World future

-05/14/content_740876.htm”>China Today from May 2017 carries the main catchwords from a peace and security viewpoint: • win-win • inclusiveness • vision-based • anti-war • pro-peace (constructive) • respect for sovereignty of states • cooperative structures • common security • interconnectedness • benefits to all • respect for each other’s development path (diversity) • sharing And here some excerpts also from China Today in 2017: “As some western countries move backwards by erecting “walls,” China is contriving to build bridges, both literal and metaphorical. These bridges are China’s important offering to the world, and a key route to improving global governance. Proposed by China, the Belt and Road is for all to enjoy.” “China is not willing or able to replace or replicate the vast web of political and economic tendrils maintained by the United States, but China is trying to take the current structure and build from it a more...

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By William Bowles • Before I began this essay I read through some of my past forays that mentioned climate change and capitalism, the first I think, being in 2006 where I opined in a piece on the ‘War on Terror’: Perhaps the impending climate catastrophe as well as the genocidal actions of the US will force us to finally start thinking and acting ‘outside of the box’ but without a clear idea of where we are heading or how to get there, currently the situation looks dire. — WOT is to be done? 2 November, 2006 In the intervening years, things have gotten even more dire on pretty much every front. It appears that the world’s political and business elite are even more entrenched inside their box. Except, we do know what has to be done, so why, in the face of the obvious, do we not act to forestall catastrophe? Original posted...

By David Kline A year ago, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi (sha-oh-me) had fallen from the world’s most valuable unicorn to a “unicorpse.” Sales plunged in 2016, pushing the company from first to fifth place among China’s smartphone makers. No firm had ever come back from a wound that severe in the trench warfare of the global smartphone business. Today, Xiaomi is being called a “Chinese phoenix.” The company has grown so fast in the past year that research firm Strategy Analytics says Xiaomi could overtake Oppo, Huawei, and Apple in the next year to become the world’s second-largest smartphone vendor, behind Samsung. Executives are reportedly considering an IPO in 2018, which could be among the highest-valued ever. Via wired.com The comeback has made Xiaomi a poster child for China’s entrepreneurial dynamism. More than 10,000 new businesses are started every day in China – that’s seven Chinese startups born each minute....

Jan Oberg comments: This is certainly important, although there are limits to what António Guterres can say. I wish he would have said “reduction of all kinds of violence” or emphasised the UN Charter’s Article one that says that peace shall be built by peaceful means. But anyhow – I applaud him for speaking up on December 31, 2017.

  By John S. Uebersax • Pitirim Sorokin, a leading 20th century sociologist, is someone you should know about. Consider this quote of his: The organism of the Western society and culture seems to be undergoing one of the deepest and most significant crises of its life. The crisis is far greater than the ordinary; its depth is unfathomable, its end not yet in sight, and the whole of the Western society is involved in it. It is the crisis of a Sensate culture, now in its overripe stage, the culture that has dominated the Western World during the last five centuries… Via wordpress.com Shall we wonder, therefore, that if many do not apprehend clearly what is happening, they have at least a vague feeling that the issue is not merely that of “prosperity,” or “democracy,” or “capitalism,” or the like, but involves the whole contemporary culture, society, and man?...

By Richard Falk • Prefatory Note -This post addresses the need for dialogue with the political, economic, and cultural ‘other,’ that is, those multitudes acutely alienated from and angry with secular globalism and the Enlightenment legacy often equated with ‘modernity’ and ‘modernization.’ At the core is a search for closure on the nature of reality as well as feelings about equity (given many dimensions of inequality) and ethical innovation (revisionist approaches to gender, sexuality, marriage). Does reason or faith or tradition provide greater closure? Can the Thomistic grand synthesis of the 13th Century be repeated under 21st Century condition in the rough waters of controversy generated by Trump and Trumpism? Is this too Western a way of putting the problem? I write as an American, but there are many parallels in other countries. The first step is to admit being out of touch with the ferment below the surface. A...

By Justin Brown December 31, 2016 As 2016 comes to a close, many people are welcoming the new year with trepidation after a number of incredibly transformative and surprising events during the year. We saw the people of the United Kingdom decide to leave Europe in the Brexit vote. The USA went to the polls in November after a bitter presidential campaign to vote into power former reality television star Donald Trump. 2016 also seems to be the year the music died. In addition to Bowie, Prince, Glenn Frey, Leonard Cohen, Rick Parfitt and George Michael also passed away. Via ideapod.com Towards the end of 2016, President-elect Trump alarmed many by seemingly advocating for a further nuclear arms build up. The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016...

Portrait of a TFF Associate • John Scales Avery is a theoretical chemist at the University of Copenhagen. He is noted for his books and research publications in quantum chemistry, thermodynamics, evolution, and history of science. His 2003 book Information Theory and Evolution set forth the view that the phenomenon of life, including its origin, evolution, as well as human cultural evolution, has its background situated in the fields of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and information theory. Since 1990 he has been the Chairman of the Danish National Group of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. Between 2004 and 2015 he also served as Chairman of the Danish Peace Academy. He founded the Journal of Bioenergetics and Biomembranes, and was for many years its Managing Editor. He also served as Technical Advisor to the World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe (1988-1997). A complete list of books and many of...

By Roberto Savio Human Wrongs Watch • Rome, Dec 27, 2017 – On 20 December, Europe’s 28 Ministers of Environment met in Brussels, to discuss the plan for reducing emissions prepared by the Commission, to comply with the Paris Agreement on climate change. Well, it is now clear that we have lost the battle in keeping the planet as we have known it. Now, of course, this can be considered a personal opinion of mine, devoid of objectivity. Via human-wrongs-watch.net Therefore, I will bring a lot of data, history and facts, to make it concrete. Data and facts have good value: they focus any debate, while ideas do not. So those who do not like facts, please stop reading here. You will escape a boring article, as probably all of mine are, because I am not looking to entertain, but to create awareness. If you stop reading, you will also...

  • China is embracing megaprojects at an unprecedented rate and will – over the course of a few decades – complete a phase of infrastructure that will rival what the United States has built in its entire history.     You may also like to see this on Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware Or this on Shenzhen: City of the future. The high-tech life of China’s Silicon Valley.   Jan Oberg comments: Fascinating and perhaps frightening too. But we in the West have to become more interested in what happens outside our own cultural sphere. We won’t be the center of the world much longer – if we ever were.

By Metafutures • Welcome to Metafuture Metafuture is an educational think tank which explores futures-oriented issues. Our approach to futures thinking and practice (theories, methods, tools and processes) is based on the “Six Pillars” model which inquires into alternative and preferred futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. Library Free material – published articles, book chapters, … Free material – published articles, book chapters, reports and theses – by Metafuture associated futures-oriented scholars. Search by author or topic. Books and ebooks. Titles include: What Works: Case Studies in the Practice of Foresight (2015) and CLA 2.0: Transformative Research in Theory and Practice (2015). A list of organisations and conferences that Metafuture has delivered speeches, workshops and research reports. Requisting a speech, course, workshop and training. Videos of our presentations on a number of topics, such as Causal layered analysis, City futures, and What works in futures studies. The...