Tag Archives: Visions of the future.

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S : IN THIS AGE OF TECHNOLOGY ARE WE REALLY TALKING TO ONE ANOTHER?

13 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Algorithms., Technology., The cloud., The Future, The Internet., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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( A twenty-minute read)

Today’s atomizing forces are brand new and far less tangible: ubiquitous Internet access, constant email and social-media updates, all distracting us from our surroundings, loved ones and other people around us.

Are we indeed socially hobbled by our little screens?

If matters have gotten worse, how would we know?

We’re disengaged.’ Compared to what?

If the new technologies are to fulfill their promise, it is necessary to direct attention towards the costs and concerns that come with the globalization of technology.

Although information technology and increased knowledge can empower everyone on an individual level, the limitations of the existing structures within the job market, socioeconomics, and governmental sovereignty are hard to cast away; an underlying irony has yet to be eliminated.

We are only just beginning to replacing vague theories with some hard data and the overarching effects so far point to the disruptive nature of technology.

So here are a few facts explaining how digital-age technologies have already transformed our world, for better and for worse.

Wealth boosted by technology has not been equally distributed.

By 2020, it is estimated that the 1 percent will own 54 percent of global wealth.

Thanks to technology, we can vent our frustration in increasingly visible ways.

Jobs will be computerized in the next 10-20 years.

With the rise of websites like WebMD, LegalZoom, and E*Trade, even white-collar professionals like lawyers, doctors, and financial middlemen are under threat from technology. Are any jobs safe? For the time being, positions that require empathy—say, nurses over doctors—are better positioned to withstand the technological blow.

Furthermore, governmental programs do not provide the assistance needed to help workers transition to the technological age, further wedging the gap between rural and urban. This disparity is also magnified within the stratification of international systems: The digital divide that exists among developed and developing countries is obvious and the high cost of bringing broadband and technology to third-world countries is an issue that needs to be solved.

Health will be run by algorithms attached to the cloud.

To put this in perspective, a full human genome sequence cost $100 million in 2002. Today, it can be done for $1,000; by 2020 it may cost less than a cup of coffee.

Technology can be a double-edged sword, but at least when it comes to our health (if not necessarily our medical professionals), it has largely been a force for good but just imagine what is going to happen to Health Insurance when your health is monitored by the Cloud.

Education.

Today, there are more than 80,000 education apps available for download through Apple’s App Store; 72 percent of those are aimed at toddlers and preschoolers. But while parents and app developers have obviously embraced the tech education revolution, the link between technology and educational performance is murky at best.

Technology can help save the planet…

The World Bank estimates that climate change may push more than 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030.

Of course, technology has played a role in our current predicament. The shale revolution—which at its core is a technological revolution—has given a new lease on life to the oil and gas era. That may be good for falling oil prices, but it’s horrible for our environment.

But what makes the difference is that the global economy grew by 3 percent in 2014 while world emissions remained flat.

People are not willing to fundamentally change their lives for problems far off in the future, even ones as potentially catastrophic as climate change. To avoid the worst effects of climate change, alternative energies need to become as cheap and reliable as their carbon-emitting counterparts, and quickly.

Cheaper alternative energy is the best hope the world has left.

Global Security:

Technology has also created a whole new set of global security concerns.

The thoroughly modern phenomenon of cybercrime and economic espionage is estimated to cost the world more than $445 billion every year. That’s roughly 1 percent of global income. And while it hasn’t happened yet, the fear that cyber attacks can spill over and trigger real-world conflicts remains an ongoing concern.

Technology has also changed the face of modern warfare. A decade ago, the Pentagon had a stockpile of fewer than 50 drones; today it has an arsenal of about 7,000. The Pentagon estimates that China will build nearly 42,000 drones by 2023. Others will follow suit. Yet another possible complication.

But the most worrisome development?

Technology has given terrorist groups like ISIS an unparalleled platform to spread their messages of hate. The knowledge needed to build bombs in the comfort of your own home is now just a few short clicks away. Technology is capable of empowering every single individual in the world, even the worst of us.

Finance and the world economy.

It is quite obvious that money in the form of cash is going to disappear.

World stock market is now run by high-frequency trading algorithms. Personal credit lines are governed by algorithms. World trade is reverting to protectionism. Inequality is widening.

Communication:

We are all talking on our cell phones. Public spaces aren’t communal anymore. No one interacts in public spaces.

On the other hand, access to the wealth of information and opinion available on the internet is exposing people of all ages to views, lifestyles, and knowledge they might never have encountered otherwise, potentially generating greater compassion and understanding both within local communities and for people on the other side of the world.

In the next few years, virtual reality could offer a further means of breaking down geographic and social barriers.

Project Syria, for instance, uses virtual-reality goggles to place people inside the meticulously researched world of a Syrian citizen caught in the Syrian conflict, cutting through the ‘empathy fatigue’ often brought about by constant access to global news.

THEN THERE IS:

CRIME:

WHAT LAWS SHOULD APPLY TO AI.

SHOULD THEIR CREATORS BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS ACTIONS?

An AI programme could be an innocent agent with either the software programmer or the user being held to be the perpetrator-vi another.

Does the programmer know that if the machine is used in a certain way that a certain outcome is inevitable?

Who or what should be punished if for an offense of which an AI system is directly liable.

Is Ai a service or a product. The legal implications will be profound.

PRIVACY: 

Nothing is private any longer. Whether you like it or not everything is data.

Should AI platforms Pay us for the Data?

FALSE NEWS:

There is no longer a source of Facts. Campaigns to manipulate public opinion through false or misleading social media postings have become standard political practice across much of the world.

Exploiting every social media platform — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and beyond — and relying on human users and computerized “bots” that can dramatically amplify the power of disinformation campaigns by automating the process of preparing and delivering posts. Bots interact with human users and also with other bots. They generate so much content — and they share each other’s content — that it’s hard to disaggregate the networks.

