Entrez-PubMed: "The human brain is a set of computational machines, each of which was designed by natural selection to solve adaptive problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. These machines are adaptive specializations: systems equipped with design features that are organized such that they solve an ancestral problem reliably, economically and efficiently. The search for functionally specialized computational adaptations has now begun in earnest. A host of specialized systems have recently been found, including ones designed for sexual motivation, social inference, judgment under uncertainty and conditioning, as well as content-rich systems for visual recognition and knowledge acquisition."

Technology in a Dangerous World I therefore settled on the title “Technology in a Dangerous World” for my new class. It raised the problems inherent in a technological world without taking sides as to whether “technology” makes the “world” more or less “dangerous.”

Large technological systems The “second nature” we are creating is laden with unpredictabilities and risks, especially as we keep constructing layer upon layer of large technological systems that interact in increasingly complicated ways. What we realize even more forcefully after September 11 is that this hybrid world is increasingly vulnerable to sudden and decisive redirection to ends entirely different from those in the minds of its designers.

The emergence of a new world, a hybrid of “nature” and “technology,” By that time I had concluded that what we call “terrorism” is only one manifestation of a deeper phenomenon: the emergence of a new world, a hybrid of “nature” and “technology,” one that we humans have largely created ourselves and that therefore exhibits all the imperfections and shortcomings as well as the strengths of humanity. This world emerged from the long and noble struggle to “conquer nature,” to create a more secure and promising habitat for human existence. What we are discovering, however, is that the project of controlling nature creates other vulnerabilities.

Amazon.co.uk: Books: The Age of Consent: "The idea is basically that globalisation is not necessarily a harmful process per se, but without proper democratic structures in place on a global scale, it is manipulated so as to favour powerful vested interests. This idea should really have confronted anyone who has thought seriously about the future of popular sovereignty in an increasingly inter-connected world. "

george monbiotgeorge monbiot: George Monbiot knows not only that things ought to change, but also that they can change. Drawing on decades of thinking about how the world is organized and administered politically, fiscally and commercially, Monbiot has developed an interlocking set of proposals all his own, which attempts nothing less than a revolution in the way the world is run. If these proposals become popular, never again will people be able to ask of the critics of the existing world order, “we know what they don’t want, but what do they want?”

george monbiot: "All over our planet, the rich get richer while the poor are overtaken by debt and disaster. The world is run not by its people but by a handful of unelected or underelected executives who make the decisions on which everyone else depends: concerning war, peace, debt, development and the balance of trade. Without democracy at the global level, the rest of us are left with no means of influencing these men but to shout abuse and hurl ourselves at the lines of police defending their gatherings and decisions. Does it have to be this way? "

george monbiot“Our task is not to overthrow globalisation, but to capture it, and to use it as a vehicle for humanity’s first global democratic revolution.”

Headlines for Monday, November 24, 2003: "Some 175 million people, or 3 percent of the world's population, live outside the country where they were born, Annan said in a lecture at New York's Columbia University. The mobility this demonstrates, the $88 billion migrant workers send back to their home countries each year and the resulting cultural diversity should be cause for celebration...But the phenomenon has also raised concerns about migrants committing terrorist acts, taking away peoples' jobs or depleting limited social services budgets, Annan said. 'These are understandable concerns and they must be answered. The answers are not easy. But I have come here today to say that they do not lie in halting migration - a policy that is bound to fail,' he said. 'I say the answer must lie in managing migration - rationally, creatively, compassionately and cooperatively.'...Annan's speech, billed as a major policy address, comes during a US crackdown on immigration as part of its global war on terror and amid years of European efforts to exclude foreigners to protect domestic jobs. "

Headlines for Monday, November 24, 2003: "India's economy hasn't looked better since the country's independence over half a century ago, and its impressive pace of expansion is likely to be maintained for the next several years, Dow Jones reports Finance Minister Jaswant Singh has said. 'The fundamentals of the Indian economy today are such as to give one the confidence to assert that they have not been better for the last 52 years,' said Singh, speaking at the India Economic Summit organized by the World Economic Forum."

