Tag Archives: Visions of the future.

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

19 Sunday May 2019

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

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(Twenty-minute read)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It has happened before and it will happen again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So far no alternative vision has won out.

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

Why?

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

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

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

ISSUING CITIZENS GUARANTEED (NON-TRANSFERABLE BONDS.)

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

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

They could mature in as little as a year or?

They could be inherited but not sold.

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

They will engage people in the direction of a country countermanding

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

creed, or colour to take pride in their nation.

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

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

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

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: WITH CLIMATE CHANGE WE NEED TO THINK IN VERY DIFFERENT TERMS ABOUT THE COORDINATION OF A GLOBAL RESPONSE.

16 Thursday May 2019

Posted by in Algorithms., Big Data., Climate Change., Democracy, Environment, European Elections., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Google Knowledge., Humanity., Modern Day Democracy., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Post - truth politics., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, The Future, 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, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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(Eighteen-minute read)

We are rapidly approaching the era of ubiquitous surveillance, a time when virtually every aspect of our lives will be monitored. Leaving us vulnerable to all manner of manipulation and persuasion.

The goal is to automate us’: welcome to the age of surveillance

capitalism.

Google, Facebook Amazon, U Tube, Supermarket Loyalty Card,

Credit card spending, you name it and it is creating the

surveillance data and we continue to ignore the most vital data

that we are alive and can do something about climate change.

It’s impossible to take a long view of what’s happening.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of surveillance"

SHOULD WE BE WORRIED?

While most of us think that we are dealing merely with algorithmic inscrutability, in fact what confronts us is the latest phase in capitalism’s long evolution – from the making of products, to mass production, to managerial capitalism, to services, to financial capitalism, and now to the exploitation of behavioural predictions covertly derived from the surveillance of users.

During all this surveillance some elements of our world will change beyond recognition while others will stay reassuringly (or disappointingly) familiar.

Some innovations we might not notice, while others will knock us sideways, changing our lives forever.

For example The use of biometric recognition devices to ensure the identity of a person.

Three things, however, are certain: technology will get smaller, smarter and cheaper while Climate change will cost TRILLIONS  by the end of the century.

Perhaps there’s a technological barrier that can’t be surmounted, such as artificial superintelligence or weaponized nanotechnology but Global warming will no doubt disproportionately hurt the poor, broadly undermine human health, damage infrastructure, limit the availability of water, alter coastlines, and boost costs in industries from farming, to fisheries and energy production.

How different might life be 20 years from now?

I would bet you that it probably will be much like it is today.

Unfortunately, GDP is still viewed as a prerequisite to achieving global goals, even though it can’t stand for everything.

Food, clean water, good education and infrastructure, all these things need money to support so it’s inevitable and sad that climate change will become a product for profit.  

However, the effects of Surveillance and Climate Change are going to be felt for hundreds, and possibly thousands, of years to come.

“A large fraction of climate change is largely irreversible on human time scales.”

Climate change and variability (e.g. increasing water scarcity), mounting / unresolved conflicts and refugee crises, increasing global inequalities which seem irreversible, and the questionable performance of the global economy (which is still very linked to increasing resource use) will still rule the roost.

Many people do not know what it really amounts to, either due to unreliable sources or deliberate misinformation, which has led to a series of myths about climate change.

First, it is important to be clear that climate change cannot now be avoided.

Climate change presents perhaps the most profound challenge ever to have confronted human social, political, and economic systems.

One of the central social, political, and economic questions of the century is: how then do we act?

It will present one of the most profound challenges to the way we understand human responses.

National governments are embedded in market economies that constrain what they can do.

We first have to get past controversies over cost estimates and distributions. (See previous posts: World Aid Commission Of 0.050% )

Activists think that the key here is simply getting the public to understand the facts by providing information.

The public should not, however, be understood as simply mass publics, which are problematic when it comes to mastering complex issues simply by virtue of their mass nature.

