Category: Social Issues
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Wisdom Renaissance: How to Embrace the Conceptual Age? Unite the Left Brain with the Right! / Politics / Social Issues
By: DK_Matai
Aesthetic design... Story-telling... Harmony-in-concert... Cultivation-of-empathy... Team-playing... Finding-meaning... This is where the future is being conceived right now and it no longer automatically belongs to people and organisations that have been successful in the past. Moving forwards, it belongs to different kinds of personalities with different kinds of mind-sets. Today -- amid the uncertainties of national economies that have gone from boom to bust to near flat-lining or negative GDP growth -- there's a metaphor that explains what is going on and its right inside our heads. The triumphant London Olympics and Paralympics have shown not just the population of the United Kingdom but billions around the world what can be achieved through the combination of left-brain and right-brain activity including the amplification of the grand narrative via aesthetic design, story-telling, harmony-in-concert, cultivation-of-empathy, team-playing and finding meaning and purpose in our ordinary lives rendered extraordinary by coming together as one.
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Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Hamburgers to Exterminate Mankind / Politics / Social Issues
By: Pravda
Hunger and malnutrition may kill millions of people in 20 years. The global tragedy is likely to be caused by three interrelated factors: fluctuations of food prices, extreme weather conditions and climate instabilities. The contradiction between the growing human needs and objective limits of resource become more and more serious.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
The Evil of the Welfare State, Depending on Dependency / Politics / Social Issues
By: LewRockwell
Thomas Sowell writes: The theme that most seemed to rouse the enthusiasm of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte was that we are all responsible for one another – and that Republicans don't want to help the poor, the sick and the helpless.
All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.
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Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Creativity and Empathy: How to Capitalise on Complexity in the Conceptual Age? / Politics / Social Issues
By: DK_Matai
History as-we-know-it is now ending because the dominator culture has led the human species into a blind alley and lost its vitality. As the inevitable chaos approaches, people are now looking for metaphors and answers to their societal and personal quandaries including the type of future their children are likely to inherit. We were reminded by The Prince's Trust recently in regard to rising youth unemployment and youth poverty which has crossed more than twenty percent in the United Kingdom and more than fifty percent in Spain. The Geneva-based International Labour Organisation (ILO) is also projecting global youth unemployment to worsen with the spill over of the euro crisis spreading from advanced to emerging economies. However, when we try to isolate any challenge to resolve it on its own, we find it interlinked with everything else. The crux is no longer about finding the answer; it is to face the answer which already exists courageously, and with full awareness of its interconnectivity with the rest of the whole. The key re-discoveries of the new Conceptual Age -- now unfolding -- are Creativity and Empathy.
Sunday, September 09, 2012
Symptoms and Signs of 'The Shift' / Politics / Social Issues
By: DK_Matai
Are we on the cusp of a new dawn? From Britain to Brazil and from Kenya to China, ATCA 5000 distinguished members in more than 150 countries around the world are beginning to report an unprecedented yet accelerating individual and collective ‘Shift’ in awareness in the last few quarters. The changes appear to be affecting many at the material, physical, emotional, mental and more subtle levels. We have been examining four key interlocking aspects of those thoughts, observations and views expressed one-to-one by distinguished members from around the world in this regard:
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Monday, September 03, 2012
What Makes People Happy? Ten Key Trends / Politics / Social Issues
By: DK_Matai
What's happiness? Does it really exist? Can happiness last? How does one become happy? How many people do you know that are really happy? What are the habits of happy people and the principles that might be at the root of their happiness? We asked ATCA 5000 distinguished members over the last several months and here are some of the results that we distilled from those one-to-one conversations around the world.
Friday, August 31, 2012
A Big Bad Brick Wall / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
As America settles in for a three month long across-all-media screening of Dumb and Dumber, Europeans are setting up for a valiant effort to put up an even more mind-boggling spectacle. Competition is healthy, right? The world of finance hangs on ex-Goldman Sachs vice chairman and managing director Mario Draghi's lips almost as much as it sucks up to Ben Bernanke's Jackson Hole. Central bankers become ever more important simply because in the absence of honest profits they are the only source of money left standing. If you can't make it, fake it.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Enlightenment: Hawking, Einstein and Newton / Politics / Social Issues
By: DK_Matai
As a giant flaming orb descended from the heavens, Prof Stephen Hawking's instantly recognisable computerised voice boomed through the London Paralympics arena and offered some choice words of wisdom. The renowned astrophysicist – a man who has never let his immobility hold him back – wheeled on to centre stage during the extravaganza dubbed 'Enlightenment' as he guided his audience through a 'journey of discovery of the wonder of science' and implored the world:
Sunday, August 26, 2012
The Olympics, Comparative Advantage, Competition and the Value of Winning / Politics / Social Issues
By: MISES
Gary M. Galles writes: We have just finished our quadrennial search for who is the very best in the world in a dizzying array of sports. We discovered who was absolutely the best at a given time, under the same circumstances, even if it was by a fraction of an inch or a hundredth of a second. But, especially in those photo finishes that provided audiences so many thrills, it seemed that the differences in rewards (gold versus silver medal, bronze medal versus off the medal stand, making the team or the finals versus just missing them, etc.) were far greater than the often small differences in performance.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
What Do the Rise and Fall of Empires Suggest? / Politics / Social Issues
By: DK_Matai
The summer respite is an interesting time to read history and to reflect on the lessons to be learned from empires long gone in preparation for empires yet to come. As the British Prime Minister William Pitt, the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine, and the Baron Acton said in different ways: "All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely!" The greatest mistake, oft repeated by those in power throughout history, has been the sin of "Hubris."
