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1984 Is Not The Future

March 17, 2018

1984 Is Not The Future


Jacobello Alberegno The Beast of the Apocalypse 1360-90
 

The Guardian ran an article yesterday by one of its editors, David Shariatmadari, that both proves and disproves its own theme at the same time: “An Information Apocalypse Is Coming”. Now, I don’t fancy the term apocalypse in a setting like this, it feels too much like going for a cheap thrill, but since he used it, why not.

My first reaction to the headline, and the article, is: what do you mean it’s ‘coming’? Don’t you think we have such an apocalypse already, that we’re living it, we’re smack in the middle of such a thing? If you don’t think so, would that have anything to do with you working at a major newspaper? Or with your views of the world, political and other, that shape how you experience ‘information’?

Shariatmadari starts out convincingly and honestly enough with a description of a speech that JFK was supposed to give in Dallas right after he was murdered, a speech that has been ‘resurrected’ using technology that enables one to make it seem like he did deliver it.

An Information Apocalypse Is Coming. How Can We Protect Ourselves?

“In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America’s leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason, or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality, and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.”

John F Kennedy’s last speech reads like a warning from history, as relevant today as it was when it was delivered in 1963 at the Dallas Trade Mart. His rich, Boston Brahmin accent reassures us even as he delivers the uncomfortable message. The contrast between his eloquence and the swagger of Donald Trump is almost painful to hear.

Yes, Kennedy’s words are lofty ones, and they do possess at least some predictive qualities. But history does play a part too. Would we have read the same in them that we do now, had Kennedy not been shot right before he could deliver them? Hard to tell.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Four Pillars for a Better Future: Knowledge, Consciousness, Innovation, Local Action – Part 1

January 25, 2018

Four Pillars for a Better Future: Knowledge, Consciousness, Innovation, Local Action – Part 1

For many years now, my message has been that tweaking around the edges of a systemically corrupt and discredited economic and political system is not good enough. Rather, what we need is a full scale, species-wide paradigm shift in the way human affairs are conducted on this planet. No small task I know, which is why this series of posts will zero in on four key areas, or pillars, we need to focus on if we’re to evolve and leave this earth meaningfully better than when we arrived.

Knowledge

Let’s kick things off with the low-hanging fruit, knowledge. This is the area I’ve focused on the longest, and my desire to acquire knowledge and share it is what inspired the creation of this website and my dedication to it in the first place.

In this case, the knowledge I’ve been accumulating relates to how the world around us actually functions, as opposed to how we’re told it functions. Some people inform us we live in a Democracy where our vote matters, but overwhelming evidence and life experience demonstrates this to be total nonsense. Others tell us we reside in a Republic where the U.S. Constitution is the supreme inviolable law of the land, but that’s also a lie. In real life, the Constitution is completely ignored by politicians, and most certainly by the unaccountable and unelected shadowy intelligence agencies. Finally, there are those who insist we live in a free market system characterized by countless choices and vibrant competition, but this is rapidly becoming a fantasy to anyone who actually engages in the economy.

The glaring truth of the matter is the U.S. is managed by a unified corporate and political oligarchy that agrees and collaborates on all issues of importance to them irrespective of the meaningless and dishonest Republican or Democratic flags they fly in public.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Generational Wheels Are Turning

November 22, 2017

The Generational Wheels Are Turning

“The electric light did not come from the continuous improvement of candles.”

— Oren Harari

If you only read my stuff sporadically, you might be surprised to hear that I’m actually quite optimistic about the future. The main reason I compose articles highlighting all the frauds, corruption and absence of ethics within our current paradigm isn’t to fill you with fear and dread, but to create awareness. Ignorance is not bliss, and I believe a deep appreciation about how completely broken and opaque the current way of doing things is can provide the spark of inspiration and determination necessary to create a new and much better world

As I’ve stated many times previously, it wasn’t until Bitcoin emerged and I started to understand the implications of it, that I became very encouraged about the future. Prior to that, I saw humanity living under a terminal, predatory system that would eventually consume itself, but I couldn’t see a plausible roadmap toward a better tomorrow. Bitcoin proved to me that not only did such a path exist, but the infrastructure for this better future was being built right in front of our eyes.

I first started writing about the revolutionary implications of Bitcoin in the summer of 2012, and looking back five years later I’m filled with an overwhelming sense of awe and appreciation for all that’s been achieved. While the optimist in me always thought we might get to where we are today, to see it actually happen is nothing short of extraordinary. The incredible energy and global talent that’s entered this space over the past several years brings a gigantic smile to my face. It truly is an idea whose time has come, and the more the concepts of decentralization and trustless systems infect the global consciousness, the more unstoppable they become. I think we’re already there.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Joseph Tainter: The Collapse Of Complex Societies

June 26, 2017

Joseph Tainter: The Collapse Of Complex Societies

What history predicts about our future prospects
By popular demand, we welcome Joseph Tainter, USU professor and author of The Collapse Of Complex Societies (free book download here).