The impact goes beyond electoral politics to hot-button issues such as climate change and the safety of vaccines.

So should we put aside these value judgments and focus on how technology will simply make the world different going forward. 65 percent of children entering primary school today will end up working in jobs that don’t even exist yet. Our time is better spent figuring out how to live in this new world rather than lamenting the old one.

Unfortunately, by the time we get around to waking up to Algorithms, we will be owned by one.

History also advises that the measures taken must be developed through close consultation between governments, private sector experts, and stakeholders and citizens. Experience with previous technologies suggests that prudent policies can help us effectively manage the risks associated with new technologies without harm to their benefits. But can we say that this is honestly true with Algorithms that are learning from each other or driven by profit, filtering platforms in order to supply personalized information?

The result is having corrosive effects across the whole political arena worldwide.

Whether you are techno-utopians or techno-skeptics technology is changing our lives and the world we all live in and on IN MORE WAYS THAN WE YET OR WILL EVER BE CAPABLE OF COMPREHENDiING.

This is why I advocate a strong room for technology. Where all software is stored and available to all. (See the previous post)

If we are not careful the very thing that we all cherish Freedom will become the sole prerogative of the Algorithms world OF APPLE, MICROSOFT, FACEBOOK, TWITTER, AND THEIR LIKE.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of technology"

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revolutionary.

What was still missing from the research, he decided, was historical perspective.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. WORLD MAINSTREAM POLITICS IS TURNING A BLIND EYE TO WHAT TECHNOLOGY IS DOING TO THE WORLD.

11 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by in Algorithms., Capitalism, Climate Change., Energy, Environment, Humanity., Life., Politics., Post - truth politics., Sustaniability, Technology, The Future, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, Wealth., What Needs to change in the World

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( A six-minute read)

Algorithms are shifting authority.

Surely its time for all of us to stop acting as though we are all independent of Life.

To see the future first you have to be able to imagine it.

People might be beginning to understand but the clock is running out faster and faster which is being signaled by nature year after year while banks are commercializing its very existence.

Including us, none of the worlds in the universe are immune to natural limits.

If we and our politicians are still dragging our feet in another ten, twenty, thirty years we will have degrees of climate change that we will simply not be able to manage.  The whole world will be in trouble.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of political movements"

As all the bad things re climate change are coming true assisted by the inertia of AI which is getting build into the system this time  we will not be able to rely on coal to generate energy,

The chances of Technology (In the form of Algorithms) tackling inequality or driving sustainability are dismal in the extreme.  (See previous postings)

The coming global problems that are going to be created by technology are obvious to see, lack of meaningful employment with the resulting immigration causing civil unrest and a return to Nationalism.

Just look at the results of Paris Climate Agreements being adhered too.

A complete allusion due to the rise of Nationalism.

Why?

Because of nationalism, we are now beginning to address the world problems on all the wrong levels.

We need to be looking forward not backward.  Make America great, or Brexit Britain the two current prime examples.

We are now all living with technology and no government can control it.

Now more than ever the global capitalistic economy with national politics does not work.

Basic human needs are changing and even if we manage to establish a Basic Wage for all it will not solve who lives or dies.

Human stupidity or violence should never be underestimated. There is no post-truth fake news it has been with us for thousands of years.

No one has the time to analyze all the information that AI is producing other than another machine to make a judgment.

( I often feel that we should all be changing Facebook, Twitter, Google and the like for the information we are supplying them with.)

We have out of date Organisations that are incapable of making anything stick.

So I hear you saying what can be done.

First and for most, we must apply a World  Aid Commission on all Profit-seeking Algorithms, on all high-frequency trading, on all sovereign wealth funds acquisitions, on all foreign exchange transaction over $50,00, on all world Lotto prize money etc. (See previous postings)

Then we must create a technology storm room where all programmes relating to technology in all its forms are held with access to all in sundry.

Of course, this is pie in the sky as it will never happen.

Since the dawn of history, the human has not been able to share for the common good of all, but there is one thing that might focus our minds sooner than extinction and that is the price of oil as it runs out.

New media such as Social Media seems to be driving a return to a more pluralistic communication System and Social movement activists may be seen as consumers of these new media, and for this very reason find attention for their demands.

But this, in fact, is open to différent types of interprétation.

So where are we?

As F.M. Powicke said: ” Political and social history are in my view aspects of the same process. Social Life loses half its interest, and political movements lose most of their meaning if they are considered separately”

Social media with its networks and its rules petitions and false news that go beyond democratic representation and is achieving exactly what Powicke rightly identified.

Social left politics is in disarray, Right-wing politics on the rise, Liberal politics in the pockets of Economic growth and the technologic revolution.

It is, therefore, time for in-depth research on the interactions between movement organizations and the society of social media that goes beyond the analysis of media bias.

In course of constructing the political landscape of these movements, if there is going to be any chance.  We must not allow the world to be governed by the altar of profit, whether its Apple, Microsoft or some other monopoly platform.

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: IT IS TIME TO CREATE A WORLD TECHNOLOGICAL STRONG ROOM.

07 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Google, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Our Common Values., Technology, The common good., The Future, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World

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( A two-minute read)

Of course, some argue that we have better things to worry about. Climate Change, Wars, Sustainability etc, but Superhuman, might finally create a joke so funny that everyone on Earth dies laughing. Artificial Intelligence is becoming is becoming incredibly sophisticated and scientists aren't sure how

The fact is that there are a lot of unquestioned assumptions when it comes to AI, learning in ways far beyond that of humans.

We can’t really predict what might happen next because superintelligent A.I. may not just think faster than humans, but in ways that are completely different. It may have motivations — feelings, even — that we cannot fathom. It could rapidly solve the problems of aging, of human conflict, of space travel. We might see a dawning utopia.

