Summit Agrees To Establish Earth Monitoring System by 2014 - Social and Economic Policy - Global Policy Forum: "Delegates at the Earth Observation Summit yesterday agreed to create a global environmental monitoring system by 2014 that would help predict natural disasters, save lives and prevent billions of dollars in damage. Ministers and ambassadors from 44 nations and 26 international groups including the European Commission agreed to a 10-year plan to kick start the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), a communique said."

Could Overseas Financing Hurt the US? - Social and Economic Policy - Global Policy Forum: "Nor is there anything new about countries using financial clout to further geopolitical goals. The U.S. took that route during the Suez crisis in 1956, notes former Clinton aide Rahm Emanuel, now an Illinois congressman. To force Great Britain and France to remove troops from Egypt, the U.S. refused to supply them with emergency oil supplies and blocked the International Monetary Fund from helping Britain defend its currency. Now, Rep. Emanuel worries, the U.S. has given China 'veto power over our economic and security independence.'
Unfortunately, the U.S. dependence on foreign lenders has become woven into the structure of its economy. It requires either much stronger foreign demand for U.S. exports or much weaker U.S. demand for imports -- neither of which is likely. A weaker dollar will help, but the depreciation to date is likely far from adequate. The IMF has another idea: a faster reduction in the budget deficit than the Bush administration contemplates. That would reduce U.S. demand for foreign savings and insulate it from the moods of foreign investors -- political or otherwise. "

Could Overseas Financing Hurt the US? - Social and Economic Policy - Global Policy Forum: "Foreign central banks, led by China's and Japan's, now hold close to $1 trillion of Treasury bonds and bills, almost a quarter of publicly held U.S. debt. That serves their economic interest, but it also gives them a potential financial lever.
Imagine a standoff between the U.S. and China over Taiwanese independence. What would happen if China stopped buying U.S. bonds, or sold them outright? As bond prices fell, their yields, which move in the opposite direction, would rise. Mortgage rates would rise, depressing home sales and weakening the economy."

Could Overseas Financing Hurt the US? - Social and Economic Policy - Global Policy Forum: "As the U.S. has grown ever reliant on foreign central banks to finance its trade and budget deficits, the question arises: Could foreign governments, like China's, one day use this clout to influence U.S. foreign policy? Most experts say it's far-fetched. But some look at history and the state of modern markets and are worried.
'There is surely something odd about the world's greatest power being the world's greatest debtor,' Lawrence Summers, Harvard University president and former U.S. Treasury secretary, said in a recent speech. He calls it 'troubling' that the U.S. depends so much on 'inevitably political' entities to finance its foreign debts."

Asia Signs Up To 'New Silk Road' - Social and Economic Policy - Global Policy Forum: "Asian countries have signed a landmark treaty to create a highway that will connect Asia with Europe, like the ancient Silk Road trading route. The treaty was signed by 23 nations at a UN meeting and outlines a network that will link the continents in some 140,000 km (87,000 miles) of roads. The UN first proposed the plan in 1959, but it was delayed during the Cold War. (This) highway will contribute tremendously to regional economic integration,' a UN official said. "

Banker Presses Aid for Poor to Fight Terror - Empire? - Global Policy Forum: "As he nears the end of a decade as president of the World Bank, Wolfensohn laments what he calls a growing imbalance in global spending by the world's governments: $900 billion is spent annually on defense; $300 billion on support for the world's richest farmers; and only $56 billion on development assistance for the poor. "

PAPER: Good Stuff? For most of its history, paper existed as a precious and rare commodity. Today, it covers the planet. From the contents of our in-boxes to the currency in our wallets to the containers for our frozen dinners, paper is never far from reach. Global paper use increased more than six-fold over the latter half of the 20th century, and has doubled since the mid-1970s.
About 93 percent of today's paper comes from trees, and paper production is responsible for about a fifth of the total wood harvest worldwide. A sheet of writing paper might contain fibers from hundreds of different trees that have collectively traveled thousands of kilometers from forest to consumer.
Though invented as a tool to communicate, about half the paper in today's consumer society serves another purpose—packaging. This and other rapidly discarded paper now represents a big chunk of the modern waste stream, accounting for roughly 40 percent of the municipal solid waste burden in many industrial countries.

Lettre #288 du 1 au 7 Mai 2004Les traînées de condensation formées par les réacteurs des avions ont pu provoquer une hausse des températures contribuant au réchauffement climatique aux Etats-Unis entre 1975 et 1994 et s'ajoutant aux gaz à effet de serre, a affirmé mardi un scientifique de la Nasa."Le résultat montre une augmentation des nuages attribuables au trafic aérien qui pourrait contribuer pour près de moitié au réchauffement observé aux Etats-Unis pendant près de 20 ans, à partir de 1975", a déclaré Patrick Minnis, chercheur au centre Langley de la Nasa à Hampton (Virginie). "Mais il est important de dire que les traînées de condensation s'ajoutent et ne remplacent pas les gaz à effet de serre", tenus pour les principaux responsables du réchauffement climatique, a-t-il ajouté dans un communiqué.

BBC - Science & Nature - Genes - I Am UniqueIn your own personal “big bang” moment when you were conceived, a sperm and egg met for the first time. Each of them was carrying a special delivery. Half of the instruction manual for how to build a human. Magic happened, the two sets of instructions came together and the rest is history.

BBC - Science & Nature - Genes - Handing Down GenesThe night your parents “decided to turn off the television” was the most important of your life. When sperm and egg met, a brand new cell was created with the proper number of chromosomes restored. Each chromosome found a new partner but from a different body. Half of your chromosomes came from your mother and the other half came from your father.

Units of decision-making we need deliberative coordination: deliberation among units of decision-making directed both to learning jointly from their several experiences, and improving the institutional possibilities for such learning—a system with continuous discussion across separate units about current best practice and better ways of ascertaining it.

Global-Justice Much of our thinking about democracy assumes the existence of a state: by “state” I mean a politically organized society, with a central authority, operating over a territory, that monopolizes the legitimate use of force and has a wide range of policy competences (employment, environment, health, product safety, domestic security, research/development, etc.). Our standard conceptions of democracy—current paradigms of democraticness—are linked to this institutional setting. The idea is, roughly, that policy-makers are held accountable to citizens through regular competitive elections, against a background of basic liberties of speech and association...This was not always the understanding of democracy. In Democracy and Its Critics, Robert Dahl writes about two major transformations of democracy: first, the development of direct democracy in Greek city-states, then second, the development of representative democracy in the United States and early modern Europe, as a response to, among other things, a growth in the size of political units.

Foreign Policy In Focus-PetroPolitics Special Report: Bush-Cheney Energy Strategy: Procuring the Rest of the World's Oil: "These critical points would necessarily include areas that are petroleum sources. Whether or not the administration consciously linked energy with its security policy, Bush undeniable prioritized the enhancement of U.S. power projection at the same time he endorsed increased dependence on oil from unstable areas.
As a result, a two-pronged strategy governs U.S. policy toward much of the world. One arm of this strategy is to secure more oil from the rest of the world, and the other is to enhance the capability to intervene. While one of these objectives arises from energy preoccupations and the other from security concerns, the upshot is a single direction for U.S. dominance in the 21st Century. It is this combination of strategies, more than anything else, that will anchor the United States' international relations for years to come."

Foreign Policy In Focus-PetroPolitics Special Report: Bush-Cheney Energy Strategy: Procuring the Rest of the World's Oil: "As the NEPDG began its review of U.S. energy policy, its members saw the United States was faced with a grave choice between two widely diverging paths. It could continue down the road it had long been traveling, consuming increasing amounts of petroleum and--given the irreversible decline in domestic oil production--becoming ever more dependent on imported supplies. Or, it could choose an alternate route of reliance on renewable sources of energy and gradually reducing petroleum use"

U.S. lacks direction, cohesion in war of ideas - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics: "The CIA, for its part, is engaged in some covert propaganda to counter pro-terrorist propaganda and activities. But Bush administration officials said the efforts have been far short of what the agency did during the Cold War to counter anti-American ideological attacks by communists and their supporters"

U.S. lacks direction, cohesion in war of ideas - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics: "The report, issued Oct. 1 by an outside advisory group, said the department spends about $600 million annually in promoting the United States and $540 million on broadcasting, but only $25 million on attempting to influence the estimated 1.5 billion people in the Muslim world. "

Terror and The War Of Ideas (washingtonpost.com): "Terrorism today doesn't need government backing, because it is fueled by three broad forces: the openness of free societies, the easy access to technologies of violence and a radical, global ideology of hatred. It can be stopped only by responses at each level. "

war of ideas."liberal ideas are causing a global democratic revolution. The democratic worldview is winning the war of ideas." b. Robert Dahl/Seymour Martin Lipset variant: "economic growth is causing a global democratic revolution."

