring the many downfalls.

The excessive use of machines in every field can result in an under-utilization of human brains. Over time, we may even lose our intellectual abilities. You know of the declining mathematical abilities in children due to use of calculators since school, don’t you?

Where is the digital divide going to take us? How is our ‘tomorrow’ going to be?

It has made life easy, but so easy that it may lose its charm one day. One can cherish an accomplishment only if it comes after effort. But everything has become so easily available due to technology that it has lost its value. There is a certain kind of enjoyment in achieving things after striving for them. But with everything a few clicks away, there is no striving, there’s only striking. With the developments in technology, we may be able to enjoy all the pricey luxuries in life but at the cost of losing its priceless joys.

If you read Google’s privacy policy carefully, it is clear that they retain the right to make significant decisions about our data without regard for our interests.

Nearly everything is being assimilated into technology Google Earth documented the entire map of the Earth; taxes, email, chatting, shopping, and work can be done over the internet; you can read on your Kindle; you can make home-made movies on Windows Movie Maker; and hundreds of other such ways.

According to a new creed, technologists are turning ourselves, the planet, our species, everything, into computer peripherals attached to the great computing clouds.

The news is no longer about us but about the big new computational product that is greater than us.

Is constant contact with the world really a good thing?

The continuous and self accelerating innovation processes characterized by the intense competition has brought about some changes in time relations.

If you are always in contact, there will be a decreasing amount of time to devote to yourself, and others will shape your opinions more and more.

The question is whether the hyper-connected life is taking us where we want to go.

It is it possible for technology to have value without facilitating a human goal?

We live more in our heads than any society has at any time in history, and for some the only reality is the one inside their heads.

By 2020 it will enabled the sending of messages via wireless headsets and visors”virtual telepathy”

At present, it is used largely for profit of individual or corporate gain.

It is used for short-term, monetary expediency, with little thought to the long-term survival of the human and other species on this planet.

Our present method of operations has become like a cancer, devouring its host.  It just cannot continue for much longer.

When we become habituated to the amazing technological achievements of recent years, we forget to be thrilled and amazed. We lose that great sense of wonder, of awe. We take brilliance for granted and so we ignore the human elements of fortitude, creativity, and intelligence” (Vaidnyanathan, 51-52).

When you stare at a screen too long, and it feels like your mind stops “Thinking.” You are socially and psychologically cut off from your fellow citizens.

You can see evidence everywhere.

It has become incredibly easy with the rise of the internet to become popular just by making the biggest impression. Being the funniest, cruelest, the one with the saddest story are all similar ways of becoming an internet phenomenon.

It is even reflected in popular culture, where being the fastest rapper or wearing the sexiest fashions all makes the headlines. These are all the same; they are shallow. You really do not have to work hard at being sexy, or rapping, or even having a sad story.

This generation leans on technology to serve their pleasures, and claim to be successful, or at least act like it. The internet is leading to a decline in “normal” social behaviors.

The news is a great example: Presented without any indebted analyst.  You see or read an interesting story, think about it for a second, and then you brush it over your shoulder, without any critical thinking, or wondering how it will affect your life.

So should we be concerned that an informational inequality often exists between governments and citizens.  More and more governments are using information and communication technology especially Internet or web-based network, to provide services between government agencies and citizens, businesses, employees and other  nongovernmental agencies.

Government activities that take place over electronic communications among all levels of government, citizens, and the business community, including: acquiring
and providing products and services; placing and receiving orders; providing and obtaining information; and completing financial transactions.

E Government is becoming an integrated tool of Governance – comprising three enabling sets of new technology: infrastructure, solutions and the exploitation of public portals.

Is E-governance beyond the scope of e-government?

Can Smart government equal smart governance resulting in Trans formative government, lean government, cloud computing, open government data, participation governance, digital divide, universal and mobile access, trust, security, identity, interoperability, and social media among others.

It might create a digital divide between those with ready access to electronic media and those without. It is changing the way people and businesses interact with government.

