Minding the Planet

Peace in the Middle East: Could Alternative Energy Be the Solution?

I have been thinking about the situation in the Middle East and also the rise of oil prices, peak oil, and the problem of a world economy based on energy scarcity rather than abundance. There is, I believe, a way to solve the problems in the Middle East, and the energy problems facing the world, at the same time. But it requires thinking "outside the box."

Middle Eastern nations must take the lead in freeing the world from dependence on their oil. This is not only their best strategy for the future of their nations and their people, but also it is what will ultimately be best for the region and the whole world.

It is inevitable that someone is going to invent a new technology that frees the world from dependence on fossil fuels. When that happens all oil empires will suddenly collapse. Far-sighted, visionary leaders in oil-producing nations must ensure that their nations are in position to lead the coming non-fossil-fuel energy revolution. This is the wisdom of "cannibalize yourself before someone else does."

Middle Eastern nations should invest more heavily than any other nations in inventing and supplying new alternative energy technologies. For example: hydrogen, solar, biofuels, zero point energy, magnetic power, and the many new emerging alternatives to fossil fuels. This is a huge opportunity for the Middle East not only for economic reasons, but also because it may just be the key to bringing about long-term sustainable peace in the region.

There is a finite supply of oil in the Middle East -- the game will and must eventually end. Are Middle Eastern nations thinking far enough ahead about this or not? There is a tremendous opportunity for them if they can take the initiative on this front and there is an equally tremendous risk if they do not. If they do not have a major stake in whatever comes after fossil fuels, they will be left with nothing when whatever is next inevitably happens (which might be very soon).

Any Middle Eastern leader who is not thinking very seriously about this issue right now is selling their people short. I sincerely advise them to make this a major focus going forward. Not only will this help them to improve quality of life for their people now and in the future, but it is the best way to help bring about world peace. The Middle East has the potential to lead a huge and lucrative global energy Renaissance. All it takes is vision and courage to push the frontier and to think outside of the box.

Burma Update: Protestors Cremated Alive; Monks Massacred in Jungle

The situation in Burma is far worse than the mainstream media has reported so far. Watch this video that was just smuggled out showing soldiers beating unarmed protesters. There are now reports coming in from eyewitnesses of young school students being shot by the army, masses of injured protestors being cremated alive, and thousands of monks and other protesters being killed and dumped in mass graves in the jungles. The junta has now imprisoned thousands of monks and plans to "send them away." The Burmese military junta is known for torture, summary executions, and is listed with Somalia as one of the most corrupt regimes in the world. This is essentially a form of genocide or state-sponsored terrorism -- in this case by a regime against its own people. Help get the word out. Sign this petition. This has to be stopped. The Burmese people are helpless and need protection from the world community.

Help the People of Burma -- Post this Meme on Your Blog!

Note: This is a new kind of online protest that uses blogs to spread a petition globally. To participate, just add your blog by following the instructions in this blog post.

This not an issue of partisan politics, this is an issue of basic human rights and democracy. Please help to prevent a human tragedy in Burma by adding your blog and asking others to do the same.

By passing this meme on through the blogosphere hopefully we can generate more awareness and avert a serious tragedy. As concerned world-citizens this something we bloggers can do to help.

How to participate:

1. Copy this entire post to your blog, including this special number: 1081081081234

2. After a few days, you can search Google for the number 1081081081234 to find all blogs that are participating in this protest and petition. Note: Google indexes blogs at different rates, so it could take longer for your blog to show up in the results. Also note -- if you want an accurate count of the number of blogs that joined this petition, make sure you scroll to the bottom of the Google results and click to view results that were omitted because they were similar.

3. If you know how to add tags to your blog posts, add the Technorati tag 1081081081234 to your post as well. This will make your post findable sooner in Technorati.

THE SITUATION IN BURMA AND WHY IT MATTERS TO ALL OF US

There is no press freedom in Burma and the government has started turning off the Internet and other means of communication, so it is difficult to get news out. Individuals on the ground have been sending their day-by-day reports to the BBC, and they are heartbreaking. I encourage you to read these accounts to see for yourself what is really going on in Burma. Please include this link in your own blog post.

