Society may be on the cusp of social chaos triggered by ‘Evolutionary Thrashing’, which could result in major social breakdown for many decades.
The ‘evolutionary thrashing’ phenomenon occurs when the rate of change in a system’s environment exceeds its capacity to effectively adapt or evolve, before again being overwhelmed by the next wave of change.
At the biological level this can result in an organism’s inability to reach its optimal potential, making it less fit and more susceptible to extinction. This is currently occurring on the planet at an unprecedented rate. Many species are finding it increasingly difficult to adapt to the continuous changes in their habitat resulting from global warming and human destruction, with a quarter of vertebrate species predicted to become endangered or extinct by 2050.
However the phenomenon of ‘evolutionary thrashing’ is not restricted to biological systems. According to David Tow’s recently published generic evolutionary theory, outlined in his book– The Future of Life: A Unified Theory of Evolution, it can apply equally to social systems, including human society.
In this generic scenario, the same laws and principles of evolution apply to all systems at the quantum information level. Support for this thesis has recently been provided by physicist Wojciech Zurek’s ground-breaking work on Quantum Evolution and Decoherence, analogous to Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
Such ‘thrashing’ at the human level can therefore lead to ineffective decision-making, social breakdown and eventually chaos, before long-term optimal evolution reasserts itself.
Global warming is a significant primary driver of this process because it has the potential to adversely impact all the planet’s ecosystems, which in turn will affect most aspects of human civilization including its social and democratic institutions.
A high level of ongoing adaptation is therefore required, but if critical social needs cannot be met in response to rapidly changing constraints, dysfunctional outcomes on a global level such as increased conflict, work and lifestyle stress, loss of community cohesion etc, will inevitably result.
But global warming is not the only contributor to social evolutionary thrashing. The second major driver is globalization, which is also occurring at hyper-speed, resulting in the blurring and mixing of cultures, religions and social norms as populations spread across the planet.
This is most apparent for example in the emergence of the major geopolitical blocs such as the EU linking nations in Europe, Asia, America and Africa, together with an increasing number of regional groupings and cross-over trading and political alliances such as APEC. In addition, each of these networks is increasingly coordinating its influence through global decision-making bodies such as the United Nations and more recently the G20.
In order to manage global issues such as climate change, crime and terrorism, disease, natural and man-made disasters, refugee flows and the allocation of key resources such as food, water and energy, global cooperation will be essential. But at the same time, traditional cultural and commercial practices that have evolved sometimes over thousands of years are being swamped in less than a generation- the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms; resulting in racial blowback, which can trigger reactions such as paranoia and conflict.
The third major driver of hyper-change is the information and communication revolution, facilitated by the Internet and Web Mark 2.0 incorporating the new cyber-world of virtual reality, mobile communication, social media and instant information access.
This is beginning to accelerate exponentially, threatening to outpace the capacity of populations of both developed and developing countries to adapt their social and cultural practices relating to democratic, educational, legal, financial and governance processes. With a third of the world’s population, including developing nations, now connected via inexpensive mobile phones and laptops to this infinite resource, the rate of change will become hyper-exponential within the next few decades.
No-one disputes the benefits of this massive egalitarian knowledge gain, providing the potential to deliver quality of life improvements to both poor and rich nations- combating the adverse effects of poverty and climate change. But there is the real risk that such hyper-change will outstrip the capacity of humanity to absorb and utilize it to the best advantage, succumbing to the centrifugal forces that threaten rip the fragile fabric of society apart.
In the space of a generation, the rate of social evolution driven by these three mega-forces- global warming, globalization and knowledge acceleration, each catalyzing the others in a frenzy of complex feedback systems, now threatens to destabilize the foundations of human civilization.
Non-adaptive evolutionary thrashing is likely to reach a critical threshold within the next decade, mirroring the likely point of no return for global warming.
This effectively means that coordination and synchronization of the major practices and protocols for managing the planet will be essential. It will involve the intermeshing of not just trade, but decision-making on all critical social issues.
It will require the rapid creation and strengthening of common frameworks for managing commerce, finance, economics, education, science and technology- including the management of energy, food, water and air quality on a world-wide scale. This has already begun on a regional basis with the strengthening of the European Union and on a global basis since the recent financial melt-down with the creation of the G20.
In other words, it will demand achieving an excruciatingly fine balance between continuing to encourage the creativity, innovation and development that drives our civilization and the risk of social overreach, with the potential to implode it. Only global commitment and good will by all populations on the planet can achieve this resolution.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Life Creates Life
The first artificial life form has been created by human biological life. Humans have crossed the Rubicon of creation by bypassing natural evolution and by designing the first artificial life form, have opened the floodgates of life’s evolutionary future.
Craig Venter and his team were the first scientists to sequence the human genome and have now created the first artificial life-form; a tiny new bacterium or synthetic cell, controlled by human engineered DNA, with its genetic instructions determined by human life.
The scientists have made a synthetic copy of the genome of a bacterium- Mycoplasma mycoides. This man-made genome was then transplanted into a related bacterium- Mycoplasma capricolum. This process “rebooted” the cell so that it was controlled by the synthetic genome, transforming it into another species. The cell has since divided more than a billion times.
The creation of this living organism is the culmination of 15 years of research, costing more than $47 million. But the cost is miniscule in comparison with its glittering potential benefits. It promises a new industry, generating synthetic bacteria capable of cleaning up pollution, producing new forms of green chemicals and fuels, capturing CO2 in designed algae and providing vaccines against disease.
The creation of life has been an ongoing human endeavour for at least 50 years, since Stanley Miller successfully synthesised amino acids, essential for the formation of proteins and life, using simple molecules such as water, ammonia and methane, exposed to an energy source such as ultraviolet radiation.
Since that time a number of paths have been taken by researchers to recreate the genesis of life including-
Resurrecting extinct species- such as the marsupial Tasmanian tiger and Woolly mammoth- extracting still viable DNA and implanting it in related species such as the Tasmanian devil and African elephant. But the notion of resurrecting Einstein or Shakespeare as present-day geniuses is highly doubtful, because evolution is not just a product of genes, but is a dance between genetics and the environment.
Re-engineering current species- reversing evolutionary changes and genetic switches to recreate the previous ancestor; for example producing teeth in chickens as birds related to ancient dinosaurs. The importance of this technique is that it demonstrates life as a continuum, with many of the genes from yeast and fruit flies still existing in modern humans.
Cloning new species- this can be achieved using the technique of hybrid speciation, which involves first mating two closely related species, such as single-cell yeasts. A small percentage of the offspring spontaneously clone themselves and some also change gender, thereby creating a new species of yeast.
The current artificial life-form has been created by manipulating of the code of life– the chemical bases needed to develop artificial chromosomes and therefore novel amino acids, proteins and life.
Producing new life-forms to order by designing novel DNA, is a comparatively recent process. It is a direct consequence of recent successes in sequencing DNA as well as the creation of component genome databases. This facilitates the assembly of genetic buuilding blocks into living systems in the same way that electronic components are combined to manufacture circuits and chips or software modules to create business services.
Flexible and reliable fabrication technology, together with standardised methods and design libraries have enabled a new generation of biological engineers to already create new organisms from biological components from the ground up, providing the basis for the new science of synthetic biology.
Molecular biology has previously largely been applied as a reductive science, but now synthetic biologists are building organic machines from interchangeable DNA parts that work inside living cells- deriving energy, processing information and reproducing.
Concurrently with developments in synthetic biology, another new form of life- Intelligent Software Agents, have been developed by computer scientists, representing artificial life in the form of adaptable evolutionary software programs. These are designed to provide autonomous and cooperative problem-solving support to humans through the application of artificial intelligence- primarily evolutionary, swarm and knowledge-based algorithms.
But the Holy Grail of life’s creation – evolving a living cell from scratch- has yet to be achieved. This is because many separate initial evolutionary processes have to take place first, including the evolution of- cell containment vesicles, an optimal genetic code such as DNA or RNA with the machinery to translate it into amino acids and proteins; the incredibly complex epigenetic processes providing signaling pathways from the cell’s environment and methods to fine tune its basic DNA; plus the machinery of cell replication, development, apoptosis and metabolism etc
In a sense Venter’s achievement has relied heavily on hijacking the machinery of existing cellular operation– much as Einstein did by borrowing Riemann’s mathematical framework for his theory of relativity. In other words he piggy-backed a free ride to life.
