Category Archives: News

Artificial Intelligence and deepening inequality

Posted on by

Many years ago, I remember people saying computers would bring in an era of four-day working weeks because of the work the would save us. What seems to be happening is that computers, in the form of physical robots (used now for decades for manufacturing cars etc) and artificial intelligence algorithms (that power things like chat-bots, telephony systems etc) are actually making people lose their jobs entirely.

The way things work with technology, is that at first, stuff is apparently too expensive to produce, it is priced highly so only those with enough money to buy it can profit from the gains of being an early adopter of the new technology.  However, as time goes on the same technology becomes cheaper to produce and so it reaches more and more businesses and people who can afford it.

I’ve heard about futuristic visions of a society where only robots work, and everyone lives off a Universal Payment, which alarms me – more people tied to a system like the dole, and actually paid not to work!?

Consumerism fuelled by debt is at the heart of virtually every society on earth. If robots are going to take away more and more jobs, what will happen to the debt of those people whose jobs are taken away?  How will those people be able to acquire goods and services or generate wealth? The notion of this Universal Payment seems like another device to lock in the existing uneven distribution of wealth in society, robots and AI will only serve to entrench this further.

RELATED LINKS

World Economic Forum: Robots are leading us down a dangerous path, says World Bank Chief
The Express: Bill Gates joins Stephen Hawking in warning Artificial Intelligence IS a threat to mankind

Brexit, polarisation and sleepwalking into disaster

Posted on by

I watched some of BBC Parliament recently, by chance, and the MP’s were speaking about the Brexit impact assessment, redacted findings, the autonomy of the Select Committee and the danger of leaks. BBC News has a good summary of the current debate here.

I find it fascinating, that with probably the most important political event that will happen in my lifetime, and the lifetimes of many MP’s involved, that instead of working together, the political parties are engaged in the same old polarised debates; “I’m right, you’re wrong” – “This side of the house, that side of the house”. It’s like watching some kind of opinion tennis spectacle. These people are paid a lot of money, but they don’t seem to realise that they are wasting time and destroying the path to collaborative progress. Maybe the real work just doesn’t go on in The House of Commons.

The Queen should step in and bang these people’s heads together, as they apparently act on her behalf. Or maybe she is just content to remain a figurehead bringing in revenues to the country, however, whether you consider those revenues to be 2bn or 5bn, you have to weigh that up with the cost of a potential lost opportunity for The Queen to step in and stop Parliament from aimlessly arguing about this issue, defending their political pride, perhaps bolstering a woefully weak Prime Minister, so that we don’t find ourselves doing too little, too late.

Apartheid against the Rohingya

Posted on by

In Myanmar (formerly Burma) there is a shocking development, where the majority Buddhist population is persecuting this muslim minority. With hundreds of thousands of people being displaced, and with little or no access to food, water and shelter, it’s being referred to in terms from Apartheid to Ethnic Cleansing and genocide.

In truth the situation has been going on for many years now as a form of Apartheid and systemic discrimination, but in recent months has escalated into full-blown Ethnic Cleansing. This shows how systemic injustice, inequality, Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing are linked.

What’s adds a note of further disbelief to this situation is why Aung San Suu Kyi – a Nobel Peace prize winner can not see the stain on democracy that is happening right now as she rules over a country in which she was imprisoned for her devoted stance on democracy.

The Pope refused to mention the Rohingya muslims by name.

But the world has not forgotten them.

Amnesty has a good article here and there are ways to pledge support also.

Mugabe – the lesser of two evils?

Posted on by

Beware of false choices! People sometimes will offer you a choice which isn’t really a choice but a direction, or a choice based on a faulty premise.

A woman/man of good character or a woman/man who is attractive.
A car with good performance, or one that is economical.
A government that encourages big business or one that listens to the people.
Strong enforcement of law and order or the respect of the rights of citizens and individuals.

What I am getting at is, one can have them both, it doesn’t have to be a choice of one or the other, in many cases it is better to have both.

Robert Mugabe freedom fighter or despot? One can’t help notice the part Robert Mugabe pricing the hands of white rule off of Rhodesia, latterly known as Zimbabwe. However, at the same time on cannot but see the years of oppression, mismanagement, brutality, cronyism that have crushed a country that was once termed the bread-basket of Africa.

Some of Mugabe’s quotes whether they have some element of truth or not, are polarizing and reactionary:

“The only white man you can trust is a dead white man.”
“Our party must continue to strike fear in the heart of the white man, our real enemy!”
“Was it not enough punishment and suffering in history that we were uprooted and made helpless slaves not only in new colonial outposts but also domestically.”

