Benefit of using information, knowledge and
communication as tools of social engineering.
Tim Blixseth writes, “Many great ideas go unexecuted, and many great executioners are
without ideas. One without the other is worthless.”
“The person who has anticipated the
coming of troubles takes away their power when they arrive.”- Seneca, Consolation to Marcia
In the present day when lots and loads of
information, data and knowledge are easily available and accessible to many, it
would be wise first to be aware of all the facts and figures and act
accordingly.
If they are pleasant and positive, then
fantastic let us enjoy with the resolve to improve further and share the
benefits with the less advantaged.
If negative and presenting probable problems,
then we must prepare and plan with the best possible precautions to tackle the
problems as well as prevent further deterioration.
If
accessibility and availability of large volume of knowledge is there for many,
then why problems are lingering on and in some cases the conditions deteriorate
as well.
The answer may be bad or lack of governance;
want of proper macro level systems, patterns and organized structures.
Why we need patterns or organized structures and macro
level systems?
Cybernetics pioneer
Norbert Wiener’s main
emphasis in his marvelous work ‘The Human Use of Human Beings’, in
his words is “We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate
themselves”.
These are, perhaps, because some ideological
blocks and biases are preventing grasping the available knowledge and
understanding with proper perspective based on contextually relevant
priorities. Most often these ideological blocks and biases emanate from
religion, politics, socio-cultural indoctrinations etc and most of these go beyond
mere influence and become almost an internalized ingredient of one’s very
identity and either pins down one to status quo or view everything through the
prism of these biases or extrapolate these ideologies in all realms preventing
proper understanding.
Fortunately, the benefits of advantages of
many aspects of advancement of growth of civilization along with sophistication
and comforts that emanated from science and technologies have together prompted a few to think and to
understand beyond and besides their ideological ghettoes of confirmation
biases.
These clubs of a few, despite immense
resistance from the many, manage to push forward a sense of balance and sanity.
“The first step toward success is taken when
you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find
yourself.” – Mark Caine
Humanity, predominantly, is focusing on
physical comforts, economic prosperity with all its concomitant benefits and
utility as priorities. Per se, there is nothing wrong as they are very vital
aspects of evolutionary trend. At the same time they must not be at the cost of
other important things. There must be sanity to ensure a smooth transformation
to leave a livable planet for posterity and at the same time not necessarily
totally disorient from one’s identity as long as it does not act an impediment
to growth, development, civilized cosmopolitan outlook and sophisticated
cohabitation with peace and harmony.
Our PR
is very important i.e. Perspectives and Relationships.
Perspective is to see the differences, do the analysis, use all energy
but work towards synthesis and synergy.
As Anne Scottlin says, “Perspective controls
all our perceptions of reality; imagine how your life would look if you had a
bird’s-eye view”.
Relationships
Both our individual self and social self are
to a large extent shaped by how we relate with our circumstances and how our
contexts relate with us. There must be a sense of fulfillment in these
relationships.
Life is
never fulfilled with unfulfilled relationships within the family, with others in the society,
with the environment, with the many sciences, subjects, systems that we come
across which are useful to us, used by us or we are used by them and so on. So,
the
quality of life is the manifestation of the quality of the inter play of these
various relationships.
We have the luxury of having some important
information easily available in many of the links given at the end of this
write up. How we relate to them? How we
perceive them? What is our perspective in dealing with them will all enable us
to make the necessary changes as tools of social engineering.
Most of this information is about economics
and socio-economic indicators.
“The person who has anticipated the
coming of troubles takes away their power when they arrive.”- Seneca, Consolation to Marcia
However, often, as Tim Blixseth writes, “Many great ideas go unexecuted, and many
great executioners are without ideas. One without the other is worthless.”
Do we know enough about the situation?
Often we are aware of all the necessary facts
and also feel the need, have the ideas/thoughts and willingness to involve and
to improve or to rectify or to change things or to alter the situation, if
required, by implementing the necessary actions.
Why action is required?