But this doesn’t detract in any way from the monumental human achievement in understanding better the enigma of life and creating it afresh in its full glory.
Because of this breakthrough it will now be possible to create not only new bacteria, but eventually the complete spectrum of new life-forms – plants and animals, including perhaps a new species of humans. In other words bringing artificial life from the super-natural to the human-natural realm of creation.
This glittering potential is balanced by unforeseeable risks; a synthetic bacterium With the capacity to mutate and proliferate outside the lab, doing untold damage to the environment by accelerating new disease pathogens and affecting the genetic blueprint of crops and animals including humans. It also will have the capability to be used as a biochemical weapon.
But science’s Pandora’s Box has been opened yet again. Now there are three players in the great game of life- biological, artificial and virtual.
All three will have to learn to co-exist and accommodate with each other; as over time the biological, technological and social barriers dissolve and they eventually merge into a new form- Meta-life.
Craig Venter and his team were the first scientists to sequence the human genome and have now created the first artificial life-form; a tiny new bacterium or synthetic cell, controlled by human engineered DNA, with its genetic instructions determined by human life.
The scientists have made a synthetic copy of the genome of a bacterium- Mycoplasma mycoides. This man-made genome was then transplanted into a related bacterium- Mycoplasma capricolum. This process “rebooted” the cell so that it was controlled by the synthetic genome, transforming it into another species. The cell has since divided more than a billion times.
The creation of this living organism is the culmination of 15 years of research, costing more than $47 million. But the cost is miniscule in comparison with its glittering potential benefits. It promises a new industry, generating synthetic bacteria capable of cleaning up pollution, producing new forms of green chemicals and fuels, capturing CO2 in designed algae and providing vaccines against disease.
The creation of life has been an ongoing human endeavour for at least 50 years, since Stanley Miller successfully synthesised amino acids, essential for the formation of proteins and life, using simple molecules such as water, ammonia and methane, exposed to an energy source such as ultraviolet radiation.
Since that time a number of paths have been taken by researchers to recreate the genesis of life including-
Resurrecting extinct species- such as the marsupial Tasmanian tiger and Woolly mammoth- extracting still viable DNA and implanting it in related species such as the Tasmanian devil and African elephant. But the notion of resurrecting Einstein or Shakespeare as present-day geniuses is highly doubtful, because evolution is not just a product of genes, but is a dance between genetics and the environment.
Re-engineering current species- reversing evolutionary changes and genetic switches to recreate the previous ancestor; for example producing teeth in chickens as birds related to ancient dinosaurs. The importance of this technique is that it demonstrates life as a continuum, with many of the genes from yeast and fruit flies still existing in modern humans.
Cloning new species- this can be achieved using the technique of hybrid speciation, which involves first mating two closely related species, such as single-cell yeasts. A small percentage of the offspring spontaneously clone themselves and some also change gender, thereby creating a new species of yeast.
The current artificial life-form has been created by manipulating of the code of life– the chemical bases needed to develop artificial chromosomes and therefore novel amino acids, proteins and life.
Producing new life-forms to order by designing novel DNA, is a comparatively recent process. It is a direct consequence of recent successes in sequencing DNA as well as the creation of component genome databases. This facilitates the assembly of genetic buuilding blocks into living systems in the same way that electronic components are combined to manufacture circuits and chips or software modules to create business services.
Flexible and reliable fabrication technology, together with standardised methods and design libraries have enabled a new generation of biological engineers to already create new organisms from biological components from the ground up, providing the basis for the new science of synthetic biology.
Molecular biology has previously largely been applied as a reductive science, but now synthetic biologists are building organic machines from interchangeable DNA parts that work inside living cells- deriving energy, processing information and reproducing.
Concurrently with developments in synthetic biology, another new form of life- Intelligent Software Agents, have been developed by computer scientists, representing artificial life in the form of adaptable evolutionary software programs. These are designed to provide autonomous and cooperative problem-solving support to humans through the application of artificial intelligence- primarily evolutionary, swarm and knowledge-based algorithms.
But the Holy Grail of life’s creation – evolving a living cell from scratch- has yet to be achieved. This is because many separate initial evolutionary processes have to take place first, including the evolution of- cell containment vesicles, an optimal genetic code such as DNA or RNA with the machinery to translate it into amino acids and proteins; the incredibly complex epigenetic processes providing signaling pathways from the cell’s environment and methods to fine tune its basic DNA; plus the machinery of cell replication, development, apoptosis and metabolism etc
In a sense Venter’s achievement has relied heavily on hijacking the machinery of existing cellular operation– much as Einstein did by borrowing Riemann’s mathematical framework for his theory of relativity. In other words he piggy-backed a free ride to life.
But this doesn’t detract in any way from the monumental human achievement in understanding better the enigma of life and creating it afresh in its full glory.
Because of this breakthrough it will now be possible to create not only new bacteria, but eventually the complete spectrum of new life-forms – plants and animals, including perhaps a new species of humans. In other words bringing artificial life from the super-natural to the human-natural realm of creation.
This glittering potential is balanced by unforeseeable risks; a synthetic bacterium With the capacity to mutate and proliferate outside the lab, doing untold damage to the environment by accelerating new disease pathogens and affecting the genetic blueprint of crops and animals including humans. It also will have the capability to be used as a biochemical weapon.
But science’s Pandora’s Box has been opened yet again. Now there are three players in the great game of life- biological, artificial and virtual.
All three will have to learn to co-exist and accommodate with each other; as over time the biological, technological and social barriers dissolve and they eventually merge into a new form- Meta-life.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Managing the Planet
The Director of the Future Planet Research Centre, David Hunter Tow, forecasts
an urgent need to harness the full resources and intelligence of the Web to coordinate and manage major programs relating to global warming and survival of the planet- including its life and human civilization.
The cards are now on the table- the climate skeptics bluff has been called. The latest science suggests that of the critical indicators of the health of the planet, at least three have already passed the critical stage and the remainder are perilously close to the abyss.
These include- biodiversity loss, ozone depletion, ocean warming and acidification, land and freshwater over-use and chemical pollution including nitrogen and phosphorous runoff. Most importantly, at current levels of CO2 accumulation, the maximum 2 degree centigrade threshold increase will be breached within twenty years.
In addition, over the past 50 years the world’s population has almost doubled to 8 billion, global consumption of food and fresh water has more than tripled, fossil fuel use has quadrupled and vertebrates have declined by over thirty percent.
It is clear that managing the planet’s outcomes to provide life with a future is the paramount goal that must focus all humanity’s skills, creativity and knowledge, from now into the far future
Up until comparatively recently, managing resources, infrastructure and catastrophes has been largely an ad hoc affair run on a country rather than regional or global basis. This is not surprising considering the evolution of our civilization, which has been based on a largely competitive, winner-take-all model between individuals, organizations, cities and nation-states.
Over the last few decades however a realization has dawned that this is an extremely inefficient and counter-productive approach and totally unsustainable in the modern carbon-induced warming era. This is particularly the case when it comes to managing critical global issues such as climate change, spread of disease, ecosystem protection and major catastrophes- including mega-droughts, oil-spills and earthquakes.
Although still operating in largely fragmented mode, humans are beginning to mobilise cooperatively, creating global research consortiums, trade and business alliances and knowledge exchange networks. But a lot more is needed to ensure our survival- primarily by becoming a lot cleverer in focusing our scientific, technology and social resources.
One of the most significant advances recently announced, w the European FuturIcT project.
This ambitious European Commission funded billion euro enterprise, was designed to simulate the knowledge resources of the entire planet- not just physical but social and economic, mobilising partners from most of the top university research centres in Europe.
The 'Living Earth Simulator' is a major part of this project originally scheduled to be completed by 2022. It will mine economic, technological, environmental and health data to create a model of the entire planet’s dynamics in real time; applying it to solve major problems relating to these areas.
There is now a vital need to better understand the global interrelationships enmeshing the society in which we live and the effect that these have on the planet as a whole. We also need to know how to leverage the benefits of global social systems, while at the same time limiting any downsides they may generate.
Labelled- 'Reality Mining', the plan was to gather information about every aspect of the living planet including its life-forms and use it to simulate the behaviour and evolution of entire ecosystems and economies; helping predict and prevent future potential crises. The Living Earth Simulator was expected to predict for example, potential economic bubbles, impacts of global warming, pandemics and conflicts and how to best mitigate them.
