People have always pushed back against the idea of 'Big Brother' watching which generally is thought of as the 'State' watching what we do and generally I agree with many of the issues with this as my personal freedom is important to me.
People in the west will quote the situation in non western countries where the wests view is that these states control and monitor their people closely.
This may be true but is it always bad? Clearly if the state is misleading people or intimidating people or at its worse forcing people into conforming to what it wants them to do then that is bad.
As an example we see oppressive controls on women and free speech in some countries and we must continue to condemn these restrictions.
However is it possible to use technology to ensure that we are all safe, whether in our homes, out in the street or driving our cars?
In the UK our Police Force has been under resourced for many years now and so they tend to ignore petty crime such as bicycle theft or burglary as they leave it to the insurance companies to repay the victims. It is not the Police's fault its just they don't have the resources funded by the government.
But these crimes are important to people and particularly the elderly and people living on their own who will be very scared if other houses have been broken into close by.
Technology could prevent a lot of these crimes, street cams on every street in the UK with a central control room and use of AI video recognition software to spot suspicious behavior would help make neighbourhoods safe. These cams are already on our high street, at work, in cars, doorbells and even on cycle helmets so they are part of our daily lives.
My point here is that this it is not about personal freedom its about protecting people in our society. We are currently going through a spate of car break ins in our area and due to the vast number of 'ring doorbells' in the area we have captured several videos of the criminal involved, if similar cams were under a central control then the police could most likely have caught the offender.
I believe that technology can fill the gap in protecting people where the Police no longer can for petty crime and that the argument for human rights which definitely always needs to be considered and addressed could be satisfied if we wanted to.
This post is about the conflicts that we see around the world currently, they are clearly not black and white, maybe one side is right and the other is wrong, maybe they are both right or both wrong or more likely both sides are partly right and partly wrong.
In any case the tragedy to innocent people is devastating in many cases sickening and totally unacceptable questioning the character of those responsible on both sides.
In conflicts even though out of compassion and decency we wish for them to end peacefully, generally we end up taking sides, particularly governments who will have reasons why they would support one side against the other either politically or economically.
As an individual I try to see all points of view in a conflict, see the history about how it came about, I try to ignore economic concerns, I try not to feel vengeful for atrocities that happen which is very difficult but look for justice and protection for those who are victims and try to look at reconciliation for both parties.
If you are directly involved in a conflict it is impossible to see things other than in black and white, but for those who can influence the conflict it is important to see all aspects. As an example as parents with our children we often have to solve disputes between siblings because we know they cannot do it themselves, we try not to take sides and we accept that we may have to sacrifice something to appease the situation.
Governments will not change they will always put their own interests first but we as individuals have the power to influence our politicians to focus on peace above all other considerations.
Maybe this post is pointless as people and governments will not change, but maybe if we accept that not everything is black and white then that's a start.
As of today there is a new president of without question the most powerful country on earth whose influence on the rest of the world whether through the dollar or through military might is unquestionable.
This position needs a very strong and focused administration to fill it and despite how you feel about the outcome it is clear that for the majority of the world outside of the US then the democrats were the best outcome but for the benefit to the US internally then you could argue that the republicans were the best choice.
Now as we watched it it was said to be too close an election to call and yet it turned out to be huge victory for the republicans why were the poles so wrong?
Well in my opinion it comes down to human nature, people talk a good conscience but in fact inside their self interests outweigh any conscience they may have and that's why people probably said they were unhappy with the republican option but their self interest made them vote republican.
This is just human nature and is our very basic survival instincts kicking in!
If we did let our conscience rule our decisions as indeed maybe we should then we would not sell arms to anyone, we would not avoid paying tax, we would not have affairs, we would not cheat in exams or sports. But we do and again this is out of self interest.
Are we all the same? mostly!
Can we change? rarely!
But we can try, if more of us follow our conscience then maybe that could become an alternative survival instinct. If we all stop selling arms then there are no arms to kill us. If we all pay our tax then there are public services fully funded, if we stop having affairs then we have no broken families. If we stop cheating we are being honest to ourselves and not being something we are not!
Last night we sat outside with a glass of wine and cheese and biscuits, overlooking one of Britain's most beautiful beaches.
We had the whole beach to ourselves and sat there listening to the ocean breath as the waves crashed in and then retreated rhythmically, we were fully immersed in this natural wonder, we were at peace!
It made me realise as if I had not already what a beautiful place this world is and to question WTF are we doing hell bent on destroying it and why could not everyone in the world enjoy this same peace, surely they deserve this as much as me?