However, sometimes or perhaps most of the
times some of us get into the shell of dilemma instilled by delicate situations
wherein we hesitate thinking our involvement may be construed as unsolicited
interference or may be met with strong opposition from status quo addicts. At
the same time we also are haunted by a feeling of guilt of opting to be
indifferent, especially if something negative happens or the situation worsens
for want of timely action which was what we precisely wanted to do but
hesitated to deliver.
What basis, not who, decides what aspects to be considered
while entertaining ideas for implementation into action?
Life is not only about choices and decisions
but also timely and precautionary actions based on contextually relevant
perspectives and attitudes with sense of balance and sanity prioritizing to
leave a socially, economically and environmentally lively and livable planet
for posterity.
Having at least arrived at a over simplified and
over generalized preachy option we need to also determine what quantum or level
or size of action is required because we cannot get struck at micro levels,
though we need to address micro issues and problems but we need to think and to
act at macro level because that alone will set a pattern, structure,
institutionalization etc all of which can act as a referral point for easy
adoption and for posterity to follow.
Harry Petsanis (@harrypetsanis) tweeted at
10:50 pm on Wed, Nov 27, 2019:
"Quit making decisions on a micro level and
start making them on a macro level. Remember; as you continue to
psychologically and emotionally grow, the person making the decision today is
not the person who will ultimately have to live with that decision."
How
the information is presented, understood and interpreted are as important, if
not more important than what information is presented.
There are many
links about language because the narratives, the words and labels used, the way
and the manner in which they are used as well as the stories that are floated
are all extremely important in terms of their influence and impact.
Narratives
are spread through rehearsed soundbites to use as reference points to redesign
one’s frames of reference to perceive, to evaluate and to react in a certain
specific manner to happenings/issues.
This
was enormously misused and continues to be misused by many MSMs [main stream
media houses] with hidden agenda, ulterior motives and dubious nexus but
evolution has started countering them with a huge network of social media
through a mobile phone in everyone’s hand with various platforms to disseminate
information in real time.
However,
still the impact of certain big media houses are there, though they are likely
to fade away gradually in importance.
As Kenneth Minogue writes in ‘The Silencing of
Society’, “ Being so much a selection of facts from an infinitely complex
reality, [news] can never achieve objectivity or impartiality, and hence any
accusation of bias can only be one partisanship attacking another”.
Let us also remember the words of Marya Mannea
wrote, “It is not enough to show people how to live better; there is a mandate
for any group with enormous powers of communication to show people how to be
better ".
Of course, even this can be done only where the
people want to become and be better.
Sentences involving terms like
contextual relevance, priorities, sanity, perspective, attitude,
sophistication, civilization etc may have been repeated because these are
important components of mindset that get etched in one’s sub-consciousness and
manifest in one’s relationships and reactions.
“India
and Sweden are the are nations with the greatest month on month increase in
positive sentiment of all 28 countries, with both reporting an 8-point increase
in those seeing the nations as heading in the right direction” from What Worries the World - March
2019
Source
[New global poll finds four
concerns top the world’s worry list: financial/political corruption,
poverty/social inequality, unemployment, crime /violence. Meanwhile, in most
countries surveyed (22 of 28) the majority think that their nation is on the
wrong track.]
Study
and survey based on
Top
five global issues
Financial/ Political
corruption (34%)
Poverty/Social
Inequality (34%)
Unemployment (33%)
Crime & Violence
(31%)
Healthcare (24%)
1. The following site is of
great value in terms of the subject as well as a guide to presentation of
details and data.
Excellently presentation
taking into considerations various factors almost a 360 degrees view of many
aspects of multitude of issues many of which are of immense importance to most
of us.
The presentation is broadly
classified into 15 segments each with interesting single slide
presentation and sub-sections
2. Three major
challenges for the world in 2019
To be addressed in the interest
of all
A] re-couple overall economic progress with gains in living standards
B] de-couple economic progress from
environmental degradation.