The situation in Burma is increasingly dangerous. Hundreds of thousands of unarmed peaceful protesters, including monks and nuns, are risking their lives to march for democracy against an unpopular but well-armed military dictatorship that will stop at nothing to continue its repressive rule. While the generals in power and their families are literally dripping in gold and diamonds, the people of Burma are impoverished, deprived of basic human rights, cut off from the rest of the world, and increasingly under threat of violence.

This week the people of Burma have risen up collectively in the largest public demonstrations against the ruling Junta in decades. It's an amazing show of bravery, decency, and democracy in action. But although these protests are peaceful, the military rulers are starting to crack down with violence. Already there have been at least several reported deaths, and hundreds of critical injuries from soldiers beating unarmed civilians to the point of death.

The actual fatalities and injuries are probably far worse, but the only news we have is coming from individuals who are sneaking reports past the authorities. Unfortunately it looks like a large-scale blood-bath may ensue -- and the victims will be mostly women, children, the elderly and unarmed monks and nuns.

Contrary to what the Burmese, Chinese and Russian governments have stated, this is not merely a local internal political issue, it is an issue of global importance and it affects the global community. As concerned citizens, we cannot allow any government anywhere in the world to use its military to attack and kill peacefully demonstrating, unarmed citizens.

In this modern day and age violence against unarmed civilians is unacceptable and if it is allowed to happen, without serious consequences for the perpetrators, it creates a precedent for it to happen again somewhere else. If we want a more peaceful world, it is up to each of us to make a personal stand on these fundamental issues whenever they arise.

Please join me in calling on the Burmese government to negotiate peacefully with its citizens, and on China to intervene to prevent further violence. And please help to raise awareness of the developing situation in Burma so that hopefully we can avert a large-scale human disaster there.

Dangerous Situation in Burma Developing

The nation of Myanamar (Burma) is currently ruled by a repressive and corrupt military dictatorship. Past attempts to bring about democracy have met with violent crackdowns by the government, usually against unarmed civilians. In one past incident, approximately 3000 protesters were killed by the military.

Now a new situation is developing that could rapidly lead to mass civilian casualties, if the international community does not intervene in time. Led by thousands of Buddhist monks, approximately 100,000 Burmese civilians marched to demonstrate their support for democracy in Burma.

So far the military has not reacted with violence, but there are growing warning signs that this may happen soon. The international community, and all people who believe in freedom, should stand up and support the brave citizens of Burma who are putting their lives at risk for the principle of democracy, a principle which unfortunately is eroding worldwide according to a recent study.

Rogue Nodes Turn Tor Anonymizer Into Private Listening Post

A security researcher has figured out a novel way to compromise the security of messages traveling in the Tor anonymizer network. Messages in the Tor network are encrypted as they travel from node to node to their final destination. But the last node has to decrypt the messages before it can deliver them to their final destination on the Internet. Many Tor users mistakenly believe their message remains encrypted through the entire Tor network, when in fact this is not the case: the last node must decrypt them. The researcher simply ran a few of these nodes and was able to read all unencrypted last-node traffic that came through them. This included sensitive communications of many government embassies around the world. The researcher believes that intelligence agencies around the world are already taking advantage of this weakness to eavesdrop on Tor traffic. Interestingly, when he pointed this security hole out to some of the embassies that were sending non-secure message they didn't respond or even appear to understand the problem. Read more here.

Almost Unbelievably Stupid -- Diebold Posts Photo of Voting Machine Key -- Hackers Replicate Key From Photo

This one really takes the cake. Diebold, the makers of the infamously hackable electronic voting machines, has done it again. They posted photos for replacement keys for their voting machines on their Web site. Unfortunately the photos were high enough resolution that anyone who knows how to make keys could easily copy them. And that's exactly what one hacker did and he documented how he did it too -- using just the photo and a file he made a set of universal keys that can unlock any Diebold voting machine. DUH! So now this basically means that the security of every Diebold voting machine is potentially compromised. The only way for Diebold to fix this would be to replace all the locks in all their machines. Will they do this? Highly unlikely. More on this story here.

A Passenger's Bill of Rights -- Sign me Up!

Where do I sign up to support this initiative? A group of exasperated US airline passengers who were stuck on the tarmac for 10 hours last month have come up with a proposal for a bill to establish a Passenger's Bill of Rights, which would include the following provisions:

Establishing procedures for airlines to return passengers to a terminal gate after three hours on the tarmac.

Requiring airlines to respond to complaints within 24 hours and resolve them within two weeks.

Forcing airlines to publish a list of chronically delayed flights online.