There is one thing for sure it has been set in motion and now we are waiting for the results.

In the meantime, there is something unpleasant about A.I. and that is Humanity is already losing control of artificial intelligence which could have catastrophic consequences for civilization.

For example “Deep learning”, is a powerful tool for solving problems. It helps us tag our friends on Facebook, provides assistance on our smartphones using Siri, Cortana or Google.

Deep learning has helped computers get better at recognizing objects than a person.

The military is pouring millions into the technology so it can be used to steer ships, control drones and destroy targets.

And there’s hope it will be able to diagnose deadly diseases, make traders billionaires by reading the stock market and totally transform the world we live in.

Indeed whether you call it Deep learning, it could be the last invention that humanity will ever need to make.

If they can’t figure out how the algorithms (the formulas which keep computers performing the tasks we ask them to do) work, they won’t be able to predict when they fail.

The Question is are we going to rely on a Google AI ethics board or we agree on a World Technological Strong Room where all AI programs are stored and available to everyone.

It’s now or never.

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THE BEADY LOOK AT THE POSSIBILITY OF CONSCIOUS MACHINES.

27 Tuesday Feb 2018

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence.

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( A five-minute read)

There is little doubt that future A.I. will be capable of doing significant damage.

In the near future, we may indeed need a very new perspective on the nature of consciousness, as quantum mechanics is proving with a narrative of the self-interacting with the world.

Even if we manage through technology to artificially create some kind of limited consciousness it does not mean we understand it as it is an emergent property of very complex neuronal patterns.

It is easy to imagine an unconstrained software application that spreads throughout the Internet, severely mucking up our most efficient and relied upon medium for global exchange.

However, the question is will we see a machine that is aware of itself and its surroundings. That could take in and process massive amounts of data in real time?

This will require intentional behavior from an A.I. Therefore it would have a mind, as intentionality can only arise when something possesses its own beliefs, desires, and motivations.

Though computers and robots are more advanced than ever, they’re still just tools. They are unaware of their own existence and can only perform tasks for which they were programmed.

But what if they could think for themselves?

Brains and computers work very differently. Both compute, but only one understands.

A strict symbol-processing machine can never be a symbol-understanding machine

Conscious machines would raise troubling legal and ethical problems.

Would a conscious machine be a “person” under the law?

Should “conscious” be thought of in the way we think of humans, and even some animals?

IE:  Information received through any of the six senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, or feeling.

Your conscious mind is continually observing and categorizing what is going on around you. It has no memory, and it can only hold one thought at a time and deal with it either positively or negatively, “yes” or “no.”

Is consciousness the accepting new information, storing and retrieving old information and cognitive processing of it all into perceptions and actions.

If that’s right, then one day machines will indeed be the ultimate consciousness.

They’ll be able to gather more information than a human, store more than many libraries, access vast databases in milliseconds and compute all of it into decisions more complex, and yet more logical, than any person ever could.

So where are we?

Is consciousness more about human behavior that cannot be computed by a machine. Creativity, for example, and the sense of freedom people possess don’t appear to come from logic or calculations.

Then again consciousness and the physical world are complementary aspects of the same reality.

When a person observes, or experiments on, some aspect of the physical world, that person’s conscious interaction causes discernible change.

Although it requires brains to become real is consciousness a thing that exists by itself –  there had to be something before the Big bang perhaps space had or has a conscious.

Consciousness alone, however, cannot make physical changes to the world, but dreams or visions can. After all, we experience the world subjectively.

If a computer can’t be conscious, then how can a brain?” A simulation of a brain is still not a physical brain. After all, it is a purely physical object that works according to physical law. It even uses electrical activity to process information, just like a computer.

Some of these questions have to do with technology; others have to do with what consciousness actually is.

We left with the possibility that new biological structures that are, or could become, conscious are yet to be discovered.

The most accurate of brain simulations will not yield minds, nor will software programs produce consciousness. Therefore we will not have machines with what we call consciousness.

Human brainpower transplanted into a mechanical robot–is a quite a leap.

However, we could be confronted with this kind of technology so don’t lose your mind too soon.

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. ONE OF THE BIGGEST THREATS TO THE PLANET IS OUR CONTINUING DISCONNECTION

22 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., Climate Change., Humanity., Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Paris Climate Change Delegates., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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( A seven-minute read)

The vast majority of us now live in cities far removed from nature, walking around with our faces in smartphones connected to the cloud by algorithms sporting fancy names like Twitter, Facebook etc.

I am sure you have read or hear that we are now connected more than ever in our history, but most of this connectivity is false. Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of climate change effects"As amazing as this seems, this is just the beginning of what we can expect.

Mobile technology has seen a meteoric rise in adoption since the debut of the first iPhone in 2007. Seven years have given us significant advancements in mobile technology, but relative to the span of recorded human history, seven years is still a short time.

We’re barely skimming the surface of what we can expect from technology.

This very moment we live in a world in which news is broken in under 140 characters and people are more driven by bouncing icons on their mobile phones than what can be experienced outside of their 3.5” screen.

Google attempts to understand our behaviors to deliver more relevant information and content to better connect with users through their various services.

As connected as we are now, there is still a fundamental disconnect between people and the companies that attempt to reach them through these technologies.

We may one day reach a point where true conversations can happen between man and machine, but for now, it is still up to the people, the marketers and brand ambassadors of the world, to drive this human connection.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of disconnect"

So what does all of this mean?

The world used to be really small. People were limited to what happened in their city or village and every now and then, if the event was truly important, the news spread far enough. They wrote letters that would take months to reach their final destination if ever at all. The information was kept by few. You would hear from countries directly involved in the recent history of yours and you would barely ever make it very far from home. And even if you did, it was not an everyday thing or an everyday decision for anyone.

This was the life less than 100 years ago.

And to put things in perspective, humans have been on earth for around 200.000 years and the Earth herself is 4.543 billion years old.

