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GT2035: The Next Global Trends Report

Discuss research and forecasts regarding hydrocarbon depletion.

Re: GT2035: The Next Global Trends Report

Unread postby vox_mundi » Sat 14 Jan 2017, 19:43:12

World Report 2017: Demagogues Threaten Human Rights

(Washington, DC) – The rise of populist leaders in the United States and Europe poses a dangerous threat to basic rights protections while encouraging abuse by autocrats around the world, Human Rights Watch said today in launching its World Report 2017. Donald Trump’s election as US president after a campaign fomenting hatred and intolerance, and the rising influence of political parties in Europe that reject universal rights, have put the postwar human rights system at risk

Meanwhile, strongman leaders in Russia, Turkey, the Philippines, and China have substituted their own authority, rather than accountable government and the rule of law, as a guarantor of prosperity and security. These converging trends, bolstered by propaganda operations that denigrate legal standards and disdain factual analysis, directly challenge the laws and institutions that promote dignity, tolerance, and equality, Human Rights Watch said.

“The rise of populism poses a profound threat to human rights,” Roth said. “Trump and various politicians in Europe seek power through appeals to racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and nativism. They all claim that the public accepts violations of human rights as supposedly necessary to secure jobs, avoid cultural change, or prevent terrorist attacks. In fact, disregard for human rights offers the likeliest route to tyranny.”
“We forget at our peril the demagogues of the past: the fascists, communists, and their ilk who claimed privileged insight into the majority’s interest but ended up crushing the individual,” ... “When populists treat rights as obstacles to their vision of the majority will, it is only a matter of time before they turn on those who disagree with their agenda.”

Roth cited Trump’s presidential campaign in the US as a vivid illustration of the politics of intolerance. He said that Trump responded to those discontented with their economic situation and an increasingly multicultural society with rhetoric that rejected basic principles of dignity and equality. His campaign floated proposals that would harm millions of people, including plans to engage in massive deportations of immigrants, to curtail women’s rights and media freedoms, and to use torture. Unless Trump repudiates these proposals, his administration risks committing massive rights violations in the US and shirking a longstanding, bipartisan belief, however imperfectly applied, in a rights-based foreign policy agenda.

The populist-fueled passions of the moment tend to obscure the longer-term dangers to a society of strongman rule, Roth said. In Russia, Vladimir Putin responded to popular discontent in 2011 with a repressive agenda, including draconian restrictions on free speech and assembly, unprecedented sanctions for online dissent, and laws severely restricting independent groups. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, concerned about the slowdown in economic growth, has embarked on the most intense crackdown on dissent since the Tiananmen era.


The 15 Warnings Signs of Impending Tyranny

As tyrants take control of democracies, they typically:

1. Exaggerate their mandate to govern – claiming, for example, that they won an election by a landslide even after losing the popular vote.

2. Repeatedly claim massive voter fraud in the absence of any evidence, in order to restrict voting in subsequent elections.

3. Call anyone who opposes them “enemies.”

4. Turn the public against journalists or media outlets that criticize them, calling them “deceitful” and “scum.”

5. Hold few if any press conferences, preferring to communicate with the public directly through mass rallies and unfiltered statements.

6. Tell the public big lies, causing them to doubt the truth and to believe fictions that support the tyrants’ goals.

7. Blame economic stresses on immigrants or racial or religious minorities, and foment public bias and even violence against them.

8. Attribute acts of domestic violence to “enemies within,” and use such events as excuses to beef up internal security and limit civil liberties.

9. Threaten mass deportations, registries of religious minorities, and the banning of refugees.

10. Seek to eliminate or reduce the influence of competing centers of power, such as labor unions and opposition parties.

11. Appoint family members to high positions of authority

12. Surround themselves with their own personal security force rather than a security detail accountable to the public.

13. Put generals into top civilian posts

14. Make personal alliances with foreign dictators.

15. Draw no distinction between personal property and public property, profiteering from their public office.

Consider yourself warned.