Compensation for bumped passengers or passengers whose flights are delayed by more than 12 hours at 150 percent of the ticket price.

Compensation for passengers whose baggage is lost or mishandled.

Creation of a Passenger Review Committee made up of nonairline consumers to review and investigate complaints.

Having been in situations like this myself I can attest to the fact that something has to be done about this. Last summer I was stuck on the tarmac in Texas in 120 degree heat. The plane's air conditioner was turned off because they wanted to conserve fuel, so inside the plane it was probably 130 degrees. To top that off nobody could get up, and the crew had to remain seated as well so they couldn't even bring people water. This lasted for 2 hours. I was almost passing out -- I can only imagine what it must have been like for children, the elderly or people with medical conditions. Airlines treat passengers only a little better than baggage, and that is not saying much! Something needs to be done about this and I'm glad an initiative is forming to take action. Count me in!

New Cancer Wonder Drug: No Pharma Will Fund It Because it Can't be Patented

A new "miracle drug" appears to cure many types of cancers in a novel way. But the catch is no pharmaceutical company will fund research in it because it can't be patented! Maybe it's time to start a government agency or a non-profit that funds research and development, and distribution of, wonder drugs that are not patentable, for the public good. They could sell the drugs at cost as a non-profit -- so they would recover their investment, without making a profit. If the Gates Foundation really wanted to help cure the world's diseases this is a model for how they could do it. We can't rely only on for-profit big-pharma ventures to solve all our problems. As this case illustrates, there are potential solutions that are not only effective but also inexpensive, which are falling through the cracks because they are not defensible exclusive commerical product opportunites.

Minding The Planet -- The Meaning and Future of the Semantic Web

NOTES

• Master Copy can be found at this URL or http://tinyurl.com/yynb93
• Last Update: Tuesday, November 7, 2006, 10:17AM PST
  
• License -- This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Deed.  If you would like to distribute a version of this article, please link back to http://www.mindingtheplanet.net from your version, thanks.
• Printable version -- Click here to download the printable PDF version of this article
• Illustrated Version -- See the version by the Lifeboat Foundation

 

Prelude

Many years ago, in the late 1980s, while I was still a college student, I visited my late grandfather, Peter F. Drucker, at his home in Claremont, California. He lived near the campus of Claremont College where he was a professor emeritus. On that particular day, I handed him a manuscript of a book I was trying to write, entitled, "Minding the Planet" about how the Internet would enable the evolution of higher forms of collective intelligence.

My grandfather read my manuscript and later that afternoon we sat together on the outside back porch and he said to me, "One thing is certain: Someday, you will write this book." We both knew that the manuscript I had handed him was not that book, a fact that was later verified when I tried to get it published. I gave up for a while and focused on college, where I was studying philosophy with a focus on artificial intelligence. And soon I started working in the fields of artificial intelligence and supercomputing at companies like Kurzweil, Thinking Machines, and Individual.

A few years later, I co-founded one of the early Web companies, EarthWeb, where among other things we built many of the first large commercial Websites and later helped to pioneer Java by creating several large knowledge-sharing communities for software developers. Along the way I continued to think about collective intelligence. EarthWeb and the first wave of the Web came and went. But this interest and vision continued to grow. In 2000 I started researching the necessary technologies to begin building a more intelligent Web. And eventually that led me to start my present company, Radar Networks, where we are now focused on enabling the next-generation of collective intelligence on the Web, using the new technologies of the Semantic Web. 

But ever since that day on the porch with my grandfather, I remembered what he said: "Someday, you will write this book." I've tried many times since then to write it. But it never came out the way I had hoped. So I tried again. Eventually I let go of the book form and created this weblog instead. And as many of my readers know, I've continued to write here about my observations and evolving understanding of this idea over the years. This article is my latest installment, and I think it's the first one that meets my own standards for what I really wanted to communicate. And so I dedicate this article to my grandfather, who inspired me to keep writing this, and who gave me his prediction that I would one day complete it.

This is an article about a new generation of technology that is sometimes called the Semantic Web, and which could also be called the Intelligent Web, or the global mind. But what is the Semantic Web, and why does it matter, and how does it enable collective intelligence? And where is this all headed? And what is the long-term far future going to be like? Is the global mind just science-fiction? Will a world that has a global mind be good place to live in, or will it be some kind of technological nightmare?

