Future Shock Term[edit] Toffler argued that society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a "super-industrial society". This change overwhelms people. He believed the accelerated rate of technological and social change left people disconnected and suffering from "shattering stress and disorientation"—future shocked. In the introduction to an essay entitled "Future Shlock" in his book, Conscientious Objections, Neil Postman wrote: "Sometime about the middle of 1963, my colleague Charles Weingartner and I delivered in tandem an address to the National Council of Teachers of English. Development of society and production[edit] Alvin Toffler distinguished three stages in development of society and production: Agrarian, Industrial and Post-industrial. The first stage began in the period of the Neolithic Era when people invented agriculture therefore people passed from barbarity to a civilization. Fear of the future[edit] A generic, disposable lighter.
L'Observatoire des Tendances The Great Debate Contributors: Matt Ridley The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves Matt Ridley turns from investigating human nature to investigating human progress. In The Rational Optimist Ridley offers a counterblast to the prevailing pessimism of our age, and proves, however much we like to think to the contrary, that things are getting better. Over 10,000 years ago there were fewer than 10 million people on the planet. The availability of almost everything a person could want or need has been going erratically upwards for 10,000 years and has rapidly accelerated over the last 200 years: calories; vitamins; clean water; machines; privacy; the means to travel faster than we can run, and the ability to communicate over longer distances than we can shout. In this original, optimistic book, Matt Ridley puts forward his surprisingly simple answer to how humans progress, arguing that we progress when we trade and we only really trade productively when we trust each other. Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code
Fracture numérique : 25% des Français n’ont pas accès à Internet L’Observatoire des Inégalités, organisme indépendant d’information et d’analyse sur les inégalités, a mis en ligne début mai 2012 un dossier sur la fracture numérique en France intitulé Technologies de l’information : des inégalités qui se réduisent avec des données, chiffrages et pourcentages issus du dernier rapport annuel du CREDOC : La diffusion des technologies de l’information et de la communication dans la société française (2011). L’organisme souligne des points-clés sur l’équipement et l’accès français à l’informatique, à l’Internet et aux outils connectés. Diminution des inégalités d’accès 85 % des Français possèdent un téléphone portable, 78 % ont un micro-ordinateur et 75 % sont équipés d’Internet à domicile. La situation s’améliore pour les populations les moins diplômées : entre 2001 et 2009, le taux d’accès à Internet à domicile a été multiplié par 6,8 passant de 8 à 54 % chez ceux qui ont un diplôme inférieur au bac. Des disparités persistantes Licence :
Knowledge Management and the Smarter Lawyer Stand Up for Owners' Rights If you buy something, you can do with it—and do away with it—as you want. Right? The digital age is challenging this most basic of expectations in a few ways, and EFF and its allies are on the lookout. EFF has signed on to the Citizens' Petition for Ownership Rights, urging the U.S. government and the courts to protect our basic assumption that if you buy it, you own it, and can dispose of it as you please. The petition was prompted by Kirtsaeng v. In Kirtsaeng, the U.S. This decision gives copyright owners the ability to shut off markets for used copies, just by moving physical manufacturing abroad. The defendant (and EFF) asked the Supreme Court to review the case, and the Court agreed. Kirtsaeng is not the only threat to owners' rights, though. Unfortunately, several courts have ruled that this trick works. Let's tell the courts and Congress that if it looks like a sale and feels like a sale, it's a sale.
Alternative Technology Association website World population densities mapped National Geographic has a look at where and how we live: The map shows population density; the brightest points are the highest densities. Each country is colored according to its average annual gross national income per capita, using categories established by the World Bank (see key below). Some nations — like economic powerhouses China and India — have an especially wide range of incomes. It's interesting, but the map is a little wonky, because the income levels and population densities differ in granularity. There are also three other slides that follow the map (like the one below), but they're mostly just run-of-the-mill list of facts with cutesy icons to show percentages. I dunno, I'm on the fence here. [National Geographic | Thanks, Laura]
The Rise of the New Global Elite - Magazine F. Scott Fitzgerald was right when he declared the rich different from you and me. But today’s super-rich are also different from yesterday’s: more hardworking and meritocratic, but less connected to the nations that granted them opportunity—and the countrymen they are leaving ever further behind. Stephen Webster/Wonderful Machine If you happened to be watching NBC on the first Sunday morning in August last summer, you would have seen something curious. This diagnosis, though alarming, was hardly unique: drawing attention to the divide between the wealthy and everyone else has long been standard fare on the left. This widening gap between the rich and non-rich has been evident for years. In a plutonomy there is no such animal as “the U.S. consumer” or “the UK consumer”, or indeed the “Russian consumer”. Before the recession, it was relatively easy to ignore this concentration of wealth among an elite few. But the financial crisis and its long, dismal aftermath have changed all that.