So we can agree that the way we live now is fairly recent.

“We are now so disconnected” with the madness being amplified year after year with so much information it leaves us with 3 choices:

You will listen to it as if this had nothing to do with you what so ever.

Or

You hide under your blankets. Forever. And deny it. Live in the bubble. Proclaim that all is well. Refuse to see the disconnection to the point that you are unable to move or function.

Or

We can take a stand, and make a choice.

We can listen enough to know and make an informed choice and then we can choose to do something about it.

This is where the greatness is found.

There are no absolutes in science but we have to begin to trust the science of climate change.

Why?

Because it is untestable that this is the best planet we know, and it is clear beyond any doubt that the risk to us all is climate change.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of climate change effects"

The move beyond the land and our disconnection from nature are impressive… but it is also one of the main threats facing us all.

With or without the Paris climate agreements:  We are still pumping 70 million tons of CO2  into our atmosphere a day.

Rest assure that climate change will not all happen at once.

It must now be treated as a continual threat with no debate.

We exist by nature consent not the other way around and the sooner we learn it the better.

It is the time that we put sustainability on all Education syllabus.

It is the time for all of us to demand that all-weather forecasting slots on our televisions screens at least once every three months addressed climate change.

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YET we are more connected today than ever before and this has its madness and its greatness.

 

So we are DEFINITELY more connected than ever before.

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: SHOULD WE TRUST ALGORITHMS.

15 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by in Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., Fourth Industrial Revolution., Humanity., Innovation., Our Common Values., Social Media, Technology, The cloud., The common good., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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( A two-minute read) Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of computer algorithms"

Do you ever stop to ask yourself why you should trust the information or decisions that algorithms produce?

AI smartphones will soon be standard, using machine learning from the cloud and sooner than later smartphones will have personalized algorithms that will run even when offline.

These algorithms will be own by the companies that both sell and manufacture the phone and will, therefore, carry inbuilt biases depending on which platforms they are attached to.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of computer algorithms"

Imagine a cheap little device that can compute as much data as all the brains in the world. It will have a deep and irreversible affect on everyone and there is no way of predicting what exactly will happen as the developers of such a device will have no idea what it is doing.

How far do we want to go- Robots that obey no matter what with us blind human as their allies.

Today the world faces a number of hugely complex challenges, from global warming to conflicts to nuclear weapons to rampant inequality. But one the real seismic change is how we are going to respond to each other when we all trusting algorithms to make decisions on our behalf.

Now is it the time to put in place world standards and regulations that govern the use of all biological data.

THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT THE WORLD IS GOING TO NEEDS AS MUCH COMPUTER POWER POSSIBLE TO TACKLE ITS PENDING PROBLEMS.

HOWEVER, IT SHOULD BE A HUMAN RIGHT TO INSPECT THE SOURCE CODES OF ANY TECHNOLOGY THAT HAS BIOLOGICAL DATA IN ITS TARGETED SOFTWARE ALGORITHMS. 

IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THE COST OF POWER/ENERGY WILL DRIVE THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY AND ITS SYSTEMS IN THE WORKPLACE AND COMMERCIAL WORLD MARKETS NOT TO MENTION SURVEILLANCE EITHER BY GOVERNMENTS OR OTHER ORGANISATIONS.

NOW IS THE TIME TO START DEMANDING STANDARDS.

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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHAT IS THE STANDING OF DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD TO DAY AND IS IT SOCIAL MEDIA THAT IS ALIENATING US FROM THE VOTE.

05 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by in Algorithms., Democracy, Facebook, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Modern Day Communication., Modern Day Democracy., Modern day life., Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Social Media, The common good., The world to day., Twitter, Unanswered Questions., What needs to change in European Union., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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( A Slow read of twenty minutes)

Democracy has many strengths, including the capacity for self-correction, but the question is can it survive social media.

The word ‘democracy’ has its origins in the Greek language. It combines two shorter words: ‘demos’ meaning whole citizen living within a particular city-state and ‘kratos’ meaning power or rule.

Democracy of sorts had existed for centuries but there is no absolute definition of democracy. The term is elastic and expands and contracts according to the time, place and circumstances of its use.

Meaningful democracy only arrived at a national level in 1906, when Finland became the first country to abolish race and gender requirements for both voting and for serving in government.

Even in established democracies, flaws in the system have become worryingly visible and disillusion with politics is rife. Yet just a few years ago democracy looked as though it would dominate the world. The combination of globalization and the digital revolution has made some of democracy’s most cherished institutions look outdated.

It is far short of the settled, comfortable state of maturity that many of its early adherents expected (or at least hoped) it would be able to claim after decades of effort.

Just a few years ago, Facebook and Twitter were hailed as tools for democracy activists, enabling movements like the Arab Spring to flourish.

Today, the tables have turned as fears grow over how social media may have been manipulated to disrupt the US election, and over how authoritarian governments are using the networks to clamp down on dissent.

They are fast becoming tools for social control.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of social media democracy"

So has democracy’s global advance come to a halt, and may even be in reverse.

The notion that winning an election entitles the majority to do whatever it pleases no longer holds water.

Since the dawn of the modern democratic era in the late 19th century, democracy has expressed itself through nation-states and national parliaments. People elect representatives who pull the levers of national power for a fixed period.  But this arrangement is now under assault from both above and below.

From above, globalization has changed national politics profoundly.

From below Modern technology is implementing a new modern version with national politicians surrendering more and more power to Social Media.

For example over trade and financial flows, to global markets and supranational bodies, and may thus find that they are unable to keep promises they have made to voters.

International organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, and the European Union might have extended their influence, but they no longer have the power to implement what they preach.

There is a compelling logic too much of this:

The fragility of the United Nations influence elsewhere has become increasingly apparent with the state of the world.

How can anyone Organisation or a single country deal with problems like climate change or tax evasion?