A World Without Elephants

This is so sad. Elephants are increasingly being wiped out due to encroachment by nearby human populations, and also by inept human attempts to help them -- and of course by poaching. As their species is increasingly backed into a dead-end corner, and as older elephants are separated from their herds, younger elephants are developing psychological disorders and are becoming violent. Meanwhile female elephants are not learning to rear their young properly, leading to developmental disorders and social problems that then ripple from generation to generation. All of this is adding up to a downward spiral for elephants worldwide -- and in fact, as the article illustrates, elephants in completely separate communites around the world are starting to exhibit signs of "going crazy."  I've always loved elephants and I wish there was something that could be done.

Humanity is so out of balance with the rest of planet. I'm a realist though -- I don't believe that governments, or even the majority of people in the world, will ever just sacrifice their own gain for the good of the environment or any other species. Only if it is clearly tied to their survival or personal gain, will most people and governments "feel the pain" enough to change their behavior.

The solution to the tragedy of the commons is to privatize, or to somehow connect what happens in the commons to everyone's survival and benefit. Locally, elephant survival and well-being could be assured if the local government and people were paid to maintain them as a world resource. I think that there really should be a form of global taxation whereby every government pays into a fund that is then used to pay certain local communities around endangered resources and species to protect and steward them.

If there was a way to turn their environments and endangered species into resources that earned money for them (more money than they could earn by destroying them), then they would finally be motivated to take care of them. I doubt that any other kind of solution will ultimately work. Maybe I'm too cynical or too much of a realist or a pragmatist. But I really do think this solution would work, not just for the elephants, but the rainforests, the whales, coral reefs and fisheries, etc.

The Sell-Off of America

This article by Germany's best-known economics writer provides a fast and high-level overview of how the American empire is losing (has lost?) its economic power. While the dollar is still the world's currency of choice, the USA no longer controls it. Furthermore, with increasing trade deficits, the outsourcing of labor, and spiraling debt, the US economy is poised on the edge of collapse. And the American middle-class has and will bear the brunt of this shift as it plays out over the next few decades.

Excellent Strategic Analysis of North Korean Crisis

This article in the Atlantic Monthly presents the best analysis I've seen of the strategic situation on the Korean penninsula, and various US options (and potential mistakes to avoid). It's really a fascinating read, and quite educational, for anyone concerned about what might happen in that arena.

Fascinating Stat: Of the World's 100 Largest Economic Entities 51 are Corporations, 49 are Nations

Wow -- As of 2000, of the world's 100 largest economic entities, 51 are corporations and 49 are nations.

A Proposal to Make the Media (and Society) Better

I am concerned by what I'm viewing in our national media lately. Viewed from outside (and also from wihtin the USA), it would appear that our nation is obsessed with, and plagued by, an increasing spree of horrible crimes and abuses of human rights. Is this really what it is like to live in America, or is this simply the media's extremely biased reporting?

The media of any social organization, whether a small community or an entire nation, serves as the primary means by which the members of that organization understand and assess the state of the whole. As such the media serves a function to a collective that is similar to "self-awareness" in an individual person. Self-awareness is a feedback loop. It not only serves as a mirror by which an organization can view reflections of its state, it also conditions the planning and execution of further actions by its organization. When people look in the mirror of the media, they not only understand the system they are in, but they also may make choices and further actions based on what they see there.

The pivotal role of media as the central influencer of societal psychology and behavior is often underestimated. And it is through this lens that I view the recent headlines, which are primarily focused on school killing sprees and abuse of children as of late -- with sadness and concern. By sensationalizing such tragedies, and providing lurid details over and over again, the media is actually contributing to the ongoing proliferation of these same behaviors. While I'm not suggesting that censorship is a better alternative, I do think that leading mass media organizations, in their blind quest for more attention and ad dollars, are behaving irresponsibly by sensationalizing -- indeed almost celebrating -- murder, torture, sexual abuse, and other horrible acts as if they are the latest attractions in some kind of societal variety show.

These atrocities should be reported, but the style and manner in which they are reported should be the opposite of sensationalism. They should be more like funerals -- which is after all what these stories are really about. There should be an element of sadness, respect for those affected, concern for those who might read or view such images and stories, and restraint. In particular details of how various horrible crimes were planned and executed are not necessary and not beneficial in telling the story -- they only serve to inspire, trigger and teach would-be copycats to do the same thing. Furthermore by rewarding perpetrators of such crimes with massive publicity (which in many cases is what such egomaniacs are hoping to achieve by committing their crimes) the media is actually playing right into their hands.