The FuturicT project since cancelled had the potential to nucleate and accelerate this process operating as an essential catalyst and mobiliser for managing our future. But there are many other advanced projects with the potential to complement this grand design and working in parallel to help complete the big picture.
The focus is on preparing for a smarter future for planet earth- creating solutions for managing more efficiently and reliably the world’s infrastructure, energy, food, water and health. This will be achieved through harnessing the immense power of advanced artificial intelligence, mathematical, computing, communication, control and modelling techniques.
Examples of current myriad hi-tech initiatives include-
self-healing software capable of automatically detecting, identifying, and fixing errors in the programs used in complex systems; a ‘central nervous system’ of ‘smart dust’ for the Earth, in which a trillion sensors will be deployed worldwide to monitor ecosystems, detect earthquakes, predict traffic patterns, and study energy use; a system of computerized agents that can manage energy use in the home, designed to optimize individual electricity usage to improve efficiency of the electricity grid; and leveraging the vast cornucopia of freely available services on the web to build mashups to support humanitarian and disaster relief.
As mentioned, game changing projects such as FuturicT are critical, but managing the planet requires much more- in essence coordinating and focusing the entire knowledge base and mind-power of our civilisation.
This should implemented as a world wide public project, in the same manner as the Internet and Web: with each component of the planet’s intellectual mosaic- individuals, research groups, corporations and governments, contributing and mining their knowledge resources- each according to their creative capacity and expertise.
Such a global vision is too fundamentally vital and complex to be funnelled through individual private organisations, politicians or states. It must instead function as a self-organising supra-national entity- evolving eventually as a largely autonomous system.
Managing the planet therefore will involve the massive task of coordinating thousands of techniques, technologies, systems and initiatives to gain the maximum leverage within the timescale available.
But time now is precious. Most current ‘green’ applications are in the early stages- designed to improve energy efficiency by deploying breakthroughs in sustainable technologies such as solar, wind, biofuels, carbon capture etc. But this is just the beginning of the journey. Copenhagen demonstrated that gaining consensus even for the essential task of implementing a global carbon trading system - so vital in generating the momentum to transition from polluting fossil fuels to green power- is difficult to achieve.
Is this a feasible proposition? Yes, but only by applying adaptive, autonomic system technology, capable of responding dynamically and autonomously to changes in the physical and social environment. Such a system will need to include the ability to self-organise and self-optimise its planning and operations – to discover, innovate, simulate, create, predict, apply, learn and continuously gain intelligence- to ensure optimal outcomes.
As mentioned, although projects such as FuturicT project have the potential to kick-start this process, there is only one practical mechanism to ensure the ultimate success of such a gargantuan endeavour- harnessing the intelligence of the Web itself. It must be nurtured and engineered to become self-organising and self-adaptive, in order to reach the goal of managing a sustainable future- essential for us and our planet.
an urgent need to harness the full resources and intelligence of the Web to coordinate and manage major programs relating to global warming and survival of the planet- including its life and human civilization.
The cards are now on the table- the climate skeptics bluff has been called. The latest science suggests that of the critical indicators of the health of the planet, at least three have already passed the critical stage and the remainder are perilously close to the abyss.
These include- biodiversity loss, ozone depletion, ocean warming and acidification, land and freshwater over-use and chemical pollution including nitrogen and phosphorous runoff. Most importantly, at current levels of CO2 accumulation, the maximum 2 degree centigrade threshold increase will be breached within twenty years.
In addition, over the past 50 years the world’s population has almost doubled to 8 billion, global consumption of food and fresh water has more than tripled, fossil fuel use has quadrupled and vertebrates have declined by over thirty percent.
It is clear that managing the planet’s outcomes to provide life with a future is the paramount goal that must focus all humanity’s skills, creativity and knowledge, from now into the far future
Up until comparatively recently, managing resources, infrastructure and catastrophes has been largely an ad hoc affair run on a country rather than regional or global basis. This is not surprising considering the evolution of our civilization, which has been based on a largely competitive, winner-take-all model between individuals, organizations, cities and nation-states.
Over the last few decades however a realization has dawned that this is an extremely inefficient and counter-productive approach and totally unsustainable in the modern carbon-induced warming era. This is particularly the case when it comes to managing critical global issues such as climate change, spread of disease, ecosystem protection and major catastrophes- including mega-droughts, oil-spills and earthquakes.
Although still operating in largely fragmented mode, humans are beginning to mobilise cooperatively, creating global research consortiums, trade and business alliances and knowledge exchange networks. But a lot more is needed to ensure our survival- primarily by becoming a lot cleverer in focusing our scientific, technology and social resources.
One of the most significant advances recently announced, w the European FuturIcT project.
This ambitious European Commission funded billion euro enterprise, was designed to simulate the knowledge resources of the entire planet- not just physical but social and economic, mobilising partners from most of the top university research centres in Europe.
The 'Living Earth Simulator' is a major part of this project originally scheduled to be completed by 2022. It will mine economic, technological, environmental and health data to create a model of the entire planet’s dynamics in real time; applying it to solve major problems relating to these areas.
There is now a vital need to better understand the global interrelationships enmeshing the society in which we live and the effect that these have on the planet as a whole. We also need to know how to leverage the benefits of global social systems, while at the same time limiting any downsides they may generate.
Labelled- 'Reality Mining', the plan was to gather information about every aspect of the living planet including its life-forms and use it to simulate the behaviour and evolution of entire ecosystems and economies; helping predict and prevent future potential crises. The Living Earth Simulator was expected to predict for example, potential economic bubbles, impacts of global warming, pandemics and conflicts and how to best mitigate them.
The FuturicT project since cancelled had the potential to nucleate and accelerate this process operating as an essential catalyst and mobiliser for managing our future. But there are many other advanced projects with the potential to complement this grand design and working in parallel to help complete the big picture.
The focus is on preparing for a smarter future for planet earth- creating solutions for managing more efficiently and reliably the world’s infrastructure, energy, food, water and health. This will be achieved through harnessing the immense power of advanced artificial intelligence, mathematical, computing, communication, control and modelling techniques.
Examples of current myriad hi-tech initiatives include-
self-healing software capable of automatically detecting, identifying, and fixing errors in the programs used in complex systems; a ‘central nervous system’ of ‘smart dust’ for the Earth, in which a trillion sensors will be deployed worldwide to monitor ecosystems, detect earthquakes, predict traffic patterns, and study energy use; a system of computerized agents that can manage energy use in the home, designed to optimize individual electricity usage to improve efficiency of the electricity grid; and leveraging the vast cornucopia of freely available services on the web to build mashups to support humanitarian and disaster relief.
As mentioned, game changing projects such as FuturicT are critical, but managing the planet requires much more- in essence coordinating and focusing the entire knowledge base and mind-power of our civilisation.
This should implemented as a world wide public project, in the same manner as the Internet and Web: with each component of the planet’s intellectual mosaic- individuals, research groups, corporations and governments, contributing and mining their knowledge resources- each according to their creative capacity and expertise.
Such a global vision is too fundamentally vital and complex to be funnelled through individual private organisations, politicians or states. It must instead function as a self-organising supra-national entity- evolving eventually as a largely autonomous system.
Managing the planet therefore will involve the massive task of coordinating thousands of techniques, technologies, systems and initiatives to gain the maximum leverage within the timescale available.
But time now is precious. Most current ‘green’ applications are in the early stages- designed to improve energy efficiency by deploying breakthroughs in sustainable technologies such as solar, wind, biofuels, carbon capture etc. But this is just the beginning of the journey. Copenhagen demonstrated that gaining consensus even for the essential task of implementing a global carbon trading system - so vital in generating the momentum to transition from polluting fossil fuels to green power- is difficult to achieve.
Is this a feasible proposition? Yes, but only by applying adaptive, autonomic system technology, capable of responding dynamically and autonomously to changes in the physical and social environment. Such a system will need to include the ability to self-organise and self-optimise its planning and operations – to discover, innovate, simulate, create, predict, apply, learn and continuously gain intelligence- to ensure optimal outcomes.
