Twisting News

Tags

economy, fake news, Kaczynski, Poland, Trump, USA

It is definitely not news what I noticed recently, but it is something worth being aware of: a lot of so-called news are either fake, or are being twisted towards whoever broadcasts them. One of the areas where that happens a lot recently is economy.

Economy (and I am talking here country economy) is like a big super tanker on the sea. You cannot turn it around on a dime. You cannot stop it whenever you wish. When you turn your steering wheel, it takes some time before tanker reacts. Too much speed, and you end up destroying the port. Too little, and you will never get there. Currents and wind (respective world trends) can help you out or not.

Unfortunately people in general believe what politicos advertise as their success, although in fact it comes from their predecessors. Economy happens to react to changes with some delay, as that big tanker – make a decision today, reap benefits in some years. Or deal with grave consequences in some years. So populists use past decisions resulting in today’s success in their respective countries as their doing. Poland is one example, US is the other.

Trump is using trends in world economy as his doing. Most of the corporate decisions (especially in public companies) are not spur of the moment things, it is not so that on Monday someone decides to build a factory in the USA and on Tuesday same week construction work starts. Mostly those decisions are being carefully prepared. That takes time, often years. People making those decisions (usually groups of them) consider trends and each one is still a risk. Some fail, some don’t. Those which don’t are being advertised as result of something that Trump did. He didn’t. His decisions will show their consequences in years to come, when other president will have to deal with them.

Same in Poland. Mr Kaczynski and his propaganda use current trends in Polish economy as a result of changes he introduces. Not true. Fake news and twisting news to own advantage can only be seen from historical perspective, not from today’s media news. Result of those changes will be seen possibly after current government. It may very well be that those will give good reason for that new government to become unpopular.

Not many people think that way. What counts, is today. Forget the future and the fact where the country goes. Different thinking is required – I dare say, thinking as such is required. People, start thinking. Please.

 

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Book of All Years

Tags

book, Cultures and Organizations, Hofstede, Merkel, Minkov

Just finished what I consider the best book for current times, a book which everyone – especially people living in Europe in times of refugees – should read. Ms. Merkel especially. She should actually be required to read it five times. Aloud.

It is a book where I wish I could memorize more and if I will ever read any book again, this should be the one. Will be the one.

The book is called “Cultures and Organizations” by Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede and Michael Minkov. It is so famous that I will not bore you with my unprofessional analysis of its content (a summary of one of the previous editions can be found here). Believe me though when I tell you that it does explain why a lot of policies considering immigrants fail. Not only that – it gives you very good reason to expect that current refugee crisis in Europe and political program related to it will fail too. And may even end up in violence. Reading that book maybe will not help you to avoid that, but it will help you understand and in some cases, it may stop some nonsense. Hope springs eternal.

Trump. Paris. Moscow.

Tags

coal, gas, green, oil, Paris, Putin, Trump

I am sure a lot of people wrote something recently about the biggest idiot of a president of the United States history in relation to his (confused) backing out of Paris treaty. I didn’t expect anything else from advocate of fake news – he will be convincing you that global warming does not exist and best for you for breakfast is a bit of coal garnished with oil. Well, if you believe him, you deserve it.

I looked at those news from another angle, namely through the Russian involvement in election affair. It may be far-fetched, but maybe it is not: Russian economy survives practically only because of oil and gas reserves, not mentioning vast amounts of coal. On top of that Russia is way behind in new technologies, it would need a lot of catching up which would mean investment. Now imagine that demand for oil goes down because bunch of countries (including biggest pollutants) are now going green. Russia has a problem. No money for new technologies… and no money from oil to fill budget coffers.

And here is the catch: Trump gave Russia fantastic way out of it. Russia can now count on demand staying at least steady for a while when at the same time it can support Paris agreement. Trump is bad boy. Not so long ago Putin told the world that a group of patriotic Russian hackers may have attacked US election. Patriotic? Is this not a definition of defending interests of own country?

Strange world we live in.

