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Monday, December 2, 2019

Benefit of using information, knowledge and communication as tools of social engineering




 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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=488ZBeaGo6s

 

31. Change the way you think’ | Dr Kruti Parekh | TEDxSIUVimanNagar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjJX0iA7VBA

 

32. Can you learn the hardest language in the world? | Irina Pravet | TEDxOtaniemiED

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBKrXdbAcgo


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
45. Panos Mourdoukoutas’ wonderful article almost like predicting facts as they unfold
“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


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