C] end marginalization so that absolutely no one
gets left behind
3. Relevant issues well
explained
The World in 2019: Ten
Issues that will Shape the Global
4. Well presented
Our list of urgent global problems
5. Web site containing
interesting reads
6. UN perceptions
7. Very broad and
comprehensive the reference books are of great help
8. MIT technology review
9. World
Economic Outlook, July 2019
Specifically
chose July 2019 Outlook because after that the global economy has been going
through multiple and massive geopolitical issues which have not stopped the
churning process making it difficult to
measure and do any impact analysis.
10. Well
thought out Engineering solutions
11. The year 2019 started
with some well thought out GRPS
12. Well researched articles on major economic issues
from Peterson Institute for
International Economics
13. Probable
major global health hazards from who
14. Barriers
to Education
15.
IT –the problems that IT industry faces today
16. Each of the following
links cluster is a visual treat and embedded with vital information as well.
17.Global Energy related
issues
18. A catalyst for social
progress and sustainable development
More important sublink
19. Effective International Organizations
Critical to Solving Global Challenges
20.
12 Predictions for Global Geopolitics for 2019 through 2025—and Beyond
21. Technology:
The top 10 tech issues for 2019
22. Biggest challenges facing the World
in 2019 | World Issues | World Problems
23. What if Everything You Know is
Wrong: Bob McDonald
24. What if Everything You Know is
Wrong: Bob McDonald at TEDxVictoria 2013
25. What You Didn’t Know about Language
Barriers | Roxanne Pomerantz | TEDxBGU
26. TEDxOakville - Judy Thompson -
Three Secrets You Need to Know About Spoken English
27. Literacy , cognitive over
load and sound –Naradagani
A New Way to Learn to Read English | Narda Pitkethly |
TEDxSunValley
28. Learning a Language Will Change
your Life for Good | Christopher McCormick | TEDxPhnomPenh
29. How to stop screwing yourself over
| Mel Robbins | TEDxSF
30. The most important language you
will EVER learn | Poet Ali | TEDxOrangeCoast
31. Change the way you think’ | Dr
Kruti Parekh | TEDxSIUVimanNagar
32. Can you learn the hardest language
in the world? | Irina Pravet | TEDxOtaniemiED
33. Hacking Language Learning: Dr.
Conor Quinn at TEDxDirigo
34. How to Learn a Language | CP
Viswanath | TEDxVITVellore
35. The Origins and Evolution of Language | Michael Corballis |
TEDxAuckland
36. Think Fast. Talk Smart | Matt Abrahams | TEDxMontaVistaHighSchool
37. Identifying Yourself Through Language | Robyn Giffen | TEDxUBCOkanagan
38. Being Yourself | Jaahnavi Sriperambuduru | TEDxDSCEWomen
39. The 10 most critical problems in the world, according to millennials
Read more at
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/world-economic-forum-world-biggest-problems-concerning-millennials-2016-8#fuxiaUx2Ob2MEXQM.99
40. Problems faced by
business
41. Stories and narratives matter
42. Global issues
43. Top 10 problems faced by
Business
44. Excellent write up
throwing some practical insights
“The biggest
problem for the global economy in 2019 won’t be the trade war between
America and China. It will be massive business failures. Perhaps bank failures,
too.” Published in beginning of December 2018
46. The 11 biggest issues IT faces today
47. 19 Trends that will shape
the world
48. Conscious global issues
49. 10 global health issues
to watch
50. Current events
51. Global 19 trends that did
shape partially the world in 2019
52. Tech experts predict
industry challenges
53.Global risk report 2019
54. Biggest risks as per 2018 report
55. 15 Global Challenges for the Next Decades
56. The World's 10 Worst Problems, According to Millennials
written in 2016 but stands valid even today
57. A very useful website
58. Urbanization problem
59. List of the most urgent global issues
60. Three scenarios for
the future of geopolitics
61. we need a new international order
62. Great team giving a
wonderful perspective event on 3rd December 2019 the speakers being
scholars expect in depth observations