I Do Not Want Mercy, I Want You To Join Me Tim DeChristopher, who was sentenced Tuesday to two years in federal prison and a $10,000 fine for 'disrupting' a Bureau of Land Management auction in 2008, had an opportunity to address the court and the judge immediately before his sentence was announced. This is his statement: "… those who write the rules are those who profit from the status quo. If we want to change that status quo, we might have to work outside of those rules because the legal pathways available to us have been structured precisely to make sure we don’t make any substantial change." Thank you for the opportunity to speak before the court. Mr. There are alternating characterizations that Mr Huber would like you to believe about me. In nearly every paragraph, the government’s memorandum uses the words lie, lied, lying, liar. Mr Huber also makes grand assumptions about my level of respect for the rule of law. But here is the important point that Mr Huber would rather ignore.
Nanointervencionismo » Destaque » Instituto Millenium O Estado encontra-se em pronunciada transição. Transformam-se a matriz francesa de divisão entre poderes e o modelo anglo-americano de freios e contrapesos (checks and balances). Hoje, em diferentes nações, o Executivo julga. O Legislativo executa. O espectro esquerda-direita, a nós legado pelos “Estados Gerais” que antecederam a Revolução Francesa, é demasiado simplificador. O liberalismo econômico se confunde com o renascimento keynesiano no âmago da Grande Recessão de 2008. Tamanho ou coloração ideológica do Estado são menos importantes para comunidades que se querem prósperas, justas e livres. Em muitos países, entre eles o Brasil, o esvanecimento de macro-objetivos ideológicos, que povoaram sonhos políticos, tem esvaziado agendas mais ambiciosas. Nos últimos 10 anos, o Brasil editou cerca de 4 milhões de normas. A esfera individual, célula-mãe da noção de “Ocidente”, passa a gravitar em torno do Estado. O Estado hipercodificador é economicamente ilógico.
Como se tornar um líder do século 21 A julgar pelo que se diz no mundo dos negócios, uma revolução libertadora está a caminho. “Deem ordens ao seu chefe o quanto antes; experimentem fazer isso logo no início. Se ele for o tipo certo de chefe, nada o agradará mais; se não for, ele não é a pessoa certa com quem vocês devam ficar”, afirmou um dos maiores nomes da siderurgia mundial. “Todo esse falatório sobre supergênios é besteira. Descobri que quando as estrelas vão embora, raramente seus departamentos sofrem”, adicionou um de seus pares. “Um empregador está sempre procurando mentes questionadoras”, disse o herdeiro de um dos grandes impérios automobilísticos. O discurso libertário criou mofo faz tempo nas bibliotecas corporativas, mas o modelo autoritário de liderança dá sinais reais de esgotamento e algo novo começa, finalmente, a ser erguido em seu lugar. Recém-saídas de um torpor de décadas para uma recessão global, muitas companhias se deram conta de que são comandadas por líderes do século passado.
Admit complexity: a few takeaways from MSF’s “Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed” « Find What Works I snagged a free copy of a recent volume published by Médecins Sans Frontières (aka Doctors Without Borders). Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: The MSF Experience is a series of case studies from a range of humanitarian contexts, combined with a few essays that take broader looks at how MSF’s approach has evolved over the years. The value of this book stems from the willingness of current and former MSF leaders to take a critical look at how they’ve dealt with incredibly difficult situations over the years. Admitting failure is for sissies. Much of the complexity discussed in the book arises from the politics of delivering aid. Even logistics gets political. Hiring a car in Somalia results in a series of compromises. If getting a car is that hard, imagine what happens when you start providing medical care. The book delves into how MSF has responded to the increasingly confused boundary between civil/humanitarian organizations and military action. (Emphasis mine.) Where to get it: