Site Map | --All Pages-- | --Github Commits--, Issues | Possible Initiatives | Open-source Society Project | Main Prototype website | Sub-reddit -- This documentation wiki is under construction
Examples of Issues: Difference between revisions
(→Environmental Damage: add) |
|||
Line 116: | Line 116: | ||
== Environmental Damage == | == Environmental Damage == | ||
Damage to the environment has all kinds of consequences that affect us directly | Damage to the environment has all kinds of consequences that affect us directly | ||
* [https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/bl9c9h/treat_global_nature_declines_as_an_emergency/ Treat global nature declines as an emergency, scientists tell world leaders: 'We need to declare an ecological emergency, not just a climate emergency'] | |||
* [https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/bkru6g/the_felling_of_forests_the_plundering_of_seas_and/ The felling of forests, the plundering of seas and soils, and the pollution of air and water are together pushing the natural world to the brink. That's the warning more than 500 experts in 50 countries are expected to give in a major UN-backed report, due to be published on Monday.] | * [https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/bkru6g/the_felling_of_forests_the_plundering_of_seas_and/ The felling of forests, the plundering of seas and soils, and the pollution of air and water are together pushing the natural world to the brink. That's the warning more than 500 experts in 50 countries are expected to give in a major UN-backed report, due to be published on Monday.] | ||
* [https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/hole-opens-under-antarctic-glacier-big-enough-fit-two-thirds-ncna965696 A hole opens up under Antarctic glacier — big enough to fit two-thirds of Manhattan] ("Scientists say if Thwaites collapses, it could trigger a catastrophic rise in global sea levels, flooding coastal cities around the world.") - [https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/aniifk/a_hole_opens_up_under_antarctic_glacier_big/ comments] | * [https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/hole-opens-under-antarctic-glacier-big-enough-fit-two-thirds-ncna965696 A hole opens up under Antarctic glacier — big enough to fit two-thirds of Manhattan] ("Scientists say if Thwaites collapses, it could trigger a catastrophic rise in global sea levels, flooding coastal cities around the world.") - [https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/aniifk/a_hole_opens_up_under_antarctic_glacier_big/ comments] |
Revision as of 12:07, 6 May 2019
Let's take a closer look at the problems mentioned earlier. The following small sample of links were found on reddit.com and other websites over a small period of time. They are meant to give a glimpse of a picture that most of us are already familiar with and to illustrate the need for doing things in a new and better way in regards to mainly governments and corporations, however there are many other issues that we need to work on. Clicking on the links is not required. Just reading the text of the link is enough to give a quick summary. At some point I stopped gathering links as its easy to find things like this every day.
These are long lists of things that a civilian group accountable for their actions would never do. The links presented here are just a very tiny sampling of all material that could be included. There was no particular selection criteria for including a link. They were just observed over a period of time.
Governments and Political Leaders
Disclaimer: The governments, entities, names or countries below are just examples. Javul does not favor or oppose any particular country, political party, ideology or person. Most links were seen at http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews and http://www.reddit.com/r/news
The leaders of our countries are supposed to be one of the most competent, sensible and knowledgeable people in our societies. Our world cannot progress to its fullest extent if it has poor leadership systems.
Its common to see items like the ones shown below every day on any news website. It’s easy to ignore the fact that we are paying an organization 1/3rd of our hard earned wages to manage our countries and cities for us. If they fail to do their job appropriately and if what they do generates news like below, then this is completely unacceptable and we need to find a solution to this serious problem.
- Congressman Pushed Bills That Would’ve Helped Drug Company He Owns
- New data shows 85% of humans live under a corrupt government
- ISPs Gave 8X More Cash to Politicians That Axed FCC Privacy Rule
- “This is 4 million people against the government in Brazil” - A Reddit user commenting on this story: "Billions of dollars in bribes just for one area show you where that money went. The politicians stole the people's money."
- Election software firm confirms Venezuela altered outcome by 1 million votes
- Philippines’ Duterte says he stabbed someone to death as a teen, then proposes hosting human rights summit
- President Vladimir Putin’s innermost circle is estimated to have amassed almost $24 billion away from the public eye, a report has revealed. Estimates of Putin’s private wealth vary, from the officially declared 8.9 million rubles ($133,000) to as high as $200 billion.
- Azerbaijan releases election results… before the polls even open comments
- Son of Philippines' Duterte linked to $125 million drug shipment as his father's drug war kills thousands
- Actions done by the Turkish government after the coup failed
- Venezuela's president dances on tv while people riot on streets
- The first African winner in Google's annual coding competition is a Cameroonian kid who had to travel 370km from home, because the government has cut off his hometown from the internet
- Rodrigo Duterte's Obama insult costs Philippines stock market hundreds of millions: Funds to pull hundreds of millions from country amid Filipino leader's increasingly volatile behaviour, after he called Barack Obama a 'son of a whore' and threatened to pull out of UN --- Also see Additional Comments by a Reddit user
- US government faces shutdown after Senate rejects funding bill
- “Exclusive: UK Government urged to reveal its role in getting Saudi Arabia onto UN Human Rights Council | Liberal Democrat and Green Party leaders call on David Cameron to reveal whether British government supported Saudi bid”
- “TIL in the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.”