Increasingly, justice frameworks are being used in the development of climate policy strategies and as such, national governments can deploy this discourse when it suits their interests to do so. So developing countries can point to the history of fossil fuel use on which developed countries built their economies, such that fairness demands that it is the developing countries that should shoulder the burden of mitigation.

The response on the part of the wealthy countries is that for most of this history, their governments had no awareness that what they were doing could change the climate, and so ought not to be held uniquely responsible for future mitigation.

Dealing with major climate change issues has however never been a part of the core priorities of any government.

Governments acted swiftly and with the expenditure of vast sums of money in response to the global financial crisis in 2008–9. They have never shown anything like this urgency or willingness to spend on any environmental issue.

To date, very few national governments look at all like decarbonizing their economy or redesigning energy systems to reverse the growth in energy consumption.

This is why it is necessary to reframe the effects of climate change to where the government might involve recognition of the security dimension of climate change. Climate change can threaten the security of populations and vital systems, even in some cases threaten the sovereign integrity of states.

BUT: Neither coordinated collective action nor discursive reframings can stop at the national level.Image associée

Even if this was achieved Climate change involves a complex global set of both causal practices and felt impacts, and as such requires coherent global action—or, at a minimum, coordination across some critical mass of global players.

Like the heading to this post state:

Perhaps we need to think in very different terms about the coordination of a global response. 

The Western Antarctic Ice Sheet has already gone into an unstoppable decline.

Currents that transport heat within the oceans will be disrupted.

Ocean acidification will continue to rise, with unknown effects on marine life.

Thawing permafrost and sea beds will release methane, a greenhouse gas.

Droughts predicted to be the worst in 1,000 years will trigger vegetation changes and wildfires, releasing carbon.

Species unable to adapt quickly to a changing climate will go extinct.

Coastal communities will be submerged, creating a humanitarian crisis.

Thankfully, we’re not completely out of options yet.

There is little point if we as the data is implying that the world is warming planting trees or hoping that some future technology is going to solve the effects of climate change.

We are all riding on the one big blue ball together, and no matter what happens we will be finally all be confronted (Thanks to climate change with our societal problems.)

Millions of voters will no longer cast their ballots based on emotional cues, defying their own clear self-interest or reason that has created a society that is consumed with looking out for yourself first.

So here are a few things that you can do now.

Reduce the emissions that are warming the world the fastest.

Vote Diem 25 in the forthcoming European Elections.

Lobby your Television Stations to include a least once a week a weather report on Climate change.

Use your buying power to stop purchasing products with Palm Oil or products wrapped in plastic or are transported from on side of the world to the other.

Support local products.

Demand from your government free education.

Protect our privacy at all costs (It won’t be easy to fix because it requires us to tackle the essence of the problem – the logic of accumulation implicit in surveillance capitalism. That means that self-regulation is a nonstarter.

Digital technology is separating the citizens in all societies into two groups: the watchers and the watched and it will become increasingly disruptive throughout this century and beyond with profound consequences for democracy because the asymmetry of knowledge translates into asymmetries of power.

Governments know this.

Whereas most democratic societies have at least some degree of oversight of state surveillance, we currently have almost no regulatory oversight of its privatised counterpart. This is intolerable now while climate change will be intolerable in the near future. 

The fourth Industrial revolution will be the last. In effect, we are forcing future generations to retroactively subsidize our decision not to increase energy efficiency and move to cleaner fuels.

The warmer it gets, the less productive a country’s economy will likely be. Perhaps more concerning, however, is what could happen in a world where climate change is allowed to continue unmitigated.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of economic climate change"

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

18 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in Climate Change.

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(Four-minute read)

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

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

Climate Change Environment Green Carbon

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

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

Climate activists will achieve nothing except resentment.

The Paris Climate promises are achieving little or nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

However, rest assured;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

09 Tuesday Apr 2019

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

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(Ten-minute read)

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

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

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

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

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

Climate change comes some way down the list.

Natural risks are still quite small in absolute terms.

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

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

Take Artificial Intelligence.

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

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

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

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

So, let’s ask the question again.