*"Center of gravity" is a term in physics used to describe an imaginary point in a body where the total weight of the body is concentrated. Identifying the center of gravity is useful for predicting the behavior of the body when acted upon by external forces. In geopolitics, the term is defined by Carl von Clausewitz in his classic work, On War, as the hub of all power and movement. It can be the morale or supply lines of an army, an alliance or network of alliances between states, a geographic location or even an idea. It is the point on which the conflict may be turned when too much pressure is applied. Identifying the center of gravity is critical for predicting the behavior of actors in any conflict.

The shape and contour of the military conflict will determine in large part the political dynamics in the Middle East, at least during the short to medium term. The variety and versatility of the many players involved and the resources and influence for which each is competing are of enormous value.

Environmental Sustainability...Environmental Sustainability...
Undeniable environmental changes in the early 00’s shifted values away from materialism, towards personal respon-sibility for the environment and the welfare of future generations; some communities punish the misuse of resources.
“Eco-preneurs” developed ecologically friendly technologies and extremely sophisticated resource use and recycling systems -- with crossover innovations among genetic engineering, the biosciences, and materials science, plastic now grows on trees [shrubs, actually].
Lifestyles downsize: from nations to bioregions; from cities to towns; from 3 SUV’s per family to one shared among three families.
Environmental restoration and bio-recreation of extinct species.
Less materialism; more emphasis on learning and the arts.

High Tech Decentralization...: "High Tech Decentralization...
Human inventiveness triumphs! Clean, abundant energy and advances in robotics, nanotechnology, and material science give people very precise, low waste control of our resources and environments.
Genetic engineering gives us precise control over our bodies -- and our definitions of who and what we are.
High-definition, multi-sense holography and virtual reality let us create virtual worlds of our inner visions -- leading to new art forms AND a new form of autism.
Data and telecoms networks freed information globally, and local and regional direct democracies are the most common form of governance.
Respect for the environment just part of rational resource management. "

Futures Studies Futures Studies is…a transdisciplinary, systems-science-based approach to.. analyzing patterns of change in the past; identifying trends of change in the present; and extrapolating alternative scenarios of possible change in the future, in order to help people create the futures they most desire.

Toffler Associates- Featured: Article In short, we can expect to hear more and more demands for immediate preemption in more and more varied fields where the acceleration of change — one of the mightiest forces on the planet today — is shortening the interval between crises.

Toffler Associates- Featured: Article: "The reason is today's ever-accelerating rate of change, especially in scientific and technological advance. This is doubly so in fields like biology and genetics that underpin some of the most terrifying weapons of mass destruction. Not only is research advancing more quickly, but the Internet and other new means of communication speed up distribution of the latest findings. "

Transport system A long-term focus is important in order to bring about an evolution toward a more sustainable transport system, including near-zero carbon emissions and non-petroleum fuels.

The future The future arises from a constant stream of human actions, decisions, strategies and commitments that have to be made in the present with as much skill, wisdom and foresight as possible.

Exposure varies with location and occupation In the United States, exposure varies with location and occupation. The poor, excluded and marginalized communities such as inner cities, colonias and reservations are often subject to multiple exposures due to incinerators, maquiladoras, poor water quality, malnutrition and unsafe jobs. Therefore even toxic substances which meet EPA standards will prove more harmful than expected. But these effects will be hard to detect since we will observe an array of health impairments rather than a single harm appearing to different degrees.

In ecological and social sciences What good is a model that assumes constant conditions? Here we see one of the powerful ways in which models are both useful and dangerous in science. In physical and engineering sciences it is often possible to isolate a problem sufficiently to ignore external influences, assume that all switches are the same in what is relevant, that all salt molecules are interchangeable and so on. Then we can measure accurately and get equations that are as exact as we need. But in ecological and social sciences this is not possible. The populations are not uniform, conditions change and there is always an outside impinging on the system of interest. We cannot even believe the equations too literally. But we can still study these systems.