A short history of trade Restrictions on trade have fallen since the late 1700s, and especially since 1945, as "liberal" ideas won the day. The US led the movement to free trade during 1945-today. But the U.S. still restricts imports of some products, especially products made by unskilled workers, including agricultural products and textiles. This is a blow to poor countries.

TRADE THEORY AND BACKGROUND 1. Free trade ("liberal") doctrine holds that national prosperity is advanced by the unfettered exchange of goods and services with other states. This is achieved by removing restrictions on trade.
2. Mercantile doctrine holds that national prosperity is advanced by achieving a trade surplus. This is achieved by state subsidies to exporting industries, and by state restrictions on imports. These restrictions include tariffs, import quotas, and import-impeding regulation of imported products.

Weapons of mass destruction The cost of making weapons of mass destruction has fallen, the expertise needed to make them has spread, and the number of states trying to make them has grown. Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Libya--all friendly with terrorist groups--have joined the game. There is fear they will supply such weapons to terrorists if they build them.

Containment
Neo-containment Type #1 : the USA identifies and contains the new potential Eurasian hegemon (Russia? China? Germany?) The USA would contain the potential hegemon's imperial expansion, and might also try to hamper its economic growth.
Neo-containment Type #2: the USA identifies and contains the world's most crazy or hostile states, e.g., by limiting their control of power-assets (weapons of mass destruction, oil resources) and by lowering US dependence on their products (oil).
Question: Should preventive war be among America's means of counterproliferation?

Elite generational trauma "Isolationists and interventionists each emerge from disasters caused by the others' policies." (Santayana corollary: "Those who remember the past are condemned to make the opposite mistake.")

Organization Organization theory (Morton Halperin, Graham Allison, Aaron "organizations seek size, wealth, autonomy, and conservation of their "essence" (i.e., no change in their mission); follow standard operating procedures; and cannot self-evaluate."

Security the greater the security threat states face, the more aggressive they become. "States seek security, and clash because their efforts to secure themselves threaten others' security." The search for security causes wars; empires and interventions; and arms races...The more easily states can conquer, the more aggressive they become. "States seize what their power allows; empires grow and contract as the metropole's power rises and falls..." "
Balance of Threat": "states align against the most threatening power," with threat a function of strength, aggressiveness, and proximity (vs. "bandwagoning": "states align with threats").
"Attribution theory"--states tend to attribute their own behavior to their circumstances, while attributing others' behavior to their innate character. (Hence they see their own nasty conduct as excused by necessity, while others' nasty conduct is unprovoked and unjustified.)
conduct is unprovoked and unjustified.)
A related syndrome: states tend to ascribe others' good behavior to their own efforts to make the other behave well; and to blame others' bad conduct on the other's innate character.
Belief perseverance--states are slow to absorb new facts & realities that clash with their elite's existing beliefs.
States tend to exaggerate the shared character of that clash with their elite's existing beliefs.
States tend to exaggerate the shared character of information, hence they are often unaware when others' perceptions diverge from their own.
Spiral model: "Wars arise when states punish others expecting compliance; but punishment only provokes retaliation, sparking a conflict-spiral."
Deterrence: "Wars arise when states appease aggressors; this leads the aggressor to expect further appeasement, and to ignore warnings when appeasement ends."

April 28, 2004: World Food Prices Rising: Environmental Neglect Shrinking Harvests in Key Countries: "Growth in world grain production is lagging behind the growth in demand largely because environmental trends, such as spreading deserts, falling water tables, and rising temperatures, are shrinking harvests in many countries. ".."The question now is whether farmers can expand the grain harvest this year enough to eliminate the huge deficit of last year. Unfortunately there are no efforts underway that are sufficient to reverse the expansion of deserts, the fall in water tables, or the rise in temperatures that are shrinking harvests in key countries. In the absence of such an effort, food prices are likely to continue rising. "

KurzweilAI.net: "KurzweilAI.Net focuses on the exponential growth of intelligence, both biological and machine, and the merger of the two in a post-humanist future."

KurzweilAI.net: "What is KurzweilAI.Net? KurzweilAI.net features the big thoughts of today's big thinkers examining the confluence of accelerating revolutions that are shaping our future world, and the inside story on new technological and social realities from the pioneers actively working in these arenas.
We are witnessing intersecting revolutions in a plethora of fields: biotechnology, nanotechnology, molecular electronics, computation, artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, virtual reality, human brain reverse engineering, brain augmentation, robotics, and many others. The leading visionaries represented on this site examine these transforming trends and their profound impact on economics, the arts, politics, government, warfare, medicine, health, education, disabilities, social mores, and sexuality"

WFS - Tibs--THE FUTURIST: "Malnutrition, disease, and human misery in general will reach 'unimaginable' levels within 50 years if current environmental and population-growth trends continue, warns agricultural ecologist David Pimentel of Cornell University. At current growth rates, the human population will reach 12 billion by 2054; reducing the birthrate from an average of 2.9 to 2 children per couple will delay that milestone by about 20 years. Feeding this expanding population will put more stress on cropland, which is already declining by 10 million hectares a year due to soil erosion, says Pimentel. 'The only way to reverse the growing imbalance between human population numbers and food supply is to actively conserve cropland, fresh water, energy, and other environmental resources,' he concludes, recommending more effort in developing ecologically safe agricultural technologies."