Blaming the white man and being bitter about the past is understandable, but useless in and of itself unless one has a direction to ones anger that can actually improve the situation of yourself and the people around you. Not a strict translation in context, but applicable:

“Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” – Proverbs 29:18.

Have you seen children fighting over a toy, one has seen the other playing with it and wants it for himself, so they squabble over it. When the child who didn’t have the toy in the first place gets the toy, he grows bored of it after 5 minutes, or the other child who had the toy originally may soon grow bored with it too. Watch what happens when either of the children lose interest in the toy, and the other child goes to get it, there is squabbling again!

It’s almost the same situation with Zimbabwe, and rulers treating this country of many fine people who deserve a future, like a toy. Mugabe, perhaps rightfully gained possession of it, but he soon grew bored and stopped paying it the interest, care and attention it deserved. He had no vision of what he wanted to do with the country in the future, how he would truly empower the people, but his only vision was of hatred for white people, and the need to take back from them something he believed he should have. Because of this lack of vision his rule deteriorated in to a foul blot on the African continent, and a sorry story of what might have been.

Tyranny, exploitation and white rule often go hand in hand in Africa, but the sad thing is, when black rulers take over – the people often see more of the same. I guess my point is, people don’t want the lesser of two evils, they want no evil at all. They don’t want a black ruler who expresses his misrule simply in a different way to a white ruler. THey want someone who has vision to improve the country they live in. A black ruler, with integrity, with a heart for the people, consistent to the end.

Morgan Tsvangirai said this of Mugabe and I tend to agree – “Do we portray him as the great liberator or do we portray him as someone who betrayed the liberation he fought for? I think the latter will prevail, because I think his ending, does not confirm, the legacy he built in the earlier years of his political life…”

It’s high time in Africa, and across the world that rulers and authorities act with integrity, wisdom and justice. It is in my prayers, and has been for a long time that this will happen. If Africa can not stand with integrity, and stand with some form of togetherness, it will be continually exploited by foreign powers while its people cry our for change. Africa needs to grow and have self-determination and independence in order to free herself from exploitation and the trap of low self-worth.

Divide and conquer – all over again…

Posted on by

I’ve not heard much about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s former president, especially since he left office.  However, he put so eloquently the reasons why conflict in the middle east seems perpetual, and to me to some degree, what is happening in the middle east must be like what happened in Africa hundreds of years ago… Divide and conquer, exploit the resources, maintain the “superiority” and dominance of an economic imperialist, and leave the people of those countries in confusion for years, decades, maybe centuries to come.

In the Al Jazeera interview, Ahmadinejad said that America’s economic model relies on war rather than co-operation and in order to preserve itself, it has to continually engage in war, and this vicious cycle is fuelled by its perpetual indebtedness to the American Federal Reserve System.

Having just watched Zeitgeist (although disagreeing on major points with the debunking of Christianity), I was struck by the whole tenor of Ahmadinejad’s argument, and how the manufacture of war and terror enslaves innocent people all over the world, in a system that seems to force us down a road of mistrust, division, hate and war.  It’s like a cruel zero sum game, where the winner, literally wants to take all, regardless of the cost to the innocent.

US Supported Syrian “Rebels” Were Using Chemical Weapons

Posted on by

No one can’t help to be shocked by the scenes of suffering, suffocating, convulsing children.  However, it was clearly too early for Donald Trump to order a missile strike on Syria, without verification of who was to blame by a consensus of nations after a thorough investigation. A UN report clearly says that chemical weapons were being used by US backed Syrian rebels. I don’t think it is beyond the wit of the Americans to exploit a situation like this to their advantage. A knee-jerk response from the hot-headed “orange con-man” Trump, and time may well prove that this situation, rather than giving America a chance to prove is morality by stepping in to defend the weak, may well instead prove its trickery and deceit, by potentially exposing the US as backers of foreign terror, and not for the first time.

http://linkis.com/globalresearch.ca/U3aJg

America setting the standard of justice and retribution in the world, to me, doesn’t sound like a great concept to me.

Free Alabama Movement

Posted on by

The documentary 13th talks about the Prison Industrial Complex, America’s systemic and potentially inflated system of mass encarceration, like a trap for men, capturing the guilty, but also the innocent and the poor.