If as a grandparent I could get a Jewish grandparent, a Palestinian grandparent, a Ukrainian grandparent and a Russian grandparent all around this table in this beautiful place I am pretty sure we would all want the same thing, a safe and happy world for our children and grandchildren to grow up in.
We would not want kidnapping, bombing and killing of largely innocent people, we would not want to repeat past mistakes, we would not want vengeance for crimes of the past that just perpetuates hatred, we would indeed seek justice but again in a way that is not a tit for tat solution.
In our three score years and ten we will have seen many good and bad things, we may have experienced devastating acts against ourselves or our loved ones and we may have had anger and hatred in our lives but hopefully we will have over all these years become wise in our lives and look differently on the past.
We would want to work though discussion and understanding to move away from the hatred created by past actions and move forward with finding common ground, only requiring what we need to be safe and not being greedy or selfish wanting more than we really need.
Maybe our governments should instead of listening to corporations, billionaires, dictatorial leaders and their own egos, they should instead listen to their grandparents.
Grandparents for Peace
Listening to the debate about pensioners winter fuel payment and the fact it is now being paid only to those on pension credits. We see protests from many organisations who quite rightly want to protect those who may suffer that this will hit pensioners who's cost of living due to many factors, inflation, income, poor home insulation, health etc. who do not claim pension benefit and who will suffer because of this cut.
Thanks to the triple lock we have seen appropriate state pension rises but as we know living on just the state pension alone is very difficult and speaking from experience the little savings I have have not kept up with inflation.
However I believe that if we could accurately identify those who are likely to struggle in this country we could make decisions on who should receive help much more fairly and not solely rely on those who have submitted claims.
The government knows who lives here, how old they are, where they live, knows what car they drive, knows if they have gone on a foreign holiday, knows their health situation. Surely in this modern age we could have algorithms that could take all the information about people and accurately work out their state. Google, Facebook do this for marketing purposes why cant we do it for humanitarian purposes.
If you look at who has had a foreign holiday, who has a posh car less than 10 years old, then this would be a fair indication that they can be ruled out of the poverty band.
Ideally we could see those who shop at Waitrose, who eat out or have takeaways regularly, this would again show people who are not on the poverty line. This may be a step too far even though commercial companies are already doing this and getting past GDPR issues as legitimate use for marketing based on their interests, all those boxes you just tick!
So this would rule out those who should not receive these benefits and then allow the government to look at those that are left.
If we look at the opposite scale, those who pay no income tax, drive a very old car, shop very frugally, do not eat out or have takeaways etc. live in poorly insulated housing then we could narrow down on those that most likely need help.
The algorithms to do this would be easy to develop, the data exists and is accessible if we deemed it was right to do so with appropriate protections.
Additionally we could also identify those in other areas of poverty, child poverty, single parent families etc.
We have Think Tanks and Working Parties on all manner of things and I would like to see a government create one on finding a better way for identifying those on poverty.
There would and should be many objections to some of the ideas above, Big Brother etc. but we know that the Social Media companies are already pushing these areas. Business may fear that some people may switch their habits to avoid detection i.e. keep their old car, stop shopping at Waitrose, eat less takeaways etc. but this would be relatively few and would it matter? I think the impact on trade would be minimal, the impact on those that really need help could be huge.
Although this post is about AI and maybe I should have put it under my Computing posts I felt this is really about my thoughts on the AI industry and its effect on us rather than the technology.
I will put my hand up and say that I am a fan of AI, however if I was a football fan I would be the first to say that some teams are pretty awful and I feel its the same with AI, most of the implementations are pretty dreadful.
You would have to have been in a cave three miles under the surface of Mars not to have heard about the impact of AI on us and how every thing we see and do now has some AI aspect to it.
Why is this? Is it for the good of mankind to create a better world for all of us as we are led to believe?
Well maybe, and there certainly are some really good people out there trying to do this, but we have to accept that the boom in AI has largely been for economic reasons.
A lot of these benefits are about removing the human element from work, obviously humans are at least in the developed world quite expensive, they are unreliable (sickness) and they talk back (unions), AI and AI based machines remove these issues.
In my 50 years of computing experience before we had AI we obviously did analysys on data to determine trends and predict outcomes etc. to make better decisions, the tools were comparitively basic and more importantly the computing resources were much more limited. Now we have great tools and we have enormouse computing resources.