Foreign Policy: "The radical Islamists seek to weaken the United States and the West because they are both impediments to this end. During the 1990s, militants in countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria began turning their attention abroad as they grew frustrated by their failure to change the status quo at home. The militants felt that striking at the Arab regimes' Western sponsors (the ?far enemy? as opposed to the ?near enemy?) would be the best means to improve local conditions. This strategy, which bin Laden and those around him aggressively advocate, remains contentious among Islamic radicals, especially in Egypt. "

Foreign Policy: "Bin Laden is a propagandist, directing his efforts at attracting those Muslims who have hitherto shunned his extremist message. He knows that only through mass participation in his project will he have any chance of success. His worldview is receiving immeasurably more support around the globe than it was two years ago, let alone 15 years ago when he began serious campaigning. The objective of Western countries is to eliminate the threat of terror, or at least to manage it in a way that does not seriously impinge on the daily lives of its citizens. Bin Laden's aim is to radicalize and mobilize. He is closer to achieving his goals than the West is to deterring him. "

Foreign Policy: ". In 2002, total aid flows from rich countries to poor ones reached $58 billion. Rich countries provide poor ones with grants, loans, food, and technical advice to support everything from massive infrastructure projects to immunization programs in tiny rural villages. Most comparisons of aid examine simple measures such as total assistance as a percentage of the donor's GDP. T"

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (Excerpt): "This U.S. policy on China is misguided. A wealthy China would not be a status quo power but an aggressive state determined to achieve regional hegemony. This is not because a rich China would have wicked motives, but because the best way for any state to maximize its prospects for survival is to be the hegemon in its region of the world. Although it is certainly in China's interest to be the hegemon in Northeast Asia, it is clearly not in America's interest to have that happen. "

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (Excerpt): "What makes a future Chinese threat so worrisome is that it might be far more powerful and dangerous than any of the potential hegemons that the United States confronted in the twentieth century. Neither Wilhelmine Germany, nor imperial Japan, nor Nazi Germany, nor the Soviet Union had nearly as much latent power as the United States had during their confrontations. But if China were to become a giant Hong Kong, it would probably have somewhere on the order of four times as much latent power as the United States does, allowing China to gain a decisive military advantage over the United States in Northeast Asia. [1] In that circumstance, it is hard to see how the United States could prevent China from becoming a peer competitor. Moreover, China would likely be a more formidable superpower than the United States in the ensuing global competition between them. "

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (Excerpt): "States still fear each other and seek to gain power at each other's expense, because international anarchy?the driving force behind great-power behavior?did not change with the end of the Cold War, and there are few signs that such change is likely any time soon. States remain the principal actors in world politics and there is still no night watchman standing above them. For sure, the collapse of the Soviet Union caused a major shift in the global distribution of power. But it did not give rise to a change in the anarchic structure of the system, and without that kind of profound change, there is no reason to expect the great powers to behave much differently in the new century than they did in previous centuries. "

Address at the 22nd Congress of the Socialist International: "The real world in which we live is characterised by a gross imbalance in the distribution of power. This power in all its forms is concentrated in a few countries. These countries own the bulk of the wealth of nations. The dominant ideas within these countries define the global agenda. "

Address at the 22nd Congress of the Socialist International: "Among the central theses of the proponents of neo-liberalism are the sanctity of the market economy, property rights and a minimalist state. In reality this means granting the greatest freedom to private corporations to do as they wish. It signifies the inviolability of the power they dispose of as a result of the assets they hold. It is a call for the radical reduction of the capacity of the state to intervene"

Address at the 22nd Congress of the Socialist International: "This results in a mutually reinforcing process. Whereas the economic strength of the multinationals gives weight to the international standing of their national governments, that political weight is, in turn, used to advance the global interests of the multinational corporations. Necessarily, those outside this equation find it very difficult to contest this combined political and economic power. "