One of the most important aspects of e-government is how it brings citizens and businesses closer to their governments. An e-government infrastructure enabling the implementation of specific applications to address specific problems and issues of government management.

So when providing Internet access and email services in public portals, the most positive impact will come from the solutions and services that can be accessed from the exploitation of public portals with these communication tools.

Most recently we have seen agreements established between the U.S. and the EU on the transfer of personal data of airline passengers well beyond the scope of reasonable requirements.

Data retention, National Identification systems, e-government and joined-up databases, among other risks to privacy. What is the meaning of “identity”; the implications of turning several identities into one (without questioning consequences); what are the different scenarios and contexts for identification? This is changing the way information enters and flows around the system of government, introducing new—and sometimes uncontrollable—influences into decision-making

If we truly want to be successful we need to engineer the machines. ‘Machines replacing human beings’ does not portray a rosy picture, does it?

Overexposure to the Internet has taken its toll. In this virtual world, you can be who you are not, you can be virtually living even after you die. Isn’t this weird?

How can we prevent the invention of new purposes? That are often based on flawed assumptions, including dangerous ones.

In the current climate of fight against terrorism and cyber crime this imbalance is currently shifting towards greater government control over citizen data.

Is IT  a good thing’ for government?

Consequences and implications for e-government from wide-ranging surveillance and spying of digital communication. Ignoring the evidence about downsides to technology and ignoring the evidence of the widespread costs of failure of e ­government about how one should gather data about the world in e­ government as elsewhere – has always been about self ­promotion as much as promotion of knowledge.

Virtually unknown a decade ago impacts associated with e­ government, cost­saving and improvements in public service quality.  computers in the public sector cause job losses

It can lead to serious issues like unemployment and crime.

 

These days, smartphones don’t just make calls, they’re an electronic extension of our lives.

 

 

Have you ever stopped to think about how many people use the Internet in this world? The answers are astounding.

  • One-third of the entire global popular uses the Internet every day.
  • There are more tweets sent every second than the amount of breaths you take in an hour.
  • $116,220 worth of iPhone apps are downloaded each hour. That’s not even considered Android or others!
  • 98 years worth of digital video are uploaded to YouTube every day.
  • We spend more hours each day on devices than sleeping.

These technologies have completely redefined how companies carry out their most essential activities.

– 91% of employers screen prospective employees through social media

– 76% of employers screen prospective employees through Facebook

– 53% of employers screen prospective employees through Twitter

– 48% of employers screen prospective employees through LinkedIn

No matter what type of advancement we make, we’ll always have something to complain about and I can hear a lot of you saying I am just another nerd doing exactly that.

There is no doubt that we need technology but we must guard against technology that does not need us. I cannot imagine a single technology that only has upsides.

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100 Years - Then and Now

100 Years - Then and Now

 

 

 

 

 

“The world we live in appears to be falling apart at the seams.”

12 Monday Jan 2015

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Because the technological revolution has brought a new standard of wealth, health and comfort to the people’s of First World countries. Never in history has a generation differed as greatly from those of the past.

It “has created a crisis of sustainability as our propensity to consume exceeds our capacity to conserve diversity and control wastes; removing national barriers has exposed poor and ill-equipped Peoples to the threats as well as the benefits of free trade and competitive markets; globalizing communications has reduced cultural diversity and exposed everyone to the temptations of an often materialistic and trivial international media industry.”

The problems seem overwhelming. Why? It’s not Rocket Science.

People reach a point in which they believe that money should be obtained
regardless of the cost. We would be lead to believe that we live in an “enlightened society” by our worlds leaders, but the truth remains that poverty, hunger and human misery remain very much evident in society today.

The gap between the rich and the poor is widening and will keep widening because more and more middle class society is forced into the lower class and in turn creating more poverty.

In order to eliminate any of these issues we must redefine what we believe is an enlightened society.