I just heard about the Free Alabama Movement in the USA on Al Jazeera.  The prison system in Alabama is in chaos, prisoners, gaurds and the state know it. Inhumane conditions, over-use of solitary confinement,  poor access to facilities to maintain health and well being:

https://freealabamamovement.wordpress.com/tag/aljazeera/

Institutional impunity

Posted on by

Earlier this week, I heard of the case of Theo, a 22 year old black youth worker based in Paris. Theo was horribly mistreated by the French police during an arrest where Theo himself had committed no crime.

What mental attitude must it take for a person in authority to want to perform a brutal act of rape with a police baton?  Isn’t that just plain hatred and contempt, doesn’t it demonstrate a lack of humanity and respect?  The police won’t always get arrests and prosecutions right, and the courts carry out miscarriages of justice on occasions. The point I am getting at though is that some people are considered guilty of something, some crime undefined crime in the eyes of the police simply for existing, maybe in the wrong place at the wrong time, to the point where even though they may not have committed a legally prescribed crime, indeed the very crime the police officers may be investigating – if one was committed at all, they are treated in inhumane and degrading ways.

When some of the police who enforce the law and to an extent our safety, whether it be in France, America or the UK, act like mindless animals and arguably have no better conscience than the criminals in society they are supposed to be protecting us from, we know our society is slipping toward a dangerous place.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-police-officer-paris-charged-rape-22-year-old-black-man-bruno-le-roux-aulnay-sous-bois-a7565601.html

Thou shalt not murder

Posted on by

Really, Israel, Jews are reputed to be trusted by God to be a light to all nations for their understanding of God’s law.  I’m troubled by what I see happening in Israel, although the times we are living in makes relationships between communities difficult at best.

Just recently, we saw soldier Elor Azaria shoot Abdul Fatah al-Sharif in the head while Abdul was lying helpless on a road. The Military have taken a sensible approach to this and put Elor on trial. However some Israelites see Elor as a hero, and Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to pardon the soldier.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-38512699

Abdul – the Palestinian who was killed, was no saint – he had stabbed a soldier, he should have been put on trial for this and served a sentence of some kind – who knows if he was being forced or pressured to carry out these acts. The problem is, no one called for Elor to be judge, jury and executioner – people in that position are liable to make mistakes, and when they do there is no opportunity to set things right.

There are commandments in the bible like:

  • “do not commit murder” Exodus 20:13
  • The same law for the Israelite and the “foreigner” (non-israelite) Lev 24:22 (would the same punishment have been given to an Israelite committing the same act or its equivalent?)

In this act, Isreal is seen to break these commandments, moreo if Elor is pardoned.  Even though Elor was convicted of Manslaughter, his act was an act of Murder.  I see Israel being hated by many nations in the world because of the way it deals with Palestine, and the attitudes and opinions of Israelli people. If the actions of Israel are not made in the spirit of God’s law, and even breaking faith in obedience to it, according to the Covenant with God that religious Isrealites adhere to, then their protection from God falters, they have no right to own the land they believe God has promised to them.

As it is today, they have no temple, their Holy sites are shared with people of other faiths. That’s hardly a ringing endoresment from God that they are faithful.

Therfore the battle that is ongoing between Isreal and Palestine isn’t really about religion, its about something else.  I think it is much more about Israel’s notion of racial superiority, and yes a need to defend the place they live in, but their notion that it is a God given right – I think is empty and worthless unless they give to God what is due to him. For that to happen Israel needs to start with practicing justice and mercy.   Wars just give birth to wars, violence, discontent, retribution, pain, suffering, injustice, pride in a perpetual cycle – and we need to take a pause to consider what as mankind we are really learning about how to treat one another. As the Prophet Amos said:

Instead, let justice well up like water,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible: An English version of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and B’rit Hadashah (New Testament) (1st ed.) (Am 5:24). Clarksville, MD: Jewish New Testament Publications.

And as Yahshua (Jesus said) in response to a Jewish Torah/biblical teacher:

28 One of the Torah-teachers came up and heard them engaged in this discussion. Seeing that Yahshua answered them well, he asked him, “Which is the most important mitzvah [commandment] of them all?” 29 Yahshua answered, “The most important is,

    ‘Sh’ma Yisra’el, ADONAI Eloheinu, ADONAI echad [Hear, O Isra’el, the LORD our God, the LORD is one], 30 and you are to love ADONAI your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your understanding and with all your strength.’

31 The second is this:

    ‘You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’

Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible: An English version of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and B’rit Hadashah (New Testament) (1st ed.) (Mk 12:28–31). Clarksville, MD: Jewish New Testament Publications.