As mentioned, although projects such as FuturicT project have the potential to kick-start this process, there is only one practical mechanism to ensure the ultimate success of such a gargantuan endeavour- harnessing the intelligence of the Web itself. It must be nurtured and engineered to become self-organising and self-adaptive, in order to reach the goal of managing a sustainable future- essential for us and our planet.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The Future of Society
David Hunter Tow, Director of The Future Planet Research Centre, predicts the emergence of a global human superorganism within the next thirty years.
Recent research by a team of scientists from the University of Florida, has shown that insect colonies follow the same evolutionary “rules” as individuals; a finding that suggests insect societies operate like a single “superorganism” in terms of their physiology and life.
The researchers believe that the rules that guide social insect species and group behaviour may also have applicability to other species, including humans and human society.
A process of evolutionary convergence is a major driver governing this process.
Evolutionary convergence occurs when many critical feedback loops allow key knowledge-based processes such as computation and communication, to be optimised or reach convergence very quickly - eventually almost instantaneously from local to global and back to local again. At the same time new knowledge is generated, which continuously triggers change, feedback and problem solving on a continuously accelerated cycle. This has the capacity to create social complexity on a grand scale.
On the business and scientific front, global collaboration is now the norm, encompassing international networks of researchers, project alliances and commercial consortiums and involving diverse countries and cultures. Pluralist political, economic, trade, educational, cultural and environmental systems are also developing on a global basis including institutions such as the UN, WHO, UNESCO, EU, APEC, WTO, NATO, G20 etc. With increasing coverage and frequency of communication mediated by the Web, explosive growth in such social systems is already occurring.
This enmeshment process is now leading to a new phase in life's development, the realisation of a global human entity or intelligence. In other words, the same type of social Superorganism as emerges for insect species. According to Tow, such a global entity will eventually encompass all forms of human existence- biological, artificial and virtual.
Virtual communities will manifest in the form of groups of intelligent software agents- programs which cooperate to perform specific tasks and achieve goals. These are already being deployed within the cyberspace of the Web to solve communication and knowledge-based problems. Their current service capability includes locating, categorising, assessing, computing and negotiating information. More importantly however, they now have the capacity to learn, adapt, mutate and replicate- that is, to evolve in a primitive way.
Intelligent agents are only one example of the prototypes of virtual societies, with the eventual potential to evolve to a level of complexity similar to and symbiotic with our own. Eventually all such communities will merge with biological life throughout the universe. The evolution of society and civilisation, from the emergence of homo sapiens 200,000 years ago, to the sophisticated global society that we experience today will continue to be guided by this accelerating process, leading inevitably to the emergence of a global superorganism structure and intelligence.
The overriding outcome of evolutionary convergence ensures the continuing realisation of individual and social potential through the accumulation of knowledge and complexity. Enhancing the potential at the individual level expands the potential of the group, which in turn enhances the potential of society at large. Benefits at the societal and group level in turn feed back to each individual, so that knowledge gained at all levels is constantly recycled through a diffusion process. And so the cycle repeats endlessly, allowing life to continuously leverage its opportunities and extend its horizons.
This leads to an accelerating convergent process, where each increment of information gained catalyses the generation of all other elements, producing new knowledge at an accelerating rate. Concurrent with this process is the generation of meta-knowledge; a set of guiding principles which are continuously extracted from the base lode of information; designed to ensure that all knowledge contributes to the survival and the realisation of benefits for society at large.
These principles may be termed ethical codes, morality, human rights or principles of social justice. They include the set of modern democratic principles that encode the rights and responsibilities of the individual in relation to the group, such as equality under the law and freedom of speech. These become the rules that set the social and behavioural boundaries of human evolution, formulated through trial and error over eons.
The forces governing such historical outcomes according to this thesis are manifestations of the flow, exchange and refinement of information within a social context. Only at the local level is history therefore contingent. At the global level it is convergent, with the deep undercurrents of evolution guiding its progress.
Recent research by a team of scientists from the University of Florida, has shown that insect colonies follow the same evolutionary “rules” as individuals; a finding that suggests insect societies operate like a single “superorganism” in terms of their physiology and life.
The researchers believe that the rules that guide social insect species and group behaviour may also have applicability to other species, including humans and human society.
A process of evolutionary convergence is a major driver governing this process.
Evolutionary convergence occurs when many critical feedback loops allow key knowledge-based processes such as computation and communication, to be optimised or reach convergence very quickly - eventually almost instantaneously from local to global and back to local again. At the same time new knowledge is generated, which continuously triggers change, feedback and problem solving on a continuously accelerated cycle. This has the capacity to create social complexity on a grand scale.
On the business and scientific front, global collaboration is now the norm, encompassing international networks of researchers, project alliances and commercial consortiums and involving diverse countries and cultures. Pluralist political, economic, trade, educational, cultural and environmental systems are also developing on a global basis including institutions such as the UN, WHO, UNESCO, EU, APEC, WTO, NATO, G20 etc. With increasing coverage and frequency of communication mediated by the Web, explosive growth in such social systems is already occurring.
This enmeshment process is now leading to a new phase in life's development, the realisation of a global human entity or intelligence. In other words, the same type of social Superorganism as emerges for insect species. According to Tow, such a global entity will eventually encompass all forms of human existence- biological, artificial and virtual.
Virtual communities will manifest in the form of groups of intelligent software agents- programs which cooperate to perform specific tasks and achieve goals. These are already being deployed within the cyberspace of the Web to solve communication and knowledge-based problems. Their current service capability includes locating, categorising, assessing, computing and negotiating information. More importantly however, they now have the capacity to learn, adapt, mutate and replicate- that is, to evolve in a primitive way.
Intelligent agents are only one example of the prototypes of virtual societies, with the eventual potential to evolve to a level of complexity similar to and symbiotic with our own. Eventually all such communities will merge with biological life throughout the universe. The evolution of society and civilisation, from the emergence of homo sapiens 200,000 years ago, to the sophisticated global society that we experience today will continue to be guided by this accelerating process, leading inevitably to the emergence of a global superorganism structure and intelligence.
The overriding outcome of evolutionary convergence ensures the continuing realisation of individual and social potential through the accumulation of knowledge and complexity. Enhancing the potential at the individual level expands the potential of the group, which in turn enhances the potential of society at large. Benefits at the societal and group level in turn feed back to each individual, so that knowledge gained at all levels is constantly recycled through a diffusion process. And so the cycle repeats endlessly, allowing life to continuously leverage its opportunities and extend its horizons.
This leads to an accelerating convergent process, where each increment of information gained catalyses the generation of all other elements, producing new knowledge at an accelerating rate. Concurrent with this process is the generation of meta-knowledge; a set of guiding principles which are continuously extracted from the base lode of information; designed to ensure that all knowledge contributes to the survival and the realisation of benefits for society at large.
These principles may be termed ethical codes, morality, human rights or principles of social justice. They include the set of modern democratic principles that encode the rights and responsibilities of the individual in relation to the group, such as equality under the law and freedom of speech. These become the rules that set the social and behavioural boundaries of human evolution, formulated through trial and error over eons.
The forces governing such historical outcomes according to this thesis are manifestations of the flow, exchange and refinement of information within a social context. Only at the local level is history therefore contingent. At the global level it is convergent, with the deep undercurrents of evolution guiding its progress.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The Future of War
Aggressive wars and conflicts- that is those not waged in direct defence of a nation or region, cause massive destruction to human life and its environment as well as future generations.
Therefore it is morally incumbent on all governments to avoid or minimise the horrendous social and economic consequences.
In addition, wars are not only immoral but also illegal under national and international law. At the Nuremberg trials following the defeat of Nazi Germany, aggressive wars were judged to constitute the worst of international crimes, with prevention the major reason for founding the United Nations.
Methods for managing such conflicts and avoiding escalation between major powers have been greatly bolstered since the end of WW2, with the creation of institutions such as the UN, NATO and later the EU. In addition, new methods of mediation and diplomacy have gradually evolved in which third party nations and groups are involved in the resolution of conflict and peacekeeping processes. Although these methods are far from perfect, there are grounds for optimism that over time, combined with increasing globalisation ensuring the intermeshing of all national interests and cultures, major conflicts between and within states will become impossible to sustain.
Post cold war there have been numerous civil and neighbouring national conflicts, often involving ethnic or separatist groups, creating great suffering and subsequent large flows of refugees. However a study of wars and armed conflict, The Human Security Report: War and Peace in the 21st Century, shows that the number of armed conflicts has fallen by 40% since the end of the Cold War.