National politicians have also responded to globalization by limiting their discretion and handing power to unelected technocrats in some areas. The number of countries with independent central banks, for example, has increased from about 20 in 1980 to more than 160 today.

So is the power now in the hands of multi Clongormentts like Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Mircosoft etc.

Certainly, the perception that democracy in decline has become more widespread than at any time during the past quarter-century. Erosion of freedom over the past few years, adopting smarter methods for m of subversion

There are four main sorts of Democracy.

  • Direct democracy
  • Representative democracy
  • Constitutional democracy
  • Monitory democracy

A liberal democracy (that is, one that champions the development and well-being of the individual) is organised in such a way as to define and limit power so as to promote legitimate government within a framework of justice and freedom.

Social media is a double-edged sword it allows us to speak truth to power but on the other hand, it allows power to manipulate public opinion and polarize the electorate.

Citizens use it to speak truth to power, and authoritarian governments use it to spread misinformation.

Twitter users got more misinformation, polarizing and conspiratorial content than professionally produced news.”

They fake petition signatures. They skew poll results and recommendation engines.

Rather than a complete totalitarianism based on fear and the blocking of information, the newer methods include demonizing online media and mobilizing armies of supporters or paid employees who muddy the online waters with misinformation, information overload, doubt, confusion, harassment, and distraction.”

And yes, governments are increasing their efforts to censor the internet, but that’s because they recognize that the internet poses a threat to their control.

Every authoritarian regime has social media campaigns targeting their own populations.

If the liberal world order is indeed coming apart under pressure from
the authoritarians, the future of democracy will be deeply affected.

Social media firms are “largely immune from responsibility” in the legal sense, but that “in the court of public opinion it is a different matter, and future US/EU legislation seems likely if they don’t address these issues in a meaningful way.

So what is the answer?

Is social media basically good, or does it have a “negative impact on society”

There are no gatekeepers when you publish via your social profile, (outside of each platform’s terms of use) – you can write anything and anyone has the chance to view it.

Social Media has truly democratized media and given everyone a medium through which to be heard.

It has also opened the system up to those who would exploit it to push their own agendas. The platforms are now looking to police this, but it’ll likely always play a part.

To make democracy work, we must be participants, not simply observers.

One who does not vote has no right to complain.

Here are a few questions to mull over.

What can be done to fight citizens’ political alienation and distrust?

Are representative democracy and greater public participation the answer or do we need to think beyond current practices?

How can the cultural and historical factors involved and reflected in present developments help us look into the future?

What knowledge is needed to understand and inform decision-making in the future?

Which values are and which values must be at the base of decision-making?Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of social media democracy"

If we are indeed heading for a Smartphone Algorithms Democracy: Who, or What will be in control. 

The algorithms behind social media platforms convert popularity into legitimacy, creating echo chambers, overwhelming the public square with multiple, conflicting assertions.

Today, social media acts as an accelerant, and an at-scale content platform and distribution channel, for both viral “dis”-information (the deliberate creation and sharing of information known to be false) and “mis”-information.

“Populist” leaders use these platforms, often aided by trolls, “hackers for hire” and bots, on open networks such as Twitter and YouTube.

Sometimes they are seeking to communicate directly with their electorate. In using such platforms, they subvert established protocol, shut down dissent, marginalize minority voices, project soft power across borders, normalize hateful views, showcase false momentum for their views, or create the impression of tacit approval of their appeals to extremism.

And they are not the only actors attempting to use these platforms to manipulate political opinion — such activity is now acknowledged by governments of democratic countries.

In addition, advanced methods for capturing personal data have led to sophisticated psychographic analysis, behavioral profiling, and micro-targeting of individuals to influence their actions via so-called “dark ads.” to self-censor or opt out of participating in public discourse.

Currently, there are few options for redress. At the same time, platforms are faced with complex legal and operational challenges with respect to determining how they will manage speech, a task made all the more difficult since norms vary widely by geographic and cultural context.

Every democracy needs its justice system, so we must “catch up with the modern world”, to cope with the social media.

In reality, old power structures still have power, they just have it in new spaces.

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THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: ENDING WORLD POVERTY IS AN UNREALISTIC GOAL. l’

21 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by in World Aid., World Leaders, World Organisations., WORLD POVERTY WHERE'S THE GLOBAL OUTRAGE

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( A twelve-minute read that could be the answer to Poverty)

You don’t have to be Einstein to recognize that inequality in all its forms is what wrong with our world. It haunts every minute of our lives no matter who you are, however  ‘Ending world poverty is an unrealistic goal’Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of poverty around the world"

It is policy not aid which matters most in today’s world.

Why?

Because the politics of inequality in the future will be as important as the economics of the Future.

Relative poverty is unpreventable without tackling inequalities. 

The aspirations of delivering a world where the quality of education, healthcare and national infrastructure available to every person is sufficient to bestow on them meaningful hope and ambition is hopefully the aim of “development”.  I emphasize the word hopeful.

In a world in which a billion people live on $1.26 a day, with climate immigration increasing and technology Algorithms blundering the world’s wealth.

We’re going to have to realize sooner than later that if we are to avoid or end violent conflicts ( That these days has inequality as their triggers) there is only one course to follow and that is to spread the wealth of the world fairly.

Poverty is a perception – it is a status which is bestowed on people who have relatively little – even in societies of plenty. Just look at the prevailing political view on aid to middle-income countries that contain hundreds of millions of desperately poor people.

We all know that the chances of ending poverty altogether are zero.

It would potentially cost some of the world’s biggest businesses billions and would need to be agreed by a group of world leaders who, if they all went out to dinner, would be sat around the table with their calculators out arguing about how to split the bill.

In a world driven by Greed, Advertising, and now more and more by filtered Social Media, we are becoming increasingly desensitized to the blight of others.