- Shakespeare's Henry VI

CADE: Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hooped pot; shall have ten hoops and I will make it felony to drink small beer:… [A]nd when I am king, as king I will be,—

ALL: God save your majesty!

CADE: I thank you, good people: there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers and worship me their lord.

[REBEL]: The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

CADE: Nay, that I mean to do.

Those pesky lawyers for sure, although in Shakespeare's play they're also a metaphor for society's educated, the literate, the "elite" — all those who, grounded in the thorny realities of civilization, might complicate Cade's extravagant simplicities and laughable promises of overnight redresses. Coping with unpleasant realities and those who remind us of their equally unpleasant tenacity can be hard, hence Cade and his radical throng's why-didn't-we-think-of-this-before? solution: Just ignore reality in all its disagreeable forms, exterminate the realists, and conjure a utopian alternative — simple as that.


Yertle, the Commander-in-Chief

“All mine!” Yertle cried. “Oh, the things I now rule!

I’m the king of a cow! And I’m the king of a mule!

I’m the king of a house! And, what’s more, beyond that

I’m the king of a blueberry bush and a cat!

I’m Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!

For I am the ruler of all that I see!”


“Your Majesty, please… I don’t like to complain,

But down here below, we are feeling great pain.

I know, up on top you are seeing great sights,

But down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.

We turtles can’t stand it. Our shells will all crack!

Besides, we need food. We are starving!” groaned Mack.


Yertle the Turtle - Dr Seuss
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late.
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Re: GT2035: The Next Global Trends Report

Unread postby vox_mundi » Sat 11 Feb 2017, 11:44:56

World Leaders Warned of Existential Risks in New Report

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The report was carried out by the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI), which is part of the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University.

The FHI studies existential risk, which is defined by its director, Professor Nick Bostrom, as a risk "where an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential".
Three of the most pressing possible existential risks for humanity are pandemics, extreme climate change, and nuclear war.

The full report, which was supported by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, can be viewed here: http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uplo ... -01-23.pdf


How can we help the world? A flowchart

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“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late.
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Re: GT2035: The Next Global Trends Report

Unread postby onlooker » Sat 11 Feb 2017, 12:42:28

Very interesting link Vox. I however am not convinced at this point any individual or collective action can significantly change the dire outcomes set to occur. We simply have too many people on the Earth which itself guarantees a certain impact upon the Environment and Ecosystems. We also have expectation of living modern lifestyles on the part of many currently living, that is also a problem. Finally, the entire argument of us changing as a species is sadly one which has ended upon being disillusioning to many including myself. We continue to exhibit primitive urges and impulses and continue mostly separated into groups who many times do not share common attitudes and are openly belligerent or uncooperative with each other. Our primal nature seems so difficult to control and eradicate. Our intellect and loftier emotions have not been able to sufficiently downplay this more egocentric pleasure seeking and aggressive side of us. So, I see little to warrant much optimism.
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Re: GT2035: The Next Global Trends Report

Unread postby vox_mundi » Sat 11 Feb 2017, 14:19:55

onlooker wrote:Very interesting link Vox. I however am not convinced at this point any individual or collective action can significantly change the dire outcomes set to occur. We simply have too many people on the Earth which itself guarantees a certain impact upon the Environment and Ecosystems. We also have expectation of living modern lifestyles on the part of many currently living, that is also a problem. Finally, the entire argument of us changing as a species is sadly one which has ended upon being disillusioning to many including myself. We continue to exhibit primitive urges and impulses and continue mostly separated into groups who many times do not share common attitudes and are openly belligerent or uncooperative with each other. Our primal nature seems so difficult to control and eradicate. Our intellect and loftier emotions have not been able to sufficiently downplay this more egocentric pleasure seeking and aggressive side of us. So, I see little to warrant much optimism.

I concur, onlooker. On our current trajectory, most scenarios have a negative outcome.

However, the knowledge of these studies may help the survivors avoid repeating the same mistakes. (Georgia Guidestones)

Here's another interesting study on the relationship between people and the planet which shows that climate change is only one of many inter-related threats to the Earth's capacity to support human life.

