Tag Archives: politics

Blog

Things can only get better

1 Comment

The sense that things are getting worse and worse is supported by the various imminent cataclysms of global warming, peak oil, antibiotic resistant diseases, fundamentalist terrorists, social collapse and an intrusive state.

However it seems people have been getting happier, from researchers at The World Values Society at the University of Michigan:

Economic growth, democratization and rising social tolerance have all contributed to rising happiness, with democratization and rising tolerance having even more impact than economic growth. All of these changes have contributed to providing people with a wider range of choice in how to live their lives—which is a key factor in happiness.

This is just fine and dandy. But when Tom Harris MP suggested that people should be grateful for their increased wealth (the UK) and freedom (many other places) he was mauled by the Press.

It is interesting that on the one hand people are predicting all the ills I mentioned above, and on the other you have Ray Kurzweil and the World Values Society pointing out that things are about to get a lot better and that people are feeling happier respectively.

I look forward to finding out who is correct.

[story via PhysOrg]

Blog

Meet Japan’s new tourism ambassador to China

3 Comments

Further proof (if such were needed) that the world is a stranger place than we possibly need or deserve it to be. Japan’s new tourism ambassador to China is someone that you probably recognise and indeed may well have met at some point in your life: Hello Kitty. [image by Adam Greenfield image removed at owner’s request]

Hey, you got post-modern cuteness in my international relations! That said, Hello Kitty has been the US children’s ambassador to Unicef since 1983 (who knew?).

Have we finally accepted the idea that talking heads and ambassadors don’t need to be real people? There are embassies in Second Life, as well. Maybe we could get Captain Planet to take a run at re-establishing some of the Kyoto directives … [via MetaFilter]

Blog

Could the credit crunch bring the end of globalisation?

I Can Haz Bailout?That’s one of the reasonings in a Guardian article today entitled ‘Toxic Shock: how the banking industry created a global crisis’. With policymakers unsure about what to do, many regulators are starting to get tougher with their requirements, which will make credit less abundant. As much as $1 Trillion dollars could have been lost in the crisis, and that number could rise. In the short term, it’s likely to lead to difficulties in loans. In the longer term, reregulation and tighter lending standards will change the shape of the world economy.

That’s not to say the economy is totally without worth at the moment. Wired’s latest issue has a series of 9 articles on positive business trends in 2008, including open source software and ‘Instapreneurs’ that make their products with virtually no lead time in a manner very much like in Futurismic’s April short story, ‘Mallory’ by Leonard Richardson.

[via the Guardian and Wired, photo from I Can Haz Cheezburger via Shiny Things]

Blog

The Pros and Cons of Resource Collapse

Coal-fired power stationWe’ve all heard about Peak Oil, but mineral hydrocarbons aren’t the only thing that could run out on us sooner than we think. The world is a complex place full of interrelated dependencies (a bit like a Linux install, come to think of it), and there are lots of other essential resources that, with a bit of bad luck, could dwindle or vanish very quickly. [image by The Tardigrade]

Jamais Cascio points out that resource collapse will be one of the most important driving forces of the near future – not just technologically but geopolitically, too:

“Resource collapse isn’t the cause of the rise of the post-hegemonic world, but it’s an important driver. It weakens the powerful, and opens up new niches of influence. It triggers conflict, setting the mighty against the mighty. It reveals vulnerabilities.

Most importantly, it sets up the conditions for the emergence of new models of power, as ultimately the most effective responses to resource collapse will come from revolutions in technology and socio-economic behavior. Those actors adopting the new successful models will find themselves disproportionately powerful.”

Adapt or die, basically. But what will Nation-States2.0 look like?

Blog

Queen Rania of Jordan opens communication with the West… via Youtube


It’s impressive how far new media has come and how important it is becoming in all parts of modern life. In addition to the myriad of blogs, news sites and internet radio stations contributing to the discussion of pretty much anything from politics to skateboarding, we have the emergence of the online video.

Video is beginning to catch politicians out when they ‘misspeak’ on a previous statement or action. Senator George Allen’s defeat in 2006 was widely credited to a young staffer catching him using a racial slur on video. But it’s not just accidental footage that’s making an impact. Barack Obama’s ‘A More Perfect Union’ speech has over 4 Million views in less than a month. Now Youtube can claim another powerful figure, with Jordan’s Queen Rania using the medium to ask people for their stereotypes and questions about the Middle East in an attempt to bridge the gap between Arab States and the West. This kind of meta conversation between those who even ten years ago would just not have happened. Interlinked worlds like those in David Louis Edelman’s ‘Infoquake’ are easier to imagine with online interactions like this one.

[via Neatorama, video via Youtube]