Dr. Tainter sees many of the same unsustainable risks the PeakProsperity.com audience focuses on — an overleveraged economy, declining net energy per capita, and depleting key resources.

He argues that the sustainability or collapse of a society follows from the success or failure of its problem-solving institutions. His work shows that societies collapse when their investments in social complexity and their energy subsidies reach a point of diminishing marginal returns. From Tainter’s perspective, we are likely already past the tipping point towards collapse but just don’t know it yet:

Sustainability requires that people have the ability and the inclination to think broadly in terms of time and space. In other words, to think broadly in a geographical sense about the world around them, as well as the state of the world as a whole. And also, to think broadly in time in terms of the near and distant future and what resources will be available to our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren.

One of the major problems in sustainability and in this whole question of resources and collapse is that we did not evolve as a species to have this ability to think broadly in time and space. Instead, our ancestors who lived as hunter-gatherers never confronted any challenges that required them to think beyond their locality and the near term(…)

We have developed the most complex society humanity has ever known. And we have maintained it up to this point. I have argued that technological innovation and other kinds of innovation evolve like any other aspect of complexity. The investments in research and development grow increasingly complex and reach diminishing returns.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

You Call this Progress?

September 18, 2015

You Call this Progress?

From collection of futuristic ideas.

One of the prevailing narratives of our time is that we are innovating our way into the future at break-neck speed. It’s just dizzying how quickly the world around us is changing. Technology is this juggernaut that gets ever bigger, ever faster, and all we need to do is hold on for the wild ride into the infinitely cool. Problems get solved faster than we can blink.

But I’m going to claim that this is an old, outdated narrative. I think we have a tendency to latch onto a story of humanity that we find appealing or flattering, and stick with it long past its expiration date. Many readers at this point, in fact, may think that it’s sheer lunacy for me to challenge such an obvious truth about the world we live in. Perhaps this will encourage said souls to read on—eager to witness a spectacular failure as I attempt to pull off this seemingly impossible stunt.

The (slightly overstated) claim is that no major new inventions have come to bear in my 45-year lifespan. The 45 years prior, however, were chock-full of monumental breakthroughs.

A Tale of Three Times

Before diving into the defense of my bold claim, let’s set the stage with a thought experiment about three equally-separated times, centered around 1950. Obviously we will consider the modern epoch—2015. The symmetric start would then be 1885, resulting in 65-year interval comparisons: roughly a human lifetime.

So imagine magically transporting a person through time from 1885 into 1950—as if by a long sleep—and also popping a 1950 inhabitant into today’s world. What an excellent adventure! Which one has a more difficult time making sense of the updated world around them? Which one sees more “magic,” and which one has more familiar points of reference? The answer is obvious, and is essentially my entire point.

– See more at: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2015/09/you-call-this-progress/#sthash.q6lQ4Wo3.dpuf

Liberty Movement Needs More Innovations To Counter Technological Tyranny

July 22, 2015

Liberty Movement Needs More Innovations To Counter Technological Tyranny

The great lesson from history that each consecutive generations seems to forget is that the tools of tyranny used outward will inevitably be turned inward. That is to say, the laws and weapons governments devise for supposed enemies abroad will ALWAYS and eventually be used against the people they are mandated to protect. There is no centralized system so trustworthy, no political establishment so free of corruption that the blind faith of the citizenry is warranted. If free people do not remain vigilant they will be made slaves by their own leadership. This is the rule, not the exception, and it applies to America as much as any other society.

The beauty of the con game that is the “war on terror” is that such a war is ultimately undefinable. An undefinable war has no set enemy; the establishment can change the definition of the “enemy” at will to any culture, country, or group it wishes. Thus, the war on terror can and will last forever. Or, at least, it will last as long as corrupt elitists remain in positions of power.

As I have outlined in past articles, most terror groups are creations of our nation’s own covert intelligence apparatus, or the covert agencies of allied governments.

ISIS is perhaps the most openly engineered terror organization of all time (surpassing Operation Gladio), with U.S. elites and purported anti-Muslim terror champions like Sen. John McCain and Gen. Paul Vallely making deals with “moderate” Free Syrian Army rebels who immediately turn out to be full fledged ISIS fighters (I’m sure they were not “surprised” by this outcome) and the Obama Administration blatantly funding and arming more “moderates” which again in turn seem to be crossing over into the hands of ISIS. Frankly, the whole idea that there is a moderate front in places like Syria where alphabet agencies reign supreme is utterly absurd.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What’s Scarce Geopolitically: Stability, Ways to Get Ahead and Innovation

July 19, 2015

What’s Scarce Geopolitically: Stability, Ways to Get Ahead and Innovation

Conserving what is failing is not a path to stability.