- Prince Mohammed Bin Salman: Naive, Arrogant Saudi Prince Is playing With Fire - “the powerful 29-year-old favourite son of the ageing King Salman, who is suffering from dementia – as a political gambler who is destabilising the Arab world through proxy wars in Yemen and Syria.” - One man has the power to destabilize the Arab world? This is unacceptable.
- 76 people accounted for 41% of all individual and corporate donations made to the political parties and other political causes in Britain over the past five years
- The Rise of Political Clickbait (2015) - A very brief documentary showing the growing problem of left and right manipulation of the easily influenced masses, controlled through the use of relatively new technology and advertising methods.
- Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe shouts 'We are not gays' during UN address
- World hunger is the result of politics, not production
- Putin's Way (2015) - FRONTLINE investigates accusations of criminality and corruption that have surrounded Vladimir Putin's reign in Russia. Traces his career back over two decades, revealing how the accumulation of wealth and power has led to autocratic rule and the specter of a new Cold War.
- Trump misunderstood MIT climate research, university officials say: Massachusetts Institute of Technology officials said U.S. President Donald Trump badly misunderstood their research when he cited it on Thursday to justify withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement.
- Casino Jack and the United States of Money (2010) The incredible true story of powerful lobbyist Jack Abramoff. And as the documentary goes on, you realize, with increasing horror, just how corrupt Congress is.
- NSA chief: I didn’t lie to Congress about spying on millions of Americans—I just forgot about it
- TIL that at the Nuremburg trials, several Nazi leaders achieved genius-level scores on an IQ test
- Back in 2006 ExxonMobil hired lobbyists (Theresa Fariello and David Leiter) to strategize and convert Democrats to be pro-gas/oil. They are both current Clinton lobbyists and bundlers.
- "The Untouchables (2013)" Documentary about how the Holder Justice Department refused to prosecute Wall Street Fraud despite overwhelming evidence
- China censors Panama Papers online discussion
- Pakistan is selling nuclear materials to N Korea and China knows it, US sources say
- David Cameron personally intervened to prevent tax crackdown on offshore trusts
- Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
- A police helicopter was used to retrieve the lost wallet of the Alabama governor, at a reported cost to taxpayers of $4,000.
- Saudi confirms 'genuine' $681M donation to Malaysian PM
- ELI5: Why did Brazil not becomes the economic powerhouse it was predicted to become?
- A Texan who called Obama a gay prostitute may soon control what goes in children’s textbooks
- David Cameron once tried to 'woo' Angela Merkel over EU negotiations by making a Powerpoint of them hugging
- Iceland president's wife linked to offshore tax havens in leaked files | News
- The Arkansas Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld the civil forfeiture of almost $20,000 taken from a man during a traffic stop, even though he was never charged with a crime and prosecutors had previously attempted to dismiss the case.
- The new Brazilian president’s first pick for science minister was a creationist. He chose a soybean tycoon who has deforested large tracts of the Amazon rain forest to be his agriculture minister. And he is the first leader in decades to have no women in his Cabinet.
- Nevada Democratic Convention: The Videos You Need to See
- People Openly Sell Votes for $20 in the Dominican Republic
- At least 33 US cities used water testing 'cheats' over lead concerns
- Why one Republican voted to kill privacy rules: "Nobody has to use the Internet"
- EPA head Scott Pruitt says global warming may help 'humans flourish'
- TIL that after Swiss police accused Libyan leader Gaddafi's family of criminal activity in Switzerland, Gaddafi submitted a proposal to the U.N to abolish Switzerland and divide it between France, Germany and Italy
- Reddit Link: TIL in the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.
- Voters Are Trading Honesty for Loyalty - Novel experiments about loyalty indicate that people will overlook dishonesty if it benefits their group. - comments
- North Korea
Currently North Korea is making some efforts to achieve peace however of course previous news is still relevant:
- Reddit link: TIL North Korea had a Choco Pie black market, where the snack cake cost up to 9.50 USD per pie
- North Korea installs speakers of its own along border with South: Seoul - "North Korea has reportedly retaliated for the South’s border propaganda warfare, reinstalling loudspeakers of its own to broadcast anti-Seoul messages along the border between the two countries." - The governments of these countries are responsible for taking care of millions of citizens and here they are observed fighting like teenagers.