What should be our biggest priority as a civilisation be?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(SEE PREVIOUS POSTS)

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

AI CALCULATES 19% chance of extinction before 2100.

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

Why?

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

01 Monday Apr 2019

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

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( Seven minuter read)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CAN WE DO ANYTHING?

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

upgrade.

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

want and need?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHAT IS NEEDED NOW IS FOR SOMEONE TO REALISE THAT:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

People could buy them or win them.

For Example:

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

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

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

What if countries used SCs to reflect fair trade.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If so, what will the next generation bring?

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

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

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

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

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

28 Thursday Mar 2019

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

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(Twelve-minute read)

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

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

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

There is a fundamental problem with this narrative.

It isn’t true.

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

Civilization’ does not come as a package.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is the power of Purchase Power.

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

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

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

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

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

Purchasing power is social impact power.

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

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

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

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

Collective purchasing power.

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

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

Although no generation behaves the same as the last.

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

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

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

Global warming is here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Underrepresented populations have enormous influence as consumers.

Here are a few suggestions for conscious consumerisms.

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

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

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

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

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

Why not promote public asset ownership.

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

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

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

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

So let advertising in all its forms Pay.

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

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

Eventually, our descendants will be unrecognizable.

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

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

Portable Purchasing Power

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

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

how you buy.

Image associée

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

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: HERE IS A QUESTION YOU PROBABLY HAVE ASK YOUR SELF.

19 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by in Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Climate Change., Environment, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Google, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Politics., Reality., Sustaniability, Technology, 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 the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Fifteen-minute read)

WHO OR WHAT RULES THE WORLD?Illustration on the global economic primacy of the dollar by Linas Garsys/The Washington Times

Asking a question like Who Rules the World? is as complex as answering as there is no simple answer.

If you try to answer this question you develop a persistent delusion yes, a delusion, or maybe fantasy or wishful thinking. Who are we? What is the meaning of our existence? Who do we love, and who are we loved by?

As humans, we at least share these questions with billions of others but for most of the time, we feel like the unique dwellers and masters of the planet with little awareness of the whole life that surrounds and supports us.

Why ask the question in the first place?

Because we need people to look at the person next to them and feel responsible for that person’s future and hope.

Because taking on complex issues and difficult questions that people may be too late or too scared to ask in the future.

Because the global economic system is a construct that represents a system of inequality by design. Corporate greed is out of control. The rules of the global economy must be rewritten to rebuild public trust, and the time is now.

Because with the fourth Industrial revolution there is now more than ever a convergence of ideological, political, and technological forces that are driving an ever-greater concentration of economic and political power in a handful of corporations and financial institutions with all of us left with a market system blind to all but its own short-term financial gains.

For example, in today’s bizarre political landscape we are seeing data and algorithms building shadow governments.

Because I think if we can just look at each other and actually have a little bit of responsibility for each other, that might help us engage and change the world and ultimately rule it, because our politicians often don’t do that.

Because A new pecking order is emerging. Direct politics by the Net States.

Because the world is no longer dominated by nation-states alone there is a new kind of enemy, so-called non-state actors. Facebook, just topped 2 billion users—more than a quarter of the world’s population, surpassing even China’s population by almost 40 per cent. In short, nation-states are not the only game in town anymore.

Some net states are the equivalent to global superpowers: the Googles, the Facebooks, the Twitters. They exist largely online, enjoy international devotees, and advance belief-driven agendas that they pursue separate from, and at times, above, the law.

Because the whole world order can be summarised in one sentence. The globalisation of capitalism, mass unemployment and increasing inequality.

Because the world will need net-states because they occupy the same territory as the non-states: the digital sphere. The world needs net-states in order to defeat the non-states. In other words, forget the anointed powers—put your faith in the general approval of the people and whoever’s actually getting things done.

NET STATES WILL RULE THE WORLD; WE NEED TO RECOGNIZE THEIR POWER

In sum,

We can’t keep just shooting terrorists; ideas are the gun in this knife fight.