The development discourse and practice has been based on a rational approach that assumes that economic growth benefits all society, reducing both poverty and inequality is not working nor will it ever work because of greed.

It seems bizarre, that we, modern, intelligent people, have not yet succeeded to get rid of the differences between DCs (developed countries) and LDCs (less developed countries).  We have not been able to counter rich-countries’ biased trade policies. The Western framework of democratic institutions that has given support, and meaning, to economic liberalism and therefore to “fair dealing” has itself been called into question. Growth with inequality is an explosive mixture, one in which the very rich and the very poor live side by side in large urban centers. This fuels many forms of social conflicts creating a vacuum of meaning in Western democratic institutions.

The contradiction between rich nations’ development aid intentions and their actual trade practices has a negative result among LDC populations. A country’s commercial practice, like its culture, can be, rightly or wrongly, identified with its people’s beliefs. In developing countries, it’s more about having access to what we would consider basic necessities, such as indoor plumbing and running water, food, clothes, and maybe even electricity.

A person who does not have a lot of money cannot live in an upper class neighborhood because their economic status deems them unfit for that neighborhood. There are very few choices that the lower class has thus, there are more people living in poverty and more “middle class” society being forced to live in poverty. All around us we see people segregated by class. From the cars we drive to newspapers we read, there are noticeable differences.

There is a wealth of opinions and viewpoints but no one perfect solution, with a sharp increase in violence during the last decade of ever-increasing globalization. Wealth isn’t just about money or status income inequality is the main division. The power of the rich over the majority of the poor.

The use of that power in relation to globalization: within the unstable political and economic setting of LDCs, inside information is vital for international businessmen. Those who hold economic, political and/or informational power in LDCs are in a position to channel investment and/or development where they want. The overall result is an even larger imbalance of power, which restrains fair negotiation and conflict transformation/resolution practices.

We must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas. The old imperialism — exploitation for foreign profit — has no place in our plans. What we envisage is a program of development based on the concepts of democratic fair dealing.

While the existence of such a divide is unquestionable, its origins, structure, and consequences are not. Could one, for example, securely say that income gaps lead to conflict? It could be argued, that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacks on what the perpetrators’ identified as symbols of the main source of LDCs’ growing poverty and inequality:

To some extent, local-scale rich-poor conflicts mirror the conflicts between LDCs and the rich nations. Is it possible to relate intractability to this divide?

Poverty has been approached in both absolute and relative terms. “Absolute poverty” is a measurable quantity referring to a lack of the basic resources needed to maintain a minimum of physical health, normally calculated in calories or nutritional levels. “Relative poverty” has a qualitative dimension. It refers to general standards of living in different societies, taking into account culturally sensitive interpretations of poverty, and variations between and within societies over time.

For those concerned with social policies and economic growth, inequality is normally interpreted as lack of equality of condition, that is lack of achievement of any given welfare indicator (e.g. income, consumption) or any valuable attribute of a population.

The reduction of poverty levels within any given society may not imply a reduction of inequality, because all classes in society may benefit simultaneously from economic growth, keeping the same proportion among them.  While it seems clear that inequality is undesirable, there is a great deal of debate over the desirability of total equality. One debate over equality questions is the meaning and value of concepts such as class, status, power, and authority. These cannot, it is argued, be completely equalized without suppressing other values such as personal freedom and individualism.

Welfare: It has a much broader meaning, referring to the general state of well-being that an “entity” enjoys. Here, “entity” can be taken as a person or as a state, thus one can speak in terms of “personal well-being” or “welfare of the state.”

The larger the difference in income between a country’s rich and poor, the larger the inequality. Inequality is likely to obstruct the rate and quality of economic growth.

Recent events in France (mostly caused by a pre-conditioned belief of each other) is a wake up call not to the suppression of freedom but to the Inequality of opportunity that exist in the world to develop. How can democracy really exist in a country where most of us do not participate in the decision-making where we spend so much of our lives? If workers can’t democratically control their economic lives, are they really free?