We need to ask ourselves: Is this the best that we humans can do when it comes to leadership and managing our populations? Here’s a relevant link:
- Other Links
Industries and Corporations
These are just a few links about organizations and industries:
- “GM knowingly rejected ignition fix that would have cost 90 cents per unit, leading to at least 125 deaths”
- Hershey's has blocked British-made Cadbury chocolate from entering the US.
- “Canada tries to cut cost of US drug, gets sued”
- “Corporate Fascism: The Destruction of America's Middle Class (2010) - Explores a new kind of fascism: The merger of corporations and government whereby corporate power dominates.”
- Fed Up (2014) - An examination of America's obesity epidemic and the food industry's role in aggravating it.
- Money As Debt (2006) - " Ever wonder why banks have so much money and everybody else has so much debt?! ; The monetary systems practiced through modern banking."
- What is the scariest *real* organization in the world? Question posted in AskReddit
- What major company would you like to see fail and why?
- Comcast gets big tax break that was designed for Google Fiber
- A quarter of Canadian adults believe an unbiased computer program would be more trustworthy and ethical than their workplace leaders and managers.
- Hundreds of thousands of leaked emails reveal massively widespread corruption in global oil industry
- World's Richest Banker Charged With Bribery
- 2.6 terabyte leak of Panamanian shell company data reveals "how a global industry led by major banks, legal firms, and asset management companies secretly manages the estates of politicians, Fifa officials, fraudsters and drug smugglers, celebrities and professional athletes."
- Eleven oil and gas industry lobbyists bundled $1,327,210 for Clinton’s campaign as of the end of 2015
- Goldman Sachs Finally Admits it Defrauded Investors During the Financial Crisis
- BP CEO to get $3.3 million raise after 12,000 layoffs
- Siemens embarrasses 44,000 employees with new "Healthineer" mandatory dance concert
- Oil company records from 1960s reveal patents to reduce CO2 emissions in cars: ExxonMobil and others pursued research into technologies, yet blocked government efforts to fight climate change for more than 50 years, findings show
- Sixteen of the world’s largest banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. must face antitrust lawsuits accusing them of hurting investors who bought securities tied to Libor by rigging an interest-rate benchmark, a ruling that an appeals court warned could devastate them
- I am David Belk. I'm a doctor who has spent the last 5 years trying to untangle and demystify health care costs in the US. I created a website exposing much of what I've discovered. Ask me anything!
- UAE businessman pays out £3.4m for number plate '1'
- TIL Light Bulb Manufacturers formed a Market Controlling 'Cartel' that disallowed 1000 Hour+ lightbulbs, and threatened legal action to any company who did.
- The Lightbulb Conspiracy (2010) - About companies who engineer their products to fail as part of planned obsolescence.
- Reddit link: User explains why cost of living has gone up comparing today to 40 years ago (Companies do not pay employees as much as they should causing loss of income and making the wealthiest, wealthier)
- Iceland, Where Bankers Actually Go To Jail For Committing White-Collar Crimes - A small group of bankers should not be able to create an economic crisis for large groups of people. Banking should operate with a new organizational structure that makes it impossible for such a situation to happen. All important functions and events related to banking should be fully transparent and observable by other civilians.
- This Microsoft employee says he quit after just 4 months because of a nightmare boss - Big companies become stagnant and they discourage new employees from thinking differently and sometimes treat them abusively. Also read the Comments section which has some additional accounts from others who worked in this company. This article shows an example of a person who did great in his interview getting hired in a high profile company that makes products for a large segment of the global population. When this is true correct employer conduct becomes even more critical.<br\>They act inappropriately because they can, because they have excess finances and they can afford it. Because everyone wants to work for them so they have no problem letting anyone go. So they abuse anyone they want to. They do all these things without any consequences. In cases like this, the result is often in the wrong direction. The company may make new employees sign agreements to never talk about the company when they are fired and lawsuits may results. In effective its a gag order. <br\>We need a new efficient and accountable model with which companies operate where abuse cannot happen and the best minds can come together and create great products that satisfy the customer. This new model will work better and other organizations which don't care about their employees or customers, should not be able to survive.
- Canada tries to cut cost of US drug, gets sued - "can charge pretty much whatever they want." - This is an article about a drug company with the most expensive drug in the world. Is the price reasonable? The drug development costs are unknown. This is not the world we want to live in. We want new laws to be created that make it impossible for drug companies to do this if it's not necessary or cannot be rationalized. Drug development must be transparent, publicly supported and financed with the drugs being sold as cheap as practically possible. The entire health industry needs to be fixed.
Companies do a lot for us by creating services and products we need however we know things can always be done in a better way.
People already do not trust governments and corporations and these links prove why.
Why are people comfortable with dysfunctional leadership systems? Do they think there are no other options? There are. We have to be motivated enough to create solutions and alternate systems of leadership.