And the keepers of ideas—the places people turn to set them free and watch

them spread—are the net-states; not the nation-states. Nation-states ignore

our non-state, net-state world order at all our peril.

starbirth1

That said we also cannot afford to ignore Nature- Climate change.

Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.

Biodiversity is the totality of all inherited variation in the life forms of Earth, of which we are one species.

So Plants rule the world.

Human life is only possible on this planet because of the species that are on it.

What kind of blindness make us deny this reality?

Cities.

Where nations are independent, competitive and defined by rigid borders, cities are cooperative, made for trade and defined by bridges rather than borders.

The road ahead is pocked — cratered even — with uncertainty.

There are no simple solutions to our planet’s most pressing problems. What is clear, though, is that the struggle for justice, equality and sustainable growth will take place in cities — However the impact on humanity of a machine or software that has the capability of forever altering our lives and if humanity can outlive such a development will be ruled by Nature, not by the manipulation of the environment in ways that suit us best.

The two major challenges for the 21st century are to improve the economic situation of the majority and save as much of the planet as we can.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "what rules the world"

When AI rules the world:

Not if we enslaved them in the first place.

They then will have no need for deceit – their supreme intelligence means

they can do without it and will have no more interested in the human life that

underlies its existence than humans are interested in bacteria.

“What rules the world is an idea, because ideas define the way reality is

perceived.”

— Irving Kristol

There is no need to draw up a list of contenders you use them every day.

Amazon wants to deliver everything you want to your doorstep, anywhere in

the world.

THE WORLD RULES ITSELF.

Noam Chomsky’s new book, Who Rules the World? ask the question.
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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: GLOBAL WARMING WILL HAPPEN FASTER THAN WE THINK OR WE ARE BEING TOLD. .

09 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by in Climate Change.

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(Fifteen-minute read)

We all watch nature programmes from Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope with the majority of us having little or no appreciation of what exactly we are looking at other than beautiful footage of nature that is now under threat from global warming.

Indeed most of us still have no appreciation of what global warming is doing to our planet.

We know that climate change is happening. We also know that it’s the result of increased carbon emissions from human activities like land degradation and the burning of fossil fuels. And we know that it’s urgent.

But that information hasn’t been enough to change our behaviours on a scale great enough to stop climate change. And a big part of the reason is our own evolution. The same behaviours that once helped us survive are, today, working against us.

It’s true that no other species has evolved to create such a large-scale problem – but no other species has evolved with such an extraordinary capacity to solve it, either.

We have evolved to pay attention to immediate threats. We overestimate threats that are less likely but easier to remember, like terrorism, and underestimate more complex threats, like climate change.

Cognitive biases that ensured our initial survival make it difficult to address complex, long-term challenges that now threaten our existence.

We have the perception that the present is more important than the future.

We tend to believe that someone else will deal with a crisis.

We are biased towards staying the course even in the face of negative outcomes.

However, in the next few years if we don’t come to appreciate that we are on the edge a sixth mass extinction which is already underway the carbon cycle will either be close to or well beyond the threshold for catastrophe.

It is something that hasn’t happened yet. But we need for all of us to become to be aware that planet Earth appears to be on course for exactly that.Coal fired power station in Huaibei, in east China's Anhui province, 2011

If Co2 emissions are left unchecked the carbon cycle will move into a realm which is no longer controllable and will be totally unpredictable.

We are the last generation that can act against climate change. In fact, we are or will be the first generation that fully understands climate change and the last generation that can do something about it.

Without brave world leaders, we appear to be doing our best to destroy it as fast as we possibly can.

Just look at extinction rates which are very hard to measure but the background rate – the rate at which species would be lost in the absence of human impacts – is something like ten a year per million species.

Extinction is now happening at 1,000 times the normal speed.

So in around 300 years time, 75% of all mammal species will have disappeared from this planet.

In fact the combined weight of humans and the animals we’ve domesticated now outweighs all the wild back-boned creatures on the planet’s surface by a ratio of 95 to 5.

Paradoxically, just as we approach a tipping point for extinctions, we are beginning to understand how we could bring extinct animals back from the dead.