So far in the 21st century an average of 20,000 to 30,000 people each year have suffered violent deaths in wars within and between states, compared with more than 200,000 each year through most of the 1990’s. At the same time, the number of people killed in conflicts has been falling continuously since 1950. Terrorism kills comparatively few people compared with wars, genocide and even traffic accidents. This decline is attributed to the post 1992 increase in UN preventative diplomacy and peace keeping missions and also to the rise and effectiveness of NGOs in drawing attention to crimes perpetrated by or with the knowledge of governments.
Also since its establishment, the UN has played a significant role as effective peacemaker, with a positive outcome achieved in 66% of peace missions. There has been a sixfold increase in UN efforts to prevent wars from starting, a four fold increase in UN peacemaking missions to end unresolved conflicts and an eleven fold increase in the number of states made subject to UN sanctions.
There is gradually emerging through the slow painful process of evolutionary trial and error, mechanisms for containing and resolving violent conflicts, involving the combined efforts of the international community- Governments, NGOs, the UN, WTO, IMF, together with regional and local national alliances.
The social forces unleashed by the expansion of technological, economic and political knowledge, have ensured that no nation can remain in isolation for very long. As globalisation accelerates, pressures are placed on all states by their peers to meet minimum standards of human rights as well as good governance. Failure to respond to these pressures can result in a state becoming a pariah- paying the price of reduced trade, financial support and a lower standard of living for its population.
A variety of techniques from mediation and peace-keeping to trade sanctions and threat of reprisal, are being applied in order to force warring parties to the peace table. These have been applied with mixed success in Bosnia, Kosovo, Kashmir, Northern Ireland and the Sudan, while high-pressure mediation is continuing in more intractable conflict areas such as Palestine, Somalia, The Republic of Congo, North Korea and Burma. There is no doubt that that we are witnessing the evolutionary genesis of globally mediated methods for permanently maintaining peace across the planet.
The principle of mutual support and cooperation between states provides an evolutionary win-win for all stakeholders. As has been demonstrated throughout history, competition for resources can on its own achieve short term gains for the dominant parties; but without cooperation, this will inevitably lead to conflict and war, resulting in loss and eventual for all parties. Support for the floundering economies affected by climate change and conflict in Asia, Africa, Central Asia and South America, will be a crucial test for the international community in the future; demonstrating its capacity for support and cooperation on a global scale.
Since 1945 there have been two major developments in the practice of war and peace; the rise of human rights law in peacetime and the strengthening of international humanitarian law in wartime. The relationship between a government and its citizens is now more transparent because of democracy, with government officials increasingly held responsible for violations of human rights. There is a need in conflicts to make a clear distinction between oppressors and oppressed, between the guilty and the innocent. Nations held captive by dictators and despots should not be doubly punished by collective sanctions and outside violence. Killing innocents to save innocents is an unacceptable moral choice. With hindsight it is clear that In Iraq the Security Council should have sought the option Hussein’s indictment by an international criminal tribunal as a perpetrator of war crimes and should not have imposed sanctions and turned a blind eye to war by the US, which over a decade has cost at least a half a million civilian lives.
A new system of international justice based on the UN Human Rights Charter can also provide a road to post-conflict reconciliation. The new model can contribute to peace and democracy for states emerging from the massive trauma of violent war and genocide.
One approach being implemented is the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. These deal with acts of violence and repression committed by the State that occurred in a country’s recent past. Commissions cannot impose sentences or award damages, but are authorised by the state, lasting about 2 years and then disbanding. There are currently three such commissions in operation; in Morocco, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Paraguay, with three new commissions being established in Indonesia, Liberia and Burundi.
It is now clear that most military analyses relating to the future of war are severely skewed and one dimensional, failing to adequately factor in drivers beyond traditional geopolitical and weapons trendlines. These future drivers- primarily globalisation, cyber-culture and global warming are now approaching with the force of a tsunami and will overwhelm all other traditional military drivers by mid-century.
Failing to adequately take their consequences into account is to blindside future reality, with the potential to lead to further irrevocable impacts on a fragile world.
Globalisation involves the interweaving of the cultural, educational, legal, economic, political, and technological protocols of all nations in a dense web of dependencies and relationships. China and the US for example are now joined at the hip despite ideological disparities and are mutually interdependent. The US needs China’s financial reserves to prop up its massive dollar debt, while China needs US markets for a large proportion of its exports. These two superpowers are also indirectly connected by the web of alliance and trade networks of the international community as a whole. They are now both too big, too interconnected and too focussed on trying to improve the quality of life of their own populations to become involved in massive national global wars.
The outstanding template for globalisation is of course the European Union, which now links the economies of 27 nations, that up until a century ago warred continuously, with massive loss of life and potential. Now their populations work together, trade together, marry together and share a common currency. The EU is the third force in an increasingly multi-polar world, counterbalancing both the US and China.
Globalisation is also being accelerated by the Cyber revolution- providing access by all populations to the world’s knowledge base and providing an unstoppable catalyst for democracy, despite short term futile attempts at national censorship. It now mediates civilisation’s social, scientific and commercial progress, with the potential to provide enormous computational and decision power for future global governance.
Simulated war-gaming, involving complex scenario simulations based on holistic social and economic factors, will therefore be increasingly applied to pre-evaluate the potential outcomes of waging war; with the result that military imperatives will play a significantly reduced role in the future.
Cyber warfare will also become increasingly common, used as a proxy for direct weapons-based assault. Recent major attacks on Google as well as 2,500 major companies worldwide, demonstrate the potential for even small groups to wage global economic warfare- hijacking strategic planning data and shutting down critical processes and infrastructure.
But global warming is the biggest challenge, with the greatest potential impact ever faced or ever likely to be faced by our civilisation. By the middle of this century the budgets of all countries, particularly those of the major and middle powers will be focussed on mitigating the disastrous outcomes including- increased frequency and severity of catastrophic events, resulting in massive damage to both the natural and built environment, acidification of oceans, scarcity of food, water and energy, disease pandemics and unprecedented refugee flows.
The stresses on all societies will be enormous, but only through global cooperation will anarchy and conflict will be constrained. This will require planning and allocation of resources on a global scale. The budgets and assets of all major powers including the US, China, India and the EU will need to be synchronised and focussed on avoiding this over-riding threat to the future of humanity. National rivalries will be subsumed and military and weapons programs drastically cut.
A timeline on the evolution of this process is as follows-
By 2020- battlefield strategy will evolve towards one that is increasingly fought in covert form – not through the use of large-scale traditional weaponry as in previous wars, as conventional military values become obsolete. Most attacks will be focused on subduing increasingly integrated terrorist and criminal groups, military juntas and authoritarian regimes as well as minority ehtnic groups.
A high proportion of battlefield operations will be automated, with drones and robots operating remotely and eventually autonomously, using satellite and sensor surveillance and the latest Web based intelligence for decision support. Cyber and economic warfare will also play an increasing role, conducted both by governments and criminal and terrorist groups.
At the same time there will be greater emphasis on a variety of peace-keeping and mediation initiatives, involving a range of alliances between Governments, NGOs and military forces such as the new-look NATO, operating at the local level in cooperation with civilian populations. These strategies will increasingly be applied to support failing and dysfunctional states and establish democratic institutions and are now beginning to be rolled out in Iraq and Afghanistan. This will become the primary template for future military operations.
By 2030- superpower states – US and China, will no longer able to sustain long term conflicts using 20th century arsenals of air, sea and land forces. The US will be forced to abdicate its traditional 20th century role of global military dominance as its resources become spread too thinly and it struggles to maintain quality of life for its population against unsustainable mounting levels of debt.
Similarly China, India and middle power nations will be forced to channel most of their resources to developing infrastructure, capacity and social services. Numerous flashpoints involving quelling local insurgencies and ethnic uprisings will remain. Increasingly the UN and representative government groups such as the present G20 will work together to minimise conflict globally. The EU will be seen as the template for global cooperation and peace-keeping will become the norm for conflict containment.