It truth if you think about it it is in the interests of most industries to remove the human element from their process and that is why they are pushing AI so much. Governments and CEO's will state that this will not replace jobs but will just enhance the work people do. I do not believe this to be true in all cases. If I have a warehouse from which I supply Teddy Bears, if I can pick, pack and ship all of my products using machines then I will do that simply because the costs are reduced, workforce problems reduced and more profit for me and my shareholders. I cannot see how I can give my employees a more enriched employment when I no longer need them.
Obviously there will be many jobs enhanced, Doctors and Surgeons will have much more capability to do there job better and in fact the whole health and care industry should be enhanced, whether it be an AI monitoring your health or telling you when to take your drugs, keeping you company from a mental health perspective etc., Investors will be able to trade and do deals much more effectively but many jobs will just dissapear and it will not be possible to take all of the unskilled labour force and retrain them.
Train drivers, Lorry drivers, Taxi Drivers will all be replaced with automated transport systems. This will happen with absolute certainty and the governments need to plan for this to happen in the not to distant future with acceptance of such things as 'Universal Basic Income' along with more stringent population control as we can only support a smaller workforce population. They need to do this now and not wait until the problems of unemployment, poverty and even starvation hit the worlds population which I am sure will also be able to fit a war or two in there somewhere as unrest occurs.
AI is inevitable and I truly believe it can bring some significant benefits to the world but it will have some significant economic effects and they need to be recognised and addressed now.
No one knows how far AI will go as it will find solutions to problems we did not know we had and provide services that we did not know that we needed in the same way as the Mobile phone has become something we never imagined.
AI should be embraced but governments should not stick their heads in the sand and should recognize the problems that will occur and address them before they become overwhelming. Denying these inevitable problems will just make matters worse whereas addressing them may well bring that better world we aspire to.
This week I have heard that it is the warmest week of the planet in history. This indicates that we are definitely not doing enough to stop global warming or maybe we are really trying but maybe its too late! At any rate things look bad.
A different measurement that may indicate how the world is going and how we may have to adapt to live differently in different parts of the world is the migration of species due to global warming.
In previous years non native species generally arrived in countries due to human intervention and in fact almost half of the plant species in the UK are non native now due to the importing of plants from all over the world. Similarly in the animal world we have signal crayfish, red squirrels etc. that were brought here by humans.
Now we are starting to find that non native species are being driven to other parts of the world due to climate change including Great White Sharks moving north possibly looking for food that has itself migrated further north.
There are also of course species that travel the world every year to enjoy appropriate weather conditions, i.e. Swallows, Orca's, Moths etc. How will this change as the world warms up, will they stay in locations longer or maybe not migrate at all any more?
Life can be like a book or for those of the Netflix generation it can be like a TV series. Its full of different chapters or episodes following on from one to another.
Each chapter ends with either a mystery, a calamity or some cataclysmic change, maybe sometimes a happy halcyon state whichever the case it drives us to go straight into the next chapter, to see where we go from there.
We can accept our life like this, when something defining happens, you loose your job, you become ill, you break up a relationship, you start a new relationship then mark that as the end of that chapter and open a new chapter and go on from there.
As someone who loves my country and all its diversity of people and culture I have to say how dissapointed I am in the latest Royal Family fiasco.
I am not a great fan of the royal family, but many people are and thats absolutely fine, I wish them absolutely no harm, I do wish we could redirect some of their incredible wealth to the people in need in this country, towards food banks, social housing, more hospitals etc. but there are many wealthy people in this country who could do more.
I also largely ignore what you see wealthy people do, we have seen a lot of show in the past from many celebrities clearly designed to make them popular.
The problem with the Royals is that they have accepted a responsibilty to care about the people of this country and to lead by example and as such have to be seen to live up to that responsibilty, which may seem unfair to them but its how it is.
But lets ignore all that as my synicism, what nobody can deny that the latest scandal from Harry has futher embarassed this country and its not needed. If he has some evidence that the royal family is acting in their own interests and not the countries then he should focus on that, not on the family squables which frankly are doing nobody any good other than the American Netflix and CBS channels.
I just wish they would all just shut up and leave the reality stuff to the profesionals on 'Love Island'
Additionaly we dont really know if there is some other agenda here, there maybe still some Diana issues, there may be some family issues across europe, remember after the death of Victoria we became part of the House of Hanover and later part of the House of Saxe-Coburg and only renamed as the House of Windsor durring the first World War to detach itself from what was happening in Europe, it did not stop their family relationships though that still exist today. Maybe theres some sinister plot going on? Now that would make a good Netflix story!