For those working in organisations that are dependent on official development assistance, it is hard to talk about ending their dependency, but the 21st century demands the challenge is not ducked.

Too much negativity and accusation of not making any progress with aid money. Comments like Shit Holes, which imply that aid is no longer necessary are undermining our Aid agencies, which are becoming an increasingly endangered species.

So if we accept that we won’t be satisfied if we overcome absolute poverty, where do we go next?

The closer we get to ending extreme poverty, the harder it is going to be to do it.

Imagine how different the world would be if the focus of aid spending was not “ending $1.25 dollar a day poverty” but “creating a fairer and more equitable world”.

Relative poverty will always exist and it should always be at the forefront of efforts to improve our world because it demands more than the bare minimum solution, or Asshole Trumps.

Decisions taken on tax regimes, remittance flows and trade concessions are now not the fastest route to assist poor countries in their development. Inequality is at the root of the reasons why.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of poverty around the world"

So in this world of inequalities is there any way of assisting development in a meaningful way.

Gadgets like tablets, smartphones and not-so-smart phones are multiplying five times faster than we are, with our population growing at a rate of about two people per second, or 1.2% annually.

The world is home to 7.2 billion gadgets, and they’re multiplying five times faster than we are.

The Mobile phone has done more for Africa than all Aid. No other technology has impacted us like the mobile phone.

The number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to pass the five billion mark by 2019. In 2016, an estimated 62.9 percent of the population worldwide already owned a mobile phone.

The mobile phone penetration is forecasted to continue to grow, rounding up to 67 percent by 2019.

By 2019, China is expected to reach almost 1.5 billion mobile connections and India almost 1.1 billion.

The number of smart phone users worldwide is expected to grow by one billion in a time span of five years.

It’s not that every person in the world has a mobile device, far from it; more than half of the population don’t have a mobile phone.

There are around 250 million machine-to-machine connections.

That may only be a fraction of the total number of mobile connections, but it was enough to knock us people off our perch in the man vs machine superiority stakes.

Just imaging what would happen if we were to equip everyone in the world (of voting age) with a mobile phone that could receive a basic income on a monthly basis.

Each phone with its unique pin.

With a phone that supplies a basic income we would witnessing a transformation in the way people relate to their governments.

A game-changer.

Not just a safer way to store money, but to reduce the need for Aid, to cut out corruption, to empower the poor, to eradicate inequality, to encourage closing the digital divide with the rest of the world. To give a sense of a future, information, opportunity and choice. To lift young people are currently trapped in poverty, often exacerbated by the need to contribute to their family incomes.

Explosive growth in mobile broadband use across continents would improve transparency and give a voice to citizens.

They would have a major economic, social and political impact.

So instead of the World Bank, the IMF, the Warren Buffets, the Bill Gates, the Mark Zckerbergs, the UN, Oxfam, the WTO, technology has the potential to lift people out of poverty.

There is no reason that a mobile money basic income could not be achieved with the application of a world aid commission of 0.05%. ( See previous posts)

Applying such a commission:  (On all profit seeking Algorithms, on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over $50,000, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds acquisitions, to mention just a few of the existing Capitalist instruments that are solely designed for Profit.) would create a perpetual Fund of trillions.

Traditional banking is out of reach for many people in rural areas of developing countries, but mobile is bringing people into the financial system in droves. Financial inclusion, starting with a humble savings account, enables people to start businesses, invest in education and weather bad times.

Mobile still has hurdles to jump before it can reach all the lives of people most in need of the technology: Namely, reliable, affordable energy and comprehensive network coverage.  However you can rest assured if aid was directed to placing a communication satellite in orbit to service Africa or Latin America cell, phone use could help developing the countries within these Continents to plan electrical infrastructure.

There are in the world already a enough used mobile phones to supply most of Africa ( Pop. 1,273,903, 985)

Unfortunately there seems to be a major barrier to people turning in their old phones to be recycled.

To give a couple of examples, a recent survey found that 63% of Canadians have an unused phone at home. And in the UK alone, people are holding on to an estimated 76.8 million unused phones.

If your used phone is a very recent model, you may want to consider sending it in to Fairphone’s recycling program.

So Technology presents as opportunity to articulate a broader and more sustainable vision.

It is essential that we take it.

Poverty shouldn’t be a Catch 22 but in reality, for some, it is.

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THE BEADY ASK’S: WHERE DO YOU THINK POVERTY CAME FROM AND WHERE IS IT GOING TO END UP.

19 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by in Poverty

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( A twenty-minute read if you want a world worth living in)

Most of us were taught that poverty started with the Industrial Revolution.

For the most part this is true but it did not happen in the isolation of the British Empire.

This story is powerful in its simplicity but if we rewind to about 1500 people living in South America, India, and Asia were much better off than Europeans. In fact Europe was just emerging from the dark ages.

China and India controlled most if not nearly all the world economy.

The Question is how did this change and why?

I put it down to Christopher Columbus and shoddy geographical calculations.

On his second outing in the Caribbean he was looking for gold and as a result the Spanish invasion killed must of the islands inhabitants. Then came a bloke named Cortes who ripped off the Aztec of Mexico,followed by Pizarro yet another Spanish conquistador with an unquenchable thirst for gold.

A total of over  185,000 kilograms of gold and 100 million kilograms of silver were pilfer from Latin America and pumped into Spain and then used to pay for Spanish war and debts.

(A 100 million kilograms of silver invested back then @ 5% would amount to $165 trillion to-day. More than double the world’s total GDP to-day)

This wealth allowed Europe to grow its economic wealth beyond the China or India.

The result was Europeans outsourced its labour into wars and colonization reducing the population of the rest of the world by slavery, epidemic diseases and massacres while enjoying the rich life.

(  Free Slavery labour benefited the USA Colonies by over 222.5 million hours)  Britain pay compensation of over £20m to slave owners equivalent to £300 million to-day which tell us nothing of the total value they produced.