By 2040 – it is realised by most nations that conflict and wars are increasingly unsupportable. Globalisation continues to accelerate, with the creation of more complex networks of alliances and treaties binding nations and regional groups. At the same time countries start to lose their traditional status, with pressure for more fluid cross border relaxation as in the EU. The mixing of races and nationalities eases pressure for conflict, and provides greater accessibility to global health, education, and knowledge resources.
The reality of climate change, with its increasing frequency of disaster events, forces ideological disparities to play a secondary role.
By 2050- all available global resources are marshalled to overcome the immense problems associated with global warming. The end of wars between nations is in sight.
Therefore it is morally incumbent on all governments to avoid or minimise the horrendous social and economic consequences.
In addition, wars are not only immoral but also illegal under national and international law. At the Nuremberg trials following the defeat of Nazi Germany, aggressive wars were judged to constitute the worst of international crimes, with prevention the major reason for founding the United Nations.
Methods for managing such conflicts and avoiding escalation between major powers have been greatly bolstered since the end of WW2, with the creation of institutions such as the UN, NATO and later the EU. In addition, new methods of mediation and diplomacy have gradually evolved in which third party nations and groups are involved in the resolution of conflict and peacekeeping processes. Although these methods are far from perfect, there are grounds for optimism that over time, combined with increasing globalisation ensuring the intermeshing of all national interests and cultures, major conflicts between and within states will become impossible to sustain.
Post cold war there have been numerous civil and neighbouring national conflicts, often involving ethnic or separatist groups, creating great suffering and subsequent large flows of refugees. However a study of wars and armed conflict, The Human Security Report: War and Peace in the 21st Century, shows that the number of armed conflicts has fallen by 40% since the end of the Cold War.
So far in the 21st century an average of 20,000 to 30,000 people each year have suffered violent deaths in wars within and between states, compared with more than 200,000 each year through most of the 1990’s. At the same time, the number of people killed in conflicts has been falling continuously since 1950. Terrorism kills comparatively few people compared with wars, genocide and even traffic accidents. This decline is attributed to the post 1992 increase in UN preventative diplomacy and peace keeping missions and also to the rise and effectiveness of NGOs in drawing attention to crimes perpetrated by or with the knowledge of governments.
Also since its establishment, the UN has played a significant role as effective peacemaker, with a positive outcome achieved in 66% of peace missions. There has been a sixfold increase in UN efforts to prevent wars from starting, a four fold increase in UN peacemaking missions to end unresolved conflicts and an eleven fold increase in the number of states made subject to UN sanctions.
There is gradually emerging through the slow painful process of evolutionary trial and error, mechanisms for containing and resolving violent conflicts, involving the combined efforts of the international community- Governments, NGOs, the UN, WTO, IMF, together with regional and local national alliances.
The social forces unleashed by the expansion of technological, economic and political knowledge, have ensured that no nation can remain in isolation for very long. As globalisation accelerates, pressures are placed on all states by their peers to meet minimum standards of human rights as well as good governance. Failure to respond to these pressures can result in a state becoming a pariah- paying the price of reduced trade, financial support and a lower standard of living for its population.
A variety of techniques from mediation and peace-keeping to trade sanctions and threat of reprisal, are being applied in order to force warring parties to the peace table. These have been applied with mixed success in Bosnia, Kosovo, Kashmir, Northern Ireland and the Sudan, while high-pressure mediation is continuing in more intractable conflict areas such as Palestine, Somalia, The Republic of Congo, North Korea and Burma. There is no doubt that that we are witnessing the evolutionary genesis of globally mediated methods for permanently maintaining peace across the planet.
The principle of mutual support and cooperation between states provides an evolutionary win-win for all stakeholders. As has been demonstrated throughout history, competition for resources can on its own achieve short term gains for the dominant parties; but without cooperation, this will inevitably lead to conflict and war, resulting in loss and eventual for all parties. Support for the floundering economies affected by climate change and conflict in Asia, Africa, Central Asia and South America, will be a crucial test for the international community in the future; demonstrating its capacity for support and cooperation on a global scale.
Since 1945 there have been two major developments in the practice of war and peace; the rise of human rights law in peacetime and the strengthening of international humanitarian law in wartime. The relationship between a government and its citizens is now more transparent because of democracy, with government officials increasingly held responsible for violations of human rights. There is a need in conflicts to make a clear distinction between oppressors and oppressed, between the guilty and the innocent. Nations held captive by dictators and despots should not be doubly punished by collective sanctions and outside violence. Killing innocents to save innocents is an unacceptable moral choice. With hindsight it is clear that In Iraq the Security Council should have sought the option Hussein’s indictment by an international criminal tribunal as a perpetrator of war crimes and should not have imposed sanctions and turned a blind eye to war by the US, which over a decade has cost at least a half a million civilian lives.
A new system of international justice based on the UN Human Rights Charter can also provide a road to post-conflict reconciliation. The new model can contribute to peace and democracy for states emerging from the massive trauma of violent war and genocide.
One approach being implemented is the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. These deal with acts of violence and repression committed by the State that occurred in a country’s recent past. Commissions cannot impose sentences or award damages, but are authorised by the state, lasting about 2 years and then disbanding. There are currently three such commissions in operation; in Morocco, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Paraguay, with three new commissions being established in Indonesia, Liberia and Burundi.
It is now clear that most military analyses relating to the future of war are severely skewed and one dimensional, failing to adequately factor in drivers beyond traditional geopolitical and weapons trendlines. These future drivers- primarily globalisation, cyber-culture and global warming are now approaching with the force of a tsunami and will overwhelm all other traditional military drivers by mid-century.
Failing to adequately take their consequences into account is to blindside future reality, with the potential to lead to further irrevocable impacts on a fragile world.
Globalisation involves the interweaving of the cultural, educational, legal, economic, political, and technological protocols of all nations in a dense web of dependencies and relationships. China and the US for example are now joined at the hip despite ideological disparities and are mutually interdependent. The US needs China’s financial reserves to prop up its massive dollar debt, while China needs US markets for a large proportion of its exports. These two superpowers are also indirectly connected by the web of alliance and trade networks of the international community as a whole. They are now both too big, too interconnected and too focussed on trying to improve the quality of life of their own populations to become involved in massive national global wars.
The outstanding template for globalisation is of course the European Union, which now links the economies of 27 nations, that up until a century ago warred continuously, with massive loss of life and potential. Now their populations work together, trade together, marry together and share a common currency. The EU is the third force in an increasingly multi-polar world, counterbalancing both the US and China.
Globalisation is also being accelerated by the Cyber revolution- providing access by all populations to the world’s knowledge base and providing an unstoppable catalyst for democracy, despite short term futile attempts at national censorship. It now mediates civilisation’s social, scientific and commercial progress, with the potential to provide enormous computational and decision power for future global governance.
Simulated war-gaming, involving complex scenario simulations based on holistic social and economic factors, will therefore be increasingly applied to pre-evaluate the potential outcomes of waging war; with the result that military imperatives will play a significantly reduced role in the future.
Cyber warfare will also become increasingly common, used as a proxy for direct weapons-based assault. Recent major attacks on Google as well as 2,500 major companies worldwide, demonstrate the potential for even small groups to wage global economic warfare- hijacking strategic planning data and shutting down critical processes and infrastructure.
But global warming is the biggest challenge, with the greatest potential impact ever faced or ever likely to be faced by our civilisation. By the middle of this century the budgets of all countries, particularly those of the major and middle powers will be focussed on mitigating the disastrous outcomes including- increased frequency and severity of catastrophic events, resulting in massive damage to both the natural and built environment, acidification of oceans, scarcity of food, water and energy, disease pandemics and unprecedented refugee flows.
The stresses on all societies will be enormous, but only through global cooperation will anarchy and conflict will be constrained. This will require planning and allocation of resources on a global scale. The budgets and assets of all major powers including the US, China, India and the EU will need to be synchronised and focussed on avoiding this over-riding threat to the future of humanity. National rivalries will be subsumed and military and weapons programs drastically cut.
A timeline on the evolution of this process is as follows-
By 2020- battlefield strategy will evolve towards one that is increasingly fought in covert form – not through the use of large-scale traditional weaponry as in previous wars, as conventional military values become obsolete. Most attacks will be focused on subduing increasingly integrated terrorist and criminal groups, military juntas and authoritarian regimes as well as minority ehtnic groups.