Here in the EU the dairy sector receives subsidies of around $16 billion $2 per day per cow, while equivalent to more than Half the world’s people live on less than this amount.

As I have said it’s not rocket Science we must Cap Greed to contribute to all.

 

“There is no democracy in  form of Capitalism.”

( SEE Previous Posts)

 

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In the age of globalization, the gap between high and low income countries is not only persisting, but in many cases it is widening,

 

 

Are you going to be in the new underclass.The pace of technological change outstrips job creation,

13 Monday Oct 2014

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Most computer scientists are busy making the technology happen rather than asking what the results will be,”

Tomorrow’s organizations may bear little resemblance to those we are familiar with.

A lot of things that were routine are becoming automated.

Technological advancement is rampant in every walk of life.

We’er seeing this with automated sales calls and administrative work that can all be done with software. For example Algorithms can easily identify safe borrowers — followed by receptionists, paralegals, retails salespeople and taxi drivers.

If that does not get the alarm bells ringing the first synthetic chromosome for a creature with complex cells has being designed on a computer and made from scratch in a laboratory. The day of designer plants an animal is not far off.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence have allowed robots to climb the corporate ladder.

So what do we have?

On one hand, you have the neoclassical economists saying some jobs will be destroyed, but others will be created, so there’s nothing to worry about.

On the other hand, you have what some people are calling the neo-luddites, who believe there’s something different about this technology.

How high can they go? Is there a corner office in R2-D2’s future?

Within 30 years, computers and machines will replace a fully half of the North American workforce and as demographic shifts, globalization and technology replace traditional work practices 47% of the World’s jobs will be automated in the next twenty odd years.

So what happens when labor is not human any longer but automated, as more and more jobs requiring medium levels of skill are automated away.

What going to happen is economic growth will accrue to an ever increasingly smaller group of highly payed people, with automation becoming self-perpetuating while skills are lost forever to invisible robots.

We probable see a new underclass with new means of social thought that might well see the demise of Capitalism itself.

This however is highly unlikely, because automation is rapidly becoming an integral part of the system. What we now call work has morphed to accommodate automation advancement.

Capitalism will be over the moon.  As the future of labour in the Capitalist world has always being to create profit by extracting what’s call value from workers. Another words paying the worker less than what their time is worth and gaining the difference as profit.  As John Tomlinson said in his book The Culture of Speed, The Coming of Immediacy, no idiom captures the spirit of Capitalism better than –

” Time is money”

So it stands to reason that if machines are producing stuff around the clock the underclasses will have to find new jobs that will offer no stability, less satisfaction, and no security of a standard of living.

At the very moment there are millions of part-time no hours contract workers called Parecariat ( These are workers who are no longer definable by fixed rules relative to the labor relation, to salary,to the length of the working day.

Capital no longer recruits people , but buys packets of time. This time is fractalized, that is reduced to minimal fragments that can be reassembled so to ensure minimum wages or salary.

The working day is now all day every day. Time is far more fluid concept than before.

All of this paint a pretty dismal picture and it will be unless we harness automation and divest its technological advancement from the motives of capitalism.

We must ensure that technology works for all of us and not just for the privileged few.

Technology at the moment is by its nature an ill-defined residue of hope and fear.

If we don’t want a world run by algorithms (that are raping us all every second of the day with high frequency trading,) and bill boards that respond to your anticipated needs from data supplied by your digital smart phone we must remain wary of interfacing too closely with machines.

We can stop the march of technological progress, but we can stop the downward pressure on wages stemming from automation, by guaranteed a minimum income that will mitigate the destructive impact of technology on labour.

The future has not been written, and issues will manifest themselves in different ways depending on the social, technological, economic and political changes in the world. These issues, however, will be important to any future in which organizations want to attract and retain the best talent.

The hire-to-retire cycle is being as you read this post retired.

What would my advise be?

Learn a Computer Language you are going to need to be able to talk to them.

     

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