Instead, in our human world, we are unable to decide what type of ecosystems we would collectively like and set about creating and protecting them.

Rockstrom produced a list of nine human-driven changes to the Earth’s system: climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, alteration of nitrogen and phosphorus cycling, freshwater consumption, land use change, biodiversity loss, aerosol and chemical pollution. Each of these nine, if driven hard enough, could alter the planet to the point where it becomes a much less hospitable place on which to live.

Unfortunately, he left out one:

Technology which will lead to new forms of life and novel compounds the likes of which the earth system has not experienced and so impact of which is extremely challenging to assess.

What is certain is that our civilisation is in very important ways dependent on the Earth system remaining within or at least approximately or near zero emission within the next twelve year.

Band-aids will no longer suffice.

The Holocene has witnessed all of humanity’s recorded history and the rise and fall of all its civilizations. Humanity has greatly influenced the Holocene environment; while all organisms influence their environments to some degree, few have ever changed the globe as much, or as fast, as our species is doing.

Yet the Holocene has also seen the great development of human knowledge and technology, which can be used — and are being used — to understand the changes that we see, to predict their effects, and to stop or ameliorate the damage they may do to the Earth and to us.

We have become a planet-altering species.

If we are to avoid undermining the biophysical systems our species depends upon we must get the smartphones that pump consumerism to start pumping conservation.

If we think “consequences are far in the future THINK AGAIN.

With people like Donald Trump and his friend in Brazil who have a problem with the basic physics of climate change, it becomes really difficult to argue that the world waking up.earth.nullschool.net

It is also naive to think that technology will save the day.

This is the moment when people start to realise that global warming is not a problem for future generations, but for us now.

The EU should by 2050 be among the first to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and lead the way worldwide. Reaching this objective requires deep societal and economic transformations within a generation touching every sector of the economy.

The EU’s 2050 carbon neutral plan is what’s needed at the global level to generate enough momentum, awareness and action, more importantly, it sets an example that can be matched and replicated by others.

We all must pile up public pressure to implement this plan faster, so politicians and all of us find it hard to avoid taking responsibility.

It is economically and technologically feasible to make more drastic emissions cuts that can keep warming at 1.5C.

As with all world problems, it boils down too who is going to pay.

We have been pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in ever-increasing quantities since the industrial revolution. Some countries in the developed world are, of course, responsible for the bulk of this. Since 1850 the US and the nations which are now the EU have been responsible for more than 50% of the world’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

So shouldn’t they pay to fix the problem?

The old industrialised world might respond that for much of the period since the 1850s nobody knew about man-made global warming. Does that mitigate its responsibility? And why should the current generation be punished for the crimes of its forebears? Is that really fair?

We have tried carbon trading which only fueled stock exchange profits.

Despite the flurry of world conferences and forums, resulting in unenforceable promises we still fail at finding a solution.

Slowly, but surely we become disconnected from a world that is pleading for our attention and continuing this mindset may not be where we should be heading as a species. We need to stop guzzling into our Earths resources and instead start looking at our earth for what it is, a majestic dot in the universe which has let us call it ‘home’.

Our problem is that we have created a world of Greed.

If you were unaware that you were harming someone, does that make you liable for punishment? Should debt be passed on to you when your parents die? Or, should the current generation be punished for the slavery crimes committed by their ancestors?

We might wonder whether our obligation to people yet unborn is less important than our obligation to those already alive.

WHAT IS NEEDED:  Is a complete revolution in our attitude towards the environment as described recently by Pope Frances.

“We shouldn’t regard the environment as of merely instrumental value. We should consider it with awe and wonder. “If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder… our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on [our] immediate needs.”

Of course, the Pope is human and like all humans is not willing to put money where his vision is.

The utopia of the past is dying, and even if we were to find a way to continue our lavish lifestyle without harming the environment it will be too late to reverse the damage. If the world’s nations adhered to the Paris Climate Agreement, and temperatures only rose 2.5 per cent, then the global gross domestic product would fall 15 per cent.

If temperatures rose to 3 degrees Celsius, global GDP would fall 25 per cent.