A high proportion of battlefield operations will be automated, with drones and robots operating remotely and eventually autonomously, using satellite and sensor surveillance and the latest Web based intelligence for decision support. Cyber and economic warfare will also play an increasing role, conducted both by governments and criminal and terrorist groups.
At the same time there will be greater emphasis on a variety of peace-keeping and mediation initiatives, involving a range of alliances between Governments, NGOs and military forces such as the new-look NATO, operating at the local level in cooperation with civilian populations. These strategies will increasingly be applied to support failing and dysfunctional states and establish democratic institutions and are now beginning to be rolled out in Iraq and Afghanistan. This will become the primary template for future military operations.
By 2030- superpower states – US and China, will no longer able to sustain long term conflicts using 20th century arsenals of air, sea and land forces. The US will be forced to abdicate its traditional 20th century role of global military dominance as its resources become spread too thinly and it struggles to maintain quality of life for its population against unsustainable mounting levels of debt.
Similarly China, India and middle power nations will be forced to channel most of their resources to developing infrastructure, capacity and social services. Numerous flashpoints involving quelling local insurgencies and ethnic uprisings will remain. Increasingly the UN and representative government groups such as the present G20 will work together to minimise conflict globally. The EU will be seen as the template for global cooperation and peace-keeping will become the norm for conflict containment.
By 2040 – it is realised by most nations that conflict and wars are increasingly unsupportable. Globalisation continues to accelerate, with the creation of more complex networks of alliances and treaties binding nations and regional groups. At the same time countries start to lose their traditional status, with pressure for more fluid cross border relaxation as in the EU. The mixing of races and nationalities eases pressure for conflict, and provides greater accessibility to global health, education, and knowledge resources.
The reality of climate change, with its increasing frequency of disaster events, forces ideological disparities to play a secondary role.
By 2050- all available global resources are marshalled to overcome the immense problems associated with global warming. The end of wars between nations is in sight.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Future Tourism
By 2020- the nature of traditional Tourism will have radically altered in many ways.
There has already been a reduction in overseas travel and this trend will accelerate, as more travellers become aware that air travel contributes 3%-4% of global carbon emissions. This will increase the popularity of local destinations in all countries, including exploring local wildernesses and heritage sites, as well as exotic city theme parks. Communities in city and country areas with common interests will also take advantage of local resources to a much greater degree, creating their own local travel themes independently of the larger operators.
Travel will also need to become more eco-friendly and socially responsible, with travel operators offering a choice of carbon offsets such as tree planting. And as tourists also contribute to the risk of damage to fragile archealogical sites and pristine wildernesses, they will be encouraged to volunteer their skills to remediate the environments they visit, as part of a holiday package.
By 2030/40- many ecosystems will have disappeared or be at risk- reefs, coastal areas, forests and glaciers etc, while thirty percent of animal and plant species will have disappeared or be endangered. Tourists will be banned from most national parks and will rush to visit the last great cultural sites and wildernesses on earth before they disappear or are closed to humans. Following today's trend, most wild animal species will be viewed solely in zoos and theme parks.
Major cities and surrounding areas will become the main tourist hubs, offering not only traditional entertainment and cultural experiences, but previously outdoor physical activities such as surfing, skiing, fishing and golfing; but now in controlled managed environments.
By 2050 tourism will have fragmented into myriad exotic experiences often transacted in virtual and augmented realites- simulating extraordinarily realistic and immersive environments,involving all the senses. Gradually such travel experiences will be indistinguishable from previous realities- allowing unlimited options- trips into space and under the oceans, back in time to historic events and forward into future civilisations.
There has already been a reduction in overseas travel and this trend will accelerate, as more travellers become aware that air travel contributes 3%-4% of global carbon emissions. This will increase the popularity of local destinations in all countries, including exploring local wildernesses and heritage sites, as well as exotic city theme parks. Communities in city and country areas with common interests will also take advantage of local resources to a much greater degree, creating their own local travel themes independently of the larger operators.
Travel will also need to become more eco-friendly and socially responsible, with travel operators offering a choice of carbon offsets such as tree planting. And as tourists also contribute to the risk of damage to fragile archealogical sites and pristine wildernesses, they will be encouraged to volunteer their skills to remediate the environments they visit, as part of a holiday package.
By 2030/40- many ecosystems will have disappeared or be at risk- reefs, coastal areas, forests and glaciers etc, while thirty percent of animal and plant species will have disappeared or be endangered. Tourists will be banned from most national parks and will rush to visit the last great cultural sites and wildernesses on earth before they disappear or are closed to humans. Following today's trend, most wild animal species will be viewed solely in zoos and theme parks.
Major cities and surrounding areas will become the main tourist hubs, offering not only traditional entertainment and cultural experiences, but previously outdoor physical activities such as surfing, skiing, fishing and golfing; but now in controlled managed environments.
By 2050 tourism will have fragmented into myriad exotic experiences often transacted in virtual and augmented realites- simulating extraordinarily realistic and immersive environments,involving all the senses. Gradually such travel experiences will be indistinguishable from previous realities- allowing unlimited options- trips into space and under the oceans, back in time to historic events and forward into future civilisations.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Future Democracy 2.0
The Director of The Future Planet Research Centre- David Hunter Tow, predicts a number of indicators are pointing to a major leap towards a more public participatory form of democracy in the near future-a new model of democracy– Democracy 2.0
Democracy as with all other processes engineered by human civilisation is evolving at a rapid rate.
Web 2.0’s social networking, blogging, messaging and video services have already significantly changed the way people discuss and exchange ideas on the Web. In addition a number of popular sites exist as forums to actively harness people’s opinions and encourage debate about contentious topics, funneling them to political processes. These are often coupled to online petitions, allowing the public to deliver opinions and requests to Government and receive a response.
In addition there are a plethora of specialized browsers and analytical tools aimed at locating and interpreting information about contentious topics such as global warming and medical advances. These are increasingly linked to Argumentation frameworks, supporting the logical basis of arguments, negotiation and other structured forms of group-decision making. New logic and statistical tools can also provide inference and evaluation mechanisms to better assess the evidence for a particular hypothesis.
Such ‘intelligence-based’ algorithms are rapidly becoming capable of automating the analysis and advice provided to politicians, to a similar quality level as that offered by human experts. It might be argued that there is still a need for the role of politicians and leaders in assessing and prioritising expert advice in the overriding national interest. But a moment’s reflection leads to the opposite opinion. Politicians have party allegiances and internal obligations that can create serious conflicts of interest and skew the best advice. History is replete with disastrous decisions based on false premises driven by party political bias. One needs to look no further in recent times than the patently inadequate evidential basis for the US’s war in Iraq.
Democracy has a long evolutionary history. The current cyber-based advances presage a much more interactive public form of democracy and mark the next phase in its ongoing evolution.
The concept of democracy - the notion that men and women have the right to govern themselves – was practised at around 2,500 BP in Athens. The Athenian polity or political body, granted all citizens the right to be heard and to participate in decision making; while the City State demanded services from the individual in return. There is evidence however that the role of popular assembly actually arose earlier in some Phoenician cities such as Sidon and Babylon in the ancient assemblies of Syria- Mesopotamia as an organ of local government and justice.
Democracy, as demonstrated in these early periods, although imperfect, offered each individual a stake in the nation’s collective decision-making processes. It therefore provided a greater incentive for each individual to increase group productivity. Through a more open decision process wealth is generated and distributed more equitably. An increase in overall economic wellbeing in turn generates more possibilities and potential to acquire knowledge, education and employment, coupled to greater individual choice and freedom.
The evolution of democracy can also be seen in terms of improved human rights. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and several ensuing legal treaties define political, cultural and economic rights as well as the rights of women, children, ethnic groups and religions. This declaration is intended to create a global safety net of rights applicable to all peoples everywhere, with no exceptions. It also recognises the principle of the subordination of national sovereignty to the universality of human rights; the dignity and worth of human life beyond the jurisdiction of any state.
The global spread of democracy is now also irreversibly linked to the new cooperative globalisation model, with the EU providing a compelling template; complementing national decisions in the global interest at the commercial, financial, legal, health and information-sharing level. The spread of new technology and knowledge industries also provides the opportunity for developing countries to gain a quantum leap in material wellbeing, an essential prerequisite for a stable democracy.