Looking at how Governments and Corporations generally operated, here's a relevant quote from an animal documentary on Youtube that showed a crocodile snatching a baby fawn which came to the pool for a drink. The video title was: 'Crocodile meat buffalo':
- "Somewhere under the surface of the pool, the crocodile lies low with its prey, waiting for an opportune moment without having to share"
This quote seems to apply to the world we live in today where humans play the same roles. We are intelligent human beings. We cannot live in a world like this.
Environmental Damage
Damage to the environment has all kinds of consequences that affect us directly
- Treat global nature declines as an emergency, scientists tell world leaders: 'We need to declare an ecological emergency, not just a climate emergency'
- The felling of forests, the plundering of seas and soils, and the pollution of air and water are together pushing the natural world to the brink. That's the warning more than 500 experts in 50 countries are expected to give in a major UN-backed report, due to be published on Monday.
- A hole opens up under Antarctic glacier — big enough to fit two-thirds of Manhattan ("Scientists say if Thwaites collapses, it could trigger a catastrophic rise in global sea levels, flooding coastal cities around the world.") - comments
- Thawing of Earth's '3rd pole' could affect 1.9 billion people, study says | At least a third of the ice in the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush will thaw in this century as temperatures rise, disrupting river flows vital for growing crops from China to India, scientists said on Monday
- Scientists categorize Earth as a 'toxic planet': "Earth, and all life on it, are being saturated with man-made chemicals in an event unlike anything in the planet's entire history."
- Humans are ushering in the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth, scientists warn in the journal Nature
- More than 95% of Earth’s population breathing dangerously polluted air, finds study
- Humans have produced 9 billion tons of plastic throughout history, with half of this total made in the last 13 years. About 5.5 billion tons of plastic waste has ended up in landfills and the environment.
- The atmosphere has hit a grim milestone — and scientists say we’ll never go back ‘within our lifetimes’
- Humans just 0.01% of all life but have destroyed 83% of wild mammals – study
Resource Sustainability
- Two-Thirds of the World to Suffer Water Scarcity in 10 Years
- The earth's natural resources won't be able to support the world population within 100 years
Our air and water which are critical for our survival have issues and there are too many other environmental and resource problems to list here so only these few links are shown for now.
The Widening gap between the rich and poor
- As Global 1% Seize Economy's Gains, 'Unprecedented Wage Stagnation' for Everyone Else: "With workers worldwide being left behind, says Oxfam, latest OECD reports shows "we need to build an economy that works for everyone, not just the few at the top." (reddit comments)
- Recession rich: Britain's wealthiest double net worth since crisis
- Billionaire hedge fund managers have called on Puerto Rico to lay off teachers and close schools so that the island can pay them back the billions it owes. It accused the island, where 56% of children live in poverty, of spending too much on education
- Wealth of super rich soars as the worst-off lose out, report says | UK
- Ed Miliband says Panama Papers show ‘wealth does not trickle down’
- Reddit link: User explains why cost of living has gone up comparing today to 40 years ago (Companies do not pay employees as much as they should causing loss of income and making the wealthiest, wealthier. This link is also provided in the 'Industries and Corporations' section above)
- Robots won't just take our jobs – they'll make the rich even richer: "Robotics and artificial intelligence will continue to improve – but without political change such as a tax, the outcome will range from bad to apocalyptic"
- Stephen Hawking: You Should Support Wealth Redistribution - Summary by Reddit user: "Hawking is only saying that as technology reduces the amount of human effort required to meet the same net output, it will become dangerous if everyone doesn't share in the benefits delivered by this technological efficiency." (full comments)
- Just 62 people own as much wealth as the poorer half of the global population, a new report reveals, as the widening of the gap between the rich and poor accelerates. - "It says a "Broken" economic model underpinned by deregulation, privatisation and financial secrecy has seen the wealth of the richest 62 people jump by 44 per cent in five years to $1.76 trillion."
- In 50 years, education costs have doubled, college costs have dectupled, health ins. costs have dectupled, subway costs have at least dectupled, and housing costs have increased by 50%. US health care costs 4X as much as health care in other First World countries.
Automation/Basic Income
- A new report suggests that the marriage of AI and robotics could replace so many jobs that the era of mass employment could come to an end
- Within 20 Years Automation May Take the Place of About $5.1 Trillion/year in Labor With More Than 98% of Savings Going to Those Who Are Already Multi-Millionaires
Universal Basic Income / Job Loss due to Automation/AI
- How long will it take for your job to be automated? - "researchers predict there is a 50% chance that machines will be capable of taking over all human jobs in 120 years."
- Elon Musk: Automation Will Force Universal Basic Income
We can see we are faced with big problems. It is time for us to come together and start working on improving our existence, changing the way things have been done in the world and work on new and better ways of doing things.