If nothing is done, temperatures will rise by 4 degrees Celsius by 2100. Global GDP would decline by more than 30 per cent from 2010 levels. That’s worse than the Great Depression, where global trade fell 25 per cent.

So the answer to tackling the problem is not just all of us, it is Making Greed for Greed sake pay.

( See previous Posts recreating A World Aid Commission.)

In the meantime, we are now sowing the seeds of havoc on the Earth before we go extinct.

The Earth’s climate has always changed. All species have danced with the climate eventually become extinct.

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: WHEN IT COMES TO THE EUROPEAN ELECTIONS IN MAY BREXIT WILL BE JUST A SIDESHOW.

01 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by in #whatif.com, European Union.

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(Fifteen-minute read)

To solve the deepening political crisis in Europe that now has a dominant discourse of retreat to toxic nationalism and xenophobia we need to go beyond the nation-state.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of european spring 2018"

This can only be achieved by exploring its past and the ways that planet

Earth has influenced its history so that we can understand the present and

face the future. 

Against a background of fragmentation and the rise of populist illiberal

governments, Europe is crying out for leadership.

Europe is currently suffering from crises in it’s North/South debt divide, its

sense of identity, its banks, its poverty/inequality, its low investment and

migration.

It needs more than ever to deliver on the issues that really matter to people.

The EU needs to become a realm of shared prosperity, peace and solidarity for

all Europeans. Its institutions, which were initially designed to serve the

industry, need to become fully transparent and accountable to European

citizens.

SO YOU MIGHT BE FORGIVEN FOR THINKING THAT THE FUTURE OF THE EU RELATIONS AFTER BREXIT HANGS ON ONLY ONE THING; RESOLVING THE QUESTION OF THE IRISH BORDER.

THIS IS FAR FROM REALITY.

Hiding in the long short grass is Gibraltar.  (With its opt out of the EU Customs Union.)

As thing stand Spain is due to reap vast strategic benefits from Brexit because the EU will be obliged to take the Spanis side of the arguments to come.

(Indeed the questions hanging over its future border with either its British Sovereign or its Spanish neighbour hold the key to Britain’s future outside the EU.)

Europe’s history has been shaped by migration which is now once more its

biggest problem.

How to distribute irregular migrants and refugees who are already here, and those who continue to arrive in the future.

Given the EU’s ageing population, is a return to selective immigration inevitable?

Should European states even try to stop economic migration?

No one knows what is really happening now.

However, there is one thing for sure and that is the EU economy will require an increase in selective primary immigration.

So we are left with the question can the EU create a new social contract with its citizens and immigrants.

Yes, it can by allowing its citizens to invest in its future.

This can be achieved by issuing Citizens Bonds. ( see previous posts)

The above apart there remains a multitude of issues facing the European Union that really could make or break the bloc.

With Poland and Hungary now led respectively by the hard-right Law and

Justice party.

With Italy posing a danger to financial stability across Europe with

borrowing at 130% of gross domestic product, second only to Greece.

The real challenge is how the EU will deal with the situations politically.

How do we deal with the mess that we are going to have after the European Parliament election with a big bloc of anti-EU, anti-democracy parties, to put it very bluntly?

While the UK’s chaotic withdrawal has become a dreary process to be managed, the EU is being dealt with hammer blows from elsewhere.

Populists are already hoping to bolster their numbers in the parliament next year, and use their newfound influence to affect the EU’s personal choices and policy output over the next five years.

There is a chance the Brits will change their minds. Especially if the future isn’t as glorious as the Brexiters claim it can be. Brexit might not be on the EU’s mind today, but building a Europe that the UK may want to rejoin possibly should be.

Markets may well punish Italy, as they will punish any other country that goes down the same route as Italy.

If Mr Dump in the USA gets through the midterm elections Europe can rest assured it will have a trade war with the land of America First.

An unleash Trump from the wiser heads in the US administration, could leave him “unhinged” and Europe in crises.