Factors of Evolution On the other hand, species in the middle of their range are likely to show less effect of an environmental change. Therefore when we ask, how will a 1�C change in temperature affect the distribution of malaria, we have to ask how close to their boundaries not only the vector mosquito but also its natural enemies and competitors are located. Different localities near the boundary will respond differently for no obvious reason, just because of the extreme sensitivity to even undetectable changes of circumstance.

Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the world is left with only one dominant social model, the consumerist culture of the United States. Since the early 1970�s, trade barriers between nation states have been largely broken down, justified by "free trade" economic models. These models are largely myth, as most powerful nation states use government subsidies to obtain and control economic advantage.

Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School: "The idea of Emergent Properties introduced in the beginning of the course will be used to explore a relatively new emergent property of the past 200 years called a Transnational Corporation (TNC). These new entities are
a. Not rooted in space
b. Not subject to national laws
c. Have more rights than citizens
d. Were created in the judicial system
e. Immortal
The TNCs disproportionately control both the governments of nation states and the institutions for global justice and oversight: the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. "

Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical SchoolEven a cursory examination of the economic structure of the world reveals dramatic differences in the wealth, life expectancy and share of society�s benefits of its citizens. The 400 richest people have a combined net worth greater than the bottom 45 percent of the world�s population�about 2.3 billion�and over a billion people live on less than US$1/day. In general, these disparities are segregated along a North/South axis, with the majority of the industrialized nations being in the Northern Hemisphere and the "underdeveloped", "Third World", non-technological nations occupying the Southern Hemisphere. These disparities have a long history, about 14,000 years.

Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School: "With the world's population increasing every minute we must consider the correlation between human population growth and poverty. Almost all of the growth in population will occur in the world's poorest countries. The stabilization of global population at a level that will permit sustainable development is attainable only if efforts to expand and improve the quality of reproductive health programs are maintained. This lecture will review population dynamics, the impact of population growth and consumption patterns on the human and ecosystems health."

In all Member States (with the exception of Italy) the majority of citizens believe that Israel presents a threat to peace in the world with �yes� results as high as 74% in the Netherlands and 69% in Austria. Italy is the only country were opinions are divided with 48% of respondents confirming that they perceive Israel as a threat to peace in the world and 46% of the opposite opinion.

What better way for the United States to ward off that competition and secure its own hegemonic position than to control the price, conditions, and distribution of the key economic resource (oil) upon which those competitors rely? And what better way to do that than to use the one line of force where the US still remains all-powerful-military might?

Directors Statement: "we do not use technology, we live technology; technology is our way of life. Being sensate entities, we become our environment - we become what we see, what we hear, what we eat, what we smell, what we touch. Where doubt is prohibited, we become, without question, the environment we live in. With our origins based in the natural order, should this context radically change (as I am suggesting), the mysterious nature of the human being shall also radically change - a change that will reflect the transformation of nature itself, at a turning point or vanishing point. Natural diversity becomes a burnt offering, sacrificed to the infinite appetite of technological homogenization. "

The Ivan Illich Archive -- Facts and Figures: "The model American male devotes more than 1,600 hours a year to his car. He sits in it while it goes and while it stands idling. He parks it and searches for it. He earns the money to put down on it and to meet the monthly installments. He works to pay for gasoline, tolls, insurance, taxes, and tickets. He spends four of his sixteen waking hours on the road or gathering his resources for it. "

Directors Statement: "The living environment, old nature, is replaced by a manufactured milieu, an engineered host - synthetic nature. In a real sense, we are off planet, dwelling on a lunar surface of stone, cement, asphalt, glass, steel and plastics, engulfed in the atmosphere of electromagnetic vibrations - the soothing lullaby of the machine. The common notion tells us that technology is neutral, that we can use it for either good or bad. From the p.o.v. of NAQOYQATSI, we do not use technology, we live technology; technology is our way of life."