As usual I have a radical proposal to fix this: What if the media gave exposure to stories in direct proportion to the number of people actually affected by those stories?

What if stories were evaluated on several dimensions to determine how much exposure to give them -- for example, geographic range, number of people directly impacted, political relevance, etc? The size of a story would therefore be determined by its real effect on the population. Contrast this to what the news media does today where in fact the prominence of a story is often inversely proportional to the number of people directly impacted by it. The media currently amplifies the most shocking news, regardless of how many people are directly affected or involved. A shocking crime that directly affected only 2 people is quickly amplified to the main national headline of the day for a population of 300 million. That is simply out of balance with reality.

For example, horrible as they are, the recent school killings only directly affect a relatively tiny percentage of the national population: So why should they be the main focus of the national news headlines for weeks on end? According to this proposal, such stories would be mere blips on the collective radar. They would not be headline news for the entire nation, and/or if they were they would quickly fall out of the headlines. I'm not downplaying the importance of these stories to the affected people and communities -- nor am I downplaying the broader significance of the trends they may be indicative of -- I'm simply pointing out that these stories, tragic as they may be, get disproportionately too much national media exposure compared to other stories that affect much larger segments of the population such as for example -- stories related to the economy, the environment, the war and upcoming elections, etc.

Diebold Voting Machines Conclusively Hackable

Allegations of electronic tampering with Diebold voting machines in previous elections gained new evidence this week. A research paper by a team of researchers at Princeton University has conclusively demonstrated that Deibold voting machines are trivially easy to hack. The team not only hacked the machines and changed votes, they created a virus that can do it -- and that spreads from machine to machine.

US Banking System Collapse in 2008?

I recently listened to a talk by Dr. David Martin, given at the Arlington Institute, a think tank I advise. You can listen to it here. It takes some patience to get to the main point -- but you will be rewarded with a mind-blowing new perspective on what may unfold in the next few years.

Dr. Martin describes why he predicts a very likely total collapse of the US Banking system in 2008.  Even more surprising is that he explains how the only hope for bailing out the US economy at that time may in fact be Muslim financial institutions -- the financial entities of the Muslim world -- because they are the most cash rich entities on the planet, and unlike our banks they are not exposed to intangible asset risks.

In other words, as Dr. Martin explains, if for no other reason than this, we should think twice before bombing Iran and the rest of the Middle East back to the Stone Age -- they may in fact be our economy's only hope and we may soon be in dire need of their help. This is a radical hypothesis, but based on very realistic data and in particular, new laws that are going into effect in the global banking world in January, 2008. On the other hand this could be Y2K all over again.

In any case, this is one of the more intriguing ideas I've come across in a long time. Please listen to the talk and then share it with other people. Dr. Martin's hypothesis may or may not be correct, but it certainly should be heard by more people so that it can be debated and brought to the attention of global decisionmakers as soon as possible.

A Good Article on Lack of Search Privacy

This article from the Guardian raises the red flag about the vast amount of personal information that search engines are collecting, and the risks to individual privacy that entails. The article was really well written and made some good points. I've blogged about my thoughts about this issue in a previous post.

Privacy and Search

The recent negative hype about the lack of privacy in search results got me thinking about the needs of online services versus those of individuals. Is there a way to satisfy both constraints?

AOL's accidental data release was one thing that worried me. Google's "personal search" feature, where the log of all your searches is displayed, was another. The fact that everything you search for and click on, during your entire life, could potentially be logged, owned, accessed, and shared, by and with parties other than yourself, without your consent or even your knowledge, is a step towards a world I wouldn't want to live in.

The arguments in favor of allowing this to continue either hinge on commercial needs or homeland security and law enforcement. Regarding commercial needs: just as in other situations where commercial needs pose risks to individual privacy (such as medical records for example), the government needs to step in and regulate if the industry can't do an adequate job of self-regulating. And regarding industry self-regulation, it can easily become a case of wolves guarding sheep, and so has to be carefully regulated by government on a meta-level. As for the needs of homeland security and law enforcement, access should be strictly regulated (and in theory, it already is). 