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Going Beyond The Global Financial Crisis, Self-Assembling Dynamic Networks / Politics / Social Issues
By: DK_Matai
2012 is a watershed year in the history of humankind. The cumulative effects of Self-Assembling Dynamic Networks or SADNs are not only changing the very nature of our existence but also the perception of each other via our unprecedented super-connectivity across communities and continents. Does this herald the end of the status quo? No-thing appears to remain the same as this contagion-of-transparency and flat-hierarchies spreads faster and faster: accelerating, assimilating and absorbing every aspect of our joint and inter-linked global existence.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Greece Suicides Epidemic, 350 Greek Tragedies in Athens in June Alone / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
You know, we can write and read and research all we want, and till we're deep dark blue in the face, about Angela Merkel and Tim Geithner and Mario Draghi or Monti and Greek heroes Samaras and Venizelos, about what they say and do from day to day, driven by political pressure and mundane issues such as bond yields. And we will continue to write, read and research these things; that's not going to stop.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Getting Rid of the World's ***** Riots, Kangaroos, Bananas and the Rule of Law / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Kangaroo Court : An unfair, biased, or hasty judicial proceeding that ends in a harsh punishment; an unauthorized trial conducted by individuals who have taken the law into their own hands, such as those put on by vigilantes or prison inmates; a proceeding and its leaders who are considered sham, corrupt, and without regard for the law.
The concept of kangaroo court dates to the early nineteenth century. Scholars trace its origin to the historical practice of itinerant judges on the U.S. frontier. These roving judges were paid on the basis of how many trials they conducted, and in some instances their salary depended on the fines from the defendants they convicted. The term kangaroo court comes from the image of these judges hopping from place to place, guided less by concern for justice than by the desire to wrap up as many trials as the day allowed.
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Saturday, August 11, 2012
London 2012 and The Real Ancient Olympic Games Gold Medal Winners / Politics / Social Issues
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Whilst virtually everyone is aware that the Olympics are an ancient Greek sporting festival, however many people may not know is that the Olympics were a religious festival held in the honour of the king of the gods, Zeus, held every 4 years that continued for over 1,100 years and which was focused on 10 main events (men only) held over a 4 day period.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
The Seductive Promises of Counterfeit CULTures / Politics / Social Issues
By: Ashvin_Pandurangi
The word "counterfeit" is defined as "an imitation intended to be passed off fraudulently or deceptively as genuine". Some counterfeits are bad and easily detectable, while others are very convincing. I would argue that the structures of modern society have evolved into almost indistinguishable counterfeits. Of course, in terms of the economic and political cultures of human societies, there must be a genuine model encompassing virtuous qualities of humanity for there to be a counterfeit of that model. So what is the genuine model?
Thursday, August 09, 2012
The Dispossessed Majority / Politics / Social Issues
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
The bumper sticker on the beat-up pickup truck read: “Friends don’t let friends vote Democrat.”
The driver was obviously not affluent. Yet, despite all the news about mega-trillion dollar bankster bailouts, mega-million dollar bonuses for financial crooks, and unimaginable compensation packages for corporate CEOs who have moved middle class jobs out of America, something made the down-and-out pickup truck driver associate with the political party of the super-rich.
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Monday, July 30, 2012
The Economics of War / Economics / Social Issues
By: Submissions
Will Dendy writes: War can end depressions, encourage the creation of new technologies and drive the human race forwards.
It is frightening to hear such complete fallacies as these becoming increasingly repeated by so-called intelligent and educated people. In the long term, war creates nothing more than destruction, despair and a retardation of the progress of the human race. In this essay, I will dispel the two biggest fallacies regarding war, and suggest far better ways to cure problems than blowing other people apart.
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Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Focus on the 20% Because You Can Replace Lost Money But Not Lost Time / Politics / Social Issues
By: Gary_North
If this were a law firm, you would be wise to hire another.
I define puttering as follows: "Unsystematic work that fills time without accomplishing much output." I define frittering as follows: "The refusal to take advantage of opportunities that have been placed in your hand."
I have known some very successful people over the years. Some have been rich. Others have been influential. All of them have had this in common. They have not puttered. They have also not frittered.
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Thursday, July 12, 2012
From Each According to His Inability, To Each According to His Greed / Politics / Social Issues
By: Ashvin_Pandurangi
I think the one recurring question that has been on everyone's minds since at least 2008-09 is - what will the government do? We all know what the large private corporations and high-level bankers are going to do - they are going to lie, cheat, scheme and steal their way into whatever forms of wealth and control they can get their grubby little hands on (see the Libor scandal for the most recent example). But then we must ask whether the government is going to help them do those things and how exactly they are going to help. After four painful years of betrayal, the answer to the first part of that question seems to be a resounding YES.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Manchester Airport Terminal 1 Arrivals Suspected Laser Blinding Attack, Public Safety Warning / Local / Social Issues
By: N_Walayat
An epidemic of laser attacks on passenger air-liners during landing at Manchester and other airports has resulted in a firm police response in tracking down, arresting and successfully prosecuting the culprits who usually turn out to be local yobs.
However such firm police action may not go so far in protecting and acting on incidence involving the general public at least at Manchester Airport as recent experience illustrates.
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