Greetings.
The Information, Communication, Technology (ICT), revolution of recent decades, offers remarkable competencies at the
business and individual levels. A major consequence of this revolution is that the 'rate of change' in many areas, has shifted
from the 'linear' to the 'exponential', its consequences unabsorbed.
The necessary steps to enable the individual cope with this change must be undertaken in education. With preparation it could
represent an 'historical upgrade' with strong attributes of 'psychological- fluidity' : in particular, i t holds out opportunities for
the common folk to examine approaches that would help universalize human rights.
Below are some thoughts on the matter.
Dematerialization: The 4G SMART PHONE has camera, radio, television, web browser, recording studio, editing suite,
movie theater, GPS navigator, word processor, spread sheet, stereo, flash light, board games, card games, videos, lab tests,
medical devices, maps, atlases, encyclopedias, dictionaries, translators, text books, world class education courses, and an
ever growing smorgasbord, known as the App. store.
2011: Apple Apps. 425,000 and Android (google) Apps. 250,000; combined download: 20 billion; yes, 20 billion.
Earlier, (past 30 years), each of these goods and services required significant natural resources for production and physical
distribution and a cadre of highly trained professionals to run the enterprise; now their management is automated and the
services delivered 'wireless' making them available everywhere, with the 2G version (voice and text), affordable to the folk
in developing countries.
There is no need to own each device independently, as they are bundled at one location: the 4G SMART PHONE.
En route,
eBay demonetized transactions and put local stores out of business.
Craigslist captured advertising and displaced 99% of newspaper revenue.
iTunes tanked record stores.
the Internet leveled the knowledge 'playing-field', marginalized main-stream media, and challenged secrecy subjecting all
governance to more transparency.
Private car ownership will soon be vacated by instant, omnipresent 'robo-car' providing 'car + driver' private transit.
The combination of Robotics with AI demonstrates the power of 'developmental' organization, a natural step that shadows
evolution, leading to 'organic', sustainable systems, for little.
Most of the above is based on Abundance by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, Free Press, 2011.
Commentary:
The 4G SMART PHONE dematerialization illustrates access to, and incorporation of knowledge, from linear increments to
an exponential explosion that may be represented by a 'hockey stick' meme for 'current expectations on transformations'. Other
areas where it may unfold are medicine, health care and delivery, modified forms of longevity, teacher- less education, to name
a few.
As Zen masters look beyond, the 'healthy- person' of the immediate future would be a 'dematerialized knower / consumer'.
How may we and the 'disenfranchised billions' utilize these opportunities spiritually to realize better social justice? why...?
because realizing 'Human Rights' in practice is the first priority for those disenfranchised of their earth rights by the global
political economy.
Strive to banish segmented selfish societal behavior associated with 'exclusion morality' ('for me, but not for you', on earth's
resources and fruits of human knowledge and effort), touted by the 'money-cartel' and its varied elite cohorts, who have severally
and jointly, managed to:
1. hold out 'universal human rights', as a 'come-on' for nearly a century (centuries?), with the slogan: 'we'll admit the bottom of
the pyramid (BoP), to 'human rights', but en route, we expect 'the folk to pay our bills, and create tax loop-holes and tax havens
for us through legislation', and indemnify banks from prosecution for criminal actions, and so on...
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=9580
Lack of prosecution of big banks in USA by the Obama administration, or by any government anywhere else in the world, due to
the nexus between banks and Administrations world-wide, Dimitri Lescaris, / Paul Jay, The Real News Network, TRNN,
Jan 2013,
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=9689
Lapavitsas / Paul Jay / TRNN. on LIBOR
2. 'Designate residents as'un-people' (historian Martin Curtis) in select areas like the Middle-East, taking over their land,
meeting resistance with assistance from USA, leading to occupation, and killing,
democracies included, should give up liberties they had in the name of 'security', facilitating the money-cartel and their cohorts
to set up continental- commands favoring neo-colonialism over the global folk,
4. reserve prime knowledge for a select few, restricting 'open- access', and isolating, intinidating, droning, outsiders,
Michael Ratner (former President of the Center for Constitutional Rights), / Paul Jay, TRNN, Dec 2012
Despite such short-sighted, self-centered promotion and practice, voice and text messaging, once affordable only to the
WEALTHY, are now available through a 2G SMART PHONE to most of the 3 billion stratified by the 'money-cartel and their
several elites' to live at the BoP on less than $2 per head per day, leading to their 30,000 daily global deaths.
So, do not the elites deserve 'good-faith' credit as nature's hand at play for the universal implementation of 2G SMART PHONE?
The 'money -cartel' and the elites may have additional opportunities to redeem themselves; but given the historical experience of
the elite demanding a 'large safety -factor' in support of self-interests while expressing inability to extend such benefit to others' ,
is there a likelihood of it recognizing the injustice in poverty and associated suffering and taking suo motto measures necessary
to 'Meet the Minimum Needs of All?
Since AI can be free of that shortcoming, it is likely to manage emerging possibilities 'better', and eventually archive the cited
incompetencies; having come this far, 'understanding' must conclude nature learns from its own mistakes while conducting
'business'. The relative success we represent is only part of the evidence.
While dramatic achievements by AI will continue to unfold, members of the folk functioning as 'current AI- modified human'
with the goal of realizing universal human rights, must in the short term safeguard:
1. 'open-access' to knowledge via the Internet, and
2. 'organize for global action', (OfGA), through "a citizen global movement' (CGM) on development leading to a
'Global Spring' of people expression.
Placed as we are, this is an invitation to use the 'hockey stick' meme for accelerated empowerment.
Radh Achuthan
