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Transhumanity.net

Economy

‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’: What it means and how to respond

26th April 2016

Klaus Schwab writes: A technological revolution is fundamentally altering the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, its unlike anything humankind has experienced before. We do not yet know just how it will unfold, but the response to it must involve all stakeholders of the global polity….

Mashable.com

Education/Awareness

Everything you know about Artificial Intelligence is wrong

21st April 2016

George Dvorsky writes: Last year, SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk warned that Artificial Intelligence could “take over the world”. The day when machines become smarter than humans has never appeared closer— yet we seem no closer in grasping the implications of this epochal event. Indeed, we are clinging to some serious—and even dangerous—misconceptions about artificial intelligence….

Charterforcompassion.org

Economy

Reform is not enough to stem the rising tide of inequality worldwide

William Robinson writes: The celebrated economist Thomas Piketty has argued for a global tax on capital and redistribution through tax reform. This reformist approach to global inequality is entirely inadequate because it bypasses the questions of power and of corporate control over the planet’s productive resources that are at the very heart of global capitalism and its crisis….

"The Logic of Neo-Liberalism"

John Ledger

Bookshelf

Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems

18th April 2016

George Monbiot writes: So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom recognise it as an ideology. We accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power….

Bookshelf

Cars, Capitalism and India

12th April 2016

Vidhyadhar Date writes: A developed country is not one where the poor drive cars, but one where the rich use public transport. Building more roads to reduce congestion is like trying to put out a fire with petrol. India has failed to learn from developed countries’ mistakes and is on a disastrous path of motorization….

INDIA

Techno-fascism in the 21st century

5th April 2016

Jayati Ghosh writes: Fascism in the 21st century does have some new features, which are also common to at least some of the countries that are currently experiencing it. They are largely related to the possibilities generated by new technologies, especially communication and surveillance technologies, which are increasingly being used by governments with fascist inclinations….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Digest: Climate crisis and the myth of ‘green’ capitalism

29th March 2016

Much of the mainstream media, corporate lobbyists and politicians would like the public to think of climate change as something akin to a natural phenomenon. In this second part of our series on Capitalism and Climate Change, we present a selection of articles that examine the deep-seated connections between climate change and a rapacious global economic order….

Bookshelf

Bookshelf: Shrinking the Technosphere by Dmitry Orlov

18th March 2016

My hypothesis—let’s call it the Technospheratu hypothesis—is that the technosphere, having risen up on top of and in opposition to Gaia and the biosphere, possesses a certain primitive emergent intelligence that allows it to grow in complexity and power and to dominate the biosphere to an ever-greater extent. Unlike Gaia, it is a parasite upon the biosphere….

Ratan Tata at the Bangalore Aero Show, 2013. The Tata Group is a major player in both mining and defence manufacturing.

Development/Growth

India’s rising Corporate-Military Complex: A critical appraisal

15th March 2016

Rahul Varman writes: Bauxite or iron mines are opened up by grabbing people’s lands and homes against great resistance, and UAVs and other increasingly sophisticated weapons are used to quell this resistance. The corporate sector benefits both from the mining, as well as the demand for weapons, demand which is independent of the vagaries of the market system….

Development/Growth

Video & Report: Is India’s 100 smart cities project a recipe for social apartheid?

9th March 2016

Shruti Ravindran reports: In a monograph for a conference on smart cities, the economist and consultant Laveesh Bhandari described smart cities as “special enclaves” that would use prohibitive prices and harsh policing to exclude “millions of poor Indians… For if we do not keep them out, they will override our ability to maintain such infrastructure.”…

Economy

M.S. Swaminathan: The WTO has paved the way for famines of the future

26th December 2015

Dr. M.S. Swaminathan writes: It’s unfortunate that industrialised nations are so inward looking in the area of agricultural trade, particularly since hardly 2 to 3% of their population depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Nairobi has paved the way for famines of the future. (Also read: Digest of articles on the recently concluded WTO talks)…

Digests/Specials

Digest: What the WTO talks at Nairobi mean for Indian agriculture

25th December 2015

Commentator Biraj Patnaik writes: Nirmala Sitharaman gave the world a good illustration of crocodile tears. She was at the centre of the negotiations and walked away with little more than assurances of pious intent, after conceding to the core US demand to drop the re-affirmation of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) from the ministerial declaration….

CLIMATE CRISIS

The corporates bankrolling the Paris climate talks

1st December 2015

Inviting major polluters to pay for the talks compared to ‘hiring a fox to guard a hen house’ Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams From financial giant BNP Paribas to fossil fuels company Engie, the same corporations that deny science and drive carbon pollution are now sponsoring, co-opting, and interfering with the upcoming United Nations climate talks…

Bookshelf

Book: The Secure and the Dispossessed

7th November 2015

(Note: This new book asks, and attempts to answer, the crucial question: What if government and corporate elites have given up on stopping climate change and prefer to try to manage its consequences instead?) The Secure and the Dispossessed: How the Military and Corporations Are Shaping a Climate-Changed World Edited by Nick Buxton and Ben…

ALTERNATIVES

Pope Francis’ Encyclical on Climate Change – Selected Excerpts

20th June 2015

The Encyclical by Pope Francis is being hailed by environmentalists as the second coming. It’s hardly that, in my view. Nonetheless, I was struck within minutes of starting it, by the incisive and accurate commentary it offers on our true predicament. Here are some passages that resonated with me and that I found highly insightful. Manu…

Conflict/Dispossession

Narendra Modi’s war on the environment

15th April 2015

Rohini Mohan reports: In under a year, the Modi government has begun to undo policies of fair land acquisition, undermine environmental protection and reverse the fight for tribal rights. The finance, environment and rural-development ministers, and Modi himself, have called these safeguards to protect people’s property, the environment and tribal rights “roadblocks” to economic growth….

CLIMATE CRISIS

News update

4th November 2014

Why the Fracking Phenomenon Will Leave Us High and Dry Asher Miller, Post Carbon Institute A new, landmark report shows that hopes of a long-term golden era in American oil & gas production are unfounded. Eight Pieces of Our Oil Price Predicament Gail Tverberg A person might think that oil prices would be fairly stable. Prices would…

Conflict/Dispossession

Rohini Mohan: The Modi Government’s war on environment

15th October 2014

Basudev Mahapatra writes: Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, has “delinked forest clearance from clearance by the National Wild Life Board and halved NBWL clearance requirements from 10km to 5km around forest reserves, besides emasculating the Board by replacing eminent experts and concerned NGOs with rubber stamps. He has also relaxed procedures of the Forest Conservation Act….

Conflict/Dispossession

Modi and the Environment: The 100 day report

28th September 2014

Basic protections to safeguard the environment, that were not particularly strong to begin with, are being wiped out. While in general, faster moving transparent government processes are required, the Modi government’s predilection for protecting private corporations at the expense of public welfare, does not bode well for the environment nor the well-being of India’s peoples….

Development/Growth

11 environmental disasters Narendra Modi blessed in his first 100 days

29th August 2014

Jay Mazoomdar writes: Narendra Modi does mean business. So his government has gone about eliminating the policy paralyses that many claimed ailed the previous regime. This meant dismantling roadblocks that hamper economic growth. But here is what also happens to be under fire: laws and rules that safeguard India’s environment, forests, wildlife, and tribal rights….