Address at the 22nd Congress of the Socialist International: "The process of the concentration and centralisation of capital has meant the continuous growth of the political power of the countries in which the headquarters of these global economic players are domiciled. "

Address at the 22nd Congress of the Socialist International: "Through natural growth, mergers and acquisitions, there have emerged powerful companies that play a major role in determining the future of the world. These include those who control financial capital. As experience has shown, when these shift from place to place what, to them, might be insignificant volumes of capital, economies of entire countries can be plunged into deep crisis, with large numbers of people losing jobs and many driven into poverty. "

Address at the 22nd Congress of the Socialist International: "A central feature of the process of globalisation is the concentration and centralisation of power into ever fewer hands. We refer here to all forms of power - political, economic, military, technological, intellectual, information, and so on. "

Home for PS100: "Typically there is agreement about the goals --- no one would argue against a strong economy, or cheaper gas prices, or making health coverage universally available. The debates arise over the best way to reach these goals."

MIT OpenCourseWare | Political Science | 17.40 American Foreign Policy: Past, Present, and Future, Fall 2002 | Lecture Notes

Ps481 Home Page: "Methodology in International Relations "

Power transition: "The present or second period is the period of the power transition... characterized by great and sudden shifts in national power caused primarily by the differential spread of industrialization throughout the world. As each nation industrializes, it experiences an increase in wealth, in population, and in the efficiency of its governmental organization. Since these are the major determinants of national power, it also experiences an increase in power...
The most powerful nation in the world customarily heads an international order that includes other major nations (the powerful and satisfied) and also some minor nations and dependencies (the weak and satisfied and the weak and dissatisfied). As long as the satisfied nations enjoy a large preponderance of power over the rest of the world, peace is guaranteed. However, as new nations industrialize, the old leader is challenged. A recently industrialized nation may be dissatisfied with the existing international order because it rose too late to receive a proportionate share of the benefits, and it may succeed in drawing to its side lesser nations who are also dissatisfied because they are exploited by the nations that dominate the existing order.
Such a challenge usually results in war... the major wars of recent history have all been wars involving the dominant nation and its allies against a challenger who has recently risen in power thanks to industrialization. In the recent past, such wars have occurred when the challenger had grown rapidly but before the challenger was as powerful as the dominant nation and its allies and the wars were started by the challenger. ..."

pt: "... the powerful and dissatisfied nations are usually those that have grown to full power after the existing international order was fully established and the benefits already allocated. These ...(newly emerging powers) had no share in the creation of the international order, and the dominant nation and its supporters are not usually willing to grant the newcomers more than a small part of the advantages they receive.... The challengers, for their part, are seeking to establish a new place for themselves in international society, a place to which they feel their increasing power entitles them. Often these nations have grown rapidly in power and expect to continue to grow. They have reason to believe that they can rival or surpass in power the dominant nation, and they are unwilling to accept a subordinate position in inter"

pt: "'At the very apex of the pyramid is the most powerful nation in the world, currently the United States, previously England, perhaps tomorrow Russia or China.... Just below the apex of the pyramid are the great powers. The difference between them and the dominant nation is to be found not only in their different abilities to influence the behavior of others, but also in the differential benefits they receive from the international order to which they belong. Great powers are, as their name indicates, very powerful nations, but they are less powerful than the dominant nation.... "

The distribution of international power

MIT OpenCourseWare | Science, Technology, and Society | STS.002 Toward the Scientific Revolution, Fall 2003 | Readings: "History isn't just about learning facts and dates. It's also about understanding how and why things happened. So don't get bogged down in taking in all the facts and dates, at the expense of the big picture. The key is to ask yourself, 'Why would this event be important, and how does it relate to other events?'"

What is technology?
Technology as "the constellation of tools, machinery, systems, and techniques that manipulate the natural world for human ends." or "tools to
control their environments." As such, technology is not separate from culture but rather an integral part of it. It is thus influenced by all the human beliefs, ideologies, traditions, social organizations, and behaviors that comprise culture. And cultural components themselves are always changing.
Ways ofthinking about technology in historical perspective:
1. Technology as the production of knowledge and development of knowhow [By and large, technological change is incremental in nature. Revolutionary developments are unusual ].
2. Technology as a social force: the socio/economic impact or implications of technology. The problem of technological determinism[see Marx and Smith, Does Technology Drive History?] Unanticipated consequences: the auto and environmental pollution.
3. Technology as a human/social product: the idea that social/political forces an influence or shape the direction and forms that technologies take. Example: military enterprise and technological change: the development of interchangeable parts manufacturing.