Human Race Project
It is time for humanity to wake up, unite itself, and take responsibility for its actions. This pearltree documents content I find useful in building global awareness of human problems and in finding solutions to those problems. No problem is too small, no problem is too big for the Human Race. This is the first time in human history that we have the opportunity to end poverty and disease and war, perhaps even to end death and make a future for ourselves and our descendents that is whatever we want it to be. If your cause is the human cause, will you join me in curating this tree? Feb 9
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'Focus on the concrete steps we can take now' ABHIJIT BANERJEE AND ESTHER DUFLO
Ending global poverty: the fight goes on | Society | The Observer
Right-wing dreams of demented utopias
Two decades have passed since I began my gradual and reluctant break with the conservative movement, in which I had been a protégé of the late William F.I too found the nuclear angle compelling. The forces of nature meet human hubris and the terror of the unchained atom. There was human drama, the whiff of cover-ups, institutional incompetence, heroism (the famous Fukushima 50), and pretty soon an international angle as “deadly clouds of radiation” formed (which turned out to be nothing of the sort). Soon we journalists became versed in the terminology of nuclear disaster – sieverts and millisieverts, the difference between pressurised and boiling water reactors, the half-lives of various isotopes of caesium and iodine. It was at this point, at around day three, that I realised that something had gone seriously wrong with the reporting of the biggest natural disaster to hit a major industrialised nation for a century.
The world has forgotten the real victims of Fukushima
While Average Lifespans Increase, 114 Remains A Stubborn And Mysterious Upper Bound. Why?
Ray Kurzweil predicts that in the coming decades the term “life expectancy” will become irrelevant. By then medical advances and nanotechnology will be such effective tools with which to repair our bodies as they break down with age it will be as simple as car repair, changing out old parts for new and getting us back on the road again. Indefinitely. Even without the breakthrough technologies that allow us to regrow organs or reprogram faulty genes technological advances are making their imprint on our longevity. But a puzzling part to the equation has emerged. While humans are in fact living longer lives on average, the oldest age that the oldest people reach seems to be stubbornly and oddly precisely cemented right at 114 .
EcoAlert: Urban Sprawl! --Welcome to the 'Anthropocene Epoch'
Every week humans create the equivalent of a city the size of Vancouver. No one can realistically argue that humans haven’t dramatically transformed the face of the planet. But now scientists propose that humankind has so altered the Earth that that we have brought about an end to one epoch and entered a new age. They suggest humans have so changed the Earth that it’s time the Holocene epoch was officially ended.
Abundance vs disruption: dramatically different views of the future
At this month's TED conference, there was animated debate between two sharply differing views of the future. ONE: The future will be one of scarcity and disruption . Economic growth has run up against the limits of what our planet can offer. TWO: The future will be one of abundance , driven by technological innovation. We're only just starting to tap human potential.
Can Open Government Be Gamed?
If information is power, the first step to gaining power is to get the right data. The Obama administration is a big proponent of opening up government data and making it digitally available. Today at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City, the government’s new chief information officer Vivek Kundra announced USAspending.gov , a new site which launched today that tracks government spending with charts and lists ranking the largest government contractors (Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, etc.) and assistance recipients (Department of Healthcare Services, New York State Dept. of Health, Texas Health & Human Services Commission, etc.).
There’s a problem with elected leadership, but it’s not a problem caused by the people in power.
The Problem with Elected Leadership
William Short had been Jefferson's Private Secretary when he was Minister in Paris, 1786-1789. They were neighbors in central Virgina, Short living in the Village of Shadwell. Monticello, October 31, 1819
LETTER: Thomas Jefferson to William Short
Toxic atheism drives people apart
I had never heard the word “faitheist” before, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t a compliment.
There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, and Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion. If the evil carnage we witnessed on Sept. 11 were typical of the faith, and Islam truly inspired and justified such violence, its growth and the increasing presence of Muslims in both Europe and the U.S. would be a terrifying prospect. Fortunately, this is not the case. [an error occurred while processing this directive] The very word Islam, which means "surrender," is related to the Arabic salam, or peace.
The True, Peaceful Face Of Islam
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ISLAM
Article 431Why isn’t that a law? You may have muttered this phrase or heard someone else say it out of frustration, but chances are that question has popped up in conversation in one form or another. It’s the universal plight of citizens to feel underrepresented by their government, expressing their frustration at what is and isn’t legal.
Finland’s Next Laws To Emerge From Online Crowdsourced Proposals
Vote the Greater Good, Not the Lesser Evil
… ever more elections, and ever less democracy… – Michael K. SmithDoes TV actually brainwash Americans?
Historically, television viewing has been used by various authorities to quiet potentially disruptive people—from kids, to psychiatric inpatients, to prison inmates. In 1992, Newsweek (“ Hooking Up at the Big House ”) reported, “Faced with severe overcrowding and limited budgets for rehabilitation and counseling, more and more prison officials are using TV to keep inmates quiet.”Veganism
Activism
Efficiency
Philosophy & Religion
Poverty