The thing is, even if governments and industry stepped up and took responsibility for regulating this situation, one can never be sure that future regime change, accidents, or individuals or groups with both access and a motive won't lead to future privacy violations. As a result even ironclad assurances, laws, and strict procedures by organizations and governments, won't protect anyone against such unknowns. The only truly safe solution is one that puts all of the control, and all of the responsibility and liability, for one's own private data, in one's own hands. In a digital world, where everything is potentially recorded and logged forever, this is really important.

The solution is, I think, that individuals, rather than search companies, should own and control their searchstreams and their clickstreams such that they can make use of that information for their own personalization needs, and they can selectively (and either authentically or anonymously) share it with other services if and when they want to. Someone should build an infrastructure that enables this and then make it an API that all services and apps can use. The folks at Attention Trust and Root Markets are on the right track. This is a very interesting business opportunity.

I would like to see a search engine and a search toolboar for Firefox that enable you to search anonymously. I did a little research (on Google, how ironic) and found Proxify, Kaxy and Mezzy. They seem interesting although perhaps a little clunky seeming. What we need is a high-profile, really polished, professional, well-funded, simple anonymous proxy for Google. And a Firefox toolbar to go with it.

If a service like what I am describing existed (and there was some level of independent audit that could assure me that it really didn't capture or save anything private without my permission -- for example if all the code was open source and vetted), then I would definitely always use it instead of going directly to Google. Does it exist already? Let me know. If not, someone should build it. In fact, I wouldn't mind if it showed me ads, just like Google does. So it could make money from my searching. I would bring my business there as would most people who have educated themselves about this issue.

Finally, wearing my corporate hat for the moment, as someeone building an online service in the search space, if there was a suitable (and that is the key term here...) way that the service my company is building could give individuals control of their private data while also still being able to learn from it in aggregate and/or anonymously for individuals, that would be great. As an online service provider I don't really want to have to worry about keeping such private information and all the overhead and potential liability that goes with it.

Online services do need to learn from the behavior of their users in order to personalize content and target ads, etc. But they don't need to necessarily house that data themselves, nor do they need to necessarily be able to key it to the real identities of their users. If there was an infrastructure that enabled my service to learn, personalize and target, without having to hold and manage the dataset underlying that capability, that would actually be a potential savings to my business, and a reduction of risk, and a benefit to my users. The thing is, while early attempts to enable this do exist, they aren't mature enough to rely on, and nobody knows how well they will scale or whether they will have enough funding and traction to last. So in the meantime those of us building online services are in a gray area -- we need certain features for our services to function well, and we also would like to find a way to protect privacy for the individual. This is the connundrum of the moment. It's a business opportunity for someone out there.

Kill the Penny

A bill has been proposed to do away with the penny -- that most useless an annoying of coins. Thank you!!!! As far as I'm concerned, if you can't buy a payphone call with it, or 10 to 15 minutes on a parking meter, then it's just not worth having anymore -- so I would also propose getting rid of nickels and dimes too. I proposed this in an earlier blog post here.

Polling the Global Mind

Grupthink is a service where anyone can create and participate in polls on various subjects. It's similar to an idea I once had about polling the global mind in real-time (although their system does not show votes happening in real-time, presently). It reminds me of several other Web 2.0 sites, but it's nicely done. Worth a look.

Scenario: What would Happen if US got in a War with China?

This is a very interesting scenario showing how China could potentially trounce US forces in a single, calculated strike. While it doesn't consider the option that US would retaliate nonconventially, shifting the game to a new playing field, it certainly makes a compelling case for China winning in a conventional conflict in their territorial waters at least. The author concludes by suggesting the US has two options -- continue seeking world domination and eventually face such a situation, or take a different approach altogether and seek to lead the world in medicine, fighting poverty, and helping emerging countries -- a strategy which the author believes would win the hearts and minds of people around the world, leading to longer-term gains for the US than a strategy that seeks leadership through military dominance.