Modeling sustainability: population, inequality, consumption, and bidirectional coupling of the Earth and Human Systems

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An international team of distinguished scientists, including five members of the National Academies, argues that there are critical components missing from current climate models that inform environmental, climate, and economic policies.

The article, published in the National Science Review, describes how the recent growth in resource use, land-use change, emissions, and pollution has made humanity the dominant driver of change in most of the Earth's natural systems, and how these changes, in turn, have important feedback effects on humans with costly and serious consequences.

The authors argue that current estimates of the impact of climate change do not connect human variables -- such as demographics, inequality, economic growth, and migration -- with planetary changes. This makes current models likely to miss important feedbacks in the real Earth-human system, especially those that may result in unexpected or counterintuitive outcomes.

Furthermore, the authors argue that some of the existing models are unreliable. The United Nations projections of a relatively stable population for the whole of the developed world depend, for instance, on dramatic, and highly unlikely, declines projected in a few key countries. Japan, for example, must decline by 34%, Germany by 31% and Russia by about 30% for the projected stability in total developed country population to be born out.12 In addition, countries often highlighted for their low birth rates, like Italy and Spain, are not projected to decline by even 1% for decades.

In this new research, the authors present extensive evidence of the need for a new type of model that incorporates the feedbacks that the Earth System has on humans, and propose a framework for future modeling that would serve as a more realistic guide for policymaking and sustainable development.

"Current models are likely to miss critical feedbacks in the combined Earth-Human system," said co-author Eugenia Kalnay, professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at University of Maryland. "It would be like trying to predict El Niño with a sophisticated atmospheric model but with the Sea Surface Temperatures taken from external, independent projections by, for example, the United Nations. Without including the real feedbacks, predictions for coupled systems cannot work; the model can get away from reality very quickly."
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late.
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Re: GT2035: The Next Global Trends Report

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sun 12 Feb 2017, 21:36:02

vox_mundi wrote:World Leaders Warned of Existential Risks in New Report

Three of the most pressing possible existential risks for humanity are pandemics, extreme climate change, and nuclear war.


Not a bad list. I know its out of fashion but I'd also add peak oil to the list----we still live on a finite planet and Ghawar and dozens of other giant and supergiant fields are going to peak and then rapidly dwindle in production in the near future.
Last edited by Plantagenet on Sun 12 Feb 2017, 22:26:26, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: GT2035: The Next Global Trends Report

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sun 12 Feb 2017, 22:25:42

vox_mundi wrote: World Report 2017: Demagogues Threaten Human Rights

(Washington, DC) – The rise of populist leaders in the United States and Europe poses a dangerous threat to basic rights protections while encouraging abuse by autocrats around the world, Human Rights Watch said today in launching its World Report 2017. Donald Trump’s election as US president after a campaign fomenting hatred and intolerance, and the rising influence of political parties in Europe that reject universal rights, have put the postwar human rights system at risk


This seems like hysteria to me.

The populist wave started with Brexit---a democratic vote for Britain to leave the EU. Yes, it threatens the EU and globalism, but that not the same thing as "human rights."

Then Trump got elected here in the US. Again, he won a democratic election to be President. I"m sure the Ds and the Neoliberals and the globalists see him as "dangerous" but the Ds and the US left also think its fine to deny Trump is the President and to riot in the streets and secede from the union and and to suppress free speech----all things that are much more dangerous to human rights then anything Trump has done.

Same thing in Europe. Le Pen is currently leading in the French polls, and she would allow a vote on a Frexit. If the French choose to follow the Brits out of the EU, that is mainly a threat to globalism, not to human rights.

The World Report seems at heart to be profoundly anti-democratic. They seem to think they know better then the voters.

Cheers!

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Brexit is NOT a threat to human rights
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Re: GT2035: The Next Global Trends Report

Unread postby onlooker » Mon 13 Feb 2017, 05:35:27

Agree Plant. If the democratic process is being adhered too, we should be happy about this trend
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