The Silver was turned into cotton and sugar and spices. Cotton being the key raw material for the European Industrial Revolution.

The Surviving slaves got nothing.

Indeed without the slave colonies of the New world there would have being no market for the Industrial goods.

You could say that the above is rather a simplistic explanation but development in Africa and Latin America was effectively stolen by Europe.

So where are we to-day.

  • Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.
  • The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.
  • Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
  • Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.
  • 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

Poverty is the state for the majority of the world’s people and nations. Why is this?

Behind the increasing interconnectedness promised by globalization and technology are global decisions, policies, and practices.

Formulated by the rich and powerful.

These can be leaders of rich countries or other global actors such as multinational corporations, institutions, and influential people.

As a result, in the global context, a few get wealthy while the majority struggle.

The poorest are also typically marginalized from society and have little representation or voice in public and political debates, making it even harder to escape poverty.

The amount the world spends on military, financial bailouts and other areas that benefit the wealthy, compared to the amount spent to address the daily crisis of poverty and related problems are often staggering.

To attract investment, poor countries enter a spiraling race to the bottom to see who can provide lower standards, reduced wages and cheaper resources.

This has increased poverty and inequality for most people. It also forms a backbone to what we today call globalization. As a result, it maintains the historic unequal rules of trade.

Now we are looking at a new form of Poverty currently being created by a few monopolies. I call it Algorithm Poverty.

Around the world, in rich or poor nations, poverty has always been present. In most nations today, inequality—the gap between the rich and the poor—is quite high and often widening.

The causes are numerous, including a lack of individual responsibility, bad government policy, exploitation by people and businesses with power and influence, or some combination of these and other factors.

Inequality will affect social cohesion and lead to problems such as increasing crime and violence. Almost half the world—over three billion people—live on less than $2.50 a day and at least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day:Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of poverty in america 2016"

And we wonder why the world is in a state of chaos.

Around 21,000 children die every day around the world. World hunger is a terrible symptom of world poverty.

Food aid (when not for emergency relief) can actually be very destructive on the economy of the recipient nation.

Free, subsidized, or cheap food, below market prices undercuts local farmers, who cannot compete and are driven out of jobs and into poverty, further slanting the market share of the larger producers such as those from the US and Europe.

Poverty leads to hunger. There are many inter-related issues causing hunger. They include land rights and ownership, diversion of land use to non-productive use, increasing emphasis on export-oriented agriculture, inefficient agricultural practices, war, famine, drought, over-fishing, poor crop yields, etc.

Solving world hunger in the conventional sense (of providing/growing more food etc) will not tackle poverty that leads to hunger in the first place.

Further, there is a risk of continuing the poverty and dependency without realizing it, because the act of attempting to provide more food etc can appear so altruistic in motive.

To solve world hunger in the long run, poverty alleviation is required.

For the first time in our history Technology offers us a chance to distribute the world’s wealth fairly.

Without Trade agreements, Aid, Repayment, Corruption, Power Brokering by NGOs, United Nations Begging, Bureaucratic interference, or any other hidden agendas.

It could be both implemented and funded by the very Algorithms that are going to spread poverty. ( See previous Posts)

It requires the large capitalist monopoly platforms to supply a free basic mobile phone to every person register as citizen of a country world-wide.

On registration the people would be allocated a pin number.

This pin would allow them to access a monthly Basic non repayable no strings attached Income payment.

There is no other way of ensuring that our world can fight poverty and climate change.

Most of the causes of hunger are found in global politics.

People are hungry not because the population is growing so fast that food is becoming scarce, but because people cannot afford it.

The number of people overweight or obese is now rivaling the number of people suffering from hunger around the world.

Its time to get off our fat asses and share our wealth not push it around to create more wealth.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of poverty in america 2016"

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of poverty in america 2016"

If you want a world worth something in the future now is the time to start creating it. Solve                                             World Poverty once and

For all.

It can be done with the press of a button.

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THE BEADY EYE SAYS: THE WORLD OF WORK IS IN A STATE OF FLUX.

14 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by in 2018: The Year of Disconnection., Capitalism, Democracy, Freedom, Happiness., Innovation., Life., Modern Day Democracy., Our Common Values., Politics., Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Future, The Obvious., The world to day., Wealth., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Politics

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( A Sixteen minute read)

How much stuff do we really need to lead a normal life?

Not as much as you might think.

Automation, digital platforms, and other innovations are changing the fundamental nature of work.

You could say that: The world of work is in a state of flux.Humanoid robots work side by side with employees in the assembly line at a factory in Kazo, Japan.

There is growing polarization of labor-market opportunities between high- and low-skill jobs, unemployment and underemployment especially among young people, stagnating incomes for a large proportion of households, and income inequality.

However the field of robotics promises to be the most profoundly disruptive technological shift since the industrial revolution.

The development of automation enabled by technologies including robotics and artificial intelligence brings the promise of higher productivity (and with productivity, economic growth), increased efficiencies, safety, and convenience. But these technologies also raise difficult questions about the broader impact of automation on jobs, skills, wages, and the nature of work itself.

Somehow, we believe our livelihoods will be safe. They’re not:

Every commercial sector will be affected by robotic automation in the next several years. We have yet to reach the full potential of digitization across the global economy.

More than half the world’s population is still offline.

Greater interaction will raise productivity but require different and often higher skills, new technology interfaces, different wage models in some cases, and different types of investments by businesses and workers to acquire skills.

In a recent report, the World Economic Forum predicted that robotic automation will result in the net loss of more than 5m jobs across 15 developed nations by 2020, a conservative estimate. 40–50% of all jobs will be taken by robots in the next twenty years.

By 2025, average salaries in the robotics sector will increase by at least 60% – yet more than one-third of the available jobs in robotics will remain vacant due to shortages of skilled workers.