Dictatorships or quasi democratic one party states still exist in Africa and Asia with regimes such as China, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Burma, the Sudan and Belarus seeking to maintain total control over their populations. However two thirds of sub-Saharan countries have staged elections in the past ten years, with coups becoming less common and wars waning. African nations are also starting to police human rights in their own region. African Union peacekeepers now deployed in Darfur and are working with UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
According to the Freedom House Report, an independent survey of political and civil liberties around the globe, the world has made great strides towards democracy in the 20th and 21st centuries. In 1900 there were 25 restricted democracies in existence covering an eighth of the world’s population, but none which could be judged as based on universal suffrage. The US and Britain denied voting rights to women and in the case of the US, also to African Americans. But at the end of the 20th century 119 of the world’s 192 nations were declared electoral democracies. In the current century, democracy continues to spread through Africa and Asia and significantly also the Middle East, with over 130 states in various stages of democratic evolution.
However there is still a disjunction between the developed west and those developing countries only now recovering from colonisation and subsequent domination by dictators, fascist regimes and warlords. There is in fact a time gap of several hundred years between the democratic trajectory of the west and east, which these countries are endeavouring to bridge within a generation; often creating serious short-term challenges and cultural dislocations.
A very powerful enabler for the spread of democracy as mentioned is the Internet/Web. By increasing the flow of essential knowledge it facilitates transparency, reduces corruption, empowers dissidents and ensures governments are more responsive to their citizen’s needs. It is already providing the infrastructure for the emergence of Democracy 2.0; empowering all people to have direct input into critical decision processes affecting their lives, without the distortion of political intermediaries.
Over time democracy as with all other social processes will evolve to best suit the demands of its human environment. It will emerge as a networked model- a non-hierarchical, resilient protocol, responsive to rapid social change. Such networked forms of government will involve local communities from the ground up; the opposite of hierarchical decision-making, as implemented by current political systems. These are frequently unresponsive to individual and minority group needs and can be easily corrupted by powerful lobby groups such as those employed by the heavy carbon emitters in the global warming debate.
The networked architecture is now evolving supported by the Web and will provide more democratic outcomes for all populations on the planet. Decision processes will to be sifted through global community knowledge, resulting in truly representative and equitable global governance. Democracy itself will continue to evolve with new forms of e-government, which will include the active participation of advocacy groups supported by a consensus of expert knowledge via the intelligent Web.
A form of global consciousness will evolve, where the back channel of opinion will gradually subsume hierarchical filtered political processes. New forms of the democratic process at the community and regional level are already growing, pointing towards the emergence of a new form of truly representative public participation and cooperation- Democracy 2.0.
This trend ensuring a fairer and more peaceful society must continue if humanity is to survive the turmoil and uncertainty of dramatic change ahead.
Democracy as with all other processes engineered by human civilisation is evolving at a rapid rate.
Web 2.0’s social networking, blogging, messaging and video services have already significantly changed the way people discuss and exchange ideas on the Web. In addition a number of popular sites exist as forums to actively harness people’s opinions and encourage debate about contentious topics, funneling them to political processes. These are often coupled to online petitions, allowing the public to deliver opinions and requests to Government and receive a response.
In addition there are a plethora of specialized browsers and analytical tools aimed at locating and interpreting information about contentious topics such as global warming and medical advances. These are increasingly linked to Argumentation frameworks, supporting the logical basis of arguments, negotiation and other structured forms of group-decision making. New logic and statistical tools can also provide inference and evaluation mechanisms to better assess the evidence for a particular hypothesis.
Such ‘intelligence-based’ algorithms are rapidly becoming capable of automating the analysis and advice provided to politicians, to a similar quality level as that offered by human experts. It might be argued that there is still a need for the role of politicians and leaders in assessing and prioritising expert advice in the overriding national interest. But a moment’s reflection leads to the opposite opinion. Politicians have party allegiances and internal obligations that can create serious conflicts of interest and skew the best advice. History is replete with disastrous decisions based on false premises driven by party political bias. One needs to look no further in recent times than the patently inadequate evidential basis for the US’s war in Iraq.
Democracy has a long evolutionary history. The current cyber-based advances presage a much more interactive public form of democracy and mark the next phase in its ongoing evolution.
The concept of democracy - the notion that men and women have the right to govern themselves – was practised at around 2,500 BP in Athens. The Athenian polity or political body, granted all citizens the right to be heard and to participate in decision making; while the City State demanded services from the individual in return. There is evidence however that the role of popular assembly actually arose earlier in some Phoenician cities such as Sidon and Babylon in the ancient assemblies of Syria- Mesopotamia as an organ of local government and justice.
Democracy, as demonstrated in these early periods, although imperfect, offered each individual a stake in the nation’s collective decision-making processes. It therefore provided a greater incentive for each individual to increase group productivity. Through a more open decision process wealth is generated and distributed more equitably. An increase in overall economic wellbeing in turn generates more possibilities and potential to acquire knowledge, education and employment, coupled to greater individual choice and freedom.
The evolution of democracy can also be seen in terms of improved human rights. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and several ensuing legal treaties define political, cultural and economic rights as well as the rights of women, children, ethnic groups and religions. This declaration is intended to create a global safety net of rights applicable to all peoples everywhere, with no exceptions. It also recognises the principle of the subordination of national sovereignty to the universality of human rights; the dignity and worth of human life beyond the jurisdiction of any state.
The global spread of democracy is now also irreversibly linked to the new cooperative globalisation model, with the EU providing a compelling template; complementing national decisions in the global interest at the commercial, financial, legal, health and information-sharing level. The spread of new technology and knowledge industries also provides the opportunity for developing countries to gain a quantum leap in material wellbeing, an essential prerequisite for a stable democracy.
Dictatorships or quasi democratic one party states still exist in Africa and Asia with regimes such as China, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Burma, the Sudan and Belarus seeking to maintain total control over their populations. However two thirds of sub-Saharan countries have staged elections in the past ten years, with coups becoming less common and wars waning. African nations are also starting to police human rights in their own region. African Union peacekeepers now deployed in Darfur and are working with UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
According to the Freedom House Report, an independent survey of political and civil liberties around the globe, the world has made great strides towards democracy in the 20th and 21st centuries. In 1900 there were 25 restricted democracies in existence covering an eighth of the world’s population, but none which could be judged as based on universal suffrage. The US and Britain denied voting rights to women and in the case of the US, also to African Americans. But at the end of the 20th century 119 of the world’s 192 nations were declared electoral democracies. In the current century, democracy continues to spread through Africa and Asia and significantly also the Middle East, with over 130 states in various stages of democratic evolution.
However there is still a disjunction between the developed west and those developing countries only now recovering from colonisation and subsequent domination by dictators, fascist regimes and warlords. There is in fact a time gap of several hundred years between the democratic trajectory of the west and east, which these countries are endeavouring to bridge within a generation; often creating serious short-term challenges and cultural dislocations.
A very powerful enabler for the spread of democracy as mentioned is the Internet/Web. By increasing the flow of essential knowledge it facilitates transparency, reduces corruption, empowers dissidents and ensures governments are more responsive to their citizen’s needs. It is already providing the infrastructure for the emergence of Democracy 2.0; empowering all people to have direct input into critical decision processes affecting their lives, without the distortion of political intermediaries.
Over time democracy as with all other social processes will evolve to best suit the demands of its human environment. It will emerge as a networked model- a non-hierarchical, resilient protocol, responsive to rapid social change. Such networked forms of government will involve local communities from the ground up; the opposite of hierarchical decision-making, as implemented by current political systems. These are frequently unresponsive to individual and minority group needs and can be easily corrupted by powerful lobby groups such as those employed by the heavy carbon emitters in the global warming debate.
The networked architecture is now evolving supported by the Web and will provide more democratic outcomes for all populations on the planet. Decision processes will to be sifted through global community knowledge, resulting in truly representative and equitable global governance. Democracy itself will continue to evolve with new forms of e-government, which will include the active participation of advocacy groups supported by a consensus of expert knowledge via the intelligent Web.
A form of global consciousness will evolve, where the back channel of opinion will gradually subsume hierarchical filtered political processes. New forms of the democratic process at the community and regional level are already growing, pointing towards the emergence of a new form of truly representative public participation and cooperation- Democracy 2.0.
This trend ensuring a fairer and more peaceful society must continue if humanity is to survive the turmoil and uncertainty of dramatic change ahead.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)