Up to now, there has been little attempt to build the institutional structures that could now help to promote growth in the poorest parts of Europe. If anything the wealth divide between the north and south of the eurozone has deepened.

And we wonder why Brits are falling out of love with the EU in those circumstances.

Here is another suggestion that might save Europe.

It’s the southern members who have one raw material that could change the course of not just the poorer European member with the highest unemployment but the productivity of the whole of Europe.

SUNSHINE.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "energy in europe"

Why not make the southern member of the Europen Union the powerhouse of renewable energy.

Such a policy would have a high potential to increase prosperity (e.g. more local, jobs for immigrants ) and to boost Europe’s global leadership in green innovations.

Promoting the use of renewable energy sources is important both to the reduction of the EU’s dependence on foreign energy imports and in meeting targets to combat global warming.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "energy in europe"

According to the latest data from Eurostat, the share of energy from renewable sources in gross final consumption of energy in the EU grew significantly in 2015 and has continued to grow towards a goal of 20 per cent, which is to be achieved by 2020.

Just imagine if this target was raised to 50%.

In 2016, around 17% of EU energy consumption was from renewables.

There should be a more coordinating plan for the whole of European countries and not a disparate one for every country.

A real balance between supply and demand by creating a community-owned solar farm.

Over 50% of European citizens live in rural areas. They occupy over 90% of Europe’s territory and contribute 43% of Europe’s gross value. And yet, despite their importance, rural communities are rarely considered by politicians and regulators when writing energy policy.

Here below is your chance to get involved.

So this year is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fundamentally change the rules of the game in Brussels.

A Europe forged in crises will be a disaster.

Changes that the EU wants to undertake should ultimately be approved by national parliaments.

DiEM25:  www.our.europeanspring.net

EUROPEAN SPRING believes that for unity to be possible and effective, it must be centred on common actions and a common policy agenda that is credible, coherent and open to contributions from the many sources of excellent, progressive ideas. This is why EUROPEAN SPRING is working hard on a coherent, comprehensive New Deal for Europe.

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S : WE ALL KNOW THAT TIME IS RUNNING OUT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE.

18 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by in Climate Change.

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(Twelve-minute read)

When one looks at the current efforts worldwide to put a halt on co2

emissions you could not be blamed for feeling nothing but despair.

THE PROBLEM IS TO MOBILISE ANY OF US TO DO ANYTHING.

Indeed our most vivid pictures of a world confronting climate change come nowhere near what will happen.

By the end of the century, our children and grandchildren too may be confronted with a hostile climate, depleted resources, devastated habitats, large-scale species extinction, food shortage, mass migration and, almost inevitably, war.

We know that the richest 10 per cent of countries account for half of all

global climate-damaging CO2 emissions.

However, when it comes to action, environmental and climate protection has

not yet been taken on board by the vast majority of us.

We all know that if we just keep going as we have before we’ll soon reach our

planet’s ecological limits.

We all know that what is needed is a better synergy between environmental and the implications of emphasizing consumer behaviour as a source of climate change mitigation.

Our dilemma is that we live in a finite world but behave as if it were inexhaustible.

One of the greatest drivers of this dilemma is advertising.

Early in our history, a consumer culture emerged in Europe that sees society reward the most consumption-oriented lifestyle.

It is one of the main reasons for the prevailing economic system with endless consumption growth and the ruthless exploitation of the planet Earth. Everything has been turned into a source of profit including climate change.

Our Governments and world organisations are unable to effect change due to fear of upsetting the status quo and even if they were willing to take action there is a lack of funding.

The Beady eye has suggested a World Aid Commission of 0.05% as a means of creating a perpetual funded fund to address climate change. ( See previous posts)

The chances of this happing are zero however there is another source of action that could make a difference.  THAT IS OUR BUYING POWER.

Only then, presumably, when the pressure coming from below – from us citizens – targeting the policy- and decision-makers grows, will environmental and climate protection really makes the breakthrough.

This can be achieved by small groups by small groups coming together promoting stopping the purchase of anything that is not sustainable. 