Developments in motion control, sensor technologies, and artificial intelligence will inevitably give rise to an entirely new class of robots aimed primarily at consumer markets. For example  “Create Your Taste” kiosk – an automated touch-screen system that allows customers to create their own burgers without interacting with another human being.

The thing is: we’ve heard this all before. Time and time again, we underestimate capitalism’s extraordinary ability to come up with new meaningless jobs. (It’s 37% in the UK right now, but it could be 50%, 60% or even 100% in the future.)

Unless we update our ideas about what ‘work’ even is. The rise in the total of those employed is governed by Parkinson’s Law, and much the same whether the volume of work, were to increase, diminish or even disappear.

Labor which was once the capital of working men will be longer true.

Again: it’s not about the technology, it’s about the choices we make as a society.

When it comes to universal basic income: we don’t have to wait for the robots. We are more than rich enough to do it right now – in fact, we should have done it forty years ago!

Technology is not destiny, education is.

Everything depends on the choices that we make as a society.

If history is any precedent, we already know the answer.

MOST OF US ARE NOW SURROUNDED WITH A PORTION- DISTORTED EMBARRASSMENT OF NOT JUST FOOD BUT GOVERNMENT SIZE.

Guest Blog: Downsizing for Public Health

It’s time for taxpayers to remind themselves just how much the cost of government to run us is..

Let’s take the cost of running the UK as an example.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of house of parliament in london"

The House of Commons with 650 Mbps at £76,000 pa costing the tax payer £156 million a year.

Add in the £6.4m pa given to opposition parties (Short Money), and support items like IT, and the overall total for each MP goes up to £242,000 pa.

But that’s only part of the bill: we also need to add in the costs of running the Commons itself.  According to the HoC Administration Resource Accounts 2006-07, those costs total £210m, which is a further £325,000 per MP.

Oops I nearly forgot the gold-plated final salary pension guaranteed by taxpayers.

The official cost of MPs’ pensions is under 12 per cent of their salary, after 11 per cent contributions from MPs themselves. This adds up to total pay and pension for an MP of £85,000 (their £76,000 salary and £9,000 pension).

So with 650 MPs, that means each one costs us £85,000 pa in salary, pension contributions and employment taxes. Those troublesome “staffing allowances” cost us an additional £57.9m pa- £90,000 for each MP. Then there’s incidental expenses, additional cost allowances, and travel expenses, totaling a further £30.7m (£48,000 each).

Then you have 814 unelected Peers in the House of Lords at £83,000 pa. Costing the tax payer £67,932,000 a year plus £462,510 in tax-free expenses. Members can claim £300 or £150 for every day they attend the House and undertake parliamentary work. The dining rooms and bars are all subsidised by the taxpayer.

Baroness Smith of Gilmorehill, who has claimed £220,000 of expenses over her 27 year career on the red benches, has never spoken in a debate.

The total cost of members’ allowances and travel is around £20 million per annum.

So reducing the size of the House by about 250 members would represent a significant saving to the taxpayer.

Then you have the Civil Service 418,343, (316,792 full-time and 101,551 part-time.)  Gross annual earnings (excluding overtime or one-off bonuses) for Civil Service employees is around £25,350, pa.

You dont have to ask why people are lying on the floors of hospital corridors.

————————————————————————————————-

‘What do you do when there is nothing left to do?’

What should a government faced with an unmanageable level of unemployment do when conventional policy has failed to resolve the issue?’

Perhaps then a seemingly radical solution, such as universal basic income (UBI), becomes plausible. Universal Basic Income (UBI), a form of social security paid to individuals, not households. It is paid to everyone.

It would give individuals the freedom to say ‘yes’ to jobs. Individuals will not have to do that which they do not wish to do. Fewer people will engage in menial and unsatisfying work. Employers may be forced to increase the wages for underpaid or unpaid jobs.

UBI creates a floor (minimum level) on the income distribution curve, alleviates poverty, and gives bargaining power to the ones who have it least.

Forgetting about work for a moment (if you can), think about what you should do when your physiological needs are no longer a concern. If you’ve had a passion at the back of your mind then you might finally pursue it. If, on the other hand, you’ve passed life going from one kind of busy to another, then you might have missed opportunities to reflect and figure out what you would like to be doing. The cost of failure may have been too high if it meant putting you or your family’s livelihood at risk.

Assuming UBI ensures a basic livelihood for everyone in a community, do these citizens have a duty to give back by working? Do individuals have a duty to accept paid, available employment?

I would say Yes: Individuals should have a duty to do something, providing it is socially beneficial. There was something about people helping each other for its own sake that makes for a good society. A society is not well-functioning if it’s members are not interested in actively improving each other’s well-being.

Caring for the those who cannot care for themselves (such as the elderly, children and disabled). One could volunteer for various causes they care about, whether they be social, environmental, tech-related or so on.

Your recognition that you have alleviated the suffering of others might make you feel like you have done something meaningful.

UBI provides the opportunity for you to try contributing to your community in different ways. This freedom lets you find a way to contribute that is most satisfying for yourself.

It would remove fear replacing it with dignity.

UBI would also reduce the cost of citizens relying on the state for assistance.

There are many pending environmental crises hanging over us, but human wastefulness can be avoided. Can you imagine a world of 7.6 billion people no longer struggling for food or shelter and now focused on bettering the world for their children? That’s universal basic income. That’s a legacy we can all leave.

So why is it not being done?

Because it would downsize our consumerism lifestyle and remove inequality.

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

I can hear you saying where will the money come from?

Vat, Negative Interest rates, Earnings from investments, Decreasing militry spending, Sovereign wealth funds, etc.

It would ensure that the distribution of the fruits of technology advancement are distributed fairly. 

As Jeremy Howard said: ” In a post-scarcity world , why hold back wealth from people just because they can’t provide labor inputs just to create wealth.”

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