The news currently is very much about the cost of living crisis that so many unfortunate people are facing in this country and without doubt its shameful with over 2 million people using food banks, with over 11 million people in relative poverty of which over 3 million are children. 100 thousand homeless etc.
The government has taken measures to try to help but it is clear that many have slipped through the net when you see reports about families choosing between heating and food, People who are ill not being able to afford to power the medical equipment in their home.
We currently see loads of industrial action where people are trying to get their pay adjusted in line with inflation, there are other reasons why people are striking but pay seems to dominate most of the discussions.
We seem to be heading to a perfect storm, where some people are getting inflation plus pay rises, there employers having to pass on those costs, raising their prices, this raises inflation which then further inflames the cost of living crisis. Add into this all of the other external issues of fuel and raw material costs going up then we are in a real bad situation.
It would help to understand the split between those who are in a cost of living crisis and those who are in a cost of lifestyle issue because I suspect many people in the private sector who have had good pay rises are only feeling some impact to there standard of living, people still seem to be able to spend, we are hearing that holiday companies are getting record bookings, the pubs and restaurants around where I live are full so it is clear that not everyone is suffering in this crisis.
In this country there are people who have and there are those that have not. This crisis to me is just extending the gap between the haves and have nots, I am not sure the statistics of how many fall into either camp but I suspect there are lots of people becoming have nots through this crisis.
We all fully understand why people want to earn more money and have a better life, that's just normal, we want the best for our families, but we should all accept the fact that there are some people who are not so lucky and may not have the opportunity to improve their lives, people who say its a land of opportunity and everyone has a chance are very naive and usually they are the ones that have been lucky but in truth if you look at the numbers then it is clear that's not how it works for everyone.
We know many of our public service workers are struggling, not all of them, I am sure many Consultants in the NHS are not feeling the pinch and would never say they were but that many of the nurses are really struggling and we need to recognize this in any pay awards
Those that are doing well may feel that they are covered by having private insurance but that's no good if they have a car accident and require the fire service to get them out, an ambulance to get them to A&E and the medical staff to attend to your injuries. So no matter where you are coming from you would be crazy not to realize that we need to keep these services running well.
So for those people who are successful either by working hard or having a valued skill We have to accept that we are going to have to raise taxes on those that are higher earners to pay for our services. We cannot continue with a low tax economy at the expense of the less well off.
Just how well off do you need to be? if you were a billionaire, can you live that much better a life than a millionaire? Is there a point where being rich is being greedy? I don't know, I do know that most people would not turn down a lottery win.
That's the role of government to balance the economy so that all of its citizens have an acceptable life. I guess that's easier said than done.
We also cannot just make sudden changes to the economy as we already see the impact on the hospitality industry if people stop going out so we need a plan that will ensure we have a balanced economy for our future.
We have to accept that this is our country, we all have a responsibility to ensure that it functions for everyone and we know there are some good people, some bad people, some hard workers some lazy workers, some smart people some stupid people, but they all make up our country and its important that the smart people educate the stupid people, the hard workers encourage the lazy ones. The good people grow and the bad people recede
Consumerism is obviously part of it I do see that demand for items that are scarce makes them more expensive (oil and gas for example) so maybe if we all consumed less and reduced demand that would help. Do we really need the latest phone, wouldn't it be great if particularly the younger generations, kept there phones longer, kept there old cars longer or got rid of them and walked or rode a bike, wore clothes until they wore out rather than became unfashionable, went on memorable working holidays rather than baste themselves on a beach that they will forget within a few months.
In fact it does not matter what I do as I am old, but wouldn't it be great if the young people took the initiative to reject consumerism and start a new way of being responsible for their country and their world.
No I don't mean me,the only thing I should be nominated for is Idiot of the year.
I am referring to a number of comments that Kevin Sinfield should absolutely have been given a knighthood in the new years honours list.
I completely agree that he should be knighted and the Mirror mentioned a petition which I searched for but the only one I found was a parliament one that was rejected.
I am not surprised that he was not honored as it takes between 6 and 18 months for the Cabinet Office Honours committee to verify and either approve or reject the nomination. Also I have heard that there is an unwritten rule that there has to be 5 years gap between receiving an existing honour and a new one although I have searched for this and cannot find any evidence that this is true.
You can search the web to see what an incredible guy Kevin is showing a personality that displays everything that we should all aspire to, showing such friendship and love for his best mate as well as selflessly applying himself to raise awareness for the horrible disease that MND is. A true hero by anyones standards.
I do hope that he does get the honour he truly deserves soon, although I am sure he is not really bothered and that its those of us who admire him that want him to be honoured.