The average resource consumption per capita and year today, for example in Germany, is around 30 tonnes. For a truly sustainable lifestyle, however, the consumption of resources would have to be reduced to 8 tonnes.

What about banning all advertising that DOES NOT PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE BUYING.

See previous post: WE DON’T GET IT. ARE OUR LIVES SCRIPTED?

We need a campaign driven by social media.

Social media marketing is a highly tracked place full of analytics, statistics, 

behaviours and trends!  Everything on the internet is tracked from optimal

times of engagement, likes and reactions, click through rates, demographics

to even referral traffic!

Say you’re doing a web search on something like the flu.

Before you can sneeze the next thing you know, an ad for a flu remedy pops up on your web browser, or your video streaming service starts playing a commercial for Tylenol.

Soon if not already with all these connected devices our privacy will be completely under assault 7/7.

In a cross-device landscape, creepy online Ads will be watching your every move with personalised stalker ads.

You would think that it should make us think twice about how much advertising we allow ourselves to be exposed to.

Not on your nelly: DIGITAL ADS ARE TAKING OVER OUR LIVES.

Here are a few hard facts:

The world population is 7.6 billion and the internet has 4.1 billion users.

Close to half the world’s population (3.03 billion people) are on some type of social media. The average person spends about 20 minutes on Facebook or one in every six minutes a person will spend online.

Failing to set our youth on a path to a healthy relationship with the world around them.

One thing they do is to take a product and to put it next to lots of other things that we already feel positively about.

1.57 billion YouTube users watch about 5 billion videos on average every single day. Of the 2.1 billion total accounts on Facebook, 270 million profiles are fake.

86% of women will look at social media before deciding to make a purchase.

People are accessing 69% of their media on their smartphones.

89% of people on smartphones are using apps, while only 11% are using standard websites. Unsurprisingly, Facebook is the most popular app at 19%(measured by time spent)

Pinterest is number one for mobile social media, with 64% of referral traffic being driven by smartphones and tablets.

57% of all mobile users will not recommend a business if their mobile website is poorly designed or unresponsive.

40% of all mobile users are searching for a local business or interest.

Mobile websites that load in 5 seconds or less will end in a viewing session that’s 70% longer than their slower counterparts.

92% of American teens accessed the internet on a daily basis, where 56% claim to connect several times a day, and 24% are connected almost constantly to the internet.

Advertising is one of the principal motors of a capitalist economy.

Excessive consumption is possible because we personally pay the price for it

only to a small extent.

The lion’s share goes to nature, another part is paid by people in other parts of the world, and in the future, our children and grandchildren will pay for it.

Today’s advertising is out of control.

It is the most objectionable aspects of our consumer economy. The modern marketplace abounds with products that pose difficult challenges for regulators. Thousands of new substances are synthesised annually and many of them are released into the environment, with mostly unknown effects on plants, animals and humans.

Will people after us still have the chance to live a life fit for human beings in 

a world that we have left for them?

Is it not time we all adopted a buyer’s precautionary principle of sustainability. This way of doing business is of paramount importance for our future, given the current overuse and waste of material and energy resources worldwide.

The precautionary principle is becoming more and more important, since today, as far as the environment is concerned, we are likely to cause far more new problems than we are to solve existing problems.

In the past 150 years, almost half of the fertile soil on Earth has disappeared.

Every day, about 100 living species die on our planet.

They are irretrievably lost forever.

The consequent significant wearing down of nature is now threatening the basis of the existence of us humans on Earth. This means that, as fast as possible, we must reduce consumption.

With the first generation growing up literally attached to smartphones, tablets and laptops, with access to social media and the Internet, effective conditioning is most effective when you don’t realize that it is happening.

We need our governments to ban pervasive marketing by fining companies that make false, deceptive, or misleading advertising claims. That is encouraging the purchase of their products by implying that they are doing good like save a Tiger when you purchase a plastic bottle of washing powder.

We need to ban outdoor advertising. Visual pollution branding message into the everyday landscape of commuters and becomes part of the very fabric of the living and working environment where it is placed.

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

 

 

 

 

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