What’s in demand but scarce is valuable. This is one of those scale-invariant principles: businesses large and small want what’s scarce and in demand, because that’s what generates profits.

What’s abundant but not in demand is cheap. What’s scarce but not in demand is ignored. Capital, talent and profits flow to whatever is scarce and valued as an engine of wealth creation.

Geopolitically speaking, tangible assets have self-evident value: seas between your borders and potential enemies, a wealth of natural resources, and so on. But equally important are intangible assets: the human, social and symbolic capital of the people, culture and institutions of the nation.

What seems scarce in the world is not just a specific tangible asset or intangible form of capital, but a mix that provides stability, ways for average citizens to get ahead and fosters innovations that can quickly spread through the society and economy.

We could say engines of wealth creation are scarce, but if the wealth isn’t distributed somewhat broadly, or the source of the wealth is not innovation but extraction of resources, any stability is temporary or illusory: resources run out, and wealth inequality fuels social and political instability.

What’s exceptional is a mix of assets and attributes that yield the stability needed for for people to get ahead, a playing field that’s level enough for people to get ahead, and a culture of innovation, because ultimately only innovation increases productivity, and increasing productivity is the only sustainable source of wealth.

For example, cheap energy is a gift to its owners and consumers; but eventually cheap energy is consumed and what’s left becomes expensive. Innovation is needed to extract more work from the remaining energy.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate change will push Canadian business onside

June 10, 2015

Climate change will push Canadian business onside

Companies seem conservative today, but just watch when they reach the profitable tipping point

Until he lost his shirt in the Dirty Thirties, a relative of mine was an influential businessman in southern Saskatchewan. Among his interests was a livery stable, with a blacksmith, harnesses, buggy whips and everything you needed to keep horses on the road and in the field.

Horses are still with us, of course, but today it is hard to realize what an enormous industry they supported only a hundred years ago.

As skeptics scoff about Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s grudging concession on the G7 agreement to end the use of fossil fuels, I think it is useful to remember how quickly businesses can completely transform an economy once they get the bit between their teeth.

“If we can get companies putting their innovative genius to work on solving environmental problems, we’re going to find solutions that we can’t even imagine today,” says Stewart Elgie, a professor of law and economics at the University of Ottawa.

He is confident that when it comes to fighting climate change, business will pull its share of the load. But we have to get over a hump.

Horse sense

A hundred years ago, the saddlery and harness business had its own industrial journals, well worth perusing. United States Leather, making a product essential to harnesses, was one of the 12 founding companies in the Dow Jones Index.

An inspection of one of world’s biggest monthly harness trade magazines, produced in Walsall, England — a world hub of harness and saddle making — shows that to a large extent, the industry did not see the end coming.

“Whilst some commentators (quite correctly) predicted disaster for the saddlery and harness trade,” says a commentary published by Walsall Council, “others were more complacent, dismissing the motor car as an unreliable and expensive plaything which would never catch on.”

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Collaboration, Adaptation and Risk: Innovate or Die

May 5, 2015

Collaboration, Adaptation and Risk: Innovate or Die 

Collaboration, innovation and risk are all intrinsic to adaptation. Without adaptation, every system eventually perishes once conditions change.

One feature of capitalism that is rarely discussed is the premium placed on cooperation and collaboration. The Darwinian aspect of competition is widely accepted (and rued) as capitalism’s dominant force, but cooperation and collaboration are just as intrinsic to capitalism as competition. Subcontractors must cooperate to assemble a product, suppliers must cooperate to deliver the various components, distributors must cooperate to get the products to retail outlets, employees and managers must cooperate to reach the goals of the organization, and local governments and communities must cooperate with enterprises to maintain the local economy.

Ideas, techniques and processes which are better and more productive than previous versions will spread quickly; those who refuse to adapt them will be overtaken by those who do. These new ideas, techniques and processes trigger changes in society and the economy that are often difficult to predict.Darwin’s understanding of natural selection is often misapplied. In its basic form, natural selection simply means that the world is constantly changing, and organisms must adapt or they will expire. The same is true of individuals, enterprises, governments, cultures and economies. Darwin wrote: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, or the most intelligent, but the ones most adaptable to change.”

This creates a dilemma: we want more prosperity and wider opportunities for self-cultivation (personal fulfillment), yet we don’t want our security and culture to be disrupted. But we cannot have it both ways. Those who attempt to preserve their power over the social order while reaping the gains of free markets find their power dissolving before their eyes as unintended consequences of technological and social innovations disrupt their mechanisms of control.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

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