China About to "Strike Hard" Against Civil Unrest

Chinese officials are preparing to "strike hard" against civil unrest. Are they planning another Tiannamen-style massacre? There is something fundamentally wrong with a government that has to torture, repress, and murder it's own people (and its neighboring peoples) on a regular, systematic basis in order to maintain stability. China isn't the only country guilty of such crimes, but they are certainly the most visible. As one of the largest, and most important, nations on earth -- and as a key member of the global community -- China really should hold itself to a different standard. Just because protestors are comprised of disenfranchised peasants, workers, students and ethnic minorities does not mean that their lives and causes are without value. In fact, the whole point of the Maoist revolution was ostensibly to liberate the lower classes from oppression -- so I find it very ironic that the regime that grew out of that revolution is now actively oppressing the very same people it was formed to liberate. Worse still is that the Chinese government -- with or without Google's support -- cannot possibly succeed at a policy of repression in the long-term. Eventually, the more acts of violence that are perpetrated against the Chinese people, the more disillusioned those people will become. And eventually the regime will fall out of favor and be dissolved. Since that is the inevitable outcome of the current direction of Chinese policy, why not just spare the needless loss of life, and take a different approach now? The Chinese government should find a way to listen to its people and work with them to build partnerships and solutions from the bottom-up instead of forcing them to comply from the top-down. Anyway, what I say doesn't matter -- I'm sure the Chinese government is not reading this blog. Fortunately, capitalism is like a virus, or an acid, that is already colonizing China and will inevitably result in a shift to something like democracy there, eventually. It's just too bad that so many people have to suffer in the process.

Doomsday Vault to House World Seed Bank

The Norwegians are planning to create a deep underground vault near the North Pole to house a backup copy of seeds for all known varieties of crops. The goal is to ensure food supplies and enable humanity to regenerate in the event of nuclear war, global warming or other catastrophes. It's a good idea. This is similar to my own idea for what I call the Genesis Project, which would provide a backup of critical human knowledge as well, and a system for helping humanity relearn it, in case we get knocked back to the Stone Age for some reason.

Big Thinkers' Most Dangerous Ideas

The Edge has published mini-essays by 119 "big thinkers" on their "most dangerous ideas" -- fun reading.

The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?

 

Major Hacking of US Govt Secure Data

This article is quite eye-opening. It appears the US government and military, as well as leading contractors, may have been heavily hacked by foreign governments, and it's being kept secret.

Another Actor Running for Office?

Oy Vey. CNN just reported that Virginia Democrats are rumored to be asking Ben Affleck to run for the Senate. Note to the Virginia Democrats: Ben Affleck is an A-C-T-O-R not a politician. Am I the only one who is completely fed up with actors running for (and holding) public office? I mean what exactly are their job-qualifications anyway? Pretending to be someone they are not for a living? Memorizing scripts? Drinking, gambling and carousing? Clowning for the cameras? Hmm.. Come to think of it, maybe actors are ideally qualified to be politicians. But not good politicians.

I'm sorry but why in the world should Ben Affleck be in the Senate? What exactly does he know about being a Senator? Besides, he hooked up with Jennifer Garner -- something I, and legions of other Alias fans, will never forgive him for. Is he just jealous of the Governator? Or this all just a publicity stunt for an upcoming Sequel to some horrible J-LO movie in which Senator Ben and his kid's nanny, J-LO, team up to save the world? Come-on, people, what happened to the concept of real Leaders, you know -- statesmen -- people who actually have some actual understanding of Government, let alone experience?

We wonder why America is not what it used to be. Well, perhaps it's because the government is increasingly run by showboating businessmen and Hollywood celebrities with no political experience, instead of real public servants with a lifetime of practical wisdom about how to grow and lead a nation.

Fascinating Article -- Surviving a Nuclear Attack on Washington DC

This article is very interesting not only because it provides an unusually detailed scenario of what would happen if a nuke was detonated in the Washington DC area, but also because it provides counter-intuitive guidance for how to survive such a situation, as well as information about new medical treatments for helping both first-responders and victims to combat radiation sickness. Let's hope nothing like this ever happens!

How to Save the Amazon Rainforest

I read the an article today about how Brazil is gradually losing the fight to save the Amazon. The worlds' rainforests are a global resource -- not only are they directly important to the air we all breathe, they also harbor a huge, still untapped, reservoir of species diversity which could be of profound importance to science and future medical and pharma research. The problem is that currently there is no direct benefit to Brazil, or other rainforest nations, for the global use of their rainforest resources.

The key then is to find a way to turn rainforests into economically valuable national resources for countries that maintain them. In other words, rainforests should be to Brazil, what oil is to Saudi Arabia (or actually better, because rainforests, unlike oil, are renewable). Rainforest countries should make more money by keeping their rainforests alive and healthy,  than by chopping them down.