12 Questions About Future

Tags

12 questions about future, article, BBC, future, future of mankind, Magazine

BBC online version has interesting article here: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170328-12-questions-we-need-to-prioritise-in-2017, and below is my summary 🙂

1. HOW CAN WE AVOID RESISTANCE TO ANTIBIOTICS?
2. WHAT CAN WE DO TO CONSERVE WATER — ESPECIALLY IN THE FACE OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND URBANISATION?
3. HOW DO WE FIGHT ‘FAKE NEWS’?

This is truly a very interesting question (not that the first two are not important). How do we tell the difference between real reality and the one made for us? Where there is a line between what we believe to be true because of whatever, and what is really true? Populism uses many tools today to make fake news and people believe in them…

4. IN AN INTERCONNECTED WORLD, HOW DO WE FIGHT GLOBAL DISEASE?

5. HOW WILL WE DEAL WITH OVERPOPULATION?

6. HOW WILL THE ERA OF BIG DATA AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SHAPE OUR HEALTH?

7. HOW CAN WE SAFELY USE GENE EDITING TECHNOLOGY IN HUMANS?

8. HOW DO WE MAKE CITIES MORE SUSTAINABLE AND PLEASANT FOR THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE ?

9. HOW CAN WE KEEP EXTENDING OUR LIFE EXPECTANCIES?

This one stands out too, especially now. Living longer is one thing, living productively and purposefully is another. I will get back to it below.

10. HOW CAN RAPIDLY DEVELOPING REGIONS GROW EFFECTIVELY?

11. HOW CAN WE BETTER INFORM PEOPLE ABOUT NATURAL DISASTERS?

12. CAR OWNERSHIP CONTINUES TO RISE WORLDWIDE — HOW WILL WE ACCOMMODATE THIS?

And that is the whole list. I am somewhat disappointed that one question is missing:

HOW DO WE GUARANTEE JOBS TO PEOPLE IN AGE OF AUTOMATION?

It ties in with getting older and somewhat touches on car ownership, as this is the first area with such a visible impact where automation is likely to displace millions of jobs within next 20 years or so. Truck drivers, taxis, post office vehicles all have humans behind a wheel. Soon not to be so. Of course many other jobs are in danger, jobs which do not require university diplomas to be executed. What are going to do with those people? Who will keep paying to support ageing population? This for me is one of the most pressing questions where time runs out for an answer… and it did not show up in BBC article.

Popular Demand

Tags

AI, decisions, future, jobs, laws, populism, technology

Today world is full of populist pseudo-leaders using rhetoric people like to hear but offering no real solutions to problems. It is so easy to promise to build a wall, so easy to close borders. It is more difficult to fix the underlying causes of immigration. Politics became a game of thrones – who will get the seat to gain power, wealth, name in history. Reality though does not care, wheel of time moves unaffected by all this noise. There are issues out there not one of the leaders is even mentally ready to fix. World today changes because of technology and capitalism. Income gap is a reality pushing people for change, without really knowing what change they really want. They want different reality. But hey, it will not come by itself.

What needs to be done is not easy, involves tough choices and consequence. A lot of thinking and preparation. Technology threatens to remove a lot of jobs: driver-less cars will kill Uber, taxis, truck drivers and with it all mail or milk or post deliveries. This in itself represents great number of people. Robots replace manual labour. AI removes secretaries or assistants. Capitalism means producing goods cheaper and cheaper to beat competition, but that in assumption that someone is still out there to be able to buy those goods. If technology will remove jobs, who will buy those goods produced at near zero costs? Many of us will get by, but will have not enough to retire in comfort. We are, as humanity, getting older. Who will support us?

This is not to say that capitalism is bad. It drives a lot of inventions, if not all. But we need to come up with an idea how to share that additional value made without being communist about it. We need to divide income in a better way, without giving it away. We need to tackle those issues first. World is so interconnected today, that it moves like water. Rich economies attract poorer ones, as in nature trying to reach balance. We can either leave it to chaos, or try to control it using some measures. It is clear that some will gain without giving, but many more will gain and give, loosing at the same time reasons to emigrate. I don’t know what will work, simple giving money away may not be a solution. But this is what leaders should think about. The rest is just a circus and sometimes we laugh until we cry.